Chapter II

The Starship _Kismet_ was the pride and joy of Stellar Transportation and Atomic Research. It was outfitted with every known safety device and the control room was masterfully planned for maximum efficiency. But the astral architect who designed her never anticipated the situation facing her at the present. The _Kismet's_ bridge was a welter of confusion.

The Senior Watch Officer was shouting at his assistant, the Navigator was cursing out the Pilot and the Gunnery Officer, whose job had been a sinecure until now, was bellowing at them all. Above the hubbub, suddenly, came the raucous voice of Captain Fogarty as he stalked onto the bridge.

"What in great space has happened to the motors? Why are we losing speed?"

The Senior Watch Officer saluted and shouted, "Engine Room reports the engines have all stopped, Sir. Don't know why. We're operating the lights and vents on emergency power."

The Communications Officer spoke up. "The pirate ship reports that they're responsible, Sir. They say they've got a new device that will leave us without atomic power for as long as they like."

As if to confirm this, over the loudspeaker came a voice. "Ahoy, STAR _Kismet_. Stand by for boarders. If you don't open up to us, we'll blast you off the map."

"Pirates! Attacking us! Incredible!" cried the Captain. "There are no pirates any more. What have we got a Space Patrol for? Where in blazes is the Space Patrol anyway?"

The Communications Officer gulped. "Er, ah, we got in contact with Commodore Trumble. He says his ship can get here in ten hours anyway, and for us to wait for him."

Captain Fogarty snorted. "Fat lot of good he'll do us. Wait for him, eh? Well, we'll just blow that pirate out of the sky right now. Stand by the guns!"

"The guns are useless," whined the Gunnery Officer. "The atomics that run them won't operate at all. What will we do?"

"Ahoy, STAR _Kismet_. Open up your hatches when we arrive and let us in, or we won't spare a man of you," boomed the loudspeaker.

"Pirates going to board us. How nice," muttered Grandma to herself as she eavesdropped just outside the door to the bridge.

"They'll never get through the hatches alive. At least our small arms still work. We'll kill 'em all!" cried Captain Fogarty.

"We only want one of you. All the rest of you will be spared if you open up the hatches and don't try to make no trouble," came the voice over the radio.

"Tell them I'd rather all of us be killed than to let one dirty pirate on board my ship," the Captain shouted to the Communications Officer.

"Oh, my goodness. That doesn't sound very smart," Grandma said half aloud. And turning from the doorway, she crept back through the deserted passageway.

The main passenger hatch was not too far from the bridge. Grandma found it with ease, and in less than three minutes she had zipped herself into one of the emergency-use space suits stowed away beside the port. She felt awfully awkward climbing into the monstrous steel and plastic contraption, and her small body didn't quite fit the proportions of the metallic covering. But once she had maneuvered herself into it, she felt quite at ease.

Opening the inner door to the airlock, she clanked into the little room. As the door shut behind her, she pressed the cycling button and evacuated the air from the lock.

A minute or so later she heard poundings outside the airlock and quite calmly she reached out a mailed fist and turned a switch plainly marked:

EMERGENCY LOCK
DO NOT OPERATE IN FLIGHT

The outer hatch opened almost immediately. The radio in Grandma's suit crackled with static. "What are you doing here?" demanded a voice over the suit radio.

"Pirates! I'm hiding from the pirates. They'll never find me here!" she told them in a voice she hoped sounded full of panic.

"What's your name?" asked the voice.

"Darling Toujours, famous television actress," she lied quite calmly.

"That's the one, boys," said another voice. "Let's go." Catching hold of Grandma's arm, they led her out into the emptiness of free space.

* * * * *

Half an hour later, after the pirate ship had blasted far enough away from the _Kismet_, the men in the control room relaxed and began to take off their space suits. One of the men who Grandma soon learned was Lamps O'Toole, the nominal leader of the pirates, stretched his brawny body to ease the crinks out of it and then rubbed his hands together. Grandma noticed that he carried a week's beard on his face, as did most of the other men.

"Well, that was a good one, eh, Snake?" said Lamps.

Snake Simpson was a wiry little man whose tough exterior in no way suggested a reptile, except, perhaps, for his eyes which sat too close to one another. "You bet, Skipper. We're full fledged pirates now, just like old Captain Blackbrood."

"You mean Blackbeard, Snake," said Lamps.

"Sure. He used to sit around broodin' up trouble all the time."

One of the other men piped up. "And to think we get the pleasurable company of the sweetest doll in the whole solar system for free besides the money."

"Aw, women are no dern good--all of them," said Snake.

"Now, Snake, that's no way to talk in front of company. You just apologize to the lady," Lamps told him. Lamps was six inches taller and fifty pounds heavier than Snake. Snake apologized.

"That's better. And now, Miss Toujours, maybe you'd be more comfortable without that space suit on," he said.

"Oh, no, thank you. I feel much better with it on," a small voice said over the suit's loudspeaker system.

Lamps grinned. "Oh, come now, Miss Toujours. We ain't going to hurt you. I guarantee nobody will lay a finger to you."

"But I feel much--much safer, if you know what I mean," said the voice.

"Heck. With one of them things on, you can't eat, can't sleep, can't--Well, there's lots of things you can't do with one of them things on. Besides, we all want to take a little look at you, if you don't mind. Snake, you and Willie help the little lady out of her attire."

As the men approached her, Grandma sensed the game was up. "Okay," she told them. "I give up. I can make it by myself." She started to take the bulky covering off. She had gotten no more than the headpiece off when the truth dawned on her companions.

"Holy Smoke (or something like that)," said one of the men.

"Nippin' Nebulae," said another.

"It ain't Darling Toujours at all!" cried Lamps.

"It ain't even no woman!" cried Snake.

"I beg your pardon," said Grandma, and quite nonchalantly shed the rest of the suit and sat down in a comfortable chair. "I am Mrs. Matilda Perkins."

When he could recover his powers of speech, Lamps sputtered, "I think you owe us a sort of an explanation, lady. If you know what I mean."

"Certainly. I know exactly what you mean. It's all quite simple. When I overheard that you intended to board the _Kismet_, searching for only one person, I decided that one person had to be Darling Toujours. I guessed right off that she was the only one on board worth kidnapping and holding for ransom, so I simply let you believe that I was she and you took me. That's easy to understand, isn't it?"

"Lady, I don't know what your game is, but it better be good. Now, just why did you do this to us?" Lamps was restraining himself nobly.

"You never would have gotten inside the _Kismet_ without my assistance. And even if you had, you'd never have gotten back out alive.

"Captain Fogarty's men would have cut you to ribbons. So I opened the hatch to let you in, planted myself in the way, and you got out with me before they could muster their defenses. So, you see, I saved your lives."

Grandma Perkins paused in her narrative and looked up at her audience, giving them a withered little smile. "And if you want to know why, well ... I was bored on the _Kismet_, and I thought how nice it would be to run away and join a gang of cutthroat pirates."

"She's batty," moaned Snake.

"She's lost her marbles," muttered another.

"Let's toss her overboard right now," said still another.

Lamps O'Toole took the floor. "Now, wait a minute. We can't do that," he said loudly. "We got enough trouble as is. You know what would happen to us if the Space Patrol added murder to the list. They'd put the whole fleet in after us and track us and our families down to the last kid." Then he turned to the little old lady to explain.

"Look, lady--"

"My name is Mrs. Matilda Perkins. You may call me Grandma."

"Okay, Grandma, look. You really fixed us good. To begin with, we ain't really pirates. We used to operate this tub as a freighter between the Jupiter moons. But STAR got a monopoly on all space flights, including freight, and they just froze us out. We can't operate nowhere in the solar system, unless we get their permission. And they just ain't giving permission to nobody these days." Lamps flopped into one of the control seats and lit a cigarette.

"So, when us good, honest men couldn't find any work because of STAR, and we didn't want to give up working in space, we just ups and decides to become pirates. This was our first job, and we sure did need the money we could have gotten out of Darling Toujours' studios for ransom."

Lamps sighed. "Now, we got you instead, no chance of getting the ransom money, and to top it all off, we'll be wanted for piracy by the Space Patrol."

"Well, it doesn't seem to me that you're ever going to be good pirates at this rate," Grandma told him. "You should have known better than to take a woman at her word."

"I don't suppose you got any rich relatives what would pay to get you back?" suggested Snake hopefully.

"I haven't got any rich relatives period," she said pertly. Then she added, "But my ten children might scrape up a little cash for you if you promised you wouldn't bring me back at all."

"I figured as much," Lamps said dolefully. "Lookit, Grandma, the best thing we can do is to put you off safely at the next place we stop. Unless we get you back in one piece the Space Patrol will be on our necks forever. So don't go getting any ideas about joining up with us."

"Well, the very least you could do for a poor old lady is to feed her," Grandma told him, her lower lip sticking out in a most petulant manner. "They like to have starved me to death on that _Kismet_."

"We ain't got much fancy in the line of grub...." Lamps began.

"Just show me the way to the kitchen," said Grandma.