The Fifth Golden Age of Science Fiction MEGAPACK ®: Lester del Rey. Lester Del Rey
produced that. “You should have warned him about his friends. Must have been killed, then dumped in there.”
“Murder!” Hal bit the word out in disgust. “You’re right, Paul. Not too stupid a way to dispose of the body, either—in another couple of hours, he’d have started dissolving in that stuff, and we’d never have guessed it was murder. That means this poisoning of the plants wasn’t an accident. Somebody poisoned the water, then got worried when there wasn’t a report on the plants; must have been someone who thought it worked faster on plants than it does. So he came to investigate, and Hendrix caught him fooling around. So he got killed.”
“But who?” Jenny asked.
I shrugged sickly. “Somebody crazy enough—or desperate enough to turn back that he’ll risk our air and commit murder. You’d better go after the captain while Hal gets his test equipment. I’ll keep watch here.”
It didn’t feel good in hydroponics after they left. I looked at those dead plants, trying to figure whether there were enough left to keep us going. I studied Hendrix’s body, trying to tell myself the murderer had no reason to come back and try to get me.
I reached for a cigarette, and then put the pack back. The air felt almost as close as the back of my neck felt tense and unprotected. And telling myself it was all imagination didn’t help—not with what was in that chamber to keep me company.
II
Muller’s face was like an iceberg when he came down—but only after he saw Hendrix. Before then I’d caught the fat moon-calf expression on his face, and I’d heard Jenny giggling. Damn it, they’d taken enough time. Hal was already back, fussing over things with the hunk of tin and lenses he treated like a newborn baby.
Doc Napier came in behind them, but separately. I saw him glance at them and look sick. Then both Muller and Napier began concentrating on business. Napier bent his nervous, bony figure over the corpse, and stood up almost at once. “Murder all right.”
“So I guessed, Dr. Napier,” Muller growled heavily at him. “Wrap him up and put him between hulls to freeze. We’ll bury him when we land. Tremaine, give a hand with it, will you?”
“I’m not a laborer, Captain Muller!” Napier protested. I started to tell him where he could get off, too.
But Jenny shook her head at us. “Please. Can’t you see Captain Muller is trying to keep too many from knowing about this? I should think you’d be glad to help. Please?”
Put that way, I guess it made sense. We found some rubber sheeting in one of the lockers, and began wrapping Hendrix in it; it wasn’t pleasant, since he was beginning to soften up from the enzymes he’d absorbed. “How about going ahead to make sure no one sees us?” I suggested to Jenny.
Muller opened his mouth, but Jenny gave one of her quick little laughs and opened the door for us. Doc looked relieved. I guessed he was trying to kid himself. Personally, I wasn’t a fool—I was just hooked; I knew perfectly well she was busy playing us off against one another, and probably having a good time balancing the books. But hell, that’s the way life runs.
“Get Pietro up here!” Muller fired after us. She laughed again, and nodded. She went with us until we got to the ’tween-hulls lock, then went off after the chief. She was back with him just as we finished stuffing Hendrix through and sealing up again.
Muller grunted at us when we got back, then turned to Lomax again. The big chemist didn’t look happy. He spread his hands toward us, and hunched his shoulders. “A fifty-times over-dose of chromazone in those tanks—fortunately none in the others. And I can’t find a trace of it in the fertilizer chemicals or anywhere else. Somebody deliberately put it into those tanks.”
“Why?” Pietro asked. We’d filled him in with the rough details, but it still made no sense to him.
“Suppose you tell me, Dr. Pietro,” Muller suggested. “Chromazone is a poison most people never heard of. One of the new scientific nuisances.”
Pietro straightened, and his goatee bristled. “If you’re hinting…”
“I am not hinting, Dr. Pietro. I’m telling you that I’m confining your group to their quarters until we can clean up this mess, distil the water that’s contaminated, and replant. After that, if an investigation shows nothing, I may take your personal bond for the conduct of your people. Right now I’m protecting my ship.”
“But captain—” Jenny began.
Muller managed a smile at her. “Oh, not you, of course, Jenny. I’ll need you here. With Hendrix gone, you’re the closest thing we have to a Farmer now.”
“Captain Muller,” Pietro said sharply. “Captain, in the words of the historical novelists—drop dead! Dr. Sanderson, I forbid you to leave your quarters so long as anyone else is confined to his. I have ample authority for that.”
“Under emergency powers—” Muller spluttered over it, and Pietro jumped in again before he could finish.
“Precisely, Captain. Under emergency situations, when passengers aboard a commercial vessel find indications of total irresponsibility or incipient insanity on the part of a ship’s officer, they are considered correct in assuming command for the time needed to protect their lives. We were poisoned by food prepared in your kitchen, and were nearly killed by radioactivity through a leak in the engine-room—and no investigation was made. We are now confronted with another situation aimed against our welfare—as the others were wholly aimed at us—and you choose to conduct an investigation against our group only. My only conclusion is that you wish to confine us to quarters so we cannot find your motives for this last outrage. Paul, will you kindly relieve the captain of his position?”
They were both half right, and mostly wrong. Until it was proved that our group was guilty, Muller couldn’t issue an order that was obviously discriminatory and against our personal safety in case there was an attack directed on us. He’d be mustered out of space and into the Lunar Cells for that. But on the other hand, the “safety for passengers” clause Pietro was citing applied only in the case of overt, direct and physical danger by an officer to normal passengers. He might be able to weasel it through a court, or he might be found guilty of mutiny. It left me in a pretty position.
Jenny fluttered around. “Now, now—” she began.
I cut her off. “Shut up, Jenny. And you two damned fools cool down. Damn it, we’ve got an emergency here all right—we may not have air plants enough to live on. Pietro, we can’t run the ship—and neither can Muller get through what’s obviously a mess that may call for all our help by confining us. Why don’t you two go off and fight it out in person?”
Surprisingly, Pietro laughed. “I’m afraid I’d put up a poor showing against the captain, Paul. My apologies, Captain Muller.”
Muller hesitated, but finally took Pietro’s hand, and dropped the issue.
“We’ve got enough plants,” he said, changing the subject. “We’ll have to cut out all smoking and other waste of air. And I’ll need Jenny to work the hydroponics, with any help she requires. We’ve got to get more seeds planted, and fast. Better keep word of this to ourselves. We—”
A shriek came from Jenny then. She’d been busy at one of the lockers in the chamber. Now she began ripping others open and pawing through things inside rubber-gloves. “Captain Muller! The seeds! The seeds!”
Hal took one look, and his face turned gray.
“Chromazone,” he reported. “Every bag of seed has been filled with a solution of chromazone! They’re worthless!”
“How long before the plants here will seed?” Muller asked sharply.
“Three months,” Jenny answered. “Captain Muller, what are we going to do?”
The dour face settled into grim determination. “The only sensible thing. Take care of these plants, conserve the air, and squeeze by until