H. B. Fyfe

“ Brecken added defiantly.
The girl said nothing, but Truesdale muttered darkly.
"Please!" said Varret. "I have no time to argue about our social and legal codes. The Council foresaw that the threat of being yourselves subject to this plague might not be enough. If you succeed in destroying or even immobilizing the cruiser, I can offer you anything you want short of unsupervised liberty. You must still be watched as potential dangers to society, but you may otherwise be as wealthy or independent as you wish." ”

“ Over by the data desk, Donna was beginning to squirm quietly and make groping motions with her outstretched hands. Truesdale had retreated to the forward end of the control room, his features blanched by apprehension.
I'll bet, thought Phillips, that old Varret slipped up in your case, my lad. Your reaction to violence must be what they call normal.
He beckoned brusquely. "Give me a hand with him," he ordered.
Brecken still showed no sign of consciousness. Truesdale approached warily, and with his aid Phillips lifted the unconscious man. ”

“ How about the big, brutal space engineer who is proud of smashing men's skulls against steel walls, who would like nothing better than to blow up a shipload of innocent people. How do you really know they're dangerous? But you don't care, do you?"
"Truesdale!" snapped Phillips. "Calm down!"
"I'll calm you down with me!" shouted the other hysterically. "I'll show you who's afraid to die!"
He ducked through the door toward which he had been backing. Phillips lunged after him, just barely missing a grip.
"On your toes!" he shouted over his shoulder to Donna, and turned on all jets. ”

“ Donna told him. "The instruments show a shift in their course."
"Blast right at them!" said Phillips. "We might get away with it if we're quick."
He turned away, leaving the intercom on. A few quick steps took him to the control panels in the bulkhead. Guided by his lessons in the other turret, and by faded memories of space school on Earth, he brought up two of the torpedoes. He checked the radio controls and ran the missiles into their launching tubes. As he worked, with nervous sweat running down into his eyes, he was aware of the intermittent jar of rocket blasts. ”

“ Phillips pointed out. "Laws against any kind of homicide are all well enough, but I for one don't see why I should draw the same sentence as a murderer. I had to protect myself or die—probably through having that crazy fool blow up my rocket room." ”

“ One after another, they pulled themselves up into the compartment.
"This must be where they set controls for launching," guessed Phillips, leaning back against a rack of emergency spacesuits. "That intercom screen on the bulkhead is probably plugged in to the control room. Looks as if the torpedoes themselves are stored under that hatch at the after end."
"How do they kick them off?" asked Brecken.
"Those conveyor belts run them into tubes in the forward bulkhead. A charge of compressed air blows them out, and then the rockets are started and controlled by radio." ”

“ Phillips touched other switches, and the sleek missiles were prodded onto the belts and moved forward until the full, twenty-foot lengths were in view.
"Phillips, you better be careful with those things!" quavered Truesdale as the engineer unscrewed a small hatch on one.
"Afraid I'll blow it up?" asked Phillips, peering inside.
"Why not? You never touched one before."
"You go ahead and believe that," retorted the engineer. "Now, I'll just turn on the radio controls, check the batteries, and feed the bad news into the launching tubes. Watch!" ”

“ Donna protested; "what do you think you're going to do?"
"Slip into a curve for Mars," said Brecken. "Slow down enough to take to chutes an' let this can smack up in the deserts somewhere. They'll never know if we got out, an' we'll be on our own."
The girl turned to Phillips. "How about you?" she asked. "Don't you think we should at least consider what Varret told us? If this plague is as dangerous as he says, this is no time to—"
"Do you have to be so bloodthirsty?" complained Truesdale.
"I don't want to kill anybody," declared the girl; "maybe we could just disable the cruiser." ”

“ They are as good as dead. No knowledge or help of man can save them—as of this moment. If we are ever to be of any help, we must prevent a worse catastrophe.
"Yes, the survival ship is a world in itself, but this world must die!"
For a minute or two, it seemed to Phillips that he could hear each person in the control room breathing. Finally, there was a small sound of cloth rubbing on metal as Brecken stirred. "Why pick on us?" he rasped from his seat on the deck. "I'm no volunteer!" ”

“ It is all we can do, until our medical men can make some progress. We evacuated an asteroid colony and began to ship into it any person showing any of the symptoms, using a cruiser piloted by remote control. That was where we slipped."
"How?"
"On the last trip—unless we have not really collected all the sufferers—we lost control. Someone being transported knew his spaceships. Shortly thereafter, a gibbering lunatic got on the screen and threatened the escorting rocket. He announced the cruiser would head for Mars, where the passengers would demand their freedom. They are past reasoning with." ”

“ Don't get any ideas!"
"But listen!" pleaded Donna. "It's a terrible thing, but if we don't do it, we won't be safe on Mars ourselves; they'll land and set an epidemic loose."
"I'll take my chances with it," said Brecken. "You're supposed to know something about piloting. Now get us on a curve for Mars, an' be snappy about it!"
Donna turned desperately to Phillips.
"Why not look over the ship," the engineer suggested, "before we blast off on half our jets? We can make up our minds when we see what we have for fuel and weapons." ”

“ The girl clawed at Brecken's face as he raised the metal bar ...
Social living requires the elimination, or at very best, the modification of many elements necessary to survival in "nature". And when an emergency arises, very often it is the person who would be considered a "criminal", in other situations, who alone is able to cope with the necessities. If we manage to eliminate "violence" from human affairs, what will we find when a need for "violence" arises—a need outside of man's artificial control of his environment? ”

“ Brecken opened his mouth to object, but was smitten by an unpleasant thought. "Suppose they didn't leave us enough fuel to make Mars!"
"We can find out soon enough," said Phillips, leading the way to the door.
They trooped down the corridor on his heels, past the few closet-like compartments set aside for living quarters. It was a single-deck ship, with storage compartments above and below for fuel, oxygen, and other necessities. The corridor was liberally supplied with handrails, apparently in case of failure of the artificial gravity system. ”

“ There was little more to do in the turret, except to run the torpedoes into the launching tubes and bring up a new pair in reserve. With that much done, he closed the hatch and climbed down the ladder.
In the control room, he found Donna and Truesdale peering into the screen. He crowded close to look over their shoulders. A small blob of light floated near the center of the view. "That it?" he asked.
"Yes," answered Donna. "Just enough Mars-light to show it."
"How near are we?" asked Phillips. ”

“ He motioned to the guards, who had begun to fidget impatiently; wordlessly they left the compartment.
"You can settle your relations among yourselves," said Varret. "We chose Bailey partly because she has piloted rockets privately, and Phillips because he was a space engineer. Perhaps Brecken could handle the torpedoes—I do not know." He rubbed his chin uneasily. "Frankly, I find intimate discussion of the affair repulsive. I hope you will decide to do what is necessary for the welfare of Earth."
He turned abruptly and left the control room. ”

“ You were chosen because each of you has received a sentence of detention for life because of tendencies toward violence in one form or another. In our twenty-second century civilization such homicidal inclinations are quite rare, due to the law-abiding habits of generations under the Interplanetary Council. ”