Part 2

Then Norman Haynes came to visit us. He landed before we had a chance to refuse to receive him. He had a body-guard of a dozen men. He was our enemy, but we couldn't prove it. He seemed to have forgotten the little brush between himself and me, at his office.

"Splendid layout you've got, Wallace and Mavrocordatus!" he said to Nick and me, pronouncing Nick's name perfectly. He sounded very much like his usual self. "Of course there's bound to be difficulties. Trouble with crews, and so on. It's hard to get people to believe in a project as fantastic as this. I didn't quite believe in it, either, at first. But the facts are proved, now that the groundwork is laid. You'll need help, fellows. I can give it to you."

He was smiling, but under the smile I could see a snaky smirk, which probably he didn't know showed. I felt fury rising inside me. He was trying to get control of our project, now that he saw for sure that it could amount to something. Competition he feared, but if he had control he could enforce his high prices, keep his empire, and expand his wealth by millions of dollars. His dirty work must have been partly an attempt to force the issue.

"Thanks," Nick told him quietly. "But we prefer to do everything alone."

Our visitor shrugged, standing there at the door of his space boat. "Okay," he breezed. "Get in touch with me, if you feel you need me!"

Some hours later, a radiogram came through from Earth. "_Congratulations!_" it read. "_Stick to your guns! I like people with imagination. Maybe I'll be back in harness soon myself.--Art Haynes._"

* * * * *

"He's probably just being sarcastic," I said bitterly.

"Old devil!" Pa Mavrocordatus growled.

Two men were killed just thirty minutes after the message was received. A little thin-faced fellow named Sparr did it. But he got away in a space boat before we could catch him. A paid killer and trouble maker.

The incident put our crew more on edge than before. A half dozen of the newcomers--mechanics from Earth--quit abruptly. Our food was almost gone. We got another shipload in, but the growing unrest didn't abate, though we kept on for another month. There was similar trouble on 439, where the Mavrocordatus money came from. But maybe we'd make the grade, anyway.

We had a pretty dense atmosphere already, on Paradise Asteroid. The black sky had turned blue now. The ground was moist with water. Earthly buildings were going up. Pa Mavrocordatus had had seeds and small trees and things planted. It was that deceptive moment of success, before the real blow came.

After sunset one night, I heard shots. I raced out of the barracks, Geedeh, Irene, and Pa Mavrocordatus following me. We all carried blast tubes.

We found Nick in a gorge, his body half burned through, just above his right hip. But he was still alive. He had a blast tube in one hand. Two men lay on the rocks and earth in front of him, dead. Beside them, glinting in our flashlight beams, was an aluminum cylinder.

"It's a bacteria culture container, Chet," Nick whispered. "They had me caught, and they bragged a little before I did some fast moving, and got one of their blast tubes. Venutian Black-Rot germs. They were going to dump them in the drinking water supply. They mentioned--Haynes...."

Nick couldn't say much more than that. But he'd saved our lives. He died there in my arms, a hero to progress, a little breeze in the new atmosphere he'd helped to create rumpling his curly hair. He'd died for his dream of beauty and betterment.

Poor little Irene couldn't even cry. Her face was white, and she was stricken mute. Her pa was shaken by great sobs, and he babbled threats. I told him to shut up. Geedeh cursed in his own language, his voice a soft, deadly hiss, his little fists clenching and unclenching.

"Too bad Nick had to kill these men!" I growled. "We could have made 'em talk. We'd have evidence. The law would take care of Norman Haynes!"

"But we ain't got nothing!" Pa Mavrocordatus groaned. "Nothing!"

Geedeh's face was twisted into a Martian snarl of hate. Irene stared, as though she were somewhere far away. I tried putting my arm around her, to bring her back to us. It was a minute before she seemed to realize I was there.

"Irene," I said. "I love you. We all love you. Buck up, kid. We can't quit now--ever! We'd be letting Nick down."

She just nodded. She couldn't talk.

* * * * *

A couple of hours later I was meeting our workers in our office. Most of them tried to be decent about it. "We'd like to stick, Wallace. But how can we? Nothing to eat...." That was what most of them said, in one way or another.

And how could I answer them?

Some were not so regretful, of course. Some were downright ugly. A little crazy with space perhaps, or else hopped up with propaganda that secret agents in Haynes' hire had been spreading among them.

"Why should we work for you anyway?" they snarled. "Even for good money, most of which we haven't collected? You're probably like what we're used to. Just fixing up another place here, to clip us in the end, charging us prices sky high. Your 'Paradise' is just a little fancier, that's all."

So they turned away, and the exodus began. The freight ships blasted off, one by one, with loads of men. We couldn't stop them. And soon the silence closed in. We were left alone to bury Nick. The small sun was bright on the rough pinnacles, and their naked grey stone was bluely murky in the new air. There was a humid warmth of summer around us.

Just then, I didn't even feel exactly angry, in the blackness of failure, Norman Haynes had won, so far. What would be his next step in completing our final defeat?

I spent some time in the office, going over records. Presently Pa Mavrocordatus came rushing from the barracks. His whole fat body sagged, as he paused before me. His face was like paste. He didn't seem quite alive.

"Irene," he croaked. "She's gone ... too...."

I ran with him to her quarters. There was some disorder. A picture of her mother was tipped over on a little metal dressing table. A rug was rumpled, and there was some clothing scattered on the floor. That was all.

Geedeh had entered her quarters, too. "Kidnapped," he hissed.

What Haynes meant to accomplish by having his agents, carry off Irene, I couldn't imagine. The hate I felt blurred all but the thought of getting her back to safety. The urge was like a dagger-point, sharp and clear in the chaos of memories. I knew how much she meant to me now.

"I need a rocket," I said quietly. "The fastest we've got. I want to radio the Space Patrol, too."

"There are no ships left here," Geedeh returned. "The men took them all, except a little flier, which they meant us to have. But somebody has smashed it. Our big radio transmitter is smashed, also."

A minute later I was clawing in the wreckage of tubes and wires, there in the radio room. The apparatus was completely beyond repair. For the time being we were helpless, stranded on our asteroid. For a moment I felt little shouts of madness shrieking in my brain. But Geedeh's stabbing glance warned me that this was not the way. I fought back, out of that flash of mania.

"We'd better break out all of our weapons, Geedeh," I said. "Haynes has gone too deep to back out now. He's in danger of the Patrol if we talk, so he'll have to strike at us soon."

Thus we prepared ourselves as well as we could, for attack. Geedeh, Pa Mavrocordatus, and I. We equipped ourselves with our best armament--atomic rifles. Pa Mavrocordatus had gotten over most of his confusion. He was still sick with grief, but necessity seemed to have steadied him. He clutched his rifle grimly as we took up positions behind rock masses at the edge of the landing field.

III

We waited silently. The asteroid turned on its axis. The brief night came. Then we saw the rockets approaching--flaming in on shreds of blue-white rocket fire. As the two ships slowed for a landing, the three of us discharged a volley.

Our atomic bullets burst on impact, dazzling in the dark. The concussion was terrific.

"Got one!" I heard Pa Mavrocordatus shout after a moment, his voice thin through the ringing in my ears. My dazzled eyes saw one ship lying on its side on the landing field, its meteor armor unpunctured by our small missiles, but with its landing rockets damaged. The other ship had grounded itself perfectly.

We were ready to fire again, when the paralytic waves swept over us. I saw Geedeh half rise, doubling backward in a rigid spasm, his rifle flying wide.

Then I knew no more, until I heard Norman Haynes speaking to us. We were bound firmly, and it was daylight again, and our captor and his score of henchmen were smirking.

"I'm just trying to figure out how to make your deaths seem as accidental as possible," Haynes said, looking at me. "A couple of men of mine seem to have bungled a little business of bacteria. Maybe they blabbed before you fellows killed them. Now, of course, I can't take any chances. Too bad your reconditioned asteroid has to appear a failure for a while. But I can't let my taking over seem too obvious. Have to wait a while. I may be able to start up something here later, when people sort of forget."

"What have you done with Irene?" I stormed blackly.

Haynes' look was quizzical. "Why ask me?" he answered. "She probably ran off with one of your roustabouts. Or else they decided that she'd be nice company to have around, and made her go along."

He laughed cynically. Maybe he was telling the truth about not knowing where Irene was. But if this was true, it didn't make me feel much better. If some of his gang, who'd been working with us, had kidnapped her, there was no telling how badly she'd fare.

My fears showed on my face, and Norman Haynes seemed to enjoy them, though he was nervous, dangerously so. It was getting daylight again, now. He kept glancing at the sky, twiddling his soft hands. He didn't like physical danger.

"Your gravity generator seems to be the answer to my prayers, Wallace," he informed me. "At full force it'll develop at least fifty Earth gravities, before breaking down and melting itself. We've inspected it. Power like that'll destroy all of you. It will look like an accident--a breakdown of the machinery."

Though Pa Mavrocordatus kept cursing Haynes continuously, and Geedeh kept calling him names that no Earthman could have translated into our less vitriolic English, our captor paid them no attention. He kept directing his threats at me. That was how I knew he was still thinking of the time in his office at Enterprize, when I'd called him by his true colors. He still held that grudge, and he meant to pay me back with fifty gravities. Which means that every pound of Earth-weight would be increased to fifty pounds! In a grip like that a man as big as me would weigh a good four tons!

That meant a heart stopped by the load of the blood it tried to pump, and tissues crushed by their own weight! Like being on the surface of some dead star of medium dimensions, where gravity is terrific!

* * * * *

At Haynes' order, six of his twenty henchmen picked up Geedeh and Pa and me. The whole bunch was an ugly looking lot, the scum of the space ports. Some of these men were commanded to stay on the surface of the planetoid, while we were carried to the elevator shed. In the cage we descended at dizzying speed to that vault at the center of 487 where the gravity machinery was housed in its crystal shell. At that depth, under the load of the column of air above, the atmospheric pressure was very high. One could not breathe comfortably in that stuffy medium.

"Courage!" Geedeh gasped to Pa Mavrocordatus and me, while his great eyes kept roving around, looking for some chance that wasn't there.

Haynes began to examine the machinery. He was smirking again. "Simple to do!" he said to his companions. "Set the robot control for gradually increasing power, so that we'll have time to get away. Break the manual controls, so that no readjustments can be made. You can cut our friends loose now, Zinder, so there won't be any ropes to show this was a put-up job. But keep your blasters on these men--all of you!"

This was the end, all right. I was sure of it. I'd die without even knowing what had happened to Irene. Irene, whom I knew now that I loved....

We'd been freed of our bonds when the surface phone rang. The lookout party, whom Haynes had left above, was calling. Our captor snapped on the switch of the speaker. A voice boomed in that busy cavern of metal giants, green light, and glinting crystal:

"Listen, Chief! There's a bunch of specks to the right of the sun. They're getting bigger fast. Must be a flock of space ships. Couldn't be any of yours. What'll we do?"

I saw Haynes' weak features go sallow. Briefly my spirits rose. I couldn't imagine whom those ships could belong to. But they must be rescuers of some kind. They were coming to stop Norman Haynes' madness.

But Haynes was clever, as he quickly proved. "Friends of Wallace here, I suppose. Maybe even Space Patrol boats," he said over his phone to the lookout party. "You'll all have to take a discomfort for a while. We'll use gravity on them, too! They'll never land successfully."

Pa Mavrocordatus looked at me and Geedeh. "What's he mean--use gravity?"

Geedeh was a bit quicker than I in giving the obvious answer. "Just as with us," he said. "Increase the output of the gravity generator here to a certain degree. From space, the increase will be practically unnoticeable. The rockets will try to land--but without taking into consideration the multiplied attractive force, they will crash!"

"Many birds with one stone!" Haynes chuckled gleefully. "You will have a short reprieve, friends, while I take care of these intruders, whoever they are. I can't use too great a gravity on them at first. It might warn them, if they notice that their ships are accelerating too rapidly. They might as well be part of my 'accident', even if they do happen to be police. The Space Patrol has accidents now and then, just like anybody else!"

Haynes started to work the manual controls of the generator. The area in which he and his several aides stood, was shielded against the greater attraction, having been thus arranged by us for testing purposes. The shrill hum of the machines grew louder.

I felt the weight of my prone body increase suffocatingly. The heat increased too, as the great coils, gleaming in the glow of illuminators, gradually absorbed more power. And I knew that, out in space, those slender fingers of force were reaching and strengthening, invisible and treacherous. Our unknown friends were doomed.

Not only were they doomed, but our whole idea was destined to failure. The dream that Nick had died for. The vast progress that it meant. Worlds out here--worlds with largely a self-sufficient production--real colonization. Fair play. Norman Haynes would resist all that, because progress would weaken his power here. He was master of the asteroids, because he was master of their imports and exports. And unless he could control the rejuvenated asteroids himself, they would never be. With him directing, they would not represent a real improvement--only another means of robbing from the colonists. And colonists weren't rich.

I could see those same thoughts, that gouged savagely into my own brain, burning in Geedeh's cat eyes, where he sprawled near me. Being a Martian, born to a lesser gravity than the terrestrial, he was suffering more than I--physically. But perhaps my mental torture was worse. Geedeh was Irene's friend, but I loved her. She was gone--lost somewhere--maybe dead. That, for me, was the worst--much worse than that crushing weight.

I couldn't let things remain the way they were! My seething fury and need lashed me on, even in my helplessness. God--what could I do? I tried to figure something out. Could I break the gravity machinery some way? Impossible, now, certainly!

I tried to remember my high school physics. Principles that might be used to give warning signals, and so forth. And just what that awful gravity would do to things.

Close to me was the base of the domelike crystal shell that covered the gravity generator. It wasn't a vital part, certainly, just stout quartz. But it was the only thing I could reach. As I lay there on the floor, I drew my foot back, doubling my knee. I stamped down against the quartz with all my strength. The first blow cracked it. The second drove my metal-shod boot-heel through with a crashing sound. A small hole, eighteen inches long, was made in the barrier. The sounds of the great machinery went on as before. The gravity kept slowly increasing. Geedeh, suffering more, now, looked at me puzzledly. Pa Mavrocordatus stared anxiously. And Norman Haynes at the surface phone laughed unpleasantly.

"Cracking up, eh, Wallace?" he sneered. "I know who your would-be helpers on those space ships are, now. I suppose I should be surprised at their identities. They're calling to you. Want to listen? My men above have locked this surface phone to our ship radio."

He turned up the volume of the reproducer.

Irene's voice was the first in the speaker. "Chet!" she was urging. "Chet Wallace! Pa! Geedeh! Do you hear me? I left 487 of my own free will. I couldn't waste time, going to the Space Patrol for help--they'd want proof, and that would take a while to present. So--there was only one person and I thought you'd mistrust him.... Why don't you answer? Or have you left 487 too? I'm turning the mike over to somebody else, now. I found him on Enterprize, just come from Earth, Mr. Arthur Haynes...."

IV

I gasped, listening to Irene. I didn't know what surprised and confused me most--her being alive and safe, or what she'd done about old Art Haynes. Could I trust old Art? I had no way of telling. Had Irene told him about his nephew, or had she kept silent? Did he know he was opposed to Norman Haynes, or did he think it was somebody else who had sabotaged the project? Where would his loyalties be, if he found out? It was a ticklish situation.

As soon as Irene's ragged, excited breathing died away in the speaker, Norman Haynes took it upon himself to clarify his own stand, and my uncertainties. He looked at Geedeh and Pa and me, tense and suffering in the grip of the gravity, and tortured with doubt.

"Uncle Art is an old fool," he said. "So he thinks he'll come back to the asteroids, and replace me in the business, does he? Well, he should have died long ago, and now is as good a time as any! He might as well be part of the accident, too, along with those space bums of yours. Nobody'll ever know!"

It was tragic that old Art couldn't have heard that. But his nephew wasn't broadcasting. He was just listening quietly. And now his uncle's voice was coming through:

"We're blasting in to land, Wallace, if you're listening. There won't be any more trouble, now. I'll see to that! We'll find out who's back of this sabotage. We'll put an end to it!"

For me it was bitter, black irony--old Art proving himself our friend, now! He didn't know his enemy. He was nearly ninety--a grim old fighter, with real vision. Irene too, who meant everything to me. She didn't know that with the intensified gravity those incoming ships would be smashed and blazing!

My mind was growing a bit dim in the strangling pressure of the artificial gravitation. Sweat was streaming from me in the smothering heat that added to the oppressiveness of the heavy air. Pa Mavrocordatus was groaning the name of his daughter. Geedeh's great eyes were fixed on me in helpless suffering.

Through the shrill sounds of the engines I listened for more words from Irene and old Art. But none came. They must know their doom by now. They must be fighting savagely and hopelessly to get away. Still some distance from 487, they were already caught, deep in the web of invisible force.

After some moments, I heard a distant crash, a roll of sound. What was it? A huge rocket, hitting the jagged crags above, at meteoric speed? Crumpling, destroying itself and those inside it? I thought my heart would burst with the added weight of my anxiety.

The first crash was only the beginning. Others followed in quick succession--inexorably. And there was a faint, far-off roar, coming down from ten miles above.

And that roar was the roar of titanic rain. Of floods of water coming down this shaft, where the gravity machine was! All the countless tons of water that we'd baked from ancient rocks, and which had been mostly suspended as vapor in our synthetic atmosphere, was condensing now, coming down in torrents!

* * * * *

Norman Haynes kept grinning satanically, while he and his aides attended to the gravity machine. Triumph showed in his eyes. But presently he began to look puzzled, as that soughing roar that accompanied the crashing din, increased. It was a little early for the space ships to be smashing up, anyway.

I could feel a grim smile coming over my lips, against my will. Had my guesses and hopes, which had seemed so unsubstantial, been correct? Norman Haynes was glancing doubtfully at the reproducer. I could see that he was wondering why his surface watchers didn't communicate any more--and tell him what was happening up there on the crust of 487.

I knew the answers, now! Geedeh did, too. The excitement of knowledge was in his withered, pain-wracked face. Those distant crashes were not what I'd feared they might be, but part of what I'd hoped for. They were gigantic thunder-claps--the noise of terrific lightning bolts! Norman Haynes had made a simple oversight in his plan to destroy those incoming space craft. There was a fearsome electrical storm going on above--one of inconceivable proportions--utterly beyond the Earthly! Doubtless all of Norman Haynes' surface watchers, up above, had been killed by that sudden deluge of electricity! The multiplied gravitation up there, had pinned them down, so that they could neither escape, nor warn their chief!

Before Norman Haynes understood what was happening, foam-flecked muddy water was at the door of the machinery room, rushing and gurgling past the threshold! He and his helpers stared at it stupidly, and I laughed at them.

"You didn't realize it, did you, Haynes?" I grunted. "You didn't realize that increased gravity would increase the weight of the atmosphere, as well as of everything else! And increased weight of the air, means increased atmospheric pressure, too, pushing molecules together, creating greater density. And what happens? Go back to your high school physics, Haynes! It's like when you store air in the tank of a compressor pump. The moisture in it liquifies. And in the case of an atmosphere as big as 487 has now, static electricity would be suddenly and violently condensed, besides."

Norman Haynes stared at me, stunned with consternation. But his recovery was fairly prompt. His sudden sneer had a rattish desperation. "Hell," he said. "Just a thunder storm. A lot of rain. What of it? The gravity machine still works. The ships will still be destroyed."

I knew that that was true--unless what I'd planned happened. Those rockets, manned by our old construction crew, and Irene, and old Art Haynes, had been too close to asteroid 487 for the last couple of minutes, to effect an escape, even if the sudden dark clouds had warned them that something dangerous was afoot.

"Watch this--Haynes," Geedeh panted, and it was hard for the acting head of the Haynes Shipping Company to guess what the little Martian meant, at first.

* * * * *