Rocket Jockey

  Rocket Jockey

  A Science Fiction Novel

  Rocket Jockey

  By PHILIP ST. JOHN

  Jacket and Endpaper Designs by Alex Schomburg

  Ceci/e Matschat, Editor Carl Carmer, Consulting Editor

  THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY Philadelphia • Toronto

  Copyright, 1952 By Philip St. John

  Copyright in Great Britain and in the British Dominions

  and Possessions Copyright in the Republic of the Philippines

  first edition

  Made in the United States of America L. C. Card #52-8972

  Every book is dedicated: Verse or epigram or notion; Every friendship must be stated, Listed as a deep devotion. You, for whom this was created, Need no publicized emotion.

  Rocket Racing

  111 hen Major Armstrong landed on the moon in 1964, III his first words over the radar to Earth were: "Who yjl won the Indianapolis Classic?" 11 His interest in auto racing was natural, since he had driven the winning car in the Classic two years before. It was also natural that he should predict that a time might come when men would begin racing rocket ships. But nobody took him seriously then; even the best theoretical fuel was too inefficient for such purposes. It had taken over sixty tons of fuel to carry that first little six-ton ship to the moon. Armstrong's idea that someday rocket fuel would be measured in gallons instead of tons was laughed at.

  Major Armstrong had the final laugh. He lived to

  see the beginning of the great rocket races that were to be held every ten years, named the Armstrong Classic, after him. He was on the moon to award the first prize in 2000. The winning ship weighed nearly seven tons and carried only eight hundred gallons of fuel.

  Better fuels were still to come. Chemical engineers now had the unlimited power of the huge new atomic generators, and they used that energy to force atoms together in ways which had been considered theoretically impossible. It took tremendous power to make such fuels—but all the force they put in came out again as thrust in the rocket tubes. Ships grew bigger, and fuel tanks grew smaller, year after year.

  Men built a city on the moon. They set out across space to Mars, where they found a barren, wasted planet. There was only a thin, unbreathable wisp of atmosphere, and the nights were colder than anything known on Earth. Yet a few native plants still existed there, and men found ways of living on the little planet. The atomic power and the new rocket fuels that permitted real commerce made a rough, hard pioneer life possible.

  Men crossed to Venus, where clouds of unbreathable gases and dust mixed with an unending heat. But again, they began to colonize and to start commerce between worlds. They even commenced to reshape the atmosphere into something that would be like the air on Earth.

  Nothing could make most of Mercury habitable. With one side always turned to the near-by sun, the

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  temperature on the hot side was high enough to melt many of the metals, while the dark side was frozen in eternal night. But in the narrow belt between, domes were built to permit a few men to live a dangerous life while prospecting the edge of the hotlands. Each year, in spite of the hardships, the little colonies grew.

  There were no colonies on Jupiter. Life, as we know it, was completely impossible under the unthinkable pressure and cold to be found on that monstrous world. Men had to be content with footholds on the moons around the huge planet. Europa, Io, Callisto and Ganymede were settled, and found not unlike Mars. They were colder—some 200° below zero—but under the great domes, life adapted and went on. Ganymede, first used as a prison for the worst outlaws of the planets, eventually won its freedom and became the largest colony on the four moons.

  Men spread out and changed to fit their new environments, just as those who once came to America were shaped into a new people, not quite like any others. Commerce increased. And the rocket races grew with it, spreading out over the solar system.

  The jump from Earth to the moon was now only a preliminary trial. Now the races covered immense orbits, touching on every planet inhabited by men. A tradition developed, until finally only one ship was qualified from each world, and the entire prestige of that world rested on the outcome.

  Few men cared to take the hardships and dangers of such a race. But to those who did, and who came

  through to win, the resulting fame and fortune were high enough to justify everything.

  There was sound reason for continuing the races, too. No better test of fuel and ships could be found. From each race, new knowledge of how to build better was gained. Men seeking new records shortened the time between planets from months to weeks, and finally to a few days. From each broken record, ideas for further improvements for the next race were gained. And the fuels and inventions of the winning ships soon appeared on every commercial ship in the system.

  There used to be a saying that only a fool would enter such a race, and only a genius or a Martian could win. But that was before Jerry Blaine lifted the Last Hope up from Earth in the most famous of all the classics.

  Jerry was neither a fool nor a genius. He wasn't even a Martian. He was only a boy of seventeen who never thought of becoming a rocket-racer jockey until accidentally he found he was one!

  P. St. J.

  Contents

  chapter page

  Rocket Racing............................ .. vu

  1. Rockets Away!........................... ..... 1

  2. Red Tape on Luna..................... .. 13

  3. Mars—and Trouble.................... .. 23

  4. Emergency Return...................... .. 35

  5. Raw Space.................................. 47

  6. Dead Mans Orbit....................... .. 59

  7. Jupiter Calling............................ 71

  8. Delay on Ganymede.................. .. 83

  9. Mars Strikes Again.................... .. 95

  10. Distress Signal........................... 107

  11.Smallpox of Space................... 119

  12. The Burning Planet.................... 131

  13. Council of War.......................... 142

  14. Solar Barbecue............................ 153

  15. Venus Calling Mars!.................. 165

  16. Needle in a Spacestack.............. 177

  17. Lunar Landing........................... 189

  18. The Checkered Flag.................... 200

  Kocket ¡jockey

  Chapter 1 Rockets Away!

  nly four hours were left before the eighteenth Armstrong Classic would begin, and the two-mile concrete circle of the rocket launching site was a madhouse of last-minute activity. Ships and men from all the planets filled it, together with the hordes of reporters and fuel engineers. The air was thick with the smells of burning oil and ozone from the welders.

  After the qualifying run to the Moon, there would be only one ship allowed for each planet, but now even Mercury had three entries, while Mars and Earth each had twelve. Soft-spoken, smiling Venusans in oil-stained nylon brushed shoulders with narrow-eyed, suspicious Callistans. Laughing Mercutians bumped

  into slim, leather-clad Europans. But even in the confusion, Earthmen and Martians avoided each other.

  Mars had won the last three Classics by what Earth considered unfair trickery, and there was bitter feeling between the two planets. Earlier, there had been fighting when they met, but now the Classic Police, selected from all the planets, had separated them, and everything was peaceful on the surface. However, even now, the police watched with careful eyes, and hands close to their heavy "peace sticks."

  The Martian guard at the receiving platform still wore his native hard-leather costume—tight pants and a jacket with a hood attached—but the gol
d arm band showed he was one of the police. He watched the helicopter settle, and his stern eyes narrowed as a young Earthman got out and waved the driver away.

  "Hold it!" the guard ordered crisply, but the taxi was already taking off. The Martian's hand dropped to the handle of his stick as he marched toward the boy. "No school passes today—"

  Then he halted as the young man turned to face him. Jerry Blaine was wearing the green uniform and visored cap of a Space Institute Midshipman, but the gold buttons and stripes had been hastily ripped off.

  He pulled a metal pass from the pocket of his wrinkled jacket and handed it over. "No school," he said, and there was bitterness in his voice. "My brother's got a ship entered—the Last Hope."

  The guard studied the pass doubtfully, hard, black eyes moving from the boy's carrot-red hair down the slim, short figure and back to the freckled face and blue eyes that stared out from behind glasses. At seventeen, Jerry looked like a bookish, unimportant person, not suitable for Space Institute, let alone a crewman on a racing rocket. It took time to notice the firm lips, the square jaw, and the deep tan that could come only from years in space.

  "Okay," the guard said reluctantly, handing back the pass. "Pit 17, left." Then his Hps drew back in a thin, sharp smile. "So Earth's going to beat us with infants this year, eh?"

  Jerry saw an Earthguard moving forward quickly to back him up in case of trouble, and shook his head. He wanted no part of any quarrel. The Classic had caused too much ill will already. He moved away from the receiving platform and headed down the path the guard had indicated.

  The heat of the July sun was worse here than it had been in Chicago, and the shining walls of the ships, half-buried in the launching pits, reflected it back and forth. A blast of hot gases leaped up from one of the pits as a Venusan ship blew a test blast, lifting ten feet from the floor of the pit.

  His brother Dick must be insane, he thought. He was doubly sure of it as he came in sight of the little Last Hope, with its space-worn hull and squat, ugly lines. Only a crazy man would want to race that against the trim, custom-built ships in the pits around, even if he wasn't already out of his mind to join the race in the first place. The ship had been built to mine the metal asteroids between Mars and Jupiter, not for racing, and it looked like a workhorse among thoroughbreds.

  Then his eyes spotted the tall, graceful figure of his brother running toward him. Jerry broke into a run himself, and the bitter thoughts disappeared under a flood of his old love and admiration.

  "Jerry, you old space flea!" Dick's deep voice was warm in his ears, and one of the big hands was grabbing his while the other pounded on his back. Then Dick drew back, studying him fondly. "Kid, you look like a million. You ve grown two inches this last year!"

  Dick looked good too. He was nine years older than Jerry, and years of work among the asteroids had made his skin tan to the deep brown only space could give. His black hair and gray eyes went well with it, and his figure was something that most professional athletes envied at first sight. Even the dirty coveralls couldn't hide that, nor the oil on his face conceal his good looks.

  Then he sobered. "You re late, kid. I thought you'd be here early this morning. Wait'll you see what we've done to the old Last Hope—and what we still have to do. Boy, we need you, if we re going to be ready for blast-off by five-thirty!"

  "I wired you I wasn't coming," Jerry told him.

  "I know, but I figured you'd change your mind. I talked with Commodore Tenn last night. He told me you were in the middle of some examination, but that he knew you'd be glad to come!"

  Jerry nodded bitterly. "Second year finals. I passed them, got my junior navigator's permit—and then Tenn called me in and kicked me out! He said—"

  But he couldn't finish. The head of Space Institute had made it short and not at all sweet. Any boy who had a chance to compete for the glory of Earth and wouldn't take it wasn't good material for Space Institute. The Institute trained the best pilots and navigators in the Solar System, but it had to make men of them first. He was forced to discharge Midshipman Blaine from the Institute, and reinstatement would depend upon his conduct in the Armstrong Classic—in his proof that he was a man, as his fine and daring brother was a man. Navigator-Trainee Blaine would proceed at once to his room, remove his insignia, and report to his brother . . .

  There had been no use in protesting that he'd spent long years with Dick's help studying and working to pass the entrance examinations, or that it had been Dick's dream, as well as his, that he should become a navigator-captain on one of the great luxury liners that sped between the planets. He was no longer sure that it was Dick's idea, any more.

  He stared at his brother, expecting shock and surprise. But Dick only frowned and turned his eyes away. "Tough luck, kid. But we'd better get back to work. We're behind—"

  "Dick!" Jerry caught his arm. "Dick, did you ask old Term to sack me?"

  He expected hot denial, and was ready to apologize for the suspicion that had hit him suddenly. But Dick turned his eyes away, frowning. His voice was uneasy. "Not exactly, Jerry. I thought you'd want to come along. We always brought each other good luck, together. Like the time I first took you along on my old space scooter, and you spotted the platinum asteroid."

  "Like the time you helped me bone up for entrance exams when we both wanted me to be a first-license navigator!" Jerry reminded him sharply. "Like the way we used to talk things over together before we did anything!"

  Dick winced and slowly turned to face the other. "Okay, Jerry. Okay, you don't think I'm much of a brother now. But I didn't have time—I only convinced Sun Fuels to back me three weeks ago. We went crazy rebuilding the old Last Hope—I just managed to jump her here from California in time to enter. And now, when we're up against deadline, the engineers Sun was sending from Luna Center blew a tube and can't get here in time. Look, kid, I need you!"

  Jerry met Dick's eyes and saw that his brother meant it. He straightened his shoulders slowly, swallowed the bitterness that had filled his mind, and stuck out his hand again.

  "Dick, why didn't you put it that way in the first place?"

  Suddenly, things were all right between them again, as they had always been since their parents had been killed in the explosion, and Dick had turned asteroid prospector to keep them going. They came to Pit 17, and Jerry began running up the rope ladder after his brother, into the control room of the Last Hope.

  Jerry gasped. Outside, the ship had seemed the same —almost as wide at the base as it was high, with a single huge rocket tube below, and a blunt, rounded tip. The broad steering vanes that looked almost like wings had been trimmed down a little, since there would be little maneuvering in atmospheres. But otherwise, no change had showed.

  Inside, it was a different ship. The heavy braces and beams that made it strong enough to grab onto a small asteroid and move it had been removed. Slender struts replaced them. The control room, at the tip, was smaller than ever, barely big enough for two men. Then the center rail that served as a ladder from level to level led down to the combination workroom and living quarters. The big mining machines were gone. Three tiny cabins, a galley, a general room, and a tiny repair shop opened from the central shaft.

  Below that had been freight space. Now it was filled with a level of food, air-restoring machinery, and water-recovery plants. Most of it, though, was now turned into space for the big fuel tanks that would be needed. And finally, where the old power equipment and rocket-mixing chambers had been, everything was new, compact, and confusing.

  The whole interior had obviously been ripped out and replaced to fit the ship for the Classic.

  A cry came up to them as they slid down toward the engines, and Jerry found that there was still one familiar thing.

  "Knew you'd come, Jerry," old Tod MacLane said, with a touch of a smile on his wrinkled face. Then the smile clicked off, and the engineer was himself again, a gnarled, wizened little monkey of a man. His handlebar mustache had grown longer and gra
yer, and his eyes seemed to have sunk deeper into his head, but he was still the same otherwise. He'd been hired by

  Dick when they first bought the Last Hope after they'd found the platinum asteroid.

  Jerry blinked. "Tod—you're not going . . ."

  "Ain't I?" MacLane's face pinched up as he clenched his teeth down on a wad of Venus gum. The tarry stuff was a mild, harmless stimulant that had become popular on Venus during its settlement, and Tod was never without it. "Just try to stop me, Jerry Blaine! By dogs, I'm not sixty yet—but I'm too old to see them blasted Martians steal another classic from old Earth. This time, we gotta win. Here, you two dig in."

  He'd gone back to a big valve as he spoke, and Dick had jumped down beside him. At fust glance, everything seemed different, but Jerry's eyes soon showed him that most of the old system had been used as a pattern—and he knew that he'd be more useful to Dick than any regular engineer, unused to the compact plan of a meteor mining ship.

  He reached instinctively four inches behind him and found the tool chest where it had always been. Without looking, he picked up a big wrench that fitted perfectly over a large hex nut and began working it around, as Tod and Dick together adjusted the motor-control valve that seemed to be the final stage of their overhaul work.

  "Three-thirty," Tod muttered after what seemed only a few minutes of work. "Never make it. Gotta step it up, boys!"

  The valve was the final control for feeding the fuel into the big rocket, and it had to be set exactly. Twice more they yanked it out, while Tod trimmed off a thin layer of metal. Jerry studied the maze of tubes that connected to it, and shook his head.

  "You won't get enough power through that to win," he said at last. "Not unless you've got the best fuel ever made licked ten times 1"