The X-87 was a red shambles. It roared the
starways, a renegade Venusian at the controls,
a swaggering Martian plotting the space-course.
And in an alumite cage, deep below-decks, lay
Penelle, crack Shadow Squadman--holding the
fate of three worlds in his manacled hands.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Summer 1940.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
I am sure that none of you have had the real details of the tragic
voyage of last year, which was officially designated as Earth-Moon
Flight 9. The diplomacy of Interplanetary relations is ticklish at
best. Earth diplomats especially seem afraid of their own shadows
if there is any chance of annoying the governments of Venus or
Mars, so that by Earth censorship most of the details of that
ill-fated voyage of the _X-87_ were either distorted, or wholly
suppressed. But the revolution at Grebhar is over now. If those Venus
Revolutionists--helped perhaps by Martian money and supplies--had
been successful, they would have been patriots. They lost, so they are
traitors, and I can say what I like.
My name is Fred Penelle. I'm a Shadow Squadman, working in Great-New
York and vicinity. Ordinarily I deal with the tracking of comparatively
petty criminals. Being plunged into this affair of Interplanetary
piracy which threatened to involve three worlds, Heaven knows was
startling to me. I had never before even been on any flight into the
starways. But I did my best.
My part in the thing began that August evening when an audiphoned call
came to my home. It was my superior, Peter Jamison, summoning me to
City Night-Desk 6.
"I've a job for you," he said. "Get here in a hurry, Fred." The
audiphone grid showed his televised face; I had never seen it so grim.
I live at the outskirts of Great-New York, in northern Westchester. I
caught an overhead monorail; then one of the high-speed, sixth level
rolling sidewalks and in half an hour was at the S.S. Building, in
mid-Manhattan. We S.S. men work in pairs. My partner, as it happened,
was ill.
"You'll have to go in on this alone," Jamison told me. "And you haven't
much time, Fred. The _X-87_ sails at Trinight."
"_X-87?_" I murmured. "What's that got to do with me?"
Jamison's fat little figure was slumped at his desk, almost hidden by
the banks of instruments before him. Then he sat up abruptly, pushed a
lever and the insulating screens slid along the doors and windows to
protect us from any possible electric eavesdropping.
"I can't tell you much," he said with lowered voice. "This comes
from the Department of Interplanetary Affairs. The _X-87_ launches at
Trinight tonight, for the Moon. They want me to have a man on it. An
observer." Jamison's face went even grimmer, and he lowered his voice
still further. "Just what they know, or suspect, they didn't tell even
me. But there's something queer going on--something we ought to know
about. Quite evidently there's some plot brewing against the Blake
Irite Corporation. They even hinted that it concerned perhaps both
Venus and Mars--"
* * * * *
You all know the general history of the Moon, of course; but still it
will do no harm to sketch it here. It was scarcely twenty years ago
when Georg Blake established the first permanent Moon Colony, erecting
the first practical glassite air-domes under which one might live and
work on the airless, barren surface of our satellite. Two years later,
it was the same Georg Blake who discovered the rich irite deposits on
the towering slopes of Mt. Archimedes. The Blake Irite Corporation
employs twenty thousand workers now.
"Mars and Venus have no irite," Jamison was saying. "They import it
from us, for their inferior imitations of our gravity plates. And,
combined with the T-catalyst, it runs our modern atomic engines and
charges our newest long-range atomic guns. The Governments of Mars and
Venus are building imitations of those engines. You know about that,
Fred?"
I nodded. I had heard quite a bit, of course, about the mysterious
T-catalyst. It is made only here on Earth--a guarded secret of the
Anglo-American Federation, developed by our Government chemists in
Great-London. Our War Department uses it for guns, of course. But its
use is forbidden elsewhere, save for commercial purposes. Venus and
Mars have been under strict guarantee, regarding its use. We have
supplied them from time to time with limited quantities, for commercial
purposes only.
"Do not misunderstand me. I have no possible desire to anger
the present legal Governments of the Martian Union, nor the
Venus Free State, and thus project myself--just one unimportant
Earth-citizen--into a storm of Interplanetary complications. I am not
even hinting that Mars or Venus have ever broken, or ever would break,
their guarantees by using the T-catalyst for weapons of war. But in
Grebhar, a very sizable revolution against the Venus Free State had
broken out. That is something very different. A bandit Government.
Bandit army--under guarantees to no one."
"What's all this got to do with me, and the _X-87_?" I suggested.
Jamison flung a swift look around his shadowed, dimly tube-lit office,
as though he feared that someone might be lurking here. "The Blake
Irite Corporation, on the Moon, needs the T-catalyst for a thousand
things," he said slowly. "The engines of their air-renewers throughout
that huge network of domes. The engines of their mining equipment--"
"You mean it's being stolen from them?"
Jamison shrugged. "Maybe." He paused, and then he drew me toward him.
"Anyway, the _X-87_, on this Voyage 9 tonight, is taking the largest
supply of T-catalyst to the Moon which has ever been transported."
Jamison smiled wryly. "You and I, Fred, are among the very few people
who know of it. The _X-87_ is not being unduly guarded. That in itself
would look suspicious. Every possible precaution has been taken to keep
the thing a secret. But there have been queer things happen. Perhaps
only coincidences--"
"Such as what?"
"Well, Georg Blake died, quite mysteriously, a few days ago--"
"Murdered?"
Again Jamison shrugged. "The whole thing was censored. I don't know
any more about it than you do. He has a son and daughter--young Blake,
still under twenty--and Nina, his young daughter, who is only sixteen.
The management of the entire Moon industry devolves now upon them."
I could envisage Interplanetary spies on the Moon--and with the
forceful Georg Blake now out of the way, a raid upon that supply of the
T-catalyst--
"Little Nina is going back to the Moon this voyage to take control of
the company," Jamison was adding. "Her father died--was murdered if you
like--here in Great-New York. And to make it still more mysterious,
young Blake--the girl's brother--seems to have vanished. There is only
Nina--"
Queer indeed. And even worse, Jamison now told me that several members
of the _X-87's_ crew were ill, and one or two had recently died, so
that she was starting on her flight tonight with at least five new
men....
* * * * *
The little space-ship was to sail at 3 a.m. I had my luggage aboard
an hour ahead; and at quarter of three I was loitering on the tube-lit
stage watching the passengers bidding good-bye to their friends and
then going up the long incline to where the _X-87_ was cradled forty
feet overhead. An S.S. Man, without too much equipment, can hide it
all pretty comfortably. Most of my small apparatus was tucked into
capacious pockets. And with my square-cut jacket buttoned over my
weapon belt, I imagine I looked like any ordinary citizen. I was
booked as a mathematics clerk, going to the Moon to take a position
in the bookkeeping department of the Blake Company. I'm smallish, and
dark--and not too handsome, my friends tell me. Just an unobtrusive
fellow whom nobody would particularly notice. I certainly hoped now
that that would prove to be so.
"How many passengers this voyage?" I asked young Len Smith, who was
standing here on the landing shed beside me. He was a slim, handsome
fellow, the _X-87's_ radio-helio operator, ornate and exceedingly
dapper in his stiff white-and-gold uniform.
"Damned if I know. Fifteen or twenty maybe. Usually are about that
many."
A big seven-foot Martian stopped near us, directing the attendants who
were carrying his luggage. "Who's that?" I murmured to Len Smith.
Dr. Frye, the _X-87's_ surgeon--a weazened little fellow with a grim,
saturnine face and scraggly iron-gray hair--had joined us. He answered
me.
"Set Mokk, he calls himself."
"Going to the Moon, for what?" I persisted.
Dr. Frye shrugged. "Passengers aren't required to give their family
history. Set Mokk is a wealthy man in Ferrok-Shahn, I understand. An
enthusiastic Interplanetary traveler--"
Len, the young helio operator, diverted my attention. "Have a look," he
murmured. "There comes Nina Blake. If she isn't a little beauty I'm a
sub-cellar track-sweeper."
Now I'm not much for girls, but I don't mind stating thus publicly that
Nina Blake struck me then as the most strikingly beautiful girl of any
world whom I had ever seen.
As she came past, I saw that four stalwart attendants of the _X-87_
were carrying a long oblong box; one of her pieces of luggage. Quite
obviously she was particularly concerned over it; she followed it
closely, and signaled the men to precede her with it up the incline.
I got away from Len Smith and Dr. Frye and was up the incline close
after Nina Blake. I saw the squat, square-rigged figure of Capt.
Mackensie come forward to greet the girl, his most distinguished
passenger. Instantly she spoke to the men carrying the oblong box, and
they set it on end beside her on the desk; and at her gesture, they
moved away.
* * * * *
Nobody noticed me as I got up to that box and stood in its shadow. I
had no particular motive, save perhaps my instinct as an S.S. Man to
probe anything that puzzles me. And suddenly I heard Nina say softly:
"No. I'm not--too frightened, Captain. I'll be quite all right."
That stiffened me. But a far greater shock came almost instantly
afterward. The girl was whispering now to Mackensie, their voices too
low for me to hear. She was leaning partly against the upright box,
and I saw her slim white hand furtively roving it, one of her fingers
pressing what might have been a hidden lever. The sleek, polished side
of the box was close to my head--and abruptly, from within it, I seemed
to hear a faint muffled, ticking sound! A mechanism in the huge box
which the girl's furtive hand had started! It was a slow, rhythmic
tick, and a faint swishing.
"Oh, you, Penelle. Come here--I want you to meet Miss Blake."
Captain Mackensie had noticed me, and his gesture brought me to join
them. For a moment we stood in a group as I was introduced. Nina's
hand had darted to the box again, perhaps to stop the ticking.
"Your first flight, Penelle?" Mackensie was saying. His voice was
booming, hearty, loud enough to carry to any of the passengers and crew
who were near us here on the dim side-deck. Jamison had told me that
of everyone on the _X-87_, only Captain Mackensie would be aware of my
true identity and purpose. I caught his significant glance now as he
shot it at me from under his heavy gray-black brows. And then abruptly
he stepped nearer to me.
"Never talk secretly to me," he murmured. "No insulation here. You take
care of Miss Blake. Say nothing--keep your eyes wide. When we get to
the Moon--"
I stiffened, went cold, with my heart suddenly pounding. My hand darted
out, gripped the captain's arm. "Wait!" I murmured.
On my chest, underneath my shirt, a flat, round little detector-grid
was abruptly glowing warm against my flesh. An interference current
was overcharging its low-pressure wires so that they were heating
and burning me. An eavesdropping current! No one save a Government
criminal-tracker may legally use an eavesdropping ray. But there was
one here, listening to us now!
I murmured it to Mackensie; turned and darted away. A dim door oval
was nearby. I went through it, into a narrow, tube-lit corridor of the
ship's superstructure. Momentarily no one was here; there was just the
dim, vaulted little arcade, gleaming pallidly silver from its fittings
and trim of alumite with rows of cabin doorways on each side. The
name-plates glowed with the names of the occupants for this voyage. All
the doors were closed; a few faint voices from passengers in the cabins
were vaguely audible.
* * * * *
At a cross-corridor I stopped. Was someone here able to watch me?
From my shirt I drew out the little detector-grid. It was cooling
now, but still its direction needle was swaying. The source of the
current seemed ahead of me in this cross corridor. How far, I could
not say--the distance gauge-point was swiftly dropping to zero. The
eavesdropping current had been snapped off. Wherever he was, this
listener knew now that we were aware of him.
On my padded, felt-soled shoes I dashed ahead to where the corridor
widened into a tiny smoking lounge.
"Oh, you Penelle? What's the matter? Can't you find your cubby?"
It was Dr. Frye, the ship's surgeon. Fortunately, he did not see
the Banning heat-flash gun in my hand. He was sprawled here in a
chair, smoking. His thin face grinned up at me. "Ask the purser your
location," he added. His gesture waved me toward the purser's tiny
office-cubby down the opposite corridor.
"Thanks," I agreed.
The purser's cubby was unoccupied. I passed it, came to the stern end
where the superstructure stopped and the side decks converged into a
triangle of open deck under the dome at the pointed stern. There were
a few passengers lounging around and deckhands moving at their tasks
of uncradling the vessel which now was ready to take off. Over at a
glassite bull's-eye window in the side pressure-wall, the big Martian,
Set Mokk, was standing, gazing at the people on the lower stage.
And suddenly, from the shadow of a cargo-shifter near at hand, a blob
of figure detached itself and moved away. In a moment the deck-light
gleamed on it; a member of the crew--squat, bent, misshapen gargoyle
shape; a hideous Earth-man hunchback, with dangling gorilla-like arms
that swayed as he walked. Then I saw his face; ghastly countenance,
lumped with disease, a mouth that seemed to leer and eyes with puckered
rims--eyes that seemed to glare at me with impish malevolence as he
shambled past me and vanished around the other side deck.
In a few minutes more, with a blast of sirens, the little _X-87_
trembled, lifted nose first from its cradle and was away, slanting up
into the night. The lights of the giant city dropped beneath us. I
stood at one of the side bull's-eyes watching them as they dwindled
into a blob, merged with other lights of other cities along the coast.
I had been up into the stratosphere many times, of course, but this
was to be my first flight into Interplanetary Space. I could envisage
our gleaming silver vessel now, tiny little cylinder with pointed
ends, alumite keel-bottom and the great rounded glassite dome on top,
as we slid so swiftly up out of the atmosphere. A little world now to
ourselves.
The little vessel pounded and quivered with the vibrations of its
disintegrating atomic rocket-streams at the stern. Then as we slid
into the upper reaches of the stratosphere, the rocket engines
were silenced; the gravity-plates were de-insulated, set with
Earth-repulsion as we swung toward the gleaming half-moon ahead and
over our bow.
The ship was vibrationless now. All movement seemed detached from us.
Alone in Space we seemed hovering, poised.
The voyage of doom had begun.
* * * * *
"Apparently you have not suffered from the miserable pressure
sickness," Ollog Torio said. "Or have you, Set Mokk?"
"I have not. We Martians are made of sterner stuff. Is that not so, Dr.
Frye?"
"Well," the saturnine little surgeon said, "well, for you, yes, Set
Mokk. But Martians are humans, like anybody else. I have seen them in
distress, upon occasion, when the pressure changes too fast, coming out
of the atmosphere."
Four of us were sitting on the triangle of the _X-87's_ bow deck--the
towering, swaggering Martian Set Mokk, slumped in his chair, wrapped in
his great cloak with his hairy brown legs like huge pillars of strength
crossed beneath it, revealed by its flair; the weazened, morose-looking
Dr. Frye, and Ollog Torio. I had just met this Venusian. Like most of
them from our sister planet, Torio was slender, graceful, with the
characteristic finely chiseled features, grayish skin and heavy black
brows. He seemed a man of perhaps forty. Romantic in dress and bearing.
His hair was sleek and black, with gray streaks in it. His pointed
face, accentuated by a pointed, waxed beard, was pallid. His robe was
white and purple, with a white ruff at his slender throat. He was, I
understood, a wealthy man, a retired capitalist from Grebhar.
It was now, by the established ship-time, what might be termed
mid-evening. The passengers had had two meals, and a normal time
of sleep. They were dispersed about the little vessel, gathered in
groups, gazing with a natural awe through the side bull's-eyes at the
wonders of the great dome of the Heavens, spread now around us.
My first trip into Space. It would be out of place here for me to
describe that queer, awed, detached feeling everyone gets, especially
at his first view of the vast blackness of Interstellar Space with its
blazing white stars. Behind us, the Earth hung, a great dull red ball,
blurred and mottled with cloud-banks. The stern deck triangle gleamed
dull-red. But up here in the bow the Moon hung round and white. We were
still in the cone of the Earth's shadow. The moonlight here drenched
the deck like liquid silver.
In romance, moonlight shimmers and sparkles to inspire a lover's smile.
But the reality of the Moon is cold, bleak and desolate. Even without
a telescope now, I could see the etched heights of the great lunar
mountains. Archimedes, Copernicus and Kepler lay in full sunlight. The
heights glared; the depths of the barren, empty seas were black pools
of inky shadow. The great Mare Imbrium was solid, mysterious darkness.
I had been awed by the wonders of Space. But the feeling was past now,
engulfed by the sense of disaster which more than ever was upon me. The
Earth-light on our rear deck seemed to symbolize it. Red--as though
already that deck were bathed in blood. I found myself shuddering.
Somewhere on board--I had no idea where--a treasure of the precious
T-catalyst was hidden. Had that fact leaked out? Why was the beautiful
little Nina Blake so flooded with secret terror? What was the huge
coffin-like trunk, which sounded like a time-bomb? The box, I knew, had
been placed in her sleeping cubby.... And back in the S.S. Building my
superior, Jamison, had said something which damnably now hung in my
memory: "You keep your eyes and ears open, Fred. Things are not likely
to be what they seem, on that voyage."
Accursed ineptitude of Earth's Interplanetary Relations Board, that
would let a condition such as this come to pass! I felt wholly alone
here, coping with God knows what. "Things are not likely to be what
they seem." I found myself tensely suspicious of everything, of
everybody. This swaggering Martian, Set Mokk--he was sitting now,
gazing at me as though appraisingly, his lips twitching in a half-smile
of sardonic humour. This Ollog Torio--was he what he seemed, just a
wealthy traveler? Even little Dr. Frye, the Ship's Surgeon--I could not
forget that when I had tried to nab that eavesdropper, it was Dr. Frye,
gazing at me from his seat alone in the ship's smoking lounge, whom I
had encountered.
* * * * *
"So you are going to the Moon to work for the Blake Company?" the Venus
man was saying. He spoke English with only a trace of the prim, precise
Venus accent.
"Yes," I agreed. "Mathematics clerk. It will be a novel experience for
me, on the moon--"
"Quite," Set Mokk said out of his reverie. "Quite novel."
Did they really think I was a mathematics clerk? Someone here on board
suspected me; that eavesdropper had turned his ray upon me quickly
enough when I had stood talking to Captain Mackensie....
"You're having bad times in Grebhar," little Dr. Frye said presently to
Torio. "How is the revolution going? We hear so little by helio--and
most of it censored by your Venus Free State."
The slim Torio shrugged. "The fighting was in the mountains only, when
I was there. I think those rebels will not make out too well."
"Rebels," I said. "If they lose, they will be traitors, worthy of
death. But if they win, I expect you'll call them patriots?"
That made the hulking Martian laugh. "Human behavior is practical,
never idealistic. The original right or wrong will be forgotten. It is
only results that count."
"I pay little attention to it," Torio said blandly. "Venus should be
for love, for romance. I have no stomach for killing."
"Speaking of romance," Dr. Frye interjected. "Here comes our Earth
version of it."
We were all on our feet as the small, black and white clad,
trousered figure of Nina Blake emerged from the end corridor of the
superstructure. She hesitated; then took a seat among us. Her cloak
was off; the moonlight and starlight bathed her with its silver. Was
the terror still upon her? I could not at first tell. She was quiet,
composed. We men were all smoking little white arrant cylinders. She
told us smilingly to continue. But as she stretched herself in the
cushioned chair, between me and Torio, it seemed that the flash of her
gaze upon me carried relief--as though in me she had her only protector
here on the ship.
"The little Earth-lady is very gracious," Torio commented with
Venus smoothness as he lighted one of the cylinders. "I have always
maintained that in the lush forests of Venus are the only really
beautiful women in the Universe. I shall have to revise that now, Miss
Blake."
She flushed a little under the boldness of his gaze. And he laughed.
"That makes you even more beautiful. 'Flinging back a million
starglints, the depths of Space remind me of Thine eyes,'" he quoted.
I am only an S.S. Man. Far be it from me now, so publicly to write
what might cause Miss Nina Blake any offense. I try to state only what
happened. There is no one, I feel sure, who could sit beside her and
not be stirred by her beauty in that drenching moonlight. But to Torio,
pretty speeches came with a laugh. Instinctive. It annoyed me. I might
as well admit it.
For a time our little group chatted. Then, one by one, the men wandered
away. Was it that one of them wanted to observe Nina and me alone? I
could not help the thought as I leaned toward her.
"Easy now. Quiet!" And then I said aloud, "That Venus man makes very
pretty speeches, Miss Blake. To us of Earth, they do not come so
naturally."
Her startled gaze at my warning relaxed into a laugh--a laugh like
silver glints of moonlight on a mountain stream.
"No woman can pretend that she dislikes them."
"No. I suppose not." I guess I was really pretty earnest; unsmiling;
breathless. I was making conversation with the feeling that someone was
watching us trying to lip-read perhaps, not daring to use a ray. But my
talk was more than acting; I really meant it.
"A Venus man needn't think he has a monopoly on pretty speeches," I
added.
"Inspired by the moonlight?"
"And you," I replied, smiling at her.
Adorable little dimples showed in her cheeks as she grinned at me.
"Thank you, sir." Then she leaned closer. "You tell the Captain--Torio
and Mokk--in the corridor a while ago--"
"Easy! Cover your mouth. You heard them?"
"Yes. Whispering. Eight men--five in the crew--"
"I'm only a mathematics clerk," I said. "But beauty like yours, Miss
Blake--it makes me wish I were King. King of the Universe."
"That would be very nice," she laughed.
"Yes. Wouldn't it? 'If I were King, ah love, if I were King, the stars
would be your pearls upon a string; the world a ruby for your finger
ring; and you could have the sun and moon to wear--if I were King.'"
And I meant it. Surely no man ever made love under such a handicap as
this! I bent closer over her, with the perfume of her intoxicating me;
and she whispered,
"You tell him I'm afraid--tonight--at the next time of sleep--"
* * * * *
She suddenly checked herself, with a sharp sucking intake of her
breath as she stared down the deck. My gaze followed hers. From the
gloom beside the superstructure some twenty feet from us, a shadow had
detached itself--misshapen shadow; that hunchback, malevolent looking
member of the crew. He went shambling past us, with a coil of rope from
a cargo shifter in his hand.
Did his sudden appearance strike terror into Nina? She was holding
herself tense; not speaking, nor glancing at me, but staring seemingly
fascinated by the man's gargoyle aspect. He perhaps did not notice us,
and yet I had the feeling that his little eyes under the lumpy forehead
had flung us a peering glance.
When he had gone past and vanished, back toward the stem on the other
side deck, it seemed to me that the girl was shuddering.
"What is it?" I whispered.
"N-nothing."
"You're afraid of that fellow, Nina?"
"No! Oh no!" Her unnecessary vehemence seemed to belie her words.
The thing had so startled me that I had relaxed my caution. I realized
it, as abruptly, from the ladder-steps which led up to the control
turret on the roof of the superstructure almost over us, a long, lanky,
white-uniformed figure was disclosed coming down. It was the ship's
First Officer, young William Wilson. He was a handsome young giant. He
smiled at us--mostly at Nina, and lounged into the chair beside her.
I had no further chance to be with the girl alone. A light meal was
served us by one of the stewards, there on deck. The radio-helio
operator, young Len Smith, had joined us. The squat, heavy-faced James
Polter, ship's Purser, added himself to us; and then the fat, jolly,
moon-faced little Peter Green, Second Officer, came puffing down from
the chart room behind the control turret and drew up a chair. It was as
though the girl were a magnet.
I left them presently. From back along the side-deck where I stood
apparently gazing through a bull's-eye at the vast wonders of the
glittering Heavens in which the little _X-87_ was hanging, I could
see the group of men around Nina on the fore-deck, a gay little party
in the moonlight. Why was Nina so terrified of that ugly hunchback?
I had inquired about him casually from young Len Smith. His name was
Durk; a new member of the crew, engaged to replace one of those so
mysteriously sick. This was his first voyage.... Five of the crew, Nina
had said. I was to tell the Captain about it. Vehemently now I wanted
a talk with Mackensie. We'd have to chance an eavesdropper; if I was
alert, my detector should warn me; and the promptness with which we
had discovered the eavesdropping ray before, I figured would warn the
fellow not to use it again.
It would have been, by Earth-routine, perhaps eleven p.m. The
passengers were retiring to their sleeping cubbies. The decks now
were almost deserted. I went up one of the side ladders to the
superstructure roof. It glittered with starlight that came down
through the glassite pressure dome which arched close overhead here.
The superstructure roof was a rectangular deck space, a hundred feet
long perhaps, by thirty wide. A low railing surrounded it at which
one might look down upon the lower side decks. Chairs were scattered
about up here, all of them unoccupied. Amidships was the little kiosk
which housed the radio-helio equipment, with young Smith's sleeping
cubby adjacent to it. The place was closed and locked now. Aft of it
there was open deck space to where the roof-deck ended, with the stern
deck-triangle a level below, where the earth-light still was red like
blood.
I turned forward. The chart room backed against the control turret. The
chart room was dark. In the control turret I could see Capt. Mackensie
at the controls, his squat, square figure etched by moonlight. Would
this be a good time to try and talk with him?
I started forward. The party down on the forward deck was just
dispersing; I saw the boyish figure of Nina, starting for the
superstructure corridor, with the giant handsome William Wilson
escorting her. And then Dr. Frye came up the front ladder, went into
the control turret and joined Mackensie. I turned aft; it was no time
to see Mackensie now.
* * * * *
Suddenly I stopped, melted down into a black shadow near the helio
kiosk and flattened myself on the deck. An S.S. Man, so they say,
developes a sixth sense. Maybe so. Certainly I didn't see anything,
nor hear anything. But I was aware that someone, or something, was up
here on the silent deck with me. Perhaps it was a sense of smell; my
nostrils dilated with the impression that the faint drift of artificial
air up here had somehow changed its quality. Was there something
artificially invisible stalking here? The Groff magnetic cloaks, so
recently perfected, are closely held by Governmental orders. Even we
S.S. Men seldom use them. But it is a queer thing--no matter what
devices you use in crime-tracking, you may be pretty sure the criminal
has them to use against you.
I tried my infra-red glasses. They disclosed nothing save the glowing
heat of the ventilators where the warm air was coming up. The nearest
I had to an eavesdropper was a pair of low-scale phones. In a second
or two I adjusted them; tuned them. The myriad blended tiny sounds of
the ship's interior gave me nothing that I could identify. And then it
seemed that there was a very faint hissing--something, quite near me,
which should not have been here.
Banning heat-gun in hand, I prowled around to the other side of the
helio kiosk. How that lurking intruder got away, I don't know. To this
day I have no idea. Doubtless he heard or saw me, and slid along the
line of deck-shadows in a magnetic cloak, getting away so swiftly that
my infra-red glasses could not pick up the heat of his body or his
mechanism.
At all events he was gone. There was nothing but a faint chemical
smell. And then, on the metal of the helio-room door, I saw a burned
spot near the lock where his heat-torch just for a second had started
its hissing; and then he had become aware of me and had taken flight.
Someone trying to break into Smith's helio room!
That would have taken me to Captain Mackensie whether Dr. Frye was
there or not. But abruptly, again I went tense, so suddenly startled
that the blood seemed to chill in my veins. The low-scale magnifiers
were still in my ears, murmuring with a chaos of tiny, meaningless
sounds. My metal heel-tip by chance must have struck a metal cross-beam
of the deck. Abruptly I heard a voice, which at that second must have
been raised louder than it had been an instant before.
"Oh please! Oh my God, no!"
A girl's voice, gasping that fragment in an anguish of terror. Nina's
voice!
* * * * *
I frantically tuned the magnifiers, to clarify it; but I lost it and
could not get it back. Nina's voice, seemingly from her sleeping-cubby,
which I knew was just about under me in the superstructure. I went
down the side companion ladder with a rush; ducked into a nearby cross
corridor. It was dim, silent and empty. The name-plates glowed on the
doors. I came to hers, with its glowing greenish letters, _Nina Blake_.
Without the earphones there was only silence here now. For a second I
stood, gun in hand, undecided. The door probably was locked; I did not
dare try it to see. With my heat-torch, or even with a flash of the
Banning gun, I could melt away the flimsy lock in a few seconds. But
would that be quick enough? If one of the villains were in there with
her now, and I blasted the door and startled him, his first move might
be to kill her....
Tick-tick ... tick-tick....
With naked ears I suddenly realized that I was hearing the ticking from
the big coffin-shaped box in her room.... Tick-tick ... tick-tick....
Rhythmic ... gruesome.... I own that my fingers were trembling as I
crouched there by the door and adjusted my headphone.... The ticking
rose to hammering thuds. Or was it my own pounding heart?... The
hammering seemed to drown a tiny whisper of voices. Someone was in
there with her, unquestionably.
I have no apologies for what an S.S. Man must do under stress. High
over the top of the door there was a small transom-like opening,
covered by a metal grillework. I could see faint tubelight glowing up
there from within her room. I backed across the corridor, adjusting
with hurried fingers my miniature projector of the Benson curve-ray.
In another second its faint violet stream leaped from my hand in a
crescent up to the grille. Curved light-rays, an arc through the grille
and down into her room, bringing me along its curved path a faint
distorted vista of the scene inside.
And then I heard her low voice quivering with terror:
"No! No, Jim--don't--"
James Polter, the Purser? In that confused second I stared along the
Benson curve-light. Just an edge of the coffin-shaped box, which was
lying flat on the floor against one wall, was visible to me. In the
center of the dim room, Nina was standing--beautiful, slim little
figure in a pale-rose, filmy negligee, with her dark hair streaming
down over her pink-white shoulders. Her back was to me as she gazed at
the deck window. It was a dark oval, with the shadows of the side-deck
outside.
And in that second the blob of a man was visible in the window. I
could only glimpse the hunched outline of him as he scrambled through,
dropped to the deck and fled.
* * * * *
There was a cross corridor here which led directly to the forward end
of that starboard side deck. I dashed its length; reached the deck. It
was empty. That was my first confused impression; then as I whirled
aft, I saw a blob on it, near the other end of the superstructure. A
blob which rhythmically moved, sidewise and back again. And in the
silence, there was the squish of water.
It was the hunchback deckhand. He was swabbing the deck, with a mop and
a pail of water. I slowed my pace as I approached him, and dropped the
Banning gun into my pocket. Could he by any wild chance, have been the
figure I saw climb out of Nina's window? It seemed impossible.
"Evening, Durk," I said. I stopped beside him. His lumpy,
disease-ridden face came up as he shot me a glance.
"Even-sir," he muttered.
His bulbous lips were parted, as though perhaps with a panting breath.
The idea turned me cold. What ghastly hold could this fellow have upon
Nina? I can't pretend to describe my emotions at that moment. Nina
wasn't screaming now to tell that a man had forced himself into her
room. She was willing to keep it secret. Or perhaps too terrorized to
do anything else.
"What's your name?" I said pleasantly. I had stopped beside him; was
lighting an arrant cylinder.
"You said my name, sir. It's Durk." His muttered voice was thick. The
sort of voice one might use to disguise its natural tone? Was it that?
"Oh, yes. Durk," I agreed. "Jim Durk? You're a new man, aren't you?"
"First voyage, yes sir. But my name's Pete Durk."
Surely he was breathing too hard for a man scrubbing a deck--much more
like a man who had been running.
"My first voyage too," I said. I started on; then turned back. "By the
way, have you seen Mr. Polter? I was looking for him."
"The Purser, sir? I'm thinkin' he should be in his office."
I nodded; turned the superstructure corner; went into the main
corridor. Polter's little office cubby had a light in it. He was
sitting there casting up his accounts. Jim Polter. I had heard half
a dozen people call him that. Nina's voice came echoing back into my
mind.... "No--no Jim, don't--"
Was this the fellow who had climbed out of her window just a few
moments ago? His desk light illumined his squat, thick-set figure. He
was a man of perhaps forty. He glanced up at my step.
"Hello, Mr. Penelle. You're up late."
"Just going in," I said.
Polter was smoking. The fragile ash on the little white paper cylinder
was nearly an inch long.
I passed on. At Nina's door I briefly paused. There was no sound. The
ventilator grille overhead was dark now. Upon impulse I pressed her
buzzer.
"Yes? Who is it?"
"It's I. Fred Penelle."
Her door opened an inch; the sheen of light in the corridor showed her
white face framed by the flowing black hair. A wave of her perfume came
out to me.
"What--what is it?" she murmured.
"Are you all right?" I whispered lamely.
"Yes. Yes--of course." And she added still more softly, "You're
taking too much chance--here like this. The Captain--did you tell the
Captain--what I told you--"
"I'm going there now."
She closed the door. I stood with the sudden realization that I might
be going beyond my job as an S.S. Man; my personal interest in this
girl leading me to pry into her private affairs. But the feeling was
brief. The terror was still in her eyes; I could not miss it. I decided
then to go to Mackensie in the control turret. Someone had tried to
melt into the helio room. Mackensie must be told it. Heaven knows,
there never had been an S.S. Man who felt as helpless as I did at that
moment. I could not determine whether I should tell the Captain what I
had seen and heard in Nina's room, or not. How much Mackensie himself
knew of what might be going on, I could not guess. And there was not
another person on the _X-87_ whom I could trust! It was as though
I were wholly alone here, with lurking murderers in every shadow,
watching their chance--waiting perhaps for a predetermined time when
they would come into the open and strike.
* * * * *
I was part way along the corridor when without warning my body rose in
the air. Like a balloon I went to the low vaulted ceiling, struck it
gently, rebounded, and floated diagonally back to the floor, where I
landed in a heap! Heaven knows, it was startling. For those seconds
I had been weightless, the impulse of my last step wafting me up, and
my thud against the ceiling knocking me back again. The weird loss of
weight was gone at once; I was close to the floor when I felt myself
drop down to it. And I scrambled to my feet. My heart was thumping; I
knew what had happened. In the base of the ship, artificial gravity
controls gave us Earth's normal gravity on board. Without them, the
slight mass of the _X-87_ would give a gravity pull so negligible that
everything in its interior would be almost without weight. Len Smith,
the young helio operator, had taken me around the little vessel just
before the voyage began, explaining me its mechanisms. I remembered
the room of magnetic controls, where the _X-87's_ artificial gravity
was regulated. A young technician named Bentley had been there. I had
spoken to him a moment. He and his partner alternated on duty there
throughout all the voyage.
And the artificial gravity controls now were being tampered with! For
just a second or two, this particular area of the corridor here had
been cut off, so that as I came to the de-magnetized area my step had
tossed me to the ceiling. The floor section was normal now; I stepped
out on it gingerly to test it.
Why was Bentley experimenting with his controls? Surely that never
went wrong by accident. If I could catch Bentley at it--force him
to explain--Or was it someone else tampering with the complex
gravitational mechanisms down there?...
I remembered the location of the little magnetic control room; rushed
to the nearest descending ladder. The lower level, down in the hull,
was a metal catwalk, with side aisles leading into suspended tiny
rooms. Freight storage compartments bow and stern; air renewal systems;
pressure mechanisms; heating and ventilating systems. Beneath me,
at the bottom of the hull, were the rooms of gravity plate-shifting
mechanisms--compressed air shifters of the huge hull gravity plates by
which the course of the ship through Space was controlled. I was not
concerned with them--merely with the magnetic artificial gravity of the
vessel's interior. The little magnet room was near it hand; its door
was open, with its blue tubelight streaming out.
No one was in sight to see me, apparently, as I padded swiftly along
the catwalk. From the distant bow and stern mess-rooms I could hear the
faint blended murmuring voices of some of the crew who were off duty.
I came to the magnetic room doorway. The room seemingly was empty.
The banks of dials, switches and levers which governed the different
areas of the ship were ranged up one wall. They all seemed in normal
operation; none of the tiny warning trouble-lights were illumined.
Bentley's little table, with his pack of arrant cylinders and a scroll
book he had evidently been reading, was here with its empty chair
before it.
* * * * *
And then I saw him! He was lying sprawled, face down, over in a corner,
with a monstrous shadow from the table upon him, and just the faint
glow of the electronic flourescent tubes painting his dark worksuit so
that I noticed him. He was dead; I turned him over, stooping beside
him. His chest was drilled with a pencilray of heat, presumably from a
low-caliber Banning gun....
"Don't move, Penelle! I've got you!"
I stiffened at the sound of the low, menacing voice in the dimness
behind me.
"Leave that gun where it is. Put your hands up and turn around. By
God if you try anything funny, I'll drill you through. I've got you
covered."
I was kneeling by the body of Bentley, with my gun on the floor-grid
beside me. With hands up, I slowly turned. The tall figure of William
Wilson, the ship's First Officer loomed over me with the tubelight
gleaming on his white and gold uniform. He was staring down grimly; he
held a small heat-gun at his hip, leveled at me.
Out in the open at last. So this was one of the criminals; the fellow
who had tried to melt into the helio room? The eavesdropper? The man
who had been in Nina's room? Heaven knows, of all on board, I had least
suspected him.
He thought, of course, he had me trapped. But you can't capture an S.S.
Man just by holding a gun on him and telling him to put up his hands.
Even with my hands up, and the Banning gun on the floor beside me,--I
could have pointed my left shoulder at him, drilled him with a stab of
heat from the heat-ray embedded in the padded shoulder of my jacket. My
right elbow was pressing my side to fire it, with all my body tensed
to try and drop under what might have been his answering shot. But I
didn't fire. His next words checked me.
"So you're not just a mathematics clerk--a damned murderer here on
board! Get up! We're going up to Mackensie."
I stared as his foot kicked at my gun, and he swiftly stooped and
picked it up.
"Come on," he added with a rasp. "Climb to your feet, Penelle. We'll
see what the Captain has to say about this--"
"That suits me," I murmured. I said nothing more. Docilly I let him
shove me in advance of him, up the ladder, along the dim main corridor,
up the companionway from the starlit bow deck triangle to the little
catwalk bridge in front of the turret.
* * * * *
Fortunately we encountered no one. At his telescope in the peak of
the bow, the forward lookout turned and gazed at us curiously. The
dim control turret was empty, eerie with the spots of fluorescent
light from its banks of instruments. The controls were locked for the
vessel's present course. The door oval to the adjacent chart room was
open. Mackensie was alone in there, plotting the _X-87's_ future course
on a chart. He stared blankly as the grim young Wilson shoved me in
upon him.
"Caught this damned fellow in the magnet-room, Captain. He's killed
Bentley. By God--something queer's in the air this voyage. Bentley
murdered--"
Mackensie's first stare of startled amusement as I was shoved captive
before him, faded into horror. His heavy, square jaw dropped.
"Bentley murdered? Good Lord--why--what ..."
"Somebody was tampering with the ship's gravity," I murmured swiftly.
"I felt it go off in a section of the main corridor--went down to the
magnet-room. Bentley's there dead--drilled through the chest--"
"Bentley killed? Murder, here on my ship! Why, by the Gods of the
starways--" Big Mackensie was momentarily stupified, his eyes widened,
his heavy face mottled an apoplectic red with his rush of anger.
"I caught this fellow Penelle--" young Wilson began.
"Don't be an ass," Mackensie roared. "He's a Government
crime-tracker--stationed here on board this voyage--"