all anybody can do, but that’s enough. And don’t fight. Any ordinary woman I could handle, but I can’t handle you fast
enough. So if you don’t inhale deep I’ll have to knock you cold. Otherwise you die of lung cancer. Will do?”
“Will do, sweetheart. Good and deep. No fight”” and she emptied her lungs.
He slapped it on. She inhaled, good and deep; and went into convulsive paroxysms of coughing. He held her in his
arms until the worst of it was over; but she was still coughing hard when she pulled herself away from him. “But …
how … about . . . you?” She could just barely talk; her voice was distorted” almost inaudible. “Let . . . me . . . help . . .
you . . . quick!”
“No need, darling. Two other men out there. The old man probably won’t need it-I think I got him into the safe
quick enough-the other guy and I will help each other. So lie down there on the bunk and take it easy until I come
back here and help you get the gunkum off. So-long for half an hour, pet.”
Forty-five minutes later, while all four were still cleaning up the messes of foam, something began to buzz sharply.
Deston stepped over to the board and flipped a switch. The communicator came on. Since everything aboard a
starship is designed to fail safe, they were, of course, in normal space. On the visiplates hundreds of stars blazed in
vari-colored points of hard, bright light.
“Baby Two acknowledging,” Deston said. “First Officer Deston and three passengers. 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” we may have a chance. But how’d you make it?
I’d’ve sworn a flying saucer couldn’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 were in Baby Three when it happened.” Full
vision was on; a big, square-jawed, lean, tanned face looked out at them from the screen.
“Hub? How come? And who’s `we’?”
“My wife and L” Second Officer Theodore “Hercules” Jones was somewhat embarrassed. “I got married, too” day
before yesterday. After the way the old man chewed you out, though, I knew he’d slap irons on me without 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. I deconned Bun, then-”
“Bun?” Barbara broke in. “Bernice Burns? How wonderful!”
“Formerly Bernice Burns.” The face of a platinum-blonde beauty appeared on the screen beside Jones. “And am I
glad to see you, Barbara, even if I did just meet you yesterday! I don’t know whether I’d ever see another girl’s face
or not!”
“Let’s cut the chat,” Deston said then. “Here, give me course, blast, and time for rendezvous . . . hey! My watch
stopped!”
“So did mine,” Jones said. “So just hold one gravity on eighteen dash forty-seven dash two seventy-one and IT
correct you as necessary.”
After setting course, and still thinking of his watch, Deston said: “But it’s nonmagnetic. It never stopped before.”
The grey-haired man spoke. “It was never in such a field before. You see” those two observations of fact invalidate
twenty-four of the thirty-eight best theories of hyper-space. But tell me-am I correct in saying that none of you
were in direct contact with the metal of the ship when it happened?”
“We avoided it in case of trouble. You? Name and job?” Deston jerked his head at the younger stranger.
“I know that much. Henry Newman. Crew-chief, normal space jobs, unlimited.”
“Your passengers, Herc?”
“Vincent Lopresto, finished, and his two bodyguards. They were sleeping in their suits, on air-mattresses.
Grounders. Don’t like subspace-or space, either.”
“Just so.” The grey-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. What were they like?”
“They looked . . . well, not exactly as though they had exploded, but-” he paused.
“Precisely.” Grey-Hair beamed. “‘That eliminates all the others except three-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. A specialist, you know, is one who learns more and more
about less and less until he knows everything about nothing at all. rm just the opposite. rm learning less and less
about more and more; hoping in time to 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. Earned degrees, that is.”
“But what were you doing in this lifeboat? No, let me guess. You were X-ray-eying it and fine-toothing it for
improvements made since your last 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?” Deston asked.
“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 learn even approximately what the damage to
the Procyon had been. Decontamination was automatic” of course, but there would be literally hundreds of hot
spots, each of which would have to be sought out and neutralized by hand. The passengers’ effects would have to be
listed and stored in the proper cabins. Each body would have to be given velocity away from the ship. And so on.
Every survivor would have to work, and work hard.
The two girls wanted to be together. The two officers almost had to be together, to discuss matters at unhampered
length and to make decisions. Each was, of course” almost as well versed in engineering as he was in his own
specialty. All ships’ officers from First to Fifth had to be. 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.” 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. “You can play God when you’re on sked, with a shipful
of trained dogs to bite for you, but on here where nobody has ever come back from I make my own law with this!”
He patted his side pocket.
“Draw it, then!” Deston’s voice now had all the top deck rasp of his rank. “Or craw!!”
The First Officer had not moved; his right hand still hung quietly at his side. Newman glanced at the girls, both of
whom were frozen; at Jones, who smiled at him pityingly; at Adams, who was merely interested. “I . . . my . . . yours
is right where you can get at it,” be faltered.
“You should have thought of that sooner. But” this once, I won’t move a finger until your band is in your pocket.”
“Just wing him, Babe,” Jones said then. “He looks strong enough” except for 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 a millimeter on how far the hole is off dead center?”
The two girls gasped; stared at each other and at the two officers in horror; but Jones said calmly, without losing
any part of his smile: “I don’t want a dime’s worth of that. I’ve lost too much money that way already.” At which
outrageous statement both girls knew what was going on and smiled in relief.
And Newman misinterpreted those smiles completely;
especially Bernice’s. The words came hard, but he managed to say them. “I crawl.”
“Crawl, what?”
“I crawl, sir. You’ll want my gun-”
“Keep it. There’s a lot more difference than that between us. How close can you count seconds?”