Porter turned and walked unsteadily away.
Stuart said, lightly, “Another failure. One act of heroism still ready to be knocked down to the highest bidder with nothing offered yet.”
Polyorketes spoke up and his harsh voice roughed the words. “You keep on talking, Mr. Big Mouth. You just keep banging that empty barrel. Pretty soon, we’ll kick your teeth in. There’s one boy I think would be willing to do it now, eh, Mr. Porter?”
Porter’s look at Stuart confirmed the truth of Polyorketes’ remarks, but he said nothing.
Stuart said, “Then what about you, Polyorketes? You’re the bare hand man with guts. Want me to help you into a suit?”
“I’ll ask you when I want help.”
“What about you, Leblanc?”
The young man shrank away.
“Not even to get back to Margaret?”
But Leblanc could only shake his head.
“Mullen?”
“Well-I’ll try.”
“You’ll what?”
“I said, yes, I’ll try. After all, it’s my idea.”
Stuart looked stunned. “You’re serious? How come?”
Mullen’s prim mouth pursed. “Because no one else will.”
“But that’s no reason. Especially for you.”
Mullen shrugged.
There was a thump of a cane behind Stuart. Windham brushed past.
He said, “Do you really intend to go, Mullen?”
“Yes, Colonel.”
“In that case, dash it, let me shake your hand. I like you. You’re an-an Earthman, by heaven. Do this, and win or die, I’ll bear witness for you.”
Mullen withdrew his hand awkwardly from the deep and vibrating grasp of the other.
And Stuart just stood there. He was in a very unusual position. He was, in fact, in the particular position of all positions in which he most rarely found himself.
He had nothing to say.
The quality of tension had changed. The gloom and frustration had lifted a bit, and the excitement of conspiracy had replaced it. Even Polyorketes was fingering the spacesuits and commenting briefly and hoarsely on which he considered preferable.
Mullen was having a certain amount of trouble. The suit hung rather limply upon him even though the adjustable joints had been tightened nearly to minimum. He stood there now with only the helmet to be screwed on. He wiggled his neck.
Stuart was holding the helmet with an effort. It was heavy, and his artiplasmic hands did not grip it well. He said, “Better scratch your nose if it itches. It’s your last chance for a while.” He didn’t add, “Maybe forever,” but he thought it.
Mullen said, tonelessly, “I think perhaps I had better have a spare oxygen cylinder.”
“Good enough.”
“With a reducing valve.”
Stuart nodded. “I see what you’re thinking of. If you do get blown clear of the ship, you could try to blow yourself back by using the cylinder as an action-reaction motor.”
They clamped on the headpiece and buckled the spare cylinder to Mullen’s waist. Polyorketes and Leblanc lifted him up to the yawning opening of the C-tube. It was ominously dark inside, the metal lining of the interior having been painted a mournful black. Stuart thought he could detect a musty odor about it, but that, he knew, was only imagination.
He stopped the proceedings when Mullen was half within the tube. He tapped upon the little man’s faceplate.
“Can you hear me?”
Within, there was a nod.
“Air coming through all right? No last-minute troubles?”
Mullen lifted his armored arm in a gesture of reassurance.
“Then remember, don’t use the suit-radio out there. The Kloros might pick up the signals.”
Reluctantly, he stepped away. Polyorketes’ brawny hands lowered Mullen until they could hear the thumping sound made by the steel-shod feet against the outer valve. The inner valve then swung shut with a dreadful finality, its beveled silicone gasket making a slight soughing noise as it crushed hard. They clamped it into place.
Stuart stood at the toggle-switch that controlled the outer valve. He threw it and the gauge that marked the air pressure within the tube fell to zero. A little pinpoint of red light warned that the outer valve was open. Then the light disappeared, the valve closed, and the gauge climbed slowly to fifteen pounds again.
They opened the inner valve again and found the tube empty.
Polyorketes spoke first. He said, “The little son-of-a-gun. He went!” He looked wonderingly at the others. “A little fellow with guts like that.”
Stuart said, “Look, we’d better get ready in here. There’s just a chance that the Kloros may have detected the valves opening and closing. If so, they’ll be here to investigate and we’ll have to cover up.”
“How?” asked Windham.
“They won’t see Mullen anywhere around. We’ll say he’s in the head. The Kloros know that it’s one of the peculiar characteristics of Earthmen that they resent intrusion on their privacy in lavatories, and they’ll make no effort to check. If we can hold them off-”
“What if they wait, or if they check the spacesuits?” asked Porter.
Stuart shrugged. “Let’s hope they don’t. And listen, Polyorketes, don’t make any fuss when they come in.”
Polyorketes grunted, “With that little guy out there? What do you think I am?” He stared at Stuart without animosity, then scratched his curly hair vigorously. “You know, I laughed at him. I thought he was an old woman. It makes me ashamed.”
Stuart cleared his throat. He said, “Look, I’ve been saying some things that maybe weren’t too funny after all, now that I come to think of it. I’d like to say I’m sorry if I have.”
He turned away morosely and walked toward his cot. He heard the steps behind him, felt the touch on his sleeve. He turned; it was Leblanc.
The youngster said softly, “I keep thinking that Mr. Mullen is an old man.”
“Well, he’s not a kid. He’s about forty-five or fifty, I think.”
Leblanc said, “Do you think, Mr. Stuart, that / should have gone, instead? I’m the youngest here. I don’t like the thought of having let an old man go in my place. It makes me feel like the devil.”
“I know. If he dies, it will be too bad.”
“But he volunteered. We didn’t make him, did we?”
“Don’t try to dodge responsibility, Leblanc. It won’t make you feel better. There isn’t one of us without a stronger motive to run the risk than he had.” And Stuart sat there silently, thinking.
Mullen felt the obstruction beneath his feet yield and the walls about him slip away quickly, too quickly. He knew it was the puff of air escaping, carrying him with it, and he dug arms and legs frantically against the wall to brake himself. Corpses were supposed to be flung well clear of the ship, but he was no corpse-for the moment.
His feet swung free and threshed. He heard the clunk of one magnetic boot against the hull just as the rest of his body puffed out like a tight cork under air pressure. He teetered dangerously at the lip of the hole in the ship -he had changed orientation suddenly and was looking down on it-then took a step backward as its lid came down of itself and fitted smoothly against the hull.