Planetoid Disposals Ltd

by E.C. Tubb

Genres: Science Fiction; Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Space Opera

Synopsis

Tubb, originally writing as Volsted Gridban, bridges the gap between physics and metaphysics, conceiving speeds superior to that of light, transport by dematerialisation and re-assembly of atoms in a remote sector of Space-time - practical, possible, occult and mysterious.

Release date: April 30, 2014

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 512

Sample

A thin bright streak lanced across the midnight sky: a slender thread of almost unbearable brilliance, swift, and dying as it neared the horizon. It was followed by another, and yet another, and for a moment the dark sweep of the heavens seemed to be laced with the burning threads of dying meteors plunging towards Earth.

Dell Franson stared at them, his hard young features tightening and his cold grey eyes glittering as if they were carved of some ancient stone. “The Leonids, and earlier than usual.”

“Does it matter?”

“You ask that?” Dell sighed and turned away from the window. He stared at his companion, a small shrewd-eyed man with thinning hair and the lines of age graven deep into his leather skin.

“You of all people should know what it could mean.” Dell turned back to the window and pointed to where the thin trails still lanced across the sky. “Out there space is lousy with a million shattered pieces of some broken world. Splinters of stone and jagged iron, some a few grains in weight, others several tons, but each and every piece a potential menace.”

“What can we do about it?”

“A lot, Jeff, quite a lot.” He glanced at the watch strapped to his wrist and frowned. “When did Harmond say that he’d be here?”

“As soon as he could get away from the conference, you know how it is at this time of the year, all the owners are worried sick at what may happen to their ships.”

“I can understand that.” Dell smiled a little as he stared out of the window. “Space ships cost money, lots of money, and it would take just a few ounces of rock to turn the biggest of them into worthless junk. A meteor, a scrap of stone or metal travelling on a collision orbit with a space ship, and anything could happen. The best they could hope for is to scar the hull, perhaps a minor puncture easily repaired, but it could be worse, lots worse.”

“You don’t have to tell me.” The old man wriggled on his chair. “I know what could happen—it did! I was chief pilot remember on the Vesta, and I was one of the seven survivors out of two hundred and thirty passengers and crew. The meteor which struck us couldn’t have been more than a couple of hundred-weight, but its velocity was such that it volatised into incandescent gas on impact. What was left of the Vesta wasn’t worth salvaging.”

The humming attention call from the inter-com interrupted Dell’s reply and eagerly he closed the circuit. “Yes?”

“Mr. Harmond is here, sir.”

“Good. Ask him to come right up will you.”

He opened the circuit and turned to the old man. “He’s here, now you know what to do, Jeff.”

“Yes, but aren’t you relying on me a little too much? Remember that Harmond blames me for the loss of the Vesta, he’s not going to take much notice of what I say.”

“Never mind, just do as I told you.” Dell forced a smile to his lips as the door swung open.

Harmond was a big man, big in every sense of the word. His great bulk strained at the seams of his blouse, and yet he was not fat, his bulk came from bone and muscle. He stood and looked at Dell for a moment, then his eyes slid from the hard features of the young man to the shrewd eyes of the old one. He grinned. “A nice looking pair,” he grunted, “am I to be the pigeon?”

“If that’s what you are thinking Harmond, perhaps you’d better leave now!”

“Steady!” Jeff frowned at Dell then smiled at the big man standing just within the room. “Sit down, Mr. Harmond, my friend here has a proposition which should interest you quite a lot.”

“It had better be good, I’ve come a long way to this meeting, and I’m still wondering just why I’ve come at all.”

“I know why you’re here, Harmond.” Dell slid into a chair and gestured for the big man to be seated. “How much does it cost you for each day your ships are grounded?”

“A lot, why?”

“The Leonids are early this year, you daren’t take any chances and that means that your ships must either stay grounded, or if they are in flight, must stay clear of the meteor stream. That means fuel, and food and extra water. That means idle ships and crews who still must be paid. It means timid passengers and liability for undelivered cargo. It means money, Harmond, lots of money.”

“Well?”

“1 can save you all that money, all the delay, all the bad feeling. That’s why you’ve come here, because you are interested enough to hear what I have to say, and more than half-willing to agree with what I propose.”

“Am I?” Harmond smiled and slowly took a cigar from an inner pocket. Deliberately he clipped the end and rolled it between his fingers as he stared at the young man seated across the wide desk.

“Yes.”

“I wonder?” Harmond lit the cigar, the thick blue smoke coiling and writhing as he gestured with his hand. “I know you, Franson, and I think I know what you’re going to propose, but I’ve heard it all before and my answer is still the same.”

“Is it?” Dell smiled and leaned across the table. “What do you think I’m going to ask you for, Harmond?”

“Money, lots of it, and for it you will promise an impossible dream.”

“Am I?”

“I told you that I’ve heard it all before, and nice as it sounds, yet it will never work. Space is too big, too vast for any fleet of ships, no matter how large, to sweep away the debris.” The big man drew deeply on his cigar. “No, Dell. You can never sweep space clean of meteors, neither you or any other man.”

“I don’t intend to.”

“What?”

“No, I’m no starry-eyed dreamer, I know space and the conditions out there as well as any man, we could never do as you suggest, but why should we?”

“I don’t understand? What else have you to offer?”

“That’s my secret, but I’ll tell you this, Harmond, what I have in mind will work!”

“I see.” Deliberately the big man crushed out his cigar. “Perhaps you’d better tell me about it.”

“Fundamentally it is simple. You don’t ground your ships all the time, only when meteor showers such as the Leonids are due, the rest of the time you take a chance, and the odds are in your favour, the chance of a big meteorite hitting a space ship is very remote, but that’s not what I’m interested in.”

“No?”

“No, that can be part of it of course, I know how to deflect the stream so that it will strike the sun and be destroyed, within a few years the Leonids will be a thing of the past.” Dell glanced at Jeff, and then at the big man. “I have a plan, and I know that it will work. A simple plan really, but like most simple things, utterly effective.”

“Yes?”

“You are a business man, Harmond, what would you say to a proposition like this? Unlimited quantities of iron, copper, tungsten and the heavy elements, all free, all costing no more than freight and mining costs, all just waiting to be picked up?”

“Are you serious?”

“Wait a moment, I haven’t finished yet. What would you say to new worlds, entire planets to be sold to the highest bidder, all warm and green and lovely? Think of it, Harmond! Entire planetoids for sale! Masses of readily available minerals, all just waiting for someone to step in and pick them up.”

“I see!” The big man stared at Dell. “The Asteroids!”

“Yes.”

“You surprise me, for a moment I had thought that you had something really worthwhile to offer me, but the Asteroids!”

“You don’t think that what I suggest is possible.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Isn’t it simple? You plan to operate the Asteroid Belt, mining where you can, and for the other things I’ll be generous and stay silent. Think of it for moment, Dell. You’d have to transport every little thing you needed and even from Mars that would mean quite a haul. You’d have to set up a refining plant, opencast workings, living quarters, a dozen things not always possible even on Earth. The cost of freight from the Belt would be fantastic, and that’s not even thinking about the cost of labour, mining plant, and transport to the workings. No, the idea isn’t new but tempting as it sounds, it won’t stand a second thought.”

“I agree with you, but for one thing.”

“And that is?”

“Tell him, Jeff.”

“Jeff?” Harmond swung round in his chair and glared at the old man. “What does he know about it? An ex-chief pilot who lost his ship?”

The old man flushed and bit his lips his thin old hands clenching on the arms of his chair. He swallowed, his throat working as he fought to control his anger, when he did speak, his voice sounded ragged as if he would much rather have kept silent.

“A man can learn a lot out in space, Harmond. A lot of things never taught in any school, and he can meet some peculiar people out there too.”

“Like who for instance?”

“Like Professor Cantell, or have you forgotten him?”

“Cantell!” Harmond sat upright in the too-small chair. “The inventor of the nulgrav drive, where is he?”

“That’s my secret, but I know where to find him, and he hasn’t been wasting his time in the past fifty years.”

“As long ago as that?” Harmond slumped back in the chair his eyes misty with thought. Fifty years ago an unknown professor of science had astounded the system with the discovery of the nulgrav drive, and with the savage abruptness of an explosion mankind had headed out towards the stars. The drive was new, and it rendered Einstien’s theory of relativity as something once interesting but now obsolete, it had given men the stars—and the responsibility which went with them.

“He must be a very old man now.” Dell glanced at Jeff and nodded towards Harmond.

“Why?” Harmond frowned in concentration. “Let me see, he was sixty when he announced his discovery, and that was fifty years ago, that would make him one hundred and ten. With the life expectancy what it is he should be good for another thirty years yet.” He laughed. “After all I’m only sixty-five and I’ll bet that you’re past forty, Dell?”

“For. . .