Space Prison | Page 6

carry her some water when he
approached. The smaller man picked up one of the clumsy containers,
hastily improvised from canvas, and started toward the creek. The other,
a big, thick-chested man, did not move.
"We'll have to have water," Mary said. "People are hungry and cold and
sick."
The man continued to squat by the fire, his hands extended to its
warmth. "Name someone else," he said.
"But----"
She looked at Prentiss in uncertainty. He went to the thick-chested man,
knowing there would be violence and welcoming it as something to
help drive away the vision of Irene's pale, cold face under the red sky.
"She asked you to get her some water," he said. "Get it."
The man looked up at him, studying him with deliberate insolence, then
he got to his feet, his heavy shoulders hunched challengingly.
"I'll have to set you straight, old timer," he said. "No one has appointed
you the head cheese around here. Now, there's the container you want
filled and over there"--he made a small motion with one hand--"is the
creek. Do you know what to do?"
"Yes," he said. "I know what to do."

He brought the butt of the rifle smashing up. It struck the man under
the chin and there was a sharp cracking sound as his jawbone snapped.
For a fraction of a second there was an expression of stupefied
amazement on his face then his eyes glazed and he slumped to the
ground with his broken jaw setting askew.
"All right," he said to Mary. "Now you go ahead and name somebody
else."
* * * * *
He found that the prowlers had killed seventy during the night. One
hundred more had died from the Hell Fever that often followed
exposure and killed within an hour.
He went the half mile to the group that had arrived on the second
cruiser as soon as he had eaten a delayed breakfast. He saw, before he
had quite reached the other group, that the Constellation's Lieutenant
Commander, Vincent Lake, was in charge of it.
Lake, a tall, hard-jawed man with pale blue eyes under pale brows,
walked forth to meet him as soon as he recognized him.
"Glad to see you're still alive," Lake greeted him. "I thought that second
Gern blast got you along with the others."
"I was visiting midship and wasn't home when it happened," he said.
He looked at Lake's group of Rejects, in their misery and uncertainty so
much like his own, and asked, "How was it last night?"
"Bad--damned bad," Lake said. "Prowlers and Hell Fever, and no wood
for fires. Two hundred died last night."
"I came down to see if anyone was in charge here and to tell them that
we'll have to move into the woods at once--today. We'll have plenty of
wood for the fires there, some protection from the wind, and by
combining our defenses we can stand off the prowlers better."

Lake agreed. When the brief discussion of plans was finished he asked,
"How much do you know about Ragnarok?"
"Not much," Prentiss answered. "We didn't stay to study it very long.
There are no heavy metals on Ragnarok's other sun. Its position in the
advance of the resources of any value. We gave Ragnarok a quick
survey and when the sixth man died we marked it on the chart as
uninhabitable and went on our way.
"As you probably know, that bright blue star is Ragnarok's other sun.
It's position in the advance of the yellow sun shows the season to be
early spring. When summer comes Ragnarok will swing between the
two suns and the heat will be something no human has ever endured.
Nor the cold, when winter comes.
"I know of no edible plants, although there might be some. There are a
few species of rodent-like animals--they're scavengers--and a herbivore
we called the woods goat. The prowlers are the dominant form of life
on Ragnarok and I suspect their intelligence is a good deal higher than
we would like it to be. There will be a constant battle for survival with
them.
"There's another animal, not as intelligent as the prowlers but just as
dangerous--the unicorn. The unicorns are big and fast and they travel in
herds. I haven't seen any here so far--I hope we don't. At the lower
elevations are the swamp crawlers. They're unadulterated nightmares. I
hope they don't go to these higher elevations in the summer. The
prowlers and the Hell Fever, the gravity and heat and cold and
starvation, will be enough for us to have to fight."
"I see," Lake said. He smiled, a smile that was as bleak as moonlight on
an arctic glacier. "Earth-type--remember the promise the Gerns made
the Rejects?" He looked out across the