Earth Transit By CHARLES L. FONTENAY Illustrated by KLUGA When murder occurs on a spaceship, the number of suspects is at an absolute minimum--and Lefler was that minimum! [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Infinity September 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The centerdeck chronometer said 1840 hours. That startled Lefler into full wakefulness. He was forty minutes overdue in relieving Makki in the control room. That wasn't like Makki, he thought as he pulled on his coveralls hastily. Makki was as punctual--and as thorough--as the maze of machinery whose destiny he guided. He was as cold as that machinery, too, when others made a mistake. It made him an efficient spaceship captain and a disliked man. Lefler shook his head to clear it of dream-haunted memories. He had awakened from a nightmare in which, somewhere, there was angry shouting, to find himself floating midway from floor to ceiling of the centerdeck of the _Marsward IV_. Somehow, his retaining straps had become unbuckled, letting him float free of his bunk in his sleep. Not pausing to fold his bunk back against the curving hull, Lefler made his way briskly up the companionway, through the empty and darkened astrogation deck and into the control room. "Makki," he called to the figure reclining in the control chair. "Makki, I'm due to relieve you. You're forty minutes overtime." There was no answer. Floating up to the control chair, Lefler recoiled, bouncing painfully off the automatic pilot. Makki was dead. Death had robbed his wide eyes of their dark scorn and smoothed the bitter lines of his heavy face. His coveralls were charred around the heat-beam burn in his chest. The heat-gun bumped against Lefler's shoulder and drifted away at an angle across the gravityless control room. Lefler stared after it in horror. Licking dry lips, he punched the communicator button. "Blue alert!" he croaked into the microphone. "All hands to control room. Blue alert!" Anchoring himself to the automatic pilot, he studied Makki's body as dispassionately as he could. The captain was still strapped in the cushioned chair. Oddly, he was wearing gloves. The log-tape was in the recorder beside the control chair. Clipped to a metal leaf on the stanchion beside the chair was Makki's notepad. Scrawled on it in the captain's handwriting was the notation: "73rd day. Earth transit." "What's up, Lefler?" asked a voice behind him. Lefler turned to face Taat, the ship's doctor. Taat, a plump, graying man, was wiping his hands on the white smock he wore.