Stanley Mullen

“ He just kept banging his helmet face-plate on one of those rock pegs till it smashed. Have you ever seen a man smash his face plate in space? The horror of eyes squeezed out, flesh bursting to bloody pulp from the pressure of liquid blood inside, then in a second frozen steel-hard from the cold. It makes you all sick inside and you dream about it the rest of your life. ”

“ Harald came suddenly to life again. "The rest of you don't have to die," he shouted. "Contact that ship and tell them to wait for you. There's a self-propelled life boat intact in that wreck. It's not even dusty. Get going, man!..."
As the lifeboat roared out from Hidalgo, Norman was busy at the controls, maneuvering carefully to avoid the hurtling bulk of the derelict Tellus. He did not even realize what had happened till he heard the blast of air released from the airlock and someone raise a cry of "man overboard!" ”

“ It seemed an incredible distance to the air-tanks. Eight others were clustered around the bulky tanks when Norman reached them. Merrill was close behind him. Not far away was Harald, clutching the portable helioflash box to him.
Far below, slowly turning over as it came toward them, was the titanic wedge of barren rock which was Hidalgo. Then began a weary, heartbreaking task of jockeying the air-tanks into position and towing them to intercept the jagged wanderer of space.
Twenty men lived to reach it. ”

“ Fries ordered gruffly. "We can't be too careful."
Merrill, the third officer, came in and started shedding his space-armor. He was lean, hard-looking, with a twisted, humorous face. "Anything I can do?" he asked curtly.
Fries stared at him blankly. "Get your burns taken care of, then get some of these people into the lifeboat if you're able."
Merrill shrugged and laughed. "Why bother to patch me up? There won't be room enough for all of us. I'll take care of it now; the lifeboat's ready."
Harald felt like a recording angel as he stood in the airlock counting off the people coming through. ”

“ Failles was pointing toward it. "The Tellus," he said grimly. "It's circling Hidalgo like a moon, coming down in a long spiral orbit. As its momentum decreases, it will come closer and crash. Looks as if we still have our wildcat by the tail."
Norman groaned. "When that stuff blows, it'll take this whole end of space with it."
Harald was crouching over his helioflash, working awkwardly at the dials with his heavy gloves.
"I'm trying to get Scorpio," he explained. "Tell them to warn off the freighters. No luck so far. These tubes are about shot. ”

“ Norman said. "What's going on exactly?"
"Free radiation got into the fuel tanks," Failles explained. "You know that, of course. It started a chain reaction in the liquified fuel. The stuff degenerates slowly until it reaches a critical stage, then goes all at once. About a billionth of a second. Worse than that, it spreads through the rest of the metal parts. They begin to break down slowly, releasing energy in the form of heat or light, sometimes both. The light radiation kills, the heat corrupts the metal until it gives way, melting or crumbling depending upon its nature. ”

“ It's not so bad for the rest of us. That old black devil out there gets all of us spacerats sooner or later. Thanks for coming...."
Fries turned to his men and tried to speak. Harald shut him off roughly. "Sure, skipper, it's been nice knowing you. But no heroics. Hell ought to be cool after what this ship will be like when that stuff reaches critical mass. Now get the hell out of here before we blow...."
From the control room of the Tellus, Norman, Harald and Merrill watched the pinkish dot which was the Scorpio's rocket exhaust dwindle into the jet immensity of sky. ”

“ The main salon of the spaceliner was a charnel house. Dead and dying lay in rows, many of them in horribly grotesque attitudes reflecting the agony of their passing. A harried doctor was doing what could be done to relieve the unrelievable suffering. ”

“ Merrill nodded. Lines of repressed suffering marked his lean, wolfish face. "I don't think I'll be here long. Someone will have to take over. There's nobody else to rank you. Just a couple of radiation engineers and those armchair astronauts in our so-called crew. It's all yours, kid. But don't let it worry you too much."
Norman straightened and shook off his jumpiness. ”

“ Even filtered by the Conklin glass of his helmet face-plate, the murky glare of the hold made Norman's eyes ache.
"How long do we have?" he asked.
The speaker in Failles' helmet rattled with a grunt. "That depends. The degeneration period varies according to the route it takes. There are three, possibly four routes in this case. I don't know which it will take. At the outside, five hours."
"We'll need at least three hours to reach Hidalgo," mused Norman.
"What good will it do to reach Hidalgo? We're taking an atomic bomb with us. ”

“ The Tellus was doomed.
It was ticklish work maneuvering close to the immense hulk, but Captain Fries ran the Scorpio alongside and made fast with magnetic grapnels. ISP men in grotesquely robot-like space-armor ran out the jointed airlock tube and attached it to the main hatch of the liner. Valves opened automatically as the pressure equalized.
Captain Fries and Lieutenant Norman were the first to board the doomed liner. They were met by a blood-spattered second officer.
"I'm Lore," he said. "The ranking officers are all dead. I'm in command."
"How many people have you?" Fries asked savagely. ”