The distance between us had widened and she was falling free. I saw Captain Belford frown, but there was only one possible decision. Even had it been possible to close with her we should not have time to manoeuvre her after the delay of recoupling. The course he took, and to my mind the only useful course, was to check our own fall and to hope for the best as far as she was concerned. There was nothing to be gained by running the risk of losing both ships.
He made up his mind in a few seconds. First, he cut free the other magnet, then a touch of the side tubes turned our stern to Earth, and the main rockets began to fire. It felt as if strong brakes had suddenly been applied. The Excelsis with her unopened parachutes tied about her in bundles, seemed to shoot down from our level towards the growing Earth beneath. She dwindled to a silver shell, a shining bullet, a point of light and then suddenly was gone.
The Captain spoke to the radio operator.
'Inform the Salvage Register Office that the Excelsis has been lost and is now in free fall. Confirm that her intended descent was to be at 51° North, 12° West and that it is not possible at this distance to predict her degree of deviation.
'Get the weather report from the Caledonian Yard and tell them that we are coming in.'
And that's the plain truth about the Excelsis. That and nothing more. A simple accident and not a Machiavellian scheme. Things like that are bound to happen from time to time, and they may happen to anyone. Sometimes no harm is done, at others the wreck may be lost altogether, and then the captain of the salvage ship will have to account for all his actions before the regular official board of inquiry. There is no doubt that had such a routine investigation taken place Captain Belford would have been exonerated from all blame by a body of men as conversant with the hazards of space as he himself. Instead, he was called upon to face fantastic accusations thrown at him by men who were grossly ignorant of the possibilities and impossibilities of spacemanship.
The first hint of the trouble occurred about an hour after we had landed.
We were in the Yard clubroom drinking a welcome whisky while officials went over the Dido. It was always a tedious wait. Before we could get the all-clear and be allowed to go our ways, the Excise men had to search the ship for dutiable goods, the police for prohibited articles, and the Company's officers had to check up on equipment, stores, fuel and so on.
We were glad enough to be back, but we didn't talk a lot. The main question for all of us was whether we should see any return for our work on the Excelsis, or whether she was utterly lost and our salvage money with her. The Captain, with the weight of responsibility upon him, stared gloomily into his glass most of the time, and, except when it needed refilling, seldom opened his mouth to speak.
We had been there close on a couple of hours and were beginning to feel that our clearance papers were about due when the door opened and the head of the Caledonian Rocket Yard Police came in. We all looked at him hopefully. Inspector Macraig was as popular with spacemen as any policeman was likely to be. He was a man of integrity, a stickler for the spirit of the law, but no fusser about its letter. He'd done spacework himself and he knew how it felt. This time, however, he did not give us his usual cheery greeting. He was frowning slightly and there was a troubled look in his eyes. He nodded abstractedly to the rest of us and made his way straight to Captain Belford. At his expression, the Captain checked his natural invitation to a drink and waited.
'William Belford, Wilfred Sinderton, James Fearon,' he said, 'it is my duty to place you under arrest.'
No one spoke for a moment. My own first reaction, and the First Officer's too, he told me afterwards, was to wonder which of us on the Dido had been smuggling or running dope—and how it had been done, for on that trip we had called nowhere but at the Moon, and there's precious little chance of getting hold of prohibited drugs or anything else there.
The Captain looked stunned for a moment, then he rose to his feet, overtopping the inspector by a good nine inches.
'And the charge?' he asked.
'Criminal negligence,' said the Inspector quietly.
His expression changed as he looked into the Captain's incredulous face.
'I'm sorry, Belford. Direct 'phone orders from London.'
'Negligence of what?' the Captain demanded.
'They didn't say. No details were given officially.'
'But unofficially?'
'Well, information has just been received here that the Excelsis came down somewhere in Germany and blew half a town to hell.'
We all stared at him.
'But that's impossible,' I broke in.
'Absurd,' said Sinderton. 'Why I supervised the cutting away of her tanks myself. There wasn't an ounce of explosive on her.'
We both looked at the Captain.
'There's a mistake somewhere,' he said. 'I made an inspection of the ship with Mr. Sinderton and Mr. Fearon. All fuel that had not been taken on to the Dido was jettisoned.'
The Inspector looked unhappy.
'I know you, and I know that there must be a mistake. But my orders were clear. I am to send you to London under arrest as soon as possible. I'm sorry.'
'It's not your fault. Macraig, of course. There's some official muddle somewhere. The sooner we can get to London and clear it up, the better for everyone. When can we start?'
'At once, I imagine. I told them to get a rocket-'plane ready. It ought to be waiting by now.'
'All right.' The Captain tipped down the last of his whisky. 'Let's go,' he added, and led the way purposefully to the door.
Chapter Five
DISASTER EXTRAORDINARY
We could not tell what had happened to cause the misunderstanding, but all of us suspected mere exaggeration. It was possible that the ship had disintegrated as it hit: in that case hurried reports might easily have represented a severe impact as an explosion. There would be no difficulty, we thought, in clearing ourselves of an explosion charge; every man of the Dido's company would testify that the wreck had been cleared out of fuel to the last ounce. There might be a charge of inefficiency in fixing the cables, but we all had good records for workmanship and every incentive to bring the Excelsis down safely if we could.
We made the trip to London less in a state of worry than of irritation at misrepresentation.
An official police-car was waiting for us on King's Cross landing-roof and in it we were carried swiftly to Scotland Yard. Inside the building we were conducted without delay to the office of the Deputy Assitant Commissioner of the Special Branch. We did not know which he was at first, for three men apparently of equal rank awaited us. The manner in which they received us was curious, it seemed an odd blend of formality and sympathy. Certainly, it did not suggest that they considered us to be criminally negligent.
First, we received the customary warning. They wished to question us, but we were legally within our rights in refusing to answer.
Captain Belford waved that aside. He had a clear conscience and was willing to give all the help he could. He was sure he could say the same for his two officers. We agreed and settled down to answer a series of questions.
Were we sure all the explosive had been jettisoned? Might there not have been some other kind of explosive concealed among the tillfer fibre or in the stacked ganywood? How many ringbolts and parachutes had we attached? Just how had we come to lose the Excelsis? How much gold was there on board of her?