By ROBERT ERNEST GILBERT
Illustrated by RICHARD KLUGA
Gangsters were out of date, and the ice-sweeper
was an unlikely thing to steal. But Vicenzo
was a streak, so what else could Henry do?
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Infinity January 1958.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
CHAPTER I
Aziz ripped the radio from Henry's spacesuit and carefully resealed thepanel. "Dis'll be the weldin' of ya, kid," Aziz said, crinkling hisround, sallow face in an attempt to smile. "Yer name'll be in ever'yap—in our orbit, dat is."
"But what—" Henry tried to say.
"No doubt at all," Vicenzo agreed, cleverly shorting Henry's drive tube.
"I don't—" Henry said.
"Vicenzo figured it right, kid," Aziz said. He gestured with powerfularms too long for his short body. "Ya'll hit dat ole sweeper square onthe bulb. Vicenzo's a streak."
"I'm a genius," Vicenzo admitted. He smoothed the black bangs coveringhis forehead to the eyebrows, and he fingered the pointed sideburnsreaching to his chin. "You jump into space, Henry, and then we'llincrease velocity and sink into the Rings."
Aziz begged, "Do us a blazer, kid. We won't go far. Too low on fuel."He lowered the helmet over Henry's bushy, blond hair and ruddy face andclamped it shut.
Vicenzo and Aziz left Henry in the airvalve and closed the inner door.When the valve emptied to vacuum, Henry reluctantly lowered the outerdoor and stepped to the magnetized platform.
Henry stood twenty meters above Ring B of the Rings of Saturn. Belowhim, balls of ice, metal, rock, and assorted cosmic debris flowedslowly past with stars occasionally visible between the whirlingparticles. To either side, the billions of tiny moons blended withdistance to form a solid, glaring white band. Henry bent his knees anddived into space.
Holding his body stiff with a practiced rigidity, and cautiouslymoving arms and legs to check any tendency to tumble, Henry glidedabove the Rings. Turning his head, he saw exhaust spurt from thecollection of spherical cabins, tanks, and motors that was thespaceship; and the craft moved from his line of sight, leaving himalone.
Henry drifted above a flat surface more than sixty-six thousandkilometers wide. To his left, Ring B extended to the black circle ofthe Cassini Division which separated it from the less brilliant Ring A.To his right, the gleam of Ring B abruptly changed to the dimness ofthe Crape Ring through which the surface of Saturn was visible. Of thegiant planet, forty-three thousand kilometers away, Henry saw but halfa crescent marked with vague white and yellow bands and obscure spots.
Red and green lights blinked ahead. Most of the approaching ice-sweeperwas shadowed and invisible against the blackness of space. Henry saw nolighted windows, but he experimentally aimed his signal torch at a domeon top of the space station.
Moving with the exact velocity of the Ring, the sweeper, a bundle ofhuge cylindrical tanks bound together with fragile girders, apparentlygrew larger. A rectangular snout, swinging from side to side andprobing into the Ring, dangled below the front of the sweeper. Dancingin mutual gravitational attraction, the tiny moons constantly closedthe open lane behind the snout.
Henry blinked his torch and saw its red reflection in the sweeper'sobservation dome, but no one answered the signal. Gaudy with lights,the station drifted past below Henry's level and nearly one hundredmeters away.
Henry struggled futilely in his suit and tumbled t