Within the hurtling planisphere Webb remarked casually to Ku-mer, "Just how did you manage it? My power loads show no perceptible increase."
The Martian scientist veiled his eyes. "How," he returned pointedly, "do you, my friend, achieve your effect of polarization?"
"Check!" Webb grinned, and asked no more. Ku-mer was joining forces with him to combat the alien invasion, but he was betraying none of the scientific secrets he had discovered.
The girl, Susan Blake, was a problem. Webb had given her privacy and living quarters in the farther cell of the central unit, and every sleep period he thoughtfully sealed her in.
She seemed gay, artificially so. She made it a special point to be with Webb whenever possible. She watched his every operation with veiled lashes, behind which the Earthman was sure a keen brain was probing. And she made no further mention of her father. He was, disturbed—more than he cared to admit. He knew she was a spy; yet her mere presence, the utter feminine charm of her slender body, the heady wine of her long, slow looks, did things to his insides. He scolded himself for this sentimental weakness.
Yet his brain did not function when she was concerned as icily as it did with an essential problem in physics. He was following a fixed plan of action—or, rather, of inaction. This was to drift on the course of events, to do nothing positive, to permit all things to be done to him—and to watch for the main chance. Thus far the girl had come, Ku-mer had joined forces and was directing him to the incredible habitat of the invaders, and there had been certain tentative attempts to get at him.
He had no illusions; he knew he was in terrible danger; he felt that somewhere, within easy striking distance, the mysterious attackers were keeping pace with him, holding off for unknown purposes of their own. A slow grin spread over his face. Ku-mer had delved into the thought processes of his captors. Could it be possible that even now he was reading the depths of Webb's own thoughts?
THE GREAT SPHERE flamed beyond the last outposts of possible life. Saturn, with its whirling rings, lay far behind. Green-tinged Uranus, sad-eyed Neptune, and the sepulcher that was Pluto. Beyond lay shoreless space—unless, as Ku-mer had promised, the alien orb called Gar-Mando barred the path.
Within the space laboratory the tension grew. Susan Blake grew hollow-eyed and feverish, her last pretense at gayety gone. Webb caught her several times prowling among his possessions, and accepted gracefully her quick-witted responses. Once, he watched her stealthily entering the lock in which Ku-mer's vessel lay, saw her in his tiny visor screen, fumbling vainly at the sealed controls. The Martian held the secrets of his space ship well. With a grim smile Webb turned the little disk toward the sleeping scientist. He lay quietly in his bunk, unstirring; but Webb had an uneasy suspicion that underneath those motionless lids Ku-mer knew of the girl's prowlings, knew that Webb Foster was awake and watching.
Thoughtfully, Webb flicked off the disk, left Susan Blake to her vain spyings. Ostentatiously, he rolled over, as if restless in sleep, contacted a hidden wall panel. Invisible current flowed in a hollow shield around him. The tiny radiations of his mind beat outward, were circumscribed within the guarded area. Now he could think things out, without fear of disclosure. The Martian was his ally, but it was wise to withhold certain thoughts, certain plans—
"You're certain about the existence of the black planet?" Webb asked Ku-mer queerly. He had set and refined the various detectors of his rushing laboratory, but nothing quivered from the vastnesses ahead. Already the Sun was a pale, lifeless star behind, Earth and Mars, forgotten dreams, and even Neptune a tiny speck.
The Martian's face betrayed no emotion. "Quite!" he murmured. "It is now only twenty million miles ahead."
"Then why," Webb demanded, "is there no sign of it as yet?"
"I did not tell you," Ku-mer said quietly, "but it is wholly invisible and self-contained—that is, until you approach within a million miles of its surface. The entities from beyond the universe have a mighty science of their own. They have bent light around themselves in a closed circuit. The radius of that circuit is a million miles."
Susan Blake flashed up with something of her old spirit. "You seem to know a good deal about these strange beings, Ku-mer."
The Martian scientist transfixed her with his regard. "I think I told you, my dear Moon lady, I possess some poor accomplishments in the probing of mind processes."
Webb tightened his lips. He seemed to sense a subtle threat in those velvet tones. Had Ku-mer penetrated the secret spying of the girl? Did he know exactly what she was after?
Susan shrank suddenly away, grew pale. Her eyes were wide. "I—I am afraid," she faltered. "We are heading into terrible danger. I want to go home."
"You are about five billion miles too late in your desire," Webb cut in sharply. "You should have thought of that earlier. Your little Earth flier, even if you were much more expert than you are, could never make it."
The girl took a deep breath. "I think," she said steadily, "I would like to try it."
"No!" The single syllable was explosive, curtly commanding. Webb looked at the Martian in some surprise. Ku-mer smiled blandly. "I mean," he amended, "that you are much safer here. Once beyond the confines of Webb Foster's laboratory, you will be caught. No doubt they are lurking, keeping pace with us. Only the mighty science of the greatest scientist in the system is holding them at bay."
Little puckers furrowed Webb's forehead. The Martian was mocking him. He was showing his hand at last. That meant only one thing: that—
Webb Foster took a step forward.
"You had better slacken your speed if you do not wish to crash," Ku-mer said conversationally. "We have arrived at Gar-Mando!"
Chapter 4
WEBB WHIRLED. There was no need to watch the detectors, nor stare into the electro-mosaic. Directly ahead, through the transparency of the plani-glass, light flared in a molten flame, died almost immediately—as though they had crashed through some strange barrier. And directly ahead, black as a starless night, lay the outer planet of Gar-Mando!
Its size was not great—its diameter was under a thousand miles—but its Stygian surface raised the hackles on Webb's flesh. The Martian had spoken truly. There were things upon it that were not good for mortal eyes to see—things that heaved and billowed in long, sinuous undulations, things that reared monstrous heads from an endless ocean of black, sticky liquid, and gaped with mile-wide maws at the rushing planisphere. Behind him Webb heard Susan's gasp and Stet's native grunt. They startled him into action. He sprang to the controls, jerked the throttles of his cushioning rockets wide, blasted the repulsor screens on full power.
Nothing happened!
No power surged in the great tubes; no red slashes of flame roared from the rocket vents; the evanium lumps on which he depended for subatomic energy were cold and lifeless in the central disruptors. A crash was inevitable!
But even as the girl screamed and hid her face, their headlong fall to the terrible, unknown planet broke abruptly. An irresistible current caught the great space laboratory in its grip, swung it in a long, dizzying spiral to the heaving surface.
Stet, his black countenance ludicrously twisted, rolled howling along the catwalk. Susan Blake stumbled into Webb's arms, clung to him a moment in a tremblor of fear. Even in the lightning flash of events, Webb felt the supple warmth of her body, the strange intoxication of her beauty. His arms tightened. A moment she clung, then jerked free with a smothered cry. Was it fear, contempt, loathing, or—
Webb had no chance to know. For, from the farther side of the heaving planet, little space ships, black as the world that spawned them, came swiftly into sight. Ku-mer, miraculously erect, saw them come, turned to the panting Earth scientist with a little smile.
Webb Foster saw that smile and understood everything.
"So it was you, Ku-mer, all the time," he snarled, and dived for the flat little button that had been jerked from his hand.
"Don't move, Webb Foste
r," the Martian said calmly. The Earthman paused in mid-flight. In Ku-mer's fragile, red-veined hand a weapon pointed—a short-range blaster, sufficient to spatter them all into flying fragments, to smash Webb's finely balanced apparatus into irretrievable ruin.
The girl saw the threatening weapon and gave a choked cry. Stet, uncannily on his feet again, tensed his huge body for a smashing dive. A bull-throated roar vented from his throat.
"Stop it," Webb spoke sharply. The giant face screwed up in hideous protest, relaxed his quivering frame. Thereby Webb lost his chance of escape. For Stet would have died, but in the dying, his blasted flesh would have crashed into the puny Martian, thrust him off balance. And Webb Foster would have been master of the situation, have had the opportunity to put into play all the subtle defenses he had contrived for just such an emergency. Yet, even with that knowledge, the Earthman could not permit the sacrifice of his faithful Titan.
IN ANOTHER MINUTE the interior of the great planisphere swarmed with the henchmen of Ku-mer—the scum of the planets—men of the several worlds, outlaws from the decrees of the council, desperadoes carefully gathered from the spaceways, ready to slit a throat or scuttle a luckless freighter with the utmost nonchalance. They were perfect tools for the sinister, deep-laid purposes of the Martian.
In utter silence, Webb permitted his arms to be pinioned. Stet shook off the first of his attackers like an elephant surrounded by snapping dogs, but a word from Webb brought him to scowling, unwilling submission. The girl was not bound.
She stood a little apart, slightly breathless, her color heightened. If there was fear in her, it did not show; if there was triumph, it, too, was veiled by long, curving lashes.
The sphere swerved, sped not more than fifty miles above the black planet, parallel to its heaving depths. Clinging to the sphere, guiding it on its flight, were the black ships of Gar-Mando.
Webb's thoughts were divided: horror at the abysmal creatures whose nightmare forms swirled in the slimy seas beneath; bitterness at the way in which he had walked into the neat trap set by Ku-mer—and wonder about Susan Blake. In the beginning he had deemed her the emissary of the invisible invaders—for he had placed no credence in the fantastic idea of entities from beyond the system. It had been a toss-up whether she had come from Ansel Pardee of the Moon, or had allied herself with Qys, lord of the Jupiter Planets, in a sudden bid for power. Then Ku-mer had injected himself into the picture.
With the knowledge of the girl's true identity, the whereabouts of her vanished father, Jim Blake, grew to certain proportions. Nor had the Martian himself been free from suspicion of collusion. But now—
"You had been preparing this coup a long time, Ku-mer," Webb said aloud.
The Martian bowed blandly. "Ever since," he admitted, "my researches into the essential nature of thought brought certain fascinating possibilities to light."
Webb looked puzzled. "Thought?" he echoed. "What has that to do with your present thrust for power, your kidnaping of all those who might have been able to oppose your will?"
Ku-mer smiled thinly. "Soon you shall see," he promised.
But there was that in the words which stirred uneasy sensations up and down Webb's spine.
They were flying steadily, scudding the surface. So low did they skim that hideous monsters reared themselves from the tarry seas, snapped with mile-wide jaws at the hurtling sphere—jaws that could almost gulp its bulk entire between serried, crunching fangs.
SUSAN BLAKE broke her long silence. She faced the Martian steadily. "I made a mistake," she said in low tones. "I thought Webb Foster was in back of all this; now I find it is you. What have you done with my father?"
Ku-mer surveyed her quizzically. "You are but a transparent child, Susan Blake," he said softly. "It is true you came to spy on the Earthman, but you suspected me almost at once. Do not imagine I did not know that you were vainly trying to penetrate the sealed secrets of my flier. It suited me to let you fumble on and on."
"Oh-h-h!" The girl stared at him wide-eyed. Anguish was in her voice; her studied pose destroyed. "Answer me!" she cried. "Where is my father?"
Ku-mer smiled. It was not a pleasant smile. "Have comfort, child. You shall see him soon. He is on Gar-Mando."
She gulped and swayed. "Thank Heaven!" she whispered. "He is alive."
"Alive?" queried the Martian. "More than that. He is immortal!"
Webb Foster again felt that nameless shiver pass over his body. Ku-mer's words were cryptic, but they held sinister undertones.
All further speech, however, came to an end. For, in the distance, a huge island heaved into view. It was the only land Webb had seen in all their long flight around the strange black planet. And as land it was almost as forbidding, almost as dreadful, as the pitchy sea from which it reared its gaunt, steep flanks. Almost two miles high it jutted forth, a vast mountain massif, its sides perpendicular rock, black, unscalable, against whose smooth thrust the frightful monsters flung themselves and subsided with angry hissings, lashing the sticky liquid to a viscous, dirty foam.
On board the planisphere Ku-mer's henchmen sprang to their tasks under the Martian's soft-spoken commands. The black-beetle fliers quivered with sourceless power, swerved their gigantic tow aloft, braked its swift motion.
Gently, like a floating feather, they dropped to the surface of the island. It was curiously barren—a solid ledge of rock, smooth as a lava flow, its surface interrupted only by a set of buildings, low in height, sketchy in design, and obviously hastily constructed—typical pioneer buildings, for eating and sleeping, such as might be found on those of the asteroids where mining operations were in progress.
But two of the sprawling structures could not be classified so easily. One held Webb's straining eyes only momentarily. This was evidently Ku-mer's laboratory, the place in which he labored at his subtle psychological science. But the other!
It was small enough, and simple enough—in fact, a mere transparent dome, a semi-bubble set on the arid rock. Yet within its clear rotundity something sparkled and glittered. So sparkling, so glittering, that the great light dazzled Webb with its intensity, blinded him at first. It might have been a huge diamond, so pure and lambent were its rays; yet there was something else about it, even at that distance—
"What, in the name of Pluto, is it?" he gasped.
Ku-mer followed his captive's stare, and his own eyes flamed with light.
"That," he said in a hushed voice, "is my masterpiece, the fruit of years of ceaseless toil, the means by which I, Ku-mer, shall gain control of all the solar system." He turned slowly to the Earthman. "And you, my dear Webb Foster, whom the scientists chose as the greatest of them all, will add the final touch to my masterpiece, the final fillip necessary to consummate my plans."
THE COLD WIND of a strange premonition shuddered over Webb. "You know very well, Ku-mer." he rasped, "that I placed you in nomination for the honor."
For once the Martian's impenetrable surface cracked. His ocher face was a snarling mask. "That, Webb Foster," he mouthed, "was the ultimate insult. You knew quite well they would not vote for me. You pretended a magnanimous gesture—for me, the greatest scientist who ever lived. For that you shall pay; for that the whole system shall pay."
Suddenly, his face smoothed out; he was once more his usual, inscrutable self. "Forgive me, Webb Foster, for this silly outburst. It is unbecoming to me—the supergenius of the universe. In fact, I shall take pride in displaying to you my tremendous discovery. You are probably the only one in all the planets who can understand it. I attempted explanations with the others. The explanations left them sadly befuddled. Regretfully, I was compelled to cut them short."
The great space laboratory rocked gently on its unstable base. At a word from their Martian leader, the outlaws hustled Stet out upon the bleak surface. Bound as he was, it took ten of them to force his great bulk along. Roughly, they pushed him into one of the buildings.
A smirking Venusian approac
hed Susan. She flung his scaly green paw away with a shuddering gesture. "Don't you dare touch me!" she cried.
Ku-mer spoke sharply, and the Venusian shrank as if he had felt the lash.
Webb, tense against his bonds, relaxed. Whatever else might happen, the girl at least was safe from physical indignities. Ku-mer himself was notably ascetic, and the Martians were proud of their racial purity.
"You will not be harmed," Ku-mer assured her. "I have no need for women. Their brains are not— But proceed through the lock, if you please. And you, too, Webb Foster." He gestured significantly with his blaster. "I shall be watching you; so shall my men. And remember, there is no escape from Gar-Mando."
Webb, stumbling through the narrow port, could well believe it. In all the Stygian planet there was but this solitary bit of land. All else was inky ocean, swarming with a nightmare life. A wan light beat on sea and land—a diffused glow inherent in phosphorescent air. Above, the bowl of sky was gray, finite. Light swung round and round in endless circles.
"A mere matter of magnetic deviations, controlled from my laboratory," the Martian murmured. "Gar-Mando was open to the solitudes of space before I came. I deemed it wiser to roof it in with invisibility."
"How did you discover this outpost of the system?" Webb inquired. "No one had ever suspected its existence."
"A certain pirate from the Moon blundered upon it unwittingly while fleeing an especially rigorous space-patrol pursuit. He recognized its possibilities, utilized it as a base for long forays upon the Jupiter satellites.
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