Beyond the Point of Unknown (Space Travel & Alien Contact Novels). Ray Cummings
had posted a notice to the effect that Johnson's accounts had been found in serious error, and that Dr. Frank for this voyage would act in his stead.
* * * * *
It was near midnight when Snap and I closed and sealed the radio room and started for the chart room, where we were to meet with Captain Carter and the other officers. The passengers had nearly all retired. A game was in progress in the smoking room, but the deck was almost deserted.
Snap and I were passing along one of the interior corridors. The stateroom doors were all closed. The metal grid of the floor echoed our footsteps. Snap was in advance of me. His body suddenly rose in the air. He went like a balloon to the ceiling, struck it gently, and all in a heap came floating down and landed on the floor!
"What in the infernal—"
He was laughing as he picked himself up. But it was a brief laugh. We knew what had happened: the artificial gravity controls in the base of the ship, which by magnetic force gave us normality aboard, were being tampered with! For just this instant, this particular small section of this corridor had been cut off. The slight bulk of the Planetara, floating in space, had no appreciable gravity pull on Snap's body, and the impulse of his step as he came to the unmagnetized area of the corridor had thrown him to the ceiling. The area was normal now. Snap and I tested it gingerly.
He gripped me. "That never went wrong by accident, Gregg! Someone—"
We rushed to the nearest descending ladder. In the deserted lower room the bank of dials stood neglected. A score of dials and switches were here, governing the magnetism of different areas of the ship. There should have been a night operator, but he was gone.
Than we saw him lying nearby, sprawled, face down on the floor! In the silence and dim, lurid glow of the fluorescent tubes, we stood holding our breaths, peering and listening. No one here.
The guard was not dead. He lay unconscious from a blow on the head. A brawny fellow. We had him revived in a few moments. A broadcast flash of the call buzz brought Dr. Frank from the chart room.
"What's the matter?"
"Someone was here," I said hastily, "experimenting with the magnetic switches. Evidently unfamiliar with them—pulling one or another to test their workings and so see their reactions on the dials."
We told him what had happened to Snap in the corridor; the guard here was no worse off for the episode, save a lump on the head by an invisible assailant. We left him nursing his head, sitting belligerent at his post, alert to any danger and armed now with my heat-ray cylinder.
"Strange doings this voyage," he told us. "All the crew knows it. I'll stick it out now, but when we get back home I'm done with this star travelin'. I belong on the sea anyway."
We hurried back to the upper level. We would indeed have to plan something at this chart room conference. This was the first tangible attack our adversaries had made.
We were on the passenger deck headed for the chart room when all three of us stopped short, frozen with horror. Through the silent passenger quarters a scream rang out! A girl's shuddering, gasping scream. Terror in it. Horror. Or a scream of agony. In the silence of the dully vibrating ship it was utterly horrible.... It lasted an instant—a single long scream; then was abruptly stilled.
And with blood pounding my temples and rushing like ice through my veins, I recognized it.
Anita!
CHAPTER IX.
"Good God, what was that?" Dr. Frank's face had gone white. Snap stood like a statue of horror.
The deck here was patched as always, with silver radiance from the deck ports. The empty deck chairs stood about. The scream was stilled, but now we heard a commotion inside—the rasp of opening cabin doors; questions from frightened passengers.
I found my voice. "Anita! Anita Prince!"
"Come on!" shouted Snap. "In her stateroom, A22!" He was dashing for the lounge archway.
Dr. Frank and I followed. I realized that we passed the deck door and window of A22. But they were dark, and evidently sealed on the inside. The dim lounge was in a turmoil; passengers standing at their cabin doors.
I shouted, "Go back to your rooms! We want order here—keep back!"
We came to the twin doors of A22 and A20. Both were closed. Dr. Frank was in advance of Snap and me now. He paused at the sound of Captain Carter's voice behind us.
"Was it from in there? Wait a moment!"
Carter dashed up. He had a large heat-ray projector in his hand. He shoved us aside. "Let me in first. Is the door sealed? Gregg, keep those passengers back!"
The door was not sealed. Carter burst into the room. I heard him gasp, "Good God!"
Snap and I shoved back three or four passengers. And in that instant Dr. Frank had been in the room and out again.
"There's been an accident! Get back, Gregg! Snap, help me keep the crowd away." He shoved me forcibly.
From within, Carter was shouting, "Keep them out! Where are you, Frank? Come back here! Send a flash for Balch!"
Dr. Frank went back into the room and banged the cabin door upon Snap and me. I was unarmed. Weapon in hand, Snap forced the panic-stricken passengers back to their rooms.
Snap reassured them glibly; but he knew no more about the facts than I. Moa, with a nightrobe drawn tight around her thin, tall figure, edged up to me.
"What has happened, Set Haljan?"
I gazed around for her brother Miko, but did not see him.
"An accident," I said shortly. "Go back to your room. Captain's orders."
She eyed me and then retreated. Snap was threatening everybody with his cylinder. Balch dashed up. "What in hell! Where is Carter?"
"In there." I pounded on A22. It opened cautiously. I could see only Carter, but I heard the murmuring voice of Dr. Frank through the interior connecting door to A20.
The Captain rasped, "Get out, Haljan! Oh, is that you, Balch? Come in." He admitted the older officer and slammed the door upon me again. And immediately reopened it.
"Gregg, keep the passengers quieted. Tell them everything's all right. Miss Prince got frightened—that's all. Then go to the turret. Tell Blackstone what's happened."
"But I don't know what's happened."
Carter was grim and white. He whispered, "I think it may turn out to be murder, Gregg! No, not dead yet.... Dr. Frank is trying ... don't stand there like an ass, man. Get to the turret! Verify our trajectory—no—wait...."
The Captain was almost incoherent. "Wait a minute. I don't mean that! Tell Snap to watch his radio room. Arm yourselves and guard our weapons."
I stammered, "If ... if she dies ... will you flash us word?"
He stared at me strangely. "I'll be there presently, Gregg."
He slammed the door upon me.
I followed his orders but it was like a dream of horror. The turmoil of the ship gradually quieted. Snap went to the radio room; Blackstone and I sat in the tiny chart room; how much time passed, I do not know. I was confused. Anita hurt! She might die ... murdered.... But why? By whom? Had George Prince been in his own room when the attack came? I thought now I recalled hearing the low murmur of his voice in there with Dr. Frank.
Where was Miko? It stabbed at me. I had not seen him among the passengers in the lounge.
Carter came into the chart room. "Gregg, you get to bed. You look like a ghost."
"But—"
"She's not dead. She may