Part 17 (1/2)

”Anita! Anita darling--”

”Gregg, dear one!”

”Anita!” My arms went around her, my lips pressed hers, and felt her tremulous eager answer.

The form of Coniston showed at our window. She cast me off. She said, with her throaty swagger of amused, masculinity:

”I have him, Sir Arthur. He will obey us.”

I sensed her warning glance. She shoved me toward the window. She said ironically, ”Have no fear, Haljan. You will not be tortured, you and Dean, if you obey our commands.”

Coniston gripped me. ”You fool! You caused us a lot of trouble. Move along there!”

He jerked me roughly through the window. Marched me the length of the deck, out to the stern s.p.a.ce, opened the door of my cubby, flung me in and sealed the door upon me.

”Miko will come presently.”

I stood in the darkness of my tiny room, listening to his retreating footsteps. But my mind was not upon him.

All the universe, in that instant, had changed for me. Anita was alive!

XIV

The giant Miko stood confronting me. He slid my cubby door closed behind him. He stood with his head towering close against my ceiling.

His cloak was discarded. In his leather clothes, and with his clanking sword ornament, his aspect carried the swagger of a brigand of old. He was bare-headed; the light from one of my tubes fell upon his grinning, leering gray face.

”So, Gregg Haljan? You have come to your senses at last. You do not wish me to write my name on your chest? I would not have done that to Dean; he forced me. Sit back.”

I had been on my bunk. I sank back at the gesture of his huge hairy arm. His forearm was bare now; the sear of a burn on it was plain to be seen. He remarked my gaze.

”True. You did that, Haljan, in Greater New York. But I bear you no malice. I want to talk to you now.”

He cast about for a seat, and took the little stool which stood by my desk. His hand held a small cylinder of the Martian paralyzing ray. He rested it beside him on the desk.

”Now we can talk.”

I remained silent. Alert. Yet my thoughts were whirling. Anita was alive. Masquerading as her brother. And, with the joy of it, came a shudder. Above everything, Miko must not know.

”A great adventure we are upon, Haljan.”

My thoughts came back. Miko was talking with an a.s.sumption of friendly comrades.h.i.+p. ”All is well--and we need you, as I have said before. I am no fool. I have been aware of everything that went on aboard this s.h.i.+p. You, of all the officers, are most clever at the routine mathematics. Is that so?”

”Perhaps.”

”You are modest.” He fumbled at a pocket of his jacket, produced a scroll-sheaf. I recognized it. Blackstone's figures. The calculation Blackstone made of the asteroid we had pa.s.sed.

”I am interested in these,” Miko went on. ”I want you to verify them.

And this.” He held up another scroll. ”This is the calculation of our present position and our course. Hahn claims he is a navigator. We have set the s.h.i.+p's gravity plates--see, like this.”