by Earl
Appeal crept into his voice. All the people, Antarkans and Outlanders alike, were listening in wonder. Ermaine stood, expressionless.
He plunged on.
“Don’t you see, Ermaine? You almost saw, once before. The Outland being lifted from backwardness—and Antarka from decadence! All mankind striving toward true civilization, with all the mistakes from the past to benefit from. A united society without wars or tyranny, without maladjustment for any minority Call it an ideology or a dream, or anything you like, but it’s a goal to strive for. That’s the whole meaning of life—” Ellory stopped.
He had said everything he could, and it did not appear to be enough. What did it mean?
Words and dreams, nothing more. Why go on? He had struck no spark here, among Outlanders and Antarkans. They would go on hating one another, warring, bickering . . .
“STILL the dreamer, Humrelly!” This time Ermaine had spoken aloud. Ellory started—and then he felt the weight of despair. In those four words, she had given him her answer—told him he was a fool.
Yet her tone had been strange, soft, moving.
Ellory looked at her, saw that there were tears in her eyes. He took a swift step forward.
And then she was in his arms, sobbing against his shoulder.
“I wanted you to come back, Humrelly! And I knew you would! I hated Antarka, and everything in it, after you left. I almost came to you, except for foolish pride. I knew you were right. Every passing hour told me that.”
Incredulous, he held her there.
She broke away from him suddenly. Proudly she faced her people. Her bell-voice rang out clearly.
“I go with Humrelly, out into the new world—as First Lady of United Earth!” Ellory glanced at her quickly, and for an instant he frowned, hearing that last phrase. Then his fate cleared in a slow smile, and he stepped toward her, to take her in his arms again.
Back of them, though they hardly noticed, Outlanders and Antarkans were looking curiously at one another, as if suddenly aware that above all they were fellow human beings.
THE END
MYSTERY FROM THE STARS
Lieutenant Ted Pitman of the Ether Patrol discovers a queer-looking asteroid in the depths of space—one that turns out to be a mile-long ship from a distant star, carrying a message of menace!
LIEUTENANT Ted Pitman, of the Ether Patrol, rocketed his small ship gracefully around the large liner which hurtled on its scheduled run toward Mars, livery eight hours he made this routine maneuver, on his assignment as the big vessel’s watchdog. In between times, he parked the one-man ship in the liner’s hold and joined in the passengers’ social activities. But he was ready for trouble at a moment’s notice. Pirate depredations in space had not been entirely eliminated in 2139.
He turned to the girl who was with him in the cramped confines of the cabin. It was really against regulations to have a passenger along, particularly a woman, but he felt the exception was justified.
“Like it?” he asked, shooting the ship into a swift, birdlike arc.
“It’s thrilling!” agreed the girl, holding to the handrail firmly.
Pitman wouldn’t have known how to describe Mayella Harkness to some one else, except to say that she was the most attractive and lovely girl on ten worlds. She approached that ultimate, with her fine, white complexion, pert nose, auburn tresses. But there was a certain haunted stare in the back of her long-lashed blue eyes. Pitman had often wondered why.
He stopped the ship and let it drift beside the great liner. Their mutual coasting velocity, since powered acceleration had been discontinued, was close to fifty miles a second, relative to Earth—but they seemed to be hanging motionlessly among the stars.
Pitman looked into the girl’s eyes. His voice was nervous, but he spoke decisively.
“I’ve known you a week, Mayella, aboard the liner. We’ve talked, eaten, and danced together. It’s been great. And now I—I want you to marry me!”
The girl gasped.
“Don’t worry, I’m ready to settle down,” he went on quickly. “I’ll retire from the Patrol. I’ve had my whirl of excitement in it, for ten years, since I enlisted at eighteen. I’ve been studying rocket mechanics on the side. They’ll transfer me to the docks, on Earth, on repair service. We can make a home there!” He stopped, waiting for an answer. He had planned this, almost from the first moment he had laid eyes on her, when the liner had embarked from Earth. Mayella Harkness stared at him wide-eyed for a moment, as though he had said something incomprehensible. Then she dropped her eyes.
“No, Ted,” she whispered. “I’m sorry—but I can’t!”
“There’s someone else?” he asked quietly, crushed.
“No!”
“Then you don’t—”
“I—I do! But I can’t marry you, Ted. I just—can’t!”
The haunted look that he had seen before was in her eyes again, stronger now. She turned away suddenly, quietly sobbing. Pitman put his arm around her shoulder. “There’s something bothering you, that you haven’t told me. What—”
HE BROKE off. A flare of rockets appeared among the stars behind, and a ship quickly overhauled the big liner. It glinted in the sunlight from the side. Its hull was brightly crimson.
“The Red Pirate!” grunted Pitman. “I’ve been waiting to meet up with him!”
This particular red-hulled pirate ship had been bothersome in the spaceways from Mercury to Pluto. For two years it had plundered a variety of ships and cargoes. At times it had battled it out with Patrol ships, always winning. There was a strange rumor that the red ship had some devastating weapon against which no ship could stand.
The pirate craft maneuvered around the curve of the liner’s hull and poised vulturously. Pitman pushed the girl into the corner and threw himself forward. He reflected that it was a poor time to have a woman aboard. Lying at full length on his stomach, he was in the best position to manipulate his gun and ship controls. The one-man patrol ships were designed for speed, efficiency, and offered the least possible target to an enemy. In beam width, they were little more than five feet.
Then, suddenly, the pirate ship acted. From thin, slitted spouts along its smooth surface something spat forth toward the liner. It seemed to be a ray that bit viciously into the engine compartment, shearing through metal as though it were paper. Pitman gasped. A ray like that had never been known before! He had never quite believed the stories about it. In a few minutes, the engine section would be completely cut away and the liner would be without power! No lives would be lost, since the rest of the ship would be sealed off, but the stranded occupants would have to wait for rescue perhaps a full day. In the meantime, the pirates could plunder the ship at their leisure.
An admirable system, Pitman reflected with rage. He had brought his ship nose on within a hundred yards of the pirate ship. Apparently they hadn’t noticed him at all. One good shot and he could put the enemy out of commission—particularly a shot through one of the port plates, which were always the most vulnerable part of a space-ship.
He took a careful bead with the gun whose barrel and firing chamber were outside, just in front of his conning port. His sights lined with deadly accuracy on the nose port of the pirate ship.
“Ted! No—”
Just as he pulled the trigger, the girl clutched at his arm, spoiling his hairline aim. At the jerk of the trigger, a soundless projectile had leaped for the opposing ship. The recoil to the free-floating ship was taken up by the automatic blasts of the rear rockets.
The shell struck the pirate craft and there was a brilliant, silent explosion that for a moment hid the whole ship. Smoke puffed into the nothingness of space. Then the view cleared and Pitman saw that the high-powered shell had done little damage, striking at a glancing angle.
“What’s wrong with you?” he hissed furiously at the girl. “I’d have got them if you hadn’t interfered!”
“But, Ted, I didn’t want—”
“It’s them or us, you little
fool!” he grated. “No room for sentiment in this game!” Bitterly he reflected that he should never have disobeyed regulations and taken the girl aboard. She was becoming hysterical.
There was only one thing to do now, with the element of surprise over, and Pitman did it. He jerked as his controls with his left hand and fired the gun with his right. The little ship darted forward, pumping its deadly cargo at the enemy, in a desperate attack. But it would not be so easy now.
A second after the first shell thundered against its hull, the pirate ship had taken alarm and maneuvered. It was a moving target now, constantly changing its angle of velocity—and they were undoubtedly lining up their guns on him.
Pitman bored in, firing steadily, hoping to get in a lucky shot before they swung their amazing ray on him. His fate, and that of Mayella, hung in the balance as their little ship, spitting fire, rushed forward like an angry cat. Most of his shells went wild, on into open space. The few that struck did little more than dent the heavy armor-plate. If Pitman could pound away at one certain spot long enough, he might crack through, but there was no chance for such concentrated aim.
He had forgotten the girl, in the grimness of the moment, but now she suddenly tugged and shrieked at him again. He tried to shake her off, but she seemed to have gone berserk.
“Mayella, have you gone mad?” he groaned. “They’ll get us in a second. Why are you—”
“Please, Ted! Stop—”
Unable to fight the enemy and the girl both, Pitman was forced to retreat. He jerked savagely at the rocket studs and spun the ship around in a wide circle, away from the Red Pirate. He expected quick death in retaliation for his attack, at any instant, but somehow it didn’t come.
“Mayella!” he gasped. “I don’t understand—” The girl’s behavior had completely baffled him. “You’ve been fighting their battle for them, against me!”
The girl started to say something, then broke off, pointing. A signal rocket flared from the nose of the pirate ship, requesting radio contact.
“Connect with them!” she said, gasping in relief. It was a moment of truce.
ASTONISHED at the pirate’s act, Pitman switched on his radio, tuning for the general communications band. “Lieutenant Ted Pitman, of the Ether Patrol!” he barked into his mike.
A voice came back instantly, surprisingly cultured in tone, and hardly what Pitman had expected from an outlaw of space.
“I presume you have recognized me as the Red Pirate, Lieutenant,” spoke the other in a smooth, unruffled voice, as though nothing had happened. “It is my custom, whenever I come at odds with one of the Patrol, to offer them escape! You realize your disadvantage now, I hope, Lieutenant. I could have destroyed you in the last few moments. My weapon, which you have seen in operation on the liner, could slice you as one slices bread. You have your choice, Lieutenant—leaving or dying!”
“The Patrol never leaves!” grated back Pitman.
“The answer I’ve invariably heard!” retorted the pirate chief. “Brave, foolish men! Well, Lieutenant, you’ve signed your own death warrant.” The voice became sharp. “Prepare for battle—”
“No!”
Mayella had thrust herself forward, before the microphone. “Father!” she exclaimed. “I’m aboard Lieutenant Pitman’s ship. Your daughter—Mayella!”
Pitman stared at her dumfoundedly. The revelation, while it explained her actions, sent his thoughts whirling. This girl, whom he loved, was the daughter of the most notorious pirate of the time! It was almost too incredible to believe.
A startled gasp had come from the radio speaker. For a moment the pirate chief seemed to have lost his voice. Then he spoke, half to himself: “Mayella—my daughter! I’d almost forgotten I had one!” His voice rose. “But how did you know, or find out—”
“Mother told me everything before she died—a month ago,” answered Mayella softly.
Harsh breathing came from the radio, “Died—” The man’s voice was tortured, broken. “I wish I had seen her, once more. And you, Mayella, my child! But you wouldn’t want to see me. I’m an outlaw, an enemy of society!”
“I do want to see you!” said the girl quickly. “I’ve been hoping somehow to meet you. Father, you must give up what you’re doing. You can’t go on that way. You must come back to live a normal life, You must!”
The man’s soul was being torn to quivering shreds—but abruptly his voice became hard, inflexible.
“No!” he half shouted. “My so-called debt to society could only be paid by—my death! And society owes me a debt! I haven’t been plundering the spaceways for wealth, though my followers do. I’ve been extracting—revenge! I haven’t taken lives ruthlessly. I’ve just been proving that if society doesn’t want me as a friend, it must have me as an enemy!”
The harsh tones died to a whisper. “Goodbye, Mayella. Forget I’m your father. Live your own life. If I’ve brought you unhappiness, forgive me!”
The radio clicked, breaking the contact. The pirate ship hung for a moment, as though contemplating the liner, then scuttled away with flaming rockets. The red ship became a star, then dissolved into the black curtain of the void.
PITMAN broke from a trance, reaching for the engine studs, His duty, as a Patrol officer, was to follow the pirate relentlessly. He dropped his hands, groaning a little. What could duty mean, in a situation like this? The girl was sobbing heart-brokenly. Clumsily, he tried to comfort her.
“Tell me the whole story,” he suggested. “Is your father—Dr. Andrew Harkness?”
He had suddenly connected her name with the eminent scientist of five years before, a chemical expert for the army department in the Earth government. He had stolen, so the scandal went, important data on a mysterious new compound, apparently with the idea of developing it himself.
Mayella Harkness nodded, conquering her weeping fit. “I know what you’re thinking,” she blazed. Fire darted from her eyes. “But it isn’t true! Another man, a private scientist, stole the data for the new substance, while father was on duty. He later died in his laboratory, destroyed by some unknown force. My father went to—prison! For three years!”
Her face burned with red shame. “When he got out, no one wanted him, because of the stigma. The government banned him as a scientist. Private industry scorned him. His genius was going to waste. Oh, it was so hard, and cruel!”
For a moment she held her face in her hands, choking back sobs. “Father became terribly embittered. He couldn’t face his friends. One day he—disappeared. My mother told me he had gone to Mars and died there in an accident. But she knew what he had done—drifted into bad company, and eventually piracy. She told me when she died.” The girl’s voice became shrill. “But can you blame him? An innocent man—his career ruined—now you know what he meant about revenge!”
“In a way, I can’t blame him,” admitted Pitman. “But he made matters worse by turning to piracy. Perhaps, in a few years, he might have lived down the prison sentence. Now there’s no hope for him. And he should have thought of you—”
“He thought I’d never know, but I do.” The girl was looking at him now, with that haunted look. “And now you realize, Ted, why I couldn’t marry you, or any other man. Not with the thought of my father roaming through the spaceways, plundering, an enemy to society—”
“On the contrary, you are going to marry me! You heard what your father said himself—live your own life!” His hands moved for the controls. “In fact, we’re going to Earth right now and be married!”
“No, Ted—”
He turned to grab her, kissed her fiercely, though she tried to struggle out of his arms. Then he released her and called the liner’s captain by radio. Assured that all was well except for the ruined engines, Pitman announced his immediate departure for Earth. Another Patrol ship, contacted by the captain, would arrive in a few hours. Later the rescue ships would come from Mars.
Pitman rammed power into his rear rockets, plotting a course for Earth. The girl watched s
ilently.
“Ted, I won’t do it!” she insisted in a low voice, her lips firm.
Pitman said nothing, smiling. He would have a week in which to talk her out of her determined attitude. He could do it. But he was not so sure, as he once again saw the haunted look in her eyes.
TWO days later the little Patrol ship was still arrowing at a steady high velocity for Earth. Within it, the man and girl sat silently opposite each other, the latter’s eyes red-rimmed from weeping. Pitman’s nerves were ragged. It had gradually become apparent to him that the girl meant what she said.
“You win,” he sighed dismally, breaking a silence of hours. “But at least,” he pleaded, “go back to Earth and live there.”
“No—Mars,” said the girl toneless-!y. “Away from relatives and friends. I’ll work in the radium plant; I have an offer from them.”
Pitman turned wearily and drummed the nose rockets into their course. Ten hours later the ship had reversed its direction, relative to Earth, and was building up velocity toward Mars again.
Suddenly the clang of the meteor-mass reflection-beam sounded, warning of a sizable meteor directly in their path. Pitman, though dozing, reacted instantaneously, twisting the ship off its straight course with off-thrust rocket charges. Ten seconds later they flashed over a dark bulk by a safe margin.
“Close call!” Pitman breathed.
He abruptly applied deceleration, “Queer thing,” he murmured, “but that object looked symmetrical to me. I’ll have to take another look at it.” He was prompted by his Patrol training, which was to investigate everything out of the ordinary in space.
“Look, it’s a ship!” he stated as they came in view of it again. “Is it stranded or—” His eyes were suddenly bulging. “Lord, how big is that ship!”
Hovering over it, the mysterious ship revealed unbelievable dimensions. It loomed between them and the background of stars like a finned monster, long and torpedo-shaped. It was bigger, far bigger, than any ocean liner, zeppelin, or space-freighter ever built. Pitman found himself saying that no known shipyard on Earth, Venus, Mars or Ganymede was capable of turning out such a giant craft. But he didn’t believe his trained senses when they told him the ship could not be less than a mile in length!