Part 2

The assembled officers stared at Coran curiously. His lip was still bruised and swollen. He stared insolently at the group and tried to thrust all other considerations out of his mind. The girl and his quest would have to wait. His immediate hurdle was to get out of this mess.

Harriman wet his lips and opened the hearing.

"I won't waste words when we all know why we're here. There is no need for formality in a hearing of this kind. The captain of the _Aphrodite_ was foully murdered, and this man who calls himself Stephen Coran was found standing over his body. There was no gun in the room and none on the prisoner. Coran's papers seem to be in order. They show him to be a prospector from Mars, en route to Venus, but may be forgeries. That can be checked. His wife is in quarantine, and will be unable to testify one way or the other."

Coran broke in. "I demand to hear the formal charge against me."

"As acting captain of the _Aphrodite_, I officially charge you, Stephen Coran, with the wilful murder of Captain Joseph Shalm, late master of this ship. Also, since the murder must have taken place at the exact moment of take-off, with the deliberate intent to delay and endanger the safety of the ship and all the lives on board."

"Good. Now I make formal demand that my wife be called as witness to the fact that I could not have been in the captain's office at the time of take-off."

"You heard me say that your wife is in quarantine. She will not be able to testify. If you have anything else to say in your defense, speak up."

"I make no defense. Since the court is so obviously prejudiced, I will stand on my civilian rights as a technicality. This court has no jurisdiction over me. The most you can do is to confine me to the area of this ship until a charge can be brought against me in the admiralty court on Venus. Also, under Security Law No. F 1720, since the one witness I asked to have called in my defense has not been brought to court, I demand that the whole proceedings be dropped as illegal, unjustified, and prejudicial to civilian rights. Since I obviously cannot escape from the ship, you cannot even require the customary bond for reappearance."

Harriman's mouth dropped open. "Do you expect to get away with this?"

"More than that." Coran grimaced unpleasantly. "I wish to file charges with the nearest official of the ministry of transport that I was mishandled and held under restraint without formal charges being brought against me. If there is such an official on board, I demand to see him."

Nalson, the astronaut, hid a smile behind his sleeve, then leaned forward and whispered earnestly to Harriman. Harriman nodded, then turned to consult with the ship's doctor.

"Is this your doing, Hamlin?" the acting captain rasped sourly.

The purser shifted uneasily. "No, sir. But, since the prisoner chooses this defense, I have no choice but to repeat his demands, officially. There is an official aboard, Paul Jomian of the transport ministry. I suggest you send for him and turn this hearing over to him. He will have whatever authority is necessary to deal with it."

In momentary desperation, Harriman glanced round the room at the circle of faces and saw that Coran had him over a barrel. The hard-faced navigator, Nalson, spoke up. "Better send for Jomian. In theory, we have the right of assessing the death penalty, but in practice, it's not so simple. The admiralty will review the case and, if your foot slips on some technicality, you might even have to face the disintegrators yourself."

Harriman gave in and sent for Jomian.

* * * * *

A red bulb flashed and the buzzer sounded, then Paul Jomian stepped into the wardroom. He was a lean man, greying into his late fifties, with the bleakness of outer space in his eyes and a face badly scarred by spaceburns. His eyes stared as they fell upon the manacled figure of Coran standing in the center of the harsh-lit stage. Steve Coran stared back at him with insolently expressionless face.

The difficulty was rapidly explained by Captain Harriman in a monotonously leveled tone of repressed fury. Jomian studied the prisoner with politely casual interest while the harangue went on. When Harriman finished, the transport official considered briefly before giving his verdict.

"Well, gentlemen, much as I sympathize with your feelings in this matter, I'm afraid the prisoner is within his rights. Even if the circumstances are somewhat unusual, we have no choice but to release him. However, in view of the possible menace involved to the safety of the ship, I recommend that he be under constant surveillance by some competent and responsible officer, preferably the one appointed for his defense, who will see to it that he has no opportunity to perpetrate further violence. Once Venus is reached the man can be turned over to the proper authorities."

Coran broke in roughly. "Does all this monkey talk mean I'm free?"

Harriman was maliciously official. "I'm afraid it does. But don't try anything funny. Hamlin, Nalson, I'm detailing you two to watch over Coran in shifts. Don't let him out of your sight, day or night. If he attempts to steal a lifeboat and escape, or makes the slightest untoward move to hinder the operation of the ship or molest anyone on board, shoot him--that's all. Since he has no room, he will share yours for the remainder of the voyage."

Hamlin got a key and released Coran from his manacles.

Jomian glanced at him with an odd expression. "If you don't mind, Coran, I'd like a word with you in private. If the captain has no objection."

Harriman was curious, but nodded. "Are you sure you'll be safe with him?"

Jomian smiled. "That's my worry. Send your men to my cabin in an hour. After twelve years in the Space Patrol, I'm used to handling bad boys."

* * * * *

Nine days out the _Aphrodite_ ran into trouble.

Proximity alarms blared wildly. It was only a small asteroid, not more than a quarter of a mile in diameter, just a jagged piece of rock and fused metal. But it came out of a direct line with the sun, moving fast, and discipline had been dangerously lax on the _Aphrodite_ after Harriman took over command.

At 9:05 ship time, there came the sound of a rending crash up forward, followed by a nauseating sense of shock and withering waves of motion energy transformed into heat. Fortunately, the collision was a glancing one, but enough. The _Aphrodite_ was a shattered wreck. Her bow and the control room were carried away bodily, and only the spacetight bulkheads of the waist saved the passengers and crew from instant death.

At 9:20, feeling far off course, leaking air dangerously from sprung seams, the doomed transport and the asteroid circled each other like wary wrestlers awaiting an opening. Sooner or later, as the initial force of the spin died down, they would crash together in flaming holocaust. In the meantime, everything that could be done was being done.

Orders went out to abandon ship. Of the original complement of four hundred and eighty passengers and crew, nineteen were dead or missing, and eighty others more or less seriously injured. The heaviest casualties were among the rocket crew and officers, some of whom were fatally burned by premature atomic discharge. Rocket jets were set roaring at full capacity in a vain effort to break the wreck away from the deadly vicinity of the circling asteroid. Surviving crew members labored heroically to load and launch the lifeboats from three airlocks, two of which were so badly jammed as to be almost unworkable.

The forward compartments were a scene from inferno. Coran, who had been with Nalson in the chartroom when the crash occurred, picked himself out of the jumble of broken lockers and scattered metal-leaf charts and crawled through the glare and heat to a pitiable huddle of pulped flesh pinned beneath the wreckage of a berylium table. Nalson's skull was fractured, blood pulsed from his ears, and he was gasping out his life as Coran pried the table off him. His eyes seemed bursting from his head.

"No excuse for wreck," he got out. "I'm ... Security Police. Sent me in case you fumbled. Watch Harriman ... Hamlin."

A spurt of blood from his mouth and nose stopped his words. The navigator spat savagely. "Think ... Hamlin's ... the man you want." His lips moved weakly, then hung open as he died.

* * * * *

Using a leg of the ruined table as a wrecking bar, Coran pried open the door and got into the passageway. A blast of sickening heat rushed to meet him. Forward was a lurid glare of white hot metal, and he could hear air shrieking through the leaks where seams had started. He fought his way aft to a bank of elevators, but they were hopelessly jammed.

Descending the spiral stairway, he encountered Paul Jomian.

"I thought you were gone," Jomian said. "The entire forward part of the ship seems to be carried away."

"It is. I'm hard to kill. Nalson's dead. And so are the men in the control room."

A kind of exhilaration moved in Coran. The endless waiting and watching, under constant surveillance, had gotten on his nerves. He was not used to intrigue. Now that a need for his kind of action had arisen, he felt better already.

Jomian's left arm had compound fractures above and below the elbow. It hung useless at his side, with splinters of bone thrusting through mangled skin and flesh. Coran broke open a locker and gave him emergency first aid, binding the limb with metal splints.

"That'll hold it till you can get it cared for. You'd better get to the lifeboats. I'm going to find my wife. As I told you, she may be in this racket, but I can't be sure. In any case, she's my responsibility."

"Can't I help?" Jomian asked.

"Not now. If I make it, we'll discuss it there. If not, you can take a message for me. There's an ISP squadron six hours behind us. Get a helioflash to them. Tell them to come a-running. I've an idea they'll find something interesting."

"I'll get word to them," Jomian promised. "Take care of yourself, boy."

The door of stateroom No. 200 was still locked and sealed. Coran opened a locker and got out a wrench to work off the lugs on the lock. A voice from behind jarred him.

"I've been looking for you," Hamlin sneered. "I thought you'd be up to something." In the dimming and flaring light, Coran got a glimpse of the blaster-gun in Hamlin's hand. Coran's fingers tightened on the wrench. He spun around and hurled the wrench in one motion. Hamlin pressed the trigger, but the wrench spoiled his aim. Coran dodged under the gun and dragged him down in a flying tackle. The gun went rattling down the corridor.

"Come away from there, you fool," Hamlin screamed as he broke away. "D'you want the plague?" He edged toward the gun, but Coran cut him off. Both lunged for it. Coran got it, but before he could use it, Hamlin kicked him in the stomach. He rolled on the floor in agony. Hamlin kicked again viciously. Coran fumbled with the gun.

A warning alarm sounded. The boats were about to leave.

Coran got his breath back. "Help me get her out. She has no more plague than you have. Besides, she's your--"

"You're mad," Hamlin shrieked. "They'd never let her into the boats. I won't risk the lives of innocent people on your sayso." He leaned across Coran to snatch at the gun. Coran clawed at his face and layers of plastic came off in his fingers. Hamlin screamed as the stuff came loose from his flesh. Then he turned and ran.

He darted up the companion stairs. By the time Coran could reach the gun, it was too late. The man had vanished to the upper deck.

Coran got to his knees and aimed the blaster at the jammed lock on the stateroom door. The mechanism and half the door disappeared in ravening violence. The shock knocked Coran flat.

Gerda stepped through the shattered doorway.

"What's going on?" she wailed hysterically. It was apparent that she had been crying, although she had tried to efface the marks.

"Never mind that. We've got to get you out of here. Are you all right?"

She laughed wildly. "Of course I am! Has everyone gone crazy? You look a fright. D'you want to carry me, or should I carry you?"

"Get to the lower decks. Find the doctor. Show him you're not sick. And hurry--the lifeboats are leaving." Coran made a vague gesture and slumped weakly against the wall while spirals of nausea raged through him. She was halfway to the companion stair before she noticed that he was not following. Coran had fainted.

* * * * *

Cold water splashing in his face revived him. His head was nestled in her lap.

"What are you doing here?" he raged. "If you don't hurry, it will be too late."

She answered with quiet assurance. "Listen, tough guy, you didn't have to come back for me. D'you think I'd leave you to save my skin after that?"

Coran shook his head to clear the mist of dizzy weakness, and she helped him to his feet.

"Let's get going," he urged. "If the lifeboats leave before we reach the airlock, you'll really be in a jam."

With the girl's arm tight around his waist to support him, he managed to make it to the sally-port. The airlock door was closed.

"The boats have gone," he said. He sat down hopelessly on a casket-like metal toolbox.

"Maybe someone will come," she said.

"That's what I'm afraid of," he snapped.

"In the meantime, I think we need some coffee ... if I can find an unopened can."

Coran waved toward a locker where supplies were kept on clipshelves. She found a can with built-in heat unit and opened it, pouring coffee for them. He sipped his slowly, while she gulped down a scalding draft.

"You seem very calm about all this," Coran said grimly.

"Hysterics won't help. Besides, you seem to be expecting someone. What did you mean, that's what you're afraid of? Who would come back?"

"Don't you know?"

She shook her head in bewilderment "How should I know? I'm a stranger here myself."

"You may as well stop playing innocent. In case you don't already know, I'm an officer in the space patrol. This wreck was deliberate, planned by some of the crew. There are two possibilities. Either they'll come back and try to salvage the plutonium cargo, or they have confederates waiting in space to close in as soon as the ship is abandoned. I don't look forward to either one."

"You act as if I knew something about all this," Gerda said irritably. "I don't know why you should think so, but you're way off the track. Why suspect me?"

"How can I help it, with that picture in your purse, and that phoney deal you pulled by playing sick?"

Gerda flushed, whether from anger or guilt Coran would have given much to know.

"I don't know how you know about that," she answered evenly. "I--I can't explain about the picture, but the other I had nothing to do with. While you had me tied up, someone came into the room; naturally I thought it was you coming back. I was still dazed from shock and only half awake. First thing I knew, a man in uniform had jammed a pillow over my face. I thought he was trying to kill me, and nearly smothered. He rubbed something on my elbows and down the cords of my neck, then left. It seemed like a nightmare. I blamed you vaguely till I remembered the gold braid on his sleeves and knew it must have been a ship's officer. Later, an officer came in with the doctor, who took one look at me and seemed scared to death. Too scared to examine me. They wouldn't listen to anything, just untied me enough so I could work loose eventually, left some stuff, and locked me in. That's all I knew till you let me out just now."

* * * * *

Coran considered. "It sounds plausible. I'd like to believe you, but that photograph is too damning. You'll have a lot of explaining to do ... if we get out of this alive."

"What about the photograph? What's he wanted for?"

"There's another one of him in the Security Police headquarters. He's the man I was sent to get. Both ISP and the Security Police want him. The original charge was barratry, but--"

"What's barratry?" she asked.

"It's the deliberate wrecking of a ship, for the insurance or to salvage the cargo illegally. I don't know what your connection is with this man, but--"

"It's very simple," she said. "He's my brother. I knew he was in trouble, but didn't know it was so serious. Our family broke up years ago. Mother married again. That was fifteen years ago. I was ten, and Ken was thirteen. We took our stepfather's name, but Ken and he never got along very well. Ken ran away to Venus when he was seventeen. Mother died a year ago. I--I wanted to find Ken and help him. My stepfather had him traced for me and we found out he was in trouble with the police. I thought if I could talk to him, maybe he'd give himself up, take his just punishment, and we could start over again together. Ken's all I have left. He's not bad. A little wild, but not bad."

Coran stood up and stared into the black gulf of space through the visiplate. He felt a sudden bleak distaste for his profession.

"I'm afraid it's a little late for that," he said gently. "He's wanted for barratry, murder, and perhaps treason. The penalty for any one of them is death. I'm sorry."

Gerda sat silently, brooding over the information. "You think I'm going to cry, don't you? And you hate emotional women. You can relax. I think I've known all along that it was hopeless. It does hurt, but I'm beyond crying any more."

* * * * *

Far out in the void a clustered blur of faint, needle-sharp lights etched itself against the star-patterned darkness. Space-ships, coming up fast under rocket power. Coran glanced quickly at the wall-chron. It was too soon for the space patrol. Even under full acceleration, they could not make it in less than three hours.

"I'll have to trust you," he said grimly, "Brace yourself--company's coming."

Gerda snapped out of her black reverie.

"What are you going to do?"

"We'd better work out a plan of action." Working like mad, Coran dumped the contents of the metal toolbox onto the floor. With a wrench, he smashed the hand-operated controls which worked the airlock from the interior of the ship into a tangle of twisted machinery. Then he scooped up the rest of the tools and threw them down a waste disposal chute.

"Get inside the toolbox," he ordered. "Try it once to make sure you can raise the lid from inside. Then keep out of sight. When they get here, I'll try to draw them away into the after part of the ship. If I succeed in drawing them off, you slip out and get into the airlock. Close the door and lock it from inside. If I manage to circle around and get back here, I'll signal you with three soft taps on the door, followed by three hard ones. Don't open for anyone else. It'll take them over an hour to cut through that door from in here. You'll have a gambler's chance."

"Good luck," said Gerda softly. She climbed into the toolbox while Coran recharged the blaster-gun and stuffed his pockets with extra ammunition.

Gerda raised the box lid slightly. "It works, Steve," she said. "Take care of yourself."

He grinned. "One thing more. When you're into the airlock, get into a space-suit and get one ready for me. They're on racks at the left side, inside a locker."

She nodded. The lid slammed down.

Coran re-arranged the stowage of boxes in the next compartment into a series of defensive barricades, then crouched beside the half-opened door of the sally-port. He had not long to wait.

The airlock door swung open and three rough-looking men in space suits came cautiously through. They were followed by a dozen others not wearing the heavily-insulated space armor. The pirates must have run a gangway tube between the ships and fastened it with magnetic grapnels. The outer doors of the airlock would open automatically as the pressure equalized. He wondered if Gerda would have sense enough to close and bolt the outer as well as the inward doors. It was too late to worry about that now.

Coran took careful aim and fired his blaster beam into the crowd of men. Four were killed by the first discharge. The others broke for cover. Blaster beams interlaced, and the room jarred with repeated concussion. Men poured through the opened airlock door. The temperature rose sharply with the release of energy. The pirates rushed the door and Coran was forced to fall back to his line of barricades.

He retreated cautiously, firing as he went. From behind the last of his barricades, he burned down three of his foes, then broke and ran for the engine-room shaft, leaping across it to the spiralled stair. Just as he reached the upper loft of engines a beam cut down the shaft. He dodged behind a massive generator, but three blaster beams concentrated on it. The force of their tripled discharge tore it from its moorings. Artificial gravity combined with its mass to send it crashing into a tangle of the intricate machinery below.

To avoid being crushed, Coran was forced to plunge down the second shaft. He lost himself in the spiderweb of inner support beams. The pirates scattered and climbed into the maze of beams, probing with their blaster rays as shadows moved uneasily in the eerie darkness. The lumibulbs waxed and waned as the unsteady current fluctuated.

* * * * *

Further and further Coran led them, always away from the sally-port and the airlock, darting chance beams at his pursuers whenever opportunity presented. He had the advantage of knowing that they were all enemies. Their forces were divided and confused. In the weird and uncomfortable lofts of the engine-room, clear targets were impossible.

A wild half-plan occurred to Coran. He headed in the direction of the main engine-room switch box and with his beam burned out all the fuses.

Pit-like darkness enveloped the lofts as the lumibulbs went out. It was touch and go sliding down the long beams in the pall of utter blackness. He reached a catwalk, and cautiously made his way toward the elevators. Once he collided with a heavy body and a man swore savagely.

He missed the elevators, but by some miracle found a hatchway leading to the cargo holds. Sliding through, he cut down the intensity of his blaster beam and melted the plastic and metal hatchcover into a fused mass. That should delay them a few minutes. He scuttled down a deserted passageway and began climbing flights of stairs. If he could only find his way back to the sally-port from this other direction. He came suddenly into the room of his hasty barricades next to the sally-port. It was occupied.

Two men had been left behind as guards. He caught them unawares, and burned both down with one sweep of his beam.

The sally-port was empty. The box lid lay on the floor and the airlock door was closed tight.

With the butt of his blaster, he tapped out the signal on the airlock door.

There was a smooth hiss of releasing metal parts and the airlock door came open. He slipped through and slammed the door, spinning the lockbolts tight.

"Thank heavens, you made it," Gerda said. Pale and shaken, she handed him the heavy space-armor. "I was afraid you'd run into those others in the next room. They almost caught me. I had the lid half-raised when they came into the sally-port to check."

"Put on your helmet," he ordered roughly, as she handed him the fishbowl-like contrivance.

She laughed. "The air's bad in here. I could hardly breathe, and I didn't know how to work the valves in the helmet."

Coran swore briefly, then adjusted her helmet and put on his own. He set the microphones and the space communicators.

"I shut the outside door," she complained. "I even bolted it, but it won't stay locked."

"It's automatic," he told her. "When the air pressure's equal on both sides, it opens. I'll show you."

Just as he reached for the controls, the door came open with a violent crash. Hamlin stood framed in the doorway, blaster gun in hand.