Space Station 1
they had failed to find him, sullen anger might have tempted them
to do an unthinkable thing. They might have locked the door of the
compartment so that the corpse would have no opportunity of escaping
prematurely and making them look like fools.
Corriston was just starting to climb out of the bin to investigate
the truth or falseness of that utterly demoralizing possibility when
he heard the sound. It was a very peculiar sound, three or four
times repeated, and he heard it clearly above the low drone of the
Selector's automatic controls.
He stood up in the bin, straining his ears. It came again, louder this
time. It was only a short distance away and it was a voice sound,
unmistakably a voice sound.
He climbed out of the bin, grasped a metal rod that projected from
one of the cross-beams, and descended cautiously to the base of the
Selector. The droning increased for an instant, rising to a whine so
high-pitched that he could no longer hear the voice.
He started moving around the edge of the Selector, keeping well within
its shadow, watching shafts of dull light move backwards and forwards
across the floor. He hardly expected anyone to leap out at him. The
voice had not seemed quite that near; in fact, he was by no means sure
that it had come from the compartment at all. But if not from the
compartment, where?
He found out quickly enough. There was a square, windowlike grate a few
feet from the Selector's automatic control panel, set high up on the
wall. A faint, steady glow came from it.
Corriston paused for an instant directly below the glow, measuring the
distance from the floor to the aperture with his eyes. He strained his
ears again, waiting for the whine to subside. It continued shrill, but
suddenly he heard the voice again, heard it above the whine.
There was stark terror in the voice. It was despairing and desperate
in its pleading, and it seemed to Corriston that he would remember it
until he died. He thought he recognized the voice, but he couldn't be
sure.
It was perhaps merciful that he couldn't, for the grate was at least
ten feet above the floor and had he known beyond the faintest shadow
of doubt that it was Helen Ramsey's voice, his inability to reach her
would have been fiendish torment.
He hoped only one thing--that he had to reach that voice in time.
First of all he had to stay calm. Even a calm man could not hope to
scale a ten-foot wall with his bare hands, but an agitated man would
have no chance at all. Something to stand on! A box--anything!
A box would help, a ladder would be better. But what were his chances
of finding a ladder in the Selector compartment? Not good at all.
Still, he could search for a ladder. Quickly now. No time to waste, but
don't lose your head. Take thirty seconds, a good long thirty seconds
to look around for a metal ladder. There just might be one standing
somewhere against the wall.
There was! Not one ladder, but two, leaning against the wall directly
opposite the glimmering front section of the Selector.
It was amazing how desperation could change a man. In the great moments
of danger and desperation small, neurotic concerns ceased to matter.
He was sure now. He had recognized the voice beyond any possibility of
doubt. The ladder scraped against the wall and swayed a little, and for
an instant he feared it might slide out from under him. He paused to
make sure, and then went swiftly on up until his head was level with
the grate.
He grasped the heavy grillwork with both hands and raised himself
higher. He could see clearly through the grill into the compartment
beyond now. The entire compartment was visible from where he stood. It
was small and square and dimly lighted by an overhead lamp, and there
was a paneled door leading into it.
Close to the door a man was standing. Corriston couldn't see his face.
He was half-turned away from the wall opposite him, and the girl who
was struggling to escape from him was more than two-thirds concealed by
his massive shoulders.
He was holding her in a tight, merciless grip. He had locked one hand
on her wrist and was preventing her from moving either backwards or
forwards. It was costing him no effort. He simply stood very straight
and still while she struggled vainly to free herself.
Immense strength seemed to emanate from him, complete assurance and
a coldly calculating kind of brutality which appeared to be slowly
undermining her will to resist. Her struggles became less frantic
second by slow second, and that she was about to stop struggling
altogether was evident from the way her right arm had begun to dangle
and her body to sag.
The man was holding her by the left wrist in a left-handed grip. He was
cruelly twisting her wrist and suddenly she cried out again in pain and
despairing helplessness.
The blood started mounting to Corriston's temples. He began tugging at
the grate with both hands, exerting all his strength in a desperate
effort to dislodge it. It began to move a little, to become less firmly
attached to the wall. He could feel it moving under his hands, rasping
and creaking as it loosened inch by inch.
He was covered with sweat. Already in his mind he had killed the man,
and Helen Ramsey was tight in his arms, happy and alive.
The man did not seem to hear the rasp of the grate coming loose. He
neither turned nor raised his head. His free hand had gone out and
across the girl's face. But if he had struck her on the face, she gave
no sign. She did not recoil as if from a blow and there was something
strange about the movement. It was as if the man had reached out to
tear something from the girl's face--a veil or a mask.
His hand whipped back empty but his fingers were oddly twisted, as if
he had clawed at something that had failed to come free.
Corriston pulled back his shoulders and his posture on the ladder grew
more erect. He knew that his exertions might send the ladder toppling
but it was a risk he had to take.
The grate was freely movable now. He could move it backwards and
forwards, six or eight inches each way; but he still could not rip it
completely free.
He kept on tugging, his neck cords bulging, the ladder swaying
dangerously. The grate could be moved upward now, just a little. No, it
was finally coming completely loose. He could move it in all directions
and even push it outward at right angles to its base.
Twice he heard Helen Ramsey cry out again, and her screams became a
goad that turned his wrists to steel. With a sudden, convulsive wrench
he twisted the grate sideways. It came loose in his hands. It was so
surprisingly light that an incongruous rage surged up in him. It was
cruelly perverse, intolerable, that he should have been so long delayed
by a thin sheet of metal that hardly seemed to have any weight at all.
He swung about on the ladder and let the grate drop. It struck the
floor a few feet from the Selector and rebounded with a clang loud
enough to wake the dead. The ladder swayed again, and he had to grab
the edge of the aperture quickly and with both hands to keep himself
from toppling.
He pulled himself forward through the aperture on his stomach, taking
care not to dislodge the ladder. His temples were pounding and his
palms sticky with sweat. He did not look down until he was completely
through, dreading what he might see.
He passed a hand over his eyes. It was unbelievable, but he had
to believe it. The man was gone and the girl was now alone in the
compartment.
Had the man fled in sudden fear, knowing that Corriston would be
consumed with a killing rage that would make him a more than dangerous
adversary? Corriston didn't think so. The man had looked quite capable
of putting up a furious struggle. More likely he had disappeared to
keep himself from being recognized, or because he had accomplished his
purpose.
Blind, embittered anger again boiled up in Corriston. Had the man
waited, he would have rejoiced and been less angry. He would have taken
a calm, deep breath and slowly set about the almost pleasant task of
killing him.
He felt cheated, outraged. Then his concern for Helen Ramsey made him
forget his rage. Had she been felled with a blow, or had she simply
fainted? He started down, then hesitated.
The ladder first. Before he descended it was necessary to make sure
that the ladder would be in the same compartment with him, set firmly
against the wall, directly under the aperture. If he were prevented
from leaving the compartment by the corridor door, he might find
himself needing the ladder. Without it he might be descending into a
trap that could close with a clang and abruptly imprison him.
Getting down into the compartment was the worst part, just putting the
ladder into place and not knowing how badly hurt she was.
_What if she's dead?_ he thought. _What if he killed her with a single
blow? He looked strong enough. He could have killed her. God, don't let
me think of that. I mustn't think it._
His feet touched the floor. He let out his breath slowly, turned and
crossed the floor to where she was lying. He went down on his knees and
lifted her into his arms. She lay relaxed in his arms, face up, quiet,
her lips slightly parted.
He looked down into her face, and for a moment his mind went numb,
became still, so that there was no longer a whirling inside his
head--only a chilling horror.
She seemed to have two faces. One was shrunken and almost torn away,
a shredded fragment of a face. But enough of it remained for him to
see the shriveled flesh of the cheeks, the puckered mouth, the white
hair clinging to the temples. It was the face of an old woman but so
fragmentary that it could not even have been called a half-face. And
even though it had been almost ripped away, it seemed still to adhere
firmly to the face to which it had been attached, and to blend with it,
so that the features of both faces intermingled in a quite unnatural
way.
Not quite, though; Helen Ramsey's face was sharper, more distinct--all
of the features stood out more clearly. And when Corriston's stunned
mind began to function normally again, he realized that the old woman's
face was--had to be--a plastic mask.
It took him only an instant to remove the ghastly thing from features
which he could not bear to see defaced.
He had to pry it loose, but he did so very gently, exactly as a
sculptor might have pried loose a life mask from the face of a
recumbent model.
He held it in his hand and looked at it, and a little of the horror
crept back into his mind.
It was the merest fragment, as he had thought. Thin, flexible, a
tissue-structure of incomplete, aged features, and with an inner
surface that was very rough and uneven, as if something had been torn
from it.
He could have crumpled it up in his hand, but he did not do so. With
a lack of foresight which he was later to regret--a lack which was to
prove tragic--he simply flung it from him, as though its ugliness had
unnerved him so that he could no longer endure the sight of it.
Helen Ramsey was a dead weight in his arms, and for a moment he feared
that she had stopped breathing. So great was his fear, so paralyzing,
that his hand on her pulse became rigid, and for a moment he could
neither move nor think.
Then he felt the slow beat of her pulse and a great thankfulness came
upon him.
He knew then that he must get help as quickly as possible. He eased her
gently to the floor, walked to the door and locked it securely. Then
he returned to her and took her into his arms again. He spent several
minutes trying to revive her. But when she did not open her eyes, did
not even stir in his arms, he knew that he could not wait any longer.
8
An inexorable kind of determination enabled Corriston to get to the