Part 6 (2/2)

I felt a tap on my shoulder and glanced up. Simon, one of the tug pilots, was pointing toward the back of the room. I looked back.

Artie was there with a worried look on his face looking at me. His eyes moved quickly toward where Goil sat, and then back at me. His head gave a little backwards jerk.

Feeling real unhappy all of a sudden as premonition nudged my mind, I got up quietly and went back.

Artie had stepped outside in the hall. When he saw me step out of the rec room doorway, he motioned me down the hall farther. Gloom was all over his face, even in his motions. He said:

”Sam, I don't know what's going on around here between w.i.l.l.y, Goil, and you. But I thought you'd like to know Goil was in to see me a little while ago. Before I had much of a chance to think about it, I gave him the figures and tapes for that course I plotted for w.i.l.l.y. I don't know how Goil knew about them, but he asked for them directly.”

”Which figures, Art?” I asked anxiously.

”Why, the ones I made for you. Is there something wrong, Sam?”

My alarm must have shown in my face. I said, ”No, Art. I thought maybe you might have given him that other course I asked you to plot.”

”You mean that false course? h.e.l.l, Sam. I didn't know--”

”It's all right, Art. You didn't know.” And I left him standing there puzzled. I went back to the rec room.

I wasn't feeling so good by the time I got back. My seat had been taken, so I wriggled myself a place against the back wall.

Goil knew all about the fict.i.tious course I gave him. Right there he had me cold. But he was too worried to want to do anything about it then.

The time seemed to stand still. The crew still had some fifteen minutes before they were due to abandon s.h.i.+p, so I left the rec room to sneak out to the galley for a cup of coffee. When I entered, there was Artie and Elmer already having coffee.

Artie said, ”Sit down, Sam, and have a cup.”

Elmer poured, and I gulped half the cupful down gratefully, then said, ”Aren't you two going to watch the runaway crack into Mars?”

”Sure,” said Artie. ”I've got a small monitor screen in the com room.

Want to join us?”

I did and said so. We all drank another cup of coffee and then went to the communications room. The three of us could sit and comfortably watch the small monitor.

A series of montages suddenly snapped off the screen to be replaced by the lonesome s.h.i.+p. This time there was Mars in the near background. I never could understand how the long-range scope mechanisms managed to bend their energies so that they could literally see behind something directly in front of them, but they could. That was how they could get Mars in the background.

The excited announcer was saying that the crew would abandon s.h.i.+p in four minutes since all hope of a course change was gone. And in another three hours the runaway would enter atmosphere.

”Sure,” Elmer said, ”the crew will abandon s.h.i.+p. But where can they go after they do? Mars, that's where.”

”I guess all you can say about it is that they are going right out of the fire into the frying pan,” Artie said morbidly.

”Yeah,” Elmer said. ”They sure are. About all they can do is land on Mars with the short range of the lifeboats.”

”Oh, they got enough range, all right,” Artie said. ”Only they don't have enough food and water for all the crew to reach some other planet. They have no choice but to try Mars.”

<script>