corridor now to blast the whole outer shell off — and gallons more coming every second. I know you've been here a lot longer than I, but unless you can tell me how you expect to keep him from lighting that stuff up, I'm getting into a suit right now!”
“If it blows, a suit won't help you,” pointed out the older man.
“I know that!” almost screamed Floyd, “but what other chance is there? Why did you let him get so far?”
“There is still no danger,” Mayhew said flatly, “whether you believe it or not. However, the fuel does cost money, and there'll be some work recovering it, so I don't see why he should be allowed to empty all the torpedo tanks. He's excited enough now, anyway.” He turned languidly to the appropriate microphone and gave the word to the action squad. “Take him now. He seems to be without hand weapons, but don't count on it. He certainly has at least one incendiary bomb.” As an afterthought, he reached for another switch, and made sure the ventilators in the outer level were not operating; then he relaxed again and gave his attention to the scanner that showed the agent's activity. Floyd had switched to another pickup that covered a longer section of corridor, and the watchers saw the space-suited attackers almost as soon as did Hart himself.
The European reacted to the sight at once — too rapidly, in fact, for the shift in his attention caused him to miss his grasp on the valve handle he sought and flounder helplessly through the air until he reached the next. Once anchored, however, he acted as he had planned, ignoring with commendable self-control the four armored figures converging on him. A sharp twist turned the fuel valve full on, sending a stream of oil mushrooming into the corridor; his left hand flashed to his belt, seized the tiny cylinder he had snapped there, jammed its end hard against the adjacent wall, and tossed the bomb gently back down the corridor. In one way his lack of weightless experience betrayed him; he allowed for a gravity pull that was not there. The bomb, in consequence, struck the “ceiling” a few yards from his hand, and rebounded with a popping noise and a shower of sparks. It drifted on down the corridor toward the floating globules of hydrocarbon, and the glow of the sparks was suddenly replaced by the eye-hurting radiance of thermite.
Floyd winced at the sight, and expected the attacking men to make futile plunges after the blazing thing; but though all were within reach of walls, not one swerved from his course. Hart made no effort to escape or fight; he watched the course of the drifting bomb with satisfaction, and, like Floyd, expected in the next few seconds to be engulfed in a sea of flame that would remove the most powerful of the Western torpedo stations from his country's path of conquest. Unlike Floyd, he was calm about it, even when the men seized him firmly and began removing equipment from his pockets. One unclamped and removed the face plate of his helmet; and even to that he made no resistance — just watched in triumph as his missile drifted toward the nearest globes of fuel.
It did not actually strike the first. It did not have to; while the quantity of heat radiated by burning thermite is relatively small, the temperature of the reaction is notoriously high — and the temperature six inches from the bomb was well above the flash point of the rocket fuel, comparatively non-volatile as it was. Floyd saw the flash as its surface ignited, and closed his eyes.
Mayhew gave him four or five seconds before speaking, judging that that was probably about all the suspense the younger man could stand.
“All right, ostrich,” he finally said quietly. “I'm not an angel, in case you were wondering. Why not use your eyes, and the brain behind them?”
Floyd was far too disturbed to take offense at the last remark, but he did cautiously follow Mayhew's advice about looking. He found difficulty, however, in believing what his eyes and the scanner showed him.
The group of five men was unchanged, except for the expression on the captive's now visible face. All were looking down the corridor toward the point where the bomb was still burning; Lang's crew bore expressions of amusement on their faces, while Hart wore a look of utter disbelief. Floyd, seeing what he saw, shared the expression.
The bomb had by now passed close to several of the floating spheres. Each had caught fire, as Floyd had seen — for a moment only. Now each was surrounded by a spherical, nearly opaque layer of some grayish substance that looked like a mixture of smoke and kerosene vapor; a layer that could not have been half an inch thick, as Floyd recalled the sizes of the original spheres. None was burning; each had effectively smothered itself out, and the young observer slowly realized just how and why as the bomb at last made a direct hit on a drop of fuel fully a foot in diameter.
Like the others, the globe flamed momentarily, and went out; but this time the sphere that appeared and grew around it was lighter in color, and continued to grow for several seconds. Then there was a little, sputtering explosion, and a number of fragments of still burning thermite emerged from the surface of the sphere in several directions, traveled a few feet and went out. All activity died down, except in the faces of Hart and Floyd.
The saboteur was utterly at a loss, and seemed likely to remain that way; but in the watch room Floyd was already kicking himself mentally for his needless worry. Mayhew, watching the expression on his assistant's face, chuckled quietly.
“Of course you get it now,” he said at last.
“I do
He was right; Hart was certainly not enlightened. He belonged to a service in which unpleasant surprises were neither unexpected nor unusual, but he had never in his life been so completely disorganized. The stuff looked like fuel; it smelled like fuel; it had even started to burn — but it refused to carry on with the process. Hart simply relaxed in the grip of the guards, and tried to find something in the r, situation to serve as an anchor for his whirling thoughts. A spaceman would have understood the situation without thinking, a high school student of reasonable intelligence could probably have worked the matter out in time; but Hart's education had been that of a spy, in a country which considered general education a waste of time. He simply did not have the background to cope with his present environment.
That, at least, was the idea Mayhew acquired after a careful questioning of the prisoner. Not much was learned about his intended mission, though there was little doubt about it under the circumstances. The presence of an alien agent aboard any of the free-floating torpedo launchers of the various national governments bore only one interpretation; and since the destruction of one such station would do little good to anyone, Mayhew at once radioed all other launchers to be on the alert for similar intruders — all others, regardless of nationality. Knowledge by Hart's superiors of his capture might prevent their acting on the assumption that he had succeeded, which would inevitably lead to some highly regrettable incidents. Mayhew's business was to prevent a war, not win one. Hart had not actually admitted the identity of his superiors, but his accent left the matter in little doubt; and since no action was intended, Mayhew did not need proof.
There remained, of course, the problem of what to do with Hart. The structure had no ready-made prison, and it was unlikely that the Western government would indulge in the gesture of a special rocket to take the man off. Personal watch would be tedious, but it was unthinkable merely to deprive a man with the training Hart must have received of his equipment, and then assume he would not have to be watched every second.
The solution, finally suggested by one of the guards, was a small storeroom in the outer shell. It had no locks, but there were welding torches in the machine shops. There was no ventilator either, but an alga tank would take care of that. After consideration, Mayhew decided that this was the best plan, and it was promptly put into effect.
Hart was thoroughly searched, even his clothing replaced as a precautionary measure. He asked for his cigarettes and lighter, with a half smile. Mayhew supplied the man with some of his own, and marked those of the spy for special investigation. Hart said nothing more after that, and was incarcerated without further ceremony. Mayhew was chuckling once more as the guards disappeared with their charge.
“I hope he gets more good than I out of that lighter,” he remarked. “It's a wick-type my kid sent me as a present, and the ventilator draft doesn't usually keep it going. Maybe our friend will learn something, if he fools with it long enough. He has a pint of lighter fluid to experiment with — the kid had large ideas.”
“I was a little surprised — I thought for a moment you were giving him a pocket flask,” laughed Floyd. “I suppose that's why you always use matches — they're easier to wave than that thing. I guess I save myself a lot of trouble not smoking at all. I suppose you have to put potassium nitrate in your cigarettes to keep 'em going when you're not pulling on them.” Floyd ducked as he spoke, but Mayhew didn't throw anything. Hart, of course, was out of hearing by this time, and would not have profited from the remark in any case.
