Triplanetary | Page 3

beam up into the control room, where he saw space-armored
figures furiously busy at the panels.
"Dirty work at the cross-roads!" he blazed to his captain, man to
man--formality disregarded, as it so often was in the Triplanetary
service. "There's skulduggery afoot somewhere in our primary air!
Maybe that's the way they got those other two ships--pirates! Might
have been a timed bomb--don't see how anybody could have stowed
away down there through the inspections, and nobody but Franklin can
neutralize the shield of the air-room--but I'm going to look around,
anyway. Then I'll join you fellows up there."
"What was it?" the shaken girl asked. "I think that I remember your
saying 'Vee-Two gas.' That's forbidden! Anyway, I owe you my life,

Conway, and I'll never forget it--never. Thanks--but the others--how
about all the rest of us?"
"It was Vee-Two, and it is forbidden," Costigan replied grimly, eyes
fast upon the flashing plate, whose point of projection was now deep in
the bowels of the vessel. "The penalty for using it or having it is death
on sight. Gangsters and pirates use it, since they have nothing to lose,
being on the death list already. As for your life, I haven't saved it
yet--you may wish I'd let it ride before we get done. The others are too
far gone for oxygen--couldn't have brought even you around a few
seconds later, quick as I got to you. But there's a sure antidote--we all
carry it in a lock-box in our armor--and we all know how to use it,
because crooks all use Vee-Two and so we're always expecting it. But
since the air will be pure again in half an hour we'll be able to revive
the others easily enough if we can get by with whatever is going to
happen next. There's the bird that did it, right in the air-room! It's the
chief engineer's suit, but that isn't Franklin that's in it. Some
passenger--disguised--slugged the chief--took his suit and
projectors--hole in duct--p-s-s-t! All washed out! Maybe that's all he
was scheduled to do to us in this performance, but he'll do nothing else
in this life!"
"Don't go down there!" protested the girl. "His armor is so much better
than that emergency suit you are wearing, and he's got Mr. Franklin's
Lewiston, besides!"
"Don't be an idiot!" he snapped. "We can't have a live pirate
aboard--we're going to be altogether too busy with outsiders directly.
Don't worry, I'm not going to give him a break. I'm taking a Standish
and I'll rub him out like a blot. Stay right here until I come back after
you," he commanded, and the heavy, vacuum insulated door of the
lifeboat clanged shut behind him as he leaped out into the promenade.
Straight across the saloon he made his way, paying no attention to the
inert forms scattered here and there. Going up to a blank wall, he
manipulated an almost invisible dial set flush with its surface, swung a
heavy door aside, and lifted out the Standish--a fearsome weapon.
Squat, huge, and heavy, it resembled somewhat an overgrown machine

rifle, but one possessing a thick, short telescope, with several opaque
condensing lenses and parabolic reflectors. Laboring under the weight
of the thing, he strode along corridors and clambered heavily down
short stairways. Finally he came to the purifier room, and grinned
savagely as he saw the greenish haze of light obscuring the door and
walls--the shield was still in place; the pirate was still inside, still
flooding with the terrible Vee-Two the Hyperion's primary air.
He set his peculiar weapon down, unfolded its three massive legs,
crouched down behind it and threw in a switch. Dull red beams of
frightful intensity shot from the reflectors and sparks, almost of
lightning proportions, leaped from the shielding screen under their
impact. Roaring and snapping, the conflict went on for seconds; then,
under the superior force of the Standish, the greenish radiance gave
way. Behind it the metal of the door ran the gamut of color--red, yellow,
blinding whiter--then literally exploded; molten, vaporized, burned
away. Through the aperture thus made Costigan could plainly see the
pirate in the space-armor of the chief engineer--an armor which was
proof against rifle fire and which could reflect and neutralize for some
little time even the terrific beam Costigan was employing. Nor was the
pirate unarmed--a vicious flare of incandescence leaped from his
Lewiston, to spend its force in spitting, crackling pyrotechnics against
the ether-wall of the squat and monstrous Standish. But Costigan's
infernal machine did not rely only upon vibratory destruction. At
almost the first flash of the pirate's weapon the officer touched a trigger;
there was a double report, ear-shattering in that narrowly confined
space; and the pirate's body literally flew into mist as a half-kilogram
shell