"Sincro: wyxchari" "Stop!" "Don't touch that call-button, Milo." "Anybody else want to die like a hero?" "You must have walked in here with your eyes wide open, Clancey." "How very naive of you." "Wait!" "I never agreed to anything like this." "If you don't like it, step outside for a moment." "I don't want any more killing." "Too bad!" "I warn you Caven, don't over reach yourself." "I never do that." "Well then just remember I'm still running this operation." "Are you?" "I do all the dirty work - the space piracy, the capital larceny..." "And the first degree homicides!" "Right, Clancey" "While all you do is sit there looking pretty and count the money." "But that doesn't mean to say you're not guilty." "Maybe, but I never agreed to murder." "Well you'd better agree to it." "Because if we don't get rid of these snoops, we'll both end up in a nirvan chamber." "I don't want them killed!" "There must be some other solution." "Yes, there's just got to be!" "Dyce!" "Jamie!" "Let go of me!" "With all those guards, you don't stand a chance!" "Come on, hurry up!" "Out of line!" "MOVE YOURSELVES!" "Alright!" "You don't need to shout!" "What are you going to do with them?" "Don't worry, they're not going to be shot." "I don't trust you, Caven." "I told Fraze to lock them away under the dock complex." "Ask him if you don't believe me." "What made you change your mind all of a sudden?" "I had a better idea, that's all." "Oh yes?" "That Space Corps ship is becoming a nuisance." "I've thought of a way of getting rid of it." "I tracked the sections of the beacon right into Lobos, sir." "Were they being collected?" "No sir." "They were in orbit round the planet." "I made a landing at Clancey's base but it looked pretty derelict to me." "No sign of Clancey himself?" "No sir." "I talked to some of the mining crew." "They said he took off several weeks ago - they haven't heard from him since." "Are you sure they're speaking the truth?" "I'm sure they are, sir." "I made a pretty close reconnaissance of the area, and there's no pad installation big enough to take a Beta Dart the size the pirates use, sir." "If there is one, it's certain to be camouflaged." "Well I checked for radiation traces, sir." "No, I'd say that planet has not been used by a ship with atomic-drive." "But the section of Beacon Alpha Four are in collection orbit around Lobos?" "How do you explain that?" "Well, it's possibly been done to side-track us, sir, to put us off the pirates' real base." "All right, Ian." "We'll move in and find them." "Bring that minnow in." "I'm on my way home, sir." "Penn!" "Sir?" "I've called in X-X 2." "Give Major Warne a beacon signal to home on." "Yes, sir." "Penn, Major Warne thinks those beacon sections were diverted to Lobos to mislead us." "What was their course when our scanners first picked them up?" "I've got the plots on the computer, sir." "That's their original course." "Hm." "Can you project a destination from that data?" "I'm just doing that sir." "On that course, the beacon sections would eventually have been drawn into an elliptical orbit around the planet of Ta!" "TA!" "I see." "Thank you, Penn." "Where are you taking us?" "Shut up!" "Hey, don't speak!" "Has anyone..." "Has anyone got a light?" "It's very dark in there." "We're right under the freighter dock." "Hurry up!" "Inside!" "Grand sakes alive!" "It's Dom himself!" "What?" "The picture!" "It's Dom Issigri!" "Madeleine's father?" "Yeah." "Ah..." "Well, wait a moment now." "This..." "Yeah." "This is the old fellow's private study." "Grand sakes!" "It's..." "It's years since I've been in here." "You don't happen to remember where the light switch is, do you Milo?" "You won't find a light switch Doctor." "You might find some candles, or something." "Candles?" "!" "Yeah." "In this day and age?" "!" "Well, an oil lamp or something." "Hey boy, look in that cupboard, you might find something." "Yeah." "Yeah, he was an old-fashioned romantic old critter, was old Dom." "He brought all this furniture, he brought all... all them books and everything from Earth, you know." "Are these candles?" "Ah, well done Zoe." "Yes, a whole box of them." "Well how do they work?" "How do they work?" "!" "You take them and I'll..." "I'll show you." "Hey, we need a flint box!" "Alright... alright Jamie, I've got some matches." "Now..." "You just light the wick, you see Zoe, and the wax allows the wick to burn fairly slowly." "There we are." "My word!" "Good lord!" "This is very interesting." "Hey, Doctor." "You know there's one thing..." "I can't quite understand..." "That's why Madeleine let Caven put us in here." "Why?" "Well, like I said, this used to be the old fellow's private study." "And she had it all locked up, so I was told, when he disappeared." "She swore that nobody would ever come in here again." "Nobody has." "Look at the dust everywhere." "Look!" "I think somebody's been in here quite recently." "Hey?" "Well, er... why do you say that, Doctor?" "This clock." "Well what about it?" "It's an eight-day movement, Jamie." "Well... well why would anyone come down here just to wind a clock?" "Yes, that's what I'm wondering." "Oh Doctor!" "What is it?" "Doctor, look!" "Don't..." "Don't don't don't..." "Don't do anything..." "Please..." "leave me." "No!" "Beta Buccaneer to Control." "We are now in landing orbit." "Give me clearance to pad." "Hello Dervish." "Bring the ship down on Pad 3." "Got that?" "Pad 3." "Right." "The nose-cone worked by the way." "It put the Space Corps right off the scent." "Hermack's men'll be back though." "I mean it's only a matter of time before he realises there's nothing on Lobos and the pirates must be based here." "Do you think I haven't anticipated that?" "Oughtn't we to put our emergency plan into operation?" "Flood the workings, lose all our equipment?" "We've got no alternative!" "Hermack's men will find our argonite smelting plant, and we'll be ferried back to the home planet to face a capital charge." "I think we do have an alternative." "And if it works we'll be in a position to re-start our operation." "After a discreet interval, of course." "What exactly did you have in mind?" "Hermack thinks that Clancey is behind the space piracy." "We found his old ship, the LIZ, in an abandoned freighter dock." "I'm going to have it fitted with an overriding remote control." "Then we'll put Clancey and his friends aboard, and boost them into orbit just when Hermack's V-ship comes into scanner range." "So that they pick Clancey up - but that's crazy!" "He'll tell him everything, he'll..." "Don't worry - the Space Corp won't get a word out of Clancey, or those friends of his." "NO!" "I will not be party to murder." "When all this started it was going to be a salvage operation - space flotsam you said." "But then piracy and now murder!" "?" "You're taking a cut out of the profits." "Yes, but because it's too late." "I'm involved." "You wanted to get rid of Clancey." "I'm proposing to do it permanently." "By cold blooded, deliberate murder." "No!" "I will not let you do it!" "I don't think you've got much choice." "Are you threatening me?" "You may be the head of the Issigri Mining Company and very important back on Earth, but on this planet I have twice as many men as you and mine are all armed." "I don't have to make threats." "I'm telling you, not to interfere!" "Ah Dervish, we're discussing a space accident." "Oh, where?" "I haven't quite decided where it'll take place yet!" "Oh sorry, I don't get it." "Don't worry." "I want you to go down to the abandoned freighter dock, Dervish, you'll find an old C class ship there on the pad." "Take some men with you and fit it out with a remote control guidance unit." "What now?" "But look Caven, I've only just got back..." "This is important, Dervish." "Alright, if you say so." "What's it for?" "Don't ask questions." "Get on with it." "Right." "Oh, and by the way..." "Yes?" "It's a very old ship, did I say that?" "Practically falling apart." "I want their oxygen pump rigged so that it does full apart... say about five minutes after blast off." "Dom." "Dom, look at me." "Don't... don't you know me, Dom?" "It... it's... it's me Milo Clancey, Dom, your old partner..." "No!" "No, leave me!" "Leave me be!" "No!" "Don't hurt me!" "Not again!" "Please!" "Are you sure it's Dom Issigri?" "Of course it's Dom Issigri!" "I was closer to that man than a brother for fifteen years." "That's Dom alright." "Jamie!" "What in the world have they done to him?" "Jamie." "Jamie, let him go." "What?" "Well he's obviously so frightened we can't make him worse." "Look out." "Dom..." "Dom..." "What in the world has happened to him?" "Well you can't expect him to behave normally." "We don't know how long he's been down here." "But listen..." "Maddie wouldn't have done a thing like this to him." "Not her own father." "Milo..." "Go... go... go and talk to him quietly." "Ah, well yeah... yeah... yeah all right, I'll do that." "Err..." "Hey listen, what ah... what ah... what am I going to talk to him about?" "Talk to him about the things that he might remember." "Well, oh yeah." "Yeah." "Now, ah Dom." "Now now, it's... it's only Milo, Dom." "It's just Milo, your old partner, Dom." "All right." "Hah!" "Hey listen... hey listen Dom." "I've still got the LIZ, you know Dom." "Remember the old LIZ, we used to thrash from here to home planet in?" "Remember that time we had to race those three ships in order to... to register our stake on Lobos?" "You remember that race, Dom!" "What... what about when little Madeleine was born?" "Maddie?" "Yeah." "Remember that?" "We made that record return trip - it took them... it took them fifteen years to beat the time we did then, Dom." "I thought the old LIZ was going to split into two." "Remember Dom?" "Maddie..." "Madeleine..." "That's her Dom." "That... that's her." "That's your daughter Dom." "What, she... she must have been about six year old when that was..." "No no no - f.. five... o.. only five." "Ah, poor Madeleine..." "Go on!" "Madeleine..." "Ah, w.. well Dom." "What about that ah... that other picture you had?" "That... that coloured picture you had of her." "You know, Madeleine in a... in a red dress." "Have you still got that picture, Dom?" "Where are those prisoners?" "Safe and sound." "In there?" "WHAT ARE THEY DOING IN THERE?" "!" "THAT IS MY FATHER'S STUDY." "I GAVE ORDERS FOR THAT DOOR TO BE KEPT LOCKED." "Chief said to put them in there." "Caven!" "Give me the key!" "Chief says nobody's to enter." "Look, you know who I am." "I'm ordering you to give me that key." "I can't do that!" "Sorry!" "You will be." "Fraze!" "Here a minute." "Go and tell the chief Miss Issigri's been down here trying to get in to see the prisoners." "And tell him she's in a flaming temper about it!" "It is." "Milo Clancey!" "It's Milo!" "It is, Dom, it is." "Old Milo, Dom." "Hey... hey come on, come on old fellow, you... you sit down here where you'll be... where you'll be nice and comfortable." "Now there you are, come on." "I'll tell you something, Dom." "We're... we're all friends here." "Friends?" "Then he's caught you too." "He's caught us all of us." "You mean Caven?" "You'll never get out of here." "Never." "You'll all die down here, I tell you." "I think we shall get out of here." "How long have you been down here?" "How long?" "I don't know how long - years!" "They came for me, by night, with guns." "Who did?" "Not now, ah, was it Caven, Dom?" "You know Caven?" "Yeah." "He's evil." "Ruthless." "They brought me down here and kept me like a rat under ground." "That explains how he disappeared." "Caven kidnapped him." "Well why do that?" "Because he wanted to drive a wedge between Madeleine and me, he wanted to take over the company." "I know, but why keep him prisoner all this time?" "I mean, surely it would be easier for them to have killed him and be done with it." "Well, from what we've seen of Caven, I..." "I think he always has a good reason for doing things, Jamie." "You mean Mr Issigri is still of some value to Caven in some way?" "Yes, I..." "I think so, Zoe." "Well, Dom, we shall just have to escape, won't we?" "Escape?" "That door's the only way out of here." "Are you quite sure?" "What?" "Of course he's quite sure." "Ah, old Dom he... he built this room." "Aye..." "He hacked it out of living rock." "That door's the only way out." "Yes, but it's also the only way in." "...you'll find this ship out at the old freighter dock beyond the perimeter." "Use one of the tractors to get the stuff out there and hurry." "I need it quickly, and don't forget the thermic capacitators." "Where's Caven?" "Oh, ah... he's on level three, I think." "One of the guards just came in asking for him." "Guards... moronic brutes." "Well..." "Look Dervish, you're an intelligent man, a qualified astroengineer." "How did you get mixed up with a criminal like Caven?" "I made a mistake once." "Just once." "Caven found out about it." "There must a way... there must be a way of fighting him." "I didn't realise what I'd got involved with, until I saw him shoot that man today." "Oh you can't fight Caven." "Not alone, but if you help me we might..." "No!" "Look, I don't want to talk about it." "I know Caven." "I know what he's capable of." "And believe me, he'd kill us both if he even suspected we were been talking like this." "YOU'VE GOT TO HELP ME!" "We're the only two who can stop him!" "I'm sorry." "He's planning to kill those prisoners, Dervish!" "We can't let him murder four innocent people." "PLEASE LET ME GO!" "I've got work to do." "You'll be as guilty as he is!" "This is Issigri Control to V-ship 41." "Issigri Control to General Hermack." "Hello Space Corps." "If you hear me, please come in on band 396." "This is Issigri Control..." "Sir!" "What is it, Penn?" "Radio call from Issigri Control." "What do they want?" "It's a woman's voice, sir." "Very faint, I'll put it through the amplifier." "Issigri Control calling General Hermack." "Please come in!" "Band 396!" "Issigri Control calling Space Corp." "Did you get that band, Penn?" "Coming up on the video, sir." "V-Master to Issigri Control, receiving you now." "Listen General." "You must get..." "What the blue blazes!" "Open that connection again, Penn!" "It's still open, sir." "Somebody's pulled the plug at the other end!" "Obviously I got here just in time." "And why did you try to see the prisoners?" "!" "Oh why do you think?" "To tell them what you're planning." "So, I can't rely on you any more." "No, you better put me in with them." "Oh no." "You've not yet outlived your usefulness!" "If you think... if you think for one moment that I'm going to help you in any wa..." "You are going to do exactly as I tell you, Madeleine." "You really are mad, aren't you." "Because if you don't, I'll have your father flogged." "And I ought to tell you that he's not in the best of health." "Oh, but my father's dead!" "He's alive." "As you can perhaps see from this photograph taken only a few weeks ago." "I thought I might need a lever to help you to co-operate." "Where is he?" "In his study, where else?" "When you ordered that room to be kept locked, I thought it'd be the safest place to put him." "YOU!" "LET ME..." "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH MY FATHER?" "Let me see him, let me..." "Before we get that far, let's talk about how you're going to help me, shall we?" "Because that's much more important." "It's no use, sir." "There's not a peep out of Issigri Control." "What do you think, Ian?" "I'd have given a lot to have held that contact for another ten seconds, sir." "I wonder what she was gonna to say." "She looked worried." "Sir, if those sections of the beacons were originally on course for Ta..." "So they were, according to our computer readings." "Well, suppose Clancey diverted them to Lobos?" "To get us out of the way so that his gang could raid the Issigri Headquarters." "That would be a big operation." "Even for a crew as well disciplined as the pirates appear to be." "Well, not if he had a base on another planet, sir." "I suppose it's possible." "Penn, set course for Ta." "Right, sir." "We can swing back there and make sure that everything's in order anyway." "Dom, the grille over the door..." "Leads out to the passage outside." "And that steel is three inches thick." "I tell you it's hopeless:" "I spent my first year down here working on that - here, you can see it's hardly marked." "Yes, I wasn't thinking of brute strength." "Well, well not much brute strength." "It's not an audio lock is it?" "No Jamie, it isn't." "Well, that's a relief." "Jamie, sometimes... sometimes I think you don't appreciate all I do for you." "Milo?" "Yeah?" "Supposing we could get out of this room, do you think you could find your way back to your spaceship?" "Well yeah, if you want to get me out of this room..." "Sh, shh!" "What?" "Ah, well that's what I was going to say, you see, apart from these guards there." "If we get past those guards, well, they wouldn't track us down in those tunnels" " I know those tunnels like the back of my hand." "Splendid!" "Right, Zoe, hand out those candles." "Two at a time will do." "What for?" "Just a minute, Jamie, I'll tell you." "Now where did I put my bag of marbles..." "I'm sorry General, we had a technical failure." "Ah, is that what happened." "You went out in mid-message." "Yes, I was just saying that you must get these pirates soon, General." "One of my freighters has just landed, and the Captain said that his ship was attacked." "Really?" "Where was this?" "Just on entering the sector, he tells me." "But he was able to out-run them." "Ha, you had us worried." "We're heading back to your planet now." "Err, that's quite unnecessary, General." "There's nothing wrong here." "Oh, I'm glad to hear it." "Well we've got some checking to do there anyway." "I see." "Well then I'll get a landing pad cleared for you." "Fine." "And thank you for contacting us." "Satisfied?" "!" "Yes, but you shouldn't have tried to divert them." "I'm counting on that ship returning." "Dervish, how are things coming along?" "I've completed the installation." "I'm running a test on it now." "Good, let me know as soon as you're ready." "Right, there we are." "I think that should be enough wax." "Are you sure it'll work?" "Well, it usually does." "Jamie, Jamie, pass me that marble will you?" "This one?" "The green one." "Thank you very much." "It's ah... one of my favourites!" "Now, what have you got, Dom?" "An old shirt and an aeronautical journal." "Ha ha!" "That should make plenty of smoke." "Right then, is everybody ready?" "That's the stuff." "You all know what you have to do?" "Yeah." "Ready." "Quince!" "Here quick!" "Useless fools - you'll be punished for this!" "It wasn't our fault, Chief." "Go on!" "Get moving!" "Get after those prisoners!" "With any luck you'll be shot!" "Incompetents!" "Idiots!" "Don't imagine they can get away." "There's nowhere for them to go!" "If you haven't caught them by the time the Space Corps get here..." "Ha, ha, ha!" "Then you really are in trouble, aren't you!" "Hello Chief." "Muller here." "The prisoners have just been spotted on level three." "Which way are they heading?" "Towards the old freighter dock." "Clancey's old space-ship, of course." "Listen Muller, don't try and stop them, you understand?" "Let them reach the freighter dock." "OK Chief, I'll call the patrols in." "I think your friends intend to save me a lot of trouble." "Once they get that old crate up into space, I can cut in the remote control any time I like." "Stop their oxygen and deliver a cargo of dead pirates to General Hermack." "Caven, you can't do that!" "My father's with them!" "Yes, he'd have been better off staying where he was, wouldn't he?" "Come on, Dom." "Come on, Doctor." "Come on Dom, in you go." "What's happened to Jamie and Zoe?" "I..." "I think I ought to go back for them..." "Don't you worry about them." "They're probably just checking up we haven't been followed." "What are you doing?" "Just getting ready for take-off." "But..." "But don't worry, come on, I won't go without 'em." "Control reports that the V-Ship's on an approach path." "Already?" "All right, listen!" "We can't afford to wait for Clancey to take that ship up." "Activate the overriding unit now!" "NO!" "You understand, Dervish!" "Boost that crate into orbit!" "Immediately!" "I can't understand what's happened to them." "I'm going back." "Oh?" "Well, ah..." "Don't be long now, tell them to hurry!" "Well, hey..." "Listen..." "Listen..." "That's the rocket drive - hey hey!" "We're taking off!" "The Doctor will be burned to a frazzle in the blast!" "Oh no!" "No!" "No!" "No!" "No!"