Part 30 (1/2)

I tried to break loose, but four huge Martians were holding me.

”Oh, Gregg!”

There was horror in Anita's voice. Snap had broken away. At the open deck-port he stood, as though undecided what to do. The deck was almost black around him; he was silhouetted against the outside starlight. From almost at his side, in the darkness, a tiny bolt spat upward at his head. His arms went wildly out; he tumbled backward. At the top of the boarding incline his body seemed spasmodically to kick, and the thrust whirled it down into the darkness.

The end of Snap! A pang went through me. Snap, my best friend!

Molo cursed the unknown man of his crew who had fired the shot. But none would admit who did it.

”Get to your posts,” Molo roared in Martian. ”Enough of you are here.

Lash up the prisoners; we're launching away now.” He thumped his brawny sister as she pa.s.sed him. ”Well played, Meka!”

These wily Martians! Molo had planned that Meka was to gather the crew and wait here at the s.h.i.+p for him and Wyk. If they returned with us as captives, it would be here that they would come. But if by chance things went adversely, Molo reasoned we would act just as we did; and Meka and her men were lurking here in ambush, waiting for us.

All the many various ports swung shut. Anita, Venza, and I, with arms and legs bound, were taken by Molo to the forward observation and control room.

The s.h.i.+p was resounding with signals. The interior controls in the hull-base raised the gravity-pull within the vessel to a strength comparable to that of Earth. Within a few minutes the _Star-Streak_ lifted from the stage. Strange, weird Wandl fell away from us. We slid upward through the atmosphere, following one of the globular Wandl vessels, and headed into s.p.a.ce toward the point where, a few million miles distant, the s.h.i.+ps of allied Earth, Venus, and Mars were gathering.

17

”They are visible.” Molo turned from the eyepiece of his electro-telescope. ”Do you want to see them, Gregg Haljan?”

We were in the forward control and observation turret of the _Star-Streak_, Molo and his sister Meka, Venza, Anita and myself.

Un.o.btrusively squatting on the floor was a small, gray, rat-faced fellow, put there, weapon in hand, to watch us. He was a ruffian from the underworld of Grebhar, a member of the _Star-Streak's_ pirate crew.

We were some ten hours out from Wandl. A group of four of the globular Wandl s.h.i.+ps were with us, strung in a line some ten thousand miles to our left. We had been heading diagonally toward Mars. Some fifteen other Wandl vessels were ahead and others following.

We were no more than fifteen million miles from Mars when Molo sighted the allied s.h.i.+ps. ”Will you observe them, Gregg Haljan?”

I moved to take his place at the 'scope-grid, with the gaze of Anita and Venza upon me. They sat huddled together on a low bench against the back curve of the circular turret.

It was dim here, with little spots of instrument lights, and the radiance coming in the gla.s.site plates of the encircling dome. The loss of Snap had put a grim look upon the girls. They were dispirited, docile with Meka. They had hardly had a word with me. I think that all of us had about given up hope during those hours. Molo had consulted me several times with his policies of navigation.

But I saw no chance to trick him. He was indeed, far more experienced than I, and more skillful, in celestial mechanics. I worked with him.

I learned the operation and the handling of the _Star-Streak_, which was not greatly different from the _Cometara_ or the _Planetara_.

Poor Snap! He and I had planned to capture and navigate this _Star-Streak_. We could have handled her. There were, I gathered, some fifteen men aboard her now, but no more than two or three were engaged at the navigating mechanisms. Even they could be dispensed with at times, for the s.h.i.+p's controls were all automatic, handled directly from the forward turret.

I learned too, something, though not much, of the _Star-Streak's_ weapons. They were similar to those of the allied s.h.i.+ps, since Molo in equipping his pirate craft had seized upon all the best he could find of the three worlds.

The _Star-Streak_, during this flight toward Mars, was in close communication with the Wandl craft. There was a giant vessel, the Wor, off to our left now. It carried the brain master in command of the Wandl forces. Molo took his orders from the Wor, but since his equipment and his weapons were so wholly different, the _Star-Streak_ was set apart.

”I can do what I like,” Molo told me. ”With my own judgement I can act; you shall see.”

”You've had plenty of experience, Molo.”

”Have I not! The terror of the starways, your world called me.” He chuckled vaingloriously. ”I must justify it now.”