“It seems from these entries that Justin Malkar wanted to surrender, along with Stephen Oreo.
He expected no special immunity, but his conscience had overtaken him.
He was ready to pay for his treason.
“He wasn’t allowed to surrender.
Mark Lardo, who had been Stephen Oreo’s court favorite, came aboard with a dozen of his armed henchmen.
From that point, the entries are somewhat obscure.
From the facts we know, however, it seems clear enough that Lardo was really planning to rescue Stephen Oreo.”
He frowned again at the torn and bloodstained pages.
“The puzzling thing to me is how he knew the location of the prison.
It would appear from these dated entries that he knew it before the prison was built—as if Stephen Oreo had been clever enough to guess where we would locate it!”
“Even that might be possible.”
Bob Star couldn’t help shivering.
“He always seemed inhumanly intelligent.”
“Anyhow,” Jay Kalam continued, “it seems clear enough that Justin Malkar deliberately sabotaged the rescue attempt perhaps to atone for his own crimes.
The plan, apparently, was to land on Triton, which is almost uninhabited, and wait there until the chance came to rescue Oreo—when he was moved into the new prison.
“That Malkar wrecked the plan seems clear enough, when you read between the lines.
Though he was a competent officer, he managed to wander far off his course on the voyage out to Triton— deliberately wasting fuel.
“Until the end, he let the plotters believe that he was with them.
He contrived to use up the last scrap of cathode plate and the last drop of rocket fuel, in landing here.
Although the fort wasn’t a dozen miles away, the estimated position of the disabled ship that he entered in the log is a thousand miles from here.”
His eyes lifted from the last mutilated page.
“The rest we must read from other clues.
It seems likely that Malkar hoped to reach the fort and arrange for the capture of his companions.
He failed—perhaps his sabotage was discovered.
Anyhow, the vessel lay here without fuel and with very little food aboard —most of the supplies had been consumed during the wait on Triton.
“And Mark Lardo is now the sole survivor.”
“The remains we found—” Horror took Bob Star’s voice.
“That carnivorous beast was Mark Lardo.”
The commander nodded, his lips drawn thin.
“It would appear that he contrived to lock his companions outside, where the cold would kill and preserve them.
His ruse must have been some story of a rescue vessel landing, but apparently he had no idea, until the Cometeers attacked the fort, that it stood almost beside him in this fog.”
“Ah, the cannibal!”
Giles Habibula came shuffling feebly in, his face greenish.
“The galley’s filled with human bones!”
Jay Kalam sat smiling sternly.
“The artist in the queer soul of Justin Malkar ought to be pleased,” he murmured, “with the retribution he arranged for Mark Lardo.
Listen to him!”
Faintly, from the distant brig, they could hear the ceaseless hoarse screaming of the madman.
“Don’t turn me out!
They are getting hungry—Malkar and the others.
Don’t turn me out.”
Shuddering, Giles Habibula closed the door.
“Ah, Jay, it was a heavy task you set me,” he muttered.
“But I’ve cleared up the power rooms, as you wanted, and inspected all the rockets and geodynes.”
All three swung toward him anxiously, as Jay Kalam asked,
“Are they in working order?”
“So far as I can see.”
The old soldier nodded.
“But the cathode plates for the generators are all gone, to the last ounce.
And the rocket fuel left in the tanks wouldn’t move the ship a precious inch!”