"Stay on audio." The pilot pressed another key, and the buzzer began
droning again. This time, it would be heard in all parts of the ship.
Captain's call. After perhaps ten seconds, the broad, placid face of
Captain Rogan appeared on the screen: "Will? What's the trouble?"
The captain rested his claim to respect on an amazing percentage of
sound decisions, and held formality very lightly.
"Cap, a ship just crossed our course in what looked like a free fall to
the planet--too fast for a landing. No signals of any kind."
Archer added nothing to the simple facts, since Captain Rogan was as
well qualified to speculate about them as anyone. He knew that the Vega
system harbors few, if any, meteorites of the indicated size. There
is no asteroid belt; apparently there have never been more than the
present twenty-three planets.
The only answer which seemed consistent with the facts was an ugly one.
The object was a ship out of control--its occupants either dead or
helpless.
* * * * *
Captain Rogan's furrowed brow indicated that he had reached the same
conclusion.
"Modify thrust to hold course and cut acceleration," he said quietly.
"I'll send Berry up to make the layout." The video plate blanked out.
Berry, the navigator, had turned in shortly after the fix and was
probably asleep by now. Archer would need him--it was going to be
tricky to plot a follow-course this close to the planet with enough
leeway to match velocities. And they would have to pour it on a little,
in all probability, to insure a safe margin--he wondered how the paying
guests would like that. Not that it would matter to Captain Rogan--the
Space Code came first.
Will Archer pressed a key, and a high-pitched gong began to sound at
one-second intervals. It would warn the ship's occupants of a change in
acceleration, and would continue until the change was completed.
Berry came in, walking quite steadily with the flat-footed gait of one
wearing magnetic shoe-plates. He nodded sleepily, ran a hand through
his tousled blond hair, and strapped his slight frame into the seat at
the computing table.
"I can tell you right now," he said glumly, "it's going to be rough. At
3 G tops, it'll take five elements and seven hours, at the very least.
We won't get within 50 percent of optimum."
Archer read between the lines. Berry was a confirmed pessimist, and
if he specified seven hours, it meant there was a fair chance of
overtaking the other ship in less.
On the trip "down," Will Archer did not mind the roller-coaster effects
nearly so much as his gradual loss of orientation. It was not his first
experience with incrementing a free descent, but it was by all odds his
longest one. In succession, the planet was "up," "down," sideways and
all over the place. Only the screen remained relatively unconfused.
Certainly no planet-evolved organism could hope to match its gyroscopic
single-mindedness.
Some six hours later, the planet's projection occupied virtually the
whole screen. The locator ring, now in shadow for contrast, picked
out the other ship, which presently became visible as a black speck
somewhat above the screen's center.
It grew, and became recognizable as a small ship of not more than
six-man capacity. There was now little question of its being out of
control--it was dropping toward the planet at an odd angle, and its
jets were dead. The question was whether there would be sufficient
thrust available to divert it from the planet's atmosphere. Unless
power were applied within the next hour, Archer surmised, no reasonable
amount of acceleration would do the trick.
Archer grinned. The same thing applied to this ship. How would the
scientists react to the choice of jettisoning some of their heavy
equipment and specimens or burdening their own frames with artificial
avoirdupois to the point of black-out?
The final jockeying to match velocities was a delicate and
nerve-wracking task, since overshooting even once would have meant
considerable loss of time. There was a tense moment as they slid
abreast of the smaller ship and Archer applied the last few pounds of
thrust. It was precisely enough, and the two ships floated relatively
motionless, though somewhat askew. The smaller ship showed no external
signs of damage, yet no light showed through any of the visible
portholes.
An extending rod, blackly silhouetted against the looming planet,
stretched slowly across the field and touched the smaller ship's
hull. Another moved out, farther away, and then a third, forming a
magnetically clinging tripod which locked the two ships together.
The buzzer sounded intermittently and a blue light flashed on Archer's
left. He flipped a key, and Captain Rogan's face appeared on the video
plate.
"Will, get into your suit and come to the lock. Berry will take the
controls. You're to go over with Stokely and see what can be done.
And--better bring your gun, just in case."
It was a notion that had already occurred to Archer, and he toyed
with it further while donning his pressure-suit. People occasionally
go berserk in space--its awesome immensity affects some minds that
way--and a few had been fairly successful in liquidating their fellows
wholesale. Among those ships which had simply disappeared forever into
the void, there were probably a few such cases. Yes, it was entirely
possible that there might be one living occupant of the other ship--a
madman.
* * * * *
Stokely, the burly, pink-haired chief engineer, was dressed for space,
except for his head-globe, when Archer arrived at the lock. So were
two others: Evans, a soft-spoken, sharp-faced member of the crew,
and a tall and graying individual whom Will recognized as Dr. Hubert
Grimwood, one of the more eminent of the scientists aboard. A sizable
medical kit was slung from the doctor's middle.
"I must admit, Captain," he was saying apologetically, "that while I do
have a medical degree, I have never practised except--ah--incidentally."
Captain Rogan shrugged. "There's no other medical doctor aboard, as I
told you. All you can do is your best."
The captain took up his position at the observation port next to the
lock. "Are you ready, gentlemen?"
With the others, Archer slipped on his radio headset, placed his
head-globe in its rubber gasket and tightened the four clamps that held
it. He cracked the compressed-air valve just enough to inflate the
suit gently, and turned on the regulator unit. As he stepped into the
airlock, the voice of Captain Rogan, slightly blurred in transmission,
sounded in his ears:
"Stokely and Archer, being armed, will enter first. Stokely will report
progress, if able--otherwise Archer, Evans, Grimwood, in that order.
Please acknowledge."
The four men in the lock spoke their "Yes, sirs," in the order named,
including Dr. Grimwood, whose response was nervously emphatic. He was
plainly unaccustomed to activity during degravitation, but the set of
his bony countenance showed his determination to go through with it.
Will Archer felt his suit stiffening as the gauge dropped toward zero,
and he moved his arms and legs a little to test the ball joints. They
moved freely, being precisely pivoted so that the volume of the suit
remained constant regardless of position. A moment later, Stokely
pulled open the outer hatch.
One of the contact rods projected from its sheath near the hatch to a
point within reach of the other ship's lock. Stokely set out carefully,
hand over hand, and Archer followed him, gripping the rod firmly with
each hand in turn. This was no time to make a slip and go drifting off
into nowhere. The pistol at his side would provide a means of getting
back, but an awkward one, because one's center of gravity was difficult
to judge accurately, and if the shot were not closely aligned to it,
one stood an excellent chance of converting himself into a human
pinwheel.
Archer waited near the hull of the other ship until Stokely drew
himself out of the way, then, grasping a nearby rung, he made room
for Evans and Grimwood. Stokely, though a few feet away, was in dense
shadow and almost invisible, but his flashlight made a shifting oval of
light on what appeared to be a pane of vitreon, and he spoke steadily:
"I'm looking through the porthole, but I can't see much. There are no
lights aboard ship. Nothing seems to be out of place in the waist
here, but of course I can't see the nose and tail compartments."
"How about the lock?" came Captain Rogan's voice. "Try the emergency
control."
Archer could feel a slight vibration through the hull as Stokely
changed his position, then spoke again:
"Seems to be in working order. The lock is evacuating. But it's going
to be a squeeze for the four of us."
"Better go in two at a time. You and Archer first. And keep your suits
operating, even if the air reads all right--there just might be some
fancy bacteria floating around."
That was another grim possibility not unknown in space annals. Bacteria
could mutate rapidly and strangely under extra-planetary conditions.
On two or three occasions, "fancy" ones had nearly wiped out orbital
laboratories devoted to bacteriological research.
If such were the case here, it was all the more important to see what
could be done to avoid tainting the atmosphere of an inhabited planet.
* * * * *
In the air lock, the pressure balanced quickly with that of the
interior, and the tension eased on the fabric of their suits. Stokely
pushed the inner hatch open and they entered with guns drawn. The beams
of their flashlights swept the chamber quickly, then more slowly.
There were only the bunks, storage lockers, air-processing equipment,
and gyro-stabilizer unit to be expected amidships of such a craft.
Stokely placed a hand on the stabilizer housing for a moment, then
nodded. They had already judged from the ship's behavior that it must
be functioning.
"Nothing out of the way here," reported Stokely in a low voice.
"Stay together, and look at the control room first," Captain Rogan
ordered.
There was, of course, no central lift in a ship this size, but merely
narrow ladders between the compartments. These were necessary only
under the pull of gravity or acceleration, and under the present
circumstances, to be avoided. Stokely led the way "up" the inner hull
and across the "overhead," placing his magnetized boots as softly as
possible.
The inter compartment hatch, about three feet in diameter, was wide
open. Stokely pointed at Archer's flashlight and made a fanlike motion
with his hands. Archer nodded, reached out and aimed the light through
the hole, full flood, while Stokely peered through the other side, gun
in hand. The stratagem was simple--anyone firing at the light might hit
Archer's arm, but probably not Stokely's less expendable head.
Nothing happened. After a tense moment, Archer moved the light about
slowly, then Stokely turned his own over the edge.
"There are two men in there," he said slowly. "Both dead, I think."
* * * * *
There was no doubt at all about one of them, whose corpse floated not
six feet away, tied by one wrist to a conduit. Part of the face seemed
to have been gouged out, and closer inspection showed the explanation:
a sizable bullet-hole in the opposite temple.
Whether or not the other was dead, he was certainly not conscious,
despite his normal sitting posture in the control chair. That was to
be expected anyhow, in a free fall with the safety belt fastened. His
squat frame was stripped to the waist, his small black eyes stared
blindly, and his unshaven jaw was clenched in an ugly grin. His right
hand loosely held a hypodermic syringe, and a pistol was stuck in his
belt.
Stokely gave a brief description, and added: "He looks dead, all right.
Maybe he tried to give himself an anti-tetanus injection, but was too
late."
"Dr. Grimwood will please go in immediately," said Captain Rogan. "In
the meantime, Stokely and Archer will look at the tail compartment."
The tail, or engine, compartment contained nothing of abnormal
interest, as it turned out. The ship appeared to be in running order,
with adequate fuel. Its power had evidently been cut deliberately, for
whatever mysterious reason.
"Stokely will remain there," said Captain Rogan. "Archer will take the
controls. We are withdrawing the contact rods, and will retard our
fall, giving you enough clearance to align ship and test the power. If
everything functions normally, the four of you will proceed to company
base on Faria. Dr. Grimwood will exercise his judgment as to whether to
remove your pressure-suits. Archer, as pilot, will take command."
Dr. Grimwood and Evans had removed the dead man from the control seat
when Archer returned. The controls were fewer and less specialized, and
in place of the all-seeing projection screen was a televiewer plate
with fixed scanners, whose field was limited to the tailward sector
of the heavens. Other observation was necessarily direct, through the
several ports.
The televiewer became activated at the flip of the switch and revealed
that Captain Rogan had withdrawn his ship to a safe distance.
Will Archer depressed a key which had the effect of applying a
magnetic brake in the stabilizer unit to one of a pair of oppositely
rotating flywheels, or "gyrotors," whose axis was athwartship. As the
considerable speed of the gyrotor diminished, the ship began to turn
with it in a slow somersault. Archer eased up on the key, and after
some hundred and twenty degrees, released it. The gyrotor came up to
speed again, stopping the spin nicely.
Archer paused with his hand on the power control. "Hang on, boys," he
said. "There's going to be a floor."
The others got as close to it as they could, and Archer "raised" the
thrust-control lever a few notches. Immediately, there was the welcome
feeling of weight. This, as a dubious tribute to the adaptability of
human flesh, became oppressive before the accelerometer showed one G.
"We're going to have to pour it on," said Archer. "Three G's for a safe
margin. Since there's only one other chair here, maybe Evans had better
go down with Stokely. There are two chairs there. And by the way, I
think our two silent partners would be better off in the main storage
compartment."
"Particularly," agreed Dr. Grimwood, "as they appear to have been dead
two or three days. That would be one reason for keeping our suits on
for a while." Gingerly, he picked up the hypodermic syringe from beside
the sprawling corpse.
"It would be interesting to know what was in this. Maybe--" The doctor
stooped again quickly. "But what's this?"
Will Archer looked down in time to see him force open the dead man's
clenched left fist. As the fingers came back, a greenish, glowing
object the size and shape of a brazil nut lay exposed. Or was it
green? All the colors of the spectrum seemed to appear in flickering
succession as Dr. Grimwood picked it up almost reverently, yet the
predominant effect was of cold green fire.