Something sounded above me, and I jerked back. But it was Captain Muller, coming down the rail. The man had obviously taken it all in on the way down. He jerked the switch-blade out of Sam’s dead grasp and looked at the point of the knife. There was blood further back from the cut finger, but none on the point.
“Damn!” Muller tossed it down in disgust. “If he’d scratched the other man, we’d have had a chance to find who it was. Tremaine, have you got an alibi?”
“I was with Jenny,” I told him, and watched his eyes begin to hate me. But he nodded. We picked Sam up together and lugged his body up to the top of the shaft, where the crowd had collected. Pietro, Peters, the cook, Grundy and Lomax were there. Beyond them, the dark-haired, almost masculine head of Eve Nolan showed, her eyes studying the body of Sam as if it were a negative in her darkroom; as usual, Bill Sanderson was as close to her as he could get. But there was no sign now of Jenny. I glanced up the corridor but saw only Wilcox and Phil Riggs, with Walt Harris trailing them, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.
Muller moved directly to Pietro. “Six left in my crew now, Dr. Pietro. First Hendrix, now Sam. Can you still say that the attack is on your crew—when mine keep being killed? This time, sir, I demand…”
“Give ’em hell, Captain,” ape-man Grundy broke in. “Cut the fancy stuff, and let’s get the damned murdering rats!”
Muller’s eyes quartered him, spitted his carcass, and began turning him slowly over a bed of coals. “Mister Grundy, I am master of theWahoo. I fail to remember asking for your piratical advice. Dr. Pietro, I trust you will have no objections if I ask Mr. Peters to investigate your section and group thoroughly?”
“None at all, Captain Muller,” Pietro answered. “I trust Peters. And I feel sure you’ll permit me to delegate Mr. Tremaine to inspect the remainder of the ship?”
Muller nodded curtly. “Certainly. Until the madman is found, we’re all in danger. And unless he is found, I insist I must protect my crew and my ship by turning back to Earth.”
“I cannot permit that, sir!”
“Your permission for that was not requested, Dr. Pietro! Yes, Bullard?”
The cook had been squirming and muttering to himself for minutes. Now he darted out toward Grundy, and his finger pointed to Lomax. “He done it! I seen him. Killed the only friend I had, he did. They went by my galley—and—and he grabbed my big knife, that one there. And he killed Sam.”
“You’re sure it was Lomax?” Muller asked sharply.
“Sure I’m sure. Sam, he was acting queer lately. He was worried. Told me he saw something, and he was going to know for sure. He borrowed my switch-blade knife that my wife gave me. And he went out looking for something. Then I heard him a-running, and I looked up, and there was this guy, chasing him. Sure, I seen him with my own eyes.”
Eve Nolan chuckled throatily, throwing her mannish-cut hair back from her face. She was almost pretty with an expression on her countenance, even if it was amused disgust. “Captain Muller, that’s a nice story. But Dr. Lomax was with me in my darkroom, working on some spectroanalysis slides. Bill Sanderson and Phil Riggs were waiting outside for us. And Mr. Peters saw us come out together when we all ran down here.”
Peters nodded. Muller stared at us for a second, and the hunting lust died out of his eyes, leaving them blank and cold. He turned to Bullard. “Bullard, an explanation might make me reduce your punishment. If you have anything to say, say it now!”
The cook was gibbering and actually drooling with fear. He shook, and sweat popped out all over him. “My knife—I hadda say something. They stole my knife. They wanted it to look like I done it. God, Captain, you’da done the same. Can’t punish a man for trying to save his life. I’m a good man, I am. Can’t whip a good man! Can’t—”
“Give him twenty-five lashes with the wire, Mr. Grundy,” Muller said flatly.
Pietro let out a shriek on top of the cook’s. He started forward, but I caught him. “Captain Muller’s right,” I told him. “On a spaceship, the full crew is needed. The brig is useless, so the space-enabling charter recognizes flogging. Something is needed to maintain discipline.”
Pietro dropped back reluctantly, but Lomax faced the captain. “The man is a coward, hardly responsible, Captain Muller. I’m the wounded party in this case, but it seems to me that hysteria isn’t the same thing as maliciousness. Suppose I ask for clemency?”
“Thank you, Dr. Lomax,” Muller said, and actually looked relieved. “Make it ten lashes, Mr. Grundy. Apparently no real harm has been done, and he will not testify in the future.”
Grundy began dragging Bullard out, muttering about damn fool groundlubbers always sticking their noses in. The cook caught at Lomax’s hand on the way, literally slobbering over it. Lomax rubbed his palm across his thigh, looking embarrassed.
Muller turned back to us. “Very well. Mr. Peters will begin investigating the expedition staff and quarters; Mr. Tremaine will have free run over the rest of the ship. And if the murderer is not turned up in forty-eight hours, we head back to Earth!”
Pietro started to protest again, but another scream ripped down the corridor, jerking us all around. It was Jenny, running toward us. She was breathing hoarsely as she nearly crashed into Dr. Pietro.
Her face was white and sick, and she had to try twice before she could speak.
“The plants!” she gasped out. “Poison! They’re dying!”
III
It was chromazone again. Muller had kept most of the gang from coming back to hydroponics, but he, Jenny, Pietro, Wilcox and myself were enough to fill the room with the smell of sick fear. Now less than half of the original space was filled with healthy plants. Some of the tanks held plants already dead, and others were dying as we watched; once beyond a certain stage, the stuff acted almost instantly—for hours there was only a slight indication of something wrong, and then suddenly there were the dead, bleached plants.
Wilcox was the first to speak. He still looked like some nattily dressed hero of a space serial, but his first words were ones that could never have gone out on a public broadcast. Then he shrugged. “They must have been poisoned while we were all huddled over Sam’s body. Who wasn’t with us?”
“Nonsense,” Pietro denied. “This was done at least eighteen hours ago, maybe more. We’d have to find who was around then.”
“Twenty hours, or as little as twelve,” Jenny amended. “It depends on the amount of the dosage, to some extent. And.…” She almost managed to blush. “Well, there have been a lot of people around. I can’t even remember. Mr. Grundy and one of the men, Mr. Wilcox, Dr. Napier—oh, I don’t know!”
Muller shook his head in heavy agreement. “Naturally. We had a lot of work to do here. After word got around about Hendrix, we didn’t try to conceal much. It might have happened when someone else was watching, too. The important thing, gentlemen, is that now we don’t have reserve enough to carry us to Saturn. The plants remaining can’t handle the air for all of us. And while we ship some reserve oxygen.…”
He let it die in a distasteful shrug. “At least this settles one thing. We have no choice now but to return to Earth!”
“Captain Muller,” Pietro bristled quickly, “that’s getting to be a monomania with you. I agree we are in grave danger. I don’t relish the prospect of dying any more than you do—perhaps less, in view of certain peculiarities! But it’s now further back to Earth than it is to Saturn. And before we can reach either, we’ll have new plants—or we’ll be dead!”
“Some of us will be dead, Dr. Pietro,” Wilcox amended it. “There are enough plants left to keep some of us breathing indefinitely.”
Pietro nodded. “And