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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d64ba41 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #63703 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/63703) diff --git a/old/63703-0.txt b/old/63703-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 52484e3..0000000 --- a/old/63703-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1234 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Down Went McGinty, by Fox B. Holden - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this ebook. - -Title: Down Went McGinty - -Author: Fox B. Holden - -Release Date: November 10, 2020 [EBook #63703] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DOWN WENT MCGINTY *** - - - - - Down Went McGinty - - By FOX HOLDEN - - _McGinty's first love was Moon-shaped; - gutted and inhumanly beautiful. And it served - him well all the days of his short life._ - - [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from - Planet Stories Fall 1954. - Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that - the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] - - -I guess you could say I hated Kolomar. Not with the same hatred I had -for the Comrades, but I hated him. There were the obvious reasons--he'd -beat me out of my general's star, and got the top job with Security -that I'd been promised for the last five years. It was because of him -that I was still stuck with the command of a second-rate satellite. -But there was an even more obvious reason, and it was the same one -everybody else had. - -Kolomar had the authority, both above and below the 120-mile limit, -that went with being Director-General of the FBSI. He took that to mean -head cop, and judge and jury as well. - -There are a lot of ways of handling authority. - -You could be human. Or you could be like Kolomar. And if you were like -him, you never made any mistakes: you'd go to the end of the Universe -if you had to, and when you wound up a case, the front office would -always have a gold star waiting for your report card. The only thing -good anybody else would have to say for you was that at least, you were -on the right side and not pitching on the Comrades' team. - -He was towering over me now as I knelt in front of the wrecked safe; -he couldn't have missed the look in my eyes, but it was like shooting -a pistol at an atomic screen. I might as well have kept looking at the -thing in my hand that I'd just picked up off the deck. - -He towered over me, that sour face of his hard as rock, and only -the cold blue eyes showing that he was two jumps ahead of me; that -he understood all about the thing in my hand, and that I wasn't as -innocent about it as I was trying to make him think. - -"Mark it Exhibit 1," he rattled, "and add the name of the man to whom -it belongs." - -I straightened up. I tossed the good luck piece to my desk; it was like -any ordinary good luck charm--a century-old 1900 50-cent piece--and -under the satellite's one-third G it just floated down to the desk top -like a leaf falling off a tree. - -"How do I know whose it is?" I bluffed. "I'm boss of sixty men here, -Kolomar. Besides the twenty that come up every week on the supply -shuttle. And they're a different twenty each time at that--" - -He stared me straight down. - -"How long have you been here, Colonel Kenton? Ten years, isn't it?" - -I didn't answer him. He knew. He'd been a shuttle-lieutenant when I'd -first arrived on the satellite. He had a brother who was floor leader -of the Senate. It was ten years later, and now he was Director-General -of the Federal Bureau of Space Investigation. I was still a colonel. My -brother was a schoolteacher. - -"The crews here still have to sign contracts for five-year tricks. -You've known two full crews, and whoever did this--" he turned his -close-cropped head and nodded at the gaping Top Secret file in the -blown safe "--is obviously a member of the crew you've got now. You -know it; I know it. You've got a reputation, Kenton, for getting to -know your men. They say you know 'em as if they were your own brothers -in six months' time." - -He didn't bother making it a verbal accusation. - -"I could only--I couldn't even make a bad guess as to whose it is, sir." - -"You've got twenty-four hours to make a good one. I want him by 1700, -Earth-Standard, tomorrow. That's an order." - -Then he just turned around, the light of the cold cathodes glittering -off his shoulder insignia and the silver trim on his black leatherite -space tunic, and left my office cubicle the way he'd come. Fast. -Murderous. Accusing. - -If he had to go to Hell and back to win, he would. - - * * * * * - -I waited until Control signalled that he'd got back aboard his official -shuttle and blasted into a return orbit, and then I buzzed for my -execs, Haliburton, Knight and Loftus. - -Even a second rate satellite of a second rate power has three execs, -although I guess a lot of people back home think it's a one man show, -putting in time to save national face while the grade A job--the one -with the big red star on the side--circles Earth five hundred miles -further out doing all the "important" work. The one that beat us up -here by ten years. The one owned by the government which said we could -put up a satellite of our own if we wanted to, but suggested just how -big it would be, just what equipment it would and wouldn't carry, how -far up it'd circle, how big a crew it would have. - -Suggested, you know, the way they do when treaties are drawn up around -the New-U.N. conference tables. It never says in the treaties what -will happen if certain agreements aren't adhered to. It doesn't say who -has "the edge," as McGinty calls it; it doesn't carefully point out who -was firstest with the mostest. It doesn't have to. - -This is peace, Comrade. Just don't get egg on your face. - -It was a couple of minutes before my execs walked in. I was still -standing, still looking down at the ancient good luck piece on my desk -when they did. Major Haliburton, Meteorology detail; Major Knight, -Astronomical; Lieutenant Loftus, Records and Research. - -Military? - -Only the personnel. Nothing else of a military nature ever found its -way into the treaty. Strangely enough, it had somehow never even been -mentioned. - -"Take the weight off your feet. Rest, smoke, and hold onto your heads. -Look at the safe; no, I didn't do it. Followed Procedure Eighteen dash -whatever-the-hell-it-is, called Kolomar's headquarters; he came in -person. Just blasted off. Now _you_ know. I don't have to tell you what -was in that top file." - -Short, stocky, red-headed Loftus, the youngest of the three was the -first to open up. Haliburton had his tall, starved-looking frame still -half in and half out of his plasti-foam chair; Knight's beefy face was -still kind of blank, as though he hadn't quite yet taken it all in. -Well, they knew me. I was short and sweet, always answered questions, -and tried never to bore people. Too lax, some people liked to say. But -still here after ten years. - -"The--microstats, Ken?" Loftus was half-asking, half-saying. - -"Yeah. And this." I picked up the good luck piece, tossed it to him. He -took one look, passed it to the others. "Kolomar gives me twenty-four -hours to give him the man who owns it. It was dropped in front of -the safe. The only clue, if you can call it a clue. But to Kolomar's -traffic-ticket mind, it's automatic evidence of guilt. And he'd fly -clear to Aldebaran to prove it. O.K., questions." - -It was silent in the little cubicle for a second or so. I didn't hurry -them; I wanted it to sink in, and they'd need some time. I audioed my -orderly room, told the sergeant on duty to black the office out to the -rest of the installation for the next ten minutes. - -Then after a minute or so Knight looked up from the good luck piece, -and a soft voice that didn't match his beefy build simply said, -"McGinty's," in that half-statement, half-question way Loftus had used. - -"Nuts," Haliburton said. And "nuts" from Haliburton was like "god-damn -nonsense" from anybody else who wasn't quite the scholarly type -Haliburton was. He didn't look like a Spaceman or have the breezy talk -of one, but he sure knew his meteorology. The Comrades at least let us -figure out weather reports. - -"Doesn't make sense; I second the nuts," Loftus said. "What the hell -would McGinty, McGinty of all people, do with stuff like--like that? -Unless--" - -"Eight years and still a maintenance-tech third. They don't get much -beer money," Knight said half to the rest of us and half to the -plastalloy deck. "He--" - -Haliburton laughed a funny, halting little chuckle. "That's ridiculous. -McGinty likes his beer, his accordion, his science-fiction and hates -cheap women. If possible, he hates the very sight of a Comrade to an -even greater extent. We all know McGinty. Our 21st Century Gunga Din, -gentlemen. Not a latter-day Quisling." - -There was a quiet second. Then Loftus said, - -"We've all seen him walk that thing across his knuckles a thousand -times." - -"Maybe a plant," Knight said. - -"He'd say that, of course," Loftus answered. "But--" - -"Hold it a minute," Haliburton broke in again. "Question, Ken." - -"Now we're getting places," I said. "Shoot." - -"Granting for the moment that that big Irishman, unhappy and moody as -he sometimes gets when he recalls his failure to qualify for a degree -in science, might have the sudden desire to take it out on the world, -to sell us out. Might even have, at the moment, the spark of genius it -would take to make off with those microstats. Only how the devil would -he know they even existed, much less were even in duplicate copy and on -file here?" - -That was the nub of it, of course. Aside from myself and the three men -before me, it was impossible that any other man in the station, or -any man crewing a shuttle could know of the Pentagon's plan to get a -full-sized, full-rigged satellite into Space, with real Military, which -would leave the Comrades screaming about a busted treaty, but powerless -to do anything about it. No, it wouldn't give us the edge, but at least -it would put us on a par, and after twenty years of being second-rate, -that at least would be some thing. - -The political end I didn't know much about, conference table -double-talk that would invalidate a treaty that hadn't been morally -valid in the first place, but had been agreed to by interests instead -of by the people they allegedly represented. It had always been a shade -too fast for me to follow. All I knew was that even though first-rate -powers could command more resources to do a job than second-rate ones, -intellectually free scientists could always come up with smarter -answers than those whose inventiveness had been stifled by the demands -and limitations of a police state, however all-powerful militarily and -politically. - -Brains are brains; both sides have 'em. It's what you're motivated to -do with them that counts. That, and the importance attached by people -to the product of those brains. - - * * * * * - -Twenty years ago, the Comrades had really gotten motivated. After they -got what they wanted, they forgot about motivation and sat back to let -the newest Hundred-Year Plan take care of the rest. - -Twenty years ago, somebody on our side was short four billion bucks' -worth of preventive medicine. - -Now, after a couple of decades second-besting it, our side wanted to -make up for lost time. - -It was supposed to be a _coup d'etat_ sort of thing, a fast shuffle, -both at the conference tables and out here in Space. Now you see it, -now you don't. - -As topkick on the Space end of it I was supposed to know what was going -on; me, and my execs, down to the day, the hour and the split second. -But only the four of us. And none of us, studying those damned plans -night after night for the last two months, had ever let the things -further than arm's reach away from the safe in my office. They'd never -been out of it except in our collective presence. - -So I'd come on duty from my sleeping quarters that morning and relieved -Loftus, whose week it was for the late duty behind my desk. Things -had been Space-shape then. And as I'd told Kolomar when he got up -from Earthside after my frantic triple-E signal, I'd only been out of -that office for about twenty minutes from the time I'd taken over from -Loftus to the moment I'd triple-E'd FBSI. There'd been a breakdown in -the water-recovery plant. Nothing serious, but regulations said I had -to be on hand personally to supervise any major maintenance. - -While I was gone the door to my office was automatically sono-sealed. -And I had the key. - -When I came back it was gaping open, and the safe was still smoking. My -orderly room duty sergeant was sprawled across his desk, a nasty bluish -lump on his forehead. When I finally brought him around he could hardly -remember his name, let alone who or what had hit him. - -Loftus' young, impatient voice snapped me out of my back tracking. - -"--couldn't have known, of course," he was saying, answering -Haliburton. "Neither McGinty nor anybody else. And that--that sort of -narrows things down, doesn't it?" He threw a nervous look at Haliburton -and Knight and at me, compressed his lips in a straight little line, -and fumbled self-consciously for a cigarette. - -"That's just as ridiculous," Haliburton said. "If any one of the -four of us was attempting to outwit the other three, the planting of -McGinty's talisman would be a little stupid, wouldn't it?" - -I tried to stop walking back and forth; I tried to think about McGinty -instead of wondering who I was sorest at, Kolomar or the Comrades. -Patrick Michael McGinty, maintenance technician third class, as simple -and straightforward as they come. He'd play that beat-up accordion -for the sixty of us to make us smile and think about home, while he -listened to the music by himself and thought his own thoughts. - -Either that, on his own time, or good naturedly griping on the job -about what slow pokes all scientists were, especially the Comrades, who -with all their big muscles still hadn't got a workable Moon-landing -ship together. Our side could build one, McGinty would tell you--"Sure, -an' it's a bunch o' misers we are, or we'd be a-wadin' the canals o' -Mars by now," he'd tell you, and sometimes made you half believe it. - -McGinty was just a tech-third, but he was an honest-to-God Spaceman, -maybe even more than the rest of us. "The further out y'go, the more -th' edge y'got--an' leave all the other dir-rty business behind -besides!" - -He'd play that accordion of his and just look out a port hole at the -stars while he did it. And when he did you could sort of link up that -science degree disappointment, that scolding of the scientists for -their "slowness," that business about the misers and the canals of -Mars, and the watching out the port hole as he played. - -A brawny, rough-and-ready spaceman, yes. - -A spy and a thief of top-secret documents, no. - -No, and good luck piece be damned. - -I looked hard at my three execs. - -"Kolomar gave me twenty-four hours," I said. "Whatever we do, we've got -to do it without spilling the beans around ears that aren't supposed to -hear. You know how scuttlebut races through a crew. Kolomar on one side -of us--" I saw Knight wince, "--and the Comrades on the other. Mr. X in -between." - -"If we put the arm on McGinty," Knight said in that soft voice of his, -his beefy face unnaturally white, "Kolomar won't give him a chance. Be -sending an innocent man into God-knows-what just to stall for our own -skins. And when Kolomar found out it wasn't McGinty, he'd keep right on -going, right on to the end of Space itself." - -Whatever Knight might've said next never got out. The top-urgent signal -on my video panel blinked like crazy. If they'd got through my sergeant -and the orders I'd given him, they must want me for real, so I answered. - -It was Control. The face on the video belonged to the captain in -charge. The voice on the audio echoed the all-hell look on the face. - -The voice said one of our Moon-orbit rigs--an L-8, incapable of course -of a landing but rigged up out of thin aluminum structural beams with -a couple of small rocket motors, fuel tanks, and personal space for -strictly observational work--had just blasted clear of our own orbit -and was headed Moonwards. - -"So what the hell, captain--" - -"McGinty's flying it, sir," the voice said. "_Unscheduled. All by -himself._" - - * * * * * - -My three execs just sat where they were for maybe a full second, mute, -their faces immobilized into unintelligent expressions. It seemed that -it took me an hour to snap out of it, yet I was moving before they -were ... toward my Earth-communications panel. - -Then the three of them were up and starting for the door. - -"Hold it!" I hollered, and pointed at the miniature Earth-scanner in -the bulkhead above my desk. It was only about a quarter the size of the -one in Meteorology, but it still gave me a full view of Earth, silently -rolling there in its black frame of Space. They caught on. There was -still about ten minutes left of the sixty minutes we had over our own -part of the world. Ten minutes more, and we would have been on the -other half of our two-hour trip around, and unable to contact home for -over an hour. - -I fumbled the switch open that put me straight through on a tight, -direct 3-E band to the Pentagon. I was talking to Kolomar within less -than two minutes. - -He didn't move a muscle while I told him what had happened. But he made -the grimmest picture my Earth-video had ever framed. - -"You'll effect pursuit at once, Kenton. Take what armament your -maintenance can fabricate. If he is simply attempting escape, he'll -find there's not far he can go. Since he is an inexperienced pilot, you -should be able to overhaul him with little difficulty. However, the -more logical probability is that he's defecting to them. He undoubtedly -has the microstats in his possession, and will rendezvous with one of -their own orbit craft. It will be your responsibility to destroy him -before that rendezvous can be completed." - -"But sir, there's no way of being sure--" - -"Destroy him." - -My protest was completely lost to a cut contact and a dead screen. - -I muttered something and began a half-hearted attempt to contact -McGinty. Between signals I scrawled a fast note and handed it to -Knight. It told him to order an L-8 ready with an extra rocket unit -bolted onto its stern someplace. For the extra power, he'd need a set -of transition coordinates for a modified orbit, but that would be up to -his department. - -The note said for Haliburton to take care of having maintenance rig up -a couple of hydrazine torpedoes of some kind. Hell, we weren't even -allowed pistols up here, and Kolomar had just said "destroy him." More -official double-talk. But, sometimes a maintenance crew was good for -something a little better than keeping the rust off door knobs. It was -a pretty old rule-of-thumb in Space--if you haven't got it, make it. - -And right now, the responsibility for those stats was mine. All mine. - -I kept Loftus with me, and kept trying to raise McGinty. The chances -were he wouldn't answer, of course. But there was nothing else to do -until Haliburton and Knight buzzed me that they had everything ready. - -"Guess you'd better forget it," Loftus said. - -I nodded, tried a final signal pattern, and then quit trying. - -I looked into Loftus' young face. It wasn't hard to read. - -"Go ahead and say it," I told him. - -He looked up, and his mouth twisted into a cynical smile. - -"We all fall for happy accordion music and an Irish brogue. All fall -for a guy because he appeals to what there is inside people like us -that says some guys you can always trust. Maybe, Ken, we deserve to be -second-raters." - -"Maybe," I said. Only I was thinking about men like Kolomar. About -right and wrong, success and failure, always in terms of physical -size, physical strength. Whomp me and I'll whomp you back harder. -Twenty-first century civilization--still the spoiled brats of a half -century ago. "Maybe we do," I said, and wondered if we always would. - -"What was it McGinty was always saying?" Loftus asked quietly. -"Something about--'the further out y'go, the more th' edge y'got--an' -leave all the other dir-rty business behind besides.'" - -"Your brogue smells, kid. But that's about the way it went." - -"Somehow, I never thought he meant it, this way. Thought he had -something else in mind. The way he always looked out the port when he -played. At the stars." - -"I know, I know," I snapped. "Can it, can it." - -Loftus shut up, but I knew what he meant, had known it before he said -it, because I'd felt that way about McGinty for a long time, myself. -McGinty played accordion music because it was something a little better -than the canned stuff we could get on our radios. He had tried for that -science degree because he'd wanted to make himself a little better, if -he could. He griped about how "slow" the scientists were, griped about -the "misers" we had in our politics. Just as a reaction against a state -of affairs that he thought might be made a little better. It had always -seemed to me that in McGinty's simple philosophy, if you could just get -started making things a little better here and there, pretty soon, a -lot of things would be a lot better everywhere. Not second-rate. - -I drummed my fingers on the communications panel, watching Loftus and -waiting for either Knight or Haliburton to buzz me that things were -set. I started to get up and that was when my video signal started its -nervous blinking. In a single movement I had it switched on. It framed -McGinty's big red face. - -He was drunk, and his blue eyes were blazing the way they always -blazed, drunk or sober. - -"Y'been a'callin' me, Colonel? Well here I am! Lookin' fer these, -I'll bet!" He waved a huge gauntleted paw in front of the screen. It -clutched the thin plastisheen envelope that contained the microstats. - -Loftus was out of his chair in an instant, crowding the video next to -me and triggering a desk recorder into action at the same time. - -"Look, you crazy fool," I bellowed. "I'm not going to ask you what or -why, McGinty, not now. But we're coming out after you, and you'd better -be turned around and headed back this way by the time we've started." - -"Yi, yi, Colonel! Kolomar's a-burnin' is 'e? Ha!" McGinty's red beard -bristled, and brick-red hair straggled down into snapping eyes. "He's a -slow-poke like a-a-ll the rest of 'em! Only I've got me a deal, Kenny -me b'y!" - -"McGinty, for God's sake! Kolomar'll hunt you to the end of Time!" - -"Will 'e, now!" - -"There's nothing he won't do or can't get done to see you in the death -chamber, McGinty. No matter where you go or whom you meet--" - -"Sure, an' y'wouldn't be a'kiddin' now, Colonel, would ye? No, -y'wouldn't kid McGinty! Ye're not the blarneyin' type, Colonel! Well, -come along, then. You take the high road an' I'll take the low--" -Singing, suddenly, singing like a drunken madman, and then the screen -went blank. - -As it did, Haliburton buzzed. - -"Ready Ken," he said. - -And Loftus and I headed for the landing nets and a taxi berth. - - * * * * * - -Because he was blasting all the way, it would take McGinty slightly -more than twenty-two hours to get from the satellite into an orbit -around the Moon. The regular way, blast and drift, it takes about -seventy-one. But McGinty was in a hurry. - -There was no knowing how soon before that twenty-two hours he would -be meeting the Comrades. Nor was there any way of knowing if McGinty -intended to break his orbit when he neared the Moon and head on out -into Space. That way he'd end up a derelict with his fuel exhausted, -smothered when his air was used up, and lost forever. Something began -picking at the back of my mind, but I didn't have time to play with it. - -With the extra rocket motor Knight had had jury-rigged to the stern of -our L-8, there was a chance we could overtake McGinty an hour or so -before he entered a lunar orbit, if that's what he was going to do. And -if we'd been able to crowd on enough fuel. - -Or, if he just kept on going, we were certain to overhaul him--and that -was why neither of those two angles made much sense. From a practical -point of view, anyway. - -"It's a rendezvous set-up for certain," Knight said. He was strapped in -the bow astrodome seat, working with the L-8's two-inch refractor. - -Earth and our satellite rolled some twenty hours and two hundred -twenty thousand miles behind us; we were tired, we were apprehensive -and edgy. We'd been power-on all the way instead of blasting and -drifting. But so had McGinty. - -Knight had had McGinty's L-8 in his lenses almost from the hour we'd -blasted out. There were just three of us--myself, Knight and Loftus. -I'd left Haliburton behind as second-in-command and to take care of -Kolomar when he came up, as he had. Right now, he was only a couple of -hours behind us in the L-8 I'd ordered Haliburton to have ready and -waiting for him. - -There hadn't been anything else from McGinty. Not a flicker. And not a -word either from the Comrades. Things should've been crackling about -now. Their satellite had just rounded Earth's illumination an hour or -so before, and they should be throwing cover-up messages at us by the -barrel, wanting to know what was the meaning of an uncleared orbital -flight, and why hadn't they been notified. - -But not a word. At least not that Loftus had picked up on our own H-F. -Maybe they were just going to play it straight-- - -"Hey, hey, here they are after all," Loftus said suddenly. "All -translated and everything. Give a listen." He turned up the volume. - -It was good cover-up, all right. Just as though they hadn't known a -thing about it. Just discovered it and wanted a fast explanation. - -I hollered to Knight. "You actually see any of their rigs up ahead?" - -"Two of 'em. Just starting on an intersect with McGinty." - -"Can we make it first, do you think?" - -"Nip and tuck, skipper. Maybe. It's almost as if it's all a big -surprise to 'em. They're still way out in left field, maybe not quite -as close as we are." - -Knight muttered something over the rasping voice on his H-F. "--ought -to get an Academy Award--" - -He was right. Their acting and their timing couldn't have been more -perfect except that they had had to gamble from the first on getting to -McGinty before we did and still make things look all innocence. Maybe -we could make them lose that one, anyway. You could be too clever. - -But they were armed, and that hedged their gamble pretty convincingly. -We had two clumsy jury-rigged torpedoes which might or might not hit -whatever they were fired at. - -The voice halted, and then it was up to me. I was supposed to be the -one to make up the excuses, not Kolomar. I was the one who had to give -"an immediate account of the untoward and unadvised action" of my L-8s. -And Kolomar would let me sweat it out by myself. - -"What'll I tell 'em, Ken?" - -"Tell 'em--oh, hell. Tell them one of our crew went Space-psycho, and -that we're doing all in our power to recover him and the rig he's -flying before any inconvenience can occur which might disturb the -planned schedules of our esteemed Comrades of Space. One fairy tale's -as good as another." - -Loftus reworded the message as nice as pie, and then after a minute -the H-F was quiet. For the record, things were fine. Of course, our -Comrades were going to "assist" in the recovery of our wayward crewman-- - -"We'll beat 'em, I think!" Knight was hollering. - -"Any guns--" Loftus began. I answered that one myself. - -"They'd ruin their own show," I said. "A premature show of muscle would -tip their hand. If they make it work this way, all we can ever do is -accuse, but we won't be able to prove a damn thing. And they'll know -what they want to know, and be ready for our quick little shuffle. -They'll be ready at those conference tables. If they miss this time, -they'll just try again later, another way." - -"It sure reads fine," Loftus said. "But I wonder how soon they start -shooting." - -We were both at the starboard port, watching. We could see McGinty's -L-8 out there, floating like a three-barrelled hour-glass, its tiny -rocket bank glowing red against the blackness, one side a blinding -white brightness in the sun. - -The Moon hung like a chewed-up white basketball below the both of us, -and you could see the greenish cast of Earthshine stretching out a -little beyond the night shadow over the ridge of the lunar Appenines. - -"How do you suppose they ever got wise to the microstats in the first -place?" Loftus was asking. - -"We're still not sure they did. Or sure that he--or sure of anything," -I snapped back at him. - -"But you think it's McGinty all right, by this time. I mean--" - -"I guess so," I said. - - * * * * * - -He turned from the port and looked square at me. His youthful face was -a strained, white thing, and if I saw a certain innocence in his young -eyes, I saw something else, too. He was the strange kid-man combination -you get in Space--just a youngster on the one side, and a latter-day -wizard on the other. A head full of scientific answers down to the last -decimal point--and full of that other stuff that makes a young man a -very young man; the kind of stuff we older guys like to wish could be -true, but know just can't be. - -"Add it up yourself," I said. I was looking over his shoulder and -through the port again. There were other hour glasses out there now, -further from McGinty than we were still, but not by much. And to -our stern was another pin-point of winking red light and flashing -whiteness. Kolomar. We were closing on McGinty's L-8 fast now, and I -started for the closet where we kept the suits. Loftus grabbed my arm. - -"Not the torpedoes if we can help it, kid," I said. "I'm going out when -we pull above him. On a line. If I can grab onto any of the framework, -maybe I can put his motors out of commission without blowing things -apart. If I can, then maybe we can nudge him all the way around, and -shove him all the way back if we have to." - -Loftus just turned away. He was watching the red-white flash in the -blackness that was Kolomar's rig. I knew what he was thinking, and I -was glad he thought that way. Maybe, sometime, the youngsters could -play things their way, and we'd have that something a "little better" -that McGinty had always been hoping for. - -And I guess Loftus knew the plan I outlined had less than a -thousand-in-one chance of coming through. Even if I managed to break -McGinty's fuel lines some way, this "nudging" business I talked about -was probably ninety per cent hokum. Even in an orbital state of -comparative weightlessness there was still inertia to consider, and any -direct contact we made with McGinty's L-8 could cave in our bulging -plasti-fabric fuel tanks. That, or split him wide open. - -But I'd never be able to sleep again if I didn't try something before -Kolomar's torpedoes, and I didn't care what he saw me do. - -I was all rigged out, standing by the airlock, about five hundred feet -of line in one gauntlet and a reaction tube in the other, when Knight's -voice slurred in my helmet receivers. - -"Ken--hold it! He's busting the orbit! He's going to--my God. _Ken, -he's ditching her Moonside!_" - -I had a time getting over to the port Loftus was crowding. What Knight -was saying was true. I made motions, and Loftus started helping me out -of my cumbersome Space outfit while I watched. - -We were just about dead center over the Moon itself, and McGinty had -started drifting in what would have been a perfect, if wide, orbit -around it. Continuing in it, he'd've circled the side opposite Earth, -and then started back toward the orbit of our satellite. Either that, -or, as we'd expected, broken from it and rendezvoused with one of the -Comrades. Only it wasn't working that way. - - * * * * * - -McGinty was breaking his orbit, all right, but not toward Space. He -was going _down_. He had cut the stern rockets and was using his bow -jets to slow himself enough to kill the velocity that had balanced him -in his orbit. Slowly but as surely as politicians have two faces, Moon -gravity would take over, pull him down, split him wide open on the -jagged edge of Aristillus crater. - -"He's out of his head," I heard Loftus saying. "Clean gone. An L-8 -can't land; an orbit rig can't take even two Gs and hold together." - -McGinty was peeling off, falling. - -We just stood at the port and watched. Knight kept him in the -two-incher. - -Falling in that lazy, gradual, ever-steepening airless glide until soon -it would be straight up-and-down. The Moon just hung there, cold, -bleak, waiting. Waiting to rip McGinty all to hell on the ragged peaks -of its gutted, inhumanly beautiful terrain. A strange love affair had -McGinty, through the satellite port as he played his accordion. - -I was pulled out of it by the racket on the H-F receiver, and Loftus -was clambering over to it as fast as I was. - -"This is Kolomar," the voice said. "Destroy him. Now. That's an order, -Kenton." - -Loftus looked at me. So did Knight. - -I picked up a mobile mike, flicked it on. - -"This is Kenton," I said. "I don't believe we received your message -correctly, general. In fact I'm certain we didn't! Over!" - -"I said destroy him. And God help you, Kenton, if you can't hear me!" - -No, I hadn't expected Kolomar to take anything back. He was still doing -everything by the books. - -Loftus acked him out, and then just stood there. - -"Okay," I said, "you heard him!" - -"But he's going to die anyway, Ken! Going to--" - -"Damn it, fire those torpedoes!" - -Loftus spun away from me, something shiny in his eyes, and started -priming the two thin, long cylinders of hydrazine and HNO_{3} for the -make-shift torpedo tubes that maintenance had installed. - -"Those aren't such hot looking jobs, are they, Loftus," I said. He -looked up me, and that hot shine was still blazing in his eyes. "I hope -you don't have any trouble aiming with those homemade tubes." - -It took him a second, but he caught on. - -The torpedoes missed McGinty's falling rig by a good three hundred -yards apiece. - -I let Loftus take a look. - -"What's he doing?" - -"Blasting like hell at the tail," the young lieutenant said. "He'll -hit like one of those old-time ski jumpers! Between Aristillus and -Autolycus, in that flat, open plain--" - -I watched him hit. - -And it was as Loftus said. He slewed onto the flat, dust-covered -plain like a ski jumper, falling but going forward at a hell of a -rate, probably using up the last of his fuel in a single, sustained, -straight-ahead blast. - -And then there was a flurry of dust maybe ten miles long. And after -that, even with the 'scope, you couldn't see anything. - -"Good try," I heard myself saying. - -"Might've made it!" Loftus said, hope ragged in his voice. "He just -might've--" - -"All alone, oxygen enough for almost two months if he cuts way down," I -heard Knight say softly. - -But I was already calling Kolomar. - -"Destroyed," I said. And I wished I could've been lying to his teeth. - - * * * * * - -From the time Kolomar got back to Earth it took just two days for -him, with maybe just a touch of help from his floor-leader brother, -to pry the government loose from a half-billion bucks. It took him -just twenty-four hours more to get the Pentagon to release plans for -a Moon-landing ship that had been mouldering in a vault for the last -fifteen years; plans that nobody'd known about since the day they were -drawn, I guess; plans just waiting for that half-billion. - -He had his toughest time with our own scientists. It was sort of the -way McGinty had said. The thing would need weeks of study, months of -testing, years to perfect, they told him. - -He told them it was only going to take them a month to get it built. - -I said I hated him and I do, but you have to give a Liberal-Democrat -his due. As with every other job he tackled, when Kolomar wanted to -move he knew where to go and he could move fast. And he had long -practice at throwing his rank, and the rank that was always behind -that. Right now, his job was to retrieve the microstats in McGinty's -wrecked L-8--before the Comrades. And he was going to do that job if he -had to sandbag the President himself. - -The project was farmed out to I don't know how many of our biggest -industries; all I ever heard was that it carried the highest -work-priority any job had ever carried. - -And the industries took it, triple-shift, day and night. - -It still took longer than a month. - -It took nine weeks. And then our shuttles were hauling up the parts, -and extra crews were slamming them together as fast as they arrived in -the satellite's orbit. That was done in a matter of hours. - -The Comrades bluffed around at doing the same thing, but all they could -do was go through the motions. Take incentive away from anybody and you -just can't deliver. - -They couldn't. We did. - -Funny thing too when you think it was due to the efforts of one of the -most disliked of our men. Irony, maybe, but that's the way things work -out sometimes. - -It was just ten weeks to the day after he crashed that I was bringing -the first Moon-landing ship ever built down over the plain where -McGinty'd smashed up. Kolomar was co-piloting right next to me. - -Yes, we found the wrecked L-8 without much trouble. - -Split wide open, lunar dust spilled all over its insides, and what was -left of McGinty buried under a couple of feet of it. He hadn't even put -on a spacesuit. - -Haliburton was with us this trip, and it was he who found the -plastisheen envelope. Not so important, now. - -It was young Loftus who found the note. Kolomar read it over my -shoulder. - - Dear Guys, Hope I didn't smash her up so bad you couldn't find - this. When I busted open the safe and left my half-buck for you - to find, I didn't expect to get what I got, but Colonel Kenton - always said General Kolomar would follow a thief anywhere in the - Universe, and that's how I had it figured, too. But anyhow, if - you're reading this, then you've made them build a real Ship that - can land up here O.K., and so you've got the edge. And the further - out you go, the more the edge you got. Try them Martian canals for - me sometime, will you? And tell that sergeant I'm sorry I had to - hit him so hard. Mc. - -I looked up from the note, out through the twisted wreckage, and a -hundred yards away at the first Moon-landing ship ever built. - -For the Comrades from now on, things were going to be a lot different. - -I heard Kolomar's voice at my shoulder. There was a funny hesitation in -it that I'd never heard before. - -"That's--some ship, isn't it?" was all he said. - -"Yes, sir," I answered. "It is." I looked down at the pile of dust that -covered McGinty. 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Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition. - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search -facility: www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. - diff --git a/old/63703-0.zip b/old/63703-0.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 6edd2d7..0000000 --- a/old/63703-0.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/63703-h.zip b/old/63703-h.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index fcf7af4..0000000 --- a/old/63703-h.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/63703-h/63703-h.htm b/old/63703-h/63703-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index 293d963..0000000 --- a/old/63703-h/63703-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1324 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> - <head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=us-ascii" /> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> - <title> - The Project Gutenberg eBook of Down Went Mcginty, by Fox Holden. - </title> - <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> - - <style type="text/css"> - -body { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - - h1,h2 { - text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ - clear: both; -} - -p { - margin-top: .51em; - text-align: justify; - margin-bottom: .49em; -} - -hr { - width: 33%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - margin-left: 33.5%; - margin-right: 33.5%; - clear: both; -} - -hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} -hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} - -.center {text-align: center;} - -.right {text-align: right;} - -/* Images */ -.figcenter { - margin: auto; - text-align: center; -} - -div.titlepage { - text-align: center; - page-break-before: always; - page-break-after: always; -} - -div.titlepage p { - text-align: center; - text-indent: 0em; - font-weight: bold; - line-height: 1.5; - margin-top: 3em; -} - -.blockquot { - margin-left: 5%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - - - </style> - </head> -<body> -<pre style='margin-bottom:6em;'>The Project Gutenberg EBook of Down Went McGinty, by Fox B. Holden - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this ebook. - -Title: Down Went McGinty - -Author: Fox B. Holden - -Release Date: November 10, 2020 [EBook #63703] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DOWN WENT MCGINTY *** -</pre> -<div class="titlepage"> - -<h1>Down Went McGinty</h1> - -<h2>By FOX HOLDEN</h2> - -<p><i>McGinty's first love was Moon-shaped;<br /> -gutted and inhumanly beautiful. And it served<br /> -him well all the days of his short life.</i></p> - -<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br /> -Planet Stories Fall 1954.<br /> -Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br /> -the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>I guess you could say I hated Kolomar. Not with the same hatred I had -for the Comrades, but I hated him. There were the obvious reasons—he'd -beat me out of my general's star, and got the top job with Security -that I'd been promised for the last five years. It was because of him -that I was still stuck with the command of a second-rate satellite. -But there was an even more obvious reason, and it was the same one -everybody else had.</p> - -<p>Kolomar had the authority, both above and below the 120-mile limit, -that went with being Director-General of the FBSI. He took that to mean -head cop, and judge and jury as well.</p> - -<p>There are a lot of ways of handling authority.</p> - -<p>You could be human. Or you could be like Kolomar. And if you were like -him, you never made any mistakes: you'd go to the end of the Universe -if you had to, and when you wound up a case, the front office would -always have a gold star waiting for your report card. The only thing -good anybody else would have to say for you was that at least, you were -on the right side and not pitching on the Comrades' team.</p> - -<p>He was towering over me now as I knelt in front of the wrecked safe; -he couldn't have missed the look in my eyes, but it was like shooting -a pistol at an atomic screen. I might as well have kept looking at the -thing in my hand that I'd just picked up off the deck.</p> - -<p>He towered over me, that sour face of his hard as rock, and only -the cold blue eyes showing that he was two jumps ahead of me; that -he understood all about the thing in my hand, and that I wasn't as -innocent about it as I was trying to make him think.</p> - -<p>"Mark it Exhibit 1," he rattled, "and add the name of the man to whom -it belongs."</p> - -<p>I straightened up. I tossed the good luck piece to my desk; it was like -any ordinary good luck charm—a century-old 1900 50-cent piece—and -under the satellite's one-third G it just floated down to the desk top -like a leaf falling off a tree.</p> - -<p>"How do I know whose it is?" I bluffed. "I'm boss of sixty men here, -Kolomar. Besides the twenty that come up every week on the supply -shuttle. And they're a different twenty each time at that—"</p> - -<p>He stared me straight down.</p> - -<p>"How long have you been here, Colonel Kenton? Ten years, isn't it?"</p> - -<p>I didn't answer him. He knew. He'd been a shuttle-lieutenant when I'd -first arrived on the satellite. He had a brother who was floor leader -of the Senate. It was ten years later, and now he was Director-General -of the Federal Bureau of Space Investigation. I was still a colonel. My -brother was a schoolteacher.</p> - -<p>"The crews here still have to sign contracts for five-year tricks. -You've known two full crews, and whoever did this—" he turned his -close-cropped head and nodded at the gaping Top Secret file in the -blown safe "—is obviously a member of the crew you've got now. You -know it; I know it. You've got a reputation, Kenton, for getting to -know your men. They say you know 'em as if they were your own brothers -in six months' time."</p> - -<p>He didn't bother making it a verbal accusation.</p> - -<p>"I could only—I couldn't even make a bad guess as to whose it is, sir."</p> - -<p>"You've got twenty-four hours to make a good one. I want him by 1700, -Earth-Standard, tomorrow. That's an order."</p> - -<p>Then he just turned around, the light of the cold cathodes glittering -off his shoulder insignia and the silver trim on his black leatherite -space tunic, and left my office cubicle the way he'd come. Fast. -Murderous. Accusing.</p> - -<p>If he had to go to Hell and back to win, he would.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>I waited until Control signalled that he'd got back aboard his official -shuttle and blasted into a return orbit, and then I buzzed for my -execs, Haliburton, Knight and Loftus.</p> - -<p>Even a second rate satellite of a second rate power has three execs, -although I guess a lot of people back home think it's a one man show, -putting in time to save national face while the grade A job—the one -with the big red star on the side—circles Earth five hundred miles -further out doing all the "important" work. The one that beat us up -here by ten years. The one owned by the government which said we could -put up a satellite of our own if we wanted to, but suggested just how -big it would be, just what equipment it would and wouldn't carry, how -far up it'd circle, how big a crew it would have.</p> - -<p>Suggested, you know, the way they do when treaties are drawn up around -the New-U.N. conference tables. It never says in the treaties what -will happen if certain agreements aren't adhered to. It doesn't say who -has "the edge," as McGinty calls it; it doesn't carefully point out who -was firstest with the mostest. It doesn't have to.</p> - -<p>This is peace, Comrade. Just don't get egg on your face.</p> - -<p>It was a couple of minutes before my execs walked in. I was still -standing, still looking down at the ancient good luck piece on my desk -when they did. Major Haliburton, Meteorology detail; Major Knight, -Astronomical; Lieutenant Loftus, Records and Research.</p> - -<p>Military?</p> - -<p>Only the personnel. Nothing else of a military nature ever found its -way into the treaty. Strangely enough, it had somehow never even been -mentioned.</p> - -<p>"Take the weight off your feet. Rest, smoke, and hold onto your heads. -Look at the safe; no, I didn't do it. Followed Procedure Eighteen dash -whatever-the-hell-it-is, called Kolomar's headquarters; he came in -person. Just blasted off. Now <i>you</i> know. I don't have to tell you what -was in that top file."</p> - -<p>Short, stocky, red-headed Loftus, the youngest of the three was the -first to open up. Haliburton had his tall, starved-looking frame still -half in and half out of his plasti-foam chair; Knight's beefy face was -still kind of blank, as though he hadn't quite yet taken it all in. -Well, they knew me. I was short and sweet, always answered questions, -and tried never to bore people. Too lax, some people liked to say. But -still here after ten years.</p> - -<p>"The—microstats, Ken?" Loftus was half-asking, half-saying.</p> - -<p>"Yeah. And this." I picked up the good luck piece, tossed it to him. He -took one look, passed it to the others. "Kolomar gives me twenty-four -hours to give him the man who owns it. It was dropped in front of -the safe. The only clue, if you can call it a clue. But to Kolomar's -traffic-ticket mind, it's automatic evidence of guilt. And he'd fly -clear to Aldebaran to prove it. O.K., questions."</p> - -<p>It was silent in the little cubicle for a second or so. I didn't hurry -them; I wanted it to sink in, and they'd need some time. I audioed my -orderly room, told the sergeant on duty to black the office out to the -rest of the installation for the next ten minutes.</p> - -<p>Then after a minute or so Knight looked up from the good luck piece, -and a soft voice that didn't match his beefy build simply said, -"McGinty's," in that half-statement, half-question way Loftus had used.</p> - -<p>"Nuts," Haliburton said. And "nuts" from Haliburton was like "god-damn -nonsense" from anybody else who wasn't quite the scholarly type -Haliburton was. He didn't look like a Spaceman or have the breezy talk -of one, but he sure knew his meteorology. The Comrades at least let us -figure out weather reports.</p> - -<p>"Doesn't make sense; I second the nuts," Loftus said. "What the hell -would McGinty, McGinty of all people, do with stuff like—like that? -Unless—"</p> - -<p>"Eight years and still a maintenance-tech third. They don't get much -beer money," Knight said half to the rest of us and half to the -plastalloy deck. "He—"</p> - -<p>Haliburton laughed a funny, halting little chuckle. "That's ridiculous. -McGinty likes his beer, his accordion, his science-fiction and hates -cheap women. If possible, he hates the very sight of a Comrade to an -even greater extent. We all know McGinty. Our 21st Century Gunga Din, -gentlemen. Not a latter-day Quisling."</p> - -<p>There was a quiet second. Then Loftus said,</p> - -<p>"We've all seen him walk that thing across his knuckles a thousand -times."</p> - -<p>"Maybe a plant," Knight said.</p> - -<p>"He'd say that, of course," Loftus answered. "But—"</p> - -<p>"Hold it a minute," Haliburton broke in again. "Question, Ken."</p> - -<p>"Now we're getting places," I said. "Shoot."</p> - -<p>"Granting for the moment that that big Irishman, unhappy and moody as -he sometimes gets when he recalls his failure to qualify for a degree -in science, might have the sudden desire to take it out on the world, -to sell us out. Might even have, at the moment, the spark of genius it -would take to make off with those microstats. Only how the devil would -he know they even existed, much less were even in duplicate copy and on -file here?"</p> - -<p>That was the nub of it, of course. Aside from myself and the three men -before me, it was impossible that any other man in the station, or -any man crewing a shuttle could know of the Pentagon's plan to get a -full-sized, full-rigged satellite into Space, with real Military, which -would leave the Comrades screaming about a busted treaty, but powerless -to do anything about it. No, it wouldn't give us the edge, but at least -it would put us on a par, and after twenty years of being second-rate, -that at least would be some thing.</p> - -<p>The political end I didn't know much about, conference table -double-talk that would invalidate a treaty that hadn't been morally -valid in the first place, but had been agreed to by interests instead -of by the people they allegedly represented. It had always been a shade -too fast for me to follow. All I knew was that even though first-rate -powers could command more resources to do a job than second-rate ones, -intellectually free scientists could always come up with smarter -answers than those whose inventiveness had been stifled by the demands -and limitations of a police state, however all-powerful militarily and -politically.</p> - -<p>Brains are brains; both sides have 'em. It's what you're motivated to -do with them that counts. That, and the importance attached by people -to the product of those brains.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Twenty years ago, the Comrades had really gotten motivated. After they -got what they wanted, they forgot about motivation and sat back to let -the newest Hundred-Year Plan take care of the rest.</p> - -<p>Twenty years ago, somebody on our side was short four billion bucks' -worth of preventive medicine.</p> - -<p>Now, after a couple of decades second-besting it, our side wanted to -make up for lost time.</p> - -<p>It was supposed to be a <i>coup d'etat</i> sort of thing, a fast shuffle, -both at the conference tables and out here in Space. Now you see it, -now you don't.</p> - -<p>As topkick on the Space end of it I was supposed to know what was going -on; me, and my execs, down to the day, the hour and the split second. -But only the four of us. And none of us, studying those damned plans -night after night for the last two months, had ever let the things -further than arm's reach away from the safe in my office. They'd never -been out of it except in our collective presence.</p> - -<p>So I'd come on duty from my sleeping quarters that morning and relieved -Loftus, whose week it was for the late duty behind my desk. Things -had been Space-shape then. And as I'd told Kolomar when he got up -from Earthside after my frantic triple-E signal, I'd only been out of -that office for about twenty minutes from the time I'd taken over from -Loftus to the moment I'd triple-E'd FBSI. There'd been a breakdown in -the water-recovery plant. Nothing serious, but regulations said I had -to be on hand personally to supervise any major maintenance.</p> - -<p>While I was gone the door to my office was automatically sono-sealed. -And I had the key.</p> - -<p>When I came back it was gaping open, and the safe was still smoking. My -orderly room duty sergeant was sprawled across his desk, a nasty bluish -lump on his forehead. When I finally brought him around he could hardly -remember his name, let alone who or what had hit him.</p> - -<p>Loftus' young, impatient voice snapped me out of my back tracking.</p> - -<p>"—couldn't have known, of course," he was saying, answering -Haliburton. "Neither McGinty nor anybody else. And that—that sort of -narrows things down, doesn't it?" He threw a nervous look at Haliburton -and Knight and at me, compressed his lips in a straight little line, -and fumbled self-consciously for a cigarette.</p> - -<p>"That's just as ridiculous," Haliburton said. "If any one of the -four of us was attempting to outwit the other three, the planting of -McGinty's talisman would be a little stupid, wouldn't it?"</p> - -<p>I tried to stop walking back and forth; I tried to think about McGinty -instead of wondering who I was sorest at, Kolomar or the Comrades. -Patrick Michael McGinty, maintenance technician third class, as simple -and straightforward as they come. He'd play that beat-up accordion -for the sixty of us to make us smile and think about home, while he -listened to the music by himself and thought his own thoughts.</p> - -<p>Either that, on his own time, or good naturedly griping on the job -about what slow pokes all scientists were, especially the Comrades, who -with all their big muscles still hadn't got a workable Moon-landing -ship together. Our side could build one, McGinty would tell you—"Sure, -an' it's a bunch o' misers we are, or we'd be a-wadin' the canals o' -Mars by now," he'd tell you, and sometimes made you half believe it.</p> - -<p>McGinty was just a tech-third, but he was an honest-to-God Spaceman, -maybe even more than the rest of us. "The further out y'go, the more -th' edge y'got—an' leave all the other dir-rty business behind -besides!"</p> - -<p>He'd play that accordion of his and just look out a port hole at the -stars while he did it. And when he did you could sort of link up that -science degree disappointment, that scolding of the scientists for -their "slowness," that business about the misers and the canals of -Mars, and the watching out the port hole as he played.</p> - -<p>A brawny, rough-and-ready spaceman, yes.</p> - -<p>A spy and a thief of top-secret documents, no.</p> - -<p>No, and good luck piece be damned.</p> - -<p>I looked hard at my three execs.</p> - -<p>"Kolomar gave me twenty-four hours," I said. "Whatever we do, we've got -to do it without spilling the beans around ears that aren't supposed to -hear. You know how scuttlebut races through a crew. Kolomar on one side -of us—" I saw Knight wince, "—and the Comrades on the other. Mr. X in -between."</p> - -<p>"If we put the arm on McGinty," Knight said in that soft voice of his, -his beefy face unnaturally white, "Kolomar won't give him a chance. Be -sending an innocent man into God-knows-what just to stall for our own -skins. And when Kolomar found out it wasn't McGinty, he'd keep right on -going, right on to the end of Space itself."</p> - -<p>Whatever Knight might've said next never got out. The top-urgent signal -on my video panel blinked like crazy. If they'd got through my sergeant -and the orders I'd given him, they must want me for real, so I answered.</p> - -<p>It was Control. The face on the video belonged to the captain in -charge. The voice on the audio echoed the all-hell look on the face.</p> - -<p>The voice said one of our Moon-orbit rigs—an L-8, incapable of course -of a landing but rigged up out of thin aluminum structural beams with -a couple of small rocket motors, fuel tanks, and personal space for -strictly observational work—had just blasted clear of our own orbit -and was headed Moonwards.</p> - -<p>"So what the hell, captain—"</p> - -<p>"McGinty's flying it, sir," the voice said. "<i>Unscheduled. All by -himself.</i>"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>My three execs just sat where they were for maybe a full second, mute, -their faces immobilized into unintelligent expressions. It seemed that -it took me an hour to snap out of it, yet I was moving before they -were ... toward my Earth-communications panel.</p> - -<p>Then the three of them were up and starting for the door.</p> - -<p>"Hold it!" I hollered, and pointed at the miniature Earth-scanner in -the bulkhead above my desk. It was only about a quarter the size of the -one in Meteorology, but it still gave me a full view of Earth, silently -rolling there in its black frame of Space. They caught on. There was -still about ten minutes left of the sixty minutes we had over our own -part of the world. Ten minutes more, and we would have been on the -other half of our two-hour trip around, and unable to contact home for -over an hour.</p> - -<p>I fumbled the switch open that put me straight through on a tight, -direct 3-E band to the Pentagon. I was talking to Kolomar within less -than two minutes.</p> - -<p>He didn't move a muscle while I told him what had happened. But he made -the grimmest picture my Earth-video had ever framed.</p> - -<p>"You'll effect pursuit at once, Kenton. Take what armament your -maintenance can fabricate. If he is simply attempting escape, he'll -find there's not far he can go. Since he is an inexperienced pilot, you -should be able to overhaul him with little difficulty. However, the -more logical probability is that he's defecting to them. He undoubtedly -has the microstats in his possession, and will rendezvous with one of -their own orbit craft. It will be your responsibility to destroy him -before that rendezvous can be completed."</p> - -<p>"But sir, there's no way of being sure—"</p> - -<p>"Destroy him."</p> - -<p>My protest was completely lost to a cut contact and a dead screen.</p> - -<p>I muttered something and began a half-hearted attempt to contact -McGinty. Between signals I scrawled a fast note and handed it to -Knight. It told him to order an L-8 ready with an extra rocket unit -bolted onto its stern someplace. For the extra power, he'd need a set -of transition coordinates for a modified orbit, but that would be up to -his department.</p> - -<p>The note said for Haliburton to take care of having maintenance rig up -a couple of hydrazine torpedoes of some kind. Hell, we weren't even -allowed pistols up here, and Kolomar had just said "destroy him." More -official double-talk. But, sometimes a maintenance crew was good for -something a little better than keeping the rust off door knobs. It was -a pretty old rule-of-thumb in Space—if you haven't got it, make it.</p> - -<p>And right now, the responsibility for those stats was mine. All mine.</p> - -<p>I kept Loftus with me, and kept trying to raise McGinty. The chances -were he wouldn't answer, of course. But there was nothing else to do -until Haliburton and Knight buzzed me that they had everything ready.</p> - -<p>"Guess you'd better forget it," Loftus said.</p> - -<p>I nodded, tried a final signal pattern, and then quit trying.</p> - -<p>I looked into Loftus' young face. It wasn't hard to read.</p> - -<p>"Go ahead and say it," I told him.</p> - -<p>He looked up, and his mouth twisted into a cynical smile.</p> - -<p>"We all fall for happy accordion music and an Irish brogue. All fall -for a guy because he appeals to what there is inside people like us -that says some guys you can always trust. Maybe, Ken, we deserve to be -second-raters."</p> - -<p>"Maybe," I said. Only I was thinking about men like Kolomar. About -right and wrong, success and failure, always in terms of physical -size, physical strength. Whomp me and I'll whomp you back harder. -Twenty-first century civilization—still the spoiled brats of a half -century ago. "Maybe we do," I said, and wondered if we always would.</p> - -<p>"What was it McGinty was always saying?" Loftus asked quietly. -"Something about—'the further out y'go, the more th' edge y'got—an' -leave all the other dir-rty business behind besides.'"</p> - -<p>"Your brogue smells, kid. But that's about the way it went."</p> - -<p>"Somehow, I never thought he meant it, this way. Thought he had -something else in mind. The way he always looked out the port when he -played. At the stars."</p> - -<p>"I know, I know," I snapped. "Can it, can it."</p> - -<p>Loftus shut up, but I knew what he meant, had known it before he said -it, because I'd felt that way about McGinty for a long time, myself. -McGinty played accordion music because it was something a little better -than the canned stuff we could get on our radios. He had tried for that -science degree because he'd wanted to make himself a little better, if -he could. He griped about how "slow" the scientists were, griped about -the "misers" we had in our politics. Just as a reaction against a state -of affairs that he thought might be made a little better. It had always -seemed to me that in McGinty's simple philosophy, if you could just get -started making things a little better here and there, pretty soon, a -lot of things would be a lot better everywhere. Not second-rate.</p> - -<p>I drummed my fingers on the communications panel, watching Loftus and -waiting for either Knight or Haliburton to buzz me that things were -set. I started to get up and that was when my video signal started its -nervous blinking. In a single movement I had it switched on. It framed -McGinty's big red face.</p> - -<p>He was drunk, and his blue eyes were blazing the way they always -blazed, drunk or sober.</p> - -<p>"Y'been a'callin' me, Colonel? Well here I am! Lookin' fer these, -I'll bet!" He waved a huge gauntleted paw in front of the screen. It -clutched the thin plastisheen envelope that contained the microstats.</p> - -<p>Loftus was out of his chair in an instant, crowding the video next to -me and triggering a desk recorder into action at the same time.</p> - -<p>"Look, you crazy fool," I bellowed. "I'm not going to ask you what or -why, McGinty, not now. But we're coming out after you, and you'd better -be turned around and headed back this way by the time we've started."</p> - -<p>"Yi, yi, Colonel! Kolomar's a-burnin' is 'e? Ha!" McGinty's red beard -bristled, and brick-red hair straggled down into snapping eyes. "He's a -slow-poke like a-a-ll the rest of 'em! Only I've got me a deal, Kenny -me b'y!"</p> - -<p>"McGinty, for God's sake! Kolomar'll hunt you to the end of Time!"</p> - -<p>"Will 'e, now!"</p> - -<p>"There's nothing he won't do or can't get done to see you in the death -chamber, McGinty. No matter where you go or whom you meet—"</p> - -<p>"Sure, an' y'wouldn't be a'kiddin' now, Colonel, would ye? No, -y'wouldn't kid McGinty! Ye're not the blarneyin' type, Colonel! Well, -come along, then. You take the high road an' I'll take the low—" -Singing, suddenly, singing like a drunken madman, and then the screen -went blank.</p> - -<p>As it did, Haliburton buzzed.</p> - -<p>"Ready Ken," he said.</p> - -<p>And Loftus and I headed for the landing nets and a taxi berth.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Because he was blasting all the way, it would take McGinty slightly -more than twenty-two hours to get from the satellite into an orbit -around the Moon. The regular way, blast and drift, it takes about -seventy-one. But McGinty was in a hurry.</p> - -<p>There was no knowing how soon before that twenty-two hours he would -be meeting the Comrades. Nor was there any way of knowing if McGinty -intended to break his orbit when he neared the Moon and head on out -into Space. That way he'd end up a derelict with his fuel exhausted, -smothered when his air was used up, and lost forever. Something began -picking at the back of my mind, but I didn't have time to play with it.</p> - -<p>With the extra rocket motor Knight had had jury-rigged to the stern of -our L-8, there was a chance we could overtake McGinty an hour or so -before he entered a lunar orbit, if that's what he was going to do. And -if we'd been able to crowd on enough fuel.</p> - -<p>Or, if he just kept on going, we were certain to overhaul him—and that -was why neither of those two angles made much sense. From a practical -point of view, anyway.</p> - -<p>"It's a rendezvous set-up for certain," Knight said. He was strapped in -the bow astrodome seat, working with the L-8's two-inch refractor.</p> - -<p>Earth and our satellite rolled some twenty hours and two hundred -twenty thousand miles behind us; we were tired, we were apprehensive -and edgy. We'd been power-on all the way instead of blasting and -drifting. But so had McGinty.</p> - -<p>Knight had had McGinty's L-8 in his lenses almost from the hour we'd -blasted out. There were just three of us—myself, Knight and Loftus. -I'd left Haliburton behind as second-in-command and to take care of -Kolomar when he came up, as he had. Right now, he was only a couple of -hours behind us in the L-8 I'd ordered Haliburton to have ready and -waiting for him.</p> - -<p>There hadn't been anything else from McGinty. Not a flicker. And not a -word either from the Comrades. Things should've been crackling about -now. Their satellite had just rounded Earth's illumination an hour or -so before, and they should be throwing cover-up messages at us by the -barrel, wanting to know what was the meaning of an uncleared orbital -flight, and why hadn't they been notified.</p> - -<p>But not a word. At least not that Loftus had picked up on our own H-F. -Maybe they were just going to play it straight—</p> - -<p>"Hey, hey, here they are after all," Loftus said suddenly. "All -translated and everything. Give a listen." He turned up the volume.</p> - -<p>It was good cover-up, all right. Just as though they hadn't known a -thing about it. Just discovered it and wanted a fast explanation.</p> - -<p>I hollered to Knight. "You actually see any of their rigs up ahead?"</p> - -<p>"Two of 'em. Just starting on an intersect with McGinty."</p> - -<p>"Can we make it first, do you think?"</p> - -<p>"Nip and tuck, skipper. Maybe. It's almost as if it's all a big -surprise to 'em. They're still way out in left field, maybe not quite -as close as we are."</p> - -<p>Knight muttered something over the rasping voice on his H-F. "—ought -to get an Academy Award—"</p> - -<p>He was right. Their acting and their timing couldn't have been more -perfect except that they had had to gamble from the first on getting to -McGinty before we did and still make things look all innocence. Maybe -we could make them lose that one, anyway. You could be too clever.</p> - -<p>But they were armed, and that hedged their gamble pretty convincingly. -We had two clumsy jury-rigged torpedoes which might or might not hit -whatever they were fired at.</p> - -<p>The voice halted, and then it was up to me. I was supposed to be the -one to make up the excuses, not Kolomar. I was the one who had to give -"an immediate account of the untoward and unadvised action" of my L-8s. -And Kolomar would let me sweat it out by myself.</p> - -<p>"What'll I tell 'em, Ken?"</p> - -<p>"Tell 'em—oh, hell. Tell them one of our crew went Space-psycho, and -that we're doing all in our power to recover him and the rig he's -flying before any inconvenience can occur which might disturb the -planned schedules of our esteemed Comrades of Space. One fairy tale's -as good as another."</p> - -<p>Loftus reworded the message as nice as pie, and then after a minute -the H-F was quiet. For the record, things were fine. Of course, our -Comrades were going to "assist" in the recovery of our wayward crewman—</p> - -<p>"We'll beat 'em, I think!" Knight was hollering.</p> - -<p>"Any guns—" Loftus began. I answered that one myself.</p> - -<p>"They'd ruin their own show," I said. "A premature show of muscle would -tip their hand. If they make it work this way, all we can ever do is -accuse, but we won't be able to prove a damn thing. And they'll know -what they want to know, and be ready for our quick little shuffle. -They'll be ready at those conference tables. If they miss this time, -they'll just try again later, another way."</p> - -<p>"It sure reads fine," Loftus said. "But I wonder how soon they start -shooting."</p> - -<p>We were both at the starboard port, watching. We could see McGinty's -L-8 out there, floating like a three-barrelled hour-glass, its tiny -rocket bank glowing red against the blackness, one side a blinding -white brightness in the sun.</p> - -<p>The Moon hung like a chewed-up white basketball below the both of us, -and you could see the greenish cast of Earthshine stretching out a -little beyond the night shadow over the ridge of the lunar Appenines.</p> - -<p>"How do you suppose they ever got wise to the microstats in the first -place?" Loftus was asking.</p> - -<p>"We're still not sure they did. Or sure that he—or sure of anything," -I snapped back at him.</p> - -<p>"But you think it's McGinty all right, by this time. I mean—"</p> - -<p>"I guess so," I said.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He turned from the port and looked square at me. His youthful face was -a strained, white thing, and if I saw a certain innocence in his young -eyes, I saw something else, too. He was the strange kid-man combination -you get in Space—just a youngster on the one side, and a latter-day -wizard on the other. A head full of scientific answers down to the last -decimal point—and full of that other stuff that makes a young man a -very young man; the kind of stuff we older guys like to wish could be -true, but know just can't be.</p> - -<p>"Add it up yourself," I said. I was looking over his shoulder and -through the port again. There were other hour glasses out there now, -further from McGinty than we were still, but not by much. And to -our stern was another pin-point of winking red light and flashing -whiteness. Kolomar. We were closing on McGinty's L-8 fast now, and I -started for the closet where we kept the suits. Loftus grabbed my arm.</p> - -<p>"Not the torpedoes if we can help it, kid," I said. "I'm going out when -we pull above him. On a line. If I can grab onto any of the framework, -maybe I can put his motors out of commission without blowing things -apart. If I can, then maybe we can nudge him all the way around, and -shove him all the way back if we have to."</p> - -<p>Loftus just turned away. He was watching the red-white flash in the -blackness that was Kolomar's rig. I knew what he was thinking, and I -was glad he thought that way. Maybe, sometime, the youngsters could -play things their way, and we'd have that something a "little better" -that McGinty had always been hoping for.</p> - -<p>And I guess Loftus knew the plan I outlined had less than a -thousand-in-one chance of coming through. Even if I managed to break -McGinty's fuel lines some way, this "nudging" business I talked about -was probably ninety per cent hokum. Even in an orbital state of -comparative weightlessness there was still inertia to consider, and any -direct contact we made with McGinty's L-8 could cave in our bulging -plasti-fabric fuel tanks. That, or split him wide open.</p> - -<p>But I'd never be able to sleep again if I didn't try something before -Kolomar's torpedoes, and I didn't care what he saw me do.</p> - -<p>I was all rigged out, standing by the airlock, about five hundred feet -of line in one gauntlet and a reaction tube in the other, when Knight's -voice slurred in my helmet receivers.</p> - -<p>"Ken—hold it! He's busting the orbit! He's going to—my God. <i>Ken, -he's ditching her Moonside!</i>"</p> - -<p>I had a time getting over to the port Loftus was crowding. What Knight -was saying was true. I made motions, and Loftus started helping me out -of my cumbersome Space outfit while I watched.</p> - -<p>We were just about dead center over the Moon itself, and McGinty had -started drifting in what would have been a perfect, if wide, orbit -around it. Continuing in it, he'd've circled the side opposite Earth, -and then started back toward the orbit of our satellite. Either that, -or, as we'd expected, broken from it and rendezvoused with one of the -Comrades. Only it wasn't working that way.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>McGinty was breaking his orbit, all right, but not toward Space. He -was going <i>down</i>. He had cut the stern rockets and was using his bow -jets to slow himself enough to kill the velocity that had balanced him -in his orbit. Slowly but as surely as politicians have two faces, Moon -gravity would take over, pull him down, split him wide open on the -jagged edge of Aristillus crater.</p> - -<p>"He's out of his head," I heard Loftus saying. "Clean gone. An L-8 -can't land; an orbit rig can't take even two Gs and hold together."</p> - -<p>McGinty was peeling off, falling.</p> - -<p>We just stood at the port and watched. Knight kept him in the -two-incher.</p> - -<p>Falling in that lazy, gradual, ever-steepening airless glide until soon -it would be straight up-and-down. The Moon just hung there, cold, -bleak, waiting. Waiting to rip McGinty all to hell on the ragged peaks -of its gutted, inhumanly beautiful terrain. A strange love affair had -McGinty, through the satellite port as he played his accordion.</p> - -<p>I was pulled out of it by the racket on the H-F receiver, and Loftus -was clambering over to it as fast as I was.</p> - -<p>"This is Kolomar," the voice said. "Destroy him. Now. That's an order, -Kenton."</p> - -<p>Loftus looked at me. So did Knight.</p> - -<p>I picked up a mobile mike, flicked it on.</p> - -<p>"This is Kenton," I said. "I don't believe we received your message -correctly, general. In fact I'm certain we didn't! Over!"</p> - -<p>"I said destroy him. And God help you, Kenton, if you can't hear me!"</p> - -<p>No, I hadn't expected Kolomar to take anything back. He was still doing -everything by the books.</p> - -<p>Loftus acked him out, and then just stood there.</p> - -<p>"Okay," I said, "you heard him!"</p> - -<p>"But he's going to die anyway, Ken! Going to—"</p> - -<p>"Damn it, fire those torpedoes!"</p> - -<p>Loftus spun away from me, something shiny in his eyes, and started -priming the two thin, long cylinders of hydrazine and HNO<sub>3</sub> for the -make-shift torpedo tubes that maintenance had installed.</p> - -<p>"Those aren't such hot looking jobs, are they, Loftus," I said. He -looked up me, and that hot shine was still blazing in his eyes. "I hope -you don't have any trouble aiming with those homemade tubes."</p> - -<p>It took him a second, but he caught on.</p> - -<p>The torpedoes missed McGinty's falling rig by a good three hundred -yards apiece.</p> - -<p>I let Loftus take a look.</p> - -<p>"What's he doing?"</p> - -<p>"Blasting like hell at the tail," the young lieutenant said. "He'll -hit like one of those old-time ski jumpers! Between Aristillus and -Autolycus, in that flat, open plain—"</p> - -<p>I watched him hit.</p> - -<p>And it was as Loftus said. He slewed onto the flat, dust-covered -plain like a ski jumper, falling but going forward at a hell of a -rate, probably using up the last of his fuel in a single, sustained, -straight-ahead blast.</p> - -<p>And then there was a flurry of dust maybe ten miles long. And after -that, even with the 'scope, you couldn't see anything.</p> - -<p>"Good try," I heard myself saying.</p> - -<p>"Might've made it!" Loftus said, hope ragged in his voice. "He just -might've—"</p> - -<p>"All alone, oxygen enough for almost two months if he cuts way down," I -heard Knight say softly.</p> - -<p>But I was already calling Kolomar.</p> - -<p>"Destroyed," I said. And I wished I could've been lying to his teeth.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>From the time Kolomar got back to Earth it took just two days for -him, with maybe just a touch of help from his floor-leader brother, -to pry the government loose from a half-billion bucks. It took him -just twenty-four hours more to get the Pentagon to release plans for -a Moon-landing ship that had been mouldering in a vault for the last -fifteen years; plans that nobody'd known about since the day they were -drawn, I guess; plans just waiting for that half-billion.</p> - -<p>He had his toughest time with our own scientists. It was sort of the -way McGinty had said. The thing would need weeks of study, months of -testing, years to perfect, they told him.</p> - -<p>He told them it was only going to take them a month to get it built.</p> - -<p>I said I hated him and I do, but you have to give a Liberal-Democrat -his due. As with every other job he tackled, when Kolomar wanted to -move he knew where to go and he could move fast. And he had long -practice at throwing his rank, and the rank that was always behind -that. Right now, his job was to retrieve the microstats in McGinty's -wrecked L-8—before the Comrades. And he was going to do that job if he -had to sandbag the President himself.</p> - -<p>The project was farmed out to I don't know how many of our biggest -industries; all I ever heard was that it carried the highest -work-priority any job had ever carried.</p> - -<p>And the industries took it, triple-shift, day and night.</p> - -<p>It still took longer than a month.</p> - -<p>It took nine weeks. And then our shuttles were hauling up the parts, -and extra crews were slamming them together as fast as they arrived in -the satellite's orbit. That was done in a matter of hours.</p> - -<p>The Comrades bluffed around at doing the same thing, but all they could -do was go through the motions. Take incentive away from anybody and you -just can't deliver.</p> - -<p>They couldn't. We did.</p> - -<p>Funny thing too when you think it was due to the efforts of one of the -most disliked of our men. Irony, maybe, but that's the way things work -out sometimes.</p> - -<p>It was just ten weeks to the day after he crashed that I was bringing -the first Moon-landing ship ever built down over the plain where -McGinty'd smashed up. Kolomar was co-piloting right next to me.</p> - -<p>Yes, we found the wrecked L-8 without much trouble.</p> - -<p>Split wide open, lunar dust spilled all over its insides, and what was -left of McGinty buried under a couple of feet of it. He hadn't even put -on a spacesuit.</p> - -<p>Haliburton was with us this trip, and it was he who found the -plastisheen envelope. Not so important, now.</p> - -<p>It was young Loftus who found the note. Kolomar read it over my -shoulder.</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>Dear Guys, Hope I didn't smash her up so bad you couldn't find this. -When I busted open the safe and left my half-buck for you to find, -I didn't expect to get what I got, but Colonel Kenton always said -General Kolomar would follow a thief anywhere in the Universe, and -that's how I had it figured, too. But anyhow, if you're reading this, -then you've made them build a real Ship that can land up here O.K., -and so you've got the edge. And the further out you go, the more the -edge you got. Try them Martian canals for me sometime, will you? And -tell that sergeant I'm sorry I had to hit him so hard. Mc.</p></div> - -<p>I looked up from the note, out through the twisted wreckage, and a -hundred yards away at the first Moon-landing ship ever built.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus.jpg" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>For the Comrades from now on, things were going to be a lot different.</p> - -<p>I heard Kolomar's voice at my shoulder. There was a funny hesitation in -it that I'd never heard before.</p> - -<p>"That's—some ship, isn't it?" was all he said.</p> - -<p>"Yes, sir," I answered. "It is." I looked down at the pile of dust that -covered McGinty. 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