Spaceship medic

Chapter 5

'One shall die so that all shall live,' Ugalde said, squaring his shoulders and stepping forward. It will be my pleasure to control the ship. Everyone else must go instantly to the engine-room.'

The little doctor might have looked funny, with his chin up and his hand laid across his heart, but he did not. He meant what he had said, and would not hesitate to die for this shipload of strangers.

'I don't think that will be necessary, Doctor,' Don told him. 'We'll find a way out of this without sacrificing any lives.'

'May I inquire how that is to be done, Captain?'

How indeed! Don thought - and felt a moment of silent panic. How could this be done? There had to be a way. The crew knew the ship better than he did. He had to force them to think.

'What about a radiation suit, Chief?' Don asked. T know we have them. Couldn't the man who was piloting wear one?'

Kurikka's face was pure Scandinavian gloom as he shook his head no.

'Not a chance. The ones we have aboard are for limited use at low radiation levels. Just about as good as tissue-paper in the storm that's coming.'

Don refused to give in to the overall feeling of despair.

'There must be a way. Can't duplicate controls be rigged in the engine-room, something like that?'

'Possibly, given enough time, we'd have to string cables...'

'Something else then, if there isn't time for that.' Don looked around, searching for inspiration. That door, in the wall, leading to the small service washroom. He pulled it open.

'What about this? Rig cables in here, it's only a few feet. We could put in something to stop the radiation, lead sheets...

And then, just that suddenly, it was all clear. He knew what had to be done. He turned, pointing at the Chief, thinking aloud.

'A spacesuit. It keeps air in - so it should keep water out. Am I right?'

Kurikka rubbed his jaw. 'Well, I guess it could. But the water wouldn't do the suit any good. Rust and...'

'That won't happen in a couple of hours,' Don snapped, aware of the seconds rushing by. 'Here's what you must do. Rig a set of controls inside this washroom and connect them up. Put in a repeater screen. If the door isn't waterproof get some patching gunk and seal it. Get a spacesuit and make sure that oxygen tanks are full.' He started towards the door. 'The pilot will work from the washroom - which will be filled with water.'

'But, sir,' Kurikka called after him. 'How can we waterproof the controls...?'

'Find a way. Put them in plastic bags for all I care. But do it - 'he glanced at his watch,' - within the next twenty minutes. I'll be back.'

He slammed out and ran down the corridor towards the main dining-hall. The passengers had yet to be faced - and there was desperately little time to talk to them. No time at all. No time to reason or argue. They had to go at once. He stopped at the next telephone and dialled the number that hooked the phone into the public address system.

'This is the captain speaking. I want every crewman not on duty in the engine-room or the control-room to report to the main dining-hall. Now. Within the next sixty seconds.' His own voice rasped the words down at him from the speaker above.

Crewmen were already beginning to pile into the dining-hall when he reached it, from the entrances on all sides. The tables were slung out of the way, in their between-meals conditions so the floor was clear. One of the passengers was standing on a chair arid the others were grouped around him. They looked about in confusion as Don ran up.

'Listen to me,' he called out. I am Lieutenant Chase, the ship's doctor. I am sorry that I cannot explain in detail right now, I will do that later, but it is imperative that you all proceed at once to the engine-room...'

'We don't want to hear anything from you,' the man standing on the chair shouted. 'We want the captain and we want an explanation of just what is going on around here.'

Don recognized him. Briggs, General Mathew Briggs, retired. His close-cropped grey hair gathered itself into spikes, as sharp and hard-looking as so much barbed wire. His angry scowl and glowering expression were familiar from the newspapers and news broadcasts. A man who always spoke his opinions, no matter how much they differed from those of the rest of the world, and firmly held opinions they were. Don looked at him coldly and snapped out his words.

'There has been an accident, as you know. The captain is dead - as are most of his officers. I am now the acting captain.' There were gasps and a sudden stirring among the passengers. 'A storm of solar radiation will hit this ship in the next few minutes, and the only safe place will be in the engine-room. Everyone will now leave.'

There was a movement as the passengers started towards the exits -that stopped as the general called out again.

'Not clear enough and not good enough, Lieutenant. I demand that...'

'You two,' Don ordered, jabbing his finger at the nearest crewmen. Take that man down and haul him to the engine-room.'

'You cannot do this, hear me - you cannot do this!' the general shouted, backing away, fists raised defensively.

The husky crewmen moved, one to each side - then pounced. The struggle was very brief, and a moment later they half carried the loudly protesting Briggs towards the door.

A thin man, with a large nose and crisp moustache, stepped forward as though to intervene, but stopped when the nearest crewmen started towards him. The rest of the passengers milled about and there was a worried mutter of voices.

'There may be a panic,' the Purser said in a low voice that only Don could hear.

'I know that, but we have no time for complicated explanations now. We'll have to move them out, quickly and quietly.' Don took a thoughtful look around the dininghall. 'We have about one crewman here for every ten passengers. I'll go ahead. You get by the door and tell them that the crewmen will show them the way. Break them up into groups like that, ten and one. The crewmen should have a calming influence. There are two elevators to the midpipe, so send alternate groups to the different elevators.'

'A very good idea, Captain...' But Don was gone before he could finish.

Don caught up with General Briggs and his attentive guards at the elevator.

'You will regret this,' Briggs said with icy fierceness when Don stepped in. He shrugged off the guards' hands as the door slid shut.

'I'm very sorry, General, but I had no other choice. This is an emergency and there was no time to argue. I hope that you will accept my apology...

'I will not. You have started this trouble, mister, and I intend to finish it. There are courts of law.'

'That's your choice,' Don answered as the elevator stopped and the door opened. Don and the crewmen held to rails on the elevator walls, but Briggs floundered helplessly in mid-air as his feet rose from the ground.

'Help the general, will you,' Don said.

With practised skill the spacemen grasped the general's arms and kicked off down the midpipe. Don followed, more slowly, and holding on to the rods as he went. He was not as used to free fall as they were. There was no gravity in the ship, but only the sensation of gravity caused by the rotation of the spacer. Here, in the midpipe at the axis of rotation, the centrifugal force was cancelled out.

The thick door of the engine-room swung open when they came up to it and the first engineer was waiting, as unsmiling as the general.

'Bringing passengers in here will interrupt our work. It is dangerous,' Holtz said.

'I'm sure of that,' Don answered, trying to calm him. 'But there will be plenty of crewmen to help. Post them at all the controls and danger points. It will be crowded and uncomfortable - but everyone will be alive.'

The first passengers began to arrive, some of them tumbling end over end, helpless in free fall. An elderly woman had a distinctly green complexion; she would probably be the first of very many. A crewman rushed a plastic sack to her before there was an accident.

The far wall, at the base of the engines, was filled by the shining control boards, but most of the space in between was free. There was not enough floor space for everyone, so they would have to float in the air. It would be crowded, messy and uncomfortable. Don got out before there were any more complaints.

When the next load of passengers arrived he rode back up in the empty elevator, sinking back to the floor as he reached the higher decks. He started for the control-room at a run. One problem had been licked, the passengers were safe, but the bigger problem remained. Automatically he looked at his watch and felt his skin crawl as he realized that there were only thirteen minutes left until the full force of the storm hit. Thirteen! He ran.

'Just about finished, Captain,' Chief Kurikka reported. He was bent over the open control console with a smoking soldering iron. Cables snaked out of it and crossed the floor to vanish through a hole that had been drilled in the metal wall. The Chief soldered the last connection and straightened up.

'It should work,' he said, and led the way to the washroom. 'We've got a couple of hand controllers in there, put them in plastic bags like you said, easiest way to waterproof them. And there's a monitor screen hooked into the stern pickup' They brushed by a man who was smearing a grey paste on to the frame of the open door.

'Silicone putty. The door will be waterproof now when it is closed into the putty seal. The air will exhaust through the vent while the room fills. The space-suit is there. I'm volunteering to man the station, Captain.'

'Very well. We have nine minutes left. Send the other men away as soon as they've finished. Is there any way to tell what the radiation count is while in here?'

Kurikka pointed at the monitor screen - which was one of the TV phones that had been ripped from its mounting and wired to the wall inside another plastic bag.

'The computer is displaying a readout in the bottom of the screen. Those numbers there, below the sun, are the radiation count on the Hoyle scale.'

'One point four, not too high yet - no, it just jumped to two point one.'

'Fringe of the storm. It's going to be pretty unhealthy in here soon. I think you better get going, sir.'

They were alone, the last technician had bolted for the safety of the engine-room. Six minutes to go.

'Seal up the suit for me, Chief, then move. That's an order.'

'But...!' the Chief was shocked.

'And no buts either. Your technical knowledge is far more important to the survival of the ship than my medical knowhow. And as commanding officer I order you below.'

Kurikka wasted no time in arguing then. He helped Don into the suit and sealed it. Don grabbed the Chiefs wrist and looked at his watch. Two minutes!

He almost shoved the man from the small room, then pushed on the door while the Chief pulled from the outside, struggling against the pressure of the putty in the jamb. The lock finally clicked home and the Chief ran. Don was alone. He turned the faucets full on in the sink and the shower: someone had plugged all the drains. The water burbled over the sink edge and splashed to the floor. He turned back to the monitor screen. The sun had shifted from the crosshairs on the centre and he fired the jet to realign it before he glanced at the numbers below.

2.8.

The storm was growing in violence. The sun drifted off centre and Don automatically made the correct adjustments. It looked so small and unimpressive on the TV screen, a glowing ball more than 100 million miles away. Yet a storm was raging there now, sending up immense flares of burning gas heated to over six million degrees centigrade. The figure was too big to be grasped. But the reality could be understood easily enough. First radio waves, and then X-rays had been hurled out by the explosions, and had passed the Earth just eight minutes later. They carried their warning that the expanding cloud of burning plasma was on the way. Minutes later the storm of high energy protons had arrived, the first fringes of the violence to come. Then, some hours after this, the low energy protons followed, the very fury of the storm itself. Accelerated particles that could burn and kill... Don looked away from the imaged sun and the rising radiation count, to the water that now lapped as high as his ankles.

It wasn't rising fast enough.

And the count was up to 3.2 now. The metal walls of the ship still offered him some protection, but just barely. He wondered if the others were all safe in the engine-room. There was a radio switch on the side of his helmet, but when he flicked it he heard only static. Of course, the suit radio would be useless inside this room, where the walls would stop any signal. And, in the last minutes' rush, no one had thought to hook up a telephone circuit. He was alone, cut off.

The water reached his knees - and the numbers on the screen began to blur and climb. 3.9...4.2...5.5...

The full force of the storm had hit!

Don dropped the control handles and dived into the water, face down. He had to clutch on to the sink base to hold himself under, as the air in the suit tried to force him to the surface. There was just barely enough water to cover him. It took all the strength of his arms to keep from bobbing up. He fought grimly, knowing that invisible death filled the air above. He had to stay down.

The water rose, with painful slowness, and he wondered how far the ship had drifted off course. He would be killing himself if he raised his head to look. He might be killing them all if he didn't. How long had he been under? How long did he dare stay away from the controls? The

Chief had said that the radiation bulkhead was big enough to protect the engine-room if they drifted ten, even fifteen degrees off course. That meant that the suns image could move almost to the edge of the monitor screen without endangering the people in the ship. But how long would that take? He had no way of knowing, or of measuring elapsed time. What could he do - what should he do?

Now the water was high enough so that he could turn over on to his back and half sit up. Through the troubled surface above he could just make out the bulk of the TV repeater in the brightly lit room. He could not see details. It was tantalizingly close now, no more than a foot above his head.

He had to look. The others depended on him. Now! Yet he would be committing suicide if he put his head above the water.

Perhaps not the entire helmet. He leaned his head back in the helmet, as far as it would go, then slowly raised up. Carefully... the surface was right before his face... then there was only a thin film of water on the transparent faceplate.

The water ran off from the centre, leaving a clear area, and he could see the screen and the dangling control handles.

The sun's image was off-centre, almost half-way to the edge of the screen.

The count on the Hoyle scale read 8.7.

The water closed over him as he pushed himself down, deep down. With a maximum possible reading of 10 this solar storm was as strong as any he had ever heard of. The water rose with painful slowness.

When he looked again the count was 9.3 and the sun was at the edge of the screen. He had to move the ship.

The surface of the water wrinkled and he saw that two plastic bags were floating above him. The control handles, of course! Moving carefully he managed to pinch the plastic between his gloved fingers, then dragged the handles down on the end of their lengths of cable. Holding them securely he raised his faceplate up again and found that, if he made no sudden motions, he could work the jet and swing the ship into perfect alignment again.

'We've done it!' he shouted, but his voice only echoed back at him from inside the helmet, reminding him how alone he was. He did not try to speak again.

With the peril over he felt suddenly tired - and he knew this was no time to be tired. Worn out as he was, he had to stay awake and alert. He was safe enough in the water, but everyone else depended upon him for their lives. The water level moved upwards. It passed the TV screen and rose higher. When it reached the ceiling and began to flow out into the air conditioning vent he turned off all the faucets. The tension was over and now the waiting began. He blinked and wished he could rub his gritty eyes...

An indeterminate time later he realized with sudden shock that he had fallen asleep - and did not know how long he had been asleep. The suns image was touching the edge of the screen. His hands shook as he brought it safely back to the junction of the crosshairs. The count was holding steady at 8-7. Lower than the maximum, but just as deadly.

How long was the storm going to last? It must have been going on for hours already. For the first time he was concerned about his oxygen supply. The suit was unfamiliar, he had never worn this particular type before, and he had to fumble with the controls on his chest until he hit the right button. The projected dial display appeared to float outside his helmet, in the water.

The oxygen tank was three-quarters empty.

After this he was no longer sleepy He worked the controls automatically, keeping the ship correctly orientated. It was moving less and less all the time as the different motions were cancelled out, one by one.

8-6. The count was dropping, but ever so slowly. His oxygen was being used up even faster. Don breathed as shallowly as he could, and limited his movements. This reduced his oxygen intake. Yet the tank level crept slowly towards the zero mark. He knew that there was still a reserve left after the indicated zero level, but even this would eventually be used up. What should he do then? Choose the manner of his death? From either anoxia or radiation poisoning. The worst part was that there are almost no symptoms of oxygen starvation. The victim just loses consciousness. And dies.

7-6. He would have to estimate the oxygen level remaining, then at the last moment drain the water out of the room enough to open his helmet.

6-3. Soon now. It was past the zero, had been reading zero for a long time. How long? How long was long...?

5-4. Time to drain the water... water... water...

The controls dropped from his hands and he floated limply, oxygen-starved, unconscious.

Sliding down the dark tunnel to death.