Unto My Manifold Dooms

Hegg looked on, stunned, as he writhed on the ground, :! awing silently at his helmet. Sonny's suit speaker was cut off and only muffled sounds came through the thick ar­mour. Hegg bent over him, uncomprehending, as the man's body arched like a bow and collapsed. Hegg rolled him over and looked through the faceplate at the dead, tortured face.

His instant sympathy was overwhelmed by a feeling of immense relief.

Sonny seemed to have been killed by poisoning from the atmosphere. But how could it have entered his suit? There could be no leaks in the armour. Hegg would swear to that; he had checked it thoroughly himself. Then he re­membered his traitor fingers at the bleed valve and he quickly tried it. No, it was sealed.

Or was it? The handle was right to the top and vertical —but wasn't there too much thread showing? Hegg turned the limp body until the sun shone directly into the mouth of the valve.

It was jammed half open by a particle of metal. The air in the suit would be forced out by the greater internal pres­sure, and when the pressure dropped the outside atmos­phere would leak in. Had leaked in; because Sonny Greer was completely and finally dead.

Again the wave of relaxation swept over the captain, and it carried with it a tiny, nagging question.

How had the metal gotten into the valve? By accident? A lucky accident that made it lodge in exactly such a way that the valve handle would look shut and feel shut—even though it was open?

'Cause of death, accidental,' Captain Hegg said, louder than he had intended, as he climbed to his feet and cleaned the alien dust from his hands, then rubbed them on his legs to cleanse them again.

'It had to be an accident. I can't very well list you as suicide,' he said to the unmoving body. 'It really should be self-defence, or justified homicide or something. But I can't say that, can I, Sonny?'

Now that death had removed the threat, he could feel for the first time the compassion that had been buried by his urge for survival.

'I'm sorry, Sonny,' he whispered gently, and touched the lifeless shoulder. 'You just shouldn't have been out here. I wish for all our sakes we had found that out earlier.

'Mostly for your sake though,' he said, rising. Then in a firmer voice. 'I better get back to the dome, straighten this mess out. . . .'

Beginning the long process of forgetting.