His fingers moved swiftly and a transport beam whipped out, riding the
television beam. Bands of force wrapped around the triangular machine
and wrenched viciously. In the screen the apparatus disappeared ...
simply was gone. It now lay within the _Invincible's_ control room,
jerked there by the tele-transport.
The flood of dazzling light reaching out from the _Interplanetarian_
snapped off and the little green ameba things were gone. The shrill
whistle of escaping air stopped as the eaten screens clamped down again,
sealing in the atmosphere despite the holes bored through the metal
plates.
In the television screen, Craven leaped from his chair, was staring with
Stutsman at the place where the concentrator had stood. The machine had
been ripped from a welded base and jagged, bright, torn metal gleamed in
the control room lights. Snapped cables and broken busbars lay piled
about the room.
"What happened?" Stutsman was screaming. They heard Craven laugh at the
terror in the other's voice. "Manning just walked in and grabbed it away
from us."
"But he couldn't! We had the screen up! He couldn't get through!"
Craven shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know how he did it, but he did.
Probably he could clean out the whole place if he wanted to."
"That's a good idea," said Russ, judiciously.
He stripped bank after bank of the other ship's photo-cells from their
moorings, wrecked the force field controls, ripped cables from the
engines and left the ship without means of collecting power, without
means of using power, without means of movement, of offense or defense.
* * * * *
He leaned back in his chair and regarded the screen with deep
satisfaction.
"That," he decided, "should hold them for a while."
He hauled the pipe out of his pocket and filled it from the battered
leather pouch.
Greg regarded him with a quizzical stare. "You sent the televisor back
in time. You got it inside the _Interplanetarian_ before Craven had run
up his screen and then you brought it forward."
"You guessed it," said Russ, tamping the tobacco into the bowl. "We
should have thought of that long ago. We have a time factor there. In
fact, the whole thing revolves around time. We move the televisor, we
use the tele-transport, by giving the objects we wish to move an
acceleration in time."
Greg wrinkled his brow. "Maybe that means we can really investigate the
past, or even the future. Can sit here before our screen and see
everything that has happened, everything that is going to happen."
Russ shook his head. "I don't know, Greg. Notice, though, that we got no
screen response until the televisor came up out of the past and actually
reached the point which coincided with the present. That is, the screen
and the televisor itself have to be on the same time level for them to
operate. We might modify the screen, even modify the televisor so that
we could travel in time, but it will take a lot of research, a lot of
work. And especially it will take a whale of a lot of power."
"We have the power," said Greg.
Russ moved the lighter back and forth over the tobacco, igniting it
carefully. Clouds of blue smoke swirled around his head. He spoke out of
the smoke.
"Right now," he said, "we better see how Craven and our other friends
are getting along. I didn't like the way Stutsman was talking or the way
he was swinging that gun around. And Chambers wasn't anywhere in sight.
There's something screwy about the entire thing."
* * * * *
"What are we going to do now?" demanded Stutsman.
Craven grinned at him. "That's up to you. Remember, you're the master
mind around here. You took over and said you were going to run things."
He waved a casual hand at the shattered machines, the ripped-out
apparatus. "Well, there you are. Go ahead and run the joint."
"But you will have to help," pleaded Stutsman, his face twisted until it
seemed that he was suffering intense physical agony. "You know what to
do. I don't."
Craven shook his head. "There isn't any use starting. Manning will be
along almost anytime now. We'll wait and see what he has in mind."
"Manning!" shrieked Stutsman, waving the pistol wildly. "Always Manning.
One would think you were working for Manning."
"He's the big shot out in this little corner of space right now," Craven
pointed out. "There isn't any way you can get around that."
Stutsman backed carefully away. His gun came up and he looked at Craven
appraisingly, as if selecting his targets.
"Put down that gun," said a voice.
Gregory Manning stood between Stutsman and Craven. There had been no
foggy forerunner of his appearance. He had just snapped out of empty
air.
Stutsman stared at him, his eyes widening, but the gun remained steady
in his hand.
"Look out, Craven," warned Greg. "He's going to fire and it will go
right through me and hit you."
* * * * *
There was the thump of a falling body as Craven hurled himself out of
his chair, hit the floor and rolled. Stutsman's gun vomited flame. The
spouting flame passed through Greg's image, blasted against the chair in
which Craven had sat, fused it until it fell in on itself.
"Russ," said Greg quietly, "disarm this fellow before he hurts
somebody."
An unseen force reached out and twisted the gun from Stutsman's hand,
flung it to one side. Swiftly Stutsman's hands were forced behind his
back and held there by invisible bonds.
Stutsman cried out, tried to struggle, but he was unable to move. It was
as if giant hands had gripped him, were holding him in a viselike
clutch.
"Thanks, Manning," said Craven, getting up off the floor. "The fool
would have shot this time. He's threatened it for days. He has been
developing a homicidal mania."
"We don't need to worry about him now," declared Greg. He turned around
to face Craven. "Where's Chambers?"
"Stutsman locked him up," said Craven. "I imagine he has the key in his
pocket. Locked him up in the stateroom. Chambers jumped him and tried to
take the gun away from him and Stutsman laid him out, hit him over the
head. He kept Chambers locked up after that. Hasn't allowed anyone to go
near the room. Hasn't even given him food and water. That was three days
ago."
"Get the key out of his pocket," directed Greg. "Go and see how Chambers
is."
Alone in the control room with Stutsman, Greg looked at him.
"I have a score to settle with you, Stutsman," he said. "I had intended
to let it ride, but not now."
"You can't touch me," blustered Stutsman. "You wouldn't dare."
"What makes you think I wouldn't?"
"You're bluffing. You've got a lot of tricks, but you can't do the
things you would like me to think you can. You've got Chambers and
Craven fooled, but not me."
"It may be that I can offer you definite proof."
Chambers staggered over the threshold. His clothing was rumpled. A rude
bandage was wound around his head. His face was haggard and his eyes
red.
"Hello, Manning," he said. "I suppose you've won. The Solar System must
be in your control by now."
He lifted his hand to his mustache, brushed it, a feeble attempt at
playing the old role he'd acted so long.
"We've won," said Greg quietly, "but you're wrong about our being in
control. The governments are in the hands of the people, where they
should be."
Chambers nodded. "I see," he mumbled. "Different people, different
ideas." His eyes rested on Stutsman and Greg saw sudden rage sweep
across the gray, haggard face. "So you've got him, have you? What are
you going to do with him? What are you going to do with all of us?"
"I haven't had time to think about it," said Greg. "I've principally
been thinking about Stutsman here."
"He mutinied," rasped Chambers. "He seized the ship, turned the crew
against me."
"And the penalty for that," said Greg, quietly, "is death. Death by
walking in space."
Stutsman writhed within the bands of force that held him tight. His face
contorted. "No, damn you! You can't do that! Not to me, you can't!"
"Shut up," roared Chambers and Stutsman quieted.
"I was thinking, too," said Greg, "that at his order thousands of people
were mercilessly shot down back in the Solar System. Stood against a
wall and mowed down. Others were killed like wild animals in the street.
Thousands of them."
* * * * *
He moved slowly toward Stutsman and the man cringed.
"Stutsman," he said, "you're a butcher. You're a stench in the nostrils
of humanity. You aren't fit to live."
"Those," said Craven, "are my sentiments exactly."
"You hate me," screamed Stutsman. "All of you hate me. You are doing
this because you hate me."
"Everyone hates you, Stutsman," said Greg. "Every living person hates
you. You have a cloud of hate hanging over you as black and wide as
space."
The man closed his eyes, trying to break free of the bonds.
"Bring me a spacesuit," snapped Greg, watching Stutsman's face.
Craven brought it and dropped it at Stutsman's feet.
"All right, Russ," said Greg. "Turn him loose."
Stutsman swayed and almost fell as the bands of force released him.
"Get into that suit," ordered Greg.
Stutsman hesitated, but something he saw in Greg's face made him lift
the suit, step into it, fasten it about his body.
"What are you going to do with me?" he whimpered. "You aren't going to
take me back to Earth again, are you? You aren't going to make me stand
trial?"
"No," said Greg, gravely, "we aren't taking you back to Earth. And
you're standing trial right now."
Stutsman read his fate in the cold eyes that stared into his. Chattering
frightenedly, he rushed at Greg, plunged through him, collided with the
wall of the ship and toppled over, feebly attempting to rise.
Invisible hands hoisted him to his feet, gripped him, held him upright.
Greg walked toward him, stood facing him.
"Stutsman," he said, "you have four hours of air. That will give you
four hours to think, to make your peace with death." He turned toward
the other two. Chambers nodded grimly. Craven said nothing.
"And now," said Greg to Craven, "if you will fasten down his helmet."
The helmet clanged shut, shutting out the pleas and threats that came
from Stutsman's throat.
* * * * *
Stutsman saw distant stars, cruel, gleaming eyes that glared at him.
Empty space fell away on all sides.
Numbed by fear, he realized where he was. Manning had picked him up and
thrown him far into space ... out into that waste where for hundreds of
light years there was only the awful nothingness of space.
He was less than a speck of dust, in this great immensity of emptiness.
There was no up or down, no means of orientation.
Loneliness and terror closed in on him, a terrible agony of fear. In
four hours his air would be gone and then he would die! His body would
swirl and eddy through this great cosmic ocean. It would never be found.
It would remain here, embalmed by the cold of space, until the last clap
of eternity.
There was one way, the easy way. His hand reached up and grasped the
connection between his helmet and the air tank. One wrench and he would
die swiftly, quickly ... instead of letting death stalk him through the
darkness for the next four hours.
He shivered and his hand loosened its hold, dropped away. He was afraid
to hasten death. He wanted to put it off. He was afraid of death ...
horribly afraid.
The stars mocked him and he seemed to hear hooting laughter from
somewhere far away. Curiously, it sounded like his own laughter....
* * * * *
"I'll make it easy for you, Manning," Chambers said. "I know that all of
us are guilty. Guilty in the eyes of the people and the law. Guilty in
your eyes. If we had won, there would have been no penalty. There's
never a penalty for the one who wins."
"Penalty," said Greg, his eyes half smiling. "Why, yes, I think there
is. I'm going to order you aboard the _Invincible_ for something to eat
and to get some rest."
"You mean to say that we aren't prisoners?"
Greg shook his head. "Not prisoners," he said. "Why, I came out here to
guide you back to Earth. I hauled you out here and got you into this
jam. It was up to me to get you out of it. I would have done the same
for Stutsman, too, but ..."
He hesitated and looked at Chambers.
Chambers stared back and slowly nodded.
"Yes, Manning," he said. "I think I understand."
_CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE_
Chambers lit his cigar and leaned back in his chair.
"I wish you could see it my way, Manning," he said. "There's no place
for me on Earth, no place for me in the Solar System. You see, I tried
and failed. I'm just a has-been back there."
He laughed quietly. "Somehow, I can't imagine myself coming back in the
role of the defeated tribal leader, chained to your chariot, so to
speak."
"But it wouldn't be that way," protested Greg. "Your company is gone,
true, and your stocks are worthless, but you haven't lost everything.
You still have a fleet of ships. With our new power, the Solar System
will especially need ships. Lots of ships. For the spacelanes will be
filled with commerce. You'd be coming back to a new deal, a new Solar
System, a place that has been transformed almost overnight by power
that's practically free."
"Yes, yes, I know all that," said Chambers. "But I climbed too high. I
got too big. I can't come back now as something small, a failure."
"You have things we need," said Greg. "The screen that blankets out our
television and tele-transport, for example. We need your screen as a
safeguard against the very thing we have created. Think of what criminal
uses could be made of the tele-transport. No vault, no net of charged
wires, nothing, could stop a thief from taking anything he wanted.
Prisons would cease to be prisons. Criminals could reach in and pick up
their friends, no matter how many guards there were. Prisons and bank
vaults and national treasuries could be cleaned out in a single day."
"Then there's the super-saturated space fields," added Russ, ruefully.
"Those almost got us. If I hadn't thought of moving the televisor
through time, we would have had to pull stakes and run for it."
"No, you wouldn't," pointed out Craven. "You could have wiped us out in
a moment. You can disintegrate matter. Send it up in a puff of smoke ...
rip every electron apart and send it hurtling away."
"Of course we could have, Craven," said Greg, "but we wouldn't."