That was when I got scared. The idea that two birds breathing could
hurt our chances put things on a little too vivid a basis. Only Lomax
seemed unaffected. He shoved back now, and stood up.
"Some tests I have to make, Captain. I have an idea that might turn up
the killer among us!"
I had an idea he was bluffing, but I kept my mouth shut. A bluff was
as good as anything else, it seemed.
At least, it was better than anything I seemed able to do. I prowled
over the ship, sometimes meeting Peters doing the same, but I couldn't
find a bit of evidence. The crewmen sat watching with hating eyes. And
probably the rest aboard hated and feared us just as much. It wasn't
hard to imagine the man who was behind it all deciding to wipe one of
us out. My neck got a permanent crimp from keeping one eye behind me.
But there wasn't a shred of evidence I could find.
In two more days, we began to notice the stuffiness more. My breathing
went up enough to notice. Somehow, I couldn't get a full breath. And
the third night, I woke up in the middle of my sleep with the feeling
something was sitting on my chest; but since I'd taken to sleeping
with the light on, I saw that it was just the stuffiness that was
bothering me. Maybe most of it had been psychological up until then.
But that was the real thing.
The nice part of it was that it wouldn't be sudden--we'd have days to
get closer and closer to death; and days for each one to realize a
little more that every man who wasn't breathing would make it that
much easier for the rest of us. I caught myself thinking of it when I
saw Bullard or Grundy.
* * * * *
Then trouble struck again. I was late getting to the scene this time,
down by the engine room. Muller and Bill Sanderson were ahead of me,
trying to separate Hal Lomax and Grundy, and not doing so well. Lomax
brought up a haymaker as I arrived, and started to shout something.
But Grundy was out of Muller's grasp, and up, swinging a wrench. It
connected with a dull thud, and Lomax hit the floor, unconscious.
I picked Grundy up by the collar of his jacket, heaved him around and
against a wall, where I could get my hand against his esophagus and
start squeezing. His eyeballs popped, and the wrench dropped from his
hands. When I get mad enough to act that way, I usually know I'll
regret it later. This time it felt good, all the way. But Muller
pushed me aside, waiting until Grundy could breathe again.
"All right," Muller said. "I hope you've got a good explanation,
before I decide what to do with you."
Grundy's eyes were slitted, as if he'd been taking some of the Venus
drugs. But after one long, hungry look at me, he faced the captain.
"Yes, sir. This guy came down here ahead of me. Didn't think nothing
of it, sir. But when he started fiddling with the panel there, I got
suspicious." He pointed to the external control panel for the engine
room, to be used in case of accidents. "With all that's been going on,
how'd I know but maybe he was gonna dump the fuel? And then I seen he
had keys. I didn't wait, sir. I jumped him. And then you come up."
Wilcox came from the background and dropped beside the still figure of
Lomax. He opened the man's left hand and pulled out a bunch of keys,
examining them. "Engine keys, Captain Muller. Hey--it's my set! He
must have lifted them from my pocket. It looks as if Grundy's found
our killer!"
"Or Lomax found him!" I pointed out. "Anybody else see this start, or
know that Lomax didn't get those keys away from Grundy, when _he_
started trouble?"
"Why, you--" Grundy began, but Wilcox cut off his run. It was a shame.
I still felt like pushing the man's Adam's apple through his medulla
oblongata.
"Lock them both up, until Dr. Lomax comes to," Muller ordered. "And
send Dr. Napier to take care of him. I'm not jumping to any
conclusions." But the look he was giving Lomax indicated that he'd
already pretty well made up his mind. And the crew was positive. They
drew back sullenly, staring at us like animals studying a human
hunter, and they didn't like it when Peters took Grundy to lock him
into his room. Muller finally chased them out, and left Wilcox and me
alone.
Wilcox shrugged wryly, brushing dirt off his too-clean uniform. "While
you're here, Tremaine, why not look my section over? You've been
neglecting me."
I'd borrowed Muller's keys and inspected the engine room from, top to
bottom the night before, but I didn't mention that. I hesitated now;
to a man who grew up to be an engineer and who'd now gotten over his
psychosis against space too late to start over, the engines were
things better left alone. Then I remembered that I hadn't seen
Wilcox's quarters, since he had the only key to them.
I nodded and went inside. The engines were old, and the gravity
generator was one of the first models. But Wilcox knew his business.
The place was slick enough, and there was the good clean smell of
metal working right. I could feel the controls in my hands, and my
nerves itched as I went about making a perfunctory token examination.
I even opened the fuel lockers and glanced in. The two crewmen watched
with hard eyes, slitted as tight as Grundy's, but they didn't bother
me. Then I shrugged, and went back with Wilcox to his tiny cabin.
* * * * *
I was hit by the place before I got inside. Tiny, yes, but fixed up
like the dream of every engineer. Clean, neat, filled with books and
luxuries. He even had a tape player I'd seen on sale for a trifle over
three thousand dollars. He turned it on, letting the opening bars of
Haydn's Oxford Symphony come out. It was a binaural, ultra-fidelity
job, and I could close my eyes and feel the orchestra in front of me.
This time I was thorough, right down the line, from the cabinets that
held luxury food and wine to the little drawer where he kept his
dress-suit studs; they might have been rutiles, but I had a hunch they
were genuine catseyes.
He laughed when I finished, and handed me a glass of the first decent wine
I'd tasted in months. "Even a small ozonator to make the air seem more
breathable, and a dehumidifier, Tremaine. I like to live decently. I
started saving my money once with the idea of getting a ship of my own--"
There was a real dream in his eyes for a second. Then he shrugged. "But
ships got bigger and more expensive. So I decided to live. At forty, I've
got maybe twenty years ahead here, and I mean to enjoy it. And--well,
there are ways of making a bit extra...."
I nodded. So it's officially smuggling to carry a four-ounce Martian
fur to Earth where it's worth a fortune, considering the legal duty.
But most officers did it now and then. He put on Sibelius' Fourth
while I finished the wine. "If this mess is ever over, Paul, or you
get a chance, drop down," he said. "I like a man who knows good
things--and I liked your reaction when you spotted that Haydn for
Hohmann's recording. Muller pretends to know music, but he likes the
flashiness of Möhlwehr."
Hell, I'd cut my eye teeth on that stuff; my father had been first
violinist in an orchestra, and had considered me a traitor when I was
born without perfect pitch. We talked about Sibelius for awhile,
before I left to go out into the stinking rest of the ship. Grundy was
sitting before the engines, staring at them. Wilcox had said the big
ape liked to watch them move ... but he was supposed to be locked up.
* * * * *
I stopped by Lomax's door; the shutter was open, and I could see the
big man writhing about, but he was apparently unconscious. Napier came
back from somewhere, and nodded quickly.
"Concussion," he said. "He's still out, but it shouldn't be too
serious."
"Grundy's loose." I'd expected surprise, but there was none. "Why?"
He shrugged. "Muller claimed he needed his mate free to handle the
crew, and that there was no place the man could go. I think it was
because the men are afraid they'll be outnumbered by your group." His
mouth smiled, but it was suddenly bitter. "Jenny talked Pietro into
agreeing with Muller."
Mess was on when I reached the group. I wasn't hungry. The wine had
cut the edge from my appetite, and the slow increase of poison in the
air was getting me, as it was the others. Sure, carbon dioxide isn't a
real poison--but no organism can live in its own waste, all the same.
I had a rotten headache. I sat there playing a little game I'd
invented--trying to figure which ones I'd eliminate if some had to
die. Jenny laughed up at Muller, and I added him to the list. Then I
changed it, and put her in his place. I was getting sick of the little
witch, though I knew it would be different if she'd been laughing up
at me. And then, because of the sick-calf look on Bill Sanderson's
face as he stared at Eve, I added him, though I'd always liked the
guy. Eve, surprisingly, had as many guys after her as Jenny; but she
didn't seem interested. Or maybe she did--she'd pulled her hair back
and put on a dress that made her figure look good. Either flattery was
working, or she was entering into the last-days feeling most of us
had.
Napier came in and touched my shoulder. "Lomax is conscious, and he's
asking for you," he said, too low for the others to hear.
I found the chemist conscious, all right, but sick--and scared. His
face winced, under all the bandages, as I opened the door. Then he saw
who it was, and relaxed. "Paul--what happened to me? The last I
remember is going up to see that second batch of plants poisoned.
But--well, this is something I must have got later...."