Chapter XV

Thaddeus Nestor sat at the head of the table. The table was beautiful dark mahogany, the walls were hung with thick velvet drapes—and sound-proofing materials.

Down the sides of the table the five other men, who represented the directorate of the American Super-power, were sitting, and listening to him anxiously, for what he had to say meant a great deal to them.

"And so, gentlemen, due to the inefficiency of our guards, the thieves stole that ship, the flagship. There are nine remaining ships, but none were quite so powerful as it. That, and the fact that it was most nearly completed, was the reason it was chosen no doubt, I doubt if they knew of—the arrangement as we may say.

"But I know who it was! It was that lying, murderous, crooked, untrustworthy blackguard, Atkill, with his villainous gang of cut-throats and murderers. I've seen to it that all our guards were notified of those who committed the theft and the attack, and I've taken the liberty to offer a reward of a quarter of a million for their capture, and the return of the ship.

"However, I fear it is useless. The blackguard is cunning, with the low cunning of rats. He forced me to pay him fifty thousand dollars for some junk apparatus I had foolishly given him permission to leave in my laboratory—the ingrate. I paid him one hundred thousand dollars for a month's work—and that's his return." Nestor truly convinced himself he had been badly handled. Now he was afraid.

"He has of course, examined those patents, and knows all that we know about the possibilities of the thing, but there is one thing that worries me. Warren mentioned artificial gravity in the presence of a certain man who has reported to me, a laboratory secretary named Wilson, and we have not found any means of producing artificial gravity.

The Production of Artificial Gravity

"It is evident that there are more possibilities our men have not found. They tell me they understand it, but I'm not sure——"

William Fordham, President of the Atlantic Power Corporation, Vice-President of the American Super-power, interrupted. "They don't know what it's all about. They merely follow the directions of the patents, and they get a machine that does this or that, as the papers say. The fools can't even find out what makes it happen."

"Uh. I didn't think they could," went on Nestor. "But Atkill's a brainy rat. I'm sure he has figured it out, and he may have something new, that we don't know about.

"Now I wonder if it wouldn't be advisable to buy him and his group in with us. He could cause a great deal of trouble, particularly if he waited till after we had—er—discharged our allies."

"I vote we do," said Fordham.

The others concurred. "We'll buy him in then, at the lowest price we can," decided Nestor.

Burt Hillen was also holding a council that morning, and on the same subject—the manner of dealing with Joe Keller and Company. Burt was listening to an impassioned oration from "Tiny" Morgan. Tiny was six feet six tall, and four feet broad, and weighed 257 pounds. Also he could shoot so rapidly, and so accurately, that while he was living a long time in gangland, he was much feared. Tiny's only trouble was one he did not realize. He had the bulk and strength of an elephant, and the brain of an ant.

"All yuh say may be perf'cly true, Tiny, but I heard of a yarn about a guy wat wanted to make rabbit pie, and the first ting they said was to git the rabbit. Them gumps has got the ship, and they've gone. Try an' fin' 'em."

Somebody knocked on the outer door of the guard-office. The pounding hammers on the ships and the racket of repairs to the great roof of the hangar almost drowned the sounds, but the signal knocks were recognizable. Burt reached out a hand and pressed a button. The door opened of itself. "Yeah?" he demanded. "Dumb" Bell, who served in the rôle of a secretary to the Chief of the organization stuck his head in. It was a wizened, bald head. The man looked about fifty, and was actually thirty-two. The face was sharp, and pinched. Aloysius Bell he had started out in life, but the name "Dumb" quickly attached itself, because he was markedly other than dumb, and because it suited his last name so perfectly.

"Chemmy's outside. Got sumpin' important."

"Huh? Chemmy? Oh, yeah. I had him come down didn't I? Sen' him in," ordered Hillen indifferently.

"Chemmy" was the chief chemist of Hillen's industries. He was foreman over the workers who synthesized the drugs the Hillen mob sold, and the alcohol they made into drinks. At one time he had been James Ogden Brent, Ph.D., and a number of other things. He had, however, synthesized a new drug, tried it on animals, and found it harmless. He tried it on himself, and found it was so powerfully a habit-former that a single dose put him forever in its grip.

He was in the hands of the gang now, and Hillen had sent him out here to-day to look at these ships. Somewhere in Hillen's clever, twisted mind there lurked the idea that a scientist of his own should look over these scientific marvels, and pronounce them fit for him.

Brent came in, a little stooped man, his eyes unnaturally bright, unnaturally quick. "Hello, Hillen. Who built these ships?" he asked as soon as he passed the threshhold.

"Huh? Old Fox-face's mechanics a course."

"Well, listen. If you go aboard those ships after the windows are in, he can kill you any time he wants, without touching the ship," snapped the little man.

Hillen stiffened. Tiny Morgan let out a bull roar of anger. "Yuh mean that?" asked Hillen softly, as he settled back. "How?"

"I was looking over the arrangements for the purification of the air in the ship, and I saw that the apparatus was well, and cleverly designed. It will do its job very well. But there was one pipe-line I could not understand, that led into the main return pipes—the pipes that would distribute the air through the ship. I also noticed something that I thought was a radio set, and as I could see no reason for a radio set there, I sent for 'Sparks' Cohen. He's the head of the communications department, and a very clever radio man. He told me that a certain kind of radio signal would, at any time, cause the valve to open, and any gas, that was in that pipe-line, would be distributed through the ship. While he had been on the way here, I followed the pipe-line back, and finally found a water tank that didn't hold water, but 'akalite'. Akalite is liquid, and looks like water in the gauge, but actually it is a low-boiling liquid, so deadly that it will kill a human being diluted one part in a million in the air. The radio set could release that gas into the ventilating system of the ship, and kill the entire crew of the ship in less than ten seconds.

The Poison Vapor on the Air Ships

"Eight of the ships are so equipped; the ninth was, and the equipment has been taken out, all save the actual deadly akalite, which could only be removed with the aid of gas masks. That would have been noticed. As it is, the ninth ship is perfectly safe. It is the flagship."

"The one old Fox-face and his friends will ride on, isn't it? Beautiful scheme—bee-ut-ie-ful." A slow, hard smile spread across Hillen's face. "Verry, verrry pretty. So we takes the country fer him, and den he wipes us out—an' he has the whole works—and we have a swell funeral. Verry clever." Hillen's smile was cold, deadly.

"That—damn stinkin' double-crossin' Fox-faced monkey! The so-and-so wan'ed us to get in—an' den he wipes us!" Tiny was roaring again.

"Tiny," said Hillen coldly, "sit down."

Tiny sat. "Well, watcha gonna do—let him go? Hey, lemme get dat guy, willya?" he demanded.

"Yes, Tiny, I think we let him go. Uhuh. We let him go. We make sure he don' know we know. Then he'll go ahead, an' let us take the country fer him—only we'll be doin' it fer ourselves." Hillen's face was smiling pleasantly now, he looked pleased. His eyes were black, and little gleams of murder dwelt in them. "An' after we've done it—when he's all ready, an' sends that signal, an' tries to turn on the gas—we'll turn somethin' on him, maybe——!"

"Chemmy, call Sparks in here, and we'll have a talk. Come on," ordered Hillen. His lips still smiled, and his eyes were beginning to smile when the chemist returned with the radio man.