I launched myself through the air straight at Danny Shaker. “Now!” I shouted, when I was just a few feet away. I had little hope of disarming Shaker or knocking him out, but I hoped that by distracting him I would allow Duncan to gain control.
Danny Shaker hardly seemed to move, yet I missed him completely. I went flailing on until I collided face-first with the side of a big display screen. I clutched my nose, convinced that it was broken like Jim Swift’s, and spun around dizzily in mid-air.
I had bought Duncan West the time that he needed. He had stepped into the middle of the room. He stood by Danny Shaker, gun raised. And Shaker was lowering his.
But then Duncan was moving right past Danny Shaker.
“Duncan!” Doctor Eileen shouted, and I croaked the same word through a spray of blood from my nose.
“Save your breath.” Shaker nodded to Duncan, who casually stuck Walter Hamilton’s gun back into his belt.
“Duncan and I had our little talk a long time ago,” Shaker went on. “He made his decision before we ever lifted off from Muldoon Spaceport. He was tired of being treated like a nothing. And he wanted to be on the side of the winners. Right, Crewman West?”
Duncan nodded. He smiled at us, the same amiable, charming, uncommitted smile that I had known all my life.
“It’s a pity—I mean from your point of view, Doctor,” Danny Shaker continued. “Because if there’s any man in the Forty Worlds who could coax another flight out of the poor old Cuchulain, I’m convinced that it’s Duncan. But he’ll be going with us.” He turned to me. “What about you, Jay? You don’t give up, and that’s the first requirement of a good spacer. I’d like you with me. But this will be my last time of asking.”
I shook my head, and Danny Shaker sighed.
“That’s the end of it, then. I guess there’s more of your mother than your father in you after all. Duncan and I have to be off. The rest of the crew are waiting. So I’ll say good-bye. And good luck, too, to all of you. I hope that you make it back to Erin, I truly do.”
“Wait.” Doctor Eileen had not spoken since her one word cry to Uncle Duncan. Now she moved closer to Danny Shaker. Duncan put his hand on the gun in his belt.
“Stop that, Duncan West,” she said reprovingly. “I’m not one for violence, and you know it. I want to say something to Captain Shaker. It won’t take long.”
Shaker nodded to Duncan. “No gun needed here. Go on ahead, tell Tom Toole that I’m on my way.” And, as Duncan left the control room, “All right. Say your piece, doctor.”
“You’re going to maroon us in the middle of the Maze, on a ship with a dying drive. You can pretend that we have a chance to get home again, but you and I both know better than that. Anyone who stays on the Cuchulain is doomed. I can live with that thought for myself. Space is as good a place to die as anywhere else.”
“Better than anywhere else. You’re a wise woman, Doctor Xavier, and a brave one. Pity you’re not a man. You’d have made a great spacer.”
“I don’t need flattery. I’m too old for it. But Jay Hara and Mel Fury are children. Jay will say he wants to stay with me, because I’ve known him all his life and he feels loyal. But I want you to take him with you, no matter what he wants. And Mel too. Don’t kill children, Dan Shaker. It’s beneath you.”
Shaker sighed, and shook his head. “You are a fine advocate, Doctor. There’s just one problem with what you’re suggesting: It’s wrong. Jay and Mel are not children. Look at them. He’s become a tough, self-assured young man in the past couple of months. It would be insulting—and dangerous—to treat him as a child. And from what Duncan tells me, Mel is now very much a young woman. I think he’s had his eye on her himself, and compared with most of my crew he’s an absolute gentleman.
“So it has to be no. I admit that I control most of what the crewmen do, but I recognize my limits. I’d be insane to take a woman—just one woman—onto the Godspeed ship. I owe my crew something, but that’s not the way to give it to them. After we’ve made a trial run of the Drive I propose to take another look at Paddy’s Fortune. I gather we’ll find enough inside to please everyone.
“That’s enough of future plans. I have to leave. The Drive is primed.”
Shaker nodded to one of the screens. The Godspeed ship hovered in the middle of it. Once more the shimmering smoke rings of violet haze were running back and forth along the axis of the corkscrew and spiraling away into space.
“Goodbye, Doctor. And good luck. I’d like to think we’ll meet again. Somewhere, somehow. And good-bye and good luck to you, too, Jay. I only wish you could have seen things differently, and come with me. But remember the Golden Rule: Don’t give up—ever.”
He turned and left without another word. His departure from the bridge drained the room of every particle of life and hope. Doctor Eileen leaned on the pilot’s chair, head bowed in exhaustion or despair. Jim Swift, beginning to twitch and groan and groggily move his head, floated a few feet away from her.
And I, the “tough, self-assured young man” who could no longer be “treated as a child”? I put my swollen cheek and bleeding nose against the cool metal of the cabin wall, and I cried until big globular tears mingled with drops of blood, and floated away across the control room.
Chapter 30
Eileen Xavier didn’t waste time on pity, for herself or anyone else.
She made a quick review of Jim Swift’s condition, came over to where I was still holding on to the cabin wall, and grunted: “Nothing much wrong with you. Snap out of it. You’re in charge. I’m going to find Mel and bring her to the bridge.”
I believe she was callous on purpose. Her statement that I was in charge surprised me, but it was her other comment that got me moving. There was no way I would let Mel Fury arrive on the bridge and find me sniveling and weeping.
As soon as Doctor Eileen had gone I released my hold on the cabin wall. I staggered along the corridor to a washroom, soaked two towels in cold water, and carried them back to the control room. As I mopped my face with a cool cloth and delicately touched it to my sore nose, I wondered how to handle Jim Swift. He was regaining consciousness, but as he came awake he was beginning to thrash about with his arms and legs. Maybe he thought he was still fighting. Whatever the reason, he wasn’t safe to go near. One hit from those flailing fists and I could be in worse shape than he was.
Finally I grabbed one of his arms and at the same time threw a heavy, soaking cloth right into his face. Either the cold or the pain got through to him, because he gasped and reached up to grab the towel.
“Oooh!” He groaned. “Where am I?”
“On the bridge of the Cuchulain. You’re going to be all right. Don’t touch your nose!”
Too late. He had moved the wet cloth to his face. As soon as it reached his nose he gasped and his left eye popped open. He glared sightlessly around him, until his one staring eye focused on me.
“Your nose is broken,” I said. “Mop the blood if you want to, but touch it very carefully.”
He grunted, and moved the cold towel to set it delicately against his right temple and closed right eye. “Never mind my nose. This is where it hurts bad. What hit me?”
“Alan Kiernan. You got into a fight. You lost.”
“Tell me something new,” Swift muttered. He belched, and I thought for a moment that he was going to throw up. But he just put his hand on his middle and stared at me, wall-eyed. “You, too?”