The Mile Long Spaceship Read Online Free PDF Page B

can't go back to him, Captain. I can't. I've been here for hours, but he'll come for me. I know he will."
    "Go to the engine room. Giroden is there and he'll let you in. I'll be along soon."
    He retrieved the tray and went on to the airlock. "Open up, Custens, or I'll dump you." Custens knew he could swing the whole bottom of the ship open if he had to, and reluctantly he slid the hatch open a slit. "All the way, Custens. I want you to eat."
    "Sir, you shouldn't have done this. If you get sick who's going to take care of them?"
    "That's enough, Custens. Just eat." He leaned against the ship and drew out his pipe, lighting it deliberately and waiting for it to be just right before he said in a meditative tone, "How long have we been together, Custens?"
    "Sixteen years, sir."
    "Eleven years exploring and five carting wealthy people about the universe. Quite a life we've led, Custens. Quite a life. Guess there's not much we haven't seen, is there? I think, if we get out of this, I'd like to go back to scouting again. How about you?"
    "Yes sir, whatever you say."
    "I believe if I asked you to step into hell for me, you'd do it, wouldn't you?" There was no answer to such a question and he didn't wait for Custens to figure it out. "I'm asking that of you, Custens. I want you to do all you can to stay alive for another week. Feed that thing plenty of calories, keep as warm as you can, and stay alive. It isn't as easy as just dying, but I'm asking it. There comes a time when a man has to gamble without seeing a single card or knowing whether or not his opponent has ever pulled a bluff or called one. You know I'll have to blow the ship if I get sick, don't you?"
    "That's understood, sir. We all know that."
    "Not all, Custens, not all. Keep an eye out for those other two ships. We might need them someday. I'll be in touch with you."
    "Sir, may I ask, do you have a plan?"
    "I think I might, Custens. This goes from a newly killed victim to a live one. That's how this thing has spread." Custens was shaking his head puzzledly and Royle said softly, "It has to be a being, an entity! Amorphous, permeable, as shapeless as air, perhaps, but a being!" He turned from the pathetically trustful face of the shivering man then and strode from the air lock toward the infirmary.
    Rawlins gave him a brief salute and inclined his head fractionally, "Nothing yet, sir." He resumed his position sprawled in a contour chair before a screen, an ear plug in his ear.
    "Keep at it, Rawlins," Royle grunted and sat opposite him for a few minutes.
    He knew the man would find the confirmation he needed if it were available in the tapes. He would sit in that chair until he adhered to it indissolubly. For an instant his own sense of fallibility overwhelmed him and, as he often had in the past, he wondered why his men followed his lead blindly without question. They did, and for the time that was enough. He was playing a hunch that could leave them no better off than they were now, but with the added hazard of knowing the end would certainly come much sooner because of it. The passengers could attempt mutiny. With Windlass at their front, they well might attempt mutiny. He knew it would fail through the very scheme of events that had put him aboard as the captain and them aboard as the remnants of a long list of paying passengers. Although he could understand the terror of his passengers, he knew that he had to find some way to break out of the nightmare or they would certainly crumble into pieces before much time passed. But to precipitate the conclusion of the panic with a plan that was wrong might mean having a possible retrieve from Capella Four go bouncing endlessly through space without ever being received.
    It all hinged on timing. Custens' temperature was registering eighty-nine; less than ten days before he'd be too far gone for anything to be of help to him. Seven days, he told himself grimly, he'd wait no more than seven days for Capella Four to come through.