_CHAPTER FIVE_
Pine roots burned brightly in the fireplace, snapping and sizzling asthe blaze caught and flamed on the resin. Deep in an easy chair, GregManning stretched his long legs out toward the fire and lifted hisglass, squinting at the flames through the amber drink.
"There's something that's been worrying me a little," he said. "I hadn'ttold you about it because I figured it wasn't as serious as it looked.Maybe it isn't, but it looks funny."
"What's that?" asked Russ.
"The stock market," replied Greg. "There's something devilish funnygoing on there. I've lost about a billion dollars in the last twoweeks."
"A _billion_ dollars?" gasped Russ.
Greg swirled the whiskey in his glass. "Don't sound so horrified. Theloss is all on paper. My stocks have gone down. Most of them cut inhalf. Some even less than that. Martian Irrigation is down to 75. I paid185 for it. It's worth 200."
"You mean something has happened to the market?"
"Not to the market. If that was it, I wouldn't worry. I've seen themarket go up and down. That's nothing to worry about. But the market,except for a slight depression, has behaved normally in these past twoweeks. It almost looks as if somebody was out to get me."
"Who'd want to and why?"
Greg sighed. "I wish I knew. I haven't really lost a cent, of course. Myshares can't stay down for very long. The thing is that right now Ican't sell them even for what I paid for them. If I sold now I'd losethat billion. But as long as I don't have to sell, the loss is merely onpaper."
He sipped at the drink and stared into the fire.
"If you don't have to, what are you worrying about?" asked Russ.
"Couple of things. I put that stock up as collateral to get the cash tobuild the spaceship. At present prices, it will take more securitiesthan I thought. If the prices continue to go down, I'll have the bulk ofmy holdings tied up in the spaceship. I might even be forced toliquidate some of it and that would mean an actual loss."
He hunched forward in the chair, stared at Russ.
"Another thing," he said grimly, "is that I hate the idea of somebodysingling me out as a target. As if they were going to make a financialexample of me."
"And it sounds as if someone has," agreed Russ.
Greg leaned back again, drained his glass and set it down.
"It certainly does," he said.
Outside, seen through the window beside the fireplace, the harvest moonwas a shield of silver hung in the velvet of the sky. A lonesome windmoaned in the pines and under the eaves.
"I got a report from Belgium the other day," said Greg. "The spaceshipis coming along. It'll be the biggest thing afloat in space."
"The biggest and the toughest," said Russ, and Greg nodded silentagreement.
The ship itself was being manufactured at the great Space Works inBelgium, but other parts of it, apparatus, engines, gadgets of everydescription, were being manufactured at other widely scattered points.Anyone wondering what kind of ship the finished product would be wouldhave a hard time gathering the correct information, which, of course,was the idea. The "anyone" they were guarding against was SpencerChambers.
* * * * *
"We need a better television set," said Russ. "This one we have is allright, but we need the best there is. I wonder if Wilson could get usone in Frisco and bring it back."
"I don't see why not," said Greg. "Send him a radio."
Russ stepped to the phone, called the spaceport and filed the message.
"He always stays at the Greater Martian," he told Greg. "We'll probablycatch him there."
* * * * *
Two hours later the phone rang. It was the spaceport.
"That message you sent to Wilson," said the voice of the operator,"can't be delivered. Wilson isn't at the Greater Martian. The clerk saidhe checked out for New York last night."
"Didn't he leave a forwarding address?" asked Russ.
"Apparently not."
Russ hung up the receiver, frowning. "Wilson is in New York."
Greg looked up from a sheet of calculations.
"New York, eh?" he said and then went back to work, but a moment laterhe straightened from his work. "What would Wilson be doing in New York?"
"I wonder ..." Russ stopped and shook his head.
"Exactly," said Greg. He glanced out of the window, considering, themuscles in his cheeks knotting. "Russ, we both are thinking the samething."
"I hate to think it," said Russ evenly. "I hate to think such a thingabout a man."
"One way to find out," declared Greg. He rose from the chair and walkedto the television control board, snapped the switch. Russ took a chairbeside him. On the screen the mountains danced weirdly as the setrocketed swiftly away and then came the glint of red and yellow desert.Blackness blanked out the screen as the set plunged into the ground,passing through the curvature of the Earth's surface. The blacknesspassed and fields and farms were beneath them on the screen, a green andbrown checkerboard with tiny white lines that were roads.
New York was in the screen now. Greg's hand moved the control and thecity rushed up at them, the spires speeding toward them like plungingspears. Down into the canyons plunged the set, down into the financialdistrict with its beetling buildings that hemmed in the roaring traffic.
Grimly, surely, Greg drove his strange machine through New York. Throughbuildings, through shimmering planes, through men. Like an arrow thetelevision set sped to its mark and then Greg's hand snapped back thelever and in the screen was a building that covered four whole blocks.Above the entrance was the famous Solar System map and straddling themap were the gleaming golden letters: INTERPLANETARY BUILDING.
"Now we'll see," said Greg.
He heard the whistle of the breath in Russ's nostrils as the televisionset began to move, saw the tight grip Russ had upon the chair arms.
The interior of the building showed on the screen as he drove the setthrough steel and stone, offices and corridors and brief glimpses ofsteel partitions, until it came to a door marked: SPENCER CHAMBERS,PRESIDENT.
Greg's hand twisted the control slightly and the set went through thedoor, into the office of Spencer Chambers.
Four men were in the room--Chambers himself; Craven, the scientist;Arnold Grant, head of Interplanetary's publicity department, _and HarryWilson_!
Wilson's voice came out of the screen, a frantic, almost terrifiedvoice.
"I've told you all I know. I'm not a scientist. I'm a mechanic. I'vetold you what they're doing. I can't tell you how they do it."
Arnold Grant leaned forward in his chair. His face was twisted in fury.
"There were plans, weren't there?" he demanded. "There were equationsand formulas. Why didn't you bring us some of them?"
Spencer Chambers raised a hand from the desk, waved it toward Grant."The man has told us all he knows. Obviously, he can't be any more helpto us."
"You told him to go back and see if he couldn't find something else,didn't you?" asked Grant.
"Yes, I did," Chambers told him. "But apparently he couldn't find it."
"I tried," pleaded Wilson. Perspiration stood out on his forehead. Thecigarette in his mouth was limp and dead. "One of them was always there.I never could get hold of any papers. I asked questions, but they weretoo busy to answer. And I couldn't ask too much, because then they wouldhave suspected me."
"No, you couldn't do that," commented Craven with an open sneer.
* * * * *
In the laboratory Russ pounded the arm of his chair with a clenchedfist. "The rat sold us out!"
Greg said nothing, but his face was stony and his eyes werecrystal-hard.
On the screen Chambers was speaking to Wilson. "Do you think you couldfind something out if you went back again?"
Wilson squirmed in his chair.
"I'd rather not." His voice sounded like a whimper. "I'm afraid theysuspect me now. I'm afraid of what
they'd do if they found out."
"That's his conscience," breathed Russ in the laboratory. "I neversuspected him."
"He's right about one thing, though," Greg said. "He'd better not comeback."
Chambers was talking again: "You realize, of course, that you haven'tbeen much help to us. You have only warned us that another kind of powergeneration is being developed. You've set us on our guard, but otherthan that we're no better off than we were before."
Wilson bristled, like a cowardly animal backed into a corner. "I toldyou what was going on. You can be ready for it now. I can't help it if Icouldn't find out how all them things worked."
"Look here," said Chambers. "I made a bargain with you and I keep mybargains. I told you I would pay you twenty thousand dollars for theinformation you gave me when you first came to see me. I told you I'dpay you for any further additional information you might give. Also Ipromised you a job with the company."
Watching the financier, Wilson licked his lips. "That's right," he said.
Chambers reached out and pulled a checkbook toward him, lifted a penfrom its holder. "I'm paying you the twenty thousand for the warning.I'm not paying you a dime more, because you gave me no otherinformation."
Wilson leaped to his feet, started to protest.
"Sit down," said Chambers coldly.
"But the job! You said you'd give me a job!"
Chambers shook his head. "I wouldn't have a man like you in myorganization. If you were a traitor to one man, you would be toanother."
"But ... but ..." Wilson started to object and then sat down, his facetwisted in something that came very close to fear.
Chambers ripped the check out of the book, waved it slowly in the air todry it. Then he arose and held it out to Wilson, who reached out atrembling hand and took it.
"And now," said Chambers, "good day, Mr. Wilson."
For a moment Wilson stood uncertain, as if he intended to speak, butfinally he turned, without a word, and walked through the door.
* * * * *
In the laboratory Russ and Greg looked at one another.
"Twenty thousand," said Greg. "Why, that was worth millions."
"It was worth everything Chambers had," said Russ, "because it's thething that's going to wreck him."
Their attention snapped back to the screen.
Chambers was hunched over his desk, addressing the other two.
"Now, gentlemen," he asked, "what are we to do?"
Craven shrugged his shoulders. There was a puzzled frown in the eyesback of the thick-lensed glasses. "We haven't much to go on. Wilsondoesn't know a thing about it. He hasn't the brain to grasp even themost fundamental ideas back of the whole thing."
Chambers nodded. "The man knew the mechanical setup perfectly, but thatwas all."
"I've constructed the apparatus," said Craven. "It's astoundinglysimple. Almost too simple to do the things Wilson said it would do. Hedrew plans for it, so clear that it was easy to duplicate the apparatus.He himself checked the machine and says it is the same as Page andManning have. But there are thousands of possible combinations forhookups and control board settings. Too many to try to go through andhit upon the right answer. Because, you see, one slight adjustment inany one of a hundred adjustments might do the trick ... but which ofthose adjustments do you have to make? We have to have the formulas, theequations, before we can even move."
"He seemed to remember a few things," said Grant hopefully. "Certainrules and formulas."
Craven flipped both his hands angrily. "Worse than nothing," heexploded. "What Page and Manning have done is so far in advance ofanything that anyone else has even thought about that we are completelyat sea. They're working with space fields, apparently, and we haven'teven scratched the surface in that branch of investigation. We simplyhaven't got a thing to go on."
* * * * *
"No chance at all?" asked Chambers.
Craven shook his head slowly.
"At least you could try," snapped Grant.
"Now, wait," Chambers snapped back. "You seem to forget Dr. Craven isone of the best scientists in the world today. I'm relying on him."
Craven smiled. "I can't do anything with what Page and Manning have, butI might try something of my own."
"By all means do so," urged Chambers. He turned to Grant. "I observedyou have carried out the plans we laid. Martian Irrigation hit a new lowtoday."
Grant grinned. "It was easy. Just a hint here and there to the rightpeople."
Chambers looked down at his hands, slowly closing into fists. "We haveto stop them some way, any way at all. Keep up the rumors. We'll makeit impossible for Greg Manning to finance this new invention. We'll takeaway every last dollar he has."
He glared at the publicity man. "You understand?"
"Yes, sir," said Grant, "I understand perfectly."
"All right," said Chambers. "And your job, Craven, is to either developwhat Page has found or find something we can use in competition."
Craven growled angrily. "What happens if your damn rumors can't ruinManning? What if I can't find anything?"
"In that case," said Chambers, "there are other ways."
"Other ways?"
Chambers suddenly smiled at them. "I have a notion to call Stutsman backto Earth."
Craven drummed his fingers idly on the arm of his chair. "Yes, I guessyou do have other ways," he said.
* * * * *
Greg's hand snapped the switch and the screen suddenly was blank as thetelevisor set returned instantly to the laboratory.
"That explains a lot of things," he said. "Among them what has happenedto my stocks."
Russ sat in his chair, numbed. "That little weak-kneed, ratting traitor,Wilson. He'd sell his mother for a new ten-dollar bill."
"We know," said Greg, "and Chambers doesn't know we know. We'll followevery move he makes. We'll know every one of his plans."
Pacing up and down the room, he was already planning their campaign.
"There are still a few things to do," he added. "A few possibilities wemay have overlooked."
"But will we have time?" asked Russ.
"I think so. Chambers is going to go slow. The gamble is too big to riskany slip. He doesn't want to get in bad with the law. There won't be anystrong-arm stuff ... not until he recalls Stutsman from Callisto."
He paused in mid-stride, stood planted solidly on the floor.
"When Stutsman gets into the game," he said, "all hell will breakloose."
He took a deep breath.
"But we'll be ready for it then!"