Part 3 (1/2)

At six A.M., Earth Eastern time, which we were still carrying, Snap Dean and I were alone in his instrument room, perched in the network over the _Planetara's_ deck. The bulge of the dome enclosed us; it rounded like a great observatory window some twenty feet above the ceiling of this little metal cubbyhole.

The _Planetara_ was still in Earth's shadow. The firmament--black, interstellar s.p.a.ce with its blazing white, red and yellow stars--lay spread around us. The Moon, with nearly all its disc illumined, hung, a great silver ball, over our bow quarter. Behind it, to one side, Mars floated like the red tip of a smoldering cigar in the blackness.

The Earth, behind our stern, was dimly, redly visible--a giant sphere, etched with the configurations of its oceans and continents. Upon one limb a touch of sunlight hung on the mountain tops with a crescent red-yellow sheen.

And then we plunged from the cone shadow. The Sun with the leaping corona, burst through the blackness behind us. The Earth lighted into a huge, thin crescent with hooked cusps.

To Snap and me, the glories of the heavens were too familiar to be remarked. And upon this voyage particularly we were in no mood to consider them. I had been in the radio room several hours. When the _Planetara_ started, and my few routine duties were over, I could think of nothing save Halsey's and Carter's admonition: ”Be on your guard. And particularly--watch George Prince.”

I had not seen George Prince. But I had seen his sister, whom Carter and Halsey had not bothered to mention. My heart was still pounding with the memory.

Dr. Frank evidently was having little trouble with pressure sick pa.s.sengers. The _Planetara's_ equalizers were fairly efficient.

Prowling through the silent metal lounges and pa.s.sages, I went to the door of A22. It was on the deck level, in a tiny transverse pa.s.sage just off the main lounging room. Its name-grid glowed with the letters: _Anita Prince_. I stood in my short white trousers and white silk s.h.i.+rt, like a cabin steward staring. Anita Prince! I had never heard the name until this night. But there was magic music in it now, as I murmured it.

She was here, doubtless asleep, behind this small metal door. It seemed as though that little oval grid were the gateway to a fairyland of my dreams.

I turned away. Thought of the Grantline Moon Expedition stabbed at me.

George Prince--Anita's brother--he whom I had been warned to watch.

This renegade--a.s.sociate of dubious Martians, plotting G.o.d knows what.

I saw, upon the adjoining door, A20, _George Prince_. I listened. In the humming stillness of the s.h.i.+p's interior there was no sound from these cabins. A20 was without windows, I knew. But Anita's room had a window and a door which gave upon the deck. I went through the lounge, out its arch and walked the deck length. The deck door and window of A22 were closed and dark.

The deck was dim with white starlight from the side ports. Chairs were here but they were all empty. From the bow windows of the arching dome a flood of moonlight threw long, slanting shadows down the deck. At the corner where the superstructure ended, I thought I saw a figure lurking as though watching me. I went that way, but it vanished.

I turned the corner, went the width of the s.h.i.+p to the other side.

There was no one in sight save the observer on his spider bridge, high in the bow network, and the second officer, on duty on the turret balcony almost directly over me.

As I stood and listened, I suddenly heard footsteps. From the direction of the bow a figure came. Purser Johnson.

He greeted me. ”Cooling off, Gregg?”

”Yes,” I said.

He pa.s.sed me and went into the smoking room door nearby.

I stood a moment at one of the deck windows, gazing at the stars; and for no reason at all I realized I was tense. Johnson was a great one for his regular sleep--it was wholly unlike him to be roaming about the s.h.i.+p at such an hour. Had he been watching me? I told myself it was nonsense. I was suspicious of everyone, everything, this voyage.

I heard another step. Captain Carter appeared from his chart room which stood in the center of the narrowing open deck s.p.a.ce near the bow. I joined him at once.

”Who was that?” he half whispered.

”Johnson.”

”Oh, yes.” He fumbled in his uniform; his gaze swept the moonlit deck.

”Gregg--take this.” He handed me a small metal box. I stuffed it at once into my s.h.i.+rt.

”An insulator,” he added swiftly. ”Snap is in his office. Take it to him, Gregg. Stay with him--you'll have a measure of security--and you can help him to make the photographs.” He was barely whispering. ”I won't be with you--no use making it look as though we were doing anything unusual. If your graphs show anything--or if Snap picks up any message--bring it to me.” He added aloud, ”Well, it will be cool enough presently, Gregg.”