Exodus listened to all this in a kind of frozen wonderment, still not fully able to believe that he had been completely tricked. This was not the matter that worried him as the fear of the kind of reprisal his mother would take. He had exposed his hand completely and now she would be in complete control of the situation.
“You see, Exodus,” came her dry voice, “I am much more indispensable than you would imagine. However, you are my son, and despite this villainous attack upon me, by which I imagine you hoped you would gain full power, I am not yet prepared to say what kind of action should be taken about you. I think it better that we should discuss that in a proper manner. Slide the emergency shield over the porthole, switch the air pressure tanks on to normal, remove the slide from the corridor, which I presume is in position—and join me in the lounge in five minutes.”
With that the radio communication ceased with an abrupt click. Exodus compressed his lips, muttered something to himself, then moved across to the porthole to put the first of his orders into execution.
Within the stipulated time he had done everything as instructed and. with the air pressure once again normal he rid himself of his spacesuit and on the way to the lounge looked once in the compartment where Orius was sleeping. Apparently the child was quite undisturbed, so evidently Merva had not attempted to use him for the energy-extraction.
Silently withdrawing again, but not troubling this time to lock the door, Exodus went on his way to join his mother in the lounge.
CHAPTER SIX
COSMIC COLLISION
“I suppose,” Merva said, her face grim, “that at this moment you are considering it a matter of profound regret that I did not die as you intended? In trying to be rid of me, Exodus, you have a great deal more on your hands than you imagine.”
“I should have known that,” he said, quietly, for once genuinely contrite. “On the other hand I do not make any apology for having tried to dispose of you. Neither of us likes sharing power and I think were the circumstances reversed you would unhesitatingly have endeavoured to do the same thing.”
“Probably,” Merva admitted, shrugging. And as on that other long gone occasion their eyes met each other steadily—and again as before, neither showed the least sign of flinching.
“So now,” Merva said, “we face an impasse. Just before I retired I made it my business to check up on the amount of energy gained from those children upon whom I experimented. I regret to say that the gain is so slight that there is still only enough energy left for one of us to complete the thousand year voyage and make the journey back home to exact revenge.”
Exodus looked puzzled. “But how does that come about? I understood you to say that there would be a great increase in the amount of energy once you had—”
“Yes, and that was exactly what I believed. Unfortunately, however, these children are by no means as virile and strong as were the preceding generation from which you came. They are the children of parents who have been greatly reduced in vitality due to the energy extraction in their youth, and as far as I can see this kind of defect will become progressive in that the children of each generation of children will become weaker due entirely to this exchange. Nor is it something that can be altered by skipping one generation in between and thereby giving one batch of children the chance to catch up on lost energy Indeed, Exodus, as far as I can see there is only one chance left....”
“And that is?”
“Give the children a few more years to develop and mature and then again take energy from them. Even the inclusion of Orius, which you are against, would make little difference to the full quota, so he can be discounted. It will be a tremendous risk since they may die as the result of a double energy extraction in the course of their young lives—but it is something that has to be chanced. Their parents must also be informed immediately that more children are required as fast as possible, who can stand by in the event of these present children failing to supply a second extraction.”
“In fact, taking it all round,” Exodus said, drily, “it would probably have solved a great many problems if I had succeeded in my efforts to eliminate you.”
“Probably, only you did not. The best thing we can do is examine these children, see how they are recovering from the extraction, and then make the necessary arrangements to restore them to full health and vigour as rapidly as possible.”
Exodus nodded. At the moment there was nothing else he could do but fall in entirely with his mother’s plans. For the time being his own schemes had gone completely awry and he was more or less forced to obey her until there dawned on him some fresh line of action.
Turning, he followed his mother from the lounge and then down the long passage to the compartment that had been turned into a small dormitory where the children had been left to recover. When Merva switched on the light it appeared that they were still sleeping and with unusual heaviness. In a few seconds Merva had discovered the truth and turned startled eyes to Exodus as he stood immediately behind her.
“These children are dead,” she said slowly, straightening up and for a moment or two she stared in front of her as though she could not believe it. “And from the coldness of them they have been dead for some hours. I suppose that this couldn’t be some trickery of yours?” she demanded.
“Not this time,” Exodus answered, coldly. “I have not concerned myself in the least with the children: I was too busy trying to dispose of you.”
“This puts us in a disastrous situation,” Merva muttered. “Only enough energy for one of us, and even if more children were born by the present parents there is no guarantee that they will be any more virile than these who have died from reaction. What bit of energy that they may be able to give off will not add much to the store that we have at the moment. And yet more children are an absolute necessity otherwise there will be none to grow to maturity to produce more children. The whole thing is nothing more or less than a vicious circle.”
“As far as I can see,” Exodus commented, after a long, thoughtful silence, “there is only one way out of this one mother, now that these children are dead. Either you or I have to finish the journey and exact the vengeance upon which we are both set. You are quite convinced that there is enough energy for one?”
“Yes,” Merva admitted, tonelessly. “One will be able to manage very easily.”
“Very well then, which of us is to die?”
There was a heavy silence in the chamber and Merva did not immediately respond. She stood looking down at the silent children then she wandered slowly out into the corridor again with Exodus coming up behind her. He closed the door of the compartment with a sudden air of resolution.
“This is not a matter which can be escaped,” he said bluntly. “We have to decide this issue once and for all.”
“And what do you suggest?” Merva asked bitterly.
“That we draw lots, or something like that?”
“We might do worse.”
Merva moved uncertainly, plainly quite unable to make up her mind. Exodus watched her narrowly. He was quite determined that no matter which way the issue went—that even if he were the one to whom it should fall to eliminate himself—he would not do so. He believed, that rightly or wrongly, as the younger of the two, it should be Merva’s task to give way.
Then suddenly as they both strove to find a way round the difficulty there came a sound in the empty, silent reaches of the great space liner.
It began as a distant buzzing which rapidly travelled the length of the ship and changed to a strident ringing noise coming from a dozen or more alarm bells scattered in various parts of the vessel.
Just for a moment Merva and Exodus looked at one another, since it was the first time that the alarm bell had sounded during the colossal journey from Earth. It meant that somewhere outside the ship there was danger approaching either in the shape of a meteor or in the form of some cosmic hulk or other.
“Quick,” Merva said abruptly, all else forgotten for the moment
, “the control room! We’ve got to find out what this means!”
She and Exodus fled down the remaining stretch of corridor just as in other parts of the ship other members of the party stirred lazily and wondered what all the commotion was about. Not that they troubled themselves to find out; for one thing they were too lazy minded and physically weary, and for another they were content to leave any threat to their safety to the handling of Merva and Exodus—so they made no move. But as the alarm bells ceased ringing, on Merva disconnecting the circuit they went to sleep again, not in the least concerned. As yet they had no idea their children had died.
In the control room, however, there was very real concern since both Merva and Exodus knew what damage might be done to the ship if it were struck by a wandering hulk.
Merva immediately set the radar scarching-equipment into action, which was in itself linked to the alarm system in that it sent out an ‘echo’ beam for a million miles ahead of the vessel and it reflected back to the ship the presence of any object which might be in its path.
Immediately the apparatus was switched on there appeared on the reflective screen a shimmering point of light, which was gradually expanding with the seconds. Instantly Exodus slipped the measuring scale into operation and then gave a whistle of alarm.
“Right in our track!” he gasped. “And from the look of it it’s a large asteroid nearly a thousand miles in diameter! Since we cannot by any conceivable method turn the vessel aside—the controls being locked to the electronic brain—we’ll have to switch on the repeller shields and hope for the best. Personally, the velocity we’re going at and with that thing dead centred in our tracks I don’t think there is much we can do!”
He crossed swiftly to the master switchboard and thrust into contact the switch controlling the repeller field. This meant that the vessel was immediately encased in a cocoon of energy outside, which should prove effective enough to deflect the approaching obstacle—or more correctly deflect the ship itself from the course of the obstacle. An object as big as that was most likely to be unmoved, rather the recoil would tend to shift the vessel itself from its predetermined course. After which the electronic brain would make the necessary corrections for having swerved off the charted path and would eventually restore the machine to its normal position in space.
“That thing,” Merva said, looking at the screen, “is heading towards us at thousands of miles a second, partly on account of its own velocity and partly on account of our speed. In about five minutes we’ll know the worst. We might as well put our space suits on in case the air pressure should happen to escape.”
Exodus dived across to the storage cupboard, afterwards dragging out a couple of the suits and handing one to his mother. Both of them quickly bundled themselves into the voluminous folds and screwed on the helmets, by which time the distended glow on the radar echo screens showed that the object was almost upon them.
“We’d show a great deal more sense if we got out of this control room,” came Merva’s voice through the audio-phone. “That thing is advancing straight towards us and the control room will be the first place to get hit.”
Exodus nodded promptly and headed out of the doorway and along the corridor. He expected that his mother was immediately behind him, but she delayed for a second or two to check on the fact that the repeller circuit was working at full voltage. And it was in those few seconds that the thing happened.
Abruptly, as he was nearing the end of the corridor, his goal being the storage hold in which was standing the immense cosmic radiation generator, Exodus found himself flung from his feet by a monstrous concussion. The impact of it hurled him against the wall and dropped him half senseless to the floor.
As he lay there struggling to recover his wits he noticed the lights bobbing in and out, due entirely to the immense electrical reaction from the power plant as the repeller shields strove to fling aside the cause of the immense disturbance. These were occurrences which happened in a matter of seconds and then he suddenly found himself being lifted to his feet and dragged along the corridor as though by an invisible rope. Immediately he went to work to check his slithering advance as he realised the cause of the trouble.
In the control room a great rent had evidently been torn in the ship and the air was escaping through it, pulling everything movable along with it. With a tremendous effort Exodus managed to scramble to the wall and thereafter to brace himself to prevent his being sucked through the gap that must exist in the control room. By the time he had been dragged this far, however, the air from the corridor and the control room had completely escaped and the danger for him was over.
Grateful for the spacesuit that had saved him from asphyxiation, he tumbled into the control room and looked about him—almost immediately gazing upon a scene of total chaos and ruin.
In the side of the vessel a great ragged hole lay open to the stars. The meteor or cosmic hulk or whatever it had been, had now passed on its way leaving behind it the most appalling damage.
Nor was the material damage the main thing, for Merva lay face down on the floor, jammed against a fixed stool by way of her legs being either side of it. There was a rip down the back of her space suit where a jagged metal chunk from the roof had sliced through it with its razor keen edge. Instantly Exodus hurried forward, dropping on his knees and gathering the limp form of his mother in his arms. Not that there was any point in doing this for with the abrupt evaporation of air from her suit and the inrush of interstellar vacuum her lungs had ceased to function.
She lay with her eyes closed behind the transparent helmet, her face marble white in the tautness of death! Still unsatisfied Exodus slipped a detector from under one of the hooks on his belt and thrusting it inside his mother’s suit held it against her heart. The delicate needle that normally responded distinctly to the lowest of heartbeats remained at zero. There was no question of it any more—his mother was dead.
Dazed, and not quite sure whether this was good fortune or not as far as his mother was concerned, he finally got to his feet again and surveyed the wreckage about him Apparently the main electronic brain switchboard connected to the controls had escaped damage, but most of the smaller instruments, such as the radar detector and the radio equipment, were shattered to fragments and also several of the upright stanchions supporting the roof had buckled like tapers before a hot fire.
Stumbling about amidst the wreckage, Exodus finally reached the doorway again and so made his way out into the corridor, his intention being to inform the others aboard the vessel of what had happened. To his amazement, as he advanced down the corridor, he beheld the other men and women in the corridor itself, sprawled about the floor in various positions, the doors of their different apartments swinging open. Immediately it dawned upon him what had happened. The concussion of the ship had aroused each one of them, as it could hardly have failed to do, and they had quickly left their compartments to discover the cause of the trouble, not knowing that the air had been sucked from the main body of the ship.
They had instantly stumbled into the interstellar airlessness and collapsed, dying in just the same fashion as Merva had done. And amongst them was the small form of Orius! Exodus looked down at him, stunned. The child too, then, had emerged from his unlocked compartment to investigate the commotion, and now….
Exodus compressed his lips, struggling hard to comprehend the fact that, next to himself, he had lost the one life he valued most. Exodus himself had heard nothing of all this for in the insulation of his spacesuit he had been unable to pick up any sound—and for that matter no sound could have reached him anyway since there existed a complete vacuum—all the air, save for the little remaining in the few bedrooms, having by now been sucked out into the inexorable vacuum of outer space.
Indeed, things had happened so fast that Exodus hardly knew what to do next. It was only by degrees that it dawned upon him that he was the only living being aboard the vessel. And, individual person though he was, the thought of it
gave him just a little fear for the moment, as the immense aloneness slowly filtered into his mind.
He was the one living being in the uncharted depths of infinity, and as such, the only living person who could ever bring the great scheme of vengeance to a successful conclusion. Somehow the idea of vengeance seemed infinitely far away at the moment. His immediate predicament was the one thing that demanded consideration.
Finally, after careful consideration of the situation, Exodus made his first moves. To begin with there were the various bodies to dispose of and these presented no problem since he had only to take them to the ejection chamber and so project them into the depths of space. After this he was indeed alone and he spent a couple of hours carefully examining the battered ship from end to end and determining which parts remained intact.
Altogether the damage was not so severe as he had at first suspected. The main source of trouble seemed to be in the control room, but otherwise most of the vital instruments, and particularly the machine tool equipment, were more or less in perfect condition. So, also, to his intense relief, was the life-energy equipment. The biggest trouble was the great rent torn in the mass of the vessel and before the ship could be considered void-worthy again that gap had got to be repaired—which of course it could easily be since the machine tool equipment was undamaged.
Of necessity he was still compelled to work in his spacesuit, which, mainly owing to the clumsiness of his gloves, slowed him up considerably in his efforts. Nevertheless he set about his task with a vigorous determination and at the end of eight hours continuous work he had completely rewelded a new section of plating across the gap and thoroughly tested it to prove that it was airtight. This done, he was able at last to turn on the air pressure tanks and finally as the gauges showed the normal 14 pounds to the square inch, he was able to clamber from the stuffy enveloping folds of his spacesuit.
1,000-Year Voyage Page 11
