As if everyone aboard the Glory of the Galaxy was slowly being broiled alive….
* * * *
Ackerman Boone entered the crew quarters with the same smile still on his lips. At first he said nothing, but his silence drew the men like a magnet draws iron filings. When they had all clustered about him he spoke.
“The Exec not only chewed my ears off,” he boomed. “He all but spit them in my face! I was right, men. He admitted it to me after he saw how he couldn’t get away with anything in front of Ackerman Boone. Men, we’re heading on collision course with the sun!”
A shocked silence greeted his words and Ackerman Boone, instinctively a born speaker, paused dramatically to allow each man the private horror of his own thoughts for a few moments. Then he continued: “The Admiral figures we have one chance to get out of this alive, men. He figures—”
“What is it, Acky?”
“What will he do?”
“How will the Admiral get us out of this?”
Ackerman Boone spat on the polished, gleaming floor of the crew quarters. “He’ll never get us out alive, let me tell you. He wants to shift us into subspace at the last possible minute. Suddenly. Like this—” and Ackerman Boone snapped his fingers.
“There’d be a ship full of broken bones!” someone protested. “We can’t do a thing like that.”
“He’ll kill us all!” a very young T/3 cried hysterically.
“Not if I can help it, he won’t,” shouted Ackerman Boone. “Listen, men. This ain’t a question of discipline. It’s a question of living or dying and I tell you that’s more important than doing it like the book says or discipline or anything like that. We got a chance, all right: but it ain’t what the Admiral thinks it is. We ought to abandon the Glory to her place in the sun and scram out of here in the lifeboats—every last person aboard ship.”
“But will they have enough power to get out of the sun’s gravitational pull?” someone asked.
Ackerman Boone shrugged. “Don’t look at me,” he said mockingly. “I’m only an enlisted man and they don’t give enlisted men enough math to answer questions like that. But reckoning by the seat of my pants I would say, yes. Yes, we could get away like that—if we act fast. Because every minute we waste is a minute that brings us closer to the sun and makes it harder to get away in the lifeboats. If we act, men, we got to act fast.”
“You’re talking mutiny, Boone,” a grizzled old space veteran said. “You can count me out.”
“What’s the matter, McCormick? Yellow?”
“I’m not yellow. I say it takes guts to maintain discipline in a real emergency. I say you’re yellow, Boone.”
“You better be ready to back that up with your fists, McCormick,” Boone said savagely.
“I’m ready any time you’re ready, you yellow mutinous bastard!”
* * * *
Ackerman Boone launched himself at the smaller, older man, who stood his ground unflinchingly although he probably knew he would take a sound beating. But four or five crewmen came between them and held them apart, one saying:
“Look who’s talking, Boone. You say time’s precious but you’re all set to start fighting. Every minute—”
“Every second,” Boone said grimly, “brings us more than a hundred miles closer to the sun.”
“What can we do, Acky?”
Instead of answer, Ackerman Boone dramatically mopped the sweat from his face. All the men were uncomfortably warm now. It was obvious that the temperature within the Glory of the Galaxy had now climbed fifteen or twenty degrees despite the fact that the refrigs were working at full capacity. Even the bulkheads and the metal floor of crew quarters were unpleasantly warm to the touch. The air was hot and suddenly very dry.
“I’ll tell you what we ought to do,” Ackerman Boone said finally. “Admiral Stapleton or no Admiral Stapleton, President of the Galactic Federation or no President of the Galactic Federation, we ought to take over this ship and man the life boats for everyone’s good. If they don’t want to save their lives and ours—let’s us save our lives and theirs!”
Roars of approval greeted Boone’s words, but Spacer McCormick and some of the other veterans stood apart from the loud speech-making which followed. Actually, Boone’s wild words—which he gambled with after the first flush of enthusiasm for his plan—began to lose converts. One by one the men drifted toward McCormick’s silent group until, finally, Boone had lost almost his entire audience.
Just then a T/2 rushed into crew quarters and shouted: “Hey, is Boone around? Has anyone seen Boone?”
This brought general laughter. Under the circumstances, the question was not without its humorous aspect.
“What’ll you have?” Boone demanded.
“The refrigs, Boone! They are on the blink. Overstrained themselves and burned themselves out. Inside of half an hour this ship’s going to be an oven hot enough to kill us all!”
“Half an hour, men!” Ackerman Boone cried. “Now, do we take over the ship and man those lifeboats or don’t we!”
The roar which followed his words was a decidedly affirmative one.
* * * *
“These are the figures,” Admiral Stapleton said. “You can see, Mr. President, that we have absolutely no chance whatever if we man the lifeboats. We would perish as assuredly as we would if we remained with the Glory of the Galaxy in normal space.”
“Admiral, I have to hand it to you. I don’t know how you can think—in all this heat.”
“Have to, sir. Otherwise we all die.”
“The air temperature—”
“Is a hundred and thirty degrees and rising. We’ve passed salt tablets out to everyone, sir, but even then it’s only a matter of time before we’re all prostrated. If you’re sure you give your permission, sir—”
“Admiral Stapleton, you are running this ship, not I.”
“Very well, sir. I’ve sent our subspace officer, Lieutenant Ormundy, to throw in the subspace drive. We should know in a few moments—”
“No crash hammocks or anything?”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“It isn’t your fault, Admiral. I was merely pointing out a fact.”
The squawk box blared: “Now hear this! Now hear this! T/3 Ackerman Boone to Admiral Stapleton. Are you listening, Admiral?”
Admiral Stapleton’s haggard, heat-worn face bore a look of astonishment as he listened. Ackerman said, “We have Lieutenant Ormundy, Admiral. He’s not killing us all by putting us into subspace in minutes when it ought to take hours, you understand. We have Ormundy and we have the subspace room. A contingent of our men is getting the lifeboats ready. We’re going to abandon ship, Admiral, all of us, including you and the politicians even if we have to drag you aboard the lifeboats at N—gunpoint.”
Admiral Stapleton’s face went ashen. “Let me at a radio!” he roared. “I want to answer that man and see if he understands exactly what mutiny is!”
While Ackerman Boone was talking over the squawk box, the temperature within the Glory of the Galaxy rose to 145° Fahrenheit.
* * * *
“Fifteen minutes,” Larry Grange said. “In fifteen minutes the heat will have us all unconscious.” Only it wasn’t Larry alone who was talking. It was Larry and Johnny Mayhem. In a surprisingly short time the young Secret Serviceman had come to accept the dual occupation of his own mind. It was there: it was either dual occupation or insanity and if the voice which spoke inside his head said it was Johnny Mayhem, then it was Johnny Mayhem. Besides, Larry felt clear-headed in a way he had never felt before, despite the terrible, sapping heat. It was as if he had matured suddenly—the word matured came to him instinctively—in the space of minutes. Or, as if a maturing influence were at work on his mind.
“What can we do?” Sheila said. “The crew has complete control of the ship.”
“Secret Service chief says we’re on our own. There’s no time for co-ordinated planning, but somehow, within a very few minutes, we’ve got to
get inside the subspace room and throw the ship out of normal space or we’ll all be roasted.”
“Some of your men are there now, aren’t they?”
“In the companionway outside the subspace room, yeah. But they’ll never force their way in time. Not with blasters and not with N-guns, either. Not in ten minutes, they won’t.”
“Larry, all of a sudden I—I’m scared. We’re all going to die, Larry. I don’t want—Larry, what are you going to do?”
They had been walking in a deserted companionway which brought them to one of the aft escape hatches of the Glory of the Galaxy. Their clothing was plastered to their bodies with sweat and every breath was agonizing, furnace hot.
“I’m going outside,” Larry said quietly.
“Outside? What do you mean?”
“Spacesuit, outside. There’s a hatch in the subspace room. If their attention is diverted to the companionway door, I may be able to get in. It’s our only chance—ours, and everyone’s.”
“But the spacesuit—”
“I know,” Larry said even as he was climbing into the inflatable vacuum garment. It was Larry—and it wasn’t Larry. He felt a certain confidence, a certain sense of doing the right thing—a feeling which Larry Grange had never experienced before in his life. It was as if the boy had become a man in the final moments of his life—or, he thought all at once, it was as if Johnny Mayhem who shared his mind and his body with him was somehow transmitting some of his own skills and confidence even as he—Mayhem—had reached the decision to go outside.
“I know,” he said. “The spacesuit isn’t insulated sufficiently. I’ll have about three minutes out there. Three minutes to get inside. Otherwise, I’m finished.”
“But Larry—”
“Don’t you see, Sheila? What does it matter? Who wants the five or ten extra minutes if we’re all going to die anyway? This way, there’s a chance.”
He buckled the spacesuit and lifted the heavy fishbowl helmet, preparing to set it on his shoulders.
“Wait,” Sheila said, and stood on tiptoes to take his face in her hands and kiss him on the lips. “You—you’re different,” Sheila said. “You’re the same guy, a lot of fun, but you’re a—man, too. This is for what might have been, Larry,” she said, and kissed him again. “This is because I love you.”
Before he dropped the helmet in place, Larry said. “It isn’t for what might have been, Sheila. It’s for what will be.”
The helmet snapped shut over the shoulder ridges of the spacesuit. Moments later, he had slipped into the airlock.
* * * *
“I say you’re a fool, Ackerman Boone!” one of the enlisted men rasped at the leader of the mutiny. “I say now we’ve lost our last chance. Now it’s too late to get into the lifeboats even if we wanted to. Now all we can do is—die!”
There were still ten conscious men in the subspace room. The others had fallen before heat prostration and lay strewn about the floor, wringing wet and oddly flaccid as if all the moisture had been wrung from their bodies except for the sweat which covered their skins.
“All right,” Ackerman Boone admitted. “All right, so none of us knows how to work the subspace mechanism. You think that would have helped? It would have killed us all, I tell you.”
“It was a chance, Boone. Our last chance and you—”
“Just shut up!” Boone snarled. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking we ought to let them officers and Secret Servicemen to ram home the subspace drive. But use your head, man. Probably they’ll kill us all, but if they don’t—”
“Then you admit there’s a chance!”
“Yeah. All right, a chance. But if they don’t kill us all, if they save us by ramming home the subspacer, what happens? We’re all taken in on a mutiny charge. It’s a capital offense, you fool!”
“Well, it’s better than sure death,” the man said, and moved toward the door.
“Allister, wait!” Boone cried. “Wait, I’m warning you. Any man who tries to open that door—”
Outside, a steady booming of blaster fire could be heard, but the assault-proof door stood fast.
“—is going to get himself killed!” Boone finished.
Grimly, Allister reached the door and got his already blistered fingers on the lock mechanism.
Ackerman Boone shot him in the back with an N-gun.
* * * *
Larry’s whole body felt like one raw mass of broken blisters as, flat on his belly, he inched his way along the outside hull of the Glory of the Galaxy. He had no idea what the heat was out here, but it radiated off the hot hull of the Glory in scalding, suffocating waves which swept right through the insulining of the spacesuit. If he didn’t find the proper hatch, and in a matter of seconds….
* * * *
“Anyone else?” Ackerman Boone screamed. “Anyone else like Allister?”
But one by one the remaining men were dropping from the heat. Finally—alone—Ackerman Boone faced the door and stared defiantly at the hot metal as if he could see his adversaries through it. On the other side, the firing became more sporadic as the officers and Secret Servicemen collapsed. His mind crazed with the heat and with fear, Ackerman Boone suddenly wished he could see the men through the door, wished he could see them die….
* * * *
It was this hatch or nothing. He thought it was the right one, but couldn’t be sure. He could no longer see. His vision had gone completely. The pain was a numb thing now, far away, hardly a part of himself. Maybe Mayhem was absorbing the pain-sensation for him, he thought. Maybe Mayhem took the pain and suffered with it in the shared body so he, Larry, could still think. Maybe—
His blistered fingers were barely able to move within the insulined gloves, Larry fumbled with the hatch.
* * * *
Ackerman Boone whirled suddenly. He had been intent upon the companionway door and the sounds behind him—which he had heard but not registered as dangerous for several seconds—now made him turn.
The man was peeling off a space suit. Literally peeling it off in strips from his lobster-red flesh. He blinked at Boone without seeing him. Dazzle-blinded, Boone thought, then realized his own vision was going.
“I’ll kill you if you go near that subspace drive!” Boone screamed.
“It’s the only chance for all of us and you know it, Boone,” the man said quietly. “Don’t try to stop me.”
Ackerman Boone lifted his N-gun and squinted through the haze of heat and blinding light. He couldn’t see! He couldn’t see….
Wildly, he fired the N-gun. Wildly, in all directions, spraying the room with it—
Larry dropped blindly forward. Twice he tripped over unconscious men, but climbed to his feet and went on. He could not see Boone, but he could see—vaguely—the muzzle flash of Boone’s N-gun. He staggered across the room toward that muzzle-flash and finally embraced it—
And found himself fighting for his life. Boone was crazed now—with the heat and with his own failure. He bit and tore at Larry with strong claw-like fingers and lashed out with his feet. He balled his fists and hammered air like a windmill, arms flailing, striking flesh often enough to batter Larry toward the floor.
Grimly Larry clung to him, pulled himself upright, ducked his head against his chest and struck out with his own fists, feeling nothing, not knowing when they landed and when they did not, hearing nothing but a far off roaring in his ears, a roaring which told him he was losing consciousness and had to act—soon—if he was going to save anyone….
He stood and pounded with his fists.
Pounded—air.
He did not know that Boone had collapsed until his feet trod on the man’s inert body and then, quickly, he rushed toward the control board, rushed blindly in its direction, or in the direction he thought it would be, tripped over something, sprawled on the hot, blistering floor, got himself up somehow, crawled forward, pulled himself upright….
There was no sensation in his fingers. He did not know
if he had actually reached the control board but abruptly he realized that he had not felt Mayhem’s presence in his mind for several minutes. Was Mayhem conserving his energy for a final try, letting Larry absorb the punishment now so he—
Yes, Larry remembered thinking vaguely. It had to be that. For Mayhem knew how to work the controls, and he did not. Now his mind receded into a fog of semi-consciousness, but he was aware that his blistered fingers were fairly flying across the control board, aware then of an inward sigh—whether of relief or triumph, he was never to know—then aware, abruptly and terribly, of a wrenching pain which seemed to strip his skin from his flesh, his flesh from his bones, the marrow from….
* * * *
“Can you see?” the doctor asked.
“Yes,” Larry said as the bandages were removed from his eyes. Three people were in the room with the doctor—Admiral Stapleton, the President—and Sheila. Somehow, Sheila was most important.
“We are now in subspace, thanks to you,” the Admiral said. “We all have minor injuries as a result of the transfer, but there were only two fatalities, I’m happy to say. And naturally, the ship is now out of danger.”
“What gets me, Grange,” the President said, “is how you managed to work those controls. What the devil do you know about sub-space, my boy?”
“The two fatalities,” the Admiral said, “were Ackerman Boone and the man he had killed.” Then the Admiral grinned. “Can’t you see, Mr. President, that he’s not paying any attention to us? I think, at the moment, the hero of the hour only has eyes for Miss Kelly here.”
“Begging your pardons, sirs, yes,” Larry said happily.
Nodding and smiling, the President of the Galactic Federation and Admiral Stapleton left the dispensary room—with the doctor.
“Well, hero,” Sheila said, and smiled.
Larry realized—quite suddenly—that, inside himself, he was alone. Mayhem had done his job—and vanished utterly.
“You know,” Sheila said, “it’s as if you—well, I hope this doesn’t get you sore at me—as if you grew up overnight.”
The 8th Golden Age of Science Fiction MEGAPACK ™: Milton Lesser Page 40
