The Finding Of Haldgren Part 4

Once a patrol ship spoke to them. Daylight had come to show plainly the silver hull with the distinctive red markings of the Service that slipped smoothly down from above to hang poised under flashing fans like a giant humming-bird. Her directed radio beam flashed the yellow call signal in O'Malley's control room.

Chet was beside him, and the two exchanged silent glances before O'Malley cut in his transmitter. He must give name and number--this signal was a demand that could not be disregarded--but on the old freighter was no automatic sender that would flash the information across to the other ship; the pilot's voice must serve instead.

"Number three--seven--G--four--two!" he thundered into the radiophone.

"Freighter of the Intercolonial Line, without cargo--"

"For the love of Pete," shouted the loudspeaker beside him in volume to drown out the pilot's words, "are you sending this by short wave, or are you just yelling across to me? Calm down, you Irish terrier!"

Then, before the pilot could reply, the voice from the silver and red patrol ship dropped into an exaggerated mimicry of the O'Malley brogue--

"And did yez say 'twas a freighter you had there? Sure, I thot at th'

very last 'twas a foine big liner from the Orient and Transpolar run, dropped down here from the hoigh livils! All right, Spud; on your way!

But don't crowd the bottom of the Twelve Level so close. This is O--sixteen--L; Jimmy Maddux. By--by! I'll report you O.K."

Again Chet looked at the pilot silently before he glanced back at the vanishing ship, already small in the distance. He repeated the Patrol Captain's words:

"You will 'report us O.K.'--yes, Jimmy, you'll do that, and if they want to find us again you can tell them right where to look."

"I'm pushin' her all I can, Mr. Bullard," said Spud. "'Tis all she can do.... And now do ye go into my cabin--there's two berths there--and we'll just turn in and sleep while my relief man takes his turn. But go in before I call him; there's not a soul on the ship besides ourselves knows that you're here."

And, in the cabin a short time later, Pilot O'Malley chuckled as he whispered: "I gave the lad his course. And Mac will follow it, but it'll niver take him near to the part of Rooshia he expects it to. Still, the record's clear as far as he's concerned; I've got it in the log. Mac's a good lad, and I wouldn't have him get into trouble over this."

In the freighter's cabin the chronometer was again approaching the hour of twenty-two; for nearly twenty-four hours the ship had been on her plodding way. And, lacking the A.D.D.--the Automatic Destination Detector--and other refinements of instrumental installations of the pa.s.senger ships, Pilot O'Malley had to work out his position for himself.

And where a faster craft would have driven through with scarcely a quiver, the big ship trembled with the buffets and suction of a wintry blast that drove dry snow like sand across the lookout gla.s.ses. The twelve thousand level was an unbroken cloud of snow--a gray smother where the red ship's blunt and rusty bow nosed through.

O'Malley clung to the chart table as the air gave way beneath them and the ship fell a hundred feet or more before her racing fans took hold and jerked her back to an even keel. He managed to check his figures, then moved to the door of his cabin, opened it and called softly.

Chet was beside him in an instant. It had seemed best that he remain in hiding, and he knew what the pilot's call meant. "Made it, did you!" he exclaimed. "Now I'll take a look about and pick up my bearing points."

But one look at the ports and he shook his head.

"That's dirty," he told O'Malley, and his eyes twinkled as he felt the old ship rear and plunge with the lift of a driving gale; "and how the old girl does feel it! She can't rip through, and she can't go above.

You've had some trip, Spud; it's been mighty decent of you to go to all this--"

A flashing of yellow light on the instrument panel brought his thanks to a sudden halt. A voice, startling in its sudden loudness, filled the little room.

"Calling three--seven--G--four--two! Stand by for orders! Patrol O--sixteen--L sending; acknowledge, please!"

Chet's eyes were staring into those of O'Malley. "That's Jimmy Maddux back on our trail," he said. "Now, what has got them suspicious?"

He glanced once at the collision instrument. "He's right overhead at thirty thousand," he added; "and there are more of them coming in from all sides. Now what the devil--"

Spud O'Malley had his hand on the voice switch. "Be quiet!" he commanded; then spoke into the transmitter--

"Three--seven--G--four--two acknowledging!" he said, and again Chet observed how all trace of accent had departed from his voice; it was an indication of the moment's tenseness and of the pilot's full understanding of their position.

The answering order was crisply spoken; this was a different Jimmy Maddux from the one who had chaffed the Irish pilot some hours before.

"Stand by! We're coming down! Records at Hoover Terminal show two men reporting at pilots' gate under the number of your engineer, CG41. Hold your ship exactly where you are; we're sending a man aboard!"

Chet had moved silently to the controls. The old multiple-lever instrument--he knew it well! But he looked at Spud O'Malley and waited for his nod of a.s.sent before he presumed to trespa.s.s on another pilot's domain. Then he shifted two little levers, and the ship fell away beneath them as it plunged toward the Earth.

And Pilot O'Malley was explaining to the Patrol Ship Captain as best he could for the rolling plunge of the careening ship:

"I can't hold her, sir. And you'd best be keepin' away. It's stormin'

fearful down here, and I can't rise above it! Keep clear!--I'm warnin'

you!" The hum of their helicopters rose to a shrill whine as Chet drove the ship out and down through the smothering clouds. "You must hear her fans on your instruments; you can see how we're pitchin'!"

He switched off the transmitter for a moment and faced Chet. "They've been checkin' close," he stated. "That was my engineer's number I gave you as we came through the gate. And, of course, he had given it before when he reported in. Now we're up against it."

The collision instrument was humming with the sound of many motors, and warning lights were giving their silent alarm of the oncoming ships.

"They're comin' in," Spud went on hopelessly, "like a flock of kites in the tropics when one of them's found somethin' dead--and it's us that's the carca.s.s!"

But Chet was not listening. The snowy clouds had broken for an instant; their ship had driven through and beneath them. Through the wild, whirling chaos of white there came for an instant a rift--and far across an icy expanse Chet glimpsed a range of black hills!

He spoke sharply to the pilot. "That's Jimmy Maddux above us--kid him along, Spud! Tell him we're coming up, don't let him grab us with his magnets! This is putting you in a devil of a hole, old man. I'm sorry!--but we've got to see it through now.

"You can never set this ship down, Spud; that patrol would be on our backs in half a second. And they'd knock me out with one shot the minute I stepped outside."

The clear s.p.a.ce in the storm had filled again with the dirty gray of wind-whipped snow; off at the right a dim glow of distant fires was the midnight sun as it shone for a brief moment. One blast, more malignant in its fury than those that had come before, tore first at the blunt bow, then caught them amidships to roll the big, sluggish freighter till her racked framework shrieked and chattered.

Spud pointed through a rear lookout where a silvery Patrol Ship flashed down through the clouds. "There's Jimmy!" he shouted. "He's takin' no chances of our landing--he's right on our tail!"

But Chet Bullard, his hands working at the control levers, was staring straight ahead into that gray blast; and his eyes were shining as he pulled back on a lever that threw them once more into the concealment of the whirling clouds above.

"Spud," he was shouting, "have you got a 'chute? You freighters have 'em sometimes. Get me a 'chute and I'll fool them yet! I saw the shed--our hangars--our work shop! There's where our ship is!"

They were lost once more in the snow that seemed to be driving past in solid drifts. Chet heard Spud shouting down a voice tube. And, curiously, it was plain that the Irish pilot had lost all tenseness from his voice; he was happy and as carefree as if he had found the answer to all his perplexing questions. He was calling an order to his relief pilot.

"Mac--do ye break out two parachutes, me lad! Bring 'em up here, and shake a leg! No, there's nothin' to worry about--divil a thing!"

Then, into the transmitter, he shouted thickly as he switched the instrument on: