We were sitting in darkness, and abruptly I became aware that across
our open window, where the insulation barrage was flung, the air was
faintly hissing. An interference there! I saw a tiny swirl of purple
sparks. Someone--some hostile ray from the deck beneath us, or from
the spider bridge that led to our little room--someone out there was
trying to pry in!
Snap impulsively reached for the absorbers to let in the outside
light. But I checked him.
"Wait!" I cut off our barrage, opened our door and stepped to the
narrow metal bridge.
"You stay there, Snap!" I whispered. Then I added aloud, "Well, Snap,
I'm going to bed. Glad you've cleaned up that batch of work."
I banged the door upon him. The lacework of metal bridges seemed
empty. I gazed up to the dome, and forward and aft. Twenty feet
beneath me was the metal roof of the cabin superstructure. Below it,
both sides of the deck showed. All patched with moonlight.
No one visible down there. I descended a ladder. The deck was empty.
But in the silence something was moving! Footsteps moving away from me
down the deck! I followed; and suddenly I was running. Chasing
something I could hear, but could not see. It turned into the smoking
room.
I burst in. And a real sound smothered the phantom. Johnson the purser
was sitting here alone in the dimness. He was smoking. I noticed that
his cigar held a long frail ash. It could not have been him I was
chasing. He was sitting there quite calmly. A thick-necked, heavy
fellow, easily out of breath. But he was breathing calmly now.
He sat up in amazement at my wild-eyed appearance, and the ash jarred
from his cigar.
"Gregg! What in the devil--"
I tried to grin. "I'm on my way to bed--worked all night helping
Snap."
I went past him, out the door into the main corridor. It was the only
way the invisible prowler could have gone. But I was too late now--I
could hear nothing. I dashed forward into the main lounge. It was
empty, dim and silent, a silence broken presently by a faint click, a
stateroom door hastily closing. I swung and found myself in a tiny
transverse passage. The twin doors of A20 and A22 were before me.
The invisible eavesdropper had gone into one of these rooms! I
listened at each of the panels, but there was only silence within.
The interior of the ship was suddenly singing with the steward's
siren--the call to awaken the passengers. It startled me. I moved
swiftly away. But as the siren shut off, in the silence I heard a
soft, musical voice:
"Wake up, Anita, I think that's the breakfast call."