CHAPTER TWELVE

As Kurt struggled up out of the darkness, he could hear a bell sounding in the faint distance. Bong! BONG! BONG! It grew nearer and louder. He shook his head painfully and groaned.

Opening his eyes took too much strength, so he didn’t. He lay in some sort of a bunk. He could tell that much by feel. And the gong—

He lay there concentrating on it. Slowly he began to realize the sound wasn’t real. It came from inside his skull. His whole head felt swollen and sore and each pulse of his heart sent a hammer thud through it.

One by one his senses began to stabilize. As his nose reassumed its normal acuteness, it began to quiver. There was a strange scent in the air, an unpleasant sickening odor as of—he chased the scent down his aching memory channels until he finally had it cornered—rotting fish. With that to anchor him, he slowly began to reconstruct reality. He had been floating high above the floor in the armory. The captain had been trying to get him down. Then he had pushed a button. Flames and a microsecond of tremendous acceleration and then a horrendous crash had followed. That must have been the skylight. After the crash came darkness, then the gongs, and now fish—dead and rotting fish.

I must be alive, he decided. Imperial Headquarters would never smell like this.

He groaned and slowly opened one eye. Wherever he was, he’d never been here before. He opened the other eye. He lay in a room. A room with a curved ceiling and curving walls. Slowly, with infinite care, he turned and gazed over the side of the bunk. Below him, in a form-fitting chair before a bank of instruments, sat a small man with yellow skin and blue-black hair. Kurt cleared his throat. The man looked up. Kurt asked the obvious question: “Where am I?”

“I’m not permitted to give you any information,” said the small man. His speech had an oddly slurred quality to Kurt’s ear.

“Something stinks!” said Kurt.

“It sure does,” said the small man gloomily. “It must be worse for you. I’m used to it.”

Kurt surveyed the cabin with interest. There were a lot of gadgets tucked away here and there that looked familiar to him. They were like the things he had worked on in tech school except that they were cruder and simpler. They looked as if they had been put together by an eight-year-old recruit doing his first trial assembly.

“I’m Kurt Dixon,” he said.

“Ozaki. Pleased to meet you.”

Now they were getting somewhere. “How come you have everything in one room?” Kurt asked. “We always used to keep different things in different shops.”

“No comment,” said Ozaki.

Kurt had a feeling he was butting his head against a stone wall. He decided to make one more try.

“I give up,” he said, wrinkling his nose, “where’d you hide it?”

“Hide what?” asked the little man.

“The fish.”

“No comment.”

“Why not?” asked Kurt.

“Because there isn’t anything that can be done about it,” said Ozaki. “It’s the air recycler. Something’s haywire inside.”

“What’s an air recycler?”

“That square box over your head.”

Kurt looked at it, closed his eyes, and thought for a moment. The thing did look familiar. Suddenly a picture of it popped into his mind. Page 318 in the Manual of Auxiliary Mechanisms.

“It’s fantastic!” he said.

“What is?” said the little man.

“This.” Kurt pointed to the recycler. “I didn’t know they existed in real life. I thought they were just in books. You got a first echelon kit?”

“Sure,” said Ozaki. “It’s in the recess by the head of the bunk. Why?”

Kurt pulled the kit out of its remaining clips and opened its cover, fishing around until he found a small screwdriver and a pair of needle-nose pliers.

“I think I’ll fix it,” he said conversationally.

“Oh, no you won’t!” howled Ozaki. “Air with fish is better than no air at all!” But before he could do anything, Kurt had pulled the cover off the air recycler and was probing its intricate mechanism with his screwdriver. A slight thumping noise came from inside. Kurt cocked his ear and thought. Then he speared his screwdriver down through the maze of whirling parts. He gave a slow quarter turn and the internal thumping disappeared.

“See,” he said triumphantly, “no more fish!”

Ozaki stopped shaking long enough to give the air a tentative sniff. He had gotten out of the habit of smelling in self-defense, and it took him a minute or two to detect the difference. Slowly a broad grin swept across his face.

“It’s going away! I do believe it’s going away!”

Kurt gave the screwdriver another quarter of a turn and the sharp, spicy scent of pines swept through the ship. Ozaki took a deep, ecstatic breath and relaxed in his chair. His face lost its pallor.

“How did you do it?” he finally asked.

“No comment,” said Kurt pleasantly.

There was silence from below. Ozaki was in the throes of a brainstorm. He was more impressed by Kurt’s casual repair of the air conditioner than he liked to admit.

“Tell me,” he said cautiously, “can you fix other things besides air conditioners?”

“I guess so,” said Kurt, “if it’s just simple stuff like this.” He gestured around the cabin. “Most of the stuff here needs fixing. They’ve got it together wrong.”

“Maybe we could make a deal,” said Ozaki. “You fix things, I answer questions—some questions, that is.”

“It’s a deal,” said Kurt, who was filled with a burning curiosity as to his whereabouts. Certain things were already clear in his mind. He knew that wherever he was, he’d never been here before. That evidently meant a garrison whose existence had never been suspected lay on the other side of the mountains. What bothered him was how he had gotten there.

“Check,” said Ozaki. “First, do you know anything about the plumbing?”

“What’s plumbing?” asked Kurt curiously.

“Pipes,” said Ozaki. “They’re plugged. They’ve been plugged for more time that I like to think about.”

“I can try.”

“Good!” said the pilot, and ushered him into the small cubicle that opened off the rear bulkhead. “You might tackle the shower while you’re at it.”

“What’s a shower?”

“That curved bit up there,” said Ozaki, pointing. “The thermostat’s out of whack.”

“Thermostats are kid stuff,” said Kurt, shutting the door.

* * * *

Ten minutes later he came out. “It’s all fixed.”

“I don’t believe it,” said Ozaki, shouldering his way past Kurt. He reached down and pushed a small curved handle. There was the satisfying sound of rushing water. He next reached into the little shower compartment and turned the knob to the left. With a hiss a needle spray of cold water burst forth. The pilot looked at Kurt with awe in his eyes.

“If I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t have believed it! That’s two answers you’ve earned.”

Kurt peered back into the cubicle curiously. “Well, first,” he said, “now that I’ve fixed them, what are they for?”

Ozaki explained briefly and a look of amazement came over Kurt’s face. Machinery he knew, but the idea that it could be used for something was hard to grasp.

“If I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t have believed it!” he said slowly. This would be something to tell when he got home. Home! The pressing question of location popped back into his mind.

“How far are we from the garrison?” Kurt asked.

Ozaki made a quick mental calculation. “Roughly two light-seconds,” he said.

“How far’s that in kilometers?”

Ozaki thought again. “Around six hundred thousand. I’ll run off the exact figures if you want them.”

Kurt gulped. No place could be that far away. Not even Imperial Headquarters! He tried to measure out the distance in his mind in terms of days’ marches, but he soon found himself lost. Thinking wouldn’t do it. He had to see with his own eyes where he was.

“How do you get outside?” he asked.

Ozaki gestured toward the airlock at the rear of the compartment. “Why?”

“I want to go out for a few minutes to get my bearings.”

Ozaki looked at him in disbelief. “What’s your game, anyhow?” he demanded.

It was Kurt’s turn to look bewildered. “I haven’t any game. I’m just trying to find out where I am so I’ll know which way to head to get back to the garrison.”

“It’s a long, cold walk.” Ozaki laughed and hit the stud that slid back the screens on the viewports. “Take a look.”

Kurt gazed out into nothingness, a blue-black void marked only by distant pinpoints of light. He suddenly felt terribly alone, lost in a black immensity that had no boundaries. Down was gone, and so was up. There was only this tiny lighted room with nothing underneath it. The port began to swim in front of his eyes as a strange vertigo swept over him. If he looked out into that terrible space for another moment, he thought he would lose his sanity. He covered his eyes with his hands and staggered back to the center of the cabin.

Ozaki slid the screens back in place. “Kind of gets you the first time, doesn’t it?”

Kurt had always carried a little automatic compass within his head. Wherever he had gone, no matter how far afield he wandered, it had always pointed steadily toward home. Now for the first time in his life the needle spun helplessly. It gave him an uneasy feeling. He had to get oriented.

“Which way is the garrison?” he pleaded.

Ozaki shrugged. “Over there someplace. I don’t know where on the planet you come from. I didn’t pick up your track until you were in free space.”

“Over where?” asked Kurt.

“Think you can stand another look?”

Kurt braced himself and nodded. The pilot unshielded a side port and pointed. There, seemingly motionless in the black emptiness of space, floated a great greenish-gray globe. It didn’t make sense to Kurt. The satellites that hung somewhat to the left did. Their faces were turned a bit differently, and the details were sharper than he’d ever seen before, but he knew their features as well as he knew his own. Night after night while waiting for sleep he’d watched those silver spheres ride through the clouds above him.

He didn’t want to believe—but he had to!

Face white and tense, he turned back to Ozaki. A thousand questions milled chaotically through his mind.

“Where am I?” he demanded. “How did I get out here? Who are you? Where did you come from?”

“You’re in a spaceship,” said Ozaki, “a two-man scout. And that’s all you’re going to get out of me until you get some more work done. You might as well start on the three-vee projector. The thing burned out just as the special investigator was about to reveal who had blown off the commissioner’s head by wiring a bit of plutonite into his autoshave. I’ve been going nuts ever since trying to figure out who did it!”

Kurt took some tools out of the first echelon kit and crawled obediently behind the projector.

* * * *

Three hours later they sat down to dinner. Kurt had repaired the food synthesizer and Ozaki was slowly chewing synthasteak that, for the first time in days, tasted like synthasteak. As he ecstatically speared the last savory morsel, the ship gave an unexpected leap that plastered him and what remained of his supper against the rear bulkhead. Darkness came for a second as the ceiling lights flickered off, then on again. Ozaki picked himself up and gingerly ran fingers over the throbbing lump atop his head. His temper wasn’t improved when he looked up and saw Kurt still seated at the table calmly eating another piece of pie.

“You should have braced yourself,” said Kurt. “The converter’s out of phase. You can hear her build up for a jump if you listen. When she does that you ought to brace yourself.”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” snarled Ozaki. “It isn’t polite.”

* * * *

Late that night, the converter cut out altogether. Ozaki was sleeping the sleep of the innocent and didn’t find out about it for several hours. When he did awake, it was to Kurt’s gentle shaking.

“Hey!” Ozaki groaned and buried his face in the pillow.

“Hey!” This time the voice was louder. The pilot yawned and tried to open his eyes.

“Does it matter if the lights go out?” the voice queried. The importance of those words suddenly struck home and Ozaki sat bolt upright in his bunk. He opened his eyes, blinked, and tried to open them again. The lights were out. There was a strange unnatural silence about the ship.

“Good Lord!” Ozaki shouted. He jumped for the controls. “The power’s off!”

He ran the start-up sequence, but nothing happened. The converter had jammed solid. Ozaki began to sweat. He fumbled over the control board until he found the switch that cut the emergency batteries into the lighting circuit. Again nothing happened.

“If you’re trying to run the lights on the batteries, they won’t work,” said Kurt.

“Why not?” snapped Ozaki as he punched savagely and futilely at the starter button.

“They’re dead,” said Kurt. “I used them all up.”

“You what?” yelled the pilot in anguish.

“I used them all up. You see, when the converter went out, I woke up. After a while the sun started to come up, and it began to get awfully hot, so I hooked the batteries into the refrigeration coils. Kept the place nice and cool while they lasted.

Ozaki howled. When he unshuttered the forward port to let in some light, he howled again, this time in dead earnest. The giant red sun no longer perched off to the left at a comfortable distance. Instead, it stretched from horizon to horizon before Ozaki’s horrified eyes.

“We’re falling into the sun!” he screamed.

“It’s getting sort of hot,” said Kurt. Hot was an understatement. The thermometer needle pointed at a forty and was climbing steadily.

Ozaki jerked open the storage compartment and grabbed a pair of spare batteries. As quickly as his trembling fingers would work, he connected them to the emergency power line. A second later the cabin light flickered on and Ozaki began warming up the space communicator. He punched the transmit key, and a call went arcing out through hyperspace. The viewscreen came on, and the bored face of a communication tech, third class, appeared.

“Give me Director Krogson at once!” demanded Ozaki.

“Sorry, old man,” yawned the other, “but the director’s having breakfast. Call back in half an hour, will you?”

“This is an emergency! Put me through at once!”

“Can’t help it,” said the other. “Nobody can disturb the Old Man while he’s having breakfast.”

“Listen, slug!” screamed Ozaki. “If you don’t get me through to the director as of right now, I’ll have you in the uranium mines so fast that you won’t know what hit you!”

“You and who else?” drawled the tech.

“Me and my cousin Takahashi!” snarled the pilot. “He’s Reclassification Officer for the Base STAP.”

The tech’s face went white. “Yes, sir!” he said. “Right away, sir! No offense meant, sir!” He disappeared from the screen. After a moment of darkness, the interior of Director Krogson’s cabin flashed on.

The director was having breakfast. A bowl of synthamush steamed on the table before him.

“Director Krogson!” said Ozaki desperately.

The director looked up with a startled expression. When he noticed the screen was on, he swallowed his mush convulsively and dragged a napkin across his lips.

“Who’s there?” he demanded in a neutral voice in case it might be somebody important.

“Flight Officer Ozaki, sir,” said Ozaki.

A thundercloud rolled across the director’s face. “What do you mean by disturbing me at breakfast?” he demanded.

“A thousand pardons, sir,” said the pilot, “but my ship’s falling into a red sun.”

“Too bad,” grunted Krogson. He turned back to his synthamush.

“But sir,” persisted Ozaki, “you’ve got to send somebody to pull me away. My converter’s dead!”

“Why tell me about it?” said Krogson in annoyance. “Call Space Rescue, they’re supposed to handle things like this.”

“Listen, Director,” wailed the pilot, “by the time they’ve assigned me a priority and routed the paper through proper channels, I’ll have been reduced to atoms. The last time I got in a jam it took them two weeks to get to me; I’ve only got a few hours left!”

“I can’t make exceptions,” snapped Krogson testily. “If I let you skip the chain of command, everybody and his brother will think he has a right to, too.”

“Director,” howled Ozaki, “we’re dying in here!”

“All right. All right!” said the director sourly. “I’ll send somebody after you. What’s your name?”

“Ozaki, sir. Flight Officer Ozaki.”

The director was in the process of scooping up another spoonful of mush when a thought struck him.

“Wait a second,” he said, “you aren’t the scout who found the Imperial base, are you?”

“Yes, sir.” Ozaki’s voice cracked.

“Why didn’t you say so?” roared Krogson. Flipping on his intercom, he growled, “Give me the Exec.”

There was a moment’s silence, then his ship’s executive officer said, “Yes, sir?”

“How long until we get to that scout?”

“About six hours, sir.”

“Make it three!”

“Can’t be done, sir.”

“It will be done!” snarled Krogson.

The temperature needle in the little scout now pointed to fifty.

Ozaki said, “I don’t think we can hold on that long.”

“Nonsense!” said the director, and the screen went blank.

As Ozaki slumped into the pilot chair and buried his face in his hands, he felt a blast of cold air on his neck. “There’s no used prolonging our misery,” he said without looking up. “Those space batteries won’t last five minutes under this load.”

“I knew that,” said Kurt cheerfully, “so while you were doing all that talking, I went ahead and fixed the converter. You sure have mighty hot summers out here!” He mopped his brow.

“You what?” yelled the pilot, jumping half out of his seat. “You couldn’t fix it even if you did have the know-how. It takes half a day to get the shielding off so you can get at the converter!”

“I didn’t need to take the shielding off for a simple job like that,” said Kurt. He pointed to a tiny inspection port about four inches in diameter. “I worked through there.”

“That’s impossible!” Ozaki said. “You can’t even see the injector through that, let alone get through it!”

“Aw,” said Kurt, “you don’t have to see a little gadget like that to fix it. If your hands are trained right, you can feel what’s wrong and set it to straight. She won’t jump on you anymore, either. The syncromesh thrust-baffle was a little out of phase so I fixed that, too, while I was at it.”

Ozaki still couldn’t believe what he’d just heard, but he hit the controls on faith. He didn’t have anything to lose.

The scout started at once. It bucked under the strong surge of power, responding instantly to his touch. With the converter humming sweetly, he arced them away from the sun. They were going to live after all. Somehow, impossibly, they were going to live.

As the temperature dropped, silence filled the scout. The two men sat quietly, each immersed in an uneasy welter of troubled speculation.

“That was close!” said Ozaki finally. “Too close for comfort. Another hour or so and—” He snapped his fingers.

Kurt looked puzzled. “Were we in trouble?”

“Trouble!” Ozaki snorted. “If you hadn’t fixed the converter when you did, we’d be burnt to cinders by now!”

Kurt digested the news in silence. There was something about this super-being who actually made machines work that bothered him. Finally, with a note of bewilderment in his voice, he asked: “If we were really in danger, why didn’t you fix the converter yourself, instead of wasting time talking on that thing?” He gestured toward the viewscreen.

It was Ozaki’s turn to be bewildered. “Fix it?” he said with surprise in his voice. “There aren’t half a dozen techs on my whole home base who know enough about atomics to work on a propulsion unit. When something like that goes out, you call Space Rescue and chew your nails till a wrecker can get there.”

Kurt crawled into the bunk and lay staring at the curved ceiling. He had thinking to do, a lot of thinking.

* * * *

Three hours later, Flight Office Ozaki’s scout flashed up alongside the Krogson’s flagship and drew into a landing port. A horrible thought struck Ozaki as he gazed affectionately around his smoothly running ship.

“Say,” he said to Kurt hesitantly, “would you mind not mentioning that you fixed this crate up for me? If you do, they’ll take her away for sure. Some captain will get a new rig, and I’ll be issued another clunker from the base junk-pile.”

“If you want,” said Kurt.

A moment later the green light on the control panel signaled that the airlock’s pressure had reached normal.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” said Ozaki. “You wait here.”

The exit hatch swung open with a muted hum. Two guards entered and stood silently beside Kurt as Ozaki hurried to report to Director Krogson.