"Why?"
"It's a hateful thing, having an animal's thoughts rolling around inside your head. It seems unsanitary." His puckish little face screwed up in an expression of revulsion.
Lucky said, "Unfortunately, it's worse then unsanitary."
He turned back to the instruments.
The interval between pip and return disclosed the distance between the two ships to be less than half a mile when, with surprising suddenness, the radar screen showed, unmistakably, the shadow of Evans's ship.
Lucky's voice went out over the transmitter. "Evans, you're in sight now. Can you move? Is your ship disabled?"
The answer came back clearly in a voice torn with emotion. "Earth help me, Lucky, I did my best to warn you. You're trapped! Trapped as I'm trapped."
And as though to punctuate the councilman's wail, a blast of force struck the subship Hilda, knocking it to one side and jarring its main motors out of commission!
9. Out Of The Deep
In bigman's memory afterward, the events of the next hours were as though viewed through the reverse end of a telescope, a faraway nightmare of confused events.
Bigman had been slammed against the wall by the sudden thrust of force. For what seemed long moments, but was probably little more than a second in actuality, he lay spread-eagled and gasping.
Lucky, still at the controls, shouted, "The main generators are out."
Bigman was struggling to Ms feet against the crazy slope of the deck. "What happened?"
"We were hit. Obviously. But I don't know how badly."
Bigman said, "The lights are on."
"I know. The emergency generators have cut in."
"How about the main drive?"
"I'm not sure. It's what I'm trying to test."
The engines coughed hoarsely somewhere below and behind. The smooth purr was gone, and in its place a consumptive rattle sounded that set Bigman's teeth on edge.
The Hilda shook herself, like a hurt animal, and turned upright. The engines died again.
The radio receiver was echoing mournfully, and now Bigman gathered his senses sufficiently to try to reach it.
"Starr," it said. "Lucky Starr! Evans at this end. Acknowledge signals."
Lucky got there first. "Lucky speaking. What hit us?"
"It doesn't matter," came the tired voice. "It won't bother you any more. It will be satisfied to let you sit here and die. Why didn't you stay away? I asked you to."
"Is your ship disabled, Evans?"
"It's been stalled for twelve hours. No light, no power-just a little juice I can pump into the radio, and that's fading. Air purifiers are smashed, and the air supply is low. So long, Lucky."
"Can you get out?"
"The lock mechanism isn't working. I've got a subsea suit, but if I try to cut my way out, I'll be smashed."
Bigman knew what Lou Evans meant, and he shuddered. Locks on subsea vessels were designed to let water into the interlock chamber slowly, very slowly. To cut a lock open at the bottom of the sea in an attempt to get out of a ship would mean the entry of water under hundreds of tons of pressure. A human being, even inside a steel suit, would be crushed like an empty tin can under a pile driver.
Lucky said, "We can still navigate. I'm coming to get you. We'll join locks."
"Thanks, but why? If you move, you'll be hit again; and even if you aren't, what's the difference whether I die quickly here or a little more slowly in your ship?"
Lucky retorted angrily, "We'll die if we have to, but not one second earlier than we have to. Everyone has to die someday; there's no escaping that, but quitting isn't compulsory."
He turned to Bigman. "Get down into the engine room and check the damage. I want to know if it can be repaired."
In the engine room, fumbling with the "hot" micro-pile by means of long-distance manipulators, which luckily were still in order, Bigman could feel the ship inching painfully along the sea bottom and could hear the husky rasping of the motors. Once he heard a distant boom, followed by a groaning rattle through the framework of the Hilda as though a large projectile had hit sea bottom a hundred yards away.
He felt the ship stop, the motor noise drop to a hoarse rumble. In imagination, he could see the Hilda's lock extension bore out and close in on the other hull, welding itself tightly to it. He could sense the water between the ships being pumped out of that tube between them and, in actual fact, he saw the lights in the engine room dim as the energy drain on the emergency generators rose to dangerous heights. Lou Evans would be able to step from his ship to the Hilda through dry air with no need of artificial protection.
Bigman came up to the control room and found Lou Evans with Lucky. His face was drawn and worn under its blond stubble. He managed a shaky smile in Bigman's direction.
Lucky was saying, "Go on, Lou."
Evans said, "It was the wildest hunch at first, Lucky. I followed up each of the men to whom one of these queer accidents had happened. The one thing I could find in common was that each was a V-frog fancier. Everyone on Venus is, more or less, but each one of these fellows kept a houseful of the creatures. I didn't quite have the nerve to make a fool of myself advancing the theory without some facts. If I only had… Anyway, I decided to try to trap the V-frogs into exhibiting knowledge of something that existed in my own mind and in as few others as possible."
Lucky said, "And you decided on the yeast data?"
"It was the obvious thing. I had to have something that wasn't general knowledge or how could I be even reasonably sure they got the information from me? Yeast data was ideal. When I couldn't get any legitimately, I stole some. I borrowed one of the V-frogs at headquarters, put it next to my table, and looked over the papers. I even read some of it aloud. When an accident happened in a yeast plant within two days later involving the exact matter I had read about, I was positive the V-frogs were behind the mess. Only-"
"Only?" prompted Lucky.
"Only I hadn't been so smart," said Evans. "I'd let them into my mind. I'd laid down the red carpet and invited them in, and now I couldn't get them out again. Guards came looking for the papers. I was known to have been in the buildings, so a very polite agent was sent to question me. I returned the papers readily and tried to explain. I couldn't."
"You couldn't? What do you mean by that?"
"I couldn't. I was physically unable to. The proper words wouldn't come out. I was unable to say a word about the V-frogs. I even kept getting impulses to kill myself, but I fought them down. They couldn't get me to do something that far from my nature. I thought then: If I can only get off Venus, if I can only get far enough away from the V-frogs, I'd break their hold. So I did the one thing I thought would get me instantly recalled. I sent an accusation of corruption against myself and put Morriss's name to it."
"Yes," said Lucky grimly, "that much I had guessed."
"How?" Evans looked startled.
"Morriss told us his side of your story shortly after we got to Aphrodite. He ended by saying that he was preparing his report to central headquarters. He didn't say he had sent one-only that he was preparing one. But a message had been sent; I knew that. Who else besides Morriss knew the Council code and the circumstances of the case? Only you yourself."
Evans nodded and said bitterly, "And instead of calling me home, they sent you. Is that it?"
"I insisted, Lou. I couldn't believe any charge of corruption against you."