Subspace Survivors Read online

Besides, who wants a man a foot taller than she is and twice asbig? You're just _exactly_ the right size!"

  "That's spreading the good old oil, Bobby, but I'll never tangle withyou if I can help it. Buzz-saws are small, too, and sticks of dynamite.Shall we go hunt up the parson--or should it be a priest? Or a rabbi?"

  "Even _that_ doesn't make a particle of difference to you."

  "Of course not. How could it?"

  "A parson, please." Then, with a bright, quick grin: "We _have_ got alot to learn about each other, haven't we?"

  "Some details, of course, but nothing of any importance and we'll haveplenty of time to learn them."

  "And we'll love every second of it. You'll live down here in the Middlewith me, won't you, all the time you aren't actually on duty?"

  "I can't imagine doing anything else," and the two set out, arms aroundeach other, to find a minister. And as they strolled along:

  "Of course you won't actually _need_ a job, ever, or my money, either.You never even thought of dowsing, did you?"

  "Dowsing? Oh, that witch stuff. Of course not."

  "Listen, darling. All the time I've been touching you I've been learningabout you. And you've been learning about me."

  "Yes, but----"

  "No buts, buster. You have really tremendous powers, and they _aren't_latent, either. All you have to do is quit fighting them and _use_ them.You're ever so much stronger and fuller than I am. All I can do atdowsing is find water, oil, coal, and gas. I'm no good at all onmetals--I couldn't feel gold if I were perched right on the roof of FortKnox; I couldn't feel radium if it were frying me to a crisp. But I'm_positive_ that you can tune yourself to anything you want to find."

  He didn't believe it, and the argument went on until they reached the"Reverend's" quarters. Then, of course, it was dropped automatically;and the next five days were deliciously, deliriously, ecstatically happydays for them both.

  II.

  At the time of this chronicle the status of interstellar flight was verysimilar to that of intercontinental jet-plane flight in thenineteen-sixties. Starships were designed by humanity's best brains;carried every safety device those brains could devise. They weremaintained and serviced by ultra-skilled, ultra-trained, ultra-ablecrews; they were operated by the _creme-de-la-creme_ of manhood. Only aman with an extremely capable mind in an extremely capable body couldbecome an officer of a subspacer.

  Statistically, starships were the safest means of transportation everused by man; so safe that Very Important Persons used them regularly,unthinkingly, and as a matter of course. Statistically, the starships'fatality rate per million passenger-light-years was a small fraction ofthat of the automobiles' per million passenger-miles. Insurancecompanies offered odds of tens of thousands to one that any givenstar-traveler would return unharmed from any given star-trip he cared tomake.

  Nevertheless, accidents happened. A chillingly large number of liveshad, as a total, been lost; and no catastrophe had ever been evenpartially explained. No message of distress or call for help had everbeen received. No single survivor had ever been found; nor any piece ofwreckage.

  And on the Great Wheel of Fate the _Procyon_'s number came up.

  In the middle of the night Carlyle Deston came instantaneouslyawake--feeling with his every muscle and with his every square inch ofskin; listening with all the force he could put into his auditorynerves; while deep down in his mind a huge, terribly silent voicecontinued to yell: "DANGER! DANGER! DANGER!"

  In a very small fraction of a second Carlyle Deston moved--and fast.Seizing Barbara by an arm, he leaped out of bed with her.

  "We're abandoning ship--get into this suit--quick!"

  "But what ... but I've _got_ to dress!"

  "No time! Snap it up!" He practically hurled her into her suit; clampedher helmet tight. Then he leaped into his own. "Skipper!" he snappedinto the suit's microphone. "Deston. Emergency! Abandon ship!"

  The alarm bells clanged once; the big red lights flashed once; thesirens barely started to growl, then quit. The whole vast fabric of theship trembled and shuddered and shook as though it were being mauled bya thousand impossibly gigantic hammers. Deston did not know and neverdid find out whether it was his captain or an automatic that touched offthe alarm. Whichever it was, the disaster happened so fast thatpractically no warning at all was given. And out in the corridor:

  "Come on, girl--sprint!" He put his arm under hers and urged her along.

  She did her best, but in comparison with his trained performance herbest wasn't good. "I've never been checked out on sprinting inspacesuits!" she gasped. "Let go of me and go on ahead. I'll follow----"

  Everything went out. Lights, gravity, air-circulation--everything.

  "You haven't been checked out on free fall, either. Hang onto thistool-hanger here on my belt and we'll travel."

  "Where to?" she asked, hurtling through the air much faster than she hadever gone on foot.

  "Baby Two--that is, Lifecraft Number Two--my crash assignment. Goodthing I was down here in the Middle; I'd never have made it from up Top.Next corridor left, I think." Then, as the light of his headlamp showednumbers on the wall: "Yes. Square left. I'll swing you."

  He swung her and they shot to the end of the passage. He kicked a leverand the lifecraft's port swung open--to reveal a blaze of light and astartled, gray-haired man.

  "What happened.... What hap ...?" the man began.

  "Wrecked. We've had it. We're abandoning ship. Get into that cubby overthere, shut the door tight behind you, and _stay there_!"

  "But can't I do something to help?"

  "Without a suit and not knowing how to use one? You'd get burned to acinder. Get in there--and _jump_!"

  The oldster jumped and Deston turned to his wife. "Stay here at theport, Bobby. Wrap one leg around that lever, to anchor you. What doesyour telltale read? That gauge there--your radiation meter. It readstwenty, same as mine. Just pink, so we've got a minute or so. I'll roustout some passengers and toss 'em to you--you toss 'em along in there.Can do?"

  She was white and trembling; she was very evidently on the verge ofbeing violently sick; but she was far from being out of control. "Cando, sir."

  "Good girl, sweetheart. Hang on one minute more and we'll have gravityand you'll be O. K."

  The first five doors he tried were locked; and, since they were made ofarmor plate, there was nothing he could do about them except give eachone a resounding kick with a heavy steel boot. The sixth was unlocked,but the passengers--a man and a woman--were very evidently and verygruesomely dead.

  So was everyone else he could find until he came to a room in which aman in a spacesuit was floundering helplessly in the air. He glanced athis telltale. Thirty-two. High in the red, almost against the pin.

  "Bobby! What do you read?"

  "Twenty-six."

  "Good. I've found only one, but we're running out of time. I'm comingin."

  * * * * *

  In the lifecraft he closed the port and slammed on full drive away fromthe ship. Then, wheeling, he shucked Barbara out of her suit like an earof corn and shed his own. He picked up a fire-extinguisher-like affairand jerked open the door of a room a little larger than a clothescloset. "Jump in here!" He slammed the door shut. "Now strip, quick!" Hepicked the canister up and twisted four valves.

  Before he could get the gun into working position she was out of herpajamas--the fact that she had been wondering visibly what it was allabout had done nothing whatever to cut down her speed. A flood of thick,creamy foam almost hid her from sight and Deston began to talk--quietly.

  "Thanks, sweetheart, for not slowing us down by arguing and wantingexplanations. This stuff is DEKON--short for Decontaminant, Complete;Compound, Adsorbent, and Chelating, Type DCQ-429.' Used soon enough, ittakes care of radiation. Rub it in good, all over you--like this." Heset the foam-gun down on the floor and went vigorously to work. "Yes,hair, too. Every square millimeter of skin and mucous membrane. Yes,into your eyes. It stings
'em a little, but that's a lot better thangoing blind. And your mouth. Swallow six good big mouthfuls--it'stasteless and goes down easy.

  "Now the soles of your feet--O. K. The last will hurt plenty, but we've_got_ to get some of it into your lungs and we can't do it the hospitalway. So when I slap a gob of it over your mouth and nose inhale hard anddeep. Just once is all anybody can do, but that's enough. And don'tfight. Any ordinary woman I could handle, but I can't handle you fastenough. So if you don't inhale deep I'll