Citizen in Spase. Stories / Гражданин в Космосе. Рассказы. Книга для чтения на английском языке

Out of the ceiling, a yellow smoke began to trickle.

“Impurities in the system,” Agee muttered, adjusting a dial. Victor began to cough.

“Turn it off,” Barnett said.

The smoke poured out in thick streams, filling the two rooms almost instantly.

“Turn it off!”

“I can’t see it!” Agee thrust at the switch, missed and struck a button under it. Immediately the generators began to whine angrily. Blue sparks danced along the panel and jumped to the wall.

Agee staggered back from the panel and collapsed. Victor was already at the door to the cargo hold, trying to hammer it down with his fists. Barnett covered his mouth with one hand and rushed to the panel. He fumbled blindly for the switch, feeling the ship revolve giddily around him.

Victor fell to the deck, still beating feebly at the door.

Barnett jabbed blindly at the panel.

Instantly the generators stopped. Then Barnett felt a cold breeze on his face. He wiped his streaming eyes and looked up.

A lucky stab had closed the ceiling vents, cutting off the yellow gas. He had accidentally opened the locks, and the gas in the ship was being replaced by the cold night air of the planet. Soon the atmosphere was breathable.

Victor climbed shakily to his feet, but Agee didn’t move. Barnett gave the old pilot artificial respiration, cursing softly as he did. Agee’s eyelids finally fluttered and his chest began to rise and fall. A few minutes later, he sat up and shook his head.

“What was that stuff?” Victor asked.

“I’m afraid,” Barnett said, “that our alien friend considered it a breathable atmosphere.”

Agee shook his head. “Can’t be, Captain. He was here on an oxygen world, walking around with no helmet —”

“Air requirements vary tremendously,” Barnett pointed out. “Let’s face it – our friend’s physical makeup was quite different from ours.”

“That’s not so good,” Agee said.

The three men looked at each other. In the silence that followed, they heard a faint, ominous sound.

“What was that?” Victor yelped, yanking out his blaster.

“Shut up!” Barnett shouted.

They listened. Barnett could feel the hairs lift on the back of his neck as he tried to identify the sound.

It came from a distance. It sounded like metal striking a hard non-metallic object.

The three men looked out the port. In the last glow of sunset, they could see the main port of Endeavor I was open. The sound was coming from the ship.

“It’s impossible,” Agee said. “The freeze-blasters —”

“Didn’t kill him,” Barnett finished.

“That’s bad,” Agee grunted. “That’s very bad.”

Victor was still holding his blaster. “Captain, suppose I wander over that way —”

Barnett shook his head. “He wouldn’t let you within ten feet of the lock. No, let me think. Was there anything on board he could use? The piles?”

“I’ve got the links, Captain,” Victor said.

“Good. Then there’s nothing that —”

“The acid,” Agee interrupted. “It’s powerful stuff. But I don’t suppose he can do much with that stuff.”

“Not a thing,” Barnett said. “We’re in this ship and we’re staying here. But get it off the ground now.”

Agee looked at the instrument panel. Half an hour ago, he had almost understood it. Now it was a cunningly rigged death trap – a booby trap, with invisible wires leading to destruction.

The trap was unintentional. But a spaceship was necessarily a machine for living as well as traveling. The controls would try to reproduce the alien’s living conditions, supply his needs.

That might be fatal to them.

“I wish I knew what kind of planet he came from,” Agee said unhappily. If they knew the alien’s environment, they could anticipate what his ship would do.

All they knew was that he breathed a poisonous yellow gas.

“We’re doing all right,” Barnett said, without much confidence. “Just dope out the drive mechanism and we’ll leave everything else alone.”

Agee turned back to the controls.

Barnett wished he knew what the alien was up to. He stared at the bulk of his old ship in the twilight and listened to the incomprehensible sound of metal striking non-metal.

* * *

Kalen was surprised to find that he was still alive. But there was a saying among his people – “Either a Mabogian is killed fast or he isn’t killed at all.” It was not at all – so far.

Groggily, he sat up and leaned against a tree. The single red sun of the planet was low on the horizon and breezes of poisonous oxygen swirled around him. He tested at once and found that his lungs were still securely sealed. His life-giving yellow air, although vitiated from long use, was still sustaining him.

But he couldn’t seem to get oriented. A few hundred yards away, his ship was resting peacefully. The fading red light glistened from its hull and, for a moment, Kalen was convinced that there were no aliens. He had imagined the whole thing and now he would return to his ship…

He saw one of the aliens loaded down with goods, enter his vessel. In a little while, the airlocks closed.

It was true, all of it. He wrenched his mind back to grim realities.