OUR SHIP, THE SPACE-FLYER, Planetara, whose home port was Greater New York, carried mail and passenger traffic to and from both Venus and Mars. Of astronomical necessity, our flights were irregular. The spring of 2070, with both planets close to the Earth, we were making two complete round trips. We had just arrived in Greater New York, one May evening, from Grebhar, Venus Free State. With only five hours in port here, we were departing the same night at the zero hour for Ferrok-Shahn, capital of the Martian Union.
We were no sooner at the landing stage than I found a code flash summoning Dan Dean and me to Divisional Detective Headquarters. Dan “Snap” Dean was one of my closest friends. He was electron-radio operator of the Planetara. A small, wiry, red-headed chap, with a quick, ready laugh and the kind of wit that made everyone like him.
The summons to Detective-Colonel Halsey’s office surprised us. Dean eyed me.
“You haven’t been opening any treasure vaults, have you, Gregg?”
“He wants you, also,” I retorted.
He laughed. “Well, he can roar at me like a traffic switch-man and my private life will remain my own.”
We could not think why we should be wanted. It was the darkness of mid-evening when we left the Planetara for Halsey’s office. It was not a long trip. We went on the upper monorail, descending into the subterranean city at Park Circle 30.
We had never been to Halsey’s office before. Now we found it to be a gloomy, vaultlike place in one of the deepest corridors. The door lifted.
“Gregg Haljan and Daniel Dean.”
The guard stood aside. “Come in.”
I own that my heart was unduly thumping as we entered. The door dropped behind us. It was a small blue-lit apartment—a steel-lined room like a vault.
Colonel Halsey sat at his desk. And the big, heavy-set, florid Captain Carter—our commander on the Planetara—was here. That surprised us: we had not seen him leave the ship.
Halsey smiled at us gravely. Captain Carter spoke with an ominous calmness: “Sit down, lads.”
We took the seats. There was an alarming solemnity about this. If I had been guilty of anything that I could think of, it would have been frightening. But Halsey’s words reassured me.
“It’s about the Grantline Moon Expedition. In spite of our secrecy, the news has gotten out. We want to know how. Can you tell us?”
Captain Carter’s huge bulk—he was about as tall as I am—towered over us as we sat before Halsey’s desk. “If you lads have told anyone—said anything—let slip the slightest hint about it....”
Snap smiled with relief; but he turned solemn at once. “I haven’t. Not a word!”
“Nor have I!” I declared.
The Grantline Moon Expedition! We had not thought of that as a reason for this summons. Johnny Grantline was a close friend of ours. He had organized an exploring expedition to the Moon. Uninhabited, with its bleak, forbidding, airless, waterless surface, the Moon—even though so close to the Earth—was seldom visited. No regular ship ever stopped there. A few exploring parties of recent years had come to grief.
But there was a persistent rumor that upon the Moon, mineral riches of fabulous wealth were awaiting discovery. The thing had already caused some interplanetary complications. The aggressive Martians would be only too glad to explore the Moon. But the United States of the World, which came into being in 2067, definitely warned them away. The Moon was Earth territory, we announced, and we would protect it as such.
There was, nevertheless, a realization by our government, that whatever riches might be upon the Moon should be seized at once and held by some reputable Earth Company. And when John Grantline applied, with his father’s wealth and his own scientific record of attainment, the government was glad to grant him its writ.
The Grantline Expedition had started six months ago. The Martian government had acquiesced to our ultimatum, yet brigands have been known to be financed under cover of a government disavowal. And so our expedition was kept secret.
My words need give no offence to any Martian who comes upon them. I refer to the history of our Earth only. The Grantline Expedition was on the Moon now. No word had come from it. One could not flash helios even in code without letting all the universe know that explorers were on the Moon. And why they were there, anyone could easily guess.
And now Colonel Halsey was telling us that the news was abroad! Captain Carter eyed us closely; his flashing eyes under the white bushy brows would pry a secret from anyone.
“You’re sure? A girl of Venus, perhaps, with her cursed, seductive lure! A chance word, with you lads befuddled by alcolite?”
We assured him that we had been careful. By the heavens, I know that I had been. Not a whisper, even to Snap, of the name Grantline in six months or more.
Captain Carter added abruptly, “We’re insulated here, Halsey?”
“Yes. Talk as freely as you like. An eavesdropping ray will never get through to us.”
They questioned us. They were satisfied at last that, though the secret had escaped, we had not given it away. Hearing it discussed, it occurred to me to wonder why Carter was concerned. I was not aware that he knew of Grantline’s venture. I learned now the reason why the Planetara, upon each of her last voyages, had managed to pass fairly close to the Moon. It had been arranged with Grantline that if he wanted help or had any important message, he was to flash it locally to our passing ship. And this Snap knew, and had never mentioned it, even to me.
Halsey was saying, “Well, apparently we can’t blame you: but the secret is out.”
Snap and I regarded each other. What could anyone do? What would anyone dare do?
Captain Carter said abruptly, “Look here, lads, this is my chance now to talk plainly to you. Outside, anywhere outside these walls, an eavesdropping ray may be upon us. You know that? One may never even dare to whisper since that accursed ray was developed.”
Snap opened his mouth to speak but decided against it. My heart was pounding.
Captain Carter went on: “I know I can trust you two more than anyone under me on the Planetara.”
“What do you mean by that?” I demanded. “What—”
He interrupted me. “Just what I said.”
Halsey smiled grimly. “What he means, Haljan, is that things are not always what they seem these days. One cannot always tell a friend from an enemy. The Planetara is a public vessel. You have—how many is it, Carter?—thirty or forty passengers this trip tonight?”
“Thirty-eight,” said Carter.
“There are thirty-eight people listed for the flight to Ferrok-Shahn tonight,” Halsey said slowly. “And some may not be what they seem.” He raised his thin dark hand. “We have information....” He paused. “I confess, we know almost nothing—hardly more than enough to alarm us.”
Captain Carter interjected, “I want you and Dean to be on your guard. Once on the Planetara it is difficult for us to talk openly, but be watchful. I will arrange for us to be doubly armed.”
Vague, perturbing words! Halsey said, “They tell me George Prince is listed for the voyage. I am suggesting, Haljan, that you keep your eye especially on him. Your duties on the Planetara leave you comparatively free, don’t they?”
“Yes,” I agreed. With the first and second officers on duty, and the Captain aboard, my routine was more or less that of an understudy.
I said, “George Prince? Who is he?”
“A mechanical engineer,” said Halsey. “An underofficial of the Earth Federated Catalyst Corporation. But he associates with bad companions—particularly Martians.”
I had never heard of this George Prince, though I was familiar with the Federated Catalyst Corporation, of course. A semigovernment trust, which controlled virtually the entire Earth supply of radiactum, the catalyst mineral which was revolutionizing industry.
“He was in the Automotive Department,” Carter put in. “You’ve heard of the Federated Radiactum Motor?”
We had, of course. It was a recent Earth discovery and invention. An engine of a new type, using radiactum as its fuel.
Snap demanded, “What in the stars has this got to do with Johnny Grantline?”
“Much,” said Halsey quietly, “or perhaps nothing. But George Prince some years ago mixed in rather unethical transactions. We had him in custody once. He is known as unusually friendly with several Martians in Greater New York of bad reputation.”
“Well?”
“What you don’t know,” Halsey said, “is that Grantline expects to find radiactum on the Moon.”
We gasped.
“Exactly,” said Halsey. “The ill-fated Ballon Expedition thought they had found it on the Moon, shortly after its merit was discovered. A new type of ore—a lode of it is there somewhere, without doubt.”
He added vehemently, “Do you understand now why we should be suspicious of this George Prince? He has a criminal record. He has a thorough technical knowledge of radium ores. He associates with Martians of bad reputation. A large Martian company has recently developed a radiactum engine to compete with our Earth motor. There is very little radiactum available on Mars, and our government will not allow our own supply to be exported. What do you suppose that company on Mars would pay for a few tons of richly radioactive radiactum such as Grantline may have found on the Moon?”
“But,” I objected, “That is a reputable Martian company. It’s backed by the government of the Martian Union. The government of Mars would not dare—”
“Of course not!” Captain Carter exclaimed sardonically. “Not openly! But if Martian Brigands had a supply of radiactum I don’t imagine where it came from would make much difference. The Martian company would buy it, and you know that as well as I do!”
Halsey added, “And George Prince, my agents inform me, seems to know that Grantline is on the Moon. Put it all together, lads. Little sparks show the hidden current.
“More than that: George Prince knows that we have arranged to have the Planetara stop at the Moon and bring back Grantline’s ore.... This is your last voyage this year. You’ll hear from Grantline this time, we’re convinced. He’ll probably give you the signal as you pass the Moon on your way out. Coming back, you’ll stop at the Moon and transport whatever radiactum ore Grantline has ready. The Grantline Flyer is too small for ore transportation.”
Halsey’s voice turned grimly sarcastic. “Doesn’t it seem queer that George Prince and a few of his Martian friends happen to be listed as passengers for this voyage?”
In the silence that followed, Snap and I regarded each other. Halsey added abruptly:
“We had George Prince typed that time we arrested him four years ago. I’ll show him to you.”
He snapped open an alcove, and said to his waiting attendant “Flash on the type of George Prince.”
Almost at once, the image glowed on the grids before us. He stood smiling sourly before us as he repeated the official formula:
“My name is George Prince. I was born in Greater New York twenty-five years ago.”
I gazed at this televised image of George Prince. He stood somber in the black detention uniform, silhouetted sharply against the regulation backdrop of vivid scarlet. A dark, almost femininely handsome fellow, well below medium height—the rod checking him showed five foot four inches. Slim and slight. Long, wavy black hair, falling about his ears. A pale, clean-cut, really handsome face, almost beardless. I regarded it closely. A face that would have been beautiful without its masculine touch of heavy black brows and firmly set jaw. His voice as he spoke was low and soft; but at the end, with the concluding words, “I am innocent!” it flashed into strong masculinity. His eyes, shaded with long girlish black lashes, by chance met mine. “I am innocent.” His curving sensuous lips drew down into a grim sneer....
Halsey snapped a button. He turned back to Snap and me as his attendant drew the curtain, hiding the black grid.
“Well, there he is. We have nothing tangible against him now. But I’ll say this: he’s a clever fellow, one to be afraid of. I would not blare it from the newscasters’ stadium, but if he is hatching any plot, he has been too clever for my agents!”
We talked for another half-hour, and then Captain Carter dismissed us. We left Halsey’s office with Carter’s final words ringing in our ears. “Whatever comes, lads, remember I trust you....”
Snap and I decided to walk part of the way back to the ship. It was barely more than a mile through this subterranean corridor to where we could get the vertical lift direct to the landing stage.
We started off on the lower level. Once outside the insulation of Halsey’s office we did not dare talk of this thing. Not only electrical ears, but every possible eavesdropping device might be upon us. The corridor was two hundred feet or more below the ground level. At this hour of the night the business section was comparatively deserted. The stores and office arcades were all closed.
Our footfall echoed on the metal grids as we hurried along. I felt depressed and oppressed. As though prying eyes were upon me. We walked for a time in silence, each of us busy with memory of what had transpired at Halsey’s office.
Suddenly Snap gripped me. “What’s that?”
“Where?” I whispered.
We stopped at a corner. An entryway was here. Snap pulled me into it. I could feel him quivering with excitement.
“What is it?” I demanded in a whisper.
“We’re being followed. Did you hear anything?”
“No!” Yet I thought now that I could hear something. Vague footfalls. A rustling. And a microscopic whine, as though some device were within range of us.
Snap was fumbling in his pocket. “Wait! I’ve got a pair of low-scale detectors.”
He put the little grids against his ears. I could hear the sharp intake of his breath. Then he seized me, pulled me down to the metal floor of the entryway.
“Back, Gregg! Get back!” I could barely hear his whisper. We crouched as far back into the doorway as we could get. I was armed. My official permit for the carrying of the pencil heat ray allowed me always to have it with me. I drew it now. But there was nothing to shoot at. I felt Snap clamping the grids on my ears. And now I heard something! An intensification of the vague footsteps I had thought I heard before.
There was something following us! Something out in the corridor there now! The corridor was dim, but plainly visible, and as far as I could see it was empty. But there was something there. Something invisible! I could hear it moving. Creeping toward us. I pulled the grids off my ears.
Snap murmured, “You’ve got a local phone?”
“Yes. I’ll get them to give us the street glare!”
I pressed the danger signal, giving our location to the operator. In a second we got the light. The street in all this neighborhood burst into a brilliant actinic glare. The thing menacing us was revealed! A figure in a black cloak, crouching thirty feet away across the corridor.
Snap was unarmed but he flung his hands out menacingly. The figure, which may perhaps not have been aware of our city safeguard, was taken wholly by surprise. A human figure, seven feet tall at the least, and therefore, I judged, a Martian man. The black cloak covered his head. He took a step toward us, hesitated, and then turned in confusion.
Snap’s shrill voice was bringing help. The whine of a street guard’s alarm whistle nearby sounded. The figure was making off! My pencil ray was in my hand and I pressed its switch. The tiny heat ray stabbed through the air, but I missed. The figure stumbled but did not fall. I saw a bare gray arm come from the cloak, flung up to maintain its balance. Or perhaps my pencil ray had seared his arm. The gray-skinned arm of a Martian.
Snap was shouting, “Give him another!” But the figure passed beyond the actinic glare and vanished.
We were detained in the turmoil of the corridor for ten minutes or more with official explanations. Then a message from Halsey released us. The Martian who had been following us in his invisible cloak was never caught.
We escaped from the crowd at last and made our way back to the Planetara, where the passengers were already assembling for the outward Martian voyage.
I STOOD ON THE turret balcony of the Planetara with Captain Carter and Dr. Frank, the ship surgeon, watching the arriving passengers. It was close to the zero hour; the level of the stage was a turmoil of confusion. The escalators, with the last of the freight aboard, were folded back. But the stage was jammed with incoming passenger luggage, the interplanetary customs and tax officials with their x-ray and zed-ray paraphernalia and the passengers themselves, lined up for the export inspection.
At this height, the city lights lay spread in a glare of blue and yellow beneath us. The individual local planes came dropping like birds to our stage. Thirty-eight passengers to Mars for this voyage, but that accursed desire of every friend and relative to speed the departing voyager brought a hundred or more extra people to crowd our girders and add to everybody’s troubles.
Carter was too absorbed in his duties to stay with us long. But here in the turret Dr. Frank and I found ourselves at the moment with nothing much to do but watch.
Dr. Frank was a thin, dark, rather smallish man of fifty, trim in his blue and white uniform. I knew him well: we had made several flights together. An American—I fancy of Jewish ancestry. A likable man, and a skillful doctor and surgeon. He and I had always been good friends.
“Crowded,” he said. “Johnson says thirty-eight. I hope they’re experienced travelers. This pressure sickness is a rotten nuisance—keeps me dashing around all night assuring frightened women they’re not going to die. Last voyage, coming out of the Venus atmosphere—”
He plunged into a lugubrious account of his troubles with space sick voyagers. But I was in no mood to listen to him. My gaze was down on the spider incline, up which, over the bend of the ship’s sleek, silvery body, the passengers and their friends were coming in little groups. The upper deck was already jammed with them.
The Planetara, as flyers go, was not a large vessel. Cylindrical of body, forty feet maximum beam, and two hundred and seventy-five feet in length. The passenger superstructure—no more than a hundred feet long—was set amidships. A narrow deck, metallically enclosed, and with large bull’s-eye windows, encircled the superstructure. Some of the cabins opened directly onto the deck. Others had doors to the interior corridors. There were half a dozen small but luxurious public rooms.
The rest of the vessel was given to freight storage and the mechanism and control compartments. Forward of the passenger structure the deck level continued under the cylindrical dome roof to the bow. The forward watch tower observatory was here, officers’ cabins, Captain Carter’s navigating rooms and Dr. Frank’s office. Similarly, under the stern dome, was the stern watch tower and a series of power compartments.
Above the superstructure a confusion of spider bridges, ladders and balconies were laced like a metal network. The turret in which Dr. Frank and I now stood was perched here. Fifty feet away, like a bird’s nest, Snap’s instrument room stood clinging to the metal bridge. The dome roof, with the glassite windows rolled back now, rose in a mound peak to cover the highest middle portion of the vessel.
Below, in the main hull, blue lit metal corridors ran the entire length of the ship. Freight storage compartments; gravity control rooms; the air renewal system; heater and ventilators and pressure mechanisms—all were located there. And the kitchens, stewards’ compartments, and the living quarters of the crew. We carried a crew of sixteen, this voyage, exclusive of the navigating officers, the purser, Snap Dean, and Dr. Frank.
The passengers coming aboard seemed a fair representation of what we usually had for the outward voyage to Ferrok-Shahn. Most were Earth people—and returning Martians. Dr. Frank pointed out one. A huge Martian in a grey cloak. A seven foot fellow.
“His name is Set Miko,” Dr. Frank remarked. “Ever heard of him?”
“No,” I said. “Should I?”
“Well—” The doctor suddenly checked himself, as though he were sorry he had spoken.
“I never heard of him,” I repeated slowly.
An awkward silence fell between us.
There were a few Venus passengers. I saw one of them presently coming up the incline, and recognized her. A girl traveling alone. We had brought her from Grebhar, last voyage but one. I remembered her. An alluring sort of girl, as most of them are. Her name was Venza. She spoke English well. A singer and dancer who had been imported to Greater New York to fill some theatrical engagement. She’d made quite a hit on the Great White Way.
She came up the incline with the carrier ahead of her. Gazing up, she saw Dr. Frank and me at the turret window, smiled and waved her white arm in greeting.
Dr. Frank laughed. “By the gods of the airways, there’s Alta Venza! You saw that look, Gregg? That was for me, not you.”
“Reasonable enough,” I retorted. “But I doubt it—the Venza is nothing if not impartial.”
I wondered what could be taking Venza now to Mars. I was glad to see her. She was diverting. Educated. Well traveled. Spoke English with a colloquial, theatrical manner more characteristic of Greater New York than of Venus. And for all her light banter, I would rather put my trust in her than any Venus girl I had ever met.
The hum of the departing siren was sounding. Friends and relatives of the passengers were crowding the exit incline. The deck was clearing. I had not seen George Prince come aboard. And then I thought I saw him down on the landing stage, just arrived from a private tube car. A small, slight figure. The customs men were around him. I could only see his head and shoulders. Pale, girlishly handsome face; long, black hair to the base of his neck. He was bare-headed, with the hood of his traveling cloak pushed back.
I stared, and I saw that Dr. Frank was also gazing down. But neither of us spoke.
Then I said upon impulse, “Suppose we go down to the deck, Doctor?”
He acquiesced. We descended to the lower room of the turret and clambered down the spider ladder to the upper deck level. The head of the arriving incline was near us. Preceded by two carriers who were littered with hand luggage, George Prince was coming up the incline. He was closer now. I recognized him from the type we had seen in Halsey’s office.
And then, with a shock, I saw it was not so. This was a girl coming aboard. An arc light over the incline showed her clearly when she was half way up. A girl with her hood pushed back; her face framed in thick black hair. I saw now it was not a man’s cut of hair; but long braids coiled up under the dangling hood.
Dr. Frank must have remarked my amazed expression. “Little beauty, isn’t she?”
“Who is she?”
We were standing back against the wall of the superstructure. A passenger was near us—the Martian whom Dr. Frank had called Miko. He was loitering here, quite evidently watching this girl come aboard. But as I glanced at him, he looked away and casually sauntered off.
The girl came up and reached the deck. “I am in A22,” she told the carrier. “My brother came aboard a couple of hours ago.”
Dr. Frank answered my whisper. “That’s Anita Prince.”
She was passing quite close to us on the deck, following the carrier, when she stumbled and very nearly fell. I was nearest to her. I leaped forward and caught her as she nearly went down.
With my arm about her, I raised her up and set her upon her feet again. She had twisted her ankle. She balanced herself upon it. The pain of it eased up in a moment.
“I’m all right—thank you!”
In the dimness of the blue lit deck I met her eyes. I was holding her with my encircling arm. She was small and soft against me. Her face, framed in the thick, black hair, smiled up at me. Small, oval face—beautiful—yet firm of chin, and stamped with the mark of its own individuality. No empty-headed beauty, this.
“I’m all right, thank you very much—”
I became conscious that I had not released her. I felt her hands pushing at me. And then it seemed that for an instant she yielded and was clinging. And I met her startled upflung gaze. Eyes like a purple night with the sheen of misty starlight in them.
I heard myself murmuring, “I beg your pardon. Yes, of course!” I released her.
She thanked me again and followed the carriers along the deck. She was limping slightly.
An instant she had clung to me. A brief flash of something, from her eyes to mine—from mine back to hers. The poets write that love can be born of such a glance. The first meeting, across all the barriers of which love springs unsought, unbidden—defiant, sometimes. And the troubadours of old would sing: “A fleeting glance; a touch; two wildly beating hearts—and love was born.”
I think, with Anita and me, it must have been like that.
I stood, gazing after her, unconscious of Dr. Frank, who was watching me with his quizzical smile. And presently, no more than a quarter beyond the zero hour, the Planetara got away. With the dome windows battened tightly, we lifted from the landing stage and soared over the glowing city. The phosphorescence of the electronic tubes was like a comet’s tail behind us as we slid upward.
AT SIX A.M., EARTH Eastern time, which we were still carrying, Snap Dean and I were alone in his instrument room, perched in the network over the Planetara’s deck. The bulge of the dome enclosed us; it rounded like a great observatory window some twenty feet above the ceiling of this little metal cubbyhole.
The Planetara was still in Earth’s shadow. The firmament—black, interstellar space with its blazing white, red and yellow stars—lay spread around us. The Moon, with nearly all its disc illumined, hung, a great silver ball, over our bow quarter. Behind it, to one side, Mars floated like the red tip of a smoldering cigar in the blackness. The Earth, behind our stern, was dimly, redly visible—a giant sphere, etched with the configurations of its oceans and continents. Upon one limb a touch of sunlight hung on the mountain tops with a crescent red-yellow sheen.
And then we plunged from the cone shadow. The Sun with the leaping corona, burst through the blackness behind us. The Earth lighted into a huge, thin crescent with hooked cusps.
To Snap and me, the glories of the heavens were too familiar to be remarked. And upon this voyage particularly we were in no mood to consider them. I had been in the radio room several hours. When the Planetara started, and my few routine duties were over, I could think of nothing save Halsey’s and Carter’s admonition: “Be on your guard. And particularly—watch George Prince.”
I had not seen George Prince. But I had seen his sister, whom Carter and Halsey had not bothered to mention. My heart was still pounding with the memory.
Dr. Frank evidently was having little trouble with pressure sick passengers. The Planetara’s equalizers were fairly efficient. Prowling through the silent metal lounges and passages, I went to the door of A22. It was on the deck level, in a tiny transverse passage just off the main lounging room. Its name-grid glowed with the letters: Anita Prince. I stood in my short white trousers and white silk shirt, like a cabin steward staring. Anita Prince! I had never heard the name until this night. But there was magic music in it now, as I murmured it.
She was here, doubtless asleep, behind this small metal door. It seemed as though that little oval grid were the gateway to a fairyland of my dreams.
I turned away. Thought of the Grantline Moon Expedition stabbed at me. George Prince—Anita’s brother—he whom I had been warned to watch. This renegade—associate of dubious Martians, plotting God knows what.
I saw, upon the adjoining door, A20, George Prince. I listened. In the humming stillness of the ship’s interior there was no sound from these cabins. A20 was without windows, I knew. But Anita’s room had a window and a door which gave upon the deck. I went through the lounge, out its arch and walked the deck length. The deck door and window of A22 were closed and dark.
The deck was dim with white starlight from the side ports. Chairs were here but they were all empty. From the bow windows of the arching dome a flood of moonlight threw long, slanting shadows down the deck. At the corner where the superstructure ended, I thought I saw a figure lurking as though watching me. I went that way, but it vanished.
I turned the corner, went the width of the ship to the other side. There was no one in sight save the observer on his spider bridge, high in the bow network, and the second officer, on duty on the turret balcony almost directly over me.
As I stood and listened, I suddenly heard footsteps. From the direction of the bow a figure came. Purser Johnson.
He greeted me. “Cooling off, Gregg?”
“Yes,” I said.
He passed me and went into the smoking room door nearby.
I stood a moment at one of the deck windows, gazing at the stars; and for no reason at all I realized I was tense. Johnson was a great one for his regular sleep—it was wholly unlike him to be roaming about the ship at such an hour. Had he been watching me? I told myself it was nonsense. I was suspicious of everyone, everything, this voyage.
I heard another step. Captain Carter appeared from his chart room which stood in the center of the narrowing open deck space near the bow. I joined him at once.
“Who was that?” he half whispered.
“Johnson.”
“Oh, yes.” He fumbled in his uniform; his gaze swept the moonlit deck. “Gregg—take this.” He handed me a small metal box. I stuffed it at once into my shirt.
“An insulator,” he added swiftly. “Snap is in his office. Take it to him, Gregg. Stay with him—you’ll have a measure of security—and you can help him to make the photographs.” He was barely whispering. “I won’t be with you—no use making it look as though we were doing anything unusual. If your graphs show anything—or if Snap picks up any message—bring it to me.” He added aloud, “Well, it will be cool enough presently, Gregg.”
He sauntered away toward his chart room.
“By heavens, what a relief!” Snap murmured as the current went on. We had wired his cubby with the insulator; within its barrage we could at least talk with a degree of freedom.
“You’ve seen George Prince, Gregg?”
“No. He’s assigned A20. But I saw his sister. Snap, no one ever mentioned—”
Snap had heard of her, but he hadn’t known that she was listed for this voyage. “A real beauty, so I’ve heard. Accursed shame for a decent girl to have a brother like that.”
I could agree with him there....
It was now six a.m. Snap had been busy all night with routine cosmos-radios from the Earth, following our departure. He had a pile of them beside him.
“Nothing queer looking?” I suggested.
“No. Not a thing.”
We were at this time no more than sixty-five thousand miles from the Moon’s surface. The Planetara presently would swing upon her direct course for Mars. There was nothing which could cause passenger comment in this close passing of the Moon; normally we used the satellite’s attraction to give us additional starting speed.
It was now or never that a message would come from Grantline. He was supposed to be upon the Earthward side of the Moon. While Snap had rushed through with his routine, I searched the Moon’s surface with our glass.
But there was nothing. Copernicus and Kepler lay in full sunlight. The heights of the lunar mountains, the depths of the barren, empty seas were etched black and white, clear and clean. Grim, forbidding desolation, this unchanging Moon. In romance, moonlight may shimmer and sparkle to light a lover’s smile; but the reality of the Moon is cold and bleak. There was nothing to show my prying eyes where the intrepid Grantline might be.
“Nothing at all, Snap.”
And Snap’s instruments, attuned for an hour now to pick up the faintest signal, were motionless.
“If he has concentrated any appreciable amount of ore,” said Snap. “We should get an impulse from its rays.”
But our receiving shield was dark, untouched. Our mirror grid gave the magnified images; the spectro, with its wave length selection, pictured the mountain levels and slowly descended into the deepest seas.
There was nothing.
Yet in those Moon caverns—a million million recesses amid the crags of that tumbled, barren surface—the pin point of movement which might have been Grantline’s expedition could so easily be hiding! Could he have the ore insulated, fearing its rays would betray its presence to hostile watchers?
Or might disaster have come to him? He might not be on this hemisphere of the Moon at all....
My imagination, sharpened by fancy of a lurking menace which seemed everywhere about the Planetara this voyage, ran rife with fears for Johnny Grantline. He had promised to communicate this voyage. It was now, or perhaps never.
Six-thirty came and passed. We were well beyond the Earth’s shadow now. The firmament blazed with its vivid glories; the Sun behind us was a ball of yellow-red leaping flames. The Earth hung, a huge, dull red half sphere.
We were within forty thousand miles of the Moon. A giant white ball—all of its disc visible to the naked eye. It poised over the bow, and presently, as the Planetara swung upon its course for Mars, it shifted sidewise. The light of it glared white and dazzling in our windows.
Snap, with his habitual red celluloid eyeshade shoved high on his forehead, worked over our instruments.
“Gregg!”
The receiving shield was glowing a trifle. Rays were bombarding it! It glowed, gleamed phosphorescent, and the audible recorder began sounding its tiny tinkling murmurs.
Gamma rays! Snap sprang to the dials. The direction and strength were soon obvious. A richly radioactive ore body was concentrated upon this hemisphere of the Moon! It was unmistakable.
“He’s got it, Gregg! He’s—”
The tiny grids began quivering. Snap exclaimed triumphantly, “Here he comes! By God, the message at last!”
Snap decoded it.
Success! Stop for ore on your return voyage. Will give you our location later. Success beyond wildest hopes.
Snap murmured, “That’s all. He’s got the ore!”
We were sitting in darkness, and abruptly I became aware that across our open window, where the insulation barrage was flung, the air was faintly hissing. An interference there! I saw a tiny swirl of purple sparks. Someone—some hostile ray from the deck beneath us, or from the spider bridge that led to our little room—someone out there was trying to pry in!
Snap impulsively reached for the absorbers to let in the outside light. But I checked him.
“Wait!” I cut off our barrage, opened our door and stepped to the narrow metal bridge.
“You stay there, Snap!” I whispered. Then I added aloud, “Well, Snap, I’m going to bed. Glad you’ve cleaned up that batch of work.”
I banged the door upon him. The lacework of metal bridges seemed empty. I gazed up to the dome, and forward and aft. Twenty feet beneath me was the metal roof of the cabin superstructure. Below it, both sides of the deck showed. All patched with moonlight.
No one visible down there. I descended a ladder. The deck was empty. But in the silence something was moving! Footsteps moving away from me down the deck! I followed; and suddenly I was running. Chasing something I could hear, but could not see. It turned into the smoking room.
I burst in. And a real sound smothered the phantom. Johnson the purser was sitting here alone in the dimness. He was smoking. I noticed that his cigar held a long frail ash. It could not have been him I was chasing. He was sitting there quite calmly. A thick-necked, heavy fellow, easily out of breath. But he was breathing calmly now.
He sat up in amazement at my wild-eyed appearance, and the ash jarred from his cigar.
“Gregg! What in the devil—”
I tried to grin. “I’m on my way to bed—worked all night helping Snap.”
I went past him, out the door into the main corridor. It was the only way the invisible prowler could have gone. But I was too late now—I could hear nothing. I dashed forward into the main lounge. It was empty, dim and silent, a silence broken presently by a faint click, a stateroom door hastily closing. I swung and found myself in a tiny transverse passage. The twin doors of A20 and A22 were before me.
The invisible eavesdropper had gone into one of these rooms! I listened at each of the panels, but there was only silence within.
The interior of the ship was suddenly singing with the steward’s siren—the call to awaken the passengers. It startled me. I moved swiftly away. But as the siren shut off, in the silence I heard a soft, musical voice:
“Wake up, Anita, I think that’s the breakfast call.”
And her answer, “All right, George.”
I DID NOT APPEAR at that morning meal. I was exhausted and drugged with lack of sleep. I had a moment with Snap to tell him what had occurred. Then I sought out Carter. He had his little chart room insulated. And we were cautious. I told him what Snap and I had learned: the rays from the Moon, proving that Grantline had concentrated a considerable ore body. I also told him of Grantline’s message.
“We’ll stop on the way back, as he directs, Gregg.” He bent closer to me. “At Ferrok-Shahn I’m going to bring back a cordon of Interplanetary Police. The secret will be out, of course, when we stop at the Moon. We have no right, even now, to be flying this vessel as unguarded as it is.”
He was very solemn. And he was grim when I told him of the invisible eavesdropper.
“You think he overheard Grantline’s message? Who was it? You seem to feel it was George Prince?”
I told him I was convinced the prowler went into A20. When I mentioned the purser, who seemed to have been watching me earlier in the night, and again was sitting in the smoking room when the eavesdropper fled past, Carter looked startled.
“Johnson is all right, Gregg.”
“Does he know anything about this Grantline affair?”
“No—no,” said Carter hastily. “You haven’t mentioned it, have you?”
“Of course I haven’t. But why didn’t Johnson hear that eavesdropper? And what was he doing there, anyway, at that hour of the morning?”
The Captain ignored my questions. “I’m going to have that Prince suite searched—we can’t be too careful.... Go to bed, Gregg, you need rest.”
I went to my cabin. It was located aft, on the stern deck, near the stern watch tower. A small metal room with a chair, a desk and a bunk. I made sure no one was in it. I sealed the lattice grill and the door, set the alarm trigger against any opening of them, and went to bed.
The siren for the midday meal awakened me. I had slept heavily. I felt refreshed.