She swaggered out upon the deck, waved at the brigand, and banged my cubby door in my face.
I sat upon my bunk. Waiting. Would she come back? Would she be successful?
CHAPTER XVI
_In the Blue-lit Corridor_
She came. I suppose it was no more than an hour: it seemed an eternity of apprehension. There was the slight hissing of the seal of my door.
The panel slid. I had leaped from my bunk where in the darkness I was lying tense.
"Prince?" I did not dare say, "Anita."
"Gregg."
Her voice. My gaze swept the deck as the panel opened. Neither Coniston nor anyone else was in sight, save Anita"s dark-robed figure which came into my room.
"You got it?" I asked her in a low whisper.
I held her for an instant, kissed her. But she pushed me away with quick hands.
"Gregg, dear--"
She was breathless. My kisses, and the tenseness of what lay before us were to blame.
"Gregg, see, I have it. Give us a little light--we must hurry!"
In the blue dimness I saw that she was holding one of the Martian cylinders. The smallest size; it would paralyze, but not kill.
"Only one, Anita?"
"Yes. I had it before, but Miko took it from me. It was in his room. And this--"
The invisible cloak. We laid it on my grid, and I adjusted its mechanism. A cloak of the reflecting-absorbing variety.[A]
[A] The principle of this invisible cloak involves the use of an electronized fabric. All color is absorbed. The light rays reflected to the eye of the observer thus show an image of empty blackness. There is also created about the cloak a magnetic field which by natural laws bends the rays of light from objects behind it. This principle of the natural bending of light when pa.s.sing through a magnetic field was first recognized by Albert Einstein, a scientist of the Twentieth century. In the case of this invisible cloak, the bending light rays, by making visible what was behind the cloak"s blackness, thus destroyed its solid black outline and gave a pseudo-invisibility which was fairly effective under favorable conditions.
I donned it, and drew its hood, and threw on its current.
"All right, Anita?"
"Yes."
"Can you see me?"
"No." She stepped back a foot or two further. "Not from here. But you must let no one approach too close."
Then she came forward, put out her hand, fumbled until she found me.
It was our plan to have me follow her out. Anyone observing us would see only the robed figure of the supposed George Prince, and I would escape notice.
The situation about the ship was almost unchanged. Anita had secured the weapon and the cloak and slipped away to my cubby without being observed.
"You"re sure of that?"
"I think so, Gregg. I was careful."
Moa was now in the lounge, guarding the pa.s.sengers. Hahn was asleep in the chart-room; Coniston was in the turret. Coniston would be off duty presently, Anita said, with Hahn taking his place. There were look-outs in the forward and stern watch-towers, and a guard upon Snap in the helio-room.
"Is he inside the room, Anita?"
"Snap? Yes."
"No--the guard."
"No. He was sitting upon the spider bridge at the door."
This was unfortunate. That guard could see all the deck clearly. He might be suspicious of George Prince wandering around; it would be difficult to get near enough to a.s.sail him. This cylinder, I knew, had an effective range of only some twenty feet.
Anita and I were swiftly whispering. It was necessary now to decide exactly what we were to do; once under observation outside, there must be no hesitation, no fumbling.
"Coniston is sharpest, Gregg. He will be the hardest to get near."
The languid-spoken Englishman was the one Anita most feared. His alert eyes seemed to miss nothing. Perhaps he was suspicious of this George Prince--Anita thought so.
"But where is Miko?" I whispered.
The brigand leader had gone below a few moments ago, down into the hull-corridor. Anita had seized the opportunity to come to me.
"We can attack Hahn in the chart-room first," I suggested. "And get the other weapons. Are they still there?"
"Yes. But Gregg, the forward deck is very bright."
We were approaching the asteroid. Already its light like a brilliant moon was brightening the forward deck-s.p.a.ce. It made me realize how much haste was necessary.
We decided to go down into the hull-corridors. Locate Miko. Fell him, and hide him. His non-appearance back on deck would very soon throw the others into confusion, especially now with our impending landing upon the asteroid. And under cover of this confusion we would try and release Snap.
We had been arguing no more than a minute or two. We were ready. Anita slid my door wide. She stepped through, with me soundlessly scurrying after her. The empty, silent deck was alternately dark with shadow-patches and bright with blobs of starlight. A sheen of the Sun"s corona was mingled with it; and from forward came the radiance of the asteroid"s mellow silver glow.