Part 2

Grimes turned to Dr. Johnson, about to suggest that he name another man for the outside job when he noticed Bill Manson calmly adjusting the receiver-transmitter over his shoulder. He had already selected several items from the Mars kit spread out on the floor, and had slipped them into a plastic case strapped above one knee.

"All right, Manson; you win," Grimes said gratefully. "But take it easy. There's no hurry. Examine everything inside that lobby before you take two steps away from the door. Better yet, stay outside for a while. He might have picked up some poison before he went in."

"I'll do my best, Captain. Don't worry, I'll be back. Remember, I'm the boy who's getting married next June."

The captain said nothing. He felt he was hitting a new low now--sending Manson out. Still it was the only sensible thing to do.

What good would it do for him to be out there convulsing on the ground? Who could take over and run the ship any better if he did sacrifice himself?

He snapped out of it and concentrated on watching the engineer's figure retreating down the long Priman airstrip.

Except for the insignificant fungus growing out of the cracks, there was nothing of interest between the spaceship and the buildings and Manson hardly paused until he was opposite Lerner's body.

"Don't touch him," Grimes ordered. "We'll look at him later if possible. And stand around for a while before you go any further. Is there anything peculiar at all? Any small animal life? Any strange smells?"

"Just this stinking atmosphere. I don't see a thing, sir. There's no doubt that Lerner's dead."

Grimes watched the engineer stroll around aimlessly in front of the UN building for a full twenty minutes and then finally gave him permission to enter.

"I'm propping the door open," Manson said. "There's nothing in the lobby. Looks like there were tables and chairs here at one time, but they've been taken out."

The voice prattled on and Grimes tried to relax while listening, but he found himself tensing with the beginning of each sentence.

"I feel a little woozy," Manson said all of a sudden. "It's just the light gravity, I know. I've been on Mars--it's the same sensation."

"Nevertheless, get out of that building immediately," Grimes shouted.

The engineer's figure appeared at once on the TV screen and Grimes breathed a sigh of relief. Just the same he reassured himself with a pair of binoculars that Manson was all right, as though he didn't trust the electronic image.

"How do you feel?" he asked anxiously.

"Not so good. I never really got used to walking on Mars, and I was there a dozen times or more. I never stopped taking the Uneasy pills, though I got so I used to bite 'em in half and take ... just ... a ... part...."

"What's the matter with you?" Grimes yelled, though he could see readily enough what was the matter. The boy was doubled over in pain. His lips moved frantically in an effort to talk, but no sound came out. He tried to straighten once but a new attack seized him and he half fell to the ground. His screams of pain filled the spaceship until Grimes could stand it no longer.

"Get down there quick," he commanded the pilot. "And shut off that speaker," he hollered at the radio operator.

Now what was he doing? Risking the entire ship and crew. And for what? To try to save one man? He knew better. That would have been his reason in the old days--now he wasn't thinking of the man. He was thinking of results. He had to know what was happening. One thing kept hammering in his brain. His mission. He had a mission, and it was more important than one man or a whole crew of men.

The big ship moved silently and rapidly to the other end of the runway. Grimes had the exit port open by the time they stopped beside the twisting body of the engineer.

He grabbed the medium sized figure under the armpits and pulled his head and shoulders up inside the ship. Dr. Johnson gave a hand and they soon had Manson laid out on the floor of the pilot's room. A hypodermic appeared almost magically in the doctor's hand.

"There's nothing left to do," he said to the excited captain.

"Get away from him," Grimes shouted fiendishly, jumping forward and pushing the doctor back. "He's got to talk. He's got to."

"My God, Captain, he's dying with pain," a third voice broke in.

Grimes looked up to see the angry face of Lieutenant Ramsey glaring at him. Behind Ramsey, several other crew members stared unbelievingly from their commander's face to the tortured body on the floor.

* * * * *

Grimes didn't know exactly what he was doing, but he did it effectively just the same. He shot a right cross that caught Ramsey on the jaw and knocked him senseless. Then he knelt beside his chief engineer.

"Who did it, boy? What did it? You've got to tell me. Do you understand--you've got to talk."

Manson tried. When he opened his mouth Grimes could see the blood gathering and it nearly made him sick. He thought his own insides would burst with each convulsion of the younger man's body.

"It was ... I think it was...."

The voice trailed off in a new spasm that ended in a violent kicking of his arms and legs as if he were fighting off an attacking animal. Then he vomited hideously and slowly relaxed.

Grimes looked at the doctor and beyond him could see the men still glowering at him accusingly.

"It's too late now," Dr. Johnson shook his head.

"I guess we don't know any more than we did," Grimes said weakly. "Make it easy for him if you can."

He spun around and concentrated on the radar map with no real interest. A crash of something fragile caused him to turn again toward the figure on the floor. Bill Manson had knocked the needle from the doctor's hand and was struggling to speak.

Grimes leaped to his side instantly and cradled the boy's head in his hands. "Speak up, Bill."

"It was ... the pill. I'm sure it was the pill," Manson said. He shook his head and the glaze partly left his eyes. "I only took half a pill, like I used to on Mars; I couldn't help it.... I was getting sick. I felt it almost at once, then it really hit me after about two minutes."

"What pill? The Uneasy pill?" Grimes couldn't believe in so simple an explanation. "They've been checked at home for years."

"Must be a slip somewhere. They weren't designed for Primus. I'll bet my life it was the pill."

"Never mind betting your life any more now. You get some rest."

He snapped to his feet. "Give him something," he told the doctor. "And take care of him. We'll analyze those pills ourselves. There's going to be hell to pay if he's right, and just this minute I'm betting that he is."

"Betting your life, Captain?"

Grimes spun to find Lieutenant Ramsey rubbing his jaw and eyeing him bitterly.

"Yes, Lieutenant, betting my life." He ran to a wall cabinet and jerked out a Mars kit and suit. He tore open the kit and threw out the Uneasy pills, then he hurriedly donned the suit. Maybe that was the answer after all, he mused grimly. Something in the atmosphere reacted with the pill. They had never been declared official for Primus. No time to worry about that now however.

He dropped to the surface of the planet and ran to the UN building. He flung himself inside and ran wildly up and down the stair, shouting like a vacation-crazed schoolboy. From the first building he went on to the others, and then into the city, stopping to be sick when he felt the urge and actually enjoying the pain.

Hours later an exhausted Captain Grimes returned to his spaceship to be greeted by an apologetic and happier crew.

"The boy's going to be all right," Dr. Johnson told him. "He thinks he owes his life to the fact that he only took half a pill, but I don't know. I'd say it was just plain old guts."

"How about the pills?"

"No doubt about them, but I haven't pinned it down yet. We put a pump on Manson and found some sodium chlorate in his stomach. That's NaClO_{3}, you know, and you could get it from ordinary table salt, NaCl, and ozone, O_{3}, if you could combine them. The Uneasy pill has the NaCl all right, and there's plenty of ozone in the atmosphere here--you've smelled it, of course. Smells like chlorine."

Grimes nodded impatiently. "But you couldn't get enough sodium chlorate to kill a man from one medium size pill, could you?"

"No, you couldn't. It is poisonous, however. It's used as an insecticide and as a weed-killer. But it's highly unstable and I don't know how it could have been formed from such a stable substance as sodium chloride. But we've never really had a chance to analyze this atmosphere. I'll work on it on the way back. Whatever the catalyst is, it must have allowed some other ozonides to form, and many of them are highly explosive. A man could literally have been blown to pieces from the inside. It must have been something that could produce hallucinations too, judging from Lerner's actions."

Grimes laughed bitterly, but with relief. "Man, do we owe the Primans an apology! I better draft something quick; then we'll shove off."

Lieutenant Ramsey was the only one who managed to speak.

"I insist on making out a voluntary on my actions, sir. I don't know what came over me."

The captain pushed him aside. "There'll be no voluntarys passed across my desk. I'm capable of reporting on conditions in my ship."

He went on to his private quarters.

Well, it was over, he thought wearily. The psychology boys had been right again. He had felt like a mechanical man all the time. He never would have believed he could send men out like that--and the ship! He could have lost everything.

He glanced at the tape player still in position at his bedside. Suddenly, on impulse, he dived at it and threw it open at the top. He shorted out the governor circuits and then re-wound the tape to the playing position. He had heard of commanders doing it before, and vaguely he was aware that there was an order forbidding it, but he replayed the tape anyway--this time to his conscious mind.

There was some soft, dreamy music for a couple of minutes, then a feminine voice whispered, "Sleep well, Captain Grimes. Sleep well." That was all, except for some more music.