Part 1

THE NIGHT HAS A THOUSAND EYES

By JOHN AND DOROTHY DE COURCY

It was one thing to heave an unwanted girl out into the great black grave of space. But tough old pirate Captain Brace balked at making his own soul walk the plank with her!

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Winter 1949. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

They stood, silently, side by side, in the crude shelter that passed for a bar on Titan. Its corroded metal walls rang hollowly to the boisterous, animal humor which flowed as freely as drink. Lewd sketches adorned the walls, staring down at the two men, the lewdity of five races to please the lechers of five planets. But all of this was lost on Brace. He was begotten in sin and knew no other life.

The thin-faced man beside him shifted uneasily. "Buy you a drink, Brace?"

"CAPTAIN Brace!" the ape snapped. It was too true to be funny. He looked like an ape. His face was ugly and concave, the nose flattened. His back and shoulders sloped and his arms hung slightly before his body.

"Captain Brace," the other said quickly.

Brace laid one of his paws on the bar, hairy, grotesque. He sniffed loudly and grunted, "Borl!"

The complacent bartender poured three fingers into a glass and Brace's lips quivered slightly over his protruding teeth in humorous pride. No man he knew could drink the stuff straight, this caustic liquor often used to add a poisonous garnish to the drinks of the frail men on earth.

The thin-faced man murmured, "Whiskey," and the bartender poured this with equal nonchalance.

Brace stared at the glass in his hand, prolonging the moment, for he knew many curious eyes watched him. Blood brother to sulphuric acid, someone had called it; Borl, distilled from the roots of a poisonous tree, the touch of whose leaves burned flesh through to the bone.

It was a show worth seeing--and Brace knew it. He knew it hurt, seared his throat, and made his chest ache, that once he had crushed a glass in his hand in pain afterward. It had hoarsened his voice and burned his lips and tongue so they were like the palm of a workman's hand. But no other man could do it.

He raised the glass to his lips and poured the contents down. The men who were watching drew in their breath but not all of the spectators were men. Some were aliens who expressed surprise or tension in other ways. Venusians' long-unused gill slits rustled. The armadillo-like Saturnians made crackling sounds by shifting their bodies in a slight circular motion. The Martians, almost man-like, made nasal squeaks with the second set of vocal cords behind their palates. The downy-skinned Ionians, pale white in the gloom, made little clicking sounds with their fingers like miniature castanets. Then Brace laid the empty glass on the bar and life resumed in this sump where collected the residue of five races.

The thin-faced man tossed off his whiskey in one gulp, then coughed. Brace threw back his head and roared with laughter, long and loud. The room joined him, but the thin-faced man didn't mind. He laughed too. It was safer.

* * * * *

A pair of stained curtains suddenly separated on a little raised platform and all eyes turned toward it, including Brace's bloodshot ones, still jumping from the effect of the drugging Borl. A girl came out, scantily clad, and a spotlight from somewhere centered on her. Two Ionians played rhythmic melodies on a heavy stringed instrument and the girl began to dance.

Men yelled the age-old cry, "Take it off!" And she, twirling, smiled, but her face turned pink under the cries and jests.

Followed by the thin-faced man, Brace waddled forward until he stood at the edge of the platform. There was something different here which he sensed rather than saw through the caustic fumes of the Borl. She was young, not a burned out, haggard wreck, heavily daubed, such as he always saw in places such as this. Her limbs were lithe, straight, her face was not pretty, but it was youthful and not a debauched, revolting mask.

As Brace was taking all this in, another man staggered slightly and jabbed him with an elbow. Without hesitation, Brace's hand caught him on the face, the chopping edge of his ape-hand landing with the crack of a hammer. There was no resentment. The man staggered back, his oft-broken face bleeding from the abrasion on his cheekbone, and Brace kept on watching the girl.

She was slim, almost skinny, which accentuated her pointed, elfin face and high cheekbones. The blue draperies whirled in her wake, as did her shining, black hair. Her brown eyes seemed to be expressionless holes and her full red lips remained fixed, pinned in a professional smile.

Brace's hands now rested on the platform, almost chest high, and sweat trickled down his concave mask unnoticed, his eyes darting after the girl, relentlessly.

* * * * *

Then, as suddenly as they had opened, the curtains swung closed and the spotlight died. Immediately, Brace vaulted to the platform and ducked through the slit in the curtain. He heard no voices cheering him on and he wondered if in the sudden gloom he had been unseen.

Unhesitatingly, he rolled ahead across the now darkened platform and around the askew backdrop and almost ran into the girl. She gasped and shrank back as Brace reached for her. A door opened and a young man came out, a blond, earth man. Brace looked at him, no more, just looked, and then the young man lunged at him. He didn't throw himself like an animal, he raced in like a panther, his young, small fists cocked professionally.

It was all a blur to Brace, the flying fists, the thudding blows, as he waved his long arms. He stumbled into the backdrop but its cloth surface muffled any sound. Half blind, he clutched the fabric with one hand, then reached with the other and dragged the young man to him.

Brace hadn't meant to hurt him. He had only wanted to drive him away. But he stood there, rubbing his aching knuckles, staring down at the crumpled figure on the floor. There was a big dent in the young man's skull where his head had struck a pipe. Brace was shocked. He hadn't meant to kill him. But he knew he was dead.

The girl knelt quickly beside the young man, her small, trembling hands touching his white face. Brace knew she was going to scream and immediately, his hand closed over her mouth. She struggled but he hardly noticed it. This was bad, very bad, especially here on Titan. The S.P. would like something better than just suspicions in his direction. Sure, the kid had asked for it, but how would it look? He hadn't meant to kill him, but--

His barrel chest heaved while he held the struggling girl and tried to think. He had killed other men. It wasn't remorse. It was perhaps only a vague instinct which forbade him to kill the young or the weak. He had to get back to the ship. That was it! Once in space, they'd never know. But the girl--the girl--He could kill her too but--

With a grunt, he heaved her figure over his shoulder and moved down the gloomy hallway to a metal door. With the toe of his shoe, he opened it, glanced outside into the darkness, then heaved himself and his burden through the opening, pulling the door shut with his foot.

They were on the edge of the settlement. That was a break. He carefully skirted lighted buildings. The air, thin and cold, barely rustled his garments as he ran steadily on.

There was just one more place to pass, another bar. Brace hesitated in the gloom, holding his burden tightly. A man emerged from the bar, paused, then began walking toward them. Brace shrank back into the shadows. The man's footsteps drew closer. Brace tried to withdraw himself further but the girl began to struggle. The footsteps stopped, Brace heard a shuffling sound, then the footsteps receded. Brace peered around the corner just in time to see the man re-enter the bar.

Tensely, Brace walked toward the lighted area. If someone should come out--He came abreast of the bar and through the grimy, plastic portholes, he saw the faces of men, brief, fleeting images. Then he was past, running, and the darkness closed about them again. He ran until he was out in the sandy wastes, beyond the settlement. Then he stopped.

"If you scream, I'll kill you," he grunted into the girl's ear. He dropped his hand from her mouth, set her on her feet, but kept a firm hold on her wrist. He couldn't make out her features in the gloom but he could hear her panting.

"Let me go!" she gasped.

"Shut up!" The snarl was deadly, vicious, and it choked off the words that were bubbling up in her throat. "Now listen, you! I killed him and that's that. I didn't mean to but that doesn't make him any less dead. The S.P. doesn't like me and I think they might like to line me up in front of a jet."

* * * * *

Abruptly, the girl began to cry and sank down onto the sand. Brace was annoyed and didn't know what to do. If he'd had any sense, he would have killed her back there. Then he could have come back in the front way and had another drink. The boys on the ship would swear they had met him outside, gone with him to the ship, then walked back with him. Sure, there would be two bodies, but he would have been in the clear. He couldn't turn her loose now. He couldn't kill her either.

Resignedly, he realized he had to take her with him. "Come on!" he grunted, pulling her erect.

Her sobbing died away to a muffled sniffling as he pulled her along relentlessly after him. They were far enough from the settlement so her scream wouldn't carry. Their feet crunched on the sand, though the sound was thin and wispy, the ghost of the sound of earth feet trodding earth sand. Brace noted a vague yellowness before him in the sky. It would be getting light soon. He had to get to his ship. The S.P. might already be nosing around.

The lightness was more distinct when they reached the place where the ghostly hulks of space craft lay like sleeping whales, inert leviathans that could in an instant become flaming dragons, leaping and screaming into the darkness. Brace threaded his way through them until he caught a glimpse of his own scarred ship, neither larger nor smaller than the average, its blunt nose pointing slightly away to his left. He stopped suddenly when he saw a shadowy figure standing near it.

"If you scream now--" Abruptly, he made a short, chopping motion with his fist and the girl slumped unconscious. He shouldered her and began a careful approach. There was still a hundred feet to cover, the sky was growing lighter every minute, but the shadowy figure by his ship remained motionless.

Brace stood in the shadow of the fin of a neighboring ship and turned plans over in his mind. It was no use. During that whole hundred feet he would be outlined against the sky. Then a sound tensed him, the whine of a sand car behind him. He crouched low, prepared to duck. This was it. Nobody on Titan had sand cars but the S.P. The miners used big ato-tractors.

* * * * *

Brace lunged around the edge of the fin to shield himself from the oncoming lights. The sand car whizzed past him and hissed to a smooth stop.

They had seen him. Brace spun and ran, sand spurting behind him. He skidded under the huge belly of one ship, scrambled across to another--

Something crackled in the air--dust motes or insects caught in the S.P. ray--and suddenly-molten sand bubbled and spat behind him.

But the blast was not followed by a closer one and Brace realized they were only shooting at random; he heard the ray hissing in another direction. He hurtled down the next alley and then forced himself to slow down to a shuffling run as he neared his own ship. His sprinting feet would leave too obvious tracks.

Near the stern of his ship he stopped, his fingers fumbling over the smooth side, at last finding the knob. He shoved it inward. If the port squeaked--if one of the S.P. men came around the side of the ship--But the port didn't squeak. It opened silently. And Brace stepped in. He pressed another button, and the port closed. He was in.

Brace walked swiftly to his cabin, opened the door and dropped the unconscious girl on his bunk. Quickly, he stripped off his coat and shirt and mussed his hair. The catch on one of his shoes stuck and he cursed as he ripped it off. Breathing rapidly, he waited for the sound of the buzzer, and when it came, he snatched up his heavy coat and threw it over his shoulders. As he stepped into the companionway, another cabin door opened and another figure, hastily coated stepped out.

"I'll get it!" Brace growled.

The other, startled, looked at him and said, "Yes, sir."

Brace pushed past him, turned into another companionway and walked to the main fork. He pressed a stud and the inner door opened. Stepping into the compartment, he pressed another stud, watched the inner door close and the outer one open. He gulped to equalize the change in air pressure in his ears.

* * * * *

An S.P. man flicked on a light and shined it full in Brace's face. Brace touched a button and flooded the entire port with light. "What do you want?" he snapped. "I'm not blasting off for two hours! Come back in an hour!"

"Is this him?" one of the S.P. men asked the other. The other nodded.

The first man who had spoken turned back to Brace. "We're not looking into your take-off, Captain. We're investigating a killing."

"What do you want me to do? Solve it for you?"

The S.P. man took the insult but stiffened a little. "No, sir. We'd like to examine your ship. There's a girl missing."

"Oh!" Brace shouted sarcastically. "Then she MUST be on my ship! It's just swarming with kidnapped women! It COULDN'T be any other!!" He waved his ape-like arm toward the collection of hulls.

The S.P. man's lips tightened into a thin line.

Brace ran his thick fingers through his hair, studying them for a moment, then asked, "Do you have a search permit?"

"No sir," the S.P. man replied, "but we thought, under the circumstances, your courtesy might--"

Brace snorted. "You could get one in half an hour--but--it would interrupt my breakfast." He scowled. "All right--come on!"

The two S.P. men stepped into the port and Brace jabbed the closing button viciously. "Now have a good look, because it's going to be your last look at anybody's ship!"

"You're going to file an objection?" the S.P. man asked.

Brace threw back his head and roared with laughter. "Am I going to file an objection!" he gasped. "Why, I'm going to ground my ship and personally stay here until they yank the shields off you!!"

"Well, sir, if that's the way you feel, Captain, we'll not search your ship until we have an official permit."

"You're in my ship now!" Brace snapped. "So come on! Have a good look!!"

"Sir, if you'll accept our apologies ... we don't wish to intrude on your legal status...."

Brace motioned toward the companionway. "Do you want to search it or not?"

"Captain Brace," the S.P. man said stiffly, "it's only a routine search. We're quite convinced that a man of your standing wouldn't jeopardize his ship and, if you'll consider the incident closed, I'll be glad to see that no further trouble is given you."

The S.P. men had made a mistake by stepping in the ship of course, and Brace could make much out of it. He grinned to let them know that he'd like nothing better than to make much of it.

"Would that be satisfactory, sir?" the S.P. man asked.

Without taking his eyes off the man, Brace jabbed the opening button. His face was not distorted, yet it carried the feeling, the hint of a snarling, savage animal. In the atmosphere of such unspoken animosity, the S.P. men stepped out as the outer port opened. Brace watched them climb into the sand car and back away, then he thumbed the air-lock control, waited for the inner door to open, and entered the ship.

* * * * *

His mate was standing inside, a tall, heavy man with beetling brows, a man who obviously tried hard to emulate his Captain.

"Well?" Brace demanded.

"None of my business," the mate answered, shrugging, "but I think you should have given it to them. What crust! 'May we look your ship over?' I'd have let them look over the end of my fist!"

Brace bared his teeth in anticipation of the effect of his words. "I couldn't," he growled. "The girl's in my cabin." Then he pushed by the astonished mate, turned in the companionway and burst into a roar of laughter. "Fouled 'em up again!" he shouted.

The mate stared dumbly at Brace for a moment, then shrugging, went off in the other direction.

Brace stood outside his cabin door, speculating. What should he do now? Finding no answer to his question, he opened the door and stepped in.

The girl was sitting on the edge of his bunk. She looked at him, then down at her hands, as though the sight of him was repulsive to her. When she looked up at him again, her level eyes made Brace wince. She didn't seem afraid like he expected her to be. She was defiant.

"I see you're awake," Brace said. He hadn't meant to growl that way, but he couldn't help it.

She clenched her hands and glared at him. "Why didn't you kill me like you did my brother?"

"I'm sorry," Brace replied. "I didn't mean to kill anyone. Not that I have any objection to killing if it's necessary. In this part of space, you kill when you have to--but--well your brother was an accident."

He watched tears come to her eyes and scowled. "What's done is done! I didn't mean to kill your brother, but he's dead, and there's nothing anyone can do about it!"

She cried softly for a few moments, then sighing, brushed the tears from her eyes. Brace leaned against a wall and stared at the deck, sorting through plans and discarding them.

"I believe you," she said quietly, and it startled Brace. "I believe you when you say it was an accident. I promise not to tell anything about it to anyone. Now will you let me go?"

Brace shook his head. "I can't."

"But what do you intend to do with me?" she demanded.

"I don't know!" Brace paced the floor. "I can't let you go. That's certain. I can't even leave your body." He looked at her steadily, his jaw tightening. "I'll be frank with you, miss. I made a mistake. I meant no harm but I killed a man. You saw me do it. I'm in bad with the S.P., everyone here is, and they'd like nothing better than a charge against me. You are that charge. It would mean my life, the lives of my mate and officers, and my crew would be imprisoned, if I let you go." He paused. "I may have to chuck you out in space."

She said nothing, just stared at him, and Brace went back to his pacing.

"But--but--I won't tell," she said, falteringly. "I promise not to say a thing."

Brace shook his head. "The S.P. would make you tell anything they wanted you to tell."

* * * * *

Her lips quivered and her head dropped. Brace didn't feel good about it. She was just a kid. He'd have felt much better if she was a man. What was a girl like her doing in Titan anyway? She had no business being in this hole. There was never anything but trouble on Titan.

Brace sat down. "You said he was your brother."

She nodded.

"Well, what were you two doing here? You don't look like the people who usually land here, especially stay here for any length of time."

She sighed and bit her lip. "My--my brother and I were members of a traveling theater. He got into a fight with the manager--my brother is--was--very temperamental and he insisted on being let off at the nearest port. The ship came here and--I decided to stay with my brother. It was only after the ship had gone that we discovered we only had enough money for one passage back to earth. So--I--"

Brace got up suddenly. "Never mind," he said, bruskly. He didn't want to hear any more. He straightened. Well, that's the way life was. Some people got the breaks, some didn't. It wasn't his fault. At least, it would be a quick death. He'd see to that.

"I'll have some food sent to you," Brace said, opening the door. She didn't look up, nor did she answer, and Brace hesitated a moment before stepping out of the cabin. It was just momentary, then he closed the door behind him and walked on down the companionway.

There was some strange humor, he reflected, in the fact that a thin, almost skinny girl was the greatest danger he'd ever faced, his greatest threat. The S.P. might return at any time. There were still two hours almost and he didn't dare blast off early. If he could only get--He realized abruptly that the mate was standing in the companionway, staring at him.

"Barrows!" Brace grunted. "Get the men together in the mess room."

* * * * *

Tableware lay in mute rows and the only sound was the humming ventilator. Brace sat down in a chair to wait until the men had all filed in. They were cast in the same mold, and forged to the same temper as their Captain, brittle, hard, unyielding. When they had assembled around the table, Barrows closed the door.

"The ship's locked, Captain," Barrows said. "The girl can't escape."

Brace nodded, got up, and stared at his men, one by one, seventeen of the fiercest toughest men ever baptised in the maw of space and all threatened by a stupid girl. Brace's hoarse voice resounded in the room as he told about the night before, chronologically, neither adding nor detracting. They listened without comment.

"There's an out for some of you," Brace finished. "I can give you your papers and a note to Captains of ships which happen to be here now. They'll sign you on and the S.P. won't be able to find you guilty of anything. They won't even be able to prove you're my men. As for you, Barrows, you can sign on with Grant and he'll doctor it up so that it'll look like you signed on a couple of days ago."

"Naw, not me!" Barrows said, disgustedly.

A chorus of rejections went up at once. It wasn't loyalty to their Captain, just a mutual hatred for the S.P.

The second cook, however, walked toward Brace. "I'll take my papers, Captain," he said quickly.

The Chief Cook took one step. No one actually saw the fist land, but they watched the second cook slide across the deck and come to rest in a limp heap. Then the Chief Cook grinned at Brace, revealing two missing teeth.

"The second cook has changed his mind, Captain," he said.

The men laughed.

"All right, men," Brace said, sobering quickly. "We've got about an hour and a half to wait. That gives us enough time to eat, and then we'll see if we can get into space."

"First watch on duty!" Barrows shouted.

Several men left and the others straggled out after them. The Chief Cook disappeared into the galley, dragging his assistant after him.

When the men had gone, Barrows turned to Brace. "Goin' a chuck her out in space?"

Brace rubbed his chin. "I don't know. I'll figure it out after we blast off."

The port buzzer rang hollowly through the ship. Tensing, Barrows looked at the Captain, then his hand slid inside his jacket and he pulled out a large atoblast and hefted it.

"Put away the toy," Brace grunted. "I'll bluff 'em. If I can't, you get 'em from the companionway and we'll blast off."

Barrows nodded and followed Brace into the companionway. The big mate stopped at the corner, waiting just out of sight with his gun held level.

* * * * *

Brace waddled down the short companionway and stepped into the port. A moment later, the other port opened and Brace exhaled sharply when he saw the thin-faced man he'd met in the bar standing before him. His feet shifted uneasily in the sand under the Captain's unflinching gaze.

"Well!" Brace bellowed.

"I want to talk to you, Captain Brace."

In answer, Brace jabbed the closing button.