Coran nodded.
"You are a swine, aren't you? It won't do you any good. I'll tell the
captain we're not married. I'll say it was all a fake, the certificate
was a forgery, that you're a...."
"Go ahead. I wish for your sake it would help, but they'd only check
and find out it was genuine. Even if it weren't, you'd only be forced
to go through the ceremony again. The rules are very specific to cover
just such situations."
Fear and anger blended unpleasantly in her voice. "I'll think of
something...."
Warning alarms blared through the ship. Ripples of soundless shock
stirred the bulk.
"We're getting under way," Coran warned. "You'd better come to bed."
"I'd rather die," she said sullenly.
"Suit yourself. But it's pretty unpleasant."
* * * * *
The rocket transport left its runway at an angle of 45 degrees,
slanting up into the Sahara night with a blossom of pink-white flame
flowering round its stern jets. A series of jarring vibrations smoothed
to a muffled burr. The girl was flung heavily to the floor and lay
there beside the porthole of fused quartz, retching feebly as the
acceleration built up. Outside the port, what seemed the flank of a
titanic mountain of moonlit sand fell rapidly astern. It tilted at an
incredible angle.
Coran hunched himself off the bed and crawled to her. Gerda grimaced
weakly and struck at him, then lapsed into unconsciousness. He picked
her up and carried her to the bed, dumped her like a limp sack and
clasped the straps about her. She did not rouse.
Her purse lay where she had dropped it. Coran went through it
methodically. A small blaster-gun of the type women thugs carry
in their handbags. It appeared to have been used recently. Four
Lumipencils. The usual cosmetics. A pillbox with a poison label. And,
in an ivory frame, a small colorphoto miniature of the man whose face
was on the Security Headquarters dossier card. Coran neutralized the
charge in the blaster and set it on safety, then carefully replaced
everything. He wished he had a pocket magnascope to study the miniature
in detail, but that could wait. He must check the passenger lists and
find out where Paul Jomian's room was located. Paul should be warned,
so that his surprise at seeing Coran would not give the show away.
The girl stirred and moaned feebly. Coran found the emergency
medical locker and forced an anti-acceleration capsule between her
tight-clenched teeth, following it with a water concentrate capsule.
She would be wildly thirsty when she came out of it, and real water
would have some unpleasant effects during A-shock. He leaned over and
checked the straps. They were tight enough so she would never get out
of that tie without help. Her eyes blinked open and she stared at him
in panic.
"Just relax," he cautioned. "And don't get impatient. I'll be right
back. Have to see a man about a...."
He went outside and made his way with difficulty up the bleak passage
forward. The distorted gravity made walking extremely difficult. Once
outside the main gravity field of Earth, artificial gravities would be
turned on. Until then, only an experienced spaceman could get around
safely. Coran was grateful for the rigorous training of the ISP.
A staccato bark of unintelligible verbal commands came through the
half-opened doorway of the control room ahead. The captain's office
should be somewhere about here. On Coran's right was a closed door
marked CAPTAIN. Coran knocked twice without receiving any answer,
then tried the door. It slid easily open. He stepped over the high
threshold. Lights were flaring and dying away as if the generators were
running unevenly. He peered about him, and at first the Spartan-like
accommodations seemed unoccupied. He wondered if he should sit down and
wait for the captain. A second look convinced him he would have a long
wait.
Sprawled forward, half across the desk, was the captain's body. The
upper part of his head had been blown away by a blaster-gun, evidently
fired at close quarters.
A cry behind him swung Coran around. In the frame of the opened doorway
stood the purser, mouth open, pointing at the dead man with a trembling
finger. Instinctively, Coran started for the door. The purser sprang
into action, leaped on Coran and caught him in a surprisingly strong
grip for so slight a man. Coran made no attempt to struggle. In a
moment the office was full of people. The burly first mate pulled the
purser away from Coran.
"What is all this, Hamlin?" the mate demanded.
Coran had taken time to study the identification files on all
the _Aphrodite's_ officers at headquarters before coming aboard.
He recognized the three officers instantly as Harriman, first
mate--Hamlin, the purser--and Nalson, the navigator or astronaut--but
was careful not to give himself away.
"I heard a sound in the captain's office, and when I came in to
investigate, I found him," Hamlin explained. "The captain's been
murdered."
Mate Harriman looked Coran up and down. "Where's the gun?" he asked.
"How should I know? I just came in a minute ago. He was like this when
I got here."
Harriman drove a fist into Coran's mouth. "Come now, you don't expect
us to believe a yarn like that. Where is that gun?"
Coran spat blood from his mangled lips. "I don't know anything about
it. The purser can tell you why I wanted to see the captain."
Hamlin spoke up. "I told him to wait till we were out in space," he
snapped. "He said he wanted to check the passenger list."
"I demand to see the first mate," Coran said.
The words seemed to recall Harriman to his duties. "I am the first
mate," he said. "I haven't time to bother with you now. I'll take care
of you later. Throw him in the cells till we get out in space. I'll
have to take over for the Old Man."
* * * * *
Coran was hustled roughly to the lower part of the ship and flung into
the cramped quarters of the transport's brig. He settled back on the
bunk and tried to straighten things out in his mind.
"At least I got a room to myself," he mused grimly. This was going to
complicate things.
His wrist-chron had stopped, so he had no way of telling time, but they
fed him four times and he slept twice before they came for him. Two
crew men waited in the passage while Hamlin came in and sat down.
"You're in a bad spot, Coran. It's customary in cases of civilian
infractions of ship's rules to appoint an officer as counsel for their
defense. I'm yours. Sorry you got pushed around, but you were lucky
at that. Harriman's a pretty tough character. You'd have got worse if
Nalson and I hadn't been there. He's been disciplined for brutality
before now. They're giving you a hearing in the wardroom. I'd suggest
you co-operate with me by telling me anything that will help with your
case. I don't mind telling you your story's too weak to hold up. I'll
do all I can for you, but you'll have to help."
"What am I supposed to do?" Coran grunted.
"You might tell me the truth. We know the captain must have been killed
just as the ship took off. Otherwise, someone would have heard the
shot. If you could prove you were somewhere else at the time--"
"I was with my wife. She'll bear witness for me."
"It won't do, Coran. I should have told you that your wife is ill and
won't be able to testify. I found her myself, strapped to the bunk in
your cabin, Martian plague! I called the doctor who examined her, then
quarantined the cabin. We left concentrated food and water, warned her
not to leave, then locked and sealed the cabin. No one can see her."
Coran went cold with anger. "Someone must really be trying to foul me
up," he raged. "She couldn't have the plague--she's never been off the
earth."
"Your papers read that you just came from Mars," objected Hamlin.
"I did. We were married just before the ship left. If I were carrying
the plague, I'd have it myself. She couldn't have it--"
Hamlin laughed nervously. "I wish you could convince the doctor of
that. He's been taking blood tests of me ever since we left her. I'm
sorry for you, Coran, but she has it. I saw the grey rash myself. It's
horrible, horrible...."
Coran's mind worked like lightning. She had said she would think of
something. Something to keep the stateroom to herself. There might even
be a more sinister motive than that. After that picture of the man
he wanted in her purse, he could believe anything of her. Maybe she
even knew about him. She was faking, but how? How, since she had been
securely tied when he left her? Had he started his quest at the wrong
end? She must have been the woman accomplice who had got a gun through
the security police guarding the prisoner.
"What am I charged with?" he asked.
"Deliberate murder and plotting against the welfare of the ship. If the
officers agree on your guilt, you can be put to death immediately. They
put you through an airlock. The regulations have to be pretty stringent
on a space-ship."
Coran stood up. "Let's go up and get it over with," he said. "We'll see
about your regulations."
Manacled between the two brawny crewmen, a sullen Coran rode up in
the elevators. Outside the wardroom, the group stopped while Hamlin
knocked. "I wish you'd let me help you," he said in a final attempt.