The Other Side of Nowhere

Her mother denounced her in a fine, incoherent temper tantrum which was a combination of great-actress temperament and maternal scolding. No one dared protest and - in view of the microphones - no one dared explain. As a climax, Derr Carmody stalked off to her cabin in a towering rage. There was silence. None of the rest had anything to say. Time passed. Somewhere, someone listened in on the passengers' quarters. There was silence. The crewmen eagerly started to move toward the supposedly helpless people. On the way down the corridor they talked freely. It could not matter. They believed that everyone not a member of their group was completely insensible. They babbled, and were heard. When they reached the door of the passengers' quarters, they crowded in, grinning.

Hardy, the cameraman, sent a stage blast-bolt between the heads of two of them before the door was wide open. On the instant Fortescue fired; his shot hit the ceiling. Diane fired.

A man bellowed, and Derr Carmody appeared in the doorway of her cabin. She saw crewmen in the doorway and blasters in action. She saw Diane fire again as a crewman incredulously held up a forearm whose sleeve was burning luridly. He cursed. Derr Carmody screamed.

Diane fired again. So did the others. The crewmen fell over each other getting out of the doorway. Derr Carmody continued to scream. Fortescue plunged to the doorway and sent unfortunately harmless stage blaster bolts after the fleeing mutineers. He was doing it with a splendid air. It made a fine scene.

Then Braden appeared.

Duckworth and Hardy took Derr Carmody to her cabin. The door closed. Her screams were muffled. In a little while, her audience lessened, they diminished.

"So far," said Braden harshly, "so good. But not so good, at that. If this works in with the skipper's intentions, it's very good indeed. But I don't know how he's made out. He was warned, though."

He wiped cold sweat from his forehead. He began to shake because Diane had been in danger and he wasn't there to fight for her.

Diane, still very pale, regarded him matter-of-factly.

"What do we do now?" she asked.

"I don't know.... Look!" said Braden desperately. "I'm afraid to try to take you to the control- room. We could be butchered! The skipper and I... we'll hunt them down. If they come here again we'll hear the shooting and we'll come. Barricade yourselves. They can't get in before we can get here. And they'll have to tackle us first, anyhow. They thought they wouldn't have to fight anybody!"

The outcries from Derr Carmody's cabin had by now diminished to what sounded like yelps in between frenzied sobs.

"I'll do that at once," Braden said, again desperately. "I don't like it, but... they won't try too hard at first. Just... don't let them surprise you! I'll be back...."

He turned and ran toward the bow and the control-room. It was not what his instincts ordered. They demanded that he hunt down the mutineers, regardless of danger, and kill them one by one for having dared think of harming Diane. He despised himself for acting like a thinking human being when he wanted to wreak infinite violence upon his enemies. He despised himself again for thinking of a space-boat and getting Diane away from the Rim Star where she would be safe. Safe against everything but the fact that it was unlikely he could ever get a space-boat to a habitable planet in this part of space.

He came to steps and went up them three at a time. He remembered bitterly that he hadn't showed them how to hold a mirror out of the doorway to see the corridor, with no danger greater than a smashed mirror. He recalled that he hadn't put the passengers' quarters on emergency lights. The mutineers might cut off the lights and close in on them in the dark. He'd showed Diane how to find the switch, but she might not remember.

He raced along a sloping curved ramp. He was risking the corridors, but he could take the chance. A running man is a bad target. Also, there was still confusion among the crewmen. The steward might still be out cold. Those who went to the stern had been defeated. What the skipper had done was uncertain, but he must have done something....

Braden panted and ran, ran and panted. Around him the giant ship was completely silent. Nothing to be heard or seen showed that anything out of the ordinary had taken place. The ship herself was an impersonal steel hull more than a quarter of a mile in length and as thick as a twenty-story building is tall. She contained exactly thirteen people, some of whom now must murder the others or be executed for having tried and failed to capture the ship.

He found himself becoming panicky because he was going away from where he felt that he was needed. He abruptly lost confidence in the skipper's undisclosed plan for handling the mutiny he'd invited by having the steward bring those particular crewmen on board the ship. A space officer should not have done that. Things could go wrong. They almost had! If Braden or the skipper had drunk that coffee, everything would be lost.