"What do we do now, sir?" Axel asked respectfully.
"Give him a space burial, of course," said Spartan. He turned to me. "Within the next few days, you can make an oral report on the incident and I'll transcribe it on the tape recorder. We'll need it for the officials when we get back to earth." He paused and looked down at Morrie. "Our young friend has discovered a second great reality in space, I fear. The reality of death."
He turned on his heel and went back to his ivory tower.
I reached down and picked up Morrie's helmet. I felt inside the valve. The piece of paper which Axel had replaced was gone now. Dr. Spartan had removed the evidence of murder.
We put Morrie's helmet on his head and carried his body into the locks. After we put on our own helmets, we emptied the locks of air and pushed the body out into space. Then we went to tell Gail.
Chapter 10
Axel and I did not get a chance to have our talk immediately. For one thing, I was completing my disciplinary tours of duty imposed by Dr. Spartan and, for another, I was faced with the extra duties imposed on me by the death of Morrie.
Spartan had not attempted again to take my life, a fact that seemed very strange to me. He continued to thrive on his hatred for all of us, particularly Axel and me. Understandably, he wasn't quite as harsh with Gail. Toward Joel he seemed to have adopted a special manner. On the surface he was as curt toward him as toward the others, but I noticed that Joel was given light duties, while the rest of us got the menial tasks and the tough ones. Not that this mattered, because to be busy was not to be bored. But Joel was Spartan's fair-haired boy, there was no doubt about that. Perhaps Spartan saw need for an ally, or maybe he planned to use him for things that were to come.
Joel was elated because his chief often invited him into the chartroom for a meal, or to discuss adjustments in our orbit. And I am sure Joel reported every slip of the tongue Axel and I made which showed our true feelings toward Spartan.
Before my extra duty—and Gail's—ended, we reached the middle part of our voyage. At this point we had achieved the maximum speed for the trip, which was 40,000 miles per hour. This was far short of the ship's theoretical speed of 100,000 miles per second, but Mars was too near the earth for that kind of travel.