The Star Lord Part 11

"Don't know, sir. Nothing serious, or the alarm lights would be on."

"Come with me."

He flung open the door of the Captain's cabin. It was empty. Stacey was not in the anteroom, and the inner cabin was silent. The water carafe had been turned over on the desk, and a few papers lay scattered on the floor.

"They might be in Operations, sir."

"Show me the way!" They raced down the corridors, past the open door of the room where dancers still swayed and the orchestra still played.

Through a hall, down an escalator, down, down, to the center of the ship.

Jasperson paused. "You needn't wait, Davis. But I may want you again.

I'll let you know."

Pushing aside the crewmen who stood guard at the door, he rushed into the room.

"Josiah! What was that shock? I demand to know what's happened!"

Evans threw him a glance of pure, intense hatred, and then resumed his questioning of Chief Wyman.

"You say Number Ten just let go?"

"Not exactly, sir. For a couple of hours or so after we resumed speed, it stayed steady. All of a sudden, it started to climb. They called me, but by the time I got there it was already at critical level. We put in more dampers, but it kept going up and up, and I thought it might vaporize any minute. I hadn't any choice, sir. There wasn't time to call you and get orders. I had to drop it."

"Certainly. I'm not criticizing you. But there's one thing we hadn't counted on. Chief Thayer says Pile Ten took lifeboat C along with it."

"But how could that happen?"

"Boat C was just above, you remember. The heat triggered the release mechanism, and the boat launched itself into s.p.a.ce."

Jasperson interrupted, trying to speak calmly. "What's happened? Tell me what's wrong?"

"We've hit the imaginary Thakura Ripples," Evans said savagely, "and they're tearing us apart!"

The plump soft body of Burl Jasperson seemed to deflate. The truculence drained from his face, leaving his skin a dirty white as he whispered, "Then the Thakura Ripples _are_ real? And we're in danger?"

The Captain's laugh was bitter. "What do _you_ think? Don't you want to give me the benefit of your advice now?"

Again the door burst open, and a crewman ran in.

"Captain Evans, sir. Piles Fourteen and Fifteen have started to heat.

They're already at critical level."

"Dump them!"

The phone buzzed, and Evans listened with a face which was turning a graveyard gray.

"If you can hold them down, keep them. If they pa.s.s the critical point, shoot them away." Turning, he looked straight into the dilated eyes of Jasperson, and spoke as if every word were a knife thrusting into the pudgy body.

"Every one of the Piles is starting to heat. Every last one. One life boat is lost. That means fifteen hundred people to be crowded into five little boats!"

"What are you going to do?" croaked the little man.

"I've already reduced speed. I've sent out and am still sending out calls for help, over phase wave. We'll shift to normal s.p.a.ce, and we'll launch the lifeboats as soon as they can be provisioned and loaded. And then we'll pray. And now, Burl Jasperson, how do you like the Thakura Ripples?"

Bracing himself against the desk, Burl tried to smile. "If there's any way I can help, of course, just let me know." With a feeble attempt at jauntiness, he staggered out of the cabin.

Opening the long-closed shutter of the observation port, Captain Evans could see the suns of normal s.p.a.ce glittering in the blackness about the ship, unfamiliar and alien. Before the shift to normal s.p.a.ce he had sent out SOS calls throughout the galaxy, but he had not waited for any replies before shifting. He could not know whether the calls had been heard, or even whether there were any ships close enough to send help after hearing the calls. He hoped, with all his being, that they had come out in a region of inhabited planet systems, in a regular shipping lane, so that his pa.s.sengers could be picked up and taken to port--any port.

He kept his line open to Operations, and every minute or so Wyman spoke to him, giving the data on the climbing piles. Ten had been jettisoned in hypers.p.a.ce, and so had Fourteen and Fifteen. Since their shift to normal s.p.a.ce, it had been necessary also to detach the entire bank of Nineteen, Twenty, and Twenty-one, whose index had risen at a terrifying rate.

Wyman's voice spoke in his ear. "One, Two, and Three are climbing fast, sir."

"Shoot them away!"

"No good, sir. I've tried. The release mechanism has fused, and those three Piles are welded to the ship!"

Evans closed his eyes. That meant that the life of the ship was doomed.

There would be no way to save her. But the pa.s.sengers could still be saved, if they got away soon enough, before the three Piles vaporized.

"Wyman!" he whispered despairingly, "is there any single Pile that isn't heating?"

"No, sir."

"Is there any single Pile that's responding to your dampers?"

"No, sir, not one."

"Then, in your experience, they are all bound to go, sooner or later?"

"I've never seen anything like this in my experience, sir. It looks bad."

The door opened, and Jasperson slunk in. His skin had lost its cushioning, gray folds sagged under his cheek bones, and black hollows outlined his glittering blue eyes. The Captain ignored him, and spoke into the phone.

"Very well. In exactly fifteen minutes I shall sound the alarm and we'll abandon ship. I can't take a chance on waiting any longer. Keep a skeleton crew at work on those Piles to hold them down as much as possible, and have all other crewmen report to their lifeboat stations."

"Right, sir. But Boat C has gone, you remember. When we dumped Pile Ten."

"Yes. Distribute her pa.s.sengers among the remaining boats."

He turned to look at Jasperson, who was shivering as though he were freezing.

"Is there no hope, Josiah? Is this the end?"

"The end of the _Star Lord_, yes. I hope to save the pa.s.sengers. You heard me. In fifteen minutes all preparations should be finished, then I sound the alarm. Don't worry, Burl. There's room enough for everybody, your skin is safe."

"But won't the lifeboats be horribly crowded?"