Chapter II: Part 2

By now, Mike's beaters had driven several scamours out of the lower swamps. They heard the piteous "Gobble, gobble, gobble" of Wildoatia's most dangerous reptile not far ahead. Rifles crashed to the right. Someone screamed in the middle distance. Then a dead-grey head, with eyes big as saucers, swayed out of the muck directly in their path!

Frank and Sadie fired together. The nauseating head jerked back, then flicked forward on a scaly body equipped with a score of yardlong legs. The thing embraced the girl lovingly. Taloned feet clawed at her armor. A spiked tail wrapped about her in coil after slow coil.

"Gobble," moaned the scamour, showing its teeth in a wide smile before they sought the girl's throat.

Frank sprang forward, swinging his machete with both hands.

"Beg to state," hissed Schmidzu, "laws of Wildoatia forbid aid to another. Regret I must report this."

"Report and be damned," snarled Frank. Green ichor spurted under his blows but the creature seemed not to notice. Sadie was frantically squeezing the monster's throat to no avail. It forced its triangular snout forward, inch by inch.

Bracing himself with feet wide apart, the spaceman put all his strength into a blow aimed just below that horny carapace. The blade struck home this time, sheering through flinty scales to the backbone. The scamour's head fell backward and its coils loosened as it wailed like a hurt child.

Another wail made Frank whirl. The board chairman had been attacked by the creature's mate. Samurai swords sheared off several of the creature's legs but proved pitifully inadequate in the hands of the little Japanese. Instinctively the captain sprang to the rescue. Sadie, white and shaken though she was, gripped his arm with fingers of steel.

"No!" she gasped. "No Frank! You mustn't."

"You help girl," screamed Schmidzu, struggling futilely. "You help me, I not report, please!"

Frank did his best to respond, but Sadie clung to him until the scamour dragged its suffocating victim out of sight.

"It was our only chance," the girl wept as they chopped off the first scamour's head and turned back toward the palace with their trophy. "That rat would have had us concentrated; you know it as well as I do."

"Yes," he agreed bitterly, "but it still was a foul thing to do."

Their spirits revived somewhat when they discovered that three other hunters were missing ... and unmourned ... while the rest had returned empty-handed.

"Nothing to it," Sadie assured their cheering admirers when they reentered the keep. "We wanted to bring in another head, but the jits were getting bad." She limped off to have her bruises dressed.

* * * * *

They dined on scamour steaks again that night. They drank explosive gurka. They flirted outrageously with members of Mike's court. They watched the unbelievably lovely gyrations of two Martian flying girls who had been smuggled into Wildoatia at the risk of an interstellar incident.

Sadie told riproaring stories of the days when she was one of the toughest of the Incors. Then they danced square dances and sang cowboy ballads of Earth's old West which were the current rage. Finally they stumbled off to bed after having given Nirvana's commandant one of the pleasantest evenings of his misspent life.

Mike appeared while they were still asleep the next morning and reported that he had wangled them berths on the new ship.

"Took some pull," he boasted. "Ain't ten men in Wildoatia as could have did it. Wouldn't have had a chance if Schmidzu hadn't gone and got himself killed." He winked and added, "You'll have to have your faces and fingerprints changed a bit, though. Captain Hans will check your records seven ways from Sunday."

"Give Frank a pug nose like mine," Sadie directed when a plastic surgeon appeared in answer to Mike's summons. "And how about making him cross-eyed, too?"

"How about making her tongue-tied?" Frank retorted.

After much argument they compromised by altering the shape of Frank's mouth, slanting his eyebrows and pushing back his hairline. Sadie acquired a classic Greek profile; her freckles were eliminated and her hair became glossy black. Skin grafts were implanted on each of their fingertips.

"That should serve unless somebody examines your retina patterns," said the surgeon two days later. "Your features can be changed back, in time, but your fingerprints are permanently altered."

"Did I ever love _that_?" sighed Sadie when Frank's bandages were removed at last.

"You could get a job in Hollywood," he admitted grudgingly as he studied her in turn. "But confound it, I liked those freckles!"

They had kept the air waves to Venusport humming during their confinement. There was the usual red tape to break, of course, but news of the power source was so menacing that New Washington finally agreed to the plan for a sub rosa test of strength--the Space Patrol against the Big Shot ship at a spot somewhere between the orbits of Earth and Venus.

"Now it's up to us," said Sadie as they packed for their trip north. "How does it feel to have your head in a lion's mouth?"

"What if we can't accomplish anything when we get on board?"

"Then we're not the hellraisers we think we are.... Of course S.P. can't lick 'em. It'll have to find a way of getting the drop on 'em.... Don't worry. It will only make you lose the rest of your hair."

* * * * *

Mike accompanied them on the supply plane which bore them toward the Pole. He was in a bad mood. "I shouldn't ought have done it," he groaned. "If they's been a leak.... If Hans gets suspicious about you two, we'll be burned down. Only thing in our favor is that they're desperately short of men up there."

The ship's ports were blacked out as she approached her destination. They had no chance to determine the route. Finally they knew that they had landed on water, but when they emerged that they were in a pressurized hangar which had submerged into a huge chamber drilled in solid rock.

"Shots?" barked Hans, surveying the prospective recruits when Mike ushered them into the scientist's severely plain office.

"No." The commandant squirmed. "They're Incors, but they'd sell their souls to make a stake."

"Incors! Always Incors!" The unhealed radium burn which covered the whole side of the huge man's face flamed an angry red. "I need some people up here that I can half-way trust. All these Incors you've been sending me are dangerous. Already I've smashed two of their plans to steal or smash the ship. What's the matter with you Shots? Yellow?"

"Now look here, Hans...."

"Yellow!" Hans whirled from Mike and glared at Frank.

"You're an astrogator, they tell me. We can use you if you're not lying."

"Dave ..." Frank began.

"That's enough. We don't use last names up here. And you!" His one good eye examined Sadie as if she were a bug. "Nurse, eh? Know anything about radiation burns?"

"I was in the uranium mines, sir."

"Good. Your job's to help the doctors keep me on my feet a few months longer. Haven't time to die just yet."

"How the _Champ_?" Mike changed the unpleasant subject.

"Just back from a swing beyond Jupiter." The big man's face lighted up for the first time. "What a ship! Had her up to three quarters light speed. She ran like a dream."

"Three quarters light speed," Frank gasped. "That's around one hundred and forty thousand miles per second."

"She'd have done better, except that we started having some kind of eye trouble ... sort of like seeing double. A damned queer feeling, I tell you. Gives you the screaming meemies.... Well," he came back to normal, "thanks for bringing me an astrogator, Mike. When do we move?"

"As soon as the Boss sets a date with New Washington."

"I'll be ready." Hans escorted Mike to the door, then growled at the recruits: "Come along. I'll show you your quarters. You won't need them much; we work sixteen hour shifts here ... and I mean work!"

* * * * *

Frank spent the next month in a fever of toil. Hans was a slavedriver who enforced discipline on Shots and Incors alike, even though he had to break heads to do so. All life in the spacious undersea laboratory revolved around the thousand-foot-long, comb-shaped vessel which rested on its cradle beneath a dome reaching almost to the surface of the ocean. Within her silver skin lay the crooked aspirations of Wildoatia.

"Look at her," the leader crooned on one occasion. (Frank had been given a clean bill by Security and was being taken on an inspection trip.) "She'll reach Far Centaurus some day ... but I won't be on her." He caressed the bulging stern plates. "In here is a standard set of peroxide jets to take her through atmosphere. I hate the clumsy things. Wish I had time left to solve that problem of radiating heat from a compact pile when it's not operating in space.... Look up there!" They craned their necks, as at a skyscraper. "That battery of rockets projecting from what is now her side uses the new fuel. She travels broadside on after blast-off."

They took an elevator to the control room amidships.

"Designed the equipment myself." Hans beamed at the banks of quadrants, verniers and sky-encompassing viewplates. "Five years of hard work it took ... to pay off United Stars for this burn!"

They toured the engine room where a compact, heavily shielded pile stood ready to change tall stacks of pig iron ingots into unlimited power. Then they inspected the comfortable crew's quarters.

"What about armament, sir," Frank probed at last.

"There are guided missiles which can seek and find targets thousands of miles away. They can be equipped with either fission or disintegrating war heads. Both go dead after a certain period; can't have a disintegrator bumping into some planet and blowing it sky high. For really high speed operations, guided missiles won't be much good, of course, except in a stern chance. Then we'll depend mainly on the mine fields we spread behind us. Come on. Might as well show you the stuff." He started down an odd companionway which had steps both on one wall and on the floor. Then he staggered and leaned heavily against a bulkhead.

"Better go get that cursed nurse," he panted. "This burn...."

Frank found Sadie in the hospital and hurried her toward the ship.

"How long will the Old Man keep going?" he asked.

"A month or so, if he's careful.... I hope the Patrol stalls a bit."

"Then what?" He took a chance on patting her hand.

"We may get our chance. The Second is a dope."

"Have you made any contact with that Underground agent?"

"Not a chance. Hans has spy rays rigged up everywhere."

"Same here. Well, keep your funny chin up, Sadie.... There's your patient.... And try to get more rest; you look peaked."

They found Hans walking blindly in a circle, gave him a sedative and helped him back to his room. Then they parted silently with a quick handclasp.

* * * * *

Frank went back to plotting orbits to every planet and satellite, as well as perfecting combat maneuvers. His math was rusty, so he spent long hours at his desk and found little time to make friendships with his shipmates to be. The other technicians were also a hardworking lot, far different from the roistering Big Shots who ran the planet. Hans had handpicked them and they were wise, ambitious and hard ... driven by a grim selfishness which made the astrogator quail. When, for self-protection, Sage aped their mannerisms and ways of thinking, he found himself growing as viciously efficient as a crouching tiger.

The only real acquaintance he made, among that crowd of automatons, was the foppish son of an Argentine who had escaped from the debacle which struck his country during the Atomic War. His name was Carlos and he warmed slightly when he found that Frank had picked up his beloved ... and outmoded ... Spanish language while working on the Sahara project. Carlos was second in command and obviously dreamed of supplanting Hans. He was a complete egomaniac. But Frank could discern no outward disloyalty to Wildoatia.

Of course the patrolman discussed the details of his work with half a dozen technicians, but the person he warmed to was one of the few women in the lab. She was a radar operator who had been cashiered from a mail packet for some disgraceful episode on Mars. Blonde and good-looking in a stocky way, she answered to the name of Greta, wore her harness with an air, swore like a trooper, smoked cigars, drove her subordinates until they dropped, and worshipped money as her only God. For some reason she took a fancy to "Dave" and overlooked many of his early errors while damning others for less serious mistakes.

In other words, Frank found himself getting nowhere with his plan to sow dissension among the crew. As in early stages of the three great wars, they were frantically loyal to their brutal ideals and leaders. If there had been rivalry involved, the spacemen felt he might have accomplished something. This idea, plus a longing to look at Sadie, caused him to pay a visit to the director. The latter, now but a bloody caricature of himself, still maintained his iron rule from a hospital bed.

"Sir," he proposed, fixing his eyes on the nurse instead of on the thing propped up in bed, "I've found that the _Champ_ needs another trial run. Her controls aren't properly calibrated for close work among the planets."

"The devil you say!" Hans rose painfully on one elbow. "I calibrated them myself."

"There's an error of half a degree in the...."

"I know, dumbkopf. It won't bother us when we move against those S. P. tubs. Leave well enough alone; I can't make such a trip again. And I don't trust a single one of you congenital doublecrossers out of my sight. Now get back to work. I'm busy." He turned almost blindly to a mass of bloodstained papers spread over the bed.

6

A week later the word spread like lightning through the lab. Hans had died, screaming. His screams were not due to pain. (Radiation burns are almost painless.) They were torn out of him by the knowledge that he could not live to direct the test of strength with United Stars. The cream of the jest was that, as the director breathed his last, word was flashed from Nirvana that the duel would begin "somewhere in space" at 2400 sideral time, July 14--just three days away.

Carlos called a war council immediately after the funeral. Present were Fritz, previously the second mate; the radiation-scarred chief engineer; two shifty-eyed deck officers; Greta, and Frank.

"I don't understand these orders," the Spaniard raged, twisting his moustache as if trying to tear it out by the roots. "They tell me to blast off at 2400, but they don't name the battle area. This is another New Washington trick. Do they expect me to search the universe for those confounded Space Patrol tubs?"

"The S.P. ships have just about enough range to get from the Moon to Venus, or vice versa," Fritz volunteered. "They carry very little air. We can cruise around until they exhaust their supplies, then shoot 'em like ducks." He licked his thick lips.

"I can get a radar fix on them in no time," said Greta from within her cloud of cigar smoke. "Don't be disturbed, sir." Her eyes were cold.

"Oh!" Carlos struggled to hide his chagrin. "Dismissed. Get the ship ready for blast-off."

Shortly afterward, loudspeakers blared throughout the lab. Men ran in all directions. Food and other perishables not already aboard began to be loaded with hysterical speed.

At midnight on the fourteenth, the _Champ_ nosed her way through the watertight lock of her caisson, climbed like leviathan through the miledeep cloud layer of Venus and, dripping water from her splendid sides, leaped into the ebony sky. On the bridge, Carlos, Fritz, Frank and Greta crouched over their instruments as the shadowy planet sank beneath them. Frank's heart was throbbing as he sought wildly for some method of stopping the invincible monster. He could shoot Carlos.... He could jam the throttle.... He could.... A glance at four robot-like soldiers who guarded the doors showed him the impossibility of doing anything whatsoever; he was trapped.

"She's running perfectly, sir," intoned Fritz, his water-blue eyes fixed on the leaping indicators. "Peroxides working perfectly. Approaching speed of sound."

"Sonic it is, mister." Carlos' voice shook ever so slightly. As if in answer, the _Champ_ shook, too, as she hit the turbulence. They clung to their padded seats for a moment as she rolled and plunged, then relaxed as the barrier was pierced and the thinning atmosphere whined more and more faintly along her sides.

"Stratosphere clear," Frank sang out. "On orbit."

"Hard fix on the Moon, sir." This from Greta.

"On orbit. Radar fix on the Moon. Get set for turnover." Carlos slid the throttle quadrant forward. Bells jangled throughout the hull. Like a seal the ship obeyed her helm. The bulkhead, on which they were seated, slowly became the left wall of the control room while the true floor assumed its rightful place and their chairs swivelled automatically. Otherwise, except for the shift of stars outside the ports, they scarcely knew that the _Champ_ had attained broadside-on position.

"Space drive position," called Fritz. "Cut peroxides."

"Peroxides cut." The commander's hands flew over the controls. "Atomics warming up."

* * * * *

There was a moment when they were weightless and oddly uncomfortable, as though falling from a great height. Then they returned to normal with the first faint pulse of the new drive. Beneath their feet, translucent ports in the floor turned ruddy, then blazed with an unholy, growing splendor.

"One microsecond deviation from orbit." This from Frank.

Carlos made a quick adjustment. The telltale on the softly-glowing sky chart centered itself.

"On orbit," the astrogator amended.

"On orbit it is!" The perspiring Commander smoothed his rumpled hair and nervously adjusted his moustache. "Take over, mister. We've half an hour before the tubes are hot enough to start revving up to speed. I must inspect the ship. Come on, Dave."

They found the decks in shining order, with each crew member standing stiffly at his post. The only damage from turnover had been a slight shift in a secondary radar antenna caused by a backdraft from one of the stern jets.

"Greta and I can fix that, sir," Frank suggested.

The operator appeared, swearing her usual blue streak, after Carlos called her on the intercom. The profanity still burned Frank's ears through his helmet mike after they had wriggled into bulky spacesuits, attached tools to hooks on their belts and clumped to an airlock.

"All right, lubbers," the Amazon snarled through the open face plate of her helmet at crewmen assigned to operate the door. "Get the lead outa yer pants. Open 'er up."

With hatred in their eyes, the others leaped to obey. The inner door clanged shut. As the pressure dropped, their articulated suits expanded with loud pops. Moments later, the outer door slid away and they clambered up an iron ladder and onto the hull. Their breath spurting into space as jets of ice particles, they used magnetized shoes and gloves to creep like beetles along the smoothly welded plates.

As they worked together at the tedious repair a project began to form in Frank's mind. Perhaps it was the giddy reeling of the heavens about the ship. Perhaps the compressed air he breathed was too rich in oxygen. Whatever the cause, he reached the blinding conclusion that Greta must be the Underground's Agent 542.

It all fitted together. She had a key position on board; she had been kind to him. Now they were outside the ship and out of range of the spy rays. Here was his chance....

"Greta," he whispered through the intercom.

"Yeh?" Her helmet swivelled toward him.

At that moment all hell broke loose!

Up from the Venusian cloud blanket only a few miles below spurted a shower of golden sparks. All else forgotten, he blinked at them while his heart began pounding. They could only be ... they were the little globular ships of the Space Patrol. Travelling at four or five G's--much faster than the speed which the _Champ_ had yet attained--they started closing in. Ahead of them, he knew, would be probing their fission torpedoes.

"Smart!" He heard Greta's voice in his ears. "I've got to hand it to 'em." She started scrabbling toward the airlock, cursing bitterly.

"Not smart enough," he answered, his heart sinking. "The _Champ_ will accelerate and escape them within a few minutes. Then she'll circle and...."

"That's what you think, bud. Feel the hull."

* * * * *

Carlos was well aware of the danger, evidently. The great ship strained and heaved under them. Almost at Frank's feet a plate started its seams. The truth struck him like a blow. The _Champ_ was not built for close quarters maneuvering. Her mass was so great ... her skeleton was relatively so weak ... that she was physically incapable of dodging the flexible patrol boats. And, since her tubes were still comparatively cool, she did not have the power to outdistance them.

"Come on S.P. Come on, you sons of guns," he whooped, staggering to his feet as a torpedo caromed into one of the _Champ's_ jets and glanced off to explode harmlessly several miles away.

"You stinking Pumper!" He ducked as the words ripped through the phone. The bullet meant for his brain whined against the side of his helmet. "Luring me out here when I shoulda been gettin' a fix...."

There was no time to shift his shoes. He flung himself sidewise and just managed to grab the radar operator's wrist as she fired again.

The gun spiralled into darkness and they were fighting breast to breast.

Greta was strong as an ox; she got a grip on his air hose and wrenched at the connection. He jammed an elbow into her well padded solar plexus. As she relaxed with a grunt he reached down and tore her magnetized boots from the skin of the ship.

"Now, my lady...."

She smashed her helmet down upon his in an effort to break its glass front and suffocate him. With all his remaining strength he untangled her arms from his neck and hurled her into space. A scream rattled his earphones ... died slowly into silence!

Fighting for breath, he clung to the hull and gave his attention to the battle. A suicide dive by the nearest patrol boat ripped two more blazing tubes from the _Champ's_ side. A lucky torp struck amidships, boring completely through the _Champ_ and then driving on for several miles before exploding.... Those warheads must have deteriorated, he thought bitterly.

Nevertheless the _Champ_ was hurt, and hurt badly. But she was still accelerating. And she was beginning to fight back.

A torpedo tube twenty feet away swivelled and belched a wicked fish. Moments later a patrol ship disappeared in a flash which temporarily blinded the watcher.

That had been only a fission torp, he knew. But what if that crazy Carlos decided to chance one of the new disintegrators? A hit on one of the attackers would destroy the whole fleet. On the other hand, a miss.... As his sight returned he stared down at Venus in growing horror. If Hans had been right, a miss would explode the planet and might make the whole solar system go Nova!

He edged back toward the airlock with frantic, sobbing speed. As he pounded for attention with a spanner, he looked over his shoulder. The attackers were nearer, but they seemed to be slowing. Why? What was the matter with the fools? Then he realized that they were moving as fast as ever but that the _Champ_ was picking up speed. A few more minutes and she would be out of range.

The outer door closed behind him at last. Air pressure came up to normal. Then the inner door opened to admit him into pandemonium.

He flipped open his face plate, but shut it at once. This was the compartment punctured by the unexploded torp and most of its air was gone. Men screamed thinly and tore at their throats. Others were struggling into spacesuits. A handful were trying to patch the leaks. As he looked, one of the latter was sucked through the rent into space.

Cursing his twenty pound shoes, he pounded toward the control room, gun in hand. He had to stop Carlos.... Had to.... Had to.... He reeled through the door at last ... and skidded to a stop!

Fritz stood there, straddling the body of his captain. His smoking automatic was holding the rattled sentries at bay.

The gun centered on the newcomer's heart.

"I'm Captain Sage, S.P.," Frank yelled. It was a long chance.

"Right!" Fritz shot a charging sentry through the head. The others turned and fled. "I just stopped Carlos in time. Get over to that radio. Tell 'em we surrender. And then," he added as an afterthought, "go back outside and bring Greta in. The _Champ's_ mass has pulled her back to the hull. Saw her peeking through the blister a minute ago. She looked about ready to burst a bloodvessel with fury."

* * * * *

They found Sadie holding forth in style when they finally managed to jockey the crippled ex-_Champ_ back into its caisson. The girl had broken out cases of traskette and she led the Incors of the lab staff in making the half-hundred S.P. men welcome when they trooped in, grinning like the youngsters they were.

"The harder they fall!" she chortled. "Just hit the big fellows before they get their feet planted, my dad always said."

"But how?... When?..." Frank stared at her blankly.

"I took over this joint soon as we heard the _Champ_ surrendered. Mike has thrown in the towel. The war's over, so drink hearty. And there are steaks on the fire."

"Don't drink too hearty." Frank swept her pliant body into his arms, thankful that it, at least, was familiar. "I don't want to waste a minute hunting up that plastic surgeon so he can give you back that pug nose and those freckles."