Comet's Burial Part 2

Whenever, in the slow swirling of the nucleus, tubes pointed in the calculated proper direction at right angles to the comet's course, they were fired in long bursts. Thus, slowly, like a perfectly-balanced bank vault door moved by a finger, the ma.s.s of the comet--slight by volume, but still measuring many thousands of tons--was deflected in the opposite direction. Astrogation-instruments showed the shift. Copeland had expected such coa.r.s.e deflection to be possible; still, it startled him--this was the moving of a celestial body!

"Just a little--for now, Cope," Brinker said. "We'll leave the fine aiming for later. Meanwhile we've got to pa.s.s the time, stay as well as we can, and keep our heads on straight."

Sure--straight! If Brinker hadn't turned foolish before they had come, they wouldn't be out here at all. In a month they were already thinning down from malnutrition and strain. At first, thinking coldly, Copeland was sure they'd wilt and die long before they got near the Moon.

Then, as they managed to steady themselves some by the diversions of playing cards, and studying the intricacies of Martian equipment, he began to fear once more that Brinker might succeed in his efforts--but fail terribly in result.

Many times Copeland went over the same arguments, struggling to speak calmly, and without anger: "I wonder if you realize it, Brinker--with enough velocity one large meteor carries more energy than a fission bomb. A whole comet would affect thousands of square miles of the lunar surface, at least. Smash equipment, kill men. And if the comet happened to miss the Moon and hit Earth--"

Sometimes Brinker's expression became almost fearful, as at an enormity.

But then he'd turn stubborn and grin. "There's plenty of room to avoid hitting the Earth," he'd say. "On the Moon, astronomers will warn of the shifted orbit of Brulow's Comet in plenty of time for everybody to get out of danger. Most of what we've got to worry about now, is our lives, or jail ..."

A moment later, as like as not, they'd be slamming at each other with fists. Copeland found it hard to contain his fury for the man who had brought him such trouble, and--without intent--was so determined to extend it to many others.

Brinker kept winning the sc.r.a.ps. But Copeland's ten-year age-advantage meant something when it came to enduring hardship and partial-starvation over a long period. They didn't weaken equally.

This levelling of forces was one thing that Copeland waited for. Another was that when Brulow's Comet was found to be off course, a ship might be sent to investigate. He never mentioned it, certainly; but once Brinker said: "I'm ready for what you're thinking, Cope. I've got weapons."

By then they spent much of their time in torpid sleep.

Another difficulty was that it was getting harder to keep one's mind consistently on the same track. s.p.a.ce, tribulation, and the months, were having their blurring effect.

Often, Copeland spent many hours in wistful reverie about his girl, Frances, in Iowa. Sometimes he hated all people--on Earth, Moon, and everyhere, and didn't care what happened to them. On other occasions Brinker's basic desire to lessen the desolation of the lunar scene looked supremely good to him--as of course it always had, in principle.

Then, briefly and perhaps madly, he was Brinker's pal, instead of yearning to beat him to a pulp.

Somehow, twenty months crept by, and the first s.p.a.ceship hove inquisitively close to Brulow's Comet. A shadow of his former self, Brinker crept out of the cavern to man his weapons. But like a famished beast seeking prey, Copeland followed him.

His victory, now, was almost easy. Then all he had to do was wait to be picked up; the ship was coming nearer. Through the now much-brightened glow of the comet, it had ceased to be a planetlike speck reflecting sunlight; and showed its actual form.

Confusion whirled in Copeland's head; hunger gnawed in him. Yet he looked down at Brinker--poor Brinker, beaten unconscious inside his s.p.a.cesuit. Brinker had tried to fight lifeless dreariness. Copeland, weak of body and fogged of mind, was now close to maudlin tears.

Dreariness was the enemy--here as elsewhere. He tried to think; his stubborn nature mixed itself with splinters of reason, and seemed to make sense.

His twenty months of suffering out here had to be used--mean something--didn't it? It couldn't be just a futile blank. You had to follow a thing started through to the end, didn't you? Brinker wanted to improve the Moon, which certainly needed that. Okay--finish the job that had gone so far. d.a.m.n desolation everywhere! Fight it! Smash it! Sudden rage made Copeland's thin blood pound. Dimly he realized that he was driven by the same dreariness-disease that motivated Brinker. So what?

Who cared about smashed lunar equipment, after all. And beside experience, prison would be paradise.

Copeland fired a Martian rocket-launcher, aiming behind the ship. He saw the blaze of atomic fission. Jets flaming, the craft fled.

In his phones he heard a voice that he remembered: "That you, Brinker?

Trying your father's trick, eh? Idiot! You'll kill yourself, or be executed. And now you even shoot!"

Fury at Krell clinched Copeland's decision. He did not answer him. But when Brinker woke up he said savagely, without friendship or forgiveness, yet with cooperation: "We're on the same side, now. Let's aim Brulow's Comet."

Concentrating was hard, but they had their instruments and calculators.

Velocity, position, and course of both comet and Moon had to be coordinated to make them arrive in the same place at the same moment. It was a problem in astrogation, but a comet was not as easily directed as a s.p.a.ce ship. Copeland had once thought that the necessary fine guiding couldn't be done. The jet-system they had rigged in that inconveniently whirling nucleus was crude.

But one thing was in their favor; they had ample time. They could adjust their course with the jets, check with instruments, and re-adjust--again and again. Copeland found himself doing the vital part of the job; he was better at math than Brinker.

They still had plenty of Martian food left--for what it was worth to human insides. Perhaps unified purpose and action brightened their outlook a little, helping their bodies. They could never work very long--even in the almost total absence of gravity. But--at least--their weakness wasn't increasing now.

During those last four months they drove several ships away. Earth and Moon swelled to spheres, ahead. Brulow's Comet lengthened its tail under increased solar light-pressure. Intensified radiation made its shifting colors glorious.

Brinker and Copeland lined their gigantic missile up on its target as perfectly as they could. Fifty hours before the crash was due, they smashed most of the jets. The remaining ones they tried, feebly, to refit into their ship, meaning thus to escape.

Three s.p.a.ce Patrol craft showed up, and they had to man their weapons.

Copeland hated to be an outlaw; but now he could not see effort brought to nothing. Brinker and he had survived so far, accomplishing much--far better results than he had expected; it made him surer that their purpose was generally sound.

More missiles were fired carefully--not to do damage, but to discourage the intruders; the latter were held at bay for another twelve hours.

Copeland and Brinker left radio commands and threats unanswered, so it was hard for their opponents to get a fix on their position in the whirling nucleus.

Explosions blazed around them, but never very close. Ma.s.ses of iron and stone were shattered and half vaporized, cooling subsequently to fine dust. The nucleus of Brulow's Comet expanded a bit under the battering that went on within it.

At an opportune moment, Copeland and Brinker clung to one of their jet-tubes and, gunning it very lightly, rode it from the central core-ma.s.s of the nucleus to a lesser meteor, and hid in a cleft. A dust-poll had concealed their change of position. And now, with so many other large meteors around them, they would be almost impossible to find.

They glimpsed the Patrol craft invading the heart of the comet. Men poured forth, struggling to set up jets in the hope of still deflecting this juggernaut from the Moon. But the comet was already much too close; before the setting-up was half completed it had to be abandoned. Still, the ships remained almost to the last.

Copeland wondered tensely if they'd ever go. His withered palms perspired.

"We could still yell for help--have them take us off," Brinker suggested when they had left. He spoke by sound-channel contact.

The Moon loomed huge and ugly ahead. Copeland gave it a scared glance, and then laughed grimly. "Ironic, that would be," he snapped, "No--we've got this jet to ride, and we're still at liberty."

From s.p.a.ce, lashed to the flaming propulsion tube, they saw the crash happen. It was a terrific spectacle. Copeland's hopes now had jagged cracks of worry. The comet seemed to move slowly, its coma flattening over the Moon's s.p.a.ceward hemisphere. There were blinding flashes as the chunks of its nucleus bit into the lunar crust, their energy of velocity converting largely to heat. Then dust masked the region of impact. The comet's tail collapsed over the Moon like a crumbling tower.

Copeland gulped. He saw that Brinker had gone limp--fainted. Weakness was enough to cause that; but the fact of a plan carried out had a shock in it, too.

Copeland worked the jury-rigged controls of the jet, continuing to decelerate. At spotty intervals, under the terrible thrust of reducing speed, he was unconscious, too.

There was no such thing as picking a landing-spot. Checking velocity soon enough, so close to the Moon, took all of the propulsion tube's power--so he just followed the comet down. Almost at a stand-still at last, balanced on a streamer of flame, he toppled into hot dust Feebly he worked to unlash himself from the tube. Brinker, jolted back to semi-consciousness, managed to do the same.

Weakened and spent, they could not even lift themselves against the slight lunar gravity for a while.

The darkness around them was Stygian. But as more dust settled, the sky cleared, and the normal stars of the lunar night blazed out. Their attention was drawn in one direction inevitably.

Red-hot lava glowed there, in scattered areas over what was clearly an extensive expanse of territory. White vaporous plumes spurted high above the ground, and against the sides of new-formed meteor-craters, a white layer was collecting.

Copeland staggered erect. "Frost and snow!" he stammered. "From volcanic steam! The first frost and snow on the Moon in a billion years! We've done it, Brinker! Brulow's Comet really did crack the thick lunar crust...."

He heard Brinker's grunt of premature enthusiasm.

The Patrol picked them up hours later, wandering dazedly. They were emaciated ghosts of men--almost skeletons in armor. They gave their names, but didn't really come to their senses until the prison doctor in Tycho Station treated them, and they had slept for a long time.

"Don't worry, fellas. Relax," he said--with fury in his eyes.