CHAPTER THREE

THE SPITFIRE FROM THE SNAPDRAGON

“It’s about time,” Joe Mason snorted. “What did you have to do? Get out and push that Federated bucket of bolts?”

“We came in pretty fast, Dad. And I had to get here to Parma from Juno, where the ship dropped me. I borrowed a monocar from Joe Burke at the supply depot.”

“Least he could do,” Joe grumbled. “And now that you’re here, I’ve got a job for you. There’s a Brotherhood meeting tonight. It’s an important one. You’ve got to represent us at that meeting.”

The thought of the Windjammer set down beside the rambling structure the Masons called home there on the planetoid Juno had warmed Pete’s heart as he spiraled down from the Harlem. Someday, when the Masons found time, they planned to melt an underground dwelling into the solid rock of Juno. But with the pair of them occupied with more important things, the slab-aluminum prefab would have to do—as it had done for the previous dozen years—ever since the Masons had settled into a permanent base.

Pete had hurried through the house and into his father’s bedroom where he’d been hit by mixed reactions. The sight of the older man trussed up in white plaster like a cocoon had dismayed him. But the energetically snorted greeting had been most encouraging. Joe Mason was not about to join the dead.

Seated near the bed was another familiar figure, a grizzled old spaceman who looked to be a hundred and ten years old but who was in truth a mere eighty-seven. His face was like seamed leather and was fashioned into a look of permanent pessimism.

He eyed Pete sourly and said, “Betcha they didn’t feed you enough on that scow to keep your stomach off your backbone.” His eternal sourness had created the old man’s image and his compulsive use of the first word he’d uttered had given him a name. He was Betcha Jones. He had no other identification.

Pete smiled affectionately as Betcha shifted his head slightly and put a head of tobacco juice dead center into the spittoon beside the bed.

“You should eat a meal on one of those Federationships, Betcha. You’d change your tune.”

After his initial outburst, Joe Mason had lain motionless, his clear, eternally narrowed eyes looking deep into his son’s face. The older man’s expression did not change, but his look was still eloquent. It reflected his love for the only precious thing he had left—his son.

“You all right, boy?”

“I’m fine, Dad. But what about you?”

“Look, son, I’m too tough an old warhorse to—”

“Dad, I want the truth. That load of shale—”

The old man scowled. “I can’t prove anything. I was in a kind of dangerous spot. I was checking some old diggings out in the cluster to see if they’d been really worked or just bled—skimmed off.”

“You were alone?”

“Uh-huh. And the load of shale I got just might have shaken loose from above, but—”

He stopped, still scowling.

“But what?”

“I climbed out on my own power but I was a little dizzy. I’ll swear I saw a ship pulling away, but no, I can’t swear it. It might have been an asteroid rolling out of position in the cluster.”

“Well, you’re still alive. I guess we’ll rate that as our good luck—and call it an accident for want of proof.” The frown was gone now. “Not too disappointed at having to come back?”

Pete sat down on the edge of the bed and made a fake pass at his father’s bearded jaw. “Cut out that kind of talk. It’s great to be here. I was getting bored at school.”

Joe Mason accepted Pete’s white lie, but was not fooled by it. “Won’t be long,” he rumbled. “I’ll be on my feet in a couple of weeks—”

“Want to bet?” Betcha cut in.

“Shut up, you old space rat. I said two weeks. Pete can call it a vacation. We’ll operate light. You can carry me into the Windjammer and we’ll just cruise around and protect our interests.”

“What’s this about a Brotherhood meeting you want me to attend?”

“Oh, that—It’s important because there’s been too much piracy going on lately. We’ve got to do something about it.”

“The Federation patrols—”

“Those bureaucrats? They’re so wound up in their own red tape they could watch a bleeder stripping a mine and not make a move until they radiophoned Earth and got a go-signal from those chair-warmers down there. In the meantime, we’re being robbed blind.”

The Federation men, Pete fully realized, weren’t as bad as his father painted them. They were just on uncertain ground because, while the Federation backed the Brotherhood in spirit, there were no clear-cut laws to guide the patrol ships. They were authorized to make arrests on the basis of certain specific complaints of a criminal nature. But moving on their own discretion could lead to all sorts of complications.

“All right, Dad. I’ll take in the meeting and report back to you.”

“You do that, son. And if any action is brought up to move against pirates, you vote aye, understand?”

“Sure, Dad. I’m going to take a shower now. And maybe I will have a bite to eat.”

“You could o’ taken your shower on the Harlem,” Betcha grumbled, “and used their water instead of ours. The tanks are low.”

“Okay. I’ll wash my face instead. How many crewmen are left?”

“Two,” Joe Mason said. “The other six went off to other jobs.”

“Two of ’em still squatting in the crew quarters because they’re too lazy to hunt for work,” Betcha growled.

Pete turned to leave the bedroom, shaking his head in good-natured frustration. It seemed the crew members couldn’t get a unanimous vote of confidence whatever they did.

He washed and ate a cold snack and got ready for the meeting.

* * * *

The Mining Brotherhood had established a headquarters on Parma as being the largest centrally located planetoid in that section of the Belt. A supply base was also located on Parma and there a man could stop off and relax in the bars and get a little of the space dust out of his throat. This helped to make for good attendance at the meetings. A lot of the Brotherhood members could usually be found in Parma anyhow.

Pete jetted over in his own monocar, arriving to find a hundred-odd of the three-hundred-man membership present.

They were of a pattern, these hardy men who roamed the beltways in one of the last gestures against technological regimentation left to mankind. The belt miners all aged quickly—up to a point. Thus, they all wore the badge of their calling, a tough, seamed, leathery face.

But beyond a certain point, they appeared to age not at all. There was something about the life, for all its hardships, that promoted longevity. It also seemed to promote frankness and a direct manner, for there was little guile in any of them.

Pete answered questions from friends as to his father’s condition and then found a seat near the rostrum where Jerry Sells, the President of the Brotherhood took over and banged down a gavel held in a massive, weather-beaten hand.

“I now call this here meeting to order,” he bellowed.

There was a gradual cessation of conversational overtone, but it was too gradual to suit Jerry. He let loose a second bellow.

“All right! Shut up, you rock busters!”

This brought silence and Jerry Sells glowered at them in triumph.

“You got something important to say, Jerry—then say it,” demanded a voice.

“It’s plenty important. Something’s got to be done about them pirates!”

A cheer went up. Someone yelled, “Throw ’em out of the Belt!”

“Shut up!” Jerry Sells roared. “Now I want a show of hands. How many of you have had claims jumped lately?”

A dozen hands went up, including one raised by a man, nicknamed Blaney, whose other arm was in a sling. “Me,” Blaney called out, “I got jumped by three pirates in an old Class Four freighter. A little quarter-mile rock that was dripping nugget gold. When I tried to fight ’em they winged me, and I was lucky to get away that easy.”

“What about the Federation patrol ships?” someone asked.

“Sure! I located one and called it in. They made me come aboard, and we spent an hour signing forms. Then when we got to my claim, those rats were gone. So darned if we didn’t sign a lot more forms. They said they’d let me know.”

A burly miner yelled indignantly. “It was claim jumping. There’s laws about that.”

“There’s no law but our own,” another miner cried out. “We’d better start enforcing it.”

“Now hold everything,” Jerry Sells bellowed. “This here meeting’s getting out of order. You all know it’s not legal to carry guns in the Belt.”

“Whose side are you on?” the wounded man demanded.

A huge, bearded miner stood up near the rostrum and thus commanded a certain amount of attention. “I got a complaint I want something done about.”

“What’s that, Dave?” Jerry Sells asked.

“Hey! What about me?” Blaney demanded.

“You already been heard,” Jerry said. “Go on, Dave. You got the floor.”

“Fine meeting this is,” Blaney growled as he sat down.

“I want something done about that crazy Barry woman—Rachel Barry. She walked in on one of my claims—Rachel Barry and her daughter—and they bled me out of a ton of high-grade stuff and pulled out. I want something done about her. You can’t punch a dame in the jaw!”

Someone called out, “Did you have the claim filed, Dave?”

Dave Wilson grumbled, “Well, no. I was just fixing to, though.”

It was about what everyone expected. It was generally known that Dave Wilson liked the settlement bars better than the hard work on the asteroids.

There was a general laugh and somebody yelled, “Why don’t you marry her, Dave?”

A man with a small sense of humor, he stared at the questioner. “Are you crazy? Marry a dame with kids like she’s got? That teen-age girl of hers is a rough package.”

A howl of mirth went up, diluting some of the anger that had charged the air of the meeting hall.

Pete Mason, enjoying the meeting but taking no part in it, laughed with the rest and wondered when the meeting would get down to some constructive work.

Then the door at the rear of the hall opened and Pete turned with the rest and saw three people enter.

“Well, speak of the devil,” Jerry Sells said. “Or at least, the devil’s wife. What do you want here, Rachel?”

The older woman in the trio was a plump, motherly looking person with mild blue eyes and an open, disarming manner. “Why, Jerry Sells,” she accused. “That’s a terrible thing to say about a body.”

Pete was surprised. With the distances involved and his having been away at school, his never having seen Rachel Barry before was not extraordinary. But he’d hardly expected a plump motherly type. Observing her for the first time, he wasn’t sure what he had expected, not knowing quite what a fire-eater would look like.

The miner called Dave was scowling ferociously. “You got a nerve, Rachel. Coming here after all the ore you been stealing from the boys.”

“Stealing!” Rachel Barry stared in what appeared to be honest amazement. “I only take what I find lying loose on the asteroids.”

“Sure! Ore somebody else loosens.”

“But there’s plenty to go around. And I’ve got a family to raise.”

“And we’re paying the bill,” someone yelled.

“That’s a mean thing to say,” Rachel Barry protested. “You’re all strong men. I’m only a weak woman. I haven’t got the strength to mine ore the way you do!”

“You got me crying in my beard,” a miner hooted. “Let’s take up a collection for her.”

Pete was only half listening. His attention was on the girl who stood between her mother and the broad-shouldered, bush-bearded man who had come in with them. This was Jane, Rachel Barry’s oldest daughter.

Pete knew Jane Barry by sight. They’d been at school on Parma at the same time—before Pete went off to higher classes on Mars. But he’d never been particularly attracted to her. In fact, quite the opposite. He’d seen her as bold and brassy and not his idea of what a well-bred girl should be.

They’d exchanged casual hellos, and it had not been snobbishness on Pete’s part because Jane had shown no inclination to cultivate his friendship either.

So that was how it had stood—two people whose personalities didn’t seem to mesh.

The man who had accompanied the two women hung back. He was frowning and seemed either worried or embarrassed.

As Jerry Sells pounded his gavel for order, the wounded miner came to his feet and pointed to the trio. “Hey!” he yelled. “I wanna—”

Jerry Sells had straightened his walking-beam shoulders and taken a deep breath. “Shut up!” he bellowed in a voice that shook the walls.

The wounded man dropped into his seat as though he’d been hit on the top of the head. “I was only gonna tell you…”

“We’ll have some order in this meeting or I’ll start cracking some heads. Now, Rachel—why did you come here? This is a Brotherhood meeting. You don’t belong to the Brotherhood, so you don’t belong here.”

“But I want to join,” Rachel Barry said brightly.

“She wants to join!” a member groaned. “She steals our ore and then comes in and wants to be one of us.”

Another called, “Wouldn’t you rather we’d all give you orbit charts on our best claims, Rachel?”

“That’s not fair!” Rachel Barry protested.

It was at this point that the real excitement started.

Jane Barry, her eyes flashing anger, had just stepped forward in her mother’s defense. “You’re all mean and greedy and heartless,” she cried. “I wouldn’t let my mother join your Brotherhood—”

She was interrupted by the wounded Blaney who had been sulking over the injustices done him. His indignation rekindled, he came resolutely to his feet and pointed again.

“I got a complaint, blast it! That bushy-face there is one of the three bleeders that stole my ore!”

The reaction of the men was instantaneous.

A sudden question came into Pete’s mind. The man that the complaining Blaney pointed to was Homer Deeds. Could he also have been responsible for the load of shale dropped on Pete’s father? An ugly roar went up and chairs were tipped over. Nearby miners moved toward the male member of the Barry trio and he took a slow, backward step.

Without thinking, Pete was up and out of his chair. The danger here was potent. The mood of the miners was such that violence could flare instantly. In fact it was flaring, and Pete’s instincts threw him into action.

He leaped forward and grabbed the bearded man by the arm, putting himself in the way of the advancing miners. His quick movement threw them slightly off-balance and they hesitated.

“Out! Quick!” Pete snapped. He pushed the man toward the door.

Rachel Barry, not able to react quickly, had looked around, confused, and been pushed down into a chair. Thus, she was out of harm’s way.

But Jane had turned and was on the other side of the bearded man, helping Pete push him toward the door.

“Hurry, Uncle Homer!”

They went through the door and Pete slammed it behind him and turned the key that had been left in the lock when the meeting opened.

They were in the anteroom now. The anteroom was a feature of practically all buildings in the Belt, public or private; the place where magnetic boots, an absolute requirement for outdoor movement, were left; they resembled rubbers used on the bigger planets during rainy weather.

“Grab a pair!” Pete directed as he dived toward the pile.

The man Jane had called Uncle Homer seized a pair of the boots and started toward the door.

“No,” Pete said. “Put them on. Well have time. It’s worth it.”

He picked up a pair and handed them to Jane, but she pushed them away, her eyes snapping. “I’ll get my own, thank you!”

Pete’s anger flared. “All right, you little spitfire. But do it! Don’t just stand there. Those men mean business.”

Someone hit the door now and Pete knew the next battering effort would be greater and the door would soon give. He regretted that the magnetic unit switch was not in the anteroom. Had that been the case he could have switched it off and degravitized the hall, leaving the miners to flounder helplessly.

“All right,” he said, “let’s go!”

Uncle Homer was already pulling his boots toward the outer door. It was like a man walking in deep mud, with the double pull of the boots and the hall’s gravity unit.

Jane was straining at her boots, lifting them with great difficulty. Pete seized her arm to help. Angrily, she shook it off.

“All right,” he snapped. “Stay here, then. They won’t hurt you or your mother.”

Jane reversed quickly. “No! I want to go too. Please help me.”

Pulling his extra burden toward the already opened door, Pete pushed Jane through after Uncle Homer, who had helped no one but himself. Instantly the double gravity pressure abated and the three were able to run along the surface of the asteroid against the adjusted gravity pull of the boots.

“My car’s right over there. Hurry. It will carry three in an emergency.”

The door had smashed open inside, and now Pete’s wisdom in stopping to don the boots became apparent.

The pursuing miners didn’t take the time. They snatched up boots in both hands and rushed through the outer door. The result would have been funny if the situation hadn’t been so fraught with ugly danger.

A skilled acrobat could carry a pair of boots on a low-gravity surface and do very well, but it took practice that the miners didn’t have. The trick of moving against a gravity that pushed downward from their hands, rather than pulling against the asteroid surface from their feet, was too much for most of them. Fine balancing abilities lacking, their hands and feet changed places and the dozen or so who had emerged presented the grotesque picture of a pursuit group walking on their hands.

Thus, pursued only by the yells of rage from the comparatively helpless miners, Pete was able to cram his companions into his monocar and take off in safety.

He lifted the car some hundred feet and arced around until he found the beep and then straightened away on the three-second beam.

“Where are we going?” Jane Barry asked.

“I’m pointed toward Juno, but we can’t go too far with this load. Where is your ship?”

“We’re cabled down on Pallas, but I can’t leave Parma now. I’ve got to wait for Mother.”

The little black-haired vixen was beginning to really annoy Pete. “Then why didn’t you stay with her?”

“You said they wouldn’t hurt her—and they won’t.”

“Of course they won’t. They’ll see that she gets back to her ship, too.”

In truth—as Pete well knew—the miners of the Brotherhood had a sort of grudging regard for Rachel Barry. While rough and uncultured, they were nonetheless chivalrous. Their complaints against Rachel were mainly from frustration. They saw her as a zany addlepate more than an enemy; an annoyance more than a menace.

The three were packed in like sardines and now Uncle Homer writhed and spoke for the first time. “You can let me out here. It’s safe now. I’ll make my own way.”

Pete made no objection as he started to lower the monocar. He didn’t like the man and was embarrassed at even appearing to be on his side.

“Where will you go, Uncle Homer?” Jane asked. There was concern in her voice.

He mumbled something about having friends, thus not really answering her question, and then climbed out of the monocar and moved off into the darkness without a word of thanks.

“The grateful type,” Pete murmured with sarcasm he couldn’t hide.

Jane turned on him as he again lifted the car into the black space above. “You want thanks? All right. I’ll thank you for him. Thanks.”

“I wasn’t asking for gratitude.”

“Then what were you asking for?”

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The next time I’ll let them take your uncle out and toss him into space.”

“And they’d do it, too. They’d throw an innocent man off an asteroid without giving him a chance to say a word in his own defense.”

Scowling, Pete pushed angrily at the headpiece of his oxygen unit. It was attached to the supply belt, a unit all Belt people wore as an article of clothing, attaching the headpiece whenever they stepped out of pressurized areas. The unit was so constructed that the headpiece was pulled down to the belt on a light spring when not in use. But the spring on Pete’s unit was out of adjustment and the headpiece kept pushing back up toward his face, giving him a somewhat undignified appearance.

“Milt Blaney identified him as one of the men who robbed and shot him, didn’t he?”

“He said Uncle Homer was one of them. But how could he be sure? Is that enough evidence to destroy a man?”

“I’m not siding with the miners. I’m not defending them. I saved your uncle from them, didn’t I?”

“Good lord! Do you want a medal?”

Pete realized he’d never before known the meaning of pure frustration. How did you argue with a stubborn creature like Jane Barry? The headpiece came up and pushed against his mouth. He jerked it down.

“Why don’t you get that thing fixed? You look ridiculous pushing it away all the time.”

“We were talking about your Uncle Homer, not about my oxygen unit. I’ve heard a few things about him.”

“You mean you’ve heard things about the Barrys. Everybody talks about us.”

“We were talking—”

“About the Barrys,” Jane went on furiously. “You’ve no doubt heard things about Mother and me and my sisters. Tell me—what have you heard about my little sister, Colleen? She’s eight years old. Does she go around jumping claims, too?”

“You’re—you’re impossible!” Pete muttered through gritted teeth.

Jane’s glowing eyes reflected pleasure in the light from the monocar’s radar screen. She enjoyed the helpless anger she’d produced in Pete.

“Your headpiece is hitting you in the face again,” she said sweetly.

Pete jammed the pesky thing back into its tube and when he spoke again it was with grim relief. Gauging himself by the Juno blip on the screen, he’d angled across to nearby Pallas and was finally happy to announce, “There’s the Snapdragon,” and almost added: I hope it collapses on the next take-off. Then he realized he was being childish and swiftly repaired his manners. “I’ll drop you by the port.”

“Thank you,” Jane said icily.

And on that note, they parted, Pete breathing a deep sigh of relief as he lifted the monocar off Pallas and headed for home. The night had held more excitement than he cared for. He was an orderly, reasonable person, he told himself stoutly, and he liked orderly procedures and reasonable people.

Therefore, he would send Betcha Jones to the next Brotherhood meeting.

And he’d definitely avoid meeting Jane Barry again.