The Sargasso of Space Part 4

They climbed back, up to the s.h.i.+p's top, and leapt off it toward a Jupiter freighter lying a little farther inside the pack. As they floated toward it, Kent saw their men moving on with them from s.h.i.+p to s.h.i.+p, progressing inward into the pack. Both Kent and Liggett kept Krell always ahead of them, knowing that a blow from his bar, shattering their gla.s.site helmets, meant instant death. But Krell seemed quite intent on the search for fuel.

The big Jupiter freighter seemed intact from above, but, when they penetrated into it, they found its whole under-side blown away, apparently by an explosion of its tanks. They moved on to the next s.h.i.+p, a private s.p.a.ce-yacht, small in size, but luxurious in fittings. It had been abandoned in s.p.a.ce, its rocket-tubes burst and tanks strained.

They went on, working deeper into the wreck-pack. Kent almost forgot the paramount importance of their search in the fascination of it. They explored almost every known type of s.h.i.+p--freighters, liners, cold-storage boats, and grain-boats. Once Kent's hopes ran high at sight of a fuel-s.h.i.+p, but it proved to be in ballast, its cargo-tanks empty and its own tanks and tubes apparently blown simultaneously.

Kent's muscles ached from the arduous work of climbing over and exploring the wrecks. He and Liggett had become accustomed to the sight of frozen, motionless bodies.

As they worked deeper into the pack, they noticed that the s.h.i.+ps were of increasingly older types, and at last Krell signalled a halt. "We're almost a mile in," he told them, gripping their hands. "We'd better work back out, taking a different section of the pack as we do."

Kent nodded. "It may change our luck," he said.

It did; for when they had gone not more than a half-mile back, they glimpsed one of their men waving excitedly from the top of a Pluto liner.

They hastened at once toward him, the other men gathering also; and when Kent grasped the man's hand he heard his excited voice.

"Fuel-tanks here are more than half-full, sir!"

They descended quickly into the liner, finding that though its whole stern had been sheared away by a meteor, its tanks had remained miraculously unstrained.

"Enough fuel here to take the _Pallas_ to Neptune!" Kent exclaimed.

"How will you get it over to your s.h.i.+p?" Krell asked. Kent pointed to great reels of flexible metal tubing hanging near the tanks.

"We'll pump it over. The _Pallas_ has tubing like this s.h.i.+p's, for taking on fuel in s.p.a.ce, and, by joining its tubing to this, we'll have a tube-line between the two s.h.i.+ps. It's hardly more than a quarter-mile."

"Let's get back and let them know about it," Liggett urged, and they climbed back out of the liner.

They worked their way out of the wreck-pack with much greater speed than that with which they had entered, needing only an occasional brace against a s.h.i.+p's side to send them floating over the wrecks. They came to the wreck-pack's edge at a little distance from the _Pallas_, and hastened toward it.

They found the outer door of the _Pallas'_ airlock open, and entered, Krell remaining with them. As the outer door closed and air hissed into the lock, Kent and the rest removed their helmets. The inner door slid open as they were doing this, and from inside almost a score of men leapt upon them!

Kent, stunned for a moment, saw Jandron among their attackers, bellowing orders to them, and even as he struck out furiously he comprehended.

Jandron and the men of the _Martian Queen_ had somehow captured the _Pallas_ from Crain and had been awaiting their return!

The struggle was almost instantly over, for, outnumbered and hampered as they were by their heavy s.p.a.ce-suits, Kent and Liggett and their followers had no chance. Their hands, still in the suits, were bound quickly behind them at Jandron's orders.

Kent heard an exclamation, and saw Marta starting toward him from behind Jandron's men. But a sweep of Jandron's arm brushed her rudely back. Kent strained madly at his bonds. Krell's face had a triumphant look.

"Did it all work as I told you it would, Jandron?" he asked.

"It worked," Jandron answered impa.s.sively. "When they saw fifteen of us coming from the wreck-pack in s.p.a.ce-suits, they opened right up to us."

Kent understood, and cursed Krell's cunning. Crain, seeing the fifteen figures approaching from the wreck-pack, had naturally thought they were Kent's party, and had let them enter to overwhelm his half-dozen men.

"We put Crain and his men over in the _Martian Queen_," Jandron continued, "and took all their helmets so they can't escape. The girl we brought over here. Did you find a wreck with fuel?"

Krell nodded. "A Pluto liner a quarter-mile back, and we can pump the fuel over here by connecting tube-lines. What the devil--"

Jandron had made a signal at which three of his men had leapt forward on Krell, securing his hands like those of the others.

"Have you gone crazy, Jandron?" cried Krell, his face red with anger and surprise.

"No," Jandron replied impa.s.sively; "but the men are as tired as I am of your bossing ways, and have chosen me as their sole leader."

"You dirty double-crosser!" Krell raged. "Are you men going to let him get away with this?"

The men paid no attention, and Jandron motioned to the airlock. "Take them over to the _Martian Queen_ too," he ordered, "and make sure there's no s.p.a.ce-helmet left there. Then get back at once, for we've got to get the fuel into this s.h.i.+p and make a getaway."

The helmets of Kent and Krell and the other helpless prisoners were put upon them, and, with hands still bound, they were herded into the airlock by eight of Jandron's men attired in s.p.a.ce-suits also. The prisoners were then joined one to another by a strand of metal cable.

Kent, glancing back into the s.h.i.+p as the airlock's inner door closed, saw Jandron giving rapid orders to his followers, and noticed Marta held back from the airlock by one of them. Krell's eyes glittered venomously through his helmet. The outer door opened, and their guards jerked them forth into s.p.a.ce by the connecting cable.

They were towed helplessly along the wreck-pack's rim toward the _Martian Queen_. Once inside its airlock, Jandron's men removed the prisoners' s.p.a.ce-helmets and then used the duplicate-control inside the airlock itself to open the inner door. Through this opening they thrust the captives, those inside the s.h.i.+p not daring to enter the airlock.

Jandron's men then closed the inner door, re-opened the outer one, and started back toward the _Pallas_ with the helmets of Kent and his companions.

Kent and the others soon found Crain and his half-dozen men who rapidly undid their bonds. Crain's men still wore their s.p.a.ce-suits, but, like Kent's companions, were without s.p.a.ce-helmets.

"Kent, I was afraid they'd get you and your men too!" Crain exclaimed.

"It's all my fault, for when I saw Jandron and his men coming from the wreck-pack I never doubted but that it was you."

"It's no one's fault," Kent told him. "It's just something that we couldn't foresee."

Crain's eyes fell on Krell. "But what's he doing here?" he exclaimed.

Kent briefly explained Jandron's treachery toward Krell, and Crain's brows drew ominously together.

"So Jandron put you here with us! Krell, I am a commissioned captain of a s.p.a.ce-s.h.i.+p, and as such can legally try you and sentence you to death here without further formalities."

Krell did not answer, but Kent intervened. "There's hardly time for that now, sir," he said. "I'm as anxious to settle with Krell as anyone, but right now our main enemy is Jandron, and Krell hates Jandron worse than we do, if I'm not mistaken."

"You're not," said Krell grimly. "All I want right now is to get within reach of Jandron."

"There's small chance of any of us doing that," Crain told them.

"There's not a single s.p.a.ce-helmet on the _Martian Queen_."

"You've searched?" Liggett asked.

"Every cubic inch of the s.h.i.+p," Crain told him. "No, Jandron's men made sure there were no helmets left here, and without helmets this s.h.i.+p is an inescapable prison."