They did not pause, even to catch their breath, for the first twenty
minutes as Tom led them swiftly and silently down through the maze of
corridors and chutes that made up the ventilation system of the huge
ship. Greg lost his bearing completely in the first twenty seconds; each
time his brother paused at a junction of tubes, he felt a wave of panic
rise up in his throat ... suppose they lost themselves in here! He heard
Johnny's trousers flapping behind him, saw Tom's figure flit past
another grill up ahead, and plunged doggedly on.
It was amazingly hard to move quietly. Even in stocking feet they made a
soft thud with each footfall.
But there was no sign of detection, no sound of alarm. Finally they came
out into a large shaft which allowed them to stand upright, and they
stopped to catch their breath.
"Main tube to the living quarters," Tom said when they had caught up to
him. "Joins with the lower-level tube by a series of chutes. We've
actually been circumnavigating the ship ... I wanted to get as far away
from that lounge compartment as possible, in case they check up on you
right away."
"We can't have much time," Johnny said. "That second guard must have
been coming to relieve the other, and when the first one doesn't report
back, they'll smell something fishy."
* * * * *
They talked it over for a moment. Johnny had been careful to leave the
hatchway into the corridor ajar before he climbed into the ventilator
shaft, and then he had pulled the shaft snugly into place behind him.
Anyone who came would find two unconscious guards, a burnt-out hole in
the wall, and the door unlocked.
"We'll hope that he takes things at face value, and assumes we're at
large in the ship somewhere, for a while at least," Johnny said. "That
hole in the wall is going to set them back a couple of steps, too."
"But they'll sound the alarm, at least," Tom said.
"You bet they will! They'll have every man on the crew shaking down the
ship for us. But they may not think of the ventilators until they can't
find us anywhere else."
"But sooner or later they're bound to think of it."
"That's true," Johnny said. "Unless they keep seeing us in the ship. The
way I figure it, this crew has been on battle stations plenty of times.
They'll be able to search the whole ship in half an hour. We're just
going to have to show ourselves ... at least enough to keep them
searching."
"Well, what if they do think of the ventilators?" Greg said. "They'd
still have a time finding us."
"Maybe, but don't underestimate Tawney. He might just mask up his crew
and flood the tubes with cyanide."
They thought about that for a minute. There was no sound here but their
own breathing, and the low chug-chug-chug of the pumps somewhere deep in
the ship. Momentarily they expected to hear the raucous clang of the
alarm bell, as some crew member or another walked into the lounge and
found them gone. But so far there was no sign they had been discovered
missing. "No," Johnny said finally, "if we just hide out in here, and
hope for a chance at one of the scout ships, they'll find us eventually.
But we've got three big advantages, if we can figure out how to use
them. That fancy gun, for one. A way to get around the ship, for
another ... and the fact that there's one more of us than they count on."
He flipped on his pocket flash, began drawing lines on the dusty floor of
the shaft. "My idea is to keep them so busy fighting little fires that
they won't have a chance to worry about where the big one is."
He drew a rough outline-sketch of the organization of the ship. "This
look right to you, from what you've seen?" he asked Tom.
"Pretty much," Tom said. "There are more connecting tubes."
"All the better. We want to get the generators with our little toy here
first. That'll darken the ship, and put the blowers out of commission in
case they think of using gas. Also, it will cut out their computers and
missile-launching rigs, which might give us a chance to get a scout-ship
away in one piece if we could get aboard one."
"All right, the generators are first," Tom said. "But then what? There
are four hundred men on this ship. They'll have every airlock triple
guarded. They'll block us for sure."
"Not when we get through, they won't," Johnny grinned. "We've got an old
friend aboard who's going to help us."
"_Friend?_"
"Ever hear of panic?" Johnny said. "Just listen a minute."
Quickly then, he outlined his plan. Tom and Greg listened, watched
Johnny make marks with his finger in the dust. When he finished, Greg
whistled softly. "You missed your life work," he said. "You should have
gone into crime."
"If I'd had a ghost to help me, I might have," Johnny said.
"It's perfect," Tom said, "if it works. But it all depends on one
thing ... keeping it rolling after we start...."
For another five minutes they went over the details. Then Johnny clapped
them each on the shoulder. "It's up to you two," he said. "Let's go."
They moved down the large shaft to the place where it broke into several
spurs. Johnny started down the chute toward the engine rooms; Tom and
Greg headed in opposite directions toward the main body of the ship.
Just as they broke up, they heard a muffled metallic sound from the
nearest compartment grill.
It was the _clang-clang-clang_ of the orbit-ship's general alarm.
* * * * *
Crewmen stopped with food halfway to their mouths, jerked away from
tables. Orders buzzed along a dozen wires, and section chiefs began
reporting their battle-stations alert and ready. Finally Tawney snapped
on the general public address system speaker. "Now get this," he roared.
"I want every inch of this ship searched ... every corridor, every
compartment. I want a special crew standing by for missile launching.
I want double guards at every airlock. If they get a ship away from
here, the man who lets them through had better be dead when I find
him...." He broke off, clutching the speaker until his voice was under
control again. "All right, move. They're armed, but there's no place they
can go. Find them."