Rocket from Infinity (13 page)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

SPACE LUCK

Catching her lower lip between her teeth, Jane turned quickly back to the cybernetic brain. Pete, emotionally stirred also, put his attention again on the radio panel, switching on the power.

The static was still there, but within a few moments, it faded and Pete sent out his call letters. The faraway voice asking identification came more quickly, this time, and was clearer. He re-identified himself and then asked to be connected with his father in the Asteroid Belt. There was a little more static.

Then his heart jumped into his throat as the raspy voice of Betcha Jones came back to him.

“Betcha! It's me! I mean, it's Pete.”

“Great stars! Where are you? We've been waiting for a call. Your Dad's fit to go through the ceiling and take his bed with him!”

“I'm in a little trouble, Betcha. Let me talk to Dad.”

Joe Mason's voice was already coming in. “Pete! Pete boy! Where have you been? What have you been doing? You've had us plenty worried.”

Pete gulped. “It's a long story, Dad. I hope I can see you again and tell you.”

“What do you mean, you
hope
? Are you in some kind of a real jam?”

“I guess you'd call it that. We found a bonanza, Dad. A spaceship. There are millions in the salvage! But—”

“What do you mean,
we?
”

“I've got the Barrys with me. The whole family. We own the salvage together.”

“Have you gone crazy, boy?”

“Dad, I've got to talk fast before the static comes in again. I can't explain; I can just state facts. We've got the ship but it's a strange kind—one like nobody ever saw before and we're thousands of light-years away. I—I don't know whether we'll get back or not.”

Betcha's rasp cut in again. Pete listened. His jaw dropped. “Are you kidding?”

Betcha's tones became more strident. He wasn't kidding and he resented being accused of it.

Pete laughed with touches of reactionary hysteria in the sound. He held up a defensive hand as though Betcha was there and could actually see it.

“All right! All right. I'll explain later. I've got to cut out now. I'll be seeing you, Dad. And when I do well be able to buy the biggest luxury liner ever made, just for you to ride around in!”

Pete snapped the connection and turned on Jane. She came around to face him and he grabbed her into his arms and kissed her.

Rachel Barry entered the cabin at that precise moment and her eyes flashed. “Now stop that, you two! Fine example you're setting for your sisters!”

Jane stared in stunned amazement, overcome by what seemed to Pete's sudden madness. But then he astounded both of them even further by grabbing Rachel and repeating his performance.

“He's gone out of his mind!” Jane cried as her mother struggled in desperation.

“Not exactly,” Pete shouted. He looked around at the walls of the cabin. “The plates up here are different. You can't see through them. Come back to the empty hold.”

He pushed them ahead of him and herded them along like two amazed sheep. Then he picked up two more sheep on the way—Colleen and Ellen—and shepherded the four of them into the hold.

“I was talking to Betcha,” he exulted, “and I told him where we were. He said I was crazy—that he'd just taken a fix on us and he told me where we really were. Look out there. What do you see?”

They rushed to the bulkhead and looked out through four different windows.

“It's light!” Colleen screamed. “I see the sun.”

“We're back in the System!” Jane cried.

“We're on Mars!” Pete said. “That ruin you see is Barco Village.” He whirled Jane around. “You were changing the connections while I was calling home, weren't you?”

“Yes… I…”

“And you were wrong again. But it was the luck of space. This must have been the ship's original destination. It was patterned into the brain. It left here for a return to its home port, wherever that is, when it got into trouble. What you did was to rewire it to the original orbit pattern. So the ship brought us back here.”

Ellen was on her knees patting the floor. “Oh, you lovely, lovely ship!” she crooned.

Rachel Barry, undisturbed by the miracle, moved briskly toward the door. “Well, I'm glad all this nonsense is straightened out. We can use our headpiece radio units again. I've got to go and call for help. We have injured people aboard, you'll recall. Come, children.”

Pete and Jane stood alone in the hold. They were quiet for a few moments. Then Jane sighed. “I'm glad it's over,” she said.

“Are you—really?”

“Well, yes and—and no.”

It was another new mood. He'd never seen Jane so uncertain, so—he searched for a term—so
feminine.
Or so plain wonderful!

“Things are going to start happening now,” he said.

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“We've made the scientific find of the century—of the age. Scientists and industrialists will flock in. Research on this ship will open the Infinite to our System.”

“Yes, I guess it will,” Jane said. There was a certain reluctance in her voice.

“And you'll be of vital importance to them—the things you're in rapport with. I probably won't be seeing much of you from now on. You'll be too busy.”

Jane smiled. “As Mother would say, let's stop this nonsense. There's work to be done.”

Obviously happier than she'd been for some time, Jane, after a manner of speaking, took charge.

She hooked her arm firmly through Pete's, and together they hurried toward the lower companion-way.