Freiburg lay on the floor with his eyes shut. He wished he need never open them again. He felt himself sinking into an abyss of misery. George Starkey crawled over to him, laid a hand on his forehead, began to investigate him cautiously for broken bones. The Captain sighed, opened his reluctant eyes, and sat up wearily.
“I’m okay, George.” It marked the first time he’d used the explorer’s given name. He thought, masochistically: Who am I to claim any kind of authority?
George regarded him critically.
“Don’t look so depressed, Skip. You’re not blaming yourself for anything, are you?”
“I forgot to put out the landing gear, George. I must have smashed the fins up.”
“So? We were being shelled, weren’t we?”
“That’s what it looked like.”
“Okay, then, you did the only thing. You saved us. You dropped us out of the line of fire. We’d have been blasted to pieces. We may be a little bent, but we’re in one piece, not pieces. You can’t think of everything when things happen too fast.”
“A captain should
The mate’s voice was a little shaky. “Yes, sir.”
“How’s everyone? Anybody hurt?”
“A few bruises here, sir, that’s all. I don’t know about Firkin yet, though—I’m just going along to check.”
“Right, mister.”
George pulled back the glare screen and looked out on Venus. It was quiet and still out there. The gray clouds hung high overhead, unbroken so far as the eye could see. They looked dark and full. It seemed as though at any moment rain might come lashing down.
But the earth appeared dry and cracked. It was yellow-brown, with patches of thin grass here and there. Also, it was pockmarked with craters, five, ten, twenty metres in diameter. There was no sign of habitation nor of any living creature. The light was too bad to see the horizon distinctly, but a darker blur seemed to lie along it
The Captain peered over George’s shoulder.
“Hardly the place to spend a sunny holiday,” said George.
“Gloomy.” Freiburg nearly added that it was almost as gloomy as he felt, but restrained himself. He must try to avoid spreading despondency. The loudspeaker clicked and came alive. The mate’s voice was shakier yet.
“Sir, Firkin appears to be dead.”
Freiburg felt another load laid on his shoulders. Was he to be labeled
“killer” now? It was unfair. A flame of resentment flickered.
“Why ‘appears’? Can’t you tell? What happened?”
“I don’t know, sir. I think you’d better come along to his cabin right away.”
“Coming.”
The Captain hadn’t liked Firkin as a person, and as a person he was small loss. An opinionated, egocentric bore and whiner, alternately boasting or beefing. But a competent and conscientious analytic chemist and valuable to this expedition.
George followed the skipper along the passages, down the ladder. The mate stood guard at Firkin’s door, and he looked worried.
“Don’t go in, sir. Just look through the spy-hole.”
Firkin’s cabin, which was also his laboratory, was airtight. In there he was to carry out analyses of Venusian atmosphere. There was a small glass panel in the door and the drill was that you were to tap and get his indicated
