“Perhaps—if you’ll just be patient.”
Giles Habibula fumbled in his pockets.
“Ah, here it is—the same bit of wire that let us into the Invincible.”
He started toward the valve, and shrank back abruptly.
“But why, lad?
Myself, I’m content enough to have it safely locked—and no fighting men rushing out to kill us.”
“Open it,” Bob Star said. “If you can—”
“I can—if I must.”
He was already busy with his scrap of thin wire.
“Strange are the wheels of genius!” he wheezed sadly.
“Never could I use my great gift in peace and comfort—when anybody sends for me to test a lock, within the safety of the law, it’s apt to seem impregnable.
My ability seems to sleep until the screen of danger rouses it.
It is ever sluggard, without the tonics of haste and danger—”
Motors began to hum, lowering the outer valve.
“Well!”
He retreated hastily.
“It’s your own folly, lad!”
Bob Star sprang into the open chamber of the air-lock.
Listening, he heard quick, cautious footsteps approaching along the deck inside.
He flattened himself back against the curved metal wall, next to the inside valve, and waited breathlessly.
The blunt nose of a proton pistol came into view. Few such situations had been neglected in his very thorough course at the Legion Academy. And he was master of all he had studied—until the situation where he must kill flung him back into the grasp of the Iron Confessor.
He caught that weapon and the hand that held it.
His quick tug tumbled a thickset, bearded man out through the inner valve, into the narrow lock chamber.
The stranger was twice his weight, but his long training told.
His quick thrust found a vital nerve, and he tossed his bearded attacker out of the lock.
“Giles,” he called softly.
“A prisoner for you.”
Silence met him on the cluttered deck.
He found the bridge deserted, the chart room vacant.
He climbed warily into the darkness beneath the blazing searchlight, but the gun turret was also empty.
The bearded man had been alone.
He went back to the valves and shouted into the bitter night:
“Commander, the Halcyon Bird is ours!”
The prisoner was recovering consciousness in the icy mist, with Giles Habibula sitting on his head.
“I am the Viceroy of Callisto,” he was snarling thickly.
“I am Mark Lardo, friend of the great Oreo.
If it’s food you want, I’ll show you how to find it.”
Bob Star and Jay Kalam were in the bridge room, twelve hours later.
Disorder and filth had vanished. The torn charts were patched and back in their racks.
Bob Star was cleaning and inspecting the navigation instruments, while the commander frowned over the cruiser’s tattered log.
Hal Samdu, who had been clearing rubbish from decks and living quarters, entered to report:
“Jay, the prisoner in the brig is howling like a wolf.”
“I suppose he’s insane,” Jay Kalam said.
“That wouldn’t be surprising.
Anyhow, we can’t do much for him.
Have you finished?”
“Aye, Jay, she begins to look like a proper Legion ship.
Have you learned yet how she came to lie here?”
“Here’s part of it.”
The commander nodded at the soiled and crumpled pages of the log.