Space-Liner X-87

You all know the general history of the Moon, of course; but still it will do no harm to sketch it here. It was scarcely twenty years ago when Georg Blake established the first permanent Moon Colony, erecting the first practical glassite air-domes under which one might live and work on the airless, barren surface of our satellite. Two years later, it was the same Georg Blake who discovered the rich irite deposits on the towering slopes of Mt. Archimedes. The Blake Irite Corporation employs twenty thousand workers now.

"Mars and Venus have no irite," Jamison was saying. "They import it from us, for their inferior imitations of our gravity plates. And, combined with the T-catalyst, it runs our modern atomic engines and charges our newest long-range atomic guns. The Governments of Mars and Venus are building imitations of those engines. You know about that, Fred?"

I nodded. I had heard quite a bit, of course, about the mysterious T-catalyst. It is made only here on Earth--a guarded secret of the Anglo-American Federation, developed by our Government chemists in Great-London. Our War Department uses it for guns, of course. But its use is forbidden elsewhere, save for commercial purposes. Venus and Mars have been under strict guarantee, regarding its use. We have supplied them from time to time with limited quantities, for commercial purposes only.

"Do not misunderstand me. I have no possible desire to anger the present legal Governments of the Martian Union, nor the Venus Free State, and thus project myself--just one unimportant Earth-citizen--into a storm of Interplanetary complications. I am not even hinting that Mars or Venus have ever broken, or ever would break, their guarantees by using the T-catalyst for weapons of war. But in Grebhar, a very sizable revolution against the Venus Free State had broken out. That is something very different. A bandit Government. Bandit army--under guarantees to no one."

"What's all this got to do with me, and the X-87?" I suggested.

Jamison flung a swift look around his shadowed, dimly tube-lit office, as though he feared that someone might be lurking here. "The Blake Irite Corporation, on the Moon, needs the T-catalyst for a thousand things," he said slowly. "The engines of their air-renewers throughout that huge network of domes. The engines of their mining equipment--"

"You mean it's being stolen from them?"

Jamison shrugged. "Maybe." He paused, and then he drew me toward him. "Anyway, the X-87, on this Voyage 9 tonight, is taking the largest supply of T-catalyst to the Moon which has ever been transported." Jamison smiled wryly. "You and I, Fred, are among the very few people who know of it. The X-87 is not being unduly guarded. That in itself would look suspicious. Every possible precaution has been taken to keep the thing a secret. But there have been queer things happen. Perhaps only coincidences--"

"Such as what?"

"Well, Georg Blake died, quite mysteriously, a few days ago--"

"Murdered?"

Again Jamison shrugged. "The whole thing was censored. I don't know any more about it than you do. He has a son and daughter--young Blake, still under twenty--and Nina, his young daughter, who is only sixteen. The management of the entire Moon industry devolves now upon them."

I could envisage Interplanetary spies on the Moon--and with the forceful Georg Blake now out of the way, a raid upon that supply of the T-catalyst--

"Little Nina is going back to the Moon this voyage to take control of the company," Jamison was adding. "Her father died--was murdered if you like--here in Great-New York. And to make it still more mysterious, young Blake--the girl's brother--seems to have vanished. There is only Nina--"

Queer indeed. And even worse, Jamison now told me that several members of the X-87's crew were ill, and one or two had recently died, so that she was starting on her flight tonight with at least five new men....

The little space-ship was to sail at 3 a.m. I had my luggage aboard an hour ahead; and at quarter of three I was loitering on the tube-lit stage watching the passengers bidding good-bye to their friends and then going up the long incline to where the X-87 was cradled forty feet overhead. An S.S. Man, without too much equipment, can hide it all pretty comfortably. Most of my small apparatus was tucked into capacious pockets. And with my square-cut jacket buttoned over my weapon belt, I imagine I looked like any ordinary citizen. I was booked as a mathematics clerk, going to the Moon to take a position in the bookkeeping department of the Blake Company. I'm smallish, and dark--and not too handsome, my friends tell me. Just an unobtrusive fellow whom nobody would particularly notice. I certainly hoped now that that would prove to be so.

"How many passengers this voyage?" I asked young Len Smith, who was standing here on the landing shed beside me. He was a slim, handsome fellow, the X-87's radio-helio operator, ornate and exceedingly dapper in his stiff white-and-gold uniform.

"Damned if I know. Fifteen or twenty maybe. Usually are about that many."

A big seven-foot Martian stopped near us, directing the attendants who were carrying his luggage. "Who's that?" I murmured to Len Smith.

Dr. Frye, the X-87's surgeon--a weazened little fellow with a grim, saturnine face and scraggly iron-gray hair--had joined us. He answered me.

"Set Mokk, he calls himself."

"Going to the Moon, for what?" I persisted.

Dr. Frye shrugged. "Passengers aren't required to give their family history. Set Mokk is a wealthy man in Ferrok-Shahn, I understand. An enthusiastic Interplanetary traveler--"

Len, the young helio operator, diverted my attention. "Have a look," he murmured. "There comes Nina Blake. If she isn't a little beauty I'm a sub-cellar track-sweeper."

Now I'm not much for girls, but I don't mind stating thus publicly that Nina Blake struck me then as the most strikingly beautiful girl of any world whom I had ever seen.

As she came past, I saw that four stalwart attendants of the X-87 were carrying a long oblong box; one of her pieces of luggage. Quite obviously she was particularly concerned over it; she followed it closely, and signaled the men to precede her with it up the incline.

I got away from Len Smith and Dr. Frye and was up the incline close after Nina Blake. I saw the squat, square-rigged figure of Capt. Mackensie come forward to greet the girl, his most distinguished passenger. Instantly she spoke to the men carrying the oblong box, and they set it on end beside her on the desk; and at her gesture, they moved away.

That stiffened me. But a far greater shock came almost instantly afterward. The girl was whispering now to Mackensie, their voices too low for me to hear. She was leaning partly against the upright box, and I saw her slim white hand furtively roving it, one of her fingers pressing what might have been a hidden lever. The sleek, polished side of the box was close to my head--and abruptly, from within it, I seemed to hear a faint muffled, ticking sound! A mechanism in the huge box which the girl's furtive hand had started! It was a slow, rhythmic tick, and a faint swishing.

"Oh, you, Penelle. Come here--I want you to meet Miss Blake."