Ole Doc Methuselah Part 42

He went forward to the control room and was, as usual, startled by the dulcet tones of his audio recorder. It never seemed right to him that the Morgue should talk soprano and he'd never had it changed.

"There was a battle cruiser overhead eighteen minutes ago," said the Morgue complacently. "It dropped a bomb."

"Are you hurt?" said Ole Doc to the board.

"Oh, it didn't drop a bomb on me. It dropped a bomb on you."

"Dimensions and armament?"

"It isn't friendly," said the Morgue. "I recorded no data on it except hostility. Advice."

"O.K. What?"

"Turn on invisio screens and move me into the jungle cover."

Ole Doc threw off the switch. Even his ship was order- ing him around these days.

He turned to the remote control battle panel and punched the b.u.t.ton marked "Invisible" and a moment later a series of light-baffling planes, acting as reflectors for the ground below and so making the Morgue disap- pear from the outside except to detectors, hid them entire- ly. He rang "underweigh" so that Hippocrates would have

warning to grab something and, without seating himself in the control chair, shot the Morgue toward the only hole in the towering jungle trees, a thousand yards from her former location. Lights flashed as the force screen went out and then re-adjusted itself to the natural contour of the land- scape and obstacles. Ole Doc dusted his hands. The ship was safe for a moment. Now if that battle cruiser wanted to come low enough to prowl it would get a most frighten- ing surprise. Leaving the fire panel tuned to shoot down anything which did not clip back a friendly recognition signal, Ole Doc moved toward the salon.

But as he pa.s.sed a port something caught his eye. And it also caught the eye of the alert auto-turret on the starboard side. He heard the wheels spinning over his head as the single gun came down to bear on an object in the jungle and he only just made the battle panel to isolate the quadrant from fire.

There was a dead s.p.a.ceship in there.

Ole Doc checked both blasters and jumped out of the air lock. He went up to his boot tops in muck but floundered ahead toward the grisly thing.

It was crashed and well sunk in the mud and over it had grown a thick coating of slime from which fed count- less creepers and vines. It was not only dead. It was being buried by greedy life.

His s.p.a.ce boots clung magnetically to the hull as he pushed his way up through the slimy growths and then he was standing at a broken port which stared up at him like an eyeless socket. He stabbed a light into it. What had been an Earthman was tangled amongst the stanchions of a bunk. What had been another was crushed against a bulkhead. Small, furry things scuttled out of these homes as Ole Doc dropped down.

The ship had been there, probably, a year. It had ended its life from heavy explosive and had been skewered through and through by five charges.

Ole Doc burned through a jammed door, going forward to get to the control room. He stumbled over some litters of boxes and his playing light showed up their mildewed lettering:

Department of Agriculture.

Perishable.

Keep under Preservative Rays.

Horses.

Ole Doc frowned and picked his way through this

decaying litter. In the control room he found what seep- age and bacteria had left of the log. The ship was the Wanderho out of Boston, a tramp under charter to the government, delivering perishables, supplies and mail to Department of Agriculture Experimental Stations.

With sudden decision Ole Doc blew his way out through the bow and walked on logs back to the Morgue. He had headed for the only opening he had seen in the jungle wall ahead and that opening had been made by a killed ship.

He came back up through the air lock and opened all the switches on the battle panel except the screens.

"We can go now, master," said Hippocrates brightly.

"Scanner shows nothing to stop us."

"Shut that off and fix me a biological kit," said Ole Doc.

"You're not going?" gaped Hippocrates.

"According to article something or other when the majority of a human population on a planet is threatened a soldier has to stay on the job."

"But I said that," said Hippocrates.

"When?" said Ole Doc.

Hippocrates retreated hurriedly into the operating room and began to throw together the hundred and seventy-two items which made up a bacteriological kit and when he had them in cases on his back he shot after Ole Doc who was already a quarter of the way back to the compound.

Ole Doc walked up the steps of O'Hara's bungalow, thrust open the office door and walked in. O'Hara looked up and gaped.

"Why didn't you tell me?" snapped Ole Doc.

"You have an accident with some animal?" said O'Hara. "I heard some shots but I knew you were armed.

I thought-"

"About this jettisoned cargo!" said Ole Doc impatiently.

"What about it?" said O'Hara. "They just stacked it up and left."

"You saw them leave?"

"Well, no. The captain was in here telling me he was having trouble with his ship and when I saw they were gone in the morning I went over to see if he'd left our supplies in good shape and I found his cargo. It'd rained and the labels-"

"Was it scattered around?" demanded Ole Doc.

"Why would he scatter it around?" said O'Hara.

"What was the name of that ship?"

"The Wanderho," said O'Hara. "Same old tub. The only

one which ever comes. Undependable. She's about a month overdue now-"

"O'Hara, you won't see that ship again. She's lying over there in the jungle shot full of holes and her crew dead inside. You didn't hear a take-off a year ago. You heard a ship being shot to pieces."

O'Hara looked a little white. "But the cargo! It was all stacked up in a neat pile-"

"Precisely."

"You mean- I don't follow this!"