Adventure stories; Science fiction; Short stories; Space stations -- Fiction
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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