Chapter II

"Mr. Carlyle! _Mr. Carlyle._ Are you all right?"

Thaddeus Carlyle came out of his revery with a start, to hear the shrill rasping of the _televis_ on his desk. His hand snapped the instrument on.

"Sorry, Mrs. Loomis," he muttered. "I must have been napping."

The face of his middle-aged secretary looked relieved. "Captain Wolfe is here," she told him. "About the new secretary, you know."

"Send them in," Carlyle grunted.

He swore softly to himself. Too often lately he had dozed off at the wrong times. He was due for another replenishment, and he cursed his luck that it had to come now. Tomorrow he was leaving in his giant salvage ship, the _Friar Bacon_, for the newly-discovered sargasso off the orbit of Pluto. Nor could the trip be postponed.

But the renewal of his life-spirit could not wait either. He was a little too tired at night, a little too slow to react. But the certainty was in him that he would not survive the trip to the new salvage fields, with its attendant rigors.

Captain Wolfe, chief officer of the _Friar_, entered with a small, dark-haired young person at his side.

"You're in luck, Chief!" he grinned. "I told you I'd find an A-1 secretary for you, and I think I've got her. Miss Holland, meet Thaddeus Carlyle--and don't say you haven't heard of him. Mr. Carlyle, this is Ann Holland."

The two exchanged acknowledgments, and Carlyle drew up chairs. "We'll have to be brief," he said. "I've got a thousand things to attend to before night. Now--you have the report from the company doctor?"

Ann Holland took a folded slip from her purse and tendered it to the owner of Salvage Lines, Incorporated. Carlyle took the opportunity to appraise her swiftly. He hardly need to scan the physician's report to know her health was boundless. It glowed in the soft rose color of her cheeks, the sparkle of her dark eyes. Her brown hair was carefully combed back from a smooth forehead.

The report bore out his supposition. Carlyle questioned her briefly about her qualifications as a stenographer and secretary. Everything was satisfactory, and the references she had to show were excellent.

Carlyle handed back the papers. "I think I'm lucky to get so well-spoken of a secretary on such short notice," he smiled.

"I know darned well you are, Chief!" Larry Wolfe laughed. "I had to fight every officer in Ann's company to make them let her go."

Ann Holland laid a hand on his arm. "I think I had a little to do with my quitting, too," she reproved. "I can't tell you how I've been fascinated by the stories of your salvage trips, Mr. Carlyle. And, of course, hearing Larry talk of his work with you--"

Thaddeus's dark eyes opened wider. "Oh--Then you have known each other previously?" he queried.

Blond Larry Wolfe held up the girl's left hand, showing the sparkling diamond on the third finger. "Three years previously," he laughed. "We're going to be married after this trip."

Against the flash of resentment and disappointment that struck him, Thaddeus Carlyle brought a smile to his lips. "That's fine," he said. "Congratulations, both of you."

* * * * *

What he didn't voice was the strain of remorse coursing through his mind: "Fine, hell! It's bad enough preying on unattached girls. But the fiancee of your chief officer--"

Nevertheless, it was too late to change. Mrs. Loomis couldn't go because she was married. Besides, she was old. There wasn't much life to be stolen from her.

"Of course, you'll be wanting to know the type of work you're to do," he got out. "Frankly, it will be more tedious than adventuresome. I've been considering doing a book on the navigation conditions obtaining in the sargassos. You'll take dictation from me most of the time we're in the salvage field. I'll want the notes neatly typed up when we return. That's about all, except that the pay will be seventy-five dollars a week. Satisfactory?"

"Perfectly!" Ann breathed, and put her hand out to retrieve the papers from the desk. As she did so, Carlyle's brown, strong fingers picked up the references and tendered them. For an instant their fingers met....

Ann's eyes went suddenly wide, and they flashed up to lock with Carlyle's. She started, as if from a chill. It seemed as if a strong current flowed from his body into hers ... and yet, had she but known, the phenomenon was exactly an opposite one. By now, Carlyle's parasitical work was second nature to him, hardly requiring the jewel and ring.

It struck the girl that his eyes were the strangest ones she had ever gazed into. They were so clear she seemed to look through them and far past him. Clear--but yet somehow they were filled with wisdom. It was as though she was looking into vast, forgotten depths of time.

Abruptly, she recalled herself. Her hand drew swiftly away from his.

"Thank you so much," she murmured. "We're leaving at six, I think you said? I'll be ready."

When they were in the outer office, Larry Wolfe took her arm. He was more than happy at the prospect of having the girl along on the long trip.

"Drive you home?" he suggested.

A frown scored Ann's brow. "No, thanks, Larry," she murmured. "I've got some things to buy uptown. Then I want to go home and rest. I feel a little tired."

* * * * *

Thaddeus Carlyle stood at his window and watched the last bit of loading being done out on the field. The _Friar Bacon_, with her six tiny salvage ships in their bulging hangars growing out of the mother ship's shell, like pilot fish clinging to the body of a shark, was nearly ready for the trip. Carlyle sighed and wished again that he had time to linger a few weeks before leaving.

But it was out of the question. Even a man who possesses immortality must earn his living, and salvaging treasure ships from space was Carlyle's way of doing it. Right now that living was threatened by the savage competition of Brand Haggard, owner of another salvage outfit.

Haggard cared little for the ethics of the business. He'd double-cross, steal, murder, lie, to gain his ends. It was such tactics that had put Carlyle in his present hole.

Coming in on his last expedition, he had found the sargasso off Pluto and duly registered it with the Universal Salvage Commission, applying at the same time for exclusive salvage rights. But Haggard had used his crooked political affiliations to get in on the pie. Carlyle had had to share the rights with him. Now it was a bitter fight to be the first in the field, for the first ship there gutted the most treasure from the wrecked space vessels.

A delay of three weeks or a month would mean the _Friar Bacon_ returned with empty holds. And that might mean ruin for Carlyle. Lately, salvage pickings were getting smaller and smaller. He intended to get into another business for his next lifetime.

The question of the girl still lay like a bitter pellet in his mind, but with an effort he shelved his remorse. He decided to return to his packing. There were two more things to be stowed away in his private lockers. One was a plain silver ring, and the other was a little crystal heart.

* * * * *

At six o'clock the next morning the _Friar Bacon_ rested in its deep starting-tube in the center of the field. At seven o'clock it had proceeded so far on its journey that Earth was but a silver quarter hanging in the sky behind it.

Larry Wolfe was on the bridge. His engineer's eyes sparkled as he regarded the instruments. Fuel--brimming over; speed--one-quarter; retarding gravity quotient--three percent. Ideal conditions, and an ideal ship. He had faith in the _Friar Bacon_, and in its owner. He knew about Brand Haggard, but it didn't worry him particularly, with the best of materials and men to work with.

Larry was on the point of inching the speed up a trifle when a bell began to tinkle. Swiftly he twisted in his seat. Immediately he saw what had aroused the alarm. A ship was coming up fast, behind them. Haggard already! he thought. He stabbed at the buzzer to Carlyle's quarters.

The hard, brown features of the ship's owner snapped into view on the _televis_. "Yes?" was the metallic query.

"Ship approaching, sir!" Larry clipped. "I think it's Haggard's _Martian_. Shall I give her the gun?"

"No, let him come up with us. No use racing yet. We'd just strain the seams before they've heated properly."

"But if he beats us to the fields, sir!"

Thaddeus Carlyle's eyes crinkled. "He won't, Wolfe. I registered a false location with the Commission! He'll either go hell-for-leather out toward Uranus or he'll pace us. Either way, I'm not worrying."

"Very good, sir." Larry Wolfe turned from the instrument to his controls. "Hard as nails!" he chuckled to himself. "He wouldn't hurry for the devil himself. You'd think he'd lived five hundred years, the way he thinks of all the angles and beats hell out of every other ship in the fleet. He's too smart for one man."

That very night, trouble boarded the _Friar Bacon_. In a way, it was Larry Wolfe's fault.

Coming off duty eight hours after they left, he hurried to Ann Holland's stateroom near Carlyle's suite, eager to hear how she had enjoyed her first day aboard a space-liner.

He found her tired and curiously subdued.

"Excitement get you?" he asked her.

Ann's eyes flashed as she thought of the thousand new things she had seen. "A little, I guess," she admitted. "But, Larry, it's wonderful! Such a feeling of freedom, so many strange things to be seen. Here we are darting through space like a liner plowing the Atlantic!"

"You'll get over that pretty soon," Larry grinned. "Then you'll be like the rest of us space-sailors, cursing our luck that man can't push his darned ships along at the speed of light."

"I don't think I ever will," the girl mused. "They build these ships just like Swiss watches, don't they? Every beam and girder machined by hand, every nut and bolt a masterpiece. I went over the whole ship with Thad. I feel like an authority already!"

She laid her head against the cushioned back of the chair, glancing through drowsy eyes out the port-hole. With her face turned away from Larry's, she did not see the swift bolt of jealousy that shot through him.

"Thad?" he echoed. "That's funny, Ann. I've never been allowed to get that familiar with him myself. It's always 'Chief' or 'sir' to us crew members."

The girl's eyes widened a little; then she shrugged her slim shoulders. "I don't know how I happened to call him that. He seems to be a person so very likeable you can't be formal with him."

"I hadn't noticed it," Larry Wolfe snapped.

Ann sat up wearily, brushed stray hair back from her ear. "Oh, now, Larry," she reproved him. "Are you going to start acting like a high-school boy the minute we start?"

The young ship officer's jaw had set like cement. "What'd you do all day? Talk, I suppose?"

"Yes, we talked! For eight hours! I don't know where the time went, but I do know I've never had a better time in my life!"

She said it defiantly, and in the wake of the angry words grew a high wall of pride between them. Ann made one final effort at conciliation.

"Larry, do you have to be like this?" she pleaded. "I'm wearing your ring, isn't that enough?"

Larry stood up. "That's exactly it," he snapped. "You're wearing my ring and the men are going to be watching pretty damn closely when they see you hobnobbing constantly with Carlyle. Oh, don't get me wrong; he's a fine fellow and I think the world of him. But I'm going to ask you not to be with him any more than your work requires!"

Ann's fingers tugged at the diamond ring, and suddenly she was handing it to him. "Then here's something for you to mull over, Mr. Larry Wolfe," she said frigidly. "While we're on the trip you can just pretend that you've never met me before. I won't have your jealousy preventing me from doing a good job."

Larry let the tiny platinum band drop into his broad palm. His eyes showed the pain that twisted through him, but all he said was: "All right, Ann. But when you want the ring back, you'll have to ask for it."