“Back here!” Peter whispered, and jerked Lars along the walkway. It formed a bridge between the engine controls and the catwalk ladder. Three men, maybe more, were coming down the ladder now, starting up the walkway.
“Hold it!” Peter’s voice cut out in the darkness. His light flickered on their faces. Jeff Salter was in the lead. Behind him was Bob Tenebreck, the geologist, and another man.
Salter stopped short, poised. “Brigham? Get out of the way. We’ve got to get those engines.”
“It’s no good, Jeff. Fox was onto it. He was ready. We can’t pull it off.”
“I can damn well pull those engines off!” Salter roared. “That’ll throw everybody off their feet for a while.”
“It’s not the right time!” Peter’s voice was urgent. “You’ve got to call it off.”
Jeff Salter’s thin face twisted. “Get out of my way. I’m coming through there.”
He moved straight for them, the other following. Lars pushed Peter aside like a feather and met Salter with a full body block. His broad shoulder crashed into the thin man’s chest, hurling him backward. Salter leaped to his feet with a roar and charged. Lars met him hard with a right that spun his head around, and followed with a left to the body. Salter crumpled to the floor, groaning. But Tenebreck caught Lars hard in the shoulder, spinning him into the other man’s fist. The fist connected before Lars could wriggle loose and strike out at both assailants. Tenebreck fell to his knees, scrambled back up with a snarl and met Lars’ fist full in the mouth. He dropped so hard his head clanged on the floor plate.
The third man glared at Lars, hesitating to close on him. “Come on,” Lars growled through his teeth. “You waiting for help?”
Suddenly the lights flashed on, and Lorry’s voice bellowed from the catwalk:
“All right, you! Stand where you are!”
Lorry scrambled down the ladder, a machine pistol tight in his fist. Paul Morehouse followed him, eyeing the two men on the floor in surprise. Lorry moved quickly, patting Peter’s pockets. Then he nodded to Morehouse. “Clean. You stop them?” This was to Lars.
Lars swallowed and nodded.
“He helping you?” He jerked a thumb at Peter.
Lars nodded again.
“Uh. Well, you’d better wipe off your chin. You look like you were chewing them to death. Now get up to the lounge, and lug these creeps along with you.” He glared at Salter and Tenebreck, who were climbing to their feet. “Nothing funny now, or you’ll regret it.”
Salter groaned, clutching his head. Lorry grinned at Lars. “Come on, Horatio. Give him a hand.”
The gathering in the lounge was tense and angry. Commander Fox was there, his face white, his lips cutting a thin line across his face. Lorry, Morehouse, Lambert and Kennedy, the photographer, were armed with machine pistols; Kennedy’s arm was in an improvised sling, the white cloth stained with blood.
Across the room, sullen and pale, stood Salter and Tenebreck and half a dozen others. There was no talking. They glared at Fox, but had nothing to say. The mutiny attempt, such as it was, had failed.
“All right, how many of you were in on this mess?” Fox asked, looking from man to man.
Nobody answered. Several of the men looked at their feet. Fox grimaced. “So. You’ve done a great job, the lot of you. You didn’t quite get the ship from me, but you split it as wide open as you could.” His eyes stopped on Peter. “A fine job.”
There was silence. Feet shuffled. Fox walked back and forth like a tiger in a cage. “All right, if you don’t want to talk, I’ll talk. I run a peaceful ship. I give the orders on it, and my men obey those orders and back me up on the jobs I have to do. If they don’t want it that way, they get off my ship. All right. Now some of you boys don’t seem to like things the way they are. Salter? You’ve been doing a lot of talking. Let’s hear what you have to say, right out in the open so everybody can hear it. Come on, sound off!”
“We’ve been sold a bill of goods, and we don’t like it,” Salter growled. “You’ve got no legal right to hold us here against our will, and you know it. We don’t want to be guinea pigs in this alien hunt of yours. We don’t want any part of it.”
“Who’s this ‘we’ you’re talking about?”
“The majority of the crew,” Salter snapped. “They all think the same, and they don’t want any more of your pep talks, either.”
“Then just what do you want?”
“We want to turn back.”
“So that’s the way it is, eh?” Fox looked around the group. “Leeds? Do you go along with that?”
“I go along with Salter,” the big engineer said. “I didn’t bargain for this kind of trip when I signed aboard.” “Carpenter?”
“I say turn back.”
“Mangano?”
“Turn back.”
“All right, let’s get the whole crew in on this. How many of you go with Salter?”
There was an angry rumble, and hands went into the air. Lars clenched his fists at his sides, counted seven hands, then saw an eighth hesitantly go up. Peter’s hand was down.
“And with me?”
Again hands went up: Lorry’s, Morehouse’s, Lambert’s, half a dozen others. Lars raised his hand in the air.
“Brigham? How about you?”
“I’m not voting,” Peter said quietly.
“This is the wrong time to ride the fence.”
“I’m not voting.”
“Mr. Lorry, what’s the count.”
“Eight with Salter, thirteen with you, one abstains.”
Fox turned his eyes to Peter for a long moment; then with a growl of disgust he turned to Salter. “Seems like you’ve been listening to the wrong advice,” he said slowly. “Well now you’re going to face a few facts. This trip to Wolf IV wasn’t my idea. I didn’t volunteer the ship, or the men. Colonial Service picked me, and outfitted me, because there was a job that had to be done. It may be a very dirty job, but it has to be done”
He leaned back against the table, his face grim. “The Colonial Service has its back to the wall. An alien scare back home would be a disaster. It would mean an end to the colonization program that Earth has to have. The Service knew that the Planetfall has to be found, and we’ve got the job of finding her. It doesn’t matter whether we like the job or not, we’ve got to do it with all the resources at our command. That means we can’t carry dead wood. There’s no place for cowards on this ship now. Am I making myself clear?”
Jeff Salter’s face was pale. “You can’t throw us off the ship in deep space!”
“I can, and I will.”
“That’s murder.”
“You can call it anything you like,” Fox said harshly. “Nevertheless, you have a choice, you eight. You’ve attempted a mutiny on this ship. Okay. I’m willing to overlook it because I need men and I need skills on Wolf IV. You can go along with me in landing there and back me up one hundred per cent in the search for the Planetfall, or you can have one lifeboat for the eight of you and two weeks’ food and water, and we’ll break the Koenig field long enough to jettison you. That’s your choice. Think it over. You’ve got ten seconds.”
The men stared at him, and at Salter. Even Lars could hardly believe the harshness of the Commander’s decree.
It was no choice. It was a death sentence.
“All right,” Salter said dully. “We’ll back you.”
“I don’t mean any half-hearted motions. I mean full support. If there’s any break at all, the eight of you pay for it.”