Nemesis Magazine #2

by Stephen Adams

Renaissance - Science Fiction

Renaissance
www.renebooks.com

Copyright (C)2004 Stephen Adams

NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines and/or imprisonment.

A cheery afternoon sun bore down on the steamer, Carinthia, as a stream of happy passengers swarmed down the gangplank. A brisk, late autumn wind freshened the harbor air and kept the walkers moving briskly to avoid a chill. Friends and family exchanged greetings with long absent loved ones and the atmosphere was alive with laughing and chatter. A smartly dressed young woman descended to the dock and looked about herself, eyes wide at her first sight of New York. Tall and slender, with a shy, almost waifish disposition, she seemed to hold herself separate from the throng about her.

“Gabi!"

Hearing a familiar voice, the young woman looked around herself. Raising one hand to shield her eyes from the sun, she scrutinized the crowd.

“Gabi, over here!"

Gabrielle Rauscher's uncertain features relaxed into a broad smile as she saw the familiar, plump form of her friend, Dr. Mitzi Rowan bounding toward her through the press. She had just enough time to extend her arms before she was enveloped in a well-remembered, enthusiastic hug. Catching some of Mitzi's infectious cheeriness, Gabrielle was soon flashing a sparkling grin and trying to address a few of Mitzi's non-stop questions about the trip, her family, and life in her home country of Greater Neusteria.

It was those questions about Greater Neusteria that Gabrielle passed over with only slight responses, for conditions in her homeland were hard and in the cablegram she had sent from the Carinthia, the Neusterian girl had made it clear she was coming to America to leave them behind. She hoped that she would be able to do so.

As they walked arm in arm toward the line of taxis, Gabrielle looked up at the towering edifices of the city. Although her own country boasted great cities, she had never seen anything like this. She was glad to feel that she was in a new land, beginning a new chapter in her life, far from what she had left behind her.

As she allowed Mitzi to drag her along though, Gabrielle failed to notice sharp eyes that watched her, and a sharp-eyed man in a conservative suit who folded his newspaper and casually followed at a distance. When the two women got into a cab, he hailed another and sped off in pursuit.

Across town, in her abandoned factory headquarters, the famous aircraft designer and aviatrix, Rachel Rocket, had spent the day lost in the plans taking form on the drafting table in her vast workroom. Rachel's partner, Hank Rowan, the tall and bespectacled husband of Mitzi, worked beside her with equal intensity. A few coffee cups and half eaten sandwiches nestled among the litter of papers, books and ashtrays that overflowed most of the horizontal surfaces nearby. As often happened, they had lost track of time and were debating the use of a new plastic compound versus wood or aluminum for structural members in an aircraft wing when they both jumped at the sound of Mitzi's shouted greeting.

“Didn't you two hear us at the front door? You two get bogged down in those drawings and you wouldn't notice if a plane crashed into the building as long as it didn't land right on the drawing board. Look who's here, it's Gabi!” Mitzi continued her happy monologue as Rachel and Hank emerged, blinking, from their intensely concentrated state.

Quiet as ever, Hank stepped forward to kiss his wife while Rachel beamed her happiness at the reunion with her old friend, Gabrielle. The young Neusterian girl smiled back quietly. Not having warned her friends of her arrival from Europe until she was in mid-voyage, Gabrielle had been slightly apprehensive about how she might be received. Now she saw that her fears had been groundless. Rachel's carefree manner instantly made Gabrielle feel as if the intervening years since their parting had melted away. The young Neusterian girl felt instantly at ease, in a way she seldom did with Americans. Rachel swept a pile of papers off the threadbare couch and the two sat down together. Even under a layer of graphite smudges, Rachel was still a stunning young woman. Her flashing green eyes contrasted with an unruly mass of red hair that fell past her shoulders. Dark, rumpled work clothes seemed to enhance, rather than conceal her feminine charms. Gabrielle found herself slipping once again under the gallant aviatrix's spell, as she had so many years before.

“I hope I am not putting you to any trouble. I feel that I have intruded here, showing up so suddenly,” offered Gabrielle.

Rachel shook her head. “Oh Gabrielle, don't even think that. You don't know how happy I was to get your cable. I was just surprised that it was so sudden, after not hearing from you for so long."

“I know,” said Gabrielle. “The trip was arranged suddenly. I left home abruptly."

The vivacious redhead nodded her understanding. Even after a separation of many years, she knew her friend well enough to see that there was more to be told. Wisely though, she refrained from asking questions, trusting that all would come out in time. She had her suspicions.

After a couple of hours, Mitzi and Hank were ready to head downstairs to their own apartment. They occupied spacious rooms on a lower floor of the old factory building that Rachel called home. While from the outside, the building appeared to be merely one more abandoned, idle hulk, Hank continued to spend much of his free time in creating a comfortable and cheery home for his doting wife. Now they said their goodnights to Rachel and Gabrielle. Hank cast a final, lingering look at the drafting table as he followed his wife out the door.

Once alone, Rachel and Gabrielle sat down with mugs of coffee from the pot that was kept warm on a hotplate all day. Rachel and Hank took turns brewing the vile elixir that kept them going all day and often all night. The vast room, part of the old manufacturing plant, was quiet and shadowy, save for the few lamps set up around the drafting area. The lights of the city gleamed distantly through tall windows. The two women sat without conversation, each tired and alone with her thoughts.

Rachel could well imagine why her friend would wish to leave Greater Neusteria. The central European nation had paid dearly for choosing to take the wrong side in the World War. Heavy reparations demanded by the Allied Nations had crippled the economy, a situation that spiraled ever downward as the world continued to limp through the Depression. Topping that, the collapse of their ancient monarchy in the aftermath of defeat had stripped the Greater Neusterian Empire of its very identity as a nation. The once-formidable country had been torn apart for nearly a decade by fierce fighting between rival political parties. The present government, a weak coalition that failed to command confidence with the population, struggled to maintain national unity.

Strangely enough though, Gabrielle Rauscher's life should have been made easier in recent years. Her uncle, a right-wing politician, had fought his way to power, eventually winning an influential position in the government. Rachel had met the man briefly during her school days in Europe and had been amused and rather repelled by the eccentric zealot. Years later, she was amazed that this same man had possessed the political savvy to assume the leadership of his nation. Regardless of what she thought of His Excellency, Anton Hessler and his policies, she had respect for his drive to succeed. Until receiving the cable Gabrielle had sent from her ship during the voyage across the Atlantic, Rachel had assumed her friend was enjoying a comparatively comfortable existence as her uncle's favorite niece.

Now though, empty cups were set down. Rachel ushered her guest to the sparsely appointed bedroom where her luggage had been taken. Though the furnishings were simple, it represented the closest thing to luxury in the aviatrix's home. Her own aerie, a room at the very top of the factory tower, boasted little more than a mattress, some shelves for her clothes, and piles of books. After bidding her friend a fond good night, Rachel stepped into the clanking freight elevator that would carry her to her own chamber.

Outside the factory, the tip of a cigarette glowed in the night. The man behind it, sharp-eyed and clad in a suit, watched intently as lights were shut off one by one and the old factory building surrendered to darkness. Soon the only light that burned was in the window at the top of the tower.

The man crushed out his smoke and walked a block to an all night diner whose lights spilled over the sidewalk in a yellow pool. After ordering pie and coffee, he asked the counterman for permission to use the telephone. A jerked thumb indicated where the instrument was to be found in a far corner. The man in the suit walked over and dialed a number. Looking once over his shoulder to be sure the counterman was not in earshot, he whispered words into the receiver. Apparently hearing an agreeable answer, he smiled thinly and hung up. Again he looked around. The counterman was engrossed in a magazine, unmindful of his customer's activities. Smiling again, this time with real amusement, he walked back to his table to finish his pie.

Not long after, a transatlantic telephone call was placed from a secret location, north of New York City. It passed through switchboards in Paris and Berlin. The signal traveled across Europe until it reached an office in Greater Neusteria.

In that room, a uniformed man listened as words were spoken over a crackling line. He nodded grimly as the information he demanded was given to him. His mind worked quickly and he issued orders with the same speed. He made it clear that he would accept nothing less than complete success. He listened with satisfaction to the simpering promises that were made to him.

As he hung up the receiver he leaned back in satisfaction. The early morning light fell across his face, illuminating the cruel smile that played across his lips. In that light was revealed, the grinning face of Anton Hessler, dictator of the revived Empire of Greater Neusteria.

Back in the secret location north of the city, hasty orders were given. A dozen men checked revolvers and tommyguns. In the wee hours of the night, the men piled into cars and began the ride out to the factory district where their mission lay. The men whispered among themselves, discussing tactics. Heavily armed, the group expected no real opposition to their success.

The cars halted and the men got out to walk the last blocks to their objective. Only the drivers stayed behind, ready to effect a quick getaway. Ahead of the group was their goal, the abandoned factory where Rachel Rocket made her home!

Rachel stirred reluctantly at the first sound of the buzzer. She had only been asleep for an hour or so. For a moment she was inclined to ignore the insistent noise and return to her slumber, but as it continued, she threw back her blankets and rolled off the mattress. A light over her desk was flashing its urgent warning.

There could be no doubt now in Rachel's mind. She had designed the system to warn her of intruders in the building. Had the light activated by itself, she might have been inclined to think that Gabrielle had left her room in the night and tripped the alarm somehow. But the buzzer was set to warn of a break-in from the outside. Unwelcome visitors had entered the building and were prowling through her home.

Rachel picked up a pair of headphones and settled them over her ears. The wire hanging from the headset ended in a metal jack. On the wall over Rachel's desk was a black box, similar to the switchboard used by a telephone operator. She plugged the jack into one of the outlets in the box and listened briefly, then removed the plug and tried another one. This system had been built by Rachel and Hank in order to pinpoint the location of intruders from the safety of their own rooms. The black box was connected to sensitive listening devices placed in rooms throughout the factory building. By plugging into different jacks and using the earphones, Rachel could listen in on unwelcome invaders, learning their location and gaining an idea of their numbers and plans. An identical device existed in Hank and Mitzi's apartment. Even now they must be going through the same motions as Rachel.

The brilliant redhead moved the jack methodically down the line of outlets, listening briefly but attentively at each, until she finally heard the sounds she sought. The raiders had moved swiftly, for they were now already in her workroom, the vast chamber where she and Hank had spent the day laboring at the drafting table. From the sound of their voices Rachel could tell they were strangers, and from the words they spoke she was sure they were up to no good. She touched a switch on a microphone and spoke softly, “Intruders. Location fourteen."

“Copy,” the answer crackled from the other end of the line in Hank and Mitzi's apartment.

“Plan twenty-seven,” ordered Rachel.

“Copy,” came the answer, once again.

Rachel took one more precaution before going into action. Stepping to a bank of switches on the wall, she activated the device which locked the door to the chamber where Gabrielle was lodged. Her guest was not trapped, for the door could be opened from the inside. However, it would take nothing less than an explosive charge to breach the steel-reinforced portal from without.

With her friend safe for the moment, Rachel manhandled a large piece of equipment onto a handcart and wheeled it into the elevator. Pressing the button, she closed the door and sent the car clattering down the shaft to the ground floor. With controls on the wall beneath the elevator button, she regulated the car's speed so that it descended very slowly on its long trip downward.

When the gang heard the whine of the elevator motor and the rattle of its descent, they crept through the darkness to take positions in front of the door. Holding their guns at the ready, they were prepared to greet the arrival of defenders with a withering hail of lead that would leave no doubt as to their safety to search the premises at their leisure. Pistols and tommyguns were leveled as they heard the car come to rest at the bottom of the shaft. With tense anticipation they waited for the building's owner to step forth.

The door slid open. The gangsters peered closely into the shadowy depths of the car. What they saw did not appear to be human.

Suddenly, every one of the intruders screamed. Many dropped their guns as they hastily raised their hands to shield their tormented eyes. A dazzling flash of light had burst from the device Rachel had placed aboard the elevator car, leaving the raiders temporarily blinded.

The gallant aviatrix had not been aboard the elevator when the door opened. Instead, she had descended the stairs and waited on the landing behind a door with a small, tinted glass pane. When she saw the flash, muted by the darkened window, she flung open the barrier and leaped forth.

With her own eyes still accustomed to the dim illumination of the factory at night, Rachel knew she had several seconds to subdue the intruders or escape if the odds against her were too great. She required only the briefest glance at the twenty men before she made her decision. Without further hesitation, she charged.

Her bare feet silent on the concrete floor, her dark clothing rendering her nearly invisible, Rachel was among the blinded gangsters before they knew it. Their first clue that a fighter had appeared among them was outraged howls of pain that erupted as the baseball bat she had carried with her cracked against knees or thudded heavily into midsections. In moments, the space in front of the elevator was aswarm with stumbling raiders who shrieked, collided with each other, and shouted contradictory orders. Some of those who still had their guns began firing wildly, placing their own compatriots at greater risk than the swiftly-moving redhead. Realizing the danger, Rachel's bat smashed into the gun hands of the blinded shooters.

The battling aviatrix had no interest in a fair fight, preferring to use her wits to score as quick and decisive a victory as possible, but she had no desire to see death or serious injury if it could be prevented by quick action. In disarming the gunmen, she acted to protect the invaders as well as herself.

By now, half the intruders were writhing on the floor, clutching various aching parts of their anatomies. Rachel, winded by her furious exertions, was glad to see Hank storm into the midst of the fray. The raiders were beginning to regain their sight now, and would soon be dangerous. Yet even had they the full command of their vision they would have had trouble following the movements of Hank's hands and feet, so quickly did he move. The spectacled technician was a master of oriental techniques of unarmed combat. Moving like a human whirlwind, he disabled one raider after another with precisely aimed kicks and jabs.

In moments, the gang was subdued and the two defenders stood panting over a floor carpeted with fallen men. The battle had been swift and the outcome sure ... or so they thought! A shot cracked out and a humming slug smacked into the brick wall behind them. Rachel and Hank hit the floor. Even as they dropped, their eyes were darting about, searching for the source of the gunfire. Rachel pointed toward the machine shop. Quickly, she rapped out an order.

“Stay here."

And with that she was up and running into the darkness.

The machine shop was a long cavern of a room that intersected at right angles with the main factory floor where Rachel had set up her workspace. Having been arranged to accommodate the production of a large workforce, the giant room was filled with rows of great, hulking metal-working machines. The shadowy spaces between the iron behemoths provided excellent hiding spots from which a sniper could mount an effective ambush.

Still, Rachel believed that her intimate knowledge of the place gave her a sufficient advantage to go after the man on her own. In the uncertain moonlight that poured in through the windows, neither she nor the gunman could see more than fleeting silhouettes and so Rachel stayed away from open spaces as she searched. With sudden inspiration, she picked up a screwdriver as she passed by a workbench. Considering briefly, she tossed it toward the other side of the room where it clattered as it struck machinery and fell to the floor. As she had hoped, the nervous raider fired.

Spotting the muzzle flash, Rachel altered her path to circle around a huge metal press and come up behind the skulking gunman. Cradling the baseball bat in her hands, she moved forward with a stealthy tread. Her senses, sharpened by darkness and danger, pierced the gloom to give her a sense of the space around her. To her left, she heard the sound of some small metal object knocked to the floor. Without thinking, she turned.

She shook her head, furious at her own gullibility as she heard the words behind her.

“Drop the bat and get your hands up."

The gangster had fooled her with her own trick, tossing an iron bolt off to one side to attract her attention. Rachel let the baseball bat slide from her hands to clatter on the floor. She turned around and looked into the jittery gunman's eyes. He held his revolver pointed at her face.

“I oughtta kill you right now, lady,” he hissed. “But all I want is to get clear of this place and you're my ticket out."

Rachel looked terrified. She gasped for air, trying to gain control of her emotions. “Whatever you say,” she answered.

“That's right,” said the gunman. “We're gonna walk out of here nice and easy, because you're coming with me."

Rachel raised her hands a bit higher. She continued to take deep, fearful breaths. Despite himself, the gunman's eyes wandered downward from her face to rest upon her ample, heaving bosom.

Suddenly his eyes snapped wide. He made a strangled, gurgling noise. With mouth wide open and back arched, his body quivered uncontrollably. The gun slipped from his nerveless fingers. His legs buckled and he collapsed to the floor, paralyzed.

“Good work, Rache!” It was the chirping voice of Mitzi. She stepped up from where she had stood behind the man as he held Rachel at gunpoint. Looking down at the twitching gangster, she remarked, “Shocking!” and giggled.

Rachel groaned at the joke and picked up the mobster's revolver. She emptied the chambers and slipped the unused bullets into a pocket. “Thanks, Mitzi,” she said.

Mitzi grinned happily. In her hands she held a long, black tube which ended in two metal prongs. When she pressed a switch with her finger, an electric spark leaped between the prongs.

“Careful you don't run down the battery,” warned Rachel.

“Oh, that's okay,” said Mitzi. “I don't think I'll be needing it anymore tonight, will I, hon?” She nudged the fallen man with her toe.

The weapon Mitzi held had been dreamed up by Hank. His wife refused to carry a gun and he felt she needed some means of protection, given the adventurous nature of their lives. The device was powered by a compact battery, and when the metal prongs were pressed against a living creature, in this case the gunman who had invaded Rachel's factory home, a simple press of the button on the handle would deliver an electrical shock which would overwhelm the nervous system and leave the victim temporarily paralyzed. The effects were short term and not intended to inflict any lasting damage. Mitzi considered the device to be amazingly clever and loved using it.

“We need to get this guy back to the group before he recovers,” said Rachel. “He won't stay down for long."

“Great!” chirped Mitzi. “Let's get to the bottom of all this."

After a quick medical check performed by Mitzi, the intruders were thoroughly searched, stripped to their undershorts, and handcuffed behind their backs. Rachel held the group at gunpoint as, one by one, they were lined up to stand in front of a screen to be photographed and fingerprinted. When she and Hank had first come up with this protocol for processing prisoners, he had suggested that they be stripped naked, insisting that no man felt like playing the hero in his birthday suit. Rachel had vetoed the idea though, stating that she was willing to accept a little bit of spirit in her prisoners for the sake of modesty.

The first man in the line did in fact show some spirit, struggling against his bonds and refusing to move forward.

“You ain't cops!” he shouted. “You can't do this. I know my rights!"

Rachel shook her head. “You have no rights while you're in my home uninvited. First you'll go through our identification process. Then you'll be turned over to the police. After that I don't care what happens to you. But know this, if you ever come back here you will,” she emphasized the word, “be identified and steps will be taken to permanently neutralize your threat to my home.” She left the threat hanging, without further explanation.

Still, the man refused to step forward and cooperate. When Rachel saw that his rebellious nature was beginning to affect the others, she sighed and nodded to Mitzi. The cheerful doctor stepped forward with her stun rod and zapped the man, who immediately fell down paralyzed. Hank and his wife dragged the unresisting thug before the camera area where he was propped up to be photographed and printed. The others in the group, after seeing the ease with which their comrade had been subdued, wisely chose the path of nonresistance.

During this time Gabrielle, who had been roused by the commotion, had emerged from her room and now sat curled up on the couch, out of the way. Rachel noticed the shrewd attention with which her friend watched the men, but gave it no further thought for the time being. Her attention was focused upon the next phase of the procedure. She faced the men, who were seated in rows on the floor.

She began her announcement in a clear and reasonable tone. “Before you are turned over to the police,” she said, “we will interrogate you and find out just why you broke into my home."

Rachel looked over the group, looking for the individual who might be most profitably questioned.

“You,” she addressed one of the gangsters who sat well back in the group. “You were giving orders during the fight. I think you must be a ringleader. Come with me."

The man shook his head and tried to look innocent. Clearly he had no wish to give information about his mission. It required only a gesture from Mitzi, still holding the stun rod, to make him change his mind. He rose and preceded Rachel into a temporary, screened enclosure that gave the illusion of privacy in the open room. At a gesture from his redheaded captor, he seated himself in a heavy armchair that dominated the center of the little space. He was still handcuffed, but a couple of loops of light rope were used to bind him to the back of the chair. They would not prevent him if he was determined to rise, but they were enough to prevent any sudden movements.

Rachel spoke in reassuring tones. “This is just a precaution to help ensure that our talk isn't interrupted."

She stood before him and addressed him. “Now, Mr...” she glanced at a paper she held in her hand. “The name on your driver's license is ... Roderick. All right then, Mr. Roderick, before you leave us, I need you to give me the answer to a couple of simple questions. Namely, who do you work for and why did you break in here tonight?"

Rachel folded her arms and looked expectantly at her prisoner.

The man's face twisted into a defiant sneer. “No, lady, I ain't telling you nothing. And there ain't nothing you can do to make me talk, either."

Another exasperated sigh escaped from Rachel's lips. Looking past Roderick, she made a beckoning gesture and in stepped Mitzi. The prisoner was surprised to see that in her hand she now held, not the stun rod, but a hypodermic needle. At his questioning glance, Rachel explained.

“The medication in the syringe is harmless. It's like a mild sedative. You may feel drowsy, but more importantly it will weaken your will to resist. We will ask questions and in return you will give us truthful answers."

A fearful look crept over Roderick's face. His former expression of bravado was melting away. As he gazed upon that hypodermic, held in the hand of a woman who had casually electrocuted one of his companions into insensibility just a short time before, his mind began to form wild ideas about what might be in that needle. A cold sweat broke out on his brow.

“Poison,” he muttered, with a horrified croak.

“Mr. Roderick,” said Mitzi. “I'm a doctor. I will be with you for the entire time you are under the influence of the medication. I assure you..."

But Roderick's terror-stricken gaze rested upon the green eyes of Rachel. “Either way I'm a dead man. If I talk, the boss kills me. If I don't talk, you do..."

At this, the clever redhead smiled to herself. She knew the man was motivated primarily by fear for his own safety, rather than any higher ideal. This was knowledge she could turn to her advantage in the game of wits she played with her prisoner.

“You have a chance to save yourself,” she offered. “I have influence with the police. I can have them hold you in protective custody. You'll be safe there until we can deal with your boss."

A hopeful light flickered in Roderick's eyes. He did not relish the idea of languishing in police custody, yet he preferred it to the option of death which loomed before him. He considered, and Rachel was not surprised to see a crafty, cunning look appear in the man's narrowed eyes. He spoke carefully.

“Yeah,” he said, “I want to live. So let's say I do help you out here. What kind of guarantee do I get that you'll hold up your end of the bargain?"

“I mean,” he continued, “What kind of deal..."

But Rachel interrupted the thug before he could finish his thought. “Mr. Roderick, death comes to us all. Now it's late and we're all tired. We need to wrap this up."

She looked at Mitzi. “The needle, please."

“No!” Roderick squealed, as Mitzi began swabbing his bare arm with a cotton ball.

“I'll talk! Just listen to me a minute!” Inches away, he could hear Mitzi flicking the body of the syringe with her finger as she eyed it for bubbles.

“I'll tell you who the boss is, just wait!” babbled Roderick.

Mitzi touched the tip of the needle to Roderick's arm. She looked to Rachel for the go-ahead. Rachel gazed quietly into Roderick's panicked eyes.

“All right,” she said. “Name him."

“I don't know his name. He calls himself ... it sounds crazy, but ... the Demolition Master,” answered the prisoner. He looked around wildly, as if seeking confirmation from the two women.

But Rachel scourged him with a look of sarcastic disbelief. “The Demolition Master, huh? How dramatic.” She looked over at her friend. “Mitzi, give him the serum."

Mitzi's hand tightened on Roderick's arm with a professional grip.

“No, I mean it,” whimpered the defeated thug. “He wears this hood. Hides his face. None of us know who he is.” He looked appealingly into Rachel's skeptical face. “He's some kind of foreigner. He talks like a European. Maybe Russian or German, something like that. That's all we know about him. He's a foreigner. And he's got plenty of dough to spread around."

Rachel looked at her friend. Mitzi tilted her head in a little shrug, but kept the needle point jabbed against Roderick's skin. She could not tell if the man was speaking the truth. It was up to Rachel to continue the interrogation.

“So he's well financed,” said Rachel. “I take it he's hired you to do other jobs for him? What kind of jobs?"

“Just easy stuff,” answered the prisoner. “Watching the harbor. Hauling boxes. Stuff like that. The containers were always sealed. We never knew what was inside."

“So,” said Rachel, “he just paid you for making deliveries? And to keep an eye on ships in the harbor?"

Roderick nodded his head vehemently. “Yeah, that's all it was. We thought maybe he was some kind of bootlegger until tonight."

Rachel faced him. “Yes, Mr. Roderick, it sounds like tonight's little burglary was something out of the ordinary, if you're telling me the truth."

“I am, I swear it,” he assured her.

“Well then, Mr. Roderick,” quizzed Rachel, “What did he send you here for?"

“He sent us...” Roderick hesitated, swallowed several times. He glanced from Rachel to Mitzi, as if seeking some kind of reassurance. Then his eye flickered to the door opening.

“He sent us here ... for her!"

Rachel and Mitzi both looked up to see Gabrielle standing in the doorway, watching.

With her usual calm efficiency, Rachel supervised the transfer of the prisoners into the hands of the authorities. The dynamic aviatrix had long enjoyed a close, but unofficial, working relationship with the New York Police Department and promised that, as usual, she would turn over copies of all photographs and other materials related to the gangsters.

Once the police had marched their charges out the door and were safely on their way to the station, Rachel turned to her Gabrielle and asked, “Why didn't you tell me there were men pursuing you?"

Gabrielle hesitated a moment before answering. “I didn't know,” she stammered. Then, noticing Rachel's frankly skeptical expression, she continued. “I had thought that leaving the country would be enough. I never believed my uncle would have me followed even across the ocean."

Rachel frowned, “Your uncle? You don't mean Hessler, do you?” She saw Gabrielle nod in the affirmative.

“I had thought if I could just get away ... that he would let me go and I could start a new life here."

The two women had been walking back into the workroom from the front door. Now Gabrielle sank down onto the couch and rested her head in her hands. Speaking softly, she said, “I did not mean to put you in danger. I am so sorry. I have money. I will leave right now. I can find a place to stay where I will not cause trouble for you."

Rachel sat down next to Gabrielle and slid a comforting arm around her friend. “No, hon,” she said. “Don't even think of that. You're going to stay right here. Now that we know there are men following you we can keep you safer than you would be anywhere else."

“I was so foolish to think he would let me escape."

“Why is your uncle so bent on getting you back? Is he afraid his enemies might use you somehow if you're away from his protection?” asked Rachel. “I know he's made some here. I have to tell you, Gabrielle, some of his speeches are pretty alarming."

The Neusterian girl shook her head. “No, it's not that. I didn't want to talk about this, but I owe you some explanation."

Rachel nodded for her to continue.

“My uncle,” said Gabrielle, “has conceived a ... romantic attachment toward me."

Rachel made a disgusted face. “But he's your uncle!” she exclaimed. “And he's so old!"

“He is middle aged,” corrected Gabrielle, “but yes, I understand your feelings."

“So your parents sent you out of the country to get away from him?” asked Rachel.

Again, Gabrielle shook her head. “No,” she said. “They had wanted me to stay."

At Rachel's outraged gasp, she continued. “You must understand. Ever since the end of the war, my country has been on its knees. There is no work. Families starve in the streets."

“I know things are bad,” said Rachel. “But..."

Gabrielle gave her friend a sad and patient look. “I'm sorry, Rachel, but the fact is that in this matter you know nothing. You are a wealthy woman living in a wealthy country. You will never know what it is to need the connections of powerful men to live well. For my father, it has meant a good job at a time when so many stand in line merely to sweep the streets. For my mother it has meant a beautiful home she can be proud of. For my sister, education and a life with a real future. Please do not judge them. They may soon be out on the street now, with no hope."

Rachel let loose an exasperated sigh. She was repelled by the idea of Gabrielle caught up in such an ugly situation, and more especially if it was encouraged by her family in exchange for favors. Yet she knew there was nothing to be gained by arguing with her friend. Instead she suggested they retire for what was left of the night. Mitzi and Hank had already returned to their own apartment and so she took Gabrielle's hand and walked her back to the guest room. When they reached the open door she pointed out a box on the night table by the bed.

“That's an intercom, Gabrielle. It's connected to another one in my room. If you need anything in the night, I want you to know you can call me and I'll come right down. All you need to do is press the button and talk into it."

With a last smile, Rachel turned and walked toward the elevator.

Hours later and across the Atlantic, a man sat at a desk in an office, talking with a group of subordinates. The office was huge and furnished with almost operatic opulence. The walls were clad in marble and rich woods. A profusion of valuable paintings and sculptures adorned the room. The man's desk was an oversized affair, designed to impress and intimidate his guests. Its top was bare, showing no sign of being a surface where work took place.

The man wore a uniform that was vaguely military in nature, although made of finer materials than his own soldiers would ever wear. He spoke in an overbearing, almost theatrical manner, with grand gestures. The subordinates who sat watching him seemed timid, yet secretly contemptuous. They were in conference with their leader, the dictator of the Empire of Greater Neusteria, His Excellency, Anton Hessler.

Hessler was working up a sweat, barking angry words at his underlings. His fist pounded on the desktop as he spoke.

“Failure is unacceptable!” he raged. “I will not tolerate incompetence in those who carry out my will!"

“You are absolutely right, your excellency,” fawned one of the men who sat before the enraged dictator. “Be assured, those responsible for this debacle are tasting punishment for their shortcomings. As we speak, new plans are being set in motion."

“Gather more men! Send them back in ... again and again ... as many times as it takes, until they reach my Gabi!” Hessler roared.

“Your Excellency, we are working on several plans now. It is a delicate situation. We do not wish to alarm the Americans unduly, after all. Too large a display of naked force might prove counterproductive..."

Hessler broke in angrily, “Cowardice! Cowardice and hesitation. We know gangsters run wild in the streets of America. I've seen the movies!"

The dictator's underlings exchanged nervous glances amongst themselves. Clearly most of them had no idea how to approach Hessler when he was in this sort of mood. His knowledge of the world outside Greater Neusteria was spotty at best. He seemed to believe that Hollywood fantasies were a true representation of life in the United States. However, correcting their leader to his face was rarely appreciated and occasionally dangerous. At last one of them spoke up. He was a huge, bulky figure of a man, an old fighter who had earned Hessler's trust during the lean years before their political party had assumed power in Greater Neusteria. It was this trust that had been the major qualification for his being appointed to the powerful post of Armed Forces Minister. Known publicly for his joviality, feared privately for his Machiavellian instincts, this man knew the right touch to handle his master.

“Your Excellency,” he said, making the term sound like an affectionate nickname, “You need have no fear. I give you my personal assurance that the young woman will be found. I will accept nothing less than one hundred percent success!” He cast a challenging glare around the room, as if daring anyone present to deny the truth of his statement.

“That's the spirit, Grunding!” gushed Hessler. He laughed at the rest of his underlings, who looked like naughty schoolchildren under the watchful eye of a disapproving teacher. “Take a look at him, gentlemen,” he said. “Backbone! That's what we'll be needing to see a lot more of in the years to come! Great things are going to happen. Greater Neusteria is on the march!"

And with that he was off on a freewheeling tirade about the destiny of Greater Neusteria, the purifying nature of sacrifice for an ideal, his own grand mission in history, and the superiority of renaissance painting over modern art. His subordinates listened with adoring looks plastered over their faces, surreptitiously glancing at their watches as the lecture wore on.

At last the great dictator wound down. His speech slowed, then stopped. He could see very well that he had made no impression on the blockheads who faced him. He was fated to be surrounded by fools. He sighed. Sometimes the weight of destiny seemed to be too great a burden for any one man to bear, yet it was his to bear alone. With a careless wave of his hand, he dismissed his underlings to their duties.

Outside the office doors, safe from the listening ears of Hessler, one of the men spoke quietly to Grunding.

“So tell me, Minister Grunding,” he whispered. “Do we have a plan for bringing the Rauscher girl back to Greater Neustria? I fear our leader may look for a scapegoat if she is not returned promptly."

Grunding looked down at the man as if he were a bug. “You mean me, don't you?” he sneered, “since I shot off my big mouth in there. Admit it!"

The man's eyes had become as round as saucers. “Sir, I assure you..."

“Oh save it,” said Grunding. “You want to know what Hessler will remember? No matter how this turns out he'll remember that I was the only one who spoke up and told him what he wanted to hear ... while you bunch of old ladies sat there trembling in your boots."

Grunding laughed at the horrified expressions of the men around him. An evil gleam showed in the deputy's eye. His fat lips twisted in a malicious grin. He leaned down and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper. The others moved close to hear his words.

“I'll tell you little worms something,” said Grunding. “That girl suits me just fine right where she is. The only way Gabrielle Rauscher will ever leave America is in a pine box!"

When Hank and Mitzi returned to the main workroom the next morning, they found Rachel and Gabrielle seated on the carpet in front of the couch with the plans for a new racing plane spread out in front of them. At some point Gabrielle must have communicated an interest in the subject, and that slight encouragement was all it had taken to prompt the redheaded engineer to drag out plans for her current project and show them off proudly.

“Well,” said Mitzi, “Foreign or not, she certainly speaks Rachel's language."

“So it seems,” answered Hank. “I hope she doesn't give away too many of our secrets. After all, the client is paying good money for the world's fastest airplane."

It was well known within the circle of aviation enthusiasts around the world that Rachel's company, Fireline Air-Crafters, built the finest racing airplanes that money could buy. Each was a work of art, designed specifically to each client's specifications for a balance of speed and durability. In recent years, more than one airplane race had become a competition between various models of Fireline aircraft.

Mitzi grinned and elbowed her husband. “Oh Hank, don't be jealous just because she's finally found someone else to talk airplanes with."

“My love,” said Hank with humorously exaggerated sweetness, “I don't think I'm the one feeling jealous."

Mitzi shot her husband a poisonous look, and then they both laughed.

Rachel began rolling up the plans when she saw her guests enter.

“Good morning, you two,” she greeted. “Another workday begins..."

“Wonderful!” chirped Mitzi. “I don't have office hours until this afternoon, so Gabi and I can do some shopping and see the city."

Hank looked worried. “You think that's a good idea after what happened last night?"

But Mitzi shushed him. “Oh you,” she said. “It's broad daylight and we'll be out in public. What can happen? Besides, you know I can take care of myself.” She winked.

Hank obviously differed, but Rachel spoke up. “I think it's a good idea for Gabrielle to get out of this place for a few hours and start getting familiar with the city. Would you like that, Gabrielle? It will get pretty dull here once Hank and I get to work."

“She's right about that,” Hank agreed.

“Well,” said Gabrielle, “I don't wish to be in the way here after you've been so kind to let me stay. I'll go out for a little while with Mitzi. I can return in the afternoon when Mitzi is seeing patients."

“It's all set, then,” chirped Mitzi. “Gabi, we'll leave as soon as you're ready."

Once the two women had left, Rachel and Hank spread their plans out on the big drafting table and got to work. As usual, the two quickly became so absorbed in their work that the hours swept by unnoticed. The plans were nearly complete and it would soon be time to begin constructing models for wind tunnel tests. The clock showed nearly noon before Hank finally spoke.

“You're worn out from last night, Rachel. Or else something's on your mind."

Several minutes went by before the redhead finally spoke.

“Just interesting to see how the years change us, Hank. I wonder if I seem as different to her as she does to me."

“How long has it been since you last saw each other?” asked Hank. “Ten years? More?"

“It's been about that, yes,” answered Rachel. “Since I returned from engineering school in Europe. But it's more than that. She's like a different person."

Rachel gave Hank a brief outline of what Gabrielle had told about her family problems. Hank whistled.

“That could sure change a girl's outlook on life,” he said. “And don't forget, Greater Neusteria suffered pretty badly at the hands of the Allies after the World War. She's had it tough all her life. And now this monkey business with her uncle, and the political craziness going on in her country ... It can't be easy."

Rachel frowned. “You're right, I know. But it's more than just that. Gabrielle worked in a dress shop when I knew her. She didn't care about school, about much of anything except clothing. Certainly she wasn't interested in aircraft design."

Hank shrugged. “She was interested in what finding out what you've been doing all this time."

“It was more than that,” Rachel insisted. “The questions she asked, the way she looked at the plans, she knew what she was looking at."

“Ask her about it,” suggested Hank. “Since when have you ever been afraid to get to the bottom of things?"

“Touche',” grinned Rachel.

In the heart of the city, Mitzi and Gabrielle were finishing their lunch. The two women were surrounded by a small mountain range of shopping bags from many of the exclusive shops in Manhattan. They had spent a busy morning and were now preparing to return to their own destinations—Mitzi to her medical practice in a downtown high rise building, and Gabrielle back to Rachel's home in the abandoned factory. Mitzi began gathering up the bags.

“And that's just a start, hon,” babble Mitzi. “There is so much to see and do here and no matter how long you live here you could never do it all. You're going to love living in New York. There's the sights and the plays and the restaurants..."

Gabrielle smiled patiently as the monologue went on. If she was disappointed to find that the years had not made Mitzi into an attentive listener she didn't show it. The two women walked through the glass doors and out onto the sidewalk. Mitzi only stopped talking when a doorman stepped to the curb to hail them a taxi. She watched silently as a brightly painted automobile pulled to a stop in front of them. As the doorman stood by attentively, the taxi driver hopped out of his seat and began loading Mitzi's bags into the trunk. Saluting the two women, he finished his work and walked briskly back around to re-enter the cab. The doorman opened the passenger side door and held out his hand to help Gabrielle enter.

Mitzi touched her friend's arm. “Don't get in,” she whispered.

But Gabrielle, not heeding the warning, was already stepping into the taxi. Mitzi tried to take hold of her friend, but the doorman, with a sudden twist of his body, gave her a vicious shove backward. Mitzi stumbled and fell back, sitting down hard on the concrete. In the blink of an eye she was scrambling to her feet again, but it was too late. The doorman had already turned back to give Gabrielle a tremendous push into the back seat of the taxi. As she fell inside, the man lunged after her, throwing his body into the car and slamming the door shut after him. With sudden, powerful acceleration, the taxi swerved out into the street and roared away. The last Mitzi saw of her friend was her terrified face peeking out the back window, before she was pulled down out of sight. In seconds, the speeding cab had vanished.

Mitzi drew in a breath to scream, but stopped, looking around her. Pedestrians continued to walk briskly by, their thoughts fixed upon business or other personal matters. The kidnapping had occurred with such speed that few, if any, had noticed the event. For her to scream now would bring her no help, and would probably cause her to be delayed at a time when swift movement was of the greatest importance. Instead, she turned around and hurried back into the restaurant where she and Gabrielle had finished their lunch only minutes before.

When Mitzi burst in through the door, the maitre'd smiled suavely and greeted her.

“Ah, Dr. Rowan, back so soon, I see. How may I be of service to you? Did you leave something at your table? I shall summon your waiter immediately."

Mitzi held up her hand and motioned for silence. “That doorman outside. Who was he?” she demanded.

The maitre'd offered her only a blank smile. For a moment he hesitated to answer, obviously at a loss over how to reply. “Doorman, you say?” he replied. “I'm afraid you have the advantage. I don't understand."

“That doorman!” Mitzi practically shouted. The man's smooth unflappability irritated her. “Right outside your door, here! The one who flagged down our taxi!"

The tuxedoed host could only spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Madame, you have honored our establishment many times with your patronage. Have you ever known us to employ a doorman? I'm afraid we have never had a doorman on our staff, and have no plans to do so. Might you have been the victim of some hoax? I shall summon the authorities immediately!"

But Mitzi was already out the door and stepping briskly to the curb, flagging down another taxi as she ran. In minutes she was speeding back toward the industrial sector of town, back to the abandoned factory home of Rachel Rocket. Dr. Rowan's patients would have to wait. She would call her office later to reschedule their appointments. For now, she had more pressing issues to attend. In a lightning strike, agents of evil had whisked Gabrielle Rauscher away to an unknown fate. Mitzi herself had failed to protect her friend. Only swift action could save the young Neusterian girl now. This sort of action could best be set in motion by the determined efforts of the brilliant aviatrix.

In a darkened office north of New York, the clock struck midnight. Before the last echo of the chimes had died, the telephone rang. A gloved hand reached into the small pool of light from a desk lamp that provided the only illumination in the room. It retrieved the receiver from the cradle and lifted it up out of the light. Words were spoken into the receiver, clearly, for the connection was not good. The conversation would be carried on across thousands of miles, from one side of the Atlantic Ocean to the other.

“Night birds flutter in the moonlight."

This statement, a seemingly incongruous way to begin a conversation, was apparently the correct phrase to choose. The speaker on the European end of the line began to ask questions. Back in the gloomy office, the man at the desk gave answers.

“We brought her in this afternoon."

“No trouble at all. No one followed the car."

“She has been resting in a safe place awaiting our interview."

“I will see her tonight."

The man at the desk listened awhile, then hung up the telephone. Had his features been visible in the blackness, a cruel smile of satisfaction would have been seen to grow across his face. His hand crept into the light once more, to press a button on his desk. Now, the man at the desk prepared for the arrival of others. Unseen, he reached into a drawer and drew out a folded piece of fine silk. He spread it out, carefully, upon his desk top. With gentle, brushing motions he flattened the faint creases in the material. Then, with a graceful flourish, he slipped the cloth over his head. He pressed another switch on his desk and the light, though still dim, grew bright enough to make out his shadowy form commanding the room. He wore a normal business suit, normal until one noticed his head. The head was completely hidden by the cloth which draped over it, hanging down past his shoulders. His face was obscured, except for two holes through which the faintest sparkle of his eyes could be seen.

At the sound of a light knock he spoke sharply. “Come."

Three people entered the office. The last one closed the door, carefully. Two of the newcomers were men; heavy, thuggish brutes who moved ponderously to take their seats on either side of the room. The third member of the group, a female, was seated in a chair directly facing the desk. The dim light settled over the pale face of Gabrielle Rauscher.

On the other side of the desk, the owner of the office leaned forward. Gabrielle could see him more clearly. Now she could make out that his head was obscured by the draping folds of a finely worked, silk hood.

Gabrielle gasped at the strangeness of the situation. Having been kidnapped and kept under guard all evening in an unknown location, she was yet ill prepared to confront a faceless phantom in a shadowy room. Still, she looked directly into the darkened eye sockets and did her best to show no fear.

“Miss Rauscher,” said the man she realized must be the leader of this organization, the mysterious gang lord known as the Demolition Master. “We have gone to great lengths to bring you here. Your friends posed quite a challenge for us."

Gabrielle chose to make a show of defiance. “The men you sent last night were clumsy fools. Rachel outwitted them with ease. As for my kidnapping this afternoon, if it had been Rachel there instead of Mitzi, I would not now be your guest."

The mask of the Demolition Master served to do more than simply hide his features from prying eyes. It also formed a barrier that did not allow his emotions to be made visible. Those he interviewed saw only the smooth expanse of silken fabric. Inwardly though, the girl had angered him with the tone of her response. Obviously she believed that her connections back in Greater Neusteria would protect her from the consequences of taunting agents of that government. He wished her to understand differently. Resting his hands flat on the desktop, he spoke with enforced calm.

“Young miss,” he began. “Do not imagine that your connection with our superiors in Europe will protect you should you continue to antagonize me. I am willing to work with you if it will help to bring our master to his rightful place of power. But remember, America is a dangerous place for newcomers from foreign lands. Accidents happen with alarming frequency. It would grieve me to report to His Excellency that his beloved niece,” the words were emphasized meaningfully, “had met with tragedy so far from home."

The Demolition Master leaned even closer to Gabrielle. “And yet, young miss, do not mistake me. I could do it."

Gabrielle sank into a sullen pout. Obviously this masked man could not be intimidated by influential connections she had left thousands of miles behind her. False bravado would gain her nothing here. She chose instead to stay silent and await whatever happened next.

Settling back in his comfortable chair, the Demolition Master allowed Gabrielle a moment to think over her position. Then he spoke.

In clear tones he told her, “Young miss, you left Greater Neusteria in secret, crossing the border illegally, I might add. You know that the new government takes such offenses quite seriously. You may have had your reasons, perhaps even very good reasons for doing so. No matter. There are penalties to be paid. Fortunately, at the moment His Excellency is in a mood to welcome you back in a spirit of forgiveness. I believe it would be wise for you to prove your loyalty to our homeland ... and to His Excellency ... by telling me everything you have seen during your hours in the home of Rachel Rocket."

Gabrielle's eyes narrowed with repressed fury. She spoke quietly but clearly. “I believe you must be a very evil man."

“Yes,” answered the Demolition Master. “It is very likely that I am. Perhaps that is why I was sent here."

He continued, “Now, we both know that Rachel Rocket is one of the world's foremost designers of high performance aircraft. And we both know that the homeland has provided you with a very fine education in recent years. It is time for you to put that to use in the service of Greater Neusteria."

Even in the face of the Demolition Master's threats, Gabrielle remained uncooperative. “I was only there for a few hours. Our talk was purely personal. Even if Rachel had been willing to show me her work, the break-in by your men made it impossible."

The Demolition Master supposed this might be the truth. Further, he knew that despite his threats, he would be held answerable for her safety here in America. Gabrielle Rauscher could provide valuable service to Greater Neusteria. Much as it irked the masked spymaster to rely on a spoiled shop girl to gather information, it was his job to see that she did so, at least for now. He required time to form a plan that would maximize her benefit to the homeland.

“For now,” he said, “you will be taken back to your room and held until I have need of you. You are dismissed."

The two thugs rose and waited stolidly to escort Gabrielle out of the office. The Demolition Master sat back in the shadows, contemplating just what he would do with the young Miss Rauscher.

At seven o'clock the next morning Rachel, Mitzi, and Hank were finishing off a pot of coffee and going over, yet again, the information they had managed to assemble. At best it was frustratingly incomplete, yet there was little more they could add.

The moment Mitzi had shown up the previous afternoon, Rachel and Hank had dropped what they were doing and subjected her to a rigorous interrogation. Once they had gleaned every bit of information from her about the event, she was sent to police headquarters to undergo an only slightly less intensive questioning. In the meantime, Hank had been assigned to sort the information given by the intruders the night before, and make photostatic copies that would be sent to the police as quickly as possible. Rachel had returned to the restaurant to question the staff. She had also gone to all the surrounding businesses and questioned passersby in hopes of uncovering new leads.

The taxi company had been contacted and had confirmed that a cab had been reported missing that morning. The driver had stepped into a drugstore and had found it gone when he emerged. Since he had not witnessed the theft he was unable to give descriptions of the thieves. The license number had been reported to the police and a search for the car was being carried out.

At this point there was little the friends could do except check the backgrounds of the men who had broken in the previous night, hoping to find some connection to Gabrielle's kidnapping. Since the offices where their search would take place did not open until nine o'clock, no matter how urgent the need, the three took this opportunity to snatch a few hours of rest for the labors ahead. Rachel was confident of tracking down the kidnappers sooner or later, but worried that time was not on their side.

A list of the intruders was being drawn up, with roughly one third of them assigned to each member of the little band. The only other thing Rachel's tired brain could think of at the moment was to lean harder on the cab driver. He had seemed like a low sort, who might have been inclined to take a bribe for looking the other way when the taxi was stolen.

The clock hands had crawled to a quarter of eight and the three friends had run out of steam. They had gotten very little sleep in the past two nights and were now paying the price for it. Conversation had died and the three now sat sipping numbly at coffee cups while cigarettes smoldered unnoticed between their fingers. Rachel knew that they were approaching an inevitable crash from exhaustion and she debated allowing a few hours of sleep before they resumed their labors.

And so the minutes ticked away as they nodded, red-eyed, until suddenly they snapped bolt upright at the shrill ring of the telephone. Rachel snatched up the instrument and pressed it to her ear. Her expression changed to a look of utter astonishment as she listened to the voice at the other end of the line.

“Rachel, it's me! I'm in Brooklyn in a drugstore at the corner of ... ,” the voice named two streets as Rachel gestured frantically for a pencil. “I know there are men after me. Come get me, please!"

The line went dead. Rachel replaced the receiver and stood up. All traces of weariness were now gone, replaced with the crackling energy that propelled her into scenes of action.

“Get the car, Hank,” she snapped. “That was Gabrielle. She got away!"

“Idiots!” screamed His Excellency, Anton Hessler. “Clumsy, incompetent idiots!"

He glared at Grunding, who blanched under the fire of those mad eyes. The corpulent Armed Forces Minister of Greater Neusteria now wished he had brought with him some of the other department heads, upon whom he could deflect the worst of His Excellency's wrath. While Grunding had no real reason to fear for his position or personal safety, still, when frustrated to irrationality as he was now, Hessler was capable of doing almost anything. He would very likely regret his hasty actions on the morrow, but that might be too late for Grunding. He had sat through this tirade for the last forty-five minutes. For now though, there was nothing he could do but weather the storm on his own and attempt to reassure the angry dictator that all would be well.

Grunding gave his eyes a resolute and steely expression. “I have personally spoken with the Demolition Master by telephone in America,” he said, “and am absolutely convinced of his loyalty and his ability to do the job. It was the Americans working for him who lost Gabrielle Rauscher. Sadly, our agent is forced to employ gangsters and other bumbling, low characters instead of trained Neusterian operatives."

“Nothing but excuses!” the dictator barked. “How am I to carry out my plans for the glorification of our homeland when I am served by fools?"

“The Demolition Master is well aware of the penalty for failure to succeed in his mission. I, myself, informed him just a short time ago that no further mistakes would be tolerated. When His Excellency commands, we all obey!” Grunding leaped from his chair and saluted Hessler with a dramatic flourish.

Hessler, whose moods were as variable as the winds, was visibly impressed by his subordinate's extreme show of loyalty. He leaned back in his big, leather chair and smiled. He now seemed exhausted by the emotional explosion he had exhibited. The canny Grunding had seen the signs before.

The dictator nodded approvingly at Grunding. “You know what we need around here?” he asked. Without waiting for an answer, he continued, “Devotion to duty like you just showed! These young upstarts just coming up now ... no discipline. None of the fire of the old fighters like you and me. They've had everything given to them. They don't know..."

Grunding settled back and relaxed as the harangue went on. Through long experience he had anticipated the lecture, and had cleared his schedule for the afternoon. Important business could wait until the evening. As Hessler talked, the bulky minister nodded vigorously from time to time and pursued his own thoughts.

The days that followed Gabrielle Rauscher's return from captivity were hectic ones for the young Neusterian girl. Gabrielle herself had undergone exhaustive interviews with the police and had retold her story so many times that the details had begun to grow quite muddled in her mind. She had looked through hundreds of mug shots, but had been unable to provide any positive identifications. To her, the endless parade of black and white photographs all looked alike.

Rachel too, had questioned Gabrielle about her experience. She had found the girl's account to be long on emotion and short on specifics. She had been unable to give a clear idea of the location where she had been held, having been blindfolded the moment she had been pushed into the stolen taxi. It had been night when she had managed to crawl out the bathroom window of the ground floor apartment where she had been imprisoned, and the darkness, combined with her unfamiliarity with the city, had left her unable to identify even the neighborhood where the kidnappers had taken her. Upon escaping the apartment she had fled heedlessly for several blocks, afraid of pursuit, before she had happened upon the open drug store where she had placed the call to Rachel's home.

Rachel had not pressed the issue too hard, knowing her friend was undergoing strenuous grillings at the hands of the police. She preferred instead to keep Gabrielle under observation as much as possible, hoping to pick up chance comments or other unconsciously communicated clues.

Rachel's effort at observation was made easier by the fact that, after the two kidnapping attempts, Gabrielle now seemed terrified to leave Rachel's home for any length of time. During the daytime she insisted on staying near Hank and Rachel as they labored to put the final touches on the plans for their new airplane.

It soon became apparent that, as Rachel had noted earlier, Gabrielle had learned something about aircraft design in the years since Rachel had left Europe. Although she was clearly no engineer, she clearly had a grasp of the basic elements of the plans, and the redheaded designer was happy spend some time explaining various details of the new racing plane. When questioned, Gabrielle explained with a shy smile that it was Rachel's letters from America that had inspired her to begin reading some basic texts on aircraft and design principles. She had even used her connection with the nation's leader to get permission to sit in on some university classes. In this way she had received enough of a grounding that she could discuss the subject intelligently. As the days went by, Rachel and Hank began asking her to help out with some of the simpler tasks in the office.

Security at the abandoned factory had been enhanced. The door through which the intruders had broken in had been replaced with a stronger, steel-reinforced portal. Regular watches were now assigned each night so that there was always someone in the building alert and ready to respond to another attack. Rachel intended to take no more chances with her friend's safety.

The long, solitary hours of labor in the design workshop were no change for Hank and Rachel. Mitzi still had her medical practice to attend and was gone from early morning to evening. As one of the foremost surgeons in New York, her abilities were in constant demand and her practice could have kept her busy twenty-four hours a day. In recent years she had become quite well known in her profession, her fame bringing her requests for consultation from all over the country. It was not unusual for her to remain at her office late at night, working steadily for the welfare of her patients. Therefore it aroused no comment, several days after Gabrielle's return, when an evening wore on without an appearance from Mitzi.

Rachel and Hank had continued working on a wind tunnel model of the new airplane. Gabrielle had made a plate of sandwiches and was lying on the couch, listening to a radio programme. The telephone jangled and Hank, being closest, picked up the instrument. He mumbled a greeting into the receiver.

“Rowan?” came the response. “Listen up."

Hank sat up straight, eyes wide open. Rachel noticed the change and began to speak but he held up his hand for silence. The voice on the line had been a coarse, male voice, not his wife's expected chirp. “Who is this?” he asked.

But the male speaker was gone. The next voice heard on the line was that of Mitzi.

“Hank?"

“Mitzi!” he exclaimed. “Where are you?"

Rachel was already up and busy. She had turned on a special tape recorder that was wired into the telephone line and was listening on a set of earphones.

“Hank, listen to me. I'm alright, darling. Just feeling a little blue now, without you.” Mitzi's voice sounded odd and strained. Despite her words of reassurance she was clearly frightened.

Hank, too, was frantic. “Where are you?"

“I wish I could tell you,” came Mitzi's answer. “I could chatter on like a parrot if they'd let me."

Mitzi's voice was momentarily drowned out by background noise.

“Mitzi, are you there?” asked Hank.

“Yes, hon, I'm here,” came Mitzi's answer. “I have to give you a message."

“Go on, I'm listening,” said her husband.

“They want Gabrielle,” informed Mitzi. “You're to take her to Belvedere Castle in Central Park tomorrow at noon. Drop her off in front and drive away."

“What about you?” asked Hank.

“Barring any difficulties, they'll leave me in the same place the next day. They say they don't want to hurt me. They just want Gabrielle."

“We'll be there,” Hank said. “You know that."

The line was silent for a moment, then another voice began to speak. It was the male voice once again.

“You heard the lady. The Demolition Master don't mess around. You want her back, you leave the Rauscher girl right where she told you."

There was a click and the line went dead. Hank looked over at Rachel, who signaled for him to replace the receiver. She took off the earphones and pressed the replay button on the recorder. Having heard the telephone ring, Gabrielle had switched off the radio and joined group during the conversation.

“That was Mitzi, yes?” asked Gabrielle. “Is she alright?"

“She is for now,” replied Rachel. “She's been grabbed by the same bunch that kidnapped you yesterday. Now we have to figure out how to get her back."

With that, she pressed the play button and the three listened to the brief conversation again. Hank was moved by the obvious strain in his wife's voice. His face was a mask of tension. Gabrielle laid a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“It will be alright, my friend,” she said. “You will soon have her safely returned. You will see. I don't believe these men wish to hurt her. Tomorrow you will leave me where they told you."

Hank responded with a distracted nod, but Rachel spoke up.

“Who is this Demolition Master they mentioned, Gabrielle? You never mentioned him, either to us or the police."

Gabrielle blinked with obvious discomfort as Rachel and Hank turned their full attention upon her. For a moment she stammered nervously, unable to form words under the searching glances of her friends. Suddenly she burst into tears.

“I knew I should have said something,” she sobbed. “But it seemed so mad ... I was afraid you wouldn't believe me."

Rachel moved closer and tried to look into the Neusterian girl's streaming eyes. She was moved by her friend's emotional turmoil.

“We understand you've been through a terrible trauma, Gabrielle,” she murmured. “But honey, you've got to tell us everything now. Every detail counts, no matter how crazy it seems."

“I hope ... I just hope you believe me,” hiccupped Gabrielle, wiping her face with a tissue offered by Hank.

“We will,” reassured Rachel. “But time is of the essence here. Mitzi is in danger every minute she remains with those gangsters."

“Yes, I know,” said Gabrielle. She composed herself and began to relate the facts she had previously concealed from the investigators. Her face took on a fearful, faraway look as she recalled the terrible night of her captivity.

“There is a man,” she said. “I think he is the leader of the gangsters. He had an office. They took me to see him."

“This is the Demolition Master?” asked Hank.

“Yes,” answered Gabrielle. “But he wears a ... a mask. It is a hood made of silk that he wears to cover his face. Such a thing I have seen in American movies, but I had never believed that it could happen in reality. I was afraid the police would think I was making it up. I didn't know it would be so important."

“Everything is important now!” exclaimed Hank. “Mitzi is out there in the clutches of those criminals and we need to follow up every lead to find her."

Rachel held up a warning hand and Hank clamped his mouth shut. She understood his anger and frustration, but knew that the outburst could terrify her high-strung friend into a silent retreat. Rachel preferred to try gentleness as a means to gaining the information she sought.

“Gabrielle,” she began. The girl had begun crying again and Rachel dried her eyes with the tissue, holding her chin up with one hand. “No one blames you for what happened today. But in order to keep Mitzi safe ... and you ... we must know everything you can tell us about this Demolition Master."

Sniffling, Gabrielle looked up into her friend's eyes. Under the tender gaze, her thoughts became clear again. “The room was dark,” she said. “I couldn't see him well. He had an accent. He was from Greater Neusteria, I am sure of it. Other than that...” She spread her hands in a helpless gesture.

“Alright, Gabrielle,” said Rachel. “It may not be possible to learn much more about the Demolition Master at this time. But if you do remember anything, you must come to me immediately, do you hear me?

Gabrielle answered with a submissive little nod.

“For now,” said Rachel, turning away. “Let's listen to that tape again."

With a click of the switch on the recorder, Mitzi's voice was once again heard in the room. Rachel listened intently with a pencil in her hand. “...feeling a little blue now, without you.” The perceptive redhead's pencil made notations on a pad of paper. She had recognized that the strained sound of Mitzi's voice was caused by something other than just the fear of being kidnapped by armed thugs. The chatty doctor, normally calm under stress, was trying to communicate in the only way open to her.

“Hank,” said Rachel, “Get the city directory. Let's see if we can find a bar, or a tavern, something like that ... called the Blue Parrot."

An hour with the directory yielded little in the way of results. They found an all night diner called Pol Parrot and a nightclub named The Bluebird of Happiness. After a quick look at the map, Rachel rejected them both.

“Maybe it's not in the book,” said Hank, frustrated with the lack of results.

“Could be,” answered Rachel. “But there's nothing we can do to check that out at this hour. Right now, all we can do is make sure we understand what she was telling us."

Rachel read the words off the paper: blue, parrot, bar. It seemed straightforward enough, but what was Mitzi really trying to say? The clever redhead began saying the words to herself, trying to think of their different meanings. Blue was a color or a mood. There was the blue moon, blue movies. Mitzi talked a blue streak. You blew a whistle.

Blew.

Blew an opportunity. Blew a kiss. The wind blew.

Something clicked in Rachel's memory and her fingers scrambled through the directory. There she found it, the Tropical Breezes Nightclub. Wind ... breezes ... there was the name. Now she knew she had seen an ad for the establishment. She scanned the page but her tired mind refused to see. It was Hank who pointed it out.

“Right there!” he exclaimed. His finger thumped down on the paper.

There it was, a display ad for the Tropical Breezes Nightclub. The emblem on the ad showed a large, perched parrot.

“City map,” ordered Rachel. Excitement glowed in her green eyes as she noted the address of the establishment, but she wanted to be sure of herself.

Hank spread the map out on the drafting table and the two stared intently, their fingers racing to trace the lines that led to the location they sought. It was Rachel who reached their goal first.

“Aha!” she barked with satisfaction. “That's our spot!"

“Look,” she said. “The elevated train line runs right by it. That was the noise we heard in the background."

“What are we waiting for?” said Hank.

In the wee hours of the night, Rachel's car sat at the curb just a block away from the Tropical Breezes. Gabrielle had been left behind at the abandoned factory. Rachel had shown her how to lock herself inside the impregnable guest room. Inside that locked, steel-reinforced chamber Gabrielle was as safe as possible from another attack. Rachel had felt some trepidation at leaving the frightened girl alone, but knew that she would be only a hindrance to completing the task on which she and Hank had embarked tonight. Their goal was to launch an unexpected, lightning raid that would free Mitzi Rowan.

All the patrons had gone for the night and the last of the employees had locked the doors behind them before leaving. The night club was darkened and silent now. It appeared to be vacant, yet inside, Rachel and Hank hoped to find Mitzi alive and unharmed.

“Around the back,” said Rachel.

The two made their stealthy way through the alley to the rear of the building. There, at a locked kitchen door, Rachel produced a small, leather case containing a set of lock picks. It was the work of but a moment for her to open the barrier and gain entry. The two slipped inside and pushed the door shut again. Rachel and Hank each drew a tiny electric torch from their pockets and switched it on. Two narrow cones of light pierced the blackness.

With silent steps, they crept through the kitchen doors and into the main hall. The stage, on which entertainers had amused the glittering crowds just hours before, yawned vacant now. The dining area was a ghostly forest of chairs stacked upside down on the table tops. Rachel and Hank picked their way carefully through the room, careful not to bump anything in the darkness and alert those whom they were trying to surprise.

A long, curving staircase stretched up into the darkness. Rachel drew a revolver from her shoulder holster and nodded to Hank. In single file they mounted the steps. Though they listened carefully, there was no sound to be heard. The only source of light in the gloom was the thin shafts emitted by the torches. The two friends reached the top of the stairs. Now they stood on a long, railed balcony that allowed them to look down over the dance floor and the dining tables. At the end of the balcony, a hallway led off to some unknown end. Along its sides were doors to offices and storage rooms.

It was these rooms which the two selected to search first. Rachel and Hank each took a separate side of the hall. Quietly opening the doors, they flashed their torches about, giving each room a quick once-over before stepping back into the hallway were they would meet up again and move on to the next set of doors.

The first set of rooms held nothing out of the ordinary. The second and third proved to be the same. Hank and Rachel stepped to the next set of doors. They each turned a knob and entered. Hank found himself in a storeroom. He swung his light about, revealing shelves and stacked boxes.

In the meantime, Rachel's room proved to be a bedroom. This seemed unusual, but not as unusual as what she saw lying on the bed. She gasped, and started forward. But as she did, she heard a gravelly voice behind her.

“That's far enough, lady,” it intoned. “Drop the gun. Raise your hands."

Rachel began to turn, saw a revolver clenched in a meaty fist.

“Stand still!” ordered the voice. “I said, drop the gun and get your hands up."

Rachel's pistol thudded softly on the carpeted floor. She cursed herself silently for allowing herself to become distracted at a time when full attention to her surroundings was required for survival. Yet even now, her eyes could not help being drawn to the shadowy form which lay prone upon the bed.

“That's it, lady. Just take it easy,” said the gunman. He was a heavy man, dressed in a battered, grey suit. His hairless cranium gleamed softly in the dim light. He pursed his lips and uttered a low whistle. Two huskies entered from an adjoining room. They were huge, brutal-looking men with slack jaws and heavy fists. They peered at her from under shaggy, apish brows. Rachel noticed that neither of them were armed.

She looked carefully at the bed. When she had entered the room she had seen the familiar, plump form covered by a blanket. On the pillow was a familiar jumble of brown hair. Yet the body did not move. If it really was Mitzi under those covers, then she was either drugged or dead. At this moment Rachel could not tell which.

A moment later there was a disturbance behind her and Hank was led in, escorted by two more bruisers and another pistol-wielding gangster. The two men each held one of Hank's arms in a viselike grip. When he saw the blanket-covered body on the bed, Hank lunged forward. Though they were built like oxen, his two guards strained to hold him back as he struggled madly to reach the bed. At a nod from Rachel's gun-toting captor, one of the other hulking muscle men walked up to Hank, seized a fistful of his hair, and smashed his fist into the spectacled engineer's face. Rachel looked away in horror as Hank's head fell forward. Blood dripped to the floorboards from his cut lips. His body sagged bonelessly in his captors’ grip.

One of the brutes holding Hank gave him a shake and announced, “Out like a light."

“Hmm,” muttered the bald guard. “He'd better be okay, or you'll answer to the Demolition Master. You know he wanted these two brought in alive for questioning."

“He's okay,” responded the bruiser. “He's just sleeping.” The man grinned and bared a tangle of yellow teeth. “Can't wait to see what they look like when the boss is finished with them.” He looked straight into Rachel's eyes.

But Rachel would not be cowed. “Who are you men?” she demanded. “What have you done to Dr. Rowan?"

The bald man laughed. “It's not you who'll be asking the questions, lady.” He laughed again. “The Demolition Master's pretty smart, all right. He knew that fat dame would lead you two here somehow. I don't know how you found the place, but you walked right into a trap."

“What do you plan to do with us?” asked Rachel, green eyes blazing with outrage.

“You need to calm down, lady,” answered the gunman. “First we're gonna let the Demolition Master know you're all right. Then you're going to take a nice cruise to his island resort and spend a few days enjoying his hospitality."

“Why kidnap us?” asked Rachel. “Is Hessler that desperate to get Gabrielle back that he'd mount an operation like this just to grab her?"

The bald man threw Rachel an astonished look. Then he and the other armed guard looked at each other for a moment before they both threw back their heads and laughed out loud. The dull-witted bully boys, seeing the merriment even if they didn't understand the cause, imitated their masters. For a few brief seconds, the room rocked with coarse laughter.

Suddenly one of the laughing voices changed to a howl and a stream of curses.

Hank had been pretending unconsciousness. The instant his amused guards had relaxed their grip his arm had snapped upward and back, in a blur of motion, and broken the nose of the thug at his right. Now, even as he whirled to deal with the other bruiser, the gunman at Hank's back raised his gun and squeezed off a shot. The bullet dug a fiery trench through the flesh over Hank's ribs. Thrown off balance by the shot's impact, Hank dealt a stunning blow to the big man on his left as he fell. The armed man kept firing, even as the bruiser stumbled backward across his path. Bullets thudded home and the brutish thug was dead before he hit the floor.

Rachel, who had looked toward the sudden disturbance, now swung her head back to the gunman in front of her. The bald man's weapon was tracking Hank's swiftly moving form. The meaty gunhand tightened its grip. In the small room there would be no chance of missing once he fired. In a moment he would loose a fatal shot.

The daring redhead dropped to the floor, grabbed her revolver, rolled and came up firing. The bald man screamed and threw the gun aside as his femur shattered under the blaze of destruction issuing from Rachel's pistol. The two bruisers, slow to react, were now lumbering toward her. Like rampaging elephants, they gathered speed as they charged their prey. In their beady eyes gleamed witless, animal rage.

Rachel emptied her revolver into the avalanche of hurtling men. But the shots from the small caliber pistol, though deadly, hadn't the stopping power to halt the mindless rush. The men's dying brains knew only one thought, that before their shattered hearts ceased beating, they would kill the redheaded woman who stood before them. Like doomed bulls in the Spanish ring, they made one last roaring lunge. Rachel, cornered against the wall, was crushed beneath the heavy bodies.

The brief seconds she was trapped under the suffocating weight seemed to stretch on forever. Rachel heard a brief struggle, a cry of pain, and then she felt the dead bodies being shifted off of her. She dragged herself free and took a deep breath. Hank stood before her, clutching his side, his shirt soaked and dripping with blood. Before she could speak, he was staggering toward the bed, his hand reaching out, dragging the blanket off his wife.

“Wait, Hank,” Rachel warned.

But her warning came too late to stop Hank's feverish hand from uncovering the still form on the bed. As the covering slipped away, the brown hair came into full view. These were not the living tresses of Mitzi Rowan, but merely a cheap wig. The form revealed upon the mattress was not the body of a woman. It was simply a jumble of pillows pushed together in a rough approximation of the human frame. And in the center...

“Run!” screamed Rachel.

She lunged toward Hank, grabbed his hand, and dragged him away from the bed. By the time they reached the door they were both running at full speed. They bounded along the length of the hall in giant steps. At the end of the passage they didn't bother with the stairs. They threw themselves bodily over the balcony rail. As they did, the world around them erupted in a flash and an ear-splitting thunderclap.

In the center of the pillows had been a detonator. Dragging the blanket off the bed had triggered the booby trap. Only their own speed and the Demolition Master's sense of humor had saved them from doom. The masked spymaster had wanted his victims to see the death that waited for them, and so had set the device to allow a few seconds before hidden charges exploded. He had thought to have the last laugh, but he had failed to reckon into his equation the hair trigger reactions of Rachel Rocket.

Rachel and Hank's bodies tumbled through the air. A huge fireball shot down the hall and blasted out into the space they had just vacated as they leapt. The wall over the dance floor disintegrated in a sheet of flame and the air was filled with flying bricks and debris. The pair's fall ended when they crashed into the tables below, the splintered furniture cushioning their impact enough for them to survive.

A second set of explosions ripped through the nightclub. Rachel snatched up a tablecloth and dragged Hank back toward the kitchen. The concussion shook the building and brought a section of ceiling down in front of the door. Desperate for escape, Rachel kicked away the burning rubble and dragged Hank through the kitchen. In seconds she had kicked open the back door and the two stumbled out onto the grimy bricks of the alley in back.

Hank sagged, shock and blood loss weakening him.

“We can't stop now, Hank,” warned Rachel. “Got to get out of here,” she thought to herself, “before the police come. No matter how good my connections are, I couldn't talk my way out of this one in a hurry—certainly not soon enough to do Mitzi any good."

She stuffed the tablecloth against Hank's bleeding side, threw her arm over his shoulders, and half carried him the last block to reach the car. Tumbling him in, she shoved his helpless body across the seat and brought the automobile to life. A second later she was in high gear, eating up the pavement and putting an ever expanding distance between herself and the burning nightclub.

Hank was half delirious in the seat beside her. He tried again and again to speak, despite Rachel's futile attempts to hush him.

“It wasn't her...” he mumbled.

“No,” answered Rachel. “It was a booby trap. I guess the Demolition Master figured that if we did manage to elude his men, that would be the first place we'd check. And ... blooey! If the Demolition Master doesn't get us, nobody does."

“She's still alive,” Hank repeated. “Still alive."

Rachel had no idea what the answer to that one was. While she desperately hoped Mitzi was all right, the fact was that she had no idea whether her friend had survived for five minutes after that telephone call. Wisely, she kept those thoughts to herself. In truth, at this moment there was nothing she could do about it. What particularly intrigued her right now was the gangsters’ reaction to her question about Anton Hessler's urgency to secure Gabrielle's return to Greater Neusteria. The laughter had been unexpected. Obviously, the Neusterians were after something else entirely. Rachel had her suspicion about what that might be.

She also had a sickening premonition about what she would find when she got home.

Rachel and Hank arrived back at the factory to find it empty. The first order of business though, was to aid the lanky engineer. He was weak now, from shock and blood loss. Rachel stripped off his blood-soaked shirt and examined the ugly wound. The bullet had ploughed along the outside of his ribcage, laying open the flesh to the gleaming bone beneath. Rachel gathered medical supplies as Hank lay down on the bed in the vacant guest room.

Under Mitzi's training, Rachel had learned many of the skills needed to become a good combat medic. The adventurous life she led had given her many opportunities to practice her art on wounded comrades and so this wound of Hank's was nothing new to her. She returned to his side and began to clean the ugly gash. Hank groaned involuntarily at the pain her touch inflicted.

“I can give you something for the pain,” she offered.

But the wounded man shook his head in the negative.

“You'll need stitches,” said Rachel.

Hank nodded. “You're the doctor."

Rachel tried to be gentle, but there was no way to ease the bite of the needle into his flesh. The only way to minimize his pain was to do the work as quickly and efficiently as possible. Her skillful fingers worked with machinelike precision to make secure, neat stitches.

“It's nothing,” Hank gritted out between clenched teeth.

Rachel could see that was true. The scars that criss-crossed his body formed an ugly roadmap of his journey through the Great War. Those years in the trenches had left their mark upon him, but Hank never spoke of that time, preferring to let the past rest.

Soon the bloody work was done and Rachel finished bandaging the bullet wound. She tended to the minor scrapes and cuts he had acquired in their jump from the balcony, and then allowed her exhausted friend to rest. Within seconds of settling on the pillow he was snoring peacefully.

Rachel had her own small injuries to attend to, but ignored them now that she was free to look about the place on her own.

“Gabrielle?” she called experimentally. She knew the Neusterian girl must be long gone if she had not appeared by now, yet the urge to call out at least once for her friend had been impossible to suppress. Her voice echoed dismally off the bare brick walls. Rachel walked slowly out into the cavernous workroom. Reaching a bank of switches, she turned on the lights. One by one the great, overhead bulbs snapped on, their unforgiving light revealing a scene of desolation to the redheaded engineer's eyes.

Rachel felt as if she had been kicked in the stomach. The sight of wanton vandalism would have been more merciful, for that would have indicated the activity of raiders from the outside. What she saw though, as she cast her gaze about, indicated knowledge gained through intimacy and Rachel's misplaced trust in a long lost friend.

File drawers had been neatly stripped of their most up-to-date contents. Plans for the newest designs were gone. Even the unfinished model for the new racing plane was missing. Rachel shook her head in disgust. Gabrielle had taken advantage of her position as a guest to learn exactly what designs and papers were most worth stealing. Rachel spent the rest of the night cataloging the lost materials.

As morning's light streamed through the great windows of the factory, Rachel lifted her head from the drafting table where she had dozed. Her fuzzy brain registered the vision of Hank lying on the couch. She knew how stiff and sore his wound must have left him, and marveled at the determination it must have taken for him to walk the short distance from the room to come in here and keep her company. He looked drawn and tired, but Rachel was happy to see he did not appear feverish. He gathered the strength to smile up at her.

“Gabrielle gone?” he asked.

At her regretful nod, he said, “I was afraid of that. She got the plans for the new plane too, didn't she?"

“She took it all, Hank,” answered Rachel.

“You know she's working with the gang that grabbed Mitzi,” said Hank.

“Working with them or used by them, but I don't think there's any doubt that they're connected somehow,” answered Rachel. “She staged her own kidnapping. I guess I knew it when she said she'd been blindfolded as soon as she was shoved into the cab. Mitzi saw her looking out the window. Then she faked the escape."

“I thought that seemed like an amazing stroke of good fortune,” observed Hank.

“Too good to be true, Hank. I let old times cloud my good judgment. Now Mitzi is paying the price."

“We'll get them, Rachel,” promised Hank. “That guy at the nightclub ... he said something about an island. I've been looking at maps..."

At that moment the telephone rang, its jangling tones interrupting Hank's statement. Rachel picked up the receiver and pressed it to her ear. She suppressed a shudder, fearing that she would hear the gravelly tones of a police detective asking her to come down to the morgue for an identification. Instead, she was mystified by the accented, slightly threatening voice that spoke to her over the wire.

“Good morning, young miss,” the voice greeted. “I trust you are well rested after your exertions last night?"

“Who is this?” demanded Rachel.

“American women!” The voice dripped with disdain. “No culture at all. And here I have called to help you."

Rachel waited for the voice to continue.

“By now you know that your good friend Gabrielle is working for me."

“And who might you be?” asked Rachel.

She could almost hear the malicious grin spreading over the unseen caller's features as she waited for her answer.

“I, young miss,” said the voice, “am the man you know as the Demolition Master."

Rachel's green eyes hardened to the consistency of polished jade. “What have you done with Dr. Rowan?” she demanded.

In answer she received a light-hearted chuckle. “So amusing, you Americans. So direct. One day perhaps you will learn how to properly address your superiors. Until then, I am content to be amused."

“Answer the question,” barked Rachel.

“You are testing my patience, young miss,” warned the voice, suddenly metallic in its hardness. “Turn on your radio. We will talk again shortly."

The line went dead. Rachel ran to the radio and switched on the power. She hadn't known what station she should tune in, for the Demolition Master had hung up before telling her. However, as she discovered, the choice of station was not important, for at the moment they were all reporting the same story.

“...George Washington Bridge ... aerial attack ... casualties unknown ... flying bomb..."

The reports varied only in the voices which announced the shocking news. The details were identical all around the dial. A single monoplane had dived down upon the George Washington Bridge as it was packed with morning traffic. In an unstoppable suicide attack, the aircraft, apparently loaded with explosives, had crashed into the center of the span. The ensuing explosion, terrific in power, had dropped a section of the bridge deck into the waters below. The death toll, estimated to be in the hundreds, was yet unknown.

When the telephone rang again Rachel snatched it up.

“Is this your work?” she demanded.

“Yessssss,” purred the Demolition Master. “I must admit, it worked even better than I had hoped."

Rachel snarled, “You can't think you'll get away with..."

But the Demolition Master cut her off with utter contempt.

“You asked about your friend, Dr. Rowan ... Mitzi, isn't it? Yes, a charming name."

Rachel listened with complete attention.

“Ah, so quiet now,” chuckled the masked spymaster. “Your friend has been enjoying our hospitality in perfect comfort, I assure you. However, the time has come..."

The telephone receiver trembled in Rachel's grip.

“...for your Dr. Rowan to take,” the Demolition Master paused, obviously enjoying the drama, “an airplane ride. It's an experience all modern young people should enjoy, don't you think?"

“You...” At a loss for words, Rachel's answer ended in a growl of terrible anger.

“A charming way for a young lady to express herself,” came the Demolition Master's drily sarcastic reply. “I suggest you listen closely now, for I will not repeat what I am about to tell you."

The accented voice continued. “The attack on the bridge was a tragedy, an unavoidable tragedy. I take full responsibility."

“How gallant of you,” muttered Rachel.

The Demolition Master went on, unhearing. “However, young miss, any further tragedies will be completely avoidable, and the blame will be laid directly at your feet."

“I am warning you now,” said the spymaster, “that there will be three more attacks of the same sort that meted out such terrible destruction just minutes ago. The aircraft are warming up even as we speak."

The Demolition Master's smooth tones hissed through the wire. “I suggest, young miss, that you begin thinking of a way to stop them, for they will take off the moment I hang up the telephone."

Rachel began to turn away and then stopped. “Wait!” she said. “What about Mitzi?"

“Oh my,” chuckled the Demolition Master. “I overestimated you, my dear. I had assumed you would figure out for yourself the answer to that one!"

For a moment, a stream of derisive laughter poured out of the telephone receiver. Then the line went dead and Rachel slammed the instrument back down on the cradle. She whirled, ready to run for the airplane hangar, only to see Hank on his feet. The lanky engineer was gasping with the effort of movement, now that his wound had stiffened, but he was ready for action nonetheless.

“I hate to bring you into this in your condition,” said Rachel.

“Whatever it is,” said Hank. “You need me. Let's go!"

Rachel helped Hank to his feet and the two of them hustled out to the hangar where her gleaming airplane waited. Neither of them were in any shape to fly, but the Demolition Master had left them no choice. Three flying bombs were about to wreak destruction upon New York City ... and on one of them, Rachel knew, rode Mitzi!

Wrapped in the Wagnerian thunder of its two super-charged engines, Rachel's sleek airplane leapt from the runway into the blue, morning skies over New York. The gallant aviatrix's steady hand on the stick guided the gleaming craft ever higher. Upon reaching her desired altitude, she turned the plane and shot northward, beginning her search for the Demolition Master's flying bombs.

Back in the navigator's seat, Hank listened to a steady stream of radio chatter from the military and the police, his painful wound all but forgotten as he concentrated on his job. Although stiff and sore, he had risen swiftly when Rachel had relayed to him the contents of the Demolition Master's message. Within seconds he had pulled on a shirt and galloped to the hangar to begin readying the powerful airplane. Rachel had invested precious minutes on the telephone once again, this time with highly placed friends in the military, reporting the warning she had received and convincing them of the need for accepting her help to stop the next wave of the attack. The army launched masses of armed fighters, but the comparatively slow moving biplanes would have little chance of catching the speedy, unmanned messengers of destruction.

As they had readied the airplane for its flight, Hank had explained his theory of where the Demolition Master set up his secret base of operations. His belief that the masked spymaster's stronghold was somewhere north of the city seemed to be confirmed by reports that this was the direction from which the first flying bomb had come for its deadly rendezvous with the George Washington Bridge. Following his instructions, Rachel set a course northward, straight up the Hudson River valley. She scanned the horizon before her with determined eyes as she soared over the great river. When they had reached a point just south of Poughkeepsie she heard a crackle in her earphones, then Hank's voice sounded in her ears.

“Coast Guard reports three small aircraft flying low and fast, bearing south toward New York City."

He went on to give Rachel map coordinates of the last sighting, and a bearing. She set her course accordingly and increased her speed. In minutes, three small dots appeared just above the horizon.

“Hank,” she said. “Mark the direction those planes are coming from. We know what time the Demolition Master called. Once we get closer we can come up with a fairly accurate estimate of their air speed. Once we've got that we'll backtrack and have a good idea of where his secret airdrome is located."

As Rachel spoke these words, the three dots were growing larger and taking on the appearance of small, stubby-winged aircraft flying low and fast. Rachel began to swing around to the east, choosing a course that would intercept their flight path. The oncoming airplanes expanded in size with a terrible rapidity. She could see now that these were short, fat-bodied aircraft; all engine, save for their fiendishly devised payload of death. Their design seemed to be based on that of small racing planes she had seen, but without the landing gear which would have been an unnecessary hindrance on their one-way errand. She knew that her one advantage in the struggle to stop the pilotless machines’ assault on the great city was that they were designed to fly fast in a straight line rather than for evasive aerial maneuvers. Rachel swung southward now, as the tiny craft flashed by her.

Throttling up again, Rachel eased her graceful, silver airplane in close behind the rearmost of the craft. Despite the fact that time was of the essence, she hesitated to take decisive action. Although she knew she must stop the deadly aircraft without fail, still she knew that aboard one of them her friend Mitzi was imprisoned. As precious seconds ticked away, Rachel knew she must take swift action. Seeing no outward sign of her friend's presence aboard the plane, she pressed her thumb to the red button on the joystick with which she controlled her airplane. At the touch of the button, twin tongues of flame spat toward the flying bomb.

Slung underneath the wings of Rachel's airplane were streamlined pods. Many who saw these structures imagined them to be extra fuel tanks, or housings for some type of scientific instruments. But there was a rude surprise in store for those unfortunate enough to learn the hard way that instead of scientific gadgets, the pods held heavy machine guns that transformed the flashing silver machine from a racing plane into a deadly fighter. Not a few enemies of peace had learned to their regret that Rachel could direct the fire from those guns with devastating effect. Although the gallant aviatrix despised the unnecessary taking of life, she had more than once sent the craft of evildoers to a flaming doom.

Now she stayed on the tail of the flying bomb in front of her, keeping it in her sights as she sprayed it with a shower of hot lead. She saw the damage as heavy slugs smashed into the little craft. Closing in, she poured a steady stream of machinegun fire into it, not stopping until the bullet riddled plane rolled over and began an uncontrollable spin. It spiraled downward and splashed into the placid surface of the Hudson, far below. Immediately, a massive explosion sent a geyser of water skyward, but Rachel was already long gone, on the trail of the next bomb.

Speeding onward, the chase continued above the sparkling river, as the flying bombs continued their remorseless journey of doom for the citizens of New York. The terrain changed as they moved southward. Sparsely inhabited rural countryside gave way with terrifying rapidity to small towns and suburbs. Houses flashed underneath the low-flying craft. Now Rachel feared to use the machine guns. No matter how accurately she aimed her deadly fusillade, bullets were sure to go astray, raining death and destruction onto the unsuspecting non-combatants below. With only seconds to think, Rachel came up with another plan.

Flying with masterful precision, she eased her graceful plane in toward the port side of the flying bomb. Working gently but quickly, Rachel maneuvered until her starboard wing was just below the wing of her next victim. She kept a desperate eye on both her course and the other plane until she saw a clearing coming up fast just ahead. Without hesitation, Rachel gave her stick a powerful but measured wrench that snapped her airplane into a roll. She and Hank both jerked with the smashing impact as her wing hit the wing of the smaller craft with enough force to tip it over. With no way to correct its course, the unmanned plane continued in a long, looping roll that took it downward to crash with a spectacular explosion in the empty field below.

“That's two to nothing, you devil,” muttered Rachel to herself. Without further comment she concentrated her attention on the third and final bomb, now winging its way toward the center of New York City.

With no time left, Rachel drove her speeding craft at full throttle toward the last of the flying bombs. The ground flashed by beneath her as she gained on the little craft. Drawing close, she spied a glass canopy bulging from the top of the plane, and within the canopy she saw the frantically gesturing figure of Mitzi Rowan. As she closed in, Rachel could see her friend's features twisted in an expression of raw terror. Hank also saw her, and frantically screamed his wife's name over and over.

Suddenly Mitzi turned away and looked straight up. At the same time, chunks of debris began spinning away from her little craft. Rachel followed her gaze and was horrified to see an Army fighter plane diving down from above, its guns blazing destruction in a desperate effort to stop the flying bomb from reaching its destination.

Without a thought, Rachel swung her plane up and over, taking a position above Mitzi's plane and placing herself in the line of fire. Her own sleek craft shuddered under the hail of slugs that had been aimed at the flying bomb. In a second, the danger was over. The biplane dove past, firing all the way, and was left hopelessly behind the two speeding aircraft. Now the responsibility for stopping the bomb and saving her friend were left completely in Rachel's hands.

Rachel immediately swung the plane around again, coming up underneath Mitzi's craft. With the speed and precision of perfect efficiency she eased her craft upward to within a few feet of the underside of the flying bomb. Trusting that Hank would understand her plan without needing an explanation, she keyed her mike and gave him one brief order.

“Hold her steady!"

With that, she unlocked the canopy and slid it back. Hank grabbed the dual control at his seat and kept an eye on the distance between the two hurtling aircraft. He edged Rachel's plane carefully forward until it was in the position she needed. She unclipped her safety harness and turned around until she was facing backwards and kneeling on her seat. She moved clumsily, hampered by the bulky parachute pack strapped to her body. Looking up, she could see that Hank was holding the machine exactly where she needed it, slightly ahead and to starboard of the flying bomb's fuselage. Rachel took a deep breath and stood up.

Instantly she was buffeted by the wash of the mighty propellers and slammed bodily into the leading edge of the other aircraft's wing. The moment of truth had come and there was no turning back. Pressing her fingers against the smooth surface for whatever grip they might find, she heaved herself up and over the top of the wing.

Several years ago, Rachel had spent a summer touring the Midwestern United States with a barnstorming group. Naturally athletic, she had became skilled at the art of wing walking and had even received star billing on the posters that announced the group's arrival in the small towns where they exhibited their flying abilities. Still, the hair-raising stunts she had performed in those days had been child's play compared to lugging herself and her heavy parachute onto an unmanned craft rocketing along at over two hundred miles per hour over the greatest city in the world.

With a gasp, Rachel threw one leg over the top of the wing. The tiny plane began to dip to starboard under her extra weight. Hank was forced to back Rachel's airplane off to a safe distance or risk a mid-air collision that would kill them all. Rachel scrambled frantically to reach the fuselage in hope that her weight would not cause the plane to flip over. One boot dug holes in the fabric skin of the wing as she crawled, while the other dangled helplessly in the air. Her knuckles turned white with the terrible force of her grip on any projection that could provide a handhold.

In the seconds it took to reach the fuselage, Rachel's whole life passed before her eyes. When she finally straddled the plane's body and dared to glance toward Mitzi, she saw that her friend had opened the canopy and was leaning forward, reaching out as best she could toward Rachel. The gallant aviatrix edged back toward the open cockpit, struggling to keep her balance as the flying bomb veered farther off course.

Their fingertips touched. Mitzi gripped Rachel's arms and pulled her close. The bomb-laden craft had passed over Yonkers in a flash and was beginning its dive onto the helpless neighborhoods of the Bronx. There were only seconds left in which to act. They wrapped their arms around each other in a ferocious embrace.

“Jump!"

Mitzi saw Rachel mouth the word, even though the scream was unheard above the roar of the engine. She nodded and gathered her strength, ready to react at her friend's command.

The two women sprang away from the doomed plane. Suddenly they were tumbling through empty space high above the city, their arms and legs entwined. A kaleidoscope of images played across their terrified, unheeding eyes. Having lost all sense of time and space, it was instinct that prompted Rachel to yank the ripcord and unfurl her parachute. The fabric spilled out and spread into a reassuring bell above them.

As the pair swung under the silken canopy, they watched the flying bomb end its death plunge by crashing into a block of tenements. The unmanned missile of destruction smashed through a heavy brick wall and came to rest inside the building. Chunks of masonry sprayed over several blocks and a thick cloud of dust rose into the air, but miraculously, there was no explosion.

Mitzi spoke up, “They tied me up but I got loose. I started pulling wires. Guess I did something right."

Rachel nodded. Later she would be amazed at her friend's cool headed ability to disarm the device as she flew on a ride that was sure to end in her own death. Right now though, the gallant aviatrix was watching the ground speeding up toward them. Bearing the weight of two women, the parachute was dropping them faster than intended. Rachel, in her protective boots and leather flying jacket, swung around to take the brunt of the impact and shield her lightly clad friend.

They slammed down onto the roof of a car, which buckled under the impact. With the initial force of their landing broken, they tumbled and smashed onto the pavement, where they lay stunned while the parachute drifted down to cover them.

With his face disfigured by an evil sneer, Armed Forces Minister Grunding presented His Excellency, Anton Hessler, with the details of the flying bomb attack on New York. The two men chuckled with fiendish merriment as Grunding told of the destruction of the George Washington Bridge. But Hessler was not pleased when he learned of the ease with which the lone aviatrix, Rachel Rocket, had downed three of his deadly missiles. Grunding's oily voice soothed the fears of his superior.

“Ah, but Excellency,” he crooned, “Our airborne observers were equipped with cameras and recorded the entire episode on film. Even now, preparations are being made to ship the reels back to Greater Neusteria for study. This opportunity to observe our wonder weapons in actual combat conditions is worth far more than any destruction that three of the flying bombs might have wrought on New York City. With the knowledge we gain from these films, we will be able to construct faster, more powerful missiles that will have defenses to protect them from interference."

Every word of this speech had been a lie. There had been no observers and there was no film to be brought back to the homeland. Grunding had made up the story on the spot when he realized that Hessler's attention had shifted from the demolition of the bridge to the downing of the unmanned robot planes. It was possible that at some point the bulky official might have to invent another story to explain the nonexistence of the film, but it was more likely that the mercurial master of Greater Neusteria would forget all about it when his mind turned to other matters. For now, Grunding's lie had the desired effect of mollifying Hessler, yet His Excellency's mind had not abandoned thoughts of the flying bombs.

“And so, Grunding,” he said. “What of the second wave?"

Grunding hesitated to answer, not knowing just what Hessler was referring to, and yet not wishing to betray his ignorance. However, Hessler could not resist showing off his unsuspected knowledge of the facts.

His Excellency grinned confidentially and said, “Come now, Grunding, did you imagine I did not know of the secret shipments to the United States?"

The Armed Forces Minister returned the familiar grin and allowed a merry twinkle to escape his eye. The air of knowing camaraderie was a mask though, intended to hide the shock that swept through Grunding at his superior's revelation of knowledge. Grunding had indeed believed until now that he had shipped the components of the flying bombs to the United States in absolute secrecy, even from his own government. Now he wondered just how much the Neusterian leader knew about his activities, and how he had learned it. The two men gazed for a moment into each others’ knowing eyes. Crackling between them, like an electrical charge, was the knowledge that beneath the surface the two old comrades were waging a Machiavellian struggle for power. Grunding, an old fighter who had served his leader in the days before his party had seized power, would serve with absolute loyalty, until the day when Hessler made a fatal slip. Hessler, in turn, would continue to use the services of his Armed Forces Minister until his competence or his obedience failed to please. The fact that the two men knew and liked each other added a further layer of complication to the relationship. Grunding recovered gracefully and attacked the subject at hand with his usual blithe disregard for the facts.

“Of course, Your Excellency,” he beamed. “We shipped kits for thirty-four of the flying bombs to the United States, where they were transported to our secret airdrome and assembled. Yesterday we used four in our trial assault on New York City. When the time is right, we will use the last thirty in a gigantic, devastating raid that will strike an indelible terror into the hearts of the Americans and their allies."

But Hessler was far from satisfied with this statement. “What?” he roared. “'When the time is right?’ What sort of quavering attitude is this, Grunding? The Americans are frightened, confused. This is the time to hit them again! Remember, Grunding ... The only way to win is to attack ... attack ... and attack again. Never let them rest. This is the road to ultimate victory!"

Grunding's fat face radiated passion and resolution. “Yes, Your Excellency!” he exclaimed. “As I said, ‘When the time is right,’ and that time is now. In your wisdom you have reached out to grasp the central idea of our strategy before I even had the chance to speak it."

The pair congratulated themselves on their brilliance for several more minutes before an aid shyly knocked on the great doors of the operatically decorated office to inform Hessler of an appointment. Grunding used the interruption as an excuse to get away to his own office. Within moments he was placing a transatlantic telephone call to the Demolition Master's secret base. In a carefully coded message he passed along orders for an immediate strike on New York City, using all the flying bombs available.

The commands were given. The speedy craft would be readied for yet another mission of doom. The great metropolis lay open and vulnerable, little knowing that within hours it would be subjected to the most terrible attack to be visited upon an American city in modern history.

In his quarters at the secret, island airdrome, the Demolition Master set the telephone receiver back on its cradle. So the planners back home had come up with a mission at last. He began to dress himself quickly, for the telephone call had come in before dawn. The coded message had delivered orders directly from the lips of the Armed Forces Minister himself. The Demolition Master was to launch everything in an all out attack on New York.

He checked himself in the mirror before he left his room, for he never appeared before his underlings in slovenly or casual attire. In his mind, the mask he wore to cloak his identity and give himself an air of mystery was enough of a flirtation with the ridiculous. In all other respects, he was attentive to his dignity as leader of a master sabotage organization. He gazed at himself approvingly, then as a last touch he settled the flowing mask over his head before he walked out the door.

A scant half-hour later, the airdrome was humming with activity. The stubby aircraft had been wheeled out of their camouflaged hangars and checked out thoroughly by the mechanics who attended to their maintenance. Rolling on wheeled undercarriages that would drop off once the craft were airborne, they were positioned in their proper spots at the foot of the two great launching ramps. High explosive warheads were then brought out on carts and lowered into the bomb compartments behind the powerful airplane engines. When all the bomb packages were installed and checked, the planes were fueled.

The last step, which did not occur until nearly noon, was the installation of long rolls of punch-coded tape. By means of this tape, the guidance systems of the flying bombs would be directed toward their targets. Back in their workroom, specially trained men had spent hours poring over maps and weather reports before they could perform the tedious work of coding the tapes. Once given their targets, the technicians had to estimate to the best of their ability the weather conditions that might deflect the tiny craft off their course and plan computations to correct for such interference. The work was carried out with the utmost attention to accuracy. The Demolition Master was not known for his cheerful tolerance of failure.

Once the tapes were loaded, the head mechanics checked the craft over once more and pronounced them ready. Only after receiving their reports did the Demolition Master order the first two planes wheeled up to the launching ramps. Electric starters spun the propellers and the mighty engines roared to life. The powerful backwash from the whirling props kicked up dust and sent light debris dancing across the airfield. At a final signal from the Demolition Master, the planes were released. Like snarling beasts impatient to be free after a long confinement, the flying bombs leaped forward and in a flash they were up the launch ramps and hurling themselves into the air where they made an almost vertical climb to take them to their cruising altitude. The undercarriages dropped free and the craft were now totally creatures of the air. As they circled overhead, a radio signal was sent from the ground to arm the bombs and start the tapes rolling through the guidance systems. As instructions reached their electronic brains, the robot planes turned and headed south, toward their final destination.

The flying bombs were launched in five waves of six planes each. As each wave disappeared on its programmed course, the next was wheeled up to the ramps and prepared for launch until, within a short time, all thirty of the missiles were winging their way toward New York City at an unstoppable speed of nearly three hundred miles per hour.

The Demolition Master watched the last of the flying bombs disappear in the distance. Now began the period of waiting. An hour from now he would receive radio messages from agents in the city, reporting on the outcome of the mission. Until that time there was nothing further he could do but to wait in ignorance. A grim smile twisted the Demolition Master's lips as he imagined the horrified surprise with which his messengers of death would be greeted.

In the hours following the aerial battle over New York City, Rachel and Mitzi had been rushed to the hospital emergency room. There, doctors and nurses had waged a grim battle to stabilize the two battered women. The parachute, though it had saved their lives, had been deployed at too low an altitude and, not made to support the weight of two people, had dropped them like a stone to the street below. Only the fact that they had landed atop a parked car had prevented instant death. The roof of the car, collapsing under the impact of their bodies, had absorbed the force of their impact, but was not enough to save them from injury. Mitzi had sustained a badly broken leg and a concussion. Even now the doctors were unable to say whether she would recover from the coma in which she lay, insensible to the outside world. Rachel, who had enjoyed the protection of heavy boots, and a leather flying jacket and helmet, had been fortunate to wind up with a broken ankle and cracked ribs.

Now Rachel sat up in bed, talking with Hank Rowan. They were in the hospital room she shared with Mitzi. Rachel could easily have afforded private rooms for both of them. She could have demanded any accommodations she wished, for her generous endowments supported a large part of the facility's program to extend services to the impoverished who could not afford treatment elsewhere. However, the gallant aviatrix preferred to keep her friend close by where she could keep a watch over her. Hank, with one worried eye on his wife, held an open note pad which he consulted as he filled Rachel in on the facts he had learned about the flying bombs.

“The police let me examine the debris from the bomb that crashed into the apartment building,” he said. “It carried about five hundred pounds of high explosive, rigged to detonate on impact. Apparently it was converted rather hastily to carry a passenger, because the wiring was all exposed and there were no safeguards to prevent the bomb from being disarmed. Five people died when the plane crashed into the building, but dozens more would have been killed if it had blown up when it hit."

Rachel smiled over at her insensate friend. “She saved all those lives when she thought she had no hope of survival herself."

“I think she knew you'd find a way to save her,” said Hank.

Rachel shrugged. “What else can you tell me about the bombs?” she asked.

Hank's eyes brightened as he began to speak. “It's the most amazing thing, Rachel,” he said. “They've got some kind of electronic brain guiding them. All the information is programmed on a roll of paper that's fed through a device that reads the code and..."

Rachel interrupted. “You've done a great job, Hank. Have you been able to read the coding and find out where these things came from?"

“Well,” said Hank, with his hands spread in a gesture of helplessness, “given a couple of months to work on the project full-time I think I could probably rebuild the guidance system using the mechanism salvaged from the wreck, then run the punch-coded paper through it backwards ... that might work."

“I don't think we have that kind of time, Hank,” objected Rachel.

“Yes, I know. You're right,” agreed Hank, a bit smugly. “That's why I did it the easy way. While we were chasing those things I kept a watch on their air speed. They were traveling at a little under three hundred miles an hour, almost due south along the Hudson River. You figure that the Demolition Master's call came in about an hour before the planes got to New York ... that puts their point of origin somewhere up around Lake Champlain, assuming they held a straight course all through their flight."

“The Demolition Master mentioned an island,” said Rachel.

“Already on it,” said Hank. “Been looking at a map of the area. There's dozens of islands to choose from up there, but we'll narrow it down."

“Stay on it, Hank.” urged Rachel, once again looking at the still form of Mitzi. “I want to get these characters."

Hank grinned. “You aren't going anywhere, darlin'. Not with that ankle. You stay here and keep an eye on my wife. Let me handle the Demolition Master, okay?"

Rachel, never one to sit idle and let the action go on around her, simply said, “You just keep the plane ready for me."

Hank rolled his eyes and nodded.

“You've done a great job so far, Hank,” said Rachel. “Now find that island before the Demolition Master sends another wave of those things down here that's so massive we can't do anything to stop it."

“You think he's liable to do that?” questioned Hank.

Rachel looked her friend in the eye and asked, “What do you think?

“Who on earth does she think she is?” asked the nurse on duty when she returned to her station.

The desk nurse looked up from her work and raised her eyebrows in lieu of asking her co-worker what she meant. The duty nurse recognized the signal and went on.

“The Queen of Sheba in 501,” she said. “The redhead. She just called me into her room and gave me a whole list of stuff to bring her.” The young woman tossed a sheet of paper onto the counter. “And get this,” she added. “She wants a telephone ... in her room!"

The desk nurse picked up the paper and scanned it briefly, then she handed it back. “Get on it,” she said. “I'll have the telephone installed.” She turned away and began to dial a number on her own ‘phone. A moment later she looked up again to see the duty nurse still standing in place, wearing a shocked expression.

“You didn't hear me?” she asked, still dialing. “You know who that is in 501? That's Rachel Rocket.” She shot the duty nurse an expectant look. “The woman who just saved the city...?” The young woman's mouth formed a perfect O.

“Not only that,” continued the woman at the desk, “the Rocket Foundation pays a good chunk of your salary. So I suggest you get a move on."

No further words were necessary. The duty nurse took off down the hallway at a run.

Twenty minutes later, Rachel had a map of New York State pinned to a board that was propped up in front of her. A collection of drafting and measuring implements were scattered about her on the bed. With the forefinger of one hand she was tracing a line down the Hudson River Valley. In the other hand she held the telephone receiver. She was speaking to General Walter Outcalt, senior Army commander in the area and an old family friend.

“Yes, General,” she was saying, “we believe we have a good idea where the flying bombs came from."

She paused to listen, then continued.

“That's right, Sir,” Rachel agreed, “we do believe another attack is on the way. And if that's the case it will be much bigger. The Demolition Master knows we'll find his base soon, and he has to launch everything he has or lose it.” Another pause.

“General, we don't have any proof. But it stands to reason, doesn't it? And if there's any possibility at all you must take defensive measures or risk massive destruction to the city.” She stopped again to listen.

“Sir,” she said, “with all due respect, you have no planes that could catch these things. There's no way you can expect to scramble fighters located near the city here in time to do anything to halt an attack. I've worked out a plan that takes your available forces into account. I believe it's the only way to protect New York and stop this madman."

At General Outcault's request, Rachel outlined her plan.

“You'll need to divide your air forces, General. You'll throw three defensive lines across the Hudson River Valley. The first line will be sent up to Poughkeepsie. The second will be based at Tarrytown. The third and final line will be a last ditch defense over the city itself. I call the lines, A, B, and C. The whole plan will be set in motion by a team of observers you'll station up in Albany.” Rachel consulted her map.

“The observers will radio an alert the minute they see any sign of the first flight...” The general interrupted.

“Yes, sir,” answered Rachel, “I did say ‘first flight.’ I don't know what he's got up there, but we've got to assume it's a large arsenal and he may not have the facilities to launch them all at once."

Rachel continued her explanation. “At the alert, all three defensive lines will launch their craft. That will give Line A, at Poughkeepsie, just enough time to get into position before the first wave of flying bombs reaches them. They almost certainly won't get them all, but each one they knock down will make it that much easier for Line B to take out the bulk of the force. Line C at New York will clean up whatever comes through. You can station anti-aircraft guns along the river between the defensive lines. I don't know how much good they can do, but we've got to try everything."

Rachel listened again, and answered.

“No sir, I don't know when they'll launch,” she said, “but they know that time is not on their side. If they're coming, it will be soon."

The dark surface of the Hudson River trembled under the thunder of mighty aircraft engines. The first wave of six flying bombs flew fast and low, following the watercourse southward. The sun was high over the Atlantic Seaboard, signaling the onset of a titanic contest between good and evil: courageous and dedicated American airmen pitting their skill against the cold efficiency of man-made agents of destruction.

Binoculars stared up into the grey skies over Albany as the stubby aircraft roared overhead, one moment merely six tiny dots on the horizon, and the next instant rattling the windows of New York State's capital city as they swept in. Before the echoes had died, radio messages giving heading, airspeed and altitude had been flashed south to the first line of defense stationed at Poughkeepsie. Within minutes, fighter pilots scrambled and fifteen airplanes had leapt up into the sky, eager for their first rendezvous with the forces of the Demolition Master.

The airplanes took their aerial stations strung out in a line across the river valley. There they hung, cruising slowly northward. Each pilot scanned the horizon before him. Each man wished to be the first to spot the oncoming enemy.

Sharp, trained eyes picked out the tiny craft, buzzing southward like angry bees. The fighter pilots formed up and checked their guns. Each man picked out a target and grimly set his sights. On the ground their commanding officer had told them, “They're too fast for us to catch them. You get one pass. You've got to make every bullet count.” The pilots were determined to follow their orders and end the flight of the Demolition Master's robot planes here at the first line of defense.

Like two ancient cavalry armies, the opposing airborne forces bore down on one another. Tongues of flame began flashing from the machinegun barrels of the fighter planes as the pilots opened up on their targets. Tracer rounds revealed the path of the gunfire. The robot aircraft were greeted with a storm of hot lead that fairly saturated the air between the onrushing combatants. With almost impossible speed, the flying bombs grew from toy-sized dots into snarling war machines hurtling mindlessly forward. There was a sudden, deafening roar as the machines tore through the line of fighter planes, heedless of the streams of bullets poured into their ranks.

In a second, the engagement was over. The missiles flashed by and continued on their errand of destruction. The fighter planes fanned out in wide, looping turns. Against all logic, the pilots hoped for a second chance to chase down their prey, but it was far too late. The flying bombs had broken through the Poughkeepsie line unharmed. The defenders of Line A had failed to stop the first wave of the assault on New York. There was nothing left for them to do but regroup and wait for the next wave, wiser and determined to make up for their failure.

In the south, puffs of smoke and a low rumble showed that anti-aircraft batteries positioned along the river had opened up on the passing robot bombs. The gunners pumped shell after shell into the sky, but with little experience firing live ammunition, actual battle was a totally new experience to them and today they had to learn their fighting skills on the job.

Defense line B was already in the air over Tarrytown when they received word that the Poughkeepsie defenses had been breached. They knew now that they would face the full fury of the flying bombs. Knowing now the number and disposition of the craft they faced, the pilots arranged their machines in a tight formation and thundered up the river in search of the airborne destroyers. A constant flow of radio messages from the anti-aircraft emplacements kept the defenders apprised of the progress of the hostile planes.

In minutes, the flying bombs had been spotted. The pilots of Line B opened up their throttles and charged, guns blazing, holding a steady course until the last possible second. Two of the robot planes were already smoking when the defenders opened fire and one of them went down, exploding in a ball of flame on the surface of the river. In their grim determination to hold the line, the pilots took no evasive action until the robot planes were almost on top of them. Then, with violent twists of the controls, they swung their speeding craft up and away, looping through the sky to regain their positions. One hapless pilot, an instant too late in making his escape, caught a wingtip on one of the oncoming bombs. In the shattering impact, the fighter plane was torn to pieces and the flying bomb smashed. Both craft spun wildly out of control, whirling together in a death dance until they crashed and exploded on the riverbank, below. While Line B regrouped, four of the flying bombs flew on to continue their merciless mission of doom.

In the sky over New York, the pilots of Line C awaited their meeting with destiny. From radio reports beamed down from the north, they knew the almost unstoppable nature of the enemy they faced. They also knew that it was up to them to give whatever it would take to save the great city from destruction. They pointed their machines north, striving to meet the menace as far from the city center as possible. Each pilot swore a grim oath that the flying bombs would not pass as long as he was alive to fight. In two ranks, one following the other, New York's last line of defense moved out to face the enemy.

The men did not have long to search. With a sickening suddenness, the flying bombs loomed up before them. There was not a second's hesitation. At full speed, the pilots hurled their war birds into the fray. They knew they were living through their last moments. Laying down what they knew to be a nearly useless curtain of fire, the airmen of the first rank plowed straight into the four oncoming missiles.

Two of the bombs exploded in mid air, detonated by the collision as the fighter planes dove straight into them. Half a dozen airplanes were taken out by the force of the combined blast and the sky over New York turned to flame. Another airplane and bomb broke up in the impact and swirled down, locked in a fatal embrace, to crash in the crowded neighborhoods below. The terrific shock of the exploding warhead flattened half a block of houses and buried dozens of people in the wreckage. Residents and firemen scrambled frantically to train hoses upon the burning debris that rained down. The last bomb was knocked off course and ended its mission in a long, looping dive, heading downward until it buried itself in the mud on the Jersey side of the river. The pilot of the plane that struck it pointed the nose of his wrecked craft straight down at the water and bailed out. At the sight of his parachute, boats put out from the river's edge, racing for the honor of being first to reach him where he fell.

By this time Line A was charging at full tilt toward the next wave of flying bombs, determined to make good their failure to inflict damage on the first group. With icy deliberation, they trained their weapons on the oncoming robot planes and poured a withering fusillade into the knot of stubby aircraft. Not yet aware of the successful ramming tactics used by the defenders farther south, they improved their aim and stitched holes along the fuselages, blasted chunks from the wings and tailplanes. As the pilots banked into their turns they suddenly cheered to see two of the flying bombs go down into the river below.

In their positions along the riverside, the anti-aircraft gunners sent up one shell after another, erecting a curtain of red hot steel splinters across the path of the unheeding robot planes. Even civilians crowded the riverside, popping away furiously with whatever small arms they had brought from their homes. The swift missiles ran a fiery gauntlet as they made their deadly flights southward.

Down the line, the pilots of lines B and C selflessly traded their own lives for the lives of their fellow citizens on the ground. Plane after plane exploded in mid air, each taking a flying bomb with it. A few airmen were able to bail out just before impact. These were picked up within minutes by the grateful boaters below, and were rushed to receive medical care in the crowded hospital emergency rooms. Two flying bombs pierced the city defenses and exploded with devastating results in the center of downtown Manhattan. The concrete canyons of New York rang with the noise of explosions, sirens, and thundering aircraft engines.

A third wave swept through, tearing a path of fiery destruction through the dwindling numbers of fighting airplanes. Line A, having run out of ammunition, had no choice but to place their own aircraft directly in the path of the oncoming missiles, lighting the sky with a spray of burning aviation fuel when their planes were crushed, with the result that only two bombs made it through to continue down the river through the gauntlet of anti-aircraft fire. Yet these two flying bombs, with the mysterious luck that sometimes occurs in combat, pierced the second line and made it all the way down to New York before the suicidal pilots of Line C blasted them out of the air in a terrific explosion that blew out the windows of skyscrapers below.

A fourth wave roared in. The anti-aircraft gunners, too young to have served in the Great War, were mastering their skills in a life and death struggle now, rather than practicing on harmless targets. They had now adjusted to the speed of the stubby planes, and brought down two from this last group. The Hudson River valley rang to the cheers of citizens who watched the gunners thinning out the ranks of robot bombs before they could reach the ragged lines of fighter planes farther south.

Finally, the last group swept over and was destroyed by the suicidal remnants of the once-powerful fighter force. The defenders waited in vain for another deadly wave to darken the skies. Not knowing what more to expect, the ragged elements of the three defensive lines re-formed and stayed aloft, patrolling until the lack of fuel forced them down. For the rest of the day and into the night, aircraft roamed the skies over the Hudson River, watching for an enemy that did not appear. The Demolition Master had inflicted a day of terror upon New York, but his day was done. Battered but unbowed, the great city had been saved by the master plan of Rachel Rocket and the courageous sacrifice of gallant American airmen.

The sun rose on a city already beginning the task of recovering from the savage attack it had suffered the day before. The areas where the two flying bombs had struck, one on East Thirty-fourth Street and the other near Times Square, were cordoned off and engineers were finishing up their inspections so that the clean-up crews could get in and begin their work. The worst of the rush had already passed through the hospital emergency rooms, but new cases were still brought in hourly. Exhausted doctors and nurses went about their duties non-stop, with the robot-like efficiency that came from hours of unrelieved stress. Fires set by burning debris had been dealt with all over the area.

Rachel had opened up her room and now two cots shared the space with her and Mitzi. Rachel herself, hobbling on crutches, had taken over some of the duties of nursing her friend through her coma. Mitzi had still not stirred since she had been brought in and placed under medical care. Though the impact of her fall had been blunted by landing atop a parked car, she had struck her head severely in the tumble to the street. Her unprotected skull had been no match for the concrete pavement. Now, her head swathed in bandages, she hovered in the shadowy no-man's land between life and death. There was little Rachel could do other than to watch over her friend and hope for the best.

For Rachel, with her leg encased in plaster and her chest taped tightly to immobilize her broken ribs, the effort of moving off the bed to Mitzi's side was almost more than she could bear. She suppressed a groan of pain with every movement of her body, not wishing to further burden the nurses who already had their hands full with the influx of wounded.

Outside the hospital, trucks rumbled through the city streets, carrying loads of rubble to docks near Battery Park, from which it would be taken out to sea on scows and dumped. Work crews bulldozed collapsed buildings in the Bronx as stunned families stood by and watched their homes scraped up like so much trash. The good will of neighbors and charitable groups manifested itself so that no one went without shelter during the uncertain days following the attack. Under Rachel's direction, the Rocket Foundation, as well as other philanthropic groups, had already begun studying how best to respond to the terrible humanitarian crisis. In Manhattan itself, the bombs that had made it through the city's air defenses had struck near Pennsylvania Station and the Times Square bus terminal. Judging from these hits, and the earlier strike on the George Washington Bridge, many believed the master plan guiding the attack had been an attempt to cripple the island's transportation facilities and isolate the commercial heart of the nation. There was only one man who could give a certain answer as to what had been the guiding idea behind the aerial attack on New York, and that man, the Demolition Master, was now sought by a grieving and angry nation.

At Rachel's suggestion, the search for the masked fiend had concentrated on Lake Champlain and the surrounding countryside. To the dismay of the civilian population, martial law had been declared in the area. Soldiers from the Plattsburgh barracks now patrolled the roads around the lake and a strict curfew was imposed that would last until the Demolition Master had been located and rooted out of his secret base. Boats were commandeered to make a search of the lake and its islands, for here was where Rachel had told the officials in charge of the search they were most likely to find their prey. Military airplanes buzzed low over the area, searching for signs of a secret airstrip from which the flying bombs could have been launched.

But the Demolition Master had been clever when he had designed his base of operations. He had chosen an island whose shores were thickly wooded. A boat passing nearby would see nothing though the trees masking the interior of the small land mass. The few buildings that made up the airdrome's facilities had been carefully camouflaged to blend in with their surroundings. The launching ramps from which the waves of flying bombs had been released to rain destruction on New York had been dismantled and broken up. Their usefulness was at an end, now that the attack was over. With its buildings concealed, with the launch facilities destroyed, there was little to attract the attention of airborne observers scanning the ground below. Two days went by in the fruitless search. As the second day wound down there was talk of shifting the search area.

Back in her hospital room, Rachel was on the telephone with General Outcault. “General, you've got to keep searching that lake. I've worked this out a dozen times and I know that's where he's holed up,” she explained.

The general spoke calmly and patiently, “I appreciate all the effort you've put into this project, but we feel that we've covered this area pretty thoroughly. If he was there we would have found him, I assure you. You surely understand why we mustn't concentrate all our resources on a dead end. Even now, the Demolition Master could be making good his escape from a spot we haven't yet been able to cover. He's a brilliant man, you know."

“I know how smart he is, General Outcault,” answered Rachel. “I've been studying the guidance system he used to send those bombs into the city. I've never seen anything quite like it, but I'm sure..."

“Now, now,” interrupted General Outcault. “We have experts looking at all the evidence, you know. Please, you just concentrate on getting yourself well, young lady. We appreciate all you've done here, but you've had a terrible shock and now it's time to leave this operation to those best able to bring it to a conclusion."

There it was. “Young lady.” Rachel gritted her teeth at the remark. No matter how many times he had used her help in the past, or would in the future, the gallant aviatrix would always be “young lady” to him. She tried one more time to get through to him.

“Hank has looked at that guidance system and done the calculations and..."

Rachel didn't get a chance to finish before the general said, with dry disapproval, “Hank."

There would be no reaching him now. Rachel realized too late that General Outcault had even less faith in Hank's judgment than in her own. After all, Hank did work for a woman...

“One plane, General,” she pleaded, “searching the coordinates I give you. Just half a day. If we don't find it then we'll know you were right and I was wrong."

“Well,” sighed General Outcault, “One plane...” Obviously the idea of being proven right did hold some appeal for him. Rachel gave him the coordinates.

On the island stronghold of the Demolition Master, preparations were being made to abandon the secret base. Reams of paper were being burned in outdoor heaps in an effort to destroy all information about the masked spymaster's activities in the United States. All the machinery and equipment was being broken up. Much of it was carried to the water's edge and sunk beneath the waves. The Demolition Master knew he could not erase all traces of the concealed airdrome, but he had no intention of making it easy for the Americans to discover his secrets. The secret airdrome he had gone to such pains to build would soon be nothing more than a collection of empty buildings, slowly crumbling under nature's inevitable onslaught.

He went to the small room that formed Gabrielle Rauscher's quarters. Coldly, he eyed the young woman. He welcomed the information she had brought from the Fireline Company, yet it was her interference that had caused him to launch the premature attack on New York. No matter what damage the flying bombs might have done to the city, it was insignificant compared to the disruption of his spy ring and the loss of this secret dagger pointed straight at the economic heart of the United States. In another year or two he might have launched an attack that would cripple the war-making power of the allied nations. What he had been ordered to do today amounted to no more than a trivial display that might have the effect of hardening the resolve of the American people. He shook his head at the foolishness of the leaders he served. Then he looked down at Gabrielle where she sat.

“Your games in America are at an end,” he said. “You will now accompany me back to Greater Neusteria, where I am sure you will continue your meddling."

Gabrielle cast a withering glance a him. “I do not know what you are talking about,” she said.

At times the Demolition Master regretted wearing the mask that concealed his face. He would have liked for Gabrielle to have seen the knowing sneer that warped his evil face.

“You think you have fooled us all with your childish plot,” he said with a chuckle. “I assure you, young miss, that you have fooled no one ... no one except yourself, that is."

“Are you mad?” she asked. “I don't know what you are talking about. When we return to the homeland we will see who my uncle listens to. Whatever you may think of me, you must realize that I do have ... opportunities ... to influence his opinions that you will never have."

The Demolition Master laughed out loud. “You run the risk of stretching yourself rather thin, young miss, for I know the game you are playing. It will be interesting to see which side benefits me the most. Perhaps you would like to ... influence ... me as well?"

Gabrielle could feel the masked spymaster undressing her with his hooded eyes. Her own eyes blazed back hatred until the Demolition Master turned and walked out of the room.

During the days while Rachel lay injured in the hospital, Hank had worked long hours to repair her airplane. Fortunately, the brief attack by the Army fighter plane had done no serious harm, but there were several bullet holes to be patched and the wing needed attention where it had been used to tip over the second flying bomb. Finally, he went over the entire craft with a fine tooth comb, looking for damage not apparent to the casual observer. When he was satisfied that the sleek, silver airplane was in top condition, Hank went to work on another project that he anticipated might come in handy very soon. Doing his best to anticipate the Rachel's needs, he began putting the finishing touches on a detachable metal rack that was bolted to fittings underneath the plane.

A lone fighter pilot cruised low over the surface of Lake Champlain. He was unhappy at being ordered to stay behind to make a final search of the north end of the lake while his comrades were being redeployed in likelier areas. For all anyone knew, the Demolition Master might even now be readying another attack on New York or some other target, yet here he was, pointlessly going over the same ground that had already been covered thoroughly for days. He did his duty though, scanning the little, wooded islands as they slipped beneath his wings.

The hours went by and nothing of interest came into view. The pilot landed once to refuel. He ate and enjoyed an hour of conversation with his mechanic before taking off once again to spend the rest of the afternoon looking down at the same water, the same wooded islands and shoreline. He was more sure than ever that he was wasting his time when he saw a flash of light on one of the islands below him. He circled around once and saw nothing. He flew on, continuing his search. Still, that flash of light, even if it was nothing, was still the most interesting sight he had run across. With nothing much to lose, he made a wide, lazy turn and headed back. He descended slowly as he approached the island, gently losing altitude until he finally swooped in at treetop level. He skimmed in, scanning the ground carefully where a clearing scarred the interior, when suddenly he could hardly believe his eyes. He looked down from the cockpit of his airplane ... and on the ground, a man looked straight up into his eyes.

Even at his slow airspeed, it took only seconds for the fighter plane to clear the island. The pilot made a tight turn and headed back. He came in low and slow once again, giving the land beneath him a hard and thorough look. The man he had seen was gone, but now the pilot was suspicious. The terrain did not look right. There was something unnatural about it. He circled and returned to make yet another pass.

He was sure now that something was not right. Too much of the greenery had an artificial look to it. The clearing had a planned appearance that had not caught his eye before. He was now beginning his fourth pass. He was convinced now that he had stumbled onto something, but wondering if he had found the secret base too late. It appeared to be deserted. At just the moment that thought crossed his mind he heard from below the angry rattle of a machinegun. Although his brain could scarcely believe it, instinct spurred him to bank sharply and open up the throttle. His reaction though, was not faster than the speed of a bullet. He heard the pop and rip of heavy calibre slugs tearing through the fabric-covered wings of his craft.

Rachel was on the telephone with General Outcault, trying to make some sense of what the older man was telling her.

“On reviewing the pilot's story,” he said, “we now think it was probably a hunter he discovered out there. Probably some anti-social sort who didn't want to be bothered."

Shaking her head, Rachel pointed out, “But you said the airplane came under fire from a machine gun! Since when do hunters and hermits carry military weapons?"

But the general was adamant. “I said, young lady, that the pilot told us he took machinegun fire. The aircraft has been thoroughly examined and we have found nothing inconsistent with simple rifle fire."

“And,” he continued before Rachel had a chance to speak, “even if it was more than a simple hunter's rifle, we both know that Thompson guns are all too common among the civilian population in these times. At worst he may have surprised some old bootlegger at his hideout."

“But you're going to check it out, right?” said Rachel.

General Outcault sighed. “Our resources are tied down out west where we've begun searching some interesting rural areas. There are some very promising, isolated spots out there, you know. We'll send another plane back to Lake Champlain as soon as we have one to spare."

Rachel couldn't believe what she was hearing. “What?” she demanded. “But he knows you're onto him now. He's probably clearing out of there as we speak!"

“Young lady,” a note of disapproval had crept into the general's voice, “I've been around for a few years now. Believe me, I know how to handle a simple search operation. And now, IF you will pardon my leaving you rather abruptly, I will hang up now and attend to it. Good day."

The line went dead. Rachel sat for a moment, looking at the receiver, uncertain just what to do. After a few seconds she replaced the instrument in its cradle, looked up, and began yelling for the nurse.

“You are not fit to fly,” insisted Hank. “You can't even walk!"

After Rachel had raised enough Cain, the hospital had finally agreed to release her. When he received her telephone call, Hank had driven over to pick her up. He wasn't happy about her checking out either, but her mind was made up and she was his boss. As they drove back she had told him of her plan to fly up north and survey the island where the Army pilot had been fired upon. The lanky engineer was determined to dissuade her.

“And what will you do if you're shot down?” he demanded. “You can't run, you can't fight, you can't swim. There is nothing for you to accomplish and no way for you to save yourself if anything should happen to the plane."

“He's got Gabrielle,” said Rachel.

“Gabrielle!” exploded Hank. “That girl has betrayed you ... betrayed us all. She's a spy, Rachel. She only came here to steal aircraft design secrets from you and send them back to her country. I hate to think what use Hessler will put them to."

“She'll have to pay for that,” answered Rachel. “And if, God forbid, she had anything to do with the attack on New York I'll do my best to see to it that she never leaves prison alive."

“But,” she continued, “she came to me for sanctuary. For old times’ sake I owe her my protection. I will not let her be dragged back to that crazy uncle of hers."

Hank shook his head and drove on. There was no use arguing. The gallant aviatrix had her own internal morality which she followed to the letter, regardless of whether it made sense to anyone around her. It was a quality he admired in his boss, but which right now was driving him crazy.

When they pulled into the factory yard Hank drove on around to the airstrip where Rachel's airplane waited. He pulled to a stop beside the sleek craft and raced around to help her out of the car. He opened the door for her, but Rachel refused his hand. She heaved herself out of the seat and leaned against the automobile until Hank handed over her crutches. Then they made their way slowly to the airplane. Rachel immediately noticed the modification to the craft's underside and grinned.

“You knew I was flying up there all along, didn't you?” she laughed.

Hank was not as merry, but he agreed. “Yes, I was afraid you might and I wanted you to have every advantage I could give you."

Hank's modification was a bomb rack from which he had slung five small fragmentation bombs. Rachel bent to examine the new armaments while Hank explained the arming and release mechanisms. She straightened up and looked into his eyes.

“Thanks,” she said simply.

“It's not much,” objected Hank. “I don't know if they'll do you any good at all, to tell the truth."

“Every little bit helps,” answered Rachel. “Now help me get up into the cockpit."

Blinking back tears of pain from her ribs and ankle, the gallant aviatrix struggled into the pilot's seat and let Hank help her strap herself in. With only one good leg, her use of the rudder would be limited at best. Controlling the aircraft by depending mostly on the wingflaps would be a supreme test of her ability as a pilot.

Hank prepared to climb into the navigator's seat behind her, but Rachel waved him away. She thought about making an excuse for not taking him along, but finally just blurted out the truth.

“The thing is, Hank,” she admitted, “this might really be a fool's errand like you've been telling me. And if anything really does happen to me up there ... I want to know that you're here to take care of Mitzi."

Hank started to argue but Rachel stopped him.

“Don't bother, Hank,” she said. “I appreciate the thought, but I know that's what you want too."

Hank relented. He too, felt that his duty was clear. He slid the canopy closed and stood clear.

With a final wave, Rachel started the engines, checked her instruments, and the silver aircraft began rolling forward. In minutes, she was airborne and following the course of the Hudson River north.

Rachel's airplane flashed silver as it cruised north up the Hudson River valley. Farms and towns slipped by under her wings and the miles between New York City and Lake Champlain evaporated like smoke in the wind of her prop wash. The river glistened below her, beckoning her onward. As she neared the lake, a radio message crackled in her earphones.

“Rachel, come in, do you hear me? It's Hank. Over."

The gallant aviatrix keyed her microphone and acknowledged the call.

Hank continued his communication. “I've got some news for you. It seems that General Outcault got a bit antsy when he realized you might be heading up there to check things out for yourself. He's sent a company of soldiers from the barracks at Plattsburgh to search the island. They're probably going ashore now."

Rachel grinned. “I'll be there in a few minutes myself, Hank. I'll fly over and if it looks like everything's alright, I'll land and see if they've got Gabrielle and the Demolition Master. Let's hope they've got everything under control."

“Alright, Rachel,” said Hank. “Let me know how things are going up there and when to expect you back. Out."

“Out,” answered Rachel, and pressed on.

Rachel had gained altitude as she had flown over the lake. She quickly covered the length of it and circled the island where the secret base lay. Far below her she could see boats in the water, most likely the craft used by the soldiers from Plattsburgh to reach the Demolition Master's lair. Strangely, they were moving neither toward the island nor away, but milling about with seeming aimlessness several hundred yards off the island's shore. Rachel nosed down to investigate.

The powerful aircraft swept in low over the soldiers’ boats. She saw their faces turn up and fingers pointing skyward. Rachel hurtled onward, eating up the distance that separated her from the island's shore. She would soon learn why the soldiers were unable to land. As the island loomed up quickly before her, she heard the rattle of tiny pellets striking her airplane. The island's defenders were firing machineguns! Rachel swung the plane up and over in a long, climbing turn.

From above, the gallant aviatrix could not see the concealed emplacements that lurked beneath the heavy canopy of treetops. Yet she knew that, like hidden vipers, they lay in wait, ready to strike should Rachel or the soldiers come within range of their deadly sting. The unprotected civilian craft that the Army had commandeered could not face the barrage of hot lead that greeted them when they approached.

Knowing there was no way for her to choose individual targets, Rachel did the next best thing. Picking a spot where it would be easy for the soldiers to come ashore, she flew in low once again, her course parallel to the edge of the island's shore. With one hand working the release mechanism, she dropped the five fragmentation bombs one by one over the stretch of shoreline she had selected. The bombs disappeared from view as they dropped into the trees, but from their boats, the soldiers cheered to see the sudden convulsions of the branches and the whirlwinds of leaves torn loose by the power of the explosions.

At the end of her bombing run, Rachel swung around for a second pass. This time she triggered the twin machineguns slung beneath the wings of her airplane. Flaming bursts danced at the muzzles as she poured a stream of bullets along the tortured shoreline.

In seconds, she had overflown the landing area and was turning inland toward the island's interior. The gallant aviatrix had no illusions that she had wiped out all resistance on the shore. The concealed machinegun nests were doubtlessly well dug in and protected. Her goal had been only to disrupt the defenses and give the Army's men a fighting chance to land. She had done her duty. Now it was up to the officers to prove their worth and get the troops ashore.

Rachel nosed the plane down and dove down onto the clearing where the Demolition Master's airdrome stood. Her sharp eyes caught the outlines of camouflaged buildings and the half-concealed debris from the wrecked launching ramps. She roared in at treetop level, her aircraft's powerful engines thundering their announcement of her arrival. On the ground below, men darted for cover, pausing only long enough to take quick shots at the onrushing plane with whatever small arms they had in their possession. With her normal humanitarian instincts burned away by the Demolition Master's murderous attack on New York, Rachel triggered her guns and blasted a merciless torrent of lead into the saboteurs below. Bodies leaped and twitched as the heavy slugs tore through flesh and thudded into the ground. After two strafing runs she could see that resistance had collapsed and that whatever was left of the Demolition Master's mob of followers had melted away into the trees.

Looking to the east, the gallant aviatrix could see that the Army officers had wasted no time in getting their craft to shore. Although the tree canopies obstructed her view, Rachel could well imagine the fighting taking place in the thick woods below her. It would take a little time yet before the soldiers won through into the clearing. She turned her plane back and began to descend.

Cutting her airspeed as low as she dared, at the risk of stalling out, Rachel dropped the plane down onto the clearing and slammed the brakes. The trees at the end of the clearing rushed sickeningly toward her as the craft bounced crazily across the small, flat space. At the last instant before it would have smashed into the treeline, the sleek airplane shuddered to a halt. Rachel switched off the engines and took a deep breath as the propellers spun down. With her nerves quieted a bit, she slid back the canopy and prepared for what might come next.

The gallant aviatrix could see that if the airplane had continued only a few more feet she might have ended her flying career right on this island. However, now she had a new set of problems to deal with. She reached back to drag forth her crutches and dropped them outside next to the airplane. Next, using all the strength of her arms, she heaved her body up over the edge of the cockpit and slid down onto the wing. She knew she had little time to waste, and lowered herself as gently as possible to the ground, trying to take her weight on her good leg. Her most careful efforts though, were not sufficient to save her from a nauseating wave of pain that erupted from her cracked ribs and ankle. Wary of flying under the influence of medication, Rachel had refused pain-killers and now had nothing but her own will power to quiet the screaming in her broken bones. Moving with agonized slowness, she gathered her crutches from the ground and began to hobble toward the buildings of the Demolition Master's base.

The crackle of gunfire drifted from the woods around her, and Rachel knew that the soldiers would soon fight their way into the clearing. She hurried as best she could, hoping to find Gabrielle before the Army took possession of the place.

The buildings were plainly visible now that she looked at them from ground level. Rachel's long familiarity with aviation facilities allowed her to identify with ease the function of most of the structures she saw. There were hangars, barracks, storage sheds, machine shops. Doors on many of the buildings hung open and she could see evidence of equipment hastily destroyed. Apparently the airdrome had been built specifically to house and launch the weapons that had struck New York. There was no evidence of any other activity in the place. Now that its mission had been accomplished, it was to be dismantled and abandoned. She continued on toward the one building that was slightly more imposing than the others. As she neared it, she heard snatches of shouted argument.

Rachel stepped through the open door. The front room was littered with scattered papers, some of them half-burned. File cabinets stood with drawers open or lay on the floor where they had been toppled in the hasty process of destroying what lay within. A hallway led back to the rear and she moved quietly along it, following the sound of voices.

“You are an evil man and you will pay for it!” shrieked one of the voices.

“Gabrielle!” thought Rachel. She hurried forward, only to halt as she heard the other voice reply.

First there was a malicious laugh, then a man's voice spoke, “And who will make me pay? Your uncle? Do you truly believe him to be wrapped around your little finger?” Another laugh. “Or is it to be ... Grunding?"

“And what if it is?” the girl retorted. “When he assumes power in our homeland do you think he will forget the mission I undertook for him here?"

The man's voice dripped with scorn. “You are a worse fool than I had thought, if that is possible, to imagine that either one of those two thinks of you as anything more than a toy. Perhaps a useful toy at the moment, but a toy, nonetheless."

“You've played them both quite skillfully,” the man's voice continued, “waiting to see which would emerge as the true power in our country. However, I shall be quite happy to put a word in both their ears, and let them decide what to do with you..."

“No!” screamed the girl.

The next words from Gabrielle and the man were unintelligible, but the anger was clearly building to a climax. Rachel started forward again. Suddenly there was a single shot, and the sound of a body striking the floor.

Rachel entered the room and saw her friend Gabrielle standing over the motionless form of a man. In her hand, the Neusterian girl held a smoking revolver. She looked up at Rachel with dangerous eyes.

“And what do you want here?” she asked.

Rachel spoke quietly and sadly. “I came to help you. We were friends."

“Friends?” sneered Gabrielle. “You wealthy, privileged parasite. You come to my country and throw your money around and think it buys my friendship? You disgust me."

“I thought you were in danger,” said Rachel. “I thought you came to me for help to start a new life, free of your uncle. I really had no idea just what you were up to."

A hard laugh escaped Gabrielle's lips. “So I used my uncle ... and now I've used you. And I've even used this pathetic fool here, until he became more trouble than he was worth."

Gabrielle's foot nudged the body. Rachel could not see its face. She noticed that the head was covered with a piece of rumpled, silk cloth.

“So was that the great Demolition Master?” asked Rachel.

“Great?” laughed Gabrielle. “He was just another fool. Had he simply waited for me to return, as we had planned, instead of panicking and launching that idiotic attack on the bridge, I would have been on my way back home now, with your plans to help us build a new air force of super-fast fighter planes."

Regretfully, Rachel said, “I was right when I told Hank you'd changed. You're far from the same, sweet girl I knew during my school days."

But Gabrielle ignored the words. “I'll leave now,” she said. “I'll get back to Greater Neusteria with the information I stole from you. And when Hans Grunding sees what I have done for him, we can finally cease the pretending and work together to rebuild Neusteria under his leadership."

Rachel shook her head. “Your time has run out, Gabrielle,” she said. “Listen."

The two women were silent. From outside, they heard the shouting voices of soldiers approaching the building. The island's defense had been overcome, and now forces were approaching that would seize the facility and take the girl away to whatever fate awaited spies and saboteurs. Gabrielle turned white with shock as the reality of the situation came home to her. Her hands went to her breast in a gesture of anxiety. She looked into Rachel's eyes.

“Wait!” said Rachel. “No!” She lurched forward.

But the gallant aviatrix was too slow on her crutches. A shot rang out. Gabrielle's pistol tumbled to the floor. She swayed on her feet, a piteous look in her eyes.

Rachel watched her friend collapse, dead before she hit the floor. The hands flopped out to either side of the girl's body and Rachel could clearly see the bullet hole in her chest, from which a few drops of blood still oozed. In her terror at the prospect of capture and disgrace, Gabrielle Rauscher had put a bullet through her own heart, the scheming heart that had led her down a road of treachery and left her dead on a tiny island in a foreign country.

“Anybody in here?” a voice shouted from the front room. “Get your hands up!"

Rachel looked toward the doorway. A young soldier stood there, nervously pointing a rifle at her. She smiled sadly and held her hands out from her sides. “It's ok, soldier,” she said. “It's all over now."

Rachel stood still and made no effort to resist as the soldier checked the bodies of Gabrielle Rauscher and the Demolition Master. The young man turned back to her. Seeing her flying clothes he asked, “You're not the pilot who bombed the shoreline for us, are you?"

At her affirmative answer he eyed her dubiously, as if he was not ready to believe that a woman on crutches could have silenced the defensive guns that had held the landing boats at bay. She shrugged and said, “Get your commanding officer and have him telephone General Outcault. He'll vouch for me and clear this up for you."

She smiled kindly at the soldier. “Relax. Look at my leg. You can see I'm not going to run off."

The soldier smiled back. He could see that this was true, for her leg was still cased in plaster. As if suddenly realizing that it was an injured woman who stood before him, propped up on crutches, he slid a chair up to her and motioned for her to sit down. Rachel gratefully took the seat.

“Thanks,” she said. Holding one hand up reassuringly, the gallant aviatrix reached carefully into her jacket pocket and withdrew a pack of cigarettes.

“Smoke?” she offered.

When the officer in command of the company finally stepped into the building, he found Rachel and the soldier sitting companionably. The young man tossed his cigarette aside and jumped to attention. The commander's eyes narrowed at the scene until he recognized her.

“That was some job you did, opening up the landing area and securing this building for us,” he said. He glanced around at the files scattered about. “Looks like the boys in Washington are going to have a field day with all this,” he added.

Suddenly he noticed the two bodies on the floor. “Who are they?” he asked.

“I think, Major,” answered Rachel, “you'll find that the man is the Demolition Master himself."

“I see,” said the officer. “What about the girl?"

Rachel swallowed, and spoke. “She was ... a prisoner. I couldn't save her."

With the fall of the Demolition Master's secret airdrome, shadowy agents hidden in the United States flashed a coded message across the Atlantic. Within hours of the masked spymaster's death, a timid attendant knocked gently upon the door to the vast, operatic office of Anton Hessler, dictator of Greater Neusteria. At a word, he entered, bowing, and placed a small slip of paper on His Excellency's desk. Upon receiving his dismissal, he exited quickly. The door closed behind him.

Hessler scanned the paper and flipped it across the desk to his only companion in the room. A variety of curious emotions played subtly across his features as he watched Hans Grunding's pudgy hand take up the note. The Armed Forces Minister read the words with a sour expression. News of the Demolition Master's end was clearly a disappointment to him.

“Bad news...” prompted Hessler.

“Clearly,” agreed the bulky minister. “Years spent putting him in place ... building his organization ... supplying him ... All down the drain now."

“Yes, Grunding,” answered Hessler. “The attack on New York was premature, to say the least. I wonder why he would have launched it?” He looked carefully into Grunding's face.

Grunding considered his answer. He wondered for a moment if His Excellency knew of the order telephoned to the masked spymaster across the ocean. “Difficult to say,” he began. “Perhaps years among the Americans had corrupted him ... weakened his sense of discipline..."

Hessler's eyes twinkled. “That's a very good answer, old friend. I value your perspective on this matter. I knew I could count on you to have an explanation ready for me."

“You can always count on me, Your Excellency,” said Grunding. Feeling a bit more sure of himself now, he warmed up to some serious chest-thumping. “As always, Anton, I am at your service. Have been since the beginning, and will always continue to aid you in the great task of restoring the honor and power of our homeland. The demise of the Demolition Master is but a minor bump in the road of our march to glory!"

“My faithful Hans!” gushed Hessler. “What would I ever do without you? Yes, at least the Demolition Master had the courtesy to die rather than submit to capture. Dead men tell no tales,” he smiled. “And leave cold trails!"

Grunding threw back his head for an expansive laugh. “Absolutely right!"

“Pity about the girl,” said Hessler, suddenly quiet. His remark was like a bucket of ice water poured over Grunding's joviality.

“Um, yes...” said the Armed Forces Minister. “A terrible tragedy. I know how you ... um ... how you ... cared for her."

“You did know that, didn't you?” noted Hessler.

Grunding was on his guard again. As part of Hessler's inner circle, he well knew that the dictator's affection for Gabrielle Rauscher had little in common with an uncle's normal consideration for a favored niece.

“And you, too, Grunding ... This news must be a blow to you as well."

The Armed Forces Minister now knew that he trod on very thin ice. He put on his most innocent expression, as if he were totally unaware of what the dictator referred to.

Hessler grinned. “Oh come now, old friend. Do you truly believe me to be so unaware of what goes on around me?"

Grunding held his breath a moment. He looked deeply into Hessler's enigmatic eyes. The dictator waited patiently, giving away nothing more than the knowing grin. At last, the bulky minister sighed.

“I fear, Anton,” he said, “that the quest for greatness has deprived us of yet another one of our shared pleasures."

The two men's faces split in wide, ugly smiles of amusement and they laughed together as they shared an afternoon of mocking reminiscences.

Back in New York, Rachel and her friends shared smiles of quite another type. They gathered in the hospital room around Mitzi's bed. Hank and Rachel looked alternately at the bed, and up at each other, for Mitzi had awakened from her coma! Not yet her old, chipper self, still, she had a ready smile and was clearly on the mend. Frustrated at having slept through all the action, she demanded every detail of the past days. With her head still swathed in bandages, Mitzi lay back on her pillows and listened to the tale of Rachel's assault on the island fortress. At last, the nurse came in to insist on rest and quiet for her patient.

With New York safe and federal agents rounding up what was left of the Demolition Master's spy ring, the friends could afford to relax and mend. And yet Rachel would often think back on the sad fate of Gabrielle Rauscher, and the twisted ambition that had finally betrayed her.

Tentacles of Evil (c) 2004 by Stephen Adams. Nemesis Magazine, Anvil Periodicals are fictitious creations of Stephen Adams and do not represent any real publication or publishing company, past or present. Richard Maxxon, E. Marshall Owens & Yasmine King are pseudonyms for Stephen Adams and do not represent any writer or artist, living or dead. Gun Moll, Rachel Rocket, Victory Rose, Femme Noir, and their images are creations of Stephen Adams and (c) Stephen Adams. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from Stephen Adams, 307 S. Montgomery St., Spencer, IN 47460. Email: solitarybird@yahoo.com

IN OUR NEXT ISSUE...

In December, 1941, the U.S. was forced into the boiling cauldron of World War II. Willing but still unready for the task at hand, the nation geared up for the greatest military conflict of all time. Within weeks, a new kind of soldier appeared on the scene—Major Victoria Rose Hardwyck (a.k.a. Victory Rose). Her origins were labeled “Top Secret,” and they remain classified in government files even to this day. When the first accounts of her heroic battles against Nazi tyranny leaked to an incredulous public, Victory Rose, Nemesis of Axis Tyranny, was thought to be a legend, her figure barely glimpsed in flashes of gunfire. Later, as the true accounts of her exploits were released as a morale builder, America found herself with a new ally and a powerful weapon in the war against the Axis. Later, when Nazi Germany tottered on the verge of collapse, Victory Rose and her unit were given her most challenging assignment: fly to Berlin and steal or destroy the newest and greatest of the German Wonder Weapons. In a last ditch effort to halt the Allied advance, Nazi scientists have created the War Trumpet, a device capable of knocking out electronic devices all along the battlefront and leaving the Allied Army at the mercy of a devastating counterattack. Trapped alone in the besieged German capital of Berlin, Victory Rose fights for her life against SS execution squads, faces the fury of a frenzied mob, and locks horns with Schickelgruber himself, Adolf Hitler, in his bunker deep beneath the city. To survive she must form an uneasy alliance with Russian commandoes led by her old flame, Alexei Kruszynski. But the game becomes more complicated when Victory Rose discovers that to accomplish her mission, she will not only have to recover the secrets of Nazi technology for the Allies, but keep it out of the hands of the Communists as well. For gripping World War II action, read “The Fuhrer's Final Trumpet,” a pivotal episode in the saga of Victory Rose!

For an exciting preview of “The Fuhrer's Final Trumpet,” visit the Nemesis magazine home page at: www.geocities.com/solitarybird/nemesis.html

It was one of those bars you end up in after a movie or a do it yourself dinner. Inside, they played thin reedy music, the kind of stuff that used to be popular in the sixties—favored by the oldies and the sentimental at heart. Half the time you couldn't hear anything anyway above the blanket of noise and anonymous chatter. There was a little open square among the tables where you could dance if you wanted to, or just cling to someone. The drinks weren't watered and the bartender would talk to you if he wasn't busy. It was cheaper than a session with my shrink and delivered the same kind of service.

Maybe it was the slow pace or the square atmosphere, but there were always a lot of young people hanging around. Some came to enjoy the novelty, liked the mood and the dated sounds and many of them became regulars.

That's how I met Dan.

We were checking out the scenery after ordering; mine was a scotch and dry, no ice. When the drinks arrived, he appeared to scrutinize the amber fluid, gave me a sidelong glance and shrugged.

“If I wanted a decent drink, I wouldn't be here,” he decided and raised his tumbler in a salute.

He wore a gray corduroy blazer and black trousers. Clear blue eyes regarded me with amused cynicism. His hair was light brown that sat on his head in a thick mop. It was streaked with strands of white. He had the kind of rugged exterior that made women fall at his feet and men take orders from.

I tried to suppress my jealousy and returned the salute.

“Check,” I said with a grin and glanced briefly at the crowd. “It's only a diversion."

The bar was a very good place to get picked up—by either sex.

His laugh was deep and lit up his eyes. No pretense there and I began to warm to him. The eyes can tell you a lot about a person. He leaned back against the bar and scanned the room.

“The name is Dan,” he said and stuck out a meaty a hand.

“Frank,” I said and nodded. His hand was cool and dry and we maneuvered for a knuckle crusher. He had the height and reach, but I only smiled as his expression changed from a confident smirk into a surprised grimace of pain. I let him go before he was reduced to squirming.

“Damn!” he grunted massaging his hand. “It's been a while since I came off second best."

“I'll be around whenever you want a reminder.” We had a hearty chuckle at that.

Looking around, he suddenly pointed with his head. “Frank! Take a look at that chassis, man."

I followed his glance and almost missed her.

She wasn't all that tall, but there was something about the way she stood, a power held in check that radiated from her and made me stare. I could swear that for a second every male eye in the room was turned on her. Must have been my imagination.

Her black hair spilled across her shoulders and hung straight above a slim waist. She had a long oval face that framed large ebony eyes, a thin delicate nose and generous red lips. I couldn't see any makeup. She wore a velvety brown-black dress that clung without being tight.

She was attractive, but I had seen better.

“Not bad,” I said offhandedly.

Dan shook his head and gave me a cold grin.

“You happen to leave your eyeballs at home or something? Step aside. This is man's work, sonny.” Without taking his eyes off the woman, he absently placed the tumbler on the bar top and stood up.

Amused, I watched as he walked up to her and said something. She gave him a quizzical look, nodded and smiled. I took a sip and when I looked up they were gone.

I didn't think much of it then, but I remember the angry scowl hanging on the bartender's face when he gave me a refill. To hell with him. I wasn't Dan's keeper, and a man was free to run his own life.

It was a few weeks later that I bumped into Dan again—and didn't recognize him.

I was hanging against the bar for emotional support when this old guy quietly slipped in beside me. He had peppery gray hair worn kind of long and skin hanging off his jowls. He must have been powerful once. Now, he was just another old-timer trying to recapture something he happened to leave behind in his youth.

“Pops,” I said pleasantly and nodded.

His clear blue eyes sparkled as he grinned. “How you doing, Frank?"

The voice was kind of familiar and I frowned as I studied him. Then my jaw fell as I took in the gray corduroy blazer and the dark trousers.

“Dan?” I asked, not believing my eyes.

“I always knew you were a pretty sharp boy, Frank,” he wheezed, nodding.

“What the hell happened to you? You look...” I trailed off, but deep down I knew. The knowledge sent my skin crawling.

“Yeah, I know. I look like hell.” He raised a finger and ordered a drink. He didn't say anything, just stared into space as he waited for that drink. I let him have the moment.

The bartender shook his head as he slid the tumbler across the top.

“On the house,” he growled and stomped away, but not before giving me an accusing glare. I glared back. Screw him! Everyone was entitled to ruin their own life.

“Don't mind him,” I told Dan.

“Let's find a quiet place,” Dan grunted and we carried our drinks to an empty table tucked into a dark corner. The music followed us, but I didn't mind. Looking at him, I still couldn't believe it. It had been awhile...

“Dan?"

“I know, I know,” he said tiredly. “I'm dying."

“Dying? From what?"

He smiled and his eyes lit up. “Would you believe love?"

“Come on, Dan. I'm serious."

“So am I."

When he looked at me, there was no pretense, no regrets. “It was her."

He didn't have to explain. I knew. “How?” But I knew that too. He shook his head and shrugged.

“I don't know. There was something about her that made her different from any other woman I ever knew. And she made herself like that for me. She wanted me."

“What're you talking about?"

There was a wistful smile on his face and some of the years seemed to fall away and I could see his old face. Then he looked at me, an old and angry man.

“When I picked her up, or maybe she did the picking. It doesn't matter. Anyway, we both knew where it would lead to. She had me captivated, or bewitched. I don't know."

“Yeah, you were taken in by her, all right."

He snorted and took a quick gulp. “It's not that. She was pretty, but nothing spectacular. What I mean is, when she looked at me, I knew that I was the only man in the world for her. And that's a powerful weapon, my boy. I was hers and I knew it and something in the back of my mind told me to get the hell out of there in a hurry. But it was too late. My hormones were doing my thinking for me."

“So you were swept off your feet. A one-night stand."

“Sure, except that it lasted for three weeks. Then one morning, I looked in the mirror and saw a stranger. She was gone and her things with her. And in those three weeks, I lived a lifetime."

He looked at me, eyes glistening and a shiver ran down my spine. Obviously she has gone rogue. That wasn't good.

“And you know something? I didn't care. I didn't! Who knows? Maybe she left that with me as some kind of compensation."

I twirled my tumbler, brooding. “You still haven't told me what happened, Dan."

“I don't know what happened! All I know, as I grew weaker, she grew stronger, more radiant, more compelling. When we made love, I could feel my strength draining from me. Frank, making love to that woman was like losing yourself."

“You did,” I said dryly. “But, Dan, you know what you're saying? How do you know that she made you old? You could have caught something...” I trailed off feebly, somehow believing him as suppressed memories returned. It wasn't supposed to happen like this!

“I can see it in your eyes, Frank,” he said gently and I looked away, surprised that the pain was still there. “All women take something from you when you love. This one just took a bit more than most."

Yeah, his life.

A week later he was dead.

And I was beginning to have doubts. When you strip away the fog of emotion, what he said began to seem pretty far fetched. Sure, he had looked old and now he was dead, but there were a lot of other plausible explanations for that. Weren't there? But I wasn't really fooling myself.

I sighed in disgust. Something would have to be done.

It was a cool evening and the wind keened softly through the alleys. A thin fog was beginning to settle, shrouding the city lights in a soft blanket. I never meant to drop in for a drink that night, but I'd had a long day and the thought of making my own dinner didn't hold much appeal.

I was just finishing my drink when there was a moment of silence as she slid on the bar stool next to me. She ordered something in a low contralto voice. Our eyes met and I could feel my face drain.

She wore that same brown-black dress and her large ebony eyes seemed to widen as I looked into them. They were completely opaque and I couldn't see any reflection in them. Her hair was tied in a knot above her head, extenuating her long face. She touched the corner of her mouth with the tip of a small pointed tongue and smiled slowly.

“Hi,” she husked, revealing even white teeth, not recognizing me for what I was. “You look like you've seen a ghost."

“You reminded me of someone,” I said after a moment, drinking in her face. Yep, the power was there, all right.

“It must have been a painful reminder. Perhaps I should leave."

“No,” I said firmly, afraid that I would lose her. “It was something a long time ago.” I couldn't believe I was saying that. She had captivated me with a glance and something at the back of my mind was screaming at me to run. For a moment, I wanted to ask her about Dan. Luckily I had enough sense to keep my mouth shut. For what I was about to do, I had to keep my wits about me or it was likely that I would end up like Dan. And that just wouldn't do.

With a smile that didn't touch her eyes, she placed a small hand on my arm.

“I'll make you forget her."

I believed her. I slipped some notes on the bar and stood up. We made our way between the tables and walked out.

I had a fairly large apartment not far from downtown. It was a ten-minute drive. While the car hummed to itself, she didn't say anything. She just sat there, the silence broken by the whisper of tires and the traffic around us. I felt strangely content and at peace, warm in her presence. I didn't want to spoil it with words.

She touched my arm and I glanced at her outline, her face in shadow. On impulse, I pulled over and for a moment we listened to the throb of the engine.

“I don't even know your name,” I said softly, trying to make out her face.

She seemed to hesitate, then turned her head, her hair swaying.

“Kaneel."

The air seemed to tremble as I savored the sound.

“Mine's—"

“Frank, I know."

I was pleased that she knew that.

I pulled into the curb and helped her out. We walked up the steps and into a smoky foyer. The elevator sighed to a stop and the doors slid away. Our footsteps were soundless in the thick pile as we walked slowly down the corridor. I gave her a brief smile as I fitted the key into the lock of my apartment.

I hung my jacket and found her in the lounge, eyeing the rows of books that lined the dark shelves and the little trinkets that cluttered the rest of the furniture. I kept the place neat. That always went down well with the ladies.

“You have a very nice place, Frank.” She flashed me a smile and opened one of the two bedroom doors. She didn't turn on the lights.

I walked slowly toward her. She had her back to me, outlined in black against the backdrop of outside lights. Slowly, I placed my hands on her shoulders and felt her stiffen. Then she turned and melted against me.

Her lips were soft and cool against mine. Fire ran down my back as our tongues touched. I looked into her eyes, black pools, cold and unblinking.

The zipper hardly made a sound as I moved it down her back. I pulled at her shoulder straps and the dress caught at the swell of her breasts. She was breathing rapidly, her chest straining against me, fingers working on the buttons of my shirt.

This was madness! My head was whirling and I couldn't do anything to stop it.

Dan!

Then her cool, satin flesh was against mine, her hair spilling across her shoulders, arms around my neck.

“You're mine,” she whispered against my ear as I picked her up, desire welling within me even as part of me screamed.

I figured I had about five days.

At least I had none of that crap that goes with old age—rheumatism, stiff joints and constant pain. I was just old, senile maybe. But that wasn't an affliction of only the old.

I'd get over it.

She had stayed for three days, then left suddenly. One morning I woke up and she was gone, leaving only the memories. I knew what Dan must have gone through, suspecting the truth, but still willing to pay the price. For what she had to give, any man would. I did.

I took some time off work and waited. She came back on the fourth day.

Her hair was white, streaked with gray and her face had gone all wrinkly and dry. The eyes were still deep black, but something had gone out of them.

I knew how she felt.

“You bastard!” she croaked as I opened the door.

“Come in, Kaneel,” I said easily.

“You knew what I was and you still did it! Why?"

The smile slipped off my face as I looked at her. “You took too much."

“I gave them a lifetime!"

“You took too much! We need what they have to survive, but you turned that need into a sport. I couldn't let that continue."

“And who are you to set yourself up as my judge?"

“How many men have you taken, Kaleen, and discarded? No, you brought this on yourself."

She broke then, dry sobs racking her body as she buried her face in her hands. The power was still in her and it touched me. For a moment, I felt sorry for her. Those tears would have worked on anyone else, but I wasn't just anyone.

Finally, she looked at me, her face wet.

“I really cared for you, Frank. You weren't like the others. I couldn't go through with it."

“Is that why you left me after only three days?"

She nodded, her eyes swimming.

I shook my head, smiling. “I wish I could believe that, Kaneel. But I felt your unease, your doubts. You were beginning to suspect what I was. You left to save yourself."

“I don't want to die!"

I knew she meant that, but it was too late.

I felt better the next day. My hair was getting some of its color back and my skin tone was firmer. It would take some time before I was my old self again. But that was all right. I could wait.

They found her body behind some bar two days later, a wistful smile on her face.

The smoke spiraled up from his cigarette, engulfed his head and stung his nose: an acrid, chemical smell. He came back to consciousness and jerked his eyes up from his notebook to the ashtray. The coal was burning the filter. He stabbed it out with a muttered, “Shit."

He squeezed his eyes tightly shut, then opened them Now. He resumed reading, sitting rigid in his armchair, concentrating fiercely on the page of yellow paper in the notebook.

He might have been moving his eyes left to right, left to right, over blank paper. After finishing the first sentence he looked up and tried to visualize what he had read. Impossible. His recalcitrant memory would show him only one thing:

The spiral.

He slammed the book shut and started to throw it at a wall. Instead he got up, set the book aside and began pacing the room. His feet shook the floor as they fell. Down to the window by his littered desk, a pause to stare out at the barbershop across the street, back past the couch and reading lamp to the table with—the record player. Halfway through a turn he gave it up and went into the kitchen to make lunch.

Hours ago he'd seen the advertisement on the inside front cover of Popular Mechanics. He'd bought the magazine yesterday and started reading it this morning at breakfast. He hadn't gotten far.

LEARN HYPNOTISM!

Below the big block letters was a small, closely ruled spiral, a picture of part of the equipment advertised in the mail-order hypnotism course. The original, he read, was the size of a phonograph record, and was meant to be played like one, without the needle.

His eyes were drawn to the center, down into a whirlpool of black, and white. And then it started to spin ... He gazed at it for minutes, watching the darting illusory line that seemed to shimmer around the center like the gleam of sunlight on a revving propeller.

He jerked his eyes away, annoyed at himself. He was wasting time. He turned some pages and started reading.

He couldn't remember, now, what the article was about. He had kept turning back to the inside front cover, where a whirlpool spun in beating tides of grey: motion in a printed page, defying his eyes to find beginning or end. Finally he had thrown the magazine aside and started preparing the next lesson in his Famous Photographer's course.

He couldn't remember what he'd done since.

It wasn't really lunchtime, but he felt restless and needed something to do. So he went to the refrigerator, took out a hard-boiled egg, some lettuce, mayonnaise, half a lemon, two slices of bread and a tomato, and brought them over to the sideboard. He started grating the egg and mixing in mayonnaise and pepper. Then he remembered what he'd forgotten. The sardines.

In a sardine sandwich.

The spiral took form in the shadows of the kitchen: an illusion of light and dark that slowly began to spin. He shook his head and concentrated on the lettuce. Chop! Chop! The spiral faded, vanished. He relaxed. Pain stung his left thumb and he looked down to see blood welling from the cut.

He put the knife down and stood back, rage boiling within him. And there in the air before the ceiling, darkness began to run together and spin...

After lunch he lay on his back, his arms under his head, the curving textured pattern of the bedspread pressing into the skin of his bare back. He wouldn't be able to sleep tonight if he slept now. He never could. But he was tired, and there was no use trying to work any more.

He couldn't sleep either.

Eyes open, he saw a faint spiral gather and turn on the white ceiling. Eyes closed, he watched the pattern, dark-on-dark, a pipeline into nothing, reaching down, out, around, dropping as night and evening around his bed. Now he no longer saw the spiral; he sensed it as a familiar concept, a feeling of rotation in his belly and his gonads and his inner ear. It was like an insistent tune, not forgotten even when not remembered, playing silently in the back of his mind. The notes sank, carrying him down; they spun out, around, taking form, gathering in glowing galaxies of stars against the night behind his eyelids.

Was this the feel of insanity?

Growling, he got off the bed. He would face the problem now, by God, and lick it.

Not by answering the ad. Be damned if he gave money to the company which had started this in the first place. Anyway it would take weeks to get an answer. But...

Groggy and irritable, he went into the living room, afraid that if he moved too fast the entire room might start to whirl.

He found what he wasted among the magazines and books and half-finished lessons on the sofa. Scissors, he thought. They should be in the bathroom. They weren't. He found them in the kitchen. God alone knew how they had gotten there. Carefully he cut out the picture of the little black-and-white spiral, three and a half inches across. One last snip cut a hole in the center, or as near as he could manage.

Now! He carried the paper to his record player, set it on the turntable and brought a chair over so he could look straight down at it.

This scrap of paper had ruined half his day. Now let it do its worst.

He turned on the record player.

The spoke in the center partially spoiled the illusion, but what was left was powerful. His eyes were held fast, unable even to blink. He wrapped his fingers tightly around the edges of the chair, and continued to look down on—or was it into—the rotating spiral.

He could have licked the real thing, in fact, if he were determined not to be hypnotized. He'd heard too often that nobody could be hypnotized against his will.

And yet ... it was strange, how he seemed to be drifting through an endless cylindrical space. Now the center of the spiral was whole and complete. He seemed to be looking down into eternity. Really, he ought to be surprised, but he could feel nothing but a vast calm. For a time the calm washed over his mind, and his thoughts became “noise": random and meaningless patterns.

He spun, helpless...

...Memory returned slowly and painfully, bit by piece by isolated incident, and surprise became superfluous. It was natural that the spiral had grown at the edges until it was now the entire universe. When, except during the self-induced dreams, had the Tunnel been anything else to him?

Before the Revolt, his memory whispered sadly.

Lucifer wriggled his body to move his eye. It jerked in the socket with a grating pain. He had held it fixed on the end of the Tunnel for so long that he'd forgotten how to use the muscles, and the eyelid was dry as silk. Now he could see the tubular wall of the escape proof prison (black and white crystal in four broad endless spiral bands) moving past as he fell. He fell slowly, tugged by the merest trace of gravity, as he had fallen since his surrender at the Revolt's abortive end.

He hadn't believed it at first. But the Tunnel was escape proof. Some unseen force kept him back from the wall, and the end to which he was failing did not exist. Though it ran straight as a line, the Tunnel was closed, perhaps in four- or five-space. By using all the magnifying power of his remarkable eye Lucifer could just see himself falling far ahead down the well to infinity.

Yet there was an escape. Behind and ahead the spiral walls seemed to close into a flat, two-dimensional image; and as the Tunnel's gentle gravity pulled him along, the spiral turned hypnotically.

He found it easy to induce self-hypnotism.

His last dream hadn't been too bad. It had, in fact, been not only satisfying but well balanced; had contained not only success, but occasional failure; had held not only immediate pleasure, but the greater pleasures of the future: Success, marriage, respect.

What had killed the illusion was the ever-present intrusion of reality into the background. Applying his own name to the mythical arch-villain of the universe, making it nearly impossible to identify with his real self, had been deliberately clever. But other items had crept in.

Like the Yin-Yang symbol and the shape of the galaxies, nagging reminders of the Tunnel. Like the barberpole, meeting him on every street, a Tunnel turned inside out. Like the saddened face on the Moon, the round helpless face of that fool Yahweh, who at the last had shown himself neither foolish nor helpless.

The worst flaw in his recent dream had been a slight over-complexity. His plans for the revolution had been similarly flawed. This time the dream would be simpler.

His eye caught the flow of lines down the Tunnel, watched them spread, flattening to a disc that spun out around him, out and over. The lines whirled, white, black, merging to grey, separating. Ghostly radial lines appeared and vanished. The white crystal fragmented into dancing stars. He plunged amid the whirling galaxies of imagination...

And opened his eyes, then blinked against the lamplight shining off the yellow paper of his notebook. He had been paying all too little attention to his correspondence course lately. It wasn't like him to let his mind wander so.

Impatiently he got up and began to pace the room, scratching the bald scalp all people had. Up to the window to watch the evening settle over the pet store opposite his house, back down to the couch, back to the window. He stopped to catch the evening breeze. Night sifted down. Out in space a few lonely sparks pierced the infinite dark: the planets. He wondered if there was life on any of them, or if Man was alone in an empty universe. As the streetlights came on all at once, he turned away, stuck a cigarette in his mouth and set the end on fire.

The smoke spiraled up from his cigarette...

There are some patients you can't help. Every doctor finds one eventually and when you do, the feeling of defeat and helplessness never quite goes away.

It is that way with Jennifer.

She came to me in the spring, referred by a male colleague at Trinity Psychiatric Center who suggested that she might make better progress with a female analyst. Some patients just feel more comfortable with a male or female doctor and since analysis is difficult at the best of times we do what we can to accommodate them.

Jennifer was an angular blonde woman of 28, with the stark beauty of a fashion model and restless hands that always seemed to be knotting themselves together or plucking at something; the chair, sofa, or their owner's clothing. Her case history mentioned insomnia—a fairly common complaint these days—and nightmares when she did manage to sleep. Her family history indicated a fairly normal background: Parents and two siblings still living, no children, a brief marriage followed by divorce, employment as a middle-manager at a large public relations firm.

We didn't make much progress during the first months but she was forthcoming enough about the dreams, lying on my couch with her eyes closed, frowning at the memory.

“They're awful; real nightmares. I dream there are people chasing me. Sometimes I'm back home, as a kid, with Mom or Dad screaming at me and chasing me with a knife or a club. Sometimes it's my brother John. I'm running through a dark house and he's after me. I know he's going to catch me and something dreadful will happen when he does. I try to scream. I try and try and try, but no sound comes out."

“What do you think those dreams mean?"

She grimaced. “That's what Dr. Michaels kept asking. I thought it was your job to tell me what they mean."

“An analyst can only tell you so much about your own dreams,” I said, smiling at her. “Dreams are made up of a private language created by you and your subconscious, and everybody's language is different. It's not like Aunt Lydia's Dream Book, where you look up “carrot” and the cross reference says ‘Expect a new love interest.’”

“I used to have a copy of a dream book. At least, I think I did.” She frowned. “That's part of the problem, aside from the dreams. Sometimes I'm not sure what's real and what isn't. Well, not now, I mean, but things that happened a long time ago, when I was a child."

“How old a child?"

“Twelve or thirteen, I guess. It's all confused. I'm sure I remember something, and then someone else contradicts me and all the facts seem to be on their side."

“What sort of things?"

“Oh, just things that happened."

I didn't press it. I had feeling she was on the verge of a breakthrough, and that's a touchy point with any patient. A wrong word or pushing a little too hard can ruin the whole thing. I tried another approach.

“You dream about your parents and your brother. What about your sister? Do you get along with her?"

“Yes, I guess so, now that we're grown up.” She shifted a little on the couch and her restless hands plucked at her skirt. “She used to slap me around when I was a kid, mostly for getting into her things. She was out a lot. She used to sneak out of the house to see some boy, and I remember her stealing lipsticks from the corner store. When she was fourteen Dad found out she'd been sleeping with some twenty-year-old gang member and was pregnant. He beat her so bad the neighbors called the police, and she lost the baby. Of course, I wasn't any prize myself. I was always cutting school to go to the movies. I failed most of my classes and had to be put back a grade."

“What is your sister doing now?"

“She's married to a nice man and has two children.” She moved her head back and forth on the pillow. “That's another of those things. I said something about that to her a few months ago—the lipsticks, I mean—and she looked at me like I was crazy. She said it never happened."

“That's not unusual,” I assured her. “A lot of people have episodes in their background that they'd just as soon forget. She may be afraid you'll mention it to her husband."

“I suppose so.” She was silent for a long time, and I waited for her to go on. “I wouldn't tell him. I've never told anyone about it. It was too awful to remember. And sometimes ... sometimes not being able to talk about it is even worse."

She sort of sobbed, and then the tears began to roll down her cheeks. She started talking, whispering actually, in a harsh breathless tone, and everything rushed out like a torrent of dirty water racing down a dry ravine.

It was a sordid and painful story: A drunken father who molested her from the time she was about seven, rape by her elder brother when she was thirteen, and an abusive, uncaring, mother who apparently did little more than drink herself silly and slap her kids around.

She sobbed her way through the details; I think with sheer relief at finally being able to tell someone about it. I waited until the sobbing changed to sniffles, helped her dry her eyes, and let her rest for a few moments.

After a while I asked, “When did your father stop molesting you?"

“When I was fourteen."

“Did you finally tell him to stop, or report him to the authorities, or what?"

“I never said anything to him or anyone. I was too scared. He used to hit me, you know, when he wasn't doing the other things. I had to go to the hospital about then, because I'd been chilled in the snow. After I came home, he never touched me again. Oh, he'd try to give me a hug or something, but I always pulled away and he never pressed it. He stopped drinking about then too, so maybe that had something to do with it."

She wiped her nose, sat up, and pulled a makeup bag out of her purse to repair her face. “He'd lost his job, you see, and we were evicted from the apartment, which wasn't much to begin with. It was in the slums, down the street from a couple of bars and a strip joint. He found another job as some kind of maintenance man at a camp up in the hills and we had to move into a horrible little two-room cabin, miles from anywhere. One afternoon I just couldn't stand it anymore; the screaming and the drunken rows, and the smell of rancid grease from the kitchen ... I just walked off into the snow."

She fished a comb out of her purse and straightened out her hair as she went on. “Things were a lot different when I got out of the hospital. Dad must have gotten another job in town, because we went back to a really nice apartment. It had new furniture, and carpets and drapes. I had a whole closet of clothes for the first time in my life.” She smiled wryly. “They even had me take piano lessons. I never asked where the money came from. I sort of assumed it was something illegal and I didn't want to know."

“What sort of job does your father have now?"

“He owns his own construction business. I guess he's done pretty well."

After Jennifer left the office I leafed back through Dr. Michaels’ records on her. I was working on a paper, “Primary Interactions Within the Dysfunctional Family Unit,” for one of the professional journals and it occurred to me that her case would make a good family history. Dr. Michaels had collected the names and addresses of her family members, so I had my receptionist make appointments for me to visit them.

Jennifer's parents—Brian and Cecilia Eidercot—had a large, well-landscaped home in one of the more expensive city suburbs. Brian Eidercot answered the door and when I introduced myself he led me into a pleasant room with a fireplace and two big bay windows that looked out on a wooded backyard with a large ornamental pond.

“Have a seat, Dr. Franklyn,” he said, waving at a comfortable armchair and sitting down on the couch beside his wife.

They looked like an average middle-aged couple. He was a little portly and going bald, dressed in a turtle-neck sweater and gray slacks. She was a frankly-plump gray-haired woman with a pleasantly bland face that had probably been pretty once upon a time.

“Now then, Dr. Franklyn,” he said, bending forward and resting his elbows on his thighs, “suppose you explain what this is all about. You said on the phone that Jenny has been seeing you?"

“Yes, she's been my patient for about eight months now.” I hesitated, because the next part of the discussion was going to be over pretty rough ground. “I want you both to understand that my goal in treating your daughter is to help her understand and deal with her problems. In order to do that I need to build up as complete a picture as I can of her personality and her environment; friends, family, that sort of thing."

They both nodded.

“It's not my job to be judgmental, or to make moral evaluations. It's simply to build up a picture that will help me to show Jennifer how to deal with her present situation. I need to explain this because of some of the things Jennifer has told me. Specifically, she has been telling me about long term abuse when she was a child; both physical and sexual abuse."

There was silence for a long, long moment. If I ever saw a man who was stunned, it was Brian Eidercot.

Finally his wife said, “But that's impossible.” She sounded more bewildered than anything else.

She and her husband looked at each other. He took her hand and then gave me a long hard look. “If you were a man, Dr. Franklyn, I'd been tempted to punch you in the face and throw you out. But as it is, I'll swear on a stack of anything you want to name that there was never anything like that in our family, ever! Why would Jenny say that?” He sounded both hurt and betrayed.

“I don't know,” I told him, honestly. “That's why I'm here: To try and separate fact from fiction. I don't know if what Jennifer said is true..."

“It isn't'!"

“...but I need to find out what IS true if I stand any chance of helping her. I'd like you to tell me about her childhood. What sort of girl was she?"

“She was a wonderful child,” Cecelia said, “Sweet, loving, and affectionate. If we had ordered her especially we couldn't have done better. Oh, I know. Everyone's children are the best, but Jenny really was special. She never got into the little scrapes that Myra and John did, and I never had to scold her about cleaning up her room.” She laughed softly. “I used to say she was too good to be real!"

“She was a hard-worker too,” her father said, “and almost a perfect student. She loved school and always got good grades. She took swimming lessons, and was on the drill team for a while, and later on she played soccer. We started her on piano too, but she didn't care much for it so we let her stop."

“What about illness? Was she sick much?"

They both shook their heads and Brian Eidercot said, “All the kids were healthy as horses. Sure, they had the usual childhood stuff—chicken pox, mumps, and an occasional cold—but nothing unusual."

“Accidents?"

Negatives again.

“John broke a leg doing gymnastics when he was in college, but the girls didn't have anything like that,” Cecilia said. “Jenny did get lost in the snow for a few hours once, but she was fine when we got her back.” She laughed softly. “I was scared to death! It seems rather trivial now, but at the time ... oh, my!"

“How did it happen?"

“We'd gone up to the mountains one winter weekend, and she wandered off and got lost while Myra and John were playing in the snow. It really frightened us. She's our youngest, you know."

“How old was Jennifer then?"

“She'd just turned fourteen,” her father said.

“Did she say anything about it, anything that would indicate it really affected her?"

“No, she never said much of anything. I think she was just relieved to be back. Probably afraid I'd bawl her out too.” Brian smiled at the memory.

I thanked them both and went back to the office for my afternoon appointments. The Eidercots seemed perfectly honest and straightforward. Of course, that could be just a false front with nothing but ruins behind the wall. And of course Jennifer could be lying her pretty little head off. Or maybe she'd somehow mentally swapped families in her teens. The thought made me grin, remembering all the fuss over women cross-nursing each other's kids and causing some kind of identity crisis. In any event, folklore always said babies were swapped in the cradle, not around puberty.

A couple of days later I drove across town for a talk with Jennifer's elder sister. Myra, a trim woman with light brown hair and big blue eyes, lived with her husband and two children in a spacious apartment just a few blocks from a local park.

“Come in and sit down, Dr. Franklyn. My mother told me about your visit. I honestly don't understand this at all. Why would Jen say things like that about Dad? He would never have done anything like that! I don't think you realize how much this has hurt him."

“I know it must have been a shock,” I said. “I didn't mention it to your parents, but she also told me that her brother raped her when she was thirteen."

“John?!” Myra burst out laughing. “Now I know this is all some sort of crazy joke. John would never, ever do that. He simply couldn't! Jen knows it too, so why would she make up an awful story like that?"

That seemed to be one of life's unanswerable questions for the moment, so I ignored it.

She pointed to two large photo albums that were lying on the coffee table. “Just look through those. I got them out after Mom called me. That's what our childhood was like."

I leafed through the albums slowly. Page after page of snapshots. Grinning kids, smiling parents ... Halloween makeup and holiday pageant costumes ... baseball hats, soccer balls, wagons and scooters ... days at the beach and picnics at the park ... a succession of family pets, and the grinning kids getting taller and older. There was Jennifer with a gap-toothed smile at six, pigtails at eight, and squinting out from under a baseball cap at twelve. I sighed. If there was an answer, it wasn't here.

I closed the books on my lap and folded my arms across them. “What was your own childhood like, as far as you can remember?"

“Picture perfect!” She grinned. “You see, Dad is one of those self-made men. He's a high-school drop out, got into construction, and built up his own business. He always wanted his kids to have all the ‘advantages’ he didn't have. We had music lessons, Little League sports, home computers, pets, the works. He went to our ball games too, and all the recitals and those awful school plays. He always made time for us. We weren't spoiled beyond reason though, and he was never blind to our faults. If any of us got out of line, he sat us down for a long hard talk."

She grimaced. “There were times I felt so bad I wished he'd just paddle me like my friends father's did.

“And your mother?"

“Mom was a high school Biology teacher when they got married. I don't think my grandparents liked the match very much, but they sure couldn't complain about the way Dad treated her, or us."

“Do either of your parents drink?"

“Not what you'd call drinking, no. Once in a while Dad will drink a can of beer when they have the neighbors over for backyard barbecue, and they usually have wine with dinner. They don't drink hard liquor though, and I've never seen either of them drunk; not even tipsy."

“Getting back to yourself,” I began slowly, “there was something your sister said about shoplifting lipsticks."

“I know. She was going on about it, and it just never happened! I admit I did lift a candy bar from the drugstore when I was nine, but Mom marched me right back and made me return it. I got one of those lectures from Dad too, and I never did anything like that again!"

“She also said you'd had a premarital pregnancy."

Myra stared at me. “Where on earth did she get that idea? I can prove that's not true. When I was going to get married, Mom said it would be a lot more pleasant if I ... well, if I had a doctor take care of the painful part.” She blushed slightly. “She took me to a GYN, and I'm sure he must have some sort of medical record that will show I was a virgin before he did his little bit of surgery."

Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice said. “Did your sister ever have any really bad shock, either mental or physical?"

“No, not that I remember. She was upset when John broke his leg.” Myra laughed suddenly. “Poor kid! She'd gotten some funny idea that the doctor was going to cut it off. She was only eleven, and Mom had to explain about casts and crutches."

She thought for a moment, lips pursed. “There was the divorce, of course, but that was pretty amicable. She and Ted got married right out of college, but they didn't really have much in common and it was over within three years. I think they still see each other once in a while but marriage just didn't work out."

“How about the time she got lost in the mountains?"

“I'd almost forgotten that. She was gone most of the afternoon and Mom was pretty frantic, but Dad called Search and Rescue and they found her before dark. The local hospital kept her overnight for observation, and I think they had to treat her for hypothermia, but she went home with us the next morning. I guess it did sort of scare her though, because she was kind of withdrawn after that. She didn't laugh at our silly family jokes, and sometimes I'd see her just sitting and staring at things, like she'd never seen them before. She starting having some trouble at school too, but she straightened that out after a while. You know, she was barely fourteen and coping with periods and having breasts and all. When we grow up we forget how unsettling all that is. I was sixteen, and I thought she was just being moody."

“Was there anything else unsettling around that time? Did your family move, for instance, to a different house or apartment?"

“No, we'd moved into the house my parents have now when I was twelve. I remember that because I had an awful crush on a boy down the street and I was just devastated when we moved away. Jen would have been ten, I guess. Dad got her a puppy when we moved. It was for all of us, but she was the one he followed around all the time."

“What happened to the dog?” I asked, thinking that a traumatic childhood loss might have something to do with Jennifer's problems.

She looked surprised. “Why, nothing! He lived to be almost fifteen years old and finally died of old age. He was a cute little cocker-poodle mix and we named him Spanky. He was sort of excitable though, like a lot of small dogs. I remember when we got back from that trip to the mountains, and picked him up from the neighbor who had been looking after him, the poor little guy was so frantic to see us he bit Jen. As if she hadn't had a rotten enough time that weekend!"

“Well, thank you Mrs. Reed.” I put the albums back on the coffee table, stood up, and handed her one of my business cards. “If you think of anything else, I hope you'll call me."

“I will. I really love Jen, and I hate to see her life turning into such a mess."

When I got back to the office I phoned the emergency hospital where Jennifer had been taken after her adventure and arranged for the clerk to send me a transcript of her medical records. That done, I went out to see the last member of Jennifer's family, her brother John.

John Eidercot lived in a lakeside condominium that he shared with a friend. We sat at a small breakfast table in a nook off of the kitchen, while his friend perched on a stool at the serving bar and sipped at a can of diet soda.

“You don't mind if Nial stays, do you? He's my Significant Other."

Nial, a husky, snub-nosed fellow with dark brown hair, flashed a broad grin.

“I don't mind at all,” I said. “Have you been together long?"

“Six years,” John said. “The best six years of my life.” He was a wiry blond man, and carried some of Jennifer's beauty in his high cheekbones and the delicate modeling of his narrow temples. According to Dr. Michaels’ records he was a reasonably successful architect.

“Did your parents or sister tell you why I wanted to talk to you?"

He frowned. “Yeah, some bizarre story about Jen saying Dad molested her. I don't understand that at all. It's just not anything I can even imagine. Dad is, well, just about a perfect father."

“Do you know she also accused you of raping her when she was thirteen?"

John was just as stunned as his father had been. He stared at me, his jaw slack and his mouth half-open.

“No,” he said finally. “I don't believe it. Has she gone completely nuts?"

“That's what I'm trying to find out.” I smiled at him reassuringly. “I'm not here to make any judgments or evaluations. I'm just trying to piece together what's going on in your sister's mind."

“Well, I'd like to know what's going on in her mind too! I never did anything like that. Hell, when she was thirteen I was seventeen and had my eye on our high school quarterback instead of the girl cheerleaders.” He glanced up at Nial with a half smile.

I was trying to fit this new piece of information into the picture I was building of Jennifer and her life. “Can you think of anything that might have happened to your sister? A shock, fright, anything like that?"

“Something that might have sent her over the edge, you mean?"

“Anything like that, yes."

“Nope. She had a perfectly normal childhood, did okay in college, met the man of her dreams—who turned out not to be—and made a career for herself with a good company. I'd say she's done just fine. That's why these wild stories of hers just don't make any sense."

“What about the time she was lost in the woods?"

“That was a long time ago. I haven't thought about it in years. Nothing really happened."

“Do you remember exactly what did happen?"

“Sure.” He reached out for Nial's can of soda, took a sip, and handed it back. “Dad thought we ought to go up into the mountains and have some fun in the snow, so he rented a cabin for the weekend. I think it was the middle of February, but I could be wrong about that. The cabin was part of a big resort and really nice. It had two bedrooms, a living room, kitchen, forced air heating, and the whole works. Mom and Dad had one of the bedrooms, the girls had the other, and I had a roll away in the living room.

“We were outside just after lunch, building a snowman, sledding, and having snowball fights; all the things kids do in the snow. Jen wandered off somehow, and she was missing for about four hours. We were all scared, and Mom was almost hysterical. Dad called the ski patrol and they found her just before dark. We were dressed for playing in the snow, not long-term survival, so she was pretty chilled. In fact, I think she was almost unconscious when they found her. They rushed her to the hospital and treated her for hypothermia, but she was released the next morning."

He frowned, blond brows drawn close in thought. “She was different after that. I never really thought about it before. She was quieter; sort of withdrawn. Jan was always a real imp, laughing and joking around, but after that she was ... oh, I don't know. Standoffish, irritable sometimes. Unpredictable.” He shrugged slightly. “She was about fourteen and I just thought it was because she was growing up, I guess. Do you think something happened to her while she was lost up there?"

“I don't know. It's a possibility. One more thing, were there any problems at home about your lifestyle, arguments or anything that might have upset her?"

“When I came out, you mean? No, nothing at all. I think Dad was a little sad about not having grandsons to carry on the family name, but he and Mom are very supportive. Nial and I go over there every Saturday night for dinner."

I thanked John for his time, and asked him to call me if he thought of anything else.

Back at the office that afternoon I went through the transcript from the emergency hospital, looking for anything, anything at all, that might account for a child's change of personality after hypothermia treatment.

After I read it through a couple of times I got up to stretch and stood by the window, looking out at the sunset. It was as if there were two separate, entirely different families. If Jennifer was telling the truth, then the others must be in an advanced state of denial. That does happen, of course. Sometimes people are so determined to preserve their own illusions that they completely bury reality.

But what if all the other members of her family were telling the truth? What if their memories were the real ones? Then what made Jennifer invent a past that was so horrible?

She could just be trying to please me, of course. Some patients tell the stories they think their analysts want to hear. I'd been careful in our sessions not to give Jennifer any leads like that, but patients can be very inventive if they start to worry about a doctor losing interest. The only other possibility I could think of was that Jennifer was suffering from some guilt complex of monumental proportions and had built up the stories of abuse to somehow degrade herself.

And yet, her memories all seemed so consistent, so cohesive. It was hard not to take them at face value. Can people have completely different, yet perfectly valid memories of the same events?

At the moment, I didn't have an answer. I kept thinking of the Japanese drama where three characters all have different explanations for the same occurrences. I thought about points of view and changelings and medical miracles until well after the sun was gone and the stars were out.

The following Tuesday Jennifer came in for her regular session. She looked tired, like all insomniacs, but her makeup was perfect and aside from those eternally restless hands she seemed well in control of herself.

She was seated across the desk from me, and I explained that I thought I might have some answers for her.

“Do you remember the time you were lost in the mountains, when you were fourteen."

She looked a little puzzled. “Yes. I told you about that. I just couldn't stand that cabin another minute and I went out to be by myself."

She sighed softly and stared out the window at the cityscape. “It was so pretty out there, so quiet and white. I remember I saw a deer and I followed it for a while. When I started to go back, I discovered I didn't know where I was."

“You were missing for about four hours, and when the rescue team found you, you were only semiconscious. They had to treat you for a severe chill—hypothermia—at a local hospital. I have the records here.” I tapped the folder on the desk in front of me.

“All right. But what does that have to do with anything?"

“I think it's tied in with your dreams and your memory problems. How much do you really know about dreams?"

“I have bad ones,” she said with a sour smile.

“Well, let me start by explaining a little about memory. You've probably heard about long term and short term memory. Those are the two ways your memories are stored, because your mind makes a distinction between things you have to know, and things you just have to remember for a little while. It's like the difference between remembering where you parked the car, and remembering where you live. All memories have their own place. Dreams, on the other hand, don't seem to have any real place in memory at all. They're in a kind of temporary storage location that goes away soon after you wake up. If you repeat a dream to yourself right after waking, telling it to yourself like a story, you can make a copy of it in your real memory, but the temporary storage goes away forever."

I went on carefully. “I've reviewed your medical records, and it looks like some of the drugs they gave you during hypothermia treatment were still in the experimental stage. I think what happened is that you had a nightmare while you were semiconscious, and one of those drugs caused it to move into your long-term memory, erasing the real memories that were already there. That's why you remember things that none of the other members of your family can recall. You remember a totally different childhood.

“You mean, I'm remembering something that wasn't true, it was all a dream?"

“Yes, and a very bad dream. I believe the nightmares you are having now are because your mind is still trying to adjust to those false memories. The insomnia you've had is simply because you're afraid to go to sleep and have the same bad dreams again. Your mind is keeping you awake in self-defense."

“I can't believe that. Those things that happened to me weren't dreams, I remember them!"

“That's the whole point. What started out as a nightmare became a real memory. You remember that dream as real because it moved into your mind and replaced all the memories in long-term storage. It became reality for you."

She frowned, trying to take it all in. “If I could really believe that ... you think it's what actually happened?"

“It's the only logical explanation,” I said. “I've been over your school records and they show excellent attendance and very good grades. There's no mention of absences, or failing any classes. I've also looked through your family photo albums. There's nothing in any of the pictures that show slum housing, or neglect."

She knotted those restless hands together and raised them to her face, pressing hard against her mouth and staring at nothing for a while.

“All right, if I accept that, what can I do about it?"

I didn't realize how tense I had been until those words let me relax.

“You need to replace those old memories with new ones. We all have to make memory adjustments as we get older. For example, I always thought my Uncle Floyd was bald, and it came as a big shock when I saw him after ten years and he had a full head of hair. Then my mother explained that when I first remembered him as a child he was a college freshman and his fraternity had made him shave his head."

Jennifer chuckled softly. “Okay, I see what you mean."

“Talk to your family more. Get them to tell you about the past the way they remember it. Go through the family photos with your sister and ask her to tell you about them. Let those memories, the good ones, replace the bad ones you've been suffering with all these years. It will take a long time, and it's going to be like putting together a jigsaw puzzle, but I think you can do it.

“I'm sure going to try!” She leaned back in the chair, her hands gracefully limp in her lap. “I can't tell you what a relief it is, to have an explanation, to know what's been wrong all these years. Thank you, Dr. Franklyn. You've given my life back to me."

“You've still got some hard work ahead of you,” I told her, “but I don't think you'll need an analyst anymore. This is something you can handle yourself. If you do have any questions or problems, give me a call. I'll always be here for you."

She got up to go, and I thought of one last question. “Tell me, when you were lost that time, did you see or meet anyone else in the woods, besides the deer, I mean?"

She paused, and then said slowly “That's odd. I'd forgotten all about that, until you mentioned it. There was a girl, about my age. I saw her before I realized I was lost, and I remember hoping that she wouldn't scare the deer. I noticed her particularly because she was blonde too and we were wearing almost identical clothes; bluejeans, gray sweat suit top, brown gloves and black boots. She was walking toward me, but then some bushes separated us and I never did see where she went. I hope she wasn't lost too!” She smiled, picked up her purse, and left.

I never saw her again. I'm sure she's all right. I gave her an explanation she could understand and a way to deal with her problem. She has a loving, supportive, family and she's going to be just fine. Besides, she's a survivor. Her early history proves that.

I lied to her, of course. There was no overlay of memory, no experimental drugs. I'm quite certain about what really happened that snowy February afternoon: Two young girls from two different realities walked into the woods and came out in the wrong place. The coincidences between them were so close that the fabric separating their universes unraveled for just a moment or two and they each passed through into the other's world. The dog knew. That's why he bit the girl who came back.

She'll be all right, she's a fighter. I'm not worried about her. It's the other girl who keeps me awake at night. The other Jennifer: A gentle, protected young girl from a loving family who walked into the woods and came out into a living hell. She's the one I can't help.

(This issue's classic is a rip-roaring example of purple prosed space opera from the June 1938 issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories and is by the acknowledged king of the genre, Edmond Hamilton. Blurbs are from the orginal magazine printing.)

The black, moonless Venus night lay solid over the big metal house and its surrounding grounds. The young Earthman who was creeping stealthily through clumps of weird shrubbery and enormous flowers toward the house thanked heaven fervently for the cloudy planet's stygian nights.

But Rab Crane knew that it was deadly dangerous approaching the house of Doctor Alph, even under cover of darkness. For the Venusian scientist's home had become a focus of interplanetary intrigue in the last few weeks. Every splanet in the System had heard the rumor of Doctor Alph's discovery of a tremendous new scientific weapon. And every one of them had agents trying to secure it. There would be guards inside the house, without doubt.

Crane's bronzed, aquiline face tensed as he crouched for a moment beside a stiff, grotesque shrub. As a member of the Terrestrial Secret Service he had been sent by the TSS to get Doctor Alph's secret weapon and he'd do it or die trying.

Not a light showed from anywhere in the dark, square metal house.

“Too quiet,” muttered Crane to himself. “Looks like a trap."

He shifted his stubby beam-pistol to his left hand, and with his right drew a compact little instrument from his pocket. Then he moved silently on toward the dark house.

“Here goes nothing,” he whispered. “In two minutes I'll probably rate a nice memorial plaque at headquarters.

Like a sliding shadow, Crane flattened against the side of the house, just beneath a window. He reached up with the little oval instrument he held.

It was a recorder which registered the presence anywhere nearby of invisible watchmen,” those diabolically ingenious combinations of electric eyes and atomic beams, effective alarms that blasted down intruders without warning.

To Rab Crane's amazement, the recorder showed no such protective devices in operation around the window. What did it mean? It looked to him like a deliberate trap set by the Venusian scientist.

But he had to go through with it. Too late to back out now. He severed the catch of the window by a single tiny, smothered flash from his beamgun. He rolled the flexible glass quickly aside and drew himself rapidly up into the dark room. He poised motionless in the dark, listening. The house was as silent as the grave. He could not understand it but his instincts warned him of peril.

Soundlessly he moved across the dark room. He knew that Doctor Alph's laboratory lay at the back of the house. There, if anywhere, he might find some clue to the Venusian scientist's great discovery that had so perturbed the planetary governments.

He watched his little recorder alertly as he advanced, expecting it each moment to flash the tiny signal spark that would warn of a network of deadly beams ahead. But it gave no signal. Apparently the whole web of the houses protective beams had been turned off at the main switch. But why?

Crane moved quickly out of the room into an equally dark hall. In the hall he tripped on something soft and recoiled, his gun-arm stiffening.

He heard no sound. In a moment he ventured to flash a tiny needle of light from a ring on his finger, onto the floor. His breath sucked inward with a sharp hiss. A Venusian house-guard lay there! One glance assured him the man was dead.

The man's neck had been broken cleanly, as though by a twist of powerful hands. The marks of the killer's hands were still visible, red against the Venusian's milky white skin. A beam-gun was still in his limp hand.

So, Rab Crane thought, someone else had visited Doctor Alph's house tonight, ahead of him. Probably some other interplanetary spy trying to get the Venusian scientist's deadly secret for his own world just as Crane was trying to get it for Earth.

Had the other spy got it?

Crane's heart went cold with apprehension at the thought. He straightened from examining the dead guard and moved quietly down the dark hall. He had no fear of the beam-web now. He realized that whoever had been ahead of him had cut off the whole protective system.

He went around a corner of the hall and almost stepped on two more dead Venusians. They, too, had been strangled by clutching fingers that had snapped their necks like pipe-stems. Why hadn't they beamed the killer with their guns when he attacked them?

The door of the laboratory was wide open. Inside, all was dark and deadly still. But instinct warned Crane against showing a light as he stepped into the room. He stopped, his eyes trying to penetrate the darkness. Then a smell came to him that made the heir rise along the back of his neck.

The smell of fresh blood! It came from the darkness at his right. Crane flicked on the tiny ray of his ring-light, swung its beam to the floor. Another body! And one glance at the distorted face told him who it was.

The Venusian scientist's neck had been broken like those of the guards. But his head had been smashed also into a bloody red mass. His massive face, comparatively undamaged, stared upward in the beam of light, horribly contorted.

Then Rab Crane's stunned mind perceived something and instantly comprehended its pressing significance. The blood pool from the shattered skull of Doctor Alph was still widening along the floor! That meant that it had been no more than a few moments since the killer had been there!

The killer must still be in the house! Rab doused his little light and sprang to his feet. But the realization had come too late.

In the darkness behind him a harsh voice said, “Kill him!"

A black shape became a moving shadow in the darkness. With swift, heavy strides it approached. Then a hard fist struck for Rab Crane's skull in a terrific blow, even as he ducked. Only the lightning, instinctive swerve of the TSS man saved him from instant death. As it was, the blow grazed his temple. He reeled, falling stunned, but his senses did not leave him immediately.

As consciousness receded from him, Crane heard, as though in a dream, a voice saying rapidly:

“Quick! To the Vulcan now! I'll carry the braincase!"

Then a hurry of receding steps, and a harsh voice gloating, mirthfully, in the distance, “When they find the dead Earthman there beside Doctor Alph, they'll think he did it all!"

Darkness closed in on Crane then.

He awakened to a dim awareness of his surroundings, wondered how long he had been senseless. A dazed glance at his watch told him it had been almost an hour.

As full remembrance came to Rab Crane, he staggered to his feet. The laboratory, the house around him, were as dark and silent as before. His head was aching blindingly.

He had blundered badly, he knew. In his first shock of finding that someone had been ahead of him, he had not stopped to reflect that the other spy—or spies—might still be in the laboratory, might have heard him entering and lain in wait for him.

He tried to remember the orders issued by the unseen attackers. Something about getting to the Vulcan, quick—and something about a braincase.

The Vulcan—that was the big spaceliner that was sailing tonight for Jupiter, with stops at Mars and Earth. Whatever interplanetary spy had been here was planning to leave Venus tonight on that ship!

But what was it that had been said about a braincase? Slowly his stunned brain rallied. The voice had said:

“Quick! To the Vulcan! I'll carry the braincase."

Suddenly into Rab Crane's confused mind shot a possible explanation.

He bent quickly over the dead body of Doctor Alph once more, flashed his ring-light on the shattered skull of the Venusian scientist. He gasped as he saw that his shocking surmise had been right.

There was no brain in the broken skull of Doctor Alph! The scientist's brain had been carefully removed by cunning surgery after the skull had been smashed by a blow. Or possibly the blow had been delivered after the operation so that no one would notice the horrible theft.

“God in heaven!” muttered Rab Crane. “Whoever came to get Doctor Alph's secret, got it—by stealing his brain!"

Rab Crane was aghast. He knew that in these days the removal of a living brain from a man's body, and keeping it living in special serum, was child's play to anyone versed in surgery.

And he knew, too, that such preserved, living brains could be made to think and remember; that they could be communicated with by microphonic and loudspeaker electrical connections to their hearing and speech nervecenters. Whoever had taken Doctor Alph's brain had come here intending to steal it, and had brought a special serum-case for its transportation!

And the brain-thief might be already aboard the Vulcan, ready to leave Venus with his ghastly loot. Once away from Venus, it would not take him long to make the living brain give up its secret, and that meant that the planet the thief served would acquire the dead scientist's terrible secret weapon!

Rab Crane looked swiftly at his watch again. The Vulcan sailed at nine. It was a little after eight. He would have just time enough to get aboard the spaceliner before it took off—if he were not stopped.

He must get aboard! Somewhere on that ship was the stolen brain whose terrific secret might spell conquest of and doom for Earth. His one slim chance now was to get on the liner, yet he had but forty minutes to reach the spacestation on the other side of the great Venusian metropolis!

The big clock over the spacestation showed just ten minutes short of nine when the TSS man fought through the crowd to the gangway of the Vulcan. People were waving farewell to departing friends, sweating dockhands were hustling last-minute freight into the ports, ship's officers were bawling orders. Over the crowd and flaring lights loomed the vast, cigar-like metal bulk, waiting in its cradle for the moment of its flaming leap into space.

Rab Crane, gripping his suitcase in one hand and interplanetary passport and ticket in the other, ran up the gangplank into the glassite-walled promenade deck where the Venusian ship's officer on duty was being beset by passengers wanting various services.

A shriveled, red-skinned little Martian with enormous spectacles was fussing at the office. “I want my crate of machinery samples in my cabin, not in the hold. They're valuable!"

A squat, huge-shouldered Jovian was thrusting rudely past others to make his complaints heard, and a handsome young Earthman who had evidently had too much of the intoxicating “blue force,” was asking plaintively, “Where's the vibration-bar?"

The harassed officer glanced at Rab Crane's passport hurriedly.

“Norman Idwall, citizen of Earth, importer. Okay, Mr. Idwall,” he said.

A steward ran along the deck banging a gong and crying, “Five minutes to take-off time! All passengers in their cabins!"

Rab Crane, his heart still hammering from his race to the spacestation, had a steward find his cabin. Once in it, the TSS man locked the door and lay down on the bunk as required.

He was on the ship, at least! But who among its scores of passengers could be the spy who had the brain of Doctor Alph? How could he hope to identify him?

Suddenly, in the little cabin, a hoarse, loud voice spoke to Rab Crane. “Crane, I see I failed to kill you at Doctor Alph's,” the voice rasped.

Rab Crane bounded to his feet, his beam-pistol leaping into his hand. He glanced around the cabin; there was no one in it but himself. He flung open the door, but no one was in the corridor.

That harsh voice was speaking, seemingly from the air beside him.

“There are still two minutes left before the Vulcan starts. Unless you leave the ship, you will die one minute after the take-off."

The menacing voice ceased abruptly. But this time Crane had traced it. It came from his own coat pocket!

He thrust his hand into the pocket and drew out a small watchlike metal instrument, apparently a super-compact radio receiver and loud-speaker. Someone on deck must have dropped it in his pocket as he boarded the line Crane stared at the thing, thinking fast. This meant that the brain-thief had seen him come abroad, meant to kill him to get him off the trail. But how could the man hope to kill him here in his locked cabin.

He could hear the space-doors of the liner slowly grinding shut. The beat-beat-beat of the ventilation system began. There was a breathless hush throughout the ship. Then with a tremendous roar and quivering shock, the vista outside Crane's cabin window vanished as the Vulcan roared out to ward space.

Crane crouched, rocking from the shock of starting, his beam-gun gripped in his hand, his bronzed face drawn in a mirthless grin. The harsh voice spoke again, from the watch-shape thing in his other hand.

“You were not wise enough to get off the ship. Therefore you die-now!"'

Before that rasping voice had ceased to sound, Rab Crane knew how he was about to be murdered. It seared across his brain in a flash even as his muscles sprang into action.

He plunged for the cabin door, tore it open and hurled the watch-like thing in his hand far down the corridor. Before it even hit the floor, it exploded in a blinding flash of atomic force and light!

“God, why didn't I see it before!” exclaimed Rab Crane hoarsely as he wiped his glistening brow. “He had an atomic charge planted in that thing, where he could detonate it by remote control whenever he wanted."

Then he saw that the blinding flash of force had eaten a hole in one inner wall of the corridor but had done no other damage. Excited voices were crying in alarm and heads were sticking out of doors along the corridor.

Stewards and officers came running into the corridor even as Rab Crane drew back into his cabin.

Listening, he heard the officers finish their futile examination and depart, remarking that the atomic bomb must have been planted in the ship earlier. The excited passengers dispersed, reassured that no harm had been done the ship.

Crane found himself shaken a little, despite his steel-hard nerves. The ingenuity of the attempt against his life had been diabolical. Undoubtedly his unknown antagonist was the most deadly he had ever challenged.

Yet Crane's determination to wrest Doctor Alph's stolen brain from the other spy was strengthened rather than weakened. That weirdly living brain was a doom hanging over Earth!

When he dressed for dinner, Crane put his beam-pistol inside his coat, and the feel of it was comforting as he walked into the big, brilliantly lighted dining saloon. Laughing, chatting men and women of several planets, expensively garbed and gowned and jewelled, filled the room. Under the conversation, a Venusian orchestra was softly playing haunting popular melodies.

The steward who led Rab Crane to a table in a corner apologized for its obscure position.

“It's not a very good table, sir, but it was all we had left for last-minute passengers like yourself."

His words made Crane study the others at the table closely as they introduced themselves. The spy who had the stolen brain would be a last-minute passenger, too. He must be at this table!

The four other men at the table were of four different worlds. One was Kin Nilga, a Saturnian rocket engineer, with solemn green face, pale, big eyes and the great-boned body of his race.

Next to him sat Jurk Usk, a Jovian shipping-magnate, squat, huge-shouldered and heavy-browed like all men of Jupiter and as surly and sparing of words as most of his compatriots.

The other two were Kark Al, the thin, wisp-like, spectacled little Martian salesman whom Crane had heard complaining about his machinery samples; and Donn Ennimer, the handsome, drunken young Earthman he had noticed when he boarded ship.

The young Earthman had apparently been imbibing further of the intoxicating blue vibrations at the bar. He was talking with drunken owlishness, to the table at large.

“The service at this table is unspeakable!” Kark Al, the little Martian, told Crane indignantly. “We've been waiting a quarter hour. I'm going to speak to the captain—"

Crane only half listened to their voices. The TSS man was keenly studying the Jovian and Saturnian. He was remembering how the necks of the men in Doctor Alph's house had been broken with one snap.

Only a Jovian or Saturnian had the physical strength to do such a thing! And these two were the only representatives of their worlds in the dining saloon. Was one of them the man with whom Crane was struggling blindly? His heart began to beat a little faster.

“This is my table, isn't it? My name is Lalla Dee,” an uncertain, girlish voice said.

It was a Venusian girl who was claiming the last empty chair at the table. She was young and pretty. She wore a white silk dress, and her dark eyes were shining with naive excitement as she looked over the glittering saloon. Crane introduced everyone to her.

“This is my first trip off Venus,” Lalla Dee told Crane shyly. “I just won a contest in college—the first prize was a trip to Earth. Isn't it wonderful—people of five different worlds right at this table!"

Crane smiled and said, “Yes, and all of them hungry. It looks as though our steward had forgotten us completely."

“It's an outrage!” declared Kark Al angrily.

“Not gonna wait any longer for steward. I'm hungry,” the drunken young Earthman, Ennimer, said owlishly.

And calmly the drunk took one of the exquisite Venusian flame orchids from the center vase, salted it, and began to eat it. Lalla Dee giggled, and Kark Al snorted in disgust.

Crane had not taken his eyes off the Jovian and Saturnian. Jurk Usk sat in the same surly, unmoved silence, but Crane thought that the Saturnian was under tension, that something lurked behind those pale, big-pupiled eyes. Was Kin Nilga his man?

“I was a little afraid to come alone on this trip, but now—” The girl's voice broke off as a scream of awful agony ripped the gay chatter of the saloon and froze everyone into horrified silence.

The scream came from the throat of the drunken young Earthman who had been eating the orchid. The man's lax handsome face was contorted now in agony, his eyes protruding, his body arched half out of his chair, his hands clawing the air.

Another ghastly shriek bubbled from his throat into the frozen silence. Then he crashed down across the table.

Diners sprang to their feet, shouting hoarsely. Stewards and officers came running toward the table. Rab Crane bent swiftly over the young man's body, sniffed at the strange odor that rose from his lips.

Crane straightened, reached for the salt-cellar on the table, sniffed it. His tablemates watched frozenly.

“He's dead—poisoned!” Crane said, finally.

As an officer stooped to lift the body, “Don't touch him with your bare hands!” Crane cried.

For the body of the poisoned man was beginning to glow faintly, his face giving off a feeble, eerie white light!

“Gods of Mars!” cried little Kark Al horrifiedly. “Look at that body—look—"

“This man was poisoned with a super-powerful radium salt,” Rab Crane declared to the horrified officers. “He died instantly in awful agony and his whole body is charged with radioactive force now and will have to be handled with lead gloves. Someone substituted the radium salt for the ordinary salt in this salt shaker."

Lalla Dee looked up at Crane with wide, terrified dark eyes.

“Then maybe it was someone trying to kill you,” she said. “The poison couldn't have been intended for any of the rest of us."

Crane knew what she meant. Only Earthmen, out of all the Solar System's peoples, were habitual users of salt. He knew well that the poison had been intended for him—and that someone at this table had made the substitution!

Yet he said, shaking his head, “There's no reason why anyone would want to kill me. I'm just an ordinary importer. No, this young fellow must have had some enemy who took this means to kill him."

“I'll swear that I filled that cellar with ordinary salt today!” said the table-steward hoarsely.

“The whole affair will have to be investigated by the captain,” the third mate of the Vulcan said crisply, “meanwhile send for a hospital detail to remove this man's body."

As the body was carried out by leadgloved attendants, Kark Al said sickly:

“I—I guess I'm not hungry after all. I'm going to my cabin."

“I don't want to eat now either,” the white-faced Lalla Dee told Rab Crane. “That awful scream—"

In fact, they had all risen from the table except Jurk Usk, the Jovian, who kept his seat and was awaiting his dinner with the surly immobility of his race.

Rab Crane, as he followed the girl toward the door of the noticed that Kin Nilga was already disappearing ahead of them. The Saturnian seemed in a hurry.

Crane's mind was working ‘swiftly. Someone at their table had Doctor Alph's brain. And that someone had tried twice, now, to kill him. Of those two things he was certain. But which one? He thought of those snapped necks—the huge physical strength of the Jovian and Saturnian.

He lingered behind Lalla Dee.

“Can you tell me which person at our table came into the dining saloon first tonight?” he asked the shaken table-steward.

“Kin Nilga, the Saturnian gentleman, sir. He was first at the table."

“I want to ask him if he noticed anyone lurking by the table when he entered,” Crane said, and went on after the Venusian girl.

But as he moved along the dark promenade deck with Lalla Dee, Crane's excitement was mounting. Kin Nilga, then, had had the best chance of any of them to plant that deadly poison. And Kin Nilga also had the great physical strength that killer must have had.

Was the solemn-faced Saturnian the diabolical agent who had stolen the brain of Doctor Alph? Crane resolved to find out this very night!

Lalla Dee had stopped by the transparent glassite wall of the deck, and Crane saw that she was still shivering.

“That poor young man's face—I'll never forget it!” she said, her dark eyes clouded with horror. “I feel as if there is some horrible monster on this ship, lurking, hidden—"

“Nonsense! Whoever adopted that devilish method of murder was after one man,” Crane told her. “And he’ be caught within a few hours.” And to distract her attention, he pointed through the glassite wall. “There's a sight you'll never see on Venus."

She looked, and clapped her hands in entranced delight. In the vast black firmament of space burned the eternal stars, glorious blazing jewel in dark space. The ship was rushing through a constellated wilderness of suns. The rocket-tubes had been shut off and only the steady beat-beat-beat of the ventilation pumps came along the dark deck where Crane and the girl stood.

“It's unreal!” Lalla Dee cried. “I've often dreamed what it would be like to see the stars that we can never see through the cloudy skies of Venus, but I didn't dream it was like this."

She pointed to a calm, green speck of light shining large and bright, almost due ahead of the ship.

“That's Earth, isn't it? Is it really as beautiful as everyone says?"

“I'm an Earthman, and my opinion is biased,” Crane nodded. “But I think it's the most beautiful world in the System. Its snowy mountains and deep blue seas; its green fields and quiet forests and rivers and old cities—yes, it's beautiful. Beautiful and worth fighting for, worth dying for—"

He had spoken half to himself, his eyes brooding on that calm green speck. He became aware that Lalla Dee was looking at him intently.

“We're always proud of own particular world, aren't we?” he said.

They stared a little longer at the scene, then Lalla Dee turned from the wall.

“I think I'll go to bed,” she told him. “I'll see you at breakfast, Mr. Idwall."

“A sweet kid,” Crane thought as he left her at her cabin and walked on toward his own. Then the perilous task ahead of him claimed his thoughts. He must search Kin Nilga's cabin.

As he sat in his own dark cabin, waiting for the liner's passengers to retire, Crane's mind grappled with what lay ahead. If Kin Nilga was the possessor of the stolen brain, then entering the Saturnian's cabin was dangerous.

But he had to do it! Every hour that passed brought the Vulcan nearer Earth where Kin Nilga could easily trans-ship to another liner and throw him off the trail. And every hour increased the chance that one of the killer's diabolical attacks would take his life. Crane waited two hours, until silence filled the corridor. The last passengers had sought their cabins and only the ship's officers and men on duty in the control and rocket rooms remained up.

Then quietly the TSS man slipped out of his cabin, his hand resting on the hilt of his beam-pistol.

Except for the droning throb of the air-pumps, there was no sound as Rab Crane approached the door of Kin Nilga's cabin.

He stopped abruptly, stiffened, as he came opposite it. That door was slightly open. And from inside the Saturnian's dark cabin came a hoarse, smothered cry!

Crane shoved the door wide open, pistol aimed. He glimpsed a shadowy figure bending over the bunk, and even as he looked he heard a snap that could be only the dull cracking sound of a breaking neck!

Crane knew, in one swift flash of insight, that he had been wrong. Kin Nilga was not the killer! The real murderer was this squat, shadowy shape who had just slain Kin Nilga!

Crane rasped, “Stand where you are or I'll kill you!"

The shadowy killer turned, started across the dark room toward him with quick, heavy steps"

“Stop or I'll fire!” Crane warned. And when the shadow did not pause, the TSS man pulled the trigger of his beam gun.

The thin white beam from his pistol knifed the darkness of the cabin and struck the shadowy, indistinct form of his opponent squarely.

Yet the killer came on! Though Crane fired his deadly beam again straight into the advancing slayer, the shadow did not even falter as he lunged through the gloom at Crane!

Crane was so stupefied by the failure of his beams—which should have killed any living thing at this close range—to halt the killer, that he nearly lost his life. Before he turned to escape the remorseless figure had reached him.

Hands grabbed Crane in the most powerful grip he had ever felt, bruising his flesh to the bone by the tremendous strength of their grasp. He cried out hoarsely, struggling in the dark against that terrible clutch.

The grip shifted to his neck as Crane fought futilely to escape. Even as he struggled, the TSS man knew that another moment would see his neck snapped, as those of the guardsmen of Doctor Alph's house had snapped.

But his cry had been heard, and the alarmed voices of passengers in other cabins were suddenly audible. The killer, apparently alarmed, flung Rab Crane aside and leaped out of the cabin, his heavy steps receding rapidly down the corridor.

Crane, stunned by the impact and bruised by the other's iron grasp, staggered out of the darkened cabin as the people burst into the corridor and the lights were snapped on. The second mate of the Vulcan cried:

“What's the matter here-!’ He shoved past Crane into the cabin, snapped on a light.

He stared at the bunk in which Kin Nilga the Saturnian lay dead, his great neck snapped like a straw, then recoiled in horror.

Then he turned on Rab Crane who was staggering, disheveled and bruised ... “Why did you kill the Saturnian?” he snapped.

“I didn't kill him,” said Crane. “I heard a row in here and came in. In the dark, the man who killed Kin Nilga jumped me, then escaped."

“A likely story!” cried the officer. “There's been a mysterious explosion and two murders on this liner since we left Venus. The explosion was in your corridor, the first murder was at your dining table. And now you're found over the body of the second victim ... You're under arrest!” He had drawn his pistol, was covering Crane with it. Stunned by this disastrous turn of events, Crane saw the difficulty of his situation. He dared not tell them he was a TSS man, or that he sought the great secret from the stolen brain of Doctor Alph. This liner was a Venusian ship arid once these Venusians learned the brain was aboard, they'd search to the last corner to get it and its secret for Venus. Then he would be through and the secret lost forever.

“I'm sure you're wrong about Mr. Idwall,” a girl's dismayed voice was telling, the officer. “He was nearly a victim of the radium poison himself, in the dining saloon."

It was Lalla Dee who was defending him.

Kark Al, the withered little Martian, nodded corroboration, snapping, “It's stupid to accuse Mr. Idwall of these killings."

“That will be for the captain to decide,” the officer said inflexibly. “You'll have to come to his office at once,” he told Crane. “The rest of you people return to your cabins."

As Rab Crane was forced by the officer's gun through the crowd of curious, horrified passengers, he managed to smile reassuringly at the pale, distressed Lalla Dee.

The TSS man's eyes were searching the crowd for Jurk Usk, the Jovian who had sat beside Kin Nilga at the dinner table. The Jovian, then, and not the Saturnian, must be, the killer. No one else on the ship, now, but the Jovian had such strength. And he could not see Jurk Usk anywhere.

Half an hour later, in the captain's office, the veteran, space-tanned Venusian who was master of the Vulcan faced Rab Crane.

“Mr. Idwall, all the evidence points to you as the murderer of Kin Nilga and of the Earthman,” he said. “A search of Kin Nilga's effects has revealed that he was a member of the Saturnian Secret Service. It is obvious that you are a criminal he was pursuing, and that you tried to kill him in the dining saloon tonight, failed and succeeded later in killing him in his cabin. A table steward has said you questioned him about Kin Nilga's movements."

“But how could I have broken his neck like that?” Crane protested desperately. “No Earthman has such strength."

“I do not know just what means you used to murder him,” the captain told him unrelentingly, “but our course is obvious. You will be the ship's brig until we where you will be turned over to the space-court for trial."

Crane was led away, down to the lowest deck of the great liner, and thrust into a narrow metal cell on a little corridor off the rocket rooms. He sat down heavily on the bunk.

In the dark cell, silent except for the steady throb of the ventilator, Crane wholeheartedly cursed the turn events had taken. Imprisoned here, he had no chance of securing the stolen brain before the Vulcan reached Earth.

It was plain now that Jurk Usk was the man he sought; that the squat surly Jovian was the shadowy figure who had stolen Doctor Alph's brain. Kin Nilga, an agent of Saturn, had been on the trail of the brain just as Crane was. Jurk Usk had killed Kin Nilga, and tried to kill Crane. Why, he asked himself, had his beams not affected the Jovian? And had it been Nilga or Usk who had killed the Doctor and his guardsmen?

Now, Crane thought hopelessly, the Jovian had a clear field. Kin Nilga of Saturn was dead and he, the agent of Earth, was in prison for the rest of the voyage. When the ship landed, Jurk Usk would go free with the brain and its doom-freighted secret.

That night passed slowly for the tormented TSS man. And after morning came—the morning of a space ship, marked only by the turning on of all the ship's lights—Crane's numbed brain fought frantically for a plan.

Gradually fierce resolve began repossessing him. The men of the TSS did not give up until they were dead! And this mission of his was the most important any man of the Terrestrial Secret Service had ever been assigned. He must not give up! He would not, while he was alive!

He stared around the cell with narrowed, desperate eyes. If he could just get out of this rat-trap, just get to the cabin of Jurk Usk...

He could get out! The inspiration came to Rab Crane's taut brain in a flash. It would be a desperate way of escape, and perilous. Yet it was the only way, and he would try it!

He was startled out of his quivering intentness by a light knock, a voice outside the locked door. Through the barred opening, Lalla Dee's soft face looked in at him.

The Venusian girl's dark eyes were troubled and anxious.

“They let me come down to see you for a few moments!” she said. “Oh, I know you're not guilty of these murders!"

Crane's nerves relaxed a little. He even managed a grin.

“Good kid,” he told her through the bars. “I'm not guilty and I can prove it when we reach Earth. But there're more important things at stake than my own fate, just now."

He pressed closer to the bars, lowering voice.

“Lalla Dee, I want you to do something for me. Will you?"

Her head bobbed, her clear eyes looking anxiously into his.

“I'll do anything I can,” she promised.

“I want you to find out for me just what cabins are occupied by those who sat at our dining table last night,” he said.

“Why, I don't see—but I can do that, all right. Wait, I'll go now,” she said.

She departed and Crane waited tensely. He had not asked her simply for the location of the Jovian's cabin, because he did not even want her to suspect his paramount interest in Jurk Usk. The girl must not become involved in his desperate scheme.

She was soon back, obviously still perplexed by his request but with the information he wanted.

“The cabins are all on the second cabin-deck, like yours and mine,” the girl told him. “That of Jurk Usk is two doors off the main corridor, toward the stern. Kark Al, the Martian, is three doors beyond that. And the cabin of the young Earthman who was poisoned is directly opposite the Martian's. You know where the rest are."

“I know,” Crane said swiftly. “You've helped me a lot, Lalla Dee. I want you to go back up now and forget all about this, and no matter what happens to me, don't you say anything that will get you mixed up in this affair."

“Norman, you sound as though something awful might happen to you,” she told him distressedly. “What is it?"

“I'll be all right,” he repeated “And you're a swell girl, Lalla Dee."

She left and Crane paced the floor, seething with excitement. If he could just get to Jurk Usk's cabin...

He waited impatiently for the coming of the ship's night. When finally the lights had been turned off and the passengers had retired, and the whole craft silent except for the occasional passing step of a sailor and the throbbing of the ventilators, Rab Crane began to act. First he removed his shoes and sox.

Then he twisted with all his strength at one of the metal posts that supported his bunk, until he tore it loose. With this short, thick club in his hand, he climbed upon the now shaky bunk and reached up toward the grating of the ventilator-tube.

The tube was almost two feet across, a round pipe connected with the main ventilation system which dispersed oxygenized fresh air constantly to every room in the ship. Crane inserted his club in the grating and pried. The grating came loose with a little snap, and he poised, listening. But, apparently, no one had heard.

He stuffed the club into his trouser band and drew himself up into the ventilating tube. He got one shoulder in, then the other. The tube was a terribly tight fit but he inched steadily forward in it. In his face beat the constant flood of fresh, tangy air, and in his ears throbbed the distant pumps. Soon the tube opened into a vertical pipe, a somewhat larger one leading up to the decks above. Crane climbed slowly up this, bracing himself with bare hands and feet against the smooth sides.

Blindly he wormed upward in the dark pipe until he came to the place where a branch tube led horizontally into the second cabin-deck, his goal.

Now he began to count the branch tubes that led off into the separate cabins. Two branches further should be the tube leading to Jurk Usk's cabin. And Jurk Usk, no matter how diabolical his ingenuity, would never expect death to come to him through the ventilator!

Stealthily Crane inched forward and into the second branch tube. At its end was a light grating. Crane peered down through this into the dark cabin of the Jovian, located the dark bulk of the bunk.

Crane gently opened the grating and dropped soundlessly into the cabin. As he landed, Jurk Usk awoke!

Like a wildcat, the TSS man sprang. As the Jovian sat up, the club fell on his head and he sank back, stunned.

Swiftly Crane tore strips from the blankets and bound and gagged the man of Jupiter. Then he turned on the lights and looked around the cabin, his heart beating rapidly.

“He must have the brain somewhere in the cabin,” Crane told himself as he started a swift search.

Ten minutes later he stopped, thunderstruck by the results of his search.

“Good God, the brain isn't here! Then Jurk Usk isn't the killer, after all!"

He had searched every cranny. The brain of Doctor Alph was not here, and his inspection of the Jovian's belongings had convinced Rab that Jurk Usk was really what he claimed to be a shipping magnate and not a secret agent.

Then neither Kin Nilga nor the Jovian, after all, was his deadly opponent! Yet they were the only men on board with the enormous strength the killer possessed. If neither of them was the murderer, who could be? The logical answer to that question forced itself on Rab Crane's brain. He could not believe it, could not understand it, yet it rose before him with the cold force of reason. Glistening perspiration broke out on the Earthman's bronzed brow.

Leaving Jurk Usk bound, Crane climbed back into the ventilating tube and inched downward again through the great pipe.

Slowly, silently he crawled forwards turned off at the third next branch tube. Again Crane wormed toward the grating opening into a cabin. And this cabin was lighted.

Even before he reached the grating, Crane heard a voice that made his hair stand on end. A thin, monotonous metallic voice, utterly without expression.

And it was pleading tonelessly, “Why do you not kill me now that you have my secret? Please kill me—please kill me—"

Rab Crane had found the stolen brain at last! For this voice he heard was the mechanical loud-speaker voice through which the living brain of Doctor Alph was speaking!

Every nerve quivering, Crane inched forward. At last he stopped, his face almost against the grating, peering down into the lighted cabin. His gaze riveted on a table that stood between the bunk and a wooden crate.

On that table stood the thing he had risked his life to trail—a black metal case eighteen inches square. It had recording-dials in its face, a tiny microphone earphone, and the round diaphragm of a small loudspeaker. And inside that innocent-looking case, in its preserving serum, still lived the brain of Doctor Alph!

And Doctor Alph's brain was still speaking in that dreadful, toneless voice.

“Kill me! Please kill me—"

“Not yet, my dear Doctor,” mocked the man standing in front of the braincase. “The death you crave will not come until I have completely tested this secret of yours."

That mocking man who spoke, the diabolical brain-thief and murderer, was Kark Al, the little Martian!

Crane even now could not believe his eyes. How could this little wisp of a Martian have broken men's necks with his bare hands, have withstood the fire of his beams unhurt?

It seemed impossible! Yet, somehow, it had been done. Even though Crane could not comprehend the explanation, he knew that at last he looked on the man he sought.

Kark Al's eyes were cruel pinpoints behind great spectacles. “If you have tried to deceive me,” he told the brain warningly, “if you have not told me all your secret—"

“I have told you all. You have made the culture for yourself,” said the brain thinly. “Kill me and release me from the torture of this horrible existence!"

Rab Crane was softly releasing the catch of the ventilator grating. He had no weapon but the club and this withered little Martian was the most resourceful and remorseless killer he had ever encountered.

He crouched in the tube, stealthily opening the grating. Then the grating came loose too suddenly and slipped from his hand, falling to the floor with a clang. Kark Al whirled—

And Rab Crane sprang! He shot out of the tube like a living projectile, propelled by a terrific effort of his hunched muscles. He landed full on the Martian just as Kark Al drew his beam-gun.

They crashed to the floor together. The Martian was cat-like in his quickness, but Crane was fighting with madness born of desperate urging, and the withered little red man was no match for the Earthman's strength.

Crane tore the gun from Kark Al's hand, broke loose from the Martian and covered him with the weapon.

“Stand still, Kark Al!” he told him. “My beams didn't seem to hurt you last night for some reason, but I think that if I fire them into your face now, you'll die."

Kark Al's enormous spectacles glittered at Crane in calm curiosity. “Crane, the Earthman,” he said coolly. “It was ingenious of you to come through the ventilator. I congratulate you.

“Yes, Crane the Earthman,” Rab Crane said savagely. “And I'm taking this brain, and the secret it gave you for Earth!"

The brain of Doctor Alph spoke rapidly in its toneless voice:

“That secret is not for any planet, Earthman! It means doom for the rest of the Solar System if it is ever released by any planet. You must destroy it—and destroy me!"

“What is the secret?” Crane asked tensely of the square black case, his gun held steady on the coolly smiling Martian.

“It is death itself, for all organic life it touches,” the mechanical, metallic voice answered. “A new kind of bacteriophage, a strange, semi-organic microscopic life which ordinarily preys only on bacteria! Doctor Alph developed this new species, and it preys not alone on bacteria but on all organic life, expanding with incredible rapidity as it assimilates food.

“A mere pinch of this deadly new bacteriophage culture dropped on a plant would be enough to destroy rapidly all life on that planet The culture would spread like lightning, enveloping and devouring all organic matter like a flame of death running across that world. And Kark Al has a vial of the culture in his pocket! When he stole my brain, he also stole a tube of the death culture. That vial in his pocket can sweep whole worlds clean of life!"

Crane staggered beneath the dreadful revelation.

“God in heaven!” he whispered to the Martian. “And you would use that as a weapon of Mars, against other worlds?"

He thrust out his hand, his eyes blazing with the trembling fury he felt.

“Give me that vial!” he said.

A gun-muzzle abruptly prodded Crane's back and a low, clear voice said:

“No, that vial goes to me! Drop your gun!"

Dazedly Crane let the pistol fall from his hand. He turned slowly.

Lalla Dee, the Venusian girl, had silently entered the cabin door behind him and was covering both him and the Martian with a beam-pistol.

Her face was no longer that of a soft, pretty schoolgirl but was chiseled in lines of stern resolve.

“Lalla Dee!” cried Crane. “What does this mean?"

“It means, Rab Crane,” she said steadily, “that just as you work for Earth, and Kark Al for Mars, I work for Venus! Yes, I'm a member of the Venusian Secret Service. Headquarters sent me on this ship at the last minute when they learned that Doctor Alph's brain had been stolen. We had been trying to get Doctor Alph's secret for ourselves, of course, and knew that the thief would try to get away on the first ship.

“I thought at first that you had the brain, but I soon saw that you didn't, that you were on the trail of it just as Kin Nilga and myself were. So I watched you, thinking you might know enough to lead me to the person who did have it. And you've done so. When you asked about the cabins tonight, I kept watch outside them."

She held out her hand to the smiling little Martian.

“The vial of culture, Kark Al,” she said. “It and, that brain go back to Venus."

“Lalla Dee, you'll have to kill me before I'll let you get the culture and the brain, to be used, perhaps, against Earth!” Rab Crane cried.

“I'm sorry, Crane, really,” she said. “But just as you love Earth, so do I love Venus."

“You two need not continue the useless argument,” Kark Al said. “The culture and the brain go where it has always been destined that they should -to Mars."

'You think you can keep them even now, with my pistol covering you?” Lalla Dee said incredulously. “You're mad!"

Kark Al chuckled. “Your ridiculous beam-pistols! Do you think such toys are of any use when you are fighting me, Nald Arkol?"

“Nald Arkol of Mars!” Crane's exclamation of amazement was echoed by the astonishment of the girl's widened eyes, as they both stared at the withered little red man.

For they knew that they stood face to face with the most mysterious and dreaded interplanetary spy in the whole Solar System—the head of the great Martian Secret Service, the ice-hearted super-spy whom no man had ever seen but about whom every secret service man had heard terrible legends.

The little Kark Al was glittering at them amusedly.

“I see that you, have heard of me,” he said. “Do you still think a stupid beam-gun is enough to fight me?"

He laughed harshly.

“No. It is time to end this little comedy. Seize them, Thoh!"

In answer to his shrill order there rose suddenly out of the wooden crate beside the table, a squat, horrible figure. It was human in shape and wore grotesquely the clothes of a man. But it was not human. It was a metal robot! A mechanical man!

The robot sprang toward Rab Crane and the Venusian girl. Lalla Dee fired at it. The beams hit the robot squarely, splashed off. It was made of some rare metal impervious to ordinary atomic beams. In the next instant it had seized Rab Crane and the girl, was holding them helpless in its huge metal arms.

“Now you know how the men in Doctor Alph's house were killed,” Kark Al exclaimed triumphantly. “Also Kin Nilga, the Saturnian spy who had learned I had the brain and whom I had to kill for that reason. This robot, Thoh, whom I smuggled aboard as machinery samples, can be operated by direct order or remote control.

“And now he and I and the brain—and you two prisoners, also—are going to leave the Vulcan! A Martian naval cruiser has been secretly trailing this liner, waiting to pick me up when I leave the ship. I'm leaving now and taking you two with me. If I left you here dead, someone might read from your brains the nature of our new secret weapon. Aboard the cruiser, I'll torture valuable information from you, then destroy you completely. And then—"

The eyes of Kark Al expanded in blazing emotion that held the helpless man and girl paralyzed.

“Then the deadly culture and the secret of Doctor Alph will go to Mars. And some day ships of Mars will go forth and drop a death vial like this one on each of the other planets! We'll sweep all the rest of the Solar System clean of life. Then our people can go forth and take every world from Mercury to Pluto for ourselves. Everything—all the Universe for Mars!"

Rab Crane struggled wildly in the robot's inflexible grasp.

Then he opened his mouth to shout for help. Better anything than that Kark Al keep the secret.

“No! You do not give an alarm!” Kark Al hissed, and sprang forward with pistol raised butt foremost.

It crashed down on Crane's head in a stunning blow and the TSS man knew nothing more.

When he returned to consciousness he found himself wearing a heavy flexible metal suit. A spacesuit! Its glassite-fronted helmet was on his head and he breathed tangy oxygen from the tank inside the airtight suit.

Crane tried to rise and found that the wrists of his spacesuit were tied together. Beside him lay Lalla Dee, unconscious and similarly clad in a spacesuit, also bound. They were in one of the Vulcan's space-locks, both inner and outer doors closed.

Then Crane saw Kark Al. The Martian was getting into another spacesuit. The great robot stood motionless beside its master.

Kark Al bent over Crane finally, said coolly in his muffled voice, “Thoh got you from my cabin to this space-lock without anyone in the ship seeing us. Now we are leaving the ship!"

The Martian, once inside his suit, quickly secured a chain to his belt and tied it to the waists of the others so that he and the two prisoners and the robot formed a human chain.

Then Kark Al quickly took down from the rack beside the row of spacesuits, a hand-rocket—a small affair whose reactive push was enough to move several people in the void.

Kark Al touched a button and the outer door of the lock slid open. The air in it puffed out with a sharp sound, and they looked out into the star-gemmed blackness of space.

Rab Crane saw now that the Martian had slung from his shoulders a square, insulated case which he knew contained the brain of Doctor Alph. And as he realized that the Martian was achieving final success, he tried desperately to attack him.

But Kark Al at that moment stepped calmly out from the lock into empty space! The chain at his belt yanked Lalla Dee and Rab and the robot after him. They all floated there in space, a human chain, scraping the hull of the huge liner as it forged onward.

Kark Al's hand-rocket flashed flame, its impulse dragging them all forward. They moved outward from the liner, pulling away from its gravitational drag. The stem of the liner dwindled swiftly until only its lights were visible, and then those too vanished. The Vulcan was gone! They floated alone here in space, the Martian and his two bound, helpless prisoners and the great impassive robot, who needed no spacesuit because he did not breathe. Kark Al no longer used his hand-rocket, now that they were free of the liner. Crane knew that he was waiting for the Martian cruiser to reach them.

They turned slowly as they floated there, the immense starry firmament seeming to revolve around them. Rab glimpsed Lalla Dee's white face, conscious now, through the glassite front of her helmet. His own heart was numb with the cold of ultimate failure.

A few lights appeared against the stars in the direction opposite that in which the Vulcan had gone. The lights came closer and Rab saw they were those of a long, grim black spaceship coming slowly and cautiously through the void. The Martian cruiser that had been secretly trailing the Vulcan!

Kark Al flashed his hand-rocket three times, then repeated the signal. The Martian cruiser veered, came toward them, its bow rocket-tubes firing to brake its speed. The human chain was drawn slowly toward the cruiser by its gravitational attraction. Soon they bumped along its metal side.

Kark Al drew them toward a space lock that waited, open and ready. He jerked them inside and shut the outer door. Air hissed into the lock from storage tanks. Then the inner door of the lock opened and into it ran a half-dozen men; red-skinned, bristling-haired Martian officers in the gray uniform of their planet, and pulled them into the ship's inside.

One of them was the captain of the cruiser. Excitedly he helped Kark Al out of his spacesuit. Crane and Lalla Dee, still in their suits, lay beside the silent robot.

“Nald Arkol, did you get the great secret?” the Martian captain cried.

Kark Al's eyes flashed behind his spectacles as he answered, pointing to the square insulated case he had brought.

“Yes, I got it! The brain of Doctor Alph and his secret!"

He drew from his pocket a metal tube and took out of it a glassite vial filled with a yellow, fluffy substance.

He held it up proudly.

“Gentlemen, this is the secret that will make our planet sole master of the Solar System. This culture will destroy all life on every world, and give us all nine planets for our empire!"

The Martian officers cheered wildly, their faces flaming.

“The day of Mars has come at last!” they yelled.

Rab Crane's brain was a turmoil as he looked through his helmet at the vial Kark Al held aloft. The deadly culture—and it was in a glassite vial! The TSS man saw, in that instant, the superhuman chance to snatch eight planets from the jaws of doom!

He took that chance! With one wild upward lunge, Crane threw himself forward. His tied metal-clad hands struck the vial in Kark Al's grasp and knocked it to the floor. The glassite vial tinkled to shattered fragments.

“Gods of Mars!” screamed Kark Al as the vial broke. Then death was on him, was on them all, and those were his last words.

The fluffy yellow substance on the floor seemed to explode outward ever the Martians, expanding with the speed of light, covering them with a thick blanket of yellow fluff faster than the eye could follow.

It was the deadly bacteriophage Doctor Alph had cultivated, multiplying with the incredible speed the scientist had spoken of, devouring the flesh of the Martians like flame devouring tinder!

Kark Al and the other Martians were already indistinguishable, disintegrating mounds of yellow fluff. The stuff covered the helmets and space-suits of Rab Crane and Lalla Dee but could not penetrate through their air-tight glassite suits.

Crane brushed the yellow fluff wildly from before the eyes in his helmet, saw that the incredibly expanding bacteriophage had puffed out through the whole interior of the Martian cruiser. He could hear dim screams as every man in the ship, every atom of organic life, was fastened on and devoured by the culture.

Then, in a short while there was silence inside the cruiser. The Martians were gone, devoured. The ship held only the masses of ravening yellow life that had destroyed them!

Crane staggered close to Lalla Dee.

“Try to unbind my wrists,” he said in a muffled voice, through the helmet. “But for God's sake don't open your suit in the slightest or you're doomed!"

“I'll—I'll try,” said the Venusian girl shakenly.

Her trembling bound hands finally managed to undo the bonds around Crane's wrists. He unbound her, then, and released the chain that had tied them to Kark Al and the robot.

The huge robot, Thoh, still stood immobile beside them. The mechanical man's metal body had not been affected by the devouring bacteriophage, but he had received no order from his master to act, and had not moved.

Crane pushed Lalla Dee into the space-lock and told her:

“Take a hand-rocket and get as far out in space from the ship as you can. I'll be with you in a moment."

She obeyed, opening the outer door of the lock, stepping out into the void and using the hand-rocket she had picked up to propel her away from the Martian cruiser.

In a few minutes she saw Crane's space-suited figure leaping out of the space-lock, using another hand-rocket. She met him, grasped his arm as they floated together at a distance from the cruiser.

“What did you do?” she cried to him, her voice conducted to him by their touching space-suits.

“I made sure that that cruiser will never drift onto any world and loose that awful plague there,” he told her. “I laid a fuse to its tanks of rocket fuel."

Even as Crane spoke, the distant Martian cruiser suddenly burst into terrific light, a destroying explosion that flamed for a moment like a new sun, then vanished.

“That destroys the plague on the cruiser,” Crane told her. “Now for ourselves—the culture is smeared all over our suits."

He took his hand-rocket and with its flame carefully seared every square inch of the outside of her metal suit. Lalla Dee did the same for him. The last germs of the deadly culture had been destroyed.

“Before I laid the fuse, I used the cruiser's radio to call the Vulcan,” Crane told her. “They're turning around to come back and pick us up."

“And Doctor Alph's brain perished in that explosion too?” Lalla Dee cried. “No one else will ever find the secret of that culture?"

“No one else, thank God!” said Crane. “It's a power too great for any world to have."

“I'm glad that neither of us won this game, man of the TSS!” she exclaimed. “And I'll give the Vulcan's officers an explanation that will satisfy them, without letting them know the truth."

“Look, there comes the ship now!” he said, pointing.

Far off against the solemn stars, the lights of the returning Vulcan were showing. But Rab Crane was gazing past them, toward the distant green light-speck of his own world. No one there but his Chief would ever know the danger that had threatened that smiling world—and that had been averted.

Only the Chief would ever know, and all the reward that Rab Crane would ever get from him would be a little longer, stronger handshake than usual.

But that was reward enough for a man of the TSS.

Nemesis #1 Featuring Gun Moll, nemesis of crime, versus the sinister Dr. Sin Low in a complete book-length novel “Tentacles of Doom” plus other engrossing mystery stories and features.

AWARD WINNING & NOMINEE STORIES AND AUTHORS

People of the Darkness-Ross Rocklynne (Nebulas nominee author)

When They Come From Space-Mark Clifton (Hugo winning author)

What Thin Partitions-Mark Clifton (Hugo winning author)

Eight Keys to Eden-Mark Clifton (Hugo winning author)

The Toymaker & Other SF Stories-Raymond F. Jones

The Alien-Raymond F. Jones

This Island Earth-Raymond F. Jones (Hugo nominee author)

Renaissance-Raymond F. Jones

Rat Race &Other SF Novelettes and Short Novels-Raymond F. Jones (Hugo nominee story)

King of Eolim—Raymond F. Jones (Hugo nominee author)

Rat in the Skull & Other Off-Trail Science Fiction-Rog Phillips (Hugo nominee author)

The Involuntary Immortals-Rog Phillips (Hugo nominee author)

Inside Man & Other Science Fictions-H. L. Gold (Hugo winner, Nebula nominee)

The Saga of Lost Earths-Emil Petaja (Nebula nominee)

Women of the Wood and Other Stories-A. Merritt (Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame award)

A Martian Odyssey-Stanley G. Weinbaum (SFWA Hall of Fame)

Dawn of Flame-Stanley G. Weinbaum (SFWA Hall of Fame)

Scout-Octavio Ramos, Jr. (Best Original Fiction)

Smoke Signals-Octavio Ramos, Jr. (Best Original Fiction winning author)

The City at World's End-Edmond Hamilton

The Star Kings-Edmond Hamilton (Sense of Wonder Award winning author)

A Yank at Valhalla-Edmond Hamilton (Sense of Wonder Award winning author)

STEFAN VUCAK'S EPPIE NOMINEE SPACE OPERA “THE SHADOW GODS SAGA"

In the Shadow of Death

Against the Gods of Shadow

A Whisper from Shadow, Sequel (2002 EPPIE Award finalist)

With Shadow and Thunder

Through the Valley of Shadow, Sequel

THE AGENT OF TERRA

#1 The Flying Saucer Gambit

#2 The Emerald Elephant Gambit

#3 The Golden Goddess Gambit

#4 The Time Trap Gambit

NEMESIS: THE NEW MAGAZINE OF PULP THRILLS

#1. Featuring Gun Moll, the 1920s Undercover Nemesis of Crime in “Tentacles of Evil,” an all-new, complete book-length novel; plus a Nick Bancroft mystery by Bob Liter, “The Greensox Murders” by Jean Marie Stine, and a classic mystery short reprinted from the heyday of the pulps.

#2 Featuring Rachel Rocket, the 1930s Winged Nemesis of Foreign Terror in “Hell Wings Over Manhattan,” an all-new, complete book-length novel, plus spine-tingling science fiction stories, including EPPIE nominee Stefan Vucak's “Hunger,” author J. D. Crayne's disturbing “Point of View,” Hugo Award winner Larry Niven's “No Exit,” written with Jean Marie Stine, and a classic novelette of space ship mystery by the king of space opera, Edmond Hamilton. Illustrated. (Illustrations not available in Palm).

#3 Featuring Victory Rose, the 1940s Nemesis of Axis Tyranny, in Hitler's Final Trumpet,” an all-new, complete book-length novel, plus classic jungle pulp tales, including a complete Ki-Gor novel.

# 4 Featuring Femme Noir, the 1950s Nemesis of Hell's Restless Spirits, in an all new, book length novel, plus all new and classic pulp shudder tales, including “The Summons from Beyond” the legendary round-robin novelette of cosmic horror by H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, C.L. Moore, A. Merritt, and Frank Belknap Long.

OTHER FINE CONTEMPORARY & CLASSIC SF/F/H

A Million Years to Conquer-Henry Kuttner

Arcadia—Tabitha Bradley

Backdoor to Heaven—Vicki McElfresh

Buck Rogers #1: Armageddon 2419 A.D.-Philip Francis Nowlan

Chaka: Zulu King-Book I. The Curse of Baleka-H. R. Haggard

Chaka: Zulu King-Book II. Umpslopogass’ Revenge-H. R. Haggard

Claimed!-Francis Stevens

Darby O'Gill: The Classic Irish Fantasy-Hermine Templeton

Dracula's Daughters-Ed. Jean Marie Stine

Dwellers in the Mirage-A. Merritt

From Beyond & 16 Other Macabre Masterpieces-H. P. Lovecraft

Future Eves: Classic Science Fiction about Women by Women-(ed) Jean Marie Stine

Ghost Hunters and Psychic Detectives: 8 Classic Tales of Sleuthing and the Supernatural-(ed.) J. M. Stine

Horrors!: Rarely Reprinted Classic Terror Tales-(ed.) J. M. Stine. J.L. Hill

House on the Borderland-William Hope Hodgson

Invisible Encounter and Other SF Stories—J. D. Crayne

Ki-Gor, Lord of the Jungle-John Peter Drummond

Lost Stars: Forgotten SF from the “Best of Anthologies"-(ed.) J. M. Stine

Metropolis-Thea von Harbou

Mistress of the Djinn-Geoff St. Reynard

Nightmare!-Francis Stevens

Possessed!-Francis Stevens

Ralph 124c41+ Hugo Gernsback

The Cosmic Wheel-J. D. Crayne

The Forbidden Garden-John Taine

The City at World's End-Edmond Hamilton

The Ghost Pirates-W. H. Hodgson

The Girl in the Golden Atom—Ray Cummings

The House on the Borderland-William Hope Hodgson

The Insidious Fu Manchu-Sax Rohmer

The Interplanetary Huntress-Arthur K. Barnes

The Interplanetary Huntress Returns-Arthur K. Barnes

The Interplanetary Huntress Last Case-Arthur K. Barnes

The Lightning Witch, or The Metal Monster-A. Merritt

The Thief of Bagdad-Achmed Abdullah

Women of the Wood and Other Stories-A. Merritt

BARGAIN SF/F EBOOKS IN OMNIBUS EDITIONS

(Complete & Unabridged)

The First Lord Dunsany Omnibus: 5 Complete Books—Lord Dunsany

The First William Morris Omnibus: 4 Complete Classic Fantasy Books

The Barsoom Omnibus: A Princess of Mars; The Gods of Mars; The Warlord of Mars-Burroughs

The Second Barsoom Omnibus: Thuvia, Maid of Mars; The Chessmen of Mars-Burroughs

The Third Barsoom Omnibus: The Mastermind of Mars; A Fighting Man of Mars-Burroughs

The First Tarzan Omnibus: Tarzan of the Apes; The Return of Tarzan; Jungle Tales of Tarzan-Burroughs

The Second Tarzan Omnibus: The Beasts of Tarzan; The Son of Tarzan; Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar-Burroughs

The Third Tarzan Omnibus: Tarzan the Untamed; Tarzan the Terrible; Tarzan and the Golden Lion-Burroughs

The Pellucidar Omnibus: At the Earth's Core; Pellucidar-Burroughs

The Caspak Omnibus: The Land that Time Forgot; The People that Time Forgot; Out of Time's Abyss-Burroughs

The First H. G. Wells Omnibus: The Invisible Man: War of the Worlds; The Island of Dr. Moreau

The Second H. G. Wells Omnibus: The Time Machine; The First Men in the Moon; When the Sleeper Wakes

The Third H. G. Wells Omnibus: The Food of the Gods; Shape of Things to Come; In the Days of the Comet

The First Jules Verne Omnibus: Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea; The Mysterious Island; From the Earth to the Moon

The Homer Eon Flint: All 4 of the Clasic “Dr. Kenney” Novels: The Lord of Death; The Queen of Life; The Devolutionist; The Emancipatrix

The Second Jules Verne Omnibus: Around the World in 80 Days; A Journey to the Center of the Earth; Off on a Comet

Three Great Horror Novels: Dracula; Frankenstein; Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

The Darkness and Dawn Omnibus: The Classic Science Fiction Trilogy-George Allan England

The Garrett P. Serviss Omnibus: The Second Deluge; The Moon Metal; A Columbus of Space

ADDITIONAL TITLES IN PREPARATION