Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet, Harold L. Goodwin [red white royal blue .txt] 📗

The chief analyst took less than the estimated ten minutes for his next set of figures. Commander O'Brine called personally while Rip was still searching for the right landing boat ports. The voice horn bellowed, "Get it! Lieutenant Foster. The mass measurements are correct. This is your asteroid. Estimated twelve minutes before we reach it. Your data will be ready by the time you get back here. Show an exhaust!"

Rip found Koa and the men and asked the sergeant-major for a report.

"We're ready, sir," Koa told him. "We can get out in three minutes. It will take us that long to get into space gear. Your stuff is laid out, sir."

"Get me the books and charts from the supplies," Rip directed. "Have Santos bring them to the chief analyst. I'm going back and figure our course. No use doing it the hard way on the asteroid when I can do it in a few minutes here with the ship's computer."

He turned and hurried back, hauling himself along by handholds. The ship had stopped acceleration and was at no-weight again. As he neared the analysis section it went into deceleration, but the pressure was not too bad. He made his way against it easily.

The chief analyst was waiting for him. "We have everything you need, Lieutenant, except the orbital stuff. We'll do the best we can on that and have a good estimate in a few minutes. Meanwhile, you can mark up your figures. Incidentally, what power are you going to use to move the asteroid?"

"Nuclear explosions," Rip said, and saw the chief's eyes pop. He added, "With conventional chemical fuel for corrections."

He felt rising excitement. The whole ship seemed to have come to life. There was excited tension in the computer room when he went in with the chief. Spacemen, all mathematicians, were waiting for him. As the chief led him to a table, they gathered around him.

Rip took command. "Here's what we're after. I need to plot an orbit that will get us out of the asteroid belt without any collisions, take us as close to the sun as possible without having it capture us, and land us in space about ten thousand miles from earth. From then on I'll throw the asteroid into a braking ellipse around the earth and I'll be able to make any small corrections necessary."

He spread out a solar system chart and marked in the positions of the planets as of that moment, using the daily almanac. Then he put down the position of the asteroid, taking it from the paper the chief analyst handed him.

"Will you make assignments, Chief?"

The chief shook his head. "Make them yourself, Lieutenant. We're at your service."

Rip felt a little ashamed of some of the unkind things he had said about spacemen. "Thank you." He pointed to a spaceman. "Will you calculate the inertia of the asteroid, please?" The spaceman hurried off.

"First thing to do is plot the orbit as though there were no other bodies in the system," Rip said. "Where's Santos?"

"Here, sir." The corporal had come in unnoticed with Rip's reference books.

Rip had plotted orbits before, but never one for actual use. His palms were wet as he laid it out, using prepared tables. When he had finished he pointed to a spaceman. "That's it. Will you translate it into analogue figures for the computer, please?" He assigned to others the task of figuring out the effect Mercury, the sun, and earth would have on the orbit, using an assumed speed for the asteroid.

To the chief analyst he gave the job of putting all the data together in proper form for feeding to the electronic brain.

It would have taken all spacemen present about ten days to complete the job by regular methods, but the electronic computer produced the answer in three minutes.

"Thanks a million, Chief," Rip said. "I'll be calling on you again before this is over." He tucked the sheets into his pocket.

"Any time, Lieutenant. We'll keep rechecking the figures as we go along. If there are any corrections, we'll send them to you. That will give you a check on your own figures."

"Don't worry," Rip assured him. "We'll have plenty of corrections."

Deceleration had been dropping steadily. It ceased altogether, leaving them weightless. O'Brine's voice came over the speaker. "Get it! Valve crews take stations at landing boats five and six. The Planeteers will depart in five minutes. Lieutenant Foster will report to central control if he cannot be ready in that time."

Santos grinned at Rip. "Here we go, Lieutenant."

Rip's heart would have dropped into his shoes if there had been any gravity. Only a little excitement showed on his face, though. He waved his thanks at the analysts and grinned back at Santos.

"Show an exhaust, Corporal. High vack is waiting!"

[pg 074] Chapter Six - Rip's Personal Planet

Rip rechecked his space suit before putting on his helmet. The air seal was intact and his heating and ventilating units worked. He slapped his knee pouches to make sure the space knife was handy to his left hand and the pistol to his right.

Koa was already fully dressed. He handed Rip the shoulder case that contained the plotting board. Santos had taken charge of Rip's astrogation instruments.

A spaceman was waiting with Rip's bubble. At a nod, the spaceman slipped it on his head. Rip reached up and gave it a quarter turn. The locking mechanism clamped into place. He turned his belt ventilator control on full and the space suit puffed out. When it was fully inflated he watched the pressure gauge. It was steady. No leaks in suit or helmet. He let the pressure go down to normal.

Koa's voice buzzed in his ears. "Hear me, sir?"

Rip turned the volume of his communicator down a little and spoke in a normal voice. "I hear you. Am I clear?"

"Yessir. All men dressed and ready."

Rip made a final check. He counted his men, then[pg 075] personally inspected their suits. The boats were next. They were typical landing craft, shaped like rectangular boxes. There was no need for streamlining in the vacuum of space. They were not pressurized. Only men in space suits rode in the ungainly boxes.

He checked all blast tubes to make sure they were clear. There were small single tubes on each side of the craft. A clogged one could explode and blow the boat up.

Koa, he knew, had checked everything, but the final responsibility was his. In space, no officer or sergeant took anyone's word for anything that might mean lives. Each checked every detail personally.

Rip looked around and saw the Planeteers watching him. There was approval on the faces behind the clear helmets, and he knew they were satisfied with his thoroughness.

At last, certain that everything was in good order, he said quietly, "Pilots, man your boats."

Dowst got into one and a spaceman into the other. Dowst's boat would stay with them on the asteroid. The spaceman would bring the other to the ship.

Commander O'Brine stepped through the valve into the boat lock. A spaceman handed him a hand communicator. He spoke into it. Rip couldn't have heard him through the helmet otherwise. "All set, Foster?"

"Ready, sir."

[pg 076]

"Good. The long-range screen picked up a blip a few minutes ago. It's probably that Connie cruiser."

Rip swallowed. The Planeteers froze, waiting for the commander's next words.

"Our screens are a little better than theirs, so there's a slim chance they haven't picked us up yet. We'll drop you and get out of here. But don't worry. We have your orbit fixed and we'll find you when the screens are clear."

"Suppose they find us while you're gone?" Rip asked.

"It's a chance," O'Brine admitted. "You'll have to take spaceman's luck on that one. But we won't be far away. We'll duck behind Vesta or another of the big asteroids and hide so their screens won't pick up our motion. Every now and then we'll sneak out for a look, if the screen seems clear. If those high-vack vermin do find you, get on the landing boat radio and yell for help. We'll come blasting."

He waved a hand, thumb and forefinger held together in the ancient symbol for "everything right," then ordered, "Get flaming." He stepped through the valve.

"Clear the lock," Rip ordered. "Open outer valve when ready."

"Get Flaming, Foster!"

He took a quick final look around. The pilots were in the boats. His Planeteers were standing by, safety lines already attached to the boats and their belts. He moved into position and snapped his own[pg 078] line to a ring on Dowst's boat. The spacemen vanished through the valve and the massive door slid closed. The overhead lights flicked out. Rip snapped on his belt light and the others followed suit.

In front of the boxlike landing boats a great door slid open and air from the lock rushed out. Rip knew it was only imagination, but he felt for a moment as though the bitter cold of space, near absolute zero, had penetrated his suit. Beyond the lights from their belts he saw stars, and recognized the constellation for which the space cruiser was named. A superstitious spaceman would have taken that as a good sign. Rip admitted that it was nice to see.

"Float 'em," he ordered.

The Planeteers gripped handholds at the entrance with one hand and launching rails on the boats with the other and heaved. The boats slid into space. As the safety lines tightened, the Planeteers were pulled after the boat.

Rip left his feet with a little spring and shot through the door. Directly below him the asteroid gleamed darkly in the light of the tiny sun. His first reaction was, "Great Cosmos! What a little chunk of rock!" But that was because he was used to looking from the space platform at the great curve of Terra or at the big ball of the moon. Actually the asteroid was fair-sized when compared with most of its kind.

[pg 079]

The Planeteers hauled themselves into the boats by their safety lines. Rip waited until all were in, then pulled himself along his own line to the black square o£ the door. Koa was waiting to give him a hand into the craft.

The Planeteers were standing, except for Dowst. Rip had never seen an old-type railroad or he might have likened the landing boat to a railroad box car. It was about the same size and shape, but it had huge "windows" on both sides and in front of the pilot—windows that were not enclosed. The space-suited men needed no protection.

"Blast," Rip ordered.

A pulse of fire spurted from the top of each boat, driving them bottom-first toward the asteroid.

"Land at will," Rip said.

The asteroid loomed large as he looked through an opening. It was rocky, but there were plenty of smooth places.

Dowst picked one. He was an expert pilot and Rip watched him with pleasure. The exhaust from the top lessened and fire spurted soundlessly from the bottom. Dowst balanced the opposite thrusts of the top and bottom blasts with the delicacy of a man threading a needle. In a few

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