There was a movement as the passengers started towards the exits -that stopped as the general called out again.
'Not clear enough and not good enough, Lieutenant. I demand that...'
'You two,' Don ordered, jabbing his finger at the nearest crewmen. Take that man down and haul him to the engine-room.'
'You cannot do this, hear me - you cannot do this!' the general shouted, backing away, fists raised defensively.
The husky crewmen moved, one to each side - then pounced. The struggle was very brief, and a moment later they half carried the loudly protesting Briggs towards the door.
A thin man, with a large nose and crisp moustache, stepped forward as though to intervene, but stopped when the nearest crewmen started towards him. The rest of the passengers milled about and there was a worried mutter of voices.
'There may be a panic,' the Purser said in a low voice that only Don could hear.
'I know that, but we have no time for complicated explanations now. We'll have to move them out, quickly and quietly.' Don took a thoughtful look around the dininghall. 'We have about one crewman here for every ten passengers. I'll go ahead. You get by the door and tell them that the crewmen will show them the way. Break them up into groups like that, ten and one. The crewmen should have a calming influence. There are two elevators to the midpipe, so send alternate groups to the different elevators.'
'A very good idea, Captain...' But Don was gone before he could finish.
Don caught up with General Briggs and his attentive guards at the elevator.
'You will regret this,' Briggs said with icy fierceness when Don stepped in. He shrugged off the guards' hands as the door slid shut.
'I'm very sorry, General, but I had no other choice. This is an emergency and there was no time to argue. I hope that you will accept my apology...
'I will not. You have started this trouble, mister, and I intend to finish it. There are courts of law.'
'That's your choice,' Don answered as the elevator stopped and the door opened. Don and the crewmen held to rails on the elevator walls, but Briggs floundered helplessly in mid-air as his feet rose from the ground.
'Help the general, will you,' Don said.
With practised skill the spacemen grasped the general's arms and kicked off down the midpipe. Don followed, more slowly, and holding on to the rods as he went. He was not as used to free fall as they were. There was no gravity in the ship, but only the sensation of gravity caused by the rotation of the spacer. Here, in the midpipe at the axis of rotation, the centrifugal force was cancelled out.
The thick door of the engine-room swung open when they came up to it and the first engineer was waiting, as unsmiling as the general.
'Bringing passengers in here will interrupt our work. It is dangerous,' Holtz said.
'I'm sure of that,' Don answered, trying to calm him. 'But there will be plenty of crewmen to help. Post them at all the controls and danger points. It will be crowded and uncomfortable - but everyone will be alive.'
The first passengers began to arrive, some of them tumbling end over end, helpless in free fall. An elderly woman had a distinctly green complexion; she would probably be the first of very many. A crewman rushed a plastic sack to her before there was an accident.
The far wall, at the base of the engines, was filled by the shining control boards, but most of the space in between was free. There was not enough floor space for everyone, so they would have to float in the air. It would be crowded, messy and uncomfortable. Don got out before there were any more complaints.
When the next load of passengers arrived he rode back up in the empty elevator, sinking back to the floor as he reached the higher decks. He started for the control-room at a run. One problem had been licked, the passengers were safe, but the bigger problem remained. Automatically he looked at his watch and felt his skin crawl as he realized that there were only thirteen minutes left until the full force of the storm hit. Thirteen! He ran.
'Just about finished, Captain,' Chief Kurikka reported. He was bent over the open control console with a smoking soldering iron. Cables snaked out of it and crossed the floor to vanish through a hole that had been drilled in the metal wall. The Chief soldered the last connection and straightened up.
'It should work,' he said, and led the way to the washroom. 'We've got a couple of hand controllers in there, put them in plastic bags like you said, easiest way to waterproof them. And there's a monitor screen hooked into the stern pickup' They brushed by a man who was smearing a grey paste on to the frame of the open door.
'Silicone putty. The door will be waterproof now when it is closed into the putty seal. The air will exhaust through the vent while the room fills. The space-suit is there. I'm volunteering to man the station, Captain.'
'Very well. We have nine minutes left. Send the other men away as soon as they've finished. Is there any way to tell what the radiation count is while in here?'
Kurikka pointed at the monitor screen - which was one of the TV phones that had been ripped from its mounting and wired to the wall inside another plastic bag.
'The computer is displaying a readout in the bottom of the screen. Those numbers there, below the sun, are the radiation count on the Hoyle scale.'
'One point four, not too high yet - no, it just jumped to two point one.'
'Fringe of the storm. It's going to be pretty unhealthy in here soon. I think you better get going, sir.'
They were alone, the last technician had bolted for the safety of the engine-room. Six minutes to go.
'Seal up the suit for me, Chief, then move. That's an order.'
'But...!' the Chief was shocked.
'And no buts either. Your technical knowledge is far more important to the survival of the ship than my medical knowhow. And as commanding officer I order you below.'
Kurikka wasted no time in arguing then. He helped Don into the suit and sealed it. Don grabbed the Chiefs wrist and looked at his watch. Two minutes!
He almost shoved the man from the small room, then pushed on the door while the Chief pulled from the outside, struggling against the pressure of the putty in the jamb. The lock finally clicked home and the Chief ran. Don was alone. He turned the faucets full on in the sink and the shower: someone had plugged all the drains. The water burbled over the sink edge and splashed to the floor. He turned back to the monitor screen. The sun had shifted from the crosshairs on the centre and he fired the jet to realign it before he glanced at the numbers below.
2.8.
The storm was growing in violence. The sun drifted off centre and Don automatically made the correct adjustments. It looked so small and unimpressive on the TV screen, a glowing ball more than 100 million miles away. Yet a storm was raging there now, sending up immense flares of burning gas heated to over six million degrees centigrade. The figure was too big to be grasped. But the reality could be understood easily enough. First radio waves, and then X-rays had been hurled out by the explosions, and had passed the Earth just eight minutes later. They carried their warning that the expanding cloud of burning plasma was on the way. Minutes later the storm of high energy protons had arrived, the first fringes of the violence to come. Then, some hours after this, the low energy protons followed, the very fury of the storm itself. Accelerated particles that could burn and kill... Don looked away from the imaged sun and the rising radiation count, to the water that now lapped as high as his ankles.
It wasn't rising fast enough.
And the count was up to 3.2 now. The metal walls of the ship still offered him some protection, but just barely. He wondered if the others were all safe in the engine-room. There was a radio switch on the side of his helmet, but when he flicked it he heard only static. Of course, the suit radio would be useless inside this room, where the walls would stop any signal. And, in the last minutes' rush, no one had thought to hook up a telephone circuit. He was alone, cut off.