them! Thousands of them pouring from every direction. How did it happen?”
“It didn’t happen. I used our disintegrator ray as a drill; we simply sunk a huge shaft down into the bowels of the earth until we struck the source of the vapor which the self-appointed ‘ruling class’ has bottled up. We have emancipated a whole people, Mr. Correy.”
“I hate to think of what will happen to those in the cavern,” replied Correy, smiling grimly. “Or rather, since you’ve told me of the pleasant little death they had arranged for us. I’m mighty glad of it. They’ll receive rough treatment, I’m afraid!”
“They deserve it. It has been a great sight to watch, but I believe we’ve seen enough. It has been a good night’s work, but it’s daylight, now, and it will take hours to repair the damage to the Ertak’s hull. Take over in the navigating room, if you will, and pick a likely spot where we will not be disturbed. We should be on our course by to-night, Mr. Correy.”
“Right, sir,” said Correy, with a last wondering look at the strange miracle we had brought to pass on the earth below us. “It will seem good to be off in space again, away from the troubles of these little worlds.”
“There are troubles in space, too,” I said dryly, thinking of the swarm of meteorites that had come so close to wiping the Ertak off the records of the Service. “You can’t escape trouble even in space.”
“No, sir,” said Correy from the doorway. “But you can get your sleep regularly!”
And sleep is, when one comes to think of it, a very precious thing.
Particularly for an old man, whose eyelids are heavy with years.
NO MOVING PARTS
by Murray F. Yaco
Hansen was sitting at the control board in the single building on Communications Relay Station 43.4SC, when the emergency light flashed on for the first time in two hundred years.
With textbook-recommended swiftness, he located the position of the ship sending the call, identified the ship and the name of its captain, and made contact.
“This is Hansen on 43.4SC. Put me through to Captain Fromer.”
“Fromer here,” said an incredible deep voice, “what the devil do you want?”
“What do I want?” asked the astonished Hansen. “It was you, sir, who sent the emergency call.”
“I did no such thing,” said Fromer with great certainty.
“But the light flashed—”
“How long have you been out of school?” Fromer asked.
“Almost a year, sir, but that doesn’t change the fact that—”
“That you’re imagining things and that you’ve been sitting on that asteroid hoping that something would happen to break the monotony. Now leave me the hell alone or I’ll put you on report.”
“Now look here,” Hansen began, practically beside himself with frustration, “I saw that emergency light go on. Maybe it was activated automatically when something went out of order on your ship.”
“I don’t allow emergencies on the Euclid Queen,” said Fromer with growing anger. “Now, if you don’t—”
Hansen spared himself the indignity of being cut off. He broke contact himself. He sighed, reached for a book entitled Emergency Procedure Rules, and settled back in his chair.
Fifteen minutes later the emergency light flashed on for the second time in two hundred years. With its red glow illuminating his freckled excited face, Hansen triumphantly placed another call to the Euclid Queen.
“This is Hansen on 43.4SC. Let me speak to Captain Fromer, please.”
“Er—the Captain has asked me to contact you. I’m the navigator. I was just about to call you. We have a small problem that—”
“I’ll speak to the Captain,” Hansen repeated grimly.
“Now see here. I’m perfectly capable of handling this situation. Actually, it’s hardly even an emergency. You were, it seems, signaled automatically when—”
“If you’ll check your emergency procedures,” Hansen said, holding his thumb in the Rule Book, “you’ll note that the Relay Station Attendant contacts the Captain personally during all emergencies. Of course, if you want to violate—”
“Look, old man,” said the navigator, now sounding on the verge of tears, “try to realize the spot I’m in. Fromer has ordered me to handle this thing without his assistance. He seems to feel that you have a grudge of some kind—”
“If you don’t put me in touch with Captain Fromer in five minutes, I’ll put through a call to Sector Headquarters.” Hansen signaled off contact. If he knew nothing else about the situation, he knew that he had the upper hand.
Five minutes later Captain Fromer called him back. “I am calling in accordance with emergency procedures,” Fromer said between clinched teeth. “The situation is this: We are reporting an emergency—”
“What class emergency?” Hansen interrupted.
“Class?” asked Fromer, obviously caught off guard.
“Yes, Captain. There are three classes of emergencies. Major class, which would include death and injury. Mechanical class, including malfunction of Hegler units and such. And General class—”
“Yes, yes, of course, General class by all means,” Fromer said hurriedly. “You see, it’s hardly even an emergency. We—”
“Just what is the nature of the trouble, Captain?”
“Why, uh, well it seems that we were doing a preliminary landing procedure check, and…”
“Yes, go on.”
“Why, er, it seems that we can’t get the door open.”
It was Hansen’s turn to be taken aback. “You’re pulling my leg, sir.”
“I most certainly am not,” Captain Fromer said emphatically.
“You really mean that you can’t open the door?”
“I’m afraid so. Something’s wrong with the mechanism. Our technical staff has never encountered a problem like this, and they advise me that any attempt at repair might possibly result in the opposite situation.”
“You mean not being able to get the door closed?”
“Precisely. In other words, we can’t land.”
“I see. Then I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do except advise Sector Headquarters to send an emergency repair crew.”
Captain Fromer sighed. “I’m afraid so, too. How long will it take for a message to get there with your transmitting equipment?”
“Two days, Captain. At a guess, there’ll be a ship alongside within the week. You’ll be maintaining your present position, I assume?”
“Oh, we’ll be here, all right,” Fromer said bitterly. Then he cut contact.
As the single occupant of a large asteroid with nothing but time and boredom on his hands, Hansen was enjoying the whole situation immensely. He allowed himself the luxury of several dozen fantasies in which his name was mentioned prominently in galaxy-wide reports of the episode. He imagined that Captain Fromer was also creating vivid accounts—of quite another sort—that would soon be amusing several hundred billion news-hungry citizens of the Federation.
When the repair ship arrived, it came, to Hansen’s astonishment, to the asteroid, and not alongside Fromer’s ship. He soon found out that there was someone else who shared the Captain’s embarrassment.
“I’m Bullard,” said a tall, thin, mournful man. “Mind if I sit?”
“Help yourself,” Hansen waved a hand toward the meager accommodations. He had no idea why a Senior Engineer was being so deferential, but he enjoyed the feeling of power.
“You’re probably wondering about a lot of things,” Bullard began sadly. “Frankly, we don’t have any ideas about how we can fix Captain Fromer’s door.” He waited to let that sink in. Then he continued: “It took us three
