Part 12

McCauley did not contradict him. He shrugged. Presently Randy went out on the surface of Eros. A single incautious movement might send him floating off into emptiness except for the moorings to the drilled-in metal rods that anchored supplies and ship and crew alike. On the nickel-iron surface of the asteroid, to be sure, magnetic-soled shoes ought to hold a man down. But the emergency wasn't great enough to make depending on them necessary. Everyone kept himself anchored to a drill rod, and did not let go, anywhere, until another anchorage had been secured.

The five-mile-long and two-mile-thick mass that was Eros floated onward in its orbit. It rotated very slowly--its day was half an hour and its night was thirty minutes--and all the stars appeared in turn, including that nearest star which was the sun. The Milky Way spread incredibly across the sky. Earth was blue-green and a bare speck of a crescent--a crescent because it was to sunward, and a speck because it was well over forty millions of miles away. Mars, to the outward, was a perceptible disk the size of a quarter at forty feet. Already photographs taken on spaceships and sent back to Earth by scanning signal had disclosed features that even the giant telescopes on the moon had not detected. Randy claimed to have seen Phobos and Deimos with his naked eye, and perhaps he had. But most of the crew were too busy for more than an occasional glance out at Mars.

The supply items to be carried by each drone rocket had to be regrouped so that no one rocket would contain a disproportionate amount of any one kind of supplies. It was to be expected that some loads would be lost, so it was important to make sure that no one load, if it was not landed or recovered, would cause crippling shortages of this item or that.

There was, though, one bit of freight that would not be trusted to rocket transport. The fuel for the atom-pile would go on the ship, because if the ship did not land safely there'd be no Expedition, and if it landed safely, the atomic fuel would be essential. The thin air of Mars would have to be pumped up to the pressure required by the human body, and its oxygen would have to be concentrated. There would be need for heat during the bitter Martian nights. Power was necessary for human life on Mars. And only atomic power would be adequate.

The first drone rocket lifted off Eros when the asteroid was a million and a half miles from Mars. The rocket rushed ahead, dwindling until it could no longer be seen among the stars. It carried a tank of rocket fuel, a rocket motor, and a communications unit. That was all. The drone was not streamlined, not pretty. It was a skeleton with its drive at the tail, a shaft to tie the cargo to, and a television camera at its nose. The first loads shipped were relatively unimportant ones, so that initial disasters due to lack of experience would have the least serious consequences. When the asteroid was a quarter of a million miles farther on, more rockets were on the way. There were two near-disasters. The rockets were prepared for launching during the planetoid's half-hour "daylight," but they were launched when the launching site was away from the sun and toward Mars farther out. During daylight McCauley prepared one rocket for firing and returned to the ship. Later Hathaway went out to set off that "night's" salvo. The first rocket blew itself to bits when fired. Hathaway had a very narrow escape.

The men figured out, afterward, that in the utter cold of the planetoid's "night" the rocket motor had cooled to the brittle point of metal. When the rocket was fired, the frozen metal flew apart before it could warm up and thus restore normal strength throughout its thickness. McCauley berated himself to Randy, because he had not anticipated this fact. The rest of the salvo was held until "sunset" the next day, and was fired within five minutes of the coming of darkness, before the metal could cool to brittleness.

The other near-tragedy happened when a rocket took off and the flame splashed against a glistening metallic upcrop and licked fiercely at Soames' space-suited legs. He jumped convulsively, rose out of the flame before it could either cook his legs or melt down his space suit, and, gasping in horror, soared off and up to the length of his safety rope. The rocket went past him no more than a dozen feet away. Its exhaust could have burned him to a crisp, or at the least flashed his plastic faceplate. That was a very close call indeed.

Presently Fallon came looking for McCauley. The mechanic was coming off-shift and still wore his space suit. He opened the faceplate, grinning nervously.

"Look here, Colonel," he said ingratiatingly, "I've got something I want to say to you."

"Go ahead," said McCauley. He was still bitterly discontented with himself. Actually, Soames should not have been so near the rocket blast, but McCauley felt responsible because he hadn't ordered him specifically away.

"Soames had a pretty close call," said Fallon nervously.

"Yes," said McCauley curtly.

"Hathaway had another," said Fallon. "When that rocket blew, he could have been killed. He should've been."

"I know it," snapped McCauley.

"I ... I ..." Fallon hesitated. "Look, Colonel! We had a--disagreement. I acted like a fool. I want to apologize."

McCauley scowled. There were innumerable things to worry about, and Fallon was one of them. McCauley had taken the one line that might keep Fallon from making trouble. He'd scared him, and it seemed to have worked. But for Fallon to come to apologize was something else. It meant that his attitude had changed from almost mutinous defiance to panic.

"Forget it," said McCauley.

"I--didn't have you figured right," said Fallon shakily. "I thought you were ... just the usual kind of character. I ... I know better now. I'd--I'd like to ... well ... you're likely to need somebody to help you. Maybe you don't think so, but if you knew you could count on me...."

Fallon's voice practically clicked off, and McCauley realized that he was terrified. The man was afraid to say something, but he was more afraid not to.

"What would I need you for besides your duty?"

Fallon hesitated, licked his lips, and then said desperately:

"Soames and Hathaway--they almost got theirs. I've been thinking. If ... accidents happened to us ... to all but you...."

"Go on," said McCauley, frowning.

"We're ... sending most of the stuff to Mars," stammered Fallon. "B-but we're keeping the atom fuel on the ship. It's w-worth a lot. If something happened to most of us ... why ... two men could take the ship back to Earth and land it anywhere they wanted to. And if ... if a person had contacts, that atom fuel would be w-worth a lot. Millions."

McCauley was jolted.

"Suppose," he said grimly, "that you tell me the rest of your idea."

"Why ... why ..." Fallon tried hard to be ingratiating and confidential, but he couldn't make it. So he said harshly: "I'm going to tell you something. My name's Fallon, but I'm not the Fallon you think I am. I've got a brother. He was slated to come on this trip. I was in the pen. I broke out. They were close after me. I went to my brother for money and help. He's tried to help me before, tried to make me stay out of trouble. This time was the worst, but this time he wouldn't help me any more. It was too serious. So I ... slugged him and took his papers and his orders and reported for duty instead of him. I ... I guess he couldn't bring himself to turn me in, but he figured I'd be caught before take-off. But I bluffed it through!" Here a trace of pride came into his voice. "I bluffed it through, and I came on the trip in his place because there wouldn't be anybody hunting me out here."

McCauley did not display any feeling at all. That Fallon had committed a crime or crimes back on Earth--forty million miles away--meant nothing here. Not if he did his work. But....

"Well?" said McCauley.

"I'm telling you," said Fallon urgently. "You didn't tell the others that I'd lifted their stuff. You had to have a reason. Then Hathaway almost got it when that rocket blew. And Soames came close to frying in a rocket blast. There are too many queer things happening! You not telling the others on me, and then...."

McCauley sat perfectly still, staring at Fallon.

"It adds up," said Fallon defiantly. "There's millions in atom fuel here. If things happen to the others, you can get back to Earth and land anywhere, and if you've got contacts so you can sell the atom stuff...."

McCauley waited ominously. Fallon tried to go on, and could not. But his meaning was clear. In some twisted fashion he had worked out what he believed a logical explanation for McCauley's behavior to him. It implied that McCauley did not see the Mars expedition as a normal man would see it, but as an opportunity for the first space robbery in history and perhaps the most stupendous criminal coup since time began. It was true that the atomic fuel for the Mars reactor had a money value in the tens of millions. To McCauley, that fact would mean that it was something to be guarded and taken care of. But to Fallon, it was something to be stolen. And he thought McCauley saw it the same way.

"I suppose," said McCauley evenly, "that you've guessed that I plan to kill off the others and go back to Earth alone. Is that it?"

Fallon twitched nervously.

"It figures," he said desperately. "But you need another man to help! I told you who I am. I couldn't afford to double-cross you! I couldn't land this ship. But I could help a lot!"

"Yes," agreed McCauley with irony, "you could. So you want to throw in with me, eh?"

"Y-yes."

"All right," said McCauley. "You're in. You share in everything I do and everything I get out of it. It's a bargain."

"F-fine," said Fallon in a voice like a croak.

He'd try to believe it, but he wouldn't be able to be sure. He left. McCauley knew that he would quake and be terrified, and he would not believe in McCauley's intention to make him a partner in crime. But in his own view he couldn't do anything but try to bargain for his own life if--but he thought of it as when--McCauley murdered or abandoned the others in emptiness.

McCauley told Randy the whole business, of course. As second-in-command Randy needed to know everything.

"He's a swine," Randy said distastefully. "But it took nerve to try to bluff through our training period, with the voyage out here to follow it."

"He's in bad shape," said McCauley. "However he got started that way, he chose to be a crook at some time or another. He probably thought it was smart. It wasn't, but now he can't think the way a non-crook thinks."

Randy frowned, thinking.

"I believe," Randy said slowly, "that I'll explain to the others. He's with us and the way he thinks has to be allowed for. They won't let him know they're on to him.... I feel sorry for the poor devil. You will, too, when you think it over. They'll feel the same way."

McCauley nodded. Space is no place for the self-righteous or the intolerant. Charity is a requisite for the endurance of journey in emptiness, in closed tin cans with re-breathed air and enforced exasperating contact with other persons. The Mars Expedition members had been chosen for personality traits as well as technical competence. It was remarkable that Fallon had been able to imitate his brother's character well enough to avoid unmasking before take-off.

The work of the Expedition went on. In the half-hour day, the rockets for Mars were loaded and set up for firing. Immediately after darkness fell, they went streaking away from the small, misshapen asteroid. McCauley or Randy at the control board picked up their monitor signals one by one, verified their course and speed, and made such adjustments as would be needed to get them to the planet which men now ought to reach a good twenty years ahead of schedule. Near Mars, they'd be swung into orbit and landed one by one.

It became routine. But it was a hair-raising routine. There was a tissue-thin difference between the success and failure that meant life or death. What rest they took was in snatches. But things went along. Curiously enough, when Hathaway and Brett and Soames were told in confidence of Fallon's self-produced predicament, it amounted to easing the tension their continuous labor might have produced. They had something to think about besides the nerve-racking need for absolute accuracy and absolute care in all they did out of the ship. Crawling about under the cargo nets was harrowing. There were the stars. There was the feeling of absolute emptiness, into which their sensations assured them that they were falling unendingly.

But Fallon had no relief as the others did. He didn't have their purpose. They were risking their lives to accomplish something they wanted to do. That was why they were here. But Fallon was with them in flight from the law. He had only fear to sustain him.

Three-fourths of the rockets had been released. Nine-tenths. There were more than forty rockets aground on Mars and the ship was refueled, and already it would be possible to leave Eros and land on Mars and set up the base and do the work the Expedition was expected to do. They could do all this and then return to Earth. The rockets still in space and on Eros amounted to a margin beyond necessity, and every extra one that landed would increase the surplus of equipment and supplies.

And then Fallon got lost. He was never out of sight of the others, but he got lost. It was the rule, of course, for every man to have his own life line securely fastened to solidity. They were long life lines to permit movement about the cargo cache and the much-diminished heaps of stores. They were inconvenient, but they were starkly necessary. It was strictly forbidden for any man at any time not to be safely tethered. And....

A rocket was to be made ready for firing. Its cargo was brought to it, item by item. Fallon had worked with the others. He was treated with singular forbearance by his shipmates. There came a moment when somebody had to shift his space-rope anchorage. It happened to be Fallon who needed to do this. Soames took hold of Fallon's space rope in the middle and held it firmly while Fallon shifted the end to another anchorage. Fallon was nervous, worried. He finished the task quickly and went on toward the cargo items he was to move.

McCauley, prowling on his perpetual task of inspection, saw the knot Fallon had made. He said sharply:

"Fallon, stop moving and hold on to something solid."

Fallon swung about and stared apprehensively. He clung to an anchor rod sunk in the metal of the asteroid. McCauley made sure he was safe, untied the space-rope knot, and tied it more securely.

"It was a bad knot," said McCauley. "You're safe now."

McCauley went on. This was outside the cargo-netted space and near where the rockets went up. Fallon clung fast to the drill rod. The others went about their business. Stars blazed in the daylight sky. The sun flamed far, far away. Fallon stayed motionless, gripping the rod that was securely set into the metal of Eros.

Presently he stirred stealthily and tugged at the rope with the new knot in the end. It was firm. He tugged more strongly. It held. Then, with the gentlest and most fearful of tuggings, he drew himself to where McCauley had fastened his space rope. He examined McCauley's knot. Fallon was afraid of McCauley, because he had made a bargain he did not believe McCauley would keep. He believed that McCauley meant to be the sole survivor of the Mars Expedition, returning secretly to Earth with tens of millions in stolen atomic fuel.

And Fallon believed that McCauley had planned the near-tragedies of Hathaway and Soames. Therefore he believed that McCauley would be arranging more successful accidents for those two and the rest, and that because Fallon knew of McCauley's plans, he, Fallon, would be the first to be destroyed.

He could see nothing the matter with the knot, but he distrusted it with a despairing terror.

He untied it so he could retie it himself. And McCauley's voice roared in the headphones in his helmet:

"Fallon! What are you doing?"

Fallon started violently. He jumped. His space rope was not anchored, and Eros has no measurable gravity. Fallon went up and away from the asteroid, toward a thousand million light-years of emptiness. His space rope rose with him, not trailing behind but writhing and twisting weightlessly, more like a tendril of smoke than anything else. Horror filled him. He could not cry out.

"Get him!" roared McCauley.

Space-suited figures turned in the stark white sunlight, and inky black shadows followed their movements in strict synchrony. Fallon was twenty feet high.... Forty. A space-suited figure jerked at his space rope for assurance and then leaped up toward Fallon. It was a miss. The glittering metallic space suit swung in a wide arc and then down to ground again. A second man leaped. A third. They swept past the line of his flight. The space rope of one of the men touched Fallon's. Had it struck near the middle, it might have brought his rope down captive. But the end of Fallon's rope flicked free and he went on toward the stars.

Now there were babblings. Space-armored figures moved swiftly toward a single spot, pulling themselves by their ropes.... Fallon was sixty feet high.... Seventy.

Then a man came soaring straight upward. He missed Fallon, but he flailed a rope and it tangled in Fallon's. The bobbing, rope-held figure hauled in, and had Fallon's rope fast. He wrapped it swiftly about his arm. When the jerk came it was not severe.

Then a single figure on the asteroid pulled down and down and down, and Fallon was towed to solidity. He touched before he could utter a sound.

McCauley was the man who'd hauled him back. The others crouched or squatted down, holding fast to the metallic projections from the surface of Eros. They'd given up their ropes to make a rope long enough for his rescue. While one went after him and McCauley stood erect to draw him back, the others held fast by their fingertips to keep from sharing his predicament. They'd risked floating away as helplessly as he himself, in order that their life lines might be used to save him.

McCauley did not reprimand Fallon, but he pointedly thanked the others for the promptness with which they'd acted.

Later, Randy asked vexedly:

"What was the matter with Fallon? He knew he shouldn't have unfastened his rope!"

"His knot wasn't good, and I retied it," said McCauley dryly. "But he thinks I intend to kill everybody, probably him first. So when I meddled with his life rope he thought I was arranging his death. He meant to retie the knot to defeat my evil intention."

"He's a fool!" snapped Randy. "We'd better have it out with him, or there's no telling what he'll do next!"

"I'm afraid I have to," McCauley said distastefully. "He'll be humiliated when he finds out I was humoring him. But get him, anyhow."

There was a clanking sound somewhere in the ship. The inner air-lock door closed. There were noises that told of the sealing dogs being tightened. Then, immediately, the outside lock door opened. Randy went to find Fallon. He came back, disturbed.

"Fallon just went outside. He's supposed to be off-duty, too."

McCauley frowned. Then he flipped the outside-communicator switch. As a matter-of-fact precaution, there was two-way communication with emptiness whenever anybody was outside the ship. Anything that came in was immediately heard from speakers all over the ship, so that the control room did not have to be manned all the time work was proceeding on the planetoid's surface. If an emergency arose, everybody anywhere in the ship would know immediately.

"Fallon," said McCauley curtly into the outside transmitter, "you're wanted. Come back, please."

Silence. No answer. There was only darkness outside the ship now. Stars moved steadily up from the blackness that was one nearby horizon, and down to the blackness that was the other. The red disk of Mars--very near, now--was the brightest object in the heavens.

"Fallon!" snapped McCauley. "You're wanted! Return to the ship immediately!"

A clanking sound came from all the loud-speakers inside the ship. Then Fallon's voice.

"Wait a minute." He panted as if doing some heavy labor where there was no weight. "Ah-h-h! Right! What do you want?"

"I want you back in the ship," said McCauley sternly.

More clankings. They were the type of sound that might be heard inside an air-filled space suit and picked up by its helmet microphone.

"What are you doing?" demanded McCauley.

"I'm fixing ... uh!..." The last was a grunt. "I'm fixing a way to settle something.... I'm set now."

"Fallon!" barked McCauley. "Come to the ship immediately! That's an order!"

"I'm busy," said Fallon's voice, defiantly. "But I'll tell you something! I'm not going back to Earth with the rest of you. I was on the run when I passed myself off as somebody else and got on the ship. I was on the run from Death Row in the pen. They had me ready for the hot seat in two days more, and I got away. Why should I go back to Earth?"

He paused. And then he said, his tone indescribable:

"Everybody is hearing me. I fixed that! I doctored the aerial switch so when it's turned on it can't be turned off again! McCauley can't keep you from hearing me now, because he called me! And McCauley's going to squirm now! I joined up with him to wipe out every one of you, so we could go back to Earth with the atom fuel to sell to contacts he's got! He tried to kill Soames and he tried to kill Hathaway! He tried to kill me today, by getting me lost, but the rest of you jumped to help me and he had to join in so you wouldn't know what he'd tried!"

McCauley winced.

"Poor fool!" Randy said.

"Now listen," said Fallon's voice fiercely. "I've told you the truth. If I'd told you before you wouldn't've believed me. But you're going to believe me now, because I've scrapped my chance of living--it wasn't good anyhow--to tell you! You watch McCauley! Send word back to Earth of what I've told you. He'll not dare to do a thing when a dying man's accused him--and that's what I am!"

"Fallon!" barked McCauley again. "It's a mistake! You thought I planned that stuff, and I was just playing along with you! The others knew all about it! They knew everything you just told them! It's a lie! I'm not planning anything. I just played along with you...."

"Yes?" jeered Fallon. "Tell that to the aviators! The spacemen don't believe you!" Then he said: "So what? I'll be the first man on Mars! I'm Joe Fallon, 4272365, Walla Walla Penitentiary, and I'll go down in the history books. I'm taking off for Mars. Want to race?"

There was a sudden roaring. It was the sound of a rocket blast, conducted by metal to a space suit and picked up by the microphone inside.

"T-taking off," gasped Fallon, outside. "You get this story back to Earth and he won't dare do anything! He won't dare! But I didn't rat on him! Only on what he was going to do."

After that, there was only the roar of the rocket blast.

They poured out of the ship in space suits as fast as the air lock would let them. Perhaps some of them had a faint, faint hope that it was merely a joke. But it wasn't. There were boxes and bales floating heavily, soggily, in the emptiness about Eros. They had been thrust aside when Fallon took the rocket for himself. And he was gone.

McCauley made an irresolute movement back toward the ship, and Randy said quickly, via space phone:

"No use, Ed! We can't make more than six gees acceleration in the ship, and in a loadless rocket he'll make twelve! We can't catch him!"

And there'd be nothing they could do if they did catch him. McCauley ground his teeth, staring at the star-filled sky.

"I did something wrong," he said bitterly. "Something wrong! But what would have been the right thing?"