The s.p.a.ce Rover.

by Edwin K. Sloat.

Young Winford heads a desperate escape from the prison mines of Mercury.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Winford leaped out into s.p.a.ce along the cable._]

Evan Winford leaned wearily against the controls of the little s.p.a.ce sphere, and stared out of the window at the planet, Mercury, which lay a million miles sunward. Fail now? He gritted his teeth. No! He would wrench victory from Fate after all, even though at this moment mine guards must be searching the nearby mountains, for him and his companions, and a warning was being broadcast to all the planets and s.p.a.ce ships to watch the little prison tender ship, the one that was used to transfer prisoners from liners out in s.p.a.ce to Mercury and its Interplanetary Council prison mines to which all who were sentenced came on one-way tickets only. This was the first time, Winford reflected grimly, that the sphere had ever carried outbound pa.s.sengers.

A long, quavering wail sounded from the hold below. Winford scowled.

That fellow, Agar, again. Too bad, for he was unquestionably an engineering genius and thoroughly dependable when he didn't get one of his spells and imagine he was a G.o.do-dog on the red steppes of his native Mars. A little rest and gentle treatment would unquestionably work wonders. Again the wail, followed this time by a series of growls.

Winford slid open the door that separated the control nest from the hold of the little prison tender ship. The other five men had withdrawn to the other side of the cabin and were watching listlessly the big, ragged, barrel-chested Martian crouching on all fours against the side of the cabin and ferociously baring his teeth.

"What's the matter down there?" called Winford sharply.

Six pairs of eyes looked up at him. Agar forgot he was a dog and stared with the rest. They were an unkempt, ragged lot with unshaven faces and the dirty, white canvas uniforms of mine prisoners. The group was composed of four Martians and two Venusians.

"Let's go back," growled Nizzo, whose squat, powerful body and long arms bespoke his Venus ancestry. "It's death out here. No food. No water, excepting the emergency ration you have up there in the box. That will scarcely last till we can reach Mercury again. Now you tell us that the fuel is nearly exhausted. Let's go back. I say! We don't want to swing about the Sun in this as our tomb for all eternity. At least we eat and drink at the mines, even though the whips of the drivers hurry us on to an early death."

"You're crazy, Nizzo," harshly retorted Winford. "You know what they do when escaped prisoners are brought back, or come of their own free will.

The Universe knows nothing of the caged saurians in the warden's gardens, nor of the incorrigible prisoners that go to feed them. But I know--we all of us know. Far better to remain out here and die whole, than to be devoured alive by a s...o...b..ring horror."

A heated argument ensued among the men below. Presently Nizzo looked up again.

"But you have no plan," he shouted at the Earthman. "We have followed you blindly so far, and here we are off the traffic lanes. Our only hope of being picked up now is one of s.p.a.ce patrol ships. And short shrift may we expect from them!"

Winford scowled impatiently.

"Listen, men," he began. "This is a desperate venture, I know, and I picked every one of you carefully. You are not common sc.u.m of the prison mines. Every man of you can be depended upon to put through a daring escape of this nature. Every man of you is an innocent victim of the rotten politicians and corrupt officials that now hold sway in the Three Planets. Take Jarl there, for example." He indicated a big, patient, resigned Martian. "He is under life sentence in the penal mines simply because his brother-in-law wanted his lands and wealth. As for myself, I had a sister who suffered the misfortune of being seen and coveted by Silas Teutoberg, a member of the Earth Council...."

He choked at the thought, his pale face rigid with emotion. Those below saw the flash of his lambent eyes. He controlled himself with an effort, and continued:

"I have said nothing of any plan beyond that of making our escape in this prison tender off Mercury, but I had a plan behind that. It is true that we seem to be off the regular traffic lanes, but s.p.a.ce liners between Venus and Earth just now are cutting in quite close to Mercury, due to the position of the three planets in their orbits. This formed the basis of the whole venture.

"During the three interplanetary days we have floated out here, I have repeatedly scanned the Void, thinking every minute we would sight a craft we could reach. But so far luck has been against us. All I ask is that you do not allow yourselves to be discouraged, for sooner or later we'll get a break."

A chorus of enthusiastic approval answered him. Winford sighed with relief, then stared abruptly through the window and gave a shout. The others below swarmed up the ladder and crowded into the tiny control nest. Winford pointed.

Far off against the black depths of s.p.a.ce toward Venus gleamed the tiny, elliptical, silvery hull of a ship, bearing slightly toward them.

Although sharply outlined, the craft was hundreds of miles away as the men realized. Winford checked it swiftly through the telescope distance calculator, determined its speed, and rapidly formed his plan.

"There are plenty of s.p.a.ce suits in the lockers," he said tersely. "Get into them. Stand by the air-lock. You, Jarl, get into the lock and take a cable with an electro-magnet anchor. Lash yourself to it. When I give the signal by blinking the lights in the lock, open the outer door and leap across to the other ship. I know you risk death from their rays, but it is our only chance. Clamp the anchor against the side of the ship and locate the emergency entrance lock."

"Suppose there is none?" interrupted Jarl stoically.

"Chances are there will be. The interplanetary treaties call for them on most ships since those five hundred pa.s.sengers perished trying vainly to enter a liner after their own ship was smashed by a meteor out near Jupiter several years ago. Anyway, it's our only chance. You, Nizzo and Ragna, enter the air-lock with Jarl so that if he misses, you can pull him back. Now hurry. I'll have to maneuver this tub around so that I can approach the ship, if possible, without being noticed."

The others scuttled back down the ladder, leaving Winford to rapidly work out his final calculations. The ship, traveling at a rate of six thousand miles an hour, would miss their little sphere by about a hundred miles. The ship was probably a slow speed freighter, a guess that was supported by the lack of port-holes in the hull.

It was a ticklish task that Winford faced. He could either approach the freighter from against the sun, trusting that the navigation officer on duty would fail to notice the dark blot of the little tender against the blinding glare. Or he could get on the far side of the ship and approach it, concealed by its black shadow. He decided on the latter plan.

The freighter was coming up fast. Winford eased the accelerator open, and moved off at right angles to its line of progress to place it between him and the sun. If the officer in charge of the freighter should see the tiny dot go shooting presently across his path, he would doubtless mistake it for a wandering meteor. As soon as he crossed the path of the big ship, Winford slowly turned his little craft toward the protecting shadow of his prospective victim, and picked up speed as quickly as he dared until the little tender was traveling at the same speed as the freighter. Lucky it was for him that the big craft was not a mail liner, for if it had been, the little ball could never have gained speed enough to equal it.

The shadow of the freighter presently enveloped the little ship, and the two hung side by side. Winford eased the tender in toward the big craft, fully realizing that the meteor warning dial in the control room of the freighter would hint at his presence by its p.r.o.nounced fluctuation. But there was no help for it; he could only take the chance that the navigator in charge would not investigate. Winford peered up anxiously at the windows of the control room. Apparently the little craft had not yet been discovered.

Less than a hundred yards now separated the two craft. Winford flashed his signal to the air-lock. A moment later a dark blob that shut off the light of the stars in depths below floated across the gap from the tender to the freighter. The electric meter on the control board registered a sudden fluctuation as the electro-magnet anchor attached itself to the hull of the big ship.

Winford snapped off the propulsion beams, seized two ray pistols that lay on the chart table, and ducked down the ladder. His companions were standing before the inner door of the air-lock in their bulging s.p.a.ce suits, awaiting his order to leave the tender. He quickly got into a suit, clamped on the helmet and screwed tight the connections. Then he opened the door of the air-lock and motioned the others into it, following the last man in.

Nizzo and Ragna were waiting there, and as the inner door closed, automatically opening the outer door, they pointed to the cable stretching away across forty yards of empty s.p.a.ce to the side of the big freighter. Winford could make out faintly the form of Jarl, who was clambering cautiously up the bulging side of the ship on hands and knees, seeking the emergency air-lock. Winford beckoned to the others to follow, and leaped out into s.p.a.ce along the cable.

It was a terrifying experience, for no matter how often a man made such a trip, there was always the primitive fear of falling into those millions upon millions of miles of s.p.a.ce below where the stars gleamed, red, green, white and blue in the cold depths. Yet a man had no weight.

He merely pulled himself along the cable, which kept him from getting lost.

He reached the bulging side of the hull and continued upward on hands and knees, now held to it by its own attraction for his body. The others followed, and scattered out seeking the emergency entrance lock.

At the end of an hour they were in despair. There was no emergency entrance lock! Winford bitterly resigned himself to their fate. This was the end of their daring attempt. He must go forward now to the control room windows and attract the attention of the navigating officer. It meant surrender and subsequent death in the teeth of the caged saurians, but if they remained much longer where they were they would freeze to death anyway, for the batteries that warmed their suits were running down under the continued strain, and when they ceased to function, the deadly cold of interstellar s.p.a.ce would claim them. He managed to make known his intentions to the others and was starting forward when Fate took a hand.

The prison tender ship, which was still floating at the end of its cable at the side of the freighter, relinquished itself to the play of the forces that rule the measureless void and began to set up an orbit of its own about the bigger ship. It came to the end of its tether and swung gently against the hull of the freighter, sending a violent vibration through it; then it rebounded and struck with another crash which was utterly soundless to the stranded men on the outside of the hull, who, nevertheless, felt the vibration plainly.

Winford halted abruptly. The crew inside the ship would investigate.

Fate was offering the desperate men on the outside another chance. He turned and beckoned to the others and hurried aft toward the regular air-lock, which was operated only from inside the ship. Hastily he placed the men about the outer door. Then they waited.

Five minutes later it opened, and two men in s.p.a.ce suits crawled out.

Jarl captured the first man single-handed, and Nizzo and Ragna, with perfect teamwork, overpowered the second before he realized what was taking place. Within a minute the men crowded into the air-lock, and shut the outer portal. Automatically, the inner door slid open.

Winford stepped out into the pa.s.sageway with his ray pistols, covering the half dozen members of the crew who gaped at the intruders in speechless astonishment. One man recovered his wits and started to run.

Winford's pistol stabbed a ray after him, and he collapsed. The other members of the crew silently raised their hands in surrender and were herded into a nearby stateroom and locked in, including the two in s.p.a.ce suits who had been captured on the hull outside.

"Overpower and imprison the crew at once," Winford ordered, as he emerged from his s.p.a.ce suit. "Jarl, you take charge, and work through the ship. Miss no one. Bind them, imprison them, if you can, and if you must, use sterner measures. Remember you are now pirates, and if we don't capture this ship, the ship will capture us. I'll go ahead alone to the control room and introduce myself to the officers there. When you have cleaned things up, join me."

Captain Robers was peering out through the window at the dark blob of the s.p.a.ce tender near the rear of the big freighter when the door of the control room opened softly and Winford slipped inside with leveled ray pistols. The two navigation officers on duty gasped in astonishment.

Captain Robers whirled around. His momentary amazement gave way to wrath.

"Who the devil are you, and what do you want?" he bellowed.

Winford's eyes blazed coldly. The ray pistols in his hands twitched meaningly.