Read Ebook: Nos Hommes et Notre Histoire Notices biographiques accompagnées de reflexions et de souvenirs personnels by Desdunes Rodolphe Lucien

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Ebook has 1004 lines and 48619 words, and 21 pages

The ship began to whip again; but the agile fingers of Captain Stevens brought her swiftly under control.

Skip came unwillingly back to consciousness. Some of the control room crew were already on their feet. Others were still lying quietly trying to regain their senses before they tried to get to their feet. A few of the men would never move again.

The thrum of the engines had stopped.

Captain Stevens was cursing silently in front of the controls. "Fouled," he spat. "That damn line must have whipped right into the stern discharge tubes and sealed them up so that we have no forward propulsive power. And look out there." He waved his arm at the screens.

This Captain Stevens corrected while speaking to the men. "Clean up the mess in here. Get the injured to the sick bay; and take care of the dead. We're in the same difficulty as the Regis. Our anti-gray and anti-heat units are working but the indicators show them losing power slowly. We must free those tubes or sooner or later we'll end up in the sun. Let's get down to the outer lock room and see what we can do."

Bull and Skip followed the rest through the big ship. When they got to the lock room, Malcolm, his face white with pain from some injury, was struggling into a solar suit. One of the crew snapped the helmet over his head and handed him a cutting torch. Before any of the new arrivals could say a word, Malcolm was in the lock and on his way outside.

Suddenly one of the lock tenders exclaimed. "My God, he took a suit with a discharged anti-heat unit filler. If his refrigerant cuts off while he's out there--"

Bull grabbed another suit from its peg and began to draw it on. Captain Stevens grabbed his arm and shouted.

"Hold it, Ensign, you're under arrest. We'll send--"

"There's a man out there," interrupted Bull. "You said this was do or die, didn't you? Let me go."

Stevens tightened his grip. "Listen you big fool--"

Bull shoved hard. The Captain hit the deck and rolled to the nearest bulkhead. No one said a word. There were too many other things to worry about. A fouled discharge system. A man outside about to die unless someone got to him in time.

Suddenly Bull's whole front view seemed filled with an explosion. He clung desperately to the ship although he knew that there would be no perceptible effect of such a small explosion in space. He did not have to look to see what had happened; he knew. Malcolm was gone.

At least it had been quick and painless, thought Bull. Malcolm's heat unit had failed. And in such a high temperature the change from a solid to a gas had been so sudden that it was actually an explosion. After swallowing hard several times he slowly began to make his way to the stern. It was up to him to clear the tubes now.

He tried to throw the spectacle of Malcolm's disintegration from his mind; but it kept intruding. He had seen many men die; but none so quickly or so completely. The whole sun was now Malcolm's grave. His very atoms were being torn asunder by the constant process of ionization that was taking place in the sun's atmosphere. Somehow the thought of such complete disembodiment was disturbing to Bull's ideas of immortality.

He was jerked crudely back to reality when the ship came up with unbelievable force to flatten him immovably on its side for a moment. While he gasped for breath under the unexpected pressure, he sought madly for an explanation of his predicament. As the pressure slowly lessened, he realized that the ship must have drifted into one of the many clouds of gas constantly expanding or contracting near the sun due to differences in temperature. This time a rising mass had pressed him against the ship. The lateral jet pilots inside were not compensating for the shift because he was outside and a sudden movement might leave him drifting free.

Once he could get to his feet and proceed, he was extra careful to place his magnetized shoes firmly to the ship's shell. In addition, he set out helper lines to act as auxiliary anchors against any unexpected moves the ship might take. When the possibility of a faculae nearing the ship entered his mind, it took his breath away. If that occurred, he knew that the ship's crew would have to throw in the lateral jets to escape. Unless his equipment was in place at the time of the move, the suddenness of the change in direction would leave him free in the chromosphere until his power ran out; or the faculae the ship had been escaping clasped him and exploded him into another Malcolm.

With his mind trampled with fear, and his eyes fixed firmly to the ship's shell, he was surprised to find himself suddenly within reach of the stern tubes. The long traction line had whipped across the four tubes with a force that had annealed parts of the line to both the inside and outside so that the openings were completely covered. This caused the forces in the firing chambers to neutralize themselves since there was no aperture to permit the egress of force in any direction.

Making sure that all his possible anchorage was in place, he braced himself and began burning out the clogged tubes nearest to him.

Back in the Vision Room the crew anxiously watched bits of metal slough off under Bull's torch.

"That guy's sure got what it takes," someone whispered.

Outside, Bull cleaned out the second tube and reached across without thinking to start cutting on number three. Forgetting that he had pulled all his lines as taut as possible, and that a move in the wrong direction would pull some of them free, he felt his feet break loose and in seconds he was floating twenty feet from the ship with only one line connecting him to safety.

Skip spotted him floating clear, but Captain Stevens shouted. "He's almost free. And he won't dare try to haul himself in by that one line or he might tear it loose, too. He's lucky if some of the eddies around the ship don't do that anyway."

Once more firmly attached to the ship, Bull slumped against it momentarily. It was impossible to communicate between the suits; and the filters in the helmets didn't permit a look into one another's faces.

When Bull looked up after catching his breath, Skip was already at work on the remaining tubes. Placing himself alongside Skip, he added his torch to the work.

Splinter by splinter, chunk by chunk they burned away the traction line debris. To get the tubes completely free, one of them had to climb into the tubes. Bull did this. The hard work in the confined space of the suits caused sweat to pour from their every pore.

There could be only one explanation. Their work must have taken longer than it seemed. During that time the ship had drifted downward until it was now well within the vortex of a spot. Since the sides seemed to be pressing all around him, the ship was probably within the photosphere. Unless they escaped at once, they would not get away. He began to work his way back toward the lock; Skip following.

Inside the ship Captain Stevens looked anxiously at his instrument panel. Sweat broke out on his forehead. They couldn't wait any longer. He reached for the firing control.

A gasp came from one of the men in the room. "You can't, sir. Not after what they have done."

Stevens instinctively began to withdraw his hand, then stopped. "I must," he whispered. "It's them or all of us. There is no choice."

His hand plunged down on the firing control.

Outside, Bull had been placing his anchor lines carefully as he went along. He kept slightly behind Skip, making sure that all his lines were in place if Skip's weren't. There was no doubt in his mind as to what Captain Stevens would do when he found that he had to make a choice between the two of them dying or the whole crew. Bull knew that the lines would hold against the thrust of the ship's engines. But would they hold both he and Skip? What is more, would he be able to grab that crazy space cadet that had saved his life, before the ship's momentum tore the kid away and beyond reach?

He had little time to conjecture. His feet felt the ship's shell take life. Snaking out his hands as rapidly as his reflexes allowed, he grabbed Skip around the waist with both arms. Instantly the full force of the ship's new direction and Skip's inertia fought a battle centered on Bull's shoulder joints. Long before his bones slipped from their shoulder sockets, Bull felt the pain of tensed and torn muscles course down his sides and chest. He heard himself screaming far away in his own helmet. But he held on. And then he lost consciousness.

Later. Much later; Bull woke to find himself lying in a bed in the hospital bay of the ship. His arms were stretched high over his head; held firmly in splints under tension.

"So you've decided to come to, eh?"

Bull turned his head to look at the bandaged figure in the next bed.

"Kind of hard to recognize, I guess."

The voice was familiar. "How come all those fancy bandages, Space Cadet?"

Skip's voice was bitter and self-accusing. "Space Cadet is right. I was outside working on those tubes and never noticed we were getting close to the sun. I must have got a full dose of heat. How dumb can a guy get?"

There was a silence between them. Then Bull spoke. "You saved my life out there, Skip. I couldn't have pulled myself in. That took guts. Thanks."

"What do you call that last act of yours? There isn't another man on this ship that could--or would--have held on with those arms like that."

Both men looked at one another. There would be times when experience and formal education might conflict in the future; but the remarks would never have an edge that mutual admiration wouldn't dull.

"Admiring one another's bravery?"

Both men shifted their eyes to the doorway where Captain Stevens stood. Resentment rose in both of them. Did he have to call them down and rub it in at a time like this?

"Well? What have you got to say for yourselves?"

Bull, realizing that there was no sense in trying to condone what he had done, answered with the first thing that popped into his mind.

"Too bad we didn't reach the Regis, sir."

"But we sure tried," Skip added. "The ship's crew gave everything it had. If we couldn't do it, it couldn't be done."

"Nothing to say for yourselves?" Stevens persisted.

"I guess not, Sir," Skip answered for both of them.

Captain Stevens walked over and stood in the space between their beds. "Both of you seem to have missed an important point; in spite of all your experience--and all your learning."

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