* * * * *
Joe's body slumped, almost in weakness. Then he galvanized into a human
whirlwind. The gun cracked but Joe was not there. He'd spun quickly,
diving for the cubicle door, flinging a chart as he fled. The flying
chart disturbed Arden's aim. The gun blasted, and Joe felt the wind of
the bullet fanning his cheek.
Then Joe was in the sloping passageway, sliding down the ramp. He heard
the crack and the banshee wail as another bullet struck the duralloy
wall and ricocheted.
He hurled his body toward the branch passage that led toward the
power room, and then a communications speaker ahead of him cried out,
bringing Arden's voice from the pilot's cubicle:
"Kill Joe Wilding--but for your life don't touch him!"
Joe stopped running abruptly then.
He was trapped, for that communications system had outlets all over the
ship, and it wouldn't do to advertise his presence by running. Only the
stealth he'd learned in his years of wooding could help him now.
But what good was all his wood training in this huge hulk of shining
metal? No chance for camouflage, no chance to dive into a creek and
swim away so that your spoor could be lost in the swirling water.
And then Joe smiled and began to run softly. He had a place to hide if
he could make it. The quick pat of hurrying steps stopped him short and
his quick mind hurled his body to the side of the passage and asprawl
on the floor where the lights cast a shadow.
It was Paul Burnet hurrying up the passage, the light glinting on the
butt of the automatic belted at his waist. Only for an instant did
Burnet hesitate, then he ran on. His voice drifted back softly:
"I'm giving _you_ another chance. We're even now, Joe."
Joe rose to his feet and hurried on to the power room. Joe halted,
breathing deeply. Black Tom would be too interested in his charts to
hear what little sound he might make.
At the huge oval door leading into the power room, Joe halted,
breathing deeply. Then, quietly, easily, he swung open the heavy door,
stepped inside, his eyes searching for Black Tom.
Softly, he pulled the portal closed, stood there breathing in long,
quiet breaths. Then he moved across the huge power room, feet moving as
cautiously as if he were stalking a deer in the autumn woods.
Black Tom's head was bent over a report sheet, his fingers were busy
with a pencil. He shook his head, and Joe was motionless. Then a
chuckle came from Black Tom's lips, and under cover of the sound, Joe
made for the ladder leading to the water compartment.
Black Tom's head lifted as if startled; his head began to turn toward
the exit door. Joe went up the ladder like a frightened monkey, fairly
blasted himself through the cubbyhole at the top and then rolled
quietly inside.
He lay there, his heart pounding with the quick exertion as he heard
Black Tom's footsteps moving across the floor. He held his breath;
Black Tom's grunt of puzzlement came muted to his ears. The footsteps
returned to the chart table, and Joe risked a look to see Black Tom's
head once more bent in study.
Joe lifted himself to his feet, went over and touched the wet surface
of the first of the water cylinders reverently. He walked on down the
line, patting each of the huge tanks till he had reached the last.
His arms reached up, his hands gripped the top of the cylinder and the
sinewy muscles in his back and arms lifted himself to the top of it.
Then he slid down from the top into the wedge shaped space between the
circumference of the tank and the bulwark of the wall.
This was sanctuary, Joe thought. Like a cave in the forest when the
wolf-pack keened out their howls for your blood. Only different. For it
was your friends who wanted to kill you.
In the darkness, Joe's teeth gleamed in a quick smile.
Then Joe fell asleep.
* * * * *
Arden was weary when he met John Bairn coming down from his time of
duty in the pilot cubicle.
"He's gone," Arden said. "Just as if he had stepped out into space. Now
we're worse off than ever."
Bairn nodded, said: "I get it. If he's on this ship, he'll have to come
in for food; we won't know what he's touched. Maybe one of the more
susceptible among us with a scratch may touch something he had and
won't know. The infected one will pass like the touch of death among
us."
Arden said: "Everything we know he might have touched has been
destroyed or disinfected, but there may have been something we missed.
Damn him!" Arden's voice was flat, hopeless.
"It's hard to imagine Joe as the destroyer he is. I talked to him by
the hour. I liked him; and even now, when I know what a potential of
death he is--that's what makes me so damn mad."
"Tomorrow," Arden said abruptly. "Tomorrow we'll know if this cruise is
in vain."
Bairn amended it: "Tomorrow, we land on Venus; if the stuff's there,
okay. If it isn't, we won't have to worry about Joe Wilding any more."
* * * * *
Joe didn't know what time it was when it happened. But he knew the
first leg of the journey was over.
That steady thrumming of the motors that had worked its way into his
body so that it had become a part of him drew away gradually and left
a sense of emptiness behind.
Joe climbed down from his hiding place, flexed his cramped muscles
and stood erect. He faced the wall, the blank duralloy steel wall and
stared as if his eyes could pierce the opaqueness and look out upon
Venus.
He stood there a long time, his hands clenched into hard fists at his
side, bright-eyed and staring.
"God!" he whispered.
How did it look out there on Venus--on that planet when this first
earth ship landed? Was it like Earth--friendly, familiar? Or inimical,
alien?
If he came out now, he could see it with his own wondering eyes--and
die. If he stayed here, he might never see it. But his mission was not
fulfilled. Somehow, quite clearly, he realized that.
So Joe crawled back into his metal cave, into the darkness.
The only sound in the quiet water compartment was a muffled sobbing.
* * * * *
Arden it was who closed the heavy door to the chamber.
"That's it," he said, and his voice was a caress. "There's enough of
it in that lead-lined vault to rid the world. It's up to you, John, to
take us safely home."