Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930, Various [top 10 novels to read txt] 📗
- Author: Various
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A smile plucked at his thin, gray lips. “That is the error of mine, not yours. My mission is that all the universe shall hear of me.”
“He’s preaching the religion of the Venus Mystics,” Snap explained.
“And this enlightened gentleman,” said Ob Hahn ironically, “has just termed it fetishism. The ignorance––”
“Oh, I say!” protested the man at Ob Hahn’s side. “I mean, you seem to think I intended something opprobrious. As a matter of fact––”
“We’ve an argument, Gregg,” laughed Snap. “This is Sir Arthur Coniston, an English gentleman, lecturer and sky-trotter––that is, he will be a sky-trotter; he tells us he plans a number of voyages.”
322The tall Englishman in his white linen suit bowed acknowledgment. “My compliments, Mr. Haljan. I hope you have no strong religious convictions, else we will make your table here very miserable!”
The third passenger had evidently kept out of the argument. Snap introduced him as Rance Rankin. An American––a quiet, blond fellow of thirty-five or forty.
I ordered my breakfast and let the argument go on.
“Won’t make me miserable,” said Snap. “I love an argument. You said, Sir Arthur?...
“I mean to say, I think I said too much. Mr. Rankin, you are more diplomatic.”
Rankin laughed. “I am a magician,” he said to me. “A theatrical entertainer. I deal in tricks––how to fool an audience––” His keen, amused gaze was on Ob Hahn. “This gentleman from Venus and I have too much in common to argue.”
“A nasty one!” the Englishman exclaimed. “By Jove! Really, Mr. Rankin, you’re a bit too cruel!”
I could see we were doomed to have turbulent meals this voyage. I like to eat in quiet; arguing passengers always annoy me. There were still three seats vacant at our table; I wondered who would occupy them. I soon learned the answer––for one seat at least. Rankin said calmly:
“Where is the little Venus girl this meal?” His glance went to the empty seat at my right hand. “The Venza––wasn’t that her name? She and I are destined for the same theater in Ferrok-Shahn.”
So Venza was to sit beside me. It was good news. Ten days of a religious argument three times a day would be intolerable. But the cheerful Venza would help.
“She never eats the mid-day meal,” said Snap. “She’s on the deck, having orange juice. I guess it’s the old gag about diet, eh?”
My attention wandered about the salon. Most of the seats were occupied. At the captain’s table I saw the objects of my search. George Prince and his sister sat one on each side of the captain. I saw George Prince in the life now as a man who looked hardly twenty-five. He was at this moment evidently in a gay mood. His clean-cut, handsome profile, with its poetic dark curls, was turned toward me. There seemed little of the villain about him.
And I saw Anita Prince now as a dark-haired, black eyed little beauty, in feature resembling her brother very strongly. She presently finished her meal. She rose, with him after her. She was dressed in Earth fashion––white blouse and dark jacket, wide, knee-length trousers of gray, with a red sash her only touch of color. She went past me, flashed me her smile and nod.
My heart was pounding. I answered her greeting, and met George Prince’s casual gaze. He, too, smiled, as though to signify that his sister had told him of the service I had done her. Or was his smile an ironical memory of how he had eluded me this morning when I chased him?
I gazed after his small, white-suited figure as he followed Anita from the salon. And thinking of her, I prayed that Carter and Halsey might be wrong. Whatever plotting against the Grantline Expedition might be going on, I hoped that George Prince was innocent of it. Yet I knew in my heart it was a futile hope. Prince had been that eavesdropper outside the helio-room. I could not really doubt it. But that his sister must be ignorant of what he was doing, I was sure.
My attention was brought suddenly back to the reality of our table. I heard Ob Hahn’s silky voice:
“We passed quite close to the moon last night, Mr. Dean.”
“Yes,” said Snap. “We did, didn’t we? Always do––it’s a technical problem 323 of the exigencies of interstellar navigation. Explain it to them, Gregg––you’re an expert.”
I waved it away with a laugh. There was a brief silence. I could not help noticing Sir Arthur Coniston’s queer look, and I think I have never seen so keen a glance as Rance Rankin shot at me. Were all these people aware of Grantline’s treasure on the moon? It suddenly seemed so. I wished fervently at that instant that the ten days of this voyage were over and we were safely at Ferrok-Shahn. Captain Carter was absolutely right. Coming back we would have a cordon of interplanetary police aboard.
Sir Arthur broke the awkward silence. “Magnificent sight, the moon, from so close a viewpoint––though I was too much afraid of pressure-sickness to be up to see it.”
I had nearly finished my hasty meal when another incident shocked me. The two other passengers at our table came in and took their seats. A Martian girl and man. The girl had the seat at my left, with the man beside her. All Martians are tall. This girl was about my own height––that is, six feet, two inches. The man was seven feet or more. Both wore the Martian outer robe. The girl flung hers back. Her limbs were encased in pseudo-mail. She looked, as all Martians like to look, a very warlike Amazon. But she was a pretty girl. She smiled at me with a keen-eyed, direct gaze.
“Mr. Dean said at breakfast that you were big and handsome. You are.”
They were brother and sister, these Martians. Snap introduced them as Set Miko and Setta Moa.[5]
This Miko was, from our Earth standards, a tremendous, brawny giant. Not spindly, like most Martians, this fellow, for all his seven feet of height, was almost heavy-set. He wore a plaited leather jerkin beneath his robe, and knee pants of leather out of which his lower legs showed as gray, hairy pillars of strength. He had come into the salon with a swagger, his sword-ornament clanking.
“A pleasant voyage so far,” he said to me as he started his meal. His voice had the heavy, throaty rasp characteristic of the Martian. He spoke perfect English––both Martians and Venus people are by heritage extraordinary linguists. Miko and his sister Moa had a touch of Martian accent, worn almost away by living for some years in Great-New York.
The shock to me came within a few minutes. Miko, absorbed in attacking his meal, inadvertently pushed back his robe to bare his forearm. An instant only, then it dropped again to his wrist. But in that instant I had seen, upon the gray flesh, a thin sear turned red. A very recent burn––as though a pencil-ray of heat had caught his arm.
My mind flung back. Only last night in the City Corridor, Snap and I had been followed by a Martian. I had shot at him with the heat-ray; I thought I had hit him on the arm. Was this the mysterious Martian who had followed us from Halsey’s office?
It was shortly after that mid-day meal when I encountered Venza sitting on the starlit deck. I had been in the bow observatory; taken my routine castings of our position and worked them out. I was, I think, of the Planetara’s officers the most expert handler of the mathematical mechanical calculators. The locating of our position and charting the trajectory of our course was, under ordinary circumstances, about all I had to do. And it took only a few minutes each twelve hours.
I had a moment with Carter in the isolation of his chart-room.
“This voyage! Gregg, I’m getting like you––too fanciful. We’ve a normal 324 group of passengers, apparently; but I don’t like the look of any of them. That Ob Hahn, at your table––”
“Snaky-looking fellow,” I commented. “He and the Englishman are great on arguments. Did you have Prince’s cabin searched?”
My breath hung on his answer.
“Yes. Nothing unusual among his things. We searched both his room and his sister’s.”
I did not follow that up. Instead I told him about the burn on Miko’s thick gray arm.
He stared. “I wish to the Almighty we were at Ferrok-Shahn. Gregg, to-night when the passengers are asleep, come here to me. Snap will be here, and Dr. Frank. We can trust him.”
“He knows about––about the Grantline treasure?”
“Yes. And so do Balch and Blackstone.”
Balch and Blackstone were our first and second officers.
“We’ll all meet here, Gregg––say about the zero hour. We must take some precautions.”
He suddenly felt he should say no more now. He dismissed me.
I found Venza seated alone in a secluded corner of the starlit deck. A porthole, with the black heavens and the blazing stars, was before her. There was an empty seat nearby.
“Hola-lo,[6] Gregg! Sit here with me. I have been wondering when you would come after me.”
I sat down beside her. “What are you doing––going to Mars, Venza? I’m glad to see you.”
“Many thanks. But I am glad to see you, Gregg. So handsome a man.... Do you know, from Venus to the earth and I have no doubt on all of Mars, no man will please me more.”
“Glib tongue,” I laughed. “Born to flatter the male––every girl of your world.” And I added seriously, “You don’t answer my question? What takes you to Mars?”
“Contract. By the stars, what else? Of course, a chance to make a voyage with you––”
“Don’t be silly, Venza.”
I enjoyed her. I gazed at her small, slim figure gracefully reclining in the deck chair. Her long, gray robe parted––by design, I have no doubt––to display her shapely, satin-sheathed legs. Her black hair was coiled in a heavy knot at the back of her neck; her carmined lips were parted with a mocking, alluring smile. The exotic perfume of her enveloped me.
She glanced at me sidewise from beneath her sweeping black lashes.
“Be serious,” I added.
“I am serious. Sober. Intoxicated by you, but sober.”
I said, “What sort of a contract?”
“A theater in Ferrok-Shahn. Good money, Gregg. I’m to be there a year.” She sat up to face me. “There’s a fellow here on the Planetara, Rance Rankin, he calls himself. At our table––a big, good-looking blond American. He says he is a magician. Ever hear of him?”
“That’s what he told me. No, I never heard of him.”
“Nor did I. And I thought I had heard of everyone of any importance. He is listed for the same theater where I’m going. Nice sort of fellow.” She paused, and added suddenly, “If he’s a professional entertainer, I’m a motor-oiler.”
It startled me. “Why do you say that?”
Instinctively my gaze swept the deck. An Earth woman and child and a small Venus man were in sight, but not within earshot.
“Why do you look so furtive?” she retorted. “Gregg, there’s something strange about this voyage. I’m no fool, nor you, and you know it as well as I do.”
325“Rance Rankin––” I prompted.
She leaned closer toward me. “He could fool you. But not me––I’ve known too many real magicians.” She grinned. “I challenged him to trick me. You should have seen him trying to evade!”
“Do you know Ob Hahn?” I interrupted.
She shook her head. “Never heard of him. But he told me plenty at breakfast. By Satan, what a flow of words that devil-driver can muster! He and the Englishman don’t mesh very well, do they?”
She stared at me. I had not answered her grin; my mind was too busy with queer fancies. Halsey’s words: “Things are not always what they seem––” Were these passengers masqueraders? Put here by George Prince? And then I thought of Miko the Martian, and the burn upon his arm.
“Come back, Gregg! Don’t go wandering off like that!” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “I’ll be serious. I want to know what in the hell is going on aboard this ship. I’m a woman, and I’m curious. You tell me.”
“What do you mean?” I parried.
“I mean a lot of things. What we’ve just been talking about. And what was the excitement you were in just before breakfast this morning?”
“Excitement?”
“Gregg, you may trust me.” For the first time she was wholly serious. Her gaze made sure no one was within hearing. She put her hand on my arm. I could barely hear her whisper: “I know they might have a ray upon us––I’ll be careful.”
“They?”
“Anyone. Something’s going on. You know it––you are in it. I saw you this morning, Gregg. Wild-eyed, chasing a phantom––”
“You?”
“And I heard the phantom! A man’s footsteps. A magnetic reflecting invisible cloak. You couldn’t fool an audience with that––it’s too commonplace. If Rance Rankin tried––”
I gripped her. “Don’t ramble, Venza! You saw me?”
“Yes. My stateroom door was open. I was sitting with a cigarillo. I saw the purser in the smoking room. He was visible from––”
“Wait! Venza, that prowler went through the smoking room!”
“I know he did. I could hear him.”
“Did the purser hear him?”
“Of course. The purser looked up, followed the sound with his gaze. I thought that was queer. He never made a move. And then you came along and he acted innocent. Why? What’s going on, that’s what I want to know!”
I held my breath. “Venza, where did the prowler
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