“Put it back! Slow this ship down!” cried Mason, his face ashen with fear. Loring jumped to the control board and with trembling fingers tried to replace the lever in the socket.
“I can’t—can’t—” he panted. “We gotta pile outta here! We’re heading for the station. We’ll crash!”
“Come on! This way! We left the space helmets back in the cargo hold!” shouted Mason. He ran toward the open hatch leading to the companionway. Suddenly he stopped. “Hey, what about those two guys?”
“Never mind them!” shouted Loring. “Keep going. We can’t do anything for them now!”
And as the two men raced toward the stern, the freighter, her powerful rockets wide open, arrowed straight toward the gleaming white structure of the space station.
* * * *
“It was easy, honey,” cooed Roger into the microphone on the main control panel of the space-station radar bridge.
“I switched the frequency on the station, beamed to a teleceiver trunk line on Earth, and called you up, my little space pet! Smart, huh? Now remember we have a date as soon as I get back from this important and secret mission. I could’ve got out of it, but they needed me badly. As much as I like you, baby, I had to go along to give the boys a break and…”
“Cadet Manning!” An infuriated roar echoed in the small chamber.
“Yeah, whaddaya wan—” growled Roger, turning to see who had interrupted him. He suddenly gulped and turned pale. “Ohhhhhhhhh—good-by, baby!” He flipped the switch and stood up.
“Uh—ah—good morning, Major Connel,” he stammered.
“What’s going on here, Manning?” barked Connel.
“I—was—talking, sir,” replied Roger.
“So I heard! But talking to whom?”
“To whom, sir?”
“That’s what I said, Manning.” Connel’s voice dropped to a deep sarcastic purr. “To whom?”
“I was—ah—talking to Earth, sir.”
“Official business, I presume?”
“You mean—official—like here on the station, sir?”
“Official, like here on the station, Manning,” replied Connel in almost a kindly tone.
“No, sir.”
“You failed to make your quarter-hour check to the traffic-control center, I believe?”
“Yes, sir,” gulped Roger. The full realization of what he had done was beginning to dawn on him.
“And you’ve tampered with vital station equipment for your own personal use,” added Connel. With a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, Roger noticed the major was strangely quiet in his interrogation. It felt like the calm before the storm.
“Yes, sir,” admitted Roger, “I changed several circuits.”
“Are you aware of the seriousness of your negligence, Manning?” Connel’s voice began to harden.
“Yes—yes—I guess so, sir,” stumbled Roger.
“Can you repair that radar so that it can be used as it was intended?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then do so immediately. There are ships in flight depending on your information and signals.”
“Yes, sir,” said Roger quietly. Then he added quickly, “I’d like the major to know, sir, that this is the first time this has happened.”
“I have only your word for that, Manning!” Connel finally began blasting in his all too familiar roar. “Since you’ve done it once, I see no reason to think you couldn’t have done it before or that you might not do it again!” The officer’s face was now almost purple with rage. “When you’ve repaired that set, return to your quarters! You are confined until I decide on disciplinary action!”
Turning abruptly, Connel stormed out of the room, slamming the hatch closed behind him.
With a sigh Roger turned back to the set. With trembling fingers he reconnected the terminals and made delicate adjustments on the many dials. Finally, as power began to flow through the proper chain of circuits, the radar scanner glowed into life and the hair-thin line of light swept around the dull green surface of the scope. It had been left on a setting covering two hundred miles around the space station, and seeing the area was clear, Roger increased the range to five hundred miles. The resulting scan sent a sudden chill down his spine. A spaceship was roaring toward the station at full thrust!
Cold sweat beaded Roger’s forehead as he grabbed for the microphone and called Tom.
“Radar bridge to control deck!” The words tumbled out frantically. “Tom! Tom! There’s a ship heading right for the station! Bearing 098! Distance 450 miles! Coming in on full thrust! Tom, acknowledge! Quick!”
Down on the control deck, Tom had been watching a space freighter easing out of the station when Roger’s voice came over the speaker in a thin scream.
“What?” he yelled. “Give me that again, Roger!”
“Spaceship bearing 098—full thrust! Range now four twenty-five!”
“By the craters of Luna,” shouted Tom, “why didn’t you pick her up sooner, Roger?”
“Never mind that. Contact that guy and tell him to change course! He can’t brake in time now!”
“All right! Sign off!” Without waiting for a reply, Tom cut Roger off and switched to a standard space band. His voice quivering, the young cadet spoke quickly and urgently into the microphone. “Space station to spaceship approaching on orbit 098. Change course! Emergency! Reduce thrust and change course or you will crash into us!”
As he spoke, Tom watched the master screen of his scanner and saw the ship rocketing closer and closer with no change in speed or course. He realized that any action, even now, would bring the craft dangerously close to the station. Without hesitation, he flipped on the master switch of the central station communicator, opening every loud-speaker on the station to his voice.
“Attention! Attention! This is traffic-control center! Emergency! Repeat. Emergency! All personnel in and near landing ports five, six, seven, eight, and nine—decks A, B, and C—evacuate immediately to opposite side of the station. Emergency crews stand by for crash! Spaceship heading for station! May crash! Emergency—emergency!”
On the endangered decks, men began to move quickly, and in a moment the great man-made satellite was prepared for disaster. On the control deck, Tom stayed at his station, sounding the warning.
“Emergency! Emergency! All personnel prepare for crash! All personnel prepare for crash!”
CHAPTER 8
“There—there!” shouted Captain Stefens into the mike aboard the jet boat circling around the station. “I think I see something bearing about seventy degrees to my left and up about twenty on the ecliptic! Do you see it, Scotty?”
Tom, in the bucket seat of the jet boat, strained his eyes but was unable to see over the control board.
Terry Scott, in a second jet boat ten miles away, answered quickly, “Yes, I think I see it, sir.”
“Good!” shouted Stefens. “Maybe we’ve found something.”
He spoke to Tom over his shoulder, keeping his eye on the floating objects in the black void of space. “Come to the starboard about one-quarter full turn, Corbett, and hold it. Then up, about twenty-five degrees.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” said Tom. He began to maneuver the