Stowaway To Mars: (formerly Planet Plane)

Stowaway to Mars (Formerly Planet Plane) John Wyndham CHAPTER I DEATH OF A STRANGER JAKE REILLY, the night watchman, made his usual round without any apprehension of danger. He was even yawning as he left the laboratory wing and came into the main assembly hangar. For a moment he paused on the threshold, looking at the structure in the centre of the floor. He wondered vaguely how they were getting on with it. Mighty long job, building a thing like that. It hadn't looked any different for months, as far as he could see. But Jake could not see far. The towering object of his inspection was so closely scaffolded that only here and there could the dim lights filter between the poles to be reflected back from a polished metal surface. "Workin' inside it mostly, now, I s'pose," he told himself. He switched on his lamp and let its white beam wander about inquisitively. The floor plan of this, the central part of the building, was circular. Around the walls lathes, power drills and other light machine tools were disposed at intervals. The constructional work cut off his view of the opposite wall, and he moved round it, conscientiously conducting his search. He let his light play upwards, sweeping the narrow gallery which circled the wall, and noticing that the doors giving upon it were all shut. He sent the beam still higher, above the level of the dim, shaded lights, to the distant roof. There was a criss-crossing of heavy girders up there, supporting huge pulley blocks. The cables and chains depending from them came curving down, looped back out of the way now on to iron hooks on the walls. He tilted his lamp so that its bright circle ran down the curved metal side again. "Like bein' inside a blessed gasholder, that's what it is," he told himself, not for the first time. "Pile o' money that thing must've cost, and I don't s'pose it'll ever go." A sudden sound caused him to stiffen. Somewhere there had been a faint clink of metal upon metal. He transferred his lamp to his left hand, and a large, black, businesslike pistol suddenly appeared in his right. He swung the light around, sweeping the dimmer parts of the place with its beam. "Now then. 'Oo's there? Come out of it," he ordered. There was no answer. His voice boomed round the metal wall, slowly diminishing into silence. "Better come out quick. I got a gun," Jake told the dimness. He began to back towards the door where the alarm button was situated. No good trying to get the man single handed in here. Might chase him round and round that scaffolding for hours. "Better come quiet, 'nless you want a bullet in you," he said. But still there was no reply. He was in reach of the alarm now. He hesitated. It might have been only a rat. Better be sure than sorry, though. He hung the lamp on the little finger of his pistol hand and reached, without turning, for the switch. There was a sudden 'phut' somewhere in the shadows. Jake shuddered convulsively. The pistol and the lamp clattered together to the ground, and he slumped on top of them. A dark figure slipped from behind the scaffolding and ran across the floor. It bent for a moment over the fallen watchman. Reassured, it dragged the body aside, and laid it inconspicuously behind one of the lathes. Returning, it kicked the lamp away, picked up the fallen pistol and slid it into its own pocket. For some seconds the dark figure stood silent and motionless, then, satisfied that there had been no alarm, it raised its arm and took steady aim at the nearest of the dim lamps. Four times came the muffled 'phut' as of a stick hitting