Space Lawyer by Mike Jurist

general call. Why?"
    "He ain't even sending on his regular equipment," said Sparks. "He's using an assembled rig. I can tell from the power. Something happened to his sending outfit. Smashed. And he's drifting. Fuel tanks clean. He ain't saying what's happened. Funny!"
    "Damn funny!" nodded Kerry. "Well, boys, this is obviously a job for Space Salvage, Inc.; even though Ball isn't asking. Have you got his position?"
    "Yeah. Shall I contact him and tell him we're coming?"
    "No. I want to surprise him."
    Jem chuckled. "And what a surprise! He'll be fit to bust when he sees us two."
    But Kerry's frown had deepened.
    "Get the engineer to shove on full speed ahead, Jem," was
    all he said.
     
     

 
     
     
     
    CHAPTER 6
     
     
     
    IT TOOK the better part of a day, Earth time, to make the run. The Flash was no speed demon, and she complained and whined and groaned vociferously at the treatment she was being accorded. But Kerry kept pushing her grimly. His thoughts he kept to himself.
    The Flying Meteor had stopped sending. "Used up their emergency batteries," Sparks explained.
    Space was quiet, except for the roar of their own tubes. The detectors picked up a small asteroid, too small and too distant as yet for sight in the electro-scanners. It seemed about equidistant from the crippled ship and their own. The rest of space was swept clean. Nothing for a hundred million miles.
    The Flying Meteor, when it hove into sight, was drifting helplessly. Slowly, at less than a mile a second; silent, its hull dim in the faint reflection from a far-off sun.
    The Flash came up fast. Kerry opened the screen, put through a call.
    No answer.
    Sparks whistled. "They haven't a drop of juice left. Not even for local reception. I never heard of that happening before. There's something screwy."
    But Kerry was already pouring his long legs into a space suit. "Hurry, Jem," he said. "Get into yours. You and I are going visiting."
    More than thirty precious minutes were consumed in maneuvering into position and cutting down speed to get alongside. The magnetic tractors went into action. The two ships drifted together. There was a slight bump, and the plates gripped.
     
    Kerry and Jem clumped into the air chamber, closed the lock behind them, slid open the outer port. Jem tapped out the Space Code signal on the hull of the Flying Meteor. For a moment there was no answer.
    "I hope they're not dead," he said with sudden anxiety. "They used to be my shipmates. There was—"
    Then the taps came. "Stand by! We're opening. Manual power. No juice left."
    Helmeted, rubber-sheathed men met other space suited individuals. Air whooshed in between. They were in Captain Ball's quarters, shrugging out of unwieldy outfits, shutting out with swift door-closing the staring, haggard crew.
    "I thought my number was up this time," came Ball's muffled voice as he lifted his helmet. "If your ship hadn't providentially come up—" He clicked, stared.
    "You, Jem! Kerry Dale, you!"
    Jem's fingers touched his forehead from long habit. "Yes, Sir." Then he grinned. "Sort of a surprise, ain't it, Captain Ball?"
    Kerry said: "It's a small Universe, isn't it? You used to be on the Earth-Belt run; and we were fooling around Planets. Yet here we meet almost beyond Jupiter. Luckily for you, as it turns out. We're in the salvage business, you know. Jem and I"
Ball's eyes narrowed. "The coincidence is too damn pat. I've been running into too many coincidences as it is."
    "This one happens to be a lucky coincidence, captain," Kerry pointed out. "You do need salvage, don't you?"
    Ball grimaced. "Can't help myself. My fuel tanks are bone dry, my radio's twisted junk. My emergency batteries are smashed. If I hadn't bad one stowed away unnoticed among the medical supplies, I couldn't even have—" He stopped suddenly.
    "You were saying?" Kerry murmured.
    "Nothing." Ball's face tightened. "If you could let me have four drums of fuel and half a dozen spare batteries, so I can get started