A Coffin for Jacob by Edward W. Ludwig (crime books to read .TXT) 📗

her pale face and lack of makeup, Ben realized that she was no older than he.

If I'd only known her back on Earth, he thought. If I—And then he told himself, You've got enough problems. Don't create another one!

Finally, except for a stiffness in his leg joints, he'd fully recovered.

"How much time do I have?" he asked.

"Before you decide?"

"Yes."

"Very little. Jacob's ship is on its way. It'll be here—well, you can't tell about these things. Two or three Earth days, maybe even tomorrow. It'll stay in Hoover City long enough to discharge and load cargo. Then it'll stop here for us and return to—to our new base."

"What do you think Jacob would do if I didn't want to go with him?"

She shook her head. "You asked me that before. I said I didn't know."

Ben thought, I know a lot about you, Jacob. I know you're based on an asteroid. I know how many men you have, how many ships. I know where this dome is. I know you have men planted in the I. B. I. Would you let me go, knowing these things? How great is your immunity from the law? Do you love freedom so much that you'd kill to help preserve it?

Fear crawled through his mind on icy legs.

"Maggie," he said, "what would Jacob do if he were me?"

She looked amused. "Jacob wouldn't have gotten into your situation. He wouldn't have struck Cobb. Jacob is—"

"A man? And I'm still a boy? Is that what you mean?"

"Not exactly. I think you'll be a man after you make your decision."

He frowned, not liking her answer.

"You think the dream of going into space is a boy's dream, that it can't belong to a man, too?"

"Oh, no. Jacob still has the dream. Most of our men do. And in a man, it's even more wonderful than in a boy." Then her face became more serious. "Ben, you've got to decide soon. And it's got to be a complete decision. You can have no doubt in your mind."

He nodded. "On account of Simon, you mean."

She motioned for him to come to the window in his room. He gazed outward, following the line of her finger as she pointed.

He saw a man-sized mound of stones, dimly visible beneath the wind-whipped dust.

A grave.

"He was a man like you," Maggie said softly. "God knows Simon didn't try to kill him. But he was escaping. He—he made the decision not to join us. Simon sensed it. There was a struggle. Simon's hands—well, he doesn't realize—"

She didn't have to explain further. Ben knew what those mighty scaly paws could do.

The moments were now like bits of eternity cloaked in frozen fear. Somewhere in the blackness of interplanetary space, Jacob's rocket was streaking closer and closer to Venus. How far away was it? A million miles? Fifty thousand? Or was it now—right now—ripping through the murky Venusian atmosphere above the dome?

A complete decision, Maggie had said.

Jacob didn't want a potential deserter in his group. And you couldn't pretend that you were loyal to Jacob—not with monstrosities like Simple Simon about.

Soon Jacob, not Ben, might have to make a decision—a decision that could result in a second cairn of stones on the wind-swept desert.

Ben shivered.

Before retiring, he wandered nervously into the supply room. Maggie was poised over the visi-radio. Simple Simon was intently scanning the night-shrouded terrain in the viewscreen.

"Any news?" Ben asked Maggie.

The girl grunted negatively without looking up.

Ben's gaze fell upon the array of oxygen masks, windsuits, vita-rations. Then, on a littered shelf, he spied a small Venusian compass.

Almost automatically, his hand closed over it. His brain stirred with a single thought: A compass could keep a man traveling in a straight line.

Simple Simon restlessly shifted. He turned to Ben, blinking in the frighteningly alien equivalent of a suspicious scowl.

Ben's hand tightened about the compass. He tried to relax, to force all thought of it from his mind. He stared at the viewscreen, concentrating on the ceaseless drift of dust.

The Venusian's eyes studied him curiously, as if searching his mind for the illusive echo of a feeling that had given him alarm.

"I think I'll turn in," yawned Ben. "'Night, Maggie."

Simon frowned, apparently frustrated in his mental search. "Ben—not one of us. I—watch."

Without answering, Ben returned to his room, the compass hot and moist from the perspiration in his hand.

He took a deep breath.

Why had he taken the compass? He wasn't sure. Perhaps, he reflected, his decision had already been made, deep beneath the surface of consciousness.

He stood before the window, peering into the night. He knew that to attempt to sleep was futile. Sleep, for the past few days an ever-ready friend, had become a hostile stranger.

God, his brain cried, what shall I do?

Slowly, the dust outside the window settled. The scream of wind was no longer audible. His startled eyes beheld dim, faraway lights—those of Hoover City, he guessed.

It was as if, for the space of a few seconds, some cosmic power had silenced the Venusian fury, had guided him toward making his decision.

He whipped up his compass. He barely had time to complete the measurement.

"Sixty-eight degrees," he read. "Northeast by east."

Fresh wind descended onto the plain. Dancing dust erased the vision of the lights.

"Sixty-eight, sixty-eight," he kept muttering.

But now there was nothing to do—except try to sleep and be ready.

Strong hands shook him out of restless sleep. He opened his eyes and saw complete darkness. He thought at first that his eyesight had failed.

"Ben! Wake up!" Maggie's voice came to him, crisp, commanding. "The rocket's coming. I've decoded the message. We only have a few minutes."

The girl snapped on a small bulkhead light. She left him alone to dress.

He slid out of bed, a drowsiness still in him. He reached for his clothing. Abruptly, the full implication of what she had said struck him.

Jacob's rocket was coming. This was the time for decision, yet within his taut body there was only a jungle of conflicting impulses.

Maggie returned, her face hard, her eyes asking the silent question.

Ben stood frozen. The slow seconds beat against his brain like waves of ice.

At last she said, "Ready, Ben?" She spoke evenly, but her searching gaze belied the all-important significance of her words.

In the dim light, the photograph of Jacob was indistinguishable, but Ben could still see the image of the dead man.

He thought, I can't run away with Jacob like a selfish, cowardly kid! No matter how bright the stars would be, that brightness couldn't destroy the image of a dead man with staring eyes. No matter what Jacob and Simon do to me, I've got to try to get back to Earth.

He suddenly felt clean inside. He was no longer ashamed to hold his head high.

"Maggie," he said.

"Yes?"

"I've made my decision."

Outside the window, a waterfall of flame cascaded onto the desert, pushing aside the dust and the darkness. The deep-throated sound of rocket engines grumbled above the whining wind. The floor of the dome vibrated.

"The rocket's here!" Maggie cried.

The flaming exhaust from the ship dissolved into the night. The rocket thunder faded into the wind.

The alarm on the dome's inner airlock bulkhead rang. Maggie ran like a happy child through the concrete corridor, Ben following. She bounded into the supply room, pushed Simple Simon aside, stopped before a control panel. Her fingers flew over switches and levers.

The airlock door slid open. A short, stubble-bearded man clad in windsuit and transparalite helmet stomped in. He unscrewed the face plate of his helmet. His ears were too big and he looked like a fat doll.

"We're ready for you, Mrs. Pierce," he said.

Maggie nodded eagerly. She whirled back to Ben. "Hurry! Get your helmet and suit on!"

She spun back to the big-eared little man. "Cargo unloaded? All set for the flight home?"

Home, Ben thought. She calls a place she's never seen home.

"Cargo's unloaded."

"No trouble with the I. B. I.? No investigation?"

"Not yet. We're good for a few more hauls, I guess."

Ben slipped on his windsuit. He glanced at the control panel for the airlock. Yes, he could manipulate it easily. He contemplated the heat pistol at Simple Simon's hip. A tempting idea—but, no, he wanted no more of violence.

Then he bit his lip. He cleared his mind of all thought.

Simple Simon evidently had not noted the impulse that flicked his adrenals into pumping.

The big-eared man stared strangely at Maggie. "Mrs. Pierce, before we go, I'd better tell you something."

"You can do that on the rocket."

Maggie stepped forward to seize her helmet. The man blocked her movement.

"Mrs. Pierce, your husband—Jacob—was on the rocket."

"What?" The girl released a broken, unbelieving little laugh. "Why, he wouldn't dare! That idiot, taking a chance like—" Alarm twisted her features. "He—he wasn't captured—"

"No, he wasn't captured. And he took no chance, Mrs. Pierce."

A moment of silence. Then she sucked in her breath.

Ben understood. Words echoed in his mind: "Jacob and those like him can never return to Earth, not even to Hoover City—except dead."

Maggie swayed. Ben and the big-eared little man jumped to her side, guided her back into the compartment used as a kitchen. They helped her to a chair. Ben turned on the fire beneath a coffee pot. Simple Simon watched silently.

Her eyes empty and staring, Maggie asked, "How did it happen?"

"We were heading into a clump of baby asteroids the size of peas. The radar warning was too slow. We couldn't pull away; we had to stop. The deceleration got him—crushed him. He lived for five minutes afterward."

The little man produced a folded paper from a pocket of his suit. "Jacob said he had some ideas he had to get down on paper. God knows why, but during those five minutes he drew up this plan for improving our deceleration compensator."

"Plans for—" she gasped.

"He was a spaceman, Mrs. Pierce." The man handed her the paper. Ben caught a glimpse of scribbled circuits, relays, cathodes.

"When he finished," the man continued, "he said to tell you that he loved you."

She started to hand the paper back.

The spaceman shook his head. "No, the original is yours. I've made copies for our own ships and for the brass in Hoover City."

Maggie kept talking to the little man, lost in the world he was creating for her. Ben was excluded from that world, a stranger.

Then Ben saw his opportunity.

Simple Simon's face was expressionless, but tears were zig-zagging down his gray, reptilian features. Ben stared for several seconds, wondering if his vision had deceived him. Till this instant, he'd somehow assumed that the big Venusian was devoid of emotion.

But Simple Simon was crying.

It was unlikely that the creature would peer into his mind at a moment like this.

Step by step, Ben backed toward the open door in the rear of the compartment. Silently, he slipped through it. He attempted to move automatically, without feeling.

He darted into the supply room. The continued drone of voices told him his action had not been observed.

He didn't like it at all. Escaping this way was like crumpling Maggie's grief into an acid ball and hurling it into her face. But he had no other choice.

A few seconds later, he was dressed in windsuit and oxygen helmet. A can of vita-rations was strapped to his back and his compass was in his hand.

Heart refusing to stop pounding, he threw the levers and switches to open the airlock. He cringed under the grinding, scraping noise, as loud to him as the ringing clash of swords.

But the murmur of voices continued.

He stepped outside. The airlock door clanged shut. He was caught by the biting dust and the shrill banshee wind. He fell, then scrambled erect.

To his right, he saw the silver sheen of Jacob's rocket shining behind a row of golden, eyelike portholes. Beneath it were black outlines of moving, helmeted figures.

He bent low to study the luminous dial of his compass.

Behind him was a grating and a sliding of metal. A movement in the darkness.

He turned.

Dimly illuminated by the glow from the rocket ports was the grim, stony face of Simple Simon.

The Venusian was like a piece of the night itself, compressed and solidified to form a living creature. The impression was contradicted only by the glowing whiteness of his eyes.

The reptilian body shuffled forward. The scales on his great face and chest reflected the lights from the rocket like Christmas tree ornaments dusted with gold.

His hands reached out.

Words thundered in Ben's memory: God knows Simon didn't try to kill him. Simon's hands—well, he doesn't realize—

Ben hopped away from the groping hands, slipped the compass into his pocket, balled his fists. The wind caught at his body. He stumbled, then recovered his balance.

Despite the wind and his suit's bulkiness, he