PIRATES OF SPACE
Apparently motionless to her passengers and crew, the Interplanetary
liner _Hyperion_ bored serenely onward through space at normal
acceleration. In the railed-off sanctum in one corner of the control
room a bell tinkled, a smothered whirr was heard, and Captain Bradley
frowned as he studied the brief message upon the tape of the recorder--a
message flashed to his desk from the operator's panel. He beckoned, and
the second officer, whose watch it now was, read aloud:
"Reports of scout patrols still negative."
"Still negative." The officer scowled in thought. "They've already
searched beyond the widest possible location of wreckage, too. Two
unexplained disappearances inside a month--first the _Dione_, then the
_Rhea_--and not a plate nor a lifeboat recovered. Looks bad, sir. One
might be an accident; two might possibly be a coincidence...." His voice
died away.
"But at three it would get to be a habit," the captain finished the
thought. "And whatever happened, happened quick. Neither of them had
time to say a word--their location recorders simply went dead. But of
course they didn't have our detector screens nor our armament. According
to the observatories we're in clear ether, but I wouldn't trust them
from Tellus to Luna. You have given the new orders, of course?"
"Yes, sir. Detectors full out, all three courses of defensive screen on
the trips, projectors manned, suits on the hooks. Every object detected
to be investigated immediately--if vessels, they are to be warned to
stay beyond extreme range. Anything entering the fourth zone is to be
rayed."
"Right--we are going through!"
"But no known type of vessel could have made away with them without
detection," the second officer argued. "I wonder if there isn't
something in those wild rumors we've been hearing lately?"
"Bah! Of course not!" snorted the captain. "Pirates in ships faster than
light--sub-ethereal rays--nullification of gravity mass without
inertia--ridiculous! Proved impossible, over and over again. No, sir, if
pirates are operating in space--and it looks very much like it--they
won't get far against a good big battery full of kilowatt-hours behind
three courses of heavy screen, and good gunners behind multiplex
projectors. They're good enough for anybody. Pirates, Neptunians,
angels, or devils--in ships or on broomsticks--if they tackle the
_Hyperion_ we'll burn them out of the ether!"
Leaving the captain's desk, the watch officer resumed his tour of duty.
The six great lookout plates into which the alert observers peered were
blank, their far-flung ultra-sensitive detector screens encountering no
obstacle--the ether was empty for thousands upon thousands of
kilometers. The signal lamps upon the pilot's panel were dark, its
warning bells were silent. A brilliant point of white light in the
center of the pilot's closely ruled micrometer grating, exactly upon the
cross-hairs of his directors, showed that the immense vessel was
precisely upon the calculated course, as laid down by the automatic
integrating course plotters. Everything was quiet and in order.
"All's well, sir," he reported briefly to Captain Bradley--but all was
not well.
Danger--more serious by far in that it was not external--was even then,
all unsuspected, gnawing at the great ship's vitals. In a locked and
shielded compartment, deep down in the interior of the liner, was the
great air purifier. Now a man leaned against the primary duct--the aorta
through which flowed the stream of pure air supplying the entire vessel.
This man, grotesque in full panoply of space armor, leaned against the
duct, and as he leaned a drill bit deeper and deeper into the steel wall
of the pipe. Soon it broke through, and the slight rush of air was stopped
by the insertion of a tightly fitting rubber tube. The tube terminated in
a heavy rubber balloon, which surrounded a frail glass bulb. The man stood
tense, one hand holding before his silica-and-steel-helmeted head a large
pocket chronometer, the other lightly grasping the balloon. A sneering
grin was upon his face as he waited the exact second of action--the
carefully predetermined instant when his right hand, closing, would
shatter the fragile flask and force its contents into the primary air
stream of the _Hyperion_!
* * * * *
Far above, in the main saloon, the regular evening dance was in full
swing. The ship's orchestra crashed into silence, there was a patter of
applause, and Clio Marsden, radiant belle of the voyage, led her partner
out onto the promenade and up to one of the observation plates.
"Oh, we can't see the Earth any more!" she exclaimed. "Which way do you
turn this, Mr. Costigan?"
"Like this," and Conway Costigan, burly young First Officer of the
liner, turned the dials. "There--this plate is looking back, or down, at
Tellus; this other one is looking ahead."
Earth was a brilliantly shining crescent far beneath the flying vessel.
Above her, ruddy Mars and silvery Jupiter blazed in splendor ineffable
against a background of utterly indescribable blackness--a background
thickly besprinkled with dimensionless points of dazzling brilliance
which were the stars.
"Oh, isn't it wonderful!" breathed the girl, awed. "Of course, I suppose
that it's old stuff to you, but I'm a ground-gripper, you know, and I
could look at it forever, I think. That's why I want to come out here
after every dance. You know, I...."
Her voice broke off suddenly, with a queer, rasping catch, as she seized
his arm in a frantic clutch and as quickly went limp. He stared at her
sharply, and understood instantly the message written in her eyes--eyes
now enlarged, staring, hard, brilliant, and full of soul-searing terror
as she slumped down, helpless but for his support. In the act of
exhaling as he was, lungs almost entirely empty, yet he held his breath
until he had seized the microphone from his belt and had snapped the
lever to "emergency."
"Control room!" he gasped then, and every speaker throughout the great
cruiser of the void blared out the warning as he forced his already
evacuated lungs to absolute emptiness. "Vee-Two Gas! Get tight!"
Writhing and twisting in his fierce struggle to keep his lungs from
gulping in a draft of that noxious atmosphere, and with the unconscious
form of the girl draped limply over his left arm, Costigan leaped toward
the portal of the nearest lifeboat. Orchestra instruments crashed to the
floor and dancing couples fell and sprawled inertly while the tortured
First Officer swung the door of the lifeboat open and dashed across the
tiny room to the air-valves. Throwing them wide open, he put his mouth
to the orifice and let his laboring lungs gasp their eager fill of the
cold blast roaring from the tanks. Then, air-hunger partially assuaged,
he again held his breath, broke open the emergency locker, donned one of
the space-suits always kept there, and opened its valves wide in order
to flush out of his uniform any lingering trace of the lethal gas.
He then leaped back to his companion. Shutting off the air, he released
a stream of pure oxygen, held her face in it, and made shift to force
some of it into her lungs by compressing and releasing her chest against
his own body. Soon she drew a spasmodic breath, choking and coughing,
and he again changed the gaseous stream to one of pure air, speaking
urgently as she showed signs of returning consciousness.
"Stand up!" he snapped. "Hang onto this brace and keep your face in this
air-stream until I get a suit around you! Got me?"
She nodded weakly, and, assured that she could hold herself at the
valve, it was the work of only a minute to encase her in one of the
protective coverings. Then, as she sat upon a bench, recovering her
strength, he flipped on the lifeboat's visiphone projector and shot its
invisible beam up into the control room, where he saw space-armored
figures furiously busy at the panels.
"Dirty work at the cross-roads!" he blazed to his captain, man to
man--formality disregarded, as it so often was in the Triplanetary
service. "There's skulduggery afoot somewhere in our primary air! Maybe
that's the way they got those other two ships--pirates! Might have been
a timed bomb--don't see how anybody could have stowed away down there
through the inspections, and nobody but Franklin can neutralize the
shield of the air room--but I'm going to look around, anyway. Then I'll
join you fellows up there."
"What was it?" the shaken girl asked. "I think that I remember your
saying 'Vee-Two gas.' That's forbidden! Anyway, I owe you my life,
Conway, and I'll never forget it--never. Thanks--but the others--how
about all the rest of us?"
"It was Vee-Two, and it is forbidden," Costigan replied grimly, eyes
fast upon the flashing plate, whose point of projection was now deep in
the bowels of the vessel. "The penalty for using it or having it is
death on sight. Gangsters and pirates use it, since they have nothing to
lose, being on the death list already. As for your life, I haven't saved
it yet--you may wish I'd let it ride before we get done. The others are
too far gone for oxygen--couldn't have brought even you around in a few
more seconds, quick as I got to you. But there's a sure antidote--we all
carry it in a lock-box in our armor--and we all know how to use it,
because crooks all use Vee-Two and so we're always expecting it. But
since the air will be pure again in half an hour we'll be able to revive
the others easily enough if we can get by with whatever is going to
happen next. There's the bird that did it, right in the air-room. It's
the Chief Engineer's suit, but that isn't Franklin that's in it. Some
passenger--disguised--slugged the Chief--took his suit and
projectors--hole in duct--p-s-s-t! All washed out! Maybe that's all he
was scheduled to do to us in this performance, but he'll do nothing else
in his life!"
"Don't go down there!" protested the girl. "His armor is so much better
than that emergency suit you are wearing, and he's got Mr. Franklin's
Lewiston, besides!"
"Don't be an idiot!" he snapped. "We can't have a live pirate
aboard--we're going to be altogether too busy with outsiders directly.
Don't worry, I'm not going to give him a break. I'll take a
Standish--I'll rub him out like a blot. Stay right here until I come
back after you," he commanded, and the heavy door of the lifeboat
clanged shut behind him as he leaped out into the promenade.
Straight across the saloon he made his way, paying no attention to the
inert forms scattered here and there. Going up to a blank wall, he
manipulated an almost invisible dial set flush with its surface, swung a
heavy door aside, and lifted out the Standish--a fearsome weapon. Squat,
huge, and heavy, it resembled somewhat an overgrown machine rifle, but
one possessing a thick, short telescope, with several opaque condensing
lenses and parabolic reflectors. Laboring under the weight of the thing,
he strode along corridors and clambered heavily down short stairways.
Finally he came to the purifier room, and grinned savagely as he saw the
greenish haze of light obscuring the door and walls--the shield was
still in place; the pirate was still inside, still flooding with the
terrible Vee Two the _Hyperion's_ primary air.
He set his peculiar weapon down, unfolded its three massive legs,
crouched down behind it, and threw in a switch. Dull red beams of
frightful intensity shot from the reflectors and sparks, almost of
lightning proportions, leaped from the shielding screen under their
impact. Roaring and snapping, the conflict went on for seconds, then,
under the superior force of the Standish, the greenish radiance gave
way. Behind it the metal of the door ran the gamut of color--red,
yellow, blinding white--then literally exploded; molten, vaporized,
burned away. Through the aperture thus made Costigan could plainly see
the pirate in the space-armor of the chief engineer--an armor which was
proof against rifle fire and which could reflect and neutralize for some
little time even the terrific beam Costigan was employing. Nor was the
pirate unarmed--a vicious flare of incandescence leaped from his
Lewiston, to spend its force in spitting, crackling pyrotechnics against
the ether-wall of the squat and monstrous Standish. But Costigan's
infernal engine did not rely only upon vibratory destruction. At almost
the first flash of the pirate's weapon the officer touched a trigger,
there was a double report, ear-shattering in that narrowly confined
space, and the pirate's body literally flew into mist as a half-kilogram
shell tore through his armor and exploded. Costigan shut off his beam,
and with not the slightest softening of one hard lineament stared around
the air-room; making sure that no serious damage had been done to the
vital machinery of the air-purifier--the very lungs of the great
space-ship.
Dismounting the Standish, he lugged it back up to the main saloon,
replaced it in its safe, and again set the combination lock. Thence to
the lifeboat, where Clio cried out in relief as she saw that he was
unhurt.
"Oh, Conway, I've been so afraid something would happen to you!" she
exclaimed, as he led her rapidly upward toward the control room. "Of
course you ..." she paused.
"Sure," he replied, laconically. "Nothing to it. How do you feel--about
back to normal?"
"All right, I think, except for being scared to death and just about out
of control. I don't suppose that I'll be good for anything, but whatever
I can do, count me in on."
"Fine--you may be needed, at that. Everybody's out, apparently, except
those like me, who had a warning and could hold their breath until they
got to their suits."
"But how did you know what it was? You can't see it, nor smell it, nor
anything."
"You inhaled a second before I did, and I saw your eyes. I've been in it
before--and when you see a man get a jolt of that stuff just once, you
never forget it. The engineers down below got it first, of course--it
must have wiped them out. Then we got it in the saloon. Your passing out
warned me, and luckily I had enough breath left to give the word. Quite
a few of the fellows up above should have had time to get away--we'll
see 'em all in the control room."
"I suppose that was why you revived me--in payment for so kindly
warning you of the gas attack?" The girl laughed; shaky, but game.
"Something like that, probably," he answered, lightly. "Here we are--now
we'll soon find out what's going to happen next."
In the control room they saw at least a dozen armored figures; not now
rushing about, but seated at their instruments, tense and ready.
Fortunate it was that Costigan--veteran of space as he was, though young
in years--had been down in the saloon; fortunate that he had been
familiar with that horrible outlawed gas; fortunate that he had had
presence of mind enough and sheer physical stamina enough to send his
warning without allowing one paralyzing trace to enter his own lungs.
Captain Bradley, the men on watch, and several other officers in their
quarters or in the wardrooms--space-hardened veterans all--had obeyed
instantly and without question the amplifiers' gasped command to "get
tight". Exhaling or inhaling, their air-passages had snapped shut as
that dread "Vee-Two" was heard, and they had literally jumped into their
armored suits of space--flushing them out with volume after volume of
unquestionable air; holding their breath to the last possible second,
until their straining lungs could endure no more.
Costigan waved the girl to a vacant bench, cautiously changing into his
own armor from the emergency suit he had been wearing, and approached
the captain.
"Anything in sight, sir?" he asked, saluting. "They should have started
something before this."
"They've started, but we can't locate them. We tried to send out a
general sector alarm, but had hardly started when they blanketed our
wave. Look at that!"
Following the captain's eyes, Costigan stared at the high powered set of
the ship's operator. Upon the plate, instead of a moving, living,
three-dimensional picture, there was a flashing glare of blinding white
light; from the speaker, instead of intelligible speech, was issuing a
roaring, crackling stream of noise.
"It's impossible!" Bradley burst out, violently. "There's not a gram of
metal inside the fourth zone--within a hundred thousand kilometers--and
yet they must be close to send such a wave as that. But the Second
thinks not--what do you think, Costigan?" The bluff commander,
reactionary and of the old school as was his breed, was
furious--baffled, raging inwardly to come to grips with the invisible
and indetectable foe. Face to face with the inexplicable, however, he
listened to the younger men with unusual tolerance.
"It's not only possible; it's quite evident that they've got something
we haven't." Costigan's voice was bitter. "But why shouldn't they have?
Service ships never get anything until it's been experimented with for
years, but pirates and such always get the new stuff as soon as it's
discovered. The only good thing I can see is that we got part of a
message away, and the scouts can trace that interference out there. But
the pirates know that, too--it won't be long now," he concluded, grimly.
He spoke truly. Before another word was said the outer screen flared
white under a beam of terrific power, and simultaneously there appeared
upon one of the lookout plates a vivid picture of the pirate vessel--a
huge, black torpedo of steel, now emitting flaring offensive beams of
force.
Instantly the powerful weapons of the _Hyperion_ were brought to bear,
and in the blast of full-driven beams the stranger's screens flamed
incandescent. Heavy guns, under the recoil of whose fierce salvos the
frame of the giant globe trembled and shuddered, shot out their tons of
high-explosive shell. But the pirate commander had known accurately the
strength of the liner, and knew that her armament was impotent against
the forces at his command. His screens were invulnerable, the giant
shells were exploded harmlessly in mid-space, miles from their
objective. And suddenly a frightful pencil of flame stabbed brilliantly
from the black hulk of the enemy. Through the empty ether it tore,
through the mighty defensive screens, through the tough metal of the
outer and inner walls. Every ether-defense of the _Hyperion_ vanished,
and her acceleration dropped to a quarter of its normal value.
"Right through the battery room!" Bradley groaned. "We're on the
emergency drive now. Our rays are done for, and we can't seem to put a
shell anywhere near her with our guns!"
But ineffective as the guns were, they were silenced forever as a
frightful beam of destruction stabbed relentlessly through the control
room, whiffing out of existence the pilot, gunnery, and lookout panels
and the men before them. The air rushed into space, and the suits of the
three survivors bulged out into drum-head tightness as the pressure in
the room decreased.
Costigan pushed the captain lightly toward a wall, then seized the girl
and leaped in the same direction.
"Let's get out of here, quick!" he cried, the miniature radio
instruments of the helmets automatically taking up the duty of
transmitting speech as the sound disks refused to function. "They can't
see us--our ether wall is still up and their spy-rays can't get through
it from the outside, you know. They're working from blue-prints, and
they'll probably take your desk next," and even as they bounded toward
the door, now become the outer seal of an airlock, the pirates' beam
tore through the space which they had just quitted.
Through the airlock, down through several levels of passengers' quarters
they hurried, and into a lifeboat, whose one doorway commanded the full
length of the third lounge--an ideal spot, either for defense or for
escape outward by means of the miniature cruiser. As they entered their
retreat they felt their weight begin to increase. More and more force
was applied to the helpless liner, until it was moving at normal
acceleration.
"What do you make of that, Costigan?" asked the captain. "Tractor
beams?"
"Apparently. They've got something, all right. They're taking us
somewhere, fast. I'll go get a couple of Standishes, and another suit of
armor--we'd better dig in," and soon the small room became a veritable
fortress, housing as it did those two formidable engines of destruction.
Then the first officer made another and longer trip, returning with a
complete suit of Triplanetary space armor, exactly like those worn by
the two men, but considerably smaller.
"Just as an added factor of safety, you'd better put this on,
Clio--those emergency suits aren't good for much in a battle. I don't
suppose that you ever fired a Standish, did you?"
"No, but I can soon learn how to do it," she replied pluckily.
"Two is all that can work here at once, but you should know how to take
hold in case one of us goes out. And while you're changing suits you'd
better put on some stuff I've got here--Service Special phones and
detectors. Stick this little disk onto your chest with this bit of tape;
low down, out of sight. Just under your wishbone is the best place. Take
off your wrist-watch and wear this one _continuously_--never take it off
for a second. Put on these pearls, and wear them all the time, too. Take
this capsule and hide it against your skin, some place where it can't be
found except by the most rigid search. Swallow it in an emergency--it
goes down easily and works just as well inside as outside. It is the
most important thing of all--you can get along with it alone if you lose
everything else, but without that capsule the whole system's shot to
pieces. With that outfit, if we should get separated, you can talk to
us--we're both wearing 'em, although in somewhat different forms. You
don't need to talk loud--just a mutter will be enough. They're handy
little outfits--almost impossible to find, and capable of a lot of
things."
"Thanks, Conway--I'll remember that, too," Clio replied, as she turned
toward the tiny locker to follow his instructions. "But won't the scouts
and patrols be catching us pretty quick? The operator sent a warning."
"Afraid the ether's empty, as far as we're concerned."
Captain Bradley had stood by in silent astonishment during this
conversation. His eyes had bulged slightly at Costigan's "we're both
wearing 'em," but he had held his peace and as the girl disappeared a
look of dawning comprehension came over his face.
"Oh, I see, sir," he said, respectfully--far more respectfully than he
had ever before addressed a mere first officer. "Meaning that we both
_will be_ wearing them shortly, I assume. 'Service Specials'--but you
didn't specify exactly _what_ Service, did you?"
"Now that you mention it, I don't believe that I did," Costigan grinned.
"That explains several things about you--particularly your recognition
of Vee-Two and your uncanny control and speed of reaction. But aren't
you...."
"No," Costigan interrupted. "This situation is apt to get altogether too
serious to overlook any bets. If we get away, I'll take them away from
her and she'll never know that they aren't routine equipment. As for
you, I know that you can and do keep your mouth shut. That's why I'm
hanging this junk on you--I had a lot of stuff in my kit, but I flashed
it all with the Standish except what I brought in here for us three.
Whether you think so or not, we're in a real jam--our chance of getting
away is mighty close to zero...."
He broke off as the girl came back, now to all appearances a small
Triplanetary officer, and the three settled down to a long and eventless
wait. Hour after hour they flew through the ether, but finally there was
a lurching swing and an abrupt increase in their acceleration. After a
short consultation Captain Bradley turned on the visiray set and, with
the beam at its minimum power, peered cautiously downward, in the
direction opposite to that in which he knew the pirate vessel must be.
All three stared into the plate, seeing only an infinity of emptiness,
marked only by the infinitely remote and coldly brilliant stars. While
they stared into space a vast area of the heavens was blotted out and
they saw, faintly illuminated by a peculiar blue luminescence, a vast
ball--a sphere so large and so close that they seemed to be dropping
downward toward it as though it were a world! They came to a
stop--paused, weightless--a vast door slid smoothly aside--they were
drawn _upward_ through an airlock and floated quietly in the air above a
small, but brightly-lighted and orderly city of metallic buildings!
Gently the _Hyperion_ was lowered, to come to rest in the embracing arms
of a regulation landing cradle.
"Well, wherever it is, we're here," remarked Captain Bradley, grimly,
and:
"And now the fireworks start," assented Costigan, with a questioning
glance at the girl.
"Don't mind me," she answered his unspoken question. "I don't believe in
surrendering, either."
"Right," and both men squatted down behind the ether-walls of their
terrific weapons; the girl prone behind them.
They had not long to wait. A group of human beings--men and to all
appearances Americans--appeared unarmed in the little lounge. As soon as
they were well inside the room, Bradley and Costigan released upon them
without compunction the full power of their frightful projectors. From
the reflectors, through the doorway, there tore a concentrated double
beam of pure destruction--but that beam did not reach its goal. Yards
from the men it met a screen of impenetrable density. Instantly the
gunners pressed their triggers and a stream of high-explosive shells
issued from the roaring weapons. But shells, also, were futile. They
struck the shield and vanished--vanished without exploding and without
leaving a trace to show that they had ever existed.
Costigan sprang to his feet, but before he could launch his intended
attack a vast tunnel appeared beside him--something had gone through the
entire width of the liner, cutting effortlessly a smooth cylinder of
emptiness. Air rushed in to fill the vacuum, and the three visitors felt
themselves seized by invisible forces and drawn into the tunnel. Through
it they floated, up to and over buildings, finally slanting downward
toward the door of a great high-towered structure. Doors opened before
them and closed behind them, until at last they stood upright in a room
which was evidently the office of a busy executive. They faced a desk
which, in addition to the usual equipment of the business man, carried
also a bewilderingly complete switchboard and instrument panel.
Seated impassively at the desk there was a gray man. Not only was he
dressed entirely in gray, but his heavy hair was gray, his eyes were
gray, and even his tanned skin seemed to give the impression of grayness
in disguise. His overwhelming personality radiated an aura of
grayness--not the gentle gray of the dove, but the resistless, driving
gray of the super-dreadnought; the hard, inflexible, brittle gray of the
fracture of high-carbon steel.
"Captain Bradley, First Officer Costigan, Miss Marsden," the man spoke
quietly, but crisply. "I had not intended you two men to live so long.
That is a detail, however, which we will pass by for the moment. You may
remove your suits."
Neither officer moved, but both stared back at the speaker,
unflinchingly.
"I am not accustomed to repeating instructions," the man at the desk
continued; voice still low and level, but instinct with deadly menace.
"You may choose between removing those suits and dying in them, here and
now."
Costigan moved over to Clio and slowly took off her armor. Then, after a
flashing exchange of glances and a muttered word, the two officers threw
off their suits simultaneously and fired at the same instant; Bradley
with his Lewiston, Costigan with a heavy automatic pistol whose bullets
were explosive shells of tremendous power. But the man in gray,
surrounded by an impenetrable wall of force, only smiled at the
fusillade, tolerantly and maddeningly. Costigan leaped fiercely, only to
be hurled backward as he struck that unyielding, invisible wall. A
vicious beam snapped him back into place, the weapons were snatched
away, and all three captives were held to their former positions.
"I permitted that, as a demonstration of futility," the gray man said,
his hard voice becoming harder, "but I will permit no more foolishness.
Now I will introduce myself. I am known as Roger. You probably have
heard nothing of me: very few Tellurians have, or ever will. Whether or
not you two live depends solely upon yourselves. Being something of a
student of men, I fear that you will both die shortly. Able and
resourceful as you have just shown yourselves to be, you could be
valuable to me, but you probably will not--in which case you shall, of
course, cease to exist. That, however, in its proper time--you shall be
of some slight service to me in the process of being eliminated. In your
case, Miss Marsden, I find myself undecided between two courses of
action; each highly desirable, but unfortunately mutually exclusive.
Your father will be glad to ransom you at an exceedingly high figure,
but in spite of that fact I may decide to use you in a research upon
sex."
"Yes?" Clio rose magnificently to the occasion. Fear forgotten, her
courageous spirit flashed from her clear young eyes and emanated from
her taut young body, erect in defiance. "You may think that you can do
anything with me that you please, but you can't!"
"Peculiar--highly perplexing--why should that one stimulus, in the case
of young females, produce such an entirely disproportionate reaction?"
Roger's eyes bored into Clio's; the girl shivered and looked away. "But
sex itself, primal and basic, the most widespread concomitant of life in
this continuum, is completely illogical and paradoxical. Most
baffling--decidedly, this research on sex must go on."
Roger pressed a button and a tall, comely woman appeared--a woman of
indefinite age and of uncertain nationality.
"Show Miss Marsden to her apartment," he directed, and as the two women
went out a man came in.
"The cargo is unloaded, sir," the newcomer reported. "The two men and
the five women indicated have been taken to the hospital."
"Very well, dispose of the others in the usual fashion." The minion went
out, and Roger continued, emotionlessly:
"Collectively, the other passengers may be worth a million or so, but it
would not be worthwhile to waste time upon them."
"What are you, anyway?" blazed Costigan, helpless but enraged beyond
caution. "I have heard of mad scientists who tried to destroy the Earth,
and of equally mad geniuses who thought themselves Napoleons capable of
conquering even the Solar System. Whichever you are, you should know
that you can't get away with it."
"I am neither. I am, however, a scientist, and I direct many other
scientists. I am not mad. You have undoubtedly noticed several peculiar
features of this place?"
"Yes, particularly the artificial gravity and those screens. An ordinary
ether-wall is opaque in one direction, and doesn't bar matter--yours are
transparent both ways and something more than impenetrable to matter.
How do you do it?"
"You could not understand them if I explained them to you, and they are
merely two of our smaller developments. I do not intend to destroy your
planet Earth; I have no desire to rule over masses of futile and
brainless men. I have, however, certain ends of my own in view. To
accomplish my plans I require hundreds of millions in gold and other
hundreds of millions in uranium, thorium, and radium; all of which I
shall take from the planets of this Solar System before I leave it. I
shall take them in spite of the puerile efforts of the fleets of your
Triplanetary League.
"This structure was designed by me and built under my direction. It is
protected from meteorites by forces of my devising. It is indetectable
and invisible--ether waves are bent around it without loss or
distortion. I am discussing these points at such length so that you may
realize exactly your position. As I have intimated, you can be of
assistance to me if you will."
"Now just what could you offer any _man_ to make him join your outfit?"
demanded Costigan, venomously.
"Many things," Roger's cold tone betrayed no emotion, no recognition of
Costigan's open and bitter contempt. "I have under me many men, bound to
me by many ties. Needs, wants, longings, and desires differ from man to
man, and I can satisfy practically any of them. Many men take delight in
the society of young and beautiful women, but there are other urges
which I have found quite efficient. Greed, thirst for fame, longing for
power, and so on, including many qualities usually regarded as 'noble.'
And what I promise, I deliver. I demand only loyalty to me, and that
only in certain things and for a relatively short period. In all else,
my men do as they please. In conclusion, I can use you two conveniently,
but I do not need you. Therefore you may choose now between my service
and--the alternative."
"Exactly what is the alternative?"
"We will not go into that. Suffice it to say that it has to do with a
minor research, which is not progressing satisfactorily. It will result
in your extinction, and perhaps I should mention that that extinction
will not be particularly pleasant."
"I say NO, you...." Bradley roared. He intended to give an unexpurgated
classification, but was rudely interrupted.
"Hold on a minute!" snapped Costigan. "How about Miss Marsden?"
"She has nothing to do with this discussion," returned Roger, icily. "I
do not bargain--in fact, I believe that I shall keep her for a time. She
has it in mind to destroy herself if I do not allow her to be ransomed,
but she will find that door closed to her until I permit it to open."
"In that case, I string along with the Chief--take what he started to
say about you and run it clear across the board for me!" barked
Costigan.
"Very well. That decision was to be expected from men of your type." The
gray man touched two buttons and two of his creatures entered the room.
"Put these men into two separate cells on the second level," he ordered.
"Search them; all their weapons may not have been in their armor. Seal
the doors and mount special guards, tuned to me here."
Imprisoned they were, and carefully searched; but they bore no arms, and
nothing had been said concerning communicators. Even if such instruments
could be concealed, Roger would detect their use instantly. At least, so
ran his thought. But Roger's men had no inkling of the possibility of
Costigan's "Service Special" phones, detectors, and spy-ray--instruments
of minute size and of infinitesimal power, but yet instruments which,
working as they were below the level of the ether, were effective at
great distances and caused no vibrations in the ether by which their use
could be detected. And what could be more innocent than the regulation
personal equipment of every officer of space? The heavy goggles, the
wrist-watch and its supplementary pocket chronometer, the flash-lamp,
the automatic lighter, the sender, the money-belt?
All these items of equipment were examined with due care; but the
cleverest minds of the Triplanetary Service had designed those
communicators to pass any ordinary search, however careful, and when
Costigan and Bradley were finally locked into the designated cells they
still possessed their ultra-instruments.