Asimov - The Great SF Stories 03 - 1941 by Isaac Asimov

Author:Isaac Asimov
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-09-22T00:00:00+00:00

Fear flurried in Masters’ eyes. “What are you looking at me like that for?” he snarled. Involuntarily, he fell back a step.

“Doors!” said Masters wildly. “Rugs!”

“All,” said Tony, “gone.”

Masters’ nails clicked. “Eight hundred pounds more,” he said hoarsely. He looked at his watch, said, “Eleven hours plus or minus,” took off his watch and threw it out. He made a notation on his pad, grinning crookedly. “Another ounce gone.”

“I’ll get Overland,” Tony decided.

“Wait!” Masters thrust up a pointing finger. “Don’t leave me alone with those two wolves. They’re waiting to pounce on us. Four times one hundred and fifty is six hundred.”

“You’re bats,” said Braker coldly.

“Besides,” said Yates, “where would we get the other two hundred pounds?”

Masters panted at Tony, “You hear that? He wants to know where they’d get the other two hundred pounds!”

“I was joking,” said Yates.

“Joking! Joking! When he tried to knife me once!”

“Because,” concluded Yates, “the cards call for only one skeleton. Til get him.”

He came back shortly with Laurette and her father.

Overland fitted his glasses over his weak eyes while he listened, glancing from face to face.

“It would be suicidal to get rid of the machinery, what’s left of it. I have another suggestion. We’ll take out all the direct-vision ports. They might add up to eight hundred pounds.”

“Not a bad idea,” said Braker slowly. “We can wear pressure suits. The ship might leak anyway.”

Masters waved a hand. “Then get at it! Laurette, come here. You’ve got the ring. You don’t want to be the skeleton, do you? Put your back to this wall with me.”

“Oh, Erie,” she said in disgust, and followed her father out.

Tony brought three hack saws from the pile of discarded tools. Working individual rooms, the three of them went through the ship, sawing the ports off at the hinges, pulling out the port packing material. The ship was now a truly denuded spectacle, the floors a mere grating of steel.

The ports and packing were placed on the scale.

“Five hundred—five twenty-five—five sixty-one. That’s all!” Masters sounded as if he were going to pieces.

Tony shoved him aside. “Five sixty-one it is. There may be a margin of error, though,” he added casually. “Braker, Yates—out with this scale.”

The two stooped, heaved. The scale, its computed weight already noted, went out—

Tony said, “Come on, Masters.”

Masters trotted behind, doglike, as if he had lost the power of thought. Tony got the six pressure suits out of .the comer of the control room, and gestured toward them. Everybody got into the suits.

Tony buckled his helmet down. “Now give her the gun.”

Masters stood at the auxiliary rocket control board, face pale, eyes unnaturally wide.

He made numerous minor adjustments. He slowly depressed a plunger. A heavy, vibrating roar split the night The ship leaped. There was a sensation of teetering motion. In the vision plates, the plain moved one step nearer, as if a new slide had been inserted in a projector. The roar swept against them voluminously. The picture remained the same.

Masters wrenched up the plunger, whirled.

“You see?” he panted.

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