Alan E. Nourse (16 page)

"Now
where are you going, for the love of
mike?"

The
footsteps halted. "I thought I heard something—"

"Say, what are you
afraid of—spooks?"

"Well,
I don't like this. They might at least have given us guns—"

"Look,
get back here and lend a hand, huh? Or maybe you'd rather just sit and listen
for bogeymen."

They
heard the footsteps shuffle back again. Slowly David dropped to his belly,
began slithering along the wall toward the voices. He moved very slowly, then
suddenly motioned to
Tuck
. Tuck dropped too, and moved
clumsily along the rough ground until he was very close. "Right behind
you," he whispered.

"Good.
The tunnel they dug through opens into this one about fifty feet from where
they're working. They haven't got much light—if we move slow and quiet we might
get past them. Careful!"

He
started moving again, inching across the tunnel toward the black, raw hole that
had been dug into the tunnel, around the cave-in. Tuck sneaked a look at the
two burly workmen, toiling to get the sandbags thrown up to completely block
the opening to the outside. Both were working in light, close-fitting pressure
suits. They worked swiftly, grunting and cursing as they struggled with the
bags. Tuck moved slowly, very slowly, desperately afraid some scratch, some
joggled stone would rattle and betray them. But he suddenly saw David's feet
disappear into the darkness of the tunnel, and with his heart racing, he eased
himself up over the lip of the newly dug hole, slithered through, and lay
panting, his heart pounding in his throat.

"Made it!"
David was on his
feet,
crouched over in the narrow cut. "We'd better make speed."

"Where?"

"We can go back to the colony. There's
probably a sealed entrance to this tunnel, coming off one of the main tunnels.
If we can get into a main tunnel, we're all right—nobody can touch us. But if
they catch us in here—" He solemnly drew his finger across the throat of
the helmet. "Keep your fingers crossed."

They
moved slowly, using their lights only when they needed to. "I don't think
we need to worry about more
Murexide
," David
whispered. "The stuff is too dangerous to mess around with, if they've had
men moving supplies through here. Probably the one booby trap was considered
protection enough." They hurried along as the tunnel started upgrading,
winding slightly as they moved. Several times they passed through widened
vaults, with cargo packed high against the walls; once they thought they heard
steps ahead of them, and froze against the wall, only to realize that it was
only rocks breaking loose from the roof and crunching down to the floor. Time
passed, and still they walked, until Tuck began to doubt if they would ever
reach the main tunnel. And then, like a flash, David dove for the floor.
"Down, Tuck!"

Tuck
fell like a
poleaxed
mule. He lay, face down,
panting. Then he lifted his head, to confirm the glimpse of light that had
struck his eyes a moment before.

There
was no mistake. Ten feet ahead was a room, one of the widened vaults through
which the tunnel passed. It had been dark, and then a light had suddenly gone
on, almost in their faces. And in the room a man was pacing to and fro, his
face lighted by the battle lamps in the vault, and he was talking in a loud,
sharp, nasal voice that Tuck had heard once before, once too often.

The man was John
Cortell
.

_{Chapter
15
The
Closing Ring}

There
was
no
doubt of the man's identity. The thin, wiry frame, the pale hair, the narrow,
hawklike
face —all were carved in Tuck's memory from his
first sight of John
Cortell
. The man was angry now,
and he paced the room like a caged wildcat, his voice sharp in the still air.

"I
don't care if there were a thousand cave-ins,
we've got to get moving,
can't
you see that? As long as we've got the
colony to fight them off, we're doing fine, but how long do you think that can
last?"

Another
man's voice came to the boys from inside, a man they could not see. His voice
was quiet, almost weary, and he was saying, "John, we've done everything
we can. Cave-ins happen, and this one just came at the wrong time—"

"It
sure did! It came so much at the wrong time that it smells from here to Earth
and back!"

"John,
you're getting nervous. You're dreaming things."

"Dreaming?
With a cave-in in the one tunnel we have to have open?" The fugitive's
voice rose desperately. "I don't like it. I've got a right to be
nervous—"

"But nobody knows about it—they
couldn't, or you'd have that Earth snooper and his whole crew in here on our
necks right now. Relax, John. It'll just be a few more hours."

"And that idiot
Farnham
!"
Cortell
snarled.
"Had to worry about Security catching up with him back on Earth—had to try
to rub Benedict before he even left Earth—" He ran a nervous hand through
his pale hair. "Too much has gone wrong. We could have left
two days ago!
We could be gone, and the whole lousy crowd
of them would be finished, and there wouldn't be a soul left to give Security a
hint—"

Tuck
listened, his confusion growing. He slowly edged his way back into the
darkness, found David crouched close to the wall, listening. "Did you hear
that? What's he talking about?" he whispered.

He
heard David's breath, harsh in the darkness. "I don't quite know.
Listen."

"But what is this
place?"

"Looks
like
Cortell's
main hide-out. It makes sense. He
knows dad couldn't come for him here without giving away the whole works to the
Colonel. And it's handy for making the ship ready.
Cortell's
no fool."

"But
what can we do? We can't get through there into the colony—"

"That's for sure. And we can't go
back." David's voice was edged with worry. "But they don't know we're
here—and they don't know we're listening. And I want to hear the rest of
this—"

They moved in closer to the opening. Tuck's
mind was whirling, the thought screaming in his ears: your luck has run out,
you're caught here, trapped! He tried to force the thought out, but it wouldn't
force. They
were
caught—what if they hadn't
been discovered yet? It was only a matter of time until somebody came back
through the tunnel. Tuck glanced nervously over his shoulder into the
blackness, straining to hear some sound of footfalls. He tried to think what
they could do if the workmen were to suddenly come back down the tunnel, and he
found to his horror that he couldn't even organize his thoughts—

"But
we'll have to move fast when the time comes, because if
Torm
and the others even get a hint of it beforehand, it'll all be over."
Cortell's
voice was quieter now, but he still was pacing
the narrow room. "We can't take any chances on it. That's one reason I'd
like to see
Torm
killed now—with him gone, and maybe
Ned Miller, they'd be running around like blind men. But on the other hand, it
will be nice to think of him dying back here in the blowup, along with all the
others—"

Tuck's eyes widened in horror.
He glanced back at David, caught a glimpse
of his face in the dim light, and repressed a shudder, turning back to listen
again.

"I'm
not sure I like that so much, either, John," the other man was saying.
"The ship is outfitted for everyone. There's enough—"

"Garbage!"
Cortell
burst out.
"It would take another ten years to outfit it for five hundred
people." His voice lowered, almost confidentially. "Look, Dan, be
reasonable. The supplies on that ship right now wouldn't keep five hundred
people alive for fifty years—not a chance in a
million,
not even if everyone would take cut rations and co-operate a hundred percent.
And that's the kicker—everyone won't. With five hundred people on that ship,
there'd be murder and violence every step of the way. With five hundred people
aboard, it wouldn't stand the breath of a chance." He stared at his
companion, an ugly grin on his face. "But for
ten people—five
men and five women—there'd be plenty of
supplies, plenty of food, plenty of water— and enough for the children when
they come."
Cortell
sat down, nervously.
"It's the only smart way to do it." "I still don't like
it."

"Look—there's
me, and you, and Johnny Taggart, and Pete
Yeakel
and
Rog
Strang
. And then
there's our wives
. Just the ten of us, on that ship, headed
out. And not a trace left behind us, no mines, no colony, no
Torm
, no nothing—just one big, smoking crater to teach the
Earth swine who they were meddling with—"

The
other man was silent for a long time. Then he said. "The women won't like
it, John. The men, sure, but the women—you know how they feel about—well, about
the colony, about all the children—"

Cortell
grinned nastily. "Now isn't that just
too bad. It makes my heart ache, it does." His eyes were suddenly savage.
"I've waited too long, Dan. If the women don't like it, that's tough. They
come anyway. If they don't want to come, we drag them. But we've got to
move—"

Tuck heard a swift movement at his elbow, a
low-throated growl of rage. He caught David's arm violently, jerked it back,
wrenching him sharply back. "
Don't be a fool
,"
he whispered. "Come on, we've got to get out of here—"

"I'll
break his dirty neck," David snarled. "Let go of me, I tell you, I'll
smash his skull in—"

Tuck
pinned the huge lad's arm back, suddenly savage
himself
.
"Quiet! You'd wreck everything. Come on now!" His whisper was a sharp
command in the darkness. David suddenly relaxed, stumbling along behind him,
tears of fury rolling down his cheeks. "He's selling out everybody, the
whole colony—"

"Well,
you can't stop him that way." They crouched against the wall, well out of
earshot of the hide-out. "Now listen. We've
got
to get back to the colony somehow, and fast. We can't do a thing by
ourselves now. But we know where the ship is, and we know where
Cortell
is. We can lead your father to him, if we can stall
Cortell
, somehow. Now here's what I was
thinking—"

Swiftly
Tuck outlined the plan that had formed in his mind as he had listened to the
men in the hideout. David listened intently, nodding every now and then. Then
he said, "It might work—if the workers don't get us. And if we can stall
him long enough—" They stood up, and started down the tunnel again, moving
cautiously. The noise of their footfalls seemed deafening—surely they must be
heard, back in the hide-out—but as they paused from time to time, straining to
listen, they heard nothing but the sound of their own strained breathing.
Occasionally they stopped to catch their breath,
then
forced on again. It seemed that they walked for miles, and then, far up ahead,
they saw the workmen's lights, and slowed down to a cautious approach. "Do
you think they'll be finished with the repair yet?"

David
shook his head.
"Can't tell.
Maybe.
But they'll have to pump out methane for another six hours before they dare
let oxygen in."

"Maybe
they won't try to let oxygen in. Why should they bother, if only ten people are
coming through? They can certainly find ten pressure suits—"

David
bit his lip, slowing to a stop.
"Hadn't thought of that.
But maybe we can fix them anyway." His eyes gleamed malignantly in the dim
helmet light, and he searched around the floor of the tunnel until he found a
couple of large rocks. "I think I can really fix things for them."

They
could hear the pumps now, but there was no sign of activity at the other end of
the newly dug tunnel. Slowly the boys inched forward, and Tuck stuck his head
through the narrow opening, took a quick look, and drew it back sharply.

"One
of them is right on the other side," he whispered. "But he's
alone—"

"Think you can take
him?"

Tuck
nodded. "A lead pipe cinch, if he hasn't gotten a gun from the ship. They
had quite an arsenal there, remember—homemade jobs, but deadly."