The Seeds of Time

‘Pull yourself together. What are you trying to say?’ The Captain spoke sharply to stiffen him.

Carter jerked his head slightly. His lips stopped trembling.

‘He-he ‘ he floundered; then he tried again, in a rush.

‘He-hasn’t any legs, sir.’

‘Who? What is this? You mean Bowman hasn’t any legs?’

‘Y-yes, sir.’

‘Nonsense, man. I was there when he was brought in. So were you. He had legs, all right.’

‘Yes, sir. He did have legs then-but he hasn’t now!’

The Captain sat very still. For some seconds there was no sound in the control-room but the clicking of the chronometer. Then he spoke with difficulty, getting no further than two words:

‘You mean ?’

‘What else could it be, sir?’

‘God in heaven!’ gasped the Captain.

He sat staring with eyes that had taken on the horror that lay in the other man’s….

Two men moved silently, with socks over their magnetic soles. They stopped opposite the door of one of the refrigeration compartments. One of them produced a slender key. He slipped it into the lock, felt delicately with it among the wards for a moment, and then turned it with a click. As the door swung open a pistol fired twice from within the refrigerator. The man who was pulling the door sagged at the knees, and hung in mid-air.

The other man was still behind the half-opened door. He snatched a pistol from his pocket and slid it swiftly round the corner of the door, pointing into the refrigerator. He pulled the trigger twice.

A figure in a spacesuit launched itself out of the refrigerator, sailing uncannily across the room The other man shot at it as it swept past him. The spacesuited figure collided with the opposite wall, recoiled slightly, and hung there. Before it could turn and use the pistol in its hand, the other man fired again. The figure jerked, and floated back against the wall. The man kept his pistol trained, but the spacesuit swayed there, flaccid and inert.

The door by which the men had entered opened with a sudden clang. The Navigating Officer on the threshold did not hesitate. He fired slightly after the other, but he kept on firing….

When his pistol was empty the man in front of him swayed queerly, anchored by his boots; there was no other movement in him. The Navigating Officer put out a hand and steadied himself by the doorframe. Then, slowly and painfully, he made his way across to the figure in the spacesuit. There were gashes in the suit. He managed to unlock the helmet and pull it away.

The Captain’s face looked somewhat greyer than undernourishment had made it. His eyes opened slowly. He said in a whisper:

‘Your job now, Carter. Good luck!’

The Navigating Officer tried to answer, but there were no words, only a bubbling of blood in his throat. His hands relaxed. There was a dark stain still spreading on his uniform. Presently his body hung listlessly swaying beside his Captain’s.

‘I figured they were going to last a lot longer than this,’ said the small man with the sandy moustache.

The man with the drawl looked at him steadily.

‘Oh, you did, did you? And do you reckon your figuring’s reliable?’

The smaller man shifted awkwardly. He ran the tip of his tongue along his lips.

‘Well, there was Bowman. Then those four. Then the two that died. That’s seven.’

‘Sure. That’s seven. Well?’ enquired the big man softly. He was not as big as he had been, but he still had a large frame. Under his intent regard the emaciated small man seemed to shrivel a little more.

‘Er-nothing. Maybe my figuring was kind of hopeful,’ he said.

‘Maybe. My advice to you is to quit figuring and keep on hoping. Huh?’

The small man wilted. ‘Er-yes. I guess so.’

The big man looked round the living-room, counting heads.

‘Okay. Let’s start,’ he said.

A silence fell on the rest. They gazed at him with uneasy fascination. They fidgeted. One or two nibbled at their finger nails. The big man leaned forward. He put a space-helmet, inverted, on the table. In his customary leisurely fashion he said:

‘We shall draw for it. Each of us will take a paper and hold it up unopened until I give the word. Unopened. Got that?’ They nodded. Every eye was fixed intently upon his face. ‘Good. Now one of those pieces of paper in the helmet is marked with a cross. Ray, I want you to count the pieces there and make sure that there are nine ‘

‘Eight!’ said Alice Morgan’s voice sharply.

All the heads turned towards her as if pulled by strings. The faces looked startled, as though the owners might have heard a turtle-dove roar. Alice sat embarrassed under the combined gaze, but she held herself steady and her mouth was set in a straight line. The man in charge of the proceedings studied her.

‘Well, well,’ he drawled. ‘So you don’t want to take a hand in our little game!’

‘No,’ said Alice.

‘You’ve shared equally with us so far-but now we have reached this regrettable stage you don’t want to?’