Jack of No Trades Part 7

"That'll get them there a little while after the crash," Elmer said.

"In time to get in on the marsquakes and the dust storms."

"Yeah," said Artie, "if they make it through the atmosphere while it's still being churned."

"Why don't you guys stow the chatter," I said brusquely. "Let us hear what's going on."

The announcer was saying, "... in ninety seconds. All hope of regaining control of the ship is past. The entire crew is now in the four lifeboats ready to leave." Then he started a long countdown, a full sixty seconds.

The scope magnified the ship more.

I found myself holding my breath. The countdown neared an end--ended.

And two lifeboats sprang from each side of the freighter.

The scope lost them for a moment, then picked up one pair. They were almost invisible specks in the background.

In another five minutes they had joined the other pair of lifeboats, and all four were now headed slowly toward Mars, apparently well behind the mother ship.

The scope shifted back to the abandoned ship. The announcer was saying:

"And now take a long last look at this--this compounded missile that in a few hours may very well destroy a world unless a miracle--"

The scene, the words could not have been more perfectly timed even in a cla.s.s B trideo s.p.a.ce thriller. The racing derelict was framed against a background of ruddy Mars, then the next instant the area completely around it seemed to blacken out. Then it started glowing, increasing in intensity, expanding, throwing fiery arms wildly outward. It became a nova of fury. The scope had it centered beautifully. Even the coolest molten blobs could be seen being pushed from the ma.s.s until the inner h.e.l.l caught up with them and turned them into vapor.

A quick-thinking engineer must have thrown a filter somewhere in the scope's innards, for the scene became sort of an X-ray one in which the glare of the light no longer impeded vision. The heart of the fury could easily be seen as it expanded itself, feeding and growing on the solid matter within its reach. The central fury overtook the lagging perimeter forces, engulfed them, then blossomed out, thinned, and became a diaphanous curtain rippling and shimmering in an uncertainty of direction. It waned, leaving a residual flicker that might have been only a product of imagination.

The entire magnificent show lasted ten minutes. For each second of each minute of that time, I'll swear I held my breath! And everyone else in the station at that time would say the same about himself. It was that striking, that breath-taking.

Some seconds after the spectacle was over, there was a near-silence.

Then cheers broke loose. Such a confined din I hope never to hear again. The dramatic suspense had been so effectively communicated for so many hours, the miraculous sudden release seemed to demand an over-compensating effect. Everyone seemed suddenly to believe it an excellent reason to celebrate--and they certainly did!

Speculation as to what caused the explosion ran riot. But to me it was plainly w.i.l.l.y's influence reaching out to a company ship's crew and Mars personnel. It might seem that I had gambled a little too much on w.i.l.l.y's influence, but not really. I had observed and recorded that particular synergism and had every confidence in the results. w.i.l.l.y's Rube Goldberg had a combination of built-in errors which produced a series of compensating course alterations that made the asteroid de-energize and materialize right smack in normal s.p.a.ce where the freighter was--after the crew escaped.

The blackness that had been noticeable for an instant was, of course, the asteroid coming out of sub-s.p.a.ce. And with the runaway trying to co-exist right in the middle of the asteroid, naturally everything vaporized. Mars was saved.

So was w.i.l.l.y.

So was I.

Goil? Well, I nailed him right away; confessed my duplicity in the course figures and tapes, and explained that I needed the time to let things happen the way w.i.l.l.y's influence makes them happen. I don't think Goil was totally convinced. But he must have been partly, at least, for with all the system's experts arguing about just exactly what made the ship explode, and with no two experts agreeing on an explanation, he might have given some benefit of the doubt to w.i.l.l.y.

Anyway, he was so relieved that his interests in Mars were saved that he smiled for the next three days, dismissed me as an incurable visionary or some other sort of nut, and chewed w.i.l.l.y out for two hours, then seemed to forget the matter.

Me? An appropriate length of time before the ship was abandoned, I radioed to a stock broker friend of mine on Earth and put every dime plus that I had into the mightily fallen stocks on Mars. Goil and I are now both big holders in the company.

w.i.l.l.y? He never suspected his part in the episode. Last time I heard, he was working on some fabulous government project as fifteenth a.s.sistant engineer. I guess the government had heard about him somehow. It seems that the fabulous project has working for it an egghead whose brainpower is such a necessity that he is hired even though he is a notorious accident p.r.o.ne. w.i.l.l.y, of course, neutralizes him so work can progress at normal rate.

THE END