Lifeboat

by Harry Harrison

  “Tonky!” Giles reacted instinctively, snatching the banknote back out of Esteven’s reach, and the cry from Esteven at the loss was proof enough. “A tonky-chewer! I’ve heard about the drug— one of the pseudohallucinogens, isn’t it? You take it and nothing seems real after a while. So that’s what’s been at you!”

  “Honor, sir ...” Esteven was trying to crawl over Giles, to get at the hand with which Giles held the banknote behind him. The entertaincom’s chin was wet all over now with saliva. “Please ... you don’t know what it’s like! Every little wrong sound hurts. It hurts to move, even....”

  Giles shoved the man away. It was like shoving away a child. Esteven seemed strengthless. He tumbled back from the cot to the floor and crouched there, panting.

  “Be sensible,” said Giles, coldly, although inside him he was moved as much as he was sickened by the sight of the man in this state. “Even if I gave you this banknote, it’d only do you for one or two more doses and we’ve got weeks yet before we reach a planet where you could get more paper. And the tonk has to be taken with paper, doesn’t it? It has to be buffered with some cellulose or else it can hit hard and kill you. How did you get started taking a poison like that in the first place?”

  “What does an Adelman like you know?” Esteven almost screamed at him from the floor. “I can play thirty-two instruments, but who wants to listen, nowadays? So I’m an entertaincom. I arrange and play moron-tapes of moron-music to moron-arbites; and that’s my life, all the life I have. All the life I’ll ever have—on Earth or out on the colonies. Oh, please, just give me half of the paper ... just a scrap of it to go with the bit of tonk I’ve got left.”

  “No.”

  Giles got to his feet, putting the banknote back into his pocket “I can’t help you to do that sort of damage to yourself. I won’t help you. You’re going to have to face life without the drug when it runs out, so face it now!”

  He strode off, through the opening in the screen beside him, headed for the forward part of the lifeship, away from the mewling pleas of Esteven. Inside himself, it felt as if a huge, cruel hand had just gripped his intestines and twisted them. Everything that he had learned in those years of his growing up, everything that he had come to believe in, sickened at the thought of Esteven there, groveling on the floor and pleading for a scrap of paper. Giles choked, almost gagging. He could not crawl and whimper like that—no matter what any drug, man, or alien should do to him. Anything would be preferable to such a state.

  He passed through to the forward part of the lifeship and began to pace back and forth. There was no end to problems. Now that he knew what was wrong with Esteven, it was necessary to decide what to do to help the man. Obviously Esteven was going to have to do without the drug—and, with luck, that would break him of his dependence on it. But he would undoubtedly need attention and care while he was going through his period of withdrawal....

  Giles frowned, trying to recall all he knew about the drug— one of the illegal toxics made and circulated in the arbite social ranks. It was, if he remembered rightly, a purely synthetic drug, originally developed as an aid to psychiatric treatment, before its dangerous and addictive side had been understood.

  It was a complex, long-chain molecule that affected the nervous system directly, causing poisoning and death if it was not absorbed by the system slowly. It had an affinity for carbohydrates, and any of these slowed down its action if taken at the same time as a minute quantity of the drug in its gray, powder form. Plain cellulose in the form of paper was the most convenient and most effective carbohydrate to companion a dose. Tonk, taken and chewed slowly with paper, reacted with its molecules locking onto the carbohydrate molecules, and was absorbed by the body chemistry only very slowly, over a matter of hours or even a couple of days. That meant that a little of the drug must go a long way. It must also mean that the body of an addict ended up having some trace of the drug lingering in its system most of the time ... and deterioration, both mental and physical, would be swift under those conditions.

  The ib fruit was high in protein and low in carbohydrates. Those carbohydrates it did have were easily and quickly digestible, of little use in slowing down the effect of tonk taken with them. This explained Esteven’s attempt on the navigation book earlier. The pages of that book were made of vegetable fiber—

  A wailing sliced through his thoughts. He jerked his head up to stare through the opening in the nearer screen.

  Esteven was coming toward the front of the lifeship, his mouth open with a long rope of saliva pendent from it, keening the sound Giles had just heard, over and over again, breaking off only to chew and swallow, and wail again. His hands were out in front of him, Teaching blindly. Plainly, he neither heard nor saw Giles.

  He’s taken some of the drug, Giles thought, taken it raw.

  Even as he was thinking this, he was on his feet and headed back through the middle section of the lifeship to meet Esteven.

  “I’ll help you,” he called to the drugged man. “Hold on. We can do something.”

  Staring eyes in Esteven’s face glared right through him. Giles reached the man, grabbed him by the shoulders, and hurled him backward. For a moment, Esteven resisted with a strength that was unbelievable. Then he staggered back through the screen and against the ib fruit press. His outflung left hand closed on the handle of the press, jerked at it, and the rust-eaten handle snapped off short, leaving a long length of it like a jagged-ended club in Esteven’s hand.

  He came forward again, still wailing, swinging the club with an overhand motion. Giles dived forward, trying to get under that swing, but he was only partly successful. The club glanced off the side of his head. Still struggling to keep his feet, he reeled sideways into a roaring red darkness on the very edge of unconsciousness.

  Vaguely, he was conscious of Esteven going past him.

  “Book ...” croaked Giles to the other humans. “The navigation book! He’s after it ... stop him!”

  His head was clearing now. But he saw the arbites of the middle section making no effort to stop Esteven. Instead they were scrambling out of his path, trying to stay as far away from him as possible. Giles got his half-stumbling body under control and lurched after the madman.

  Hem appeared in the opening of the first screen. Esteven swung the club again, and Hem made a heavy, grunting noise, as the metal length thudded against his right upper arm, knocking him aside. Beyond Hem and in front of the book on its jewel-bright stand appeared the tall, lean, dark figure of the Captain.

  “No, Esteven!” cried Giles, plunging forward. But he could not catch up with the man before Esteven reached the alien figure barring his way. A third time Esteven struck with the club.

  There was no room to dodge. A human could not have escaped being struck. But the Captain swayed, bending her body in a sudden and gracefully serpentine arc to one side, so that the club whistled by, missing her by inches. At the same time her right hand shot forward, not clutching, but striking, the three long fingers clustered together to form a solid-ended rod that drove into Esteven’s chest.

  The force of the blow knocked the human backward, off his feet He dropped the club and lay for a second, apparently fighting for breath. Then he managed another choked wail and scrambled to his feet. Obviously, he had been hurt at least the breath knocked out of him and possibly ribs were broken; but under the influence of the drug he was still moving. He lurched once more blindly toward the navigation book.

  The Captain was waiting for him. But before he could reach the alien, who still stood barring the way, Giles caught up with him from behind, caught him around the body, and hurled him off his feet. The Captain stepped forward, but now it was Giles who barred the way.

  “No!” shouted Giles, in Basic. He switched to Albenareth. “I forbid it! He doesn’t know what he’s doing!”

  “This time I end him,” said the Captain. She faced Giles and her powerful club of fingers were aimed at him now. “I gave you warning.”

&nbs
p; Esteven was starting to scramble up from the floor, but now Hem was looming over him. Hem raised his left arm, the heavy fist at the end of it balled into a rocklike shape aimed to descend on the nape of Esteven’s neck.

  “Don’t kill him!” Giles shouted at Hem.

  The blow from the big arbite was already started. Somehow, he managed to turn it slightly off target It hit high on the back of Esteven’s head, instead of in the vulnerable spinal area.

  Giles turned back to the Captain, just as she started to brush him aside. “No! Wait. Think. You are more powerful than any one of us, but what of all of us, together? If you have no fear for yourself, what of the new life you carry in you? Will you risk what all of us together might be able to do to it?”

  The Captain checked herself, inhumanly, in mid-motion, and was suddenly as still as if she had never intended to move.

  “I know his sickness now,” said Giles, swiftly. “I did not before. Now I can guarantee he will not come forward in the lifeship or threaten to touch your book.”

  Still, the Captain did not move. The adrenaline that had kept Giles on his feet since he had been hit on the head by the metal handle was beginning to die within him. He felt consciousness seeping out of him.

  “Believe me!” he said, urgently. “It is one or the other. I will not let you kill one of my people!”

  For a second Esteven’s life, and perhaps the lives of all the rest of them, hung balanced. Giles forced himself to stand upright, to stare into the Captain’s dark, unreadable eyes. Within he prayed that the Albenareth would not realize how badly Giles, himself, was hurt, how Hem was one-armed now, how the other arbites would be like rabbits facing a wolf without Hem or himself to spearhead an attack.

  “Very well,” said the Captain, stepping back. “This last time I give you the life of this one. No more.”

  She turned and went in behind her screen, disappearing. Giles turned, fainting, to find himself caught by half a dozen hands, Mara’s and Biset’s among them.

  10

  Fifteenth day—16:19 hours

  “Feeling any better?” Mara asked.

  “I suppose so,” said Giles—then reproved himself silently for giving such a grudging answer. “Nonsense. I’m a lot better. Fine, in fact.”

  “Not fine,” said Mara, looking at him keenly. “I know better than that. But you’re going to live, anyway.”

  “Live? Of course I’ll live. Why wouldn’t I?” he said stiffly.

  “Because you probably had a concussion,” she said. “When metal and bone come together, it isn’t the metal that gives.”

  “Well, never mind that,” said Giles. He touched his hand to his bandaged head, pleased in spite of himself by the fact someone cared how he felt. “I have to admit things have been kind of hazy of late. How long was I...”

  He fumbled for a suitable word.

  “How long have you been like this?” she said. “Five days.”

  “Five days?” He stared at her. “Not five days?”

  “Five,” she said, grimly.

  He was beginning to feel the effort of talking. He lay still for a second, while she did something or other down near the foot of the cot he was lying on.

  “This isn’t my cot!” he said suddenly, trying to sit up. She pushed him back down. He was in the rear section of the lifeship.

  “Rest,” she said. “Lie still. We brought you in here because we didn’t want the Captain to see how helpless you were.”

  “Good,” he said, staring at the lights overhead. “That was wise.”

  “Sensible.”

  “All right—sensible.” He began to remember things. “How’s Hem?”

  “All right,” she said.

  “His arm wasn’t broken? I was afraid.”

  “No. Just bruised. He’s got bones like a horse.”

  Giles sighed with relief.

  “Esteven—”

  “Two broken ribs, I think. We had to tie him up for a day or two, while he went through withdrawal from the drug,” Mara said. She came up near the head of his cot and handed him what seemed to be a small plastic envelope with a few tablespoonfuls of gray powder in it. “This is what’s left of his tonk. We thought you’d want to be the one to keep it.”

  He took the envelope in a hand that required a surprising amount of energy for him to lift, and tucked the drug remnant away into a chest pocket of his shipsuit.

  “You had to tie him up?” Giles asked. “But how is he now?”

  “Quiet,” she said. “Too quiet. We have to watch him all the time. He’s tried to kill himself several times. They go into that sort of depression during withdrawal after the pains quit, Biset says. She’s seen other cases of addicts arrested by the police and having to quit cold, like this. The depression can last for weeks. She also said we’d all be better off if he killed himself.”

  Giles shook his head, feebly.

  “Poor lad,” he said.

  “He’s not a ‘lad’ and he’s not ‘poor’!” said Mara sharply. “He’s a very unhappy, maybe psychotic, full-grown man, who indulged himself in drugs and nearly got us all killed.”

  He stared up at her, puzzled.

  “I had the wrong choice of words, I guess,” he said. “But I don’t understand—”

  “No,” she said. “That’s your trouble. You don’t understand!”

  She turned and went off. He had an impulse to rise from the cot and follow her, to make her explain herself. But the first attempt to sit up made his head swim. He lay back, furious at his own helplessness, but helpless none the less.

  He fell asleep. Later, he woke when it was evidently a sleep period for the rest of them. The recorder was turned down to a murmur, and there was no noise of human voices talking in the background. He felt much more clear-headed and comfortable.

  He looked around him. He was alone in the rear section of the lifeship. It was as it had been. Even the broken handle to the press was welded back into place. He wondered what had been used for this. Only Di and Frenco were not to be seen—they must have moved into one of the other sections. The thought that they might have moved out of consideration for him was oddly touching. Curious. Before he had left Earth on this mission, he would have simply taken it for granted that any arbites would move elsewhere to give him space to himself.

  Paul Oca had been right—he had not understood arbites at all. At least, he had not understood them anywhere near as well as he understood them now, after living with a handful of them in these close quarters for fifteen days. On the other hand, Mara had just finished telling him he didn’t understand, and no doubt—he grinned wryly in the emptiness of the rear section of the lifeship— that was true also.

  But all such matters of understanding were beside the point He had probably been a fool to risk his mission and his life by trying to save Esteven from the Captain. But at least he knew enough about himself now to realize that he was self-condemned to such foolishness in certain areas of behavior. It was strange ... Mara had objected to his calling Esteven a “lad.” He had used the word unthinkingly as any Adelborn might use it in such a situation. But of course Mara was right: Esteven was not a lad, although it was part of Adelborn attitude to think of the arbites as simpler, childlike individuals, limited by birth and training.

  Curiously, at the moment, he found himself wondering if exactly the opposite was not true. The arbites aboard were anything but simple, non-mature people. In fact, with the possible exception of Di and Hem—and possibly not even them, come to think of it— they were not merely adults, but hardened adults, scarred and twisted by the lives they had led, to the point of having or lacking certain traits of character.

  He, on the other hand ... perhaps he was the immature specimen. Life had not operated upon him to make him what he was. What he was in character and reactions had been a suit of armor ready-made and waiting for him to put it on at so young an age that he had no real judgment about its worth. Since then, he had worn it unthinkingly. It was not until this
trip off-Earth, with its mission, its burning spaceship, its lifeship, and its handful of shipwrecked arbites, that he had begun to feel differently about many things, and change inside his armor. What he had felt and the changes he had experienced had left him adrift for the first time, at a loss to understand the rights and wrongs of matters he had always taken for granted.

  He felt lost, now, and weak. There was a strange unhappiness in him he could not identify. As if he was lacking in something... something necessary. For a second he entertained the thought that it might be a simple physical thing he was feeling, the natural aftermath of the concussion from the blow on the head. But that seemed hardly likely....

  He shoved that whole question aside. There was something more important to think about. If he had been out of matters for as long as five days, it was only a matter of hours now until the lifeship would pass the point where changing course from Belben to make an earlier arrival at 20B-40 would be possible. They had reached the point where the Captain must make the change— without any more delay—and, for the first time, Giles felt he had found a way of convincing her to do it.

  Now was an ideal time to talk to the Captain, with all the others asleep. A trifle gingerly, half expecting any sudden movement to wake the swimming head he had felt earlier when lie tried to sit up, Giles lifted himself first to a sitting position on the edge of the bed, then slowly got to his feet. But his head stayed clear. He was conscious of a feeling of delicacy, as if he was made of glass above the shoulders and might shatter if jarred too abruptly, but other than that he felt as good as ever.

  He walked slowly and carefully through the pair of screens and up to the front of the ship. As he went, he examined the ib vine he passed. The dead leaves were many now, and only an occasional unspotted fruit showed among the mere handful that seemed to be ripening. When he got to the front section, where his own cot was, he saw the tank that collected and held the juice from the ib fruit. It was now welded against the hull in a new position, just back of the Captain’s screen. Only the Albenareth, herself, could have done that. Giles had not even been aware that there were tools aboard capable of removing and rewelding the tank in this new position.