Chapter 13: Spacehounds Triumphant

Now that the hexan threat that had so long oppressed the humanity of the Sirius was lifted, that dull gray football of armor steel was filled with relief and rejoicing as the pilot laid his course for Europa. Lounges and saloons resounded with noise as police, passengers, and such of the crew as were at liberty made merry. The control room, in which were grouped the leaders of the expedition and the scientists, was orderly enough, but a noticeable undertone of gladness had replaced the tense air it had known so long.

"Hi, men!" Nadia Stevens and Verna Pickering, arms around each other's waists, entered the room and saluted the group gaily before they became a part of it.

"'Smatter, girls--tired of dancing already?" asked Brandon.

"Oh, no--we could dance from now on," Verna assured him. "But you see, Nadia hadn't seen that husband of hers for fifteen minutes, and was getting lonesome. Being afraid of all you men, she wanted me to come along for moral support. The real reason I came, though," and she narrowed her expressive eyes and lowered her voice mysteriously, "is that you two physicists are here. I want to study my chosen victims a little longer before I decide over which of you to cast the spell of my fatal charm."

"But you can't do that," he objected, vigorously. "Quince and I are going to settle that ourselves some day--by shooting dice, or maybe each other, or..." he broke off, listening to an animated conversation going on behind them.

" ... just simply outrageous!" Nadia was exclaiming. "Here we saved his life, and I fed him a lot of my candy, and we went to all the trouble of bringing their ship back here almost to Jupiter for them, and then they simply dashed off without a word of thanks or anything! And he always acted as though he never wanted to see or hear of any of us again, ever! Why, they don't think straight--as Norman would say it, they're full of little red ants! Why, they aren't even human!"

"Sure not." Brandon turned to the flushed speaker. "They couldn't be, hardly, with their make-up. But is it absolutely necessary that all intelligent beings should possess such an emotion as gratitude? Such a being without it does seem funny to us, but I can't see that its lack necessarily implies anything particularly important. Keep still a minute," he went on, as Nadia tried to interrupt him, "and listen to some real wisdom. Quince, you tell 'em."

"They are, of course, very highly developed and extremely intelligent; but it should not be surprising that intelligence should manifest itself in ways quite baffling to us human beings, whose minds work so differently. They are, however ... well, peculiar."

"I won't keep still!" Nadia burst out, at the first opportunity. "I don't want to talk about those hideous things any more, anyway. Come on, Steve, let's go up and dance!"

Crowninshield turned to Verna, with the obvious intention of leading her away, but Brandon interposed.

"Sorry, Crown, but this lady is conducting a highly important psychological research, so your purely social claims will have to wait until after the scientific work is done."

"Why narrow the field of investigation?" laughed the girl. "I'd rather widen it, myself--I might prefer a general, even to a physicist!"

They went up to the main saloon and joined the mêlée there, and after one dance with Verna--all he could claim in that crowd of men--Crowninshield turned to Brandon.

"You two seem to know Miss Pickering extraordinarily well. Would I be stepping on your toes if I give her a play?"

"Clear ether as far as we're concerned." Brandon shrugged his shoulders. "She's been kicking around under foot ever since she was knee high to a duck--we gave her her first lessons on a slide rule."

"Don't be dumb, Norman. That woman's a knock-out--a riot--a regular tri-planet call-out!"

"Oh, she's all x, as far as that goes. She's a good little scout, too--not half as dumb as she acts--and she's one of the squarest little aces that ever waved a plume; but as for playing her--too much like our kid sister."

"Good--me for her!" and they made their way back down to the control room.

Stevens, after his one dance with Nadia, had already returned. Brandon and Crowninshield found him seated at the calculating machine, continuing a problem which already filled several pages of his notebook.

"'Smatter, Steve? So glad to see a calculator and some paper that you can't let them alone?"

"Not exactly--just had a thought a day or so ago. Been computing the orbit of the wreckage of the Arcturus around Jupiter. Think we should salvage it--the upper half, at least. It was left intact, you know."

"H ... m ... m. That would be nice, all right. Dope enough?"

"Got the direction solid, from my own observations; the velocity's a pretty rough approximation though. But after allowing for my probable error, it figures an ellipse of low eccentricity, between the orbits of Io and Europa. Its period is short--about two days."

"Isn't it wonderful to have a brain?" Brandon addressed the room at large. "The kid's clever. Nobody else would have thought of it, except maybe Westfall. Let's see your figures. Um ... m ... m. According to that, we're within an hour of it, right now." He turned to the pilot and sketched rapidly.

"Get on this line here, please, and decelerate, so that the stuff'll catch up with us, and pass the word to the lookouts. Stevens and I will take the bow plates.

"That's a good idea," he went on to Stevens, as they took their places at main and auxiliary ultra-banks. "Lot of plunder in that ship. Instruments, boats, and equipment worth millions, besides most of the junk of the passengers--clothes, trunks, trinkets, and what-not. You're there, bucko!"

"Thanks, Chief," ... and they fell silent, watching the instruments carefully, and from time to time making computations from the readings of the acceleration and flight meters.

"There she is!" An alarm bell had finally sounded, the ultra-lights had flared out into space, and upon both screens there shone out images of the closely clustered wreckage of the Arcturus. But both men were more interested just then in the mathematics of the recovery than in the vessel itself.

"Missed it eight minutes of time and eleven divisions on the scale," reported Stevens. "Not so good."

"Not so bad either--I've seen worse computation." Thus lightly was dismissed a mathematical feat which, a few years earlier, before the days of I-P computers, would have been deemed worthy of publication in "The Philosophical Magazine."

Director Newton was called in, and it was decided that the many small fragments of the vessel were not worth saving; that its upper half was all that they should attempt to tow the enormous distance back to Tellus. The pace of the Sirius was adjusted to that of the floating masses, and tractor beams were clamped upon the undamaged portion of the derelict, and upon the two slices from the nose of the craft. A couple of the larger fragments of wreckage were also taken, to furnish metal for the repairs which would be necessary. Acceleration was brought slowly up to normal, and the battle-scarred cruiser of the void, with her heavy burden of inert metal, resumed her interrupted voyage toward Europa; the satellite upon which the passengers and crew of the ill-fated Arcturus had been so long immured. On she bored through the ether, detector screens full out and greenly scintillant Vorkulian wall-screens outlining her football shape in weird and ghastly light; unafraid now of any possible surviving space-craft of the hexans.

But if the hexans detected her, they made no sign. Perhaps their fleet had been destroyed utterly; perhaps it had been impressed upon even their fierce minds that those sparkling green screens were not to be molested with impunity! The satellite was reached without event and down into the crater landing shaft the two enormous masses of metal dropped.

Callisto's foremost citizens were on hand to welcome the Terrestrial rescuers, and revelry reigned supreme in that deeply buried Europan community. All humanity celebrated. The Callistonians rejoiced because they were now freed from the age-old oppression of the hexan hordes; because they could once more extend their civilization over the Jovian satellites and live again their normal lives upon the surface of those small worlds.

The Terrestrials were almost equally enthusiastic in the reunion that marked the end of the long imprisonment of the refugees.