Nine Rarities Read Online Free

simply because, like microscopic forms in a large body, their function was to poison and destroy me. And the best way to render me inactive would be the destruction of part of my red-blood. That meant Captain Lamb. Or part of his technical war-staff. Larian and Belloc planned for their poisoning, quietly, carefully.
     
    Self-preservation is an eternal, all-encompassing thing. You find it in metal as you find it in amoebas; you find it in metal as you find it in men. My body would be attacked. From outside I feared nothing. From inside I was uncertain. Coming from an unexpected quarter that attack might kill me so very soon after my birth. I didn't approve of the idea.
     
    I went through space toward Mars. I couldn't speak.
     
    I could only feel voice-vibrations throughout my length. The voices of Hillary and Conrad arguing about their woman named Alice in York Port, and the captain snapping at the heels of his crew when we hit the asteroid-skirt, and then the subtle undercurrent of poison stirring in the midst of this— Larian and Belloc—their voices touched my hull:
     
    "You're familiar with the plan, Belloc; I don't want you turning silly at the crisis."
     
    "I know what to do. Don't worry. What the hell."
     
    "All right, I'm just explaining. Now—as far as killing Captain Lamb, that's out. We're only two against twenty-four others. I want to be alive to collect that money we're guaranteed, for this—work."
     
    "Logically, then—the engines...."
     
    "I'm in favor of it, if you are. This is a war-rocket; spare parts, excess cargo, all that's eliminated for speed. Timebombs should work miracles with the main jet-engines. And when it happens we can be out and away in space in plenty of time?"
     
    "When?"
     
    "During the next shift of crew relief. There's a certain amount of inescapable confusion then. Half the crew's too tired to worry, the other half is just turning out, groggy."
     
    "Sounds okay. Huh. It seems a damn shame though, in a way."
     
    "What?"
     
    "Nice new rocket, never tested before. Revolutionary design. I never enjoyed working on engines before, until I got my station with this jalopy. She's sweet. Those engines—sweet as the guts of a flower. And it all goes to hell before it has a chance to prove itself."
     
    "You'll get paid for it. What else do you want?"
     
    "Yeah, I'll get paid, won't I? Yeah."
     
    "Shut up, then. Come on."
     
    The routine circulation of crew-blood through the arteries of the ship took Larian and Belloc below to their stations in the fuel and engine cubicles. The poison was in my heart, waiting.
     
    What went on inside my metal is not to be described. There are no similes, comparatives for the hard, imprisoned, frustrated vibrations that surge through tongueless durasteel. The rest of the blood in me was still good, still untouched and untainted and tireless.
     
    "Captain." A salute.
     
    "Belloc." Lamb returned the salute. "Larian."
     
    "Captain."
     
    "Going below?" said the captain. "Yes, sir."
     
    "I'll be down in—" Lamb eyed his wrist watch. "Make it thirty minutes. We'll check the auxiliaries together, Belloc."
     
    "Right, sir."
     
    "Go on down, then."
     
    Belloc and Larian descended.
     
     
     
    LAMB walked quickly into the computation cube and struck up a rapid word exchange with young Ayres. Ayres, who looked like he was barely out of blushing and floppy hair and semantics school, and still not shaving as often as the others. His pink face glowed when the captain was around. They got on like grandfather and grandson.
     
    They probed charts together. When they finished, Lamb walked off the yardage in the computation room, scowling, examining his boots. Ayres computated.
     
    Lamb paused, looked out the visual-port concernedly. After a moment he said, "When I was a very little kid I stood on the edge of the Grand Canyon, and I thought I'd seen everything there was to see—" A pause, "And now I've got my first captaincy, and—" he patted the hull