his feet, but the other man was a long wayfrom being unconscious. A stinging right smashed into Wayne's mouth, andhe felt the taste of blood. Hastily he wiped the trickle away with theback of his hand.
With his nose pouring blood, Wayne's antagonist charged in. His eyesburned with the strange flame that had been gleaming in Boggs's face outon the desert in the valley. He ploughed into Wayne's stomach with asavage blow that rocked Wayne back.
He grunted and drove back with a flurry of blows. The other aimed a wildblow at Wayne's head; Wayne seized the wrist as the arm flew past hisear, and twisted, hard. The medic flipped through the air and came torest against the wall with a brief crunching impact. He moaned and thenlapsed into silence.
* * * * *
Quickly, Wayne grabbed the gun off the floor and planted his back to thewall, looking around for new antagonists. But there was evidently no oneleft who cared to tangle with him, and the four medics strewn out onthe floor didn't seem to have much fight left in them.
Wayne crossed the room in a couple of strides and bolted the door. Thenhe walked over to the box of sand. If it contained what he suspected--
He stepped over to the lab bench and picked out a long steel support rodfrom the equipment drawer. He placed the rod gently against the sand,and pushed downward, hard. There was a tinny scream, and a six-inchneedle shot up instantly through the surface.
"Just what I thought," Wayne murmured. "Can you talk, you nasty littlebrute?" He prodded into the sand--more viciously this time. There was aflurry of sand, and the football-shaped thing came to the surface,clashing its teeth and screaming shrilly.
Wayne cursed. Then he turned the needle gun back up to full power andcalmly burned the thing to a crisp. An odor of singed flesh drifted upfrom the ashes on the sand.
* * * * *
He stooped and fumbled in Stevelman's pocket, pulling out a ring ofkeys.
"They better be the right ones," he told the unconscious medic.Holstering the needle gun, he walked over to the medical stores cabinet,hoping that the things he needed would be inside. He knew exactly whathe was facing now, and what he would have to do.
He checked over the labels, peering through the neatly-arranged racksfor the substance he was searching for.
Finally he picked a large plastine container filled with a white,crystalline powder. Then he selected a couple of bottles filled with aclear, faintly yellow liquid, and took a hypodermic gun from the rack.He relocked the cabinet.
Suddenly a knock sounded. He stiffened, sucked in his breath, and turnedto face the door.
"Who's there?" he asked cautiously, trying to counterfeit Stevelman'svoice.
"Harrenburg," said a rumbling voice. "I'm on guard duty. Heard somenoise coming from in there a while back, and thought I'd look in.Everything all right, Dr. Stevelman? I mean--"
"Everything's fine, Harrenburg," Wayne said, imitating the medic's thin,dry voice. "We're running some tests on Captain Wayne. They're prettycomplicated affairs, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't interruptagain."
"Sure, sir," the guard said. "Just a routine check, sir. ColonelPetersen's orders. Sorry if I've caused any trouble, sir."
"That's all right," Wayne said. "Just go away and let us continue, willyou?"
There was the sound of the guard's footsteps retreating down thecorridor. Wayne counted to ten and turned back to the things he hadtaken from the cabinet.
The bottles of liquid and the hypo gun went into his belt pouch. Hetucked the big bottle of white powder under his left arm and cautiouslyunbolted and opened the door. There was no sign of anyone in thecorridor. _Good_, he thought. It was a lucky thing Harrenburg hadblundered along just then, and not two minutes later.
He stepped outside the Medic Section and locked the door behind him withthe key he'd taken from Stevelman. After turning the needle gun back tolow power again in order to keep from killing anyone, he started ontiptoe toward the stairway that led into the bowels of the ship.
After about ten paces, he saw a shadow on the stairway, and cowered in adark recess while two crewmen passed, talking volubly. Once they weregone, he came out and continued on his way.
It took quite a while to get where he was going, since it involvedhiding and ducking two or three more times along the way, but he finallyreached the big compartment where the water repurifiers were. He climbedup the ladder to the top of the reserve tank, opened the hatch, andemptied the contents of the jar into the ship's water supply.
"That ought to do it," he said to himself. Smiling, he carefully smashedthe jar and dropped the fragments down the waste chute. He surveyed hishandiwork for a moment, then turned and headed back.
He hadn't been seen going down, and he didn't want to be seen going out.If anyone even suspected that he had tampered with the water supply, allthey would have to do would be to run the water through the purifiers.That would undo everything Wayne had been carefully preparing.
* * * * *
He made his way safely back up to the main deck and headed through thequiet ship toward the airlock. He wasn't so lucky this time; a guard sawhim.
"Where you goin', Captain?" the guard demanded, starting to lift hisgun. "Seems to me you ought to be in the brig, and--"
Wayne made no reply. He brought his gun up in a rapid motion and beamedthe man down. The guard toppled, a hurt expression on his face.
Wayne raced to the airlock. He didn't bother with a spacesuit--not_now_, when he knew that the air was perfectly harmless outside. Heopened the inner door, closed it, and opened the outer door.
Then, grinning gleefully, he pressed the button that would start thepumping cycle. The outer door started to close automatically, and Waynejust barely managed to get outside and onto the ladder before it clangedshut. As soon as the great hatch had sealed itself, the pumps startedexhausting the air from the airlock. No one could open the doors untilthe pumping cycle was over.
He climbed down the ladder and began walking over toward the westernwall. He would have to keep away from the ship for a while, and therocks were as good a place as any to hide out.
* * * * *
It was dark. Fomalhaut had set, leaving the moonless planet in utterblackness, broken only by the cold gleam of the stars. The lightsstreaming from the portholes of the _Lord Nelson_ gave a small degree ofillumination to the valley.
The valley. It was spread out before him, calm and peaceful, ripplingdunes of sand curling out toward the mountains. The valley, he knew, wasa betrayer--calm and quiet above, alive with an army of hideous vermin afew feet below its surface.
He started to walk, and moistened his lips. He knew he was going to getawfully thirsty in the next few hours, but there was not the slightesthelp for it. There hadn't been any way to carry water from the ship.
"I can wait," he told himself. He stared back at the circular bulk ofthe _Lord Nelson_ behind him, and his fingers trembled a little. He hadknown, when he joined the Corps, that space was full of traps like thisone--but this was the first time he had actually experienced anythinglike this. It was foul.
Something slammed into his boot sole, and this time Wayne knew what itwas.
"Persistent, aren't you!" He jerked his foot up. This monster hadn'tstuck as the other one had, but he saw the tip of the needle-beakthrashing around wildly in the loose sand. Wayne thumbed the gun up tofull power, and there was a piercing shriek as the gun burned into thesand. There was a sharp shrill sound, and the odor of something burning.He spat.
The little beasts must be all over the floor of the valley! Scurryingfrantically, like blood-red giant crabs, sidling up and down beneath thevalley, searching upward for things to strike at. How they must hate hismetamagnetic boots, he thought!
He kept on walking, expecting to feel the impact of another thrustmomentarily, but he was not molested again. _They must be getting wise_,he thought. _They know they can't get through my boots, and so they'releaving m
e alone. That way they don't call attention to themselves._
A new, more chilling question struck him:
_Just how smart are they?_
He had made it to the wall and was climbing up the treacherous slopewhen the airlock door opened, and someone stood outlined in the brightcircle of light that cut into the inky blackness. An amplified voicefilled the valley and ricocheted back off the walls of the mountains,casting eerie echoes down on the lone man on the desert.
"CAPTAIN WAYNE! THIS IS COLONEL PETERSEN SPEAKING. DON'T YOU REALIZETHAT YOU'RE A SICK MAN? YOU MAY DIE OUT THERE. COME BACK. THAT'S ANORDER, CAPTAIN. REPEAT: COME BACK. THAT'S AN ORDER!"
"I'm afraid an order from you just doesn't hold much weight for me rightnow, Colonel," Wayne said quietly, to himself. Silently he went onclimbing