_A Scream in the Night_
We kept, on the Planetara, always the time and routine of our port of
departure. The rest of that afternoon and evening were a blank of
confusion to me. Anita's words; the touch of my hand upon her arm; that
vast realm of what might be for us, like a glimpse of a magic land of
happiness which I had seen in her eyes, and perhaps she had seen in
mine--all this surged within me.
I wandered about the vessel. I was not hungry. I did not go to the
dining salon for dinner. I carried Johnson food and water to his cage;
and sat, with my heat-cylinder upon him, listening to his threats of
what would happen when he could complain to the Line's higher
officials.
But what was Johnson doing carrying a plan of the ship's control rooms
in his pockets? And worse: How had he dared open Snap's box in the
helio-room and abstract the code pass-words for this voyage? Without
them we would be an outlawed vessel, subject to arrest if any patrol
hailed us. Had Johnson been planning to sell those pass-words to Miko? I
thought so. I tried to get the confession out of him, but could not.
I had a brief consultation with Captain Carter. He was genuinely
apprehensive now. The Planetara carried no long-range guns, and very few
side-arms. A half-dozen of the heat-ray hand projectors; a few
old-fashioned weapons of explosion-rifles and automatic revolvers. And
hand projectors with the new Benson curve-light. We had models of this
for curved vision, so that one might see around a corner, so to speak.
And with them, we could project the heat-ray in a curve as well.
* * * * *
The weapons were all in Carter's chart-room, save the few we officers
always carried. Carter was apprehensive, but of what he could not say.
He had not thought that our plan to stop at the Moon for treasure could
affect this outward voyage. Any danger would be upon the way back, when
the Planetara would be adequately guarded with long-range electronic
guns, and manned with police-soldiers.
But now we were practically defenseless....
I had a moment with Venza, but she had nothing new to communicate to
me.
And for half an hour I chatted with George Prince. He seemed a gay,
pleasant young man. I could almost have fancied I liked him. Or was it
because he was Anita's brother? He told me how he looked forward to
traveling with her on Mars. No, he had never been there before, he
said.
He had a measure of Anita's earnest naive personality. Or was he a very
clever scoundrel, with irony lurking in his soft voice, and a chuckle
that he could so befool me?
"We'll talk again, Haljan. You interest me--I've enjoyed it."
He sauntered away from me, joining the saturnine Ob Hahn, with whom
presently I heard him discussing religion.
The arrest of Johnson had caused considerable comment among the
passengers. A few had seen me drag him forward to the cage. The incident
had been the subject of passenger discussion all afternoon. Captain
Carter had posted a notice to the effect that Johnson's accounts had
been found in serious error, and that Dr. Frank for this voyage would
act in his stead.
* * * * *
It was near midnight when Snap and I closed and sealed the helio-room
and started for the chart-room, where we were to meet with Captain
Carter and the other officers. The passengers had nearly all retired. A
game was in progress in the smoking room, but the deck was almost
deserted.
Snap and I were passing along one of the interior corridors. The
stateroom doors, with the illumined names of the passengers, were all
closed. The metal grid of the floor echoed our footsteps. Snap was in
advance of me. His body suddenly rose in the air. He went like a balloon
to the ceiling, struck it gently, and all in a heap came floating down
and landed on the floor!
"What in the infernal!--"
He was laughing as he picked himself up. But it was a brief laugh. We
knew what had happened: the artificial gravity-controls in the base of
the ship, which by magnetic force gave us normality aboard, were being
tampered with! For just this instant, this particular small section of
this corridor had been cut off. The slight bulk of the Planetara,
floating in space, had no appreciable gravity pull on Snap's body, and
the impulse of his step as he came to the unmagnetized area of the
corridor had thrown him to the ceiling. The area was normal now. Snap
and I tested it gingerly.
He gripped me. "That never went wrong by accident, Gregg! Someone down
there--"
* * * * *
We rushed to the nearest descending ladder. In the deserted lower room
the bank of dials stood neglected. A score of dials and switches were
here, governing the magnetism of different areas of the ship. There
should have been a night operator, but he was gone.
Then we saw him lying nearby, sprawled face down on the floor! In the
silence and dim lurid glow of the fluorescent tubes, we stood holding
our breaths, peering and listening. No one here.
The guard was not dead. He lay unconscious from a blow on the head. A
brawny fellow. We had him revived in a few moments. A broadcast flash of
the call-buzz brought Dr. Frank in haste from the chart-room.
"What's the matter?"
We pointed at the unconscious man. "Someone was here," I said hastily.
"Experimenting with the magnetic switches. Evidently unfamiliar with
them--pulling one or another to test their workings and so see the
reactions on the dials."
We told him what had happened to Snap in the upper corridor.
Dr. Frank revived the guard in a moment. He was no worse off for the
episode, save a lump on his head, and a nasty headache.
But he had little to tell us. He had heard a step. Saw nothing--and
then had been struck on the head, by some invisible assailant.
* * * * *
We left him nursing his head, sitting belligerent at his post. Armed now
with my heat-ray cylinder which I loaned him.
"Strange doings this voyage," he told us. "All the crew knows it--all
been talkin' about it. I stick it out now, but when we get back home I'm
done with this star travelin'. I belong on the sea anyway. A good old
freighter is all right for me."
We hurried back to the upper level. We would indeed have to plan
something at this chart-room conference. This was the first tangible
attack our adversaries had made.
We were on the passenger deck headed for the chart-room when all three
of us stopped short, frozen with horror. Through the silent passenger
quarters a scream rang out! A girl's shuddering, gasping scream. Terror
in it. Horror. Or a scream of agony. In the silence of the dully
vibrating ship it was utterly horrible. It lasted an instant--a single
long scream; then was abruptly stilled.
And with blood pounding my temples and rushing like ice through my
veins, I recognized it.
Anita!