Quickly he looked at the ceiling. He pushed the gun forward. He pulled the trigger several times. The shots roared and blended with the engine thunder. When the noise was gone, Caffrey realized that the screaming had stopped. He dropped the gun.
He turned around and closed the door of the cabin and locked it without once looking at Doc. Skolnik still sobbed over against the wall.
Rapidly, Caffrey explained what had happened in the android hold. The men stood around, not looking at one another. They breathed loudly and the blue lights in the ceiling watched them, emotionless.
Caffrey said, "We'll all be like that after a while."
"Maybe if we beam to Mars they'll know what to do," Dillman whispered. "Maybe we can get there in time, and maybe they can stop the disease."
Caffrey looked at him. "And maybe not."
He walked away. Dillman didn't follow. He walked back to the chart room and sat down in the shock chair. Beyond the port, Mars was large and waiting.
Caffrey thought seriously for the first time in many years. He wanted to get the ship to Mars. Maybe the doctors could help them. And maybe not.
They might infect others. The disease might spread, and if no one knew how to handle it ... he didn't want to think about that.
Doc hadn't known what to do. Doc was a good man, medically. He had been a little run down, a little second-hand, because of his seedy deals and his need of money and his operations on women in dirty back alley rooms on a hundred worlds. But Doc couldn't stop it.