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Updated: July 27, 2025
If the Patrol ship missed anything, we want to know it." The interior of the orbit-ship was dark. It spun slowly on its axis, giving them just enough weight so they would not float free whenever they moved. Their boots clanged on the metal decks as they climbed up the curving corridor toward the control cabin. Then Johnny threw a light switch, and they stared around them in amazement.
There had been two dozen men on the raider ship; there had been no question, even from the start, that they would succeed in boarding the orbit-ship and taking its occupants prisoners. The Jupiter Equilateral ship had not appeared there by coincidence. They had come looking for something that they had not found. And the only source of information left was Roger Hunter's sons.
It took skill to bring a little scout-ship in for a landing on an asteroid rock hardly bigger than the ship itself; it took even more skill to rig the controlled-Murexide charges to blast the rock into tiny fragments, and then run out the shiny magnetic net to catch the explosion debris and bring it in to the hold of the orbit-ship....
Getting into the orbit-ship had been easier than he had hoped. In the excitement as the new prisoners were brought aboard, security measures had been lax. No one had expected a third visitor; in consequence, no one looked for one.
Quickly he set the autopilot, plotted a simple high school math course for the ship, a course the Ranger ship would be certain to see, and to fire upon. He set the count-down clock to give himself plenty of time for the next step. Both the airlock to the Scavenger and to the orbit-ship worked on electric motors. The Scavenger was grappled to the orbit-ship's hull by magnetic cables.
He was trying for the third time to explain, clearly and logically, how two men and a ghost were scuttling his orbit-ship under his very feet when one wall of the cabin vanished in a crackle of blue fire, and he found himself staring at two Greg Hunters and a grim-faced Johnny Coombs. He made squeaky noises into the microphone and dropped it with a crash.
The guards unstrapped the prisoners, and handed them pressure suits. Moments later they were in a section in crews' quarters where they stripped off their suits. This orbit-ship was much larger than Roger Hunter's; the gravity was almost Mars-normal, and it was comforting just to stretch and relax their cramped muscles. As long as they didn't think of what was ahead.
Tom dug into the ship's repair locker, found the wires and fuses that he needed, and swiftly started to work. It was an ingenious device. The inner airlock door in the orbit-ship was triggered to a fuse. He had left it ajar; the moment it was closed, by anyone intending to board the Scavenger, the fuse would burn, a circuit would open, and the little ship's autopilot would go on active.
With it, and with the advantage of a ghost that walked like a man ... Tom Hunter, to be exact ... they had reduced the Jupiter Equilateral orbit-ship to a smoking wreck in something less than thirty minutes. The signal came back that a scout-ship was ready, unguarded. Johnny prodded Tawney with the stunner. "You first," he said. "But where are you taking me?" "You'll see," Johnny said.
"Oh, I could, but why waste the time and fuel? There wouldn't be any weapons aboard." "Then how do they explain the fact that the Scavenger was blown to bits and Dad's orbit-ship ripped apart from top to bottom?" "Details," the Major said. "Mere details. I'm sure that the company's lawyers can muddy the waters quite enough so that little details like that are overlooked.
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