Гарри Гаррисон - 50 in 50

The end of the tape clicked through and the player turned itself off. The two men looked at each other, horrified, then turned away when their eyes met.

"He's dead," Nissim said. "Worse than dead. What a terrible accident. Yet he seemed so calm and sure of himself…"

"Gagarin flying his craft into the ground to save some others. What else could he have done? Could we have expected him to panic — like us? We as much as told him to commit suicide."

"You can't accuse us of that, Aldo!"

"Yes I can. We agreed that he had to go first. And we assured him that we were incapable of improving the operation of the machine in our present physical condition."

"Well. . that's true."

"Is it?" Nissim looked Aldo squarely in the eyes for the first time. "We are going back to work now, aren't we? We won't go through the MT as it is. So we will work on it until we have a good chance of making it — alive."

Aldo returned his gaze, steadily. "I imagine we can do that. And if it is true now — were we really speaking the truth when we said we would have gone through the screen first?"

"That is a very hard question to answer."

"Isn't it, though. And the correct answer is going to be very hard to live with. I think that we can truthfully say that we killed Stan Brandon."

"Not deliberately!"

"No. Which is probably worse. We killed him through our inability to cope with the kind of situation that we had never faced before. He was right. He was the professional and we should have listened to him.”

"Hindsight is wonderful stuff. But we could have used a little more foresight."

Aldo shook his head. "I can't bear the thought that he died for absolutely no reason."

"There was a reason, and perhaps he knew it at the time. To bring us back safely. He did everything he could to get us all returned without harm. But we couldn't be convinced by words. Even if he had stayed we would have done nothing except resent him. I don't think either of us would have had the guts to go through first. We would have just lain here and given up and died."

"Not now we won't.” Aldo said, struggling to his feet. "We are going to stick with it until the MT is perfect and we both can get out of this. We owe him at least that much. If his death is going to have any meaning we are both going to have to return safely."

"Yes, we can do it," Nissim agreed, forcing the words through his taut, closed lips. "Now we can."

The work began.

It was a lousy landing. The tall spaceship tilted, wobbled, and finally jarred into the sand with a fin-rending crunch. Captain Moran looked at the back of Pilot Sinkley's sweating neck and resisted the impulse to close his hands around it.

"That was the worst landing I have seen since I have been in the service.” he said. "This is a rescue mission — so who is going to rescue us?"

"I'm sorry. . Captain…" Sinkley's voice shook as badly as his hands. "It was the glare. . first from the sand. . then the canal…" His voice died away like a run-down record.

There was a grinding crunch from somewhere below and emergency lights began to dance across the board. Captain Moran cursed and thumbed the telltales. Trouble. Engine room. Aft quadrant. The intercom suddenly belched out the gravel voice of Chief Engineer Beckett.

"Some gear carried away when we landed, nothing serious. Two ratings injured. Out."

The pilot sat with his back hunched, in either prayer or fear. He had goofed and goofed badly and he knew it. Captain Moran shot one tension-loaded glare at the back of the lowered head, then stamped out towards the lock. Too much was going wrong and the responsibility was all his.

Dr. Kranolsky, the medical officer, was already at the lock, taking samples through the bleeder tube. Captain Moran chewed his lip and waited while the fat little doctor fussed with his instruments. The vision plate next to the port was on and he looked at it, at the dusty red landscape that stretched away outside. Like a questioning metal finger, the tall bulk of the other ship stood silhouetted against the sky.

That was the reason they had come. One year since the first ship had left; one year without a report or a signal. The first ship, Argus, had carried at least a ton of signaling equipment. None of it had been used. A puzzled world had built a second interplanet ship — the Argus II. Moran had brought her this far — now he had to finish the job. Find out what had happened to the crew of the Argus. And get a report back to earth.

"More air pressure than had expected, Captain." Dr. Kranolsky's voice knifed through his thoughts. "And oxygen as well. About equal to the top of a high mountain on Earth. Also, the culture plates remain clear. Most interesting, because—"

"Doctor. Make it short and make it clear. Can I take my men out there?"

Kranolsky stopped in mid-phrase, deflated. He had no defenses against a man like the captain.

"Yes. . yes. You could go outside. Just be sure that certain precautions are followed—"

"Tell me what they are. Want to get over to the Argus while it's still light."

Back on the bridge the captain started to growl through the door of the radio room, but the operator beat him to the punch.

"I've tried to contact the Argus on all frequencies, Captain, right down to the infrared. Nothing. Either that ship is empty or the crew is—" He left the sentence unfinished, but the captain's thundercloud scowl finished it for him.

"What about search radar?" Captain Moran asked. "They might still be in the vicinity."

Sparks shook his head in a slow negative. "I've been looking at the slow sweep detail screen until I have pips on my eyeballs. There ain't nothing out there — Earthman or Martian. And at the distance I was using it that screen would show anything bigger than a baseball."

Captain Moran had a decision to make and it was a rough one. Almost every man aboard was essential to the operation of the ship. If he sent a small party to examine the other ship they might run into trouble that they couldn't handle. If they didn't come back, none of them would get back to Earth. But the only alternative to a small party was taking the entire ship's complement. That would leave the ship empty — looking just like the Argus.

Moran chewed the problem for a minute and a half, then banged the intercom board with decision.

"Attention, ship's crew, all ratings attention. We are going out of here in fifteen minutes — all of us. Draw Marsuits and the weapons YOU can carry. Now jump."

When they were all out on the red sand, Moran shut the massive lock door behind them and spun the combination lock. Then, dispersed like an infantry squad, they slowly circled towards the Argus.

In alternate rushes they approached the lock of the other ship. It was wide open and there was no resistance or sign of life. In a matter of minutes the captain was standing under the gaping mouth of the lock. There was complete silence except for the rustling of wind-churned sand granules. Redfaced and panting hard, Pilot Sinkley raced UP and slammed down next to the captain.

"Concussion grenade," Moran whispered.

Sinkley fumbled one out of his chest pack and handed it to the captain. He pulled the pin, counted slowly, then flipped it through the open port. There was a blasting roar and Moran was through the port before the echoes died away.

Nothing. No one in sight and no one in the carefully searched ship. The captain went to the empty bridge and tried to understand what had happened.

Moran was reading the log when he heard a hoarse shout from the guard he had left at the lock. He made it on a dead run, almost slamming into the men crowded there. Pushing them roughly aside he looked out.

There were four of them. Four girls. Lovely as any he had ever seen if you didn't take offense at their pale green skin.