Part 5

Gavin's arms flailed the air in stark terror. He struck a soft, cold, hairless body. There was a barrage of half-human squeaks. The air was full of the fluttering of wings.

Scavenger bats!

Gavin felt a prickling of cold sweat break through his skin. He began to grope feverishly for the girl's body again, working outward in an ever-widening spiral.

After an hour he had lengthened the radius of his search until he was among the debris of the cantonment. He sat back on his haunches, sure of only one thing. Nadia Petrovna was not there!

The air above the demolished cantonment was thick with the squeaks and wing rushing of the hairless bats. A faint yellow glow heralded the dawn.

If the _Nova_ hadn't sailed, there was still hope.

Gavin drove himself to his feet, prowled the debris in search of the road. He started hundreds of the half-human scavenger bats into whispering, squeaking flight, stumbled across countless bodies. The raiders had been thorough.

At length he found the paved highway, began to follow it by feel.

A wind was blowing across the road. Gavin had to fight it like a man fording a stream against a strong current. The light, though, continued to brighten until he could make out the trace beneath his feet. Then the towering bulk of the _Nova_ loomed dead ahead.

She wasn't gone! Gavin flung himself gasping on the ground, trembling with exhaustion.

He rested only long enough to control his trembling muscles, then began to skirt the ship towards the blind spot in the rear. He stayed out of sight. He had no desire to be spied by a possible watch posted at the scanner.

The disposal chute was just forward of the rear jets. Gavin reached it unobserved, as far as he could see, and began to worm his way up the inside of the tube like a climber ascending a chimney. He reached the lock and got his shoulder beneath it. The lock had been designed to operate in space where the pressure inside the ship helped seal it. Now, aided by Jupiter's dense atmosphere, he succeeded in prying the lock up and scrambling into the trap.

Ten minutes later, he climbed out of the chute directly aft of the galley. The air was warm and light, bringing him the odor of cooking soup.

The passage was deserted.

Gavin slipped into the escape well which led from the engine room to the _Nova's_ outer skin, clambered downward again. He stepped from the escape well softly into the engine room itself.

At first he thought it was deserted. Then he discovered a guard posted beside the sealed door in the aft bulkhead. Gavin had never seen him before. He was a big Terran in coarse outer garments. He was facing half away from the T.I.S. agent, holding a dart-gun.

Gavin slipped his fingers through his brass knucks. He edged cautiously from behind the _Nova's_ cyclotron, crept up on the man with the stealth of a ferret. At the last moment, the fellow heard him and swung around.

Gavin clipped him behind his ear with the weight of his shoulder back of the blow. The guard's head banged against the steel bulkhead. He slipped nervelessly to a sitting posture, tumbled sideways. His breath bubbled with a rattling sound from his mouth. Then he stopped breathing.

* * * * *

Without bothering to check his pulse, Gavin turned to the control panel. The fuel gauge showed a comfortable surplus.

Ears straining to catch any untoward sound, he slowly pulled down the lever which dumped the fuel, watched the gauge with a growing tensity of nerves.

The level in the gauge dropped tantalizingly slowly, as the liquid fuel bubbled out of the tanks onto the surface of Jupiter to saturate the soil. It was still a half-inch from the empty symbol when he heard voices.

Someone was descending the ladder into the engine room.

Gavin's jaw set; his lips thinned. With his left hand he drew his dart-gun, but he didn't release the dumping lever. The gauge showed a three-eighths of an inch, then a quarter. A pair of boots descended into his range of vision followed by the legs and waist of a man.

The man reached the deck, faced around and stared at the T.I.S. agent in astonishment. "Don't move!" began Gavin.

Another voice from up the ladder barked "Drop that gun!"

Gavin's eyes flashed upward. He saw a man's head, shoulder and arm through the circular ladder well. The man seemed to be lying on the deck above covering him through the opening with a dart-gun. Gavin dropped his own automatic.

"Take your hand off that lever!" the man snapped.

Gavin flicked his eye to the gauge. The last of the fuel was flowing from the tanks. He released the lever, straightened his shoulders.

Let them do what they pleased to him now, he thought, they were too late. The _Nova_ was grounded!

The second man descended the ladder and the pair of them regarded him curiously. They were both big men, Terrans in baggy outer garments like the guard whose skull Gavin had cracked.

"Who the hell are you?" asked the first man in a flat voice.

These men were bad. They didn't play at it. They didn't try to be. It was etched in their cold eyes and tight mouths.

Gavin moistened his lips. "Murdock. Third assistant-engineer."

"Another one," exclaimed the second man in faint surprise. "I thought we'd bagged the lot."

The other grunted. "We'd better take him to Y."

Gavin was searched and then hustled up the ladder into the officer's mess. As he was propelled through the door, conversation died in the messroom, and four pairs of eyes turned on him curiously.

Gavin controlled his surprise. Villanowski was there, ironed to his chair, his homely features taut with strain. At the table to the left of Villanowski sat the emaciated factor. He wasn't ironed. Neither was Nadia Petrovna. She had changed into crisp shorts and was leaning forward, lips parted in surprise.

But it was the fourth man who drew the T.I.S. agent's attention.

He sat between Nadia Petrovna and the factor, lolling back in his chair indolently, a sheaf of papers spread on the table before him. His face was like a death mask in which the coloring, the lines had been painted by a machine. It was perfect, but without life.

Then Gavin realized that it was a mask. The man's whole face was a lie, even to the realistic mole on his chin.

He leaned across the table. "Who's this?" he asked in a strong harsh voice.

"He says his name's Murdock. Claims he was third assistant-engineer. We found him down in the engine room. He's killed Peters and dumped all the fuel."

Nadia drew in her breath sharply, looked frightened. The factor's fleshless features blackened with rage. Even Villanowski glanced up, a look of surprise and dawning hope in his eyes. Only the man in the mask didn't change expression.

"Go back to your post," he ordered Gavin's captors. "We'll take care of Mr. Murdock." Then, when they had left, he said, "You were contacted by my--ah--co-worker on Venus, Murdock. Mr. X, he called himself." He chuckled, the noise issuing from between unsmiling painted lips like the voice of an automaton. "For the sake of convenience, you can term me Mr. Y."

Gavin didn't say anything.

"You have presented us with a problem," Mr. Y went on.

"Where's Cabot?" Gavin interrupted.

"Dead."

"The chief astrogator, the crew?"

"All dead. In fact, we thought we'd wiped the slate clean."

The factor suddenly slammed the table with his bony fist. "What are you playing with him for, Y? I've sacrificed everything. The cantonment, the slaves. I demand that he be done away with before he can contrive any more damage."

* * * * *

Y regarded the factor with venomous amber eyes, the only living features in his death mask. "Has it occurred to you to wonder _why_ Mr. Murdock dumped the _Nova's_ fuel?"

The factor started.

"Mr. Murdock," said Y, turning back to Gavin, "what persuaded you to ground the _Nova_?"

Gavin's lips thinned. He didn't say anything. Y continued to regard him a moment. Then he asked Nadia, "I believe you suspected Murdock of being an agent of United Spaceways, Miss Petrovna?"

Before the girl could answer the factor broke in again. "Why can't we use the _Nova's_ special space drive?"

"You're referring to the machinery of the little death," rejoined Y. "But I thought you knew. It can't operate until the _Nova_ has attained a certain velocity. That much we've ascertained from Mr. Villanowski."

"Then we're trapped!" The factor leaped to his feet. His agility in the increased gravity was amazing. Gavin realized that the long years the factor had spent on Jupiter had trained his muscles as well as wrung every ounce of extra flesh from his spare frame.

"I see that you've comprehended our position at last," said Y grimly. "What about the emergency fuel tanks at the cantonment?"

"Gone. Your damned shelling exploded them."

Y nodded. "Just as I thought. If Murdock drained the _Nova's_ tanks, he must be expecting help. It will have considerable bearing on any course we plan to take, just who these aids are, how many they'll be, and when to expect them."

He returned to Gavin. "You'll spare yourself a painful experience, Murdock, if you talk now. You can't gain anything by forcing us to wring the information from you. We won't hesitate to stoop to torture."

"No," Gavin agreed. "I suppose not." He hesitated. United Spaceways and Tri-World were the two corporations most likely to want the _Nova's_ space drive. Nadia suspected that he was an agent of United Spaceways. Therefore ... he moistened his lips. "My work's done, anyway. I'm a Tri-World agent."

"But that's impossible!" Nadia burst out in sudden protest. "We...." She paused, looking confused as she realized she'd been tricked.

Y said, "That was very clever, Murdock. Yes. I'm working for Tri-World. Miss Petrovna and my good friend, the factor, have supplied us with valuable information and help for a price. But the knowledge won't be of any earthly use to you."

Gavin felt no triumph at the confirmation of his suspicions. What Y said was true. As soon as they had squeezed him dry, he would be silenced.

The door opened. A Terran appeared. "The slaves have all been unloaded and dispersed, sir. The bodies of the crew are buried. We're ship-shape and ready to take off."

Y put a forefinger to the chin of his death mask, rubbed the plastic gently. "Establish radio contact with the _Comet_."

"Yes sir," replied the man. "The message, sir?"

"Rendezvous cancelled. Emergency. Proceed to us at once prepared to divide fuel."

"Yes, sir." The man went out, closing the door softly behind him.

IX

Gavin's heart sank. Of course the ship that brought Y would be hidden in the neighborhood. It would be simple enough for them to refuel the _Nova_.

Y had taken time to release the slaves and dispose of the bodies of the crew. That, Gavin surmised, was what had delayed the _Nova's_ take-off long enough for him to slip aboard. Now should the _Nova_ be apprehended in space, the Interplanetary patrol would be forced to release her for lack of evidence.

Villanowski glanced up. "We're licked, lad. We may as well toss in the towel."

Gavin looked at the chief engineer blankly.

"You mean," asked Y of Villanowski, "that you and Murdock are working for the same organization?"

The chief engineer laughed bitterly. "We're not working for anyone, but ourselves. You forget, Mr. Y, that the four-dimensional drive isn't the only contribution I've made to interplanetary travel. General Atomic stole the others. We had hoped--" he jerked his head at Gavin "--to keep this one for ourselves!"

Gavin's mind was going in circles like a dog chasing its tail. What was Villanowski's motive?

"Go on," said Y in a foreboding voice.

Villanowski looked down at his chains. "A ship travels through space during a passage of time. It had occurred to me that if I could invert the formula and drive a ship through time during a passage of space, the crude rocket ships could be abandoned. Murdock had gotten in trouble when Transplanet was discovered to be a colonal smuggling ring. He had studied astrophysics under me at New Yale. I knew him and knew I could trust him."

Gavin swallowed and struggled to keep a grip on himself. Obviously Villanowski had something up his sleeve.

Villanowski looked at Gavin. "We needed a space ship to complete our experiments. The effect of the drive on a body at rest was startling enough to predict success if we could attain sufficient velocity."

Gavin thought he detected a faint stressing of the word "startling". Villanowski had said, "_The effect of the drive on a body at rest was startling_...." The _Nova_ was at rest!

"I persuaded Cabot," Villanowski proceeded, "to let me install the mechanism aboard the _Nova_. Murdock was to try--"

Gavin jumped.

With a back-handed, edge-on swipe, he caught Y in the throat full on his larynx.

Nadia screamed as Y went over backwards and lay still. The factor leaped to his feet. Gavin kicked him in the belly. Spinning against the girl, he wrenched out of her hand the dart-gun which she was drawing.

"The keys!" Villanowski panted. "Y has them."

Nadia opened her mouth to scream again.

"Don't." Gavin pointed the dart-gun straight at her open mouth. Nadia shut it.

The factor was writhing on the deck, but Y lay like dead. Gavin found the keys and released Villanowski.

"The engine room," he cried, "we've got to reach the engine room."

"Take Y's gun," said Gavin. He turned on Nadia. "Come along. We can't leave you here to sound an alarm."

Nadia's lips were bloodless. She moved stiffly between them, Gavin's dart-gun prodding her gently in the spine.

They reached the engine room without being discovered and disarmed the startled guard. Villanowski whistled a bar in C sharp and then said, "Open sesame." The door in the steel bulkhead swung soundlessly outward.

There was a faint grin on Villanowski's homely face. "Sound waves set its mechanism in operation. I read a story when I was a youngster--Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves," he confessed. "When I built the lock I couldn't resist designing it to respond to those vibrations."

The ship rocked slightly.

"What's that?"

"Felt like the blow-back of an atom jet," Gavin replied tersely. "I think Y's ship, the _Comet_, is landing."

The _Nova_ rocked again, more violently than before, and a faint rush of flaming jets penetrated to the engine room.

Villanowski scuttled through the door with Gavin prodding Nadia after him. The chief darted for the control board, seized a gleaming lever, slid it cautiously along a slot.

The huge spherical tube, which Gavin had observed before, began to glow gently. The yellow mist, he saw, was gathering in the outer room, but the air in their chamber remained crystal clear.

"The time field," Villanowski explained, "creates a neutral area, an oasis, around the point of generation."

Gavin rubbed his eyes. On the other side of the door was nothing! It was like looking out into the void beyond the farthermost limits of the stars.

"Now, Murdock," Gavin heard Villanowski ask, "when do you expect the interplanetary patrol spacers to land?"

* * * * *

Gavin wheeled around. There was an uncertain smile on Villanowski's homely features.

"How did you know?"

"The little death," Villanowski explained complacently. "When Miss Petrovna told me her dream, I knew...."

"You _are_ a T.I.S. agent!" Nadia interrupted in an odd voice. She put her hand on Gavin's sleeve. "You're going to turn me over to the courts?"

Two white patches appeared at the corners of Gavin's mouth. "Sure. The patrol spacers are on their way. I couldn't turn them back now--" he paused--"even if I wanted to."

"Give me a chance, Gavin?"

He asked, "Why did you sell out to Tri-World?"

The girl lifted her eyes to his. "I was proscribed. Tri-World has granted me amnesty. That was their price. My life. I wouldn't have done it, Gavin, but I was afraid."

"Does that explain why you tried to double-cross Tri-World in the first place?"

"I told you about that."

"And what about Trev? He hid you out when you were proscribed. He got you aboard the _Nova_. Why did you sell him out to Cabot?"

"But I didn't. I--I...."

"Don't lie to me," he said and gripped her shoulders. "You'd made your dicker with Tri-World. Trev was in your way. He knew too much about you. He might even have got wind of what you were up to. So you went to Cabot and told him about Trev being a dealer in scientific secrets. You knew Cabot would kill him, thinking the Martian had sold out to X."

The girl flinched. "I'm not asking you to shield me, Gavin. Turn me loose. Just let me have a fighting chance to escape. Give me a chance, Gavin."

"And Cabot," Gavin continued inexorably, his pale blue eyes stony. "You delivered Cabot and the _Nova_ over to Tri-World."

He turned her loose.

"Give you a chance," he repeated and gave a short bitter laugh. "A chance to do what? Double-cross me like you have everyone else?"

Nadia shrank away. "The dream!" she said in a frightened voice. "It's just as it was in the dream. You laughed!"

Villanowski interrupted sadly. "You weren't dreaming during the little death. We're only equipped with three dimensional sense organs. We're blind to everything but the immediate instant. But time's a dimension. It's co-existent. When the _Nova_ was projected across time, your entire life was spread out around you. What you actually did was experience a segment of your life. It happened to be a segment in the future."

Nadia's lips were bloodless. "You guessed when I told you about the dream?"

"I didn't guess," replied Villanowski. "I knew! Miss Petrovna, if you saw the _Nova_ captured by the Interplanetary Patrol through efforts of Murdock who was a T.I.S. agent, then it was inevitable that it would take place exactly as you had seen it. There was nothing any of us could do about it!"

A faint grin broke across Villanowski's homely face. "I saw that it behooved me to give Murdock a hand when and if he needed it."

Gavin said, "I think I can promise you amnesty, Villanowski. I couldn't have captured the _Nova_ without your help."

"Oh, that's not all," Villanowski chuckled. "The Empire will want this space drive to power her ships. I'll be a valuable man. Even Y didn't intend to kill me until I had explained its mechanism to Tri-World's scientists."

"How long," asked Gavin abruptly, "have we been on Jupiter? I lost track after that shell knocked me out at the cantonment."

"This is the second day."

Gavin wrinkled his brow. "The patrol ships should be here in about four hours."

* * * * *

Outside the _Nova_, a gaping hole in space marked her position. The astounded crew of the _Comet_, who had landed prepared to refuel the captured _Nova_, eyed the eerie vacancy with mixed emotions. One of the crew flung a rock into the enveloping blackness. It disappeared. There was no sound of its falling to the ground.

The commander of the _Comet_, deprived of Y's guidance, fumed nervously. He glanced at his watch at intervals, saying at length, "If the _Nova_ doesn't reappear by dark, we'll take off. We can lay up and re-establish contact by radio."

The men gathered about the maw of blackness staring into it with hypnotic fascination.

They fell an easy prey to the five sleek patrol craft which plummeted down on them three hours later.

The short Jovian day was on the wane when the _Nova_ began to gather substance like a tenuous cloud. Her misty outlines grew solid. Then the port opened. Gavin Murdock appeared in the entrance.

Commandant Samuels, a grizzled veteran of the T.I.S., was the first man up the gangplank. He shook Gavin's hand. "Nice work, Murdock. But it smacks damnably of witchcraft."

The Flight Commander was right behind him, followed by the captains of the Empire's patrol spacers. The Flight Commander caught sight of two of Y's men lying unconscious just within the port.

"What the hell's this? The palace of the sleeping beauty?"

"You haven't seen the half of it," Gavin assured him with a grin. "They're lying all over the ship like that. Villanowski says the effects last about an hour. Better lock them up before they come to."

"Villanowski?" echoed the T.I.S. Commandant. "He's not dead, is he?"

"No," said Gavin, surprised at the anxiety in the Commandant's voice.

"Good!" growled Samuels. He lowered his voice to a subdued roar. "Ticklish mission. I'm supposed to persuade him to accept a post on the Empire's Bureau of Research. They're afraid his space drive will fall into wrong hands. But Villanowski's such an embittered old goat, he'll probably...."

There was a faint chuckle behind Gavin.

Villanowski, who had come up unobserved, said, "Your diplomacy, Commandant Samuels, is unique." There was a broad grin on his homely face. "I couldn't think of opposing such finesse."

The grizzled T.I.S. Commandant's features flamed an apoplectic red. Then he burst into laughter, wiped his eyes, and blew his nose.

"Where's Nadia?" Gavin asked sharply.

"Ironed to my old chair in the officer's mess." Villanowski handed Gavin the keys.

Gavin passed them on to the Commandant. He gave a terse but concise report, while the men filed aboard and began to cart the unconscious Tri-World agents off to the patrol spacers.

Y was found to be dead, the blow on his esophagus having killed him. When the mask was stripped from his face, Commandant Samuels identified him in amazement as the chief of Tri-World's gestapo.

"We caught X, too," he said. "We received a flash aboard the flagship that X has been captured in space."

"What was he charged with?"

"Piracy. Y's men will be tried on the same charges. Tri-World, of course, will disclaim any connection, but she'll have to rebuild her gestapo from top to bottom."

* * * * *

Gavin moved aside to allow two men with a stretcher to pass out the lock. The body of the factor lay on the stretcher looking thin as a straw. He was alive, Gavin noted, seeing his chest move faintly.

"This gives the death blow to the slave trade," the Commandant began. Then he realized Gavin wasn't listening.

Nadia Petrovna followed the stretcher. Her hands were in irons and a guard walked beside her. She passed silently between the men, her black eyes flashing Gavin a look of hate before she descended the gangplank.

"Mark my word," said Commandant Samuels grumpily, "that girl will get off with a light sentence. She'll run true to form and sell Tri-World down the river. She'll be the prosecution's principal witness."

Gavin shrugged.

"Which reminds me," put in Villanowski. "Since the Empire's so anxious for me to return to the fold, I don't want to appear too eager."

"Eh?" A pained expression rippled the T.I.S. Commandant's ruddy features.

"I'd like the chief engineer's rating aboard the first ship to reach the stars." There was a wistful note in Villanowski's voice.

"There shouldn't be any hitch there," the Commandant agreed in a relieved tone. "You're the logical man to head an expedition outside the system."

"What about a third assistant-engineer?" Gavin interrupted.

"We work pretty well together," said Villanowski.

Gavin's lean freckled face broke into a grin. "It's a bargain."

The two men solemnly shook hands.

* * * * *

[Transcriber's Note: Original text had two Section VIII headings. Second heading renumbered to IX.]