"Anita! Anita darling--"
"Gregg, dear one!"
"Anita!" My arms went around her, my lips pressed hers, and felt her tremulous eager answer.
The form of Coniston showed at our window. She cast me off. She said, with her throaty swagger of amused, masculinity:
"I have him, Sir Arthur. He will obey us."
I sensed her warning glance. She shoved me toward the window. She said ironically, "Have no fear, Haljan. You will not be tortured, you and Dean, if you obey our commands."
Coniston gripped me. "You fool! You caused us a lot of trouble. Move along there!"
He jerked me roughly through the window. Marched me the length of the deck, out to the stern s.p.a.ce, opened the door of my cubby, flung me in and sealed the door upon me.
"Miko will come presently."
I stood in the darkness of my tiny room, listening to his retreating footsteps. But my mind was not upon him.
All the universe, in that instant, had changed for me. Anita was alive!
XIV
The giant Miko stood confronting me. He slid my cubby door closed behind him. He stood with his head towering close against my ceiling.
His cloak was discarded. In his leather clothes, and with his clanking sword ornament, his aspect carried the swagger of a brigand of old. He was bare-headed; the light from one of my tubes fell upon his grinning, leering gray face.
"So, Gregg Haljan? You have come to your senses at last. You do not wish me to write my name on your chest? I would not have done that to Dean; he forced me. Sit back."
I had been on my bunk. I sank back at the gesture of his huge hairy arm. His forearm was bare now; the sear of a burn on it was plain to be seen. He remarked my gaze.
"True. You did that, Haljan, in Greater New York. But I bear you no malice. I want to talk to you now."
He cast about for a seat, and took the little stool which stood by my desk. His hand held a small cylinder of the Martian paralyzing ray. He rested it beside him on the desk.
"Now we can talk."
I remained silent. Alert. Yet my thoughts were whirling. Anita was alive. Masquerading as her brother. And, with the joy of it, came a shudder. Above everything, Miko must not know.
"A great adventure we are upon, Haljan."
My thoughts came back. Miko was talking with an a.s.sumption of friendly comradeship. "All is well--and we need you, as I have said before. I am no fool. I have been aware of everything that went on aboard this ship. You, of all the officers, are most clever at the routine mathematics. Is that so?"
"Perhaps."
"You are modest." He fumbled at a pocket of his jacket, produced a scroll-sheaf. I recognized it. Blackstone"s figures. The calculation Blackstone made of the asteroid we had pa.s.sed.
"I am interested in these," Miko went on. "I want you to verify them.
And this." He held up another scroll. "This is the calculation of our present position and our course. Hahn claims he is a navigator. We have set the ship"s gravity plates--see, like this."
He handed me the scrolls. He watched me keenly as I glanced over them.
"Well?" I said.
"You are sparing of words, Haljan. By the devils of the airways, I could make you talk! But I want to be friendly."
I handed him back the scrolls. I stood up. I was almost within reach of his weapon, but with a sweep of his great arm he knocked me back to my bunk.
"You dare?" Then he smiled. "Let us not come to blows!"
In truth, physical violence could get me nothing. I would have to try guile. And I saw now that his face was flushed and his eyes unnaturally bright. He had been drinking alcolite; not enough to befuddle him, but enough to make him triumphantly talkative.
"Hahn may not be much of a mathematician," I suggested. "But there is your Sir Arthur Coniston." I managed a sarcastic grin. "Is that his name?"
"Almost. Haljan, will you verify these figures?"
"Yes. But why? Where are we going?"
He laughed. "You are afraid I will not tell you! Why should I? This great adventure of mine is progressing perfectly. A tremendous stake, Haljan. A hundred million dollars in gold leaf. There will be fabulous riches for all of us--"
"But where are we going?"
"To that asteroid," he said. "I must get rid of these pa.s.sengers. I am no murderer."
With a half-dozen killings in the recent fight this was hardly convincing. But he was obviously wholly serious. He seemed to read my thoughts.
"I kill only when necessary. We will land upon the asteroid. A perfect place to maroon the pa.s.sengers. Is it not so? I will give them the necessities of life. They will be able to signal. And in a month or so, when we are perfectly safe and finished with our adventure, a police ship no doubt will rescue them."
"And then, from the asteroid," I suggested, "we are going--"
"To the Moon, Haljan. What a clever guesser you are! Coniston and Hahn are calculating our course. But I have no great confidence in them.
And so I want you."
"You have me."
"Yes. I have you. I would have killed you long ago--I am an impulsive fellow--but my sister restrained me."
He gazed at me slyly. "Moa seems strangely to like you, Haljan."
"Thanks," I said. "I"m flattered."
"She still hopes I may really win you to join us," he went on. "Gold leaf is a wonderful thing; there would be plenty for you in this affair. And to be rich, and have the love of a woman like Moa...."
He paused. I was trying cautiously to gauge him, to get from him all the information I could. I said, with another smile, "That is premature, to talk of Moa. I will help you chart your course. But this venture, as you call it, is dangerous. A police ship--"
"There are not many," he declared. "The chances of our encountering one are very slim." He grinned at me. "You know that as well as I do.