Eighteen men and two women in the closed world of a space
ship for five months can only spell tension and trouble--but
in this case, the atmosphere was _literally_ poisoned.
[Illustration]
* * * * *
Five months out from Earth, we were half-way to Saturn and
three-quarters of the way to murder. At least, I was. I was sick of
the feuding, the worries and the pettiness of the other nineteen
aboard. My stomach heaved at the bad food, the eternal smell of
people, and the constant sound of nagging and complaints. For ten lead
pennies, I'd have gotten out into space and tried walking back to
Earth. Sometimes I thought about doing it without the pennies.
But I knew I wasn't that tough, in spite of what I looked. I'd been
built to play fullback, and my questionable brunet beauty had been
roughed up by the explosion years before as thoroughly as dock
fighting on all the planets could have done. But sometimes I figured
all that meant was that there was more of me to hurt, and that I'd had
more experience screaming when the anodyne ran out.
Anyhow, whole-wheat pancakes made with sourdough for the ninth
"morning" running was too damned much! I felt my stomach heave over
again, took one whiff of the imitation maple syrup, and shoved the
mess back fast while I got up faster.
* * * * *
It was a mistake. Phil Riggs, our scrawny, half-pint meteorologist,
grinned nastily and reached for the plate. "'Smatter, Paul? Don't you
like your breakfast? It's good for you--whole wheat contains bran. The
staff of life. Man, after that diet of bleached paste...."
* * * * *
There's one guy like that in every bunch. The cook was mad at us for
griping about his coffee, so our group of scientists on this cockeyed
Saturn Expedition were getting whole wheat flour as punishment, while
Captain Muller probably sat in his cabin chuckling about it. In our
agreement, there was a clause that we could go over Muller's head on
such things with a unanimous petition--but Riggs had spiked that. The
idiot liked bran in his flour, even for pancakes!
Or else he was putting on a good act for the fun of watching the rest
of us suffer.
"You can take your damned whole wheat and stuff it--" I started. Then
I shrugged and dropped it. There were enough feuds going on aboard the
cranky old _Wahoo_! "Seen Jenny this morning, Phil?"
He studied me insolently. "She told Doc Napier she had some stuff
growing in hydroponics she wanted to look at. You're wasting your time
on that babe, boy!"
"Thanks for nothing," I muttered at him, and got out before I really
decided on murder. Jenny Sanderson was our expedition biologist. A
natural golden blonde, just chin-high on me, and cute enough to earn
her way through a Ph. D. doing modelling. She had a laugh that would
melt a brass statue and which she used too much on Doc Napier, on our
chief, and even on grumpy old Captain Muller--but sometimes she used
it on me, when she wanted something. And I never did have much use for
a girl who was the strong independent type where there was a man to do
the dirty work, so that was okay.
I suppose it was natural, with only two women among eighteen men for
month after month, but right then I probably liked Doc Napier less
than the captain, even. I pulled myself away from the corridor to
hydroponics, started for observation, and then went on into the
cubbyhole they gave me for a cabin. On the _Wahoo_, all a man could do
was sleep or sit around and think about murder.
Well, I had nobody to blame but myself. I'd asked for the job when I
first heard Dr. Pietro had collected funds and priorities for a trip
to study Saturn's rings at close hand. And because I'd done some
technical work for him on the Moon, he figured he might as well take
me as any other good all-around mechanic and technician. He hadn't
asked me, though--that had been my own stupid idea.
Paul Tremaine, self-cure expert! I'd picked up a nice phobia against
space when the super-liner _Lauri Ellu_ cracked up with four hundred
passengers on my first watch as second engineer. I'd gotten free and
into a suit, but after they rescued me, it had taken two years on the
Moon before I could get up nerve for the shuttle back to Earth. And
after eight years home, I should have let well enough alone. If I'd
known anything about Pietro's expedition, I'd have wrapped myself in
my phobia and loved it.
But I didn't know then that he'd done well with priorities and only
fair with funds. The best he could afford was the rental of the old
Earth-Mars-Venus triangle freighter. Naturally, when the _Wahoo's_
crew heard they were slated for what would be at least three years off
Earth without fancy bonus rates, they quit. Since nobody else would
sign on, Pietro had used his priorities to get an injunction that
forced them back aboard. He'd stuffed extra oxygen, water, food and
fertilizer on top of her regular supplies, then, filled her holds with
some top level fuel he'd gotten from a government assist, and set
out. And by the time I found out about it, my own contract was
iron-bound, and I was stuck.
As an astrophysicist, Pietro was probably tops. As a man to run the
Lunar Observatory, he was a fine executive. But as a man to head up an
expedition into deep space, somebody should have given him back his
teething ring.
Not that the _Wahoo_ couldn't make the trip with the new fuel; she'd
been one of the early survey ships before they turned her into a
freighter. But she was meant for a crew of maybe six, on trips of a
couple of months. There were no game rooms, no lounges, no bar or
library--nothing but what had to be. The only thing left for most of
us aboard was to develop our hatreds of the petty faults of the
others. Even with a homogeneous and willing crew, it was a perfect
set-up for cabin fever, and we were as heterogeneous as they came.
Naturally the crew hated the science boys after being impressed into
duty, and also took it out on the officers. The officers felt the same
about both other groups. And the scientists hated the officers and
crew for all the inconveniences of the old _Wahoo_. Me? I was in
no-man's land--technically in the science group, but without a pure
science degree; I had an officer's feelings left over from graduating
as an engineer on the ships; and I looked like a crewman.
It cured my phobia, all right. After the first month out, I was too
disgusted to go into a fear funk. But I found out it didn't help a bit
to like space again and know I'd stay washed up as a spaceman.
* * * * *
We'd been jinxed from the start. Two months out, the whole crew of
scientists came down with something Doc Napier finally diagnosed as
food poisoning; maybe he was right, since our group ate in our own
mess hall, and the crew and officers who didn't eat with us didn't get
it. Our astronomer, Bill Sanderson, almost died. I'd been lucky, but
then I never did react to things much. There were a lot of other small
troubles, but the next major trick had been fumes from the nuclear
generators getting up into our quarters--it was always our group that
had the trouble. If Eve Nolan hadn't been puttering with some of her
trick films at the time--she and Walt Harris had the so-called night
shift--and seen them blacken, we'd have been dead before they
discovered it. And it took us two weeks of bunking with the sullen
crew and decontamination before we could pick up life again. Engineer
Wilcox had been decent about helping with it, blaming himself. But it
had been a mess.
Naturally, there were dark hints that someone was trying to get us;
but I couldn't see any crewman wiping us out just to return to Earth,
where our contract, with its completion clause, would mean he wouldn't
have a dime coming to him. Anyhow, the way things were going, we'd all
go berserk before we reached Saturn.
The lunch gong sounded, but I let it ring. Bullard would be serving us
whole wheat biscuits and soup made out of beans he'd let soak until
they turned sour. I couldn't take any more of that junk, the way I
felt then. I heard some of the men going down the corridor, followed
by a confused rumble of voices. Then somebody let out a yell. "Hey,
_rooob_!"
That meant something. The old yell spacemen had picked up from carney
people to rally their kind around against the foe. And I had a good
idea of who was the foe. I heard the yell bounce down the passage
again, and the slam of answering feet.
Then the gravity field went off. Or rather, was cut off. We may have
missed the boat in getting anti-gravity, if there is such a thing, but
our artificial gravity is darned near foolproof.
It was ten years since I'd moved in free fall, but Space Tech had done
a good job of training good habits. I got out of my bunk, hit the
corridor with a hand out, bounced, kicked, and dove toward the mess
hall without a falter. The crewmen weren't doing so well--but they
were coming up the corridor fast enough.
I could have wrung Muller's neck. Normally, in case of trouble,
cutting gravity is smart. But not here, where the crew already wanted
a chance to commit mayhem, and had more experience than the
scientists.
Yet, surprisingly, when I hit the mess hall ten feet ahead of the
deckhands, most of the scientists were doing all right. Hell, I should
have known Pietro, Sanderson and a couple others would be used to
no-grav; in astronomical work, you cut your eye teeth on that. They
were braced around the cook, who huddled back in a corner, while our
purser-steward, Sam, was still singing for help.
The fat face of the cook was dead white. Bill Sanderson, looking like
a slim, blond ballet dancer and muscled like an apache expert, had him
in one hand and was stuffing the latest batch of whole wheat biscuits
down his throat. Bill's sister, Jenny, was giggling excitedly and
holding more biscuits.
The deckhands and Grundy, the mate, were almost at the door, and I had
just time enough to slam it shut and lock it in their faces. I meant
to enjoy seeing the cook taken down without any interruption.
Sam let out a final yell, and Bullard broke free, making a mess of it
without weight. He was sputtering out bits of the biscuit. Hal Lomax
reached out a big hand, stained with the chemicals that had been his
life's work, and pushed the cook back.
And suddenly fat little Bullard switched from quaking fear to a blind
rage. The last of the biscuit sailed from his mouth and he spat at
Hal. "You damned hi-faluting black devil. You--_you_ sneering at my
cooking. I'm a white man, I am--I don't have to work for no black
ni...."
* * * * *
I reached him first, though even Sam started for him then. You can
deliver a good blow in free-fall, if you know how. His teeth against
my knuckles stopped my leap, and the back of his head bounced off the
wall. He was unconscious as he drifted by us, moving upwards. My
knuckles stung, but it had been worth it. Anyhow, Jenny's look more
than paid for the trouble.
The door shattered then, and the big hulk of Mate Grundy tumbled in,
with the two deckhands and the pair from the engine room behind him.
Sam let out a yell that sounded like protest, and they headed for
us--just as gravity came on.
I pulled myself off the floor and out from under Bullard to see the
stout, oldish figure of Captain Muller standing in the doorway, with
Engineer Wilcox slouched easily beside him, looking like the typical
natty space officer you see on television. Both held gas guns.
"All right, break it up!" Muller ordered. "You men get back to your
work. And you, Dr. Pietro--my contract calls for me to deliver you to
Saturn's moon, but it doesn't forbid me to haul you the rest of the
way in irons. I won't have this aboard my ship!"
Pietro nodded, his little gray goatee bobbing, his lean body coming
upright smoothly. "Quite right, Captain. Nor does it forbid me to let
you and your men spend the sixteen months on the moon--where _I_
command--in irons. Why don't you ask Sam what happened before you make
a complete fool of yourself, Captain Muller?"
Sam gulped and looked at the crew, but apparently Pietro was right;
the little guy had been completely disgusted by Bullard. He shrugged
apologetically. "Bullard insulted Dr. Lomax, sir. I yelled for someone
to help me get him out of here, and I guess everybody got all mixed up
when gravity went off, and Bullard cracked his head on the floor. Just
a misunderstanding, sir."
Muller stood there, glowering at the cut on my knuckles, and I could
feel him aching for a good excuse to make his threat a reality. But
finally, he grunted and swung on his heel, ordering the crew with him.
Grundy threw us a final grimace and skulked off behind him. Finally
there was only Wilcox, who grinned, shrugged, and shut the door
quietly behind him. And we were left with the mess free-fall had made
of the place.
I spotted Jenny heading across the room, carefully not seeing the
fatuous glances Pietro was throwing her way, and I swung in behind.
She nodded back at me, but headed straight for Lomax, with an odd look
on her face. When she reached him, her voice was low and businesslike.
"Hal, what did those samples of Hendrix's show up?"
Hendrix was the Farmer, in charge of the hydroponics that turned the
carbon dioxide we breathed out back to oxygen, and also gave us a bit
of fresh vegetables now and then. Technically, he was a crewman, just
as I was a scientist; but actually, he felt more like one of us.
Lomax looked surprised. "What samples, Jenny? I haven't seen Hendrix
for two weeks."
"You--" She stopped, bit her lip, and frowned. She swung on me. "Paul,
have you seen him?"
I shook my head. "Not since last night. He was asking Eve and Walt to
wake him up early, then."
"That's funny. He was worried about the plants yesterday and wanted
Hal to test the water and chemical fertilizer. I looked for him this
morning, but when he didn't show up, I thought he was with you, Hal.
And--the plants are dying!"
"All of them?" The half smile wiped off Hal's face, and I could feel
my stomach hit my insteps. When anything happens to the plants in a
ship, it isn't funny.
She shook her head again. "No--about a quarter of them. I was coming
for help when the fight started. They're all bleached out. And it
looks like--like chromazone!"
That really hit me. They developed the stuff to fight off fungus on
Venus, where one part in a billion did the trick. But it was tricky
stuff; one part in ten-million would destroy the chlorophyll in
plants in about twenty hours, or the hemoglobin in blood in about
fifteen minutes. It was practically a universal poison.
Hal started for the door, then stopped. He glanced around the room,
turned back to me, and suddenly let out a healthy bellow of seeming
amusement. Jenny's laugh was right in harmony. I caught the drift, and
tried to look as if we were up to some monkey business as we slipped
out of the room. Nobody seemed suspicious.
Then we made a dash for hydroponics, toward the rear of the ship. We
scrambled into the big chamber together, and stopped. Everything
looked normal among the rows of plant-filled tanks, pipes and
equipment. Jenny led us down one of the rows and around a bend.
The plants in the rear quarter weren't sick--they were dead. They were
bleached to a pale yellow, like boiled grass, and limp. Nothing would
save them now.
"I'm a biologist, not a botanist--" Jenny began.
Hal grunted sickly. "Yeah. And I'm not a life hormone expert. But
there's one test we can try."
He picked up a pair of rubber gloves from a rack, and pulled off some
wilted stalks. From one of the healthy tanks, he took green leaves. He
mashed the two kinds together on the edge of a bench and watched. "If
it's chromazone, they've developed an enzyme by now that should eat
the color out of those others."
* * * * *
In about ten seconds, I noticed the change. The green began to bleach
before my eyes.
Jenny made a sick sound in her throat and stared at the rows of
healthy plants. "I checked the valves, and this sick section is
isolated. But--if chromazone got into the chemicals.... Better get your
spectroanalyzer out, Hal, while I get Captain Muller. Paul, be a dear
and find Hendrix, will you?"
I shook my head, and went further down the rows. "No need, Jenny," I
called back. I pointed to the shoe I'd seen sticking out from the edge
of one of the tanks. There was a leg attached.
I reached for it, but Lomax shoved me back. "Don't--the enzymes in the
corpse are worse than the poison, Paul. Hands off." He reached down
with the gloves and heaved. It was Hendrix, all right--a corpse with a
face and hands as white as human flesh could ever get. Even the lips
were bleached out.
Jenny moaned. "The fool! The stupid fool. He _knew_ it was dangerous
without gloves; he suspected chromazone, even though none's supposed
to be on board. And I warned him . . ."
"Not against this, you didn't," I told her. I dropped to my knees and
took another pair of gloves. Hendrix's head rolled under my grasp. The
skull was smashed over the left eye, as if someone had taken a
sideswipe at Hendrix with a hammer. No fall had produced that. "You
should have warned him about his friends. Must have been killed, then
dumped in there."
"Murder!" Hal bit the word out in disgust. "You're right, Paul. Not
too stupid a way to dispose of the body, either--in another couple of
hours, he'd have started dissolving in that stuff, and we'd never have
guessed it was murder. That means this poisoning of the plants wasn't
an accident. Somebody poisoned the water, then got worried when there
wasn't a report on the plants; must have been someone who thought it
worked faster on plants than it does. So he came to investigate, and
Hendrix caught him fooling around. So he got killed."
"But who?" Jenny asked.
I shrugged sickly. "Somebody crazy enough--or desperate enough to turn
back that he'll risk our air and commit murder. You'd better go after
the captain while Hal gets his test equipment. I'll keep watch here."
It didn't feel good in hydroponics after they left. I looked at those
dead plants, trying to figure whether there were enough left to keep
us going. I studied Hendrix's body, trying to tell myself the murderer
had no reason to come back and try to get me.
I reached for a cigarette, and then put the pack back. The air felt
almost as close as the back of my neck felt tense and unprotected. And
telling myself it was all imagination didn't help--not with what was
in that chamber to keep me company.