I stopped to raise up Balch. Another beam came down. A heat ray this
time. It caught the fallen Balch full on the chest, piercing him
through. The smell of his burning flesh rose to sicken me. He was
dead. I dropped his body. Carter shoved me into the chart room.
In the small, steel-lined room, Carter and I slid the door closed. We
were alone here. The thing had come so quickly it had taken Captain
Carter, like us all, wholly unawares. We had anticipated spying
eavesdroppers, but not this open brigandage. No more than a minute or
two had passed since Miko's siren in his stateroom had given the
signal for attack. Carter had been in the chart room. Blackstone was
in the turret. At the outbreak of confusion, Carter dashed out to see
Hahn releasing Johnson from the cage. From the forward chart room
window now I could see where Hahn with a torch had broken the cage
seal. The torch lay on the deck. There had been an exchange of shots;
Carter's arm was paralyzed; Johnson and Hahn had escaped.
Carter was as confused as I. There had simultaneously been an
encounter up in the turret. Blackstone and the course master were
killed. The lookout had been shot from his post in the forward
observatory. The body dangled now, twisted half in and half out the
window.
We could see several of Miko's men--erstwhile members of our crew and
steward corps--scurrying from the turret along the upper bridge toward
the dark and silent radio room. Snap was up there. But was he? The
radio room glowed suddenly with dim light, but there was no evidence
of a fight there. The fighting seemed mostly below the deck, down in
the hull corridors. A blended horror of sounds came up to us. Screams,
shouts and the hissing and snapping of ray weapons. Our crew--such of
them as were loyal--were making a stand below. But it was brief.
Within a minute it died away. The passengers, amidships in the
superstructure, were still shouting. Then above them Miko's roar
sounded.
"Be quiet! Go in your rooms--you will not be harmed."
The brigands in these few minutes were in control of the ship. All but
this little chart room, where, with most of the ship's weapons, Carter
and I were entrenched.
"God, Gregg, that this should come upon us!"
Carter was fumbling with the chart room weapons. "Here, Gregg. Help
me. What have you got? Heat ray? That's all I had ready."
It struck me then as I helped him make the connections that Carter in
this crisis was at best an inefficient commander. His red face had
gone splotchy purple; his hands were trembling. Skilled as Captain of
a peaceful liner, he was at a loss now. But I could not blame him. It
is easy to say we might have taken warning, done this or that, and
come triumphant through the attack. But only the fool looks backward
and says, "I would have done better."
I tried to summon my wits. The ship was lost to us unless Carter and I
could do something. Our futile weapons! They were all here--four or
five heat ray hand projectors that could send a pencil ray a hundred
feet or so. I shot one diagonally up at the turret where Johnson was
leering down at our rear window, but he saw my gesture and dropped
back out of sight. The heat beam flashed harmlessly up and struck the
turret room. Then across the turret window came a sheen of
radiance--an electrobarrage. And behind it, Hahn's suave, evil face
appeared. He shouted down:
"We have orders to spare you, Gregg Haljan--or you would have been
killed long ago!"
My answering shot hit his barrage with a shower of sparks, behind
which he stood unmoved.