Rocket from Infinity Read Online Free PDF

to don the boots became apparent.
    The pursuing miners didn’t take the time. They snatched up boots in both hands and rushed through the outer door. The result would have been funny if the situation hadn’t been so fraught with ugly danger.
    A skilled acrobat could carry a pair of boots on a low-gravity surface and do very well, but it took practice that the miners didn’t have. The trick of moving against a gravity that pushed downward from their hands, rather than pulling against the asteroid surface from their feet, was too much for most of them. Fine balancing abilities lacking, their hands and feet changed places and the dozen or so who had emerged presented the grotesque picture of a pursuit group walking on their hands.
    Thus, pursued only by the yells of rage from the comparatively helpless miners, Pete was able to cram his companions into his monocar and take off in safety.
    He lifted the car some hundred feet and arced around until he found the beep and then straightened away on the three-second beam.
    â€œWhere are we going?” Jane Barry asked.
    â€œI’m pointed toward Juno, but we can’t go too far with this load. Where is your ship?”
    â€œWe’re cabled down on Pallas, but I can’t leave Parma now. I’ve got to wait for Mother.”
    The little black-haired vixen was beginning to really annoy Pete. “Then why didn’t you stay with her?”
    â€œYou said they wouldn’t hurt her—and they won’t.”
    â€œOf course they won’t. They’ll see that she gets back to her ship, too.”
    In truth—as Pete well knew—the miners of the Brotherhood had a sort of grudging regard for Rachel Barry. While rough and uncultured, they were nonetheless chivalrous. Their complaints against Rachel were mainly from frustration. They saw her as a zany addlepate more than an enemy; an annoyance more than a menace.
    The three were packed in like sardines and now Uncle Homer writhed and spoke for the first time. “You can let me out here. It’s safe now. I’ll make my own way.”
    Pete made no objection as he started to lower the monocar. He didn’t like the man and was embarrassed at even appearing to be on his side.
    â€œWhere will you go, Uncle Homer?” Jane asked. There was concern in her voice.
    He mumbled something about having friends, thus not really answering her question, and then climbed out of the monocar and moved off into the darkness without a word of thanks.
    â€œThe grateful type,” Pete murmured with sarcasm he couldn’t hide.
    Jane turned on him as he again lifted the car into the black space above. “You want thanks? All right. I’ll thank you for him. Thanks .”
    â€œI wasn’t asking for gratitude.”
    â€œThen what were you asking for?”
    â€œNothing. Absolutely nothing. The next time I’ll let them take your uncle out and toss him into space.”
    â€œAnd they’d do it, too. They’d throw an innocent man off an asteroid without giving him a chance to say a word in his own defense.”
    Scowling, Pete pushed angrily at the headpiece of his oxygen unit. It was attached to the supply belt, a unit all Belt people wore as an article of clothing, attaching the headpiece whenever they stepped out of pressurized areas. The unit was so constructed that the headpiece was pulled down to the belt on a light spring when not in use. But the spring on Pete’s unit was out of adjustment and the headpiece kept pushing back up toward his face, giving him a somewhat undignified appearance.
    â€œMilt Blaney identified him as one of the men who robbed and shot him, didn’t he?”
    â€œHe said Uncle Homer was one of them. But how could he be sure? Is that enough evidence to destroy a man?”
    â€œI’m not siding with the miners. I’m not defending them. I saved your uncle from them, didn’t I?”
    â€œGood lord! Do you want a