Title: Slay-Ride
Author: Marks, Winston K. (Winston Kinney)
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Slay-Ride" ***


                               SLAY-RIDE

                          By WINSTON K. MARKS

             _Who ever thought that Frane Lewis--wholesale
              triggerman, spaceways pirate--would be the
              sweating victim of a simple, webbed, nylon
                garment known as spaceman's underwear?_

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
                     Planet Stories November 1953.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


Frane Lewis enjoyed another sadistic shiver as he moved up the narrow
passageway to the captain's control room. To his flared nostrils the
warm, moist air of the small space-freighter was still heavy with the
smell of death. A psychiatrist could have told him that this was a
neural confusion of olfactory sensation with the perverted emotional
excitement of murder. But no physicians ever attended Frane's murders,
except at inquests.

Three crewmen, still warm, lay at their posts with bloody splotches
staining their tunic pockets. Two more chores aboard and his pay,
fabulous pay, was earned.

For Frane simple plans worked best. He rapped on the gray magnesium
panel. "Your lunch, sir," he called. Inside, a solenoid thumped. The
port slid aside revealing the captain's square back outlined against
the white-sprinkled velvet of space. As the executive turned away from
the transparent nose dome Frane's weapon spoke its final invitation to
eternity. The captain's eyes clamped shut, and in the reduced gravity
he buckled to the deck in slow motion.

Then Frane swore as the dimly lighted astro-pit revealed another
person. What was the navigator doing up here at this time of watch? The
tall, uniformed second officer reacted even as unbelieving horror swept
his face.

Shoving off from the bulkhead Frane dodged the officer's lunge with
a quick side-step, but the motion smashed the side of his curly head
into a grip stanchion. His ears rang, and blood spurted from a forehead
gash. In a cold rage he watched his opponent recover and crouch for
another spring. "Sucker! you could have died nice and easy. Now we
shall see!"

With cruel deliberation he slipped his finger off the trigger and
waited for the spaceman's desperate dive. Up whipped the heavy hand
weapon in a short, vicious arc that splintered jawbone with an almost
crisp, wood-snapping sound.

Swiftly Frane secured the cabin door. Then he went about binding
the unconscious navigator with parts of his own uniform. When he
was through he stood for a moment trying to orient himself in the
hemispherical room. He compared it to a chart sketch provided him on
earth before he had stowed away in his special supply crate.

"Piracy!" The word hissed into the silence with a quality of
unbelieving. Frane swung and saw that his victim had regained his
senses.

"Yeah, piracy. Didn't think it could happen, did you? They told you
space piracy was impossible, didn't they?"

"You brutal, bestial, insane--" the navigator broke off as his smashed
jaw moved in spite of his gritted teeth.

"Not insane, buddy, just irritated. You caused me some trouble, see?
I'm saving you, buddy." His hand came away from his face palm out and
smeared with red. "I'm saving you for later."

       *       *       *       *       *

He moved surely now, the details of location well in mind. A low placed
locker when opened spilled out the gleaming metalized space suit which
was prop number one in this stage play. A little nervously Frane
fumbled with the unfamiliar garment.

The officer watched with dull eyes as the killer prepared to don it.
"How--how many--men alive back there?"

"Subtract three. That leaves eighteen, doesn't it? And you can write
them off as soon as I get these pajamas on."

"Don't spill the air! For the love of Jupiter, don't spill the air! You
have the ship. Why murder us all?"

"Orders. I don't make them, I just carry them out. For money. Big
money. That's why I'm here. I'm reliable. Besides, your men might break
out and pester me. They're locked in their quarters."

"You mean you're alone?"

"I'm your man, space boy," Frane said with flat boastfulness. He caught
up a strange webbed garment of nylon yarn. "What do you call this fish
net? It was in the suit locker."

"You wouldn't know about that, you earthbound slug. We call it
spaceman's underwear. Didn't your buddies tell you about it?"

Frane shrugged, started to discard it and changed his mind. "Better put
it on me, I guess. I suppose it's pretty cold when the air goes out."

Through twisted, motionless lips, the navigator told him, "Very cold.
Absolute cold. You won't live if you spill the air." Frane said
nothing. The spaceman watched the killer strip off his clothes, slip
into the net garment and redress himself. Wool slacks snugged in at the
ankles and belted tightly to a felt jacket with a tight, soft collar.
Now he proceeded with the space suit.

"With enough air a man can live for weeks in one of these," Frane
lectured to dispel a depressed feeling of confinement, as he tugged
the bulky space garment up and fastened it around his neck. "And I got
plenty of air, see?" He uncoiled the length of silicon-plastic hose and
plugged one end into the bubble helmet, the other into the wall valve
of the control cabin.

"How do you intend to navigate this craft?" the officer asked with
honest curiosity.

After a moment's reflection Frane could see no reason to conceal the
procedure. He felt like talking. He had often talked to his victims
before. Foolishly, perhaps, but his victims had never lived to repeat
the conversations. Nor would this one.

"We'll be boarded in about twenty hours. They told me they couldn't
trail too closely or your radar would have alerted you. They'll have
their own crew to take over."

"Suppose they don't show up at all?" the officer needled.

"They will. Don't you worry your silly little head over that."

"But if they don't?" the prostrate man insisted. "You know, when you
blow the main valves you can't close them again from the inside. You
may have plenty of air for that suit, but how will you eat? Breathing
is just one problem in a space suit."

"They'll be here inside of twenty hours, I told you."

"And you'll be dead."

"Why?"

"Because they double-crossed you good. Sure, they'll get the fattest
cargo this can ever carried. But your share of it will be a shove
outside. You'll be just as damned dead as I'll be."

"How did they cross me up?"

A ghost of a smile distorted the swollen face that had once been lean
and handsome. "Find out," he said simply.

In spite of himself Frane checked back on his procedure. Purposely or
otherwise, could they have left out some essential step in order to
reduce the number of splits on the cargo? He ticked off the steps of
his project and could find no reasonable omission. Carefully he fitted
on the bubble, opened the oxygen valve and made the meter read what
they had told him.

The hiss told him he was getting gas, but surprisingly, there was no
perceptible motion of air in the helmet. Clever inlet baffles prevented
the chilly drafts that had plagued pioneer spacemen with head colds and
sneezes.

He was sweating already, but, he reflected, it wouldn't do any harm to
store up a little body heat against the hours of this absolute zero
they talked about.

       *       *       *       *       *

He checked the chronometer which he'd strapped to the wrist of his
suit. "Right on time," he shouted in order to be heard through the
plastic bubble. His bulky hand paused clumsily on the master air outlet
valve switch. He raised his other arm in a derisive farewell gesture.

"Quick-frozen space punks!" he shouted. "Get them cheap from Frane
Lewis, wholesale triggerman." He laughed hoarsely as he jabbed the
switch.

The sound of air rushing from vents never intended to be opened in
space, screeched a shrill requiem even through the thick curved helmet.
As the sound grew fainter his suit bulged out and threw him off
balance. He toppled over and landed face down on the dying navigator.
For one grisly second the swollen, contorted face with bulging eyes
glared at him, then he rolled away in a convulsed panic that ripped his
air hose from its connection.

The hiss stopped, and almost instantly his rapid respiration fouled
the air of his tiny headspace. Frantic, mitted hands fought the slender
hose back over the nipple, struggled with the safety clamp, and once
again the sweet air dribbled into his lungs.

He realized now there must have been an automatic valve in the air
inlet, which had held his pressure until the connection was remade,
with a trace of new respect for the breed of spacemen, he wondered
about the poor fools who had suffered and died to provide the
improvements of this self-contained bit of earth environment. He
was now the only living speck of life on the desolated craft he had
betrayed to the frigid airlessness of space.

Frigid? The exertion had sweat running down his face so freely that
his snug neckband was soaked already. His hand came up and rapped the
bubble in an unconscious, futile motion intended to rub out the salty
sweat from his stinging eyes and tortured head wound.

Strange. The cold was not penetrating at all. Even at the several
points where his body and limbs made contact with the distended space
suit, no sensation of coolness struck through. His feet were moist and
hot on the heavy cork soles.

He stared briefly at the two bodies near his feet. They were beyond
explaining anything. The smell of death came back to his nostrils.
Right through his helmet? There was no smell out there. The smell was
in here. With him. Power of suggestion? The navigator had said he would
die. Sure. A safe statement. Nobody lived forever. But he'd live long
enough to enjoy his cut of this little deal.

His cut. The officer had said it would be a shove out into space. The
death smell. His own death, perhaps. He laughed softly, and the sound
of his voice thudded back to his ears like the intimate murmurings of a
stethoscope. It was intimate in here. Every little whisper of breath he
took rustled loudly.

Deliberately he cleared his throat and coughed. The sound was almost
metallic. It hurt his ears. Mingled with the tepid moisture of his own
breath was the faint odor of the powerful dessicant that ringed the
base of the helmet.

His eyes dropped to the row of tiny dials set just within eye-range
under his chin. Suit pressure, O. K. Oxygen, O. K. Humidity--the needle
lay right on the red line. Well, when he stopped sweating from his
scare that should drop off. Body temperature, one hundred one.

One-oh-one? Ninety-eight plus, he remembered from upper school hygiene,
was normal. Over a hundred was not so good.

Sit down, Frane. Relax. Get your breathing slowed down. Cool off.

He took the captain's comfortable chair before the low control panel.
He stared out into the incredible blackness of space, out where not the
tiniest diffusion from the starlight eased the utter darkness between
constellations.

Somewhere in the ship's electric generation system a moving part,
brittle with the cold and contracted within its bearing, vibrated
briefly and shattered. The control-room twilight flared and died out
into a shadowless night.

Frane had the sensation of being projected out among the stars.
Loneliness pushed in on him. He realized cynically that even the two
corpses had been better than this isolation.

       *       *       *       *       *

After a moment his pupils expanded so widely that the stars seemed to
grow larger, rushing in to meet the plunging space ship. The luminous
needles and dial faces of his helmet instruments became glaring little
lanterns.

Everything normal except humidity, slightly over the red line, and
temperature. Temperature: 102.5 F., he read. He wished fervently that
he hadn't put on that last garment. Spaceman's underwear, it was
called. Or maybe it would have been better to--

An uneasy thought crept into the back of his head, and he strained his
smarting eyes down at the temperature gauge. In only a minute or two it
had advanced one tenth degree to 102.6 F.

Now his breath rasped more rapidly as he gasped more oxygen. Pressure
was down slightly. He moved to the valve and adjusted it. On an impulse
he opened it wide for a second. The pressure needle pegged, his ears
popped, but no coolness came from the baffled intake. He normalized
the pressure again.

The hose must be double-walled, he thought. The air should at least
have had the coolness of its own expansion. He wiggled inside his
sweat-sopping clothes. Why didn't the perspiration dry off and cool
him? The answer came with uncomfortable clarity. Where could the body
moisture go? Where, for that matter, could the body heat go?

Temperature: 102.9 F.

Frane Lewis was no coward, but his hands began plucking nervously at
the space suit. The previously tough, folds of shiny, impermeable
fabric were now distended into a rock-like rigidity.

He stood up suddenly, and his feet squished in his sandals. The sweat
was a puddle up over his toes. He was getting weak and thirsty. Very
thirsty. He felt he must have no more water in him. He stood in a
trancelike state for minutes staring blindly into the heavens. His mind
wouldn't work right. He hurt. He itched. He craved water, gallons of it.

Then he stopped sweating. He had been deliberately keeping his eyes off
the temperature dial, forcing his mind away from a problem he didn't
understand, when he felt his face go dry. The caked streaks of salt
made his skin feel stiff and itchy.

Temperature: 104.3 F.

Frane now knew he was sick. At that rate of increase he couldn't last
much longer. His head was buzzing, and the fantasies of fever were
flashing lights across his bleared vision. He strove to fight off the
hallucinations. He focussed his eyes on the dim-faced chronometer and
realized with a start that he had endured over three hours of his
vigil. Perhaps he could last out. Whatever the fever was, it must ease
off sometime.

He staggered to the oxygen control, eased it open to full again and
watched the temperature needle for minutes. He became dazed. Then his
eyes came alive again, and he stared. Temperature: 104.5 F.

His hands drifted listlessly to the control again. This time he
throttled it down, down, below normal pressure. Slowly, slower than the
minute hand of a watch, the needle climbed on. Why? _Why?_

His swollen tongue licked at dry lips. He couldn't swallow any more.
Around his neck a salty puddle burned a ring of itching hell fire.

He choked down more on the air valve. It didn't make sense to him, but
if more oxygen raised his temperature faster, then less should do the
opposite. At 104.5 F a man doesn't always think straight.

       *       *       *       *       *

At first his heart pounded loudly in protest. His breathing became
quick and shallow. With staring, grateful eyes he watched the needle
settle a tenth of a degree and stay there. The mental relief was almost
overwhelming. Had there been moisture left in his tear ducts Frane
would have cried. But now, with the strained concentration gone he
became fuzzy. He slipped in and out of consciousness, and dead faces
began drifting past his eyes.

This wouldn't do. He had one more job left. He looked at his
chronometer. In another eight minutes he must throw the drive lever
and kill all acceleration. The pirate ship's orbital prediction was
based on this timed interruption of the freighter's drive. So much as
two minutes off, he had been impressed, would make their search hours
longer, since they were approaching from the rear at an angle.

He sagged into the pilot's chair again, but sitting down was no good.
Instantly the ghost faces began their parade, and the death smell,
mingled with the saturated dessicant's rank stink threatened to
strangle him. The belly full of rations he had force-fed himself to
sustain him the twenty hours of waiting pressed heavily against his
heaving diaphragm.

He gained his feet, stood with his hand on the fuel lever control and
stared fixedly at his chronometer. Two minutes.

The navigator's swollen face, eyes bulging, stared into his helmet.

"Get out of my way. Got to see my watch. Get--"

He brushed at the phantom as if it were a cloud of gnats. He was
confident now. The temperature gauge showed his body heat to be
constant at 104.4 F. Thirty seconds now and he could give himself over
to his fever dreams. Twenty seconds.

The broken jawed image persisted mistily. But now the face was
repaired. It was the young tense face before he had crushed it with his
blaster. It had that hard, determined look on it.

The fire in his body swept up into his brain. The bodyless image spoke
softly, "You're going to die. You are going to move the fuel control
the wrong way. You can't remember which way they said to move it. It
isn't marked. You can't remember."

"Yes, I can!" The chronometer said twelve seconds.

"You made one mistake. You put on your clothes over the spaceman's
underwear. Your body heat can't escape. Your brain is burning up. You
can't remember about the lever. You will move it the wrong way."

"So what? Then I'll move it the other way," Frane screamed.

The tiny clock zeroed. Frane pressed the lever away from him. That was
the way to stop any earth vehicle--pressure forward on the air brake
pedal. He shoved hard.

The rockets roared out full blast far behind him. The building
acceleration caught him and flung him stumbling back against the
bulkhead. Then the firing took on complete departure blast rate.

Pinned like a butterfly specimen, eight G's smashed Frane Lewis' space
suit against the metal wall. Lewis, being free inside the suit, was
pressed hard against the interior of its back side.

The cold he had been seeking struck through the wet, felt lining and
his exterior clothes. The thickly corded spaceman's underwear delayed
the frost momentarily, but then the sweat froze. The death smell seized
his throat. Dimly he knew what was happening, but he felt only heat.
The sear of an atomic furnace burning his shoulders, buttocks, leg
calves, through into his spine.

The heat--the terrible sear of space cold.



*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Slay-Ride" ***

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