W. J. Matthews

“ Metallic voices broke the frightened silence in which the huddled passengers watched the unequal combat. Over the intercom pilots spoke sharply: "Stand by. Patrol ship within sight, coming up fast. Hold your positions."
Even as they cried out in relief, the attacking ships suddenly arced upward and swung away toward Venus, their fiery wakes a long trail of incandescent crystal in the inky void. Their parting shots missed the liner as she swerved on a new course to avoid just such vengeful rage, and a moment later they were lost among the sparkling stars. ”

“ He looked back to Iris, sitting tensely in her deep blue lounge seat.
"Chain Lucas?"
"There is no Chain Lucas," she smiled, coldly. As he digested that startling remark, footsteps resounded along the passage and the saloon door was thrust rudely open.
Framed in the opening, a tall, raffish fellow in trim blue grinned at them. Iris leaped to her feet and ran to him, flinging her arms about his neck as he engulfed her in a bearish hug. Thorne took no advantage of their preoccupation, for several other hard-looking men in flying clothes were crowding into the room, gun in hand. ”

“ Neither Dallis nor Iris had noticed the loss of their ship, as sound did not penetrate the liner's hull. Thorne set himself to hold their attention until it should be too late.
"Break this paralysis, then," he growled, apparently making a fierce and unsuccessful struggle to move his arms as they lay along the padded rest of his deep lounge. "I can do nothing here."
"We can do nothing for you," shrugged Dallis. "Your body will remain paralyzed until it has absorbed the chemicals activated by the ray. Perhaps a day." He eyed Thorne in some admiration. "You withstand it very well." ”

“ The wealthiest man since Croesus, an enormous ransom could well be torn from him, to say nothing of what could also be extracted from the families of the young folk lying senseless about them. And, in all probability, capping the situation with a trim jest, a tidy sum for the safe return of the excellent Senator Iris Chanler herself. It was very clever, and no less disturbing.
The liner quivered and groaned as the pirate ship hooked on, a black merchantman of latest design. There came the hiss of air and the clang of bolts as the pirates began to come aboard through the connecting airlocks. ”

“ Gold sparkled on her sandals and on Thorne's white tunic. The bloody moonstones throbbed sullenly on his broad chest.
"What fools we are," she said abruptly, pausing at the long dural-port of the gallery to stare out across the inky night at the gorgeous sparkle of mighty suns and distant stars winking in the velvety blackness. "Watching a childish sport on a paper screen when this is passing all unnoticed."
"They never tire," he agreed, leaning beside her, the star-shine harsh on his features. "Only we change, passing farther and farther each year into the distance out there. ”

“ His vast wealth enfolded him like a mantle, and few men on Earth or Mars or any other planet took pleasure in measuring wits or steel with him. Slowly he moved forward to meet the General, the dancers parting unobtrusively before him.
Many eyes followed him, a tall, commanding figure in the heavily brocaded white silk tunic, the broad golden stripe of the International still upon the shimmering black of his close-fitting trousers. Gold sparkled on chest and shoulders and jewels in the hilt of the short, heavy sword slung at his left hip in ceremonial homage to the first Martian colonists. ”

“ Iris replied, her voice earnest with conviction. "There is no syndicate, no organization among us. Fifty thousand credits annually is the sum paid my father, and now myself. When all who feel they gain by sabotaging the Planet Patrol have left what they can on a deserted asteroid, the money is paid in at New Yott. There is no more than that to the cooperation I mentioned. There are no partners, no associates." She laid a hand on her companion's arm. "This is Captain Thomas Dallis," she added, with some pride in which Thorne took no pleasure at all. ”

“ Neither saw Thorne's hand slip half-way down the lounge arm to pause directly above the butt of his Blandarc. But he had one more card to play.
"What of your own crews?" he demanded. "What of your dupe, Chain Lucas?"
The thin mask of restraint broke and the mean, naked soul of Thomas Dallis glared venomously at him. Even Iris stared at her boon companion in alarm.
"We take care of our own crews our own way, you fool! If you go, they go with you. There'll be no blackmailing us when we roll ashore, my friend, if that's what you mean. There'll be no one left. ”

“ Her voice was low.
"Only the stars are immortal." He looked down at her. "We content ourselves with lesser things." She looked at him, then walked slowly on, not speaking.
The long days passed. Hard, rough games provided exercise and amusement, since on these shorter runs between the inner planets and asteroids no suspended animation was necessary. The women were frankly predatory, nor did the men care to antagonize Thorne.
But he was better armed than even General Wheelwright had expected. Women had been no mystery to him since his sudden fortune, nor subservient men with sullen eyes. ”

“ General Wheelwright lifted an admiring forefinger. "Now that's the way I like to hear my officers talk, Bannerman. Consider all the angles, all the consequences. Follow no set plan blindly." He nodded in stern commendation. "Knowing the woman, I anticipated your thought. The Patrol will not lead her blindly by the hand into Banya Tor, Bannerman. She will be steered there purely by chance, by a man not known to be of our force. A man above suspicion, above reproach, perhaps I might say above the law itself. Thorne." ”

“ We can pin it on him with a deadly certainty, Bannerman. We'll tar him with the blackest truth the System has ever seen. Sir Galahad will ride for a little time, perhaps, but he'll ride the calculating fiend we've known him and not the gallant adventurer these cheap telecasts make him out to be. And we'll fling the certain truth in Iris Chanler's painted face to do it!"
Bannerman was gravely sober. "Have you considered the consequences, sir? The girl has been carefully reared. She's wealthy, spoiled, but only a girl. ”

“ We still make money."
"You seem to have it all worked out," he said. "A normally apathetic public, soothed by a whole cycle of propaganda telecasts, a finger in the heart of the Planet Patrol, an honest, open business that takes you anywhere in the System, and a masked front man to take credit for the whole witches brew." He laughed shortly. "I suppose I can guess what will happen. Once you have the ransom you go respectable for good, leaving the unfortunate Chain Lucas to cover your trail and take the blame."
Both Dallis and Iris laughed, a merry, discordant jangle. ”

“ Devotee of these gangster telecasts glorifying crime." Wheelwright's snort was eloquent of his disgust.
"I know. We get them here, too. Same old Formula Number One, the Robin Hood motif. Clean-living space-hawk raiding the lanes, confounding the stupid Planet Patrol, scattering his loot to the poor. Very true to life."
"It was corn five hundred years ago," scowled Wheelwright. "But it drags them in today." He pounded the arm of his chair. "Who believes crime does not pay when they can see for themselves on a hundred scanner-screens that it does pay, and handsomely? ”

“ He sat down, crossing his black-sheathed legs. "Now, Captain Thorne, let us discuss the terms. I am a busy man."
"And I am not," growled Thorne, angrily, staring full into the evil-looking mask Chain Lucas wore as the visor of his helmet. "I've had a hard day, Lucas, and I'm tired ... tired of merchants and Senators turned pirate ... tired of masks.... Suppose you remove yours ... General." ”

“ Or the seven we found cut to pieces in the wreck of the 'Pantagruel?' And the pretty ballad of the 'Stargazer,' her whole crew and most of the passengers pushed through airlocks into the void?"
"Horror retailed from eighty million miles troubles no one," replied Wheelwright. "She's a wild and reckless girl drunk with her own beauty and this new power, Bannerman. Undisciplined, she means to discipline us. She'll push us fifty years back down our own trail. We can't risk it, Bannerman." ”

“ A thin trickle of darkening blood runneled out across the magnificent carpet to stain Wheelwright's polished boot. "You know what you have betrayed, General Wheelwright. You live a lie even in your greater lie. ”

“ Export business?"
"Of course. Most of us," he added. A thin grin split his pale face. "So convenient to explain our unusual cargoes."
"Shall we do business?" wondered Iris calmly, seating herself facing Thorne on a lounge Dallis thrust forward. He slounched comfortably on the arm, watching the granite-faced captive. The other pirates had left the room.
"If we can come to terms," Thorne assented, quietly. "You say it will be to you the ransom must be paid?"
"Exactly."
"What of Chain Lucas?" ”

“ Of course it's fiction and they know it, but it tends to build up a subtle disrespect for law and the Patrol in their minds. What ruined the old Congress but the popular conception of them as a bunch of hick yokels stumbling over a job too big for their provincial minds? ”

“ Perhaps he thought he could clean up the asteroid afterward; perhaps his crew just got tired playing Robin Hood. Anyway, letting off steam at Banya Tor is going to cut short Chain Lucas' career before many days are out. I've seen things on the runs we don't talk about, Bannerman, but those women hanged in their own dresses over fires...." He shuddered violently. Bannerman nodded.
"And the necklaces of hands and eyes Lucas hung on others before his men dismembered them by inches," he added grimly.
"Exactly." General Wheelwright bit his lip. "The man's cracked, mad. ”

“ He looked at her with dawning comprehension. "I begin to see," he added, slowly. "Those telecasts ... your work?"
She smiled. "Of course. One of my first. I bought into a cheap little movie company and put out the first blood and rocket melodrama." A laugh bubbled to her red lips. "It made money. We expanded and started the whole cycle years ahead of its normal course. ”