Big Pill Read online

we don't see theship from camp anywhere in space. They must have gotten our warning toblast off with everybody. Radio reception was clear as a bell,then!... Wait! Somebody's trying to call us now...."

  Bert strained his ears to penetrate the scratchy noises thrown up bythe atomic holocaust that he had set off, and hear the words spokenblurredly by a familiar voice:

  "... Bert ... Alice.... This is Lawler.... Rockets of ship won'tfunction.... So ... can't leave ... camp.... Two Space Patrol boatscleared Titan with some ... women.... Too small ... few passengers....Most ... stranded here.... Bert--what?... I think ... Lauren...."

  The rest of the words were drowned in a cataract of static.

  Bert gulped. His mouth tasted suddenly sour with near-panic. "Lauren,"he grated, his voice like a file. "Again. It would be a long chancethat the ship broke down just by coincidence. He doctored thoserockets and probably got clear in his own spaceboat. Leave it to himto make the use of the Big Pill look like disaster. And it can bethat, now, with people left in the danger zone, losing their heads,acting foolishly."

  Bert felt much more than just bitter, furious chagrin. His fellowcolonists might lose their lives. He was responsible. He had launcheda gigantic experiment recklessly.

  "All we can do is get back to camp as fast as possible," Alice shoutedabove the static. "Come on, Bert! Bear down on the jets!"

  So they hurtled at even greater speed toward the surface of Titanbelow. Meanwhile, faintly luminous vapors continued to pour over thehills from the direction of the terrible glow that fringed thehorizon. Minutes before they reached the ground, hot, dusty murkthickened around them. It blew against them like a devil's wind.

  They began to use their jets to brake speed. The camp was all but lostto view in the thickening haze. They landed heavily a mile outside itand went rolling for a few yards after the impact. Dazed, theystaggered up.

  For a while their impressions were blurred, as if they struggledthrough some murky, cobwebby nightmare. Once more on Titan, silent asdeath for unthinkable ages, there were howling wind-sounds that foundtheir way to Alice and Bert dimly through their oxygen helmets. Oftenthe hot blast bowled them over, but they arose and kept on towardcamp.

  Bert took a Geiger counter, pencil-size from his chest-pouch. In it,flashes of light replaced the ancient clicking. It flickered madly.This meant that outside their shielding spacesuits was radioactivedeath. The gases of the wind that howled around them, had been in partreleased from chemical compounds, but more had been transmuted fromother elements of the rock and dust in the crust of Titan, in thatatomic vortex where the Big Pill had struck. Those gases were so newthat they were tainted with the fires of their birth--saturated withradioactivity.

  "It's nothing that we didn't expect, Allie," Bert grated into hishelmet-phone, as if to reassure himself as well as his wife. "We knewbeforehand."

  His arm was around Alice, supporting her unsteady steps. Throughblowing clouds of dust and gas that had surpassed hurricane force,they reached camp. Through the murk they saw that the wind hadflattened and scorched every airdome. But there was no one in sight.

  "The people must be inside the ship!" Alice shouted. "Even if it can'tfly, it can protect them! There it is, undamaged!..."

  "Yeah," Bert agreed, but he knew that her cheerfulness was a littlelike grabbing at a straw.

  Then Alice had another thought, "By now there isn't anymore Space Ship_Prometheus_," she said. "It has melted to a globe of incandescentmetal, kept hot by a slow atomic breakdown in its substance. But it'ssticking to the same tight orbit around Titan."

  They hadn't seen it happen because by then the _Prometheus_ had passedbeyond the horizon. But the globe would circle Titan and return.

  Alice kept trying to be cheerful. Bert felt a flicker of that samemood when he said, "Sure, Allie." But then his mind dropped thesubject of the _Prometheus_. For there was too much terribleuncertainty and human confusion to be dealt with.

  Bert led Alice to the small, seldom-used airlock near the stern of thecamp ship. He had a logical hunch that Lawler would be waiting justinside to tell them what the situation was on board.

  The hunch proved true. The lock's inner door slid aside stiffly andthere was Lawler, a finger to his lips.

  Quickly the Kraskows removed their radioactivity-tainted spacesuits.Bert spoke softly.

  "Well, Lawler, how do the gases that are spreading over Titan test outchemically?"

  "As was expected, Bert. Plenty of nitrogen. Some helium. Plenty ofhydrogen. A lot more oxygen. So that, as all of the hydrogenburns--combines with it to form water-vapor--there still will be lotsof oxygen left over, floating free. Of course these gases are still soradioactive that half a lungful would kill. Only time will tell if Docfigured things straight. By the way, where is he?"

  "Dead," Bert answered. "Murdered."

  Lawler's lip curled, but he showed no surprise. "Uhunh," he grunted."We can't prove the sabotage of this ship's rockets, either. When wetried to take off they just fizzled out their insides."

  Then Lawler's eyes gleamed. "But," he said, "I foresaw funny business,so I doctored the jets of Lauren's private spaceboat as a precaution.He's still here with a couple of his stooges. He just about hadhysterics when the space cops couldn't find room for him. He's beenyelling accusations and promises of court action ever since whiletrying to repair his spaceboat."

  "How are the colonists taking what happened?" Bert cut in.

  Lawler shrugged. "Not bad. Not good. What you'd expect. Lots of thosepeople are new to space. That was hard to take in itself. Add somemessy deaths, and now this. And with Lauren yelling--well--plenty ofthem don't like us."

  "Did anybody get hurt, yet?" Bert demanded.

  "Not yet. Want to see the bunch?"

  "Sure," Bert answered.

  * * * * *

  He thrust Alice behind him as they approached the main lounge of theship where most of the colonists were assembled.

  Trenton Lauren's voice burst on his ears. "There he is! Kraskow, I'llsee that you spend your life in prison! A Patrol ship is coming outfrom Mars right now to get you! You may even hang! Out there in campare ten million dollars' worth of equipment--property of myfirm--which has been destroyed by your malicious action. And you'vemade a whole world useless for colonization for centuries to come!It's poisoned with radioactivity! Maybe we'll all die! Do you hear me,Kraskow? Die!"

  Bert Kraskow moved quietly forward, past faces that glowered at him.Then he struck. There was a vicious thud. Lauren went down, droolingblood, his eyes glazed. Bert did not lose a motion as he steppedforward, and laid Lauren's two henchmen low with equal dispatch.

  Minutes passed before the trio was awake again. Before Lauren couldspout more venom, Bert stopped him with a growl. "Get out of mysight," he said. "Say another word and you'll get more of what youjust got."

  They went, Lawler following to watch out for possible mischief.

  "None of us are hurt, yet," Bert told those near him, "though somethings have gone wrong. Let's sit tight and see how matters turn out."

  As he looked around him Bert felt that most of the colonists didn'treally care to listen to him. Maybe you couldn't blame them. They'dall heard and seen too much. And, in a sense, Bert felt littledifferent than they did. There was fear in him, and tension. He hadreleased a colossus. Calculations and minor tests might call it agenie of benevolence. But this remained still unproven.

  Outside, the wind howled, making the ship quiver. The glow from theBig Pill continued to paint the now murky sky. Bert and his wifewaited grimly and silently in the lounge with the others. Hours passedwithout much change. Once, briefly, it was red-lit night. Then thischanged for a while to daylight that was blurred, but far strongerthan that to which a Saturnine moon was accustomed.

  A little later Lawler came back to the lounge. "Trenton and his bumsgot their spaceboat patched up," he announced. "I watched 'em do it.They went out protected by spacesuits, of course. They did a botchjob, but I guess it'll hold.
Now they're taking off."

  Through the leaded glass of the window-ports, the colonists watchedthe craft vanish into the steam-filled wind.

  A minute later disaster struck the colonists.

  The explosion was not heavy against the roar of the storm, but ajagged hole, a yard across, was ripped in the ship's hull. Into thehole rushed the hot, radioactive wind. Automatic safety doors failedto close properly. Maybe they had been sabotaged, too, by Lauren.

  Many of the colonists were wearing spacesuits. They were the luckyones, only having to slam their face-windows shut to be protectedsufficiently from radiation. The others had to scramble to armorthemselves. Bert