Morgue Ship Page #2

								


Rice grabbed him by the shoulders. "Snap out of it, Sam. Think! Kriere—The All-Mighty—in our territory. His right hand man dead. That means Kriere was in an accident, too!"

Sam opened his thin lips and the words fell out all by themselves. "Look, Rice, you're new at this game. I've been at it ever since the Venus-Earth mess started. It's been see-sawing back and forth since the day you played hookey in the tenth grade, and I've been in the thick of it. When there's nothing left but seared memories, I'll be prowling through the void picking up warriors and taking them back to the good green Earth. Grisly, yes, but it's routine.

"As for Kriere—if he's anywhere around, he's smart. Every precaution is taken to protect that one."

"But Lethla! His body must mean something!"

"And if it does? Have we got guns aboard this morgue-ship? Are we a battle-cuiser to go against him?"

"We'll radio for help?"

"Yeah? If there's a warship within our radio range, seven hundred thousand miles, we'll get it. Unfortunately, the tide of battle has swept out past Earth in a new war concerning Io. That's out, Rice."

Rice stood about three inches below Sam Burnett's six-foot-one. Jaw hard and determined, he stared at Sam, a funny light in his eyes. His fingers twitched all by themselves at his sides. His mouth twisted, "You're one hell of a patriot, Sam Burnett!"

Burnett reached out with one long finger, tapped it quietly on Rice's barrel-chest. "Haul a cargo of corpses for three thousand nights and days and see how patriotic you feel. All those fine muscled lads bloated and crushed by space pressures and heat-blasts. Fine lads who start out smiling and get the smile burned off down to the bone—"

Burnett swallowed and didn't say anything more, but he closed his eyes. He stood there, smelling the death-odor in the hot air of the ship, hearing the chug-chug-chug of the blood pumps down below, and his own heart waiting warm and heavy at the base of his throat.

"This is my last cargo, Rice. I can't take it any longer. And I don't care much how I go back to earth. This Venusian here—what's his name? Lethla. He's number ninety-eight. Shove me into shelf ninety-nine beside him and get the hell home. That's how I feel!"

Rice was going to say something, but he didn't have time.

Lethla was alive.

He rose from the floor with slow, easy movements, almost like a dream. He didn't say anything. The heat-blast in his white fingers did all the necessary talking. It didn't say anything either, but Burnett knew what language it would use if it had to.

Burnett swallowed hard. The body had looked funny. Too dead. Now he knew why. Involuntarily, Burnett moved forward. Lethla moved like a pale spider, flicking his fragile arm to cover Burnett, the gun in it like a dead cold star.

Rice sucked in his breath. Burnett forced himself to take it easy. From the corners of his eyes he saw Rice's expression go deep and tight, biting lines into his sharp face.
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