A Place In The Sun Part 5

"In the companionway outside the subs.p.a.ce room, yeah. But they'll never force their way in time. Not with blasters and not with N-guns, either.

Not in ten minutes, they won't."

"Larry, all of a sudden I--I'm scared. We're all going to die, Larry. I don't want--Larry, what are you going to do?"

They had been walking in a deserted companionway which brought them to one of the aft escape hatches of the _Glory of the Galaxy_. Their clothing was plastered to their bodies with sweat and every breath was agonizing, furnace hot.

"I'm going outside," Larry said quietly.

"Outside? What do you mean?"

"s.p.a.cesuit, outside. There's a hatch in the subs.p.a.ce room. If their attention is diverted to the companionway door, I may be able to get in.

It's our only chance--ours, and everyone's."

"But the s.p.a.cesuit--"

"I know," Larry said even as he was climbing into the inflatable vacuum garment. It was Larry--and it wasn't Larry. He felt a certain confidence, a certain sense of doing the right thing--a feeling which Larry Grange had never experienced before in his life. It was as if the boy had become a man in the final moments of his life--or, he thought all at once, it was as if Johnny Mayhem who shared his mind and his body with him was somehow transmitting some of his own skills and confidence even as he--Mayhem--had reached the decision to go outside.

"I know," he said. "The s.p.a.cesuit isn't insulated sufficiently. I'll have about three minutes out there. Three minutes to get inside.

Otherwise, I'm finished."

"But Larry--"

"Don't you see, Sheila? What does it matter? Who wants the five or ten extra minutes if we're all going to die anyway? This way, there's a chance."

He buckled the s.p.a.cesuit and lifted the heavy fishbowl helmet, preparing to set it on his shoulders.

"Wait," Sheila said, and stood on tiptoes to take his face in her hands and kiss him on the lips. "You--you're different," Sheila said. "You're the same guy, a lot of fun, but you're a--man, too. This is for what might have been, Larry," she said, and kissed him again. "This is because I love you."

Before he dropped the helmet in place, Larry said. "It isn't for what might have been, Sheila. It's for what will be."

The helmet snapped shut over the shoulder ridges of the s.p.a.cesuit.

Moments later, he had slipped into the airlock.

"I say you're a fool, Ackerman Boone!" one of the enlisted men rasped at the leader of the mutiny. "I say now we've lost our last chance. Now it's too late to get into the lifeboats even if we wanted to. Now all we can do is--die!"

There were still ten conscious men in the subs.p.a.ce room. The others had fallen before heat prostration and lay strewn about the floor, wringing wet and oddly flaccid as if all the moisture had been wrung from their bodies except for the sweat which covered their skins.

"All right," Ackerman Boone admitted. "All right, so none of us knows how to work the subs.p.a.ce mechanism. You think that would have helped? It would have killed us all, I tell you."

"It was a chance, Boone. Our last chance and you--"

"Just shut up!" Boone snarled. "I know what you're thinking. You're thinking we ought to let them officers and Secret Servicemen to ram home the subs.p.a.ce drive. But use your head, man. Probably they'll kill us all, but if they don't--"

"Then you admit there's a chance!"

"Yeah. All right, a chance. But if they don't kill us all, if they save us by ramming home the subs.p.a.cer, what happens? We're all taken in on a mutiny charge. It's a capital offense, you fool!"

"Well, it's better than sure death," the man said, and moved toward the door.

"Allister, wait!" Boone cried. "Wait, I'm warning you. Any man who tries to open that door--"

Outside, a steady booming of blaster fire could be heard, but the a.s.sault-proof door stood fast.

"--is going to get himself killed!" Boone finished.

Grimly, Allister reached the door and got his already blistered fingers on the lock mechanism.

Ackerman Boone shot him in the back with an N-gun.

Larry's whole body felt like one raw ma.s.s of broken blisters as, flat on his belly, he inched his way along the outside hull of the _Glory of the Galaxy_. He had no idea what the heat was out here, but it radiated off the hot hull of the _Glory_ in scalding, suffocating waves which swept right through the insulining of the s.p.a.cesuit. If he didn't find the proper hatch, and in a matter of seconds....

"Anyone else?" Ackerman Boone screamed. "Anyone else like Allister?"

But one by one the remaining men were dropping from the heat.

Finally--alone--Ackerman Boone faced the door and stared defiantly at the hot metal as if he could see his adversaries through it. On the other side, the firing became more sporadic as the officers and Secret Servicemen collapsed. His mind crazed with the heat and with fear, Ackerman Boone suddenly wished he could see the men through the door, wished he could see them die....

It was this hatch or nothing. He thought it was the right one, but couldn't be sure. He could no longer see. His vision had gone completely. The pain was a numb thing now, far away, hardly a part of himself. Maybe Mayhem was absorbing the pain-sensation for him, he thought. Maybe Mayhem took the pain and suffered with it in the shared body so he, Larry, could still think. Maybe--

His blistered fingers were barely able to move within the insulined gloves, Larry fumbled with the hatch.

Ackerman Boone whirled suddenly. He had been intent upon the companionway door and the sounds behind him--which he had heard but not registered as dangerous for several seconds--now made him turn.

The man was peeling off a s.p.a.ce suit. Literally peeling it off in strips from his lobster-red flesh. He blinked at Boone without seeing him.

Dazzle-blinded, Boone thought, then realized his own vision was going.

"I'll kill you if you go near that subs.p.a.ce drive!" Boone screamed.

"It's the only chance for all of us and you know it, Boone," the man said quietly. "Don't try to stop me."

Ackerman Boone lifted his N-gun and squinted through the haze of heat and blinding light. He couldn't see! He couldn't see....

Wildly, he fired the N-gun. Wildly, in all directions, spraying the room with it--

Larry dropped blindly forward. Twice he tripped over unconscious men, but climbed to his feet and went on. He could not see Boone, but he could see--vaguely--the muzzle flash of Boone's N-gun. He staggered across the room toward that muzzle-flash and finally embraced it--

And found himself fighting for his life. Boone was crazed now--with the heat and with his own failure. He bit and tore at Larry with strong claw-like fingers and lashed out with his feet. He balled his fists and hammered air like a windmill, arms flailing, striking flesh often enough to batter Larry toward the floor.

Grimly Larry clung to him, pulled himself upright, ducked his head against his chest and struck out with his own fists, feeling nothing, not knowing when they landed and when they did not, hearing nothing but a far off roaring in his ears, a roaring which told him he was losing consciousness and had to act--soon--if he was going to save anyone....