Chapter III

Don Denton swore soundlessly to himself, and the gun sagged momentarily in his hand. He felt the insane desire to laugh, fought down the feeling with an iron will.

This was too much; this was carrying things too far. Those men moving about the rendering shed were dead, so dead that there had been no pulse of heart-beats in their veins. Yet they walked and worked with a smooth efficiency about the shed five hundred feet away.

And the freighters had vanished into the clouds. Yet that, too, was impossible; for the rocket blasts would have created such a roar in the air that he could not have missed their going.

It was as though his mind had tricked him, had conjured chimeras and mirages out of the air to strip his reason away.

He stiffened, the gun lifting in his hand, as one of the men working about the shed turned and ran directly down the field. He gasped silently, recognizing the greyed hair and ruddy face of Jim Palmer.

His hand snapped to a small button on his helmet.

"Hold it, Palmer, don't come any closer!" His voice roared from the tiny annunciator built into the top of his helmet.

Jim Palmer skidded to a stop, menaced by the ati-gun, fell, sprawling in the green mud, as his sudden stop tripped him on the treacherous ground. Amazement made a round O of his mouth, and the glad greeting faded from his eyes.

"What the hell, Denton?" he said sharply. "Have you gone space batty?"

Don Denton laughed without humor, shifted the gun muzzle slightly.

"I don't know," he admitted. "But I'm not taking any chances on anything until I find out what's going on!"

"What do you mean: 'What's going on'?" Jim Palmer pushed himself to his feet, wiped slimy mud onto his breeches' legs. "Hell," he finished, "all of us thought you were dead!"

"You--," Don Denton swallowed, blinked desperately, "You thought I was dead?" he croaked.

"Why, sure!" Jim Palmer waved an expressive hand. "We tried to get into your ship for more than a week, but couldn't. And we could see you crumpled in the pilot's seat. So we figured you had died."

"Look, Palmer," Don Denton said, "I like jokes as well as the next spacer. But I don't like the smell of this one! Now, what's the set-up here?"

"Well, it's just like the one I had on island Seven. I--"

Don Denton's voice was like chilled steel. "Keep up that clowning," he snapped, "and I'll blow it out of you with an ati-gun blast!"

Jim Palmer paled, took a backward step. "Now, look, Denton," he said placatingly, "I'm not looking for a fight with you; I've always figured we were friends. If you've got some gripe, get it off your chest, and maybe we can get it straightened out!"

Don Denton felt insanity growing in his mind. He sucked in a deep breath, never taking his eyes from Palmer's sweat-streaked face. He didn't know what was going on, could not find a coherent answer for anything, and the empty feeling it left within him frightened him as he had never felt fear before.

Less than an hour before, he had locked himself in his ship, after seeing fourteen dead men in the huts and after Jean had disappeared; and now Jim Palmer was telling him that that had happened more than a week before. Too, he was implying that Don Denton was mentally unbalanced.

Don Denton then felt the prescience of an alien presence at his back.

He whirled, spun to one side, his finger tight on the firing stud of the atomic gun in his fist.

Then, his face working in surprise, he turned slowly completely about, finally facing Jim Palmer again. His eyes went wide, when he saw the furtive, fearful steps the other was taking toward the safety of the rendering shed.

"Well, Denton," Palmer said worriedly, "I'll talk to you later."

"Stand right where you are!" There was a quiver to the trouble shooter's voice despite his iron control. "I've just started to ask questions. First, where's Jean?"

"Why she went back to Earth on the _Moonstone_, the larger freighter. That was four days ago. She was pretty well broken up when she thought you were dead."

Don Denton's forehead washboarded in thought. "There's something fishy here that I don't understand," he said, "but I'm going to get to the bottom of it."

"Look, Denton," Palmer's tone was solicitous. "Why don't you let Carter, the doctor, take a look at you. I mean no offense; but you sound as if you either had a concussion or a touch of space fever." He gestured comfortingly. "Come on, take off your helmet, and the Doc'll find out what's wrong."

* * * * *

Don Denton was fumbling at the lace of his light copper helmet unconsciously, before he realized what he was doing. For some unknown reason, he felt that Palmer might be right and that he might have some brain injury. Then some vague stubbornness filled his mind, driving away his sudden compliance. His free hand snapped to his belt, whipped out the second ati-gun.

"How is it that you and your men are walking around?" he asked, "I could have sworn you were dead?"

He waited for the other's answer, conscious of an agonizing headache that had sprung out of nowhere. He still felt that he and Palmer were not alone, but his quick whirl a moment before had failed to disclose any lurker in the vicinity.

And now, for the first time, he saw the eyes of Jim Palmer clearly. There was something in them that he could not understand, a pleading to be understood that escaped his senses. And the something that was in them was oddly at variance with the smile on the ruddy face and the reassuring words.

"You must have seen us when we were asleep," Jim Palmer explained, "After working on these _Lanka_ plants for so long a time, you get such a slow steady heart action that it takes a stethoscope to find it."

"Maybe?" Don Denton said skeptically. "But I still think you were dead."

Jim Palmer laughed, the sound a long booming roll of mirth that drew curious glances from the workers at the rendering shed. His lips writhed back, and his shoulders shook with merriment, but his eyes never changed expression.

"Do we _look_ dead?" he asked mirthfully.

"It isn't what you look like, it's what you are that counts," Don Denton countered. "I've seen Martian Zombies that got around pretty well."

"Yes," Jim Palmer nodded. "I've seen them. But they don't breathe or eat; and I can assure you that my men and I do both."

He stepped forward, stretched his hand in a friendly gesture. "Come on," he finished, "put away your guns, and come meet the men. Maybe the Doc had better take a look at you, too; you don't look so well, you've probably got a touch of fever giving you hallucinations."

Steam hissed from the muddy ground between them as the trouble shooter fired his left hand gun. "I'm not joking," he snapped. "Make a move I don't like, and I'll be damned certain you're dead!"

Jim Palmer sucked in his breath with an audible gasp, and muscles rippled in his heavy shoulders as his arms came up in a threatening gesture.

"You're making a mistake, Denton," he said brittlely.

And, without warning, his face white and strained, he sprang at the other, his whipping arms smashing the guns aside.

* * * * *

The twin ati-guns roared in a wailing scream of unleashed power, their released streams of energy charring the ground, as Don Denton's hands clenched in sudden reflex.

Then the guns were hammered aside, and the bull-like body of Jim Palmer was straining at the trouble shooter's lithe strength. For one interminable instant, Don Denton wavered on his feet, then he went backward, carried by the other's weight, his mind numbed by the paralyzing shock that came from a sledge-like fist hammering at his chest.

He rolled as he fell, twisted, and his right hand lashed out in a desperate effort to reach one of the fallen guns. A heavy knee pinned his arm to the ground, and he gasped from Palmer's weight on his chest.

He arched his body, tossed Palmer to one side, smashed at him with a two-handed attack that hurled the heavy man a dozen feet away. He slipped as he tried to follow his advantage, felt Palmer's hands tearing at the globe of his oxy-helmet. He felt a lace break below his chin, and then his right hand came up in a vicious right cross.

Palmer sagged, half unconscious from the blow, went entirely slack, as the trouble shooter crossed his left and then his right.

Don Denton crouched for a moment, staring into the blank face of the camp manager, his chest heaving, feeling a slight dizziness as the air of Venus mingled with that of his damaged oxy-helmet.

Then the wailing hiss of an ati-gun brought him to his feet. He dived for his twin guns, turned, raced for the safety of the _Comet_, feeling the tingle of released energy as his cellu-ray suit dissipated the shock of a direct ati-blast on his back.

He fired twice, as a warning gesture, at the men streaming from the rendering shed, smiled grimly as the tight knot of pursuers broke into individuals.

And then he was at his ship, the vibra-ray lock swinging the port open automatically. He spun through the port, cogged it shut behind him, sagged against its solid friendliness, utterly worn with the furious action of the past few minutes.

Gradually, his breathing slowed to normal, and some of the unnatural fright of the past moments loosened their icy clutch from about his heart. He removed his oxy-helmet, dropped it carelessly to the floor, went slowly to the control room of the ship. He stared from the quartzite port, his brow furrowing in puzzlement.

Two of the _Lanka_ workers were helping the stunned Palmer to his feet, while the rest of the men gazed woodenly toward the _Comet_. Then, as though turned by some common command, the entire group whirled, stalked back across the field, disappeared within the rendering shed.

Don Denton shook his head in bewilderment, sank tiredly into the pilot's seat, found one of his carefully rationed cigarettes in a panel box. Touching a radi-light to its end, he leaned back in the cushions, drew slowly on the fragrant smoke.

"Whew!" he sighed explosively, winced when his exploring fingers found the great bruise on his chest where Palmer had struck so viciously.

He went over the entire, bizarre situation point by point; and as the moments passed he made less sense out of the entire proceedings. He couldn't figure the slightest of reasons from what was happening. He tried to rationalize the events, ended at a blind alley of thinking.

First, he had the fact that the _Lanka_ shipments had failed to make their scheduled appearances. So he had been sent to investigate. Jean Palmer had come along, ostensibly to see her father. Then, after landing, he had killed some Venusian slug, and found fourteen dead men in their bunks. Right after that, Jean had disappeared into thin air. An hour and a half later, the dead men were alive, and he had been attacked by Jim Palmer, whose friend he thought he was.

Don Denton scowled bleakly into space. This set-up was too screwy for him! He thought for a moment of rocketing into space and bringing back the Space Patrol to make a complete investigation.

His blue eyes narrowed abruptly, as he caught sight of the perpetual calendar on the wall. Hell! It was still the same day as the day he had arrived on Venus.

Which meant that Jim Palmer had lied.

He snapped his fingers in sudden thought. Palmer had not tried to injure him, instead, he had merely tried to remove the oxy-helmet.

And that meant another mystery. For Palmer knew that the faintly tainted air of Venus would not knock out the trouble-shooter.

The trouble-shooter growled deep in his throat, crushed out the cigarette, stood and paced to the port window. He frowned from the port, watched the men coming toward the rocket ship. He felt no uneasiness, for he knew that the hull would be impervious to any ati-blasts they might fire in trying to force an entrance.

Then he stiffened, the blood draining from his face.

For walking quietly in the middle of the tight group was Jean Palmer.

Don Denton swore briefly, didn't move. He watched, as the group came quietly to a halt a hundred feet from the _Comet_, their tightness melting away as they stopped.

Then Don Denton saw Jim Palmer lift a heavy strip of leather belt, swing it with a brutal viciousness at the slender shoulders of his daughter.

Don Denton whipped around, a white hot rage blazing in his mind, his breath a choking mass in his throat, as he dashed for the port door. He uncogged it with trembling hands, pushed it open, dropped through, the ati-guns cold in his sweaty hands.

He ran toward the silent group, conscious that Palmer's arms was lifting for another blow. His hand swept up for a snap-shot.

"Drop that gun, Denton," Palmer snapped.

Don Denton snarled soundlessly, squared the muzzle of the ati-blaster on Palmer's broad chest, squeezed the firing stud.

Then a great paralysis seemed to fill his rangy body. He came to a dead stop, his guns still jutting before him, but utterly without the will to press the firing studs.

"Holster both guns, Denton," Jim Palmer barked.

Instantly, without a word, the trouble shooter's hands flicked the twin guns back into their sheaths. He stood rigidly, great veins ridging his temples, then all resistance went from his body as he waited for the other to approach.

* * * * *

Jim Palmer halted but a few feet from the trouble shooter, the leather strap dangling from his right hand, his feet wide-braced. He bent forward a trifle, stared directly in Don Denton's eyes.

"Can you hear me, Denton?" he asked quietly.

Don Denton fought the unbreakable control that held his mind and body in complete abeyance. Veins stood in high relief on his forehead, and perspiration rolled down his cheeks. He gagged a bit from the noxious air, tried to turn his head from Palmer's piercing gaze.

"I can hear you, Palmer," he said woodenly.

"Fine." There was still that _something_ far back in Palmer's eyes, but there was absolutely no expression on his face. "Now, this is what you are to do: You will act as the pilot on the _Moonstone_ for the rest of us men. We are turning pirates, and intend to set up our headquarters here. You will get your instruments and whatever else you need from your ship; we leave within the hour."

Don Denton turned without volition, and even the hypnotic control that directed him could not keep the gasp of astonishment from his throat.

For there on the edge of the clearing, exactly as they had been before, were the two freighters that had vanished so mysteriously thirty minutes before.

But the astonishment was immediately erased from his mind, and he turned robot-like toward the _Comet_. He caught one flashing glimpse of the emotionless faces of the men and Jean Palmer, then he paced slowly toward the gaping port of the scouter.

Jim Palmer walked quietly at his side, staring straight ahead, no emotion touching his ruddy features.

Don Denton tried to think, but a soft impenetrable band of nothingness seemed to absorb all of his thoughts. His only thought was of the command he had just received, and, strangely, that thought seemed to be a perfectly natural thing.

"You go in first, Denton," Palmer said quietly.

The trouble shooter obeyed silently, climbing through, standing rigidly until the other had joined him. Then he turned, stepped forward. His breath whooshed in a startled gasp, as his right foot stepped squarely on the dropped oxy-helmet, and then he was falling forward, his hands outstretched in a futile effort to regain his balance.

He felt his head strike the wall, struggled vainly to get back to his feet. Then dull blackness wiped all consciousness from his brain.