Chapter II

Before dawn Thorne stood quietly on the airport basin, hands buried in the fur of his lined white jacket. As he gave the attentive stewards last-minute instructions for the care of his own space-ship, _Warrior_, lying in her berth not far away, he watched for his own party. Faint lines troubled his forehead.

A thin, gnawing premonition tugged at his brain. Something was wrong with the picture afforded him by Wheelwright. While admitting Iris Chanler's light spirits could mislead younger men than the crusty old General, Thorne had caught a deeper glimpse of the strength and determination beneath the lovely facade.

She came swiftly across the marbled plastic of the drome, her chattering party trailing her in a glittering swarm. Blood-scarlet in a short, daring jacket laced with white and gold, she struck lightly at his immobile arm.

"You Mars-men! Do you sleep?"

"The locks must be cleared for the Venus run within an hour," he shrugged. "The Lines wait for no one, not even estimable folk such as ourselves."

She presented him swiftly to her party, a gay, light-hearted parcel of touring socialites burdened far more with gold than either character or intellect. But he was welcomed pleasantly enough. While mere wealth might have lifted haughty lips, the stupendous weight of his tremendous fortune crushed all barriers and reserve. Nor was he less in his habit than the gayest, a blaze of green and gold beneath the ermine fur. His boots were sheerest silver. Yet though the heavy gun belted at his thigh was crusted with gold, the ball and slides of the weapon were cold blue steel.

Iris Chanler, however, noted that he was wearing it, and wearing it low. When she rallied him on the precaution, he only smiled grimly.

"You may clothe a desert rat in cloth of gold, Iris," he countered. "But you cannot strip him of his Blandarc." He gestured toward her friends, each with the short ceremonial sword demanded by Martian custom. "Beautiful, but useless."

"Were they made for use?" She laughed. "On whom?"

"You might be wondering," he replied. "In your position. Holding the purse-strings of the Planet Patrol, you should fetch a thrifty ransom."

Her laughter was a beautiful thing to hear.

Her friends, crowding around as the party moved on the vessel they had decided to take passage on, cut him off from any deeper reply. Her yacht being under repair, they had been forced to content themselves with a regular interplanetary trading ship, and in the regulations and formalities of the take-off and acceleration he had no further opportunity for speech with his charge, save at the table. But the evening broadcast, a lurid melodrama of the skyways, gave him better cause to further his mission.

She herself brought up the subject, the starlight gleaming on the white syhthtic of her long, pearl-strewn gown, no whiter than the sleek bare leg revealed by the deep V-split in the side of the skirt. Gold sparkled on her sandals and on Thorne's white tunic. The bloody moonstones throbbed sullenly on his broad chest.

"What fools we are," she said abruptly, pausing at the long dural-port of the gallery to stare out across the inky night at the gorgeous sparkle of mighty suns and distant stars winking in the velvety blackness. "Watching a childish sport on a paper screen when this is passing all unnoticed."

"They never tire," he agreed, leaning beside her, the star-shine harsh on his features. "Only we change, passing farther and farther each year into the distance out there. Someday we shall see those suns."

"Not you nor I." Her voice was low.

"Only the stars are immortal." He looked down at her. "We content ourselves with lesser things." She looked at him, then walked slowly on, not speaking.

* * * * *

The long days passed. Hard, rough games provided exercise and amusement, since on these shorter runs between the inner planets and asteroids no suspended animation was necessary. The women were frankly predatory, nor did the men care to antagonize Thorne.

But he was better armed than even General Wheelwright had expected. Women had been no mystery to him since his sudden fortune, nor subservient men with sullen eyes. What the wise and kindly Martian fishermen with whom he had spent his outcast days had not taught him, the attentions of eager parasites had supplied. He was not lightly deceived.

So he entered into the games with frank and open zest, overthrowing the men and being thrown, kissing the women when necessary, and oftener, keeping both victory and defeat light with laughter. He did not seek out Iris, nor challenge her, but when it came to kissing her in the course of one of the Venusian games these cosmopolites had brought with them, he kissed her with considerable enjoyment and found himself being kissed promptly in return. It was a very pleasant voyage and he sincerely regretted that the time was at hand when he must divert it to the approaching asteroid dot known only as Banya Tor. He had not seen what lay there awaiting them, but he had seen other human wreckage left along the star-ways by the wolf packs raiding interspacial shipping. It would not be a pleasant finale.

Iris and Thorne stood the morning of the fifth day out from Mars at a port in the small pilot cabin with two or three others of their party, oblivious to the ill-concealed resentment of the officers on duty. From the corner of his eye he noted the first tremulous quiver of the directo-bar and his lips twitched. The game had begun.

Casually he herded the laughing young people from the cabin on the pretext of a fencing match already pre-arranged in anticipation of the expected attack. Andrews, his opponent, was a good blade and the match drew most of the party and crew off-duty, as he had intended. The two ships coming up fast astern would be Bannerman's faked pirates and he intended their attack to lose no point in surprise to those for whom the effect was being staged. To insure it, he slyly broke the wires leading to the standard directo-gauge as they crowded noisily out of the cramped little room. Once Bannerman's ships were near enough to be spotted by the visual scanner, the slow passenger ship could never hope to evade the planned attack.

Less than thirty minutes later the brazen clamor of a bugle split the air of the lower deck where Thorne and Andrews were deftly matching blades before a shouting crowd. The silence that instantly dropped was broken by the glacial clang of alarm bells from end to end of the stubby little liner.

"Battle stations!" shouted Thorne, snatching up his gun belt from Iris. He seized her hand and bounded from the enclosed hall amidst the yelping pack pouring up the companions, snatching whatever weapons lay to hand. But the sight that met their eyes as they emerged upon the saloon deck, panelled with Vinite, struck the brashest of them dumb on the instant.

Fanned out to either side of the racing liner, two sleek grey racers of fast, if obsolescent design, whirled silently through the void. They bore a red sun on needle prows.

"You wanted adventure," Thorne dryly chided Iris. Her deep breast heaved and her hands were clenched, but there was no fear in her beautiful face.

"I wanted life," she retorted, flashing him a glance of impatience.

"This is Death," he replied grimly.

"They liven our trip," she laughed, seizing his arm. "We've been dead since leaving Earth, you Mars-crawler. I could kiss them!"

Thorne laughed aloud, flinging an arm about her. "They may afford you the opportunity, you scatter-brain," he returned. "We have no armament."

"All ships carry toss-mines today," she snapped.

"They are already abreast of us," he pointed out. "They're calling the Patrol by now, of course."

"The Patrol!" she scoffed. "Shiny ships and sleepy men! Rather an honest pirate than a butter-brain in black and gold!"

Her open sneer cut short as from the nearer of the ships drawing closer and closer abeam sprang a pink glow and a stabbing beam of golden yellow to reach out and gently tap the liner.

It rocked under the impact of the force beam and the steady, drumming roar of the engines broke unevenly. The beam snapped off, but the engines sputtered and gasped, throwing the vessel off course. Again the yellow beam lanced out, crushing the tall stern fans and sending the liner staggering drunkenly. Futile in her agony, she launched the tiny throw mines which were her only armament, but the sleek raiders easily avoided their slow trajectories. The throbbing engines were gasping and barking as the vessel rolled on her uneven course.

Metallic voices broke the frightened silence in which the huddled passengers watched the unequal combat. Over the intercom pilots spoke sharply: "Stand by. Patrol ship within sight, coming up fast. Hold your positions."

* * * * *

Even as they cried out in relief, the attacking ships suddenly arced upward and swung away toward Venus, their fiery wakes a long trail of incandescent crystal in the inky void. Their parting shots missed the liner as she swerved on a new course to avoid just such vengeful rage, and a moment later they were lost among the sparkling stars. A sleek cruiser of the Planet Patrol swept by far astern, angling to cut off the fleeing pirates, but already too far away to more than frighten them from the prey they had already accounted theirs.

A joyous babble of voices broke out as the passengers reacted from their scared immobility. The liner was limping badly but not structurally damaged, and with that assurance the light butterflies aboard relaxed into their earlier gayety.

Iris Chanler, however, did not seem to so easily recover from the brief flurry of adventure which she had so ardently applauded. She was all Senator, and spoke with sharp feeling on the subject of the Planet Patrol and its many and manifest shortcomings. So outspokenly angry did she become that Thorne almost hesitated to continue the planned routine, fearing to drive her through sudden shock into outright denunciation of a service which apparently could not prevent such hideous tragedies as lay ahead on Banya Tor. Wise in women, he made no effort to counter her fury, nor point out that if the Planet Patrol was undermanned and ill equipped, she had no one to blame but her own parsimonious father, "Scrooge" Chanler. He wondered uneasily if the scowling old miser had indeed returned in the more attractive guise of the lovely daughter.

When she learned the liner's rocket tubes had been so damaged she could not proceed to Triton, but must put in at the nearby asteroid of Banya Tor, she exploded furiously. Thorne blandly pointed out that this was merely a minor inconvenience in the romantic interlude of the pirates and all but had his head taken off for his pains. Her revulsion seemed complete, but he determined to continue the plan in which the faked attack had only been intended as a means of diverting the ship to Banya Tor without arousing her suspicion when she found what horror she had been led to witness. The iron was hot and he must strike quickly before her natural light-heartedness overcame her frightened wrath.

It was a race against time, for they were still two days out of Banya Tor the following evening and she had apparently recovered. As a lark, she and the other girls had taken over the galley and prepared the evening meal for all hands. It had been a surprising success and they were relaxing with music in the inner saloon when Iris rejoined them.

Switching from domesticity with her usual flare, she was enticingly cased in a long black evening gown sweeping to the polished floor. A cluster of Mercurian fire stars blazed on her deep bosom and there were others netted in the rippling waves of her dark hair. She brushed aside the attentions of her party and came to Thorne, sitting in the front row of the little group facing a blonde girl seated before them with a miniature oval instrument on which she evoked sharp, wild music foreign to any he had ever heard. Seeing his absorption, Iris settled in a lounge a little to his rear. He nodded, but did not speak.

From his place, he could see the deserted outer saloon and the wheeling circles of the passing stars. He paid no attention, however, concentrating on the lovely player before the silent group. But, as he glanced again through the parted leaves of the inner doorway, he froze in sudden horror.

The huge bulk of a space-ship, blotting out the stars, was already upon them.

Its ports glowed suddenly red, as though with internal explosions, and a wide cone of golden light sprang from her prow to envelope the unsuspecting liner. Too late Thorne remembered he had not replaced the broken wires activating the directo-beam and the regular crew had apparently not discovered the damage. And the black ship rushing upon them was already not a thousand feet away.

Thorne's warning shout was never uttered. As the golden ray struck, the room was livid with its sudden glare, then dark and sullen red.

The girl with the musical instrument, cutoff in midflight, bowed stiffly forward and fell heavily to the floor at his feet. Her accompanist swayed sideways and toppled like a wooden doll from his low seat. A cold chill bit into Thorne, numbing him from neck to heels, but leaving his brain only too clear. Sodden thuds behind him as members of the Chanler party fell to the floor only confirmed his dread. If it were not the Avitt paralysis, it was a starker ray he had never known. A more dreadful fear which had been nagging at his subconscious for days bit deep and, as he turned his head with painful slowness, came to horror-stricken realization.

"Be silent, Captain Thorne," came a cold hard voice. "No sound, or you die."

It was the voice of Iris Chanler.