Part 15 (2/2)
”No,” Costigan interrupted. ”This situation is apt to get altogether too serious to overlook any bets. If we get away, I'll take them away from her and she'll never know that they aren't routine equipment. As for you, I know that you can and do keep your mouth shut. That's why I'm hanging this junk on you-I had a lot of stuff in my kit, but I flashed it all with the Standish except what I brought in here for us three. Whether you think so or not, we're in a real jam-our chance of getting away is mighty close to zero....”
He broke off as the girl came back, now to all appearances a small Triplanetary officer, and the three settled down to a long and eventless wait. Hour after hour they flew through the ether, but finally there was a lurching swing and an abrupt increase in their acceleration. After a short consultation Captain Bradley turned on the visiray set and, with the beam at its minimum power, peered cautiously downward, in the direction opposite to that in which he knew the pirate vessel must be. All three stared into the plate, seeing only an infinity of emptiness, marked only by the infinitely remote and coldly brilliant stars. While they stared into s.p.a.ce a vast area of the heavens was blotted out and they saw, faintly illuminated by a peculiar blue luminescence, a vast ball-a sphere so large and so close that they seemed to be dropping downward toward it as though it were a world! They came to a stop-paused, weightless-a vast door slid smoothly aside-they were drawn upward through an airlock and floated quietly in the air above a small, but brightly-lighted and orderly city of metallic buildings! Gently the Hyperion was lowered, to come to rest in the embracing arms of a regulation landing cradle.
”Well, wherever it is, we're here,” remarked Captain Bradley, grimly, and:
”And now the fireworks start,” a.s.sented Costigan, with a questioning glance at the girl.
”Don't mind me,” she answered his unspoken question. ”I don't believe in surrendering, either.”
”Right,” and both men squatted down behind the ether-walls of their terrific weapons; the girl p.r.o.ne behind them.
They had not long to wait. A group of human beings-men and to all appearances Americans-appeared unarmed in the little lounge. As soon as they were well inside the room, Bradley and Costigan released upon them without compunction the full power of their frightful projectors. From the reflectors, through the doorway, there tore a concentrated double beam of pure destruction-but that beam did not reach its goal. Yards from the men it met a screen of impenetrable density. Instantly the gunners pressed their triggers and a stream of high-explosive sh.e.l.ls issued from the roaring weapons. But sh.e.l.ls, also, were futile. They struck the s.h.i.+eld and vanished-vanished without exploding and without leaving a trace to show that they had ever existed.
Costigan sprang to his feet, but before he could launch his intended attack a vast tunnel appeared beside him-something had gone through the entire width of the liner, cutting effortlessly a smooth cylinder of emptiness. Air rushed in to fill the vacuum, and the three visitors felt themselves seized by invisible forces and drawn into the tunnel. Through it they floated, up to and over buildings, finally slanting downward toward the door of a great high-towered structure. Doors opened before them and closed behind them, until at last they stood upright in a room which was evidently the office of a busy executive. They faced a desk which, in addition to the usual equipment of the business man, carried also a bewilderingly complete switchboard and instrument panel.
Seated impa.s.sively at the desk there was a gray man. Not only was he dressed entirely in gray, but his heavy hair was gray, his eyes were gray, and even his tanned skin seemed to give the impression of grayness in disguise. His overwhelming personality radiated an aura of grayness-not the gentle gray of the dove, but the resistless, driving gray of the super-dreadnought; the hard, inflexible, brittle gray of the fracture of high-carbon steel.
”Captain Bradley, First Officer Costigan, Miss Marsden,” the man spoke quietly, but crisply. ”I had not intended you two men to live so long. That is a detail, however, which we will pa.s.s by for the moment. You may remove your suits.”
Neither officer moved, but both stared back at the speaker, unflinchingly.
”I am not accustomed to repeating instructions,” the man at the desk continued; voice still low and level, but instinct with deadly menace. ”You may choose between removing those suits and dying in them, here and now.”
Costigan moved over to Clio and slowly took off her armor. Then, after a flas.h.i.+ng exchange of glances and a muttered word, the two officers threw off their suits simultaneously and fired at the same instant; Bradley with his Lewiston, Costigan with a heavy automatic pistol whose bullets were explosive sh.e.l.ls of tremendous power. But the man in gray, surrounded by an impenetrable wall of force, only smiled at the fusillade, tolerantly and maddeningly. Costigan leaped fiercely, only to be hurled backward as he struck that unyielding, invisible wall. A vicious beam snapped him back into place, the weapons were s.n.a.t.c.hed away, and all three captives were held to their former positions.
”I permitted that, as a demonstration of futility,” the gray man said, his hard voice becoming harder, ”but I will permit no more foolishness. Now I will introduce myself. I am known as Roger. You probably have heard nothing of me: very few Tellurians have, or ever will. Whether or not you two live depends solely upon yourselves. Being something of a student of men, I fear that you will both die shortly. Able and resourceful as you have just shown yourselves to be, you could be valuable to me, but you probably will not-in which case you shall, of course, cease to exist. That, however, in its proper time-you shall be of some slight service to me in the process of being eliminated. In your case, Miss Marsden, I find myself undecided between two courses of action; each highly desirable, but unfortunately mutually exclusive. Your father will be glad to ransom you at an exceedingly high figure, but in spite of that fact I may decide to use you in a research upon s.e.x.”
”Yes?” Clio rose magnificently to the occasion. Fear forgotten, her courageous spirit flashed from her clear young eyes and emanated from her taut young body, erect in defiance. ”You may think that you can do anything with me that you please, but you can't!”
”Peculiar-highly perplexing-why should that one stimulus, in the case of young females, produce such an entirely disproportionate reaction?” Roger's eyes bored into Clio's; the girl s.h.i.+vered and looked away. ”But s.e.x itself, primal and basic, the most widespread concomitant of life in this continuum, is completely illogical and paradoxical. Most baffling-decidedly, this research on s.e.x must go on.”
Roger pressed a b.u.t.ton and a tall, comely woman appeared-a woman of indefinite age and of uncertain nationality.
”Show Miss Marsden to her apartment,” he directed, and as the two women went out a man came in.
”The cargo is unloaded, sir,” the newcomer reported. ”The two men and the five women indicated have been taken to the hospital.”
”Very well, dispose of the others in the usual fas.h.i.+on.” The minion went out, and Roger continued, emotionlessly:
”Collectively, the other pa.s.sengers may be worth a million or so, but it would not be worthwhile to waste time upon them.”
”What are you, anyway?” blazed Costigan, helpless but enraged beyond caution. ”I have heard of mad scientists who tried to destroy the Earth, and of equally mad geniuses who thought themselves Napoleons capable of conquering even the Solar System. Whichever you are, you should know that you can't get away with it.”
”I am neither. I am, however, a scientist, and I direct many other scientists. I am not mad. You have undoubtedly noticed several peculiar features of this place?”
”Yes, particularly the artificial gravity and those screens. An ordinary ether-wall is opaque in one direction, and doesn't bar matter-yours are transparent both ways and something more than impenetrable to matter. How do you do it?”
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