Lucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids

Hansen jumped out of his seat, and remained standing. His breath whistled harshly through parted lips.



The admiral, scarcely less astonished, cried, "Great Galaxy, man! What is this? Are you serious?"



Lucky said, "Sit down, Hansen, and let's try it on for size. Let's see how it sounds. If I'm wrong, there'll be a contradiction somewhere. It begins with Captain Anton, landing on the Atlas. Anton was an intelligent and capable man, even if his mind was twisted. He mistrusted me and my story. He took a trimensional photograph of me (that wouldn't be hard, even without my noticing) and sent it to the Boss for instructions. The Boss thought he recognized me. Certainly, Hansen, if you were the Boss, that would follow, because as a matter of fact, when you saw me face to face later, you did recognize me.



"The Boss sent back a message to the effect that I was to be killed. It amused Anton to do that by sending me out in a push-gun duel with Dingo. Dingo was given definite instructions to kill me. Anton admitted that in our last conversation. Then, when I returned, with Anton's word that I was to be given a chance to join the organization if I survived, you had to take over yourself. I was sent to your rock."



Hansen burst out, "But this is mad. I did you no harm. I saved you. I brought you back to Ceres."



"So you did, and came along with me, too. Now it had been my idea to get into the pirate organization, learn the facts from within. You got the same idea in reverse and were more successful. You brought me to Ceres and came yourself. You learned how unprepared we were and how we underestimated the pirate organization. It meant you could go ahead at full speed.



"The Ceres Raid makes sense now. I imagine you got word to Anton somehow. Pocket sub-etherics are not unheard of and clever codes can be worked out. You went up the corridors not to fight the pirates but to join them. They didn't kill you, they 'captured' you. That was very queer. If your story were true, you would have been a dangerous informer to them. They should have blasted you the moment you came within range. Instead they did not harm you. Instead, they put you on Anton's flagship and took you with them to Ganymede. You weren't even bound or under surveillance. It was perfectly possible for you to move quietly behind Anton and shoot him down."



Hansen cried, "But I did shoot him. Why in the name of Earth would I have shot him if I were who you say I am?"



"Because he was a maniac. He was ready to let me ram him rather than back down or lose face. You had greater plans and had no intention of dying to soothe his vanity. You knew that even if we stopped Anton from contacting Ganymede, it would mean only a delay. By attacking Ganymede afterward, we would provoke the war anyway. Then by continuing your role as hermit, you would eventually find a chance to escape and take on your real identity. What was Anton's life and the loss of one ship compared with all that?"



Hansen said, "What proof is there to all this? It's guesswork, that's all! Where's the proof?"



The admiral, who had been looking from one to the other through all of this, bestirred himself. "Look here, Starr, this man's mine. We'll get whatever truth is in him."



"No hurry, Admiral. My hour isn't up... Guesswork, Hansen? Let's go on. I tried to get back to your rock, Hansen, but you didn't have the co-ordinates, which was strange, despite your painstaking explanations. I calculated out a set of co-ordinates from the trajectory we had taken going from your rock to Ceres, and those turned out to be in a forbidden zone, where no asteroids could be in the ordinary course of nature. Since I was certain that my calculations were correct, I knew that your rock had been where it was against the ordinary course of nature."



"Eh? What?" said the admiral.



"I mean that a rock need not travel in its orbit if it's small enough. It can be fitted with hyperatomic motors and can move out of its orbit like a space-ship. How else can you explain an asteroid being in a forbidden zone."



Hansen said wildly, "Saying so doesn't make it so. I don't know why you're doing this to me, Starr. Are you testing me? Is it a trick?"



"No trick, Mr. Hansen," said Lucky. "I went back for your rock. I didn't think you'd move it far. An asteroid that can move has certain advantages. No matter how often it is detected, its co-ordinates noted and its orbit calculated, observers or pursuers can always be thrown off by movement out of the orbit. Still, a moving asteroid runs certain risks. An astronomer at a telescope, happening to observe it at the time, might wonder why an asteroid should be moving out of the Ecliptic or into a forbidden zone. Or, if he were close enough, he would wonder why an asteroid should have reactor exhaust glow at one end.



"You had already moved once, I imagine, to meet Anton's ship part way so that I could be landed on your rock. I was certain you would not move very far so soon after. Perhaps just far enough to get into the nearest cluster of asteroids for camouflage purposes. So I returned and searched among the asteroids nearest at hand for one that was the right size and shape. I found it. I found an asteroid that was actually a base, factory, and storehouse all at once, and on it I heard the sound of giant hyperatomics perfectly capable of moving it through space. A Sirian importation, I think."



Hansen said, "But that wasn't my rock."



"No? I found Dingo waiting on it. He boasted that he had had no need to follow me; that he knew where I was heading. The only place to which he knew I was heading was your rock. From that I conclude that one and the same rock had your living quarters at one end and the pirate base at the other."



"No. No," shouted Hansen. "I leave it to the admiral. There are a thousand asteroids the size and shape of mine, and I'm not responsible for some casual remark made by a pirate."



"There's another piece of evidence that may sound better to you," said Lucky. "On the pirate base was a valley between two outcroppings of rock; a valley full of used cans."



"Used cans!" shouted the admiral. "What in the Galaxy has that to do with anything, Starr?"



"Hansen discarded his used cans into a valley on his own rock. He said he didn't like his rock to be accompanied by its own garbage. Actually he probably didn't want it surrounding his rock and advertising it. I saw the valley of the cans when we were leaving his rock. I saw them again when I approached the pirate base. It was the reason I chose that asteroid to reconnoiter and no other. Look at this man, Admiral, and tell me whether you can doubt that I have the truth."



Hansen's face was contorted with fury. He was not the same man. All trace of benevolence was gone. "All right. What of it? What do you want?"



"I want you to call Ganymede. I'm sure you conducted previous negotiations with them. They'll know you. Tell them that the asteroids are surrendering to Earth and will join us against Sirius if necessary."



Hansen laughed. "Why should I? You've got me, but you haven't got the asteroids. You can't clean them out."



"We can, if we capture your rock. It has all necessary records on it, hasn't it?"



"Try and find it," said Hansen, hoarsely. "Try to locate it in a forest of rocks. You say yourself it can move."



"It will be easy to find," said Lucky. "Your valley of cans, you know."



"Go ahead. Look at every rock till you find the valley. It will take you a million years."



"No. Only a day or so. When I left the pirate base, I paused just long enough to burn the valley of cans with a heat beam. I melted them and let them freeze back into a bumpy, angled sheet of fresh, gleaming metal. There was no atmosphere to rust or corrode them, so its surface remains just like the metal-foil goal posts used in a push-gun duel. It catches the Sun and sends reflections glittering back in tight beams. All Ceres Observatory has to do is quarter the heavens, looking for an asteroid about ten times as bright as it should be for its size. I had them begin the search even before I left to intercept Anton."



It s a lie.



"Is it? Long before I reached the Sun, I received a sub-etheric message that included a photograph. Here it is." Lucky drew it out from under the blotter on the desk. "The bright dot with the arrow pointing to it is your rock."



"Do you think you're frightening me?"



"I should be. Council ships landed on it."



"What?" roared the admiral.



"There was no time to waste, sir," said Lucky. "We found Hansen's living quarters at the other end and we found the connecting tunnels between it and the pirate base. I have here some sub-etherized documents containing the co-ordinates of your main subsidiary bases, Hansen, and some photographs of the bases themselves. The real thing, Hansen?"



Hansen collapsed. His mouth opened and hopeless sobbing sounds came out.



Lucky said, "I've gone through all this, Hansen, to convince you that you've lost. You've lost completely and finally. You have nothing left but your life. I make no promises, but if you do as I say, you may end up by at least saving that. Call Ganymede."



Hansen stared helplessly at his fingers.



The admiral said with stunned anguish, "The Council cleaned out the asteroids? They've done the job? They haven't consulted the Admiralty?"



Lucky said, "How about it, Hansen?"



Hansen said, "What's the difference now? I'll do it."



Conway, Henree, and Bigman were at the space-port to greet Lucky when he returned to Earth. They had dinner together in the Glass Room on the highest level of Planet Restaurant. With the room's walls made of curving, clear one-way glass, they could look out over the warm lights of the city, fading off into the level plains beyond.



Henree said, "It's fortunate the Council was able to penetrate the pirate bases before it became a job for the fleet. Military action wouldn't have solved the matter."



Conway nodded. "You're right. It would have left the asteroids vacant for the next pirate gang. Most of those people there had no real knowledge that they were fighting alongside Sirius. They were rather ordinary people looking for a better life than they had been experiencing. I think we can persuade the government to offer amnesty to all but those who had actually participated in raids, and they weren't many."



"As a matter of fact," said Lucky, "by helping them continue the development of the asteroids, by financing the expansion of their yeast farms, and supplying water, air, and power, we're building a defense for the future. The best protection against asteroid criminals is a peaceful and prosperous asteroid community. That way lies peace."



Bigman said belligerently, "Don't kid yourself. It's peace only till Sirius decides to try again."



Lucky put a hand to the little man's frowning face and shoved it playfully. "Bigman, I think you're sorry we're short one nice war. What's the matter with you? Can't you enjoy a little rest?"



Conway said, "You know, Lucky, you might have told us more at the time."



"I would have liked to," said Lucky, "but it was necessary for me to deal with Hansen alone. There were important personal reasons involved."



"But when did you first suspect him, Lucky? What gave him away?" Conway wanted to know. "The fact that his rock had blundered into a forbidden zone?"



"That was the final straw," admitted Lucky, "but I knew he was no mere hermit within an hour after meeting him. I knew from that time on that he was more important to me than anyone else in the Galaxy."



"How about explaining that?" Conway sank his fork into the last of the steak and munched away contentedly.



Lucky said, "Hansen recognized me as the son of Lawrence Starr. He said he had met Father once, and he must have. After all, Councilmen get no publicity and a personal greeting is necessary to explain the fact that he could see the resemblance in my face.



"But there were two queer angles to the recognition. He saw the resemblance most clearly when I grew angry. He said that. Yet from what you tell me, Uncle Hector, and you, Uncle Gus, Father hardly ever got angry. 'Laughing' is the adjective you usually use when you talk about Father. Then, too, when Hansen arrived on Ceres, he recognized neither of you. Even hearing your names meant nothing."



"What's wrong with that?" asked Henree.



"Father and you two were always together, weren't you? How could Hansen have met Father and not you two. Met my father, moreover, at a time when he was angry and under circumstances which fixed his face so firmly in Hansen's mind that he could recognize me from the resemblance twenty-five years later.



"There's only one explanation. My father was separated from you two only on his last flight to Venus, and Hansen had been in at the kill. Nor was he there as an ordinary crewman. Ordinary crewmen don't become rich enough to be able to build a luxurious asteroid and spend twenty-five years after the government's raids on the asteroids building a new and bigger organization from scratch. He must have been the captain of the attacking pirate ship. He would have been thirty years old then; quite old enough to be captain."



"Great space!" said Conway blankly.



Bigman yelled indignantly, "And you never shot him down?"



"How could I? I had bigger affairs at hand than squaring a personal grudge. He killed my father and mother, yes, but I had to be polite to him just the same. At least for a while."



Lucky lifted a cup of coffee to his lips and paused to look down at the city again.



He said, "Hansen will be in the Mercury Prison for the rest of his life, which is better punishment really than a quick, easy death. And the Sirians have left Ganymede, so there'll be peace. That's a better reward for me than his death ten times over; and a better offering to the memory of my parents."



[*] See David Starr, Space Ranger, Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1952.