Chapter II: Part 2

"Fifteen minutes!"

I am a congenital heathen. This is not to say that I'm an atheist or anything of the sort. It's simply that I've never accepted religion the way most people do. In a way, I think I've missed something and I envy those who can accept their faiths without question or doubt, and mold their lives accordingly. For the first time, I wished I knew how to pray.

"Ten minutes!" said the voice of doom.

It seemed as if the words were still echoing in my ears when I heard: "Five minutes--four--three--two--sixty seconds--"

And then came the final ten seconds, ticked off one by one, ending in:

"_Zero!_"

The huge Saturn shuddered as the fuel ignited. It seemed to hesitate, as if unwilling to leave the earth. I held my breath. Then I felt the seat pressing against my buttocks and I knew we were on our way.

With each second the acceleration increased, the pressure grew greater.

I heard Morrie groan, but I knew he was all right. He was merely expressing his reaction to the tension. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Gail, her face contorted, her jaw firmly set. Spartan's eyes were on the instruments, although his face revealed that he, too, was under strain. Axel Ludson seemed to bear up best, probably because his body was the strongest of all and his rugged frame could absorb the shock. Dr. Warner Joel looked the most frightened and his eyes were fixed on Dr. Spartan as if that man represented all of the security in the universe at that instant.

Although the long wait before the lift-off had seemed unbelievably short--just as the last hour would seem to a condemned criminal in his death cell--the flight to the plasma ship, which had been nicknamed the Jehad, after our own code name, was interminably long. We felt the momentary halt and resurgence of acceleration as each successive stage of the rocket was dropped. Then, after the third stage had burned out, Spartan's hands grasped the controls, his eyes on a small television screen in front of him.

"Right on the nose," he said, as if talking to himself. "At least, Operations has done one thing right."

It was a typical remark, because as a perfectionist, Dr. Spartan was aware of and magnified each minor imperfection in everyone else. So far as I knew the entire operation had gone smoothly and without a hitch.

Spartan continued to operate the controls. I felt slight pressures as the ship adjusted its orbit. We were moving alongside and close to the plasma ship.

Six years, and as many billions of dollars, had been spent to build the Jehad, which was the most revolutionary space craft ever to be put in orbit.

To be accurate, the Jehad never had been put in orbit in one piece. Each part, and all of the equipment needed to put those parts together, had been rocketed into orbit from the ground. A team of highly skilled scientists and construction workers had pieced it together, an amazing job considering they had done this in a state of weightlessness. Eight men had lost their lives as a result of punctured spacesuits.

The strange thing about the Jehad was that it could never have lifted off the earth under its own power. Although the twelve generators which would drive the Jehad to Mars produced fantastic voltage, their force would not have knocked down a child--in fact, the push from a single motor was about equal to the power exerted by a pigeon in flight.

However, it was the most efficient and most economical motor man could use to travel ninety million miles to Mars--which is not the shortest route, but the most practical since it makes use of the earth's motion and the sun's gravitational power.

The plasma motor, more correctly the traveling-wave plasma motor, was developed after several years of research at the NASA laboratories near Cleveland, expressly for space propulsion. The first big breakthroughs, which led to the eventual perfection of the machine, were made in 1961. Because the machine was so complicated, involving principles laymen found hard to understand, it had received very little publicity.

In the simplest terms, the plasma engine, like the rocket, makes use of Newton's law on the conservation of energy--for every action there is a corresponding and opposite reaction. But here the similarity with rockets ends.

In effect, it means that if you throw a ball, as much pressure and force is backward thrust on the hand as forward thrust on the ball. Since the ball has smaller mass, it sails through the air while your hand and body stay put because you are anchored by your weight and gravity. But in space you would go back in proportion to your mass, just as the ball goes forward. And if you continued to throw balls you would accelerate with each toss.

The plasma motor is an electric generator, "spread out." That is, the rotor--the part that revolves--is removed, the motor opened up and flattened. Then it is coiled into a tube so that the field travels at right angles to its normal direction. This makes the electrical field run down the tube in waves, instead of in a circular motion.

Instead of a rotor, some lightweight element is ionized--heated and vaporized until the electrons and protons of the atoms are torn apart--and the resulting plasma rides down the tube on the waves as circulating systems of positive (protons) and negative (electrons) charges. When they are expelled there is a good-sized kick--kinetic energy. In space, any kick, no matter how small, results in motion, which will continue unless another force is applied to stop it. But in this case the only applied force is more kicks forward, thus there is acceleration.

The chief advantage of the plasma motor is that it can give a very good thrust with a very small amount of fuel. Even the earliest calculations disclosed that the amount of fuel needed to accelerate and decelerate the ship amounted to practically nothing compared to the payload it could push through space. A one-hundred-pound thrust would suffice to drive a 150-ton spaceship to Mars. Compare this with the one thousand pounds of thrust necessary to lift one pound of payload by rocket from the surface of the earth.

The fuel used on the Jehad was lithium, the third-lightest element. It had been used in the first experiments with the plasma engine but, since it had to be heated to 2500 degrees in order to vaporize it, argon--which was a gas to begin with--was experimented with. However, it had been decided to use lithium, for two reasons: one, heat to vaporize it could easily be obtained through high frequency heaters powered by solar batteries; two, lithium is lighter than argon. Thus was gained double advantage.

In theory, the Jehad could travel five-ninth's the speed of light, or about one hundred thousand miles _per second_. As yet the Jehad had never attained this velocity, because building up to that speed would take months. In the 12-hour test flight, Spartan, Ludson and Gail Loring reported that the craft behaved according to expectations and there was reason to believe that, in practice, it would not fall short of its theoretical speed.

However, speed was not important, since a good part of the time on the trip would be spent in waiting for the earth and Mars to get into proper positions. It was necessary only to be fairly close to schedule in arriving on Mars.

I had been trained in the operation of the plasma ship and to me it represented the summit of safety in space. That's why the trip to the Jehad seemed so long. I didn't feel secure in the Saturn capsule and I knew I'd be much safer on the Jehad.

We were weightless now as we orbited close to the plasma-powered ship. Spartan, Joel and Ludson could see the craft on a small television screen near the control panel. I couldn't see it from where I sat, but I was familiar with its appearance. It looked something like an elongated sausage with a small glass knob on each end. It was 185 meters long from the center of its forward cabin--an astrogation observatory--to the center of the rear. This base line had been measured to compute distances by parallax during the flight to Mars.

The center section was partitioned to contain motors, control and communications room, storage and living quarters for the crew. There was a difference, however, inasmuch as the entire interior could be utilized as floor. Small rockets in the side would start the cylinder spinning to give a weak but effective artificial gravity so that we could walk, rather than float, during our weightless voyage. This pressure would be equal on all walls, so it was possible for us to be suspended from what earthbound people call the "ceiling," or to stand out at right angles from the walls, without fear of falling. No matter where we stood, the centrifugal force would always be outward.

"We're less than fifty yards from the Jehad," Dr. Spartan announced. "This is about as close as I dare bring us. Drake, you'll carry a line to the Jehad--make it fast to the door of the locks. We'll follow you across."

"Yes, sir," I said.

I unbuckled the straps to my harness, taking a great deal of care with my movements. I was weightless, and the slightest exertion might send me spinning away in another demonstration of Newton's law on the conservation of energy.

Grasping a grab rail, I pulled myself upward to the escape hatch. In a rack were six aluminum tanks filled with oxygen. I slipped the straps over my shoulders, tightened them, brought the flexible tube around to my chest and fastened it into the fitting. Then I disconnected the long air hose that fed oxygen to my helmet from the Saturn's supply and opened the hatch. A gentle push of my toes on the grab rail sent me floating into the air lock.

A reel of thin, stout copper wire was fastened to the wall near the outside hatch. I slipped the end of this through a ring on my spacesuit and ran out about a dozen feet, leaving a loose end, twice my height, trailing.

Then I opened the hatch. A small amount of air in the locks escaped, sucking me with it into outer space. For the first time I had a glimpse of the universe, unshielded by atmosphere or clouds.

At my feet lay the earth, looking up with a bluish-white countenance. To my left was the half moon, peeking over the dark blue horizon, its craters plainly visible. Above was the sun, too dazzling to look at, and all around were brilliant stars and planets, although I had no time to pick them out, much as I would have liked to spot Mars, our destination.

I was aimed toward the long sausage-shaped Jehad, but my trajectory would take me above it and I had to make immediate adjustment. To do this, I used a petcock on the belt of my spacesuit, which released a very tiny jet of oxygen from the tank on my back. I twisted my body so the force would send me in the right direction.

One little push was all I needed and now I had to somersault quickly, and, at the same time, push out the long loose end of copper wire so that it would strike the side of the Jehad before I did. This was very important, for the electrical potential of the Jehad must be adjusted to that of the Saturn capsule to guard against being struck by a bolt of lightning as I contacted the sides of the craft. Apparently there was not much of a differential for I saw no sparks against the black sky.

My feet struck the sides of the Jehad gently, and magnetic strips in my boots held me fast.

Walking with soft footfalls, because even a slightly heavy push might tear me loose and send me out into space, making it necessary for me to maneuver my way back to ship again, I approached the locks. I opened the outer door and then made my line of copper wire fast to an eye just above the opening.

"A-okay, Dr. Spartan!" I announced into my helmet microphone. "The line's fast. I'll stand by to assist you folks aboard."

"Roger!" Spartan's voice echoed in my ears.

They came one by one, hand over hand, with safety hasps fastened over the wire. First Morrie, then Gail, then Axel, Joel and Dr. Spartan, playing his role of captain to the hilt, being the last to leave the ship.

I pulled them into the locks. There had been a little danger from meteors, of course, but the experts had figured that the chance of a meteor large enough to penetrate a spacesuit hitting an individual was one in 241 years. So far the estimate had been holding up. The nineteen men who built the Jehad had worked six years in space--a total of 114 man years. We had yet to experience a meteor casualty.

None of my companions seemed afraid. All were a little glad to be aboard the Jehad.

As Spartan came into the locks, he unfastened the wire line that held us to the Saturn capsule. Then he closed the door. He turned a valve, filling the chamber with air, and after a few seconds he opened the inside locks and we all walked into the large, roomy interior of the little planet of our own.

_Chapter 4_

You could call those five days aboard the Jehad a honeymoon, although the usual definition did not apply to Mr. and Mrs. William Drake. Not only had I promised to keep the marriage on a purely platonic level, but Gail, by her actions and formality, gave me to understand that I was not expected to even go through the motions of playing the newlywed husband.

However, it was a happy time for all of us, and I include Dr. Spartan, even though he might never again be described as being in sympathetic rapport with the rest of us.

As soon as we had cut loose from the capsule and filled the plasma craft with air, we got the artificial gravity in operation by starting some auxiliary rockets which made the ship rotate slowly. The gravity was only ten per cent, but it was sufficient to keep us from floating around the room. We took off our spacesuits and laughed uproariously at our costumes--shorts, T-shirts and lightweight sandals which had magnetic strips in the soles to assist the artificial gravity in holding us to the floor.

Axel relayed our messages back to the earth, telling of our safe arrival, and Dr. Spartan and Warner Joel got the plasma motors going. There were four banks of three motors each encircling the ship. Although we had twelve engines, we planned to use only eight at a time. Four were for emergencies and extra power, when needed.

There were no portholes except in the control room and even here the outside view was partially blocked by a huge nuclear reactor, well shielded and stuck out in front of the ship. This supplied all our electrical power. However, there were video cameras on the outside--in the front and rear of the craft--so that we could always see the heavens about us on the monitor screens. There were four of these in the control room and four more in the main cabin, which was the middle segment of the ship. There were six sections, not counting the rear cupola where Gail was quartered. The control dome was in front. Dr. Spartan's private cabin, which was partitioned for sleeping and working, was second.

The large main cabin was where we did most of our living, if you can call it that. Directly behind it was a small galley and storeroom for our food supplies. Next was the lavatory and shower room, and the rear segment was filled with machinery--air and water-cycling equipment, laundry, and some electrical tools for repairing the ship.

There wasn't much to see outside after we got in space but, during those early days when we circled the earth and gained momentum, we had a beautiful view of our world. There was also a procession of multicolored and unwinking stars. The sun, too, was beautiful because the corona could always be seen.

Probably it was because we were so busy in those first days that we got along so well. Or maybe it was the excitement of finding everything so new and different. From the moment we boarded the ship, we were in another world, an independent planet, no longer associated with the earth.

We had to learn to walk in diminished gravity; we had to accustom ourselves to looking up and finding a companion sleeping on the ceiling as if he were stuck there. Even the day was changed. Because there were five of us, we had a 25-hour day, each man, with the exception of Dr. Spartan, taking a five-hour control-room shift. The terrestrial day no longer had any meaning, since our little planet rotated once every 30 seconds.

We had a garden--two trays, one above and one below the tube that carried electrical wiring the length of the ship. We planted hybrid vegetables in the garden--plants using a minimum of water and converting a maximum of carbon dioxide into oxygen. However, the air-cycling machinery was sufficient for most purposes.

Our biggest problem was water. Due to its weight and bulk, we carried as little water as possible, since a great deal of it was already being used to shield the nuclear reactor. For all other purposes--drinking, preparation of dehydrated foods, laundry, sanitation and irrigation of the garden--there was a tank containing 35 gallons. Excess water, removed from the air and extracted from all waste products, was purified and distilled twice, then used again.

At first, Gail Loring made the trip pleasant by her very presence. She was pretty and cheerful, and the fact that she revealed so much in the way of feminine charm in her space clothing caused the usual male response. Not that we were a pack of wolves. There is nothing wrong with looking, or even giving a mental whistle. I think Gail read our minds and I'm sure she enjoyed it.

Axel's face mirrored his thoughts in a slow grin. Dr. Joel, who was acting with the vigor of a sales manager at a customers' convention, treated her to adoring, but not necessarily fatherly, witticisms. Morrie Grover positively drooled when she was around and made a great thing of helping her out with various tasks, even though I think Gail would have preferred not to have the help. Spartan watched her, too, but it was impossible to read his thoughts. As I said, everything was milk and honey in those days.

But after we had the ship functioning, the garden growing, and our schedules perfected, we suddenly found that there was not enough to do. The looks that had been innocently male, began slowly to change to something else.

Gail, who had usually shown me less attention than the others, apparently because I had a greater legal right to claim more attention, spoke of it one day when she came through the machinery room while I was washing out the dirty uniforms.

I'd brought a projector and a microfilm of a book on astrogation and was reading when she paused beside the washer. "Need help, Bill Drake?" she asked in a friendly tone.

I looked up and smiled. "Now that was a nice, wifely thing to say." I told her. "Unfortunately it's my turn to do the laundry so you don't have to help."

"But you wouldn't throw me out if I did?" she asked.

"There's really nothing to do," I said, nodding toward the automatic washer which was halfway through its cycle. "But if you'd like to join in a little small talk about the universe at large, I'll be thankful for company. You realize, don't you, that this is the first time the bride and groom have really been alone together since they were married?"

She frowned. "Let's not talk about that, Bill Drake," she said.

"Why not? Afraid that if we mention it too often we might suddenly realize we're married?"

She nodded her head slowly. "Something like that."

I shut off the projector. I had no interest in astrogation at the moment. "Is that why you avoid me?"

"I don't avoid you."

"You always find time to horse around with Morrie," I said.

Now she smiled. "Are you by any chance jealous?" she asked. "If you are, you have no right."

"Damnit, I'm not. I just want equal time," I said. "I should have the right to want as much time with my legal wife as those other bums."

"I'm doing the laundry with you," she said teasingly. "That's the first time I've done that with anybody on this ship."

"I'm in your debt, gracious lady," I said. There was a trace of sarcasm, less than I felt, in my voice.

She heard it, too, and gave me a sharp glance. "I do want to talk to you about something, Bill Drake," she said.

"Sure. The laundry doesn't need attention. Let's talk."

"You've noticed that we're not the jolly little group we started out to be when we first boarded the ship, haven't you?"

"Yes, but it's because we're getting bored. We've been going around the earth in a spiral, like a merry-go-round. We don't seem to be getting anyplace."

"That's not what I mean," she said. "We are getting someplace. The spiral widens a little more each turn. Very soon now--perhaps within hours--we'll break away from the earth. We all realize it. And the farther away from earth we go, the less we'll feel bound by standards of the earth."

I frowned. "I don't see what you're driving at, Gail."

She glanced toward the bulkhead door at the end of the room. It led to the shower room and lavatory. She glided toward it, using the familiar "space walk" we all had learned in order to conform to the very light, artificial gravity. She opened the door, peered in, then closed it and returned. "Just wanted to be sure we really were alone," she said. "What I wanted to talk about was Dr. Spartan. It--it's the way he looks at me."

"We all look at you," I said. "I thought most girls liked it and felt like they were slipping when men stopped looking."

"That's right, when you speak of a normal male look," she said. "But the bearded monster frightens me."

"Relax," I said. "He won't get out of hand. That old boy is no fool and he won't pull any raw deals. The one I'd look out for is Morrie. He acts like a crazy kid sometimes. You can't always figure him."

"Morrie!" she exclaimed. "Bill Drake, you _are_ jealous! He's just a kid."

"That's what I said, a crazy kid."

"And I'm two years older than he is." The washer stopped spinning and I went over and began removing the duds and putting them in the dryer.

She started to get up to help me. She'd been sitting cross-legged on the floor, as we all did because we had no chairs aboard. "Don't bother," I told her. "This isn't hard work."

She sat down again. "Do you realize, Bill Drake, that there are no laws here in space excepting those laid down by Spartan?"

"I can think of a few of Newton's laws that he has no control over."

"I'm not talking about physical laws. Spartan is more powerful than any nabob who ever lived on earth--he is a greater despot than Caesar, than the Pharaohs. That's why he's stand-offish with everyone. He has the power of life and death over us all."

I closed the dryer and set the timer. "Forget it, Gail," I told her, dropping down beside her. "Spartan's like a military commander. Not only our lives, but the success of this mission are his responsibility. He can't very well get chummy with buck privates." I didn't particularly love the guy, but I thought--then--that I understood him.

"We're not buck privates," she said, with a woman's logic and hatred of metaphor.

"Okay. We're second looeys. Now, what shall I do? Go to Spartan and say, 'Listen, you old goat, stop looking lecherously at my wife-in-name-only'?"

"This is no joking matter, Bill Drake. I may be your wife-in-name-only but there was a good sound reason for our marriage. You have to keep me from--uh--well, getting involved. You're a sort of chaperon."

I groaned.

"Let me tell you something," she went on. "During my first trick in the control room--not long after we started our routine on this ship--Spartan came in and spent almost the five hours with me. He talked to me as I'd never been talked to before, Bill Drake. He told me to move my sleeping bag into his compartment and live there. He made it sound as if it were my duty and that I'd be shirking if I didn't."

I gaped at her. "The hell he did!" I just couldn't believe it. "You must have misunderstood him--"

"I most certainly did not!" she said. "Don't you believe me?"

"Well, the guy isn't any tin god," I said. "But he didn't force you to do what he'd suggested."

"Do you know why?" she asked. When I didn't answer she went on. "Because I told him that if he did, he'd have to explain to the whole crew. He'd wind up with a red-hot mutiny on his hands. And when we returned from Mars, I'd nail his hide to the Pentagon, or some other conspicuous place."

I whistled. "And he took it?"

"Not meekly. He said that if he wished, he could "take care" of the whole crew. And if I repeated what he said to me, to anyone, he'd brand it as a pack of lies. He particularly cautioned me against telling you. He said he didn't want to be forced into "taking care" of you."

"But you told me," I said.

"I'm warning you, Bill Drake. Watch out for Spartan. He doesn't intend for you to return alive--or anyone else who opposes him."

I no longer understood Spartan. Would he kill to have his way? I had suspected his hatred since the day the wedding was agreed upon. "He wanted to marry you," I said, "but you changed the plan. Why didn't he object then?"

"Because he couldn't on the earth. And when I made a point of platonic marriage he thought he could fit it into his plan."

My heart bounded hopefully. "It wasn't a platonic marriage you wanted?" I asked softly. I tried to take her hand but she pulled it away.

"No, Bill!" It was the first time since we'd left the earth, that she used my first name alone. "I really meant it when I suggested it. I knew Spartan. I'd been in space with him before, but I managed him. This is different. I wanted you to protect me--but not as a husband."

My heart sank and I felt helpless. I walked over to the dryer. "Lots of dirty laundry today," I said.

"You can say that again," she replied.

Spartan's voice came over the intercom as I started to take the laundry from the dryer.

"Attention, please. Just fifteen seconds ago, the Jehad reached the escape velocity for this distance from the earth. We have broken away from terrestrial gravity. Mr. Ludson and I are now computing the necessary corrections to put us on the proper orbit to reach Mars."

Gail looked at me and I stared back at her. We had gone beyond the point of no return.

_Chapter 5_

After that talk with Gail, I had my first thoughts of mutiny. But I'd been raised with a good, healthy respect for authority and, because most persons I'd come in contact with who had it, used judgment in administering it, I had seen no reason for changing my attitude. Even Spartan, when he was drilling us for this trip, had seemed to be right, in spite of his toughness. But as the earth grew smaller behind us, I began to look for allies, in case we were ever forced into a showdown with Spartan.

I wondered if Gail had been right when she said the others wouldn't stand for any nonsense. I doubted if they would. Not all of them anyhow. Dr. Joel had suddenly seemed to discover that Dr. Spartan was a great man. Spartan fawned on Joel and Joel became Spartan's slave, carrying his meals to him, posting Spartan's orders, and acting as a self-appointed second-in-command.

Morrie might defend Gail, but he certainly wouldn't raise a hand to keep Spartan from tossing me into the great out-yonder, if it came right down to it. Morrie was in the throes of puppy love for Gail. It showed in every move he made. Besides, the kid was upset. Homesick maybe. Or afraid. Everything was strange here and he longed for something familiar. He turned to Gail for comfort. And if Morrie were told of Spartan's actions toward Gail, the young fellow was hot-headed enough to march into Spartan's cabin and get himself--and me--in a jam.

Axel was steady, staunch and level-headed. But I hesitated about confiding in him. Like me, Axel had a respect for authority. He couldn't take my unsupported word that Spartan meant to kill me and take Gail. Furthermore, I remembered that Axel had refused to accept Gail because he did not believe in the kind of marriage she proposed. Was that the real reason? Or did he know Spartan's plans? Perhaps Axel was Spartan's real second-in-command, ready to do the muscle work when the time came.

We were still in radio communication with the earth and I considered sending a message back. But what could I say? Spartan would claim I was space crazy. And the next message would tell the earth that in a fit of madness I'd jumped overboard. What proof could I offer in a message that Spartan had ever made his proposition to her? He'd just say she'd dreamed it. It was his word against hers.

Gail agreed when I told her this. "Perhaps he didn't mean it the way it sounded," she said.

"How else could he mean it?" I asked.

"Well, maybe he intended for me to take his cabin and he'd sleep somewhere else."

"What about the bit where he said he had the power of life and death over us?"

"Well, he did mention that, but he might not have been serious. I don't know what to think any more." She sighed heavily. "And he does have the power of life and death, you know."

We'd been talking together in the galley, alone over cups of instant coffee. Now the door opened and Morrie Grover came in. He gave Gail one of his looks, then turned to me.

"Pretty soft," he said. "You got the only girl in umpteen million miles."

I thought he was kidding and I replied in kind. "Yeah. We're honeymooners. Can't you leave us alone?"

"That wasn't in the agreement," he snapped. I knew then he wasn't kidding.

Come to think of it, we'd all been a little edgy lately--ever since the earth had lost its grip on us. The pleasant feeling within our little group was no more. The honeymoon of the adventurers in space was just as phony as the honeymoon of Gail and me.

"What's the matter, Morrie?" I asked. "Got an upset stomach, or do you just need a cup of coffee? We've got the coffee. Help yourself."

"You're a jerk," said Morrie.

There was no doubt that I was as edgy as anyone. Otherwise, Morrie's attitude would not have set me off. "You're a punk," I replied.

"Come off it, you two," said Gail. "You're acting like a couple of schoolboys."

Morrie turned on Gail. "Are you in love with him?"

"Why--"

"What I mean is, why did you marry him?"

I grabbed him by the arm and swung him around. "It's none of your business," I said. "Now, do you lay off and behave like a grown-up man or do I belt you all the way through the main cabin?"

He swung at me. I ducked but, before I could do anything about it, Gail stepped between us. "Get out, Morrie!" she said, and then turned to me. "Bill Drake, you go back to the machinery room and find something to do there. We can't afford a fight right now."

As usual she was right. We calmed down and, out of respect for her, followed her advice.

As I said, I'd noticed that we all were edgy. Joel had sort of pulled his head into his shell like a turtle, and was having nothing to do with any of us, except Dr. Spartan, whom he followed around like a hound.

And Axel seemed preoccupied. I couldn't put my finger on what had happened to him. I thought it was the same sort of space madness that was gripping us all.

"What we ought to do, Axel," I said one day, in an effort to draw him out, "is to tell each other what's bugging us, rather than to bottle it up inside."

"Meaning me?" he asked.

"Meaning you," I said. "You've been acting like the ghost at the banquet. I don't even know whether I can call you a friend any more. What's the trouble?"

Axel shook his head. "I'm not sure," he said.

"Psychological? Depression?"

He gave me a crooked grin. "I wish it were something like that," he replied. "Trouble is, I know what does it, but I'm damned if I know what it is."

"Animal, vegetable or mineral?" I asked.

He started to get halfway cheerful. "I tried to tell Spartan about it and he accused me of imagining things," he said. "I guess it won't hurt to tell you. I'm getting some stuff on the radio I can't explain."

"Signals? From the earth?"

"Not from the earth. From the general direction of Mars."

The way he said it, it sent chills up my spine and down again. "Somebody's trying to signal us?"

"Sometimes I think so, sometimes not," he replied with a heavy sigh. "The signals--if that's what they are--are still very weak."

"Damn it, Axel," I said, "it's ridiculous. If anybody were trying to signal us from Mars, it would mean they knew we were on our way."

"Maybe they do," he said tersely.

It was so damned fantastic, I hardly knew what to say. "But how?" I asked.

"I don't know," he said, "but they could have radio, even radar--and they could be a million times better than ours."

We talked about it for about an hour and Axel couldn't add anything to what he'd already told me, which wasn't much.

During the next few days Gail exerted herself trying to restore a friendly relationship between Morrie and me. I think it was more because Morrie wanted to win her approval than for any other reason that she succeeded, partially.

When we were off duty at the same time, she'd bring us together and try to engage us in conversation. The only trouble was, we'd run out of anything to talk about.

"If we could only invent a game!" she exclaimed in one of her desperate moods.

"Charades?" I asked.

"They make me sick," said Morrie in his usual disagreeable manner.

"We don't even have extra paper and pencil," she went on. "All writing materials are under lock and key, being conserved for taking notes when we reach Mars."

Suddenly Morrie smiled. "You know, I'm a little stupid," he said. "I brought along a deck of cards."

"You what?" Gail exclaimed.

And I gave him a look of surprise. Regulations had forbidden us to bring anything aboard--not even a toothbrush--because all personal items, excepting the one uniform we wore at the time, had already been stored on the Jehad. Spartan had announced, with his usual correctness, that every ounce we carried would require extra fuel to lift us off the earth.

Morrie got up and shuffled over to his locker at the end of the cabin. He opened it, unzipped the pocket of his spacesuit hanging there, and brought out a brand-new pack of cards.

"Morrie! You darling!" said Gail.

"Forgot I had 'em," Morrie said, flushing with pleasure at Gail's words. "I figured things were apt to get boring up here and Doc had mentioned we'd have very little to do. So I stuck them in my pocket when I came down to the pad and, when Doc wasn't looking, put them in the pocket of my spacesuit."

I glanced nervously toward the front of the ship. Spartan probably was in his cabin, or making sure Warner Joel was awake in the control room. Axel was directly above us, snoring gently in his sleeping bag.

"Anyone for gin rummy?" I asked.

Morrie sat down and broke the seal on the deck. At that instant Axel's buzzer went off. The chronometer in the control room was attached to the buzzer which notified us five minutes before the end of each watch. Axel, who was to relieve Joel, stirred in his sleeping bag as he stopped snoring.

"Darn!" said Gail. "I'm next, and if I don't get a little rest, I'll go to sleep on duty and Doc Spartan will shoot me at sunrise." Naturally, Spartan had made no such threat, but he did make sure no one slept on duty by bobbing in and out of the control room at irregular intervals. No one knew when he slept, but I supposed he took many short naps instead of a single, long sleep.

"Good morning, folks," said Axel from the ceiling.

"You're the only person who thinks it's morning," I said.

"Any time I wake up, it's morning," said Axel. "Miss Loring, do you mind getting out of here? I have to get into my clothes."

Axel, like all of us, slept barefooted up to the ears and his clothing was in his locker at the end of the cabin.

"Next time think of the cards sooner, Morrie," said Gail. "I guess there'll be no gin rummy for me today." She got up, went to the rear of the cabin and out the door toward her own quarters.

Axel wriggled out of his sleeping bag, put on his sandals and went to his locker. He noticed the cards Morrie was shuffling. "Where in hell did you find those?" he asked.

"It doesn't matter," said Morrie. "We got 'em. Two-handed, Bill?"

"Sure. Deal 'em."

Morrie and I were seated lengthwise with the ship, and the first card he dealt sailed clear to the partition at the far end. The artificial gravity didn't pull the card to the deck as it would on earth. "Guess we'd better sit crosswise," he said, retrieving the card.

We shifted so that no matter which way Morrie sailed the card it would be "down." Axel dressed and then went into the control room. A few minutes later Dr. Joel came in. He saw us playing gin rummy.

"Good Lord! Interplanetary Las Vegas?"

"Want to join us, Warner?" I asked.

"Not for all the gold dust on the moon," he said. "If Spartan ever sees you playing cards, he'll hang you to an asteroid."

He watched us play, glancing apprehensively toward the forward bulkhead as if he expected Spartan to burst in on us at any moment. Then, at last, he got up and went through the door. I was facing the bulkhead but I didn't notice him leaving because I was trying to decide whether to gin or not. It was Morrie who heard the door open, whirling his head so suddenly it almost displaced him from his sitting position. "Hey!" he exclaimed, "Joel's gone. Do you suppose he intends to rat on us?"

"Let him," I said. "These cards are worth the powder it took to shoot 'em into space. They probably will preserve our sanity. That's why Spartan can't object."

Morrie looked at me as if he didn't know what to believe. I shrugged off his doubt, certain that Spartan was intelligent enough to see the cards weren't hurting anything, even though they'd been brought aboard illegally.

I ginned and won. Morrie was reshuffling the cards to deal again when the door opened and Dr. Spartan, followed by Warner Joel, came into the cabin.

"Stop this immediately!" Spartan barked.

We turned our heads and looked at Spartan's angry face. Then I noticed that he was wearing something new--a holster, holding a nickel-plated air pistol. A kid's toy.

"Stand up!" Spartan said, his hand on the pistol butt.

For a moment I wondered if Gail had been right, that Spartan was capable of going in for a little capital punishment to pass the boring hours in space. Morrie and I got to our feet.

"Those things--" Spartan nodded his head toward the cards. "--are strictly against regulations. If you have time on your hands, you should use the projector and study the scientific works aboard. We can't allow foolishness."

"Damnit, Doctor," I said, "all work and no play is going to turn this crew into a dull bunch of astronauts."

"Nonsense," said Spartan. "I forbid card playing. We're not on the earth any more. We're in space. Beyond terrestrial law. Beyond any standards and regulations that exist on our planet. We are, in effect, another world--and I rule this world. What I say is law and must be obeyed."

Morrie stared at him, open-mouthed. But I had been warned about what to expect from Spartan. After all, he'd said about the same thing to Gail. "We're not questioning your authority, sir," I said. "And what we were doing was very innocent."

"I'm the best judge of that. Give me the cards, Grover."

Morrie hesitated, his face registering uncertainty.

Spartan drew the gun. "This is an air pistol," he said, his manner imperious, his tone hard and relentless. "You understand the danger of a pistol aboard this craft. A bullet might puncture the walls or damage machinery. So I shoot a small dart which is impregnated with a mild, but very effective, poison. It will paralyze a man in a few seconds. Even a scratch on the skin will make you harmless. I can quell any sort of mutiny."

"This isn't mutiny!" I said, speaking with all the deference I could muster. "Sure, I'll admit the cards aren't supposed to be here, but they are. And they're causing no harm. The capsule was lifted into orbit and the flight of this ship has been A-okay from the beginning. Now these cards are helping our morale, which needs a hell of a lot of help right now."

Spartan pointed the gun at me. His jaw was set; his eyes were lifeless marble. "I have the power of life and death over every living thing on this ship," he said.

When a man is threatened with a weapon, he sometimes gives up, but this puny little air gun pointed at me seemed harmless. Besides, I was angry. I took a step toward Spartan. I don't believe I would have touched him. The step was just to prove I wasn't afraid of him or the gun and I thought he was making too big an issue out of something very small.

_Ping._

The gun went off and I felt a stinging sensation in my left arm. I raised it, plucked a tiny dart from the flesh. Suddenly my knees buckled and I collapsed on the deck.

I was not unconscious. I could hear Spartan telling Morrie to give him the cards. Morrie was too frightened to disobey.

"Put the cards in the waste disposal, Dr. Joel," said Spartan.

"Yes, sir." Warner Joel's voice had a tremor in it.

I tried to call him a stool pigeon, but my vocal chords wouldn't work.

"For this disobedience, Bill Drake will have twenty extra tours of duty in the next twenty days," said Spartan. "For wasting time, Morrie Grover will have ten extra tours. We need two men in the control room now, so each of you will take his extra turns in company with another member of the crew."

Five hours later, when Gail came through the cabin to relieve Axel at the controls, I was just regaining use of my muscles. Morrie explained to her what had happened.

"Get some antiseptic," she said, examining my wound.

"No need," I said hoarsely. "Ship's been sterilized. No germs aboard."

She examined the wound. "It's sort of deep," she said. "The beast! He just wanted to throw his weight around."

"He'll be tough to get along with from now on, Gail," I said. "Mind if I take my extra duty with you?"

Morrie scowled and said nothing.

"No, Bill. Some of the time anyhow. Part of the watch I'll share with Morrie." I heard him release his breath. "Now listen, Bill. I know you're angry with Spartan, but you've got to be careful. I think you understand why. We've got to keep him from doing anything more rash than this."

I was able to nod my head. I had to get along with the bastard. Not only my life, but her safety depended on it.

_Chapter 6_

In the end, Spartan himself arranged a schedule for Morrie and me, so we had no choice when we would serve our extra shifts. However, I spent equal time with Gail, Axel and Joel, as did Morrie.

Gail and I had no opportunity to talk over our personal problems--concerning, mainly, Dr. Spartan--because he was always joining us in the control cabin. Axel was always engaged in radio astronomy, or trying to intercept terrestrial broadcasts, which were growing more feeble each day. Joel was uneasy in my presence.

"I'm sorry about causing you all this trouble," he said. "But if I hadn't reported that infraction of rules to Dr. Spartan, he might have punished me."

"Axel didn't report it and he wasn't punished," I said.

"Dr. Spartan didn't suspect that Axel knew anything about it." Joel sighed. "I'm afraid my act has made me very unpopular with the rest of you."

"Forget it," I said, "a trip to Mars isn't a popularity contest. If we return with good results, it won't matter. We'll all be fair-haired boys."

But the incident had helped me decide that Joel would not be trustworthy if it came to a showdown against Spartan. On the other hand, it also helped prove that Axel was not a confidential aide to our chief.

On the fourth extra tour of duty, I was in the control room with Axel. He was concentrating on the sounds he was picking up with our ultrahigh frequency receiver. Finally he ran the sounds he was getting through an oscilloscope.

"Look at that, Bill!" he exclaimed, pointing to the strange wave pattern.

"Pretty," I commented. All I saw was that it was something different.

"That signal," said Axel, "was made by intelligent beings. It's not a natural radio pattern--the kind you'd get from a star or a nebula."

I took my eyes off the instruments and looked at the pattern again. "Are you trying to tell me the Russians have invented a new kind of radio?"

"The signal's coming from Mars," said Axel.

"You're space crazy," I said. "There's nothing intelligent on Mars. Just a few plants."

"We don't really know," said Axel. "I've been picking up these signals for several days. They're traveling twice the distance of the terrestrial signals. And the volume is greater. That would mean at least four or more times the power."

"You've reported it to Spartan?" I asked.

"I've entered it in the log book," said Axel. "I've also made a recording. It's not a voice signal, but it has an artificial wave pattern. It's some kind of radar wave--"

"The Martians have spotted us?" I couldn't quite believe it. "They're gonna send out a fleet of spaceships and blast us before we land."

"If they had spaceships they would have visited the earth," said Axel.

"Then we're more advanced than they are. And if they're intelligent, we've nothing to fear. We'll probably get the keys to all the Martian cities."

"We may not be ahead of them," said Axel. "And even if they're intelligent, we might have things to fear. How would we receive Martians if they landed on the earth?"

"We'd probably give 'em television contracts," I said.

"Not at first," said Axel. "We'd take pains to contain them somehow--prevent them from causing us any harm. We'd make sure they had come to the earth with peaceful intent. And we'd be pretty slow to trust them even if they came unarmed."

"Martians may be different," I said. "Why don't you tell Spartan? You know how he is. If he thought we held out anything on him, he might use his popgun on us."

"That's what I've been going to do," said Axel. "But I wanted to make sure these signals came from Mars. Now I'm positive." He touched the buzzer signal on the big globe in the center of the room where all the ship's controls were located.

Spartan's voice came over the intercom. "What's the matter now?"

"We've picked up signals from Mars, sir," said Axel.

"Nonsense." There was a click. A moment later Spartan came in through the bulkhead door. His eyes darted about suspiciously, as if expecting some trick.

"It's sort of a carrier wave," said Axel as Spartan anchored himself on the floor. "Seems to be a kind of radar--as if we're being watched." It was obvious that Axel was awed by the new phenomenon.

"It's utterly ridiculous," said Spartan. "Radar would indicate intelligent life. Mars is a dying world. The age of intelligent life ended there long ago." There was still that wary look about him and his lips curled into a sneer.

"Perhaps it's a different kind of intelligence," I suggested.

"What other kinds are there?" Spartan snorted. "Intelligence is knowing what is true and what isn't. A thing can either be true or false. There's not much difference between intelligences."

I'd learned you couldn't argue with Spartan, who refused to recognize that truth is relative and that there are at least two sides to any question; that, more often, there are an infinite number of points of view, all true in a sense, none altogether false.

"Anyhow, we've got signals," I said meekly, seeing the utter futility of arguing.

"Signals. Bah!" He was almost snarling now, unwilling to admit any possibility which might interfere with his preconceived notions.

"Doc, there are millions of stars and even if only a fraction of one per cent of them has conditions suitable to life, we might find intelligent beings there."

"Granted. But Mars isn't a planet with the right conditions. Why, you're even inferring that these Martians might be more intelligent than we are. We on earth couldn't pick out an object the size of this ship so far away from our planet. Let me check these signals--"

Spartan began twisting the dials controlling the directional antennae at the front and rear of the craft. "Might be something else; different from radar--"

Axel's voice cut in. "Doctor! Look at _our_ radarscope!"

I turned my head quickly toward the screen. There was just the flimsy outline of something there; something barely perceptible to the waves that scanned the path ahead of the ship. But whatever it was, it was in our path and it was very large. A cloud, maybe--only clouds don't show on radar.

"Meteors!" screamed Spartan. "Heaven help us! It's a meteor cloud!"

He pushed me aside and sprang to the controls. At the same time, he touched the emergency button, setting off a shrieking siren alarm.

_Chapter 7_

Except for two or three meteor clouds which the earth plows through on its annual turn around the sun, the number and location of these in the solar system are unknown. They are not clouds in the sense that they hang like a heavy mist and obscure objects behind them. They are so thin and tenuous that if thousands of meteors did not shower on the earth when it goes through their midst, we would be unaware of their presence in space.

The cloud ahead of us was, possibly, half a million miles in diameter, making it rather small. The Perseids and Leonids, for example, may extend completely around the sun in the orbit of a disintegrated comet. Very few of the meteors are larger than a grain of sand and they are so widely scattered that all of the meteors in a cubic mile of space might be packed into a teacup. However, a few of them might be as large as a teacup and, very rarely, one might be as big as a house.

For a planet like the earth to plow through a cloud of meteors, there is little danger. For one thing, most of the meteors are vaporized as they strike the upper atmosphere. Only a few ever reach the earth and there have been only a couple of cases on record where a human being has been harmed by a meteorite.