Space Station 1
had berthed at the Station the dangerous character of its cargo could
not have escaped detection. We have every reason to believe that it
_intended_ to berth at the Station. Its signals to the Station, before
some undeterminable shipboard accident sent it out of control, confirm
this. We must therefore assume complicity of a double nature: by the
freighter's commanding officer, Captain James Summerfield, and by
someone in a position of high command on the Station."
After that, there was no silencing the slow, relentless events on Earth.
A week after the tragedy, a U. S. Marine corporal stationed at Port
Forrestal, Wisconsin, put through a late afternoon phono-view call to
his wife. His face on the screen was haggard with strain, and he seemed
not to want to meet his wife's gaze.
"We've been ordered out into space," he said.
"You mean they're sending you out to take over the Station?"
"They're sending out five thousand United States Marines," the corporal
said. "We all knew it was coming. We expected it when that Governmental
Investigating Committee was turned back."
"But it doesn't make sense. I can't understand it. Why should the
Commander of the Station refuse to permit a Governmental Investigating
Committee to land?"
"We don't know. He must have something to conceal, and you can be
pretty sure it's an ugly something. When that freighter disaster got
into every daily press conference of the high brass I knew this was
coming. I felt it in my bones."
"But what will happen if the Commander refuses to let even the Marines
land? What will happen then?"
"We may have to open fire on the Station," the corporal said. "If the
Station is in criminal hands we'll have no alternative."
"You talk as if you were in command."
"I guess every soldier talks like that when his life is in jeopardy.
But I'm glad I'm not a five-star general. If I had to make a decision
like that--"
* * * * *
But it wasn't a general who made the crucial decision. It was Admiral
John Hayes, Commander of the Eighth Spatial Naval Division, acting on
behalf of fifty-seven nations.
He stood in the bridge room of a United States naval cruiser of massive
tonnage, staring out through a wide-view observation port at the
Station's glimmering immensity. The cruiser and the Station were moving
at almost the same speed, fifteen thousand miles an hour. But now the
cruiser was moving just a little faster than the Station, and Admiral
Hayes was growing impatient.
Maneuvering into an orbital position almost directly abreast of the
Station had been difficult. Commander Hayes' nerves were badly frayed;
and he was not a man who could endure too much frustration. He had
signaled the Station twice and received no reply. During that time,
both the Station and the Cruiser had completely encircled the Earth at
an interval of just a little under two hours.
He turned suddenly from the viewport, his lips set in tight lines. He
stared for an instant in silence at the young officer at his side, his
mind groping for an argument which would completely justify what he had
already decided he must do.
But Lieutenant Commander Kenneth Archer spoke first, saying quietly:
"You have no choice, sir."
Hayes' features relaxed a little. It was good to know that he had
support from a man whose judgment he respected. For an instant the
awful aloneness which went with supreme command weighed less heavily
upon him.
"It's absolute defiance, open rebellion," Hayes said. "I'm forced
to assume that the Station is in criminal hands. We'll never know,
probably, just _what_ happened on board that freighter. But we do know
that accidents occur. For every thirty ships that berth securely, one
meets with some kind of navigational mishap. The damage isn't always
irreparable. More often than not, in fact, it's quite minor. Usually
it means only a delay in berthing, a navigational shift, a circling
back for another try. But apparently that freighter really _had_ it.
So it gave the show away. Commander Clement must be in league, hand in
glove, with whoever is interested in smuggling unauthorized uranium
shipments through to Earth for his own personal profit. And to hasten
his immediate profit that someone apparently found it to his advantage
to trigger a little of the shipment into highly fissionable material on
Mars."
"You know as well as I do who the someone is, sir," Archer said.
"I guess we both know. But right now my only concern is with the
Station. If they ignore my third order to stand by for boarding I'll
have to open fire. The Station's stolen property just as long as it
remains in criminal hands. You can't get a desperate criminal to
surrender your property unless you convince him his own life is in
danger. I've got to try my best to convince Commander Clement I mean
business without destroying the Station."
"You'll damage it to some extent, sir. How bad do you think it will be?"
"I don't know. I don't intend to launch an atomic warhead. But I can't
stop short of that if he stays stubborn. I've no way of knowing what
his breaking point will be. But I do know that if he keeps control of
the Station he'll be in a position to wipe out New York or London."
"But you'll make your intentions unmistakably clear before you open
fire, sir?"
"Yes," Hayes said, wearily. "Yes ... of course I will."
11
Corriston took a deep breath and let it out slowly. So far luck had
favored him. Now he felt as though he were walking through a deadly
jungle where all the animals had suddenly turned friendly. The teeth
they bared at him were smiling. The grins were their masks. But the
commander didn't pretend at all ... whoever the commander really was!
And then that single question began to gnaw at Corriston like some rat
feeding on his flesh: Where was the real Clement now? Was he alive? Was
he accessible? Or was he dead?
Corriston's mental processes were now governed by the most evanescent
of impressions: the depth of the shadows on both sides of the corridor;
his own shadow lengthening before him; the drone of machinery deep
within the Station; the muffled beating of his own heart. Suddenly he
was at the end of the corridor and approaching the main control room,
his face as grim as death.
Violence he had determined upon, but it would be a very brief, a very
effective kind of violence. It takes only a second to rip a mask from a
man's face.
Something was happening just outside the main control room door. The
three executive officers guarding the door had moved eight or ten paces
down the corridor, and the door itself was standing ajar. The executive
officers had their backs turned to Corriston and were making no attempt
to conceal their agitation. They were very pale, at least, one of them
was. Two had their backs completely turned, but Corriston caught a
brief glimpse of the third man's profile, and it seemed completely
drained of color, as if the mask had stopped mirroring emotion
artificially and had allowed the wearer's actual pallor to seep through.
Corriston glided quickly to the door, passed through it and shut it
very quietly behind him.
The commander had his back turned too. He was standing before the
viewport, staring out into space.
But the commander did seem dazed, did seem stunned. Corriston could
tell by his posture, by the way he held his shoulders, by the utter
rigidity of his neck.
Then he saw it, the long cylindrical hull touched by a pale glimmer of
starlight, the circular, glowing ports, the massive, atomic-projectile
launching turrets at its base. He saw it through the viewport, saw it
past the commander's stiffening shoulders--an American war cruiser of
formidable tonnage and armed with sufficient fire power to shatter a
small moon.
All right, let the Big Dark contain it for a moment, poised out there,
ready for any contingency. Right at the moment a scoundrel must be
unmasked in a very stark way. Whatever trouble he had brought upon
himself, he must be made to face it now without the mask.
Corriston unholstered his gun and walked toward the commander across
the deck. He came up behind him and thrust the gun into the small of
his back.
"Turn around," he ordered. "Don't make any other move. Just turn slowly
and face me. I want to take a good look at your face."
If the commander was startled, he didn't show it. Perhaps the
war cruiser had dealt him such a crushing blow that he was no
longer capable of experiencing shock. Or his control may have been
extraordinary. Corriston had no way of knowing and it didn't concern
him too much.
He was chiefly interested in the commander's eyes. He had never before
seen eyes quite so piercing in their stare or narrowed in quite such an
ugly way.
The commander spoke almost instantly and his voice had a steel-cold
rasp. "Well?" he said.
Just a few words--just the shortest possible question he could have
asked.
Corriston said: "You're wearing a mask, aren't you, commander?"
The impostor's expression did not change, but his hand went
instinctively to his throat.
"Remove your tie and unbutton your collar," Corriston said.
The man made another quick gesture with his hand in the direction of
his throat. But it seemed involuntary, protective, for he did not touch
his collar.
Corriston shifted his weapon a little, moving the barrel upward until
it pressed very firmly against the commander's breastbone. He reached
out and unbuttoned the commander's collar with his free hand, very
quickly and expertly.
He was staring at the tiny hooks at the base of the mask when something
happened which made him regret that he had not followed his original
intention of instantly ripping the mask from the man's face.
The door opened and the three executive officers came into the control
room. For an instant they seemed neither to see nor understand the
situation. They must have seen Corriston, but the fact that he was
wearing a guard's uniform may have given them the idea that he had
every right to be there. The gun was concealed from view and the
commander was standing very quietly by the viewport and quite obviously
incapable of making any move, simply because the slightest move would
have endangered his life.
So the executive officers went right on talking for an instant, half to
themselves and half to the commander, just as if Corriston had not been
present at all.
"If that cruiser lands, Ramsey's goose is cooked and ours is too," a
tall officer said. "The instant that freighter crashed I knew they'd
find out quickly enough how the ships had been carrying smuggled
uranium. I knew that under pressure, half of our captains would
talk ... and the crews, too. All the government would have to do is
check and they'd find out that we're Ramsey's men, all of us. They
might even now know about the masks."
"Why not about the masks?" another officer joined in. "Ramsey paid for
the research that went into them, didn't he? Big tycoon ... fingers in
a dozen pies. When the secret's out, and he puts them on the market,
he'll make important money out of it. But we'll be in prison with just
our own faces staring back at us from a steel wall."
"Don't worry about that. Ramsey won't profit from the manufacture of
masks. He won't even profit from the false uranium clearance we gave
him. If that cruiser is allowed to land he'll be in prison with us."
"Better think that over, Commander. You refused to let the Governmental
Investigating Committee land. If a single soldier sets foot on the
Station we're done for. It's not too late to do something about it.
That cruiser can only berth by overtaking us. If we change our orbit
fast and start blasting at them with our rear adjusting rockets they'll
have to keep their distance?"