Rocket to Limbo

by Alan Edward Nourse

  Peter shrugged impatiently. “He’d have flunked for sure if he hadn’t had help.”

  “Yes, but you gave him help. All that sarcasm and bitterness was just a phoney act when the chips were down with Barnes, weren’t they, Peter?”

  “All right, so I’m an angel in disguise.”

  “Not by a long way, but now you’re putting this whole crew in jeopardy just to cut Walter Fox’s throat for him. It doesn’t add up, Peter. I’m slow, but I’m not blind. And all these stories about Fox and his crews on exploratories.”

  Peter was on his feet, his eyes blazing. “They’re true!” he cried. “They’re true. You just don’t know. You think he’s great, but he’s cruel and stupid and bad.** Suddenly his voice was different; the sarcasm and arrogance were gone, and he was sincere, almost pleading. “Look. Just listen to me for a minute. There was a landing on Arcturus IV ten years ago, maybe eleven, do you remember? That was the first time a ship had landed there, the prelims had warned against it, but Fox went down. He could have flown the surface in an observation craft, but he was afraid they might miss something on the surface. He thought he had found evidence of an alien on that planet, so he led his crew through a hundred miles of dust storms and desert without proper protection from the sun, without adequate food or water.

  “Fox didn’t find his alien, but when the crew got back to the ship all of them had radiation burns, and three of them were dead. No, you didn’t read the whole story of that trip, because they never published it. They were afraid they’d scare away colonists. They got their colony going, too, but the three men who died didn’t come back to life. They put up a monument to them on Arcturus IV, and then forgot them and the trip just as fast as they could.”

  “Wait a minute,” Lars said. “I read the log of that trip. There was something about dust-devils—”

  “You mean Fox’s obsession. Maybe you remember the names of the men that died.”

  “One was Markovsky, he was the engineer. And there was Lindell and—”

  Lars’ jaw dropped, and he stared at Peter.

  “Go on,” said Peter.

  “I—didn’t know—”

  “Three names on a gravestone,” said Peter. “Markovsky and Lindell and Brigham. Thomas Brigham, navigator on the Star Ship Mimas under Walter Fox. My father.”

  Somewhere in the corridor beyond a time-bell chimed. Far below them the engines of the ship shifted subtly, driving the vibrating thrum-thrum-thrum a fraction faster. Occasionally they heard a voice above them, the clang of a boot on metal plates, familiar sounds of a ship en route, for a Star Ship is never silent. But in the tiny bunkroom it seemed for a moment that a separate world existed.

  “I didn’t know,” said Lars.

  “Of course you didn’t.” Peter’s voice was surprisingly gentle, a gentleness Lars had never heard from him. It struck him even harder than the words Peter had blurted out a moment before. He had known Peter only by the shell, the anger and bitterness and arrogance. But now, suddenly, he knew that all this had only been a shell, and slowly Lars began to understand things. Things that he had wondered about many times before, things he had never understood about the slender, dark-haired youth he had disliked so much.

  Before, he had only seen the hatred that Peter had shown to the world; now, with sudden understanding, he saw the misery and loneliness that lay behind the hatred. He-had a mental picture of a boy, maybe ten years old, receiving the news that his father was dead somewhere, on some far planet. The news created a void that nothing ever again could fill. Then he saw the boy, older, questioning, wondering, having to know why his father had died, impatient in his loss and misery with the published reports, seeking out other crewmen, questioning—

  True answers? Or false? It didn’t matter. All that mattered was the need to strike back, to hate the world that had killed his father, to hate the man who had been responsible. But hatred is a vicious thing, spreading and tainting everything it touches, twisting and hiding the good that it obscures.

  Lars saw it clearly, and shook his head in wonder. “You were determined to get aboard the Ganymede, then. To get to Fox-some way, any way.”

  “I had to get aboard,” Peter said. “If I hadn’t made it this time, I would have the next, or the next. There are lots of men named Brigham. Fox would never know until I got ready to tell him. I had to do it. He’s got to be stopped, somehow, and I’m going to stop him.”

  “But what about the rest?”

  Peter’s lips tightened. “I’ve got to stop Fox. I’m sorry about the rest, but I can’t help it.”

  “It’s wrong, Peter.”

  “He’ll never take another Star Ship off Earth.”

  “But can’t you see that you’re taking it out on every man aboard?”

  “I don’t see how. We’ll turn him back. They won’t have to go to Wolf IV, unless they want to, the next trip, with a man who’s fit to lead them.”

  “Suppose you’re right about Fox, and suppose you don’t turn him back? Then what? Landing on Wolf IV with half the crew in irons, with no morale at all, with everybody afraid of everybody else—” Lars shook his head. “You could destroy every man on the ship, if you keep this up. Even a mutiny in itself, why, the men are sitting on knife-edges up there! Suppose they jumped the gun, tried to take the ship without enough support, at the wrong time. There’d be fighting, Peter. How many are going to be killed, because you want to get Walter Fox? And those that got back, do you think Earth courts would back up a mutiny? The ones that got back would be in for lifetime demolition.”

  Peter’s face was pale. He looked at Lars for a long moment. Then, “I’m sorry. If there was a better way—”

  “But there is!”

  “What?”

  “Look, I don’t know if you’re right or wrong about Commander Fox. I just don’t know. But I do know that he’s stepped over the line legally on this trip. Anything we do now is criminal, because he’s the law on his Star Ship in space. All right. We back him up now. We go to Wolf IV and find the Planetfall if she’s there to be found. Then when we get home we press every charge against him that we can dream up, and press it to the hilt. Kidnaping, conspiracy, incompetence—anything with any grounds at all. When toe get home, Peter, with a crack space lawyer and all the trimmings.”

  “I can’t back him now. Not on anything. I just can’t.”

  “All right, then don’t, but don’t fight him. If you fight him, nobody may get home. You’ll have to move fast. Salter is getting the whole ship aroused, and you’ll have to stop him somehow, but it’s the only thing to do. We can get Fox when it’s all over.”

  Peter looked at Lars. “We?”

  “If you’ll stop this panic you’ve started and go along, I’ll back you to the hilt when we get home.”

  “You give me your word?”

  “You’ve got it.”

  Peter scratched his jaw. “I might be able to slow it up. Salter is the one who’s talking the loudest, but they’re ready to blow any time. I’ll have to move fast.”

  The lights in the bunkroom went out.

  Somewhere above them were sounds of shouts and running feet, and a hatchway clanged shut. Peter jumped up from his bunk, listening. They heard more shouts and a shot.

  “Too latel” he whispered.

  The wall-speaker crackled, and Tom Lorry’s voice roared out:

  “All hands, man your stations. Every man get to his station at once. This ship is now on emergency military orders—”

  The voice was choked off and the speaker went dead.

  “The hold!” Peter cried. “They’ll try to get to the engines—” And then he and Lars were running pell-mell down the dark corridor, wrist-lights flashing, and the thought ran again and again through Lars’ mind: It’s too late! It’s already too late!

  What happened then came so fast that Lars never was sure of the sequence. There were a series of impressions—bodies moving, lights flashing, men shouting, the clanging of the battle stations
bell. He was rushing through darkness, following Peter Brigham’s bouncing wrist-light down a hatch, along a corridor and down into another hatch, black as pitch. Suddenly his light showed no floor, no wall, only a thin metal railing and a catwalk. Lars gasped, dizzy, as his boots went ping-ping-ping on the metal lathing. Then Peter disappeared before him, and Lars groped at the end of the catwalk for metal ladder rungs.

  A metal floor-plate, a walkway leading toward the hulking black engines, their hum a frantic scream in his ears now. Peter stopped, panting, peering into the darkness, and their ears caught more footsteps on the catwalk above, a curse, a flicker of light.

  “Back here!” Peter whispered, and jerked Lars along the walkway. It formed a bridge between the engine controls and the catwalk ladder. Three men, maybe more, were coming down the ladder now, starting up the walkway.

  “Hold it!” Peter’s voice cut out in the darkness. His light flickered on their faces. Jeff Salter was in the lead. Behind him was Bob Tenebreck, the geologist, and another man.

  Salter stopped short, poised. “Brigham? Get out of the way. We’ve got to get those engines.”

  “It’s no good, Jeff. Fox was onto it. He was ready. We can’t pull it off.”

  “I can damn well pull those engines off!” Salter roared. “That’ll throw everybody off their feet for a while.”

  “It’s not the right time!” Peter’s voice was urgent. “You’ve got to call it off.”

  Jeff Salter’s thin face twisted. “Get out of my way. I’m coming through there.”

  He moved straight for them, the other following. Lars pushed Peter aside like a feather and met Salter with a full body block. His broad shoulder crashed into the thin man’s chest, hurling him backward. Salter leaped to his feet with a roar and charged. Lars met him hard with a right that spun his head around, and followed with a left to the body. Salter crumpled to the floor, groaning. But Tenebreck caught Lars hard in the shoulder, spinning him into the other man’s fist. The fist connected before Lars could wriggle loose and strike out at both assailants. Tenebreck fell to his knees, scrambled back up with a snarl and met Lars’ fist full in the mouth. He dropped so hard his head clanged on the floor plate.

  The third man glared at Lars, hesitating to close on him. “Come on,” Lars growled through his teeth. “You waiting for help?”

  Suddenly the lights flashed on, and Lorry’s voice bellowed from the catwalk:

  “All right, you! Stand where you are!”

  Lorry scrambled down the ladder, a machine pistol tight in his fist. Paul Morehouse followed him, eyeing the two men on the floor in surprise. Lorry moved quickly, patting Peter’s pockets. Then he nodded to Morehouse. “Clean. You stop them?” This was to Lars.

  Lars swallowed and nodded.

  “He helping you?” He jerked a thumb at Peter.

  Lars nodded again.

  “Uh. Well, you’d better wipe off your chin. You look like you were chewing them to death. Now get up to the lounge, and lug these creeps along with you.” He glared at Salter and Tenebreck, who were climbing to their feet. “Nothing funny now, or you’ll regret it.”

  Salter groaned, clutching his head. Lorry grinned at Lars. “Come on, Horatio. Give him a hand.”

  The gathering in the lounge was tense and angry. Commander Fox was there, his face white, his lips cutting a thin line across his face. Lorry, Morehouse, Lambert and Kennedy, the photographer, were armed with machine pistols; Kennedy’s arm was in an improvised sling, the white cloth stained with blood.

  Across the room, sullen and pale, stood Salter and Tenebreck and half a dozen others. There was no talking. They glared at Fox, but had nothing to say. The mutiny attempt, such as it was, had failed.

  “All right, how many of you were in on this mess?” Fox asked, looking from man to man.

  Nobody answered. Several of the men looked at their feet. Fox grimaced. “So. You’ve done a great job, the lot of you. You didn’t quite get the ship from me, but you split it as wide open as you could.” His eyes stopped on Peter. “A fine job.”

  There was silence. Feet shuffled. Fox walked back and forth like a tiger in a cage. “All right, if you don’t want to talk, I’ll talk. I run a peaceful ship. I give the orders on it, and my men obey those orders and back me up on the jobs I have to do. If they don’t want it that way, they get off my ship. All right. Now some of you boys don’t seem to like things the way they are. Salter? You’ve been doing a lot of talking. Let’s hear what you have to say, right out in the open so everybody can hear it. Come on, sound off!”

  “We’ve been sold a bill of goods, and we don’t like it,” Salter growled. “You’ve got no legal right to hold us here against our will, and you know it. We don’t want to be guinea pigs in this alien hunt of yours. We don’t want any part of it.”

  “Who’s this ‘we’ you’re talking about?”

  “The majority of the crew,” Salter snapped. “They all think the same, and they don’t want any more of your pep talks, either.”

  “Then just what do you want?”

  “We want to turn back.”

  “So that’s the way it is, eh?” Fox looked around the group. “Leeds? Do you go along with that?”

  “I go along with Salter,” the big engineer said. “I didn’t bargain for this kind of trip when I signed aboard.” “Carpenter?”

  “I say turn back.”

  “Mangano?”

  “Turn back.”

  “All right, let’s get the whole crew in on this. How many of you go with Salter?”

  There was an angry rumble, and hands went into the air. Lars clenched his fists at his sides, counted seven hands, then saw an eighth hesitantly go up. Peter’s hand was down.

  “And with me?”

  Again hands went up: Lorry’s, Morehouse’s, Lambert’s, half a dozen others. Lars raised his hand in the air.

  “Brigham? How about you?”

  “I’m not voting,” Peter said quietly.

  “This is the wrong time to ride the fence.”

  “I’m not voting.”

  “Mr. Lorry, what’s the count.”

  “Eight with Salter, thirteen with you, one abstains.”

  Fox turned his eyes to Peter for a long moment; then with a growl of disgust he turned to Salter. “Seems like you’ve been listening to the wrong advice,” he said slowly. “Well now you’re going to face a few facts. This trip to Wolf IV wasn’t my idea. I didn’t volunteer the ship, or the men. Colonial Service picked me, and outfitted me, because there was a job that had to be done. It may be a very dirty job, but it has to be done”

  He leaned back against the table, his face grim. “The Colonial Service has its back to the wall. An alien scare back home would be a disaster. It would mean an end to the colonization program that Earth has to have. The Service knew that the Planetfall has to be found, and we’ve got the job of finding her. It doesn’t matter whether we like the job or not, we’ve got to do it with all the resources at our command. That means we can’t carry dead wood. There’s no place for cowards on this ship now. Am I making myself clear?”

  Jeff Salter’s face was pale. “You can’t throw us off the ship in deep space!”

  “I can, and I will.”

  “That’s murder.”

  “You can call it anything you like,” Fox said harshly. “Nevertheless, you have a choice, you eight. You’ve attempted a mutiny on this ship. Okay. I’m willing to overlook it because I need men and I need skills on Wolf IV. You can go along with me in landing there and back me up one hundred per cent in the search for the Planetfall, or you can have one lifeboat for the eight of you and two weeks’ food and water, and we’ll break the Koenig field long enough to jettison you. That’s your choice. Think it over. You’ve got ten seconds.”

  The men stared at him, and at Salter. Even Lars could hardly believe the harshness of the Commander’s decree.

  It was no choice. It was a death sentence.

  “All right,” Salter said dully. �
�We’ll back you.”

  “I don’t mean any half-hearted motions. I mean full support. If there’s any break at all, the eight of you pay for it.”

  “We’ll back you.”

  “All right. Get back to your stations. Mr. Morehouse says we’ll make the Wolf system in record time. There’s plenty of work to be done in the meantime. And if we’re lucky, some of us may even leave the place alive.”

  Chapter Six

  The Gray Planet

  Time is amazingly compressible.

  Like the hypothetical “perfect gas,” a day can be pressed down into a second, or expanded to last a lifetime. It seemed to Lars Heldrigsson that the few short days since the Ganymede blasted from Earth had lasted for eons; now, even with the artifically designated day periods and sleep periods, the days and weeks sped by with unimaginable speed.

  There was work—long hours of study, equipment testing, procedure-rehearsal, conference, preparation and planning. Every man on the ship filled a hole in the fabric; every man had to be prepared for anything that might impinge on his specialized field of knowledge. There would be no time for preparation when the time for landfall arrived. The success of the mission, their very lives, depended upon what they did now, before destination, before the unknown was faced.

  The old tradition that the weeks en route on a Star Ship were a leisurely time for the crewmen to while away, get on each other’s nerves and scrap with each other was a snare and a delusion of staggering proportions. Lars woultf have laughed at the thought, if he had had time to think about it, but he didn’t

  Not that everything was sweetness and harmony. There was still talking and complaining. No one could really forget that a mutiny had been attempted, nor could they forget the choice that the Commander had laid down for the insurgents. There were bitter feelings, angry words, but even these faded away in the weight of the work that had to be done. There wasn’t time to be bitter, or angry. There wasn’t time to talk. There was a job that took the skill and wit of every man on the crew, and the job had to be done first.