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"How is the Connie I got?" "Unconscious, sir," Santos replied. "He must be bleeding badly, but we can't tell. The one you landed on is all right now, but he may have a broken rib or two." Because his voice was weak, Rip had to turn up the volume on his communicator to tell the Planeteers about the Scorpius. They were silent when he finished. Then Dowst spoke up. "Looks like they have us, sir.
He called for Dowst, then carried the instrument to the center of the cross formed by the four men. Using the instrument, he rechecked the lines from the center out. They were within a hair or two of being exactly on, and a slight error wouldn’t hurt anyway. He knew he would have to correct with rocket blasts once the asteroid was in the new orbit. "X marks the spot," he told Dowst.
They had three tubes left, but he didn’t know if that was enough to do the job. Moving rapidly, he and Santos caught up to Koa and the Planeteers. The Connie prisoners were pretty well bunched up, gliding along like a herd of fantastic sheep. Their shepherds were Pederson, Nunez, and Dowst. The three Planeteers had a pistol in each hand. The spares were probably those taken from prisoners.
The exhaust from the top lessened, and fire spurted soundlessly from the bottom. Dowst balanced the opposite thrusts of the top and bottom blasts with the delicacy of a woman threading a needle. In a few moments the boat was hovering a foot above the asteroid. Dowst cut the exhausts, and Rip stepped out onto the tiny planet. The Planeteers knew what to do.
He put his toe on the place where the crosslines met. Dowst used a spike to make an X in the metal ground. "All set," Rip announced. "You four men can move now. Let's have the cutting equipment over here, Koa." The Planeteers were all waiting for instructions now. In a few moments the equipment was ready, fuel and oxygen bottles attached. "Who's the champion torchman?" Rip asked.
The rest have nothing." "Pederson, report." "No weapons I can see, sir." Koa looked at Rip. "They must think the asteroid is clean. Otherwise they'd have more than a chatter gun in sight. You can bet they have knives and pistols, too." Rip had been playing with an idea. He tried it on his men. "These Connies would be useful to us alive, if we could capture them." Dowst caught his meaning first.
At last, certain that everything was in good order, he said quietly, "Pilots, man your boats." Dowst got into one and a spaceman into the other. Dowst's boat would stay with them on the asteroid. The spaceman would bring the other back to the ship. Commander O'Brine stepped through the valve into the boat lock. A spaceman handed him a hand communicator. He spoke into it.
The Connie who had stepped aside was advancing, pistol in hand. His light caught Rip full in the face. The young officer thought quickly. The Connie hadn’t fired. Why? Suddenly he had it. The man hadn’t fired for fear of hitting his friend, who was battling with Dowst. Rip was in front of them. Quickly he dropped to one knee, reaching for his own pistol. The Connie wouldn’t dare fire now.
Rip remembered the lay of the ground, and Santos’s description of the snapper-boats’ position. He circled almost to the horizon, then told Dowst to cut his light. He cut his own. In a moment they topped the horizon, and standing with only helmets visible from the snapper-boats, looked the situation over. The three Connies were standing between him and the boats.
"You monitor Dowst when he finishes. I want to see what’s happening." He hurried from the chamber and made his way down the corridors toward the engine control room. There was a good possibility he might get a call from O’Brine, with instructions to take his men off the ship. He might finally learn what he was assigned to do!
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