"You will take your place," said Smith, "in the pilot's seat where I
can see you from the moment I enter the lock. Put your hands above
your head. Do not move or turn as I enter. If you do--"
"Come ahead," repeated Dan. The audio disconnected.
Dan sprang into motion. He believed Lady Alice's warning. And he
was prepared to meet subtlety with subtlety; deceit with deceit.
Not yet had Smith won. He bent and lifted the broken body of Albert
Lemming. Hurriedly he jammed the oxy-helmet down over the dead man's
bloody features. He grunted, "Sorry, pal!" as he hoisted Lemming into
the pilot's chair, forced stiffening arms back and up in token of
surrender. The high back of the chair, the padded cushions made the
form hold its position.
He finished just in time. There was a scraping at the airlock. The two
ships had drifted side to side now, and entry was a simple matter.
Mallory ducked back into the compartment from which Lemming had
emerged. His needle gun was in his hand, poised, ready....
Smith entered quietly. He glanced once at the figure in the pilot's
chair, said, "Don't move, Lieutenant--" and his arm raised. The girl's
warning had been all too true. There was rankest treachery in the
leveling of that gun, in the fiery needle dart that hurled across the
chamber, burying itself in Lemming's defenseless head. The stench of
charred flesh filled the room. The dead body wobbled, lurched to the
floor. And--
"Now, _you_ stand still, Smith!" gritted Mallory.
Smith whirled, his jaw dropping open. In his eyes dawned horror,
disappointment, rage. He cried out once, raised his gun.
That was how he died. With his traitorous fingers lifted for the last
time against a man who wore the uniform he had once worn ... and had
disgraced....
* * * * *
Afterward, as they stood in the control turret of the _Libra_, watching
a sober-faced Rick Norton plot the landing that would bring new life
to the Ionian colonists, swift retribution to the fomenters of the
uprising, Bud Chandler whaled his comrade's back enthusiastically.
"Guy," he said, "in words of one syllable, you're terrific!"
"That's not one syllable," grinned Mallory.
"All right, then, you're a lallapalooza! But how the blue asteroids did
you get onto the fact Smith was the guy?"
Dan said, "It came to me almost too late. It had been worrying me
subconsciously ever since I had to--" here he flushed--"had to arrest
Lady Alice. I knew that someone had, in conversation with me, said
something that didn't ring true. And when Wilmot was killed for having
discovered the truth about Smith, I suddenly remembered what it was.
"The night before we got the message from Lunar III, assuring us that
Kreuther was behind the revolution, Smith had mentioned to me, quite
casually, that he suspected there were on the _Libra_ 'espionage agents
of the Kreuther forces.' What he was attempting to do, of course, was
ally himself with us in order to divert suspicion. But he tipped his
hand by that little slip of the tongue."
Lady Alice smiled. She said, "Well, you're not awfully smart. Any of
you. I knew he was the spy as soon as I heard the message from Earth."
Captain Algase interrupted, "Yeah, that message! I'm going to raise an
assortment of hell about that. Causing us to arrest the one person on
board we could really trust."
"And all," smiled the girl, "because of one, small, chemical symbol
that you misread. Oh, yes, I understand now. I've seen the original.
Bud--you went to the Academy, didn't you?"
"Why--why, yes."
"Your professor there must have been quite an old man. I mean your
chemistry prof."
"He was. Ancient. But what has that got to do with it?"
"Everything. He taught you the old, the original chemical symbol for
the element samarium. 'Sa.' The more common symbol, the generally
accepted one, is 'Sm.' Now you see what a great difference that one
little error makes in the meaning of the message. You read it:
"'Lane warns Lady Alice, cabal spy, now on _Libra_. Captain saith
intensify protection of new secret ray.'"
"And it should have been read," broke in Dan Mallory, understanding at
last, "'Lane warns Lady Alice cabal spy now on _Libra_--Captain Smith!
Intensify protection--' and so on. It was a warning _to_ you, not about
you!"
"Exactly. Naturally, I was--well, indignant when I was placed under
arrest. Afterward, I began to think it a good idea. Confined to my
quarters, guarded, I would be completely safe. But unfortunately
Captain Smith guessed, when I was arrested, that _I_ was the bearer of
the formula. So he killed my guard, seized the skiff, and kidnaped me.
"Saith!" grunted Bud Chandler disgustedly. "I told you that word was
phony. Joe Marlowe never used good English in his life when a cuss-word
would do just as well. Hey! Where are you two going?"
It is doubtful whether Dan Mallory heard the question. There was one
other little matter that needed clearing up--but soon! That was the way
Lady Alice Charwell, in the moment of their mutual peril, had hurdled
the amenities of speech, addressed him not as "Lieutenant," or even as
plain "Mallory," but as--
"Dan," he said. "You called me 'Dan.' It's not right, Lady Alice. You
shouldn't do things like that unless you mean them. And I--"
"Suppose," she asked, "I like that part of your name best. It is a nice
name, you know."
Dan Mallory's big hands pawed futilely at the blue of his uniform.
"So," he croaked, "is Mallory. And--and I guess I'm completely crazy. I
couldn't ask you to share a name like that. I'm just a space cop. And
you're a Lady. A titled Lady."
She said softly, "A Lady, Dan? There is no Duchy of Io any more. That's
a thing of the past, and my title is only a courtesy. And, oh--I'm so
tired of courtesies. I'm a space cop, too, now. There's nothing in the
rules to keep two cops from teaming up, is there? Oh, you big, damn,
dumb idiot--!"
Her face, smiling up at his, was inclined at just the right angle.
They told him afterward that Rick Norton made a swell landing. He
didn't believe it. For it seemed to Dan Mallory that the whole cosmos
was swirling and dancing and twisting upside down in a delirium of
delight....