Let 'Em Breathe Space! Page 4

Sorry. It's this air--so stuffy. I can't breathe. I can't seeright--"

  Pietro and I exchanged glances, but I guess we weren't surprised.Among intelligent people on a ship of that size, secrets wouldn'tkeep. They'd all put bits together and got part of the answer. Pietroshrugged, and half stood up to make an announcement.

  * * * * *

  "Beg pardon, sirs." We jerked our heads around to see Bullard standingin the doorway.

  He was scared stiff, and his words got stuck in his throat. Then hefound his voice again. "I heard as how Hendrix went crazy and poisonedthe plants and went and killed himself and we'll all die if we don'tfind some trick, and what I want to know, please, sirs, is are whatthey're saying right and you know all kinds of tricks and can you saveus because I can't go on like this not knowing and hearing themtalking outside the galley and none of them telling me--"

  Lomax cut into his flood of words. "You'll live, Bullard. FarmerHendrix did get killed in an accident to some of the plants, but we'vestill got air enough. Captain Muller has asked the help of a few ofus, but it's only a temporary emergency."

  Bullard stared at him, and slowly some of the fear left hisface--though not all of it. He turned and left with a curt bow of hishead, while Pietro added a few details that weren't exactly lies toLomax's hasty cover-up, along with a grateful glance at the chemist.It seemed to work, for the time being--at least enough for Riggs tobegin making nasty remarks about cooked paste.

  Then the tension began to build again. I don't think any of the crewtalked to any of our group. And yet, there seemed to be a chain ofrumor that exchanged bits of information. Only the crew could haveseen the dead plants being carried down to our refuse breakdown plant;and the fact it was chromazone poisoning must have been deduced from adescription by some of our group. At any rate, both groups knew allabout it--and a little bit more, as was usual with rumors--by thesecond day.

  Muller should have made the news official, but he only issued anannouncement that the danger was over. When Peters, ourradioman-navigator, found Sam and Phil Riggs smoking and dressed themdown, it didn't make Muller's words seem too convincing. I guessedthat Muller had other things on his mind; at least he wasn't in hiscabin much, and I didn't see Jenny for two whole days.

  My nerves were as jumpy as those of the rest. It isn't too bad cuttingout smoking; a man can stand imagining the air is getting stale; butwhen every unconscious gesture toward cigarettes that aren't therereminds him of the air, and when every imagined stale stench makes himwant a cigarette to relax, it gets a little rough.

  Maybe that's why I was in a completely rotten mood when I finally didspot Jenny going down the passage, with the tight coveralls she waswearing emphasizing every motion of her hips. I grabbed her and swungher around. "Hi, stranger. Got time for a word?"

  She sort of brushed my hand off her arm, but didn't seem to mind it."Why, I guess so, Paul. A little time. Captain Muller's watching the'ponics."

  "Good," I said, trying to forget Muller. "Let's make it a little moreprivate than this, though. Come on in."

  She lifted an eyebrow at the open door of my cabin, made with a littlegiggle, and stepped inside. I followed her, and kicked the door shut.She reached for it, but I had my back against it.

  "Paul!" She tried to get around me, but I wasn't having any. I pushedher back onto the only seat in the room, which was the bunk. She gotup like a spring uncoiling. "Paul Tremaine, you open that door. Youknow better than that. Paul, please!"

  "What makes me any different than the others? You spend plenty of timein Muller's cabin--and you've been in Pietro's often enough. ProbablyDoc Napier's, too!"

  Her eyes hardened, but she decided to try the patient andreason-with-the-child line. "That is different. Captain Muller and Ihave a great deal of business to work out."

  "Sure. And he looks great in lipstick!"

  It was a shot in the dark, but it went home. I wished I'd kept mydarned mouth shut; before I'd been suspecting it--now I knew. Sheturned pink and tried to slap me, which won't work when the girl issitting on a bunk and I'm on my feet. "You mind your own business!"

  "I'm doing that. Generations should stick together, and he's oldenough to be your father!"

  She leaned back and studied me. Then she smiled slowly, and somethingabout it made me sick inside. "I like older men, Paul. They makepeople my own age seem so callow, so unfinished. It's so comforting tohave mature people around. I always did have an Electra complex."

  "The Greeks had plenty of names for it, kid," I told her. "Don't getme wrong. If you want to be a slut, that's your own business. But whenyou pull the innocent act on me, and then fall back to sophomorepsychology--"

  This time she stood up before she slapped. Before her hand stung myface, I was beginning to regret what I'd said. Afterwards, I didn'tgive a damn. I picked her up off the floor, slapped her soundly on therump, pulled her tight against me, and kissed her. She triedscratching my face, then went passive, and wound up with one armaround my neck and the other in the hair at the back of my head. WhenI finally put her down she sank back onto the bunk, breathing heavily.

  "Why, Paul!" And she reached out her arms as I came down to meet them.For a second, the world looked pretty good.

  Then a man's hoarse scream cut through it all, with the sound of heavysteps in panic flight. I jerked up. Jenny hung on. "Paul.... Paul...."But there was the smell of death in the air, suddenly. I broke freeand was out into the corridor. The noise seemed to come from the shaftthat led to the engine room, and I jumped for it, while I heard doorsslam.

  This time, there was a commotion, like a wet sack being tossed aroundin a pentagonal steel barrel, and another hoarse scream that cut offin the middle to a gargling sound.

  * * * * *

  I reached the shaft and started down the center rail, not botheringwith the hand-grips. I could hear something rustle below, followed bysilence, but I couldn't see a thing; the lights had been cut.

  I could feel things poking into my back before I landed; I always getthe creeps when there's death around, and that last sound had beenjust that--somebody's last sound. I _knew_ somebody was going to killme before I could find the switch. Then I stumbled over something, andmy hair stood on end. I guess my own yell was pretty horrible. Itscared me worse than I was already. But my fingers found the switchsomehow, and the light flashed on.

  Sam lay on the floor, with blood still running from a wide gashacross his throat. A big kitchen knife was still stuck in one end ofthe horrible wound. And one of his fingers was half sliced off wherethe blade of a switch-blade shiv had failed on him and snapped back.

  Something sounded above me, and I jerked back. But it was CaptainMuller, coming down the rail. The man had obviously taken it all in onthe way down. He jerked the switch-blade out of Sam's dead grasp andlooked at the point of the knife. There was blood further back fromthe cut finger, but none on the point.

  "Damn!" Muller tossed it down in disgust. "If he'd scratched the otherman, we'd have had a chance to find who it was. Tremaine, have you gotan alibi?"

  "I was with Jenny," I told him, and watched his eyes begin to hate me.But he nodded. We picked Sam up together and lugged his body up to thetop of the shaft, where the crowd had collected. Pietro, Peters, thecook, Grundy and Lomax were there. Beyond them, the dark-haired,almost masculine head of Eve Nolan showed, her eyes studying the bodyof Sam as if it were a negative in her darkroom; as usual, BillSanderson was as close to her as he could get. But there was no signnow of Jenny. I glanced up the corridor but saw only Wilcox and PhilRiggs, with Walt Harris trailing them, rubbing the sleep out of hiseyes.

  Muller moved directly to Pietro. "Six left in my crew now, Dr. Pietro.First Hendrix, now Sam. Can you still say that the attack is on _your_crew--when mine keep being killed? This time, sir, I demand . . ."

  "Give 'em hell, Captain," ape-man Grundy broke in. "Cut the fancystuff, and let's get the damned murdering rats!"

  Muller's eyes quarter
ed him, spitted his carcass, and began turninghim slowly over a bed of coals. "Mister Grundy, I am master of the_Wahoo_. I fail to remember asking for your piratical advice. Dr.Pietro, I trust you will have no objections if I ask Mr. Peters toinvestigate your section and group thoroughly?"

  "None at all, Captain Muller," Pietro answered. "I trust Peters. And Ifeel sure you'll permit me to delegate Mr. Tremaine to inspect theremainder of the ship?"

  Muller nodded curtly. "Certainly. Until the madman is found, we're allin danger. And unless he is found, I insist I must protect my crew andmy ship by turning back to