 Was the gas incident deadly?
SILENCE IS—DEADLY By Bertrand L. Shurtleff Radio is an absolute necessity in modern organization—and particularly in modern naval organization. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding Science-Fiction April 1942. Androka had arrived on board the Comerford the day before she sailed from Norfolk. With him came a boatload of scientific apparatus and equipment, including a number of things that looked like oxygen tanks, which were now stored in the forward hold. Overhead, the sky was a storm-racked mass of clouds, broken in one spot by a tiny patch of starlit blue. Nelson had no answering smile, although there had been a great deal of good-natured joking aboard the Comerford ever since the navy department had sent the scientist on board the cruiser to carry on his experiments. This storm—" Curtis threw his arm around Nelson's dripping shoulders. "But this storm, sir!" Nelson avoided Curtis' friendly eyes and slipped out from under his arm. Nelson's estimate, I'm checking back," he declared, frowning at the two papers and hastily rechecking his own figures. With all these rocks and islets—" "Radio?" repeated the little Czech, thrusting his face between the other two, in his independent fashion that ignored ship's discipline. Then he hastened to the radio room, with Nelson at his heels, and the Czech trotting along behind. A frightened operator came out, still wearing his earphones, and stood staring upward incredulously at the aërial. "Yet not dead, gentlemen! I have shattered them around your ship, just as I can eventually shatter them all over Central Europe! For the next two hours, no radio messages can enter or leave my zone of radio silence—of refracted radio waves, set up by my little station on one of the neighboring islets!" If you're not talking nonsense, call off your dogs till we learn just where we are!" Ignoring the gibbering Androka, who was wailing his disappointment that messages had penetrated his veil of silence, they raced for the chart room. "It's a funny thing," the latter said, still dialing and grousing, "how I got that cross-bearing through and can't get another squeak out of her. Tubes lighted; wires were alive to the touch and set him to shaking his head at the tingle they sent through his inquiring fingers. "Seems to me," Curtis said dryly, "this invention can harm your friends as much as your enemies."
 No, exposed crewmen were left nearly comatose.
 Yes, there were bodies scattered all over the ship.  No, exposed crewmen were left nearly comatose.  Yes, and only gas masks could help prevent death from the gas exposure.  No, because Androka made sure to expose the crewmen to a nondeadly gas.