Then I knew no more, until I heard Norman Haynes speaking to us. We were bound firmly, and it was daylight again, and our captor and his score of henchmen were smirking.
"I'm just trying to figure out how to make your deaths seem as accidental as possible," Haynes said, looking at me. "A couple of men of mine seem to have bungled a little business of bacteria. Maybe they blabbed before you fellows killed them. Now, of course, I can't take any chances. Too bad your reconditioned asteroid has to appear a failure for a while. But I can't let my taking over seem too obvious. Have to wait a while. I may be able to start up something here later, when people sort of forget."
"What have you done with Irene?" I stormed blackly.
Haynes' look was quizzical. "Why ask me?" he answered. "She probably ran off with one of your roustabouts. Or else they decided that she'd be nice company to have around, and made her go along."
He laughed cynically. Maybe he was telling the truth about not knowing where Irene was. But if this was true, it didn't make me feel much better. If some of his gang, who'd been working with us, had kidnapped her, there was no telling how badly she'd fare.
My fears showed on my face, and Norman Haynes seemed to enjoy them, though he was nervous, dangerously so. It was getting daylight again, now. He kept glancing at the sky, twiddling his soft hands. He didn't like physical danger.
"Your gravity generator seems to be the answer to my prayers, Wallace," he informed me. "At full force it'll develop at least fifty Earth gravities, before breaking down and melting itself. We've inspected it. Power like that'll destroy all of you. It will look like an accident—a breakdown of the machinery."
Though Pa Mavrocordatus kept cursing Haynes continuously, and Geedeh kept calling him names that no Earthman could have translated into our less vitriolic English, our captor paid them no attention. He kept directing his threats at me. That was how I knew he was still thinking of the time in his office at Enterprize, when I'd called him by his true colors. He still held that grudge, and he meant to pay me back with fifty gravities. Which means that every pound of Earth-weight would be increased to fifty pounds! In a grip like that a man as big as me would weigh a good four tons!
That meant a heart stopped by the load of the blood it tried to pump, and tissues crushed by their own weight! Like being on the surface of some dead star of medium dimensions, where gravity is terrific!