At six A.M., Earth Eastern time, which we were still carrying, Snap
Dean and I were alone in his instrument room, perched in the network
over the _Planetara's_ deck. The bulge of the dome enclosed us; it
rounded like a great observatory window some twenty feet above the
ceiling of this little metal cubbyhole.
The _Planetara_ was still in Earth's shadow. The firmament--black,
interstellar space with its blazing white, red and yellow stars--lay
spread around us. The Moon, with nearly all its disc illumined, hung,
a great silver ball, over our bow quarter. Behind it, to one side,
Mars floated like the red tip of a smoldering cigar in the blackness.
The Earth, behind our stern, was dimly, redly visible--a giant sphere,
etched with the configurations of its oceans and continents. Upon one
limb a touch of sunlight hung on the mountain tops with a crescent
red-yellow sheen.
And then we plunged from the cone shadow. The Sun with the leaping
corona, burst through the blackness behind us. The Earth lighted into
a huge, thin crescent with hooked cusps.
To Snap and me, the glories of the heavens were too familiar to be
remarked. And upon this voyage particularly we were in no mood to
consider them. I had been in the radio room several hours. When the
_Planetara_ started, and my few routine duties were over, I could
think of nothing save Halsey's and Carter's admonition: "Be on your
guard. And particularly--watch George Prince."
I had not seen George Prince. But I had seen his sister, whom Carter
and Halsey had not bothered to mention. My heart was still pounding
with the memory.
Dr. Frank evidently was having little trouble with pressure sick
passengers. The _Planetara's_ equalizers were fairly efficient.
Prowling through the silent metal lounges and passages, I went to the
door of A22. It was on the deck level, in a tiny transverse passage
just off the main lounging room. Its name-grid glowed with the
letters: _Anita Prince_. I stood in my short white trousers and white
silk shirt, like a cabin steward staring. Anita Prince! I had never
heard the name until this night. But there was magic music in it now,
as I murmured it.
She was here, doubtless asleep, behind this small metal door. It
seemed as though that little oval grid were the gateway to a fairyland
of my dreams.
I turned away. Thought of the Grantline Moon Expedition stabbed at me.
George Prince--Anita's brother--he whom I had been warned to watch.
This renegade--associate of dubious Martians, plotting God knows what.
I saw, upon the adjoining door, A20, _George Prince_. I listened. In
the humming stillness of the ship's interior there was no sound from
these cabins. A20 was without windows, I knew. But Anita's room had a
window and a door which gave upon the deck. I went through the lounge,
out its arch and walked the deck length. The deck door and window of
A22 were closed and dark.
The deck was dim with white starlight from the side ports. Chairs were
here but they were all empty. From the bow windows of the arching dome
a flood of moonlight threw long, slanting shadows down the deck. At
the corner where the superstructure ended, I thought I saw a figure
lurking as though watching me. I went that way, but it vanished.
I turned the corner, went the width of the ship to the other side.
There was no one in sight save the observer on his spider bridge, high
in the bow network, and the second officer, on duty on the turret
balcony almost directly over me.
As I stood and listened, I suddenly heard footsteps. From the
direction of the bow a figure came. Purser Johnson.