A helmet was produced and this was fitted very carefully.
`How's that?' came Betelgeuse's voice through the headphones.
`Damned hot.'
`We'll see what we can do about that.'
We arrived back in the main cabin. Betelgeuse hurried over to the radar screen. There were only two ships left. He set the scanner going and there was the third ship, manoeuvring in behind us.
`Time to move,' he said, pressing a lever on the control box. A panel slid open revealing hoses, all coiled up like the old-fashioned fire hoses. He uncoiled one and attached it to my waistband. Slowly the heat inside the suit began to decrease.
`What is it?'
`A form of air conditioning. Pure air.'
That's a relief, I thought to myself. He handed me a second hose and I plugged it in.
`My plan of action is very simple. With these suits we should be able to go out into very high radiation values without too many bad results. So we'll make a run for home, and on the way we'll drop presents for our friends.'
`Yes, but we might get cooked to pieces.'
`True,' said Betelgeuse. 'But I'd prefer to risk that rather than a few more enemy space ships turning up.'
`Oh, I agree, but won't the high energy particles damage the ship?'
`They certainly might, but once we're bound for Earth, we won't have any problems until inside the gravitational pull of your planet.'
`Fine. Let's go,' I said, taking my position on my bunk. Betelgeuse fired the ship.
For the next few hours I watched the radiation levels and Betelgeuse worked out the positions to drop the torpedoes. The air conditioning inside my suit was marvelous and in fact I felt more nimble and raring to go than I had done for a long time.
`We've gained a little on our friends. I've laid them a little surprise.'
I looked at Betelgeuse. He smiled.
`Just on the off chance that one or two of them are traveling on automatic pilot, I've put a torpedo in each of their paths. If that doesn't work, they'll revert back to hunting.'
I smiled. There was a certain amount of one-upmanship which amused me. I felt that since my 'bomb' idea, Betelgeuse had been trying to prove, in a nice way, that he was just as good as I was.
Betelgeuse pushed the button that released the torpedoes and smiled at me, almost reading my thoughts, I felt, so I smiled back.
Warboys, what on earth's going on? Over,' came Ganges' voice.
`Dick, this is Colonel Rhodes. We are getting a little worried by the solar storm, over.'
I looked at Betelgeuse. He returned the look and then winked.
`Hello, Colonel. What kind of problem's worrying you? Over,' I said, while Betelgeuse smiled away.
`What do you mean?' said Rhodes. 'Great tongues of radiation are coming through the atmosphere. We've already had an outbreak of fire in London through this phenomenon. Over.'
`Well, as long as the bulk of the population stay put, it should be over inside forty-eight hours,' I said.
`Look, Warboys,' came Ganges' voice. 'We're not worried, it's the damned politicians who are getting upset and they're pressuring the military for a suitable reply to the situation.'
`It's all over up here, and it shouldn't get very much worse.' Betelgeuse shook his head in approval and pointed to the radiation counters. I walked over to the counters. They hadn't gone up and appeared to be fairly steady. `I've just looked at the radiation count and it's now holding steady. Over.'
`I hope so,' Ganges' voice said.
Then Rhodes came on the air again. 'I have a report that there are four ships on their way towards Earth. Over.'
`Well, don't worry,' I laughed. 'One of them is our ship, the other three are Essans which will be disposed of in a short period of time. Over.'
`What the hell are you doing in the storm? Over.' `Sunbathing.' Betelgeuse chuckled.
`What was that, Dick?' came Rhodes' voice.
`Sunbathing. Over.'
The silence from Earth made me grin, as one could imagine them wondering what was going on.
`There goes one,' said Betelgeuse.
On the radar screen there were two blobs and another small cluster that for a moment looked like an illuminated dust cloud, then nothing. A small weight of worry was lifted off our minds. Apart from the light-headed feeling I now had, the biggest question was, had my idea really worked. It would be difficult to take account of the number of ships in the immediate area of the solar system at the time of the explosion. Obviously the Essans had at present escaped; how many more, I wondered, were momentarily unaffected by the heat rays.
`How quiet are the Yela?' I asked.
`It's very difficult to tell. They keep coming on and then going off the air,' said Betelgeuse. 'As soon as the area is relatively clear of cosmic radiation I'll get a scout group in to have a look round.'
`I'll ask our people to help us as well,' I said, feeling that Betelgeuse might has risked enough.
`I think my people will be able to do the job more quickly, and they can also get closer to the Sun.'
`Calling Warboys -- Betelgeuse. Calling Warboys-- Betelgeuse,' came Rhodes' voice.
Warboys here,' I said.
`Calling Warboys -- Betelgeuse. Calling Warboys Betelgeuse.' The message was repeated and repeated. Betelgeuse began to work frantically with the punch operating machine. Eventually the solution came back through the print out.
`There appears to be some form of short in the output transmitter circuit and the aerial seems to be bent,' Betelgeuse said, moving towards the lift.
Can I help?'
`You might have to. I'm not really an electrician.'
The lift descended to a point just below the crew's quarters. This let us out into the heart of the ship. It was incredibly neat and tidy. The main computer and storage lay in one big block with the subsidiary machinery, such as engines, compressors, radio, radar, air conditioning, recirculation and all other little secrets Betelgeuse had up his sleeve.
Pulling the cover of one of the subsidiary boxes, he exposed black sooty patches on the circuit cards. `Do you fuse these systems?'
`Yes, on the more delicate devices such as the steering gear, but I'm not sure what Rigel and his fellows do with this lot down here,' Betelgeuse said, looking rather airily at the problem.
`Have you got any testing equipment?'
Betelgeuse looked round for a moment and then moved to a small door. He went through and I followed, more out of curiosity than anything. The room was full of laboratory equipment. In fact, I was so taken aback that I said: 'Heavens.' Betelgeuse looked at me.
`You thought we might do things with magic?' he said.
`No, it had crossed my mind but since you have a floating hospital, I assumed you'd probably have your own floating labs and repair ships.'
`That's true, but on any sort of expedition one must carry a few of the necessary tools. What do you want?'
`A volt meter or anything that will register current.'
`That of course will be the one piece of equipment we're lacking,' laughed Betelgeuse going through some cupboards.
I thought hard; the problem of short circuit with the radio equipment might be simple, but if not, would it be worth repairing?
`How long will it be before we are back home?' I asked. `Twenty-four hours, unless we get some form of malfunction.'
`Is it possible to pinpoint the trouble with the radio?' `Certainly, if you give me the information.'
I went back to the radio equipment. The circuit cards made our radios look like toy transmitters. I pulled each one out and studied it for soot or burning. There seemed to be two cards that looked rather unhappy. I took them in the lab. I didn't try to repair them myself; surely Rigel would carry spares. As I thought, in one of the trays in the cupboard were a great mass of cards. Finding the ones I wanted didn't take long.
`What would you like to know?' Betelgeuse said, putting down some sort of file.
`Hm. Let's start with the aerial, then work back to the transmitter here. All I really want to know is if it is a short circuit, is it simply a positive negative connection or something serious?'
Betelgeuse nodded and got to work. The information came back at him almost immediately. While he was interpreting it, I checked the connections for the cards and then slipped them back in their positions.
`It says here that the fault runs from about two meters from the transmitter to the aerial, which is now nonexistent. If that is the case, the heat we have been in has melted the aerial and the system has shorted from there in,' Betelgeuse said thoughtfully.
`What about the other equipment?' I said.
`Oh, there is no problem. There is a secondary aerial, according to that file I was reading. The thing that makes me annoyed is that, if the aerial had been pulled in at the time of the explosion, we'd have been all right.' Betelgeuse moved towards the lift.
`This means that all external equipment is probably damaged?'
`Yes, but everything is doubled. All circuitary and all external equipment, except torpedo carriers.'
`Then we can use the auxiliary radio equipment,' I said.
`That's what I thought, but it appears that the secondary circuit is fed along near the first, and in the case of the radio transmitter the two have gone.'
`But we can hear incoming messages.'
`Certainly; that's a different aerial.'
We returned to the main cabin. Betelgeuse went over to the radar screen. Everything seemed to be functioning properly, except that there were still two bright blobs on the screen.
`Something must have gone wrong,' I observed.
`No, not necessarily. Having seen one of their ships hit, they're probably furiously calculating the problem of trying to avoid the torpedoes.'
`Calling Betelgeuse or Warboys. Calling Betelgeuse or Warboys.' The message was repeated and repeated continuously, while we sat wondering what they wanted.
`Good, there goes another of them,' shouted Betelgeuse enthusiastically. I smiled in approval.
A sinister thought began to invade my mind. If Rhodes or Ganges hadn't heard me say that it was ourselves that were coming in towards the Earth, then we would be in for trouble. From what I'd gathered from the Military, if you didn't have a homing course, you were fired on.
`Betelgeuse, you remember when you first landed on Earth, we had to have a frequency to land on. Well, if we don't get one I presume they'll fire at us.'
Betelgeuse looked rather surprised at the thought and then threw his hands up in fake despair. 'You mean I've got to land through a hail of missiles?'
`Yes, I said laughing. 'It's not your trip.'
The next day was spent in sleep or, rather, I slept while Betelgeuse spent most of the time working out the homing devices that could be used on the ground to air missiles. Sometimes when I half woke I could hear the punch card machine going, and then the print output machine would hammer away with its answers. It didn't seem really possible that we'd been away from Earth over three days. Neither Betelgeuse nor I had had much sleep and we were looking the worse for wear.
`There's an unidentified object coming up from the direction of Earth,' Betelgeuse said quietly.
On the forward radar screen was a flashing blob coming up fast. Even as we watched the object began to move away from our approach course. Then it just exploded.
`Strange,' I said aloud.
`Probably outside its range.'
`Outside its target area.'
`Maybe, but here comes another,' I said, pointing to the small dot coming across the screen.
`Good, we'll be able to see how far we can get without being hit.'
I looked at Betelgeuse's sly smile. What could he have been doing with that computer of his? The light blob kept on coming and then it moved away and exploded. Betelgeuse began to look like a man who is about to burst out in song.
`All right?' I asked. 'What have you been doing?'
`Look, here comes another one,' Betelgeuse said enthusiastically. Again it was the same story, except that it moved off in a different direction.
`From what you were telling me about the ground to air missiles and the homing devices on the warhead torpedoes, I decided to give an idea a try.'
`And risk our lives!'
`No, I think we've had quite enough of that. Normally a missile is given the position and speed of the target and if the target is static the destruction is easy.'
`And on a moving target you give a position, a speed and the direction of travel. When the missile reaches a certain point in its travel you make it home on the vibrations or transmissions of your alien target,' I said.
`Right, so the development of a homing device would follow a sophisticated form of detecting vibrations of one sort or another. It would be very difficult to stop vibrations or radio emissions, so to avoid interception, you increase your ship's speed to outrun the missile and try to checkmate the missile by putting your computed course against it.'
`That doesn't answer my question of what you did to move the missile off course and explode.'
The radar screen showed another blob coming in at us. But fortunately for us it destroyed itself.
`That shows you how far you can go if you use simple principles. I racked my brains to think how we could get back to Earth through a hail of missiles. So I used some laser equipment we have, placed it at various exit points, gave the laser a certain distance to operate over and then turned on the power. Having done that, one just passes heavy vibrations to the end of the beams and your missile hopefully homes in on it.'
`But surely the ship gives out more vibrations than your laser?'
`What I did was to pass a sound wave amplified many times down the laser beam, so that its noise overshadowed ours.'