Chapter 9
Gail and Axel went aft to see what could be done about fixing the water-cycling machinery. I helped Morrie adjust his spacesuit in silence.
Although I felt that he had not been sane when he attacked Gail, I couldn’t forgive his actions. I don’t suppose he felt forgiving toward me. I was sure he hated me for stopping him from taking Gail, even though he appeared to be remorseful over his actions.
Before I put the helmet over his head, he said, “I—I wasn’t myself, Bill. I want you to realize that. And try to make Gail see it that way.”
“She’ll accept your apology later,” I said, “but get one thing straight, Grover. If you ever make another pass at her, whether you’re sane or not, I’ll kill you in spite of hell and Doc Spartan.”
He bit his lip. “Can’t blame you for feeling that way. You do love her, don’t you?”
“You’re damn right,” I said. “Even before we were married I loved her.”
His helmet was fastened and he stepped into the locks. I closed the door, ready to use the walkie-talkie transmitter for any messages. Dr. Spartan reappeared. “Grover will need welding equipment to fix that motor,” he said. “Did he take it with him?”
“No, sir,” I said.
“Then get it and take it out to him,” said Spartan, turning and going back to his cabin.
I shrugged. I hadn’t been sentenced to repair the tubes, as Morrie had, but I still had to obey orders. I got the equipment and a tool bag from the storage compartment of the machine room. When I told Gail and Axel I was taking welding equipment out to Morrie, Axel gave me a worried look. “Don’t start anything, Bill,” he said.
“We have an understanding,” I replied.
Returning to the main cabin, I found Dr. Spartan waiting again, an oxygen tank in his hands.
“Here’s the tank I want you to use, Drake,” he said. “There’s just a small amount of oxygen in it, but to use a new tank for such a short errand would be wasteful. We don’t know when we might have another accident.”
“Okay. I mean—yes, sir,” I said.
“I trust you and Grover won’t resume—uh—hostilities.”
“No, sir. I’m sure he wasn’t himself, sir.”
While I put on my helmet, Spartan put the tank on my shoulders. I checked the connections, then I went into the locks. I started the pumps to exhaust the air and called to Morrie on my helmet transmitter.
“I’m bringing some welding equipment, Morrie.”
He didn’t answer.
“Do you read me, Morrie?” I called.
Still no answer. I called a third time and when Morrie didn’t seem to hear, I grew apprehensive.
“Morrie!”
I knew something was wrong now. He should have heard me. Sometimes a man will switch off his transmitter, but he always keeps his receiver on. The locks were emptied of air and I swung open the outer door. I fastened a lifeline to my belt and fitted the hasp of the other end to a ring just outside the door.
Then I pivoted around the door frame and planted my magnetized boots against the metal side of the ship. They stuck, and I started to walk around the craft toward motor No. Five.
I found Morrie Grover beside the engine, standing like a statue, his hands raised—thrown out by centrifugal force—as if some unseen bandit had ordered him to stick ’em up.
His unnatural position and his failure to answer my calls was enough to convince me that something was radically wrong. He was unconscious or—I tried not to think of the alternative.
What was wrong? Only a meteor could have hurt him here and we’d long since passed through that cloud. I knew the chance of being hit by one was so remote that it wasn’t likely to occur in a couple of hundred years.
I stepped over the metal housing of the bank of motors between myself and Morrie. His body looked weird in the sunlight, going into phases like a man-shaped moon, with each revolution of the ship. Half his figure was black, half gleaming like a star. And then, as the sun peeped through the glass of his helmet, I saw a contorted face, open mouth, and staring, sightless eyes.
Sure that he was dead, I stepped to his side and peered down at the oxygen gauge on his chest, worn upside down so that it would be visible to Morrie. The tank was nearly full, but the needle didn’t wiggle as it would have done if Morrie had been breathing. He was dead, all right.
“Dr. Spartan!” I called.
No answer came through my earphones. I called again. Apparently, Dr. Spartan wasn’t listening, nor was anyone else. I felt the urge to walk to the nearest video camera and wave my arms so that Joel would see me in the control room. Instead, I decided to take Morrie’s body to the locks—quickly, in case there was still some spark of life in the man.
The tool kit I’d brought topside wasn’t magnetized and would be thrown into space by the rotation of the ship. I opened the bag, took the pliers and cut two short lengths from Morrie’s life line. One I used to lash the tools to the motor housings, and the other I fastened from Morrie’s belt to mine, leaving about eight feet of slack between us. Then I replaced the pliers, closed the tool kit and was ready to move.
Dragging Morrie and his magnetized boots back to the locks would be hard work, especially since I’d have to pull myself the same distance. So I lifted him off the deck and then, holding his weightless body over my shoulder, doubled my knees and jumped upward.
I sailed outward—or, if you choose, upward—for the ship, myself and Morrie, and the sun, formed a right angle, if you’re interested in the geometry of our positions. The sun was toward the rear of the ship and about thirty degrees to the right, when you looked toward the tail of the craft. This geometry was presently going to become very important to my future existence.
It seemed as if I were sailing a great distance, although distance is difficult to judge in space when there’s nothing to mark it. I had perhaps fifty feet of life line and it wasn’t until I was certain I’d gone much further that I began to grow worried.
Then I looked down. The thin copper wire which had secured me to the ship was no longer fastened to the ring just outside the locks. It was being pulled upward and Morrie and I were swinging around each other like twin stars around a common center of gravity. The centrifugal force of our motion was swinging the wire with it.
I just couldn’t explain it. There was a hasp at the end of the line which shouldn’t have come unfastened. The line could hardly have broken. It was meant to stand a great deal of strain and there had been none. Not only were we weightless, but I hadn’t to my knowledge, put any strain on the wire during the entire time.
My push outward—or upward—had been translated into a motion away from the ship and I would continue in that direction forever unless some force were applied to stop me. The only force I was subject to was the gravitational pull of the sun, which meant I’d revolve around the sun forever, never to return to the Jehad.
But there was another motion, too, and this was the velocity of the ship at the moment I had broken away from it. This carried me forward—which to me was in the general direction of the orbit of Mars. However, my relationship to the ship was not permanent. The ship was being constantly accelerated, second by second, by the thrust of the plasma motors. Even as I looked down, my heart freezing with horror at the thought of never being able to return to the Jehad, I could see the ship inching forward. The right triangle had become acute and presently I’d be behind the ship.
Even in this tense moment my mind was demanding explanations, even fantastic ones. What had happened? If the hasp couldn’t unfasten itself, if the line couldn’t have broken, something must have broken it or unfastened the hasp. What? Morrie’s ghost, vowing vengeance for whatever fancied wrong I’d done to him in the machinery cabin? Or Spartan? Or something else?
These thoughts occupied only a second because I had to get busy and, as Morrie and I whirled around in our ghostly dance in space, I reached for the petcock of my oxygen flask. Just as I touched it, a warning shot through my mind: Spartan had given me a tank with only a small amount of oxygen in it, therefore he had to be the one who was trying to get rid of me. He had released my line, knowing I’d take the quickest way back to the locks, rather than to clamber over the sides.
Small comfort, this sudden discovery. I realized that since I had a minimum supply of oxygen to breathe, it would be suicidal to use any part of it for jetting back to the ship, which was pulling farther and farther ahead.
Across from me, sailing round and round like a devil’s carousel, Morrie seemed to grin as the sunlight struck his helmet again. He was dead and had plenty of air, he seemed to say. I was alive and hadn’t enough. And that grin was what did it. I realized he had enough to get us both back—if I acted quickly.
I pulled him toward me. It was difficult to twist him around, more difficult to turn him toward the ship. Finally I succeeded in pointing him right and I thumbed open the jet petcock at the base of his oxygen equipment.
He shot forward, but the line attached to both our belts made him somersault, and there was a tug on the thin strand that tied us together. He was pulling me away from the ship, putting more distance between me and safety. For him, it didn’t matter.
Quickly I pulled him back. I grabbed both his legs, like the handles of a wheelbarrow, and pointed him toward the ship, which with each second was getting farther and farther away. How far I had no idea because, as I said, distances are hard to judge in space.
Now the air jet was shoving us forward, accelerating us toward the ship. I hoped it would match the ship’s acceleration but I couldn’t tell at first. Then I laughed out loud. My voice made a hollow sound in my ears. We were gaining. Just a tiny bit, but the ship was getting larger. Now the question was, did I have enough air on Morrie’s back to carry us to the ship? The air jet was intended for only short bursts, such as I’d used when I crossed from the Saturn capsule to the Jehad. Now I needed continued acceleration.
The thin vapor stream from the flask continued and now we were above the stern of the ship, where Gail’s quarters had been established. Then the rush of air didn’t seem quite as strong—we weren’t creeping up as fast.
The air locks weren’t far ahead, but we were above the ship, maybe two hundred yards away. Morrie’s life line, the part still attached to the ship after I cut him loose, was whirling around with the ship, thrown out to its full length by the rotation. Whoever had released my line hadn’t bothered Morrie’s. Maybe the killer knew Morrie was dead—or maybe his object was only to kill me.
I steered down, hoping to get close enough to grab the line. Then the oxygen fizzled out. No more vapor came from the tank. It was empty and I couldn’t quite reach the line. It was just a foot or two beyond me.
In desperation I gave Morrie a push and then praised God for Isaac Newton’s action and reaction. The shove I gave Morrie was sufficient to push me back so that my free hand caught the line. I grabbed it and held on.
A couple of moments later I was pulling myself hand over hand toward the locks.
Just as I reached the locks, they opened. A hand stretched out, grasped my arm and pulled Morrie and me inside. I detached the life lines.
It was Axel Ludson, standing there in a spacesuit.
Instantly, all the suspicions I’d had in space crystallized. Axel had unfastened the life line!
I watched him close the locks and turn the valve that would presently fill the locks with air. “How long have you been here, Axel?” I demanded.
He turned, but didn’t answer. His eyes focused, from within the helmet, on Morrie’s body, planted to the floor of the locks by magnetic boots, swaying lifelessly as the ship rotated on its axis. “What’s wrong with him? Did he pass out?”
“Dead.” I said.
Axel gave me the same kind of a look I must have given him when I wondered about the life line. He was thinking of the fight between Morrie and me. “How’d it happen?” he asked quietly.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” I said. “I found him that way. And somebody tried to kill me, Axel. Didn’t you see how my line was loose and how I was drifting in space?”
He shook his head, then reached down and examined my life line on the floor. The hasp was on the end. Someone had unfastened it. “I looked out the port and saw you pulling yourself in. I thought it was your life line,” he said.
“It was Morrie’s. I had to cut it to lash the tools topside.”
Axel didn’t seem to believe me. Now he examined the section of line I’d used to tie Morrie and me together. Apparently satisfied, he went to look at the air gauge. A breathable amount of air was in the locks—we took off our helmets. Then we worked Morrie’s loose. He was dead, all right. Dead and cold.
Axel examined Morrie’s helmet. His fingers probed inside where the valve from the air supply enters.
“Stuck valve,” he said.
I looked relieved. “I thought somebody had killed him,” I said.
“Somebody did,” said Axel. He pulled his fingers from the valve. They held a tiny piece of paper.
“But it could have been an accident,” I said.
“There could have been enough air in the suit to keep him alive for some minutes,” Axel said. “What killed him was stale air—carbon dioxide he’d exhaled. Somebody put that paper there to keep him from getting air. Probably didn’t know what was happening till too late.”
I was no longer as suspicious of Axel. A murderer wouldn’t be likely to explain how he killed his victim but I had to be sure. “You didn’t answer me, Axel, when I asked how long you’d been in the locks.”
He gave me a strange look. “You think I took your life line off the ring?”
I avoided his eyes.
“Well, I guess I’d feel the same way. But I just came into the locks a few minutes ago. I’d just pumped the air out of the locks and was ready to go topside to help you and Morrie when I saw you outside. I didn’t have time to cut your life line loose. You ought to know that if I had murder in mind, I could have pushed you back into space again.”
“I’m sorry, Axel,” I said. “But things get screwed up in my mind. Nothing seems right out here in high space.”
“There was nobody around the locks when I entered them,” Axel went on. “Gail and I were working in the machinery cabin till she got worried and asked me to check up on you. I figured I’d give you a hand. Joel’s in the control cabin.”
He paused and I said nothing. We both knew who’d tried to kill me and who probably was responsible for Morrie’s death. That piece of paper didn’t get in Morrie’s helmet by accident. The entire paper supply was in Spartan’s chartroom.
“Why?” Axel asked slowly, a trace of accent creeping into his voice. It sounded like vy. He stared at me in utter perplexity. “Is Dr. Spartan crazy, too?”
I remembered something that had happened—ages ago, it seemed, although it had been less than two hours before. “I was in Spartan’s cabin during the time we went through the meteor cloud, Axel. I found something there.”
“Yes?”
“Yes. A piece of paper—with our names on it. Morrie’s was at the top of the list. Then mine. Warner Joel’s name had been crossed out and written in again after yours. At the bottom there was Gail’s name with a question mark after it.”
“A roster of the crew?”
“Perhaps. But the question mark puzzled me. Now I believe he had listed us in the order of execution—in the order of expendability, so to speak.”
“It is a ridiculous idea,” said Axel.
“He killed Morrie and tried to kill me,” I said. “We were Numbers One and Two on the list.”
Axel blinked his eyes. Then he looked at Morrie swaying upright, held in place by his magnetic boots. “First we must take the dead man into the ship,” he said. “Later we talk about it, Bill. Yust you and I.”
We dragged Morrie into the main cabin. Gail was still in the machinery room, and we called Spartan on the intercom. When he came through the door and saw Morrie stretched out on his sleeping bag, he glanced at him as he might have at a soiled spot on the rug.
“What happened?” he asked.
I told him just what I’d found, purposely omitting my narrow escape from death. I figured that if he wasn’t told about this he might give himself away. But he had shown no surprise at my being alive and he didn’t ask how I’d gotten Morrie inside.
Spartan dropped to his knee beside the body. He picked up Morrie’s helmet and probed the valve with his fingers as Axel had done. “Stuck valve,” he announced. “Inefficiency on the part of the manufacturer. I’ll make a full report of this when I get back to the earth.” I noted he said “when I get back.” I sensed he didn’t expect much company on the return trip. Today’s events had proved it.
“What do we do now, sir?” Axel asked respectfully.
“Give him a space burial, of course,” said Spartan. He turned to me. “Within the next few days, you can make an oral report on the incident and I’ll transcribe it on the tape recorder. We’ll need it for the officials when we get back to earth.” He paused and looked down at Morrie. “Our young friend has discovered a second great reality in space, I fear. The reality of death.”
He turned on his heel and went back to his ivory tower.
I reached down and picked up Morrie’s helmet. I felt inside the valve. The piece of paper which Axel had replaced was gone now. Dr. Spartan had removed the evidence of murder.
We put Morrie’s helmet on his head and carried his body into the locks. After we put on our own helmets, we emptied the locks of air and pushed the body out into space. Then we went to tell Gail.