"Marooned! But--but that's criminal! Who did it? We'll have them picked
up and punished!"
"You'll do nothing of the sort. They marooned me on that asteroid
because I deserved it and I respect and thank them for it!" His voice
was rising again; higher, shriller. "I thank them, do you hear? I bless
them, a hundred, thousand, million times. Though their effort was in
vain. I was, and am, a Jonah. A Jonah, Jonah, _Jonah_!"
He sat bolt upright in bed, screaming the word defiantly. Doc Jurnegan
raced in, glanced at me reproachfully and took his patient in hand.
"You'd better go, Brait," he suggested.
So I left. The sweat on my forehead was damp and cold. I needed a drink.
When I told Cap McNeally of my experience, he nodded soberly.
"I know, Brait. I saw him before you did. And he acted just as loony
toward me. Warned me he was a Jonah--"
"I'm not superstitious," I interrupted, "but there _are_ such things
as Jonahs. Men whose very presence aboard a spaceship seems to cause
trouble, dissention, disaster. You remember that Venusian blaster on
the _Goddard III_? The survivors always swore he caused the crack-up."
"Moran's case," frowned the skipper, "is more than just superstition.
He told me that he never wanted to see Earth again. When I told him
that was too bad, that we were headed for Earth right now, he warned me
solemnly that he'd do everything in his power to prevent our getting
there. So what do you think of that?"
"I think," I said glumly, "he's nuts! And if we pay any attention to
him, we'll all be nuts, too. Well, I've got to go, Cap. I've got to
check the shield generators before we go busting into Earth's H-layer."
And I left.
* * * * *
Well, I was busy for the next four days on my job. It was a plenty
important job, and had to be done carefully. The H-layer of the
planets--the Kennelly-Heaviside layer--is a supertensioned field of
force similar in composition to the corona of a star. A wide swath
of ionized gas with high potential, serving as a shield against the
murderous Q- and ultra-violet rays that emanate from solar bodies.
But the H-layer is a barrier as well as a shield. The first
space-flight experimenters learned that, and the knowledge cost them
their lives. For their craft hit the H-layer unguarded; and where had
been a glistening ship, now was pitted, blackened metal; where had been
life, now there was charred carbon.
Now all spaceships were equipped with shield generators. They were
"generators" by courtesy only; actually they were huge condensers
fed by cable lines tied at intervals to the hull plates. The theory
was that as the craft plunged into and through the H-layer, these
condensers would absorb the excess potential, thus allowing the ship to
pass through unharmed.
And it worked swell, most of the time. Oh, every year a few ships would
get theirs--would blow out in a blue wreath of coruscating flame--but
for the most part the trip was safe enough. Except, of course, when a
condenser was in bad condition. Which was why I was giving ours a check
and double check.
Still, I could never rid myself of a queasy moment when we hit that
blanket of spark-happy ionization. Particularly when a planet was at
aphelion as Earth was now. Because at such times the H-layer was more
highly activated than usual.
And to tell the truth, I wasn't satisfied with the way my work was
going. First I hit my thumb with a monkey-wrench. It didn't hurt
the wrench, but the thumb turned pale mauve and throbbed like a
sixteen-year-old kid's pulse on his first hayride.
Then I lost a brass collar off the hull-brace, and since we didn't
carry a reserve stock I had to ask Chief Lester to make me one. By the
time that was ready, I'd busted a .44 coil cable lock, and had to
jerry-rig a substitute.
Oh, it was a headache! But I wasn't the only guy on board the _Aunty_
who was having troubles. Slops raised a howl to high heaven because his
stove went on the squeegee. Gunner McCoy stalked into the officer's
mess one afternoon demanding what such-and-such so-and-so had stripped
the gears of his pet rotor-gun. Sparks burned out three vacuum tubes
in one day, breaking contact with all transmitting stations and almost
causing us to crack up on a rogue asteroid. Even Cap McNeally was
visited by the plague. He came wailing to me, on the bridge, that the
refrigeration units in the No. 3 storage bin had broken down.
"--and we've lost a whole binfull of _clab_, Brait! Worth at least six
thousand credits on Earth. The Corporation will be mad as hell."
"That's tough," I said, "but there's nothing we can do about it. It
wasn't your fault."
He eyed me curiously. "Brait--" he said.
"Yes, Cap?"
"I've been wondering--do you think there could be anything in what
Moran said? About him being a--a--"
"Jonah?" I'd been thinking the same thing myself. "I don't know,
Skipper. I wouldn't say yes, and I wouldn't say no. But there's no
doubt about it, things have been going haywire ever since we picked him
up. I'll be glad when he lifts gravs off the _Aunty_."
Cap said petulantly, "Of course it's just nonsense. Bad luck doesn't
hang around one man like that. It's against the law of averages. Still,
I wish you'd sort of keep an eye on him for the next three days, Brait.
Till we land on Earth. I've got a notion--"
"So has Earth," I grinned. "Five of 'em. Atlantic, Pacific, Indian and
the two Etceteras. What's yours?"
"It might," frowned the skipper. "Be sabotage. He said he'd do
everything in his power to prevent our reaching Earth. And he's up and
around now."
"If you think that," I suggested, "why don't you shove him in the
clink, just to make sure?"
"Can't do it. Because I've no _proof_ he's responsible for these
occurrences, and besides, a rescued passenger is entitled to the
courtesy of the ship."
* * * * *
So that's how I assumed, in addition to the rest of my duties, the job
of watch-dogging the mysterious Paul Moran. As Cap McNeally had said,
Moran was up and about now. He had made what Doc Jurnegan claimed was
the swiftest recovery in the annals of medicine. He still looked like
a skeleton in search of a square meal. But there was sanity in his
eyes. If not always in his speech. Like that afternoon in Sparks' radio
turret, for instance.
We had been talking, Sparks and I, about space-flight. What a great
thing it was. How, only in its infancy, it was already changing man's
outlook, widening the borders of man's domain, creating a newer,
greater universe.
"We got," Sparks said, "reason to be proud of ourselves. Gee, I was
readin' in the library--"
"You," I interrupted wonderingly, "can read?"
"Comets to you, Lootenant!" sniffed Sparks. "As I was sayin' before I
was so rudely ruptured, I was readin' in the library some old books
from the Twentieth Century. Just about a hundred an' fifty years old,
mind you! They had the craziest ideas about what men would find on
other planets, if an' when they ever got there. Flame-men, an' robots,
an' all sorts of things.
"Nothin' like what we actually found. 'Course, we shouldn't laugh at
'em too much. They had no way of knowin'. We're the first people ever
traveled in space."
"No!" said Moran.
Sparks said patiently, "Well, I didn't mean us here in this room. Of
course we ain't. But I mean the people of our time."
"And I still say," said Moran gravely, "no! Man in all ages is a
creature of conceit, self-pride, self-glorification. There was
space-flight long before you lived, Sparks. A race, long dead now, from
a neighbor planet."
I said gently, "You're thinking of those pyramids found on Venus and
Mars, Moran? I know that's a puzzler to modern science. And I've read
several theories regarding their builders. But most authorities agree
that their mere presence does not necessarily imply the existence of a
single race of engineers. The pyramid is a fundamental structural form.
Any intelligent race--"
"Man," said Moran almost sadly. "Man the dreamer; Man the doubter. No,
Lieutenant, I am not speaking of theories, now. I am speaking of tales
I've heard; accounts I've read in archives long molded into dust. At
least three times in the past have civilized races spanned the void. It
was the dying Martian race that first achieved space-flight. They found
Venus a rank and stinking jungle, but on Earth certain of them set up
their new abode." He smiled quietly. "And reverted to savagery, as is
always the case when civilized men, removed from the source of their
culture, find themselves face to face with stark reality.
"Then it was the Moon-creatures who fled their airless world, spanned
the distance to nearby earth."
I said, "That's an interesting thought, Moran. It explains the
coloration of the races of man, doesn't it? I'd like to read that book
you mentioned. Where can I get it?"
He shook his head sadly.
"You can't, Lt. Brait. The last copy of it was destroyed more than
twelve centuries ago. Simon Magnus was the last man to read it as I
remember. I loaned it to him--"
He stopped abruptly. But Sparks' eyes were plate-sized and incredulous.
"--you loaned it to him?"
I spun on Sparks, angry. Jurnegan had told us to humor Moran, help him
to a complete recovery. I didn't approve of this, not a little bit. I
snapped, "That'll do, Sparks! Good Lord, man--What's the matter, Moran?"
For suddenly his face had paled, his eyes widened in horror, and he was
backing away from me. He thrust out a trembling hand, gasped hoarsely,
"Have a care, Brait! 'Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord, thy
God, in vain--'!"
Then he fled; his running footsteps clattered down the ramp, and the
echoes were strangely disturbing. Sparks stared after him, then made a
circular motion at his temple.
"Nuts!" he said. "Crazy as a loon, Lootenant."
* * * * *
Oh, he was an odd one, that Moran. Those next days are somehow garbled
in my mind. They were so full of incident that now, looking back upon
them, I can hardly distinguish between that which actually _was_, and
that which an active imagination conjured for me out of fancy.
This I do know--it was the worst trip I've ever experienced in the
_Antigone_ or any other ship. Something was always wrong. Lt. Russ
Bartlett, whose mind is as accurate as the cogs of a computing machine,
discovered to his dismay that he had made an error in calculation; that
at our present rate of speed we would miss Earth entirely and plunge
Sunward at a rate that would destroy us all. He discovered that by
sheer accident, and just in time to scream a hasty, "Cut hypos!" to the
engine room, else I wouldn't be here to tell it. Then there was that
mysterious occurrence in the galley. Our cook had a pet cat, and if it
weren't for his habit of feeding the pussy before he fed the crew, half
of us would be stiff now. Because the cat slopped up its dinner and
forthwith proceeded to give up all nine of its lives simultaneously.
Ptomaine, from faulty food tins. The first time such a thing had
happened in more than forty years!
You couldn't say Moran was behind either of these near-disasters. For
I was dogging his footsteps; I'll take my oath he was not involved.
Physically, that is. But they say a Jonah's curse works even though the
Jonah takes no actual part.
Oh, he was an odd one, that Moran. For instance, the time Sparks'
selenium plate blew out. It was Moran who got permission to use
the machine shop, construct a substitute out of a uranoid-steel
atmochamber. We used that freak audio throughout the trip, then
replaced it with a standard one when we reached Earth. Like dopes!
Because two years later that screwball First Mate of the _Saturn_
"invented" a uranium time-speech-trap exactly like the one Moran made
us. He earned a quarter million credits from it. Imagine!
Then there was the time, as we were approaching the Lunar outpost,
that our calculating machine jammed. Lieutenant Bartlett and Cap
McNeally were in a dither trying to figure the approach velocity. It's
a fifteen-minute job for the machine; a six-hour job for a man's brain.
But Moran, who happened by, glanced casually at the declension chart,
said, "Cut to forty-three at 3.05 Earth Standard, Captain. Maintain
full speed for point three five parsecs, alter declension to north one,
loft seven, fire fore jets twice--"
Having no better idea, McNeally did as Moran suggested. And we warped
past the Moon oh-oh-oh on trajectory!
* * * * *
Which put us within scant hours of Earth's H-layer. And which also
roused in me the realization that the mysterious Paul Moran was more
than the ordinary space-sailor he pretended to be. Maybe I'm snoopy,
I don't know. Anyway, I went to the radio room. I told Sparks grimly,
"You and I are going to find out just who or what this Moran guy is.
Send a message, Sparks. To Fred Bender, at Long Island Spaceport.
Tell him to find out if there's a scientist missing who answers to
this description. Five feet, seven and a half inches; a hundred and
twenty-five pounds, dark hair, brown eyes--"
The relay of that description and the subsequent reply took longer than
I had anticipated. That's why Sparks and I were among the last to learn
of the new trouble. We didn't learn until, excited, we burst onto the
bridge, confronted the skipper with our information.
"Look, Skipper!" I yelled. "No wonder 'Moran' was able to fix Sparks'
radio and set your course! Do you--"
And the Captain raised haggard eyes to me.
"Brait, where have you been? I've been audioing all over the ship for
you."
"In Sparks' cabin. Listen, though. Moran is--"
"I don't care," said the skipper wearily, "who he is. And in a
little while, nobody else will, either. Your check-up, Mr. Brait,
was a miserable failure! We are only an hour and a half out of the
H-layer--and the shield generators refuse to function!"
I just stared at him for a minute. When I caught my breath, there was
only enough of it for one word.
"Impossible!"
"Impossible, maybe," acknowledged the First Mate, "but unfortunately,
Don, the Captain's right. Three lead-in cables are broken, the
stripping is off the condenser."
"But--but everything was in perfect order an hour ago! I don't
understand! Yes, I do! Moran! He said he'd destroy us all if he got a
chance! Skipper, there's the answer. He's done it. The madman--"
Then there was a mirthful chuckle in the doorway, and Moran was
standing there looking at us, his thin lips wide in a smile.
"You're right, Brait. I _did_ do it. But I'm not a madman. I'm a happy
man. The happiest man who ever lived!" His eyes lighted triumphantly;
he stretched his arms above his head in a great, yearning gesture.
"Soon will come freedom! The great, everlasting freedom of death."
"Get him!" said the Skipper succinctly. Gunner McCoy lumbered forward,
his long, hairy arms encircled Moran's body. The Skipper pawed his
graying thatch. "This is no time for reproaches, Mr. Brait. I told you
to guard this man; for some reason you failed to do so. But now our
problem is to repair the damage he has done. Or else--"
His pause was significant. But Moran's quiet, mocking laughter
persisted.
"It is useless, Captain. Not in hours, no, not in weeks, will you
repair the damage. Don't you see--" There was a feverish light in his
eyes, a shuddering vibrancy in his voice. "Don't you see that I bring
you the greatest of all boons known to man?
"Death! Wonderful, blissful death! Death that I have sought so long ...
so hopelessly."
Those were the last words I heard for some time. I dashed from the
room, Bartlett, Sparks and McCoy at my heels. We picked up the Chief
Engineer. We covered the _Antigone_ from stern to stern. And our worst
fears were realized. It was no use. The damage Moran had done was
irreparable.
Russ Bartlett said, "There's only one way out. We mustn't try to
penetrate the Heaviside layer. We must shift trajectory, pass Earth
and remain in space until we get the shield generator operating again."
And Chief Lester said somberly, "Have you forgotten the trajectory you
planned, Lieutenant Bartlett?"
"The trajectory?"
"I thought it was unusual," rumbled the engineer, "when you called
it down to me. It's paper-thin, balanced on a knife-edge between
counter-gravitations. If we try to shift course now, we'll tear the
ship into shreds!"
I knew, now, why Moran had come up with such a ready answer when the
computer failed. He had planned well. He had deliberately forced us
into this trajectory from which there was no escape.
* * * * *
Back on the bridge, we found Captain McNeally pacing the deck like a
caged cat. Moran was silent, watchful intent, with an unholy gleam
of justification lighting his curious eyes. The skipper looked up
hopefully as we entered.
"Well, gentlemen?"
Bartlett shook his head.
McNeally was silent for a long moment. His glance roved the smart,
glistening interior of the _Antigone's_ control room. I knew exactly
what he was thinking. It was too bad that this smooth perfection, this
finest ship built by master craftsmen, should become a brief, winking
flame in the atmospheric borders of Earth.
And it was tough that we must all go out together like this. Through no
fault of our own. Through the machinations of a space-mad castaway. He
turned to me. "Lieutenant Brait, you and Sparks will go to the radio
turret. Send a complete report to the Earth authorities. Tell them--"
He gulped. "Tell them why the--the _Antigone_ will not come in."
I said, "Aye, aye, sir!" mechanically, and started for the door. But
Sparks stopped me.
"Ain't you gonna tell 'em what we learned?"
"Eh?"
"About _him_?"
He jerked his head toward 'Moran'.
"It doesn't really make any difference now," I said. "But--" I suppose
my voice was scornful. There was scorn and bitterness in my heart.
"They might as well know that the man who has condemned us all to
death is--or was--one of Earth's greatest scientists. Had he not become
a raving lunatic his genius could have stemmed this disaster."