by Various
So when the Space Queen blasted fifteen hours later, Doree Brandon brightened perceptibly. Professor Brandon remained in the lounge. Nicko was aft, watching the tube primers. Doree was with Mike in the control cabin.
"Getting used to Nicko?" Mike asked.
Doree smiled. "I owe him an apology. He is--" She looked up suddenly. "He is he, isn't he?"
Mike laughed. "Nicko is male. Beyond that point he's hard to classify."
"That odd face! Those green scales! The four arms were a little difficult to get used to but now I think he's--well, kind of cute."
"Good for you."
"Where did you ever find him?"
"On Mars. I'll tell you about it sometime. Right now I've got to finish setting our primary course."
"I imagine you'd like the exact location of the planet as soon as possible."
"No great hurry. Any time in the next twelve hours will do. Just a matter of pin-pointing the arc of the basic course. Your father didn't appear to feel too well when we blasted. How is he now?"
"He's been under a terrific strain. Perhaps we could let him rest awhile."
* * * * *
Mike turned on her sharply. "Listen--I'm going to ask you a straight question and I'd like a straight answer. Does that planet really exist?"
Her eyes widened, her head came up dangerously; and Mike noted this made her extremely attractive. "Now wait a minute. Don't get sore. I'm not implying your father doesn't believe it's there. And after all, I've taken your money, so its a deal but--"
She almost smiled. "You just think that perhaps he's an impractical old dreamer with delusions."
"I didn't say that."
There was a pause while Doree evidently decided not to get angry. "I assure you, Mr. Mallison, I believe with all my heart that father's planet is exactly where he will direct you. Of course nothing is certain in this universe, but--"
Mike grinned and held out his hand. "I believe you. Accept my apology. And please call me Mike. We're going to see a lot of each other for a while."
She took his hand and smiled back. Their eyes held and Mike liked what he saw--pert elfin features; shining chestnut hair; even white teeth.
"We'll let your father rest a while," Mike said. "I'll get the figures from him later."
* * * * *
But he was fated never to get the location of the planet from the old scientist. In fact, he was never again to see Professor Brandon in the confines of the Space Queen.
He finished setting primary course and then Nicko returned to report. "Everything grooved. Temp up. Color down. Tubes solid. Primers closed."
Nicko spoke in four languages. Doree, who understood two of them, gasped.
Nicko grinned. "Thought I was a mental void, eh, kitty? Why I can spit dialects you never heard of."
"Cut it out, Nicko. Treat our clients with a little more respect or I'll pry a few scales off your back."
"Okay, but those legs--that torso."
Mike whirled and Nicko bounced out of the cabin. "You've got to know him. He's completely loyal and he'd die ten times for any one of us. But he never learned tact."
"I don't know why you had to cut him off so abruptly." Doree was indignant.
It was Mike's turn to blink. "He was getting pretty personal--"
"I guess I know a compliment when I hear one, Mr. Mallison."
"Mike."
She grinned. "Okay--Mike. I'd like to see the ship when you've got time."
"I've got time now. Let's go."
They started at the prow and worked backwards. Her trip to Outer Port had been her first space flight, a fact that amazed Mike in this age when even the middle-class Terrans vacationed on Mars.
"We had so little time," Doree said. "And so little money."
He explained the working of the Space Queen, enjoying the chore, and they worked their way slowly backward. Amidship, Doree said, "I think I'll look in on father."
She went below and almost immediately, Nicko appeared at the after end of the companionway. "We've got company, Mike."
"What do you mean, company?"
"Ship winging to."
Mike scowled. "Out here? The radio hasn't spoken. Maybe they're in trouble and can't sound out."
He ran aft, Nicko stumping along behind. He looked out the stern port. A ship all right. A slim cruiser of the D class, the light of faraway suns reflecting against its hull, giving it the ghostly appearance of all craft in space.
"Ever see that ship before?" Mike asked.
"Not me. I'll bet my right top arm it never moored at Outer Port. If it had we'd know the boat."
"Lots of ships never moored at Outer Port. Go forward and see if you can speak to them. Maybe they can sound in."
Nicko left and Mike watched the ship arc closer. Mike admired the skill of the pilot, then realized the ship was on complete automatic, taking its impulses from radar bounced against the hull of the Space Queen. No human pilot could hold a ship that steady.
She appeared intent on locking to the Space Queen's after hatch. Mike wished her all the luck in the universe and hoped he had what she was looking for. In case of illness his stock of medicines was only standard and would not cover any extraordinary cases.
* * * * *
Then he stiffened. There was movement next to the antenna prow on the ship's nose. A small hatch was opening. Mike cursed himself for stupidity. Yet at the same time, he could think of nothing that should have made him suspicious. These were peaceful areas. It would have been ridiculous for bandits to work this area. Raiding here made as much sense as operating in the heart of the Gobi Desert back on Terra.
Even as he whirled to try and reach the control cabin in time, a steel arm shot out from the pit uncovered by the raised hatch. Mike didn't see the fine-wired grid at the end of the arm but he knew it was there and he knew its purpose.
* * * * *
As he ran, he sensed the magnetic wires groping toward the hull of the Space Queen. If they made contact--
Contact was made while he ran up the companionway. The electroparalysis bolt hit him while he was still twenty feet from the control cabin. It caught him on his right toe with his left foot extended. It froze him in that position, held him in the grotesque running pose while fire poured through his veins. It held not only Mike and every other living thing aboard, but froze the ship itself into immobility; everything stopped except the raging movement of flaming gases in the jet tubes and these too died out as their source of supply was speedily choked.
Mike blacked out.
When his consciousness returned, Mike figured he had been out for about an hour. He based this on past experience with electroparalysis rays.
Using every ounce of will-power, he forced his elevated foot toward the companionway floor. The magnetic field permeating the dead ship was still potent, forming, in a sense, a maze of invisible wires, holding him in his frozen position.
He knew that in the companionway he had taken the full brunt of the charge. Possibly the others were again able to move about. But no one came to his aid.
His foot touched the floor. He pulled at his back foot like a man striving to loose himself from thick mud. He got it forward. A step, then another. From the control cabin came the sound of dolorous curses emitted in many languages. Nicko was again functioning.
Mike got his hands on the safety bars of the ladder leading down to the lounge. He pulled himself toward it and as he was descending, the magnetism of the electroparalytic bolt loosed its hold and he fell headlong. Picking himself up, he hurried into the lounge.
Doree was alone. She was still frozen to the chair in which she sat. Her legs were drawn up gracefully under her slim body. Only her eyes were alive--questioning, beseeching.
Mike picked her up and laid her on the floor. He knelt and began massaging the rigid muscles, drawing her legs out slowly, watching her eyes for indications of pain.
"You'll be all right in a few minutes," he said. "We have to take it slow and easy or you'
ll get the bends."
While he worked he was asking himself questions. Who? In God's name--why? What reason had anyone for attacking the ship? There was nothing of value aboard. He had no enemies--to his knowledge--in this part of the universe.
* * * * *
Doree was trying to speak. Her throat worked. Her eyes were frantic. Mike got her legs straightened out without sending her into screaming pain. Now she was rising into a sitting position on her own power.
"Took--took--Fa--him--" she whispered hoarsely.
"Your father--where is he?"
"McKee--Talbott--took him!"
"Who in the hell are McKee and Talbott?"
Gradually, her throat unlocked. "They came in and took him--carried him out."
"I asked you who they were."
Tears welled in her eyes. She bit her lower lip and tried to control her fluttering throat. "I--I tried to scream. When they carried him out I couldn't do a thing." She burst into tears.
She was normal again. Mike got to his feet. "I've got to check the ship. When I get back I want some answers and you'd better have them ready."
He hurried from the lounge and up the ladder, almost slamming into Nicko as he gained the companionway. Nicko's scales were a sickly, pale green. He tottered weakly on his stumpy legs using all four of his arms to support himself against the bulkhead.
He grinned hideously. "Friends of yours?"
"I don't know who the hell they were. You all right?"
"I'm fine."
Mike scowled up and down the companionway. "What shape are we in?"
"Bad."
"How bad?"
"The worst. The pile's gone."
"The pile!"
Mike ran aft. The door to the tube cabin stood open. The alley into which the fifteen-pound, lead-crated pile had lately been driven, was empty.
* * * * *
Swiftly Mike assessed the situation. A helpless ship. A derelict. They'd entered through the aft airlock. They'd taken Professor Brandon off that way. Then they'd closed the lock again.
That meant only one thing. Through pure cruelty, they had avoided swift death to the ship's occupant in favor of a long, lingering one. Only the basest of men would do a thing like that.
Mike was not acquainted with McKee or Talbott, but he knew something about them. They were the lowest type of the human species. Only the bloodthirsty pirates of Ganymede ever made their victims walk space.
He returned to where Nicko was clinging to the companionway guard-rail. Nicko said, "You haven't seen it all, yet."
"Is there more?"
"That's only the beginning. They smashed everything in the control cabin. All the navigating instruments. Even if we had a pile this boat couldn't find its way down Main Street at high noon."
It followed, Mike thought grimly. "I'll be drummed out of the Guild for this."
"If you ever get within shouting distance of Outer Port again, which you won't."
Mike doubled his fists. "To stand flatfooted and let a boarder move in and take my pile--and my client. How much of an idiot can a man be!"
Doree came up the ladder, her eyes wide with fright. "Did you find him?"
"No--and don't start crying. Why didn't you tell me about these men? Why didn't you give me a chance to protect my ship?"
"We--we didn't know they'd follow us. We--I didn't dream they had any idea of--"
"They followed you. And they had the idea. They took our pile and shoved us off on a blind orbit. They arranged for us to die out here."
"Won't we--we be found?"
"A million to one shot in these spaces."
"More than that," Nicko said. "A billion to one. It's empty out here, lady."
Mike saw that Doree was again about to burst into tears. He took her by the arm. "We're going to the lounge and you're going to tell me all about this--what's been going on." He drew her toward the ladder, calling over his shoulder. "Clean up what you can, Nicko. See what other deviltry they arranged."
In the lounge, Mike sat Doree firmly into a chair. "Now let's not have any tears. Just tell it the way it happened."
* * * * *
Doree had got control of herself. She sat straight, miserable, a little pathetic, Mike thought. She said, "Lorn McKee and Dean Talbott were Paris art collectors. Their reputations were not of the best but when they approached father he listened to them.
"They had a strange looking scroll made of papyrus. It had writing on it in an ancient script and they wanted father to translate it for them."
"Would that have made it more valuable?"
"Of course. At first father was suspicious, thinking it was some kind of a hoax. They told him the scroll had come from an Egyptian tomb but would tell him no more relative to its origination. They brought it to him because he was Terra's foremost authority in that field.
"Father discovered immediately that the scroll was genuine and very old. Papyrus was a material the ancient Egyptians used."
"And--?" Mike asked impatiently.
"He refused to translate it for them because they in turn would not tell him what they proposed to do with it. He felt it should be turned over to the proper authorities--some university--and besides, he was suspicious of the two men. So they went away and tried to get it translated elsewhere. This was impossible, so they came back and offered to sell it to father for a very low price but with the stipulation that he keep what he learned strictly to himself.
"He wanted to make the translation and was tempted because he already had a clue to its nature. He believed the scroll verified a theory long in existence on Terra relative to the extraterrestrial origination of mankind."
"You mean he thought it proved the Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon came from other planets."
"No, not so far back as that. There is little doubt they originated on Terra. Father is a specialist in Egyptology. And it was his belief that a great deal of their early history was purposely distorted. There is confusion in what little can be found concerning them and father sincerely believed they came from another planet. He was sure they brought with them a knowledge of science far greater than any existing upon Terra."
"And the papyrus verified his belief?"
"Completely."
"What did it tell him?"
"That the forefathers of those who later became the Egyptians, left their native planet after a disagreement with the ruling Pharaoh and sought a new home. They cruised for several lifetimes, raising and educating their children and dying off, until they found Terra, a planet almost identical to their own. The papyrus gave the location of their home planet--hieroglyphics which father translated into a table of accurate equations."
"How could he know they were accurate?"
Doree's head came up sharply. "If you were really aware of my father's ability in his field, it wouldn't occur to you to ask."
* * * * *
"I don't blame you for your faith but I still think it was a gigantic hoax--for one reason."
"And that--?"
"If the ancestors of the Egyptians came to Terra, they had to have great scientific and technical knowledge to get there. All right--then what happened to the knowledge and the science? The Egyptians certainly didn't take advantage of it."
"They used some of it. No one has been able to prove conclusively how they built the pyramids."
"Slave labor."
"That is not a complete explanation."
"All right--forget the pyramids. What happened to the rest of their science?"
"The answer lies in a basic trend of the Egyptians as a people. They were completely preoccupied with death rather than life. To them, their years of living was only a period in which to prepare for eternity. Their ambitions and talents were directed toward the building of great tombs and the perfect preservation of bodies after death. In the light of this does it seem so strange that they turned their backs on all knowledge except that which aided them in dead directions?"
* * * * *
Mike was
regarding Doree with a new respect. "I owe you an apology. You're a smart girl. You've got a brain in your head. I'm so used to carting empty-headed females around the System that I'd forgotten smart ones existed."
"I'm sure you mean that as a compliment, but the fact remains that father and I blundered you into a perilous position. We should have told you about McKee and Talbott. But we didn't think--"
"Your shortcoming was that you were honest and thought everyone else was. That's a common failing."
"But we knew they had bad reputations."
"It's pretty obvious how their thinking went. They must have had a clue to the contents of the papyrus. They knew your father wouldn't act without integrity but they banked on his eagerness as a student--figured it would cause him to accept their terms in order to get his hands on the scroll because there was certainly nothing dishonorable about buying it from them. They knew also that he would keep his word, being that kind of a man."
Doree's shoulders drooped in misery. "I guess that's about it."
"It was the best way they could think of to get the papyrus translated and still keep the contents secret." Mike rubbed his chin. "They were pretty smart boys. They were certain your father would find a way to act on whatever information it contained and all they had to do was stay on his trail and await their opportunity."
"How could anyone be so vile?"
Mike ignored the question. "I said they were smart, but they weren't smart enough."
"What do you mean?"
"This little trick of marooning us on a fatal orbit in space. It won't work."
"Why not?"
"We'll follow them."
Doree was completely bewildered. "But you said your pile was stolen."
"It was. We won't need it."
"And all your instruments were smashed."
"We won't need them, either. Your father will tell them the planet's location. There's not much else he can do. Then--we'll follow them."
"One of us is crazy," Doree said, weakly.
"No. McKee and Talbott were just badly informed. They have an automatic ship and evidently don't know too much about it. You see, the electroparalysis ray has one basic element around which it functions--magnetism. The jolt they handed us was of such size that it created a magnetic field around their ship. If they had been going through an asteroid belt they would have been bombarded into oblivion. As it is they'll still be bombarded in a sense--by us."
