Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930, Various [top 10 novels to read txt] 📗

CHAPTER XI The Electrical Eavesdropper

I turned from the deck. Miko was near me! So he had dared to show himself here among us! But I realized that he could not be aware we knew he was the murderer. George Prince had been asleep, had not seen Miko with Anita. Miko, with impulsive rage, had shot the girl and escaped. No doubt now he was cursing himself for having done it. And he could very well assume that Anita had 338 died without regaining consciousness to tell who had killed her.

He gazed at me now, here on the deck. I thought for an instant he was coming over to talk to me. Though he probably considered he was not suspected of the murder of Anita, he realized, of course, that his attack on me was known; he must have wondered what action Captain Carter would take.

But he did not approach me; he moved away, and went inside. Moa had been near him; and as though by pre-arrangement with him she now accosted me.

“I want to speak to you, Set Haljan.”

“Go ahead.”

I felt an instinctive aversion for this Martian girl. Yet she was not unattractive. Over six feet tall, straight and slim. Sleek blond hair. Rather a handsome face. Not gray, like the burly Miko, but pink and white. Stern-lipped, yet feminine, too. She was smiling gravely now. Her blue eyes regarded me keenly. She said gently:

“A sad occurrence, Gregg Haljan. And mysterious. I would not question you––”

“Is that all you have to say?” I demanded, when she paused.

“No. You are a handsome man, Gregg––attractive to women––to any Martian woman.”

She said it impulsively. Admiration for me was on her face, in her eyes––a man cannot miss it.

“Thank you.”

“I mean, I would be your friend. My brother Miko is so sorry about what happened between you and him this morning. He only wanted to talk to you, and he came to your cubby door––”

“With a torch to break its seal,” I interjected.

She waved that away. “He was afraid you would not admit him. He told you he would not hurt you.”

“And so he struck me with one of your cursed Martian paralyzing rays!”

“He is sorry....”

She seemed gauging me, trying, no doubt, to find out what reprisal would be taken against her brother. I felt sure that Moa was as active as a man in any plan that was under way to capture the Grantline treasure. Miko, with his ungovernable temper, was doing things that put their plans in jeopardy.

I demanded abruptly, “What did your brother want to talk to me about?”

“Me,” she said surprisingly. “I sent him. A Martian girl goes after what she wants. Did you know that?”

She swung on her heel and left me. I puzzled over it. Was that why Miko had struck me down, and was carrying me off? Was my accursed masculine beauty so attractive to this Martian girl? I did not think so. I could not believe that all these incidents were so unrelated to what I knew was the main undercurrent. They wanted me, had tried to capture me. For something else than because Moa liked my looks....

Dr. Frank found me mooning alone.

“Go to bed, Gregg! You look awful.”

“I don’t want to go to bed.”

“Where’s Snap?”

“I don’t know. He was here a while ago.” I had not seen him since the burial of Anita.

“The captain wants him.” The surgeon left me.

Within an hour the morning siren would arouse the passengers. I was seated in a secluded corner of the deck, when George Prince came along. He went past me, a slight, somber, dark-robed figure. He had on high, thick boots. A hood was over his head, but as he saw me he pushed it back and dropped down beside me.

But for a moment he did not speak. His face showed pallid in the pallid star-gleams.

“She said you loved her.” His soft voice was throaty with emotion.

“Yes.” I said it almost against my will. There seemed a bond springing between this bereaved brother and me. 339 He added, so softly I could barely hear him, “That makes you, I think, almost my friend. And you thought you were my enemy.”

I held my answer. An incautious tongue running under emotion is a dangerous thing. And I was sure of nothing.

He went on, “Almost my friend. Because––we both loved her, and she loved us both.” He was hardly more than whispering. “And there is aboard––one whom we both hate.”

“Miko!” It burst from me.

“Yes. But do not say it.”

Another silence fell between us. He brushed back the black curls from his forehead. And his dark eyes searched mine.

“Have you an eavesdropping microphone, Haljan?”

I hesitated. “Yes.”

“I was thinking....” He leaned closer toward me. “If, in half an hour, you could use it upon Miko’s cabin––I would rather tell you than the captain or anyone else. The cabin will be insulated, but I shall find a way of cutting off that insulation so that you may hear.”

So George Prince had turned with us! The shock of his sister’s death––himself allied to her murderer!––had been too much for him. He was with us!

Yet his help must be given secretly. Miko would kill him in an instant if it became known.

He had been watchful of the deck. He stood up now.

“I think that is all.”

As he turned away, I murmured, “But I do thank you....”

The name Set Miko glowed upon the small metal door. It was in a transverse corridor similar to A 22. The corridor was forward of the lounge: it opened off the small circular library.

The library was unoccupied and unlighted, dim with only the reflected lights from the nearby passages. I crouched behind a cylinder-case. The door of Miko’s room was in sight, being some thirty feet away from me.

I waited perhaps five minutes. No one entered. Then I realized that doubtless the conspirators were already there. I set my tiny eavesdropper on the library floor beside me; connected its little battery; focused its projector. Was Miko’s room insulated? I could not tell. There was a small ventilating grid above the door. Across its opening, if the room were insulated, a blue sheen of radiance would be showing. And there would be a faint hum. But from this distance I could not see or hear such details, and I was afraid to approach closer. Once in the transverse corridor, I would have no place to hide, no way of escape; if anyone approached Miko’s door, I would be discovered.

I threw the current into my little apparatus. I prayed, if it met interference, that the slight sound would pass unnoticed. George Prince had said he would make opportunity to disconnect the room’s insulation. He had evidently done so. I picked up the interior sounds at once; my headphone vibrated with them. And with trembling fingers on the little dial between my knees as I crouched in the darkness behind the cylinder-case, I synchronized.

“Johnson is a fool.” It was Miko’s voice. “We must have the pass-words.”

“He got them from the helio-room.” A man’s voice; I puzzled over it at first, then recognized it. Rance Rankin.

Miko said, “He is a fool. Walking around this ship as though with letters blazoned on his forehead––‘Watch me––I need watching––’ Hah! No wonder they apprehended him!”

Was George Prince in there? Rankin’s voice said: “He would have turned the papers over to us. I would not blame him too much. What harm––”

“Oh, I’ll release him,” Miko declared. 340 “What harm? That braying ass did us plenty of harm. He has lost the pass-words. Better he had left them in the helio-room.”

Moa was in the room. Her voice said: “We’ve got to have them. The Planetara, upon such an important voyage as this, may be watched. How do we know––”

“It is, no doubt,” Rankin said quietly. “We ought to have the pass-words. When we are in control of this ship....”

It sent a shiver through me. Were they planning to try and seize the Planetara? Now? It seemed so.

“Johnson undoubtedly memorized them,” Moa was saying. “When we get him out––”

“Hahn is to do that, at the signal.” Miko added, “George could do it better, perhaps.”

And then I heard George Prince for the first time. He murmured, “I will try.”

“No need,” said Miko. “I praise where praise is deserved. And I have little praise for you now, George!”

I could not see what happened. A look, perhaps, which Prince could not avoid giving this man he had come to hate. Miko doubtless saw it, and the Martian’s hot anger leaped.

Rankin said hurriedly, “Stop that!”

And Moa: “Let him alone! Sit down, you fool!”

I could hear the sound of a scuffle. A blow––a cry, half suppressed, from George Prince.

Then Miko: “I will not hurt him. Craven coward! Look at him! Hating me––frightened!”

I could fancy George Prince sitting there with murder in his heart, and Miko taunting him:

“Hates me now, because I shot his sister!”

Moa: “Hush!”

“I will not! Why should I not say it? I will tell you something else, George Prince. It was not Anita I shot at, but you! I meant nothing for her, but love. If you had not interfered––”

This was different from what we had figured. George Prince had come in from his own room, had tried to rescue his sister, and in the scuffle, Anita had taken the shot intended for George.

“I did not even know I had hit her,” Miko was saying. “Not until I heard she was dead.” He added sardonically, “I hoped it was you I had hit, George. And I will tell you this: You hate me no more than I hate you. If it were not for your knowledge of radium ores––”

“Is this to be a personal wrangle?” Rankin interrupted. “I thought we were here to plan––”

“It is planned,” Miko said shortly. “I give orders, I do not plan. I am waiting now for the moment––”

He checked himself. Moa said, “Does Rankin understand that no harm is to come to Gregg Haljan?”

“Yes,” said Rankin. “And Dean. We need them, of course. But you cannot make Dean send messages if he refuses, nor make Haljan navigate.”

“I know enough to check on them,” Miko said grimly. “They will not fool me. And they will obey me, have no fear. A little touch of sulphuric––” His laugh was gruesome. “It makes the most stubborn very willing.”

“I wish,” said Moa, “we had Haljan safely hidden. If he is hurt––killed––”

So that was why Miko had tried to capture me? To keep me safe so that I might navigate the ship.

It occurred to me that I should get Carter at once. A plot to seize the Planetara? But when?

I froze with startled horror.

The diaphragms at my ears rang with Miko’s words: “I have set the time for now! In two minutes––”

It seemed to startle both Rankin and George Prince almost as much as I. Both exclaimed:

“No!”

“No? Why not? Everyone is at his post!”

Prince repeated: “No!”

341

And Rankin: “But can we trust them? The stewards––the crew?”

“Eight of them are our own men! You didn’t know that, Rankin? They’ve been aboard the Planetara for several voyages. Oh, this is no quickly-planned affair, even though we let you in on it so recently. You and Johnson. By God!”

I crouched tense. There was a commotion in