Brigands of the Moon | Page 7

and my few routine duties were over, I
could think of nothing save Halsey's and Carter's admonition: "Be on your guard. And
particularly--watch George Prince."
I had not seen George Prince. But I had seen his sister, whom Carter and Halsey had not
bothered to mention. My heart was still pounding with the memory.
Dr. Frank evidently was having little trouble with pressure sick passengers. The
Planetara's equalizers were fairly efficient. Prowling through the silent metal lounges
and passages, I went to the door of A22. It was on the deck level, in a tiny transverse
passage just off the main lounging room. Its name-grid glowed with the letters: Anita

Prince. I stood in my short white trousers and white silk shirt, like a cabin steward staring.
Anita Prince! I had never heard the name until this night. But there was magic music in it
now, as I murmured it.
She was here, doubtless asleep, behind this small metal door. It seemed as though that
little oval grid were the gateway to a fairyland of my dreams.
I turned away. Thought of the Grantline Moon Expedition stabbed at me. George
Prince--Anita's brother--he whom I had been warned to watch. This renegade--associate
of dubious Martians, plotting God knows what.
I saw, upon the adjoining door, A20, George Prince. I listened. In the humming stillness
of the ship's interior there was no sound from these cabins. A20 was without windows, I
knew. But Anita's room had a window and a door which gave upon the deck. I went
through the lounge, out its arch and walked the deck length. The deck door and window
of A22 were closed and dark.
The deck was dim with white starlight from the side ports. Chairs were here but they
were all empty. From the bow windows of the arching dome a flood of moonlight threw
long, slanting shadows down the deck. At the corner where the superstructure ended, I
thought I saw a figure lurking as though watching me. I went that way, but it vanished.
I turned the corner, went the width of the ship to the other side. There was no one in sight
save the observer on his spider bridge, high in the bow network, and the second officer,
on duty on the turret balcony almost directly over me.
As I stood and listened, I suddenly heard footsteps. From the direction of the bow a figure
came. Purser Johnson.
He greeted me. "Cooling off, Gregg?"
"Yes," I said.
He passed me and went into the smoking room door nearby.
I stood a moment at one of the deck windows, gazing at the stars; and for no reason at all
I realized I was tense. Johnson was a great one for his regular sleep--it was wholly unlike
him to be roaming about the ship at such an hour. Had he been watching me? I told
myself it was nonsense. I was suspicious of everyone, everything, this voyage.
I heard another step. Captain Carter appeared from his chart room which stood in the
center of the narrowing open deck space near the bow. I joined him at once.
"Who was that?" he half whispered.
"Johnson."
"Oh, yes." He fumbled in his uniform; his gaze swept the moonlit deck. "Gregg--take

this." He handed me a small metal box. I stuffed it at once into my shirt.
"An insulator," he added swiftly. "Snap is in his office. Take it to him, Gregg. Stay with
him--you'll have a measure of security--and you can help him to make the photographs."
He was barely whispering. "I won't be with you--no use making it look as though we
were doing anything unusual. If your graphs show anything--or if Snap picks up any
message--bring it to me." He added aloud, "Well, it will be cool enough presently,
Gregg."
He sauntered away toward his chart room.
"By heavens, what a relief!" Snap murmured as the current went on. We had wired his
cubby with the insulator; within its barrage we could at least talk with a degree of
freedom.
"You've seen George Prince, Gregg?"
"No. He's assigned A20. But I saw his sister. Snap, no one ever mentioned--"
Snap had heard of her, but he hadn't known that she was listed for this voyage. "A real
beauty, so I've heard. Accursed shame for a decent girl to have a brother like that."
I could agree with him there....
It was now six A.M. Snap had been busy all night with routine cosmos-radios from the
Earth, following our departure. He had a pile of them beside him.
"Nothing queer looking?" I suggested.
"No. Not a thing."
We were at this time no more than sixty-five thousand miles from the Moon's surface.
The Planetara presently would swing upon her direct course for Mars. There was nothing