“Technician Halliday,” he shouted as the men floated by him. “Which one of you is Tech Halliday?”
Jan hesitated just an instant before he kicked off in the man’s direction. His cover could not have been discovered; this development had to be part of Thurgood-Smythe’s complex planning. It was.
“Get suited up and leave your gear here, Halliday. It’ll be waiting when you get back. We got a scout going out and we’re one tech short. You’re the lucky lad who’s elected.” He looked at the printout he held. “Commander name of Captain Lastrup. Ship’s the Ida Peter Two Five Six. Let’s go.”
They used a jaxter, an open skeletal framework with six metal seats fixed to it. Other than this it was little more than four jets and a control pedestal. The pilot was familiar with the little craft and kicked it away from the airlock, flipped it end for end neatly, and was on a new trajectory even before their turn was complete. The fleet of Earth made an impressive sight. Grouped around the two kilometer-long colony were scores of deep space vessels of all sizes. They ranged from gigantic bulk carriers down to jaxters like the one they were in, with a spectrum of sizes, shapes and functions in between. Their course took them in an arc up over the fleet toward the shining needle of a scout ship. The crew quarters in the bow was tiny in comparison to the engines and auxiliary fuel tanks to the rear. It bristled with antennas and detection devices of all kinds. In space, beyond the fixed network of early warning stations, it was ships like this that were the eyes and ears of the fleet. The jaxter floated toward it, slowed and stopped with a quick flare of the bow jet. The large characters of identification were painted across the bow, IP-256, just above the open door of the spacelock. Jan unbuckled his safety belt, floated free of the seat, then pushed off toward the ship. He drifted gently into the lock, seized one of the grabirons, and waved back to the jaxter pilot as he pressed the cycle button. The outer port ground slowly shut.
When the pressure in the airlock equaled that in the ship, the inner lock opened automatically. Jan cracked his helmet and floated inside. The circular chamber, obviously the living quarters, couldn’t have been more than three meters across and just about as high. Around nine cubic meters of living space for two men, Jan estimated. Wonderful. No expenses spared to make our boys in space comfortable.
A man’s head appeared through a circular opening in the bow end of the room, upside-down to Jan’s orientation. A red face with slightly bulging eyes.
“Not accomplishing very much, are you, Tech, just floating around and sightseeing.” This undoubtedly was Captain Lastrup. A fine spray of saliva exploded in Jan’s direction with every angry word. “Just peel out of that suit and get up here on the double.”
“Yes, sir,” Jan said, obeying instructions.
Within two hours, after they had unlocked from their moorings and got under way, Jan was beginning to dislike the Captain. By the time he was permitted to retire, more than twenty hours after his arrival, he loathed the man. It was painful, after only three hours sleep, to be dragged back to blurry consciousness and summoned to the control room.
“I’m going to close my eyes for a bit, Tech Halliday, which means that you are on watch. Don’t touch anything or do anything because you are just a totally incompetent reservist amateur. The machines will do all the things you are incapable of doing. If there is a little red warning light or a little beeping warning sound, you are to awaken me at once. Understood?”
“Yes, sir. But I am capable of monitoring the equipment because I know—”
“Did I ask for your opinion? Did I order you to talk? Anything you have to say is just shit to me, mister. Understood? If you answer anything more than yessir that will be disobeying orders, and that will go into the charges against you. Now, what do you say?”
Jan was tired, getting angrier with every passing moment. He said nothing and he enjoyed the red glow that suffused the officer’s skin with every passing silent second.
“I order you to speak!”
Jan slowly counted to five before he said “Yes, sir?’
It was very small revenge for the verbal abuse he was taking. But it was enough for the moment. Jan took an Awake pill and tried not to rub at his sore and grainy eyes. Only the softest red glow illuminated the control room. Stars filled the viewport ahead; flickering readouts and displays from the detection apparatus monitored space in all directions. They were passing through the outer web now, and very soon their reports would be the only early warning in this particular portion of space. Although he had received no instructions from Thurgood-Smythe, Jan knew exactly what to do in this situation.
They were heading away from Earth, at full acceleration, into space, in the direction of the attacking fleet. The orbiting radio telescopes had detected objects out here, at maximum range, in a portion of space where nothing should be. The IP-256 was on its way to scout what could only be the rebel space fleet. Jan would control his anger and do nothing to irritate Captain Lastrup any further. He regretted losing his temper and speaking out of turn, then aggravating the offense by adding dumb insolence to it as well. As soon as the Captain came on duty he would apologize to him. After that Jan would do his best to be a good spaceman, and would work as hard as he could to do exactly as he was told. He would do this with all the effort of will that he could muster. He would keep doing this until they had pinpointed the attackers and were absolutely certain of their identification and position.
At that time Jan was going to use a one-meter length of thick electrical wire, he had it cut and ready, and would then experience the sweet and satisfying pleasure of strangling the military son of a bitch.
Fifteen
“Got them, look at the size of that fleet — is this going into memory, Tech? If it’s not I’ll…”
“Going in fine, sir,” Jan said. “Onto disc storage with a backup on molecular wafer. I’ve replayed both and they’re perfect.”
“They better be, they had better be,” Captain Lastrup muttered savagely. “I’m setting up a return course now. As soon as the main dish bears on Earth, squirt out the readings with maximum watts. Got that?”
“Absolutely, sir. This is the moment I have been waiting for.”
There was true joy in Jan’s voice. As he spoke he was carefully wrapping the ends of the thick wire around and around each of his hands. He snapped it tight and looked at it thoughtfully. About seventy centimeters in length; that should do nicely. Without releasing his grip on the wire he unclipped from his seat and kicked off toward the pilot, twisting neatly in midflight to approach head first with his arms extended before him.
Lastrup had a glimpse of the moving figure out of the corner of his eye. He turned and had just enough time for a look of shocked amazement before the stretched wire dropped beneath his chin and was locked into place by the swift crossing of Jan’s arms.
Jan had given careful thought to this operation for a long time, planned every part of it precisely. A steady tightening now of the wire, not a sharp snap that might crush the man’s throat. He did not want to kill him, just secure him. It was a silent struggle, punctuated only by Jan’s heavy breathing. The Captain was of course not breathing at all. He struggled a bit but could do nothing. His eyes closed and his body went limp very quickly. Jan loosened the wire, ready to tighten it instantly if the man was shamming. He wasn’t; he was deeply unconscious, breathing hoarsely but regularly, with a strong pulse in his neck. Perfect. Jan used the wire to lash the officer’s hands securely behind his back, and then tied another length about his ankles. There was more than enough trailing wire from his wrists to secure the unconscious officer to the rear bulkhead out of harm’s way.