The Mysterious Planet

CHAPTER 19 Flight to Nowhere

BOB HIT THE LITTLE LOCK BUTTON with his fist, hoping that Jakes hadn’t yet had tune to seal it from inside. Then, just as Juan pounded up behind, it snapped open.

He leaped inside, with Juan at his heels, amazed at the poor marksmanship of the guards, which he didn’t want to test further, though, for bullets were still flying. His finger found the button that controlled the locks from inside, and they snapped closed behind him.

“Bob!” Jakes’s voice sounded happy. “Hey, doggone it, I was wishing you could have been here.”

He was already settling into the control seat, but now he relaxed a trifle. “Neat, the way I fooled those Thulians! Had a piece of string tied to the seat, and they thought I had it fixed to kill Emo. You should…”

For the first tune, he seemed to see Juan, and his face hardened. “What are you doing here?”

“He came to me, and I got him to come along,” Bob said quickly.

Simon nodded uncertainly. “Well… we’ll talk about that later. Grab seats, because here we go!”

He didn’t wait, but hit the throttle at once. Bob felt the acceleration begin to build up, and staggered to one of the seats, while Juan found another. Then Jakes moved over to full high-drive, and they were lifting from Thule.

And behind them almost at once would come the ships from Thule. The war was on, as of this minute.

“What happened to Emo?” Bob managed to ask.

“Back of you, in the fourth seat. I had him tied in while I freed the Icarius. Hey Emo, how you doing?” Jakes’s voice sounded completely confident now.

From in back of Bob, a high voice piped up. “I’m all right, but you’d better take me back, you had! When my father catches you, you’re going to be sorry!”

“You’ll like the Federation men, Emo,” Simon told him. Then bitterness crept into his voice.

“Did Juan tell you, Bob, that he tried to stop me? He actually started throwing his fists around, when he heard my plan. You’d think he’d sold out to the enemy!”

“He was right, Simon,” Bob told him. “You had no business in starting this. I told you about Emo’s position back there.”

“Sure. That’s why I took him. They can’t touch us now, and they won’t dare let us get in any trouble with that network of bombs and warnings they have.”

Juan sighed softly. “Maybe you were right, Simon. But I was afraid. That is why I wanted to stop you until I could see Bob.”

Simon cut the drive suddenly until the pressure on ‘ them was only a little more than the gravity of Earth. “Don’t know why I’m in such a hurry,” he told them. “We’re safe enough with Emo aboard. Hey, you know, you’re right, Juan. I guess I forgot about Bob. When I found those Thulians had switched papers on me, all I could think of was to get out of there fast. I guess maybe I was a bit too hasty. Okay, Juan, I’ll forget it if you will.”

“It is already forgotten,” Juan said. “But what shall we now do with Emo? We cannot bring war about, Simon. And as Bob has said, to keep him from his family of Thule means war.”

“We’ll keep him, all right. Maybe they switched papers on me, but I can remember what the originals said. I sure proved that when I got the old Icarius free, didn’t I? Anyhow, we always knew it had to be war. This just makes it come a little faster.”

“There doesn’t have to be war,” Bob told him. “Right now my father is down there with the president, talking peace. Or he was, before you ran out with Emo.”

It was partly true—talking peace and war. Bob felt suddenly sick as he wondered what was really happening now. If Thule decided to take it out on all the Federation people they had…

Some of the smugness went from Jakes then, but he stuck to his guns. “Aw, you can’t trust Thule. Sure, they’ll talk peace—and then, when they get us off guard, they’ll take over. And we can’t risk it.”

“So you want war?” Juan accused.

“No, I don’t want war! But I don’t want to see our side wiped out because a bunch of fools thought talking about peace was the same as protecting yourself. Hey, look at that!”

In the screen, a flight of the great ships of Thule showed up. There were hundreds of them, and they were spread on all sides of the Icarius, matching her speed and waiting.

Juan stared at it dully. “They will find some way,” he warned. “They have ways of freezing the air, of taking all the heat away at once. It would not kill Emo, but then they could catch us.”

Jakes looked doubtful, and then shook his head. “They’d have done it already if they could.

They can’t do that through the walls of another ship.”

“You hope they can’t,” Bob corrected him. “You don’t think you know all the science of Thule, do you?”

“All right,” Jakes suggested. “You bright guys have been raising enough objections to the one thing that’s saving your skins. Now suppose you tell me what you’d do?”

Juan shrugged. “I’d put Emo outside in a space suit Then the ships out there would stop to see whether he was still alive, and to return him to Thule. They might even let us go. But we would have time to get away, and even lose them.”

He had moved up to the screen beside Jakes. “It would give them something to do instead of chasing after us,” he finished.

Jakes snorted. “Yeah. That’s a right fine idea, Juan. There are a thousand ships there, and you think every one would stop, just sit still, and then go back to Thule, if they had the kid.

Nope! One would pick him up. And what was left of us would be dust—nothing but dust Look out there!”

He stood up to see through the port better. Juan hit him with a hard shoulder, knocking him from the control seat, and was in his place at once.

Under his hands, the throttle leaped, throwing more acceleration pressure against them.

Jakes slipped all the way to the floor, sprawling and moaning as the pressure hit him.

“I can raise it higher, Simon,” Juan warned him. “I can raise it until you can no longer stand it.

Or I can let you up to find a space suit for Emo and put him out.”

“You’ll get us killed,” Simon gasped.

Juan nodded. “Perhaps. I do not think so, but perhaps you are right. It is still better than the war would be. Will you do as I say?”

“Let me up,” Simon agreed reluctantly.

Some of the pressure slacked off, and the older boy crawled painfully to his feet.

“Patriotism!” he grunted. “You think you’re being a hero and a patriot. But you’re not. You’re just making us sitting ducks for Thule. And they’ll kill us before the kid is through the lock.”

He swayed as Juan applied more thrust. Then he nodded with difficulty, and turned toward the suit lockers as Juan let it up. For a second, he fumbled with the door of the locker.

Bob watched him, trying to think. He had no more use for Juan’s solution than Jakes had, and he was sure that Simon was correct; as soon as they had the boy, some of the Thule ships would exterminate those who had tried to kidnap him. But it might help to stop this crazy war that was now already started.

And he could think of nothing better at the moment.

Simon swung around suddenly, and there was a gun in his hand. “All right, sucker,” he ordered Juan. “Get out of that seat! You’ve made enough trouble. I ought to put you off so you could go back to Thule where you belong! Get up!”

Juan’s hands moved toward the controls, but stopped as Simon began putting pressure on the trigger. The older boy nodded. “Keep away from the controls. If you haven’t got enough sense to search my pockets, how do you think you can outsmart me now—or outsmart Thule’s ships? Up!”

Juan stood up—and leaped back at Simon. The gun went off, and the bullet ricocheted savagely around the little control room, just missing Bob’s skull. Then Juan was on the other, and they were rolling over and over, each trying to wrest the gun from the other’s clutches.

The Icarius went on, holding the same acceleration and course, since there was no one at the controls.

Bob got up wearily, and moved toward the two squirming bodies. He could hear each of them yelling for him to help, but he paid no attention to it. Then his hand darted down and came up with the gun. “All right,” he told them. “You’ve done enough of that. Both of you get up.”

He prodded them forward, until they were backed against the viewport and the radar screen, and then he slipped into the control seat.

Juan smiled, and started to come back, but Bob lifted the gun. “Both of you stay up there.

Simon, I’m not going to stand by and see you get away with starting a war. I agree with Juan that we’d all better be wiped out if it will keep that from happening. And Juan, you know as well as I do that you can’t save us by putting the kid out. You’ve got more sense than that.

Anyhow, Emo wouldn’t fit the suits, so they wouldn’t recognize him at first. They might think it was one of us and take a shot at him.”

“You can contact them by radio first,” Juan objected.

Bob realized he wasn’t thinking too clearly himself. There had been no time for real thought since Simon had first started the trouble.

“All right,” he admitted. “You can. But I still think there are better ways. Emo, what do you think about it?”

Emo looked at him sullenly. “I want to go home. And you’d better take me home. You’d better do it fast, too, before my father gets you.”

“Yeah. We heard that before,” Bob admitted. But he couldn’t blame the kid too much. It must be rough on him, and at least, he hadn’t gone in for crying or hysterics. “All right, Emo. That’s exactly what we’re going to do. We’re taking you home.”

He heard a hoarse gasp from Jakes, but he was already beginning to swing the Icarius around slowly, to head back to Thule. Beside him, the great fleet of Thule swung in perfect formation. The move must have puzzled them, but they were willing to hang on until they either had Emo or there was no hope.

Juan started back to his seat again beside Bob. “It is a good plan,” he agreed, and he was smiling. “You will have no more trouble from me. That is a promise.”

“Fine,” Bob told him. “Then take this gun, and keep it on Jakes—unless he wants to give in now.”

Simon shook his head stubbornly and went on muttering about traitors.

“I suppose you think they’ll kiss you on both cheeks and cry out about how wonderful you are,” he said hotly. “Maybe you think you’ll be the big heroes to Thule. All right, you guys.

Have it your way. You’ll maybe even be given a nice position there. But you’ll hate your own faces when you have to live with yourselves. Look what happened to Benedict Arnold and all the rest of the traitors!”

Emo looked at him without understanding what had been said. The boy’s face had grown more cheerful since they started to go back, and now he was picking up a certain amount of enthusiasm for the excitement “You’re bad, Simon,” he said. “You’re a pirate, that’s what you are. And I’m going to have my father make you sorry.”

For the first time, the toughness left Simon’s face. “You just don’t understand, Emo,” he protested. “Doggone it, I wasn’t going to hurt you. Didn’t I tell you I’d show you a real pirate when we reached the Federation?”

“A duty pirate!” Emo amplified his former remark.

Oddly, Bob felt sorry for Jakes. Out of all that had happened, Simon had brought him more trouble than good, but he knew that the awkward, clown-faced boy had only been trying to do what he thought was best. It must have been hard on him to use Emo as a hostage, knowing the kid would dislike him for it, and still liking him.

“Sit down, Jakes,” he ordered, more gently. “Emo’ll get over it, I guess. And nobody’s mad at you. So why start calling us traitors?”

Jakes came back slowly, his face uncertain. He sank into the seat behind Juan miserably, and Bob heard him muttering to Emo. But apparently the young boy was still angry.

Then Jakes’s voice suddenly lifted to a shout. Bob grunted, but he was busy landing and had no time to look. If Simon started anything now…

“Bob, look!” Jakes was out of his seat now, holding Juan tightly in his arms, and the smaller boy was struggling frantically. “Look!”

Bob risked a quick glance sideways, and saw blood running from a cut on the back of Juan’s neck, where he must have scratched it in the previous struggle.

The blood was a bright orange, unlike any human blood in the Solar Federation. And that could only mean that Juan was a native of Thule.

No wonder he had spotted the mock-up and had led them into a trap. No wonder everything they had done was known to the president of Thule. And even less wonder that he had been willing to let them all be killed to free Emo!

But it was too late to do anything about it. Bob had already landed and men were piling out of the big Thulian ships, heading for them.