The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Space Flame, by Alexander M. Phillips
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Title: The Space Flame
Author: Alexander M. Phillips
Release Date: March 31, 2020 [EBook #61717]
Language: English
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THE SPACE FLAME
By ALEXANDER M. PHILLIPS
A rocketless hulk spinning helplessly through
uncharted heavens.... A derelict space-ship.
But within that Eternity-bound shell was even
greater peril. Fire--living, writhing,
horrible! Flame that hissed and coiled and
struck with jeweled tongues of Death.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Spring 1940.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Cargyle wiped away the blood from a flesh wound over one eye. The body
of a mutineer lay half across the threshold of the small cabin. They'd
gotten that close to him. They were out there in the corridors, the
mutineers, searching out the officers ... killing them.
Far off in the rocket ship a burst of firing broke out. A chorus of
wild yelling began, muted by distance and the intervening walls.
Cargyle listened intently; perhaps a stand was being made against the
crew! The sounds seemed to come from the control room. He hesitated,
staring through the heavy port in the hull at the still stars in the
blackness beyond. If there were officers still defending the pilot
room, his place was with them. But if the mutineers were in possession,
he'd be going to his death. With a shrug, he pressed a concealed button
set in the wall. A panel of the inner wall of the hull slid quietly
open. Tucking his blastor pistol into his belt, Cargyle crawled into
the space revealed.
All space cruisers were equipped with passages like this, known only to
the officers: in the long monotonous months in space tension between
men would sometimes sweep up to murderous frenzy, and mutinies were not
uncommon.
Mutiny on the _Denebola_ had been long coming. They were returning from
a three-year surveying and specimen-collecting expedition among the
asteroids. Sent out by the Cranford Foundation, they had outfitted in
the Martian colony of Tracolatown.
Loneliness and monotony change men queerly, undermine character
and sanity. And three years is a long time. Quarrels flared up and
became feuds. Between two members of the crew, Kalson and Wrymore, a
particularly bitter hatred developed.
The crew were permitted no weapons, but Kalson was found shot to death.
The crew and their quarters were searched by the officers. No weapons
were found. There are many places small side arms can be hidden in the
length of a ship.
Captain Wallace didn't confine Wrymore, for there was no definite proof
of his guilt. But he informed him he would be turned over for trial at
the first port reached.
Then there was the starboard-dorsal rocket jet, forever threatening
disintegration, which no amount of tinkering ever made right. At any
unusual sound the crew would freeze, their expressions set. Had that
jet gone at last?
But with all this Wallace could cope. A stern man, old in the service,
he was fully capable of controlling a crew unnerved by the ceaseless
watching of infinity. He strode through the ship, as stern and calm as
though in his office on Earth, holding the men to their duty, their
sanity.
But when the "flame of all colors" appeared....
* * * * *
The _Denebola_ pointed her sharp nose homeward; the frozen, dead lumps
of the asteroids dropped behind. A new and clearer expression found its
way to the faces of the crew.
And then Wrymore flung himself out of a storage compartment, where
he'd been sent for a replacement part during one of the interminable
repair jobs on the rocket jet. He dashed into the engine room, and the
astonished engineers dragged him from behind a convertor, a trembling
wreck of a man, near to madness. He told them Kalson's ghost was in the
storage cabin--he'd seen it, a crawling flame-like thing, in which all
the colors of the spectrum flickered and twined.
They put him in sick bay--and the next "day" an electrician calmly
reported to the officer on watch the presence of "a funny-colored
thing something like a slow flame" in the forward thermal chamber.
Investigation revealed nothing but the inexplicable presence of an
amount of hydrogen gas.
The ship seemed haunted. Men saw, or thought they saw, queer flames in
every corner. Captain Wallace wondered if they were all going mad. Only
he and Cargyle had yet to see the things. What was worse, things were
disappearing--tools, supplies, replacement parts. More hydrogen made
its appearance.
The effect of all this on the already teetering crew can be imagined.
Captain Wallace left the problem of the mysterious flames to Calvin
Markoe, the astrophysicist appointed by the Cranford people, and
devoted himself to keeping the crew in hand.
But for the first time Wallace found himself helpless to stem the
tide. The crew were too far gone, too fear-harried and space-crazy to
know reason or fear punishment. And when corroded-looking holes began
appearing in the walls of the ship, the mutiny burst out with all the
savageness and fury of madness long suppressed.
Cargyle, the second officer, charged by a yelling, wild-eyed mob of
crazy murderers, fought them coldly, shooting with deadly precision.
His slow retreat brought him to the little cabin, where his position
was almost impregnable, and which he knew connected through the secret
passage with the control cabin.
He grinned as he crawled along the passage. What would the mutineers
think when they charged the cabin and found it empty? They'd be sure
the ship was haunted.
It was black as the Coal-Sack in the low-ceilinged tunnel. When a dim,
elusive light began forming ahead of him, he first thought it a trick
of his eyes, but as the thing brightened Cargyle halted and stared in
amazement. At last he, too, was seeing one of the haunting flames.
In shape the thing did somewhat suggest a flame, but such a flame as
never seen before. It was a writhing mozaic of colors that twined and
faded one into the other. It curled as he watched, and the gleaming tip
bowed slowly until it touched the floor. The thing lay flat, pulsing
slowly with a gorgeous display of color.
Cargyle forgot the mutineers, the beleagured officers. In sheer
bewilderment he watched the deliberate, enigmatic movements of the
thing before him.
In all his wandering through the system he had never seen anything
like this. What was it? A phenomenon of space, heretofore unknown, or
was it--alive? The tip of the thing, bent to the floor, was moving
delicately in small circles, touching and retreating, almost in the
manner of a caterpillar on a leaf.
Cargyle was crouched on one knee. Abruptly his foot slipped, the heel
coming down hard on the metal floor. The resultant clangor in that
narrow tube was deafening. The flame-like entity sprang vibrantly
erect. A huge red bubble, swelling, emerged from somewhere within its
body and wound upward through vellicating strands of color. The thing
paused there, its inner wonder of radiant light in flickering, nervous
agitation. The tip, aloft again, twisted and writhed, once forming a
superb, faultless spiral of brilliant scarlet.
* * * * *
The next moment it was moving toward him, and Cargyle, who had faced
undaunted the thousand dangers, the unearthly foes of the spaceman,
found himself shaking with a resistless horror.
Furious at himself, he took deliberate aim, and fired.
If the slip of his foot had been thunderous, the sound that followed
the discharge of the blastor pistol was as that of worlds coming
together. The walls of the passage shivered to the detonation, so
terrific that an entrance door to the passage burst from its hinges,
and fell into the cabin on which it opened.
Deafened, and blinded by the sudden flash, Cargyle waited helplessly.
When his vision cleared he stared eagerly down the corridor. The
flame-thing was where he had seen it last, motionless, unharmed!
As he stared in astonishment a roll of emerald smoke seemed to eddy
under its surface, and it moved toward him. A recurrent wave of that
strange horror surged through Cargyle. What _was_ this thing? Was it
sentient--did it perceive and threaten him?
He thrust his pistol back in his belt--apparently it was useless
against whatever stood before him--and started grimly forward. The
thing waited, pale colors flowing fluidly through it. Suddenly it
seemed to thin and tower and in its middle a ring appeared--a ring of
dead black--and from that ring burst a blast of light; an intolerable,
blinding beam that flamed in the very core of Cargyle's brain. Agony
seared through him, rose to a piercing crescendo. Then a merciful
blackness engulfed him, and the second officer crumpled to the floor.
The flame-thing took up its incessant tapping and probing.
* * * * *
"Well," said Wallace. "We thought you were dead. What did they do to
you? There's no wound; apparently no injury. But you were as close to
death as a man can get, and still come back. What happened?"
Cargyle choked and coughed. His brain and chest were burning agony.
Dimly he struggled, and the flow of raw oxygen that was making him gasp
ceased. The pain in his head was going. As the space-helmet was pulled
off, he found himself regarding Captain Wallace and the astrophysicist,
Markoe. They helped him to his feet, held him while he wavered back and
forth unsteadily.
"The light--the light from the flame-thing," stammered Cargyle.
"It attacked you?" Markoe caught his arm. "How?"
"A light--a ray of some kind. Shot it into me. I was coming through
the starboard passage ... heard firing ... the mutineers ... where are
they? Where's the crew?"
"They've gone mad completely," said Wallace. "We held them off at the
pilot cabin--all the officers and a few loyal men are with me--and
after an hour or so they went away. Half hour later we saw them through
a port. They deserted in the two scouting rockets. What's left of the
crew must have crowded into the two small ships; we didn't find a
living man when we explored the ship. Except you. Where they expect to
go, God knows. With a normal crew of four the air in a scout rocket is
good for only about five days. Crowded they won't last two, and Mars is
it least a week away."
"How did you know that oxygen would bring me back?" asked Cargyle.
They had started back toward the pilot room.
"Didn't," replied Wallace. "Markoe and I were inspecting the ship--we
had to wear space-suits aft of the main air renewer. The whole stern of
the ship's riddled. These flame-things doing it, Markoe says. We've got
all the compartments closed off, but if he's right, the _Denebola's_
through. We found you on our way back. Looked as though you were
dead. But we tried the oxygen from one of the helmets on you, and it
eventually brought you around.
"What are they?" Cargyle asked. "These flames? Are they alive?"
"If they are," said Markoe, "they're like no kind of life ever known
before. They set up a powerful field of some kind. I've been studying
them back there in the stern. Trying to find out what they are." He
held up some equipment--coils, and a detector.
"I turned a blastor pistol on one," said Cargyle. "It was only ten feet
away--I couldn't have missed. And the thing never moved!"
A thunder of running feet brought the three men to a sudden halt. The
next instant a man charged out of a side passage. At sight of them he
halted and one glance at his face told them he was hopelessly insane.
His eyes blazed with madness, and a line of foam ringed his mouth. In
one hand he held a gun.
"Kalson!" he screamed at them. "He's following me! He's dead! I killed
him once! But he's here! I'm going to open the port and let the air
out! Then Kalson won't follow me. I'll kill him again! Then I won't see
him crawling ... and crawling...."
He wheeled and ran down the corridor.
"It's Wrymore!" gasped Captain Wallace. "I thought he'd gone with the
rest. Come on! We've got to stop him!"
The three raced down the corridor after the madman, who had disappeared
into the main passage leading to the 'midships airlock. They reached
the corridor together and wheeled into it. There at their feet lay
Wrymore--they almost fell over him.
Markoe turned the man over. "He's dead!" he exclaimed. "What could
have--"
"Fright, I suppose," said Wallace. "Look."
* * * * *
They followed his gaze along the corridor. There, on the deck in the
center of the passage, slender, mobile tip questing and probing, lay
one of the flame-things. Markoe and the captain drew their pistols, but
Cargyle, who had already one experience with these glowing enigmas,
seized their arms.
"It's no good," he whispered. "Come away. It's no good. You can't hurt
them."
"Well, by the Star of Saffta, I'm going to try," retorted Wallace,
and he swung up his gun. The next moment the cavernous passage-way
roared and trembled to the blaster's discharge, and the hissing uproar
was intensified as Markoe fired in turn. The flame-thing sprang
upright--grew longer--towered high above them.
"Run!" snapped Cargyle, diving into the side passage.
But the other two, struck with astonishment, stood where they were.
Cargyle, peering cautiously around the corner, saw that ominous,
dead-black ring in the flame-thing's middle.
Before he could draw back the intense and brilliant beam sprang out
of the black ring, but this time it struck at Wallace and Markoe, and
Cargyle, although momentarily blinded, was not subjected to the tearing
pain that had snuffed out his consciousness. When he could see again,
he perceived his companions sprawled on the deck--to all appearances,
dead. Their attacker was again pursuing its endless testing of the
floor.
Would the thing strike at him if he went to his companions' assistance?
Cargyle shrugged. He'd have to take that chance.
Cautiously he moved out into the passage. Except for a noticeable
increase in the rapidity of the pulsation of its shifting colors,
the flame-thing ignored him. As quietly as possible he dragged first
Captain Wallace and then the astrophysicist back into the shelter of
the side passage.
What in God's Name were these flame-things, Cargyle wondered. They
appeared to recognize and resent attack. They _must_ be alive! Where
had they come from, and was Markoe right? Were they slowly destroying
the _Denebola_?
But he had no time for such questions now. He ran back to the
space-suit, dropped when Wrymore had appeared, and got the helmet and
its oxygen tank. Captain Wallace looked lifeless; he was waxen-white
and unbreathing. But there was a faint heart-action. Cargyle thrust the
helmet over his head, and turned the flow-control.
He sat there an hour or more, and he thought the oxygen tank would have
emptied before Markoe showed signs of life.
Both men were still dazed when they entered the pilot room. While
Cargyle explained what had happened to them, and the manner of his own
survival, his glance noted the signs of battle. Blackened pits, marks
of blastor discharges, spattered the walls and furniture. Equipment had
been shattered by chance shots. The inner lens of one of the ports had
been drilled through the center, long cracks radiating from the spot.
It had been hastily repaired, fused together with _thurlite_.
Most of the men wore bloody bandages, and one lay unconscious. Chapman,
the chief pilot, was pacing nervously back and forth before the dead
control board; the other men were now dropping back into attitudes of
listless dejection.
"Why are we drifting?" Cargyle asked. The ship was silent,
vibrationless. All rockets were inoperative--they were sweeping
helplessly through space, undirected.
"Why?" growled Simms. "Because those crazy devils took as much fuel as
they could and then drained the tanks. We're falling into an orbit--"
"Speed?"
"Roughly ten per second. We were trying to contact Tracolatown, but the
mutineers smashed the hull plates. Parker and Swift are out on the hull
now, working on the plates."
"Then we're--"
"We're sunk, unless we can fix those plates and get a patrol ship out
to us."
* * * * *
A red light over the viso-set winked, and then glowed steadily.
Barfield, the viso operator, sprang to his control board and swiftly
manipulated switches and dials. The viso-screen remained blank, but
from the speaker came the familiar uproar produced by the vibrations
that flood space. Barfield swung the controls, seeking the wave-length
of the station at Tracolatown.
"Calling the _Denebola_," said the speaker, hollowly, a moment later.
"Calling the _Denebola_ ... where are you, _Denebola_? 3TRA45 calling.
Tracolatown calling the _Denebola_."
"They've got those hull plates working, Captain," cried Barfield.
"That's the Martian operator, Nunglon! This is the _Denebola_,
Nunglon!" he continued, speaking into the phone. "The _Denebola_
calling Tracolatown! A mutiny ... the crew deserted. They drained our
tanks and we're drifting. Here's our position--" He turned to Chapman.
"What is the position?"
The pilot began reading off the ship's co-ordinates. "Send him those.
They're some hours old, but they can start on them, and correct course
as soon as our present position is determined."
"Stop!" interrupted Markoe. "Wait a minute. We can't call a ship out
here. What about the flames?"
They looked at him. In the silence two men in space-suits entered the
cabin; stood still, surprised. "What's the matter?" asked one, crawling
from his suit. "The plates are working, ain't they? What's wrong?"
"What's the flames got to do with it?" demanded Simms. "To hell with
the flames! We can transfer to the patrol ship if the _Denebola's_
completely destroyed. We could even navigate her back in space-suits,
if she'll still move. Go on, Barfield, send our position."
"Mr. Simms," said Wallace, quietly, "I'll give the orders. We'll hear
Mr. Markoe's objection. What about the flames, sir?"
"Just this, Captain," said Markoe. "If we call a ship out here and
transfer to it, what's to stop these things from transfering, too? Any
ship that comes near us is done for, the same as the _Denebola_, unless
we find some way to destroy them."
"So you tell us," growled Simms. "And ask us to sacrifice our lives
on your guesses. I won't do it, I tell you! You don't know what these
things are, or where they came from. You know nothing about them."
"They came from the asteroids, I believe," replied Markoe. "Give me a
day or two more. There must be some way of destroying them. And have
you forgotten the oath you took? The oath of the spaceman, never to
return to port with an unknown disease that might become a plague?
These flames are included ... in the spirit of that oath, at least I
tell you we can't call a ship's crew out here, possibly to their death!"
"That's the answer," said Wallace, firmly. "We call no other ship until
these things are gone. Operator, tell Tracolatown we'll call them
later. Markoe, it's up to you now."
"I can't tell Nunglon the ship's full of funny-colored flames,"
protested Barfield. "He'll think we're all space-crazy!"
"Tell him we haven't our position--that we're working it out,"
instructed Wallace. "Tell him we're away off the ecliptic, and that it
will take time."
For the next three days they saw little of Markoe. He spent hours in
the airless stern of the ship, where he had set up a rough laboratory.
Occasionally he appeared to renew the oxygen tank of his helmet. A
glance at his face was sufficient. They asked him nothing.
Cargyle joined him frequently, and tried to be of assistance, but the
astrophysicist's experiments meant little to the second officer.
Once Markoe turned to him and said, tensely, "There's a wave-length, or
a modulation, that will break down their field. I know it! But how to
find it? How to find it in time!"
"Markoe," said Cargyle, "why haven't they attacked the control cabin?
It's the one compartment of the ship where you never see them. There
must be some reason."
Markoe looked at him a moment, then shook his head. "Chance, that's
all. They started in the tail of the ship, and they're working forward.
There's nothing in the pilot cabin to stop them. I've tried the
viso-set's wave-lengths. Doesn't bother them."
But, unreasonably, Cargyle clung to the belief that there was something
about the control cabin....
* * * * *
In the high vacuum of those airless cabins there was no diffusion of
light--the shadows were deep, ink-black. Through the jagged holes in
the hull--where holes in the inner and outer skin coincided--entered
faint star-light; on Markoe's table dim lights gleamed; and everywhere
the gorgeous colors of the flame-things flickered. It was a weird and
eerie setting: a suitable background for the incredible beings that
moved against it.
Danger was there also, which was the principle reason Cargyle spent
so much time there. Should Markoe be struck down by one of the
flame-things he might suffocate, if his oxygen tank was nearly empty,
or turned off by the fall, before anyone came to him.
But the flame-things paid them little attention. The men moved little,
and then slowly.
They watched them reproduce. A tiny branch flame would appear. At
first it would be ochre-colored, but as it lengthened it acquired the
prismatic character of its parent. Then, abruptly, it broke off, and
was a separate individual.
It was upon these "infant" flames that most of Markoe's experiments
were made--they were unable to discharge the paralyzing ray of their
parents, and they could be moved about by persuading them to mount a
loose piece of metal.
One cabin in the stern Cargyle avoided. It held the dead--a half dozen
bodies laid side by side, each under a white sheet. In the sharp mosaic
of pale light and deep shadow, these six glimmering shapes, austere
and rigid in the final stillness of death, struck a cold foreboding
into the beholder. Preserved in the airless cold of space, there was
something prophetic in their fixity.
On the third day the men closed off the last compartment. They were
confined now to the control room, unless they wished to visit Markoe's
laboratory, or roam the ship in space-suits.
The control cabin contained a separate plant for light, heat and
air-renewal. Batteries, and a small generator operated by its own motor
and tank of fuel, were banked beneath the floor. It constituted another
defense against mutineers.
Periodically Wallace took sights and computed their position. Simms
made no effort to relieve him. The chief officer had discarded coat and
cap; dark hair, uncombed, hung across his forehead. From beneath it his
shadowed eyes watched the captain sullenly.
Strain marked them all. Some sat in hopeless silence; others restlessly
paced the slow hours away. Parker, alone among those aboard the dying
_Denebola_, seemed unaffected. He busied himself repairing the damaged
equipment, devoting most of his time to the starboard dorsal rocket
timer, which resisted all his efforts. Although it sparked each time a
terminal was contacted, something inside the timer was out of order,
for it boiled and hissed.
Once Simms snarled at him: "Parker, you fool! Let it alone! What the
hell's the use of that now?"
Each compartment was separated from the adjoining one by an airlock,
left open when both compartments contained an atmosphere. As Markoe and
Cargyle emerged from the airlock they heard Simms' voice.
"--and we're desperate, Captain," he was saying. "You're got to call
Tracolatown and give them our position. Do you want us to die like
rats? How much longer will these batteries last? Perhaps it's too late
now. Let Markoe stay here and play with these things if he wants. I'm
not!"
"Mr. Simms, I've warned you once," said Wallace, sternly. "If you
forget yourself again, I shall place you under arrest."
"How do you know they will attack another ship, Captain Wallace?"
joined in Chapman. "I agree with Simms. We're sacrificing our lives for
a trifle. Even if they should transfer with us, the patrol ship that
picked us up could get back to Mars before they'd done much damage. Are
you going to kill us all to save a few holes in a patrol rocket's hull?"
Only one feeble light burned in the pilot cabin; the others were
extinguished to conserve power. Cargyle noticed the air had a thick,
dry taste to it.
* * * * *
"I can answer some of those questions, with your permission, sir,"
said Markoe, stepping forward. Wallace nodded. "Do you realize, Mr.
Chapman," continued Markoe, "what it would mean if we led these things
back to Mars? They reproduce; multiply where their food supply is
greatest. Can't you picture it? From Mars to Earth to Venus. And what
would they leave behind?"
"You know they're living things, and what their food supply is?"
demanded Chapman.
"They're not protoplasmic, but what's life? They're alive in the sense
we mean. They reproduce. Cargyle and I both have seen them. And as for
their food supply--yes, I can tell you definitely what it is.
"These things are not matter--they're pure energy. I've seen nothing
like it before. They're energy concentrated and undissipating--held
together somehow. And that energy behaves in a life-like manner. It
feeds on energy, and it grows.
"Call them earthworms of space. They break up matter--do something to
the big, complex atoms of the heavy elements to break them down. And
when they are done, the light, simple atoms are left--hydrogen, and
helium. That's what's happening to the _Denebola_--the earthworms of
space feed on the energy in the heavy atoms of her metal hull, and we
find traces of hydrogen. The rest of it drifts out into space. And that
will go on till there's no metal left. They haven't attacked living
things. Maybe they can't. But they'll never leave the _Denebola_ while
a shred of metal remains. Unless they can be destroyed or driven away
there's no hope for us."
"You mean--" began Chapman.
"I mean, sir, that we dare not call any ship to our assistance while
these things exist. I have found no way of destroying them. If we
lead them back to Mars, and they prove indestructible, we would doom
the system. They would be carried to every planet. And the planets
themselves are food for them."
"Mightn't other physicists succeed where you fail, Markoe?" asked
Chapman, with a sneer. "Maybe you're not as good as you think! We have
plenty of brilliant men in the labs and universities. They'd probably
lick these spaceworms in no time."
"There are many men more brilliant than myself," replied Markoe,
ignoring the sneer. "And if they can be destroyed those men would
find the way. But it would take time. Time! I am not in error about
that, Mr. Chapman. Barring a lucky accident it would take months of
experiment. Think of the loss of life that would precede their success!
And it's fully possible that they are indestructible. Lord, man! Will
you gamble the fate of our whole civilization just to save your own
skin? These flames are of disease of metal--maybe a disease of planets.
By our oath, we must find the cure--or not return!"
"Damned nonsense!" broke in Simms. "To hell with that stuff! Why
haven't these flames attacked the planets before, if they're all you
say? And if they've just come into the system we can't stop them.
They're probably on the planets already. What good will our death do?
I don't have to be a physicist to see that these things can live in
space. They don't need heat or air. They can go where they like--"
"That's where you're wrong, Mr. Simms," interrupted Markoe. "They can't
go where they like. It's true they need no atmosphere. But they do
need _food_! They can move through empty space only relatively short
distances; the force which holds them together consumes tremendous
quantities of energy. When the _Denebola_ is gone they will break up,
die, if you want to call it that, unless an asteroid or meteor is
within their reach. And they aren't new to the system, in my opinion.
I suppose they're as old on the asteroids as life is on Earth; older,
maybe, but they can't cross the enormous gulf between the asteroid belt
and the nearest planets, Mars and Jupiter."
"You're space crazy!" retorted Simms. "Why, in that length of time
they'd have reduced a quarter of matter a thousand times as great as
all the asteroids--"
"You forget the distances between the asteroids themselves. The normal
'death-rate' of the earthworms of space on the asteroids must be very
high. And their consumption of stone and ore is much slower; I've timed
them on samples we collected."
* * * * *
Simms shook his head, as though to clear it. His eyes were blood-shot
and wild, his face sullen. "I don't give a damn for all that! That's
just guessing. Maybe he's right and maybe he ain't. I say he's
space-crazy, and drunk on bad air. Earthworms of space! Hell! Talk and
talk and talk, while we're all dying! Barfield, get Tracolatown! We're
calling a patrol ship out to us. Go on, start your set!"
"Barfield, sit still!" Wallace's quiet voice was like the sharp edge of
a knife. "Mr. Simms, you are under arrest. Mr. Chapman, I remind you
that you are an officer. It should not be necessary. I have seen raw
apprentices who behaved better--"
Chapman made a move toward the captain, belligerently. But Simms was
before him. "Do you see that?" he cried, pointing wildly at a port
beyond which the cold stars gleamed. "Do you know what that is, out
there? It's death! Death, do you understand, you fool? And it's coming
in here--it's closing on us, while you stand bleating about--"
"He's right, and I'm with Simms," shouted Chapman, suddenly. "Captain
or no captain, we're calling Tracolatown, and the rest of you interfere
with us at your peril!"
A cold stillness, an awful sense of impending disaster grew in that
shadowy cabin. Only the captain moved, stepping a pace or two away.
His gray eyes under the thick, white brows, were gleaming coldly, and
his right hand hung suggestively near the holster at his hip. When he
spoke his voice rang with scorn. "Drop your weapons, both of you! You
disgrace the service! You are cowards!"
"Coward, am I? I'll show you, you old fool!" With the glint of madness
burning in his eyes, Simms swung his hand down to his holster, brought
it up holding a blastor pistol. Chapman's hand moved. The spell holding
Cargyle snapped and he sprang into action. Chapman was nearest him.
Cargyle swung from the hip--smashed his fist into the pilot's jaw. The
man went over backward; crashed on the floor; lay still. At the same
instant two brilliant flashes blazed almost as one in the gloom--two
thunderous detonations roared and echoed in the narrow cabin. Cargyle's
eyes sought the two principals in the swift drama.
For an incredibly protracted moment Simms and the captain stood staring
at each other, each bent slightly forward. Cargyle noticed abstractedly
that the force of the explosions of their guns had thrown their hands
up slightly.
Then Simms slowly straightened, stretched, stood tall as he could,
muscles straining. Abruptly he collapsed and fell in a limp and
lifeless heap upon the floor. Slow blood welled through the back of his
shirt.
"For Mr. Simms' death I shall take full responsibility, should I ever
be in a position to make a report of the occurrence," said Wallace, and
thrust his blastor pistol back in its holster. "Parker, Swift--remove
his body. And relieve Mr. Chapman of his pistol."
* * * * *
The slow hours crept by. Men no longer spoke. They sat apart, unmoving,
in the shadowed cabin. Markoe alone was absent--at work in his
laboratory in the stern; hopeless, but fighting to the last. Parker lay
sleeping peacefully.
The air was still, and faintly musty. Beyond the ports the stars
blazed. The ship was rolling slightly, and at long intervals the sun,
small with distance, rose sluggishly in the starboard ports, shot
shafts of brighter light into the cabin.
In the silence a clock's tick was loud, portentous--a funeral drum
attending the passing seconds. With a curse, one of the men got up and
stopped its ticking.
Cargyle was lost in a deep reverie, remembering Earth, his home, his
parents, green fields bright with spring foliage, the great cities
he had known, the mountains, seas. In his imagination he heard the
music of Earth, and saw the sunrise. It was very far away now, and
lost forever. But he had known the price the spaceman paid. He had no
regrets.
Into his line of vision crept a pale blur of light and his eyes focused
on it. It was a flame-thing--one of the earthworms of space. They had
at last invaded the pilot cabin. Idly he watched it. It was no more
than a foot in length--an "infant." It made a feeble glow against the
wall as it came slowly toward them, its tip moving like the tongue of a
snake.
Parker awoke, and made a small disturbance as he groaned, yawned, and
got up and helped himself to water and food. When he gathered his tools
and started for the recalcitrant rocket timer one of the anonymous
shapes in the shadow growled: "For Lord's sake!"
"Go to hell," said Parker, and crouched down over the timer.
Cargyle grinned. With so little time left--and to spend it on a broken
piece of machinery! But after all, maybe Parker's way was the sanest.
He was moving the manual control, and the timer crackled, and spat fat,
blue sparks.
The flame-thing suddenly recoiled, drew back as though stung.
Cautiously it advanced again; again sprang back. It rose upright, stood
weaving and swaying.
"You fool! Don't you know we're--"
"Sure I know!" Parker shut off the timer to turn and answer. "We're
going out! To hell with it! Sit there and cry about it, if you want!
But before I go I'll know what's wrong with this damned thing!"
The "infant" flame was advancing again.
Parker switched on the timer, and began his rhythmic movement of
the control. The instant the timer began its hissing little beat,
the "spaceworm" stopped, sprang erect, began twisting, winding. It
had approached quite close. A tiny sound came from it--a thin, high
squealing--the first sound Cargyle had ever heard them make.
Something strange was happening to the spaceworm. It had lost its
unity; its upper end was splitting up into fine threads of twisting
color that spread out, separated.
The squealing ceased; there was a final faint _pop!_ a brighter flash
of color, then the thing was gone!
Cargyle at first watched curiously, then with a growing intentness.
When the spaceworm vanished he sat staring. Slowly his eyes swung
around to the timer, mumbling feebly as Parker moved its control. It
spat its brisk, blue sparks.
And suddenly Cargyle got it! The timer ... Parker working on it hour
after hour ... and no spaceworms in the control cabin--no spaceworms in
the cabin till Parker slept, and the timer was still!
"Barfield!" he yelled, in a voice that brought the men to their feet.
"Send our position! We've won! We're going in!"
Lord, was there time? He grabbed up a space-helmet, switched on its
tiny set, and shouted into the speaker: "Come back, Markoe! I've found
it--the wave-length! Come back!"
* * * * *
It was simple, the way Markoe explained it later. The lucky accident,
the chance in a million, had happened. The field which the broken timer
built up when operated neutralized whatever force held the flame-things
together. The spaceworms could only retreat before that field; if they
were caught in it their cohesion vanished, and their energy fled--they
"died."
It was only necessary, Markoe said, to analyze and then amplify that
field; send it pulsing out into space. Most of the spaceworms would be
caught in it instantly, gathered, as they were, upon the _Denebola_.
If any were further out in space they would be driven back before the
field, or overtaken and destroyed.
The heavy hopelessness that had filled the control cabin vanished.
Lights went on. Barfield snapped on his set.
"The _Denebola_ ... calling Tracolatown. Calling 3TRA45 ... this is the
_Denebola_...." Strongly, urgently, the call went out.
"Can we last?" Cargyle asked.
"If we contact them quickly," replied Wallace. "At the worst, we
can hold out a while in space-suits. But we've got to pick up the
Tracolatown station soon."
Markoe and Parker set to work on the timer; Captain Wallace and Cargyle
checked and rechecked their position; everyone seemed to find something
to do. But all activity stopped, men stood motionless to listen, as
they heard it--faint at first, but swiftly stronger, clearer, even to
the tinge of anxiety in the voice.
"... where are you, _Denebola_? Report your position at once. We have
been calling you. What is your position, _Denebola_? Patrol rocket
ready to take off. Tracolatown calling the _Denebola_...."
The musty air seemed fresher as that voice echoed in the small control
room.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Space Flame, by Alexander M. Phillips
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