"Cut in the atomics!" Barrows ordered. "2 G's."
The atomic converter's whine ran through the metal structure of the
ship and the roar of the jets died away to the deeper boom of the
atomic drive. Brace sank a little further into the cushions.
"3 G's!" Barrows ordered.
Brace sank still further into the cushions, the pressure holding him
firm. Breathing was more of an effort. Barrows rested his head on
the cushion of the acceleration chair and closed his eyes. The pilot
watched down his nose at the dials before him, his leaden hands resting
on the soft arms of his chair.
Already, the small ports in front showed the purple blackness of the
fringe of space and then the purple deepened to a solid charcoal black.
Brace wondered how the girl was taking the acceleration. This was no
kid-glove passenger liner, yet three G's wasn't so bad. He hoped she'd
stayed in the bunk. Thinking was hard. The pressure seemed to drag
thoughts from his mind. He didn't want to think about the girl and he
tried to shake his mind free.
There were millions of women in the system, billions! So she
disappeared! She wouldn't be the first. So she'd end up in a brothel
on a pleasure asteroid! What difference did it make? She'd eat well!
Or maybe it would be the pleasure palace of some earth man or Martian.
It was a soft life. And it was _life_. But it made him angry that he
should care. At least, Gartland had given him a way out.
The voice of Barrows intruded on his thoughts. "We're in clear space
now. Let's get rolling!"
"Wait!" Brace barked. He hated himself for speaking. Any space man
worth the name could take six or seven G's, but he thought of the girl.
She looked fragile, and not too well fed. Suppose she died? So what?
So he wouldn't have to think about Gartland or her ever again. Chuck
her in the waste port! Again, he saw her pirouetting through space,
cast off by the scum of the universe and received by the lord of the
universe, the great, flaming orb.
"Cut the acceleration!" Brace snarled. "Make it one and a half G's!"
The springs of his chair whispered their release as the acceleration
eased. Brace unsnapped the safety belt and heaved himself out of the
chair and to a hand hold. The deck was straight up and down.
"Adjust for floor gravity!" Brace ordered.
Obediently, the pilot cut the stern jets and for an instant, they were
in free fall. Then the under jets cut in and Brace was pressed to the
deck. Prostrate, he watched the stars wheel before the front port, slow
down in their movement, and stop.
"One G.," Brace said, rising. He stood upright, straightened his cap,
and walked to the port.
* * * * *
Brace walked slowly down the companionway, his eyes fixed straight
ahead. "Chuck her out!" he muttered. "Chuck her out!" It was a clean,
swift, merciful death. There was nothing clinging about it, none of the
sickness that he felt when he thought of putting her into Gartland's
hands.
"It isn't her," he murmured. "I just can't stomach scum like Gartland."
He wished he'd killed him, taken a chance on dodging the S.P. Maybe
Gartland had been bluffing. Maybe he'd been alone. Brace toyed with
the idea of returning to Titan. No, that was too risky. Besides, the
girl.... "Well, might as well get it over with," he muttered.
He straightened and rapped at the door. Her answering voice was
tremulous. Perhaps that deep essence of woman had told her that time
had run out. Maybe men knew it too. Maybe everybody knew when their
time came to die.
He thrust these thoughts aside and stepped into the cabin. The girl was
still on the bunk. Its free floating gimbals had swung it back.
"The acceleration bother you?" Brace asked.
"No," she replied, quietly.
He walked over and stood by the bunk. The girl rose slowly and sat,
staring up at him. "You're going to do it now?"
Brace looked down at his gnarled hands, clenched his fingers and
studied them. "Would you like anything?" he asked slowly.
She looked up at him helplessly, frightened. Then she looked quickly
around the room in frantic darts, as though grasping, groping for
something. "I--I--don't know--I guess I'd like to see the stars--just
once more."
Brace compressed his lips. "Yeah--sure." He took a deep breath and
turned partly away. He stood there, awkwardly for a moment, then said,
"Come on, kid."
His hairy hand closed over her small one as he helped her up from the
bunk. The diaphanous dancing costume fluttered as she moved, and for
some reason, he kept hold of her hand until they reached the cabin
door. He opened it for her and she stepped through. He dared not to
look at her face as they stood outside the cabin, smooth, youthful
skin, dark brown eyes holding all of that deep hurt and reproach which
men see in the eyes of a dying doe. He looked away quickly.
"This way," Brace said, walking ahead. He couldn't bring himself to
look at those eyes again. Not yet, anyway.
They stopped in the companionway, even with the port, and Brace climbed
a set of iron rungs set in the wall. His fingers fumbled with the dogs
on a small hatch, then he threw it back. The girl climbed up after
him and he leaned down to lift her into the astrogator's bubble. His
strong, tough hands clasped her under the shoulders and lifted her into
the small room whose top was a transparent hemisphere, large enough for
a man to stand upright under it. She was warm, soft, yet firm to his
touch and he hesitated an instant before letting her go.
Then terror clutched at him. He couldn't do it! He couldn't! Better
Gartland's life than no life at all. She was too young, too much alive
to die.
He kicked the hatch closed, shutting out the light from beneath, and
they stood alone, a man and a woman amid the stars.
Women are funny, Brace thought. They know things. She knows what I have
to do. She isn't fighting. He swallowed with difficulty and looked at
her. She was standing straight, looking up at the stars. There were
millions of them in the black of space, myriads of lights in a sea of
night.
"The night has a thousand eyes," she murmured.
* * * * *
A tingle ran through Brace's nerves. _The night has a thousand eyes.
The night has a thousand eyes._ Who had said that? The memory eluded
him, played tag with him, then he caught it. It was so long ago--or did
it only _seem_ long ago?
It was the great Martian Central Spaceport and the night overhead, the
bowl of heaven as infinitely far away, as infinitely contemptuous of
man as it was now, yet somehow watching. He was fifteen. By day, he
sweated, loading, stacking, clamping down great crates and bales in the
hulls of giant ships, hating them, hating the sky, hating all things, a
tough, space-rat kid, knowing no father or mother but work, sweat, and
the fists of others.
Then the ship had landed, a great passenger liner which carried only
the finest cargo. Its captain was so tall, so ramrod straight, as
though he had not a backbone like other men but a bar of chilled steel.
And the girl had come from that ship, the captain's daughter. She had
no mother either and they had found a strange kinship.
They had sat by the towering hulk of that huge ship and she'd said
it--_the night has a thousand eyes_--and he'd loved her with the love
of a thousand hearts. Yet she was as forever removed from him as were
the thousand eyes of night. But what was her name? Cecelia! And what
came after _the night has a thousand eyes_? He didn't know, couldn't
remember. Her tall, straight father had come out then and without
hesitation, had struck him down and the night had ten thousand times a
thousand eyes.
But he'd seen her again, through the steel fencing of the Spaceport.
He was on the outside. Her father had seen to that. Through scalding
tears, he had seen her, and he swore that someday he would have a ship,
that someday he would be a captain. And the young love had poured from
his heart leaving an empty shell behind, and from that emptiness, he
watched the ship rise and disappear, unashamed tears streaming down his
homely face. She had said she would wait, that she'd wait forever, and
then--
Brace stopped remembering and put one hairy paw over his face. He was
a captain now, captain of a dirty, battered hulk that plied the spaces
decent ships disdained. He had a crew, if you wanted to call it that,
and he carried cargo, sometimes legally, most times not.
He fought against the memories that kept struggling back. He didn't
want to remember the excited voices of the commentators, the
descriptions of the crash in space, the long list of the dead. Only one
name on that list had any meaning for the ragged, homely youngster. His
heart and soul were burned and seared to one mass of scar. He would
become a captain. He would fight the space that had taken his gem. He
would fight it, and the men in it.
Brace sighed, and looked up at the stars. But was he fighting space?
Or was he fighting a memory, the memory of a girl? And what about this
girl--was he fighting her? Suddenly, he felt rotten, inside and out.
Brace looked down at the girl beside him. The kindly light of the stars
mellowed the outlines of her face. It could have been the face of
Cecelia. Starlight was kind, but no one could ever be so beautiful as
Cecelia, never. No, she wasn't Cecelia, yet in one way they were the
same, that same smallness and frailty against the backdrop of a cruel
space ship and its even crueler Captain.
He took a deep breath and straightened himself resolutely. "Wait here,"
he whispered hoarsely, and he quickly backed down the ladder to the
companionway.
* * * * *
As Brace entered the control room, Barrows looked up. "We've been
stalling that space-rat."
"Who?"
"Gartland!"
Brace stared at him blankly for a moment.
"Well, you shoved her out, didn't you?" Barrows asked, annoyed.
Brace pushed past him and walked to the communication panel. "Put him
on, Sparks."
The communication officer pressed the key before him several times.
There was a pause, then the opaque panel lit up with the thin face of
Gartland.
"Ah, Captain Brace. I thought you might miss our little rendezvous. We
had quite a time finding you."
"Well, I'm here!" Brace snarled. He didn't like him. It even made him
feel dirty to talk to him.
"I imagine you're a little surprised to see me."
"Hmmm," Brace murmured.
"Yes," Gartland continued, "I'm a little surprised myself. Well--the
S.P. and I were going to have a little trouble so--I decided to move.
If I'd known it, I could have--ah--removed your cargo on Titan."
Brace grunted at the face on the panel. "I'll bring it to you in a life
craft."
"Oh, that won't be necessary, Captain Brace."
"I WANT it that way!" Brace snapped.
Gartland shrugged. "All right, then. We'll hold our position. We're
about a thousand kilos sunward. Maybe I'll offer you a drink, if we've
got anything strong enough."
Brace cut the switch without answering and scowled. "Hold your
position!" he snapped to the pilot. He then looked at the impassive
face of Barrows, studying him. "You're in command," he said finally.
Ignoring the mate's curious stare, he turned and left.
* * * * *
Brace stood by the iron ladder in the companionway. "Come down, girl!"
he called.
She came slowly down the ladder, then turned and faced him. He looked
into those soft, brown eyes again. Cecelia's eyes had been brown.
Slowly, his ape-like hand reached into his tunic. She closed her eyes,
waited, then opened them again, startled, when the hairy hand pressed
a wad of money into her palm.
"W--w--what?"
"Come on!" he said roughly, and took her by the wrist. He led her down
the companionway and stopped at the door of the mess room. "Put that
stuff away!" he ordered.
Uncomprehending, she obeyed and put the money into the bodice of her
costume. Then Brace opened the mess room door and motioned for her to
enter.
The second cook saw them, started, and watched apprehensively. When
Brace had closed the door, he turned to the second cook. "Come here,
you!" he ordered.
Obediently, the cook came forward, eyeing the girl curiously.
"You're going to do something for me!" Brace said, quietly. He studied
the man. He was younger than the rest of his crew, not quite as tough
as he might be. "Do you want to get out of this with a whole skin?"
The cook touched his bruised jaw. "Yes sir," he muttered.
"Then take her, and get into number five lifeboat, and go back to
Titan. Tell the S.P. you rescued her." He turned and glared at the
girl. "And you tell them the same!" He turned back to the cook. "Is
that clear?"
The cook nodded.
"Then MOVE!" Brace barked.
The cook jumped, motioned the girl out and followed.
Brace sank down onto a chair. "I should never have had that drink," he
murmured. He reached over and slowly poured himself a cup of coffee. He
drank it leisurely, quietly, staring at the table in front of him. When
the coffee was half gone, he felt the thump of a lifeboat going free
and he laughed softly. What would Barrows think when he felt a second
thump?
He rose then, leaving his coffee, and walked swiftly down the
companionway to an escape hatch. In a moment, he had sealed himself in
a life craft and then he hesitated, his finger on the release lever.
No, he decided. The case was only against him, no one else. The girl
would tell them she'd never seen anyone but him. She couldn't give them
a description of Barrows or the others even if they tried to trick her.
Of course, the second cook had brought her breakfast. But he'd already
taken care of that. That just leaves Gartland--and he wouldn't do any
talking. He rammed the lever home and with a shock, the tiny craft
swung away from the mother ship.
Viciously, Brace slammed the acceleration lever wide open and stared
ahead through the transparent port at the stars. "The night has a
thousand eyes," he murmured. His lips clamped tight over his bulging
teeth. As his ship circled, the sun came into view, big, hot, and
glaring, yet small against the backdrop, and the little ship screamed
toward it. What was it? What was that other line? He'd almost had it
then. She'd said that other line. Sun? Sun? No, but it was something
like that.
His piercing eyes stared into the hot disk of the sun and Brace finally
made out the tiny speck of Gartland's ship. He had to remember. He HAD
to. Automatically, his fingers adjusted the controls until the pointed
nose lined up on the middle of the ship ahead. He muttered, repeating
over and over, _the night has a thousand eyes--the night has a thousand
eyes_. Gartland's ship loomed larger and Brace pounded the acceleration
lever against the stop. As he screamed onward, Brace fought, struggled,
strained to remember. He MUST remember. Then it came, and the tension
in him snapped. _The night has a thousand eyes and the day has but one._
"THE NIGHT HAS A THOUSAND EYES AND THE DAY BUT ONE!" he yelled.
The bulk of the ship ahead all but blotted out the sky and the homely
face staring at it was laughing while tears poured down his face. That
instant before eternity seemed to prolong itself as if unwilling to
die, and Brace closed his eyes. His voice was young and clear as he
cried, "Cecelia, Cecelia! I'm coming!"