Arkady hopped forward. His hard fist swung with all of his weight, caught Sonny on the side of the neck, knocking him to the floor. The three men fell on the writhing body, pummelling and kicking it, mouthing inarticulate sounds.
Captain Hegg ground his heel deep into the prostrate man's side just once before he realized who he was and what he was doing. He reeled away, then turned back to shout to the other two men. They did not hear him and kept on grimly at what they were doing. Pulling at them did no good either so he had to stop Arkady with a paralysing judo blow and drag the little professor over to his bunk and hold him there until he stopped struggling.
'Let me have the key to the medical supplies,' he said, when he saw that Robson was finally listening.
No one ever discussed the affairs of that night, except for the needed mechanical details of cleaning up the damage. Sonny Greer lay for three days in his bunk, bandaged and silent, closing his eyes when anyone came near. Arkady's burns were bandaged and he hobbled around the dome doing the minor maintenance work that he was capable of. Captain Hegg broke into fits of exhausting coughing if he did anything strenuous. Prof. Robson, though unmarked physically, seemed to have shrunk and his skin hung loosely. The three men kept very much to themselves, and when they talked did so in low voices.
It would be thirteen weeks before the relief ship arrived.
On the fourth day Sonny Greer climbed out of his bunk. Except for his bruised face and the bandages he seemed fit for duty.
'Is there anything I can do?' he asked.
Arkady and Robson turned away when he spoke. Hegg forced himself to answer.
'Just one thing. Arkady can't get into a suit, so you will have to go out with me once to get some more samples. After that you will be relieved of duty. You will stay in or near your bunk. You will touch none of the controls or equipment. Your meals will be brought to you.'
After that no one talked to Sonny, even when they handed him his food. The tension in the small dome grew worse with every passing day and Hegg wondered how long it would be before something really snapped.
Sonny had stumbled once, on his way from his bunk to the toilet cubby, and accidentally leaned on the air control console. Arkady had hit him once, knocking him halfway across the room. Hegg had been putting off the trip for the samples, but he finally forced himself to schedule it Perhaps getting the man away from the others for a while would help.
'We are going after the ore samples tomorrow,' he announced to the room in general. The silence that followed was deadly.
'Let me check out your suit for you, Captain,' Arkady finally said.
'I'll help him.' Robson climbed to his feet. 'With two checking there are no errors. It's better that way.'
Hegg let them go. It was that way all the time now, the three of them checking and counter-checking each other, almost living in panic with their awareness of the manifold dooms that the planet held in store for them. Captain Hegg did not know how this situation could remain static for three full months. When the two men emerged from the lock chamber, he realized that Sonny was looking at him.
'Can I check my suit. Captain?' he asked. Neither of the men had gone near Greer's suit. It was as though he didn't exist.
'Go ahead,' Hegg said, then followed him through the door and watched his every move. It was a compulsive action he could not have resisted if he had wanted to.
The morning was worse. Sonny was forced to fumble into his suit by himself since the men ignored him, while at the same time they insisted on going through Captain Hegg's checklist three times before they were satisfied. The inner door had actually been closed before Hegg could force himself to go over to the man, to run through the checklist with him. To touch Sonny's suit seemed repellent.
'One,' Sonny said. 'Spare oxy tank full.'
'One,' Hegg repeated, and with an effort of will drove his fingers to tap the hated metal. They went slowly down the list.
"Thirteen, bleed valve.'
'Thirteen, closed.' And Heggs' fingers went out and felt the closed valve . . . then spun it open a half turn.
'Wait! There, it's all right.'
He sealed the valve again with palsied hands.
What had possessed him, he thought as they left the lock and trudged slowly towards the distant hills? Why had he done that? He had not willed it. He would not kill Sonny, though he knew the man would be better off dead, before he did something that killed them all.
It was that simple. Sonny Greer was a menace. No longer a friend, he was in league with the planet, joined in battle against them. That was why the other two men shunned him like a Jonah. He was a Jonah. Worse than a Jonah. He was linked with the omnipresent powers that ought to destroy them, and they must both feel, as he did, that Greer would be better off dead.
At that moment Sonny Greer let go of his end of the sample case, stumbled and fell.
Hegg looked on, stunned, as he writhed on the ground, :! awing silently at his helmet. Sonny's suit speaker was cut off and only muffled sounds came through the thick armour. Hegg bent over him, uncomprehending, as the man's body arched like a bow and collapsed. Hegg rolled him over and looked through the faceplate at the dead, tortured face.
His instant sympathy was overwhelmed by a feeling of immense relief.
Sonny seemed to have been killed by poisoning from the atmosphere. But how could it have entered his suit? There could be no leaks in the armour. Hegg would swear to that; he had checked it thoroughly himself. Then he remembered his traitor fingers at the bleed valve and he quickly tried it. No, it was sealed.
Or was it? The handle was right to the top and vertical —but wasn't there too much thread showing? Hegg turned the limp body until the sun shone directly into the mouth of the valve.
It was jammed half open by a particle of metal. The air in the suit would be forced out by the greater internal pressure, and when the pressure dropped the outside atmosphere would leak in. Had leaked in; because Sonny Greer was completely and finally dead.
Again the wave of relaxation swept over the captain, and it carried with it a tiny, nagging question.
How had the metal gotten into the valve? By accident? A lucky accident that made it lodge in exactly such a way that the valve handle would look shut and feel shut—even though it was open?
'Cause of death, accidental,' Captain Hegg said, louder than he had intended, as he climbed to his feet and cleaned the alien dust from his hands, then rubbed them on his legs to cleanse them again.
'It had to be an accident. I can't very well list you as suicide,' he said to the unmoving body. 'It really should be self-defence, or justified homicide or something. But I can't say that, can I, Sonny?'
Now that death had removed the threat, he could feel for the first time the compassion that had been buried by his urge for survival.
'I'm sorry, Sonny,' he whispered gently, and touched the lifeless shoulder. 'You just shouldn't have been out here. I wish for all our sakes we had found that out earlier.
'Mostly for your sake though,' he said, rising. Then in a firmer voice. 'I better get back to the dome, straighten this mess out. . . .'
Beginning the long process of forgetting.