Harry Harrison: Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers

"What was that?" Chuck called out, jarred from introspection by the explosion.

"The liberty bell," Jerry said and coughed out a lungful of smoke. "Let's just hope our Russky friend on the bridge didn't hear it. Now look at that – he was obliging enough to leave the torch here."

Moments later the doors were open and the three friends reunited. While the two men shook hands firmly and began planning their bid to retake control of the plane, the industrious Sally found a first-aid kit and put unguents on Jerry's burns and redressed the wound in his arm.

"Rush him and grab him," Chuck growled, his great fists clenching as though they already had the enemy neck in their grasp.

"He's too shrewd for that," Jerry disagreed. "He'd shoot us like clay pigeons before we got halfway to him. We need a better plan. Any shooting and someone gets hurt or the plane is wrecked. I have the feeling he would rather dive this thing into the ground than surrender."

"You're right. We need sound thought, not brutal violence, and that's my clue to put on the old thinking cap." His eyes glazed in a familiar fashion, and Jerry, ever a man of action, ignored his burns and bruises and pulled Sally down into the seat next to him and got his arm around her and nibbled his way up her neck to her mouth and was putting all of him into a gustatory soul kiss when Chuck snapped his fingers and rejoined them, too carried away by his new idea to notice the rapid pulling away, straightening of clothing and wiping of chins.

"Here it is, and it can't be stopped. You remember we set up the cheddite projector to work through the radar aerial on top of the plane, right?"

"Right!"

"Okay. So the field envelops the entire plane. What I am going to do – me, not you, Jerry, so don't argue, not with that busted wing – is sneak into the radio operator's cubby where we installed the equipment. Even if that Russky spots me, I can reach it before he can plug me. Then I'll have a couple of seconds before he can set the automatic pilot and come after me. Two seconds is all I need. I'll set the direction on a hundred and eighty degrees and give it a thousandth of a volt, and you know what that means."

Jerry's forehead puckered as he did some quick calculation. "As near as I can figure it, that will put the plane over the middle of Hudson's Bay in Canada."

"Rightl There will be just enough fuel left by then to reach an airfield in Canada, but not enough to fiy to Russia or Siberia or Cuba. We can play it by ear from there."

"A good plan, and the only chance we have. Let's go!" The muttered roar of the great engines covered their approach as they crept stealthily through the first-class lounge toward the open door of the pilot's compartment. Through the opening they caught a quick glimpse of the hijacking spy's head as he sat at the controls, outlined against the star-filled sky beyond. Chuck shook hands quickly with his friends and smiled happily when Sally stood on tiptoe to give him a quick kiss. Then, with a wry wave of his hand, he began creeping forward.

He had almost reached the door to the radioman's cubby when something disturbed Johann, some noise heard or perhaps a spy's highly developed sixth sense. At first he moved his head uneasily; then he looked about suddenly and spotted the burly American so close behind him. He roared a brutal curse in some crude foreign tongue and grabbed up the submachine gun and fired – all in the instant. But Chuck, with a superb dive of finely tuned athlete's muscles, had plunged through the door an instant before the bullets tore into the spot where he had been.

Johann was right behind the screaming slugs, running forward with his gun ready and still mouthing curses, when Chuck hit the controls. A spin of two dials, and he slammed home the actuator switch just as Johann burst in on top of him.

Something happened. Something impossible to describe, a twitching sensation perhaps that each of them felt through their entire body, through the entire fabric of space. It was as though their insides were nothing but an immense string on a bass viol and something had plucked that string. It was indeed an unusual sensation, and even as it occurred, other things were happening.

The great jet engines gasped and died.

Johann gave Chuck a quick chop with the butt of the gun that plunged him into unconsciousness, then spun about. The stars beyond the window seemed sharper, more clear – and something else.

Light flooded the cabin as the great airship tilted and an immense planet swam into view below. Filling half of the sky, glowing with reflected sunlight. A planet far greater than Earth.

And girded with great glinting rings that floated in space around it.

The Russian spy was petrified by the sight, stock still and gaping. It was a sight to paralyze anyone, and concealed in the ship behind him Sally had been seized by the same paralysis. But not Jerry! He had been expecting something and had planned for this moment, in fact was scarcely aware of what was happening outside the plane. The instant that Johann had appeared and turned his back Jerry raced soundlessly to the attack, hurling himself forward like a human bullet. In fact, if there had been observers, they would have discovered that he had broken the Olympic record for the ten yard dash. The paralysis was only momentary, and the spy was turning and raising his gun but – too late! – for Jerry was upon him, his arm drawn back, his fist cocked. Before the gun could come up, the decadent enemy jaw felt the full impact of a good American fist in all its fury, and that was the end of the ball game.

Unconscious, the spy stretched his length upon the deck while Sally retrieved the fallen gun and Jerry rubbed his sore hand, which was already beginning to swell and turn red; it felt as if half the bones were broken. At this moment there was a groan from the cubby, and Chuck appeared, rubbing at his sore neck.

"Sorry about that," he said, nodding at the great planet swimming in space beyond the window. "I was kind of rushed. It looks like I misread the decimal on the knob and gave the machine a tenth of a volt instead of a thousandth."

"A tenth of a volt did that?" Sally gasped, speaking for all of them. "What would have happened if you had used one hundred and eleven volts?"

There was awe in Chuck's voice that finally broke the silence that enwrapped them. "A tenth of a volt to go from Earth to Saturn. We have the universe in our palms."

"Isn't the air getting a little thin in here?" Sally asked, suddenly frightened.

"Yes," Jerry responded. "We are in interstellar space where there is no oxygen; that is why the jets stopped. This plane is reasonably airtight, but I imagine our air is leaking out slowly through the compressors. . . ."

"We're going to die!" Sally screamed and began to tear at her hair.

"There, there," Chuck said reassuredly. "We'll work something out." He calmed her and wiped away the sudden beading of sweat that had sprung to her forehead and opened her tight clamped fingers and removed the great handfuls of lovely blond hair.

"We have a problem here," Jerry said, bemusedly.

"But not one that can't be solved!" Chuck smiled, and his friend smiled in return. They would buckle down and lick this thing.

"First off let's tie up our spy friend so he doesn't cause any more trouble," Jerry suggested. "My arm's a bit sore, so you had better take care of that, Chuck. Take plenty of wire and tie him down to one of the chairs in the cabin. And bring back some of those little bottles of vodka. I think Sally will feel better if we pour a couple of those into her. And I'll put my thinking cap on and find a way out of this."

The air in the cabin was a good deal thinner and cooler by the time Chuck came back. The third miniature bottle of vodka rattled against the wall, and Sally was getting a glazed look about the eyes. Jerry pointed at a glowing sphere that had appeared below the twisting plane, while Saturn rode high above them.