Part 2
"_We're blanketed!_ Flying blind! Salvation, radio a general alarm! Syd, jazz the hypos to max. Shift trajectory to fourteen-oh-three North and loft ... fire No. 3 jet...."
He had hurled himself into the bucket-shaped pilot's seat; now his fingers played the controls like those of a mad organist. The _Chickadee_ groaned from prow to stern, trembled like a tortured thing as he thrust it into a rising spiral.
It was a desperate chance he was taking. Increasing his speed thus, it was certain he would be spotted by the man he had been following; the flaming jets of the _Chickadee_ must form a crimson arch against black space visible for hundreds--thousands!--of miles. Nor was there any way of knowing what lay in the path Chip thus blindly chose. Titanic death might loom on every side. But they had to fight clear of this spot of blindness, clear their instruments....
And then it came! A jarring concussion that smashed against the prow of the _Chickadee_ like a battering ram. Chip flew headlong out of his bucket to spreadeagle on the heaving iron floor. He heard, above the grinding plaint of shattered steel the bellowing prayer of Salvation Smith:
"We've crashed! 'Into Thy hands, O Lord of old--'"
Then Syd's angry cry, "Crashed, hell! He's smashed us with a tractor-blast!"
Chip stared at his companion numbly.
"But--but that's impossible! We're plated with ek! A tractor-cannon couldn't hurt us--"
"_Half-plated!_" howled Syd savagely. "And those damn fools started working from the stern of the _Chickadee_! We're vulnerable up front, and that's where he got us! In a minute this can will be leaking like a sieve. I'll get out bulgers. Hold 'er to her course, Chip!"
He dove for the lockers wherein were hung the space-suits, tore them hastily from their hangers. Chip again spun the _perilens_ vernier. No good! No space ... no stars ... just a beautiful phantom crying them to certain doom. By now he was aware that from a dozen sprung plates air was seeping, but he fought down despair. While there remained hope, a man had to keep on fighting.
He scrambled back into the bucket-seat, experimented with controls that answered sluggishly. Salvation had sprung to the rotor-gun, was now angrily jerking its lanyard, lacing the void with death-dealing bursts that had no mark. The old man's eyes were brands of fire, his white hair clung wetly to his forehead. His rage was terrible to behold.
"'Yes, truly shall I destroy them!'" he cried, "'who loose their stealth upon me like a thief from the night--'"
Then suddenly there came a second and more frightful blow. The straining _Chickadee_ stopped as though pole-axed by a gigantic fist. Stopped and shuddered and screamed in metal agony. This time inertia flung Chip headlong, helpless, into the control racks. Brazen studs took the impact of his body; crushing pain banded about his temples, and a red wetness ran into his eyes, blurring and blinding him, burning.
For an instant there flamed before him a universe of incandescent stars, weaving, shimmering, merging. The vision of a woman whose hair was a golden glory....
After that--nothing!
III
From a billion miles away, from a bourne unguessable thousands of light-years distant, came the faint, far whisper of a voice. Nearer and nearer it came, and ever faster, till it throbbed upon Chip's eardrums with booming savagery.
"--coming to, now. Good! We'll soon find out--"
Chip opened his eyes, too dazed, at first, to understand the situation in which he found himself. Gone was the familiar control-turret of the _Chickadee_, gone the bulger into which he had so hastily clambered. He lay on the parched, rocky soil of a--a something. A planetoid, perhaps. And he was surrounded by a motley crew of strangers: scum of all the planets that circle the Sun....
Then recollection flooded back upon him, sudden and complete. The chase ... the call of the fateful Lorelei ... the crash! New strength, born of anger, surged through him. He lifted his head.
"My--my companions?" he demanded weakly.
The leader of those who encircled him, a mighty hulk of a man, massive of shoulder and thigh, black-haired, with an unshaven blue jaw, raven-bright eyes and a jutting, aquiline nose like the beak of a hawk, loosed a satisfied grunt.
"Ah! Back to normal, eh, sailor? Damn near time!"
Climbing to his feet sent a swift wave of giddiness through Chip--but he managed it. He fought down the vertigo which threatened to overwhelm him, and confronted the big man boldly.
"What," he stormed, "is the meaning of this?"
The giant stared at him for a moment, his jaw slack. Then his raven-bright eyes glittered; he slapped a trunklike thigh and guffawed in boisterous mirth.
"Hear that?" he roared to his companions. "Quite a guy, ain't he? 'What's the meanin' o' this?' he asks! Game little fightin' cock, hey?" Then he sobered abruptly, and a grim light replaced the amusement in his eyes. Here was not a man to be trifled with, Chip realized. His tone assumed a biting edge. "The meanin' is, my bucko," he answered mirthlessly, "that you've run afoul o' your last reef. Unless you have a sane head on your shoulders, and you're willing to talk fast and straight!"
"Talk?"
"Don't stall. We've already unloaded your bins. We found it. And a nice haul, too. Thanks for lettin' us know it was on the way." The burly one chuckled coarsely. "We'd have took it, anyway, but you helped matters out by comin' to us."
Johnny Haldane had been right, then. Chip remembered his friend's ominous warning. "--if your message was intercepted, you may have played into the hands of--" He said slowly, "Then you _are_ the Lorelei's men?"
"The who? Never mind that, bucko, just talk. That ekalastron--where did it come from?"
And it occurred to Warren suddenly that although the big man _did_ hold the whip hand, he was still not in possession of the most important secret of all! While the location of the ekalastron mine remained a secret, a deadlock existed.
"And if I won't tell--?" he countered shrewdly.
"Why, then, sailor--" The pirate leader's hamlike fists tightened, and a cold light glinted in his eyes--"why, then I guess maybe I'll have to beat it out o' you!"
* * * * *
He took a step forward. Chip, still unsteady on his feet, but feeling his strength renew itself with each passing moment, braced for rough encounter. But the moment of contest was not yet. For even as the big man's companions drew back, grinning evilly, to form a ring about the pair, rose a familiar voice from behind Chip.
"_Hold!_ 'Stay now the hand of wrath, yea, shalt thou restrain even thine arm raised in striking lest His vengeance smite thee into dust!'"
A look of swift, incredulous dismay, sweeping across the giant's face, vanished in an expression of unholy glee.
"Salvation!" he exclaimed exultantly. "It's Salvation Smith! So we meet again!"
The circle parted, admitting newcomers. Syd and the old missionary and the pirates who had dragged them from the broken _Chickadee_. Chip thought that never before had he been so glad to lay eyes on his two comrades. Events had followed so swiftly that he had had no time to feel concern for them, but it was a relief to find them alive and unharmed.
Nor had the crash sapped either of his valor. Syd's face was stubbornly determined, and Salvation breathed raging defiance. He glanced once at Chip, as if to assure himself the young spaceman was uninjured, then turned to their captor.
"Aye, Salvation Smith!" he thundered. "And how came you to this new rat's nest, Blacky Jordan?"
Blacky Jordan! The name touched the fringes of Chip Warren's memory, tugged there fretfully. Then came recollection. Of course! Blacky Jordan had been the chief lieutenant of Balder Sorenson ... the only one of Sorenson's space-preying gang to escape when Lt. Russ Bartlett of the Solar Postal Department had smashed the mail-robbers off Eros two years ago!
The filthiest kind of a scoundrel, Blacky Jordan. A treacherous, back-stabbing murderer who found no methods too low to achieve the results he desired. Chip understood, now, why only one small, frightened boy had ever returned to tell of the Lorelei's gang.
But--the Lorelei? Where was she? And in what way had Jordan earned the allegiance of a girl like--
He snapped out of it abruptly. For Jordan's chunky frame had stiffened, his raven-bright eyes narrowed to meager slits, and he was moving forward, hands half-clenched at his sides in an anticipatory hunger. His voice was low and hard.
"Salvation Smith! The psalm-singin' dog who ran me out of Mars Central! I always said some day I'd get even for that! Well, now's the time!"
And suddenly he lunged, hands clawing for the older man's throat. But they never found their mark. For, swiftly as he moved, Chip Warren moved faster still. A step forward, a foot outthrust, an arm upraised, spinning the man....
"_So!_" bellowed Jordan. "So you're still lookin' for trouble, bucko? O.Q. I'll take care o' that mealy-mouthed space-parson later!"
He turned on Chip viciously; the blow he directed at the smaller man's head would have felled an ox. But Chip was no ox. He was like a panther as he gave with the blow, bobbed, weaved in underneath Jordan's flailing arm, and came up with both fists driving like pistons.
A right to the heart, a short, jabbing left into the mid-section, dropping the bigger man's guard--then a crashing right to the jaw! And--
Jordan went down!
* * * * *
But not yet had Chip Warren fully recovered from the effects of his recent shock. His blows had the power to hurt and sting, but they lacked their accustomed effectiveness.
Scarcely had he touched the ground than Blacky Jordan was up again, his beefy face a red mask of rage, his voice a roaring thunder. Like an unleashed behemoth he hurled himself upon his slighter antagonist, bulling Chip back by sheer bulk, smashing down Chip's guard with sledge-hammer blows.
Even so, Chip gave more than he took. Even as he retreated, his fists continued to dance in for stinging slashes at the other man's face, heart, wind. And had the locale of their meeting been a sporting ring, even yet he might have emerged the victor. But there was little sporting spirit in those who watched.
The foot of a pirate gangster slipped between Chip's legs, tripping him. As he stumbled backward, off balance, the tentacular paw of a Martian whipped about his shielding arm. He was completely at the mercy of the charging Jordan. Mercy was a word the black-haired one did not know. With a bellow of triumph, he smashed both fists, left, right, left again, into Chip's unprotected face. The blows throbbed home like burning rivets. A dizzy nausea assailed Chip; he felt the rocky soil springing up to meet him.
And now it was Syd who, angered beyond discretion, would have leaped forward to take up his friend's fight. But he could not. A dozen arms locked him in a vise of flesh; he was held motionless, straining futilely, as Jordan transferred his attentions to Salvation Smith.
This was no battle at all. Given a gun, the old war-horse was a match for any man in the System. But age had taken its toll of his strength; Jordan's first spite-filled punch smashed down his feeble defenses. In no time at all he was on the ground, stunned, bruised, shaken, unable to defend himself even against the lashing kicks of the pirate's boots. And as he drained the dregs of his vengeance, Blacky Jordan laughed.
"I've waited a long time for this, Salvation Smith!" he gloated. "You kicked me out of Mars; now it's my turn--"
With deliberate savagery he raised his thick, lead-soled boot, buried it in the old man's side. And again. And yet again. Salvation moaned and tried to rise, failed. Chip Warren, shaking off the dark clouds that had blinded him, got to his knees uncertainly, managed one lurching step toward the pirate. And then--
"_For shame!_" A voice that must be born of delirium. A voice lilting-clear as crystal, golden as dawn, valiant and proud as a banner flying. "You--you monster! I always knew you were a cur, Blacky Jordan, but I didn't know you'd stoop to _this_--"
And through the circle burst a figure Chip knew ... the figure of a girl with the face of an angel. But an avenging angel now, with her halo of golden hair cascading about her shoulders, her warm, ripe lips tightset with scorn and anger. Like a dancing gleam she raced between Jordan and his victim; her white hand raised once and descending stingingly upon the pirate's cheek ... then, with a little cry of sympathy, she was on her knees beside Salvation Smith.
It was--the girl of the lens! The Lorelei!
IV
What happened then was not in any wise comprehensible to Chip Warren.
Had Blacky Jordan turned viciously on the latecomer, striking her down as brutally as he had Chip and Salvation--that would have been understandable. Or had he meekly begged forgiveness--that, too, Chip could have understood. For the girl was--had to be!--either one of two things. Servant or mistress of the pirate chieftain.
But Jordan did neither of these things. Instead, he fingered his cheek where it flamed dull scarlet against brown, and his eyes were cloudy pools of anger and some contrasting emotion Chip could not name. His fingers twitched, his mouth worked. Then something like a shrug stirred his shoulders; he turned to his silently watching followers.
"Well--what are you standin' around here for? You got work to do, ain't you? Well, get goin', then!"
With obedient alacrity the mob dispersed. Chip had his first clear, unobstructed view of the terrain upon which the _Chickadee_ had crashed. He saw that his guess had been a good one. It was an asteroid. And judging by the swift dip of the horizon, the visible arch of the distant landscape, a rather small one. Barely a mile in diameter. A mere sliver in the colossal débris of the Belt.
But, then, whence came its gravity? Though he wore no bulger he felt comfortably secure on this tiny fragment of matter. And how did a floating rock of this size maintain an atmosphere of Earth normal?
These were perplexing questions, but there was no opportunity now to solve them. For the girl had helped Salvation to his feet, had lent him a shoulder in support, and now was moving away. Jordan glared at her pettishly.
"An' just where do you think you're goin'?"
The Lorelei's gaze did not meet his, it passed clear through him as if he did not exist. Her voice was icy cold.
"Stand aside, please! I'm taking him below."
And again Blacky Jordan backed down! As before, his manner toward the girl was baffling. It was peremptory, yet at the same time conciliatory; at once truculent and submissive! He gave in with a graceless shrug.
"Oh, all right! Take 'em _all_ below. I can't waste any more time on 'em right now. But I'll see 'em again later. Especially _you_--" He jerked his head toward Salvation, then stared thoughtfully at Chip--"and you, too, bucko. Yeah. Me and you is goin' to have a nice little talk later on."
And he stalked away. Hope flared in Chip that now he might find a chance to improve their lot. Not one of the men was guarding them. Only this girl, and she was preoccupied with Salvation--
But--his hope was vain. No gaoler needs guard prisoners immured on a desert isle. Their weapons had been stripped from them, their ship was a tangled heap of wreckage. And there was no other space vessel in sight.
Chip looked at Syd. Palmer's shake of the head confessed an equal bewilderment. Perhaps the answer to this mad situation lay where the girl led. The two spacemen followed.
* * * * *
Their way took them into a tunnel which sloped for a few hundred yards into the earth, then debouched into a small cavern. Into the far wall of this was set a grilled gateway which, when opened by the girl, revealed--an elevator. Into this she helped Salvation. Chip and Syd, delayed by the same doubt, held back. The girl, noting their hesitation, addressed them directly for the first time.
"This way," she said. "Come on! Quickly!"
Chip said suspiciously, "Just a minute, sister. How do we know this isn't a trick of some kind--"
Her eyes flamed electric-blue, and her voice cracked like a whip.
"Don't be a fool! Get in here--and hurry! When he thinks it over he may change his mind. We're getting away with murder!"
It didn't make sense, but there was nothing to gain by lingering here. The two entered the conveyance, the girl pressed a button and concealed motors whined as they began to descend swiftly. But the last word was still Chip's.
"That's just what you _have_ been getting away with," he acknowledged grimly, "but you're nearing the end of your rope now--Lorelei!"
In the semidarkness, the girl's eyes were pools of liquid surprise.
"Getting away with--end of--I don't understand?"
"Murder!" gritted Chip. "Murder and piracy. A dozen spacecraft within the past two months, scuttled and every man of their crews done to death. But your siren-song won't tempt many more, Lorelei. The Space Patrol is on to your alluring little trap. You may finish _us_ off, but the battle fleet will find you eventually, and when it does--"
He didn't finish his prophecy, for the elevator came to rest; the door opened. And peering in at them, hurrying forward to greet them and take the sagging weight of the aged missionary from the girl's arm, was a white-haired old man.
"Alison!" he cried. "You're back safely! Thank the Lord! You shouldn't have gone above. It's dangerous, child, dangerous to mingle with such scoundrels! Who are these--?"
And then the girl did a surprising thing. A particularly surprising thing, inasmuch as a few minutes ago, facing Blacky Jordan like a golden Valkyr, her boldness had won from Chip Warren a grudging admiration. She fled to the old man's side, buried her face in his shoulder and cried:
"Daddy--this piracy, this murder and bloodshed--these men think _I_ am part of it!"
The old man said, "Now, now, dear!" soothingly, and glared reproof at his visitors. "There must be some mistake--" And to the others he suggested, "Gentlemen, will you come with me? We must get to the bottom of this."
Their journey this time was short. Through one door to a series of warm, well-lighted chambers. But stupefying. Because here, at what Chip realized must be the very core of the tiny planetoid, had been carved from solid rock quarters that matched, in efficiency and luxury, any elaborate dwelling on the face of a civilized planet!
Comfortable living chambers were here, furnished in excellent taste. And through the doorways leading to adjacent rooms Chip glimpsed white-tiled compartments wherein were visible rows upon rows of beakers and flasks, retorts, motor-units, experimental apparatus. Laboratories, beautifully arranged and maintained! He stared at his host in astonishment.
"How--?" he stammered. "Who--?"
"Will you be seated, gentlemen?" suggested the older man. "There! Now, let us get to the root of this frightful affair. You accused my daughter of implication--?"
Chip said, "We--we had ample reason to, sir. First let me introduce myself and my friends. I am Chip Warren ... this is my friend and shipmate, Syd Palmer ... and this is Salvation Smith...."
"Salvation Smith! Not really? I've heard of you, Padre," said the old man. "You were engaged in bringing spiritual light to the Martian outlanders at about the time I was supplying Mars with a more--er--mechanical type--"
Salvation lifted his head suddenly.
"Grayland Blaine! Dr. Grayland Blaine. The greatest astrophysicist in the System!"
"Thank you, Padre. You flatter me. And this is my daughter, Alison. But now--to business. You were saying--?"
"Tell him, Chip," bade Salvation. "I don't know how Dr. Blaine and his daughter got involved with Blacky Jordan. But I know one thing--that they're as innocent of any wrongdoing as any pair alive."
Chip needed no second invitation. A great gladness was upon him that the girl now listening to his words was not what he had feared and believed. Eagerly he embarked on his story, told them everything from the moment of his meeting Haldane to the moment Alison Blaine had so fortuitously appeared in time to save Salvation.
But if his spirits were high, those of his listeners seemed to sink lower with each word. When he had finished, a gloom hung heavily upon Dr. Blaine's brow. He looked at his daughter and sighed.
"It is worse than we feared and suspected, my dear. They _are_ using my inventions, but not for the benefit to mankind I intended. Instead, they have distorted them to their own foul purposes. And we are helpless to stop them!"
"Your--your inventions?" repeated Syd Palmer.
* * * * *
Dr. Blaine nodded somberly. "Yes. You say you saw Alison's face in your _perilens_? And heard her voice calling for help?"
"On every cycle! That was the amazing part. Every wavelength carried her image, and her voice came through in spite of the fact that the audio was not turned on."
"But naturally," assented the old man. "That is the principle on which it operates. I call it the 'omniwave.' It is a new method of superimposing sound and light waves on receptors in such a way that they can be transmitted through any medium over a series of overlapping wavelengths ranging from 30 kilocycles down to 4,000 Angstrom units. It requires only a supersensitive iconoscope of my own devising, coupled with radiant-projectors--"
"It blanketed," Chip told him, "every instrument on our ship. We tried to tune it out so we could see where we were going, but it was impossible. The result was we were easy prey for Jordan's gang. They clamped a tractor on us, crashed us on this asteroid. Only thing I don't understand," he frowned, "is how we managed to get within their range. I was blind-flying, true. But I forejetted the _Chickadee_ to avoid the possibility of ramming any asteroid--"
Again Dr. Blaine shook his head.
"You would have had a hard time avoiding this one, my boy. Because, you see, it was not sitting stationary. It was moving toward you."
"Moving toward--Oh, no, Doctor! Impossible. The asteroids follow a clockwise course about the Sun!"
"Not this one," denied the old man. "Because this is no ordinary asteroid, Warren. This whole rock, this mass of matter in space--is a navigable spaceship!"
Salvation's jaw dropped open. He said in hallowed tones, "'Surely the Lord worketh in wondrous ways His marvels to unfold!' You said--a spaceship, Dr. Blaine?"
Blaine's shoulders drooped dispiritedly.
"Yes. This is the great invention on which I have labored in secret for years. The invention which I had hoped would prove a glorious boon to man. The construction of that one type of space-voyager which could be destroyed by only a most devastating catastrophe.
"As you all know well, the major hazard of spaceflight is that the craft employed, however strongly constructed, is ever but a mote as compared with those hurtling celestial bodies it may chance to meet in space. Thus the efforts of science have ever been to cut down the collision risk. The Moran deflector ... the permalloy hood ... the automatic warp ... these are a few of the devices used. With some success, yes; but--there are failures, too. Each year more than a hundred ships crash headlong, or are crashed into by rogue asteroids, meteor swarms, bits of cosmic débris of mountainous size.
"Patrol lightships have been placed in those locations recognized to be most dangerous to space travel. But you know that the toll taken by relentless Nature on these gallant ships is terrible.
"I therefore dreamed that Man might build a gigantic lightship from a solid asteroid! A rock so large that no tiny meteor could damage it, one of sufficient mass to repel the advance of rogue asteroids. To the accomplishment of this I bent my efforts. You are within the result."