The Space Rover Part 4

Teutoberg was standing at one side of the room gazing in rapt attention at the slaughter of the helpless marines. One by one he watched them emerge from the air-lock bloated and white in their nakedness with their convulsed limbs already growing rigid in the icy cold of s.p.a.ce. Out in the open s.p.a.ce between the two ships they hung motionless a few minutes, then swiftly dissolved and vanished under the ray of a small disintegrator gun on the liner.

Teutoberg smiled crookedly.

The door clicked behind him. Teutoberg turned with a startled oath.

Winford, foul with grime and his clothing torn to rags, stood there.

Teutoberg's eyes widened. Both hands leaped downward for the holstered pistols in his belt. At that instant Winford lunged for him.

One of Teutoberg's hands was now gripping a pistol. Winford struck frenziedly, knocking it from Teutoberg's grasp. The weapon slid under the chart table out of reach. Winford clutched Teutoberg's left hand which held the still holstered pistol.

Suddenly he saw an advantage, and his heart leaped in exultation. Round behind Teutoberg he pivoted--a wrestling trick he had learned as a boy.

For an instant they stood back to back. Then with a mighty effort Winford heaved upward relentlessly on his opponent's forearm.

Teutoberg screamed in pain as something snapped in his wrist. The pistol dropped from his nerveless fingers. Winford flicked it out of reach under the table with his toe, but had no chance to reach for it, because Teutoberg had managed to work himself free.

With a bellow of animal rage and with arms flailing like wind-mills he charged at Winford again. Winford met his rush with a rapid series of blows and Teutoberg went down. But up he came, a wild light in his eyes.

Again he went down, only to struggle gamely to his feet once more.

Winford was gasping for breath. It amazed him that Teutoberg could endure so much punishment. His arm must be broken and he was terribly battered, yet here he came staggering back for more. Winford now hunched down and, like a crouching animal, advanced slowly toward his enemy.

Suddenly he started a right almost from the deck straight for Teutoberg's chin. It connected. Teutoberg was lifted clear of the deck and hurled unconscious against the side of the control room six feet away.

Winford staggered to the communication board and his trembling fingers clutched the air-lock phone.

"h.e.l.lo, h.e.l.lo!" he gasped. "Teutoberg speaking. Send no more marines out through the lock just now.... Yes, of course this is Teutoberg."

He hung the instrument back on its hook and clung dizzily to the edge of the table. At least the slaughter was halted for the time being.

He would have to act fast. He caught up the big water pitcher from the holder on the wall where it had miraculously escaped the fight, gulped deeply from it, and splattered water down his face and chest. Then he picked up the two pistols from the deck, placed one in his belt and gripped the other firmly as he approached the unconscious Teutoberg.

At the first splash of water in his face Teutoberg groaned and rolled over.

"Get up, you," Winford ordered harshly.

Teutoberg sat up groggily. The sight of the pistol and Winford's eyes brought him out with a sudden shock.

"Get over to that air-lock phone and say just what I tell you to,"

ordered Winford grimly. "One false word, and I'll ray you plenty."

Teutoberg staggered to his feet obediently and took the phone, for he had read death in Winford's hard eyes.

"h.e.l.lo, Jarvis?" he asked, his body rigid under the prod of Winford's pistol. "This is Teutoberg.... Yes, I talked a minute ago. I've changed my plans, Jarvis. We've got to get the iridium out of the hold and into the liner as soon as possible, or we'll be sighted by some other craft.

Take all the men but ten and go back to the liner. Make ready there for the cargo.... You'll have to clear some cabins; there is more than I thought. There isn't much food aboard here, anyway, and it is better to let the men go to mess right away and start transferring the cargo immediately afterward."

Teutoberg hung up the phone.

"Is that satisfactory?" he asked sullenly.

"It will do," was Winford's terse reply. "Now when the men have gone back to the liner, order two of the remainder to bring up Jarl from the hold to the control room here."

Jarl was as impa.s.sive as usual when he entered the control room and beheld Winford in charge there, although his two captors stared in amazement at Teutoberg, b.l.o.o.d.y and battered, seated against the side of the room with his hands upraised. Jarl calmly disarmed his two captors and closed the door.

"Only eight of Teutoberg's men besides these remain on the _Golden Fleece_," Winford explained to Jarl. "Take care of them first, then release the rest of our men from the hold. Tell Agar to take charge of the machinery as soon as possible, and have the gunners stand by for further orders."

"Awah," replied Jarl stoically, and left the control room.

He took care of the eight invaders in his very efficient Martian fashion, for he pistoled them with neatness and dispatch where they stood before the air-lock with the young commander and his remaining two marines, waiting to thrust them out into s.p.a.ce. Winford had not instructed Jarl just how to take care of the situation, and the Martian attended to it in his own way. Commander 6666-A, with his arms bound behind his back, stared in amazement as Jarl calmly stepped over the dead bodies and went on his way to release his fellow pirates from the hold.

Up in the control room the radio loud-speaker hummed to life.

"Teutoberg, Teutoberg, are you there?" cried an anxious voice. "Three Interplanetary battle spheres are approaching from the direction of the Earth! They are still two thousand miles away, but they are coming on fast! We're going to cut loose and run for it. If you're not back here in five minutes, you'll have to stay where you are!"

Winford cut in then for Teutoberg, who gulped painfully before speaking.

"Go right ahead," he said in a strained voice. "I'm staying here on the _Golden Fleece_. I'll--I'll see you later."

"Why didn't you say you'd meet them in the Hereafter?" suggested Winford coldly, as he cut out the microphone. "That's where you are going as soon as Jarl returns. He'll be glad to help you on your way, for he hasn't forgotten the aid you gave his brother-in-law in robbing him and sending him to Mercury."

Teutoberg made no answer.

Things were happening swiftly. Already the liner was lurching forward frantically with every propulsion ray flaming as she started her flight through s.p.a.ce away from the avenging battle spheres. Red lights twinkled on the control board of the _Golden Fleece_. Agar, at the generators now, threw in the power. The big freighter leaped ahead like a grayhound, soon reaching a speed that even the swift battle spheres could not equal, thanks to the engineering genius of the half-insane Agar.

Winford glanced around. Teutoberg was already gone. Jarl had taken him down to the air-lock. Winford tried to forget him. There were other things to think of. There were the details of taking the _Golden Fleece_ out to Pluto near the frontiers of the Sun's domain--Pluto, that stronghold of the s.p.a.ce pirates where a man could sell an entire planet or any part of it, no questions asked, if he could produce it for the buccaneer kings to bid on. The freighter and its cargo were as good as sold already, and the money they would bring would be more than enough to buy pardons and freedom for everyone in the crew.

There were many details to consider carefully, but instead Winford found himself thinking of Teutoberg down by the air-lock, stripped of his clothing, ready for his last adventure with life. As much as Winford hated the man, he was forced into an unwilling admiration for his dogged fight in the control room. A mere word in that telephone would save him.

Winford shook his head irritably. The man deserved death. Yet again he saw the set features, the final walk into the air-lock. Suddenly Winford found himself at the phone and heard himself giving the order that would save Teutoberg's life. He sat down again, surprised at his own weakness.

He was still musing when Jarl entered.

"You couldn't go through with it," observed the big Martian impa.s.sively.

"I was afraid you couldn't. It is as I have always said of you Earthlings. You think you want revenge, good old ancient vengeance; but when the moment comes and you sit in the high place and can have it, you weaken. Well, you won't have to execute Teutoberg now."

"What do you mean?" exclaimed Winford.

"After I received your order and told Teutoberg he wasn't to go out through the lock after all, he grinned. It was an insult, that grin, just as though he knew all along you wouldn't have the nerve to kill him. And while I stood there asking myself if I should not go ahead and shove him out anyway, one of his men--one of the two we captured up here in this room--caught sight of that grin. He screamed something about treachery and Teutoberg betraying him to the pirates, and before I could interfere he drew a knife and stabbed Teutoberg to death right there before all of us. After that there was nothing to do but to heave his body into the air-lock and let it go on out into s.p.a.ce."

Far back across the Void in a tiny s.p.a.ce sphere which Winford had given him and his two marines to return to the distant battle sphere, Lieutenant Commander 6666-A saw through his telescope the white speck of Teutoberg's body leave the side of the _Golden Fleece_ and wondered what it was.