Chapter XX

Farradyne watched Carolyn uncaringly as she fought herself out of her crumpled position and succeeded in flopping over on her back. She spread-eagled on the floor, and her chest labored a bit with the effort.

"Forget it--Charles--" she said with some difficulty. "You can't--run away from a ship--that can go--faster than light."

"I can try."

"You can't--win."

The radio speaker came alive: "Surrender, Farradyne! Stop and submit or we fire!"

Farradyne fought the controls so that the ship slued sidewise, putting another vector in its course. He twirled the volume knob to zero on the radio with a violent twist of his wrist.

"They're your friends, but they don't mind killing you," he sneered.

"I'm not--afraid to--die."

"I am," grunted Farradyne. "I have some dope that I don't want to die without telling."

His hands danced on the levers and the Lancaster turned end for end and sped back at the huge spacecraft almost on a sideswiping course. Out here intrinsic velocity meant nothing; the only thing that counted was the Lancaster's velocity with respect to the velocity of the enemy spacecraft. He had the advantage of surprise. He could go where he pleased and the other pilot must follow him; and since Farradyne's changes of pace and course would come without warning, each switch would take a few fractions of a second to follow. On land a few fractions of a second mean nothing; in space they mean miles. On land a quartering flight meant closing of the range; in space where the pursuit could not dig a heel into the ground, quartering flight meant adding another vector to the course.

He widened the gap.

On the third pass, Farradyne realized that the interstellar drive of the enemy ship must be some unknown 'all-or-nothing' device, or force field, or something that demanded that ordinary interplanetary maneuvering be done without the superdrive; and that once the gadget was turned on, the enemy ship would dart into the next galactic sector in a wink of the eye.

So long as he could dodge more agilely because of his smaller mass, they could not catch him. They wanted him alive, naturally, and his only danger was in the final escape. Then he would have to dodge the target-seeking missiles they would launch at him under several hundred gravities, capable of turning in midflight if he succeeded in ducking the first pass.

He wished desperately for a cargo of bowling balls or steel castings that he could have strewn in his wake. He cursed his lack of foresight in not having the spare control rods replaced, because a few of them might do the trick.

Farradyne stopped cursing.

Recollection of Brenner and the depredations in the pile-bay had started a train of thought that he followed with growing interest. It was long and it was involved, and it depended upon a large amount of luck, good planning, and ability.

He struggled to the computer and played a long tune on the keys, ignoring the fact that the huge spacecraft had finally lined up on his course from behind and was closing the range.

The Lancaster made one more complex turn as the end of the punched tape entered the autopilot. If Farradyne's computations were correct, the Lancaster's nose was now pointed at Terra. The spaceliner behind made a swinging turn and began to pick up the space it had lost.

* * * * *

Farradyne saw he had plenty of time. He waited until the punchings on the tape cut the drive a bit, then went below and came back into the control room with Brenner's space suit. He got out patching material and carefully repaired the triangular rip. Then he set about checking it, testing the air supply and purifier, filling the food pouch and the water tank. Men had been known to last seventy-two hours in a suit like this without any discomfort other than the confinement; the primary danger was running out of oxygen and the secondary danger was water starvation.

When the suit was checked to Farradyne's satisfaction he took time out for a last cigarette. He lit one and puffed before he spoke. "Honey-child, I could outguess that gang of yours until Sol freezes over. But sooner or later they'll get tired of the chase and end it by launching a target-seeking missile, and that will be that. I have no intention of sitting here and waiting for it."

"So what are you going to do?"

Farradyne reached up and stopped the clock. "I've punched a very interesting autopilot tape. It'll dodge and swoop along at about four gravities in the cockeyedest course, and lead your pals a long and devious way from where you and I part company. Four gee is heavy enough to keep you flat, so you can't louse it up. You can't measure time too accurately, so when they grab you you won't be able to tell 'em just when I took off. They'll have a fine old time combing space for a man-sized mote, making his course to Terra."

"Charles--?"

Farradyne snubbed his cigarette out and dropped on his knees so that he could look down into her face. "You've pitched me many a low, soft curve to the inside," he told her quietly. "This is one battle you lose, I think. So we'll meet again to take it up later."

He bent down with a cynical smile and kissed her on the lips. To his surprise he found them responsive.

"So long, Carolyn," he chuckled. "Some of this has been a lot of fun!"

He donned the space suit and with a careless wave of his hand went down the stairs. She was not looking at him, but at the ruined microphone and the radio equipment far out of her reach. Panic showed in her face and gave her some strength, but not enough to fight the four gravities that held her flat.

Then as Farradyne lost sight of her, his jaunty self-confidence faded. He was far from the bright character he had portrayed. Up until not-too-long-ago, Farradyne had been complimenting himself on being able to find out more about the hellflower operations than the Sandmen, and it had not occurred to him that there was a reason for it. Now he knew. It became obvious that fighting a gang of cutthroats, and fighting an enemy race of intelligent people, were two different things. About as different as Farradyne was from the brilliant operator he had begun to think he was.

It required that he change his plans for escape. He knew that he could flee the big ship and have a good chance of being picked up by a Space Guard scooter as soon as he could get within calling-distance of Luna. But the chances were just as high that the hellflower people would have their entire undercover outfit alerted, and at the first radio call would be swarming the neighborhood to pick him up.

He paused by the spacelock and cracked the big portal, thoughtfully eyeing the huge starship, a tiny dot far below, visible only because of its reaction-flare. Then he closed the lock and went down and down in the Lancaster until he found the lowermost inspection cubby. He crawled in, closed the inspection hatch behind him, and settled down to wait.

* * * * *

Time creaked past, and the Lancaster turned and curved according to the punchings on the autopilot tape. Farradyne had only one prayer, now: that the enemy ship would not get tired of the chase and fire a target-seeking missile, ending the whole game with a wave of intolerable heat and indescribably bright light. Carolyn's presence aboard the Lancaster might prevent that until the last moment.

The hour-period ended with the Lancaster pointing up on a quartering course from Terra and Sol--a long way from the point of his supposed escape. Not long after that, Farradyne heard the clink of magnetic grapples.

He tensed again. Would they fine-comb the Lancaster? Or would the question-and-answer session with Carolyn convince them that he had abandoned ship? If so, would they take her off and blast the Lanc' or would they deem it of value and keep it?

His mind went on with unanswerable questions: how good was their radar? How alert was their radar operator? Were both good enough to state unequivocably that there had been no object leaving the Lancaster on a tangential course? Or would there have been the usual clutter of noise and interference, so that no one would doubt that he had left the ship? And, assuming that the enemy considered a spacecraft valuable, where would they take it and what would they do with it?

Far from feeling gratified at his maneuver, Farradyne felt only satisfied to be alive and temporarily out of the hands of the enemy. What happened from here on in must be played by ear against an unknown score for three voices.

The drive of the Lancaster dropped from four gravities to about one, and Farradyne could hear dimly the clumpings of heavy feet. Then the drive diminished again, remaining at about a quarter-gravity or maybe less, and there were sounds of feet above his head. He tasted the acid in his mouth; he found his heavy automatic and clutched it clumsily in the heavy space-glove and prepared to give back whatever they gave him. Capture might be preferable to death--but Farradyne had every right to believe that the enemy could not permit him to stay alive with what he knew about them, even though it was precious little.

The cubby he was hiding in was annularly shaped; to one side was space beyond the hull-plates. Inside was the water-jacket that cooled the throat of the reaction motor. Farradyne moved quietly around the central pillar until he was on the opposite side from the inspection hatch and settled down to wait.

On the plates above his head was the scraping of something heavy being hauled across the deck.

He heard the sound of triple-toned voices in both musical and discordant sounds, distorted and muffled by the deck and by the helmet he wore. Someone fiddled with the inspection hatch; and Farradyne found the scuttlebutt and valved air out into space so the enemy would have a hard time cracking the hatch. Whoever it was gave up after a moment; and then came the sound of drilling on the deck-plates above him. A cloud of whitish vapor spurted downward and the sound of alien voices rose sharply as the drill came through. Three more spurts of escaping air blasted downward in whitish vapor that skirled around the annular room and went in a fading draw towards the scuttlebutt.

Plugs filled the four holes and Farradyne turned his head-torch on them. They were heavy self-tapping bolts being turned in from above. There was a softer sound of scraping, and the clumping of feet; then the sound of men at work faded away.

Farradyne took a deep breath and realized that his skin was itching from the cold perspiration that bathed him. The taste in his mouth was brackish; his heart was pounding and his breath was shallow and rapid. He opened his mouth to gasp and discovered that he had been clenching his teeth so hard that his jaw ached.

He closed the scuttlebutt, but did not valve any air into his hiding place. He put the top of his helmet against the deck-plates above him and listened. Far above he could hear them, still at work; but they were going higher and higher in the ship.

He relaxed, waiting.

Three more hours passed, as nerve-wracking as any Farradyne had ever spent. Then, with absolutely no warning, the drive went off completely. He floated from the deck and scrabbled around to grab a stanchion, finally getting his magnetic shoes against a girder where they held him at an odd angle.

The drive went on to a full one-gravity and hurled Farradyne flat against the bottom of the cubby, wrenching his ankles slightly. The drive went off again, and then on, and finally off. This time it stayed off.

Floating free, with only his feet for mooring, was like resting in a tub of body-temperature water; and as the lulling, muscle-freeing sensation went on and on, Farradyne's mind lulled and he dozed. From the doze, he dropped off into a deep slumber.