Chapter 15

Part Of The Answer

For an hour the maneuvers of both ships were indecisive. Lucky had the faster ship and the better, but Captain Anton had a crew. Each of Anton's men could specialize. One could focus and one could release, while a third could control the reactor banks and Anton himseh0 could direct operations.

Lucky, trying to do everything at once and by himseh0, had to rely heavily on words.

"You can't get to Ganymede, Anton, and your friends won't dare tip their hand by coming out now before they know what's up… You're all through, Anton; we know all your plans… There's no use trying to get a message through to Ganymede, Anton; we're blanketing the sub-ether from you to Jupiter. Nothing can get through… Government ships are coming, Anton. Count your minutes. You don't have many, unless you surrender… Give up, Anton. Give up."

And all this while the Shooting Starr dodged through as concentrated a fire as Lucky had ever seen. Nor were all the blasts successfully dodged. The Shooter's energy stores began to show the strain. Lucky would have liked to believe that Anton's ship was suffering equally, but he himseh0 was aiming few blasts at Anton and landing virtually none.

He dared not take his eyes off the screen. Terrestrial ships, speeding to the scene, would not be there for hours. In those hours, if Anton beat down his energy banks, broke away, and made good head toward Ganymede, while a limping Shooting Starr could only pursue, without catching… Or if a pirate fleet suddenly sparkled on-screen…

Lucky dared not follow those lines of thought further. Perhaps he had been wrong in not entrusting the interception to government ships in the first place. No, he told himself, only the Shooting Starr could have caught Anton still fifty million miles from Ganymede; only the Shooter's speed; more important still, only the Shooter's Er-gometers. At this distance from Ganymede it was safe to call in units of the fleet for the kill. Closer to Ganymede and fleet action would have been unsafe.

Lucky's receiver, open all this time, was suddenly activated. Anton's face filled it, smiling and carefree.

"You got away from Dingo again, I see."

Lucky said, "Again? You're admitting he was working under orders in the push duel!"

An energy feeler toward Lucky's ship suddenly hardened into a beam of disruptive force. Lucky moved aside with an acceleration that wrenched him.

Anton laughed. "Don't watch me too closely. We almost caught you then with a lulu. Certainly Dingo was working under orders. We knew what we were doing. Dingo didn't know who you really were, but I did. Nearly from the first."

"Too bad the knowledge didn't help you," said Lucky.

"It's Dingo that it hasn't helped. It may amuse you to know that he has been, shall we say, executed. It's bad to make mistakes. But this kind of talk is out of place here. I'm only plating you to say that this has been fun, but I'll be going now."

"You have nowhere to go," said Lucky.

"I'll try Ganymede."

"You'll be stopped."

"By government ships? I don't see them yet. And there's not one that can catch me in time."

"I can catch you."

"You have caught me. But what can you do with me? From the way you're fighting, you must be the only man on board. If I had known that from the beginning, I wouldn't have bothered with you as long as this. You can't fight a whole crew."

Lucky said in a low, intense voice, "I can ram you. I can smash you completely."

"And yourself. Remember that."

"That wouldn't matter."

"Please. You sound like a space-scout. You'll be reciting the junior scout-patrol oath next."

Lucky raised his voice. "You men aboard the ship, listen! If your captain tries to break away in the direction of Ganymede, I will ram the ship. It is certain death for all of you, unless you surrender. I promise you all a fair trial. I promise all of you the utmost consideration possible if you co-operate with us. Don't let Anton throw your lives away for the sake of his Sirian friends."

"Talk on, government boy, talk on," said Anton. "I'm letting them listen. They know what kind of a trial they can expect and they know what kind of consideration, too. An injection of enzymic poison." His fingers made the quick movements of someone inserting a needle into another's skin. "That's what they'll get. They're not afraid of you. Good-by, government boy."

The needles on Lucky's gravimetrics wavered downward as Anton's ship picked up speed and moved away. Lucky watched his visiplates. Where were the government ships? Blast all space, where were the government ships?

He let acceleration take hold. Gravimetric needles moved upward again.

The miles between the ships were sliced away. Anton's ship put on more speed; so did the Shooting Starr. But the accelerative possibilities of the Shooter were higher.

The smile on Anton's face did not alter. "Fifty miles away," he said. Then, "Forty-five." Another pause. "Forty. Have you said your prayers, government boy?"

Lucky did not answer. For him there was no way out. He would have to ram. Sooner than let Anton get through, sooner than allow war to come to Earth, he would have to stop the pirates by suicide, if there were no other way. The ships were curving toward one another in a long, slow tangent.

"Thirty," said Anton lazily. "You're not frightening anyone. You'll look a fool in the end. Veer off and go home, Starr."

"Twenty-five," retorted Lucky firmly. "You have fifteen minutes to surrender or die." He himself, he reflected, had the same fifteen minutes to win or die.

A face appeared behind Anton's in the visiplate. It held a finger to pale, tight lips. Lucky's eyes might have flickered. He tried to conceal that by looking away, then coming back.

Both ships were at maximum acceleration.

"What's the matter, Starr?" asked Anton. "Scared? Heart beating fast?" His eyes were dancing and his lips were parted.

Lucky had the sudden, sure knowledge that Anton was enjoying this, that he considered it an exciting game, that it was only a device whereby he might demonstrate his power. Lucky knew at that moment that Anton would never surrender, that he would allow himself to be rammed rather than back away. And Lucky knew that there was no escape from death.

"Fifteen miles," Lucky said.

It was Hansen's face behind Anton. The hermit's! And there was something in his hand.

"Ten miles," said Lucky. Then, "Six minutes. I'll ram you. By space, I'll ram you."

It was a blaster! Hansen held a blaster.

Lucky's breath came tightly. If Anton turned…

But Anton was not going to miss a second of Lucky's face if he could help it. He was waiting to see the fright come and grow. To Lucky, that was plain as could be in the pirate's expression. Anton would not have turned for a much noisier event than the careful lifting of a blaster.

Anton caught it in the back. Death came too suddenly for the eager smile to disappear from his face, and though life left it, the look of cruel joy did not. Anton fell forward across the visiplate and for a moment his face remained pressed there, larger than life-size, leering at Lucky out of dead eyes.

Lucky heard Hansen's shout, "Back, all of you. Do you want to die? We're giving up. Come and get us, Starr!"

Lucky veered the direction of acceleration by two degrees. Enough to miss.

His Ergometers were registering the motors of approaching government ships strongly now. They were coming at last.

The screens on Anton's ship were glowing white as a sign of surrender.