Space Station 1

8

AN INEXORABLE kind of determination enabled Corriston to get to the Station’s central control compartment, and confront the commander, when the latter, absorbed by matters of the utmost urgency, had triple-guarded his privacy by stationing executive officers outside the door.

Commander Clement was a small man physically, with a strangely bland, almost cherubic face. But his face was dark with anger now — or possibly it was shock that he was experiencing — and the heightened color seemed to add to his dignity, making him look not merely forcibly determined, but almost formidable. His white uniform and the seven gold bars on each epaulet helped a good deal too. It was impossible to determine at a glance just how great was his inner strength, but Corriston knew that he could not have gotten where he was had he not possessed unalloyed resoluteness.

He was standing by a visual reference mechanism which looked almost exactly like a black stovepipe spiraling up from the deck. There was a speaking tube in his hand, and he was talking into it. He seemed completely unaware that he was no longer alone.

Had Corriston been less agitated he would have felt a little sorry for the officer who had admitted him. The officer had been so impressed by Corriston’s gravity and the earnestness with which he had pleaded his case that he had stepped forward and opened the door without question, assuming, no doubt, that Clement would look up instantly and see Corriston standing just inside the doorway.

Now the door had closed again, Clement hadn’t looked up, and the officer was going to be in trouble. But Corriston had no time and very little inclination to worry about that. What Commander Clement was saying into the speaking tube had a far stronger claim on his attention.

“It’s the worst thing that could have happened”, Clement was saying. “We can’t just brazen it out. It’s going to mean trouble, serious trouble. What’s that? How should I know what happened? When you’re carrying a certain kind of cargo a thousand things can go wrong. The ship went out of control, that’s all. The first radio message didn’t tell me anything. The captain was trying to cover up to save himself. He didn’t even want me to know”.

“You bet it can happen again. We’ve got to be prepared for that, too. But right now” —

Commander Clement saw Corriston then. His expression didn’t change, but it seemed to Corriston that he paled slightly.

“That’s all for now”, he said, and returned the speaking tube to its cradle.

He looked steadily at Corriston for a moment. A glint of anger appeared in his eyes, and suddenly they were blazing.

“What do you mean by coming in here unannounced, Lieutenant?” he demanded. “I gave strict orders that no one was to be admitted. If I didn’t know you were suffering from severe space shock...”

“I’m sorry, sir”, Corriston said quickly. “It’s very urgent. I think I can convince you that I am not suffering from space shock. I’ve found Miss Ramsey. She’s been badly hurt and needs immediate medical attention”.

The Commander looked as if a man he had thought sane was standing before him with a gun in his hand. Not Corriston, but some other, more violent man. For a moment longer he remained rigid and then his hand went out and tightened on Corriston’s arm.

“By heaven, if you’re lying to me!”

“I would have no reason to lie, sir. It proves I’m not a space-shock case. But that’s unimportant now. She’s safe for the moment. No one can get to her. I bolted the door on the inside. Unless” —

Corriston went pale. “No, there’s no danger. I drew the ladder up and returned it to the Selector compartment. Then I threw the lock on the emergency door”.

“Start at the beginning”, Clement said. “If she’s in danger we’ll get to her. Take it easy now, and tell me exactly what happened”.

Corriston went over it fast. He said nothing about the mask. Let Clement find that out for himself.

Commander Clement walked to the door, threw it open and spoke to the executive officer who was stationed outside. The officer came into the control room.

“Stay with Lieutenant Corriston until I get back”, Clement said. “He’s not to leave. He understands that”.

He turned back to Corriston. “I’m afraid you’ll have to consider yourself still under guard, Lieutenant. I have only your word that you found Miss Ramsey. I believe you, but there are some regulations even I can’t waive”.

“It’s all right”, Corriston said. “I won’t attempt to leave. But please hurry, sir”.

Commander Clement hesitated, then said with a smile: “I knew about the guard you knocked out, Lieutenant. You’re a very hot-headed young man. That’s really a court martial offense, but perhaps we can smooth it over if you’re telling the truth now. You were in the position of a man imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit. If he can prove his innocence, the law is very lenient. He can escape and still get a full pardon, even a pardon with apologies. It’s a different matter, of course if he kills a guard to escape. You didn’t”.

Corriston was tempted to say, “I think perhaps I tried to, sir”, but thought better of it. He’d ask Clement later why the guards who had been sent down into the Selector compartment had failed to find him. It wasn’t important enough now to waste a second thought on, but just out of curiosity he would ask.

He didn’t have to. After Clement had departed the executive officer told him. “They made a pretty thorough search for you”, he said. “Or so they claimed. But they had been drinking heavily — every one of them. Maintaining discipline can be a terrible headache at times. There’s a lot of objectivity about the commander and he doesn’t try to crack down too hard. He knows what it means to be out here for months with nothing to break the monotony. Hell, if we could send for our wives more often it wouldn’t be so bad”.

Corriston’s palms were cold. He stood very still, wondering how long it would take the commander to return with the news he wanted to hear.

“The question is whether life is really worth living without a woman to talk to”, the executive officer went on. “Just to lie relaxed and watch a pretty girl move slowly around a room. It does something for you”.

Corriston wished the man would keep quiet. Under ordinary circumstances he could have sympathized heartily. He couldn’t now. There was only one girl he wanted to see walk around a room, and she might just as well have been at the opposite end of space.

She wasn’t walking around a room now. She was lying helplessly sprawled out, waiting for rescue to come. It had to come soon, it had to. The commander wouldn’t just go down alone after her. He’d be accompanied by a half-dozen executive officers who would know exactly how to bundle her into a stretcher and carry her to the sick bay.

But what if a killer just happened to be crouching in one of the corridors, waiting for the stretcher to pass? A killer with a poisoned barb...

Corriston couldn’t stand still. He walked back and forth across the control room while the executive officer continued to talk. He paid no heed at all.

Corriston heard a footfall as he paced. He turned and saw that Commander Clement had returned. He was standing in the doorway with a strange look on his face.

Corriston felt bewildered, unable to quite believe that Clement was really back. It was like a dream that had suddenly turned real, a looking glass reversal with a strange quality of distortion about it.

It was real enough. Clement entered and shut the door behind him, very firmly and carefully, as if he wanted to make sure that Corriston would not attempt to escape.

He walked slowly forward, looking at the executive officer as if Corriston had no place at all in his thoughts.

“Everything he told me was a lie”, Clement said. “Everything. There was no girl. The compartment was locked; so was the emergency door leading down to the Selector. The ladder was standing against the wall in the Selector compartment. Miss Ramsey could not have been in the compartment — not at any time. There was nothing to indicate it. She just wasn’t there”.

Corriston moved toward him, his face white. “That’s a lie and you know it. What have you done with her? You’d better tell me. You can have me court-martialed, but you can’t stop me from talking. I can prove she was there. The grate” —

“The grate? What are you talking about? There was no ripped-out grate. The grate was in place. I feel very sorry for you, Lieutenant. But I can’t let sympathy stand in the way of my duty. In some respects you’re very rational. You can think logically and clearly... up to a point. But the shock weakness is there. It’s very serious when you start having actual hallucinations”.

The executive officer had drawn his gun. He was holding it rather loosely in his hand now, triggered and ready for any dangerous or suspicious move on Corriston’s part.

There was nothing in Clement’s gaze as he swung about to refute the dark mistrust that had come into the executive officer’s eyes. He seemed intent only on bolstering that mistrust by driving even deeper nails into Corriston’s coffin.

“I’m afraid we’ll have to continue to regard Lieutenant Corriston as dangerously unstable”, he said. “Keep your gun on him when you take him back to the Ward. Don’t relax your vigilance for an instant”.

“I won’t”, the executive officer promised.

“Good. You’re not going to make any further trouble for us, are you, Lieutenant?”.

The question seemed to call for no answer and Corriston made none. He tinned slowly and walked toward the door, despairingly aware that a man he had rather liked had fallen into step behind him and would shoot him dead if he so much as wavered.

Just as he reached the door Clement spoke again, giving the executive officer final instructions. “He must not be permitted to leave his cell. Make sure of that, Simms. Post a permanent guard at the door. He must be kept under constant surveillance. If he’s the self-destructive type, and I’m by no means sure he isn’t, he may attempt to kill himself”.