Title: Beyond the Yellow Fog
Author: McDowell, Robert Emmett
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Beyond the Yellow Fog" ***


                         Beyond The Yellow Fog

                          By EMMETT McDOWELL

         "It is the little death," they whispered. "When that
           yellow mist starts creeping, you'll wish you were
         dead, sir." Gavin Murdock, hardened manhunter, coldly
            eyed the evil miasma rising through the mystery
        spaceship and braced himself for unguessable horror....

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
                      Planet Stories Spring 1947.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


The Martian sniffed. "Frankly, Mr. Murdock, your account of yourself is
laconic to say the least."

Gavin Murdock grunted, his eyes wary and unblinking. He didn't reply.

The Martian raised his eyes from the documents spread on his glassite
desk. He gave the sandy-haired Murdock a shrewd penetrating glance and
smiled dryly.

"Of course, we get very few men in the slave trade who care to talk
about themselves. We take that into consideration, Mr. Murdock. But an
astro-engineer of your talents...." He glanced again at the papers on
his desk.

Murdock's pulse hammered suddenly in his throat. He swallowed dryly,
but he still didn't interrupt.

"This discharge," the Martian went on. "I see you were employed as
first assistant-engineer on the luxury liner _Cosmos_. That's United
Spaceway's crack ship. Would you care to tell me, Mr. Murdock, what
persuaded you to apply for this post on the _Nova_?"

"Blacklisted," Mr. Murdock said succinctly. "Belted the old man in the
nose. I've been on the beach here in Venusport ever since. None of the
shipping lines'll touch me." He lapsed into silence again.

The Martian drummed long white fingers on the desk top.

"You realize, Mr. Murdock, that when you sign the _Nova's_ articles
you forfeit your citizenship on Terra? The Earth Congress issued a
proclamation to the effect that any Terran employed in the slave
trade...."

"What d'you expect me to do?" Murdock interrupted with a wry
expression. He was a tall angular man in his early thirties. "Rot here
on Venus? I'm not thrilled at taking a third's rating aboard a Jovian
slaver. But it's a job."

The Martian still hesitated, doubt registering on his paper-white,
sharply-chiseled features.

At length he said, "Very well," in a dry tone. "You'll have to go to
the Commissioner's and sign the articles this afternoon. The _Nova_
sails tomorrow. I'll give you your orders in writing."

But he made no move to do so.

Gavin Murdock stiffened imperceptibly, an alarm pealing in his brain.
The Martian, he sensed, was stalling. For what?

       *       *       *       *       *

The space patrols, Murdock knew, had been making things plenty hot for
the slavers. The Empire had outlawed the slave trade three years ago.
Her spacers were stamping out the traffic in Jovian Dawn Men which
flowed between Jupiter and Venus where slavery was still legalized.
Decadent the Empire might be, but she still controlled space. Any
slaver caught with his half-human cattle beyond Venus' thousand mile
limit was treated as a pirate.

The Martian was saying, "You understand, Mr. Murdock, there's no
regular salary connected with this job, but as third assistant-engineer
you'll be entitled to a one-twentieth share of the profits of each
voyage."

Gavin nodded. His glance flicked about the blank walls. He felt
suddenly like an animal in a trap.

The offices of Josiah Cabot, slaver, of whom the Martian was the
business representative in Venusport, were on the eighty-seventh
floor, well up in the swirling cloud blanket which sheathed the second
planet like a glove. The offices were windowless and sound-proof.
With an effort, Gavin put down the panic rising in his throat. It was
ridiculous to think they could do anything to him in a modern office
building here in Venusport.

A buzzer on the desk whirred. The Martian leaned forward and snapped a
switch. A girl's voice said, "There's a call for you on the televisor,
Mr. Trev. It's the--"

"Switch it to the radiophone," the Martian interrupted. He picked up
the phone. "Trev speaking."

Gavin could hear the metallic rattle of a voice in the old fashioned
instrument.

Trev said, "Yes ... yes ... thank you," at intervals, and hung up. His
black eyes were inscrutable. He turned back to Gavin, saying, "I've
been waiting for that call, Mr. Murdock."

He brought his hand into sight above the desk. Gavin Murdock found
himself staring into the muzzle of a wicked poisoned-needle automatic!

"Clasp your hands behind your neck, Mr. Murdock. That was United
Spaceways. They have no record of your ever having been employed by
them. That was a very foolish lie, Mr. Murdock. Please submit yourself
to a search."

Gavin drew a long breath. "You can save yourself the trouble. The
discharge is forged. I haven't had a ship in three years."

"Stand up."

Gavin unfolded himself awkwardly and rose to his full six feet, two
inches. He was clad in plain gray shorts and blouse. A Terran of
Scotch-American descent, his face was thin, hollow-cheeked, freckled.
His sandy hair had been close-cropped in the military fashion. His
pale blue eyes were as bright and restless as a hawk's. He had a thin,
arched nose, a tight-lipped mouth and a square jaw. He made no attempt
to protest further.

The Martian came around the desk to approach Gavin from behind and jam
the needle gun against his back. "Don't move!"

"Hell," said Gavin, "I'm not even breathing."

He heard the panel, which led into the outer office, squeak as it was
slid back. A new voice asked, "What's the trouble, Trev?" It was a
cold, clipped voice, yet the words were strangely blurred.

Gavin could feel his palms grow damp against the back of his neck. He
wanted to whip around, but the Martian still had the dart-gun clamped
against his spine.

Trev said, "No trouble, Captain Cabot."

       *       *       *       *       *

Gavin turned his head slowly in the direction of the voice. He saw a
tall man with a lean wolfish face. The man, in handsome black shorts,
was standing in the doorway to the outer office, one hand braced
against the frame. Just behind the man, peering wide-eyed over his
shoulder, was a girl.

"Don't allow us to disturb you," said the man and, waving his companion
inside, closed the door. He came stiffly, a little unsteadily, around
in front and seated himself in Trev's chair. He was drunk, Gavin
realized, drunk as a lord. The girl stood against the wall.

"Not at all, Captain Cabot," said Trev to the newcomer, in a faintly
sarcastic voice. "After all it's for your own protection." He patted
Gavin's chest, found a small flat dart-gun no larger than a deck of
cards. It was secured in a delicate spring clip--strapped beneath his
left arm.

"Lethal toy for a legitimate spaceman to be carting around," observed
the Martian. "Hand tailored, isn't it?"

When Gavin didn't reply, he added, "He's wearing a plastic dart-proof
vest too."

The Captain frowned. "What's the trouble, Trev?"

Trev said, "Mr. Murdock, here, applied for the job as third
assistant-engineer on your ship with a forged discharge from United
Spaceways. United Spaceways never heard of him."

"Hmmm," said Cabot.

The Martian's long questing fingers continued the search. He discovered
Gavin's money belt, unbuckled it, tossed it to the Captain.

"Who do you think he is?" asked Cabot in that faintly blurred voice.

"I don't know," replied Trev. "Take a look in his money belt."

The Captain, frowning in concentration, unzipped the pockets with
painful care. They held four hundred interplanetary credits, but that
was all.

Without commenting, Trev began to turn Gavin's pockets inside out,
bringing to light coins, cigarettes and a lighter.

"What are these?" The Martian came around in front again. He threw a
pair of brass knuckles to the desk top.

"Knucks," explained Gavin with a tight grin. "Antiques. But I've a
fondness for 'em. Silent. Efficient."

Trev regarded them with distaste. The Captain, on the contrary, looked
interested. Gavin couldn't see how the girl reacted as she was sitting
almost out of his angle of vision.

The girl puzzled him. She was an unknown factor. He had never heard
of her. Cabot, he had placed at once: Master of the _Nova_, which of
all the slaveships was giving the Terran patrols the biggest headache.
But the girl. Who was she? Where did she fit in the picture? She was
a strikingly beautiful girl, that much he had seen in the momentary
glance he had caught of her. Then she had moved out of his vision.

"Who are you?" the Martian asked Gavin bluntly.

"You've got my papers there on the desk. Only the discharge is faked."

"You said you hadn't had a ship in three years. Why?"

"The Commission suspended my license for a year."

"Why?"

Gavin could feel the sweat prickle his forehead. His hands clasped
about the back of his neck grew clammy again. He drew a long breath.
"Smuggling colonal into Terra. I was chief engineer aboard the
_Europa_. She was one of Transplanet Lines' ships. I was lucky to get
off with a suspension. But after the scandal I found I couldn't get a
berth."

"So!" said the Martian.

Gavin heard the girl draw a sharp breath.

Captain Cabot leaned forward quickly from the waist, his narrow brown
eyes boring into Gavin's.

Colonal was the most vicious drug known in the System. Extracted from
a Ganymedian plant, it lifted its devotees into a special paradise for
a few short years; then blind raving insanity inexorably followed its
use. Transplanet Lines had been in reality a powerful ring of wholesale
smugglers. Agents of the Terrestial Intelligence Service had finally
smashed the ring. The company had ceased to exist; its high officials
having been sent to prison, its ships and records confiscated.

"So," Trev repeated softly. There was a cat-like expression of triumph
on his sharp pale features. "Then you and Miss Petrovna must have known
each other. Miss Petrovna was third mate aboard the _Galaxy_, another
of Transplanet's ships."

       *       *       *       *       *

Gavin felt his stomach go hollow. He faced the girl, his hands still
clasped grotesquely behind his neck, and forced himself to observe her
coolly.

He saw a girl with skin almost as white as a Martian. Her lustrous
black hair was combed back severely from a high white forehead, parted
in the center, and done in a knot at the nape of her neck. Her long
black eyes were half-hidden by thick black lashes. She was wearing
white shorts and blouse, the universal daytime dress of Venus.

Gavin turned back to the Martian and said in a stony voice, "I sailed
with Transplanet for seven years. I never heard of a Miss Petrovna!"

The girl bit her lip, brought her hand up to her high virginal breasts.
The Martian looked puzzled. Captain Cabot frowned.

It was the girl who recovered first from Gavin's unexpected flank
attack. She said easily to Gavin, "That's quite possible, Mr. Murdock.
You were chief engineer of the _Europa_. That was Transplanet's finest
ship. The _Galaxy_ was only a tramp freighter, and I was just a green
third mate." Her voice was low, husky. "But I remember you, Mr.
Murdock." She gave an amused laugh. "In fact, I had a crush on you!"

Gavin Murdock's jaw dropped. He stared at the girl in utter
astonishment, unable to believe his ears.

"Oh," said the girl, reading his disbelief in his gaunt, freckled
features, "I wouldn't have dared put myself forward. I worshipped from
afar. I was only eighteen, just out of school."

The Martian interrupted, "Sit down, Mr. Murdock." The lines of
suspicion had faded from his forehead. "Sit down. You may drop your
hands. What have you been doing since then?"

Gavin sank weakly into his chair. He didn't reply. Captain Cabot
was regarding Miss Petrovna with an alert expression. The film of
drunkenness, Gavin sensed, had been banished from the Captain's brain
like a fog by a ray of sunlight.

The Martian said, "Never mind. It's not important. Once we're satisfied
with a man, we don't delve too deeply into his activities. Here, you
can have your gear back."

As Gavin stowed the articles in place, the Martian wrote out his pass
and shoved it across the desk. "Take this to the Commissioners. It'll
authorize you to sign the _Nova's_ articles."

Gavin stood up, zipping the pass in his money belt. Captain Cabot got
to his feet also and thrust out his hand. "Glad to have a man of your
ability with us on the _Nova_, Murdock. Miss Petrovna is our third
mate. You'll be on the same watch."

The Captain's tone was dry and formal, lacking cordiality. There was,
Gavin sensed, no cordiality in the man. He was as devoid of emotion as
a block of stone.

The girl said, "Nadia Petrovna's the name, Mr. Murdock." She too had
stood up and now extended her hand. When Gavin took it, she smiled,
exposing small brilliant white teeth. "The officers of the _Nova_ are
celebrating the sailing at the Temple of Joy tonight. You'll be there,
won't you, Mr. Murdock?" There was a twinkle in her long black eyes.
"We've a lot to talk over."

"I wouldn't miss it," Gavin assured her dryly.

When Gavin Murdock reached the street, he leaned weakly against the
lichen-covered wall of the office building and blew out his breath.
Still not trusting himself to think, he hailed a robot cab. As the
taxi darted out into the traffic, he relaxed limply into the yielding
flexoplas cushions.

It had been touch and go, he reflected, but in a few minutes he would
be signing the _Nova's_ articles before the Interplanetary Commissioner.

A grin lit his bony freckled face. With the girl vouching for him, the
slavers would never be able to disprove his story. Transplanet was
no longer in existence; its records were in the secret files of the
Terrestial Intelligence Service.

He ought to know, he thought grimly; he, Gavin Murdock, was the T.I.S.
agent who had broken the colonal smuggling ring.

Gavin chuckled. Nadia Petrovna's lie had been superb, especially that
touch about having had a crush on him. That had been pure artistry. It
had carried absolute conviction.

But why had she done it?

Gavin's amusement gave way to misgivings. He was a special agent of the
T.I.S. He had been assigned to the Jovian slave trade for two reasons.
He wasn't known on Venus or Jupiter. But, more important, he had been
an astro-engineer on a Tri-World ship before joining the T.I.S.

He had never been employed by Transplanet, though. He didn't know Nadia
Petrovna from Eve!

Then why had she lied?

The robot cab drew up to the curb, stopped, said in a harsh metallic
voice, "Offices of the Interplanetary Commission," and the door opened
automatically.


                                  II

The light, filtering through Venus' eternal cloud blanket, was a soft
gray, not intense enough to cast shadows. Gavin Murdock noted the
phenomena with a frown as he walked along the Street of Sorrow.

In the center of the block, he paused suddenly, lit a cigarette. His
eyes, darting across the lighter's flame, searched the crooked twilit
street behind him. He was just in time to see a figure flatten itself
in a doorway.

Gavin's lips tightened. Ever since leaving the Commissioner's he had
been conscious of being followed. There had been a man on the corner
below his window when he packed his luggage and sent it off to the
_Nova_. The same man had been loitering near the corner as he set off
for the Temple of Joy to meet the officers.

He certainly didn't intend to tip his hand by communicating with the
T.I.S. Commandant Samuels would know that he had accomplished the
first step of that intricate plan, hatched in the head offices of the
Terrestial Intelligence Service, when they saw his name on the _Nova's_
articles.

He allowed his glance to travel about the street. He was in the Old
Port district. Once it had been the heart of the city, but, the big
space lines having built a new field on the bogs of Antram just north
of Venusport, the crumbling rocket blast pits of Old Port were no
longer used except by slavers, smugglers and a few tramp freighters.

He turned abruptly on his heel and resumed his course toward the Temple
of Joy. Let them trail him; they'd learn nothing for their pains.

From the Street of Sorrows, he emerged into Venner Square. The statue
of August Venner, the first Terrestial to bridge the void and set foot
on Venus, rose green with mold in the center of the plaza.

It began to drizzle.

Gavin glanced at his watch. In a few minutes it would be dark. Already
the fungus, lichens and mosses creeping up the face of the buildings
were radiating a greenish phosphorescent glow. He quickened his pace
across the square. As he entered Mercury Alley, he glanced back.

The figure was furtively skirting the statue.

The alley ahead was deserted. It was a blind alley and at the head of
it was The Temple of Joy where the officers of the _Nova_ would be
beginning their night's carousal.

A frown made two vertical furrows between Gavin's sandy brows. Then a
movement at the other end of Mercury Alley caught his attention. Two
men were bearing down on him. They came ahead in the open, but with
caution.

A shiver of apprehension coursed up Gavin's spine. He spun around.
The shadower behind him was no longer furtive. He too was closing in
warily. Both exits of the alley were closed. Except for a single bar,
the buildings on either hand were dark and silent. Trap!

The bar should have a rear exit. Gavin wheeled suddenly and plunged
through the door. A barmaid industriously polishing the plastic bar
glanced up as Gavin slammed the door. There was one customer, a Terran,
seated at a corner table. He smiled at Gavin. "Won't you have a seat,
Mr. Murdock?"

Gavin halted in mid-stride to regard the man in utter astonishment.
He was a nondescript-looking fellow, middle-aged, with a slight black
mustache.

"Won't you sit down, Mr. Murdock?" he repeated genially. "I was
beginning to fear you'd never arrive."

The girl crossed silently to the door and bolted it.

Gavin's bewilderment gave way rapidly to caution. His pale blue eyes
narrowed; his face hardened. He had been herded into the bar, he
realized, like a horse into a corral.

"Sit down," urged the middle-aged man for the third time. "What'll you
have?"

       *       *       *       *       *

Gavin reached a decision. He sat down with his back to the wall so that
he could keep both the door and the barmaid under observation and said,
"Bourbon."

"Fetch the gentleman bourbon, Meg," said the middle-aged man in a
pleasant voice.

The girl brought a bottle of Terran whiskey and a glass, placing them
on the table before Gavin. She was a buxom blonde with hard, unsmiling
blue eyes and hard, painted features. Her violet shorts fit too tight
and she was wearing the sketchiest kind of halter around her full
breasts.

Gavin poured himself a drink and waited.

"You're wondering, no doubt," began the middle-aged man, "how we knew
who you were and the route you'd take." He smiled briefly. "We have
our ways of knowing, Mr. Murdock. Let me assure you that, before we
decided to approach you, we made a complete examination of your record.
For instance, you were chief engineer of the _Europa_. That was vital.
We had to have a man with a technical knowledge of space drives."

Gavin allowed consternation to register on his face, but thought,
_A good bluff--if I had been chief engineer of the Europa!_ The
middle-aged man, he realized, was only parroting the misinformation he
had given Trev, the Martian. Obviously, he had learned about Gavin from
either Trev or that girl, Nadia Petrovna. Captain Cabot wouldn't be apt
to double-cross himself and this had all the earmarks of treachery.

Gavin drank and asked, "Well?"

"You're an astro-engineer, Mr. Murdock. We're interested."

"Who's 'we'?"

The middle-aged man pulled out a handkerchief with which to pat his
sallow cheeks. "I'm sorry, Mr. Murdock, but I'm not at liberty to
reveal that."

Gavin scowled. "Who are you?"

"One alias is as good as another." The man smiled pleasantly. "X will
do for the present. Suppose you call me Mr. X. I represent a group, Mr.
Murdock, who are interested in the _Nova's_ space drive."

"Well?" said Gavin dryly. The group whom Mr. X represented weren't the
only ones interested in _Nova's_ spacedrive. The T.I.S., for one, was
particularly concerned about it. The _Nova_ made the crossing between
Jupiter and Venus with her contraband load of slaves in an impossibly
short space of time. The crack patrol ships of the Empire had neither
been able to keep the _Nova_ in sight nor trap her. Gavin's early
experience as an astro-engineer with Tri-World had been the really
important reason that he had been assigned to the job.

Mr. X put the tips of his pudgy fingers together. "As third
assistant-engineer of the _Nova_, Mr. Murdock, you will have an
unrivaled opportunity to study her drive. We're willing to pay and pay
handsomely for the secret of that drive."

"How much?"

"A million credits," replied Mr. X, without blinking an eye.

Gavin allowed his breath to escape between his teeth. He knew now who
was behind Mr. X and it didn't make him any happier. Only one of the
big corporations on Terra-United Spaceways, General Atomic, Tri-World,
or Amalgamated plastic--could offer such a sum. The Gargantuan
companies maintained their own investigation agencies, ruthless,
efficient gestapos willing to go to any length to get their hands on
valuable discoveries.

He stood up, saying, "I'll think it over."

"I'm afraid you'll have to reach a decision now." X's voice was cold.

Gavin's hard blue eyes went wary.

The T.I.S. maintained in their secret files a complete record of
every man and woman engaged in the slave trade. Gavin had studied it
thoroughly in preparation for this assignment. Trev, he knew, besides
being a broker in slaves for Josiah Cabot, was suspected of dealing
in merchandise of a great deal more dangerous character. Scientific
secrets.

Trev was a free lance, buying from independent spies and selling to
the highest bidder. He was tolerated because the very corporations
and governments he stole from were also his patrons. Trev would have
connections with all the secret agencies of the different corporations.
If anyone were dickering with X to sell the _Nova's_ space drive,
Trev would be the likeliest suspect. And, if Trev thought Gavin was
dickering with X, the Martian wouldn't hesitate to betray him to Cabot.

That was one side.

On the other hand, it might be a trap. His best policy was to have
nothing to do with X.

He said, "I don't do business with someone I don't know. I'm going now.
Don't try to stop me."

"Meg," said Mr. X.

       *       *       *       *       *

Gavin felt the girl's hand seize his shoulders in a grip of steel. She
had come up behind him lightly as a cat. Her fingers dug into his arms
and held him like a vise. Her buxomness, he realized, in dismay, must
be solid muscle.

"Kill him," she advised X over Gavin's shoulder. "He's probably a spy
for one of the other companies." She had a harsh metallic voice.

X looked undecided.

Gavin wrenched his shoulders. The girl merely tightened her grip
until his biceps felt numb. She smelled strongly of arsilene, a heavy
sweetish Martian perfume.

She said over his shoulder again, "Who else but one of their spies
would refuse a million credits?"

The shot struck home. X made an expression of distaste and slipped his
hand in the pocket of his jacket.

It was no time for gallantry. Gavin snapped back his head. His skull
crushed into the girl's face. Her hands loosened. With a wrench, he
jerked free and kicked the table in X's lap.

[Illustration: _With a wrench, Gavin jerked free!_]

Gavin bounded around the table, pulling his hands from his pockets.
Brass knucks gleamed on both fists. X was scrambling up from beneath
the debris. Gavin hit him in the temple.

He whirled in time to see the big blonde reaching for him. Gavin had
no intention of letting her get her hands on him again. His gleaming
knucks caught the girl on the jaw. She folded to the floor, half-across
the legs of the unconscious X.

He regarded the pair for a moment, catching his breath. Then he went to
the door, shot a bolt and opened it cautiously. The three men who had
herded him into the bar were standing just outside.

He backed out, waved negligently and said, "I'll see you later, then,"
loudly enough for the three men to hear, and closed the door.

The men eyed him coldly. As soon as he was past they trooped inside.

Gavin instantly lit out running at top speed. He didn't slow down until
he skidded inside the Temple of Joy half a block away and brought up
panting before a startled headwaiter. "Where's the _Nova_ party?"

"_Nova_ party, sir?"

"Yes, yes," Gavin said impatiently. He changed position so he could
keep the entrance in sight. "The officers of the _Nova_ are throwing a
celebration here tonight. Where are they, man? Speak up."

The waiter looked at Gavin as if he were crazy. "I never heard of
them," he said. "There's no such party here."

Gavin's lips thinned. He was silent a moment, digesting this
information. He glanced toward the door. To return now to the street
would be fatal. They would be waiting for him. He wasn't safe even here
in the lobby of the Temple of Joy. He wanted to mix in with the safety
of crowds and lights.

He gave the waiter a bill, saying, "Get me a table then, near the wall."

The waiter's expression changed miraculously. He said, "Yes, sir," and
ushered Gavin into the inner sanctum.

A heady, throbbing rhythm beat like surf in Gavin's ears. The light was
dim, rosy, intimate. Gavin threaded his way between the seated patrons
conscious of laughter, of bare shoulders and arms, of vivid splashes of
color.

"Here, sir," said the waiter. Gavin sat down and ordered bourbon.

A Martian girl was executing a barbaric dance in a cleared space in
the center of the floor. When the waiter brought Gavin his drink, he
sipped it guardedly, dividing his attention between the dancer and the
entrance. From the corner of his eye, he saw someone come inside. He
turned his head and immediately stiffened.

It was Nadia Petrovna. She was alone.

       *       *       *       *       *

The girl paused at the edge of the tables, her long black eyes sweeping
the room. When they reached Gavin, they halted. She waved and started
for his table.

Her costume, Gavin realized, must have been designed individually
for Nadia by one of the great Martian fashion artists. Two plates of
thinnest rose plastic inlaid with delicate gold lace work had been
moulded to conform exactly to her high small breasts. What kept them in
place was a mystery--one which Gavin wouldn't have been above solving.
A full skirt of rose satin hung low on slim ample hips and fell to the
instep of her gold sandals.

He stood up as she approached, holding a chair for her.

She didn't sit down. Her face appeared whiter than when he had last
seen her in Trev's office. She said hurriedly, in an undertone.

"Where have you been? The party was cancelled. We've been scouring
Venusport for you. The _Nova_ sails in an hour."

"Sit down," said Gavin.

"But ..." she began and then sank into the chair.

Gavin took his seat, saying, "The _Nova_ wasn't scheduled to sail until
tomorrow."

"I know." Her voice was urgent. "It's an emergency of some sort. I
don't know what's happened. Captain Cabot got our clearance from the
port of authorities just a few minutes ago. Hurry, please. I've a cab
waiting outside." She started to push back from the table.

"We've an hour," said Gavin dryly. His hard blue eyes regarded the girl
with a thoughtful stare. There had been no record of this girl in the
T.I.S.'s secret file. What did it mean? He wondered again why she had
lied for him in Trev's office.

He asked suddenly, "Does the Temple have a back door?"

"I don't know."

"We're going to find out."

He stood up and left money on the table. When Nadia still hesitated,
Gavin took her arm lightly but firmly and urged her toward the stage
door.

A yellow-skinned Venusian, his green eyes cold as glass, stopped them
at the entrance of the passage. "You can't come backstage," he said.

On the dance floor, a flock of girls dressed like Ganymedian natives
were performing an orgiastic dance. The drums in the orchestra beat out
a sultry rhythm. Gavin reached in his pocket for a bill. A disturbance
at the main door caused him to look up quickly.

A man had just entered across the room. It was Mr. X.

Nine men followed X through the door, fanning out among the tables.
They were armed with bell-mouthed, Dixon ray rifles.

"Everybody keep your seat!" Mr. X called out sharply.

A woman screamed. The drums stopped. The dancing girls lapsed into a
confused huddle.

Instead of a bill, Gavin brought the knucks out of his pocket and
clipped the Venusian behind his ear. Snatching the girl's arm, he
dragged her through the door.

"Run," he commanded. "Run like hell!" He pushed her down the long dimly
lit corridor ahead of them.

Nadia ran. She hiked up her skirts and ran as if the devil himself were
after her. Gavin, hard on her heels, caught the reflection of a yellow
ray as one of X's men turned loose at the stage door. The sound of
screams, shouts and overturned tables pursued them down the corridor.

Gavin caught glimpses of dressing rooms, a scad of Venusian and Terran
girls changing costume. He nearly collided with an electronician. Then
they burst through a small chamber where a wizened Mercurian sat in a
chair propped against the wall--and out into the street.

It was the next street over from Mercury Alley, Gavin realized. He
hailed a robot cab, piled in with the girl and said, "Pit Nine."

The cab darted away from the curb. Gavin caught a flash of bare leg,
stared at Nadia. She was hunched in her corner, her face a dim oval in
the darkened interior. She pointed something black at him.

"I've got a dart-gun!" Her voice trembled. "Don't move! Or I'll shoot!"


                                  III

Gavin Murdock drew a deep breath. He didn't move. The girl must have
carried the gun strapped around her leg above the knee. In that costume
it wouldn't have been invisible anyplace else.

He said, "It's your move."

Without answering him, the girl said, "Change of address--Pit Seven."

"Change of address--Pit Seven," the metallic voice of the cab repeated
through the speaker overhead.

Gavin felt like a blind man playing chess. He narrowed his pale blue
eyes. "Where are we going?"

"The _Nova_." Her voice was unfriendly.

"But the _Nova's_ at Pit Nine."

"Pit Nine's being watched. We're going to use the underground."

Gavin shifted slightly, half-turned towards the girl. "Point that dart
gun some other direction," he complained. "My blood's running cold."

She didn't move it.

Gavin's long arm snapped out with the precision of a cat's paw, slapped
the gun out of her hands. The girl gasped, "Oh!" snatched for the
weapon, but Gavin's hand was already covering it.

The gun in his possession, he asked, "Who's watching the _Nova_?"

"As if you didn't know!"

Gavin considered this, examining the dart-gun at the same time. It was
a tiny thing, curved to fit the roundness of a leg. Beautiful as a
jewel.

"Oddly enough," he returned dryly, "I don't know."

She glared at him through the semi-gloom without replying. The
buildings flowed past the windows, the green glow of lichens and moss
illuminating the street with about the same intensity as a full moon's
light on Terra.

Gavin made his voice cold as he leaned toward the girl. "Do you want me
to loosen your tongue for you? Who's watching the _Nova_?"

Nadia gasped, her hand at her throat. "You know as well as I do. X's
men!"

"Who's X?"

"Who's X? You ask that? You went to see him this afternoon. You even
made an appointment with him later."

Gavin recalled the words he had spoken for the benefit of X's men as he
left the bar--"I'll see you later, then." Captain Cabot was not without
his own spy system after all. His estimation of Cabot went up a notch.

"You won't believe this," he said, "but I haven't the foggiest notion
who X is. Do you know?"

Nadia's dark eyes looked puzzled. She shook her head, gave a short
laugh. "You're going to be a big disappointment to Josiah. I wouldn't
care to be in your shoes."

"Josiah ... oh, you're referring to Captain Cabot. So he expects me to
be able to tell him who X represents."

"You were talking to him," said the girl bluntly.

Gavin regarded Nadia a moment. Then he asked, "Why has the sailing been
advanced?"

She clamped shut her jaws.

"You don't want me to force you to talk, do you?" suggested Gavin.

"You wouldn't dare."

"Wouldn't I?"

Nadia bit her lip. "It doesn't make any difference, I suppose." She
shrugged. "You know anyway, if you're working for X. Captain found out
that some powerful clique is trying to have the _Nova_ interned. He
rushed his clearance through before they had time to act." She paused
before adding, "X has bought off Trev."

So it was the Martian who had sold out, not Nadia. He handed back the
girl's dart-gun. "Here. See if you can't behave yourself now."

Nadia took the weapon. She pointed it deliberately at Gavin's chest.
"Please clasp your hands behind your neck!"

       *       *       *       *       *

The robot cab drew up at the curb. The door opened. It's voice issued
from the loudspeaker. "Pit Seven."

"Get out," Nadia ordered. "Stand back from the door."

Gavin slid out. The buildings were gone, replaced by a wall of
structural concrete which disappeared overhead in the clouds. It had
begun to rain again, a clammy drizzle. The girl followed him to the
curb, shivering as the drops hit her bare shoulders and back.

A green-lighted sign over a door in the concrete wall read:

                     PIT SEVEN--PASSENGER ENTRANCE

"In there." She motioned at the door.

Gavin, a step in advance, ducked inside and went ahead down a long
incline until he fetched up in a mouldy unused waiting room.

"Take the door to the left."

A sign above it read:

                          MANAGEMENT--PRIVATE

At the girl's direction, Gavin passed through bare offices, smelling
of stale air and mildew and into a narrow corridor which led straight
as an arrow into the distance in either direction. Walls, ceiling and
floor radiated a pale green glow from the fungus.

Gavin, who had been keeping his sense of direction with an effort,
realized that the passage led towards Pit Nine. They followed it for a
quarter of a mile, passing only one intersecting corridor. They turned
in the second passage they met, passed along it a short distance, and
came out in the maw of Pit Nine itself.

They were on a balcony a hundred feet from the floor of the pit. The
well below was charred black by countless jet blasts. The _Nova_, a
dull black bullet-shaped monster, rested on its jets, towering straight
up four hundred feet above them. He saw an airy gangplank sloping from
the balcony to an open port in the ship. There was a glum Venusian
standing guard at the gangplank.

Urged along by the girl, Gavin ascended the gangplank into the ship
itself. "I've heard of shanghai-ing," he remarked over his shoulder.
"But this is the first case of being shanghai-ed exactly according to
your wishes."

Nadia said, "Captain Cabot will talk to you." She indicated an elevator
and they ascended rapidly to the ship's control room.

There were three men in the spacious control room: Captain Cabot, the
senior astrogator, and a communications man. They faced about, stared
at Gavin as the girl prodded him through the door.

"I found him in the Temple of Joy," said Nadia.

Cabot's glance slid over Gavin. His lean wolfish face cracked into
a smile. "I haven't time to question him now--" he began, when the
communications man interrupted.

"He's up there!" said the communications man. "Directly overhead. But
he's beyond the Heaviside layer. I can't make out his class, but he's
big. Feels like a patrol ship."

A frown passed across Cabot's face. He snapped on a televisor. "Engine
room," came a faint voice.

Cabot glanced at his watch. "Taking off in ten minutes. There's a ship
above the clouds. Don't know who she is. Have all jets primed. We may
have to dodge her."

"Check," said the voice.

"And, John," Cabot added, "I've got your third aboard. I don't care to
trust him until we get beyond the thousand-mile-limit, though, so carry
on for a while longer."

"Check," said the voice.

Cabot snapped off the televisor and turned to Nadia. "Lock Mr. Murdock
in seventeen. Then report back to the bridge."

"Yes sir," said Nadia.

Gavin was led silently below again. He could hear the rumble of the
warming jets. Nadia appeared nervous, jumpy. She wanted to get back to
the bridge and an acceleration chair before the take-off, Gavin guessed.

About midway down, she paused before a metal door numbered seventeen,
swung it open, disclosing blackness. Gavin stepped inside.

The girl allowed her face to relax. She said in a softer voice, "Lie
down. The _Nova's_ take-off is pretty rugged. Five G's." The metal door
clanged shut.

Gavin heard a bolt snick into place. Blackness, utter impenetrable
blackness engulfed him.

He spent precious minutes searching for the light switch, as the roar
of the jets whined up an ascending scale. With a grunt of satisfaction,
he found them, snapped them on. The cabin flooded with brilliance.

The body of Trev, the Martian was stretched stark and cold on the metal
deck!

       *       *       *       *       *

Gavin bent shakily over the broker of slaves and scientific secrets.
Trev's black eyes were open, glassy. A thin three cornered sliver of
metal protruded from his throat. The Martian would never steal the
_Nova's_ space drive now. He had been shot with a poisoned dart.

Suddenly, a tremendous weight fell on Gavin's shoulders. He was
squashed flat to the deck beside the dead Martian, pinned there. The
breath was crushed from his chest, and he struggled wildly to inflate
his lungs.

The _Nova_, he realized in desperation, was off!

Gavin managed to roll to his belly, push himself to hands and knees.
The pressure didn't relax. He crawled to a corner, got his legs braced
against a stanchion. If the strange ship above the clouds should
prove unfriendly, the _Nova_ would be bucking like a crazed steer in
her efforts to dodge. Anyone caught unprepared would be flipped from
bulkhead to bulkhead until he was a bundle of splintered bones.

The acceleration dragged at Gavin's lean flesh. He looked ten years
older in the harsh bright light. Sweat burst from his pores; his
eye-lids drooped; his mouth sagged.

Then the whine of the jets ceased. The terrific acceleration relaxed.
Gavin felt like a toy balloon.

Consternation widened his pale blue eyes. He gripped himself for the
buffeting he was almost sure would follow.

In the silence a wild clamor broke out from stem to stern.

The general alarm!

Gavin tensed. He could feel the pulse drumming in his temples. Then
it came. The jets burst into a full throated roar. The _Nova_ lurched
crazily to the starboard and then swept upward at a tangent.

Again the _Nova_ bucked, this time to port. A sickening circular
movement took possession of his prison. The ship, he realized, must be
above the clouds in the upper stratosphere and climbing higher in tight
spirals.

Suddenly the _Nova_ gave an uncontrolled lurch. A faint far away
explosion reached his ears.

They were being fired at! That was an atomic shell bursting off the
starboard bow. Sweat coursed down Gavin's cheeks.

Were they going to let him die in the locked cabin like a trapped rat?
The crew could escape in space tenders, if the _Nova_ were hit. Another
shell burst closer, throwing the gigantic ship sideways as a hurricane
tosses a chip.

Something burst in Gavin's brain. He came to his senses, realized he
was hammering in berserk terror on the unyielding metal door. His
knuckles were streaming blood.

He got a grip on himself, forced himself to sit down again in the
corner, back to the bulkhead, feet thrust against the stanchion. The
body of the Martian, he saw, was sliding in erratic circles about the
deck.

Gavin wet his lips, his blue eyes desperate. He had scarcely settled
himself when the third explosion burst. It was so close that there was
no sound, only a terrific blast of pressure. The lights dimmed. Gavin
was torn from his stanchion and hurled across the cabin against the
opposite bulkhead.

Fortunately, he didn't strike the unguarded steel. Instead he was flung
against the Martian's body which acted as a pad. Even so the shock was
terrific. Blackness welled up behind his eyes. He lost consciousness.

Gavin opened his eyes and realized he couldn't have been unconscious
but a second or two. He sprang to his feet. And struck his head and
shoulders on the ceiling!

He gave himself a push from the overhead and floated slowly back to the
deck.

Then he realized what was wrong. The jets were quiet. A silence so
absolute that it rang in his ears blanketed the _Nova_. In all that
ship there was no sound anywhere.

The _Nova_ was falling free, falling back to the surface of Venus!


                                  IV

The skin was stretched taut across Gavin's gaunt features, the freckles
standing out like pennies.

The air, rapidly growing denser, began to whine like the keening for
the dead. He stiffened, straining to catch the sound he had imagined.

It came again. The cough of a rocket tube.

A wild hope flamed in Gavin's blue eyes. The roar of the jets blasted
into life. The cabin heeled sharply to starboard. Gavin slid down
the sloping deck until he fetched up against the bulkhead, which had
suddenly become the floor.

The _Nova_, he realized in a flood of relief, had come out of the fall
and was speeding parallel to the surface. He sat down, his joints
turning to water. He had a violent urge to be sick.

Gavin's first belief that the attacking ship had been one of Terra's
patrol spacers gave way to doubt. In the first place, the _Nova_ hadn't
been beyond Venus' thousand-mile-limit. Furthermore, he didn't believe
a Terran patrol ship would have waylaid the _Nova_ outward bound when
she was innocent of her cargo of slaves.

Then who was it?

He heard a bolt click back. The door through which he had entered was
directly overhead. The _Nova_, though, had been constructed for flying
either keel-on or stern-down. The passages which previously had been
horizontal were now vertical, and the vertical wells running from bow
to stern lay horizontal to the angle of flight. A door which had been
overhead when they were shooting straight up, now was directly across
the cabin.

As Gavin watched, it swung open. Nadia Petrovna was framed in the
opening.

She said in a breathless tight voice, "You've got to take over the
engine room! Half the black gang are dead or laid up! Captain Cabot
sent me to fetch you!"

Her hair, Gavin saw, had come undone and fell about her bare white
shoulders like an inky cloud. A trickle of blood drew a crooked red
line from a cut above her left eye down across her high cheek bone to
her small pointed chin. One of the rose plastic breast plates had been
torn completely away, and the rose gown was split up her left hip from
sandal to belt.

Gavin plunged for the door.

"This way!" Nadia started aft at a run. "The ladder! The elevators are
stalled!"

"Chief engineer?" Gavin grunted. "Where's the chief?"

"Unconscious! Concussion. Don't know how serious," she flung back at
him as she dashed along the corridor, her torn skirt streaming out
behind her. "The first is dead. The second has a broken leg."

She reached the emergency ladder and threw herself down it with
reckless abandon. Gavin followed a little more cautiously.

The engine room, Gavin saw when he and Nadia dropped to the deck, was
functioning smoothly enough now, although there was no evidence of the
explosion. A smear of blood against a bulkhead caught his eyes, then a
twisted body lashed to the deck.

But a jetman, a yellow Venusian girl, naked to the waist, was at her
post beside the quartzite windows of the tubes. Sweat poured off her
in rivulets as she watched the color of the explosions to check the
mixture.

The master mechanic, a fat Terran, was at the bridge televisor. He gave
Gavin a relieved glance. "Bridge calling, sir."

Gavin jumped to the televisor. He saw the lean wolfish profile of
Captain Cabot on the screen. Cabot's cheek had been laid open to the
bone. One arm swung uselessly. His features were bleak as granite.

Gavin said, "Murdock reporting, sir."

"Take over, Mr. Murdock." Cabot's voice sounded harsh, metallic through
the instrument. "We're describing an orbit about Venus at an altitude
of seven kilometers."

"Check."

"Is Miss Petrovna there?"

"Yes, sir."

"Let me speak to her."

The girl approached the televisor.

Captain Cabot ordered her in a terse voice, "Stay with Murdock. If he
shows any signs of treachery, shoot him!"

"Yes, sir," said the girl. She plucked the tiny dart-gun from the
spring clip on her leg where it had been visible through the rent in
her skirt.

"You heard my orders, Mr. Murdock," Cabot's cold voice issued from the
instrument. "Stand by to fire the starboard tube-bank. We're coming out
of the clouds again."

"Check."

In spite of himself Gavin couldn't help but admire the coolness of
Josiah Cabot. He turned to Nadia. "What happened?" he demanded.

       *       *       *       *       *

The girl, her long black eyes serious, had her dart-gun leveled at his
chest. "I was at the scanner," she replied in an unsteady voice. "We
cleared the clouds, making five G's. This ship was right on top of us."

"What ship?"

She shook her head. "She wasn't a patrol spacer. She didn't identify
herself. We dodged. Then she cut loose at us with atom shells. The
third shot did the damage. I don't know how serious yet, but half the
crew are laid up. Captain Cabot cut the jets, which allowed us to fall
back into the cloud bank as if we'd been knocked out."

That was quick shrewd thinking, Gavin realized.

The bridge televisor whistled shrilly.

"Bridge calling," came Cabot's voice.

"Engine room."

"Starboard jets. Half blast."

"Check." Gavin pulled the lever on the control board. "Starboard jets!"
he yelled above the sudden roar to the half-naked jetman.

The _Nova_ began to nose upward in a slow arc.

"Prime all tubes," came Cabot's crisp voice through the audio. "We'll
be above the clouds any moment."

"Check," said Gavin.

A mounting tension gripped them all as the seconds dragged past. Then
the televisor whistled again.

"Cut starboard rockets. Half blast ahead." There was another pause and
Cabot added with a faint smile, "We're through the cloud bank. No sign
of the spacer."

Nadia heaved a sigh of relief and leaned weakly against the ladder.

"Guess we lost her half around the planet," surmised Gavin.

"Course 37.22 x 5," came Cabot's voice once more. "Proceed at one G
until we ascertain damage. That is all."

"Check," said Gavin. He snapped off the televisor. "You can put that
dart-gun away," he advised Nadia dryly.

The girl snapped erect. She whipped the dart-gun in line with Gavin's
chest again. "I haven't been relieved!" She began in a queer voice. The
gun trembled. Her knees sagged. She swayed, sat down suddenly on the
first rung of the ladder.

"What's the matter?"

She gave a short, half-hysterical laugh. "Matter! I've had the pants
scared off me, and you ask what's the matter!" She clenched her teeth,
dropped her head in her hands. Her black hair fell like a veil over her
face.

Gavin snapped on the televisor.

"Engine room calling."

"Bridge," came Cabot's precise voice.

"Murdock speaking, sir. Advise Miss Petrovna be relieved. She's
suffering from shock."

Cabot looked startled. He hesitated. "Tell Miss Petrovna she's
relieved. Carry on, Mr. Murdock."

"Check."

Gavin turned to the girl. "You heard the Captain."

She nodded weakly. There was a large greenish bruise on the gleaming
flesh of her shoulder which Gavin hadn't noticed before. He said,
"You'd better go to your cabin. Patch yourself up." He raised a sandy
eyebrow. "That costume could stand a repair job, too."

Nadia glanced at herself, at the missing breast plate, the ripped
skirt, and wailed, "Oh, dear. It's ruined."

"You're lucky that you're not, too," drawled Gavin dryly.

"Ruined? Me?" She shot him a glance from her long black eyes. "Why Mr.
Murdock, I didn't know you were so impetuous," and fled up the ladder.

Gavin stared after her. He made an uncomplimentary but expressive
remark under his breath.

       *       *       *       *       *

The jetman and master mechanic stood their regular four-hour watches,
but Gavin went unrelieved. He spent the first twelve hours examining
the _Nova's_ space drive. He could discover nothing extraordinary about
it. It was capable of driving the slave ship at an acceleration of five
G's, but several of the latest model Terran patrol spacers were able to
do as well. It left him completely mystified.

No great damage had been done the _Nova_, but, besides sundry fractured
arms, legs, and ribs, seven men had been killed outright. The chief
engineer was recovering from a light case of concussion. Gavin was the
only qualified engineer aboard able to stand watch.

He drank gallons of coffee during the next twelve hours, trying
desperately to stay awake. He brooded over the fact that with one dead
engineer and another laid up with a fractured leg, he and the chief
would have to stand four on and four off during the entire twelve
sidereal months, which was the minimum time required to make the
crossing between Venus and Jupiter.

At the conclusion of thirty-four hours, Gavin was groggy with fatigue.
His eye-lids felt like sandpaper. He was irritable as a bear. He cursed
the jetman and master mechanic whenever they failed to jump fast enough
at the rasp of his voice.

His chin dropped against his chest. He snapped his head up, realizing
he'd been asleep on his feet, and glanced at the chronometer. He had
been on watch for thirty-seven hours.

Someone tapped his shoulder.

Gavin swung around and rubbed his blood-shot eyes. A small wiry man
with his head swathed in bandages had descended the ladder without
Gavin's hearing him.

"I'm Villanowski," said the man in a cultured voice. "Chief engineer.
Sorry I couldn't relieve you sooner."

Gavin shook hands, feeling an almost uncontrollable urge to throw
himself on the deck and sleep. He repeated the course and their
acceleration mechanically.

"Go on to your cabin," the chief urged. "Get a good sleep. We'll have
to stand four hours on and four off the rest of the voyage, but it'll
only be two weeks."

"Two weeks!" Gavin echoed. "But that's impossible, sir." His fatigued
brain grasped at the puzzle confusedly and then came up with an answer.
"We're turning back to Venus?"

"No." Villanowski shook his head. "We're going on to Jupiter."

"But that's a twelve month voyage."

The chief patted his shoulder. "You haven't heard of the little death,"
he smiled.

"Little death?"

Villanowski nodded. "Never mind trying to understand now. You're out
on your feet, Murdock. I'll explain after you've had some rest. But
take my word for it. We'll be setting the _Nova_ down on Jupiter in two
weeks."

Gavin staggered to his cabin in bewilderment.

He threw himself on his bunk without even bothering to remove his
shoes. He thought, _Little death! Jupiter in two weeks! That crack on
the skull must have affected the chief engineer's mind!_ Then sleep
descended on him like a shroud.


                                   V

When Gavin at length awakened, he rolled out of his bunk groggily,
showered and shaved and then made his way to the officer's mess. Nadia
Petrovna, dressed in practical coveralls of gray siliconex, was seated
at a table eating bacon and eggs.

Bacon and eggs! Gavin stared. Whoever heard of such grub aboard a
spacer bound on a year's voyage. And there had been showers, and the
cabins were not especially cramped.

Nadia waved a piece of toast at him. "Hello! The crew've been laying
bets on when you'd come out of your coma."

He sat down and rang for the messman.

"How long does this last?" he inquired pointing at the fresh food.
"When do we start on concentrates?"

"We don't."

"Don't use concentrates! But the bulk! And the water. Isn't it
rationed?"

Nadia laughed infectiously. Just then the messman, a huge negro,
appeared and took Gavin's order.

The girl said, "We carry only a little over two weeks' supplies."

Gavin recalled the chief engineer's prediction that the _Nova_ would
be at Jupiter in two weeks. He glanced at the chart on the forward
bulkhead. The _Nova's_ position was marked with a pin. The slaver, he
saw, had been traveling at a good clip, but nothing phenomenal.

"We'll have to go faster than that," he said dryly.

Nadia's long black eyes sparkled. "You don't know about the little
death yet?"

"The little death? Yes, the chief mentioned it. Just what is this
little death?"

Nadia opened her mouth to speak, but closed it. She was peering beyond
him, Gavin realized, a frightened expression on her pretty slavic
features. Gavin swung around.

Captain Josiah Cabot stood in the door way, swaying slightly.

       *       *       *       *       *

His eyes were glazed. Fine cruel wrinkles crossed his lean face. He
moved stiffly into the messroom, his eyes straight ahead, and sat down
at a table like a mechanical doll. He didn't even see them, Gavin
realized with a start.

The black man came out of the pantry with a bottle of Terran whiskey
and a glass, and set them before the Captain. The negro's eyes rolled,
showing the whites. He got back into his pantry as quick as possible.

Nadia leaned across the table to Gavin. "He's drunk. He'll stay drunk
until after the little death. It's horrible!"

Suddenly the Captain burst into a roar of laughter. He poured himself a
drink and gulped it greedily. He said in an unexpectedly ringing voice:

"I see you, Paula. Why don't you go back to hell where you belong? You
can't touch me now," and burst into laughter again, staring at the
empty doorway.

A cold chill shivered up Gavin's spine.

Nadia said, "Paula was his mistress. She tried to poison him. He
strangled her and threw her body out the disposal chute!"

"Hey," hissed Gavin, "keep your voice down! He can hear you."

"He doesn't even know we're here."

Gavin looked at Nadia thoughtfully. The girl's white features had gone
translucent like milk glass. Her long black eyes wore an expression of
horror.

She said, "It's just starting. He sees all the ones he's killed.
They return and plague him. He can't rid his mind of them. It's a
psychological quirk...." She paused unsteadily.

"Go on," Gavin urged.

"You'll see." Her voice was faint.

"You were a handsome tart, Paula," said Cabot, his glazed eyes
following some figure invisible to Gavin. "A foul mind in a beautiful
body. How many times did you deceive me? But I wasn't fooled." He
laughed disagreeably. "I wasn't fooled. How did it feel to wake up with
my fingers about your throat?" He paused, lean head cocked to one side,
the cruel lines etched deeper about his mouth. "That fine body doesn't
do you much good in hell, Paula?" The gloating slowly died from his
features, his voice became resigned. "There's no use holding a grudge.
You're dead, Paula, and there's nothing you can do about it. It's too
bad you can't drink. You were fond enough of it alive. But I'll drink
it for you," and he chuckled triumphantly.

"I'm leaving." Nadia sprang to her feet, lips bloodless. "I can't stand
it."

Gavin escorted her to the door. He paused to salute Cabot. "Charmed to
make your acquaintance, Paula," he added.

Nadia glanced at him in surprise. "How can you make fun of him?"

Gavin regarded the girl somberly. "I'm not making fun of him." His
voice was grim. "This girl he murdered--Paula--she might be a person to
cultivate."

"My star, you're cold. You're not even human!" Nadia started off, but
Gavin laid hold of her arm.

"What happened to Trev, that Martian who sold out to X?"

Nadia faced him again, biting her lip. "Cabot killed him," she replied
in a whisper. "His body has been thrown out the disposal chute."

"Who is this mysterious Mr. X?"

"I don't know! I don't know, I tell you!" She wrenched away, fled down
the passage.

Gavin watched her until she was out of sight. Nadia had accompanied
Cabot that day in Trev's office. The record on Captain Cabot in the
T.I.S. file was brief but illuminating. _Antecedents unknown. Master of
the slave ship, Nova, Venusian registry. Suspected in connection with
disappearance of two women: Paula duBois, a Terran of French descent;
Aastra, a Martian girl of the house of Cor._

Gavin whistled softly. It wasn't hard to imagine others. A modern
bluebeard. Only Cabot didn't hang them in a closet; he threw them out a
disposal chute.

       *       *       *       *       *

Villanowski's face was gray with fatigue when Gavin finally relieved
him. The chief was a slight homely man with the quick darting movements
of an old maid. His hair was iron gray, untrimmed, rumpled.

He said wearily to Gavin, "We're going on regular watches after all.
The second has her leg in a cast. We've rigged a special chair for her."

Gavin nodded. "What's the little death, Mr. Villanowski? I've been
hearing more about it, but no one seems inclined to explain."

The chief engineer passed his hand before his blood-shot eyes.
"That requires considerable explanation, Mr. Murdock. I'm too tired
to attempt it at the moment. Later." He gave Gavin the course and
acceleration, adding that Miss Wilde, the second assistant-engineer,
would relieve him and disappeared up the ladder.

With the one exception of Nadia Petrovna, the dossier of every man and
woman aboard the _Nova_ in the T.I.S. secret file was complete. Gavin
almost knew them by heart. John Villanowski was a Terran of Polish
descent. A scientist of interplanetary fame, he had held the chair of
astrophysics at New Yale for a while. He had been instrumental in
the development of the meteor deflector, the robot astrogator, and a
radical improvement of the scanner.

General Atomic, though, had stolen all three of his discoveries.
Villanowski had sued. False evidence had been trumped against him;
his reputation had been blackened. Then General Atomic had used its
influence to force him to resign from the university.

The injustice of his disgrace had wrought a shocking change in
Villanowski. From a pleasant savant he became an anti-social, a
dangerous man. He had fled to Venus where he had dropped from sight for
a while, turning up again as chief engineer of the slaver, _Nova_.

Any startling development of the _Nova's_ space drive, Gavin reasoned,
would be due to Villanowski.

The televisor buzzed. Gavin snapped it on. "Engine room."

Nadia's features glowed on the screen. "Bridge calling." She flashed
him a smile. "I'll be on the observation deck when I've finished my
trick on the bridge, Mr. Murdock." The instrument went dead.

Gavin muttered something under his breath. He caught Jerome Fitz, the
master mechanic, eyeing him with a grin and cursed the fat Terran
roundly.

"Come here, Fitz."

"Yes sir." The master mechanic left his work and approached.

"What the hell is this little death?"

Fitz scratched his head. "I've been through it twenty-seven times," he
confessed, "and I don't rightly know, sir."

"Don't know? What kind of answer is that? What do you do here in the
engine room?"

Again the fat Terran shook his head. "Beggin' your pardon, sir, but
we're not in the engine room, then."

"What?"

"No, sir. We go to our fo'c'sles. Everybody. Crew and officers. The
_Nova_ switches onto the robot pilot...." He hesitated.

"And then?" urged Gavin, impatiently. "What happens then? Speak up,
man."

Fitz looked embarrassed. "I'd rather not talk about it, sir."

"Nonsense."

The Venusian girl, who was serving as jetman had approached and was
listening.

"It's hard to explain," she interrupted, her green eyes thoughtful. "I
think we die, sir."

"What?"

"Yes, sir. I know it sounds ridiculous. You'll have to go through
it first before you understand. It's not nice to think about. It's
even less fun when it happens. The third, who was here before you,
sir--he--he reformed."

"Reformed?"

"Yes, sir. He said he couldn't stand himself after the little death.
He's running a mission in Venusport now."

Gavin cracked his knuckles thoughtfully. His gaunt freckled face was
sober. He didn't question the pair further, but set to examining the
machinery with minute care.

He found nothing until he reached the aft bulkhead. Then his pale blue
eyes fell on a faint rectangular line in the rigid steel. A door. But
there were neither knobs nor bolts nor any visible means of opening it.

"Look here, Fitz," he called the master mechanic to his side, pointed
out the door. "Where does this lead?"

Fitz scratched his head. "I don't know. Never noticed it before."

The Venusian girl had seen it, but had no more idea than Fitz what lay
beyond.

       *       *       *       *       *

Gavin spent most of his four-hour watch trying to ascertain the secret
of its mechanism. He was still sweating over it profusely when Sally
Wilde, the second assistant-engineer, arrived in her wheel chair to
relieve him.

The second was a tall, gray-eyed blonde, handsome after a rangy
fashion. One of her long legs was propped straight ahead of her in a
plastic cast. She was wheeled down by the relieving watch and shook
hands with Gavin like a man.

"I've been curious about what you were like," she informed him with a
roguish smile. She wore a green wrapper thrown about her indifferently,
and that was all. She caught the direction of his eye. "Damned nuisance
to dress with this lump of plastic on my leg."

She was, Gavin perceived, the arch type of emancipated female whom he
detested so heartily. He mumbled something about being glad she was
doing so nicely.

"The last third," she explained, "was a disappointment. But you're a
pleasant surprise, Mr. Murdock. So virile." She thumped the transparent
plastic cast. "When I get rid of this we'll do something about it."

Gavin fled up the ladder.

He came out on the observation deck and recognized Nadia in her gray
coveralls seated in a deck chair and staring upward at the stars. They
floated in the void like gems on black velvet.

He came up behind her saying, "Some day man will conquer outer space as
he has the planetary system."

Nadia sat up, her black eyes provoked. "What are you? A fish? After all
I'm supposed to have a passion for you. Didn't I say back in Trev's
office that we had a lot to talk over, Mr. Gavin Murdock, ex-chief
engineer of the _Europa_?"

Gavin pulled up a deck chair. His blue eyes wary, he asked in a flat
voice, "Why did you vouch for me? You never worked for Transplanet. Why
did you lie?"

"No," she replied slowly. "No, I never was third mate aboard any of
Transplanet's ships. But I wasn't lying. I did know you." She laughed
teasingly. "And I did have a crush on you, Mr. Gavin Murdock, ex-first
assistant-engineer of Tri-World's ship, the _Saturn_!"

Gavin controlled an inclination to jump. His face hardened. It was true
he had been first assistant-engineer of the _Saturn_. He had left her
to join the T.I.S.

"I was a cadet aboard the _Saturn_," Nadia explained. "Now just exactly
what are you? And what do you want aboard the _Nova_?"

Gavin was silent a moment. "Now you're going to lie," accused the girl
angrily.

"No. On the contrary, I'm going to ask you the same question. Your own
position can't be too secure. That's why you had to back me up with
that artistic lie in Trev's office. You were afraid they'd start asking
you questions ... I wouldn't be surprised if you were a T.I.S. agent!"

The girl looked startled. A flush suffused her pale cheeks. She said,
"So that's how you plan to shut my mouth. You devil! You know that if
Cabot even suspected such a thing he'd kill me."

"Well," said Gavin coolly. "I don't know that any of us can afford to
take a chance if you're a T.I.S. agent."

"Hush!" pleaded Nadia in agony.

"Look what it would mean. We'd be condemned to the Lunar Corrective
Colony."

She gripped his arm desperately. "But I'm not! I'm not!" She regained
her composure with an effort and went on in a low bitter tone, "I have
been proscribed! Does that answer your questions? I killed a man. He
was a high official of Tri-World. The corporation put a price on my
head."

The Terran government was humanitarian. Capital punishment had been
abolished along with a score of other institutions such as marriage,
divorce and the family.

But the big corporations were the real rulers. Feudal in character,
they maintained their power by purges that would have made the bloody
twentieth century snow white by comparison. Their property, their
officials were inviolate. Their law was a tooth for a tooth, and their
gunmen hung on the trail of an offender whom they had proscribed until
they caught up with him.

If the girl was telling the truth, she was as good as dead. Sooner
or later, ten--twenty years, it made no difference, the agents of
Tri-World would catch up with her.

"Why did you kill him?"

"He--he...." She glanced at the deck, flushed faintly.

"Nonsense," said Gavin. "People don't get killed for that any more. Why
did you kill him?"

She looked at him, startled. "He caught me drawing a plan of
Tri-World's magnetic ore-loader. It was a corporation secret. I was
just a kid, a cadet aboard the _Saturn_. I--I was offered a lot of
money for the plans...." She halted lamely.

"Who offered you the money?"

"Trev." Her voice was a whisper.

       *       *       *       *       *

Gavin was surprised only at the fact that Nadia had confessed such a
thing. She had placed herself completely in his power as long as she
lived.

"I didn't ask you here to tell you that," she broke in on his
speculations. Her voice was unsteady. "But to show you something.
Look." And she pointed behind them towards Venus.

Gavin at first could see nothing except the yellow sun with its
spectacular corona. Then he discovered a faint streak like the luminous
trail of a meteor. After a second he made out a second and a third.

"We're being followed," Nadia said. "They've been on our trail ever
since we left Venus. The chief astrogator figured their speed. They'll
overtake us in five sidereal days. Only, they'll be too late."

"Why?"

"The little death!" she explained.

A premonition of danger made a cold track in his brain. He swung around.

Nadia Petrovna stood very straight not four feet from him. Big tears
stood like drops of crystal in her long black eyes. She was holding her
tiny dart-gun at Gavin's chest.

"May God rest your soul." She uttered the words in a choked voice, and
pulled the trigger.

Gavin was caught completely flatfooted. He glimpsed a flash as the
splinter of steel zipped at his chest and knew he was a dead man.

The dart struck his breast and stood straight out from his blouse. He
stared down at it in panic.

But no fire of poison coursed through his veins.

He remembered his dart-proof plastic vest with a flood of relief.
Another needle stuck through his blouse into the vest as Nadia pulled
the trigger a second time.

Gavin crumpled slowly forward.

Then his knees stiffened. His hand snapped out to close about Nadia's
slim wrist, dragging her down with him. Savagely, he wrenched the gun
from her fingers. She began to sob.

Sitting on the deck, he plucked the two poisoned darts from the front
of his plastic vest. "It's good to know who your friends are," he said
dryly and got to his feet. "Don't try it again. I won't be so lenient
next time."


                                  VI

By the sixth day, Gavin Murdock was no nearer the solution of the
little death than he had been at the start.

It was Villanowski's watch below. Gavin sat on the observation deck,
watching the three streaks in the void which betrayed their pursuers.
They had closed the gap until they were almost on top of them. If the
_Nova_ possessed a unique spacedrive, Gavin reflected, she'd better be
unlimbering it. The three ships were almost in atomic shell range.

His thoughts wrestled for the hundredth time with the little death.
Villanowski had become suspicious and clammed up. The officers frankly
didn't like to discuss it. They evaded his questions, insisting he must
first experience it.

Suddenly, Gavin started to his feet, his eyes searching the void. In
toward the sun he had glimpsed the hair line of a rocket ship's jets.
He thought he could distinguish five separate streaks of light, but
they were so faint and far away that they blended into one streak. Five
trails! That could only mean a flight of patrol spacers blasting after
the three pursuers of the _Nova_.

Gavin heard a step behind him and twisted sideways, his hand rising to
his shoulder holster.

Nadia Petrovna came out on the observation deck. She caught sight of
Gavin and started to withdraw. Then an expression of determination took
possession of her features. She flushed and said, "Let's call off the
war."

"Sure." Gavin's voice was without mockery, but his hand still hovered
close to his chest.

The girl came across the deck, her expression flooded with relief. "I'm
glad now I didn't kill you. I--I was frightened. You believe that?"

"Sure."

"I've never dared tell anybody what I was forced to tell you. I've
lived for two years in absolute terror. I was desperate."

"Sure."

"You don't believe me?"

"Not altogether," he admitted. His hand didn't leave his chest. "Why
should I?"

Nadia bit her lip. Then she slipped her hand in the breast of her
coveralls, brought out her diminutive dart-gun. She brought it out very
slow and holding it by the barrel because Gavin was covering her with
his own automatic.

"Drop it," he commanded. "Push it to me with your foot."

"Now," she said, "can we talk without suspicion? I'm unarmed."

"Are you?"

Her black eyes widened in surprise.

"Yes. Of course. I wouldn't...."

"Wouldn't you?" asked Gavin stonily.

She sighed faintly. "You can search me."

Gavin moved around behind her. He searched her impersonally, but
thoroughly. If she'd been concealing so much as a postage stamp he was
convinced he would have found it.

"All right," he said with a grin. "Now I trust you."

She dropped to a deck chair. "I've been trying to work up enough
courage," she confessed, "to--to talk to you. But you've been so grim
you've frightened me off."

"Why? D'you want another try at me?"

"That's not fair." Her eyes sought the deck. "I'm afraid. Cabot has
been ... he's ... I think he suspects me of working with X."

"Are you?"

"No." Her voice was shocked.

"But Trev was?"

She nodded.

"And you were working with Trev?"

"I wasn't working with him," she protested. "Only that one time. He
offered me five thousand credits to copy the _Saturn's_ loader."

"How did you connect with the _Nova_?"

"Do you mean how did I happen to get the job as third mate? But I told
you. I was a cadet aboard the _Saturn_. I simply asked Cabot for the
job."

Gavin said, "That lie wouldn't fool a school kid. If you were
proscribed by Tri-World you wouldn't have dared approach Cabot in the
open. Someone hid you out. Someone with enough influence with Cabot got
you aboard the _Nova_--"

The general alarm cut loose with its strident clangor. Gavin sprang to
his feet. "What's that for?"

"The little death!" Nadia said with a shudder.

       *       *       *       *       *

As suddenly as the bell started it was stilled. A harsh voice came
through the public address system, "Go to your quarters immediately!
All personnel report immediately to your quarters and take to your
bunks." The voice brayed forth the commands three more times at short
intervals.

Gavin started at a run for the interior of the ship.

"Wait! Wait for me," Nadia cried.

He paused. "You better run for your cabin."

"I'm scared," she confessed in a trembling voice. "Let me come with
you."

"I'm going to the engine room."

"But...." Her black eyes opened wide. Then she said defiantly, "I don't
care. I--I want to come, too."

The jets fell silent.

"There she goes over to the robot pilot. If you're coming with me
you'll have to stretch a leg." Without another word, he plunged off
down the corridor.

A peculiar whine began to make itself heard. It was so high it hurt his
ears. The atmosphere within the ship was growing foggy. A yellow-tinged
mist eddied sluggishly like ink discoloring a glass of water.

He reached the engine room. There he halted so abruptly that Nadia
pitched against him.

The engine room was deserted. But the strange door in the aft bulkhead
stood open.

"What is it?" Nadia whispered.

"Don't know." He blinked his eyes, trying to pierce the gathering
yellow fog. He caught a glimpse of a bank of switches, the base of a
spherical tube, big as man. Then Villanowski passed across the opening
from left to right.

Gavin began to creep toward the door. Halfway there a blinding flash
stabbed at the base of his skull. He swayed dizzily, thought, "Nadia!"
Half drawing his dart-gun, he turned laboriously around.

But the girl lay stretched on the deck, her long black lashes
fluttering.

Gavin paused, tried to turn back to the door. It was like moving
through syrup. A second flash burst in his brain. He pitched to the
deck.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Nine years!" said a man's stifled voice. It reached Gavin, vaguely
distorted like an image through wavy glass. "My orbit, it's been nine
years!"

Through the open window came a wailing chant of imported black
laborers from Terra.

"But I didn't do it. You can't take me back now." The man's face
was sweating and yellow-white. His fingers twitched. He spread them
nervously on the desk top. "I'm proscribed. Jordon was a stockholder
in Amalgamated Plastic. They'll kill me! Even in the Lunar Corrective
Colony, they'll kill me."

"Sorry."

The cold unfeeling tone of his own voice shocked Gavin.

"But it's been nine years," the man persisted as if the time meant
anything. Gavin had been sent out by the T.I.S. to get him. Twenty
years wouldn't have made any difference.

"Even if I was guilty, I've proved I don't need corrective psychiatry.
I'm not an incorrigible."

"Look," Gavin interrupted. "I've got a job. I don't know whether you're
guilty or not and I don't care. I don't even blame you for killing
Jordon, if you did...."

Gavin's sense of strangeness increased. This had all happened once
before during his first year in the T.I.S. This man had been accused of
murdering a minor official of Amalgamated Plastic and had fled. After
nine years the T.I.S. had learned that he was at a remote trading post
on Ganymede. Gavin had been sent to fetch him back for trial.

Only Gavin wasn't dreaming all this now. He was _re-living_ it!

He was inside himself, yet outside, judging, appraising his own actions
with the detachment of an impersonal observer.

"I can make you rich. Millions of credits." The man's voice became low,
wheedling. "There's a deposit of pitchblende back in the hills. It's
fabulous...."

"It's no use," said Gavin harshly. "Hell, man, I'd always know that
six or seven years from now another T.I.S. agent might tap me on the
shoulder like I've done you. Besides, I'm satisfied. I'm a...."

"Manhunter!"

"If you like. I'm a manhunter. You might as well ask a cat to turn
loose a mouse. It's against his nature. Come along now."

"Murderer," said the man with disconcerting calmness. "I'm
innocent--and you're killing me just as surely as if you shot me with
that dart-gun. Do you think Amalgamated Plastic has forgotten? I'm
proscribed. Their agents will get me. Why don't you shoot me outright?"
His voice ran up the scale, half-hysterical with fright as he read his
sentence in Gavin's cold, unblinking eyes. "You're not human. Go ahead.
Kill me now. I'm not coming. Do you hear? I'm not coming."

Gavin saw himself reach suddenly across the desk and rap the fugitive
on the skull with the butt of his dart-gun.

From its peculiar vantage point, the detached half of Gavin's
personality knew the inexorable sequence of events to follow. He would
haul the fellow back to Terra, where he would be murdered by agents of
Amalgamated Plastic at his trial.

For the first time, Gavin realized, he was seeing himself as he must
appear to others. A gaunt, hollow-cheeked, sandy-haired man, with
implacable blue eyes, tight-lipped, hard-faced. Manhunter!

       *       *       *       *       *

He felt the cold deck under his fingers. He opened his eyes. He was
still in the _Nova's_ engine room. The yellow mist had dissipated. He
saw Villanowski standing over him. The chief's homely features were
cold.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

Gavin pulled himself together with an effort and scrambled to his feet.

"Curious," he admitted frankly. From the corner of his eyes, he saw
Nadia sit up, holding her temples.

Villanowski's eyes narrowed. "What did you see?"

"Nothing," Gavin said in a disappointed voice. He could feel the
perspiration break through his pores. Villanowski was no fool. "The
mist caught us at the foot of the ladder." He paused. "Next time we go
into the little death, I'd like to be in the control room with you."

"You saw the control room?"

"Oh, the door was open." Gavin summoned all his histrionic ability to
sound convincing. "I saw you and started in. Then--then I fainted, I
guess."

Indecision was reflected on Villanowski's face. Finally he growled,
"Get out, the pair of you. Don't come down here again except on your
watch."

       *       *       *       *       *

Gavin followed the girl up the ladder, his palms slippery with sweat on
the cold bars. He wasn't sure whether he'd fooled Villanowski or not.
They entered the mess room, helped themselves to coffee. He realized
the girl hadn't uttered a word since the little death. He saw she was
regarding him with a half-frightened, half-perplexed frown.

"How did the little death affect you?" he asked her.

"I had a dream. At least, I think it was." She bit her lip.

"What was it about?"

"Something in the future." She laughed. "It's silly, isn't it, to be so
frightened at a dream. Especially one so fantastic."

"I don't know," Gavin replied dryly. "Mine didn't leave me so
comfortable ... but you haven't told me what yours was."

Nadia rubbed her temples. "I dreamed we were all captured on Jupiter
and sent to the Penal Colony." She laughed at herself. "It's so silly,
because you--you"--again she gave a low laugh--"you were a T.I.S.
agent!"

Gavin felt his mouth go dry. He stared at her in consternation. He
moistened his lips and started to ask for more particulars, when the
chief astrogator entered the messroom.

The _Nova's_ astrogator nodded perfunctorily at them and went across to
the solar chart. Very deliberately, he pulled out the pin marking the
_Nova's_ position, moved it across the map to within a week's voyage of
Jupiter.

Gavin couldn't believe his eyes. "That's impossible! We weren't
unconscious but a few seconds during the little death...."

"An hour," Nadia corrected. "The effects last an hour. So Villanowski
claims."

"An hour, then. What difference does it make? The _Nova_ couldn't have
gone that distance in an hour, nor in a thousand hours! Why man, that's
faster than the speed of light!"

The chief astrogator grunted. "Impossible or not, that's our position.
If you don't think so, go on out on the observation deck and take a
look."

Gavin leaped to his feet and plunged through the door. When he came out
on the quartzite enclosed deck, he flung his gaze aloft.

The entire aspect of the heavens had changed. The three streaks
denoting the pursuing space craft were absent. The sun had diminished
to the size of a lemon. And dead ahead loomed the huge banded disc of
Jupiter.

It was true. In the space of a few moments the _Nova_ had traversed
the void between Venus and Jupiter. Even though the planets were in a
superior conjunction, the feat was unthinkable.

No wonder the big corporations were fighting like wildcats to get hold
of the _Nova's_ spacedrive!

Gavin dropped weakly in a deck chair, overawed by the possibilities. A
new era of space travel was being inaugurated!


                                  VII

Gavin Murdock was on watch below, when the _Nova_ sliced into the upper
strata of Jupiter's atmosphere. She dived in at a slant on the opposite
side of the planet for Jovopolis and was quickly smothered from view by
the thick translucent air.

To the early astronomers, Jupiter had appeared enormous although it was
only about a third denser than water. But the Huygen expedition in the
first years of interplanetary travel had resolved the enigma. Jupiter
consisted of a small solid core surrounded by an intensive and very
dense atmosphere. The force of gravity at the surface was only between
two and three times that on Terra.

Nominally, Jupiter was a colony of the Terran empire. But every attempt
at settlement had proved disastrous. Today Jovopolis was an outpost,
consisting of rotting shacks, a trading post, and one modern structure
which housed the Huygen Memorial Institute of Science. Even the
interplanetary patrol had made no attempt to install a permanent base.
The officers and men lived in their ship while they were assigned to
the station.

The _Nova_ began to settle Jove-ward. Gavin never left the bridge
televisor, pulling switches, relaying orders to the jetman and master
mechanic as the clumsy monster performed the ticklish job of landing.

Villanowski, who had been routed out of his bunk by the landing
alarm, paced back and forth the length of the engine room, his eyes
everywhere. He didn't interfere, though.

Then the _Nova_ struck with a bump which threw the chief engineer to
his hands and knees.

He scrambled up, brushing off his shorts. "Nice landing." He patted
Gavin's shoulder. "Nice landing."

It _was_ a nice landing. Gavin's bony freckled features relaxed. Broken
ankles, bruises and sprains were only too frequent when setting a ship
down without the benefit of spaceways.

"How long will it take us to load?"

"Five days," Villanowski replied. "Jovian time."

The Jovian day, Gavin knew, was only nine hours and fifty-five minutes
long. That meant the Nova would be on Jupiter forty-nine hours. Gavin
made a hasty mental calculation. It cut the margin of success to the
barest minimum time. He would have to act and act quickly.

He started for the ladder, feeling the increased gravity tug at his
flesh.

"Not so fast, lad," said Villanowski.

Gavin paused.

The chief engineer's attitude had undergone such a remarkable change
that Gavin's own suspicions had been aroused. It dated from the second
meal following the little death. Nadia had regaled the officers with
her dream--the one in which Gavin had been a T.I.S. agent and contrived
the capture of them all on Jupiter.

Villanowski's homely face had clouded. Then he had remarked with a wry
expression that stranger things could happen.

Oddly enough, however, he no longer evinced the slightest suspicion
of Gavin. But an occasional joshing reference to Murdock, the T.I.S.
agent, revealed that he hadn't forgotten Nadia's dream.

Gavin said, "Yes sir," in a doubtful tone. He couldn't afford to arouse
any doubts now.

"The Captain wants to see you before you go ashore."

"Yes, sir."

Wondering what Cabot wanted with him, he struggled up the ladder. Sweat
began to pour from his skin. It was like climbing with the old man of
the sea anchored to his back.

By the time he reached his cabin he was exhausted. He stretched out on
his bunk, drew his breath in sobbing gasps. No wonder colonization of
Jupiter had proved so difficult.

At length, he drove himself to his feet. The plan, which had been
hatched in the head office of the T.I.S., would brook no delay. Captain
Cabot would have to wait.

Stooping, he pulled a bundle of tough, specially-treated fiberoid, a
material used in the construction of space suits, from under his bunk,
slung it across his shoulder. Next, he dragged forth a clock-like
instrument to which had been attached a magnesium flare, and lastly a
cylinder of hydrogen.

The hydrogen Gavin had refined from water by a crude electrolysis. The
rest of the equipment he had slipped from the engine room, working on
it during leisure moments since the little death.

He opened his door. The corridor was deserted.

Twice during the ascent topside, Gavin had to stop and rest. Even
breathing was an effort. At length he reached the arched outer skin of
the monster, pried open an escape hatch.

       *       *       *       *       *

The thick yellow air of Jupiter poured down upon him like soup. It
smelled and tasted faintly like swamp gas. He had a momentary fear that
he would strangle. A spasm of coughing seized him as he gulped in the
first breaths.

Then, his lungs having adjusted themselves, he clambered to the outer
shell.

A hundred feet below, he could make out the surface, only sketchily
visible through the yellow pea-soup air. Slave pens and cantonments
were all swallowed by the dense fog.

He set to work assembling his instruments. The cold knifed to his
bones. A wind was blowing, too. It pushed against him like the sluggish
current of a river.

The fiberoid package, unfolded, proved to be a balloon almost ten feet
in diameter. It had a safety valve in it to neutralize the pressure
when the bag reached the stratosphere. Gavin attached the clock and
flare, started the clock in operation, inflated the bag. The instant it
tugged at his numbed fingers, he shut off the hydrogen, cast it free.

It was scarcely a fifth inflated, but the heavy pressure caused it to
float slowly, upward out of sight.

The clock was timed to ignite the flare when the balloon reached the
stratosphere. Observatories on Io, Europa, Callisto, and Ganymede
had their instruments trained on Jupiter. As soon as the flare was
discovered, a check was to be made of the prevailing winds in that
area. A simple parabola would indicate the balloon flare's probable
course. The information then would be relayed to a flight of five
patrol spacers held in readiness on the nearer moon.

That was the way it had been planned. But now Gavin was not so sure. So
many things could interfere. He closed the trap overhead and retreated
back to his cabin.

Sweating profusely, he flung himself on his bunk. He was still there,
his breath rasping in his throat, when his door was pushed silently
open from the outside.

Gavin whipped his dart-gun from its spring clip and slipped it under
his pillow. He didn't move, but lay still with his eyes closed except
for the barest fraction of an inch.

The door yawned wider.

Then the figure of Nadia Petrovna slipped soundlessly inside, eased
the door shut. She stood over him, watching him with a desperate
intentness. Satisfied that he slept, she set to work searching his
cabin.

Gavin lay quiet, observing her skill appreciatively. The girl was
efficient. She went rapidly through his closet, his chest, his bags.

She probed the lone chair cushion with a long needle, peered under his
bed, then vanished in the shower. After a moment she reappeared, stood
over him again, a puzzled expression on her pretty slavic features.

"No luck, eh?" murmured Gavin pleasantly. He opened his eyes and sat up.

Nadia gasped.

Gavin narrowed his eyes and roared in a suddenly harsh voice, "What the
hell are you prying through my luggage for?"

The girl jumped. "I--I ..." she began, and then lapsed into confusion.

He waited.

"It sounds so foolish," she confessed, her long black eyes on the deck.
Her fingers were twining about each other nervously. "But I can't get
that dream out of my mind." She glanced up at him with a frightened
expression.

"What dream?"

"The little death. When you turned out to be a T.I.S. agent. I--I
begged you to give me a chance, let me try to escape."

"Yes," asked Gavin with a show of interest. "What did I do?"

"You laughed at me. I can't forget it."

"I wouldn't laugh at you," he replied somberly.

The girl's eyes softened. They were remarkable eyes, long and black and
lustrous, the lashes half-hiding them.

"Why, Gavin, I believe you're flirting with me."

There was an odd little laugh in the words. It was the first time she'd
called him Gavin.

"Don't be too sure," said Gavin gruffly. His arms went around her
waist. He pulled her to a seat beside him and kissed her roughly.

Someone rapped at the door. Nadia sprang to her feet. Gavin called out,
"Who is it?"

"The steward, sir. The Captain sent me to fetch you to the messroom."

       *       *       *       *       *

When Gavin entered the officer's mess, he saw the Captain seated across
a table from the thinnest man he had ever encountered.

"This is Hendricks," Cabot introduced them. The Captain was cold sober
and hard-eyed. "He's the factor here at the cantonment."

Gavin shook hands. The factor had an amazing grip. His flesh hung on in
tough strings. He looked more like an animated skeleton than a man, but
Gavin was conscious of a tremendous wiry strength in him.

"You going ashore, Mr. Murdock?" the factor inquired.

Gavin nodded. "Miss Petrovna and I were planning to visit the
cantonment." He saw a glance pass between Cabot and the factor.

The factor said, "Splendid," and rubbed his emaciated hands together.
"Allow me to play host. The officers are already at my establishment."

Gavin thanked him.

"But let me warn you," went on the factor. "Don't wander off. The
gravity aboard the ship here is bad enough. The atmosphere is much
worse. It's easy to get lost, I've known newcomers to die of exhaustion
only a few steps from the cantonment."

Gavin thanked him again, started to withdraw when the factor halted him.

"I've bearers waiting outside," he explained. "They're at your service
while you're here. I really advise you not to walk any more than
necessary."

This time Gavin made good his escape. He had been politely instructed
not to pry, he realized. Villanowski might be confident of him, but not
the Captain.

Gavin was smiling when he met Nadia at the main port, but his eyes were
hard. Both of them had donned outer insulating garments of thermal
cloth.

"We're going to be carried in litters like ancient Oriental
potentates," he informed her.

Nadia laughed. "You've never been to Jupiter before?"

He shook his head.

They passed through the lock into the swirling yellow air. It was like
swimming. They crept down the gangplank. The bearers were standing
patiently at the surface.

Gavin had seen Jovian dawn men before, but they never failed to
excite his curiosity. Huge, almost seven feet tall, and muscled like
gladiators, they were imposing as Greek gods. Their skin was the vivid
blue of polished turquoise, their long manes as yellow as a sunburst.

"There's a double litter," Nadia pointed out. "Let's take that."

Gavin followed her inside. The litter was cushioned like a divan. One
was borne along in a semi reclining position. Nadia clapped her hands
and cried, "Cantonment!"

Four naked blue giants swung the litter to their shoulders and started
off at a rapid trot. In a few paces, the ship had disappeared. They
were like a tiny raft, alone in a welter of yellow oppressive fog.

Gavin, peering over the edge, saw that the giants were following a
paved road. After a moment they began to pass an endless procession
of dawn men, chained ankle to ankle and moving sluggishly toward the
_Nova_.

Already the loading had started.

Gavin stared at the half-men curiously. They crept along, features
drawn, their yellow manes matted with dirt. There was a haunted look
in their eyes like caged animals.

Thirty percent would die in the crossing, he knew. Within a year
ninety percent of the rest would be dead, victims of home-sickness, of
pneumonia and measles and Venusian lung rot, not to mention a score of
other diseases. The terrible rate of fatality was good business for the
slavers. It held up the demand.

"They aren't really human," said Nadia in a faint voice as if reading
his thoughts. "They're sub-men."

Gavin nodded. Some place along the evolutionary scale the Jovians
had taken a wrong turning. They would never evolve into true _homo
sapiens_. But even cattle weren't treated as they were.

The walls of the cantonment hove suddenly in view through the murky
atmosphere. The giants paused before a massive entrance like the gate
of a feudal castle.

Gavin climbed out of the litter and started to help Nadia down.
Somewhere off in the distance he heard a faint popping.

"What is it?" cried the girl, struck by his strained air of attention.

"It sounds like the dum-dum fire. Listen!"

They both fell silent.

       *       *       *       *       *

From the direction of the _Nova_ came faintly a sound like a string of
fire-crackers going off together. "It _is_ dum-dum fire!"

"But it can't be! It's impossible."

The sound of explosions drifted to them again.

Gavin sprang back into the litter.

"Wait here," he cried. "Something's wrong at the ship." He knew that
it couldn't be the Terran patrol spacers attacking. The balloon hadn't
time to rise into the stratosphere yet.

A great fear for the _Nova's_ safety gripped him. Whatever the
cost, the ship must be preserved intact so that Terra's scientists
could examine her space drive. It had become the paramount issue,
over-shadowing in importance even the detestable slave trade.

"No!" Nadia cried. "Don't go back there." She flung herself on him,
pressing her body flat against his. "Please, for my sake, Gavin!"

He pushed her rudely aside.

Just then the chief astrogator burst upon them, running from inside the
cantonment. His strides were labored, his breath wheezing in his chest.
He saw Gavin and shouted: "The ship's being attacked! They've radioed
the cantonment for help!"

"Who by?"

"X's men!" The chief astrogator began to run down the paved highway
toward the _Nova_ and was swallowed by the fog.

Gavin heard something whine through the air. He flung himself flat on
his face, shouting at Nadia, "Down! They're shelling the cantonment!"

The shell burst out of sight in the fog. A blast of air hit him like a
wall of water.

Nadia sat up, her face smudged where she'd groveled in the dirt. She
was cursing like a spaceman.

Gavin yanked her to her feet. "Clear out!" He began to haul her away
from the doomed cantonment.

Another shell lobbed over their heads to explode directly behind them.
Gavin's hands were torn from the girl. He was blown a dozen feet by the
blast.

He lay where he lit, knowing nothing, feeling nothing.


                                 VIII

Gavin's first impression was one of numbing cold. He opened his eyes.
Pitch blackness engulfed him. He had difficulty orienting himself.
Rather hazily, he recalled the shelling of the cantonment by X's men.

Gradually his mind cleared.

The swift Jovian night had fallen, he perceived, and the temperature
had dropped sharply. Only his insulating outer garments had saved him
from freezing.

He began to grope around for Nadia's body. He found nothing but bare
ground, stones, shrubs.

He sat back on his haunches, getting his bearings. The night pressed
against his eyeballs; silence rang in his ears. No popping of dum-dum
fire was to be heard. Whether the raiders had won, or Cabot was still
in possession of his ship, he couldn't tell. But the fight was over.

X, himself, he realized, couldn't possibly have reached Jupiter yet.
Even if he had been aboard one of the ships which had pursued the
_Nova_ out from Venus, a whole year must elapse before he could arrive.
Then, if X's men had attacked the _Nova_, they had been planted here
earlier and had been waiting in ambush.

That meant X had been tipped off to the location of the hidden slave
cantonment on Jupiter.

Something brushed against Gavin's face! It felt like cold fingertips.

Gavin's arms flailed the air in stark terror. He struck a soft, cold,
hairless body. There was a barrage of half-human squeaks. The air was
full of the fluttering of wings.

Scavenger bats!

Gavin felt a prickling of cold sweat break through his skin. He began
to grope feverishly for the girl's body again, working outward in an
ever-widening spiral.

After an hour he had lengthened the radius of his search until he was
among the debris of the cantonment. He sat back on his haunches, sure
of only one thing. Nadia Petrovna was not there!

The air above the demolished cantonment was thick with the squeaks and
wing rushing of the hairless bats. A faint yellow glow heralded the
dawn.

If the _Nova_ hadn't sailed, there was still hope.

Gavin drove himself to his feet, prowled the debris in search of
the road. He started hundreds of the half-human scavenger bats into
whispering, squeaking flight, stumbled across countless bodies. The
raiders had been thorough.

At length he found the paved highway, began to follow it by feel.

A wind was blowing across the road. Gavin had to fight it like a man
fording a stream against a strong current. The light, though, continued
to brighten until he could make out the trace beneath his feet. Then
the towering bulk of the _Nova_ loomed dead ahead.

She wasn't gone! Gavin flung himself gasping on the ground, trembling
with exhaustion.

He rested only long enough to control his trembling muscles, then began
to skirt the ship towards the blind spot in the rear. He stayed out of
sight. He had no desire to be spied by a possible watch posted at the
scanner.

The disposal chute was just forward of the rear jets. Gavin reached it
unobserved, as far as he could see, and began to worm his way up the
inside of the tube like a climber ascending a chimney. He reached the
lock and got his shoulder beneath it. The lock had been designed to
operate in space where the pressure inside the ship helped seal it.
Now, aided by Jupiter's dense atmosphere, he succeeded in prying the
lock up and scrambling into the trap.

Ten minutes later, he climbed out of the chute directly aft of the
galley. The air was warm and light, bringing him the odor of cooking
soup.

The passage was deserted.

Gavin slipped into the escape well which led from the engine room to
the _Nova's_ outer skin, clambered downward again. He stepped from the
escape well softly into the engine room itself.

At first he thought it was deserted. Then he discovered a guard posted
beside the sealed door in the aft bulkhead. Gavin had never seen him
before. He was a big Terran in coarse outer garments. He was facing
half away from the T.I.S. agent, holding a dart-gun.

Gavin slipped his fingers through his brass knucks. He edged cautiously
from behind the _Nova's_ cyclotron, crept up on the man with the
stealth of a ferret. At the last moment, the fellow heard him and swung
around.

Gavin clipped him behind his ear with the weight of his shoulder back
of the blow. The guard's head banged against the steel bulkhead. He
slipped nervelessly to a sitting posture, tumbled sideways. His breath
bubbled with a rattling sound from his mouth. Then he stopped breathing.

       *       *       *       *       *

Without bothering to check his pulse, Gavin turned to the control
panel. The fuel gauge showed a comfortable surplus.

Ears straining to catch any untoward sound, he slowly pulled down the
lever which dumped the fuel, watched the gauge with a growing tensity
of nerves.

The level in the gauge dropped tantalizingly slowly, as the liquid
fuel bubbled out of the tanks onto the surface of Jupiter to saturate
the soil. It was still a half-inch from the empty symbol when he heard
voices.

Someone was descending the ladder into the engine room.

Gavin's jaw set; his lips thinned. With his left hand he drew his
dart-gun, but he didn't release the dumping lever. The gauge showed a
three-eighths of an inch, then a quarter. A pair of boots descended
into his range of vision followed by the legs and waist of a man.

The man reached the deck, faced around and stared at the T.I.S. agent
in astonishment. "Don't move!" began Gavin.

Another voice from up the ladder barked "Drop that gun!"

Gavin's eyes flashed upward. He saw a man's head, shoulder and arm
through the circular ladder well. The man seemed to be lying on the
deck above covering him through the opening with a dart-gun. Gavin
dropped his own automatic.

"Take your hand off that lever!" the man snapped.

Gavin flicked his eye to the gauge. The last of the fuel was flowing
from the tanks. He released the lever, straightened his shoulders.

Let them do what they pleased to him now, he thought, they were too
late. The _Nova_ was grounded!

The second man descended the ladder and the pair of them regarded him
curiously. They were both big men, Terrans in baggy outer garments like
the guard whose skull Gavin had cracked.

"Who the hell are you?" asked the first man in a flat voice.

These men were bad. They didn't play at it. They didn't try to be. It
was etched in their cold eyes and tight mouths.

Gavin moistened his lips. "Murdock. Third assistant-engineer."

"Another one," exclaimed the second man in faint surprise. "I thought
we'd bagged the lot."

The other grunted. "We'd better take him to Y."

Gavin was searched and then hustled up the ladder into the officer's
mess. As he was propelled through the door, conversation died in the
messroom, and four pairs of eyes turned on him curiously.

Gavin controlled his surprise. Villanowski was there, ironed to his
chair, his homely features taut with strain. At the table to the left
of Villanowski sat the emaciated factor. He wasn't ironed. Neither was
Nadia Petrovna. She had changed into crisp shorts and was leaning
forward, lips parted in surprise.

But it was the fourth man who drew the T.I.S. agent's attention.

He sat between Nadia Petrovna and the factor, lolling back in his chair
indolently, a sheaf of papers spread on the table before him. His face
was like a death mask in which the coloring, the lines had been painted
by a machine. It was perfect, but without life.

Then Gavin realized that it was a mask. The man's whole face was a lie,
even to the realistic mole on his chin.

He leaned across the table. "Who's this?" he asked in a strong harsh
voice.

"He says his name's Murdock. Claims he was third assistant-engineer. We
found him down in the engine room. He's killed Peters and dumped all
the fuel."

Nadia drew in her breath sharply, looked frightened. The factor's
fleshless features blackened with rage. Even Villanowski glanced up, a
look of surprise and dawning hope in his eyes. Only the man in the mask
didn't change expression.

"Go back to your post," he ordered Gavin's captors. "We'll take care of
Mr. Murdock." Then, when they had left, he said, "You were contacted
by my--ah--co-worker on Venus, Murdock. Mr. X, he called himself." He
chuckled, the noise issuing from between unsmiling painted lips like
the voice of an automaton. "For the sake of convenience, you can term
me Mr. Y."

Gavin didn't say anything.

"You have presented us with a problem," Mr. Y went on.

"Where's Cabot?" Gavin interrupted.

"Dead."

"The chief astrogator, the crew?"

"All dead. In fact, we thought we'd wiped the slate clean."

The factor suddenly slammed the table with his bony fist. "What are you
playing with him for, Y? I've sacrificed everything. The cantonment,
the slaves. I demand that he be done away with before he can contrive
any more damage."

       *       *       *       *       *

Y regarded the factor with venomous amber eyes, the only living
features in his death mask. "Has it occurred to you to wonder _why_ Mr.
Murdock dumped the _Nova's_ fuel?"

The factor started.

"Mr. Murdock," said Y, turning back to Gavin, "what persuaded you to
ground the _Nova_?"

Gavin's lips thinned. He didn't say anything. Y continued to regard
him a moment. Then he asked Nadia, "I believe you suspected Murdock of
being an agent of United Spaceways, Miss Petrovna?"

Before the girl could answer the factor broke in again. "Why can't we
use the _Nova's_ special space drive?"

"You're referring to the machinery of the little death," rejoined Y.
"But I thought you knew. It can't operate until the _Nova_ has attained
a certain velocity. That much we've ascertained from Mr. Villanowski."

"Then we're trapped!" The factor leaped to his feet. His agility in the
increased gravity was amazing. Gavin realized that the long years the
factor had spent on Jupiter had trained his muscles as well as wrung
every ounce of extra flesh from his spare frame.

"I see that you've comprehended our position at last," said Y grimly.
"What about the emergency fuel tanks at the cantonment?"

"Gone. Your damned shelling exploded them."

Y nodded. "Just as I thought. If Murdock drained the _Nova's_ tanks, he
must be expecting help. It will have considerable bearing on any course
we plan to take, just who these aids are, how many they'll be, and when
to expect them."

He returned to Gavin. "You'll spare yourself a painful experience,
Murdock, if you talk now. You can't gain anything by forcing us to
wring the information from you. We won't hesitate to stoop to torture."

"No," Gavin agreed. "I suppose not." He hesitated. United Spaceways and
Tri-World were the two corporations most likely to want the _Nova's_
space drive. Nadia suspected that he was an agent of United Spaceways.
Therefore ... he moistened his lips. "My work's done, anyway. I'm a
Tri-World agent."

"But that's impossible!" Nadia burst out in sudden protest. "We...."
She paused, looking confused as she realized she'd been tricked.

Y said, "That was very clever, Murdock. Yes. I'm working for
Tri-World. Miss Petrovna and my good friend, the factor, have supplied
us with valuable information and help for a price. But the knowledge
won't be of any earthly use to you."

Gavin felt no triumph at the confirmation of his suspicions. What
Y said was true. As soon as they had squeezed him dry, he would be
silenced.

The door opened. A Terran appeared. "The slaves have all been unloaded
and dispersed, sir. The bodies of the crew are buried. We're ship-shape
and ready to take off."

Y put a forefinger to the chin of his death mask, rubbed the plastic
gently. "Establish radio contact with the _Comet_."

"Yes sir," replied the man. "The message, sir?"

"Rendezvous cancelled. Emergency. Proceed to us at once prepared to
divide fuel."

"Yes, sir." The man went out, closing the door softly behind him.


                                  IX

Gavin's heart sank. Of course the ship that brought Y would be hidden
in the neighborhood. It would be simple enough for them to refuel the
_Nova_.

Y had taken time to release the slaves and dispose of the bodies of
the crew. That, Gavin surmised, was what had delayed the _Nova's_
take-off long enough for him to slip aboard. Now should the _Nova_ be
apprehended in space, the Interplanetary patrol would be forced to
release her for lack of evidence.

Villanowski glanced up. "We're licked, lad. We may as well toss in the
towel."

Gavin looked at the chief engineer blankly.

"You mean," asked Y of Villanowski, "that you and Murdock are working
for the same organization?"

The chief engineer laughed bitterly. "We're not working for anyone, but
ourselves. You forget, Mr. Y, that the four-dimensional drive isn't the
only contribution I've made to interplanetary travel. General Atomic
stole the others. We had hoped--" he jerked his head at Gavin "--to
keep this one for ourselves!"

Gavin's mind was going in circles like a dog chasing its tail. What was
Villanowski's motive?

"Go on," said Y in a foreboding voice.

Villanowski looked down at his chains. "A ship travels through space
during a passage of time. It had occurred to me that if I could invert
the formula and drive a ship through time during a passage of space,
the crude rocket ships could be abandoned. Murdock had gotten in
trouble when Transplanet was discovered to be a colonal smuggling ring.
He had studied astrophysics under me at New Yale. I knew him and knew I
could trust him."

Gavin swallowed and struggled to keep a grip on himself. Obviously
Villanowski had something up his sleeve.

Villanowski looked at Gavin. "We needed a space ship to complete our
experiments. The effect of the drive on a body at rest was startling
enough to predict success if we could attain sufficient velocity."

Gavin thought he detected a faint stressing of the word "startling".
Villanowski had said, "_The effect of the drive on a body at rest was
startling_...." The _Nova_ was at rest!

"I persuaded Cabot," Villanowski proceeded, "to let me install the
mechanism aboard the _Nova_. Murdock was to try--"

Gavin jumped.

With a back-handed, edge-on swipe, he caught Y in the throat full on
his larynx.

Nadia screamed as Y went over backwards and lay still. The factor
leaped to his feet. Gavin kicked him in the belly. Spinning against the
girl, he wrenched out of her hand the dart-gun which she was drawing.

"The keys!" Villanowski panted. "Y has them."

Nadia opened her mouth to scream again.

"Don't." Gavin pointed the dart-gun straight at her open mouth. Nadia
shut it.

The factor was writhing on the deck, but Y lay like dead. Gavin found
the keys and released Villanowski.

"The engine room," he cried, "we've got to reach the engine room."

"Take Y's gun," said Gavin. He turned on Nadia. "Come along. We can't
leave you here to sound an alarm."

Nadia's lips were bloodless. She moved stiffly between them, Gavin's
dart-gun prodding her gently in the spine.

They reached the engine room without being discovered and disarmed the
startled guard. Villanowski whistled a bar in C sharp and then said,
"Open sesame." The door in the steel bulkhead swung soundlessly outward.

There was a faint grin on Villanowski's homely face. "Sound waves set
its mechanism in operation. I read a story when I was a youngster--Ali
Baba and the Forty Thieves," he confessed. "When I built the lock I
couldn't resist designing it to respond to those vibrations."

The ship rocked slightly.

"What's that?"

"Felt like the blow-back of an atom jet," Gavin replied tersely. "I
think Y's ship, the _Comet_, is landing."

The _Nova_ rocked again, more violently than before, and a faint rush
of flaming jets penetrated to the engine room.

Villanowski scuttled through the door with Gavin prodding Nadia after
him. The chief darted for the control board, seized a gleaming lever,
slid it cautiously along a slot.

The huge spherical tube, which Gavin had observed before, began to glow
gently. The yellow mist, he saw, was gathering in the outer room, but
the air in their chamber remained crystal clear.

"The time field," Villanowski explained, "creates a neutral area, an
oasis, around the point of generation."

Gavin rubbed his eyes. On the other side of the door was nothing! It
was like looking out into the void beyond the farthermost limits of the
stars.

"Now, Murdock," Gavin heard Villanowski ask, "when do you expect the
interplanetary patrol spacers to land?"

       *       *       *       *       *

Gavin wheeled around. There was an uncertain smile on Villanowski's
homely features.

"How did you know?"

"The little death," Villanowski explained complacently. "When Miss
Petrovna told me her dream, I knew...."

"You _are_ a T.I.S. agent!" Nadia interrupted in an odd voice. She
put her hand on Gavin's sleeve. "You're going to turn me over to the
courts?"

Two white patches appeared at the corners of Gavin's mouth. "Sure. The
patrol spacers are on their way. I couldn't turn them back now--" he
paused--"even if I wanted to."

"Give me a chance, Gavin?"

He asked, "Why did you sell out to Tri-World?"

The girl lifted her eyes to his. "I was proscribed. Tri-World has
granted me amnesty. That was their price. My life. I wouldn't have done
it, Gavin, but I was afraid."

"Does that explain why you tried to double-cross Tri-World in the first
place?"

"I told you about that."

"And what about Trev? He hid you out when you were proscribed. He got
you aboard the _Nova_. Why did you sell him out to Cabot?"

"But I didn't. I--I...."

"Don't lie to me," he said and gripped her shoulders. "You'd made your
dicker with Tri-World. Trev was in your way. He knew too much about
you. He might even have got wind of what you were up to. So you went to
Cabot and told him about Trev being a dealer in scientific secrets. You
knew Cabot would kill him, thinking the Martian had sold out to X."

The girl flinched. "I'm not asking you to shield me, Gavin. Turn me
loose. Just let me have a fighting chance to escape. Give me a chance,
Gavin."

"And Cabot," Gavin continued inexorably, his pale blue eyes stony. "You
delivered Cabot and the _Nova_ over to Tri-World."

He turned her loose.

"Give you a chance," he repeated and gave a short bitter laugh. "A
chance to do what? Double-cross me like you have everyone else?"

Nadia shrank away. "The dream!" she said in a frightened voice. "It's
just as it was in the dream. You laughed!"

Villanowski interrupted sadly. "You weren't dreaming during the little
death. We're only equipped with three dimensional sense organs. We're
blind to everything but the immediate instant. But time's a dimension.
It's co-existent. When the _Nova_ was projected across time, your
entire life was spread out around you. What you actually did was
experience a segment of your life. It happened to be a segment in the
future."

Nadia's lips were bloodless. "You guessed when I told you about the
dream?"

"I didn't guess," replied Villanowski. "I knew! Miss Petrovna, if you
saw the _Nova_ captured by the Interplanetary Patrol through efforts of
Murdock who was a T.I.S. agent, then it was inevitable that it would
take place exactly as you had seen it. There was nothing any of us
could do about it!"

A faint grin broke across Villanowski's homely face. "I saw that it
behooved me to give Murdock a hand when and if he needed it."

Gavin said, "I think I can promise you amnesty, Villanowski. I couldn't
have captured the _Nova_ without your help."

"Oh, that's not all," Villanowski chuckled. "The Empire will want this
space drive to power her ships. I'll be a valuable man. Even Y didn't
intend to kill me until I had explained its mechanism to Tri-World's
scientists."

"How long," asked Gavin abruptly, "have we been on Jupiter? I lost
track after that shell knocked me out at the cantonment."

"This is the second day."

Gavin wrinkled his brow. "The patrol ships should be here in about four
hours."

       *       *       *       *       *

Outside the _Nova_, a gaping hole in space marked her position. The
astounded crew of the _Comet_, who had landed prepared to refuel the
captured _Nova_, eyed the eerie vacancy with mixed emotions. One of the
crew flung a rock into the enveloping blackness. It disappeared. There
was no sound of its falling to the ground.

The commander of the _Comet_, deprived of Y's guidance, fumed
nervously. He glanced at his watch at intervals, saying at length, "If
the _Nova_ doesn't reappear by dark, we'll take off. We can lay up and
re-establish contact by radio."

The men gathered about the maw of blackness staring into it with
hypnotic fascination.

They fell an easy prey to the five sleek patrol craft which plummeted
down on them three hours later.

The short Jovian day was on the wane when the _Nova_ began to gather
substance like a tenuous cloud. Her misty outlines grew solid. Then the
port opened. Gavin Murdock appeared in the entrance.

Commandant Samuels, a grizzled veteran of the T.I.S., was the first man
up the gangplank. He shook Gavin's hand. "Nice work, Murdock. But it
smacks damnably of witchcraft."

The Flight Commander was right behind him, followed by the captains of
the Empire's patrol spacers. The Flight Commander caught sight of two
of Y's men lying unconscious just within the port.

"What the hell's this? The palace of the sleeping beauty?"

"You haven't seen the half of it," Gavin assured him with a grin.
"They're lying all over the ship like that. Villanowski says the
effects last about an hour. Better lock them up before they come to."

"Villanowski?" echoed the T.I.S. Commandant. "He's not dead, is he?"

"No," said Gavin, surprised at the anxiety in the Commandant's voice.

"Good!" growled Samuels. He lowered his voice to a subdued roar.
"Ticklish mission. I'm supposed to persuade him to accept a post on the
Empire's Bureau of Research. They're afraid his space drive will fall
into wrong hands. But Villanowski's such an embittered old goat, he'll
probably...."

There was a faint chuckle behind Gavin.

Villanowski, who had come up unobserved, said, "Your diplomacy,
Commandant Samuels, is unique." There was a broad grin on his homely
face. "I couldn't think of opposing such finesse."

The grizzled T.I.S. Commandant's features flamed an apoplectic red.
Then he burst into laughter, wiped his eyes, and blew his nose.

"Where's Nadia?" Gavin asked sharply.

"Ironed to my old chair in the officer's mess." Villanowski handed
Gavin the keys.

Gavin passed them on to the Commandant. He gave a terse but concise
report, while the men filed aboard and began to cart the unconscious
Tri-World agents off to the patrol spacers.

Y was found to be dead, the blow on his esophagus having killed
him. When the mask was stripped from his face, Commandant Samuels
identified him in amazement as the chief of Tri-World's gestapo.

"We caught X, too," he said. "We received a flash aboard the flagship
that X has been captured in space."

"What was he charged with?"

"Piracy. Y's men will be tried on the same charges. Tri-World, of
course, will disclaim any connection, but she'll have to rebuild her
gestapo from top to bottom."

       *       *       *       *       *

Gavin moved aside to allow two men with a stretcher to pass out the
lock. The body of the factor lay on the stretcher looking thin as a
straw. He was alive, Gavin noted, seeing his chest move faintly.

"This gives the death blow to the slave trade," the Commandant began.
Then he realized Gavin wasn't listening.

Nadia Petrovna followed the stretcher. Her hands were in irons and a
guard walked beside her. She passed silently between the men, her black
eyes flashing Gavin a look of hate before she descended the gangplank.

"Mark my word," said Commandant Samuels grumpily, "that girl will get
off with a light sentence. She'll run true to form and sell Tri-World
down the river. She'll be the prosecution's principal witness."

Gavin shrugged.

"Which reminds me," put in Villanowski. "Since the Empire's so anxious
for me to return to the fold, I don't want to appear too eager."

"Eh?" A pained expression rippled the T.I.S. Commandant's ruddy
features.

"I'd like the chief engineer's rating aboard the first ship to reach
the stars." There was a wistful note in Villanowski's voice.

"There shouldn't be any hitch there," the Commandant agreed in a
relieved tone. "You're the logical man to head an expedition outside
the system."

"What about a third assistant-engineer?" Gavin interrupted.

"We work pretty well together," said Villanowski.

Gavin's lean freckled face broke into a grin. "It's a bargain."

The two men solemnly shook hands.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Transcriber's Note: Original text had two Section VIII headings.
Second heading renumbered to IX.]



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