Space Station 1, Frank Belknap Long [best book club books of all time txt] 📗

his shoulders and his posture on the ladder grew more erect. He knew that his exertions might send the ladder toppling but it was a risk he had to take.

The grate was freely movable now. He could move it backwards and forwards, six or eight inches each way; but he still could not rip it completely free.

He kept on tugging, his neck cords bulging, the ladder swaying dangerously. The grate could be moved upward now, just a little. No, it was finally coming completely loose. He could move it in all directions and even push it outward at right angles to its base.

Twice he heard Helen Ramsey cry out again, and her screams became a goad that turned his wrists to steel. With a sudden, convulsive wrench he twisted the grate sideways. It came loose in his hands. It was so surprisingly light that an incongruous rage surged up in him. It was cruelly perverse, intolerable, that he should have been so long delayed by a thin sheet of metal that hardly seemed to have any weight at all.

He swung about on the ladder and let the grate drop. It struck the floor a few feet from the Selector and rebounded with a clang loud enough to wake the dead. The ladder swayed again, and he had to grab the edge of the aperture quickly and with both hands to keep himself from toppling.

He pulled himself forward through the aperture on his stomach, taking care not to dislodge the ladder. His temples were pounding and his palms sticky with sweat. He did not look down until he was completely through, dreading what he might see.

He passed a hand over his eyes. It was unbelievable, but he had to believe it. The man was gone and the girl was now alone in the compartment.

Had the man fled in sudden fear, knowing that Corriston would be consumed with a killing rage that would make him a more than dangerous adversary? Corriston didn't think so. The man had looked quite capable of putting up a furious struggle. More likely he had disappeared to keep himself from being recognized, or because he had accomplished his purpose.

Blind, embittered anger again boiled up in Corriston. Had the man waited, he would have rejoiced and been less angry. He would have taken a calm, deep breath and slowly set about the almost pleasant task of killing him.

He felt cheated, outraged. Then his concern for Helen Ramsey made him forget his rage. Had she been felled with a blow, or had she simply fainted? He started down, then hesitated.

The ladder first. Before he descended it was necessary to make sure that the ladder would be in the same compartment with him, set firmly against the wall, directly under the aperture. If he were prevented from leaving the compartment by the corridor door, he might find himself needing the ladder. Without it he might be descending into a trap that could close with a clang and abruptly imprison him.

Getting down into the compartment was the worst part, just putting the ladder into place and not knowing how badly hurt she was.

What if she's dead? he thought. What if he killed her with a single blow? He looked strong enough. He could have killed her. God, don't let me think of that. I mustn't think it.

His feet touched the floor. He let out his breath slowly, turned and crossed the floor to where she was lying. He went down on his knees and lifted her into his arms. She lay relaxed in his arms, face up, quiet, her lips slightly parted.

He looked down into her face, and for a moment his mind went numb, became still, so that there was no longer a whirling inside his head—only a chilling horror.

She seemed to have two faces. One was shrunken and almost torn away, a shredded fragment of a face. But enough of it remained for him to see the shriveled flesh of the cheeks, the puckered mouth, the white hair clinging to the temples. It was the face of an old woman but so fragmentary that it could not even have been called a half-face. And even though it had been almost ripped away, it seemed still to adhere firmly to the face to which it had been attached, and to blend with it, so that the features of both faces intermingled in a quite unnatural way.

Not quite, though; Helen Ramsey's face was sharper, more distinct—all of the features stood out more clearly. And when Corriston's stunned mind began to function normally again, he realized that the old woman's face was—had to be—a plastic mask.

It took him only an instant to remove the ghastly thing from features which he could not bear to see defaced.

He had to pry it loose, but he did so very gently, exactly as a sculptor might have pried loose a life mask from the face of a recumbent model.

He held it in his hand and looked at it, and a little of the horror crept back into his mind.

It was the merest fragment, as he had thought. Thin, flexible, a tissue-structure of incomplete, aged features, and with an inner surface that was very rough and uneven, as if something had been torn from it.

He could have crumpled it up in his hand, but he did not do so. With a lack of foresight which he was later to regret—a lack which was to prove tragic—he simply flung it from him, as though its ugliness had unnerved him so that he could no longer endure the sight of it.

Helen Ramsey was a dead weight in his arms, and for a moment he feared that she had stopped breathing. So great was his fear, so paralyzing, that his hand on her pulse became rigid, and for a moment he could neither move nor think.

Then he felt the slow beat of her pulse and a great thankfulness came upon him.

He knew then that he must get help as quickly as possible. He eased her gently to the floor, walked to the door and locked it securely. Then he returned to her and took her into his arms again. He spent several minutes trying to revive her. But when she did not open her eyes, did not even stir in his arms, he knew that he could not wait any longer.

8

An inexorable kind of determination enabled Corriston to get to the Station's central control compartment, and confront the commander, when the latter, absorbed by matters of the utmost urgency, had triple-guarded his privacy by stationing executive officers outside the door.

Commander Clement was a small man physically, with a strangely bland, almost cherubic face. But his face was dark with anger now—or possibly it was shock that he was experiencing—and the heightened color seemed to add to his dignity, making him look not merely forcibly determined, but almost formidable. His white uniform and the seven gold bars on each epaulet helped a good deal too. It was impossible to determine at a glance just how great was his inner strength, but Corriston knew that he could not have gotten where he was had he not possessed unalloyed resoluteness.

He was standing by a visual reference mechanism which looked almost exactly like a black stovepipe spiraling up from the deck. There was a speaking tube in his hand, and he was talking into it. He seemed completely unaware that he was no longer alone.

Had Corriston been less agitated he would have felt a little sorry for the officer who had admitted him. The officer had been so impressed by Corriston's gravity and the earnestness with which he had pleaded his case that he had stepped forward and opened the door without question, assuming, no doubt, that Clement would look up instantly and see Corriston standing just inside the doorway.

Now the door had closed again, Clement hadn't looked up, and the officer was going to be in trouble. But Corriston had no time and very little inclination to worry about that. What Commander Clement was saying into the speaking tube had a far stronger claim on his attention.

"It's the worst thing that could have happened," Clement was saying. "We can't just brazen it out. It's going to mean trouble, serious trouble. What's that? How should I know what happened? When you're carrying a certain kind of cargo a thousand things can go wrong. The ship went out of control, that's all. The first radio message didn't tell me anything. The captain was trying to cover up to save himself. He didn't even want me to know.

"You bet it can happen again. We've got to be prepared for that, too. But right now—"

Commander Clement saw Corriston then. His expression didn't change, but it seemed to Corriston that he paled slightly.

"That's all for now," he said, and returned the speaking tube to its cradle.

He looked steadily at Corriston for a moment. A glint of anger appeared in his eyes, and suddenly they were blazing.

"What do you mean by coming in here unannounced, Lieutenant?" he demanded. "I gave strict orders that no one was to be admitted. If I didn't know you were suffering from severe space-shock...."

"I'm sorry, sir," Corriston said quickly. "It's very urgent. I think I can convince you that I am not suffering from space-shock. I've found Miss Ramsey. She's been badly hurt and needs immediate medical attention."

The Commander looked as if a man he had thought sane was standing before him with a gun in his hand. Not Corriston, but some other, more violent man. For a moment longer he remained rigid and then his hand went out and tightened on Corriston's arm.

"By heaven, if you're lying to me!"

"I would have no reason to lie, sir. It proves I'm not a space-shock case. But that's unimportant now. She's safe for the moment. No one can get to her. I bolted the door on the inside. Unless—"

Corriston went pale. "No, there's no danger. I drew the ladder up and returned it to the Selector compartment. Then I threw the lock on the emergency door."

"Start at the beginning," Clement said. "If she's in danger well get to her. Take it easy now, and tell me exactly what happened."

Corriston went over it fast. He said nothing about the mask. Let Clement find that out for himself.

Commander Clement walked to the door, threw it open and spoke to the executive officer who was stationed outside. The officer came into the control room.

"Stay with Lieutenant Corriston until I get back," Clement said. "He's not to leave. He understands that."

He turned back to Corriston. "I'm afraid you'll have to consider yourself still under guard, Lieutenant. I have only your word that you found Miss Ramsey. I believe you, but there are some regulations even I can't waive."

"It's all right," Corriston said. "I won't attempt to leave. But please hurry, sir."

Commander Clement hesitated, then said with a smile: "I knew about the guard you knocked out, Lieutenant. You're a very hot-headed young man. That's really a court-martial offense, but perhaps we can smooth it over if you're telling the truth now. You were in the position of a man imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit. If he can prove his innocence, the law is very lenient. He can escape and still get a full pardon, even a pardon with apologies. It's a different matter, of course if he kills a guard to escape. You didn't."

Corriston was tempted to say, "I think perhaps I tried to, sir," but thought better of it. He'd ask Clement later why the guards who had been sent down into the Selector compartment had failed to find him. It wasn't important enough now to waste a second thought on, but just out of curiosity he would ask.

He didn't have to. After Clement had departed the executive officer told him. "They made a pretty thorough search for you," he said. "Or so they claimed. But they had been drinking heavily—every one of them. Maintaining discipline can be a terrible headache at times. There's a lot of objectivity about the commander and he doesn't try to crack down too hard. He knows what it means to be out here for months with nothing to break the monotony. Hell, if we could send for our wives more often it wouldn't be so bad."

Corriston's palms were cold. He stood very still, wondering how long it would take the commander to return with the news he wanted to hear.

"The question is whether life is really worth living without a woman to talk to," the executive officer went on. "Just to lie relaxed and watch a pretty girl move slowly around a room. It does something for you."

Corriston wished the man would keep quiet. Under ordinary circumstances he could have sympathized heartily. He couldn't now. There was only one girl he wanted to see walk around a room, and