The life watch

by Lester Del Rey

But the fact itself gave him some chance. He lifted his arm to the switch, and then dropped it. "The guards would suspect something if I cut it off now," he admitted candidly. "Any suggestions?"

"I could kill the lizards, let you discover me, and chase me out to explode," Armsworth said thoughtfully, without any emotional color to the suggestion. He shook his head.

"I don't know. It's funny they can't trust you to stall off the Miles girl and have to send me here. With replacements scarce, I'd hate to blow up unless it's absolutely necessary."

Then his eyes narrowed in incredulous alarm. "Wait a minute. You weren't supposed to know my identity."

Norden's hand swept up, hit the light switch. His other arm jerked out for the big tongs he had noticed. He heard the spy leap, and recoiled just in time to avoid the rush. His arm came down with the instrument, and there was a solid thud. When he turned the lights on again, Armsworth lay on the floor with a gash across his head an inch deep.

For a moment Norden was only aware of his own harsh breathing. Then, slowly and horribly, the corpse sat up and began hitching along the floor toward the cage of lizards.

Norden bent, picked up the little cage and swung towards the door. He took one step forward, stopped abruptly, and bent again. His hand gripped the collar of the thing on the floor and, straightening, he heaved it up against the light gravity of the Moon.

The thing sailed across the laboratory, heading toward the rear of the heavy protogravity generator. Norden cushioned the cage of lizards against his chest and dropped to the floor in the shelter of the computer.

There was a blast that nearly ruptured his eardrums and the accompanying glare of greenish-yellow light burned through his eyelids into his brain. The floor heaved and shook, while sections of the curved roof began falling. The air gushed upwards, and the floor jarred again as the automatic airseal dropped, cutting off other sections.

Norden jumped toward a plainly marked closet, and threw it open. He yanked down one of the spacesuits stored there for emergency purposes, thrust the lizard cage inside, closed it, and turned on the oxygen.