Chapter 13

The ship was silent now. Even the whisper of the cards had stopped. Reg and Max were on their feet, startled by the cries of Pete and Chizzy.

“It’s Manning!” shrieked Pete. “He’s watching us!”

Chizzy’s hand whipped out like a striking snake toward the controls and, as he grasped them, his face went deathly white. For the controls were locked! They resisted all the strength he threw against them and the ship still bore on toward that mocking face that hung above the Earth.

“Do something!” screamed Max. “You damn fool, do something!”

“I can’t,” moaned Chizzy. “The ship is out of control.”

It seemed impossible. That ship was fast and tricky and it had reserve power far beyond any possible need. It handled like a dream ... it was tops in aircraft. But there was no doubt that some force more powerful than the engines and controls of the ship itself had taken over.

“Manning’s got us!” squealed Pete. “We came out to get him and now he has us instead!”

The craft was gaining speed. The whining shriek of the air against its plates grew thinner and higher. Listening, one could almost feel and hear the sucking of the mighty power that pulled it at an ever greater pace through the tenuous atmosphere.

The face was gone from the sky now. Only the Moon remained, the Moon and the brush-stroke mountains far below.

Then, suddenly, the speed was slowing and the ship glided downward, down into the saw-teeth of the mountains.

“We’re falling!” yelled Max, and Chizzy growled at him.

But they weren’t falling. The ship leveled off and floated, suspended above a sprawling laboratory upon a mountain top.

“That’s Manning’s laboratory,” whispered Pete in terror-stricken tones.

The levers yielded unexpectedly. Chizzy flung the power control over, drove the power of the accumulator bank, all the reserve, into the engines. The ship lurched, but did not move. The engines whined and screamed in torture. The cabin’s interior was filled with a blast of heat, the choking odor of smoke and hot rubber. The heavy girders of the frame creaked under the mighty forward thrust of the engines ... but the ship stood still, frozen above that laboratory in the hills.

Chizzy, hauling back the lever, turned around, pale. His hand began clawing for his heat gun. Then he staggered back. For there were only two men in the cabin with him--Reg and Max. Pete had gone!

“He just disappeared,” Max jabbered. “He was standing there in front of us. Then all at once he seemed to fade, as if he was turning into smoke. Then he was gone.”

Something had descended about Pete. There was no sound, no light, no heat. He had no sense of weight. It was as if, suddenly, his mind had become disembodied.

Seeing and hearing and awareness came back to him as one might turn on a light. From the blackness and the eventless existence of a split second before, he was catapulted into a world of light and sound.

It was a world that hummed with power, that was ablaze with light, a laboratory that seemed crammed with mighty banks of massive machinery, lighted by great globes of creamy brightness, shedding an illumination white as sunlight, yet shadowless as the light of a cloudy day.

Two men stood in front of him, looking at him, one with a faint smile on his lips, the other with lines of fear etched across his face. The smiling one was Gregory Manning and the one who was afraid was Scorio!

With a start, Pete snatched his pistol from its holster. The sights came up and lined on Manning as he pressed the trigger. But the lancing heat that sprang from the muzzle of the gun never reached Manning. It seemed to strike an obstruction less than a foot away. It mushroomed with a flare of scorching radiance that drove needles of agony into the gangster’s body.

His finger released its pressure and the gun dangled limply from his hand. He moaned with the pain of burns upon his unprotected face and hands. He beat feebly at tiny, licking blazes that ran along his clothing.

Manning was still smiling at him.

“You can’t reach me, Pete,” he said. “You can only hurt yourself. You’re enclosed within a solid wall of force that matter cannot penetrate.”

A voice came from one corner of the room: “I’ll bring Chizzy down next.”

Pete whirled around and saw Russell Page for the first time. The scientist sat in front of a great control board, his swift, skillful fingers playing over the banks of keys, his eyes watching the instrument and the screen that slanted upward from the control banks.

Pete felt dizzy as he stared at the screen. He could see the interior of the ship he had been yanked from a moment before. He could see his three companions, talking excitedly, frightened by his disappearance.

His eyes flicked away from the screen, looked up through the skylight above him. Outlined against the sky hung the ship. At the nose and stern, two hemispheres of blue-white radiance fitted over the metal framework, like the jaws of a powerful vise, holding the craft immovable.

His gaze went back to the screen again, just in time to see Chizzy disappear. It was as if the man had been a mere figure chalked upon a board ... and then someone had taken a sponge and wiped him out.

Russ’s fingers were flying over the keys. His thumb reached out and tripped a lever. There was a slight hum of power.

And Chizzy stood beside him.

Chizzy did not pull his gun. He whimpered and cowered within the invisible cradle of force.

“You’re yellow,” Pete snarled at him, but Chizzy only covered his eyes with his arms.

“Look, boss,” said Pete, addressing Scorio, “what are you doing here? We left you back in New York.”

Scorio did not answer. He merely glared. Pete lapsed into silence, watching.

Manning stood poised before the captives, rocking back and forth on his heels.

“A nice bag for one evening,” he told Russ.

Russ grinned and stoked up his pipe.

Manning turned to the gangster chief. “What do you think we ought to do with these fellows? We can’t leave them in those force shells too long because they’ll die for lack of air. And we can’t let them loose because they might use their guns on us.”

“Listen, Manning,” Scorio rasped hoarsely, “just name your price to let us loose. We’ll do anything you want.”

Manning drew his mouth down. “I can’t think of a thing. We just don’t seem to have any use for you.”

“Then what in hell,” the gangster asked shakily, “are you going to do with us?”

“You know,” said Manning, “I may be a bit old-fashioned along some lines. Maybe I am. I just don’t like the idea of killing people for money. I don’t like people stealing things other people have worked hard to get. I don’t like thieves and murderers and thugs corrupting city governments, taking tribute on every man, woman and child in our big cities.”

“But look here, Manning,” pleaded Scorio, “we’d be good citizens if we just had a chance.”

Manning’s face hardened. “You sent these men here to kill us tonight, didn’t you?”

“Well, not exactly. Stutsman kind of wanted you killed, but I told the boys just to get the stuff in the safe and never mind killing you. I said to them that you were pretty good eggs and I didn’t like to bump you off, see?”

“I see,” said Manning.

He turned his back on Scorio and started to walk away. The gangster chief came half-way out of his chair, and as he did so, Russ reached out a single finger and tapped a key. Scorio screamed and beat with his fists against the wall of force that had suddenly formed about him. That single tap on the great keyboard had sprung a trap, had been the one factor necessary to bring into being a force shell already spun and waiting for him.