(The Book of Gregg Haljan)
BEGINNING A FOUR-PART NOVEL
By Ray Cummings
Black mutiny and brigandage stalk the Space-ship Planetara as
she speeds to the Moon to pick up a fabulously rich cache of
radium-ore.
[Illustration: _I stood on the turret-balcony of the Planetara with Dr.
Frank, watching the arriving passengers._]
Foreword by Ray Cummings
I have been thinking that if, during one of those long winter evenings
at Valley Forge, someone had placed in George Washington's hands one of
our present day best sellers, the illustrious Father of our Country
would have read it with considerable emotion. I do not mean what we call
a story of science, or fantasy--just a novel of action, adventure and
romance. The sort of thing you and I like to read, but do not find
amazing in any way at all.
But I fancy that George Washington would have found it amazing. Don't
you? It might picture, for instance, a factory girl at a sewing machine.
George Washington would be amazed at a sewing machine. And the girl,
journeying in the subway to and from her work! Stealing an opportunity
to telephone her lover at the noon hour; going to the movies in the
evening, or listening to a radio. And there might be a climax, perhaps,
with the girl and the villain in a transcontinental railway Pullman, and
the hero sending frantic telegrams, or telephoning the train, and then
chasing it in his airplane.
George Washington would have found it amazing!
And I am wondering how you and I would feel if someone were to give us
now a book of ordinary adventure of the sort which will be published a
hundred and fifty years hence. I have been trying to imagine such a book
and the nature of its contents.
Let us imagine it together. Suppose we walk down Fifth Avenue, a
pleasant spring morning of May, 2080. Fifth Avenue, no doubt, will be
there. I don't know whether the New York Public Library will be there or
not. We'll assume that it is, and that it has some sort of books,
printed, or in whatever fashion you care to imagine.
The young man library attendant is surprised at our curiously antiquated
aspect. We look as though we were dressed for some historical costume
ball. We talk old-fashioned English, like actors in an historical play
of the 1930 period.
But we get the book. The attendant assures us it is a good average story
of action and adventure. Nothing remarkable, but he read it himself, and
found it interesting.
We thank him and take the book. But we find that the language in which
it is written is too strange for comfortable reading. And it names so
many extraordinary things so casually! As though we knew all about them,
which we certainly do not!
So we take it to the kind-hearted librarian in the language division. He
modifies it to old-fashioned English of 1930, and he puts occasional
footnotes to help explain some of the things we might not understand.
Why he should bother to do this for us I don't know; but let us assume
that he does.
And now we take the book home--in the pneumatic tube, or aerial moving
sidewalk, or airship, or whatever it is we take to get home.
And now that we are home, let's read the book. It ought to be
interesting.
CHAPTER I
_Tells of the Grantline Moon Expedition and of the Mysterious
Martian Who Followed Us in the City Corridor_
One may write about oneself and still not be an egoist. Or so, at least,
they tell me. My narrative went broadcast with a fair success. It was
pantomimed and the public flashed me a reasonable approval. And so my
disc publishers have suggested that I record it in more permanent form.
I introduce myself, begging grace that I intrude upon your busy minutes,
with my only excuse that perhaps I may amuse you. For what the
commercial sellers of my pictured version were pleased to blare as my
handsome face, I ask your indulgence. My feminine audience of the
pantomimes was undoubtedly graciously pleased at my personality and
physical aspect. That I am "tall as a Viking of old"--and "handsome as a
young Norse God"--is very pretty talk in the selling of my product. But
I deplore its intrusion into the personality of this, my recorded
narrative. And so now, for preface, to all my audience I do give earnest
assurance that Gregg Haljan is no conceited zebra, handsomely striped by
nature, and proud of it. Not so. I am, I do beg you to believe, a very
humble fellow, striving for your approval, hoping only to entertain
you.
My introduction: My name, Gregg Haljan. My age, twenty-five years. I
was, at the time my narrative begins, Third Officer on the Space-Ship
Planetara. Our line was newly established; in 2070, to be exact,
following the modern improvements of the Martel Magnetic Levitation.[1]
* * * * *
Our ship, whose home port was Great-New York, carried mail and passenger
traffic to and from both Venus and Mars. Of astronomical necessity, our
flights were irregular. This spring, with the two other planets both
close to the earth, we were making two complete round trips. We had just
arrived in Great-New York, this May evening, from Grebhar, Venus Free
State. With only five hours in port here, we were departing the same
night at the zero hour for Ferrok-Shahn, capital of the Martian Union.
We were no sooner at the landing stage than I found a code-flash
summoning Dan Dean and me to Divisional Detective Headquarters. Dan
"Snap" Dean was one of my closest friends. He was radio-helio operator
of the Planetara. A small, wiry, red-headed chap, with a quick, ready
laugh and a wit that made everyone like him.
The summons to Detective-Colonel Halsey's office surprised us. Snap eyed
me.
"You haven't been opening any treasury vaults, have you, Gregg?"
"He wants you, also," I retorted.
He laughed. "Well, he can roar at me like a traffic switchman and my
private life will remain my own."
We could not think why we should be wanted. It was the darkness of
mid-evening when we left the Planetara for Halsey's office. It was not a
long trip. We went direct in the upper monorail, descending into the
subterranean city at Park-Circle 30.
* * * * *
We had never been to Halsey's office before. We found it to be a gloomy,
vaultlike place in one of the deepest corridors. The door lifted.
"Gregg Haljan and Daniel Dean."
The guard stood aside. "Come in."
I own that my heart was unduly thumping as we entered. The door dropped
behind us. It was a small blue-lit apartment--a steel-lined room like a
vault.
Colonel Halsey sat at his desk. And the big, heavy-set, florid Captain
Carter--our commander of the Planetara--was here. That surprised us: we
had not seen him leave the ship.
Halsey smiled at us gravely. Captain Carter said, "Sit down, lads."
We took the seats. There was an alarming solemnity about this. If I had
been guilty of anything that I could think of, it would have been
frightening. But Halsey's first words reassured me.
"It's about the Grantline Moon Expedition. In spite of our secrecy, the
news has gotten out. We want to know how. Can you tell us?"
Captain Carter's huge bulk--he was about as tall as I am--towered over
us as we sat before Halsey's desk. "If you lads have told anyone--said
anything--let slip the slightest hint about it--"
Snap smiled with relief; but he turned solemn at once. "I haven't. Not a
word!"
"Nor have I," I declared.
* * * * *
The Grantline Moon Expedition! We had not thought of that as a reason
for this summons. Johnny Grantline was a close friend to us both. He had
organized an exploring expedition to the Moon. Uninhabited, with its
bleak, forbidding, airless, waterless surface, the Moon--even though so
close to the Earth--was seldom visited. No regular ship ever stopped
there. A few exploring parties of recent years had come to grief.
But there was a persistent rumor that upon the Moon, mineral riches of
fabulous wealth were awaiting discovery. The thing had already caused
some interplanetary complications. The aggressive Martians would be only
too glad to explore the Moon. But the U.S.W.[2] definitely warned them
away. The Moon was World Territory, we announced, and we would protect
it as such.
The threatened conflict between the Earth and Mars had come to nothing.
There was, this year of 2079, a thorough amity between all three of the
inhabited planets. It still holds, and I pray that it may always hold.
There was, nevertheless, a realization by our government, that whatever
riches might be upon the Moon should be seized at once and held by some
reputable Earth Company. And when Johnny Grantline applied, with his
father's wealth and his own scientific record of attainment, the
government was only too glad to grant him its writ.
* * * * *
The Grantline Expedition had started six months ago. The Martian
government had acquiesced in our ultimatum, yet brigands have been known
to be financed under cover of a governmental disavowal. And so the
expedition was kept secret.
My words need give no offense to any Martian who comes upon them. I
refer to the history of our earth only. The Grantline Expedition was on
the Moon now. No word had come from it. One could not flash helios even
in code without letting all the universe know that explorers were on the
Moon. And why they were there, anyone could easily guess.
And now Colonel Halsey was telling us that the news was abroad! Captain
Carter eyed us closely; his flashing eyes under the white bushy brows
would pry a secret from anyone.
"You're sure? A girl of Venus, perhaps, with her cursed, seductive lure!
A chance word, with you lads befuddled by alcolite?"
We assured him we had been careful. By the heavens, I know that I had
been. Not a whisper, even to Snap, of the name Grantline in six months
or more.
Captain Carter added abruptly, "We're insulated here, Halsey?"
"Yes, talk as freely as you like. An eavesdropping ray will never get
into these walls."
* * * * *
They questioned us. They were satisfied at last that, though the secret
had escaped, we had not done it. Hearing it discussed, it occurred to me
to wonder why Carter was concerned. I was not aware that he knew of
Grantline's venture. I learned now the reason why the Planetara, upon
each of her voyages, had managed to pass fairly close to the Moon. It
had been arranged with Grantline that if he wanted help or had any
important message, he was to flash it locally to our passing ship. And
this Snap knew, and had never mentioned it, even to me.
Halsey was saying, "Well, we can't blame you, but the secret is out."
Snap and I regarded each other. What could anyone do? What would anyone
dare do?
Captain Carter said abruptly, "Look here, lads, this is my chance now to
talk plainly to you. Outside, anywhere outside these walls, an
eavesdropping ray may be upon us. You know that? One may never even dare
whisper since that accursed ray was developed."
Snap opened his mouth to speak but decided against it. My heart was
pounding.
Captain Carter went on, "I know I can trust you two more than anyone
else under me on the Planetara--"
"What do you mean by that?" I demanded. "What--"
He interrupted me. "Nothing at all but what I say."
* * * * *
Halsey smiled grimly. "What he means, Haljan, is that things are not
always what they seem these days. One cannot always tell a friend from
an enemy. The Planetara is a public vessel. You have--how many is it,
Carter?--thirty or forty passengers this trip to-night?"
"Thirty-eight," said Carter.
"There are thirty-eight people listed for the flight to Ferrok-Shahn
to-night," Halsey said slowly. "And some may not be what they seem." He
raised his thin dark hand. "We have information--" He paused. "I
confess, we know almost nothing--hardly more than enough to alarm us."
Captain Carter interjected, "I want you and Dean to be on your guard.
Once on the Planetara it is difficult for us to talk openly, but be
watchful. I will arrange for us to be doubly armed."
Vague, perturbing words! Halsey said, "They tell me George Prince is
listed for the voyage. I am suggesting, Haljan, that you keep your
eye especially upon him. Your duties on the Planetara leave you
comparatively free, don't they?"
"Yes," I agreed. With the first and second officers on duty, and the
captain aboard, my routine was more or less that of an understudy.
I said, "George Prince! Who is he?"
"A mechanical engineer," said Halsey. "An under-official of the
Earth Federated Radium Corporation. But he associates with bad
companions--particularly Martians."
I had never heard of this George Prince, though I was familiar with the
Federated Radium Corporation, of course. A semi-government trust, which
controlled virtually the entire Earth supply of radium.
"He was in the Automotive Department," Carter put in. "You've heard of
the Federated Radium Motor?"
* * * * *
We had, of course. A recent Earth invention which promised to
revolutionize the automotive industry. An engine of a new type, using
radium as its fuel.
Snap demanded, "What in the stars has this got to do with Johnny
Grantline?"
"Much," said Halsey quietly, "or perhaps nothing. But George Prince some
years ago mixed in rather unethical transactions. We had him in custody
once. He is known now as unusually friendly with several Martians in New
York of bad reputation."
"Well--" began Snap.
"What you don't know," Halsey went on quietly, "is that Grantline
expects to find radium on the Moon."
We gasped.
"Exactly," said Halsey. "The ill-fated Ballon Expedition thought they
had found it on the Moon some years ago. A new type of ore, as rich in
radium as our gold-bearing sands are rich in gold. Ballon's first
samples gave uranium atoms with a fair representation of ionium and
thorium. A richly radio-active ore. A lode of the pure radium is there
somewhere, without doubt."
* * * * *
He added vehemently, "Do you understand now why we should be suspicious
of this George Prince? He has a criminal record. He has a thorough
technical knowledge of radium ores. He associates with Martians of bad
reputation. A large Martian Company has recently developed a radium
engine to compete with our Earth motor. You know that? You know that
there is very little radium available on Mars, and our government will
not allow our own radium supply to be exported. That Martian Company
needs radium. It will do anything to get radium. What do you suppose it
would pay for a few tons of really rich radio-active ore--such as
Grantline may have found on the Moon?"
"But," I objected, "that is a reputable Martian company. It's backed by
the government of the Martian Union. The government of Mars would not
dare--"
"Of course not!" Captain Carter exclaimed sardonically. "Not openly! But
if Martian brigands had a supply of radium--I don't imagine where it
came from would make much difference. That Martian Company would buy
it."
Halsey added, "And George Prince, my agents inform me, seems to know
that Grantline is on the Moon. Put it all together, lads. Little sparks
show the hidden current.
"More than that: George Prince knows that we have arranged to have the
Planetara stop at the Moon and bring back Grantline's radium-ore. This
is your last voyage this year. You'll hear from Grantline this time,
we're convinced. He'll probably give you the signal as you pass the Moon
on your way out. Coming back, you'll stop at the Moon and transport
whatever radium-ore Grantline has ready. The Grantline Flyer is too
small for ore transportation."
* * * * *
Halsey's voice turned grimly sarcastic. "Doesn't it seem queer that
George Prince and a few of his Martian friends happen to be listed as
passengers for this voyage?"
In the silence that followed, Snap and I regarded each other. Halsey
added abruptly,
"We had George Prince typed that time we arrested him four years ago.
I'll show him to you."
He snapped open an alcove, and said to his waiting attendant, "Get me
the type of George Prince."
The disc in a moment came through the pneumatic. Halsey, smiling wryly,
adjusted it.
"A nice looking fellow. Nicely spoken. Though at the time we made this
he was somewhat annoyed, naturally. He is older now. Twenty-nine, to be
exact. Here he is."
The image glowed on the grids before us. His name, George Prince, in
letters illumined upon his forehead, showed for a moment and then faded.
He stood smiling sourly before us as he repeated the official formula:
"My name is George Prince. I was born in Great-New York City twenty-five
years ago."
* * * * *
I gazed at this life-size, moving image of George Prince. He stood
somber in the black detention uniform. A dark, almost a girlishly
handsome fellow, well below medium height--the rod beside him showed
five feet four inches. Slim and slight. Long, wavy black hair, falling
about his ears. A pale, clean-cut, really handsome face, almost
beardless. I regarded it closely. A face that would have been femininely
beautiful without its masculine touch of heavy black brows and firmly
set jaw. His voice as he spoke was low and soft; but at the end, with
the concluding words, "I am innocent!" it flashed into strong
masculinity. His eyes, shaded with long, girlish black lashes, by chance
met mine. "I am innocent." His curving sensuous lips drew down into a
grim sneer....
The type faded at its end. Halsey replaced the disc in its box and waved
the attendant away. "Thank you."
He turned back to Snap and me. "Well, there he is. We have nothing
tangible against him now. But I'll say this: he's a clever fellow, one
to be afraid of. I would not blare it from the newscasters' microphone,
but if he is hatching any plot, he has been too clever for my agents."
We talked for another half-hour, and then Captain Carter dismissed us.
We left Halsey's office with Carter's final words ringing in our ears.
"Whatever comes, lads, remember I trust you...."
* * * * *
Snap and I decided to walk a portion of the way back to the ship. It was
barely more than a mile through this subterranean corridor to where we
could get the vertical lift direct to the landing stage.
We started off on the lower level. Once outside the insulation of
Halsey's office we did not dare talk of this thing. Not only electrical
ears, but every possible eavesdropping device might be upon us. The
corridor was two hundred feet or more below the ground level. At this
hour of the night this business section was comparatively deserted. The
through tube sounded over our heads with the passing of its occasional
trains. The ventilators buzzed and whirred. At the cross intersections,
the traffic directors dozed at their posts. It was hot and sticky down
here, and gloomy with the daylight globes extinguished, and only the
night lights to give a dim illumination. The stores and office arcades
were all closed and deserted; only an occasional night-light burning
behind their windows.
Our footfalls echoed on the metal grids as we hurried along.
"Nice evening," said Snap awkwardly.
"Yes," I said, "isn't it?"
I felt oppressed. As though prying eyes and ears were here. We walked
for a time in silence, each of us busy with memory of what had
transpired in Halsey's office.
Suddenly Snap gripped me. "What's that?"
"Where?" I whispered.
* * * * *
We stopped at a corner. An entryway was here. Snap pulled me into it. I
could feel him quivering with excitement.
"What is it?" I demanded in a whisper.
"We're being followed. Did you hear anything?"
"No!" Yet I thought now I could hear something. Vague footfalls. A
rustling. And a microscopic electrical whine, as though some device were
near us.
Snap was fumbling in his pocket. "Wait, I've got a pair of low-scale
phones."
He put the little grids against his ears. I could hear the sharp intake
of his breath. Then he seized me, pulled me down to the metal floor of
the entryway.
"Back, Gregg! Get back!" I could barely hear his whisper. We crouched as
far back into the doorway as we could get. I was armed. My official
permit for the carrying of the pencil heat-ray allowed me to have it
always with me. I drew it now. But there was nothing to shoot at. I felt
Snap clamping the grids on my ears. And now I heard something! An
intensification of the vague footsteps I had thought I heard before.
There was something following us! Something out in the corridor there
now! A street light was nearby. The corridor was dim, but plainly
visible; and to my sight it was empty. But there was something there.
Something invisible! I could hear it moving. Creeping towards us. I
pulled the grids off my ears.
Snap murmured, "You've got a local phone."
"Yes! I'll get them to give us the street glare!"
* * * * *
I pressed the danger signal, giving our location to the nearest
operator. In a second or two we got the light. The street in all this
neighborhood burst into a brilliant actinic glare. The thing menacing
us was revealed! A figure in a black cloak, crouching thirty feet away
across the corridor.
Snap was on his feet. His voice rang shrilly, "There it is! Give it a
shot, Gregg!"
Snap was unarmed, but he flung his hands out menacingly. The figure,
which may perhaps not have been aware of our city safeguard, was taken
wholly by surprise. A human figure. Seven feet tall, at the least, and
therefore, I judged, doubtless a Martian man. The black cloak covered
his head. He took a step toward us, hesitated, and then turned in
confusion.
Snap's shrill voice was bringing help. The whine of a street guard's
alarm whistle nearby sounded. The figure was making off! My pencil-ray
was in my hand and I pressed its switch. The tiny heat-ray stabbed
through the glare, but I missed. The figure stumbled, but did not fall.
I saw a bare gray arm come from the cloak, flung up to maintain its
balance. Or perhaps my pencil-ray of heat had seared the arm. The
gray-skinned arm of a Martian.
Snap was shouting, "Give him another!" But the figure passed beyond the
actinic glare and vanished.
We were detained in the turmoil of the corridor for ten minutes or more
with official explanations. Then a message from Halsey released us. The
Martian who had been following us in his invisible cloak was never
caught.
We escaped from the crowd at last and made our way back to the
Planetara, where the passengers were already assembling for the outward
Martian voyage.
CHAPTER II
"_A Fleeting Glance_--"
I stood on the turret-balcony of the Planetara with Captain Carter and
Dr. Frank, the ship surgeon, watching the arriving passengers. It was
close to the zero hour: the level of the stage was a turmoil of
confusion. The escalators, with the last of the freight aboard, were
folded back. But the stage was jammed with the incoming passenger
baggage: the interplanetary customs and tax officials with their X-ray
and Zed-ray paraphernalia and the passengers themselves, lined up for
the export inspection.
At this height, the city lights lay spread in a glare of blue and yellow
beneath us. The individual local planes came dropping like birds to our
stage. Thirty-eight passengers for this flight to Mars, but that
accursed desire of every friend and relative to speed the departing
voyager brought a hundred or more extra people to crowd our girders and
bring added difficulty to everybody.
Carter was too absorbed in his duties to stay with us long. But here in
the turret Dr. Frank and I found ourselves at the moment with nothing
much to do but watch.
"Think we'll get away on time, Gregg?"
"No," I said. "And this of all voyages--"
I checked myself, with thumping heart. My thoughts were so full of what
Halsey and Carter had told us that it was difficult to rein my tongue.
Yet here in the turret, unguarded by insulation, I could say nothing.
Nor would I have dared mention the Grantline Moon Expedition to Dr.
Frank. I wondered what he knew of this affair. Perhaps as much as
I--perhaps nothing.
* * * * *
He was a thin, dark, rather smallish man of fifty, this ship's surgeon,
trim in his blue and white uniform. I knew him well: we had made several
flights together. An American--I fancy of Jewish ancestry. A likable
man, and a skillful doctor and surgeon. He and I had always been good
friends.
"Crowded," he said. "Johnson says thirty-eight. I hope they're
experienced travelers. This pressure sickness is a rotten nuisance--keeps
me dashing around all night assuring frightened women they're not
going to die. Last voyage, coming out of the Venus atmosphere--"
He plunged into a lugubrious account of his troubles with space-sick
voyagers. But I was in no mood to listen. My gaze was down on the spider
incline, up which, over the bend of the ship's sleek, silvery body, the
passengers and their friends were coming in little groups. The upper
deck was already jammed with them.
The Planetara, as flyers go, was not a large vessel. Cylindrical of
body, forty feet maximum beam, and two hundred and seventy-five feet in
overall length. The passenger superstructure--no more than a hundred
feet long--was set amidships. A narrow deck, metallic-enclosed, and with
large bulls-eye windows, encircled the superstructure. Some of the
cabins opened directly onto the deck. Others had doors to the interior
corridors. There were half a dozen small but luxurious public rooms.
* * * * *
The rest of the vessel was given to freight storage and the mechanism
and control compartments. Forward of the passenger structure the
deck level continued under the cylindrical dome-roof to the bow. The
forward watch-tower observatory was here; officers' cabins; Captain
Carter's navigating rooms and Dr. Frank's office. Similarly, under
the stern-dome, was the stern watch-tower and a series of power
compartments.
Above the superstructure a confusion of spider bridges, ladders and
balconies were laced like a metal network. The turret in which Dr. Frank
and I now stood was perched here. Fifty feet away, like a bird's nest,
Snap's instrument room stood clinging to the metal bridge. The
dome-roof, with the glassite windows rolled back now, rose in a
mound-peak to cover this highest middle portion of the vessel.
Below, in the main hull, blue-lit metal corridors ran the entire length
of the ship. Freight storage compartments; gravity control rooms; the
air renewal systems; heater and ventilators and pressure mechanisms--all
were located there. And the kitchens, stewards' compartments, and the
living quarters of the crew. We carried a crew of sixteen, this voyage,
exclusive of the navigating officers, and the purser, Snap Dean, and Dr.
Frank.
* * * * *
The passengers coming aboard seemed a fair representation of what we
usually had for the outward voyage to Ferrok-Shahn. Most were Earth
people--and returning Martians. Dr. Frank pointed out one. A huge
Martian in a gray cloak. A seven-foot fellow.
"His name is Set Miko," Dr. Frank remarked. "Ever heard of him?"
"No," I said. "Should I?"
"Well--" The doctor suddenly checked himself, as though he were sorry he
had spoken.
"I never heard of him," I repeated slowly.
An awkward silence fell suddenly between us.
There were a few Venus passengers. I saw one of them presently coming up
the incline, and recognized her. A girl traveling alone. We had brought
her from Grebhar, last voyage but one. I remembered her. An alluring
sort of girl, as most of them are. Her name was Venza. She spoke English
well. A singer and dancer who had been imported to Great-New York to
fill some theatrical engagement. She'd made quite a hit on the Great
White Way.
She came up the incline, with the carrier ahead of her. Gazing up, she
saw Dr. Frank and me at the turret window and waved her white arm in
greeting. And flashed us a smile.
Dr. Frank laughed. "By the gods of the airways, there's Alta Venza! You
saw that look, Gregg? That was for me, not you."
"Reasonable enough," I retorted. "But I doubt it--the Venza was nothing
if not impartial."
* * * * *
I wondered what could be taking Venza now to Mars. I was glad to see
her. She was diverting. Educated. Well-traveled. Spoke English with a
colloquial, theatrical manner more characteristic of Great-New York than
of Venus. And for all her light banter, I would rather put my trust in
her than any Venus girl I had ever met.
The hum of the departing siren was sounding. Friends and relatives of
the passengers were crowding the exit incline. The deck was clearing. I
had not seen George Prince come aboard. And then I thought I saw him
down on the landing stage, just arrived from a private tube-car. A
small, slight figure. The customs men were around him: I could only see
his head and shoulders. Pale, girlishly handsome face; long, black hair
to the base of his neck. He was bareheaded, with the hood of his
traveling-cloak pushed back.
I stared, and I saw that Dr. Frank was also gazing down. But neither of
us spoke.
Then I said upon impulse, "Suppose we go down to the deck, Doctor?"
He acquiesced. We descended to the lower room of the turret and
clambered down the spider ladder to the upper deck-level. The head of
the arriving incline was near us. Preceded by two carriers who were
littered with hand-baggage, George Prince was coming up the incline. He
was closer now. I recognized him from the type we had seen in Halsey's
office.
* * * * *
And then, with a shock, I saw it was not so. This was a girl coming
aboard. An arch-light over the incline showed her clearly when she was
half way up. A girl with her hood pushed back; her face framed in thick
black hair. I saw now it was not a man's cut of hair; but long braids
coiled up under the dangling hood.
Dr. Frank must have remarked my amazed expression.
"Little beauty, isn't she?"
"Who is she?"
We were standing back against the wall of the superstructure. A
passenger was near us--the Martian whom Dr. Frank had called Miko. He
was loitering here, quite evidently watching this girl come aboard. But
as I glanced at him he looked away and casually sauntered off.
The girl came up and reached the deck. "I am in A 22," she told the
carrier. "My brother came aboard two hours ago."
Dr. Frank answered my whisper. "That's Anita Prince."
She was passing quite close to us on the deck, following the carrier,
when she stumbled and very nearly fell. I was nearest to her. I leaped
forward and caught her as she went down.
"Oh!" she cried.
With my arm about her, I raised her up and set her upon her feet again.
She had twisted her ankle. She balanced herself upon it. The pain of it
eased up in a moment.
"I'm--all right--thank you!"
* * * * *
In the dimness of the blue-lit deck, I met her eyes. I was holding her
with my encircling arm. She was small and soft against me. Her face,
framed in the thick, black hair, smiled up at me. Small, oval
face--beautiful--yet firm of chin, and stamped with the mark of its own
individuality. No empty-headed beauty, this.
"I'm all right, thank you very much--"
I became conscious that I had not released her. I felt her hands pushing
at me. And then it seemed that for an instant she yielded and was
clinging. And I met her startled, upflung gaze. Eyes like a purple night
with the sheen of misty starlight in them.
I heard myself murmuring, "I beg your pardon. Yes, of course!" I
released her.
She thanked me again and followed the carrier along the deck. She was
limping slightly from the twisted ankle.
An instant, while she had clung to me--and I had held her. A brief flash
of something, from her eyes to mine--from mine back to hers. The poets
write that love can be born of such a glance. The first meeting, across
all the barriers of which love springs unsought, unbidden--defiant,
sometimes. And the troubadours of old would sing: "A fleeting glance; a
touch; two wildly beating hearts--and love was born."
I think, with Anita and me, it must have been like that....
I stood gazing after her, unconscious of Dr. Frank, who was watching me
with his humorous smile. And presently, no more than a quarter beyond
the zero hour, the Planetara got away. With the dome-windows battened
tightly, we lifted from the landing stage and soared over the glowing
city. The phosphorescence of the electronic tubes was like a comet's
tail behind us as we slid upward.
At the trinight hour the heat of our atmospheric passage was over. The
passengers had all retired. The ship was quiet, with empty decks and
dim, silent corridors. Vibrationless, with the electronic engines cut
off and only the hum of the Martel magnetizers to break the unnatural
stillness. We were well beyond the earth's atmosphere, heading out in
the cone-path of the earth's shadow, in the direction of the moon.
CHAPTER III
_In the Helio-room_
At six A. M., earth Eastern time, which we were still carrying, Snap
Dean and I were alone in his instrument room, perched in the network
over the Planetara's deck. The bulge of the dome enclosed us; it rounded
like a great observatory window some twenty feet above the ceiling of
this little metal cubby-hole.
The Planetara was still in the earth's shadow. The firmament--black
interstellar space with its blazing white, red and yellow stars--lay
spread around us. The moon, with nearly all its disc illumined, hung, a
great silver ball, over our bow quarter. Behind it, to one side, Mars
floated like the red tip of a smoldering cigarillo in the blackness. The
earth, behind our stern, was dimly, redly visible--a giant sphere,
etched with the configurations of its oceans and continents. Upon one
limb a touch of the sunlight hung on the mountain-tops with a crescent
red-yellow sheen.
And then we plunged from the cone-shadow. The sun, with the leaping
Corona, burst through the blackness behind us. The earth lighted into a
huge, thin crescent with hooked cusps.
To Snap and me, the glories of the heavens were too familiar to be
remarked. And upon this voyage particularly we were in no mood to
consider them. I had been in the helio-room several hours. When the
Planetara started, and my few routine duties were over, I could think of
nothing save Halsey's and Carter's admonition: "Be on your guard. And
particularly--watch George Prince."
I had not seen George Prince. But I had seen his sister, whom Carter and
Halsey had not bothered to mention. My heart was still pounding with the
memory....
* * * * *
When the passengers had retired and the ship quieted, I prowled through
the passenger corridors. This was about the trinight hour.[3] Hot as the
corridors of hell, with our hull and the glassite dome seething with the
friction of our atmospheric flight. But the refrigerators mitigated
that; the ventilators blasted cold air from the renewers into every
corner of the vessel. Within an hour or two, with the cold of space
striking us, it was hot air that was needed.
Dr. Frank evidently was having little trouble with pressure-sick
passengers[4]--the Planetara's equalizers were fairly efficient. I did
not encounter Dr. Frank. I prowled through the silent metal lounges and
passages. I went to the door of A 22. It was on the deck-level, in a
tiny transverse passage just off the main lounging room. Its name-grid
glowed with the letters: "_Anita Prince._" I stood in my short white
trousers and white silk shirt, like a cabin steward gawping. Anita
Prince! I had never heard the name until this night. But there was magic
music in it now, as I murmured it to myself. Anita Prince....
She was here, doubtless asleep, behind this small metal door. It seemed
as though that little oval grid were the gateway to a fairyland of my
dreams.
I turned away. And thought of the Grantline Moon Expedition stabbed at
me. George Prince--Anita's brother--he whom I had been told to watch.
This renegade--associate of dubious Martians, plotting God knows what.
* * * * *
I saw, upon the adjoining door, "A 20, _George Prince_." I listened. In
the humming stillness of the ship's interior there was no sound from
these cabins. A 20 was without windows, I knew. But Anita's room had a
window and a door which gave upon the deck. I went through the lounge,
out its arch, and walked the deck length. The deck door and window of
A 22 were closed and dark.
The ten-foot-wide deck was dim with white starlight from the side ports.
Chairs were here, but they were all empty. From the bow windows of the
arching dome a flood of moonlight threw long, slanting shadows down the
deck. At the corner where the superstructure ended, I thought I saw a
figure lurking as though watching me. I went that way, but it vanished.
I turned the corner, went the width of the ship to the other side. There
was no one in sight save the observer on his spider bridge, high in the
bow network, and the second officer, on duty on the turret balcony
almost directly over me.
As I stood and listened, I suddenly heard footsteps. From the direction
of the bow a figure came. Purser Johnson.
He greeted me. "Cooling off, Gregg?"
"Yes," I said.
He went past me and turned into the smoking room door nearby.
I stood a moment at one of the deck windows, gazing at the stars; and
for no reason at all I realized I was tense. Johnson was a great one for
his regular sleep--it was wholly unlike him to be roaming about the ship
at such an hour. Had he been watching me? I told myself it was nonsense.
I was suspicious of everyone, everything, this voyage.
* * * * *
I heard another step. Captain Carter appeared from his chart-room which
stood in the center of the narrowing open deck space near the bow. I
joined him at once.
"Who was that?" he half-whispered.
"Johnson."
"Oh, yes." He fumbled in his uniform; his gaze swept the moonlit deck.
"Gregg--take this." He handed me a small metal box. I stuffed it at once
into my shirt.
"An insulator," he added, swiftly. "Snap is in his office. Take it to
him, Gregg. Stay with him--you'll have a measure of security--and you
can help him to make the photographs." He was barely whispering. "I
won't be with you--no use making it look as though we were doing
anything unusual. If your graphs show anything--or if Snap picks up any
message--bring it to me." He added aloud, "Well, it will be cool enough
presently, Gregg."
He sauntered away toward his chart-room.
"By heavens, what a relief!" Snap murmured as the current went on. We
had wired his cubby with the insulator; within its barrage we could at
last talk with a degree of freedom.
"You've seen George Prince, Gregg?"
"No. He's assigned A 20. But I saw his sister. Snap, no one ever
mentioned--"
Snap had heard of her, but he hadn't known that she was listed for this
voyage. "A real beauty, so I've heard. Accursed shame for a decent girl
to have a brother like that."
I could agree with him there, but I made no comment.
* * * * *
It was now 6 A. M. Snap had been busy all night with routine cosmo-radios
from the earth, following our departure. He had a pile of them beside
him. Many were for the passengers; but anything that savored of a code
was barred.
"Nothing queer looking?" I suggested.
"No. Not a thing."
We were at this time no more than some sixty-five thousand miles from
the moon's surface. The Planetara presently would swing upon her direct
course for Mars. There was nothing which could cause passenger comment
in this close passing of the moon; normally we used the satellite's
attraction to give us additional starting speed.
It was now or never that a message would come from Grantline. He was
supposed to be upon this earthward side of the moon. While Snap had
rushed through with his routine, I had searched the moon surface with
our glass, as I knew Carter was searching it--and also the observer in
his tower, very possibly.
But there was nothing. Copernicus and Kepler lay in full sunlight. The
heights of the lunar mountains, the depths of the barren, empty seas
were etched black and white, clear and clean. Grim, forbidding
desolation, this unchanging moon! In romance, moonlight may shimmer and
sparkle to light a lover's smile; but the reality of the moon is cold
and bleak. There was nothing to show my prying eyes where the intrepid
Grantline might be.
"Nothing at all, Snap."
And Snap's helio mirrors, attuned for an hour now to pick up the
faintest signal, were motionless.
"If he has concentrated any appreciable amount of radio-active ore,"
said Snap, "we should get an impulse from its Gamma rays."
* * * * *
But our receiving shield was dark, untouched. We tried taking hydrogen
photographic impressions of the visible moon surface. A sequence of
them, with stereoscopic lenses, forty-eight to the second. Our
mirror-grid gave the magnified images; the spectro-heliograph, with its
wave-length selection, pictured the mountain-levels, and slowly
descended into the deepest seas.
There was nothing.
Yet in those moon caverns--a million million recesses amid the crags of
that tumbled, barren surface--the pin-point of movement which might have
been Grantline's expedition could so easily be hiding! Could he have the
ore insulated, fearing its Gamma rays would betray its presence to
hostile watchers?
Or might disaster have come to him? Or he might not be upon this
hemisphere of the moon at all....
My imagination, sharpened by fancy of a lurking menace which seemed
everywhere about the Planetara this voyage, ran rife with fears for
Johnny Grantline. He had promised to communicate this voyage. It was
now, or perhaps never.
Six-thirty came and passed. We were well beyond the earth's shadow now.
The firmament blazed with its vivid glories; the sun behind us was a
ball of yellow-red leaping flames. The earth hung, opened to a huge,
dull-red half-sphere.
* * * * *
We were within some forty thousand miles of the moon. Giant white
ball--all of its disc visible to the naked eye. It poised over the bow,
and presently, as the Planetara swung upon her course for Mars, it
shifted sidewise. The light of it glared white and dazzling in our tiny
side windows.
Snap, with his habitual red celluloid eyeshade shoved high on his
forehead, worked over our instruments.
"Gregg!"
The receiving shield was glowing a trifle! Gamma rays were bombarding
it! It glowed, gleamed phosphorescent, and the audible recorder began
sounding its tiny tinkling murmurs.
Gamma rays! Snap sprang to the dials. The direction and strength were
soon obvious. A richly radio-active ore body, of considerable size, was
concentrated upon this hemisphere of the moon! It was unmistakable.
"He's got it, Gregg! He's--"
The tiny helio mirrors began quivering. Snap exclaimed triumphantly,
"Here he comes! By God, the message at last! Bar off that light!"
* * * * *
I flung on the absorbers. The moonlight bathing the little room went
into them and darkness sprang around us. Snap fumbled at his instrument
board. Actinic light showed dimly in the quivering, thumbnail mirrors.
Two of them. They hung poised on their cobweb wires, infinitely
sensitive to the infra-red light-rays Grantline was sending from the
moon. The mirrors in a moment began swinging. On the scale across the
room the actinic beams from them were magnified into sweeps of light.
The message!
Snap spelled it out, decoded it.
"_Success! Stop for ore on your return voyage. Will give you our
location later. Success beyond wildest hopes--_"
The mirrors hung motionless. The shield, where the Gamma rays were
bombarding, went suddenly dark.
Snap murmured, "That's all. He's got the ore! 'Success beyond wildest
hopes.' That must mean an enormous quantity of it available!"
We were sitting in darkness, and abruptly I became aware that across our
open window, where the insulation barrage was flung, the air was faintly
hissing. An interference there! I saw a tiny swirl of purple sparks.
Someone--some hostile ray from the deck beneath us, or from the spider
bridge that led to our little room--someone out there trying to pry
in!
Snap impulsively reached for the absorbers to let in the outside
light--it was all darkness to us outside. But I checked him.
"Wait!" I cut off our barrage, opened our door and stepped to the narrow
metal bridge.
"Wait, Snap! You stay there." I added aloud, "Well, Snap, I'm going to
bed. Glad you've cleaned up that batch of work."
* * * * *
I banged the door upon him. The lacework of metal bridges and ladders
seemed empty. I gazed up to the dome, and forward and aft. Twenty feet
beneath me was the metal roof of the cabin superstructure. Below it,
both sides of the deck showed. All patched with moonlight.
No one visible down there. I descended a ladder. The deck was empty. But
in the silence something was moving! Footsteps moving away from me down
the deck! I followed; and suddenly I was running. Chasing something I
could hear, but could not see. It turned into the smoking room.
I burst in. And a real sound smothered the phantom. Johnson the purser
was sitting here alone in the dimness. He was smoking. I noticed that
his cigar held a long, frail ash. It could not have been him I was
chasing. He was sitting there quite calmly. A thick-necked, heavy
fellow, easily out of breath. But he was breathing calmly now.
He sat up with amazement at my wild-eyed appearance, and the ash jarred
from his cigar.
"Gregg! What in the devil--"
I tried to grin. "I'm on my way to bed--worked all night helping Snap
with those damn Earth messages."
I went past him, out the door into the main interior corridor. It was
the only way the invisible prowler could have gone. But I was too late
now--I could hear nothing. I dashed forward into the main lounge. It
was empty, dim and silent, a silence broken presently by a faint
click--a stateroom door hastily closing. I swung and found myself in a
tiny transverse passage. The twin doors of A 22 and A 20 were before
me.
The invisible eavesdropper had gone into one of these rooms! I listened
at each of the panels, but there was only silence within.
The interior of the ship was suddenly singing with the steward's
siren--the call to awaken the passengers. It startled me. I moved
swiftly away. But as the siren shut off, in the silence I heard a soft,
musical voice:
"Wake up, Anita--I think that's the breakfast call."
And her answer: "All right, George. I hear it."
CHAPTER IV
_A Burn on a Martian Arm_
I did not appear at that morning meal. I was exhausted and drugged with
lack of sleep. I had a moment with Snap, to tell him what had occurred.
Then I sought out Carter. He had his little chart-room insulated. And we
were cautious. I told him what Snap and I had learned: the Gamma rays
from the moon, proving that Grantline had concentrated a considerable
ore-body. I also told him the message from Grantline.
"We'll stop on the way back, as he directs, Gregg." He bent closer to
me. "At Ferrok-Shahn I'm going to bring back a cordon of Interplanetary
Police. The secret will be out, of course, when once we stop at the
moon. We have no right, even now, to be flying this vessel as unguarded
as it is."
He was very solemn. And he was grim when I told him of the invisible
eavesdropper.
"You think he overheard Grantline's message?"
"I don't know," I said.
"Who was it? You seem to feel it was George Prince?"
"Yes."
I was convinced that the prowler had gone into A 20. When I mentioned
the purser, who seemed to have been watching me earlier in the night,
and again was sitting in the smoking room when the eavesdropper fled
past, Carter looked startled.
"Johnson is all right, Gregg."
"Is he? Does he know anything about this Grantline affair?"
"No--no," said the captain hastily. "You haven't mentioned it, have
you?"
"Of course I haven't. I've been wondering why Johnson didn't hear that
eavesdropper. I could hear him when I was chasing him. But Johnson sat
perfectly unmoved and let him go by. What was he sitting there for,
anyway, at that hour of the morning?"
"You're too suspicious, Gregg. Overwrought. But you're right--we can't
be too careful. I'm going to have that Prince suite searched when I
catch it unoccupied. Passengers don't ordinarily travel with invisible
cloaks. Go to bed, Gregg--you need a rest."
* * * * *
I went to my cabin. It was located aft, on the stern deck-space, near
the stern watch-tower. A small metal room, with a desk, a chair and
bunk. I made sure no one was in it. I sealed the lattice grill and the
door, set the alarm trigger against any opening of them, and went to
bed.
The siren for the mid-day meal awakened me. I had slept heavily. I felt
refreshed. And hungry.
I found the passengers already assembled at my table when I arrived in
the dining salon. It was a low-vaulted metal room of blue and yellow
tube-lights. At the sides its oval windows showed the deck, with its
ports of the dome-side, through which a vista of the starry firmament
was visible. We were well on our course to Mars. The moon had dwindled
to a pin-point of light beside the crescent earth. And behind them our
sun blazed, visually the largest orb in the heavens. It was some
sixty-eight million miles from the earth to Mars, this voyage. A flight,
under ordinary circumstances, of some ten days.
There were five tables in the dining salon, each with eight seats. Snap
and I had one of the tables. We sat at the ends, with three passengers
on each of the sides.
Snap was in his seat when I arrived. He eyed me down the length of the
table.
"Good morning, Gregg. We missed you at breakfast. Not pressure-sick, I
hope?"
There were three passengers already seated at our table--all men. Snap,
in a gay mood, introduced me.
"This is our third officer, Gregg Haljan. Big, handsome fellow, isn't
he? And as pleasant as he is good-looking. Gregg, this is Sero Ob
Hahn."
* * * * *
I met the keen, dark-eyed somber gaze of a Venus man of middle age. A
small, slim, graceful man, with sleek black hair. His pointed face,
accentuated by the pointed beard, was pallid. He wore a white and purple
robe; upon his breast was a huge platinum ornament, a device like a star
and cross entwined.
"I am happy to meet you, sir." His voice was soft and sleek.
"Ob Hahn," I repeated. "I should have heard of you, no doubt. But--"
A smile plucked at his thin, gray lips. "That is the error of mine, not
yours. My mission is that all the universe shall hear of me."
"He's preaching the religion of the Venus Mystics," Snap explained.
"And this enlightened gentleman," said Ob Hahn ironically, "has just
termed it fetishism. The ignorance--"
"Oh, I say!" protested the man at Ob Hahn's side. "I mean, you seem to
think I intended something opprobrious. As a matter of fact--"
"We've an argument, Gregg," laughed Snap. "This is Sir Arthur Coniston,
an English gentleman, lecturer and sky-trotter--that is, he will be a
sky-trotter; he tells us he plans a number of voyages."
The tall Englishman in his white linen suit bowed acknowledgment.
"My compliments, Mr. Haljan. I hope you have no strong religious
convictions, else we will make your table here very miserable!"
* * * * *
The third passenger had evidently kept out of the argument. Snap
introduced him as Rance Rankin. An American--a quiet, blond fellow of
thirty-five or forty.
I ordered my breakfast and let the argument go on.
"Won't make me miserable," said Snap. "I love an argument. You said, Sir
Arthur?...
"I mean to say, I think I said too much. Mr. Rankin, you are more
diplomatic."
Rankin laughed. "I am a magician," he said to me. "A theatrical
entertainer. I deal in tricks--how to fool an audience--" His keen,
amused gaze was on Ob Hahn. "This gentleman from Venus and I have too
much in common to argue."
"A nasty one!" the Englishman exclaimed. "By Jove! Really, Mr. Rankin,
you're a bit too cruel!"
I could see we were doomed to have turbulent meals this voyage. I like
to eat in quiet; arguing passengers always annoy me. There were still
three seats vacant at our table; I wondered who would occupy them. I
soon learned the answer--for one seat at least. Rankin said calmly:
"Where is the little Venus girl this meal?" His glance went to the empty
seat at my right hand. "The Venza--wasn't that her name? She and I are
destined for the same theater in Ferrok-Shahn."
So Venza was to sit beside me. It was good news. Ten days of a religious
argument three times a day would be intolerable. But the cheerful Venza
would help.
"She never eats the mid-day meal," said Snap. "She's on the deck, having
orange juice. I guess it's the old gag about diet, eh?"
* * * * *
My attention wandered about the salon. Most of the seats were occupied.
At the captain's table I saw the objects of my search. George Prince and
his sister sat one on each side of the captain. I saw George Prince in
the life now as a man who looked hardly twenty-five. He was at this
moment evidently in a gay mood. His clean-cut, handsome profile, with
its poetic dark curls, was turned toward me. There seemed little of the
villain about him.
And I saw Anita Prince now as a dark-haired, black eyed little beauty,
in feature resembling her brother very strongly. She presently finished
her meal. She rose, with him after her. She was dressed in Earth
fashion--white blouse and dark jacket, wide, knee-length trousers of
gray, with a red sash her only touch of color. She went past me, flashed
me her smile and nod.
My heart was pounding. I answered her greeting, and met George Prince's
casual gaze. He, too, smiled, as though to signify that his sister had
told him of the service I had done her. Or was his smile an ironical
memory of how he had eluded me this morning when I chased him?
I gazed after his small, white-suited figure as he followed Anita from
the salon. And thinking of her, I prayed that Carter and Halsey might be
wrong. Whatever plotting against the Grantline Expedition might be going
on, I hoped that George Prince was innocent of it. Yet I knew in my
heart it was a futile hope. Prince had been that eavesdropper outside
the helio-room. I could not really doubt it. But that his sister must be
ignorant of what he was doing, I was sure.
* * * * *
My attention was brought suddenly back to the reality of our table. I
heard Ob Hahn's silky voice:
"We passed quite close to the moon last night, Mr. Dean."
"Yes," said Snap. "We did, didn't we? Always do--it's a technical
problem of the exigencies of interstellar navigation. Explain it to
them, Gregg--you're an expert."
I waved it away with a laugh. There was a brief silence. I could not
help noticing Sir Arthur Coniston's queer look, and I think I have never
seen so keen a glance as Rance Rankin shot at me. Were all these people
aware of Grantline's treasure on the moon? It suddenly seemed so. I
wished fervently at that instant that the ten days of this voyage were
over and we were safely at Ferrok-Shahn. Captain Carter was absolutely
right. Coming back we would have a cordon of interplanetary police
aboard.
Sir Arthur broke the awkward silence. "Magnificent sight, the moon, from
so close a viewpoint--though I was too much afraid of pressure-sickness
to be up to see it."
* * * * *
I had nearly finished my hasty meal when another incident shocked me.
The two other passengers at our table came in and took their seats. A
Martian girl and man. The girl had the seat at my left, with the man
beside her. All Martians are tall. This girl was about my own
height--that is, six feet, two inches. The man was seven feet or more.
Both wore the Martian outer robe. The girl flung hers back. Her limbs
were encased in pseudo-mail. She looked, as all Martians like to look, a
very warlike Amazon. But she was a pretty girl. She smiled at me with a
keen-eyed, direct gaze.
"Mr. Dean said at breakfast that you were big and handsome. You are."
They were brother and sister, these Martians. Snap introduced them as
Set Miko and Setta Moa.[5]
This Miko was, from our Earth standards, a tremendous, brawny giant. Not
spindly, like most Martians, this fellow, for all his seven feet of
height, was almost heavy-set. He wore a plaited leather jerkin beneath
his robe, and knee pants of leather out of which his lower legs showed
as gray, hairy pillars of strength. He had come into the salon with a
swagger, his sword-ornament clanking.
"A pleasant voyage so far," he said to me as he started his meal. His
voice had the heavy, throaty rasp characteristic of the Martian. He
spoke perfect English--both Martians and Venus people are by heritage
extraordinary linguists. Miko and his sister Moa had a touch of Martian
accent, worn almost away by living for some years in Great-New York.
The shock to me came within a few minutes. Miko, absorbed in attacking
his meal, inadvertently pushed back his robe to bare his forearm. An
instant only, then it dropped again to his wrist. But in that instant I
had seen, upon the gray flesh, a thin sear turned red. A very recent
burn--as though a pencil-ray of heat had caught his arm.
My mind flung back. Only last night in the City Corridor, Snap and I had
been followed by a Martian. I had shot at him with the heat-ray; I
thought I had hit him on the arm. Was this the mysterious Martian who
had followed us from Halsey's office?
CHAPTER V
_Venza the Venus Girl_
It was shortly after that mid-day meal when I encountered Venza sitting
on the starlit deck. I had been in the bow observatory; taken my routine
castings of our position and worked them out. I was, I think, of the
Planetara's officers the most expert handler of the mathematical
mechanical calculators. The locating of our position and charting the
trajectory of our course was, under ordinary circumstances, about all I
had to do. And it took only a few minutes each twelve hours.
I had a moment with Carter in the isolation of his chart-room.
"This voyage! Gregg, I'm getting like you--too fanciful. We've a normal
group of passengers, apparently; but I don't like the look of any of
them. That Ob Hahn, at your table--"
"Snaky-looking fellow," I commented. "He and the Englishman are great on
arguments. Did you have Prince's cabin searched?"
My breath hung on his answer.
"Yes. Nothing unusual among his things. We searched both his room and
his sister's."
I did not follow that up. Instead I told him about the burn on Miko's
thick gray arm.
* * * * *
He stared. "I wish to the Almighty we were at Ferrok-Shahn. Gregg,
to-night when the passengers are asleep, come here to me. Snap will be
here, and Dr. Frank. We can trust him."
"He knows about--about the Grantline treasure?"
"Yes. And so do Balch and Blackstone."
Balch and Blackstone were our first and second officers.
"We'll all meet here, Gregg--say about the zero hour. We must take some
precautions."
He suddenly felt he should say no more now. He dismissed me.
I found Venza seated alone in a secluded corner of the starlit deck. A
porthole, with the black heavens and the blazing stars, was before her.
There was an empty seat nearby.
"Hola-lo,[6] Gregg! Sit here with me. I have been wondering when you
would come after me."
I sat down beside her. "What are you doing--going to Mars, Venza? I'm
glad to see you."
"Many thanks. But I am glad to see you, Gregg. So handsome a man.... Do
you know, from Venus to the earth and I have no doubt on all of Mars, no
man will please me more."
"Glib tongue," I laughed. "Born to flatter the male--every girl of your
world." And I added seriously, "You don't answer my question? What
takes you to Mars?"
"Contract. By the stars, what else? Of course, a chance to make a voyage
with you--"
"Don't be silly, Venza."
* * * * *
I enjoyed her. I gazed at her small, slim figure gracefully reclining in
the deck chair. Her long, gray robe parted--by design, I have no
doubt--to display her shapely, satin-sheathed legs. Her black hair was
coiled in a heavy knot at the back of her neck; her carmined lips were
parted with a mocking, alluring smile. The exotic perfume of her
enveloped me.
She glanced at me sidewise from beneath her sweeping black lashes.
"Be serious," I added.
"I am serious. Sober. Intoxicated by you, but sober."
I said, "What sort of a contract?"
"A theater in Ferrok-Shahn. Good money, Gregg. I'm to be there a year."
She sat up to face me. "There's a fellow here on the Planetara, Rance
Rankin, he calls himself. At our table--a big, good-looking blond
American. He says he is a magician. Ever hear of him?"
"That's what he told me. No, I never heard of him."
"Nor did I. And I thought I had heard of everyone of any importance. He
is listed for the same theater where I'm going. Nice sort of fellow."
She paused, and added suddenly, "If he's a professional entertainer, I'm
a motor-oiler."
* * * * *
It startled me. "Why do you say that?"
Instinctively my gaze swept the deck. An Earth woman and child and a
small Venus man were in sight, but not within earshot.
"Why do you look so furtive?" she retorted. "Gregg, there's something
strange about this voyage. I'm no fool, nor you, and you know it as well
as I do."
"Rance Rankin--" I prompted.
She leaned closer toward me. "He could fool you. But not me--I've known
too many real magicians." She grinned. "I challenged him to trick me.
You should have seen him trying to evade!"
"Do you know Ob Hahn?" I interrupted.
She shook her head. "Never heard of him. But he told me plenty at
breakfast. By Satan, what a flow of words that devil-driver can muster!
He and the Englishman don't mesh very well, do they?"
She stared at me. I had not answered her grin; my mind was too busy with
queer fancies. Halsey's words: "Things are not always what they seem--"
Were these passengers masqueraders? Put here by George Prince? And then
I thought of Miko the Martian, and the burn upon his arm.
"Come back, Gregg! Don't go wandering off like that!" She dropped her
voice to a whisper. "I'll be serious. I want to know what in the hell is
going on aboard this ship. I'm a woman, and I'm curious. You tell me."
* * * * *
"What do you mean?" I parried.
"I mean a lot of things. What we've just been talking about. And what
was the excitement you were in just before breakfast this morning?"
"Excitement?"
"Gregg, you may trust me." For the first time she was wholly serious.
Her gaze made sure no one was within hearing. She put her hand on my
arm. I could barely hear her whisper: "I know they might have a ray upon
us--I'll be careful."
"They?"
"Anyone. Something's going on. You know it--you are in it. I saw you
this morning, Gregg. Wild-eyed, chasing a phantom--"
"You?"
"And I heard the phantom! A man's footsteps. A magnetic reflecting
invisible cloak. You couldn't fool an audience with that--it's too
commonplace. If Rance Rankin tried--"
I gripped her. "Don't ramble, Venza! You saw me?"
"Yes. My stateroom door was open. I was sitting with a cigarillo. I saw
the purser in the smoking room. He was visible from--"
"Wait! Venza, that prowler went through the smoking room!"
"I know he did. I could hear him."
"Did the purser hear him?"
"Of course. The purser looked up, followed the sound with his gaze. I
thought that was queer. He never made a move. And then you came along
and he acted innocent. Why? What's going on, that's what I want to
know!"
* * * * *
I held my breath. "Venza, where did the prowler run to? Can you--"
She whispered calmly, "Into A 20. I saw the door open and close--I even
think I could see the blurred outline of him. Those magnetic cloaks!"
She added, "Why should George Prince be sneaking around with you after
him? And the purser acting innocent? And who is this George Prince,
anyway?"
The huge Martian, Miko, with his sister Moa came strolling along the
deck. They nodded as they passed us.
I whispered, "I can't explain anything now. But you're right, Venza:
there is something going on. Listen! Whatever you learn--anything you
encounter which looks unusual--will you tell me? I--well, I do trust
you--really I do!--but the thing isn't mine to tell."
The somber pools of her eyes were shining. "You are very lovable, Gregg.
I won't question you." She was trembling with excitement. "Whatever it
is, I want to be in it. Here's something I can tell you now. We've two
high-class gold-leaf gamblers aboard. Did you know that?"
"No. Who are--"
"Shac and Dud Ardley. Let me state every detective in Great-New York
knows them. They had a wonderful game with that Englishman, Sir Arthur
Coniston, this morning. Stripped him of half a pound of eight-inch
leaves--a neat little stack. A crooked game, of course. Those fellows
are more nimble-fingered than Rance Rankin ever dared to be!"
* * * * *
I sat staring at her. She was a mine of information, this girl.
"And Gregg, I tried my charms on Shac and Dud. Nice men, but dumb.
Whatever's going on, they're not in it. They wanted to know what kind of
a ship this was. Why? Because Shac has a cute little eavesdropping
microphone of his own. He had it working in the night last night. He
overheard George Prince and that big giant Miko arguing about the
moon!"
I gasped. "Venza, softer!"
Against all propriety of this public deck she pretended to drape herself
upon me. Her hair smothered my face as her lips almost touched my ear.
"Something about treasure on the moon--Shac couldn't understand what.
And they mentioned you. He didn't hear what they said because the purser
joined them." Her whispered words tumbled over one another. "A hundred
pounds of gold leaf--that's the purser's price. He's with them, whatever
it is. He promised to do something for them."
She stopped. "Well?" I prompted.
"That's all. Shac's current was interrupted."
"Tell him to try it again, Venza! I'll talk with him. No! I'd better let
him alone. Can you get him to keep his mouth shut?"
"I think he might do anything I told him. He's a man."
"Find out what you can."
She sat away from me suddenly. "There's Anita and George Prince."
* * * * *
They came to the corner of the deck, but turned back. Venza caught my
look. And understood it.
"So you love Anita Prince so much as that, Gregg?" Venza was smiling. "I
wish you--I wish some man handsome as you would gaze after me like
that."
She turned solemn. "You may be interested to know that she loves you. I
could see it. I knew it when I mentioned you to her this morning."
"Me? Why, we've hardly spoken!"
"Is it necessary? I never heard that it was."
I could not see Venza's face; she stood up suddenly. And when I rose
beside her, she whispered,
"We should not be seen talking so long. I'll find out what I can."
I stared after her slight robed figure as she turned into the lounge
archway and vanished.
CHAPTER VI
_A Traitor, and a Passing Asteroid_
Captain Carter was grim. "So they've bought him off, have they? Go bring
him in here, Gregg. We'll have it out with him now."
Snap, Dr. Frank, Balch, our first officer, and I were in the captain's
chart-room. It was 4 P. M.--our Earth starting time. We were sixteen
hours upon our voyage.
I found Johnson in his office in the lounge. "Captain wants to see you.
Close up."
He closed his window upon an American woman passenger who was demanding
details of Martian currency, and followed me forward. "What is it,
Gregg?"
"I don't know."
Captain Carter banged the slide upon us. The chart-room was insulated.
The hum of the current was obvious. Johnson noticed it. He started at
the hostile faces of the surgeon and Balch. And he tried to bluster.
"What is this? Something wrong?"
Carter wasted no words. "We have information, Johnson--there's some
under cover plot here aboard. I want to know what it is. Suppose you
tell us frankly."
* * * * *
The purser looked blank. "What do you mean? We've gamblers aboard, if
that's--"
"To hell with that," growled Balch. "You had a secret interview with
that Martian, Set Miko, and with George Prince!"
Johnson scowled from under his heavy brows, and then raised them in
surprise.
"Did I? You mean changing their money? I don't like your tone, Balch.
I'm not your under-officer!"
"But you're under me," roared the captain. "By God, I'm master here!"
"Well, I'm not disputing that," said the purser mildly. "This fellow
Balch--"
"We're in no mood for argument," Dr. Frank cut in. "Clouding the
issue."
"I won't let it be clouded," the captain exclaimed. I had never seen
Carter so choleric. He was evidently under a tremendous strain. He
added,
"Johnson, you've been acting suspiciously. I don't give a damn whether
I've proof of it or not--I say it. Did you, or did you not meet George
Prince and that Martian last night?"
"No, I did not. And I don't mind telling you, Captain Carter, that your
tone also is offensive!"
"Is it?" Carter suddenly seized him. They were both big men. Johnson's
heavy face went purplish red.
"Take your hands!--" They were struggling. Carter's hands were fumbling
at the purser's pockets. I leaped, flung an arm around Johnson's neck,
pinning him.
"Easy there! We've got you, Johnson!"
* * * * *
Snap tried to help me. "Go on, bang him on the head, Gregg. Now's your
chance!"
We searched him. A heat-ray cylinder--that was legitimate. But we found
a small battery and eavesdropping microphone similar to the one Venza
had mentioned that Shac the gambler was carrying.
"What are you doing with that?" the captain demanded.
"None of your business! Is it criminal? Carter, I'll have the Line
officials dismiss you for this! Take your hands off me, all of you!"
"Look at this!" exclaimed Dr. Frank.
From Johnson's breast pocket the surgeon drew a folded document. It was
the scale drawing of the Planetara's interior corridors, the lower
control rooms and mechanisms. It was always kept in Johnson's safe. And
with it, another document: the ship's clearance papers--the secret code
pass-words for this voyage, to be used if we should be challenged by any
interplanetary police ship.
Snap gasped. "My God, that was in my helio-room strong box! I'm the only
one on this vessel except the captain who's entitled to know those
pass-words!"
Out of the silence, Balch demanded, "Well, what about it, Johnson?"
The purser was still defiant. "I won't answer your questions, Balch. At
the proper time, I'll explain--Gregg Haljan, you're choking me!"
* * * * *
I eased up. But I shook him. "You'd better talk."
He was exasperatingly silent.
"Enough!" exploded Carter. "He can explain when we get to port.
Meanwhile I'll put him where he'll do no more damage. Gregg, lock him in
the cage."
We ignored his violent protestations. The cage--in the old days of
sea-vessels on Earth, they called it the brig--was the ship's jail. A
steel-lined, windowless room located under the deck in the peak of the
bow. I dragged the struggling Johnson there, with the amazed watcher
looking down from the observatory window at our lunging, starlit forms.
"Shut up, Johnson! If you know what's good for you--"
He was making a fearful commotion. Behind us, where the deck narrowed at
the superstructure, half a dozen passengers were gazing in surprise.
"I'll have you thrown out of the Service, Gregg Haljan!"
I shut him up finally. And flung him down the ladder into the cage and
sealed the deck trap-door upon him. I was headed back for the chart-room
when from the observatory came the lookout's voice.
"An asteroid, Haljan! Officer Blackstone wants you."
I hurried to the turret bridge. An asteroid was in sight. We had
attained nearly our maximum speed now. An asteroid was approaching, so
dangerously close that our trajectory would have to be altered. I heard
Blackstone's signals ringing in the control rooms; and met Carter as he
ran to the bridge with me.
"That scoundrel! We'll get more out of him, Gregg. By God, I'll put the
chemicals on him--torture him, illegal or not!"
* * * * *
We had no time for further discussion. The asteroid was rapidly
approaching. Already, under the glass, it was a magnificent sight. I had
never seen this tiny world before--asteroids are not numerous between
the Earth and Mars, or in toward Venus. I never expected to see this one
again. How little of the future can we humans fathom, for all our
science! If I could only have looked into the future, even for a few
short hours! How different then would have been the outcome of this
tragic voyage!
The asteroid came rushing at us. Its orbital velocity, I later computed,
was some twenty-two miles a second. Our own, at the present maximum, was
a fraction over seventy-seven. The asteroid had for some time been under
observation by the lookout. He gave his warning only when it seemed that
our trajectory should be altered to avoid a dangerously close passing.
At the combined speeds of nearly a hundred miles a second the asteroid
swept into view. With the naked eye, at first it was a tiny speck of
star-dust, unnoticed in the gem-strewn black velvet of Space. A speck.
Then a gleaming dot, silver white, with the light of our Sun upon it.
Five minutes. The dot grew to a disc. Expanding. A full moon,
silver-white. Brightest world in the firmament--the light from it bathed
the Planetara, illumined the deck, painting everything with silver.
I stood with Carter and Blackstone on the turret bridge. It was obvious
that unless we altered our course, the asteroid would pass too close for
safety. Already we were feeling its attraction; from the control rooms
came the report that our trajectory was disturbed by this new mass so
near.
"Better make your calculations now, Gregg," Blackstone suggested.
* * * * *
I cast up the rough elements from the observational instruments in the
turret. It took me some ten or fifteen minutes. When I had us upon our
new course, with the attractive and repulsive plates in the Planetara's
hull set in their altered combinations, I went out to the bridge again.
The asteroid hung over our bow quarter. No more than twenty or thirty
thousand miles away. A giant ball now, filling all that quadrant of the
heavens. The configurations of its mountains--its land and water
areas--were plainly visible. Its axial rotation was apparent.
"Perfectly habitable," Blackstone said. "But I've searched all over this
hemisphere with the glass. No sign of human life--certainly nothing
civilized--nothing in the fashion of cities."
A fair little world, by the look of it. A tiny globe: Blackstone had
figured it at some eight hundred miles in diameter. There seemed a
normal atmosphere. We could see areas where the surface was obscured by
clouds. And oceans, and land masses. Polar icecaps. Lush vegetation at
its equator.
Blackstone had roughly cast its orbital elements. A narrow ellipse. No
wonder we had never encountered this fair little world before. It had
come from the outer region beyond Neptune. At perihelion it would reach
inside Mercury, round the Sun, and head outward again.
* * * * *
We swept past the asteroid at a distance of some six thousand miles.
Close enough, in very truth--a minute of flight at our combined speeds
totaling a hundred miles a second. I had descended to the passenger
deck, where I stood alone at a window, gazing.
The passengers were all gathered to view the passing little world. I
saw, not far from me, Anita, standing with her brother; and the giant
figure of Miko with them.
Half an hour since, first with the naked eye, this wandering little
world had shown itself; it swam slowly past, began to dwindle behind us.
A huge half moon. A thinner, smaller quadrant. A tiny crescent, like a
silver bar-pin to adorn some lady's breast. And then it was a dot, a
point of light indistinguishable among the myriad others hovering in
this great black void.
The incident of the passing of the asteroid was over. I turned from the
deck window. My heart leaped. The moment for which all day I had been
subconsciously longing was at hand. Anita was sitting in a deck chair,
momentarily alone. Her gaze was on me as I looked her way, and she
smiled an invitation for me to join her.
CHAPTER VII
_Unspoken Love_
Unspoken love! I think if I had yielded to the impulse of my heart, I
would have poured out all those protestations of a lover's ecstasy,
incongruous here upon this starlit public deck, to a girl I hardly knew.
I think, too, she might have received them with a tender acquiescence.
The starlight was mirrored in her dark eyes. Misty eyes, with great
reaches of unfathomable space in their depths. Yet I felt their
tenderness.
Unfathomable strangeness of love! Who am I to write of it, with all the
poets of all the ages striving to express the unexpressible? A bond,
strangely fashioned by nature, between me and this little dark-haired
Earth beauty. As though marked by the stars we were destined to be
lovers....
Thus ran the romance of my unspoken thoughts. But I was sitting quietly
in the deck chair, striving to regard her gentle beauty impersonally.
And saying:
"But Miss Prince, why are you and your brother going to Ferrok-Shahn?
His business--"
Even as I voiced it, I hated myself for such a question. So nimble is
the human mind that mingled with my rhapsodies of love was my need for
information of George Prince....
"Oh," she said, "this is pleasure, not business, for George." It seemed
to me that a shadow crossed her expressive face. But it was gone in an
instant, and she smiled. "We have always wanted to travel. We are alone
in the world, you know--our parents died when we were children."
* * * * *
I filled in her pause. "You will like Mars--so many interesting things
to see."
She nodded. "Yes, I understand so. Our Earth is so much the same all
over, cast all in one mould."
"But a hundred or two hundred years ago it was not, Miss Prince. I have
read how the picturesque Orient, differing from--well, Great-New York,
or London, for instance--"
"Transportation did that," she interrupted eagerly. "Made everything the
same--the people all look alike--dress alike."
We discussed it. She had an alert, eager mind, childlike with its
curiosity, yet strangely matured. And her manner was naively earnest.
Yet this was no clinging vine, this little Anita Prince. There was a
firmness, a hint of masculine strength in her chin, and in her manner.
"If I were a man, what wonders I could achieve in this marvelous age!"
Her sense of humor made her laugh at herself. "Easy for a girl to say
that," she added.
"You have greater wonders to achieve, Miss Prince," I said impulsively.
"Yes? What are they?" She had a very frank and level gaze, devoid of
coquetry.
My heart was pounding. "The wonders of the next generation. A little
son, cast in your own gentle image--"
What madness, this clumsy brash talk! I choked it off.
* * * * *
But she took no offense. The dark rose-petals of her cheeks were mantled
deeper red, but she laughed.
"That is true." She turned abruptly serious. "I should not laugh. The
wonders of the next generation--conquering humans marching on...." Her
voice trailed away. My hand went to her arm. Strange tingling something
which poets call love! It burned and surged from my trembling fingers
into the flesh of her forearm.
The starlight glowed in her eyes. She seemed to be gazing, not at the
silver-lit deck, but away into distant reaches of the future. And she
murmured:
"A little son, cast in my own gentle image. But with the strength of his
father...."
Our moment. Just a breathless moment given us as we sat there with my
hand burning her arm, as though we both might be seeing ourselves joined
in a new individual--a little son, cast in his mother's gentle image and
with the strength of his father. Our moment, and then it was over. A
step sounded. I sat back. The giant gray figure of Miko came past, his
great cloak swaying, with his clanking sword-ornament beneath it. His
bullet head, with its close-clipped hair, was hatless. He gazed at us,
swaggered past, and turned the deck corner.
Our moment was gone. Anita said conventionally, "It has been pleasant to
talk with you, Mr. Haljan."
"But we'll have many more," I said. "Ten days--"
"You think we'll reach Ferrok-Shahn on schedule?"
"Yes. I think so.... As I was saying, Miss Prince, you'll enjoy Mars. A
strange, aggressively forward-looking people."
* * * * *
An oppression seemed on her. She stirred in her chair.
"Yes, they are," she said vaguely. "My brother and I know many Martians
in Great-New York." She checked herself abruptly. Was she sorry she had
said that? It seemed so.
Miko was coming back. He stopped this time before us.
"Your brother would see you, Anita. He sent me to bring you to his
room."
The glance he shot me had a touch of insolence. I stood up, and he
towered a head over me.
Anita said, "Oh yes. I'll come."
I bowed. "I will see you again, Miss Prince. I thank you for a pleasant
half-hour."
The Martian led her away. Her little figure was like a child with a
giant. It seemed, as they passed the length of the deck with me staring
after them, that he took her arm roughly. And that she shrank from him
in fear.
And they did not go inside. As though to show me that he had merely
taken her from me, he stopped at a distant deck window and stood talking
to her. Once he picked her up as one would pick up a child to show it
some distant object through the window.
"A little son with the strength of his father...." Her words echoed in
my mind. Was Anita afraid of this Martian's wooing? Yet held to him by
some power he might have over her brother? The vagrant thought struck
me.
Was it that?
CHAPTER VIII
_A Scream in the Night_
We kept, on the Planetara, always the time and routine of our port of
departure. The rest of that afternoon and evening were a blank of
confusion to me. Anita's words; the touch of my hand upon her arm; that
vast realm of what might be for us, like a glimpse of a magic land of
happiness which I had seen in her eyes, and perhaps she had seen in
mine--all this surged within me.
I wandered about the vessel. I was not hungry. I did not go to the
dining salon for dinner. I carried Johnson food and water to his cage;
and sat, with my heat-cylinder upon him, listening to his threats of
what would happen when he could complain to the Line's higher
officials.
But what was Johnson doing carrying a plan of the ship's control rooms
in his pockets? And worse: How had he dared open Snap's box in the
helio-room and abstract the code pass-words for this voyage? Without
them we would be an outlawed vessel, subject to arrest if any patrol
hailed us. Had Johnson been planning to sell those pass-words to Miko? I
thought so. I tried to get the confession out of him, but could not.
I had a brief consultation with Captain Carter. He was genuinely
apprehensive now. The Planetara carried no long-range guns, and very few
side-arms. A half-dozen of the heat-ray hand projectors; a few
old-fashioned weapons of explosion-rifles and automatic revolvers. And
hand projectors with the new Benson curve-light. We had models of this
for curved vision, so that one might see around a corner, so to speak.
And with them, we could project the heat-ray in a curve as well.
* * * * *
The weapons were all in Carter's chart-room, save the few we officers
always carried. Carter was apprehensive, but of what he could not say.
He had not thought that our plan to stop at the Moon for treasure could
affect this outward voyage. Any danger would be upon the way back, when
the Planetara would be adequately guarded with long-range electronic
guns, and manned with police-soldiers.
But now we were practically defenseless....
I had a moment with Venza, but she had nothing new to communicate to
me.
And for half an hour I chatted with George Prince. He seemed a gay,
pleasant young man. I could almost have fancied I liked him. Or was it
because he was Anita's brother? He told me how he looked forward to
traveling with her on Mars. No, he had never been there before, he
said.
He had a measure of Anita's earnest naive personality. Or was he a very
clever scoundrel, with irony lurking in his soft voice, and a chuckle
that he could so befool me?
"We'll talk again, Haljan. You interest me--I've enjoyed it."
He sauntered away from me, joining the saturnine Ob Hahn, with whom
presently I heard him discussing religion.
The arrest of Johnson had caused considerable comment among the
passengers. A few had seen me drag him forward to the cage. The incident
had been the subject of passenger discussion all afternoon. Captain
Carter had posted a notice to the effect that Johnson's accounts had
been found in serious error, and that Dr. Frank for this voyage would
act in his stead.
* * * * *
It was near midnight when Snap and I closed and sealed the helio-room
and started for the chart-room, where we were to meet with Captain
Carter and the other officers. The passengers had nearly all retired. A
game was in progress in the smoking room, but the deck was almost
deserted.
Snap and I were passing along one of the interior corridors. The
stateroom doors, with the illumined names of the passengers, were all
closed. The metal grid of the floor echoed our footsteps. Snap was in
advance of me. His body suddenly rose in the air. He went like a balloon
to the ceiling, struck it gently, and all in a heap came floating down
and landed on the floor!
"What in the infernal!--"
He was laughing as he picked himself up. But it was a brief laugh. We
knew what had happened: the artificial gravity-controls in the base of
the ship, which by magnetic force gave us normality aboard, were being
tampered with! For just this instant, this particular small section of
this corridor had been cut off. The slight bulk of the Planetara,
floating in space, had no appreciable gravity pull on Snap's body, and
the impulse of his step as he came to the unmagnetized area of the
corridor had thrown him to the ceiling. The area was normal now. Snap
and I tested it gingerly.
He gripped me. "That never went wrong by accident, Gregg! Someone down
there--"
* * * * *
We rushed to the nearest descending ladder. In the deserted lower room
the bank of dials stood neglected. A score of dials and switches were
here, governing the magnetism of different areas of the ship. There
should have been a night operator, but he was gone.
Then we saw him lying nearby, sprawled face down on the floor! In the
silence and dim lurid glow of the fluorescent tubes, we stood holding
our breaths, peering and listening. No one here.
The guard was not dead. He lay unconscious from a blow on the head. A
brawny fellow. We had him revived in a few moments. A broadcast flash of
the call-buzz brought Dr. Frank in haste from the chart-room.
"What's the matter?"
We pointed at the unconscious man. "Someone was here," I said hastily.
"Experimenting with the magnetic switches. Evidently unfamiliar with
them--pulling one or another to test their workings and so see the
reactions on the dials."
We told him what had happened to Snap in the upper corridor.
Dr. Frank revived the guard in a moment. He was no worse off for the
episode, save a lump on his head, and a nasty headache.
But he had little to tell us. He had heard a step. Saw nothing--and
then had been struck on the head, by some invisible assailant.
* * * * *
We left him nursing his head, sitting belligerent at his post. Armed now
with my heat-ray cylinder which I loaned him.
"Strange doings this voyage," he told us. "All the crew knows it--all
been talkin' about it. I stick it out now, but when we get back home I'm
done with this star travelin'. I belong on the sea anyway. A good old
freighter is all right for me."
We hurried back to the upper level. We would indeed have to plan
something at this chart-room conference. This was the first tangible
attack our adversaries had made.
We were on the passenger deck headed for the chart-room when all three
of us stopped short, frozen with horror. Through the silent passenger
quarters a scream rang out! A girl's shuddering, gasping scream. Terror
in it. Horror. Or a scream of agony. In the silence of the dully
vibrating ship it was utterly horrible. It lasted an instant--a single
long scream; then was abruptly stilled.
And with blood pounding my temples and rushing like ice through my
veins, I recognized it.
Anita!
CHAPTER IX
_The Murder in A 22_
"Good God, what was that?" Dr. Frank's face had gone white in the
starlight. Snap stood like a statue of horror.
The deck here was patched as always, silver radiance from the deck
ports. The empty deck chairs stood about. The scream was stilled, but
now we heard a commotion inside--the rasp of opening cabin doors;
questions from frightened passengers; the scurry of feet.
I found my voice. "Anita! Anita Prince!"
"Come on!" shouted Snap. "Was it the Prince girl? I thought so too! In
her stateroom, A 22!" He was dashing for the lounge archway.
Dr. Frank and I followed. I realized that we passed the deck door and
window of A 22. But they were dark, and evidently sealed on the inside.
The dim lounge was in a turmoil; passengers standing at their cabin
doors. I heard Sir Arthur Coniston:
"I say, what was that?"
"Over there," said another man. "Come back inside, Martha." He shoved
his wife back. "Mr. Haljan!" He plucked at me as I went past.
I shouted, "Go back to your rooms! We want order here--keep back!"
We came to the twin doors of A 22 and A 20. Both were closed. Dr. Frank
was in advance of Snap and me. He paused at the sound of Captain
Carter's voice behind us.
"Was it from in there? Wait a moment!"
Carter dashed up; he had a large heat-ray projector in his hand. He
shoved us aside. "Let me in first. Is the door sealed? Gregg, keep those
passengers back!"
* * * * *
The door was not sealed. Carter burst into the room. I heard him gasp,
"Good God!"
Snap and I shoved back three or four crowding passengers, and in that
instant Dr. Frank had been in the room and out again.
"There's been an accident! Get back, Gregg! Snap, help him keep the
crowd away." He shoved me forcibly.
From within, Carter was shouting, "Keep them out! Where are you, Frank?
Come back here! Send a flash for Balch--I want Balch!"
Dr. Frank went back into the room and banged the cabin door upon Snap
and me. I was unarmed--I had loaned my cylinder to the guard in the
lower corridor. Weapon in hand, Snap forced the panic-stricken
passengers back to their rooms.
"It's all right! An accident! Miss Prince is hurt."
Snap reassured them glibly; but he knew no more about it than I. Moa,
with a night-robe drawn tight around her thin, tall figure, edged up to
me.
"What has happened, Set Haljan?"
I gazed around for her brother Miko, but did not see him.
"An accident," I said shortly. "Go back to your room. Captain's
orders."
She eyed me and then retreated. Snap was threatening everybody with his
cylinder. Balch dashed up. "What in the hell? Where's Carter?"
"In there." I pounded on A 22. It opened cautiously. I could see only
Carter, but I heard the murmuring voice of Dr. Frank through the
interior connecting door to A 20.
* * * * *
The captain rasped, "Get out, Haljan! Oh, is that you, Balch? Come in."
He admitted the older officer and slammed the door again upon me. And
immediately reopened it.
"Gregg, keep the passengers quiet. Tell them everything's all right.
Miss Prince got frightened, that's all. Then go up to the turret. Tell
Blackstone what's happened."
"But I don't know what's happened," I protested miserably.
Carter was grim and white. He whispered, "I think it may turn out to be
murder, Gregg! No, not dead yet--Dr. Frank is trying--Don't stand there
like an ass, man! Get to the turret! Verify our trajectory--no--wait--"
The captain was almost incoherent. "Wait a minute, I don't mean that!
Tell Snap to watch his helio-room. Gregg, you and Blackstone stay in the
chart-room. Arm yourselves and guard our weapons. By God, this murderer,
whoever he is--"
I stammered, "If--if she dies--will you flash us word?"
He stared at me strangely. "I'll be there presently, Gregg."
He slammed the door upon me.
I followed his orders, but it was like a dream of horror. The turmoil of
the ship gradually quieted. Snap went to the helio-room; Blackstone and
I sat in the tiny steel chart-room. How much time passed, I do not
know. I was confused. Anita hurt! She might die.... Murdered.... But
why? By whom? Had George Prince been in his own room when the attack
came? I thought now I recalled hearing the low murmur of his voice in
there with Dr. Frank and Carter.
Where was Miko? It stabbed at me. I had not seen him among the
passengers in the lounge.
* * * * *
Carter came into the chart-room. "Gregg, you get to bed--you look like a
ghost!"
"But--"
"She's not dead--she may live. Dr. Frank and her brother are with her.
They're doing all they can." He told us what had happened. Anita and
George Prince had both been asleep, each in their respective rooms.
Someone unknown had opened Anita's corridor door.
"Wasn't it sealed?" I demanded.
"Yes. But the intruder opened it."
"Burst it? I didn't think it was broken."
"It wasn't broken. The assailant opened it somehow, and assaulted Miss
Prince--shot her in the chest with a heat-ray. Her left lung."
"She is conscious?" Balch demanded.
"Yes. But she did not see who did it. Nor did Prince. Her scream
awakened him, but the intruder evidently fled out the corridor door of
A 22, the way he entered."
I stood weak and shaken at the chart-room entrance. "A little son, cast
in the gentle image of his mother. But with the strength of his
father...." But Anita--dying, perhaps; and all my dreams were fading
into a memory of what might have been.
"You go to bed, Gregg--we don't need you."
I was glad enough to get away. I would lie down for an hour, and then go
to Anita's stateroom. I'd demand that Dr. Frank let me see her, if only
for a moment.
* * * * *
I went to the stern deck-space where my cubby was located. My mind was
confused, but some instinct within me made me verify the seals of my
door and window. They were intact. I entered cautiously, switched on the
dimmer of the tube-lights, and searched the room. It had only a bunk, my
tiny desk, a chair and clothes robe.
There was no evidence of any intruder here. I set my door and window
alarm. Then I audiphoned to the helio-room.
"Snap?"
"Yes."
I told him about Anita. Carter cut in on us from the chart-room. "Stop
that, you fools!"
We cut off. Fully dressed, I flung myself on my bed. Anita might
die....
I must have fallen into a tortured sleep. I was awakened by the sound of
my alarm buzzer. Someone was tampering with my door! Then the buzzer
ceased; the marauder outside must have found a way of silencing it. But
it had done its work--awakened me.
I had switched off the light; my cubby was Stygian dark. A heat-cylinder
was in the bunk-bracket over my head; I searched for it, pried it loose
softly.
I was fully awake. Alert. I could hear a faint sizzling--someone outside
trying to unseal the door. In the darkness, cylinder in hand, I crept
from the bunk. Crouched at the door. This time I would capture or kill
this night prowler.
* * * * *
The sizzling was faintly audible. My door-seal was breaking. Upon
impulse I reached for the door, jerked it open.
No one there! The starlit segment of deck was empty. But I had leaped,
and I struck a solid body, crouching in the doorway. A giant man. Miko!
His electronized metallic robe burned my hands. I lunged against him--I
was almost as surprised as he. I shot, but the stab of heat evidently
missed him.
The shock of my encounter close-circuited his robe; he materialized in
the starlight. A brief, savage encounter. He struck the weapon from my
hand. He had dropped his hydrogen torch, and tried to grip me. But I
twisted away from his hold.
"So it's you!"
"Be quiet, Gregg Haljan! I only want to talk."
Without warning, a stab of radiance shot from a weapon in his hand. It
caught me. Ran like ice through my veins. Seized and numbed my limbs.
I fell helpless to the deck. Nerves and muscles paralyzed. My tongue was
thick and inert. I could not speak, nor move. But I could see Miko
bending over me. And hear him:
"I don't want to kill you, Haljan. We need you."
He gathered me up like a bundle in his huge arms; carried me swiftly
across the deserted deck.
Snap's helio-room in the network under the dome was diagonally overhead.
A white actinic light shot from it--caught us, bathed us. Snap had been
awake; had heard the slight commotion of our encounter.
His voice rang shrilly: "Stop! I'll shoot!" His warning siren rang out
to arouse the ship. His spotlight clung to us.
Miko ran with me a few steps. Then he cursed and dropped me, fled away.
I fell like a sack of carbide to the deck. My senses faded into
blackness....
* * * * *
"He's all right now."
I was in the chart-room, with Captain Carter, Snap and Dr. Frank bending
over me. The surgeon said,
"Can you speak now, Gregg?"
I tried it. My tongue was thick, but it would move. "Yes."
I was soon revived. I sat up, with Dr. Frank vigorously rubbing me.
"I'm all right." I told them what had happened.
Captain Carter said abruptly, "Yes, we know that. And it was Miko also
who killed Anita Prince. She told us before she died."
"Died!..." I leaped to my feet. "She ... died...."
"Yes, Gregg. An hour ago, Miko got into her stateroom and tried to force
his love on her. She repulsed him--he killed her."
It struck me blank. And then with a rush came the thought, "He says Miko
killed her...."
I heard myself stammering, "Why--why we must get him!" I gathered my
wits; a surge of hate swept me; a wild desire for vengeance.
"Why, by God, where is he? Why don't you go get him? I'll get him--I'll
kill him, I tell you!"
"Easy, Gregg!" Dr. Frank gripped me.
The captain said gently, "We know how you feel, Gregg. She told us
before she died."
"I'll bring him in here to you! But I'll kill him, I tell you!"
"No you won't, lad. You're hysterical now. We don't want him killed, not
attacked even. Not yet. We'll explain later."
They sat me down, calming me.
Anita dead. The door of the shining garden was closed. A brief glimpse,
given to me and to her of what might have been. And now she was
dead....
CHAPTER X
_A Speck of Human Earth-dust, Falling Free...._
I had not been able at first to understand why Captain Carter wanted
Miko left at liberty. Within me there was that cry of vengeance, as
though to strike Miko down would somehow lessen my own grief at
Anita's loss. Whatever Carter's purpose, Snap had not known it. But
Balch and Dr. Frank were in the captain's confidence--all three of
them working on some plan of action. Snap and I argued it, and thought
we could fathom it; and in spite of my desire to kill Miko, the thing
looked reasonable.
It was obvious that at least two of our passengers were plotting with
Miko and George Prince; trying during this voyage to learn what they
could about Grantline's activities on the Moon; scheming doubtless to
seize the treasure when the Planetara stopped at the Moon on the return
voyage. I thought I could name those masquerading passengers. Ob Hahn,
supposedly a Venus Mystic. And Rance Rankin, who called himself an
American magician. Those two, Snap and I agreed, seemed most suspicious.
And there was the purser.
With my hysteria still on me, I sat for a time on the deck outside the
chart-room with Snap. Then Carter summoned us back, and we sat listening
while he, Balch and Dr. Frank went on with their conference. Listening
to them I could not but agree that our best plan was to secure evidence
which would incriminate all who were concerned in the plot. Miko, we
were convinced, had been the Martian who followed Snap and me from
Halsey's office in Great-New York. George Prince had doubtless been the
invisible eavesdropper outside the helio-room. He knew, and had told the
others, that Grantline had found radium-ore on the Moon--that the
Planetara would stop there on the way home.
* * * * *
But we could not incarcerate George Prince for being an eavesdropper.
Nor had we the faintest tangible evidence against Ob Hahn or Rance
Rankin. And even the purser would probably be released by the
Interplanetary Court of Ferrok-Shahn when it heard our evidence.
There was only Miko. We could arrest him for the murder of Anita. But
the others would be put on their guard. It was Carter's idea to let Miko
remain at liberty for a time and see if we could not identify and
incriminate his fellows. The murder of Anita obviously had nothing to do
with any plot against the Grantline Moon treasure.
"Why," exclaimed Balch, "there might be--probably are--huge Martian
interests concerned in this thing. These men here aboard are only
emissaries, making this voyage to learn what they can. When they get to
Ferrok-Shahn they'll make their report, and then we'll have a real
danger on our hands. Why, an outlaw ship could be launched from
Ferrok-Shahn that would beat us back to the Moon--and Grantline is
entirely without warning of any danger!"
It seemed obvious. Unscrupulous, moneyed criminals in Ferrok-Shahn would
be dangerous indeed, once these details of Grantline were given them.
And so now it was decided that in the remaining nine days of our outward
voyage, we would attempt to secure enough evidence to arrest all these
plotters.
"I'll have them all in the cage when we land," Carter declared grimly.
"They'll make no report to their principals. The thing will end, be
stamped out!"
Ah, the futile plans of men!
* * * * *
Yet we thought it practical. We were all doubly armed now. Explosive
bullet-projectors and the heat-ray cylinders. And we had several
eavesdropping microphones which we planned to use whenever occasion
offered.
It was now, Earth Eastern Time, A. M. Twenty-eight hours only of this
eventful voyage were passed. The Planetara was some six million miles
from the Earth; it blazed behind us, a tremendous giant.
The body of Anita was being made ready for burial. George Prince was
still in his stateroom. Glutz, effeminate little hairdresser, who waxed
rich acting as beauty doctor for the women passengers, and who in his
youth had been an undertaker, had gone with Dr. Frank to prepare the
body.
Gruesome details. I tried not to think of them. I sat, numbed, in the
chart-room.
An astronomical burial--there was little precedent for it. I dragged
myself to the stern deck-space where, at five A. M., the ceremony took
place. Most of the passengers were asleep, unaware of all this--which
was why Carter hastened it.
We were a solemn little group, gathered there in the checkered starlight
with the great vault of the heavens around us. A dismantled electronic
projector--necessary when a long-range gun was mounted--had been rigged
up in one of the deck ports.
They brought out the body. I stood apart, gazing reluctantly at the
small bundle, wrapped like a mummy in a dark metallic screen-cloth. A
patch of black silk rested over her face.
* * * * *
Four cabin stewards carried her. And beside her walked George Prince. A
long black robe covered him, but his head was bare. And suddenly he
reminded me of the ancient play-character of Hamlet. His black, wavy
hair; his finely chiseled, pallid face, set now in a stern, patrician
cast. And staring, I realized that however much of a villain this man
not yet thirty might be, at this instant, walking beside the body of his
dead sister, he was stricken with grief. He loved that sister with whom
he had lived since childhood; and to see him now, with his set white
face, no one could doubt it.
The little procession stopped in a patch of starlight by the port. They
rested the body on a bank of chairs. The black-robed Chaplain, roused
from his bed and still trembling from excitement of this sudden,
inexplicable death on board, said a brief, solemn little prayer. An
appeal: That the Almighty Ruler of all these blazing worlds might guard
the soul of this gentle girl whose mortal remains were now to be
returned to Him.
Ah, if ever God seemed hovering close, it was now at this instant, on
this starlit deck floating in the black void of space.
Then Carter for just a moment removed the black shroud from her face. I
saw her brother gaze silently; saw him stoop and implant a kiss--and
turn away. I did not want to look, but I found myself moving slowly
forward.
* * * * *
She lay, so beautiful. Her face, white and calm and peaceful in death.
My sight blurred. Words seemed to echo: "A little son, cast in the
gentle image of his mother...."
"Easy, Gregg!" Snap was whispering to me. He had his arm around me.
"Come on away!"
They tied the shroud over her face. I did not see them as they put her
body in the tube, sent it through the exhaust-chamber, and dropped it.
But a moment later I saw it--a small black oblong bundle--hovering
beside us. It was perhaps a hundred feet away, circling us. Held by the
Planetara's bulk, it had momentarily become our satellite. It swung
around us like a moon. Gruesome satellite, by nature's laws forever to
follow us.
Then from another tube at the bow, Blackstone operated a small
Zed-co-ray projector. Its dull light caught the floating bundle,
neutralizing its metallic wrappings.
It swung off at a tangent. Speeding. Falling free in the dome of the
heavens. A rotating black oblong. But in a moment distance dwindled it
to a speck. A dull silver dot with the sunlight on it. A speck of human
Earth-dust, falling free....
It vanished. Anita--gone. In my heart was an echo of the prayer that the
Almighty might watch over her and guard her always....
CHAPTER XI
_The Electrical Eavesdropper_
I turned from the deck. Miko was near me! So he had dared to show
himself here among us! But I realized that he could not be aware we knew
he was the murderer. George Prince had been asleep, had not seen Miko
with Anita. Miko, with impulsive rage, had shot the girl and escaped. No
doubt now he was cursing himself for having done it. And he could very
well assume that Anita had died without regaining consciousness to tell
who had killed her.
He gazed at me now, here on the deck. I thought for an instant he was
coming over to talk to me. Though he probably considered he was not
suspected of the murder of Anita, he realized, of course, that his
attack on me was known; he must have wondered what action Captain Carter
would take.
But he did not approach me; he moved away, and went inside. Moa had been
near him; and as though by pre-arrangement with him she now accosted
me.
"I want to speak to you, Set Haljan."
"Go ahead."
I felt an instinctive aversion for this Martian girl. Yet she was not
unattractive. Over six feet tall, straight and slim. Sleek blond hair.
Rather a handsome face. Not gray, like the burly Miko, but pink and
white. Stern-lipped, yet feminine, too. She was smiling gravely now. Her
blue eyes regarded me keenly. She said gently:
"A sad occurrence, Gregg Haljan. And mysterious. I would not question
you--"
"Is that all you have to say?" I demanded, when she paused.
"No. You are a handsome man, Gregg--attractive to women--to any Martian
woman."
* * * * *
She said it impulsively. Admiration for me was on her face, in her
eyes--a man cannot miss it.
"Thank you."
"I mean, I would be your friend. My brother Miko is so sorry about what
happened between you and him this morning. He only wanted to talk to
you, and he came to your cubby door--"
"With a torch to break its seal," I interjected.
She waved that away. "He was afraid you would not admit him. He told you
he would not hurt you."
"And so he struck me with one of your cursed Martian paralyzing rays!"
"He is sorry...."
She seemed gauging me, trying, no doubt, to find out what reprisal would
be taken against her brother. I felt sure that Moa was as active as a
man in any plan that was under way to capture the Grantline treasure.
Miko, with his ungovernable temper, was doing things that put their
plans in jeopardy.
I demanded abruptly, "What did your brother want to talk to me about?"
"Me," she said surprisingly. "I sent him. A Martian girl goes after what
she wants. Did you know that?"
She swung on her heel and left me. I puzzled over it. Was that why Miko
had struck me down, and was carrying me off? Was my accursed masculine
beauty so attractive to this Martian girl? I did not think so. I could
not believe that all these incidents were so unrelated to what I knew
was the main undercurrent. They wanted me, had tried to capture me. For
something else than because Moa liked my looks....
* * * * *
Dr. Frank found me mooning alone.
"Go to bed, Gregg! You look awful."
"I don't want to go to bed."
"Where's Snap?"
"I don't know. He was here a while ago." I had not seen him since the
burial of Anita.
"The captain wants him." The surgeon left me.
Within an hour the morning siren would arouse the passengers. I was
seated in a secluded corner of the deck, when George Prince came along.
He went past me, a slight, somber, dark-robed figure. He had on high,
thick boots. A hood was over his head, but as he saw me he pushed it
back and dropped down beside me.
But for a moment he did not speak. His face showed pallid in the pallid
star-gleams.
"She said you loved her." His soft voice was throaty with emotion.
"Yes." I said it almost against my will. There seemed a bond springing
between this bereaved brother and me. He added, so softly I could
barely hear him, "That makes you, I think, almost my friend. And you
thought you were my enemy."
I held my answer. An incautious tongue running under emotion is a
dangerous thing. And I was sure of nothing.
* * * * *
He went on, "Almost my friend. Because--we both loved her, and she loved
us both." He was hardly more than whispering. "And there is aboard--one
whom we both hate."
"Miko!" It burst from me.
"Yes. But do not say it."
Another silence fell between us. He brushed back the black curls from
his forehead. And his dark eyes searched mine.
"Have you an eavesdropping microphone, Haljan?"
I hesitated. "Yes."
"I was thinking...." He leaned closer toward me. "If, in half an hour,
you could use it upon Miko's cabin--I would rather tell you than the
captain or anyone else. The cabin will be insulated, but I shall find a
way of cutting off that insulation so that you may hear."
So George Prince had turned with us! The shock of his sister's
death--himself allied to her murderer!--had been too much for him. He
was with us!
Yet his help must be given secretly. Miko would kill him in an instant
if it became known.
He had been watchful of the deck. He stood up now.
"I think that is all."
As he turned away, I murmured, "But I do thank you...."
* * * * *
The name Set Miko glowed upon the small metal door. It was in a
transverse corridor similar to A 22. The corridor was forward of the
lounge: it opened off the small circular library.
The library was unoccupied and unlighted, dim with only the reflected
lights from the nearby passages. I crouched behind a cylinder-case. The
door of Miko's room was in sight, being some thirty feet away from me.
I waited perhaps five minutes. No one entered. Then I realized
that doubtless the conspirators were already there. I set my tiny
eavesdropper on the library floor beside me; connected its little
battery; focused its projector. Was Miko's room insulated? I could not
tell. There was a small ventilating grid above the door. Across its
opening, if the room were insulated, a blue sheen of radiance
would be showing. And there would be a faint hum. But from this
distance I could not see or hear such details, and I was afraid to
approach closer. Once in the transverse corridor, I would have no
place to hide, no way of escape; if anyone approached Miko's door, I
would be discovered.
I threw the current into my little apparatus. I prayed, if it met
interference, that the slight sound would pass unnoticed. George Prince
had said he would make opportunity to disconnect the room's insulation.
He had evidently done so. I picked up the interior sounds at once; my
headphone vibrated with them. And with trembling fingers on the little
dial between my knees as I crouched in the darkness behind the
cylinder-case, I synchronized.
"Johnson is a fool." It was Miko's voice. "We must have the pass-words."
"He got them from the helio-room." A man's voice; I puzzled over it at
first, then recognized it. Rance Rankin.
* * * * *
Miko said, "He is a fool. Walking around this ship as though with
letters blazoned on his forehead--'Watch me--I need watching--' Hah! No
wonder they apprehended him!"
Was George Prince in there? Rankin's voice said: "He would have turned
the papers over to us. I would not blame him too much. What harm--"
"Oh, I'll release him," Miko declared. "What harm? That braying ass did
us plenty of harm. He has lost the pass-words. Better he had left them
in the helio-room."
Moa was in the room. Her voice said: "We've got to have them. The
Planetara, upon such an important voyage as this, may be watched. How do
we know--"
"It is, no doubt," Rankin said quietly. "We ought to have the
pass-words. When we are in control of this ship...."
It sent a shiver through me. Were they planning to try and seize the
Planetara? Now? It seemed so.
"Johnson undoubtedly memorized them," Moa was saying. "When we get him
out--"
"Hahn is to do that, at the signal." Miko added, "George could do it
better, perhaps."
And then I heard George Prince for the first time. He murmured, "I will
try."
"No need," said Miko. "I praise where praise is deserved. And I have
little praise for you now, George!"
I could not see what happened. A look, perhaps, which Prince could not
avoid giving this man he had come to hate. Miko doubtless saw it, and
the Martian's hot anger leaped.
Rankin said hurriedly, "Stop that!"
And Moa: "Let him alone! Sit down, you fool!"
* * * * *
I could hear the sound of a scuffle. A blow--a cry, half suppressed,
from George Prince.
Then Miko: "I will not hurt him. Craven coward! Look at him! Hating
me--frightened!"
I could fancy George Prince sitting there with murder in his heart, and
Miko taunting him:
"Hates me now, because I shot his sister!"
Moa: "Hush!"
"I will not! Why should I not say it? I will tell you something else,
George Prince. It was not Anita I shot at, but you! I meant nothing for
her, but love. If you had not interfered--"
This was different from what we had figured. George Prince had come in
from his own room, had tried to rescue his sister, and in the scuffle,
Anita had taken the shot intended for George.
"I did not even know I had hit her," Miko was saying. "Not until I heard
she was dead." He added sardonically, "I hoped it was you I had hit,
George. And I will tell you this: You hate me no more than I hate you.
If it were not for your knowledge of radium ores--"
"Is this to be a personal wrangle?" Rankin interrupted. "I thought we
were here to plan--"
"It is planned," Miko said shortly. "I give orders, I do not plan. I am
waiting now for the moment--"
* * * * *
He checked himself. Moa said, "Does Rankin understand that no harm is to
come to Gregg Haljan?"
"Yes," said Rankin. "And Dean. We need them, of course. But you cannot
make Dean send messages if he refuses, nor make Haljan navigate."
"I know enough to check on them," Miko said grimly. "They will not fool
me. And they will obey me, have no fear. A little touch of sulphuric--"
His laugh was gruesome. "It makes the most stubborn very willing."
"I wish," said Moa, "we had Haljan safely hidden. If he is hurt--killed--"
So that was why Miko had tried to capture me? To keep me safe so that I
might navigate the ship.
It occurred to me that I should get Carter at once. A plot to seize the
Planetara? But when?
I froze with startled horror.
The diaphragms at my ears rang with Miko's words: "I have set the time
for now! In two minutes--"
It seemed to startle both Rankin and George Prince almost as much as I.
Both exclaimed:
"No!"
"No? Why not? Everyone is at his post!"
Prince repeated: "No!"
And Rankin: "But can we trust them? The stewards--the crew?"
"Eight of them are our own men! You didn't know that, Rankin? They've
been aboard the Planetara for several voyages. Oh, this is no
quickly-planned affair, even though we let you in on it so recently. You
and Johnson. By God!"
* * * * *
I crouched tense. There was a commotion in the stateroom. Miko had
discovered that his insulation was cut off! He had evidently leaped to
his feet; I heard a chair overturn. And the Martian's roar: "It's off!
Did you do that, Prince? By God, if I thought--"
My apparatus went suddenly dead as Miko flung on his insulation. I lost
my wits in the confusion; I should have instantly taken off my
vibrations. There was interference; it showed in the dark space of the
ventilator grid over Miko's doorway; a snapping in the air there, a
swirl of sparks.
I heard with my unaided ears Miko's roar over his insulation: "By God,
they're listening!"
The scream of a hand-siren sounded from his stateroom. It rang over the
ship. His signal! I heard it answered from some distant point. And then
a shot; a commotion in the lower corridors....
The attack upon the Planetara had started!
I was on my feet. The shouts of startled passengers sounded, a turmoil
beginning everywhere.
I stood momentarily transfixed. The door of Miko's stateroom burst open.
He stood there, with Moa, Rankin and George Prince crowding behind him.
He saw me. "You, Gregg Haljan!"
He came leaping at me.
CHAPTER XII
_The Weightless Combat_
I was taken wholly by surprise. There was an instant when I stood
numbed, fumbling for a weapon at my belt, undecided whether to run or
stand my ground. Miko was no more than twenty feet from me. He checked
his forward rush. The light from an overhead tube was on him; I saw in
his hand the cylinder projector of his paralyzing ray.
I plucked my heat-cylinder from my belt, and fired without taking aim.
My tiny heat-beam flashed. I must have grazed Miko's hand. His roar of
anger and pain rang out over the turmoil. He dropped his weapon; then
stooped to pick it up. But Moa forestalled him. She leaped and seized
it.
"Careful! Fool--you promised not to hurt him!"
A confusion of swift action. Rankin had turned and darted away. I saw
George Prince stumbling half in front of the struggling Miko and Moa.
And I heard footsteps beside me; a hand gripped me, jerked at me.
Over the turmoil Prince's voice sounded: "Gregg--Haljan!"
I recall I had the impression that Prince was frightened; he had half
fallen in front of Miko. And there was Miko's voice:
"Let go of me!"
And Moa: "Come!"
It was Balch gripping me. "Gregg! This way--run! Get out of here! He'll
kill you with that ray--"
Miko's ray flashed, but George Prince had knocked at his arm. I did not
dare fire again. Prince was in the way. Balch, who was unarmed, shoved
me violently back.
"Gregg--the chart-room!"
* * * * *
I turned and ran, with Balch after me. Prince had fallen, or been felled
by Miko. A flash followed me. Miko's weapon, but again it missed. He did
not pursue me; he ran the other way, through the port-side door of the
library.
Balch and I found ourselves in the lounge. Shouting, frightened
passengers were everywhere. The place was in wild confusion, the whole
ship ringing now with shouts.
"To the chart-room, Gregg!"
I called to the passengers: "Get back to your rooms!"
I followed Balch. We ran through the archway to the deck. In the
starlight I saw figures scurrying aft, but none were near us. The deck
forward was dim with heavy shadows. The oval window and door of the
chart-room were blue-yellow from the tube-lights inside. No one seemed
on the deck there; and then, as we approached, I saw, further forward in
the bow, the trap-door to the cage standing open. Johnson had been
released.
From one of the chart-room windows a heat-ray sizzled. It barely missed
us. Balch shouted, "Carter--don't!"
The captain called, "Oh--you, Balch--and Haljan--"
He came out on the deck as we rushed up. His left arm was dangling
limp.
"God--this--" He got no further. From the turret overhead a tiny
search-beam came down and disclosed us. Blackstone was supposed to be on
duty up there, with a course-master at the controls. But, glancing up, I
saw, illumined by the turret lights, the figures of Ob Hahn in his
purple-white robe, and Johnson the purser. And on the turret balcony,
two fallen men--Blackstone and the course-master.
* * * * *
Johnson was training the spotlight on us. And Hahn fired a Martian ray.
It struck Balch beside me. He dropped.
Carter was shouting, "Inside! Gregg, get inside!"
I stopped to raise up Balch. Another beam came down. A heat-ray this
time. It caught the fallen Balch full in the chest, piercing him
through. The smell of his burning flesh rose to sicken me. He was dead.
I dropped his body. Carter shoved me into the chart-room.
In the small, steel-lined room, Carter and I slid the door closed. We
were alone here. The thing had come so quickly it had taken Captain
Carter, like us all, wholly unawares. We had anticipated spying
eavesdroppers, but not this open brigandage. No more than a minute or
two had passed since Miko's siren in his stateroom had given the signal
for the attack. Carter had been in the chart-room. Blackstone was in the
turret. At the outbreak of confusion, Carter dashed out to see Hahn
releasing Johnson from the cage. From the forward chart-room window now
I could see where Hahn with a torch had broken the cage-seal. The torch
lay on the deck. There had been an exchange of shots; Carter's arm was
paralyzed; Johnson and Hahn had escaped.
Carter was as confused as I. There had simultaneously been an encounter
up in the turret. Blackstone and the course-master were killed. The
lookout had been shot from his post in the forward observatory. His body
dangled now, twisted half in and half out of his window.
* * * * *
We could see several of Miko's men--erstwhile members of our crew and
steward-corps--scurrying from the turret along the upper bridges toward
the dark and silent helio-room. Snap was up there. But was he? The
helio-room glowed suddenly with dim light, but there was no evidence of
a fight there. The fighting seemed mostly below the deck, down in the
hull-corridors. A blended horror of sounds came up to us. Screams,
shouts, and the hissing and snapping of ray weapons. Our crew--such of
them as were loyal--were making a stand down below. But it was brief.
Within a minute it died away. The passengers, amidships in the
superstructure, were still shouting. Then above them Miko's roar
sounded.
"Be quiet! Go in your rooms--you will not be harmed."
The brigands in these few minutes were in control of the ship. All but
this little chart-room, where, with most of the ship's weapons, Carter
and I were intrenched.
"God, Gregg, that this should come upon us!"
Carter was fumbling with the chart-room weapons. "Here, Gregg, help me.
What have you got? Heat-ray? That's all I had ready."
It struck me then as I helped him make the connections that Carter in
this crisis was at best an inefficient commander. His red face had gone
splotchy purple; his hands were trembling. Skilled as captain of a
peaceful liner, he was at a loss now. Nor could I blame him. It is easy
to say we might have taken warning, done this or that, and come
triumphant through this attack. But only the fool looks backward and
says, "I would have done better."
* * * * *
I tried to summon my wits. The ship was lost to us, unless Carter and I
could do something. Our futile weapons! They were all here--four or
five heat-ray hand projectors that could send a pencil-ray a hundred
feet or so. I shot one diagonally up at the turret where Johnson was
leering down at our rear window, but he saw my gesture and dropped back
out of sight. The heat-beam flashed harmlessly up and struck the turret
roof. Then across the turret window came a sheen of radiance--an
electro-barrage. And behind it, Hahn's suave, evil face appeared. He
shouted down:
"We have orders to spare you, Gregg Haljan--or you would have been
killed long ago!"
My answering shot hit his barrage with a shower of sparks, behind which
he stood unmoved.
Carter handed me another weapon. "Gregg, try this."
I levelled the old explosive bullet projector; Carter crouched beside
me. But before I could press the trigger, from somewhere down the
starlit deck an electro-beam hit me. The little rifle exploded, burst
its breech. I sank back to the floor, tingling from the shock of the
hostile current. My hands were blackened from the exploding powder.
Carter seized me. "No use! Hurt?"
"No."
* * * * *
The stars through the dome-windows were swinging. A long swing--the
shadows and starlit patches on the deck were all shifting. The Planetara
was turning. The heavens revolved in a great round sweep of movement,
then settled as we took our new course. Hahn at the turret controls had
swung us. The earth and the sun showed over our bow quarter. The
sunlight mingled red-yellow with the brilliant starlight. Hahn's signals
were sounding; I heard them answered from the mechanism rooms down
below. Brigands there--in full control. The gravity plates were being
set to the new positions; we were on our new course. Headed a point or
two off the Earth-line. Not headed for the moon? I wondered.
Carter and I were planning nothing. What was there to plan? We were
under observation. A Martian paralyzing ray--or electronic beam, far
more deadly than our own puny police weapons--would have struck us the
instant we tried to leave the chart-room.
My swift-running thoughts were interrupted by a shout from down the
deck. At a corner of the cabin superstructure some fifty feet from our
windows the figure of Miko appeared. A barrage-radiance hung around him
like a shimmering mantle. His voice sounded:
"Gregg Haljan, do you yield?"
Carter leaped up from where he and I were crouching. Against all reason
of safety he leaned from the low window, waving his hamlike fist.
"Yield? No! I am in command here, you pirate! Brigand--murderer!"
* * * * *
I pushed him back. "Careful!"
He was spluttering, and over it Miko's sardonic laugh sounded. "Very
well--but you will talk? Shall we argue about it?"
I stood up. "What do you want to say, Miko?"
Behind him the tall, thin figure of his sister showed. She was plucking
at him. He turned violently.
"I won't hurt him! Gregg Haljan--is this a truce? You will not shoot?"
He was shielding Moa.
"No," I called. "For a moment, no. A truce. What is it you want to
say?"
I could hear the babble of passengers who were herded in the cabin with
brigands guarding them. George Prince, bareheaded, but shrouded in his
cloak, showed in a patch of light behind Moa. He looked my way and then
retreated into the lounge archway.
Miko called, "You must yield. We want you, Haljan."
"No doubt," I jeered.
"Alive. It is easy to kill you."
* * * * *
I could not doubt that. Carter and I were little more than rats in a
trap, here in the chart-room. But Miko wanted to take me alive: that was
not so simple. He added persuasively:
"We want you to help us navigate. Will you?"
"No."
"Will you help us, Captain Carter? Tell your cub, this Haljan, to yield.
You are fools. We understand that Haljan has been handling the ship's
mathematics. Him we need most."
Carter roared: "Get back from there! This is no truce!"
I shoved aside his levelled bullet-projector. "Wait a minute!" I called
to Miko. "Navigate--where?"
"Oh," he retorted, "that is our business, not yours. When you lay down
your weapons and come out of there, I will give you the course."
"Back to the earth?" I suggested.
I could fancy him grinning behind the sheen of his barrage at my
question.
"The earth? Yes--shall we go there? Give me your orders, Gregg Haljan.
Of course I will obey them."
His sardonic words were interrupted. And I realized that all this parley
was a ruse of Miko's to take me alive. He had made a gesture. Hahn,
watching from the turret window, doubtless flashed a signal down to the
hull-corridors. The magnetizer control under the chart-room was
altered, our artificial gravity cut off. I felt the sudden lightness; I
gripped the window casement and clung. Carter was startled into
incautious movement. It flung him out into the center of the chart-room,
his arms and legs grotesquely flailing.
* * * * *
And across the chart-room, in the opposite window, I felt rather than
saw the shape of something. A figure--almost invisible, but not
quite--was trying to climb in! I flung the empty rifle I was holding. It
hit something solid in the window; in a flare of sparks a black-hooded
figure materialized. A man climbing in! His weapon spat. There was a
tiny electronic flash, deadly silent. The intruder had shot at Carter;
struck him. Carter gave one queer scream. He had floated to the floor;
his convulsive movement when he was hit hurled him to the ceiling. His
body struck, twitched; bounced back and sank inert on the floor-grid
almost at my feet.
I clung to the casement. Across the space of the weightless room the
hooded intruder was also clinging. His hood fell back. It was Johnson.
He leered at me.
"Killed him, the bully! Well, he deserved it. Now for you, Mr. Third
Officer Haljan!"
But he did not dare fire at me--Miko had forbidden it. I saw him reach
under his robe, doubtless for a low-powered paralyzing ray such as Miko
already had used on me. But he never got it out. I had no weapon within
reach. I leaned into the room, still holding the casement, and doubled
my legs under me. I kicked out from the window.
The force catapulted me across the space of the room like a volplane. I
struck the purser. We gripped. Our locked, struggling bodies bounced out
into the room. We struck the floor, surged up like balloons to the
ceiling, struck it with a flailing arm or a leg and floated back.
* * * * *
Grotesque, abnormal combat! Like fighting in weightless water. Johnson
clutched his weapon, but I twisted his wrist, held his arm outstretched
so that he could not aim it. I was aware of Miko's voice shouting on the
deck outside.
Johnson's left hand was gouging at my face, his fingers plucking at my
eyes. We lunged down to the floor, then up again, close to the ceiling.
I twisted his wrists. He dropped the weapon and it sank away. I tried to
reach it, but could not. Then I had him by the throat. I was stronger
than he, and more agile. I tried choking him, his thick bull-neck within
my fingers. He kicked, scrambled, tore and gouged at me. Tried to shout,
but it ended in a gurgle. And then, as he felt his breath stopped, his
hands came up in an effort to tear mine loose.
We sank again to the floor. We were momentarily upright. I felt my feet
touch. I bent my knees. We sank further.
And then I kicked violently upward. Our locked bodies shot to the
ceiling. Johnson's head was above me. It struck the steel roof of the
chart-room. A violent blow. I felt him go suddenly limp. I cast him off,
and, doubling my body, I kicked at the ceiling. It sent me diagonally
downward to the window, where I clung and regained stability.
And I saw Miko standing on the deck with a weapon levelled at me!
CHAPTER XIII
_The Torture_
"Haljan! Yield or I'll fire! Moa, give me the smaller one. This
cursed--"
He had in his hand too large a projector. Its ray would kill me. If he
wanted to take me alive, he would not fire. I chanced it.
"No!"
I tried to draw myself beneath the window. An automatic bullet projector
was on the floor where Carter had dropped it. I pulled myself down.
Miko did not fire. I reached the revolver. The dead bodies of the
captain and purser had drifted together on the floor in the center of
the room.
I hitched myself back to the window. With upraised weapon I gazed
cautiously out. Miko had disappeared. The deck within my line of vision
was empty.
But was it? Something told me to beware. I clung to the casement, ready
upon the instant to shove myself down. There was a movement in a shadow
along the deck. Then a figure rose up.
"Don't fire, Haljan!"
The sharp command, half appeal, stopped the pressure of my finger on the
trigger of the automatic. It was the tall lanky Englishman, Sir Arthur
Coniston, as he called himself. So he too was one of Miko's band! The
light through a dome-window fell full on him.
"If you fire, Haljan, and kill me--Miko will kill you then, surely."
From where he had been crouching he could not command my window. But
now, upon the heels of his placating words, he abruptly shot. The
low-powered ray, had it struck, would have felled me without killing.
But it went over my head as I dropped. Its aura made my senses reel.
Coniston shouted, "Haljan!"
* * * * *
I did not answer. I wondered if he would dare approach to see if I had
been hit. A minute passed. Then another. I thought I heard Miko's voice
on the deck outside. But it was an aerial, microscopic whisper close
beside me.
"We see you, Haljan! You must yield!"
Their eavesdropping vibrations, with audible projection, were upon me. I
retorted aloud.
"Come and get me! You cannot take me alive."
I do protest if this action of mine in the chart-room may seem bravado.
I had no wish to die. There was within me a very healthy desire for
life. But I felt, by holding out, that some chance might come wherewith
I might turn events against these brigands. Yet reason told me it was
hopeless. Our loyal members of the crew were killed, no doubt. Captain
Carter and Balch were killed. The lookouts and Course-masters also. And
Blackstone.
There remained only Dr. Frank and Snap. Their fate I did not yet know.
And there was George Prince. He, perhaps, would help me if he could.
But, at best, he was a dubious ally.
"You are very foolish, Haljan," murmured the projection of Miko's voice.
And then I heard Coniston:
"See here, why would not a hundred pounds of gold-leaf tempt you? The
code-words which were taken from Johnson--I mean to say, why not tell us
where they are?"
So that was one of the brigands new difficulties! Snap had taken the
code-word sheet, that time we sealed the purser in the cage.
I said, "You'll never find them. And when a police ship sights us, what
will you do then?"
The chances of a police ship were slim indeed, but the brigands
evidently did not know that. I wondered again what had become of Snap.
Was he captured--or still holding them off?
I was watching my windows; for at any moment, under cover of this talk,
I might be assailed.
* * * * *
Gravity came suddenly to the room. Miko's voice said. "We mean well by
you, Haljan. There is your normality. Join us. We need you to chart our
course."
"And a hundred pounds of gold-leaf," urged Coniston. "Or more. Why, this
treasure--"
I could hear an oath from Miko. And then his ironic voice: "We will not
bother you, Haljan. There is no hurry. You will be hungry in good time.
And sleepy. Then we will come and get you. And a little acid will make
you think differently about helping us...."
His vibrations died away. The pull of gravity in the room was normal. I
was alone in the dim silence, with the bodies of Carter and Johnson
lying huddled on the grid. I bent to examine them. Both were dead.
My isolation was no ruse this time. The outlaws made no further attack.
Half an hour passed. The deck outside, what I could see of it, was
vacant. Balch lay dead close outside the chart-room door. The bodies of
Blackstone and the Course-master had been removed from the turret
window. A forward lookout--one of Miko's men--was on duty in the nearby
tower. Hahn was at the turret controls. The ship was under orderly
handling, heading back upon a new course. For the Earth? Or the Moon? It
did not seem so.
I found, in the chart-room, a Benson curve-light projector which poor
Captain Carter had very nearly assembled. I worked on it, trained it
through my rear window, along the empty deck; bent it into the lounge
archway. Upon my grid the image of the lounge interior presently
focused. The passengers in the lounge were huddled in a group.
Disheveled, frightened, with Moa standing watching them. Stewards were
serving them with a meal.
* * * * *
Upon a bench, bodies were lying. Some were dead. I saw Rance Rankin.
Others were evidently only injured. Dr. Frank was moving among them,
attending them. Venza was there, unharmed. And I saw the gamblers, Shac
and Dud, sitting white-faced, whispering together. And Glutz's little
be-ribboned, be-curled figure on a stool.
George Prince was there, standing against the walls shrouded in his
mourning cloak, watching the scene with alert, roving eyes. And by the
opposite doorway, the huge towering figure of Miko stood on guard. But
Snap was missing.
A brief glimpse. Miko saw my Benson-light. I could have equipped a
heat-ray, and fired along the curved Benson-light into that lounge. But
Miko gave me no time.
He slid the lounge door closed, and Moa leaped to close the one on my
side. My light was cut off; my grid showed only the blank deck and
door.
Another interval. I had made plans. Futile plans! I could get into the
turret perhaps, and kill Hahn. I had the invisible cloak which Johnson
was wearing. I took it from his body. Its mechanism could be repaired.
Why, with it I could creep about the ship, kill these brigands one by
one perhaps. George Prince would be with me. The brigands who had been
posing as the stewards and crew-members were unable to navigate; they
would obey my orders. There were only Miko, Coniston and Hahn to kill.
Futile plans! From my window I could gaze up to the helio-room. And now
abruptly I heard Snap's voice:
"No! I tell you--no!"
And Miko: "Very well. We will try this."
So Snap was captured, but not killed. Relief swept me. He was in the
helio-room, and Miko was with him. But my relief was short-lived.
* * * * *
After a brief interval there came a moan from Snap. It floated down from
the silence overhead. It made me shudder.
My Benson-beam shot into the helio window. It showed me Snap lying there
on the floor. He was bound with wire. His torso had been stripped. His
livid face was ghastly plain in my light.
Miko was bending over him. Miko with a heat-cylinder no longer than a
finger. Its needle-beam played upon Snap's naked chest. I could see the
gruesome little trail of smoke rising; and as Snap twisted and jerked,
there on his flesh was the red and blistered trail of the violet-hot
ray.
"Now will you tell?"
"No!"
Miko laughed. "No? Then I shall write my name a little deeper...."
A black scar now--a trail etched in the quivering flesh.
"Oh!--" Snap's face went white as chalk as he pressed his lips
together.
"Or a little acid? This fire-writing does not really hurt? Tell me what
you did with those code-words!"
"No!"
In his absorption Miko did not notice my light. Nor did I have the wit
to try and fire along it. I was trembling. Snap under torture!
As the beam went deeper, Snap suddenly screamed. But he ended, "No! I
will send--no message for you--"
It had been only a moment. In the chart-room window beside me again a
figure appeared! No image. A solid, living person, undisguised by any
cloak of invisibility. George Prince had chanced my fire and had crept
up upon me.
"Haljan! Don't attack me."
* * * * *
I dropped my light connections. As impulsively I stood up, I saw through
the window the figure of Coniston on the deck watching the result of
Prince's venture.
"Haljan--yield."
Prince no more than whispered it. He stood outside on the deck; the low
window casement touched his waist. He leaned over it.
"He's torturing Snap! Call out that you will yield."
The thought had already been in my mind. Another scream from Snap
chilled me with horror. I shouted,
"Miko! Stop!"
I rushed to the window and Prince gripped me.
"Louder!"
I called louder. "_Miko!_ Stop!" My upflung voice mingled with Snap's
agony of protest. Then Miko heard me. His head and shoulders showed up
there at the helio-room oval.
"You, Haljan?"
Prince shouted, "I have made him yield. He will obey you if you stop
that torture."
I think that poor Snap must have fainted. He was silent. I called,
"Stop! I will do what you command."
Miko jeered, "That is good. A bargain, if you and Dean obey me. Disarm
him, Prince, and bring him out."
* * * * *
Miko moved back into the helio-room. On the deck Coniston was advancing,
but cautiously, mistrustful of me.
"Gregg."
George Prince flung a leg over the casement and leaped lightly into the
dim chart-room. His small slender figure stood beside me, clung to me.
"Gregg."
A moment, while we stood there together. No ray was upon us. Coniston
could not see us, nor could he hear our whispers.
"Gregg."
A different voice; its throaty, husky quality gone. A soft pleading.
"Gregg--
"Gregg, don't you know me? Gregg, dear...."
Why, what was this? Not George Prince? A masquerader, yet so like George
Prince.
"Gregg, don't you know me?"
Clinging to me. A soft touch upon my arm. Fingers, clinging. A surge of
warm, tingling current was flowing between us.
My sweep of instant thoughts. A speck of human Earth-dust, falling free.
That was George Prince, who had been killed. George Prince's body,
disguised by the scheming Carter and Dr. Frank, buried in the guise of
his sister. And this black-robed figure who was trying to help us--
"Anita! Dear God! Anita, darling! Anita!"
"Gregg, dear one!"
"Anita! Dear God!"
* * * * *
My arms went around her, my lips pressed hers, and felt her tremulous,
eager answer.
"Gregg, dear."
"Anita, you!"
The form of Coniston showed at our window. She cast me off. She said,
with her throaty swagger of assumed masculinity:
"I have him, Sir Arthur. He will obey us."
I sensed her warning glance. She shoved me toward the window. She said
ironically, "Have no fear, Haljan. You will not be tortured, you and
Dean, if you obey our commands."
Coniston gripped me. "You fool! You caused us a lot of trouble, didn't
you? Move along there!"
He jerked me roughly through the window. Marched me the length of the
deck. Out to the stern-space; opened the door of my cubby; flung me in
and sealed the door upon me.
"Miko will come presently."
I stood in the darkness of my tiny room, listening to his retreating
footsteps. But my mind was not on him....
All the Universe in that instant had changed for me. Anita was alive!
(_To be continued_)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] As early as 1910 it was discovered that an object magnetized under
certain conditions was subject to a loss of weight, its gravity
partially nullified. The Martel discovery undoubtedly followed
that method.
[2] "United States of the World," which came into being in 2057 upon the
centenary of the Yellow War.
[3] Trinight Hour, i.e., 3 A. M.
[4] Pressure sickness. Caused by the difficulty of maintaining a
constantly normal air pressure within the vessel owing to the
sudden, extreme changes from heat to cold.
[5] "Set and Setta," the Martian equivalent of Mr. and Miss.
[6] A Venus form of jocular, intimate greeting.
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