Part 5 (2/2)

”What?”

The old Engineer considered them through his double eyes. ”The rest of you'll take the lifeboat and make for Earth. I'll remain here on the s.h.i.+p and s.h.i.+eld your flight. I'm sure I can hide the little boat for awhile, and then, even with one jet, I think I can delay the cruiser until you get away. Someone's got to make a sacrifice. I'm old, and I didn't want any of this to begin with.”

Maher gasped. ”Mac, you old fool. D'ya mind if I apologize for what I just said? But you're right, that's a possible answer. Only I'll be the one to stay.”

”Do you know how to adjust the pile and the jets to make a weapon out of them?” asked MacNamara.

”No ...” began Maher.

MacNamara grinned, ”Nor am I going to tell you! So, you see, you can't be the one to stay.”

Maher gripped the old man's hand and pumped it. ”You win,” he said. ”You old ... crackpot!” There was real affection in his voice.

”Then be off with you,” said the Chief Engineer. ”You've not a minute to lose. Every man jack of you into the boat, including the Captain and the Mates. I'll not have _my_ s.h.i.+p cluttered up with extra hands that might cramp my style....” And turning, the old man made his way back to the pile room, mumbling to himself.

Eyes wet, Gene gave the orders to abandon s.h.i.+p, and within thirty minutes every living soul was aboard the lifeboat.

MacNamara had finished his work with the pile and was back in the control room, waiting for the lifeboat to cast off. As it did so, he waved, then turned to the controls.

As the lifeboat darted away on its chemical jet engines, they could see the old man maneuvering the big s.h.i.+p so as to keep it ever between them and the Cruiser. An hour later when they were within a hundred thousand miles of Earth, MacNamara sent up a flare denoting surrender.

Tensely they watched the distant speck of light that was the s.h.i.+p with MacNamara on it. Then, around its side came the Company Cruiser, steering in toward it to make the capture. It was scarcely a thousand miles from the disabled s.h.i.+p. Gradually it drew closer, then edged in.

Now it was only a few miles away, and at this distance, both specks seemed to merge.

”They got him!” Maher said.

”Yah!” Schwenky boomed, disappointment in his voice. ”Me, I should have been the one to stay. I would slap them.”

Suddenly, out in s.p.a.ce, a bright flower grew. A flower of incandescent light that blossomed with terrifying rapidity, until it seemed to engulf all s.p.a.ce in the area of the two s.h.i.+ps. The familiar sphere of brilliance that marked an exploding atom bomb hung there in the heavens an instant, then it was gone. In its place was only a vast cloud of smoke, the dust and scattered atoms that were all that remained of two gigantic s.p.a.ce s.h.i.+ps.

”He detonated the pile!” said Gene, ”He turned himself into an atom bomb!”

”Yah!” said Schwenky, his voice strangely muted. ”Yah!” Awkwardly he turned and patted Ann's head as she began to sob.

”Is it not handsome?” asked Schwenky proudly, holding the front page of the newspaper up for all to see. ”I have my picture in the paper! Is it not nice?”

Laughing, Ann kissed the big Swede right on the lips, and hugged him, paper and all. ”It's beautiful, you big lug!” she said. ”The handsomest picture I've ever seen in any paper.”

”Nah!” denied Schwenky. ”It is not the handsomest. All of us have our pictures in the paper. We are all very good looking! Not only Schwenky.

Is it not so, Gene, my friend?”

Gene grinned at him, and at the others. Maher pounded him on the back, and over the uproar came the voice of the editor of the _Sentinel_.

”Telephone for Mr. Schwenky!”

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