I had no faintest notion what he was figuring out. He was passing a scope down the outermost ring. It seemed to be made up of thousands, millions, billions of massive particles tumbling in slow motion, a circular parade.
Heller put the tug quite close to the outermost ring and travelling with the rotation of the whole body at the same speed so that we appeared motionless except for the tiny movement of the stars beyond in the black sky. I was surprised that I could see star motion at all. This planet must be rotating on its axis more rapidly than Earth.
"Corky, turn your traction beams on. Full power. We're going to take too big a bite and then shed some if we have to cut it down in size."
"Bite of what?" I said.
"Ice," said Heller. "Those particles are ice. It will never miss a few billion tons."
"We came all the way out here for ice?" I said.
"Certainly. We could have gotten some from a comet if one had happened to be handy, but actually this is purer stuff. We don't want too many stones."
"What in Heavens' names are you going to do with it?" I said.
"Use it to tap the poles straight, of course," said Heller. "You don't want the poles drifting over water again. It would flood Earth."
"You mean you are adding water to stop flooding?" Good Gods, now I knew he was insane.
"A few billion tons of water is nothing. Water is awfully heavy stuff. What we're taking wouldn't even make a small mountain. Lock on, Corky."
The vibrations of the traction engines were added to the whine of gravity coils.
"Escape velocity is twenty-two miles per second," said Corky. "I recommend we do half a planetary rotation. That's five hours and seven minutes."
"All right," said Heller. "Carry on."
The Will-be Was time drives went on with a fearful initial roar in the center of the ship.
Heller was watching a rearward screen. At first there was very little change in the outermost ring, to which we were lying very close. Then I saw a hairline gap. As the seconds turned to minutes it began to widen.
Very, very fractionally, the planet face began to move rearward.
About fifteen minutes later, I said, "We're going to leave a hole in that ring."
"It'll fill in," said Heller. "Proportionately speaking, we're taking almost nothing."
He thought it was nothing. The whole sky behind us seemed to be filled with ice!
"Some astronomer on Earth is going to see this," I said.
"Oh, I doubt it. And if he did, he'd just think it was some new comet."
"Well, the last assassin ship is going to see it, and they'll know better."
"You worry too much," said Heller.
"I'm almost dead from worry," I said. "Why don't you let me lie down in a bunk and sleep?"
He ignored me.
Time ticked on. The vast amount of ice was creeping further and further from the ring and planet face. The Will-be Was drives droned and pounded.
The tug was right. It did take more than five hours to pull that huge mass free of Saturn's gravity and into space.
It was travelling faster and faster now, glaring white in the light of the distant sun, sharply outlined against the ink of space.
Heller and the tug calculated the course for Earth.
Whatever else was wrong and whatever else I had to solve, one fact was clear as terror to me. The assassin ship couldn't possibly miss us. And it was lying in wait.
The giant Will-be Was time drives thundered in the diminutive hull, the traction motors whined. Billions of tons of silvery ice were dragged for millions and millions of miles across the ink of space. Once during the voyage it had gotten up to half the speed of light. Then the tug had turned around and braked it for a while, reducing its speed. Now we were in front of it once more, the bulk of the distance behind us, travelling at a much slower velocity but still far out and beyond the orbit of Earth's moon. Heller was busy calculating things like Earth rotation and its coordinates in its orbit around the sun. He adjusted speed a couple of times and then seemed satisfied with the angle of approach.
Earth had ceased to be just another bright spot and was assuming shape. The shadow of its twilight zone was now becoming very plain.
Heller waited until we were about four times the orbit of the yellowish moon away from Earth and then put his clipboard down. We and the ice mass were travelling very fast.
"Check these figures, Corky," and he read them off. "How does that strike you?"
"Well, sir, it isn't going to strike ME. The mass will hit the north pole of the planet at an angle of thirty-three degrees in the direction southward on east longitude 36.5. By gyroscopic precession, it will tend to shift the spin of the internal core slightly and move the magnetic poles closer to the Earth's axis."
"And your conclusion on the effect of this?" said Heller.
"It will cure the tendency of the southern pole to wander over the water, thus melting the place and causing continental submergences. The liability is that it will probably hit some polar bears."
"Thank you. Please verify the approach again."
"Well, sir, I think it will require a final downward twitch of six million foot-pounds of thrust just before we disengage at the top of the planet's atmosphere. There will otherwise be a slight cushion effect. What about the polar bears, sir? Should I send out a warning?"
"They're extinct," said Heller. "There isn't any life worth mentioning at the north pole."
"Thank you, sir. I will amend my survey data. Sir, my 124th subbrain is reading red. There is some magnetic turbulence straight ahead about half a million miles from the planetary surface. It is on viewscreen thirteen."
There it was! A coil of disturbance.
THE ASSASSIN SHIP!
It was rising far above the Earth's surface to meet us!
"Blast," said Heller. "I didn't expect him this soon." He picked up a microphone. He spoke into it. "Calling Apparatus vessel."
There was no answer. He verified that he was on Apparatus intership frequency, limited range. "This is Tug One, the Prince Caucalsia, Exterior Division. I have a tow. I do not wish to be interfered with."
There was no answer.
Heller tried again, "Apparatus vessel, this is Jettero Heller, Grade X, Voltar Fleet, operating under orders of the Grand Council. You are directed to reverse your course and forgo interference with this tow."
No answer! And there should have been. We were returning to the planet, and leaving it was all they were supposed to prevent.
And then it dawned on me that that assassin pilot and his mate had also received orders to kill Heller!
The ship just kept on coming right up to meet us.
"Oh, blast!" said Heller. "I can't abandon this tow! That crazy idiot is going to cause a catastrophe!"
He had hung up the mike. He switched all controls to manual. I expected him to disengage from the ice mass so we could flee.
He didn't! The bullheaded idiot was going to go on with his project!
We didn't even have a gun!
The assassin ship was coming very fast now on the screens. Heller flipped up the viewport covers. There the deadly vessel was! Slightly to our left. Very visible to the eye: he was so contemptuous that he hadn't even switched his silver coating off.
Except for turbulence, we ourselves must be invisible to him. But he had us spotted by the nearness of the tow behind us.
Heller reached for our overhead, adjusted a dial and threw a switch. He put a thumb on the firing panel. I couldn't imagine what he was doing. We didn't have a real cannon.
Abruptly, about a thousand yards ahead of us, another ship appeared!
It rattled me.
It looked just like Tug One!
The second barrel he had put up there!
It was obviously an electronic illusion projector, so common in Voltar celebrations and displays.