One by one the reports came in. Fuming, Tawney checked off the sections,
watched the net draw tighter throughout the ship. They were somewhere,
they _had_ to be....
But nobody seemed to find them.
He was buzzing for his first mate when the power went off. The lights
went out, the speaker went dead in his hand. The computers sighed
contentedly and stopped computing. Abruptly the emergency circuits went
into operation, flooding the darkness with harsh white lights. The
intercom started buzzing again.
"Engine room, boss."
"What happened down there?" Tawney roared.
The man sounded like he'd just run the mile. "Generators," he panted.
"Blown out."
"Well, get somebody in there to fix them. Have a crew seal off the
area...."
"Can't, boss. Fix them, I mean."
"Why not? What have we got electricians for?"
"There's nothing left to fix. The generators aren't wrecked ... they're
demolished...."
"Then get the pair that did it...."
"They're not here. We've been sealed up tight. There's no way anybody
could have gotten in here...."
After that, things began to get confusing.
* * * * *
For a while Merrill Tawney thought that his crew was going crazy ... and
then he began to wonder if he were the one who was losing his mind.
Whatever the case, Merrill Tawney was certain of one thing. The things
that were happening on his orbit-ship could not possibly be happening.
A guard in one of the outer shell storage holds called in with a
disquieting report. Greg Hunter, it seemed, had just been spotted
vanishing into one of the storage compartments from the main outer-shell
corridor. When the guard had broken through the jammed hatchway to
collar his trapped victim, there was no sign of the victim anywhere
around.
At the same moment, a report came in from a guard on the opposite side
of the ship. He had just spotted Greg Hunter _there_, it seemed, moving
down a spur corridor. The guard had held his fire (according to Tawney's
orders) and summoned help to corner the quarry ... but when help
arrived, the quarry had vanished.
* * * * *
Five minutes later the Hunter boy was discovered in the Hydroponics
section, busily reducing all the yeast vats to shambles with a curious
weapon that seemed to eat holes in things. It ate the deck out from
under the guard's feet, sending him plunging through the floor into the
galley. By the time he had scrambled back again, the Hunter boy was
gone, and a rapid move to seal off the region failed to turn him up
again. The guard was upset; Tawney was a great deal more upset, because
at the time Greg Hunter was (reportedly) playing havoc with the
yeast-vats in Hydroponics he was also (reportedly) knocking guards down
like ten-pins in the main corridor off the engine room while
reinforcements tried to pin him down with a wide-beam stunner....
Quite suddenly emergency circuits closed and lights flashed in the
control cabin, the special signal for a meteor-collision with the outer
shell in No. 3 hold. Tawney signalled for the section chief frantically.
"What's happening down there?"
"I can't talk," the section chief gasped. "Gotta get into a suit, we're
leaking in here...."
"Well, plug up the hole!"
"The hole's four feet wide, sir!" There was a fit of coughing and the
contact broke. The signals for No. 4 hold and No. 5 hold were flashing
now; while the crew members in the vicinity scrambled for pressure suits
someone systematically proceeded to blow holes in No. 9, No. 10 and No.
11 holds....
It was impossible. The reports came in thick and fast. Greg Hunter
was in two places at once, and everywhere he went ... in both
places ... there was a trail of unbelievable destruction. Bulkheads
demolished, gaping holes torn in the outer shell, the air-reconditioning
units smashed beyond repair.... Tawney buzzed for his first mate.
An emergency switch cut into the line, with the frantic voice of a
section chief. Johnny Coombs had been spotted disappearing into the
ventilator shaft in the engine sector. "Well, go in after him!" Tawney
screamed. He got his first mate finally, and snarled orders into the
speaker. "They're in the ventilators. Get a crew in there and stop
them."
But it was dark in the ventilator shafts. No emergency lights in there.
Worse, the crewmen were hearing the things that were being whispered
around the ship. The ventilator shafts yawned menacingly before them;
they went in reluctantly. Once in the dark maze of tunnels,
identification was difficult. Two guards met each other headlong in the
darkness, and put each other out of the fight in a flurry of nervous
stunner-fire. While they searched more of the holds were broken open,
leaking air through gaping rents in the hull....
Tawney felt the panic spreading; he tried to curb it, and it spread in
spite of him. The fugitives were appearing and disappearing like
wraiths. Reports back to control cabin took on a frantic note, confused
and garbled. Now the second-level bulkheads were being attacked. Over a
third of the compartments were leaking precious air into outer space.
When a terrified section chief came through with a report that two Greg
Hunters had been spotted by the same man at the same time, and that the
guards in the sector were shooting at anything that moved, including
other guards, Tawney made his way to the radio cabin and put through a
frantic signal to Jupiter Equilateral headquarters on Mars.
The contact took forever, even with the ship's powerful emergency
boosters. By the time someone at headquarters was reading him, Tawney's
report sounded confused. He was trying for the third time to explain,
clearly and logically, how two men and a ghost were scuttling his
orbit-ship under his very feet when one wall of the cabin vanished in a
crackle of blue fire, and he found himself staring at two Greg Hunters
and a grim-faced Johnny Coombs.
He made squeaky noises into the microphone and dropped it with a crash.
He groped for a chair; Johnny jerked him to his feet again. "A
scout-ship," he said tersely. "Clear it for launching. We want one with
plenty of fuel, and we don't want a single guard anywhere near the
airlock." He picked up an intercom microphone and thrust it into the
little fat man's trembling hand. "Now move! And you'd better be sure
they understand you, because you're coming with us."
Merrill Tawney stared first at Tom, then at Greg, and finally at the
microphone. Then he moved. The orders he gave to his section chiefs were
very clear and concise.
He had never argued with a ghost before, and he didn't care to start
now.
* * * * *
It was over so quickly that it seemed to Tom it had just begun, and if
so much had not been at stake, it might have been fun.
It had been the gun ... the remarkable gun that Roger Hunter had left as
his legacy ... that had been the key. It ate through steel and aluminum
alloy like putty. Whatever its power source, however it worked, by
whatever means it had been built, there had been no match for it on the
orbit-ship.
It had _worked_ ... and that was all that mattered right then.
With it, and with the advantage of a ghost that walked like a
man ... Tom Hunter, to be exact ... they had reduced the Jupiter
Equilateral orbit-ship to a smoking wreck in something less than thirty
minutes.
The signal came back that a scout-ship was ready, unguarded. Johnny
prodded Tawney with the stunner. "You first," he said.
"But where are you taking me?"
"You'll see," Johnny said.
"It was a trick," Tawney said, glaring at Tom. "They told me they shot
your ship to pieces...."
"The ship, yes," Tom said. "Not me."
"Well ... well, that's good, that's good," Tawney said quickly. He
turned to Greg. "You don't have to take me back ... the bargain is still
good...."
"Move," Johnny Coombs said.
With Tawney between them, Greg and Tom marched down the corridor toward
the airlock, with Johnny bringing up the rear. No one stopped them. No
one even came near them. One crewman stumbled on them in the corridor;
he saw Tawney with a gun in his back, and fled in terror.
They found the scout-ship, and strapped Tawney down to an accelleration
bunk, binding his hands and feet so he couldn't move. Greg checked the
controls while Tom and Johnny strapped down. A moment later the engines
fired, and the leaking wreck of the orbit-ship fell away, dwindling and
disappearing in the blackness of space.
It was a quiet journey. The red dot that was Mars grew larger every
hour. One of the three stayed awake at all times to watch Tawney while
the others slept. During the second rest period, Tom woke up while Greg
was on duty.
"How's our prisoner doing?" Tom asked.
"No problem there, he can barely move. I almost wish he'd try something,
he's too quiet."
It was true. Tawney had recovered from his shock ... but rather than
grow more worried as Mars grew large on the screen, he seemed to become
more cheerful by the minute. "He doesn't seem very worried, does he?"
Tom said.
"No, and it doesn't quite add. We've got enough on him to get Jupiter
Equilateral pushed right out of the Belt."
"I'd still feel better if we had the whole picture for the Major," Tom
said. "We still don't know what Dad found, or where he hid it...."
The uneasiness grew. Tawney ignored them, staring at the image of the
red planet on the viewscreen almost eagerly. Then, eight hours out of
Sun Lake City a U.N. Patrol ship appeared, moving toward them swiftly.
"Intercepting orbit," Greg said. "Looks like they were waiting for us."
They watched as the big ship moved in to tangential orbit, matching its
speed to theirs. Then Greg snapped the communicator switch. "Sound off,"
he said cheerfully. "We've got a prize for you."
"Stand by, we're boarding you," the Patrol sent back. "And put your
weapons aside."
Four scooters broke from the side of the Patrol ship. Greg activated the
airlock. Five minutes later a man in Patrol uniform with captain's bars
stepped into the control cabin, a stunner on ready in his hand. Three
Patrolmen came in behind him.
The captain looked around the cabin, then saw Tawney, and took a deep
breath. "Well, thank the stars you're safe at any rate. Pete, Jimmy,
take the controls."
"Hold on," Greg said. "We don't need a pilot."
The Captain looked at him. "Sorry, but we're taking you in. There won't
be any trouble unless you make it. You three are under arrest, and I'm
authorized to make it stick if I have to. I suggest you just cooperate."