Lester del Rey - The Mysterious Planet

“I can raise it higher, Simon,” Juan warned him. “I can raise it until you can no longer stand it.

Or I can let you up to find a space suit for Emo and put him out.”

“You’ll get us killed,” Simon gasped.

Juan nodded. “Perhaps. I do not think so, but perhaps you are right. It is still better than the war would be. Will you do as I say?”

“Let me up,” Simon agreed reluctantly.

Some of the pressure slacked off, and the older boy crawled painfully to his feet.

“Patriotism!” he grunted. “You think you’re being a hero and a patriot. But you’re not. You’re just making us sitting ducks for Thule. And they’ll kill us before the kid is through the lock.”

He swayed as Juan applied more thrust. Then he nodded with difficulty, and turned toward the suit lockers as Juan let it up. For a second, he fumbled with the door of the locker.

Bob watched him, trying to think. He had no more use for Juan’s solution than Jakes had, and he was sure that Simon was correct; as soon as they had the boy, some of the Thule ships would exterminate those who had tried to kidnap him. But it might help to stop this crazy war that was now already started.

And he could think of nothing better at the moment.

Simon swung around suddenly, and there was a gun in his hand. “All right, sucker,” he ordered Juan. “Get out of that seat! You’ve made enough trouble. I ought to put you off so you could go back to Thule where you belong! Get up!”

Juan’s hands moved toward the controls, but stopped as Simon began putting pressure on the trigger. The older boy nodded. “Keep away from the controls. If you haven’t got enough sense to search my pockets, how do you think you can outsmart me now—or outsmart Thule’s ships? Up!”

Juan stood up—and leaped back at Simon. The gun went off, and the bullet ricocheted savagely around the little control room, just missing Bob’s skull. Then Juan was on the other, and they were rolling over and over, each trying to wrest the gun from the other’s clutches.

The Icarius went on, holding the same acceleration and course, since there was no one at the controls.

Bob got up wearily, and moved toward the two squirming bodies. He could hear each of them yelling for him to help, but he paid no attention to it. Then his hand darted down and came up with the gun. “All right,” he told them. “You’ve done enough of that. Both of you get up.”

He prodded them forward, until they were backed against the viewport and the radar screen, and then he slipped into the control seat.

Juan smiled, and started to come back, but Bob lifted the gun. “Both of you stay up there.

Simon, I’m not going to stand by and see you get away with starting a war. I agree with Juan that we’d all better be wiped out if it will keep that from happening. And Juan, you know as well as I do that you can’t save us by putting the kid out. You’ve got more sense than that.

Anyhow, Emo wouldn’t fit the suits, so they wouldn’t recognize him at first. They might think it was one of us and take a shot at him.”

“You can contact them by radio first,” Juan objected.

Bob realized he wasn’t thinking too clearly himself. There had been no time for real thought since Simon had first started the trouble.

“All right,” he admitted. “You can. But I still think there are better ways. Emo, what do you think about it?”

Emo looked at him sullenly. “I want to go home. And you’d better take me home. You’d better do it fast, too, before my father gets you.”

“Yeah. We heard that before,” Bob admitted. But he couldn’t blame the kid too much. It must be rough on him, and at least, he hadn’t gone in for crying or hysterics. “All right, Emo. That’s exactly what we’re going to do. We’re taking you home.”

He heard a hoarse gasp from Jakes, but he was already beginning to swing the Icarius around slowly, to head back to Thule. Beside him, the great fleet of Thule swung in perfect formation. The move must have puzzled them, but they were willing to hang on until they either had Emo or there was no hope.

Juan started back to his seat again beside Bob. “It is a good plan,” he agreed, and he was smiling. “You will have no more trouble from me. That is a promise.”

“Fine,” Bob told him. “Then take this gun, and keep it on Jakes—unless he wants to give in now.”

Simon shook his head stubbornly and went on muttering about traitors.

“I suppose you think they’ll kiss you on both cheeks and cry out about how wonderful you are,” he said hotly. “Maybe you think you’ll be the big heroes to Thule. All right, you guys.

Have it your way. You’ll maybe even be given a nice position there. But you’ll hate your own faces when you have to live with yourselves. Look what happened to Benedict Arnold and all the rest of the traitors!”

Emo looked at him without understanding what had been said. The boy’s face had grown more cheerful since they started to go back, and now he was picking up a certain amount of enthusiasm for the excitement “You’re bad, Simon,” he said. “You’re a pirate, that’s what you are. And I’m going to have my father make you sorry.”

For the first time, the toughness left Simon’s face. “You just don’t understand, Emo,” he protested. “Doggone it, I wasn’t going to hurt you. Didn’t I tell you I’d show you a real pirate when we reached the Federation?”

“A duty pirate!” Emo amplified his former remark.

Oddly, Bob felt sorry for Jakes. Out of all that had happened, Simon had brought him more trouble than good, but he knew that the awkward, clown-faced boy had only been trying to do what he thought was best. It must have been hard on him to use Emo as a hostage, knowing the kid would dislike him for it, and still liking him.

“Sit down, Jakes,” he ordered, more gently. “Emo’ll get over it, I guess. And nobody’s mad at you. So why start calling us traitors?”

Jakes came back slowly, his face uncertain. He sank into the seat behind Juan miserably, and Bob heard him muttering to Emo. But apparently the young boy was still angry.

Then Jakes’s voice suddenly lifted to a shout. Bob grunted, but he was busy landing and had no time to look. If Simon started anything now…

“Bob, look!” Jakes was out of his seat now, holding Juan tightly in his arms, and the smaller boy was struggling frantically. “Look!”

Bob risked a quick glance sideways, and saw blood running from a cut on the back of Juan’s neck, where he must have scratched it in the previous struggle.

The blood was a bright orange, unlike any human blood in the Solar Federation. And that could only mean that Juan was a native of Thule.

No wonder he had spotted the mock-up and had led them into a trap. No wonder everything they had done was known to the president of Thule. And even less wonder that he had been willing to let them all be killed to free Emo!

But it was too late to do anything about it. Bob had already landed and men were piling out of the big Thulian ships, heading for them.

THE SMALL ROOM off the president’s conference chambers was air-conditioned and comfortable, but it seemed hot and stuffy to Bob. He glanced about, to Jakes who was sitting morosely glowering at Juan, and to the guards who had taken them from the Icarius and brought them here.

Almost no words had been spoken since they had landed, and he had led Emo out and given the boy to the crowd.

“So now what happens?” he wondered.

Jakes shrugged ponderously. “We get killed, I suppose. All I know is that I tried and failed. I still think I was right—and that thing sitting near you proves it, too. But right now, I’m busy praying you were right, and that something decent comes out of it. Why don’t you ask our little friend?”