"We'll be back on Earth in eighteen hours," the choleric Mackensie
asserted. "You can all go to hell--you murderers--bandits--"
"Back to Earth?" Torio sneered. "Watch us turn, Captain. Not back
to Earth. It's Venus we're going to head for. Venus--where the new
triumphant Government will be needing that treasure you've hidden. Up
there with you in the turret, isn't it?"
"To hell with you--"
"Watch us turn, Captain."
* * * * *
I was aware of the glittering Heavens up through the glassite pressure
dome as they made a dizzying swoop. The little _X-87_, with her gravity
plates abruptly shifted by the manual controls in the hull room, was
turning over.
"See it, Captain?"
"You damned fools," Mackensie roared. "Disconnect my controls if you
like. What the hell of it? You can't chart a course down there. You
haven't the instruments or the skill."
"Quite true, Captain. That's why we want you to surrender. We'd really
rather not kill you. And if we go falling through Space this way,
unguided, we might eventually hit something. Your five minutes are
almost up. What do you say?"
My nostrils abruptly were dilating. What was this? Suddenly I was aware
of a queer acrid smell here. And my head gave a swoop. Here in the
turret Green and Polter were at the forward window. I saw them fling me
a startled glance. Both of them staggered to their feet. And Mackensie,
still gripping the receiver, was swaying.
"What's the matter, Captain?" Torio's suave ironic voice was demanding.
"Do you smell it already? You're so silent."
William Wilson, with Nina, was alone on guard in the adjacent chart
room. He gave a sudden startled cry. "Come quick! Something's the
matter with me."
Poisonous gas here! We realized it abruptly; gas pouring in through the
ventilators from below.
"Close those vents!" Mackensie gasped. "Poisoned air--" His hand was
clutching at his throat. With his thick neck, full-blooded body, he
felt it worse than any of us. His face was purpling; his eyes abruptly
bulging. In that second he staggered and fell, ripping the receiver
connection out as he went down, where still the ironic voice of Torio
was jibing at us.
The rest of us sprang to the grid vents. There was no way of shutting
the poisoned air off! The hinges of the multiple little visors were
melted away!
"That--that damned Dr. Frye," Polter gasped. "He was up here a while
ago. I wondered--"
A scream from Nina, mingled with a sizzling flash in the other room,
transfixed us. With all the weird scene swaying before me, I dashed
through the oval. Young Wilson was lying sprawling, dead from a bolt,
with his head and shoulders on the window ledge. Nina was crouching in
a corner, gasping, staring in terror. I started toward her. My ears
were roaring as though with a thousand Niagaras. A titan hand seemed
compressing my chest with a band of steel as I gasped for breath.
"Nina--Nina--" My own voice, so futile, sounded far away. Then I heard
the steel shutter of the chart room window snap up to the top. Into the
opening, a man came climbing. Mokk, with a patch of chemical fabric
binding his nose and mouth like a mask. My gun sizzled at him, but the
stab went wild as I staggered. Then he came leaping at me.
From the turret I was aware of other shots; a scream of agony from
Polter as he was struck; thudding blows as the visor pane was crashed.
And then a scream from little Green. The end! On the chart room floor
grid I found myself wildly grappling the hulking Martian. My gun had
clattered away as his three hundred-pound weight crashed me down.
Dimly I realized that this sudden wild attack upon us was because the
bandits, for their own sakes, had no desire to have any great amount of
the poisoned air circulating about the little ship.
"You damned little Earth-fool," Mokk was growling. "Don't you see I'd
rather not kill you?"
My puny little blows into his face only made him rasp with anger. I
was trying to twist from under him. I almost made it. But abruptly he
seized me around the middle, rose up and hurled me. Like a child I
hurtled across the room, crashing against the alumite inner wall. The
world went up into a blinding roar of light as my head struck. Dimly
I was aware of dropping back to the floor. There was only blinding,
roaring light, and Nina's choked scream of terror as my senses faded
and I slid into the soundless abyss of unconsciousness.
* * * * *
I was at last aware that I was not dead, by the dim feeling that my
head was throbbing. I was lying on something soft. Voices were here;
the muffled, blended murmur of men's voices. At first they seemed very
faint and far away. Then, as my returning senses clarified a little
more, I knew that the voices were close to me.
I opened my eyes at last to find myself lying on a blanket on the
chart room floor. In a chair Nina was huddled, mutely staring with
wide, terrified eyes to where at his chart-table Captain Mackensie was
slumped, sullenly staring at the celestial diagrams spread before him.
The sleek, ironic figure of Torio was beside him, his slim gray hand
gesturing at the charts.
"We are now just about here, Captain?"
"Yes," Mackensie growled.
"Then we want a computation of the swiftest course, from here to Venus.
You will figure it out. Tell us the gravity plate combination."
I could feel that blood was stiffly matting the hair at the back of my
head, a ragged scalp wound there. I was bathed in cold sweat; weak, so
dizzy still that the eerie chart room swam before me. But my strength
slowly was returning. How much time had passed? Considerable, I judged,
from that blood so stiffly dry in my hair. With a fumbling hand I felt
of my clothes. All my instruments and weapons had been taken.
Then I saw, in another chair, the huge slumped figure of Mokk, his
massive legs crossed at ease. On his knees his hand held a gun alert.
The room light fell on his heavy face. It bore an expression of grim
irony, as his dark eyes, watchful, roved the room.
"The segment of a parabola, Captain," the soft voice of Torio was
saying. "Would that be most swift? Remember, as we turn in past the
Earth, we go no closer than forty thousand miles."
"You're fools," Mackensie muttered. "This voyage will take a month or
more."
"Why not?"
"The alarm will be out for us. The Interplanetary Patrol will pick us
up."
"Let us hope not, Captain. You and Miss Nina would be the first
to die. But there is not too much danger, I think. The modern
electro-telescopes are very wonderful, but there is none, at forty
thousand miles, powerful enough to pick up so small a speck of floating
dust as the _X-87_. Or at least, not to identify it."
"I wouldn't be too sure, Torio. And at best, your food will give out."
"We will hope not," Torio smiled. His voice turned brisk. "Chart your
course, Captain. Remember, we kept you alive just for this duty."
Nina said suddenly, "This silence everywhere about the ship--where are
the passengers?"
Torio turned smilingly to her. "Why, little lady, didn't you know? We
gave them pressure suits and put them out the keel porte. Have no fear,
they'll drift down safely. Some of the suits are powered. If they're
clever they'll get back to Earth."
As though this were an old-fashioned surface vessel--giving the
passengers life preservers and tossing them into the middle of an ocean.
"Penelle seems to have recovered his wits," Mokk said suddenly. "See
what he knows, Torio."
It turned all their gazes upon me. I was up on one elbow. "What I know
about what?" I said.
* * * * *
Torio leaped to his feet and stood bending over me. "Now then, you
damned crime-tracker. Where is the T-catalyst? It's hidden around here
somewhere. Where is it?"
"Catalyst," I mumbled. "I don't know what you mean."
Torio's foot kicked savagely at me. I tensed; the giant Mokk shifted
his weapon to level down at me. I saw Mackensie flash me a glance.
"So you're going to try that too?" Torio rasped.
I stared. "He doesn't know any more about it than I do," Mackensie
growled. "Nobody knew except Georg Blake, and you killed him. Find it
for yourself. My guess it that Blake cast it adrift when the attack
came."
"You talk without sense," Mokk put in. "Maybe the girl knows." He
chuckled. "If you leave me alone with her, Torio, I can think of ways
to make her tell."
"I know nothing about it," Nina gasped.
"Well, some one of you does," Torio said grimly. "We'll start with this
damn crime-tracker." He leaped across the room, came back with a length
of wire. My gaze strayed to the opposite wall; the treasure was there,
back of a secret panel.
"Bare your chest, Penelle." Torio stooped to where I was backed
against the wall, on the floor. He tore at my shirt, exposing the flesh
of my chest. "Are you going to tell?"
"I can't. I don't know."
Beyond his slim shoulder I saw Nina's face, pallid, her dark eyes
glistening with horror, her lips compressed as though to stifle a
scream. Torio had a small cylinder in his hand, with the naked length
of wire connected to it. The wire was glowing now--red, orange, white,
then violet hot.
"A few lashes with this," Torio hissed at me. "Whatever you know will
come out then." His pale face was blazing.
"He will talk even more quickly if you try that on the girl," Mokk
growled.
"No!" I burst out. "No, damn you! We don't know where it is! I can't
tell what I don't know."
"We'll see," Torio muttered. He dangled the wire at my face. The violet
light of it was blinding; the heat scorched my skin.
"Stop! Oh, stop it! I'll tell you!" Nina's anguished cry rang out. The
light and heat receded from my face.
"Oh, so you're the one who's willing to tell?" Torio swung on her;
snapped off the current in his wire and flung it away. "All right,
where is it? But remember, by the gods, if we don't find it where you
say--"
"It's there." She gestured to the wall. "My father told me it's there."
"I hope so," the giant Mokk growled. "For your sake, I hope so, little
lady."