Part 3

"Just before we landed," the Captain continued, "I saw a large pit filled with the globes up in the plateau just ahead. I want to try an experiment. From what I saw happened with you Dallas, when you tried to blast that globe and then threw rocks at it and it went away, and yet, it pursued Randall ... well, I have a theory that I want to test. If it works, we may yet turn the tables on Koerber."

* * * * *

With perfect confidence, Captain Dennis turned and began to stride toward the plateau in the near distance. Without hesitation Dallas strode behind him, followed by Scotty and Jeffery, and a few other lesser members of the crew. Only Randall hesitated as if an awful premonition paralyzed his steps. He seemed to make an heroic effort, and hesitantly at first, then with greater confidence he began to follow the leaders.

At last they were standing at the rim of the vast pit; looking down, Dennis realized it must be all of a mile in width. It seemed filled with clusters of the globes which vibrated gently at the bottom.

"Millions of the damned things!" Dallas exclaimed.

The pit sloped down to a point at the center of the bottom, and there was the immense cluster of globes that Dennis had seen. From small ones, the size of thermo-bulbs, to gigantic spheres fully six feet in diameter, it was a pulsating, shimmering mass of changing opalescences, a seething cauldron of prismatic hues, dormant now, but ready to flame into living light.

Randall, the last to arrive, approached the edge and gazed down. The ethereal, ghostly seeming spheres with their pulsating auras sent an icy shiver of dread along his taut nerves. He shuddered and turned to the others. "Let's go," he said hoarsely. "Those demons might come floating up here!" There was a hysterical quality to his voice that did not pass unnoticed to Captain Dennis, who was observing him closely. "Let's go!" Randall cried again, his face contorted.

Suddenly there was a stream of movement below; from the central mass of globes, several detached themselves and floated silently upwards in swirls of living light.

Cold, unreasoning fear surged into Randall's mind. In his hysteria, the spheres were coming after him! His thin face with the wide, fear-stricken blue eyes was ashen while his lips twitched to form words that failed to come. At last he managed to scream: "Run! They're coming after us." And Randall was racing pell-mell back to the spacer.

Captain Dennis stood his ground, Dallas beside him. "Come here, you fool!" Dennis cried exasperated. But it was too late. With flashing speed two of the spheres outraced Randall and now hovered over him. They were whirling into a vortex of incredible light, lovely beyond description, and beneath them, convulsed with horror, Randall raced for his life.

"Action!" Dennis shouted. Instantly several atom-blasts spewed their deadly charge into the two pursuing globes. They drank in the awful energy charge and glowed supernally vivid, still unharmed, then, swooping downwards they charged Randall, and the boy was fighting them, flailing his arms wildly, haphazardly trying to fend them off. The other members of the party had now held their fire, for Randall was enmeshed in the luminous globes. And suddenly the globes seemed to become part of the boy's body, enveloping it in their translucent, fatal embrace.

Before their eyes, they saw the boyish form shrivel and fall crumpled to the ground as if all the energy had been absorbed in that unearthly embrace of living light. In an instant it was over.

V

Lazily, the two spheres floated upward, their fire deepening into swirls of colors, swirling slowly over the prostrate figure as if exulting.

Unutterable horror showed in Captain Brooke's eyes; then flaming anger shook him. "The dirty...." Dennis ground out the words from set, taut lips. Furiously he began blasting at the globes. The spheres rocked and twisted in the tortured air currents, then gradually they rose and floated up the valley.

Dennis kneeled beside the still form of Randall; slid his hand under the boy's jacket. He rose slowly and faced the rest of the awed crew, his eyes topaz slits of consuming fury.

"Now we know how dangerous, how deadly those entities are; for make no mistake, they are entities. A strange, unearthly form of life that can suck a man's life-energy. Randall had good reason to be afraid, poor kid! Those globes react to the most powerful of the emotions, and fear being perhaps one of the strongest, unerringly draws them. I feel somehow responsible for this boy's death. Still, he has not died in vain, for in his sacrifice, he has given us a clue to Koerber's ultimate defeat." He paused gazing somberly at the still form at his feet: "Remember, he died a hero, for whatever success we may have, we shall owe to him!"

Rocks iridescent and vari-hued were piled high into a cairn, making Randall's last resting place, in the depths of the space he had feared so.

The remaining members of the crew walked back slowly to the waiting ship. A dark silence hung over the group as they filed to their respective sleeping quarters. All but Captain Dennis, Dallas, Jeffery and Scotty, who went on to their council room. Quietly they took their places at the small table. Jeffery sat with his long hands on his lap, silent, while Scotty methodically tamped down the Venusian tobacco with which he had filled his blackened pipe. Dallas said nothing. His vast bulk overflowed the seat and his tremendous chest heaved with emotions alien to his nature. All of them seemed, to be waiting for Captain Dennis Brooke's words. The latter sat down last, absorbed in thought. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, sombre almost.

"I told you," he began without preamble, "that I had a vague theory about those spheres. Well, I know now. Randall proved it this afternoon. There can be no doubt that those globes are radio-active--the way they react to our atom-guns leads me to believe that they subsist on energy--radiant energy from the mineral and radio-actives of this planetoid. Their atomic scale must be such that their component atoms make up the two missing elements in our atomic scale! _This is the first time that man has ever encountered these two elements._ And of course, this is the first time these spheres have ever encountered humans--organic life--on an atomic scale so far removed from their own. Naturally they're curious. They tried to investigate and what they encountered from Randall was _fear_! _Perhaps the second strongest emotion._ Our fear must send out intangible vibrations that impinge harshly upon their own vibrations and lead them to attack. What fear arouses in them, we shall probably never know. The fact is that our human emotion of _fear_ in conflict with their vibratory rate renders them fatal, and even seems to draw them with a strange magnetic attraction!"

For a moment every one of the four was silent, as the explanation cleared so much of the mystery before them. Then Captain Dennis walked over to the locker where the space-suits were racked. He began slipping into one of the bulky suits.

"I'm going outside again. If this spacer's insulation against the spheres, there's no reason why a space-suit should not be also. Two of you cover me from the stern turret, and two--including a crew member, from the forward turret, you can at least delay their attack by blasting air currents, in case _they do attack_!" He dogged the last clamp into place and moved heavily through the doorway.

* * * * *

The men watching from the gun turrets saw Dennis approach the vast pit which seemed to be the abode of the sphere. The face-plate of his helmet was open. For minutes he stood motionless on the rim of the pit. They knew he was concentrating, duplicating the emotion of fear. Then with a catch in their throats they observed groups of the spheres rise majestically from the depths and swoop toward the waiting Dennis.

With a swift gesture Captain Brooke snapped the face-plate closed. The spheres came to a complete stop about twenty feet from the waiting captain. The globes pulsed gently, as if waiting ... waiting.

Again Dennis opened the face-plate wide, then snapped it shut. In the brief interval the spheres had darted into action, sweeping closer.

Turning at last, Captain Dennis strode back to the ship, and slowly the flaming globes sank back into the pit out of sight.

"It works," Scotty yelled delightedly, as the other men ran to their airlock to greet their Captain.

Once again at the table, Dennis began: "Now we can have a definite plan. Here's the strategy, two of us will use space-suits and rocket belts to lure as many of the spheres as possible to a point near Koerber's camp, and _one of us must enter Koerber's domain with a ready made story_! That man, the one to enter Koerber's camp, will be _the bait for the spheres_. He will concentrate on maintaining the powerful emotion of fear in his mind, as strongly as he's able. Dennis paused, his hazel eyes brilliant with anticipation, surveying the men around him.

"All of us know that the chosen man may not come through this alive--Koerber may not believe his story ... the spheres may succeed in getting him. However, if he's clever and quick...." Captain Dennis shrugged his great shoulders. It was then Jeffery interrupted him:

"We'll draw lots for that, won't we, Captain?" His voice was harsh.

A faint nod from Dennis accepted the question as a fact. The Captain walked over to a cabinet and picked up something. Returning to the table he continued:

"The fourth man will have to stay here and broadcast." He turned a small box over on the table and several objects the size of small coins, spilled out. "These midget speakers may or may not work--anyway, propaganda at a psychological moment has intense effect, and is worth trying out. The man who goes into Koerber's camp will take some of these and get rid of them in strategic places wherever he can. Remember, the job of broadcasting is just as important as any other in this set up. Keep hammering at them. They won't be able to locate the speakers until it is too late. Keep pounding into their heads that this _new weapon of the I.S.P. is invincible_! Tell them it is radio-controlled and invulnerable as far as present arms are concerned. Keep working on them ... don't let up for a minute!"

Jeffery had been methodically tearing strips of paper and now he handed them to Dennis.

"Three strips of paper, Captain ... and four men!"

Dennis searched the grim, tense faces before him, then handed the strips to Scotty who picked up a book and started putting the strips between the pages. The other members of the council watched his back curiously, until the crash of an overturned chair snapped their heads around. They looked squarely into the muzzle of an atom-blast gun. Their jaws went slack with astonishment.

"I am the commander of this cruiser," Captain Brooke's voice, flat and opaque had an unequivocal finality. "Walk over to the wall, stand five feet from the base, lean forward and press your hands against the wall!"

With the three men completely off balance, Dennis methodically disarmed them. He placed all their weapons on the table, and then proceeded to encase himself in one of the bulky space-suits, keeping a careful eye on the fuming Dallas. As he dressed he continued to talk.

"I know that nothing short of this could convince you to let me be the man to enter Koerber's camp. But it's got to be this way. I swore to enter that black cruiser if I had to take it apart, and by Venus' thinking spiders, I'll go through with it! If Marla's there, she has to be rescued from that cut-throat gang--besides, I think I can make up a much more plausible story, being as I was the one in disgrace with the I.S.P., not you!" He was dressed now, and stood for a moment gazing at their reddened faces. "I'm leaving now, I'll dog this door when I leave. There's an atomic welder in the locker and you can get out in three-quarters of an hour. The rest is up to you men." He was gone as the metal door clanged tightly shut.

* * * * *

Trudging along the iridescent stretch of desolate ground, the thought uppermost in Dennis' mind was Marla. He was torn between the fear of what that brutal, conscienceless pirate might have done to her, and the fear she might have survived. Try as he might to reconstruct the emotion of fear, he failed time after time. Only the dull, ceaseless fury at Koerber remained in his mind, and his heart, a fury that smouldered in the depths of his being.

Slowly he approached the camp where Koerber's men tried to repair the damage his raid had made. Dennis kept his hands slightly in the air, and his feet kept kicking a scuff of glittering dust that could be easily noticed.

Without warning, an atom-ray blasted bits of a rocky cliff to Captain Brooke's right and an invisible voice boomed out:

"Hold it, copper!" There was a noticeable awe in that voice and it made Dennis smile. The scum remembered, it seemed!

Dennis stopped abruptly. "I'll talk to Koerber," he said coldly.

"Hold it right where you are, Captain Koerber's coming outside," the same voice shouted.

Cautiously Dennis let another of the midget speakers fall to the ground behind him.

The circular airlock opened and a ladder descended automatically. Down the steps came a short, heavy-set man. His aquiline features would have been handsome because of their symmetry, and the pale olive skin tanned by the vast spaces, but for the perpetual sneer that twisted rather full lips. Koerber's wide set eyes, were dark, brilliant, and just now had a sort of incredulous amusement, as if the spectacle of Captain Dennis Brooke come to parley with him were something quite too fantastic to believe.

"Well ... well! This _is_ a land of miracles!" He flashed a sardonic smile, displaying white, even teeth.

"Considering my reputation for ... er ... shall we say dishonor?" He smiled again, "You are risking a great deal by coming here, aren't you, Captain?"

Captain Brooke shrugged his vast shoulders, and a thin smile of contempt curved his lips. "It occurs to me, Koerber, that at my age men are neither rash nor fools ... unless the stakes are high. And," he paused deliberately, conscious of the instant interest his words had aroused, "and it happens that the stakes are beyond ... far beyond all that you and I, and even the I.S.P., are worth. Man, our feet are now _on the base of a great empire_!"

Interest, cupidity and astonishment mingled in the expression of Captain Koerber's face. Finally he guffawed.

"Captain, they say that too many nights in the Jovian Chamber turns a man's mind, I am beginning to believe it!" Then his face darkened:

"Let's finish it quick, Dennis, what're you selling?"

"A partnership in an empire, in exchange for Marla!" Dennis Brooke said quietly but with deadly emphasis, ignoring the pointed barb.

Koerber still gazed at the space-suited figure incredulously. With an imperious motion of his powerful hand, he motioned Captain Brooke up the ladder, then followed at a distance, his hand on the atom-blaster. He had not noticed Dennis drop another tiny speaker on the ground behind.

* * * * *

Inside the black cruiser, Dennis was herded by two gunmen into a spacious cabin. It was furnished in the splendor of priceless loot from the ships of several planets. He felt his atom-blast lifted from its holster and the indignity of exploratory fingers seeking hidden arms. He walked past them to see Koerber seated in what had evidently been a Martian imperial chair, a throne-like affair of priceless hardwoods, incrusted with rare metals and jewels, and bearing a canopy of soft, ocelandian furs, with jewelled brooches at the corners. He sat silent, the faint satirical smile still on his lips, as if for once in his life the very depths of his involved and merciless soul were filled with joy, as indeed was the case. "Speak your piece!" he said insolently, and motioned for the guards to cover the exit.

"I shall be brief," Dennis shrugged his shoulders. "Marla means more to me than anything else. What can she be to you than just another passing conquest? There's no satisfaction in possession without love, Koerber--and _there are other things that you would prefer_!"

"For instance!" The words came like a whiplash.

"Wealth beyond even your imagination, and power ... power as you have never even conceived could ever fall into your hands, man!"

"How do you know Marla's alive?" The sardonic grin became sadistic in its enjoyment at the fleeting shadow of pain that crossed Dennis' face.

"Because," Dennis spoke slowly, quietly, "she's too valuable for you to miss the chance to ransom her. You know the I.S.P., never lets its agents down--you knew she'd accepted an assignment, didn't you?"

"Of course, I have scouts in every planet, and means of communication even you don't know anything about--like that scout you knocked out on Venus," he finished venomously.

"Well?" Dennis said laconically.

"You'll have to explain better. Where's the wealth and all this power you're talking about to come from?"

Dennis knew he was playing his last card. If the man had even a shred of humanity, of intelligent selfishness, the way was open, if Koerber allowed his undying hatred of the I.S.P. to dominate him, he'd have to fight for his life.

"All right, I'll give it to you. This planetoid is full of a new radio-active metal of such terrific power that used even in its raw state it can supply power for speeds beyond anything known to us at present. The reason you saw our ship before we attacked was that we used a small specimen of the mineral and it flung us into space with such terrific acceleration that it almost sent us beyond the planetoid's gravity. If my navigator's hand had not fallen on the keys and changed the course, we would have been wrecked. There are untold billions of credits in radio-active mineral strewn on the surface. Now, if you can't imagine what that means ... what's the use of my talking.

"It'll make us invulnerable. A few tons of this new fuel will purchase a fleet of spacers of the first order, such as this one you have, Koerber; and with a fleet powered by the mineral we can conquer any planet. Power ..." Dennis laughed. "Man, we'd lord space!"

As Dennis spoke, the expression of Machiavellian greed and cunning in Koerber's face heightened, mingled by triumph. At last his laughter, peal after peal of cold, remorseless laughter thundered in the luxurious cabin.

"You fool, you utter fool! _You_ have told me this and expect me to bargain with _you_! So you would share with me supreme power over the known universe.... One reason why I've lived so long is that I never share with anyone, and I never trust anyone, copper!" He flung the final insult in Dennis' face, and laughed to see Dennis' eyes blaze with murderous fury.

"Throw him in the cell!" Koerber said imperiously. Instantly the two gunmen went into action, prodding Dennis with drawn blasters. They drove him down a corridor to a metal cell and heaved him into it, then left him lying on the metal floor.

VI

In the semi-darkness of the armored cell, the wicket through which the guard could watch the prisoner was a square of light. Only, there was no guard. Only an atomic-welder could have pierced that tough shell--unarmed, within the pirate cruiser, surrounded by armed guards at every exit, Dennis hadn't the ghost of a chance. He sat up on the cold metal floor, and strove to point his mind to the task ahead. And the last midget speaker slipped from his pocket to roll across the floor, coming to a stop at a corner of the wall. Dennis could not suppress a smile.

Then he heard a voice he had thought never to hear again. A wave of feeling engulfed him.

"Dennis ... Dennis, my dear!" Framed in the wicket, the lovely features of Marla, smiling despite the brimming eyes, smiling at him in encouragement. His heart leapt upwards as if it would leave his body, as he rose in a single bound and was at the wicket, kissing hungrily the exquisite lips. He could not speak, for seconds, that Marla was alive was that his heart could wish. For a moment he was weak with the tremendous reaction. "You're safe ... safe ... not hurt ... Marla," he was incoherently repeating.

"Quick," Marla cautioned. "Take this!" She slipped a deadly atom-blast, the smaller variety once carried by women into his hand. "They never found it on me--being a woman I have prerogatives. I have been held for ransom until now, and here on this deserted world, having no means of escape I was allowed comparative freedom within the ship. But I heard what you told Koerber, Dennis. Now that he knows untold wealth is within reach of his hand, he may have another fate in store for me. For the past few days he has been changing ... becoming amorous. I know he's trying to win me, Dennis ... as only a woman can know!"

"Take this blaster back ... and use it!" Dennis said fiercely.

"No need," she smiled, her eyes luminous. "I have a better way. I'll not be harmed, Dennis." She kissed him as if all her heart were in that kiss, despite the vertical bars that divided them, then she was gone, leaving behind the faint fragrance that she always wore, like a scent in the garden ways, or an echo in the wind.

One last card remained to him. One last venture wherein his life would hang from so slender a thread, and yet.

He began to scream and shout with a passion that raised reverberating echoes in the enclosing metal cell. Almost immediately the metal door opened with a bang, and the powerful figure of Koerber flanked by guards with drawn atom-blasts was silhouetted in the light.

"Have you gone space-crazy, you rat?" Koerber growled through clenched teeth. "What's the racket for?"

"You double-crosser," Dennis spat like an animal at bay, "if I have to be caged like this, after telling you about my discovery, at least you could let me have some air. You've got the air rectifiers shut off in here, and it's worse than in the caves! Want me to choke?"

"Haw!" One of the guards guffawed. "That's real good, boss ... saves us the trouble of shooting 'im!"

"Shut up!" Koerber rumbled. "Double-crosser, eh? What made you think I'd cut you in on the discovery? But you've given me an idea! Branche ... Jennings! Truss him up and carry him out to the cave. The radio-active minerals'll take care of him better'n anything else." His sadistic nature gloated on the thought of Dennis' gradual disintegration as the powerful radio-active vibrations bombarded his being.

Koerber's smile was like a feline caress, but his eyes were feral in the ecstasy of his triple triumph. He had Marla, the wealth and power of a new universe before him, and, his greatest enemy condemned to a horrible death.

Thoroughly trussed, they carried Dennis to the entrance to the cave system where the radio-active minerals were in greatest abundance. Then they threw him carelessly on the rough, rocky ground.

"I can watch you from here," Koerber said silkily, "as you slowly rot away. We'll be working on the spacer for at least four more hours before we blast off, time enough for the effects of the radiations to begin to show, eh Dennis?"