"But they've got us spotted. They'll just follow us down to Mimas and we'll have to fight then, so why not fight now while we can maneuver with our Agrav and they can't?"
"They might not bother to follow us down to Mimas."
"Why shouldn't they?"
"Well, Bigman, did we bother to go into the rings and pull out what was left of The Net of Space?"
"But that ship blew up."
"Exactly."
There was silence in the control room. The Shooting Starr streaked through space, curving slowly away from Saturn, then more quickly, slipping out from under the outermost ring and into open space. Ahead of it now lay Mimas, a glittering world seen in tiny crescent. It was only 320 miles in diameter.
Still far away were the converging ships of the Sirian fleet.
Mimas grew in size, and finally The Shooting Starr's forward thrust burst into action and the ship began a deceleration.
But to Bigman it seemed incredible that the space-wise Lucky could have so miscalculated. He said tightly, "Too late, Lucky. We'll never slow up enough for a landing. We'll have to go into a spiral orbit until we lose enough velocity."
"No time for spiraling Mimas, Bigman. We're heading straight in."
"Sands of Mars, we can't! Not at this speed!"
"That's what I hope the Sirians will decide."
"But, Lucky, they'd be right."
Wess put in slowly, "Hate to say it, Lucky, but I agree with Bigman."
"No time to argue or explain," said Lucky. He bent over the controls.
Mimas expanded crazily in the visiplate. Bigman licked his lips. "Lucky, if you think it's better going out this way than letting the Sirians get us, okay. I can go along. But, Lucky, if we're going to go, can't we go out fighting? Can't we maybe get one of the cobbers first?"
Lucky shook his head and said nothing. His arms were moving quickly now, so that Bigman could not make out exactly what he was doing. Deceleration was still proceeding too slowly.
For a moment Wess extended his hands as though to remove Lucky forcibly from the controls, but Bigman placed his hand quickly on the other's wrist. Bigman might be convinced they were going to their death, but his stubborn faith in Lucky somehow remained.
They were slowing, slowing, slowing, in what would have been body-crushing deceleration in any ship other than The Shooting Starr, but with Mimas filling the visiplate now and hurtling at them, the slowing was not enough.
Flashing down at deadly speed, The Shooting Starr struck the surface of Mimas.
7. On Mimas
And yet didn't.
Instead, there was a keening hiss that was familiar to Bigman. It was that of a ship striking atmosphere.
Atmosphere?
But that was impossible. No world the size of Mimas could possibly have an atmosphere. He looked at Wess, who was suddenly sitting back on the blanket, looking worn and pale but somehow satisfied.
Bigman strode up to Lucky, "Lucky… "
"Not now, Bigman."
And suddenly Bigman recognized what it was that Lucky was doing at the controls. He was manipulating the fusion beam. Bigman ran back to the visiplate and focused it dead ahead.
There was no doubt of it, now that he finally grasped the idea. The fusion beam was the most magnificent "heat ray" ever invented. It was designed mainly as a weapon at close range, but surely no one had ever used one as Lucky was using it now.
The jet of deuterium, snaking out forward of the ship, was pinched in by a powerful magnetic field and, at a point miles ahead, was heated to nuclear ignition by a surge of power from the micro-piles. Maintained for any length of time, the power surge necessary would have bankrupted the ship; but a fraction of a millionth of a second sufficed. After that the deuterium fusion reaction was self-sustaining and the incredible fusion flame that resulted burned in a heat of three hundred million degrees.
That spot of heat ignited before the surface of Mimas was touched and bored into the body of the satellite as though it were not there, puncturing a tunnel into its vitals. Into that tunnel whizzed The Shooting Starr. The vaporized substance of Mimas was the, atmosphere that surrounded them, helping to decelerate them, but bringing the temperature of the ship's outer skin to dangerous redness.
Lucky watched the skin-temperature dial and said, "Wess, put more punch in the vaporization coils."
"It will take all the water we have," Wess said.
"Let it. We need no water of our own on this world."
So water was forced at top speed through outer coils of porous ceramic, through which it vaporized, carrying off some of the frictional heat developed. But the water flashed away as fast as it could be pumped into the coils. The skin temperature still rose.
But more slowly now. Ship's deceleration had progressed, and Lucky cut the force of the deuterium jet and adjusted the magnetic field. The spot of fusing deuterium grew smaller and smaller still. The whistle of atmosphere descended in pitch.
Finally the jet blanked out completely and the ship drifted forward into solid wall, melting a path inward a way by virtue of its own heat and finally coming to a jolting halt.
Lucky sat back at last "Gentlemen," he said, "I'm sorry I couldn't take time to explain, but it was a last-minute decision and the control board took all my energies. Anyway, welcome to the interior of Mimas."
Bigman pumped a deep breath into his lungs and said, "I never thought you could use a fusion jet to melt a way into a world ahead of a speeding ship."
"You couldn't ordinarily, Bigman," said Lucky. "It just so happens that Mimas is a special case. And so is Enceladus, the next satellite out."
"How come?"
"They're just snowballs. Astronomers have known that since even before space travel. Their density is less than water and they reflect about eighty per cent of the light that hits them, so it's quite obvious they could only be snow, plus some frozen ammonia, and not too tightly packed at that."
"Sure," said Wess, chiming in. "The rings are ice and these first two satellites are just collections of ice that were too far out to make up part of the rings. That's why Mimas melted so easily."
Lucky said, "But we've got a good deal of work to do. Let's start."
They were in a natural cavern formed by the heat of the fusion jet and closed in on all sides. The tunnel they had formed as they entered had closed as they passed, the steam condensing and freezing. The mass detector yielded figures that indicated them to be about one hundred miles below the surface of the satellite. The mass of ice above them, even under Mimas's feeble gravity, was slowly contracting the cavern.
Slowly The Shooting Starr burrowed outward once more, like a hot wire poking into butter, and when they had reached a point within five miles of the surface, they stopped and set up an oxygen bubble.
As a power supply was laid in along with algae tanks and a food supply, Wess shrugged resignedly and said, "Well, this is going to be home for me for a while; let's make it comfortable."
Bigman had just awakened from his sleeping period. He screwed his face into a look of bitter condemnation.
Wess said, "What's the matter, Bigman? All weepy because you're going to miss me?"
Bigman snarled and said, "I'll manage. In two, three years I'll make it a point to whizz by Mimas and drop you a letter." Then he burst out, "Listen, I heard you talking while you thought I was safely asleep. What's the matter? Council secrets?"
Lucky shook his head uneasily. "All in good time, Bigman."
Later, when Lucky was alone with Bigman in the ship, the Councilman said, "Actually, Bigman, there's no reason you can't stay behind with Wess."
Bigman said grumpily, "Oh, sure. Two hours cooped up with him and I'd just chop him into cubes and put him on ice for his relatives." Then he said, "Are you serious, Lucky?"
"Rather serious. What's coming may be more dangerous for you than for me."
"So? What do I care about that?"
"If you stay with Wess then, whatever happens to me, you'll be picked up within two months."