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Sam, surprisingly enough, wore no outside pouch, and Dick thought this very
strange; he had a clear mental picture of the little bag swinging at Sam s
side when he jumped aboard the rocket-raft.
But the pouch was nowhere in evidence, and Dick convinced himself that he had
been mistaken.
The chart was not concealed on Sam s space suit. Dick trembled in distaste at
what he must do.
There was no help for it; so he steeled himself to the task. He unzipped Sam s
space suit far enough to search the pockets of Sam s clothes. He found
nothing. The chart was not on Sam s body.
Dick turned back to the raft. He ransacked the tool box. Nothing. He looked
under the bench, under the jet struts. Nothing. The chart was not on Sam or on
the raft.
Where was it then? He could picture only one other possibility: Sam s isolated
little dwelling near the Security Station.
Dick once more took the raft into the air, slid over the crater wall and
settled into the observatory square.
Trusting no one, Dick reported Sam s death as an accident. Sam, he said, had
incautiously pried loose the boulder which had flung him back into the chasm.
Professor Dexter, not completely satisfied, questioned Dick keenly, and under
the thrust of the brilliant black eyes, Dick had stammered and stumbled. He
was not naturally a good liar, and Professor Dexter s evident suspicion made
deception even more difficult.
At the end of the inquisition, Professor Dexter became a trifle sarcastic, and
stared at Dick with his fine black eyebrows in a dissatisfied line.  Your
father will be home in a few days; I ll make a report to him and I m sure
he ll want to make a thorough investigation.
Dick nodded, blushing.
 That s all, then, Dexter said rather sharply.
Dick left the office and went up to his room. Professor Dexter s suspicion
weighed on him a great deal less than the knowledge that somewhere among the
personnel of the observatory was a heartless murderer, an ally of the pirates
and a traitor to civilized humanity. The idea had developed in Dick s mind to
near-certainty. In theory it was possible that the stealthy radio message had
been broadcast elsewhere, that a pirate spy had followed Crazy Sam s boat to
the Baxter Mesa and there, from sheer malevolence, dropped a boulder but it
was highly unlikely.
Where was the chart? Sam may have been cantankerous, outspoken and queer, but
a streak of common sense seemed to lie underneath. If he had snatched the
chart out from under Dick s eyes, Dick felt sure that the chart had
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significance.
But nothing was certain. The chart might mean nothing, or it might be highly
important; at any rate, its absence gnawed at Dick s nerves. He paced up and
down his room, stopping at the window every two or three trips. Off to the
side lay Sam s old raft, forlorn and neglected. And every time
Dick came to the window he looked longer at the raft.
Conflicting impulses worked at Dick s brain. His nerves were jangling, and he
was frightened.
Close by was his enemy, a person who would kill him with satisfaction. Any
footstep outside his door might well be this enemy.... Almost with the
thought, he fancied he heard a footstep; he paused in his pacing and listened.
The sound was not repeated. Quietly he crossed the room and locked the door.
Dick looked at the bed; he was tired, but he knew he could not sleep. He
wanted to act, strike out, fight back. It was humiliating to be forced to
stand and numbly take punishment; he walked back and forth with quicker
strides. Sam s raft beckoned him; the sky was bright with blazing stars,
clearer than any sky of Earth. Once on the raft, and on his guard, he could
detect anyone who might try to follow him a second time. Of course, Professor
Dexter had definitely instructed him to go nowhere alone; but if he were
caught, he could suffer no more than a sharp lecture, and if worse came to
worst he could explain his actions. He knew his father would understand and
possibly even approve; Professor Dexter was more steely and intense, a great
deal less flexible.
Dick shrugged; he would cross the bridge of Professor Dexter s disapproval
when he came to it.
He paused before the locked door; suppose someone were standing on the other
side waiting? He picked up the heaviest object in sight a tall bottle of
after-shave lotion, quietly unlocked the door, and with a beating heart flung
it open.
The corridor was empty.
Dick returned the lotion to its place on the shelf and ran downstairs. He slid
unobserved into his space suit, replaced his oxygen tank, and the process gave
him pause for thought. The raft would likewise need refueling. Well, he d take
it across the square and fill the tanks himself; Lobscombe,
the electrolysis engineer Lobscouse, as Crazy Sam had called him was
round-headed and stubborn; persuasion and argument would get nowhere with
Lobscombe.
Dick moved swiftly, efficiently. He hopped aboard the raft, opened the master
valve. In the throat of the jets, little catalyzer plates automatically
ignited the oxygen and hydrogen. The raft rose, and under his now
knowledgeable hand, looped easily across the square, settled beside the fuel
outlets.
Dick jumped off hastily. His only hope was to get well underway before
Lobscombe appeared.
But he was in luck, and he filled the tanks without interruption. A moment
later he was riding up and away from the observatory, across the cruel black
wilderness of the lava sea.
He kept careful watch behind him, but there was no pursuit. To make doubly
sure, he dropped suddenly into a lonely little crater and waited fifteen
minutes. Nothing in sight but dim-lit rock, black shadow, and the infinite
spread of the universe above
Confident now that he had evaded his enemy, Dick flew toward the old Security
Station. Miles slipped under him, together with a thousand craters, black
crevasses, monstrous mountains. Then in the distance appeared the pallid
ruins. At another time Dick would have enjoyed exploring the battered old
hangars and warehouses; this time he had a definite end in view searching
Crazy
Sam s dwelling. He saw it, an igloo-shaped dome, a half-mile distant from the
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ruins.
He dropped the raft, jumped off and ran to the door. The quicker he finished
his job the better.
He had no difficulty in gaining entrance, and two minutes after landing he
stood among Crazy
Sam s meager belongings. Several items gave him considerable surprise: an
easel, a much-used palette, brushes and tubes of oil paints. On the walls hung
a dozen moonscapes, depicting the moon as Sam had seen it: a place of brooding [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]