Harriman was maliciously official. "I'm afraid it does. But don't try
anything funny. Hamlin, Nalson, I'm detailing you two to watch over
Coran in shifts. Don't let him out of your sight, day or night. If
he attempts to steal a lifeboat and escape, or makes the slightest
untoward move to hinder the operation of the ship or molest anyone on
board, shoot him--that's all. Since he has no room, he will share yours
for the remainder of the voyage."
Hamlin got a key and released Coran from his manacles.
Jomian glanced at him with an odd expression. "If you don't mind,
Coran, I'd like a word with you in private. If the captain has no
objection."
Harriman was curious, but nodded. "Are you sure you'll be safe with
him?"
Jomian smiled. "That's my worry. Send your men to my cabin in an hour.
After twelve years in the Space Patrol, I'm used to handling bad boys."
* * * * *
Nine days out the _Aphrodite_ ran into trouble.
Proximity alarms blared wildly. It was only a small asteroid, not more
than a quarter of a mile in diameter, just a jagged piece of rock and
fused metal. But it came out of a direct line with the sun, moving
fast, and discipline had been dangerously lax on the _Aphrodite_ after
Harriman took over command.
At 9:05 ship time, there came the sound of a rending crash up forward,
followed by a nauseating sense of shock and withering waves of motion
energy transformed into heat. Fortunately, the collision was a glancing
one, but enough. The _Aphrodite_ was a shattered wreck. Her bow and
the control room were carried away bodily, and only the spacetight
bulkheads of the waist saved the passengers and crew from instant death.
At 9:20, feeling far off course, leaking air dangerously from sprung
seams, the doomed transport and the asteroid circled each other like
wary wrestlers awaiting an opening. Sooner or later, as the initial
force of the spin died down, they would crash together in flaming
holocaust. In the meantime, everything that could be done was being
done.
Orders went out to abandon ship. Of the original complement of four
hundred and eighty passengers and crew, nineteen were dead or missing,
and eighty others more or less seriously injured. The heaviest
casualties were among the rocket crew and officers, some of whom were
fatally burned by premature atomic discharge. Rocket jets were set
roaring at full capacity in a vain effort to break the wreck away
from the deadly vicinity of the circling asteroid. Surviving crew
members labored heroically to load and launch the lifeboats from three
airlocks, two of which were so badly jammed as to be almost unworkable.
The forward compartments were a scene from inferno. Coran, who had been
with Nalson in the chartroom when the crash occurred, picked himself
out of the jumble of broken lockers and scattered metal-leaf charts
and crawled through the glare and heat to a pitiable huddle of pulped
flesh pinned beneath the wreckage of a berylium table. Nalson's skull
was fractured, blood pulsed from his ears, and he was gasping out his
life as Coran pried the table off him. His eyes seemed bursting from
his head.
"No excuse for wreck," he got out. "I'm ... Security Police. Sent me in
case you fumbled. Watch Harriman ... Hamlin."
A spurt of blood from his mouth and nose stopped his words. The
navigator spat savagely. "Think ... Hamlin's ... the man you want." His
lips moved weakly, then hung open as he died.
* * * * *
Using a leg of the ruined table as a wrecking bar, Coran pried open the
door and got into the passageway. A blast of sickening heat rushed to
meet him. Forward was a lurid glare of white hot metal, and he could
hear air shrieking through the leaks where seams had started. He fought
his way aft to a bank of elevators, but they were hopelessly jammed.
Descending the spiral stairway, he encountered Paul Jomian.
"I thought you were gone," Jomian said. "The entire forward part of the
ship seems to be carried away."
"It is. I'm hard to kill. Nalson's dead. And so are the men in the
control room."
A kind of exhilaration moved in Coran. The endless waiting and
watching, under constant surveillance, had gotten on his nerves. He
was not used to intrigue. Now that a need for his kind of action had
arisen, he felt better already.
Jomian's left arm had compound fractures above and below the elbow.
It hung useless at his side, with splinters of bone thrusting through
mangled skin and flesh. Coran broke open a locker and gave him
emergency first aid, binding the limb with metal splints.
"That'll hold it till you can get it cared for. You'd better get to the
lifeboats. I'm going to find my wife. As I told you, she may be in this
racket, but I can't be sure. In any case, she's my responsibility."
"Can't I help?" Jomian asked.
"Not now. If I make it, we'll discuss it there. If not, you can take
a message for me. There's an ISP squadron six hours behind us. Get a
helioflash to them. Tell them to come a-running. I've an idea they'll
find something interesting."
"I'll get word to them," Jomian promised. "Take care of yourself, boy."
The door of stateroom No. 200 was still locked and sealed. Coran opened
a locker and got out a wrench to work off the lugs on the lock. A voice
from behind jarred him.
"I've been looking for you," Hamlin sneered. "I thought you'd be up
to something." In the dimming and flaring light, Coran got a glimpse
of the blaster-gun in Hamlin's hand. Coran's fingers tightened on the
wrench. He spun around and hurled the wrench in one motion. Hamlin
pressed the trigger, but the wrench spoiled his aim. Coran dodged under
the gun and dragged him down in a flying tackle. The gun went rattling
down the corridor.
"Come away from there, you fool," Hamlin screamed as he broke away.
"D'you want the plague?" He edged toward the gun, but Coran cut him
off. Both lunged for it. Coran got it, but before he could use it,
Hamlin kicked him in the stomach. He rolled on the floor in agony.
Hamlin kicked again viciously. Coran fumbled with the gun.
A warning alarm sounded. The boats were about to leave.
Coran got his breath back. "Help me get her out. She has no more plague
than you have. Besides, she's your--"
"You're mad," Hamlin shrieked. "They'd never let her into the boats.
I won't risk the lives of innocent people on your sayso." He leaned
across Coran to snatch at the gun. Coran clawed at his face and layers
of plastic came off in his fingers. Hamlin screamed as the stuff came
loose from his flesh. Then he turned and ran.
He darted up the companion stairs. By the time Coran could reach the
gun, it was too late. The man had vanished to the upper deck.
Coran got to his knees and aimed the blaster at the jammed lock on the
stateroom door. The mechanism and half the door disappeared in ravening
violence. The shock knocked Coran flat.
Gerda stepped through the shattered doorway.
"What's going on?" she wailed hysterically. It was apparent that she
had been crying, although she had tried to efface the marks.
"Never mind that. We've got to get you out of here. Are you all right?"
She laughed wildly. "Of course I am! Has everyone gone crazy? You look
a fright. D'you want to carry me, or should I carry you?"
"Get to the lower decks. Find the doctor. Show him you're not sick.
And hurry--the lifeboats are leaving." Coran made a vague gesture and
slumped weakly against the wall while spirals of nausea raged through
him. She was halfway to the companion stair before she noticed that he
was not following. Coran had fainted.
* * * * *
Cold water splashing in his face revived him. His head was nestled in
her lap.
"What are you doing here?" he raged. "If you don't hurry, it will be
too late."
She answered with quiet assurance. "Listen, tough guy, you didn't have
to come back for me. D'you think I'd leave you to save my skin after
that?"
Coran shook his head to clear the mist of dizzy weakness, and she
helped him to his feet.
"Let's get going," he urged. "If the lifeboats leave before we reach
the airlock, you'll really be in a jam."
With the girl's arm tight around his waist to support him, he managed
to make it to the sally-port. The airlock door was closed.
"The boats have gone," he said. He sat down hopelessly on a casket-like
metal toolbox.
"Maybe someone will come," she said.
"That's what I'm afraid of," he snapped.
"In the meantime, I think we need some coffee ... if I can find an
unopened can."
Coran waved toward a locker where supplies were kept on clipshelves.
She found a can with built-in heat unit and opened it, pouring coffee
for them. He sipped his slowly, while she gulped down a scalding draft.
"You seem very calm about all this," Coran said grimly.
"Hysterics won't help. Besides, you seem to be expecting someone. What
did you mean, that's what you're afraid of? Who would come back?"
"Don't you know?"
She shook her head in bewilderment "How should I know? I'm a stranger
here myself."
"You may as well stop playing innocent. In case you don't already know,
I'm an officer in the space patrol. This wreck was deliberate, planned
by some of the crew. There are two possibilities. Either they'll come
back and try to salvage the plutonium cargo, or they have confederates
waiting in space to close in as soon as the ship is abandoned. I don't
look forward to either one."
"You act as if I knew something about all this," Gerda said irritably.
"I don't know why you should think so, but you're way off the track.
Why suspect me?"
"How can I help it, with that picture in your purse, and that phoney
deal you pulled by playing sick?"
Gerda flushed, whether from anger or guilt Coran would have given much
to know.
"I don't know how you know about that," she answered evenly. "I--I
can't explain about the picture, but the other I had nothing to do
with. While you had me tied up, someone came into the room; naturally
I thought it was you coming back. I was still dazed from shock and
only half awake. First thing I knew, a man in uniform had jammed a
pillow over my face. I thought he was trying to kill me, and nearly
smothered. He rubbed something on my elbows and down the cords of my
neck, then left. It seemed like a nightmare. I blamed you vaguely till
I remembered the gold braid on his sleeves and knew it must have been
a ship's officer. Later, an officer came in with the doctor, who took
one look at me and seemed scared to death. Too scared to examine me.
They wouldn't listen to anything, just untied me enough so I could work
loose eventually, left some stuff, and locked me in. That's all I knew
till you let me out just now."
* * * * *
Coran considered. "It sounds plausible. I'd like to believe you, but
that photograph is too damning. You'll have a lot of explaining to
do ... if we get out of this alive."
"What about the photograph? What's he wanted for?"
"There's another one of him in the Security Police headquarters. He's
the man I was sent to get. Both ISP and the Security Police want him.
The original charge was barratry, but--"
"What's barratry?" she asked.
"It's the deliberate wrecking of a ship, for the insurance or to
salvage the cargo illegally. I don't know what your connection is with
this man, but--"
"It's very simple," she said. "He's my brother. I knew he was in
trouble, but didn't know it was so serious. Our family broke up years
ago. Mother married again. That was fifteen years ago. I was ten, and
Ken was thirteen. We took our stepfather's name, but Ken and he never
got along very well. Ken ran away to Venus when he was seventeen.
Mother died a year ago. I--I wanted to find Ken and help him. My
stepfather had him traced for me and we found out he was in trouble
with the police. I thought if I could talk to him, maybe he'd give
himself up, take his just punishment, and we could start over again
together. Ken's all I have left. He's not bad. A little wild, but not
bad."
Coran stood up and stared into the black gulf of space through the
visiplate. He felt a sudden bleak distaste for his profession.
"I'm afraid it's a little late for that," he said gently. "He's wanted
for barratry, murder, and perhaps treason. The penalty for any one of
them is death. I'm sorry."
Gerda sat silently, brooding over the information. "You think I'm going
to cry, don't you? And you hate emotional women. You can relax. I think
I've known all along that it was hopeless. It does hurt, but I'm beyond
crying any more."
* * * * *
Far out in the void a clustered blur of faint, needle-sharp lights
etched itself against the star-patterned darkness. Space-ships, coming
up fast under rocket power. Coran glanced quickly at the wall-chron. It
was too soon for the space patrol. Even under full acceleration, they
could not make it in less than three hours.
"I'll have to trust you," he said grimly, "Brace yourself--company's
coming."
Gerda snapped out of her black reverie.
"What are you going to do?"
"We'd better work out a plan of action." Working like mad, Coran dumped
the contents of the metal toolbox onto the floor. With a wrench, he
smashed the hand-operated controls which worked the airlock from the
interior of the ship into a tangle of twisted machinery. Then he
scooped up the rest of the tools and threw them down a waste disposal
chute.
"Get inside the toolbox," he ordered. "Try it once to make sure you
can raise the lid from inside. Then keep out of sight. When they get
here, I'll try to draw them away into the after part of the ship. If
I succeed in drawing them off, you slip out and get into the airlock.
Close the door and lock it from inside. If I manage to circle around
and get back here, I'll signal you with three soft taps on the door,
followed by three hard ones. Don't open for anyone else. It'll take
them over an hour to cut through that door from in here. You'll have a
gambler's chance."
"Good luck," said Gerda softly. She climbed into the toolbox while
Coran recharged the blaster-gun and stuffed his pockets with extra
ammunition.
Gerda raised the box lid slightly. "It works, Steve," she said. "Take
care of yourself."
He grinned. "One thing more. When you're into the airlock, get into a
space-suit and get one ready for me. They're on racks at the left side,
inside a locker."
She nodded. The lid slammed down.
Coran re-arranged the stowage of boxes in the next compartment into a
series of defensive barricades, then crouched beside the half-opened
door of the sally-port. He had not long to wait.
The airlock door swung open and three rough-looking men in space suits
came cautiously through. They were followed by a dozen others not
wearing the heavily-insulated space armor. The pirates must have run a
gangway tube between the ships and fastened it with magnetic grapnels.
The outer doors of the airlock would open automatically as the pressure
equalized. He wondered if Gerda would have sense enough to close and
bolt the outer as well as the inward doors. It was too late to worry
about that now.
Coran took careful aim and fired his blaster beam into the crowd of
men. Four were killed by the first discharge. The others broke for
cover. Blaster beams interlaced, and the room jarred with repeated
concussion. Men poured through the opened airlock door. The temperature
rose sharply with the release of energy. The pirates rushed the door
and Coran was forced to fall back to his line of barricades.
He retreated cautiously, firing as he went. From behind the last of his
barricades, he burned down three of his foes, then broke and ran for
the engine-room shaft, leaping across it to the spiralled stair. Just
as he reached the upper loft of engines a beam cut down the shaft. He
dodged behind a massive generator, but three blaster beams concentrated
on it. The force of their tripled discharge tore it from its moorings.
Artificial gravity combined with its mass to send it crashing into a
tangle of the intricate machinery below.
To avoid being crushed, Coran was forced to plunge down the second
shaft. He lost himself in the spiderweb of inner support beams. The
pirates scattered and climbed into the maze of beams, probing with
their blaster rays as shadows moved uneasily in the eerie darkness. The
lumibulbs waxed and waned as the unsteady current fluctuated.
* * * * *
Further and further Coran led them, always away from the sally-port and
the airlock, darting chance beams at his pursuers whenever opportunity
presented. He had the advantage of knowing that they were all enemies.
Their forces were divided and confused. In the weird and uncomfortable
lofts of the engine-room, clear targets were impossible.
A wild half-plan occurred to Coran. He headed in the direction of the
main engine-room switch box and with his beam burned out all the fuses.
Pit-like darkness enveloped the lofts as the lumibulbs went out. It
was touch and go sliding down the long beams in the pall of utter
blackness. He reached a catwalk, and cautiously made his way toward the
elevators. Once he collided with a heavy body and a man swore savagely.
He missed the elevators, but by some miracle found a hatchway leading
to the cargo holds. Sliding through, he cut down the intensity of his
blaster beam and melted the plastic and metal hatchcover into a fused
mass. That should delay them a few minutes. He scuttled down a deserted
passageway and began climbing flights of stairs. If he could only find
his way back to the sally-port from this other direction. He came
suddenly into the room of his hasty barricades next to the sally-port.
It was occupied.
Two men had been left behind as guards. He caught them unawares, and
burned both down with one sweep of his beam.
The sally-port was empty. The box lid lay on the floor and the airlock
door was closed tight.
With the butt of his blaster, he tapped out the signal on the airlock
door.
There was a smooth hiss of releasing metal parts and the airlock door
came open. He slipped through and slammed the door, spinning the
lockbolts tight.
"Thank heavens, you made it," Gerda said. Pale and shaken, she handed
him the heavy space-armor. "I was afraid you'd run into those others in
the next room. They almost caught me. I had the lid half-raised when
they came into the sally-port to check."
"Put on your helmet," he ordered roughly, as she handed him the
fishbowl-like contrivance.
She laughed. "The air's bad in here. I could hardly breathe, and I
didn't know how to work the valves in the helmet."
Coran swore briefly, then adjusted her helmet and put on his own. He
set the microphones and the space communicators.
"I shut the outside door," she complained. "I even bolted it, but it
won't stay locked."
"It's automatic," he told her. "When the air pressure's equal on both
sides, it opens. I'll show you."
Just as he reached for the controls, the door came open with a violent
crash. Hamlin stood framed in the doorway, blaster gun in hand.
"I hadn't counted on you, Coran," he said. The gun did not waver.
"Don't reach for that gun."
* * * * *
Coran relaxed and stared at his opponent. "You look quite different
without the plastic mask," he observed. Hamlin was older than he had
looked in the photographs, but noticeably the same man, despite lines
of strain which did not show in either picture.
Hamlin smiled wolfishly. "My pictures don't flatter me, do they? The
problem is what you've done with my men. You are becoming a nuisance,
Coran. I'll have to kill you, of course, but I'd like to know how you
managed this switch."
Coran was playing for time. "I'll make a deal with you," he said. "I'm
curious to know why you pulled that Martian plague stunt with Gerda."
Hamlin laughed. "I recognized her at once, even though she had changed
since I last saw her. Ten years is a long time when you're kids, but
I'd seen a picture of her since then. When I saw you with her, I knew
you were up to something. I wanted to keep you away from her till
I could deal with you. The rest was easy, just a little grease and
aluminum powder. The doctor was scared to death...."
Gerda was staring at her brother through the space helmet. "You did
know me, Ken?"
Hamlin shot her a contemptuous glance. "You little fool," he snapped.
"You should never have come here. I don't know what I'm going to do
with you."
Gerda cringed as if he had struck her. "We'll have plenty of time for
old home week later," Hamlin went on. "Now tell me what's happened to
my men, Coran. I haven't much time to waste on you."
Coran bit his lip. "I just lured them into the engine-room and tangled
them up in the lofts, then blew out the lights. It was a good trick
while it worked. Some of them got weeded out on the way."
"Now it's your turn, Coran," Hamlin said brutally. His finger tightened
on the trigger. Gerda stood looking from one to the other with a look
of anguish on her face. "Don't do it, Ken," she said, moving in front
of Coran.
"Stay out of this, Gerda," Coran warned.
"I'm not kidding," Hamlin said, "if you get in my way, I'll kill both
of you."
Coran struck her helmet so heavily she fell against the wall. In the
same movement, he lunged at Hamlin. The blaster beam raked the ceiling,
and in that confined space concussion was unbearable, even inside the
space suits. Coran's blow knocked Hamlin through the doorway into the
connecting tube. Coran swung about and caught up his gun.
[Illustration: _Coran struck her aside and lunged at Hamlin._]
"Don't shoot, Steve," Gerda wailed.
The shock of the first blaster discharge had loosened the magnetic
grapnels which held the ships together. The pirate's craft began to
drift away, tearing loose the end of the tube.
Hamlin was on his feet, trying to fire his blaster, but the charge was
burned out. It only flickered feebly. He leaped the widening distance
between the ships and went up the side like a spider, gripping the
shell of the _Erania_ with the magnetic soles of his space-boots. Coran
climbed round the doorway and went up after him, gun in hand.
Hamlin had disappeared round the curve of the hull. It was rough,
dangerous work climbing round the outer shell of a space-ship. One slip
meant a plunge into the awesome emptiness of the void. Gravity was
practically non-existent, but the grip of the soles was slight, and
only one foot could be moved at a time.
From the vantage point of his cover behind a dead rocket tube, Hamlin
waited. He knew that his time was short. Off across the black gulf of
space three flakes of gleaming light resolved themselves into fast
patrol cruisers, racing toward the derelict _Erania_. Coran had not
seen them, but came on steadily, determined to see his assignment
through. Hamlin waited, gun resting on the rocket tube, hoping for a
clear shot. Mad with hatred, he blamed Coran for the failure of his
whole life, and was viciously resolved to take his enemy with him.
The patrol ships moved in close and warped alongside the _Aphrodite_.
Men in space suits poured out of the access hatch and guns were trained
on the rocket tube behind which Hamlin held out.
Sick fury possessed Hamlin. With the gesture of a trapped rat, he
rammed his blaster-gun up the vents of the rocket tube. If he could
ignite the remaining fuel, they would all blow to Kingdom Come in a
roaring atomic holocaust.
Coran saw his intent and stood up to fire. His beam went wildly into
the darkness as he lost his balance and toppled into space. Another
beam whipped out from the patrol cruiser and caught Hamlin full force
as he stood up to fire into the tube.
He vanished in a glittering cloud of particles, dispersed instantly by
their own radiation.
Lines with magnetic grapnels looped out and snatched Coran reeling him
back to the patrol ship like a grotesque fish. For three days, he lay
unconscious from space-shock....
* * * * *
Back on the Moon, at Luna Station, three people were waiting for the
Martian Express to take-off.
"You see, Steve, Gerda's really my daughter," Paul Jomian explained.
"Her mother divorced me fifteen years ago, and a year later married
Gartan Mors. She took the children, of course, and Mors raised them as
his own. Gerda was young enough to conform but Ken was always wild. He
took it for three or four years, then ran away to Venus. Gerda always
idolized him, but really she scarcely knew him. If anyone's at fault in
all this, I am the one to blame. I was a stubborn fool, and Nell could
never stand my job."
Gerda offered her hand to Coran. "I hate long goodbyes," she said. "I'm
sorry about everything. I--I don't really blame you for Ken's death.
Goodbye, and good luck."
Steve decided it was safe to play out a fond and corny farewell. He
took her hand lingeringly. "Don't worry about things, Gerda. I know
how you feel. It wouldn't have worked out anyhow. Just let me know
when you get the divorce. Let's break this up. I thought that I hated
Mars-station, but now that I'm through with the Space Patrol, I can't
wait to get back."
Paul Jomian put his arm around his daughter as they watched Coran turn
and wave before climbing aboard the express cruiser. On Coran's face
was the smug complacency of a man who has neatly avoided being stuck
with a dame. He grinned and vanished up the gangplank. Jomian muttered
something inaudibly.
"You're a sucker to let a man like Steve get away ... for any reason,"
he told her. "Such men are hard to find, and still harder to hook once
you've found them."
"I know it," she said firmly, though tears brimmed in her eyes. "But I
just couldn't love the man who'd killed my brother. I couldn't."
"That's the biggest mistake you ever made. Steve didn't want me to
tell you, but he didn't shoot Ken. His beam went wild." Jomian nerved
himself for an ordeal. "I killed him."
"Why didn't you tell me--_why_?" she wailed.
"I should have told you before, but I couldn't. I didn't want you to
hate me, now that I'd just found you."
Gerda clung to her father fiercely. "I couldn't hate you, dad. But we
mustn't let him go. I might have a chance to win him, but how can I if
he's on Mars and I'm here?"
"I'm afraid that's out of our hands. Steve doesn't know it, but he's
not through with the space patrol. They refused his resignation. He's
just been appointed commander of the Mars-Jupiter sector. Do you think
you have the guts to be a spaceman's wife?"
"I _know_ I have. But how'll I ever convince Steve? You heard him. He
said it wouldn't ever work out."
"That's your problem. He's a stubborn man."
Sudden determination shone in her face. "And I'm a stubborn woman," she
called back, blowing her father a kiss. She reached the gangplank just
in time to grab it and be dragged up with it.