Operation Interstellar, George O. Smith [best mobile ebook reader .txt] 📗

and men who came on official business. When one of the faster ships brought Hoagland himself, none of the prisoners gave any special attention to his arrival.

Hoagland told to Westlake, "That was a sharp job, Westlake."

"I thought so."

"But your report forgot to mention one item. You did state that Grayson was trying to tap the radio beacon from a couple of million miles out, and that you caught him and his partner on the other end of the beam. But you forgot to mention whether your own experiments were successful."

Westlake laughed. "Only in catching Grayson and Morrow. That was coincidence of the upper brackets."

Hoagland smiled. "That it was," he said. "But have you gotten any evidence?"

"None. We'd been trying Grayson's idea for months without success. When the Z-wave broke into life we thought it was working until we located the source and went out to pick him up. The boys at the other end heard the same thing, did likewise, and then came scurrying back home to let me know about it. So we collected Grayson and Morrow in two fell swoops."

Hoagland nodded again, and then said: "Westlake, how good a gambler are you?"

"I like to play safe," said Westlake.

"How safe?"

"Plenty."

"Then you won't like this. But I'm going to make one gamble, and one bet on a certain thing."

"Yes—and which is which?"

"Without a doubt Grayson got the equipment he was using from Huston and Huston's crowd of coalitionists. They set him up on some planet with a laboratory under their direction, and are probably running the Neoterran Press ragged with glowing reports of Grayson's howling success—carefully guarding their statements with cautious warnings that The Public must not expect Z-wave communications with Terra overnight, but someday—soon—et-cetera, and so forth."

Westlake laughed. "'The police anticipate an early apprehension of the criminals,' sort of thing."

"Exactly."

"Furthermore I will be a bad prophet if I am incorrect in assuming that when Huston started Grayson on his job, Huston gave orders that Grayson was not to do anything that would gain him any notice whatsoever. On the idea that the first mention of failure would puncture Huston's political propaganda."

"All reasoning based upon the 'what would I do?' theory. Good and sound I calls it."

"Right. Now, here is the certainty. If Grayson is the kind of idealist that I think he is, Grayson will at the first opportunity make some check of the Z-wave—in fact he has tried to set it up already. He will try again if he is permitted."

"That's your certainty."

"Now for the gamble. I've read all of Haedaecker's Theory and find it solid. I've read Grayson's line of reasoning and find it logical."

"Then which is right?"

"Haedaecker based his reasoning on fact. Grayson set out to poke holes in it and—like so many idealists—he proceeded to leap upon any facet that supported his theory against Haedaecker, while discounting anything that mitigated against him.

"So," smiled Hoagland affably, "the thing to do is to permit Mister Grayson's escape in a ship loaded with Z-wave gear. Let him take his friends, Phillips, Stacey, and Morrow."

Westlake nodded slowly. "I get it. Grayson will not make his next attempt in secret. He'll try it and we'll have observers to watch—and report his failure."

"Right."

Not much later, Hoagland's ship took off for Neoterra. Another ship took off for Terra with messages. Out across the broad plain, Paul could see from his window that the only ship remaining on the rough spaceport was his own spacecraft; the one furnished by Huston. Morrow's little job had been taken off somewhere. Paul shook his head unhappily. Someone was willing to pour a lot of money into this business. Spacecraft were expensive, yet they were being bandied about and traded like horses in a rustler's camp.

While all Paul needed was entry to that one spacecraft over there, plus about ten minutes of free time....

Grayson paced his room until dark muttering and grunting unhappily. Time and again he returned to the window to look longingly at his spacecraft, and time and again he wondered whether it would be possible to steal out across that mile or so of sheer flat plain and get into the ship without being seen. In broad daylight it would be impossible. But the encampment was somewhat south of the Polar region where the big beacon station was situated, and the planet was progressing along in its year so that very soon the beacon station would be entering the half-year of night. The encampment had been in perpetual daylight, a 'Land of the Midnight Sun' latitude. But now there was a short night beginning, which would lengthen as the year progressed.

It was dark ... dark....

Paul looked out of his room. The corridor was dark. Deliberately, Paul stood there with the door open, waiting. He had gone out before, but had not gone far before someone came sauntering by to engage him in conversation. Pleasant conversation that carefully avoided mention of the fact that this talk was between jailer and prisoner and that one was keeping an eye on the other.

Paul sauntered down toward Toby Morrow's room. The door was open and Toby was fiddling with something at the top inner corner of the jamb.

"What gives?" asked Grayson.

Toby jumped like a startled doe, settled down as he saw Paul, and then took a deep breath. "Don't scare a man that way," he complained. He took another deep breath. "I've just discovered the burglar alarm," he chuckled. "And fixed it!"

"From here?"

Morrow waved at the open door. "Been open for an hour. Nobody came. Thought you were it, Paul."

Grayson smiled. "I doubt that you did much, Toby. Something's blown out somewhere. I got out without fixing my door and no one came for me, either."

Morrow nodded thoughtfully. "Most alarms are designed so that any tinkering with them will result in sending the alarm," he muttered. "Closed-circuit propositions. I'd just located the contactor on my door and was jamming it shut. That would take care of my door but not yours. Now let's see what could be wrong—"

Paul grunted. "Let's not waste time in figuring out what's wrong with the enemy's burglar alarm," he said. "This is no time to be overly helpful. You go collect John Stacey and I'll find Nora Phillips and we'll meet down in the front hallway."

"What gives?"

"Sitting here like a fool doesn't make me happy. I want action. Why don't we try to get away, Toby. What can we lose?"

"Nothing but some breath. Okay, it's a deal."

Paul went down the stairs cautiously, along the corridor below until he came to Nora's room, and then without rapping he opened the door and stole in, closing the door behind him.

"Paul!" she cried. "What—?"

"Collect yourself," grinned Paul. "We're leaving." He did not think until much later that he had not bothered to knock, nor had he apologized for bursting in this way. It had come as a natural way, a normal thing. Modesty, propriety, and convention were only words, and totally useless commodities when escape from imprisonment looked possible. And it was also much later before Paul realized that Nora must have agreed with him, for she wasted no time. In the darkened room there was a wild flurry of arms, legs, and clothing, a nightgown dropped carelessly on the floor and trampled as Nora slid a dress over her head and at the same time tried to fumble her feet into her shoes.

There was the whisk of a hand smoothing cloth over skin, and then a quick step. Nora bumped into Paul, and clutched at him. He put his arms around her and held her for a moment, enjoying the warm softness of her against him.

Then he turned away and led her to the door.

They met Stacey and Morrow in the downstairs hall. "Okay?" he asked in a hoarse whisper.

"Looks so," said Morrow.

"I don't like it," said Stacey.

"Why?"

"Looks too easy."

"Don't be so everlastingly suspicious," said Nora.

"Oh, I'm not the type to admire the denture of a gift horse," responded Stacey. "Not until later. So let's get going."

Paul opened the door. "This is it!" he snapped. "Run for it!"

"Wait a minute," objected Stacey. "Not straight. Head left, you two. We'll go right. Cut a large circle and don't run. Just walk as fast as you can and be as quiet as you can. It's as dark as the Devil's hip pocket out there, but sooner or later someone will realize that all is not well with the Boys at Home. Now!"

"Now!"

They separated. Blind-black outside compared to the lights in the hallways of the house, Paul and Nora picked their way carefully until their eyes became adjusted to the dark. Then they could see the dim lights of the buildings across the plain. They left their former home and swung wide, angling away from the line between the house and the ship. Paul paused once, listening, and heard a faint crackle from some distance; either Morrow or Stacey had stumbled over something.

They were half-way there before any hue-and-cry was raised. Each pair had gone out in a diamond-shaped course until house and spaceship were almost a ninety-degree angle apart.

Paul wondered; they were far from the house it was true, but they were almost as far from the spacecraft now as they had been when standing on the front steps of the house. His mathematical mind made a quick computation and he smiled, audibly chuckling.

"What?" said Nora in a low voice.

"I was just thinking that we are now point seven zero seven of the original distance from the spaceship."

Nora laughed gently. "Some man," she said. "Has no time to kiss me in my room, but has time to play trigonometry here."

Paul patted her gently. "Trig is something I can do without putting all I've got into it. No—"

From a distance there came the faint ringing of a bell.

"Nice man," said Nora. "I forgive you—until later."

Lights went on across the plain, men stormed out of the big building and leaped into a command-car parked on the road in front of it. The command car roared into life and started across the plain toward the dormitory.

"Now!" said Paul. "Down!"

They hit the dirt side by side as the headlights swung around. Then the beams of light were gone and Nora and Paul were upright once more and running.

Noise meant nothing in face of the roar from the jeep's engine; the car was careening across the plain madly, and Paul knew that no one aboard the car would be able to keep a sharp lookout for any running figures. About all they could do was to hang onto the racketing jeep.

The spacecraft loomed larger before them. The roar of the jeep died as the car reached the dormitory, and Paul looked back over his shoulder to watch the men pile out of the car and head into the building on a dead run.

"Faster!" he breathed.

The ship was a hundred yards away—and Paul could see Stacey and Morrow running in from the other side—when there was the roar of the engine again. The headlights swung around to catch them, but this time they did not care. It was run for it; no time to play cat and mouse. The engine whined high, Paul put on more speed, running away from Nora.

"Paul—"

"Come on," he snapped over his shoulder. "Don't talk—run!"

He raced away from her, outdistanced her; the jeep's roar coming louder and louder.

Paul reached the spacelock and fumbled with the outside controls. Ponderously the lock opened, swinging aside just as Stacey and Morrow came panting up.

"In!" snapped Paul. Then he turned, caught Nora's hand, and hurled her headlong through the opening. He leaped in after her, tripped over her sprawling ankle, caught the flipper switch to the door as he fell, and scrambled to his feet as the spacelock door started to close.

The roar of the engine still came through the closing slit, a shot pinged against the steel hull. Paul forgot about the spacelock and headed up the runway to the control room.

He hit the control panel with both hands; flipped the warm-up switch and the low-drive at the same time. It would be a ragged take-off, with the ship rising as the driving generators warmed up instead of taking off with a hot drive. He waited with one hand on the high drive switch, waited and waited and waited. Another shot pinged against the hull, one glanced from the view-dome but it was at such an angle that it merely nicked the ultra-hard glass but did not crack it. It sang off high into the air.

Stacey and Morrow came into the control room, panting, and half-carrying Nora between them.

"What are we waiting for?" snapped Stacey.

"Getting up steam."

"What is this, a Stanley Steamer?"

"Just takes as long," grunted Paul. Then the low drive took hold. The ship lifted uncertainly, awkwardly, quaveringly, and slowly. Not the quick rush-upwards of the well-prepared ship. But as the seconds passed the