The girl lifted her eyes to his. "I was proscribed. Tri-World has
granted me amnesty. That was their price. My life. I wouldn't have done
it, Gavin, but I was afraid."
"Does that explain why you tried to double-cross Tri-World in the first
place?"
"I told you about that."
"And what about Trev? He hid you out when you were proscribed. He got
you aboard the _Nova_. Why did you sell him out to Cabot?"
"But I didn't. I--I...."
"Don't lie to me," he said and gripped her shoulders. "You'd made your
dicker with Tri-World. Trev was in your way. He knew too much about
you. He might even have got wind of what you were up to. So you went to
Cabot and told him about Trev being a dealer in scientific secrets. You
knew Cabot would kill him, thinking the Martian had sold out to X."
The girl flinched. "I'm not asking you to shield me, Gavin. Turn me
loose. Just let me have a fighting chance to escape. Give me a chance,
Gavin."
"And Cabot," Gavin continued inexorably, his pale blue eyes stony. "You
delivered Cabot and the _Nova_ over to Tri-World."
He turned her loose.
"Give you a chance," he repeated and gave a short bitter laugh. "A
chance to do what? Double-cross me like you have everyone else?"
Nadia shrank away. "The dream!" she said in a frightened voice. "It's
just as it was in the dream. You laughed!"
Villanowski interrupted sadly. "You weren't dreaming during the little
death. We're only equipped with three dimensional sense organs. We're
blind to everything but the immediate instant. But time's a dimension.
It's co-existent. When the _Nova_ was projected across time, your
entire life was spread out around you. What you actually did was
experience a segment of your life. It happened to be a segment in the
future."
Nadia's lips were bloodless. "You guessed when I told you about the
dream?"
"I didn't guess," replied Villanowski. "I knew! Miss Petrovna, if you
saw the _Nova_ captured by the Interplanetary Patrol through efforts of
Murdock who was a T.I.S. agent, then it was inevitable that it would
take place exactly as you had seen it. There was nothing any of us
could do about it!"
A faint grin broke across Villanowski's homely face. "I saw that it
behooved me to give Murdock a hand when and if he needed it."
Gavin said, "I think I can promise you amnesty, Villanowski. I couldn't
have captured the _Nova_ without your help."
"Oh, that's not all," Villanowski chuckled. "The Empire will want this
space drive to power her ships. I'll be a valuable man. Even Y didn't
intend to kill me until I had explained its mechanism to Tri-World's
scientists."
"How long," asked Gavin abruptly, "have we been on Jupiter? I lost
track after that shell knocked me out at the cantonment."
"This is the second day."
Gavin wrinkled his brow. "The patrol ships should be here in about four
hours."
* * * * *
Outside the _Nova_, a gaping hole in space marked her position. The
astounded crew of the _Comet_, who had landed prepared to refuel the
captured _Nova_, eyed the eerie vacancy with mixed emotions. One of the
crew flung a rock into the enveloping blackness. It disappeared. There
was no sound of its falling to the ground.
The commander of the _Comet_, deprived of Y's guidance, fumed
nervously. He glanced at his watch at intervals, saying at length, "If
the _Nova_ doesn't reappear by dark, we'll take off. We can lay up and
re-establish contact by radio."
The men gathered about the maw of blackness staring into it with
hypnotic fascination.
They fell an easy prey to the five sleek patrol craft which plummeted
down on them three hours later.
The short Jovian day was on the wane when the _Nova_ began to gather
substance like a tenuous cloud. Her misty outlines grew solid. Then the
port opened. Gavin Murdock appeared in the entrance.
Commandant Samuels, a grizzled veteran of the T.I.S., was the first man
up the gangplank. He shook Gavin's hand. "Nice work, Murdock. But it
smacks damnably of witchcraft."
The Flight Commander was right behind him, followed by the captains of
the Empire's patrol spacers. The Flight Commander caught sight of two
of Y's men lying unconscious just within the port.
"What the hell's this? The palace of the sleeping beauty?"
"You haven't seen the half of it," Gavin assured him with a grin.
"They're lying all over the ship like that. Villanowski says the
effects last about an hour. Better lock them up before they come to."
"Villanowski?" echoed the T.I.S. Commandant. "He's not dead, is he?"
"No," said Gavin, surprised at the anxiety in the Commandant's voice.
"Good!" growled Samuels. He lowered his voice to a subdued roar.
"Ticklish mission. I'm supposed to persuade him to accept a post on the
Empire's Bureau of Research. They're afraid his space drive will fall
into wrong hands. But Villanowski's such an embittered old goat, he'll
probably...."
There was a faint chuckle behind Gavin.
Villanowski, who had come up unobserved, said, "Your diplomacy,
Commandant Samuels, is unique." There was a broad grin on his homely
face. "I couldn't think of opposing such finesse."
The grizzled T.I.S. Commandant's features flamed an apoplectic red.
Then he burst into laughter, wiped his eyes, and blew his nose.
"Where's Nadia?" Gavin asked sharply.
"Ironed to my old chair in the officer's mess." Villanowski handed
Gavin the keys.
Gavin passed them on to the Commandant. He gave a terse but concise
report, while the men filed aboard and began to cart the unconscious
Tri-World agents off to the patrol spacers.
Y was found to be dead, the blow on his esophagus having killed
him. When the mask was stripped from his face, Commandant Samuels
identified him in amazement as the chief of Tri-World's gestapo.
"We caught X, too," he said. "We received a flash aboard the flagship
that X has been captured in space."
"What was he charged with?"
"Piracy. Y's men will be tried on the same charges. Tri-World, of
course, will disclaim any connection, but she'll have to rebuild her
gestapo from top to bottom."
* * * * *
Gavin moved aside to allow two men with a stretcher to pass out the
lock. The body of the factor lay on the stretcher looking thin as a
straw. He was alive, Gavin noted, seeing his chest move faintly.
"This gives the death blow to the slave trade," the Commandant began.
Then he realized Gavin wasn't listening.
Nadia Petrovna followed the stretcher. Her hands were in irons and a
guard walked beside her. She passed silently between the men, her black
eyes flashing Gavin a look of hate before she descended the gangplank.
"Mark my word," said Commandant Samuels grumpily, "that girl will get
off with a light sentence. She'll run true to form and sell Tri-World
down the river. She'll be the prosecution's principal witness."
Gavin shrugged.
"Which reminds me," put in Villanowski. "Since the Empire's so anxious
for me to return to the fold, I don't want to appear too eager."
"Eh?" A pained expression rippled the T.I.S. Commandant's ruddy
features.
"I'd like the chief engineer's rating aboard the first ship to reach
the stars." There was a wistful note in Villanowski's voice.
"There shouldn't be any hitch there," the Commandant agreed in a
relieved tone. "You're the logical man to head an expedition outside
the system."
"What about a third assistant-engineer?" Gavin interrupted.
"We work pretty well together," said Villanowski.