BLOW THE MAN DOWN

BY CHARLES L. FONTENAY

Hijacking the By Jove! was quite elementary. Hijacking the crew was something else. And therein lay Captain Vebrug's margin for error....

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, March 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

When Captain Albrekt Vebrug of the Flanjo intelligence service took over the Mars-Titan freighter By Jove!, it was no such terrestrial foolishness as mercy that prevented him from liquidating the ship's three-man crew.

Sure in his own wolfish strength, his attitude was that three peace-loving merchant spacemen could do much to contribute to his personal comfort, if kept under iron control. Besides, with adequate brain-washing to eliminate loyalty to the Solar Council, their technical skills could make them quite valuable to the somewhat undermanned Flanjo base on Rhea.

On the other hand, his concern for the others aboard the ship was so slight that he would not, on his own, have warned them of the impending acceleration, which could have injured or killed them.

He made his move at 10 minutes before zero hour. As a paying passenger from Mars City to Titan, he had the run of the ship, and had been lounging in the control room for half an hour. Migl, the engineer, was on duty and was sorting the blast-pattern tapes, a job Qoqol had started during his shift.

Albrekt simply took a heat gun from the rack, stuck it in Migl's back and ordered him to leave the control room. Migl took it as a joke, at first.

"It's no joke," Albrekt assured him, nudging him with the weapon. "Get below, if you don't want to get burned."

Puzzlement written all over his swarthy face, Migl unstrapped himself from the captain's chair and pushed himself across the room. Albrekt slid into the chair, buckled himself in and pulled two rolls of magnetic tape from the breast pocket of his coveralls. He found the roll marked "No. 1," stuck the other in the rack beside him and inserted the end of his tape in the automatic pilot.

Migl paused at the top of the gangway.

"You're not going to blast?" demanded Migl in amazement.

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