Subject: Richard Sharpe Shaver. Part 3. Dec. 14, 2007.
This tells how they were able to make a space ****p run
faster than the people chasing them.
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The speedster rose slowly up the lifter beam under my
control and when it was clear of the station ****p I sent it
hurtling outward.
When we were well out of sight of the station ****p and
picking up speed toward the moon I gave up thinking of our
trip as a sight-seeing outing which was to proceed only a
little way into space and then return, but began to think
of the moon as our destination, meanwhile setting the
autopilot destination needle on Venus. Then I pulled the
throttle back to full on.
If what we had heard of the bl-ck dea-h were true, it
might well be that no space ****ps were allowed to leave the
vicinity of Mu at all. Just the mere fact that we were
hurtling straight away might have placed even more
suspicion on our purpose if we maintained our original
thought-fabrication.
With the moon now our revealed destination, our true
purpose was still veiled.
I switched on the electrically magnifying scope screen to
the rear to look for possible pursuit. The scope had a
screen of microscopic photo-cells which turned the tiniest
light ray into an electrical impulse which was greatly
augmented by vacuum tubes and the resulting impulse made a
much larger cell on a viewplate glow strongly, giving a
vivid image in half-tone.
Far behind us a craft sped along. Was it in pursuit? I
watched it for long minutes, but there was no way of
telling. It maintained its distance and its course. In a
very short time their instruments could check our course,
and if they were pursuing us, they would be unable to
correlate it with my mental image of the moon as our
destination; and they would be after us instantly. If they
were merely harmless travelers to Venus, there would be no
questioning of our own course.
I gave them time to check us with instruments, then I set
the course pointer on Mercury, a planet almost never
visited, and watched closely. The strange craft veered.
"They are on our trail," I said. The words broke a
silence that had become almost intense.
Arl's cousin looked shocked. "Then we can't escape,"
she said. "They have a mechanical advantage over us."
One of the big-heads was eyeing me shrewdly "You have a
plan," he said. It was a plain statement of fact, not a
question. It was as though he did not ask what was my plan,
but expected me to put one into operation now that the
crucial moment had come.
"Yes," I agreed. "Now is the time to play my one card. I
hope that it will be an ace."
"We have not asked nor even wondered about your plan once
we observed that you had one," said the other big-head.
"But now the time for s-crecy is at an end. It is
unnecessary. If we cannot escape, our intent to do so will
be useless to hide; if we can escape, our intent will not
need to be hidden."
"True enough. And I will be more than glad to relieve my
mind of the strain of withholding what is in it," I said.
"I am but a ro youth, and the task has been hard."
"But one that you have done well," observed the young
Titan gravely.
I accepted the compliment with a thrill of pride. Praise
from a Titan was something to which I was not
accustomed--indeed, old Artan Gro had many times given me
exactly the opposite.
"It is a matter of mechanics," I explained. "And the one
thing I will be forced to blank out of your mind as I do
it. I warn you all not to think on the matter when you see
it performed. As to my plan of escape--I have an even
greater one. I will explain fully in a very short while--we
will go to one of the sunless Elder stations on a cold
planet. The nearest of these is Quanto, on the very rim of
this solar system."
"A good choice," approved the big-heads. "But one that
rouses our curiosity in your 'mechanical trick' to a high
pitch. Obviously you know that Quanto is seventeen and
one-third billion miles away." [*20]
I could almost read their minds. "Yes. Weeks away at the
speed of this ****p--and we have no food."
Even Arl's tail stopped wagging at that--but only
momentarily. In her eyes I read that confidence I knew she
had in me; a confidence that she herself felt was
justified.
"Your plan!" she reminded me. "Now we know you have a
definite one, for if you are aware of the fact that we have
no food you must also be aware of a way to reach Quanto
without it."
"Such great faith must be well placed," murmured one of
the Titan maids. "I, too, can have no fear now that you
have a plan."
I proceeded now about the thing I had in mind, taking
care not to think of what I was doing, but think, rather of
the appearance of my hands as they worked, of the movements
of my knuckles, of the muscles that caused those movements,
of the nerves that carried the message to the muscles....
It was a good thing for me now that I had listened so
wor****pfully to space pilots when I was younger; some of
their adventures were going to stand me in good use.
Autopilot mechanisms on these space ****ps were adjusted to
a fool-proof speed, so that no speed-mad citizen could
wreck a ****pload of people. There was a stiff spring on the
throttle, just a little stronger than a man's arm, which
held the fuel flow to a safe maximum.
I found the case of the auto pilot locked and the key was
naturally not aboard the ****p, but kept by the attendant
back at the satellite ****p. But I found a way around that.
I took the belts from several of my companions in spite of
their puzzled faces and fastened them into one strong line.
One end went around the throttle bar and with another I
took a turn around a seat arm.
A dozen strong Atlan arms pulled the belt line taut at my
bidding, and I took in all the slack at the seat arm. Back
came the throttle bar. The acceleration of the ****p spilled
them all in a heap at the rear, but I held fast to the line
and the bar stayed back.
Now our safety depended on whether the pursuing crew knew
this simple trick--for many of the pleasure craft, which
our pursuer plainly was, were as well powered as the police
craft, although their autopilots restricted them to a much
lower speed. If the pursuing craft's pilot did not think of
adding other men's power to the strength of his own hand on
the throttle bar, he would never overtake me. Even police
craft were set to less than maximum motive power, as the
tubes burned out too quickly at full blast.
I watched the dark speck on the rear screen anxiously and
slowly it grew smaller and smaller. When it had vanished
the youthful Titan pounded me on the back until my ears
rang and my knees buckled.
"You're a sly fellow, and your whole plan of escape is
right. It's high time we ran away from the bl-ck de-th.
I've worried and waited for it to strike me long enough.
The Elder station on the cold planet are the best natured
men you can find in space. Haven't been near a sun in
centuries, and don't know the meaning of the word e-il!"
He turned to the others and continued speaking eagerly.
"They'll take us in, give us entrance cards to any
g-vernment in space. Personally I would choose some
civilization that warms its cities with its own fires, and
shuns all suns entirely. I've had enough worry waiting for
Atlan's rulers to get wise to the danger and move. I want
no more of these sun-bitten zany dero around me!"
The gray Martian maid spoke, her sensitive green eyes
****ning with admiration, her voice the slow singing speech
of Mars.
"The best thing you did was not to tell us what you had
in mind, for someone would have read our minds as surely as
Venus loves us. We have lived in dread and indecision for
many moons. The bla-k dea-h has struck day after day and no
official word of it. No one can tell who is de-d; there is
no way to tell if anything is being done about the danger
or not, for anyone who made the slightest effort to do so
disappeared at once just as our loved teacher did. We all
know that he was not ill; and we also all know that the day
he made that announcement to us he had signed his own d-ath
warrant--but he had evidently decided he must, as no one
else seemed to move. It has been terrible, and if you had
planned this flight with us we would never have gotten
away. We have been very lucky to get this far. Now, if you
will take my advice, you will go at once far beyond any
influence from Mother Mu's rodite, under another
space-group of planets, and there we will learn how to
live where such things as the bla-k dea-h do not exist."
Part 3.
John Winston johnfw@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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