The Sargasso of Space Part 6

"I'm all right. It was just that I had to go over those guards that were all frozen.... Terrible!"

"Get these helmets on!" Crain was crying. "There's a dozen of them, and twelve of us can stop Jandron's men if we get back in time!"

Kent and Liggett and the nearer of their men were swiftly donning the helmets. Krell grasped one and Crain sought to s.n.a.t.c.h it.

"Let that go! We'll not have you with us when we haven't enough helmets for our own men!"

"You'll have me or kill me here!" Krell cried, his eyes hate-mad. "I've got my own account to settle with Jandron!"

"Let him have it!" Liggett cried. "We've no time now to argue!"

Kent reached toward the girl. "Marta, give one of the men your helmet,"

he ordered; but she shook her head.

"I'm going with you!" Before Kent could dispute she had the helmet on again, and Crain was pus.h.i.+ng them into the airlock. The nine or ten left inside without helmets hastily thrust steel bars into the men's hands before the inner door closed. The outer one opened and they leapt forth into s.p.a.ce, floating smoothly along the wreck-pack's border with bars in their grasp, thirteen strong.

Kent found the slowness with which they floated forward torturing. He glimpsed Crain and Liggett ahead, Marta beside him, Krell floating behind him to the left. They reached the projecting freighters, climbed over and around them, braced against them and shot on. They sighted the _Pallas_ ahead now. Suddenly they discerned another group of eleven figures in s.p.a.ce-suits approaching it from the wreck-pack's interior, rolling up the tube-line that led from the _Pallas_ as they did so.

Jandron's party!

Jandron and his men had seen them and were suddenly making greater efforts to reach the _Pallas_. Kent and his companions, propelling themselves frenziedly on from another wreck, reached the s.h.i.+p's side at the same time as Jandron's men. The two groups mixed and mingled, twisted and turned in a mad s.p.a.ce-combat.

Kent had been grasped by one of Jandron's men and raised his bar to crack the other's gla.s.site helmet. His opponent caught the bar, and they struggled, twisting and turning over and over far up in s.p.a.ce amid a half-score similar struggles. Kent wrenched his bar free at last from the other's grasp and brought it down on his helmet. The gla.s.site cracked, and he caught a glimpse of the man's hate-distorted face frozen instantly in death.

Kent released him and propelled himself toward a struggling trio nearby.

As he floated toward them, he saw Jandron beyond them making wild gestures of command and saw Krell approaching Jandron with upraised bar.

Kent, on reaching the three combatants, found them to be two of Jandron's men overcoming Crain. He shattered one's helmet as he reached them, but saw the other's bar go up for a blow.

Kent twisted frantically, uselessly, to escape it, but before the blow could descend a bar shattered his opponent's helmet from behind. As the man froze in instant death Kent saw that it was Marta who had struck him from behind. He jerked her to his side. The struggles in s.p.a.ce around them seemed to be ending.

Six of Jandron's party had been slain, and three of Kent's companions.

Jandron's four other followers were giving up the combat, floating off into the wreck-pack in clumsy, hasty flight. Someone grasped Kent's arm, and he turned to find it was Liggett.

"They're beaten!" Liggett's voice came to him! "They're all killed but those four!"

"What about Jandron himself?" Kent cried. Liggett pointed to two s.p.a.ce-suited bodies twisting together in s.p.a.ce, with bars still in their lifeless grasp.

Kent saw through their shattered helmets the stiffened faces of Jandron and Krell, their helmets having apparently been broken by each other's simultaneous blows.

Crain had gripped Kent's arm also. "Kent, it's over!" he was exclaiming.

"Liggett and I will close the _Pallas'_ exhaust-valves and release new air in it. You take over helmets for the rest of our men in the _Martian Queen_."

In several minutes Kent was back with the men from the _Martian Queen_.

The _Pallas_ was ready, with Liggett in its pilot-house, the men taking their stations, and Crain and Marta awaiting Kent.

"We've enough fuel to take us out of the dead-area and to Neptune without trouble!" Crain declared. "But what about those four of Jandron's men that got away?"

"The best we can do is leave them here," Kent told him. "Best for them, too, for at Neptune they'd be executed, while they can live indefinitely in the wreck-pack."

"I've seen so many men killed on the _Martian Queen_ and here," pleaded Marta. "Please don't take them to Neptune."

"All right, we'll leave them," Crain agreed, "though the scoundrels ought to meet justice." He hastened up to the pilot-house after Liggett.

In a moment came the familiar blast of the rocket-tubes, and the _Pallas_ shot out cleanly from the wreck-pack's edge. A scattered cheer came from the crew. With gathering speed the s.h.i.+p arrowed out, its rocket-tubes blasting now in steady succession.

Kent, with his arm across Marta's shoulders, watched the wreck-pack grow smaller behind. It lay as when he first had seen it, a strange great ma.s.s, floating forever motionless among the brilliant stars. He felt the girl beside him s.h.i.+ver, and swung her quickly around.

"Let's not look back or remember now, Marta!" he said. "Let's look ahead."

She nestled closer inside his arm. "Yes, Rance. Let's look ahead."