Chapter 13: The Torture

“Haljan! Yield or I’ll fire! Moa, give me the smaller one. This cursed--”

He had in his hand too large a projector. Its ray would kill me. If he wanted to take me alive, he would not fire. I chanced it.

“No!”

I tried to draw myself beneath the window. An automatic bullet projector was on the floor where Carter had dropped it. I pulled myself down.

Miko did not fire. I reached the revolver. The dead bodies of the captain and purser had drifted together on the floor in the center of the room.

I hitched myself back to the window. With upraised weapon I gazed cautiously out. Miko had disappeared. The deck within my line of vision was empty.

But was it? Something told me to beware. I clung to the casement, ready upon the instant to shove myself down. There was a movement in a shadow along the deck. Then a figure rose up.

“Don’t fire, Haljan!”

The sharp command, half appeal, stopped the pressure of my finger on the trigger of the automatic. It was the tall lanky Englishman, Sir Arthur Coniston, as he called himself. So he too was one of Miko’s band! The light through a dome-window fell full on him.

“If you fire, Haljan, and kill me--Miko will kill you then, surely.”

From where he had been crouching he could not command my window. But now, upon the heels of his placating words, he abruptly shot. The low-powered ray, had it struck, would have felled me without killing.

But it went over my head as I dropped. Its aura made my senses reel.

Coniston shouted, “Haljan!”

I did not answer. I wondered if he would dare approach to see if I had been hit. A minute passed. Then another. I thought I heard Miko’s voice on the deck outside. But it was an aerial, microscopic whisper close beside me.

“We see you, Haljan! You must yield!”

Their eavesdropping vibrations, with audible projection, were upon me. I retorted aloud.

“Come and get me! You cannot take me alive.”

I do protest if this action of mine in the chart-room may seem bravado.

I had no wish to die. There was within me a very healthy desire for life. But I felt, by holding out, that some chance might come wherewith I might turn events against these brigands. Yet reason told me it was hopeless. Our loyal members of the crew were killed, no doubt. Captain Carter and Balch were killed. The lookouts and Course-masters also. And Blackstone.

There remained only Dr. Frank and Snap. Their fate I did not yet know.

And there was George Prince. He, perhaps, would help me if he could.

But, at best, he was a dubious ally.

“You are very foolish, Haljan,” murmured the projection of Miko’s voice.

And then I heard Coniston:

“See here, why would not a hundred pounds of gold-leaf tempt you? The code-words which were taken from Johnson--I mean to say, why not tell us where they are?”

So that was one of the brigands new difficulties! Snap had taken the code-word sheet, that time we sealed the purser in the cage.

I said, “You’ll never find them. And when a police ship sights us, what will you do then?”

The chances of a police ship were slim indeed, but the brigands evidently did not know that. I wondered again what had become of Snap.

Was he captured--or still holding them off?

I was watching my windows; for at any moment, under cover of this talk, I might be assailed.

Gravity came suddenly to the room. Miko’s voice said. “We mean well by you, Haljan. There is your normality. Join us. We need you to chart our course.”

“And a hundred pounds of gold-leaf,” urged Coniston. “Or more. Why, this treasure--”

I could hear an oath from Miko. And then his ironic voice: “We will not bother you, Haljan. There is no hurry. You will be hungry in good time.

And sleepy. Then we will come and get you. And a little acid will make you think differently about helping us...”

His vibrations died away. The pull of gravity in the room was normal. I was alone in the dim silence, with the bodies of Carter and Johnson lying huddled on the grid. I bent to examine them. Both were dead.

My isolation was no ruse this time. The outlaws made no further attack.

Half an hour passed. The deck outside, what I could see of it, was vacant. Balch lay dead close outside the chart-room door. The bodies of Blackstone and the Course-master had been removed from the turret window. A forward lookout--one of Miko’s men--was on duty in the nearby tower. Hahn was at the turret controls. The ship was under orderly handling, heading back upon a new course. For the Earth? Or the Moon? It did not seem so.

I found, in the chart-room, a Benson curve-light projector which poor Captain Carter had very nearly assembled. I worked on it, trained it through my rear window, along the empty deck; bent it into the lounge archway. Upon my grid the image of the lounge interior presently focused. The passengers in the lounge were huddled in a group.

Disheveled, frightened, with Moa standing watching them. Stewards were serving them with a meal.

Upon a bench, bodies were lying. Some were dead. I saw Rance Rankin.

Others were evidently only injured. Dr. Frank was moving among them, attending them. Venza was there, unharmed. And I saw the gamblers, Shac and Dud, sitting white-faced, whispering together. And Glutz’s little be-ribboned, be-curled figure on a stool.

George Prince was there, standing against the walls shrouded in his mourning cloak, watching the scene with alert, roving eyes. And by the opposite doorway, the huge towering figure of Miko stood on guard. But Snap was missing.

A brief glimpse. Miko saw my Benson-light. I could have equipped a heat-ray, and fired along the curved Benson-light into that lounge. But Miko gave me no time.