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they should choose to manipulate the ship, if the steam should whistle out now
He would never hear it; never know it. One instant he would be holding a rung, feeling slowly
for the next with a groping arm. The next moment he would be alone in space, the ship a dark,
dark nothingness lost forever among the stars. There would be, perhaps, a brief glory of
swirling ice crystals drifting with him, shining in his wrist-lights and slowly approaching and
rotating about him, attracted by his mass like infinitesimal planets to an absurdly tiny Sun.
He was trickling sweat again, and now he was also conscious of thirst. He put it out of his
mind. There would be no drinking until he was out of his suit if ever.
Up a rung; up another; and another. How many were there? His hand slipped and he stared
in disbelief at the glitter that showed under his light.
Ice?
Why not? The steam, incredibly hot as it was, would strike metal that was at nearly absolute
zero. In the few split-seconds of thrust, there would not be time for the metal to warm above the
freezing point of water. A sheet of ice would condense that would sublime slowly into the
vacuum. It was the speed of all that happened that prevented the fusion of the tubes and of the
original water-container itself.
His groping hand reached the end. Again the wrist-lights. He stared with crawling horror at
the steam nozzle, half an inch in diameter. It looked dead, harmless. But it always would, right
up to the micro-second before
Around it was the outer steam lock. It pivoted on a central hub that was springed on the
portion toward space, screwed on the part toward the ship. The springs allowed it to give under
the first wild thrust of steam pressure before the ship's mighty inertia could be overcome. The
steam was bled into the inner chamber, breaking the force of the thrust, leaving the total energy
unchanged, but spreading it over time so that the hull itself was in that much less danger of
being staved in.
Mullen braced himself firmly against a rung and pressed against the outer lock so that it gave
a little. It was stiff, but it didn't have to give much, just enough to catch on the screw. He felt it
catch.
He strained against it and turned it, feeling his body twist in the opposite direction. It held
tight, the screw taking up the strain as he carefully ad-
justed the small control switch that allowed the springs to fall free. How well he remembered
the books he had read!
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He was in the interlock space now, which was large enough to hold a man comfortably, again
for convenience in repairs. He could no longer be blown away from the ship. If the steam blast
were turned on now, it would merely drive him against the inner lock hard enough to crush
him to a pulp. A quick death he would never feel, at least.
Slowly, he unhooked his spare oxygen cylinder. There was only an inner lock between
himself and the control room now. This lock opened outward into space so that the steam
blast could only close it tighter, rather than blow it open. And it fitted tightly and smoothly.
There was absolutely no way to open it from without.
He lifted himself above the lock, forcing his bent back against the inner surface of the
interlock area. It made breathing difficult. The spare oxygen cylinder dangled at a queer angle.
He held its metal-mesh hose and straightened it, forcing it against the inner lock so that
vibration thudded. Again again
It would have to attract the attention of the Kloros. They would have to investigate.
He would have no way of telling when they were about to do so. Ordinarily, they would first
let air into the interlock to force the outer lock shut.
" But now the outer lock was on the central screw, well away from its rim. Air would suck
about it ineffectually, dragging out into space.
Mullen kept on thumping. Would the Kloros look at the air-gauge, note that it scarcely
lifted from zero, or would they take its proper working for granted?
Porter said, "He's been gone an hour and a half."
"I know," said Stuart.
They were all restless, jumpy, but the tension among themselves had disappeared. It was
as though all the threads of emotion extended to the hull of the ship.
Porter was bothered. His philosophy of life had always been simple take care of yourself
because no one will take care of you for you. It upset him to see it shaken.
He said, "Do you suppose they've caught him?"
"If they had, we'd hear about it," replied Stuart, briefly.
Porter felt, with a miserable twinge, that there was little interest on the part of the others
in speaking to him. He could understand it; he had not exactly earned their respect. For the
moment, a torrent of self-excuse poured
" through his mind. The others had been frightened, too. A man had a right to be afraid.
No one likes to die. At least, he hadn't broken like Aristides Polyorketes. He hadn't wept like
Leblanc. He But there was Mullen, out there on the hull.
"Listen," he cried, "why did he do it?" They turned to look at him, not understanding, but
Porter didn't care. It bothered him to the point where it had to come out. "I want to know why
Mullen is risking his life."
"The man," said Windham, "is a patriot "
"No, none of that!" Porter was almost hysterical. "That little fellow has no emotions at all. He
just has reasons and I want to know what those reasons are, because "
He didn't finish the sentence. Could he say that if those reasons applied to a little middle-aged
bookkeeper, they might apply even more forcibly to himself?
Polyorketes said, "He's one brave damn little fellow."
Porter got to his feet. "Listen,", he said, "he may be stuck out there. Whatever he's doing, he
may not be able to finish it alone. I I volunteer to go out after him."
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r r [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]