"Ah, ha!" McConnell thundered toward the door. "So 'tis cannin' me ye are, ye treacherous Black-an'-Tanners! We'll see about that!"
"Look out!" screamed Emily. "Look out, Rory! It's hot!"
A torrent of Gaelic oaths, which made Claus gape in awe, informed her that McConnell had discovered this for himself. Herr Syrup played the flame up and down and crossways. A tommy gun rattled on the other side, but the Girl, though old, was of good solid construction, and nothing happened but a nasty spang of ricochet.
"Don't!" pleaded Emily. "Don't, Rory! You'll kill yourself ! Oh, Rory, be careful!"
Herr Syrup cut off his torch, slapped back his helmet, and looked with enormous self-congratulation at the slowly cooling seams. "Dere, now," he said. "Dat's dat!"
Claus squawked. The engineer turned around just in time to see his bunk blankets spring up in flame. Emily leaned against the wall and cried through smoke and fire extinguisher fumes: "Rory, Rory! Are you all right, Rory?"
"Oh, yes, I'm alive," growled the voice behind the panels. "It pleases ye better to let me thirst an' starve to death in here than kill me honestly, eh?"
"Ou ma Dial" gasped the girl. "I didn't think of that!" "Yes, yes. Tell it to the King's marines."
"Just a minute!" she begged, frantic. "Just a minute and I'll get you out! Rory, I swear I never—Look out, I'll have to cut the door open—"
Herr Syrup dropped the plastifoam extinguisher and clapped a hand on her wrist as she picked up the
torch. "Vat you ban doing?" he yelped.
"I've got to release him!" cried Emily. "We've got to! He hasn't anything in there to keep him alive!" Herr Syrup gave her a long stare. "So you t'ink his life is vort' more dan all de folk vat maybe get killed if dere is a var, huh?" he asked slowly.
"Yes … no … oh, I don't know!" sobbed the girl, struggling in his grasp and kicking at his ankles. "We've got to let him out, that's all!"
"Now vait, vait yust a minute. I t'ought of dis problem right avay. It is not so hard. Dere is ventilator shafts running all t'rough de ship, maybe ten centimeters diameter. Ve yust unscrew a fan in vun and drop down cans of space rations to him. And a can opener, natural. It vill not hurt him to eat cold beans and drink beer for a vile. He has also got a bat'room in dere, and I t'ink a pack of cards. He vill be okay."
"Oh, thank God!" whispered Emily.
She put her lips close to the door and called: "Did you hear that, Rory? We'll send you food through the ventilator. And don't worry about it being just cold beans. I mean, I'll make you nice hot lunches and wrap them well so you can get them intact. I'm not a bad cook, Rory, honestly, I'll prove it to you. Oh, and do you have a razor? Otherwise I'll find one for you. I mean, you don't want to come out all bristly - I mean—oh, never mind!"
"So," rumbled the prisoner. "Yes, I heard." Suddenly he shouted with laughter. "Ah, t'is sweet of yez, darlin", but it won't be needful. Ye'll be releasin" me in a day or two at the most."
Herr Syrup started and glared at the door. "Vat's dat?" he snapped.
"Why, t'is simple 'tis. For the lifeboats are down on Grendel, an' even the propulsive units of every spacesuit aboard, not to speak of the radio an' radar, an' the spare electrical parts is all in here with me. An' so, for the matter of it, is the engines. Ye can't get the King's help, ye can't even get back to ground, without a by-your-leave from me. So I'll expect ye to open the door in as few hours as it takes for that fact to sink home into the square head of yez. Haw, haw, haw!"
"Det var some fanden," said the engineer. "What?"
"De hell you say. I got to look into dis." Herr Syrup scurried from the cabin, his nightgown flapping about his hairy shanks and the forgotten fire extinguisher still jetting plasti-foam on the floor behind him.
"Oh, dear." Emily wrung her hands. "We just don't have any luck."
McConnell's voice came back: "Never mind, macushla, for I heard how ye feared for me life, an' that at a moment whin ye thought ye'd the upper hand. So 'tis humbly I ask your pardon for all I said earlier this night. 'Twas a good trick ye've played on me now, even if it did not work, an' many a long winter evenin' we'll while away in after years a-laughin' at it."
"Oh, Rory!" breathed Emily, leaning against the door. "Oh, Emily!" breathed McConnell on his side.
"Rory!" whispered the girl, closing her eyes.
The unnoticed plastifoam crept up toward her ears.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Sarmishkidu slithered into the Number Three hold and found Herr Syrup huddled gloomily beneath one of the enormous beer casks. He had a mug in one hand and the tap of the keg in the other. Claus perched on a rack muttering: "Damn Rory McConnell. Damn anybody who von't damn Rory McConnell. Damn anybody who von't sit up all night damning Rory McConnell."
"Oh, there you are," said the Martian. "Your breakfast has gotten cold."
"I don't vant no breakfast," said Herr Syrup. He tossed off his mug and tapped it full again. "Not even after your triumph last watch?"
"Vat good is a triumph ven I ain't triumphant? I have sealed him into de engine room, ja, vich is to say ve can't move de ship from dis orbit. You see, de polarity reverser vich I installed on de geegee lines, to give us veight, is in dere vit' him, and ve can't travel till it has been taken out again. So ve can't go direct to New Vinshester ourselves. And he has also de electrical parts locked up vit' him."
"I have never sullied my mathematics with any attempt at a merely practical application," said Sarmishkidu piously, "but I have studied electromagnetic theory and it would appear upon integration of the Maxwell equations that you could rip out wires here and there, machine the bar and plate metal stored for repair work in the shop, and thus improvise an oscillator."
"Sure," said Herr Syrup. "Dat is easy. But remember, New Vinshester is about ten t'ousand kilometers avay. Any little laboratory model powered yust off a 220-volt line to some cabin, is not going to carry a broadcast dat far. At least, not vun vich has a reasonable shance of being noticed dere in all de cosmic noise. I do have access to some powerful batteries. By discharging dem very quick, ve can send a strong signaclass="underline" but short-lived, so it is not likely in so little a time dat anyvun on de capital asteroid is listening in on dat particular vave-length. For you see, vit'out de calibrated standards and meters vich McConnell has, I cannot control de frequency vich no vun of New Vinshester's small population uses or is tuned in on."
He sighed. "No, I have spent de night trying to figure out somet'ing, and all I get is de answer I had before. To make an S.O.S. dat vill have any measurable shance of being heard, ve shall have to have good cable, good impedances, meters and so on—vich McConnell is now sitting on. Or else ve shall have to run for a long time t'rough many unknown fre-quencies, to be sure of getting at least vun vich will be heard; and for dat ve shall have to use de enshine room g'enerator, vich McConnell is also sitting on."
"He is?" Sarmishkidu brightened. "But it puts out a good many thousands of volts, doesn't it?"
"I vas speaking figurative, damn de luck." Herr Syrup put the beer mug to his lips, lifted his mustache out of the way with a practiced forefinger, and bobbed his Adam's apple for a while.
Sarmishkidu folded his walking tentacles and let down his bulbous body. He waggled his ears, rolled his eyeballs, and protested: "But we can't give up yet! We just can't. Here iss all dis beautiful beer that I could sell at fifty percent profit, even if I have the pretzels und popcorn free. And what good is it doing? None!"
"Oh, I vouldn't say dat," answered Herr Syrup, a trifle blearily, and drew another mugful.