The nose swung into the Connie again, with a jar that sent Rip sliding into the clear plastic of the astrodome. His nose jammed into the plastic, but he didn"t even wince, because he saw the Connie cruiser"s steering tubes buckle under the _Aquila"s_ sudden shove.
And suddenly the picture was clear. The two Federation cruisers hadn"t cared about getting into the Connie ship. They had only wanted an excuse to tie up to it so they could do what had just been done.
They had sheared off the enemy"s steering tubes, first at the stern, then at the bow, leaving him helpless, able to go only forward or back in the direction in which he happened to be pointing!
MacFife had a broad grin on his face. As Rip started to speak, he held up his hand and pointed at a wall speaker.
The Connie commander came on the circuit. He screamed, "You planned that!
You--you--"
Galliene"s voice spoke soothingly. "But my dear commander! How can I apologize? Believe me, the man responsible will be reward--I mean, the man responsible will be disciplined. You may rest a.s.sured of it. How unfortunate! I am overcome with shame."
MacFife picked up a microphone. "Same here, Connie. A terrible accident.
Aye, the man who did it will hear from me."
"It was no accident," the Connie screamed.
"Ah," Galliene replied, "but you cannot prove otherwise. Commander, do you realize what this means? You are helpless. Interplanetary law says that a helpless s.p.a.ce ship must be salvaged and taken in tow by the nearest cruiser, no matter what its nationality. We will do this jointly, the _Aquila_ and the _Sagittarius_. We will take turns towing you, my friend. We will haul you to Terra--like any other piece of s.p.a.ce junk."
MacFife could remain quiet no longer. "Yes, mister. And that"s no" the end o" it. We will collect the salvage fee. One half the value of the salvaged vessel. Aye! My men will like that, since we share and share alike on salvage. Now, put out a cable from your nose tube. I"ll take ye in tow first."
He cut the communicator off and met Rip"s grin.
The two s.p.a.cemen had figured out the one way to repay the Connie for his attempts on the asteroid. They couldn"t fire on him, but they could fake an accident that would cripple him and cost Consops millions of dollars in salvage fees.
Nor would Consops refuse to pay. Salvage law was clear. Whoever performed the salvage was not required to turn the ship back to its owners until the fee had been paid.
And there was another angle. The cruisers would tow the Connie into the Federation s.p.a.ceport in New Mexico. If past experience was any indication, the Connie would lose about half its crew, perhaps more.
They would claim sanctuary in the Federation.
Rip shook hands solemnly with the grinning Scotchman. It would be a long time before Consops tried piracy again.
"We"ll be back at our family fight again tomorrow," MacFife said, "but today we celebrate together. Ah, lad, this is pure joy to me. I"ve had a score to settle with yon Connies for years. Now I"ve done it."
He put an arm around Rip"s shoulders. "While I"m in a givin" mood, which is not the way of us Scots, is there anything ye"d like?"
Rip could think of only one thing. "A hot shower. For me and my men. And will you take the prisoners off our hands?"
"Yes to both. Anything else?"
"We"ll need some rocket fuel. Terra says we have to correct course. Also, we"ll need a nuclear charge to throw us into a braking ellipse. And we need a new landing boat. The sun baked the equipment out of ours."
MacFife nodded. "So be it. I"ll send men to the asteroid to bring back the prisoners and your Planeteers." He smiled. "We"ll let yon rock go by itself while hot showers and a good meal are had by all. Ye"ve earned it, lad."
Rip started to thank the Scot, but his stomach suddenly turned over, and black dizziness flooded in on him. He heard MacFife"s sudden exclamation, felt hands on him.
White light blinded him. He shook his head and tried to keep his stomach from acting up. A voice asked, "Were you shielded from those nuclear blasts?"
"No," he said past a constricted throat. "Not from the last. We got some prompt radiation."
"When was that? The exact time?"
Rip tried to remember. He felt horrible. "It was twenty-three-oh-five."
"Bad," the voice said. "He must have taken enough roentgens of gamma and neutrons to reach or exceed the median-lethal dose."
Rip found his voice again. "Santos," he said urgently. "On the asteroid.
He got it, too. The rest were shielded."
MacFife snapped orders. The ball-bat would have Santos in the ship within minutes. Being sick in a s.p.a.ce suit was about the most unpleasant thing that could happen.
A hypospray tingled against Rip"s arm. The drug penetrated, caught a quick lift to all parts of his body through the bloodstream.
Consciousness slid away.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
s.p.a.cefall
Rip was never more eloquent. He argued, he begged, and he wheedled.
The _Aquila"s_ chief physician listened with polite interest, but he shook his head. "Lieutenant, you simply are not aware of the close call you"ve had. Another two hours without treatment, and we might not have been able to save you."
"I appreciate that," Rip a.s.sured him. "But I"m fine now, sir."
"You are not fine. You are anything but fine. We"ve loaded you with antibiotics and blood cell regenerator, and we"ve given you a total transfusion. You feel fine, but you"re not."
The doctor looked at Rip"s red hair. "That"s a fine thatch of hair you have. In a week or two it will be gone, and you"ll have no more hair than an egg. A well person doesn"t lose hair. Your head will shine like a s.p.a.ce helmet."
The ship"s radiation safety officer had put both Rip"s and Santos"
dosimeters into his measuring equipment. They had taken over a hundred roentgens of hard radiation above the tolerance limit. This was the result of being caught unshielded when the last nuclear charge went off.
"Sir," Rip pleaded, "you can load us with suppressives. It"s only a few days more before we reach Terra. You can keep us going until then. We"ll both turn in for full treatment as soon as we get to the s.p.a.ce platform.
But we have to finish the job; can"t you see that, sir?"
The doctor shook his head. "You"re a fool, even for a Planeteer. Before you get over this, you"ll be sicker than you"ve ever been. You have a month in bed waiting for you. If I let you go back to the asteroid, I"ll only be delaying the time when you start full treatment."
"But the delay won"t hurt if you inject us with suppressives, will it?"
Rip asked quickly. "Don"t they keep the sickness checked?"
"Yes, for a maximum of about ten days. Then they no longer have sufficient effect, and you come down with it."
"But it won"t take ten days," Rip pointed out. "It will only take a couple, and it won"t hurt us."
MacFife had arrived to hear the last exchange. He nodded sympathetically.