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 naïvely 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 naïve 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 335 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...
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