The Sargasso of Space Read online

heardthem talking and arguing excitedly, though. I know that if you do findfuel, they'll try to kill you all and escape from here in your ship."

  "Pleasant prospect," Kent commented. "Do you think they plan an attackon us now?"

  "No; I think that they'll wait until you've refueled your ship, if youare able to do that, and then try treachery."

  "Well, they'll find us ready. Miss Mallen, you have the suit-phone: keepit hidden in your cabin and I'll call you first thing to-morrow. We'regoing to get you out of there, but we don't want to break with Krelluntil we're ready. Will you be all right until then?"

  "Of course I will," she answered. "There's another thing, though. Myname isn't Miss Mallen--it's Marta."

  "Mine's Rance," said Kent, smiling. "Good-by until to-morrow, then,Marta."

  "Good-by, Rance."

  Kent rose from the instrument with the smile still in his eyes, but withhis lips compressed. "Damn it, there's the bravest and finest girl inthe solar system!" he exclaimed. "Over there with those brutes!"

  "We'll have her out, never fear," Crain reassured him. "The main thingis to determine our course toward Krell and Jandron."

  Kent thought. "As I see it, Krell can help us immeasurably in our searchthrough the wreck-pack for fuel," he said. "I think it would be best tokeep on good terms with him until we've found fuel and have it in ourtanks. Then we can turn the tables on them before they can do anything."

  Crain nodded thoughtfully. "I think you're right. Then you and Liggettand Krell can head our search-party to-morrow."

  Crain established watches on a new schedule, and Kent and Liggett andthe dozen men chosen for the exploring party of the next day ate ascanty meal and turned in for some sleep.

  * * * * *

  When Kent woke and glimpsed the massed wrecks through the window he wasfor the moment amazed, but rapidly remembered. He and Liggett werefinishing their morning ration when Crain pointed to a window.

  "There comes Krell now," he said, indicating the single space-suitedfigure approaching along the wreck-pack's edge.

  "I'll call Marta before he gets here," said Kent hastily.

  The girl answered on the suit-phone immediately, and it occurred to Kentthat she must have spent the night without sleeping. "Krell left a fewminutes ago," she said.

  "Yes, he's coming now. You heard nothing of their plans?"

  "No; they've kept me shut in my cabin. However, I did hear Krell givingJandron and the rest directions. I'm sure they're plotting something."

  "We're prepared for them," Kent assured her. "If all goes well, beforeyou realize it, you'll be sailing out of here with us in the _Pallas_."

  "I hope so," she said. "Rance, be careful with Krell in the wreck-pack.He's dangerous."

  "I'll be watching him," he promised. "Good-by, Marta."

  Kent reached the lower-deck just as Krell entered from the airlock, hisswarthy face smiling as he removed his helmet. He carried a pointedsteel bar. Liggett and the others were donning their suits.

  "All ready to go, Kent?" Krell asked.

  Kent nodded. "All ready," he said shortly. Since hearing Marta's storyhe found it hard to dissimulate with Krell.

  "You'll want bars like mine," Krell continued, "for they're damnedhandy when you get jammed between wreckage masses. Exploring thiswreck-pack is no soft job: I can tell you from experience."

  Liggett and the rest had their suits adjusted, and with bars in theirgrasp, followed Krell into the airlock. Kent hung back for a last wordwith Crain, who, with his half-dozen remaining men, was watching.

  "Marta just told me that Krell and Jandron have been plottingsomething," he told the captain; "so I'd keep a close watch outside."

  "Don't worry, Kent. We'll let no one inside the _Pallas_ until you andLiggett and the men get back."

  * * * * *

  In a few minutes they were out of the ship, with Krell and Kent andLiggett leading, and the twelve members of the _Pallas'_ crew followingclosely.

  The three leaders climbed up on the Uranus-Jupiter passenger-ship thatlay beside the _Pallas_, the others moving on and exploring theneighboring wrecks in parties of two and three. From the top of thepassenger-ship, when they gained it, Kent and his two companions couldlook far out over the wreck-pack. It was an extraordinary spectacle,this stupendous mass of dead ships floating motionless in the depths ofspace, with the burning stars above and below them.

  His companions and the other men clambering over the neighboring wrecksseemed weird figures in their bulky suits and transparent helmets. Kentlooked back at the _Pallas_, and then along the wreck-pack's edge towhere he could glimpse the silvery side of the _Martian Queen_. But nowKrell and Liggett were descending into the ship's interior through thegreat opening smashed in its bows, and Kent followed.

  They found themselves in the liner's upper navigation-rooms. Officersand men lay about, frozen to death at the instant the meteor-struckvessel's air had rushed out, and the cold of space had entered. Krellled the way on, down into the ship's lower decks, where they found thebodies of the crew and passengers lying in the same silent death.

  The salons held beautifully-dressed women, distinguished-looking men,lying about as the meteor's shock had hurled them. One group lay arounda card-table, their game interrupted. A woman still held a small child,both seemingly asleep. Kent tried to shake off the oppression he felt ashe and Krell and Liggett continued down to the tank-rooms.

  They found their quest there useless, for the tanks had been strained bythe meteor's shock, and were empty. Kent felt Liggett grasp his hand andheard him speak, the sound-vibrations coming through their contactingsuits.

  "Nothing here; and we'll find it much the same through all these wrecks,if I'm not wrong. Tanks always give at a shock."

  "There must be some ships with fuel still in them among all these," Kentanswered.

  * * * * *

  They climbed back, up to the ship's top, and leapt off it toward aJupiter freighter lying a little farther inside the pack. As theyfloated toward it, Kent saw their men moving on with them from ship toship, progressing inward into the pack. Both Kent and Liggett kept Krellalways ahead of them, knowing that a blow from his bar, shattering theirglassite helmets, meant instant death. But Krell seemed quite intent onthe search for fuel.

  The big Jupiter freighter seemed intact from above, but, when theypenetrated into it, they found its whole under-side blown away,apparently by an explosion of its tanks. They moved on to the next ship,a private space-yacht, small in size, but luxurious in fittings. It hadbeen abandoned in space, its rocket-tubes burst and tanks strained.

  They went on, working deeper into the wreck-pack. Kent almost forgot theparamount importance of their search in the fascination of it. Theyexplored almost every known type of ship--freighters, liners,cold-storage boats, and grain-boats. Once Kent's hopes ran high at sightof a fuel-ship, but it proved to be in ballast, its cargo-tanks emptyand its own tanks and tubes apparently blown simultaneously.

  Kent's muscles ached from the arduous work of climbing over andexploring the wrecks. He and Liggett had become accustomed to the sightof frozen, motionless bodies.

  As they worked deeper into the pack, they noticed that the ships were ofincreasingly older types, and at last Krell signalled a halt. "We'realmost a mile in," he told them, gripping their hands. "We'd better workback out, taking a different section of the pack as we do."

  Kent nodded. "It may change our luck," he said.

  It did; for when they had gone not more than a half-mile back, theyglimpsed one of their men waving excitedly from the top of a Plutoliner.

  They hastened at once toward him, the other men gathering also; and whenKent grasped the man's hand he heard his excited voice.

  "Fuel-tanks here are more than half-full, sir!"

  * * * * *

  They descended quickly into the liner, finding that though its wholestern had been sheared away by a meteor,
its tanks had remainedmiraculously unstrained.

  "Enough fuel here to take the _Pallas_ to Neptune!" Kent exclaimed.

  "How will you get it over to your ship?" Krell asked. Kent pointed togreat reels of flexible metal tubing hanging near the tanks.

  "We'll pump it over. The _Pallas_ has tubing like this ship's, fortaking on fuel in space, and, by joining its tubing to this, we'll havea tube-line between the two ships. It's hardly more than aquarter-mile."

  "Let's get back and let them know about it," Liggett urged, and theyclimbed