Mission: Earth "Death Quest" (32 page)
It was on autopilot and Heller had the long-cabled remote control in his pocket. He was walking about the cockpit drinking a nonalcoholic beer and eating a pastrami sandwich, admiring the distant shore and evidently enjoying the sun.
How typically Heller, I thought. I would have been as seasick as a dog and it made me feel queasy just watching him enjoy the day and his lunch.
I began to wonder what had happened to the Coast Guard. And then Heller, looking forward, caught sight of a speck several miles away, dead ahead.
There had been other ships, big freighters and tankers, parallelling the coast. He seemed to detect a difference in this item. I couldn't distinguish it on my screen but evidently he could with his naked eye.
He finished his beer and threw the can into a trash bucket. He stepped up on top of the instrument ledge and over the windshield, standing up on the foredeck,
to raise himself a few more feet. He leaned against the wind of passage. He looked intently.
"Hello, hello," he said. "You look like a military craft. And travelling at high speed."
He stepped back over the windshield and dropped to the cockpit. He perched on the edge of the pilot chair. "And now we'll see, Mr. Military Craft, if you have any interest in me."
He hit his autopilot remote and banked the ocean speedboat due east, away from the shore and more than right angles to his former course.
He watched the speck.
"Aha," he said. "An intercept!"
Baffled, I wondered how he knew and then I realized that the Coast Guarder had promptly changed course when Heller turned.
"Now, how fast are you?" said Heller. He watched it intently. Then, having somehow worked it out, he said, "Doing about 3 percent more speed than I am. That's bad."
He shifted his course a bit more southerly. The speck became a mast and bridge that even I could see. The vessel had a single large gun in the bow. It was manned!
"Well, nothing like finding out," said Heller.
He banked the speedboat in a steep turn of flying white spray. He sighted across his bow chock and began to close the distance!
He reached down through the companionway hatch and threw the switches of his radio on. He spun a dial.
"Sea Skiff 329-478A!"
the radio crackled above the engine roar, "lie to! We will come alongside!" The message was repeating over and over.
the radio crackled above the engine roar, "lie to! We will come alongside!" The message was repeating over and over.
The interval between the ships was closing at blinding speed.
Heller hit the remote. The Sea Skiff banked into a foam-flying 180-degree turn. He brought it on its new course, going straight away from the Coast Guarder.
A flash from the bow!
A GEYSER OF SALT WATER DEAD AHEAD OF HELLER!
BLAM!
The sound of the shot reverberated like a single beat of a bass drum.
The Sea Skiff tore through the geyser made by the projectile. __
"That's all I wanted to know," said Heller.
He hit the throttles a clip, closing them. The Sea Skiff sagged out of its plane.
Heller was diving into the bag that Izzy had brought. He came up with a Voltar handgun!
His thumb spun its control dial.
I thought, my Gods, I didn't know he was armed!
His eye was trained across the handgun sights. A finger was spinning another dial.
The Coast Guarder was about two hundred yards away. It killed its speed. The gunsights passed over the bridge, then centered on the black, round hole of the forward deck gun muzzle. At the instant that circle passed the sight, Heller hit another button. The handgun swung back.
BAM!
Heller had fired!
For an instant I thought hopefully he must have missed. Nothing flew apart on the Coast Guarder. It didn't blow up. It swerved to the south as it slowed.
Then suddenly the two-man gun crew leaped away from their naval piece, screaming!
THEIR GUN BREACH WAS MELTING!
Heller had fired a heat shot, centered by handgun computer, down the barrel of the thing!
"Now that the odds are more equal," said Heller, "we can get back at it." And he slammed his throttles wide open!
He sent the Sea Skiff toward the shore, glancing back to see what the Coast Guarder would do.
His radio was still on. It began to crackle. The Coast Guarder was calling his base.
"Can't have that," said Heller.
He raised and centered the handgun. He twirled a knob.
BAM!
The handgun fired.
The big whip aerials of the patrol craft shimmered and melted!
Heller aimed the handgun at the patrol-craft bridge. The Coast Guarder was getting underway in pursuit.
"Blast," said Heller. "I don't want to kill you guys. You're Fleet."
It was the kind of insane gallantry you could count upon from Heller. I felt now that we still had a chance to get him.
He shoved the handgun into his belt. He grabbed the sack Izzy had given him and got something out of it. Then he reached under the foredeck and grabbed an Aldis signal lamp.
The Coast Guarder was streaming after him. Heller raised the Aldis lamp. He centered it on the
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bridge. He began to send a single letter over and over.
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bridge. He began to send a single letter over and over.
A dot and a dash. Ah, International Code. That letter must mean something like "You're running into danger."
The Coast Guarder did not slacken its chase. White fans of spray flying, it was roaring after Heller. But through the Aldis sights, the men on its bridge could be seen coming out and training glasses on Heller, peering. Then a couple of men with rifles raced up to its bow. One of them fired!
Heller spelled out audibly, "Y-O-U-R E-N-G-I-N-E-S A-R-E A-B-O-U-T T-O B-L-O-W U-P."
Sudden racings about on the other ship!
Three men sprang up out of an afterhatch and raced forward.
"Now that you're all in sight..." muttered Heller. And he put a small box device on top of the Aldis lamp and pressed its trigger.
There was no sound. There was no flash.
ALL THE MEN ON THE COAST GUARDER DECK COLLAPSED!
He had said he wasn't going to kill them and then it appeared that he had!
Heller glanced at his device as he shut it off. Suddenly I knew it: a radio nerve-paralysis beam!
He looked forward.
The shore of New Jersey was dead ahead and coming up fast!
"Oh, you blasted fools!" he muttered. "You left your engines running! You're going to have a marine disaster!"
He threw down the Aldis lamp.
He was grabbing some twine out of his pocket. He wrapped it around his throttles.
Both ships were tearing straight at the beach!
Moving fast, Heller flipped some fenders that were tied along the coaming so that they fell outside. He grabbed the throttle strings he had fixed.
He worked the autopilot. The speedboat banked in a wide curve.
The Coast Guarder was streaking straight at the beach at forty knots!
Heller timed it. He was just ahead of the fast patrol craft and to its port. It overtook him.
He swerved the Sea Skiff slightly.
The suction that occurs between two ships brought them together side-by-side with a crunch.
Heller leaped up and grabbed the patrol-craft rail. He hit the autopilot switch and yanked the strings.
The Sea Skiff swerved away, engines suddenly silent.
Heller sprang over the rail. He jumped across the reclining bodies.
He stared ahead.
The beach was almost there!
He leaped into the pilothouse. He looked at the controls. He yanked a pair of levers back.
There was a racing whine and then a crunch.
He spun the wheel.
He had reversed the propellers at full speed!
Forward way had carried them into light green water.
Sand was boiling up.
There was a thump and scrape.
And then the Coast Guarder was backing into darker, deeper sea.
He looked out on the deck where a man with a lot of chevrons on his jacket was lying draped over a bitt.
Peevishly, Heller said, "You're supposed to SAVE people, not GET saved."
Chapter 7I wondered what he would do now. The Apparatus would never have acted this way so I was totally adrift. He should have left the
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to explode itself to bits against the beach and gone happily on his way. There is no understanding these Fleet people!
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to explode itself to bits against the beach and gone happily on his way. There is no understanding these Fleet people!
My next guess was that he would take her out into deeper water and sink her with all hands. Maybe he thought that would destroy the evidence. There were houses along the Jersey shore here. Maybe he didn't want witnesses.
As soon as I found out what he was going to do, I could call Captain Grumper and let him organize other effective steps to handle.
Heller got the
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well clear and then, at slow speed, went back to the drifting Sea Skiff. He coasted the patrol craft alongside. He got a line and fastened it on the foredeck chock of the Sea Skiff and then passed it aft on the Coast Guarder and made it fast to the towing bitts.
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well clear and then, at slow speed, went back to the drifting Sea Skiff. He coasted the patrol craft alongside. He got a line and fastened it on the foredeck chock of the Sea Skiff and then passed it aft on the Coast Guarder and made it fast to the towing bitts.
Then he came back to the
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forward deck.
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forward deck.
One by one, he dragged the unconscious crew into the salon. He went back and collected the rifles and a couple of caps and then threw them in.
He looked at the gun breach. It surely was melted.
It was still hot and smoking. He found a CO2 extinguisher and sprayed it, probably to cool it off. Then he picked up its canvas cover and lashed it in place, probably to obscure the odd damage.
Next he looked at what was left of the aerials: just puddles of melted metal. Methodically he scraped up the silvery blobs and threw them overboard.
He got his sack and took out a pair of cutters and neated up the aerial stubs so they looked sheared, not melted.
That done, he affixed a short piece of wire to one of the stubs and left it dangling.
He went into a ship office and started going through bookcases. He found a manual which gave the uniforms and ship complements of the Coast Guard.
He went back up to the salon and gazed at the recumbent bodies which lay upon the floor.
Apparently satisfied, he went below and started going through quarters and lockers. He located the uniforms of the most senior man aboard and changed his clothes.
He went back up to the bridge.
He eased the throttles forward and soon, towing the Sea Skiff, had the
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going down the coast at a leisurely pace. He put it on autopilot.
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going down the coast at a leisurely pace. He put it on autopilot.
He went to the radio and turned its volume high. Sure enough, there was a constant chatter, rather faint due to the lack of much aerial, calling for the
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to come in.
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to come in.
Heller picked up the mike. He acknowledged.
A voice from the speaker, "What's wrong? We couldn't raise you!"
"We had a little mishap," said Heller.
"You're coming in only Signal Three here. I can barely hear you."
Heller yelled into the mike, spacing his words distinctly. "We had a little mishap to radio and engines. Nothing serious. Everybody is a bit flaked out. The capture was successful. We are proceeding down the coast at reduced speed." He began to imitate a fade-out with his voice. "Radio is packing up. See you tomorrow afternoon...."
"Repeat last sentence, please."
Heller put down the mike and went back to gaze at the beautiful day.
It was probably his attitude, probably the way he propped his elbow on a radar and cupped his chin in his palm. Heller can drive anybody absolutely insane with things like that!
I went crazy. I phoned Captain Grumper.
"What's wrong now?" he said.
It was on the tip of my tongue to scream that an extraterrestrial had just seized his fast patrol craft. I checked myself in time. It would sound odd.
"The man," I said, "that you were supposed to capture has TAKEN OVER THE
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81!"
"Oh, I think not," said Grumper. "We've just had a message here that after a brave sea battle, fully commensurate with the exacting standards of the Coast Guard, the capture was made."
"You haven't got the full story!" I snarled.
"Well, they did have some trouble. Engines and radio. But it's all handled."
"You're not in communication with that craft!"
"Well, as I said, they had radio trouble."
"Why is he heading south instead of north?"
"Oh, is he?" said Grumper. Then, after a moment, "But his base is to the south."
"Listen, Grumper, if you value your commission, you had better send out ships and planes and recover your craft!"
"Yes, sir! At once, sir!"
I rang off. I had jarred them out of their complacency. What riffraff! Letting an extraterrestrial Royal officer walk right in and grab off one of their ships!
It made me pretty angry, I can tell you, having to sit there and watch Heller's view.
He seemed to find the sea gulls interesting.
Then he YAWNED!
He finally got busy. He checked the chart and some landmarks. He was going right on by Manasquan Inlet. He wasn't going to go into the Intracoastal Waterway where it went inland! He was just continuing on down the coast in the broad Atlantic! He was even edging further and further from the shore. You couldn't make out the houses now.
He got interested in the radio log. He found the message directing them to intercept him.
"Hmm," he said. "Strong language."
He looked over the ship's log, noting the time they had first sighted him and then the sketchy entries of the chase. These ceased abruptly with the notation of his Aldis lamp message to them about their engines.
Heller got his sack and looked through it. He took out a small vial. With great care he eradicated all the entries from the moment of first sighting on.
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