"What will he do?"
"How will the Admiral get us out of this?"
Ackerman Boone spat on the polished, gleaming floor of the crew quarters. "He"ll never get us out alive, let me tell you. He wants to shift us into subs.p.a.ce at the last possible minute. Suddenly. Like this--" and Ackerman Boone snapped his fingers.
"There"d be a ship full of broken bones!" someone protested. "We can"t do a thing like that."
"He"ll kill us all!" a very young T/3 cried hysterically.
"Not if I can help it, he won"t," shouted Ackerman Boone. "Listen, men.
This ain"t a question of discipline. It"s a question of living or dying and I tell you that"s more important than doing it like the book says or discipline or anything like that. We got a chance, all right: but it ain"t what the Admiral thinks it is. We ought to abandon the _Glory_ to her place in the sun and scram out of here in the lifeboats--every last person aboard ship."
"But will they have enough power to get out of the sun"s gravitational pull?" someone asked.
Ackerman Boone shrugged. "Don"t look at me," he said mockingly. "I"m only an enlisted man and they don"t give enlisted men enough math to answer questions like that. But reckoning by the seat of my pants I would say, yes. Yes, we could get away like that--if we act fast.
Because every minute we waste is a minute that brings us closer to the sun and makes it harder to get away in the lifeboats. If we act, men, we got to act fast."
"You"re talking mutiny, Boone," a grizzled old s.p.a.ce veteran said. "You can count me out."
"What"s the matter, McCormick? Yellow?"
"I"m not yellow. I say it takes guts to maintain discipline in a real emergency. I say _you"re_ yellow, Boone."
"You better be ready to back that up with your fists, McCormick," Boone said savagely.
"I"m ready any time you"re ready, you yellow mutinous b.a.s.t.a.r.d!"
Ackerman Boone launched himself at the smaller, older man, who stood his ground unflinchingly although he probably knew he would take a sound beating. But four or five crewmen came between them and held them apart, one saying:
"Look who"s talking, Boone. You say time"s precious but you"re all set to start fighting. Every minute--"
"Every _second_," Boone said grimly, "brings us more than a hundred miles closer to the sun."
"What can we do, Acky?"
Instead of answer, Ackerman Boone dramatically mopped the sweat from his face. All the men were uncomfortably warm now. It was obvious that the temperature within the _Glory of the Galaxy_ had now climbed fifteen or twenty degrees despite the fact that the refrigs were working at full capacity. Even the bulkheads and the metal floor of crew quarters were unpleasantly warm to the touch. The air was hot and suddenly very dry.
"I"ll tell you what we ought to do," Ackerman Boone said finally.
"Admiral Stapleton or no Admiral Stapleton, President of the Galactic Federation or no President of the Galactic Federation, we ought to take over this ship and man the life boats for everyone"s good. If they don"t want to save their lives and ours--let"s us save our lives and theirs!"
Roars of approval greeted Boone"s words, but s.p.a.cer McCormick and some of the other veterans stood apart from the loud speech-making which followed. Actually, Boone"s wild words--which he gambled with after the first flush of enthusiasm for his plan--began to lose converts. One by one the men drifted toward McCormick"s silent group until, finally, Boone had lost almost his entire audience.
Just then a T/2 rushed into crew quarters and shouted: "Hey, is Boone around? Has anyone seen Boone?"
This brought general laughter. Under the circ.u.mstances, the question was not without its humorous aspect.
"What"ll you have?" Boone demanded.
"The refrigs, Boone! They are on the blink. Overstrained themselves and burned themselves out. Inside of half an hour this ship"s going to be an oven hot enough to kill us all!"
"Half an hour, men!" Ackerman Boone cried. "Now, do we take over the ship and man those lifeboats or don"t we!"
The roar which followed his words was a decidedly affirmative one.
"These are the figures," Admiral Stapleton said. "You can see, Mr.
President, that we have absolutely no chance whatever if we man the lifeboats. We would perish as a.s.suredly as we would if we remained with the _Glory of the Galaxy_ in normal s.p.a.ce."
"Admiral, I have to hand it to you. I don"t know how you can think--in all this heat."
"Have to, sir. Otherwise we all die."
"The air temperature--"
"Is a hundred and thirty degrees and rising. We"ve pa.s.sed salt tablets out to everyone, sir, but even then it"s only a matter of time before we"re all prostrated. If you"re sure you give your permission, sir--"
"Admiral Stapleton, you are running this ship, not I."
"Very well, sir. I"ve sent our subs.p.a.ce officer, Lieutenant Ormundy, to throw in the subs.p.a.ce drive. We should know in a few moments--"
"No crash hammocks or anything?"
"I"m sorry, sir."
"It isn"t your fault, Admiral. I was merely pointing out a fact."
The squawk box blared: "Now hear this! Now hear this! T/3 Ackerman Boone to Admiral Stapleton. Are you listening, Admiral?"
Admiral Stapleton"s haggard, heat-worn face bore a look of astonishment as he listened. Ackerman said, "We have Lieutenant Ormundy, Admiral.
He"s not killing us all by putting us into subs.p.a.ce in minutes when it ought to take hours, you understand. We have Ormundy and we have the subs.p.a.ce room. A contingent of our men is getting the lifeboats ready.
We"re going to abandon ship, Admiral, all of us, including you and the politicians even if we have to drag you aboard the lifeboats at N--gunpoint."
Admiral Stapleton"s face went ashen. "Let me at a radio!" he roared. "I want to answer that man and see if he understands exactly what mutiny is!"
While Ackerman Boone was talking over the squawk box, the temperature within the _Glory of the Galaxy_ rose to 145 Fahrenheit.
"Fifteen minutes," Larry Grange said. "In fifteen minutes the heat will have us all unconscious." Only it wasn"t Larry alone who was talking. It was Larry and Johnny Mayhem. In a surprisingly short time the young Secret Serviceman had come to accept the dual occupation of his own mind. It was there: it was either dual occupation or insanity and if the voice which spoke inside his head said it was Johnny Mayhem, then it was Johnny Mayhem. Besides, Larry felt clear-headed in a way he had never felt before, despite the terrible, sapping heat. It was as if he had matured suddenly--the word matured came to him instinctively--in the s.p.a.ce of minutes. Or, as if a maturing influence were at work on his mind.
"What can we do?" Sheila said. "The crew has complete control of the ship."
"Secret Service chief says we"re on our own. There"s no time for co-ordinated planning, but somehow, within a very few minutes, we"ve got to get inside the subs.p.a.ce room and throw the ship out of normal s.p.a.ce or we"ll all be roasted."
"Some of your men are there now, aren"t they?"