He slammed the door upon me.
I followed his orders but it was like a dream of horror. The turmoil
of the ship gradually quieted. Snap went to the radio room; Blackstone
and I sat in the tiny chart room; how much time passed, I do not know.
I was confused. Anita hurt! She might die ... murdered.... But why? By
whom? Had George Prince been in his own room when the attack came? I
thought now I recalled hearing the low murmur of his voice in there
with Dr. Frank.
Where was Miko? It stabbed at me. I had not seen him among the
passengers in the lounge.
Carter came into the chart room. "Gregg, you get to bed. You look like
a ghost."
"But--"
"She's not dead. She may live. Dr. Frank and her brother are with
her. They're doing all they can." He told us what had happened. Anita
and George Prince had both been asleep, each in his respective room.
Someone unknown had opened Anita's corridor door.
"Wasn't it sealed?"
"Yes. But the intruder opened it."
"Burst it? I didn't think it was broken."
"It wasn't broken. The assailant opened it somehow, and assaulted Miss
Prince--shot her in the chest with a heat ray. Her left lung."
"Shot her?"
"Yes. But she did not see who did it. Nor did Prince. Her scream
awakened him, but the intruder evidently fled out the corridor door of
A22, the way he entered."
I stood weak and shaken at the chart room entrance. Anita--dying,
perhaps; and all my dreams were fading into a memory of what might
have been.
I was glad enough to get away. I would lie down for an hour and then
go to Anita's stateroom. I'd demand that Dr. Frank let me see her.
I went to the stern deck where my cubby was located. My mind was
confused but some instinct within me made me verify the seals of my
door and window. They were intact. I entered cautiously, switched on
the dimmer of the tube lights, and searched the room. It had only a
bunk, my tiny desk, a chair and clothes robe. There was no evidence of
any intruder here. I set my door and window alarm. Then I audiphoned
to the radio room.
"Snap?"
"Yes."
I told him about Anita. Carter cut in on us from the chart room. "Stop
that, you fools!"
We cut off. Fully dressed, I flung myself on my bed. Anita might
die....
I must have fallen into a tortured sleep, I was awakened by the sound
of my alarm buzzer. Someone was tampering with my door! Then the
buzzer ceased; the marauder outside must have found a way of
silencing it. But it had done its work--awakened me.
I had switched off the light; my cubby was Stygian black. A heat
cylinder was in the bunk-bracket over my head. I searched for it,
pried it loose softly.
I was fully awake. Alert. I could hear a faint sizzling--someone
outside trying to unseal the door. In the darkness, cylinder in hand,
I crept softly from the bunk. Crouched at the door. This time I would
capture or kill this night prowler.
The sizzling was faintly audible. My door seal was breaking. Upon
impulse I reached for the door, jerked it open.
No one there! The starlit segment of deck was empty. But I leaped and
struck a solid body, crouching in the doorway. A giant man. Miko!
His electronized metallic robe burned my hands. I lunged against
him--I was almost as surprised as he. I shot, but the stab of heat
evidently missed him. The shock of my encounter, short-circuited his
robe; he materialized in the starlight. A brief, savage encounter. He
struck the weapon from my hand. He had dropped his hydrogen torch, and
tried to grip me. But I twisted away from his hold.
"So it's you!"
"Quiet, Gregg Haljan! I only want to talk."
Without warning, a stab of radiance shot from a weapon in his hand. It
caught me. Ran like ice through my veins. Seized and numbed my limbs.
I fell helpless to the deck. Nerves and muscles paralyzed. My tongue
was thick and inert. I could not speak, nor move. But I could see Miko
bending over me, and hear him:
"I don't want to kill you, Haljan. We need you."
He gathered me up like a bundle in his huge arms; carried me swiftly
across the deserted deck.
Snap's radio room in the network under the dome was diagonally
overhead. A white actinic light shot from it--caught us, bathed us.
Snap had been awake; had heard the commotion of our encounter.
His voice rang shrilly: "Stop! I'll shoot!" His warning siren rang out
to alert the ship. His spotlight clung to us.
Miko ran with me a few steps. Then he cursed and dropped me; fled
away. I fell like a sack of carbide to the deck. My senses faded into
blackness....
"He's all right now."
I was in the chart room with Captain Carter, Snap and Dr. Frank
bending over me. The surgeon said,
"Can you speak now, Gregg?"
I tried it. My tongue was thick, but it moved. "Yes." I was soon
revived. I sat up, with Dr. Frank vigorously rubbing me.
"I'm all right." I told them what had happened.
Captain Carter said, "Yes, we know that. And it was Miko also who
killed Anita Prince. She told us before she died."
"Died!..." I leaped to my feet. "She ... died...."
"Yes, Gregg. An hour ago. Miko got into her stateroom and tried to
force his love upon her. She repulsed him. He killed her...."
It struck me blank. And then with a rush came the thought, "He says
Miko killed her"....
I heard myself stammering, "Why--why we must get him!" I gathered my
wits; a surge of hate swept me; a wild desire for vengeance.
"Why, by God, where is he? Why don't you go get him? I'll get
him--I'll kill him!"
"Easy, Gregg!" Dr. Frank gripped me.
The Captain said gently. "We know how you feel, Gregg. She told us
before she died."
"I'll bring him in here to you! But I'll kill him, I tell you!"
"No you won't, lad. We don't want him killed, not attacked, even. Not
yet. We'll explain later."
They sat me down, calming me....
Anita dead. The door of the shining garden was closed. A brief glimpse
given to me and to her of what might have been. And now she was
dead....
X
I had not been able at first to understand why Captain Carter wanted
Miko left at liberty. Within me there was that cry of vengeance, as
though to strike Miko down would somehow lessen my own grief. Whatever
Carter's purpose, Snap had not known it. But Balch and Dr. Frank were
in the Captain's confidence--all three of them working on some plan of
action.
It was obvious that at least two of our passengers were plotting with
Miko and George Prince; trying on this voyage to learn what they could
about Grantline's activities on the Moon--scheming doubtless to seize
the treasure when the _Planetara_ stopped at the Moon on the return
voyage. I thought I could name those masquerading passengers. Ob Hahn,
supposedly a Venus mystic. And Rance Rankin, who called himself an
American magician. Those two, Snap and I agreed, seemed most
suspicious. And there was the purser.
I sat for a time on the deck outside the chart room with Snap. Then
Carter summoned us back, and we sat listening while he, Balch and Dr.
Frank went on with their conference. Listening to them, I could not
but agree that our best plan was to secure evidence which would
incriminate all who were concerned in the plot. Miko, we were
convinced, had been the Martian who followed Snap and me from Halsey's
office in Greater New York. George Prince had doubtless been the
invisible eavesdropper outside the radio room. He knew, and had told
the others that Grantline had found that priceless metal on the Moon
and that the _Planetara_ would stop there on the way home.
But we could not incarcerate George Prince for being an eavesdropper.
Nor had we the faintest possible evidence against Ob Hahn or Rankin.
And even the purser would probably be released by the Interplanetary
Court of Ferrok-Shahn when it heard our evidence.
There was only Miko. We could arrest him for the murder of Anita. But
if we did that now, the others would be put on their guard. It was
Carter's idea to let Miko remain at liberty for a time and see if we
could identify and incriminate his fellows. The murder of Anita
obviously had nothing to do with any plot against Grantline Moon
treasure.
"Why," exclaimed Balch, "there might be--probably are--huge Martian
interests concerned in this thing. These men aboard are only
emissaries, making this voyage to learn what they can. When they get
to Ferrok-Shahn, they'll make their report, and then we'll have a real
danger on our hands. Why, an outlaw ship could be launched from
Ferrok-Shahn that would beat us back to the Moon--and Grantline is
entirely without warning of any danger!"
It seemed obvious. Unscrupulous criminals in Ferrok-Shahn would be
dangerous indeed, once these details of Grantline were given them. So
now it was decided that in the remaining nine days of our outward
voyage, we would attempt to secure enough evidence to arrest all these
plotters.
"I'll have them all in the cage when we land," declared Carter grimly.
"They'll make no report to their principals!"
Ah, the futile plans of men!
Yet, at the time, we thought it practical. We were all doubly armed
now. Bullet projectors and heat ray cylinders. And we had several
eavesdropping microphones which we planned to use whenever occasion
offered.
Only twenty-eight hours of this eventful voyage had passed. The
_Planetara_ was some six million miles from the Earth; it blazed
behind us, a tremendous giant.
The body of Anita was being made ready for burial. George Prince was
still in his stateroom. Glutz, effeminate little hairdresser, who
waxed rich acting as beauty doctor for the women passengers, and who,
in his youth, had been an undertaker, had gone with Dr. Frank to
prepare the body.
Gruesome details. I tried not to think of them. I sat, numbed, in the
chart room.
An astronomical burial--there was little precedent for it. I dragged
myself to the stern deck where, at five A.M., the ceremony took place.
We were a solemn little group, gathered there in the checkered
starlight with the great vault of the heavens around us. A dismantled
electronic projector--necessary when a long range gun was mounted--had
been rigged up in one of the deck ports.
They brought out the body. I stood apart, gazing reluctantly at the
small bundle, wrapped like a mummy in a dark metallic screen-cloth. A
patch of black silk rested over her face. Four cabin stewards carried
her; and beside her walked George Prince. A long black robe covered
him, but his head was bare. And suddenly he reminded me of the ancient
play-character of Hamlet. His black, wavy hair; his finely chiseled,
pallid face, set now in a stern patrician cast. And staring, I
realized that however much of the villain this man might be, at this
instant, walking beside the body of his dead sister, he was stricken
with grief. He loved that sister with whom he had lived since
childhood; and to see him now no one could doubt it.
The little procession stopped in a patch of starlight by the port.
They rested the body on a bank of chairs. The black-robed chaplain,
roused from his bed and still trembling from excitement of this
sudden, inexplicable death on board, said a brief, solemn little
prayer. An appeal: That the Almighty Ruler of all these blazing worlds
might guard the soul of this gentle girl whose mortal remains were now
to be returned to Him.
Ah, if ever God seemed hovering close, it was now at this instant, on
this starlit deck floating in the black void of space.
Then Carter for just a moment removed the black shroud from her face.
I saw her brother gaze silently; saw him stoop and implant a
kiss--and turn away. I did not want to look, but I found myself moving
slowly forward.
She lay, so beautiful. Her face, white and calm and peaceful in death.
My sight blurred.
"Easy Gregg," Snap was whispering to me. He had his arm around me.
"Come on away."
They tied the shroud over her face. I did not see them as they put the
body in the tube, sent it through the exhaust chamber and dropped it.
But a moment later I saw it, a small black, oblong bundle hovering
beside us. It was perhaps a hundred feet away, circling us. Held by
the _Planetara's_ bulk, it had momentarily become our satellite. It
swung around us like a moon. Gruesome satellite, by nature's laws
forever to follow us.
Then from another tube at the bow, Blackstone operated a small
zed-co-ray projector. Its dull light caught the floating bundle,
neutralizing its metallic wrappings.
It swung off at a tangent. Speeding. Falling free in the dome of the
heavens. A rotating black oblong. But in a moment distance dwindled it
to a speck. A dull silver dot with the sunlight on it. A speck of
human Earth dust, falling free....
It vanished. Anita--gone.