The Man From Beyond

MURDERS IN SPACE

The Nuntia was two weeks in space but nobody was very happy about it.

In those two weeks the party of nine on board had been reduced to seven and the reduc­tion had not had a good effect upon our morale. As far as I could tell there was no tangi­ble suspi­cion afoot – just a feeling that all was not well.

Among the hands it was rumoured that Hammer and Drafte had gone crazy before they killed them­selves. But why had they gone crazy? That was what worried the rest. Was it some­thing to do with condi­tions in space – some subtle, unsus­pected emana­tion? Would we all go crazy?

When you are cut off from your kind you get strange fancies. Imagi­nation gets over­heated and you become too credu­lous. That is what used to happen to sailors on their long voyages in the old wind­jammers. They began to attri­bute the deaths to uncanny malign influen­ces in a way which would never have occurred to them on Earth. It gave me some amuse­ment at the time.

First had been Dale Hammer, the second navi­gator. Young, a bit wild at home, perhaps, but brilliant at his job, he was proud and over­joyed that he had been chosen for this voyage. He had gone off duty in a cheer­ful frame of mind.

A few hours later he had been found dead in his bunk with a bottle of tablets by his side: one had to take some­thing to ensure sleep out here. Every­one agreed that it was under­stand­able, though tragic, that he had taken an over­dose by mis­take.

It was after Ross Drafte's disap­pear­ance that the super­stitions began to cluster. He was an odd man with an expression which was fre­quently taci­turn and eyes in which burned feverish enthu­siams. A failure might have driven him despe­rate but under the circum­stances, he had every­thing to live for.

He was the designer of the Nuntia and she, the dream of his life, was endors­ing his every expect­ation. When we returned to make public the story of our voyage his would be the name to be glori­fied through millions of radios, his the face which would stare from hundreds of news­papers – the con­queror of gravi­tation. And he had disappeared.

The air-pressure graph showed a slight dip at one point and Drafte was.no more.

I saw no trace of sus­picion. No one had even looked askance at me nor, so far as I knew, at anyone else. No one had the least inkling that any one man aboard the ship could tell them exactly how those two men had died. There was just the con­vic­tion that some­thing queer was afoot.

And now it was time for another.

Ward Govern, the chief engi­neer, was in the chart­room, talking with Captain Tanner. The rest were busy else­where. I slipped into Govern's cabin unob­served. His pistol I found in the drawer where he always kept it and I slipped it into my pocket. Then I crossed to the other wall and opened the venti­lator which commu­ni­cated with the passage. Finally, after care­fully assuring my­self that no one was in sight, I left, closing the door behind me.

I had not long to wait. In less than a quarter of an hour I heard the clatter of a pair of mag­netic shoes on the steel floor and the engi­neer passed cheer­fully by on his way to turn in. The general air of mis­giving had had less effect upon him than upon any­one else. I heard the door slam behind him. I allowed him a few mo­ments before I moved as quietly to the venti­lator as my magnetic soles would allow.

I could see him quite easily. He had removed his shoes and was sitting at a small wall desk, entering the day's events in his diary. I thrust the muzzle of the pistol just within the slot of the venti­lator and with the other hand began to make slight scratching noises. It was essential that he should come close to me. There must be a burn or at least powder marks.

The persis­tent scratch­ing began to worry him. He glanced up in a puzzled fashion and held his head on one side, listening. I went on scratch­ing. He decided to investi­gate and released the clips which held his weight­less body to the chair. With­out bother­ing to put on the mag­netic shoes, he pushed himself away from the wall and came floating towards the venti­lator. I let him get quite close before I fired.

There was a clatter of running feet ming­ling with cries of alarm. I dropped the pistol inside my shirt and jumped around the corner, reach­ing the cabin door just ahead of a pair who came from the other direc­tion. We flung it open and I dashed in. Govern's body under the impetus of the shot had floated back into the middle of the room. It looked uncanny, lying asprawl in mid-air.

“Quick,” I yelled, “fetch the Captain.”

One of them pelted to the door. I managed to keep my body between the other and the corpse while I closed the dead fingers around the pistol. A few seconds later every­body had collected about the door­way and the Captain had to push them aside to get in.

He exa­mined the body. It was not a pleasant sight. The blood had not yet ceased to flow from the wound in the head but it did not drip as it would on Earth. Instead it had spurted forth to form into red spheres, which floated freely close beside the corpse. There was no doubt that the shot had been fired at close range. The Captain looked at the out­flung hand which gripped the auto­matic.

“What happened?”

No one seemed to know.

“Who found him?”

“I was here first, sir,” I said. “Just before the others.”

“Anyone with you when you heard the shot?”

“No, sir. I was just walking along the passage—”

“That's right, sir. We met Gratz running ‘round the corner’.” Somebody supported me.

“You didn't see anyone else about?”

“No, sir.”

“And was it possible, do you think, for any­body to have gotten out of the room unseen between the time of the shot and your arrival?”

“Quite impossi­ble, sir. He would have been bound to walk straight into me or the others – even if there had been time for him to get out of the room.”

“Very well. Please help me with this.” He turned to the other four who were still linge­ring in a group near the door. “You men get back to work now.”

Two began to move off but the other pair, Willis and Trail, both mecha­nics, held their ground.

“Didn't you hear me? Get along there.”

Still they hesitated. Then Willis stepped for­ward and the Captain's un­believing ears heard his demand that the Nuntia be turned back.

“You don't know what you're saying, man!”

“I do, sir, and so does Trail. There's some­thing queer about it all. It's not natural for men to kill them­selves like this. Perhaps we'll be next. When we signed up we knew we'd have dangers we could see but didn't reckon with some­thing that makes you go mad and kill yourself. We don't like it – and we ain't going on. Turn the ship back.”

“Don't be a pair of fools. You ought to know that we can't turn back. What do you think this is – a rowbgat? What's the matter with you?”

The two faces in front of him were set in lines of stolid deter­mi­na­tion. Willis spoke again.

“We've had enough and that's flat. It was bad enough when two had gone but now it's three. Who's going to be the next? That's what I want to know.”

“That's what we all want to know,” said the Captain mean­ingly. “Why are you so anxious to have the ship turned back?”

“Because it's wrong – unlucky. We don't want to go crazy even if you do. If you don't turn her back we will.”

“So that's the way it blows, is it? Who's pay­ing you for this?”

Willis and Trail remained un­compre­hending.

“You heard me,” he roared. “Who's behind you? Who's out to wreck this trip?”

Willis shook his head. “Nobody's behind us. We just want to get out of this before we go crazy too,” he repeated.

“Went crazy, eh?” said the Captain with a sneer. “Well maybe they did and then again, maybe they didn't – and if they didn't I've got a pretty good idea what happened to them.” He paused. “So you think you'll scare me into turning back, do you? Well, by the stars, you won't, you bilge rats. Get back to your work. I'll deal with you later.”

But neither Willis nor Trail had any inten­tion of getting back. They came on. Trail was swing­ing a threat­ening spanner. I snatched the pistol from the corpse's hands and got him in the fore­head. It was a lucky shot. Willis tried to stop. I got him, too.

The Captain turned and saw me hand­ling the pistol. The sudden­ness of the thing had taken him by sur­prise. I could see that he didn't know whether to thank me or to blame me for so summary an execu­tion of justice. There was no doubt that the pair had muti­nied and that Trail, at least, had meant murder. Strong and Danver, the two men in the door­way, stared speech­lessly. Nine men had sailed in the Nuntia — four now remained.

For the time the Captain said noth­ing. We waited, looking at the two bodies still sway­ing eerily, anchored to the floor by their mag­netic shoes. At last the Captain broke the silence.

“It's going to be hard work for four men,” he said. “But if each of us pulls his weight we may win through yet. To the two of you all the engine room work will fall. Gratz, do you know anything of three-dimensional navigation?”

“Very little, sir.”

“Well, you'll have to learn – and quickly.”

After the business of disposing the bodies through the air­lock was finished, he led me to the navi­ga­tion room. Half to himself I heard him murmur, “I wonder which it was? Trail, I should guess. He's the type.”

“Beg your pardon, sir?”

“I was wonder­ing which of those two was the murderer.”

“Murderer, sir?” I said.

“Murderer, Gratz. I said and I mean it. Surely you didn't think those deaths were natural?”

“They seemed natural.”

“They were well enough managed but there was too much coin­ci­dence. Some­body was out to wreck this trip and kill us all.”

“I don't see—”

“Think, man, think,” he inter­rupted. “Suppose the secret of the Nuntia got out in spite of all our care? There are plenty of people who would want her to fail.”

I flatter myself that I managed my sur­prise rather well.

“Metallic Industries, you mean?”

“Yes, and others. No one knows what may be the out­come of this voyage. There are a lot of people who find the world very com­fort­able as it is and would like to keep it so. Suppose they had planted one of those men aboard?”

I shook my head doubt­fully. “It wouldn't do. It'd be suicide. One man couldn't get this ship back to Earth.”

“Nevertheless I'm con­vinced that either Willis or Trail was planted here to stop us from succeeding.”

The idea that both the men were genuinely scared and wanted only to get back to Earth had never struck him. I saw no reason to let it.

“Anyway,” he added, “we've settled with the murdering swine now – at the cost of three good honest men.”

He took some charts from a drawer. “Now come along, Gratz. We must get to work on this navi­ga­tion. Who knows but that all our lives may soon depend on you.”

“Who indeed, sir,” I agreed.