And there was a fifth comet, quite commonplace as comets go.
They drove in toward Canis Lambda, and in observing them Scott had a privilege many astronomers might have envied. Not many men saw any of the Five Comets. Mostly they were invisible in remoteness. Sometimes one or three or two appeared. Not many ships happened along the space lanes to break out of overdrive when they were visible, and few spacemen stopped to marvel at the wonders of the heavens. When Scott took his first observations in Lambda’s control room, all five could be viewed.
He was making his notes when a ship broke out of overdrive two light-hours away—a thousand million miles or so—and it received the metallic-voiced message that Lambda sent monotonously toward the stars. “Checkpoint Lambda. Checkpoint Lambda. Report. Report.” Scott heard the whining, whistling sound which was that ship’s log broadcast to be recorded in the checkpoint files. Actually, the unseen ship had broken out, picked up the checkpoint call, automatically responded to it, and was gone again long before its log reached Lambda. But Scott went on with his observations.
He verified the state of things from the control board. It required only the simplest of observations to make sure of Lambda’s position in its orbit. It took only looking to see that if the Five Comets were on schedule—and they were—they would fill all space ahead for a completely unbelievable distance with plunging meteors which were really stray fragments of steel and stone. In a way, the hurtling objects would be like so many charges of buckshot fired at one target. They could penetrate each other without noticeable results. But any object moving across their course or in their way would be torn to shreds. And the Lambda would pass through four of the Five Planets’ heads. It seemed unimaginable that the buoy could survive.
Chenery saw disaster of another sort. “You don’t know what you done then, Lieutenant!” he said frantically. “You don’t know what you done! Those were Bugsy’s men! You got me in bad trouble! Bad trouble!”
Scott said impatiently, “You’re in worse trouble than I could put you in! Do you realize that we’re headed on a collision-course with a good many millions of bits of scrap iron and rock?”
“How’d I know that?” demanded Chenery fretfully. “Look, Lieutenant! I cooked up this whole idea that’s happening here. I hadda get some help. I got Bugsy to come in on it. But he’s a hard man to get along with. Now he’s tryin’ to take over! But I had the idea to start with and he’d’ve played along, him and the guys he’s got, but—”
Scott turned to the girl. He offered her the blaster he’d picked off the floor in the hospital area.
“Have you got one of these? No? Then take it.”
He turned back to Chenery.
“I’ve got to shift this buoy out of its present place,” he said reasonably. “I’ve got to put it where it won’t be running into certain destruction. We can’t run away from it on solar system drive, and I need cooperation! You can’t be such an idiot as not to have an engineer and an astrogator to handle the Golconda Ship when you take it! I want—”
But Chenery jumped. He clawed at his garments for a weapon.
“Drop it!” said Scott sharply.
A blaster had appeared in his hand as if by magic. Chenery froze. Then he panted, “What—what was that you said?”
“I named the Golconda Ship,” said Scott. “You’re here to seize it when it arrives. And you’ve got to have an astrogator and an engineer to run it if you succeed. Now, I need those men to take my orders for the time being—the engineer, anyhow. And now! Else in a certain number of hours and minutes—”
Chenery panted, “Why d’you think we’re after the Golconda Ship? What makes you think that?”
“Because it’s coming here!” Scott fumed. “There’s nothing else you could be after! But you’ve got to scrap that scheme and let me try to save what can be saved out of the mess you’ve made!”
Chenery stared at him, at once aghast and bewildered.
“Look, Lieutenant! You done me a favor, once. What’s this? How’d you know—Why’d you come aboard if you knew? You coulda spoiled everything just keepin’ that liner hangin’ around here, an’ warnin’ the Golconda Ship when it come. Are you crazy?”
“I obey orders,” Scott told him.
It would be useless to try to convince Chenery that he’d come aboard the Lambda because, as a Patrol officer, it was his duty to attempt the impossible. The Lambda was his command, and his first independent one. It should not be here where the liner had found it, with the Five Comets due to cross its path. No matter how wrong or how fatal or how abnormal matters appeared to be aboard it, it was his duty to come aboard and take over. Chenery wouldn’t understand that. Chenery was, obviously, a professional criminal. Quite likely he’d never thought of any other profession. His gratitude to Scott for something Scott didn’t remember might be genuine enough, but still he’d only see things from his own standpoint.
“But you’re tellin’ me—”
“I thought you were running things,” said Scott. “Bring on your astrogator and I’ll show him the state of affairs. He’ll check what I’ve told you.”
“He—ain’t available, He’s Bugsy’s man. Bugsy’d have to tell him, and…”
“That could waste time,” said Scott. “All right, bring me your engineer. Not the man you told me was an engineer! He thinks a space ship’s steered by a rudder! Get me your engineer!”
“The engineer we got is one of Bugsy’s men too,” said Chenery unhappily. “And he’s drunk right now. You heard him snore. I hadda have some help, y’see, and I called on Bugsy. But he’s turnin’ out a hard man to get along with. His engineer—”
“Get Bugsy, whoever he may be!” snapped Scott. “Look at that screen! That’s what we’re heading for!”
He pointed. And the Five Comets of Canis Lambda appeared with appalling distinctness on three of the control room’s vision screens. There was a very large glowing against the Milky Way that filled, all by itself, a space fifteen degrees across. Behind it, to one side and even brighter—shining through the misty glow of the first comet’s head—there was a similar patch of glowing gas. Separated a little from them were the twin comets, closing in to join the others. And one could see the last, whose tail was more visible than the others because of the angle at which it drove to join the rest.
The matter—the mass, the actual substance—of the comets was hordes and multitudes and countless swarms of stones and metal lumps rushing through emptiness with impassioned energy to no purpose that human minds could fathom. All comets were made that way. Their solid part was composed of particles ranging in size from sand-grains to houses to mountains. These particles had every possible form and size and meaningless shape. But they were never seen. They rode in an eerie misty luminescence. Unless they hit something. Then what they hit was destroyed.
In the control room. Chenery seemed about to cry.
“You’re sayin’ ”—his voice had gone up a halftone toward shrillness—“You’re sayin’ we can’t take the Golconda Ship because the Five Comets are goin’ to get us! But you could be lyin’! You’re Patrol! It’s your job to stop guys like me from doin’ our stuff! But we’ started on this one! We almost got it made! We can’t stop now!”
“Get Bugsy,” commanded Scott. “Maybe he’s got some sense!”
Chenery hesitated in apparent soul-racking indecision. Then he went stumbling toward the control room door. He went out. Janet moistened her lips. Scott noticed it.
“Would you want,” he asked politely, “to tell me about the taking of the buoy? How it happened?”