It was held from closing by Captain Kardyd's body.
The Captains eyes were open, blue and empty and frozen, staring at them. There was a fixed expression of anger on his face, as though he were annoyed at them for not reaching him in time. Don looked away from those accusing eyes and turned his key in the lock. The door slid open and they stepped inside, their feet soundlessly slapping the metal decking in the vacuum.
The events of the tragedy could be read with terrible clarity from the huddle of bodies by the door. The men nearest the exit had tried to reach it when the accident had occurred. Yet, even as they had battled for their own lives, the officers and men had seen to it that the Captain went first. He was the most important man aboard. Two of the men had their fingers still curled where they had grabbed the door and tried to stop it from closing on him. The First Mate's key was in his fingers. He had tried to insert it into the override lock.
They had all failed.
They had all died.
As had everyone else in the room. The bodies were heaped in frozen profusion, curled in final agonies. Don went and looked down at the ruin of the communicator station. The large radio was wrecked and twisted, and flying gobbets of molten metal had splattered in all directions. When he bent over he could see down through the hole, as big as a fist, that penetrated the insulation, the water chamber and the hull. Stars moved by in the darkness at the other end. Turning, he looked at the hole the meteorite had made in the opposite bulkhead as it tore on in its path of destruction. There was nothing he could do here with the dead. He would have to care for the living. As he turned to go he saw Electricians Mate Gold waving to him. They walked close and touched helmets.
'Can you get a patch on that hole?' Don asked, his voice carried by the vibration of helmet to helmet.
'Sure, that's easy enough, Doc. There are temporaries here that will work until the hull gang can get outside and make repairs. But that's not what is important'
'What do you mean?'
'Look at all these bodies. Too many. There shouldn't be this many guys in control at the same time. And look at all the gold braid.'
Working swiftly, numbed by the same fear, they turned over the dead men and looked at their faces. When they touched helmets again it was Don who spoke for both of them.
'The Captain must have been having a meeting of his officers. They're all here, every one of them.'
Gold nodded in solemn agreement, his helmet sliding across the other as he moved his head.
'Every deck officer,' he said. 'And even the second engineer. Which means you better cross your fingers, Doc, that we find First Engineer Holtz. And that he is in the green.'
'You can't mean...'
'It's true, Doc. If the First Engineer is dead, or even hurt, you are the only officer left aboard.
'You'll be in charge of this ship.'
There was nothing for a doctor to do in the control-room. A damage-control party was pushing their way in and, as soon as they had cleared the doorway, Don made his way back to the pressurized section of the ship. A temporary airlock had been fastened to the door at the top of the stairwell and he cycled through it. As the pressure hit the valve on his chest the metal cover in the front of his helmet popped open and he was breathing the ships atmosphere again. He went to the nearest viewer, checked the directory posted beside it, then dialled for Damage Control. The line was engaged, but the flashing green light indicated that his call was being held and he would be connected as soon as possible.
Don shifted his weight impatiently from leg to leg. This was not quite the kind of a voyage he had expected. There was supposed to be very little glamour or adventure in the space service these days. Many young doctors, fresh out of medical school as he was, served a hitch on the spacers while they made up their minds as to their future. There were many good positions opened for doctors on the satellite stations and the planetary bases. This was a good way to look at them before coming to a decision. It was also a pleasant change after the years of medical school. Pleasant! He had to smile at his reflected image in the phone screen - just as the call signal chimed.
'Doctor Chase here,' he said to the harried petty officer who swam into focus on the small screen.
'Got some business for you, Doc. Worst one of them seems to be lying outside of compartment 32B. If you go there I'll have the information on the others waiting for you.'
'Positive. Out.'
He ran. In accidents minutes, even seconds, can mean the difference between life and death.
A grey-haired man was lying in the corridor in front of 32B and a young girl was bending over him. She was wearing a yellow playsuit - with only one sleeve. When she moved aside he saw that she had torn it off and wadded it up to make a bandage for the side of the man's face. It was stained red with blood.
'I didn't move him or anything, Doctor, just tried to stop the bleeding. That's all.'
'You did fine,' he said, kneeling and snapping open his case.
The first thing he did was push the recording tell-tale against the man's flaccid wrist. The bands slipped out and automatically clamped the instrument into place. The dials quivered to life and Don saw that the patient's blood-pressure was low, his pulse weak, his temperature normal, his skin cold and clammy. Shock. That was only to be expected. He slipped out a spray hypodermic, that shot the anti-shock drug through the man's skin without making a puncture, before looking at the wound. When he did lift off the makeshift bandage he saw that it was far less serious than the girl had imagined. The wound was superficial, just a jagged tear in the skin. But there was so much bleeding that it had looked bad to her untrained eye. He sprayed the wound with dermafoam. It would stiffen and prevent further bleeding until he could treat the patient in the operating room.
'He'll be all right,' Don said. 'Were you with him when it happened? Are you injured yourself?'
'No, I'm fine. I just came down the corridor and found him like this. Just lying there in the pool of blood. After I put the bandage on and made the call for help I noticed that thing in the wall. But I have no idea how it got there.'
She pointed to a j agged chunk of metal that was embedded in the corridor wall opposite compartment 32B. The red light was on next to the sealed door.
'It was just bad luck,' Don said. 'There was an explosion in that compartment just as he was passing and that piece of metal must have come through the door and hit him.' He did not add that the metal was from the passage of the meteorite and that the compartment was now airless. The metal must have exploded out through the doorway before it automatically closed.
Announcement chimes sounded from the speaker in the corridor, and would be heard at the same time in every compartment in the great ship. There was a pause, then someone coughed and began speaking.
'Attention, please. This is First Engineer Holtz speaking. I have been asked to inform everyone aboard, passengers and crew, that this spacer has had an accident. We have been struck by a meteorite.'
The girl gasped with shock and raised her hands before her face.
'It's all right,' Don said quickly. 'There is no danger. A few compartments were holed, but they are already sealed off.' He thought to himself that Holtz might be a good engineer but he knew nothing at all about people to make a frightening statement like this one. The amplified voice continued.
'I am informed by Damage Control that the holed compartments have been sealed off and repairs are being made. Passengers are ordered to remain in their cabins or wherever they are now, and should not move about. The crewmen are doing their work and you will only interfere with them. That is all.'