Gold Star

which required only one instruction to alter the blink mode. He took careful note of the launch points of the nuclear missiles. He was in very close, inside the moon's orbit, near enough for his optics to see distinguishing surface features, forests, lakes, the larger rivers. He was looking for signs of population, for city centers. It was a beautiful planet. In one hemisphere there were two rather large continents separated by perhaps five hundred miles of ocean. In the opposite hemisphere one huge continent balanced out the surface stress of the planet's crust. The oceans were huge, joined in ice at both poles. In the south polar areas was one large ice island which reflected gleaming sunlight. He saw no sign of man. He saw only the flash of launch as the missiles began their reach for the 47. The missile sites were either too well hidden or too small to be seen on optics at that distance. The antique but deadly weapons came up from both of the continents in what Pete thought of as the western hemisphere, his mind comparing the two-continent configuration to the western hemisphere of old Earth, and, as the 47 orbited, from the single large continent in the east. He could not count the numbers. They came up in a flock, a firefly hoard of things with glowing tails. «They're really giving it to us with both barrels,» he said, as the missiles converged and pointed toward the tug. He'd timed the fuel supply of the missiles during earlier attacks. He put the 47 into motion, leading the missiles out toward the blackness of space. They followed dutifully, little spurts of fire marking the firing of course-correction rockets. When the lead missiles got too close he blinked in the old mode, and saw that approximately half of the missiles had blink capability. Then he blinked in the test-configuration mode and checked to be sure that the missiles were continuing their course outward into intergalactic space. He was getting set to do the same thing again when the communications gong sounded and the signal for voice transmission came. He punched buttons and said, «This is Stranden 47.» «Stranden 47, this is the Ramco Lady Sandy. What the hell is going on here?» «Lady Sandy, what's your position?» There was a silence, as if the Lady Sandy was thinking. Then the human voice said, «Stranden 47, we're about a half million miles off the planet toward the blink beacon at one astronomical unit.» «They pulled the information from NE793 and used it to follow us,» Pete told Jan, making a wry face. Then, into the transmitter, «Lady Sandy , you will soon be under attack by nuclear rockets. Do you read?» «I read. What the hell is this?» «I'd advise you,» Pete said, «to allow the rockets to home in on you. Then set a sublight course which will direct the rockets away from the galaxy before using the test-specification mode to blink.» Aboard the Lady Sandy Jarvis Smith whispered, «He's up to something, Brad.» «You get on the instruments and let me know if anything comes at us from the planet,» Fuller said. Almost immediately Jarvis yelled, «Brad, there's a half-dozen vehicles coming at us.» Fuller examined the instruments, nodded. «He wasn't lying about rockets.» He shook his head. «Rockets?» He led the rockets in a long curving turn. They were getting too close for comfort when he blinked and nothing followed him. Back in normal space he contacted Stranden 47. «Have you located Rimfire?» Brad Fuller asked. «Brad, listen,» Jarvis was saying. «Maybe they've got armed ships down there. If they send up ships—» «Pete Jaynes has been here longer than we have,» Fuller said. «If they had ships they'd have sent them after him. I think he's got it figured right. It has something to do with the blink mode. Those rockets didn't follow us on a normal mode. Next time I'll try the altered mode and see if he's lying about that.» Meanwhile, he was waiting for Jaynes' answer to his question, and it took a while in coming. It took a while because, although Pete had been expecting it, he hadn't decided how to answer it. «We can't tell him where Rimfire is,» Jan said. Pete was thinking with his fingers. He was gradually acquiring information about the planet. First, the computer said that the voice which warned them, «You are in peril, identify,» was not human, was formed by the mechanics of a computer. Second, he, too, had wondered why the planet didn't send up ships with weapons. Third, he'd been unable to spot any signs of human habitation down on the planet's surface. Fourth, repeated attempts to open communications with the planet resulted only in that cryptic warning. In short, he was beginning to wonder if there were any people on the planet. If there were, they were all underground, or in very small groups. What Pete had intended to do, before the arrival of the Lady Sandy, was to keep drawing missile fire until, if possible, the missile batteries were exhausted. He'd already led a herd of them off into space. There couldn't be too many more. Rockets had been phased out over a thousand years ago. A thousand years ago no planet would have had infinite resources. The number of rockets had to be limited. He had discarded immediately the possibility that he and Jan had done what all of the probes and voyages of X&A had failed to do for a thousand years, find alien life. The voice which warned them, even if it was not human, spoke English, the language which had almost caused a nuclear war on old Earth before it was designated the official language of space. «I repeat, Stranden 47, do you know Rimfire's location?» «No,» Pete said. It was not a total lie. He knew where a shadow was, a shadow which looked very much like Rimfire. He did not know where the Rimfire of solidity was. «Lady Sandy, I propose that we cooperate. Do you agree?» «Cooperate in what?» Brad Fuller asked. «First, let me say,» Pete sent, speaking slowly and clearly, «that I have duly, and in accordance with Space Service regulations, recorded the sighting of a life-zone planet onto our permanent tapes, with confirmed date and hour settings. Should the planet below us turn out to be unoccupied, I have filed claim to it in the name of Peter and Janice Jaynes. Do you read?» «Loud and clear,» Brad Fuller said. He was a little confused. The guy was talking about an unoccupied planet while the bastards down there were shooting nukes at them. However, he wasn't going to underestimate this Pete Jaynes again. Pete had figured out that mess with altering the blink field. Maybe, again, he knew something that the Lady Sandy's crew didn't know. «What we need to do,» Pete said, «is draw off all the missiles that can be thrown at us, until there are no more. Will you cooperate?» «What's in it for us?» Jarvis Smith growled. «With what purpose?» Fuller asked. So there it was. They were right back to Rimfire. «You want us to risk our necks to help you clear a planet which you've claimed, is that it?» Fuller asked. «Lady Sandy.» Pete said, speaking slowly and clearly, checking lights to be sure the conversation was going onto the permanent tapes, «it is my opinion that U.P.S Rimfire is in the area of the planet. My intentions are this: To clear the hostile weapons from the area so that we may conduct a safe search.» «He knows where she is,» Jarvis Smith hissed. «She's around here somewhere. Let's let him play with his missiles while we find her.» Fuller was thinking. He keyed the mike and said, «Stranden 47, you've got yourself a planet. I will agree to cooperate with you on one condition, that Rimfire is ours. Do you agree?» «Pete, he has no right to ask that,» Jan said. He held up one hand to hush her. His fingers worked on his scalp. He had no idea how long it would take to clear the missiles, or even if he could. They might always hold some in reserve, to come streaking out to catch them when they were hooked onto Rimfire. He wasn't sure the plane was theirs. If there were only a few men, if there was only one man down there, it would be classed as an occupied planet. «Lady Sandy.» he said, «no deal. You take your chances. However, if Rimfire is near this planet and you lead missiles to her, she could be destroyed.» «He's trying to fake us out,» Jarvis Smith said to Fuller. «We'll be in touch,» Fuller said, breaking the broadcast link. «What are we going to do?» Jarvis Smith asked. «Find Rimfire,» Fuller said grimly. «Go wake up Asher and King.» A tug man can sleep through anything. Jarvis had to shake both men hard before they roused, and then they were all in control with Fuller briefing them. After he'd heard the latest developments, Buck King said, «Fuller, you're talking chicken feed.» «I don't call a couple of million each chicken feed,» Fuller said. «They got a whole planet,» Tom Asher said. «And they've recorded the find on the ship's tapes.» «What if those tapes never got read?» King asked. Fuller frowned. He'd thought the same thing, himself. «Number one, you're talking murder. If we could find some way, without weapons, to destroy that old Mule, it would be murder.» King spread his hands. «And,» Fuller said, «how do we know he hasn't blinked his claim back?» He'd been thinking about that, too. Jarvis Smith had been doing some thinking. If he did, he'd have to use the altered mode, send it through those two beacons we passed. It would be on NE793's tapes in the altered mode. «Along with instructions how to read it,» Fuller said. «What if we got back in time to destroy the tape?» King asked. «What if we didn't?» Fuller countered. «It's too risky.» «If we got up close alongside and turned our flux exhaust on him it would mess up his electronics,» King said. «King,» Fuller said, «I haven't made up my mind whether I'd kill two people for a planet. I'm not sure. Maybe, if things were just right, I would. But they ain't just right. I don't want to spend the rest of my life in the mines out in the asteroids. No. We're going to take what we can get. We're going to look for Rimfire.» Fuller divided the space near the solitary sun into a grid and began the slow search process. At least twice during the next few hours, while the Stranden 47 orbited the planet, drawing missiles upward to be led out into space, the Lady Sandy was within instrument range of the shadowy form of the Rimfire. However, Brad Fuller was making his search on test-specification mode. Chapter Eight Pete held the 47 in orbit just outside the atmosphere of the planet. For two days, with necessary time out for sleep, he'd been playing chase with nuclear missiles. Each time the number dwindled, and at last the 47 had made two full orbits of the planet without drawing fire. «The computer says they fired over three thousand,» Jan told him. «What a waste,» he said. «I've been doing some reading,» Jan said. «Good for you.» He was tired. He'd been under more strain then he had thought. It seemed safe enough to draw the missiles up, lead them in the right direction, and blink away on test-specification mode, but they were, after all, nuclear weapons, old, mean, scary. «They used rockets with limited blink capacity in the war against Zede II, almost a thousand years ago,» Jan said. Man's last war. It seemed incredible to think that with a universe to