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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..f471319 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #63854 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/63854) diff --git a/old/63854-h.zip b/old/63854-h.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index ed1bd22..0000000 --- a/old/63854-h.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/63854-h/63854-h.htm b/old/63854-h/63854-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index 22028a0..0000000 --- a/old/63854-h/63854-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1653 +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 The Death from Orion, by W. 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Matthews. - </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;} - -/* Images */ -.figcenter { - margin: auto; - text-align: center; -} - -.caption p -{ - text-align: center; - text-indent: 0; - margin: 0.25em 0; -} - -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; -} - -.ph1 { text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; } -.ph1 { font-size: medium; margin: .83em auto; } - - </style> - </head> -<body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Death From Orion, by W. J. Matthews - -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: The Death From Orion - -Author: W. J. Matthews - -Release Date: November 22, 2020 [EBook #63854] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DEATH FROM ORION *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<div class="titlepage"> - -<h1>The Death From Orion</h1> - -<h2>By W. J. MATTHEWS</h2> - -<p>Tiny suns set in rare metals, crystals of fire<br /> -that mocked Terra's diamonds and pearls as<br /> -lusterless pebbles and pale glass, the ancient<br /> -treasure left behind the same time-worn<br /> -trail of sudden blood and stiffening corpses!</p> - -<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br /> -Planet Stories Winter 1948.<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>For a long minute the big man did not speak, rocking gently on his -heels, hands clasped behind his broad back. The dim glow of the atomics -in the corridor cast shadowy bars of gold and sable across his cold -face, picked glints of steel and silver from his heavy gunbelt and -saffron uniform. The only sound was the gentle tinkle of leg-irons -as the prisoner lounging on the cell-bench idly swung his crossed -leg, returning the heavier man's reptilian stare with a detached, -infuriating coolness.</p> - -<p>It moved him to break his silent regard. The thick voice rasped in the -dim-lit cell.</p> - -<p>"You know why I am here, Kurland?"</p> - -<p>The black-bearded outlaw shrugged, a glitter of white teeth splintering -his calm stare.</p> - -<p>"Were you other than Gion, Marward of Jupiter, I should know. As it -is, I do not."</p> - -<p>Gion's hard lips smiled briefly at the iron compliment.</p> - -<p>"I rate you higher than you think, Kurland. I should have come farther -still to see you hanged at dawn."</p> - -<p>The outlaw shrugged. "I might say the same, had I had your luck."</p> - -<p>The big man nodded, his eyes never leaving Kurland. The sharp brows -over his enormous eyes lay straight and commanding, and there were -lines about his tight mouth Kurland had never seen. Slowly, softly, -Gion went on, rocking easily on his booted heels.</p> - -<p>"Suppose, came dawn, you did not hang, Kurland?"</p> - -<p>The swinging leg halted, the big body tensed in its chains. Then slowly -Kurland eased back against the cold stone wall, a thin, mocking smile -playing across his face.</p> - -<p>"You should know me better, Gion. I am not for sale, even at such a -price. Nor my comrades."</p> - -<p>Cold pride flashed in Marward's eyes. "I buy no man's loyalty," he -retorted. "Were yours for sale, I should not be here, nor would you. I -offer a supposition, nothing more."</p> - -<p>Kurland rose, a powerful, black-clad figure imposing even in torn -uniform and clinking chains. He stared fiercely at the heavy sub-ruler -of the outer Jovian plains, the iron-souled tyrant who had broken and -suborned Earthly sway until much of the giant planet lay supine and -trembling before him.</p> - -<p>"You have not come to taunt me, nor play with suppositions, Marward. -Why not be plain?"</p> - -<p>"I shall be plain enough," promised Gion, dropping a hand upon the -heavy butt of his silver-mounted glare-pistol. Kurland's teeth flashed -in the gloom. There was magic still in his flaming name.</p> - -<p>"You know the Jewels of Orion?"</p> - -<p>"I have heard of them."</p> - -<p>"They have vanished."</p> - -<p>The outlaw shrugged, half a laugh breaking through his beard. "My -regrets, Marward. I had no hand in it."</p> - -<p>Gion bared his teeth wolfishly. "I did."</p> - -<p>Bland astonishment swept Kurland's face. Then, slowly, a grim smile -thrust aside his wonder.</p> - -<p>"Forgive my start, Marward. You have stolen so much."</p> - -<p>Fiercely Gion brushed aside the cold insult. He stepped back, his face -in shadow. The prison cell was electric with his vibrant hate. "You -will have it, will you, Kurland? I came to make an offer."</p> - -<p>"Go on," said the outlaw, immobile.</p> - -<p>"I am not loved, here on Jupiter," said Gion. "I usurp the authority of -greater men. I intrigue, I plot. I conquer and steal, if you will. It -requires gold. A fortune." He paused, watching the outlaw. "An agent -on Venus flashed me word that the Jewels of Orion, crown jewels of a -vanished race on some forgotten planet beyond the stars, were to be -shipped once more to Betelgoran. A hundred fortunes, Kurland. I gave -orders and he shipped as passenger, with the consigned jewels."</p> - -<p>"And then?" Kurland's eyes burned through the gloom.</p> - -<p>"The <i>Plutonian</i> crashed somewhere ten million miles out in space," -said Gion slowly. "My agent. He died with her, and with her people. But -he sent the coordinates through even as she went down on some uncharted -asteroid. I know where the hulk lies piled, an iron coffin for the -Orion jewels."</p> - -<p>Kurland's glare was deadly. "Make your offer, vulture."</p> - -<p>"Go and bring me the jewels."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Kurland flung back his head, a sudden roar of laughter in his muscled -throat. The chains clashed on wrist and ankle as he flung derision in -the other's paling face.</p> - -<p>"You send a wolf on a jackal's errand, Marward! You think I would -return, or venture one lean hungry mile on such a rat's voyage to help -you on your way, you whom I have fought these many months, you who -broke and exiled me, you who made me outlaw and today must hang me for -it?" His scorn rasped bitingly in the prison cell, but Gion of Jupiter -was not moved by the love or hate of men. He nodded to the tiny barred -window.</p> - -<p>"Look from the window."</p> - -<p>Kurland looked, seeing in the growing pearl of dawn the black and ugly -shapes athwart the sky were six gibbets stood ranged along the ramparts -of Gion's northern fortress in the Montral foothills.</p> - -<p>"You understand," nodded Gion, leaning against the door. "You will -return, and with the jewels, or your five young companions will be -swinging there to greet you when my men take you, as they took you once -before, Kurland."</p> - -<p>The outlaw turned, ice-veined, but Gion did not stir.</p> - -<p>"I am a prisoner. Judged and doomed. No ship, no crew."</p> - -<p>"Escapes have been arranged before."</p> - -<p>Kurland surveyed the big man curiously. "Why not go yourself on this -golden errand, Marward?"</p> - -<p>Gion shrugged. "Leaving my empire to the wolves? You know I dare not, -nor trust a lieutenant in my place. This is not a secret for friends or -followers."</p> - -<p>"I am no friend of yours. You dare trust me?"</p> - -<p>"Outlaw, fugitive, renegade ... need I fear you, Kurland?" smiled Gion -coolly. "My word against yours."</p> - -<p>Kurland nodded slowly. "I see. But should I return with the jewels, -what assurance have I that my crew and I do not instantly decorate your -gallows yonder?"</p> - -<p>"None," admitted Gion. "Reliance upon my word, I imagine, would -give you scant comfort, but it is not to my interest to have even -the slightest suspicion turned upon me while the jewels are in my -possession. Compared to them, you and your arrogant little band are not -worth the snapping of a broken twig. Bring me the Orions, Kurland, and -your five slip the noose with a day's grace to be beyond my grasp. What -more do you require?"</p> - -<p>"A ship and my crew to man her," replied Kurland, steadily. "I am your -enemy forever, Gion."</p> - -<p>Gion smiled, not without malice. "If you will have it so, Kurland. I am -a bad enemy."</p> - -<p>"You used me once too often, Gion. I was an honest man when first my -ships came trading here, too stiff to crawl to your thieving crew, too -callow to stomach your vicious thrust to power. Exiled, dishonored, -branded, I bear a prouder title than yours, Marward. I am your enemy."</p> - -<p>"Serve me, then, and I promise you scant reward," Gion calmly agreed. -"Your ship lies in the hangar, beyond the outer towers. Fueled. The -chart is marked, your course is set. There are no guards."</p> - -<p>Kurland suggestively clanked his chains.</p> - -<p>Gion stepped into the corridor, his heavy face set and intent. Drawing -his gun, he leveled a short tube with his left hand, focussing it on -Kurland's chains through the doorway grill. As the outlaw pulled, links -parted like melted cheese in the tinted purple glow.</p> - -<p>"There will be reprimands and stern punishments that you were allowed -to conceal a dis-tube about your person," explained Gion, holding -Kurland motionless with the threat of his leveled gun. "You comprehend. -Your companions will be spared, that you be hanged together on your -recapture. There will be no questions, no suspicion. On your return, -you will place the jewels beneath the seat where you have lain, taking -the key you will find there to release your men. Vanish, Kurland. Stay -beyond my power. Expect no mercy, for justice shall be no more swift -and certain to punish your crimes than I to still your tongue for once -and all. You have your warning."</p> - -<p>"You make yourself quite plain," agreed the outlaw, hand on hip. "We -understand one another, Marward of Jupiter. You shall have your mangy -jewels. Nothing else."</p> - -<p>Gion laughed contemptuously. "Have you seen them, wolf's-head? What -else do I need?"</p> - -<p>"Friends, Marward."</p> - -<p>"I have an enemy," Gion mocked, vanishing up the dim-lit corridor in a -blur of fading saffron. His throaty laugh came thickly back to Kurland -as the clicking lock swung the heavy door gently wide.</p> - -<p>Kurland was through it instantly, alert for a treacherous blast, -darting into the shadows of the poor stone corridor, patched and -ragged with broken plaster and creeping moss. Gion had vanished, but -he did not dare venture anything in that direction, bearing as he did -the lives of all his captive crew. Softly he passed down the empty -corridors to the broad upper court overlooking the hillside ramparts.</p> - -<p>His broad chest swelled with the fresh breath of freedom, strained -though it might be through the rude beams of the new-made gallows he -was cheating. The cords along his bearded jaw tightened. His hands -found a tiny pill in a slot of his bread belt, pressed it swiftly -against the unguarded wood of the gallows. He melted into the shadows -of the stairs as a wave of heat and acrid smoke billowed out, engulfing -him and hiding him from view. The startled guards in the towers above -saw the tall gibbets wreathed in sudden consuming flame even as they -stared.</p> - -<p>Rushing to the conflagration, none saw the shadowy figure dart through -the postern far below and vanish into the rocks fringing the landing -ground at the wall's base. A moment later, the deserted hangars erupted -flame and boiling smoke, hurtling into the starry Jovian sky the slim -black fighter manned once again by Eldon Kurland, outlaw. Gaping, they -watched it vanish among the paling stars of dawn.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">II</p> - -<p>Heywood, Gion's jackal, moped sullenly about the rocks of the jagged -little asteroid, scowling through his vitrine helmet at the tiny figure -moving slowly along the crater floor near the distant bones of the -wrecked <i>Plutonian</i>. The intolerable glare of the naked sun, hidden -by the rock's toothed horizon, yet thrust flaming whorls of gold and -scarlet above the mountains to hideously outline the ragged ribs of the -vessel he had diverted from its course to its death on this uncharted -worldlet.</p> - -<p>A scowl he kept hidden from his companion darkened his handsome, waxen -face, and for the hundredth time he muttered imprecations upon his -ill-fortune in the moment of triumph. He had not counted on the girl.</p> - -<p>Allen Heywood depended on nothing save himself, for which his master -Gion valued him more highly than any other tool and trusted him not at -all. Surreptitiously relaying to the Marward the coordinates of the -space-ship on which he had slipped as passenger, Heywood had coldly -blown out the stern-tubes with a delayed-action bomb and sent the big -ship crashing into the selected uncharted asteroid, thinking nothing of -the fifty lives that flared out in the exploding wreckage. More careful -of his own, he had simply stepped out an emergency lock in a space-suit -a moment before the ship struck, allowing himself to slowly drift with -his own momentum and the asteroid's faint gravitational pull. He had -landed a mile from the ship perhaps an hour after it crashed, only to -find himself confronted by another suited figure, the woman Francinet.</p> - -<p>Shaken by the encounter, he realized she had no suspicion of the part -he had played, or that the crash had been less than accidental. She -had herself been saved by the merest freak, having been clad in a -space-suit for a photograph-minded acquaintance. When the ship split, -she had been shot upward through a rent in the hull, drifting slowly -down as had he. They were hopelessly marooned.</p> - -<p>The ship was ruined, if not completely destroyed. Heywood pushed aside -the horrible steel-hard blobs of red which had been human beings with -no apparent qualms, nor troubled himself that it had been he who had -slain them all as surely as with gun or knife. With the bows crushed -shapeless by the headlong smash into the asteroid and the stem blown -wide by its own thermoblast bombs, nothing was left them but a length -or two of warped and twisted main cabin hardly capable of retaining the -Earth atmosphere still flowing through the tiny purifier engines he had -seen to preserving. Cleaning out the unrecognizable dead, he rigged up -a rough shelter for them. They had occupied it by now for over a week.</p> - -<p>He kicked again at a rock, watching it spiral slowly up and over a -crevasse in slow-motion. The jewels were still intact, hidden in -the ship's safe. He had not risked her discovering him tampering -with either, nor the safer course of destroying her as he had her -companions. There was no assurance that another ship than Gion's -rescuing craft might not discover them first.</p> - -<p>That Gion would send a ship for him he believed with implicit faith, -tempered by the knowledge that it would be the loot and not the thief -that the powerful Marward coveted. He had no illusions concerning Gion, -and so had survived. Thus, as he glanced skyward to see a tiny star -moving perceptibly across the blazing night of interspatial glory, -Allen Heywood flattened himself behind a huge rock quite as promptly as -from the devil himself.</p> - -<p>A blaster slid into his hand. The green eyes were intent.</p> - -<p>The little ship was coming down.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The long blue glare paled across the unwinking stars and a red column -of fire poured viciously from Kurland's ship, whitening to a rigid -arc lancing into the broken rocks below. Eyes intent, the outlaw bent -forward over his keys, searching the ragged terrain as he braked his -easy dive. Then his firm lips thinned, cruelly hard in the thick beard -masking his copper face. The broken ribs of the lost space-ship thrust -up against the sun, half-hidden in the shadows of a stoney ledge.</p> - -<p>Kurland shut off his drive, thrusting in breakers and snapping down his -forward beams. The eight-man ship he had made known and feared through -all the distant Jovian system drifted easily through the empty sky, -feeling its way on walking tractor beams. The star-shine glinted on the -black lines and heavy armament, hesitating to further lighten the dark -menace of the craft.</p> - -<p>A green beam lanced into a nearby crag, splitting it from top to -bottom, and toppling it in soundless ruin across the crater floor. -Nothing stirred about the silent wreck.</p> - -<p>Lightly the ship touched the crater floor, rocking gently on its beams. -A broad figure in black swung down and moved swiftly across the rock -toward the broken hulk of the <i>Plutonian</i>. Heywood softly drifted into -the shadows, floating easily from hollow to hollow, following.</p> - -<p>Kurland stood silent, looking up at the gigantic ruin, majestic even in -its awful desolation, and the look upon his face was not good to see. -There were no deeper hells than those for wreckers, no fate too grim -for one who callously snapped the bright, thin thread of life reaching -out from Earth to all the Solar planets and their hundred circling -satellites. The Marward of Jupiter would buy an empire with this -tangled pile of riven steel. He should find the bargain dear.</p> - -<p>There was no need to seek airlocks in the <i>Plutonian's</i> side. Three -were visible, ripped and gaping, and there were a score of torn holes -twenty feet and more in width broken through the shell where the vessel -had plowed her way into the rocks. Clothes instruments, furniture, -books, and a hundred intimate possessions lay crumpled to view in the -gutted cabins or scattered wide across the shining plain. For a moment -Kurland looked at a headless doll, then moved forward, his face a -deadly mask.</p> - -<p>Swiftly he climbed, mounting the broken stone and twisted metal that -led him to a greater gash leading into an inner saloon. He forced his -way through the debris, then straightened, looking about him curiously.</p> - -<p>Furniture and drapes lay crushed, torn, heaped against the broken -forward bulkheads, but nowhere could he see the dead who must have -died here by the tens and by the score. There was no blood upon the -walls, for blood exposed to the instant void of interstellar space -crystallized in the very bodies of the injured, but in the debris at -the foot of the muralled bulkhead many tiny marbles of dreadful scarlet -rolled and tinkled silently as he searched.</p> - -<p>He moved forward, passing through the shattered bulkheads where open -swinging doors gave acute evidence of the unexpectedness of the -catastrophe which had overwhelmed the ship. Ruin and destruction were -everywhere, but nowhere a trace of the bodies he knew had exploded into -scarlet dust as the biting death of space lanced its deadly vacuum into -the rending vessel. There could be only one answer, and it brought his -gun into his hand as he moved warily through the corridors.</p> - -<p>His search ended in the open, metal-sprayed bowl which had been the -forward pilot cabin, for here, piled hideously in red tangles, the -rigid blots whose life-blood had rolled beneath his feet in bright -pellets as he walked lay sprawled in horrible disfigurement. There were -no longer anything at all. Simply <i>color</i>, encompassed in torn and -broken clothing.</p> - -<p>Whiter than the fleshless bone displayed before him, Kurland thrust -to the swinging door, welding it shut in one impulsive burst of his -blaster. No man should see what lay beyond. Shaking with a terrible -anger, Kurland strode furiously back the broken ship, gun in hand, and -flung his curses on ahead. He opened nothing, but shot doors and panels -from their hinges as he advanced, eyes glaring for the faintest sign of -movement. Only the man who had planned and executed this horror could -have survived it.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Midway in his stride the outlaw halted, gun lifted. The pilot light -over the central chambers glowed softly. There was atmosphere within. -Kurland snarled, closed his gloved hand on the twisted lever. He jerked -and the battered door swung open, revealing a rough airlock improvised -from the usual intercommunicating chamber. He darted in, snapping the -door behind him. Air sighed into the chamber as he drew another rude -lever down from the box nailed to the bulkhead.</p> - -<p>Removing his vitrine helmet, Kurland holstered his gun and thrust open -the inner lock. The air was clean and fresh, Earth-crisp. The room -was battered, but not structurally damaged, and the furnishings were -neatly in place. There were signs that other chambers had been looted -to furnish this one, and Kurland smiled mirthlessly. He silently moved -across the thick blue rug.</p> - -<p>The room beyond was a sleeping cabin, with male attire in the slotted -racks. The stamp of occupancy lay everywhere in the worn, neat articles -stamped with a golden H. The other room of the suite had been fitted -with heat tubes for warmth and cooking, and were piled high with -salvaged foodstuffs.</p> - -<p>Continuing, Kurland found a broken passage beyond this kitchen, leading -deeper into the shop's waist, but cut off from the first suite by -locked doors. The outlaw grinned wickedly and, reversing the charge -silently burned the doors from their slides. There was no sound, no -vibration as he laid them against the wall. Gion had not hunted him for -nothing.</p> - -<p>The room beyond was deep in rugs, the panelled walls well-hung with -costly paintings. A recorder was singing beyond a brocaded drape, and -Kurland could hear footsteps moving lightly across the padded floor. -With one swift bound he was across the anteroom, ripping the drapery -from its flimsy hangings, and stood upon the threshold of the inner -room, a black, terrible figure looming in the warped doorway like the -angel of Death. His voice rang softly through the sudden frozen silence -as he faced the survivor.</p> - -<p>"My apologies. I underestimated Gion."</p> - -<p>Irene Francinet, whirling in anger at an intrusion she attributed -to the hitherto circumspect Heywood, froze at the sight confronting -her, a huge black-bearded stranger with the bronze face of a Japanese -devil-mask. The gloved hands were gargoyle claws, hovering over the -blasters slung at the intruder's steel-black hips, the blazing eyes -lances piercing her to the heart. This was ... Death.</p> - -<p>She had been preparing for a sun-bath under a lamp built into the wall -over the bed. The hand clutching her garments across her breast sank -for a moment, evoking a mirthless grin from the giant that froze her -already icy blood.</p> - -<p>"You needn't trouble," he said, his voice so low she barely heard him. -"It won't work."</p> - -<p>She drew herself up, dark head high, and tried to still the tremor of -her knees. There was good blood in Irene Francinet, and long years of -iron discipline.</p> - -<p>"You are intruding," she said, and her voice was steadier than she -hoped. "Who are you? Where is your ship?"</p> - -<p>His courtesy was insulting as he bowed, his eyes never leaving hers. -"Your pardon. I am Eldon Kurland, late of North Jupiter. <i>You</i> need no -name."</p> - -<p>"I am Irene Francinet, Recorder, of Earth." Her voice was angry, -uneven. "I do not understand you."</p> - -<p>"Let it suffice that I understand you," he replied, his tone acid with -ruthless disdain. He moved slowly forward, his eyes chill diamonds -under the softly glowing atomics, and slowly she retreated, no longer -able to conceal her fear. His hands never left the black handles of his -guns.</p> - -<p>"I knew the Marward's arm is long," he went on, grimly. "None better -than I. I had not thought it long enough to drag the proud name of -Recorder in this bloody mud."</p> - -<p>She halted, stamping her foot on the rug. "What is this talk? Marward -of where? Why do you fling him in my face like ... like refuse?" Bright -color stained her pale cheeks, and he eyed her curiously.</p> - -<p>"You do that well enough, Francinet." He surveyed her from head to -toe, savoring the midnight hair, the eyes flaming bluely into his, the -straight nose and the strong red mouth. "Disclaim Gion of Jupiter if -you will. He's no friend of mine. But save your anger for better men. -I've seen your work."</p> - -<p>Her face was blank, and he answered her brutally.</p> - -<p>"I stand within it. It stinks in the sun. I walked in blood to fling -it in your face, you treacherous snake! I'll see the color of Gion's, -yes, and yours, before either of you hears the last of this!" he blazed -in a sudden whirl of recurring anger. "You'll play at words with me! -You know this ship's cargo! You sent Gion her position even as you blew -her tubes and sent her crashing here with all her helpless people." He -flung a hand back at the door by which he had entered. "Walk out there, -Recorder, and feel their blood roll beneath your feet! You who are so -free with other's lives to win the treacherous praise Gion lulls you -fools asleep with while he robs and slays!"</p> - -<p>"What are you saying?" she whispered, lips stiff in her blanched face. -"You think <i>I</i> wrecked the <i>Plutonian</i>? You think I killed those -people?"</p> - -<p>"You live," was his brutal rejoinder.</p> - -<p>"But why? <i>Why?</i>" she wailed, abandoning her firm dignity as he loomed -over her, black with anger. "Why should I do so horrible a thing? What -reason could I have?"</p> - -<p>"My reason," he snarled. "Because you must, as I came here because I -must. I to save my comrades from the noose, you for Gion's gold. Well, -you've earned it, and triply over, woman. Where are the jewels?"</p> - -<p>"I have no jewels," she faltered, her hand indicating her few personal -belongings salvaged from the wreckage of her cabin. He brushed them -aside, turned a jeering grin on her.</p> - -<p>"You haven't opened the safe, then? By Throaze, but Gion knows his -tools! Where is it?"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>She stared at him. "Back there. In the purser's office, I suppose." Her -voice was frankly trembling. "I haven't touched it."</p> - -<p>"Clever. I might not have been the first." He jerked his head aft. -"Ahead of me. March."</p> - -<p>"I'm not ... dressed."</p> - -<p>He tossed her a blanket. "Use that. Show me that safe, <i>Recorder</i>." Her -proud title, in his bitter lips, was an epithet, and she bristled. But -she obeyed.</p> - -<p>She moved into the dimly lit corridor beyond her little suite, feeling -her way along the warped and battered passage. They had not attempted -to utilize this part of the vessel, although it lay within their -atmospheric seals, and she had rough going. Kurland moved close behind -her, hand on his gun, but she made no move to oppose him. Her one hope -of safety lay in acceding to this madman's demands, trusting to her -erstwhile companion, Heywood. He must be somewhere about. And Kurland -did not seem to know of his existence.</p> - -<p>The office was a broken shambles, records and papers heaped against the -forward bulkhead. The massive safes had been torn bodily from the wall -and lay upended in the litter. Kurland strode swiftly to the smallest, -motioning her to immobility with his gun. Supplied with Gion by the -proper combinations, he spun the six dials expertly and the three doors -fell open. He took out a small leaden box, then four more.</p> - -<p>Prismatic fire blazed roof-high as he flung back the cover of one, -jetting iridescently from a tumbled mass of primitive goldwork -encrusted with the unbelievable gems of Orion. He lifted a heavy golden -torque, studded with blazing gouts of crimson flame and slung on an -inch-thick rope of giant Venusian pearls worth each the lives of twenty -men. A yellow diamond Chalcidite rolled across the scarred steel of the -open door and came to rest, winking like an evil eye in the dim light -sifting down the corridor behind Kurland.</p> - -<p>His voice was soft, terrible in its hatred as he looked at her, blanket -clutched frozen across her bosom. His eyes blazed as balefully as the -huge jewel winking before him.</p> - -<p>"Will you lie now, Recorder? These are the Jewels of Orion!"</p> - -<p>She did not answer, less for the contemptuous accusation in his voice -than the more dreadful thought her trained mind thrust at her as -insistently. If the <i>Plutonian</i> had been sabotaged and wrecked for -such world-loot, as his sure knowledge, his very presence indicated, -then his first assumption must inevitably be true. The survivor he -considered her must indeed be the hellish wrecker. And she was not the -only survivor.</p> - -<p>Her eyes were enormous. A mound of living fire grew upon the dusty -steel as he piled up the blazing rings and brooches of the long-dead -Orion kings. He tossed down a circlet of hammered gold, wreathed for -the brows of some ancient queen, and the thirty pendant gems tinkled -musically in the silence. Each could have bought the souls of an army, -round, glinting stars of purest emerald green deep-sunk with tiny suns -of icy diamond lustre. Kurland paused in his magical task, looking -across at her.</p> - -<p>"Are they worth the blood we walked upon to reach them, Recorder?" he -asked, quietly.</p> - -<p>"I ... I didn't know," she faltered, meeting his gaze with growing -firmness.</p> - -<p>"Men have died before over these bright toys," he shrugged, opening -another box and pouring it in a blazing cascade over the first heap of -white fire. "Men will die again. And among them, Gion."</p> - -<p>"The Marward of Jupiter?" she whispered. "He knows? He sent you here, -knowing this?"</p> - -<p>"Your message reached him. The Marward is swift to serve his servants. -Particularly those ... bearing gifts."</p> - -<p>"You betray yourself," she flashed, pointing at the gems. "Gion is -evil, but would he trust any messenger with <i>those</i>?"</p> - -<p>Kurland looked quietly at her. "The Marward holds me in tighter bonds -than you think, Recorder. If I fail him, five of my friends hang. -Skyhigh."</p> - -<p>She looked searchingly at him. "Who are you? You rate your friends very -high, Black-beard."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Kurland smiled, a hard grin with no mirth in it. "I am Eldon Kurland, -as I told you. Outlaw. Gion made. Were you a true Recorder, you should -know of me, and know I hold my men dearer than this trumpery glass from -beyond the Milky Way." His gloved hand struck the gems contemptuously, -tossing jewels to right and left upon the papered flooring. She -followed their meteoric flight, then glanced up in astonishment as -Kurland swayed, knees buckling, and sank with a clash of heavy armor -to sprawl across the fortune he had struck aside. Behind him a bright, -feral countenance smiled wolfishly and the slight figure which had -slipped silently into the room from the passage straightened up -triumphantly, gun in hand. Allen Heywood smiled upon her benignly.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus.jpg" alt=""/> - <div class="caption"> - <p> <i>The outlaw stiffened, then his knees buckled.</i></p> - </div> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">III</p> - -<p>Kurland opened his eyes dizzily, then shut them again. The thick voice -of Gion purred through the spinning darkness.</p> - -<p>"You might as well, Kurland. It's real."</p> - -<p>He opened them again, fixing his unsteady regard upon the heavy, -impassive countenance of the Jovian Marward. Gion sat across the -table, his hands folded upon the polished surface. The leaden boxes -were stacked neatly beside his arm. A thinly wavering smile touched -Kurland's lips as he glanced back at Gion.</p> - -<p>"Your arm is longer than I thought, Gion."</p> - -<p>"You had your warning," shrugged the Marward.</p> - -<p>"How did she do it?"</p> - -<p>Gion smiled, a gross caricature of mirth. "It would be amusing to let -you go in that misapprehension, I suppose. Perhaps profitable. But -you've earned the right to know. The girl wasn't my agent. So much the -worse for her. While you were reviling her, the man who wrecked the -<i>Plutonian</i> walked up behind you. Heywood isn't one to take chances, as -your head probably indicates."</p> - -<p>"Heywood?"</p> - -<p>Gion waved a casual hand at a slight, elegant figure seated at his -right, and the evil little jackal permitted himself a tight-lipped grin -at Kurland, the chained lion. The outlaw studied him without affection.</p> - -<p>"And what do you have on <i>him</i>?"</p> - -<p>"Nothing in particular," shrugged Gion. "Heywood is devoted to my -interests, seeing they're his own. I have no more loyal follower, no -better friend."</p> - -<p>Allen Heywood fidgeted under the unusual expansiveness of his patron, -allowing a tinge of color to stain his cold pallor. The look he gave -the Marward was an amazing blend of adulation and open suspicion, and -Kurland smiled thinly. He did not anticipate leaving this little rocky -underground room alive, and had no objection to sowing dissention as a -parting legacy. His dark eyes sought the Marward's.</p> - -<p>"Our gentlemen's agreement, I take it, is off?"</p> - -<p>Gion nodded indifferently. "But naturally. It was not you who fetched -me the Orion jewels, Kurland. Your intentions may have been honorable, -and in all honesty I admit so much, but it was Allen Heywood who -brought me the stones. The reward I meant for you shall be his."</p> - -<p>Kurland glanced at Heywood with some pleasure. The little man might not -care for that.</p> - -<p>The burly Marward rose, pulling his gun. The outlaw noted that the -alert Heywood was on his feet as promptly, his own gun opening in -his hand. But Gion meditated nothing at the moment, apparently, save -ridding himself of evidence even one of his eminence could not brook -revealing. He motioned Kurland to rise.</p> - -<p>The outlaw got up, noting his feet were hobbled by a short rope. His -wrists were lashed behind his back, his holster empty. From the aching -dizziness in his limbs and head he realized that Heywood must have -drugged him after striking him down back upon the asteroid where the -<i>Plutonian</i> had crashed, taking no chances whatsoever on the long -voyage back to Jupiter in Kurland's ship, bearing captive and loot. The -feral little man slipped behind him, prodding him with his blaster.</p> - -<p>"Move, wolf's-head." He shuffled silently after Gion, moving ahead down -rocky, dim-lit corridors. There was no sound but the rasp of their -boots and the growing rumble of underground water not far ahead.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The massive stronghold of Montalven where Gion squatted, playing at -power behind the scenes, was far more fortress than palace, relic of -an earlier day when Earthmen maintained their sway by the strength of -their ships and spreading armies rather than by the gentler rule of -law. The taste of power was sweeter in the Marward's mouth than the -empty display indulged in by the appointed viceroys whose strength he -had sapped by gold and treachery, rudely expanding beyond the borders -of the northern province legitimately his own until all the Earth -colonies and many of the native kingdoms trembled at his slightest -word. Kurland was being afforded a further glimpse of the reason. He -had been outlawed and hunted across Jupiter for his defiance of that -lawless sway. He was to die for it now.</p> - -<p>They came out upon a rough stone platform where a swift underground -river glanced roughly by in rude channels, spitting foam and spray -as it dashed against the stone. A flimsily built raft made from an -old door and several planks tied together with rope was moored at the -quay's edge, a foot or so below the floor level, and lying bound upon -it, gagged, lay the girl Kurland had found in the wreckage of the -<i>Plutonian</i>, Irene Francinet. Her white dress was already soaked as the -wretched craft bobbed and swayed in the swift current.</p> - -<p>Kurland halted, swung angrily on Gion. "What is this, Marward? You -disclaimed the woman."</p> - -<p>"So I did," placidly agreed Gion. "I told you Allen was thorough. He -brought back <i>everything</i>."</p> - -<p>"And ... we know too much?"</p> - -<p>"Too much to hang," replied Gion, frankly. "Not with your friends. -You're going down the river. It doesn't come out."</p> - -<p>"She's a woman, Gion. What's her word against yours?"</p> - -<p>"She's a Recorder, a trained Government official of the highest rank. -Their word against kings and princes, my friend. I don't take chances, -my friend. Step down. Allen, see that he does."</p> - -<p>Under the sudden pressure of Heywood's weapon, there was nothing for -Kurland to do but obey. He stepped down upon the raft, tipping it -dangerously and soaking the Francinet woman to the hips. He squatted -down, obediently.</p> - -<p>Gion nodded. "Tie him to those hinges, Allen. They'll drift for miles -before the roof slopes down and sinks the raft." There was a sudden -gleam in his bulging eyes as the lighter man swung down upon the raft, -but Kurland said nothing. He owed the wrecker-vulture nothing.</p> - -<p>Roped to the worn hinges, he sat quietly watching the bulky Jovian -ruler and his dapper lackey. Gion smiled.</p> - -<p>"Tight enough, Allen. Get back and cast them off." And he gave Heywood -his hand to assist him. Dazzled by the condescension of his noble -confederate, Heywood failed to notice that it was the left hand of -the Marward he grasped. The powerful muscles contracted to heave him -to safety on the rough-hewn quay, and, as he came, the right arm of -the Marward swung abruptly to drive a heavy dagger to the hilt in the -startled little fiend's unprotected throat. Allen Heywood had for once -neglected his caution.</p> - -<p>Contemptuously, Gion released the suddenly slack fingers of his devoted -henchman, the dying man falling heavily back upon the raft, choking in -his bubbling blood. He rolled to one side, staining Irene's white dress -a horrid crimson as he clutched her body, his eyes a glaring horror as -he stared at the faintly smiling Marward watching him, then fell back -limply. His head dropped, his clawed hands relaxed, and he sagged into -the water. A booted leg, caught between two broken planks, held him -precariously, half-submerged. The green waters rushing past darkened -thinly as he fled along the death-trail upon which he had been so -cheerfully embarking Kurland and the hapless Irene Francinet.</p> - -<p>Kurland looked up stonily at the Marward.</p> - -<p>"It doesn't pay to work for you, does it, Gion?" he asked, quietly.</p> - -<p>"I promised him your reward," Gion smiled, bending to cut the rope -holding the raft. "You may share it with him. Bon voyage, my friends."</p> - -<p>The rope parted, the flimsy contraption darting away into the current. -Their last view of the Marward was of a jocular farewell waved after -them as they dashed wildly into the round tunnel below the cavern -where the landing crouched. Shadows engulfed them as the raft swayed -drunkenly through the sibilant darkness.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">IV</p> - -<p>Even as Gion vanished, Kurland exploded into action. His shoulders -knotted and he exerted every available ounce of strength in a ferocious -test of his wrist lashings. But their dead passenger had been an -expert. They held fast. Writhing over on his side, he doubled himself -and his body tensed, steel-hard muscle and powerful bones and sinew -against the Marward's treacherous bonds. For long moments, as they -whirled and swayed deeper into the darkening tunnel beneath the rocky -hills of Jupiter, he pulled and strained evenly at his leg ropes.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Here, too, Heywood had done with professional skill his bravo's work, -but he had lavished no such care on the makeshift raft designed for -the last journey he had not thought to take himself. The rough board -holding Kurland's boots bent upward, cracked, bent double, and split -lengthwise. He jerked his legs free.</p> - -<p>Hooking his boots under a second plank, he slid his bare feet from -the sleek black leather. Twisting about, he clamped a body-scissors -on the gasping Irene Francinet. His powerful back muscles doubled, -coiled upon themselves, lifting her inert figure from the dark water -running over the partially submerged planks where she lay bound. They -creaked, straining, as he exerted a pitiless pressure on her bowed ribs -and chest. The steady leverage of her body slowly twisted loose the -outer planks of the raft, and split two of them cleanly from the rough -framework.</p> - -<p>Gasping, he let her fall, then swung her again in her loosening bonds, -letting her drop down against his own chest.</p> - -<p>"Quickly," he snapped. "Your hands to my wrists! Before the ropes -swell."</p> - -<p>She pressed herself against him, wet and cold in the gathering -darkness, fumbling with the ropes still holding him fast which had -given him the tremendous leverage to break her own bonds. It was a -struggle between her slim fingers and the expanding Jovian fibers of -the cords, but he had been in time. She undid the knots and a moment -later he had torn his hands free and sat up. With one swift move he -slipped her gag off and ripped at her remaining bonds. Board after -board tore free and shot off into the darkness, and when he had -unfastened the last of the thin ropes holding her, stuffing them under -his gun belt, there was little of the raft Heywood had thrown together -but the big door they crouched on and a tangle of crazily-angled planks -astern where the dead jackal's booted leg still thrust up stiffly from -the swirling waters.</p> - -<p>"Here!" Kurland bit at her, thrusting a broken shaft of wood into -her chilled, numb fingers. "Paddle, girl, if you want to see the Sun -again!" And he dug in on his side with another fragment of the plank he -had broken.</p> - -<p>Irene bowed, exerting what strength her long, drug-induced sleep from -the planetoid and consequent imprisonment had left, trying her best to -keep up with Kurland's long, plunging strokes. The raft's wild career -into the depths of the Montral mountains was checked, then halted. They -watched the distant circle of light marking the tunnel entrance, hoping -against hope that its faint glimmer of phosphorescent light might not -fade and dwindle once more. For a moment the raft held, then slowly -inched backward against the current, lurching perilously through the -dashing tunnels of the underground river.</p> - -<p>Kurland glanced swiftly about. An element of his success both -as peaceful racketeer and hunted outlaw had been his ability to -subordinate his naturally sanguine temperament to the circumstances of -the moment. He realized the awkward craft must collapse long before -it was forced upstream to the quay from whence it had been launched. -And should it hold, it was only too evident the paddlers could not. He -tossed aside his board and stood up, drawing her up beside him.</p> - -<p>"You can swim?" he asked. It was more a statement than a question, -for the proud corps of Recorders were the pick of the Solar System's -trained agents.</p> - -<p>"Yes," she replied. "Can we make it?"</p> - -<p>He tossed her the end of the thin rope he pulled from beneath his belt. -"Knot that on your wrist, Recorder. We've travelled so many miles -together, I'd not be parted on this last one."</p> - -<p>She bowknotted the line, then poised, shivering and soaked, drenched -with the brackish river water, stained with Heywood's blood. He looked -at her, seeing in the dusk the slim, beautiful lines of her body under -the torn white robe. She flung him a glance, impatient, tense.</p> - -<p>"Ready, Kurland. We're drifting."</p> - -<p>"Ride the eddies," he warned, his arm tightening for an instant about -her half-bare shoulders. "We'll hug the wall." He bent for a moment, -seizing the dead man's boot and plunging his arm beneath the surface. -In his hand when he arose was the jackal's blue-black glare-pistol. -Holstering it, he pressed her hand, swung forward, and launched himself -flatly into the stream, her white body streaking at his side. They -emerged near the rocky wall where the swirling riffles were white -in the shadowy dusk and the ragged teeth of the overhead rocks bit -wickedly down at them as they swam. The raft turned about two or three -times, then sped silently downstream into the bowels of the planet, -bearing the dead Heywood to the unknown tomb he had meant for them.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Thereafter, it became a nightmare neither could ever quite remember nor -forget. Rocks battered them. Shallow water, giving a moment's respite -from effort, made the struggle upstream seem the harder. Foam and spray -blinded them. Eddies spun them crazily in the dark. Narrow sluices -tore at them forcing them relentlessly back into the depths. Only the -rope connecting their arms saved both on more than one occasion, and -within yards of the entrance it parted. Kurland's powerful arm closed -about Irene, the renewed light from the nearing tunnel-mouth bright on -her upturned face. He grinned down at her from the tangled black hair -framing his shadowed face.</p> - -<p>"Stick it, Recorder," he whispered, and felt her go limp in his arm. -The title was no longer a biting imprecation. She took a breath, flung -back her own tangled curls, and leaned forward into the current once -more. He could not see her face. Heads down, they bent stiff arms, -threshed leaden thighs, and fought again the grim river boiling into -the tunnel. The open cave was full in view.</p> - -<p>Less than an hour after they had been flung to death from its worn -stones, they lay gasping on the rude quay, their hands dug into the -rocky surface as though to anchor themselves forever to the solidity it -represented. There were no signs of Gion or any of his men.</p> - -<p>Kurland stirred, sat up. Irene just looked at him, not troubling -to lift her head from the quay. He pulled off his torn jacket, his -massive chest and powerful arms strangely white in the brilliant atomic -overhead. The tangled black beard dripped upon the floor, the faint -drops loud in the silence. He shook himself, getting to his feet, a -wild, ragged, outlandish figure. The heavy gun swinging low on his hip -gleamed blackly.</p> - -<p>She sat up, the water running from the rags of her once-dainty gown. -She ran her hands through her black hair, watching him. His face was -flinty, shadowed in the brilliance.</p> - -<p>"What now, Kurland?"</p> - -<p>His hand stroked the gleaming butt of his gun. He looked at her, -unseeing.</p> - -<p>"Gion."</p> - -<p>"No." Her voice was oddly flat, accented.</p> - -<p>"We made a good bargain, Gion and I," he replied, his eyes accepting -her. "The jewels for my men's lives. Now, I collect."</p> - -<p>She came to her feet, lithe and graceful even in her ragged tatters. -"Not with guns, Kurland! I can free your men. I can ruin Gion, smash -his rotten empire. I'm a Recorder. My word could break him in any court -from here to Pluto. The law can handle him."</p> - -<p>"Our law is here," replied Kurland, gravely. His hand patted the black -leather holster sheathing Heywood's gun.</p> - -<p>"Outlaw guns!" she flared. "Is that your justice, here on Jupiter?"</p> - -<p>"You have tasted Gion's!" he grimly reminded her. "Courts! Laws! And -who will serve the Marward with the warrant, girl? He feeds a thousand -men within this single fortress city. He rules the rest through fear."</p> - -<p>She looked up the passage where the Marward had vanished and there was -a strange and haunting look upon her lovely face.</p> - -<p>"It will not hold them now," she said, her voice unsteady. "Gion is -dead."</p> - -<p>His face blanked. She nodded.</p> - -<p>"Your reason?" His eyes bored into hers. Only the sibilant gurgle of -the river glancing past disturbed the quiet of the ancient dungeon.</p> - -<p>"Why did Gion send across the System to wreck the <i>Plutonian</i>?" she -replied. "Perhaps to avert suspicion, yes. But I can tell you why. He -had to, because the <i>Plutonian</i> would never come to Jupiter. Because -the Jewels of Orion were slipping beyond his grasp forever."</p> - -<p>"You mean ..." Kurland began, slowly.</p> - -<p>"They did not dare. They were exhibited on all the inner worlds, but -not on Saturn, nor on Jupiter. They're unstable, crystallized gas from -a galaxy a million miles beyond the belt of Orion."</p> - -<p>"We handled them," he urged.</p> - -<p>"In Terran atmosphere, yes. The Council dare not risk them free in -anything less. Let the Cranford elements touch those jewels ..." Her -shrug was expressive.</p> - -<p>"The jewel boxes were upon his desk when I awoke," he rejoined, tugging -thoughtfully at his beard.</p> - -<p>"He had not opened them," she replied, positively. "They were his bait, -to dull his jackal Heywood's wits, to speed him into carelessness. You -saw his impatience to be done, to divide the spoil. He was in haste for -his reward."</p> - -<p>"Gion did not keep him waiting," replied Kurland, a grim laugh in the -words. "I did not know of this."</p> - -<p>"It is known to few, Recorders among them. I tell you that you may -leave the Marward to his fate."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Kurland shook his head. "But not my men. His remain, and mine are -outlaws by his decree. I cannot abandon them."</p> - -<p>"I revoke your outlawry, and your men's." Her mien was imperious, and -he did not demur.</p> - -<p>"You have the power?" he asked, quietly.</p> - -<p>"He had no authority to sentence. Authority or none, my word outweighs -his, my will his law." She watched him steadily, and he smiled back, a -glow about his heart at the fine, proud spirit of this woman fighting -hard against his rocky will.</p> - -<p>He took her arm. "You have a theory. Let us test it, on Gion." They -moved softly into the rough-cut corridor. The lights were very old and -dim with ancient grime, but the way was plain enough. Kurland grinned -at her. "They did not plan on our returning."</p> - -<p>"They did not plan on many things," she whispered, her voice suddenly -venomous. "I remember nothing after Heywood stunned you, there in the -<i>Plutonian</i>, until he tied me to the raft just before you came. He was -kind enough to inform me that I was on Jupiter, under Gion's fortress, -and could expect to die there. When he spoke of the reward he had -earned by his treachery, I realized what Gion had become and how justly -he might be punished."</p> - -<p>While she whispered, they had swiftly stolen along the stone tunnels -cut long ago by the Jovians for the first wild troops of Earth. Kurland -unerringly led the way, following the dusty trail of footsteps he -himself had earlier trodden under the guns of the Marward and his -agent. Suddenly he paused, feeling a rough projection under his palm -still warm. He pushed, and a clumsy panel gave, swinging in to reveal -a deep, shadowy pit sinking far down into the depths of the rocks, -extending upward until it was lost in the darkness. He thrust in his -head. Above him the twinkling stars glimmered down through the opening -of the rough volcanic blow-hole, or vent. Directly opposite the panel, -a plank leading to its open port, his own black fighter sat poised -nose-up, and locked in shining modern cradles below were three lesser -craft, dark and wearing no colors.</p> - -<p>"Heywood came last, drifting in on gravity beams," he whispered, moving -aside that she might see. "No one saw him arrive ... nor his cargo."</p> - -<p>"What ships are those?" she asked, peering down.</p> - -<p>"Gion's. Escape craft. The regular cradles on the open field could -go, but he keeps ships here in this forgotten blow-hole, unmarked and -unknown. Insurance. Trust a rat to have a way to leave the sinking -ship. We'll remember them." He closed the door gently.</p> - -<p>They slipped on. Above them the distant sounds of fortress life drifted -through the deserted corridors, but in these depths they met no living -thing. His hand checked her, hard on her soft arm.</p> - -<p>"Beyond that. The room where Gion sat, watching me." His gun was out, -the powerful slides poised and ready in his hand. "Wait here."</p> - -<p>"I needn't," she replied, quietly. "You will not find him, Kurland."</p> - -<p>He rounded the corner, paused. The rough wooden door of the room stood -half ajar. A dim light burned above it, casting dark and mocking -shadows across the worn grey stone. Somewhere a man whistled merrily, -faded away into the distance.</p> - -<p>They moved forward, silent, barefoot on the stone. He sighted on the -door's edge, stepped forward abruptly. She saw him freeze, the gun -lifting, then sway back, his body slowly relaxing. The blaster was -hip-high, level, ruthless as the steel within his greying eyes. The -door swung silently open at his touch.</p> - -<p>Gion sat beyond the table, the leaden boxes piled beside him. One lay -open, tilted carelessly upon its side, and across the gleaming surface -of the table lay a tumbled heap of ruddy golden chains and bangles and -massive, chiseled collars. Bright glints of white and blue and green -sparkled cleanly through the twisted coils of hammered gold, but the -white-hot glare the outlaw knew no longer blazed within the priceless -settings.</p> - -<p>The Jewels of Orion were ... gone.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Kurland and the girl moved forward, their eyes on Gion, sitting in -silence, his hands buried wrist-deep within the tumbled fortune -spilling from the leaden box. He made no move, nor spoke.</p> - -<p>They paused, standing by the table's edge, a golden heap of ancient -rings winking clean white sparks through their coils. A look of -infinite wonder darkened Kurland's face as he studied Gion's.</p> - -<p>"He has escaped us," the outlaw said. "And so easily. He never knew."</p> - -<p>The woman nodded. "They said of him, like Midas, that he had the golden -touch, that everything on which he laid his hand was his. He made it -so, and came to this. A fatal gift, Kurland."</p> - -<p>The Marward's garments stirred to a vagrant draft, shifting in a silver -ripple across his massive chest. But a chest of human flesh no longer. -The Orion jewels had gone, dissolved into air like dreams, and before -the silent Marward lay the empty settings, flaunting their remaining -simpler jewels in barren poverty, but the loss no longer troubled -Gion. Beneath his simple robe his flesh shone with a thousand lustrous -lights, his muscles ridged with Phidian carving in purest emerald -green. His deep-sunk eyes were topaz gold, shot through with jetting -bits of white, and his startled lips were purple as fire-shot jade. -His massive head was translucent through and through, a vein-sprayed -sculpture in Venusian glass where truant silver bubbles froze in silent -thunder as they burst. His hands were coral white, the bones within -curling to and fro like vagrant bits of scarlet ruby, all caught and -held forever in one eternal crash of living color. The Jewels of Orion -had but changed their form, burst from the ancient golden settings to -plunge and explode and freeze anew in living human flesh.</p> - -<p>Gion, Marward of Jupiter, had become himself a jewel.</p> - -<p>Slowly Kurland sheathed his blaster.</p> - -<p>"Our work is done, Irene. And by the Marward himself."</p> - -<p>She looked up at him, pale-faced, dark-eyed, watchful. "I could have -told him as much." Her eyes fell to the table, to the four boxes -remaining unopened, then rose to his. "Must I tell you?"</p> - -<p>He slowly picked up the boxes, weighing their priceless, deadly -contents.</p> - -<p>"My crew is caged back there in those side corridors, near those ships. -We'll take them and go. There's nothing to hold us ... now." His hand -touched her shoulder. "You will come with us?"</p> - -<p>She smiled, and gestured toward the boxes that held the Jewels of Orion.</p> - -<p>There was a pause, and his face slowly paled. But his eyes never left -her. He nodded slowly, then extended the boxes to her. "A Marward -couldn't hold them, and I've been an outlaw too long."</p> - -<p>But her hands gently repulsed his offer. There was color again in her -damp cheeks, a rushing glowing tide of color that warmed her cold body -like wine.</p> - -<p>"We'll deliver them to the authorities. But, until then—hold them for -me, Kurland."</p> - -<p>His eyes glittered as he laid the leaden boxes suddenly on the table -and his hands were rough upon her shoulders.</p> - -<p>"So you make an honest pirate out of me, Irene? You give me name and -ship again, you trust me as you would trust any decent sailorman? Then -take the consequences!" And his lips were hard and fierce on hers, his -arms crushed tight about her ragged body. She stiffened, then slowly -relaxed, her eyes laughing into his.</p> - -<p>"Did I pardon you for less?"</p> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Death From Orion, by W. J. 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J. Matthews - -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: The Death From Orion - -Author: W. J. Matthews - -Release Date: November 22, 2020 [EBook #63854] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DEATH FROM ORION *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - - - - The Death From Orion - - By W. J. MATTHEWS - - Tiny suns set in rare metals, crystals of fire - that mocked Terra's diamonds and pearls as - lusterless pebbles and pale glass, the ancient - treasure left behind the same time-worn - trail of sudden blood and stiffening corpses! - - [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from - Planet Stories Winter 1948. - Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that - the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] - - -For a long minute the big man did not speak, rocking gently on his -heels, hands clasped behind his broad back. The dim glow of the atomics -in the corridor cast shadowy bars of gold and sable across his cold -face, picked glints of steel and silver from his heavy gunbelt and -saffron uniform. The only sound was the gentle tinkle of leg-irons -as the prisoner lounging on the cell-bench idly swung his crossed -leg, returning the heavier man's reptilian stare with a detached, -infuriating coolness. - -It moved him to break his silent regard. The thick voice rasped in the -dim-lit cell. - -"You know why I am here, Kurland?" - -The black-bearded outlaw shrugged, a glitter of white teeth splintering -his calm stare. - -"Were you other than Gion, Marward of Jupiter, I should know. As it -is, I do not." - -Gion's hard lips smiled briefly at the iron compliment. - -"I rate you higher than you think, Kurland. I should have come farther -still to see you hanged at dawn." - -The outlaw shrugged. "I might say the same, had I had your luck." - -The big man nodded, his eyes never leaving Kurland. The sharp brows -over his enormous eyes lay straight and commanding, and there were -lines about his tight mouth Kurland had never seen. Slowly, softly, -Gion went on, rocking easily on his booted heels. - -"Suppose, came dawn, you did not hang, Kurland?" - -The swinging leg halted, the big body tensed in its chains. Then slowly -Kurland eased back against the cold stone wall, a thin, mocking smile -playing across his face. - -"You should know me better, Gion. I am not for sale, even at such a -price. Nor my comrades." - -Cold pride flashed in Marward's eyes. "I buy no man's loyalty," he -retorted. "Were yours for sale, I should not be here, nor would you. I -offer a supposition, nothing more." - -Kurland rose, a powerful, black-clad figure imposing even in torn -uniform and clinking chains. He stared fiercely at the heavy sub-ruler -of the outer Jovian plains, the iron-souled tyrant who had broken and -suborned Earthly sway until much of the giant planet lay supine and -trembling before him. - -"You have not come to taunt me, nor play with suppositions, Marward. -Why not be plain?" - -"I shall be plain enough," promised Gion, dropping a hand upon the -heavy butt of his silver-mounted glare-pistol. Kurland's teeth flashed -in the gloom. There was magic still in his flaming name. - -"You know the Jewels of Orion?" - -"I have heard of them." - -"They have vanished." - -The outlaw shrugged, half a laugh breaking through his beard. "My -regrets, Marward. I had no hand in it." - -Gion bared his teeth wolfishly. "I did." - -Bland astonishment swept Kurland's face. Then, slowly, a grim smile -thrust aside his wonder. - -"Forgive my start, Marward. You have stolen so much." - -Fiercely Gion brushed aside the cold insult. He stepped back, his face -in shadow. The prison cell was electric with his vibrant hate. "You -will have it, will you, Kurland? I came to make an offer." - -"Go on," said the outlaw, immobile. - -"I am not loved, here on Jupiter," said Gion. "I usurp the authority of -greater men. I intrigue, I plot. I conquer and steal, if you will. It -requires gold. A fortune." He paused, watching the outlaw. "An agent -on Venus flashed me word that the Jewels of Orion, crown jewels of a -vanished race on some forgotten planet beyond the stars, were to be -shipped once more to Betelgoran. A hundred fortunes, Kurland. I gave -orders and he shipped as passenger, with the consigned jewels." - -"And then?" Kurland's eyes burned through the gloom. - -"The _Plutonian_ crashed somewhere ten million miles out in space," -said Gion slowly. "My agent. He died with her, and with her people. But -he sent the coordinates through even as she went down on some uncharted -asteroid. I know where the hulk lies piled, an iron coffin for the -Orion jewels." - -Kurland's glare was deadly. "Make your offer, vulture." - -"Go and bring me the jewels." - - * * * * * - -Kurland flung back his head, a sudden roar of laughter in his muscled -throat. The chains clashed on wrist and ankle as he flung derision in -the other's paling face. - -"You send a wolf on a jackal's errand, Marward! You think I would -return, or venture one lean hungry mile on such a rat's voyage to help -you on your way, you whom I have fought these many months, you who -broke and exiled me, you who made me outlaw and today must hang me for -it?" His scorn rasped bitingly in the prison cell, but Gion of Jupiter -was not moved by the love or hate of men. He nodded to the tiny barred -window. - -"Look from the window." - -Kurland looked, seeing in the growing pearl of dawn the black and ugly -shapes athwart the sky were six gibbets stood ranged along the ramparts -of Gion's northern fortress in the Montral foothills. - -"You understand," nodded Gion, leaning against the door. "You will -return, and with the jewels, or your five young companions will be -swinging there to greet you when my men take you, as they took you once -before, Kurland." - -The outlaw turned, ice-veined, but Gion did not stir. - -"I am a prisoner. Judged and doomed. No ship, no crew." - -"Escapes have been arranged before." - -Kurland surveyed the big man curiously. "Why not go yourself on this -golden errand, Marward?" - -Gion shrugged. "Leaving my empire to the wolves? You know I dare not, -nor trust a lieutenant in my place. This is not a secret for friends or -followers." - -"I am no friend of yours. You dare trust me?" - -"Outlaw, fugitive, renegade ... need I fear you, Kurland?" smiled Gion -coolly. "My word against yours." - -Kurland nodded slowly. "I see. But should I return with the jewels, -what assurance have I that my crew and I do not instantly decorate your -gallows yonder?" - -"None," admitted Gion. "Reliance upon my word, I imagine, would -give you scant comfort, but it is not to my interest to have even -the slightest suspicion turned upon me while the jewels are in my -possession. Compared to them, you and your arrogant little band are not -worth the snapping of a broken twig. Bring me the Orions, Kurland, and -your five slip the noose with a day's grace to be beyond my grasp. What -more do you require?" - -"A ship and my crew to man her," replied Kurland, steadily. "I am your -enemy forever, Gion." - -Gion smiled, not without malice. "If you will have it so, Kurland. I am -a bad enemy." - -"You used me once too often, Gion. I was an honest man when first my -ships came trading here, too stiff to crawl to your thieving crew, too -callow to stomach your vicious thrust to power. Exiled, dishonored, -branded, I bear a prouder title than yours, Marward. I am your enemy." - -"Serve me, then, and I promise you scant reward," Gion calmly agreed. -"Your ship lies in the hangar, beyond the outer towers. Fueled. The -chart is marked, your course is set. There are no guards." - -Kurland suggestively clanked his chains. - -Gion stepped into the corridor, his heavy face set and intent. Drawing -his gun, he leveled a short tube with his left hand, focussing it on -Kurland's chains through the doorway grill. As the outlaw pulled, links -parted like melted cheese in the tinted purple glow. - -"There will be reprimands and stern punishments that you were allowed -to conceal a dis-tube about your person," explained Gion, holding -Kurland motionless with the threat of his leveled gun. "You comprehend. -Your companions will be spared, that you be hanged together on your -recapture. There will be no questions, no suspicion. On your return, -you will place the jewels beneath the seat where you have lain, taking -the key you will find there to release your men. Vanish, Kurland. Stay -beyond my power. Expect no mercy, for justice shall be no more swift -and certain to punish your crimes than I to still your tongue for once -and all. You have your warning." - -"You make yourself quite plain," agreed the outlaw, hand on hip. "We -understand one another, Marward of Jupiter. You shall have your mangy -jewels. Nothing else." - -Gion laughed contemptuously. "Have you seen them, wolf's-head? What -else do I need?" - -"Friends, Marward." - -"I have an enemy," Gion mocked, vanishing up the dim-lit corridor in a -blur of fading saffron. His throaty laugh came thickly back to Kurland -as the clicking lock swung the heavy door gently wide. - -Kurland was through it instantly, alert for a treacherous blast, -darting into the shadows of the poor stone corridor, patched and -ragged with broken plaster and creeping moss. Gion had vanished, but -he did not dare venture anything in that direction, bearing as he did -the lives of all his captive crew. Softly he passed down the empty -corridors to the broad upper court overlooking the hillside ramparts. - -His broad chest swelled with the fresh breath of freedom, strained -though it might be through the rude beams of the new-made gallows he -was cheating. The cords along his bearded jaw tightened. His hands -found a tiny pill in a slot of his bread belt, pressed it swiftly -against the unguarded wood of the gallows. He melted into the shadows -of the stairs as a wave of heat and acrid smoke billowed out, engulfing -him and hiding him from view. The startled guards in the towers above -saw the tall gibbets wreathed in sudden consuming flame even as they -stared. - -Rushing to the conflagration, none saw the shadowy figure dart through -the postern far below and vanish into the rocks fringing the landing -ground at the wall's base. A moment later, the deserted hangars erupted -flame and boiling smoke, hurtling into the starry Jovian sky the slim -black fighter manned once again by Eldon Kurland, outlaw. Gaping, they -watched it vanish among the paling stars of dawn. - - - II - -Heywood, Gion's jackal, moped sullenly about the rocks of the jagged -little asteroid, scowling through his vitrine helmet at the tiny figure -moving slowly along the crater floor near the distant bones of the -wrecked _Plutonian_. The intolerable glare of the naked sun, hidden -by the rock's toothed horizon, yet thrust flaming whorls of gold and -scarlet above the mountains to hideously outline the ragged ribs of the -vessel he had diverted from its course to its death on this uncharted -worldlet. - -A scowl he kept hidden from his companion darkened his handsome, waxen -face, and for the hundredth time he muttered imprecations upon his -ill-fortune in the moment of triumph. He had not counted on the girl. - -Allen Heywood depended on nothing save himself, for which his master -Gion valued him more highly than any other tool and trusted him not at -all. Surreptitiously relaying to the Marward the coordinates of the -space-ship on which he had slipped as passenger, Heywood had coldly -blown out the stern-tubes with a delayed-action bomb and sent the big -ship crashing into the selected uncharted asteroid, thinking nothing of -the fifty lives that flared out in the exploding wreckage. More careful -of his own, he had simply stepped out an emergency lock in a space-suit -a moment before the ship struck, allowing himself to slowly drift with -his own momentum and the asteroid's faint gravitational pull. He had -landed a mile from the ship perhaps an hour after it crashed, only to -find himself confronted by another suited figure, the woman Francinet. - -Shaken by the encounter, he realized she had no suspicion of the part -he had played, or that the crash had been less than accidental. She -had herself been saved by the merest freak, having been clad in a -space-suit for a photograph-minded acquaintance. When the ship split, -she had been shot upward through a rent in the hull, drifting slowly -down as had he. They were hopelessly marooned. - -The ship was ruined, if not completely destroyed. Heywood pushed aside -the horrible steel-hard blobs of red which had been human beings with -no apparent qualms, nor troubled himself that it had been he who had -slain them all as surely as with gun or knife. With the bows crushed -shapeless by the headlong smash into the asteroid and the stem blown -wide by its own thermoblast bombs, nothing was left them but a length -or two of warped and twisted main cabin hardly capable of retaining the -Earth atmosphere still flowing through the tiny purifier engines he had -seen to preserving. Cleaning out the unrecognizable dead, he rigged up -a rough shelter for them. They had occupied it by now for over a week. - -He kicked again at a rock, watching it spiral slowly up and over a -crevasse in slow-motion. The jewels were still intact, hidden in -the ship's safe. He had not risked her discovering him tampering -with either, nor the safer course of destroying her as he had her -companions. There was no assurance that another ship than Gion's -rescuing craft might not discover them first. - -That Gion would send a ship for him he believed with implicit faith, -tempered by the knowledge that it would be the loot and not the thief -that the powerful Marward coveted. He had no illusions concerning Gion, -and so had survived. Thus, as he glanced skyward to see a tiny star -moving perceptibly across the blazing night of interspatial glory, -Allen Heywood flattened himself behind a huge rock quite as promptly as -from the devil himself. - -A blaster slid into his hand. The green eyes were intent. - -The little ship was coming down. - - * * * * * - -The long blue glare paled across the unwinking stars and a red column -of fire poured viciously from Kurland's ship, whitening to a rigid -arc lancing into the broken rocks below. Eyes intent, the outlaw bent -forward over his keys, searching the ragged terrain as he braked his -easy dive. Then his firm lips thinned, cruelly hard in the thick beard -masking his copper face. The broken ribs of the lost space-ship thrust -up against the sun, half-hidden in the shadows of a stoney ledge. - -Kurland shut off his drive, thrusting in breakers and snapping down his -forward beams. The eight-man ship he had made known and feared through -all the distant Jovian system drifted easily through the empty sky, -feeling its way on walking tractor beams. The star-shine glinted on the -black lines and heavy armament, hesitating to further lighten the dark -menace of the craft. - -A green beam lanced into a nearby crag, splitting it from top to -bottom, and toppling it in soundless ruin across the crater floor. -Nothing stirred about the silent wreck. - -Lightly the ship touched the crater floor, rocking gently on its beams. -A broad figure in black swung down and moved swiftly across the rock -toward the broken hulk of the _Plutonian_. Heywood softly drifted into -the shadows, floating easily from hollow to hollow, following. - -Kurland stood silent, looking up at the gigantic ruin, majestic even in -its awful desolation, and the look upon his face was not good to see. -There were no deeper hells than those for wreckers, no fate too grim -for one who callously snapped the bright, thin thread of life reaching -out from Earth to all the Solar planets and their hundred circling -satellites. The Marward of Jupiter would buy an empire with this -tangled pile of riven steel. He should find the bargain dear. - -There was no need to seek airlocks in the _Plutonian's_ side. Three -were visible, ripped and gaping, and there were a score of torn holes -twenty feet and more in width broken through the shell where the vessel -had plowed her way into the rocks. Clothes instruments, furniture, -books, and a hundred intimate possessions lay crumpled to view in the -gutted cabins or scattered wide across the shining plain. For a moment -Kurland looked at a headless doll, then moved forward, his face a -deadly mask. - -Swiftly he climbed, mounting the broken stone and twisted metal that -led him to a greater gash leading into an inner saloon. He forced his -way through the debris, then straightened, looking about him curiously. - -Furniture and drapes lay crushed, torn, heaped against the broken -forward bulkheads, but nowhere could he see the dead who must have -died here by the tens and by the score. There was no blood upon the -walls, for blood exposed to the instant void of interstellar space -crystallized in the very bodies of the injured, but in the debris at -the foot of the muralled bulkhead many tiny marbles of dreadful scarlet -rolled and tinkled silently as he searched. - -He moved forward, passing through the shattered bulkheads where open -swinging doors gave acute evidence of the unexpectedness of the -catastrophe which had overwhelmed the ship. Ruin and destruction were -everywhere, but nowhere a trace of the bodies he knew had exploded into -scarlet dust as the biting death of space lanced its deadly vacuum into -the rending vessel. There could be only one answer, and it brought his -gun into his hand as he moved warily through the corridors. - -His search ended in the open, metal-sprayed bowl which had been the -forward pilot cabin, for here, piled hideously in red tangles, the -rigid blots whose life-blood had rolled beneath his feet in bright -pellets as he walked lay sprawled in horrible disfigurement. There were -no longer anything at all. Simply _color_, encompassed in torn and -broken clothing. - -Whiter than the fleshless bone displayed before him, Kurland thrust -to the swinging door, welding it shut in one impulsive burst of his -blaster. No man should see what lay beyond. Shaking with a terrible -anger, Kurland strode furiously back the broken ship, gun in hand, and -flung his curses on ahead. He opened nothing, but shot doors and panels -from their hinges as he advanced, eyes glaring for the faintest sign of -movement. Only the man who had planned and executed this horror could -have survived it. - - * * * * * - -Midway in his stride the outlaw halted, gun lifted. The pilot light -over the central chambers glowed softly. There was atmosphere within. -Kurland snarled, closed his gloved hand on the twisted lever. He jerked -and the battered door swung open, revealing a rough airlock improvised -from the usual intercommunicating chamber. He darted in, snapping the -door behind him. Air sighed into the chamber as he drew another rude -lever down from the box nailed to the bulkhead. - -Removing his vitrine helmet, Kurland holstered his gun and thrust open -the inner lock. The air was clean and fresh, Earth-crisp. The room -was battered, but not structurally damaged, and the furnishings were -neatly in place. There were signs that other chambers had been looted -to furnish this one, and Kurland smiled mirthlessly. He silently moved -across the thick blue rug. - -The room beyond was a sleeping cabin, with male attire in the slotted -racks. The stamp of occupancy lay everywhere in the worn, neat articles -stamped with a golden H. The other room of the suite had been fitted -with heat tubes for warmth and cooking, and were piled high with -salvaged foodstuffs. - -Continuing, Kurland found a broken passage beyond this kitchen, leading -deeper into the shop's waist, but cut off from the first suite by -locked doors. The outlaw grinned wickedly and, reversing the charge -silently burned the doors from their slides. There was no sound, no -vibration as he laid them against the wall. Gion had not hunted him for -nothing. - -The room beyond was deep in rugs, the panelled walls well-hung with -costly paintings. A recorder was singing beyond a brocaded drape, and -Kurland could hear footsteps moving lightly across the padded floor. -With one swift bound he was across the anteroom, ripping the drapery -from its flimsy hangings, and stood upon the threshold of the inner -room, a black, terrible figure looming in the warped doorway like the -angel of Death. His voice rang softly through the sudden frozen silence -as he faced the survivor. - -"My apologies. I underestimated Gion." - -Irene Francinet, whirling in anger at an intrusion she attributed -to the hitherto circumspect Heywood, froze at the sight confronting -her, a huge black-bearded stranger with the bronze face of a Japanese -devil-mask. The gloved hands were gargoyle claws, hovering over the -blasters slung at the intruder's steel-black hips, the blazing eyes -lances piercing her to the heart. This was ... Death. - -She had been preparing for a sun-bath under a lamp built into the wall -over the bed. The hand clutching her garments across her breast sank -for a moment, evoking a mirthless grin from the giant that froze her -already icy blood. - -"You needn't trouble," he said, his voice so low she barely heard him. -"It won't work." - -She drew herself up, dark head high, and tried to still the tremor of -her knees. There was good blood in Irene Francinet, and long years of -iron discipline. - -"You are intruding," she said, and her voice was steadier than she -hoped. "Who are you? Where is your ship?" - -His courtesy was insulting as he bowed, his eyes never leaving hers. -"Your pardon. I am Eldon Kurland, late of North Jupiter. _You_ need no -name." - -"I am Irene Francinet, Recorder, of Earth." Her voice was angry, -uneven. "I do not understand you." - -"Let it suffice that I understand you," he replied, his tone acid with -ruthless disdain. He moved slowly forward, his eyes chill diamonds -under the softly glowing atomics, and slowly she retreated, no longer -able to conceal her fear. His hands never left the black handles of his -guns. - -"I knew the Marward's arm is long," he went on, grimly. "None better -than I. I had not thought it long enough to drag the proud name of -Recorder in this bloody mud." - -She halted, stamping her foot on the rug. "What is this talk? Marward -of where? Why do you fling him in my face like ... like refuse?" Bright -color stained her pale cheeks, and he eyed her curiously. - -"You do that well enough, Francinet." He surveyed her from head to -toe, savoring the midnight hair, the eyes flaming bluely into his, the -straight nose and the strong red mouth. "Disclaim Gion of Jupiter if -you will. He's no friend of mine. But save your anger for better men. -I've seen your work." - -Her face was blank, and he answered her brutally. - -"I stand within it. It stinks in the sun. I walked in blood to fling -it in your face, you treacherous snake! I'll see the color of Gion's, -yes, and yours, before either of you hears the last of this!" he blazed -in a sudden whirl of recurring anger. "You'll play at words with me! -You know this ship's cargo! You sent Gion her position even as you blew -her tubes and sent her crashing here with all her helpless people." He -flung a hand back at the door by which he had entered. "Walk out there, -Recorder, and feel their blood roll beneath your feet! You who are so -free with other's lives to win the treacherous praise Gion lulls you -fools asleep with while he robs and slays!" - -"What are you saying?" she whispered, lips stiff in her blanched face. -"You think _I_ wrecked the _Plutonian_? You think I killed those -people?" - -"You live," was his brutal rejoinder. - -"But why? _Why?_" she wailed, abandoning her firm dignity as he loomed -over her, black with anger. "Why should I do so horrible a thing? What -reason could I have?" - -"My reason," he snarled. "Because you must, as I came here because I -must. I to save my comrades from the noose, you for Gion's gold. Well, -you've earned it, and triply over, woman. Where are the jewels?" - -"I have no jewels," she faltered, her hand indicating her few personal -belongings salvaged from the wreckage of her cabin. He brushed them -aside, turned a jeering grin on her. - -"You haven't opened the safe, then? By Throaze, but Gion knows his -tools! Where is it?" - - * * * * * - -She stared at him. "Back there. In the purser's office, I suppose." Her -voice was frankly trembling. "I haven't touched it." - -"Clever. I might not have been the first." He jerked his head aft. -"Ahead of me. March." - -"I'm not ... dressed." - -He tossed her a blanket. "Use that. Show me that safe, _Recorder_." Her -proud title, in his bitter lips, was an epithet, and she bristled. But -she obeyed. - -She moved into the dimly lit corridor beyond her little suite, feeling -her way along the warped and battered passage. They had not attempted -to utilize this part of the vessel, although it lay within their -atmospheric seals, and she had rough going. Kurland moved close behind -her, hand on his gun, but she made no move to oppose him. Her one hope -of safety lay in acceding to this madman's demands, trusting to her -erstwhile companion, Heywood. He must be somewhere about. And Kurland -did not seem to know of his existence. - -The office was a broken shambles, records and papers heaped against the -forward bulkhead. The massive safes had been torn bodily from the wall -and lay upended in the litter. Kurland strode swiftly to the smallest, -motioning her to immobility with his gun. Supplied with Gion by the -proper combinations, he spun the six dials expertly and the three doors -fell open. He took out a small leaden box, then four more. - -Prismatic fire blazed roof-high as he flung back the cover of one, -jetting iridescently from a tumbled mass of primitive goldwork -encrusted with the unbelievable gems of Orion. He lifted a heavy golden -torque, studded with blazing gouts of crimson flame and slung on an -inch-thick rope of giant Venusian pearls worth each the lives of twenty -men. A yellow diamond Chalcidite rolled across the scarred steel of the -open door and came to rest, winking like an evil eye in the dim light -sifting down the corridor behind Kurland. - -His voice was soft, terrible in its hatred as he looked at her, blanket -clutched frozen across her bosom. His eyes blazed as balefully as the -huge jewel winking before him. - -"Will you lie now, Recorder? These are the Jewels of Orion!" - -She did not answer, less for the contemptuous accusation in his voice -than the more dreadful thought her trained mind thrust at her as -insistently. If the _Plutonian_ had been sabotaged and wrecked for -such world-loot, as his sure knowledge, his very presence indicated, -then his first assumption must inevitably be true. The survivor he -considered her must indeed be the hellish wrecker. And she was not the -only survivor. - -Her eyes were enormous. A mound of living fire grew upon the dusty -steel as he piled up the blazing rings and brooches of the long-dead -Orion kings. He tossed down a circlet of hammered gold, wreathed for -the brows of some ancient queen, and the thirty pendant gems tinkled -musically in the silence. Each could have bought the souls of an army, -round, glinting stars of purest emerald green deep-sunk with tiny suns -of icy diamond lustre. Kurland paused in his magical task, looking -across at her. - -"Are they worth the blood we walked upon to reach them, Recorder?" he -asked, quietly. - -"I ... I didn't know," she faltered, meeting his gaze with growing -firmness. - -"Men have died before over these bright toys," he shrugged, opening -another box and pouring it in a blazing cascade over the first heap of -white fire. "Men will die again. And among them, Gion." - -"The Marward of Jupiter?" she whispered. "He knows? He sent you here, -knowing this?" - -"Your message reached him. The Marward is swift to serve his servants. -Particularly those ... bearing gifts." - -"You betray yourself," she flashed, pointing at the gems. "Gion is -evil, but would he trust any messenger with _those_?" - -Kurland looked quietly at her. "The Marward holds me in tighter bonds -than you think, Recorder. If I fail him, five of my friends hang. -Skyhigh." - -She looked searchingly at him. "Who are you? You rate your friends very -high, Black-beard." - - * * * * * - -Kurland smiled, a hard grin with no mirth in it. "I am Eldon Kurland, -as I told you. Outlaw. Gion made. Were you a true Recorder, you should -know of me, and know I hold my men dearer than this trumpery glass from -beyond the Milky Way." His gloved hand struck the gems contemptuously, -tossing jewels to right and left upon the papered flooring. She -followed their meteoric flight, then glanced up in astonishment as -Kurland swayed, knees buckling, and sank with a clash of heavy armor -to sprawl across the fortune he had struck aside. Behind him a bright, -feral countenance smiled wolfishly and the slight figure which had -slipped silently into the room from the passage straightened up -triumphantly, gun in hand. Allen Heywood smiled upon her benignly. - -[Illustration: _The outlaw stiffened, then his knees buckled._] - - - III - -Kurland opened his eyes dizzily, then shut them again. The thick voice -of Gion purred through the spinning darkness. - -"You might as well, Kurland. It's real." - -He opened them again, fixing his unsteady regard upon the heavy, -impassive countenance of the Jovian Marward. Gion sat across the -table, his hands folded upon the polished surface. The leaden boxes -were stacked neatly beside his arm. A thinly wavering smile touched -Kurland's lips as he glanced back at Gion. - -"Your arm is longer than I thought, Gion." - -"You had your warning," shrugged the Marward. - -"How did she do it?" - -Gion smiled, a gross caricature of mirth. "It would be amusing to let -you go in that misapprehension, I suppose. Perhaps profitable. But -you've earned the right to know. The girl wasn't my agent. So much the -worse for her. While you were reviling her, the man who wrecked the -_Plutonian_ walked up behind you. Heywood isn't one to take chances, as -your head probably indicates." - -"Heywood?" - -Gion waved a casual hand at a slight, elegant figure seated at his -right, and the evil little jackal permitted himself a tight-lipped grin -at Kurland, the chained lion. The outlaw studied him without affection. - -"And what do you have on _him_?" - -"Nothing in particular," shrugged Gion. "Heywood is devoted to my -interests, seeing they're his own. I have no more loyal follower, no -better friend." - -Allen Heywood fidgeted under the unusual expansiveness of his patron, -allowing a tinge of color to stain his cold pallor. The look he gave -the Marward was an amazing blend of adulation and open suspicion, and -Kurland smiled thinly. He did not anticipate leaving this little rocky -underground room alive, and had no objection to sowing dissention as a -parting legacy. His dark eyes sought the Marward's. - -"Our gentlemen's agreement, I take it, is off?" - -Gion nodded indifferently. "But naturally. It was not you who fetched -me the Orion jewels, Kurland. Your intentions may have been honorable, -and in all honesty I admit so much, but it was Allen Heywood who -brought me the stones. The reward I meant for you shall be his." - -Kurland glanced at Heywood with some pleasure. The little man might not -care for that. - -The burly Marward rose, pulling his gun. The outlaw noted that the -alert Heywood was on his feet as promptly, his own gun opening in -his hand. But Gion meditated nothing at the moment, apparently, save -ridding himself of evidence even one of his eminence could not brook -revealing. He motioned Kurland to rise. - -The outlaw got up, noting his feet were hobbled by a short rope. His -wrists were lashed behind his back, his holster empty. From the aching -dizziness in his limbs and head he realized that Heywood must have -drugged him after striking him down back upon the asteroid where the -_Plutonian_ had crashed, taking no chances whatsoever on the long -voyage back to Jupiter in Kurland's ship, bearing captive and loot. The -feral little man slipped behind him, prodding him with his blaster. - -"Move, wolf's-head." He shuffled silently after Gion, moving ahead down -rocky, dim-lit corridors. There was no sound but the rasp of their -boots and the growing rumble of underground water not far ahead. - - * * * * * - -The massive stronghold of Montalven where Gion squatted, playing at -power behind the scenes, was far more fortress than palace, relic of -an earlier day when Earthmen maintained their sway by the strength of -their ships and spreading armies rather than by the gentler rule of -law. The taste of power was sweeter in the Marward's mouth than the -empty display indulged in by the appointed viceroys whose strength he -had sapped by gold and treachery, rudely expanding beyond the borders -of the northern province legitimately his own until all the Earth -colonies and many of the native kingdoms trembled at his slightest -word. Kurland was being afforded a further glimpse of the reason. He -had been outlawed and hunted across Jupiter for his defiance of that -lawless sway. He was to die for it now. - -They came out upon a rough stone platform where a swift underground -river glanced roughly by in rude channels, spitting foam and spray -as it dashed against the stone. A flimsily built raft made from an -old door and several planks tied together with rope was moored at the -quay's edge, a foot or so below the floor level, and lying bound upon -it, gagged, lay the girl Kurland had found in the wreckage of the -_Plutonian_, Irene Francinet. Her white dress was already soaked as the -wretched craft bobbed and swayed in the swift current. - -Kurland halted, swung angrily on Gion. "What is this, Marward? You -disclaimed the woman." - -"So I did," placidly agreed Gion. "I told you Allen was thorough. He -brought back _everything_." - -"And ... we know too much?" - -"Too much to hang," replied Gion, frankly. "Not with your friends. -You're going down the river. It doesn't come out." - -"She's a woman, Gion. What's her word against yours?" - -"She's a Recorder, a trained Government official of the highest rank. -Their word against kings and princes, my friend. I don't take chances, -my friend. Step down. Allen, see that he does." - -Under the sudden pressure of Heywood's weapon, there was nothing for -Kurland to do but obey. He stepped down upon the raft, tipping it -dangerously and soaking the Francinet woman to the hips. He squatted -down, obediently. - -Gion nodded. "Tie him to those hinges, Allen. They'll drift for miles -before the roof slopes down and sinks the raft." There was a sudden -gleam in his bulging eyes as the lighter man swung down upon the raft, -but Kurland said nothing. He owed the wrecker-vulture nothing. - -Roped to the worn hinges, he sat quietly watching the bulky Jovian -ruler and his dapper lackey. Gion smiled. - -"Tight enough, Allen. Get back and cast them off." And he gave Heywood -his hand to assist him. Dazzled by the condescension of his noble -confederate, Heywood failed to notice that it was the left hand of -the Marward he grasped. The powerful muscles contracted to heave him -to safety on the rough-hewn quay, and, as he came, the right arm of -the Marward swung abruptly to drive a heavy dagger to the hilt in the -startled little fiend's unprotected throat. Allen Heywood had for once -neglected his caution. - -Contemptuously, Gion released the suddenly slack fingers of his devoted -henchman, the dying man falling heavily back upon the raft, choking in -his bubbling blood. He rolled to one side, staining Irene's white dress -a horrid crimson as he clutched her body, his eyes a glaring horror as -he stared at the faintly smiling Marward watching him, then fell back -limply. His head dropped, his clawed hands relaxed, and he sagged into -the water. A booted leg, caught between two broken planks, held him -precariously, half-submerged. The green waters rushing past darkened -thinly as he fled along the death-trail upon which he had been so -cheerfully embarking Kurland and the hapless Irene Francinet. - -Kurland looked up stonily at the Marward. - -"It doesn't pay to work for you, does it, Gion?" he asked, quietly. - -"I promised him your reward," Gion smiled, bending to cut the rope -holding the raft. "You may share it with him. Bon voyage, my friends." - -The rope parted, the flimsy contraption darting away into the current. -Their last view of the Marward was of a jocular farewell waved after -them as they dashed wildly into the round tunnel below the cavern -where the landing crouched. Shadows engulfed them as the raft swayed -drunkenly through the sibilant darkness. - - - IV - -Even as Gion vanished, Kurland exploded into action. His shoulders -knotted and he exerted every available ounce of strength in a ferocious -test of his wrist lashings. But their dead passenger had been an -expert. They held fast. Writhing over on his side, he doubled himself -and his body tensed, steel-hard muscle and powerful bones and sinew -against the Marward's treacherous bonds. For long moments, as they -whirled and swayed deeper into the darkening tunnel beneath the rocky -hills of Jupiter, he pulled and strained evenly at his leg ropes. - - * * * * * - -Here, too, Heywood had done with professional skill his bravo's work, -but he had lavished no such care on the makeshift raft designed for -the last journey he had not thought to take himself. The rough board -holding Kurland's boots bent upward, cracked, bent double, and split -lengthwise. He jerked his legs free. - -Hooking his boots under a second plank, he slid his bare feet from -the sleek black leather. Twisting about, he clamped a body-scissors -on the gasping Irene Francinet. His powerful back muscles doubled, -coiled upon themselves, lifting her inert figure from the dark water -running over the partially submerged planks where she lay bound. They -creaked, straining, as he exerted a pitiless pressure on her bowed ribs -and chest. The steady leverage of her body slowly twisted loose the -outer planks of the raft, and split two of them cleanly from the rough -framework. - -Gasping, he let her fall, then swung her again in her loosening bonds, -letting her drop down against his own chest. - -"Quickly," he snapped. "Your hands to my wrists! Before the ropes -swell." - -She pressed herself against him, wet and cold in the gathering -darkness, fumbling with the ropes still holding him fast which had -given him the tremendous leverage to break her own bonds. It was a -struggle between her slim fingers and the expanding Jovian fibers of -the cords, but he had been in time. She undid the knots and a moment -later he had torn his hands free and sat up. With one swift move he -slipped her gag off and ripped at her remaining bonds. Board after -board tore free and shot off into the darkness, and when he had -unfastened the last of the thin ropes holding her, stuffing them under -his gun belt, there was little of the raft Heywood had thrown together -but the big door they crouched on and a tangle of crazily-angled planks -astern where the dead jackal's booted leg still thrust up stiffly from -the swirling waters. - -"Here!" Kurland bit at her, thrusting a broken shaft of wood into -her chilled, numb fingers. "Paddle, girl, if you want to see the Sun -again!" And he dug in on his side with another fragment of the plank he -had broken. - -Irene bowed, exerting what strength her long, drug-induced sleep from -the planetoid and consequent imprisonment had left, trying her best to -keep up with Kurland's long, plunging strokes. The raft's wild career -into the depths of the Montral mountains was checked, then halted. They -watched the distant circle of light marking the tunnel entrance, hoping -against hope that its faint glimmer of phosphorescent light might not -fade and dwindle once more. For a moment the raft held, then slowly -inched backward against the current, lurching perilously through the -dashing tunnels of the underground river. - -Kurland glanced swiftly about. An element of his success both -as peaceful racketeer and hunted outlaw had been his ability to -subordinate his naturally sanguine temperament to the circumstances of -the moment. He realized the awkward craft must collapse long before -it was forced upstream to the quay from whence it had been launched. -And should it hold, it was only too evident the paddlers could not. He -tossed aside his board and stood up, drawing her up beside him. - -"You can swim?" he asked. It was more a statement than a question, -for the proud corps of Recorders were the pick of the Solar System's -trained agents. - -"Yes," she replied. "Can we make it?" - -He tossed her the end of the thin rope he pulled from beneath his belt. -"Knot that on your wrist, Recorder. We've travelled so many miles -together, I'd not be parted on this last one." - -She bowknotted the line, then poised, shivering and soaked, drenched -with the brackish river water, stained with Heywood's blood. He looked -at her, seeing in the dusk the slim, beautiful lines of her body under -the torn white robe. She flung him a glance, impatient, tense. - -"Ready, Kurland. We're drifting." - -"Ride the eddies," he warned, his arm tightening for an instant about -her half-bare shoulders. "We'll hug the wall." He bent for a moment, -seizing the dead man's boot and plunging his arm beneath the surface. -In his hand when he arose was the jackal's blue-black glare-pistol. -Holstering it, he pressed her hand, swung forward, and launched himself -flatly into the stream, her white body streaking at his side. They -emerged near the rocky wall where the swirling riffles were white -in the shadowy dusk and the ragged teeth of the overhead rocks bit -wickedly down at them as they swam. The raft turned about two or three -times, then sped silently downstream into the bowels of the planet, -bearing the dead Heywood to the unknown tomb he had meant for them. - - * * * * * - -Thereafter, it became a nightmare neither could ever quite remember nor -forget. Rocks battered them. Shallow water, giving a moment's respite -from effort, made the struggle upstream seem the harder. Foam and spray -blinded them. Eddies spun them crazily in the dark. Narrow sluices -tore at them forcing them relentlessly back into the depths. Only the -rope connecting their arms saved both on more than one occasion, and -within yards of the entrance it parted. Kurland's powerful arm closed -about Irene, the renewed light from the nearing tunnel-mouth bright on -her upturned face. He grinned down at her from the tangled black hair -framing his shadowed face. - -"Stick it, Recorder," he whispered, and felt her go limp in his arm. -The title was no longer a biting imprecation. She took a breath, flung -back her own tangled curls, and leaned forward into the current once -more. He could not see her face. Heads down, they bent stiff arms, -threshed leaden thighs, and fought again the grim river boiling into -the tunnel. The open cave was full in view. - -Less than an hour after they had been flung to death from its worn -stones, they lay gasping on the rude quay, their hands dug into the -rocky surface as though to anchor themselves forever to the solidity it -represented. There were no signs of Gion or any of his men. - -Kurland stirred, sat up. Irene just looked at him, not troubling -to lift her head from the quay. He pulled off his torn jacket, his -massive chest and powerful arms strangely white in the brilliant atomic -overhead. The tangled black beard dripped upon the floor, the faint -drops loud in the silence. He shook himself, getting to his feet, a -wild, ragged, outlandish figure. The heavy gun swinging low on his hip -gleamed blackly. - -She sat up, the water running from the rags of her once-dainty gown. -She ran her hands through her black hair, watching him. His face was -flinty, shadowed in the brilliance. - -"What now, Kurland?" - -His hand stroked the gleaming butt of his gun. He looked at her, -unseeing. - -"Gion." - -"No." Her voice was oddly flat, accented. - -"We made a good bargain, Gion and I," he replied, his eyes accepting -her. "The jewels for my men's lives. Now, I collect." - -She came to her feet, lithe and graceful even in her ragged tatters. -"Not with guns, Kurland! I can free your men. I can ruin Gion, smash -his rotten empire. I'm a Recorder. My word could break him in any court -from here to Pluto. The law can handle him." - -"Our law is here," replied Kurland, gravely. His hand patted the black -leather holster sheathing Heywood's gun. - -"Outlaw guns!" she flared. "Is that your justice, here on Jupiter?" - -"You have tasted Gion's!" he grimly reminded her. "Courts! Laws! And -who will serve the Marward with the warrant, girl? He feeds a thousand -men within this single fortress city. He rules the rest through fear." - -She looked up the passage where the Marward had vanished and there was -a strange and haunting look upon her lovely face. - -"It will not hold them now," she said, her voice unsteady. "Gion is -dead." - -His face blanked. She nodded. - -"Your reason?" His eyes bored into hers. Only the sibilant gurgle of -the river glancing past disturbed the quiet of the ancient dungeon. - -"Why did Gion send across the System to wreck the _Plutonian_?" she -replied. "Perhaps to avert suspicion, yes. But I can tell you why. He -had to, because the _Plutonian_ would never come to Jupiter. Because -the Jewels of Orion were slipping beyond his grasp forever." - -"You mean ..." Kurland began, slowly. - -"They did not dare. They were exhibited on all the inner worlds, but -not on Saturn, nor on Jupiter. They're unstable, crystallized gas from -a galaxy a million miles beyond the belt of Orion." - -"We handled them," he urged. - -"In Terran atmosphere, yes. The Council dare not risk them free in -anything less. Let the Cranford elements touch those jewels ..." Her -shrug was expressive. - -"The jewel boxes were upon his desk when I awoke," he rejoined, tugging -thoughtfully at his beard. - -"He had not opened them," she replied, positively. "They were his bait, -to dull his jackal Heywood's wits, to speed him into carelessness. You -saw his impatience to be done, to divide the spoil. He was in haste for -his reward." - -"Gion did not keep him waiting," replied Kurland, a grim laugh in the -words. "I did not know of this." - -"It is known to few, Recorders among them. I tell you that you may -leave the Marward to his fate." - - * * * * * - -Kurland shook his head. "But not my men. His remain, and mine are -outlaws by his decree. I cannot abandon them." - -"I revoke your outlawry, and your men's." Her mien was imperious, and -he did not demur. - -"You have the power?" he asked, quietly. - -"He had no authority to sentence. Authority or none, my word outweighs -his, my will his law." She watched him steadily, and he smiled back, a -glow about his heart at the fine, proud spirit of this woman fighting -hard against his rocky will. - -He took her arm. "You have a theory. Let us test it, on Gion." They -moved softly into the rough-cut corridor. The lights were very old and -dim with ancient grime, but the way was plain enough. Kurland grinned -at her. "They did not plan on our returning." - -"They did not plan on many things," she whispered, her voice suddenly -venomous. "I remember nothing after Heywood stunned you, there in the -_Plutonian_, until he tied me to the raft just before you came. He was -kind enough to inform me that I was on Jupiter, under Gion's fortress, -and could expect to die there. When he spoke of the reward he had -earned by his treachery, I realized what Gion had become and how justly -he might be punished." - -While she whispered, they had swiftly stolen along the stone tunnels -cut long ago by the Jovians for the first wild troops of Earth. Kurland -unerringly led the way, following the dusty trail of footsteps he -himself had earlier trodden under the guns of the Marward and his -agent. Suddenly he paused, feeling a rough projection under his palm -still warm. He pushed, and a clumsy panel gave, swinging in to reveal -a deep, shadowy pit sinking far down into the depths of the rocks, -extending upward until it was lost in the darkness. He thrust in his -head. Above him the twinkling stars glimmered down through the opening -of the rough volcanic blow-hole, or vent. Directly opposite the panel, -a plank leading to its open port, his own black fighter sat poised -nose-up, and locked in shining modern cradles below were three lesser -craft, dark and wearing no colors. - -"Heywood came last, drifting in on gravity beams," he whispered, moving -aside that she might see. "No one saw him arrive ... nor his cargo." - -"What ships are those?" she asked, peering down. - -"Gion's. Escape craft. The regular cradles on the open field could -go, but he keeps ships here in this forgotten blow-hole, unmarked and -unknown. Insurance. Trust a rat to have a way to leave the sinking -ship. We'll remember them." He closed the door gently. - -They slipped on. Above them the distant sounds of fortress life drifted -through the deserted corridors, but in these depths they met no living -thing. His hand checked her, hard on her soft arm. - -"Beyond that. The room where Gion sat, watching me." His gun was out, -the powerful slides poised and ready in his hand. "Wait here." - -"I needn't," she replied, quietly. "You will not find him, Kurland." - -He rounded the corner, paused. The rough wooden door of the room stood -half ajar. A dim light burned above it, casting dark and mocking -shadows across the worn grey stone. Somewhere a man whistled merrily, -faded away into the distance. - -They moved forward, silent, barefoot on the stone. He sighted on the -door's edge, stepped forward abruptly. She saw him freeze, the gun -lifting, then sway back, his body slowly relaxing. The blaster was -hip-high, level, ruthless as the steel within his greying eyes. The -door swung silently open at his touch. - -Gion sat beyond the table, the leaden boxes piled beside him. One lay -open, tilted carelessly upon its side, and across the gleaming surface -of the table lay a tumbled heap of ruddy golden chains and bangles and -massive, chiseled collars. Bright glints of white and blue and green -sparkled cleanly through the twisted coils of hammered gold, but the -white-hot glare the outlaw knew no longer blazed within the priceless -settings. - -The Jewels of Orion were ... gone. - - * * * * * - -Kurland and the girl moved forward, their eyes on Gion, sitting in -silence, his hands buried wrist-deep within the tumbled fortune -spilling from the leaden box. He made no move, nor spoke. - -They paused, standing by the table's edge, a golden heap of ancient -rings winking clean white sparks through their coils. A look of -infinite wonder darkened Kurland's face as he studied Gion's. - -"He has escaped us," the outlaw said. "And so easily. He never knew." - -The woman nodded. "They said of him, like Midas, that he had the golden -touch, that everything on which he laid his hand was his. He made it -so, and came to this. A fatal gift, Kurland." - -The Marward's garments stirred to a vagrant draft, shifting in a silver -ripple across his massive chest. But a chest of human flesh no longer. -The Orion jewels had gone, dissolved into air like dreams, and before -the silent Marward lay the empty settings, flaunting their remaining -simpler jewels in barren poverty, but the loss no longer troubled -Gion. Beneath his simple robe his flesh shone with a thousand lustrous -lights, his muscles ridged with Phidian carving in purest emerald -green. His deep-sunk eyes were topaz gold, shot through with jetting -bits of white, and his startled lips were purple as fire-shot jade. -His massive head was translucent through and through, a vein-sprayed -sculpture in Venusian glass where truant silver bubbles froze in silent -thunder as they burst. His hands were coral white, the bones within -curling to and fro like vagrant bits of scarlet ruby, all caught and -held forever in one eternal crash of living color. The Jewels of Orion -had but changed their form, burst from the ancient golden settings to -plunge and explode and freeze anew in living human flesh. - -Gion, Marward of Jupiter, had become himself a jewel. - -Slowly Kurland sheathed his blaster. - -"Our work is done, Irene. And by the Marward himself." - -She looked up at him, pale-faced, dark-eyed, watchful. "I could have -told him as much." Her eyes fell to the table, to the four boxes -remaining unopened, then rose to his. "Must I tell you?" - -He slowly picked up the boxes, weighing their priceless, deadly -contents. - -"My crew is caged back there in those side corridors, near those ships. -We'll take them and go. There's nothing to hold us ... now." His hand -touched her shoulder. "You will come with us?" - -She smiled, and gestured toward the boxes that held the Jewels of Orion. - -There was a pause, and his face slowly paled. But his eyes never left -her. He nodded slowly, then extended the boxes to her. "A Marward -couldn't hold them, and I've been an outlaw too long." - -But her hands gently repulsed his offer. There was color again in her -damp cheeks, a rushing glowing tide of color that warmed her cold body -like wine. - -"We'll deliver them to the authorities. But, until then--hold them for -me, Kurland." - -His eyes glittered as he laid the leaden boxes suddenly on the table -and his hands were rough upon her shoulders. - -"So you make an honest pirate out of me, Irene? You give me name and -ship again, you trust me as you would trust any decent sailorman? Then -take the consequences!" And his lips were hard and fierce on hers, his -arms crushed tight about her ragged body. She stiffened, then slowly -relaxed, her eyes laughing into his. - -"Did I pardon you for less?" - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Death From Orion, by W. J. 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