"With an injection of sulfacardium. Heart failure. Too much pulse on a
too old heart. Simple." Logan turned and there was a hypodermic in his
hand.
Brandon lay there. The ship went on and on. The body was upstairs,
lying breathing in its metal cradle, mothered by him and jerked to
life by him, and now going away. Brandon managed to say:
"Do me a favor?"
"What?"
"Give me the drug now. I don't want to be awake when you send Lazarus
out. I don't want that."
"Sure." Logan came walking across the deck, raising the hypodermic. It
glittered hard and silver fine, and sharp.
"One more thing, Logan."
"Hurry it up!"
Only one arm free, one leg able to move slightly. Logan was pressing
against the table, now. The hypodermic hesitated in his fingers.
"This!" said Brandon.
* * * * *
With one foot, Brandon kicked the teeter-tauter control at the base
of the board. The board, whining, began to elevate swiftly. With his
free arm, instantly pulling the last way free from the wire, Brandon
clutched Logan's screaming head and jammed it down under the table,
under the descending board. Board and metal base ground together and
kept on going three inches. Logan screamed only once. The sounds after
that were so horrible that Brandon retched. Logan's body slumped and
hung, arms slack, hypo dropped and shattered on the deck.
The whole table kept going up and down, up and down.
It made Brandon sicker with each movement. The whole room revolved,
tipped, spun sickishly. The corpses in all their niches seemed to
shiver with it.
He managed to kick the control to neutral and the table poised,
elevated at the heels, so blood pounded hotly into Brandon's pale
face, lighting, coloring it. His heart was pounding furiously and the
chronometer upon the hull-wall clicked out time passing, time passing
and miles with it, and Martians coming so much the closer....
He fought the remaining wires continuously, cursing, bringing threads
and beads of blood from raw wrist, ankle and hips. Red lights buzzed
like insects on the ceiling, spelling out:
"ROCKET COMING ... UNKNOWN CRAFT ... ROCKET APPROACHING...."
Hold on, Lazarus. Don't let them wake you all the way up. Don't let
them take you. Better for you to go on slumbering forever.
The wire on his left wrist sprang open. It took another five minutes to
bleed himself out of the ankle wires. The ship spun on, all too quickly.
Not looking at Logan's body, Brandon sprang from the table and with
an infinite weariness tried to speed himself up the rungs. His mind
raced ahead, but his body could only sludge rung after rung upward into
the radio room. The door to the emergency rocket boat was wide and
inside, living quietly, cheeks pink, pulse beating softly in throat,
Lazarus lay unthinking, unknowing that his new father had come into his
presence.
Brandon glanced at his wrist chronometer. Almost time to slam that
door, shoving Lazarus out into space to meet the Martians. Five minutes.
He stood there, sweating. Then, decided, he put a tight audio beam
straight on through to green Earth. Earth.
"_Morgue Ship coming home. Morgue Ship coming home! Important cargo.
Important cargo. Please meet us off the Moon!_"
Setting the ship controls into an automatic mesh, he felt the
thundering jets explode to life under him. It was not alone their
shaking that pulsed through his body. It was something of himself, too.
He was sick. He wanted to get back to Earth so badly he was violently
ill with the desire. To forget all of war and death.
He could give Lazarus to the enemy and then turn homeward. Yes, he
supposed he could do that. But, give up a second son where you already
have given up one? No. No. Or, destroy the body now? Brandon fingered
a ray-gun momentarily. Then he threw it away from him, eyes closed,
swaying. No.
And if he should try to run away to Earth now? The Martians would
pursue and capture him. There was no speed in a Morgue Ship to
outdistance superior craft.
Brandon walked unsteadily to the side of the sleeping Scientist. He
watched him a moment, touching him, looking at him with a lost light in
his eyes.
Then, he began the final preparations, lifting the Scientist, going
toward the life rocket.
* * * * *
The Martians intercepted the emergency life-rocket at 5199CVZ. The
Morgue Ship itself was nowhere visible. It had already completed its
arc and was driving back toward Earth.
The body of Lazarus was hurried into the hospital cubicle of the
Martian rocket. The body was laid upon a table, and immediate efforts
were made to bring it out of its centuries of rest.
Lazarus reclined, silver uniform belted across the middle with soft
mouse-grey leather, bronze symbol 51 over the heart.
Breathlessly, the Martians crowded in about the body, probing,
examining, trying, waiting. The room got very warm. The little purple
eyes blinked hot and tensed.
Lazarus was breathing deeply now, sighing into full aware life, Lazarus
coming from the tomb. After three hundred years of avoid death.
Armed guards stood on both sides of the medical table, weapons poised,
torture mechanisms ready to make Lazarus speak if he refused to tell.
The eyes of Lazarus fluttered open. Lazarus out of the tomb. Lazarus
seeing his companions, iris widening upon itself, forcing shape out of
mist. Seeing the curious blue skulls of anxious Martians collected in a
watching crowd about him. Lazarus living, breathing, ready to speak.
Lazarus lifted his head, curiously, parted his lips, wetted them with
his tongue, and then spoke. His first words were:
"What time is it?"
It was a simple sentence, and all of the Martians bent forward to catch
its significance as one of the Martians replied:
"23:45."
Lazarus nodded and closed his eyes and lay back. "Good. He's safe then,
by now. He's safe."
The Martians closed in, waiting for the next important words of the
waking dead.
Lazarus kept his eyes closed, and he trembled a little, as if, in spite
of himself, he couldn't help it.
He said:
"_My name is Brandon._"
Then, Lazarus laughed....