"Going to the john," he told Hervey. He guided himself out of the cabin and into the pressurized tunnel leading aft, closing the door behind him.
It would be so easy. In a little two-man ship like the SS-114, the engineer lay prone in his power control station aft, cushioned in his webbed harness against the awful shattering thrust of acceleration. A weakened harness, or an improperly secured one—and a man would hurtle screaming into the jungle of gears and control levers and junction boxes that studded the bulkhead of the firing chamber. He would smash against that unyielding metal and be broken like a child's toy....
Oh, it was simple, but not quite that simple, not with a man like Sam Hervey. Even if he trusted Joe Berne completely, Sam Hervey would check his own harness, just to make sure; it was the habit of a lifetime in space. And especially after the oxygen-tank incident. But there was another way, a better way. In the dim light of the tunnel, Joe Berne kneeled beside one of the tool lockers. He found what he wanted, and his big hand closed reassuringly around the handle of a heavy wrench. He closed the locker door softly, thrust the wrench into the bellyband of his dungarees, and drifted back to the cabin.
One smashing blow, and it would be over. Then he would work on the harness, weakening it further, and before blast-off he would cradle Sam Hervey's corpse in the webbing. The thrust, the unresisting corpse straining at the harness—then release and the dead thing smashing against the bulkhead.... No wounds, no injuries on the battered thing that could not be explained by the crash into the tangled gears. It had happened in space before; it would happen again.
Sam Hervey was already strapped down when he returned, but he was still awake, watching Berne. Now? Berne decided to wait until Hervey was asleep. He kept his back toward the other bunk as he groped along the handrail toward his own sack; no need of letting Hervey see that bulge in his middle.... Swiftly he thrust it under the blanket, stripped, turned off the light and strapped down. In the darkness he heard Hervey's soft, "'Night, Joe."
"Good night, Sam." He grinned into the darkness, his fingers wrapped around the wrench, waiting.
It was not a long wait. The breathing across the cabin settled down, became deep, regular. The momentary tossing ceased. The cabin was quiet. Slowly, carefully, Joe Berne unsnapped his bunk harness. For once he was thankful for non-grav condition. He did not have to touch the floor until the last moment, when he would need solid footing when he swung the wrench....
Gently he drifted across the cabin, his left hand lightly touching the handrail, pushing along. He held his breath. Another few feet.... He lifted the wrench, straining to see in the darkness.
Sam Hervey moved swiftly. His lean wiry body twisted on the narrow bunk, the harness was thrown off—how had he gotten free so quickly?—and he was away, sobbing through his teeth, clawing at the bigger man. Joe Berne gasped in shock, falling back from the fury of the sudden assault. A hard fist crashed into his belly, and he cursed and swung the wrench. He cut air, and Hervey was scrambling away from him. The cabin door was jerked open, and in the dim tunnel light Berne saw his quarry plunging away, a shocked white face staring back over his shoulder. Cursing, Berne hurled the wrench. It was futile, of course. It drifted slowly away from his hand and crashed against the slammed steel door.