Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 Part 19

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

"Thank you."

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

"With a torch to break its seal," I interjected.

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

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

"He is sorry...."

She seemed gauging me, trying, no doubt, to find out what reprisal would be taken against her brother. I felt sure that Moa was as active as a man in any plan that was under way to capture the Grantline treasure.

Miko, with his ungovernable temper, was doing things that put their plans in jeopardy.

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

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

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

Dr. Frank found me mooning alone.

"Go to bed, Gregg! You look awful."

"I don't want to go to bed."

"Where's Snap?"

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

"The captain wants him." The surgeon left me.

Within an hour the morning siren would arouse the pa.s.sengers. I was seated in a secluded corner of the deck, when George Prince came along.

He went past me, a slight, somber, dark-robed figure. He had on high, thick boots. A hood was over his head, but as he saw me he pushed it back and dropped down beside me.

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

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

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

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

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

"Miko!" It burst from me.

"Yes. But do not say it."

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

"Have you an eavesdropping microphone, Haljan?"

I hesitated. "Yes."

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

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

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

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

"I think that is all."

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

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

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

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

I threw the current into my little apparatus. I prayed, if it met interference, that the slight sound would pa.s.s unnoticed. George Prince had said he would make opportunity to disconnect the room's insulation.

He had evidently done so. I picked up the interior sounds at once; my headphone vibrated with them. And with trembling fingers on the little dial between my knees as I crouched in the darkness behind the cylinder-case, I synchronized.

"Johnson is a fool." It was Miko's voice. "We must have the pa.s.s-words."

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

Miko said, "He is a fool. Walking around this s.h.i.+p as though with letters blazoned on his forehead--'Watch me--I need watching--' Hah! No wonder they apprehended him!"

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

"Oh, I'll release him," Miko declared. "What harm? That braying a.s.s did us plenty of harm. He has lost the pa.s.s-words. Better he had left them in the helio-room."

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

"It is, no doubt," Rankin said quietly. "We ought to have the pa.s.s-words. When we are in control of this s.h.i.+p...."