And they did not go inside. As though to show me that he had merely taken her from me, he stopped at a distant deck window and stood talking to her. Once he picked her up as one would pick up a child to show it some distant object through the window.
Was Anita afraid of this Martian"s wooing? Yet was held to him by some power he might have over her brother? The vagrant thought struck me.
VIII
The rest of that afternoon and evening were a blank confusion to me.
Anita"s words, the touch of my hand on her arm, that vast realm of what might be for us, like the glimpse of a magic land of happiness which I had seen in her eyes, and perhaps she had seen in mine--all this surged within me.
After wandering about the ship, I had a brief consultation with Captain Carter. He was genuinely apprehensive now. The _Planetara_ carried only a half-dozen of the heat-ray projectors, no long range weapons, a few side arms, and some old-fashioned, practically antiquated weapons of explosives, plus hand projectors with the new Benson curve light.
The weapons were all in Carter"s chart room, save the few we officers always carried. Carter was afraid, but of what, he was not sure. He had not thought that our plan to stop at the Moon could affect this outward voyage. He had thought that any danger would occur on the way back, and then the _Planetara_ would have been adequately guarded and manned with police-soldiers.
But now we were practically defenseless. I had a moment with Venza, but she had nothing new to communicate. And for half an hour I chatted with George Prince. He seemed a gay, pleasant young man. I could almost have fancied I liked him. Or was it because he was Anita"s brother? He told me how he looked forward to traveling with her on Mars. No, he had never been there before, he said.
He had a measure of Anita"s earnest nave personality. Or was he a very clever scoundrel, with irony lurking in his soft voice, and a chuckle that could so befool me?
"Well talk again, Haljan. You interest me--I"ve enjoyed it."
He sauntered away from me, joining the saturnine Ob Hahn, with whom presently I heard him discussing religion.
The arrest of Johnson had caused considerable discussion among the pa.s.sengers. A few had seen me drag him forward to the cage. The incident had been the subject of discussion all afternoon. Captain Carter had posted a notice to the effect that Johnson"s accounts had been found in serious error, and that Dr. Frank for this voyage would act in his stead.
It was near midnight when Snap and I closed and sealed the radio room and started for the chart room, where we were to meet with Captain Carter and the other officers. The pa.s.sengers had nearly all retired.
A game was in progress in the smoking room, but the deck was almost deserted.
Snap and I were pa.s.sing along one of the interior corridors. The stateroom doors were all closed. The metal grid of the floor echoed our footsteps. Snap was in advance of me. His body suddenly rose in the air. He went like a balloon to the ceiling, struck it gently, and all in a heap came floating down and landed on the floor!
"What in the infernal--"
He was laughing as he picked himself up. But it was a brief laugh. We knew what had happened: the artificial gravity controls in the base of the ship, which by magnetic force gave us normality aboard, were being tampered with! For just this instant, this particular small section of this corridor had been cut off. The slight bulk of the _Planetara_, floating in s.p.a.ce, had no appreciable gravity pull on Snap"s body, and the impulse of his step as he came to the unmagnetized area of the corridor had thrown him to the ceiling. The area was normal now. Snap and I tested it gingerly.
He gripped me. "That never went wrong by accident, Gregg! Someone--"
We rushed to the nearest descending ladder. In the deserted lower room the bank of dials stood neglected. A score of dials and switches were here, governing the magnetism of different areas of the ship. There should have been a night operator, but he was gone.
Than we saw him lying nearby, sprawled, face down on the floor! In the silence and dim, lurid glow of the fluorescent tubes, we stood holding our breaths, peering and listening. No one here.
The guard was not dead. He lay unconscious from a blow on the head. A brawny fellow. We had him revived in a few moments. A broadcast flash of the call buzz brought Dr. Frank from the chart room.
"What"s the matter?"
"Someone was here," I said hastily, "experimenting with the magnetic switches. Evidently unfamiliar with them--pulling one or another to test their workings and so see their reactions on the dials."
We told him what had happened to Snap in the corridor; the guard here was no worse off for the episode, save a lump on the head by an invisible a.s.sailant. We left him nursing his head, sitting belligerent at his post, alert to any danger and armed now with my heat-ray cylinder.
"Strange doings this voyage," he told us. "All the crew knows it. I"ll stick it out now, but when we get back home I"m done with this star travelin". I belong on the sea anyway."
We hurried back to the upper level. We would indeed have to plan something at this chart room conference. This was the first tangible attack our adversaries had made.
We were on the pa.s.senger deck headed for the chart room when all three of us stopped short, frozen with horror. Through the silent pa.s.senger quarters a scream rang out! A girl"s shuddering, gasping scream.
Terror in it. Horror. Or a scream of agony. In the silence of the dully vibrating ship it was utterly horrible.... It lasted an instant--a single long scream; then was abruptly stilled.
And with blood pounding my temples and rushing like ice through my veins, I recognized it.
Anita!
IX
"Good G.o.d, what was that?" Dr. Frank"s face had gone white. Snap stood like a statue of horror.
The deck here was patched as always, with silver radiance from the deck ports. The empty deck chairs stood about. The scream was stilled, but now we heard a commotion inside--the rasp of opening cabin doors; questions from frightened pa.s.sengers.
I found my voice. "Anita! Anita Prince!"
"Come on!" shouted Snap. "In her stateroom, A22!" He was dashing for the lounge archway.
Dr. Frank and I followed. I realized that we pa.s.sed the deck door and window of A22. But they were dark, and evidently sealed on the inside.
The dim lounge was in a turmoil; pa.s.sengers standing at their cabin doors.
I shouted, "Go back to your rooms! We want order here--keep back!"
We came to the twin doors of A22 and A20. Both were closed. Dr. Frank was in advance of Snap and me now. He paused at the sound of Captain Carter"s voice behind us.
"Was it from in there? Wait a moment!"
Carter dashed up. He had a large heat-ray projector in his hand. He shoved us aside. "Let me in first. Is the door sealed? Gregg, keep those pa.s.sengers back!"
The door was not sealed. Carter burst into the room. I heard him gasp, "Good G.o.d!"
Snap and I shoved back three or four pa.s.sengers. And in that instant Dr. Frank had been in the room and out again.
"There"s been an accident! Get back, Gregg! Snap, help me keep the crowd away." He shoved me forcibly.
From within, Carter was shouting, "Keep them out! Where are you, Frank? Come back here! Send a flash for Balch!"
Dr. Frank went back into the room and banged the cabin door upon Snap and me. I was unarmed. Weapon in hand, Snap forced the panic-stricken pa.s.sengers back to their rooms.
Snap rea.s.sured them glibly; but he knew no more about the facts than I. Moa, with a nightrobe drawn tight around her thin, tall figure, edged up to me.