Read Ebook: The jet jockeys by Stockheker R W Kiemle H W Henry William Illustrator

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Ebook has 1200 lines and 27271 words, and 24 pages

THE JET JOCKEYS

There was something in the way that little Venusian fire dancer looked at me when I passed her on my way down the ramp to the rocket racks to get Suvia Jalmin's shiny Space Midget that started me thinking.

This jet burn I picked up the time I pinwheeled into the force fence on the big Zeta socket track on Mars hadn't exactly left me looking like a glamor flash from the telecolor screens. Only up until now I had never let that worry me because the way I figure it you don't race rockets with your face anyhow.

The way I figure it, it's nerve not profile that slams the big sizzle sticks around the magnet bends.

Still, when I caught the look in that little space dame's eyes--as though I'm some kind of slime mutant fresh out of a spore bog--I got to wondering. I remembered a dozen other girls I had met suddenly in a dozen other dark corners.

I remembered why from one end of the Great Galaxy Circuit to the other I'm billed as "Death" Benton, and it's not because of the chances I take. And I remembered, finally, that in the last two years I've been making about as much headway with Suvia Jalmin as a hay-burning burro on a star lane.

Suvia was waiting in front of the grandstand when I rolled her rocket off the pneumatic lift. The kid does a stunt act in between races that is considered tops in the Galaxy circuit. The Samson arcs, focusing on her, hit her curly, spun-honey hair, setting up a glow that put a gleaming nimbus around her crash helmet.

Suvia is one quarter Martian, a combination that makes her twice as gorgeous as anything else in curves on either Mars or Earth. Up in the stands the crowd was giving the usual big hand of appreciation at her appearance. Even the track robots were maybe doing a bit of applauding, too.

In her translucent sennilite suit with the airplast gliding wings folded at her sides, Suvia made a picture most men would joyfully have missed a parade of comets to see.

A hundred times I've told myself it's sheer blasphemy for such a luscious bit of femininity to be risking her neck like this, day after day. Yet tough stunting is in the kid's blood. Ever since her grandfather rode the first space ship to Mars there has been a Jalmin somewhere, risking life and limb just for the devil of it.

When she picked up the sound of her rocket on the platform, she turned what was left of her audience smile my way. For a moment I almost forgot the crash scars. Only not quite.

"Right on the dot, Pete," she said. "Nice crowd up there, isn't it?"

I boosted her up into the cockpit, making the usual little show of adjusting this and that to help build up suspense.

"Yes, it's a nice crowd," I said. "And every mother's one of them would be thrilled to pieces if something nice and fatal happened to you, so be careful. You going to watch the finals?"

Suvia had her hand on the cowl plate lever, ready to close the top plate, but she hesitated, bearing down on me with both eyes.

"I always watch the finals," she cried. "You know that, Pete Benton. Why? Are you up to some crazy scheme again?"

For a moment I had half a notion to tell her about the fire dancer and my plan for letting a plastic doc go to work on the scar tissue on my face. But I braked on the idea fast.

"Scheme, baby?" I said innocently. "All I was getting at is there's going to be some high-grade blasting out there in a little while. I've got an idea Skid is just about right to take the big race today."

I'm talking about my partner, Skid Burman, of course. We've been knocking around the circuits together ever since he won the finals two years ago here at Astrola with a rocket we built in the old Benton tunglite plant out of shoestrings and baling wire.

At the mention of Skid's name, however, I could see the kid's jaw line harden, freezing out all the dimple. Her husky little voice picked up an edge.

"I wasn't going to mention it, Pete," she said, "but now that you've brought the subject up, that isn't exactly the way the boys in the bull ring seem to have it doped out."

Well, that's the way it is. A rider takes a couple of fourths or worse and right away he's all figured out as through, washed up and ready for the cargo routes.

"Skid's all right," I told her. "Is that any reason to think, just because he's blasted a few slow races recently, that he's running out of nerve, like a jelly-armed Qxeas from Outer Space?"

"Could be, Pete. Slamming into the force fence isn't any picnic for anybody. You shouldn't have to be told that. And plenty of top riders have gone soft after taking the kind of smash-up Skid took last year on the Alpha Centauri track. It--it--look, Pete, why don't you play it smart for once and get out of this racket while you can. Rocket racing is nothing but death and danger anyway. Make this your last race."

"My last race!" I yelped. "And the Big Blast only a few months off, too. You don't know what you're saying, baby. Why Skid and I are practically a cinch to take it."

Her eyes flared like a solar corona. "The Big Blast!" She bit the words out like a curse. "That's all every rocket man from here to Jupiter lives and breathes for--a chance to shoot space in a racing tube so light it ought not to be allowed outside the ionosphere. You--you make me sick, Pete Benton."

She slammed her cowl plate shut, almost catching my fingers, and signaled for the boom to swing her up into one of the starting tubes.

I waited just long enough to hear her boosters start to purr; then I beat it for the rocket pits. Watching the kid come sailing down on those big, glistening wings through a pattern of beamed high-voltage flashes is more than I can take. One miscalculation in that heart-slamming maneuver with death and you couldn't find the pieces with an electronic microscope. I beat it and I beat it fast.

Down in the pits I found a tight spun circle of rocket riders, mechs, and rack attendants gathered around a sleek, fluorescent blue rocket.

The presence of that circle caused me to uncork a hustle that jolted every merylite pin in my stiff leg. Nothing but trouble, I knew, would bring a gang like that together just before a big race, and I had a good idea of just what kind of trouble was stirring.

Elbowing in between a pair of pot-bellied Martian mechs, I worked toward the center of the circle. Just as I expected, two guys in fabraglas jumpers were facing each other like a pair of gamecocks.

About their faces there was a sharp bitterness that gave me a pretty good indication of just how tense the situation was, because ordinarily both Skid Burman and Steve Ranklin are two of the easiest going riders on the circuit.

The circle tightened behind me. For weeks this blow-off had been building up to explosive proportions. Even the video papers had got hold of it. It made good flash, the kind of stuff the public laps up. You know how it goes: "What two rocket riders are fighting over what blond telecutie from the Coast Studios?" It was drama and romance and violence all mixed up with the death defying blasts of the big tubes.

I shoved my way in between the two. "Take it easy, Skid," I pleaded. "This is no time to pick a scrap. If you guys got anything to settle, wait until after the race."

Steve's blond head jerked around. "You keep out of this, Pete," he said harshly. "The time to settle this is right now, before something like that Meton track thing happens again."

Well, I thought, that does it. The Meton crack-up wasn't something you could discuss calmly, coolly, and without getting blood all over the place.

Skid's voice thinned out to a razor edge. "Don't say that, Steve," he said. "You know that Meton crash was an accident. When I take a magnet bend I don't make room for any driver--not even Pete."

"And I say that 'accident' was a deliberate attempt to slam me into the force fence. The only accident part about it was that you landed there yourself."

I braced for trouble. Only it never came. Jet Markham, First Zone Officer for the Astrola track, picked that moment to push his way through the crowd. He took one look at the two squaring off there in the ring, and cocked a finger as solid as a mooring mast.

"Break it up, boys," he snapped. "Any scrapping here now, and neither one of you will ever race in this park again."

That calm, heavy voice was like an ultrasonic fire extinguisher. I could see the red seep out of Steve's face. He hesitated, his long, bony hands curling and uncurling at his sides. Then, with an abrupt gesture of acquiescence he turned and crossed over to his big Space Ace, and climbed slowly in.

I grabbed Skid's arm, tugging him in the opposite direction.

"Come on, Skid," I said. "We got a race to ride."

He gave me a crooked grin. "I know, Pete. Dames certainly play the devil with racing, don't they?"

That reminded me of the little fire dancer and why I had been hunting Skid.

"Look, Skid," I said. "We're pretty low on cash right now, aren't we?"

"That's right, Pete. If it weren't for you, we wouldn't even be eating."

"Then even if you take a first today, if one of us suddenly needed a large hunk of cash, there wouldn't be anything left over that isn't already earmarked for the Big Blast, would there?"

He gave me a sharp glance. "Make it plainer, Pete," he said.

I told him about my brain-wave and what brought it on.

"What I mean," I went on, "is that if I decided to have this face of mine fixed up, we'd have to find a new source of income to pay for it, wouldn't we?"

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