Quong Kee's faintly cynical smile didn't make him feel any better.
Leaving the place, he glared belligerently at the maniac he had fought
with. Marching to the spaceport, his feelings intensified so that he
forgot to walk slowly, the first rule on Mars, and had to hold his
airpac to his nostrils all the way. By the time he found the _Chicago_,
his fingers were stiff from holding the instrument.
"Damn that living relic of a Quong Kee," he muttered, changing hands.
"Damn everything!"
So the girl needed him. He growled at the idea of the Chinese putting
the girl ahead of the System News Service.
His sense of humor came through then, and he laughed at himself.
Ron Barnard, the hardest hearted reporter in the Solar System, was
developing a crush on a girl he hardly knew! He chuckled at his
emotions as if they were somebody else's.
"If the boys in the city room ever hear of this," he thought, "they'll
laugh me right off Earth. I'll have to become a space-beacon keeper."
He stood for a minute sizing up the _Chicago_. Odd, he reflected,
how the human mind before space travel had pictured space craft as
wingless and cigar shaped. This rugged model, of an almost forgotten
vintage, was short and stubby and wide winged. It scarcely looked
spaceworthy, but the skies were filled with old craft like this one.
He used the key Quong Kee had given him and found the ship deserted.
The interior was better. He was pleased to find a three-inch layer of
Selene between the hulls. The artificial spider silk, closely woven and
specially processed, was as tough as any material in existence and its
insulating qualities couldn't be matched.
In the spotless control cabin he found that the instruments were
fully modern. The cabin was globular; gyroscopes kept the gravity--if
any--under its floor. A glance into other compartments brought a
whistle to his lips--the _Chicago_ was crammed with fuel and food. Gail
Melvin must have prepared this as a permanent home.
Two tiny sections were the sleeping quarters of Gail and George Melvin.
He poked around them until a feeling of guilt made him stop. He sank
into a spongy, bolted-down chair, damning his new-found ethics. He'd
straighten out a few things when that female showed up.
* * * * *
She didn't seem surprised to see him. She glanced his way casually and
started tugging off her heavy coat. A gentlemanly impulse almost had
him out of his seat to help her, but he stifled it.
Her nose was red from the mild summer weather of Mars, and he thought
briefly that if her cheeks were a little fuller, she would probably
be more or less good looking. As a matter of plain fact, she was too
damned skinny. She must spend most of her time worrying about her
brother.
She was taller than he had thought, but still looked slight and
helpless. And hopeless as well. Her shoulders drooped a little as she
faced him.
"I saw Quong Kee," she said.
"Oh--I'm sorry about your brother." He hesitated. "Have you any idea
who did it?"
He almost squirmed when she looked at him. The expression in her eyes
was not entirely friendly.
"I have ideas," she said. "And they're not nice."
Her eyes were dark and smoldering now.
"They questioned George with a new type of lie detector--Skolssolky or
some such name. I wasn't supposed to know--"
Barnard's eyebrows went up. "The police questioned George? Somebody
must have found out!"
Gail dropped her coat over the back of another chair and sat on the
chair. She was pale and her eyes were haggard.
"When I found the police had picked him up," she said, "I took an
espine pill and became _en rapport_ with him."
She pressed her slender fingers against her temples. "I'm
tired ... espine isn't as bad as _neoin_, of course, but it has a
strong reaction. They found out some things from George that I'd never
been able to find out.
"This instrument reaches deeper into the subconscious than anything
ever used before. Even so, everything was vague. But George had been on
Pluto. Somehow he'd followed the _neoin_ trail there; how, I don't know.
"But on Pluto, they did something to him. They took his mind and made
him like a new-born child. His brain was perfectly blank. I've been
teaching him as I'd teach an infant--but he was so slow learning."
"Pluto--" Barnard stared. "Then _neoin_ comes from Pluto. Lansfer knows
this--"
He looked at the girl and damned his conscience again. There was a
first aid box set into the wall, and he found a bottle of brandy in it.
A small black bottle was there. He noted the label--_Espine_, another
outlawed drug the authorities tolerated for emergency purposes. Not
habit-forming, but continued use of it would soften the brain and wreck
the nerve centers.
He slammed the cabinet door on the black bottle. She had reason to be
tired.
He made her drink the brandy. She spoke softly, between sips. "When
I heard that, I determined to go to Pluto. If something there could
take my brother's intelligence away, we might be able to reverse the
process."
"Or lose your own," Barnard murmured.
"When Quong Kee told me about the--George, it changed all that, of
course. There was no need to go to Pluto."
"You've got your nerve," Barnard growled. "You speak very calmly about
invading Pluto single handed."
Definitely, Pluto was no place for her. But he had to be in on the
kill. Would Lansfer cooperate?
"Miss Melvin," he said, "I'll have to see the Space Police, find out if
they'll take me with them. I suspect they won't. So I'm going to cable
my boss for money, and if it's all right with you, I'll charter this
ship--"
"I'll be very happy," she said, "to take you with me to Pluto--so you
can get your story."
He stared. "But--you mean you still intend to go to Pluto? What
possible reason could you have now?"
* * * * *
She reached for her coat and dug into the sleeve. Barnard blinked when
three of her fingers came out at the shoulder.
"That hole," she said, "was made by a bullet. Somebody took a shot at
me on the way over here, and I've been followed. Evidently they've
decided I know too much. I'll never step out that door alive."
She indicated a red pane of glass on the instrument panel. "If that
glows, they're approaching the ship. Be ready to give them a warning
blast from the rockets."
Barnard thought wistfully of the gun he had left in his hotel room.
"That means I'm here for keeps, too. But you can't go to Pluto. I'll
drop you off at another Martian city--or on some other planet that's on
our route."
"Did you ever operate a space ship?" she asked.
"No, but--"
She shook her head. "Besides, they have agents everywhere. My life
isn't worth a counterfeit milliplatin. So I might just as well go to
Pluto."
Barnard sprang to life as the detector signal glowed deep red. He
leaped to the handles of the rocket jets, prepared to throw out a
warning blast.
There was a pounding on the hull. "Open up, in there! It's the Space
Police!"
"That's Lansfer's voice." Barnard hesitated at the lock. "That means
we're safe--or does it? Is this ship ready to take off?"
"Yes--"
"Then--just on a hunch--get at the control board--"
He closed the inner door of the lock behind him before he opened the
outer. No use silhouetting himself against the lighted interior.
Lansfer almost lost his poker face. "You! You'll get into trouble,
Barnard, if you're not careful. What are you doing here?"
"Guest of Miss Melvin, commander. And you?"
The officer indicated a paper. Barnard noted that his other hand
remained close to his holster.
"We're impounding this ship. The Space Police can't be responsible for
old wrecks endangering human life and limb on the spaceways."
"Very thoughtful of the Space Police all of a sudden," said Barnard.
There were two other patrolmen with Lansfer, he saw. Remish and a
red-haired man he knew to be named Grady. His searching eyes picked
out several shadowy figures lurking at corners of the field. He looked
again at Lansfer.
"You have our word," he said, "that this ship is to be used only as
living quarters by Miss Melvin."
Lansfer stared coolly up at him. "This court order calls for the
_Chicago_ to be delivered immediately into the custody of the sheriff
and auctioned for scrap. You and Miss Melvin will leave it immediately."
Barnard nodded agreeably. "All right, commander. We'll leave--right
now."
Lansfer relaxed. He was about two feet below Barnard, the platform
being that high from the ground. Barnard reached out carefully with his
foot and shoved. The spaceman flew backwards into Grady, and the two of
them crashed to the frozen ground.
Barnard pulled the door swiftly. Lansfer was clawing for his gun and
shouting for Remish to stop them. Remish's gloved fingers fumbled as he
drew and the outer door was closed before he fired. Barnard grinned as
the bullets bounced off the door. That hull was more than tough enough
to handle all the bullets the Space Police could throw at it.
"Get off the ground, Gail," he shouted.
He slammed the inner door of the lock and swayed with the control room
globe as the rockets went into action. The ship jumped forward a few
feet, balked for a moment. Gail threw a lever that opened the shutters.
They saw the three policemen scrambling madly to both sides as the
_Chicago_ started roaring down the field.
They blasted away and left the ground, the police still firing after
them. Barnard clung to a bolted-down chair as they lurched wildly. Gail
pointed the nose up until the ship would have been hanging from its
props, if it had any.
"That's all we needed," said Barnard, sourly. "We're both outlaws
now--fair game for anybody. Our only hope is to break the dope ring.
And Lansfer, if we can."
She looked distastefully at him. "That would make a good story,
wouldn't it? Daring reporter defies police; smashes _neoin_ ring. Of
course, there might be some opposition."
"Which way is Pluto?" he asked, changing the subject.
"I haven't the faintest idea. Hand me that book--the big one--"