* * * * *
Fifteen minutes before twenty-two hours, a warning bell rang and the
lights dimmed. Nick Thorp showed Joel the clothes locker where he could
secure sleepers.
The lights went out while Joel was taking his shower. He switched on
the dryer in the dark.
After a few seconds his eyes began to adjust. There was a dim night
lamp in the mess-room beyond the fo'cs'le. Joel could see by its
reflected light almost as well as he could by day. The only difference
was the absence of color. Everything appeared in varying shades of gray
like a photograph.
The deadening effect of the chemicals that had been used to purify the
air of the Experimental Station was beginning to wear off. A medley of
familiar and unfamiliar smells beset his nostrils.
All at once, he halted.
There was something here that shouldn't be. Joel could smell it. A
strange alien odor that he'd caught only once before.
It was the same smell that had clung to the humanoid guard!
Joel's nostrils flared, but the odor was so faint that he couldn't tell
from whence it came. It might be emanating from any one of the gray
figures placidly asleep in the gray bunks.
He moved to his own bunk and lay down, but he couldn't sleep. That
strange scent had acted like a dash of cold water.
He didn't know how long he lay there. Hours, it seemed. There was no
sound beyond the muted rumble of the _Zenith's_ jets, the snores of
some of the prisoners.
The temperature had dropped automatically when the lights were
extinguished. He adjusted the thermal unit in his sleepers and closed
his eyes.
A faint noise from across the fo'cs'le brought them open again
instantly.
The gray elfin figure of Tamis Ravitz, the dancer, he saw, was rising
cautiously from her bunk. She was barefooted, clad in the loose
sleepers. She put her hand to her eyes. When it came away, she swept
the fo'cs'le with a brief glance.
Joel almost forgot to breathe.
The dancer had done something to her eyes because they glowed faintly
with an eerie flame!
Joel's pulse throbbed in his ears. Tamis, he saw, was moving to the
next bunk with a soundless cat-like glide. She pointed a slender metal
cylinder at the man who lay sleeping there. A bright green spot sprang
out on the man's arm!
The tattoo mark!
The cylinder must be a source of black light able to kick fluorescence
out of the tattoo marks. What did it mean? Who was Tamis?
From sleeping figure to sleeping figure, the girl glided. Sometimes she
found the tattoo mark; sometimes she didn't.
She was approaching Joel's bunk. He forced himself to relax, to breathe
evenly as if in a deep sleep.
Then she was hovering over him....
Joel's hand closed with a crushing grip about her wrist, yanked her off
her feet into the bunk!
Tamis uttered one smothered cry, struggled soundlessly. Then she seemed
to realize the futility of trying to break free and went limp.
Joel could feel her warm lithe body pinned against him. A strange alien
scent filled his nostrils. It was delicate, flower-like, yet utterly
alien.
The hair lifted on the back of his neck like the hackles of a dog. He
found himself staring deep into the girl's eyes.
They had no pupil, no color, only a weird flickering light in their
depths that glimmered like candle flame.
A shudder of revulsion swept over him. Tamis Ravitz, the dancer,
wasn't human!
"Who are you?" Joel asked in a low hoarse voice. "What are you?"
"Please! Softly!" She lay beside him, relaxed, breathing tremulously.
"What are you?" he repeated.
"I can't tell you."
"You'll tell me or I'll turn you over to the guards. What did you do to
your eyes?"
"This." She held up a pair of contact lenses. Realistic pupils and
iris, Joel saw, had been moulded into the thin slivers of glass. She
slipped them quickly into place. Her eyes looked normal, human. They
were a perfect disguise.
"What are you?" Joel asked fiercely.
"I'm a mutation."
"No, you're not. I can tell by your scent! You're not human!"
The girl went rigid. Then she began to kick and twist and squirm
desperately. Joel pinned down her legs, tightened his grip.
"D'you want me to yell for the guards?"
"No! No!" she breathed in panic.
"Then tell me what this is all about!"
"Have you the tattoo mark?"
* * * * *
Joel held up his left arm, being careful to retain a grip on her with
the other. She trained the cylinder at his elbow. The green spot began
to fluoresce.
"Ah," she breathed, relaxing limply. "You _are_ a legitimate
maladjustment case. I thought you were a spy...." Her voice trailed off.
Joel remained silent.
"Believe me," she said. "I can't tell all. Not now. It's too dangerous.
Suppose someone should wake and find me here!"
"What are you?" he repeated stonily.
She hesitated; then, putting her lips against his ear, she breathed,
"Ganelon. I'm ganelon--not human. I--I am a native of the planet you
humans call Asgard."
"But how have you escaped detection? Why hasn't anyone ever seen a
Centaurian?"
"They've seen us--often." There was the suggestion of a giggle in
Tamis' low voice. "Perhaps, like Professor Liedl thinks, we're plants."
"No. You're animal. I can tell. Maybe you could fool my eyes but not my
nose."
"That nose of yours. It is unfair. _You_ are the mutation!" She gave a
silvery chuckle and then clapped her hand over her mouth.
"Please," she begged. "I must go. We are courting discovery!"
"You haven't told me...."
"Tomorrow night," she interrupted. Suddenly she stiffened.
Joel heard it too. The faint noise of a heavy body shifting in one of
the bunks. His eyes darted across the darkened fo'cs'le!
Walt Eriss, the burly ex-surgeon, had raised himself to one elbow and
was staring across into their bunk.
Joel's heart stood still.
How long had Eriss been awake? Had he heard anything?
Joel could distinguish his features clearly but in shadings of gray and
black. Eriss' eyes were narrowed, his mouth open in an expression of
acute concentration.
"Does he see us?" Tamis breathed in terror.
"No." The word carried only as far as the girl's ear.
With a swift cat-like movement, Tamis slid to her feet and stood like a
gray statue.
The shaggy giant was swinging his legs silently over the edge of his
bunk. With infinite caution he began to creep towards them.
Joel stood up beside Tamis. Around him there was silence broken only by
the low breathing of the prisoners, the faint rumble of the _Zenith's_
jets.
He pressed himself against the foot of the bunk, waiting, waiting for
that stalking gray giant to creep within reach.
Joel didn't dare breathe. The ex-surgeon was so close that he could see
his lips drawn back from his teeth, his blind staring eyes trying to
probe the blackness. It took an effort of will to realize that it was
too dark for Eriss to see anything.
Another step.
Joel set himself.
Eriss' foot glided forward. He was within reach.
Joel's balled fist came up like a sledge-hammer, cracked solidly
against the point of Eriss' chin. There was a distinct "pop!" as the
ex-surgeon's jawbone broke. His head snapped back, his knees buckled....
[Illustration: _Joel's balled fist came up like a sledge-hammer._]
Joel stepped forward, caught him beneath the arms. Walt Eriss was out
cold.
"Tamis!" Joel hissed.
"Yes?"
"Grab his feet. We'll lay him in his bunk."
Together they lifted the giant, hauled him across the deck, stowed him
in his bed.
"Tomorrow!" Tamis breathed.
Joel saw her slide into her bunk. He retreated across the fo'cs'le and
lay down, but his brain was reeling.
What did the presence of a native Centaurian among the malcontents
signify? Then he thought of Walt Eriss and a coldness flowed through
his veins. How much had the ex-surgeon overheard of this?
At length in utter emotional exhaustion, he dropped off to sleep.
* * * * *
Joel was awakened by lights and the angry sound of voices. He opened
his eyes. Beams of light were darting here, there. The fo'cs'le seemed
overflowing with guards in their gaudy blue and yellow uniforms.
He caught sight of the third mate, tousle-haired and wearing a lemon
yellow dressing gown.
The third was saying, "By God, Captain Goplerud! What have we got this
voyage? A gang of homicidal maniacs?"
Walt Eriss, Joel saw, was sitting up mumbling inarticulately. His jaw
was swollen and queerly crooked. The ship's doctor was fussing over
him.
"Jaw's broken," the doctor diagnosed.
Captain Goplerud ran his fingers distractedly through his hair. "It's
that damned Hakkyt!" he said. "Hakkyt did this."
"Who's Hakkyt?" Mister Mullin wanted to know.
"He's the fellow who beat up Eriss before."
"Where is he?"
"Here," said Joel swinging his feet to the deck.
The beam of a flashlight struck him in the eyes.
"D'you know anything about this?" Mister Mullin demanded.
Joel shook his head.
"Does anyone know anything about it?" the third mate cried swinging the
light beam in a flashing arc.
No one answered.