From the superstructure roof, as I ran forward along it, I could see down to the side deck. A cloaked figure there. Philip Carson. I had just a glimpse as he darted into a door under me. A ladder was nearby. My little paralyzer-gun was in my hand as I climbed down the ladder, reached the dark side-deck. The commotion was all up forward; there was no one here at the moment. The corridor door into which Carson had run was beside me. I ran into it, ten feet or so and into a cross corridor. Came to his doorway. It was locked. I ran around to the deck again. His window was near here.
The glassite pane of the window was closed and locked. The inner fabric-shade was drawn down. What was he doing in there? Searching for his map? For other things which might be incriminating?
I had a few instruments hidden in my clothes, tiny devices which we of the Interplanetary Patrol sometimes have occasion to use—a small electric listener and a tiny X-ray fluoroscope screen. The listener yielded the sound of a man's panting breath, his furtive, fumbling movements within the dark little cubby. Then I tried the X-ray, through the fabric-shrouded glassite pane of the window. It shot its invisible, soundless rays through the window into the cubby. The little hooded three-inch screen in my palm glowed with the greenish fluoroscopic X-ray image.
A kneeling skeleton was revealed—the skeleton of a man kneeling in there with his back to me. I stared, and suddenly gasped, with my breath stopped. The back of the skeleton's skull was visible—the image-shadow there was of a different density from the bones of his skull! A dark triangular patch—not bone, but metal! The man with the metal skull! Philip Carson, of notorious Chameleon fame! The Phantom raider! I had him here identified at last! Had him trapped here!
With a blow of my gun-butt I smashed through the glassite pane; tore the fabric-shade aside. This room was dark. I had an instant's glimpse of the dark blob of his crouching figure. There was the whiz of something he threw at me; the tinkling of glass as some fragile little thing struck against my forehead. I recall that my paralyzer ray darted into the dark room. Perhaps it caught him, held him for a second. But my head was reeling; my senses swiftly fading, with a cold sweat breaking out all over me.
And then I was aware that I had fallen to the deck with my gun clattering away. With my last dim thought came the realization that I was fainting. That tiny glass globe which had broken against my forehead—I knew what it was! A little bomb of acetycholine, a weird drug to lower the blood-pressure and cause me to faint. I fought, but it was useless. My senses faded.
Then after an interval I seemed vaguely to be conscious that someone was bending over me. A dark cloak.... Again I knew only blankness; and then slowly my senses were coming back. Weak, dizzy, with my head roaring, my body bathed in cold sweat, I found myself still lying on the dark deck. Perhaps I had been out only a moment or two. I could still hear the commotion up forward. I staggered to my feet; saw the cloaked figure as it ran into the superstructure. Carson making his getaway! I had a glimpse of him again, two levels down on the dim catwalk, and saw him dart into the pressure-chamber. I was too late getting there. The metal pressure-door closed in my face.
But I had him! I could do to him what he had done to Brenda! I started for the manual controls. I could open that outer slide, let the pressure-room air out with a rush before he could get into his space suit, blast him out into space, or suffocate him in the pressure-room.
But I had over-taxed my strength. My blood-pressure was still too low from that accursed drug. My senses were fading again and I sank to the floor. Weakly I tried to call Kellogg. But he wasn't in his little nearby cubby now.