Dark Star by Alan Dean Foster Page B

digging with a shovel. Have to speak to his mother. Pinback raised his glasses, leaned out from under the glare of the big sunlamp, and glanced backup the narrow corridor.
    Boiler's backside hove into view, out of place and unwelcome, thoroughly shattering the idle illusion Pinback had so carefully constructed. The corporal was dragging something heavy in the artifical gravity, a large, square piece of metal with open hinges on one side.
    Pinback thought he recognized it. He watched as Boiler dragged the weighty slab over to the far end of the corridor and turned it, leaning it at an angle up against the wall, facing back at them. Then he did recognize it.
    "Hey, that's the lid to the heating unit, isn't it?"
    Boiler ignored him. He examined the lid, then knelt and readjusted it so that it rested against the wall at a slightly sharper angle. Then he rubbed his hands in evident satisfaction and walked back past Pinback.
    The sergeant watched him leave. He was as puzzled as he was awake, now. Boiler's cryptic activities seemed to have no meaning. Pinback was enlightened moments later.
    Boiler reappeared and now held a large, cumbersome object cradled tightly in both arms. Even though they had used this particular instrument only once before, and a long time ago at that, Pinback knew what it was immediately.
    It was the portable laser—both lighter and deadlier than it looked. Its presence in Boiler's hands suggested unpleasant possibilities.
    For a moment Pinback thought of just leaving. When Boiler got some crazy idea fixed in his Neanderthal skull, nobody could talk him out of it. Not even Doolittle. And whatever he was up to now was bound to be crazier than most.
    He took a step toward the exit, then stopped. This wasn't something he could just walk away from. If Boiler wanted to try to mutilate his own hand with his collection of knives, that was one thing. But the laser was more than a toy.
    "You're . . . you're not supposed to have that out except in an emergency," he finally managed to stutter. His beach fantasy had long since been shattered. "That's not for target practice."
    Boiler barely bothered to glance at him. Instead, he hefted the weapon and lined up an eye with the lens-sight. While Pinback watched and fretted, Boiler pulled the trigger.
    There was a short burst of intolerably bright red light. The light beam contacted the center of the propped-up lid. A brief flare of flame erupted from the wounded area as the intense heat ignited the metal itself. It died out quickly, cooling.
    A neat hole surrounded by molten metal had been drilled in the lid's middle. Boiler looked back at Pinback and smiled with pleasure. Then he licked his thumb and touched it to the sight at the far end of the laser, a back woodsman's gesture of centuries past.
    "That's dangerous," Pinback insisted inanely as the corporal raised the laser again. "You might cut all the way through the lid and into the ship's circuitry. You could cut through something vital."
    Boiler fired again. There was a puff of white from the lid this time as another hole spurted tiny flames and appeared alongside the first. Boiler frowned, lowered the weapon, and began adjusting some switches set into one side.
    Pinback watched him nervously, wishing Powell, wishing even Doolittle were here. He really should go and get Doolittle, but what would Boiler do if left alone?
    "Suppose you cut right through the lid and then through the hull of the ship? What about that, huh?"
    "Oh, for heaven's sake, it's calibrated for distance, stupid," Boiler growled.
    "So what? You could still make a mistake. It wouldn't take much. I'll tell Doolittle."
    Boiler's head jerked up, and he stared dangerously at the sergeant. Boiler was right on the edge, and something just might have happened except—
    They were interrupted by a smooth, faintly erotic voice that was totally unexpected right then.
    "Sorry to break in on your recreation, fellows," the computer announced contritely, "but it