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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fa2d8df --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #62997 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/62997) diff --git a/old/62997-h.zip b/old/62997-h.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 4edeb9e..0000000 --- a/old/62997-h.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/62997-h/62997-h.htm b/old/62997-h/62997-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index fde8e99..0000000 --- a/old/62997-h/62997-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1791 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> - <head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=us-ascii" /> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> - <title> - The Project Gutenberg eBook of Saboteur of Space, by Robert Abernathy. - </title> - <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> - - <style type="text/css"> - -body { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - - h1,h2 { - text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ - clear: both; -} - -p { - margin-top: .51em; - text-align: justify; - margin-bottom: .49em; -} - -hr { - width: 33%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - margin-left: 33.5%; - margin-right: 33.5%; - clear: both; -} - -hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} -hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} - -.center {text-align: center;} - -.right {text-align: right;} - -.caption {font-weight: bold;} - -/* Images */ -.figcenter { - margin: auto; - text-align: center; -} - -div.titlepage { - text-align: center; - page-break-before: always; - page-break-after: always; -} - -div.titlepage p { - text-align: center; - text-indent: 0em; - font-weight: bold; - line-height: 1.5; - margin-top: 3em; -} - -/* Footnotes */ -.footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} - -.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} - -.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} - -.fnanchor { - vertical-align: super; - font-size: .8em; - text-decoration: - none; -} - -.ph1 { text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; } -.ph1 { font-size: medium; margin: .83em auto; } - - - </style> - </head> -<body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Saboteur of Space, by Robert Abernathy - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll -have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using -this ebook. - - - -Title: Saboteur of Space - -Author: Robert Abernathy - -Release Date: August 21, 2020 [EBook #62997] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SABOTEUR OF SPACE *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - -</pre> - - - - -<div class="titlepage"> - -<h1>Saboteur of Space</h1> - -<h2>By ROBERT ABERNATHY</h2> - -<p>Fresh power was coming to Earth, energy<br /> -which would bring life to a dying planet.<br /> -Only two men stood in its way, one a cowardly<br /> -rat, the other a murderous martyr; both pawns<br /> -in a cosmic game where death moved his chessmen<br /> -of fate—and even the winner would lose.</p> - -<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br /> -Planet Stories Spring 1944.<br /> -Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br /> -the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>Ryd Randl stood, slouching a little, in the darkened footway, and -watched the sky over Dynamopolis come alive with searchlights. The -shuttered glow of Burshis' Stumble Inn was only a few yards off to his -right, but even that lodestone failed before the novel interest of a -ship about to ground in the one-time Port of Ten Thousand Ships.</p> - -<p>Now he made out the flicker of the braking drive a mile or so -overhead, and presently soft motor thunder came down to blanket the -almost lightless city with sound. A beam swayed through the throbbing -darkness, caught the descending ship and held it, a small gleaming -minnow slipping through the dark heavens. A faint glow rose from Pi -Mesa, where the spaceport lay above the city, as a runway lighted -up—draining the last reserves of the city's stored power, but draining -them gladly now that, in those autumn days of the historic year 819, -relief was in sight.</p> - -<p>Ryd shrugged limply; the play was meaningless to him. He turned to -shuffle down the inviting ramp into the glowing interior of Burshis' -dive.</p> - -<p>The place was crowded with men and smoke. Perhaps half the former were -asleep, on tables or on the floor; but for the few places like Burshis' -which were still open under the power shortage, many would have frozen, -these days, in the chilly nights at fourteen thousand feet. For -Dynamopolis sprawled atop the world, now as in the old days when it had -been built to be the power center of North America.</p> - -<p>The rocket blasts crescendoed and died up on Pi Mesa as Ryd wedged -himself with difficulty into the group along the bar. If anyone -recognized him, they showed it only by looking fixedly at something -else. Only Burshis Yuns kept his static smile and nodded with -surprising friendliness at Ryd's pinched, old-young face.</p> - -<p>Ryd was startled by the nod. Burshis finished serving another customer -and maneuvered down the stained chrome-and-synthyl bar. Ryd was -heartened.</p> - -<p>"Say, Burshis," he started nervously, as the bulky man halted with his -back to him. But Burshis turned, still smiling, shaking his head so -that his jowls quivered.</p> - -<p>"No loans," he said flatly. "But just one on the house, Ryd."</p> - -<p>The drink almost spilled itself in Ryd's hand. Clutching it -convulsively, he made his eyes narrow and said suspiciously, "What you -setting 'em up for, Burshis? It's the first time since—"</p> - -<p>Burshis' smile stayed put. He said affably, "Didn't you hear that ship -that just came down on the Mesa? That was the ship from Mars—the -escort they were sending with the power cylinder. The power's coming -in again." He turned to greet a coin-tapping newcomer, added over his -shoulder: "You know what that means, Ryd. Some life around here again. -Jobs for all the bums in this town—even for you."</p> - -<p>He left Ryd frowning, thinking fuzzily. A warming gulp seemed to clear -his head. Jobs. So they thought they could put that over on him again, -huh? Well, he'd show them. He was smart; he was a damn good helio -man—no, that had been ten years ago. But now he was out of the habit -of working, anyway. No job for Ryd Randl. They gave him one once and -then took it away. He drank still more deeply.</p> - -<p>The man on Ryd's immediate right leaned toward him. He laid a hand on -his arm, gripping it hard, and said quietly: "So you're Ryd Randl."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Ryd had a bad moment before he saw that the face wasn't that of any -plain-clothes man he knew. For that matter, it didn't belong to anybody -he had ever known—an odd, big-boned face, strikingly ugly, with a -beak-nose that was yet not too large for the hard jaw or too bleak for -the thin mouth below it. An expensive transparent hat slanted over the -face, and from its iridescent shadows gleamed eyes that were alert and -almost frighteningly black. Ryd noted that the man wore a dark-gray -cellotex of a sort rarely seen in joints like Burshis'.</p> - -<p>"Suppose we step outside, Ryd. I'd like to talk to you."</p> - -<p>"What's the idea?" demanded Ryd, his small store of natural courage -floated to the top by alcohol.</p> - -<p>The other seemed to realize that he was getting ahead of himself. -He leaned back slightly, drew a deep breath, and said slowly and -distinctly. "Would you care to make some money, my friend?"</p> - -<p>"<i>Huh?</i> Why, yeh—I guess so—"</p> - -<p>"Then come with me." The hand still on his arm was insistent. In his -daze, Ryd let himself be drawn away from the bar into the sluggish -crowd; then he suddenly remembered his unfinished drink, and made -frantic gestures. Deliberately misunderstanding, the tall stranger -fumbled briefly, tossed a coin on the counter-top, and hustled Ryd out, -past the blue-and-gold-lit <i>meloderge</i> that was softly pouring out its -endlessly changing music, through the swinging doors into the dark.</p> - -<p>Outside, between lightless buildings, the still cold closed in on -them. They kept walking—so fast that Ryd began to lose his breath, -long-accustomed though his lungs were to the high, thin air.</p> - -<p>"So you're Ryd Randl," repeated the stranger after a moment's silence. -"I might have known you. But I'd almost given up finding you tonight."</p> - -<p>Ryd tried feebly to wrench free, stumbled. "Look," he gasped. "If -you're a cop, say so!"</p> - -<p>The other laughed shortly. "No. I'm just a man about to offer you a -chance. For a come-back, Ryd—a chance to live again.... My name—you -can call me Mury."</p> - -<p>Ryd was voiceless. Something seemed increasingly ominous about the -tall, spare man at his side. He wished himself back in Burshis' with -his first free drink in a month. The thought of it brought tears to his -eyes.</p> - -<p>"How long have you been out of a job, Ryd?"</p> - -<p>"Nine ... ten years. Say, what's it to you?"</p> - -<p>"And why, Ryd?"</p> - -<p>"Why...? Look, mister, I was a helio operator." He hunched his narrow -shoulders and spread his hands in an habitual gesture of defeat. "Damn -good one, too—I was a foreman ten years ago. But I don't have the -physique for Mars—I might just have made it <i>then</i>, but I thought the -plant was going to open again and—"</p> - -<p>And that was it. The almost airless Martian sky, with its burning -actinic rays, is so favorable for the use of the helio-dynamic engine. -And after the middle of the eighth century, robot labor gave Mars its -full economic independence—and domination. For power is—power; and -there is the Restriction Act to keep men on Earth even if more than two -in ten could live healthily on the outer world.</p> - -<p>"Ten years ago," Mury nodded as if satisfied. "That must have been the -Power Company of North America—the main plant by Dynamopolis itself, -that shut down in December, 809. They were the last to close down -outside the military bases in the Kun Lun."</p> - -<p>Ryd was pacing beside him now. He felt a queer upsurge of confidence in -this strange man; for too long he had met no sympathy and all too few -men who talked his language. He burst out: "They wouldn't take me, damn -them! Said my record wasn't good enough for them. That is, I didn't -have a drag with any of the Poligerents."</p> - -<p>"I know all about your record," said Mury softly.</p> - -<p>Ryd's suspicions came back abruptly, and he reverted to his old -kicked-dog manner. "How do you know? And what's it to you?"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>All at once, Mury came to a stop, and swung around to face him -squarely, hard eyes compelling. They were on an overpass, not far -from where the vast, almost wholly deserted offices of the Triplanet -Freighting Company sprawled over a square mile of city. A half-smile -twisted Mury's thin lips.</p> - -<p>"Don't misunderstand me, Ryd—you mean nothing at all to me as an -individual. But you're one of a vast mass of men for whom I am -working—the billions caught in the net of a corrupt government and -sold as an economic prey to the ruthless masters of Mars. This, after -they've borne all the hardships of a year of embargo, have offered -their hands willingly to the rebuilding of decadent Earth, only to -be refused by the weak leaders who can neither defy the enemy nor -capitulate frankly to him."</p> - -<p>Ryd was dazed. His mind had never been constructed to cope with such -ideas and the past few years had not improved its capabilities. "Are -you talking about the power cylinder?" he demanded blurrily.</p> - -<p>Mury cast a glance toward the Milky Way as if to descry the Martian -cargo projectile somewhere up among its countless lights. He said -simply, "Yes."</p> - -<p>"I don't get it," mumbled Ryd, frowning. He found words that he had -heard somewhere a day or so before, in some bar or flophouse: "The -power cylinder is going to be the salvation of Earth. It's a shot in -the arm—no, right in the heart of Earth industry, here in Dynamopolis. -It will turn the wheels and light the cities and—"</p> - -<p>"To hell with that!" snapped Mury, suddenly savage. His hands came up -slightly, the fingers flexing; then dropped back to his sides. "Don't -you know you're repeating damnable lies?"</p> - -<p>Ryd could only stare, cringing and bewildered. Mury went on with a -passion shocking after his smooth calm:</p> - -<p>"The power shell is aid, yes—but with what a price! It's the thirty -pieces of silver for which the venal fools who rule our nations have -sold the whole planet to Mars. Because they lack the courage and -vision to retool Earth's plants and factories for the inescapable -conflict, they're selling us out—making Earth, the first home of man, -a colony of the Red Planet. Do you know what Earth is to the great -Martian land-owners? <i>Do you?</i>" He paused out of breath; then finished -venomously, "Earth is a great pool of labor ready to be tapped, cheaper -than robots—cheap as <i>slaves</i>!"</p> - -<p>"What about it?" gulped Ryd, drawing away from the fanatic. "What you -want <i>me</i> to do about it?"</p> - -<p>Mury took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders. His face was -once more bleakly impassive; only the mouth was an ugly line. "We're -going to do something about it, you and I. Tonight. Now."</p> - -<p>Ryd was nearly sober. And wholly terrified. He got out chokingly, -"What's that mean?"</p> - -<p>"The power shell—isn't coming in as planned."</p> - -<p>"You can't do that."</p> - -<p>"<i>We</i> can," said Mury with a heavy accent on the first word. "And there -are fifty thousand credits in it for you, Ryd. Are you with us?"</p> - -<p>Suspicion was chill reality now in Ryd's mind. And he knew one thing -certainly—if he refused now to accompany Mury, he would be killed, by -this man or another of his kind. For the secret power known only as -<i>We</i> never took chances. Whispered-of, terrible, and world-embracing, -desperate upshot of the times in its principles of dynamitism, war, and -panclasm—that was <i>We</i>.</p> - -<p>The question hung in the air for a long moment. Then Ryd, with -an effort, said, "Sure." A moment later it struck him that the -monosyllabic assent was suspicious; he added quickly, "I got nothing to -lose, see?" It was, he realized, the cold truth.</p> - -<p>"You won't lose," said Mury. He seemed to relax. But the menace with -which he had clothed himself clung, as he turned back on the way they -had come.</p> - -<p>Ryd followed dog-like, his feet in their worn shoes moving without his -volition. He was frightened. Out of his very fright came a longing to -placate Mury, assure him that he, Ryd, was on the same side whatever -happened....</p> - -<p>After some steps he stole a sidelong glance at his tall companion, and -whined, "Where ... where we going now?"</p> - -<p>Mury paused in his long stride, removed a hand from a pocket of the -gray topcoat that wrapped him as in somber thoughts. Wordlessly, he -pointed as Ryd had known he would—toward where a pale man-made dawn -seemed breaking over Pi Mesa.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">II</p> - -<p>"One blow for freedom!" said Mury with caught breath. His voice fell -upon air scarcely stilled since the sodden thump of the blow that had -killed the guard.</p> - -<p>The body lay between them, face down on the graveled way in the inky -moon-shadow. On one side Pi Mesa stretched away two hundred yards to -drop sharply into the night; on the other was the unlighted mass of the -long, continuous, low buildings that housed now unused fuel pumps and -servicing equipment. Looking down at the dead huddle at his feet, a -little stunned by the reality of this, Ryd knew that he was in it now. -He was caught in the machinery.</p> - -<p>Mury hefted the length of steel in his hand once more, as if testing -the weight that had crushed a man's skull so easily. Then, with a short -wrist-flip, he sent it flying into the dried weeds which had over-grown -the aero field on the mesa's rim during the summer months after State -order had grounded all fliers in America.</p> - -<p>"All right, Ryd," he said coolly. "Trade clothes with this fellow. I've -brought you this far—you're taking me the rest of the way."</p> - -<p>The rest of the way.</p> - -<p>Ryd was still panting, and his side was paining from the strenuous -exertion of the long climb up the side of the mountain, far from the -guarded highway. His fingers, numbed by the cold of the high, thin air, -shook as he knelt and fumbled with the zippers of the dead guard's -uniform. The belted gun, however, was heavy and oddly comforting as -he clumsily buckled it about his hips. He knew enough of weapons -to recognize this as, not the usual paralyzer, but a flame pistol, -powerful and deadly. He let his hand linger on its butt; then strong -fingers tightened on his bony wrist, and he looked up with a start into -the sardonic black eyes of the Panclast.</p> - -<p>"No use now for firearms," said Mury. "All the guns we could carry -wouldn't help us if we were caught out there. That gun is just a -stage property for the little play we're going to give in about three -minutes—when you'll act a guardsman escorting me, a Poligerent of -Dynamopolis, aboard the towship <i>Shahrazad</i>."</p> - -<p>For a moment Ryd felt relief—he had hazily imagined that Mury's hatred -of Mars and all things Martian might have led him to try to sabotage -the Martian warship which lay somewhere on the runways beyond the long, -low buildings, and which would be closely guarded. But the towship -would also be guarded ... he shivered in the cold, dry night air.</p> - -<p>Mury had melted into the shadow a few yards away. There was a light -scraping, then a green flame sputtered, briefly lighting up his hands -and face, and narrowing at once to a thin, singing needle of light. -He had turned a pocket electron torch against the lock-mechanism of a -small, disused metal door.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus.jpg" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>Ryd watched in painful suspense. There was no sound in his ears save -for the hard, dry shrilling of the ray as it bit into the steel. It -seemed to be crying: <i>run, run</i>—but he remembered the power that knew -how to punish better than the law, and stood still, shivering.</p> - -<p>The lock gave way and the door slipped aside. A light went on inside, -and Ryd's heart stopped, backfired, and started again, raggedly. The -same automatic mechanism that had turned the lights on had started the -air-fresher, which picked up speed with a soft whine, sweeping out the -long-stale atmosphere. Mury motioned to Ryd to follow him in.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>It was still musty in the narrow passage, between the closely-pressing -walls, beneath the great tubes and cable sheathings that fluted the -ceiling overhead. A stairway spiraled up on the right to the control -cupola somewhere overhead; even in the airtight gallery a thin film -of dust lay on every step. Up there were the meters and switches of -the disused terminal facilities of the spaceport; beyond the metal -door marked CAUTION, just beyond the stairwell, lay the long runway -down which the ships of space had glided to be serviced, refueled, and -launched into the sky once more by now dormant machines.</p> - -<p>"Wait," said Mury succinctly; he vanished up the spiral stair, his -long legs taking two steps at a time. After an aching minute's silence, -he was back. All was clear as seen from the turret-windows overhead.</p> - -<p>They emerged in shadow, hugging the wall. Almost a quarter of a mile to -the right the megalith of the Communications Tower, crowned with many -lights where the signal-men sat godlike in its summit. Its floodlights -shed a vast oval of light out over the mesa, where the mile-long -runways—no longer polished mirror-like as in the days of Dynamopolis' -glory—stretched away into the darkness of the table land. A handful -of odd ships—mere remnant of the hundreds that Pi Mesa port had -berthed—huddled under the solenoid wickets, as if driven together by -the chill of the thin, knife-like wind that blew across the mesa.</p> - -<p>As the two paced slowly across the runways, Ryd had a sense of -protective isolation in the vast impersonality of the spaceport. -Surely, in this Titanic desolation of metal slabs and flat-roofed -buildings, dominated by the one great tower, total insignificance must -mean safety for them.</p> - -<p>And indeed no guard challenged them. There were armed men watching -for all intruders out on the desert beyond the runways, but once -inside, Ryd's borrowed blue seemed to serve as passport enough. -Nonetheless, the passport's knees were shaking when they stood at last, -inconspicuous still, at the shadowed base of the Communications Tower.</p> - -<p>Not far off, a half-dozen dignitaries, huddled close together in the -midst of these Cyclopean man-made things that dwarfed their policies, -their principles and ambitions, stood talking rather nervously with two -officers, aristocratically gaudy in the scarlet of the Martian Fleet. -Blue-clad guardsmen of Earth watched from a distance—watched boredly -enough.</p> - -<p>And out on the steel-stripped tarmac, under the solenoid of Number -Two Runway, lay a towship, backed like a stegosaur with its massive -magnets—the <i>Shahrazad</i>, panting like a dragon amid rolling clouds of -steam. She was plainly ready to go into space. The bottom dropped out -of Ryd's stomach before he realized that a warning at least must be -sounded before the ship could lift. But that might come any moment now.</p> - -<p>"Relax," said Mury in a low voice. "Nothing's gone wrong. We'll be -aboard the <i>Shahrazad</i> when she lifts." For a moment his black eyes -shifted, hardening, toward Runway Four. The Martian warship lay there -beyond the solenoid, a spiteful hundred-foot swordfish of steel, with -blind gunvalves, row on row, along its sleek sides and turret-blisters. -It had not yet been tugged onto the turntable; it could not be leaving -again very soon, though Earth weight was undoubtedly incommoding -its crew. About it a few figures stood that were stiffly erect and -immobile, as tall as tall men. From head to toe they were scarlet.</p> - -<p>"Robots!" gasped Ryd, clutching his companion's arm convulsively. -"Martian soldier robots!"</p> - -<p>"They're unarmed, harmless. They aren't your police with built-in -weapons. Only the humans are dangerous. But we've got to move. For -God's sake, take it easy."</p> - -<p>Ryd licked dry lips. "Are we going—out into space?"</p> - -<p>"Where else?" said Mury.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The official-looking individual in the expensive topcoat and sport hat -had reached the starboard airlock of the towship before anyone thought -to question his authorization, escorted as he was by a blue-uniformed -guardsman. When another sentry, pacing between runways a hundred yards -from the squat space vessel, paused to wonder, it was—as it came -about—just a little too late.</p> - -<p>The guard turned and swung briskly off to intercept the oddly-behaving -pair, hand crowding the butt of his pistol, for he was growing -uneasy. His alarm mounted rapidly, till he nearly sprained an ankle -in sprinting across the last of the two intervening runways, between -the solenoid wickets. Those metal arches, crowding one on the other -in perspective, formed a tunnel that effectively shielded the -<i>Shahrazad's</i> airlocks from more distant view; the gang of notables -attracted by the occasion was already being shepherded back to safety -by the Communications guards, whose attention was thus well taken up.</p> - -<p>The slight man in guardsman's blue glanced over his shoulder and -vanished abruptly into the circular lock. His companion wheeled on the -topmost step, looking down with some irritation on his unhandsome face, -but with no apparent doubt of his command of the situation.</p> - -<p>"Yes?" he inquired frostily.</p> - -<p>"What goes on here?" snapped the guard, frowning at the tall figure -silhouetted against the glow in the airlock. "The crew's signaled all -aboard and the ship lifts in two minutes. You ought to be—"</p> - -<p>"I am Semul Mury, Poligerent for the City of Dynamopolis," interrupted -the tall man with asperity. "The City is naturally interested in the -delivery of the power which will revivify our industries." He paused, -sighed, shifting his weight to the next lower step of the gangway. "I -suppose you'll want to re-check my credentials?"</p> - -<p>The guard was somewhat confused; a Poligerent, in ninth-century -bureaucracy, was a force to be reckoned with. But he contrived to nod -with an appearance of brusqueness.</p> - -<p>Fully expecting official papers, signed and garnished with all the -pompous seals of a chartered metropolis, the guard was dazed to receive -instead a terrific left-handed foul to the pit of the stomach, and as -he reeled dizzily, retching and clawing for his gun, to find that gun -no longer holstered but in the hand of the self-styled Poligerent, -pointing at its licensed owner.</p> - -<p>"I think," Mury said quietly, flexing his left wrist with care the -while his right held the gun steady, "that you'd better come aboard -with us."</p> - -<p>The guard was not more cowardly than the run of politically-appointed -civic guardsmen. But a flame gun kills more frightfully than the -ancient electric chair. He complied, grasping the railing with both -hands as he stumbled before Mury up the gangway—for he was still very -sick indeed, wholly apart from his bewilderment, which was enormous.</p> - -<p>Above, Ryd Randl waited in the lock, flattened against the curved -wall, white and jittering. The inner door was shut, an impenetrable -countersunk mirror of metal.</p> - -<p>"Cover him, Ryd," ordered Mury flatly. In obedience Ryd lugged out -the heavy flame pistol and pointed it; his finger was dangerously -tremulous on the firing lever. He moistened his lips to voice his -fears; but Mury, pocketing the other gun, threw the three-way switch on -the side panel, the switch that should have controlled the inner lock.</p> - -<p>Nothing happened.</p> - -<p>"Oh, God. We're caught. We're trapped!" The outer gangway had slid up, -the lock wheezed shut, forming an impenetrable crypt of niosteel.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Mury smiled with supernal calm. "We won't be here long," he said. -Then, to quiet Ryd's fears, he went on: "The central control panel and -the three local switches inside, between, and outside the locks are -on the circuit in that order. Unless the locks were closed from the -switch just beyond the inner lock, that lock will open when the central -control panel is cut out in preparation for lifting."</p> - -<p>Almost as he paused and drew breath, a light sprang out over the switch -he had closed and the inner lock swung silently free of its gaskets. -Ryd felt a trembling relief; but Mury's voice lashed out like a whip as -he slipped cat-like into the passage.</p> - -<p>"Keep him covered. Back out of the lock."</p> - -<p>Ryd backed—the white, tense face of the prisoner holding his own -nervous gaze—and, almost out of the lock, stumbled over the metal -pressure rings. And the gun was out of his unsure grip, clattering -somewhere near his slithering feet, as he started to fall.</p> - -<p>He saw the guardsman hurl himself forward; then he was flung spinning, -back against the engine-room door. In a flash, even as he struggled -to keep on his feet, he saw the man in the airlock coming up from a -crouch, shifting the pistol in his right hand to reach its firing -lever; he saw Mury sidestep swiftly and throw the master control switch -outside.</p> - -<p>The inner lock whooshed shut, barely missing Ryd. At the same instant, -the flame gun lighted locks and passage with one terrific flash, and a -scorched, discolored spot appeared on the beveled metal of the opposite -lock a foot from Mury's right shoulder.</p> - -<p>"You damned clumsy little fool—" said Mury with soft intensity. Then, -while the air around the metal walls still buzzed and snapped with -blue sparks, he whirled and went up the control-room gangway in two -quick bounds. Even as he went the flame gun thundered again in the -starboard airlock.</p> - -<p>Mury was just in time, for the pilot had been about to flash "Ready" to -the Communications Tower when the explosions had given him pause. But -the latter and his two companions were neither ready nor armed; clamped -in their seats at the controls, already marked, they were helpless in -an instant before the leveled menace of the gun. And the imprisoned -guardsman, having wasted most of his charges, was helpless, too, in his -little cell of steel.</p> - -<p>"It's been tried before," said one of the masked men. He had a blond, -youthful thatch and a smooth healthy face below the mask, together with -an astrogator's triangled stars which made him <i>ex officio</i> the brains -of the vessel. "Stealing a ship—it can't be done any more."</p> - -<p>"It's been done again," said Mury grimly. "And you don't know the half -of it. But—you will. I'll need you. As for your friends—" The gun -muzzle shifted slightly to indicate the pilot and the engineer. "Out of -those clamps. You're going to ride this out in the portside airlock."</p> - -<p>He had to repeat the command, in tones that snapped with menace, before -they started with fumbling, rebellious hands to strip their armor from -themselves. The burly engineer was muttering phrases of obscene fervor; -the weedy young pilot was wild-eyed. The blond astrogator, sitting -still masked and apparently unmoved, demanded:</p> - -<p>"What do you think you're trying to do?"</p> - -<p>"What do <i>you</i> think?" demanded Mury in return. "I'm taking the ship -into space. On schedule and on course—to meet the power shell." The -flame gun moved with a jerk. "And as for you—what's your name?"</p> - -<p>"Yet Arliess."</p> - -<p>"You want to make the trip alive, don't you, Yet Arliess?"</p> - -<p>The young astrogator stared at him and at the gun through masking -goggles; then he sank into his seat with a slow shudder. "Why, yes," he -said as if in wonder, "I do."</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">III</p> - -<p><i>Shahrazad</i> drove steadily forward into deep space, vibrating slightly -to the tremendous thrust of her powerful engines. The small, cramped -cabin was stiflingly hot to the three armored men who sat before its -banked dials, watching their steady needles.</p> - -<p>Ryd had blacked out, darkness washing into his eyes and consciousness -draining from his head, as the space ship had pitched out into -emptiness over the end of the runway on Pi Mesa and Mury had cut in the -maindrive. Pressure greater than anything he had ever felt had crushed -him; his voice had been snatched from his lips by those terrible forces -and lost beneath the opening thunder of the three-inch tubes. Up and -up, while the acceleration climbed to seven gravities—and Ryd had lost -every sensation, not to regain them until Earth was dropping away under -the towship's keel.</p> - -<p>A single gravity held them back and down in the tilted seats, and the -control panels seemed to curve half above them, their banks of lights -confused with the stars coldly through the great nose window. In the -control room all sounds impinged on a background made up of the insect -hum of air-purifiers, the almost supersonic whine of the fast-spinning -gyroscopes somewhere behind them, the deep continuous growl of the -engines.</p> - -<p>Mury's voice broke through that steady murmur, coming from Ryd's right. -"You can unfasten your anticlamps, Ryd," he said dryly. "That doesn't -mean you," to the young navigator, on his other hand as he sat in -the pilot's seat with his pressure-clamps thrown back and his gloved -hands free to caress the multiplex controls before him. Clipped to the -sloping dash at his left elbow was a loaded flame gun.</p> - -<p>Ryd emerged, with much bungling, from his padded clamps, and shook his -head groggily as he ran a hand through his slightly thinning hair. He -ventured shakily, "Where are we?"</p> - -<p>Mury smiled slightly. "Only our astrogator," he indicated Arliess, -still masked and fettered, "can tell you that with precision. I -understand only enough of astrogational practice to make sure that he -is holding to the course outlined on the log. For that matter ... he -is an intelligent young man and if he were not blinded by notions of -duty to an outworn system.... We are now somewhere near the orbit of -the Moon. Isn't that right, Arliess?"</p> - -<p>The other did not seem to hear; he sat staring blindly before him -through his goggles at the slowly-changing chart, where cryptic lights -burned, some moving like glowing paramecia along fine-traced luminous -tracks.</p> - -<p>Mury too sat silent and immobile for a minute or more. Then, abruptly, -he inclined his universal chair far to the right, and his long frame -seemed to tense oddly. His finger stabbed out one of the sparks of -light.</p> - -<p>"What's that, Arliess?"</p> - -<p>The astrogator broke his silence. "A ship."</p> - -<p>"I know that well enough. What ship?"</p> - -<p>"I supposed you had examined the log. It would have told you that -that's the liner <i>Alborak</i>, out of Aeropolis with a diplomatic mission -for Mars."</p> - -<p>Mury shook his head regretfully. "That won't wash, Arliess. Even if you -suppose her off course, no liner aspace ever carried a tenth of that -drive."</p> - -<p>"I don't know what you're talking about," said Arliess. But his voice -was raw and unsteady.</p> - -<p>"I'm talking about this. That ship is a warship, and it's looking for -us—will intercept us inside of twenty minutes at the most!"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Arliess turned his head at last, slowly, as if the movement were -painful. His dispassionate goggles regarded the telltale needles that -had come quiveringly alive on the radiodetector box between them, -bluntly giving the lie to the automatic chart. "You know more than I -supposed," he said, and laughed unpleasantly. "But it won't do you -any good now. We're to be inspected in space—a surprise of which we -weren't informed until a few minutes before you came sneaking into the -ship."</p> - -<p>"That's too bad," said Mury. He sounded as if he thought it was too -bad. As he spoke, he leaned sidewise, to the left this time, and closed -a switch, lighting a darkened panel on the board; his long forefinger -selected and pressed two studs. "<i>Too bad</i>," he repeated, and picked -up the flame pistol. Young Arliess exploded in another furious surge -against the binding clamps, clawing with clumsy gloved hands for the -release; then he quieted, and stared at the small black bore trained on -him.</p> - -<p>He was trembling a little with fury. "You damned louse. Why don't you -make it a clean job by giving it to me, now?"</p> - -<p>"I'll need you, now if not before," said the Panclast softly. "Your -friends would have stayed alive if that warship hadn't showed its nose. -You must understand that. I was forced into counter-measures."</p> - -<p>Then Ryd, squirming sidewise in his seat, understood. Those studs -had controlled the outer airlocks. And now the men who had been in -those locks, the young guardsman and the <i>Shahrazad's</i> pilot and -engineer—were no longer there.</p> - -<p>"You—need <i>me</i>?" Arliess was briefly incredulous. "Oh—I get it. There -have to be three in the crew." Then he sprang like a tiger.</p> - -<p>But the moment in which he had thumbed the release and wrenched free of -the padded clamps had been too long. Ryd flinched away—but there was -no roar, no flame stabbed blue. They grappled an instant, swaying on -the tilted floor—and then the pistol, reversed in Mury's hand, chopped -down on Arliess' temple, a glancing blow, but fiercely struck.</p> - -<p>The astrogator let go, staggering; and the gun swung up again and -felled him.</p> - -<p>Mury let the pistol drop into his own crew-seat, and, lugging Arliess -under the arms, got him into his seat with a grunting heave. He said -breathlessly, regretfully, "It was the only way...." The mask came off -at once; the shock-pale face that emerged was even more youthful than -Ryd had thought. The red trickle across the forehead was startling -against its pallor.</p> - -<p>Ryd sat staring—unshaken by the thought of yet another murder, but -with a knot of fear tightening in his stomach as he thought of the -warship somewhere out of their vision, questing nearer with every -racing second—while the motors throbbed, the airvalves sang softly, -and the gyroscopes whined somewhere.</p> - -<p>And Mury's long, brown fingers explored rapidly through the stunned -man's blond thatch; he nodded with satisfaction, and then with sure -motions secured Arliess in his place. Ryd, on peremptory gesture, did -for himself the same, with fingers that were oddly numb and jointless.</p> - -<p>Then Mury was back in the pilot's chair. For a moment he sat as if -poised, staring into starry space with knitted brows; then he reached -far over, in front of the sagging astrogator, and with a decisive flick -of the wrist switched on the ship's magnets to their full power.</p> - -<p>"What's that for?" stammered Ryd, bewildered and more than a little -scared. "Why—"</p> - -<p>Mury made no answer. Instead, he had fixed once more on the detector -box, watching it intently as the minutes crawled. The movements by -which he secured his own anticlamps were automatonlike.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Twice the needles jumped briefly. Mury did not stir. But when they -began to swing slowly over the scale, his hands leaped at the control -studs; in the next instant <i>Shahrazad</i> leaped and shivered, and a -powerful acceleration fought to lever them out of their seats. The -noise was deafening; one thin layer of sound proofing was between the -cabin and the one-inch tubes of the overdrive.</p> - -<p>Ryd's eyes rolled up in his head and grew filmed; the control room -for him a blur of dizzy flame. He almost blacked out again; he seemed -to see the face of the white Moon, leprously diseased, float like a -runaway balloon past the curved nose window and disappear below his -topsy-turvy field of vision; but he couldn't be sure it wasn't his own -head spiraling away from its moorings. And then it was over and the -ship bored steadily along her new tangent through space.</p> - -<p>But now she vibrated yet more deeply to the great thrust of the -afterdrive, and the light blurred more and grew dim. <i>Shahrazad</i> raced -into darkness, and the needles that told of a magnetic mass somewhere -not far ahead, cutting swiftly through her far-flung field, swung -steadily over.</p> - -<p>Then <i>bang!</i> in one unreverberating explosion, and the ship bucked -hard and the blurred lights came down in a rain of fiery pinwheels. -The motor died with a snap. Silence rang and Ryd's stomach boiled with -weightlessness; slowly his eyes could see again. <i>Shahrazad</i> held -straight on her course toward some unknown target star; the gyroscopes -still whined.</p> - -<p>"Seven thousand feet a second," came Mury's voice from nowhere. "That's -the speed at which we overran the meteoroid. It wouldn't have been nice -if it had come through here; the armor before the control panel would -have stopped it if it didn't strike higher...."</p> - -<p>Ryd fell to shuddering. He mouthed with difficulty, "My God, you don't -hit meteors on purpose!"</p> - -<p>"You damned well do," said Mury crisply, "if you have to." His manner -brought a sort of frightened admiration into Ryd's dark, unsteady eyes. -Mury added, with apparent lack of connectedness, "Astrogators' heads -don't just crack themselves on switch handles." The underdrive, roaring -alive as he pressed the bottom stud on the control circle, caught Ryd's -breath against his diaphragm and left him none to answer with if he had -wished to.</p> - -<p>She leveled out on course with short jerky bursts from the various -banks of tubes. Mury was doing all his own course-plotting now, and his -teeth were sunk in his lower lip as he frowned at the charts and at the -rows of figures that spun into view on the calculator. He was still -correcting feverishly when the stars dimmed and space throbbed like a -tympanum.</p> - -<p>A voice clanged through the strobophones. "<i>Shahrazad! Algol</i> calling -<i>Shahrazad</i>! Cut your drive to one vertical gravity. We will parallel -and send a boat across. That is all."</p> - -<p>Mury's right hand moved slightly on the sloping ledge and closed the -throttle. The forward thrust again collapsed into weightlessness, and -the <i>Shahrazad</i> seemed to hang motionless for a moment before the -underdrive took up the load. And meanwhile the meters told their tale -of the swift onrush of the great battle cruiser in whose forward sphere -of exhaust gases they already flew. Across the starry sky ahead crept a -vast belt of hazy light like a zodiacal glow.</p> - -<p>"The <i>Algol</i>," said Mury musingly. "A stellar dreadnaught. They aren't -sparing precautions...." Abruptly he dropped his right hand from -the dashboard, grasped a sheathed wire that curved away beneath the -radiodetector box, and detached it with a brisk jerk. The needles -dropped instantly to a uniform zero. The chain of causation was -complete.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>So there was no warning of the approach of the spaceboat. It bumped -alongside and grappled to the towship's starboard airlock a couple of -minutes later; Ryd stiffened, drew a long breath, and held it as if -he would hold it forever. Mury, hand steady, depressed the studs that -opened the lock ... for the second time since the ship had lifted.</p> - -<p>The man who came aboard, from the warship hanging somewhere out there -among the stars, was the very avatar of the Fleet in that second decade -of the ninth century. Incarnate in space-blue and silver stars, with -smoothly smiling face, shaven with a more than military meticulousness, -that radiated power and the confidence of power. Power flanked and -overshadowed his medium-tall figure, in the shape of two armed robot -marines. The eyes of the Panclast masked their smoldering lights as -they met those beneath the winged officer's cap; but the latter, -aristocratically bored, noticed little or nothing.</p> - -<p>"You appear to have had an accident, Captain Yaher," said the -lieutenant with unblinking calm. "We noticed from a distance that your -undershell was badly scored as if by collision with some solid body. -Unfortunately ... and remarkably. Is any of your equipment out of -order?"</p> - -<p>Mury shrugged without effort, jerked a gloved thumb at the dangling -wire. The lieutenant raised narrow eyebrows.</p> - -<p>"Damaged before you lifted?"</p> - -<p>"We were inspected thoroughly on the runway. It must have happened -during initial acceleration."</p> - -<p>The other frowned, fine vertical lines creasing his smooth forehead. -"Odd."</p> - -<p>Mury smiled a thin, crooked smile. "You military men don't know what -can happen aboard a run-down towship. Anything, literally. The merchant -fleet isn't at its best since the embargo."</p> - -<p>"I know," said the officer curtly. "Even in the Fleet—" He stopped -short, and his eyes, shifting, found a new subject ready-made in the -slumped figure of Arliess. "Was this man seriously injured, Captain?"</p> - -<p>"Just stunned, I think. He's an astrogator, and astrogators are tough."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The officer laughed perfunctorily. He moved forward and made a brief, -distasteful examination of Arliess' tousled head, then stepped back, -rubbing his fingers together.</p> - -<p>"There's no fracture. But if he's concussed, he's in no shape to stand -heavy acceleration."</p> - -<p>Mury said smoothly, "We're not going to be using any. We're up to speed -and our orders are to handle that power cylinder like a soap bubble."</p> - -<p>The young lieutenant stroked his smooth chin, standing with feet -braced against the tilt of the floor beneath which the rockets rumbled -steadily, holding him erect as if under Earth gravity. The two men at -the control board watched him with stares equally unblinkingly but far -different in sentiment. Mury's was inscrutable; it might have veiled -anything. Ryd's was all sick fear and certainty that something would -betray them before the nerve-racking scene was played out.</p> - -<p>"I think," said the blue-clad officer, "that if it won't incommode you -too much to hold this acceleration a bit longer—"</p> - -<p>"Not at all," said Mury, and Ryd silently but no less hysterically -cursed his facile confidence.</p> - -<p>"... I'll cross over again and send a ship's doctor to attend to your -astrogator. A shot in the arm should bring him around."</p> - -<p>Mury nodded placidly. The officer turned casually, spoke to the two -blue-chromiumed robots, who faced about smartly; then, snapping his -fingers, their master wheeled once more. "Just a moment. I almost -forgot this.... Strangely enough, one of my men stumbled over it in -your starboard lock." He fumbled inside his tunic a moment, displayed -in his hand a heavy .20 service flame gun.</p> - -<p>A flat and terrible silence lay in the control room. Then Mury broke -it, as it had to be broken quickly:</p> - -<p>"We weren't supposed to have any arms aboard. I can't say where that -came from."</p> - -<p>"Can't say, eh?" said the other musingly. Ryd, cold sweat on his -forehead, stared in horrid fascination, first at the man and then at -the fighter robots. He tensed himself to fight back, now, at the last, -like a cornered rat—he hardly knew how or why.</p> - -<p>With a shrug, the officer dropped the weapon into his pocket. "Ah, -well—so many of these little mysteries remain just that. We mustn't -hold up Terra's power supply." He turned once more to go. "I'll have -the medico here in a flicker."</p> - -<p>The trio passed out through the whispering locks, out to the waiting -spaceboat. Ryd found that his mouth was parchment-dry; he stared at the -apparently unshaken Mury, and drew a shuddering breath.</p> - -<p>"I guess," he said jerkily, "we fooled them."</p> - -<p>Mury smiled. "Yes," he agreed. "We fooled them this time."</p> - -<p>Then a thought jolted Ryd; he gasped, "Listen! Did you think -about—That battleship might have picked up those guys you dropped -out of the locks! They've got us right here—we can't get away—maybe -they're just—"</p> - -<p>"Why would they?" Mury shrugged again. "But that chance had to be -taken. Space is rather big, you know."</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">IV</p> - -<p>It was not more than three minutes later that young Arliess began -to twitch and mutter under the neuromuscular impact of a cc. of -arterially-injected <i>vitalin</i>. The Fleet doctor straightened and -returned his small, bright needle to its velvet-lined case, snapping it -shut hurriedly.</p> - -<p>"He'll recover consciousness within a very few minutes. You'll be -wanting to be on your way, no doubt...."</p> - -<p>When the doctor had escaped gratefully from the <i>Shahrazad's</i> -topsy-turvy gravity, Mury gave power to the overdrive, sent the ship -swinging back into a course for the point of intersection with the -flight of the power projectile. The great curve that had taken them -off the planet had placed them now almost directly in front of that -hurtling objective; <i>Shahrazad</i>, still slowly gathering additional -momentum, would be overtaken by the cargo shell at the moment that she -reached a velocity practically equal with its own.</p> - -<p>To ensure that, Mury's long, skillful fingers twirled a vernier, -finely adjusting the fuel flow into the disintegration chambers behind -the after bulkhead, and with it the volume of steam which, smashed -to atoms, was hurled at stupendous velocity from the driving jets -to propel the rocket ship. An acceleration just a trifle under one -gravity—the calculator clicked out its results down to six decimals. -The gyroscopes locked the towship in its new groove in space.</p> - -<p>Yet Arliess jerked ineffectually in his clamps, cried out thickly. His -eyes came stickily open behind their square goggles. He sat stiff and -still for a long minute.</p> - -<p>Ryd underwent a considerable egoflation in his contempt for this other -man's defeat. It had been long since he had known the savage joy of -winning.</p> - -<p>Arliess said weakly, raising both hands to press flat against his -temples, "Where—are we?" The same words Ryd had whimpered not so long -ago.</p> - -<p>Mury turned slightly to look at the astrogator out of the corners -of his eyes. He said deliberately, "We're past. Inspection's over, -and—thanks largely to you, Yet Arliess, we're clear."</p> - -<p>The young man sat for a moment with head buried in his hands. Then he -looked up and out toward the motionless star fields that glittered -ahead.</p> - -<p>"So?" he said bitterly. "What next? Are you going to try to steal the -power shell? And if so, where are you going to escape to? I suppose -you realize that you'd have to scoot right out of the System to even -get clear of the <i>Algol's</i> guns—and there are four other Earth -dreadnaughts in planetary space alone?"</p> - -<p>Arliess' words, coldly confident of a victory that would be death for -him, chilled Ryd. But he took heart from Mury's jeering laughter.</p> - -<p>"Do you think I'd have come this far if I had feared your dreadnaughts? -<i>They'll</i> have enough to think of before the next twenty-four hours are -past, when they are hurled in battle against all the power of Mars!"</p> - -<p>Arliess stiffened. "Are you crazy? There's no war in the air. A -year ago, yes, perhaps—but now, with the treaties signed and trade -resuming—"</p> - -<p>"And Earth," snapped Mury, "sold for that very trade into the hands of -the Martian overlords. No, war is preferable—and we'll have war, now."</p> - -<p>"You talk," said Arliess in a curiously flat voice, "as if the choice -of courses rested in your hands."</p> - -<p>"It does. Or rather, it will—so soon as I hold in these hands the -weapon of the power projectile."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Mury's voice became orotund. His hands rested lightly on the pilot's -controls before him and he gazed into space-darkness as if toward an -invisible dawn. "When a Terrestial city goes skyward in one terrific -blast of disintegration—When Pi Mesa and Dynamopolis vanish together -from the face of Earth in a warningless holocaust—Then Earth will -realize the truth, if only through deception."</p> - -<p>Ryd's veins were trickling ice water instead of warm blood, and his -nerve centers were paralyzed. It was too big for him, and his courage -was gone again.</p> - -<p>Mury talked on, and his voice was that of one sincerely and earnestly -trying to convince:</p> - -<p>"Earth's government has made peace with the Martians, but the instinct -of the people infallibly distrusts the treacherous rival world. Why -not—since Mars is indeed ready and avid to topple Earth from her old -place as the mother-planet, mistress of the System? Mars, with twice -Earth's area and five times the sunlight to drive his heliodynes—Mars -with his robot millions and his human oligarchy athirst for power and -glory, intoxicated with the strength of a new, raw, rich world. Only if -we fight now can we escape domination. I am going to strike the blow -that will wake Earth to battle, and bring her at last through pain and -repentance to her age-old greatness!"</p> - -<p><i>Shahrazad</i> hurtled steadily on before the long hydrogen flares of her -afterdrive, and three men sat behind her controls—and their triumph -and fear and hate might have been strong enough to reach out beyond the -metal shell and form an auro, not so bright but more fiercely potent, -about the rushing ship.</p> - -<p>Then young Arliess said through his teeth, "You know damn well it won't -work."</p> - -<p>"It will," said the Panclast, preternaturally calm, while his eyes -were watchful on the slowly shifting dials. Somewhere behind them in -bleak space sixty tons of concentrated hell was creeping up.</p> - -<p>"You can't deceive a whole planet," exclaimed Arliess rapidly, -desperately. "You can't plunge them into a war that will cost a hundred -million lives, that will wreck the cities and the commerce of the whole -System. There hasn't been war for seventy years ... between Earth and -Mars, never...." His voice trailed off and he gasped for breath as if -the cabin had grown stifling.</p> - -<p>"It is almost done," said Mury solemnly. With the words he cut off the -afterdrive. Silence fell clublike, mind-numbing after the pounding of -the rockets.</p> - -<p>Arliess spoke again, with all the feeling washed out of his voice. -"Where do you and your pal come out on this?" he demanded carefully. -"You don't think you can get away with this, do you, even if you -succeed in blowing up Dynamopolis?"</p> - -<p>"There are some things I can't reveal even now, slight as are the -chances of failure," said Mury smoothly. "We won't be caught, though; I -can tell you that surely. And you'll accompany us to our destination. -It would be best if you did so willingly." Ryd thought he knew what -was implicit in the Panclast's words. There would be some hiding-place -maintained by the secret power of We. In Antarctica, perhaps, as rumor -whispered. Ryd clung hard to his new faith in Mury, and was warmed by -it. He dreamed.... Perhaps, he, Ryd, in some new world to come from -chaos....</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Mury thumbed a stud; the sidethrust of the starboard drive made the -counterpoised seats tilt far to the left. Then, as they drifted in free -flight again: "Perhaps, since you have heard the truth, Arliess, you -would like to join our cause. Secret now, it will soon be victorious -over all Earth ... a cause of glory which will have its heroes...."</p> - -<p>The astrogator gazed stonily ahead. "You may be right," he said -stiffly, strangely. "But right on wrong, you're mad. Mad with power."</p> - -<p>The other laughed softly. "That's very true. It is a little heady. The -power that will rock any planet—power indeed!"</p> - -<p>All at once the stars were darkened. From overhead as the ship was -oriented, a long black shape, picked out by patterned lights, drove -past and dwindled into the flaming constellations. The power shell had -arrived. Words were at an end.</p> - -<p>Instead, there roared out the mighty voices of the after tubes. The -sustained forward leap of the ship took breath from their bodies. But -the colored lights came slipping back out of the starfields, their -pattern expanding swiftly as seconds passed. As suddenly as he had -accelerated, Mury closed the throttle, cut in the foredrive, and -started braking his speed. Then, with delicate spurts of power from all -the rockets, he brought the <i>Shahrazad's</i> speed and course to parallel -that of the great projectile which coasted effortlessly through space -less than a mile away.</p> - -<p>In the weightless pause, Mury said quietly to the astrogator: "The -magnet controls are before you, Arliess. Would it be too much strain on -your conscience to operate them now?"</p> - -<p>The board had been built for efficiency; of the minor duties aboard -the vessel, communications was assigned to the engineer, control of -the powerful grapples to the astrogator, on the theory that while -intership communication might be needed simultaneously with the use -of the magnets, the plotting of the course would not so coincide. -The strobophones and radio—the latter dead and lightless at the -moment—fronted Ryd as he fidgeted in the engineer's place.</p> - -<p>Arliess had delayed a moment. Now he answered harshly, "All right. What -do you want?"</p> - -<p>"I was sure you would see.... Your cooperation won't be difficult. -The magnet rheostat is already stopped at the safety maximum for the -fuel we're going to handle. Give them all full power, then." Ryd -knew vaguely that too powerful magnetic fields upset delicate atomic -balances, had in fact caused the great Tenebris disaster of 803 on -Venus—a match-sputter, that, compared to what would soon hit North -America—</p> - -<p>Woodenly, Arliess gave the magnets power. Unseen, his hands curled -themselves tensely inside his sweat-slippery rubberized gloves; he was -dangerously near hysteria. His keen, youthful imagination could see -all too clearly into the near future. Over half of Earth, the skies -would be red; there would be storm and earthquake, mountains splitting, -rivers in flood, the fires of new volcanoes.</p> - -<p><i>Shahrazad</i> picked up speed again, swinging in to intercept the power -cylinder in its constant flight. She forged forward on bright wings of -flame, a small, squat ship of Fate, not a part but a target. <a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a>rest on -her broad plated back.</p> - -<p>"Half magnets," said Mury shortly, firing another bank of tubes to -correct his course. Still robot-like, Arliess obeyed. His right hand -obeyed. But his left snaked very slowly off the dash, under the -detector box at his elbow, captured a dangling wire. Then—bend this -way, bend that way, bend this way—</p> - -<p>The last power-thrust died. Inch by inch, <i>Shahrazad</i> and the fuel -shell drifted together in their parallel courses. "Full magnets," -ordered Mury, and the drift accelerated. For two long, waiting minutes -it continued; then the towship lurched slightly, like a boat meeting -a long swell, and the great masses met with a prolonged grinding -of curving steel on stegosauric plates of iron. A moment while -they settled solidly together and clung, locked; then the rockets -roared once more to life and <i>Shahrazad</i> surged ahead evenly. To the -greatly-overpowered towship, the mere sixty tons of the loaded cargo -shell made little or no difference.</p> - -<p>Mury sat bolt upright in his universal chair. His face was masked and -serene, but the straight line of his head and neck was eloquent. His -hand, resting lightly on the controls, was that of Zeus, gripping a -thunderbolt.</p> - -<p>Slowly, without speaking, he drove the ship's nose upward—upward as -they were leveled off, but in reality downward, for gradually from -overhead the great black curve of a planet's dark limb crept down, -shutting out the stars. Then its sunlit side burst into sight and the -pallid glare came flooding through the great nose window to make the -glow-lamps needless.</p> - -<p>It was Earth, and somewhere on that great globe, where the distorted -shape of North America sprawled through half a dark hemisphere, was Pi -Mesa. For this ship of Fate, not a port but a grim target.</p> - -<p>Then Yet Arliess' voice fell hard and deadly on that triumphant moment.</p> - -<p>"Mury. Cut the drive!"</p> - -<p>Mury's attention snapped to the astrogator. Even so with the back of -his head to Ryd, the latter could see the slow tensing of his spare -body, the sudden immobility that took him. Ryd froze.</p> - -<p>"You'd better think twice, Arliess," said Mury in a low, brittle tone.</p> - -<p>"Cut the drive," ordered Arliess again. "This is journey's end, Mury. -If you don't cut it now, we'll all die."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Ryd inched forward in his seat; his fingers, numbed as if the cold -of sheer space had crept into the cabin, found the release. Then he -was able to see Arliess, hunched forward close to his control board. -One hand clenched over the magnet rheostat; but something had gone -wrong. The astrogator had bent the synthyl handle out and away from -its contacts; and now something gleamed half-hidden in his hand. Its -ends were almost touching the inner contact of the switch handle and -the minimum-resistance tap of the rheostat coil—a short piece of bared -silver wire, whose placing between those contacts would send current -leaping through the shortened circuit and pouring full into the magnet -coils. It would envelop <i>Shahrazad</i> and power cylinder in a field of -great intensity—but of brief duration, a fractional instant before the -equilibrium of the stored atoms toppled and towship and cargo shell, -together like one, vanished in one exploding flame, brighter than the -Sun.</p> - -<p>This was the end. Mury was beaten, and of course he, Ryd, was beaten -too. For keeps, this time. With maudlin self-pity, he saw himself as -one caught and singled out for destruction by the gods in the machine.</p> - -<p>"Cut the drive," repeated Arliess for the third time.</p> - -<p>Still the Panclast did not move, and his face betrayed none of what -he must feel of the terrible irony by which a bit of wire, a short -circuit, could wreck the plan that was to have shaken a planet. He said -without stirring, "You can't use bluff on me, Arliess."</p> - -<p>"I know that and I'm not bluffing," said young Arliess, pale to the -lips, with burning eyes. "I know your type, Mury. The monomaniac. -You're not afraid of dying, but you are afraid when the success of your -mission is threatened. But you can forget those plans now. We're going -to stop, flash a distress signal."</p> - -<p>"I never meant we should escape the final crash of the power shell," -said Mury. "Escape was needless to the plan, and to die in such a -cause.... But I'll make you a bargain now, Arliess. I'll let you -parachute to safety when we're in the atmosphere, if you'll swear to -reveal nothing. Otherwise—perhaps you are aware of the power of—<i>We</i>."</p> - -<p>Arliess' grin was savage. "Don't try to frighten me with children's -boogie-men. I know that such an organization exists, and I knew one -of their members once—a poor, starved gutter-rat without principles -or courage or anything but a vicious wish to kick the world that had -kicked him. No, Mury, <i>you're</i> something else again."</p> - -<p>"I've explained my aims to you, Arliess. I have no private wrongs to -avenge. I have acted because all history urges Earth and Mars to the -death grapple; I have been an agent of history. You, not I, are the -madman if you try to stand in the way."</p> - -<p>Arliess laughed shortly. "I hold the final argument, though.... <i>Cut -the drive!</i>"</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">V</p> - -<p>For a moment their eyes met. Mury, all his weapons blunted, sat -unmoving. Ryd, forehead beaded, gripping the arms of his chair, afraid -to move or cry out lest he bring doom upon the ship, thought he saw -Arliess' fingers start to tighten.</p> - -<p>But in that instant a voice crashed into the death-still cabin. Harsh -and vibrant, it rang through the open strobophones.</p> - -<p>"<i>Shahrazad! Algol</i> calling <i>Shahrazad</i>! You are twenty-one degrees off -course and failing to correct as per schedule. What is the matter?"</p> - -<p>"All right," said Arliess, his voice husky. "Last chance, Mury, before -I blow us to atoms. Call them back. Tell them to overhaul us and board. -From the intensity of that signal, they can't be far away."</p> - -<p>And indeed, even now the stars began to blur to the approach of the -battle cruiser. Plainly, it had been trailing near; the dead detectors -had told them nothing. Perhaps, after all, suspicion had been born -behind the official calm facade. At any rate, here upon them were -<i>Algol</i> and its guns.... Again the voice came through the phones, -querulously now.</p> - -<p>Mury, without making any sudden motion, pressed his release. With equal -care he came to his feet, standing without effort against a little more -than one gravity.</p> - -<p>"The message sent," he said coolly, "will be 'Temporarily electrical -failure. All under control.'" With that he knelt down in the narrow -space between the crew-chairs and the instrument board.</p> - -<p>"If that fool tries to jump me, Ryd, use the gun." His hands started -to grope at the under panels of the control board, purposefully but -without haste. "I'm going to disconnect the central fuse."</p> - -<p>"You'll never touch it," said Arliess with a gasp. "I'm shorting the -coil—<i>now!</i>"</p> - -<p>Ryd had, in a dazed automatism, lifted the gun. It was heavy and -unsteady in his gloved right hand. He stared with eyes out of focus and -with a sense of nightmare; death was coming and he wanted to live, had -to stop it somehow, anyhow, <i>now</i>—</p> - -<p>Then all at once the gun steadied in his hand, burned hot as it spat -its crisping thunderbolt. The cabin shook to the blast.</p> - -<p>And the weapon slipped from Ryd's hand. He drew in air, sharp with -ozone, in short sobbing gasps, and cowered in his padded seat, shaking -uncontrollably. But he was alive, still alive.</p> - -<p>Arliess crouched half in and half out of his seat. He brought up the -pistol which he had snatched almost as it fell, trained it across the -motionless bundle between them on the floor. Mury was dead, as dead as -many another dreamer whose human tools have turned in his hands.</p> - -<p>The astrogator snapped, "Take the strobophone sender and call <i>Algol</i>. -Tell them—tell them—"</p> - -<p>"He'd have killed us all," gasped Ryd, cringing.</p> - -<p>He choked off as the astrogator lashed out open-handed, knocking him to -the floor. The young man stood for a moment gazing down on him, hands -clenched at his sides; then—</p> - -<p>"You rat!" he snarled. "You filthy little <i>rat</i>!"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a>[Transcriber's Note: Missing text due to printer's error.]</p></div> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Saboteur of Space, by Robert Abernathy - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SABOTEUR OF SPACE *** - -***** This file should be named 62997-h.htm or 62997-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/2/9/9/62997/ - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll -have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using -this ebook. - - - -Title: Saboteur of Space - -Author: Robert Abernathy - -Release Date: August 21, 2020 [EBook #62997] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SABOTEUR OF SPACE *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - - - - Saboteur of Space - - By ROBERT ABERNATHY - - Fresh power was coming to Earth, energy - which would bring life to a dying planet. - Only two men stood in its way, one a cowardly - rat, the other a murderous martyr; both pawns - in a cosmic game where death moved his chessmen - of fate--and even the winner would lose. - - [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from - Planet Stories Spring 1944. - Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that - the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] - - -Ryd Randl stood, slouching a little, in the darkened footway, and -watched the sky over Dynamopolis come alive with searchlights. The -shuttered glow of Burshis' Stumble Inn was only a few yards off to his -right, but even that lodestone failed before the novel interest of a -ship about to ground in the one-time Port of Ten Thousand Ships. - -Now he made out the flicker of the braking drive a mile or so -overhead, and presently soft motor thunder came down to blanket the -almost lightless city with sound. A beam swayed through the throbbing -darkness, caught the descending ship and held it, a small gleaming -minnow slipping through the dark heavens. A faint glow rose from Pi -Mesa, where the spaceport lay above the city, as a runway lighted -up--draining the last reserves of the city's stored power, but draining -them gladly now that, in those autumn days of the historic year 819, -relief was in sight. - -Ryd shrugged limply; the play was meaningless to him. He turned to -shuffle down the inviting ramp into the glowing interior of Burshis' -dive. - -The place was crowded with men and smoke. Perhaps half the former were -asleep, on tables or on the floor; but for the few places like Burshis' -which were still open under the power shortage, many would have frozen, -these days, in the chilly nights at fourteen thousand feet. For -Dynamopolis sprawled atop the world, now as in the old days when it had -been built to be the power center of North America. - -The rocket blasts crescendoed and died up on Pi Mesa as Ryd wedged -himself with difficulty into the group along the bar. If anyone -recognized him, they showed it only by looking fixedly at something -else. Only Burshis Yuns kept his static smile and nodded with -surprising friendliness at Ryd's pinched, old-young face. - -Ryd was startled by the nod. Burshis finished serving another customer -and maneuvered down the stained chrome-and-synthyl bar. Ryd was -heartened. - -"Say, Burshis," he started nervously, as the bulky man halted with his -back to him. But Burshis turned, still smiling, shaking his head so -that his jowls quivered. - -"No loans," he said flatly. "But just one on the house, Ryd." - -The drink almost spilled itself in Ryd's hand. Clutching it -convulsively, he made his eyes narrow and said suspiciously, "What you -setting 'em up for, Burshis? It's the first time since--" - -Burshis' smile stayed put. He said affably, "Didn't you hear that ship -that just came down on the Mesa? That was the ship from Mars--the -escort they were sending with the power cylinder. The power's coming -in again." He turned to greet a coin-tapping newcomer, added over his -shoulder: "You know what that means, Ryd. Some life around here again. -Jobs for all the bums in this town--even for you." - -He left Ryd frowning, thinking fuzzily. A warming gulp seemed to clear -his head. Jobs. So they thought they could put that over on him again, -huh? Well, he'd show them. He was smart; he was a damn good helio -man--no, that had been ten years ago. But now he was out of the habit -of working, anyway. No job for Ryd Randl. They gave him one once and -then took it away. He drank still more deeply. - -The man on Ryd's immediate right leaned toward him. He laid a hand on -his arm, gripping it hard, and said quietly: "So you're Ryd Randl." - - * * * * * - -Ryd had a bad moment before he saw that the face wasn't that of any -plain-clothes man he knew. For that matter, it didn't belong to anybody -he had ever known--an odd, big-boned face, strikingly ugly, with a -beak-nose that was yet not too large for the hard jaw or too bleak for -the thin mouth below it. An expensive transparent hat slanted over the -face, and from its iridescent shadows gleamed eyes that were alert and -almost frighteningly black. Ryd noted that the man wore a dark-gray -cellotex of a sort rarely seen in joints like Burshis'. - -"Suppose we step outside, Ryd. I'd like to talk to you." - -"What's the idea?" demanded Ryd, his small store of natural courage -floated to the top by alcohol. - -The other seemed to realize that he was getting ahead of himself. -He leaned back slightly, drew a deep breath, and said slowly and -distinctly. "Would you care to make some money, my friend?" - -"_Huh?_ Why, yeh--I guess so--" - -"Then come with me." The hand still on his arm was insistent. In his -daze, Ryd let himself be drawn away from the bar into the sluggish -crowd; then he suddenly remembered his unfinished drink, and made -frantic gestures. Deliberately misunderstanding, the tall stranger -fumbled briefly, tossed a coin on the counter-top, and hustled Ryd out, -past the blue-and-gold-lit _meloderge_ that was softly pouring out its -endlessly changing music, through the swinging doors into the dark. - -Outside, between lightless buildings, the still cold closed in on -them. They kept walking--so fast that Ryd began to lose his breath, -long-accustomed though his lungs were to the high, thin air. - -"So you're Ryd Randl," repeated the stranger after a moment's silence. -"I might have known you. But I'd almost given up finding you tonight." - -Ryd tried feebly to wrench free, stumbled. "Look," he gasped. "If -you're a cop, say so!" - -The other laughed shortly. "No. I'm just a man about to offer you a -chance. For a come-back, Ryd--a chance to live again.... My name--you -can call me Mury." - -Ryd was voiceless. Something seemed increasingly ominous about the -tall, spare man at his side. He wished himself back in Burshis' with -his first free drink in a month. The thought of it brought tears to his -eyes. - -"How long have you been out of a job, Ryd?" - -"Nine ... ten years. Say, what's it to you?" - -"And why, Ryd?" - -"Why...? Look, mister, I was a helio operator." He hunched his narrow -shoulders and spread his hands in an habitual gesture of defeat. "Damn -good one, too--I was a foreman ten years ago. But I don't have the -physique for Mars--I might just have made it _then_, but I thought the -plant was going to open again and--" - -And that was it. The almost airless Martian sky, with its burning -actinic rays, is so favorable for the use of the helio-dynamic engine. -And after the middle of the eighth century, robot labor gave Mars its -full economic independence--and domination. For power is--power; and -there is the Restriction Act to keep men on Earth even if more than two -in ten could live healthily on the outer world. - -"Ten years ago," Mury nodded as if satisfied. "That must have been the -Power Company of North America--the main plant by Dynamopolis itself, -that shut down in December, 809. They were the last to close down -outside the military bases in the Kun Lun." - -Ryd was pacing beside him now. He felt a queer upsurge of confidence in -this strange man; for too long he had met no sympathy and all too few -men who talked his language. He burst out: "They wouldn't take me, damn -them! Said my record wasn't good enough for them. That is, I didn't -have a drag with any of the Poligerents." - -"I know all about your record," said Mury softly. - -Ryd's suspicions came back abruptly, and he reverted to his old -kicked-dog manner. "How do you know? And what's it to you?" - - * * * * * - -All at once, Mury came to a stop, and swung around to face him -squarely, hard eyes compelling. They were on an overpass, not far -from where the vast, almost wholly deserted offices of the Triplanet -Freighting Company sprawled over a square mile of city. A half-smile -twisted Mury's thin lips. - -"Don't misunderstand me, Ryd--you mean nothing at all to me as an -individual. But you're one of a vast mass of men for whom I am -working--the billions caught in the net of a corrupt government and -sold as an economic prey to the ruthless masters of Mars. This, after -they've borne all the hardships of a year of embargo, have offered -their hands willingly to the rebuilding of decadent Earth, only to -be refused by the weak leaders who can neither defy the enemy nor -capitulate frankly to him." - -Ryd was dazed. His mind had never been constructed to cope with such -ideas and the past few years had not improved its capabilities. "Are -you talking about the power cylinder?" he demanded blurrily. - -Mury cast a glance toward the Milky Way as if to descry the Martian -cargo projectile somewhere up among its countless lights. He said -simply, "Yes." - -"I don't get it," mumbled Ryd, frowning. He found words that he had -heard somewhere a day or so before, in some bar or flophouse: "The -power cylinder is going to be the salvation of Earth. It's a shot in -the arm--no, right in the heart of Earth industry, here in Dynamopolis. -It will turn the wheels and light the cities and--" - -"To hell with that!" snapped Mury, suddenly savage. His hands came up -slightly, the fingers flexing; then dropped back to his sides. "Don't -you know you're repeating damnable lies?" - -Ryd could only stare, cringing and bewildered. Mury went on with a -passion shocking after his smooth calm: - -"The power shell is aid, yes--but with what a price! It's the thirty -pieces of silver for which the venal fools who rule our nations have -sold the whole planet to Mars. Because they lack the courage and -vision to retool Earth's plants and factories for the inescapable -conflict, they're selling us out--making Earth, the first home of man, -a colony of the Red Planet. Do you know what Earth is to the great -Martian land-owners? _Do you?_" He paused out of breath; then finished -venomously, "Earth is a great pool of labor ready to be tapped, cheaper -than robots--cheap as _slaves_!" - -"What about it?" gulped Ryd, drawing away from the fanatic. "What you -want _me_ to do about it?" - -Mury took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders. His face was -once more bleakly impassive; only the mouth was an ugly line. "We're -going to do something about it, you and I. Tonight. Now." - -Ryd was nearly sober. And wholly terrified. He got out chokingly, -"What's that mean?" - -"The power shell--isn't coming in as planned." - -"You can't do that." - -"_We_ can," said Mury with a heavy accent on the first word. "And there -are fifty thousand credits in it for you, Ryd. Are you with us?" - -Suspicion was chill reality now in Ryd's mind. And he knew one thing -certainly--if he refused now to accompany Mury, he would be killed, by -this man or another of his kind. For the secret power known only as -_We_ never took chances. Whispered-of, terrible, and world-embracing, -desperate upshot of the times in its principles of dynamitism, war, and -panclasm--that was _We_. - -The question hung in the air for a long moment. Then Ryd, with -an effort, said, "Sure." A moment later it struck him that the -monosyllabic assent was suspicious; he added quickly, "I got nothing to -lose, see?" It was, he realized, the cold truth. - -"You won't lose," said Mury. He seemed to relax. But the menace with -which he had clothed himself clung, as he turned back on the way they -had come. - -Ryd followed dog-like, his feet in their worn shoes moving without his -volition. He was frightened. Out of his very fright came a longing to -placate Mury, assure him that he, Ryd, was on the same side whatever -happened.... - -After some steps he stole a sidelong glance at his tall companion, and -whined, "Where ... where we going now?" - -Mury paused in his long stride, removed a hand from a pocket of the -gray topcoat that wrapped him as in somber thoughts. Wordlessly, he -pointed as Ryd had known he would--toward where a pale man-made dawn -seemed breaking over Pi Mesa. - - - II - -"One blow for freedom!" said Mury with caught breath. His voice fell -upon air scarcely stilled since the sodden thump of the blow that had -killed the guard. - -The body lay between them, face down on the graveled way in the inky -moon-shadow. On one side Pi Mesa stretched away two hundred yards to -drop sharply into the night; on the other was the unlighted mass of the -long, continuous, low buildings that housed now unused fuel pumps and -servicing equipment. Looking down at the dead huddle at his feet, a -little stunned by the reality of this, Ryd knew that he was in it now. -He was caught in the machinery. - -Mury hefted the length of steel in his hand once more, as if testing -the weight that had crushed a man's skull so easily. Then, with a short -wrist-flip, he sent it flying into the dried weeds which had over-grown -the aero field on the mesa's rim during the summer months after State -order had grounded all fliers in America. - -"All right, Ryd," he said coolly. "Trade clothes with this fellow. I've -brought you this far--you're taking me the rest of the way." - -The rest of the way. - -Ryd was still panting, and his side was paining from the strenuous -exertion of the long climb up the side of the mountain, far from the -guarded highway. His fingers, numbed by the cold of the high, thin air, -shook as he knelt and fumbled with the zippers of the dead guard's -uniform. The belted gun, however, was heavy and oddly comforting as -he clumsily buckled it about his hips. He knew enough of weapons -to recognize this as, not the usual paralyzer, but a flame pistol, -powerful and deadly. He let his hand linger on its butt; then strong -fingers tightened on his bony wrist, and he looked up with a start into -the sardonic black eyes of the Panclast. - -"No use now for firearms," said Mury. "All the guns we could carry -wouldn't help us if we were caught out there. That gun is just a -stage property for the little play we're going to give in about three -minutes--when you'll act a guardsman escorting me, a Poligerent of -Dynamopolis, aboard the towship _Shahrazad_." - -For a moment Ryd felt relief--he had hazily imagined that Mury's hatred -of Mars and all things Martian might have led him to try to sabotage -the Martian warship which lay somewhere on the runways beyond the long, -low buildings, and which would be closely guarded. But the towship -would also be guarded ... he shivered in the cold, dry night air. - -Mury had melted into the shadow a few yards away. There was a light -scraping, then a green flame sputtered, briefly lighting up his hands -and face, and narrowing at once to a thin, singing needle of light. -He had turned a pocket electron torch against the lock-mechanism of a -small, disused metal door. - -Ryd watched in painful suspense. There was no sound in his ears save -for the hard, dry shrilling of the ray as it bit into the steel. It -seemed to be crying: _run, run_--but he remembered the power that knew -how to punish better than the law, and stood still, shivering. - -The lock gave way and the door slipped aside. A light went on inside, -and Ryd's heart stopped, backfired, and started again, raggedly. The -same automatic mechanism that had turned the lights on had started the -air-fresher, which picked up speed with a soft whine, sweeping out the -long-stale atmosphere. Mury motioned to Ryd to follow him in. - - * * * * * - -It was still musty in the narrow passage, between the closely-pressing -walls, beneath the great tubes and cable sheathings that fluted the -ceiling overhead. A stairway spiraled up on the right to the control -cupola somewhere overhead; even in the airtight gallery a thin film -of dust lay on every step. Up there were the meters and switches of -the disused terminal facilities of the spaceport; beyond the metal -door marked CAUTION, just beyond the stairwell, lay the long runway -down which the ships of space had glided to be serviced, refueled, and -launched into the sky once more by now dormant machines. - -"Wait," said Mury succinctly; he vanished up the spiral stair, his -long legs taking two steps at a time. After an aching minute's silence, -he was back. All was clear as seen from the turret-windows overhead. - -They emerged in shadow, hugging the wall. Almost a quarter of a mile to -the right the megalith of the Communications Tower, crowned with many -lights where the signal-men sat godlike in its summit. Its floodlights -shed a vast oval of light out over the mesa, where the mile-long -runways--no longer polished mirror-like as in the days of Dynamopolis' -glory--stretched away into the darkness of the table land. A handful -of odd ships--mere remnant of the hundreds that Pi Mesa port had -berthed--huddled under the solenoid wickets, as if driven together by -the chill of the thin, knife-like wind that blew across the mesa. - -As the two paced slowly across the runways, Ryd had a sense of -protective isolation in the vast impersonality of the spaceport. -Surely, in this Titanic desolation of metal slabs and flat-roofed -buildings, dominated by the one great tower, total insignificance must -mean safety for them. - -And indeed no guard challenged them. There were armed men watching -for all intruders out on the desert beyond the runways, but once -inside, Ryd's borrowed blue seemed to serve as passport enough. -Nonetheless, the passport's knees were shaking when they stood at last, -inconspicuous still, at the shadowed base of the Communications Tower. - -Not far off, a half-dozen dignitaries, huddled close together in the -midst of these Cyclopean man-made things that dwarfed their policies, -their principles and ambitions, stood talking rather nervously with two -officers, aristocratically gaudy in the scarlet of the Martian Fleet. -Blue-clad guardsmen of Earth watched from a distance--watched boredly -enough. - -And out on the steel-stripped tarmac, under the solenoid of Number -Two Runway, lay a towship, backed like a stegosaur with its massive -magnets--the _Shahrazad_, panting like a dragon amid rolling clouds of -steam. She was plainly ready to go into space. The bottom dropped out -of Ryd's stomach before he realized that a warning at least must be -sounded before the ship could lift. But that might come any moment now. - -"Relax," said Mury in a low voice. "Nothing's gone wrong. We'll be -aboard the _Shahrazad_ when she lifts." For a moment his black eyes -shifted, hardening, toward Runway Four. The Martian warship lay there -beyond the solenoid, a spiteful hundred-foot swordfish of steel, with -blind gunvalves, row on row, along its sleek sides and turret-blisters. -It had not yet been tugged onto the turntable; it could not be leaving -again very soon, though Earth weight was undoubtedly incommoding -its crew. About it a few figures stood that were stiffly erect and -immobile, as tall as tall men. From head to toe they were scarlet. - -"Robots!" gasped Ryd, clutching his companion's arm convulsively. -"Martian soldier robots!" - -"They're unarmed, harmless. They aren't your police with built-in -weapons. Only the humans are dangerous. But we've got to move. For -God's sake, take it easy." - -Ryd licked dry lips. "Are we going--out into space?" - -"Where else?" said Mury. - - * * * * * - -The official-looking individual in the expensive topcoat and sport hat -had reached the starboard airlock of the towship before anyone thought -to question his authorization, escorted as he was by a blue-uniformed -guardsman. When another sentry, pacing between runways a hundred yards -from the squat space vessel, paused to wonder, it was--as it came -about--just a little too late. - -The guard turned and swung briskly off to intercept the oddly-behaving -pair, hand crowding the butt of his pistol, for he was growing -uneasy. His alarm mounted rapidly, till he nearly sprained an ankle -in sprinting across the last of the two intervening runways, between -the solenoid wickets. Those metal arches, crowding one on the other -in perspective, formed a tunnel that effectively shielded the -_Shahrazad's_ airlocks from more distant view; the gang of notables -attracted by the occasion was already being shepherded back to safety -by the Communications guards, whose attention was thus well taken up. - -The slight man in guardsman's blue glanced over his shoulder and -vanished abruptly into the circular lock. His companion wheeled on the -topmost step, looking down with some irritation on his unhandsome face, -but with no apparent doubt of his command of the situation. - -"Yes?" he inquired frostily. - -"What goes on here?" snapped the guard, frowning at the tall figure -silhouetted against the glow in the airlock. "The crew's signaled all -aboard and the ship lifts in two minutes. You ought to be--" - -"I am Semul Mury, Poligerent for the City of Dynamopolis," interrupted -the tall man with asperity. "The City is naturally interested in the -delivery of the power which will revivify our industries." He paused, -sighed, shifting his weight to the next lower step of the gangway. "I -suppose you'll want to re-check my credentials?" - -The guard was somewhat confused; a Poligerent, in ninth-century -bureaucracy, was a force to be reckoned with. But he contrived to nod -with an appearance of brusqueness. - -Fully expecting official papers, signed and garnished with all the -pompous seals of a chartered metropolis, the guard was dazed to receive -instead a terrific left-handed foul to the pit of the stomach, and as -he reeled dizzily, retching and clawing for his gun, to find that gun -no longer holstered but in the hand of the self-styled Poligerent, -pointing at its licensed owner. - -"I think," Mury said quietly, flexing his left wrist with care the -while his right held the gun steady, "that you'd better come aboard -with us." - -The guard was not more cowardly than the run of politically-appointed -civic guardsmen. But a flame gun kills more frightfully than the -ancient electric chair. He complied, grasping the railing with both -hands as he stumbled before Mury up the gangway--for he was still very -sick indeed, wholly apart from his bewilderment, which was enormous. - -Above, Ryd Randl waited in the lock, flattened against the curved -wall, white and jittering. The inner door was shut, an impenetrable -countersunk mirror of metal. - -"Cover him, Ryd," ordered Mury flatly. In obedience Ryd lugged out -the heavy flame pistol and pointed it; his finger was dangerously -tremulous on the firing lever. He moistened his lips to voice his -fears; but Mury, pocketing the other gun, threw the three-way switch on -the side panel, the switch that should have controlled the inner lock. - -Nothing happened. - -"Oh, God. We're caught. We're trapped!" The outer gangway had slid up, -the lock wheezed shut, forming an impenetrable crypt of niosteel. - - * * * * * - -Mury smiled with supernal calm. "We won't be here long," he said. -Then, to quiet Ryd's fears, he went on: "The central control panel and -the three local switches inside, between, and outside the locks are -on the circuit in that order. Unless the locks were closed from the -switch just beyond the inner lock, that lock will open when the central -control panel is cut out in preparation for lifting." - -Almost as he paused and drew breath, a light sprang out over the switch -he had closed and the inner lock swung silently free of its gaskets. -Ryd felt a trembling relief; but Mury's voice lashed out like a whip as -he slipped cat-like into the passage. - -"Keep him covered. Back out of the lock." - -Ryd backed--the white, tense face of the prisoner holding his own -nervous gaze--and, almost out of the lock, stumbled over the metal -pressure rings. And the gun was out of his unsure grip, clattering -somewhere near his slithering feet, as he started to fall. - -He saw the guardsman hurl himself forward; then he was flung spinning, -back against the engine-room door. In a flash, even as he struggled -to keep on his feet, he saw the man in the airlock coming up from a -crouch, shifting the pistol in his right hand to reach its firing -lever; he saw Mury sidestep swiftly and throw the master control switch -outside. - -The inner lock whooshed shut, barely missing Ryd. At the same instant, -the flame gun lighted locks and passage with one terrific flash, and a -scorched, discolored spot appeared on the beveled metal of the opposite -lock a foot from Mury's right shoulder. - -"You damned clumsy little fool--" said Mury with soft intensity. Then, -while the air around the metal walls still buzzed and snapped with -blue sparks, he whirled and went up the control-room gangway in two -quick bounds. Even as he went the flame gun thundered again in the -starboard airlock. - -Mury was just in time, for the pilot had been about to flash "Ready" to -the Communications Tower when the explosions had given him pause. But -the latter and his two companions were neither ready nor armed; clamped -in their seats at the controls, already marked, they were helpless in -an instant before the leveled menace of the gun. And the imprisoned -guardsman, having wasted most of his charges, was helpless, too, in his -little cell of steel. - -"It's been tried before," said one of the masked men. He had a blond, -youthful thatch and a smooth healthy face below the mask, together with -an astrogator's triangled stars which made him _ex officio_ the brains -of the vessel. "Stealing a ship--it can't be done any more." - -"It's been done again," said Mury grimly. "And you don't know the half -of it. But--you will. I'll need you. As for your friends--" The gun -muzzle shifted slightly to indicate the pilot and the engineer. "Out of -those clamps. You're going to ride this out in the portside airlock." - -He had to repeat the command, in tones that snapped with menace, before -they started with fumbling, rebellious hands to strip their armor from -themselves. The burly engineer was muttering phrases of obscene fervor; -the weedy young pilot was wild-eyed. The blond astrogator, sitting -still masked and apparently unmoved, demanded: - -"What do you think you're trying to do?" - -"What do _you_ think?" demanded Mury in return. "I'm taking the ship -into space. On schedule and on course--to meet the power shell." The -flame gun moved with a jerk. "And as for you--what's your name?" - -"Yet Arliess." - -"You want to make the trip alive, don't you, Yet Arliess?" - -The young astrogator stared at him and at the gun through masking -goggles; then he sank into his seat with a slow shudder. "Why, yes," he -said as if in wonder, "I do." - - - III - -_Shahrazad_ drove steadily forward into deep space, vibrating slightly -to the tremendous thrust of her powerful engines. The small, cramped -cabin was stiflingly hot to the three armored men who sat before its -banked dials, watching their steady needles. - -Ryd had blacked out, darkness washing into his eyes and consciousness -draining from his head, as the space ship had pitched out into -emptiness over the end of the runway on Pi Mesa and Mury had cut in the -maindrive. Pressure greater than anything he had ever felt had crushed -him; his voice had been snatched from his lips by those terrible forces -and lost beneath the opening thunder of the three-inch tubes. Up and -up, while the acceleration climbed to seven gravities--and Ryd had lost -every sensation, not to regain them until Earth was dropping away under -the towship's keel. - -A single gravity held them back and down in the tilted seats, and the -control panels seemed to curve half above them, their banks of lights -confused with the stars coldly through the great nose window. In the -control room all sounds impinged on a background made up of the insect -hum of air-purifiers, the almost supersonic whine of the fast-spinning -gyroscopes somewhere behind them, the deep continuous growl of the -engines. - -Mury's voice broke through that steady murmur, coming from Ryd's right. -"You can unfasten your anticlamps, Ryd," he said dryly. "That doesn't -mean you," to the young navigator, on his other hand as he sat in -the pilot's seat with his pressure-clamps thrown back and his gloved -hands free to caress the multiplex controls before him. Clipped to the -sloping dash at his left elbow was a loaded flame gun. - -Ryd emerged, with much bungling, from his padded clamps, and shook his -head groggily as he ran a hand through his slightly thinning hair. He -ventured shakily, "Where are we?" - -Mury smiled slightly. "Only our astrogator," he indicated Arliess, -still masked and fettered, "can tell you that with precision. I -understand only enough of astrogational practice to make sure that he -is holding to the course outlined on the log. For that matter ... he -is an intelligent young man and if he were not blinded by notions of -duty to an outworn system.... We are now somewhere near the orbit of -the Moon. Isn't that right, Arliess?" - -The other did not seem to hear; he sat staring blindly before him -through his goggles at the slowly-changing chart, where cryptic lights -burned, some moving like glowing paramecia along fine-traced luminous -tracks. - -Mury too sat silent and immobile for a minute or more. Then, abruptly, -he inclined his universal chair far to the right, and his long frame -seemed to tense oddly. His finger stabbed out one of the sparks of -light. - -"What's that, Arliess?" - -The astrogator broke his silence. "A ship." - -"I know that well enough. What ship?" - -"I supposed you had examined the log. It would have told you that -that's the liner _Alborak_, out of Aeropolis with a diplomatic mission -for Mars." - -Mury shook his head regretfully. "That won't wash, Arliess. Even if you -suppose her off course, no liner aspace ever carried a tenth of that -drive." - -"I don't know what you're talking about," said Arliess. But his voice -was raw and unsteady. - -"I'm talking about this. That ship is a warship, and it's looking for -us--will intercept us inside of twenty minutes at the most!" - - * * * * * - -Arliess turned his head at last, slowly, as if the movement were -painful. His dispassionate goggles regarded the telltale needles that -had come quiveringly alive on the radiodetector box between them, -bluntly giving the lie to the automatic chart. "You know more than I -supposed," he said, and laughed unpleasantly. "But it won't do you -any good now. We're to be inspected in space--a surprise of which we -weren't informed until a few minutes before you came sneaking into the -ship." - -"That's too bad," said Mury. He sounded as if he thought it was too -bad. As he spoke, he leaned sidewise, to the left this time, and closed -a switch, lighting a darkened panel on the board; his long forefinger -selected and pressed two studs. "_Too bad_," he repeated, and picked -up the flame pistol. Young Arliess exploded in another furious surge -against the binding clamps, clawing with clumsy gloved hands for the -release; then he quieted, and stared at the small black bore trained on -him. - -He was trembling a little with fury. "You damned louse. Why don't you -make it a clean job by giving it to me, now?" - -"I'll need you, now if not before," said the Panclast softly. "Your -friends would have stayed alive if that warship hadn't showed its nose. -You must understand that. I was forced into counter-measures." - -Then Ryd, squirming sidewise in his seat, understood. Those studs -had controlled the outer airlocks. And now the men who had been in -those locks, the young guardsman and the _Shahrazad's_ pilot and -engineer--were no longer there. - -"You--need _me_?" Arliess was briefly incredulous. "Oh--I get it. There -have to be three in the crew." Then he sprang like a tiger. - -But the moment in which he had thumbed the release and wrenched free of -the padded clamps had been too long. Ryd flinched away--but there was -no roar, no flame stabbed blue. They grappled an instant, swaying on -the tilted floor--and then the pistol, reversed in Mury's hand, chopped -down on Arliess' temple, a glancing blow, but fiercely struck. - -The astrogator let go, staggering; and the gun swung up again and -felled him. - -Mury let the pistol drop into his own crew-seat, and, lugging Arliess -under the arms, got him into his seat with a grunting heave. He said -breathlessly, regretfully, "It was the only way...." The mask came off -at once; the shock-pale face that emerged was even more youthful than -Ryd had thought. The red trickle across the forehead was startling -against its pallor. - -Ryd sat staring--unshaken by the thought of yet another murder, but -with a knot of fear tightening in his stomach as he thought of the -warship somewhere out of their vision, questing nearer with every -racing second--while the motors throbbed, the airvalves sang softly, -and the gyroscopes whined somewhere. - -And Mury's long, brown fingers explored rapidly through the stunned -man's blond thatch; he nodded with satisfaction, and then with sure -motions secured Arliess in his place. Ryd, on peremptory gesture, did -for himself the same, with fingers that were oddly numb and jointless. - -Then Mury was back in the pilot's chair. For a moment he sat as if -poised, staring into starry space with knitted brows; then he reached -far over, in front of the sagging astrogator, and with a decisive flick -of the wrist switched on the ship's magnets to their full power. - -"What's that for?" stammered Ryd, bewildered and more than a little -scared. "Why--" - -Mury made no answer. Instead, he had fixed once more on the detector -box, watching it intently as the minutes crawled. The movements by -which he secured his own anticlamps were automatonlike. - - * * * * * - -Twice the needles jumped briefly. Mury did not stir. But when they -began to swing slowly over the scale, his hands leaped at the control -studs; in the next instant _Shahrazad_ leaped and shivered, and a -powerful acceleration fought to lever them out of their seats. The -noise was deafening; one thin layer of sound proofing was between the -cabin and the one-inch tubes of the overdrive. - -Ryd's eyes rolled up in his head and grew filmed; the control room -for him a blur of dizzy flame. He almost blacked out again; he seemed -to see the face of the white Moon, leprously diseased, float like a -runaway balloon past the curved nose window and disappear below his -topsy-turvy field of vision; but he couldn't be sure it wasn't his own -head spiraling away from its moorings. And then it was over and the -ship bored steadily along her new tangent through space. - -But now she vibrated yet more deeply to the great thrust of the -afterdrive, and the light blurred more and grew dim. _Shahrazad_ raced -into darkness, and the needles that told of a magnetic mass somewhere -not far ahead, cutting swiftly through her far-flung field, swung -steadily over. - -Then _bang!_ in one unreverberating explosion, and the ship bucked -hard and the blurred lights came down in a rain of fiery pinwheels. -The motor died with a snap. Silence rang and Ryd's stomach boiled with -weightlessness; slowly his eyes could see again. _Shahrazad_ held -straight on her course toward some unknown target star; the gyroscopes -still whined. - -"Seven thousand feet a second," came Mury's voice from nowhere. "That's -the speed at which we overran the meteoroid. It wouldn't have been nice -if it had come through here; the armor before the control panel would -have stopped it if it didn't strike higher...." - -Ryd fell to shuddering. He mouthed with difficulty, "My God, you don't -hit meteors on purpose!" - -"You damned well do," said Mury crisply, "if you have to." His manner -brought a sort of frightened admiration into Ryd's dark, unsteady eyes. -Mury added, with apparent lack of connectedness, "Astrogators' heads -don't just crack themselves on switch handles." The underdrive, roaring -alive as he pressed the bottom stud on the control circle, caught Ryd's -breath against his diaphragm and left him none to answer with if he had -wished to. - -She leveled out on course with short jerky bursts from the various -banks of tubes. Mury was doing all his own course-plotting now, and his -teeth were sunk in his lower lip as he frowned at the charts and at the -rows of figures that spun into view on the calculator. He was still -correcting feverishly when the stars dimmed and space throbbed like a -tympanum. - -A voice clanged through the strobophones. "_Shahrazad! Algol_ calling -_Shahrazad_! Cut your drive to one vertical gravity. We will parallel -and send a boat across. That is all." - -Mury's right hand moved slightly on the sloping ledge and closed the -throttle. The forward thrust again collapsed into weightlessness, and -the _Shahrazad_ seemed to hang motionless for a moment before the -underdrive took up the load. And meanwhile the meters told their tale -of the swift onrush of the great battle cruiser in whose forward sphere -of exhaust gases they already flew. Across the starry sky ahead crept a -vast belt of hazy light like a zodiacal glow. - -"The _Algol_," said Mury musingly. "A stellar dreadnaught. They aren't -sparing precautions...." Abruptly he dropped his right hand from -the dashboard, grasped a sheathed wire that curved away beneath the -radiodetector box, and detached it with a brisk jerk. The needles -dropped instantly to a uniform zero. The chain of causation was -complete. - - * * * * * - -So there was no warning of the approach of the spaceboat. It bumped -alongside and grappled to the towship's starboard airlock a couple of -minutes later; Ryd stiffened, drew a long breath, and held it as if -he would hold it forever. Mury, hand steady, depressed the studs that -opened the lock ... for the second time since the ship had lifted. - -The man who came aboard, from the warship hanging somewhere out there -among the stars, was the very avatar of the Fleet in that second decade -of the ninth century. Incarnate in space-blue and silver stars, with -smoothly smiling face, shaven with a more than military meticulousness, -that radiated power and the confidence of power. Power flanked and -overshadowed his medium-tall figure, in the shape of two armed robot -marines. The eyes of the Panclast masked their smoldering lights as -they met those beneath the winged officer's cap; but the latter, -aristocratically bored, noticed little or nothing. - -"You appear to have had an accident, Captain Yaher," said the -lieutenant with unblinking calm. "We noticed from a distance that your -undershell was badly scored as if by collision with some solid body. -Unfortunately ... and remarkably. Is any of your equipment out of -order?" - -Mury shrugged without effort, jerked a gloved thumb at the dangling -wire. The lieutenant raised narrow eyebrows. - -"Damaged before you lifted?" - -"We were inspected thoroughly on the runway. It must have happened -during initial acceleration." - -The other frowned, fine vertical lines creasing his smooth forehead. -"Odd." - -Mury smiled a thin, crooked smile. "You military men don't know what -can happen aboard a run-down towship. Anything, literally. The merchant -fleet isn't at its best since the embargo." - -"I know," said the officer curtly. "Even in the Fleet--" He stopped -short, and his eyes, shifting, found a new subject ready-made in the -slumped figure of Arliess. "Was this man seriously injured, Captain?" - -"Just stunned, I think. He's an astrogator, and astrogators are tough." - - * * * * * - -The officer laughed perfunctorily. He moved forward and made a brief, -distasteful examination of Arliess' tousled head, then stepped back, -rubbing his fingers together. - -"There's no fracture. But if he's concussed, he's in no shape to stand -heavy acceleration." - -Mury said smoothly, "We're not going to be using any. We're up to speed -and our orders are to handle that power cylinder like a soap bubble." - -The young lieutenant stroked his smooth chin, standing with feet -braced against the tilt of the floor beneath which the rockets rumbled -steadily, holding him erect as if under Earth gravity. The two men at -the control board watched him with stares equally unblinkingly but far -different in sentiment. Mury's was inscrutable; it might have veiled -anything. Ryd's was all sick fear and certainty that something would -betray them before the nerve-racking scene was played out. - -"I think," said the blue-clad officer, "that if it won't incommode you -too much to hold this acceleration a bit longer--" - -"Not at all," said Mury, and Ryd silently but no less hysterically -cursed his facile confidence. - -"... I'll cross over again and send a ship's doctor to attend to your -astrogator. A shot in the arm should bring him around." - -Mury nodded placidly. The officer turned casually, spoke to the two -blue-chromiumed robots, who faced about smartly; then, snapping his -fingers, their master wheeled once more. "Just a moment. I almost -forgot this.... Strangely enough, one of my men stumbled over it in -your starboard lock." He fumbled inside his tunic a moment, displayed -in his hand a heavy .20 service flame gun. - -A flat and terrible silence lay in the control room. Then Mury broke -it, as it had to be broken quickly: - -"We weren't supposed to have any arms aboard. I can't say where that -came from." - -"Can't say, eh?" said the other musingly. Ryd, cold sweat on his -forehead, stared in horrid fascination, first at the man and then at -the fighter robots. He tensed himself to fight back, now, at the last, -like a cornered rat--he hardly knew how or why. - -With a shrug, the officer dropped the weapon into his pocket. "Ah, -well--so many of these little mysteries remain just that. We mustn't -hold up Terra's power supply." He turned once more to go. "I'll have -the medico here in a flicker." - -The trio passed out through the whispering locks, out to the waiting -spaceboat. Ryd found that his mouth was parchment-dry; he stared at the -apparently unshaken Mury, and drew a shuddering breath. - -"I guess," he said jerkily, "we fooled them." - -Mury smiled. "Yes," he agreed. "We fooled them this time." - -Then a thought jolted Ryd; he gasped, "Listen! Did you think -about--That battleship might have picked up those guys you dropped -out of the locks! They've got us right here--we can't get away--maybe -they're just--" - -"Why would they?" Mury shrugged again. "But that chance had to be -taken. Space is rather big, you know." - - - IV - -It was not more than three minutes later that young Arliess began -to twitch and mutter under the neuromuscular impact of a cc. of -arterially-injected _vitalin_. The Fleet doctor straightened and -returned his small, bright needle to its velvet-lined case, snapping it -shut hurriedly. - -"He'll recover consciousness within a very few minutes. You'll be -wanting to be on your way, no doubt...." - -When the doctor had escaped gratefully from the _Shahrazad's_ -topsy-turvy gravity, Mury gave power to the overdrive, sent the ship -swinging back into a course for the point of intersection with the -flight of the power projectile. The great curve that had taken them -off the planet had placed them now almost directly in front of that -hurtling objective; _Shahrazad_, still slowly gathering additional -momentum, would be overtaken by the cargo shell at the moment that she -reached a velocity practically equal with its own. - -To ensure that, Mury's long, skillful fingers twirled a vernier, -finely adjusting the fuel flow into the disintegration chambers behind -the after bulkhead, and with it the volume of steam which, smashed -to atoms, was hurled at stupendous velocity from the driving jets -to propel the rocket ship. An acceleration just a trifle under one -gravity--the calculator clicked out its results down to six decimals. -The gyroscopes locked the towship in its new groove in space. - -Yet Arliess jerked ineffectually in his clamps, cried out thickly. His -eyes came stickily open behind their square goggles. He sat stiff and -still for a long minute. - -Ryd underwent a considerable egoflation in his contempt for this other -man's defeat. It had been long since he had known the savage joy of -winning. - -Arliess said weakly, raising both hands to press flat against his -temples, "Where--are we?" The same words Ryd had whimpered not so long -ago. - -Mury turned slightly to look at the astrogator out of the corners -of his eyes. He said deliberately, "We're past. Inspection's over, -and--thanks largely to you, Yet Arliess, we're clear." - -The young man sat for a moment with head buried in his hands. Then he -looked up and out toward the motionless star fields that glittered -ahead. - -"So?" he said bitterly. "What next? Are you going to try to steal the -power shell? And if so, where are you going to escape to? I suppose -you realize that you'd have to scoot right out of the System to even -get clear of the _Algol's_ guns--and there are four other Earth -dreadnaughts in planetary space alone?" - -Arliess' words, coldly confident of a victory that would be death for -him, chilled Ryd. But he took heart from Mury's jeering laughter. - -"Do you think I'd have come this far if I had feared your dreadnaughts? -_They'll_ have enough to think of before the next twenty-four hours are -past, when they are hurled in battle against all the power of Mars!" - -Arliess stiffened. "Are you crazy? There's no war in the air. A -year ago, yes, perhaps--but now, with the treaties signed and trade -resuming--" - -"And Earth," snapped Mury, "sold for that very trade into the hands of -the Martian overlords. No, war is preferable--and we'll have war, now." - -"You talk," said Arliess in a curiously flat voice, "as if the choice -of courses rested in your hands." - -"It does. Or rather, it will--so soon as I hold in these hands the -weapon of the power projectile." - - * * * * * - -Mury's voice became orotund. His hands rested lightly on the pilot's -controls before him and he gazed into space-darkness as if toward an -invisible dawn. "When a Terrestial city goes skyward in one terrific -blast of disintegration--When Pi Mesa and Dynamopolis vanish together -from the face of Earth in a warningless holocaust--Then Earth will -realize the truth, if only through deception." - -Ryd's veins were trickling ice water instead of warm blood, and his -nerve centers were paralyzed. It was too big for him, and his courage -was gone again. - -Mury talked on, and his voice was that of one sincerely and earnestly -trying to convince: - -"Earth's government has made peace with the Martians, but the instinct -of the people infallibly distrusts the treacherous rival world. Why -not--since Mars is indeed ready and avid to topple Earth from her old -place as the mother-planet, mistress of the System? Mars, with twice -Earth's area and five times the sunlight to drive his heliodynes--Mars -with his robot millions and his human oligarchy athirst for power and -glory, intoxicated with the strength of a new, raw, rich world. Only if -we fight now can we escape domination. I am going to strike the blow -that will wake Earth to battle, and bring her at last through pain and -repentance to her age-old greatness!" - -_Shahrazad_ hurtled steadily on before the long hydrogen flares of her -afterdrive, and three men sat behind her controls--and their triumph -and fear and hate might have been strong enough to reach out beyond the -metal shell and form an auro, not so bright but more fiercely potent, -about the rushing ship. - -Then young Arliess said through his teeth, "You know damn well it won't -work." - -"It will," said the Panclast, preternaturally calm, while his eyes -were watchful on the slowly shifting dials. Somewhere behind them in -bleak space sixty tons of concentrated hell was creeping up. - -"You can't deceive a whole planet," exclaimed Arliess rapidly, -desperately. "You can't plunge them into a war that will cost a hundred -million lives, that will wreck the cities and the commerce of the whole -System. There hasn't been war for seventy years ... between Earth and -Mars, never...." His voice trailed off and he gasped for breath as if -the cabin had grown stifling. - -"It is almost done," said Mury solemnly. With the words he cut off the -afterdrive. Silence fell clublike, mind-numbing after the pounding of -the rockets. - -Arliess spoke again, with all the feeling washed out of his voice. -"Where do you and your pal come out on this?" he demanded carefully. -"You don't think you can get away with this, do you, even if you -succeed in blowing up Dynamopolis?" - -"There are some things I can't reveal even now, slight as are the -chances of failure," said Mury smoothly. "We won't be caught, though; I -can tell you that surely. And you'll accompany us to our destination. -It would be best if you did so willingly." Ryd thought he knew what -was implicit in the Panclast's words. There would be some hiding-place -maintained by the secret power of We. In Antarctica, perhaps, as rumor -whispered. Ryd clung hard to his new faith in Mury, and was warmed by -it. He dreamed.... Perhaps, he, Ryd, in some new world to come from -chaos.... - - * * * * * - -Mury thumbed a stud; the sidethrust of the starboard drive made the -counterpoised seats tilt far to the left. Then, as they drifted in free -flight again: "Perhaps, since you have heard the truth, Arliess, you -would like to join our cause. Secret now, it will soon be victorious -over all Earth ... a cause of glory which will have its heroes...." - -The astrogator gazed stonily ahead. "You may be right," he said -stiffly, strangely. "But right on wrong, you're mad. Mad with power." - -The other laughed softly. "That's very true. It is a little heady. The -power that will rock any planet--power indeed!" - -All at once the stars were darkened. From overhead as the ship was -oriented, a long black shape, picked out by patterned lights, drove -past and dwindled into the flaming constellations. The power shell had -arrived. Words were at an end. - -Instead, there roared out the mighty voices of the after tubes. The -sustained forward leap of the ship took breath from their bodies. But -the colored lights came slipping back out of the starfields, their -pattern expanding swiftly as seconds passed. As suddenly as he had -accelerated, Mury closed the throttle, cut in the foredrive, and -started braking his speed. Then, with delicate spurts of power from all -the rockets, he brought the _Shahrazad's_ speed and course to parallel -that of the great projectile which coasted effortlessly through space -less than a mile away. - -In the weightless pause, Mury said quietly to the astrogator: "The -magnet controls are before you, Arliess. Would it be too much strain on -your conscience to operate them now?" - -The board had been built for efficiency; of the minor duties aboard -the vessel, communications was assigned to the engineer, control of -the powerful grapples to the astrogator, on the theory that while -intership communication might be needed simultaneously with the use -of the magnets, the plotting of the course would not so coincide. -The strobophones and radio--the latter dead and lightless at the -moment--fronted Ryd as he fidgeted in the engineer's place. - -Arliess had delayed a moment. Now he answered harshly, "All right. What -do you want?" - -"I was sure you would see.... Your cooperation won't be difficult. -The magnet rheostat is already stopped at the safety maximum for the -fuel we're going to handle. Give them all full power, then." Ryd -knew vaguely that too powerful magnetic fields upset delicate atomic -balances, had in fact caused the great Tenebris disaster of 803 on -Venus--a match-sputter, that, compared to what would soon hit North -America-- - -Woodenly, Arliess gave the magnets power. Unseen, his hands curled -themselves tensely inside his sweat-slippery rubberized gloves; he was -dangerously near hysteria. His keen, youthful imagination could see -all too clearly into the near future. Over half of Earth, the skies -would be red; there would be storm and earthquake, mountains splitting, -rivers in flood, the fires of new volcanoes. - -_Shahrazad_ picked up speed again, swinging in to intercept the power -cylinder in its constant flight. She forged forward on bright wings of -flame, a small, squat ship of Fate, not a part but a target. [1]rest on -her broad plated back. - -"Half magnets," said Mury shortly, firing another bank of tubes to -correct his course. Still robot-like, Arliess obeyed. His right hand -obeyed. But his left snaked very slowly off the dash, under the -detector box at his elbow, captured a dangling wire. Then--bend this -way, bend that way, bend this way-- - -The last power-thrust died. Inch by inch, _Shahrazad_ and the fuel -shell drifted together in their parallel courses. "Full magnets," -ordered Mury, and the drift accelerated. For two long, waiting minutes -it continued; then the towship lurched slightly, like a boat meeting -a long swell, and the great masses met with a prolonged grinding -of curving steel on stegosauric plates of iron. A moment while -they settled solidly together and clung, locked; then the rockets -roared once more to life and _Shahrazad_ surged ahead evenly. To the -greatly-overpowered towship, the mere sixty tons of the loaded cargo -shell made little or no difference. - -Mury sat bolt upright in his universal chair. His face was masked and -serene, but the straight line of his head and neck was eloquent. His -hand, resting lightly on the controls, was that of Zeus, gripping a -thunderbolt. - -Slowly, without speaking, he drove the ship's nose upward--upward as -they were leveled off, but in reality downward, for gradually from -overhead the great black curve of a planet's dark limb crept down, -shutting out the stars. Then its sunlit side burst into sight and the -pallid glare came flooding through the great nose window to make the -glow-lamps needless. - -It was Earth, and somewhere on that great globe, where the distorted -shape of North America sprawled through half a dark hemisphere, was Pi -Mesa. For this ship of Fate, not a port but a grim target. - -Then Yet Arliess' voice fell hard and deadly on that triumphant moment. - -"Mury. Cut the drive!" - -Mury's attention snapped to the astrogator. Even so with the back of -his head to Ryd, the latter could see the slow tensing of his spare -body, the sudden immobility that took him. Ryd froze. - -"You'd better think twice, Arliess," said Mury in a low, brittle tone. - -"Cut the drive," ordered Arliess again. "This is journey's end, Mury. -If you don't cut it now, we'll all die." - - * * * * * - -Ryd inched forward in his seat; his fingers, numbed as if the cold -of sheer space had crept into the cabin, found the release. Then he -was able to see Arliess, hunched forward close to his control board. -One hand clenched over the magnet rheostat; but something had gone -wrong. The astrogator had bent the synthyl handle out and away from -its contacts; and now something gleamed half-hidden in his hand. Its -ends were almost touching the inner contact of the switch handle and -the minimum-resistance tap of the rheostat coil--a short piece of bared -silver wire, whose placing between those contacts would send current -leaping through the shortened circuit and pouring full into the magnet -coils. It would envelop _Shahrazad_ and power cylinder in a field of -great intensity--but of brief duration, a fractional instant before the -equilibrium of the stored atoms toppled and towship and cargo shell, -together like one, vanished in one exploding flame, brighter than the -Sun. - -This was the end. Mury was beaten, and of course he, Ryd, was beaten -too. For keeps, this time. With maudlin self-pity, he saw himself as -one caught and singled out for destruction by the gods in the machine. - -"Cut the drive," repeated Arliess for the third time. - -Still the Panclast did not move, and his face betrayed none of what -he must feel of the terrible irony by which a bit of wire, a short -circuit, could wreck the plan that was to have shaken a planet. He said -without stirring, "You can't use bluff on me, Arliess." - -"I know that and I'm not bluffing," said young Arliess, pale to the -lips, with burning eyes. "I know your type, Mury. The monomaniac. -You're not afraid of dying, but you are afraid when the success of your -mission is threatened. But you can forget those plans now. We're going -to stop, flash a distress signal." - -"I never meant we should escape the final crash of the power shell," -said Mury. "Escape was needless to the plan, and to die in such a -cause.... But I'll make you a bargain now, Arliess. I'll let you -parachute to safety when we're in the atmosphere, if you'll swear to -reveal nothing. Otherwise--perhaps you are aware of the power of--_We_." - -Arliess' grin was savage. "Don't try to frighten me with children's -boogie-men. I know that such an organization exists, and I knew one -of their members once--a poor, starved gutter-rat without principles -or courage or anything but a vicious wish to kick the world that had -kicked him. No, Mury, _you're_ something else again." - -"I've explained my aims to you, Arliess. I have no private wrongs to -avenge. I have acted because all history urges Earth and Mars to the -death grapple; I have been an agent of history. You, not I, are the -madman if you try to stand in the way." - -Arliess laughed shortly. "I hold the final argument, though.... _Cut -the drive!_" - - - V - -For a moment their eyes met. Mury, all his weapons blunted, sat -unmoving. Ryd, forehead beaded, gripping the arms of his chair, afraid -to move or cry out lest he bring doom upon the ship, thought he saw -Arliess' fingers start to tighten. - -But in that instant a voice crashed into the death-still cabin. Harsh -and vibrant, it rang through the open strobophones. - -"_Shahrazad! Algol_ calling _Shahrazad_! You are twenty-one degrees off -course and failing to correct as per schedule. What is the matter?" - -"All right," said Arliess, his voice husky. "Last chance, Mury, before -I blow us to atoms. Call them back. Tell them to overhaul us and board. -From the intensity of that signal, they can't be far away." - -And indeed, even now the stars began to blur to the approach of the -battle cruiser. Plainly, it had been trailing near; the dead detectors -had told them nothing. Perhaps, after all, suspicion had been born -behind the official calm facade. At any rate, here upon them were -_Algol_ and its guns.... Again the voice came through the phones, -querulously now. - -Mury, without making any sudden motion, pressed his release. With equal -care he came to his feet, standing without effort against a little more -than one gravity. - -"The message sent," he said coolly, "will be 'Temporarily electrical -failure. All under control.'" With that he knelt down in the narrow -space between the crew-chairs and the instrument board. - -"If that fool tries to jump me, Ryd, use the gun." His hands started -to grope at the under panels of the control board, purposefully but -without haste. "I'm going to disconnect the central fuse." - -"You'll never touch it," said Arliess with a gasp. "I'm shorting the -coil--_now!_" - -Ryd had, in a dazed automatism, lifted the gun. It was heavy and -unsteady in his gloved right hand. He stared with eyes out of focus and -with a sense of nightmare; death was coming and he wanted to live, had -to stop it somehow, anyhow, _now_-- - -Then all at once the gun steadied in his hand, burned hot as it spat -its crisping thunderbolt. The cabin shook to the blast. - -And the weapon slipped from Ryd's hand. He drew in air, sharp with -ozone, in short sobbing gasps, and cowered in his padded seat, shaking -uncontrollably. But he was alive, still alive. - -Arliess crouched half in and half out of his seat. He brought up the -pistol which he had snatched almost as it fell, trained it across the -motionless bundle between them on the floor. Mury was dead, as dead as -many another dreamer whose human tools have turned in his hands. - -The astrogator snapped, "Take the strobophone sender and call _Algol_. -Tell them--tell them--" - -"He'd have killed us all," gasped Ryd, cringing. - -He choked off as the astrogator lashed out open-handed, knocking him to -the floor. The young man stood for a moment gazing down on him, hands -clenched at his sides; then-- - -"You rat!" he snarled. "You filthy little _rat_!" - - * * * * * - -[Footnote 1: Transcriber's Note: Missing text due to printer's error.] - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Saboteur of Space, by Robert Abernathy - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SABOTEUR OF SPACE *** - -***** This file should be named 62997.txt or 62997.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/2/9/9/62997/ - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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