Buck Rogers 2 - That Man on Beta (25 page)

“I think they’re playing possum,” another pilot interposed.

“Could be,” Wilma acknowledged.

“Then let’s blast it.”

“All right. Al, read me the coordinates.”

There followed a series of space-location statistics.

“All ships ready to fire.”

“Hold fire while I check them for radiation again. I want to double-check my line-beam tracker,” Wilma’s voice said.

Aboard the Draconian cruiser, Ardala shrieked, “Buck, can’t you get that thing working? They’re going to blow us up!”

Buck struggled frantically. Why didn’t the transmitter function?

Buck pried the front panel off the little transmitter. Somehow a tiny beetle had crawled into the device and got itself electrocuted. How could that be? Probably all the way back at the Great Salt Lake? At least, that was when the insect must have got into the machine. It might have stayed alive indefinitely, and just accidentally shorted two leads and crisped itself at any time!

“If I try and clear that while there’s power coming in from the outside leads . . .” Buck grunted. “But there’s not time to take this off-line and put it back. I’ll have to—

“—risk—

“—it!”

He managed to clear the charred bits of electrocuted insect from the transmitter. There was a brief surge of power, Buck pulled his hand back as if it had been stung by a hundred spiders at once, but the transmitter clicked on, its signal flooding the nearby volume of space with a loud, clear beacon of its whereabouts.

“Hold on!” Wilma Deering shouted into her space ship’s radio.

“Hold fire,” a dozen voices echoed back to her from the rest of the starfighter pilots.

“I’ve picked up a line-beam transmission,” Wilma said excitedly. “The only line-beam anywhere near this sector of space is the one that Buck Rogers took with him from the Inner City. He must be on that D-III hulk!”

“I don’t think so,” another pilot snapped. “If the transmitter is there I think it’s some sort of trap.”

“You may be right,” Wilma admitted. “But we can’t risk killing Buck. All starfighters, switch to magnetic tractor beams and take the D-III in tow!”

For a second time the damaged space cruiser bearing Buck Rogers and the Princess Ardala was taken in tow by a squadron of smaller fighter rockets. But this time it was the Inner City defense squadron that took the ship in tow rather than the Draconian flight stationed at Villus Beta spaceport.

The Inner City ships locked onto the D-III, formed a globular nest around it, and began moving slowly back in the direction in which they had come.

The Draconian fleet, outweaponed and outfought by the Inner City squadron, had been partially destroyed in the exchange of laser torpedoes. The Draconian pilots had turned back toward their home base. Briefly Kane had tried to rally his followers, then he too decided that discretion was the better part of valor and turned back toward Villus Beta, leaving the cruiser—with Rogers and the princess—safely in tow by the Inner City squadron.

Aboard the D-III cruiser, Buck and Ardala sat side by side in the pilot’s and co-pilot’s command chairs. The ship was still dark, only the little line-beam transmitter drawing power from the ship’s reserve supply and sending out the beam that the earth ships focused on.

Ardala turned slowly to Buck, looking into his face in the semi-darkness of outer space. “What will they do with us, Buck? Once we reach Earth, I mean.”

“I don’t know. You may be tried for war crimes, Ardala. But more likely you’ll just be interned and given back to your father.”

“Never!” the princess gasped. “One is as bad as the other!” She pulled out a laser-pistol, pointed it at the bodice of her satin gown. Before she could pull the trigger Buck had vaulted from his command seat and wrestled the gun from Ardala.

Suddenly the connecting door from the D-III’s airlock to the command bridge swung open. Wilma Deering, pistol in hand, strode into the room.

“Buck!” Wilma Deering cried. “You captured her!”

“And you won the space battle, Wilma! I didn’t even know you’d docked your fighter to this ship.”

“Oh, Buck,” Wilma sobbed, her voice rich with emotion and relief, “we almost blasted you out of the sky!”

“But you didn’t, and that’s all that matters.”

Buck and Wilma, each still holding a laser-pistol, moved as if to embrace.

“Welcome,” Princess Ardala interrupted the reunion. “Welcome, my loyal friends from planet Earth!”

Buck turned back to Ardala. “Princess, you get on the radio and tell your friends from Villus Beta that you’re going with us. If they had any plans to renew their attack, they’d better just cool off!”

“Do you have transmitter power?” Wilma asked.

Buck shook his head. “Can we tap your ship’s supply?”

Wilma agreed.

“You tell Kane and Von Norbert that you’re in control here, and if they interfere you’ll kill Buck Rogers,” Buck said, grinning.

“What?” Wilma Deering exclaimed.

“They want me alive,” Buck said. “As long as I’m okay, even if I escape there’s always a chance they can get at me again. But if I should get zapped—they can forget their big experiment.”

Wilma burst out laughing.

Even Ardala smiled to herself as she picked up the microphone to transmit to Kane the message Buck had given her.

With a final click from the space radio, Kane ended his raging tirade of frustration and defeat. Ardala hung up the microphone and turned back toward Buck and Wilma.

Wilma Deering looked at the princess, then turned toward Buck. “Now,” Wilma Deering asked, “what do we do with her?”

Buck looked toward Ardala. “You want to come back to Earth with us or not?”

Ardala stood facing Buck and Wilma. The two Earth people stood with their arms around each other, holding affectionately to one another as they awaited her answer.

“I never want to go to Earth,” Ardala said. “Never—until I visit as the mistress of a conquered province!”

“All right,” Buck answered. “We can just leave you here.”

“That will be fine. I would prefer it, my gallant captain.”

“Do you think the Draconians will come back for her?” Wilma asked Buck. “Ardala can live for quite some time in this D-III, even though it’s little more than a hulk. We can get some power up for her before we go, and there’s plenty of air and food supplies left in this ship. But there’s no way she can
go
anywhere. If the Draconians don’t rescue her, she’s stranded.”

Buck considered. “Well, they are a little peeved by Ardala’s, let’s say, mercurial temperament. Not to mention her ability to switch her loyalties every time it’s convenient. But then, that’s a common Draconian trait, isn’t it?

“Besides,” he went on, “Kane is still looking for entrée into the royal household, and every now and then they do remember that Ardala here is the emperor’s daughter. They’ll come for her. Don’t worry about making a female Robinson Crusoe out of Ardala, Wilma.”

He turned to the dark-haired princess. “Well, good-bye, Ardala. Perhaps we’ll meet again.”

Ardala heard the statement in angry, smoldering silence. When Buck finished speaking she took the few steps that brought her face to face with him. Her face assumed a strange expression.

As Wilma Deering stood by, watching in astonishment, Princess Ardala leaned forward, turned her face upward, and kissed Buck tenderly on the mouth.

When Ardala stepped back again, Buck and Wilma started for the cabin door. At the last moment Buck sped back into the cabin, retrieved the dormant plexiglass box containing Dr. Theopolis, and carried it carefully to the airlock.

In the airlock Buck looked closely at the computer brain. “I think he’ll need some work when we get back to Earth,” Buck said to Wilma. “But I’m sure they can get him fixed up and scheming away as good as new.”

The lights on Theopolis’ indicator panel flickered faintly, and a sick voice moaned from his voder-synthesizer compartment. “A couple of aspirins and a good night’s rest and I’ll be as smart as I ever was,” Theopolis groaned.

T W E N T Y

As the monorail sped sleekly from Earth’s chief spaceport, the Inner City landing field, Buck Rogers and Wilma Deering sat comfortably in the streamlined car’s form-fitting chairs. “I’m glad you sent Theo right off to the repair depot,” Wilma said. “I’d really miss the old computer if we didn’t have him fixed.”

“They said it would only take a little work to get him blinking again,” Buck said cheerily. “I expect he’ll be delivered to my quarters by the time we finish our appointment with Huer.”

The monorail glided smoothly to a stop. Buck and Wilma left the car and made their way into Dr. Huer’s outer office. They were greeted by Lisa 5, the secretarial robot.

“Buck, Wilma . . . I mean, Colonel Deering and Captain Rogers. It’s so good to see you both back safe and sound.”

Wilma returned the greeting casually, with a “Hi, Lisa 5.”

Buck was more demonstrative. “It’s good to see you too, you little mechanical minx! How are things coming along with your friend Ellis 14?”

Can a robot blush? One would hardly think so, unless it—or she—had special circuits built in to perform just that function. But it seemed to Buck and Wilma that Lisa 5 managed just that. “Ellis is the hero of the robot population,” Lisa 5 said proudly.

“I’m not surprised,” Buck supplemented Lisa’s comment. “Wilma’s—Colonel Deering’s exec told us on the way back that Ellis invented the method they used to figure out where the Draconians were holding us. If it hadn’t been for Ellis, we might still be stuck on Villus Beta!”

“Isn’t Ellis wonderful,” Lisa 5 cooed.

“Is your boss in?” Wilma Deering asked. “I’d love to stay and chat, but I think Dr. Huer is expecting us.”

Before the secretarial robot could make any reply, the inner door opened and Dr. Huer strode through it. He was wearing his customary informal lab outfit, and his old-fashioned lens-and-earpiece spectacles. “So,” Huer exclaimed happily, “the prodigal two return! How are you both?”

He grabbed Buck and Wilma and embraced both of them.

“It’s so good to be back,” Wilma said.

“Yeah,” Buck agreed, “to plant our feet firmly under good old mother dome once again!”

“Well,” Huer checked his electrochronometer, “personally speaking, I’m famished. Can I buy you two youngsters a bit of lunch? Maybe share a carafe of Vinol?”

“I think I’d just like to rest up a little,” Buck excused himself. “But some day real soon now, Doc! Our official debriefings are one thing, but you’re entitled to a little more personal version of the past few weeks.”

“Okay,” Huer acceded. “Any time you feel up to it, Buck.”

“Say, what about me?” Wilma faked a pout. “I’d
love
to be your date, Dr. Huer.”

“Wonderful!”

“Okay,” Buck said, “you two have fun. I’ll see you later.”

He left, grabbed a monorail to the electronics repair center, and retrieved Dr. Theopolis. The robot brain was functioning better than ever—his indicator panel flashed on and off more brightly than Buck had seen it in all his days in the Inner City.

“What did they do to you, Theopolis? Looks to me like they did more than just replace a burned-out fuse.”

“You can bet on that,” Theopolis supplied. “Say, where are we headed?” Buck had hung the computer from his neck and climbed aboard the monorail once more.

“Just back to my place,” Buck answered. “You can never tell when you’re going to have visitors around here, and I don’t want to turn up missing if somebody comes by I want to see.”

Theopolis accepted that and rode quietly until Buck strode through the door of his personal dwelling unit and put Theo gently on the pillow of his bed. Buck pulled up a chair and sat beside the bed.

“Listen,” Buck said to Theopolis. He was definitely blushing as he spoke. “Uh—I’ve never said anything like this to a machine before, Doc, but, ah . . . I’m sorry, Doc. I was really way out of line when I gave you away. When I traded you, you know, to the gypsy Pandro. I thought it was justified in a higher cause, you know?

“But you can’t just treat people that way. I mean—I know you’re a machine, Doc, but you’re people, too. I’m sorry.”

Theopolis blinked his lights for a long time. Finally he said, “I accept your apology.”

“Thank you,” Buck said. “Now, you remember all the stuff that you got from the big computer on Villus Beta?”

“Do I ever,” Theopolis enthused. “What a wonderful machine! If ever I get back to that little planet I’m going to look up the comp center and see what I can see.”

“Uh, yes,” Buck replied. “But I mean, Doc, ah—the genealogical data that was transferred from the big computer’s memory bank into yours . . .”

“Yes?”

“Well—what this whole thing was all about,” Buck stammered. “My family—you know? Please, Doc?”

“Captain Rogers, you know what I’m starting to realize?” the computer said. “You only want me for my brain!”

“Damn right,” Buck agreed.

“Very well,” Theopolis said. He cleared his throat—or did the electronic equivalent of clearing his throat—and started to recite the data he had acquired on Villus Beta. “Rogers, William, a.k.a. Buck, born 1951, Chicago, Illinois. Lost while on space mission, local solar system, 1987. Known relatives: James Rogers, father; Edna Rogers, mother; Frank Rogers, brother; Marilyn Rogers, sister . . .”