Mike scowled up and down the companionway. "What shape are we in?"
"Bad."
"How bad?"
"The worst. The pile's gone."
"The _pile_!"
Mike ran aft. The door to the tube cabin stood open. The alley into which the fifteen-pound, lead-crated pile had lately been driven, was empty.
Swiftly Mike assessed the situation. A helpless ship. A derelict.
They'd entered through the aft airlock. They'd taken Professor Brandon off that way. Then they'd closed the lock again.
That meant only one thing. Through pure cruelty, they had avoided swift death to the ship's occupant in favor of a long, lingering one.
Only the basest of men would do a thing like that.
Mike was not acquainted with McKee or Talbott, but he knew something about them. They were the lowest type of the human species. Only the bloodthirsty pirates of Ganymede ever made their victims walk space.
He returned to where Nicko was clinging to the companionway guard-rail. Nicko said, "You haven't seen it all, yet."
"Is there more?"
"That's only the beginning. They smashed everything in the control cabin. All the navigating instruments. Even if we had a pile this boat couldn't find its way down Main Street at high noon."
It followed, Mike thought grimly. "I'll be drummed out of the Guild for this."
"If you ever get within shouting distance of Outer Port again, which you won't."
Mike doubled his fists. "To stand flatfooted and let a boarder move in and take my pile--and my client. How much of an idiot can a man be!"
Doree came up the ladder, her eyes wide with fright. "Did you find him?"
"No--and don't start crying. Why didn't you tell me about these men?
Why didn't you give me a chance to protect my ship?"
"We--we didn't know they'd follow us. We--I didn't dream they had any idea of--"
"They followed you. And they had the idea. They took our pile and shoved us off on a blind orbit. They arranged for us to die out here."
"Won't we--we be found?"
"A million to one shot in these spaces."
"More than that," Nicko said. "A billion to one. It's empty out here, lady."
Mike saw that Doree was again about to burst into tears. He took her by the arm. "We're going to the lounge and you're going to tell me all about this--what's been going on." He drew her toward the ladder, calling over his shoulder. "Clean up what you can, Nicko. See what other deviltry they arranged."
In the lounge, Mike sat Doree firmly into a chair. "Now let's not have any tears. Just tell it the way it happened."
Doree had got control of herself. She sat straight, miserable, a little pathetic, Mike thought. She said, "Lorn McKee and Dean Talbott were Paris art collectors. Their reputations were not of the best but when they approached father he listened to them.
"They had a strange looking scroll made of papyrus. It had writing on it in an ancient script and they wanted father to translate it for them."
"Would that have made it more valuable?"
"Of course. At first father was suspicious, thinking it was some kind of a hoax. They told him the scroll had come from an Egyptian tomb but would tell him no more relative to its origination. They brought it to him because he was Terra's foremost authority in that field.
"Father discovered immediately that the scroll was genuine and very old. Papyrus was a material the ancient Egyptians used."
"And--?" Mike asked impatiently.
"He refused to translate it for them because they in turn would not tell him what they proposed to do with it. He felt it should be turned over to the proper authorities--some university--and besides, he was suspicious of the two men. So they went away and tried to get it translated elsewhere. This was impossible, so they came back and offered to sell it to father for a very low price but with the stipulation that he keep what he learned strictly to himself.
"He wanted to make the translation and was tempted because he already had a clue to its nature. He believed the scroll verified a theory long in existence on Terra relative to the extraterrestrial origination of mankind."
"You mean he thought it proved the Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon came from other planets."
"No, not so far back as that. There is little doubt they originated on Terra. Father is a specialist in Egyptology. And it was his belief that a great deal of their early history was purposely distorted.
There is confusion in what little can be found concerning them and father sincerely believed they came from another planet. He was sure they brought with them a knowledge of science far greater than any existing upon Terra."
"And the papyrus verified his belief?"
"Completely."
"What did it tell him?"
"That the forefathers of those who later became the Egyptians, left their native planet after a disagreement with the ruling Pharaoh and sought a new home. They cruised for several lifetimes, raising and educating their children and dying off, until they found Terra, a planet almost identical to their own. The papyrus gave the location of their home planet--hieroglyphics which father translated into a table of accurate equations."
"How could he know they were accurate?"
Doree's head came up sharply. "If you were really aware of my father's ability in his field, it wouldn't occur to you to ask."
"I don't blame you for your faith but I still think it was a gigantic hoax--for one reason."
"And that--?"
"If the ancestors of the Egyptians came to Terra, they had to have great scientific and technical knowledge to get there. All right--then what happened to the knowledge and the science? The Egyptians certainly didn't take advantage of it."
"They used some of it. No one has been able to prove conclusively how they built the pyramids."
"Slave labor."