"Don't argue. There's no time. Come, I'll protect you. We'll have plenty
of room. If you wait, it may be too late."
"Go with you, and leave the others? You're mad!"
"But if you wait, you'll be trampled to death by the mob. I'm giving you
a chance to save your life."
"But you can't take that boat for yourself. What would happen to the
other people? That would be murder. Get away from me! I'm going to call
Captain Evans."
As she ran to the phone and pressed the dial, he padded out of the door
and resumed his flight to Boat F where Davis waited, peering nervously
up and down the hall. Waving his secretary to follow, Jasperson rushed
through the port.
"Everything ready, Davis? Provisions all in?"
"All set. I saw the tail end of the truck leaving just as I got here,
but I'll just check--"
"Hurry, man! There's no time to waste." He cocked his head, listening to
the low rumble of an approaching motor. Davis ran inside, and together
they watched from the port.
Coming swiftly down the corridor was a small motor truck. It stopped,
and the driver jumped out and shouted.
"Get out of that boat! She's not ready yet! What are you--"
With a steady hand Jasperson drew his pistol and pressed the trigger.
The man fell without a sound.
"What are you waiting for, Davis? Shove off!"
The port door slid shut. A few seconds delay, and Lifeboat F, carrying
three persons, shot away from the _Star Lord_ into space.
* * * * *
Alarm bells rang, red lights flashed.
Sickening with the inexorable rise of her fevered power units, the _Star
Lord_ trembled with the clangor of bells ringing in library and nursery,
in lounges and dance hall, in bar and cabins, in dining rooms and
theaters. The orchestra crashed to a stop, the dancers halted, startled
and vaguely frightened, half laughing at themselves as they listened to
the bells.
Then silence, and the voice of Captain Evans.
"Ladies and gentlemen. Do not be alarmed. Because of certain mechanical
difficulties the _Star Lord_ has shifted to normal space. There is no
immediate danger, but purely as a precautionary measure we shall launch
the lifeboats. Remember, there is no danger, but I ask each of you to
proceed at once, in calm orderly fashion, to the station to which you
are assigned, and there obey the orders of the officer in charge. The
passengers formerly assigned to Boat C will be placed in other boats. Do
not wait to go to your cabins. Proceed immediately to your lifeboats."
The voice clicked off. A few seconds of silence, and then the quiet was
broken by the patter of hurrying feet. In a moment, the public lounges
were empty.
* * * * *
In the library, Tanya was still calling into the phone.
"Operator, operator!" she cried. "I must speak to the Captain. It's a
matter of life and death!" But the phone was dead.
[Illustration]
When the alarm bells rang, she listened to the announcement and then
slowly put back the useless instrument. Back in her corner, she picked
up her chalk, shuffled her drawings into an orderly heap, paused, and
with a wry smile dropped them all to the floor and hurried away.
A sound of crying wailed from the open door of the playroom, and she
looked in to see a group of children, none of them more than six,
huddled together and sobbing. She walked up to them and smiled, hands on
her hips.
"Well, small fry! What are you doing up so late? Why the big howls?"
Still they cried, ignoring their abandoned toys. Around the room hobby
horses sat quietly, alphabet blocks lay scattered, and picture books and
sprawling dolls littered the floor.
"So," she said. "Your nurses ran out on you, did they? Left you to shift
for yourselves? Never mind, youngsters, Aunt Tanya will look after you.
Take hands, now, and come with me."
* * * * *
When the alarm rang in the Bar, a glass crashed to the floor as the only
son of the deutonium millionaire jumped to his feet and ran.
[Illustration]
Professor Larrabee deliberately finished his drink, gently put down the
glass, and stood up.
"Our final spacecap," he said. "Well, Alan, it's been a good trip, but I
can't say I'm surprised at its ending. The ship had the wrong name, from
the beginning."
"We'd better hurry, Professor. We must find Tanya and the Halls."
"You're walking too fast for me, my boy. Don't worry. They're in Boat F,
with us, and we're sure to find them there."
In the corridor leading to F station their way was blocked by the crowd,
many of them still wearing the grotesque costumes of the masquerade
dance, now pale and tawdry in the bright lights. Stunned with horror,
they stared through the transparent wall at the gaping socket where the
lifeboat had been. Crewmen formed a tight circle around the truck and
the man who lay moaning on the floor. Pistols ready, they held back the
crowd while Dr. Willoughby administered an intravenous shot of panedol,
and Captain Evans, kneeling beside the dying man, tried to catch his
whispers.
"It was Mr. Jasperson, sir. He got me before I could do a thing. I tried
to stop him."
"You say you warned him?"
"I called to him, sir, and said the boat wasn't ready. But he didn't
give me a chance. He shot me."
The boy closed his eyes, and Evans stood up.
"Through an error, ladies and gentlemen, Boat F has already gone. You
will please go to the other stations and wait for assignment to the
other boats."
The crowd whispered, staring uncomprehendingly at the Captain's stony
face.
"Did you ever teach mathematics, Professor?" Alan murmured. "How do you
divide fifteen hundred people among four boats?"
Larrabee only smiled, a faraway look in his eyes.
A frightened voice cried, high and loud, "But there won't be enough
room!"
Someone screamed. Someone else started to run. In a few seconds a mob of
running, panic-stricken people jammed the corridor, fighting their way
out. Alan and the professor, an old man and an invalid, had no strength
to resist and were helplessly carried along by the living wave.
"Stop those people!" shouted the Captain.
A gun fired into the air and the mob hesitated, then surged on,
shouting, past the lounges, to join the throngs waiting at the other
stations.
"It's no use," said Evans wearily. "Chief Thayer. Send men to all the
stations to guard the boats. You proceed to Boat E and load it first. If
any person tries to force his way in, shoot to kill!"
* * * * *
In their small cabin, Dorothy Hall raised herself on one elbow and
looked down at her sleeping husband. His hair was rumpled, his face calm
and placid.
"Tom," she whispered. "Wake up, Tom!" Mumbling sleepily, he opened his
eyes, then smiled and tried to draw her down to him.
"Wait, Tom. Did you hear the Captain's message?"
"What message?"
"I was so sleepy I didn't understand it very well. Something about the
ship, and we must all go to our lifeboats."
"You must have been dreaming. What time is it?"
"Not quite midnight. Do you think everything is all right?"
"Of course. You just had a bad dream. The _Star Lord_ can't be in any
trouble. You know that."
"Don't you think we ought to go see?"
Playfully he towsled her hair. "Trying to get away from your husband?
Tired of me already?"
Relaxing, she snuggled down beside him with a happy sigh.
"I'd never be tired of you, Tom, in a million years. Wherever you are,
that's where I want to be, always."
She closed her eyes.
* * * * *
The children were no longer afraid, and they had stopped crying. Leading
them through the maze of corridors towards Boat station F, Tanya laughed
and told them jokes until, reaching a corner, she suddenly found the
passage blocked with a screaming mass of people, fighting, gouging,
jamming the hall so that forward movement was almost impossible. She
drew back, huddling the children behind her.
"No place for us here, youngsters," she said. "Let's go back, where it
isn't so noisy."
Obediently they followed her back to the library, where she settled them
in her favorite corner and picked up the abandoned chalk and paper.
"Now Aunt Tanya will tell you a story," she said. "And if you're very
good and don't cry at all, I'll even draw you some pictures to go with
the story. Once upon a time...."
* * * * *
There was not enough room. A lifeboat which had been designed to carry
two hundred and fifty persons could not suddenly expand to take in three
hundred and seventy-five, although Chief Thayer did his best. At Boat E
he stood with drawn pistol, sorting the crowd, and ordering them one by
one through the port according to custom as ancient as the race.
"Women and children first," he repeated, again and again. "_Women and
children first!_"
They could hear from distant corridors an occasional shout and the
clatter of running feet, but the first panic had subsided, and under the
menace of the crew's guns the people had become subdued.
White-faced men stepped back and made themselves inconspicuous in the
shadows, watching their wives and children file through the port, and
looking after them hungrily. Once, a man screamed and tried to crash
through the cordon. Thayer shot him, and he fell moaning to the floor.
Dr. Willoughby moved through the crowd, soothing the hysterical,
jollying the frightened, until he spied Alan Chase standing at the edge
of the group.
He pushed through to Alan and threw his arm around the bony shoulder,
encouragingly.
"I'm assigned to this first boat, Chase, and they'll want you in one of
the others. We want at least one medical man in each boat. But I must
warn you--" he look-ed around cautiously, but they might have been alone
in a desert for all chance there was of anyone's listening to them, "be
sure to get off in Boats B or D. Don't wait for Boat A."
"What difference does it make?"
"Boat A lies above two of the Piles that had to be dumped, and the
radioactivity index is sure to be high. Normal people won't be harmed in
the brief time they'll be on board if they're rescued, and if they're
not rescued, of course, it won't matter anyway. Even you might not be
harmed, but with your condition you shouldn't take the risk."
"But does it really matter?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that we'd counted on my reaching Almazin III quickly and living
in an inert atmosphere in order to cure the neosarcoma. Now that the
_Star Lord_ is wrecked, I may not be able to get there for months, and
that will be too late. If I'm going to die, I'd rather stay with the
ship and get it over with."
"Don't be an idiot, doctor! Don't you realize how much better you are?
The mitosis was definitely decreasing the last time I checked you. This
delay won't be fatal, I'm convinced."
Alan shook his head skeptically.
"Dr. Willoughby!" called Thayer. "Boat ready to launch!"
A grip of the hand, and he had gone. The port shut.
Boat E, jammed with three hundred and twenty-five persons, released
itself and shot out into star-studded space.
* * * * *
Boat B was the second to be launched, and Boat D followed.
Keeping to the back of the crowds, Alan watched, admiring the efficiency
with which Chief Thayer worked, shouting, wheedling, cursing, until
three hundred and thirty people were squeezed in, like frightened cattle
in a pen.
There remained only Boat A, and from the shadows he watched nearly five
hundred tense faces, drawn with the anxiety of wondering who was to go,
and who remain.
Good thing the women and children had all been taken off in the earlier
boats, Alan reflected thankfully. It would be heartbreaking enough for
Thayer to have to choose among the men, and say to some, _Go_, and to
some, _Stay_.
Captain Evans appeared, flanked by Thayer and Stacey, each with drawn
pistol. He faced the silent crowd and spoke with terrifying calm.
"I will take charge here," he said. "I cannot ask Thayer to take on such
a responsibility. I am sure it is not necessary to tell you that there
is not room enough in this boat for all of you. If rescue ships arrive
in time, those who must remain behind will be taken off. If not--I
realize that no human being has the right arbitrarily to send some men
to life and keep others for possible death. But since choice of some
sort is necessary to avoid a panic which might result in unnecessary
deaths, I shall choose which ones are to enter this boat, as nearly as
possible according to the random positions in which you are now
standing. Anyone trying to change his place will be shot!"
No one moved. No one spoke.
"Thayer, you will send in two crewmen to help run the boat. You yourself
will be the last man in, to take command. As for the rest--" He paused,
wiped his hand over his reddened eyes, and staggered. In a few seconds
he had regained control of himself, and with shoulders erect he pointed
his arm and called out,
"You go, and you, and you, and you...."
Alan heard a low chuckle behind him, and turned to find Professor
Larrabee.
"What a climax, my boy! Do you believe in premonitions, now?"
"Why haven't you gone?"
"Too old, Alan. I don't want to go. My life is done. But I can't say I
really mind. It's been a wonderful adventure, sharing the life and death
of the _Star Lord_."
The boat was nearly half full when the tense quiet was broken by the
treble voice of a child.
Captain Evans whirled to face the corridor, along which came Tanya,
holding to the hands of the two smallest children, while the others
clung tightly to the stiff folds of her taffeta gown.
His stare was ghastly. "Miss Taganova! I thought you'd gone! Where have
you been? And why weren't these children sent off in the other boats?
Didn't you hear the warnings?"
"Somebody's always scolding me for being late," said Tanya, lightly.
"But I really couldn't help it. These children seem to have been
abandoned by the nursemaids and lost or forgotten by their parents. I
have been trying to amuse them until it seemed safe to bring them to
you. If I'd come before they would have been trampled to death."
"Well, luckily it's not too late. In you go, the lot of you."
The six youngsters were scrambling through the port, and the Captain had
resumed his "You, and you, and you...." when Alan darted forward and
clasped Tanya's hand.
"I just want you to know," he whispered. "If the _Star Lord_ had gone on
to port I'd never have dared say it. But since it can't matter now,
Tanya--I'd like you to know--"
She smiled. "I know, Alan. I've known it for many days. And I'd have
made a good doctor's wife, I think!" Her lips were trembling as she
turned away and entered the port.
"Dr. Chase!" roared the Captain. "What are you doing here? You were
supposed to go on Boat D!"
"There isn't room for all of us, Captain. I thought the healthy men
should have the preference. I prefer to stay here."
"Personal preferences mean nothing at all at this moment. Get into the
boat."
"Let some one else have my place, sir. I haven't long to live anyway,
you know. I don't mind staying behind."
* * * * *
The Captain steadied his pistol. "Get in. That's an order. This is no
time for mock heroics. You should have gone with Boat D to look after
the women and children. Whether you live a month or a year doesn't
matter to me, but it is important that you use your medical skill to
take care of these people until they are rescued."
With a dazed look, Alan walked through the port.
"And you, and you, and you...."