Read Ebook: Z-Day on Centauri by Simmons Henry T McWilliams Al Illustrator

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Ebook has 382 lines and 18588 words, and 8 pages

"Oh!" Pell laughed. "I see you're not very familiar with Earth technology," he mocked. "This is a 'Rippo Little-Blast Dandy Atomic Cigarette Lighter.' Cute little novelty, isn't it?"

He flicked the stud again, demonstrating its pale blue flame. In spite of herself, Gret shuddered. Heintz sputtered something in the front seat which Pell didn't quite catch.

Silently the speeder drove down the ramp past rows of cradled space ships. In the darkness Pell could see very little more than their shadowy shapes. Over on the east part of the field Pell could make out the nightly DIC liner to Mars loading passengers. He wondered vaguely what kind of a ship they were using. From what Gret had said about not desiring to attract attention, he was already a little dubious.

"Let me show you the fine points of this can, Pell," the fat man said, switching on the illumination. He squeezed by Pell and shoved his ungainly body up the passage-way to the control room.

When Pell entered, the fat man's face was creased with a smile that extended from one huge ear to the other on his tiny bullet head. Proudly he pointed at the celestial globe for extra-dimensional navigation.

"Ain't that a beauty? And here's the Thelmard Distorter Generator. Installed it myself, just this afternoon."

With a sinking feeling, Pell stared at the incomprehensible maze of cables that spewed out of the thing and slithered across the deck to their unknown destinations. Heintz squeezed by him again and thrust himself back through the narrow passage-way to the waist where Gret Helmuth was waiting.

Heintz demonstrated the jerry-built uranium vaults which had been welded hap-hazardly to any convenient spot. "It's all there," Heintz beamed. "Enough to last ten years."

He motioned for Pell to follow him and disappeared into the stern of the ship.

Pell emerged a few minutes later, his face an unnatural shade of green. With great deliberation he lowered himself into one of the shock chairs and looked up at Gret Helmuth helplessly.

"That creaky converter won't even get us off the ground, much less take the hyper-space jump," he said.

She looked at him coolly and replied, "This is the best we could do, Mr. Pell. If you are afraid, you can back out now, but--" she produced the ancient automatic pistol she had used with such deadly effect earlier in the evening, "I warn you that I will have to kill you if you do. We cannot take chances."

Pell looked at her eyes. They were bleak and frosty and as hard as blue diamonds. He knew she meant what she said. He shrugged. With everyone apparently intent upon erasing him, it didn't make too much difference where he died. And he would certainly prefer death in space rather than in some back alley.

"Okay, baby, I'll pilot this tub. But you'd better be ready to get out and push!"

He turned to go forward, then stopped as if remembering something. "You realize that this ship is strictly contraband, don't you?"

She nodded. "So?"

"So we simply cannot pass the Geiger Check."

"Then we shall blast off without it," she replied, woman-like.

Pell laughed harshly. "Before we reach the Heaviside the planet-mounted blasters will fry us to a cinder!"

She was still unperturbed. "Then you must figure a way to get us off without that happening," she replied. "After all, you're the pilot."

Pell spread his hands helplessly. "Ah, woman, thy logic is flawless," he muttered half-aloud.

Thoughtfully he looked through the waist port at the liner which had almost completed loading. An idea struck him. He turned to the girl again.

"Get Heintz and harness yourselves in those shock suits. And use these shock chairs in the waist--they're safer. We will blast off the instant that liner does."

In spite of the iron control which had kept her face impassive, Gret Helmuth gasped.

"Do you think we can evade the planet-mounteds by that means?" she asked, her outlander accent very apparent.

He shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe. They won't be able to shoot even if they track us both all the way to the Heaviside because they won't know which one is us. But when we hit Heaviside, they'll know--our ship will be pushing 20 G's and the liner a miserable four. We should be out of their range by then, though. However, don't count on it too much--we'll have every DIC warship in the system on our tail and we may have to fight yet." He turned and disappeared up the little passage-way.

In the control room Pell wriggled awkwardly into the ungainly shock suit that would enable him to live during tremendous accelerations. Squeezing in behind the massive board, he seated himself in the throne-like shock chair and flipped on the inter-com.

"Pell to waist ... can you hear me?"

"Gotcha," the voice of Heintz came over. "We're ready."

"Are the blasters on this tub armed, Heintz?"

"Yeah. Armed 'em myself this afternoon."

"Cross your fingers ... Pell out."

Briefly the electros shrieked up the scale to inaudibility followed by the muffled, reluctant keening of the converter. Pell looked through the forward plastine observation shield. The liner was also warming up its converters; occasionally a shower of red-hot cinders flew out of the blast pit as the pilot gunned his converters. Any minute now ... there it was!

His vizer light was blinking an angry red. He flipped it on and the corpulent, blotched face of a petty official blossomed out of the gray nothingness of the screen.

"What is the meaning of this outrage?" he blustered at Pell. "If you do not decelerate at once, I shall order the planet-mounteds to fire on you!"

Pell tried to force a blank look on his face. "What do you mean, sir? This is a DIC passenger liner headed for Mars. Didn't we pass the Geiger Check?"

The official looked sick. Then his face became an enraged, mottled red. "If you think you can get away with this...." he sputtered.

Savagely he opened the converter feed valves and the little ship leaped forward. His fingers played with practiced ease on the jet keys, forcing the ship into a wildly spiralling trajectory. Its path soon resembled a jagged fork of lightning. Let 'em try to get a fix on that, he reflected.

Far off to his left he fancied he saw the dim, almost-spent radiance of a blaster probing for him. Laughing to himself, he straightened the course of the ship and piled on the acceleration. Like the second hand of a clock, the acceleration dial moved up the scale.

An eye-searing 12 G's ... then 15 ... 18.... Finally the needle came to quivering rest at a lung-torturing, bone-crushing 20 G's. The converter screamed just above audio-frequency. The wheezy thing seemed to be pushing like a little trooper, Pell reflected.

His inter-com crackled for a moment, then he heard the labored voice of Gret Helmuth.

"Nice work, Pell. Do you think there will be any more trouble getting out of the system?"

"No, but hold tight, just in case. How's Heintz?"

"He's ... asleep."

Pell grunted to himself. He was worried about the fat man; the acceleration wouldn't do his heart much good. He tried to settle back in his shock suit more comfortably, then realized that the acceleration held him like a vise. Already the oil-cushioned buoyancy pads seemed to thrust into him like spikes. Breathing deeply, he manipulated the massagers in his shock suit.

Just beyond Orbit Luna, Pell gradually swung the nose of the ship toward the nadir of the solar elliptic and the ship streaked out of the system. Turning up the detectors to full sensitivity, Pell tried to relax and sleep--because sleep was actually the only thing to do under tremendous accelerations.

Painfully Pell awoke. He let his eyes flicker over the instruments and nodded with satisfaction as he saw that the ship's velocity had reached 400 miles per second. Stiffly he cut the converter to one G and locked in the robot controls. Instantly the tremendous weight was removed from his body. He shrugged out of his shock suit with every bone in his body aching in discord.

When he had clambered through the narrow passage-way to the waist he saw that Gret was likewise divesting herself of the cumbersome garment.

"We're pushing 400 a second now," he reported. "In another 20 hours we can drop into hyper-space. How's it going back here?"

Gret indicated Heintz who seemed to be asleep. But the ragged gasps of his breathing belied this; Pell knew he was unconscious.

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