The second position—and the thing that had first caught Chan’s eye—was a point located in the constellation Draco, at a distance of some ten billions of miles from the Sun.
That was the location of the unknown object Chan had discovered when he fled northward from the Legion fleet, the object to which he had been planning to escape when the pursuit of the Basilisk drove him to turn and fight.
The third position was also in the Dragon—but at a heliocentric elevation which Chan quickly interpreted into the amazing distance of eighty light-years.
After a few moments of study, Chan Derron slipped the crumpled scrap very hastily into the pocket of his tunic, and fervently hoped that the Basilisk wasn’t looking—after all, he told himself, a presumably human brain must be limited in its power of attention.
The millions of tons of that object in space had been an utter mystery.
This bit of paper seemed good evidence that it was connected with the operations of the Basilisk.
And the discovery opened the faintest possible chance— His fists were clenched.
“If I can get out,” he muttered, “out of here and out of the New Moon and back to the Phantom Atom—if she’s still safe where I left her—if I can get aboard her, and escape the Legion fleet, and get out to that object—” His voice fell to a soundless whisper.
“If I can do all that, Mr. Basilisk—look out!”
Great shoulders square again, he strode to the lock.
Its bolts and levers were uncovered for him to see—bright metal bars weighing many tons.
But they were yet secure.
His desperate strength and frantic eyes could discover no way to move them.
“If Giles Habibula were here—” he muttered.
Wistfully he recalled the fabulous exploits of the old Legionnaire in picking the locks of the Medusae and opening the guarded vaults of the Cometeers.
Habibula, doubtless, with all this mechanism open before him, could have opened the door at once.
But Chan Derron was completely baffled.
He was standing back, panting, sweat-drenched from useless effort —when something clicked, concealed motors hummed, and the great bolts began to slide slowly back as if of their own accord.
It would be the men of Caspar Hannas, of course, opening the vault.
Chan Derron’s hand flashed automatically to his armpit, to find only the empty holster of his blaster and the straps that still held the compact unit of the geopellor to his body.
Weaponless, he could only wait, watching the appallingly deliber-ate well-oiled movement of the bolts.
In the geopellor, ironically, lay power to carry him across a hundred million miles of space, but it was useless now.
At last the bolts were withdrawn, and the ponderous disk of the door swung slowly open.
“Hasten, you fools!” a great harsh voice was booming.
“I must see if all is safe.”
That must be Caspar Hannas himself, driven wild with a well-founded fear for his treasure.
“If the Basilisk can do all the things he has done, these locks are worthless.”
“And there he is!” It was a triumphant shout, from a half-glimpsed man in the yellow of the New Moon’s police.
“Trapped!”
The violet, blinding tongue of a proton jet whipped through the widening opening. And the voice of Caspar Hannas bellowed:
“Forward, men!
We’ve got him!
He’s worth half a million— remember—dead or alive!
And the woman—if she’s with him—half a million more!”
Chan Derron had stepped swiftly aside, at the first flash of the ray. He waited, listening.
There must be a score of men without, he knew from the little sounds of feet and breath and weapons, and they were alertly advancing.
He snatched the swinging cord and snapped off the lights in the vault.
“Come out, Basilisk!” boomed the tremendous voice of Caspar Hannas.
“With empty hands!
Or we’ll come in and get you!”
Crouching in the darkness, Chan called a desperate last appeal:
“I’m not the Basilisk, Hannas.”
His voice stuck and quivered.
“I’m Chan Derron.
More a victim than anyone.
If you’ll listen to me, Hannas—”
“Forward, men!” thundered Hannas.
“He admits he’s Derron, and we’ve caught him in the vault!
Burn him up!”
The door was swinging wider.