The Road to the Rim by A. Bertram Chandler

ship?"

    "Hold him, Grimes!" (And who's supposed to be holding whom? wondered the Ensign. Wolverton's grip was still tight and painful on his arm.) "Hold him, while I look in the storeroom!"

    "Captain! Get away from the door! You've no right . . ."

    Wolverton relinquished his hold on Grimes who, twisting with an agility that surprised himself, contrived to get both arms about the engineer's waist. In the scuffle the contact between their magnetic shoe soles and the deck was broken. They hung there, helpless, with no solidity within reach of their flailing limbs to give them purchase. They hung there, clinging to each other, but more in hate than in love. Wolverton's back was to the machine; he could not see, as could Grimes, that there was an indraught of air into the spinning, shimmering complexity. Grimes felt the beginnings of panic, more than the mere beginnings. There were no guardrails; he had read somewhere why this was so, but the abstruse physics involved did not matter—all that mattered was that there was nothing to prevent him and Wolverton from being drawn into the dimension-twisting field of the thing.

    He freed, somehow, his right hand, and with an effort that sprained his shoulder brought it around in a sweeping, clumsy and brutal blow to the engineer's face. Wolverton screamed and his grip relaxed. Violently, Grimes shoved away. To the action there was reaction.

    Craven emerged from the storeroom, carrying something that looked like a child's toy gyroscope in a transparent box. He looked around for Grimes and Wolverton at deck level and then, his face puzzled, looked up. He did not, as Grimes had been doing for some seconds, vomit—but his face, behind the beard went chalk-white. He put out his free hand and, not ungently, pulled Grimes to the deck.

    He said, his voice little more than a whisper, "There's nothing we can do. Nothing—except to get a pistol and finish him off . . . ."

    Grimes forced himself to look again at the slimy, bloody obscenity that was a man turned, literally, inside-out—heart (if it was the heart) still beating, intestines still writhing.

XVI

    IT WAS GRIMES who went for a pistol, fetching a Minetti from the weapons rack that he, himself, had fitted up in the Control Room. He told Jane Pentecost what he wanted it for. He made no secret of either his horror or his self blame.

    She said, "But this is a war, even if it's an undeclared one. And in a war you must expect casualties."

    "Yes, yes. I know. But I pushed him into the field."

    "It was an accident. It could easily have been you instead of him. And I'm glad that it wasn't."

    "But you haven't seen . . ."

    "And I don't want to." Her voice hardened. "Meanwhile, get the hell out of here and back to the Mannschenn Drive room. If you're so sorry for the poor bastard, do something about putting him out of his misery."

    "But . . ."

    "Don't be such a bloody coward, Grimes."

    The words hurt—mainly because there was so much truth in them. Grimes was dreading having to see again the twisted obscenity that had once been a man, was dreading having to breathe again the atmosphere of that compartment, heavy with the reek of hot oil, blood and fecal matter. But, with the exception of Craven, he was the only person in the ship trained in the arts of war. He recalled the words of a surgeon-commander who had lectured the midshipmen of his course on the handling of battle casualties—and recalled, too, how afterward the young gentlemen had sneered at the bloodthirstiness of one who was supposed to be a professional healer. "When one of your shipmates has really had it, even if he's your best friend, don't hesitate a moment about finishing him off. You'll be doing him a kindness. Finish him off—and get him out of sight. Shockingly wounded men are bad for morale."

    "What are you waiting for?" demanded Jane Pentecost. "Do you want me to do it?"

    Grimes said nothing, just hurried out of the Control Room.

    Craven was