The Secret of the Ninth Planet Part 6

orbit, we'll reverse and pull in on Venus," was the astronomer's answer.

"Isn't that rather risky?" asked Burl, remembering some of the quick briefings he had been given. "That's a departure from your plans."

Lockhart looked up quickly. "Yes, you're right," he admitted. "But on a trip like this we've got to learn to improvise and do it fast. We made that decision at take-off."

For an instant Burl felt a chill. He realized then what all the other men on the s.h.i.+p had known all along--that in this flight they were all amateurs, that everything they did was to be improvisation in one way or another, that they must always run the risk of a terrible mistake.

Had latching on to the Sun been the first such error?

Chapter 6. _Sunward Ho!_

Gradually the s.h.i.+p settled down to routine. There was, as Burl discovered, nothing very much to do for most of the crew on such a s.p.a.ce flight. The course was charted in advance, a pattern laid out that would carry the s.h.i.+p falling toward its objective--falling in a narrow curving orbit. A certain amount of time would pa.s.s during which the s.h.i.+p would traverse a specific section of this plotted route at a certain rate of speed or acceleration.

Then, at a specified moment, the speed would be checked, the attraction of the Sun reversed, and the s.h.i.+p would attempt to brake itself and to halt its fall toward the great Sun. At such a time as its fall came to a stop, it should, if the calculations had been correct, be crossing the orbit of the planet Venus in the same place and at about the same moment that Venus itself would be. In that way, the s.h.i.+p would arrive at the planet.

Now all these calculations had been made, and once made, set into motion on the control panels of the s.h.i.+p. The interval of many days between actually left little to do, except for making astronomical observations, checking on the performance of the stellarators, setting a watch against the damage caused by meteors and micro-meteors, and following the ordinary procedures of meals and sleep periods. The men set up an Earth-time schedule of twenty-four hours, divided the crew into three eight-hour s.h.i.+fts, and conducted themselves accordingly.

Burl did not find time weighing on his hands. Despite the limited s.p.a.ce available to the ten men, there was always something to learn, and something to think about.

When Russell Clyde was off duty, he spent much time with Burl at the wide-screen viewers that showed the black depths of interplanetary s.p.a.ce surrounding them. The Earth dwindled to a brilliant green disc, while ahead of them the narrow crescent of approaching Venus could be seen growing gradually. Ruddy Mars was sharp but tiny, a point of russet beyond the green of Earth. And the stars--never had Burl seen so many stars--a firmament ablaze with brilliant little points of light--the millions of suns of the galaxy and the galaxies beyond ours.

On the other side, the side toward which they fell, the Sun was a blinding sphere of white light, its huge coronal flames wavering fearfully around its...o...b..

Seen to one side, surprisingly close to the Sun, was a tiny half-moon.

"That's Mercury," said Russ, pointing it out. "The smallest planet and the closest to the Sun. After we leave Venus, we'll have to visit it. We know there's a Sun-tap station there--and because it's so close to the Sun--its...o...b..t ranges between twenty-eight million miles and under forty-four million miles--the station must be a most important and large one."

Burl gazed at the point of light that was the innermost planet. "Those Sun-tap stations ... The more I think about it, the more I wonder what we're up against. It seems to me that it ought to be easy for the kind of people who can build such things to catch us and stop us. In fact, I wonder why they haven't already gone after us for stopping the one on Earth?"

Russ whistled softly between his teeth. "We've some ideas about that.

The military boys worked on it. You know you can figure out a lot of things from just a few bits of evidence. We have such evidence from what happened to you on Earth. You ought to speak to Haines about it."

Burl turned away from the viewer. "Let's find him now. I don't think he's very busy. He said something about catching up on his reading this period."

Russ nodded, and the two of them got up from their seat. With a wave to Oberfield and Caton on duty at the controls, the two climbed down the ladder that led into the middle part of the living s.p.a.ce. They looked into Haines's quarters but he wasn't there. So they went down the next hatchway into the lower section.

Haines and Ferrati were sitting at a table in the cooking quarters, drinking coffee. The two men, both heavy and muscular, used to the open s.p.a.ces and the feel of the winds, were taking the enforced confinement in the cramped and artificially oxygenated s.p.a.ce of the s.h.i.+p with ill ease. For them, it was like a stretch in jail.

They greeted the two younger men jovially and invited them to a seat.

While Russ poured a cup of coffee for himself, Burl opened the subject of how much the expedition had worked out about the enemy.

Haines's pale blue eyes gleamed. "You can know an awful lot about an enemy if you know what he didn't do as well as what he did do. If you figure out what you yourself should have done under the same circ.u.mstances, and know he didn't do, why, that gives you some valuable hints as to his deficiencies. As we see it, we've got a fighting chance of spoiling his game. Certainly of spoiling it long enough to allow Earth several more years to get a fleet of s.h.i.+ps like this into operation and give him plenty of trouble."

Suddenly Burl felt more cheerful. At the back of his mind there had been a carefully concealed point of cold terror--he remembered the clean efficiency of the Sun-tap station, the evidence of a science far beyond that of Earth. He pressed the point. "Just what do we really know?"

Haines leaned back and rubbed his hands together. "There were several things that gave their weaknesses away. When we put it all together, we decided that the enemy represents some sort of limited advanced force or scouting group of a civilization still too far away to count in the immediate future. We decided that the enemy isn't too aware of our present abilities--that his intelligence service is poor as far as modern Earth is concerned. We figure he won't be able to act with any speed to repair the damages we make."

"Tell them how we worked that out," said Ferrati, who had begun to grow again the short black beard that Burl remembered he had worn on his famous expeditions.

"Well," said Haines, drawing the word out to build up suspense, "did you know that the station in the Andes, the one you cracked open, was built at least thirty years ago? And never put into operation in all that time?"

Burl was surprised. "Why ... I hadn't thought of it--but it could have been. That valley was so isolated and deserted, probably n.o.body would ever have spotted it.

"Right," Haines added, "and our investigation team studied the remains, the foundations, the layout, and we're sure it's been there at least three decades. That's one clue.

"The second clue was the relative flimsiness of the walls. The builders hadn't expected us to be able to blow them up. They were some sort of quick construction--a plastic, strong, but not able to hold up against blasting powder, let alone real heavy bombs or A-bombs.

"Now why was that? And the third clue, why didn't they have a repair system available, or at least some sort of automatic antiaircraft defense?"

Burl looked at Ferrati. The latter was watching him shrewdly to see if he could figure it out.

"The builders didn't expect an air attack," said Burl slowly, "because of the air disturbances. They did not know we would have a Moon base that could spot their location. Hence they figured that our civilization would remain as it was thirty years ago. We wouldn't have been able to spot the location at that time, because it required outer-s.p.a.ce observation. It might have taken us several years of tramping around to locate it."

"And the lack of a strong permanent construction? After all, a concrete and steel-enforced embankment, which any military force on Earth could have put there, would have balked your dynamite attack," probed Haines.

"That means they didn't have the time or the means to make such a construction. They must have had a single s.h.i.+p with the kind of equipment that could lay out a quick base in the shortest time!" said Burl.

"Right!" snapped Haines. "The Sun-tap must have been built by a relatively small team, which probably came in a single explorer s.h.i.+p.

The s.h.i.+p was equipped with automatic factory machinery that could turn out an adequate base for an uninhabited planet, an airless moon, and so on--but they didn't have the stuff for a fortified base--and they didn't have the manpower to build it."

"Another indication of that is the thirty-year delay," added Ferrati.

"Obviously, they arrived in this solar system from somewhere outside it.

We figure that way because otherwise they would have been prepared to do the job on all the planets in the same trip and start operations at once. They must have made some observations of this solar system from a point in s.p.a.ce at least as far away as another star. That means not less than four and a half light-years away--Proxima Centauri being the nearest star after our Sun, and four and a half light-years from us.

Their observations were imperfect. They found more planets and problems than they had supposed. So they had to make a second trip to get enough supplies to finish their Sun-tap base constructions. It took them thirty years between the first stations and the ones that completed the job.

"And that, too, suggests that only one s.h.i.+p was originally involved here. Of course, maybe they came back with more the second time, but it still looks as if the main force hasn't arrived. And won't, until after the Sun novas."

"Then that means," said Burl quickly, "that we are still dealing with just a small and isolated group?"

"Maybe," said Haines. "Just what const.i.tutes a small group may be hard to say. I rather think they'd have brought the engineers and at least an advance working party of settlers with them the second trip in. But they are still short of available s.h.i.+ps--they're still not aware of what we may be going to do."

"Why is that?" asked Burl.

Haines looked thoughtful. "This is conjecture. But if they planted any spies among our Earth people, there's been no contact, because otherwise they'd have known we could track and crack their base as soon as it started. This means that they still haven't had scouting s.h.i.+ps to spare for checking up on what they did the first time. No checkup means no spare personnel to do the checking. They just a.s.sumed that we hadn't caught on, and started operations by remote control as they had originally planned."

"And that also may mean that these people are hard up," said Ferrati.

"Wherever they came from, their civilization has been great, but it's gone to seed. They plan to seize another solar system, start over again, and they haven't the manpower to do an adequate job--and they haven't the abundance of material needed to set up simple check and guard stations, such as any major Earth nation would have the sense to do."

"Why, that means we've got a fighting chance to lick 'em," said Burl joyfully. "I kept thinking we'd run into more than we could cope with."

"We've got a fighting chance, all right," said Haines. "We may be able to rip up their Sun-tap layouts, but what if we meet the main explorer s.h.i.+p itself? Anybody who can cross interstellar s.p.a.ce and warp the power of the Sun, can probably outshoot, outrun, and outfight us. Let's hope we don't meet them until we've done our work."

On this note the little discussion broke up as the gong rang for the next watch.

It made sense to Burl. If the _Magellan_ could just operate fast enough, keep on the jump, they'd save the day. But--and he realized that n.o.body had mentioned it aloud--it also followed that the enemy--however small its group--was still in the solar system somewhere and would certainly be starting to take action very soon now.