Subspace Survivors | Page 6

think." Then, as the light of his headlamp showed numbers on the wall: "Yes. Square left. I'll swing you."
He swung her and they shot to the end of the passage. He kicked a lever and the lifecraft's port swung open--to reveal a blaze of light and a startled, gray-haired man.
"What happened.... What hap ...?" the man began.
"Wrecked. We've had it. We're abandoning ship. Get into that cubby over there, shut the door tight behind you, and stay there!"
"But can't I do something to help?"
"Without a suit and not knowing how to use one? You'd get burned to a cinder. Get in there--and jump!"
The oldster jumped and Deston turned to his wife. "Stay here at the port, Bobby. Wrap one leg around that lever, to anchor you. What does your telltale read? That gauge there--your radiation meter. It reads twenty, same as mine. Just pink, so we've got a minute or so. I'll roust out some passengers and toss 'em to you--you toss 'em along in there. Can do?"
She was white and trembling; she was very evidently on the verge of being violently sick; but she was far from being out of control. "Can do, sir."
"Good girl, sweetheart. Hang on one minute more and we'll have gravity and you'll be O. K."
The first five doors he tried were locked; and, since they were made of armor plate, there was nothing he could do about them except give each one a resounding kick with a heavy steel boot. The sixth was unlocked, but the passengers--a man and a woman--were very evidently and very gruesomely dead.
So was everyone else he could find until he came to a room in which a man in a spacesuit was floundering helplessly in the air. He glanced at his telltale. Thirty-two. High in the red, almost against the pin.
"Bobby! What do you read?"
"Twenty-six."
"Good. I've found only one, but we're running out of time. I'm coming in."
* * * * *
In the lifecraft he closed the port and slammed on full drive away from the ship. Then, wheeling, he shucked Barbara out of her suit like an ear of corn and shed his own. He picked up a fire-extinguisher-like affair and jerked open the door of a room a little larger than a clothes closet. "Jump in here!" He slammed the door shut. "Now strip, quick!" He picked the canister up and twisted four valves.
Before he could get the gun into working position she was out of her pajamas--the fact that she had been wondering visibly what it was all about had done nothing whatever to cut down her speed. A flood of thick, creamy foam almost hid her from sight and Deston began to talk--quietly.
"Thanks, sweetheart, for not slowing us down by arguing and wanting explanations. This stuff is DEKON--short for Decontaminant, Complete; Compound, Adsorbent, and Chelating, Type DCQ-429.' Used soon enough, it takes care of radiation. Rub it in good, all over you--like this." He set the foam-gun down on the floor and went vigorously to work. "Yes, hair, too. Every square millimeter of skin and mucous membrane. Yes, into your eyes. It stings 'em a little, but that's a lot better than going blind. And your mouth. Swallow six good big mouthfuls--it's tasteless and goes down easy.
"Now the soles of your feet--O. K. The last will hurt plenty, but we've got to get some of it into your lungs and we can't do it the hospital way. So when I slap a gob of it over your mouth and nose inhale hard and deep. Just once is all anybody can do, but that's enough. And don't fight. Any ordinary woman I could handle, but I can't handle you fast enough. So if you don't inhale deep I'll have to knock you cold. Otherwise you die of lung cancer. Will do?"
"Will do, sweetheart. Good and deep. No fight," and she emptied her lungs.
He slapped it on. She inhaled, good and deep; and went into convulsive paroxysms of coughing. He held her in his arms until the worst of it was over; but she was still coughing hard when she pulled herself away from him.
"But ... how ... about ... you?" She could just barely talk; her voice was distorted, almost inaudible. "Let ... me ... help ... you ... quick!"
"No need, darling. Two other men out there. The old man probably won't need it--I think I got him into the safe quick enough--the other guy and I will help each other. So lie down there on the bunk and take it easy until I come back here and help you get the gunkum off. So-long for half an hour, pet."
Forty-five minutes later, while all four were still cleaning up the messes of foam, something began to buzz sharply. Deston stepped over to the board and flipped