LITMIR.BIZ

      REWARD FOR A HERO

      Pain filled less of the universe. Faces, oddly distorted and vaguely unreal, floated before him. A broad face, ruddy, sandy hair cropped and spiky, a mouth like a crease to match other creases. Captain Weston.

      “Everything will be all right, John. Don’t worry about a thing.”

       What had happened to him?

      Another face, thin, the lips pursed, the eyes anxious. Doctor Bortal.

      “Just relax, Hammond. You’re quite safe now.”

      Safe?

      Voices like the distant murmur of a rippling stream, the words blending and losing all recognition. John blinked, trying to dispel the mists and blackness hovering at the edges of his vision. He tried to turn his head and failed. He tried to move his arms and couldn’t. His body felt dead, as if he had no body at all. He spoke and something, not words, trickled from between his lips. The murmur of voices ceased and the thin face swam into view again.

      “Hammond, can you hear me?”

      He spoke again.

      “Shock,” said the doctor. “To be expected.” His face loomed even closer. “Who are you? Tell me your name.”

       Name?

      “Let me try,” said the captain. His face replaced that of the doctor. “Listen, John,” he said. “You’ve been hurt but you’re safe now. If you can hear us just blink your eyes.”

      John closed his eyes then opened them as panic closed in with the darkness. Behind Weston’s face he could see the ribbed structure of the hull, the smooth metal of bulkheads, the glowing point of what must be a tube-light. Familiar sights for almost two years now.

      “He can hear us,” said the captain. “Blink again if you know your name.”

      John blinked. He knew his name, John Hammond. He knew who he was, crewman on the exploration ship Venturer bound for home after two years in space. He could even remember something of what had happened. A pressure-drop in the combustion chamber of the auxiliary turbine. He had gone to check, had spotted the trouble and had straightened to turn away. Something had happened then. Something horrible. The rest was lost in the memory of pain.

      “Doctor!”

      Pain and fear, and pain again. He had been hurt, he knew it and the captain had told him so, but Weston hadn’t said enough.

       How badly had he been hurt?

      “Doctor!” Weston called again, sharply, recognising panic when he saw it. He moved aside as Bortal approached with his hypodermic. John didn’t see him. He was trying to touch his body, the lower part of his body, fighting hands which refused to move, afraid of what they would discover if they did.

       Not that! Please God, not that!

      Panic faded at the soothing prick of the needle.

      * * * *

      The cause was a weakened combustion chamber which had allowed a shaft of flame to break loose from its confines. The effect was a man almost severed by the blast. Weston looked around the turbine room, watched a man finish mopping the floor, then gestured to the engineer. It was imagination, Weston knew, but he could smell burnt clothing and charred flesh.

      “All secure?”

      “Yes, sir.” The engineer wiped his hands and stared moodily at a heat-marked spot on the metal wall. “I’ve replaced the chamber.”

      “What caused the accident?”

      “Fatigue, perhaps.” The man didn’t shrug but it sounded as though he had. “Maybe an interruption in the flow around the inner chamber.”

      Weston nodded. The combustion chamber was a double-walled affair, the fuel passing between them and soaking up the heat from the inner wall. A question formed itself.

      “If the fuel was still flowing, then why no explosion?”

      “John had cut the flow,” explained the engineer. “The break-through must have happened at the very last second. He was damned unlucky.” He was, thought Weston, already speaking of Hammond as though he were dead.

      Bortal was waiting in the control room. Weston slumped in his chair and stared at the ranked dials, the winking signal lights, the paraphernalia of the brain of the ship.

      “Twenty months,” he said bitterly. “Almost home and this had to happen.”

      “Our first serious casualty,” reminded the doctor.

      “One is one too many.” Weston closed his eyes as if to erase the memory. “Poor devil.”

      “Hammond?” Bortal looked surprised. “I wouldn’t have said so. If he had straightened a fraction later the blast would have incinerated his head.”

      “A fraction earlier and he wouldn’t have been in direct line with it,” reminded the captain. “Or if it hadn’t broken through just when it did it wouldn’t have happened at all. He was unlucky.”

      “Unlucky to get injured,” admitted the doctor. “But fortunate that his injuries are not as serious as they could have been. He’s still alive, you know.”

      “I know.” Weston rubbed a big hand over his sandy hair. “That’s what makes it so bad. One way it would have been all over, he’d have never known what hit him. Now he’s got to linger in agony until he dies.”