CITADEL OF THE GREEN DEATH

BY EMMETT McDOWELL

At the coldly gleaming Experimental Station
they flung this choice in Outlaw Joel Hakkyt's
teeth: "Grinding, endless slavery on Asgard,
that Alpha Centauri hell—or a writhing, screaming
guinea-pig's death here?" He chose Asgard,
naturally. But what was natural—on Asgard?

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Fall 1948.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Joel Hakkyt stirred impatiently in the prisoner's chair. His features, homely, strong-boned and intelligent, were inscrutable. But he didn't know how much longer he could bottle up his indignation. It had been accumulating all during his trial. Now this delay!

The machines had been whisked from the chamber. The investigating psychologist should have returned with his verdict minutes ago. What was wrong?

Joel glanced at his parents, at his wife. They were the only spectators, the three of them sitting stiffly in the front row of benches.

Doctor Hakkyt refused to meet his son's eyes. A plump, tall man, the doctor looked stonily out the windows at the park-like grounds surrounding the Hall of Justice. He was president of Clear Springs Community, and his angry red expression said plainly as words that his son had disgraced him.

Mrs. Hakkyt dabbed at cold eyes with a scrap of handkerchief. Joel's glance passed over her swiftly and on to his wife.

She sat next to his mother with a notebook on her knee, a pencil poised in her hand. Joel's wife was a specialist in creative writing, and all through his trial, she had watched him with the same impersonal curiosity she might have bestowed on some animal, jotting down his reactions.

In sudden disgust, Joel wondered why he had consented to marry her. It had been her looks, he supposed. She had a sensual rather pretty face....

A panel behind the bench clicked loudly in the silence. The guard stood up, saying: "Attention, please."

It was a useless formality, because everyone's eyes had jerked instantly to the slowly opening door.

The investigating psychologist bustled in, sat down behind his desk. He arranged his black gown with a tug, rattled the papers in his hand.

"An unusual case," he began. "Unusual in several respects!" He turned his eyes on Joel's father. "The examination reveals that the prisoner is possessed of a high I.Q. Very high. However, he is completely maladjusted. A dangerous anti-social type. He is to be committed to the Experimental Station at once!"

Joel caught his breath. The Experimental Station!

Criminals and the maladjusted were committed to the Experimental Stations where they were used as guinea-pigs by the scientists. They might live for years, surviving experiment after experiment. But inexorably like the early Roman gladiators they met a ghastly fate.

Doctor Hakkyt had risen furiously. "This is preposterous! Think of the notoriety! I'm the president of...."

"That will be sufficient!" the investigating psychologist interrupted. "The prisoner is thirty-four years old. This is the third time he's been up for examination. All the rehabilitative measures have failed!"

Doctor Hakkyt sank back muttering into his seat.

The psychologist rattled his papers again, fixed Joel's wife with a softer glance. "Annulment orders for your marriage, Mrs. Hakkyt, have been forwarded to the capitol. You are free."

"Thank you," said the young woman without glancing up from her notes.

The investigating psychologist wiped his sharp features with a handkerchief and said: "Court dismissed."

Joel watched his father and mother rise. They didn't glance at him. The psychologist cleared his throat.

"If you wish to say goodbye to the prisoner...."

Doctor Hakkyt wheeled angrily. "That won't be necessary. As far as my wife and I are concerned, the prisoner is already dead!"

Pompously, he took Mrs. Hakkyt's arm, steered her to the exit. Joel's wife closed her notebook with a snap, trotted out after them without a backward glance.

Only their scent, that unique volatile compound that was as expressive to Joel Hakkyt's sensitive nostrils as a picture, lingered behind.

It was atavistic, Joel supposed, but his sense of smell was as acute as any hound's!

Joel shrugged, rose from the prisoner's chair. He looked big, burly beside the fragile guard. There was something appealing about his strong homely features—a quizzical directness, an honesty.

"Come along," said the guard.

Joel's nostrils flared as he caught the guard's scent for the first time. It was man-like and yet alien—a curious unrecognizable smell that raised the hair on the back of his neck!

The guard seemed unaware of Joel's scrutiny. He was a thin elderly man in the Republic's blue and yellow uniform. His eyes were hidden behind dark glasses.

"Come along," the guard repeated, and Joel permitted himself to be led into the corridor that ran back to the cells.

The door had scarcely closed on the courtroom, when the guard said in an altered tone, "Keep walking. And don't say a word once we reach the cells. Spy recorders have been installed in all of them!"

Joel came to a dead stop. "Who are you?"

"Keep walking!" The blue uniformed guard tugged in panic at Joel's elbow.

"One of our men'll contact you at the Experimental Station. Don't mention this to anyone!" He gulped slightly. "This is going to hurt some. Don't be startled; it's necessary."

As he talked, he jabbed a needle through Joel's sleeve into his arm.

Joel jumped. "Damn! What are you up to?" He yanked free, swung angrily on the guard.

"Only a tattoo mark. Isn't visible except under black light. Then it fluoresces green."

"But why?"

"Identification. Shows you're a legitimate maladjustment case and not a government spy."

"But what...."

"No time now. Wait until our man contacts you. Explain everything. Remember, not a word when we reach the cell block!"

He pushed aside the panel at the far end of the hall. The opening revealed a second corridor lined with small iron-barred cubicles. None of them were tenanted.

Joel Hakkyt moved into his own familiar cell where he had been lodged during his trial. The gate clanged shut.

The guard removed his glasses, polished them nervously as he gave Joel a warning look.

For the first time Joel could see the guard's eyes.

They had no pupils, no color, only a weird flickering light in their depths that glimmered like candle flame!

Joel could feel his stomach contract like a fist. The alien smell filled his nostrils. He took an involuntary backwards step, his heart hammering against his ribs.

The guard wasn't human!

Before Joel could question him the guard retreated through the door, hastily shutting it with a click. Joel sank to the edge of his bunk.

Where did the guard come from?

A mutation? The Eugenics Board would never have allowed a mutation to survive. Joel himself had escaped their vigilance only because it had been impossible to detect his abnormally heightened vision and sense of smell at birth.

Then what was the creature?

It wasn't a native to Mars or Venus. Their dominant life forms had been exterminated centuries ago. Perhaps it hailed from the Centaurian planetary system. He sat up abruptly at the thought.

A Centaurian?

The Republic had established a colony on Asgard, the second planet of Alpha Centauri A. Joel had seen the three-dimensional reels of its weirdly lovely jungles and grotesque species of plant life.

But so far Asgard's dominant life form had escaped detection!

The Republic's exploring parties had stumbled across strange empty little villages with fires smouldering on clay hearths and the food still hot in clay vessels. Yet not a glimpse of the inhabitants had they ever been able to catch.

By some uncanny means, the natives always eluded them like wraiths.

Anthropologists had been able to reconstruct a theoretical Centaurian though from the evidence that he left behind—artifacts, huts, footprints. He was man-like, they said, and walked upright. He weighed between a hundred and a hundred and twenty pounds, this theoretical creature. He was in a primitive stage of development possessing neither writing nor art.

There was only one thing they couldn't explain. That was why nobody had ever seen one!

Joel grinned sourly. He was letting his imagination run away with him.

At nineteen hours a green panel glowed on the rear wall and letters formed on the glass.

SUPPER—PRESS BUTTON.

Joel pressed the indicated button. The panel folded out like a secretary, revealing sanitary food containers which had been delivered via a slot.

He ate slowly. When he had finished he dropped the empty containers down the disposal chute and stretched out on his bunk.

All at once, he sat up snapping his fingers. Why hadn't that occurred to him earlier?

From the wall above the foot of his bunk, he pulled down a screen about a metre square, dialed a number on the prison intercommunicator.

A pale rose glow spread through the screen. Then the prim starched figure of a girl sprang out in three-dimensional reality.

The girl was working at a desk in the warden's office. Joel felt as if he were looking at her through a window in his cell.

She said, "Yes?"

"May I be connected with the film library?"

The girl opened a file, glanced at a card. After a moment, she said, "That will be all right." She dialed a number and said, "Here's your party."

The screen went agitated like the surface of a pond, then cleared again, disclosing a dry thin woman.

"Clear Springs Public Film Library."

Joel said, "I'd like to see whatever is available on Asgard, second planet of Alpha Centauri A. Travel films, history, exploration records...."

The librarian gave a short brittle laugh. "That's a large order. Roughly there must be several thousand reels."

Joel hesitated. "A good condensed history then."

She said, "Flagg's Stellar Venture is the latest...."

"That'll do."

"One moment, please."

Once more the screen quivered violently. Music, a thin haunting melody, streamed into Joel's cell, through which came the voice of the narrator. The music stopped.

A dull black space ship was forming within the depths of the screen.

Joel lay back on his bunk, staring into the glowing square. Walls, floor and ceiling receded from consciousness. He was free of the prison as if like Alice he had stepped through a mirror into a world beyond.

"Sa Nels, a Martian of Terran descent, discovered the stellar drive in 4471," the narrator was saying. "The Republic organized an expedition to the trinary system of Proxima Centauri, Alpha Centauri A and B, our nearest neighbors; and Sa Nels was put in charge."

The narrator's voice droned on. Joel scarcely heard him.

These were government films of the actual take-off of the Vega, Sa Nels' ship. It lay in its cradle in the midst of the sandy red Martian wastes. The crew were at their posts. Sa Nels waved at the camera, climbed into the Vega. The ports were sealed.

There was a blinding flash from the stern of the ship. It rose slowly, crazily in the rarified Martian atmosphere, gained momentum until it was a thin needle-like streak and dwindled in the flick of an eye and disappeared.

Joel let out his breath with a sigh. He had been clenching his fist until his fingers ached. The first ship to reach the stars!

It had been twenty-one years, he recalled after the Vega passed beyond radio contact before a wondering Earth had heard from them again.

Twenty-one years compressed into as many minutes in the film unreeling before Joel's eyes. He saw the blood red ball that was Proxima Centauri swim into view on the scanner. He sighted the yellow-white star of Alpha Centauri A and its orange twin, Alpha Centauri B.

He landed with the expedition on the second planet of Alpha Centauri A and saw the deserted stone villages of the invisible natives, the thick flesh-like Nigel trees, mobile carnivorous plants that stalked the members of the crew like crawling land octopi....

The rest of the film was taken up with the improvement in stellar travel, the establishment of the first colony on Asgard and its slow growth.

Joel was fascinated. If he had lived during an earlier age, he would have run off to sea.

As it was he had stowed away as a lad aboard a tramp spacer outward bound for Mars. But he had been discovered before the ship cleared.

That was the first time he had been brought up before the examining board.

Joel had wanted to become an astro-geophysicist above all else, but his aptitude tests had revealed a remarkable ability with animals. He had been assigned to the government stock farms instead.

He switched off the telescreen. He had discovered nothing that connected the strange humanoid guard with Centaurus and he had put himself into the mood of despair that engulfed him whenever he contemplated his joyless future.

It was almost dawn before he dropped off into a troubled sleep.

II

The sound of his cell door opening awakened Joel the next morning. It was a new guard, he saw with disappointment, a perfectly normal human, smelling of tobacco, sweat and stale clothes—a man-like unmistakable odor.

They went into an elevator and so to the roof where the police helicopter was waiting. Joel climbed into the cab, looked out the window as the 'copter rose smoothly into the air.

The rim of the sun was showing above a low range of wooded hills. The town of Clear Springs was bathed in limpid morning light. With a catch in his throat he caught sight of the sun deck of his own home. They would still be abed there—his mother and father and his ex-wife.

It was strange to think that he'd never see them again. It made him realize the finality of this journey.

A human guinea-pig!

They had been traveling for several hours when his eyes were attracted by the sparkle of sunlight dead ahead. Then he made out a huge plastic dome cupping hundreds of acres.

The Experimental Station!

The police 'copter lit with a slight jar on the thick green sward of the landing field. Joel climbed down stiffly.

Seen from the ground, the structure took his breath away. It was a tremendous dome of clear plastic like a glass beehive. Thousands of tiny figures could be seen moving about its many levels.

No tree grew around the hive. On all sides gently rolling meadows studded with grazing sheep, goats and cattle fell away, for miles.

He began to appreciate why no prisoner had escaped from the station in over a hundred years!

A guard challenged them at the entrance.

Joel's escort produced his papers and the circular plastic gate rolled ponderously aside.

They walked down a short corridor and were challenged a second time. Joel heard the gate roll back, roll shut. A feeling of helplessness swept over him.

It was the door of life, he thought, that had shut behind him.

The white-suited attendant who had signed the receipt for Joel led him into one of the opaque offices, where a stout man in a white smock sat behind a black plastic desk.

"A new arrival, sir," said the attendant. "Name of Joel Hakkyt from Clear Springs Community. Convicted on two counts. Maladjustment and manslaughter."

"Ahh," wheezed the stout man and eased himself back in his chair. Joel noticed that his eyebrows slanted upward giving a sardonic cast to his rubicund countenance.

The attendant laid the papers softly on the ebony desk and withdrew.

There was a strong antiseptic smell to the station. It clung to everything, the offices and corridors, the inmates and attendants. It was so strong that it baffled Joel's keen scent.

"Manslaughter." The stout man, picked up the papers, glanced at them briefly. "I see you underwent examination as a child for abnormal vision."

"Yes," agreed Joel, "I've a much higher percentage of light sensitive rods in my eyes than average. I've always been able to see about as well after dark as a cat."

"What did the Eugenics Board say?"

Joel's homely features broke into a grin. "They had their hands full explaining how they let me slip past when I was born."

"There wasn't anything done about it?"

"Oh, I was put under observation. They decided it was a harmless aberration, but I was forbidden to reproduce."

"But I see you were allowed to marry?"

"My wife was not considered good breeding stock either."

"I see." The fat man pursed his lips, gave Joel an appraising glance. "How did you happen to kill your superior at the State Cattle Farm?"

Joel's face darkened.

"It was an accident. I hit him with my fist. I hit him too hard and broke his neck."

"Roll up your sleeve!"

Joel did so in surprise. He glanced down. With a start he saw that the puncture where the humanoid guard had inserted the needle was fluorescing a vivid green. The room must be bathed in black light! Involuntarily he jerked down the sleeve.

"It's all right," said the stout man. "It's what I was looking for."

"What does it mean?" Joel asked when he had recovered from his surprise.

"Mean? It means that you're a legitimate maladjustment case and not a damned spy sent in here by the Senate."

"But...."

The fat man lifted his hand. He said, "I'm Doctor Chedwick, Emile Chedwick. I'm in charge of induction. Sit down, my boy."

Joel sank suspiciously into a relaxer. Doctor Chedwick drummed on the shiny black desk top.

"Understand," he began, "the men and women who are sentenced to the Experimental Station expect to die. And sooner or later they all do die. Some of them rather horribly."

Joel began to fidget. He knew this. Everyone knew it.

"What you don't know," said Doctor Chedwick almost as if reading Joel's mind, "is that there is a chance for you to escape this!"

Joel went rigid. He leaned forward, his eyes fastened on the pale gray eyes of the man behind the desk.

"What do you mean?"

"Just what I said. There's an acute labor shortage on Asgard, second planet of Alpha Centauri A. Last year the planters petitioned the Senate to assign them a number of malcontents from the Experimental Stations. There has been an alarming increase in maladjusted cases recently. More than the stations could handle. The Senate jumped at the chance to get rid of the excess."

In spite of his eagerness Joel felt a vague shock. "But that's slavery."

Doctor Chedwick shrugged. "Would you rather work on the plantations or die in some experiment?"

"Why—why—" Joel burst out, "I'd rather work!"

"Exactly. So would the others."

Joel said, "But why the tattoo mark? Why all the secrecy? And the guard. What is the guard?"

"The less you know about that the safer you'll be." Doctor Chedwick's mouth shut like a trap. He stabbed at a button on his desk. "You'll be contacted on Asgard. Everything will be explained then. Meanwhile say nothing about the tattoo mark. Say nothing about our conversation to any one. Understand?"

Joel nodded.

The door opened and the attendant reappeared.

Doctor Chedwick said, "Put this man in 745B. He's had training and practical experience in animal husbandry and he's husky as an ox. He's to be shipped to Asgard with the next labor battalion. Take him away."

The attendant turned Joel over to a guard who escorted him from the offices into the clear plastic division of the dome. It was like stepping out into space. He sucked in his breath. He could see straight down through level after level for hundreds of feet.

Dormitories lined the passage on either hand. He could see men and women asleep in their bunks, sitting at tables, taking showers or dressing. The transparent walls were soundproof, and Joel experienced the peculiar sensation of walking through an animated silence.

They were approaching a small ante chamber that must be a guard room. Half a dozen armed and uniformed men were sitting about a table playing cards.

Beyond the transparent walls of the guard room Joel could see into another chamber. It was long and low and lined with bunks like the fo'cs'le of a spaceship. Forty or fifty people in gray were milling about two men on the floor who seemed to be doing their best to murder each other.

"Here's a new guinea-pig for the labor battalion, Captain," said Joel's escort, pushing him into the guard room.

With a grunt of annoyance, a tall man rose from the table and surveyed Joel with bleak gray eyes. His blue tunic was unbuttoned at the throat, his holster pushed around in back.

"Papers," he snapped.

Joel's escort handed over a folder, which the captain took to his desk.

Joel's eyes returned to the next room. It was like being in a soundproof broadcasting cage, watching two men batter at each other beyond the glass.

One of the men had the other by the throat and was throttling him. The strangler's arms were corded; his face shone with sweat; there was an insane fixed glare in his eyes. The other man's tongue was protruding, as he tore at his assailant's wrists.

"My God!" Joel burst out. "Aren't you going to break it up?"

"Let them kill themselves," said the captain indifferently. He opened the door. "In with you," he said and shoved Joel into the melee.

Bedlam burst on his ears as he stumbled into the room.

A woman was screaming in a shrill hysterical voice. The men milled about pushing to see better. No one paid any attention to him.

He clenched his fists. He couldn't stand by and watch a man murdered.

Impulsively, he shouldered through the press, got his hands on the strangler's wrists, tore them away.

"Here!" somebody yelled. "Leave 'em be, you fool!"

He ignored the warning, heaved the man from his victim.

The fellow came to his feet, stared at him with that glazed intensity as if he didn't realize what had happened. Then without a sound he hurled himself at Joel's throat!

III

Joel wasn't taken entirely by surprise. But the ferocity of the attack drove him back a few steps. He wrapped his arms about the man's shoulders and hung on.

A furious animal smell filled his nostrils. The man was berserk, his breath whistling through his teeth as he strove to tear himself free. Then like a mad dog, he sank his teeth in Joel's shoulder.

Joel gave a yelp of surprise, pushed him off, hit him with his clubbed fist.

His assailant reeled backwards, staggered to his knees. He was a giant of a fellow with shaggy black hair and curious yellow-gray eyes.

Joel was on him like a tiger, smashing his fist into the giant's unprotected face.

The man lunged over backwards, rolled to his belly and tried to push himself to his hands and knees.

Joel kicked him behind the ear.

The giant's arms collapsed. His face struck the floor and he lay still.

The other prisoners had drawn back against the bunks. There was a minute of stunned silence. Then with whoops of delight they crowded around slapping his back, shaking his hand.

Joel was too surprised to utter a word.

The man who had been throttled, was sitting up massaging his throat. He regarded Joel with a puzzled expression.

"Thanks," he wheezed painfully, "but what made you risk your neck?"

"Risk my neck?"

"You're new, aren't you?" asked the man, pulling himself to his feet and holding out his hand. "I'm Nick Thorp."

Joel introduced himself. Thorp, he saw, was short and husky with prematurely gray hair and blue eyes bright as bits of china.

"You've made yourself a wicked enemy," Thorp observed, prodding the giant with his toe. "That's Walt Eriss."

"Walt Eriss!" Joel's green eyes widened. Walt Eriss' trial had created the sensation of the decade.

Walt Eriss had been a brilliant surgeon, but with a pathological twist. A modern Jack the Ripper who delighted in torturing his patients. He had killed forty-three women by his own confession before he was apprehended!

Joel stared at the hulking form as if it were some monster. "But why were the others letting him throttle you?" he asked Nick Thorp. "Why didn't they stop him?"

"They're afraid of him."

"But they could've ganged him...." Joel stopped with his mouth open.

A bell had begun to ring with an ear-splitting clangor!

Muttered exclamations burst from the prisoners as they exchanged alarmed glances. The bell continued to ring.

"What's happening?" Joel asked.

Nick Thorp shook his grizzled head. "I don't know. But the bell's a signal for us to line up at our bunks."

Joel realized that the other prisoners had formed in a row down the walls. He glanced about uncertainly.

"There's a vacant bunk beside mine," Nick Thorp suggested.

Joel gratefully took his place beside Thorp. The bell fell silent. Everyone was staring through the wall into the guardroom.

The guards had abandoned their card game, he saw. They were straightening their uniforms, buttoning their tunics. He could see the passage beyond and two men making their way along it.

One, he recognized, was Doctor Chedwick, white-frocked and moon-faced. The other was a short man with a truculent walk. He was wearing the green uniform of a space man.

A low excited buzz arose from the prisoners. Joel caught words here and there. "Asgard! So soon!"

He felt tight with excitement and glanced surreptitiously at the girl beside him.

She was an exotic elfin creature, even in the shapeless gray coveralls. Her black eyes and hair, the smooth olive of her complexion lent her the appearance of an Arab. He wondered what crime she had committed that had condemned her to the Experimental Station.

Then the door to the guardroom was flung violently open. The captain appeared in the entrance and shouted, "Attention!"

The whispering ceased as the guards in their peacock blue and yellow filed into the dormitory. They were carrying a long plastic chain, which they stretched down the center of the floor. About every yard, Joel saw that a metal collar had been linked to the chain.

Doctor Chedwick came through the door with the green-uniformed spaceman beside him.

"This is Sam Mullin," he said indicating the spaceman. "Third mate of the Zenith. Mister Mullin will be responsible for you while you're aboard the Zenith. You're to be embarked at once...."

Joel's heart leaped against his ribs. Even the archaic title of "mister" had a heady sound. It was a tradition among spacemen, he knew. Only officers of Star Ships were called "mister."

"What's this?" Doctor Chedwick interrupted himself catching sight of the unconscious figure of Eriss on the floor.

"There was a fight, Doctor," the captain hastened to explain. "The new man and Walt Eriss."

"Hakkyt knocked out Eriss?"

The captain nodded.

Doctor Chedwick shot Joel a startled glance. "Watch those fists of yours, young man. You're too free with them." Then to the captain, "Revive Eriss and shackle the prisoners."

Joel noticed that the guards were careful to fasten one of the collars about the ex-surgeon's neck before they broke a vial of some liquid and held it under his nose.

Eriss opened his eyes and sat up groggily. Then his gaze fastened on Joel. With a bellow of rage he was on his feet, charging across the room like a mad bull.

Three men, hanging onto the chain, snubbed him up short!

Eriss wheeled furiously, found himself facing half a dozen drawn paralyzers and brought up with a curse.

Joel could see the veins throb in the giant's temples. But the captain turned indifferently to the other prisoners. "Line up beside the chain."

Joel took his place between the black-haired girl and Nick Thorp. The collar was snapped about his throat. In single file and with a good deal of tripping, the prisoners, chained neck to neck, tramped through the door.

Doctor Chedwick left them at the main corridor, but the Captain and Mister Mullin helped the guards herd them into a lift.

They dropped soundlessly level after level until they were well below the surface. At length the lift stopped, the doors opened.

To his surprise Joel saw that there was a pneumatic station beneath the dome, and a train was waiting in the tube.

They were shepherded into a coach. They had a good deal of trouble arranging themselves in the seats because of the chain linking them together, but at last it was done.

Captain Goplerud blew a whistle and swung inside the car. The door slammed shut. With a powerful surge and a whoosh the train shot off.

Joel found himself beside Nick Thorp. "Where do you suppose we're going?" he asked breathlessly.

"Nu York," Thorp replied. "All the Star Ships berth at the White Plains spaceport. We're lucky. The Zenith's a crack luxury liner. No being battened down in the hold of some stinking freighter for us."

"You've been to space before?"

Thorp turned his incredibly blue eyes on Joel. "For twenty-three years. Rocket ships and Star Ships. I never thought I'd see space again...."

Joel eyed the battered gray-haired spaceman with increased respect. Here was a man who'd seen the stews of Venusport, breathed the murky air of Jovopolis, gazed out on the frigid whiteness of Pluto.

"Then you've been to Asgard?"

"Many's the time. Wait 'til you see it, lad. Jungles and rain and crawling plants that can pluck a man off the ground and devour him quick as a cat!"

Joel was fascinated. The train slid along with a monotonous roar that shut them in a cell of privacy.

"Who's the girl?" he asked, nodding at the elfin sloe-eyed brunette in the seat ahead.

Nick Thorp's eyes twinkled. "Tamis Ravitz. She used to be a dancer. Poisoned her dancing partner in a fit of jealous rage. So I've heard."

Joel was shocked and looked it.

Thorp's battered features cracked into a broad grin. "We're a rum bunch. None of us can afford to throw stones at the others."

Joel felt the rebuke in his words and reddened.

The spaceman had slumped in the seat and closed his eyes. The dull roar of the train had a soothing quality. But Joel was too keyed up to relax.

He kept thinking of the humanoid guard and the fluorescent tattoo mark on his elbow and Doctor Chedwick saying: "The less you know about them, the safer you'll be. Someone will contact you at Asgard. Don't mention our conversation to anyone...."

A buzzer began to whirr softly. The train braked. The guards rose and shouted,

"On your feet! On your feet! Line up in the aisle."

The train wooshed to a soft stop as if it had run into a foam rubber cushion. The doors slid back, letting in a thundering bedlam of sound.

Joel found himself staring out into a vast groined hall lit by harsh violet light. Streams of beetle-like robot trucks, piled high with baggage, darted along elevated roadways. People were everywhere, a crazy throng like a disturbed colony of ants.

He drew a ragged breath, feeling his heart thud against his ribs. The metal collar jerked against his throat and he fell into step.

They shuffled out of the coach onto a long ramp. A huge red sign directly ahead caught Joel's eyes. Its flashing letters were at least ten feet high.

CENTAURUS FLIGHT
TAKE-OFF—15:52
STAR SHIP ZENITH

The file of prisoners made straight for the sign, entered a narrow corridor that sloped downward like a tunnel. From the tunnel they emerged into the maw of a huge pit. Joel rubbed his eyes. He'd never seen the rocket pits before.

The Zenith, a dull black, bullet-shaped monster, rested on her fins with her nose pointing straight up towards the starry black firmament. Gangplanks like airy cobwebs spanned the gap between the Star Ship and the blackened concrete walls.

The file of prisoners crawled out along one of the gangplanks. They were in the center of it, when Joel felt Nick Thorp's fingers close like a vise on his shoulder.

"Look! Overhead! We're having distinguished company this voyage!"

Joel glanced up.

Above and to one side another gangplank crossed the gap. A stout man was leaning on the rail and watching the prisoners. Beside him stood a young woman with the warm beautiful face of a Venusian dancing girl.

She was clad in a short green coat with exaggerated square-cut shoulders, and for one shocked moment Joel thought that she didn't have on anything beneath it. Then he realized that she must be wearing shorts which the coat was just long enough to hide.

For the rest, he received a swift impression of long shapely tanned legs, sooty lashes, green eyes and hair. Green hair!

Then their eyes met—met and held. There was a swift outleaping of spirit between them, an indescribable feeling of kinship, of recognition. Joel felt shaken, bewitched. A smile was trembling on the girl's half-parted lips.

And then he had been carried into the ship and he couldn't see her any longer.

"Who were they?" he asked unsteadily.

"Humphrey Cameron, Governor of Asgard," Thorp explained. "The girl was his daughter, Priscilla Cameron."

Tamis Ravitz said over her shoulder, "Did you see that hair? Green! She's been the talk of Terra."

Joel thought the dancer sounded envious. They were shuffling single file down a long corridor that led straight into the bowels of the ship. A vague rumbling made the deck tremble beneath his feet. He heard shouted orders, the sound of the gangplank being run in.

His face whitened in the raw violet light. All thoughts of the green haired Priscilla Cameron were driven from his mind.

From the passage the prisoners were herded into a long low chamber outfitted with tables. Here they were unchained.

Mister Mullin glanced at his chronometer. "Take-off in fifteen minutes," he warned. "Strap yourselves into your bunks."

He disappeared at a run. The guards filed out of the prisoner's mess locking the door behind them.

"Come along," Thorp urged Joel as a wild clangor broke out from the stem to stern of the Zenith. "We've time for a quick look around before we get settled."

Joel followed him wordlessly into the sleeping quarters. Beyond the fo'cs'le were the washrooms and that was all. A second bell rang just as they flung themselves into empty bunks.

The rumble of the tubes mounted into a furious roar. A trip hammer struck Joel in the chest, pinned him into the cushion. He gasped, strained to inflate his lungs.

The Zenith was off!

IV

Joel felt himself grow heavier, heavier. His arms were lead. The sweat glistened on his homely drawn features. His green eyes lost their sparkle.

After what seemed hours, he heard Nick Thorp croak from his bunk overhead, "Watch y'self. Stellar drive! Any minute!"

Joel felt a surge of unreasoning fear. A bell rang suddenly.

"That's it!" Thorp warned. "Lie still."

As suddenly as it had struck, the acceleration ceased. A terrifying sensation of weightlessness possessed him. He felt as if he were falling—falling! He wanted to spring from the bunk, but remembered Thorp's warning.

Startled cries burst from the passengers. Several of them jumped up. From the corner of his eye Joel saw them shoot to the overhead where they hung kicking. Then the artificial gravity came on and they fell back to the deck a great deal faster than they'd gone up.

Thorp climbed down. "You can get up now."

Joel scrambled to his feet. He felt light, giddy. Nick Thorp took a look at his alarmed countenance and burst into laughter.

"You'll get your space legs quick enough," he assured Joel. "The gravity aboard ship is only about a third of Earth's pull. You'll enjoy it when you get used to it."

Joel had his doubts about that, but when he glanced at the antics of the others he couldn't resist a grin.

A tall red-haired girl kept bounding into the air at each step. Then she flipped all the way over and lit on her bottom.

Just then a whistle blew. Joel wheeled around to find Mister Mullin, the third mate, standing in the door to the mess-room.