Chapter IV

It was not until just before he himself quitted the mother ship that Larry Wolfe learned of Ann's illness. Climbing above his pride, he had gone to her cabin to say good-bye.

Doctor Van Doren, ship's surgeon, met him at the door. "You must not excite her," he said, in a low tone. "Say good-bye if you like, but--"

"_Doctor!_" Larry seized his arm. "I--I hadn't heard Ann was sick. What is it?"

"I don't know. Just a complete physical collapse. She's too tired to eat, even. Ever since last night."

Larry was pushing past him into the cabin. He went down on his knees beside the girl's bed and his hand closed on her cold fingers. "Ann!" he choked. "They didn't tell me...."

Ann wouldn't meet his eyes. "I asked them not to. I'm all right, Larry. Just tired."

A cold blade stabbed at Larry's heart. "Why wouldn't you let me know?" he asked.

Ann's eyes seemed fixed on a rivet in the ceiling. "Because I didn't want to worry you. And--I didn't want to fight with you again."

"As if I'd so much as raise my voice, with you sick," Larry groaned. Then his eyes fastened on a ruby-colored heart lying on the girl's breast. "What's that?" he asked, half in alarm. "I've never seen it before; it looks--like it's alive, Ann!"

The girl's fingers toyed with it. "It was a gift," she murmured absently.

"Carlyle!" Larry could not restrain the angry syllables. "I don't like it, Ann! It's like a serpent's eye, or something. It looks so alive--"

Ann's eyes at last met his, and they were cold as space. "We won't argue about it," she said wearily.

Larry got up, striving against the hot resentment searing his heart. "You know I'm leaving now?"

"Yes. Good luck, Larry."

"Thanks!" Larry snorted, and strode from the room.

* * * * *

Larry's was the last scout to be dropped from the _Friar Bacon_. The mother ship was now piloted by Carlyle, who swung it back to the first salvage ship they had dropped.

For hours it was a matter of cruising this way and that, searching the sky for traces of wreckage. Bits of flotsam were everywhere, but large fragments were scarce indeed. Larry's heart was leaden, but he buried himself in the work and succeeded in half-forgetting his worries.

Lanky Jeff Adams was at the controls of the cramped little vessel when the first dark splinter was sighted in the void. Braced against the lurch and roll of the ship, Larry scrutinized the wrecked ship as they neared it. So unbelievable was the sight he saw that for an instant after he lowered the glasses it did not penetrate his reflexes. His fingers were tracing the vessel's name into the log when suddenly he stared at what he had written: "11:46 A. M. sighted derelict _Astral_. Good condition...."

Larry Wolfe dropped the glasses and let out a yell. Jeff leaped as though he had been stung, his magnificent red beak of a nose growing redder with the excitement. Abe Miller, stocky, beetle-browed helper, stared at the officer.

"What's amatter, Chief?" he jerked.

Dumbly, Larry pointed. "That's--the _Astral_!" he gasped. "Two hundred million dollars--in gold--!"

Abe and Jeff were stunned; then they crowded the port to stare at the ancient craft dead ahead. The scout had drawn near enough now that the name of the transport was plainly visible in letters running from stem half-way to stern. Weakly, Jeff let himself back into his seat and muttered:

"Two--hundred--million ... in Martian gold! And we get ten percent for findin' 'er. Ten percent of two hundred million, divided three ways--"

Larry laughed and poked playfully at his big nose. "Don't count your shekels before you hear them jingle," he counseled. "The _Astral_ may have been gutted by pirates. Give her the gun, mister; we're finding out!"

The little space-craft slewed and rocked to a stop beside the giant transport. Shock struck the three men dumb with their first glimpse close up. Faces crowded the ports, staring out at them. Larry fancied he saw movement among the watchers on the bridge. To all appearances the _Astral_ might have been a vessel in mid-flight.

They cruised slowly up the side, not ten feet from the ghostly faces that watched them with staring eyes. Foot by foot they proceeded. Rounding the front of the craft, they could see into the bridge. Two men were working over charts and a man in blue-and-gray uniform was at the controls. Another, a pencil over his ear, stood reading a gauge high on the wall.

Then the meaning of it all came home to them.

The port side of the ship was ripped open from stem to stern. Something--no doubt a jagged meteor fragment--had sliced and torn its way through the shell of the speeding transport. The occupants of the open side had exploded like deep-sea fish drawn to the surface. These in the space-tight, unharmed cabins opposite had been frozen instantly by the outrush of pent-up air. And there they had stood in the attitudes in which Death had found them, staring out as they forged through the meteor-swarm, hoping they would not be hit.

In the silence they tied up to the derelict, their magnet-plates clinging like suction cups. Donning space suits and carrying kits of tools, they leaped through the rent into the dead ship.

A vague twilight dwelt in the interior. Larry led the way to the bridge. The frozen lock was cut out by means of a torch. With set jaws he went inside.

"Better load 'em out quick, boys. If the sunlight starts to thaw 'em there'll be a hell of a mess. Throw 'em clear of the ship. It's tough--but it's a sky-man's end, and we may all meet the same some day."

While Abe and Jeff carried the corpses away, he found the log and traced back to the vessel's start. There he located the cargo list. Two hundred million was correct, as the refining company had stated when the ship was lost.

Their next job was to cut into the hold. The sight of two hundred million dollars in gold bullion took their breath away. Jeff sat down and began laying the ponderous bars into three piles, muttering:

"One for me, one for you, and one for Abe. One for--"

Larry laughed, "Get to work, you half-baked lout. We've got to lug all these out to where they'll make quick loading. _Friar Bacon_ should loom up in about four hours. I'll set the flares--"

And then they all went stiff, hands reaching for energy-pistols. Through the ship's floor came the thud-thud-thud of walking men!

* * * * *

Larry sprang into the hall. Three whirled at his advance. He snapped on his transmitter, the instrument operating through the metal floor like a telegraph.

"Get the hell out of here!" he barked. "You're fifty thousand miles out of your territory. Is this how Haggard keeps a bargain?"

The foremost pirate said not a word, but suddenly the pistol in his hand flared redly. Larry flung himself aside, blasted away with his own weapon. The wall of the corridor dissolved beneath his shoulder.

A scream rang through his helmet, chopped off clean as the pirate's space suit was blown open. Jeff and Abe were yelling for Larry to get out of their way and give them a clear shot. Larry's answer was to duck into the hole blasted in the wall by the energy bolt.

He got the second pirate in his sights and saw him crumple under a wave of atom-dissolving force. A mere fringe of the charge scored the helmet of the last man. Screaming shrilly, air rushed from his suit. His body blew up like a balloon in a decompression-bell, until he filled the bulging suit. Then there was a ghastly moment of seeing blood spurt through the hole in the helmet. And after that he was only a sickening smatter of glass and blood and powdered bone.

The swiftness with which it was all over left the three salvage men weak. Larry forced himself down the hall. There might be more of them. But a glance outside showed only one _Martian_ scout tied up. As a precaution, he turned his force weapon on the little ship until the hammering and searing energy shocks melted its magnet plates and hurled it away.

Hastily, then, he turned to Jeff and Abe.

"Pile aboard," he cracked out. "We're dropping this until we contact Carlyle. Haggard will be back looking for his scout. We want more than hand guns to use when he returns. This is war!"