The Fifth Golden Age of Science Fiction MEGAPACK ®: Lester del Rey. Lester Del Rey
out, bounced, kicked, and dove toward the mess hall without a falter. The crewmen weren’t doing so well—but they were coming up the corridor fast enough.
I could have wrung Muller’s neck. Normally, in case of trouble, cutting gravity is smart. But not here, where the crew already wanted a chance to commit mayhem, and had more experience than the scientists.
Yet, surprisingly, when I hit the mess hall ten feet ahead of the deckhands, most of the scientists were doing all right. Hell, I should have known Pietro, Sanderson and a couple others would be used to no-grav; in astronomical work, you cut your eye teeth on that. They were braced around the cook, who huddled back in a corner, while our purser-steward, Sam, was still singing for help.
The fat face of the cook was dead white. Bill Sanderson, looking like a slim, blond ballet dancer and muscled like an apache expert, had him in one hand and was stuffing the latest batch of whole wheat biscuits down his throat. Bill’s sister, Jenny, was giggling excitedly and holding more biscuits.
The deckhands and Grundy, the mate, were almost at the door, and I had just time enough to slam it shut and lock it in their faces. I meant to enjoy seeing the cook taken down without any interruption.
Sam let out a final yell, and Bullard broke free, making a mess of it without weight. He was sputtering out bits of the biscuit. Hal Lomax reached out a big hand, stained with the chemicals that had been his life’s work, and pushed the cook back.
And suddenly fat little Bullard switched from quaking fear to a blind rage. The last of the biscuit sailed from his mouth and he spat at Hal. “You damned hi-faluting black devil. You—you sneering at my cooking. I’m a white man, I am—I don’t have to work for no black—”
I reached him first, though even Sam started for him then. You can deliver a good blow in free-fall, if you know how. His teeth against my knuckles stopped my leap, and the back of his head bounced off the wall. He was unconscious as he drifted by us, moving upwards. My knuckles stung, but it had been worth it. Anyhow, Jenny’s look more than paid for the trouble.
The door shattered then, and the big hulk of Mate Grundy tumbled in, with the two deckhands and the pair from the engine room behind him. Sam let out a yell that sounded like protest, and they headed for us—just as gravity came on.
I pulled myself off the floor and out from under Bullard to see the stout, oldish figure of Captain Muller standing in the doorway, with Engineer Wilcox slouched easily beside him, looking like the typical natty space officer you see on television. Both held gas guns.
“All right, break it up!” Muller ordered. “You men get back to your work. And you, Dr. Pietro—my contract calls for me to deliver you to Saturn’s moon, but it doesn’t forbid me to haul you the rest of the way in irons. I won’t have this aboard my ship!”
Pietro nodded, his little gray goatee bobbing, his lean body coming upright smoothly. “Quite right, Captain. Nor does it forbid me to let you and your men spend the sixteen months on the moon—where I command—in irons. Why don’t you ask Sam what happened before you make a complete fool of yourself, Captain Muller?”
Sam gulped and looked at the crew, but apparently Pietro was right; the little guy had been completely disgusted by Bullard. He shrugged apologetically. “Bullard insulted Dr. Lomax, sir. I yelled for someone to help me get him out of here, and I guess everybody got all mixed up when gravity went off, and Bullard cracked his head on the floor. Just a misunderstanding, sir.”
Muller stood there, glowering at the cut on my knuckles, and I could feel him aching for a good excuse to make his threat a reality. But finally, he grunted and swung on his heel, ordering the crew with him. Grundy threw us a final grimace and skulked off behind him. Finally there was only Wilcox, who grinned, shrugged, and shut the door quietly behind him. And we were left with the mess free-fall had made of the place.
I spotted Jenny heading across the room, carefully not seeing the fatuous glances Pietro was throwing her way, and I swung in behind. She nodded back at me, but headed straight for Lomax, with an odd look on her face. When she reached him, her voice was low and businesslike.
“Hal, what did those samples of Hendrix’s show up?”
Hendrix was the Farmer, in charge of the hydroponics that turned the carbon dioxide we breathed out back to oxygen, and also gave us a bit of fresh vegetables now and then. Technically, he was a crewman, just as I was a scientist; but actually, he felt more like one of us.
Lomax looked surprised. “What samples, Jenny? I haven’t seen Hendrix for two weeks.”
“You—” She stopped, bit her lip, and frowned. She swung on me. “Paul, have you seen him?”
I shook my head. “Not since last night. He was asking Eve and Walt to wake him up early, then.”
“That’s funny. He was worried about the plants yesterday and wanted Hal to test the water and chemical fertilizer. I looked for him this morning, but when he didn’t show up, I thought he was with you, Hal. And—the plants are dying!”
“All of them?” The half smile wiped off Hal’s face, and I could feel my stomach hit my insteps. When anything happens to the plants in a ship, it isn’t funny.
She shook her head again. “No—about a quarter of them. I was coming for help when the fight started. They’re all bleached out. And it looks like—like chromazone!”
That really hit me. They developed the stuff to fight off fungus on Venus, where one part in a billion did the trick. But it was tricky stuff; one part in ten-million would destroy the chlorophyll in plants in about twenty hours, or the hemoglobin in blood in about fifteen minutes. It was practically a universal poison.
Hal started for the door, then stopped. He glanced around the room, turned back to me, and suddenly let out a healthy bellow of seeming amusement. Jenny’s laugh was right in harmony. I caught the drift, and tried to look as if we were up to some monkey business as we slipped out of the room. Nobody seemed suspicious.
Then we made a dash for hydroponics, toward the rear of the ship. We scrambled into the big chamber together, and stopped. Everything looked normal among the rows of plant-filled tanks, pipes and equipment. Jenny led us down one of the rows and around a bend.
The plants in the rear quarter weren’t sick—they were dead. They were bleached to a pale yellow, like boiled grass, and limp. Nothing would save them now.
“I’m a biologist, not a botanist—” Jenny began.
Hal grunted sickly. “Yeah. And I’m not a life hormone expert. But there’s one test we can try.”
He picked up a pair of rubber gloves from a rack, and pulled off some wilted stalks. From one of the healthy tanks, he took green leaves. He mashed the two kinds together on the edge of a bench and watched. “If it’s chromazone, they’ve developed an enzyme by now that should eat the color out of those others.”
* * * *
In about ten seconds, I noticed the change. The green began to bleach before my eyes.
Jenny made a sick sound in her throat and stared at the rows of healthy plants. “I checked the valves, and this sick section is isolated. But—if chromazone got into the chemicals.… Better get your spectroanalyzer out, Hal, while I get Captain Muller. Paul, be a dear and find Hendrix, will you?”
I shook my head, and went further down the rows. “No need, Jenny,” I called back. I pointed to the shoe I’d seen sticking out from the edge of one of the tanks. There was a leg attached.
I reached for it, but Lomax shoved me back. “Don’t—the enzymes in the corpse are worse than the poison, Paul. Hands off.” He reached down with the gloves and heaved. It was Hendrix, all right—a corpse with a face and hands as white as human flesh could ever get. Even the lips were bleached out.
Jenny moaned. “The fool! The stupid fool. He knew it was dangerous without gloves; he suspected chromazone, even though none’s supposed to be on board. And I warned him…”
“Not