Gold in the Sky Part 18

"But sooner or later they're bound to think of it."

"That's true," Johnny said. "Unless they keep seeing us in the s.h.i.+p. The way I figure it, this crew has been on battle stations plenty of times.

They'll be able to search the whole s.h.i.+p in half an hour. We're just going to have to show ourselves ... at least enough to keep them searching."

"Well, what if they do think of the ventilators?" Greg said. "They'd still have a time finding us."

"Maybe, but don't underestimate Tawney. He might just mask up his crew and flood the tubes with cyanide."

They thought about that for a minute. There was no sound here but their own breathing, and the low chug-chug-chug of the pumps somewhere deep in the s.h.i.+p. Momentarily they expected to hear the raucous clang of the alarm bell, as some crew member or another walked into the lounge and found them gone. But so far there was no sign they had been discovered missing. "No," Johnny said finally, "if we just hide out in here, and hope for a chance at one of the scout s.h.i.+ps, they'll find us eventually.

But we've got three big advantages, if we can figure out how to use them. That fancy gun, for one. A way to get around the s.h.i.+p, for another ... and the fact that there's one more of us than they count on."

He flipped on his pocket flash, began drawing lines on the dusty floor of the shaft. "My idea is to keep them so busy fighting little fires that they won't have a chance to worry about where the big one is."

He drew a rough outline-sketch of the organization of the s.h.i.+p. "This look right to you, from what you've seen?" he asked Tom.

"Pretty much," Tom said. "There are more connecting tubes."

"All the better. We want to get the generators with our little toy here first. That'll darken the s.h.i.+p, and put the blowers out of commission in case they think of using gas. Also, it will cut out their computers and missile-launching rigs, which might give us a chance to get a scout-s.h.i.+p away in one piece if we could get aboard one."

"All right, the generators are first," Tom said. "But then what? There are four hundred men on this s.h.i.+p. They'll have every airlock triple guarded. They'll block us for sure."

"Not when we get through, they won't," Johnny grinned. "We've got an old friend aboard who's going to help us."

"_Friend?_"

"Ever hear of panic?" Johnny said. "Just listen a minute."

Quickly then, he outlined his plan. Tom and Greg listened, watched Johnny make marks with his finger in the dust. When he finished, Greg whistled softly. "You missed your life work," he said. "You should have gone into crime."

"If I'd had a ghost to help me, I might have," Johnny said.

"It's perfect," Tom said, "if it works. But it all depends on one thing ... keeping it rolling after we start...."

For another five minutes they went over the details. Then Johnny clapped them each on the shoulder. "It's up to you two," he said. "Let's go."

They moved down the large shaft to the place where it broke into several spurs. Johnny started down the chute toward the engine rooms; Tom and Greg headed in opposite directions toward the main body of the s.h.i.+p.

Just as they broke up, they heard a m.u.f.fled metallic sound from the nearest compartment grill.

It was the _clang-clang-clang_ of the orbit-s.h.i.+p's general alarm.

Crewmen stopped with food halfway to their mouths, jerked away from tables. Orders buzzed along a dozen wires, and section chiefs began reporting their battle-stations alert and ready. Finally Tawney snapped on the general public address system speaker. "Now get this," he roared.

"I want every inch of this s.h.i.+p searched ... every corridor, every compartment. I want a special crew standing by for missile launching.

I want double guards at every airlock. If they get a s.h.i.+p away from here, the man who lets them through had better be dead when I find him...." He broke off, clutching the speaker until his voice was under control again. "All right, move. They're armed, but there's no place they can go. Find them."

A section-chief came back over the speaker. "Dead or alive, boss?"

"Alive, you idiot! At least the Hunter brat. I'll take the other one any way you can get him."

He switched off, and waited, pacing the control cabin like a caged animal. Ten minutes later a buzzer sounded. "Hydroponics, boss. All clear."

"No sign of them?"

"Nothing."

Another buzz. "Number seven ore hold. Nothing here."

Still another buzz. "Crew's quarters. Nothing, boss."

One by one the reports came in. Fuming, Tawney checked off the sections, watched the net draw tighter throughout the s.h.i.+p. They were somewhere, they _had_ to be....

But n.o.body seemed to find them.

He was buzzing for his first mate when the power went off. The lights went out, the speaker went dead in his hand. The computers sighed contentedly and stopped computing. Abruptly the emergency circuits went into operation, flooding the darkness with harsh white lights. The intercom started buzzing again.

"Engine room, boss."

"What happened down there?" Tawney roared.

The man sounded like he'd just run the mile. "Generators," he panted.

"Blown out."

"Well, get somebody in there to fix them. Have a crew seal off the area...."

"Can't, boss. Fix them, I mean."

"Why not? What have we got electricians for?"

"There's nothing left to fix. The generators aren't wrecked ... they're demolished...."

"Then get the pair that did it...."

"They're not here. We've been sealed up tight. There's no way anybody could have gotten in here...."

After that, things began to get confusing.

For a while Merrill Tawney thought that his crew was going crazy ... and then he began to wonder if he were the one who was losing his mind.

Whatever the case, Merrill Tawney was certain of one thing. The things that were happening on his...o...b..t-s.h.i.+p could not possibly be happening.

A guard in one of the outer sh.e.l.l storage holds called in with a disquieting report. Greg Hunter, it seemed, had just been spotted vanis.h.i.+ng into one of the storage compartments from the main outer-sh.e.l.l corridor. When the guard had broken through the jammed hatchway to collar his trapped victim, there was no sign of the victim anywhere around.

At the same moment, a report came in from a guard on the opposite side of the s.h.i.+p. He had just spotted Greg Hunter _there_, it seemed, moving down a spur corridor. The guard had held his fire (according to Tawney's orders) and summoned help to corner the quarry ... but when help arrived, the quarry had vanished.

Five minutes later the Hunter boy was discovered in the Hydroponics section, busily reducing all the yeast vats to shambles with a curious weapon that seemed to eat holes in things. It ate the deck out from under the guard's feet, sending him plunging through the floor into the galley. By the time he had scrambled back again, the Hunter boy was gone, and a rapid move to seal off the region failed to turn him up again. The guard was upset; Tawney was a great deal more upset, because at the time Greg Hunter was (reportedly) playing havoc with the yeast-vats in Hydroponics he was also (reportedly) knocking guards down like ten-pins in the main corridor off the engine room while reinforcements tried to pin him down with a wide-beam stunner....