Collected Short Fiction, page 84
Twenty-seven hours after the start, when the liner was only an hour’s run from port on the major planet of Anral, sudden catastrophe came.
The captain, dining with the passengers at the head of the main table, was suddenly struck down by an invisible knife. He fell forward upon the table, scarlet blood from his heart crimsoning the spotless cloth.
An instant later, an explosion was heard from the direction of the bridge. Then, from various parts of the mighty vessel, came screams and curses, sounds of fighting.
Some of the junior officers of the vessel, seated near the captain, rose and started on a run across the great saloon, toward the elevator that led to the bridge. The cold violet light of an El Ray flashed about them, from an invisible source!
The elements that composed their bodies suddenly turned into water; the men vanished in huge clouds of white, condensing steam.
The thousands seated at the tables had been paralyzed with horror and fear. Now they surged to their feet, a wild, panic-stricken herd, ready to plunge for the nearest exit.
“Stop! Sit down!” A harsh, commanding voice rang out.
One or two passengers, nearest the door, puffed explosively into huge, billowing white clouds. The others recoiled, trembling and horror-struck, sank weakly into the seats they had just vacated.
“I am invisible!” the unpleasant, gutteral voice spoke again. “You cannot see me. I can strike down any one of you at will. But you need not be alarmed unduly. The control of the liner has passed into other hands, but they are competent to take you safely to your destination.
“And your destination is the Dark Star!
“You may consider yourselves prisoners of Garo Nark, Lord of the Dark Star!”
CHAPTER VII
On the Dark Star
DICK, with Thon and Midos Ken, was seated at a little side table, hidden from the rest of the lofty, columned room by a row of potted plants—tall plants, unfamiliar to Dick, with graceful fern-like fronds of a rich, vivid green, and long, spiked clusters of tiny red flowers, crimson and brilliant.
Through the screen of plants, they saw what had happened. But, unlike most of the other passengers, they did not make a sudden dash for the door. Thon and Dick looked at each other, and old Midos Ken bent his head, listening intently.
“Again I have let Garo Nark score over me!” the blind scientist groaned. “I had protected our persons from any enemy on board. But I did not dream that there might be enough invisible men among us to seize the ship!”
“I wish I had the atomic automatic down in the Ahrora!” Dick muttered.
He had been looking at Thon Ahrora. Her lovely face was flushed a little with excitement. Her blue eyes were bright. She was breathing quickly. To his surprise, there was an odd smile on her face, a smile almost of pleasure.
“What’s the matter?” he whispered to her. “You aren’t glad it happened, are you?”
“What’s the difference?” she asked him, still smiling. “We were going to the Dark Star. We should be as comfortable on this liner as on the little flier. I don’t know just what’s going to happen, but it will be fun!”
Dick grinned at her. A wonderful girl! Brave and resourceful! A girl who could fight! And one worth fighting for!
He peered out again through the screen of plants. The passengers were seated again, but tense, anxious, frightened. Silence had fallen over the great room, broken only by furtive whispers, or by the occasional scream or hysterical laugh of a scared woman.
But suddenly the orchestra—obeying a low-voiced order from an unseen man—struck up a quick, lively air. At the same time the agitated stewards, returning to their duty, were busy bringing drinks. In a few minutes the tension had lessened somewhat.
Then the harsh voice of an invisible man spoke again.
“The liner has already left the K-ray beam,” it said. “We are now bound for the Dark Star, under our own emergency K-ray generators. The voyage will take two weeks.
“The routine life of the ship will go on as before. The stewards will continue their duties as usual, under penalty of death. The passengers are urged to make the best of circumstances and to enjoy themselves. The ship is well provisioned. There is plenty of alcoholic beverages among the stores to keep us all feeling merry.” A low, mocking laugh rang out from apparently empty air. “Many of the lady passengers are by no means hard upon the eyes. The orchestra is unsurpassed. So, with wine, women, and song, what is there to worry about?”
A sigh of relief escaped thousands who had expected an immediate end, though the words of the unseen speaker roused little applause.
“Passengers and crew will be expected to keep their regular places,” the voice went on. “We will occupy the bridge and the officer’s quarters. Anyone venturing outside his alloted part of the ship is likely—well, to have an unpleasant experience.”
The voice fell silent.
In a moment the orchestra was playing again. A few couples already fortified, left their glasses to dance. A harassed steward hurried up to the table where Dick sat with Thon and her father, and left brimming glasses of wine.
“Did Garo Nark know we were aboard?” Dick asked as he sipped the fragrant drink. “Or is he taking the ship in the line of his regular profession?”
“I don’t know,” Midos Ken answered reflectively. “The capture of the ship must have been planned well in advance. And Garo Nark probably doesn’t know that we escaped his storm. The liner would undoubtedly have been captured anyhow. But it is possible that the pirates know we are aboard.
“It is twenty years,” he added, “since he has taken a ship. Then there was a long war, when Garo Nark attacked the planet of Anral, the sun which was our destination. He had just come to the throne of his pirate planet. It is said that he murdered his father to hasten his accession.
“A long Avar it was. Nark’s ships defeated the fleet of the Union. He seemed victorious. Then I presented the Patrol a little scientific trick. A device which charged matter with a sort of electronic energy, protecting it from the El Ray. Nark could do nothing against it. He was pretty thoroughly defeated.
“He had not ventured to attempt any more piracy. But he has been busy, planning a revenge upon Thon and myself, it seems. Now, I suppose, he is throwing down the gage.
“Nark may know that we are on board. If he doesn’t, he will be pleased to discover it.”
“Then there is great danger—for Thon?” Dick’s voice was apprehensive. He looked nervously across at the girl, to find hope and courage in her eyes.
“The Lord of the Dark Star hasn’t beaten us yet!” she told him. “Dad still has his scientific tricks. The Ahrora is still safe in the hold. Nark can’t hurt us personally—unless he has invented a new weapon.”
Presently they retired to their suite, where they were unmolested.
Two days went by.
The invisible pirates, who controlled the ship, were not much in evidence. Frequently the footsteps of an unseen person were heard. Sometimes a door opened without visible cause. The stewards and others of the ship’s crew frequently heard low-toned orders from empty air, which they hastened feverishly to obey. Only one man was killed—a passenger who went insane and attempted to storm the bridge with a table knife. He vanished in a billowing cloud of steam.
THE passenger life went on as usual—except that, in their attempts to forget anxiety that oppressed them, many became reckless. There was much drinking, much mad music, much wild dancing. Love making there was, of a feverish, abstracted, passionate sort. Men and women gambled for high stakes, quarreled and fought. Blood was shed on several occasions—though every brawl was stopped promptly by an uncanny voice speaking from transparent air.
Few were sure what would happen at the end of the voyage. Many feared the worst and were prepared to get the most out of life, while they enjoyed it in the luxurious surroundings of the liner.
Thon, Dick and Midos Ken, having, if not more courage, at least more confidence and purpose than most of the passengers, spent much of the time in their suite, trying to plan a course of action. Nothing had happened to show that their identity was suspected.
On the evening of the second day, Dick was struck with an idea.
“Do you suppose we could get down in the hold to the Ahrora?” he asked Thon. “We might hide in it, and make a dash for liberty when the liner lands on the Dark Star and the hold is opened.”
“A good idea,” the girl agreed. “Only if we could get aboard the little flier, we wouldn’t have to wait for the liner to land. We could smash a way out through the hull. With the power of our own generators and that neutronium hull, it would be easy.”
“But that would let the air out of the liner, and kill all these thousands of passengers!” Dick objected. “We couldn’t do that!”
“There are airtight bulkheads,” Midos Ken told him. “They would hold the air in the passenger’s compartments. The Ahrora could break through the hull quite easily. It would let the air out of the cargo hold, of course. But that would do no great harm, and the crew could repair the break in a few hours.
“I had been thinking over the plan before you suggested it,” he added. “The difficulty seems to be to get down to the flier. Once aboard, Ave are safe. You recall that the pirates promised something unpleasant to any passengers who leave the regular quarters. But we will make the attempt, at least, if you are willing.”
“Of course!” Dick said. He turned to Thon.
“When?” the girl asked her father, after a quick smile at Dick.
“Twelve tonight,” said the old man. “It is now just after ten. That gives us nearly two hours to make any necessary preparations. At that time our fellow passengers should be at the height of their revel—they ought to divert attention from us.”
“I suppose we go down an elevator?” Dick asked.
“There are two tubes through the center of the ship,” Thon told him. “We came up one of them. No gravity plates there, so we are weightless. A current of air flows up one tube, down the other, moving the passengers.”
“The first difficulty will come at the entrance to the shaft,” Midos Ken said. “There is a locked door there. And it may have an invisible guard.”
There was little to be done in preparation for the adventure, as all of their more bulky possessions had been left in the Ahrora. Midos Ken produced three little devices resembling wrist watches. One he fastened on his own arm; one of the others he presented to Thon; and one to Dick.
A little shell of green metal, it was, no larger than a coin, with a narrow strap to hold it upon the wrist. A slight whirring sound, almost inaudible, came from each. When Dick fastened the device about his arm, he felt a not unpleasant tingling sensation where the metal touched him. Throbbing force seemed to run over his body from it.
“This is a modification of the scientific trick that defeated Garo Nark in the Avar,” Midos Ken said. “The little generator charges the body with a force that neutralizes the El Rays. It is rather well known now, and I have developed other means of protection. But under the present circumstances, Ave can afford to risk no more than necessary.”
“Feels queer, does it?” Thon asked. “Well, it will do no harm, anyhow. It makes a person slightly luminous in a dark room—the discharge of the force. Electrical phenomenon.”
At five minutes to midnight they left the suite, talking and laughing carelessly as if merely out for adventure, and tried to lose themselves in the feverishly gay throngs of passengers. Music throbbed from the orchestra, music with a mad, sensuous, emotion-exciting rhythm. Dancers spun wildly about the saloons, in passionately close embrace, faces flushed with wine and the careless abandon of the hour. Voices hummed, high and shrill; hysterical laughter rang out.
As quickly as they could do it without displaying haste, the three passed through the saloons and promenades and drawing rooms toward the entrance of the main elevator, on the lower deck. Once they paused as if to drink, but left their glasses after the merest sip.
By the stroke of twelve they stood before the elevator. The broad deck or floor behind them, used for athletic games, was all but deserted, though strongly lit by a clear green light from the ceiling. The door was tall, oval, massive as the door of a bank vault. And it was locked.
Quickly, Thon dipped a hand into a pocket of her blue silken garment. She drew out a slender rod of black, glistening crystal, the size of a lead pencil. About it was a sliding, silver ring.
She bent over the massive bar of white metal that held the great door locked. The little black rod—now Dick recognized it as a miniature El Ray projector—glowed with a violent fire that seemed to pulse down its length, to reach beyond the end in a narrow, quivering tongue of flame.
Beneath Thon’s fingers, the little lance of violet fire cut through the white metal of the bar as an oxy-hydrogen torch cuts iron or steel. Hissing jets of steam rushed out of the fissure, and rose above them in a white cloud.
The El Ray turned the metal to water!
One end of the bar was cut through. She turned to the other. She had cut it half way through when Midos Ken, who had been listening sharply, turned with a little warning cry.
DICK had been trying to stand in a lounging attitude, in such a position as to hide the stooping girl from any invisible guards who might be about. But the hissing white clouds of steam, rising many feet above them, he had been unable to hide.
Now, as Midos Ken turned, he searched the room again, but saw nothing to alarm him.
Then, an intense beam of violet radiance flashed about them. An El Ray, which seemed to come from a point not twenty feet away! It was the same bright beam, thrown by an unseen man, that had turned others on the ship into billowing clouds of vapor.
But the pirates had dealt with Midos Ken before.
The violet ray flashed upon them, harmless as a ray of light.
A gasp of surprise, and a muttered curse, came out of the air behind the beam.
Then Midos Ken thrust out toward the sound what looked to Dick like a polished cylinder of yellow topaz, an inch thick and about two inches long. He thinks it was a vacuum tube of some kind, with an atomic power generator inside it. He saw no visible ray or projectile come from it.
But there was a voiceless, inarticulate cry of pain from behind the violet beam. And the El Ray flickered out. There was a clatter as some unseen instrument—probably the El Ray projector, covered with the chameleon-like pigment of invisibility—fell upon the floor. Then a dull thud, as a human body fell beside it.
A moment later Thon had finished the second cut in the bar. The middle section of it fell with a clang. Dick stopped and lifted it aside. The door was free to open. Thon turned a little knob, and it swung outward.
One by one, Thon first, then Midos Ken, then Dick, they leapt into the down-rushing current of air within the tube. It gave Dick a strange feeling to leap, when his turn came.
“Too much like jumping in a well in the dark!” he muttered.
But he did not hesitate.
All gravitational force was cut off, within the tube. The current of air carried them gently down. Luminous numbers flashed past, and glistening handrails which one might grasp to stop at any floor. Thon and her father had vanished ahead of him, in the dark tube. He had a sudden feeling that he was lost, that he did not know where to stop.
Then Thon’s white arm flashed out of a dark opening, caught his shoulder. He clutched a rail, drew himself toward her. Suddenly he was standing on a floor again, and felt gravitational force drawing him against it.
They were in a huge, dark space. Dick could see nothing plainly. He knew that they were in the cargo hold only by the curious, mingled fragrance of many kinds of merchandise, which he had noticed when they had left the Ahrora here.
“Here we are safe!” Thon whispered swiftly. “But come. They will find the dead man; follow. We dare not make a light. Dad will guide us.”
Pale, roseate luminosity clothed their bodies.
Midos Ken was in the lead, they stumbled forward, among piles of cases, drums, sacks, and bales of a thousand commodities. Dick was guided by the light fingers of Thon upon his arm. Despite them, he stumbled, and ran into a wall of boxes.
Suddenly there was light, dazzling, blinding, painful. An intense white beam wavered across the vast, crowded hold, casting flickering, fantastic shadows of the piled merchandise. They heard the rush of footsteps and low voices. There was a cry of “Here! They went this way!”
Violet gleams flickered behind them. White clouds of steam billowed up, here and there, where the El Rays reduced a pile of cargo to water vapor.
“There! I see ’em!” cried a voice behind. “There they go!”
There was another clatter of feet.
“Give ’em hell!” came a harsh command.
Dick was still struggling forward, led by Thon, too much blinded by the sudden dazzling light to profit by it.
“I’ll stop that!” Midos Ken muttered, ahead of him.
Dick heard a faint tinkle of shattering glass. And abruptly he was in utter darkness. The dazzling searchlight was gone. The hold was absolutely black. Another of the ether-exhausting bombs, he knew. Thon led him on through the blackness.
Curses of irritation and alarm came from behind them. They could hear men stumbling, blundering into the piled cargo.
“What’s the matter with the damn searchlight?” a harsh voice demanded.
“Here we are!” Thon breathed suddenly.
They stopped against the smooth side of the Ahrora. Midos Ken fumbled with the fastening of the door—a sort of combination lock which prevented others from entering in their absence. He voiced low, musical notes which controlled it. Then it was open. Thon guided him through, closed it again.
“Safe!” she cried. “They couldn’t get us out of here in ten years!”
Within, it was as utterly dark as without. They groped their way along the narrow corridor, and “up” into the little domed bridge at its end.
