Address: Centauri by F. L. Wallace (most read book in the world .TXT) 📖

powerful, pulled for something else. Circuits burned in electronic brains. Microrays fluttered under the stress. They didn't know. They just didn't know.

But there had to be a choice.

Stiffly the geepees moved in and grasped the tank. The quality of their decision was strained. They were pushing themselves more than the tank but inch by inch the huge twisted structure rolled up the ramp.

"When it's completely on, raise the ramp." Docchi wasn't aware that he could hardly be heard.

The cargo ramp began to lift up. The tank gained speed as it rolled forward into the ship. "Geepees, the job is finished. Save yourselves," shouted Docchi. He saw a swirl of metallic bodies as they leaped from the ramp.

Jordan breathed deeply. "That did it. I don't think they can hurt us now."

"It's not over. Get ship-to-station communication, if there's any radio left."

"I'll be surprised if there is," muttered Jordan, but his skepticism was without basis. The radio was still functioning. He made the adjustments.

Docchi was matter of fact. "Vogel, we're going out. Don't try to stop us. Give us clearance and save the dome some damage."

There was no reply.

"He's bluffing," said Jordan. "He knows the airlocks in the main dome will close automatically if we break through."

"Sure," said Docchi. "Everyone in the main dome is safe—if everyone is in there. Vogel, do you know where Cameron is? Are you certain a nurse or an accidental hasn't wandered in here to see what's wrong? We'll give you time to think about it."

Again they waited and waited. Each second was tangible, the precious duration that lives and events were measured with—and the measure was exceedingly slow. Meanwhile Jordan flipped on the telecom and searched the rocket dome. They saw nothing; there was not even a geepee in sight. Docchi watched the screen impassively; what he thought didn't show on his face.

And still there was no reply from the engineer in the gravity station.

"All right. We've given you a chance," said Docchi. His voice was brittle. "You know what we're going to do. If anybody gets hurt you can take the credit." He turned away from the screen. "Jordan, let's go. Hit the shell with the bow."

Jordan grasped the levers. The ship hardly quivered as it tilted upward and leaped away. It roared in the air and then fell silent as it passed into space. And the silence was worse than any sound—it was filled with the imagined hiss of air escaping from a great hole in the transparent covering of the dome.

Jordan sat at the controls. "Did he?"

"He had to. He wouldn't risk killing some innocent person."

"I don't know," said Jordan. "If you'd said he wouldn't want his pretty machinery banged up it would be easier to believe."

"I didn't hear anything. We would have if we'd hit."

"It was fast. Could we tell? Maybe Vogel played it safe and had the inner shell out of the way even if he didn't give us the automatic signal. In that event it's all right because it would close as soon as we got out of the way even if we did rip through the outer shell. All the air wouldn't escape." Jordan sat there for a moment, silently reviewing his own arguments.

He twisted the lever and the ship leaped forward. "Cameron I don't mind. He had time to get away and he knew what we were going to do. I keep thinking Nona might have been there."

"He opened it," said Docchi harshly. "We didn't hit the dome. I didn't hear anything. Nona wasn't there." His face was gray, there was no light at all in it. "Come on," he said, walking away.

Jordan rocked back and forth. The hemisphere that held what remained of his body was suited for it. He set the auto-controls and reduced the gravity to quarter normal. He bent his arms and shoved himself into the air, deftly catching a guide rail, swinging along it.

It was pure chance that he glanced toward the back of the ship instead of forward as he entered the corridor after Docchi. There was a light blinking at a cabin door.

It was occupied.

4

Jordan caught up before Docchi reached the cargo hold. In lesser gravity he was more active and could move freely. Now his handicap was almost unnoticeable, seemed to have disappeared. The same was not true of Docchi. It required less effort to walk but there was also a profound unsettling effect that made him cautious and uncertain.

Docchi heard him coming and waited, bracing himself against the wall in case the gravity should momentarily change. Jordan still carried the weapon he'd taken from the pilot. It was clipped to the sacklike garment, dangling from his midsection which, for him, was just below his shoulders. Down the passageway he came, swinging from the guide rails with easy grace though the gravity on the ship was as erratic as on the asteroid.

Jordan halted, hanging on with one hand. "We have a passenger. Someone we didn't know about."

Docchi stiffened. "Who?" he asked. But the answer was already on Jordan's face. "Nona," he said in relief. He slumped forward. "How did she get on?"

"A good question," said Jordan. "But there isn't any answer and never will be. It's my guess that after she jammed the lights and scanners in the rocket dome she went to the ship and it looked inviting. So she went in. She wouldn't let a little thing like a lock that couldn't be opened stop her."

"It's a good guess," agreed Docchi. "She's exceedingly curious."

"We may as well make the picture complete. Once in the ship she felt tired. She found a comfortable cabin and fell asleep. She can't hear anything so our little skirmish with the geepees didn't bother her."

"I can't argue with you. It'll do until a better explanation comes along."

"But I wish she'd waited a few minutes to take her nap. She'd have saved us a lot of trouble. She didn't know you'd be able to crawl through the tubes—and neither did you until you'd actually done it."

"What do you want?" said Docchi. "She did more than we did. We depend too much on her. Next thing we'll expect her to escort us personally to the stars."

"I wasn't criticizing her," protested Jordan.

"Maybe not. You've got to remember her mind works differently. It never occurred to her that we'd have difficulty with something that was so simple to her. At the same time she's completely unable to grasp our concepts." He straightened up. "We'd better get going if we don't want Anti to start yelling."

The cargo hold was sizable. It had to be to hold the tank, which was now quite battered and twisted. But the tank was sturdily built and looked as if it would hold together for ages to come. There was some doubt as to whether the ship would. The wall opposite the ramp was badly bent where the tank had plowed into it and the storage racks were demolished. Odds and ends of equipment lay in scattered heaps on the floor.

"Anti," called Docchi.

"Here."

"Are you hurt?"

"Never felt a thing," came the cheerful reply. It was not surprising; her surplus flesh was adequate protection against deceleration.

Jordan began to scale the side of the tank, reaching the top and peering over. "She seems to be all right," he called down. "Part of the acid's gone. Otherwise there's no damage."

"Of course not," replied Anti. "What did I say?"

It was perhaps more serious than she realized. She might personally dislike it, but acid was necessary to her life. And some of it had been splashed from the tank. Where it had spilled metal was corroding rapidly. By itself this was no cause for alarm. The ship was built for a multitude of strange environments and the scavenging system would handle acid as readily as water, neutralizing it and disposing of it where it would do no harm. But the supply had to be conserved. There was no more.

"What are you waiting for?" Anti rumbled with impatience. "Get me out of here. I've stewed in this disgusting soup long enough."

"We were thinking how we could get you out. We'll figure out a way."

"You let me do the thinking. You just get busy. After you left I decided there must be some way to live outside the tank and of course when I bent my mind to it there was a way. After all, who knows more about my condition than me?"

"You're the expert. Tell us what to do."

"Oh I will. All I need from you is no gravity and I'll take care of the rest. I've got muscles, more than you think. I can walk as long as my bones don't break from the weight."

Light gravity was bad, none at all was worse for Docchi. Having no arms he'd be helpless. The prospect of floating free without being able to grasp anything was terrifying. He forced down his fear. Anti had to have it and so he could get used to null gravity.

"We'll get around to it," he promised. "Before we do we'll have to drain and store the acid."

"I don't care what you do with it," said Anti. "All I know is that I don't want to be in it."

Jordan was already working. He swung off the tank and was busy expelling water from an auxiliary compartment into space. As soon as the compartment was empty he led a hose from it to the tank. A pump vibrated and the acid level in the tank began to fall.

Docchi felt the ship lurch familiarly. The ship was older than he thought, the gravity generator more out of date. "Hurry," he called to Jordan.

In time they'd cut it off. But if gravity went out before they were ready they were in for rough moments. Free floating globes of highly corrosive acid, scattered throughout the ship by air currents, could be as destructive as high velocity meteor clusters.

Jordan tinkered with the pump and then jammed the lever as far as it would go, holding it there. "I think we'll make it," he said above the screech of the pump. The machinery gasped, but it won. The throbbing broke into a vacant clatter that betokened the tank was empty. Jordan had the hose rolled away before the gravity generator let the feeling of weight trickle off into nothingness.

As soon as she was weightless Anti rose out of the tank.

In all the time Docchi had known her he had seen no more than a face framed in blue acid. Where it was necessary periodic surgery had trimmed the flesh away. For the rest, she lived submerged in a corrosive fluid that destroyed the wild tissue as fast as it grew. Anyway, nearly as fast.

"Well, junkman, look at a real freak," snapped Anti.

He had anticipated—and he was wrong in what he thought. It was true humans weren't meant to grow so large, but Jupiter wasn't repulsive merely because it was the bulging giant of planets. It was unbelievable and overwhelming when seen close up but it was not obscene. It took getting used to but he could stand the sight of Anti.

"How long can you live out of the acid?" he stammered.

"Can't live out of it," said Anti loftily. "So I take it with me. If you weren't as unobservant as most men you'd see how I do it."

"It's a robe of some kind," said Docchi carefully after studying it.

"Exactly. A surgical robe, the only thing I have to my name. Maybe it's the only garment in the solar system that will fit me. Anyway, if you've really examined it you'll notice it's made of a spongelike substance. It holds enough acid to last at least thirty-six hours."

She grasped a rail and propelled herself toward the passageway. For most people it was spacious enough but not for Anti. However she could squeeze through. And satellites, one glowing and the other swinging in an eccentric orbit, followed after the Jupiter of humans.

Nona was standing in front of the instrument panel when they came back. It was more or less like all panels built since designers first got the hang of what could really be done with seemingly simple components. There was a bewildering array of lights, levers, dials, and indicators in front of her but Nona was interested in none of these. There was a single small switch and dial, separate from the rest, that held her complete attention. She seemed disturbed by what she saw or failed to see. Disturbed or excited, it was difficult to guess which.

Anti stopped. "Look at her. If I didn't know she's as bad as the rest of us, in fact the only one who was born that way, it would be easy to hate her. She's disgustingly normal."

There was truth in what Anti said—and yet there wasn't. Surgical techniques