Spaceship medic

Chapter 1

The run from the Lunar Station to Mars is a piece of cake. The passengers take the rocket buses up to the interplanetary spacer, the Johannes Kepler, and settle down for ninety-two days of fun and food, sociability and relaxation. All one hundred and forty-seven of the passengers were enjoying themselves, in just this way, on the thirtieth day out from Earth.

That was when the meteorite hit the spaceship head on. Almost dead centre.

The automatic lasers did not stop it. The outer, armoured hull barely slowed it down. It ripped its way through eighteen different compartments before burying itself deep in the cargo in the centre of the drum-shaped ship.

On its destructive course it passed through the main control-room, killing Captain Kardyd and twelve other officers and men. Sixteen passengers also died, in sudden exploding agony, and the main water tank was ruptured.

It was very bad indeed.

Lieutenant Donald Chase was stretched out on a bunk in the sick bay when the meteorite hit, reading a thick book entitled Bone Deterioration in Low Gravity Environments. The metal frame of his bunk vibrated, shaking the book, and for a few instants he ignored it.

Then the significance of what had happened struck him. Vibration! There are no shocks or sudden jars in a spaceship moving through a vacuum. He dropped the book and jumped to his feet just as all the alarms sounded at once.

A blaring horn hammered at his ears and the red emergency light blinked madly. An amplified recording thundered out, replacing the sound of the horn.

'SPACE EMERGENCY! ! THE HULL OF THIS SHIP HAS BEEN HOLED. THE SHIP IS LOSING AIR. THE AUTOMATIC DOORS ARE NOW CLOSING BETWEEN COMPARTMENTS. FOLLOW SPACE SURVIVAL DRILL.'

At the moment the horn had been sounded, the emergency locker across the room had crashed open, activated by the same alarms that had sounded the warning.

'Strip and dress,' Don called out, repeating the drill as he had been taught. At the time it had just been one more thing to learn. He had never thought that he might some day use it.

His one-piece shipsuit zipped open down the front, and he hopped along on one foot as he tore it off. He kicked off his lightweight sandals at the same time and jumped for the locker.

The emergency spacesuit was still rocking on the end of the arm that had snapped it out of the storage locker. It was a one-piece suit, almost skintight, cut to an exact fit for him. The helmet dangled forward, away from him, while the entire suit was open down the back.

'Head, right leg, left leg. Right arm, left arm, close,' he mumbled to himself, repeating the drill.

Grabbing the handles on the supporting rack, Don bent forward and put his head into the helmet. At the same instant he kicked his right leg into the suit. Automatic valves blew compressed air into the leg so it puffed out like a balloon. As soon as his leg was all the way in, his toes tripped a switch and the air stopped. The suit leg collapsed firmly about his own.

Then the other leg and his arms, pushing in behind the expanding blast of air. He wriggled his fingers into the glovelike extensions of the arms and, as soon as they were all the way in, he reached out and punched the red knob with the white letters seal large upon it.

The closing device sat on the suit at the base of his spine. It began to suddenly wriggle upwards, like a great insect, pulling the open edges of the suit together and sealing them. When it reached the helmet it dropped off and he was free. And his spacesuit was airtight.

The entire process, from beginning to end, had taken less than twelve seconds.

Dons helmet looked like a round fishbowl with a hole in front of his nose and mouth. A metal cover for this stood open, ready to snap shut if the air pressure fell below five pounds to the square inch. His suit contained only a limited supply of oxygen and this had to be saved until really needed.

The emergency medical kit was also in the open locker. He grabbed it up and ran over to the computer print-out. This was an ordinary electric typewriter that was connected directly to the ships computer. Don quickly typed out his code number. This identified him as the ships medical officer so the computer would know how much information he was authorized to receive. Then he typed:

WHAT IS EMERGENCY?

There was less than a second's hesitation as the computer analysed his question, found the desired information, checked to see if he was qualified to receive this type of information, then reached a decision. The typewriter sprang to life, the ball of the typing head flying across the paper.

HOLE IN OUTER HULL ABOVE COMPARTMENT

107-JN THIS COMPARTMENT AND 17 OTHERS IN AIRLESS CONDITION

AIRLESS COMPARTMENTS SEALED FROM REST OF SHIP

AIRLESS COMPARTMENTS ARE

107 - JN

32B

32BI

Don stepped to the chart of the ship and felt a sudden clutching in his chest as he saw that 107-JN was the control-room, the ships brain.

As soon as the computer had finished tapping out the list of damage sites, he tore the sheet off and jammed it into the leg pocket of his suit. Grabbing up the medical kit he ran out of the sick bay, heading towards control.

There were probably dead people in every one of the listed compartments. And perhaps some injured who might be saved if he worked fast enough. But only one compartment counted. The control-room, and the men who worked there.

Without them this great spaceship would be just a spinning hunk of metal. It would tumble on through space, past Mars, and into the endless darkness.

Ahead was the stairwell that ran down from В deck to A deck, just outside the control-room.

'What's happening? What's the alarm?' a frightened man in a purple suit said, coming out of a cabin and trying to block Don's way.

'Emergency. Stay in your cabin as you have been instructed.'

Don brushed by him, sending him spinning aside when the man wouldn't move fast enough. He turned into the stairwell and collided with a closed door.

This was an automatic, airtight door, that had closed when the compartments had lost their air. Doors would have closed between every one of these compartments as well as in the compartments on every side to prevent the disaster from spreading.

A green light glowed on the panel in the frame: the compartment beyond had air in it. Don was trying to fumble the override key from his leg pocket when running footsteps sounded behind him.

'Let me open it, Doc,' the man called out. Don stood aside.

It was a crewman, Electricians Mate Gold, who was also wearing a spacesuit with open helmet. All the crew members - the surviving crew members - would have them on by now Gold slipped his key into the lock and the door slid open, closing solidly behind them as soon as they were through. They went down the stairs two at a time.

The door at the foot was closed and a red light glowed beside it.

'They've run out of air,' Gold said, his voice suddenly hollow.

'We'll have to get in there.'

'Better use your key, Doc. Mine won't override to an evacuated compartment.'

Air, the breath of life, could not be spared in a spaceship moving between the planets. Only a few officers had keys that would open the doors when there was a vacuum on the other side. Don put in his key and turned.

They could hear the labouring electric motors that fought to overcome the pressure: then the door began to slide slowly sideways. As soon as a hairline crack opened a monster hissing began. It grew louder as the crack widened, and their eardrums popped as the air was expelled from the stairwell.

There was a sudden clack, clack, barely heard in the rarefied atmosphere, as the coverplates in front of their helmets snapped shut automatically.

The door opened wide and they stepped through.

They were in the section of corridor just before the control-room. The airtight doors at each end were closed, making a sealed compartment. Across from them they could see the control-room door, partly open.

It was held from closing by Captain Kardyd's body.

The Captains eyes were open, blue and empty and frozen, staring at them. There was a fixed expression of anger on his face, as though he were annoyed at them for not reaching him in time. Don looked away from those accusing eyes and turned his key in the lock. The door slid open and they stepped inside, their feet soundlessly slapping the metal decking in the vacuum.

The events of the tragedy could be read with terrible clarity from the huddle of bodies by the door. The men nearest the exit had tried to reach it when the accident had occurred. Yet, even as they had battled for their own lives, the officers and men had seen to it that the Captain went first. He was the most important man aboard. Two of the men had their fingers still curled where they had grabbed the door and tried to stop it from closing on him. The First Mate's key was in his fingers. He had tried to insert it into the override lock.

They had all failed.

They had all died.

As had everyone else in the room. The bodies were heaped in frozen profusion, curled in final agonies. Don went and looked down at the ruin of the communicator station. The large radio was wrecked and twisted, and flying gobbets of molten metal had splattered in all directions. When he bent over he could see down through the hole, as big as a fist, that penetrated the insulation, the water chamber and the hull. Stars moved by in the darkness at the other end. Turning, he looked at the hole the meteorite had made in the opposite bulkhead as it tore on in its path of destruction. There was nothing he could do here with the dead. He would have to care for the living. As he turned to go he saw Electricians Mate Gold waving to him. They walked close and touched helmets.

'Can you get a patch on that hole?' Don asked, his voice carried by the vibration of helmet to helmet.

'Sure, that's easy enough, Doc. There are temporaries here that will work until the hull gang can get outside and make repairs. But that's not what is important'

'What do you mean?'

'Look at all these bodies. Too many. There shouldn't be this many guys in control at the same time. And look at all the gold braid.'

Working swiftly, numbed by the same fear, they turned over the dead men and looked at their faces. When they touched helmets again it was Don who spoke for both of them.

'The Captain must have been having a meeting of his officers. They're all here, every one of them.'

Gold nodded in solemn agreement, his helmet sliding across the other as he moved his head.

'Every deck officer,' he said. 'And even the second engineer. Which means you better cross your fingers, Doc, that we find First Engineer Holtz. And that he is in the green.'

'You can't mean...'

'It's true, Doc. If the First Engineer is dead, or even hurt, you are the only officer left aboard.

'You'll be in charge of this ship.'