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Updated: June 10, 2025
Commander O'Brine will never have time to get off a message, because he'll be dead before he knows there is danger." The logic of it sent a chill down Rip's spine. The Connie could get the Scorpius with one nuclear blast and then clean up the asteroid at leisure. The Federation would suspect, but it would be unable to prove anything, because there would be no witnesses.
Rip gave him a civil hello and started to sit alone at another table. To his surprise, O'Brine beckoned to him. "Sit down," the spaceman invited gruffly. Rip did and wondered what was coming next. "We'll start to decelerate in about ten minutes," O'Brine said. "Eat while you can." He signaled, and a spaceman brought Rip the day's ration in an individual plastic carton with thermo-lining.
"I hope, but not much. I don't think you can." Rip asked, "What are my orders, sir?" O'Brine waved in the general direction of the wall. "Out there somewhere in the asteroid belt, Foster, there is a little chunk of matter about one thousand yards in diameter. A very minor planet. We know its approximate coordinates as of two days ago, but we don't know much else.
He had a mathematically square jaw, a lopsided nose, green eyes, and sandy hair. He spoke with a pronounced Irish brogue. Rip started to announce his name, rank, and the fact that he was reporting as ordered. Commander O'Brine brushed his words aside and stated flatly, "You're a Planeteer. I don't like Planeteers." Rip didn't know what to say, so he kept still.
He had sent the snapper-boats to try to draw fire, in an attempt to find out more surely whether Planeteers or Connies had the thorium rock. "The Scorpius doesn't know what's going on," Rip told his Planeteers. "O'Brine didn't know the cruiser was waiting to ambush him, so the rocket we fired made him think the Connies had taken us over." He put himself in O'Brine's place.
No accurate count of asteroids or minor planets, as they were called had been made, but the observatory on Mars had charted the orbits of thousands. A few were more than a mile in diameter, but most were great boulders of irregular shape, from a few feet to several hundred feet at their greatest dimension. "I know the usual stuff about them," he told O'Brine. "I haven't any special knowledge."
But on the dark side, Rip measured temperatures close to absolute zero. When the Scorpius returned, he arranged with Commander O'Brine for the Planeteers to take turns going to the cruiser for showers and decent meals. The asteroid approached the orbit of Venus, but the bright planet was some distance away, at its greatest elongation to the east of the sun.
They hadn't worked, because of loose space chatter at Marsport. O'Brine issued quick orders. "Now, get this. We have to work fast. Accelerate fifty percent, same course. I want two men on each screen. If anything of the right size shows up, decelerate until we can get mass and albedo measurements. Snap to it." The space officers started out, but O'Brine stopped them.
Not too far, of course. Just enough to lead the Connie away from you if its screen picks us up." That sounded good to Rip. "We'll be ready when you are, sir." The chief analyst took less than the estimated ten minutes for his next set of figures. Commander O'Brine called personally while Rip was still searching for the right landing-boat ports. The voice horn bellowed, "Get it, Lieutenant Foster!
A blossom of orange fire marked a perfect hit. Hard Words The Scorpius could have taken direct hits with little or no major damage from a hundred rockets of the kind Rip had used, but Commander O'Brine took no chances. When the alarm bell signaled that the outer hull had been hit, the commander acted instantly with a bellowed order.
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