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One Against the Legion

Page 14

by Jack Williamson


  “This contains a tiny, atom-powered achronic field-coil,” she told him. “It is adjusted to create a spherical barrier zone, that the search and refractor fields of the geofractor cannot penetrate.

  “It is all that has defended me, thus far, from Derron’s stolen power. And he has tried more than once to take it from me—as when he sent that robot to the New Moon to attack me—though he bungled, that time, by killing his own monster too soon.”

  Giles Habibula blinked and squinted at her.

  “Now, lass,” he queried, “now that we know all this—what shall we do about it?

  Derron is driving out with us toward some unknown object in Draco, and the fleet is pressing mortal close behind us.”

  “That object,” said Stella Eleroid, “must be the geofractor.”

  “Eh!” Giles Habibula started. “But that was a small thing, Jay Kalam said. He said one man could carry it.”

  “The model was, that Derron took,” the girl agreed. “It would have had power enough to carry one man—and itself—away from the island where my father was testing it—the only wonder is that Derron didn’t escape with it then, himself, instead of attempting his stupid pretence of innocence.

  “But it had far too little power for these recent feats. A huge new machine must have been constructed—probably it was built on a planet of another star, possibly with the labor of such robots as the one sent to the New Moon. The thief has had four years, remember, and the model itself solved all problems of transportation.”

  “But, lass—” Giles Habibula shook his head, doubtfully. “If Derron was in the New Moon, and this evil machine ten billions of miles away, then how could he have been the Basilisk?”

  “Remote control,” said Stella Eleroid. “The device was perfected by my father.

  Something small enough for a man to carry in one hand, but powerful enough to operate the geofractor from almost any distance, with tubular fields of achronic force.

  Since those same fields can be adjusted to pick up energy, as easily as to transmit it, they can be used for observation as well as control, with no time-lag, and no pickup equipment required.”

  She saw Giles Habibula’s puzzled scowl.

  “That means Derron can operate the geofractor from almost anywhere,” she said.

  “He’s loaded now with the remote-control apparatus—I felt the hidden wires in his sleeve.” Her white face tightened. “There on the New Moon, he must have felt like a god traveling incognito—able to spy on anybody in the system with no danger of detection, and ready with the geofractor to snatch away everybody who dared oppose his power-madness. Or almost everybody.”

  Nervously, she touched the white jewel again.

  “Then, lass, shall we just wait and keep you hidden?” Giles Habibula urged uneasily.

  “Until Derron brings us to his fearful machine—”

  Crash!

  Something splintered the cabin door behind them. Slivers flew around them, and Chan Derron’s wide shouldered bulk was framed in the ragged opening. One hand clutched the control spindle of his geopellor, and the other leveled the bright needle of a proton blaster.

  The girl’s hand darted for her weapon. But Chan’s fingers tightened on the spindle, and his big body came toward her with the fleetness of a shadow. The nose of his blaster caught hers, and flung it against the bulkhead. A simultaneous kick sent Giles Habibula’s thick cane spinning.

  The geopellor lifted Chan back to the shattered doorway.

  “Some spare blasters in the chest,” he gasped. “And I’m not quite deaf.”

  His weapon covered them while he caught his breath.

  His narrowed eyes swept the white, defiant beauty of the girl, and he smiled grimly.

  “Listen,” he said softly. “Miss Stella Eleroid—I’m glad you’re not Luroa! And Giles Habibula—I thought you had been a loyal Legionnaire too long to desert! Listen—”

  His weapon gestured emphatically. “I heard all you said. And now we are going to be three together against the Basilisk. For I am going to convince you that I didn’t murder Dr. Eleroid.”

  A little shudder swept the girl’s taut body. The savage hate in her eyes drove Chan a step backward.

  “Think so?” her voice whipped at him. “I don’t!”

  “Ah, lass—wait!” The small eyes of Giles Habibula rolled at her apprehensively.

  “We’ll listen.”

  “What you said about the geofractor,” he told the trembling, defiant girl, “explains the circumstances of your father’s murder.”

  “Then tell me how it happened,” she challenged him coldly. “You ought to know!”

  “I had that armored room ready, when your father and another man landed with the working model they were to test,” he said quietly. “They went inside and locked the door. I stood guard outside. Admiral-General Samdu, not an hour later, found the door unlocked—that fact is what convicted me. He found Dr. Eleroid’s body, and another, but the working model was gone.

  “The body of the assistant was already stiff hi rigor mortis . That was a point they failed to explain, in the case against me. They simply disregarded it.”

  Chan Derron’s jaw set grimly. “But rigor mortis never begins hi less than two or three hours after death. The other body found in that room with Dr. Eleroid had been dead probably ten or twelve hours.”

  His somber eyes went back to the girl’s intent white face.

  “You have explained how it must have happened,” he told her. “The murderer had already killed your father’s assistant. He had hidden the body, and taken the assistant’s place. It was the murderer who went down into that room with your father.

  Don’t you think that is possible?”

  The platinum head of Stella Eleroid nodded very slowly, as if unwillingly. Her violet eyes, still very dark, remained fixed on Chan Derron’s face with an intensity almost hypnotic.

  “It is possible,” she whispered reluctantly. “Because my father suffered from an extreme myopia—he couldn’t recognize anyone ten feet from him. And that day he must have been completely absorbed hi his experiment.” She nodded again. “But go on.”

  “The murderer—the real Basilisk—is obviously a very clever man,” Chan continued.

  “We know he had already been spying on your father. He must have planned the thing very carefully. His risk was great—but taken for a tremendous stake.

  “Once in that locked room, he watched your father test and demonstrate the invention.

  And then, when he had learned all he had to know, he killed the inventor. He used the geofractor to bring the stiffened body of the actual assistant from wherever he had hidden it. He used it again to take the blaster out of my belt. He drove the bayonet into your father’s body, and unlocked the door, and finally removed himself and the working model—leaving everything arranged to convict me of the crime.”

  He searched the girl’s fixed white face.

  “You believe me,” he whispered hoarsely. “Don’t you, Stella?”

  “I—I don’t know.” She shook her head. “I want to—but who is the Basilisk?”

  “Ah, that’s the mortal question!” Giles Habibula gasped. “Perhaps you speak the truth, Captain Derron—and if you do, this criminal has done you a fearful wrong indeed. But there’s still a monstrous mass of evidence against you.”

  “Won’t you trust me?” Chan begged hopelessly. “Just until we reach the geofractor. I think it will tell us who our enemy really is.”

  “My orders are to bring you back,” the old soldier said bleakly. “And the fleet is already close behind us. But, if you’re willing to surrender, I’ll take your case to Commander Kalam—”

  Chan Derron’s face set grimly.

  “I’ll not surrender,” he said. “I know the fleet is close behind. And we haven’t cathode plates to keep up full speed—they may soon be in range, with the vortex gun.

  But I’m going on to the geofractor. If you won’t help—”

&nbs
p; His weapon gestured ominously. A dull green gleam flashed from a finger of the hand that held it, and Giles Habibula blinked.

  “Eh, lad!” he gasped. “Your ring—where’d you get that ring?”

  “It was my mother’s,” Chan Derron said. “She had the stone reset for me.”

  “Let me see it.” The old man held out a trembling hand. “It’s Venusian malichite?

  Carved into a die? The spots all threes and fours?” He scanned Chan’s big body with an odd intentness. “Tell me, lad—who was your mother? Where did you get this stone?”

  “The jewel belonged to my grandmother.” Chan stared at him blankly. “She was a Venusian singer. Her name was Ethyra Coran!”

  “Ethyra Coran!”

  The eyes of Giles Habibula were suddenly brimming with tears. His big body heaved out of the chair. He pushed Chan’s blaster unceremoniously aside, and flung his arms about him.

  “What’s this?”

  “Don’t you see?” wheezed Giles Habibula. “Your mother was my own precious daughter.

  You’re my own blood, Chan Derron. The grandson of Giles Habibula!”

  “Then—” Chan freed himself, stared into the beaming yellow face. “Then—will you help me?”

  “Ah, so!” the old man cried. “And gladly! For no grandson of Giles Habibula could be the Basilisk.”

  With a grave and silent question in them, the eyes of Chan Derron looked at the girl.

  For a long moment, her level violet eyes met his, dark with another question. At last she nodded slowly.

  “We’ll give you a chance, Chan Derron,” she said. “If you can find the Basilisk.”

  Copyright

  A Gollancz eBook

  Copyright © 1939,1976 by Jack Williamson.

  All rights reserved.

  The right of Jack Williamson to be identified as the author

  of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the

  Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This eBook first published in Great Britain in 2016 by

  Gollancz

  The Orion Publishing Group Ltd

  Orion House

  5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane

  London, WC2H 9EA

  An Hachette UK Company

  A CIP catalogue record for this book

  is available from the British Library.

  ISBN: 978-0-7221-9190-3

  All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

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