Ellen picked up the walkie-talkie microphone again.
"Jerry, Sattell's disappeared. Come in, please.... Jerry, Sattell's disappeared. Come in, please...."
Her voice went on and on. Borden went grimly over the ship, looking for signs of what else Sattell might have busied himself with in the past twenty-four hours. He had believed that Sattell, being in the same boat with the rest of them—in the same space-ship, anyhow—would automatically have thought of the group. No sane man did think of anything but cooperation with his companions in disaster.
But there exists a kind of human being, he knew, which may be a mutant, which makes a career of the gratification of all emotions, impulses, momentary desires. Which knows no purpose save personal satisfaction, and simply does not think like nonmutant human beings.
There were all too many specimens of this type among humans. Some ordinarily masked themselves, but if Sattell ever had, he now had been unmasked.
IV
Ellen called and called. Her voice grew weary and her shoulders dropped hopelessly as hours passed without reply.
Borden found where Sattell had crossed the wires so that if the ship took off and went out into space, the control board would show all air vents as safely sealed. But there would remain a small, steady drain of leakage of the ship's air stores.
He also found a small alteration of the water-recovery system. They would have run out of water on the way home. He found a cunning circuit arranged so that if the ship rose on interplanetary drive and set out on even a hopeless search for home, the instant it went into overdrive its power tanks would fuse and short, and it would be left driveless and powerless, to crash or drift helplessly until its occupants died or went mad of despair.