A Madman on Board
Date: 2021-05-03T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Science fiction; Short stories; Adventure stories; Space stations -- Fiction

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Title: A Madman on Board

Author: Robert Silverberg

Release date: May 3, 2021 [eBook #65240]
Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/65240

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MADMAN ON BOARD ***

Conroy found himself shanghaied to certain
death in the radiation chamber of Earth's Wheel
in space—as the planet below faced doom from—

A Madman On Board

By Robert Silverberg

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
February 1958
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Through the clear plexiplast viewing dome of Earth Satellite V2-ZF, the bright orb of Earth could be seen, full and lustrous green against the sharp blackness of space.

But Dave Conroy wasn't able to feel much pleasure in the view. As he waited, hands linked with duralloy chains, he knew only that somehow he had landed in trouble—trouble that would probably cost him his life, here among the beauties of the orbital satellite.

"Go on in, next batch," a bored voice ordered.

Dave began to move, along with the half-dozen stubble-faced disreputable-looking men he was chained to. They stepped through a permaluce door; it swung closed silently behind them.

"This is the entrance to the jetroom," a uniformed man facing them announced. "I'm Major Hawes. Welcome to Earth Satellite V2-ZF—you poor suckers!" An acid sneer tinted his voice.

"Hey, hold on!" the man next to Conroy shouted. "What's goin' to happen to us?"

Major Hawes smiled politely. "You'll be put to work in the jetroom of the Satellite, making sure our noble orbiting wheel stays warm and cozy. You'll be feeding radioactives to the converter. You'll be doing a lot of jobs robots could do twice as well, and after a year or so of it your bodies will start to rot and you'll fall apart and you'll get the deaths you deserve."

Hawes chuckled. "There'll be guards making sure you don't shirk. Inside, now—and your predecessors will show you what you're to do."

The chains fell away. In here, no chains were needed. Dimly, Dave Conroy rubbed his forehead and wondered what he had done to condemn himself to this living hell.

"What kind of place is this?" he asked the man at his right, as a gleaming cupralloy door irised open before them.

"Is your mind snapping, buddy? You can't have forgotten so soon."

"I—I—it's all so hazy—"

"Hazy? It's simple, friend. You and me are four-time losers, like all these other guys. We got life imprisonment—but we volunteered for satellite duty instead. It's a quick death—only a year or so instead of a lifetime behind bars. And since there ain't no execution any more, we took it."

No—no—part of Conroy's mind protested. I didn't volunteer. I never was in jail ... except that drunken jetting once, and that was just overnight. How—why—?

"That can't be right," he said. "I'm not a criminal."

The other man looked at him strangely, then smiled pityingly. "You musta been lookin' the wrong way when the recruiters came around, then. Those birds'll do anything for ten thousand bucks."

They came to the end of the long corridor and approached another door—and suddenly Conroy remembered.

He had been drunk, that last night on Earth—and suddenly everyone in the bar had run madly out the door, into the washroom, hid anyplace they could. Two men had entered.

Recruiters. Space-station recruiters. Conroy remembered protesting mildly through a vague blue of alcohol and synthojoy, then letting them take him away. Sober now, he recalled having heard of such things. The space-stations needed men—and they'd grab them any way they could. They'd take uncomplaining derelicts when the supply of convicts ran out.

His fiancee Janet had told him, when she broke their engagement, "Your drinking'll kill you some day, Dave." The words had been prophetic—though not the way she meant.

The final door opened—and eight shambling, patchy-fleshed, almost bald wrecks of men came toward them. Dave shuddered. This was what a year of continuous hard radiation could do, even through tough shielding. This was what he'd look like a year from now.

Already he imagined he could feel the subatomic particles ripping through his body, even though he knew it was only an illusion. The radiation wouldn't begin to affect him for a few days—but even now he felt his skin tingling and itching from force of suggestion.

I've got to get out of here, he thought with a clarity he'd not known since he began drinking. I'm still young. I don't want to rot down here.

God, why couldn't I have been sober that night?

The eight jetmen looked like lepers. Through lipless mouths they greeted the newcomers. Their voices were dry and whispering, as if their vocal cords had succumbed to the radiation too.

Conroy had been a scientist ... once. Conroy, more than any of the six convicts he had been shipped with, knew what sort of agonies lay ahead.

He turned. The door had irised shut behind him, erecting an invulnerable barrier between him and freedom.

He studied the door while the loathsome once-men greeted the men who would replace them at their deadly task. It looked fairly familiar; it was almost like—by space, it was!—an ultron-relay door.

A door Dave Conroy had helped to design, he and his partner Lloyd Regan, back before the terrible lab accident that had killed Regan and set Conroy to drinking.

Moving unobtrusively away from the group, he edged to the door. Yes—it was an ultronic door, he confirmed on close inspection. And that meant—

Hands that had once been those of a skilled engineer felt along the smooth metal for the emergency-hatch, found the microscopic depression built into the cupralloy for use in case the delicate ultronic mechanism of the door failed. His finger nestled in the slot for an instant—

And the door irised open.

"Hey!" he shouted, and jumped through. He heard the startled cries of the convicts.

"It's a trap," someone yelled. But another said, "Let's run for it"—and then the whole pack of them swarmed through the open door, Conroy in the lead.

They dashed back up the long corridor and Conroy opened the other door by the same process. Then they were out in the main room again.

Major Hawes gasped in astonishment as he saw the ragged army sweep toward him. He drew his blaster, but one of the half-skeletonized veteran jetmen stumbled forward and took the bolt in his stomach, then kept going and wrapped decaying arms around the Major's throat.

Conroy's fist collided with the mouth of a surprised Space-Station guard; his knuckles felt a sharp stab of pain, and teeth crumbled. Dave came up with a staggering blow to the guard's midsection and he fell.

That left two more to take care of. The lightning assault was still only seconds old. One of the guards was fingering the firing-stud on his blaster, but a man Conroy knew only as Pete sprang forward, wrenched the gun away, and dove into the guard.

Conroy grabbed the fallen gun, scooped it up and fired. His bolt spurted redly into the arm of the remaining guard.

Three more Space-Station men in gray uniforms came in, and Conroy and his little army swept forward to meet them. In the general confusion, Conroy's blaster was swept away—and, alone, unarmed, he slipped past the milling rebels and escaped into the corridor outside.

He found himself facing the giant viewing dome again, the curving arc of plexiplast that bellied out from the side of the satellite and afforded a striking view of the distant Earth. The orbiter was 100,000 miles above the Earth's surface—a sort of halfway-house between Earth and the Moon. From a hundred thousand miles up, the view was breathtaking.

Conroy glanced out at the sweeping circle that was Earth, green and shining in the sky. Just now, Africa and Europe were upturned, and the rippling mass of the Atlantic. A little tingle of wonder shot through Conroy at the sight of his home world, seen from the satellite he had helped to build.

Then he saw guards heading down the broad corridor that ran completely around the outer rim of the satellite, and knew he had to hide.

Quickly, he ducked into a washroom off to the right. As the door slid closed, he deftly jimmied the photonic beam to keep it that way until he was ready to come out.

He glanced at his face in the mirror, seeing as if for the first time the baggy eyes, the heavy growth of beard, the beaten, run-down color of the skin. The memory of a photo crossed his mind: a tridim in natural color, taken three years ago. He and Janet, together, their arms locked around each other, their faces bright, laughing.

Three years ago. Then came the accident; then the lab was destroyed and Lloyd killed. And then the drinking began.

Now, three years later, where was Janet? Someplace far off, remote, untouchable. Her father's party had taken over in the last election and he was now a bigwig in the Space Commission. Probably she was still clean and fresh, bright and young. Maybe she was married.

And me? He looked with revulsion at the bleary mask his face had become.

He went to work with the depilator supplied in the washroom and rapidly wiped away his beard. Then he scrubbed his face the way it hadn't been scrubbed in months. He came out pink.

Stripping, he dropped his clothes in the Valet Hopper and stepped under the stinging spray of the shower. Robot hands scrubbed him down. Layers of dirt stripped away. An ion-massage set his blood pounding, broke down fatty tissue, left his skin tinglingly clean.

He surveyed his naked body in the mirror. Not bad, he thought. A long way from what it had been, but not bad.

He dressed rapidly. He was still wearing the clothes in which he had been picked up the night before—only now he fastened the collar magnesnap, adjusted the tie, straightened the trousers. When he was finished, he could pass for a tourist stopping off to see the satellite before making the jaunt to Luna.

Despite himself, he grinned. They'll never recognize me in this disguise. They'll be looking for a hobo, not a clean cut young tourist.

Feeling invigorated and dapper, he activated the door and stepped into the corridor.

Strolling in leisure, he walked to the viewing dome and peered out at Earth. A chubby matron stood next to him.

"Lovely, isn't it?" she said.

"It's quite a sight. This your first time?"

"Yes. It's all wonderful up here. I think it's marvelous that the satellite's been built!"

"It certainly is," Dave said, thinking of the radiation-eaten wretches somewhere in the lower levels of the big wheel.

Feeling a little sick to his stomach, he smiled and walked on. A grey-clad guard stood at the entrance to the Tourists' Lounge. Choking back his tenseness, Conroy walked up to him.

"Pardon me, officer—"

"Yes?"

"Could you give me some information? I'd like to know when the next liner leaves for Earth. I find I have to cut short my trip."

The guard frowned. "Liner service to Earth is temporarily discontinued, sir. Didn't you hear the notice?"

"What?"

"That's right," the guard said. "Emergency Provision 104b has been put into operation. The Space-Station is temporarily quarantined."

"Can you tell me why?" Conroy asked.

"Something to do with an inspection sir. That's all I can say."

Putting a tone of easy conspiracy in his voice, Conroy whispered, "I hear some convicts down below staged a rebellion a little while ago. This wouldn't have anything to do with it, would it?"

The guard shook, his head in immediate denial. "Oh, no, sir. That was strictly a brief flare-up; it's all been smoothed over now."

"Oh. Thanks," Conroy said. "Thanks very much." He smiled to the guard and walked past him into the lounge.

So the "brief flare-up" was all over with, eh? Obviously they were keeping it quiet as far as the passengers were concerned. Probably that guard was wondering how Conroy had heard of it in the first place.

But one thing seemed good: he hadn't been recognized. He just looked too respectable with all the dirt laundered out of his clothes and with his face shaven, to be one of the missing jetmen from below. That gave him a certain amount of freedom.

Only—whatever this quarantine thing was about, that increased the tension. He had hoped to grab the first liner back to Earth; now he'd have to wait until the quarantine ended and that gave the satellite guards a chance to track him down. He couldn't pose as a tourist forever, even aboard such a huge station as this one.

They'd find him sooner or later. Meanwhile, he needed a drink. He peered through the swirling dim lights at the bar, trying to see the bartender's face. Conroy was pretty good at guessing whether or not he could cadge a drink.

But there was a girl sitting at the bar, sleek and slim in a dress that had probably been sprayed on. Her legs were crossed, baring long, lovely calves. Her face—

Conroy gasped.

It was Janet.

Feeling a thunderous pounding in his ears, he crossed the floor and slid into the chair next to hers.

She hadn't changed. She was looking away, watching the pulsating vibromural on the opposite wall, and he studied her covertly in the backbar mirror. Her skin still had that clear, crystalline appearance; her eyes were bright and vigorous, her lips full, desirable. The dress had been sprayed on; it clung revealingly to the high breasts and slim body that Conroy had once thought would be his.

"Hello, Janet," he said.

A little startled, the girl turned away from the vibromural. "Do I know you? Oh!"—a little gasp—"Dave?"

"That's right. Dave."

She whirled on her chair to face him. "Oh, Dave, it must be years. Years!"

"Three years." There was no ring on her finger, he saw. "How have you been?"

"Fine," she said. "You've heard about Dad's new job, and—"

"How have you been?"

"A little lonely, sometimes," she admitted. "I've been working in Dad's office since I finished school. How about you? Did—did you ever get back into lab work?"

"No," he said hollowly. "I never did."

"What brings you to the Wheel?" she asked.

"I'm a tourist," he improvised. "Saw the sights on Luna, and now I'm on my way back to Earth." He moistened his lips. "How about a drink?"

"Fine!"

"Two martinis, please," he ordered. When the barkeep brought them, he said, "Charge them to Allied Technolabs' account. They'll take care of it."

"Right, sir."

Allied Technolabs had been the contractors that built the Space Station. Conroy hadn't been affiliated with them since the lab explosion—but if Janet noticed, she said nothing.

Conroy caressed the drink, sipped it thirstily.

"Are—you—"

"Still drinking?" he finished. "A little. Not as much. I'm leading a clean life." It was a lie, he thought bitterly. But what else could I say?

The martini warmed him—that, and the girl's presence. She reawakened all the old longing in him, filled him with dull anger at the way the past three years had been pulled from him—years he could have spent wed to Janet.

But she had broken the engagement, she had wanted no part of a seemingly incurable alcoholic. She was too good for him. He wondered how she'd feel if he told her he was also a fugitive from the jetgang belowdecks.

"What are you doing here on the Wheel yourself?" he asked.

Lowering her voice, she said, "I'm here with Dad. He's conducting a top-secret hush-hush investigation."

"Oh? Can you tell an old friend?"

She smiled sadly. "I really can't. It's upper-security doubleplus, if you know what I mean."

He chuckled. "You really take your job seriously. I mean, if you can't tell—"

Reddening, she said, "Oh, okay, Dave. I guess you'll find out one way or another anyway. There's been a rumor that a saboteur's aboard the Space-Station."

"What?" He started from his seat. "Then why'd he bring you here?"

"Shh! It's not dangerous here—this is the safest place. The rumor says the saboteur's going to get control of the satellite and bomb Earth! Washington's supposed to be first target!"

Conroy felt the color drain from his face. When they had built the satellite, this fear had been in everyone's mind—that, despite the world peace that prevailed, someday an alien power might use the satellite as an instrument of destruction. And now—

"You sure of this?"

"We're not sure of anything. That's why Dad's here. It's awfully dangerous, but as one of the Space Commissioners it's his responsibility to check on it. And he brought me along in case it was true; he didn't want me down in Washington if it was going to be bombed."

He leaned closer; the drink had gone to work, stirring his insides, warming him, emboldening him. "I'm glad he came here and brought you along," he said. "Janet—"

"Please, Dave."

"Don't say it that way! I—"

He paused, feeling a hand on his shoulder. He looked up at the stony face of a Space-Station Guard.

"Are you David Conroy?" the guard asked.

"What if I am?" Conroy asked stiffly....

"Major Hawes wants you, Conroy. The penalty for escaping from—"

He was out of his seat in an instant, cutting off the guard's words before Janet could hear them. He could see her pale, frightened face. She shrank back.

"I'm not the man you want!" he snapped.

"That doesn't matter. Come with me, Conroy."

The guard reached out for him. Conroy responded with a short choppy blow to the gray-clad midsection, and as the man grunted Dave swung a roundhouse right that sent him wobbling back against a table of noisy tourists.

The table went over; glassware shattered tinklingly and angry voices could be heard. In the crowded lounge, people turned to watch the brawl.

He heard Janet's cry. "Dave! What's happening?"

The guard rose from the heap of dishes and bottles, and Conroy ran toward him. They locked, and Conroy knocked him back again. The guard didn't dare fire in these close quarters.

Instead he grabbed a champagne bottle from a nearby table and hurled it at Conroy. Dave ducked; the bottle sped over his head and crashed into the mirror back of the bar.

Conroy saw several more guards entering the lounge, and ducked back behind another table.

They came toward him. Patrons of the lounge huddled back out of the way. As the three guards approached, Conroy upended the table, tossing to the floor a shower of half-filled plates, and hurled it at them.

It knocked them back. Nimbly he sprinted past them, only to meet four more entering the lounge.

By now almost everyone in the lounge was up and swinging; Dave had no idea where Janet was, but he hoped she was gone.

His fist struck a gray uniform just as a hand clubbed down numbingly on his shoulder. He shook the blow off, pile-drove his way through the confused, milling pack of people, and headed for the exit.

Once again he was in the corridor. An alarm now wailed through the Wheel; Conroy, half out of breath, dashed pantingly along the metal floor, hearing the dull chonking sound of his feet as he ran.

Run. Run. That was the only thought in his mind. They were hunting him, wanted to stick him back in the jet section to rot into a mindless hulk of neutron-blasted protoplasm, and he was running away.

The endless wheel of the Space-Station opened out before him. He knew he would have to turn off somewhere, else he would come full circle and run smack into guards again.

He passed a washroom, toyed with the idea of entering it, then rejected the stratagem. No sense blockading himself in there; they'd only starve him out once they found out where he was. No. He needed some more strategic hiding-place until this blew over.

The thought of what Janet had said drifted through his mind. A saboteur aboard the Station—threatening to bomb Washington.

Just another wild rumor, probably, though it certainly needed checking. But—

The control center! he thought. What if I hide there—and threaten to destroy the station if they don't release me from serving in the jetroom?

They'd have to grant him safe-conduct; he'd broadcast his appeal over a world-wide circuit to the planet below. It would cause a global scandal once the world learned how recruits for the jetroom were found.

He racked his memory for location of the control center, finally found the blueprint in his mind and searched it. Designs that he'd forgotten along with the rest of his engineering career came back.

He doubled along his track, found a side-corridor, ran down it. The way to the control center was along lateral spoke eleven, to the heart of the Wheel.

The corridor was clear. He ran desperately.

It seemed like an endless corridor, but eventually he reached the ultronic door that led to the control center. As he expected, a poker-faced guard stood there.

"Sorry, no one's allowed in, sir. Commissioner Merrill is in there and—"

Commissioner Merrill? Janet's dad? That complicated things. But he had to get inside.

"Will you tell Commissioner Merrill it's urgent that I see him. It's about his daughter. Some drunk in the Tourist Lounge tried to attack her, and—"

"Of course, sir." The guard turned to press the relay that would open the door, and Conroy clubbed down on the back of his neck with the side of a fist.

The man shuddered under the blow, began to reach for his blaster, and Conroy hit him again. He fell heavily.

Thoughtfully, Conroy extracted the blaster from the guard's holster, then reached up and slid his hand over the wall, searching for the ultronic relay that he himself had designed so long ago. The door irised open.

Conroy stepped inside. No one was visible in the outer room; no sound was heard except the continual chattering of the cybernetic governors that operated the satellite. He let the door close and activated the lock. No one would get in until he was ready to let them in, now; it was a circuit known only to the builders of the station and the high officers.

The first thing was to find Merrill, and anyone else who might be in the control center. Conroy knew what he had to do: take charge of the control center, broadcast his terms to the Space-Station and to Earth, and wait for them to agree to release him. If they called his bluff—

He shivered. No, they'd never do that. If he threatened to destroy the Station they'd grant him freedom without hesitation. In a situation like that, you don't try to call a madman's bluff.

Conroy slid open the door that led to the inner room that was the nerve center of the giant station. He looked in—and gasped.

Commandant Naylor and several other men in high-rank uniforms lay bound in one corner of the cabin. And at the controls of the Station was Commissioner Merrill.

He seemed to be chuckling to himself. Conroy paused by the door and watched, horror-stricken.

Merrill had activated the long-dormant bombay units, and, according to the pattern on the radar screen above his head, he had swung a fusion-bomb onto the hoists.

The bombs were kept at the Station—in case. They were strictly top-secret, stored on the satellite in the event that they would be needed in a war. Conroy knew about them only because he had seen the specifications for the satellite before it had been built; Merrill, as Commissioner, would also know about them.

And Merrill was aiming the deadly bomb square at Washington!

Conroy lifted his blaster, but knew he could never fire on Janet's father cold-bloodedly.

In a hoarse voice he said, "Have you gone mad, Merrill?"

"What—?"

Merrill turned. His face was so contorted by emotion that Conroy barely recognized it; the man's eyes were bright and glinting as if he were possessed.

He had been sent here to search out a saboteur—but how could he do that, when he himself was the saboteur?

"Conroy! How did you get in here?"

"Get away from those controls," Conroy ordered, his throat dry. "If you make a move toward them I'll blast you down."

Don't call my bluff, he prayed. Don't!

All Merrill had to do to release the bomb was to trip a cryotonic relay; fiery death would descend on Washington within minutes. Stiffly Conroy moved toward him.

"Keep your hands in the air, Merrill."

A blaster lay to one side—the blaster, no doubt, with which Merrill had overpowered the Wheel's officers. Conroy edged toward it.

And then Merrill put his head down and charged desperately toward Conroy.

Dave's hand wavered on the gun for a moment; he still could not fire. Cursing, he hurled the blaster to one side and met Merrill's charge.

The Commissioner was in his fifties, but heavyset and muscular. He tore into Conroy with a madman's fury. Gasping from a stomach blow, Conroy reeled backward, locked his hands, brought them down with all his force on Merrill's bull-like neck.

Forget he's Janet's dad, he ordered himself. Hit him or he'll kill you.

He drove his fists mercilessly into the Commissioner's bulk. Merrill kept coming in his suicide attack. Finally Conroy crashed a fist into the older man's jaw, and he sagged to the ground.

"Thank God!" Commandant Naylor exclaimed, wrestling in furious impotence with his bonds. "That madman was about to bomb Washington!"

"I know," Conroy said tiredly. "I know."

Later, he held a sobbing Janet Merrill in his arms, felt her soft warmth against him, soothed her as she wept.

"Easy, baby. Your Dad'll be all right once the psych-crew calms him down. He had space-sickness; it can happen to anyone. He went out of his mind temporarily—and instead of preventing the saboteur from bombing, he became the saboteur!"

"But the disgrace—"

"It'll be hushed up," he said. "It could happen to anyone. When he comes out of it he'll forget the whole thing."

She started to calm. "And what about you?"

Chuckling, he said, "You don't think they're going to condemn me after all this, do you? I had a talk with the Commandant. They're going to investigate the whole filthy business of the jetroom and replace those men with robots. And I'm completely cleared."

"That's wonderful, darling," she said.

"Darling—?" he repeated. "But I thought—"

"I was a fool, Dave," she said. "I didn't have enough faith in you—then."

"How about now?"

She looked up at him and wiped tears from her glittering eyes. "We've wasted three years, darling. When can we start making up for lost time?"

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MADMAN ON BOARD ***

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