Beyond the Point of Unknown (Space Travel & Alien Contact Novels). Ray Cummings

      CHAPTER XII.

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      I was taken wholly by surprise. There was an instant when I stood numbed, fumbling for a weapon at my belt, undecided whether to run or stand my ground. Miko was no more than twenty feet from me. He checked his forward rush. The light from an overhead tube was on him: I saw in his hand the cylinder projector of his paralyzing ray.

      I plucked my heat cylinder from my belt, and fired without taking aim. My tiny heat beam flashed. I must have grazed Miko's hand. His roar of anger and pain rang out over the turmoil. He dropped his weapon; then stooped to pick it up. But Moa forestalled him. She leaped and seized it.

      "Careful! Fool, you promised not to harm him!"

      A confusion of swift action. Rankin had turned and darted away. I saw George Prince stumbling half in front of the struggling Miko and Moa. And I heard footsteps beside me. A hand gripped me, jerked at me.

      Over the turmoil, Prince's voice sounded: "Gregg Haljan!"

      I recall that I had the impression that Prince was frightened; he had half fallen in front of Miko. And there was Miko's voice: "Let go of me!"

      It was Balch gripping me. "Gregg! This way—run! Get out of here! He'll kill you with that ray!"

      Miko's ray flashed, but George Prince had knocked his arm. I did not dare fire again. Prince was in the way. Balch, who was unarmed, shoved me violently back.

      "Gregg! The chart room!"

      I turned and ran, with Balch after me. Prince had fallen or been felled by Miko. A flash followed me from Miko's weapon, but again it missed. He did not pursue me. Instead he ran the other way, through the portside door of the library.

      Balch and I found ourselves in the library. Shouting, frightened passengers were everywhere. The place was in wild confusion, the whole ship ringing now with shouts.

      "To the chart room, Gregg!"

      I called to the passengers, "Go back to your rooms!"

      I followed Balch. We ran through the archway to the deck. In the starlight I saw figures scurrying aft, but none were near us. The deck forward was dim with heavy shadows. The oval windows and door of the chart room were blue-yellow from the tube lights inside. No one seemed on the deck there. And then as we approached, I saw further forward in the bow, the trap door to the cage standing open. Johnson had been released.

      From one of the chart room windows a heat ray sizzled. It barely missed us. Balch shouted, "Carter—don't!"

      The Captain called, "Oh you, Balch—and Haljan—"

      He came out on the deck as we rushed up. His left arm was dangling limp.

      "God—this—" He got no further. From the turret overhead a tiny search beam came down and disclosed us. Blackstone was supposed to be on duty up there, with a course master at the controls. But, glancing up, I saw, illumined by the turret lights, the figure of Ob Hahn in his purple-white robe, and Johnson, the purser. And on the turret balcony, two fallen men—Blackstone and the course master.

      Johnson was training the spotlight on us. And Hahn fired a Martian ray. It struck Balch beside me. He dropped.

      Carter was shouting, "Inside—Gregg! Get inside!"

      I stopped to raise up Balch. Another beam came down. A heat ray this time. It caught the fallen Balch full on the chest, piercing him through. The smell of his burning flesh rose to sicken me. He was dead. I dropped his body. Carter shoved me into the chart room.

      In the small, steel-lined room, Carter and I slid the door closed. We were alone here. The thing had come so quickly it had taken Captain Carter, like us all, wholly unawares. We had anticipated spying eavesdroppers, but not this open brigandage. No more than a minute or two had passed since Miko's siren in his stateroom had given the signal for attack. Carter had been in the chart room. Blackstone was in the turret. At the outbreak of confusion, Carter dashed out to see Hahn releasing Johnson from the cage. From the forward chart room window now I could see where Hahn with a torch had broken the cage seal. The torch lay on the deck. There had been an exchange of shots; Carter's arm was paralyzed; Johnson and Hahn had escaped.

      Carter was as confused as I. There had simultaneously been an encounter up in the turret. Blackstone and the course master were killed. The lookout had been shot from his post in the forward observatory. The body dangled now, twisted half in and half out the window.

      We could see several of Miko's men—erstwhile members of our crew and steward corps—scurrying from the turret along the upper bridge toward the dark and silent radio room. Snap was up there. But was he? The radio room glowed suddenly with dim light, but there was no evidence of a fight there. The fighting seemed mostly below the deck, down in the hull corridors. A blended horror of sounds came up to us. Screams, shouts and the hissing and snapping of ray weapons. Our crew—such of them as were loyal—were making a stand below. But it was brief. Within a minute it died away. The passengers, amidships in the superstructure, were still shouting. Then above them Miko's roar sounded.

      "Be quiet! Go in your rooms—you will not be harmed."

      The brigands in these few minutes were in control of the ship. All but this little chart room, where, with most of the ship's weapons, Carter and I were entrenched.

      "God, Gregg, that this should come upon us!"

      Carter was fumbling with the chart room weapons. "Here, Gregg. Help me. What have you got? Heat ray? That's all I had ready."

      It struck me then as I helped him make the connections that Carter in this crisis was at best an inefficient commander. His red face had gone splotchy purple; his hands were trembling. Skilled as Captain of a peaceful liner, he was at a loss now. But I could not blame him. It is easy to say we might have taken warning, done this or that, and come triumphant through the attack. But only the fool looks backward and says, "I would have done better."

      I tried to summon my wits. The ship was lost to us unless Carter and I could do something. Our futile weapons! They were all here—four or five heat ray hand projectors that could send a pencil ray a hundred feet or so. I shot one diagonally up at the turret where Johnson was leering down at our rear window, but he saw my gesture and dropped back out of sight. The heat beam flashed harmlessly up and struck the turret room. Then across the turret window came a sheen of radiance—an electrobarrage. And behind it, Hahn's suave, evil face appeared. He shouted down:

      "We have orders to spare you, Gregg Haljan—or you would have been killed long ago!"

      My answering shot hit his barrage with a shower of sparks, behind which he stood unmoved.

      Carter