Invaders of Space

CHAPTER ONE

OUTSIDE the control building, the spaceport lights seemed to rival the stars in number, and to outshine them in brightness. There was a good two square miles of black tarmac to be seen from the office window, reflecting the lights in wavery streaks of brightness. But there was no activity anywhere. Horn, who had no business being in the control room of the spaceport, listened to a faint buzzing, moaning sound that came out of a loudspeaker overhead. It came from a space tramp, the Theban, coming down out of the night on emergency-landing status.

The landing-grid operator, whose proper empire this control room was, leaned back in a tilting chair and negligently watched certain dials and a screen on which a single blurry bright speck showed. The speck was the Theban, not yet sighted, but on the way to be brought to ground in the Formalhaut spaceport. The buzzing, moaning sound was not a comfortable one to hear.

"That's a nasty sort of noise," Horn commented. "The engines that are making it could conk out any second. Lucky they got this far."

The operator nodded and said negligently, "I'll get 'em down." His manner was one of total leisure and indifference, but he kept the dials on the wall before him under constant watch. Once he reached over and adjusted some control. The buzzing moan grew louder. With the increased volume, other noises could be heard behind it. The buzzing came from a pick-up microphone in the ship's control room somewhere out in space. Sounds of movement could be heard: a growling voice; another voice, answering truculently. The growling voice swore.

"Calling ground!" it rasped a moment later. "Calling ground! Where's your beam? Do you want us banging around up here for ever? Where's your beam?"

The operator said without haste. "You're heading right into it. But you're low and in the planet's shadow. If you weren't in such a hurry -"

The growling voice rasped, "But we are in a hurry! How about that repair job we need?"

"I told you," said the grid operator, "there's nothing doing in the repair shop until morning local time. You might as well have gone in orbit to wait. I told you that, too!"

The voice from space swore virulently. The operator said, "You're just touching our force beam now. Hold fast. I'm going to have to kill your lateral velocity and you're so low you may feel it."

The growling voice from the loudspeaker bellowed an order, away from the microphone. The unseen ship, still far out of atmosphere, floated into the invisible, intangible force beam of the landing grid. Dials and indicators in the control office, aground, showed that the landing grid's power was flowing swiftly out to make a field of almost solid density as the original beam was pierced by the ship still high up and deep in the black shadow of the planet Formalhaut III.

The ship became fixed in the fields of force. The grid operator sat leisurely erect. The process of landing a ship from this point on was almost automatic. He adjusted a turn knob and watched for the results. They were, of course, that the grid's force fields tightened gradually. The Theban - still invisible in the night - became anchored in the immaterial beam. Then the operator touched the braking button and the hovering ship checked. It had almost had velocity enough for an orbit. To bring it down and land it in one piece, it had to be slowed to the speed of the planet's rotation at the latitude of the spaceport.

The buzzing from the loudspeaker grew violently louder. There were crashes. Loose objects in the ship's control room slid and banged to the floor, drawn there by the ship's artificial gravity field.

The grid operator snapped, "Are you crazy? Cut your drive !"

More crashes. Then the buzzing ceased. When a ship is grasped by a landing grid's fields, it cuts its own drive and is drawn down to the spaceport by the grid. Landing grids were invented, at first, because they had to be made if space travel were to become practical. It required more fuel for a ship to climb up into space against gravity than to journey halfway across the galaxy. It required as much more to land safely. So landing grids were devised, using ground-supplied power to lift and land starships. That simple fact tripled the cargo they could carry.

Then the grids were developed past that simple usefulness. It appeared that they could draw power from the ionized upper layers of a planet's atmosphere. They could provide for most - or all - of a planet's energy requirements. And then it became obvious that they were very useful because when they brought a ship down they placed it neatly in position opposite the passenger ramp or the warehouse where passengers or cargo should be landed or taken aboard.

"I think," said Horn, "that up there in that ship they're a little bit panicky. Considering the noises their engines were making, they've reason to be. They've been waiting for the engines to blow any second. It took nerve to turn them off. They might not turn on again."

The grid operator said disgustedly, "There's something wrong with them, calling for an emergency landing and yelling they've got to have emergency repairs! They ordered me to get a repair crew ready to get them back aloft again in hours. Try to get union mechanics out of bed for a special job, just on a tramp skipper's say-so!"

Horn shook his head. "They won't get off in hours, maybe days. That's an old-style Riccardo drive, and the noise means it's about to lie down and die. I didn't know any of those old ships were still in service. I'd hate to guess how old it is."

He could have looked up the descending ship in the Spacecraft Register and found out all about her, even including her present very dubious reputation. But he wasn't interested enough to do so.

He'd stopped by the spaceport to ask if there were news about the liner Danae, en route to Formalhaut now. He knew there could be no news, of course. The Danae was somewhere in the ship lanes leading from Canna II to Formalhaut III. There was a girl on board the Danae. She was on the way to this planet. When she arrived, she and Horn were to be married. So Horn was jumpy and unreasonably worried, and hungry for news that simply couldn't be had.

A voice barked abruptly from the speaker, originating in the space tramp now descending.

"Look here!" it said furiously, "if we can't get an emergency repair job, cancel this landing! Push us out, and we'll go somewhere else. We're in a hurry!"

The grid operator looked annoyedly at Horn, to call attention to the unreasonable demand. Horn shrugged. The operator said, "You asked for emergency landing. You're getting it. Regulations say an emergency landing, once begun, has to be completed, and the ship must be surveyed before it's lifted off again." He added in a chiding tone, "Too many skippers clipped hours off in-port time by claiming emergency. You know that."

The voice from the speaker bellowed profanity. The operator turned down the volume until the voice was a tiny sound, mouthing unspeakable things. He watched his dials. After a long wait he turned on the warning lights outside, and any atmosphere flier in the neighbourhood would be made aware that a ship was coming down from space. Of course at this hour of the night there was no great need for the warning.

"Where'd this Theban come from?" asked Horn. The operator shook his head to signify that he didn't know.

"If they came down the ship lane, the Danae'll follow. They'll know if there are any warnings to spacemen out for that lane. It's pretty clear, usually. But I'll ask."

The operator nodded. "Space travel always seems perfectly safe," he, observed, "until you've got somebody travelling. Then you worry."

Horn said restlessly, "Right! The Danae's a good ship. I designed her engines. She's as good a ship as there is. But I have someone aboard her. So naturally -"

He walked uneasily to a window and looked out. It was quiet and still and the innumerable lights of the spaceport - especially the half-mile-high landing grid - looked curiously lonely. But all places look lonely when night falls and there is no activity where everything was hustle and bustle during the day. During daylight there'd be cargo planes landing on and taking off the tarmac outside. There might be a space freighter aground, loading or unloading. Sometimes there'd be a liner on the tarmac inside the grid, putting off mail and passengers' baggage and fast-freight items, doing everything in a great hurry to get back to space and the long ship lanes again.

Horn looked up at the sky. The Theban had been locked on to the grid from an unusually low altitude, but it took time to bring her to ground. Horn knew it was very likely the tramp had come down some or all of the route the Danae was to traverse. The Danae had long since lifted off from Canna II. She'd have headed towards the Inner Rim. At Thotmes she'd have landed and lifted off again to thread her way through the Beryliines. That was tricky astrogation, but the ship lane through was well surveyed and beaconed. After landing on Wolkim for passengers and freight, she'd turn and come down the Rhymer passage and triumphantly to Formalhaut where Horn was waiting.

She should be safe in all this journeying, and Horn knew it; but he was nevertheless uneasy. It was the sort of unease a man gets when he knows something about space. It was Horn's profession to design space-drive engines. Designed, as such things were, for specific hulls, engines were no longer separate mechanisms but parts of the hull itself. And they were trustworthy. Space travel was recognized as safe. Even large financial institutions entrusted enormous sums in interstellar credit notes to space transportation. Which meant much more safety than passenger traffic required. When ships were truisted to carry money, they had to be safe indeed!

Nowadays ships didn't even carry engineer officers. They carried auxiliary drives instead. There hadn't been an engine failure in a modern ship in scores of years, and anyhow there weren't enough qualified men to ride uselessly through the void, waiting for accidents that didn't happen. So Horn wasn't worried about the Danae's drive. He worried about space itself.

Space wasn't empty. Accidents could happen despite totally trustworthy ship engines. The stellar population of the galaxy wasn't only bright and shining suns, warning passing ships of their existence and the planets and meteor streams that might circle them. There were dark stars too, and unfortunately they were much more numerous than bright ones. There were gravitational stresses, where space should be clear. There were dust clouds too small to be detected until a ship was almost upon them. And there were streams of meteorites in motion - it couldn't be said they were in orbit - between wholly separated suns.

So Horn worried. Ships did sometimes vanish in space as they did on planetary seas. Gravitational stresses corresponded to ocean currents throwing well-found ships off course. Minute dust clouds were like hidden rocks or shoals. And meteor streams were like icebergs or derelicts floating awash, into which ships could crash to their destruction. There were still definite dangers in between the stars. But disasters were rare. With surveyed ship lanes and beacons marking them, with patrollings of even the best known for new dangers that might develop, with elaborate systems of warnings to mariners of space - why travel between the stars was no more dangerous than ocean voyages had been back in the days of sailing ships.

But that was enough to make Horn worry, with Ginny on the way to marry him. When he thought of Ginny, his sensations were magnificent. So he worried, absurdly and to no purpose.

The grid operatorwas sitting upright now. A lot of the job of landing a ship was pure routine, but a careless operator could do plenty of harm. This man, though, was skilled. He did as little as possible, leaving all that he could to the grid itself. Still, there was a certain necessary deftness in the way he let the self-operating devices do the routine part, while he took over and with practised judgment did those parts that required a man's experience.

A great streak of light shot skyward. High, high up, there was a flicker of silvery reflection. It came down and down, enlarged, became an object with the powerful light beam following it. It was a ship. It landed. Then the blindingly bright lights dimmed and went out. The ship was a small, squat, battered tramp ship of space, antiquated in design and firmly fixed upon its landing fins.

An exit port opened. Three men came down the side ladder of the tramp. They reached the tarmac and moved towards the control office. The spaceport light cast a peculiar yellowish glow upon them.

"You're in for an argument," said Horn. "They're coming to insist on immediate repairs. It sounded that way, anyhow."

"So what?" demanded the operator. "Those characters come in from space when it's noon, ship time, but way before dawn at the spaceport here. If they have to wait, they have to wait!"

The three figures trudged towards the grid control office. The operator said, "One of 'em's carrying a walkie-talkie. What's that for?"

"Privacy," said Horn. "Anybody could pick up a ship-to-ground conversation. Maybe this skipper wants to have a very private chat with you. He may offer you a bribe."

The operator grunted. Again there was stillness all about the airport. Innumerable lights shone unwinkingly, their colour and steadiness contrasting with even the brightest of twinkling stars in the sky overhead. The operator and the guards at the spaceport gate would be the only men on duty anywhere around. Horn was probably the only man inside the spaceport who wasn't there on night watch. He'd stopped to make a necessarily futile query about the Danae, because Ginny was aboard her. There was no visible movement anywhere except the three men trudging across the glistening black tarmac in the yellow glow of the spaceport lights.

There was a clicking voice. A recorded voice said, "Log entry?"

The operator said, "Log note: space tramp Theban requested emergency landing; reason, engine trouble. Engines apparently over-age and failing. Landed. That's all."

There was another click. The operator had proved himself awake on night watch and the landing of the Theban was recorded, with the time. The time the Theban was aground would be charged for, of course.

The three trudging figures were very near, below the office. They went out of sight. A buzzer reported them at the ground-floor door. The operator pressed the door-opening button. Footsteps sounded, coming up. A scowling red-haired man in soiled garments entered the office. He carried a walkie-talkie. Two even more soiled men followed him.

"I'm from the Theban," said the red-headed man truculently. "We're in a hurry. We need some repairs quick. I came to make a deal. How about some action?"

"Maybe you can get the action, come morning," said the operator, "but not earlier."

The red-headed man said, "We want it now. How much?"

"No deal," said the operator. "It's out of the question. And I can't lift you off again after an emergency landing without a survey of the repairs needed and done. Those are orders."

The red-headed man scowled. He repeated, "How much?"

Horn interposed. "I listened to the communicator while your drive was running. It's an old Riccardo drive, isn't it?"

The red-haired man stared at him coldly. "Yes. Riccardo. Type VI. What of it?"

"It's pretty old," said Horn mildly. "You should have an engineer aboard. When Riccardo drives were in use, every ship carried an engineer."

"We've got an engineer," said the red-headed man angrily. "He's no good. He says we need repairs he can't make."

"Judging by the noise those engines make," said Horn, "he's quite right. My guess would be that your phase separator is about gone. It's a complicated piece of equipment. It would take a very good man to do anything with it. If your engineer won't try to patch it, he's got sense. You'll find that even repair shops would rather work on modern engines. They know them better."

The red-haired man said truculently, "Who're you, you know so much?"

"His name's Horn," explained the operator. "He's a drive designer. He knows his stuff. Best man on this planet on space-drive engines."

"Yeah?" The red-headed man looked at Horn with scornful eyes. "What more d'you know?"

"Judging by the engines' sound," said Horn, "your drive probably started acting up three or four days ago. It made a whining noise. Your engineer may have been able to stop it, but later it started up again. Probably two days ago it got past adjustment and began to buzz. If that's what happened, it'll never be right until it's had a complete overhaul, and that's no quickie job - even if you can find a repair shop that will try it. You may have trouble on that because Riccardo drives are so far out of date."

The red-haired man said, "Wait a minute." He raised the walkie-talkie to his lips. "Skipper? You heard that?"

Horn raised his eyebrows. The walkie-talkie had been in operation all along. The skipper of the just-landed tramp ship had heard his emissary - presumably his mate - argue with the operator; had heard all the conversation until now. The red-haired man said, "You heard it? What'll I tell him?"

Horn saw the threadlike wire that led to a subminiature earphone in the red-headed man's ear. The Theban's mate had been speaking under instructions. Now he got detailed orders.

"Skipper says," he reported to Horn, ignoring the operator, "come take a look at the engines and see if you can patch them up. They acted like you said. You know your stuff. Come take a look at them."

Horn shook his head. "No need. I heard them. You need a complete overhaul."

"How much just to take a look?" demanded the red-haired man. "Five hundred credits?"

Horn said, "I might patch it, but it'd fail again. And a patched job wouldn't pass survey anyhow. You couldn't get lifted off."

The red-haired man said, "A thousand?"

"No," said Horn. "Engines in the state yours are in could go any second, quick patch or no quick patch."

"Two?"

"No!" said Horn. "If the repair shop here needs help, I'll try to give it to them. But you need an overhaul."

"How much?" insisted the red-haired man belligerently.

"I simply won't do it," said Horn. "If you never reached port again, it would be my fault for helping you. I won't do it."

The red-haired man lifted the walkie-talkie again.

"Skipper?" He listened. He nodded. He lowered tie instrument and said, "Skipper says skip it. You lose a good package of cash!" He turned towards the door, and then turned back. "Which way's the spaceport gate? Any place open for drinks on this hick planet?"

The grid operator gave him instructions. The red-haired man went out, followed by the two soiled men, who hadn't uttered a word since they entered the office. When they'd gone down the stairs the operator said peevishly, "Crazy! I'd lose my job and you'd lose your designer's licence if we broke regulations like he wants. What do they think we are?"

"Crazy," agreed Horn.

He went again to the window and looked across the tarmac at the just-landed ship. It was battered and antiquated. It might once have been a good ship of its kind, but that was a long time ago. The Riccardo drive had had one advantage in the early days of space travel: it was possible, at enormous cost in fuel, to make a landing and a lift-off where there was no landing grid. There were some legitimate uses for such ships, but not many. Those that survived had mostly gravitated to very dubious ways. No more Riccardo drives were being made. But the Theban had probably seen some remarkable sights, and landed in some remarkable places, in her time. Now, though -

Horn shrugged. Nowadays ships went from scheduled port to scheduled port, and emergency rockets might let a ship down somewhere but would never lift it off again. And all explorations were made by the Space Patrol, and everything was law-abiding and commonplace. But it was curious that the Theban was in such urgent haste as to offer to bribe him to try to patch her engines for an illegal lift-off before dawn. It would have been a desperately risky business. For a moment or two Horn tried to guess what sort of emergency would make the Theban's skipper willing to take a chance like that. He couldn't think of one.

Then his mind went back to the subject that had occupied it most of the time these past few weeks: the Danae, of course, with Ginny on board, on her way to marry him. He turned away from the window.

"Where'd the Theban touch ground last?" he asked.

"Maybe Wolkem," the operator told him, "but I can't be sure. They'll report in last port and destination come morning, when the astrogation offices opens and they explain their emergency."

Horn shrugged. He continued to think of Ginny on the Danae, rather than the ship just landed.

"Anyhow, there's been no report of any new dangers to space mariners along the ship lane the Danae's using. Not at this end, anyhow."

"Not at this end, no," agreed the operator. "Your girl's all right. Quit worrying."

"I should," admitted Horn, "but a man doesn't get married very often. It's natural to worry some."

"You're making an occupation of it," grunted the operator.

Horn grimaced and went out, down the steps and towards the spaceport gate. There were no skimmers to hire, now when there were no ships scheduled to be in port. He had to walk. He might get a cruising night-owl skimmer at the gate to take him home.

All outdoors was still very quiet. There was a glow in the sky off to one side, where a city lay below the horizon. There was a feeling of vast emptiness, which the metal-lace structure of the grid emphasized. The only sound anywhere was the infinitely faint shrilling of insects whose ancestors had been brought from Earth centuries since when a terran ecological system was established here. It was a singular fact that living things from Earth invariably displaced native life systems when introduced on new worlds. There were people who considered this proof that mankind was destined to occupy all the universe, in time yet to come.

But Horn did not meditate on such abstractions. He headed for the spaceport gate, thinking about Ginny. They were peculiarly specific thoughts: the way she looked when she was absorbed in something, and the delight she could show when something pleased her. There were absurd mental pictures, of her making faces back at a child who'd made faces at her, of her playing with a dog. There was no system in the image sequence. He simply thought about Ginny and enormous emotions filled him. It was a long way to the gate, but he was absorbed. He was almost surprised when the gateway loomed up ahead of him. He fumbled for the pass to be shown to the gate guards. They knew him, but there had to be a record of everyone passing through. His footsteps echoed under the gate roof. Nobody came to take his pass and put it in the exit-recording machine. It was remarkable! Interstellar freight had to be protected, especially against pilferage. An unguarded spaceport gate was an invitation to theft. Patrons of the dives that clustered outside would react instantly to word that the gate was unattended. One needn't be a fanatic to be disturbed by such a prospect. Horn pushed open the door through which a guard should have come to record his pass. He went inside, and stumbled over something. It was a man, unconscious or dead - one of the guards. He saw another body on the floor. Then he heard the waspish humming sound of a stun pistol. He felt the intolerable pins-and- needles pricking sensation of a stun-weapon beam. But he heard it and felt it for only the fraction of a second. In that moment, though, he raged. He knew what was happening, and why, and he wanted horribly to kill somebody - preferably a man with red hair and a truculent expression. He felt himself falling. Then he felt nothing.