Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930, Various [top 10 novels to read txt] 📗
- Author: Various
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“It’s all right! An accident! Miss Prince is hurt.”
Snap reassured them glibly; but he knew no more about it than I. Moa, with a night-robe drawn tight around her thin, tall figure, edged up to me.
“What has happened, Set Haljan?”
I gazed around for her brother Miko, but did not see him.
“An accident,” I said shortly. “Go back to your room. Captain’s orders.”
She eyed me and then retreated. Snap was threatening everybody with his cylinder. Balch dashed up. “What in the hell? Where’s Carter?”
“In there.” I pounded on A 22. It opened cautiously. I could see only Carter, but I heard the murmuring voice of Dr. Frank through the interior connecting door to A 20.
The captain rasped, “Get out, Haljan! Oh, is that you, Balch? Come in.” He admitted the older officer and slammed the door again upon me. And immediately reopened it.
“Gregg, keep the passengers quiet. Tell them everything’s all right. Miss Prince got frightened, that’s all. Then go up to the turret. Tell Blackstone what’s happened.”
“But I don’t know what’s happened,” I protested miserably.
Carter was grim and white. He whispered, “I think it may turn out to be murder, Gregg! No, not dead yet––Dr. Frank is trying––Don’t stand there like an ass, man! Get to the turret! Verify our trajectory––no––wait––”
The captain was almost incoherent. “Wait a minute, I don’t mean that! Tell Snap to watch his helio-room. Gregg, you and Blackstone stay in the chart-room. Arm yourselves and guard our weapons. By God, this murderer, whoever he is––”
I stammered, “If––if she dies––will you flash us word?”
He stared at me strangely. “I’ll be there presently, Gregg.”
He slammed the door upon me.
I followed his orders, but it was like a dream of horror. The turmoil of the ship gradually quieted. Snap went to the helio-room; Blackstone and I sat 334 in the tiny steel chart-room. How much time passed, I do not know. I was confused. Anita hurt! She might die.... Murdered.... But why? By whom? Had George Prince been in his own room when the attack came? I thought now I recalled hearing the low murmur of his voice in there with Dr. Frank and Carter.
Where was Miko? It stabbed at me. I had not seen him among the passengers in the lounge.
Carter came into the chart-room. “Gregg, you get to bed––you look like a ghost!”
“But––”
“She’s not dead––she may live. Dr. Frank and her brother are with her. They’re doing all they can.” He told us what had happened. Anita and George Prince had both been asleep, each in their respective rooms. Someone unknown had opened Anita’s corridor door.
“Wasn’t it sealed?” I demanded.
“Yes. But the intruder opened it.”
“Burst it? I didn’t think it was broken.”
“It wasn’t broken. The assailant opened it somehow, and assaulted Miss Prince––shot her in the chest with a heat-ray. Her left lung.”
“She is conscious?” Balch demanded.
“Yes. But she did not see who did it. Nor did Prince. Her scream awakened him, but the intruder evidently fled out the corridor door of A 22, the way he entered.”
I stood weak and shaken at the chart-room entrance. “A little son, cast in the gentle image of his mother. But with the strength of his father....” But Anita––dying, perhaps; and all my dreams were fading into a memory of what might have been.
“You go to bed, Gregg––we don’t need you.”
I was glad enough to get away. I would lie down for an hour, and then go to Anita’s stateroom. I’d demand that Dr. Frank let me see her, if only for a moment.
I went to the stern deck-space where my cubby was located. My mind was confused, but some instinct within me made me verify the seals of my door and window. They were intact. I entered cautiously, switched on the dimmer of the tube-lights, and searched the room. It had only a bunk, my tiny desk, a chair and clothes robe.
There was no evidence of any intruder here. I set my door and window alarm. Then I audiphoned to the helio-room.
“Snap?”
“Yes.”
I told him about Anita. Carter cut in on us from the chart-room. “Stop that, you fools!”
We cut off. Fully dressed, I flung myself on my bed. Anita might die....
I must have fallen into a tortured sleep. I was awakened by the sound of my alarm buzzer. Someone was tampering with my door! Then the buzzer ceased; the marauder outside must have found a way of silencing it. But it had done its work––awakened me.
I had switched off the light; my cubby was Stygian dark. A heat-cylinder was in the bunk-bracket over my head; I searched for it, pried it loose softly.
I was fully awake. Alert. I could hear a faint sizzling––someone outside trying to unseal the door. In the darkness, cylinder in hand, I crept from the bunk. Crouched at the door. This time I would capture or kill this night prowler.
The sizzling was faintly audible. My door-seal was breaking. Upon impulse I reached for the door, jerked it open.
No one there! The starlit segment of deck was empty. But I had leaped, and I struck a solid body, crouching in the doorway. A giant man. Miko!
His electronized metallic robe burned my hands. I lunged against him––I was almost as surprised as he. I shot, but the stab of heat evidently missed him.
The shock of my encounter close-circuited 335 his robe; he materialized in the starlight. A brief, savage encounter. He struck the weapon from my hand. He had dropped his hydrogen torch, and tried to grip me. But I twisted away from his hold.
“So it’s you!”
“Be quiet, Gregg Haljan! I only want to talk.”
Without warning, a stab of radiance shot from a weapon in his hand. It caught me. Ran like ice through my veins. Seized and numbed my limbs.
I fell helpless to the deck. Nerves and muscles paralyzed. My tongue was thick and inert. I could not speak, nor move. But I could see Miko bending over me. And hear him:
“I don’t want to kill you, Haljan. We need you.”
He gathered me up like a bundle in his huge arms; carried me swiftly across the deserted deck.
Snap’s helio-room in the network under the dome was diagonally overhead. A white actinic light shot from it––caught us, bathed us. Snap had been awake; had heard the slight commotion of our encounter.
His voice rang shrilly: “Stop! I’ll shoot!” His warning siren rang out to arouse the ship. His spotlight clung to us.
Miko ran with me a few steps. Then he cursed and dropped me, fled away. I fell like a sack of carbide to the deck. My senses faded into blackness....
“He’s all right now.”
I was in the chart-room, with Captain Carter, Snap and Dr. Frank bending over me. The surgeon said,
“Can you speak now, Gregg?”
I tried it. My tongue was thick, but it would move. “Yes.”
I was soon revived. I sat up, with Dr. Frank vigorously rubbing me.
“I’m all right.” I told them what had happened.
Captain Carter said abruptly, “Yes, we know that. And it was Miko also who killed Anita Prince. She told us before she died.”
“Died!...” I leaped to my feet. “She ... died....”
“Yes, Gregg. An hour ago, Miko got into her stateroom and tried to force his love on her. She repulsed him––he killed her.”
It struck me blank. And then with a rush came the thought, “He says Miko killed her....”
I heard myself stammering, “Why––why we must get him!” I gathered my wits; a surge of hate swept me; a wild desire for vengeance.
“Why, by God, where is he? Why don’t you go get him? I’ll get him––I’ll kill him, I tell you!”
“Easy, Gregg!” Dr. Frank gripped me.
The captain said gently, “We know how you feel, Gregg. She told us before she died.”
“I’ll bring him in here to you! But I’ll kill him, I tell you!”
“No you won’t, lad. You’re hysterical now. We don’t want him killed, not attacked even. Not yet. We’ll explain later.”
They sat me down, calming me.
Anita dead. The door of the shining garden was closed. A brief glimpse, given to me and to her of what might have been. And now she was dead....
I had not been able at first to understand why Captain Carter wanted Miko left at liberty. Within me there was that cry of vengeance, as though to strike Miko down would somehow lessen my own grief at Anita’s loss. Whatever Carter’s purpose, Snap had not known it. But Balch and Dr. Frank were in the captain’s confidence––all three of them working on some plan of action. Snap and I argued it, and thought we could fathom it; and in spite of my desire to kill Miko, the thing looked reasonable.
It was obvious that at least two of our passengers were plotting with Miko 336 and George Prince; trying during this voyage to learn what they could about Grantline’s activities on the Moon; scheming doubtless to seize the treasure when the Planetara stopped at the Moon on the return voyage. I thought I could name those masquerading passengers. Ob Hahn, supposedly a Venus Mystic. And Rance Rankin, who called himself an American magician. Those two, Snap and I agreed, seemed most suspicious. And there was the purser.
With my hysteria still on me, I sat for a time on the deck outside the chart-room with Snap. Then Carter summoned us back, and we sat listening while he, Balch and Dr. Frank went on with their conference. Listening to them I could not but agree that our best plan was to secure evidence which would incriminate all who were concerned in the plot. Miko, we were convinced, had been the Martian who followed Snap and me from Halsey’s office in Great-New York. George Prince had doubtless been the invisible eavesdropper outside the helio-room. He knew, and had told the others, that Grantline had found radium-ore on the Moon––that the Planetara would stop there on the way home.
But we could not incarcerate George Prince for being an eavesdropper. Nor had we the faintest tangible evidence against Ob Hahn or Rance Rankin. And even the purser would probably be released by the Interplanetary Court of Ferrok-Shahn when it heard our evidence.
There was only Miko. We could arrest him for the murder of Anita. But the others would be put on their guard. It was Carter’s idea to let Miko remain at liberty for a time and see if we could not identify and incriminate his fellows. The murder of Anita obviously had nothing to do with any plot against the Grantline Moon treasure.
“Why,” exclaimed Balch, “there might be––probably are––huge Martian interests concerned in this thing. These men here aboard are only emissaries, making this voyage to learn what they can. When they get to Ferrok-Shahn they’ll make their report, and then we’ll have a real danger on our hands. Why, an outlaw ship could be launched from Ferrok-Shahn that would beat us back to the Moon––and Grantline is entirely without warning of any danger!”
It seemed obvious. Unscrupulous, moneyed criminals in Ferrok-Shahn would be dangerous indeed, once these details of Grantline were given them. And so now it was decided that in the remaining nine days of our outward voyage, we would attempt to secure enough evidence to arrest all these plotters.
“I’ll have them all in the cage when we land,” Carter declared grimly. “They’ll make no report to their principals. The thing will end, be stamped out!”
Ah, the futile plans of men!
Yet we thought it practical. We were all doubly armed now. Explosive bullet-projectors and the heat-ray cylinders. And we had several eavesdropping microphones which we planned to use whenever occasion offered.
It was now, Earth Eastern Time, A. M. Twenty-eight hours only of this eventful voyage were passed. The Planetara was some six million miles from the Earth; it blazed behind us, a tremendous giant.
The body of Anita was being made ready for burial. George Prince was still in his stateroom. Glutz, effeminate little hairdresser, who waxed rich acting as beauty doctor for the women passengers, and who in his youth had been an undertaker, had gone with Dr. Frank to prepare the body.
Gruesome details. I tried not to think of them. I sat, numbed, in the chart-room.
An astronomical burial––there was little precedent for it. I dragged myself to the stern deck-space where, at five A. M., the ceremony took place. Most of the passengers were asleep, 337 unaware of all this––which was why Carter hastened it.
We were a solemn little group, gathered there in the checkered starlight with the great vault of the heavens around us. A dismantled electronic projector––necessary when a long-range gun was mounted––had been rigged up in one of the deck ports.
They brought out the body. I stood apart, gazing reluctantly at the small bundle, wrapped like a mummy in a dark metallic screen-cloth. A patch of black silk rested over her face.
Four cabin stewards carried her. And beside her walked George Prince. A long black robe covered him, but his head was bare. And suddenly he reminded me of the ancient play-character of Hamlet. His black, wavy hair; his finely chiseled, pallid face, set now in a stern, patrician cast. And staring, I realized that however much of a villain this man not yet thirty might be, at this instant, walking beside the body of his dead sister, he was stricken with grief. He loved that sister with whom he had lived since childhood; and to see
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