The Best of (36 page)

There was a crash which made the whole ship ring round him and his crew as if they were in an enormous bell. It's about the nastiest—and very likely to be the last—sound a spaceman can ever hear. This time, however, their luck was in. It wasn't too bad. They discovered that as they crowded to watch the indicator dials. It was soon evident that nothing vital had been hit, and they were able to release their breath.

Gerald turned over the controls to his First, and he and the engineer, Steve, pulled spacesuits out of the locker. When the airlock opened they hitched their safetylines on to spring hooks, and slid their way aft along the hull on magnetic soles. It was soon clear that the damage was not on the airlock side, and they worked round the curve of the hull.

One can't say just what they expected to find—probably an embedded hunk of rock, or maybe just a gash in the side of the hold—anyway it was certainly not what they did find, which was half of a small spaceship projecting out of their own hull.

One thing was evident right away—that it had hit with no great force. If it had, it would have gone right through and out the other side, for the hold of a freighter is little more than a singlewalled cylinder: there is no need for it to be more, it doesn't have to conserve warmth, or contain air, or resist the friction of an atmosphere, nor does it have to contend with any more gravitational pull than that of the moon; it is only in the livingquarters that there have to be the complexities necessary to sustain life.

Another thing, which was immediately clear, was that this was not the only misadventure that had befallen the small ship. Something had, at some time, sliced off most of its after part, carrying away not only the driving tubes but the mixingchambers as well, and leaving it hopelessly disabled.

Shuffling round the wreckage to inspect it, Gerald found no entrance. It was thoroughly jammed into the hole it had made, and its airlock must lie forward, somewhere inside the freighter. He sent Steve back for a cutter and for a key that would get them into the hold. While he waited he spoke through his helmetradio to the operator in theCelestis's livingquarters, and explained the situation. He added:

"Can you raise the MoonStation just now, Jake? I'd better make a report."

"Strong and clear, Cap'n," Jake told him.

"Good. Tell them to put me on to the Duty Officer, win you."

He heard Jake open up and call. There was a pause while the waves crossed and recrossed the millions of miles between them, then a voice :

"Hullo, Celestis ! Hullo Celestis ! MoonStation responding. Go ahead, Jake. Over!"

Gerald waited out the exchange patiently. Radio waves are some of the things that can't be hurried. In due course another voice spoke.

"Hello, Celestis ! MoonStation Duty Officer speaking Give your location and go ahead."

"Hullo, Charles. This is Gerald Troon calling fromCelestis now in orbit about Psyche. Approximately threetwenty miles altitude. I am notifying damage by collision. No harm to personnel.Not repeatnot in danger. Damage appears to be confined to empty holdsection. Cause of damage..." He went on to give particulars, and concluded: "I am about to investigate. Will report further. Please keep the link open. Over!"

The engineer returned, floating a selfpowered cutter with him on a short safetycord, and holding the key which would screw back the bolts of the hold's entranceport. Gerald took the key, placed it in the hole beside the door, and inserted his legs into the two staples that would give him the purchase to wind it.

The moon man's voice came again.

"Hullo, Ticker. Understand no immediate danger. But don't go taking any chances, boy. Can you identify the derelict?"

"Repeat no danger," Troon told him. "Plumb lucky. If she'd hit six feet farther forward we'd have had real trouble. I have now opened small door of the hold, and am going in to examine the forepart of the derelict. Will try to identify it."

The cavernous darkness of the hold made it necessary for them to switch on their helmet lights. They could now see the front part of the derelict; it took up about half the space there was. The ship had punched through the wall, turning back the tough alloy in curled petals, as though it had been tinplate. She had come to rest with her nose a bare couple of feet short of the opposite side. The two of them surveyed her for some moments. Steve pointed to a ragged hole, some five or six inches across, about halfway along the embedded section. It had a nasty significance that caused Gerald to nod sombrely.

He shuffled to the ship, and on to its curving side. He found the airlock on the top, as it lay in the Celestis , and tried the winding key. He pulled it out again.

"Calling you, Charles," he said. "No identifying marks on the derelict. She's not spacebuilt—that is, she could be used in atmosphere. Oldish pattern—well, must be—she's pre the standardization of winding keys, so that takes us back a bit. Maximum external diameter, say, twelve feet. Length unknown—can't say how much after part there was before it was knocked off. She's been holed forward, too. Looks like a small meteorite, about five inches. At speed, I'd say. Just a minute... Yes, clean through and out, with a pretty small exit hole. Can't open the airlock without making a new key. Quicker to cut our way in. Over!"

He shuffled back, and played his light through the small meteor hole. His helmet prevented him getting his face close enough to see anything but a small part of the opposite wall, with a corresponding hole in it.

"Easiest way is to enlarge this, Steve," he suggested.

The engineer nodded. He brought his cutter to bear, switched it on and began to carve from the edge of the hole.

"Not much good, Ticker," came the voice from the moon. "The bit you gave could apply to any one of four ships."

"Patience, dear Charles, while Steve does his bit of fancywork with the cutter," Troon told him.

It took twenty minutes to complete the cut through the double hull. Steve switched off, gave a tug with his left hand, and the joined, inner and outer circles of metal floated away.

"Celestiscalling moon. I am about to go into the derelict, Charles. Keep open," Troon said.

He bent down, took hold of the sides of the cut, kicked his magnetic soles free of contact and gave a light pull which took him floating headfirst through the hole in the manner of an underwater swimmer. Presently his voice came again, with a different tone:

"I say, Charles, there are three men in here. All in spacesuits—oldtime spacesuits. Two of them are belted on to their bunks. The other one is... Oh, his leg's gone. The meteorite must have taken it off... There's a queer—Oh, God, it's his blood frozen into a solid ball...!"

After a minute or so he went on:

"I've found the log. Can't handle it in these gloves, though. I'll take it aboard, and let you have particulars. The two fellows on the bunks seem to be quite intact—their suits I mean. Their helmets have those curved stripwindows so I can't see much of their faces. Must've—that's odd... Each of them has a sort of little book attached by a wire to the suit fastener. On the cover it has: 'Danger— Perigoso' in red, and, underneath: 'Do not remove suit—Read instructions within,' repeated in Portuguese. Then: 'Hapson Survival System.' What would all that mean, Charles? Over!"

While he waited for the reply Gerald clumsily fingered one of the taglike books and discovered that it opened concertinawise, a series of small metal plates hinged together printed on one side in English and on the other in Portuguese. The first leaf carried little print, but what there was was striking. It ran 'CAUTION! Do NOT open suit until you have read these instructions or you will KILL the wearer.'

When he had got that far the Duty Officer's voice came in again:

"Hullo, Ticker. I've called the Doc. He says do NOT, repeat NOT, touch the two men on any account. Hang on, he's coming to talk to you. He says the Hapson system was scrapped over thirty years ago— He—oh, here he is..."

Another voice came in:

"Ticker? Laysall here. Charles tells me you've found a couple of Hapsons, undamaged. Please confirm, and give circumstances."

Troon did so. In due course the doctor came back: "Okay. That sounds fine. Now listen carefully, Ticker. From what you say it's practically certain those two are not dead—yet. They're—well, they're in cold storage. That part of the Hapson system was good. You'll see a kind of boss mounted on the left of the chest. The thing to do in the case of extreme emergency was to slap it good and hard. When you do that it gives a multiple injection. Part of the stuff puts you out. Part of it prevents the buildingup in the body of large ice crystals that would damage the tissues. Part of it—oh well, that'll do later. The point is that it works practically a hundred per cent. You get Nature's own deepfreeze in space. And if there's something to keep off direct radiation from the sun you stay like that until somebody finds you—if anyone ever does. Now I take it that these two have been in the dark of an airless ship which is now in the airless hold of your ship. Is that right?"

"That's so Doc. There are two small meteorite holes, but they would not get direct beams from there."

"Fine. Then keep 'em just like that. Take care they don't get warmed. Don't try anything the instructionsheet says. The point is that though the success of the Hapson freeze is almost sure, the resuscitation isn't. In fact, it's very dodgy indeed—a poorer than twentyfivepercent chance at best. You get lethal crystal formations building up, for one thing. What I suggest is that you try to get 'em back exactly as they are. Our apparatus here will give them the best chance they can have. Can you do that?"

Gerald Troon thought for a moment. Then he said:

"We don't want to waste this trip—and that's what'll happen if we pull the derelict out of our side to leave a hole we can't mend. But if we leave her where she is, plugging the hole, we can at least take on a halfload of ore. And if we pack that well in, it'll help to wedge the derelict in place. So suppose we leave the derelict just as she lies, and the men too, and seal her up to keep the ore out of her. Would that suit?"

"That should be as good as can be done," the doctor replied. "But have a look at the two men before you leave them. Make sure they're secure in their bunks. As long as they are kept in space conditions about the only thing likely to harm them is breaking loose under acceleration, and getting damaged."

"Very well, that's what we'll do. Anyway, we'll not be using any high acceleration the way things are. The other poor fellow shall have a space burial..."

An hour later both Gerald and his companions were back in theCelestis's livingquarters, and the First Officer was starting to manoeuvre for the spiralin to Psyche. The two got out of their spacesuits. Gerald pulled the derelict's log from the outside pocket, and took it to his bunk. There he fastened the belt, and opened the book.

Five minutes later Steve looked across at him from the opposite bunk, with concern.

"Anything the matter, Cap'n? You're looking a bit queer."

"I'm feeling a bit queer, Steve... That chap we took out and consigned to space, he was Terence Rice, wasn't he?"

"That's what his disc said," Steve agreed.

"H'm." Gerald Troon paused. Then he tapped the book. "This," he said, "is the log of theAstarte . She sailed from the MoonStation 3 January 2149—fortyfive years ago—bound for the Asteroid Belt. There was a crew of three: Captain George Montgomery Troon, engineer Luis Gompez, radioman Terence Rice...

"So, as the unlucky one was Terence Rice, it follows that one of those two back there must be Gompez, and the other—well, must be George Montgomery Troon, the one who made the Venus landing in 2144... And, incidentally, my grandfather..."

"Well," said my companion, "they got them back all right. Gompez was unlucky, though—at least I suppose you'd call it unlucky—anyway, he didn't come through the resuscitation. George did, of course...

"But there's more to resuscitation than mere revival. There's a degree of physical shock in any case, and when you've been under as long as he had there's plenty of mental shock, too.

"He went under, a youngish man with a young family; he woke up to find himself a greatgrandfather; his wife a very old lady who had remarried; his friends gone, or elderly; his two companions in the Astarte dead."

"That was bad enough, but worse still was that he knew all about the Hapson System. He knew that when you go into a deepfreeze the whole metabolism comes quickly to a complete stop. You are, by every known definition and test, dead... Corruption cannot set in, of course, but every vital process has stopped; every single feature which we regard as evidence of life has ceased to exist...

"So you are dead..."

"So if you believe, as George does, that your psyche, your soul, has independent existence, then it must have left your body when you died."

"And how do you get it back? That's what George wants to know—and that's why he's over there now, praying to be told..."

I leant back in my chair, looking across theplace at the dark opening ofthe church door.

"You mean to say that that young man, that George who was here just now, is the very same George Montgomery Troon who made the first landing on Venus, half a century ago?" I said.

"He's the man," he affirmed.

I shook my head, not for disbelief, but for George's sake.

"What will happen to him?" I asked.

"God knows," said my neighbour. "Heis getting better; he's less distressed than he was. And now he's beginning to show touches of the real Troon obsession to get into space again.

"But what then?... You can't ship a Troon as crew. And you can't have a Captain who might take it into his head to go hunting through Space for his soul...

"Me, I think I'd rather die just once..."