The Sargasso of Space

'Do you know whether there are any ships in the pack with fuel in their tanks?' Kent asked. Krell shook his head.

'We've searched through the wreck-pack a good bit, but never bothered about fuel, it being no good to us. But there ought to be some, at least: there's enough wrecks in this cursed place to make it possible to find almost anything.

'You'd better not start exploring, though,' he added, 'without some of us along as guides, for I'm here to tell you that you can lose yourself in this wreck-pack without knowing it. If you wait until to-morrow, I'll come over myself and go with you.'

'I think that would be wise,' Crain said to Kent. 'There is plenty of time.'

'Time is the one thing there's plenty of in this damned place,' Krell agreed. 'We'll be getting back to the Martian Queen now and give the good news to Jandron and the rest.'

'Wouldn't mind if Liggett and I came along, would you?' Kent asked. 'I'd like to see how your ship's fixed— that is, if it's all right with you, sir,' he added to his superior.

Crain nodded. 'All right if you don't stay long,' he said. But, to Kent's surprise Krell seemed reluctant to endorse his proposal.

'I guess it'll be all right,' he said slowly, 'though there's nothing much on the Martian Queen to see.'

Krell and his followers replaced their helmets and returned into the airlock. Liggett followed them, and, as Kent struggled hastily into a space-suit, he found Captain Crain at his side.

'Kent, look sharp when you get over on that ship,' Crain told him. 'I don't like the look of this Krell, and his story about all the officers being killed in the explosion sounds fishy to me.'

'To me, too,' Kent agreed. 'But Liggett and I will have the suit-phones in our space-suits and can call you from there in case of need.'

Crain nodded, and Kent with space-suit on and transparent helmet screwed tight, stepped into the airlock with the rest. The airlock's inner door closed, the outer one opened, and as the air puffed out into space, Kent and Krell and Liggett leapt out into the void, the others following.

It was no novelty to Kent to float in a space-suit in the empty void. He and the others now floated as smoothly as though under water toward a wrecked liner at the Pallas' right. They reached it, pulled themselves around it, and, with feet braced against its side, propelled themselves on through space along the border of the wreck-pack.

They passed a half-dozen wrecks thus, before coming to the Martian Queen. It was a silvery, glistening ship whose stern and lower walls were bulging and strained, but not cracked. Kent told himself that Krell had spoken truth about the exploding rocket-tubes, at least.

They struck the Martian Queen's side and entered the upper-airlock open for them. Once through the airlock they found themselves on the ship's upper-deck. And when Kent and Liggett removed their helmets with the others they found a full dozen men confronting them, a brutal-faced group who exhibited some surprise at sight of them.

Foremost among them stood a tall, heavy individual who regarded Kent and Liggett with the cold, suspicious eyes of an animal.

'My comrade and fellow-ruler here, Wald Jandron,' said Krell. To Jandron he explained rapidly. 'The whole crew of the Pallas is alive, and they say if they can find fuel in the wreck-pack their ship can get out of here.'

'Good,' grunted Jandron. 'The sooner they can do it, the better it will be for us.'

Kent saw Liggett flush angrily, but he ignored Jandron and spoke to Krell. 'You said one of your passengers had escaped the explosion?'

To Kent's amazement a girl stepped from behind the group of men, a slim girl with pale face and steady, dark eyes. 'I'm the passenger,' she told him. 'My name's Marta Mallen.'

Kent and Liggett stared, astounded. 'Good Lord!' Kent exclaimed. 'A girl like you on this ship!'

'Miss Mallen happened to be on the upper-deck at the time of the explosion and, so, escaped when the other passengers were killed,' Krell explained smoothly. 'Isn't that so, Miss Mallen?'

The girl's eyes had not left Kent's, but at Krell's words she nodded. 'Yes, that is so,' she said mechanically.

Kent collected his whirling thoughts. 'But wouldn't you rather go back to the Pallas with us?' he asked. 'I'm sure you'd be more comfortable there.'

'She doesn't go,' grunted Jandron. Kent turned in quick wrath toward him, but Krell intervened.

'Jandron only means that Miss Mallen is much more comfortable on this passenger-ship than she'd be in your freighter.' He shot a glance at the girl as he spoke, and Kent saw her wince.

'I'm afraid that's so,' she said; 'but I thank you for the offer, Mr. Kent.'

Kent could have sworn that there was an appeal in her eyes, and he stood for a moment, indecisive, Jandron's stare upon him. After a moment's thought he turned to Krell.

'You were going to show me the damage the exploding tubes did,' he said, and Krell nodded quickly.

'Of course; you can see from the head of the stair back in the after-deck.'

He led the way along a corridor, Jandron and the girl and two of the men coming with them. Kent's thoughts were still chaotic as he walked between Krell and Liggett. What was this girl doing amid the men of the Martian Queen? What had her eyes tried to tell him?

Liggett nudged his side in the dim corridor, and Kent, looking down, saw dark splotches on its metal floor. Blood-stains! His suspicions strengthened. They might be from the bleeding of those wounded in the tube- explosions. But were they?

They reached the after-deck whose stair's head gave a view of the wrecked tube-rooms beneath. The lower decks had been smashed by terrific forces. Kent's practiced eyes ran rapidly over the shattered rocket-tubes.

'They've back-blasted from being fired too fast,' he said. 'Who was controlling the ship when this happened?'

'Galling, our second-officer,' answered Krell. 'He had found us routed too close to the dead-area's edge and was trying to get away from it in a hurry, when he used the tubes too fast, and half of them back-blasted.'

'If Galling was at the controls in the pilot-house, how did the explosion kill him?' asked Liggett skeptically. Krell turned quickly.

'The shock threw him against the pilot-house wall and fractured his skull—he died in an hour,' he said. Liggett was silent.

'Well, this ship will never move again,' Kent said. 'It's too bad that the explosion blew out your tanks, but we ought to find fuel somewhere in the wreck-pack for the Pallas. And now we'd best get back.'

As they returned up the dim corridor Kent managed to walk beside Marta Mallen, and, without being seen, he contrived to detach his suit-phone—the compact little radiophone case inside his space-suit's neck—and slip it into the girl's grasp. He dared utter no word of explanation, but apparently she understood, for she had concealed the suit-phone by the time they reached the upper-deck.

Kent and Liggett prepared to don their space-helmets, and before entering the airlock, Kent turned to Krell.

'We'll expect you at the Pallas first hour to-morrow, and we'll start searching the wreck-pack with a dozen of our men,' he said.

He then extended his hand to the girl. 'Good-by, Miss Mallen. I hope we can have a talk soon.'

He had said the words with double meaning, and saw understanding in her eyes. 'I hope we can, too,' she said.

Kent's nod to Jandron went unanswered, and he and Liggett adjusted their helmets and entered the airlock.

Once out of it, they kicked rapidly away from the Martian Queen, floating along with the wreck-pack's huge mass to their right, and only the star-flecked emptiness of infinity to their left. In a few