by Isaac Asimov
"Good," said Stuart. "Of course, I don't think we can take the ship. They're armed and we aren't. But there's this. You know why the Kloros took this ship intact. It's because they need ships. They may be better chemists than Earthmen are, but Earthmen are better astronautical engineers. We have bigger, better and more ships. In fact, if our crew had had a proper respect for military axioms in the first place, they would have blown the ship up as soon as it looked as though the Kloros were going to board."
Leblanc looked horrified. "And kill the passengers?"
"Why not? You heard what the good colonel said. Every one of us puts his own lousy little life after Earth's interests. What good are we to Earth alive right now? None at all. What harm will this ship do in Kloro hands? A hell of a lot, probably."
"Just why," asked Mullen, "did our men refuse to blow up the ship? They must have had a reason."
"They did. It's the firmest tradition of Earth's military men that there must never be an unfavorable ratio of casualties. If we had blown ourselves up, twenty fighting men and seven civilians of Earth would be dead as compared with an enemy casualty total of zero. So what happens? We let them board, kill twenty-eight-I'm sure we killed at least that many-and let them have the ship."
"Talk, talk, talk," jeered Polyorketes.
"There's a moral to this," said Stuart. "We can't take the ship away from the Kloros. We might be able to rush them, though, and keep them busy long enough to allow one of us enough time to short the engines."
"What?" yelled Porter, and Windham shushed him in fright.
"Short the engines," Stuart repeated. "That would destroy the ship, of course, which is what we want to do, isn't it?"
Leblanc's lips were white. "I don't think that would work."
"We can't be sure till we try. But what have we to lose by trying?"
"Our lives, damn it!" cried Porter. "You insane maniac, you're crazy!"
"If I'm a maniac," said Stuart, "and insane to boot, then naturally I'm crazy. But just remember that if we lose our lives, which is overwhelmingly
probable, we lose nothing of value to Earth; whereas if we destroy the ship, as we just barely might, we do Earth a lot of good. What patriot would hesitate? Who here would put himself ahead of his world?" He looked about in the silence. "Surely not you, Colonel Windham."
Windham coughed tremendously. "My dear man, that is not the question. There must be a way to save the ship for Earth without losing our lives, eh?"
"All right. You name it."
"Let's all think about it. Now there are only two of the Kloros aboard ship. If one of us could sneak up on them and-"
"How? The rest of the ship's all filled with chlorine. We'd have to wear a spacesuit. Gravity in their part of the ship is hopped up to Kloro level, so whoever is patsy in the deal would be clumping around, metal on metal, slow and heavy. Oh, he could sneak up on them, sure-like a skunk trying to sneak downwind."
"Then we'll drop it all," Porter's voice shook. "Listen, Windham, there's not going to be any destroying the ship. My life means plenty to me and if any of you try anything like that, I'll call the Kloros. I mean it."
"Well," said Stuart, "there's hero number one."
Leblanc said, "I want to go back to Earth, but I-"
Mullen interrupted, "I don't think our chances of destroying the ship are good enough unless-"
"Heroes number two and three. What about you, Polyorketes, You would have the chance of killing two Kloros."
"I want to kill them with my bare hands," growled the farmer, his heavy fists writhing. "On their planet, I will kill dozens."
"That's a nice safe promise for now. What about you, Colonel? Don't you want to march to death and glory with me?"
"Your attitude is very cynical and unbecoming, Stuart. It's obvious that if the rest are unwilling, then your plan will fall through."
"Unless I do it myself, huh?"
"You won't, do you hear?" said Porter, instantly.
"Damn right I won't," agreed Stuart. "I don't claim to be a hero. I'm just an average patriot, perfectly willing to head for any planet they take me to and sit out the war."
Mullen said, thoughtfully, "Of course, there is a way we could surprise the Kloros."
The statement would have dropped flat except for Polyorketes. He pointed a black-nailed, stubby forefinger and laughed harshly. "Mr. Bookkeeper!" he said. "Mr. Bookkeeper is a big shot talker like this damned greenie spy, Stuart. All right, Mr. Bookkeeper, go ahead. You make big speeches also. Let the words roll like an empty barrel."
He turned to Stuart and repeated venomously, "Empty barrel! Cripple-hand empty barrel. No good for anything but talk."
Mullen's soft voice could make no headway until Polyorketes was through, but then he said, speaking directly to Stuart, "We might be able to reach them from outside. This room has a C-chute I'm sure."
"What's a C-chute?" asked Leblanc.
"Well-" began Mullen, and then stopped, at a loss.
Stuart said, mockingly, "It's a euphemism, my boy. Its full name is 'casualty chute.' It doesn't get talked about, but the main rooms on any ship would have them. They're just little airlocks down which you slide a corpse. Burial at space. Always lots of sentiment and bowed heads, with the captain making a rolling speech of the type Polyorketes here wouldn't like."
Leblanc's face twisted. "Use that to leave the ship?"
"Why not? Superstitious? -Go on, Mullen."
The little man had waited patiently. He said, "Once outside, one could re-enter the ship by the steam-tubes. It can be done-with luck. And then you would be an unexpected visitor in the control room."
Stuart stared at him curiously. "How do you figure this out? What do you know about steam-tubes?"
Mullen coughed. "You mean because I'm in the paper-box business? Well-" He grew pink, waited a moment, then made a new start in a colorless, unemotional voice. "My company, which manufactures fancy paper boxes and novelty containers, made a line of spaceship candy boxes for the juvenile trade some years ago. It was designed so that if a string were pulled, small pressure containers were punctured and jets of compressed air shot out through the mock steam-tubes, sailing the box across the room and scattering candy as it went. The sales theory was that the youngsters would find it exciting to play with the ship and fun to scramble for the candy.
"Actually, it was a complete failure. The ship would break dishes and sometimes hit another child in the eye. Worse still, the children would not only scramble for the candy but would fight over it. It was almost our worst failure. We lost thousands.
"Still, while the boxes were being designed, the entire office was extremely interested. It was like a game, very bad for efficiency and office morale. For a while, we all became steam-tube experts. I read quite a few books on ship construction. On my own time, however, not the company's."
Stuart was intrigued. He said, "You know it's a video sort of idea, but it might work if we had a hero to spare. Have we?"
"What about you?" demanded Porter, indignantly. "You go around sneering at us with your cheap wisecracks. I don't notice you volunteering for anything."
"That's because I'm no hero, Porter. I admit it. My object is to stay alive, and shinnying down steam-tubes is no way to go about staying alive. But the
rest of you are noble patriots. The colonel says so. What about you, Colonel? You're the senior hero here."
Windham said, "If I were younger, blast it, and if you had your hands, I would take pleasure, sir, in trouncing you soundly."
"I've no doubt of it, but that's no answer."
"You know very well that at my time of life and with my leg-" he brought the flat of his hand down upon his stiff knee- "I am in no position to do anything of the sort, however much I should wish to."
"Ah, yes," said Stuart, "and I, myself, am crippled in the hands, as Pory-orketes tells me. That saves us. And what unfortunate deformities do the rest of us have?"
"Listen," cried Porter, "I want to know what thi
s is all about. How can anyone go down the steam-tubes? What if the Kloros use them while one of us is inside?"
"Why, Porter, that's part of the sporting chance. It's where the excitement comes in."
"But he'd be boiled in the shell like a lobster."
"A pretty image, but inaccurate. The steam wouldn't be on for more than a very short time, maybe a second or two, and the suit insulation would hold that long. Besides, the jet comes scooting out at several hundred miles a minute, so that you would be blown clear of the ship before the steam could even warm you. In fact, you'd be blown quite a few miles out into space, and after that you would be quite safe from the Kloros. Of course, you couldn't get back to the ship."
Porter was sweating freely. "You don't scare me for one minute, Stuart."
"I don't? Then you're offering to go? Are you sure you've thought out what being stranded in space means? You're all alone, you know; really all alone. The steam-jet will probably leave you turning or tumbling pretty rapidly. You won't feel that. You'll seem to be motionless. But all the stars will be going around and around so that they're just streaks in the sky. They won't ever stop. They won'f even slow up. Then your heater will go off, your oxygen will give out, and you will die very slowly. You'll have lots of time to think. Or, if you are in a hurry, you could open your suit. That wouldn't be pleasant, either. I've seen faces of men who had a torn suit happen to them accidentally, and it's pretty awful. But it would be quicker. Then-"
Porter turned and walked unsteadily away.
Stuart said, lightly, "Another failure. One act of heroism still ready to be knocked down to the highest bidder with nothing offered yet."
Polyorketes spoke up and his harsh voice roughed the words. "You keep on talking, Mr. Big Mouth. You just keep banging that empty barrel. Pretty soon, we'll kick your teeth in. There's one boy I think would be willing to do it now, eh, Mr. Porter?"
Porter's look at Stuart confirmed the truth of Polyorketes' remarks, but he said nothing.
i i Stuart said, "Then what about you, Polyorketes? You're the barehand man with guts. Want me to help you into a suit?" • "I'll ask you when I want help." 1 "What about you, Leblanc?"
The young man shrank away.
"Not even to get back to Margaret?"
But Leblanc could only shake his head.
"Mullen?"
"Well-I'll try."
"You'll what?"
"I said, yes, I'll try. After all, it's my idea."
Stuart looked stunned. "You're serious? How come?"
Mullen's prim mouth pursed. "Because no one else will."
"But that's no reason. Especially for you."
Mullen shrugged.
There was a thump of a cane behind Stuart. Windham brushed past.
He said, "Do you really intend to go, Mullen?"
"Yes, Colonel."
"In that case, dash it, let me shake your hand. I like you. You're an-an Earthman, by heaven. Do this, and win or die, I'll bear witness for you."
Mullen withdrew his hand awkwardly from the deep and vibrating grasp of the other.
And Stuart just stood there. He was in a very unusual position. He was, in fact, in the particular position of all positions in which he most rarely found himself.
He had nothing to say.
The quality of tension had changed. The gloom and frustration had lifted a bit, and the excitement of conspiracy had replaced it. Even Polyorketes was fingering the spacesuits and commenting briefly and hoarsely on which he considered preferable.
Mullen was having a certain amount of trouble. The suit hung rather limply upon him even though the adjustable joints had been tightened nearly to minimum. He stood there now with only the helmet to be screwed on. He wiggled his neck.
Stuart was holding the helmet with an effort. It was heavy, and his ar-tiplasmic hands did not grip it well. He said, "Better scratch your nose if it itches. It's your last chance for a while." He didn't add, "Maybe forever," but he thought it.
Mullen said, tonelessly, "I think perhaps I had better have a spare oxygen cylinder."
"Good enough."
"With a reducing valve."
Stuart nodded. "I see what you're thinking of. If you do get blown clear
of the ship, you could try to blow yourself back by using the cylinder as an action-reaction motor."
They clamped on the headpiece and buckled the spare cylinder to Mul-len's waist. Polyorketes and Leblanc lifted him up to the yawning opening of the C-tube. It was ominously dark inside, the metal lining of the interior having been painted a mournful black. Stuart thought he could detect a musty odor about it, but that, he knew, was only imagination.
He stopped the proceedings when Mullen was half within the tube. He tapped upon the little man's faceplate.
"Can you hear me?"
Within, there was a nod.
"Air coming through all right? No last-minute troubles?"
Mullen lifted his armored arm in a gesture of reassurance.
"Then remember, don't use the suit-radio out there. The Kloros might pick up the signals."
Reluctantly, he stepped away. Polyorketes' brawny hands lowered Mullen until they could hear the thumping sound made by the steel-shod feet against the outer valve. The inner valve then swung shut with a dreadful finality, its beveled silicone gasket making a slight soughing noise as it crushed hard. They clamped it into place.
Stuart stood at the toggle-switch that controlled the outer valve. He threw it and the gauge that marked the air pressure within the tube fell to zero. A little pinpoint of red light warned that the outer valve was open. Then the light disappeared, the valve closed, and the gauge climbed slowly to fifteen pounds again.
They opened the inner valve again and found the tube empty.
Polyorketes spoke first. He said, "The little son-of-a-gun. He went!" He looked wonderingly at the others. "A little fellow with guts like that."
Stuart said, "Look, we'd better get ready in here. There's just a chance that the Kloros may have detected the valves opening and closing. If so, they'll be here to investigate and we'll have to cover up."
"How?" asked Windham.
"They won't see Mullen anywhere around. We'll say he's in the head. The Kloros know that it's one of the peculiar characteristics of Earthmen that they resent intrusion on their privacy in lavatories, and they'll make no effort to check. If we can hold them off-"
"What if they wait, or if they check the spacesuits?" asked Porter.
Stuart shrugged. "Let's hope they don't. And listen, Polyorketes, don't make any fuss when they come in."
Polyorketes grunted, "With that little guy out there? What do you think I am?" He stared at Stuart without animosity, then scratched his curly hair vigorously. "You know, I laughed at him. I thought he was an old woman. It makes me ashamed."
Stuart cleared his throat. He said, "Look, I've been saying some things
that maybe weren't too funny after all, now that I come to think of it. I'd like to say I'm sorry if I have."
He turned away morosely and walked toward his cot. He heard the steps behind him, felt the touch on his sleeve. He turned; it was Leblanc.
The youngster said softly, "I keep thinking that Mr. Mullen is an old man."
"Well, he's not a kid. He's about forty-five or fifty, I think."
Leblanc said, "Do you think, Mr. Stuart, that / should have gone, instead? I'm the youngest here. I don't like the thought of having let an old man go in my place. It makes me feel like the devil."
"I know. If he dies, it will be too bad."
"But he volunteered. We didn't make him, did we?"
"Don't try to dodge responsibility, Leblanc. It won't make you feel better. There isn't one of us without a stronger motive to run the risk than he had." And Stuart sat there silently, thinking.
Mullen felt the obstruction beneath his feet yield and the walls about him slip away quickly, too quickly. He knew it was the puff of air escaping, carrying him with it, and he dug arms and
legs frantically against the wall to brake himself. Corpses were supposed to be flung well clear of the ship, but he was no corpse-for the moment.
His feet swung free and threshed. He heard the clunk of one magnetic boot against the hull just as the rest of his body puffed out like a tight cork under air pressure. He teetered dangerously at the lip of the hole in the ship -he had changed orientation suddenly and was looking down on it-then took a step backward as its lid came down of itself and fitted smoothly against the hull.
A feeling of unreality overwhelmed him. Surely, it wasn't he standing on the outer surface of a ship. Not Randolph F. Mullen. So few human beings could ever say they had, even those who traveled in space constantly.
He was only gradually aware that he was in pain. Popping out of that hole with one foot clamped to the hull had nearly bent him in two. He tried moving, cautiously, and found his motions to be erratic and almost impossible to control. He thought nothing was broken, though the muscles of his left side were badly wrenched.
And then he came to himself and noticed that the wrist-lights of his suit were on. It was by their light that he had stared into the blackness of the C-chute. He stirred with the nervous thought that from within, the Kloros might see the twin spots of moving light just outside the hull. He flicked the switch upon the suit's midsection.
Mullen had never imagined that, standing on a ship, he would fail to see its hull. But it was dark, as dark below as above. There were the stars, hard and bright little non-dimensional dots. Nothing more. Nothing more anywhere. Under his feet, not even the stars-not even his feet.
He bent back to look at the stars. His head swam. They were moving slowly. Or, rather, they were standing still and the ship was rotating, but he could not tell his eyes that. They moved. His eyes followed-down and behind the ship. New stars up and above from the other side. A black horizon. The ship existed only as a region where there were no stars.
No stars? Why, there was one almost at his feet. He nearly reached for it; then he realized that it was only a glittering reflection in the mirroring metal.
They were moving thousands of miles an hour. The stars were. The ship was. He was. But it meant nothing. To his senses, there was only silence and darkness and that slow wheeling of the stars. His eyes followed the wheeling-
