Free Kenneth Bulmer by The Wizard of Starship Poseiden

other
ideas cooking, too, and by the time I've finished my paper will rock the
academic galaxy. You'll see!"
    Almost, almost but not quite, Howland started
to say that he would not be on Earth then, that he'd be working on Pochalin
Nine. But memory of Kirkup's murder and what Mallow had just told him reached
through in time. He shivered.
    "Peter! What's the matt err
    The same sort of tone old Willi Haffner had
used, just after that telephone call . . . "Matter?" He tried to
laugh off that spasm. "Nothing. Might be getting a chill—keep forgetting
my pills."
    "You look—scared."
    "Yes,
and well I might be. I'm supposed to be in the lab right now—working. Not
sitting talking to—to female professors of literature."
    "Well,
you'd better make the best use you have of the chance. I'm sailing on the
twenty-ninth."
    "Oh? Twenty-ninth.
Where, may I—"
    "You
may not!" She reached across the table and took his wrist, pressing with
her finger tips. "Ill tell you all about it when I'm back with the
manuscripts. Soon thereafter, Peter, my dear, 111 be famous. Then—"
    He
couldn't say anything. She would be famous—and good luck, tool But for all she
knew he'd still be simple Doctor Peter Howland buried in Lewistead without the
Maxwell Fund and all its dazziing prospects. He released her hand gently and
stood up, smiling.
    "I'll see you before I go,
promise."
    "Of
course. Now get off to your stinks and smells in your horrible sterilized
laboratory."
    Back
in his sterile, hygienic but very human laboratory, Howland found Haffner and
Mallow watching Professor Randolph who was beside himself with glee. An
unconscious or dead hamster lay on a tiny platform on the workbench beneath a
shielding plastic dome.
    "All
very well, professor," Haffner grumbled as Howland walked up. "But,
if you will pardon my saying it, the whole sequence is. not—ah—very
scientific."
    "You and Peter have been producing this
virus. Now we see it has grown into what we need. Look! Look at the test
animal—not a flicker of consciousness. Yet in twelve hours it will be skipping
about its cage not the whit the worse for wear."
    "It
would be just as much out of the way with a bullet in it," growled Mallow,
fretfully. He lit a cigarette without offering them around. "Can you
absolutely guarantee the twenty-four hour period?"
    Haflner nodded. "We
can do that, at least."
    "Ah,
Peter!" said Randolph, turning and staring up. "You are just in time
to see the finals—"
    "The finals. How about the introduction?"
    "That
will be Terence's problem. Hell assign a man to assist you. I don't envisage
any difficulty. After all, a space-liner must be similar in many ways to a
starcruiser—right, Terence?"
    "I suppose so."
    The
tensions between these people, pulling them in different and mutually
destructive ways, frightened Howland, filled him with misgivings for the
future. The success of any expedition of this character must depend on teamwork
and trust. At that moment, precisley, with Randolph and Mallow and Haflner
exchanging glances, that fraction of time in which clarity hit him, Howland
first decided on insurance.
    "Right,
Peter," Randolph said briskly. "We.give the inoculations tonight
Arrange for all you need to be taken where Terence directs. Haflner and I will be working here, so don't forget to see we get our shots,
too."
    "Right,
professor," Howland answered automatically, his mind feverishly rejecting
plan after plan. There had to be a way. There must be a way to save his own neck.
    That
night, by devious routes, the members of the expedition reached the
rendezvous, a greasy garage on the outskirts of town. Heliflyer parts filled
much of the space and a jet engine hung on clamps from the ceiling. Howland
didn't see the owner and he asked no questions.
    Each member of the expedition stepped up to
Howland, who was ministering in front of his opened suitcase like a relief
doctor in an old time cholera campaign. He gave each one the required shot of
inoculation