Empire

CHAPTER FIVE

Pine roots burned brightly in the fireplace, snapping and sizzling as the blaze caught and flamed on the resin. Deep in an easy chair, Greg Manning stretched his long legs out toward the fire and lifted his glass, squinting at the flames through the amber drink.

"There's something that's been worrying me a little,” he said. “I hadn't told you about it because I figured it wasn't as serious as it looked. Maybe it isn't, but it looks funny."

"What's that?” asked Russ.

"The stock market,” replied Greg. “There's something devilish funny going on there. I've lost about a billion dollars in the last two weeks."

"A billion dollars?” gasped Russ.

Greg swirled the whiskey in his glass. “Don't sound so horrified. The loss is all on paper. My stocks have gone down. Most of them cut in half. Some even less than that. Martian Irrigation is down to 75. I paid 185 for it. It's worth 200."

"You mean something has happened to the market?"

"Not to the market. If that was it, I wouldn't worry. I've seen the market go up and down. That's nothing to worry about. But the market, except for a slight depression, has behaved normally in these past two weeks. It almost looks as if somebody was out to get me."

"Who'd want to and why?"

Greg sighed. “I wish I knew. I haven't really lost a cent, of course. My shares can't stay down for very long. The thing is that right now I can't sell them even for what I paid for them. If I sold now I'd lose that billion. But as long as I don't have to sell, the loss is merely on paper."

He sipped at the drink and stared into the fire.

"If you don’ have to, what are you worrying about?” asked Russ.

"Couple of things. I put that stock up as collateral to get the cash to build the spaceship. At present prices, it will take more securities than I thought. If the prices continue to go down, I'll have the bulk of my holdings tied up in the spaceship. I might even be forced to liquidate some of it and that would mean an actual loss."

He hunched forward in the chair, stared at Russ.

"Another thing,” he said grimly, “is that I hate the idea of somebody singling me out as a target. As if they were going to make a financial example of me."

"And it sounds as if someone has,” agreed Russ.

Greg, leaned back again, drained his glass and set it down.

"It certainly does,” he said.

Outside, seen through the window beside the fireplace, the harvest Moon was a shield of silver hung in the velvet of the sky. A lonesome wind moaned in the pines and under the eaves.

"I got a report from Belgium the other day,” said Greg. “The spaceship is coming along. It'll be the biggest thing afloat in space."

"The biggest and the toughest,” said Russ, and Greg nodded silent agreement.

The ship itself was being manufactured at the great Space Works in Belgium, but other parts of it, apparatus, engines, gadgets of every description, were being manufactured at other widely scattered points. Anyone wondering what kind of ship the finished product would be would have a hard time gathering the correct information, which, of course, was the idea. The “anyone” they were guarding against was Spencer Chambers.

"WE need a better television set,” said Russ. This one we have is all right, but we need the best there is. I wonder if Wilson could get us one in Frisco and bring it back."

"I don't see why not,” said Greg. “Send him a radio."

Russ stepped to the phone, called the spaceport and filed the message.

"He always stays at the greater Martian,” he told Greg. “We'll probably catch him there."

Two hours later the phone rang. It was the spaceport.

"That message you sent to Wilson” said the voice of the operator, “can't be delivered. Wilson isn't at the Greater Martian. The clerk said he checked out for New York last night."

"Didn't he leave a forwarding address?” asked Russ.

"Apparently not."

Russ hung up the receiver, frowning. “Wilson is in New York."

Greg looked up from a sheet of calculations.

"New York, eh?” he said and then went back to work, but a moment later he straightened from his work. “What would Wilson be doing in New York?"

"I wonder…” Russ stopped and shook his head.

"Exactly,” said Greg. He glanced out of the window, considering, the muscles in his cheeks knotting. “Russ, we both are thinking the same thing."

"I hate to think it,” said Russ evenly. “I hate to think such a thing about a man."

"One way to find out,” declared Greg. He rose from the chair and walked to the television control board, snapped the switch. Russ took a chair beside him. On the screen the mountains danced weirdly as the set rocketed swiftly away and then came the glint of red and yellow desert. Blackness blanked out the screen as the set plunged into the ground, passing through the curvature of the Earth's surface. The blackness passed and fields and farms were beneath them on the screen, a green and brown checkerboard with tiny white lines that were roads.

New York was in the screen now. Greg's hand moved the control and the city rushed up at them, the spires speeding toward them like plunging spears. Down into the canyons plunged the set, down into the financial district with its beetling buildings that hemmed in the roaring traffic.

Grimly, surely, Greg drove his strange machine through New York. Through buildings, through shimmering planes, through men. Like an arrow the television set sped to its mark and then Greg's hand snapped back the lever and in the screen was a building that covered four whole blocks. Above the entrance was the famous Solar System map and straddling the map were the gleaming golden letters: Interplanetary Building.

"Now we'll see,” said Greg.

He heard the whistle of the breath in Russ's nostrils as the television set began to move, saw the tight grip Russ had upon the chair arms.

The interior of the building showed on the screen as he drove the set through steel and stone, offices’ and corridors and brief glimpses of steel partitions, until it came to a door marked: Spencer Chambers, President.

Greg's hand twisted the control slightly and the set went through the door, into the office of Spencer Chambers.

Four men were in the room — Chambers himself; Craven, the scientist; Arnold Grant, head of Interplanetary's publicity department, and Harry Wilson!

Wilson's voice came out of the screen, a frantic, almost terrified voice.

"I've told you all I know. I'm not a scientist. I'm a mechanic. I've told you what they're doing. I can't tell you how they do it."

Arnold Grant leaned forward in his chair. His face was twisted in fury.

"There were plans, weren't there?” he demanded. “There were equations and formulas. Why didn't you bring us some of them?"

Spencer Chambers raised a hand from the desk, waved it toward Grant. “The man has told us all he knows. Obviously, he can t be any more help to us."

"You told him to go back and see if he couldn't find something else, didn't you?” asked Grant.

"Yes, I did,” Chambers told him. “But apparently he couldn't find it"

"I tried,” pleaded Wilson. Perspiration stood out on his forehead. The cigarette in his mouth was limp and dead. “One of them was always there. I never could get hold of any papers. I asked questions, but they were too busy to answer. And I couldn't ask too much, because then they would have suspected me."

"No, you couldn't do that,” commented Craven with an open sneer.

In the laboratory Russ pounded the arm of his chair with a clenched fist. “The rat sold us out!"

Greg said nothing, but his face was stony and his eyes were crystal-hard.

On the screen Chambers was speaking to Wilson. “Do you think you could find something out if you went back again?"

Wilson squirmed in his chair.

"I'd rather not.” His voice sounded like a whimper. “I'm afraid they suspect me now. I'm afraid of what they'd do if they found out."

"That's his conscience,” breathed Russ in the laboratory. “I never suspected him."

"He's right about one thing, though,” Greg said. “He'd better not come back."

Chambers was talking again: “You realize, of course, that you haven't been much help to us. You have only warned us that another kind of power generation is being developed. You've set us on our guard, but other than that we're no better off than we were before."

Wilson bristled, like a cowardly animal backed into a corner. “I told you what was going on. You can be ready for it now. I can" t help it if I couldn't find out how all them things worked."

"Look here,” said Chambers. “I made a bargain with you and I keep my bargains. I told you I would pay you twenty thousand dollars for the information you gave me when you first came to see me. I told you I'd pay you for any further additional information you might give. Also I promised you a job with the company."

Watching the financier, Wilson licked his lips. “That's right,” he said.

Chambers reached out and pulled a checkbook toward him, lifted a pen from its holder. “I'm paying you the twenty thousand for the warning. I'm not paying you a dime more, because you gave me no other information."

Wilson leaped to his feet, started to protest.

"Sit down,” said Chambers coldly.

"But the job! You said you'd give me a job!"

Chambers shook his head. “I wouldn't have a man like you in my organization. If you were a traitor to one man, you would be to another."

"But… but…” Wilson started to object and then sat down, his face twisted in something that came very close to fear.

Chambers ripped the check out of the book, waved it slowly in the air to dry it. Then he arose and held it out to Wilson, who reached out a trembling hand and took it.

"And now,” said Chambers, “good day, Mr. Wilson."

For a moment Wilson stood uncertain, as if he intended to speak, but finally he turned, without a word, and walked through the door.

IN the laboratory Russ and Greg looked at one another.

"Twenty thousand,” said Greg. “Why, that was worth millions."

"It was worth everything Chambers had,” said Russ, “because it's the thing that's going to wreck him.” Their attention snapped back to the screen.

Chambers was hunched over his desk, addressing the other two.

"Now, gentlemen,” he asked, “what are we to do?"

Craven shrugged his shoulders. There was a puzzled frown in the eyes back of the thick-lensed glasses. “We haven't much to go on. Wilson doesn't know a thing about it. He hasn't the brain to grasp even the most fundamental ideas back of the whole thing."

Chambers nodded. “The man knew the mechanical setup perfectly, but that was all."

"I've constructed the apparatus,” said Craven. “It's astoundingly simple. Almost too simple to do the things Wilson said it would do. He drew plans for it, so clear that it was easy to duplicate the apparatus. He himself checked the machine and says it is the same as Page and Manning have. But there are thousands of possible combinations for hookups and control board settings. Too many to try to go through and hit upon the right answer. Because, you see, one slight adjustment in any one of a hundred adjustments might do the trick… but which of those adjustments do you have to make? We have to have the formulas, the equations, before we can even move."

"He seemed to remember a few things,” said Grant hopefully. “Certain rules and formulas."

Craven flipped both his hands angrily. “Worse than nothing,” he exploded. “What Page and Manning have done is so far in advance of anything that anyone else has even thought about that we are completely at sea. They're working with space fields, apparently, and we haven't even scratched the surface in that branch of investigation. We simply haven't got a thing to go on."

"NO chance at all?” asked Chambers.

Craven shook his head slowly.

"At least you could try,” snapped Grant.

"Now, wait,” Chambers snapped back. “You seem to forget Dr. Craven is one of the best scientists in the world today. I'm relying on him."

Craven smiled. “I can't do anything with what Page and Manning have, but I might try something of my own."

"By all means do so,” urged Chambers. He turned to Grant. “I observed you have carried out the plans we laid. Martian Irrigation hit a new low today."

Grant grinned. “It was easy. Just a hint here and there to the right people."

Chambers looked down at his hands, slowly closing into fists. “We have to stop them some way, any way at all. Keep up the rumors. We'll make it impossible for Greg Manning to finance this new invention. We'll take away every last dollar he has."

He glared at the publicity man. “You understand?"

"Yes, sir,” said Grant, “I understand perfectly."

"All right,” said Chambers. “And your job, Craven, is to either develop what Page has found or find something we can use in competition."

Craven growled angrily. “What happens if your damn rumors can't ruin Manning? What if I can't find anything?"

"In that case,” said Chambers, “there are other ways."

"Other ways?"

Chambers suddenly smiled at them. “I have a notion to call Stutsman back to Earth."

Craven drummed his fingers idly on the arm of his chair. “Yes, I guess you do have other ways,” he said.

Greg's hand snapped the switch and the screen suddenly was blank as the televisor set returned instantly to the laboratory.

"That explains a lot of things,” he said. “Among them what has happened to my stocks."

Russ sat in his chair, numbed. “That little weak-kneed, ratting traitor, Wilson. He'd sell his mother for a new ten dollar bill."

"We know,” said Greg, “and Chambers doesn't know we know. We'll follow every move he makes. We'll know every one of his plans."

Pacing up and down the room, he was already planning their campaign.

"There are still a few things to do, he added. “A few possibilities we may have overlooked."

"But will we have time?” asked Russ.

"I think so. Chambers is going to go slow. The gamble is too big to risk any slip. He doesn't want to get in bad with the law. There won't be any strong arm stuff… not until he recalls Stutsman from Callisto."

He paused in mid-stride, stood planted solidly on the floor.

"When Stutsman gets into the game,” he said, “all hell will break loose."

He took a deep breath.

"But we'll be ready for it then!"