The Kiwi Target

moment you’re being asked to stay right where you are.”
    “Any news about the Australians?”
    “Nothing I can discuss, but I’m sure that steps are being taken. As soon as they’re captured, you’ll be notified.”
    “I hope so,” Peter said. “Meanwhile, I’m getting to like this Place more every day.”
    As soon as the conversation was over, Peter phoned his aunt. As he waited for her to come on the line, he was grateful that he had someone who cared enough about him to be concerned with his welfare. As soon as he told her the news, Martha was jubilant. “Peter, that’s wonderful!” she burst out. “We’ve been hoping for this, but we weren’t sure how you felt.”
    “You know now,” Peter said. “I’ll still be an American citizen, but I'm finding some roots here.”
    “Come and see us very soon,” Martha pleaded.
    “I will,” he promised.
    By the end of the day he had discovered that the station was making good money, but it also took a great deal of upkeep. He also learned how careful and astute Jack had been in managing the property.
    He knew it would be some time before he would be qualified to cope with it all.
    “There’s no way I can run this place without you, Jack,” he said when they stopped for tea. “If the present arrangement is satisfactory to you, I’d like to keep it going for a while. You teach me, and I’ll do my best to learn.”
    McHugh was pleased. “We’d been hoping, Peter, that if you did turn up, you’d be someone solid. I don’t mind carrying on as long as you’d like, and Louise feels the same way. She’s done a lot of the work, you know.”
    As he got ready for dinner, Peter did some thinking. It had just been brought home to him that the entertainments available to station dwellers were very limited. He could see many evenings stretching ahead when he would have little to do but sit and read, or work on the books. He was used to a lifestyle much different from that. Compared to station life, even Queenstown had some conviviality to offer.
    As he went to bed, he thought again of Jenny; he would have given a lot to have had her there with him. He tossed and turned until his fatigue took him away and at last he slept.
    He half awoke when he thought he heard the sound of a bell ringing. The idea of the telephone entered his mind, but as he sat up, he realized that the ring had not been repeated. At that moment the door of his room was flung open, and Louise ran in. He vaulted out of bed, knowing there was some kind of trouble. “What is it?” he demanded.
    Louise didn’t waste a moment. “Someone’s outside, someone who doesn’t belong here.”

CHAPTER 29

    Wearing only his pajama bottoms, he bent over and as fast as possible began to put on his shoes. Before he could finish that simple operation, Louise was gone.
    Wasting no more time, he hurried down the stairs. Just before he reached the main floor he saw, or thought he saw, a leaping tongue of flame. At once he remembered that fire was the greatest danger the station had to face. He grabbed the extinguisher off the wall and reached the kitchen just in time to see Jack going out the door on the run. Peter followed, knowing that the main fire-fighting equipment was all outside. As he burst through the doorway, by the light of an almost full moon he saw at least two other figures, possibly Tom and Derek, the hands who slept in the bunkhouse.
    For a bare moment he paused, uncertain what he should do; then he heard the sudden blast of a firearm. He saw the flash of a gun on the other side of the lawn, then the massive figure of Jack McHugh crumpling to the ground.
    The reflexes that he had once trained and sharpened took hold. He threw the extinguisher aside and with a burst of controlled energy hurled himself forward in a flat-out sprint. The dim figure of a man aimed a gun at him; he instantly jerked himself sideways. He saw the flash of the shot before he registered the blast of sound. Dodging and weaving as he ran, in four desperate seconds he covered all but the last few feet that separated him from the gunman. Then he hurled his body forward with his arms outstretched. A third shot blasted his eardrums, but his mind was totally locked on the thing he was doing. His bare shoulders smashed against the gunman’s legs; as the man went down under him, a burst of savage satisfaction told him his tackle had been close to perfect. The gunman was big and heavily dressed, but that was no matter.