Chapter VII

"Manacles!" repeated Rocky Russell, "Manacles twenty feet in circumference! But that--that's impossible! Handcuffs for a normal six-foot man measure about six _inches_ in circumference. Twenty foot manacles would be used on someone _two hundred and forty feet tall_!"

"Always assuming of course," Lynn pointed out, "that these gyves are to be used on a _man_. Which isn't very likely. Much more possible that they were constructed for some beast ... some tremendous animal--"

"True," admitted Rocky. "But even so--imagine the size of that animal! Well, that settles it. Bud, I want you to take Miss Graham back to the fort immediately."

"And you?"

"I'm going to follow that roller."

"But there may be danger--"

"There undoubtedly _is_ danger," replied Rocky grimly, "directed at the Patrol ... perhaps the whole of Titan. Those manacles are somehow associated with Grossman's secret. I've got to learn how. You can help best by racing back to Beausejour and warning Colonel Graham to be on guard against any eventuality. Keep your portable vocoder tuned to our private wave-length. If and when I learn anything important I'll send it on to you. O.Q.?"

Bud shrugged helplessly.

"You're the boss. But I'd rather stay here with you and--"

"Get going! Oh--when you reach the Base, take off the lid. Tell Colonel Graham who we are."

"And if it's not too much trouble," interrupted Lynn Graham, "would you mind telling me _now_?"

Rocky grinned at her, for the last time using Dr. Roswell's high whine, "Oh, mercy, Miss Graham, you mustn't be impatient. Ambrose will tell you as you ride."

"_Ambrose!_" fumed Bud. "Ambrose be damned--!" But he was talking to empty space. Rocky had already disappeared down the avenue after the gyve-laden roller.

Fortunately the roller, groaning under its ponderous burden, was not moving very fast. Rocky, though on foot, was able to keep it within sight without too obviously appearing to be following it. In the character of Dr. Rockingham Roswell, already known and amusing to the Titanians, he dawdled through the city five hundred yards or so in the wake of the burdened vehicle.

Through business streets he followed it, where eyes turned to follow its passage and furtive Titanians whispered to each other behind concealing palms, and--as the squalid little shops thinned out--into the suburban residential districts ... finally quite out of the city proper.

Out here it was practically impossible to follow the truck without being noticed. Once the city's artificial foliage was left behind, the landscape of Titan's countryside stretched stark and severe so far as the eye could see ... its drab, sandy monotony broken only by an occasional dune, its dull sameness embellished only by the silvery span of roadbed upon which humans must travel to live on Titan.

By dropping far behind the roller, Rocky was able to keep it in sight for a little while longer. But then his efforts came suddenly to naught as the driver of the truck--a Titanian--swerved completely off the lead highway and began rolling across the barren desert toward a hummock outlined on the horizon some miles distant.

* * * * *

Lacking a bulger, Rocky was stopped cold. No way to follow, now. But he waited and watched a while longer to assure himself that the swollen rise of ground _was_ the roller's destination, then strolled back into New Boston.

Here he sought the privacy of a 'fresher, and called Bud on the vocoder. Mulligan answered immediately.

"Yeah, Rocky? Everything all right?"

"Everything's all _wrong_! The confounded roller left the highway and plowed across the gray-and-nasty. Having no desire to be cooked into frizzled beef, I gave up the chase."

"That's tough, Chief. What do we do now?"

"I," said Rocky, "stay right here. You load a couple of bulgers in a roller and come charging back here as fast as you can. I _still_ want to find out what Grossman's hiding in those hills that needs to be tied up with twenty-foot bands of forged steel."

"O.Q." said Bud. "Sit tight. I'll pick you up in three shakes."

"Make it two!"

"One," chuckled Bud. "I'm practically on my way now."

He was as good as his word. Rocky had only finished one cigarette when a blue S.S.P. roller came tearing up the highway from Fort Beausejour. Bud jumped out, bulger-clad and carrying a second protective suit for his comrade.

"Here you are, pal. Where do we go from here?"

"Out of town on the east highway. I'll show you. A hill rising out of--Hey, wait a minute! Who's driving this crate?"

Bud looked embarrassed.

"Oh--she is!"

"She?"

"Miss Graham. She--"

"--refused," chimed in Lynn Graham, "to be left out of it. Indeed I did. Captain Russell, you ought to be ashamed of yourself, deceiving us the way you did. When the Sergeant, here, told me who you _really_ were, and what you were doing here, I almost _died_ with excitement! And to think that you, a Captain in the S.I.D., pretended to be a mythologist! It's the funniest thing--"

"Miss Graham," interrupted Rocky impatiently, "there is nothing at all amusing about the job we are engaged in. It is, moreover, no work in which a girl should be involved. You would oblige me by returning to the Fort on the first transport bus--"

"Oh, no! This is a Patrol roller, and I requisitioned it in my own name. Either I drive it or--" Stubbornly--"or it doesn't roll!"

"Very well, then. You may take us as far as the desert path. But there we leave you. And now, let's get going. We have wasted enough time as it is."

Rocky motioned Bud into the roller. A few seconds later they were speeding noiselessly out on the highway toward the spot where Rocky had seen the truck leave the road.

* * * * *

Russell had been keeping an eye on his chronometer for the past little while, estimating the number of daylight minutes left to him. On this little satellite there was no such thing as dusk or twilight. At ninety million miles from Sol, there was little enough sunlight. Titan's main radiance came not from the Sun, but from its own parent planet which, a huge, shining platter in the sky, gathered up and reflected to its tiny satellite the thin illumination from afar ... for all the world like a gigantic, reflecting mirror.

Titan revolved on its axis in fifteen hours, twenty-three minutes. Almost the whole of its day period had elapsed now. Shortly....

Yes, even as he studied out the problem, night came suddenly and completely to this part of Titan. It descended instantaneously, snuffing out the light as a finger presses the wick of a candle. Only the stars remained, glowing white in the rich, jet vastness of outer space.

The girl reached toward the dashboard instinctively, but Rocky's hand clasped about her wrist.

"No! Don't!"

"But--but I was only going to turn on the lights."

"I know. But you mustn't. We're getting very close to the spot now. Can you see to drive without them?"

"Why, I--I guess so," said Lynn dubiously. She was surprised, herself, to learn that she could. "Why, yes! The road stands out like a dark ribbon against the sands on either side. Isn't that strange?"

"Not so strange at that," grunted Rocky. "I'm beginning to get an idea about the mysterious T-radiation of this planet. I may be completely wrong, of course, but so far my theory fits all the facts I've observed. There's something I would like to know, though. Grossman told us the soil killed humans. I wonder _how_ they die?"

"I can answer that. Daddy told me the first day I was here. He was warning me against ever leaving the shielded areas ... the Fort, the city, the roads. He said that if they wander onto the soil of Titan without protection, humans just shrivel up and crumble into dust like--like mummies!"

"Like mummies, eh!" grunted Rocky. He sounded quite well satisfied. "Mmm-hmm! Then _that_ fits, too. Yes, I think I'm beginning to understand a lot of things ... including the reason Factor Grossman would like to rid this little world of all competitors--"

"Well, don't keep secrets!" snapped Bud. "We'd like to know, too. What's it all about?"

"No time now. There's the hill out yonder. Pull up here, Miss Lynn. Here's where we leave you."

Lynn stopped the roller obediently. But as Bud and Rocky climbed out she asked, "What do you want me to do now? Can't I come with you?"

"No. You turn the roller around and wait here. We have no idea what we're going to buck up against. We may have to retreat--suddenly. If so, I'll fire three blasts on my Haemholtz. Two short, one long. If you see that signal, get ready to start moving. We'll come on the double-quick. But if we're being pursued too closely to make it--"

"Yes?"

"Then don't wait for us!" ordered Rocky.

"Head for the Base and bring the Patrolmen. Understand?"

"All but one thing," complained the girl. "Why not send for a platoon of Patrolmen right now? Why wait until it is too late?"

"Because," explained Rocky patiently, "despite our suspicions, we have as yet no actual _proof_ that the factor is involved in anything shady. The Patrol is an organization sworn to maintain the Law, not to violate it, riding roughshod over the rights and privileges of citizens.

"When we are certain--as I fully expect we shall be shortly--that Grossman is implicated in some illegal scheme _then_ we can call in the Patrol. But until that time--"

"Until that time," broke in an oily, taunting voice, "you will play the part of quixotic fools, eh, my dear Doctor? But has it never occurred to you that by the time you get the proof you want ... it may be too late to summon help?"

Rocky whirled, as did his two companions. From the side of the road, where they had lain in dark concealment behind a low escarpment, rose a circle of shadowy figures. The largest of these, a heavy man looming even greater in his protective bulger, approached them. In his left hand he held a flash; its rays glinted upon still another instrument in his right hand ... the tube of a Haemholtz burner held steadily upon them. All recognized the newcomer's voice at once.

"_Grossman!_"