barely crept back to solid ground.
The medical officer was running around and shouting to get the swimmers into decontamination and men were running everywhere and shouting and the fire rigs stood there racing their motors while the siren went on shrieking.
'Get back!' someone was shouting. 'Run! Everybody back!'
So, of course, we ran like a flock of spooked sheep.
Then a wordless yell went up and we turned around. The atomic ship was rising slowly from the pit. Beneath it, the water seethed and boiled. The ship rose steadily, gracefully, without a single shudder or shake. It went straight up into the sky, up and out of sight.
Suddenly I realized that I was standing in dead silence. No one was stirring. No one was making any noise. Everybody just stood and stared into the sky. The siren had shut off.
I felt someone tap me on the shoulder. It was the general.
'Stinky?' he asked.
'He wouldn't come,' I answered, feeling low. 'I was too scared to go and get him.'
The general wheeled and headed off across the field. For no reason I can think of, I turned and followed him. He broke into a run and I loped along beside him.
We stormed into operations and went piling up the stairs to the tracking room.
The general bellowed: 'You got a fix on it?'
'Yes, sir, we're tracking it right now.'
'Good,' the general said, breathing heavily. 'Fine. We'll have to run it down. Tell me where it's headed.'
'Straight out, sir. It still is heading out.'
'How far?'
'About five thousand miles, sir.'
'But it can't do that!' the general roared. 'It can't navigate in space!'
He turned around and bumped into me.
'Get out of my way!' He went thumping down the stairs.
I followed him down, but outside the building I went another way. I passed administration and there was the colonel standing outside. I wasn't going to stop, but he called to me. I went over.
'He made it,' said the colonel.
'I tried to take him off,' I said, 'but he wouldn't come.'
'Of course not. What do you think it was that drove us from the ship?'
I thought back and there was only one answer. 'Stinky?'
'Sure. It wasn't only machines, Asa, though he did wait till he got hold of something like the A-ship that he could make go out into space. But he had to get us off it first, so he threw us off.'
I did some thinking about that, too. 'Then he was kind of like a skunk.'
'How do you mean?' asked the colonel, squinting at me.
'I never did get used to calling him Stinky. Never seemed right somehow, him not having a smell and still having that name. But he did have a smell?a mental one, I guess you'd say?enough to drive us right out of the ship.'
The colonel nodded. 'All the same, I'm glad he made it.' He stared up at the sky.
'So am I,' I said.
Although I was a little sore at Stinky as well. He could have said good-bye at least to me. I was the best friend he had on Earth and driving me out along with the other men seemed plain rude.
But now I'm not so sure.
I still don't know which end of a wrench to take hold of, but I have a new car now?bought it with the money I earned at the air base?and it can run all by itself. On quiet country roads, that is. It gets jittery in traffic. It's not half as good as Betsy.
I could fix that, all right. I found out when the car rose right over a fallen tree in the road. With what rubbed off on me from being with Stinky all the time, I could make it fly. But I won't. I ain't aiming to get treated the way Stinky was.
Jackpot
I found Doc in the dispensary. He had on quite a load. I worked him over some to bring him half awake.
'Get sobered up,' I ordered curtly. 'We made planet-fall. We've got work to do.' I took the bottle and corked it and set it high up on the shelf, where it wasn't right at hand.
Doc managed to achieve some dignity. 'You needn't worry, Captain. As medic of this tub…'
'I want all hands up and moving. We may have something out there.'
'I know,' Doc said mournfully. 'When you talk like that, it's bound to be a tough one. An off-beat climate and atmosphere pure poison.'
'It's Earth-type, oxygen, and the climate's fine so far. Nothing to be afraid of. The analysers gave it almost perfect rating.'
Doc groaned and held his head between his hands. 'Those analysers of ours do very well if they tell us whether it is hot or cold or if the air is fit to breathe. We're a haywire outfit, Captain.'
'We do all right,' I said.
'We're scavengers and sometimes birds of prey. We scour the Galaxy for anything that's loose.'
I paid no attention to him. That was the way he always talked when he had a skin full.
'You get up to the galley,' I told him, 'and let Pancake pour some coffee into you. I want you on your feet and able to do your fumbling best.'
But Doc wasn't ready to go just yet. 'What is it this time?'
'A silo. The biggest thing you ever saw. It's ten or fifteen miles across and goes up clear out of sight.'
'A silo is a building to store winter forage. Is this a farming planet?'
'No,' I said, 'it's desert. And it isn't a silo. It just looks like one.'
'Warehouse?' asked Doc. 'City? Fortress? Temple?but that doesn't make any difference to us, does it, Captain? We loot temples, too.'
'Get up!' I yelled at him. 'Get going.'
He made it to his feet. 'I imagine the populace has come out to greet us. Appropriately, I hope.'
'There's no populace,' I said. 'The silo's just standing there alone.'
'Well, well,' said Doc. 'A second-storey job.'
He started staggering up the catwalk and I knew he'd be all right. Pancake knew exactly how to get him sobered up.
I went back to the port and found that Frost had everything all set. He had the guns ready and the axes and the sledges, the coils of rope and the canteens of water and all the stuff we'd need. As second in command, Frost was invaluable. He knew what to do and did it. I don't know what I'd have done without him.
I stood in the port and looked out at the silo. We were a mile or so away from it, but it was so big that it seemed to be much closer. This near to it, it seemed to be a wall. It was just Godawful big.
'A place like that', said Frost, 'could hold a lot of loot.'
'If there isn't someone or something there to stop us taking it. If we can get into it.'
'There are openings along the base. They look like entrances.'
'With doors ten feet thick.'
I wasn't being pessimistic. I was being logical?I'd seen so many things that looked like billions turn into complicated headaches that I never allowed myself much hope until I had my hands on something I knew would bring us cash.
Hutch Murdock, the engineer, came climbing up the catwalk. As usual, he had troubles. He didn't even stop to catch his breath. 'I tell you,' he said to me, 'one of these days those engines will just simply fall apart and leave us hanging out in space light-years from nowhere. We work all the blessed time to keep them turning over.'
I clapped him on the shoulder. 'Maybe this is it. Maybe after this we can buy a brand-new ship.'
