The Impossible PirateSmith, George O. (George Oliver)
Science
The Impossible Pirate
Smith, George O. (George Oliver)
Police -- Fiction; Science fiction; Short stories; Space pirates -- Fiction
Jeffries went home to pack. Black Morgan was a space pirate and the
place to look for him was in space. That space piracy was impossible
for divers reasons seemed to make little difference to Black Morgan. He
did it.
Lieutenant Jeffries made his plans, knowing the facts. First was to
encounter Black Morgan. Theorizing how it would be possible to commit
piracy on a ship traveling at twenty-five hundred miles per second,
running at 3-Gs constant acceleration would do no good. It had been
agreed impossible. Yet Black Morgan did it.
So Jeffries must first encounter the villain and then take after him.
With but six months, Jeffries could not even begin to inspect the
corners of the solar system that _hadn't_ been covered before.
But unlike straight hunting, in which the hunter must locate his
quarry, when hunting rats, you bait rattraps and let the rat come to
you.
Accordingly, Lieutenant Jeffries made a personal call to the Office
of Shipping and requested confidential data on all shipments of high
value, and then picked out the first. To add to the certainty, Jeffries
called upon the editor of a sensation-seeking news agent and disclosed
the fact that he, Lieutenant Jeffries, was being sent on the _Martian
Queen_ to protect a shipment of radiosodium.
Then, when the time came, Lieutenant Jeffries went boldly to the space
line terminal and embarked.
The first part of the trip was uneventful. At 3-Gs, the ship's velocity
mounted swiftly as the hours passed under the constant acceleration.
Jeffries watched the crew and the passengers idly, because all of them
had been thoroughly investigated before the ship's take-off. They were
citizens about which there could be no doubt, and therefore anything
but a cursory watch was unnecessary. Jeffries divided his time between
the passengers and the Chief Signal Officer, Jones, who willingly gave
him whatever information he needed.
At one time, Lieutenant Jeffries asked Jones why space piracy was
considered so impossible.
"You mean Black Morgan," smiled Jones. "Well, space piracy isn't
impossible excepting the way he is supposed to do it. Piracy near
either terminal might go off. But when we're rattling through space
near mid-course at about two thousand miles per second, how could it be
done?"
"Don't follow," objected Jeffries.
"First, 3-Gs is about all that people can stand over any long period.
You can take five sitting down, and about eight lying on a pressure
mattress, and I've heard of men taking fifteen while immersed in a
pressure-pack that equals the specific gravity of the human body. But
taking even 5-Gs for any length of time will kill. Even three is a
strain for men who have been raised under one."
"Yes?" prompted Jeffries.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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