“Yes, commander.”
Bob Star wet his lips.
“I—I understand.”
“It’s unfortunate that we had to spare the traitor’s life.” Jay Kalam frowned regretfully.
“Your father was opposed to that concession.
I urged the Council to agree to it, however, because it might have cost billions of lives to carry on the war long enough to kill him.
“Perhaps it seems surprising that Oreo was willing to trust the Legion, but he evidently knows our standards of honor—even though he chose to disregard them, in his own career.
The terms were settled, anyhow, but he became our prisoner—no doubt the most dangerous man that locks ever held.”
“He must be.”
Bob Star stepped quickly backward.
“If he knows my mother’s secret!”
“He has been well guarded,” Jay Kalam continued.
“We announced that he had been condemned and executed—to discourage the efforts of possible rescuers.
In a secret place, we built the strongest fortress that our engineers could devise.
He is held there, under the name of Merrin, dead to the world outside.
“But not,” the commander added quietly, “to the Cometeers.”
“Eh?” Bob Star felt stiff with dismay.
“How’s that?”
“The creatures of the cometary object have discovered that Stephen Oreo is alive,” Jay Kalam said soberly.
“That’s the reason your father was so set upon the immediate destruction of the comet.”
“How—” Bob Star gulped to find his voice.
“How did they find out?”
“Certain information about Stephen Oreo, including the location of his prison, was kept in a vault hi the Green Hall.
The vault was believed to be impregnable, and it was always guarded by trusted men.
“But the invisible beings from the comet slipped into the building.
They killed four guards—with some unknown agency.
They picked locks that Giles Habibula himself had tested and failed to open.
They carried off the documents relating to Stephen Oreo.”
“If they should set him free—” Bob Star shook his head, apprehension gray on his face.
“I don’t like to think of that.
Stephen Oreo has no loyalty to mankind.
If the Cometeers are going to be our enemies, he would gladly join them.”
“It’s hard to believe that, of any human being.”
The commander lifted his head, smiling gravely.
“Anyhow, I still hope to find that the Cometeers intend to be our friends.
If they fail to reciprocate our gesture of friendship, remember your duty.”
His voice rang hard.
“Don’t let Oreo escape!”
Bob Star sank back into the big chair, shuddering.
His thin face was a mask of agony, and the scar of the Iron Confessor was lividly white.
His tortured eyes stared up at Jay Kalam, mutely pleading.
“I’ll try,” he whispered miserably.
“But I’m—afraid!”
6 The Girl in the Wall
The ‘Invincible drove down toward the south pole of Neptune.
The eighth planet was a vast and inhospitable world of pale twilight and bitter night.
The enormous installations of the planetary engineers, running through long centuries, had finally cleared the poisonous methane and ammonia from the air, generated enough free oxygen to support human life, and raised the surface temperature many degrees.
There were cities over the rich mines in the equatorial regions, but the immense polar continent was not yet ready for colonization.
A frozen wilderness larger than all Earth, blanketed with freezing, everlasting fogs, it was marked on the interplanetary charts:
Uninhabited and dangerous; shipping keep clear.