Flight of Exiles

16

It was a strange, eerie feeling.

Larry had been outside the ship before, but never since they had taken up orbit around the planet. Its massive curving bulk hung over him, it seemed, close and beckoning yet somehow menacing. He felt almost as if it was going to fall on him and crush him.

He shook his head inside the suit’s helmet. You’ve got a job to do. No time for sightseeing.

A dozen men had floated out of the airlock in search of Dan. A dozen men to cover the thousands of possible places where he might be lurking.

They worked with a plan in mind. They came out of one airlock at the first level, the largest of the ship’s seven wheels. They spread out around the periphery of that wheel. The plan was for each man to search the area between connecting tubes. Then, if none of them found Dan, they would work their way simultaneously up each of the connector tubes to the next ring, search there, then on to the third ring. And so on, right up to the hub.

We could use a hundred men, Larry thought. Only twelve men qualified for outside work had volunteered. Most of the people aboard the ship had never been outside it.

Larry watched the man nearest him disappear over the curve of the ship’s ring-like structure. He was alone now, standing on the ring’s metal skin with magnetically gripping boots, looking down a connector tube, past the seven rings to the bulging plastiglass blisters of the. hub.

The stars formed a solemn, unblinking backdrop, like millions of eyes watching him. And behind him, Larry could feel rather than see the immense ponderous presence of the planet.

Campbell’s voice crackled in his earphones. “Everybody ready?”

One by one, the eleven others answered by the numbers that had been hastily sprayed onto their suits.

“All right, everybody work to his left. Keep your guns loose.”

Larry fingered the laser tool-turned-weapon at his waist. Sonic stunners wouldn’t work in vacuum. If there was any shooting, somebody was going to die.

He began walking in a spiral around the big main wheel, his footsteps tacky in the magnetic boots. Around and around, spiraling like an electron in a strong magnetic field, curving from one connector tube to the next. There was practically no place for a man to hide here; the main level’s outer wall was almost perfectly smooth, broken only by an occasional viewport.

Larry carefully avoided stepping on the viewports. Being plastiglass, they’d provide no grip for his magnetic boots. Larry didn’t feel like slipping off the ship’s surface. There were steering jets on his belt, but he preferred to stay in contact with the ship rather than try zooming through empty space.

At last he came to the next connector tube. He found that he was breathing hard, sweating, but feeling relieved. No sign of Dan. And that somehow made him almost happy.

At least I didn’t have to shoot it out with him.

“Not yet,” he heard himself mutter.

The others began reporting in. None of them had seen Dan.

“All right,” Campbell said. “Every man goes along the tube he’s at now. Stop at level two-and report in.”

It was taking too long, Larry realized. More than an hour had passed since they had first come outside. It would easily take another hour or more by the time they had checked out level two. It wasn’t going to work. They’d have to go inside long before they could inspect level three. If Dan didn’t show up soon, they’d have to call off the whole idea of searching outside for him. Unless they could get more people outside to help.

Larry always felt hot inside the suits. There was a radiator on the back of his lifepack, but it never seemed to get rid of his body heat fast enough. The air blowers whirred noisily, but he still found himself drenched with sweat before he was halfway up the tube to level two.

Around and around. Down was up, and then it was down again. He saw the planet swing by as he stolidly plodded along the metal skin of the tube. Stars and planets, turning, turning, turning Keep your eyes searching for Dan! he warned himself. But where? He could be crouched behind that antenna; Larry checked it out carefully. No. He could be hovering no more than a hundred meters from the ship, and he’d be virtually invisible against the backdrop of stars. We’d never see him…you’d have to be lucky enough to look in exactly the right place at the right time…

And then Larry began to get the uncanny feeling that Dan was walking along behind him, following his footsteps, tiptoeing the way children sometimes do behind someone they’re trying to surprise.

He knew it was silly, irrational. But the feeling grew. He felt a cold shudder go through him. If he is behind me…

Larry whirled around. It was a clumsy move in the pressure suit, and his boots left contact with the ship. No one! Then he realized he was drifting away. He slapped at the control unit on his belt, and the microjets puffed briefly and slammed him hard back onto the tube. His knees buckled momentarily, but he stayed erect.

You’re getting spooked, he raged at himself.

He glanced at the oxygen gauge on his wrist. Still in the green, but a sliver of yellow was showing. When the yellow went to red, he’d have to either go inside or get a fresh tank.

His earphones buzzed. “Mr. Chairman?”

“Here.”

“Just a moment, sir…”

Then Valery’s voice said, “Larry? I think Dr. Hsai might have come up with something.”

“What?”

“Wait… I’ll put him on.”

Larry kept plodding on, kept his eyes searching.

“Mr. Chairman,” the psychotech said formally.

“Doctor,” Larry responded automatically.

“I’ve been reviewing my records of Dan Christopher’s case.”

“And?”

“I believe I may have found something significant.”

Larry fumed inside his helmet. “Well, what is it?”

But there was no hurrying Hsai. “Do you recall when Mr. Christopher was first placed under my care…just after his father died?”

“Yes. Go on.”

“He was treated for a few days and then released. I tried to maintain contact with him, to follow up his case.”

“I know. We put him under observation for a month.” And you found nothing, Larry added mentally.

“Yes. Exactly so. But before then—just after he was released from the infirmary for the first time, I asked him several times to check in with me for follow-up tests. He refused.”

“So?”

Dr. Hsai’s voice continued smoothly, with just the barest hint of excitement. “At one point, he warned me that his job was too important to be interfered with.”

“Warned you?”

“I have his exact words here… listen…”

Larry stopped moving and hung frozen on the skin of the tube. The ship’s vast turning motion swung him majestically around, like a lone rider on an ancient merry-go-round. Then he heard Dan’s voice, which startled him for a moment, until he realized it was one of Dr. Hsai’s tapes:

“Our reactors are feeding the ship’s main rocket engines,” Dan was saying hotly, “on a very, very carefully programmed schedule. This ship can’t take more than a tiny thrust loading—we’re simply not built to stand high thrust, it’d tear us apart…”

“Everyone knows this.” Hsai’s voice.

Dan answered, “Uh-huh. This is a very delicate part of the mission. A slight miscalculation or a tiny flaw in the reactors could destroy this ship and kill everyone.”

Click.

“Do you understand what he was trying to tell me?” Dr. Hsai asked.

Larry blinked puzzledly. “Frankly, no. What.he was saying was perfectly true.”

“Of course. But underneath the obvious truth, he was threatening to destroy the ship and everyone in it if he didn’t get his way.”

“What?”

“I believe that is what is in his mind,” Hsai went on “Of course, I am no psychiatrist, but I think such an action of self-destruction would be consistent with Christopher’s behavior pattern.”

Larry instantly blurted, “The reactors!”

Val’s voice came on. “Larry, do you think he’d do if…”

“We can’t run the risk of not thinking it. Val, get the power crew on the phone and have them abandon level seven. Everybody out except a skeleton crew, and I want them in pressure suits. Quick!”

“Right.”

Larry fumbled with the radio switches on his belt.

“Mort, this is Larry.” Do I have the right frequency?

“You find something?”

“No. I just got a call from inside. Hsai thinks Dan might try to blow the reactors.”

“Holy…”

“I’m jetting up there. You keep the search going, just to make sure I’m not on a wild-goose chase.”

“Okay.”

Larry pushed off the tube wall and touched the microjet controls. He felt tiny hands grab him around the waist and push him up toward the ship’s hub. The rings of the ship passed beneath him three, four, five, six…

There was a flash and a puff of what looked like steam, up ahead at level seven. Something cartwheeled up, a jagged shard of metal. Larry steered in that direction.

Level seven’s only viewport had been blown apart. The lights inside were gone. Larry grabbed the jagged rim of the exploded port and hauled himself in through the hole.

If I turn on my helmet lamp I’ll be a certain target.

Something heavy and metallic slammed thunderously in the distance and a gust of wind tore past Larry, cracking like a miniature thunderclap.

Safety hatch! He’s opened the safety hatch between the offices and the reactor area.

Larry reached to his belt with both hands, turned on his helmet lamp, and pulled the laser pistol from its holster.

The office was a shambles. When the viewport blew open, air pressure inside the office gusted violently out into space, bowling over everything in its path. Chairs were overturned, desk fittings broken and scattered over the floor. Any papers that had been around were blown outside.

But no bodies. Valery’s warning must have reached the technicians just in time.

Larry hefted the pistol in his right hand and took a deep breath. The suit air suddenly tasted good. He moved toward the safety hatch that connected the office with the reactor area. In the low gravity of level seven, it was easy to move around, even inside the cumbersome suit. But still Larry moved slowly, cautiously. He was only moments behind Dan. Maybe he could surprise him.

The safety hatch was open, and the reactor area was deep in darkness. For a moment, Larry thought about switching off his helmet lamp. But he couldn’.t Be blind without it.

He edged toward the hatch. It opened, he knew, onto a metal catwalk that hung above the two main working reactors and the main electrical power generator.

He stepped out onto the catwalk, then immediately flicked off his lamp.

Down below, kneeling by the power generator in a pool of light from his own helmet lamp, was Dan. He had a laser pistol in his hand, and he was burning it at full intensity on some of the exposed wiring of the generator. Smoke and sparks were sputtering from the generator’s innards.

With barely a thought about what he was doing, Larry clambered over the catwalk’s flimsy railing and launched himself at Dan. It was like a dream, a nightmare. He floated through the twenty meters separating them like a cloud drifting across the sky. Larry raised his right hand and threw his pistol as hard as he could at Dan. It banged into Dan’s hand, knocking his own laser skittering across the floor.There was no sound.

Dan turned toward him, his lamp suddenly glaring straight into Larry’s eyes. Then they collided, hitting with a bone-jarring impact that carried the two of them up and over the generator and into a confused tangle of arms and legs onto the narrow floor space between the generator and one of the reactors.

It was like two robots grappling. In the low gravity, every strenuous move was overly done, and they fought clumsily, swinging, bouncing, rolling across the floor and flailing at each other. Noiselessly, except for the bone-carried shock of impact and the grunts that each man made inside his suit.

Larry’s head was banged around inside his helmet a dozen times. His ears rang and he tasted blood in his mouth. Sweat was trickling stingingly into his eyes.

Dan was reaching up over Larry’s shoulder, trying to grab his airline. Larry knocked his arm away and pushed Dan back against the smooth metal wall of the reactor. Dan bounced off, doubled over, and sliced Larry’s legs, knocking him sprawling.

Feeling like a turtle on its back, Larry tried to scramble up again, but Dan was on top of him. Through the metal-to-metal contact of the suits, he could hear Dan faintly yelling something; it was unintelligible.

Dan had him by the shoulders now and was banging his head and torso against the metal floor plates. Each slam jarred Larry, blurred his vision. Either his suit was going to crack open or his head would; it didn’t matter which one happened first.

He grappled his arms around Dan’s torso, trying to hold on and prevent Dan from slamming him. But Dan just rode up and down on top of him, adding his own body’s mass to the process of bludgeoning Larry to death.

Larry’s hands grasped frantically and closed on a slim piece of tubing. Airline! His first instinct was to rip it loose, but instead Larry simply squeezed on it, grabbed it hard and hung on.

In a few moments Dan stopped the pounding. He tried to reach Larry’s arm, but Larry was wrapped too closely to him for that. Dan rolled over onto his back, but Larry hung on. Squeezing, squeezing the airline, keeping fresh oxygen from Dan’s lungs, letting him suffocate on his own carbon dioxide.

Dan went limp.

Larry hung on for a few seconds longer, then let go. He himself sagged, barely conscious, on top of Dan’s inert form. No. Can’t…pass out. He’ll be coming around… as soon as fresh air… gets into his suit.

Dazed, bloody, Larry got to his knees. He knew he couldn’t stand up. He flicked on the helmet lamp and turned to look for the lasers. Dan’s legs started to move feebly. Larry crawled on all fours, found one of the little pistols on the floor, and took it in his hands. He flopped into a sitting position, leaning his back against the generator, and pointed the pistol at Dan. With his free hand he worked the suit’s radio switch.

“I’ve got him,” he said weakly. “Reactor area.”