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

“Here goes.” He set minimum acceleration and blew on his fingertips for luck.

Then he punched the blast-switch.

* * *

With profound regret, Kalen watched his ship depart. He was still holding the thetnite bomb in his hand.

He had reached his ship, had even stood under her for a few seconds. Then he had crept back to the alien vessel. He had been unable to set the bomb. Centuries of conditioning were too much to overcome in a few hours.

Conditioning – and something more.

Few individuals of any race murder for pleasure. There are perfectly adequate reasons to kill, though, reasons which might satisfy any philosopher.

But, once accepted, there are more reasons, and more and more. And murder, once accepted, is hard to stop. It leads irresistibly to war and, from there, to annihilation.

Kalen felt that this murder somehow involved the destiny of his race. His abstinence had been almost a matter of race-survival.

But it didn’t make him feel any better.

He watched his ship dwindle to a dot in the sky. The aliens were leaving at a ridiculously slow speed. He could think of no reason for this, unless they were doing it for his benefit.

Undoubtedly they were sadistic enough for that.

Kalen returned to the ship. His will to live was as strong as ever. He had no intention of giving up. He would hang onto life as long as he could, hoping for the one chance in a million that would bring another ship to this planet.

Looking around, he thought that he might concoct an air substitute out of the skull-marked cleanser. It would sustain him for a day or two. Then, if he could open the kerla nut…

He thought he heard a noise outside and rushed to look. The sky was empty. His ship had vanished, and he was alone.

He returned to the alien ship and set about the serious business of staying alive.

* * *

As Agee recovered consciousness, he found that he had managed to cut the acceleration in half, just before passing out. This was the only thing that had saved his life.

And the acceleration, hovering just above zero on the dial, was still unbearably heavy! Agee unsealed the door and crawled out.

Barnett and Victor had burst their straps on the takeoff. Victor was just returning to consciousness. Barnett picked himself out of a pile of smashed cases.

“Do you think you’re flying in a circus?” he complained. “I told you minimum acceleration.”

“I started under minimum acceleration,” Agee said. “Go read the tape for yourself.”

Barnett marched to the control room. He came out quickly.

“That’s bad. Our alien friend operates this ship at three times our acceleration.”

“That’s the way it looks.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Barnett said thoughtfully. “He must come from a heavy planet – a place where you have to blast out at high speed, if you expect to get out at all.”

“What hit me?” Victor groaned, rubbing his head.

There was a clicking in the walls. The ship was fully awake now, and its servos turned on automatically.

“Getting warm, isn’t it?” Victor asked.

“Yeah, and thick,” Agee said. “Pressure buildup.” He went back to the control room. Barnett and Victor stood anxiously in the doorway, waiting.

“I can’t turn it off,” Agee said, wiping perspiration from his streaming face. “The temperature and pressure are automatic. They must go to ‘normal’ as soon as the ship is in flight.”

“You damn well better turn them off,” Barnett told him. “We’ll fry in here if you don’t.”

“There’s no way.”

“He must have some kind of heat regulation.”

“Sure – there!” Agee said, pointing. “The control is already set at its lowest point.”

“What do you suppose his normal temperature is?” Barnett asked.

“I’d hate to find out,” Agee said. “This ship is built of extremely high melting-point alloys. It’s constructed to withstand ten times the pressure of an Earth ship. Put those together…”

“You must be able to turn it off somewhere!” Barnett said. He peeled off his jacket and sweater. The heat was mounting rapidly and the deck was becoming too hot to stand on.

“Turn it off!” Victor howled.

“Wait a minute,” Agee said. “I didn’t build this ship, you know. How should I know —”

“Off!” Victor screamed, shaking Agee up and down like a rag doll. “Off!”

“Let go!” Agee half-drew his blaster. Then, in a burst of inspiration, he turned off the ship’s engines.

The clicking in the walls stopped. The room began to cool. “What happened?” Victor asked.

“The temperature and pressure fall when the power is off,” Agee said. “We’re safe – as long as we don’t run the engines.”

“How long will it take us to coast to a port?” Barnett asked.

Agee figured it out. “About three years,” he said. “We’re pretty far out.”

“Isn’t there any way we can rip out those servos? Disconnect them?”

“They’re built into the guts of the ship,” Agee said. “We’d need a full machine shop and skilled help. Even then, it wouldn’t be easy.”

Barnett was silent for a long time. Finally he said, “All right.”

“All right what?”

“We’re licked. We’ve got to go back to that planet and take our own ship.”

Agee heaved a sigh of relief and punched a new course on the ship’s tape.