CHAPTER 3.

We waited silently. The asteroid turned on its axis. The brief night came. Then we saw the rockets approaching—flaming in on shreds of blue-white rocket fire. As the two ships slowed for a landing, the three of us discharged a volley.

Our atomic bullets burst on impact, dazzling in the dark. The concussion was terrific.

"Got one!" I heard Pa Mavrocordatus shout after a moment, his voice thin through the ringing in my ears. My dazzled eyes saw one ship lying on its side on the landing field, its meteor armor unpunctured by our small missiles, but with its landing rockets damaged. The other ship had grounded itself perfectly.

We were ready to fire again, when the paralytic waves swept over us. I saw Geedeh half rise, doubling backward in a rigid spasm, his rifle flying wide.

Then I knew no more, until I heard Norman Haynes speaking to us. We were bound firmly, and it was daylight again, and our captor and his score of henchmen were smirking.

"I'm just trying to figure out how to make your deaths seem as accidental as possible," Haynes said, looking at me. "A couple of men of mine seem to have bungled a little business of bacteria. Maybe they blabbed before you fellows killed them. Now, of course, I can't take any chances. Too bad your reconditioned asteroid has to appear a failure for a while. But I can't let my taking over seem too obvious. Have to wait a while. I may be able to start up something here later, when people sort of forget."

"What have you done with Irene?" I stormed blackly.

Haynes' look was quizzical. "Why ask me?" he answered. "She probably ran off with one of your roustabouts. Or else they decided that she'd be nice company to have around, and made her go along."

He laughed cynically. Maybe he was telling the truth about not knowing where Irene was. But if this was true, it didn't make me feel much better. If some of his gang, who'd been working with us, had kidnapped her, there was no telling how badly she'd fare.

My fears showed on my face, and Norman Haynes seemed to enjoy them, though he was nervous, dangerously so. It was getting daylight again, now. He kept glancing at the sky, twiddling his soft hands. He didn't like physical danger.

"Your gravity generator seems to be the answer to my prayers, Wallace," he informed me. "At full force it'll develop at least fifty Earth gravities, before breaking down and melting itself. We've inspected it. Power like that'll destroy all of you. It will look like an accident—a breakdown of the machinery."

Though Pa Mavrocordatus kept cursing Haynes continuously, and Geedeh kept calling him names that no Earthman could have translated into our less vitriolic English, our captor paid them no attention. He kept directing his threats at me. That was how I knew he was still thinking of the time in his office at Enterprize, when I'd called him by his true colors. He still held that grudge, and he meant to pay me back with fifty gravities. Which means that every pound of Earth-weight would be increased to fifty pounds! In a grip like that a man as big as me would weigh a good four tons!

That meant a heart stopped by the load of the blood it tried to pump, and tissues crushed by their own weight! Like being on the surface of some dead star of medium dimensions, where gravity is terrific!

At Haynes' order, six of his twenty henchmen picked up Geedeh and Pa and me. The whole bunch was an ugly looking lot, the scum of the space ports. Some of these men were commanded to stay on the surface of the planetoid, while we were carried to the elevator shed. In the cage we descended at dizzying speed to that vault at the center of 487 where the gravity machinery was housed in its crystal shell. At that depth, under the load of the column of air above, the atmospheric pressure was very high. One could not breathe comfortably in that stuffy medium.

"Courage!" Geedeh gasped to Pa Mavrocordatus and me, while his great eyes kept roving around, looking for some chance that wasn't there.

Haynes began to examine the machinery. He was smirking again. "Simple to do!" he said to his companions. "Set the robot control for gradually increasing power, so that we'll have time to get away. Break the manual controls, so that no readjustments can be made. You can cut our friends loose now, Zinder, so there won't be any ropes to show this was a put-up job. But keep your blasters on these men—all of you!"

This was the end, all right. I was sure of it. I'd die without even knowing what had happened to Irene. Irene, whom I knew now that I loved....

We'd been freed of our bonds when the surface phone rang. The lookout party, whom Haynes had left above, was calling. Our captor snapped on the switch of the speaker. A voice boomed in that busy cavern of metal giants, green light, and glinting crystal:

"Listen, Chief! There's a bunch of specks to the right of the sun. They're getting bigger fast. Must be a flock of space ships. Couldn't be any of yours. What'll we do?"

I saw Haynes' weak features go sallow. Briefly my spirits rose. I couldn't imagine whom those ships could belong to. But they must be rescuers of some kind. They were coming to stop Norman Haynes' madness.

But Haynes was clever, as he quickly proved. "Friends of Wallace here, I suppose. Maybe even Space Patrol boats," he said over his phone to the lookout party. "You'll all have to take a discomfort for a while. We'll use gravity on them, too! They'll never land successfully."

Pa Mavrocordatus looked at me and Geedeh. "What's he mean—use gravity?"

Geedeh was a bit quicker than I in giving the obvious answer. "Just as with us," he said. "Increase the output of the gravity generator here to a certain degree. From space, the increase will be practically unnoticeable. The rockets will try to land—but without taking into consideration the multiplied attractive force, they will crash!"

"Many birds with one stone!" Haynes chuckled gleefully. "You will have a short reprieve, friends, while I take care of these intruders, whoever they are. I can't use too great a gravity on them at first. It might warn them, if they notice that their ships are accelerating too rapidly. They might as well be part of my 'accident', even if they do happen to be police. The Space Patrol has accidents now and then, just like anybody else!"

Haynes started to work the manual controls of the generator. The area in which he and his several aides stood, was shielded against the greater attraction, having been thus arranged by us for testing purposes. The shrill hum of the machines grew louder.

I felt the weight of my prone body increase suffocatingly. The heat increased too, as the great coils, gleaming in the glow of illuminators, gradually absorbed more power. And I knew that, out in space, those slender fingers of force were reaching and strengthening, invisible and treacherous. Our unknown friends were doomed.

Not only were they doomed, but our whole idea was destined to failure. The dream that Nick had died for. The vast progress that it meant. Worlds out here—worlds with largely a self-sufficient production—real colonization. Fair play. Norman Haynes would resist all that, because progress would weaken his power here. He was master of the asteroids, because he was master of their imports and exports. And unless he could control the rejuvenated asteroids himself, they would never be. With him directing, they would not represent a real improvement—only another means of robbing from the colonists. And colonists weren't rich.

I could see those same thoughts, that gouged savagely into my own brain, burning in Geedeh's cat eyes, where he sprawled near me. Being a Martian, born to a lesser gravity than the terrestrial, he was suffering more than I—physically. But perhaps my mental torture was worse. Geedeh was Irene's friend, but I loved her. She was gone—lost somewhere—maybe dead. That, for me, was the worst—much worse than that crushing weight.

I couldn't let things remain the way they were! My seething fury and need lashed me on, even in my helplessness. God—what could I do? I tried to figure something out. Could I break the gravity machinery some way? Impossible, now, certainly!

I tried to remember my high school physics. Principles that might be used to give warning signals, and so forth. And just what that awful gravity would do to things.

Close to me was the base of the domelike crystal shell that covered the gravity generator. It wasn't a vital part, certainly, just stout quartz. But it was the only thing I could reach. As I lay there on the floor, I drew my foot back, doubling my knee. I stamped down against the quartz with all my strength. The first blow cracked it. The second drove my metal-shod boot-heel through with a crashing sound. A small hole, eighteen inches long, was made in the barrier. The sounds of the great machinery went on as before. The gravity kept slowly increasing. Geedeh, suffering more, now, looked at me puzzledly. Pa Mavrocordatus stared anxiously. And Norman Haynes at the surface phone laughed unpleasantly.

"Cracking up, eh, Wallace?" he sneered. "I know who your would-be helpers on those space ships are, now. I suppose I should be surprised at their identities. They're calling to you. Want to listen? My men above have locked this surface phone to our ship radio."

He turned up the volume of the reproducer.

Irene's voice was the first in the speaker. "Chet!" she was urging. "Chet Wallace! Pa! Geedeh! Do you hear me? I left 487 of my own free will. I couldn't waste time, going to the Space Patrol for help—they'd want proof, and that would take a while to present. So—there was only one person and I thought you'd mistrust him.... Why don't you answer? Or have you left 487 too? I'm turning the mike over to somebody else, now. I found him on Enterprize, just come from Earth, Mr. Arthur Haynes...."