The Other Side of Nowhere
- Автор: Лейнстер Мюррей
- Год: 1964
- Язык: английский
- Год: Berkley Medallion
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «The Other Side of Nowhere». Краткое содержание книги:
For centuries space travelers had dreaded a place they called the Other Side of Nowhere — a place in the universe where up was down, where right was wrong, and where all direction was lost...
To save the RIM STAR Braden had to bring the ship to the place of nightmare, the Other Side of Nowhere...
Braden was impatient. Up to now, it seemed to him, he had acted in an overprudent, overreflective, less-than-masculine way. What he planned to do would be violent and deadly and he counted upon surprise and experience in combat - if of a less lethal kind - to solve all the problems that still remained. Yet his chances of being killed were not small. But he was convinced that he would somehow manage to stay alive until his part of the job was done. Otherwise, these instructions might have to be depended on to finish the work if he himself couldn't do it.
"Why," asked Diane, "do you insist that somebody else at least know how to try to find a way of getting the ship to where we can get help without your doing it?"
"It's a simple, ordinary, rational precaution," he answered. "In the one chance in a thousand or a million..."
"You ought to find the captain," said Diane. Her eyes were at once frightened and soft, and she looked at Braden strangely. "Only... all he wants is to kill the men who murdered his family."
"I can understand that!" said Braden grimly. "If..."
Then he left them. But within an hour he was back, explaining again to Hardy. Presently Braden beckoned to Diane to listen too. She obeyed, watching him very gravely as he spoke. What she was to do at the appropriate time she had learned well. He was confident of that; he could act in full assurance that she'd do her part. But he was desperately uneasy about the rest.
Fortescue, on guard by the door, said abruptly,
"Something's happened! I hear shouting!"
Braden unconsciously felt for his blaster. Without a word, he went out the door. His exit was completely silent. Fortescue closed the door without the faintest sound. It was essential that the mutineers never think of the drive-compartment as a hiding place.
Braden stood for a moment on the walkway and listened.
A man shrieked. It was not a cry of pain, but of terror almost beyond imagining. It was high, and thin, and shrill, made by a man gripped by the unsurpassed fear and anguish one would expect of someone dangling over the deepest pit of hell, then being lowered into it. The sounds were no more articulate than the squealing of a pig which knows it is going to be butchered. And because it was a human throat that made such inhuman sounds, Braden was ashamed for it.
He swung over the railing and began to swing down through that incredible, vaguely lit blur of struts and joists and girders. The cry came from a definite direction, and Braden made for the source of the sound. There could be only certain causes for the cry - the most likely one being the skipper.
Braden came to a catwalk many levels below. He moved along it to the corridor-plate which should be at the end. The cries died away, and Braden heard lesser sounds like sobbing. He opened the door-plate to the corridor. There was utter and absolute blackness. There should not be such complete absence of light anywhere. The door-plate closed softly behind him, and Braden crouched in the abysmal dark. The man who'd been screaming only wept now, but it was a bubbling and a whimpering and a gasping babble. The man only gathered breath for further cries of terror.
Braden moved toward the sound with all possible caution, making sure that his blaster was handy. He fumbled in his pocket and found a coin which he tossed from him with his left hand. It struck the metal of the corridor wall. The sobbing man was paralysed into a horror-filled stillness. Braden heard the breathing of someone besides the man who'd been sobbing. It was a fat man's breathing. The man waited, as alert and listening as Braden was, but not conscious of the faint wheezing sound he had lived with so long that he'd ceased to hear it.
Braden said quietly:
"Skipper?"
There came a chuckle from the blackness.
"Ah, Mr. Braden! Fancy meeting you here!" The skipper's voice rolled and rumbled. It was sardonic. "And how have you made out with your responsibility, Mr. Braden?"
"Fairly well, sir," said Braden grimly. "I'm ready to take decisive action, sir. But I wanted to make contact with you before starting."
He could tell where the skipper was. Against the side wall, but not standing up. He was sitting, with his back against the wall-plating.
"How badly are you hurt?" Braden asked abruptly.
The skipper growled as if in vexation.
"Now, how the devil... It's nothing serious, Mr. Braden. Nothing to interfere with what I propose to do. Our companion, Mr. Braden - the voice you heard singing - is one Sharkey, who considers himself an accomplished pirate. I fancy, at that, that he's the bravest of the lot. I caught him bound for the passengers' quarters, quite alone, doubtless hoping to find something there that he could steal and hide from his fellows. I took him by the throat from behind. He fought like the rat he is, but when he recovered consciousness he found himself bound and in the dark... I think," rumbled the skipper, with relish, "I think he believes himself in hell."
"He can hear you," said Braden, "and learn better."
The skipper rumbled once more, zestfully.
"Ah, yes! But he screamed most edifyingly when he thought he was in hell. Why shouldn't he be in even better voice, now he knows I will presently take him in hand to... ah... exact some payment for events aboard the Melpomene?"
"How badly are you hurt?" demanded Braden again.
"Trivial," said the skipper. "I'm a heavy man, Mr. Braden. In the struggle with Sharkey, I tripped. His weight and mine came together on my ankle. It snapped - something did, at any rate. So I am immobilized, but I shall devote all my attention to Sharkey until his associates come and rescue him."
The other man in the corridor, Sharkey, began to whimper. It was a revolting sound. No man should ever utter such abject, hopeless, despairing sounds.
"I still hope," said the skipper benignly, "that his friends will come to his rescue. In the dark all cats are gray, and everything that moves can be a target. I believe that in darkness like this I can come to a settlement with most of the crew I have reason to... be stern with. But you've come first. If you will go away, Mr. Braden, I feel sure that Sharkey will try much more urgently to persuade his friends to come and kill me."
"They've only to turn the lights on," said Braden grimly. "Then..."
"Ah!" said the skipper. "But they can't turn on the lights! I've blown the main ship circuits and I've smashed the emergency light systems. If the gentlemen formerly of the Melpomene want to come at me, they must come on my terms.... In the dark." Then the skipper said cheerfully, "I'll have him call them again."
The other man, unseen in the darkness - Sharkey - screamed even when the skipper made only a rustling movement. It was pure terror, perhaps made specific by knowledge both of past events on the Melpomene and of intended happenings on the Rim Star. The mere idea that the skipper was moving toward him was utterly terrifying. He shrieked.
There came a new sound - a hissing, crackling noise. It was entirely familiar. It was the sound made by loudspeaker units in every part of the ship when a general communication announcement was to be made. There were voices behind the crackling sound. They said indefinite things. One voice said, "No good." Then the steward's voice boomed at full volume in all the halls and corridors of the Rim Star.
"Captain, sir," it said. There was a pause. "Captain!"
The skipper rumbled. Sharkey ceased his shrieks to listen. Braden automatically felt for his blaster.
"Captain," said the steward's voice, smooth and unctuous. "You are making things bad all around. I'm going to give you a chance to stay alive. I am talking under a flag of truce. Listen carefully!"