On the Trail of the Space Pirates

Chapter 7: Shaft Rescue and Time Capsule Investigation

In the splintered shack, Astro hauled the tangled line hand over hand while Captain Strong warned him to pull slowly and gently. Commissioner Hawks reached for the rope, but Astro waved him off—he had Roger almost up. A foot from the edge, Strong and Hawks dropped to their knees and pulled the limp cadet to safety.

Strong’s quick examination brought relief. “A few bruises but no broken bones. Just shock.” Hawks offered to take Roger to sick bay personally, and together they carried him to the jet car. Strong sent Astro blasting to the Polaris to call Solar Guard headquarters for an emergency crew, then turned to Tom. “Corbett and I will stay and find out where that shaft leads.”

Back in the shack, Strong played his light down the dark shaft. Tom tied a heavy metal valve to the regulation space line—twelve hundred feet—and lowered it into the hole. When the line went slack, they knew they had touched bottom. Tom ran the rope out one window and back through another, tied it fast, and tested the knot with his full weight. Strong wrapped his jacket around the line to prevent rope burns, hooked the light to his belt, and stepped into the darkness. Tom watched the wavering pinpoint descend until it stopped, then heard Strong’s echoing voice: “The belt communicators don’t work! Come on down!”

Tom scratched a message for the emergency crew and followed his captain into the black. Halfway down, he passed through a stratum of clay where the preserved bones of long-dead mammals jutted from the wall. When his feet touched ground, he called out for Strong. No answer. Following a low, narrow tunnel, Tom rounded a sharp bend and found the officer stooping over something in his hand.

Tom’s light swept past his skipper and stopped. “By the rings of Saturn!” The gleaming metal skin of the time capsule lay before them, ripped open, its contents—audio spools, sound disks, micropapers, stereo slides—littering the tunnel floor. “What does it mean, sir?” Tom stammered. Strong’s answer came grimly: “It means we’re dealing with two of the cleverest men in the universe. If they’ve stolen what I think they have, the entire Solar Guard, Solar Alliance, and just about everyone in the universe is at their mercy.”

Hours later, in sick bay, Roger blinked awake to find Astro at his bedside. His back screamed as he sat up. “I feel like every bone in my body was broken!” The medical officer protested, but Hawks saw the determination in the boy’s face and signed the release slip. Minutes later, the blond cadet was racing back to the exposition grounds with Astro.

At dawn, the area crawled with Solar Guard activity. Two huge jet vans bristled with equipment, scarlet-clad enlisted men swarmed the Polaris, and guards demanded identification disks before letting anyone pass. Inside the transformed shack, an aluminum tripod towered over the hole, steel cables looped over its apex, and a plastic hose pumped air into the shaft. Lieutenant Silvers directed them into a waiting wire cage.

At the bottom, they followed the brightly lit tunnel to where Strong, Tom, and Captain Allison huddled near the torn capsule. Strong explained the stakes in low, urgent tones. Every spaceship in the Solar Alliance carried a vault secured by an electromagnetic lock, opened only by a trusted officer wielding a light-key. The key flashed colored lights and electronic vibrations in sequence; only the correct combination could open the lock. But with an adjustable light-key, a thief could try combination after combination until something gave. “Wallace and Simms stole an information sound spool from this capsule,” Strong said. “A detailed description of the energy lock and the adjustable light-key. There were only seven keys in the system. If we don’t catch them, there’ll be eight.”

“This will ruin the exposition,” Hawks broke in. Strong raised a calming hand. Commander Walters wanted absolute secrecy—no panic, no closure of the fair. Strong took their spaceman’s word as oath. The arrest warrant would cite some other violation, and the Solar Guard would launch the greatest search the system had ever seen. Strong’s eyes hardened as he looked at his small team. “This is one of the cleverest crimes in history. And in searching for Wallace and Simms, we’ll have to be twice as smart as they are.”