Rocket to Limbo

True answers? Or false? It didn’t matter. All that mattered was the need to strike back, to hate the world that had killed his father, to hate the man who had been responsible. But hatred is a vicious thing, spreading and tainting everything it touches, twisting and hiding the good that it obscures.

Lars saw it clearly, and shook his head in wonder. “You were determined to get aboard the Ganymede, then. To get to Fox-some way, any way.”

“I had to get aboard,” Peter said. “If I hadn’t made it this time, I would have the next, or the next. There are lots of men named Brigham. Fox would never know until I got ready to tell him. I had to do it. He’s got to be stopped, somehow, and I’m going to stop him.”

“But what about the rest?”

Peter’s lips tightened. “I’ve got to stop Fox. I’m sorry about the rest, but I can’t help it.”

“It’s wrong, Peter.”

“He’ll never take another Star Ship off Earth.”

“But can’t you see that you’re taking it out on every man aboard?”

“I don’t see how. We’ll turn him back. They won’t have to go to Wolf IV, unless they want to, the next trip, with a man who’s fit to lead them.”

“Suppose you’re right about Fox, and suppose you don’t turn him back? Then what? Landing on Wolf IV with half the crew in irons, with no morale at all, with everybody afraid of everybody else—” Lars shook his head. “You could destroy every man on the ship, if you keep this up. Even a mutiny in itself, why, the men are sitting on knife-edges up there! Suppose they jumped the gun, tried to take the ship without enough support, at the wrong time. There’d be fighting, Peter. How many are going to be killed, because you want to get Walter Fox? And those that got back, do you think Earth courts would back up a mutiny? The ones that got back would be in for lifetime demolition.”

Peter’s face was pale. He looked at Lars for a long moment. Then, “I’m sorry. If there was a better way—”

“But there is!”

“What?”

“Look, I don’t know if you’re right or wrong about Commander Fox. I just don’t know. But I do know that he’s stepped over the line legally on this trip. Anything we do now is criminal, because he’s the law on his Star Ship in space. All right. We back him up now. We go to Wolf IV and find the Planetfall if she’s there to be found. Then when we get home we press every charge against him that we can dream up, and press it to the hilt. Kidnaping, conspiracy, incompetence—anything with any grounds at all. When toe get home, Peter, with a crack space lawyer and all the trimmings.”

“I can’t back him now. Not on anything. I just can’t.”

“All right, then don’t, but don’t fight him. If you fight him, nobody may get home. You’ll have to move fast. Salter is getting the whole ship aroused, and you’ll have to stop him somehow, but it’s the only thing to do. We can get Fox when it’s all over.”

Peter looked at Lars. “We?”

“If you’ll stop this panic you’ve started and go along, I’ll back you to the hilt when we get home.”

“You give me your word?”

“You’ve got it.”

Peter scratched his jaw. “I might be able to slow it up. Salter is the one who’s talking the loudest, but they’re ready to blow any time. I’ll have to move fast.”

The lights in the bunkroom went out.

Somewhere above them were sounds of shouts and running feet, and a hatchway clanged shut. Peter jumped up from his bunk, listening. They heard more shouts and a shot.

“Too latel” he whispered.

The wall-speaker crackled, and Tom Lorry’s voice roared out:

“All hands, man your stations. Every man get to his station at once. This ship is now on emergency military orders—”

The voice was choked off and the speaker went dead.

“The hold!” Peter cried. “They’ll try to get to the engines—” And then he and Lars were running pell-mell down the dark corridor, wrist-lights flashing, and the thought ran again and again through Lars’ mind: It’s too late! It’s already too late!

What happened then came so fast that Lars never was sure of the sequence. There were a series of impressions—bodies moving, lights flashing, men shouting, the clanging of the battle stations bell. He was rushing through darkness, following Peter Brigham’s bouncing wrist-light down a hatch, along a corridor and down into another hatch, black as pitch. Suddenly his light showed no floor, no wall, only a thin metal railing and a catwalk. Lars gasped, dizzy, as his boots went ping-ping-ping on the metal lathing. Then Peter disappeared before him, and Lars groped at the end of the catwalk for metal ladder rungs.

A metal floor-plate, a walkway leading toward the hulking black engines, their hum a frantic scream in his ears now. Peter stopped, panting, peering into the darkness, and their ears caught more footsteps on the catwalk above, a curse, a flicker of light.