A Novelet of the Spaceways
Writing under the pseudonym Hudson Hastings.
When the outmoded space-ship “La Cucaracha”
battles against the inroads of space transmission,
Logger Hilton must choose between a bright future
or a daring venture for a lost cause!
[Transcriber’s Note: This etext was produced from
Thrilling Wonder Stories, June 1947.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
CHAPTER I
Last of the Hyper Ships
She came lumbering up out of the ecliptic plane of the planets like awallowing space-beast, her jet tubes scarred and stained, a moltenstreak across her middle where Venus’s turgid atmosphere had scarredher, and every ancient spot-weld in her fat body threatened to rip apartthe moment she hit stress again.
The skipper was drunk in his cabin, his maudlin voice echoing throughthe compartments as he bewailed the unsympathetic harshness of theInterplanetary Trade Commission.
There was a mongrel crew from a dozen worlds, half of them shanghaied.Logger Hilton, the mate, was trying to make sense out of the tatteredcharts, and La Cucaracha, her engines quaking at the suicidal thought,was plunging ahead through space into the Big Night.
In the control room a signal light flared. Hilton grabbed a mike.
“Repair crew!” he yelled. “Get out on the skin and check jet A-six.Move!”
He turned back to his charts, chewing his lip and glancing at the pilot,a tiny, inhuman Selenite, with his arachnoid multiple limbs andfragile-seeming body. Ts’ss—that was his name, or approximated it—waswearing the awkward audio-converter mask that could make his sub-sonicvoice audible to human ears, but, unlike Hilton, he wasn’t wearingspace-armor. No Lunarian ever needed protection against deep space. Intheir million years on the Moon, they had got used to airlessness. Nordid the ship’s atmosphere bother Ts’ss. He simply didn’t trouble tobreathe it.
“Blast you, take it easy!” Hilton said. “Want to tear off our hide?”
Through the mask the Selenite’s faceted eyes glittered at the mate.
“No, sir. I’m going as slowly as I can on jet fuel. As soon as I knowthe warp formulae, things’ll ease up a bit.”
“Ride it! Ride it—without jets!”
“We need the acceleration to switch over to warp, sir.”
“Never mind,” Hilton said. “I’ve got it now. Somebody must have beenbreeding fruit-flies all over these charts. Here’s the dope.” Hedictated a few equations that Ts’ss’ photographic memory assimilated atonce.
A distant howling came from far off.
“That’s the skipper, I suppose,” Hilton said. “I’ll be back in a minute.Get into hyper as soon as you can, or we’re apt to fold up like anaccordion.”
“Yes, sir. Ah—Mr. Hilton?”
“Well?”
“You might look at the fire extinguisher in the Cap’n’s room.”
“What for?” Hilton asked.
Several of the Selenite’s multiple limbs pantomimed the action ofdrinking. Hilton grimaced, rose, and fought the acceleration down thecompanionway. He shot a glance at the visio-screens and saw they werepast Jupiter already, which was a relief. Going through the giantplanet’s gravity-pull wouldn’t have helped La Cucaracha’s achingbones. But they were safely past now. Safely! He grinned wryly as heopened the captain’s door and went in.
Captain Sam Danvers was standing on his bunk, making a speech to animaginary Interplanetary Trade Commission. He was a big man, or ratherhe had been once, but now the flesh had shrunk and he was beginning tostoop a little. The skin of his wri