Chapter 14. _Rockets Away!_

The next lap of their journey was uneventful. Saturn, the next outward

planet from the Sun, and the second largest, would present the same

problem as Jupiter. This world, famous for its mysterious rings, was

about 71,000 miles in diameter and had a large family of

satellites--nine in all. The Sun-tap station would be on one of these,

Burl thought.

Saturn was also almost as far out from Jupiter as Jupiter itself had

been from the Sun. This meant that the trip would be as long for the

_Magellan_ as the distance they had already traveled to get to Jupiter.

Fortunately the A-G drive was a remarkable thing--it was possible to

accelerate to fantastic speeds--in theory, probably right up to the

speed of light. And so, where great distances were concerned, the ship

simply rushed its fall through on Saturn's line of gravitation.

Boulton had fully recovered and showed no lingering signs of the strange

electronic charge. Because of the limited size of the crew, Lockhart put

the Marine captain back on full duty--he would participate in future

landings as if nothing had ever happened.

At the same time, Lockhart cautioned Haines, Burl and Ferrati to keep

their eyes on him. It was always possible that the foe's weapon had made

some more lasting mark.

Haines had his group make a new inventory of their weapons. Burl,

working with them in a space suit, in the partially protected region of

the cargo hull, was surprised at the variety. There was a second rocket

plane, a two-man outfit. In addition, they had a large store of

offensive weapons, including a small but formidable supply of atomic

explosives.

Haines gave Burl and Ferrati--who were new to military weapons--brief

introductory lectures on their use. Burl saw just what a hand-sized,

tactical atomic shell looked like and how it worked. He learned how to

operate the heavy-caliber rocket gun which hurled this tiniest of atomic

bombs.

And so the time passed, and the amazing disc of Saturn began to grow in

their viewplates. It was banded, much like Jupiter, and its brilliant

rings surrounded it with a mystic halo that set it apart from all the

other worlds of the Sun's family.

Burl was watching Saturn through the largest of the nose viewplates when

he thought that he saw a black dot crossing its face. He had located the

known moons of Saturn and this was not one of them. Excited, he called

Russell Clyde. "Could it be a tenth satellite?" he asked, pointing out

the tiny dot.

Russ squinted his eyes; then, calculating mentally, he shook his head,

"I don't think so. It looks to me more like something that's in space

between us and Saturn. In fact--it must be fairly close to us for us to

see it at all." He turned to Lockhart who was at the control panel with

Oberfield.

"You'd better have a look. Could be a giant meteor coming in our

direction."

"We're moving mighty fast," commented Oberfield. "It should have passed

us already if it were a meteor. Instead, it seems to be maintaining the

same distance--neither growing larger nor smaller. Acts very odd for a

natural body."

"Uh, uh," said Lockhart. "This calls for caution." He quickly went back

to the controls, pressed the general alarm button, then called into the

intercom. "All hands to emergency stations. Haines and party, please

prepare defensive positions."

"This means me," gulped Burl, and scooted down the central hatch, almost

colliding with Caton and Shea on their way to the engine room. He met

Haines, and, with neat dispatch, all four slipped into space suits. Then

out through the cargo hold to posts by escape hatches.

Burl and Haines, at the main entry port, unlimbered the long rocket

launcher that had been set up in the passageway. Haines placed three

shells of differing strength in position.

They heard through their helmet phones that the mysterious dot was

drawing closer. Haines set up one of the launching racks, which was

equipped with a telescopic sighter, and peered through the eyepiece.

Apparently he caught it, for he grunted, then motioned to Burl to take a

look.

It was no natural object. It was the shape of a dumbbell--two spheres

joined together by a short middle bar. One sphere was a deep, golden

color, the other a bluish-silver, the connecting rod a coppery metal.

"The pattern of spheres certainly suggests the Sun-tappers to me," said

Burl. Haines murmured his agreement.

Lockhart's voice came on the phones. "We've decided it's one of the

Sun-tapper ships. We're not going to wait to make sure. Before we left

Earth, I can now inform you, I received a directive from the President

to regard the builders of these Sun-tap stations as active enemies. My

orders are that we are not to attempt to undertake peaceful contact, but

are to treat them on sight as armed foes in the field. To do otherwise

is to risk Earth's last active defense--this ship.

"I think I don't have to argue this further, considering our recent

experiences." His voice hesitated, then rang out firmly, "Haines, you

can commence firing at will!"

Haines clicked his tongue and reached for one of the shells. "Okay,

Burl, aim at her direct. This one's got a proximity nose that'll beam at

her and drive itself where ever she ducks."

He slid the rocket shell into the launcher, Burl sighted, and then

Haines pressed the trigger. There was a whoosh of fire and a flare from

the launcher's nose. A minute spark winged into the darkness toward the

spot, still many miles away, where the strange ship hung.

They watched with bated breath. Suddenly there was a flash of light from

the other ship--a vivid lightning bolt which leaped out and flared up

briefly in space. Then darkness again.

"They fired a burst of energy at us. It hit the rocket shell instead,"

said Haines. "Well, now we know. They use bolts of pure

energy--something like the one they fired at Boulton."

He fitted another shell into the launcher, and fired again. Again a

spark winged its way, and the bolt of energy burst out to detonate the

shell. Burl whistled. "How did they spot it so fast?" he asked.

"I don't think they did. They're firing at us--the rocket shell only

happened to be between," snapped Haines.

"Ferrati," he called into his mike, "fire a shrapnel shell at them when

I say the word. Advise me when ready!"

Ferrati's voice snapped back. "Right you are, sir. Here it is now, one

minute--okay, on target!"

While Ferrati and Boulton were readying their shot from the lower cargo

port near the tail of the ship, Haines and Burl had been fitting the

largest of their shells into their own launcher. They aimed it

carefully at the front-most sphere of the enemy.

"Ferrati, fire!" cried Haines, and then slowly counted to five and

pressed the stud of his own launcher.

There was a momentary flicker as Ferrati's rocket shell raced forth

below. Then, after a definite time lapse, the exhaust of Haines' heavy

shell appeared.

"The shrapnel shell is segmented and doesn't have a proximity guide,"

Haines explained. "As soon as it's on its way, the nose comes apart into

a dozen small shells, each with a standard explosive charge. The shell

we used has an atomic bomb warhead and is on proximity guide. It'll

chase that ship to the ends of the system if they don't blast it first."

He paused. There was another bolt of raw energy from the dumbbell-shaped

craft, and this time a series of flares in the space between--the

shrapnel charges had been touched off. Burl held his breath.

"I figure it takes them a while to recharge their gun," said Haines.

"Our own blockbuster should get there before they fire again."

Then suddenly there came a sharper flare of brilliant light. For an

instant Burl was blinded by the glare. When he recovered, he peered

avidly through the telescopic sighter. He saw the ship, but where there

had been a golden sphere there was now only a shattered fragment of

twisted metal.

The enemy ship changed before his eyes. The remaining silvery sphere

glowed brighter, and took on a golden hue. Then it seemed as if the

ship were growing smaller. He realized finally that it was retreating.

Burl gave an involuntary shout, and in his earphones he heard the same

shouts of triumph from every voice on the ship.

Although it might have been possible to pursue the battered enemy ship,

the _Magellan_ did not try. They were still on course for Saturn and

were not going to deviate.

They reached Saturn after several more days. Matching their great speed

with that of the ringed world in its orbit took time, and then they

began their survey.

As they had suspected, the Sun-tap station was on one of the moons. The

moon was called Iapetus, the third largest of Saturn's family. It was

about eight hundred miles in diameter and the next to the farthest

satellite from Saturn. Russ was disappointed that they hadn't picked

Titan, the biggest moon of all. Titan was over two thousand miles wide

and appeared to have an atmosphere of methane.

The view of Saturn was awesome, even from Iapetus' orbit two million

miles away. Burl knew it would be a sight unparalleled in the system.

The great broad rings, composed of innumerable tiny particles of metal,

stone, and possibly ice, encircled it as if held there by an invisible

hand. They were, he knew, the particles of a moon that had either come

too close to Saturn's great gravitational pull to hold its shape, or

else had never escaped far enough to congeal as one solid mass.

Iapetus was a solid world, though. A rocky body, it had a dull gleam,

and was streaked here and there with layers of white and yellow, where

veins of frozen gases lay forever upon the frigid surface. No atmosphere

veiled the surface nor softened the harsh, jagged mountains and clefts

of this forbidding little subplanet.

The Sun-tap station stood in plain sight on a high plateau near a polar

region. The _Magellan_ hovered over it while Lockhart held a council of

war.

"I don't see what's to be gained by attempting a landing party," he

said. "We've taken all the readings and pictures of the other

stations--and we've had a couple of narrow escapes. They've probably

mined this one, and they have had plenty of time to prepare a trap. I'm

in favor of simply dropping an H-bomb on it and leaving."

After a brief discussion, with only perfunctory objections from Clyde

and Oberfield who, as astronomers, wanted to land to take other

readings, the decision was carried.

The _Magellan_ swung up a couple of hundred miles above the Sun-tappers'

plateau. Haines and his crew loaded the bulky H-bomb into the main

launcher in the tail of the ship. Then the _Magellan_ aimed itself at

the target, and the rocket-driven bomb roared out.

Down it sped, zeroing in on the wall of the station. There was a

blinding flash, a glare as brilliant as that of the Sun itself, as it

hit square on the mark. This time Burl watched through carefully

shielded viewscreens. The scene was obscured by a wide-flung cloud of

white--tens of thousands of cubic feet of satellite rock turned

instantaneously into dust particles. After the dust cleared away, they

saw only a gaping crater where the plateau had been--a volcanic hole,

miles wide and glowing red, from which spread vast, deep cracks

throughout the entire visible hemisphere of the moon.

The men on the _Magellan_ were awed and silent. The thought occurred to

each of them, beyond his capacity to deny it: what if this had happened

on Earth?

"Of course," said Ferrati slowly, "the low gravity of Iapetus accounts

for the greater extent of the disaster. If this had been Bikini or...."

But under the glares of the rest of the crew, his sentence trailed off

weakly.

Lockhart turned away from the viewer. "Mr. Oberfield," he said,

unexpectedly formal and official, "you may chart our course for Uranus."

"Aye, aye, sir," said that usually dour personage, with alacrity.

With forced smiles, the rest of the crew drifted away to their duties.

The _Magellan_ pulled away from Saturn, heading out again toward the

limits of the solar system, but it was several days before everyone had

quite managed to dismiss the vision of the H-bomb from his mind.