Read Ebook: Blow the Man Down by Fontenay Charles L Orban Paul Illustrator

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Ebook has 1597 lines and 52127 words, and 32 pages

It was several days later that Albrekt began to feel sleepy long before his sleeping time. The realization hit him suddenly that for some time he had been yawning and stretching, relaxing more and more in the chair, his eyelids getting heavier and heavier. His head was beginning to ache a little. He slept by the clock and awoke by the clock. He should not be sleepy for hours yet.

Rousing himself with an effort, he swung bleary eyes around the control room, anxiously. He could see nothing out of order. But how would one detect something that made one abnormally sleepy? What could it be?

Illness?

If there were harmful bacteria aboard the ship, they should have struck many days ago. There was no disease in space itself.

Gas?

Perhaps it was chance, or perhaps some part of his mind was swiftly scanning what he had learned through his reading of the last few days: his eyes fell on a bank of dials ranged side by side on the control board. The hands of all of them were lined up at the same angle--all but one. It had sunk far to the left.

The legend above the bank of dials read: "OXYGEN." The plate below the lagging dial read: "Control Room."

Albrekt was beginning to feel a little nauseated. His head throbbed. He pushed himself across the control room and grabbed the helmet of the spacesuit that hung there. He did not take time to put on the suit itself, but pulled the helmet down over his head and switched on the suit's oxygen supply.

In a moment his head cleared, leaving only a slight headache.

As well as Albrekt remembered from the reading tapes, the ship's oxygen supply was on one of the lowest decks. The crew evidently had blocked the line to the control room.

"You'd think there'd be some alarm system for that sort of thing," he muttered to himself. But then, of course, the hull had not been punctured. The dials were supposed to be checked frequently.

The question that faced Albrekt now was how to get out of this trap. He couldn't live in the spacesuit indefinitely. His hand brushed the heat gun at his side.

Filling his lungs with deep gulps, he ducked from beneath the helmet and returned to the control board. He unlocked and opened the hatch to the navigation deck below. There was an upward swirl of air, and Albrekt permitted himself to breathe again.

A head poked itself cautiously up the companionway. Carrel. The captain's face was a strong one, lined with years of decision, golden-brown with the tan that one gets only from years in the thin air of Mars. Carrel's dark hair was beginning to gray, but his electric blue eyes were still young.

He stopped when he saw Albrekt at the control board. Albrekt held the heat gun on the captain steadily.

"I'm not anywhere near overcome," said Albrekt. "You'd better turn around and go back down."

Carrel did.

As long as the hatch stayed open, oxygen could not be cut off from the control room. Albrekt decided he could afford to leave it open, since he had possession of the weapons. He would have to lock it while asleep, of course. But, even with the oxygen supply cut off, the control room should contain enough to carry him for eight hours. If not, he could set an alarm to wake him every four hours, or even every two hours, to open the hatch and refresh his air.

The fact that he could leave the hatch open safely gave him another idea. He was hungry for some food besides the dry emergency rations.

Albrekt checked the chronometer. Within the next two hours, he was scheduled to run the other blast tape. He would have time.

Heat gun in hand, he moved quietly to the hatch. The companionway was clear. From below came the murmur of voices. He moved cautiously a few steps down the metal ladder until he could see beneath the ceiling of the navigation deck.

Migl was taking a shower on the other side of the room, while Carrel and Qoqol relaxed in contour chairs beside the dead-reckoning tracer.

"What is Flanjo, Carrel?" asked the booming voice of Qoqol, the navigator.

Qoqol was a Martian. His round body with its huge oxygen storage hump was not quite as big as a human body, but his thin arms and legs, each equipped with half a dozen double joints, were longer than a tall man's height. They were wrapped around him now, out of the way, and his big-eyed, big-eared head peered through them like an urchin's face through a tangle of vines.

"The Flanjos are members of a fanatic sect who believe in human supremacy," answered Carrel soberly. "More than that, they believe in their own supremacy over other humans. They revolted against the Solar Council and have a hidden base our forces haven't been able to locate yet."

"Why they want this ship?" asked Qoqol.

"For the ship itself, partly," said Carrel. "But our cargo's pretty strategic, too. It's mostly lithium, which they can use in nuclear weapons and power plants. They can use the plastics, tools and machinery we're carrying to improve conditions at their base. The general opinion I've heard is that their objective is to take over the Mars colonies. They need fusion weapons for that, but it's hard to get light elements on the outer moons, where their base is thought to be. Whatever they have already, 100 tons of lithium will help them immensely."

"Immensely," assented Albrekt, stepping off the ladder to drift to the floor. He held the heat gun lightly in his hand. "I'm afraid I'm going to require all of you to go ahead of me down to the storage deck and remain there while I enjoy a good lunch."

Silently they complied. The living quarters, where the food was, were one deck down, the storage deck below it.

Albrekt ate his meal, keeping a watchful eye on the opening between the living quarters and the storage deck. Then he returned to the control room, locked the hatch and strapped himself down for blasting.

He kept his promise to Carrel and broadcast a warning of the blast over the intercom system. At the appointed moment, he ran the blast tape through the automatic pilot.

The acceleration was not as heavy this time. The ship, safe from the prying of the convoy's radar, swung slowly from its course and into a new prearranged orbit, on which a Flanjo vessel was to intercept it in approximately six months.

Space is a lonely place--lonelier than any place on Earth, lonelier than any place on Mars. No expanse of desert or ocean is so empty as space, for there one at least has something material beneath him and around him.

"An experienced spaceman would rather be burned than left alone in space," said Carrel. "It'll drive most men completely crazy in a pretty short time. I think you've realized that by now, Albrekt. That's why you won't kill us."

Albrekt was eating a meal at the table in the living quarters, his heat gun lying beside his hand. The others were seated on bunks across the room. Since the only necessity was to protect himself and keep the others out of the control room, he had discontinued the practice of making the crew go below while he ate. Despite the atmosphere of enmity, the conversation and companionship filled a need he was beginning to recognize more keenly.

"That's true," answered Albrekt agreeably. "For that and other reasons, I won't kill you unless I'm forced to."

"But there's nothing to prevent our killing you and retaking the ship," reminded Carrel.

"Nothing but this." Albrekt laid his hand on his heat gun.

"As a matter of fact, I don't want to kill you, Albrekt," said Carrel. "I want to capture you alive, and take you back to Mars. I imagine you have some information about Flanjo plans that would be pretty valuable to the council."

Albrekt laughed.

"I admire your courage, Carrel," he said. "But I've been in dangerous positions before, for longer periods than this. I don't intend to let my guard down."

Carrel apparently was blessed with iron self-control and Qoqol, like all Martians, habitually showed emotion in ways no Earthman could interpret. But Albrekt's practiced eye detected Migl's restlessness. When the crew's move came, two days later, Albrekt was ready for it.

As he had anticipated, it happened at mealtime. Albrekt was beginning to spend more time outside the control room, always keeping the others from getting between him and the hatch to higher decks, but mealtime was the logical time for his guard to be lax.

At some signal Albrekt failed to catch, Carrel and Qoqol launched themselves directly at him from opposite sides of the round room. Simultaneously, Migl drove through the air for the hatch to the upper decks.

Albrekt's muscles reacted like steel springs. Scooping up the heat gun, he dove across the table and twisted in the air as he floated swiftly between Carrel and Qoqol. Ignoring them for the moment, he trained the gun on the hatch to the navigation deck above and pressed the trigger. Migl had to grab the ladder frantically to keep from drifting head-on into the sizzling beam that barred his way.

Albrekt anchored himself to a bunk and waved the heat beam in an arc above their heads. The metal ceiling smoked faintly.

"I won't kill you all unless I have to," he said calmly. "I can get along easily without one or two of you, though. Before you try anything like this again, I'd suggest you think seriously about which of you wants to die first."

Silence answered him. Migl still clung to the companionway ladder, about halfway up. Carrel clasped his knees in a sitting position about six inches off the floor near the round table in the center of the room. Qoqol, unable to stand upright anywhere aboard the ship, crouched like a spider against the farther wall.

Albrekt switched off the heat beam and motioned at Migl with the gun. Watching them closely, Albrekt moved to the companionway and pushed himself up through the hatch.

Locking himself in the control room, he devoted himself to serious thought for a while. Despite his warning, this sort of thing was likely to happen often. Eventually it must succeed, if only by the law of averages.

The trouble was, Albrekt was actually at a slight disadvantage. He knew by now that the absolute need for companionship in space was not idle talk. He had no intention of coasting alone, in a silent ship, for five and a half more months, and being shot as hopelessly insane when his Flanjo colleagues picked him up at the rendezvous.

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