Chapter 7
Except for two or three meteor clouds which the earth plows through on its annual turn around the sun, the number and location of these in the solar system are unknown. They are not clouds in the sense that they hang like a heavy mist and obscure objects behind them. They are so thin and tenuous that if thousands of meteors did not shower on the earth when it goes through their midst, we would be unaware of their presence in space.
The cloud ahead of us was, possibly, half a million miles in diameter, making it rather small. The Perseids and Leonids, for example, may extend completely around the sun in the orbit of a disintegrated comet. Very few of the meteors are larger than a grain of sand and they are so widely scattered that all of the meteors in a cubic mile of space might be packed into a teacup. However, a few of them might be as large as a teacup and, very rarely, one might be as big as a house.
For a planet like the earth to plow through a cloud of meteors, there is little danger. For one thing, most of the meteors are vaporized as they strike the upper atmosphere. Only a few ever reach the earth and there have been only a couple of cases on record where a human being has been harmed by a meteorite.
But the Jehad had no atmosphere to shield it from meteors. True, we were equipped with double walls capable of vaporizing a meteor up to a quarter of an inch in diameter. And we had methods of minimizing the danger of larger meteors—leakproof fluid in the walls, airtight bulkheads dividing the ship into segments, spacesuits, and a reserve supply of oxygen. But there was always that extreme chance of striking a big fellow, which would cancel out all our defenses. This cloud ahead of us certainly held a few that size.
Had Axel and I not been so interested in the signals from Mars, we might have spotted the meteors several minutes sooner. Our ship was now traveling close to 30,000 miles an hour, however, and those minutes had eaten up precious distance in which we might have maneuvered the craft out of danger.
We were less than an hour’s run from the fringe of the cloud. The Jehad, using a very small amount of power to accelerate its huge mass, could not be turned in time to avoid it.
As Spartan sounded the alarm, he spoke tersely into the intercom mike, warning of the danger ahead and telling the crew to scatter to separate compartments, to minimize the loss in the event that a large meteor crashed into one segment of the ship. We had all been drilled on this procedure, which included the donning of spacesuits.
While Spartan remained in the control room, Axel and I put on our suits, zipped them, and then I carried one to Spartan, who put it on while Axel continued to manipulate the controls. The manipulation simply included increasing the power of the plasma motors.
All twelve were now operating, and auxiliary jets on the sides of the ship were being fired in order to curve the ship from its trajectory so that it would pass as near the extreme rear fringe of the cloud as possible. Here the meteors would be the smallest, driven back from the central mass by the pressure of sunlight, which would have less effect on the larger masses.
Wearing a space helmet aboard ship had one major disadvantage. In order to talk, it was necessary to use the radio transmitters located in the helmets. All were on the same wave length and since all of us were talking at the same time, there was a babble of voices in our ears.
“Silence!” Spartan’s voice rose above the others. “Keep quiet! You distract me!”
The sounds subsided. Spartan took over the controls from Axel and continued to increase the power of the ship. Suddenly he seemed to be aware that Axel and I were still in the control room. “Go back to my compartment! Both of you! You know the regulations for an emergency like this.”
Dr. Spartan’s compartment, like the shower room and lavatory farther to the rear of the ship, was divided in half by a corridor. On one side were his living quarters and on the other was the chartroom which contained a small but adequate electronic computer, astronomic tables on microfilm, a projector for the film, and our entire supply of writing materials.
Axel stationed himself in the chartroom, and I went to Spartan’s sleeping quarters. I felt helpless and trapped. The room, for a captain’s quarters, was bleak. His sleeping bag was lashed to the bulkhead and there was a private lavatory and shaving mirror, for he did not share the one the rest of us used. A small chest—like the ones the rest of us had for our personal belongings—was near the bed roll.
I remembered suddenly that the male members of the crew had been clean-shaven and had sported butch hair-cuts when they’d come aboard. Even Gail wore a mannish bob. But Dr. Spartan had kept his beard. If, in order to cut down on weight, we’d been ordered to trim our hair, why hadn’t Spartan made a sacrifice in that direction?
I thought about these things, perhaps, to turn my mind away from the approaching danger. This was also the reason I gave myself for looking into his space chest. I’m not naturally a snooper. Was he the kind of man who would murder me in order to possess Gail? Would a clue be in his chest? I looked inside.
I found a toothbrush, soap, extra clothing and shoes, electric razor for trimming his beard. There was also a locked box which probably contained poisoned darts. I had an urge to steal it, but I knew his gun was loaded and I’d never get away with the theft.
Next I found a small square of paper on which were written the names of the crew. Morrie Grover’s name was first. Mine was second. Joel’s had been third, but now it was crossed out and written below Axel’s. Gail’s name was followed by a question mark. There was no notation to indicate the reason for the names. He did not need a roster of the crew—that was in the log book.
I replaced the paper and closed the chest. I waited for meteors to strike, and wondered if any would damage the ship. But I knew the only sound I would hear would be when one struck the ship. The greater the sound, the larger the meteor.
I put my head to the floor. I was wearing my helmet, of course, but the vibrations of striking meteors would be transmitted to the helmet and I would hear them. We had often talked to each other this way without using our helmet radios.
For several minutes I waited and heard nothing. Then came a sound.
Ping.
It was faint, but I knew a meteor had made that sound as it hit the craft.
Then ping, ping, crump!
Two small, one much larger. But there had been no holes made in the ship. At least, there was no alarm from Dr. Spartan who would know from the air gauges if any compartment had been punctured.
The ringing sounds, singly and in twos and threes, continued. This was a dense cloud, although we were striking them only a dozen or so to a minute. That is density in space. Then I heard a loud thud. A tiny bump raised itself in the metal floor not two feet from my helmet. A large meteor had pierced the outer hide of our ship and dented the inside wall before vaporizing. But the fluid in the walls was now closing the hole and we had lost no air.
Another thud. I didn’t know where this one had hit.
The ship’s acceleration, which had increased when Dr. Spartan started the emergency motors, suddenly seemed to decrease. Spartan’s gruff voice came through my helmet radio. “A motor has been hit.”
He had cut down the power, of course. A single motor conking out would put more thrust on the other three sides of the ship, resulting in a curved trajectory for the craft. Therefore three other motors would have to be cut in order to keep the ship in a straight line.
There were more pings and thumps in my ears as I continued to press my helmet to the floor. An hour passed. Then another. Two hours of terror. Then the noise stopped.
“I think we’re out of danger,” Spartan’s voice came through my helmet radio. “We penetrated a thin segment of the cloud.”
“Any leaks, Doctor?” Axel asked.
“The air pressure gauges show no loss. But the motor will have to be repaired. Who’s on duty now?”
“Miss Loring follows me into the control room,” said Axel, “but this has been a tough experience for her. I won’t mind working overtime.”
“I can’t permit it,” said Spartan. “Everyone must do his share. Fetch her, Drake.”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
I went back to the main cabin where I found Joel slipping out of his spacesuit. I removed mine.
“Where’s Gail?” I asked him.
He nodded to the rear of the ship. “She went to the machinery room,” he said. “Morrie’s in the kitchen.”
I shuffled back to the kitchen. Morrie’s spacesuit lay in a heap on the floor, but there was no sign of him.
He wasn’t in the lavatory, either. I pushed open the door to the machinery room just in time to hear Gail scream.
I stood there a moment, hardly believing what I saw. Morrie had forced her to the floor. He had almost torn her uniform from her body. She was trying to fight him off, but his arms held her tight.
I pushed myself away from the bulkhead. In the center of the ship there is very little centrifugal force and I literally sailed across the room to drop lightly on my feet beside the struggling pair.
I reached down, caught Morrie savagely around the neck with my arm, and pulled him back, away from Gail.
He squirmed out of my grasp and threw a savage punch which struck me in the shoulder. But he hadn’t been set to deliver the blow and I hardly felt it. I was angry now and I lunged forward, grabbing his arm with both hands. His feet left the floor and I literally hurled him across the cabin into the water purifier on the far side of the room.
He hit with a crash.
I turned to Gail. “Are you all right?”
“I—I’m—fine,” she choked. Then her eyes focused on Morrie across the room. “Look out, Bill!” she screamed.
I turned. Morrie had wrenched a pipe from the water purifier and was getting set to dive at me.