“Couldn’t you explain—?”
“Explain? No! It’s past the time I told Bugsy we’d smash into the comets. He doesn’t believe in them any more. He thought I was a liar before. He’s sure I’m a liar now!”
“Explain to me?” repeated Janet. “Couldn’t you tell me what needs to be done? Let me do it? Can’t we get into a space boat?”
“And let Lambda go smash? There’d be no space call to contact a passing ship. A space boat’s communicator won’t carry more than a few light-minutes! We’d never be heard! We’d die in the boat!”
There were other reasons. Scott’s previous plan for Janet now seemed impractical. He’d meant for her to drive her boat to the sunward side of the asteroid while he’d moor the checkpoint nearby. No matter what happened to him after that, with Lambda helpless to move any distance, Bugsy would have to keep the buoy’s space call going out, so sooner or later some other ship would approach—like the liner that had brought Scott—or possibly a Patrol ship. Or, least likely but most to be desired, even the Golconda Ship. And when that happened, Janet could intervene and ask for help via the space boat communicator, and Bugsy and his companions would only be taken off Lambda with suitable precautions. And Janet would be truly safe.
But without Janet in a space boat outside Lambda, Scott faced total frustration. His plans hadn’t included anything specific for his own safety. He wasn’t making such plans now. But as a Patrol officer he was enraged at the idea that Bugsy and his followers might get off scot-free, possibly even rich by their enterprise.
Unless he got Janet away, there’d be only Bugsy and his followers aboard when a Patrol of any other ship appeared. They’d have had time to make things tidy; to clean up and wipe out bloodstains and to make sure that no evidence against them remained. There might be moral certainty of murders done and bodies done away with. But there might be no proof that would hold in a criminal court.
“Look!” he said, “there’s another lifeboat down three decks. I’ll take you there.”
“No!” said Janet. “You’ve got to get the buoy where it must go! You just said why! Show me how to handle that! Show me how to work it, and if Bugsy comes—”
There were more tappings. Somehow the spacing of these impacts from particles in space was different from the two previous increases in impact sounds. In a normal orbit, a space buoy like Lambda might collect many micrometeorite impacts. They were negligible. But these tappings were of sand grain volume. Since they might indicate the probable presence of larger particles, they were not to be disregarded. Scott had the feeling that from now on they’d continue to increase in number, and larger and ever larger missiles would flash past or into Lambda until the really massive objects arrived.
“What I’d like,” he said wryly, moderating his tone and his temper at the same time, “what I’d really like would be simply to have Bugsy and his blaster-men locked up somewhere where they couldn’t bother me. Then I’d begin to feel some confidence. But since I can’t—”
Then he stopped short.
“Locked up,” he said in a queer tone. “Yes … locked…”
He stared at nothing, for a moment. Then he said, “There are rations of sorts down there. Yes. Either Bugsy and his group or you and—I think—”
But he didn’t say what he thought. He went quickly to a closet in the control room. There were always space suits available in control rooms. Control rooms were the brain centers of space ships. If a compartment was punctured and one part of a ship lost its air, it was a man from the control room who put on a space suit and inspected the damage. If there was an emergency anywhere, it was the men of the control room who couldn’t waste time finding space suits so they could take care of it. They had to be right at hand. Scott brought out a space suit.
“Put this on,” he commanded.
He helped her. He checked the suit. Signs of wear. Batteries. Air.
“You fasten the helmet, so,” he told her. He demonstrated how, and then stopped to look at the screen with the asteroid on it. He changed the setting of a control. He went back.
“The air adjustment’s automatic,” he said. “You have a blaster. In emergencies it can be used to burn away debris. It can also be used for self-defense. Now, open your face-plate and listen!”
He took her to the instrument board. He showed her the controls, eight in all. Four were for the bow steering units and four for the stern. As he was explaining their use, something seemed to happen to the edge of the sunlit asteroid. There was a part cut out of it. The dark area increased. It was shape. It was a shadow. It was Lambda’s shadow. He stared at it, and drew a deep breath of relief. When he spoke, his voice was almost unsteady because this was so perfect an accident for his present purpose.
“We want that shadow in the center of the face of the asteroid,” he told her. “Remember, we can’t steer in any ordinary sense. We’re moving sidewise. We have to move one end or the other forward or back to turn. And presently we have to stow up and flop. We mustn’t crash into anything! Use both bow and stern units to stop as well as drive. We should stop dead short of our target and then ease ahead.”
Somewhere in the ship there was an explosion. A scream. Then there was the roarings of blasters.
“I’m needed below,” said Scott grimly. “Try to handle Lambda as I’ve showed you. The shadow will help a lot. Try to get it centered, and get as close as you can to the asteroid. And—you may not like the idea of using your blaster, but if you need to, do it. I’m going to need you alive, later.”
There was another explosion, not as near as the first. Scott swung his space helmet over his head and opened the face plate.
“I’ll see you presently,” he said. “I think we may make out now! I’m going to lock them up.”
He ran out of the control room door and down the steps to the lobby. He pelted across the lobby and down the grand staircase. He heard blasters going off somewhere below. Then an explosion which was not a blaster. He clattered on and came to more stairs, almost falling because these stairs were steel and his shoe-soles stuck to them.
He reached the luggage level. He saw a dead man there, and the scorched area and damage that a small grenade had done. Chenery had evidently been here. The traveling bag in which Scott had found grenades was open. Scott took what were left. Chenery had probably been filling his pockets when someone came up upon this deck. At a guess, Chenery’d thrown a grenade at random and this was the consequence. There was a blaster on the floor, which was scorched as if the weapon had been fired right there.
Another explosion and the sound of blasters pouring a deadly fire into something. Still another explosion. Scott raced on down no less than the three levels of the hydroponic gardens, of which one was dark in simulation of the night hours plants must have to thrive and prosper.
The blaster-fire stopped. There was silence for moments, while Scott swore at his metal shoe-soles. Then he remembered and pulled the heavy slippers out of his belt pack. When a space suit was needed for emergencies inside a ship, there were times when magnetic-soled shoes would be a nuisance. As now. Impatiently, he put the slippers on, and the magnetism became merely a hindrance instead of a handicap.
He heard a voice, shrill and hysterical. It was Chenery.
“Come on!” he cried between pantings. “Come on an’ get killed! Y’played me for a fool, huh? I got more brains than all of you! Y’think you’re smart, Bugsy? I’m smarter!”