Free Calvin M. Knox by The Plot Against Earth

noted with some amusement, a Dargonid who might
have been the twin of the one who had purchased the hypnojewel from Nuuri
Gryain's unfortunate friends. Catton also noticed two of his attaches
nearby—keeping an eye on him, no doubt.
    Suddenly
he heard a distant dull booming sound, reverberating as if far away. A moment
later it was repeated, slightly louder but still muffled and faint.
Conversation in the lounge was unaffected.
    But
H. Byron Royce was standing on tiptoes, head cocked to one side for better
hearing. He looked worried.
    "What's the
matter?" Catton said.
    There was a third
boom—still louder.
    Muscles tightened suddenly in Royce's cheeks.
"Come on," he said. "Let's get out of here, Catton."
"Out of here? Why?" "Hurry up!"
    Mystified, Catton followed the tall, old
Earthman through the crowd of chatting passengers and out into the
com-panionway that fronted the lounge. A fourth time the sound came—and, out
here, Catton could hear it distinctly and clearly.
    It
sounded like an explosion. "What's going on?" Catton asked.
    "I
don't know," Royce replied. "But every time I hear loud booms on a
space-liner, I get out into the hall and start looking for a lifeship. I was
aboard the Star of the Night when it blew up off Capella in '83."
    A
fifth boom came rippling up from the depths of the ship—and this time Catton
fancied he could hear girders giving way, strutwork ripping loose, engines
exploding, men dying. A drive-room explosion aboard a faster-than-light
spaceliner was a dreadful thing. Even if the ship survived the blast, it would
no longer have means of propulsion, and would drift helplessly, unlocatable,
until its food supply ran out. There would be nightmarish frenzy before that
time, culminating in cannibalism.
    Royce
began to run, and Catton followed him. Other people were coming out of the
lounge, now. Footsteps echoed in the companionway.
    A
loudspeaker voice said, "There is no cause for alarm, ladies and
gentlemen." The voice was speaking in Skorg, but it hastily repeated the
words in Morilaru. "Please remain where you are. Members of the crew will
aid you. Do not panic. Do not panic."
    It might
just as well have been an order to the tides to hold back. A mass of screaming
people came sweeping out of the lounge, crowding desperately into the narrow
companionway. The loudspeaker's shouted exhortations were drowned out by the
cries of the crowd. Another explosion sounded, this
one larger than the others.
    "That was the central drive chamber
blowing," Royce muttered. "This ship is done for."
    He
paused at a doorway, flung it open, and went racing down a ramp toward the
lifeships. A ship the size of the Silver Spear was
probably equipped with fifty or seventy-five tiny lifeships, each capable of
holding a dozen passengers', fifteen or twenty in an emergency. The lifeships
had miniature warp-drives and enough fuel to get them to a nearby planet.
    Royce
swung over the hatch of the nearest lifeship with the amazing self-preservation
impulse of a man to whom life is very important indeed ,. and hurled himself in. Catton followed. A moment later
five other people rushed into the small ship.
    Catton
was surprised to see that one of them was the Morilaru who had accompanied him
as his administrative adjutant. Another was an enormous Arenaddin who was
bleating like a frightened cow. Two others were Morilaru women clad in costly
gowns—and, astonishingly, they had dragged aboard the ship a man in the uniform
of a member of the crew. The Skorg was writhing and protesting, trying to free
himself. "Crewmen must not board lifeships until all passengers are
safe," he was insisting.
    "Quiet, you idiot," one of the
Morilaru women snapped. "You want to stay alive, and so do we. We need a
skilled spaceman aboard this ship." They fastened their fingernails into
the Skorg's shirt, and held him fast.
    The
lifeship hatch opened again, and a Morilaru entered, wild-eyed and frantic.
    "The
ship's blowing up," he gasped. "Let's