Part 3

"You mean," Chip demanded, "this entire planetoid is equipped with rockets? It can fly itself?"

"Exactly. With an atomblast my laborers hollowed out living quarters, control chambers. At one-eighth mile intervals jets have been installed in the asteroid. These are fed from the central explosion chamber. In addition, gravity and atmosphere of Earth normal constant are maintained, when the planetoid is at rest, by means of energy-warp accumulators."

The old man sighed. "It was a fond dream. But just as it neared fruition, came tragedy. Blacky Jordan's pirate gang, by sheer chance, landed on the _Aurora_--the name of my cosmic craft. Trusting fool that I am, I made them welcome, took them into my refuge and proudly displayed its mechanism."

Chip nodded.

"I can guess the rest. They took over. Since then they've held you prisoners here, and used this as their base. And the image of Alison--"

"A recording," explained Blaine, "made when she attempted, vainly, to call for help. Jordan was clever enough to realize its value. Now whenever he sights a craft which he wishes to ravage, he tempts it within range by playing the visual record. When the unwary ship is drawn near enough, it finds itself blanketed, as you were. And Jordan then smashes the _Aurora_ into the hapless vessel."

Salvation ventured, "And your laborers? Dead?"

"All of them. Jordan follows the ancient principle of all unprincipled rogues. 'Dead men tell no tales.' The only reason Alison and I are still alive is that he fears he may some day need my knowledge. And Alison--"

The girl spoke for herself. Softly enough, but her eyes were brittle and challenging. "Alison lives because the brutish fool fancies himself as a Don Juan."

It was a complete giveaway that this simple statement should strike the spark of Chip's anger more vehemently than any other. His brow darkened, and he came to his feet with a roar.

"What! You mean that he actually dares--"

"Steady, son!" That was Salvation Smith. Age might have taken its toll on the missionary's strength, but not his recuperative powers. The old man seemed to have completely recovered from the effects of the beating he had taken a short while before. There was even the thin ghost of a smile upon his lips.

"The young lady seems to be quite capable of taking care of herself. Our job, as I see it, is to wrest control of the _Aurora_ from Blacky Jordan and his gang. Dr. Blaine, surely you must have some plan?"

Dr. Blaine shook his head miserably. "I fear not. I built the _Aurora_; I know every nook and cranny of her. But it does me no good. Jordan is complete master of the vital working parts of the asteroid. Alison and I are virtual prisoners in this one, harmless compartment, separated by tons of solid rock from the machine chambers. If we could regain control of those rooms, of course--"

"Well," demanded Chip belligerently, "why can't we? There are five of us now. Together we should be able to force our way into--"

"Into," Dr. Blaine told him morbidly, "an early grave. You underestimate Jordan's savagery, Warren. Alison and I have lived on sufferance only. You and your companions have continued to exist only because you have a secret he would give much to possess. Let us make one hostile move, and he will have no compunctions whatsoever against destroying us all. And he has both the men and the weapons with which to do it."

"Nevertheless," gritted Chip, "there must be _some_ way. And by the Seven Sacred Stars--"

"Shhh!" hissed Syd warningly. "Someone outside!"

True, the hum of the elevator had sounded and ceased. Now the latch clicked, and one of Jordan's men stared at them suspiciously from the doorway. His eyes swept the group, singled out Chip Warren.

"You," he said. "Come along. The chief wants to see you."

V

As Dr. Blaine had said, the apartment in which he and Alison had been isolated was far removed from the vital power-rooms of the _Aurora_. Chip's guide prodded him surlily into the elevator, to the surface, across a quarter mile of ore-reddened rock, then down into a similar shaft. But this time as they descended in an elevator Chip could hear an incessant humming murmur betraying the presence of nearby, tremendous hypatomic motors.

Stepping from the cage he stood in a corridor upon which opened a number of doors clearly marked POWER ROOM, STORAGE, SUPPLIES. But it was through an unmarked doorway his captor motioned him. Chip found himself in a huge, luxuriously appointed control-turret, at the plot-desk of which lounged Blacky Jordan. Another man, back turned to Chip, was studying the dial controls.

Jordan nodded to Chip's guide. "O.Q., you can beat it now. Well, Phipps--is this the guy?"

"Phipps" turned, and at the sight of him an unforgotten flame of hatred rekindled in Warren's heart. For the man's face was newly swathed in bandages, but by the apish droop of his shoulders, the malignant gleam that darted from his tiny deepset eyes, by the cicatriced twist of his partly covered lips, Chip knew him. It was Scarface, the eavesdropper of Xu'ul's Solarest, murderer of Johnny Haldane, the living bait by which they had been lured into this trap.

Chip's breath panted from his lips in a tiny explosion of rage. He took two swift paces forward, then stopped, staring into the ugly maw of Jordan's leveled Moeller.

"Hold it, bucko," drawled Jordan. "Don't start nothin' you can't finish. Grab a seat, there, and calm down." Then, as Chip sank impotently into the designated chair, "There, that's better. No reason we three can't be chummy, is there? Like bugs in a rug." He chuckled and turned again to Phipps. "Then it _is_ him, huh?"

Scarface nodded, his voice muffled beneath layers of bandage. "It's him, Chief. A whole mountain of ekalastron, he said. Only I didn't hear him say where. And after that the Spacie was going to swear him in as a deputy, and they was going to come hunting for us--"

"Yeah, I know. Only he got a sort of a surprise when he done it. Didn't you, sailor?"

Chip said in a voice that he struggled to keep level. "The game's not played yet, Jordan. I've still got a hand to draw to."

"Sure," grinned the pirate chieftain, "but you got yours to get, and I've already got mine. Aces full. Now look here, bucko--" He bent forward, and his voice assumed a wheedling tone--"They ain't no sense in us two scrapping. We got off on the wrong foot together, that's all's the trouble with us. You ain't got nothin' against me, and I ain't got nothin' against you. To tell the truth, I kinda _like_ you. You got guts. I got respect for anybody that'll stand up and swap punches even when the deck's stacked against him. Now, you strike me as being a right sensible guy. I've got a little proposition to make you--"

He paused, and Chip's eyes narrowed as every nerve in his body quivered with raw dislike. But he capped the rising flood within him. It was wisdom in this crisis to test every opening which presented itself.

"Go on," said Chip. "I'm listening."

"Good! Now, you just made the biggest discovery any man in space ever made. A mountain of ekalastron. Right?"

"I'm not saying," parried Chip. "But if I did?"

"Oh, you _did_, bucko! Well, listen. Here's the proposition. I got a nice little organization here. Fifty good men. Maybe they ain't the cream o' society--" Jordan chuckled--"but they're as good fightin' men as ever lifted gravs.

"I've also got, thanks to Doc Blaine's dopiness, the biggest, toughest, hardest-to-lick spaceship that ever fired a jet. It can stand up against any cruiser in the fleet. Matter of fact, the only thing that keeps us from becomin' the most powerful pirate organization in Space is the Patrol. The _Aurora_ could fight off one, two, maybe as much as a half dozen of their battle ships--but you know how Spacies are. When they get all hot and bothered about something, they don't mess around with small-time stuff. They call out the whole damn fleet. And I'm frank in admittin', bucko, that's why we've had to hide out so far, concealin' ourselves in the Bog like we was just an ordinary asteroid."

"So?" said Chip.

"So how's about you and me throwin' in together? You tell me where this here mine of ekalastron is. We'll fly out there and work it and get enough ek to armor-plate this whole damn asteroid."

"This whole--!" Warren started. What proposition he had expected from the outlaw he did not know, but certainly it was nothing so magnificently fantastic as this. And yet--his brow cudgeled. Was it so fantastic, after all? Every chemist knew that element No. 97 was one of the most malleable of all metals. A thousand tons of it, girdling the _Aurora_ to a thickness of only a cobweb veil, would undoubtedly convert the asteroid into an impregnable battleship, a superdreadnaught that could defy the combined assault of every Patrolship in the void!

* * * * *

Blacky Jordan was staring at him eagerly. "Well, how about it, bucko? It's a good idea, ain't it?"

Chip said tentatively, "It's an--idea, all right. But how about me, Jordan? What do _I_ get out of this?"

The burly one slapped his thigh delightedly. "Now you're beginning to talk like a man, bucko! That's the sort of thing I like to hear. What do you get out of this? I'll tell you. I already said I kinda like you, didn't I? Well--I like you enough that I'd like to see you become my Number One man. Throw in with me and you'll be the big boss around here ... next to Blacky Jordan, o' course. Together we'll be an unbeatable combination."

"And the others? The Blaines and Syd Palmer and Salvation?"

"The Blaines will stay with us. You never can tell when we're going to need the old man's brains again. And the girl--well--" Jordan grinned--"She's a bit of a hellcat, but I been workin' on her, and she'll come around in time. I got plans for that girl, bucko. Who knows, maybe one of these days she may listen to reason and throw in with us? And then you and me and her will be a trio. As for Palmer--you can do whatever you want. If he'll play ball, O.Q. If he won't, we'll land him safe on some outpost. He don't know enough to do us any harm, and by the time he finds his way back to civilization we'll have what we want."

"And Salvation?"

Blacky Jordan's good humor vanished. A dark light glittered in his eyes. "Well, now, I hope we ain't goin' to have no trouble about that, bucko. But I got an old score to settle with Salvation Smith. Only--only, maybe if you're willin' to be agreeable, I'll even go so far as to meet you halfway on _that_, too. Well, what do you say?"

Chip knew what he wanted to say. The answer had trembled on his tongue from the moment the outlaw started speaking. Only a violent effort of will-power had kept him from surging to his feet, hurling his fist into the pirate's face. But that way, he realized, lay madness. So far Blacky Jordan had been astonishingly conciliatory. But Chip knew, as did the pirate, that if this peaceful means of gaining his end were unavailing, Jordan had at his disposal other means of learning the secret he desired.

Chip was bolstered, too, by one bit of knowledge Blacky Jordan did not possess: that the ekalastron mine was _already_ occupied by a strongly armed corps of the Uranus Space Control. But it would not do to reveal this now. Neither would it do to pledge false allegiance nor proffer blunt refusal. The only other alternative was to stall for time. This Chip did. He stroked his jaw thoughtfully.

"This is pretty sudden," he hesitated. "I hardly know what to say, Jordan. Could I have a little while to think it over?"

Jordan rose from his desk with the toothy grin of one who sees his plan already half accomplished.

"Sure, bucko! Take all the time you want. Take a half an hour if you like. I got a few things to do, anyhow. I'll just roll along and take care of them. You stay here and make up your mind. And, Phipps--you stay here and keep an eye on Mr. Warren," Jordan grinned. "Not that I don't trust you, you understand, bucko. You and me's going to be buddies. But you might want to play double sol, or somethin'. Well--see you later!" And with a wide anticipatory grin on his lips, the big man lumbered from the room.

But barely had he disappeared than happened that which was most stunning of all which had befallen Chip Warren. Phipps, with an agility surprising in one so apishly squat, scurried across the room, and listened until the whine of the elevator advised him the coast was clear. Then he spun to Chip.

"Listen, Warren," he husked, "I gotta talk fast; are you for his plan or ain't you?"

Warren stared at the man in numb astonishment. "Why, I--I--" he faltered. "What are you getting at?"

"Because if you're for his plan _and him_," hurried Scarface, "I'm through talking. But if you're for his plan and _against_ him, maybe you and I can do a little private business."

"Private business?" Chip was still puzzled.

"Private business?"

"Strictly _ongtree-new_," grinned Phipps evilly, "I don't mind telling you, Warren, I'm fed up with the way I been kicked around by Blacky Jordan. I'm supposed to be his right hand man, but I'm one of those right hands that never knows what the left hand's doing. I run all the risks, like going into civilization for supplies and taking care of that space-cop, for instance, and Jordan gets all the gravy. Not only that, but he'd rat on me in a minute if it would put one bean in his soup. Like he just done a few minutes ago; talking about making you his chief partner when I've been his buddy and done his dirty work for years.

"Well, I'm sick of it, see? And I'm pulling out. What I want to know is--if I take care of Blacky Jordan, can you and me make a dicker like the one he propositioned you on?"

VI

Chip stared at the man with a sort of sick distaste in his mouth. He did not like Blacky Jordan. The outlaw was coarse, brutal, bestial. But it had to be said to Jordan's credit that his villainy was at least open and aboveboard; not such treacherous, skulking infamy as this.

Chip said contemptuously, "Aren't you taking an awful chance, Phipps? Suppose I were to tell Jordan about this proposition of yours?"

Phipps' leer was the more vicious because it marred only the visible half of his face.

"I ain't taking no chance, Warren. 'Cause if you're agreeable, I'll set the wheels moving. I've got _my_ followers, too. There won't be no Blacky Jordan to worry about. If you _ain't_ agreeable, well--" He patted the Moeller holster at his side with a sinister sort of affection--"I can always tell Blacky you tried to escape, you know."

Chip Warren could restrain himself no longer. For fifteen minutes he had held his ever-fiery emotions in check. Now his lips spat venomous loathing. "Why, you--you rat!" he growled. "You filthy, contemptible cur! I'd as soon form a partnership with a Venusian marsh-snake! Oh! So _that's_ your game!"

He cried aloud in swift alarm as Scarface, stung by his scathing refusal, reached for his Moeller. Like a striking serpent the squat man's hands darted to his holster, but Chip, too, was in motion, and even more swiftly. The young spaceman left his feet in a diving tackle; his shoulder smashed Phipps' knees bruisingly, his clawing hand locked around the pirate's straining wrist.

They hit the floor with a crash, struggled there silently, writhing like octopi locked in deadly embrace. Phipps brought his knee up hard into Warren's groin, shaking Chip with a sudden, violent nausea. But still Chip clung desperately to the other man's wrist. The adrenalin of emotion pumping through his veins broomed away his weakness; he lashed out again and yet again for his antagonist's chin, putting every ounce of power behind his blows.

But somehow Phipps' hand managed to to wriggle free. In that second, death menaced Chip with flaming certainty. An instant more and the world he knew would have dissolved forever in coruscant oblivion. But once more, with desperate savagery, his fist sought his antagonist ... and this time found its mark! A sledge of pain shattered Chip's knuckles. He heard a rasping grate of bone as the scarred one's jaw collapsed. A gust of withering heat scorched past his shoulder, and Phipps flew backward across the room. His head hit the angle of a metal cabinet. There came the sickening crunch of yielding bone. Phipps' body shuddered once--and lay still.

Chip pulled himself to his feet, heart pounding with furious triumph. Then suddenly the light of battle died from his eyes, and a look of horror took its place as he realized what he had done. Never in this world would he convince Blacky Jordan that Phipps' own treachery had brought about his death. The pirate's retribution for this deed would be swift and violent.

The fat was in the fire now. Somehow he must warn his friends. Chip spun, stared avidly at the controls about him, found the one he sought: a telaudio unit. There was not time to single out the key which would give him a private line to Dr. Blaine's quarters. He depressed the all-circuit plunger, cried desperately, "Dr. Blaine! Salvation! Can you hear me?"

An answer came back instantly in Syd's voice. "We hear you, Chip. What's up?"

"Find some way to defend yourselves! And hurry! I've just fought Scarface and killed him, and the heat's on!"

"The--the _what_?"

"The heat's on, I said! They'll be after us in no time. _There!_" An ominous, all-too-familiar whining sound came dimly to Chip's ears. "I hear him now. Jordan's coming back. Wait a minute!"

He leaped to Phipps' body, snatched the Moeller from the dead man's hand, then sprang to the door, locked it. It was a feeble defense, he knew, but it offered him at least a moment of respite. Came the grate of Jordan's feet in the corridor outside, then a hammering on the door, and the pirate's querulous roar.

"Hey, what's going on in there? Phipps! Open up!"

And then--a miracle occurred. For when Chip deserted the control panel, he had released the telaudio key. And theoretically all communication between himself and his friends was broken. But now sounded a high, singing note in the air, a note that took on cadence, a cadence forming itself into words, words that were the excited voice of Syd Palmer!

"Chip, boy! Can you hear me? You all right! The heat _is_ on! _That's the answer!_ For God's sake, find a bulger, quick! Climb into it!"

* * * * *

There were cabinets in the room. To these Chip Warren raced, tearing at their handles with avid fingers, wrenching them open with violent disregard for whatever precious manuscripts, intricate and valuable apparatus, tumbled out to mingle in damaged heterogeneity on the floor. In the fourth cabinet he found that which he sought, a quartzofabricoid bulger.

Into this he flung himself, keeping a wary eye upon the door, about whose lock was already glowing a smoky circle of scarlet as Blacky Jordan, belatedly realizing there was something amiss, melted the lock with his Moeller. With a final _zzzp!_ Chip closed the seam of his space suit, with a final twist of the hand screwed into place its transparent helmet. Thus, like some bloated and grotesque denizen of ocean depths, Moeller leveled and ready, he stood waiting to meet Blacky Jordan in their third, and this time necessarily final, encounter.

But Blacky Jordan never stepped into that room! The door never opened. What happened outside Chip Warren did not know nor could he guess, but that it was something fearful and beyond belief he could tell by the cry which in that moment ripped from the outlaw's throat.

"_Oh, Lord! Fire! I'm on fire!_"

And suddenly the clamor of his footsteps beat _away_ from the door, down the hallway! Chip heard the big man hurl himself into the elevator, heard the spiraling whine of the lift rising. Wondering, yet cautious, he stepped to the door, eased it open. His hearing had not beguiled him. The corridor was empty and the elevator gone. Even as he stood there, dazed and uncomprehending, that eerie voice from nowhere again smote his ears. This time the cadence resolved itself into the reverberant tones of Salvation Smith, roaring in throaty triumph.

"Lo, with Thy lightnings Thou hast destroyed them, O Lord! Chip, lad--you hear me? The hour of retribution has come! They cower like craven lice on the flesh of the sphere that hid them. Go to the control panel, boy; press the studs numbered 1 and 12. Haste, while we have them at our mercy!"

Obediently Chip sprang to the board, plunged the studs Salvation had named. As he did so, the steady hum of the hypatomic deepened. There came the ponderous _thud!_ of a rocket jet exploding. Then another. Then almost at once the first again.

The floor beneath him shook, throbbed, trembled. Chip was conscious of a curious lightness, a sense of whirling giddiness that he recognized almost immediately. He had experienced the sensation once before when a spaceship in which he had been a passenger was thrown into axial revolution by the titanic tug of Jupiter. Clinging for support to whatever offered itself, he moved with difficulty to the room's vision-plates, opened the circuit that revealed the exterior of the _Aurora_, and--what he saw brought a cry to his lips. A cry in which was mingled triumph and awe and almost a certain horror-stricken, involuntary pity.

His depression of studs 1 and 12, firing-jets at opposite poles of the _Aurora_, had spun the tiny planetoid into axial rotation. It was whirling, now, like a gigantic top in the void. And from its surface, no longer held captive by the feeble artificial gravity, were hurtling the bodies of those whom a moment before had so proudly and confidently strode the asteroid's surface!

Chip saw one sight which would haunt him forever. Blacky Jordan emerging from the surface tunnel ... being whisked from the bosom of the _Aurora_ as if by an invisible hand ... drawn violently to his vacuum tomb. For the split second there was an expression of terrible, uncomprehending fear on the pirate's face--then there was neither face nor pirate. Just the black, inexorable depths of space, studded with the myriad planetoid shards which formed the Bog.

* * * * *

Afterward Chip Warren said to Dr. Blaine, "I'm afraid Doctor, that if we're ever to set foot again in any civilized port, you must take us there. After the _Aurora_ stopped revolving I went top-side to look for the _Chickadee_. I thought we might be able to repair it. But it's gone, just like Blacky Jordan and his crew. Everything on the surface of the planetoid was whisked away."

Dr. Blaine said, "I intend to do just that, Chip. As a matter of fact, Syd is already plotting our course. But I hope that after we've landed you, that won't be the last we'll ever see of you. Alison and I owe you an undying debt of gratitude. Had it not been for you--"

"You were magnificent!" breathed the girl. And looking at her, finding with an incredulous surprise a look in her eyes which more than echoed her father's wish, Chip knew Dr. Blaine would not, indeed, easily avoid seeing more of him. For he had heard the Lorelei's call and found it sweet.

Salvation, intercepting the look that passed between them, laughed. Flushing, Chip took refuge in denial of Dr. Blaine's claim. "Thank you, sir, but I'm afraid you overestimate our part in besting Jordan. Or at least _my_ part. All _I_ did was press the plunger. I wouldn't have known to do that if you folks hadn't told me. And I _still_ don't understand what caused Jordan and all of the rest of his men who were below ground to race for the surface of the asteroid."

Dr. Blaine said, "That was Sydney's idea." But Syd contradicted him peremptorily. "Nope! I'm a great one for passing the buck. Oh, I thought of the means, maybe. But it was Chip who gave me the idea."

"Me?"