Then Torio found the pressure-clip and slid the panel. With a cry of
triumph as he saw the hidden little safe; he did not wait to question
us on how to open it, but seized a heat-torch; melted its lock in a
moment. The foot-long leaden cylinder was disclosed. There could be no
question of the authenticity of its contents--its contents-dial glowed
with the Gamma rays bombarding it from within. The pointer trembled at
the figures indicating the strength and character of the bombardment.
"All goes well," Mokk chuckled. "We have no problems now, friend Torio.
You and I can trust each other, eh? Put it back in the safe. That is as
good a place as any." The giant Martian stood up, yawning. "You work
out our course with the captain. For me, I shall go down and take some
rest." He grinned. "The little Earth-girl fascinates you, eh, Torio?
I must leave her up here with you. Very well. I would not be one to
quarrel over so small a thing. The girls of Mars please me better."
Torio, too, was smiling. They were highly pleased with themselves,
these triumphant villains. "Take Penelle with you," Torio said
contemptuously. "Lock him up in one of the cubbies. Have one of the men
feed him."
I caught Torio's flashing, significant look, and one of grinning irony
with which the Martian answered it. And Nina saw it also. A cry burst
from her and she leaped up.
"You--you don't mean that! You're going to kill him, now that you
haven't anything more to get out of him! Oh--Oh, please--"
Her slim little hands gripped Torio by the shoulders. I saw him tense;
he stared; and then he laughed softly. "Well, my dear--when you ask me
in such a way as this--"
"Oh, I do. I do."
"Then I will keep him alive."
"Don't--don't take him down there."
"You do not trust me?" His voice sounded hurt. He swung on Mokk. "Bind
him and lock him up. Do not harm him. If you do, you will answer to me
for it. I mean it now."
"Quite correct," Mokk agreed with a grin. "If that is your form of
love-making, it is your own affair. Let us hope she will give you her
favor, since you do this for her."
"Take him away," Torio commanded. "Come, Captain--let us get this
course charted."
* * * * *
I stood up as Mokk prodded me with his weapon and he shoved me from the
room. Was he going to kill me now out of hand? I had that feeling, and
it wasn't pleasant. But he only shoved me along the starlit and moonlit
roof deck. We had turned partly over. The huge ball of Earth was
directly under us now; the Moon was high overhead, blurred through the
glassite pressure dome. I saw, distantly, a man or two of the crew,
watching us as we came down the side ladder. How many of the mutineers
were there? I had no way of guessing. As Mokk shoved me from the side
deck into the cross corridor, down the deck near the stern triangle, I
caught a glimpse of the hunchback, Durk, staring silently at us.
Part way along the corridor the Martian shoved me into one of the
passenger sleeping-cubbies. He lighted one of its tiny hooded wall
lights. Then he produced lengths of wire; bound my ankles; lashed my
wrists, crossed behind me.
"I'll put you into the bunk for greater comfort," he chuckled.
"Thanks."
"Oh, I do it for friend Torio, and his little lady, not for you. Are
you hungry?"
"No."
"Well, I'll send you food later."
He left me, closing the door softly after him. I lay in the shadowed
bunk, listening to the silence of the vibrationless little vessel.
Across the small sleeping room, the window oval was visible, its
alumite shutter halfway down. The open segment was very faintly
starlit. Perhaps I had been dozing; my head throbbed; the dank sweat of
weakness was still upon me. Then suddenly I was snapped into alertness;
it seemed that I had heard a sound on the side deck outside my window.
And abruptly there was a shadow there in the half-oval window opening.
Someone looking in? My heart pounded as I stared; and in a second the
soundless shadow withdrew. A minute passed. Again I tensed at the sound
of a faint creak. My door was opening! Beyond the bunk bottom I could
see the door as very slowly, quietly it swung inward. Then the sheen
of light from the corridor darkened; a blob slipped into the room; the
door softly closed. The blob, hunched, stealthy, came slowly toward me.
Whatever outcry I might have made froze on my lips with my sudden rush
of horror. Twitching, I strained at my bonds, but the damnable wire
held and merely dug into my flesh from the effort. The hunchback! He
came shambling. In one of his dangling hands he held a knife; the
hooded light here in the cubby glinted on its naked blade. And in that
second the light-sheen caught his face--ghastly, lumped, twisted
countenance, with bulbous parted lips as he sucked in his breath.
"Penelle--"
"Get away from me," I rasped. "You'll answer to Torio for this. By
Heaven, he'll flay you alive."
"Not so loud! Easy there, I'm not here to hurt you."
What was this? Not a guttural, illiterate voice. I recalled my fleeting
impression before that this Durk had the sort of voice one uses for
disguise. He was beside me now; and as the light, its hood here within
a foot or two, brightly illumined his face, realization came to me.
Wax, embedded under the skin, by the Glotz-process of disguise. We of
the Shadow Squad sometimes use it, though I must confess I had never
seen it so cleverly done as here.
"Who are you?" I muttered.