Manly Wade Wellman - Chapbook 02 by Devil's Planet (v1.1) Page A

interested in.”
                 “You’re
taking my money and now you're selling me to the police!” cried Stover in
sudden comprehension. Gerda merely smiled at him.
                “Wait,” she said into the
instrument, and then to Stover: “Not to the police. To somebody who will pay
more. I only put the bracelet on to prevent any accident. Try to get away from
me, and you’ll not get far. Now, stand easy—I haven’t finished phoning.”
                 She
turned back to the instrument. “You heard his voice,” she cooed into the phone.
“Is your price still offered? Then come at once to —” Stover made a frenzied
leap. An electro-automatic pellet zipped its way through his tousled hair even
as he twisted the weapon away. Tucking Gerda’s struggling body under one arm,
he seized the telephone.
                 “This
is Stover,” he grated into it. “While this she-rat of yours bragged, I jumped
her and took her gun away. I’ll get you next. Who is this?”
                 A gasp over the wire. That was all. “Then I’ll come and get
you without any help. You killed Malbrook, didn’t you? You want to kill me
before the law learns I’m innocent, don’t you? But it won’t work! Don’t count
your Dillon Stovers before they’re dead and buried. Good-by until we meet for
the showdown!”
                 He
hung up, thrusting the captured gun into his tunic. Despite Gerda’s frantic
resistance, he coolly repossessed the money she had taken from him. Finally he
bound her hands with her own belt and gagged her with a strip torn from her
skirt. She glared above the gag.
                 “Good-by,
my bewitching little doublecrosser,” he bade her. “Stick to stool-pigeoning.
The police will back you—if they don’t catch you cheating. I’m going to catch
the blundering killer you tried to sell me to.”
                 “You’ll
never get away,” she raged, managing to spit out through the gag. “That
bracelet will bring you crawling back here.”
                 “I
won’t wear it long,” he said grimly. “It looks smashable.”
                 “Try
to cut or smash it,” she dared. “There’ll be an explosion that will tear your
arm off at the shoulder. You’ll not live through that. I’ll be seeing you soon,
big man—seeing you on your knees!”
                 “Don’t
hold your breath until then,” he answered curtly.
                 Unfastening
the door, he left, went down the hall and came to a corridor which led to an
exit. Moored there was a speedy-looking rocket flyer. He sprang in, turned on
the power, and sailed up and away.

           CHAPTER VII Thirst
     
                LIKE
most young men of his day, Dillon Stover understood very well the workings of
rocket craft. This purloined one-seater was not the newest model, but it was
serviceable. He felt sudden elation. Nobody knew his jumping-off place save the
undercover girl, Gerda. By the time she escaped even that faint trail would be
lost. She would think twice about warning the police. If she
appealed only to the unknown killer, and if that unknown killer came seeking
him, Stover would like nothing better.
                 “First,”
he decided, “I must get to another town and pose there under a new name and
personality. I’ll dope out this thing, maybe make a deal with some
law-enforcement body that isn’t too friendly with Congreve and the
Malbrook-Fielding combine — hello, this rocket isn’t any too well hung together
at that. I feel a funny vibration all up my left arm. Must
come from the fuel-feed lever.”
                 He
took his hand from the fuel-feed lever. The vibration still quivered his left
arm, climbed and crawled into his shoulder and chest.
                 “Whup!”
said Stover aloud. “It’s that bracelet!”