Gangsters -- Fiction; Saturn (Planet) -- Fiction; Science fiction; Short stories; Space stations -- Fiction
Beside Henry, the net broke loose. A slow, miscellaneous rain,
including two sandwich bunks and part of a spaceship landing leg, fell
on Vicenzo and Aziz. Henry felt the desk slipping. He dropped on his
feet in the clutter. The desk clattered down beside him.
* * * * *
Stumbling and staggering, Henry reached Vicenzo, who struggled under a
bunk, a plastic packing case, part of a pump, and a bundle of tubing.
Henry took the electric cable from his belt and formed a loop. He drew
the loop tight around Vicenzo's arms. Vicenzo pushed the case off his
legs and tried to stand. Henry flipped the cable around and around
Vicenzo and bound his arms to his sides.
"Get him, Aziz!" Vicenzo called in rage. Henry tied Vicenzo's feet
together and cut off the remaining cable with his snips.
Aziz had grasped the frame of the airvalve and was trying to slide the
door open. Henry selected a battered oxygen tank from the heap, lifted
it in both hands, and hurled it. The missile caught Aziz across the
back of his spacesuit. He fell into the jumbled equipment on the floor.
Quickly, Henry repeated his looping and tying operations. Then he sat
on an empty trunk and tried to slow his rapid breathing.
"Le'me go, Henry!" Aziz demanded, somewhat dazed. "We're fallin'!"
Henry opened the switch on the spacesuit's loudspeaker.
The bunk in the wall that had been the ceiling unfolded, and Ranjit's
wrinkled face peeped through the exposed hatch. "What a mess!" he
chuckled. "Things wasn't fastened down like they should of been. Of
course, it never needed to be before. I never knowed--"
"How are you standing the gravity?" Henry panted.
"It's just two-tenths G," Ranjit said. "Hang on, and I'll take us back
to no weight. This old sweeper's spinning like a top."
Ranjit's head withdrew. Henry tried to find a handhold in the pile of
material. His feet left the tangle. Accompanied by assorted items,
including the bound figures of Vicenzo and Aziz, he floated in the air.
Twisting, Henry placed his feet on the magnetized deck. Objects
containing steel settled around him. He pulled Vicenzo and Aziz
down, and, as Vicenzo began to curse in ancient terms, silenced his
loudspeaker also.
Joachim appeared clutching his stomach. "I shall wait in my ship
for the fuel," he gagged, dodging a floating chest, "away from this
criminal madhouse!"
Morna and Ranjit dropped into the compartment. Ranjit kicked aside
a crate and said, "Good, Henry. I guess you saved our lives, or
mine anyhow. Those fellows would have passed me beyond if they had
accelerated the sweeper, and you sure kept them from stealing it."
"He did all right for a gangster," said Morna on her way to the door.
"Wait, Morna, please," said Henry. He blushed a bright red. "Won't,
won't I ever see you again?"
"Why would I want to see a gangster again?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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