The SF Hall of Fame Volume Two B (35 page)

"Hey!" Ozaki groaned and buried his face in the
pillow.

"Hey!" This time the voice was louder. The pilot
yawned and tried to open his eyes.

"Is it important if all the lights go out?" the
voice queried. The import of the words suddenly struck home and Ozaki sat bolt
upright in his bunk. He opened his eyes, blinked, and opened them again. The
lights
were
out. There was a strange unnatural silence about the ship.

"Good Lord!" he shouted and jumped for the
controls. "The power's off."

He hit the starter switch but nothing happened. The
converter was jammed solid. Ozaki began to sweat. He fumbled over the control
board until he found the switch that cut the emergency batteries into the
lighting circuit. Again nothing happened.

"If you're trying to run the lights on the batteries,
they won't work," said Kurt in a conversational tone.

"Why not?" snapped Ozaki as he punched savagely
and futilely at the starter button.

"They're dead," said Kurt. "I used them all
up."

"You what?" yelled the pilot in anguish.

"I used them all up. You see, when the converter went
out, I woke up. After a while the sun started to come up, and it began to get
awfully hot so I hooked the batteries into the refrigeration coils. Kept the
place nice and cool while they lasted."

Ozaki howled. When he swung the shutter of the forward port
to let in some light, he howled again. This time in dead earnest. The giant red
sun of the system was no longer perched off to the left at a comfortable
distance. Instead before Ozaki's horrified eyes was a great red mass that
stretched from horizon to horizon.

"We're falling into the sun!" he screamed.

"It's getting sort of hot," said Kurt.
"Hot" was an understatement. The thermometer needle pointed at a
hundred and ten and was climbing steadily.

Ozaki jerked open the stores compartment door and grabbed a
couple of spare batteries. As quickly as his trembling fingers would work, he
connected them to the emergency power line. A second later the cabin lights
flickered on and Ozaki was warming up the space communicator. He punched the
transmitter key and a call went arcing out through hyperspace. The vision
screen flickered and the bored face of a communication tech, third class,
appeared.

"Give me Commander Krogson at once!" demanded
Ozaki.

"Sorry, old man," yawned the other, "but the
commander's having breakfast. Call back in half an hour, will you?"

"This is an emergency! Put me through at once!"

"Can't help it," said the other, "nobody can
disturb the Old Man while he's having breakfast!"

"Listen, you knucklehead," screamed Ozaki,
"if you don't get me through to the commander as of right now, I'll have
you in the uranium mines so fast that you won't know what hit you!"

"You and who else?" drawled the tech.

"Me and my cousin Takahashi!" snarled the pilot.
"He's Reclassification Officer for the Base STAP."

The tech's face went white. "Yes, sir!" he
stuttered. "Right away, sir! No offense meant, sir!" He disappeared
from the screen. There was a moment of darkness and then the interior of
Commander Krog-son's cabin flashed on.

The commander was having breakfast. His teeth rested on the
white tablecloth and his mouth was full of mush.

"Commander Krogson!" said Ozaki desperately.

The commander looked up with a startled expression. When he
noticed his screen was on, he swallowed his mush convulsively and popped his
teeth back into place.

"Who's there?" he demanded in a neutral voice in
case it might be somebody important.

"Flight Officer Ozaki," said Flight Officer Ozaki.

A thundercloud rolled across the commander's face.
"What do you mean by disturbing me at breakfast?" he demanded.

"Beg pardon, sir," said the pilot, "but my
ship's falling into a red sun."

"Too bad," grunted Commander Krogson and turned
back to his mush and milk.

"But, sir," persisted the other, "you've got
to send somebody to pull me off. My converter's dead!"

"Why tell me about it?" said Krogson in annoyance.
"Call Space Rescue, they're supposed to handle things like this."

"Listen, commander," wailed the pilot, "by
the time they've assigned me a priority and routed the paper through proper
channels, I'll have gone up in smoke. The last time I got in a jam it took them
two weeks to get to me; I've only got hours left!"

"Can't make exceptions," snapped Krogson testily.
"If I let you skip the chain of command, everybody and his brother will
think he has a right to."

"Commander," howled Ozaki, "we're frying in
here!"

"All right. All right!" said the commander sourly.
"I'll send somebody after you. What's your name?"

"Ozaki, sir. Flight Officer Ozaki."

The commander was in the process of scooping up another
spoonful of mush when suddenly a thought struck him squarely between the eyes.

"Wait a second," he said hastily, "you aren't
the scout who located the Imperial base, are you?"

"Yes, sir," said the pilot in a cracked voice.

"Why didn't you say so?" roared Krogson. Flipping
on his intercom he growled, "Give me the Exec." There was a moment's
silence.

"Yes, sir?"

"How long before we get to that scout?"

"About six hours, sir."

"Make it three!"

"Can't be done, sir."

"It will be done!" snarled Krogson and broke the
connection.

The temperature needle in the little scout was now pointing
to a hundred and fifteen.

"I don't think we can hold on that long," said
Ozaki.

"Nonsense!" said the commander and the screen went
blank.

Ozaki slumped into the pilot chair and buried his face in
his hands. Suddenly he felt a blast of cold air on his neck. "There's no
use in prolonging our misery," he said without looking up. "Those
spare batteries won't last five minutes under this load."

"I knew that," said Kurt cheerfully, "so
while you were doing all the talking, I went ahead and fixed the converter. You
sure have mighty hot summers out here!" he continued, mopping his brow.

"You what?" yelled the pilot, jumping half out of
his seat. "You couldn't even if you did have the know-how. It takes half a
day to get the shielding off so you can get at the thing!"

"Didn't need to take the shielding off for a simple job
like that," said Kurt. He pointed to a tiny inspection port about four
inches in diameter. "I worked through there."

"That's impossible!" interjected the pilot.
"You can't even see the injector through that, let alone get to it to work
on!"

"Shucks," said Kurt, "a man doesn't have to
see a little gadget like that to fix it. If your hands are trained right, you
can feel what's wrong and set it to rights right away. She won't jump on you
anymore either. The syncromesh thrust baffle was a little out of phase so I
fixed that, too, while I was at it."

Ozaki still didn't believe it, but he hit the controls on
faith. The scout bucked under the sudden strong surge of power and then, its
converter humming sweetly, arced away from the giant sun in a long sweeping
curve.

There was silence in the scout. The two men sat quietly,
each immersed in an uneasy welter of troubled speculation.

"That was close!" said Ozaki finally. "Too
close for comfort. Another hour or so and—!" He snapped his fingers.

Kurt looked puzzled. "Were we in trouble?"

"Trouble!" snorted Ozaki. "If you hadn't
fixed the converter when you did, we'd be cinders by now!"

Kurt digested the news in silence. There was something about
this super-being who actually made machines work that bothered him. There was a
note of bewilderment in his voice when he asked: "If we were really in
danger, why didn't you fix the converter instead of wasting time talking on
that thing?" He gestured toward the space communicator.

It was Ozaki's turn to be bewildered. "Fix it?" he
said with surprise in his voice. "There aren't a half a dozen techs on the
whole base who know enough about atomics to work on a propulsion unit. When
something like that goes out, you call Space Rescue and chew your nails until a
wrecker can get to you."

Kurt crawled into his bunk and lay back staring at the
curved ceiling. He had thinking to do, a lot of thinking!

Three hours later, the scout flashed up alongside the great
flagship and darted into a landing port. Right Officer Ozaki was stricken by a
horrible thought as he gazed affectionately around his smoothly running ship.

"Say," he said to Kurt hesitantly, "would you
mind not mentioning that you fixed this crate up for me? If you do, they'll
take it away from me sure. Some captain will get a new rig, and I'll be issued
another clunk from Base Junkpile."

"Sure thing," said Kurt.

A moment later the flashing of a green light on the control
panel signaled that the pressure in the lock had reached normal.

"Back in a minute," said Ozaki. "You wait
here."

There was a muted hum as the exit hatch swung slowly open.
Two guards entered and stood silently beside Kurt as Ozaki left to report to
Commander Krogson.

xin

The battle fleet of War Base Three of Sector Seven of the
Galactic Protectorate hung motionless in space twenty thousand kilometers out
from Kurt's home planet. A hundred tired detection techs sat tensely before
their screens, sweeping the globe for some sign of energy radiation. Aside from
the occasional light spatters caused by space static, their scopes remained
dark. As their reports filtered into Commander Krogson he became more and more
exasperated.

"Are you positive this is the right planet?" he
demanded of Ozaki.

"No question about it, sir."

"Seems funny there's nothing running down there at
all," said Krogson. "Maybe they spotted us on the way in and cut off
power. I've got a hunch that—" He broke off in mid sentence as the red
top-priority light on the communication panel began to flash. "Get
that," he said. "Maybe they've spotted something at last."

The executive officer flipped on the' vision screen and the
interior of the flagship's communication room was revealed.

"Sorry to bother you, sir," said the tech whose
image appeared on the screen, "but a message just came through on the
emergency band."

"What does it say?"

The tech looked uphappy. "It's coded, sir."

"Well, decode it!" barked the executive.

"We can't," said the technician diffidently.
"Something's gone wrong with the decoder. The printer is pounding out
random groups that don't make any sense at all."

The executive grunted his disgust. "Any idea where the
call's coming from?"

"Yes, sir; it's coming in on a tight beam from the
direction of Base. Must be from a ship emergency rig, though. Regular
hyperspace transmission isn't directional. Either the ship's regular rig broke
down or the operator is using the beam to keep anybody else from picking up his
signal."

"Get to work on that decoder. Call back as soon as you
get any results." The tech saluted and the screen went black.

"Whatever it is, it's probably trouble," said
Krogson morosely. "Well, we'd better get on with this job. Take the fleet
into atmosphere. It looks as if we are going to have to make a visual
check."

"Maybe the prisoner can give us a lead," suggested
the executive officer.

"Good idea. Have him brought in."

A moment later Kurt was ushered into the master control
room. Krogson's eyes widened at the sight of scalp lock and paint.

"Where in the name of the Galactic Spirit," he
demanded, "did you get that rig?"

"Don't you recognize an Imperial Space Marine when you
see one?" Kurt answered coldly.

The guard that had escorted Kurt in made a little twirling
motion at his temple with one finger. Krogson took another look and nodded
agreement.

"Sit down, son," he said in a fatherly tone.
"We're trying to get you home, but you're going to have to give us a
little help before we can do it. You see, we're not quite sure just where your
base is."

"I'll help all I can," said Kurt.

"Fine!" said the commander, rubbing his palms
together. "Now just where down there do you come from?" He pointed
out the vision port to the curving globe that stretched out below.

Kurt looked down helplessly. "Nothing makes sense,
seeing it from up here," he said apologetically.

Krogson thought for a moment. "What's the country like
around your base?" he asked.

"Mostly jungle," said Kurt. "The garrison is
on a plateau though and there are mountains to the north."

Krogson turned quickly to his exec. "Did you get that
description?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Get all scouts out for a close sweep. As soon as the
base is spotted, move the fleet in and hover at forty thousand!"

Forty minutes later a scout came streaking back.

"Found it, sir!" said the exec. "Plateau with
jungle all around and mountains to the north. There's a settlement at one end.
The pilot saw movement down there, but they must have spotted us on our way in.
There's still no evidence of energy radiation. They must have everything shut
down."

"That's not good!" said Krogson. "They've
probably got all their heavy stuff set up waiting for us to sweep over. We'll
have to hit them hard and fast. Did they spot the scout?"

"Can't tell, sir."

"We'd better assume that they did. Notify all gunnery
officers to switch their batteries over to central control. If we come in fast
and high and hit them with simultaneous fleet concentration, we can vaporize
the whole base before they can take a crack at us."

"I'll send the order out at once, sir," said the
executive officer.

The fleet pulled into tight formation and headed toward the
Imperial base. They were halfway there when the fleet gunnery officer entered
the control room and said apologetically to Commander Krogson, "Excuse me,
sir, but I'd like to suggest a trial run. Fleet concentration is a tricky
thing, and if something went haywire—we'd be sitting ducks for the ground
batteries."