by H. B. Fyfe
3]
Brecken recovered his balance first. With a snarl, he grabbed the girlby the nape of the neck and shook her roughly. Glimpsing Phillips' coldsneer, he reached back and seized a heavy metal bar from the spacesuitrack.
"Now, dammit!" he grated. "You'll do like I tell you! And _you_ get backthere an' see that those tubes recharge okay!"
Phillips felt a hard anger swelling his throat. From the corner of hiseye, he saw Truesdale shrinking back against the bulkhead. He glancedabout desperately for something with which to parry Brecken's bar.
It was the girl who broke the tense silence. With a gasping intake ofbreath, she reached up to claw at Brecken's face. Cursing, the mantwisted his head away to protect his eyes. He released his grip on thegirl's neck and swung a clumsy, backhand blow at her head. Donnastumbled, and collapsed to the deck.
_Now or never_, Phillips told himself. Without waiting to think, hehurled himself forward.
Brecken saw him coming, and tried to shift around to meet the engineer'scharge. Phillips crashed into him shoulder first, and they both broughtup against the opposite bulkhead with a thud. He concentrated all hisstrength into wringing the other's forearm until he heard the bar clangto the deck.
Brecken clubbed him on the side of the head with a wild left swing, andPhillips 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 wentdown together, thrashing about for some opening. Brecken was red-facedwith a maniacal rage. Beads of saliva sprayed from his twisted lips ashe sputtered curses.
The engineer let go suddenly and jolted the other under the chin withthe heel of his left hand. The man arched backward, but Phillips caughta knee in the chest that sent him slithering across the deck. As hestrove to twist to his hands and knees, he saw Brecken groping for thebar.
_Never reach him_, thought Phillips frantically.
Thrusting one foot against the leg of an anchored data desk, he raisedhimself half upright as he lunged desperately at Brecken. Strangely, itoccurred to Phillips for a fleeting lapse of time that old Varret hadbeen reasonably astute in his selections, if he desired violent-temperedthrowbacks. Then the breath was knocked out of him as he smashed intoBrecken with a force that sent them both hurtling into the bulkhead.
The other's grunt of pain was almost lost beneath the sharp smack ofbone against metal. Phillips scrambled up hastily, but his opponent laystill.
Over by the data desk, Donna was beginning to squirm quietly and makegroping motions with her outstretched hands. Truesdale had retreated tothe forward end of the control room, his features blanched byapprehension.
_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 approachedwarily, and with his aid Phillips lifted the unconscious man. With theirburden limp in their hands, they staggered down the corridor to one ofthe 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 hisidea; there's no time to fool with him."
He pulled the sliding door shut, noticing that it had no lock. SinceBrecken would probably be some time recovering, however, he put that outof 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 standingposition, 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 andexamined the dial of the range indicator.
"They aren't very far away," said Donna quietly. "Where do you standnow, Phillips?"
"I suppose we'd better do it," he admitted. "Pretty vicious, aren'tyou?"
"No!" she snapped. "I don't like it either; I've never caused the deathof 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 triflewith the resignation of one who has often been disbelieved.
"My husband was a nice guy," she murmured, "but he never did know whenhe had a drink too many for piloting his jet. He passed out trying togive me a wild ride, and I got to the controls just in time tocrash-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, "evenafter a year on Luna. But I was a nurse before I was married. I'mthinking about what it will be like if this plague hits the planetsbefore they find something to fight it with. The children ... imaginethat, will you?"
Phillips stared at the range indicator. It seemed there were times whenan ugly thing had to be done for the common good. He wondered how theold-time executioners had felt, in the days when there had been judicialhomicide. There were still jailers, for that matter, and men whobutchered cattle.
"Call it a mercy killing," murmured Donna between pale lips. "Maybe youthink _that_ isn't still done once in a while, in spite of modernsociety."
"Ummh," Phillips grunted. "Well, if you can watch at this end, Truesdaleand I can go set up a couple of torpedoes. I hope those rocket blastsdidn't give us away."
"According to Varret," said Truesdale, "there can't be many of themstill able to think straight enough to stand on watch. I wonder whatit'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. Onceinside, Phillips spent the first few minutes inspecting the equipmentand thumbing through the manuals left there by Varret. Finally, thebored Truesdale broke in upon his study.
"That old goat must be crazy to think he could toss us out here and haveus 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 getone started, at least."
He found the twin control panels in the bulkhead, and pulled a pair ofswitches. There was a smooth humming and a slight click as two hatchesin the deck slid open. Slanting metal chutes rose out of the darkapertures, 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 proddedonto the belts and moved forward until the full, twenty-foot lengthswere in view.
"Phillips, you better be careful with those things!" quavered Truesdaleas 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 justturn on the radio controls, check the batteries, and feed the bad newsinto the launching tubes. Watch!"
Replacing the hatch and securing it, he thought out the procedure to useat the remote control panels. Turning on the screen above one of themproduced a cross-haired image of the bulkhead directly in front of thenear torpedo. He tried various manipulations until he had focused theview and caused it to sweep all around the interior of the turret. Afteridly watching himself and Truesdale appear on the screen, he returnedthe 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'tlisten. He at least ... oh, well!"
He wondered whether he himself would stand up when the time came. WhatVarret had asked did not sound like much. Just a quick shot and watchthem blow apart. What inhibitions made men black out rather than carryit 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, tospread a catastrophic plague was inconceivable. But perhaps emotionswere stronger than reason.
"I'll find out pretty soon," he reflected.
There was little more to do in the turret, except to run the torpedoesinto the launching tubes and bring up a new pair in reserve. With thatmuch done, he closed the hatch and climbed down the ladder.
* *
