The Mile Long Spaceship (4 page)

He ate and slept and worried at the problem. Several times he talked briefly to various passengers. "No, Mrs. Clevers, no message yet. I'll let you know.", or, "Sorry, Doctor, Miss Dryod cannot be returned to a hospital. Just do the best you can for her."

Then Custens flashed him from the lifeboat. "Sir, someone is trying to get in here. Sounds like he's smashing away at the lock."

Royle started from the engine room running, swung about and lifted his stun gun from the desk and made his way through the eerily echoing companionway toward the airlock. Bitterly he thought as he raced along, all he needed at that point was a mutiny.

He checked his pace as he neared the door and automatically he noted that the lock had been smashed. Luxury liners weren't built for resistance against attacks from within. It made it clear however that the man did have a weapon. Royle grunted to himself and stepped inside.

He acknowledged Custens' feeble gesture toward the other lifeboats by raising his own hand to his lips for silence. Quietly he edged his way toward the third lifeboat, keeping well in the shadows of the cradles, now vacant, their tiny crafts bearing frozen bodies out into the void of space. He could hear the man now, could hear his labored breathing and a scraping noise. There was a curse and a muffled gasp and Royle knew who it was on the other side of the lifeboat. Grimly he tightened his grasp on his gun and stepped forward to stand within six feet of Harmon Windlass.

"That'll be all, Windlass. Drop the wrench!" he snapped.

Windlass spun around and let the wrench fly at Royle's head in one continuing motion. He followed it, lunging in low as Royle ducked and felt the heavy tool swish past him. Before he could regain his balance, Windlass' momentum carried them both to the metal floor in a hard fall. Royle felt his gun forced from his hand to skid across the room and savagely he rolled once, taking the heavier man with him. He knew he would be no match for Windlass in an endurance battle, but almost joyously he reverted to the atavistic survival tactics every space cadet had to master. One knee came up and down hard, grinding into Windlass' midsection. Windlass sucked in air and his right hand jabbed at Royle's throat with an almost neck-breaking force. Royle shifted his weight and increased the pressure of his knee, at the same time using both hands forcing Windlass' head around, making him bring up his own hands to claw at Royle's fingers digging into his face. Abruptly Windlass ceased his struggle and his muscles sagged in unconsciousness. Royle got to his feet reluctantly. He was breathing heavily as he staggered across the room to retrieve the gun and the wrench. He leaned against the wall and waited for Windlass to start stirring. It took him almost five minutes before he clambered unsteadily to his feet.

"We're not through yet, Royle," he said. Suddenly his eyes widened in shock and he took a step backward, and another, his stare, almost hypnotic, fixed behind Royle. He screamed hoarsely, turned and ran crazily from the airlock.

Royle turned then and he could understand the man's terror. Custens, unable to see what was happening from his lifeboat, had come out and was standing by one of the cradles, swaying slightly. Royle swore bitterly, to himself, at the man's appearance, emaciated, shaking, hollow-eyed. "I'll make sure he heads for his room," he said and waved a salute as he followed after Windlass.

He checked Windlass' room from the engine room and settled himself as comfortably as he could with the bruises that only now were making their presence felt. Windlass would try again—something. He wouldn't go near the airlock again, not so long as he thought Custens was in there. But he was shrewd and devious. His plans would bccome more involved and harder to forestall. A tight smile broke the deep lines of Royle's face as he remembered the personal satisfaction it had given him to be doing something physical and violent. It was the doing nothing that made it all so hard.

A vampire, he thought and he got Rawlins on the communication screen. "I don't know what it could be listed under—if it is listed at all. Invisible, parasitic, non-intelligent. Try them all. Pull anything from the index that could pertain. I'll be in touch." Rawlins saluted and signed off and Royle called Custens.

"I'm all right, sir. After a time you don't mind the cold quite so much." His haggard face and haunted eyes gave the lie to the words. The medic bag was beside him.

"Custens, I'm bringing your food to you. This is more insane than letting the cold get you. Man, you're starving yourself."

"No, really, sir. I brought enough provisions. Enough to see if it would keep going down."

"I'm coming down there, Custens. I want to talk to you."

Royle disconnected while the man was still protesting and called Giroden to come to the engine room.

"Now what's up?"

"Look, Giroden, I have to leave, but I can't leave the room alone. I want you to stay here and not let anyone else in," Royle said crisply.

"Hmm. That suggests someone might try and I'm to use whatever means I find available to prevent him. Right?"

"Exactly," Royle said. "Someone might try. He's already tried to steal a life ship. If he thinks I'm in here, he won't try to get in so don't open the door to anyone."

"You intrigue me, Captain. Such ambiguity. Who is this skulking scoundrel who would steal one of the last remaining lifeboats?" Giroden's broad grin faded turning into a dark scowl as Royle answered.

"Windlass. And he was alone when he tried to get away. He went to the airlock with a wrench he found somewhere. By now he may have dug up a knife or even a stun gun, so don't play games with him."

"Windlass? Where's the child bride?"

"Still in their stateroom, I guess. If she comes, you can let her in. I have a feeling it won't be long until she breaks and runs for help."

"I'll let her in, Captain," Giroden said simply, but his tone made Royle turn and study him thoughtfully for a second. Then he left.

In the galley Royle selected steak, milk, cheese, and peaches for Custens. On both sides of him doors yawned wide giving the large ship a look of complete desolation. The open doors to the storerooms and crews' quarters gave way to the tightly closed and locked rooms of the passengers and on to the sumptuous lounge now deserted. Nearly past it he stopped.

Someone was in there crying. A woman was weeping softly with the complete abandon of utter hopelessness. Royle went in to investigate. It could be that someone's temperature hadn't registered normal, and in that event, it was his business.

"Mrs. Windlass!" he exclaimed, surprised, feeling a lurching in his stomach. Not her, he groaned to himself. Not that lovely, shining creature. "Mrs. Windlass, what is it?" He put the tray on a table and sat down beside her reaching out for her hand, finding it reassuringly warm and perspiring in his.

"N—nothing—Ca—Captain. I'm sorry. Please go away and leave me alone. You have enough worries," she said brokenly through sobs.

"That's all right, Mrs. Windlass," Royle said awkwardly, patting her hand in what he hoped was a soothing fashion. She wasn't the first to break and she was regaining her composure.

"I'm a fool, Captain. I was watching the monitor, seeing all the stars like lights on strings and before I knew it I was crying like a baby. I'll be all right."

"Sure you will, honey." It slipped out before he could know he would say it but it seemed more appropriate than continuing to call her Mrs.

"Captain, what can I do? I can't go back there to our room. I can't stay here any longer." Her little girl's face was tear-streaked and one of her hands must have been dirty for she had rubbed smudges around her eyes. Her hair was coming free of the gold band that held it smoothly from her forehead and where it lay against her damp face, little tendrils of curls formed. She was watching his face anxiously as she moaned, "I can't go back to him, Captain. I can't. I've been here for hours, but he'll come for me. I know he will."

"Go to the engine room. Giroden is there and he'll let you in. I'll be along soon."

He retrieved the tray and went on to the airlock. "Open up, Custens, or I'll dump you." Custens knew he could swing the whole bottom of the ship open if he had to, and reluctantly he slid the hatch open a slit. "All the way, Custens. I want you to eat."

"Sir, you shouldn't have done this. If you get sick who's going to take care of them?"

"That's enough, Custens. Just eat." He leaned against the ship and drew out his pipe, lighting it deliberately and waiting for it to be just right before he said in a meditative tone, "How long have we been together, Custens?"

"Sixteen years, sir."

"Eleven years exploring and five carting wealthy people about the universe. Quite a life we've led, Custens. Quite a life. Guess there's not much we haven't seen, is there? I think, if we get out of this, I'd like to go back to scouting again. How about you?"

"Yes sir, whatever you say."

"I believe if I asked you to step into hell for me, you'd do it, wouldn't you?" There was no answer to such a question and he didn't wait for Custens to figure it out. "I'm asking that of you, Custens. I want you to do all you can to stay alive for another week. Feed that thing plenty of calories, keep as warm as you can, and stay alive. It isn't as easy as just dying, but I'm asking it. There comes a time when a man has to gamble without seeing a single card or knowing whether or not his opponent has ever pulled a bluff or called one. You know I'll have to blow the ship if I get sick, don't you?"

"That's understood, sir. We all know that."

"Not all, Custens, not all. Keep an eye out for those other two ships. We might need them someday. I'll be in touch with you."

"Sir, may I ask, do you have a plan?"

"I think I might, Custens. This goes from a newly killed victim to a live one. That's how this thing has spread." Custens was shaking his head puzzledly and Royle said softly, "It has to be a being, an entity! Amorphous, permeable, as shapeless as air, perhaps, but a being!" He turned from the pathetically trustful face of the shivering man then and strode from the air lock toward the infirmary.

Rawlins gave him a brief salute and inclined his head fractionally, "Nothing yet, sir." He resumed his position sprawled in a contour chair before a screen, an ear plug in his ear.

"Keep at it, Rawlins," Royle grunted and sat opposite him for a few minutes.

He knew the man would find the confirmation he needed if it were available in the tapes. He would sit in that chair until he adhered to it indissolubly. For an instant his own sense of fallibility overwhelmed him and, as he often had in the past, he wondered why his men followed his lead blindly without question. They did, and for the time that was enough. He was playing a hunch that could leave them no better off than they were now, but with the added hazard of knowing the end would certainly come much sooner because of it. The passengers could attempt mutiny. With Windlass at their front, they well might attempt mutiny. He knew it would fail through the very scheme of events that had put him aboard as the captain and them aboard as the remnants of a long list of paying passengers. Although he could understand the terror of his passengers, he knew that he had to find some way to break out of the nightmare or they would certainly crumble into pieces before much time passed. But to precipitate the conclusion of the panic with a plan that was wrong might mean having a possible retrieve from Capella Four go bouncing endlessly through space without ever being received.

It all hinged on timing. Custens' temperature was registering eighty-nine; less than ten days before he'd be too far gone for anything to be of help to him. Seven days, he told himself grimly, he'd wait no more than seven days for Capella Four to come through. Then he'd experiment. The nagging thought that he might not be allowed seven days kept coming back to him as he left the infirmary and returned toward the engine room.

Windlass confronted him in the corridor before his engine room, standing spread legged, hands on hips, in the center of the hall with an ugly look on his face. "Where's Kara, Royle? No pussyfooting around, just tell me where's she at."

"Why?"

"I'm warning you, Royle. I don't play coy with guys eying my wife. You either tell me where she's waiting for you, or I start taking you apart now. And this time we fight my way. You won't trick me again."

"Windlass, why don't you go frighten old ladies? The girl left you. Face it. She doesn't want to come back to you and aboard this ship she doesn't have to."

Windlass shifted his weight perceptibly and seemed to gather his large muscles together consciously as he grated, "I picked her up off a dead world and she was willing enough to come with me. I even married her and, believe me, I wouldn't of had to, she was so anxious to get off that stinking, mud-mired dump. So now she decides a fancy pants captain might be a better catch. Where is she? For the last time!"

"Look, Windlass, you were willing enough to leave her behind when you thought you could steal one of the lifeboats, why the sudden switch?"

"Just say I got other plans now, Royle. A lot of us got other plans now. We don't like the idea of you blowing the ship with us on it. Maybe if you want to blow the ship, you should be alone when it goes. Maybe we think while we're still alive and healthy, we should leave this tub and cut space back to a place where there's doctors and researchers."

Royle nodded at him calmly, "I know. You're scared. We're all scared. But acting like an adolescent denied won't get you anywhere. I have a plan I want to try. I might save all of us. Why don't you report that back to your fellow ship jumpers?"

"Kara?" Windlass asked, but now it seemed more an attempt to save face than a threatening gesture.

"She's locked in where you can't get to her. If she decides to come back to you, all she has to do is open the door and walk down the hall. I swear to you that I have no interest in the girl." Royle put every bit of the conviction he could muster in his voice and waited, hoping he wouldn't have to use the gun he fingered under his tunic. He knew he'd fire without compunction if the man moved toward him again.