Subspace Survivors Read online

have to knock you cold.Otherwise you die of lung cancer. Will do?"

  "Will do, sweetheart. Good and deep. No fight," and she emptied herlungs.

  He slapped it on. She inhaled, good and deep; and went into convulsiveparoxysms of coughing. He held her in his arms until the worst of it wasover; but she was still coughing hard when she pulled herself away fromhim.

  "But ... how ... about ... you?" She could just barely talk; her voicewas distorted, almost inaudible. "Let ... me ... help ... you ...quick!"

  "No need, darling. Two other men out there. The old man probably won'tneed it--I think I got him into the safe quick enough--the other guy andI will help each other. So lie down there on the bunk and take it easyuntil I come back here and help you get the gunkum off. So-long for halfan hour, pet."

  Forty-five minutes later, while all four were still cleaning up themesses of foam, something began to buzz sharply. Deston stepped over tothe board and flipped a switch. The communicator came on. Sinceeverything aboard a starship is designed to fail safe, they were, ofcourse, in normal space. On the visiplates hundreds of stars blazed invari-colored points of hard, bright light.

  "Baby Two acknowledging," Deston said. "First Officer Deston and threepassengers. Deconned to zero. Report, please."

  "Baby Three. Second Officer Jones and four passengers. Deconned to----"

  "Thank God, Herc!" Formality vanished. "With _you_ to astrogate us, wemay have a chance. But how'd you make it? I'd've sworn a flying saucercouldn't've got down from the Top in the time we had."

  "Same thing right back at you, Babe. I didn't have to come down. We werein Baby Three when it happened." Full vision was on; a big,square-jawed, lean, tanned face looked out at them from the screen.

  "Huh? How come? And who's 'we'?"

  "My wife and I." Second Officer Theodore "Hercules" Jones was somewhatembarrassed. "I got married, too, day before yesterday. After the waythe old man chewed you out, though, I knew he'd slap irons on mewithout saying a word, so we kept it dark and hid out in Baby Three.These three are all we could find before our meters went high red. Ideconned Bun, then----"

  "Bun?" Barbara broke in. "Bernice Burns? How _wonderful_!"

  "Formerly Bernice Burns." The face of a platinum-blonde beauty appearedon the screen beside Jones'. "And _am_ I glad to see _you_, Barbara,even if I did just meet you yesterday! I didn't know whether I'd eversee another girl's face or not!"

  "Let's cut the chat," Deston said then. "Herc, give me course, blast,and time for rendezvous ... hey! My watch stopped!"

  "So did mine," Jones said. "So just hold one gravity on eighteen dashforty-seven dash two seventy-one and I'll correct you as necessary."

  After setting course, and still thinking of his watch, Deston said; "Butit's nonmagnetic. It never stopped before."

  The gray-haired man spoke. "It was never in such a field before. Yousee, those two observations of fact invalidate twenty-four of thethirty-eight best theories of hyper-space. But tell me--am I correct insaying that none of you were in direct contact with the metal of theship when it happened?"

  "We avoid it in case of trouble. You? Name and job?" Deston jerked hishead at the younger stranger.

  "I know _that_ much. Henry Newman. Crew-chief, normal space jobs,unlimited."

  "Your passengers, Herc?"

  "Vincent Lopresto, financier, and his two bodyguards. They were sleepingin their suits, on air-mattresses. Grounders. Don't like subspace--orspace, either."

  "Just so." The gray-haired man nodded, almost happily. "We survivors,then, absorbed the charge gradually----"

  "But what the----" Deston began.

  "One moment, please, young man. You perhaps saw some of the bodies. Whatwere they like?"

  "They looked ... well, not exactly as though they had exploded, but----"he paused.

  "Precisely." Gray-Hair beamed. "That eliminates all the others exceptthree--Morton's, Sebring's, and Rothstein's."

  "You're a specialist in subspace, then?"

  "Oh, no, I'm not a specialist at all. I'm a dabbler, really. Aspecialist, you know, is one who learns more and more about less andless until he knows everything about nothing at all. I'm just theopposite. I'm learning less and less about more and more; hoping in timeto know nothing at all about everything."

  "In other words, a Fellow of the College. I'm glad you're aboard, sir."

  "Oh, a Theoretician?" Barbara's face lit up and she held out her hand."With dozens of doctorates in everything from Astronomy to Zoology?I've never met ... I'm _ever_ so glad to meet you, Doctor----?"

  "Adams. Andrew Adams. But I have only eight at the moment. Earneddegrees, that is."

  "But what were you doing in this lifecraft? No, let me guess. You wereX-ray-eying it and fine-toothing it for improvements made since yourlast trip, and storing the details away in your eidetic memory."

  "Not eidetic, by any means. Merely very good."

  "And how many metric tons of apparatus have you got in the hold?" Destonasked.

  "Less than six. Just what I _must_ have in order to----"

  "Babe!" Jones' voice cut in. "Course change. Stay on alpha eighteen.Shift beta to forty-four and gamma to two sixty-five."

  * * * * *

  Rendezvous was made. Both lifecraft hung motionless relative to the_Procyon_'s hulk. No other lifecraft had escaped. A conference was held.

  Weeks of work would be necessary before Deston and Jones could learneven approximately what the damage to the _Procyon_ had been.Decontamination was automatic, of course, but there would be literallyhundreds of hot spots, each of which would have to be sought out andneutralized by hand. The passengers' effects would have to be listed andstored in the proper cabins. Each body would have to be given velocityaway from the ship. And so on. Every survivor would have to work, andwork hard.

  The two girls wanted to be together. The two officers almost _had_ to betogether, to discuss matters at unhampered length and to make decisions.Each was, of course, almost as well versed in engineering as he was inhis own specialty. All ships' officers from First to Fifth had to be.And, as long as they lived or until the _Procyon_ made port, allresponsibility rested: First, upon First Officer Deston; and second,upon Second Officer Jones. Therefore Theodore and Bernice Jones cameaboard Lifecraft Two, and Deston asked Newman to flit across toLifecraft Three.

  "Not me; I like the scenery here better." Newman's eyes raked Bernice'sfive-feet-eight of scantily-clad sheer beauty from ankles to coiffure."If you're too crowded--I know a lifecraft carries only fifty people--goyourself."

  "As a crew-chief, you know the law." Deston spoke quietly--too quietly,as the other man should have known. "I am in command."

  "You ain't in command of _me_, pretty boy!" Newman sneered. "You canplay God when you're on sked, with a ship-full of trained dogs to bitefor you, but out here where nobody has ever come back from I make my ownlaw--with _this_!" He patted his side pocket.

  "Draw it, then!" Deston's voice now had all the top-deck rasp of hisrank. "Or crawl!"

  The First Officer had not moved; his right hand still hung quietly athis side. Newman glanced at the girls, both of whom were frozen; atJones, who smiled at him pityingly; at Adams, who was merely interested."I ... my ... yours is right where you can get at it," he faltered.

  "You should have thought of that sooner. But, this once, I won't move afinger until your hand is in your pocket."

  "Just wing him, Babe," Jones said then. "He looks strong enough, exceptfor his head. We can use him to shovel out the gunkum and clean up."

  "Uh-uh. I'll have to kill him sometime, and the sooner the better.Square between the eyes. Do you want a hundred limit at ten bucks amillimeter on how far the hole is off dead center?"

  The two girls gasped; stared at each other and at the two officers inhorror; but Jones said calmly, without losing any part of his smile: "Idon't want a dime's worth of that. I've lost too much money that wayalready." At which outrageous statement both girls knew what was goingon and smiled
in relief.

  And Newman misinterpreted those smiles completely; especially Bernice's.The words came hard, but he managed to say then. "I crawl."

  "Crawl, what?"

  "I crawl, sir. You'll want my gun----"

  "Keep it. There's a lot more difference than _that_ between us. Howclose can you count seconds?"

  "Plus or minus five per