Chapter 6: A Traitor, and a Passing Asteroid

Captain Carter was grim. “So they’ve bought him off, have they? Go bring him in here, Gregg. We’ll have it out with him now.”

Snap, Dr. Frank, Balch, our first officer, and I were in the captain’s chart-room. It was 4 P. M.--our Earth starting time. We were sixteen hours upon our voyage.

I found Johnson in his office in the lounge. “Captain wants to see you.

Close up.”

He closed his window upon an American woman passenger who was demanding details of Martian currency, and followed me forward. “What is it, Gregg?”

“I don’t know.”

Captain Carter banged the slide upon us. The chart-room was insulated.

The hum of the current was obvious. Johnson noticed it. He started at the hostile faces of the surgeon and Balch. And he tried to bluster.

“What is this? Something wrong?”

Carter wasted no words. “We have information, Johnson--there’s some under cover plot here aboard. I want to know what it is. Suppose you tell us frankly.”

The purser looked blank. “What do you mean? We’ve gamblers aboard, if that’s--”

“To hell with that,” growled Balch. “You had a secret interview with that Martian, Set Miko, and with George Prince!”

Johnson scowled from under his heavy brows, and then raised them in surprise.

“Did I? You mean changing their money? I don’t like your tone, Balch.

I’m not your under-officer!”

“But you’re under me,” roared the captain. “By God, I’m master here!”

“Well, I’m not disputing that,” said the purser mildly. “This fellow Balch--”

“We’re in no mood for argument,” Dr. Frank cut in. “Clouding the issue.”

“I won’t let it be clouded,” the captain exclaimed. I had never seen Carter so choleric. He was evidently under a tremendous strain. He added,

“Johnson, you’ve been acting suspiciously. I don’t give a damn whether I’ve proof of it or not--I say it. Did you, or did you not meet George Prince and that Martian last night?”

“No, I did not. And I don’t mind telling you, Captain Carter, that your tone also is offensive!”

“Is it?” Carter suddenly seized him. They were both big men. Johnson’s heavy face went purplish red.

“Take your hands!--” They were struggling. Carter’s hands were fumbling at the purser’s pockets. I leaped, flung an arm around Johnson’s neck, pinning him.

“Easy there! We’ve got you, Johnson!”

Snap tried to help me. “Go on, bang him on the head, Gregg. Now’s your chance!”

We searched him. A heat-ray cylinder--that was legitimate. But we found a small battery and eavesdropping microphone similar to the one Venza had mentioned that Shac the gambler was carrying.

“What are you doing with that?” the captain demanded.

“None of your business! Is it criminal? Carter, I’ll have the Line officials dismiss you for this! Take your hands off me, all of you!”

“Look at this!” exclaimed Dr. Frank.

From Johnson’s breast pocket the surgeon drew a folded document. It was the scale drawing of the Planetara’s interior corridors, the lower control rooms and mechanisms. It was always kept in Johnson’s safe. And with it, another document: the ship’s clearance papers--the secret code pass-words for this voyage, to be used if we should be challenged by any interplanetary police ship.

Snap gasped. “My God, that was in my helio-room strong box! I’m the only one on this vessel except the captain who’s entitled to know those pass-words!”

Out of the silence, Balch demanded, “Well, what about it, Johnson?”

The purser was still defiant. “I won’t answer your questions, Balch. At the proper time, I’ll explain--Gregg Haljan, you’re choking me!”

I eased up. But I shook him. “You’d better talk.”

He was exasperatingly silent.

“Enough!” exploded Carter. “He can explain when we get to port.

Meanwhile I’ll put him where he’ll do no more damage. Gregg, lock him in the cage.”

We ignored his violent protestations. The cage--in the old days of sea-vessels on Earth, they called it the brig--was the ship’s jail. A steel-lined, windowless room located under the deck in the peak of the bow. I dragged the struggling Johnson there, with the amazed watcher looking down from the observatory window at our lunging, starlit forms.

“Shut up, Johnson! If you know what’s good for you--”

He was making a fearful commotion. Behind us, where the deck narrowed at the superstructure, half a dozen passengers were gazing in surprise.

“I’ll have you thrown out of the Service, Gregg Haljan!”

I shut him up finally. And flung him down the ladder into the cage and sealed the deck trap-door upon him. I was headed back for the chart-room when from the observatory came the lookout’s voice.