"Why--"
"What I mean is, why did you marry him?"
I grabbed him by the arm and swung him around. "It's none of your
business," I said. "Now, do you lay off and behave like a grown-up man
or do I belt you all the way through the main cabin?"
He swung at me. I ducked but, before I could do anything about it, Gail
stepped between us. "Get out, Morrie!" she said, and then turned to me.
"Bill Drake, you go back to the machinery room and find something to do
there. We can't afford a fight right now."
As usual she was right. We calmed down and, out of respect for her,
followed her advice.
As I said, I'd noticed that we all were edgy. Joel had sort of pulled
his head into his shell like a turtle, and was having nothing to do
with any of us, except Dr. Spartan, whom he followed around like a
hound.
And Axel seemed preoccupied. I couldn't put my finger on what had
happened to him. I thought it was the same sort of space madness that
was gripping us all.
"What we ought to do, Axel," I said one day, in an effort to draw him
out, "is to tell each other what's bugging us, rather than to bottle it
up inside."
"Meaning me?" he asked.
"Meaning you," I said. "You've been acting like the ghost at the
banquet. I don't even know whether I can call you a friend any more.
What's the trouble?"
Axel shook his head. "I'm not sure," he said.
"Psychological? Depression?"
He gave me a crooked grin. "I wish it were something like that," he
replied. "Trouble is, I know what does it, but I'm damned if I know
what it is."
"Animal, vegetable or mineral?" I asked.
He started to get halfway cheerful. "I tried to tell Spartan about it
and he accused me of imagining things," he said. "I guess it won't hurt
to tell you. I'm getting some stuff on the radio I can't explain."
"Signals? From the earth?"
"Not from the earth. From the general direction of Mars."
The way he said it, it sent chills up my spine and down again.
"Somebody's trying to signal us?"
"Sometimes I think so, sometimes not," he replied with a heavy sigh.
"The signals--if that's what they are--are still very weak."
"Damn it, Axel," I said, "it's ridiculous. If anybody were trying to
signal us from Mars, it would mean they knew we were on our way."
"Maybe they do," he said tersely.
It was so damned fantastic, I hardly knew what to say. "But how?" I
asked.
"I don't know," he said, "but they could have radio, even radar--and
they could be a million times better than ours."
We talked about it for about an hour and Axel couldn't add anything to
what he'd already told me, which wasn't much.
During the next few days Gail exerted herself trying to restore a
friendly relationship between Morrie and me. I think it was more
because Morrie wanted to win her approval than for any other reason
that she succeeded, partially.
When we were off duty at the same time, she'd bring us together and try
to engage us in conversation. The only trouble was, we'd run out of
anything to talk about.
"If we could only invent a game!" she exclaimed in one of her desperate
moods.
"Charades?" I asked.
"They make me sick," said Morrie in his usual disagreeable manner.
"We don't even have extra paper and pencil," she went on. "All writing
materials are under lock and key, being conserved for taking notes when
we reach Mars."
Suddenly Morrie smiled. "You know, I'm a little stupid," he said. "I
brought along a deck of cards."
"You what?" Gail exclaimed.
And I gave him a look of surprise. Regulations had forbidden us to
bring anything aboard--not even a toothbrush--because all personal
items, excepting the one uniform we wore at the time, had already
been stored on the Jehad. Spartan had announced, with his usual
correctness, that every ounce we carried would require extra fuel to
lift us off the earth.
Morrie got up and shuffled over to his locker at the end of the cabin.
He opened it, unzipped the pocket of his spacesuit hanging there, and
brought out a brand-new pack of cards.
"Morrie! You darling!" said Gail.
"Forgot I had 'em," Morrie said, flushing with pleasure at Gail's
words. "I figured things were apt to get boring up here and Doc had
mentioned we'd have very little to do. So I stuck them in my pocket
when I came down to the pad and, when Doc wasn't looking, put them in
the pocket of my spacesuit."
I glanced nervously toward the front of the ship. Spartan probably was
in his cabin, or making sure Warner Joel was awake in the control room.
Axel was directly above us, snoring gently in his sleeping bag.
"Anyone for gin rummy?" I asked.
Morrie sat down and broke the seal on the deck. At that instant Axel's
buzzer went off. The chronometer in the control room was attached
to the buzzer which notified us five minutes before the end of each
watch. Axel, who was to relieve Joel, stirred in his sleeping bag as he
stopped snoring.
"Darn!" said Gail. "I'm next, and if I don't get a little rest, I'll go
to sleep on duty and Doc Spartan will shoot me at sunrise." Naturally,
Spartan had made no such threat, but he did make sure no one slept on
duty by bobbing in and out of the control room at irregular intervals.
No one knew when he slept, but I supposed he took many short naps
instead of a single, long sleep.
"Good morning, folks," said Axel from the ceiling.
"You're the only person who thinks it's morning," I said.
"Any time I wake up, it's morning," said Axel. "Miss Loring, do you
mind getting out of here? I have to get into my clothes."
Axel, like all of us, slept barefooted up to the ears and his clothing
was in his locker at the end of the cabin.
"Next time think of the cards sooner, Morrie," said Gail. "I guess
there'll be no gin rummy for me today." She got up, went to the rear of
the cabin and out the door toward her own quarters.
Axel wriggled out of his sleeping bag, put on his sandals and went to
his locker. He noticed the cards Morrie was shuffling. "Where in hell
did you find those?" he asked.
"It doesn't matter," said Morrie. "We got 'em. Two-handed, Bill?"
"Sure. Deal 'em."
Morrie and I were seated lengthwise with the ship, and the first card
he dealt sailed clear to the partition at the far end. The artificial
gravity didn't pull the card to the deck as it would on earth. "Guess
we'd better sit crosswise," he said, retrieving the card.
We shifted so that no matter which way Morrie sailed the card it would
be "down." Axel dressed and then went into the control room. A few
minutes later Dr. Joel came in. He saw us playing gin rummy.
"Good Lord! Interplanetary Las Vegas?"
"Want to join us, Warner?" I asked.
"Not for all the gold dust on the moon," he said. "If Spartan ever sees
you playing cards, he'll hang you to an asteroid."
He watched us play, glancing apprehensively toward the forward bulkhead
as if he expected Spartan to burst in on us at any moment. Then, at
last, he got up and went through the door. I was facing the bulkhead
but I didn't notice him leaving because I was trying to decide whether
to gin or not. It was Morrie who heard the door open, whirling his head
so suddenly it almost displaced him from his sitting position. "Hey!"
he exclaimed, "Joel's gone. Do you suppose he intends to rat on us?"
"Let him," I said. "These cards are worth the powder it took to shoot
'em into space. They probably will preserve our sanity. That's why
Spartan can't object."
Morrie looked at me as if he didn't know what to believe. I shrugged
off his doubt, certain that Spartan was intelligent enough to see the
cards weren't hurting anything, even though they'd been brought aboard
illegally.
I ginned and won. Morrie was reshuffling the cards to deal again when
the door opened and Dr. Spartan, followed by Warner Joel, came into the
cabin.
"Stop this immediately!" Spartan barked.
We turned our heads and looked at Spartan's angry face. Then I noticed
that he was wearing something new--a holster, holding a nickel-plated
air pistol. A kid's toy.
"Stand up!" Spartan said, his hand on the pistol butt.
For a moment I wondered if Gail had been right, that Spartan was
capable of going in for a little capital punishment to pass the boring
hours in space. Morrie and I got to our feet.
"Those things--" Spartan nodded his head toward the cards. "--are
strictly against regulations. If you have time on your hands, you
should use the projector and study the scientific works aboard. We
can't allow foolishness."
"Damnit, Doctor," I said, "all work and no play is going to turn this
crew into a dull bunch of astronauts."
"Nonsense," said Spartan. "I forbid card playing. We're not on the
earth any more. We're in space. Beyond terrestrial law. Beyond any
standards and regulations that exist on our planet. We are, in effect,
another world--and I rule this world. What I say is law and must be
obeyed."
Morrie stared at him, open-mouthed. But I had been warned about what to
expect from Spartan. After all, he'd said about the same thing to Gail.
"We're not questioning your authority, sir," I said. "And what we were
doing was very innocent."
"I'm the best judge of that. Give me the cards, Grover."
Morrie hesitated, his face registering uncertainty.
Spartan drew the gun. "This is an air pistol," he said, his manner
imperious, his tone hard and relentless. "You understand the danger of
a pistol aboard this craft. A bullet might puncture the walls or damage
machinery. So I shoot a small dart which is impregnated with a mild,
but very effective, poison. It will paralyze a man in a few seconds.
Even a scratch on the skin will make you harmless. I can quell any sort
of mutiny."
"This isn't mutiny!" I said, speaking with all the deference I could
muster. "Sure, I'll admit the cards aren't supposed to be here, but
they are. And they're causing no harm. The capsule was lifted into
orbit and the flight of this ship has been A-okay from the beginning.
Now these cards are helping our morale, which needs a hell of a lot of
help right now."
Spartan pointed the gun at me. His jaw was set; his eyes were lifeless
marble. "I have the power of life and death over every living thing on
this ship," he said.
When a man is threatened with a weapon, he sometimes gives up, but
this puny little air gun pointed at me seemed harmless. Besides, I
was angry. I took a step toward Spartan. I don't believe I would have
touched him. The step was just to prove I wasn't afraid of him or the
gun and I thought he was making too big an issue out of something very
small.
_Ping._
The gun went off and I felt a stinging sensation in my left arm. I
raised it, plucked a tiny dart from the flesh. Suddenly my knees
buckled and I collapsed on the deck.
I was not unconscious. I could hear Spartan telling Morrie to give him
the cards. Morrie was too frightened to disobey.
"Put the cards in the waste disposal, Dr. Joel," said Spartan.
"Yes, sir." Warner Joel's voice had a tremor in it.