At the girl's direction, Gavin passed through bare offices, smelling
of stale air and mildew and into a narrow corridor which led straight
as an arrow into the distance in either direction. Walls, ceiling and
floor radiated a pale green glow from the fungus.
Gavin, who had been keeping his sense of direction with an effort,
realized that the passage led towards Pit Nine. They followed it for a
quarter of a mile, passing only one intersecting corridor. They turned
in the second passage they met, passed along it a short distance, and
came out in the maw of Pit Nine itself.
They were on a balcony a hundred feet from the floor of the pit. The
well below was charred black by countless jet blasts. The _Nova_, a
dull black bullet-shaped monster, rested on its jets, towering straight
up four hundred feet above them. He saw an airy gangplank sloping from
the balcony to an open port in the ship. There was a glum Venusian
standing guard at the gangplank.
Urged along by the girl, Gavin ascended the gangplank into the ship
itself. "I've heard of shanghai-ing," he remarked over his shoulder.
"But this is the first case of being shanghai-ed exactly according to
your wishes."
Nadia said, "Captain Cabot will talk to you." She indicated an elevator
and they ascended rapidly to the ship's control room.
There were three men in the spacious control room: Captain Cabot, the
senior astrogator, and a communications man. They faced about, stared
at Gavin as the girl prodded him through the door.
"I found him in the Temple of Joy," said Nadia.
Cabot's glance slid over Gavin. His lean wolfish face cracked into
a smile. "I haven't time to question him now--" he began, when the
communications man interrupted.
"He's up there!" said the communications man. "Directly overhead. But
he's beyond the Heaviside layer. I can't make out his class, but he's
big. Feels like a patrol ship."
A frown passed across Cabot's face. He snapped on a televisor. "Engine
room," came a faint voice.
Cabot glanced at his watch. "Taking off in ten minutes. There's a ship
above the clouds. Don't know who she is. Have all jets primed. We may
have to dodge her."
"Check," said the voice.
"And, John," Cabot added, "I've got your third aboard. I don't care to
trust him until we get beyond the thousand-mile-limit, though, so carry
on for a while longer."
"Check," said the voice.
Cabot snapped off the televisor and turned to Nadia. "Lock Mr. Murdock
in seventeen. Then report back to the bridge."
"Yes sir," said Nadia.
Gavin was led silently below again. He could hear the rumble of the
warming jets. Nadia appeared nervous, jumpy. She wanted to get back to
the bridge and an acceleration chair before the take-off, Gavin guessed.
About midway down, she paused before a metal door numbered seventeen,
swung it open, disclosing blackness. Gavin stepped inside.
The girl allowed her face to relax. She said in a softer voice, "Lie
down. The _Nova's_ take-off is pretty rugged. Five G's." The metal door
clanged shut.
Gavin heard a bolt snick into place. Blackness, utter impenetrable
blackness engulfed him.
He spent precious minutes searching for the light switch, as the roar
of the jets whined up an ascending scale. With a grunt of satisfaction,
he found them, snapped them on. The cabin flooded with brilliance.
The body of Trev, the Martian was stretched stark and cold on the metal
deck!
* * * * *
Gavin bent shakily over the broker of slaves and scientific secrets.
Trev's black eyes were open, glassy. A thin three cornered sliver of
metal protruded from his throat. The Martian would never steal the
_Nova's_ space drive now. He had been shot with a poisoned dart.
Suddenly, a tremendous weight fell on Gavin's shoulders. He was
squashed flat to the deck beside the dead Martian, pinned there. The
breath was crushed from his chest, and he struggled wildly to inflate
his lungs.
The _Nova_, he realized in desperation, was off!
Gavin managed to roll to his belly, push himself to hands and knees.
The pressure didn't relax. He crawled to a corner, got his legs braced
against a stanchion. If the strange ship above the clouds should
prove unfriendly, the _Nova_ would be bucking like a crazed steer in
her efforts to dodge. Anyone caught unprepared would be flipped from
bulkhead to bulkhead until he was a bundle of splintered bones.
The acceleration dragged at Gavin's lean flesh. He looked ten years
older in the harsh bright light. Sweat burst from his pores; his
eye-lids drooped; his mouth sagged.
Then the whine of the jets ceased. The terrific acceleration relaxed.
Gavin felt like a toy balloon.
Consternation widened his pale blue eyes. He gripped himself for the
buffeting he was almost sure would follow.
In the silence a wild clamor broke out from stem to stern.
The general alarm!
Gavin tensed. He could feel the pulse drumming in his temples. Then
it came. The jets burst into a full throated roar. The _Nova_ lurched
crazily to the starboard and then swept upward at a tangent.
Again the _Nova_ bucked, this time to port. A sickening circular
movement took possession of his prison. The ship, he realized, must be
above the clouds in the upper stratosphere and climbing higher in tight
spirals.
Suddenly the _Nova_ gave an uncontrolled lurch. A faint far away
explosion reached his ears.
They were being fired at! That was an atomic shell bursting off the
starboard bow. Sweat coursed down Gavin's cheeks.
Were they going to let him die in the locked cabin like a trapped rat?
The crew could escape in space tenders, if the _Nova_ were hit. Another
shell burst closer, throwing the gigantic ship sideways as a hurricane
tosses a chip.
Something burst in Gavin's brain. He came to his senses, realized he
was hammering in berserk terror on the unyielding metal door. His
knuckles were streaming blood.
He got a grip on himself, forced himself to sit down again in the
corner, back to the bulkhead, feet thrust against the stanchion. The
body of the Martian, he saw, was sliding in erratic circles about the
deck.
Gavin wet his lips, his blue eyes desperate. He had scarcely settled
himself when the third explosion burst. It was so close that there was
no sound, only a terrific blast of pressure. The lights dimmed. Gavin
was torn from his stanchion and hurled across the cabin against the
opposite bulkhead.
Fortunately, he didn't strike the unguarded steel. Instead he was flung
against the Martian's body which acted as a pad. Even so the shock was
terrific. Blackness welled up behind his eyes. He lost consciousness.
Gavin opened his eyes and realized he couldn't have been unconscious
but a second or two. He sprang to his feet. And struck his head and
shoulders on the ceiling!
He gave himself a push from the overhead and floated slowly back to the
deck.
Then he realized what was wrong. The jets were quiet. A silence so
absolute that it rang in his ears blanketed the _Nova_. In all that
ship there was no sound anywhere.
The _Nova_ was falling free, falling back to the surface of Venus!