CHAPTER IXThe 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 it333the 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!”
Thedoor 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.
Thecaptain 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 sat334in 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.
Cartercame 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 wentto 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.
Thesizzling 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-circuited335his 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’sall 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 XA Speck of Human Earth-dust, Falling Free....
I hadnot 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 Miko336and 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.
Butwe 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!
Yetwe 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,337unaware 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.
Fourcabin 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.
Shelay, 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 XIThe Electrical Eavesdropper
I turnedfrom 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 had338died 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.”
Shesaid 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. Frankfound 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.339He 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.
Hewent 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....”
Thename 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;focusedits 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, Isynchronized.
“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.
Mikosaid, “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 angerleaped.
Rankin said hurriedly, “Stop that!”
And Moa: “Let him alone! Sit down, you fool!”
I couldhear 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––”
Hechecked 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!”
341
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 crouchedtense. 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 XIIThe Weightless Combat
I wastaken 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 turnedand 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.
342
“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.
Johnsonwas 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.
Wecould 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!”
343
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 triedto 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.”
Thestars 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 pushedhim 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.