John Farrell - Spin, Devil!

The massive, bearded man stiffened in the wide web straps, tilted his head back and yelled with all the power of his lungs. It was a gargantuan yawp that set up a heavy metallic resonance in the forward compartment of the tiny ship. He yelled again and again, and suddenly stopped. He slumped, his face slack, his mouth open, a sticky thread of saliva on his bearded chin. His eyes, small flecks of aquamarine in the weathered leather above the beard, were dazed and confused. A series of relays clicked and he was once again in the deathly silence that had lasted for ten full days. His fear soured the air around him.

He shook his big head, dug at the corners of his eyes with his knuckles in a gesture like that of a tearful child.

Then a look of animal cunning crept into his eyes. He carefully checked his astrogation chart, flicked the switch that started the gyros, watched the dial that indicated change of axis. When the change was sufficient, he cut the gyros. Three tenths of a second of blast would straighten the little ship on the new course. The blast was like a tremendous hammer that flung him heavily to one side, the straps tightening like bands of steel.

His lips moving, he counted off the seconds as he watched the rear vision plate, black with the nothingness of space, the star lines distorted by the supralight speed. Fourteen-fifteen-sixteen... There it was! A needle-point flare.

The Security cruiser was steadily narrowing the distance between them. He couldn’t hope to match its speed.

The need for sleep welled over him. He checked the simple dials. Slouching in the web harness that held him fast to the chair, he closed his eyes. His face twitched as he slept.

Senior Lieutenant George Bolles, commanding the light cruiser Genesee, crew of eight, yawned and then glared at the pursuit plate. The pip, representing the tiny ship far ahead, was nicely centered in the plate.

For eleven years Security had searched for the planet hideout of Wink Midas and his nest of pirates. George, while still in elementary school, had heard of Midas’ work. Luxury cruisers on the planet lines attacked in space; money, jewels, fuel, liquor, recruits and women hustled quickly into the attacking ship.

Midas had become a legend in his own time, cruel, ruthless and powerful. He alone had kept the interplanet insurance rates at an exorbitant level.

And finally an obscure research mathematician at Security headquarters had analyzed eleven years of survivor reports, had charted the position of each attack, the trajectory away from each. Making the assumption that in every case the attacking ship would head away from base, he had plotted the one area of the universe toward which the ship had never headed. Thus a possibility of incredible billions of planets had been narrowed down to approximately 1.3 million.

Security specialists had girdled the area with scanners built to resemble small asteroids, placed them in orbits around outlying stars. And within three months the hideout planet known as Midas I had been discovered.

Never again would one of the vast passenger ships be subjected to “the Midas touch.” Never again would an ill-fated ship like the Denver be robbed of fuel beyond the safety factor so that by the time Security rescued her, all two thousand passengers and crew had strangled in the foul air.

George Bolles glanced from his preoccupation with the pursuit plate as Junior Lieutenant Arnold King announced his approach with a click of magnetized shoes on the steel floor of the bridge. He was junior in rank only, a fleshy, dour man of forty who, because of some youthful indiscretion, had been frozen in the permanent rank of junior lieutenant, forbidden to command even the smallest Security ship. George knew that King hated him cordially, hated every man who held a higher rank that his own.

And yet he saw that for the first time King looked at him with excitement rather than contempt. He held out the strip of tape without a word.

George took it, read, “Genesee from flagship: You trail only human to escape attack web. Wink Midas not on Midas I. Good hunting.”

“I should have realized!” George said.

The Security fleet had overpowered the patrol ships before they could signal the alarm to Midas I. Silently the forty ships had crept in, neutralizing the watching screens, overpowering guards after they had landed, inerting the drives of the ten attack ships which comprised the Midas fleet. Only the Genesee and one other light cruiser had remained in orbit around Midas I. The Genesee had been closest when the tiny ship had flamed up from Midas I, and George Bolles had, after a few minutes delay, snapped the bigger ship into the pursuit formula, automatic pilot set to follow each variation of course, engine roaring at maximum.

“My sister was on the Denver, sir,” Arnold King said flatly.

“You never mentioned that before, Arnold!”

“There was no point in mentioning it before, sir. That was five years ago. I’ve been — eager to meet Wink Midas.”

There was no mistaking the hate behind the quiet words.

“You know the regulations under which we operate, Arnold. You know them better than I do. ‘Security personnel do not punish. Security brings violators of interplanetary law to the proper courts for punishment Self-defense is not an excuse. No Security officer will place himself in such a position that he must kill in self-defense.’ ”

“It isn’t necessary to quote the rule book — sir,” King said, his thick lips compressed.

“Sorry, Arnold. I wanted to make it clear right now, at this stage of the game, that Wink Midas will receive exactly the same treatment as anybody else. Our job is to grab him and take him back. That’s all.”

King saluted, more smartly than was necessary. “Yes sir!” he snapped. He about-faced and walked back to the compartment door.

“Wait a minute, Arnold!” George said. “I want your advice. If the boss is right, that man ahead of us is as clever as a fox. His whole organization is shot. He realizes that. He knows that if we take him — they’ll shock his mind down to an animal level and turn him over to the labs on Venus. His first thought will be to escape; after that he can think of setting himself up with a new identity. And it might not be too hard. Nobody knows what he really looks like underneath that beard. If you were Wink Midas, what would you do?”

Arnold King walked slowly back, pulled himself down into the copilot chair beside George Bolles, snapped the belt across his thighs.

“Sir, he’s got the advantage of us in two ways. More maneuverability, and the knowledge that we want to capture, not kill. If we don’t kill him, we may not get him.”

“Where would you head for if you were Midas?”

Arnold King permitted himself a smile. “Exactly where he’s headed. One of the thickest asteroid belts in the known universe.”

George indexed the proper star map, flicked the light on under it. He made several mental calculations. “If that’s where he’s headed, hell have to start deceleration within five hours. Otherwise he’ll swing beyond it in such a wide arc that we can cut him off. At this rate, we’ll catch him in twenty hours if he doesn’t reduce speed. See if you check me on this. His aim will be to decelerate, dive into the asteroid belt and anchor himself on a big one, hoping that the metallic content of the asteroid he picks will be high enough to obstruct our search pattern.”

“Right. And we can detect the area where he ducks in, and we can blast everything in that area.”