"No. He found the casing worn, melted it down for a recast. We—we can't recase it for at least two days!"
For the sake of you Earthlubbers who don't get the lingo, let me say it in words of one syllable. We were in a hell of a jam! The hypatomics are the motors that operate spacecraft. In this case, one of them had shown signs of weakness. With the ship "free wheeling," so to speak, in space, the engineers had taken down the faulty motor, discovered it needed remoulding, and had melted down the casing. As Todd had said, it would take at least two days—probably more—to recast the moulding, put the hyp together again, so we could blast.
But the worst of if was—Hake! Runt Hake. There are pirates and pirates in the wide transverses between the planets. Some of them are good guys, that is, if an outlaw can ever be considered a "good guy." Like Lark O'Day, for instance, that gay, smiling bandit who always gave lugger captains a signed receipt for the cargoes he stole, and who had once let a tramp freighter go through untouched because the Captain acknowledged his life savings were wrapped up in the cargo. Who had once stopped a passenger superliner for the express purpose of stealing a single kiss from its charming passenger, the newly crowned "Miss Universe."
But others were skunks and dogs and—well, think of the nastiest things you can think of. Then multiply by ten, add infinity, and you have Runt Hake.
Runt Hake was a killer. A throwback to the rotten old days when men's first thoughts were of death and, war and violence. He was a pirate not so much because of the value of the cargoes he lifted as because he liked to do battle. And he had a sadistic strain in him somewhere. His idea of good clean fun was to board a freighter—like the Saturn—unload the cargo at his convenience, then blast a slow leak through the outer hull.
After—I might mention—having first removed all lifeskiffs and bulgers from the ill-fated victim. Once, in the asteroid Sargossa, I saw a ship that had been scuttled by Runt Hake's cutthroat crew. Its crew still remained with the ship. But not as recognizable human beings. As raw and frozen clots of pressured flesh.
Oh, a swell guy, this Runt Hake. And now we, disabled and helpless, were drifting right into the trajectory where he awaited us.
Cap Hanson said grimly, "There's nothin' much that we can do about it, of course. We've got one six millimeter rotor-gun for'rd. We'll give him that."
"And get ourselves blown to atoms," interjected Todd, "with his pierce-guns. No, Skipper, that's no good. But how about the Ampie? If we set out our Ampie, maybe—"