“For the keeper,” he wheezed, sadly.
“For her, Jay—I’ll go.”
Then the Commander of the Legion went suddenly tense, and his lean face went a little white.
Km!
Krrr!
Km!
The tiny sound, peculiarly penetrating and insistent, was humming from the communicator hung by its thin chain about his neck.
The Commander’s lean deliberate hands, drawing the little black disk from under his clothing, trembled slightly.
“It’s Legion Intelligence,” he told Giles Habibula. “An emergency call.”
Giles Habibula watched apprehensively as he touched the dial, whispered a code response, and lifted the little disk to his ear.
The straining ears of the old Legionnaire failed to hear anything.
And the face of Jay Kalam didn’t lose its grave, contained reserve.
But his failure to breathe, and his frozen stiffness, betrayed enough.
“You’ve had bad news, Jay,” whispered Giles Habibula, when at last the Commander lowered the disk and broke communication.
“Aye, mortal bad!” Jay Kalam nodded, very slowly. His lean face, beneath that one white lock on his forehead, looked the oldest that Giles Habibula had ever seen it.
“That was one of the subordinate officers calling from the depot of the cometary expedition at Contra-Saturn.” His voice was very quiet.
“The depot has been robbed, Giles.
All our files and specimens rifled.”
“Eh, Jay!” Giles Habibula blinked at him.
“The secrets of the Cometeers!”
“All our most valuable—or most dangerous—notes were taken, Giles.
Weapons and instrumentalities that we had planned to guard for centuries until our civilization might be mature enough to assimilate them safely. All gone!”
“Was it—the Basilisk?” The stricken head nodded again.
“A little black clay snake was found on Bob Star’s desk, inside the vaults—none of the locks on the vaults, by the way, were disturbed.
As usual, there was a clue.
Dropped on the floor was a yellow reservation check from the New Moon. It was dated yesterday. And the name on it was Dr. Charles Derrel.”
“Derrel?” gasped Giles Habibula.
“But, Jay, it isn’t six hours since I picked that check out of Chan Derron’s pocket—and Contra-Saturn, by the swiftest cruiser, is three days away!”
“The best proof yet,” Jay Kalam said gravely, “that the Basilisk is Chan Derron.”
His lean hand gestured sternly.
“Get him, Giles.”
“But—Bob?” Giles Habibula was wheezing anxiously. “You say a subordinate was speaking?
Where was Bob Star?”
The face of Jay Kalam had stiffened bleakly.
“The office said that Captain Robert Star is mysteriously missing from the depot,” he said faintly.
“Giles, I’m afraid Bob Star is already in the hands of the Basilisk.
Alive or not—I’m. afraid to guess.”
Giles Habibula lifted himself laboriously to his feet with the cane.
“Bob, the poor lad!” he sobbed.
“Now my duty’s plain enough— but how am I to find the Basilisk?”
His head shook hopelessly.
“How can one poor old man track down the monster that strikes here at midnight and a billion miles away before the dawn?”
His pale eyes rolled.
“Or—in life’s precious name—what if I do find him?
And the mortal android?
One poor old soldier, to face the System’s two most frightful criminals.
Aye, to face all the evil power of the Basilisk!
And that woman, whose very beauty is a false mirage and a consuming flame and a poisoned blade!”
He blinked, and caught a gasping breath.
“But for all that, I must go.