He did head her off and managed to lure her and Baker and Xartal into the Shaft barracks where they would be exposed to the rays from the lens button. But Grannie only pretended to contract the plague.
Park then attempted to outwit Ezra Karn and me by returning in Jimmy Baker's kite car with a cockatoo image of Grannie.
I listened to all this in silence. "But," I said when she had finished, "how did Park manage to have that image created and why did the mine laborers walk out into the Baldric when they contracted the fever?"
Grannie Annie frowned. "I'm not sure I can answer the first of those questions," she replied. "You must remember Antlers Park has been on this moon five years and during that time he must have acquainted himself with many of its secrets. Probably he learned long ago just what to do to make a cockatoo create a mental image.
"As for the men going out into the Baldric, that was more of Park's diabolical work. In the walls of the barracks besides those lens buttons were also miniature electro-hypnotic plates, with the master controlling unit located in that valley. Park knew that when the miners were in a drugged condition from the effects of the fever they would be susceptible to the machine's lure.... And now, Billy-boy, are you coming with me?"
"Coming with you?" I repeated. "Where?"
The old lady lit a cigarette. "Pluto maybe," she said. "There's a penal colony there, you know, and that ought to tie in nicely with a new crime story. I can see it now ... prison break, stolen rocket ship, fugitives lurking in the interplanetary lanes...."
"Grannie," I laughed. "You're incorrigible!"