The Seventh Golden Age of Science Fiction Megapack

by H. B. Fyfe

  “Why not look over the ship,” the engineer suggested, “before we blast off on half our jets? We can make up our minds when we see what we have for fuel and weapons.”

  Brecken opened his mouth to object, but was smitten by an unpleasant thought. “Suppose they didn’t leave us enough fuel to make Mars!”

  “We can find out soon enough,” said Phillips, leading the way to the door.

  They trooped down the corridor on his heels, past the few closet-like compartments set aside for living quarters. It was a single-deck ship, with storage compartments above and below for fuel, oxygen, and other necessities. The corridor was liberally supplied with handrails, apparently in case of failure of the artificial gravity system.

  About halfway to the end, another passage crossed the fore-and-aft one, and a few steps farther was a ladder. This extended up and down a vertical well, which in space amounted to a second cross corridor. Phillips was right when he guessed that the door beyond opened into the rocket room.

  The others were bored by the power plant of the ship. The engineer, however, could not repress a thrill at once more standing surrounded by the gauges, valves, and pumps with which he had formerly lived. He strode about, examining and comprehending such appliances as seemed new since his last service in space.

  “How about it?” demanded Brecken. “Can you handle it?”

  “Sure,” answered Phillips confidently. “Mostly automatic anyway.”

  “Then we can get movin’ whenever we want?”

  “I suppose so. The tanks are nearly full; let’s find those space torpedoes the old man mentioned.”

  “Maybe it won’t hurt, at that,” grumbled Brecken.

  * * * *

  He led the way out, but paused indecisively. Phillips stepped past him and considered the cross passages near the midpoint of the corridor. Those in the plane of the control room deck probably led to port and starboard airlocks, he reasoned, so the others might lead to the torpedo turrets.

  He went to the vertical well and started up the ladder, hearing the others follow. At the top, he was confronted by a hatch with a red danger sign. Glancing about, he located the gauges that reported the air pressure beyond. Normal.

  “Make a little room,” he said, looking down to Brecken.

  The big, ruddy face retreated a few rungs. Phillips could hear the others scrambling further down. He got his head out of the way before pulling the switch that opened the hatch. With a subdued humming of electric motors, the massively constructed door swung down. One after another, they pulled themselves up into the compartment.

  “This must be where they set controls for launching,” guessed Phillips, leaning back against a rack of emergency spacesuits. “That intercom screen on the bulkhead is probably plugged in to the control room. Looks as if the torpedoes themselves are stored under that hatch at the after end.”

  “How do they kick them off?” asked Brecken.

  “Those conveyor belts run them into tubes in the forward bulkhead. A charge of compressed air blows them out, and then the rockets are started and controlled by radio.”

  “You mean we have to point at a target to fire?”

  “Oh, no. Once the rockets are going, the torpedo can be maneuvered and aimed anywhere by remote control.”

  “I’ve seen enough,” announced Truesdale. “I’m hungry.”

  At that, they all decided to return to the main deck. Phillips carefully closed the airtight hatch as they left, then followed the others in search of the galley.

  Later, after a very unsatisfactory meal of packaged concentrates, they loitered sullenly in the control room once more while Donna studied the controls. Phillips had finally decided that he could wear the third spacesuit on the rack if he had to. He was idly examining the tools supplied with it when his thoughts were interrupted.

  Young Truesdale had been monkeying with a range indicator for some time, but now his sharp outcry drew all eyes to him.

  The others immediately gathered to peer over his shoulder. A needle flickered wildly from one side of the dial to the other.

  “Here! Get it balanced,” said Phillips, thrusting a powerful arm between the crowded bodies. As his deft adjustment steadied the needle, he stepped back and leaned against the bulkhead to study their faces. Truesdale’s was pale.

  “It’s them!” he panted.

  “Well,” asked Donna, “what will it be?”

  “Whaddya mean?” demanded Brecken, red-faced. “It’ll be get dam’ well outa here, that’s what it’ll be!”

  “Let’s see you go,” invited the girl coolly. “How well do you pilot a rocket?”

  Brecken’s jaw dropped. “Wh-wh-what? You crazy? Did you swallow all that stuff the old man told you?” he sputtered.

  “Why not?” asked Donna. “They didn’t bring us all the way out here for nothing. Varret was scared. If it’s that dangerous, somebody just has to do it—and we’re here!”

  “Not for long,” said Brecken in an ugly tone. “Get hot on those controls. You, Phillips! Run back to that rocket room and see that things work!”

  “You try it,” suggested the engineer quietly.

  He would have preferred to avoid the trouble the girl had been stirring up, but he did not relish Brecken’s tone. A few days off Luna, he reflected, and already he was getting independent.

  “Listen,” said Donna, encouraged in her defiance, “when I touch those controls, we’ll go right up and touch noses with them. You’d better have a torpedo ready!”

  She turned to the banks of buttons and switches. Muffled thunder from the stern jets trembled through the hull as the men staggered.

  * * * *

  Brecken recovered his balance first. With a snarl, he grabbed the girl by the nape of the neck and shook her roughly. Glimpsing Phillips’ cold sneer, he reached back and seized a heavy metal bar from the spacesuit rack.

  “Now, dammit!” he grated. “You’ll do like I tell you! And you get back there an’ see that those tubes recharge okay!”

  Phillips felt a hard anger swelling his throat. From the corner of his eye, he saw Truesdale shrinking back against the bulkhead. He glanced about desperately for something with which to parry Brecken’s bar.

  It was the girl who broke the tense silence. With a gasping intake of breath, she reached up to claw at Brecken’s face. Cursing, the man twisted his head away to protect his eyes. He released his grip on the girl’s neck and swung a clumsy, backhand blow at her head. Donna stumbled, and collapsed to the deck.

  Now or never, Phillips told himself. Without waiting to think, he hurled himself forward.

  Brecken saw him coming, and tried to shift around to meet the engineer’s charge. Phillips crashed into him shoulder first, and they both brought up against the opposite bulkhead with a thud. He concentrated all his strength into wringing the other’s forearm until he heard the bar clang to the deck.

  Brecken clubbed him on the side of the head with a wild left swing, and Phillips found the big man’s foot in the way when he tried to sidestep. He lost his balance, but kept his grasp on the other so that they went down together, thrashing about for some opening. Brecken was red-faced with a maniacal rage. Beads of saliva sprayed from his twisted lips as he sputtered curses.

  The engineer let go suddenly and jolted the other under the chin with the heel of his left hand. The man arched backward, but Phillips caught a knee in the chest that sent him slithering across the deck. As he strove to twist to his hands and knees, he saw Brecken groping for the bar.

  Never reach him, thought Phillips frantically.

  Thrusting one foot against the leg of an anchored data desk, he raised himself half upright as he lunged desperately at Brecken. Strangely, it occurred to Phillips for a fleeting lapse of time that old Varret had been reasonably astute in his selections, if he desired violent-tempered throwbacks. Then the b
reath was knocked out of him as he smashed into Brecken with a force that sent them both hurtling into the bulkhead.

  The other’s grunt of pain was almost lost beneath the sharp smack of bone against metal. Phillips scrambled up hastily, but his opponent lay still.

  Over by the data desk, Donna was beginning to squirm quietly and make groping motions with her outstretched hands. Truesdale had retreated to the forward end of the control room, his features blanched by apprehension.

  I’ll bet, thought Phillips, that old Varret slipped up in your case, my lad. Your reaction to violence must be what they call normal.

  He beckoned brusquely. “Give me a hand with him,” he ordered.

  Brecken still showed no sign of consciousness. Truesdale approached warily, and with his aid Phillips lifted the unconscious man. With their burden limp in their hands, they staggered down the corridor to one of the sleeping compartments. There, they slung him into a bunk.

  “He needs attention,” said Truesdale.

  “He won’t get it from me,” snapped Phillips. “Lumps on the head were his idea; there’s no time to fool with him.”

  He pulled the sliding door shut, noticing that it had no lock. Since Brecken would probably be some time recovering, however, he put that out of his mind.

  * * * *

  Having returned to the control room, they discovered Donna sitting up. At the sight of them, she pulled herself somewhat shakily to a standing position, and brushed back her blonde hair.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “He bumped his head on the bulkhead,” said Phillips shortly.

  This was accepted without comment. They turned to the instruments and examined the dial of the range indicator.

  “They aren’t very far away,” said Donna quietly. “Where do you stand now, Phillips?”

  “I suppose we’d better do it,” he admitted. “Pretty vicious, aren’t you?”

  “No!” she snapped. “I don’t like it either; I’ve never caused the death of any human being.”

  “Oh, sure. That’s why you were on Luna!”

  She looked at him levelly in the eye, but her shoulders drooped a trifle with the resignation of one who has often been disbelieved.

  “My husband was a nice guy,” she murmured, “but he never did know when he had a drink too many for piloting his jet. He passed out trying to give me a wild ride, and I got to the controls just in time to crash-land the rocket; that’s where they found me before I came to.”

  “Oh,” said Phillips.

  “I’m not half as hard as I’m trying to pretend,” Donna went on, “even after a year on Luna. But I was a nurse before I was married. I’m thinking about what it will be like if this plague hits the planets before they find something to fight it with. The children…imagine that, will you?”

  Phillips stared at the range indicator. It seemed there were times when an ugly thing had to be done for the common good. He wondered how the old-time executioners had felt, in the days when there had been judicial homicide. There were still jailers, for that matter, and men who butchered cattle.

  “Call it a mercy killing,” murmured Donna between pale lips. “Maybe you think that isn’t still done once in a while, in spite of modern society.”

  “Ummh,” Phillips grunted. “Well, if you can watch at this end, Truesdale and I can go set up a couple of torpedoes. I hope those rocket blasts didn’t give us away.”

  “According to Varret,” said Truesdale, “there can’t be many of them still able to think straight enough to stand on watch. I wonder what it’s like.…”

  Phillips glanced askance at him, but led the way into the corridor. First of all, he stopped at the rocket room to check the tube readings. The fired jets had been automatically recharged.

  * * * *

  They left the rocket room and climbed the ladder to the turret. Once inside, Phillips spent the first few minutes inspecting the equipment and thumbing through the manuals left there by Varret. Finally, the bored Truesdale broke in upon his study.

  “That old goat must be crazy to think he could toss us out here and have us act like a trained crew. How can we even hope to do anything right, without blowing ourselves up?”

  “We can try,” said Phillips coldly. “It shouldn’t be impossible to get one started, at least.”

  He found the twin control panels in the bulkhead, and pulled a pair of switches. There was a smooth humming and a slight click as two hatches in the deck slid open. Slanting metal chutes rose out of the dark apertures, just behind the conveyor belts.

  “Look at those babies!” breathed Phillips.

  The snouts of two miniature spaceships protruded from the storage hold. Phillips touched other switches, and the sleek missiles were prodded onto the belts and moved forward until the full, twenty-foot lengths were in view.

  “Phillips, you better be careful with those things!” quavered Truesdale as the engineer unscrewed a small hatch on one.

  “Afraid I’ll blow it up?” asked Phillips, peering inside.

  “Why not? You never touched one before.”

  “You go ahead and believe that,” retorted the engineer. “Now, I’ll just turn on the radio controls, check the batteries, and feed the bad news into the launching tubes. Watch!”

  Replacing the hatch and securing it, he thought out the procedure to use at the remote control panels. Turning on the screen above one of them produced a cross-haired image of the bulkhead directly in front of the near torpedo. He tried various manipulations until he had focused the view and caused it to sweep all around the interior of the turret. After idly watching himself and Truesdale appear on the screen, he returned the view to dead ahead, switched it off, and turned to the other panel.

  “I guess I can finish checking,” he said.

  Truesdale clambered hastily down the ladder. Phillips shook his head. “Don’t know what use he’ll be,” he muttered. “Too bad Brecken wouldn’t listen. He at least…oh, well!”

  He wondered whether he himself would stand up when the time came. What Varret had asked did not sound like much. Just a quick shot and watch them blow apart. What inhibitions made men black out rather than carry it through? It was not as if there were any hope for these people. Surely, it was obvious that to permit them, in their deranged state, to spread a catastrophic plague was inconceivable. But perhaps emotions were stronger than reason.

  “I’ll find out pretty soon,” he reflected.

  There was little more to do in the turret, except to run the torpedoes into the launching tubes and bring up a new pair in reserve. With that much done, he closed the hatch and climbed down the ladder.

  * * * *

  In the control room, he found Donna and Truesdale peering into the screen. He crowded close to look over their shoulders. A small blob of light floated near the center of the view. “That it?” he asked.

  “Yes,” answered Donna. “Just enough Mars-light to show it.”

  “How near are we?” asked Phillips.

  “About a hundred and fifty miles. I have quite a large magnification, but they may spot us if they’re alert. Are you ready to…do something?”

  “Reasonably,” said Phillips. “Where’s Brecken?”

  “You probably killed him!” Truesdale broke in accusingly.

  “I found a first-aid kit and gave him a shot,” said Donna. “He has a nasty lump on the head, but he might sleep it off.”

  Phillips was watching Truesdale. The youth was visibly nervous. Was it the thought of Brecken, the engineer wondered, or fear of what they were planning to do? Perhaps it would be best to clear the air now, before it was too late.

  “I guess you can handle it here, Donna,” he said. “Truesdale and I will go to the turret and stand by.”

  The youth shrank away. “No! I won’t go up there again! You can’t make me do this!”


  “Do what?” demanded Phillips.

  “It’s murder! You both know it is! They won’t even have any warning.”

  “I hope not,” said Phillips drily. “They might get us!”

  “You would put it that way,” sneered Truesdale; “you’re homicidal at heart anyway!” He turned on Donna, wiping perspiration from his forehead. “Are you going to let him do it?” he shrilled. “Are you going to help him commit such a crime?”

  The girl stared at him with a worried look in her blue eyes but said nothing.

  “Come on, Truesdale,” said Phillips, making an effort at a peaceful, persuasive tone. “It will be either their lives or ours if they spot us—and millions more if they get by. They’ll be too desperate to think of us. Do you want to die?”

  The instant he spoke the last words, he remembered the other’s record and wished he had kept quiet. He saw, a strange, wild expression creep over Truesdale’s features. It changed into a look of hateful cunning as the youth, began to sidle toward the door.

  “I’m not afraid to die!” he boasted in a low-pitched but tense voice. “But how about you, Phillips? How about the big, brutal space engineer who is proud of smashing men’s skulls against steel walls, who would like nothing better than to blow up a shipload of innocent people. How do you really know they’re dangerous? But you don’t care, do you?”

  “Truesdale!” snapped Phillips. “Calm down!”

  “I’ll calm you down with me!” shouted the other hysterically. “I’ll show you who’s afraid to die!”

  He ducked through the door toward which he had been backing. Phillips lunged after him, just barely missing a grip.

  “On your toes!” he shouted over his shoulder to Donna, and turned on all jets.

  But Truesdale, driven by his peculiar fury, not only stayed ahead as they raced along the corridor, but actually gained.

  He was fifteen or twenty feet out in front as they reached the midway point. Phillips, expecting him to take refuge in the rocket room, was completely fooled when Truesdale leaped for the ladder in the vertical well. He stumbled, and grabbed a handrail to stop himself. The other was swarming upward. Phillips sprang to follow.