Love stories; Mutiny -- Fiction; Revolutions -- Fiction; Science fiction; Space ships -- Fiction
"Never talk secretly to me," he murmured. "No insulation here. You take
care of Miss Blake. Say nothing--keep your eyes wide. When we get to
the Moon--"
I stiffened, went cold, with my heart suddenly pounding. My hand darted
out, gripped the captain's arm. "Wait!" I murmured.
On my chest, underneath my shirt, a flat, round little detector-grid
was abruptly glowing warm against my flesh. An interference current
was overcharging its low-pressure wires so that they were heating
and burning me. An eavesdropping current! No one save a Government
criminal-tracker may legally use an eavesdropping ray. But there was
one here, listening to us now!
I murmured it to Mackensie; turned and darted away. A dim door oval
was nearby. I went through it, into a narrow, tube-lit corridor of the
ship's superstructure. Momentarily no one was here; there was just the
dim, vaulted little arcade, gleaming pallidly silver from its fittings
and trim of alumite with rows of cabin doorways on each side. The
name-plates glowed with the names of the occupants for this voyage. All
the doors were closed; a few faint voices from passengers in the cabins
were vaguely audible.
* * * * *
At a cross-corridor I stopped. Was someone here able to watch me?
From my shirt I drew out the little detector-grid. It was cooling
now, but still its direction needle was swaying. The source of the
current seemed ahead of me in this cross corridor. How far, I could
not say--the distance gauge-point was swiftly dropping to zero. The
eavesdropping current had been snapped off. Wherever he was, this
listener knew now that we were aware of him.
On my padded, felt-soled shoes I dashed ahead to where the corridor
widened into a tiny smoking lounge.
"Oh, you Penelle? What's the matter? Can't you find your cubby?"
It was Dr. Frye, the ship's surgeon. Fortunately, he did not see
the Banning heat-flash gun in my hand. He was sprawled here in a
chair, smoking. His thin face grinned up at me. "Ask the purser your
location," he added. His gesture waved me toward the purser's tiny
office-cubby down the opposite corridor.
"Thanks," I agreed.
The purser's cubby was unoccupied. I passed it, came to the stern end
where the superstructure stopped and the side decks converged into a
triangle of open deck under the dome at the pointed stern. There were
a few passengers lounging around and deckhands moving at their tasks
of uncradling the vessel which now was ready to take off. Over at a
glassite bull's-eye window in the side pressure-wall, the big Martian,
Set Mokk, was standing, gazing at the people on the lower stage.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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