Loot of the Void Page 2
Caves.
Penrun folded up the crumpled bit of paper and placed it carefully inhis shoe. Unless his guess was wrong, another attempt to get it wouldbe made shortly. Undoubtedly the girl had by now reported her failureto the rest of the gang.
* * * * *
The inquest was brief. The white-sheeted body of the Martian lay onthe table where he had been slain. The captain of the liner calledPenrun as the chief witness. He told a straightforward story of achance acquaintance with Lozzo who, he said, seemed to be afraid ofsomething. He had declared, so Penrun testified, that he was beinghounded for a map of some kind and he wanted Penrun to see it. Thenthe murder had been committed, the map was stolen, and the murdererhad fled. That was all, Penrun concluded, he knew about the matter.
Other passengers corroborated his story and he was dismissed.
Throughout the inquest Penrun studied the crowd of passengers thatjammed the buffet, hoping he might catch a glimpse of the slender,dark-eyed girl who had tried to rob him. She was nowhere to be seen.He thought of telling the captain about her, but decided not to. Shemight make another attempt to get the map, and thereby give him theopportunity of rounding up the whole gang, or at least of learning whothey were. He told himself grimly that if he could lay hold of heragain, she would not escape so easily.
If Penrun didn't realize before that he was a marked man, it wasimpressed on him more forcefully three hours later on the lower deckwhen two men attacked him in the darkened passage near the stern.There was no time for pistols. A series of hurried fist-blows. Heslugged his way free and fled to the safety of his stateroom.
Once there he locked the door and sat down to consider his position.It was obvious now that he would be followed to the outposts of space,if necessary, in an attempt to get the map from him.
* * * * *
After half an hour's hard thinking he tossed away his fourthcigarette, loosened the pistol in his armpit holster, and slipped outof the room. He went to the captain.
"You think, then, that your life is in danger because you happened tobe talking to that old Martian when he was murdered?" asked thecaptain, when Penrun had finished.
"No question about it," declared Penrun. "Two attempts have been madealready."
"Hmm," said the captain, frowning. "A most remarkably strangebusiness. I've never had anything like it aboard my ship in the twentyyears I've been traveling the Void."
"I can pay for the space-sphere," urged Penrun. "My certificate ofcredit will take care of it with funds to spare. All you have to do isto let me cast off at once. If any questions are asked, you can say itwas my wish."
"Hmm! Really, Mr. Penrun, this is a most unusual request. I'm notinclined--"
He stared at the communication board. The meteor warning dial wasfluctuating violently, showing the presence of a rapidly approachingbody--a meteor, or perhaps a flight of them. Gongs throughout theliner automatically began to sound a warning for the passengers to getinto their space suits. The captain sat as though petrified.
Penrun sprang to the small visi-screen beside the board and snapped onthe current. Swiftly he revolved the periscope aerial. There appearedon the screen the hull of a long, rakish, cigar-shaped craft whichwas overhauling the liner. The stranger was painted dead black anddisplayed no emblem.
"There's your meteor, Skipper," he remarked ironically. "And I am theattraction that is drawing it to your ship for another murder. Do Iget the space-sphere?"
* * * * *
The captain sprang to his feet. "You get it, Penrun. You'll have tohurry. I want no more murders aboard my ship. Here, down this privatestairs to the sphere air-lock. I'll make arrangements by phone. Onceyou are free of the liner I'll slow down so that the black ship willhave to slow down, too. That will give you a chance to pull away andget a good start on them."
Five minutes later Penrun's newly acquired craft was sliding out ofits air-lock in the belly of the monstrous liner. He pulled away andglanced back.
The liner was already slowing down. The black pursuing craft washidden by its vast, curving bulk. Penrun crowded on speed as swiftlyas he dared. By the time the strange craft had made contact with the_Western Star_ his little sphere had dwindled to a mere point of lightin the black depths of space and vanished.
Penrun leaned over his charts grimly, as he set a new course for thesphere to follow. He, too, could play at this game. He'd carry thebattle to the enemy's gate. Out to Titan he'd go and match hisfamiliarity with the little planet against the superior numbers of hisenemies.
* * * * *
Ten days later, Earth time, he was circling Titan, while he searchedthe grim, forbidden terrain beneath. After days of studying andspeculation he had decided that the Caves must be situated in theInferno Range, a place so particularly vicious that no man, so far aswas known, had ever explored it. During the day the heat would boileggs, and at night the sub-zero cold cracked great scales off thegranite boulders. And here, too, lay the Trap-Door City of the monsterspiders!
The grim, fantastic range soon appeared over the horizon, stabbing itssaw-tooth peaks far into the sky. Dawn was still lighting the world,and a great snow-storm, a howling, furious blizzard, concealed thelower slopes of the mountains. Penrun knew that presently the drivingsnow-flakes would change to rain-drops, and the shrieking, moaningvoice of the gale would give way to the crashing, rolling thunder ofthe tempest. As the day advanced the storm would die abruptly and theclouds vanish under the deadly heat.
Then the Trap-Door City, which covered the slopes above the plateau atthe three-thousand-foot level like a checker-board of shimmering,silken circles, would spring to febrile life as the spider monsterswent streaking and leaping across the barren, distorted granite on theday's business, the hunt for food in the lowlands, and the opening ofthe trap-doors to gather in the heat of the day in the silken tunnelhomes set in the gorges and among the boulders. At sunset the doorswould all be closed, for then the rain and the electrical storm wouldreturn, and at night the blizzard. The storm-and-heat cycle was thedeadly weather routine of the Infernos.
Penrun steered for a tall, cloven peak that towered high above theTrap-Door City. In its thin air and continuous cold he would becomparatively safe from marauding spider scouts, and from the peak hecould watch not only the city of the monsters but the better part ofthe Inferno Range as well.
He was convinced that before long the mysterious black craft wouldput in an appearance somewhere near this spot. Penrun knew it all toowell. There by the cataract of the White River, half a mile across theplateau from the insect city, he had once been captured.
* * * * *
Next morning when he looked down on the plateau just below theTrap-Door City he laughed triumphantly. There sat the longblack-hulled space craft he had seen overhauling the liner.
But a moment later he shook his head dubiously. Too brazen, thatlanding. It was almost in the insect city. Of course, the ship waslarge and heavily armed with ray-guns which poked out their sharpsnouts here and there about the hull. None the less, an experiencedexplorer of Titan would never have flung such defiance at the spiders.
The city was feverishly alive with the monsters now. They gathered ingroups to stare down at the strange craft, then raced away again,darting in and out of their trap-door homes and streaking here andthere across the twisted, tortured granite of the mountainside. TheQueen's palace, a vast, raised cocoon of shimmering, silken web, was averitable bee-hive. Something was brewing!
Abruptly the trap-door homes vomited forth monstrous insects by thethousands which spread with prodigious speed along the mountainside.At an unseen signal they poured down upon the plateau and charged thespace-ship.
The black craft's heavy ray-guns broke into life. Attacking monsterscurled up and died as the rays bit into their onrushing ranks. Thefirst wave melted, but an instant later the following waves buried theship.
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bsp; Insects in the rear darted here and there, dragging away dead anddying spiders. Here was food aplenty! The denizens of the Trap-DoorCity would live well on their dead for a few days.
Abruptly the attack ceased. The crackling ray-guns were still takingtoll as the monsters scurried back to the safety of their city,leaving their dead piled high about the hull of the ship.
* * * * *
Penrun wondered if the monsters would abandon the heaps of their dead.He rather expected that frenzied efforts would be made to retrievethem for food. The problem was solved by those aboard the space-ship,for presently it rose a score of feet in the air and moved a fewhundred yards nearer the waterfall that marked the headwaters of theWhite River.
At once a frantic wave of spiders swept down across the plateauscouring it clean of the dead monsters.
After that the Trap-Door City seemed deserted. Not a spider could beseen near the