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Title: Mutiny
Author: Larry Offenbecker
Release Date: November 08, 2020 [EBook #63675]
Language: English
Character set encoding: UTF-8
Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MUTINY ***
MUTINY
by LARRY OFFENBECKER
This mercy rocket was Rawson's first command;
and his last, it seemed--for mutineers had taken
over, then lost the ship in a quicksand pool.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Fall 1945.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Captain Todd Rawson snapped angry eyes at the directional needle that
indicated that his space ship the _Star Flight_ was holding steady to
her course like a bullet. He had ordered differently.
He was savagely kicking back his chair when the televisor leaped into
life.
"Calling the _Star Flight_," the control officer from Saturn intoned,
"Calling the _Star Flight_."
Rawson clicked a switch, continued to glare at the directional needle.
"Rawson--_Star Flight_." His voice was richly vibrant and charged with
emotion. "Running into spatial storm. Must detour to tangent to course.
Will be late."
"For God's sake!" The voice from Saturn was urgent. "The plague is
wiping out the entire colony! Hurry!"
"We'll get the serum there! Out!"
Rawson glanced once more at the unwavering needle of the direction
indicator, and he switched off the televisor with such abrupt force
that he broke off the dial. He tore from his desk and rumbled like a
Jupiter avalanche across the vibrating deck of the _Star Flight_ into
the rocket room. "Mr. Durk, I ordered the rockets reversed."
The crew men looked up, winking at each other. This was it!
Durk raised a short, blunt body like a Venusian alligator and lumbered
to attention. His voice came in a hoarse growl.
"The Old Man--you young punks think you know everything! The old man
would 'a' headed right into the storm!"
Captain Rawson flushed slightly and felt the tips of his ears turn hot
as he stared at the man who was twenty years his senior--the man who
had twenty-five years of experience in space flight.
"I'm the captain here," Rawson said in a voice as steady as the beat of
the motors. "My commands are to be obeyed without question."
"Sure, now, you're the captain." Durk winked slyly at one of the
crew. "You got a gold star and the fixings. But we ain't goin' to get
ourselves killed on account o' something you learned in a book."
Surprisingly Rawson laughed, a deep-throated laugh, although he knew
that he had to break this man or be broken himself. His words lashed
out like a cat-o-nine tails at the senior officer.
"Mr. Durk, don't let your bitterness defeat your common sense. The
old man knew all the tricks. You know them. But space navigation has
advanced to a science. It requires more than rule of thumb knowledge."
"I ain't going to reverse the rockets!"
Rawson looked at the stolid faces of the space hardened crew. Veterans
all. The underofficer's men.
* * * * *
When he spoke, Rawson's words came in smooth, clipped phrases. "Mr.
Durk, I'll explain briefly why it would be fatal to head straight into
the storm. The instruments indicate that the storm drift ahead of the
ship is heavily charged with electrons. Our space ship is a charged
body. Breaking the relation of the space ship and the drift down
mathematically we have the equation
V equals q/r
where V is the velocity of the ship and q the potential of the
electronic charge in the center of the drift, and r the radius."
Rawson watched the underofficer's face grow longer and longer, but
determinedly he continued.
"Should we head directly into the drift we will be up against the
following law--the shorter the distance in which a given amount of work
is done the greater the force that must be exerted. We will be stalled
in the center of the drift. To avoid disaster, the direction of the
drift must be at right angles at every point to the space ship. Do you
follow?"
Mingled with the lack of comprehension in Durk's eyes was intense
bitterness--bitterness over not being appointed captain of the _Star
Flight_ after the death of the previous chief officer, whom Durk
affectionately called "the old man".
Durk was starting a growl deep down in his alligator throat when the
situation was taken out of his hands by the immutable laws that Rawson
had just expounded.
The vessel jerked with a huge shudder that threw Rawson and the rest of
the crew off balance.
With a screech of metal the space ship picked up speed as it was drawn
into the potential in the center of the drift as well as being pushed
by the power of its rockets.
With greyhound leaps, Rawson tore towards the control dials and twisted
the wheels of the gyroscope. The ship groaned and reeled. It refused to
heed the control.
"Power! Reverse the power!" Rawson screeched into the intercom.
"Reverse the rockets!"
He felt the instruments tremble under his hands like reeds. Suddenly
the rockets went dead. Then as the crew reversed the power, they roared
to life again.
The _Star Flight_ jerked in a death struggle. The rockets rattled and
screamed as if sand had been thrown into the atom chargers.
Slowly the ship turned over, tilting at right angles to the drift.
A blinding flash like a bolt of lightning flamed across the power
panels. The lights suddenly died. The ship was in darkness.
Rawson tore at the emergency switches, got them under control. A
banshee wail sounded throughout the _Star Flight_. "Emergency!
Emergency!"
In the darkness in back of him, Rawson heard the alligator bark of
Underofficer Durk. "Ship out of control, eh? We're drifting, eh? See if
your book learnin' 'll get yuh out o' this!"
Rawson turned, and his voice was icy. "Mr. Durk! Consider yourself
under arrest!"
"Ha, ha, ha--"
Durk's laugh made the short hairs on Rawson's neck tingle. But Rawson
snapped back in a voice that he tried to hold steady. "You're an
excellent underofficer, Durk--when you obey commands. But you'll never
be captain!"
* * * * *
The space ship was plunging forward like a running blindman, directly
into the belt of minor planets.
"Awh--I got a right!" Durk cried bitterly. "Ain't I been second in
command for ten years? I know all the ropes--"
"You lack training in science and mathematics. That's vital these days!"
"I'll be captain yet. Wait and see! Yah can't arrest me. The crew won't
take your orders without my say-so. And yah can't report me. It's yore
word against me and the crew!"
Rawson lifted his chin courageously. He knew Durk spoke the truth. And
he knew that he'd never break Durk by force--
Fighting the man's will would only build up the volcano pressure inside
him more intensely. Rawson determined on a psychological trick. He
would allow Durk his chance at command.
"Very well, Mr. Durk. Let's see what you can do." He spoke with forced
calm. "Take command."
Rawson's crane-like legs patted on the jerking deck of the space ship,
and as he entered his cabin he was smiling grimly to himself.
He sat down in darkness, and his smile widened when the emergency
lights flashed on. Durk was a good man for things like that.
Rawson was turning over some papers on his desk when a young cyclone
burst through the open door without knocking. "Captain, sir!" young
Seymour cried, bounding forward. "I overheard--"
Rawson snapped to his feet. "Mr. Seymour, attention! Please leave and
enter like a gentleman."
The cabin boy folded up like a tornado that had lost its wind. Meekly
he turned and walked out of the cabin, closed the door. A rap sounded.
"Come in."
As Seymour entered, Rawson hastily turned the sheet of paper on his
desk face down. He greeted the young man with a smile.
"That's better. Always be a gentleman. If for no one's but your own
self-respect."
"Yes, sir." Seymour had troubled eyes. "I came to report I overheard
the crew talking. Said somethin' about taking over. I don't get it,
sir. Does it mean mutiny?"
Rawson shot one word at the cabin boy. "Durk?"
"Yes, sir. It was him said it."
"You know you're a stool pigeon?"
The boy's freckled face looked flustered. "I--I didn't mean, sir--that
is." He gulped. "I thought it was my duty, sir."
Rawson smiled and there was fatherly tenderness in his voice. "Good,
Mr. Seymour. I like your loyalty. You'll make a Star Point man yet."
Rawson picked up the paper from his desk. "I have just signed a
recommendation that you be admitted to the class of the year 2356."
Young Seymour's freckled face spread wide in a grin--so wide that it
drowned out his face. "Gee, sir. Thanks. Gee! _Star Point!_"
"I've been keeping an eye on you," Rawson continued. "I saw you
studying in your spare time."
Rawson leaned back and reflected. "I was like that ten years ago. I
worked hard! And this is my first command. I'm proud of it."
His voice cracked out suddenly like a whip. "And by God, no man,
nothing, will make me dishonor my gold star or take it away from me!"
His eyes stabbed at Seymour. "Now, what about Durk and the mutiny?"
"He says you're a sissy, sir. Afraid of the storm. He says you ain't
got no business--"
"Very good, Mr. Seymour. That will be all."
* * * * *
Rawson watched with a fond smile as Seymour departed.
Rawson had no intention of letting his precious cargo of serum be
lost or his first space ship wrecked because of Durk's desire for the
captaincy.
He picked up a volume "_Cross Currents of Space_" from his book shelf
and opened it. After poring intently through many pages, he snapped to
his crane-like feet with a grin.
They were approaching Orus--the planet which was covered with borax
sand.
Rawson drew together his gangling frame, hung together with tremendous
muscles and casually strode on his long legs into the control room.
The crew worked under the emergency lights dismantling the control
panel. Durk's bullying voice urged them to speed like the slave whips
of Jupiter. His face marked with his years in the space lanes like a
freighter's meteor scars was covered with streaks of oil.
"Orus dead ahead," Rawson remarked with a grin. "It wouldn't do to set
the _Star Flight_ down for repairs."
Durk's mouth was bitter as an alligator's. "We're going down!"
Rawson strolled away whistling and grinning inwardly.
The rockets pounded as they were adjusted for the landing. It was a
fairly simple job and Rawson knew Durk could handle it.
From the port in his cabin Rawson saw the _Star Flight_ settle on a
reef between a dark and forbidding pool and a swampy morass. Beyond was
white, hilly sand.
Rawson turned sharply, on guard, as he heard heavy steps clump into his
cabin. Durk and six of the crew.
"Well, Mr. Smarty, we got you now!" Durk's hoarse voice bellowed in
triumph. "Yore under arrest!"
Rawson's muscles rippled and his blue eyes cracked with electric
sparks. "Arrest?"
"Yeah! Not bein' in command in an emergency! Put him in irons, boys!"
Todd Rawson looked at the faces of the crew. By the tough lines about
their eyes, by the grime in their skins, they showed that they were
one with the underofficer--veterans of the spaceways who bowed only to
experience and strength.
"This is mutiny. You know that, Mr. Durk!"
"No, it ain't!" the other said flatly. "You deserted yore duty. Me and
the crew'll make it stick before the court-martial back home!"
Rawson saw that the underofficer had the force to back him up. "You won
this round, Durk. But it's only the first." He smiled coolly.
A young cyclone thundered into the cabin. "Hey, what's going on here?"
"Mr. Seymour!" This from Rawson.
Young Seymour hesitated, but his freckled face was blazing. "Yes, sir."
He replied mechanically. But his fists were balled and he advanced
angrily on Durk. "You can't do it! Captain's got more brains than the
whole bunch of you!"
"Shut up, Squirt!"
Young Seymour lunged at Durk and pounded his fists again the alligator
toughness of the underofficer. Durk deftly cuffed the cabin boy and
knocked him into a corner.
Seymour rose slowly, wiping the blood from the cut on his lips. He
charged again with head lowered and balled fists.
Durk gave him a brief glance. "Throw him in irons."
Two hard space men grabbed Seymour by the arms and hauled him, kicking,
out of the cabin. The boy's words came floating back. "You're goin' to
be sorry, Durk--"
Rawson stared at his underofficer stonily. "Well?"
Durk scratched his chin reflectively. "Hmmm, guess we won't need to put
you in irons. You won't try to run away in all that white sand."
Between several of the crew Rawson climbed out of the space-port. He
jerked his crane-like body almost double as he bent into a heavy, hot
searing wind like a breath from hell.
Toward one side the white, slimy ooze pond stretched like an oily sheet
of death between the steep white cliffs that pitted it. It was about
five times the width of the space ship and lay utterly lifeless, yet
Rawson had a feeling of danger lurking beneath its surface.
* * * * *
Rawson was the third man in the single file that fought its way on the
slippery, glassy surface of the narrow neck of rock that lay at the tip
of a finger of morass pointing at the slimy pool.
"We're gonna keep yah in one of them caves over there." Durk pointed
beyond the line of cliffs that hemmed in the morass. In back of these,
as far as Rawson's eyes could see, stretched white, bleak sand dunes.
A strong odor of swamp came to Rawson's nose. Swamp gas. Mixed with it
was the alkaline taste of the sand that the hot wind drove into their
mouth, eyes and nose.
Rawson carefully balanced himself on the isthmus of rock and stared
with misgiving into the pool.
The crew man ahead of Rawson slipped.
He clutched wildly at Rawson, missed him, and rolled down the glassy
slope into the pool.
The ooze parted heavily, with effort, and then surrounded him like a
huge, sucking mouth.
The man screamed. "Quicksand! Help! It's sucking me down----eeeeeh--"
With horror Rawson saw the white, slimy mess suck him down--down--
Rawson's voice screamed against the shriek of the wind. "Throw him a
line!"
The man's struggling head sank below the surface. A frantic hand fought
against the ooze, sank steadily deeper. The hand disappeared. Bubbles
from the man's dying breath broke the surface. The slime drifted
together again and was smooth and liquid again with the peace of death.
Rawson shuddered.
He stared at Durk who was looking dumbfounded into the pool. One of the
crew had been lost under Durk's command. Would there be others?
When the chill winds of night came, Rawson was sitting inside a cave
that looked down on the sink hole.
Rawson was carefully, meticulously, studying the crew and the lay of
the land, like a general studies the ground before a battle.
He looked down into the depression which was like a huge inside-out
face. The ridge on which the space ship rested looked like a monstrous
nose between the two giant eyes--the farther eye the quicksand pool and
the nearer a shallow swamp over which hung the swamp gas.
The crew was camped by a small fire near the swamp. Near them lay young
Seymour, with his hands and feet bound.
Even in the cave the wind moaned incessantly and drove the bitter sand
into Rawson's mouth. It blasted across the glassy ridge and whipped the
fires beside the space ship.
If I can rescue Seymour, Rawson thought, we'll control the ship, if we
manage to hold the control room. But he realized the difficulty.
Between the cave and the whipping fires of the crew, Rawson could see
the mist that hung low over the swamp, just out of the reach of the
wind. Sometimes a little of the mist was carried away and brought to
his nose--swamp gas.
On silent feet, Rawson crept toward the swamp. The guard did not look
up.
Rawson lay beside the soft, decayed soil and vegetation. Under cover of
his body he snapped his automatic lighter. He hurled the blazing light
into the swamp.
He leaped back.
Immediately a flame flashed across the swamp and leaped toward the sky
and the roar of the explosion brought the entire crew to their feet
with their flame ray weapons in their hands.
They stampeded toward the safety of the space ship.
Under cover of the explosion, Rawson rushed toward Seymour, picked him
up and fled with him into the darkness of the sandy desert, beyond the
hills.
"Gee, sir!" the boy said after he recovered from his astonishment, and
they lay in hiding on top of a tall hill and looked down on the excited
bustle of the camp. "Did you do that?"
Rawson smiled grimly. "Nothing to it. Swamps create marsh gas, or
methane gas, which is highly inflammable. A little fire will make a
stagnant pocket of the gas go up with a bang."
Young Seymour looked at the lights of the camp with troubled eyes. "I'm
sorry you rescued me, sir."
"What's this, Mr. Seymour?"
The young fellow avoided his captain's eyes. "I been thinking, sir,
that--well, maybe, Underofficer Durk is right."
"So Durk's been talking to you, convincing you that I haven't enough
experience to command a space ship!"
"I feel miserable about the whole thing, sir. It's--oh, gee, captain.
Durk's got the ship and the men and he's had twenty-five years in the
spaceways. He ought to know what's doing."
Rawson's voice was suddenly raw as Jovian liquor. "All right, Mr.
Seymour. I understand. Get going!"
* * * * *
The boy slunk away like a whipped dog. Once he hesitated and looked
back, and then with lowered shoulders, he ploughed his way through the
sand toward the space ship.
Rawson watched him go. He felt as though he had been deserted by his
last friend.
This leaves me all alone, Rawson thought. Me against the crew. I've got
to get command of the ship. The serum's got to go through. Saturn's
depending on me.
I still say Mom's right. You've got to know how to do things and have
the guts to carry them through. I'm not quitting.
And Jennifer Kane would be disappointed in me if I quit on my Star
Point oath. She was so proud when I graduated. And when I received my
promotions. Moved from underofficer to commander in three years. No
wonder Durk is so bitter.
But it takes scientific knowledge these days--that's it. Science will
win a way out for me--
Rawson's mind began to work like an intricate machine. Thousands of
stimuli of knowledge had been injected into his brain during his
training; now his mind began to select and analyze these stimuli for
the purpose of finding a solution to his predicament.
Rawson's self-respect was the rock of his courage.
I'll have to do this alone, he thought. As he saw that the crew members
about the space ship had quieted down and that the camp was still for
the night, he rose and fought his way against the wind toward the space
ship, across the slippery neck of rock.
The space ship was dark and silent. A crew man nodded sleepily beside
the fire to the left. Yet he had to be careful. Other members of the
crew might leap out at him at any moment.
He slipped inside the space ship. He found the space suit. He donned
it quickly, fastened the space helmet around his head. The space suit
would help him in any emergency.
He was moving from the lockers to the control room past the port when a
guard saw him. The man grabbed for him. "Gotcha!"
But the muscles strung on his bony frame exploded in power and the crew
man fell aside. Rawson leaped through the lock and landed on the white
ridge beside the quicksand pool.
The guard's yells brought the rest of the crew, and they advanced on
him from all sides.
He backed slowly from the menacing circle, looking for an opening
through which to dart. But they came from both sides of the ship. In
his rear was the slimy quicksand. He backed toward it.
One of the crew's stumbling feet loosened a boulder and it came
hurtling toward Rawson. He leaped aside but his crane-like feet landed
on gravel and he started to slide off balance backwards.
The crew realized before Rawson did what was happening. "He's sliding
into the quicksand! Stop him!"
Rawson felt the pressure of the wet sand on the space suit. He
struggled for a hold on the rocks. They came away in his hands. He
slid deeper.
He felt the suction at his feet, climbing up to his waist, over his
shoulders.
The white quicksand went over the space suit visor and cut out the
light of the moon. Still he kept sinking, slowly, steadily, in the
depths.
* * * * *
With an effort he forced his hand to his belt and adjusted the levers
to permit oxygen for his breathing to swell the space suit.
He could breath, but he could not control his movements. The pressure
of the wet sand weighted heavily on him and smothered him in a blanket
of darkness.
He moved down slowly as on greased feathers into a bottomless pit. His
legs dangled limply, drifting now this way, now that. He put his arms
out to steady himself, but the muck gave way before him.
He heard only the slight bubbling sound of the oxygen escaping through
the vent in his space suit.
He felt a sucking pull on his body and on his limbs as he went
down--down--
At last he hung suspended. His weight balanced the density of the
pressure of the sand.
His mind worked furiously--in a race with death.
He remembered the slight alkaline taste that had penetrated to his
mouth and nose back on the surface. Alkaline?
He had read about that--in the "_Cross Currents of Space_"--Orus was
the borax planet.
And suddenly his training in the chemistry of borax rushed through his
frantic mind.
He smiled grimly to himself as he reached for the heat ray gun at his
waist. No, it hadn't been lost. He detached it and forced it through
the quicksand in front of him.
Carefully he aimed the heat ray gun upward, pressed the trigger.
Light so bright and intense and so hot that Rawson felt the heat and
light in the clutching quicksand bored a hole through the muck.
It was a thin rod of penetration, about two inches wide and extended
straight upwards to where Rawson thought the edge of the pit would be.
Long and patiently he trained the heat ray gun.
And as he waited a chemical change took place before his eyes. In the
light of the heat ray gun, he saw a thin rod of white porous mass
forming. It extended through the quicksand upward along the line of the
heat ray.
And as he watched, the white mass melted into a clear liquid. He kept
the heat ray gun concentrated until its power died and the weapon
became a useless piece of metal.
Rawson had won. He had created liquid glass.
Patiently he waited for the liquid to harden. Would it make it possible
for him to escape this quicksand death?
For hours he hung suspended in the ooze. When he judged that there had
been time enough for the liquid to harden into glass, he extended his
hand toward it.
His groping fingers found a strong, smooth rod fused to the rock above.
Hand over hand he made his way up, forcing himself through the heavy
ooze. When he reached the top, he crawled out, half dead and staggered
to firm ground.
He stumbled. But he saw at a glance that he had drifted far from the
place where he had fallen in. The space ship was several hundred yards
away, completely hidden by a hill.
A few feet more, he staggered and stumbled into a dank pool. He took
off the space helmet and drank deeply and crammed some concentrated
food pills into his mouth.
His muscles were sore and weary. He knew he had to rest. He found the
coolness of a cave. Hardly had he dropped to the sandy floor when he
fell into an exhausted sleep.
* * * * *
For hours he lay and his body regenerated its youthful vitality.
He stirred restlessly in his sleep when he felt the pressure of another
hand on his. He sat up abruptly, on guard.
A freckled boy's face was looking down on him with wonder in the blue
eyes. "Captain Rawson, sir," Seymour said. "I was explorin' and found
you here. Gee, sir, how did you escape out of the quicksand?"
Rawson regarded the young man with wonder. "Sit down, Mr. Seymour."
Rawson explained about the borax and his escape. "But what about you
and Durk?"
The boy made circles in the sand with his foot. His eyes avoided the
captain's. "I couldn't stand it, sir. My conscience. It wasn't right.
You're the captain, no matter what Durk says."
"Thanks. Okay, let's get going."
Purposely they strode across the sand toward the space ship. But as
they neared the top of the hill beyond which lay the space ship, they
heard a series of loud explosions. Rawson recognized those sounds.
With a rush he was on top of the hill and staring at the space ship.
The explosions came from there. The ports were closed and there was no
one on the bridge.
The ship was taking off!
Rawson's skeleton-like body shuddered in dismay. He yelled but he knew
it was futile. No one could hear him above the roar of the rockets.
And if they did? Durk might find it convenient to report that the
captain had been lost on the expedition.
For once in his life, Rawson admitted fear to himself--to be deserted
on this waste planet!
The space ship quivered under the impact of the rockets. And Rawson
noticed a queer thing about that vibration--it was normal in itself,
but it was never intended to occur on a glassy cliff that sloped into a
quicksand.
The vibration loosed the pull of gravity of the ship--its steadiness on
the ridge--it slipped sideways.
It slipped sideways into the quicksand.
The space ship moved sideways over the edge of the cliff and started to
sink beneath the lake of quicksand.
As the bottom half of the hull disappeared below the surface of the
ooze, the top ports opened and the crew began leaping from the hull
onto the cliff.
Rawson counted them. They were all there. All sixty--there should be
sixty-one. But one had been lost in the quicksand at the first landing.
The crew stood huddled in a bunch and watched the top of the hull
disappear below the quicksand.
Rawson's crane-like legs carried him toward the crew. Their faces
showed repentance.
It was a miserable bunch of men that faced him, and the most miserable
of all was Underofficer Durk.
Rawson for a moment said nothing. He watched the last air bubbles that
seeped up from the space ship at the bottom of the quicksand. The
bubbles broke one by one. The sand smoothed out again, leaving a slimy
smoothness that revealed nothing--that failed to betray the loss of all
hope.
Rawson's voice whipped like a lash. "Well, Mr. Durk! Have you thought
of a solution of the predicament of the crew and yourself?"
Durk's eyes did not meet Rawson's. Durk's voice mumbled. "Yore the
captain, sir."
Rawson shuddered within himself. He was the captain--captain of a space
ship that no longer existed. They were stranded on a desolate planet
with no food and no weapons.
Weapons? He still had his heat ray gun, but it was burned out--no good.
Wearily Rawson turned to young Seymour. "Bring me my space suit."
It took but a few minutes for the boy to run back to the cave and fetch
back the space suit. Slowly Rawson climbed into it.
He turned to Durk. "I'm going into the quicksand. Perhaps I'll be able
to find something--something--" He sighed. "If I don't return, well,
it's up to you."
He leaped far forward, felt his feet sink into the clutching quicksand.
The muck enfolded him like cold, slimy snake coils twisting around and
crushing him.
As he sank below the surface, he heard the bursting air bubbles above
him like sibilant whispers of death. The dread, crushing quicksand drew
around like crushing giant hands.
This time Rawson had no heat ray gun to help him escape!
His lips twisted helplessly under the pressure of the sand and the
water. It was like being buried alive in cement that had not yet
hardened.
His feet struck something solid. The hull. Using his feet as leverage
he forced himself forward against the grasping ooze, until he came to
one of the ports. It was open and the quicksand had oozed in.
* * * * *
Rawson managed to grasp the railing by sheer muscle and forced himself
inside. The shifting, liquefied sand covered the entire top deck.
But the door to the lower hatches and the control decks had sealed
automatically. He turned the lever and pushed the door of the hatch
inwards.
The pressure of the sand hurled him inside like water shot from a
nozzle.
He raced for the farther door--raced to beat the moving quicksand that
oozed forward like some giant amoeba.
Rawson won by a second. He opened the door and dived inward. Quickly
he closed the door and sealed it as he felt the pressure of the muck
against it. The metal locks would hold.
He stripped off the space suit and hurried to the rocket deck.
Everything was in order. A member of the crew had automatically cut off
the disintegrator motors at the call "Abandon Ship!"
Rawson set the speed at idle. He turned the rocket levers. For a moment
the ship trembled as the exhaust gases fought against the pressure of
the quicksand in the tubes.
The rockets thundered in full power. Rawson waited. The heat of those
exhaust gases was tremendous--made ten times so by their compression in
the ooze.
Heat! That was it!
But would the rockets be powerful enough to change the composition of
the quicksand?
He felt the heat of the compressed gases through the floor of the
hull, and their motion through the muck was accompanied by a loud
glub--glub--glub--Sounds like the choking of a primeval monster.
This sound gradually died out, and the heat became intense. Rawson
removed his shirt and wiped the perspiration from his eyes. The sweat
dripped down his arms and made little wet spots on the floor. He began
shifting from foot to foot as the heat became uncomfortable on the
soles of his feet.
There was no way to see what was going on outside the space ship. All
the ports were blocked by the muck.
Presently he touched the dials. The indicator moved from "idle" to
"take-off." He gunned the rockets.
The ship lurched forward, groaned, and wallowed deeper into the ooze.
It was no go.
Rawson returned the power to idle and waited patiently. Perhaps it
could still be done.
Perhaps--but more likely not!
Rawson was not ready to despair. He waited with the courage of his
conviction that a way could be found through science.
He waited for three hours, and then he touched the controls again. He
set the dials to depress the nose, pulled the lever for the reverse.
Then he punched the needle for full power. He geared in the traction.
The space ship leaped backward with a jerk, found firm footing, and
crawled with accelerated power. It surged swifter and swifter like an
unleashed Neptune cyclone.
And as he felt the motion of the vessel beneath his feet, Rawson looked
up and saw the light stream through the muck that covered the port
windows.
He had broken free!
By instinct he guided the vessel all alone to a new landing. He had
to be navigator, engineer, pilot, and do the many tedious things that
require many hands and brains to control a ship.
* * * * *
Several days later they were near Saturn and Rawson had just received
congratulations on bringing in the serum in time to save thousands of
lives. He sat at his desk, his skeleton frame hunched like an ostrich,
when a young cyclone burst into his cabin.
"Captain, sir," young Seymour cried, bounding forward. "I overheard--"
Rawson snapped to his feet. "Mr. Seymour, Attention! Please leave and
enter like a gentleman."
Meekly the cabin boy walked out, closed the door. A rap sounded.
"Come in." And as the lad entered Rawson said with a smile, "That's
better."
"Yes, sir. I came to report I overheard the crew talking."
"Durk?"
"Yes, sir. Underofficer Durk says you're voted the best darn space
commander that ever flew the stars. And that he'll lick the denims off
anybody that says different."
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