The droning died and only a hum remained.
"He's in a prison now he'll never get out of,” said Greg calmly. “I wonder what they'll think when they find him, dressed in civilian clothes and carrying a heat gun. They'll clap him into a photo-cell and keep him there until they investigate. When they find out who he is, he won't get out-he has enough unfinished prison sentences to last a century or two."
For Pete was on one of the Vulcan Fleet ships, the hell-ships of the prison fleet. There were confined only the most vicious and the most depraved of the Solar System's criminals. He would be forced to work under the flaming whip-lashes of a Sun that hurled such intense radiations that mere spacesuits were no protection at all. The workers on the Vulcan Fleet ships wore suits that were in reality photo-cells which converted the deadly radiations into electric power. For electric power can be disposed of where heat cannot.
Quailing inside his force shell, Scorio saw his men go, one by one. Saw them lifted and whisked away, out through the depths of space by the magic touch upon the keyboards. With terror-widened eyes he watched Russ set up the equations, saw him trip the activating lever, saw the men disappear, listened to the thunderous rumbling of the mighty engines.
Chizzy went to the Outpost, the harsh prison on Neptune's satellite. Reg went to Titan, clear across the Solar System, where men in the infamous penal colony labored in the frigid wastes of that moon of Saturn. Max went to Vesta, the asteroid prison, which long had been the target of reformers, who claimed that on it 50 per cent of the prisoners died of boredom and fear.
Max was gone and only Scorio remained.
"Stutsman's the one who got us into this,” wailed the gangster. “He's the man you want to get. Not me. Not the boys. Stutsman."
"I promise you,” said Greg, “that we'll take care of Stutsman."
"And Chambers, too,” chattered Scorio. “But you can't touch Chambers. You wouldn't dare."
"We're not worrying about Chambers,” Greg told him. “We're not worrying about anyone. You're the one who had better start doing some."