Art stared at him. “He’s kidding you, Morrie.”
“No,” von Hartwick denied. “I am not. Try cutting my ears off and you will see. No, my poor boys, we are all going to stay here a long time, until we rot, in fact. Heil dem Führer!”
“Don’t touch him, Art,” Morrie warned. “Doc wouldn’t like it.”
Chapter 18: TOO LITTLE TIME
CARGRAVES WAS WIDE ENOUGH awake to swear by the time Ross swabbed germicide on the cut in his hair line. “Hold still, Doc I-”
“I am holding still. Take it easy.”
They brought him up to date as they bandaged him. “The stinker thinks he’s put one over on us,” Ross finished. “He thinks we can’t run this boat without somebody to show us.”
“He may be perfectly right,” Cargraves admitted. “So far it’s got us stumped. We’ll see. Throw him in the hold, and we’ll have another look. Morrie, you did right not to let him be shot.”
“I didn’t think you would want him killed until you had squeezed him dry.”
Cargraves gave him an odd smile. “That wasn’t your only reason, was it?
“Well — shucks !” Morrie seemed almost embarrassed. “I didn’t want to just shoot him down after he dropped the gun. That’s a Nazi trick.”
Cargraves nodded approvingly. “That’s right. That’s one of the reasons they think we are soft. But we’ll have a little surprise for him.” He got up, went over, and stirred von Hartwick with his toe. “Listen to me, you. If possible, I am going to take you back to earth to stand trial… If not, we’ll try you here.”
Von Hartwick lifted his eyebrows. “For making war on you? How delightfully American!”
“No, not for making war. There isn’t any war, and there hasn’t been any war. The Third Reich disappeared forever in the spring of 1945 and today there is peace between Germany and the United States, no matter how many pipsqueak gangsters may still be hiding out. No, you phony superman, you are going to be tried for the murder of your accomplice — that poor dupe lying over there.” He turned away. “Chuck him in the hold, boys. Come on, Ross.”
Three hours later Cargraves was quite willing to admit that von Hartwick was correct when he said that the operation of the Wotan could not be figured out by a stranger. There were strange controls on the arms of the piloting seats which certainly had to be the flight controls, but no matter what they twisted, turned or moved, nothing happened. And the drive itself was sealed away behind a bulkhead which, from the sound it gave off when pounded, was inches thick.
Cargraves doubted whether he could cut through even with a steel-cutting flame. He was very reluctant to attempt to do so in any case; an effort to solve the mysteries of the ship by such surgery might, as likely as not, result in disabling the ship beyond any hope of repairing it.
There should be an operation manual somewhere. They all searched for it. They opened anything that would open, crawled under anything that could be crawled under, lifted everything that would move. There was no control manual in the ship.
The search disclosed something else. There was no food in the ship. This latter point was becoming important.
“That’s enough, sports,” he announced when he was certain that further search would be useless. “We’ll try their barracks next. We’ll find it. Not to mention food. You come with me, Morrie, and pick out some groceries.”
“Me too!” Art shouted. “I’ll get some pictures. The moon people! Oh, boy!”
Cargraves wished regretfully that he were still young enough for it to be impossible to stay worried. “Well, all right,” he agreed, “but where is your camera?”
Art’s face fell. “It’s in the Dog House,” he admitted.
“I guess the pictures will have to wait. But come along; there is more electronic equipment down there than you can run and jump over. Maybe raising earth by radio will turn out to be easy.”
“Why don’t we all go?” Ross wanted to know. “I found the ruins, but I haven’t had a chance to look at them.”