_The Weightless Combat_
I was taken wholly by surprise. There was an instant when I stood
numbed, fumbling for a weapon at my belt, undecided whether to run or
stand my ground. Miko was no more than twenty feet from me. He checked
his forward rush. The light from an overhead tube was on him; I saw in
his hand the cylinder projector of his paralyzing ray.
I plucked my heat-cylinder from my belt, and fired without taking aim.
My tiny heat-beam flashed. I must have grazed Miko's hand. His roar of
anger and pain rang out over the turmoil. He dropped his weapon; then
stooped to pick it up. But Moa forestalled him. She leaped and seized
it.
"Careful! Fool--you promised not to hurt him!"
A confusion of swift action. Rankin had turned and darted away. I saw
George Prince stumbling half in front of the struggling Miko and Moa.
And I heard footsteps beside me; a hand gripped me, jerked at me.
Over the turmoil Prince's voice sounded: "Gregg--Haljan!"
I recall I had the impression that Prince was frightened; he had half
fallen in front of Miko. And there was Miko's voice:
"Let go of me!"
And Moa: "Come!"
It was Balch gripping me. "Gregg! This way--run! Get out of here! He'll
kill you with that ray--"
Miko's ray flashed, but George Prince had knocked at his arm. I did not
dare fire again. Prince was in the way. Balch, who was unarmed, shoved
me violently back.
"Gregg--the chart-room!"
* * * * *
I turned and ran, with Balch after me. Prince had fallen, or been felled
by Miko. A flash followed me. Miko's weapon, but again it missed. He did
not pursue me; he ran the other way, through the port-side door of the
library.
Balch and I found ourselves in the lounge. Shouting, frightened
passengers were everywhere. The place was in wild confusion, the whole
ship ringing now with shouts.
"To the chart-room, Gregg!"
I called to the passengers: "Get back to your rooms!"
I followed Balch. We ran through the archway to the deck. In the
starlight I saw figures scurrying aft, but none were near us. The deck
forward was dim with heavy shadows. The oval window and door of the
chart-room were blue-yellow from the tube-lights inside. No one seemed
on the deck there; and then, as we approached, I saw, further forward in
the bow, the trap-door to the cage standing open. Johnson had been
released.
From one of the chart-room windows a heat-ray sizzled. It barely missed
us. Balch shouted, "Carter--don't!"
The captain called, "Oh--you, Balch--and Haljan--"
He came out on the deck as we rushed up. His left arm was dangling
limp.
"God--this--" He got no further. From the turret overhead a tiny
search-beam came down and disclosed us. Blackstone was supposed to be on
duty up there, with a course-master at the controls. But, glancing up, I
saw, illumined by the turret lights, the figures of Ob Hahn in his
purple-white robe, and Johnson the purser. And on the turret balcony,
two fallen men--Blackstone and the course-master.
* * * * *
Johnson was training the spotlight on us. And Hahn fired a Martian ray.
It struck Balch beside me. He dropped.
Carter was shouting, "Inside! Gregg, get inside!"
I stopped to raise up Balch. Another beam came down. A heat-ray this
time. It caught the fallen Balch full in 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 the 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. His body
dangled now, twisted half in and half out of his window.
* * * * *
We could see several of Miko's men--erstwhile members of our crew and
steward-corps--scurrying from the turret along the upper bridges toward
the dark and silent helio-room. Snap was up there. But was he? The
helio-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 down 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 intrenched.
"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. Nor could I blame him. It is easy
to say we might have taken warning, done this or that, and come
triumphant through this 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
roof. Then across the turret window came a sheen of radiance--an
electro-barrage. 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.
Carter handed me another weapon. "Gregg, try this."
I levelled the old explosive bullet projector; Carter crouched beside
me. But before I could press the trigger, from somewhere down the
starlit deck an electro-beam hit me. The little rifle exploded, burst
its breech. I sank back to the floor, tingling from the shock of the
hostile current. My hands were blackened from the exploding powder.
Carter seized me. "No use! Hurt?"
"No."
* * * * *
The stars through the dome-windows were swinging. A long swing--the
shadows and starlit patches on the deck were all shifting. The Planetara
was turning. The heavens revolved in a great round sweep of movement,
then settled as we took our new course. Hahn at the turret controls had
swung us. The earth and the sun showed over our bow quarter. The
sunlight mingled red-yellow with the brilliant starlight. Hahn's signals
were sounding; I heard them answered from the mechanism rooms down
below. Brigands there--in full control. The gravity plates were being
set to the new positions; we were on our new course. Headed a point or
two off the Earth-line. Not headed for the moon? I wondered.
Carter and I were planning nothing. What was there to plan? We were
under observation. A Martian paralyzing ray--or electronic beam, far
more deadly than our own puny police weapons--would have struck us the
instant we tried to leave the chart-room.
My swift-running thoughts were interrupted by a shout from down the
deck. At a corner of the cabin superstructure some fifty feet from our
windows the figure of Miko appeared. A barrage-radiance hung around him
like a shimmering mantle. His voice sounded:
"Gregg Haljan, do you yield?"
Carter leaped up from where he and I were crouching. Against all reason
of safety he leaned from the low window, waving his hamlike fist.
"Yield? No! I am in command here, you pirate! Brigand--murderer!"
* * * * *
I pushed him back. "Careful!"
He was spluttering, and over it Miko's sardonic laugh sounded. "Very
well--but you will talk? Shall we argue about it?"
I stood up. "What do you want to say, Miko?"
Behind him the tall, thin figure of his sister showed. She was plucking
at him. He turned violently.
"I won't hurt him! Gregg Haljan--is this a truce? You will not shoot?"
He was shielding Moa.
"No," I called. "For a moment, no. A truce. What is it you want to
say?"
I could hear the babble of passengers who were herded in the cabin with
brigands guarding them. George Prince, bareheaded, but shrouded in his
cloak, showed in a patch of light behind Moa. He looked my way and then
retreated into the lounge archway.
Miko called, "You must yield. We want you, Haljan."
"No doubt," I jeered.
"Alive. It is easy to kill you."
* * * * *
I could not doubt that. Carter and I were little more than rats in a
trap, here in the chart-room. But Miko wanted to take me alive: that was
not so simple. He added persuasively:
"We want you to help us navigate. Will you?"
"No."
"Will you help us, Captain Carter? Tell your cub, this Haljan, to yield.
You are fools. We understand that Haljan has been handling the ship's
mathematics. Him we need most."
Carter roared: "Get back from there! This is no truce!"
I shoved aside his levelled bullet-projector. "Wait a minute!" I called
to Miko. "Navigate--where?"
"Oh," he retorted, "that is our business, not yours. When you lay down
your weapons and come out of there, I will give you the course."
"Back to the earth?" I suggested.
I could fancy him grinning behind the sheen of his barrage at my
question.
"The earth? Yes--shall we go there? Give me your orders, Gregg Haljan.
Of course I will obey them."
His sardonic words were interrupted. And I realized that all this parley
was a ruse of Miko's to take me alive. He had made a gesture. Hahn,
watching from the turret window, doubtless flashed a signal down to the
hull-corridors. The magnetizer control under the chart-room was
altered, our artificial gravity cut off. I felt the sudden lightness; I
gripped the window casement and clung. Carter was startled into
incautious movement. It flung him out into the center of the chart-room,
his arms and legs grotesquely flailing.
* * * * *
And across the chart-room, in the opposite window, I felt rather than
saw the shape of something. A figure--almost invisible, but not
quite--was trying to climb in! I flung the empty rifle I was holding. It
hit something solid in the window; in a flare of sparks a black-hooded
figure materialized. A man climbing in! His weapon spat. There was a
tiny electronic flash, deadly silent. The intruder had shot at Carter;
struck him. Carter gave one queer scream. He had floated to the floor;
his convulsive movement when he was hit hurled him to the ceiling. His
body struck, twitched; bounced back and sank inert on the floor-grid
almost at my feet.
I clung to the casement. Across the space of the weightless room the
hooded intruder was also clinging. His hood fell back. It was Johnson.
He leered at me.
"Killed him, the bully! Well, he deserved it. Now for you, Mr. Third
Officer Haljan!"
But he did not dare fire at me--Miko had forbidden it. I saw him reach
under his robe, doubtless for a low-powered paralyzing ray such as Miko
already had used on me. But he never got it out. I had no weapon within
reach. I leaned into the room, still holding the casement, and doubled
my legs under me. I kicked out from the window.
The force catapulted me across the space of the room like a volplane. I
struck the purser. We gripped. Our locked, struggling bodies bounced out
into the room. We struck the floor, surged up like balloons to the
ceiling, struck it with a flailing arm or a leg and floated back.
* * * * *
Grotesque, abnormal combat! Like fighting in weightless water. Johnson
clutched his weapon, but I twisted his wrist, held his arm outstretched
so that he could not aim it. I was aware of Miko's voice shouting on the
deck outside.
Johnson's left hand was gouging at my face, his fingers plucking at my
eyes. We lunged down to the floor, then up again, close to the ceiling.
I twisted his wrists. He dropped the weapon and it sank away. I tried to
reach it, but could not. Then I had him by the throat. I was stronger
than he, and more agile. I tried choking him, his thick bull-neck within
my fingers. He kicked, scrambled, tore and gouged at me. Tried to shout,
but it ended in a gurgle. And then, as he felt his breath stopped, his
hands came up in an effort to tear mine loose.
We sank again to the floor. We were momentarily upright. I felt my feet
touch. I bent my knees. We sank further.
And then I kicked violently upward. Our locked bodies shot to the
ceiling. Johnson's head was above me. It struck the steel roof of the
chart-room. A violent blow. I felt him go suddenly limp. I cast him off,
and, doubling my body, I kicked at the ceiling. It sent me diagonally
downward to the window, where I clung and regained stability.
And I saw Miko standing on the deck with a weapon levelled at me!