Sabotage in Space

  CHAPTER 15

  "Scott!"

  "Here!" bellowed a grizzled spaceman in reply to Major Connel's call.

  "Augutino!"

  "Here!"

  "Jones!

  "Present!"

  "Smith!"

  "Here!"

  "Albert!"

  "Here!"

  Connel checked the last name on the clipboard and turned to ProfessorHemmingwell standing beside him at the base of the ship. "All presentand ready, sir."

  "Fine!" said the professor. He turned and looked around. "Where isDave?"

  "Here he comes now," said Connel.

  They both watched Barret stride toward them, his arms loaded with gear.

  "This is the stuff I told you about, Professor," he said as Hemmingwelllooked at it curiously.

  "What stuff?" asked Connel.

  "Portable heaters for the crew's space suits, just in case--" Barretpaused meaningfully.

  "In case of what?" growled Connel.

  "Why, ask them!" replied Barret, gesturing toward the group of civiliancrewmen who had been selected for the test flight of the spaceship.

  Connel turned to look at them, then back at Barret. "Ask them what?" hebarked.

  "How they feel about making this flight," said Barret.

  Connel scowled and turned to the men. "Is there anything to what hesays?" he demanded.

  The men shuffled their feet nervously but did not reply.

  "Well?" exploded Connel.

  "See, they're afraid of you, Connel," said Barret, deliberately omittingthe courtesy of using the major's title.

  Ignoring Barret's thrust, Connel continued to face the men. "Is thatright, men?" he shouted. "Are you afraid of me?"

  There was a mumble from the group and then the man named Scott, athick-set individual with black flashing eyes, stepped forward.

  "Speaking for myself," he said, looking straight at the major, "I'm notafraid of anything that walks. And that includes you, Major Connel. Nooffense meant, it's just a statement of fact." He paused and drew a deepbreath. Then he added, "But I am afraid of this ship."

  "Why?" demanded Connel, who could not help admiring the man for hisstraightforward approach.

  "She's junk-jinxed," said the man, using the expression of spacemen whobelieved a ship with a suspicious accident record should be junkedbecause it was jinxed.

  "Junk-jinxed!" cried Connel, amazed.

  "Preposterous," snorted Professor Hemmingwell. "Why, you helped buildthis ship, Scotty! Do you doubt the work you've put into her? Or thework of your friends?"

  "That has nothing to do with it," replied Scott stubbornly. "The othersfeel the same way I do."

  Barret stepped forward. Arrogantly and before Connel could stop him, hebegan addressing the men. "Listen, you men!" he shouted. "You're beingchildish! Why, you built this ship! How can you possibly allowyourselves to be so stupid as to believe in an idiotic thing like ajinx. Now, why don't you just get aboard and stop being so ridiculouslysuperstitious!"

  Connel could have reached out with one of his big hands and squeezedBarret's neck to shut him up. Instead of allaying their fears, whicheven he would admit were real enough, the man was creating furtherresentment with his attack on their pride as thinking, reasoning men.

  "All right, all right!" he bellowed. "That's enough for now, _Mister_Barret!" He turned to the men and he could tell by the expressions ontheir faces that he had lost them. They would not take the ship aloft.But he had to try.

  "Now listen," he growled. "This is a very important project and someonehas been trying to get us to wash out the whole idea. If you don't comethrough, he'll succeed. You are the best men in your fields, and ifeach of you attend to your particular job, then the ship will blast offand be a success! Now, how about it?"

  He was met with the stony faces of men who were afraid. Nothing he couldsay or offer them would get them to take the ship off the ground. Hetried a new tack. "I'm offering you _double wages_!" he roared.

  The men were silent.

  "Double wages _and_ a bonus!"

  Silence.

  "All right! Beat it!" he growled. "Don't ever show your faces aroundhere again!"

  Connel turned to Professor Hemmingwell. "I'll see if I can't muster acrew from the ranks of the Solar Guard," he said.

  "Major," said the professor, his face worn and haggard from the longordeal of completing the project, "I wouldn't want men _ordered_ to manthis vessel."

  "They're in the Solar Guard and they take orders," said Connel.

  "No," persisted Hemmingwell. "I will not let a man on that ship thatdoes not want to go. Remember, Major, it is still my personal property."

  "All right," said Connel grimly. "I'll see if I can recruit a crew fromthe civilian workers around the Academy."

  But Major Connel encountered the same superstitious dread everywhere.The word had spread that the projectile ship was jinxed. Old tales ofother ships that had gone out into space, never to be heard of again,were recalled, and the men found instances of similar prelaunchinghappenings on the projectile ship. Very little of it was true, ofcourse. The stories were half-truths and legends that had been handeddown through generations of spacemen, but they seemed to have specialsignificance now.

  Connel fumed and ranted, threatened and cajoled, begged and pleaded, butit was no use. There was not a man in the Academy who would set footinside the "jinxed" ship. Finally, in a last desperate attempt, heignored Hemmingwell's order and appealed to Commander Walters.

  "No, Lou. I cannot order men to take that ship up," Commander Waltersreplied, "and you know it!"

  "Why not?" argued Connel. "You're the commander, aren't you?"

  "I most certainly am," asserted Walters, "and if I want to get otherthings done in the Solar Guard, I can't order men to take a jinxed shipoff the ground." He looked at Connel narrowly. "Do you remember the oldfreighter, the _Spaceglow_?" he asked.

  Connel frowned but didn't reply.

  "You were mate on that ship before you enlisted in the Solar Guard,"persisted Walters. "And I read the log of your first trip when youwrote, and I quote, 'There seems to be some mysterious and unanswerablecondition aboard this vessel that makes her behave as if she had humanintelligence....'"

  "That has nothing to do with _this_ situation!" roared Connel.

  "They're alike! You couldn't get a crew on that wagon in any port ofcall from Venus to Jupiter!"

  "But we found out what was wrong with her eventually!"

  "Yes, but the legend still exists that the _Spaceglow_ had intelligenceof its own!" asserted Walters.

  "All right," snorted Connel. "So we have to fight superstition! But,blast it, Commander, we're faced with a saboteur. There's nothingsupernatural or mysterious about a man with a bomb!"

  Connel turned abruptly and walked out of the commander's office, morefurious than Walters had ever seen him.

  Back at the hangar, Connel faced the professor. It was a tough thing totell the elderly man, and Connel, for all his hard exterior, couldeasily appreciate the professor's feelings. After many years of struggleto convince die-hard bankers of the soundness of his Space Projectileplan, followed by sabotage and costly work stoppages, it washeart-rending to have a "jinx" finally stop him.

  "I'm sorry," said Connel, "but that's the way things are, Professor."

  "I understand, Major," replied Hemmingwell wearily. He turned away,shoulders slumping, and walked back to his tiny office in the shadow ofthe mighty ship that was anchored on the ground.

  "May I speak to you a moment, Major?" a voice broke the silence in thehangar.

  Connel turned around slowly. "You!" he exclaimed. "If it hadn't been foryou and your big mouth, this ship might be in space right now!"

  "Stop blowing your jets!" snapped Dave Barret. "I want to see this shipin space as badly as you do. Perhaps even more so. But listen, I'm notafraid of the jinx. Neither are you, nor is Professor Hemmingwell. We'respacemen. And we know the operation of every piece of equipment on thatship.
What's to prevent us from taking her up?"

  Connel looked at the young man, immediately recognizing the value of hissuggestion. He nodded his head curtly. "All right," he said. "I'll takeyou up on that."

  Barret grinned, stuck out his hand, and after a friendly shake turnedand ran to the professor's office. Connel walked back to the outside ofthe hangar and began bellowing orders for the giant ship to be broughtout to the blast ramp and prepared for the blast-off.

  But Dave Barret did not go directly to Professor Hemmingwell's office.He made one stop. Looking around quickly to make sure that he was notobserved, he slipped into the teleceiver booth and made a hurried callto an Atom City number. When a gruff voice answered, he merely saidthree words:

  "It's all set!"

  * * * * *

  Roger and Astro were some distance away from the main gang, working atthe tunnel mouth overlooking the hangar area.

  "Look, Astro," said Roger. "They're bringing out the ship. They must beready to blast off!"

  Astro stopped his work momentarily and stared as the huge ship wasinched out of the hangar, resting on her tail fins, her nose pointingskyward.

  "I'd sure like to be bucking the power deck on that baby," sighed Astro.

  "Yeah, and I'd give my eyeteeth to see that radar deck," said Roger. "Itmust be really something with all the gear to control those projectileswhen they're released."

  "Do you believe any of that talk about her being jinxed?" asked Astro.

  "Stop being a Venusian lunkhead!" snorted Roger. "The only thing wrongwith that ship is a rocket-blasting clever saboteur."

  "You know," said Astro, "I've been thinking."

  "Don't strain yourself," snorted Roger. But when Astro failed to replyin kind, the blond-haired cadet realized he was serious. "What is it?"he asked.

  "Why, in the name of the moons of Mars, would Barret want to do thethings he did to us?"

  "Simple," said Roger, beginning to sweep industriously as he saw theguard walking toward them. "He didn't like the way we manhandled him."

  "You think he was just getting even with us?" asked Astro, also resumingwork.

  "What else?" asked Roger. "We made him look pretty silly. And that wasno love tap I gave him that night we caught him in the hangar."

  "That's what I mean," said Astro. "I know Major Connel said he wassupposed to be there. But with that teleceiver conversation I overheardand all the rest--well, I just don't get it," he concluded lamely.

  "You'll get it in the neck if you don't watch out," said Roger. "Herecomes Spike and he doesn't like to see us loafing!"

  The two cadets worked steadily for ten minutes, and when the guardfinally walked away, they paused to watch the big ship again.

  "I wonder what Tom is up to?" said Roger thoughtfully. "He said he knewwho the saboteur was, but he needed help to prove it."

  "I'd give a full year's leave just to get my hands on that guy for tenminutes," said Astro.

  "Yeah," grunted Roger. "Well, come on, hot-shot, we still got a lot ofcleaning to do."

  They returned to their work, but even then, as they watched thepreparations for the take-off of the big ship, they both thought aboutTom. They knew his problems were as difficult as their own, and withmuch more at stake. If Tom failed in his efforts to catch the saboteur,it could very well mean the end of the _Polaris_ unit.