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We must, therefore, launch all the lifecraft except Number Two, of course into separate orbits around this sun, so that a properly-staffed and properly-equipped expedition can study it." "Your proper expedition might get its pants burned off, too." "There is always that possibility; but I will insist on being assigned to the project. This information, young man, is necessary."
In the lifecraft he closed the port and slammed on full drive away from the ship. Then, wheeling, he shucked Barbara out of her suit like an ear of corn and shed his own. He picked up a fire-extinguisher-like affair and jerked open the door of a room a little larger than a clothes closet. "Jump in here!" He slammed the door shut. "Now strip, quick!"
A couple of evenings later, in Lifecraft Two, Barbara said: "You're worried, Babe, and everything's going so smoothly. Why?" "Too smoothly altogether. That's why.
And, as long as they lived or until the Procyon made port, all responsibility rested: First, upon First Officer Deston; and second, upon Second Officer Jones. Therefore Theodore and Bernice Jones came aboard Lifecraft Two, and Deston asked Newman to flit across to Lifecraft Three. "Not me; I like the scenery here better."
The twenty-four-hour "day" measured off by the brute-force machine that was their masterclock carried no guarantee, expressed or implied, as to either accuracy or uniformity. One evening, then, four hard-faced men sat at two small tables in the main room of Lifecraft Three. Two of them, Ferdy Blaine and Moose Mordan, were playing cards for small stakes.
Then, in Lifecraft Two as far away from the "business district" as they could get the human bodies were grounded and Deston started the reel. The wire ran out and ran and ran and ran. The full twenty-five miles were paid out, and still nothing happened. Then, very slowly, Deston let the big ship move straight downward. Until, finally, it happened.
Newman's eyes raked Bernice's five-feet-eight of scantily-clad sheer beauty from ankles to coiffure. "If you're too crowded I know a lifecraft carries only fifty people go yourself." "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.
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 learn even approximately what the damage to the Procyon had been.
Any more insubordination or any malingering at all and I'll put you into a lifecraft and launch you into space, where you can make your own laws and be monarch of all you survey. Dismissed! Now flit!" Newman flitted fast and Barbara, turning to her husband, opened her mouth to speak and shut it. No, he would have killed the man; he would have had to. He still might have to.
Everything went out. Lights, gravity, air-circulation everything. "You haven't been checked out on free fall, either. Hang onto this tool-hanger here on my belt and we'll travel." "Where to?" she asked, hurtling through the air much faster than she had ever gone on foot. "Baby Two that is, Lifecraft Number Two my crash assignment.
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