Part 2

The plane jarred down to a rough landing, streamed across the snow in a swirl of wind-driven ice dust. Ricker thought of what the Martian had said. Ten thousand planes--where? The man was mad. There was no place on this naked planet to hide a factory.

"Forty-four-five!" said Hines. Apparently it was their magnetic position on Neptune. Ricker remembered it.

"Right," said Gurren. "Dig in!" He threw the brake, made a breathtaking stop and held the plane like a wild horse against the wind.

Hines pulled a trigger on the wheel. A misty cloud of white--_steam_--suddenly frosted the windows. An angry hissing penetrated the walls and the falling sensation rose in Ricker again, though he could see nothing through the ice-coated ports. His eyes widened.

The plane had landed, but it _continued to fall_!

Ricker stared at the pilots with mixed exasperation and astonishment. He glanced at Molly Borden but she was blasé as ever. Finally he turned to Vanger.

"Would you mind telling me what's going on?" he asked with more nonchalance than he felt.

"Not at all." The Martian grimaced with what was his smile. "Since you won't live to repeat it, we're bound for the perfect hideout--beneath the snows of Neptune."

He laughed and the sound of his laughter mingled with the whispering hiss of steam, seemed to echo from the painted windows which had now turned black.

Ricker watched the windows. His eyes narrowed again when they glowed again with the reflection of light outside. The light was brighter than before.

Then, suddenly, as if by some quick heat, the ice vanished from the windows, and, if he felt surprise at the wizardry of their descent into the snow, what he beheld now was with a staggering shock.

The ship floated down into a cavernous box-like place that stretched out into miles of smooth floor surrounded by white, glistening walls of sheer ice. On the floor, long geometrical rows of flat buildings, like an automobile factory, striped one side of a wide smooth landing field. On the other side of the field stood a large house like an office building and behind it lay a silver, windowed dome from which ran heavy tubes curving into the ground. Upon the field, forming a great dotted circle around it, rested literally thousands of egg-shaped space ships.

Ricker stared through the viewplate as if watching the very gates of Hades open before him. They landed slowly. And despite his astonishment, he absorbed everything he saw with the photographic memory of a good telenewsman.

The place was an immense chamber deep in the icy rind of the planet--apparently resting on the very surface of Neptune itself for the floor appeared to be rock, different from the glistening walls and the roof. And the roof--glancing up, Ricker saw the low sleek dome held no mark of their entrance! The ice had instantly frozen behind them again as they passed through. This place was impregnable, perfectly hidden. A hundred miles of snow was at once a shield and camouflage.

But how?

Then he saw how. Along the walls reared tall tripods, similar to radio towers. At the top of each flared a ring of yellow light--it was blinding to look at. Like looking full at the noonday sun. And through the windows, he could feel the sweaty penetration of--heat!

"Show Miss Borden to her room, Hines." The Martian's voice brought Ricker's staring eyes back to the cabin. "I'll call for you shortly, Molly. And you, Gurren, lock up our meddlesome journalist till I have time for him."

The ship landed like a feather. Vanger opened the door, ogled a twittering good-by to the woman, and jumped to the ground. He strode off toward the office-like building beside the ship-encircled field. All the planes were shiny and new, Ricker noticed.

Gurren and Hines motioned the woman and him out. The floor was a kind of granite underfoot, Ricker saw. The field was about the size of a baseball diamond, the ships staggered in a wide circle around it like eggs in a giant incubator. And an incubator it was. From the shops a quarter of a mile away echoed the whirr of machinery, the clang of metal against metal, the stutter of riveting hammers. Pale blue light rayed from the windows and open doors, cast an aura of stark efficiency above the gleaming roofs and in the streets.

Several men passed, wearing the gray coveralls of his captors, and obviously a landing space ship was not unusual for they gave them no more than a passing glance. They stared at Molly Borden, of course. But then she would have attracted attention in the Shangri-la where dead nymphs go.

"This way," said Hines, and led them across the field, past a center tripod toward the factories. Ricker had never seen the Adison unit before but he knew this must be it. Like steel columns, heat held back Neptune's sunless cold, forced a rigid hollow inside the living ice.

Hines and the woman walked ahead. Ricker followed with Gurren a few paces behind him. Neither of his guards drew their strange-looking guns and Ricker also knew that escape was impossible. It would be like trying to get out of a box buried in a block of concrete. And he was no Houdini....

A few yards into the canyons of the seething city and Hines stopped. "This is your room for the time being." He grinned at Molly Borden like a school boy at the teacher. He waited beside an open door which led into a living compartment of some sort. "If there's anything you wish--"

Next door stood a building from which droned a low monotonous chatter, the hum of a transmitter, the crackle of static. On the roof towered two poles from which hung a long radio antenna. An idea akin to suicide suddenly quickened Ricker's pulse.

"Thank you," the woman said to Hines who, since Vanger left, was rapidly becoming a two-bit cavalier on his own. Ricker glanced at Gurren out of the corner of his eye. He was also gulping in the beauty of the Venusian.

If that radio room was only empty! thought Ricker. If he could make it in time--get the door closed--

"Perhaps I should see if everything's all right," said Gurren, reluctant to leave. As Hines frowned nastily, he took Molly Borden's arm, started into the room with her.

Like a fleeing deer, Ricker suddenly streaked away.

A shout behind him. The door wasn't ten feet ahead. A hot white blast whizzed past his left shoulder. The door frame glowed red, steamed.

Ricker dived through the door.

* * * * *

He caught the door as he went through, slammed it shut behind him.

A man whirled around from a mass of instruments. In that split second all Ricker saw was the man's startled face, his hand snatching a pistol from his belt.

Ricker leaped for him as from a catapult, brought up a swift short right. Smack! The fellow fell back into a bank of scattered dials. Ricker jerked the gun from his hand as he sagged to the floor.

Without another glance at him, he leaped to the transmitter. It was an ordinary radio outfit but apparently of tremendous power. He snapped the sending switch, kept his eyes fused to the door.

"Come out, Ricker!" It was Gurren's voice. "We'll burn you through the door!"

Ricker didn't answer. His ears strained for the warming tone of the sender. He knew they wouldn't blast the building; it would destroy the radio. And they wouldn't come through the door--for a moment.

A low hum sang in the room. The transmitter was working. Ricker bent over the mike, eyes on the door.

"Attention, all listeners." He spoke rapidly but without a tremor. "Ricker, _Planetary Times_--calling for help. Send Patrol to Neptune. Magnetic location--" God! what was that number! "Forty-four-five. Neptune, magnetic forty-four-five--"

The door opened.

"Get back!" said Ricker. "I'll kill the first man that enters!"

Molly Borden came through the door.

"Stop," said Ricker. "I swear I'll shoot if you come a step inside."

"Put down that gun," she said quietly. Gurren and Hines stood in the door behind her, their pistols leveled but unable to shoot with her directly in the line of fire. The woman moved slowly toward Ricker.

"Stop!" he said. God! Why didn't he shoot! This woman was dead anyway. The state had condemned her. It wouldn't be like killing anybody else.

She came on, slowly, like a lion trainer approaching a dangerous animal but with no vestige of fear. Her eyes knifed into his, unblinking, commanding, like the paralyzing fangs of a serpent. His finger tightened on the trigger.

"Give me the pistol. Please." Her voice was low, throaty but with vibrant confidence. With the spell of her eyes, it urged Ricker like the subtle demand of a hypnotist. "Please."

She halted before him, a gorgeous creature, like some great poisonous jungle flower. Her cold green eyes bored into him without a waver. Her face was expressionless, a thing of tinted marble. She held out her hand.

"Give me the gun, Bill Ricker," she said softly. "They'll kill you if you don't."

Ricker leveled the pistol at her heart. "I've never killed a woman--" Gurren and Hines moved around to get a shot at him. "Stay where you are!" said Ricker. "I'll burn a hole through her if you move a step."

He tried to avoid her seeking eyes, met them again. Their gaze met like live wires touching. A current passed between them that almost made sparks. Ricker's whole body vibrated to the electric force of her gaze. Her eyes became an irresistible power transfixing his very being.

For an instant he felt like a moth on a pin. Then without shifting her eyes, Molly Borden slapped the pistol from his hand.

It clattered to the floor. The men were upon him....

* * * * *

Ricker found his pockets contained one cigarette, a book of matches and a clipping from the _Times_. He sat down on the cold metal bunk, dejectedly lit the cigarette and stared at the dark windowless walls and the heavy door that made his prison. Finally he glanced at the clipping:

As Molly Borden, confessed murderess of scientist Adison, was hustled into a plane bound for Pluto today, the only question in the minds of the police and the thousands who witnessed her spectacular trial was "Who is Molly Borden?" The identity of the Venusian panther-woman remains as mysterious as her emerald eyes.

Since immigration officers apprehended her at the City Rocket Terminal as she attempted to leave the country, no hint of her past has escaped her carmine lips. Her fingerprints, photographs, the handsome assassin herself, have brought no trace of recognition from a bewildered universe.

Dorothy Adison, socially prominent daughter of the scientist, who left for Africa after the inquest at which she testified to seeing Senator Geb Trexel at the scene of the crime and was proved mistaken, could not be located for the trial. If Miss Adison can throw any light on the identity of her father's murderess, it is now inconsequential for the quick sword of justice--

Ricker crumpled the slip of paper, hurled it across his narrow cell. Why hadn't he killed her when he had the chance. _She_ was a killer, heartless, cruel as a lynx--and doubly dangerous because she possessed the claws of woman. Her beauty was a mask of murder; the charm of her eyes--well, he'd fallen into them and she'd taken a gun away from him like a toy from a child.

His black thoughts returned to the fullness of his plight. Obviously, Molly Borden had pretended to burn the plans to keep the police off the trail of her henchmen. Then the law had virtually delivered her to their door-step again. Blind fools! He'd written story after story doubting those ashes they found in her stateroom. On the evidence of a few half-burned symbols and a charred notebook cover, the law had made a mistake endangering the very universe!

He was as blind as the police. At least he had expected something--but now here he was trapped like a rabbit in a box. With a plot forming around him that could shake worlds--with a story any telenewsman would give his typewriter-fingers for!

Vanger hadn't lied. His heat-gunned ships could stop any army. And here, beneath the lying ice-wastes of Neptune, such planes were being made like bubbles....

Ricker combed desperate fingers through his unruly hair, got up and paced the cramped floor. What was their plan? To attack Earth--conquer Mars, Venus, Mercury--all the colonies? No! It was unimaginable! But this unknown cave, those ships out there--?

He wondered if his attempted message had gotten through to the Patrol. But he hadn't had time to say he was _beneath_ the location he'd given. They wouldn't find a trace up there on the ice and how could they guess what lay under a hundred miles of frozen gas?

He heard a key clink in the lock of his cell door. It opened to Hines' tank-like figure. He had his gun ready, apparently wasn't taking any chances since the incident of the radio building.

"Let's go, telenewsman," he ordered Ricker outside. Ricker walked out the door without a word.

Hines motioned him to go ahead, directed him out into the noisy street. The hum of machinery was deafening and in the buildings they passed, Ricker saw space ships in all stages of construction along busy assembly lines.

"Where do you get the materials?" he asked idly.

"Simple," said Hines. "Neptune's minerals have never been tapped before. We mine everything we need right here."

"And the men?" The streets were deserted but hundreds were at work in the shops.

"Every man has his price. We pay well."

Ricker remembered several mysterious disappearances in the industrial centers on Earth. They had usually been without families and of small means, however, and no extensive inquiry was made....

The gigantic cavern itself still fascinated him. Glancing up, he noticed the dome of ice was almost the hue of clear blue sky. It was perhaps a mile high and the suggestion of distance lent by the shimmering walls made the place appear even larger than it was. He wondered why there wasn't a constant dripping, why the chamber wasn't moist like a cave. Then he remembered it wasn't frozen water around them. It was frozen atmosphere, melting back into its gases--like dry ice.

Wouldn't the public eat this story up, he thought, as they wove between the evenly-spaced ships beside the field. Then he smiled ironically. _What_ public? The only public he could reasonably expect was a jolly bunch of pallbearers....

They crossed the field, Hines with the pistol at his back. Ricker saw three new ships rolled out into line as they walked the short distance to buildings on the other side.

"What're these?" he asked, looking at the tall three-story house and the big silver dome at the rear.

"The Boss's place," said his guard. "And that dome's the power plant."

The Boss! Ricker's mind clicked. Who was the leader? Was it Vanger? Molly Borden? Somehow neither of them seemed to fit.

They paused at the door of the building. Hines pushed a button. A moment's wait, the door opened to Vanger's dusty face.

"Hello," he greeted. "I hope you found our humble hospitality to your liking, Mr. Ricker." He led them down a narrow corridor to another closed door. Hines left them, retraced his steps. Vanger opened the door, ushered Ricker in.

Ricker saw Molly Borden standing beside a small glass table in a spacious but dim-lit room. The walls were mirrored and a dull hidden light cast vague shadows upon heavy chairs and a sofa, gleamed weirdly upon chrome ash-trays, a carved bottle and glasses. The highlighted silhouette of the woman commanded the scene. She stood carelessly, one crimson-tipped hand resting on the table, a cocktail glass glinting in the other. She had changed from her traveling suit, wore a shimmering gown that bathed her lithe body in a sheen of liquid silver. Had it been under any ordinary circumstances, Ricker would have whistled at the sight of her.

"Your stare tickles, Mr. Ricker," she said. "Won't you come in? Will you have scotch or--"

"He's a telenewsman," said a deep voice from a shadowed chair to the left. "He'll have scotch. And please turn on the light, Vanger. We must make our guest feel at home."

A sudden light glowed over the room. Ricker gazed at the person who had spoken.

He saw a large fat man lounging deep in a cushioned armchair. He had three folds of pale flesh for a chin below his thick lips, his eyes were puffed with the whites startlingly large and his skin was white, an unhealthy white--like a great white worm.

Ricker inhaled quickly. His jaw dropped.

It was Senator Trexel sitting there.

Ricker was struck dumb. He clutched the back of a chair as his mind swirled.

"So Dorothy Adison was right!" He heard himself speak the words as if somebody else had said them.

"Alibis are easily purchased." The fat man's heavy lips curled up at the corners and his hog-like eyes became slitted puffs of flesh. "But do sit down," he smiled. "We have much to talk about."

Ricker found his way around the chair, sank down slowly with his eyes upon the man. Dorothy Adison was right! The phrase roared in his mind. Trexel _did_ have something to do with the murder. Had he hired Molly Borden to do it? Was he a member of this Neptune gang? Was he the _leader_?

"What will you have to drink?"

Ricker looked at the man as he would a Black Widow spider. "I don't drink with murderers--and traitors," he said carefully.

With an amazing swiftness for a man of his bulk, Trexel left his chair, stepped over and struck him smartly across the mouth with the flat of his palm.

"You will be careful of your words!" he breathed. "Another remark like that and you die where you sit!"

He returned to his chair, his composure regained as quickly as it left him. He took a cigarette from his waistcoat pocket, struck a match.

"Now talk, telenewsman," he said. "Who knows where you are? How did you suspect Molly Borden?" The light of the match made his face a white wax mask. He lit the cigarette, blew out the match with a puff of his pasty cheeks.

Ricker refused to open his bruised lips, stared at the man and kept silent.

"There are ways," said Trexel, "of making you talk." Vanger, behind Ricker's chair, coughed in agreement.

"I know," said Ricker finally. "And I imagine you could put Mercurian torture methods to shame. But I'll save you the trouble. There are three people who know where I am. One is my boss, the editor of the _Planetary Times_, another is Dorothy Adison who saw you leaving her father's laboratory after the murder and the other is--the President of the United States."

Molly Borden put down her glass with a sharp clink.

Trexel slowly took his cigarette from his mouth, dropped his tree-trunk arm to his lap. Ricker met his eyes evenly. Would he believe it?

"You lie," said Trexel. "One of my men is in the President's office. I know every move he makes."

"The President knew your spy was there," said Ricker. "We found him more useful in your employ than in jail."

The fat man took on the look of a bullfrog caught in the glare of a flashlight. The cigarette smoldered in his hand unnoticed. He gazed at Ricker a long few seconds, as silence held the room like a stifled breath.

Then he looked up quickly to the Martian.

"Vanger," he said in a voice like Napoleon must have had at Waterloo. "Contact Number 12 at the White House, tell him to find out if what the man says is true. And tell him whether it's true or not to prepare for immediate action."

Vanger gasped, then choked with a cough. "Attack now!"

"Why not?" Trexel decided, twisting his cigarette into a tray. "We have enough ships to take Earth and the colonies can't do much with their supplies cut off. Any one of our ships can fight off fifty ordinary ones. Perhaps we should begin before Adison's daughter does cause trouble--since we can't find her to keep her quiet.

"Give the word for complete mobilization in an hour!" He stared at the ceiling a moment in silent thought. "We'll pick off the Patrol ships, have Earth surrounded by dawn in New York. When the city awakes there will be a new ruler--of the solar system!"

"Yes, sir." The Martian smiled and turned to go.

"Wait," said Trexel. He nodded to Ricker. "On your way, take this man out and shoot him." Ricker's heart jumped but he stared at the man without a change of expression.

"Shouldn't you first find out if he's lying, Senator?" Molly Borden's unruffled voice raised the fat man's bulbous eyes. "We shouldn't rush into this attack unless quite sure--"

"I know where I stand," said Trexel. "I have men close to every government on Earth. When I give the command, they'll take over while my ships destroy all resistance. And why delay longer? We'll strike before our luck changes."

Ricker stood up. "Listen, fat man," he said. "You hold all the cards as far as I'm concerned. But as far's Earth is concerned it's a different matter. You can't conquer a planet. Men will hide in mountain, jungle and sea. They'll leap at you from every bush and corner. What if you do burn a few ships--a few armies? What if you take every government? The people will rise again. You can't rule by force alone."

"History," said Trexel, "proves that men forget. They soon grow accustomed to new eras. They have learned to love tyrants before." He waved his hand to Vanger. "But this is no discussion of political philosophy...."

Ricker felt something jabbed into his side. It was a pistol in the Martian's hand.

"No!" Molly Borden cried suddenly. "Don't kill him!"

"What?" Trexel looked up at her as if she'd thrown her cocktail in his face. "What is this man to you?" His piggish eyes narrowed. Her exclamation surprised Ricker as much as it did the rest of them.

"You're tired, Molly," snapped Vanger. "Perhaps you should go to your room."

The woman's painted nails bent against the glass of the table beside her. She looked like a tigress about to spring. Why? Ricker almost forgot his own plight at the sudden change in her manner.

"Don't shoot that man," she said slowly. "I'm not--"

"Leave the girl here, Vanger," Trexel interrupted her with dead eyes. "Maybe I'd like to talk with her awhile. You go ahead and follow orders."

"Yes, sir," said the Martian, reluctantly. He pushed the gun into Ricker, forced him around to the door as he looked back at the woman with a puzzled expression on his dusky face.

They passed out of the room into the long darkened corridor.

* * * * *

Ricker's mind was an ant hill of thought as Vanger marched him down the hall. His bluff had worked. Trexel feared his whereabouts was known. But the bluff, in working so well, had precipitated an early start of their scheme--and sounded taps for himself. Oddly, as the Martian pushed open the door and the yellow light of the heat units burst into his eyes, his own death didn't matter much, his dying didn't seem very real. In his brain was the vision of those charred bodies in the liner--they were real. And he could picture that same scene in each ship of Earth as thousands of egg-shaped craft met them in terrestial space, blasted a path of hell to the cities below.

Even his failure to "get the story" seemed insignificant. This thing was bigger than himself.

Ricker felt the pistol withdrawn from his side, glanced back at the Martian. The man's beady eyes fixed on him like a snake's.

As Ricker stared back, almost absently, Vanger's left fist whipped up, banged into his chin, knocked him backward upon the hard ground.

Stunned by the unexpected blow, Ricker got to his hands and knees shakily. He rubbed his numb jaw, gazed at the Martian through a quick red film of rage.

Vanger took careful aim at him. "Die, Earthman," he said softly. "Die with a blackened face, as all your brothers will."

Ricker didn't wait. The crouch he found himself in was not unlike the position in four years of college football. He hurtled at the man like a blocking-back gone wild.

Hiss-s-s!