Chapter 4

“But see here,” I said, “did they mention the Martian, Molo, at all?”

“They were discussing Molo before you arrived,” Grantline told us.

We had drawn back from the doorway. The conference, with the dead thing removed, was proceeding. Snap and I had momentarily forgotten Anita and Venza; but now we were in a panic to get back to the Red Spark.

“But you can’t go,” said Grantline. “Brayley ordered you here. He’ll want to see you in a moment.”

“Well, why doesn’t he see us now?” Snap protested. “I’m not going to cool myself off sitting here.”

“Oh yes, you are.”

Grantline sent word to Brayley that we were here. In a moment the answer came. We were to wait a short time; he would want to see us.

We swiftly told Grantline what had happened at the Red Spark, and found that already he knew. Francis had relayed it to the conference, and Halsey was in constant communication with the officials here.

“Then what is happening?” I demanded. “Where are the girls? Has Halsey heard from them?”

Again Grantline went to a nearby room.

“Anita sent a message,” he said, when he returned. “They are with Molo. Halsey is ordering a squad of men to be ready.”

Grantline told us what had been happening in the Red Spark. Anita and Venza, simulating drunkenness with a skill for acting which I knew both of them possessed, had joined Molo’s party. Perhaps if Meka had been there she would have seen through them.

But Molo did not. And they have since told me that the Martian himself was far from sober, although he was probably not aware of it. He yielded to their demands to leave the restaurant with him. He wanted, as we know, to leave unobtrusively; and Venza threatened a scene unless she could go.

He took them, leaving openly in a public fare-car. Doubtless he at first intended to de-rail them somewhere, but they convinced him that he was not being followed. Twice he used his detector, and Anita and Halsey were clever enough to throw off their rays in time to avoid it. Then Halsey lost connection with the fleeing car, and after that Molo changed his mind about ditching the girls.

“But where are they now?” I demanded.

“You,” said Grantline sternly, “are out of it. Do you think that Halsey, under Brayley’s orders, will neglect any chance to find out where Molo is hiding? Something is about to happen. This conference is wrestling with it. In Grebhar and Ferrok-Shahn they’re striving to find out what it is. Something impending now. Helios are pouring in here from Venus and Mars. They’re mobilizing their spaceships, just as we are.”

Grantline at last was letting out all his apprehensions on us, with this burst. “Halsey didn’t tell you that the entire resources of his organization are out upon this thing tonight. Here at this conclave there’s a room of information-sorters. That’s just where I came from a moment ago. Every country on our Earth is making ready--for what, nobody knows!

“He’s had two fragmentary calls from Anita. He has a hundred men ready to rush to their aid, and to capture Molo’s lair. He expects another message from Anita any moment. This conference here knows every movement that is being made, within ten or twenty seconds of its making. Perhaps upon Anita and Venza the whole outcome of this thing may hang.”

We had no answer to that. “Do you know who Molo is? He’s an interplanetary pirate; his ship is the Star-Streak.”

“Good Lord!”

We had heard of him. For five years past, a gray spaceship, with a base supposedly hidden in the Polar deserts of Mars, had been terrorizing interplanetary shipping.

“They think,” Grantline went on, “that Molo was cruising with his pirate ship. He has, as you know, a band of criminals drawn from all the three worlds. There are about fifty of them, commanded by his sister and himself. We think that Molo encountered the three ships which that new planet sent out. The Star-Streak was captured, perhaps destroyed. Molo and his band, joined with this new enemy, to save themselves, and because they have been promised rewards.”

“But why should these brains want their help?” Snap demanded.

“Wouldn’t you say it was because, in Ferrok-Shahn, Grebhar and here in Greater New York, simultaneously tonight, something has to be accomplished, something the brains themselves could not do? Molo and his band know all three cities. How they landed here in Greater New York nobody knows; the enemy spaceship is 200,000 miles out. Obviously they came from it, landed secretly with some smaller ship somewhere on Earth and made their way here.”

A buzzer sounded beside us. A voice commanded: “Grantline, bring Gregg Haljan and Daniel Dean to room six at once.”

In room six we stood before the War Secretary, who had arrived there a moment ahead of us.

“Ah, Haljan and Dean. I’m glad to see you.”

He was still white and shaken. Beads of perspiration stood upon his forehead. He mopped them off.

“I’ve just had a rather terrible experience.” He did not suggest that we sit down. He went on crisply: “Grantline no doubt has told you of what’s going on. Disturbing, terrifying. Haljan, we have a ship being rushed into commission tonight. You know her, the Cometara.”

“I know her,” I said.

“Quite so. She is taking off as soon as we can ready her. She will carry about fifty men. Grantline is in charge of the armament and men. You, Dean, we want to handle her radio-helio.”

“Right,” said Snap.

“And you, Haljan, we can think of no one better to navigate her.”

He waved away my appreciation. “Within a brief time we shall have thirty such ships in space. Mars and Venus also are mobilizing.”

He stood up. “We feel, Haljan, that if anyone can handle the Cometara with skill enough to combat this lurking enemy, it will be you.”

“I’ll do my best, sir.”

“We know that. The ship is leaving from the Tappan Interplanetary Stage shortly after dawn. When have you and Dean last slept?”

“Last night,” we both said.

“Quite so. Then you need sleep now. I want you to go at once to the Tappan Fieldhouse. The commander there will make you comfortable. Eat, and sleep if you can. We want you in good shape. You’re to keep out of this night’s activities here in the city; you understand?”

“Yes sir.”

An orderly was approaching behind Brayley. “I’ll be back in a moment, Rollins.”

He shook hands with us. “I may not see you again before it’s over. Good luck, lads. Grantline, they need you for a moment in the hall; something about electronic space weapons, further equipment for the Cometara. Then you’d better go to Tappan House too, and get some sleep.”

We were dismissed. Snap and I regarded each other hesitantly. I said impulsively, “Mr. Brayley, Detective-Colonel Halsey is using two girls.”

“Yes, we’re watching that, Haljan.”

“They’re the girls we’re to marry,” I added. “May we communicate with Colonel Halsey?”

“Yes. Call him from here.” He smiled wanly. “But keep out of it; we need you at dawn.”

The Tappan departure-stage was only a few miles up the Hudson; we could get there in half an hour. It was now nearly trinight, halfway between midnight and dawn. I had my portable audiphone and got Halsey at once.

“You Gregg?”

“Yes. They’re through with us at the Conclave. Where is Anita?”

“We heard from her twice. I’m expecting...”

We could hear someone interrupting him. Then he came back. “Gregg? Molo took them somewhere. I didn’t dare fling after them. He had his detector going, and Anita warned me not to try it. She had to stop connection herself. God knows how she was able to whisper to me at all.”

His voice, like Brayley’s, had the ring of a man strained to the breaking point. I could appreciate how Halsey must feel, forced to remain at his desk with its encircling banks of instruments; holding all the network of his farflung activities centralized; his decisions, his commands in a hundred places almost simultaneously, while his body sat there inactive.

“Gregg, the girls must have arrived at Molo’s place by now. If only they know where they are! I have lookouts throughout the city with intricate and complete connecting equipment. Gregg, I must disconnect.”

“Colonel, give me Anita’s frequency. Maybe Snap or I can pick up the message.”

He named the oscillating frequency, then disconnected.

“Try that frequency,” Snap suggested. “We’ve got to do something.”

The door-slide opened suddenly and an orderly appeared. “Haljan?”

“Get the hell away,” roared Snap. “We’ve had our orders; we don’t want any from you.”

“Gregg Haljan and Daniel Dean are paged on the mirrors.”

Someone in the city wanted us; our names were appearing on the various mirror-grids publicly displayed throughout the city in the hope that we would answer.

“That’s different,” said Snap. “Answer it for us, that’s a good fellow. We’re busy.”

“It must be important,” the orderly insisted. “The caller registered a fee at the Search Bureau; that’s how they located you here. He paid the highest fee to search you. An emergency call.”

It was against the law to invoke the services of the Search Bureau unless based upon actual impending danger. “We’ll take it,” I said.

“Come with me.” He turned to the left and down the corridor.

We hastened with him to a corridor cubby. Upon the audiphone there I was at once connected with a voice, and an anxious man’s face with a two-day growth upon it.

“Haljan! Thank God you answered. This is Dud Ardley. Me and Shac are here. Listen, this is the lower cellar corridor, Lateral 3, under Broadway. Me and Shac just have seen your girls down here.”

News of Anita and Venza! I could see in the mirror-image, behind Dud’s head the outlines of the little public cubby from which he was calling. He and his brother, on some illicit errand of their own in East Side lower Manhattan, had seen figures alighting from a fare-car. They had caught a glimpse of the faces of Anita and Venza. The girls were hooded and cloaked; a hooded man was with them. The fare-car quickly rolled away, and the hooded figures, suddenly becoming invisible within their magnetic cloaks, had vanished.

“S’elp me, we couldn’t do nothin’. You know we take no chances with the police by carryin’ cylinders. So I paged you in a hurry.”

“Dud, that’s damn nice of you. Where are you now? Tell me again.”

The Ardleys, knowing nothing of the events of this night, supposed that the girls were being abducted, and decided I should be informed.

“Damn right, Dud. We’ll come at once. You two wait for us?”

“Sure. If you got instruments, maybe we can track ‘em. It wasn’t a quarter of a mile from here, over toward the river. Plenty of rotten dumps down there.”

“Wait for us, Dud. We’ll come in a rush.”

I slammed shut the audiphone. Snap, beside me, had heard it all. He shoved the astonished orderly out of the way.

“What’s the nearest exit-route out of here?”

“To the city roof, sir. Up this incline.”