“Yes,” said Dorn.
“They’ll punch their way from the main airlock right up here to the bridge,” Victor muttered.
“And free Valker on their way,” Theo added. “All we have is this one laser pistol.”
“And those grenades,” Theo said, pointing to the belt that lay on the far side of the deck.
“Stay in your suits,” Kirk told his men as they came through the inner hatch of the main airlock. “They might try somethin’ cute, like cutting off the air in this section of the ship.”
Nicco glanced over his shoulder at the two men lugging the heavy welder and its power pack. “You guys oughtta be up front,” he said.
“Why do we hafta lug this clunker?” one of the men complained. “How ’bout you takin’ it for a turn?”
“Whatsamatter, girls?” Nicco asked, laughing. “‘Fraid you’re gonna break a fingernail or somethin’?”
The men glared at him but shuffled up to the front of the line, where Kirk stood peering down the passageway, left and right. He stepped to the wall screen and tapped its directory.
“Okay,” he said, tracing a path on the main display. “The bridge is this direction.”
They started along the passageway, Kirk in the lead, the two men with the welder grumbling right behind him, then the rest, with Nicco bringing up the rear.
Kirk tried to raise Valker on his suit radio, again to no avail.
“They musta killed him,” he mused aloud.
“Then we’re gonna hafta elect a new captain,” said one of the men toting the laser welder.
Kirk grinned toothily. “I nominate me.”
From up the passageway they heard Valker’s sneering voice, “Over my dead body!”
“It’s the skipper!”
The passageway ran along the rim of the ship’s wheel, so that although it felt flat as long as the wheel was turning, it curved up and out of sight in both directions. Valker came striding toward them, smiling grimly. The two men Dorn had disarmed came into sight behind him.
“Where’ve you been?” Kirk demanded.
“They ganged up on me, that half-robot priest, the kid, and some other guy—he must be from
Grinning at the bruise on Valker’s jaw, Kirk said, “Only three of ’em?”
“They caught me by surprise. Then they locked me in a storage bay. Then they brought in Gig and Kelso, here.”
Nicco came pushing through the group. “How’d you get out, skipper?”
Valker gave him a sour look. “Accordion-fold door. They thought locking it would keep me inside. One kick is all it took.”
“So the guy from
Nodding, Valker added, “And the two women from
Raising the power drill he was carrying, Kirk shouted, “So let’s go get ’em!”
Victor and the others watched the scavengers’ impromptu reunion in the main passageway. Turning from the bridge’s screen, Victor muttered, “We’ve got to stop them.”
“Yes,” agreed Dorn. “But how? There are ten of them.”
“Close all the emergency hatches.”
“They’ll burn through them with that big laser.”
“I know. But that will take them time.”
“So what good will that do?”
“Theo,” Victor said, pointing to the belt lying on the deck, “get those grenades and come with me. You,” he said to Elverda, “seal all the hatches. Now.”
As Elverda called up the life support program, Victor and Theo headed for the hatch.
Pauline reached for his shoulder. “Victor, what are you going to do?”
“Stop them,” he said.
Dorn watched the two of them go, then, after a moment of indecision, followed after them.
The hatch up the passageway swung shut with a sharp clang. Turning, Valker saw the hatch behind them bang shut. They could hear more thumps in the distance.
“The bastards’re sealing all the hatches,” Kirk growled.
Valker grinned at him. “What else can they do? They’re just postponing the inevitable.”
“They might try to pump out the air.”
“So we stay in our suits,” Valker said, pulling up his hood and inflating it.
He motioned to the two men carrying the heavy laser welder. “Now ain’tcha glad we brought this beauty along with us?”
Nicco laughed. “We’ll burn right through the hatches.”
“No need to,” Valker said, pointing to the control keypad on the bulkhead beside the sealed hatch. “Just burn out the pad and get to the manual override. Won’t take more’n a minute.”
“For each hatch,” Kirk said.
“So what?” Valker snapped. “They’re not going anywhere. And we’re not going away.”
Following his father’s example, Theo peeled back the plastic sheeting that covered the passageway’s structural tubing and wedged the pebble-sized grenades into the exposed metal framework in a complete circle, from the deck to the overhead and then back down to the deck on the other side.
Dorn stood in the middle of the passageway, arms folded against his chest. “I see what you intend to do. But blowing away this section of the wheel won’t stop them. They’re already in space suits. They’ll merely jet through the open area to the next hatch.”
“Not if they’re in the section that we blow away,” Victor said.
“No, they’ll still be able to jet back to us,” Dorn countered. “Unless they’re killed or injured by the blast.”
“That’s the general idea,” said Victor.
“I can’t be a party to that.”
“You don’t have to be. Just stay out of my way.”
Theo spoke up. “You can show us how to fuze the grenades so we can set them off from the bridge.”
Dorn did not reply.
Victor strode down the passageway to where Dorn was standing. “Now listen. These scavengers would kill you and your friend without blinking an eye. They’d kill my son and me. They’d rape my wife and daughter and then kill them, too. You expect me to let them do that?”
For several heartbeats Dorn did not reply. At last he said, “I spent a lifetime killing. My soul is drenched in blood. I can’t help you to commit murder.”
And he walked away, past Theo, back toward the bridge.
Victor glowered at his back. “Finish the job, Thee,” he said to his son. “I’m going to the bridge.”
