Tuesday's Serial: "Brigands of the Moon (The Book of Gregg Haljan)" by Ray Cummings (in English) IV

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 338 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. 340 “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 s          hot 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!