“Mother,” she choked, and buried her face in the soft bosom.
“Oh, come now, dear,” said the doctor. “You’ve got to do better than this: a big girl like you.”
“Take me back,” sobbed Miriam amongst the billows.
McPrince eased her tack gently. “You’ve got to be stronger than this, Miriam, Think of your husband waiting for you and try to be strong for him. He won’t want a silly girl all tears, will he? There’ll be a lot to do; no time to think about home on Earth. Mars will be home. Now don’t mope. Be a good girl. Find something to do. Do you go to the gymnasium? No? Well, do so. Go regularly, make friends with the girls, and keep fit and well so that when you meet your husband he will see you strong and lovely.”
Miriam looked into McPrince’s eyes with adoration. “Yes, oh yes,” she breathed, “I will.” She hesitated shyly. “May I come and talk to you now and again? Show you how strong I get?”
McPrince smiled a little thoughtfully and stood up out of the immediate aura of Miriam’s worship. “You keep busy—talk with the girls. Come and see me when your monthly check-up comes round. All right, dear?”
Miriam looked momentarily as if a cool wind had blown over her ardor, but then she smiled and nodded prettily.
McPrince departed briskly and went and sought out Captain Ronald Able in his cabin.
“The troops are getting restless,” she said after a brief kiss. “I think treatment should commence,”
“Right,” he said. “I’ll pass the word along.” He dismissed the subject and allowed more interesting things to mold his facial expression. “Got an hour to spare, you gorgeous thing?” He emphasized his meaning by clamping a hand around one of her wrists and pulling her into close contact. She turned her head a little but moved her body in another way.
“Why, Captain Able! How you do treat your subordinates!”
“Good, eh?” he mumbled into her ear, “Well.…”
* * * *
Two hours later the alarms went off all over the ship and smoke seeped out of the ventilators. Crew members rushed along corridors frantically blowing whistles and appealing for calm. Immediate panic ensued. Five hundred young women recalled those terrible tales of fire in space that form the staple part of youngsters’ reading diet in the year 2579. Death in one horrible form or another was inevitable: the passengers fled in all directions searching for a place where the smoke was thinner.
The metal corridors echoed shrilly with screams. Smoke in even thicker concentrations rolled from the ventilators. One or two bodies slumped to the carpet coughing piteously. Miriam, slowly recovering from the tranquilizer injected by ‘mother’ McPrince, found her emotions rising like a thermometer column from cool to hot. It gradually penetrated her mind that the smoke in her room could be linked to the screams outside the room. She sat up as her vague fears turned to alarm and at that moment the cabin door was thrown open and Laura Krankovski rushed in with a face of iron heroism. This shock was enough to transmute alarm into terror, and Miriam made the welkin ring.
They have a way in the remoter parts of New Russia of quelling panic, and Laura used it. Her fist caught Miriam under the ear and stopped the screams in one last ‘eeek’. Limp and half conscious, she was dragged from the bunk and pulled into the corridor, briefly propped against the wall and then hoisted up and over Laura’s shoulder. At a run, like a powerboat forcing a way up rapids Laura made her way aft.
She battled across the maelstrom of the common room, down to a lower level and in through a steel door yanked open as if it had been a gossamer curtain. Inside, the air was pure, and two engineers eating sandwiches looked up in consternation as the door slammed behind Laura.
“You can’t come in here!” shouted one.
“Laura!” exclaimed the other.
“Heinrich, I come,” confirmed Laura, “You no fire here.”
“Who’s that you’ve got there?” blustered the first man standing up. “You know nobody’s allowed in here.” And then to Heinrich: “Is this your Russian bird? Christ, we’ll be crucified if she’s found in here! Get her out before Li comes along. Go on, get her out.” He moved forward as if to implement his own order. Laura moved forward and he stopped.
“We stay ’til no fire,” said Laura, and laid her burden down on the floor. She straightened up and looked at Heinrich. “You kill fire,” she commanded. Heinrich looked at the other engineer then at the clock above the control board along one side of the room.
“Not yet,” he said. “Kill fire in four minutes. Sit down, Laura, and have a sandwich.”
Laura’s broad shoulders seemed to swell. “Heinrich, you go kill fire…now!”
“I can’t leave here, Laura,” appealed Heinrich. He approached her with his hands moving in soothing curves. “They’ll have the fire out soon. Be a good girl and go back to your cabin.”
“No,” said Laura forcibly. She grabbed him by the throat of his loose uniform. “You kill fire now or me love others.” He was too much of a gentleman to use his feet or knees against her and slowly his face grew purple as she constricted his throat.
“Hey!” said the other engineer.
“Gug,” said Heinrich. “Kill it, Joe. For Christ’s sake kill it!”
Joe dithered, looked at the clock, looked at Heinrich’s face, then ran to the control board and snapped off various switches.
“What the hell we tell Li?” he rattled, “We’re two minutes early.”
Laura was still strangling her lover trying to inspire him with the need to rush out and perform heroic deeds. She did not connect Joe’s actions with ‘killing’ the fire.
“Fire’s out,” gasped Heinrich in last extremity. Laura dragged him to the door and pulled it open with one hand. Outside, the last traces of smoke were being sucked back into the ventilators. The screams were now shrill cries of joyous relief. Laura kissed her lover’s mauve lips and released him to stagger where he willed. She went to where Miriam was beginning to make whimpering noises and lifted her head solicitously.
“Come, baby,” she cooed, and gently slapped Miriam’s cheek. Miriam struggled out of unconsciousness and then away from the buffeting. She spiraled up into Laura’s waiting arms, Her head felt as if it had been flattened in the recent past and was now undergoing re-inflation, Blindly she was led out of the engineers’ room, through corridors full of women expressing every emotion from joy to fury, to the surgery.
Mary McPrince was administering throat soothers to those who claimed they had nearly suffocated. Automatically, without bothering to enquire, she handed Miriam several lozenges.
“Mother, I nearly died,” wept Miriam, freed herself of Laura’s supporting arm, and collapsed over McPrince,
“I am not your mother,” said McPrince pushing her off, “Take your medicine. I’m very busy,”
“She fall. Hit ear,” explained Laura. “Sleep.”
McPrince surveyed the drooping Miriam.
“Oh? Let me look.” She turned Miriam’s head a trifle sharply and tears started from Miriam’s eyes. Without a word McPrince got a prophylactic gun and sprayed the bump. “Get some sleep. Let me know if any sickness develops. Off you go.”
Feeling as if the whole universe had forsaken her Miriam returned to her cabin with Laura and cried herself to sleep.
The following day Miriam tried to approach McPrince in the surgery on a non-medical matter and was severely repelled. The next day, almost desperate for lack of motherly solace, she went to McPrince’s private cabin and without knocking opened the door and stared within.
She was horrified and terrified to discover a scene between her new mother and Captain Ronald Able the like of which she had never seen before and which she would not have imagined the human body capable of performing. Both were unaware of her and she was able to close the door and totter back to her own bed before she collapsed amongst the wreckage of a world, Her new mother was depraved, cared nothing for her, loved another, was incapable of understanding pure love. There was no
reason to go on living.
When the alarm bells began ringing on the third day she welcomed them as if they heralded angels of vengeance. Laura was out of the cabin playing chess in the common room. Miriam threw open the cabin door then reeled back as a three-foot high wall of cold water collapsed inward upon her. Overhead in the corridor water cascaded from the fire dampers like escaping monsoons. Shrieks could be heard dimly above the roar of moving water.
Miriam tripped over something in the water swirling round the room and fell loudly into the whirlpool. Like flotsam she circled the room and then out into the river coursing down the corridor. She had no spirit to fight, nor strength to stand upright in the rush of water that was traveling round the vessel in reverse direction to the permanent centrifugal motion giving gravity to the ship.
She went under, hit her head on a corner, and breathed in. It was nasty at first; it hurt, and enormous booming noises sounded in her ears. Then suddenly two claws gripped her hard and tore her loose from the comfortable womb. The hands threw her painfully on to a hard, flat surface and then began crushing her in and out so that water spurted from her and air that burned like acid rushed into her lungs.
“Oh. Oh,” she moaned, and the claws allowed her to turn over and look upwards into the face of her tormentor.
It was a beautiful face, young, sun burned, sensuously intense, set now in lines of concern for her. Bending close to her to hear her words, full lips not more than three inches from hers. Quite unable to resist the vision she raised herself three inches and pressed her wet lips to his. His hands so recently manipulating her back made convulsive clutches at her front, the shock of which forced air from her and broke the kiss.
“Oh, Oh,” breathed steward Tony Bellini, and remained transfixed six inches above her. Gently she removed his hands and swiveled herself so that she could sit up on the tabletop on which he had deposited her for his ministrations. He straightened and put a warm arm around her shoulders.
“You saved my life,” she whispered. “How can I thank you enough!”
“You already have,” he said hoarsely.
“Silly. I can never repay you.” She lowered her eyes and looked around. “Where has all the water gone?”
The flood was at this moment roaring down corridors on the other side of the ship like a freak tidal bore on the rubber flooring. Bellini seemed to awake.
“Quick,” he commanded. “Into my cabin. The wave will be back any second now.” His strong arm swept her from the table and together they ran across the dining hall to a door in one wall. Already the hollow roar of water pounding down the restricting tunnels of the corridors came to their ears. Even as they fell into the little cabin and slammed shut the airtight door the roar swept into the dining room and pummeled on their door. Miriam clung to Bellini. He gently bent her to the neat bunk and comforted her. The frenzy without (and within) rose to a climax and passed.
“Oh, my love!” he sighed. She stroked his damp hair and let her thoughts wander into more mundane channels. His body kept her warm: she was very comfortable. “Tony,” she said, “Where did all the water come from?”
His one free hand wandered over her like a sleepy puppy over its mother, “Eh?” he muttered into her ear.
She smiled to herself and repeated the question.
“The water tanks.”
She thought this over. “How do you know?”
“Captain’s orders. Always happens.” He was almost asleep,
“Silly. How can it always happen? Such a waste of water…and dangerous, too!”
“All goes back. Nothing to it. And I was there to save you, wasn’t I?” He roused. “You wont tell anyone, will you?” His face paled.
“Tell them?”
“About it being a put-up job.” He got up on one elbow and looked down directly into her eyes. “I’d be fed to the reactor if the Captain heard.”
Miriam studied him in disbelief. “You mean it? It was done deliberately?”
He nodded and twisted away to sit on the bunk edge. “You’ll be on restricted water from now on. There’ll be other things, too. It’s supposed to make you girls ready for Mars: you know, used to less water, cope with danger and to stop you moping on the journey.”
“Other things?” Miriam stared at his back with her brow frowning but her lips twitching in a half smile. “What sort of things, Tony?”
He jerked his shoulders, “There’ll be a three day power failure next week. For God’s sake don’t say anything to anyone You’re not supposed to know.” He began straightening his clothes and then the few items of furniture in the little room,
“I don’t believe you,” laughed Miriam. “You’re having a joke with me. Naughty boy!” She leapt from the bunk and planted a. vicious kiss on his flinching lips.
“Ha ha,” he agreed. “Yes, a joke.” He held her off. “Better get going. Never do to be found here together. The water will be gone now.”
He opened the door, and it was true, the rubber floor of the dining area was already clear and nearly dry. Hot air poured through the ship. A calm voice came over the public address:
The Captain’s apologies to passengers for any damage done to personal belongings by the accidental release of the water tanks. Please bring any articles requiring drying out to the main common room where third officer Bancroft will arrange for this to be done. The situation is now in hand. There must, however, be a strictly rationed use of water from now on and an announcement regarding this will be made as soon as we have been able to measure the amount saved.’
“There,” said Miriam at the open door. “An accident,”
“Yes,” agreed Bellini. “Yes, an accident. I was joking.”
She gave him another kiss then ran off to see if any of her personal things had got wet. Bellini ran off in the other direction to establish an alibi to cover his dereliction of duty.
* * * *
Five days later there was a power failure just as Miriam had made up her mind to search out Tony Bellini in an effort to repay further her debt to him. In the sudden blackness and immediate uproar she became disorientated, collided with a wall and hit her nose hard. She screamed along with the others. She felt the warm blood running down her upper lip into her mouth. Fury burst into her mind like a raging tiger leaping from an open cage door. Tony had not been joking. It was a dirty, deliberate act. The smoke, the flood, the five days of thirst, the blackness—all deliberate!
She shrieked: “Put ’em on! Put ’em on, you rotten beasts!” Then she made a great effort and steadied herself Carefully she turned and with one hand held before her, the other pinching her nose, she retraced her steps, and by sheer furious determination found her way to the surgery. Inside, Mary McPrince was waiting for the expected flood of bruises and abrasions with a portable fluorescent lamp burning on her desk.
She looked up as Miriam lurched in from blackness to light. Miriam leaned back against the door still holding her nose.
“You bitch!” she snapped. “You an’ your precious Cabtain Able! Put on the damn lights.”
“What are you talking about?” asked McPrince. “And what do you mean my ‘precious Captain Able’?”
“I saw you!” suddenly shrieked Miriam, releasing her nose. “You and him. You and him. In bed. Ha!” She could not continue, unable to express the disgust she felt because truly it was not disgust that motivated her but jealousy that her ‘mother’ could give herself to another.
“That’s none of your business,” declared McPrince with dignity. “And we can’t put on the power until the engines are repaired.”
“Lies!” shouted Miriam, “You arranged it: you and him. You’re waiting, aren’t you, for the broken bones? I know it all: the fire and the water and now no power, All faked. And what have you got arranged for us next while you and him roll about in bed? Well, you can forget it because I’m going to tell everybody what you’re doing. And they’ll kill you, mother! Damn you.…” Tears diluted the blood under her nose.
&
nbsp; McPrince moved forward quickly and slapped Miriam on the cheek.
“Let me clean up your face, dear. You look an awful mess.” She took her hand and pulled her to the light. Miriam began sobbing. Expertly McPrince mopped her up and as deftly injected a quantity of tranquilizer. Miriam sat down in a chair and looked at the desk light in a daze. “Moooo,” she murmured.
McPrince looked at her and then turned to the intercom. “Julie,” she said. “I’ve got Miriam Chokewater in the surgery. She’ll need hospitalization. Can you come up here and help? I want to put her in the isolation bay until this crisis blows over. OK?” She turned round and stood watching Miriam.
“I’m afraid we’ll have to lock you up for a time, dear, until all the incidents are finished. Nurse Julie will look after you, but I’ll look in every day, Will you be a good girl?”
“Mmmm,” sighed Miriam, her eyes almost closed.
The surgery door opened and Julie Smith stepped in. Together the two women lifted Miriam on to a mobile bed, and after some consultation the body was wheeled off to the small isolation ward adjourning the surgery.
* * * *
The power remained off for three days, and the temperature plummeted. The crew, dressed in heavy suiting, moved about the passenger quarters with hand lamps, but the five hundred women passengers suffered with the cold because only a limited stock of extra bedding and clothing was available. Groups took to sleeping in one bed taking turns to be top layer. Meals were cold and there were no hot drinks any more. On the third day alcohol intended for the two-month distant Christmas celebration was issued and there was much maudlin misery as the cold meal was consumed. Tony Bellini, helping to distribute bottles to the tables, made discreet enquiries as to the whereabouts of Miriam Chokewater. None of the girls knew where she was but one of the cooks who knew Julie Smith was able to tell him that Miriam was incarcerated in the ship’s isolation bay under sedation.
“On sedation? Isolated?”
“That’s what Julie said. Maybe they’re afraid her swollen nose might blow up.” The cook giggled.
The Science-Fantasy Megapack: 25 Classic Tales From Fantasy Adventures Page 38