To the Tombaugh Station (Jerry eBooks) by Wilson Tucker

Author:Wilson Tucker [Tucker, Wilson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jerry eBooks
Published: 2015-04-27T04:00:00+00:00

Webb was awakened in his bunk by Bristol shaking his shoulder. He pushed her off and rolled over to listen to his ship; it was a motion performed by habit each time he regained consciousness, a brief moment of total vigilance during which his senses tested the sound and feel of the vessel, for rightness.

She said, “There are several messages on the teletype you should read, something about a floater. What is a floater?”

“A derelict,” Webb grunted and placed the palm of his hand on the bulkhead to listen to the vibrations. “Let the damned thing float—I’ve got a schedule to keep.”

“I think you had better read these, Mr. Webb. And you should look at your radar screen.”

He was out of the bunk before she finished, staring at the blip on the screen. “Where did that come from?”

“It has been there for several hours.”

“Why in the hell didn’t you wake me?” he barked. “The damned thing is too close—it might skin me.”

“I thought it was that ship you mentioned earlier, the Yandro. Aren’t they all coming in on Titan to refuel?”

“They won’t come that close! Jehosaphat—it’s going to skin me for sure.” Webb whirled to the auto pilot and stopped the tapes. The bucket was now dropping tail-first toward Titan and he took over manual control to increase deceleration. After several minutes he cut the engines and glanced again at the radar.

“What did the teletype say? Read the last one.”

“Torcon to Xanthus,” she read aloud, “Alert. Floater off tape Amarcon to Titan. Clamoring. Approximate locus BG 90037YY crossed BA 34345YY. Ownership reward posted Amarcon advise if. X.”

“I can’t understand any part of it,” Kate commented.

Webb jotted down the figures and then compared them to his own. “Skinned!” he yelled at her, and again applied decelerating force. While the motors were still firing he turned attention to his steering rockets and loosed jets of pressurized gas, altering course a fraction of a degree. She could see no change in position of the blip on the screen but Webb seemed satisfied for the moment.

“What is Amarcon?” Kate asked. “Which tower is that?”

“Amarillo, Texas. Amarillo launched that ship.”

“But what happened to it?”

“How the devil would I know? anything could have happened—maybe it met a rock, there are rocks as big as houses out here.” He pulled the typed message from her fingers, studying it. “It’s wrecked, because the distress signal is clamoring. Off tape means that the impact, or whatever it was, damaged the auto pilot or ruined his tapes. He’s falling free in whatever direction he was kicked.”

“What is the meaning of that last line?”

“The owners have posted a recovery bond at Amarillo. Torcon wants to know if I’m going after it.”

“Are you?”

Webb eyed the blip carefully. “I might. I just might. I’ve lost tape now anyway—I’ll have to take it into refueling orbit on manual.” He swung around to grin at the woman. “I could use the money.”

“Of course. I imagine that you are penniless.”

The teletypewriter came to excited life to underscore her words.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.