Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Planet Stories January 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
THE WOMAN-STEALERS OF THRAYX
By FOX B. HOLDEN
_"And that is why you will take us to Earth, Lieutenant," barked the Ihelian warrior. "We do not want your arms or your men. What we must ask for is--ten thousand women."_
* * * * *
Mason was nervous. It was the nervousness of cold apprehension, notsimply that which had become indigenous to his high-strung make-up. Hewas, in his way, afraid; afraid that he'd again come up with a wronganswer.
He'd brought the tiny Scout too close to the Rim. Facing the factssquarely, he knew, even as he fingered the stud that would wrench themout of their R-curve, that he'd not just come too close. He'd overshotentirely. Pardonable, perhaps, from the view-point of the corps ofscientists safely ensconced in their ponderous Mark VII Explorer somefifteen light-days behind. But not according to the g-n manual.According to it, he'd placed the Scout and her small crew in a"situation of avoidable risk," and it would make a doubtful recordlook that much worse.
The next time he'd out-argue Cain with his rank if he had to. Cain wasbig enough to grab things with his brawny fists and twist them intowhatever shape he wanted when the things were tangible, solid,resisting. But R-Space was something else again. Nobody knew what itdid beyond the Rim.
He materialized the Scout into E-Space, listened for trouble from hercomputers, but they chuckled softly on, keeping track of where theywere, where they'd been, and how they'd get home.
It was as though nothing had happened. But Lieutenant Lansing Masonwas still nervous, his slender fingers steady enough, but as cold asthe alien dark outside the ship they controlled.
"You look a little shot again, skipper!" Cain said, grinning like aMartian desert cat. "What's the matter, Space goblins got you again?"
A retort started at Mason's taut lips, but his third officer wasalready speaking.
"Here's a dope sheet from the comps, if anybody's interested inknowing just where outside the Rim we are," she said. "I make it justa shade inside the outermost fringes of the Large Magellanic Cloud."Sergeant Judith Kent's voice had its almost habitually preoccupiedtone, as though the words she said were hardly more than incidental toa host of more important thoughts running swiftly behind her wide-set,deep gray eyes. They were serious eyes, and in their way matched thesolemn set of her small features and the crisp, military cut of herblack hair and severe uniform.
"Our little boss-man knows where we are, all right!" Cain said.
Mason gave Cain's six-feet-two a quick glance, wondering as he alwayswondered why the big redhead's shoulders always seemed too broad forthe Warrant Officer's stripes on them. "Sergeant Kent's right," hesaid. "Here's her comp-sheet. You can look for yourself. Fringe,Magellanic. And look at that while you can--" he jabbed a forefingerat the main scanner, its screen studded with unfamiliarly closeconstellations--"because we're on our way back. Set up a return on thecomps, will you, Sergeant?" For all his tenseness his voice was low,and the words it formed were even and swift.
"Hell, Lance, this is the sort of stuff the brain trust pays usbonuses for."
"Not out here they don't. R-drive when you're ready, Sergeant!"
Cain turned from the deep control bank and gave his full attention tothe scanner as the slender, efficient girl started feeding a tape ofreversal co-ordinates into the computers.
Mason waited the few necessary seconds, pushed disarranged dark hairout of his eyes and felt the clammy dampness on his forehead, andwished silently to himself that opportunists like Cain were kept wherethey belonged--on the Slam-Bang Run out of Callisto. That's where themoney was. That's where a Warrant like Cain ought to be.
"Ready, sir," he heard Judith saying quietly.
"Hey, skipper!" There was a sudden urgency in Cain's voice, and theequally sudden racket of an MPD alarm going off. Cain was gesturing atthe scanner, stubby finger tracing a slewing pip of light. The alarmstopped, and Judith's cool voice was relaying information. "About athousand miles," she was saying, "mass, approximately three hundredtons. Speed--"
* * * * *
But Mason wasn't listening. He was watching the pip of light as Caingot the scanner's directional going, tracked it. Suddenly there wereothers coming as though to meet it, and it swerved violently,obviously in flight. And now there were more yet, this time from thestarboard quadrant of the screen.
"Radiation reading, Sergeant!" Mason clipped out.
While the two men watched, Judith read back the cryptic informationinterpolated by the ship's mass-proximity detector.
"That's not all engine junk!" Cain exclaimed as she finished.
"We don't know what drive they've got," Mason answered. "Could beanything--"
"Nuts! You wouldn't get that much from an old-fashioned ion-blast,skipper! That's a shooting war, that's what it is!" There was aglitter in Cain's narrowed brown eyes; a new edge on his heavy voice."Which side do we take, boss-man?"
"No side at all," Mason said, hardly moving his lips. "We're gettingthe hell out of here."
"Look, Lance. We've got a crew of ten--we've got a couple of m-gunsaboard because we're a Scout. No telling how one of those outfits mayshow their gratitude if we pitch in, help their side out. That's whatwe're out here for, isn't it? Dig up new stuff for the double-domes tosink their slide-rules into? Think of the bonus, skipper! Hell, thisis made to order--"
Mason turned a quick glance to the girl, but her face told himnothing. It never did when things like this came up between himselfand Cain. And it was something he knew he had no right to expect. Buthe was tired ... too damn much Space, and there was nothing else heknew how to do.
But this time Cain had a point. Aliens--extra-galactic, even if almostneighbors--and his help one way or the other could mean an engravedinvitation, a key to the city.
He turned back to the screen, watched as the careening pips massed,mixed, whirled in an insensate jumble. He didn't want any moremistakes. They'd ground him for good, tell him he'd had his limit ofSpace, and park him on one of the rest-planets with a pension for therest of his life.
No, he had to think, and quickly.
Earth had only too recently gotten an entire history of wars out ofher system. Perhaps for good, this time. And that was it; that was hisanswer. Better keep his nose clean--
"For God's sake, skipper," Cain snapped. "Come out of it! This is anatural, we'll clean up!"
"Sergeant Kent! R-drive!"
There was a moment's sensation of nothingness as the Scout made theEuclidean-Riemannian Transition; the scanner paled and the segment ofthe universe it framed twisted, changed.
Cain didn't say anything. He glowered, and Mason could feel the bigman's contempt. But he didn't have time for it.
This time there wouldn't be any error. This time he'd be a step aheadof the situation and stay there. "Scratch those reversal co-ordinates,Sergeant! Set up to diverge thirty degrees!"
Cain's sarcasm was little disguised. "Mind if I ask a question?"
"Just stay at ease, Mister Cain, until we're out of this!"
Mason watched the scanner's distorted image as the Scout hurtledthrough a curved pencil of four-point Space; she didn't have afraction of a powerful Explorer's speed, and her small powerframephysically limited her to that of light. Yet it could be fast enough,for the aliens
might know nothing of Transition technique, or could beas wary as Earthmen of the Rim. His precautions could be needless. Buthe had seen them and they were war-like, and he had no intention ofbeing followed, either back to the Explorer, or ultimately to Earthitself. He'd have to maintain the diverged course until he wascertain.
There was a black pip on the fog-colored scanner. Judith saw it evenas he did. There was a fleeting look of fright on her intent youngface that she hadn't been able to mask.
Cain saw it too.
"You got a tail, skipper!" he said, and the grin was back on his bigfreckled
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