Atom Drive Part 3

"I'm Lana Elden," she said.

Jonner swore under his breath. A woman! But if she weren't qualified, her name would not have been on the Commission board.

The verbal contract was made quickly, and Jonner cut the Commission monitor into the line to make it binding. That was done often when rival ships, even of the same line, were bidding for the services of crewmen.

"Blastoff time is 2100 tonight," he said, ending the interview. "Be here."

Jonner left the personnel office and walked down the hall. At the elevator, Deveet and Kruger hurried out, almost colliding with him.

"Jonner, we've run into trouble!" exclaimed Deveet. "s.p.a.ce Fuels won't sell us any hydrazine and nitric acid to refill the tanks. They say they have a new contract with Marscorp that takes all their supply."

"Contract, h.e.l.l!" snorted Jonner. "Marscorp owns s.p.a.ce Fuels. What can be done about it, Kruger?"

Kruger shook his head.

"I'm all for you, but s.p.a.ce Control has no jurisdiction," he said. "If a private firm wants to restrict its sales to a franchised line, there's nothing we can do about it. If you had a franchise, we could force them to allot fuel on the basis of cargo handled, since s.p.a.ce Fuels has a monopoly here. But you don't have a franchise yet."

Jonner scratched his grey head thoughtfully.

It was a serious situation. The atom-powered _Radiant Hope_ could no more make a planetary landing than the chemically-powered ships. Its power gave a low, sustained thrust that permitted it to accelerate constantly over long periods of time. To beat the powerful pull of planetary surface gravity, the terrific burst of quick energy from the streamlined G-boats, the planetary landing craft, was needed.

"We can still handle it," Jonner said at last. "With only twenty tons return cargo, we can take it up this trip. Add some large parachutes to that, Deveet. We'll shoot the end of the cable down by signal rocket, out in the lowlands, and stop the winch when we've made contact, long enough to attach the rest of the cargo to the cable. Pull it down with the cable and, with Mars' low gravity, the parachutes will keep it from being damaged."

But when Jonner got back to the landing field to check on unloading operations, his plan was smashed. As he approached the G-boat, a mechanic wearing an ill-concealed smirk came up to him.

"Captain, looks like you sprung a leak in your fuel line," he said. "All your hydrazine's leaked out in the sand."

Jonner swung from the waist and knocked the man flat. Then he turned on his heel and went back to the administration building to pay the 10-credit fine he would be a.s.sessed for a.s.saulting a s.p.a.ceport employee.

The s.p.a.ce Control Commission's hearing room in Mars City was almost empty. The examiner sat on the bench, resting his chin on his hand as he listened to testimony. In the plaintiff's section sat Jonner, flanked by Deveet and Lana Elden. In the defense box were the Mars Corporation attorney and Captain Rus...o...b..at of the _Marsward XVIII_. Kruger, seated near the rear of the room, was the only spectator.

The Mars Corporation attorney had succeeded in delaying the final hearing more than a 42-day Martian month by legal maneuvers. Meanwhile, the _Marsward XVIII_ had blasted down to Phobos, and G-boats had been shuttling back and forth unloading the vessel and reloading it for the return trip to Earth.

When testimony had been completed, the examiner shuffled through his papers. He put on his spectacles and peered over them at the litigants.

"It is the ruling of this court," he said formally, "that the plaintiffs have not presented sufficient evidence to prove tampering with the fuel line of the G-boat of the s.p.a.ceship _Radiant Hope_. There is no evidence that it was cut or burned, but only that it was broken. The court must remind the plaintiffs that this could have been done accidentally, through inept handling of cargo.

"Since the plaintiffs have not been able to prove their contention, this court of complaint has no alternative than to dismiss the case."

The examiner arose and left the hearing room. Baat waddled across the aisle, puffing.

"Too bad, Jonner," he said. "I don't like the stuff Marscorp's pulling, and I think you know I don't have anything to do with it.

"I want to win, but I want to win fair and square. If there's anything I can do to help...."

"Haven't got a spare G-boat in your pocket, have you?" retorted Jonner, with a rueful smile.

Baat pulled at his jowls.

"The _Marsward_ isn't carrying G-boats," he said regretfully. "They all belong to the port, and Marscorp's got them so tied up you'll never get a sniff of one. But if you want to get back to your ship, Jonner, I can take you up to Phobos with me, as my guest."

Jonner shook his head.

"I figure on taking the _Radiant Hope_ back to Earth," he said. "But I'm not blasting off without cargo until it's too late for me to beat you on the run."

"You sure? This'll be my last ferry trip. The _Marsward_ blasts off for Earth at 0300 tomorrow."

"No, thanks, Russo. But I will appreciate your taking my ship's doctor, Dr. Elden, up to Phobos."

"Done!" agreed Baat. "Let's go, Dr. Elden. The G-boat leaves Marsport in two hours."

Jonner watched Baat puff away, with the slender, white-clad brunette at his side. Baat personally would see Lana Elden safely aboard the _Radiant Hope_, even if it delayed his own blastoff.

Morosely, he left the hearing room with Deveet.

"What I can't understand," said the latter, "is why all this dirty work, why didn't Marscorp just use one of their atom-drive ships for the compet.i.tion run?"

"Because whatever ship is used on a compet.i.tion run has to be kept in service on the franchised run," answered Jonner. "Marscorp has millions tied up in hydrazine interests, and they're more interested in keeping an atomic ship off this run than they are in a monopoly franchise. But they tie in together: if Marscorp loses the monopoly franchise and Atom-Star puts in atom-drive ships, Marscorp will have to switch to atom-drive to meet the compet.i.tion."

"If we had a franchise, we could force s.p.a.ce Fuels to sell us hydrazine," said Deveet unhappily.

"Well, we don't. And, at this rate, we'll never get one."

Jonner and Deveet were fishing at the Mars City Recreation Center. It had been several weeks since the _Marsward XVIII_ blasted off to Earth with a full cargo. And still the atomic ship _Radiant Hope_ rested on Phobos with most of her Marsbound cargo still aboard; and still her crew languished at the Phobos s.p.a.ce station; and still Jonner moved back and forth between Mars City and Marsport daily, racking his brain for a solution that would not come.

"How in s.p.a.ce do you get twenty tons of cargo up to an orbit 5,800 miles out, without any rocket fuel?" he demanded of Deveet more than once. He received no satisfactory answer.

The Recreation Center was a two-acre park that lay beneath the plastic dome of Mars City. Above them they could see swift-moving Phobos and distant Deimos among the other stars that powdered the night. In the park around them, colonists rode the amus.e.m.e.nt machines, canoed along the ca.n.a.l that twisted through the park or sipped refreshment at scattered tables. A dozen or more sat, like Jonner and Deveet, around the edge of the tiny lake, fishing.

Deveet's line tightened. He pulled in a streamlined, flapping object from which the light glistened wetly.

"Good catch," complimented Jonner. "That's worth a full credit."

Deveet unhooked his catch and laid it on the bank beside him. It was a metal fish: live fish were unknown on Mars. They paid for the privilege of fishing for a certain time and any fish caught were "sold" back to the management at a fixed price, depending on size, to be put back into the lake.

"You're pretty good at it," said Jonner. "That's your third tonight."

"It's all in the speed at which you reel in your line," explained Deveet. "The fish move at pre-set speeds. They're made to turn and catch a hook that moves across their path at a slightly slower speed than they're swimming. The management changes the speeds once a week to keep the fishermen from getting too expert."

"You can't beat the management," chuckled Jonner. "But if it's a matter of matching orbital speeds to make contact, I ought to do pretty well when I get the hang of it."

He c.o.c.ked an eye up toward the transparent dome. Phobos had moved across the sky into Capricorn since he last saw her. His memory automatically ticked off the satellite's...o...b..tal speed: 1.32 miles a second; speed in relation to planetary motion....

Why go over that again? One had to have fuel first. Meanwhile, the _Radiant Hope_ lay idle on Phobos and its crew whiled away the hours at the s.p.a.ce station inside the moon, their feet spinning faster than their heads ... no, that wasn't true on Phobos, because it didn't have a spin to impart artificial gravity, like the s.p.a.ce stations around Earth.