Subspace Survivors | Page 6

the corridor:
"Come on, girl--sprint!" He put his arm under hers and urged her along.

She did her best, but in comparison with his trained performance her
best wasn't good. "I've never been checked out on sprinting in
spacesuits!" she gasped. "Let go of me and go on ahead. I'll follow----"
Everything went out. Lights, gravity, air-circulation--everything.
"You haven't been checked out on free fall, either. Hang onto this
tool-hanger here on my belt and we'll travel."
[Illustration]
"Where to?" she asked, hurtling through the air much faster than she
had ever gone on foot.
"Baby Two--that is, Lifecraft Number Two--my crash assignment.
Good thing I was down here in the Middle; I'd never have made it from
up Top. Next corridor left, I 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