“No, no!” Pinback continued to flail about for a couple of seconds until he suddenly realized that the broom was no longer in belligerent motion. He grabbed at it, glanced up, and saw the alien disappearing around the far end of the corridor.
It was moving back toward the engine-service area, the rear of the ship.
Not that he was worried about anything as theatrical as a suddenly sapient alien taking over the ship, but if the mischievous monster got itself entangled in any delicate machinery…
Naturally, anything that could be easily damaged should be well protected. But considering the lapse of maintenance on the ship these last months, there was no telling what shielding panels or covers might be out of place. No telling what Boiler might have played with besides the heat-unit shielding. The sooner the alien was back in its room and locked up, the better.
Untangling himself from the broom, Pinback started down the corridor after the rambunctious alien. One open bay after another yielded nothing. He was about to start back when a familiar twittering sound came to him from one of the big service bays. He moved slowly inside.
The twittering seemed to come from just behind the door leading to the inner service chamber. He put a hand on the latch, at the same time wondering that the creature had had enough sense or curiosity to close it behind itself, and threw it open.
Nothing showed inside but a tangle of old machinery, dimly lit by the service lights. Hunting through the room, broom firmly in hand, he followed the faint honking. The sound was moving away from him again, and the darkness was increasing. There wasn’t much reason to visit this part of the ship.
The section he was heading for was fully automatic and he wouldn’t find much of anything in the way of lighting there. He’d have to bring his own light with him.
There was a powerful flashlight in one of the service boxes. It produced a satisfyingly broad beam. Aiming it ahead and sweeping it thoroughly into all deep corners, he moved deeper into the little-visited service section of the ship.
This was absolutely crazy. There were never supposed to be fewer than two men at a time in this section of the Dark Star. There were too many things that needed two sets of hands to repair, and a number of things that could go bang at odd moments. But Pinback had forgotten most of that. Over the years, you only remembered the parts of the ship that had given you trouble.
Also, a number of elevator and ventilation shafts ran through here at odd angles. But there was no danger of stumbling into one of those, not with the light. Actually, he had no business being this deep into the service bay by himself. It was strictly against regs. But he couldn’t tell Doolittle what had happened, not now. And he didn’t dare tell Boiler.
No, Doolittle would have given him another of those supercontemptuous smiles which he reserved only for Pinback. And Boiler—Boiler would either grin or, worse, laugh outright. But he could tell Talby. So someone would know where he was.
He hesitated. Talby might understand—but for sure he wouldn’t do anything to help. So why bother? Pinback moved on. Crazy Talby. At least he was harmless. Not like Boiler, who—
There was a twittering sound to his right, and he swung the beam rapidly in that direction. The brilliant, slick red epidermis of the Beachball gleamed back at him.
It was sitting in a small square doorway. Pinback didn’t recognize it right away—and when he did, his breath came up short. The alien was sitting in this level’s emergency entrance to the main service-elevator shaft.
Maybe he could pry it into the room. He jabbed at it with the broom, but it was impossible to get the end of the stick behind the alien. Suddenly it moved—backward, into the shaft. Pinback dropped to all fours and crawled forward quickly. There was a chance he could reach it with the stick before it drifted down too far.
Holding the flashlight in front of him, he had just a quick glimpse of the Beachball as it vanished through the open hatchway on the other side of the shaft.
He sat back, sighed. Now he was really in trouble. The alien was loose in one of the most sensitive, least-visited areas of the Dark Star. It could roam around back there, fooling with who knew what, unless it was recaptured immediately.
But he had no way to get across the shaft. If he could only bring the elevator down it would be easy enough to cross over its top and slip through the emergency hatchway the alien had just vacated.
But the elevator was locked and could be activated only at the expense of notifying those on the bridge that it was in use. If he slipped back there and keyed it himself, certainly Doolittle or Boiler would be on station. And if they saw the elevator suddenly thrown into use, they would want to know what Pinback was doing fussing around in a section of the ship he had no business visiting.
If he remembered correctly, use of the elevator would even key a warning light in their living quarters. Only when it was working on automatic was the signal silent. And no sound issued from the shaft now.
He didn’t think he could concoct an excuse that would fool Doolittle. Eventually he would end up confessing that he had let the alien escape. Then he would be in terrible shape. Doolittle wouldn’t trust him with anything, and Boiler would never stop snickering.
All right, so he wouldn’t use the elevator. He would get the alien back without anyone knowing, and without anyone’s help. He stuck his head into the shaft, looked across, then down. It would help it he weren’t so afraid of heights. He could drift in a starsuit for hours without being troubled, but he got dizzy atop a ladder.
Not that it was so terribly far from here to the bottom of the shaft. The Dark Star wasn’t that big. If he slipped and fell while trying to cross, why, he might only break an arm or maybe both legs. In addition to being painful, that would be even worse than asking for Doolittle’s or Boiler’s help—but he was going to get across.
With what? There was nothing like an emergency ladder going down the shaft. The elevator was equipped with too many fail-safes—there was no need for a ladder. And there was no other way to the rear of the ship except across this shaft.
It had been designed this way, on the off chance that if any crewmember went berserk and tried to kick himself out the emergency airlock, or fool with the vital communications/life-support instrumentation, he would have to use the elevator—thus activating those tell-tales in the bridge and living quarters that now bedeviled Pinback.
No one could use the elevator without some other member of the crew knowing about it. But Pinback would fool them—somehow.
Moving back into the service chamber, he hunted around with the light. Eventually he found a heavy metal canister which he was sure the wiry but light alien wouldn’t be able to move. He rolled it over until it blocked the small hatchway.
Then he hurried back up to the crafts room. It was empty. Doolittle’s wooden-jar organ sat alone, silent, behind a thin partition. The pottery wheels, the glass works, the metal etching and macrame sections, the instructional film viewers—all were deserted. That meant Doolittle and Boiler were either forward in the control room or, more likely, relaxing in their living quarters. Good. It didn’t matter to Pinback whether they were taking sunlamp treatments or a bath—as long as they were out of his way.
A short search, and he found what he was looking for—a good long solid board, designed for carving and therapeutic woodwork, now to be put to a purely practical use. He hurried down the corridor with it.
The canister was still in place, with no sign that the alien had tired to force it. That meant it was still on the other side.