He looked at her for a minute then shook his head.
“No, you wouldn’t,” he said. “That would knock your inflexible little God for a row of loops and you wouldn’t like that. Never mind. Maybe you’ll be happier not trusting people.”
He took her hand from his arm, bowed politely and walked away.
As he descended the mile-height of the war administration building in the swiftly dropping elatube car, his mind was churning savagely and blindly. He wanted to strike back, to hurt the people who had hurt him, but the one part of his brain that remained cold and thoughtful insisted inevitably that revenge would be an empty accomplishment.
When he stepped onto the gleaming pedestrian level, a half-mile above the ground, the first sight that met his eyes was a huge tubular news sign which flashed the latest bulletins to the city’s population. The dispatch which had just flicked on told of the abolition by Council vote, of the patrols to Exile Planetoid.
He stared at the newsflash bitterly for a long moment.
“That calls for a drink,” he said ironically.
CHAPTER III
Destination—Exile Planetoid!
FOR a week Ward Blackson stayed drunk. Unkempt, unshaven, he slumped on a couch in his apartment, a glass inevitably in one unsteady hand.
As better men than he had discovered before, there was no permanent solace in alcohol. He was trying to forget, but he found it impossible.
One morning he awoke, staggered across the room and poured himself a drink. Half-way to his lips his hand paused. For a long interval he stared at the glass, then slowly he tipped it and splashed the contents onto the floor.
An hour later he had shaved, showered and changed clothes. Only then did he sit down and begin thinking.
He was on a new course, one that might eventually prove as futile as the path he was abandoning, but he was determined to make the attempt. He was going to vindicate the name of Ward Blackson.
The nub of his problem, the solution to all the maddening questions that presented themselves, lay in the attack that had been made on him the day of the Committee hearing in regard to Exile Planetoid. If he could find some clue as to who had slugged him from behind that afternoon in the apartment . . .
He stood up and restlessly paced the length of the room, his forehead lined with anxious thought.
Was it possible that there was some connection between that committee meeting and what had happened to him later?
It wasn’t logical . . .
He paced for an hour, his mind worrying the problem. If only he could remember something about his assailant. But all he could recall was that first warning sound, then the oblivion that followed the slugging blow from behind.
Was it mere coincidence that Major Slade and Ann had walked in while he was lying on the floor, saturated with cheap rum?
His thoughts inevitably returned to the moment of the attack. He had been standing with his back turned, fumbling for the light switch. Without warning, without scruple, the smashing, cowardly blow had been struck.
Who would be capable of an attack like that?
There was only one answer, and it was so illogical, so preposterous, that he dismissed it with an impatient shrug.
But his mind returned to it, again and again.
For another hour he tramped the floor, a slow, burning excitement leaping to flame in his veins. The conviction came to him slowly, but it came with force. There was only one thing to do, only one course of action left to him. It was foolhardy, impossibly perilous, but he wasted no time weighing chances or considering danger.
Having reached a decision he acted. It took him only a few minutes to make arrangements. Then he strode from the apartment. He did not intend coming back . . .
IT was dusk when he reached the immense, sprawling rocket field on the outskirts of Metropolitan New York. Here the Space Navy docked its fighting ships and great cruising bombers. Ward knew every inch of the field, for he had received his cadet training there for four summers.
Streamers of phosphorescent sparks drifted from the red tubes of rocket ships streaking above him, destined for the far flung reaches of outer space.
He stood on an embarking ramp, near a long line of speedy fighters, commanding a view of the entire field. Every few seconds a ship blasted from one of the hundreds of firing tubes, visible only as a blurred orange streak, hissing briefly as it ripped through the thin film of Earth’s atmosphere. At the opposite end of the mammoth field ships were arriving.
They came in more slowly, flying on an infinitesimally accurate electric beam that led them unerringly to the mighty mooring towers that reared upward hundreds of feet into the air.
Ward was not interested in the arriving ships. His attention was focused on the line of fighting ships that were resting in their propulsion tubes, ready for instant blasting into space.
His plan depended solely on whether the news of his discharge had reached the mechanics who kept these emergency ships in repair. If it had, he would be forced to abandon his plan and try something else.
He waited on the ramp, keeping in the shadow of a buttressed pillar, until he saw a member of the maintenance crew swinging along toward him. When the man passed him and headed for the line of propulsion tubes, Ward breathed a sigh of relief.
He knew the man and that might make his job easier.
A moment later he saw the mechanic’s electric torch flickering over the pilot opening of the propulsion tube. With a silent prayer, he stepped from behind the pillar and strode rapidly toward the tube the mechanic was inspecting.
“Hello, Johnny,” he called. “Is she all set to go?”
The mechanic looked up in surprise. His face was in the shadow of the tube and Ward couldn’t discern his reaction.
“Why, yes she is ready to travel,” the mechanic said slowly, “but I didn’t know you were going out tonight.” Ward tried to laugh easily.
“I didn’t either,” he said, “until about a half-hour ago. Someone made up his mind in a big hurry.”
“Yeah,” the mechanic said, “somebody sure did.”
WARD noticed that the man was watching him closely, and that suspicion was beginning to glint in his observant eyes. A bluff was the only thing that might blunt the fellow’s skepticism.
“Let’s go,” he said brusquely, “I haven’t got all night. I’m anxious to get back as soon as possible.”
He stepped toward the door of the tube, but the pilot stepped quickly in front of him.
“Just a minute, Lieutenant,” he said, “you know I’ve got to see the clearance forms on every ship that leaves this line. I’m sure everything is all right, but I must have those papers.”
“Why, sure,” Ward said. He fumbled with the flap on his leather jacket until the mechanic’s attention wandered to the spot. He realized that there was nothing left for him to do but take the ship by force. The mechanic was definitely suspicious, and would become more so if he attempted to hand him a cock and bull story about the clearance forms.
“Here they are!” he snapped.
His left fist snapped up, with the complete weight of his twisting shoulders behind it. The mechanic’s jaw was a perfect target, and Ward’s steaming punch connected solidly.
The mechanic staggered back, a ludicrous expression of amazement spreading over his face. He opened his mouth to shout a warning, but Ward’s second punch to his stomach doubled him up helplessly.
“I’m sorry about this,” Ward said grimly, “but it seems to be necessary.” He swung again, a short chopping blow that packed all of his hard wiry muscle behind it. The mechanic grunted as it bounced off the point of his jaw, then he slumped quietly to the ground. Ward dragged him out of the light, then hurried back to the propulsion tube and dropped quickly into the pilot’s seat of the space ship.
HIS eyes flicked swiftly over the instruments. Asteroid screen, communications, fuel, everything was in perfect shape.
He felt a giddy excitement rushing over him a
s he set the accelerator and shoved home the lever which set into action the isotope of uranium that powered the ship.
The thrill of the trackless, boundless mystery of the void was beckoning to him. Always the magical lure of space possessed him, but now he was hurling himself into its immense gulf on his most important mission. The cards were stacked against him, but nevertheless, all of his chips were staked on this one game.
His hands were trembling as he sealed the cowl-like door of the ship. Swiveling back to the instrument, he grasped the firing lever tightly.
Ready to go!
Destination—Exile Planetoid!
The small planetoid where the descendants of the banished dictators and mad dogs of Earth were isolated was Ward’s first stop. He felt fiercely certain that there, somewhere on the planetoid, was the explanation of the attack on him and his subsequent frame-up.
Why he felt so positively that the answer to the riddle was there, he, himself, was not certain.
There was, for one thing, the fact that the attack had occurred the same day he had protested so bitterly against the discontinuance of the patrols to Exile Planetoid.
That was an extremely slight bit of evidence, however, to motivate this dangerous trip. But there was one additional factor that had concretized his decision.
It was that the attack had occurred in the dark—and the blow had been struck from behind.
Slim clue, but it was enough for Ward.
With grimly set jaw, Ward slammed the firing lever into place.
A hissing, crackling detonation split the air for an instant, then settled into the faint electric hum of flowing energy.
For an instant he waited. Then with an abrupt, swift gesture he tripped the propulsion tube releases. With a thunderous roar of power the slim space craft rocketed from the tube and slashed through Earth’s atmosphere. A trail of fiery red sparks glowed with weird beauty against the blackness of the night as they settled slowly to earth.
CHAPTER IV
Exile Planetoid
THE PLANETOID was a small, gleaming, irregularly shaped mass, twelve hours from Earth by the fastest ships. It lay almost directly between Mars and Earth. Astronomers had been unable to detect its presence because of a densely vaporous aura which clung to its atmosphere and rendered it photographically invisible.
It was only when space travel became a reality that its existence was realized. When its orbit had been charted and the mineral deposits determined by spectrum analysis, exploratory trips had been made and a mass of data accumulated.
The white vaporous gases that cloaked the planetoid had been visible on the visi-screen for several hours. Six hours before Ward Blackson had sighted his destination and he was now within an hour’s distance of it.
On the visi-screen, directly ahead of his instrument panel, he watched the planetoid grow larger with each second. Beyond Exile Planetoid’s comparatively infinitesimal mass, he could see the blazing red bulk of the ever-mysterious planet of Mars.
Earth space ships had never been able to reach this planet. While successful trips had been made to Uranus, Saturn, and even far-flung Jupiter, the red planet of the War God had defied the daring of pilots and the brilliance of scientists alike.[*]
Ward had been piloting his ship almost mechanically for the last few hours, and he was yawning from sheer boredom as his eyes passed perfunctorily over the mooring instruments, then swung lazily again to the visi-screen.
He studied the screen for an instant, but as his eyes were slipping away from it, he saw something that brought him to his feet, every nerve tensed.
In the far comer of the visi-screen a small black oblong speck was just disappearing—In the direction of Mars.
For a tense moment Ward studied the screen anxiously but there was no further evidence of the black oblong. He sat back in the pilot’s chair, his thoughts churning swiftly.
THAT black oblong could have been nothing but a space ship. It must have been an Earth ship, because there were no other ships in the void. There were, however, several amazing things to consider about the appearance of that ship. First, its speed was easily twice his own, because it had pulled out of his vision almost instantly. Secondly, it was an incredibly immense ship. Nothing less than a giant cruiser would have shown on his screen at that tremendous distance.
Ward wasn’t sure, but he knew of no ships of that size and speed from Earth. Possibly it was some incredibly swift behemoth that had been built in secret by Allied Intelligence. Supporting that theory was the fact that it had been heading directly toward Mars—in fact when he had sighted it, the huge ship was already within the radius of Mars’ electrical storms.
It was logical to assume that it was some new type ship built expressly to crack through the storms that raged about Mars.
Ward had become so absorbed in the mystery of the huge ship that had flashed across his visi-screen, that he had forgotten the proximity of Exile Planetoid. It was looming before him now, a huge mass of vaporous white, completely blotting out the blazing planet of Mars.
Ward jammed his foot against the deceleration lever, braking the tremendous speed of his ship.
In a few seconds he was through the filmy mist and the small planetoid was suddenly revealed to him. Luckily the nose of his flashing ship was pointed almost directly at the one mooring tower that had been erected on the planetoid. Cutting the rear propulsion blasters out completely, he prepared to dock.
WHEN he climbed from his ship and descended to the ground a small cluster of inhabitants had already gathered at the base of the tower.
From this aggregation a brownskinned, pock-marked little man detached himself and stepped forward, bowing carefully.
“I am so pleased to welcome you,” he said. He spoke with a slight lisp and pronounced the words very carefully. Dressed in the regulation gray clothes which Earth provided for the exiles, he, nevertheless, managed to stand out from the motley horde. His face was bland and pleasantly expressionless, but his inscrutable dark eyes were very observant, even though his gaze seemed centered continually on an objective just above Ward’s left shoulder.
“I am Tojo,” he said, after a slight hesitation. His eyes touched Ward’s briefly, then shifted away.
Ward nodded curtly. He was on thin ice and he decided the less he said the better. The crowd that had gathered at the base of the tower was now moving away, their glances scrupulously avoiding his. Ward wondered if they received some sign from Tojo. They were a mixed and motley lot. The descendants of the Aryan Germans towered blond and sullen above the Japs. But there were a number of cross breeds in the group, short stocky men with light eyes and hair, wearing the perpetually imperturbable expression that was their heritage from their Nipponese ancestors.
When they had filed away and disappeared around a corner of a crude, but soundly constructed building, Tojo smiled inquiringly at him.
“I am yours to command,” he said blandly. He hesitated, drawing a breath through his teeth with a slight hissing sound. “Pardon, if I am presumptuous, but might I inquire if there is any special reason for your very pleasant visit? Or is it, perhaps, only our good fortune that you happened by accidentally?”
Ward realized then that it was hardly likely that any news had reached this isolated planetoid since the last Earth patrol had visited here. This realization brought him a new confidence.
“It was no accident,” he said bluntly. “There are certain definite reasons for my being here.”
Tojo’s bland face beamed.
“I am overjoyed to hear you say so.
Anything I can do to assist you will be a pleasure. Now, might I suggest that you follow me to our living quarters? Your trip must have been tiring. Food and rest will refresh you.”
“Thank you,” Ward said drily. With a slight, deferential bow Tojo turned and led the way toward the centrally situated group of buildings that housed the inhabitants of Exile Planetoid.
THE small city was laid out with Germanic exactness. St
reets had been planned geometrically, and on each narrow, clean street an equal number of stout wooden houses had been constructed. All the meagre resources of the planetoid had been utilized to create an atmosphere of solid frugal practicality.
Ward’s glance probed down each side street they passed. Except for the absence of people, everything looked peaceful and normal.
They followed the main street for perhaps a hundred yards before Tojo stopped before a dwelling, identical with the others, except that it was wider and higher.
“Our State House,” he said, with a sly glint in his evasive eyes. “Here we transact the simple administrative business of our community and keep such records as we find necessary. It is quite sufficient for our purposes. Please, be so kind as to follow me.”
He bowed again and stepped into the house. Ward followed him. A man with thick blond hair rose from behind a desk as they entered.
“Ha!” he said loudly. “Good day, Lieutenant. It is good to see you. Permit me to introduce myself. I am Baron von Multke.”
He laughed, showing clean strong teeth.
“The title is an affectation, of-course, but it is a harmless vanity.”
He laughed again and stepped around the desk, extended his right hand to Ward.
Ward shook hands, studying the man closely.
The German was taller than he, with wide, heavy shoulders and a large, wellshaped head covered with thick, closely-cropped blond hair. His eyes were cold points of blue in his hard face. Their expression did not reflect the smile on his lips.
“It is good to have you here,” Baron von Multke said, pounding him on the back. “We like visitors, don’t we, Tojo?”
“But of course,” Tojo smiled. “It is a pleasant relief from the somewhat monotonous routine of our existence.”
Ward could detect only the faintest tinge of sarcasm beneath the bland words, but it was enough to kindle his suspicions.
“Have things been so terribly monotonous?” he asked casually. He looked away from the two men as he spoke, but glanced back in time to catch the look that passed between them.
Collected Fiction (1940-1963) Page 93