Earthbound (Winston Science Fiction Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

deadly.
    Savagely, Pete shook the thoughts from his mind. They might or they might not be pirates — he could be jumping to conclusions. But the safest course he could follow would be to keep away from Ganymede Gus.
    In the days that followed, he found that all but impossible. Gus leered at him in his ticket window; Gus met him on the Midway; Gus was there in the cafeteria when he ate his meals.
    “Hello, Pete!” and “You’re looking fine this morning, Pete,” and “Are you ready to do business yet, Pete?” Gus was everywhere.
    More than once, it crossed Pete’s mind that he should report the man to the police. But Gus had warned him: Pete’s family would learn of his whereabouts if that happened, and Pete would have to face them with all his lost dreams.
    A week after their meeting in Pete’s room, Gus sat down at his cafeteria table, getting down to cases at once. “I’ve had enough of your horsing around, son,” he said. “You’ll get that job — and you’ll get it soon.”
    “I told you you’re wasting your time,” Pete declared, trying to keep his voice down.
    “Think so? I don’t. Sonny, when you get to know me you’ll realize that’s one thing I never do, waste my time. Remember I said you won’t report me, because I’d tell your father if you did?”
    “I remember.”
    “Okay. If you don’t get that job, if you don’t play ball, I’ll also tell him. It’s no skin off my teeth, sonny. One reason’s as good as another. Now, do you play ball?”
    “No!”
    Ganymede Gus shrugged. “Your family lives on Wac Corporal Avenue, Number 2730. I’ll go there this afternoon, and . . .”
    “Stop! Stop it! But I can’t help a bunch of pirates.”
    Ganymede Gus shook his head in mock horror. “Pirates? The words you use, sonny. Who said anything about pirates?”
    “What else could you be if you want information like that, except pirates?”
    Gus lit a cigarette, blew smoke at the ceiling. “I represent a group of businessmen on the outworlds. We want to know when ships are blasting off so we can be first at the trading ports to receive them. That way, we’ll get goods at the lowest prices. There ain’t anything illegal about that, is there?”
    “N-no,” Pete admitted doubtfully. “That isn’t illegal. But how do I know I can trust you?”
    “You don’t, sonny. But you do know this: don’t play ball, and I talk. Right now, today. Well?”
    Pete could picture his mother hovering over him sympathetically, watching the hurt look in his eyes. He could see Big Pete telling him — but not meaning it at all — that there were other things in life besides space travel. He would balk at every move. . .
    “All right, Gus,” he said slowly. “I’ll get that job. I’ll do it for you. But if I find out it’s piracy, I’ll go to the police so fast —”
    Ganymede Gus shook hands with him. “Don’t you worry your head about it, sonny. From now on you’re working for the best little trading organization in the Solar System.”
    Pete nodded vaguely. Traders — or pirates?
     

Chapter 5 — At the Spaceport
     
    “Five-fifteen-fifteen, Wilson!”
    He must get used to his name — Wilson, that was his name. “Ready!”
    “Fifteen-twenty!”
    Five hours, fifteen minutes, twenty seconds. In another thirty seconds, sunrise. Or blast-off! For it was the same thing when you calculated orbits for an outbound ship. At sunrise a spaceship would add its own speed to Earth’s orbital velocity of eighteen and a half miles per second. In other words, the ship, going too fast to be maintained in Earth’s orbit by the sun, would drift out in space toward Mars, or the asteroids, or the Jovian moons. After that, it was up to the ship’s astrogator.
    Blasting off for Venus, or for the outer planets when they were not in opposition, a ship followed the setting sun. Then it would subtract its own speed from Earth’s orbital velocity, and, moving too slowly to be held in place by the Earth’s