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Title: Buccaneer of the Star Seas
Author: Ed Earl Repp
Release Date: April 9, 2020 [EBook #61794]
Language: English
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BUCCANEER OF THE STAR SEAS
By Ed EARL REPP
"... and thou shalt be immortal!" Such was the
curse of that 13th Century sorcerer. Now Carlyle
roamed the uncharted star-seas, seeking Death
as he sought the richly-laden derelicts in that
sargossa of long-vanished space-galleons.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Fall 1940.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
An unpleasant shudder went through Thaddeus Carlyle as the great iron
door thundered behind him. Reading Gaol's raw, damp atmosphere seemed
to settle into his bones. Hobbling on rheumatic legs, the aged turnkey
preceded him down the vaulted stone corridor.
"'Tis the first time my key has disturbed Friar Bacon's lock these six
months," his grumbling voice came to Carlyle's ears. "Plagued few they
are that visit the roguish priest. Not even the canon comes now, to
exhort him to renounce his black magic."
Thaddeus Carlyle's dark eyes flamed with quick interest. "Then he
practices still these works of the devil?" he queried softly.
The turnkey stopped, his narrowed eyes mirroring fearful thoughts. With
his crooked forefinger he tapped the young nobleman's gold-cloth tabard.
"Only last month he asked for brimstone, charcoal and niter. We gave
him the stuff, seeing no harm. A week ago, as I am passing his cell,
there was a great flash and roar. The devil's powders had exploded as
steam bursts a tight-lidded vessel! He carries still the marks of a
burn."
"No!" Carlyle's smooth features were blank. "Fire--from such stuff as
that?"
"That's not all, my Lord. Friar Bacon tells me that if we would give
him enough of the stuff and a long tube, he could throw an iron ball
across the Thames!"
Turning away with a crafty nod and a meaningful blink, the turnkey led
on to the mean little cell in which Roger Bacon had now spent nine
years. The visitor was openly affected by the jailer's incredulous
story. He had heard strange and terrible things of the Gray Friar. The
church, in incarcerating him, had accused him of consorting with the
devil. Some whispered that he had learned the secret of immortality.
That was the rumor which had brought Thaddeus Carlyle, the second Lord
Monfort, into the gloomy confines of Reading Gaol.
The lock scraped shrilly as the jailer turned it. Throwing the heavy
door open, he grinned: "Lucky for him you came, my Lord! In another
month this lock should have been rusted past turning. Then Friar Bacon
would have been forever without hope!"
"Have I, indeed, such hope now?" a soft and gloomy voice inquired.
The turnkey merely winked at the nobleman and hobbled off.
Carlyle was suddenly seized by panic. Now that he was so close to the
notorious philosopher, fear smote him and he was on the point of
turning back. Yet, ridden by an even greater fear, he stiffened his
purpose and advanced. Closing the door, he stared at the white-bearded
man seated before a great calfskin-bound book on a ponderous table.
"What hast thou with me, young man?" demanded Roger Bacon, peering
shrewdly from under ragged brows.
"Only the admiration of an ignorant man for a very learned one," said
Thaddeus Carlyle simply.
Bacon's eyes misted. Precious years of his waning life had he spent in
prison because there was no man to say such a thing before.
"You--you do not believe what they say of me, that I consort with
Satan?" he queried. "That my science and my secrets are Lucifer's?"
"Well--as to that," said Carlyle, his confidence returning, "I am again
the ignorant one. Where you get your knowledge I neither know nor care.
I only know that your learning is great ... and that that learning can
help me!"
* * * * *
The Gray Friar wagged his head wonderingly. His eyes went over
Thaddeus. He saw a strapping young man over six feet in height, with a
muscular development such as came only from constant participation in
the strenuous contests popular among the nobility. His skin was brown
as leather, burned, Bacon reckoned, by hot Oriental suns during the
last Crusade. He saw a man whose rich clothing spoke of a fat purse.
And he was asked to help him--he, who could not help himself!
"Who are you, young man?" he asked, at last.
"Thaddeus Carlyle, the second Lord Monfort," was the reply.
"A noble--!" Bacon murmured. "But you--you jest with me!"
"Not so!" Carlyle threw a leg across the corner of the table and peered
earnestly into the monk's face. "You are old and wise, Friar Bacon.
Perhaps you do not know the fear of death. I do! Always it is with me,
haunting my pleasures, disturbing my sleep--Fear of growing old and
toothless, of losing my strength--of dying as helpless as the day I was
born!"
"But how can I help you?" frowned Bacon. "All men must face that fear."
"But not as I know it! I, who have so much to make life worth the
living." Thaddeus rubbed his sweaty palms on his velvet-clad thighs,
his brown young face set. Abruptly, he blurted: "They say you possess
the secret of immortality, Friar. Is that true?"
"They say many things of me," muttered the philosopher.
Carlyle leaned toward him. "That doesn't answer my question," he
snapped. "I have heard that you added twenty years to your own life by
magic!"
Bacon stared strangely at him. "You believe that I could save you from
death?"
"Implicitly!" Carlyle replied. "If you wished to!"
* * * * *
For the first time, Bacon stirred from the chair. His eyes flashed
briefly to a brass-bound chest, near his pallet of straw. Then he
stopped with his back to the wall, staring at the young nobleman.
"But even if I could do this--!" he frowned. "You do not know what
immortality means. Perhaps it would be worse than death!"
"If so, I could easily put an end to my immortality," retorted the
other.
Roger Bacon did not speak for long seconds. Then: "They speak true of
me. I do possess this secret. But to release it would mean one more
atom of misery thrown upon the world."
With his first words, Thaddeus had hunched forward, teeth shining
behind drawn lips, eyes glittering. "Has the world been good to you?"
he shot at him. "Do you owe it any consideration?"
"None," the Gray Friar muttered. "Tell me; what month is this?"
"November, Friar," the younger man replied frowningly.
"November!"
In Bacon's mournful syllables lay all the bitter coldness of the winter
itself. "November, Anno Domini twelve hundred and eighty-seven. Nine
years since I was thrown into this place of stone and despair. The
world has little loved me, my friend, and I hold no love for the world.
_Inopem me copia fecit_--abundance made me poor. Abundance of foresight
and inventiveness that might have made the world over."
The monk had paced to the window through which he got his only small
view of the world. Now he swung back. "Yes, my Lord Monfort. I will do
what you ask!"
Carlyle lurched forward to grasp his arm. "Friar," he breathed. "I only
dared hope. But if you do what you promise, I will see that you are
freed within the year!"
"_Dominus vobiscum!_" Bacon said, tiny lights shining in his eyes. He
crossed to the massive chest and opened it. Digging around for a moment
among hundreds of curious objects the like of which Carlyle had never
seen, he at last returned to the table with two shining articles in his
hand.
"I told you this would bring a certain amount of grief to the world,"
he said, when Carlyle was seated beside him on a stool. "I say it
again. For each lifetime you add to your own, another must die. And
always it shall be a woman ... a woman whose love you have won."
Carlyle stared at the philosopher with a mixture of hope and horror in
his face.
"You must understand," said the Gray Friar, "that the life-spirit, as
I call it, is not so deeply rooted in a woman as a man. You hear often
of a woman dying of a broken heart, yet never of a man. This is because
the woman simply wills her spirit to leave her. It will be your task
to cause a woman to give you her life-spirit because she loves you
sufficiently."
"Yes, Friar," Thaddeus whispered, his heart hammering against his ribs.
Bacon placed in his palm a tiny crystal heart dependent from a silver
chain. It was crudely carved, yet alight with unholy brilliance.
"You will give this to the woman to wear. You yourself will wear this
plain silver band I now give you. The process may take days or weeks.
When you are with her, cause your own ring to be always touching the
crystal heart. Gradually she will grow weaker, while your own strength
increases boundlessly. When she dies ... you will have earned perhaps
seventy years more of life."
"Must it be this way?" Thaddeus groaned, staring horrified at the
baubles.
"It is the only way," Bacon murmured. "If at any time you decide that
you prefer death to immortality, destroy either the heart or the ring
and you will not long survive it. Old age will come swiftly."
Thaddeus got to his feet, his stomach a lump of ice in him. He suddenly
felt a necessity to get into the open air, where he could think.
Hastily he muttered:
"I will do as you say, Friar Bacon. Thank you for what you have done. I
will see that you are freed as soon as possible."
Wise old Roger Bacon knew the struggle that was going on within
the young lord, and he made no attempt to prolong the visit. "_Pax
vobiscum_," he nodded soberly. "The Lord guide you in this."
"Th-thank you, Friar!" Thaddeus faltered, and hastily fumbled at the
door and left.
* * * * *
For a month the crystal heart and the ring lay untouched in a small
chest in his treasure-room. Then his old fears and nightmares drove him
to take them out. He had become accustomed to the grisly demands and
they no longer loomed so blackly in his mind. Pictures of himself as an
ancient ruin with the skin hanging loosely from all his bones helped in
this.
For a long time Thaddeus had known that the young daughter of Lord
Cartwright secretly loved him. Tremblingly, one night, he bestowed on
her the gift of death ... in the form of a tiny crystal pendant. Within
a month the girl was dead.
And Thaddeus Carlyle ... in his body surged and leaped such strength
as he had never dreamed of. He felt he must live forever. His friends
began to change, growing wrinkled and less virile, but never he. Soon
he saw he must change his abode, lest men suspect him.
It was ninety years before the need came upon him to renew the
life-spirit in his body. He found a dark-eyed girl in Seville on one
of his journeys whom he nominated for his second victim. It was easier,
this time. Before she was laid away that old feeling of boundless youth
was his again.
And so Thaddeus Carlyle saw kings change and nations dissolve, saw a
German named Gutenberg print the first book and an Englishman named
William Shakespeare write the most perfect prose ever devised. Saw wars
and tragedy and comedy, and grew sick with the seeing. Gladly would he
have given it up, had he the courage.
Down the corridors of time he passed, seeking death as many seek
wealth. In peace and war, he was ever in the most dangerous
occupations. When aviation came in, he was one of the first and most
reckless pilots. Then space travel merged from dreams into reality....
Carlyle became a test pilot, taking on million-mile journeys any craft
with a rocket tube and a steering device. To his disgust, he always
came back.
He had not the courage to shatter the crystal heart and grow old
swiftly. He who had condemned so many beautiful women to death was now
chained to something worse--eternal life.
II
"Mr. Carlyle! _Mr. Carlyle._ Are you all right?"
Thaddeus Carlyle came out of his revery with a start, to hear the
shrill rasping of the _televis_ on his desk. His hand snapped the
instrument on.
"Sorry, Mrs. Loomis," he muttered. "I must have been napping."
The face of his middle-aged secretary looked relieved. "Captain Wolfe
is here," she told him. "About the new secretary, you know."
"Send them in," Carlyle grunted.
He swore softly to himself. Too often lately he had dozed off at the
wrong times. He was due for another replenishment, and he cursed his
luck that it had to come now. Tomorrow he was leaving in his giant
salvage ship, the _Friar Bacon_, for the newly-discovered sargasso off
the orbit of Pluto. Nor could the trip be postponed.
But the renewal of his life-spirit could not wait either. He was
a little too tired at night, a little too slow to react. But the
certainty was in him that he would not survive the trip to the new
salvage fields, with its attendant rigors.
Captain Wolfe, chief officer of the _Friar_, entered with a small,
dark-haired young person at his side.
"You're in luck, Chief!" he grinned. "I told you I'd find an A-1
secretary for you, and I think I've got her. Miss Holland, meet
Thaddeus Carlyle--and don't say you haven't heard of him. Mr. Carlyle,
this is Ann Holland."
The two exchanged acknowledgments, and Carlyle drew up chairs. "We'll
have to be brief," he said. "I've got a thousand things to attend to
before night. Now--you have the report from the company doctor?"
Ann Holland took a folded slip from her purse and tendered it to the
owner of Salvage Lines, Incorporated. Carlyle took the opportunity to
appraise her swiftly. He hardly need to scan the physician's report
to know her health was boundless. It glowed in the soft rose color of
her cheeks, the sparkle of her dark eyes. Her brown hair was carefully
combed back from a smooth forehead.
The report bore out his supposition. Carlyle questioned her briefly
about her qualifications as a stenographer and secretary. Everything
was satisfactory, and the references she had to show were excellent.
Carlyle handed back the papers. "I think I'm lucky to get so
well-spoken of a secretary on such short notice," he smiled.
"I know darned well you are, Chief!" Larry Wolfe laughed. "I had to
fight every officer in Ann's company to make them let her go."
Ann Holland laid a hand on his arm. "I think I had a little to do
with my quitting, too," she reproved. "I can't tell you how I've been
fascinated by the stories of your salvage trips, Mr. Carlyle. And, of
course, hearing Larry talk of his work with you--"
Thaddeus's dark eyes opened wider. "Oh--Then you have known each other
previously?" he queried.
Blond Larry Wolfe held up the girl's left hand, showing the sparkling
diamond on the third finger. "Three years previously," he laughed.
"We're going to be married after this trip."
Against the flash of resentment and disappointment that struck him,
Thaddeus Carlyle brought a smile to his lips. "That's fine," he said.
"Congratulations, both of you."
* * * * *
What he didn't voice was the strain of remorse coursing through his
mind: "Fine, hell! It's bad enough preying on unattached girls. But the
fiancee of your chief officer--"
Nevertheless, it was too late to change. Mrs. Loomis couldn't go
because she was married. Besides, she was old. There wasn't much life
to be stolen from her.
"Of course, you'll be wanting to know the type of work you're to do,"
he got out. "Frankly, it will be more tedious than adventuresome. I've
been considering doing a book on the navigation conditions obtaining in
the sargassos. You'll take dictation from me most of the time we're in
the salvage field. I'll want the notes neatly typed up when we return.
That's about all, except that the pay will be seventy-five dollars a
week. Satisfactory?"
"Perfectly!" Ann breathed, and put her hand out to retrieve the papers
from the desk. As she did so, Carlyle's brown, strong fingers picked up
the references and tendered them. For an instant their fingers met....
Ann's eyes went suddenly wide, and they flashed up to lock with
Carlyle's. She started, as if from a chill. It seemed as if a strong
current flowed from his body into hers ... and yet, had she but
known, the phenomenon was exactly an opposite one. By now, Carlyle's
parasitical work was second nature to him, hardly requiring the jewel
and ring.
It struck the girl that his eyes were the strangest ones she had ever
gazed into. They were so clear she seemed to look through them and far
past him. Clear--but yet somehow they were filled with wisdom. It was
as though she was looking into vast, forgotten depths of time.
Abruptly, she recalled herself. Her hand drew swiftly away from his.
"Thank you so much," she murmured. "We're leaving at six, I think you
said? I'll be ready."
When they were in the outer office, Larry Wolfe took her arm. He was
more than happy at the prospect of having the girl along on the long
trip.
"Drive you home?" he suggested.
A frown scored Ann's brow. "No, thanks, Larry," she murmured. "I've got
some things to buy uptown. Then I want to go home and rest. I feel a
little tired."
* * * * *
Thaddeus Carlyle stood at his window and watched the last bit of
loading being done out on the field. The _Friar Bacon_, with her six
tiny salvage ships in their bulging hangars growing out of the mother
ship's shell, like pilot fish clinging to the body of a shark, was
nearly ready for the trip. Carlyle sighed and wished again that he had
time to linger a few weeks before leaving.
But it was out of the question. Even a man who possesses immortality
must earn his living, and salvaging treasure ships from space was
Carlyle's way of doing it. Right now that living was threatened by the
savage competition of Brand Haggard, owner of another salvage outfit.
Haggard cared little for the ethics of the business. He'd double-cross,
steal, murder, lie, to gain his ends. It was such tactics that had put
Carlyle in his present hole.
Coming in on his last expedition, he had found the sargasso off Pluto
and duly registered it with the Universal Salvage Commission, applying
at the same time for exclusive salvage rights. But Haggard had used his
crooked political affiliations to get in on the pie. Carlyle had had to
share the rights with him. Now it was a bitter fight to be the first in
the field, for the first ship there gutted the most treasure from the
wrecked space vessels.
A delay of three weeks or a month would mean the _Friar Bacon_ returned
with empty holds. And that might mean ruin for Carlyle. Lately, salvage
pickings were getting smaller and smaller. He intended to get into
another business for his next lifetime.
The question of the girl still lay like a bitter pellet in his mind,
but with an effort he shelved his remorse. He decided to return to his
packing. There were two more things to be stowed away in his private
lockers. One was a plain silver ring, and the other was a little
crystal heart.
* * * * *
At six o'clock the next morning the _Friar Bacon_ rested in its deep
starting-tube in the center of the field. At seven o'clock it had
proceeded so far on its journey that Earth was but a silver quarter
hanging in the sky behind it.
Larry Wolfe was on the bridge. His engineer's eyes sparkled as he
regarded the instruments. Fuel--brimming over; speed--one-quarter;
retarding gravity quotient--three percent. Ideal conditions, and an
ideal ship. He had faith in the _Friar Bacon_, and in its owner. He
knew about Brand Haggard, but it didn't worry him particularly, with
the best of materials and men to work with.
Larry was on the point of inching the speed up a trifle when a bell
began to tinkle. Swiftly he twisted in his seat. Immediately he saw
what had aroused the alarm. A ship was coming up fast, behind them.
Haggard already! he thought. He stabbed at the buzzer to Carlyle's
quarters.
The hard, brown features of the ship's owner snapped into view on the
_televis_. "Yes?" was the metallic query.
"Ship approaching, sir!" Larry clipped. "I think it's Haggard's
_Martian_. Shall I give her the gun?"
"No, let him come up with us. No use racing yet. We'd just strain the
seams before they've heated properly."
"But if he beats us to the fields, sir!"
Thaddeus Carlyle's eyes crinkled. "He won't, Wolfe. I registered a
false location with the Commission! He'll either go hell-for-leather
out toward Uranus or he'll pace us. Either way, I'm not worrying."
"Very good, sir." Larry Wolfe turned from the instrument to his
controls. "Hard as nails!" he chuckled to himself. "He wouldn't hurry
for the devil himself. You'd think he'd lived five hundred years, the
way he thinks of all the angles and beats hell out of every other ship
in the fleet. He's too smart for one man."
That very night, trouble boarded the _Friar Bacon_. In a way, it was
Larry Wolfe's fault.
Coming off duty eight hours after they left, he hurried to Ann
Holland's stateroom near Carlyle's suite, eager to hear how she had
enjoyed her first day aboard a space-liner.
He found her tired and curiously subdued.
"Excitement get you?" he asked her.
Ann's eyes flashed as she thought of the thousand new things she had
seen. "A little, I guess," she admitted. "But, Larry, it's wonderful!
Such a feeling of freedom, so many strange things to be seen. Here we
are darting through space like a liner plowing the Atlantic!"
"You'll get over that pretty soon," Larry grinned. "Then you'll be like
the rest of us space-sailors, cursing our luck that man can't push his
darned ships along at the speed of light."
"I don't think I ever will," the girl mused. "They build these ships
just like Swiss watches, don't they? Every beam and girder machined by
hand, every nut and bolt a masterpiece. I went over the whole ship with
Thad. I feel like an authority already!"
She laid her head against the cushioned back of the chair, glancing
through drowsy eyes out the port-hole. With her face turned away from
Larry's, she did not see the swift bolt of jealousy that shot through
him.
"Thad?" he echoed. "That's funny, Ann. I've never been allowed to get
that familiar with him myself. It's always 'Chief' or 'sir' to us crew
members."
The girl's eyes widened a little; then she shrugged her slim shoulders.
"I don't know how I happened to call him that. He seems to be a person
so very likeable you can't be formal with him."
"I hadn't noticed it," Larry Wolfe snapped.
Ann sat up wearily, brushed stray hair back from her ear. "Oh, now,
Larry," she reproved him. "Are you going to start acting like a
high-school boy the minute we start?"
The young ship officer's jaw had set like cement. "What'd you do all
day? Talk, I suppose?"
"Yes, we talked! For eight hours! I don't know where the time went, but
I do know I've never had a better time in my life!"
She said it defiantly, and in the wake of the angry words grew a high
wall of pride between them. Ann made one final effort at conciliation.
"Larry, do you have to be like this?" she pleaded. "I'm wearing your
ring, isn't that enough?"
Larry stood up. "That's exactly it," he snapped. "You're wearing my
ring and the men are going to be watching pretty damn closely when they
see you hobnobbing constantly with Carlyle. Oh, don't get me wrong;
he's a fine fellow and I think the world of him. But I'm going to ask
you not to be with him any more than your work requires!"
Ann's fingers tugged at the diamond ring, and suddenly she was handing
it to him. "Then here's something for you to mull over, Mr. Larry
Wolfe," she said frigidly. "While we're on the trip you can just
pretend that you've never met me before. I won't have your jealousy
preventing me from doing a good job."
Larry let the tiny platinum band drop into his broad palm. His eyes
showed the pain that twisted through him, but all he said was: "All
right, Ann. But when you want the ring back, you'll have to ask for it."
III
Brand Haggard's sleek, black _Martian_ did not try to pass them, as
Carlyle had prophesied. For three weeks the ship was back there on the
starboard quarter, matching them move for move. It was on Larry Wolfe's
mind constantly while he stood on the bridge, doing little to ease the
tension of his nerves.
Strange, unpredictable currents suddenly developed about the ship,
and Larry knew that they were only a day or so from the sargasso.
Staring through the finder, he made out the diaphonous cloud he had
been searching for so long--the sargasso in which they hoped to find
millions of dollars in salvage prizes.
Magnetic currents, as yet unidentified by scientists, drew space
wreckage here from all over the solar system. Ruined space liners,
flotsam and jetsam of fifty years of interplanetary traffic, here
collected bit by bit. For the salvage crews who made lucky finds, there
was wealth; for those who made the tiniest of errors in their dangerous
work, there was death.
Larry Wolfe's thoughts were on the long-missing Astral as he stood his
watch that last night. The _Astral_, lost gold transport from Mars
to Earth, had been the dream of salvage men for twenty-five years.
Somewhere in the solar system it still drifted about. The chances were
good that it had been sucked into one of the many sargasso fields;
still better, that this newest field, largest of all, had caught it.
In Thaddeus Carlyle's rooms, Ann had been hearing the same story that
Larry was dreaming over even now. Carlyle's quiet, powerful words
painted romantic highlights over it. The girl found her heart beating
faster in anticipation of the days ahead.
"But in all this trackless wilderness of--of ether," she frowned, "how
can you hope to find anything at all? Let alone the _Astral_--"
Carlyle smiled, glanced out the port at the vague gray shadow into
which they were heading.
"If we worked with just the one ship, we wouldn't find much," he
admitted. "Actually, we use six. We drop the smaller salvage ships here
and there as we enter the sargasso. The three men in each craft cruise
about within a one-hundred-thousand-mile radius. After we've dropped
all the ships, we circle back to the spot where we left the first one
and wait for the flare signal from it. There's no radio transmission
out here, you know. The scout ships are pretty much on their own. When
they've located a prize, they tie up to it and go to work dismantling
the craft. If they haven't located anything after the first scouting
trip, we move them along to the front of the line. It's something like
playing leap-frog."
"I suppose your ships and Haggard's honor each other's finds?"
"Supposed to," said Carlyle grimly. His dark eyes flashed to the slim,
shark-like hull haunting their wake. His big, sturdy body seemed to
tighten. "Haggard's got the reputation of being a pirate. I'm not
looking for trouble, but if there is any--well, we can take care of
ourselves. I know a few tricks more than Brand Haggard, I think."
Looking at him, Ann knew a thrill of admiration. His attraction for
her had been growing with every hour they spent together. "You seem so
confident about it," she murmured.
"After twenty years of this sort of work you get your lines pretty well
in mind," Carlyle chuckled.
"Twenty years!" Ann's brow arched. "But you don't seem to be over
thirty--!"
"I'm a little older than that," the laughing answer came. "I began as a
galley-boy."
Silence fell for a moment, while Ann tried to figure his age from what
he had said. Then suddenly Thaddeus Carlyle was saying softly:
"You aren't wearing Captain Wolfe's ring any more. I couldn't help
noticing. Anything wrong between you two?"
"We--we decided it was best, during the trip, to forget our
engagement," the girl faltered, the color rising into her cheeks. She
knew he saw through her evasive answer. His eyes, so piercing and yet
gentle, seemed to know everything she thought.
* * * * *
Abruptly, Carlyle's fingers slipped about her hand. "Ann, if you and
Larry ever do break it off," he pleaded, "will you remember that
I--could love you very much?"
Ann was startled. Still more startled to feel the almost irresistible
link between them, drawing them together. "I'll remember, Thad," she
murmured.
Carlyle slipped something from his pocket. "And just to make sure
you don't forget," he said sternly, "you're going to wear this as a
reminder. I found it in a wrecked ship, a long time ago. Like it?" He
leaned forward to slip the thin silver chain about her neck.
Ann's eyes widened as she accepted the necklace. She held the tiny
crystal heart in her fingers as Carlyle snapped the tiny lock.
"I've never seen anything like it!" she breathed. "So crudely cut, and
yet every line so perfect. Thad, look! The color of it! There seems to
be just a suggestion of pink in the very heart of it--"
Thaddeus Carlyle let the gem fall into his palm, so that the crystal
contacted his silver ring. Ann gasped. The suggestion of pink was now a
glowing atom of scarlet, as though the heart held one drop of blood. It
throbbed and pulsed with life of its own. The heart grew warm against
Carlyle's palm--
Suddenly the girl fell back against the chair.
"I--I'm so tired, all of a sudden," she whispered. "Almost too
tired--to breathe. Take me--to my cabin--Thad. I think I want--to lie
down."
Carlyle swore under his breath. "Fool!" he muttered. "I've been wearing
you out with work, and excitement piled on that. You're going to bed,
young lady. The ship's surgeon is going to have a look at you, too."
"No, I'm all right," Ann murmured. "Just--tired."
But Thaddeus Carlyle's strong arms were under her, now, and even as he
carried her from the cabin she fell asleep. Looking down on her placid
features, so like death, he felt a stab of remorse.
Why did it have to be like this? he groaned. A life for a life--Carlyle
knew within himself that he was willing to die right now. He'd seen
enough of life and its disappointments. But always there was that
strain of cowardice in his soul--fear of growing old, of dying. He'd
courted death so long, hoping for a quick end on some battlefield, in
some remote part of interstellar space. But never did it come. Friar
Bacon had indeed cursed him with eternal life.
* * * * *
Six hours later, just as his shift was ending, Larry Wolfe spotted the
first loose cluster of drifted wreckage. This meant they had entered
the actual salvage field. He rang for Carlyle and the ship owner
responded immediately, ducking to enter the bridge.
Larry's clipped voice masked the jealousy he felt toward Carlyle.
"Flotsam off the starboard bow sir," he said mechanically.
Through powerful glasses, the other examined the wreckage. He lowered
the glasses hurriedly. Apparently it was merely the torn, gutted shell
of a barge, but--
"Rest of it may be near," he grunted. "We'll drop off Murphy, Stoller
and Cass. Seen anything of Haggard lately? Anything to worry about, I
mean?"
"Yes, sir. He's drawn closer ... much too close considering we should
be splitting apart now."
Carlyle pivoted and shot a glance back at the darkly looming _Martian_.
His brows drew into a solid bar across his angry eyes. "Half speed
astern, Captain," he clipped.
Larry glanced back at him. "You mean that?"
"Exactly. Pull in beside the devil. I'm going to speak him."
The _Friar Bacon_ rolled and wallowed as the message was flashed to
the engine room. Larry braced himself against the forward lurch of
his body. The ship owner stood with legs spread wide, fists on hips,
watching the _Martian_ shoot ahead, seemingly, until it was nearly
even with them. Its stern jets, firing pale columns of flame, did not
slacken.
"Send up a flare," ordered Carlyle. "I'm going to the air-lock. And by
the way, tell Murphy to cut his ship loose right now."
"Yes, sir." The bridge door clanged shut and Larry sprang to his
round of duties, sending up a purple flare--"we wish to speak you"
signal--relaying the message to Murphy to drop away in the scout ship
with his two-man crew, swinging the ship over until the _Martian_ was
so close they could see the faces at the ports.
The purple answering flare went up, and Larry moved to maneuver the
ship alongside, so that air-lock was to air-lock. The other pilot was
an expert, handling his ship like a toy in the hands of a giant. The
shock was almost imperceptible.
Larry left the bridge just after he saw Murphy, Stoller, and Cass
silently pull away, keeping the tiny scout in the umbra of the _Friar
Bacon_, hidden from Brand Haggard's eyes.
He found Carlyle waiting for him. Together they closed themselves
into the tube. The outer end was now locked firmly against the glass
door of the _Martian's_ air-lock. Forms shifted eerily behind the
double-thickness glass. At a tap on the glass, Carlyle swung his own
window back. The other ship's master did the same.
Then, suddenly, they were standing face to face, Haggard and Thaddeus
Carlyle, Larry and the captain of the other craft.
Carlyle was not one to spar for openings.
"Let's have an understanding right now, Haggard," he snapped. "You've
cut yourself in on this deal but you'll play it according to the rules.
Make one misstep and it's war to the last man. Is that clear?"
Haggard chuckled. "I think I get it," he said. "Well, it's okay by
me, mister. I'll work this section and you work the other side of the
field."
"You will like hell," barked Carlyle. "I've got a ship in the field
already. That, according to the Universal Salvage Code, gives me prior
rights. Find yourself another playground."
Larry watched the other ship-man's eyes dwindle to steely pin-points,
but still he kept a grin on his wide mouth. Haggard was a powerfully
built Swede, one of those laughing, blond-headed men who seem a
throwback to the days when giants fought with seventy-pound broadswords
and wore chain mail. His savagery belonged to another era, too. Men who
had shipped with him never did so again, and thanked their stars they
were still alive and more or less sane.
"All right, Carlyle," he chuckled, at last. "Round one is yours. You
keep your boys toeing the mark and I'll try to do the same." His eyes
dropped to Larry's face. "Got your course mapped out?"
Larry handed his captain the chart he had brought with him, and the
man glanced at it with shrewd, faded blue eyes. He was a hard-case
old-timer, leathery of skin, short coupled, and tough as oak. But he
knew his business, and handed the sheet back directly.
"Fair enough," he gruffed. "That gives us room enough to turn around
in."
"I guess we're agreed, then," Thaddeus Carlyle said curtly, extending a
broad palm to Haggard. "Good luck."
They shook hands, and once more the glass ports were rolled back in
place, the locks opened, and the ships drew apart.
"The damned liar," Carlyle said darkly, watching the _Martian_ arch
itself high above them and surge away. "We'll have trouble with him
before two watches are down on the log."
IV
It was not until just before he himself quitted the mother ship that
Larry Wolfe learned of Ann's illness. Climbing above his pride, he had
gone to her cabin to say good-bye.
Doctor Van Doren, ship's surgeon, met him at the door. "You must not
excite her," he said, in a low tone. "Say good-bye if you like, but--"
"_Doctor!_" Larry seized his arm. "I--I hadn't heard Ann was sick. What
is it?"
"I don't know. Just a complete physical collapse. She's too tired to
eat, even. Ever since last night."
Larry was pushing past him into the cabin. He went down on his knees
beside the girl's bed and his hand closed on her cold fingers. "Ann!"
he choked. "They didn't tell me...."
Ann wouldn't meet his eyes. "I asked them not to. I'm all right, Larry.
Just tired."
A cold blade stabbed at Larry's heart. "Why wouldn't you let me know?"
he asked.
Ann's eyes seemed fixed on a rivet in the ceiling. "Because I didn't
want to worry you. And--I didn't want to fight with you again."
"As if I'd so much as raise my voice, with you sick," Larry groaned.
Then his eyes fastened on a ruby-colored heart lying on the girl's
breast. "What's that?" he asked, half in alarm. "I've never seen it
before; it looks--like it's alive, Ann!"
The girl's fingers toyed with it. "It was a gift," she murmured
absently.
"Carlyle!" Larry could not restrain the angry syllables. "I don't like
it, Ann! It's like a serpent's eye, or something. It looks so alive--"
Ann's eyes at last met his, and they were cold as space. "We won't
argue about it," she said wearily.
Larry got up, striving against the hot resentment searing his heart.
"You know I'm leaving now?"
"Yes. Good luck, Larry."
"Thanks!" Larry snorted, and strode from the room.
* * * * *
Larry's was the last scout to be dropped from the _Friar Bacon_. The
mother ship was now piloted by Carlyle, who swung it back to the first
salvage ship they had dropped.
For hours it was a matter of cruising this way and that, searching the
sky for traces of wreckage. Bits of flotsam were everywhere, but large
fragments were scarce indeed. Larry's heart was leaden, but he buried
himself in the work and succeeded in half-forgetting his worries.
Lanky Jeff Adams was at the controls of the cramped little vessel when
the first dark splinter was sighted in the void. Braced against the
lurch and roll of the ship, Larry scrutinized the wrecked ship as they
neared it. So unbelievable was the sight he saw that for an instant
after he lowered the glasses it did not penetrate his reflexes. His
fingers were tracing the vessel's name into the log when suddenly he
stared at what he had written: "11:46 A. M. sighted derelict _Astral_.
Good condition...."
Larry Wolfe dropped the glasses and let out a yell. Jeff leaped as
though he had been stung, his magnificent red beak of a nose growing
redder with the excitement. Abe Miller, stocky, beetle-browed helper,
stared at the officer.
"What's amatter, Chief?" he jerked.
Dumbly, Larry pointed. "That's--the _Astral_!" he gasped. "Two hundred
million dollars--in gold--!"
Abe and Jeff were stunned; then they crowded the port to stare at the
ancient craft dead ahead. The scout had drawn near enough now that the
name of the transport was plainly visible in letters running from stem
half-way to stern. Weakly, Jeff let himself back into his seat and
muttered:
"Two--hundred--million ... in Martian gold! And we get ten percent for
findin' 'er. Ten percent of two hundred million, divided three ways--"
Larry laughed and poked playfully at his big nose. "Don't count your
shekels before you hear them jingle," he counseled. "The _Astral_ may
have been gutted by pirates. Give her the gun, mister; we're finding
out!"
The little space-craft slewed and rocked to a stop beside the giant
transport. Shock struck the three men dumb with their first glimpse
close up. Faces crowded the ports, staring out at them. Larry fancied
he saw movement among the watchers on the bridge. To all appearances
the _Astral_ might have been a vessel in mid-flight.
They cruised slowly up the side, not ten feet from the ghostly faces
that watched them with staring eyes. Foot by foot they proceeded.
Rounding the front of the craft, they could see into the bridge. Two
men were working over charts and a man in blue-and-gray uniform was at
the controls. Another, a pencil over his ear, stood reading a gauge
high on the wall.
Then the meaning of it all came home to them.
The port side of the ship was ripped open from stem to stern.
Something--no doubt a jagged meteor fragment--had sliced and torn its
way through the shell of the speeding transport. The occupants of
the open side had exploded like deep-sea fish drawn to the surface.
These in the space-tight, unharmed cabins opposite had been frozen
instantly by the outrush of pent-up air. And there they had stood in
the attitudes in which Death had found them, staring out as they forged
through the meteor-swarm, hoping they would not be hit.
In the silence they tied up to the derelict, their magnet-plates
clinging like suction cups. Donning space suits and carrying kits of
tools, they leaped through the rent into the dead ship.
A vague twilight dwelt in the interior. Larry led the way to the
bridge. The frozen lock was cut out by means of a torch. With set jaws
he went inside.
"Better load 'em out quick, boys. If the sunlight starts to thaw
'em there'll be a hell of a mess. Throw 'em clear of the ship. It's
tough--but it's a sky-man's end, and we may all meet the same some day."
While Abe and Jeff carried the corpses away, he found the log and
traced back to the vessel's start. There he located the cargo list. Two
hundred million was correct, as the refining company had stated when
the ship was lost.
Their next job was to cut into the hold. The sight of two hundred
million dollars in gold bullion took their breath away. Jeff sat down
and began laying the ponderous bars into three piles, muttering:
"One for me, one for you, and one for Abe. One for--"
Larry laughed, "Get to work, you half-baked lout. We've got to lug all
these out to where they'll make quick loading. _Friar Bacon_ should
loom up in about four hours. I'll set the flares--"
And then they all went stiff, hands reaching for energy-pistols.
Through the ship's floor came the thud-thud-thud of walking men!
* * * * *
Larry sprang into the hall. Three whirled at his advance. He snapped on
his transmitter, the instrument operating through the metal floor like
a telegraph.
"Get the hell out of here!" he barked. "You're fifty thousand miles out
of your territory. Is this how Haggard keeps a bargain?"
The foremost pirate said not a word, but suddenly the pistol in his
hand flared redly. Larry flung himself aside, blasted away with his own
weapon. The wall of the corridor dissolved beneath his shoulder.
A scream rang through his helmet, chopped off clean as the pirate's
space suit was blown open. Jeff and Abe were yelling for Larry to get
out of their way and give them a clear shot. Larry's answer was to duck
into the hole blasted in the wall by the energy bolt.
He got the second pirate in his sights and saw him crumple under a wave
of atom-dissolving force. A mere fringe of the charge scored the helmet
of the last man. Screaming shrilly, air rushed from his suit. His body
blew up like a balloon in a decompression-bell, until he filled the
bulging suit. Then there was a ghastly moment of seeing blood spurt
through the hole in the helmet. And after that he was only a sickening
smatter of glass and blood and powdered bone.
The swiftness with which it was all over left the three salvage men
weak. Larry forced himself down the hall. There might be more of them.
But a glance outside showed only one _Martian_ scout tied up. As a
precaution, he turned his force weapon on the little ship until the
hammering and searing energy shocks melted its magnet plates and hurled
it away.
Hastily, then, he turned to Jeff and Abe.
"Pile aboard," he cracked out. "We're dropping this until we contact
Carlyle. Haggard will be back looking for his scout. We want more than
hand guns to use when he returns. This is war!"
V
They sighted the _Friar Bacon_ well toward the front of the line of
scouts. Only one ship lay in its carrier. The mother ship hove to while
the tiny craft nuzzled into the waiting pocket.
Carlyle was waiting at the air-lock when they sprang out. Larry's words
crackled with tension.
"We've raised the _Astral_, sir! Afraid Haggard's going to know about
it in a few hours, too. One of his scouts jumped us and we killed the
men. Better let us go back with Murphy's ship while you round up the
rest of the fleet. This is going to mean trouble!"
Carlyle's eyes glowed, and his features seemed to shine with inner
energy.
"Great work!" he breathed. "I'll drop off Murphy directly. Mark the way
out there with flares. We'll get the rest of the boys and be there in
three hours. If we're lucky we can unload the _Astral_ and be out of
the territory without crossing his path."
Larry Wolfe saluted and turned back to the scout. He tried to summon
the fierce dislike he had for the salvage boss when he was away from
him, but it would not rise. Carlyle's personality was a strong one. Men
instinctively took orders from him and liked it, and women--Well, Ann
had certainly changed. Yet there was a shading of something sinister
under the man's smooth, forceful exterior. Larry could not isolate the
things about him he distrusted.
Once more they dropped away from the _Friar_. Murphy, Stoller and Cass
came booming along after them, jets belching and the whole, tiny craft
leaping like a released whippet in the effort to pace Larry.
It was an hour and a half before they saw the _Astral_ in their glasses
once more. In their path they had dropped red fluctuating flares to
guide the mother ship to the derelict. The scout sidled in beside the
space-barge. Magnets sent out invisible tentacles and hauled them
against the vessel with a stiff shock. Murphy's red head bobbed into
view as his own craft made landing.
Larry Wolfe snapped orders. Stoller and Cass tackled the job of cutting
away the ragged metal to provide more room for the loading of the
salvage ship. Jeff, Abe, and Murphy joined Larry in the back-breaking
toil of moving the gold.
And all the time they were conscious of the precious weapon that was
slipping from their fingers ... _time_! Minutes, seconds, fleeing from
them, while they wondered which ship would be first to return, the
_Friar Bacon_ with its glittering silver hull, or the black tiger-shark
of the void--the _Martian_.
Without warning there was a terrific crash against the side of the
derelict. The six sweating workmen were flung to their faces on the
floor. One of the scout ships was torn lose and went rolling away.
Larry ripped out his gun and crawled to the opening in the vessel's
shell. What he saw caused him to sigh with new relief.
"Meteor shower," he called to the others. "We took the biggest part of
it right then. You can hear the dust pattering against us now. Nothing
to worry about."
_Nothing to worry about--!_
But right then another impact came that up-tilted the barge and hurled
them from their feet, stunned. A shadow fell over the sunlight splashed
room and a long, black shape glided past, a mile or two away. The
_Martian_ was back and ready for war.
* * * * *
There was a second shot that sprawled them around. In the bow of the
attacking cruiser winked a malevolent green eye. At Larry's signal,
every man jammed the range setting on his pistol up to full. Even with
the guns taxed to their utmost, they would be pitiful answer to the
cannon aboard the other craft.
"Murphy!" Larry yelled. "Take your men up to the bridge where you can
keep your eye on 'em. Keep firing. Don't let 'em rest."
But there was no slowing down Brand Haggard. With the cunning of a
tiger, he swooped and curvetted about the _Astral_, never stopping long
enough to let one of those pistol shots burn deep. There was not an
instant when the derelict was still; constantly it rolled in a sea of
searing, churning ether, burned fiercely by force-charges. From time to
time a great hole was gashed through the barge.
Then there came a blasting concussion that piled Larry, Jeff, and Abe
in a corner like three rats in a box. Blood filtered down Larry's
neck where his space suit had gashed him. Light spilled into the ship
through the fore parts. With his heart hammering, he ran forward to the
bridge.
He found the hole where the bridge had been, but Murphy, Stoller and
Cass were gone. A hundred yards away the _Martian_ was maneuvering for
another shot.
Larry ran back to the others.
"They're gone," he bit out. "And we're slated for the same if we hold
out any longer. Let's grab the scout and head for the _Friar_. Maybe we
can get back here before Haggard guts this barge."
All three men seemed to sense the cessation of the _Astral's_ rolling
at the same instant. They glanced dumbly at each other. _What had
caused the pirate to stop its barrage?_
All at once, Jeff was pointing, yelling like a madman. Cheers broke
from the others' throats. With the swift grace of a bullet, the _Friar
Bacon_ was shooting across the sky in pursuit of Haggard's ship!
For a few minutes it was like watching a pair of clever fencers feint
and lunge. The speed of the ships went for little now. It was the
daring and skill of the man at the controls that spelled victory or
defeat.
But in the end it was the _Martian_ that drew off. A shot ripped away
most of a scout carrier and showed Brand Haggard, temporarily, at
least, that he was bucking a tougher, smarter man.
Carlyle did not chase him. Such a pursuit, zig-zagging on full
throttles through space, could easily last a week. He brought the big
cruiser alongside the wrecked _Astral_ and the survivors sprang aboard.
VI
Larry, Jeff, and Abe were pounded on the back by their companions,
while eager hands dropped to the derelict to begin the transfer of
cargo.
"You three better hie yourselves down to the galley and get some grub,"
Carlyle grinned.
Jeff and Abe took him at his word; but Larry, lingering, asked Carlyle
pointedly:
"How's Ann? She was pretty sick when I left her."
He would have taken oath that the salvage boss' dark eyes flinched.
Those piercing eyes searched his face for an instant before Carlyle
replied. Finally:
"Not so good, Captain," he said. "Why don't you look at her? Might do a
lot for her, you know."
"I'm afraid I don't know, sir," Larry Wolfe ground out. "I seemed to be
so much excess cargo last time."
He turned stiffly and passed him. But, drawn by something more powerful
than his wounded pride, he went straight to Ann's room and knocked
softly.
A voice so weak he scarcely recognized it answered him.
Larry went in. Ann was lying back against the pillows. The deathly
pallor of her face caused him to start.
"Ann!" he groaned. "What is it? What's happening to you?"
The girl's bloodless features did not warm at sight of him. But a
strain of fear coursed through her throaty tones.
"I don't know," she whispered. Her fingers went to toying with the
little heart lying against her throat.
Suddenly Larry was striding forward, to stand looking down at the jewel
with blazing eyes. "Damn that thing!" he gritted. "You're going to turn
it over to me right now. I don't know what it is, but I'll swear it's
alive with some deadly force of its own. It's glowing like a piece of
red radium!"
Ann's waxen fingers closed over it. "You're talking like an insane man,
Larry!" she panted. "You may as well understand right now that I'm not
taking orders from you like a stevedore. If I want to wear a simple
piece of jewelry, no amount of your ranting will prevent me!"
Larry's cheeks grew scarlet, his fists knotting up hard. "Maybe it
won't," he retorted, "but by Heaven, Carlyle knows the secret of that
stone and I'm going to wring it out of him right now!"
"Larry!" The girl's voice followed him, laden with sharp fear.
Larry Wolfe ignored her cry and strode to the loading deck. What he
contemplated was mutiny, perhaps, but it was Ann's life at stake.
Carlyle was not on the loading deck, nor did Larry locate him on the
bridge. As a final resort he strode to the ship owner's room. The door
was unlocked, and he barged in without knocking.
Staring angrily about him, he saw no sign of his quarry. Then a sort
of madness laid hold of him. He began to ransack Carlyle's belongings,
searching--what he sought, he couldn't have said. But he was seeking
proof that Thaddeus Carlyle was something more than he represented
himself to be.
There was nothing he wouldn't have expected to find there. Nothing
but one small article: an oval-shaped brooch of yellowed ivory, a
tiny painting of a man's head on it. He had examined similar ones in
museums. Carrying it over to the light, Larry was shocked to note the
resemblance of the man's face to Carlyle.
Then he found the minute, hair-line script below it: "Thaddeus
Carlyle, Lord Mon--" The last word had been obliterated by time.
Larry's breath rattled in his throat as a queer panic gripped him.
Feverishly he shoved stiff fingers through his hair. _Lord Monfort--!_
They hadn't made miniatures like this one for hundreds of years.
Larry turned the brooch over and discovered on the back the words:
"From Helene. Nov. 1346."
The brooch struck the floor with a clink. The sound seemed to pour
new life into Larry. He shouted, "Ann!" and sprang into the hall and
swiftly toward the girl's room.
* * * * *
Voices stopped him just before he touched the knob. Carlyle's voice,
softer than he had dreamed it could be, murmuring:
"If only there weren't Larry--if I weren't afraid he might steal your
love back. You say he means nothing to you, and yet--"
"You _know_ he means nothing to me!" For all its animation, Ann's voice
held the monotonous cadence of one who is half-asleep.
"You do love me, Ann--more than life itself?"
"More--than life--Thad!"
"Ann, I'm going to ask you something--wait, dear! I know you're tired;
but you must keep your eyes open a moment longer...."
The door crashed inward. Larry Wolfe was through it and upon Carlyle
before the latter could get to his feet. He had been sitting on the
edge of Ann's bunk. With steel fingers Larry hauled him to his feet.
"You damned parasite!" he shouted. "You thought you'd prey upon Ann the
same way you did the others, did you?" His fist struck out, but the
salvage boss caught his wrist and held it.
"Are you insane?" he roared.
Larry's mood was not one of arguing. Again he struck, and this time the
blow chopped into Carlyle's mouth and brought blood.
Ordinarily the bigger man could have cut Larry down with a few
man-killing punches, but the madness in Larry Wolfe knew neither pain
nor weakness. He took savage blows to the face and ribs, but stayed on
his feet. A lucky uppercut jarred Carlyle's teeth in his head, and for
an instant he was sagging against the wall.
Larry seized that split-second to spring to the bedside of the
terrified girl and tear the necklace from her throat. He threw it
at Carlyle with all his force. The gem missed, shivered into tiny,
glittering crystals on the floor, like shining drops of blood.
Thaddeus Carlyle's face paled under its deep tan. He glanced down at
the wreck of the crystal heart. He was on the point of drawing his
pistol when the alarm began to ring.
"Mr. Carlyle! Captain Wolfe!" the voice boomed through the ship.
"_Martian_ returning. All hands at their posts!"
On the tail of the warning came a shock that tore the _Friar Bacon_
from the side of the derelict. Larry had a glimpse through the port, of
men in space suits left hanging in the void between the two ships, of
gold ingots floating grotesquely around them.
The battle was forgotten, as fighters toppling over a cliff forget
their differences and scramble for safety. Larry followed the ship
owner up the corridor, climbed the ladder to the top deck, sprang to
the firing lever of the big energy gun stationed in the nose.
The other men darted from the control room to their posts. The _Friar_
was stationary for a second, while Carlyle located the other ship. With
a surge of swift power that took the passengers' breath, the craft shot
after it.
* * * * *
Haggard's strategy had been to get in line with the sun and keep in
line with it while he rushed down on the unsuspecting salvage ship.
Reports were crackling in from all parts of the ship regarding the
damage done. Nothing had been touched, it seemed, except one of the
forward scout carriers, which was blasted loose.
Larry was tensely vigilant as he crouched over the firing lever. He did
not glance at Carlyle. The salvage boss' face seemed to have set into
grimmer lines than ever. Up ahead the _Martian_ was fighting to keep
out of line. Haggard's poor shot had put them in the disadvantage.
Carlyle piloted like a demon, straining the ship until the bulkheads
chattered in their steps. Haggard's slightest error meant the gap
between them closed that much more. Suddenly something seemed to go
wrong. The _Martian_ faltered for a tenth of a second. In the next
moment Thaddeus Carlyle swerved until the pirate's rocket tubes were
straight before them.
"Fire!" he clipped.
Larry pulled swiftly at the lever. There was no response. Harder, he
tugged.
"I said _fire_!" Carlyle shouted at him. "I can't hold this point any
longer. They're under way again."
Sweat started from Larry's pores. "The thing's jammed, Chief!" he
groaned. "They got our gun with that first shot."
Carlyle seemed to wilt a little. What it meant was that they were up
against a fast, armed vessel with no means of defending themselves. As
if Brand Haggard sensed the trouble, too, he put the _Martian_ about
and came booming down the line at them, head-on.
Carlyle's response was slow. The ship heaved violently as a rear
stabilizer melted under Haggard's shot. Only the fact that the shock
threw them away from the pirate's line of fire saved them.
Now it was the _Friar Bacon_ that dodged and ran. The air boiled all
about them. Larry could envision Haggard's grinning, savage countenance
hovering over the firing lever, ceaselessly yanking at it.
And there was something wrong with the staggering _Friar_. Larry
thought for a while that their stabilizers were not functioning. Always
they were a fraction of a second late in diving out of range. It was
when Haggard was not over a few hundred yards in the rear that Larry
glanced over at Carlyle. In a flash he was on his feet....
He saw sunken, shrivelled cheeks and glazing eyes. Gray hair straggling
from under the jaunty officer's cap. A scrawny neck going down into a
collar many sizes too large.
Larry was cold all over. He took Carlyle by the shoulders and hauled
him out of the chair, surprised at the lightness of his body. The bony
fingers clawed at the controls and then gave them up. Larry let him sag
to the floor and grabbed the controls.
Haggard was diving again, with throttles wide open. A few miles ahead
lay the wreckage of the _Astral_. Larry suddenly saw his chance. He
had no gun, nothing to fight back with; but here was where courage and
skill might count heavily.
With the _Martian_ a hundred yards in the rear, dead on the stern,
Larry fired both bow rockets and the port stern rocket. Braces screamed
and loose objects toppled, as the _Friar Bacon_ slowed and went into a
tight pin-wheel. The _Martian_ roared up alongside. Larry blasted out
with the other stern rocket and the two craft jarred together. At the
same instant he turned on the boarding magnets, so that the ships were
held together as though welded.
Brand Haggard's blond head bobbed into view only fifteen feet away. He
stood up from the firing lever and stared through the bridge port at
Larry. This was the first time Larry had ever seen him when he was not
grinning that arrogant wicked grin of his.
* * * * *
Haggard was shaking his fist and yelling. His gun was useless now. And
he knew only too well what lay in Larry's mind: To carry him dead into
the _Astral_ and pile the _Martian_ up like a racing car striking a
brick wall!
The captain of the black vessel tried every strategy he knew. But Larry
held it down to the course he had set. The two ships flashed on toward
destruction.
Haggard's face showed in the glass, threatening, cajoling, pleading. At
the last moment he held up two fist-fulls of paper money, trying to buy
another chance. Larry laughed and dropped his hand on the magnet lever.
Screams of terror built up within the _Friar Bacon_ as the crew
discovered the derelict dead ahead. They were drowned under the roar of
rockets as Larry cut the pirate loose and moved to avoid the _Astral_.
He had a horrible moment of watching a fin on the wrecked vessel reach
out to rake the belly of the slewing salvage ship. Then all dissolved
in a shower of wreckage, the fin crumpling away and flames shooting up
where it had been. The _Martian_ had crumpled up like an accordion.
Bodies flew past the windows, to explode as the pressureless atmosphere
inflated them. Gold ingots mingled with them. Everywhere there was
death, and the horror that can come only from a wreck of two such
space-giants as the _Martian_ and the long-dead _Astral_.
The _Friar_ toppled end over end, a chip caught in a maelstrom. Miles
away from the carnage, Larry Wolfe managed to right it. He stood up
from the controls to find Ann Holland standing white and silent above
Carlyle's body.
Larry shuddered. Carlyle's face was that of a mummy. His hands were
crooked brown hooks like the dried talons of a buzzard. His uniform
draped his shrivelled body like a gunny sack over a skeleton.
Ann pressed against Larry's side, seemingly unconscious that there
had ever been anything wrong between them. "What was he, Larry?" she
whispered.
"I don't know," he admitted. "But he was old--Lord knows how old. That
crystal heart he gave you ... there was something queer about it. I
think that when I destroyed it, I killed him, too."
The girl suddenly buried her face against his chest. "Oh, Larry!" she
sobbed. "It's so horrible. Let's go back ... now!"
"Just as soon as we comb a few gold bars out of the sky," he told
her softly. "Then we're going back and carry on with those plans we
had before you gave me back my ring. But--I'd like to find out some
time--just how old he was, and _what_ he was."
* * * * *
Sooner than they had expected, they were to find at least the answer to
Thaddeus Carlyle's age. Larry and Ann were married the day they docked
in New York. For their honeymoon they sailed to England. It occurred to
Larry while they were there to look for the Monfort tomb in Westminster
Abbey.
They found it, an ancient stone crypt with the names of thirteen Lord
Monforts inscribed, hidden in the shadows of the building's oldest
wing. Birth and death dates followed each name. But after Thaddeus
Carlyle's name were engraved only the numerals:
"1262--"
"Wish I had the courage of my convictions," muttered Larry. "I'd get
them to finish it for the poor devil: '--died, 1970.'"
End of Project Gutenberg's Buccaneer of the Star Seas, by Ed Earl Repp
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