note: project gutenberg also has an html version of this file which includes the original illustrations. see -h.htm or -h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/ / / / / / -h/ -h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/ / / / / / -h.zip) +----------------------------------------------------------+ | transcriber's note | | | | this etext was produced from amazing stories august, | | september and october . extensive research did not | | uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this | | publication was renewed. | | | | other notes and a list of corrections made will be found | | at the end of the book. | +----------------------------------------------------------+ the skylark of space by edward elmer smith in collaboration with lee hawkins garby [illustration: cover page] +--------------------------------------+ | | | _perhaps it is a bit unethical and | | unusual for editors to voice their | | opinion of their own wares, but when | | such a story as "the skylark of | | space" comes along, we just feel as | | if we must shout from the housetops | | that this is the greatest | | interplanetarian and space flying | | story that has appeared this year. | | indeed, it probably will rank as one | | of the great space flying stories | | for many years to come. the story is | | chock full, not only of excellent | | science, but woven through it there | | is also that very rare element, love | | and romance. this element in an | | interplanetarian story is often apt | | to be foolish, but it does not seem | | so in this particular story._ | | | | _we know so little about | | intra-atomic forces, that this | | story, improbable as it will appear | | in spots, will read commonplace | | years hence, when we have atomic | | engines, and when we have solved the | | riddle of the atom._ | | | | _you will follow the hair-raising | | explorations and strange ventures | | into far-away worlds with bated | | breath, and you will be fascinated, | | as we were, with the strangeness of | | it all._ | | | +--------------------------------------+ chapter i the occurrence of the impossible petrified with astonishment, richard seaton stared after the copper steam-bath upon which he had been electrolyzing his solution of "x," the unknown metal. for as soon as he had removed the beaker the heavy bath had jumped endwise from under his hand as though it were alive. it had flown with terrific speed over the table, smashing apparatus and bottles of chemicals on its way, and was even now disappearing through the open window. he seized his prism binoculars and focused them upon the flying vessel, a speck in the distance. through the glass he saw that it did not fall to the ground, but continued on in a straight line, only its rapidly diminishing size showing the enormous velocity with which it was moving. it grew smaller and smaller, and in a few moments disappeared utterly. the chemist turned as though in a trance. how was this? the copper bath he had used for months was gone--gone like a shot, with nothing to make it go. nothing, that is, except an electric cell and a few drops of the unknown solution. he looked at the empty space where it had stood, at the broken glass covering his laboratory table, and again stared out of the window. he was aroused from his stunned inaction by the entrance of his colored laboratory helper, and silently motioned him to clean up the wreckage. "what's happened, doctah?" asked the dusky assistant. "search me, dan. i wish i knew, myself," responded seaton, absently, lost in wonder at the incredible phenomenon of which he had just been a witness. ferdinand scott, a chemist employed in the next room, entered breezily. "hello, dicky, thought i heard a racket in here," the newcomer remarked. then he saw the helper busily mopping up the reeking mass of chemicals. "great balls of fire!" he exclaimed. "what've you been celebrating? had an explosion? how, what, and why?" "i can tell you the 'what,' and part of the 'how'," seaton replied thoughtfully, "but as to the 'why,' i am completely in the dark. here's all i know about it," and in a few words he related the foregoing incident. scott's face showed in turn interest, amazement, and pitying alarm. he took seaton by the arm. "dick, old top, i never knew you to drink or dope, but this stuff sure came out of either a bottle or a needle. did you see a pink serpent carrying it away? take my advice, old son, if you want to stay in uncle sam's service, and lay off the stuff, whatever it is. it's bad enough to come down here so far gone that you wreck most of your apparatus and lose the rest of it, but to pull a yarn like that is going too far. the chief will have to ask for your resignation, sure. why don't you take a couple of days of your leave and straighten up?" seaton paid no attention to him, and scott returned to his own laboratory, shaking his head sadly. seaton, with his mind in a whirl, walked slowly to his desk, picked up his blackened and battered briar pipe, and sat down to study out what he had done, or what could possibly have happened, to result in such an unbelievable infraction of all the laws of mechanics and gravitation. he knew that he was sober and sane, that the thing had actually happened. but why? and how? all his scientific training told him that it was impossible. it was unthinkable that an inert mass of metal should fly off into space without any applied force. since it had actually happened, there must have been applied an enormous and hitherto unknown force. what was that force? the reason for this unbelievable manifestation of energy was certainly somewhere in the solution, the electrolytic cell, or the steam-bath. concentrating all the power of his highly-trained analytical mind upon the problem--deaf and blind to everything else, as was his wont when deeply interested--he sat motionless, with his forgotten pipe clenched between his teeth. hour after hour he sat there, while most of his fellow-chemists finished the day's work and left the building and the room slowly darkened with the coming of night. finally he jumped up. crashing his hand down upon the desk, he exclaimed: "i have liberated the intra-atomic energy of copper! copper, 'x,' and electric current! "i'm sure a fool for luck!" he continued as a new thought struck him. "suppose it had been liberated all at once? probably blown the whole world off its hinges. but it wasn't: it was given off slowly and in a straight line. wonder why? talk about power! infinite! believe me, i'll show this whole bureau of chemistry something to make their eyes stick out, tomorrow. if they won't let me go ahead and develop it, i'll resign, hunt up some more 'x', and do it myself. that bath is on its way to the moon right now, and there's no reason why i can't follow it. martin's such a fanatic on exploration, he'll fall all over himself to build us any kind of a craft we'll need ... we'll explore the whole solar system! great cat, what a chance! a fool for luck is right!" he came to himself with a start. he switched on the lights and saw that it was ten o'clock. simultaneously he recalled that he was to have had dinner with his fiancée at her home, their first dinner since their engagement. cursing himself for an idiot he hastily left the building, and soon his motorcycle was tearing up connecticut avenue toward his sweetheart's home. chapter ii steel becomes interested dr. marc duquesne was in his laboratory, engaged in a research upon certain of the rare metals, particularly in regard to their electrochemical properties. he was a striking figure. well over six feet tall, unusually broad-shouldered even for his height, he was plainly a man of enormous physical strength. his thick, slightly wavy hair was black. his eyes, only a trifle lighter in shade, were surmounted by heavy black eyebrows which grew together above his aquiline nose. scott strolled into the room, finding duquesne leaning over a delicate electrical instrument, his forbidding but handsome face strangely illuminated by the ghastly glare of his mercury-vapor arcs. "hello, blackie," scott began. "i thought it was seaton in here at first. a fellow has to see your faces to tell you two apart. speaking of seaton, d'you think that he's quite right?" "i should say, off-hand, that he was a little out of control last night and this morning," replied duquesne, manipulating connections with his long, muscular fingers. "i don't think that he's insane, and i don't believe that he dopes--probably overwork and nervous strain. he'll be all right in a day or two." "i think he's a plain nut, myself. that sure was a wild yarn he sprung on us, wasn't it? his imagination was hitting on all twelve, that's sure. he seems to believe it himself, though, in spite of making a flat failure of his demonstration to us this morning. he saved that waste solution he was working on--what was left of that carboy of platinum residues after he had recovered all the values, you know--and got them to put it up at auction this noon. he resigned from the bureau, and he and m. reynolds crane, that millionaire friend of his, bid it in for ten cents." "m. reynolds crane?" duquesne concealed a start of surprise. "where does he come in on this?" "oh, they're always together in everything. they've been thicker than damon and pythias for a long time. they play tennis together--they're doubles champions of the district, you know--and all kinds of things. wherever you find one of them you'll usually find the other. anyway, after they got the solution crane took seaton in his car, and somebody said they went out to crane's house. probably trying to humor him. well, ta-ta; i've got a week's work to do yet today." as scott left duquesne dropped his work and went to his desk, with a new expression, half of chagrin, half of admiration, on his face. picking up his telephone, he called a number. "brookings?" he asked, cautiously. "this is duquesne. i must see you immediately. there's something big started that may as well belong to us.... no, can't say anything over the telephone.... yes, i'll be right out." he left the laboratory and soon was in the private office of the head of the washington or "diplomatic" branch, as it was known in certain circles, of the great world steel corporation. offices and laboratories were maintained in the city, ostensibly for research work, but in reality to be near the center of political activity. "how do you do, doctor duquesne?" brookings said as he seated his visitor. "you seem excited." "not excited, but in a hurry," duquesne replied. "the biggest thing in history has just broken, and we've got to work fast if we get in on it. have you any doubts that i always know what i am talking about?" "no," answered the other in surprise. "not the slightest. you are widely known as an able man. in fact, you have helped this company several times in various deal--er, in various ways." "say it. brookings. 'deals' is the right word. this one is going to be the biggest ever. the beauty of it is that it should be easy--one simple burglary and an equally simple killing--and won't mean wholesale murder, as did that...." "oh, no, doctor, not murder. unavoidable accidents." "why not call things by their right names and save breath, as long as we're alone? i'm not squeamish. but to get down to business. you know seaton, of our division, of course. he has been recovering the various rare metals from all the residues that have accumulated in the bureau for years. after separating out all the known metals he had something left, and thought it was a new element, a metal. in one of his attempts to get it into the metallic state, a little of its solution fizzed out and over a copper steam bath or tank, which instantly flew out of the window like a bullet. it went clear out of sight, out of range of his binoculars, just that quick." he snapped his fingers under brookings' nose. "now that discovery means such power as the world never dreamed of. in fact, if seaton hadn't had all the luck in the world right with him yesterday, he would have blown half of north america off the map. chemists have known for years that all matter contains enormous stores of intra-atomic energy, but have always considered it 'bound'--that is, incapable of liberation. seaton has liberated it." "and that means?" "that with the process worked out, the corporation could furnish power to the entire world, at very little expense." * * * * * a look of scornful unbelief passed over brookings' face. "sneer if you like," duquesne continued evenly. "your ignorance doesn't change the fact in any particular. do you know what intra-atomic energy is?" "i'm afraid that i don't, exactly." "well, it's the force that exists between the ultimate component parts of matter, if you can understand that. a child ought to. call in your chief chemist and ask him what would happen if somebody would liberate the intra-atomic energy of one hundred pounds of copper." "pardon me, doctor. i didn't presume to doubt you. i will call him in." he telephoned a request and soon a man in white appeared. in response to the question he thought for a moment, then smiled slowly. "if it were done instantaneously it would probably blow the entire world into a vapor, and might force it clear out of its orbit. if it could be controlled it would furnish millions of horsepower for a long time. but it can't be done. the energy is bound. its liberation is an impossibility, in the same class with perpetual motion. is that all, mr. brookings?" as the chemist left, brookings turned again to his visitor, with an apologetic air. "i don't know anything about these things myself, but chambers, also an able man, says that it is impossible." "as far as he knows, he is right. i should have said the same thing this morning. but i do know about these things--they're my business--and i tell you that seaton has done it." "this is getting interesting. did you see it done?" "no. it was rumored around the bureau last night that seaton was going insane, that he had wrecked a lot of his apparatus and couldn't explain what had happened. this morning he called a lot of us into his laboratory, told us what i have just told you, and poured some of his solution on a copper wire. nothing happened, and he acted as though he didn't know what to make of it. the foolish way he acted and the apparent impossibility of the whole thing, made everybody think him crazy. i thought so until i learned this afternoon that mr. reynolds crane is backing him. then i knew that he had told us just enough of the truth to let him get away clean with the solution." "but suppose the man _is_ crazy?" asked brookings. "he probably is a monomaniac, really insane on that one thing, from studying it so much." "seaton? yes, he's crazy--like a fox. you never heard of any insanity in crane's family, though, did you? you know that he never invests a cent in anything more risky than government bonds. you can bet your last dollar that seaton showed him the real goods." then, as a look of conviction appeared upon the other's face, he continued: "don't you understand that the solution was government property, and he had to do something to make everybody think it worthless, so that he could get title to it? that faked demonstration that failed was certainly a bold stroke--so bold that it was foolhardy. but it worked. it fooled even me, and i am not usually asleep. the only reason he got away with it, is, that he has always been such an open-faced talker, always telling everything he knew. "he certainly played the fox," he continued, with undisguised admiration. "heretofore he has never kept any of his discoveries secret or tried to make any money out of them, though some of them were worth millions. he published them as soon as he found them, and somebody else got the money. having that reputation, he worked it to make us think him a nut. he certainly is clever. i take off my hat to him--he's a wonder!" "and what is your idea? where do we come in?" "you come in by getting that solution away from seaton and crane, and furnishing the money to develop the stuff and to build, under my direction, such a power-plant as the world never saw before." "why get that particular solution? couldn't we buy up some platinum wastes and refine them?" "not a chance," replied the scientist. "we have refined platinum residues for years, and never found anything like that before. it is my idea that the stuff, whatever it is, was present in some particular lot of platinum in considerable quantities as an impurity. seaton hasn't all of it there is in the world, of course, but the chance of finding any more of it without knowing exactly what it is or how it reacts is extremely slight. besides, we must have exclusive control. how could we make any money out of it if crane operates a rival company and is satisfied with ten percent profit? no, we must get all of that solution. seaton and crane, or seaton, at least, must be killed, for if he is left alive he can find more of the stuff and break our monopoly. i want to borrow your strong-arm squad tonight, to go and attend to it." after a few moments' thought, his face set and expressionless, brookings said: "no, doctor. i do not think that the corporation would care to go into a matter of this kind. it is too flagrant a violation of law, and we can afford to buy it from seaton after he proves its worth." * * * * * "bah!" snorted duquesne. "don't try that on me, brookings. you think you can steal it yourself, and develop it without letting me in on it? you can't do it. do you think i am fool enough to tell you all about it, with facts, figures, and names, if you could get away with it without me? hardly! you can steal the solution, but that's all you can do. your chemist or the expert you hire will begin experimenting without seaton's lucky start, which i have already mentioned, but about which i haven't gone into any detail. he will have no information whatever, and the first attempt to do anything with the stuff will blow him and all the country around him for miles into an impalpable powder. you will lose your chemist, your solution, and all hope of getting the process. there are only two men in the united states, or in the world, for that matter, with brains enough and information enough to work it out. one is richard b. seaton, the other is marc c. duquesne. seaton certainly won't handle it for you. money can't buy him and crane, and you know it. you must come to me. if you don't believe that now, you will very shortly, after you try it alone." brookings, caught in his duplicity and half-convinced of the truth of duquesne's statements, still temporized. "you're modest, aren't you, doctor?" he asked, smiling. "modest? no," said the other calmly. "modesty never got anybody anything but praise, and i prefer something more substantial. however, i never exaggerate or make over-statements, as you should know. what i have said is merely a statement of fact. also, let me remind you that i am in a hurry. the difficulty of getting hold of that solution is growing greater every minute, and my price is getting higher every second." "what is your price at the present second?" "ten thousand dollars per month during the experimental work; five million dollars in cash upon the successful operation of the first power unit, which shall be of not less than ten thousand horsepower; and ten percent of the profits." "oh, come, doctor, let's be reasonable. you can't mean any such figures as those." "i never say anything i don't mean. i have done a lot of dirty work with you people before, and never got much of anything out of it. you were always too strong for me; that is, i couldn't force you without exposing my own crookedness, but now i've got you right where i want you. that's my price; take it or leave it. if you don't take it now, the first two of those figures will be doubled when you do come to me. i won't go to anybody else, though others would be glad to get it on my terms, because i have a reputation to maintain and you are the only ones who know that i am crooked. i know that my reputation is safe as long as i work with you, because i know enough about you to send all you big fellows, clear down to perkins, away for life. i also know that that knowledge will not shorten my days, as i am too valuable a man for you to kill, as you did...." "please, doctor, don't use such language...." "why not?" interrupted duquesne, in his cold, level voice. "it's all true. what do a few lives amount to, as long as they're not yours and mine? as i said, i can trust you, more or less. you can trust me, because you know that i can't send you up without going with you. therefore, i am going to let you go ahead without me as far as you can--it won't be far. do you want me to come in now or later?" "i'm afraid we can't do business on any such terms as that," said brookings, shaking his head. "we can undoubtedly buy the power rights from seaton for what you ask." "you don't fool me for a second, brookings. go ahead and steal the solution, but take my advice and give your chemist only a little of it. a very little of that stuff will go a long way, and you will want to have some left when you have to call me in. make him experiment with extremely small quantities. i would suggest that he work in the woods at least a hundred miles from his nearest neighbor, though it matters nothing to me how many people you kill. that's the only pointer i will give you--i'm giving it merely to keep you from blowing up the whole country," he concluded with a grim smile. "good-bye." * * * * * as the door closed behind the cynical scientist, brookings took a small gold instrument, very like a watch, from his pocket. he touched a button and held the machine close to his lips. "perkins," he said softly, "m. reynolds crane has in his house a bottle of solution." "yes, sir. can you describe it?" "not exactly. it is greenish yellow in color, and i gather that it is in a small bottle, as there isn't much of the stuff in the world. i don't know what it smells or tastes like, and i wouldn't advise experimenting with it, as it seems to be a violent explosive and is probably poisonous. any bottle of solution of that color kept in a particularly safe place would probably be the one. let me caution you that this is the biggest thing you have ever been in, and _it must not fail_. any effort to purchase it would be useless, however large a figure were named. but if the bottle were only partly emptied and filled up with water, i don't believe anyone would notice the difference, at least for some time, do you?" "probably not, sir. good-bye." next morning, shortly after the office opened, perkins, whose principal characteristic was that of absolute noiselessness, glided smoothly into brookings' office. taking a small bottle about half full of a greenish-yellow liquid from his pocket, he furtively placed it under some papers upon his superior's desk. "a man found this last night, sir, and thought it might belong to you. he said this was a little less than half of it, but that you could have the rest of it any time you want it." "thank you, perkins, he was right. it is ours. here's a letter which just came," handing him an envelope, which rustled as perkins folded it into a small compass and thrust it into his vest pocket. "good morning." as perkins slid out, brookings spoke into his telephone, and soon chambers, his chief chemist, appeared. "doctor chambers," brookings began, showing him the bottle, "i have here a solution which in some way is capable of liberating the intra-atomic energy of matter, about which i asked you yesterday. it works on copper. i would like to have you work out the process for us, if you will." "what about the man who discovered the process?" asked chambers, as he touched the bottle gingerly. "he is not available. surely what one chemist can do, others can? you will not have to work alone. you can hire the biggest men in the line to help you--expense is no object." "no, it wouldn't be, if such a process could be worked out. let me see, whom can we get? doctor seaton is probably the best man in the country for such a research, but i don't think that we can get him. i tried to get him to work on the iridium-osmium problem, but he refused." "we might make an offer big enough to get him." "no. don't mention it to him," with a significant look. "he's to know nothing about it." "well, then, how about duquesne, who was in here yesterday? he's probably next to seaton." "i took it up with him yesterday. we can't get him, his figures are entirely out of reason. aren't there any other men in the country who know anything? you are a good man, why don't you tackle it yourself?" "because i don't know anything about that particular line of research, and i want to keep on living awhile longer," the chemist replied bluntly. "there are other good men whom i can get, however. van schravendyck, of our own laboratory, is nearly as good as either seaton or duquesne. he has done a lot of work on radio-activity and that sort of thing, and i think he would like to work on it." "all right. please get it started without delay. give him about a quarter of the solution and have the rest put in the vault. be sure that his laboratory is set up far enough away from everything else to avoid trouble in case of an explosion, and caution him not to work on too much copper at once. i gather that an ounce or so will be plenty." * * * * * the chemist went back to his laboratory and sought his first assistant. "van," he began, "mr. brookings has been listening to some lunatic who claims to have solved the mystery of liberating intra-atomic energy." "that's old stuff," the assistant said, laughing. "that and perpetual motion are always with us. what did you tell him?" "i didn't get a chance to tell him anything--he told me. yesterday, you know, he asked me what would happen if it could be liberated, and i answered truthfully that lots of things would happen, and volunteered the information that it was impossible. just now he called me in, gave me this bottle of solution, saying that it contained the answer to the puzzle, and wanted me to work it out. i told him that it was out of my line and that i was afraid of it--which i would be if i thought there was anything in it--but that it was more or less in your line, and he said to put you on it right away. he also said that expense was no object; to set up an independent laboratory a hundred miles off in the woods, to be safe in case of an explosion; and to caution you not to use too much copper at once--that an _ounce or so_ would be plenty!" "an ounce! ten thousand tons of nitroglycerin! i'll say an ounce would be plenty, if the stuff is any good at all, which of course it isn't. queer, isn't it, how the old man would fall for anything like that? how did he explain the failure of the discoverer to develop it himself?" "he said the discoverer is not available," answered chambers with a laugh. "i'll bet he isn't available--he's back in st. elizabeth's again by this time, where he came from. i suggested that we get either seaton or duquesne of rare metals to help us on it, and he said that they had both refused to touch it, or words to that effect. if those two turned down a chance to work on a thing as big as this would be, there probably is nothing in this particular solution that is worth a rap. but what brookings says goes, around here, so it's you for the woods. and don't take any chances, either--it is conceivable that something might happen." "sure it might, but it won't. we'll set up that lab near a good trout stream, and i'll have a large and juicy vacation. i'll work on the stuff a little, too--enough to make a good report, at least. i'll analyze it, find out what is in it, deposit it on some copper, shoot an electrolytic current through it, and make a lot of wise motions generally, and have a darn good time besides." chapter iii seaton solves the problem of power "well, mart," said seaton briskly, "now that the seaton-crane company, engineers, is organized to your satisfaction, let's hop to it. i suppose i'd better beat it downtown and hunt up a place to work?" "why not work here?" "your house? you don't want this kind of experimenting going on around here, do you? suppose a chunk of the stuff gets away from me and tears the side out of the house?" "this house is the logical place to work. i already have a complete machine shop and testing laboratory out in the hangar, and we can easily fit up a chemical laboratory for you up in the tower room. you can have open windows on four sides there, and if you should accidentally take out the wall there will be little damage done. we will be alone here, with the few neighbors so thoroughly accustomed to my mechanical experiments that they are no longer curious." "fine. there's another good thing, too. your man shiro. he's been with you in so many tight pinches in all the unknown corners of the world on your hunting trips and explorations that we can trust him, and he'll probably come in handy." "yes, we can trust him implicitly. as you know, he is really my friend instead of my man." during the next few days, while workmen were installing a complete chemical laboratory in the tower room, seaton busied himself in purchasing the equipment necessary for the peculiar problem before him. his list was long and varied, ranging from a mighty transformer, capable of delivering thousands of kilovolts down to a potentiometer, so sensitive that it would register the difference of potential set up by two men in shaking hands. from daylight until dark seaton worked in the laboratory, either alone or superintending and assisting the men at work there. every night when crane went to bed he saw seaton in his room in a haze of smoke, poring over blueprints or, surrounded by abstruse works upon the calculus and sub-atomic phenomena, making interminable calculations. less than two miles away lived dorothy vaneman, who had promised to be his wife. he had seen her but once since "the impossible" had happened, since his prosaic copper steam-bath had taken flight under his hand and pointed the way to a great adventure. in a car his friend was to build, moved by this stupendous power which he must learn to control, they would traverse interstellar space--visit strange planets and survey strange solar systems. while he did not forget his sweetheart--the thought of her was often in his mind, and the fact that her future was so intimately connected with his own gave to every action a new meaning--he had such a multitude of things to do and was so eager to get them all done at once that day after day went by and he could not find time to call upon her. crane remonstrated in vain. his protests against seaton's incessant work had no effect. seaton insisted that he _must_ fix firmly just a few more points before they eluded him, and stuck doggedly to his task. finally, crane laid his work aside and went to call upon the girl. he found her just leaving home, and fell into step beside her. for awhile she tried to rouse herself to be entertaining, or at least friendly, but the usual ease with which she chatted had deserted her, and her false gayety did not deceive the keen-minded crane for an instant. soon the two were silent as they walked along together. crane's thoughts were on the beautiful girl beside him, and on the splendid young genius under his roof, so deeply immersed in his problem that he was insensible to everything else. * * * * * "i have just left dick," crane said suddenly, and paying no attention to her startled glance. "did you ever in your life see anyone with his singleness of purpose? with all his brilliance, one idea at a time is all that he seems capable of--though that is probably why he is such a genius. he is working himself insane. has he told you about leaving the bureau?" "no. has he? has it anything to do with what happened that day at the laboratory? i haven't seen him since the accident, or discovery, whichever it was, happened. he came to see me at half-past ten, when he was invited for dinner--oh, martin, i had been _so_ angry!--and he told such a preposterous story, i've been wondering since if i didn't dream it." "no, you didn't dream it, no matter how wild it sounded. he said it, and it is all true. i cannot explain it to you; dick himself cannot explain it, even to me. but i can give you an idea of what we both think it may come to." "yes, do." "well, he has discovered something that makes copper act mighty queer--knocks it off its feet, so to speak. that day a piece went up and never did come down." "yes, that is what is so preposterous!" "just a moment, please," replied the imperturbable crane. "you should know that nothing ordinary can account for dick's behavior, and after what i have seen this last week i shall never again think anything preposterous. as i said, this piece of copper departed, _via_ the window, for scenes unknown. as far as a pair of good binoculars could follow it, it held to a perfectly straight course toward those scenes. we intend to follow it in some suitable vehicle." he paused, looking at his companion's face, but she did not speak. "building the conveyance is where i come in," he continued in his matter-of-fact voice. "as you know, i happen to have almost as much money as dick has brains, and some day, before the summer is over, we expect to go somewhere. we do not know where, but it will be a long way from this earth." there was a silence, then dorothy said, helplessly: "well, go on.... i can't understand...." "neither can i. all i know is that dick wants to build a heavy steel hull, and he is going to put something inside it that will take us out into space. only occasionally do i see a little light as he tries to explain the mechanism of the thing to me." after enjoining upon her the strictest secrecy he repeated the story that seaton had told him, and informed her as to the present condition of affairs. "it's no wonder the other chemists thought he was crazy, is it, martin?" "no, especially after the failure of his demonstration the next morning. you see, he tried to prove to the others that he was right, and nothing happened. he has found out since that an electrical machine in another room, which was not running that morning, played a very important part. when the copper refused to act as it had the night before they all took the snap judgment that he had suffered an attack of temporary insanity, and that the solution was worthless. they called him 'nobody holme'." "it almost fits, at that!" exclaimed dorothy, laughing. "but if he thought of that," she added, thoughtfully, "if he was brilliant enough to build up such a wonderful theory ... think out such a thing as actually traveling to the stars ... all on such a slight foundation of fact ... i wonder why he couldn't have told me?" she hadn't meant to utter the last thought. nobody must know how being left out of it had hurt her, and she would have recalled the words if she could. crane understood, and answered loyally. "he will tell you all about it very soon, never fear. his is the mind of a great scientist, working on a subject of which but very few men have even an inkling. i am certain that the only reason he thought of me is that he could not finance the investigation alone. never think for an instant that his absorption implies a lack of fondness for you. you are his anchor, his only hold on known things. in fact, it was about this that i came to see you. dick is working himself at a rate that not even a machine can stand. he eats hardly anything, and if he sleeps at all, i have never caught him at it. that idea is driving him day and night, and if he goes on the way he is going, it means a breakdown. i do not know whether you can make him listen to reason or not--certainly no one else can. if you think you can do it, that is to be your job, and it will be the biggest one of the three." "how well you understand him," dorothy said, after a pause. "you make me feel ashamed, martin. i should have known without being told. then i wouldn't have had these nasty little doubts about him." "i should call them perfectly natural, considering the circumstances," he answered. "men with minds like dick's are rare. they work on only one track. your part will be hard. he will come to you, bursting with news and aching to tell you all about his theories and facts and calculations, and you must try to take his mind off the whole thing and make him think of something else. it looks impossible to me." * * * * * the smile had come back to dorothy's face. her head, graced by its wealth of gleaming auburn hair, was borne proudly, and glancing mischief lit her violet eyes. "didn't you just tell me nothing is impossible? you know, martin, that i can make dicky forget everything, even interstellar--did i get that word right?--space itself, with my violin." "trying to beguile a scientist from his hobby is comparable only to luring a drug addict away from his vice ... but i would not be surprised if you could do it," he slowly replied. for he had heard her play. she and seaton had been caught near his home by a sudden shower while on horseback, and had dashed in for shelter. while the rain beat outside and while shiro was preparing one of his famous suppers, crane had suggested that she pass the time by playing his "fiddle." dorothy realized, with the first sweep of the bow, that she was playing a stradivarius, the like of which she had played before only in her dreams. she forgot her listeners, forgot the time and the place, and poured out in her music all the beauty and tenderness of her nature. soft and full the tones filled the room, and in crane's vision there rose a home filled with happy work, with laughter and companionship, with playing children who turned their faces to their mother as do flowers to the light. sensing the girl's dreams as the music filled his ears, he realized as never before in his busy, purposeful life how beautiful a home with the right woman could be. no thought of love for dorothy entered his mind, for he knew that the love existing between her and his friend was of the kind that nothing could alter, but he felt that she had unwittingly given him a great gift. often thereafter in his lonely hours he had imagined that dream-home, and nothing less than its perfection would ever satisfy him. for a time they walked on in silence. on dorothy's face was a tender look, the reflection of her happy thoughts, and in crane's mind floated again the vision of his ideal home, the home whose central figure he was unable to visualize. at last she turned and placed her hand on his arm. "you have done a great deal for me--for us," she said simply. "i wish there were something i could do for you in return." "you have already done much more than that for me, dorothy," he answered, more slowly even than usual. "it is hard for me to express just what it is, but i want you to know that you and dick mean much to me.... you are the first real woman i have ever known, and some day, if life is good to me, i hope to have some girl as lovely care for me." dorothy's sensitive face flushed warmly. so unexpected and sincere was his praise that it made her feel both proud and humble. she had never realized that this quiet, apparently unimaginative man had seen all the ideals she expressed in her music. a woman expects to appear lovely to her lover, and to the men who would be her lovers if they could, but here was a man who neither sought nor expected any favors, saying that he wanted some girl as lovely for his own. truly it was a compliment to be cherished. after they had returned to the house and crane had taken his departure, dorothy heard the purr of a rapidly approaching motorcycle, and her heart leaped as she went to the door to welcome her lover. "it seems like a month since i saw you last, sweetheart!" he exclaimed, as he lifted her clear from the floor in a passionate embrace and kissed in turn her lips, her eyes, the tip of her nose, the elusive dimple in her cheek, and the adorable curve of her neck. "it seems longer than that to me, dicky. i was perfectly miserable until martin called this afternoon and explained what you have been doing." "yes, i met him on the way over. but honestly, dottie, i simply couldn't get away. i wanted to, the worst way, but everything went so slow...." "slow? when you have a whole laboratory installed in a week? what would you call speed?" "about two days. and then, there were a lot of little ideas that had to be nailed down before they got away from me. this is a horribly big job, dottie, and when a fellow gets into it he can't quit. but you know that i love you just the same, even though i do appear to neglect you," he continued with fierce intensity. i love you with everything there is in me. "i love you, mind, body and spirit; love you as a man should love the one and only woman. for you are the only woman, there never was and never will be another. i love you morally, physically, intellectually, and every other way there is, for the perfect little darling that you are." she moved in his embrace and her arms tightened about his neck. "you are the nearest thing to absolute perfection that ever came into this imperfect world," he continued. "just to think of a girl of your sheer beauty, your ability, your charm, your all-round perfection, being engaged to a thing like me, makes me dizzy--but i sure do love you, little girl of mine. i will love you as long as we live, and afterward, my soul will love your soul throughout eternity. you know that, sweetheart girl." "oh, dick!" she whispered, her soul shaken with response to his love. "i never dreamed it possible for a woman to love as i love you. 'whither thou goest....'" her voice failed in the tempest of her emotion, and they clung together in silence. they were finally interrupted by dorothy's stately and gracious mother, who came in to greet seaton and invite him to have dinner with them. "i knew that dot would forget such an unimportant matter," she said, with a glint of dorothy's own mischief in her eyes. * * * * * as they went into the dining-room dorothy was amazed to see the changes that six days had wrought in seaton. his face looked thin, almost haggard. fine lines had made their appearance at the corners of his eyes and around his mouth, and faint but unmistakable blue rings encircled his eyes. "you have been working too hard, boy," she reproved him gravely. "oh, no," he rejoined lightly. "i'm all right, i never felt better. why, i could whip a rattlesnake right now, and give him the first bite!" she laughed at his reply, but the look of concern did not leave her face. as soon as they were seated at the table she turned to her father, a clean-cut, gray-haired man of fifty, known as one of the shrewdest attorneys in the city. "daddy," she demanded, "what do you mean by being elected director in the seaton-crane company and not telling me anything about it?" "daughter," he replied in the same tone, "what do you mean by asking such a question as that? don't you know that it is a lawyer's business to get information, and to give it out only to paying clients? however, i can tell you all i know about the seaton-crane company without adding to your store of knowledge at all. i was present at one meeting, gravely voted 'aye' once, and that is all." "didn't you draw up the articles of incorporation?" "i am doing it, yes; but they don't mean anything. they merely empower the company to do anything it wants to, the same as other large companies do." then, after a quick but searching glance at seaton's worn face and a warning glance at his daughter, he remarked: "i read in the _star_ this evening that enright and stanwix will probably make the australian davis cup team, and that the hawaiian with the unpronounceable name has broken three or four more world's records. what do you think of our tennis chances this year, dick?" dorothy flushed, and the conversation, steered by the lawyer into the safer channels, turned to tennis, swimming, and other sports. seaton, whose plate was unobtrusively kept full by mr. vaneman, ate such a dinner as he had not eaten in weeks. after the meal was over they all went into the spacious living-room, where the men ensconced themselves in comfortable morris chairs with long, black cigars between their teeth, and all four engaged in a spirited discussion of various topics of the day. after a time, the older couple left the room, the lawyer going into his study to work, as he always did in the evening. "well, dicky, how's everything?" dorothy asked, unthinkingly. the result of this innocent question was astonishing. seaton leaped to his feet. the problem, dormant for two hours, was again in complete possession of his mind. "rotten!" he snapped, striding back and forth and brandishing his half-smoked cigar. "my head is so thick that it takes a thousand years for an idea to filter into it. i should have the whole thing clear by this time, but i haven't. there's something, some little factor, that i can't get. i've almost had it a dozen times, but it always gets away from me. i know that the force is there and i can liberate it, but i can't work out a system of control until i can understand exactly why it acts the way it does." then, more slowly, thinking aloud rather than addressing the girl: "the force is attraction toward all matter, generated by the vibrations of all the constituent electrons in parallel planes. it is directed along a line perpendicular to the plane of vibration at its center, and approaches infinity as the angle theta approaches the limit of pi divided by two. therefore, by shifting the axis of rotation or the plane of vibration thus making theta vary between the limits of zero and pi divided by two...." he was interrupted by dorothy, who, mortified by her thoughtlessness in getting him started, had sprung up and seized him by the arm. "sit down, dicky!" she implored. "sit down, you're rocking the boat! save your mathematics for martin. don't you know that i could never find out why 'x' was equal to 'y' or to anything else in algebra?" she led him back to his chair, where he drew her down to a seat on the arm beside him. "whom do you love?" she whispered gayly in his ear. after a time she freed herself. * * * * * "i haven't practised today. don't you want me to play for you a little?" "fine business, dottie. when you play a violin, it talks." she took down her violin and played; first his favorites, crashing selections from operas and solos by the great masters, abounding in harmonies on two strings. then she changed to reveries and soft, plaintive melodies. seaton listened with profound enjoyment. under the spell of the music he relaxed, pushed out the footrest of the chair, and lay back at ease, smoking dreamily. the cigar finished and his hands at rest, his eyes closed of themselves. the music, now a crooning lullaby, grew softer and slower, until his deep and regular breathing showed that he was sound asleep. she stopped playing and sat watching him intently, her violin in readiness to play again, if he should show the least sign of waking, but there was no such sign. freed from the tyranny of the mighty brain which had been driving it so unmercifully, his body was making up for many hours of lost sleep. assured that he was really asleep, dorothy tip-toed to her father's study and quietly went in. "daddy, dick is asleep out there in the chair. what shall we do with him?" "good work, dottie dimple. i heard you playing him to sleep--you almost put me to sleep as well. i'll get a blanket and we'll put him to bed right where he is." "dear old dad," she said softly, sitting on the arm of his chair and rubbing her cheek against his. "you always did understand, didn't you?" "i try to, kitten," he answered, pulling her ear. "seaton is too good a man to see go to pieces when it can be prevented. that is why i signalled you to keep the talk off the company and his work. one of the best lawyers i ever knew, a real genius, went to pieces that same way. he was on a big, almost an impossible, case. he couldn't think of anything else, didn't eat or sleep much for months. he won the case, but it broke him. but he wasn't in love with a big, red-headed beauty of a girl, and so didn't have her to fiddle him to sleep. "well, i'll go get the blanket," he concluded, with a sudden change in his tone. in a few moments he returned and they went into the living-room together. seaton lay in exactly the same position, only the regular lifting of his powerful chest showing that he was alive. "i think we had better...." "sh ... sh," interrupted the girl in an intense whisper. "you'll wake him up, daddy." "bosh! you couldn't wake him up with a club. his own name might rouse him, particularly if you said it; no other ordinary sound would. i started to say that i think we had better put him to bed on the davenport. he would be more comfortable." "but that would surely wake him. and he's so big...." "oh, no, it wouldn't, unless i drop him on the floor. and he doesn't weigh much over two hundred, does he?" "about ten or eleven pounds." "even though i am a lawyer, and old and decrepit, i can still handle that much." with dorothy anxiously watching the proceeding and trying to help, vaneman picked seaton up out of the chair, with some effort, and carried him across the room. the sleeping man muttered as if in protest at being disturbed, but made no other sign of consciousness. the lawyer then calmly removed seaton's shoes and collar, while the girl arranged pillows under his head and tucked the blanket around him. vaneman bent a quizzical glance upon his daughter, under which a flaming blush spread from her throat to her hair. "well," she said, defiantly, "i'm going to, anyway." "my dear, of course you are. if you didn't, i would disown you." as her father turned away, dorothy knelt beside her lover and pressed her lips tightly to his. "good night, sweetheart," she murmured. "'night," he muttered in his sleep, as his lips responded faintly to her caress. vaneman waited for his daughter, and when she appeared, the blush again suffusing her face, he put his arm around her. "dorothy," he said at the door of her room, using her full name, a very unusual thing for him, "the father of such a girl as you are hates to lose her, but i advise you to stick to that boy. believe in him and trust him, no matter what happens. he is a real man." "i know it, dad ... thank you. i had a touch of the blues today, but i never will again. i think more of his little finger than i do of all the other men i ever knew, put together. but how do you know him so well? i know him, of course, but that's different." "i have various ways of getting information. i know dick seaton better than you do--better than he knows himself. i have known all about every man who ever looked at you twice. i have been afraid once or twice that i would have to take a hand, but you saw them right, just as you see seaton right. for some time i have been afraid of the thought of your marrying, the young men in your social set are such a hopeless lot, but i am not any more. when i hand my little girl over to her husband next october i can be really happy with you, instead of anxious for you. that's how well i know richard seaton.... well, good night, daughter mine." "good night, daddy dear," she replied, throwing her arms around his neck. "i have the finest dad a girl ever had, and the finest ... boy. good night." * * * * * it was three o'clock the following afternoon when seaton appeared in the laboratory. his long rest had removed all the signs of overwork and he was his alert, vigorous self, but when crane saw him and called out a cheery greeting he returned it with a sheepish smile. "don't say anything, martin--i'm thinking it all, and then some. i made a regular fool of myself last night. went to sleep in a chair and slept seventeen hours without a break. i never felt so cheap in my life." "you were worn out, dick, and you know it. that sleep put you on your feet again, and i hope you will have sense enough to take care of yourself after this. i warn you now, dick, that if you start any more of that midnight work i will simply call dorothy over here and have her take charge of you." "that's it, mart, rub it in. don't you see that i am flat on my back, with all four paws in the air? but i'm going to sleep every night. i promised dottie to go to bed not later than twelve, if i have to quit right in the middle of an idea, and i told her that i was coming out to see her every other evening and every sunday. but here's the dope. i've got that missing factor in my theory--got it while i was eating breakfast this afternoon." "if you had eaten and slept regularly here and kept yourself fit you would have seen it before." "yes, i guess that's right, too. if i miss a meal or a sleep from now on i want you to sand-bag me. but never mind that. here's the explanation. we doped out before, you know, that the force is something like magnetism, and is generated when the coil causes the electrons of this specially-treated copper to vibrate in parallel planes. the knotty point was what could be the effect of a weak electric current in liberating the power. i've got it! it shifts the plane of vibration of the electrons!" "it is impossible to shift that plane, dick. it is fixed by physical state, just as speed is fixed by temperature." "no, it isn't. that is, it usually is, but in this case it may be shifted. here's the mathematical proof." so saying, seaton went over to the drafting table, tacked down a huge sheet of paper, and sketched rapidly, explaining as he drew. soon the two men were engaged in a profound mathematical argument. sheet after sheet of paper was filled with equations and calculations, and the table was covered with reference books. after two hours of intense study and hot discussion crane's face took on a look of dawning comprehension, which changed to amazement and then to joy. for the first time in seaton's long acquaintance with him, his habitual calm was broken. "by george!" he cried, shaking seaton's hand in both of his. "i think you have it! but how under the sun did you get the idea? that calculus isn't in any of the books. where did you get it? dick, you're a wonder!" "i don't know how i got the idea, it merely came to me. but that math is right--it's _got_ to be right, no other conclusion is possible. now, if that calc. is right, and i know it is, do you see how narrow the permissible limits of shifting are? look at equation . believe me, i sure was lucky, that day in the bureau. it's a wonder i didn't blow up the whole works. suppose i hadn't been working with a storage cell that gave only four amperes at two volts? that's unusually low, you know, for that kind of work." * * * * * crane carefully studied the equation referred to and figured for a moment. "in that case the limit would be exactly eight watts. anything above that means instant decomposition?" "yes." crane whistled, a long, low whistle. "and that bath weighed forty pounds--enough to vaporize the whole planet. dick, it cannot be possible." "it doesn't seem that way, but it is. it certainly makes me turn cold all over, though, to think of what might have happened. you know now why i wouldn't touch the solution again until i had this stuff worked out?" "i certainly do. you should be even more afraid of it now. i don't mind nitroglycerin or t.n.t., but anything like that is merely a child's plaything compared to this. perhaps we had better drop it?" "not in seven thousand years. the mere fact that i was so lucky at first proves that fate intended this thing to be my oyster. however, i'll not tempt the old lady any farther. i'm going to start with one millionth of a volt, and will use a piece of copper visible only under a microscope. but there's absolutely no danger, now that we know what it is. i can make it eat out of my hand. look at this equation here, though. that being true, it looks as though you could get the same explosive effect by taking a piece of copper which had once been partially decomposed and subjecting it to some force, say an extremely heavy current. again under the influence of the coil, a small current would explode it, wouldn't it?" "it looks that way, from those figures." "say, wouldn't that make some bullet? unstabilize a piece of copper in that way and put it inside a rifle bullet, arranged to make a short circuit on impact. by making the piece of copper barely visible you could have the explosive effect of only a few sticks of dynamite--a piece the size of a pea would obliterate new york city. but that's a long way from our flying-machine." "perhaps not so far as you think. when we explore new worlds it might be a good idea to have a liberal supply of such ammunition, of various weights, for emergencies." "it might, at that. here's another point in equation . suppose the unstabilized copper were treated with a very weak current, not strong enough to explode it? a sort of borderline condition? the energy would be liberated, apparently, but in an entirely new way. wonder what would happen? i can't see from the theory--have to work it out. and here's another somewhat similar condition, right here, that will need investigating. i've sure got a lot of experimental work ahead of me before i'll know anything. how're things going with you?" "i have the drawings and blue-prints of the ship itself done, and working sketches of the commercial power-plant. i am working now on the details, such as navigating instruments, food, water, and air supplies, special motors, and all of the hundred and one little things that must be taken into consideration. then, as soon as you get the power under control, we will have only to sketch in the details of the power-plant and its supports before we can begin construction." "fine, mart, that's great. well, let's get busy!" chapter iv steel liberates energy--unexpectedly duquesne was in his laboratory, poring over an abstruse article in a foreign journal of science, when scott came breezily in with a newspaper in his hand, across the front page of which stretched great headlines. "hello, blackie!" he called. "come down to earth and listen to this tale of mystery from that world-renowned fount of exactitude and authority, the _washington clarion_. some miscreant has piled up and touched off a few thousand tons of t.n.t. and picric acid up in the hills. read about it, it's good." duquesne read: mysterious explosion! mountain village wiped out of existence! two hundred dead, none injured! force felt all over world. cause unknown. scientists baffled. harper's ferry. march .--at : a.m. today, the village of bankerville, about thirty miles north of this place, was totally destroyed by an explosion of such terrific violence that seismographs all over the world recorded the shock, and that windows were shattered even in this city. a thick pall of dust and smoke was observed in the sky and parties set out immediately. they found, instead of the little mountain village, nothing except an immense, crater-like hole in the ground, some two miles in diameter and variously estimated at from two to three thousand feet deep. no survivors have been found, no bodies have been recovered. the entire village, with its two hundred inhabitants, has been wiped out of existence. not so much as a splinter of wood or a fragment of brick from any of the houses can be found. scientists are unable to account for the terrific force of the explosion, which far exceeded that of the most violent explosive known. "hm ... m. that sounds reasonable, doesn't it?" asked duquesne, sarcastically, as he finished reading. "it sure does," replied scott, grinning. "what'd'you suppose it was? think the reporter heard a tire blow out on pennsylvania avenue?" "perhaps. nothing to it, anyway," as he turned back to his work. as soon as the visitor had gone a sneering smile spread over duquesne's face and he picked up his telephone. "the fool did it. that will cure him of sucking eggs!" he muttered. "operator? duquesne speaking. i am expecting a call this afternoon. please ask him to call me at my house.... thank you." "fred," he called to his helper, "if anyone wants me, tell them that i have gone home." he left the building and stepped into his car. in less than half an hour he arrived at his house on park road, overlooking beautiful rock creek park. here he lived alone save for an old colored couple who were his servants. in the busiest part of the afternoon chambers rushed unannounced into brookings' private office. his face was white as chalk. "read that, mr. brookings!" he gasped, thrusting the _clarion_ extra into his hand. brookings read the news of the explosion, then looked at his chief chemist, his face turning gray. "yes, sir, that was our laboratory," said chambers, dully. "the fool! didn't you tell him to work with small quantities?" "i did. he said not to worry, that he was taking no chances, that he would never have more than a gram of copper on hand at once in the whole laboratory." "well ... i'll ... be ... damned!" slowly turning to the telephone, brookings called a number and asked for doctor duquesne, then called another. "brookings speaking. i would like to see you this afternoon. will you be at home?... i'll be there in about an hour. good bye." * * * * * when brookings arrived he was shown into duquesne's study. the two men shook hands perfunctorily and sat down, the scientist waiting for the other to speak. "well, duquesne, you were right. our man couldn't handle it. but of course you didn't mean the terms you mentioned before?" duquesne's lips smiled; a hard, cold smile. "you know what i said, brookings. those terms are now doubled, twenty thousand and ten million. nothing else goes." "i expected it, since you never back down. the corporation expects to pay for its mistakes. we accept your terms and i have contracts here for your services as research director, at a salary of two hundred and forty thousand dollars per annum, with the bonus and royalties you demand." duquesne glanced over the documents and thrust them into his pocket. "i'll go over these with my attorney to-night, and mail one back to you if he approves the contract. in the meantime, we may as well get down to business." "what would you suggest?" asked brookings. "you people stole the solution, i see...." "don't use such harsh language, doctor, it's...." "why not? i'm for direct action, first, last and all the time. this thing is too important to permit of mincing words or actions, it's a waste of time. have you the solution here?" "yes, here it is," drawing the bottle from his pocket. "where's the rest of it?" asked duquesne as he noted the size of the bottle. "all that we found is here, except about a teaspoonful which the expert had to work on," replied brookings. "we didn't get it all, only half of it. the rest of it was diluted with water, so that it wouldn't be missed. after we get started, if you find it works out satisfactorily, we can procure the rest of it. that will certainly cause a disturbance, but it may be necessary...." "half of it!" interrupted duquesne. "you haven't one-twentieth of it here. when i saw it in the bureau, seaton had about five hundred milliliters--over a pint--of it. i wonder if you're double-crossing me again?" "no, you're not," he continued, paying no attention to the other's protestations of innocence. "you're paying me too much to want to block me now. the crook you sent out to get the stuff turned in only this much. do you suppose he is holding out on us?" "no. you know perkins and his methods." "he missed the main bottle, then. that's where your methods make me tired. when i want anything done, i believe in doing it myself, then i know it's done right. as to what i suggest, that's easy. i will take three or four of perkins' gunmen tonight. we'll go out there and raid the place. we'll shoot seaton and anybody else who gets in the way. we'll dynamite the safe and take their solution, plans, notes, money, and anything else we want." "no, no, doctor, that's too crude altogether. if we have to do that, let it be only as a last resort." "i say do it first, then we know we will get results. i tell you i'm afraid of pussyfooting and gumshoeing around seaton and crane. i used to think that seaton was easy, but he seems to have developed greatly in the last few weeks, and crane never was anybody's fool. together they make a combination hard to beat. brute force, applied without warning, is our best bet, and there's no danger, you know that. we've got away clean with lots worse stuff." "it's always dangerous, and we could wink at such tactics only after everything else has failed. why not work it out from this solution we have, and then quietly get the rest of it? after we have it worked out, seaton might get into an accident on his motorcycle, and we could prove by the state of development of our plans that we discovered it long ago." "because developing the stuff is highly dangerous, as you have found out. even seaton wouldn't have been alive now if he hadn't had a lot of luck at the start. then, too, it would take too much time. seaton has already developed it--you see, i haven't been asleep and i know what he has done, just as well as you do--and why should we go through all that slow and dangerous experimental work when we can get their notes and plans as well as not? there is bound to be trouble anyway when we steal all their solution, even though they haven't missed this little bit of it yet, and it might as well come now as any other time. the corporation is amply protected, and i am still a government chemist. nobody even suspects that i am in on this deal. i will never see you except after hours and in private, and will never come near your offices. we will be so cautious that, even if anyone should get suspicious, they can't possibly link us together, and until they do link us together, we are all safe. no, brookings, a raid in force is the only sure and safe way. what is more natural than a burglary of a rich man's house? it will be a simple affair. the police will stir around for a few days, then it will all be forgotten and we can go ahead. nobody will suspect anything except crane, if he is alive, and he won't be able to do anything." so the argument raged. brookings was convinced that duquesne was right in wanting to get possession of all the solution, and also of the working notes and plans, but would not agree to the means suggested, holding out for quieter and more devious, but less actionable methods. finally he ended the argument with a flat refusal to countenance the raid, and the scientist was forced to yield, although he declared that they would have to use his methods in the end, and that it would save time, money, and perhaps lives, if they were used first. brookings then took from his pocket his wireless and called perkins. he told him of the larger bottle of solution, instructing him to secure it and to bring back all plans, notes, and other material he could find which in any way pertained to the matter in hand. then, after promising duquesne to keep him informed of developments, and giving him an instrument similar to the one he himself carried, brookings took his leave. * * * * * seaton had worked from early morning until late at night, but had rigorously kept his promise to dorothy. he had slept seven or eight hours every night and had called upon her regularly, returning from the visits with ever-keener zest for his work. late in the afternoon, upon the day of the explosion, seaton stepped into crane's shop with a mass of notes in his hand. "well, mart, i've got it--some of it, at least. the power is just what we figured it, so immensely large as to be beyond belief. i have found: "first: that it is a practically irresistible _pull_ along the axis of the treated wire or bar. it is apparently focused at infinity, as near-by objects are not affected. "second: i have studied two of the border-line regions of current we discussed. i have found that in one the power is liberated as a similar attractive force but is focused upon the first object in line with the axis of the bar. as long as the current is applied it remains focused upon that object, no matter what comes between. in the second border-line condition the power is liberated as a terrific repulsion. "third: that the copper is completely transformed into available energy, there being no heat whatever liberated. "fourth: most important of all, that the x acts only as a catalyst for the copper and is not itself consumed, so that an infinitesimally thin coating is all that is required." "you certainly have found out a great deal about it," replied crane, who had been listening with the closest attention, a look of admiration upon his face. "you have all the essential facts right there. now we can go ahead and put in the details which will finish up the plans completely. also, one of those points solves my hardest problem, that of getting back to the earth after we lose sight of it. we can make a small bar in that border-line condition and focus it upon the earth, and we can use that repulsive property to ward off any meteorites which may come too close to us." "that's right. i never thought of using those points for anything. i found them out incidentally, and merely mentioned them as interesting facts. i have a model of the main bar built, though, that will lift me into the air and pull me all around. want to see it work?" "i certainly do." as they were going out to the landing field shiro called to them and they turned back to the house, learning that dorothy and her father had just arrived. "hello, boys!" dorothy said, bestowing her radiant smile upon them both as seaton seized her hand. "dad and i came out to see that you were taking care of yourselves, and to see what you are doing. are visitors allowed?" "no," replied seaton promptly. "all visitors are barred. members of the firm and members of the family, however, are not classed as visitors." "you came at the right time," said crane, smiling. "dick has just finished a model, and was about to demonstrate it to me when you arrived. come with us and watch the...." "i object," interrupted seaton. "it is a highly undignified performance as yet, and...." "objection overruled," interposed the lawyer, decisively. "you are too young and impetuous to have any dignity; therefore, any performance not undignified would be impossible, _a priori_. the demonstration will proceed." * * * * * laughing merrily, the four made their way to the testing shed, in front of which seaton donned a heavy leather harness, buckled about his shoulders, body and legs; to which were attached numerous handles, switches, boxes and other pieces of apparatus. he snapped the switch which started the tesla coil in the shed and pressed a button on an instrument in his hand, attached to his harness by a small steel cable. instantly there was a creak of straining leather and he shot vertically into the air for perhaps a hundred feet, where he stopped and remained motionless for a few moments. then the watchers saw him point his arm and dart in the direction in which he pointed. by merely pointing, apparently, he changed his direction at will; going up and down, forward and backward, describing circles and loops and figures of eight. after a few minutes of this display he descended, slowing up abruptly as he neared the ground and making an easy landing. "there, oh beauteous lady and esteemed sirs," he began, with a low bow and a sweeping flourish--when there was a snap, and he was jerked sidewise off his feet. in bowing, his cumbersome harness had pressed the controlling switch and the instrument he held in his hand, which contained the power-plant, or bar, had torn itself loose from its buckle. instead of being within easy reach of his hand it was over six feet away, and was dragging him helplessly after it, straight toward the high stone wall! but only momentarily was he helpless, his keen mind discovering a way out of the predicament even as he managed to scramble to his feet in spite of the rapid pace. throwing his body sidewise and reaching out his long arm as far as possible toward the bar, he succeeded in swinging it around so that he was running back toward the party and the spacious landing field. dorothy and her father were standing motionless, staring at seaton; the former with terror in her eyes, the latter in blank amazement. crane had darted to the switch controlling the coil, and was reaching for it when seaton passed them. "don't touch that switch!" he yelled. "i'll catch that thing yet!" at this evidence that seaton still thought himself master of the situation, crane began to laugh, though he still kept his hand near the controlling switch. dorothy, relieved of her fear for her lover's safety, could not help but join him, so ludicrous were seaton's antics. the bar was straight out in front of him, about five feet above the ground, going somewhat faster than a man could run. it turned now to the right, now to the left, as his weight was thrown to one side or the other. seaton, dragged along like a small boy trying to hold a runaway calf by the tail, was covering the ground in prodigious leaps and bounds; at the same time pulling himself up, hand over hand, to the bar in front of him. he soon reached it, seized it in both hands, again darted into the air, and descended lightly near the others, who were rocking with laughter. "i said it would be undignified," chuckled seaton, rather short of breath, "but i didn't know just how much so it was going to be." dorothy tucked her fingers into his hand. "are you hurt anywhere, dick?" "not a bit. he led me a great chase, though." "i was scared to death until you told martin to let the switch alone. but it was funny then! i hadn't noticed your resemblance to a jumping-jack before. won't you do it again sometime and let us take a movie of it?" "that was as good as any show in town, dick," said the lawyer, wiping his eyes, "but you must be more careful. next time, it might not be funny at all." "there will be no next time for this rig," replied seaton. "this is merely to show us that our ideas are all right. the next trip will be in a full-scale, completely-equipped boat." "it was perfectly wonderful," declared dorothy. "i know this first flight of yours will be a turning-point or something in history. i don't pretend to understand how you did it--the sight of you standing still up there in the air made me wonder if i really were awake, even though i knew what to expect--but we wouldn't have missed it for worlds, would we, dad?" "no. i am very glad that we saw the first demonstration. the world has never before seen anything like it, and you two men will rank as two of the greatest discoverers." "seaton will, you mean," replied crane, uncomfortably. "you know i didn't have anything to do with it." "it's nearly all yours," denied seaton. "without your ideas i would have lost myself in space in my first attempt." "you are both wrong," said vaneman. "you, martin, haven't enough imagination; and you, dick, have altogether too much, for either of you to have done this alone. the honor will be divided equally between you." * * * * * he turned to crane as dorothy and seaton set out toward the house. "what are you going to do with it, commercially? dick, of course, hasn't thought of anything except this space-car--equally of course, you have?" "yes. knowing the general nature of the power and confident that dick would control it, i have already drawn up sketches for a power-plant installation of five hundred thousand electrical horsepower, which will enable us to sell power for less than one-tenth of a cent per kilowatt-hour and still return twenty percent annual dividends. however, the power-plant comes after the flyer." "why? why not build the power-plant first, and take the pleasure trip afterward?" "there are several reasons. the principal one is that dick and i would rather be off exploring new worlds, while the other members of the seaton-crane company, engineers, build the power-plant." during the talk the men had reached the house, into which the others had disappeared some time before. upon crane's invitation, vaneman and his daughter stayed to dinner, and dorothy played for awhile upon crane's wonderful violin. the rest of the evening was spent in animated discussion of the realization of seaton's dreams of flying without wings and beyond the supporting atmosphere. seaton and crane did their best to explain to the non-technical visitors how such flight was possible. "well, i am beginning to understand it a little," said dorothy finally. "in plain language, it is like a big magnet or something, but different. is that it?" "that's it exactly," seaton assured her. "what are you going to call it? it isn't like anything else that ever was. already this evening you have called it a bus, a boat, a kite, a star-hound, a wagon, an aerial flivver, a sky-chariot, a space-eating wampus, and i don't know what else. even martin has called it a vehicle, a ship, a bird, and a shell. what is its real name?" "i don't know. it hasn't got any that i know of. what would you suggest, dottie?" "i don't know what general name should be applied to them, but for this one there is only one possible name, 'the skylark.'" "exactly right, dorothy," said crane. "fine!" cried seaton. "and you shall christen it, dottie, with a big florence flask full of absolute vacuum. 'i christen you "the skylark." bang!'" as the guests were leaving, at a late hour, vaneman said: "oh, yes. i bought an extra _clarion_ as we came out. it tells a wild tale of an explosion so violent that science cannot explain it. i don't suppose it is true, but it may make interesting reading for you two scientific sharps. good night." seaton accompanied dorothy to the car, bidding her a more intimate farewell on the way. when he returned, crane, with an unusual expression of concern on his face, handed him the paper without a word. * * * * * "what's up, old man? something in it?" he asked, as he took the paper. he fell silent as he read the first words, and after he had read the entire article he said slowly: "true, beyond a doubt. even a _clarion_ reporter couldn't imagine that. it's all intra-atomic energy, all right--some poor devil trying our stunt without my horseshoe in his pocket." "think, dick! something is wrong somewhere. you know that two people did not discover x at the same time. the answer is that somebody stole your idea, but the idea is worthless without the x. you say that the stuff is extremely rare--where did they get it?" "that's right, mart. i never thought of that. the stuff _is_ extremely rare. i am supposed to know something about rare metals, and i never heard of it before--there isn't even a gap in the periodic system in which it belongs. i would bet a hat that we have every milligram known to the world at present." "well, then," said the practical crane. "we had better see whether or not we have all we started with." asking shiro to bring the large bottle from the vault, he opened the living-room safe and brought forth the small vial. the large bottle was still nearly full, the seal upon it unbroken. the vial was apparently exactly as seaton had left it after he had made his bars. "our stuff seems to be all there," said crane. "it looks as though someone else has discovered it also." "i don't believe it," said seaton, their positions now reversed. "it's altogether too rare." he scanned both bottles narrowly. "i can tell by taking the densities," he added, and ran up to the laboratory, returning with a westphal balance in his hand. after testing both solutions he said slowly: "well, the mystery is solved. the large bottle has a specific gravity of . , as it had when i prepared it; that in the vial reads only . . somebody has burglarized this safe and taken almost half of the solution, filling the vial up with colored water. the stuff is so strong that i probably never would have noticed the difference." "but who could it have been?" "search me! but it's nothing to worry about now, anyway, because whoever it was is gone where he'll never do it again. he's taken the solution with him, too, so that nobody else can get it." "i wish i were sure of that, dick. the man who tried to do the research work is undoubtedly gone--but who is back of him?" "nobody, probably. who would want to be?" "to borrow your own phrase, dick, scott 'chirped it' when he called you 'nobody holme.' for a man with your brains you have the least sense of anybody i know. you know that this thing is worth, as a power project alone, thousands of millions of dollars, and that there are dozens of big concerns who would cheerfully put us both out of the way for a thousandth of that amount. the question is not to find one concern who might be backing a thing like that, but to pick out the one who is backing it." * * * * * after thinking deeply for a few moments he went on: "the idea was taken from your demonstration in the bureau, either by an eye-witness or by someone who heard about it afterward, probably the former. even though it failed, one man saw the possibilities. who was that man? who was there?" "oh, a lot of the fellows were there. scott, smith, penfield, duquesne, roberts--quite a bunch of them. let's see--scott hasn't brains enough to do anything. smith doesn't know anything about anything except amines. penfield is a pure scientist, who wouldn't even quote an authority without asking permission. duquesne is ... hm-m ... duquesne ... he ... i...." "yes. duquesne. i have heard of him. he's the big black fellow, about your own size? he has the brains, the ability, and the inclination, has he not?" "well, i wouldn't want to say that. i don't know him very well, and personal dislike is no ground at all for suspicion, you know." "enough to warrant investigation. is there anyone else who might have reasoned it out as you did, and as duquesne possibly could?" "not that i remember. but we can count duquesne out, anyway, because he called me up this afternoon about some notes on gallium; so he is still in the bureau. besides, he wouldn't let anybody else investigate it if he got it. he would do it himself, and i don't think he would have blown himself up. i never did like him very well personally--he's such a cold, inhuman son of a fish--but you've got to hand it to him for ability. he's probably the best man in the world today on that kind of thing." "no, i do not think that we will count him out yet. he may have had nothing to do with it, but we will have him investigated nevertheless, and will guard against future visitors here." turning to the telephone, he called the private number of a well-known detective. "prescott? crane speaking. sorry to get you out of bed, but i should like to have a complete report upon dr. marc c. duquesne, of the rare metals laboratory, as soon as possible. every detail for the last two weeks, every move and every thought if possible. please keep a good man on him until further notice.... i wish you would send two or three guards out here right away, to-night; men you can trust and who will stay awake.... thanks. good night." chapter v direct action seaton and crane spent some time developing the object-compass. crane made a number of these instruments, mounted in gymbals, so that the delicate needles were free to turn in any direction whatever. they were mounted upon jeweled bearings, but bearings made of such great strength, that seaton protested. "what's the use, mart? you don't expect a watch to be treated like a stone-crusher. that needle weighs less than half a gram. why mount it as though it weighed twenty pounds?" "to be safe. remember the acceleration the lark will be capable of, and also that on some other worlds, which we hope to visit, this needle will weigh more than it does here." "that's right, mart, i never thought of that. anyway, we can't be too safe to suit me." when the compasses were done and the power through them had been adjusted to one-thousandth of a watt, the lowest they could maintain with accuracy, they focused each instrument upon one of a set of most carefully weighed glass beads, ranging in size from a pin-head up to a large marble, and had the beads taken across the country by shiro, in order to test the sensitiveness and accuracy of the new instruments. the first test was made at a distance of one hundred miles, the last at nearly three thousand. they found, as they had expected, that from the weight of the object and the time it took the needle to come to rest after being displaced from its line by a gentle tap of the finger, they could easily calculate the distance from the compass to the object. this fact pleased crane immensely, as it gave him a sure means of navigation in space. the only objection to its use in measuring earthly distances was its extreme delicacy, the needle focused upon the smallest bead in the lot at a distance of three thousand miles coming to rest in little more than one second. the question of navigation solved, the two next devoted themselves to perfecting the "x-plosive bullet," as seaton called it. from his notes and equations seaton calculated the weight of copper necessary to exert the explosive force of one pound of nitro-glycerin, and weighed out, on the most delicate assay-balance made, various fractions and multiples of this amount of the treated copper, while crane fitted up the bullets of automatic-pistol cartridges to receive the charges and to explode them on impact. they placed their blueprints and working notes in the safe, as usual, taking with them only those notes dealing with the object-compass and the x-plosive bullet, upon which they were still working. no one except shiro knew that the original tracings, from which the blue-prints had been made, and their final, classified notes were always kept in the vault. they cautioned him and the three guards to keep a close watch until they returned. then they set out in the biplane, to try out the new weapon in a lonely place where the exploding shells could do no damage. * * * * * they found that the x-plosive came fully up to expectations. the smallest charge they had prepared, fired by crane at a great stump a full hundred yards away from the bare, flat-topped knoll that had afforded them a landing-place, tore it bodily from the ground and reduced it to splinters, while the force of the explosion made the two men stagger. "she sure is big medicine!" laughed seaton. "wonder what a real one will do?" and drawing his pistol, he inserted a cartridge carrying a much heavier charge. "better be careful with the big ones," cautioned crane. "what are you going to shoot at?" "that rock over there," pointing to a huge boulder half a mile away across the small valley. "want to bet me a dinner i can't hit it?" "no. you forget that i saw you win the pistol trophy of the district." the pistol cracked, and when the bullet reached its destination the great stone was obliterated in a vast ball of flame. after a moment there was a deafening report--a crash as though the world were falling to pieces. both men were hurled violently backward, stumbling and falling flat. picking themselves up, they looked across the valley at the place where the boulder had stood, to see only an immense cloud of dust, which slowly blew away, revealing a huge hole in the ground. they were silent a moment, awed by the frightful power they had loosed. "well, mart," seaton broke the silence, "i'll say those one-milligram loads are plenty big enough. if that'd been something coming after us--whether any possible other-world animal, a foreign battleship, or the mythical great sea-serpent himself, it'd be a good indian now. yes? no?" "yes. when we use the heavier charges we must use long-range rifles. have you had enough demonstration or do you want to shoot some more?" "i've had enough, thanks. that last rock i bounced off of was no pillow, i'll tell the world. besides, it looks as though i'd busted a leg or two off of our noble steed with my shot, and we may have to walk back home." an examination of the plane, which had been moved many feet and almost overturned by the force of the explosion, revealed no damage that they could not repair on the spot, and dusk saw them speeding through the air toward the distant city. in response to a summons from his chief, perkins silently appeared in brookings' office, without his usual complacent smile. "haven't you done anything yet, after all this time?" demanded the magnate. "we're getting tired of this delay." "i can't help it, mr. brookings," replied the subordinate. "they've got detectives from prescott's all over the place. our best men have been trying ever since the day of the explosion, but can't do a thing without resorting to violence. i went out there myself and looked them over, without being seen. there isn't a man there with a record, and i haven't been able so far to get anything on any one of them that we can use as a handle." "no, prescott's men are hard to do anything with. but can't you...?" brookings paused significantly. "i was coming to that. i thought one of them might be seen, and i talked to him a little, over the phone, but i couldn't talk loud enough without consulting you. i mentioned ten, but he held out for twenty-five. said he wouldn't consider it at all, but he wants to quit prescott and go into business for himself." "go ahead on twenty-five. we want to get action," said brookings, as he wrote an order on the cashier for twenty-five thousand dollars in small-to-medium bills. "that is cheap enough, considering what duquesne's rough stuff would probably cost. report tomorrow about four, over our private phone--no, i'll come down to the café, it's safer." * * * * * the place referred to was the perkins café, a high-class restaurant on pennsylvania avenue, heavily patronized by the diplomatic, political, financial, and sporting circles of upper-class washington. it was famous for its discreet waiters, and for the absolutely private rooms. many of its patrons knew of its unique telephone service, in which each call went through such a devious system of relays that any attempt to trace it was hopeless; they knew that while "the perkins" would not knowingly lend itself to any violation of law, it was an entirely safe and thoroughly satisfactory place in which to conduct business of the most secret and confidential character; a place from which one could enjoy personal conversation with persons to whom he wished to remain invisible and untraceable: a place which had never been known to "leak." for these reasons it was really the diplomatic and political center of the country, and over its secret wires had gone, in guarded language, messages that would have rocked the world had they gone astray. it was recognized that the place was occasionally, by its very nature, used for illegal purposes, but it was such a political, financial, and diplomatic necessity that it carried a "hands off" sign. it was never investigated by congress and never raided by the police. hundreds of telephone calls were handled daily. a man would come in, order something served in a private room, leave a name at the desk, and say that he was expecting a call. there the affair ended. the telephone operators were hand-picked, men of very short memories, carefully trained never to look at a face and never to remember a name or a number. although the precaution was unnecessary, this shortness of memory was often encouraged by bills of various denominations. no one except perkins and the heads of the great world steel corporation knew that the urbane and polished proprietor of the café was a criminal of the blackest kind, whose liberty and life itself were dependent upon the will of the corporation; or that the restaurant was especially planned and maintained as a blind for its underground activities; or that perkins was holding a position which suited him exactly and which he would not have given up for wealth or glory--that of being the guiding genius who planned nefarious things for the men higher up, and saw to it that they were carried out by the men lower down. he was in constant personal touch with his superiors, but in order to avoid any chance of betrayal he never saw his subordinates personally. not only were they entirely ignorant of his identity, but all possible means of their tracing him had been foreseen and guarded against. he called them on the telephone, but they never called him. the only possible way in which any of his subordinates could get in touch with him was by means of the wonderful wireless telephone already referred to, developed by a drug-crazed genius who had died shortly after it was perfected. it was a tiny instrument, no larger than a watch, but of practically unlimited range. the controlling central station of the few instruments in existence, from which any instrument could be cut out, changed in tune, or totally destroyed at will, was in perkins' office safe. a man intrusted with an unusually important job would receive from an unknown source an instrument, with directions sufficient for its use. as soon as the job was done he would find, upon again attempting to use the telephone, that its interior was so hopelessly wrecked that not even the most skilled artisan could reproduce what it had once been. * * * * * at four o'clock brookings was ushered into the private office of the master criminal, who was plainly ill at ease. "i've got to report another failure, mr. brookings. it's nobody's fault, just one of those things that couldn't be helped. i handled this myself. our man left the door unlocked and kept the others busy in another room. i had just started to work when crane's japanese servant, who was supposed to be asleep, appeared upon the scene. if i hadn't known something about jiu-jutsu myself, he'd have broken my neck. as it was, i barely got away, with the jap and all three guards close behind me...." "i'm not interested in excuses," broke in the magnate, angrily. "we'll have to turn it over to duquesne after all unless you get something done, and get it done quick. can't you get to that jap some way?" "certainly i can. i never yet saw the man who couldn't be reached, one way or another. i've had 'silk' humphreys, the best fixer in the business, working on him all day, and he'll be neutral before night. if the long green won't quiet him--and i never saw a jap refuse it yet--a lead pipe will. silk hasn't reported yet, but i expect to hear from him any minute now, through our man out there." as he spoke, the almost inaudible buzzer in his pocket gave a signal. "there he is now," said perkins, as he took out his wireless instrument. "you might listen in and hear what he has to say." brookings took out his own telephone and held it to his ear. "hello," perkins spoke gruffly into the tiny transmitter. "what've you got on your chest?" "your foot slipped on the jap," the stranger replied. "he crabbed the game right. slats and the big fellow put all the stuff into the box, told us to watch it until they get back tonight--they may be late--then went off in slats' ship to test something--couldn't find out what. silk tackled the yellow boy, and went up to fifty grand, but the jap couldn't see him at all. silk started to argue, and the jap didn't do a thing but lay him out, cold. this afternoon, while the jap was out in the grounds, three stick-up men jumped him. he bumped one of them off with his hands and the others with his gat--one of those big automatics that throw a slug like a cannon. none of us knew he had it. that's all, except that i am quitting prescott right now. anything else i can do for you, whoever you are?" "no. your job's done." the conversation closed. perkins pressed the switch which reduced the interior of the spy's wireless instrument to a fused mass of metal, and brookings called duquesne on the telephone. "i would like to talk to you," he said. "shall i come there or would you rather come to my office?" "i'll come there. they're watching this house. they have one man in front and one in back, a couple of detectaphones in my rooms here, and have coupled onto this telephone. "don't worry," he continued calmly as the other made an exclamation of dismay. "talk ahead as loud as you please--they can't hear you. do you think that those poor, ignorant flat feet can show me anything about electricity? i'd shoot a jolt along their wires that would burn their ears off if it weren't my cue to act the innocent and absorbed scientist. as it is, their instruments are all registering dense silence. i am deep in study right now, and can't be disturbed!" "can you get out?" "certainly. i have that same private entrance down beside the house wall and the same tunnel i used before. i'll see you in about fifteen minutes." * * * * * in brookings' office, duquesne told of the constant surveillance over him. "they suspect me on general principles, i think," he continued. "they are apparently trying to connect me with somebody. i don't think they suspect you at all, and they won't unless they get some better methods. i have devices fitted up to turn the lights off and on, raise and lower the windows, and even cast shadows at certain times. the housekeeper knows that when i go to my library after dinner, i have retired to study, and that it is as much as anyone's life is worth to disturb me. also, i am well known to be firmly fixed in my habits, so it's easy to fool those detectives. last night i went out and watched them. they hung around a couple of hours after my lights went out, then walked off together. i can dodge them any time and have all my nights free without their ever suspecting anything." "are you free tonight?" "yes. the time-switches are all set, and as long as i get back before daylight, so they can see me get up and go to work, it will be all right." brookings told him briefly of the failures to secure the solution and the plans, of the death of the three men sent to silence shiro, and of all the other developments. duquesne listened, his face impassive. "well," he said as brookings ceased. "i thought you would bull it, but not quite so badly. but there's no use whining now. i can't use my original plan of attack in force, as they are prepared and might be able to stand us off until the police could arrive." he thought deeply for a time, then said, intensely: "if i go into this thing, brookings, i am in absolute command. everything goes as i say. understand?" "yes. it's up to you, now." "all right, i think i've got it. can you get me a curtiss biplane in an hour, and a man about six feet tall who weighs about a hundred and sixty pounds? i want to drive the plane myself, and have the man, dressed in full leathers and hood, in the passenger's seat, shot so full of chloroform or dope that he will be completely unconscious for at least two hours." "easy. we can get you any kind of plane you want in an hour, and perkins can find a man of that description who would be glad to have a dream at that price. but what's the idea?... pardon me, i shouldn't have asked that," he added, as the saturnine chemist shot him a black look from beneath his heavy brows. well, within the hour, duquesne drove up to a private aviation field and found awaiting him a curtiss biplane, whose attendant jumped into an automobile and sped away as he approached. he quickly donned a heavy leather suit, similar to the one seaton always wore in the air, and drew the hood over his face. then, after a searching look at the lean form of the unconscious man in the other seat, he was off, the plane climbing swiftly under his expert hand. he took a wide circle to the west and north. soon shiro and the two guards, hearing the roar of an approaching airplane, looked out and saw what they supposed to be crane's biplane coming down with terrific speed in an almost vertical nose-dive, as though the driver were in an extremity of haste. flattening out just in time to avert destruction it taxied up the field almost to the house. the watchers saw a man recognizable as seaton by his suit and his unmistakable physique stand up and wave both arms frantically, heard him shout hoarsely "... all of you ... out here," saw him point to crane's apparently lifeless form and slump down in his seat. all three ran out to help the unconscious aviators, but just as they reached the machine there were three silenced reports and the three men fell to the ground. duquesne leaped lightly out of the machine and looked narrowly at the bodies at his feet. he saw that the two detectives were dead, but found with some chagrin that the japanese still showed faint signs of life. he half drew his pistol to finish the job, but observing that the victim was probably fatally wounded he thrust it back into its holster and went on into the house. drawing on rubber gloves he rapidly blew the door off the safe with nitro-glycerin and took out everything it contained. he set aside a roll of blueprints, numerous notebooks, some money and other valuables, and a small vial of solution--but of the larger bottle there was no trace. he then ransacked the entire house, from cellar to attic, with no better success. so cleverly was the entrance to the vault concealed in the basement wall that he failed to discover it. "i might have expected this of crane," he thought, half aloud, "after all the warning that fool brookings persisted in giving him. this is the natural result of his nonsense. the rest of the solution is probably in the safest safe-deposit vault in the united states. but i've got their plans and notes, and enough solution for the present. i'll get the rest of it when i want it--there's more than one way to kill any cat that ever lived!" returning to the machine, duquesne calmly stepped over the bodies of the detectives and the unconscious form of the dying japanese, who was uttering an occasional groan. he started the engine and took his seat. there was an increasing roar as he opened the throttle, and soon he descended upon the field from which he had set out. he noted that there was a man in an automobile at some distance from the hangar, evidently waiting to take care of the plane and his still unconscious passenger. rapidly resuming his ordinary clothing, he stepped into his automobile and was soon back in his own rooms, poring over the blueprints and notebooks. * * * * * seaton and crane both felt that something was wrong when they approached the landing field and saw that the landing-lights were not burning, as they always were kept lighted whenever the plane was abroad after dark. by the dim light of the old moon crane made a bumpy landing and they sprang from their seats and hastened toward the house. as they neared it they heard a faint moan and turned toward the sound, seaton whipping out his electric torch with one hand and his automatic pistol with the other. at the sight that met their eyes, however, he hastily replaced the weapon and bent over shiro, a touch assuring him that the other two were beyond the reach of help. silently they picked up the injured man and carried him gently into his own room, barely glancing at the wrecked safe on the way. seaton applied first-aid treatment to the ghastly wound in shiro's head, which both men supposed to be certainly fatal, while crane called a noted surgeon, asking him to come at once. he then telephoned the coroner, the police, and finally prescott, with whom he held a long conversation. having done all in their power for the unfortunate man, they stood at his bedside, their anger all the more terrible for the fact that it was silent. seaton stood with every muscle tense. he was seething with rage, his face purple and his eyes almost emitting sparks, his teeth clenched until the muscles of his jaws stood out in bands and lumps. his right hand, white-knuckled, gripped the butt of his pistol, while under his left the brass rail of the bed slowly bent under the intensity of his unconscious muscular effort. crane stood still, apparently impassive, but with his face perfectly white and with every feature stern and cold as though cut from marble. seaton was the first to speak. "mart," he gritted, his voice husky with fury, "a man who would leave another man alone to die after giving him that, ain't a man--he's a thing. if shiro dies and we can ever find out who did it i'll shoot him with the biggest explosive charge i've got. no, i won't either, that'd be too sudden. i'll take him apart with my bare hands." "we will find him, dick," crane replied in a level, deadly voice entirely unlike his usual tone. "that is one thing money can do. we will get him if money, influence, and detectives can do it." the tension was relieved by the arrival of the surgeon and his two nurses, who set to work with the machine-like rapidity and precision of their highly-specialized craft. after a few minutes, the work completed, the surgeon turned to the two men who had been watching him so intently, with a smile upon his clean-shaven face. "merely a scalp wound, mr. crane," he stated. "he should recover consciousness in an hour or so." then, breaking in upon seaton's exclamation, "it looks much worse than it really is. the bullet glanced off the skull instead of penetrating it, stunning him by the force of the blow. there are no indications that the brain is affected in any way, and while the affected area of the scalp is large, it is a clean wound and should heal rapidly. he will probably be up and around in a couple of days, and by the time his hair grows again, he will not be able to find a scar." as he took his leave, the police and coroner arrived. after making a thorough investigation, in which they learned what had been stolen and shrewdly deduced the manner in which the robbery had been accomplished, they departed, taking with them the bodies. they were authorized by crane to offer a reward of one million dollars for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the murderer. after everyone except the nurses had gone, crane showed them the rooms they were to occupy while caring for the wounded man. as the surgeon had foretold, shiro soon recovered consciousness. after telling his story he dropped into a deep sleep, and seaton and crane, after another telephonic conference with prescott, retired for the rest of the night. chapter vi the object-compass at work prescott, after a sleepless night, joined seaton and crane at breakfast. "what do you make of it, mr. prescott?" asked crane. "seaton here thinks it was duquesne, possibly acting for some foreign power, after our flying-machine to use in war. i think it was some big industrial concern after our power-plant. what is your opinion?" "i haven't any," replied the great detective after a moment. "either guess may be true, although i am almost positive that dr. duquesne had nothing to do with it, either way. it was no ordinary burglary, that is certain from shiro's story. it was done by someone who had exact information of your movements and habits. he chose a time when you were away, probably not so much from fear of you as because it was only in your absence that he could succeed as he did in getting all the guards out at once where he could handle them. he was a man with one accomplice or who worked alone, and who was almost exactly seaton's size and build. he was undoubtedly an expert, as he blew the safe and searched the whole house without leaving a finger-print or any other clue, however slight, that i can find--a thing i have never before seen done in all my experience." "his size should help in locating him," declared crane. "while there are undoubtedly thousands of men of dick's six-feet-one and two-fifths, they are fairly well scattered, are they not?" "yes, they are, but his very size only makes it worse. i have gone over all the records i could, in the short time i have had, and can't find an expert of that class with anywhere near that description." "how about the third guard, the one who escaped?" asked seaton. "he wasn't here. it was his afternoon off, you know, and he said that he wouldn't come back into this job on a bet--that he wasn't afraid of anything ordinary, but he didn't like the looks of things out here. that sounded fishy to me, and i fired him. he may have been the leak, of course, though i have always found him reliable before. if he did leak, he must have got a whale of a slice for it. he is under constant watch, and if we can ever get anything on him, i will nail him to the cross. but that doesn't help get this affair straightened out. i haven't given up, of course, there are lots of things not tried yet, but i must admit that temporarily, at least, i am up a stump." "well," remarked seaton, "that million-dollar reward will bring him in, sure. no honor that ever existed among thieves, or even among free-lances of diplomacy, could stand that strain." "i'm not so sure of that, dick," said crane. "if either one of our ideas is the right one, very few men would know enough about the affair to give pertinent information, and they probably would not live long enough to enjoy the reward very thoroughly. even a million dollars fails in that case." "i rather agree with mr. crane, seaton. if it were an ordinary affair--and i am as sure it is not as the police are that it is--a reward of that size would get us our man within two days. as it is, i doubt very much that the reward will do us any good. i'm afraid that it will never be claimed." "wonder if the secret service could help us out? they'd be interested if it should turn out to be some foreign power." "i took it up with the chief himself, just after it happened last night. he doesn't think that it can be a foreign country. he has their agents pretty well spotted, and the only one that could fill the bill--you know a man with that description and with the cold nerve to do the job would be apt to be known--was in san francisco, the time this job was pulled off." * * * * * "the more you talk, the more i am convinced that it was duquesne himself," declared seaton, positively. "he is almost exactly my size and build, is the only man i know of who could do anything with the solution after he got it, and he has nerve enough to do anything." "i would like to think it was duquesne," replied the detective, thoughtfully, "but i'm afraid we'll have to count him out of it entirely. he has been under the constant surveillance of my best men ever since you mentioned him. we have detectaphones in his rooms, wires on his telephone, and are watching him night and day. he never goes out except to work, never has any except unimportant telephone calls, and the instruments register only the occasional scratching of a match, the rustle of papers, and other noises of a man studying. he's innocent." "that may be true," assented seaton doubtfully, "but you want to remember that he knows more about electricity than the guy that invented it, and i'm not sure that he can't talk to a detectaphone and make it say anything he wants it to. anyway, we can soon settle it. yesterday i made a special trip down to the bureau, with some notes as an excuse, to set this object-compass on him," taking one of the small instruments from his pocket as he spoke. "i watched him a while last night, then fixed an alarm to wake me if the needle moved much, but it pointed steady all night. see! it's moving now. that means that he is going to work early, as usual. now i'm morally certain that he's mixed up in this thing somewhere, and i'm not convinced that he isn't slipping one over on your men some way--he's a clever devil. i wonder if you wouldn't take this compass and watch him yourself tonight, just on general principles? or let me do it. i'd be glad to. i say 'tonight' because if he did get the stuff here he didn't deliver it anywhere last night. it's just a chance, of course, but he may do it tonight." after the compass had been explained to the detective he gladly consented to the plan, declaring that he would willingly spend the time just to watch such an unheard-of instrument work. after another hour of fruitless discussion prescott took his leave, saying that he would mount an impregnable guard from that time on. late that evening prescott joined the two men who were watching duquesne's house. they reported that all was perfectly quiet, as usual. the scientist was in his library, the instruments registering only the usual occasional faint sounds of a man absorbed in study. but after an hour of waiting, and while the microphones made a noise as of rustling papers, the needle of the compass moved. it dipped slowly toward the earth as though duquesne were descending into the cellar, but at the same time the shadow of his unmistakable profile was thrown upon the window shade as he apparently crossed the room. "can't you hear him walk?" demanded prescott. "no. he has heavy turkish rugs all over the library, and he always walks very lightly, besides." * * * * * prescott watched the needle in amazement as it dipped deeper and deeper, pointing down into the earth almost under his feet and then behind him, as though duquesne had walked beneath him. he did not, could not, believe it. he was certain that something had gone wrong with the strange instrument in his hand, nevertheless he followed the pointing needle. it led him beside park road, down the hill, straight toward the long bridge which forms one entrance to rock creek park. though skeptical, prescott took no chances, and as he approached the bridge he left the road and concealed himself behind a clump of trees, from which point of vantage he could see the ground beneath the bridge as well as the roadway. soon the bridge trembled under the weight of a heavy automobile going toward the city at a high rate of speed. he saw duquesne, with a roll of papers under his arm, emerge from under the bridge just in time to leap aboard the automobile, which slowed down only enough to enable him to board it in safety. the detective noticed that the car was a pierce-arrow limousine--a car not common, even in washington--and rushed out to get its number, but the license plates were so smeared with oil and dust that the numbers could not be read by the light of the tail lamp. glancing at the compass in his hand he saw that the delicate needle was now pointing steadily at the fleeing car, and all doubts as to the power of the instrument were dispelled. he rejoined his men, informed them that duquesne had eluded them, and took one of them up the hill to a nearby garage. there he engaged a fast car and set out in pursuit, choosing the path for the chauffeur by means of the compass. his search ended at the residence of brookings, the general manager of the great world steel corporation. here he dismissed the car and watched the house while his assistant went to bring out the fast motorcycle used by prescott when high speed was desirable. after four hours a small car bearing the license number of a distant state--which was found, by subsequent telegraphing, to be unknown to the authorities of that state--drove under the porte-cochère, and the hidden watcher saw duquesne, without the papers, step into it. knowing now what to expect, prescott drove his racing motorcycle at full speed out to the park road bridge and concealed himself beneath the structure, in a position commanding a view of the concrete abutment through which the scientist must have come. soon he heard a car slow down overhead, heard a few rapid footfalls, and saw the dark form of a large man outlined against the gray face of the abutment. he saw the man lift his hand high above his head, and saw a black rectangle appear in the gray, engulf the man, and disappear. after a few minutes he approached the abutment and searched its face with the help of his flash-light. he finally succeeded in tracing the almost imperceptible crack which outlined the door, and the concealed button which duquesne had pressed to open it. he did not press the button, as it might be connected to an alarm. deep in thought, he mounted his motorcycle and made his way to his home to get a few hours of sleep before reporting to crane whom he was scheduled to see at breakfast next morning. * * * * * both men were waiting for him when he appeared, and he noticed with pleasure that shiro, with a heavily-bandaged head, was insisting that he was perfectly able to wait on the table instead of breakfasting in bed. he calmly proceeded to serve breakfast in spite of crane's remonstrances, having ceremoniously ordered out of the kitchen the colored man who had been secured to take his place. "well, gentlemen," the detective began, "part of the mystery is straightened out. i was entirely wrong, and each of you were partly right. it was duquesne, in all probability. it is equally probable that a great company--in this case the world steel corporation--is backing him, though i don't believe there is a ghost of a show of ever being able to prove it in law. your 'object-compass' did the trick." he narrated all the events of the previous night. "i'd like to send him to the chair for this job," said seaton with rising anger. "we ought to shoot him anyway, damn him--i'm sorry duels have gone out of fashion, for i can't shoot him off-hand, the way things are now--i sure wish i could." "no, you cannot shoot him," said crane, thoughtfully, "and neither can i, worse luck. we are not in his class there. and you must not fight with him, either"--noting that seaton's powerful hands had doubled into fists, the knuckles showing white through the tanned skin--"though that would be a fight worth watching and i would like to see you give him the beating of his life. a little thing like a beating is not a fraction of what he deserves and it would show him that we have found him out. no, we must do it legally or let him entirely alone. you think there is no hope of proving it, prescott?" "frankly, i see very little chance of it. there is always hope, of course, and if that bunch of pirates ever makes a slip, we'll be right there waiting to catch 'em. while i don't believe in holding out false encouragement, they've never slipped yet. i'll take my men off duquesne, now that we've linked him up with steel. it doesn't make any difference, does it, whether he goes to them every night or only once a week? "no." "then about all i can do is to get everything i can on that steel crowd, and that is very much like trying to get blood out of a turnip. i intend to keep after them, of course, for i owe them something for killing two of my men here, as well as for other favors they have done me in the past, but don't expect too much. i have tackled them before, and so have police headquarters and even the secret service itself, under cover, and all that any of us has been able to get is an occasional small fish. we could never land the big fellows. in fact, we have never found the slightest material proof of what we are morally certain is the truth, that world steel is back of a lot of deviltry all over the country. the little fellows who do the work either don't know anything or are afraid to tell. i'll see if i can find out what they are doing with the stuff they stole, but i'm not even sure of doing that. you can't plant instruments on that bunch--it would be like trying to stick a pin into a sleeping cat without waking him up. they undoubtedly have one of the best corps of detectives in the world. you haven't perfected an instrument which enables you to see into a closed room and hear what is going on there, have you?" and upon being assured that they had not, he took his leave. "optimistic cuss, ain't he?" remarked seaton. "he has cause to be, dick. world steel is a soulless corporation if there ever was one. they have the shrewdest lawyers in the country, and they get away legally with things that are flagrantly illegal, such as freezing out competitors, stealing patents, and the like. report has it that they do not stop at arson, treason, or murder to attain their ends, but as prescott said, they never leave any legal proof behind them." "well, _we_ should fret, anyway. of course, a monopoly is what they're after, but they can't form one because they can't possibly get the rest of our solution. even if they should get it, we can get more. it won't be as easy as this last batch was, since the x was undoubtedly present in some particular lot of platinum in extraordinary quantities, but now that i know exactly what to look for, i can find more. so they can't get their monopoly unless they kill us off...." "exactly. go on, i see you are getting the idea. if we should both conveniently die, they could get the solution from the company, and have the monopoly, since no one else can handle it." "but they couldn't get away with it, mart--never in a thousand years, even if they wanted to. of course i am small fry, but you are too big a man for even steel to do away with. it can't be done." "i am not so sure of that. airplane accidents are numerous, and i am an aviator. also, has it ever occurred to you that the heavy forging for the skylark, ordered a while ago, are of steel?" seaton paused, dumbfounded, in the act of lighting his pipe. "but thanks to your object-compass, we are warned." crane continued, evenly. "those forgings are going through the most complete set of tests known to the industry, and if they go into the skylark at all it will be after i am thoroughly convinced that they will not give way on our first trip into space. but we can do nothing until the steel arrives, and with the guard prescott has here now we are safe enough. luckily, the enemy knows nothing of the object-compass or the x-plosive, and we must keep them in ignorance. hereinafter, not even the guards get a look at anything we do." "they sure don't. let's get busy!" * * * * * duquesne and brookings met in conference in a private room of the perkins café. "what's the good word, doctor?" "so-so," replied the scientist. "the stuff is all they said it was, but we haven't enough of it to build much of a power-plant. we can't go ahead with it, anyway, as long as seaton and crane have nearly all their original solution." "no, we can't. we must find a way of getting it. i see now that we should have done as you suggested, and taken it before they had warning and put it out of our reach." "there's no use holding post-mortems. we've got to get it, some way, and everybody that knows anything about that new metal, how to get it or how to handle it, must die. at first, it would have been enough to kill seaton. now, however, there is no doubt that crane knows all about it, and he probably has left complete instructions in case he gets killed in an accident--he's the kind that would. we will have to keep our eyes open and wipe out those instructions and anyone who has seen them. you see that, don't you?" "yes, i am afraid that is the only way out. we must have the monopoly, and anyone who might be able to interfere with it must be removed. how has your search for more x prospered?" "about as well as i expected. we bought up all the platinum wastes we could get, and reworked all the metallic platinum and allied metals we could buy in the open market, and got less than a gram of x out of the whole lot. it's scarcer than radium. seaton's finding so much of it at once was an accident, pure and simple--it couldn't happen once in a million years." "well, have you any suggestions as to how we can get that solution?" "no. i haven't thought of anything but that very thing ever since i found that they had hidden it, and i can't yet see any good way of getting it. my forte is direct action and that fails in this case, since no amount of force or torture could make crane reveal the hiding-place of the solution. it's probably in the safest safe-deposit vault in the country. he wouldn't carry the key on him, probably wouldn't have it in the house. killing seaton or crane, or both of them, is easy enough, but it probably wouldn't get us the solution, as i have no doubt that crane has provided for everything." "probably he has. but if he should disappear the stuff would have to come to light, or the seaton-crane company might start their power-plant. in that case, we probably could get it?" "_possibly_, you mean. that method is too slow to suit me, though. it would take months, perhaps years, and would be devilishly uncertain, to boot. they'll know something is in the wind, and the stuff will be surrounded by every safeguard they can think of. there must be some better way than that, but i haven't been able to think of it." "neither have i, but your phrase 'direct action' gives me an idea. you say that that method has failed. what do you think of trying indirect action in the shape of perkins, who is indirection personified?" "bring him in. he may be able to figure out something." * * * * * perkins was called in, and the main phases of the situation laid before him. the three men sat in silence for many minutes while the crafty strategist studied the problem. finally he spoke. "there's only one way, gentlemen. we must get a handle on either seaton or crane strong enough to make them give up their bottle of dope, their plans, and everything...." "handle!" interrupted duquesne. "you talk like a fool! you can't get anything on either of them." "you misunderstand me, doctor. you can get a handle of some kind on any living man. not necessarily in his past, you understand--i know that anything like that is out of the question in this case--but in his future. with some men it is money, with others power, with others fame, with others women or some woman, and so on down the list. what can we use here? money is out of the question, so are power and fame, as they already have both in plain sight. it seems to me that women would be our best chance." "hah!" snorted the chemist. "crane has been chased by all the women of three continents so long that he's womanproof. seaton is worse--he's engaged, and wouldn't realize that a woman was on his trail, even if you could find a better looking one to work on him than the girl he's engaged to--which would be a hard job. cleopatra herself couldn't swing that order." "engaged? that makes it simple as a b c." "simple? in the devil's name, how?" "easy as falling off a log. you have enough of the dope to build a space-car from those plans, haven't you?" "yes. what has that to do with the case?" "it has everything to do with it. i would suggest that we build such a car and use it to carry off the girl. after we have her safe we could tell seaton that she is marooned on some distant planet, and that she will be returned to earth only after all the solution, all notes, plans, and everything pertaining to the new metal are surrendered. that will bring him, and crane will consent. then, afterward, dr. seaton may go away indefinitely, and if desirable, mr. crane may accompany him." "but suppose they try to fight?" asked brookings. perkins slid down into his chair in deep thought, his pale eyes under half-closed lids darting here and there, his stubby fingers worrying his watch-chain restlessly. "who is the girl?" he asked at last. "dorothy vaneman, the daughter of the lawyer. she's that auburn-haired beauty that the papers were so full of when she came out last year." "vaneman is a director in the seaton-crane company. that makes it still better. if they show fight and follow us, that beautiful car we are making for them will collapse and they will be out of the way. vaneman, as seaton's prospective father-in-law and a member of his company, probably knows something about the secret. maybe all of it. with his daughter in a space-car, supposedly out in space, and seaton and crane out of the way, vaneman would listen to reason and let go of the solution, particularly as nobody knows much about it except seaton and crane." "that strikes me as a perfectly feasible plan," said brookings. "but you wouldn't really take her to another planet, would you? why not use an automobile or an airplane, and tell seaton that it was a space-car?" "i wouldn't advise that. he might not believe it, and they might make a lot of trouble. it must be a real space-car even if we don't take her out of the city. to make it more impressive, you should take her in plain sight of seaton--no, that would be too dangerous, as i have found out from the police that seaton has a permit to carry arms, and i know that he is one of the fastest men with a pistol in the whole country. do it in plain sight of her folks, say, or a crowd of people; being masked, of course, or dressed in an aviator's suit, with the hood and goggles on. take her straight up out of sight, then hide her somewhere until seaton listens to reason. i know that he _will_ listen, but if he doesn't, you might let him see you start out to visit her. he'll be sure to follow you in their rotten car. as soon as he does that, he's our meat. but that raises the question of who is going to drive the car?" "i am," replied duquesne. "i will need some help, though, as at least one man must stay with the girl while i bring the car back." "we don't want to let anybody else in on this if we can help it," cautioned brookings. "you could go along, couldn't you, perkins?" "is it safe?" "absolutely," answered duquesne. "they have everything worked out to the queen's taste." "that's all right, then. i'll take the trip. also," turning to brookings, "it will help in another little thing we are doing--the spencer affair." "haven't you got that stuff away from her yet, after having had her locked up in that hell-hole for two months?" asked brookings. "no. she's stubborn as a mule. we've given her the third degree time after time, but it's no use." * * * * * "what's this?" asked duquesne. "deviltry in the main office?" "yes. this margaret spencer claims that we swindled her father out of an invention and indirectly caused his death. she secured a position with us in search of evidence. she is an expert stenographer, and showed such ability that she was promoted until she became my secretary. our detectives must have been asleep, as she made away with some photographs and drawings before they caught her. she has no real evidence, of course, but she might cause trouble with a jury, especially as she is one of the best-looking women in washington. perkins is holding her until she returns the stolen articles." "why can't you kill her off?" "she cannot be disposed of until after we know where the stuff is, because she says, and perkins believes, that the evidence will show up in her effects. we must do something about her soon, as the search for her is dying down and she will be given up for dead." "what's the idea about her and the space-car?" "if the car proves reliable we might actually take her out into space and give her the choice between telling and walking back. she has nerve enough here on earth to die before giving up, but i don't believe any human being would be game to go it alone on a strange world. she'd wilt." "i believe you're right, perkins. your suggestions are the best way out. don't you think so, doctor?" "yes, i don't see how we can fail--we're sure to win, either way. you are prepared for trouble afterward, of course?" "certainly, but i don't think there will be much trouble. they can't possibly link the three of us together. they aren't wise to you, are they, doctor?" "not a chance!" sneered duquesne. "they ran themselves ragged trying to get something on me, but they couldn't do it. they have given me up as a bad job. i am still as careful as ever, though--i am merely a pure scientist in the bureau of chemistry!" all three laughed, and perkins left the room. the talk then turned to the construction of the space-car. it was decided to rush the work on it, so that duquesne could familiarize himself with its operation, but not to take any steps in the actual abduction until such time as seaton and crane were nearly ready to take their first flight, so that they could pursue the abductors in case seaton was still obdurate after a few days of his fiancée's absence. duquesne insisted that the car should mount a couple of heavy guns, to destroy the pursuing car if the faulty members should happen to hold together long enough to carry it out into space. after a long discussion, in which every detail of the plan was carefully considered, the two men left the restaurant, by different exits. chapter vii the trial voyage the great steel forgings which were to form the framework of the skylark finally arrived and were hauled into the testing shed. there, behind closed doors, crane inspected every square inch of the massive members with a lens, but could find nothing wrong. still unsatisfied, he fitted up an electrical testing apparatus in order to search out flaws which might be hidden beneath the surface. this device revealed flaws in every piece, and after thoroughly testing each one and mapping out the imperfections he turned to seaton with a grave face. "worse than useless, every one of them. they are barely strong enough to stand shipment. they figured that we would go slowly until we were well out of the atmosphere, then put on power--then something would give way and we would never come back." "that's about the right dope, i guess. but now what'll we do? we can't cancel without letting them know we're onto them, and we certainly can't use this stuff." "no, but we will go ahead and build this ship, anyway, so that they will think that we are going ahead with it. at the same time we will build another one, about four times this size, in absolute secrecy, and...." "what d'you mean, absolute secrecy? how can you keep steel castings and forgings of that size secret from steel?" "i know a chap who owns and operates a small steel plant, so insignificant, relatively, that he has not yet been bought out or frozen out by steel. i was able to do him a small favor once, and i am sure that he will be glad to return it. we will not be able to oversee the work, that is a drawback. we can get macdougall to do it for us, however, and with him doing the work we can rest assured that there will be nothing off color. even steel couldn't buy _him_." "macdougall! the man who installed the intercontinental plant? he wouldn't touch a little job like this with a pole!" "i think he would. he and i are rather friendly, and after i tell him all about it he will be glad to take it. it means building the first interplanetary vessel, you know." "wouldn't steel follow him up if he should go to work on a mysterious project? he's too big to hide." "no. he will go camping--he often does. i have gone with him several times when we were completely out of touch with civilization for two months at a time. now, about the ship we want. have you any ideas?" "it will cost more than our entire capital." "that is easily arranged. we do not care how much it costs." seaton began to object to drawing so heavily upon the resources of his friend, but was promptly silenced. "i told you when we started," crane said flatly, "that your solution and your idea are worth far more than half a million. in fact, they are worth more than everything i have. no more talk of the money end of it, dick." "all right. we'll build a regular go-getter. four times the size--she'll be a bear-cat, mart. i'm glad this one is on the fritz. she'll carry a two-hundred-pound bar--zowie! watch our smoke! and say, why wouldn't it be a good idea to build an attractor--a thing like an object-compass, but mounting a ten-pound bar instead of a needle, so that if they chase us in space we can reach out and grab 'em? we might mount a machine-gun in each quadrant, shooting x-plosive bullets, through pressure gaskets in the walls. we should have something for defense--i don't like the possibility of having that gang of pirates after us, and nothing to fight back with except thought-waves." "right. we will do both those things. but we should make the power-plant big enough to avert any possible contingency--say four hundred pounds--and we should have everything in duplicate, from power-plant to push-buttons." "i don't think that's necessary, mart. don't you think that's carrying caution to extremes?" "possibly--but i would rather be a live coward than a dead hero, wouldn't you?" "you chirped it, old scout, i sure would. i never did like the looks of that old guy with the scythe, and i would hate to let duquesne feel that he had slipped something over on me at my own game. besides, i've developed a lot of caution myself, lately. double she is, with a skin of four-foot norwegian armor. let's get busy!" * * * * * they made the necessary alteration in the plans, and in a few days work was begun upon the huge steel shell in the little mountain steel-plant. the work was done under the constant supervision of the great macdougall, by men who had been in his employ for years and who were all above suspicion. while it was being built seaton and crane employed a force of men and went ahead with the construction of the space-car in the testing shed. while they did not openly slight the work nearly all their time was spent in the house, perfecting the many essential things which were to go into the real skylark. there was the attractor, for which they had to perfect a special sighting apparatus so that it could act in any direction, and yet would not focus upon the ship itself nor anything it contained. there were many other things. it was in this work that the strikingly different temperaments and abilities of the two men were most clearly revealed. seaton strode up and down the room, puffing great volumes of smoke from his hot and reeking briar, suggesting methods and ideas, his keen mind finding the way over, around, or through the apparently insuperable obstacles which beset their path. crane, seated calmly at the drafting-table, occasionally inhaling a mouthful of smoke from one of his specially-made cigarettes, mercilessly tore seaton's suggestions to shreds--pointing out their weaknesses, proving his points with his cold, incisive reasoning and his slide-rule calculations of factors, stresses, and strains. seaton in turn would find a remedy for every defect, and finally, the idea complete and perfect, crane would impale it upon the point of his drafting pencil and spread it in every detail upon the paper before him, while seaton's active mind leaped to the next problem. not being vitally interested in the thing being built in the shed, they did not know that to the flawed members were being attached faulty plates, by imperfect welding. even if they had been interested they could not have found the poor workmanship by any ordinary inspection, for it was being done by a picked crew of experts picked by perkins. but to make things even, perkins' crew did not know that the peculiar instruments installed by seaton and crane, of which their foreman took many photographs, were not real instruments, and were made only nearly enough like them to pass inspection. they were utterly useless, in design and function far different from the real instruments intended for the skylark. finally, the last dummy instrument was installed in the worthless space-car, which the friends referred to between themselves as "the cripple," a name which seaton soon changed to "old crip." the construction crew was dismissed after crane had let the foreman overhear a talk between seaton and himself in which they decided not to start for a few days as they had some final experiments to make. prescott reported that steel had relaxed its vigilance and was apparently waiting for the first flight. about the same time word was received from macdougall that the real skylark was ready for the finishing touches. a huge triplane descended upon crane field and was loaded to its capacity with strange looking equipment. when it left seaton and crane went with it, "to make the final tests before the first flight," leaving a heavy guard over the house and the testing shed. a few nights later, in inky blackness, a huge shape descended rapidly in front of the shed, whose ponderous doors opened to receive it and closed quickly after it. the skylark moved lightly and easily as a wafted feather, betraying its thousands of tons of weight only by the hole it made in the hard-beaten earth of the floor as it settled to rest. opening one of the heavy doors, seaton and crane sprang out into the darkness. dorothy and her father, who had been informed that the skylark was to be brought home that night, were waiting. seaton caught up his sweetheart in one mighty arm and extended his hand past her to vaneman, who seized it in both his own. upon the young man's face was the look of a victorious king returning from conquest. for a few minutes disconnected exclamations were all that any of the party could utter. then seaton, loosening slightly his bear's hold upon dorothy, spoke. "she flies!" he cried exultantly. "she flies, dearest, like a ray of light for speed and like a bit of thistledown for lightness. we've been around the moon!" "around the moon!" cried the two amazed visitors. "so soon?" asked vaneman. "when did you start?" "almost an hour ago," replied crane readily; he had already taken out his watch. his voice was calm, his face quiet, but to those who knew him best a deeper resonance in his voice and a deeper blue sparkle in his eyes betrayed his emotion. both inventors were moved more than they could have told by their achievement, by the complete success of the great space-cruiser upon which they had labored for months with all the power of their marvelous intellects. seaton stood now at the summit of his pride. no recognition by the masses, no applause by the multitudes, no praise even from the upper ten of his own profession could equal for him the silent adulation of the two before him. dorothy's exquisite face was glorified as she looked at her lover. her eyes wonderful as they told him how high he stood above all others in her world, how much she loved him. seeing that look; that sweet face, more beautiful than ever in this, his hour of triumph; that perfect, adorable body, seaton forgot the others and a more profound exaltation than that brought by his flight filled his being--humble thankfulness that he was the man to receive the untold treasure of her great giving. "every bit of mechanism we had occasion to use worked perfectly," crane stated proudly. "we did not find it necessary to change any of our apparatus and we hope to make a longer flight soon. the hour we took on this trip might easily have been only a few minutes, for the lark did not even begin to pick up speed." * * * * * shiro looked at crane with an air of utter devotion and bowed until his head approached the floor. "sir," he said in his stilted english. "honorable skylark shall be marvelous wonder. if permitting, i shall luxuriate in preparing suitable refreshment." the permission granted, he trotted away into the house, and the travelers invited their visitors to inspect the new craft. crane and the older man climbed through the circular doorway, which was at an elevation of several feet above the ground. seaton and dorothy exchanged a brief but enthusiastic caress before he lifted her lightly up to the opening and followed her up a short flight of stairs. although she knew what to expect, from her lover's descriptions and from her own knowledge of "old crip," which she had seen many times, she caught her breath in amazement as she stood up and looked about the brilliantly-lighted interior of the great sky-rover. it was a sight such as had never before been seen upon earth. [illustration: in the exact center of the huge shell was a spherical network of enormous steel beams. inside this structure could be seen a similar network which, mounted upon universal bearings, was free to revolve in any direction.] she saw a spherical shell of hardened steel armor-plate, fully forty feet in diameter; though its true shape was not readily apparent from the inside, as it was divided into several compartments by horizontal floors or decks. in the exact center of the huge shell was a spherical network of enormous steel beams. inside this structure could be seen a similar network which, mounted upon universal bearings, was free to revolve in any direction. this inner network was filled with machinery, surrounding a shining copper cylinder. from the outer network radiated six mighty supporting columns. these, branching as they neared the hull of the vessel, supported the power-plant and steering apparatus in the center and so strengthened the shell that the whole structure was nearly as strong as a solid steel ball. she noticed that the floor, perhaps eight feet below the center, was heavily upholstered in leather and did not seem solid; and that the same was true of the dozen or more seats--she could not call them chairs--which were built in various places. she gazed with interest at the two instrument boards, upon which flashed tiny lights and the highly-polished plate glass, condensite, and metal of many instruments, the use of which she could not guess. after a few minutes of silence both visitors began to ask questions, and seaton showed them the principal features of the novel craft. crane accompanied them in silence, enjoying their pleasure, glorying in the mighty vessel. seaton called attention to the great size and strength of the lateral supporting columns, one of which was immediately above their heads, and then led them over to the vertical column which pierced the middle of the floor. enormous as the lateral had seemed, it appeared puny in comparison with this monster of fabricated steel. seaton explained that the two verticals were many times stronger than the four laterals, as the center of gravity of the ship had been made lower than its geometrical center, so that the apparent motion of the vessel and therefore the power of the bar, would usually be merely vertical. resting one hand caressingly upon the huge column, he exultantly explained that these members were "the last word in strength, made up of many separate i-beams and angles of the strongest known special steel, latticed and braced until no conceivable force could make them yield a millimeter." "but why such strength?" asked the lawyer doubtfully. "this column alone would hold up brooklyn bridge." "to hold down the power-plant, so that the bar won't tear through the ship when we cut her loose," replied seaton. "have you any idea how fast this bird can fly?" "well, i have heard you speak of traveling with the velocity of light, but that is overdrawn, isn't it?" "not very much. our figures show that with this four-hundred-pound bar"--pointing to the copper cylinder in the exact center of the inner sphere--"we could develop not only the velocity of light, but an acceleration equal to that velocity, were it not for the increase in mass at high velocities, as shown by einstein and others. we can't go very fast near the earth, of course, as the friction of the air would melt the whole works in a few minutes. until we get out of the atmosphere our speed will be limited by the ability of steel to withstand melting by the friction of the air to somewhere in the neighborhood of four or five thousand miles per hour, but out in space we can develop any speed we wish, up to that of light as a limit." "i studied physics a little in my youth. wouldn't the mere force of such an acceleration as you mention flatten you on the floor and hold you there? and any sudden jar would certainly kill you." * * * * * "there can't be any sudden jar. this is a special floor, you notice. it is mounted on long, extremely heavy springs, to take up any possible jar. also, whenever we are putting on power we won't try to stand up, our legs would crimple up like strings. we will ride securely strapped into those special seats, which are mounted the same as the floor, only a whole lot more so. as to the acceleration...." "that word means picking up speed, doesn't it?" interrupted dorothy. "the rate of picking up speed," corrected seaton. "that is, if you were going forty miles per hour one minute, and fifty the next minute, your acceleration would be ten miles per hour per minute. see? it's acceleration that makes you feel funny when you start up or down in an elevator." "then riding in this thing will be like starting up in an elevator so that your heart sinks into your boots and you can't breathe?" "yes, only worse. we will pick up speed faster and keep on doing it...." "seriously," interrupted the lawyer, "do you think that the human body can stand any such acceleration as that?" "i don't know. we are going to find out, by starting out slowly and increasing our acceleration to as much as we can stand." "i see," vaneman replied. "but how are you going to steer her? how do you keep permanent reference points, since there are no directions in space?" "that was our hardest problem," explained seaton, "but martin solved it perfectly. see the power-plant up there? notice those big supporting rings and bearings? well, the power-plant is entirely separate from the ship, as it is inside that inner sphere, about which the outer sphere and the ship itself are free to revolve in any direction. no matter how much the ship rolls and pitches, as she is bound to do every time we come near enough to any star or planet to be influenced by its gravitation, the bar stays where it is pointed. those six big jackets in the outer sphere, on the six sides of the bar, cover six pairs of gyroscope wheels, weighing several tons each, turning at a terrific speed in a vacuum. the gyroscopes keep the whole outer sphere in exactly the same position as long as they are kept turning, and afford us not only permanent planes of reference, but also a solid foundation in those planes which can be used in pointing the bar. the bar can be turned instantly to any direction whatever by special electrical instruments on the boards. you see, the outer sphere stays immovably fixed in that position, with the bar at liberty to turn in any direction inside it, and the ship at liberty to do the same thing outside it. "now we will show you where we sleep," seaton continued. "we have eight rooms, four below and four above," leading the way to a narrow, steep steel stairway and down into a very narrow hall, from either side of which two doors opened. "this is my room, the adjoining one is mart's. shiro sleeps across the hall. the rest of the rooms are for our guests on future trips." sliding back the door, he switched on the light and revealed a small but fully-appointed bedroom, completely furnished with everything necessary, yet everything condensed into the least possible space. the floor, like the one above, was of cushioned leather supported by springs. the bed was a modification of the special seats already referred to. opening another sliding door, he showed them an equally complete and equally compact bathroom. "you see, we have all the comforts of home. this bathroom, however, is practical only when we have some force downward, either gravitation or our own acceleration. the same reasoning accounts for the hand-rails you see everywhere on board. drifting in space, you know, there is no weight, and you can't walk; you must pull yourself around. if you tried to take a step you would bounce up and hit the ceiling, and stay there. that is why the ceilings are so well padded. and if you tried to wash your face you would throw water all over the place, and it would float around in the air instead of falling to the floor. as long as we can walk we can use the bathroom--if i should want to wash my face while we are drifting, i just press this button here, and the pilot will put on enough acceleration to make the correct use of water possible. there are a lot of surprising things about a trip into space." "i don't doubt it a bit, and i'm simply wild to go for a ride with you. when will you take me, dicky?" asked dorothy eagerly. "very soon, dottie. as soon as we get her in perfect running condition. you shall be the first to ride with us, i promise you." "where do you cook and eat? how do you see out? how about the air and water supply? how do you keep warm, or cool, as the case may be?" asked the girl's father, as though he were cross-examining a witness. "shiro has a galley on the main floor, and tables fold up into the wall of the main compartment. the passengers see out by sliding back steel panels, which normally cover the windows. the pilot can see in any direction from his seat at the instrument-board, by means of special instruments, something like periscopes. the windows are made of optical glass similar to that used in the largest telescopes. they are nearly as thick as the hull and have a compressive resistance almost equal to that of armor steel. although so thick, they are crystal clear, and a speck of dust on the outer surface is easily seen. we have water enough in tanks to last us three months, or indefinitely if we should have to be careful, as we can automatically distill and purify all our waste water, recovering absolutely pure h o. we have compressed air, also in tanks, but we need very little, as the air is constantly being purified. also, we have oxygen-generating apparatus aboard, in case we should run short. as to keeping warm, we have electric heating coils, run by the practically inexhaustible power of a small metal bar. if we get too near the sun and get too warm, we have a refrigerating machine to cool us off. anything else?" "you'd better give up, dad," laughingly advised his daughter. "you've thought of everything, haven't you, dick?" "mart has, i think. this is all his doing, you know. i wouldn't have thought of a tenth of it, myself." "i must remind you young folks," said the older man, glancing at his watch, "that it is very late and high time for dottie and me to be going home. we would like to stay and see the rest of it, but you know we must be away from here before daylight." * * * * * as they went into the house vaneman asked: "what does the other side of the moon look like? i have always been curious about it." "we were not able to see much," replied crane "it was too dark and we did not take the time to explore it, but from what we could see by means of our searchlights it is very much like this side--the most barren and desolate place imaginable. after we go to mars, we intend to explore the moon thoroughly." "mars, then, is your first goal? when do you intend to start?" "we haven't decided definitely. probably in a day or two. everything is ready now." as the vanemans had come out in the street car, in order to attract as little attention as possible, seaton volunteered to take them home in one of crane's cars. as they bade crane goodnight after enjoying shiro's "suitable refreshment" the lawyer took the chauffeur's seat, motioning his daughter and seaton into the closed body of the car. as soon as they had started dorothy turned in the embrace of her lover's arm. "dick," she said fiercely. "i would have been worried sick if i had known that you were way off there." "i knew it, sweetheart. that's why i didn't tell you we were going. we both knew the skylark was perfectly safe, but i knew that you would worry about our first trip. now that we have been to the moon you won't be uneasy when we go to mars, will you, dear?" "i can't help it, boy. i will be afraid that something terrible has happened, every minute. won't you take me with you? then, if anything happens, it will happen to both of us, and that is as it should be. you know that i wouldn't want to keep on living if anything _should_ happen to you." he put both arms around her as his reply, and pressed his cheek to hers. "dorothy sweetheart, i know exactly how you feel. i feel the same way myself. i'm awfully sorry, dear, but i can't do it. i know the machine is safe, but i've got to prove it to everybody else before i take you on a long trip with me. your father will agree with me that you ought not to go, on the first trip or two, anyway. and besides, what would madam grundy say?" "well, there _is_ a way...." she began, and he felt her face turn hot. his arms tightened around her and his breath came fast. "i know it, sweetheart, and i would like nothing better in the world than to be married today and take our honeymoon in the skylark, but i can't do it. after we come back from the first long trip we will be married just as soon as you say ready, and after that we will always be together wherever i go. but i can't take even the millionth part of a chance with anything as valuable as you are--you see that, don't you, dottie?" "i suppose so," she returned disconsolately, "but you'll make it a short trip, for my sake? i know i won't rest a minute until you get back." "i promise you that we won't be gone more than four days. then for the greatest honeymoon that ever was," and they clung together in the dark body of the car, each busy with solemn and beautiful thoughts of the happiness to come. they soon reached their destination. as they entered the house dorothy made one more attempt. "dad, dick is just too perfectly mean. he says he won't take me on the first trip. if you were going out there wouldn't mother want to go along too?" after listening to seaton he gave his decision. "dick is right, kitten. he must make the long trip first. then, after the machine is proved reliable, you may go with him. i can think of no better way of spending a honeymoon--it will be a new one, at least. and you needn't worry about the boys getting back safely. i might not trust either of them alone, but together they are invincible. good-night, children. i wish you success, dick," as he turned away. seaton took a lover's leave of dorothy, and went into the lawyer's study, taking an envelope from his pocket. "mr. vaneman," he said in a low voice, "we think the steel crowd is still camping on our trail. we are ready for them, with a lot of stuff that they never heard of, but in case anything goes wrong, martin has written between the lines of this legal form, in invisible ink a- , exactly how to get possession of all our notes and plans, so that the company can go ahead with everything. with those directions any chemist can find and use the stuff safely. please put this envelope in the safest place you can think of, and then forget it unless they get both crane and me. there's about one chance in a million of their doing that, but mart doesn't gamble on even that chance." "he is right, dick. i believe that you can outwit them in any situation, but i will keep this paper where no one except myself can ever see it, nevertheless. good-night, son, and good luck." "the same to you, sir, and thank you. good-night." +--------------------------------------+ | | | _the author of this story, being a | | chemist of high standing and an | | excellent mathematician, gives us a | | rare gem in this interplanetary | | tale. for one thing, he suggests an | | interesting use of the action of | | acceleration. in this instalment it | | is made to take the place of gravity | | when the interplanetary vehicle is | | out in open space. in order to get | | the gravity effect, a positive or | | negative acceleration could be given | | out. | | | | this instalment retains its easy | | flow of language and continues to | | develop surprise episodes with a | | remarkable degree of realism._ | | | +--------------------------------------+ chapter viii indirect action the afternoon following the homecoming of the skylark, seaton and dorothy returned from a long horseback ride in the park. after seaton had mounted his motorcycle dorothy turned toward a bench in the shade of an old elm to watch a game of tennis on the court next door. scarcely had she seated herself when a great copper-plated ball alighted upon the lawn in front of her. a heavy steel door snapped open and a powerful figure clad in aviator's leather, the face completely covered by the hood, leaped out. she jumped to her feet with a cry of joyful surprise, thinking it was seaton--a cry which died suddenly as she realized that seaton had just left her and that this vessel was far too small to be the skylark. she turned in flight, but the stranger caught her in three strides. she found herself helpless in a pair of arms equal in strength to seaton's own. picking her up lightly as a baby, duquesne carried her over to the space-car. shriek after shriek rang out as she found that her utmost struggles were of no avail against the giant strength of her captor, that her fiercely-driven nails glanced harmlessly off the heavy glass and leather of his hood, and that her teeth were equally ineffective against his suit. with the girl in his arms duquesne stepped into the vessel, and as the door clanged shut behind them dorothy caught a glimpse of another woman, tied hand and foot in one of the side seats of the car. "tie her feet, perkins," duquesne ordered brusquely, holding her around the body so that her feet extended straight out in front of him. "she's a wildcat." as perkins threw one end of a small rope around her ankles dorothy doubled up her knees, drawing her feet as far away from him as possible. as he incautiously approached, she kicked out viciously, with all the force of her muscular young body behind her heavy riding-boots. the sharp heel of one small boot struck perkins squarely in the pit of the stomach--a true "solar-plexus" blow--and completely knocked out, he staggered back against the instrument-board. his out-flung arm pushed the speed lever clear out to its last notch, throwing the entire current of the batteries through the bar, which was pointed straight up, as it had been when they made their landing, and closing the switch which threw on the power of the repelling outer coating. there was a creak of the mighty steel fabric, stressed almost to its limit as the vessel darted upward with its stupendous velocity, and only the carefully-planned spring-and-cushion floor saved their lives as they were thrown flat and held there by the awful force of their acceleration as the space-car tore through the thin layer of the earth's atmosphere. so terrific was their speed, that the friction of the air did not have time to set them afire--they were through it and into the perfect vacuum of interstellar space before the thick steel hull was even warmed through. dorothy lay flat upon her back, just as she had fallen, unable even to move her arms, gaining each breath only by a terrible effort. perkins was a huddled heap under the instrument-board. the other captive, brookings' ex-secretary, was in somewhat better case, as her bonds had snapped like string and she was lying at full length in one of the side-seats--forced into that position and held there, as the design of the seats was adapted for the most comfortable position possible under such conditions. she, like dorothy, was gasping for breath, her straining muscles barely able to force air into her lungs because of the paralyzing weight of her chest. duquesne alone was able to move, and it required all of his herculean strength to creep and crawl, snake-like, toward the instrument-board. finally attaining his goal, he summoned all his strength to grasp, not the controlling lever, which he knew was beyond his reach, but a cut-out switch only a couple of feet above his head. with a series of convulsive movements he fought his way up, first until he was crouching on his elbows and knees, and then into a squatting position. placing his left hand under his right, he made a last supreme effort. perspiration streamed from him, his mighty muscles stood out in ridges visible even under the heavy leather of his coat, his lips parted in a snarl over his locked teeth as he threw every ounce of his wonderful body into an effort to force his right hand up to the switch. his hand approached it slowly--closed over it and pulled it out. the result was startling. with the mighty power instantly cut off, and with not even the ordinary force of gravitation to counteract the force duquesne was exerting, his own muscular effort hurled him up toward the center of the car and against the instrument-board. the switch, still in his grasp, was again closed. his shoulder crashed against the levers which controlled the direction of the bar, swinging it through a wide arc. as the ship darted off in the new direction with all its old acceleration, he was hurled against the instrument board, tearing one end loose from its supports and falling unconscious to the floor on the other side. after a time, which seemed like an eternity, dorothy and the other girl felt their senses slowly leave them. with four unconscious passengers, the space-car hurtled through empty space, its already inconceivable velocity being augmented every second by a quantity bringing its velocity near to that of light, driven onward by the incredible power of the disintegrating copper bar. * * * * * seaton had gone only a short distance from his sweetheart's home when over the purring of his engine he thought he heard dorothy's voice raised in a scream. he did not wait to make sure, but whirled his machine about and the purring changed instantly to a staccato roar as he threw open the throttle and advanced the spark. gravel flew from beneath his skidding wheels as he negotiated the turn into the vaneman grounds at suicidal speed. but with all his haste he arrived upon the scene just in time to see the door of the space-car close. before he could reach it the vessel disappeared, with nothing to mark its departure save a violent whirl of grass and sod, uprooted and carried far into the air by the vacuum of its wake. to the excited tennis-players and the screaming mother of the abducted girl it seemed as though the great metal ball had vanished utterly--only seaton, knowing what to expect, saw the line it made in the air and saw for an instant a minute dot in the sky before it disappeared. interrupting the clamor of the young people, each of whom was trying to tell him what had happened, he spoke to mrs. vaneman. "mother, dottie's all right," he said rapidly but gently. "steel's got her, but they won't keep her long. don't worry, we'll get her. it may take a week or it may take a year, but we'll bring her back," and leaping upon his motorcycle, he shattered all the speed laws on his way to crane's house. "mart!" he yelled, rushing into the shop, "they've got dottie, in a bus made from our plans. let's go!" as he started on a run for the testing shed. "wait a minute!" crisply shouted crane. "don't go off half-cocked. what is your plan?" "plan, hell!" barked the enraged chemist. "chase 'em!" "which way did they go, and when?" "straight up, full power, twenty minutes ago." "too long ago. straight up has changed its direction several degrees since then. they may have covered a million miles, or they may have come back and landed next door. sit down and think--we need all your brains now." regaining his self-possession as the wisdom of his friend's advice came home to him, seaton sat down and pulled out his pipe. there was a tense silence for an instant. then he leaped to his feet and darted into his room, returning with an object-compass whose needle pointed upward. "duquesne did it," he cried exultantly. "this baby is still looking right at him. now let's go--make it snappy!" "not yet. we should find out how far away they are; that may give us an idea." suiting action to word, he took up his stopwatch and set the needle swinging. they watched it with strained faces as second after second went by and it still continued to swing. when it had come to rest crane read his watch and made a rapid calculation. "about three hundred and fifty million miles," he stated. "clear out of our solar system already, and from the distance covered he must have had a constant acceleration so as to approximate the velocity of light, and he is still going with full...." "but nothing can possibly go that fast, mart, it's impossible. how about einstein's theory?" "that is a theory, this measurement of distance is a fact, as you know from our tests." "that's right. another good theory gone to pot. but how do you account for his distance? d'you suppose he's lost control?" "he must have. i do not believe that he would willingly stand that acceleration, nor that he would have gone that far of his own accord. do you?" "i sure don't. we don't know how big a bar they are carrying, so we can't estimate how long it is going to take us to catch them. but let's not waste any more time, mart. for cat's sake, let's get busy!" "we have only those four bars, dick--two for each unit. do you think that will be enough? think of how far we may have to go, what we may possibly get into, and what it will mean to dottie if we fail for lack of power." seaton, though furiously eager to be off, paused at this new idea, and half-regretfully he replied: "we are so far behind them already that i guess a few hours more won't make much difference. it sure would be disastrous to get out near one of the fixed stars and have our power quit. i guess you're right, we'd better get a couple more--make it four, then we'll have enough to chase them half our lives. we'd better load up on grub and x-plosive ammunition, too." * * * * * while crane and shiro carried additional provisions and boxes of cartridges into the "skylark," seaton once more mounted his motorcycle and sped across the city to the brass foundry. the manager of the plant took his order, but blandly informed him that there was not that much copper in the city, that it would be a week or ten days before the order could be filled. seaton suggested that they melt up some copper cable and other goods already manufactured, offering ten times their value, but the manager was obdurate, saying that he could not violate the rule of priority of orders. seaton then went to other places, endeavoring to buy scrap copper, trolley wire, electric cable, anything made of the ruddy metal, but found none for sale in quantities large enough to be of any use. after several hours of fruitless search, he returned home in a towering rage and explained to crane, in lurid language, his failure to secure the copper. the latter was unmoved. "after you left, it occurred to me that you might not get any. you see, steel is still watching us." fire shot from seaton's eyes. "i'm going to clean up that bunch," he gritted through his teeth as he started straight for the door. "not yet, dick," crane remonstrated. "we can go down to wilson's in a few minutes, and i know we can get it there if he has it. the "skylark" is all ready to travel." no more words were needed. they hurried into the space-car and soon were standing in the office of the plant in which the vessel had been built. when they had made their wants known, the iron-master shook his head. "i'm sorry, crane, but i have only a few pounds of copper in the shop, and we have no suitable furnace." seaton broke out violently at this, but crane interrupted him, explaining their inability to get the metal anywhere else and the urgency of their need. when he had finished, wilson brought his fist down upon his desk. "i'll get it if i have to melt up our dynamos," he roared. "we'll have to rig a crucible, but we'll have your bars out just as soon as the whole force of this damned scrap-heap can make 'em!" calling in his foreman, he bellowed orders, and while automobiles scoured the nearby towns for scrap copper, the crucible and molds were made ready. nearly two days passed before the gleaming copper cylinders were finished. during this time crane added to their already complete equipment every article he could conceive of their having any use for, while seaton raged up and down the plant in a black fury of impatience. just before the bars were ready, they made another reading on the object-compass. their faces grew tense and drawn and their hearts turned sick as second followed second and minute followed minute and the needle still oscillated. finally, however, it came to rest, and seaton's voice almost failed him as he read his figures. "two hundred and thirty-five light-years, mart. they're lost, and still going. good-bye, old scout," holding out his hand, "tell vaneman that i'll bring her back or else stay out there myself." "you must be crazy, dick. you know i am going." "why? no use in both of us taking such a chance. if dottie's gone, of course i want to go too, but you don't." "nonsense, dick. of course this is somewhat farther than we had planned on going for our maiden voyage, but where is the difference? it is just as safe to go a thousand light-years as only one, and we have power and food for any contingency. there is no more danger in this trip than there is in one to mars. at all events, i am going whether you want me to or not, so save your breath." "you lie like a thief, mart--you know what we are up against as well as i do. but if you insist on coming along, i'm sure glad to have you." as their hands met in a crushing grip, the bars were brought up and loaded into the carriers. waving good-bye to wilson, they closed the massive door and took their positions. seaton adjusted the bar parallel with the needle of the object-compass, turned on the coil, and advanced the speed-lever until crane, reading the pyro-meters, warned him to slow down, as the shell was heating. free of the earth's atmosphere, he slowly advanced the lever, one notch at a time, until he could no longer support the increasing weight of his hand, but had to draw out the rolling support designed for that emergency. he pushed the lever a few notches farther, and felt himself forced down violently into the seat. he was now lying at full length, the seat having automatically moved upward so that his hand still controlled the lever. still he kept putting on more power, until the indicator showed that more than three-quarters of the power was in operation and he felt that he could stand but little more. "how are you making it, mart?" he asked, talking with difficulty because of the great weight of his tongue and jaws. "all right so far," came the response, in a hesitating, almost stammering voice, "but i do not know how much more i can take. if you can stand it, go ahead." "this is enough for awhile, until we get used to it. any time you want to rest, tell me and i'll cut her down." "keep her at this for four or five hours. then cut down until we can walk, so that we can eat and take another reading on distance. remember that it will take as long to stop as it does to get up speed, and that we must be careful not to ram them. there would be nothing left of either car." "all right. talking's too darn much work, i'll talk to you again when we ease down. i sure am glad we're on our way at last." chapter ix lost in space for forty-eight hours the uncontrolled atomic motor dragged the masterless vessel with its four unconscious passengers through the illimitable reaches of empty space, with an awful and constantly increasing velocity. when only a few traces of copper remained in the power-plant, the acceleration began to decrease and the powerful springs began to restore the floor and the seats to their normal positions. the last particle of copper having been transformed into energy, the speed of the vessel became constant. apparently motionless to those inside it, it was in reality traversing space with a velocity thousands of times greater than that of light. as the force which had been holding them down was relaxed, the lungs, which had been able to secure only air enough to maintain faint sparks of life, began to function more normally and soon all four recovered consciousness, drinking in the life-giving oxygen in a rapid succession of breaths so deep that it seemed as though their lungs must burst with each inhalation. duquesne was the first to gain control of himself. his first effort to rise to his feet lifted him from the floor, and he floated lightly to the ceiling, striking it with a gentle bump and remaining suspended in the air. the others, who had not yet attempted to move, stared at him in wide-eyed amazement. reaching out and clutching one of the supporting columns, he drew himself back to the floor and cautiously removed his leather suit, transferring two heavy automatic pistols as he did so. by gingerly feeling of his injured body, he discovered that no bones were broken, although he was terribly bruised. he then glanced around to learn how his companions were faring. he saw that they were all sitting up, the girls resting, perkins removing his aviator's costume. "good morning, doctor duquesne. what happened when i kicked your friend?" duquesne smiled. "good morning, miss vaneman. several things happened. he fell into the controls, turning on all the juice. we left shortly afterward. i tried to shut the power off, and in doing so i balled things up worse than ever. then i went to sleep, and just woke up." "have you any idea where we are?" "no, but i can make a fair estimate, i think," and glancing at the empty chamber in which the bar had been, he took out his notebook and pen and figured for a few minutes. as he finished, he drew himself along by a handrail to one of the windows, then to another. he returned with a puzzled expression on his face and made a long calculation. "i don't know exactly what to make of this," he said thoughtfully. "we are so far away from the earth that even the fixed stars are unrecognizable. the power was on exactly forty-eight hours, since that is the life of that particular bar under full current. we should still be close to our own solar system, since it is theoretically impossible to develop any velocity greater than that of light. but in fact, we have. i know enough about astronomy to recognize the fixed stars from any point within a light-year or so of the sun, and i can't see a single familiar star. i never could see how mass could be a function of velocity, and now i am convinced that it is not. we have been accelerating for forty-eight hours!" he turned to dorothy. "while we were unconscious, miss vaneman, we had probably attained a velocity of something like seven billion four hundred thirteen million miles per second, and that is the approximate speed at which we are now traveling. we must be nearly six quadrillion miles, and that is a space of several hundred light-years--away from our solar system, or, more plainly, about six times as far away from our earth as the north star is. we couldn't see our sun with a telescope, even if we knew which way to look for it." * * * * * at this paralyzing news, dorothy's face turned white and margaret spencer quietly fainted in her seat. "then we can never get back?" asked dorothy slowly. at this question, perkins' self-control gave way and his thin veneer of decency disappeared completely. "you got us into this whole thing!" he screamed as he leaped at dorothy with murderous fury gleaming in his pale eyes and his fingers curved into talons. instead of reaching her, however, he merely sprawled grotesquely in midair, and duquesne knocked him clear across the vessel with one powerful blow of his fist. "get back there, you cowardly cur," he said evenly. "even though we are a long way from home, try to remember you're a man, at least. one more break like that and i'll throw you out of the boat. it isn't her fault that we are out here, but our own. the blame for it is a very small matter, anyway; the thing of importance is to get back as soon as possible." "but how can we get back?" asked perkins sullenly from the corner where he was crouching, fear in every feature. "the power is gone, the controls are wrecked, and we are hopelessly lost in space." "oh, i wouldn't say 'hopelessly,'" returned the other, "i have never been in any situation yet that i couldn't get out of, and i won't be convinced until i am dead that i can't get out of this one. we have two extra power bars, we can fix the board, and if i can't navigate us back close enough to our solar system to find it, i am more of a dub than i think i am. how about a little bite to eat?" "show us where it is!" exclaimed dorothy. "now that you mention it, i find that i am starved to death." duquesne looked at her keenly. "i admire your nerve, miss vaneman. i didn't suppose that that animal over there would show such a wide streak of yellow, but i was rather afraid that you girls might go to pieces." "i'm scared blue, of course," dorothy admitted frankly, "but hysterics won't do any good, and we simply _must_ get back." "certainly, we must and we will," stated duquesne calmly. "if you like, you might find something for us to eat in the galley there, while i see what i can do with this board that i wrecked with my head. by the way, that cubby-hole there is the apartment reserved for you two ladies. we are in rather cramped quarters, but i think you will find everything you need." as dorothy drew herself along the handrail toward the room designated, accompanied by the other girl who, though conscious, had paid little attention to anything around her, she could not help feeling a thrill of admiration for the splendid villain who had abducted her. calm and cool, always master of himself, apparently paying no attention to the terrible bruises which disfigured half his face and doubtless half his body as well, she admitted to herself that it was only his example, which had enabled her to maintain her self-control in their present plight. as she crawled over perkins' discarded suit, she remembered that he had not taken any weapons from it. after a rapid glance around to assure herself that she was not being watched, she quickly searched the coat, bringing to light not one, but two pistols, which she thrust into her pocket. she saw with relief that they were regulation army automatics, with whose use she was familiar from much target practise with seaton. in the room, which was a miniature of the one she had seen on the skylark, the girls found clothing, toilet articles, and everything necessary for a long trip. as they were setting themselves to rights, dorothy electing to stay in her riding suit, they surveyed each other frankly and each was reassured by what she saw. dorothy saw a girl of twenty-two, of her own stature, with a mass of heavy, wavy black hair. her eyes, a singularly rich and deep brown, contrasted strangely with the beautiful ivory of her skin. she was normally a beautiful girl, thought dorothy, but her beauty was marred by suffering and privation. her naturally slender form was thin, her face was haggard and worn. the stranger broke the silence. * * * * * "i'm margaret spencer," she began abruptly, "former secretary to his royal highness, brookings of steel. they swindled my father out of an invention worth millions and he died, broken-hearted. i got the job to see if i couldn't get enough evidence to convict them, and i had quite a lot when they caught me. i had some things that they were afraid to lose, and i had them so well hidden that they couldn't find them, so they kidnapped me to make me give them back. they haven't dared kill me so far for fear the evidence will show up after my death--which it will. however, i will be legally dead before long, and then they know the whole thing will come out, so they have brought me out here to make me talk or kill me. talking won't do me any good now, though, and i don't believe it ever would have. they would have killed me after they got the stuff back, anyway. so you see i, at least, will never get back to the earth alive." "cheer up--we'll all get back safely." "no, we won't. you don't know that man perkins--if that is his name. i never heard him called any real name before. he is simply unspeakable--vile--hideous--everything that is base. he was my jailer, and i utterly loathe and despise him. he is mean and underhanded and tricky--he reminds me of a slimy, poisonous snake. he will kill me: i know it." "but how about doctor duquesne? surely he isn't that kind of man? he wouldn't let him." "i've never met him before, but from what i heard of him in the office, he's even worse than perkins, but in an entirely different way. there's nothing small or mean about him, and i don't believe he would go out of his way to hurt anyone, as perkins would. but he is absolutely cold and hard, a perfect fiend. where his interests are concerned, there's nothing under the sun, good or bad, that he won't do. but i'm glad that perkins had me instead of 'the doctor,' as they call him. perkins raises such a bitter personal feeling, that anybody would rather die than give up to him in anything. duquesne, however, would have tortured me impersonally and scientifically--cold and self-contained all the while and using the most efficient methods, and i am sure he would have got it out of me some way. he always gets what he goes after." "oh, come, miss spencer!" dorothy interrupted the half-hysterical girl. "you're too hard on him. didn't you see him knock perkins down when he came after me?" "well, maybe he has a few gentlemanly instincts, which he uses when he doesn't lose anything by it. more likely he merely intended to rebuke him for a useless action. he is a firm pragmatist--anything that is useful is all right, anything that is useless is a crime. more probably yet, he wants you left alive. of course that is his real reason. he went to the trouble of kidnapping you, so naturally he won't let perkins or anybody else kill you until he is through with you. otherwise he would have let perkins do anything he wanted to with you, without lifting a finger." "i can't quite believe that," dorothy replied, though a cold chill struck at her heart as she remembered the inhuman crime attributed to this man, and she quailed at the thought of being in his charge, countless millions of miles from earth, a thought only partly counteracted by the fact that she was now armed. "he has treated us with every consideration so far, let's hope for the best. anyway, i'm sure that we'll get back safely." "why so sure? have you something up your sleeve?" "no--or yes, in a way i have, though nothing very definite. i'm dorothy vaneman, and i am engaged to the man who discovered the thing that makes this space-car go...." "that's why they kidnapped you, then--to make him give up all his rights to it. it's like them." "yes, i think that's why they did it. but they won't keep me long. dick seaton will find me, i know. i feel it." "but that's exactly what they want!" cried margaret excitedly. "in my spying around i heard a little about this very thing--the name seaton brings it to my mind. his car is broken in some way, so that it will kill him the first time he tries to run it." "that's where they underestimated dick and his partner. you have heard of martin crane, of course?" "i think i heard his name mentioned in the office, together with seaton's, but that's all." "well, besides other things, martin is quite a wonderful mechanic, and he found out that our skylark was spoiled. so they built another one, a lot bigger, and i am sure that they are following us, right now." "but how can they possibly follow us, when we are going so fast and are so far away?" queried the other girl, once more despondent. "i don't quite know, but i do know that dick will find a way. he's simply wonderful. he knows more now than that doctor duquesne will ever learn in all his life, and he will find us in a few days. i feel it in my bones. besides, i picked perkins' pockets of these two pistols. can you shoot an automatic?" "yes," replied the other girl, as she seized one of the guns, assured herself that its magazine was full, and slipped it into her pocket. "i used to practise a lot with my father's. this makes me feel a whole lot better. and call me peggy, won't you? it will seem good to hear my name again. after what i've been through lately, even this trip will be a vacation for me." "well, then, cheer up, peggy dear, we're going to be great friends. let's go get us all something to eat. i'm simply starved, and i know you are, too." * * * * * the presence of the pistol in her pocket and dorothy's unwavering faith in her lover, lifted the stranger out of the mood of despair into which the long imprisonment, the brutal treatment, and the present situation had plunged her, and she was almost cheerful as they drew themselves along the hand-rail leading to the tiny galley. "i simply can't get used to the idea of nothing having any weight--look here!" laughed dorothy, as she took a boiled ham out of the refrigerator and hung it upon an imaginary hook in the air, where it remained motionless. "doesn't it make you feel funny?" "it is a queer sensation. i feel light, like a toy balloon, and i feel awfully weird inside. if we have no weight, why does it hurt so when we bump into anything? and when you throw anything, like the doctor did perkins, why does it hit as hard as ever?" "it's mass or inertia or something like that. a thing has it everywhere, whether it weighs anything or not. dick explained it all to me. i understood it when he told me about it, but i'm afraid it didn't sink in very deep. did you ever study physics?" "i had a year of it in college, but it was more or less of a joke. i went to a girls' school, and all we had to do in physics was to get the credit; we didn't have to learn it." "me too. next time i go to school i'm going to yale or harvard or some such place, and i'll learn so much mathematics and science that i'll have to wear a bandeau to keep my massive intellect in place." during this conversation they had prepared a substantial luncheon and had arranged it daintily upon two large trays, in spite of the difficulty caused by the fact that nothing would remain in place by its own weight. the feast prepared, dorothy took her tray from the table as carefully as she could, and saw the sandwiches and bottles start to float toward the ceiling. hastily inverting the tray above the escaping viands, she pushed them back down upon the table. in doing so she lifted herself clear from the floor, as she had forgotten to hold herself down. "what'll we do, anyway?" she wailed when she had recovered her position. "everything wants to fly all over the place!" "put another tray on top of it and hold them together," suggested margaret. "i wish we had a birdcage. then we could open the door and grab a sandwich as it flies out." by covering the trays the girls finally carried the luncheon out into the main compartment, where they gave duquesne and perkins one of the trays and all fell to eating hungrily. duquesne paused with a glint of amusement in his one sound eye as he saw dorothy trying to pour ginger ale out of a bottle. "it can't be done, miss vaneman. you'll have to drink it through a straw. that will work, since our air pressure is normal. be careful not to choke on it, though; your swallowing will have to be all muscular out here. gravity won't help you. or wait a bit--i have the control board fixed and it will be a matter of only a few minutes to put in another bar and get enough acceleration to take the place of gravity." he placed one of the extra power bars in the chamber and pushed the speed lever into the first notch, and there was a lurch of the whole vessel as it swung around the bar so that the floor was once more perpendicular to it. he took a couple of steps, returned, and advanced the lever another notch. "there that's about the same as gravity. now we can act like human beings and eat in comfort." "that's a wonderful relief, doctor!" cried dorothy. "are we going back toward the earth?" "not yet. i reversed the bar, but we will have to use up all of this one before we can even start back. until this bar is gone we will merely be slowing down." * * * * * as the meal progressed, dorothy noticed that duquesne's left arm seemed almost helpless, and that he ate with great difficulty because of his terribly bruised face. as soon as they had removed the trays she went into her room, where she had seen a small medicine chest, and brought out a couple of bottles. "lie down here, doctor duquesne," she commanded. "i'm going to apply a little first-aid to the injured. arnica and iodine are all i can find, but they'll help a little." "i'm all right," began the scientist, but at her imperious gesture he submitted, and she bathed his battered features with the healing lotion and painted the worst bruises with iodine. "i see your arm is lame. where does it hurt?" "shoulder's the worst. i rammed it through the board when we started out." he opened his shirt at the throat and bared his shoulder, and dorothy gasped--as much at the size and power of the muscles displayed, as at the extent and severity of the man's injuries. stepping into the gallery, she brought out hot water and towels and gently bathed away the clotted blood that had been forced through the skin. "massage it a little with the arnica as i move the arm," he directed coolly, and she did so, pityingly. he did not wince and made no sign of pain, but she saw beads of perspiration appear upon his face, and wondered at his fortitude. "that's fine," he said gratefully as she finished, and a peculiar expression came over his face. "it feels one hundred per cent better already. but why do you do it? i should think you would feel like crowning me with that basin instead of playing nurse." "efficiency," she replied with a smile. "i'm taking a leaf out of your own book. you are our chief engineer, you know, and it won't do to have you laid up." "that's a logical explanation, but it doesn't go far enough," he rejoined, still studying her intently. she did not reply, but turned to perkins. "how are you, mr. perkins? do you require medical attention?" "no," growled perkins from the seat in which he had crouched immediately after eating. "keep away from me, or i'll cut your heart out!" "shut up!" snapped duquesne. "remember what i said?" "i haven't done anything," snarled the other. "i said i would throw you out if you made another break," duquesne informed him evenly, "and i meant it. if you can't talk decently, keep still. understand that you are to keep off miss vaneman, words and actions. i am in charge of her, and i will put up with no interference whatever. this is your last warning." "how about spencer, then?" "i have nothing to say about her, she's not mine," responded duquesne with a shrug. an evil light appeared in perkins' eyes and he took out a wicked-looking knife and began to strop it carefully upon the leather of the seat, glaring at his victim the while. "well, _i_ have something to say...." blazed dorothy, but she was silenced by a gesture from margaret, who calmly took the pistol from her pocket, jerked the slide back, throwing a cartridge into the chamber, and held the weapon up on one finger, admiring it from all sides. * * * * * "don't worry about his knife. he has been sharpening it for my benefit for the last month. he doesn't mean anything by it." at this unexpected show of resistance, perkins stared at her for an instant, then glanced at his coat. "yes, this was yours, once. you needn't bother about picking up your coat, they're both gone. you might be tempted to throw that knife, so drop it on the floor and kick it over to me before i count three. "one." the heavy pistol steadied into line with his chest and her finger tightened on the trigger. "two." he obeyed and she picked up the knife. he turned to duquesne, who had watched the scene unmoved, a faint smile upon his saturnine face. "doctor!" he cried, shaking with fear. "why don't you shoot her or take that gun away from her? surely you don't want to see me murdered?" "why not?" replied duquesne calmly. "it is nothing to me whether she kills you or you kill her. you brought it on yourself by your own carelessness. any man with brains doesn't leave guns lying around within reach of prisoners, and a blind man could have seen miss vaneman getting your hardware." "you saw her take them and didn't warn me?" croaked perkins. "why should i warn you? if you can't take care of your own prisoner she earns her liberty, as far as i am concerned. i never did like your style, perkins, especially your methods of handling--or rather mishandling--women. you could have made her give up the stuff she recovered from that ass brookings inside of an hour, and wouldn't have had to kill her afterward, either." "how?" sneered the other. "if you are so good at that kind of thing, why didn't you try it on seaton and crane?" "there are seven different methods to use on a woman like miss spencer, each of which will produce the desired result. the reason i did not try them on either seaton or crane is that they would have failed. your method of indirect action is probably the only one that will succeed. that is why i adopted it." "well, what are you going to do about it?" shrieked perkins. "are you going to sit there and lecture all day?" "i am going to do nothing whatever," answered the scientist coldly. "if you had any brains you would see that you are in no danger. miss spencer will undoubtedly kill you if you attack her--not otherwise. that is an anglo-saxon weakness." "did you see me take the pistols?" queried dorothy. "certainly. i'm not blind. you have one of them in your right coat pocket now." "then why didn't you, or don't you, try to take it away from me?" she asked in wonder. "if i had objected to your having them, you would never have got them. if i didn't want you to have a gun now, i would take it away from you. you know that, don't you?" and his black eyes stared into her violet ones with such calm certainty of his ability that she felt her heart sink. "yes," she admitted finally, "i believe you could--that is, unless i were angry enough to shoot you." "that wouldn't help you. i can shoot faster and straighter than you can, and would shoot it out of your hand. however, i have no objection to your having the gun, since it is no part of my plan to offer you any further indignity of any kind. even if you had the necessary coldness of nerve or cruelty of disposition--of which i have one, perkins the other, and you neither--you wouldn't shoot me now, because you can't get back to the earth without me. after we get back i will take the guns away from both of you if i think it desirable. in the meantime, play with them all you please." "has perkins any more knives or guns or things in his room?" demanded dorothy. "how should i know?" indifferently; then, as both girls started for perkins' room he ordered brusquely: "sit down, miss vaneman. let them fight it out. perkins has his orders to lay off you--you lay off him. i'm not taking any chances of getting you hurt, that's one reason i wanted you armed. if he gets gay, shoot him; otherwise, hands off completely." dorothy threw up her head in defiance, but meeting his cold stare she paused irresolutely and finally sat down, biting her lips in anger, while the other girl went on. "that's better. she doesn't need any help to whip that yellow dog. he's whipped already. he never would think of fighting unless the odds were three to one in his favor." * * * * * when margaret had returned from a fruitless search of perkins' room and had assured herself that he had no more weapons concealed about his person, she thrust the pistol back into her pocket and sat down. "that ends that," she declared. "i guess you will be good now, won't you, mr. perkins?" "yes," that worthy muttered. "i have to be, now that you've got the drop on me and duquesne's gone back on me. but wait until we get back! i'll get you then, you...." "stop right there!" sharply. "there's nothing i would rather do than shoot you right now, if you give me the slightest excuse, such as that name you were about to call me. now go ahead!" duquesne broke the silence that followed. "well, now that the battle is over, and since we are fed and rested, i suggest that we slow down a bit and get ready to start back. pick out comfortable seats, everybody, and i'll shoot a little more juice through that bar." seating himself before the instrument board, he advanced the speed lever slowly until nearly three-quarters of the full power was on, as much as he thought the others could stand. for sixty hours he drove the car, reducing the acceleration only at intervals during which they ate and walked about their narrow quarters in order to restore the blood to circulation in their suffering bodies. the power was not reduced for sleep; everyone slept as best he could. dorothy and margaret talked together at every opportunity, and a real intimacy grew up between them. perkins was for the most part sullenly quiet, knowing himself despised by all the others and having no outlet here for his particular brand of cleverness. duquesne was always occupied with his work and only occasionally addressed a remark to one or another of the party, except during meals. at those periods of general recuperation, he talked easily and well upon many topics. there was no animosity in his bearing nor did he seem to perceive any directed toward himself, but when any of the others ventured to infringe upon his ideas of how discipline should be maintained, duquesne's reproof was merciless. dorothy almost liked him, but margaret insisted that she considered him worse than ever. when the bar was exhausted, duquesne lifted the sole remaining cylinder into place. "we should be nearly stationary with respect to the earth," he remarked. "now we will start back." "why, it felt as though we were picking up speed for the last three days!" exclaimed margaret. "yes, it feels that way because we have nothing to judge by. slowing down in one direction feels exactly like starting up in the opposite one. there is no means of knowing whether we are standing still, going away from the earth, or going toward it, since we have nothing stationary upon which to make observations. however, since the two bars were of exactly the same size and were exerted in opposite directions except for a few minutes after we left the earth, we are nearly stationary now. i will put on power until this bar is something less than half gone, then coast for three or four days. by the end of that time we should be able to recognize our solar system from the appearance of the fixed stars." he again advanced the lever, and for many hours silence filled the car as it hurtled through space. duquesne, waking up from a long nap, saw that the bar no longer pointed directly toward the top of the ship, perpendicular to the floor, but was inclined at a sharp angle. he reduced the current, and felt the lurch of the car as it swung around the bar, increasing the angle many degrees. he measured the angle carefully and peered out of all the windows on one side of the car. returning to the bar after a time, he again measured the angle, and found that it had increased greatly. "what's the matter, doctor duquesne?" asked dorothy, who had also been asleep. "we are being deflected from our course. you see the bar doesn't point straight up any more? of course the direction of the bar hasn't changed, the car has swung around it." "what does that mean?" "we have come close enough to some star so that its attraction swings the bottom of the car around. normally, you know, the bottom of the car follows directly behind the bar. it doesn't mean much yet except that we are being drawn away from our straight line, but if the attraction gets much stronger it may make us miss our solar system completely. i have been looking for the star in question, but can't see it yet. we'll probably pull away from it very shortly." * * * * * he threw on the power, and for some time watched the bar anxiously, expecting to see it swing back into the vertical, but the angle continually increased. he again reduced the current and searched the heavens for the troublesome body. "do you see it yet?" asked dorothy with concern. "no, there's apparently nothing near enough to account for all this deflection." he took out a pair of large night-glasses and peered through them for several minutes. "good god! it's a dead sun, and we're nearly onto it! it looks as large as our moon!" springing to the board, he whirled the bar into the vertical. he took down a strange instrument, went to the bottom window, and measured the apparent size of the dark star. then, after cautioning the rest of the party to sit tight, he advanced the lever farther than it had been before. after half an hour he again slackened the pace and made another observation, finding to his astonishment that the dark mass had almost doubled its apparent size! dorothy, noting his expression, was about to speak, but he forestalled her. "we lost ground, instead of gaining, that spurt," he remarked, as he hastened to his post. "it must be inconceivably large, to exert such an enormous attractive force at this distance. we'll have to put on full power. hang onto yourselves as best you can." he then pushed the lever out to its last notch and left it there until the bar was nearly gone, only to find that the faint disk of the monster globe was even larger than before, being now visible to the unaided eye. revived, the three others saw it plainly--a great dim circle, visible as is the dark portion of the new moon--and, the power shut off, they felt themselves falling toward it with sickening speed. perkins screamed with mad fear and flung himself grovelling upon the floor. margaret, her nerves still unstrung, clutched at her heart with both hands. dorothy, though her eyes looked like great black holes in her white face, looked duquesne in the eye steadily. "this is the end, then?" "not yet," he replied in a calm and level voice. "the end will not come for a good many hours, as i have calculated that it will take at least two days, probably more, to fall the distance we have to go. we have all that time in which to think out a way of escape." "won't the outer repulsive shell keep us from striking it, or at least break the force of our fall?" "no. it was designed only as protection from meteorites and other small bodies. it is heavy enough to swing us away from a small planet, but it will be used up long before we strike." he lighted a cigarette and sat at case, as though in his own study, his brow wrinkled in thought as he made calculations in his notebook. finally he rose to his feet. "there's only one chance that i can see. that is to gather up every scrap of copper we have and try to pull ourselves far enough out of line so that we will take an hyperbolic orbit around that body instead of falling into it." "what good will that do us?" asked margaret, striving for self-control. "we will starve to death finally, won't we?" "not necessarily. that will give us time to figure out something else." "you won't have to figure out anything else, doctor," stated dorothy positively. "if we miss that moon, dick and martin will find us before very long." "not in this life. if they tried to follow us, they're both dead before now." "that's where even you are wrong!" she flashed at him. "they knew you were wrecking our machine, so they built another one, a good one. and they know a lot of things about this new metal that you have never dreamed of, since they were not in the plans you stole." * * * * * duquesne went directly to the heart of the matter, paying no attention to her barbed shafts. "can they follow us through space without seeing us?" he demanded. "yes--or at least, i think they can." "how do they do it?" "i don't know--i wouldn't tell you if i did." "you'll tell if you know," he declared, his voice cutting like a knife. "but that can wait until after we get out of this. the thing to do now is to dodge that world." he searched the vessel for copper, ruthlessly tearing out almost everything that contained the metal, hammering it flat and throwing it into the power-plant. he set the bar at right angles to the line of their fall and turned on the current. when the metal was exhausted, he made another series of observations upon the body toward which they were falling, and reported quietly: "we made a lot of distance, but not enough. everything goes in, this time." he tore out the single remaining light-wire, leaving the car in darkness save for the diffused light of his electric torch, and broke up the only remaining motor. he then took his almost priceless swiss watch, his heavy signet ring, his scarf pin, and the cartridges from his pistol, and added them to the collection. flashing his lamp upon perkins, he relieved him of everything he had which contained copper. "i think i have a few pennies in my pocketbook," suggested dorothy. "get 'em," he directed briefly, and while she was gone he searched margaret, without result save for the cartridges in her pistol, as she had no jewelry remaining after her imprisonment. dorothy returned and handed him everything she had found. "i would like to keep this ring," she said slowly, pointing to a slender circlet of gold set with a solitaire diamond, "if you think there is any chance of us getting clear." "everything goes that has any copper in it," he said coldly, "and i am glad to see that seaton is too good a chemist to buy any platinum jewelry. you may keep the diamond, though," as he wrenched the jewel out of its setting and returned it to her. he threw all the metal into the central chamber and the vessel gave a tremendous lurch as the power was again applied. it was soon spent, however, and after the final observation, the others waiting in breathless suspense for him to finish his calculations, he made his curt announcement. "not enough." perkins, his mind weakened by the strain of the last few days, went completely insane at the words. with a wild howl he threw himself at the unmoved scientist, who struck him with the butt of his pistol as he leaped, the mighty force of duquesne's blow crushing his skull like an eggshell and throwing him backward to the opposite side of the vessel. margaret lay in her seat in a dead faint. dorothy and duquesne looked at each other in the feeble light of the torch. to the girl's amazement, the man was as calm as though he were safe in his own house, and she made a determined effort to hold herself together. "what next, doctor duquesne?" "i don't know. we have a couple of days yet, at least. i'll have to study awhile." "in that time dick will find us, i know." "even if they do find us in time, which i doubt, what good will it do? it simply means that they will go with us instead of saving us, for of course they can't pull away, since we couldn't. i hope they don't find us, but locate this star in time to keep away from it." "why?" she gasped. "you have been planning to kill both of them! i should think you would be delighted to take them with us?" "far from it. please try to be logical. i intended to remove them because they stood in the way of my developing this new metal. if i am to be out of the way--and frankly, i see very little chance of getting out of this--i hope that seaton goes ahead with it. it is the greatest discovery the world has ever known, and if both seaton and i, the only two men in the world who know how to handle it, drop out, it will be lost for perhaps hundreds of years." "if dick's finding us means that he must go, too, of course i hope that he won't find us, but i don't believe that. i simply know that he could get us away from here." she continued more slowly, almost speaking to herself, her heart sinking with her voice: "he is following us, and he won't stop even if he does see this dead star and knows that he can't get away. we will die together." "there's no denying the fact that our situation is critical, but you know a man isn't dead until after his heart stops beating. we have two whole days yet, and in that time, i can probably dope out some way of getting away from here." "i hope so," she replied, keeping her voice from breaking only by a great effort. "but go ahead with your doping. i'm worn out." she drew herself down upon one of the seats and stared at the ceiling, fighting to restrain an almost overpowering impulse to scream. thus the hours wore by--perkins dead; margaret still unconscious; dorothy lying in her seat, her thoughts a formless prayer, buoyed up only by her faith in god and in her lover; duquesne self-possessed, smoking innumerable cigarettes, his keen mind grappling with its most desperate problem, grimly fighting until the very last instant of life--while the powerless space-car fell with an appalling velocity, faster and faster; falling toward that cold and desolate monster of the heaven. chapter x the rescue seaton and crane drove the skylark in the direction indicated by the unwavering object-compass with the greatest acceleration they could stand, each man taking a twelve-hour watch at the instrument board. now, indeed, did the skylark justify the faith of her builders, and the two inventors, with an exultant certainty of their success, flew out beyond man's wildest imaginings. had it not been for the haunting fear for dorothy's safety, the journey would have been one of pure triumph, and even that anxiety did not prevent a profound joy in the enterprise. "if that misguided mutt thinks he can pull off a stunt like that and get away with it, he's got another think coming," asserted seaton, after making a reading on the other car after several days of the flight. "he went off half-cocked this time, for sure, and we've got him foul. we'd better put on some negative pretty soon hadn't we, mart? only a little over a hundred light-years now." crane nodded agreement and seaton continued: "it'll take as long to stop, of course, as it has taken to get out here, and if we ram them--good night! let's figure it out as nearly as we can." they calculated their own speed, and that of the other vessel, as shown by the various readings taken, and applied just enough negative acceleration to slow the skylark down to the speed of the other space-car when they should come up with it. they smiled at each other in recognition of the perfect working of the mechanism when the huge vessel had spun, with a sickening lurch, through a complete half-circle, the instant the power was reversed. each knew that they were actually traveling in a direction that to them seemed "down," but with a constantly diminishing velocity, even though they seemed to be still going "up" with an increasing speed. until nearly the end of the calculated time the two took turns as before, but as the time of meeting drew near both men were on the alert, taking readings on the object-compass every few minutes. finally crane announced: "we are almost on them, dick. they are so close that it is almost impossible to time the needle--less than ten thousand miles." seaton gradually increased the retarding force until the needle showed that they were very close to the other vessel and maintaining a constant distance from it. he then shut off the power, and both men hurried to the bottom window to search for the fleeing ship with their powerful night-glasses. they looked at each other in amazement as they felt themselves falling almost directly downward, with an astounding acceleration. "what do you make of it, dick?" asked crane calmly, as he brought his glasses to his eyes and stared out into the black heavens, studded with multitudes of brilliant and unfamiliar stars. "i don't make it at all, mart. by the feel, i should say we were falling toward something that would make our earth look like a pin-head. i remember now that i noticed that the bus was getting a little out of plumb with the bar all this last watch. i didn't pay much attention to it, as i couldn't see anything out of the way. nothing but a sun could be big enough to raise all this disturbance, and i can't see any close enough to be afraid of, can you?" "no, and i cannot see the steel space-car, either. look sharp." "of course," seaton continued to argue as he peered out into the night, "it is theoretically possible that a heavenly body can exist large enough so that it could exert even this much force and still appear no larger than an ordinary star, but i don't believe it is probable. give me three or four minutes of visual angle and i'll believe anything, but none of these stars are big enough to have any visual angle at all. furthermore...." "there is at least half a degree of visual angle!" broke in his friend intensely. "just to the left of that constellation that looks so much like a question mark. it is not bright, but dark, like a very dark moon--barely perceptible." seaton pointed his glass eagerly in the direction indicated. "great cat!" he ejaculated. "i'll say that's some moon! wouldn't that rattle your slats? and there's duquesne's bus, too, on the right edge. get it?" as they stood up, seaton's mood turned to one of deadly earnestness, and a grave look came over crane's face as the seriousness of their situation dawned upon them. trained mathematicians both, they knew instantly that that unknown world was of inconceivable mass, and that their chance of escape was none too good, even should they abandon the other craft to its fate. seaton stared at crane, his fists clenched and drops of perspiration standing on his forehead. suddenly, with agony in his eyes and in his voice, he spoke. "mighty slim chance of getting away if we go through with it, old man.... hate like the devil.... have no right to ask you to throw yourself away, too." "enough of that, dick. you had nothing to do with my coming: you could not have kept me away. we will see it through." their hands met in a fierce clasp, broken by seaton, as he jumped to the levers with an intense: "well, let's get busy!" in a few minutes they had reduced the distance until they could plainly see the other vessel, a small black circle against the faintly luminous disk. as it leaped into clear relief in the beam of his powerful searchlight, seaton focused the great attractor upon the fugitive car and threw in the lever which released the full force of that mighty magnet, while crane attracted the attention of the vessel's occupants by means of a momentary burst of solid machine-gun bullets, which he knew would glance harmlessly off the steel hull. * * * * * after an interminable silence, duquesne drew himself out of his seat. he took a long inhalation, deposited the butt of his cigarette carefully in his ash tray, and made his way to his room. he returned with three heavy fur suits provided with air helmets, two of which he handed to the girls, who were huddled in a seat with their arms around each other. these suits were the armor designed by crane for use in exploring the vacuum and the intense cold of dead worlds. air-tight, braced with fine steel netting, and supplied with air at normal pressure from small tanks by automatic valves, they made their wearers independent of surrounding conditions of pressure and temperature. "the next thing to do," duquesne stated calmly, "is to get the copper off the outside of the ship. that is the last resort, as it robs us of our only safeguard against meteorites, but this is the time for last-resort measures. i'm going after that copper. put these suits on, as our air will leave as soon as i open the door, and practically an absolute vacuum and equally absolute zero will come in." as he spoke, the ship was enveloped in a blinding glare and they were thrown flat as the vessel slowed down in its terrific fall. the thought flashed across duquesne's mind that they had already entered the atmosphere of that monster globe and were being slowed down and set afire by its friction, but he dismissed it as quickly as it had come--the light in that case would be the green of copper, not this bluish-white. his next thought was that there had been a collision of meteors in the neighborhood, and that their retardation was due to the outer coating. while these thoughts were flickering through his mind, they heard an insistent metallic tapping, which duquesne recognized instantly. "a machine-gun!" he blurted in amazement. "how in...." "it's dick!" screamed dorothy, with flashing eyes. "he's found us, just as i knew he would. you couldn't beat dick and martin in a thousand years!" the tension under which they had been laboring so long suddenly released, the two girls locked their arms around each other in a half-hysterical outburst of relief. margaret's meaningless words and dorothy's incoherent praises of her lover and crane mingled with their racking sobs as each fought to recover self-possession. duquesne had instantly mounted to the upper window. throwing back the cover, he flashed his torch rapidly. the glare of the searchlight was snuffed out and he saw a flashing light spell out in dots and dashes: "can you read morse?" "yes," he signalled back. "power gone, drifting into...." "we know it. will you resist?" "no." "have you fur pressure-suits?" "yes." "put them on. shut off your outer coating. will touch so your upper door against our lower. open, transfer quick." "o. k." * * * * * hastily returning to the main compartment, he briefly informed the girls as to what had happened. all three donned the suits and stationed themselves at the upper opening. rapidly, but with unerring precision, the two ships were brought into place and held together by the attractor. as the doors were opened, there was a screaming hiss as the air of the vessels escaped through the narrow crack between them. the passengers saw the moisture in the air turn into snow, and saw the air itself first liquefy and then freeze into a solid coating upon the metal around the orifices at the touch of the frightful cold outside--the absolute zero of interstellar space, about four hundred sixty degrees below zero in the every-day scale of temperature. the moisture of their breath condensed upon the inside of the double glasses of their helmets, rendering sight useless. [illustration: duquesne seized her and tossed her lightly through the doorway in such a manner that she would not touch the metal, which would have frozen instantly anything coming into contact with it.] dorothy pushed the other girl ahead of her. duquesne seized her and tossed her lightly through the doorway in such a manner that she would not touch the metal, which would have frozen instantly anything coming into contact with it. seaton was waiting. feeling a woman's slender form in his arms, he crushed her to him in a mighty embrace, and was astonished to feel movements of resistance, and to hear a strange, girlish voice cry out: "don't! it's me! dorothy's next!" releasing her abruptly, he passed her on to martin and turned just in time to catch his sweetheart, who, knowing that he would be there and recognizing his powerful arms at the first touch, returned his embrace with a fierce intensity which even he had never suspected that she could exert. they stood motionless, locked in each other's arms, while duquesne dove through the opening and snapped the door shut behind him. the air-pressure and temperature back to normal, the cumbersome suits were hastily removed, and seaton's lips met dorothy's in a long, clinging caress. duquesne's cold, incisive voice broke the silence. "every second counts. i would suggest that we go somewhere." "just a minute!" snapped crane. "dick, what shall we do with this murderer?" seaton had forgotten duquesne utterly in the joy of holding his sweetheart in his arms, but at his friend's words, he faced about and his face grew stern. "by rights, we ought to chuck him back into his own tub and let him go to the devil," he said savagely, doubling his fists and turning swiftly. "no, no, dick," remonstrated dorothy, seizing his arm. "he treated us very well, and saved my life once. anyway, you mustn't kill him." "no, i suppose not," grudgingly assented her lover, "and i won't, either, unless he gives me at least half an excuse." "we might iron him to a post?" suggested crane, doubtfully. "i think there's a better way," replied seaton. "he may be able to work his way. his brain hits on all twelve, and he's strong as a bull. our chance of getting back isn't a certainty, as you know." he turned to duquesne. "i've heard that your word is good." "it has never been broken." "will you give your word to act as one of the party, for the good of us all, if we don't iron you?" "yes--until we get back to the earth. provided, of course, that i reserve the right to escape at any time between now and then if i wish to and can do so without injuring the vessel or any member of the party in any way." "agreed. let's get busy--we're altogether too close to that dud there to suit me. sit tight, everybody, we're on our way!" he cried, as he turned to the board, applied one notch of power, and shut off the attractor. the skylark slowed down a trifle in its mad fall, the other vessel continued on its way--a helpless hulk, manned by a corpse, falling to destruction upon the bleak wastes of a desert world. "hold on!" said duquesne sharply. "your power is the same as mine was, in proportion to your mass, isn't it?" "yes." "then our goose is cooked. i couldn't pull away from it with everything i had, couldn't even swing out enough to make an orbit, either hyperbolic or elliptical around it. with a reserve bar you will be able to make an orbit, but you can't get away from it." "thanks for the dope. that saves our wasting some effort. our power-plant can be doubled up in emergencies, thanks to martin's cautious old bean. we'll simply double her up and go away from here." * * * * * "there is one thing we didn't consider quite enough," said crane, thoughtfully. "i started to faint back there before the full power of even one motor was in use. with the motor doubled, each of us will be held down by a force of many tons--we would all be helpless." "yes," added dorothy, with foreboding in her eyes, "we were all unconscious on the way out, except dr. duquesne." "well, then, blackie and i, as the huskiest members of the party, will give her the juice until only one of us is left with his eyes open. if that isn't enough to pull us clear, we'll have to give her the whole works and let her ramble by herself after we all go out. how about it, blackie?" unconsciously falling into the old bureau nickname. "do you think we can make it stop at unconsciousness with double power on?" duquesne studied the two girls carefully. "with oxygen in the helmets instead of air, we all may be able to stand it. these special cushions keep the body from flattening out, as it normally would under such a pressure. the unconsciousness is simply a suffocation caused by the lateral muscles being unable to lift the ribs--in other words, the air-pumps aren't strong enough for the added work put upon them. at least we stand a chance this way. we may live through the pressure while we are pulling away, and we certainly shall die if we don't pull away." after a brief consultation, the men set to work with furious haste. while crane placed extra bars in each of the motors and duquesne made careful observations upon the apparent size of the now plainly visible world toward which they were being drawn so irresistibly, seaton connected the helmets with the air-and oxygen-tanks through a valve upon the board, by means of which he could change at will the oxygen content of the air they breathed. he then placed the strange girl, who seemed dazed by the frightful sensation of their never-ending fall, upon one of the seats, fitted the cumbersome helmet upon her head, strapped her carefully into place, and turned to dorothy. in an instant they were in each other's arms. he felt her labored breathing and the wild beating of her heart, pressed so closely to his, and saw the fear of the unknown in the violet depths of her eyes, but she looked at him unflinchingly. "dick, sweetheart, if this is good-bye...." he interrupted her with a kiss. "it isn't good-bye yet, dottie mine. this is merely a trial effort, to see what we will have to do to get away. next time will be the time to worry." "i'm not worried, really ... but in case ... you see ... i ... we ..." the gray eyes softened and misted over as he pressed his cheek to hers. "i understand, sweetheart," he whispered. "this is not good-bye, but if we don't pull through we'll go together, and that is what we both want." as crane and duquesne finished their tasks, seaton fitted his sweetheart's helmet, placed her tenderly upon the seat, buckled the heavy restraining straps about her slender body, and donned his own helmet. he took his place at the main instrument board, duquesne stationing himself at the other. "what did you read on it, blackie?" asked seaton. "two degrees, one minute, twelve seconds diameter," replied duquesne. "altogether too close for comfort. how shall we apply the power? one of us must stay awake, or we'll go on as long as the bars last." "you put on one notch, then i'll put on one. we can feel the bus jump with each notch. we'll keep it up until one of us is so far gone that he can't raise the bar--the one that raises last will have to let the ship run for thirty minutes or an hour, then cut down his power. then the other fellow will revive and cut his off, for an observation. how's that?" "all right." * * * * * they took their places, and seaton felt the vessel slow down in its horrible fall as duquesne threw his lever into the first notch. he responded instantly by advancing his own, and notch after notch the power applied to the ship by the now doubled motor was rapidly increased. the passengers felt their suits envelope them and began to labor for breath. seaton slowly turned the mixing valve, a little with each advance of his lever, until pure oxygen flowed through the pipes. the power levers had moved scarcely half of their range, yet minutes now intervened between each advance instead of seconds, as at the start. as each of the two men was determined that he would make the last advance, the duel continued longer than either would have thought possible. seaton made what he thought his final effort and waited--only to feel, after a few minutes, the upward surge telling him that duquesne was still able to move his lever. his brain reeled. his arm seemed paralyzed by its own enormous weight, and felt as though it, the rolling table upon which it rested, and the supporting framework were so immovably welded together that it was impossible to move it even the quarter-inch necessary to operate the ratchet-lever. he could not move his body, which was oppressed by a sickening weight. his utmost efforts to breathe forced only a little of the life-giving oxygen into his lungs, which smarted painfully at the touch of the undiluted gas, and he felt that he could not long retain consciousness under such conditions. nevertheless, he summoned all his strength and advanced the lever one more notch. he stared at the clock-face above his head, knowing that if duquesne could advance his lever again he would lose consciousness and be beaten. minute after minute went by, however, and the acceleration of the ship remained constant. seaton, knowing that he was in sole control of the power-plant, fought to retain possession of his faculties, while the hands of the clock told off the interminable minutes. after an eternity of time an hour had passed, and seaton attempted to cut down his power, only to find with horror that the long strain had so weakened him that he could not reverse the ratchet. he was still able, however, to give the lever the backward jerk which disconnected the wires completely--and the safety straps creaked with the sudden stress as, half the power instantly shut off, the suddenly released springs tried to hurl five bodies against the ceiling. after a few minutes duquesne revived and slowly cut off his power. to the dismay of both men they were again falling! duquesne hurried to the lower window to make the observation, remarking: "you're a better man than i am, gunga din." "only because you're so badly bunged up. one more notch would've got my goat," replied seaton frankly as he made his way to dorothy's side. he noticed as he reached her, that crane had removed his helmet and was approaching the other girl. by the time duquesne had finished the observation, the other passengers had completely recovered, apparently none the worse for their experience. * * * * * "did we gain anything?" asked seaton eagerly. "i make it two, four, thirteen. we've lost about two minutes of arc. how much power did we have on?" "a little over half--thirty-two points out of sixty possible." "we were still falling pretty fast. we'll have to put on everything we've got. since neither of us can put it on we'll have to rig up an automatic feed. it'll take time, but it's the only way." "the automatic control is already there," put in crane, forestalling seaton's explanation. "the only question is whether we will live through it--and that is not really a question, since certain death is the only alternative. we must do it." "we sure must," answered seaton soberly. dorothy gravely nodded assent. "what do you fellows think of a little plus pressure on the oxygen?" asked seaton. "i think it would help a lot." "i think it's a good idea," said duquesne, and crane added: "four or five inches of water will be about all the pressure we can stand. any more might burn our lungs too badly." the pressure apparatus was quickly arranged and the motors filled to capacity with reserve bars--enough to last seventy-two hours--the scientists having decided that they must risk everything on one trial and put in enough, if possible, to pull them clear out of the influence of this center of attraction, as the time lost in slowing up to change bars might well mean the difference between success and failure. where they might lie at the end of the wild dash for safety, how they were to retrace their way with their depleted supply of copper, what other dangers of dead star, planet, or sun lay in their path--all these were terrifying questions that had to be ignored. * * * * * duquesne was the only member of the party who actually felt any calmness, the quiet of the others expressing their courage in facing fear. life seemed very sweet and desirable to them, the distant earth a very paradise! through dorothy's mind flashed the visions she had built up during long sweet hours, visions of a long life with seaton. as she breathed an inaudible prayer, she glanced up and saw seaton standing beside her, gazing down upon her with his very soul in his eyes. never would she forget the expression upon his face. even in that crucial hour, his great love for her overshadowed every other feeling, and no thought of self was in his mind--his care was all for her. there was a long farewell caress. both knew that it might be goodbye, but both were silent as the violet eyes and the gray looked into each other's depths and conveyed messages far beyond the power of words. once more he adjusted her helmet and strapped her into place. as crane had in the meantime cared for the other girl, the men again took their places and seaton started the motor which would automatically advance the speed levers, one notch every five seconds, until the full power of both motors was exerted. as the power was increased, he turned the valve as before, until the helmets were filled with pure oxygen under a pressure of five inches of water. margaret spencer, weakened by her imprisonment, was the first to lose consciousness, and soon afterward dorothy felt her senses leave her. a half-minute, in the course of which six mighty surges were felt, as more of the power of the doubled motor was released, and crane had gone, calmly analyzing his sensations to the last. after a time duquesne also lapsed into unconsciousness, making no particular effort to avoid it, as he knew that the involuntary muscles would function quite as well without the direction of the will. seaton, although he knew it was useless, fought to keep his senses as long as possible, counting the impulses he felt as the levers were advanced. "thirty-two." he felt exactly as he had before, when he had advanced the lever for the last time. "thirty-three." a giant hand shut off his breath completely, though he was fighting to his utmost for air. an intolerable weight rested upon his eyeballs, forcing them backward into his head. the universe whirled about him in dizzy circles--orange and black and green stars flashed before his bursting eyes. "thirty-four." the stars became more brilliant and of more variegated colors, and a giant pen dipped in fire was writing equations and mathematico-chemical symbols upon his quivering brain. he joined the circling universe, which he had hitherto kept away from him by main strength, and whirled about his own body, tracing a logarithmic spiral with infinite velocity--leaving his body an infinite distance behind. "thirty-five." the stars and the fiery pen exploded in a wild coruscation of searing, blinding light and he plunged from his spiral into a black abyss. * * * * * in spite of the terrific stress put upon the machine, every part functioned perfectly, and soon after seaton had lost consciousness the vessel began to draw away from the sinister globe; slowly at first, faster and faster as more and more of the almost unlimited power of the mighty motor was released. soon the levers were out to the last notch and the machine was exerting its maximum effort. one hour and an observer upon the skylark would have seen that the apparent size of the massive unknown world was rapidly decreasing; twenty hours and it was so far away as to be invisible, though its effect was still great; forty hours and the effect was slight; sixty hours and the skylark was out of range of the slightest measurable force of the monster it had left. hurtled onward by the inconceivable power of the unleashed copper demon in its center, the skylark flew through the infinite reaches of interstellar space with an unthinkable, almost incalculable velocity--beside which the velocity of light was as that of a snail to that of a rifle bullet; a velocity augmented every second by a quantity almost double that of light itself. chapter xi through space into the carboniferous seaton opened his eyes and gazed about him wonderingly. only half conscious, bruised and sore in every part of his body, he could not at first realize what had happened. instinctively drawing a deep breath, he coughed and choked as the undiluted oxygen filled his lungs, bringing with it a complete understanding of the situation. knowing from the lack of any apparent motion that the power had been sufficient to pull the car away from that fatal globe, his first thought was for dorothy, and he tore off his helmet and turned toward her. the force of even that slight movement, wafted him gently into the air where he hung suspended several minutes before his struggles enabled him to clutch a post and draw himself down to the floor. a quick glance around informed him that dorothy, as well as the others, was still unconscious. making his way rapidly to her, he placed her face downward upon the floor and began artificial respiration. very soon he was rewarded by the coughing he had longed to hear. he tore off her helmet and clasped her to his breast in an agony of relief, while she sobbed convulsively upon his shoulder. the first ecstasy of their greeting over, dorothy started guiltily. "oh, dick!" she exclaimed. "how about peggy? you must see how she is!" "never mind," answered crane's voice cheerily. "she is coming to nicely." glancing around quickly, they saw that crane had already revived the stranger, and that duquesne was not in sight. dorothy blushed, the vivid wave of color rising to her glorious hair, and hastily disengaged her arms from around her lover's neck, drawing away from him. seaton, also blushing, dropped his arms, and dorothy floated away from him, frantically clutching at a brace just beyond reach. "pull me down, dick!" she called, laughing gaily. seaton, seizing her instinctively, neglected his own anchorage and they hung in the air together, while crane and margaret, each holding a strap, laughed with unrestrained merriment. "tweet, tweet--i'm a canary!" chuckled seaton. "throw us a rope!" "a dicky-bird, you mean," interposed dorothy. "i knew that you were a sleight-of-hand expert, dick, but i did not know that levitation was one of your specialties," remarked crane with mock gravity. "that is a peculiar pose you are holding now. what are you doing--sitting on an imaginary pedestal?" "i'll be sitting on your neck if you don't get a wiggle on with that rope!" retorted seaton, but before crane had time to obey the command the floating couple had approached close enough to the ceiling so that seaton, with a slight pressure of his hand against the leather, sent them floating back to the floor, within reach of one of the handrails. seaton made his way to the power-plant, lifted in one of the remaining bars, and applied a little power. the skylark seemed to jump under them, then it seemed as though they were back on earth--everything had its normal weight once more, as the amount of power applied was just enough to equal the acceleration of gravity. after this fact had been explained, dorothy turned to margaret. "now that we are able to act intelligently, the party should be introduced to each other. peggy, this is dr. dick seaton, and this is mr. martin crane. boys, this is miss margaret spencer, a dear friend of mine. these are the boys i have told you so much about, peggy. dick knows all about atoms and things; he found out how to make the skylark go. martin, who is quite a wonderful inventor, made the engines and things for it." "i may have heard of mr. crane," replied margaret eagerly. "my father was an inventor, and i have heard him speak of a man named crane who invented a lot of instruments for airplanes. he used to say that the crane instruments revolutionized flying. i wonder if you are that mr. crane?" "that is rather unjustifiably high praise, miss spencer," replied crane, "but as i have been guilty of one or two things along that line, i may be the man he meant." "pardon me if i seem to change the subject," put in seaton, "but where's duquesne?" "we came to at the same time, and he went into the galley to fix up something to eat." "good for him!" exclaimed dorothy. "i'm simply starved to death. i would have been demanding food long ago, but i have so many aches and pains that i didn't realize how hungry i was until you mentioned it. come on, peggy, i know where our room is. let's go powder our noses while these bewhiskered gentlemen reap their beards. did you bring along any of my clothes, dick, or did you forget them in the excitement?" "i didn't think anything about clothes, but martin did. you'll find your whole wardrobe in your room. i'm with you, dot, on that eating proposition--i'm hungry enough to eat the jamb off the door!" * * * * * after the girls had gone, seaton and crane went to their rooms, where they exercised vigorously to restore the circulation to their numbed bodies, shaved, bathed, and returned to the saloon feeling like new men. they found the girls already there, seated at one of the windows. "hail and greeting!" cried dorothy at sight of them. "i hardly recognized you without your whiskers. do hurry over here and look out this perfectly wonderful window. did you ever in your born days see anything like this sight? now that i'm not scared pea-green, i can enjoy it thoroughly!" the two men joined the girls and peered out into space through the window, which was completely invisible, so clear was the glass. as the four heads bent, so close together, an awed silence fell upon the little group. for the blackness of the interstellar void was not the dark of an earthly night, but the absolute black of the absence of all light, beside which the black of platinum dust is pale and gray; and laid upon this velvet were the jewel stars. they were not the twinkling, scintillating beauties of the earthly sky, but minute points, so small as to seem dimensionless, yet of dazzling brilliance. without the interference of the air, their rays met the eye steadily and much of the effect of comparative distance was lost. all seemed nearer and there was no hint of familiarity in their arrangement. like gems thrown upon darkness they shone in multi-colored beauty upon the daring wanderers, who stood in their car as easily as though they were upon their parent earth, and gazed upon a sight never before seen by eye of man nor pictured in his imaginings. through the daze of their wonder, a thought smote seaton like a blow from a fist. his eyes leaped to the instrument board and he exclaimed: "look there, mart! we're heading almost directly away from the earth, and we must be making billions of miles per second. after we lost consciousness, the attraction of that big dud back there would swing us around, of course, but the bar should have stayed pointed somewhere near the earth, as i left it. do you suppose it could have shifted the gyroscopes?" "it not only could have, it did," replied crane, turning the bar until it again pointed parallel with the object-compass which bore upon the earth. "look at the board. the angle has been changed through nearly half a circumference. we couldn't carry gyroscopes heavy enough to counteract that force." "but they were heavier there--oh, sure, you're right. it's mass, not weight, that counts. but we sure are in one fine, large jam now. instead of being half-way back to the earth we're--where are we, anyway?" they made a reading on an object-compass focused upon the earth. seaton's face lengthened as seconds passed. when it had come to rest, both men calculated the distance. "what d'you make it, mart? i'm afraid to tell you my result." "forty-six point twenty-seven light-centuries," replied crane, calmly. "right?" "right, and the time was : p. m. of thursday, by the chronometer there. we'll time it again after a while and see how fast we're traveling. it's a good thing you built the ship's chronometers to stand any kind of stress. my watch is a total loss. yours is, too?" "all of our watches must be broken. we will have to repair them as soon as we get time." "well, let's eat next! no human being can stand my aching void much longer. how about you, dot?" "yes, for cat's sake, let's get busy!" she mimicked him gaily. "doctor duquesne's had dinner ready for ages, and we're all dying by inches of hunger." * * * * * the wanderers, battered, bruised, and sore, seated themselves at a folding table, seaton keeping a watchful eye upon the bar and upon the course, while enjoying dorothy's presence to the full. crane and margaret talked easily, but at intervals. save when directly addressed. duquesne maintained silence--not the silence of one who knows himself to be an intruder, but the silence of perfect self-sufficiency. the meal over, the girls washed the dishes and busied themselves in the galley. seaton and crane made another observation upon the earth, requesting duquesne to stay out of the "engine room" as they called the partially-enclosed space surrounding the main instrument board, where were located the object-compasses and the mechanism controlling the attractor, about which duquesne knew nothing. as they rejoined duquesne in the main compartment, seaton said: "duquesne, we're nearly five thousand light-years away from the earth, and are getting farther at the rate of about one light-year per minute." "i suppose that it would be poor technique to ask how you know?" "it would--very poor. our figures are right. the difficulty is that we have only four bars left--enough to stop us and a little to spare, but not nearly enough to get back with, even if we could take a chance on drifting straight that far without being swung off--which, of course, is impossible." "that means that we must land somewhere and dig some copper, then." "exactly. "the first thing to do is to find a place to land." seaton picked out a distant star in their course and observed it through the spectroscope. since it was found to contain copper in notable amounts, all agreed that its planets probably also contained copper. "don't know whether we can stop that soon or not," remarked seaton as he set the levers, "but we may as well have something to shoot at. we'd better take our regular twelve-hour tricks, hadn't we, mart? it's a wonder we got as far as this without striking another snag. i'll take the first trick at the board--beat it to bed." "not so fast, dick," argued crane, as seaton turned toward the engine-room: "it's my turn." "flip a nickel," suggested seaton. "heads i get it." crane flipped a coin. heads it was, and the worn-out party went to their rooms, all save dorothy, who lingered after the others to bid her lover a more intimate good-night. seated beside him, his arm around her and her head upon his shoulder, dorothy exclaimed: "oh, dicky, dicky, it is wonderful to be with you again! i've lived as many years in the last week as we have covered miles!" seaton kissed her with ardor, then turned her fair face up to his and gazed hungrily at every feature. "it sure was awful until we found you, sweetheart girl. those two days at wilson's were the worst and longest i ever put in. i could have wrung martin's cautious old neck! "but isn't he a wiz at preparing for trouble? we sure owe him a lot, little dimpled lady." dorothy was silent for a moment, then a smile quirked at one corner of her mouth and a dimple appeared. seaton promptly kissed it, whereupon it deepened audaciously. "what are you thinking about--mischief?" he asked. "only of how martin is going to be paid what we owe him," she answered teasingly. "don't let the debt worry you any." "spill the news, reddy," he commanded, as his arm tightened about her. she stuck out a tiny tip of red tongue at him. "don't let peggy find out he's a millionaire." "why not?" he asked wonderingly, then he saw her point and laughed: "you little matchmaker!" "i don't care, laugh if you want to. martin's as nice a man as i know, and peggy's a real darling. don't you let slip a word about martin's money, that's all!" "she wouldn't think any less of him, would she?" "dick, sometimes you are absolutely dumb. it would spoil everything. if she knew he was a millionaire she would be scared to death--not of him, of course, but because she would think that he would think that she was chasing him, and then of course he would think that she was, see? as it is, she acts perfectly natural, and so does he. didn't you notice that while we were eating they talked together for at least fifteen minutes about her father's invention and the way they stole the plans and one thing and another? i don't believe he has talked that much to any girl except me the last five years--and he wouldn't talk to me until he knew that i couldn't see any man except you. much as we like martin, we've got to admit that about him. he's been chased so much that he's wild. if any other girl he knows had talked to him that long, he would have been off to the north pole or somewhere the next morning, and the best part of it is that he didn't think anything of it." * * * * * "you think she is domesticating the wild man?" "now, dick, don't be foolish. you know what i mean. martin is a perfect dear, but if she knew that he is _the_ m. reynolds crane, everything would be ruined. you know yourself how horribly hard it is to get through his shell to the real martin underneath. he is lonely and miserable inside, i know, and the right kind of girl, one that would treat him right, would make life heaven for him, and herself too." "yes, and the wrong kind would make it...." "she would," interrupted dorothy hastily, "but peggy's the right kind. wouldn't it be fine to have martin and peggy as happy, almost, as you and i are?" "all right, girlie, i'm with you," he answered, embracing her as though he intended never to let her go, "but you'd better go get some sleep--you're all in." considerably later, when dorothy had finally gone, seaton settled himself for the long vigil. promptly at the end of the twelve hours crane appeared, alert of eye and of bearing. "you look fresh as a daisy, mart. feeling fit?" "fit as the proverbial fiddle. i could not have slept any better or longer if i had had a week off. seven hours and a half is a luxury, you know." "all wrong, old top. i need eight every night, and i'm going to take about ten this time." "go to it, twelve if you like. you have earned it." seaton stumbled to his room and slept as though in a trance for ten hours. rising, he took his regular morning exercises and went into the saloon. all save martin were there, but he had eyes only for his sweetheart, who was radiantly beautiful in a dress of deep bronze-brown. "good morning, dick," she hailed him joyously. "you woke up just in time--we are all starving again, and were just going to eat without you!" "good morning, everybody. i would like to eat with you, dottie, but i've got to relieve martin. how'd it be for you to bring breakfast into the engine room and cheer my solitude, and let crane eat with the others?" "fine--that's once you had a good idea, if you never have another!" after the meal duquesne, who abhorred idleness with all his vigorous nature, took the watches of the party and went upstairs to the "shop," which was a completely-equipped mechanical laboratory, to repair them. seaton stayed at the board, where dorothy joined him as a matter of course. crane and margaret sat down at one of the windows. she told him her story, frankly and fully, shuddering with horror as she recalled the awful, helpless fall, during which perkins had met his end. "dick and i have a heavy score to settle with that steel crowd and with duquesne," crane said slowly. "we have no evidence that will hold in law, but some day duquesne will over-reach himself. we could convict him of abduction now, but the penalty for that is too mild for what he has done. perkins' death was not murder, then?" "oh, no, it was purely self-defense. perkins would have killed him if he could. and he really deserved it--perkins was a perfect fiend. the doctor, as they call him, is no better, although entirely different. he is so utterly heartless and ruthless, so cold and scientific. do you know him very well?" "we know all that about him, and more. and yet dorothy said he saved her life?" "he did, from perkins, but i still think it was because he didn't want perkins meddling in his affairs. he seems to me to be the very incarnation of a fixed purpose--to advance himself in the world." "that expresses my thoughts exactly. but he slips occasionally, as in this instance, and he will again. he will have to walk very carefully while he is with us. nothing would please dick better than an excuse for killing him, and i must admit that i feel very much the same way." "yes, all of us do, and the way he acts proves what a machine he is. he knows just exactly how far to go, and never goes beyond it." they felt the skylark lurch slightly. "oh, mart!" called seaton. "going to pass that star we were headed for--too fast to stop. i'm giving it a wide berth and picking out another one. there's a big planet a few million miles off in line with the main door, and another one almost dead ahead--that is, straight down. we sure are traveling. look at that sun flit by!" * * * * * they saw the two planets, one like a small moon, the other like a large star, and saw the strange sun increase rapidly in size as the skylark flew on at such a pace that any earthly distance would have been covered as soon as it was begun. so appalling was their velocity that their ship was bathed in the light of that sun for only a short time, then was again surrounded by the indescribable darkness. their seventy-two-hour flight without a pilot had seemed a miracle, now it seemed entirely possible that they might fly in a straight line for weeks without encountering any obstacle, so vast was the emptiness in comparison with the points of light that punctuated it. now and then they passed so close to a star that it apparently moved rapidly, but for the most part the silent sentinels stood, like distant mountain peaks to the travelers in an express train, in the same position for many minutes. awed by the immensity of the universe, the two at the window were silent, not with the silence of embarrassment, but with that of two friends in the presence of something beyond the reach of words. as they stared out into the infinity each felt as never before the pitiful smallness of even our whole solar system and the utter insignificance of human beings and their works. silently their minds reached out to each other in mutual understanding. unconsciously margaret half shuddered and moved closer to her companion, the movement attracting his attention but not her own. a tender expression came into crane's steady blue eyes as he looked down at the beautiful young woman by his side. for beautiful she undoubtedly was. untroubled rest and plentiful food had erased the marks of her imprisonment; dorothy's deep, manifestly unassumed faith in the ability of seaton and crane to bring them safely back to earth had quieted her fears; and a complete costume of dorothy's simple but well-cut clothes, which fitted her perfectly, and in which she looked her best and knew it, had completely restored her self-possession. he quickly glanced away and again gazed at the stars, but now, in addition to the wonders of space, he saw masses of wavy black hair, high-piled upon a queenly head; deep down brown eyes half veiled by long, black lashes; sweet, sensitive lips; a firmly rounded but dimpled chin; and a perfectly-formed young body. after a time she drew a deep, tremulous breath. as he turned, her eyes met his. in their shadowy depths, still troubled by the mystery of the unknowable, he read her very soul--the soul of a real woman. "i had hoped," said margaret slowly, "to take a long flight above the clouds, but anything like this never entered my mind. how unbelievably great it is! so much vaster than any perception we could get upon earth! it seems strange that we were ever awed by the sea or the mountains ... and yet...." she paused, with her lip caught under two white teeth, then went on hesitatingly: "doesn't it seem to you, mr. crane, that there is something in man as great as all this? otherwise, dorothy and i could not be sailing here in a wonder like the lark, which you and dick seaton have made." * * * * * since from the first, dorothy had timed her waking hours with those of seaton--waiting upon him, preparing his meals, and lightening the long hours of his vigils at the board--margaret took it upon herself to do the same thing for crane. but often they assembled in the engine-room, and there was much fun and laughter, as well as serious talk, among the four. margaret was quickly accepted as a friend, and proved a delightful companion. her wavy, jet-black hair, the only color in the world that could hold its own with dorothy's auburn glory, framed features self-reliant and strong, yet of womanly softness; and in this genial atmosphere her quick tongue had a delicate wit and a facility of expression that delighted all three. dorothy, after the manner of southern women, became the hostess of this odd "party," as she styled it, and unconsciously adopted the attitude of a lady in her own home. early in their flight, crane suggested that they should take notes upon the systems of stars through which were passing. "i know very little of astronomy," he said to seaton, "but with our telescope, spectroscope, and other instruments, we should be able to take some data that will be of interest to astronomers. possibly miss spencer would be willing to help us?" "sure," seaton returned readily. "we'd be idiots to let a chance like this slide. go to it!" margaret was delighted at the opportunity to help. "taking notes is the best thing i do!" she cried, and called for a pad and pencil. stationed at the window, they fell to work in earnest. for several hours crane took observations, calculated distances, and dictated notes to margaret. "the stars are wonderfully different!" she exclaimed to him once. "that planet, i'm sure, has strange and lovely life upon it. see how its color differs from most of the others we have seen so near? it is rosy and soft like a home fire. i'm sure its people are happy." they fell into a long discussion, laughing a little at their fancies. were these multitudes of worlds peopled as the earth? could it be that only upon earth had occurred the right combination for the generation of life, so that the rest of the universe was unpeopled? "it is unthinkable that they are all uninhabited," mused crane. "there must be life. the beings may not exist in any form with which we are familiar--they may well be fulfilling some purpose in ways so different from ours that we should be unable to understand them at all." margaret's eyes widened in startled apprehension, but in a moment she shook herself and laughed. "but there's no reason to suppose they would be awful," she remarked, and turned with renewed interest to the window. thus days went by and the skylark passed one solar system after another, with a velocity so great that it was impossible to land upon any planet. margaret's association with crane, begun as a duty, soon became an intense pleasure for them both. taking notes or seated at the board in companionable conversation or sympathetic silence, they compressed into a few days more real companionship than is ordinarily enjoyed in months. oftener and oftener, as time went on, crane found the vision of his dream home floating in his mind as he steered the skylark in her meteoric flight or as he strapped himself into his narrow bed. now, however, the central figure of the vision, instead of being an indistinct blur, was clear and sharply defined. and for her part, more and more was margaret drawn to the quiet and unassuming, but utterly dependable and steadfast young inventor, with his wide knowledge and his keen, incisive mind. * * * * * sometimes, when far from any star, the pilot would desert his post and join the others at meals. upon one such occasion seaton asked: "how's the book on astronomy, oh, learned ones?" "it will be as interesting as egyptian hieroglyphics," margaret replied, as she opened her notebook and showed him pages of figures and symbols. "may i see it, miss spencer?" asked duquesne from across the small table, extending his hand. she looked at him, hot hostility in her brown eyes, and he dropped his hand. "i beg your pardon," he said, with amused irony. after the meal seaton and crane held a short consultation, and the former called to the girls, asking them to join in the "council of war." there was a moment's silence before crane said diffidently: "we have been talking about duquesne, miss spencer, trying to decide a very important problem." seaton smiled in spite of himself as the color again deepened in margaret's face, and dorothy laughed outright. "talk about a red-headed temper! your hair must be dyed, peggy!" "i know i acted like a naughty child," margaret said ruefully, "but he makes me perfectly furious and scares me at the same time. a few more remarks like that 'i beg your pardon' of his and i wouldn't have a thought left in my head!" seaton, who had opened his mouth, shut it again ludicrously, without saying a word, and margaret gave him a startled glance. "now i _have_ said it!" she exclaimed. "i'm not afraid of him, boys, really. what do you want me to do?" seaton plunged in. "what we were trying to get up nerve enough to say is that he'd be a good man on the astronomy job," and crane added quickly: "he undoubtedly knows more about it than i do, and it would be a pity to lose the chance of using him. besides, dick and i think it rather dangerous to leave him so much time to himself, in which to work up a plan against us." "he's cooking one right now, i'll bet a hat," seaton put in, and crane added: "if you are sure that you have no objections, miss spencer, we might go below, where we can have it dark, and all three of us see what we can make of the stargazing. we are really losing an unusual opportunity." margaret hid gallantly any reluctance she might have felt. "i wouldn't deserve to be here if i can't work with the doctor and hate him at the same time." "good for you, peg, you're a regular fellow!" seaton exclaimed. "you're a trump!" * * * * * finally, the enormous velocity of the cruiser was sufficiently reduced to effect a landing, a copper-bearing sun was located, and a course was laid toward its nearest planet. as the vessel approached its goal a deep undercurrent of excitement kept all the passengers feverishly occupied. they watched the distant globe grow larger, glowing through its atmosphere more and more clearly as a great disk of white light, its outline softened by the air about it. two satellites were close beside it. its sun, a great, blazing orb, a little nearer than the planet, looked so great and so hot that margaret became uneasy. "isn't it dangerous to get so close, dick? we might burn up, mightn't we?" "not without an atmosphere," he laughed. "oh," murmured the girl apologetically, "i might have known that." dropping rapidly into the atmosphere of the planet, they measured its density and analyzed it in apparatus installed for that purpose, finding that its composition was very similar to the earth's air and that its pressure was not enough greater to be uncomfortable. when within one thousand feet of the surface, seaton weighed a five-pound weight upon a spring-balance, finding that it weighed five and a half pounds, thus ascertaining that the planet was either somewhat larger than the earth or more dense. the ground was almost hidden by a rank growth of vegetation, but here and there appeared glade-like openings. seaton glanced at the faces about him. tense interest marked them all. dorothy's cheeks were flushed, her eyes shone. she looked at him with awe and pride. "a strange world, dorothy," he said gravely. "you are not afraid?" "not with you," she answered. "i am only thrilled with wonder." "columbus at san salvador," said margaret, her dark eyes paying their tribute of admiration. a dark flush mounted swiftly into seaton's brown face and he sought to throw most of the burden upon crane, but catching upon his face also a look of praise, almost of tenderness, he quickly turned to the controls. "man the boats!" he ordered an imaginary crew, and the skylark descended rapidly. landing upon one of the open spaces, they found the ground solid and stepped out. what had appeared to be a glade was in reality a rock, or rather, a ledge of apparently solid metal, with scarcely a loose fragment to be seen. at one end of the ledge rose a giant tree wonderfully symmetrical, but of a peculiar form. its branches were longer at the top than at the bottom, and it possessed broad, dark-green leaves, long thorns, and odd, flexible, shoot-like tendrils. it stood as an outpost of the dense vegetation beyond. totally unlike the forests of earth were those fern-like trees, towering two hundred feet into the air. they were of an intensely vivid green and stood motionless in the still, hot air of noonday. not a sign of animal life was to be seen; the whole landscape seemed asleep. the five strangers stood near their vessel, conversing in low tones and enjoying the sensation of solid ground beneath their feet. after a few minutes duquesne remarked: "this is undoubtedly a newer planet than ours. i should say that it was in the carboniferous age. aren't those trees like those in the coal-measures, seaton?" "true as time, blackie--there probably won't be a human race here for ages, unless we bring out some colonists." seaton kicked at one of the loose lumps of metal questioningly with his heavy shoe, finding that it was as immovable as though it were part of the ledge. bending over, he found that it required all his great strength to lift it and he stared at it with an expression of surprise, which turned to amazement as he peered closer. "duquesne! look at this!" * * * * * duquesne studied the metal, and was shaken out of his habitual taciturnity. "platinum, by all the little gods!" "we'll grab some of this while the grabbing's good," announced seaton, and the few visible lumps were rolled into the car. "if we had a pickaxe we could chop some more off one of those sharp ledges down there." "there's an axe in the shop," replied duquesne. "i'll go get it. go ahead, i'll soon be with you." "keep close together," warned crane as the four moved slowly down the slope. "this is none too safe, dick." "no, it isn't, mart. but we've got to see whether we can't find some copper, and i would like to get some more of this stuff, too. i don't think it's platinum, i believe that it's x." as they reached the broken projections, margaret glanced back over her shoulder and screamed. the others saw that her face was white and her eyes wide with horror, and seaton instinctively drew his pistol as he whirled about, only to check his finger on the trigger and lower his hand. "nothing but x-plosive bullets," he growled in disgust, and in helpless silence the four watched an unspeakably hideous monster slowly appear from behind the skylark. its four huge, squat legs supported a body at least a hundred feet long, pursy and ungainly; at the extremity of a long and sinuous neck a comparatively small head seemed composed entirely of a cavernous mouth armed with row upon row of carnivorous teeth. dorothy gasped with terror and both girls shrank closer to the two men, who maintained a baffled silence as the huge beast passed his revolting head along the hull of the vessel. "i dare not shoot, martin," seaton whispered, "it would wreck the bus. have you got any solid bullets?" "no. we must hide behind these small ledges until it goes away," answered crane, his eyes upon margaret's colorless face. "you two hide behind that one, we will take this one." "oh, well, it's nothing to worry about, anyway. we can kill him as soon as he gets far enough away from the boat," said seaton as, with dorothy clinging to him, he dropped behind one of the ledges. margaret, her staring eyes fixed upon the monster, remained standing until crane touched her gently and drew her down beside him. "he will go away soon," his even voice assured her. "we are in no danger." in spite of their predicament, a feeling of happiness flowed through crane's whole being as he crouched beside the wall of metal with one arm protectingly around margaret, and he longed to protect her through life as he was protecting her then. accustomed as he was to dangerous situations, he felt no fear. he felt only a great tenderness for the girl by his side, who had ceased trembling but was still staring wide-eyed at the monster through a crevice. "scared, peggy?" he whispered. "not now, martin, but if you weren't here i would die of fright." at this reply his arm tightened involuntarily, but he forced it to relax. "it will not be long," he promised himself silently, "until she is back at home among her friends, and then...." there came the crack of a rifle from the skylark. there was an awful roar from the dinosaur, which was quickly silenced by a stream of machine-gun bullets. "blackie's on the job--let's go!" cried seaton, and they raced up the slope. making a detour to avoid the writhing and mutilated mass they plunged through the opening door. duquesne shut it behind them and in overwhelming relief, the adventurers huddled together as from the wilderness without there arose an appalling tumult. * * * * * the scene, so quiet a few moments before, was instantly changed. the trees, the swamp, and the air seemed filled with monsters so hideous as to stagger the imagination. winged lizards of prodigious size hurtled through the air, plunging to death against the armored hull. indescribable flying monsters, with feathers like birds, but with the fangs of tigers, attacked viciously. dorothy screamed and started back as a scorpion-like thing with a body ten feet in length leaped at the window in front of her, its terrible sting spraying the glass with venom. as it fell to the ground, a huge spider--if an eight-legged creature with spines instead of hair, many-faceted eyes, and a bloated, globular body weighing hundreds of pounds, may be called a spider--leaped upon it and, mighty mandibles against poisonous sting, the furious battle raged. several twelve-foot cockroaches climbed nimbly across the fallen timber of the morass and began feeding voraciously upon the body of the dead dinosaur, only to be driven away by another animal, which all three men recognized instantly as that king of all prehistoric creatures, the saber-toothed tiger. this newcomer, a tawny beast towering fifteen feet high at the shoulder, had a mouth disproportionate even to his great size--a mouth armed with four great tiger-teeth more than three feet in length. he had barely begun his meal, however, when he was challenged by another nightmare, a something apparently half-way between a dinosaur and a crocodile. at the first note the tiger charged. clawing, striking, rending each other with their terrible teeth, a veritable avalanche of bloodthirsty rage, the combatants stormed up and down the little island. but the fighters were rudely interrupted, and the earthly visitors discovered that in this primitive world it was not only animal life that was dangerous. [illustration: the great tree standing on the farther edge of the island suddenly bent over, lashing out like a snake and grasping both. it transfixed them with the terrible thorns, which were now seen to be armed with needlepoints and to possess barbs like fish-hooks.] the great tree standing on the farther edge of the island suddenly bent over, lashing out like a snake and grasping both. it transfixed them with the terrible thorns, which were now seen to be armed with needlepoints and to possess barbs like fish-hooks. it ripped at them with the long branches, which were veritable spears. the broad leaves, armed with revolting sucking disks, closed about the two animals, while the long, slender twigs, each of which was now seen to have an eye at its extremity, waved about, watching each movement of the captives from a safe distance. if the struggle between the two animals had been awful, this was titanic. the air was torn by the roars of the reptile, the screams of the great cat, and the shrieks of the tree. the very ground rocked with the ferocity of the conflict. there could be but one result--soon the tree, having absorbed the two gladiators, resumed its upright position in all its beauty. the members of the little group stared at each other, sick at heart. "this is no place to start a copper-mine. i think we'd better beat it," remarked seaton presently, wiping drops of perspiration from his forehead. "i think so," acquiesced crane. "we found air and earth-like conditions here; we probably will elsewhere." "are you all right, dottie?" asked seaton. "all right, dicky," she replied, the color flowing back into her cheeks. "it scared me stiff, and i think i have a lot of white hairs right now, but i wouldn't have missed it for anything." she paused an instant, and continued: "dick, there must be a queer streak of brutality in me, but would you mind blowing up that frightful tree? i wouldn't mind its nature if it were ugly--but look at it! it's so deceptively beautiful! you wouldn't think it had the disposition of a fiend, would you?" * * * * * a general laugh relieved the nervous tension, and seaton stepped impulsively toward duquesne with his hand outstretched. "you've squared your account, blackie. say the word and the war's all off." duquesne ignored the hand and glanced coldly at the group of eager, friendly faces. "don't be sentimental," he remarked evenly as he turned away to his room. "emotional scenes pain me. i gave my word to act as one of the party." "well, may i be kicked to death by little red spiders!" exclaimed seaton, dumbfounded, as the other disappeared. "he ain't a man, he's a fish!" "he's a machine. i always thought so, and now i know it," stated margaret, and the others nodded agreement. "well, we'll sure pull his cork as soon as we get back!" snapped seaton. "he asked for it, and we'll give him both barrels!" "i know i acted the fool out there," margaret apologized, flushing hotly and looking at crane. "i don't know what made me act so stupid. i used to have a little nerve." "you were a regular little brick, peg," seaton returned instantly. "both you girls are all to the good--the right kind to have along in ticklish places." crane held out his steady hand and took margaret's in a warm clasp. "for a girl in your weakened condition you were wonderful. you have no reason to reproach yourself." tears filled the dark eyes, but were held back bravely as she held her head erect and returned the pressure of his hand. "just so you don't leave me behind next time," she returned lightly, and the last word concerning the incident had been said. seaton applied the power and soon they were approaching another planet, which was surrounded by a dense fog. descending slowly, they found it to be a mass of boiling-hot steam and rank vapors, under enormous pressure. the next planet they found to have a clear atmosphere, but the ground had a peculiar, barren look; and analysis of the gaseous envelope proved it to be composed almost entirely of chlorin. no life of an earthly type could be possible upon such a world, and a search for copper, even with the suits and helmets, would probably be fruitless if not impossible. "well," remarked seaton as they were again in space, "we've got enough copper to visit several more worlds--several more solar systems, if necessary. but there's a nice, hopeful-looking planet right in front of us. it may be the one we're looking for." arrived in the belt of atmosphere, they tested it as before, and found it satisfactory. chapter xii the mastery of mind over matter they descended rapidly, directly over a large and imposing city in the middle of a vast, level, beautifully-planted plain. while they were watching it, the city vanished and the plain was transformed into a heavily-timbered mountain summit, the valleys falling away upon all sides as far as the eye could reach. "well, i'll say that's some mirage!" exclaimed seaton, rubbing his eyes in astonishment. "i've seen mirages before, but never anything like that. wonder what this air's made of? but we'll land, anyway, if we finally have to swim!" the ship landed gently upon the summit, the occupants half expecting to see the ground disappear before their eyes. nothing happened, however, and they disembarked, finding walking somewhat difficult because of the great mass of the planet. looking around, they could see no sign of life, but they _felt_ a presence near them--a vast, invisible something. suddenly, out of the air in front of seaton, a man materialized: a man identical with him in every feature and detail, even to the smudge of grease under one eye, the small wrinkles in his heavy blue serge suit, and the emblem of the american chemical society upon his watch-fob. "hello, folks," the stranger began in seaton's characteristic careless speech. "i see you're surprised at my knowing your language. you're a very inferior race of animals--don't even understand telepathy, don't understand the luminiferous ether, or the relation between time and space. your greatest things, such as the skylark and your object-compass, are merely toys." changing instantly from seaton's form to that of dorothy, likewise a perfect imitation, the stranger continued without a break: "atoms and electrons and things, spinning and whirling in their dizzy little orbits...." it broke off abruptly, continuing in the form of duquesne: "couldn't make myself clear as miss vaneman--not a scientific convolution in her foolish little brain. you are a freer type, duquesne, unhampered by foolish, soft fancies. but you are very clumsy, although working fairly well with your poor tools--brookings and his organization, the perkins café and its clumsy wireless telephones. all of you are extremely low in the scale. such animals have not been known in our universe for ten million years, which is as far back as i can remember. you have millions of years to go before you will amount to anything; before you will even rise above death and its attendant necessity, sex." the strange being then assumed form after form with bewildering rapidity, while the spectators stared in dumb astonishment. in rapid succession it took on the likeness of each member of the party, of the vessel itself, of the watch in seaton's pocket--reappearing as seaton. "well, bunch," it said in a matter-of-fact voice, "there's no mental exercise in you and you're such a low form of life that you're of no use on this planet; so i'll dematerialize you." * * * * * a peculiar light came into its eyes as they stared intently into seaton's, and he felt his senses reel under the impact of an awful mental force, but he fought back with all his power and remained standing. "what's this?" the stranger demanded in surprise, "this is the first time in history that mere matter--which is only a manifestation of mind--has ever refused to obey mind. there's a screw loose somewhere." "i must reason this out," it continued analytically, changing instantaneously into crane's likeness. "ah! i am not a perfect reproduction. this is the first matter i have ever encountered that i could not reproduce perfectly. there is some subtle difference. the external form is the same, the organic structure likewise. the molecules of substance are arranged as they should be, as are also the atoms in the molecule. the electrons in the atom--ah! there is the difficulty. the arrangement and number of electrons, as well as positive charges, are entirely different from what i had supposed. i must derive the formula." "let's go, folks!" said seaton hastily, drawing dorothy back toward the skylark. "this dematerialization stunt may be play for him, but i don't want any of it in my family." "no, you really _must_ stay," remonstrated the stranger. "much as it is against my principles to employ brute force, you must stay and be properly dematerialized, alive or dead. science demands it." as he spoke, he started to draw his automatic pistol. being in crane's form, he drew slowly, as crane did; and seaton, with the dexterity of much sleight-of-hand work and of years of familiarity with his weapon, drew and fired in one incredibly rapid movement, before the other had withdrawn the pistol from his pocket. the x-plosive shell completely volatilized the stranger and hurled the party backward toward the skylark, into which they fled hastily. as crane, the last one to enter the vessel, fired his pistol and closed the massive door, seaton leaped to the levers. as he did so, he saw a creature materialize in the air of the vessel and fall to the floor with a crash as he threw on the power. it was a frightful thing, like nothing ever before seen upon any world; with great teeth, long, sharp claws, and an automatic pistol clutched firmly in a human hand. forced flat by the terrific acceleration of the vessel, it was unable to lift either itself or the weapon, and lay helpless. "we take one trick, anyway!" blazed seaton, as he threw on the power of the attractor and diffused its force into a screen over the party, so that the enemy could not materialize in the air above them and crush them by mere weight. "as pure mental force, you're entirely out of my class, but when you come down to matter, which i can understand, i'll give you a run for your money until my angles catch fire." "that is a childish defiance. it speaks well for your courage, but ill for your intelligence," the animal said, and vanished. a moment later seaton's hair almost stood on end as he saw an automatic pistol appear upon the board directly in front of him, clamped to it by bands of steel. paralyzed by this unlooked-for demonstration of the mastery of mind over matter, unable to move a muscle, he lay helpless, staring at the engine of death in front of him. although the whole proceeding occupied only a fraction of a second, it seemed to seaton as though he watched the weapon for hours. as the sleeve drew back, cocking the pistol and throwing a cartridge into the chamber, the trigger moved, and the hammer descended to speed on its way the bullet which was to blot out his life. there was a sharp click as the hammer fell--seaton was surprised to find himself still alive until a voice spoke, apparently from the muzzle of the pistol, with the harsh sound of a metallic diaphragm. "i was almost certain that it wouldn't explode," the stranger said, chattily. "you see, i haven't derived that formula yet, so i couldn't make a real explosive. i could of course, materialize beside you, under your protective screen, and crush you in a vise. i could materialize as a man of metal, able to stand up under this acceleration, and do you to death. i could even, by a sufficient expenditure of mental energy, materialize a planet around your ship and crush it. however, these crude methods are distasteful in the extreme, especially since you have already given me some slight and unexpected mental exercise. in return, i shall give you one chance for your lives. i cannot dematerialize either you or your vessel until i work out the formula for your peculiar atomic structure. if i can derive the formula before you reach the boundaries of my home-space, beyond which i cannot go, i shall let you go free. deriving the formula will be a neat little problem. it should be fairly easy, as it involves only a simple integration in ninety-seven dimensions." * * * * * silence ensued, and seaton advanced his lever to the limit of his ability to retain consciousness. almost overcome by the horror of their position, in an agony of suspense, expecting every instant to be hurled into nothingness, he battled on, with no thought of yielding, even in the face of those overwhelming mental odds. "you can't do it, old top," he thought savagely, concentrating all the power of his highly-trained mind against the intellectual monster. "you can't dematerialize us, and you can't integrate above ninety-five dimensions to save your neck. you can't do it--you're slipping--you're all balled up right now!" for more than an hour the silent battle raged, during which time the skylark flew millions upon millions of miles toward earth. finally the stranger spoke again. "you three win," it said abruptly. in answer to the unspoken surprise of all three men it went on: "yes, all three of you got the same idea and crane even forced his body to retain consciousness to fight me. your efforts were very feeble, of course, but were enough to interrupt my calculations at a delicate stage, every time. you are a low form of life, undoubtedly, but with more mentality than i supposed at first. i could get that formula, of course, in spite of you, if i had time, but we are rapidly approaching the limits of my territory, outside of which even i could not think my way back. that is one thing in which your mechanical devices are superior to anything my own race developed before we became pure intellectuals. they point the way back to your earth, which is so far away that even my mentality cannot grasp the meaning of the distance. i can understand the earth, can visualize it from your minds, but i cannot project myself any nearer to it than we are at present. before i leave you, i will say that you have conferred a real favor upon me--you have given me something to think about for thousands of cycles to come. good-bye." assured that their visitor had really gone, seaton reduced the power to that of gravity and dorothy soon sat up, margaret reviving more slowly. "dick," said dorothy solemnly, "did that happen or have i been unconscious and just had a nightmare?" "it happened, all right," returned her lover, wiping his brow in relief. "see that pistol clamped upon the top of the board? that's a token in remembrance of him." dorothy, though she had been only half conscious, had heard the words of the stranger. as she looked at the faces of the men, white and drawn with the mental struggle, she realized what they had gone through, and she drew seaton down into one of the seats, stroking his hair tenderly. margaret went to her room immediately, and as she did not return, dorothy followed. she came back presently with a look of concern upon her face. "this life is a little hard on peggy. i didn't realize how much harder for her it would be than it is for me until i went in there and found her crying. it is much harder for her, of course, since i am with you, dick, and with you, martin, whom i know so well. she must feel terribly alone." "why should she?" demanded seaton. "we think she's some game little guy. why, she's one of the bunch! she must know that!" "well, it isn't the same," insisted dorothy. "you be extra nice to her, dick. but don't you dare let her know i told you about the tears, or she'd eat me alive!" crane said nothing--a not unusual occurrence--but his face grew thoughtful and his manner, when margaret appeared at mealtime, was more solicitous than usual and more than brotherly in its tenderness. "i shall be an interstellar diplomat," dorothy whispered to seaton as soon as they were alone. "wasn't that a beautiful bee i put upon martin?" seaton stared at her a moment, then shook her gently before he took her into his arms. * * * * * the information, however, did not prevent him from calling to crane a few minutes later, even though he was still deep in conversation with margaret. dorothy gave him an exasperated glance and walked away. "i sure pulled a boner that time," seaton muttered as he plucked at his hair ruefully. "it nearly did us. "let's test this stuff out and see if it's x, mart, while duquesne's out of the way. if it is x, it's some find!" seaton cut off a bit of metal with his knife, hammered it into a small piece of copper, and threw the copper into the power-chamber, out of contact with the plating. as the metal received the current the vessel started slightly. "it _is_ x! mart, we've got enough of this stuff to supply three worlds!" "better put it away somewhere," suggested crane, and after the metal had been removed to seaton's cabin, the two men again sought a landing-place. almost in their line of flight they saw a close cluster of stars, each emitting a peculiar greenish light which, in the spectroscope, revealed a blaze of copper lines. "that's our meat, martin. we ought to be able to grab some copper in that system, where there's so much of it that it colors their sunlight." "the copper is undoubtedly there, but it might be too dangerous to get so close to so many suns. we may have trouble getting away." "well, our copper's getting horribly low. we've got to find some pretty quick, somewhere, or else walk back home, and there's our best chance. we'll feel our way along. if it gets too strong, we'll beat it." when they had approached so close that the suns were great stars widely spaced in the heavens, crane relinquished the controls to seaton. "if you will take the lever awhile, dick, margaret and i will go downstairs and see if we can locate a planet." after a glance through the telescope, crane knew that they were still too far from the group of suns to place any planet with certainty, and began taking notes. his mind was not upon his work, however, but was completely filled with thoughts of the girl at his side. the intervals between his comments became longer and longer until they were standing in silence, both staring with unseeing eyes out into the trackless void. but it was in no sense their usual companionable silence. crane was fighting back the words he longed to say. this lovely girl was not here of her own accord--she had been torn forcibly from her home and from her friends, and he would not, could not, make her already difficult position even more unpleasant by forcing his attentions upon her. margaret sensed something unusual and significant in his attitude and held herself tense, her heart beating wildly. at that moment an asteroid came within range of the skylark's watchful repeller, and at the lurch of the vessel, as it swung around the obstruction, margaret would have fallen had not crane instinctively caught her with one arm. ordinarily this bit of courtesy would have gone unnoticed by both, as it had happened many times before, but in that heavily-charged atmosphere it took on a new significance. both blushed hotly, and as their eyes met each saw that which held them spellbound. slowly, almost as if without volition, crane put his other arm around her. a wave of deeper crimson swept over her face and she bent her handsome head as her slender body yielded to his arms with no effort to free itself. finally crane spoke, his usually even voice faltering. "margaret, i hope you will not think this unfair of me ... but we have been through so much together that i feel as though we had known each other forever. until we went through this last experience i had intended to wait--but why should we wait? life is not lived in years alone, and you know how much i love you, my dearest!" he finished, passionately. her arms crept up around his neck, her bowed head lifted, and her eyes looked deep into his as she whispered her answer: "i think i do ... oh, martin!" presently they made their way back to the engine-room, keeping the singing joy in their hearts inaudible and the kisses fresh upon their lips invisible. they might have kept their secret for a time, had not seaton promptly asked: "well, what did you find, mart?" a panicky look appeared upon crane's self-possessed countenance and margaret's fair face glowed like a peony. "_yes_, what _did_ you find?" demanded dorothy, as she noticed their confusion. "my future wife," crane answered steadily. the two girls rushed into each other's arms and the two men silently gripped hands in a clasp of steel; for each of the four knew that these two unions were not passing fancies, lightly entered into and as lightly cast aside, but were true partnerships which would endure throughout the entire span of life. * * * * * a planet was located and the skylark flew toward it. discovering that it was apparently situated in the center of the cluster of suns, they hesitated; but finding that there was no dangerous force present, they kept on. as they drew nearer, so that the planet appeared as a very small moon, they saw that the skylark was in a blaze of green light, and looking out of the windows, crane counted seventeen great suns, scattered in all directions in the sky! slowing down abruptly as the planet was approached, seaton dropped the vessel slowly through the atmosphere, while crane and duquesne tested and analyzed it. "pressure, thirty pounds per square inch. surface gravity as compared to that of the earth, two-fifths. air-pressure about double that of the earth, while a five-pound weight weighs only two pounds. a peculiar combination," reported crane, and duquesne added: "analysis about the same as our air except for two and three-tenths per cent of a gas that isn't poisonous and which has a peculiar, fragrant odor. i can't analyze it and think it probably an element unknown upon earth, or at least very rare." "it would have to be rare if you don't know what it is," acknowledged seaton, locking the skylark in place and going over to smell the strange gas. deciding that the air was satisfactory, the pressure inside the vessel was slowly raised to the value of that outside and two doors were opened, to allow the new atmosphere free circulation. seaton shut off the power actuating the repeller and let the vessel settle slowly toward the ocean which was directly beneath them--an ocean of a deep, intense, wondrously beautiful blue, which the scientists studied with interest. arrived at the surface, seaton moistened a rod in a wave, and tasted it cautiously, then uttered a yell of joy--a yell broken off abruptly as he heard the sound of his own voice. both girls started as the vibrations set up in the dense air smote upon their eardrums. seaton moderated his voice and continued: "i forgot about the air-pressure. but hurrah for this ocean--it's ammoniacal copper sulphate solution! we can sure get all the copper we want, right here, but it would take weeks to evaporate the water and recover the metal. we can probably get it easier ashore. let's go!" they started off just above the surface of the ocean toward the nearest continent, which they had observed from the air. chapter xiii nalboon of mardonale as the skylark approached the shore, its occupants heard a rapid succession of heavy detonations, apparently coming from the direction in which they were traveling. "wonder what that racket is?" asked seaton. "it sounds like big guns," said crane, and duquesne nodded agreement. "big guns is right. they're shooting high explosive shells, too, or i never heard any. even allowing for the density of the air, that kind of noise isn't made by pop-guns." "let's go see what's doing," and seaton started to walk toward one of the windows with his free, swinging stride. instantly he was a-sprawl, the effort necessary to carry his weight upon the earth's surface lifting him into the air in a succession of ludicrous hops, but he soon recovered himself and walked normally. "i forgot this two-fifths gravity stuff," he laughed. "walk as though we had only a notch of power on and it goes all right. it sure is funny to feel so light when we're so close to the ground." he closed the doors to keep out a part of the noise and advanced the speed lever a little, so that the vessel tilted sharply under the pull of the almost horizontal bar. "go easy," cautioned crane. "we do not want to get in the way of one of their shells. they may be of a different kind than those we are familiar with." "right--easy it is. we'll stay forty miles above them, if necessary." as the great speed of the ship rapidly lessened the distance, the sound grew heavier and clearer--like one continuous explosion. so closely did one deafening concussion follow another that the ear could not distinguish the separate reports. "i see them," simultaneously announced crane, who was seated at one of the forward windows searching the country with his binoculars, and seaton, who, from the pilot's seat, could see in any direction. the others hurried to the windows with their glasses and saw an astonishing sight. "aerial battleships, eight of 'em!" exclaimed seaton, "as big as the idaho. four of 'em are about the same shape as our battleships. no wings--they act like helicopters." "four of them are battleships, right enough, but what about the other four?" asked duquesne. "they are not ships or planes or anything else that i ever heard of." "they are animals," asserted crane. "machines never were and never will be built like that." as the skylark cautiously approached, it was evident to the watchers that four of the contestants were undoubtedly animals. here indeed was a new kind of animal, an animal able to fight on even terms with a first-class battleship! frightful aerial monsters they were. each had an enormous, torpedo-shaped body, with scores of prodigiously long tentacles like those of a devil-fish and a dozen or more great, soaring wings. even at that distance they could see the row of protruding eyes along the side of each monstrous body and the terrible, prow-like beaks tearing through the metal of the warships opposing them. they could see, by the reflection of the light from the many suns, that each monster was apparently covered by scales and joints of some transparent armor. that it was real and highly effective armor there could be no doubt, for each battleship bristled with guns of heavy caliber and each gun was vomiting forth a continuous stream of fire. shells bursting against each of the creatures made one continuous blaze, and the uproar was indescribable--an uninterrupted cataclysm of sound appalling in its intensity. * * * * * the battle was brief. soon all four of the battleships had crumpled to the ground, their crews absorbed by the terrible sucking arms or devoured by the frightful beaks. they did not die in vain--three of the monsters had been blown to atoms by shells which had apparently penetrated their armor. the fourth was pursuing something, which seaton now saw was a fleet of small airships, which had flown away from the scene of conflict. swift as they were, the monster covered three feet to their one. "we can't stand for anything like that," cried seaton, as he threw on the power and the skylark leaped ahead. "get ready to bump him off, mart, when i jerk him away. he acts hard-boiled, so give him a real one--fifty milligrams!" sweeping on with awful speed the monster seized the largest and most gaily decorated plane in his hundred-foot tentacles just as the skylark came within sighting distance. in four practically simultaneous movements seaton sighted the attractor at the ugly beak, released all its power, pointed the main bar of the skylark directly upward, and advanced his speed lever. there was a crash of rending metal as the thing was torn loose from the plane and jerked a hundred miles into the air, struggling so savagely in that invisible and incomprehensible grip that the three-thousand-ton mass of the skylark tossed and pitched like a child's plaything. those inside her heard the sharp, spiteful crack of the machine-gun, and an instant later they heard a report that paralyzed their senses, even inside the vessel and in the thin air of their enormous elevation, as the largest x-plosive bullet prepared by the inventors struck full upon the side of the hideous body. there was no smoke, no gas or vapor of any kind--only a huge volume of intolerable flame as the energy stored within the atoms of copper, instantaneously liberated, heated to incandescence and beyond all the atmosphere within a radius of hundreds of feet. the monster disappeared utterly, and seaton, with unerring hand, reversed the bar and darted back down toward the fleet of airships. he reached them in time to focus the attractor upon the wrecked and helpless plane in the middle of its five-thousand-foot fall and lowered it gently to the ground, surrounded by the fleet. the skylark landed easily beside the wrecked machine, and the wanderers saw that their vessel was completely surrounded by a crowd of people--men and women identical in form and feature with themselves. they were a superbly molded race, the men fully as large as seaton and duquesne; the women, while smaller than the men, were noticeably taller than the two women in the car. the men wore broad collars of metal, numerous metallic ornaments, and heavily-jeweled leather belts and shoulder-straps which were hung with weapons of peculiar patterns. the women carried no weapons, but were even more highly decorated than were the men--each slender, perfectly-formed body scintillated with the brilliance of hundreds of strange gems, flashing points of fire. jeweled bands of metal and leather restrained their carefully-groomed hair; jeweled collars encircled their throats; jeweled belts, jeweled bracelets, jeweled anklets, each added its quota of brilliance to the glittering whole. the strangers wore no clothing, and their smooth skins shone a dark, livid, utterly indescribable color in the peculiar, unearthly, yellowish-bluish-green glare of the light. green their skins undoubtedly were, but not any shade of green visible in the earthly spectrum. the "whites" of their eyes were a light yellowish-green. the heavy hair of the women and the close-cropped locks of the men were green as well--a green so dark as to be almost black, as were also their eyes. "well, what d'you know about that?" pondered seaton, dazedly. "they're human, right enough, but ye gods, what a color!" "it is hard to tell how much of that color is real, and how much of it is due to this light," answered crane. "wait until you get outside, away from our daylight lamps, and you will probably look like a chinese puzzle. as to the form, it is logical to suppose that wherever conditions are similar to those upon the earth, and the age is anywhere nearly the same, development would be along the same lines as with us." "that's right, too. dottie, your hair will sure look gorgeous in this light. let's go out and give the natives a treat!" "i wouldn't look like that for a million dollars!" retorted dorothy, "and if i'm going to look like that i won't get out of the ship, so there!" "cheer up, dottie, you won't look like that. your hair will be black in this light." "then what color will mine be?" asked margaret. seaton glanced at her black hair. "probably a very dark and beautiful green," he grinned, his gray eyes sparkling, "but we'll have to wait and see. friends and fellow-countrymen, i've got a hunch that this is going to be some visit. how about it, shall we go ahead with it?" dorothy went up to him, her face bright with eagerness. "oh, what a lark! let's go!" * * * * * even in duquesne's cold presence, margaret's eyes sought those of her lover, and his sleeve, barely touching her arm, was enough to send a dancing thrill along it. "onward, men of earth!" she cried, and seaton, stepping up to the window, rapped sharply upon the glass with the butt of his pistol and raised both hands high above his head in the universal sign of peace. in response, a man of herculean mold, so splendidly decorated that his harness was one blazing mass of jewels, waved his arm and shouted a command. the crowd promptly fell back, leaving a clear space of several hundred yards. the man, evidently one in high command, unbuckled his harness, dropping every weapon, and advanced toward the skylark, both arms upraised in seaton's gesture. seaton went to the door and started to open it. "better talk to him from inside," cautioned crane. "i don't think so, mart. he's peaceable, and i've got my gun in my pocket. since he doesn't know what clothes are he'll think i'm unarmed, which is as it should be; and if he shows fight, it won't take more than a week for me to get into action." "all right, go on. duquesne and i will come along." "absolutely not. he's alone, so i've got to be. i notice that some of his men are covering us, though. you might do the same for them, with a couple of the machine guns." seaton stepped out of the car and went to meet the stranger. when they had approached to within a few feet of each other the stranger stopped. he flexed his left arm smartly, so that the finger-tips touched his left ear, and smiled broadly, exposing a row of splendid, shining, green teeth. then he spoke, a meaningless jumble of sounds. his voice, though light and thin, nevertheless seemed to be of powerful timbre. seaton smiled in return and saluted. "hello, chief. i get your idea all right, and we're glad you're peaceable, but your language doesn't mean a thing in my young life." the chief tapped himself upon the chest, saying distinctly and impressively: "nalboon." "nalboon," repeated seaton, and added, pointing to himself: "seaton." "see tin," answered the stranger, and again indicating himself, "domak gok mardonale." "that must be his title," thought seaton rapidly. "have to give myself one, i guess." "boss of the road," he replied, drawing himself up with pride. the introduction made, nalboon pointed to the wrecked plane, inclined his head in thanks, and turned to his people with one arm upraised, shouting an order in which seaton could distinguish something that sounded like "see tin, bass uvvy rood." instantly every right arm in the assemblage was aloft, that of each man bearing a weapon, while the left arms snapped into the peculiar salute and a mighty cry arose as all repeated the name and title of the distinguished visitor. seaton turned to the skylark, motioning to crane to open the door. "bring out one of those big four-color signal rockets, mart!" he called. "they're giving us a royal reception--let's acknowledge it right." * * * * * the party appeared, crane carrying the huge rocket with an air of deference. as they approached, seaton shrugged one shoulder and his cigarette-case appeared in his hand. nalboon started, and in spite of his utmost efforts at self-control, he glanced at it in surprise. the case flew open and seaton, taking a cigarette, extended the case. "smoke?" he asked affably. the other took one, but showed plainly that he had no idea of the use to which it was to be put. this astonishment of the stranger at a simple sleight-of-hand feat and his apparent ignorance of tobacco emboldened seaton. reaching into his mouth, he pulled out a flaming match, at which nalboon started violently. while all the natives watched in amazement, seaton lighted the cigarette, and after half consuming it in two long inhalations, he apparently swallowed the remainder, only to bring it to light again. having smoked it, he apparently swallowed the butt, with evident relish. "they don't know anything about matches or smoking," he said, turning to crane. "this rocket will tie them up in a knot. step back, everybody." he bowed deeply to nalboon, pulling a lighted match from his ear as he did so, and lighted the fuse. there was a roar, a shower of sparks, a blaze of colored fire as the great rocket flew upward; but to seaton's surprise, nalboon took it quite as a matter of course, saluting as an acknowledgment of the courtesy. seaton motioned to his party to approach, and turned to crane. "better not, dick. let him think that you are the king of everything in sight." "not on your life. if he is one king, we are two," and he introduced crane, with great ceremony, to the domak as the "boss of the skylark," at which the salute by his people was repeated. nalboon then shouted an order and a company of soldiers led by an officer came toward them, surrounding a small group of people, apparently prisoners. these captives, seven men and seven women, were much lighter in color than the rest of the gathering, having skins of a ghastly, pale shade, practically the same color as the whites of their eyes. in other bodily aspects they were the same as their captors in appearance, save that they were entirely naked except for the jeweled metal collars worn by all and a massive metal belt worn by one man. they walked with a proud and lofty carriage, scorn for their captors in every step. nalboon barked an order to the prisoners. they stared in defiance, motionless, until the man wearing the belt who had studied seaton closely, spoke a few words in a low tone, when they all prostrated themselves. nalboon then waved his hand, giving the whole group to seaton as slaves. seaton, with no sign of his surprise, thanked the giver and motioned his slaves to rise. they obeyed and placed themselves behind the party--two men and two women behind seaton and the same number behind crane; one man and one woman behind each of the others. seaton then tried to make nalboon understand that they wanted copper, pointing to his anklet, the only copper in sight. the chief instantly removed the trinket and handed it to seaton; who, knowing by the gasp of surprise of the guard that it was some powerful symbol, returned it with profuse apologies. after trying in vain to make the other understand what he wanted, he led him into the skylark and showed him the remnant of the power-bar. he showed him its original size and indicated the desired number by counting to sixteen upon his fingers. nalboon nodded his comprehension and going outside, pointed upward toward the largest of the eleven suns visible, motioning its rising and setting, four times. he then invited the visitors, in unmistakable sign language, to accompany him as guests of honor, but seaton refused. "lead on, macduff, we follow," he replied, explaining his meaning by signs as they turned to enter the vessel. the slaves followed closely until crane remonstrated. "we don't want them aboard, do we, dick? there are too many of them." "all right," seaton replied, and waved them away. as they stepped back the guard seized the nearest, a woman, and forced her to her knees; while a man, adorned with a necklace of green human teeth and carrying a shining broadsword, prepared to decapitate her. "we must take them with us, i see," said crane, as he brushed the guards aside. followed by the slaves, the party entered the skylark, and the dark green people embarked in their airplanes and helicopters. nalboon rode in a large and gaily-decorated plane, which led the fleet at its full speed of six hundred miles an hour, the skylark taking a placing a few hundred yards above the flagship. "i don't get these folks at all, mart," said seaton, after a moment's silence. "they have machines far ahead of anything we have on earth and big guns that shoot as fast as machine-guns, and yet are scared to death at a little simple sleight-of-hand. they don't seem to understand matches at all, and yet treat fire-works as an every-day occurrence." "we will have to wait until we know them better," replied crane, and duquesne added: "from what i have seen, their power seems to be all electrical. perhaps they aren't up with us in chemistry, even though they are ahead of us in mechanics?" * * * * * flying above a broad, but rapid and turbulent stream, the fleet soon neared a large city, and the visitors from earth gazed with interest at this metropolis of the unknown world. the buildings were all the same height, flat-roofed, and arranged in squares very much as our cities are arranged. there were no streets, the spaces between the buildings being park-like areas, evidently laid out for recreation, amusement, and sport. there was no need for streets; all traffic was in the air. the air seemed full of flying vehicles, darting in all directions, but it was soon evident that there was exact order in the apparent confusion, each class of vessel and each direction of traffic having its own level. eagerly the three men studied the craft, which ranged in size from one-man helicopters, little more than single chairs flying about in the air, up to tremendous multiplane freighters, capable of carrying thousands of tons. flying high over the city to avoid its congested air-lanes, the fleet descended toward an immense building just outside the city proper, and all landed upon its roof save the flagship, which led the skylark to a landing-dock nearby--a massive pile of metal and stone, upon which nalboon and his retinue stood to welcome the guests. after seaton had anchored the vessel immovably by means of the attractor, the party disembarked, seaton remarking with a grin: "don't be surprised at anything i do, folks. i'm a walking storehouse of junk of all kinds, so that if occasion arises i can put on a real exhibition." as they turned toward their host, a soldier, in his eagerness to see the strangers, jostled another. without a word two keen swords flew from their scabbards and a duel to the death ensued. the visitors stared in amazement, but no one else paid any attention to the combat, which was soon over; the victor turning away from the body of his opponent and resuming his place without creating a ripple of interest. nalboon led the way into an elevator, which dropped rapidly to the ground-floor level. massive gates were thrown open, and through ranks of people prostrate upon their faces the party went out into the palace grounds of the domak, or emperor, of the great nation of mardonale. never before had earthly eyes rested upon such scenes of splendor. every color and gradation of their peculiar spectrum was present, in solid, liquid, and gas. the carefully-tended trees were all colors of the rainbow, as were the grasses and flowers along the walks. the fountains played streams of many and constantly-changing hues, and even the air was tinted and perfumed, swirling through metal arches in billows of ever-varying colors and scents. colors and combinations of colors impossible to describe were upon every hand, fantastically beautiful in that peculiar, livid light. diamonds and rubies, their colors so distorted by the green radiance as to be almost unrecognizable; emeralds glowing with an intense green impossible in earthly light, together with strange gems peculiar to this strange world, sparkled and flashed from railings, statues, and pedestals throughout the ground. "isn't this gorgeous, dick?" whispered dorothy. "but what do i look like? i wish i had a mirror--you look simply awful. do i look like you do?" "not being able to see myself, i can't say, but i imagine you do. you look as you would under a county-fair photographer's mercury-vapor arc lamps, only worse. the colors can't be described. you might as well try to describe cerise to a man born blind as to try to express these colors in english, but as near as i can come to it, your eyes are a dark sort of purplish green, with the whites of your eyes and your teeth a kind of plush green. your skin is a pale yellowish green, except for the pink of your cheeks, which is a kind of black, with orange and green mixed up in it. your lips are black, and your hair is a funny kind of color, halfway between black and old rose, with a little green and...." "heavens, dick, stop! that's enough!" choked dorothy. "we all look like hobgoblins. we're even worse than the natives." "sure we are. they were born here and are acclimated to it--we are strangers and aren't. i would like to see what one of these people would look like in washington." * * * * * nalboon led them into the palace proper and into a great dining hall, where a table was already prepared for the entire party. this room was splendidly decorated with jewels, its many windows being simply masses of gems. the walls were hung with a cloth resembling silk, which fell to the floor in shimmering waves of color. woodwork there was none. doors, panels, tables, and chairs were cunningly wrought of various metals. seaton and duquesne could recognize a few of them, but for the most part they were unknown upon the earth; and were, like the jewels and vegetation of this strange world, of many and various peculiar colors. a closer inspection of one of the marvelous tapestries showed that it also was of metal, its threads numbering thousands to the inch. woven of many different metals, of vivid but harmonious colors in a strange and intricate design, it seemed to writhe as its colors changed with every variation in the color of the light; which, pouring from concealed sources, was reflected by the highly-polished metal and innumerable jewels of the lofty, domed ceiling. "oh ... isn't this too perfectly gorgeous?" breathed dorothy. "i'd give anything for a dress made out of that stuff, dick. cloth-of-gold is common by comparison!" "would you dare wear it, dottie?" asked margaret. "_would_ i? i'd wear it in a minute if i could only get it. it would take washington by storm!" "i'll try to get a piece of it, then," smiled seaton. "i'll see about it while we are getting the copper." "we'd better be careful in choosing what we eat here, seaton," suggested duquesne, as the domak himself led them to the table. "we sure had. with a copper ocean and green teeth, i shouldn't be surprised if copper, arsenic, and other such trifles formed a regular part of their diet." "the girls and i will wait for you two chemists to approve every dish before we try it, then," said crane. nalboon placed his guests, the light-skinned slaves standing at attention behind them, and numerous servants, carrying great trays, appeared. the servants were intermediate in color between the light and the dark races, with dull, unintelligent faces, but quick and deft in their movements. the first course--a thin, light wine, served in metal goblets--was approved by the chemists, and the dinner was brought on. there were mighty joints of various kinds of meat; birds and fish, both raw and cooked in many ways; green, pink, purple, and white vegetables and fruits. the majordomo held each dish up to seaton for inspection, the latter waving away the fish and the darkest green foods, but approving the others. heaping plates, or rather metal trays, of food were placed before the diners, and the attendants behind their chairs handed them peculiar implements--knives with razor edges, needle-pointed stilettoes instead of forks, and wide, flexible spatulas, which evidently were to serve the purposes of both forks and spoons. "i simply can't eat with these things!" exclaimed dorothy in dismay, "and i don't like to drink soup out of a can, so there!" "that's where my lumberjack training comes in handy," grinned seaton. "with this spatula i can eat faster than i could with two forks. what do you want, girls, forks or spoons, or both?" "both, please." seaton reached out over the table, seizing forks and spoons from the air and passing them to the others, while the natives stared in surprise. the domak took a bowl filled with brilliant blue crystals from the major-domo, sprinkled his food liberally with the substance, and passed it to seaton, who looked at the crystals attentively. "copper sulphate," he said to crane. "it's a good thing they add it at the table instead of cooking with it, or we'd be out of luck." waving the copper sulphate away, he again reached out, this time producing a pair of small salt-and pepper-shakers, which he passed to the domak after he had seasoned the dishes before him. nalboon tasted the pepper cautiously and smiled in delight, half-emptying the shaker upon his plate. he then sprinkled a few grains of salt into his palm, stared at them with an expression of doubting amazement, and after a few rapid sentences poured them into a dish held by an officer who had sprung to his side. the officer studied them closely, then carefully washed his chief's hand. nalboon turned to seaton, plainly asking for the salt-cellar. "sure, old top. keep 'em both, there's lots more where those came from," as he produced several more sets in the same mysterious way and handed them to crane, who in turn passed them to the others. * * * * * the meal progressed merrily, with much conversation in the sign-language between the two parties. it was evident that nalboon, usually stern and reticent, was in an unusually pleasant mood. the viands, though of peculiar flavor, were in the main pleasing to the palates of the earthly visitors. "this fruit salad, or whatever it is, is divine," remarked dorothy, after an experimental bite. "may we eat as much as we like, or had we better just eat a little?" "go as far as you like," returned her lover. "i wouldn't recommend it, as a steady diet, as i imagine everything contains copper and other heavy metals in noticeable amounts, and probably considerable arsenic, but for a few days it can't very well hurt us much." after the meal, nalboon bade them a ceremonious farewell, and they were escorted to a series of five connecting rooms by the royal usher, escorted by an entire company of soldiers, who mounted guard outside the doors. gathered in one room, they discussed sleeping arrangements. the girls insisted that they would sleep together, and that the men should occupy the rooms at either side. as the girls turned away, the four slaves followed. "we don't want these people, and i can't make them go away!" cried dorothy. "i don't want them, either," replied seaton, "but if we chase them out they'll get their heads chopped off. you girls take the women and we'll take the men." seaton waved all the women into the girls' room, but they paused irresolutely. one of them went up to the man wearing the metal belt, evidently their leader, and spoke to him rapidly as she threw her arms around his neck. he shook his head, motioning toward seaton several times as he spoke to her reassuringly. with his arm about her tenderly, he led her to the door, the other women following. crane and duquesne having gone to their rooms with their attendants, the man wearing the belt drew the blinds and turned to assist seaton in taking off his clothes. "i never had a valet before, but go as far as you like if it pleases you," remarked seaton, as he began to throw off his clothes. a multitude of small articles fell from their hiding-places in his garments as he removed them. almost stripped, seaton stretched vigorously, the muscles writhing and rippling in great ridges under the satin skin of his broad back and mighty arms and shoulders as he filled his capacious lungs and twisted about, working off the stiffness caused by the days of comparative confinement. the four slaves stared in open-mouthed astonishment at this display of muscular development and conversed among themselves as they gathered up seaton's discarded clothing. their leader picked up a salt-shaker, a couple of silver knives and forks, and some other articles, and turned to seaton, apparently asking permission to do something with them. seaton nodded assent carelessly and turned to his bed. as he did so, he heard a slight clank of arms in the hall as the guard was changed, and lifting the blind a trifle he saw that guards were stationed outside as well. as he went to bed, he wondered whether the guards were guards of honor or jailers; whether he and his party were honored guests or prisoners. three of the slaves, at a word from their chief, threw themselves upon the floor and slept, but he himself did not rest. opening the apparently solid metal belt, he took out a great number of small tools, many tiny instruments, and several spools of insulated wire. he then took the articles seaton had given him, taking great pains not to spill a single grain of salt, and set to work. hour after hour he labored, a strange, exceedingly complex instrument taking form under his clever fingers. +--------------------------------------+ | | | _by the time you finish reading the | | final instalment of "the skylark of | | space," we are certain that you will | | agree with us that it is one of the | | outstanding scienti-fiction stories | | of the decade; an interplanetarian | | story that will not be eclipsed | | soon. it will be referred to by all | | scienti-fiction fans for years to | | come. it will be read and reread. | | this is not a mere prophecy of ours, | | because we have been deluged with | | letters since we began publishing | | this story. in the closing chapters, | | you will follow the adventures with | | bated breath, and you will find that | | though the two preceding instalments | | were hair-raising and thought | | absorbing, the final instalment | | eclipses the others a good deal. | | plots, counterplots, hair-raising | | and hair-breadth escapes, mixed with | | love, adventure and good science | | seem to fairly tumble all over the | | pages. by the time you finish this | | instalment, you will wish to go back | | to the beginning of the story and | | read it more carefully and thrill | | all over again._ | | | +--------------------------------------+ chapter xiv nalboon unmasked after a long, sound sleep, seaton awoke and sprang out of bed. no sooner had he started to shave, however, than one of the slaves touched his arm, motioning him into a reclining chair and showing him a keen blade, long and slightly curved. seaton lay down and the slave shaved him with a rapidity and smoothness he had never before experienced, so wonderfully sharp was the peculiar razor. after seaton had dressed, the barber started to shave the chief slave, without any preliminary treatment save rubbing his face with a perfumed oil. "hold on a minute," interjected seaton, who was watching the process with interest, "here's something that helps a lot." he lathered the face with his brush and the man looked up in surprised pleasure as his stiff beard was swept away without a sound. seaton called to the others and soon the party was assembled in his room, all dressed very lightly, because of the unrelieved and unvarying heat, which was constant at one hundred degrees. a gong sounded, and one of the slaves opened the door, ushering in a party of servants bearing a table, ready set. during the meal, seaton was greatly surprised at hearing dorothy carrying on a halting conversation, with one of the women standing behind her. "i knew that you were a language shark, dottie, with five or six different ones to your credit, but i didn't suppose you could learn to talk this stuff in one day." "i can't," she replied, "but i've picked up a few words of it. i can understand very little of what they are trying to tell me." the woman spoke rapidly to the man standing behind seaton, and as soon as the table had been carried away, he asked permission to speak to dorothy. fairly running across to her, he made a slight obeisance and in eager tones poured forth such a stream of language that she held up her hand to silence him. "go slower, please," she said, and added a couple of words in his own tongue. there ensued a strange dialogue, with many repetitions and much use of signs. she turned to seaton, with a puzzled look. "i can't make out all he says, dick, but he wants you to take him into another room of the palace here, to get back something or other that they took from him when they captured him. he can't go alone--i think he says he will be killed if he goes anywhere without you. and he says that when you get there, you must be sure not to let the guards come inside." "all right, let's go!" and seaton motioned the man to precede him. as seaton started for the door, dorothy fell into step beside him. "better stay back, dottie, i'll be back in a minute," he said at the door. "i will not stay back. wherever you go, i go," she replied in a voice inaudible to the others. "i simply will not stay away from you a single minute that i don't have to." "all right, little girl," he replied in the same tone. "i don't want to be away from you, either, and i don't think that we're in any danger here." preceded by the chief slave and followed by half a dozen others, they went out into the hall. no opposition was made to their progress, but a full half-company of armed guards fell in around them as an escort, regarding seaton with looks composed of equal parts of reverence and fear. the slave led the way rapidly to a room in a distant wing of the palace and opened the door. as seaton stepped in, he saw that it was evidently an audience-chamber or court-room, and that it was now entirely empty. as the guard approached the door, seaton waved them back. all retreated across the hall except the officer in charge, who refused to move. seaton, the personification of offended dignity, first stared at the offender, who returned the stare, and stepped up to him insolently, then pushed him back roughly, forgetting that his strength, great upon earth, would be gigantic upon this smaller world. the officer spun across the corridor, knocking down three of his men in his flight. picking himself up, he drew his sword and rushed, while his men fled in panic to the extreme end of the corridor. seaton did not wait for him, but in one bound leaped half-way across the intervening space to meet him. with the vastly superior agility of his earthly muscles he dodged the falling broadsword and drove his left fist full against the fellow's chin, with all the force of his mighty arm and all the momentum of his rapidly moving body behind the blow. the crack of breaking bones was distinctly audible as the officer's head snapped back. the force of the blow lifted him high into the air, and after turning a complete somersault, he brought up with a crash against the opposite wall, dropping to the floor stone dead. as several of his men, braver than the others, lifted their peculiar rifles, seaton drew and fired in one incredibly swift motion, the x-plosive bullet obliterating the entire group of men and demolishing that end of the palace. * * * * * in the meantime the slave had taken several pieces of apparatus from a cabinet in the room and had placed them in his belt. stopping only to observe for a few moments a small instrument which he clamped upon the head of the dead man, he rapidly led the way back to the room they had left and set to work upon the instrument he had constructed while the others had been asleep. he connected it, in an intricate system of wiring, with the pieces of apparatus he had just recovered. "that's a complex job of wiring," said duquesne admiringly. "i've seen several intricate pieces of apparatus myself, but he has so many circuits there that i'm lost. it would take an hour to figure out the lines and connections alone." straightening abruptly, the slave clamped several electrodes upon his temples and motioned to seaton and the others, speaking to dorothy as he did so. "he wants us to let him put those things on our heads," she translated. "shall we let him, dick?" "yes," he replied without hesitation. "i've got a real hunch that he's our friend, and i'm not sure of nalboon. he doesn't act right." "i think so, too," agreed the girl, and crane added: "i can't say that i relish the idea, but since i know that you are a good poker player, dick, i am willing to follow your hunch. how about you, duquesne?" "not i," declared that worthy, emphatically. "nobody wires me up to anything i can't understand, and that machine is too deep for me." margaret elected to follow crane's example, and, impressed by the need for haste evident in the slave's bearing, the four walked up to the machine without further talk. the electrodes were clamped into place quickly and the slave pressed a lever. instantly the four visitors felt that they had a complete understanding of the languages and customs of both mardonale, the nation in which they now were, and of kondal, to which nation the slaves belonged, the only two civilized nations upon osnome. while the look of amazement at this method of receiving instruction was still upon their faces, the slave--or rather, as they now knew him, dunark, the kofedix or crown prince of the great nation of kondal--began to disconnect the wires. he cut out the wires leading to the two girls and to crane, and was reaching for seaton's, when there was a blinding flash, a crackling sound, the heavy smoke of burning metal and insulation, and both dunark and seaton fell to the floor. before crane could reach them, however, they were upon their feet and the stranger said in his own tongue, now understood by every one but duquesne: "this machine is a mechanical educator, a thing entirely new, in our world at least. although i have been working on it for a long time, it is still in a very crude form. i did not like to use it in its present state of development, but it was necessary in order to warn you of what nalboon is going to do to you, and to convince you that the best way of saving your lives would save our lives as well. the machine worked perfectly until something, i don't know what, went wrong. instead of stopping, as it should have done, at teaching your party to speak our languages, it short-circuited us two completely, so that every convolution in each of our brains has been imprinted upon the brain of the other. it was the sudden formation of all the new convolutions that rendered us unconscious. i can only apologize for the break-down, and assure you that my intentions were of the best." "you needn't apologize," returned seaton. "that was a wonderful performance, and we're both gainers, anyway, aren't we? it has taken us all our lives to learn what little we know, and now we each have the benefit of two lifetimes, spent upon different worlds! i must admit, though, that i have a whole lot of knowledge that i don't know how to use." "i am glad you take it that way," returned the other warmly, "for i am infinitely the better off for the exchange. the knowledge i imparted was nothing, compared to that which i received. but time presses--i must tell you our situation. i am, as you now know, the kofedix of kondal. the other thirteen are fedo and fediro, or, as you would say, princes and princesses of the same nation. we were captured by one of nalboon's raiding parties while upon a hunting trip, being overcome by some new, stupefying gas, so that we could not kill ourselves. as you know, kondal and mardonale have been at war for over ten thousand karkamo--something more than six thousand years of your time. the war between us is one of utter extermination. captives are never exchanged and only once during an ordinary lifetime does one ever escape. our attendants were killed immediately. we were being taken to furnish sport for nalboon's party by being fed to one of his captive kolono--animals something like your earthly devilfish--when the escort of battleships was overcome by those four karlono, the animals you saw, and one of them seized nalboon's plane, in which we were prisoners. you killed the karlon, saving our lives as well as those of nalboon and his party. * * * * * "having saved his life, you and your party should be honored guests of the most honored kind, and i venture to say that you would be so regarded in any other nation of the universe. but nalboon, the domak--a title equivalent to your word 'emperor' and our word 'karfedix'--of mardonale, is utterly without either honor or conscience, as are all mardonalians. at first he was afraid of you, as were we all. we thought you visitors from a planet of our fifteenth sun, which is now at its nearest possible approach to us. after your display of superhuman power and ability, we expected instant annihilation. however, after seeing the skylark as a machine, discovering that you are short of power, and finding that you are gentle instead of bloodthirsty by nature, nalboon lost his fear of you and resolved to rob you of your vessel, with its wonderful secrets of power. though we are so ignorant of chemistry that i cannot understand the thousandth part of what i just learned from you, we are a race of mechanics and have developed machines of many kinds to a high state of efficiency, including electrical machines of all kinds. in fact, electricity, generated by our great waterfalls, is our only power. no scientist upon osnome has ever had an inkling that intra-atomic energy exists. nalboon cannot understand the power, but he solved the means of liberating it at a glance--and that glance sealed your death-warrants. with the skylark, he could conquer kondal, and to assure the downfall of my nation he would do anything. "also, he or any other osnomian scientist would go to any lengths whatever--would challenge the great first cause itself--to secure even one of those little bottles of the chemical you call 'salt.' it is far and away the scarcest and most precious substance in the world. it is so rare that those bottles you produced at the table held more than the total amount previously known to exist upon osnome. we have great abundance of all the heavy metals, but the lighter metals are rare. sodium and chlorin are the rarest of all known elements. its immense value is due, not to its rarity, but to the fact that it is an indispensable component of the controlling instruments of our wireless power stations and that it is used as a catalyst in the manufacture of our hardest metals. "for these reasons, you understand why nalboon does not intend to let you escape and why he intends that this kokam (our equivalent of a day) shall be your last. about the second or third kam (hour) of the sleeping period he intends to break into the skylark, learn its control, and secure the salt you undoubtedly have in the vessel. then my party and myself will be thrown to the kolon. you and your party will be killed and your bodies smelted to recover the salt that is in them. this is the warning i had to give you. its urgency explains the use of my untried mechanical educator; the hope that my party could escape with yours, in your vessel, explains why you saw me, the kofedix of kondal, prostrate myself before that arch-fiend nalboon." "how do you, a captive prince of another nation, know these things?" asked crane, doubtfully. "i read nalboon's ideas from the brain of that officer whom the karfedix seaton killed. he was a ladex of the guards--an officer of about the same rank as one of your colonels. he was high in nalboon's favor, and he was to have been in charge of the work of breaking into the skylark and killing us all. let me caution you now; do not let any mardonalian touch our hands with a wire, for if you do, your thoughts will be recorded and the secrets of the skylark and your many other mysterious things, such as smoking, matches, and magic feats, will be secrets no longer." "thanks for the information," responded seaton, "but i want to correct your title for me. i'm no karfedix--merely a plain citizen." "in one way i see that that is true," replied the kofedix with a puzzled look. "i cannot understand your government at all--but the inventor of the skylark must certainly rank as a karfedix." as he spoke, a smile of understanding passed over his face and he continued: "i see. your title is doctor of philosophy, which must mean that you are the karfedix of knowledge of the earth." "no, no. you're way off. i'm...." "certainly seaton is the karfedix of knowledge," broke in duquesne. "let it go at that, anyway, whatever it means. the thing to do now is to figure a way out of this." "you chirped it then, blackie. dunark, you know this country better than we do; what do you suggest?" "i suggest that you take my party into the skylark and escape from mardonale as soon as possible. i can pilot you to kondalek, the capital city of our nation. there, i can assure you, you will be welcomed as you deserve. my father, the karfedix, will treat you as a karfedix should be treated. as far as i am concerned, nothing i can ever do will lighten the burden of my indebtedness to you, but i promise you all the copper you want, and anything else you may desire that is within the power of man to give you." * * * * * seaton thought deeply a moment, then shook dunark's hand vigorously. "that suits me, kofedix," he said warmly. "i thought from the first that you were our friend. shall we make for the skylark right now, or wait a while?" "we had better wait until after the second meal," the prince replied. "we have no armor, and no way of making any. we would be helpless against the bullets of any except a group small enough so that you could kill them all before they could fire. the kam after the second meal is devoted to strolling about the grounds, so that our visiting the skylark would look perfectly natural. as the guard is very lax at that time, it is the best time for the attempt." "but how about my killing his company of guards and blowing up one wing of his palace? won't he have something to say about that?" "i don't know," replied the kofedix doubtfully. "it depends upon whether his fear of you or his anger is the greater. he should pay his call of state here in your apartment in a short time, as it is the inviolable rule of osnome, that any visitor shall receive a call of state from one of his own rank before leaving his apartment for the first time. his actions may give you some idea as to his feelings, though he is an accomplished diplomat and may conceal his real feelings entirely. but let me caution you not to be modest or soft-spoken. he will mistake softness for fear." "all right," grinned seaton. "in that case i won't wait to try to find out what he thinks. if he shows any signs of hostility at all, i'll open up on him." "well," remarked crane, calmly, "if we have some time to spare, we may as well wait comfortably instead of standing in the middle of the room. i, for one, have a lot of questions to ask about this new world." acting upon this suggestion, the party seated themselves upon comfortable divans, and dunark rapidly dismantled the machine he had constructed. the captives remained standing, always behind the visitors until seaton remonstrated. "please sit down, everybody. there's no need of keeping up this farce of your being slaves as long as we're alone, is there, dunark?" "no, but at the first sound of the gong announcing a visitor we must be in our places. now that we are all comfortable and waiting, i will introduce my party to yours. "fellow kondalians, greet the karfedo seaton and crane," he began, his tongue fumbling over the strange names, "of a distant world, the earth, and the two noble ladies, miss vaneman and miss spencer, soon to be their karfediro. "guests from earth, allow me to present to you the kofedir sitar, the only one of my wives who accompanied me upon our ill-fated hunting expedition." then, still ignoring duquesne as a captive, he introduced the other kondolians in turn as his brothers, sisters, cousins, nieces, and nephews--all members of the great ruling house of kondal. "now," he concluded, "after i have a word with you in private, doctor seaton, i will be glad to give the others all the information in my power." he led seaton out of earshot of the others and said in a low voice: "it is no part of nalboon's plan to kill the two women. they are so beautiful, so different from our osnomian women, that he intends to keep them--alive. understand?" "yes," returned seaton grimly, his eyes turning hard, "i get you all right--but what he'll do and what he thinks he'll do are two entirely different breeds of cats." returning to the others, they found dorothy and sitar deep in conversation. "so a man has half a dozen or so wives?" dorothy was asking in surprise. "how do you get along together? i'd fight like a wildcat if my husband tried to have other wives!" "we get along splendidly, of course," returned the osnomian princess in equal surprise. "i would not think of being a man's only wife. i wouldn't consider marrying a man who could win only one wife--think what a disgrace it would be! and think how lonely one would be while her husband is away at war--we would go insane if we did not have the company of the other wives. there are six of us, and we could not get along at all without each other." "i've got a compliment for you and peggy, dottie," said seaton. "dunark here thinks that you two girls look good enough to eat--or words to that effect." both girls flushed slightly, the purplish-black color suffusing their faces. they glanced at each other and dorothy voiced the thought of both as she said: "how can you, kofedix dunark? in this horrible light we both look perfectly dreadful. these other girls would be beautiful, if we were used to the colors, but we two look simply hideous." "oh, no," interrupted sitar. "you have a wonderfully rich coloring. it is a shame to hide so much of yourselves with robes." "their eyes interpret colors differently than ours do," explained seaton. "what to us are harsh and discordant colors are light and pleasing to their eyes. what looks like a kind of sloppy greenish black to us may--in fact, does--look a pale pink to them." "are kondal and mardonale the only two nations upon osnome?" asked crane. "the only civilized nations, yes. osnome is divided into two great and almost equal continents, separated by a wide ocean which encircles the globe. one is kondal, the other mardonale. each nation has several nations or tribes of savages, which inhabit various waste places." * * * * * "you are the light race, mardonale the dark," continued crane. "what are the servants, who seem half-way between?" "they are slaves...." "captured savages?" interrupted dorothy. "no. they are a separate race. they are a race so low in intelligence that they cannot exist except as slaves, but they can be trained to understand language and to do certain kinds of work. they are harmless and mild, making excellent servants, otherwise they would have perished ages ago. all menial work and most of the manual labor is done by the slave race. formerly criminals were sterilized and reduced to unwilling slavery, but there have been no unwilling slaves in kondal for hundreds of karkamo." "why? are there no criminals any more?" "no. with the invention of the thought recorder an absolutely fair trial was assured and the guilty were all convicted. they could not reproduce themselves, and as a natural result crime died out." "that is," he added hastily, "what we regard as crime. duelling, for instance, is a crime upon earth; here it is a regular custom. in kondal duels are rather rare and are held only when honor is involved, but here in mardonale they are an every-day affair, as you saw when you landed." "what makes the difference?" asked dorothy curiously. "as you know, with us every man is a soldier. in kondal we train our youth in courage, valor, and high honor--in mardonale they train them in savage blood-thirstiness alone. each nation fixed its policy in bygone ages to produce the type of soldier it thought most efficient." "i notice that everyone here wears those heavy collars," said margaret. "what are they for?" "they are identification marks. when a child is nearly grown, a collar bearing his name and the device of his house is cast about his neck. this collar is made of 'arenak,' a synthetic metal which, once formed, cannot be altered by any usual means. it cannot be scratched, cut, bent, broken, or worked in any way except at such a high temperature that death would result, if such heat were applied to the collar. once the arenak collar is cast about a person's neck he is identified for life, and any adult osnomian not wearing a collar is put to death." "that must be an interesting metal," remarked crane. "is your belt a similar mark?" "this belt is an idea of my own," and dunark smiled broadly. "it looks like opaque arenak, but isn't. it is merely a pouch in which i carry anything i am particularly interested in. even nalboon thought it was arenak, so he didn't trouble to try to open it. if he had opened it and taken my tools and instruments, i couldn't have built the educator." "is that transparent armor arenak?" "yes, the only difference being that nothing is added to the matrix to color or make opaque the finished metal. it is in the preparation of this metal that salt is indispensable. it acts only as a catalyst, being recovered afterward, but neither nation has ever had enough salt to make all the armor they want." "aren't those monsters--karlono, i think you called them--covered by the same thing? and what are those animals, anyway?" dorothy asked. "yes, they are armored with arenak, and it is thought that the beasts grow it, the same as fishes grow scales. the karlono are the most frightful scourge of osnome. very little is known of them, though every scientist has theorized upon them since time immemorial. it is very seldom that one is ever killed, as they easily outfly our swiftest battleships, and only fight when they can be victorious. to kill one requires a succession of the heaviest high-explosive shells in the same spot, a joint in the armor; and after the armor is once penetrated, the animal is blown into such small fragments that reconstruction is impossible. from such remains it has been variously described as a bird, a beast, a fish, and a vegetable; sexual, asexual, and hermaphroditic. its habitat is unknown, it being variously supposed to live high in the air, deep in the ocean, and buried in the swamps. another theory is that they live upon one of our satellites, which encounters our belt of atmosphere every karkam. nothing is certainly known about the monsters except their terrible destructiveness and their insatiable appetites. one of them will devour five or six airships at one time, absorbing the crews and devouring the cargo and all of the vessels except the very hardest of the metal parts." "do they usually go in groups?" asked crane. "if they do, i should think that a fleet of warships would be necessary for every party." "no, they are almost always found alone. only very rarely are two found together. this is the first time in history that more than two have ever been seen together. two battleships can always defeat one karlon, so they are never attacked. with four battleships nalboon considered his expedition perfectly safe, especially as they are now rare. the navies hunted down and killed what was supposed to be the last one upon osnome more than a karkam ago, and none have been seen since, until we were attacked...." * * * * * the gong over the door sounded and the kondalians leaped to their positions back of the earthly visitors. the kofedix went to the door. nalboon brushed him aside and entered, escorted by a full company of heavily-armed soldiery. a scowl of anger was upon his face and he was plainly in an ugly mood. "stop, nalboon of mardonale!" thundered seaton in the mardonalian tongue and with the full power of his mighty voice. "dare you invade my privacy unannounced and without invitation?" the escort shrank back, but the domak stood his ground, although he was plainly taken aback. with an apparent effort he smoothed his face into lines of cordiality. "i merely came to inquire why my guards are slain and my palace destroyed by my honored guest?" "as for slaying your guards, they sought to invade my privacy. i warned them away, but one of them was foolish enough to try to kill me. then the others attempted to raise their childish rifles against me, and i was obliged to destroy them. as for the wall, it happened to be in the way of the thought-waves i hurled against your guards--consequently it was demolished. an honored guest! bah! are honored guests put to the indignity of being touched by the filthy hands of a mere ladex?" "you do not object to the touch of slaves!" with a wave of his hand toward the kondalians. "that is what slaves are for," coldly. "is a domak to wait upon himself in the court of mardonale? but to return to the issue. were i an honored guest this would never have happened. know, nalboon, that when you attempt to treat a visiting domak of my race as a low-born captive, you must be prepared to suffer the consequences of your rashness!" "may i ask how you, so recently ignorant, know our language?" "you question me? that is bold! know that i, the boss of the road, show ignorance or knowledge, when and where i please. you may go." chapter xv the escape from mardonale "that was a wonderful bluff, dick!" exclaimed the kofedix in english as soon as nalboon and his guards had disappeared. "that was exactly the tone to take with him, too--you've sure got him guessing!" "it seemed to get him, all right, but i'm wondering how long it'll hold him. i think we'd better make a dash for the skylark right now, before he has time to think it over, don't you?" "that is undoubtedly the best way," dunark replied, lapsing into his own tongue. "nalboon is plainly in awe of you now, but if i understand him at all, he is more than ever determined to seize your vessel, and every darkam's delay is dangerous." the earth-people quickly secured the few personal belongings they had brought with them. stepping out into the hall and waving away the guards, seaton motioned dunark to lead the way. the other captives fell in behind, as they had done before, and the party walked boldly toward the door of the palace. the guards offered no opposition, but stood at attention and saluted as they passed. as they approached the entrance, however, seaton saw the major-domo hurrying away and surmised that he was carrying the news to nalboon. outside the door, walking directly toward the landing dock, dunark spoke in a low voice to seaton, without turning. "nalboon knows by this time that we are making our escape, and it will be war to the death from here to the skylark. i do not think there will be any pursuit from the palace, but he has warned the officers in charge of the dock and they will try to kill us as soon as we step out of the elevator, perhaps sooner. nalboon intended to wait, but we have forced his hand and the dock is undoubtedly swarming with soldiers now. shoot first and oftenest. shoot first and think afterward. show no mercy, as you will receive none--remember that the quality you call 'mercy' does not exist upon osnome." rounding a great metal statue about fifty feet from the base of the towering dock, they saw that the door leading into one of the elevators was wide open and that two guards stood just inside it. as they caught sight of the approaching party, the guards raised their rifles; but, quick as they were, seaton was quicker. at the first sight of the open door he had made two quick steps and had hurled himself across the intervening forty feet in a long football plunge. before the two guards could straighten, he crashed into them, his great momentum hurling them across the elevator cage and crushing them into unconsciousness against its metal wall. "good work!" said dunark, as he preceded the others into the elevator, and, after receiving seaton's permission, distributed the weapons of the two guards among the men of his party. "now we can surprise those upon the roof. that was why you didn't shoot?" "yes, i was afraid to risk a shot--it would give the whole thing away," seaton replied, as he threw the unconscious guards out into the grounds and closed the massive door. "aren't you going to kill them?" asked sitar, amazement in every feature and a puzzled expression in her splendid eyes. a murmur arose from the other kondalians, which was quickly silenced by the kofedix. "it is dishonorable for a soldier of earth to kill a helpless prisoner," he said briefly. "we cannot understand it, but we must not attempt to sway him in any point of honor." dunark stepped to the controls and the elevator shot upward, stopping at a landing several stories below the top of the dock. he took a peculiar device from his belt and fitted it over the muzzle of his strange pistol. "we will get out here," he instructed the others, "and go up the rest of the way by a little-used flight of stairs. we will probably encounter some few guards, but i can dispose of them without raising an alarm. you will all stay behind me, please." seaton remonstrated, and dunark went on: "no, seaton, you have done your share, and more. i am upon familiar ground now, and can do the work alone better than if you were to help me. i will call upon you, however, before we reach the dock." the kofedix led the way, his pistol resting lightly against his hip, and at the first turn of the corridor they came full upon four guards. the pistol did not move from its place at the side of the leader, but there were four subdued clicks and the four guards dropped dead, with bullets through their brains. "seaton, that is _some_ silencer," whispered duquesne. "i didn't suppose a silencer could work that fast." "they don't use powder," seaton replied absently, all his faculties directed toward the next corner. "the bullets are propelled by an electrical charge." in the same manner dunark disposed of several more guards before the last stairway was reached. * * * * * "seaton," he whispered in english, "now is the time we need your rapid pistol-work and your high-explosive shells. there must be hundreds of soldiers on the other side of that door, armed with machine-cannon shooting high-explosive shells at the rate of a thousand per minute. our chance is this--their guns are probably trained upon the elevators and main stairways, since this passage is unused and none of us would be expected to know of it. most of them don't know of it themselves. it will take them a second or two to bring their guns to bear upon us. we must do all the damage we can--kill them all, if possible--in that second or two. if crane will lend me a pistol, we'll make the rush together." "i've a better scheme than that," interrupted duquesne. "next to you, seaton, i'm the fastest man with a gun here. also, like you, i can use both hands at once. give me a couple of clips of those special cartridges and you and i will blow that bunch into the air before they know we're here." it was decided that the two pistol experts should take the lead, closely followed by crane and dunark. the weapons were loaded to capacity and put in readiness for instant use. "let's go, bunch!" said seaton. "the quicker we start the quicker we'll get back. get ready to run out there, all the rest of you, as soon as the battle's over. ready? on your marks--get set--go!" he kicked the door open and there was a stuttering crash as the four automatic pistols simultaneously burst into practically continuous flame--a crash obliterated by an overwhelming concussion of sound as the x-plosive shells, sweeping the entire roof with a rapidly-opening fan of death, struck their marks and exploded. well it was for the little group of wanderers that the two men in the door were past masters in the art of handling their weapons; well it was that they had in their tiny pistol-bullets the explosive force of hundreds of giant shells! for rank upon rank of soldiery were massed upon the roof; rapid-fire cannon, terrible engines of destruction, were pointing toward the elevators and toward the main stairways and approaches. but so rapid and fierce was the attack, that even those trained gunners had no time to point their guns. the battle lasted little more than a second, being over before either crane or dunark could fire a shot, and silence again reigned even while broken and shattered remnants of the guns and fragments of the metal and stone of the dock were still falling to the ground through a fine mist of what had once been men. assured by a rapid glance that not a single mardonalian remained upon the dock, seaton turned back to the others. "make it snappy, bunch! this is going to be a mighty unhealthy spot for us in a few minutes." dorothy threw her arms around his neck in relief. with one arm about her, he hastily led the way across the dock toward the skylark, choosing the path with care because of the yawning holes blown into the structure by the terrific force of the explosions. the skylark was still in place, held immovable by the attractor, but what a sight she was! her crystal windows were shattered; her mighty plates of four-foot norwegian armor were bent and cracked and twisted; two of her doors, warped and battered, hung awry from their broken hinges. not a shell had struck her: all this damage had been done by flying fragments of the guns and of the dock itself; and seaton and crane, who had developed the new explosive, stood aghast at its awful power. they hastily climbed into the vessel, and seaton assured himself that the controls were uninjured. "i hear battleships," dunark said. "is it permitted that i operate one of your machine guns?" "go as far as you like," responded seaton, as he placed the women beneath the copper bar--the safest place in the vessel--and leaped to the instrument board. before he reached it, and while duquesne, crane, and dunark were hastening to the guns, the whine of giant helicopter-screws was plainly heard. a ranging shell from the first warship, sighted a little low, exploded against the side of the dock beneath them. he reached the levers just as the second shell screamed through the air a bare four feet above them. as he shot the skylark into the air under five notches of power, a steady stream of the huge bombs poured through the spot where, an instant before, the vessel had been. crane and duquesne aimed several shots at the battleships, which were approaching from all sides, but the range was so extreme that no damage was done. they heard the continuous chattering of the machine gun operated by the kofedix, however, and turned toward him. he was shooting, not at the warships, but at the city rapidly growing smaller beneath them; moving the barrel of the rifle in a tiny spiral; spraying the entire city with death and destruction! as they looked, the first of the shells reached the ground, just as dunark ceased firing for lack of ammunition. they saw the palace disappear as if by magic, being instantly blotted out in a cloud of dust--a cloud which, with a spiral motion of dizzying rapidity, increased in size until it obscured the entire city. * * * * * having attained sufficient altitude to be safe from any possible pursuit and out of range of even the heaviest guns, seaton stopped the vessel and went out into the main compartment to consult with the other members of the group, about their next move. "it sure does feel good to get a breath of cool air, folks," he said, as he drew with relief a deep breath of the air, which, at that great elevation, was of an icy temperature and very thin. he glanced at the little group of kondalians as he spoke, then leaped back to the instrument board with an apology on his lips--they were gasping for breath and shivering with the cold. he switched on the heating coils and dropped the skylark rapidly in a long descent toward the ocean. "if that is the temperature you enjoy, i understand at last why you wear clothes," said the kofedix, as soon as he could talk. "do not your planes fly up into the regions of low temperature?" asked crane. "only occasionally, and all high-flying vessels are enclosed and heated to our normal temperature. we have heavy wraps, but we dislike to wear them so intensely that we never subject ourselves to any cold." "well, there's no accounting for tastes," returned seaton, "but i can't hand your climate a thing. it's hotter even than washington in august; 'and that,' as the poet feelingly remarked, 'is going some!' "but there's no reason for sitting here in the dark," he continued, as he switched on the powerful daylight lamps which lighted the vessel with the nearest approach to sunlight possible to produce. as soon as the lights were on, dorothy looked intently at the strange women. "now we can see what color they really are," she explained to her lover in a low voice. "why, they aren't so very different from what they were before, except that the colors are much softer and more pleasing. they really are beautiful, in spite of being green. don't you think so, dick?" "they're a handsome bunch, all right," he agreed, and they were. their skins were a light, soft green, tanned to an olive shade by their many fervent suns. their teeth were a brilliant and shining grass-green. their eyes and their long, thick hair were a glossy black. the kondalians looked at the earthly visitors and at each other, and the women uttered exclamations of horror. "what a frightful light?" exclaimed sitar. "please shut it off. i would rather be in total darkness than look like this!" "what's the matter, sitar?" asked the puzzled dorothy as seaton turned off the lights. "you look perfectly stunning in this light." "they see things differently than we do," explained seaton. "their optic nerves react differently than ours do. while we look all right to them, and they look all right to us, in both kinds of light, they look just as different to themselves under our daylight lamps as we do to ourselves in their green light. is that explanation clear?" "it's clear enough as far as it goes, but what do they look like to themselves?" "that's too deep for me--i can't explain it, any better than you can. take the osnomian color 'mlap,' for instance. can you describe it?" "it's a kind of greenish orange--but it seems as though it ought not to look like that color either." "that's it, exactly. from the knowledge you received from the educator, it should be a brilliant purple. that is due to the difference in the optic nerves, which explains why we see things so differently from the way the osnomians do. perhaps they can describe the way they look to each other in our white light." "can you, sitar?" asked dorothy. "one word describes it--'horrible.'" replied the kondalian princess, and her husband added: "the colors are distorted and unrecognizable, just as your colors are to your eyes in our light." "well, now that the color question is answered, let's get going. i pretty nearly asked you the way, dunark--forgot that i know it as well as you do." * * * * * the skylark set off at as high an altitude as the osnomians could stand. as they neared the ocean several great mardonalian battleships, warned of the escape, sought to intercept them; but the skylark hopped over them easily, out of range of their heaviest guns, and flew onward at such speed that pursuit was not even attempted. the ocean was quickly crossed. soon the space-car came to rest over a great city, and seaton pointed out the palace; which, with its landing dock nearby, was very similar to that of nalboon, in the capital city of mardonale. crane drew seaton to one side. "do you think it is safe to trust these kondalians, any more than it was the others? how would it be to stay in the lark instead of going into the palace?" "yes, mart, this bunch can be trusted. dunark has a lot of darn queer ideas, but he's square as a die. he's our friend, and will get us the copper. we have no choice now, anyway, look at the bar. we haven't an ounce of copper left--we're down to the plating in spots. besides, we couldn't go anywhere if we had a ton of copper, because the old bus is a wreck. she won't hold air--you could throw a cat out through the shell in any direction. she'll have to have a lot of work done on her before we can think of leaving. as to staying in her, that wouldn't help us a bit. steel is as soft as wood to these folks--their shells would go through her as though she were made of mush. they are made of metal that is harder than diamond and tougher than rubber, and when they strike they bore in like drill-bits. if they are out to get us they'll do it anyway, whether we're here or there, so we may as well be guests. but there's no danger, mart. you know i swapped brains with him, and i know him as well as i know myself. he's a good, square man--one of our kind of folks." convinced, crane nodded his head and the skylark dropped toward the dock. while they were still high in air, dunark took an instrument from his belt and rapidly manipulated a small lever. the others felt the air vibrate--a peculiar, pulsating wave, which, to the surprise of the earthly visitors, they could read without difficulty. it was a message from the kofedix to the entire city, telling of the escape of his party and giving the news that he was accompanied by two great karfedo from another world. then the pulsations became unintelligible, and all knew that he had tuned his instrument away from the "general" key into the individual key of some one person. "i just let my father, the karfedix, know that we are coming," he explained, as the vibrations ceased. from the city beneath them hundreds of great guns roared forth a welcome, banners and streamers hung from every possible point, and the air became tinted and perfumed with a bewildering variety of colors and scents and quivered with the rush of messages of welcome. the skylark was soon surrounded by a majestic fleet of giant warships, who escorted her with impressive ceremony to the landing dock, while around them flitted great numbers of other aircraft. the tiny one-man helicopters darted hither and thither, apparently always in imminent danger of colliding with some of their larger neighbors, but always escaping as though by a miracle. beautiful pleasure-planes soared and dipped and wheeled like giant gulls; and, cleaving their stately way through the numberless lesser craft; immense multiplane passenger liners partially supported by helicopter screws turned aside from their scheduled courses to pay homage to the kofedix of kondal. as the skylark approached the top of the dock, all the escorting vessels dropped away and crane saw that instead of the brilliant assemblage he had expected to see upon the landing-place there was only a small group of persons, as completely unadorned as were those in the car. in answer to his look of surprise, the kofedix said, with deep feeling: "my father, mother, and the rest of the family. they know that we, as escaped captives, would be without harness or trappings, and are meeting us in the same state." * * * * * seaton brought the vessel to the dock near the little group, and the earthly visitors remained inside their vessel while the rulers of kondal welcomed the sons and daughters they had given up for dead. after the affecting reunion, which was very similar to an earthly one under similar circumstances, the kofedix led his father up to the skylark and his guests stepped down upon the dock. "friends," dunark began, "i have told you of my father, roban, the karfedix of kondal. father, it is a great honor to present to you those who rescued us from mardonale--seaton, karfedix of knowledge; crane, karfedix of wealth; miss vaneman; and miss spencer. karfedix duquesne," waving his hand toward him, "is a lesser karfedix of knowledge, captive to the others." "the kofedix dunark exaggerates our services," deprecated seaton, "and doesn't mention the fact that he saved all our lives. but for him we all should have been killed." the karfedix, disregarding seaton's remark, acknowledged the indebtedness of kondal in heartfelt accents before he led them back to the other party and made the introductions. as all walked toward the elevators, the emperor turned to his son with a puzzled expression. "i know from your message, dunark, that our guests are from a distant solar system, and i can understand your accident with the educator, but i cannot understand the titles of these men. knowledge and wealth are not ruled over. are you sure that you have translated their titles correctly?" "as correctly as i can--we have no words in our language to express the meaning. their government is a most peculiar one, the rulers all being chosen by the people of the whole nation...." "extraordinary!" interjected the older man. "how, then, can anything be accomplished?" "i do not understand the thing myself, it is so utterly unheard-of. but they have no royalty, as we understand the term. in america, their country, every man is equal. "that is," he hastened to correct himself, "they are not all equal, either, as they have two classes which would rank with royalty--those who have attained to great heights of knowledge and those who have amassed great wealth. this explanation is entirely inadequate and does not give the right idea of their positions, but it is as close as i can come to the truth in our language." "i am surprised that you should be carrying a prisoner with you, karfedo," said roban, addressing seaton and crane. "you will, of course, be at perfect liberty to put him to death in any way that pleases you, just as though you were in your own kingdoms. but perchance you are saving him so that his death will crown your home-coming?" the kofedix spoke in answer while seaton, usually so quick to speak, was groping for words. "no, father, he is not to be put to death. that is another peculiar custom of the earth-men; they consider it dishonorable to harm a captive, or even an unarmed enemy. for that reason we must treat the karfedix duquesne with every courtesy due his rank, but at the same time he is to be allowed to do only such things as may be permitted by seaton and crane." "yet they do not seem to be a weak race," mused the older man. "they are a mighty race, far advanced in evolution," replied his son. "it is not weakness, but a peculiar moral code. we have many things to learn from them, and but few to give them in return. their visit will mean much to kondal." * * * * * during this conversation they had descended to the ground and had reached the palace, after traversing grounds even more sumptuous and splendid than those surrounding the palace of nalboon. inside the palace walls the kofedix himself led the guests to their rooms, accompanied by the major-domo and an escort of guards. he explained to them that the rooms were all inter-communicating, each having a completely equipped bathroom. "complete except for cold water, you mean," said seaton with a smile. "there is cold water," rejoined the other, leading him into the bathroom and releasing a ten-inch stream of lukewarm water into the small swimming pool, built of polished metal, which forms part of every kondalian bathroom. "but i am forgetting that you like extreme cold. we will install refrigerating machines at once." "don't do it--thanks just the same. we won't be here long enough to make it worth while." dunark smilingly replied that he would make his guests as comfortable as he could, and after informing them that in one kam he would return and escort them in to koprat, took his leave. scarcely had the guests freshened themselves when he was back, but he was no longer the dunark they had known. he now wore a metal-and-leather harness which was one blaze of precious gems, and a leather belt hung with jeweled weapons replaced the familiar hollow girdle of metal. his right arm, between the wrist and the elbow, was almost covered by six bracelets of a transparent metal, deep cobalt-blue in color, each set with an incredibly brilliant stone of the same shade. on his left wrist he wore an osnomian chronometer. this was an instrument resembling the odometer of an automobile, whose numerous revolving segments revealed a large and constantly increasing number--the date and time of the osnomian day, expressed in a decimal number of the karkamo of kondalian history. "greetings, oh guests from earth! i feel more like myself, now that i am again in my trappings and have my weapons at my side. will you accompany me to koprat, or are you not hungry?" as he attached the peculiar timepieces to the wrists of the guests, with bracelets of the deep-blue metal. "we accept with thanks," replied dorothy promptly. "we're starving to death, as usual." as they walked toward the dining hall, dunark noticed that dorothy's eyes strayed toward his bracelets, and he answered her unasked question: "these are our wedding rings. man and wife exchange bracelets as part of the ceremony." "then you can tell whether a man is married or not, and how many wives he has, simply by looking at his arm? we should have something like that on earth, dick--then married men wouldn't find it so easy to pose as bachelors!" roban met them at the door of the great dining hall. he also was in full panoply, and dorothy counted ten of the heavy bracelets upon his right arm as he led them to places near his own. the room was a replica of the other osnomian dining hall they had seen and the women were decorated with the same barbaric splendor of scintillating gems. after the meal, which was a happy one, taking the nature of a celebration in honor of the return of the captives, duquesne went directly to his room while the others spent the time until the zero hour in strolling about the splendid grounds, always escorted by many guards. returning to the room occupied by the two girls, the couples separated, each girl accompanying her lover to the door of his room. margaret was ill at ease, though trying hard to appear completely self-possessed. "what is the matter, sweetheart peggy?" asked crane, solicitously. "i didn't know that you...." she broke off and continued with a rush: "what did the kofedix mean just now, when he called you the karfedix of wealth?" "well, you see, i happen to have some money...." he began. "then you are the great m. reynolds crane?" she interrupted, in consternation. "leave off 'the great,'" he said, then, noting her expression, he took her in his arms and laughed slightly. "is that all that was bothering you? what does a little money amount to between you and me?" "nothing--but i'm awfully glad that i didn't know it before," she replied, as she returned his caress with fervor. "that is, it means nothing if you are perfectly sure i'm not...." crane, the imperturbable, broke a life-long rule and interrupted her. "do not say that, dear. you know as well as i do that between you and me there never have been, are not now, and never shall be, any doubts or any questions." * * * * * "if i could have a real cold bath now, i'd feel fine," remarked seaton, standing in his own door with dorothy by his side. "i'm no blooming englishman but in weather as hot as this i sure would like to dive into a good cold tank. how do you feel after all this excitement, dottie? up to standard?" "i'm scared purple," she replied, nestling against him, "or, at least, if not exactly scared, i'm apprehensive and nervous. i always thought i had good nerves, but everything here is so horrible and unreal, that i can't help but feel it. when i'm with you i really enjoy the experience, but when i'm alone or with peggy, especially in the sleeping-period, which is so awfully long and when it seems that something terrible is going to happen every minute, my mind goes off in spite of me into thoughts of what may happen. why, last night, peggy and i just huddled up to each other in a ghastly yellow funk--dreading we knew not what--the two of us slept hardly at all." "i'm sorry, little girl," replied seaton, embracing her tenderly, "sorrier than i can say. i know that your nerves are all right, but you haven't roughed it enough, or lived in strange environments enough, to be able to feel at home. the reason you feel safer with me is that i feel perfectly at home here myself, not that your nerves are going to pieces or anything like that. it won't be for long, though, sweetheart--as soon as we get the chariot fixed up we'll beat it back to the earth so fast it'll make your head spin." "yes, i think that's the reason, lover. i hope you won't think i'm a clinging vine, but i can't help being afraid of something here every time i'm away from you. you're so self-reliant, so perfectly at ease here, that it makes me feel the same way." "i am perfectly at ease. there's nothing to be afraid of. i've been in hundreds of worse places, right on earth. i sure wish i could be with you all the time, sweetheart girl--only you can understand just how much i wish it--but, as i said before, it won't be long until we can be together all the time." dorothy pushed him into his room, followed him within it, closed the door, and put both hands on his arm. "dick, sweetheart," she whispered, while a hot blush suffused her face, "you're not as dumb as i thought you were--you're dumber! but if you simply won't say it, i will. don't you know that a marriage that is legal where it is performed is legal anywhere, and that no law says that the marriage must be performed upon the earth?" he pressed her to his heart in a mighty embrace, and his low voice showed in every vibration the depth of the feeling he held for the beautiful woman in his arms as he replied: "i never thought of that, sweetheart, and i wouldn't have dared mention it if i had. you're so far away from your family and your friends that it would seem...." "it wouldn't seem anything of the kind," she broke in earnestly. "don't you see, you big, dense, wonderful man, that it is the only thing to do? we need each other, or at least, i need you, so much now...." "say 'each other'; it's right," declared her lover with fervor. "it's foolish to wait. mother would like to have seen me married, of course; but there will be great advantages, even on that side. a grand wedding, of the kind we would simply have to have in washington, doesn't appeal to me any more than it does to you--and it would bore you to extinction. dad would hate it, too--it's better all around to be married here." seaton, who had been trying to speak, silenced her. "i'm convinced, dottie, have been ever since the first word. if you can see it that way i'm so glad that i can't express it. i've been scared stiff every time i thought of our wedding. i'll speak to the karfedix the first thing in the morning, and we'll be married tomorrow--or rather today, since it is past the zero kam," as he glanced at the chronometer upon his wrist, which, driven by wireless impulses from the master-clock in the national observatory, was clicking off the darkamo with an almost inaudible purr of its smoothly-revolving segments. "how would it be to wake him up and have it done now?" "oh, dick, be reasonable! that would never do. tomorrow will be most awfully sudden, as it is! and dick, please speak to martin, will you? peggy's even more scared than i am, and martin, the dear old stupid, is even less likely to suggest such a thing as this kind of a wedding than you are. peggy's afraid to suggest it to him." "woman!" he said in mock sternness, "is this a put-up job?" "it certainly is. did you think i had nerve enough to do it without help?" seaton turned and opened the door. "mart! bring peggy over here!" he called, as he led dorothy back into the girls' room. "heavens, dick, be careful! you'll spoil the whole thing!" "no, i won't. leave it to me--i bashfully admit that i'm a regular bear-cat at this diplomatic stuff. watch my smoke!" "folks," he said, when the four were together, "dottie and i have been talking things over, and we've decided that today's the best possible date for a wedding. dottie's afraid of these long, daylight nights, and i admit that i'd sleep a lot sounder if i knew where she was all the time instead of only part of it. she says she's willing, provided you folks see it the same way and make it double. how about it?" margaret blushed furiously and crane's lean, handsome face assumed a darker color as he replied: "a marriage here would, of course, be legal anywhere, provided we have a certificate, and we could be married again upon our return if we think it desirable. it might look as though we were taking an unfair advantage of the girls, dick, but considering all the circumstances, i think it would be the best thing for everyone concerned." he saw the supreme joy in margaret's eyes, and his own assumed a new light as he drew her into the hollow of his arm. "peggy has known me only a short time, but nothing else in the world is as certain as our love. it is the bride's privilege to set the date, so i will only say that it cannot be too soon for me." "the sooner the better," said margaret, with a blush that would have been divine in any earthly light, "did you say 'today,' dick?" "i'll see the karfedix as soon as he gets up," he answered, and walked with dorothy to his door. "i'm just too supremely happy for words," dorothy whispered in seaton's ear as he bade her good-night. "i won't be able to sleep or anything!" chapter xvi an osnomian marriage seaton awoke, hot and uncomfortable, but with a great surge of joy in his heart--this was his wedding day! springing from the bed, he released the full stream of the "cold" water, filling the tank in a few moments. poising lightly upon the edge, he made a clean, sharp dive, and yelled in surprise as he came snorting to the surface. for dunark had made good his promise--the water was only a few degrees above the freezing point! after a few minutes of vigorous splashing in the icy water, he rubbed himself down with a coarse towel, shaved, threw on his clothes, and lifted his powerful, but musical, bass voice in the wedding chorus from "the rose maiden." _"rise, sweet maid, arise, arise, rise, sweet maid, arise, arise, 'tis the last fair morning for thy maiden eyes,"_ he sang lustily, out of his sheer joy in being alive, and was surprised to hear dorothy's clear soprano, margaret's pleasing contralto, and crane's mellow tenor chime in from the adjoining room. crane threw open the door and seaton joined the others. "good morning. dick, you sound happy," said crane. "who wouldn't be? look what's doing today," as he ardently embraced his bride-to-be. "besides, i found some cold water this morning." "everyone in the palace heard you discovering it," dryly returned crane, and the girls laughed merrily. "it surprised me at first," admitted seaton, "but it's great after a fellow once gets wet." "we warmed ours a trifle," said dorothy. "i like a cold bath myself, but not in ice-water." all four became silent, thinking of the coming event of the day, until crane said: "they have ministers here, i know, and i know something of their religion, but my knowledge is rather vague. you know more about it than we do, dick, suppose you tell us about it while we wait." seaton paused a moment, with an odd look on his face. as one turning the pages of an unfamiliar book of reference, he was seeking the answer to crane's question in the vast store of osnomian information received from dunark. his usually ready speech came a little slowly. "well, as nearly as i can explain it, it's a funny kind of a mixture--partly theology, partly darwinism, or at least, making a fetish of evolution, and partly pure economic determinism. they believe in a supreme being, whom they call the first cause--that is the nearest english equivalent--and they recognize the existence of an immortal and unknowable life-principle, or soul. they believe that the first cause has decreed the survival of the fittest as the fundamental law, which belief accounts for their perfect physiques...." "perfect physiques? why, they're as weak as children," interrupted dorothy. "yes, but that is because of the smallness of the planet," returned seaton. "you see, a man of my size weighs only eighty-six pounds here, on a spring balance, so he would need only the muscular development of a boy of twelve or so. in a contest of strength, either of you girls could easily handle two of the strongest men upon osnome. in fact, the average osnomian could stand up on our earth only with the greatest difficulty. but that isn't the fault of the people; they are magnificently developed for their surroundings. they have attained this condition by centuries of weeding out the unfit. they have no hospitals for the feeble-minded or feeble-bodied--abnormal persons are not allowed to live. the same reasoning accounts for their perfect cleanliness, moral and physical. vice is practically unknown. they believe that clean living and clean thinking are rewarded by the production of a better physical and mental type...." "yes, especially as they correct wrong living by those terrible punishments the kofedix told us about," interrupted margaret. "that probably helps some. they also believe that the higher the type is, the faster will evolution proceed, and the sooner will mankind reach what they call the ultimate goal, and know all things. believing as they do that the fittest must survive, and thinking themselves, of course, the superior type, it is ordained that mardonale must be destroyed utterly, root and branch. they believe that the slaves are so low in the scale, millions of years behind in evolution, that they do not count. slaves are simply intelligent and docile animals, little more than horses or oxen. mardonalians and savages are unfit to survive and must be exterminated. "their ministers are chosen from the very fittest. they are the strongest, cleanest-living, and most vigorous men of this clean and vigorous nation, and are usually high army officers as well as ministers." * * * * * an attendant announced the coming of the karfedix and his son, to pay the call of state. after the ceremonious greetings had been exchanged, all went into the dining hall for darprat. as soon as the meal was over, seaton brought up the question of the double wedding that kokam, and the karfedix was overjoyed. "karfedix seaton," he said earnestly, "nothing could please us more than to have such a ceremony performed in our palace. marriage between such highly-evolved persons as are you four is wished by the first cause, whose servants we are. aside from that, it is an unheard-of honor for any ruler to have even one karfedix married beneath his roof, and you are granting me the privilege of two! i thank you, and assure you that we will do our poor best to make the occasion memorable." "don't do anything fancy," said seaton hastily. "a simple, plain wedding will do." unheeding seaton's remark, the karfedix took his wireless from its hook at his belt and sent a brief message. "i have summoned karbix tarnan to perform the ceremony. our usual time for ceremonies is just before koprat--is that time satisfactory to you?" assured that it was, he turned to his son. "dunark, you are more familiar than i with the customs of our illustrious visitors. may i ask you to take charge of the details?" while dunark sent a rapid succession of messages, dorothy whispered to seaton: "they must be going to make a real function of our double wedding, dick. the karbix is the highest dignitary of the church, isn't he?" "yes, in addition to being the commander-in-chief of all the kondalian armies. next to the karfedix he is the most powerful man in the empire. something tells me, dottie, that this is going to be some ceremony!" as dunark finished telegraphing, seaton turned to him. "dorothy said, a while ago, that she would like to have enough of that tapestry-fabric for a dress. do you suppose it could be managed?" "certainly. in all state ceremonials we always wear robes made out of the same fabric as the tapestries, but much finer and more delicate. i would have suggested it, but thought perhaps the ladies would prefer their usual clothing. i know that you two men do not care to wear our robes?" "we will wear white ducks, the dressiest and coolest things we have along," replied seaton. "thank you for your offer, but you know how it is. we should feel out of place in such gorgeous dress." "i understand. i will call in a few of our most expert robe-makers, who will weave the gowns. before they come, let us decide upon the ceremony. i think you are familiar with our marriage customs, but i will explain them to make sure. each couple is married twice. the first marriage is symbolized by the exchange of plain bracelets and lasts four karkamo, during which period divorce may be obtained at will. the children of such divorced couples formerly became wards of the state, but in my lifetime i have not heard of there being any such children--all divorces are now between couples who discover their incompatibility before children are conceived." "that surprises me greatly," said crane. "some system of trial-marriage is advocated among us on earth every few years, but they all so surely degenerate into free love that no such system has found a foothold." "we are not troubled in that way at all. you see, before the first marriage, each couple, from the humblest peasantry to the highest royalty, must submit to a mental examination. if they are marrying for any reason at all other than love, such as any thought of trifling in the mind of the man, or if the woman is marrying him for his wealth or position, he or she is summarily executed, regardless of station." no other questions being asked, dunark continued: "at the end of four karkamo the second marriage is performed, which is indissoluble. in this ceremony jeweled bracelets are substituted for the plain ones. in the case of highly-evolved persons it is permitted that the two ceremonies be combined into one. then there is a third ceremony, used only in the marriage of persons of the very highest evolution, in which the 'eternal' vows are taken and the faidon, the eternal jewel, is exchanged. as you are all in the permitted class, you may use the eternal ceremony if you wish." "i think we all know our minds well enough to know that we want to be married for good--the longer the better," said seaton, positively. "we'll make it the eternal, won't we, folks?" "i should like to ask one question," said crane, thoughtfully. "does that ceremony imply that my wife would be breaking her vows if she married again upon my death?" "far from it. numbers of our men are killed every karkam. their wives, if of marriageable age, are expected to marry again. then, too, you know that most kondalian men have several wives. no matter how many wives or husbands may be linked together in that way, it merely means that after death their spirits will be grouped into one. just as in your chemistry," smiling in comradely fashion at seaton, "a varying number of elements may unite to form a stable compound." * * * * * after a short pause, the speaker went on: "since you are from the earth and unaccustomed to bracelets, rings will be substituted for them. the plain rings will take the place of your earthly wedding rings, the jeweled ones that of your engagement rings. the only difference is that while we discard the plain bracelets, you will continue to wear them. have you men any objections to wearing the rings during the ceremony? you may discard them later if you wish and still keep the marriage valid." "not i! i'll wear mine all my life," responded seaton earnestly, and crane expressed the same thought. "there is only one more thing," added the kofedix. "that is, about the mental examination. since it is not your custom, it is probable that the justices would waive the ruling, especially since everyone must be examined by a jury of his own or a superior rank, so that only one man, my father alone, could examine you." "not in a thousand years!" replied seaton emphatically. "i want to be examined, and have dorothy see the record. i don't care about having her put through it, but i want her to know exactly the kind of a guy she is getting." dorothy protested at this, but as all four were eager that they themselves should be tested, the karfedix was notified and dunark clamped sets of multiple electrodes, connected to a set of instruments, upon the temples of his father, dorothy, and seaton. he pressed a lever, and instantly dorothy and seaton read each other's minds to the minutest detail, and each knew that the karfedix was reading the minds of both. after margaret and crane had been examined, the karfedix expressed himself as more than satisfied. "you are all of the highest evolution and your minds are all untainted by any base thoughts in your marriage. the first cause will smile upon your unions," he said solemnly. "let the robe-makers appear," the karfedix ordered, and four women, hung with spools of brilliantly-colored wire of incredible fineness and with peculiar looms under their arms, entered the room and accompanied the two girls to their apartment. as soon as the room was empty save for the four men, dunark said: "while i was in mardonale, i heard bits of conversation regarding an immense military discovery possessed by nalboon, besides the gas whose deadly effects we felt. i could get no inkling of its nature, but feel sure that it is something to be dreaded. i also heard that both of these secrets had been stolen from kondal, and that we were to be destroyed by our own superior inventions." the karfedix nodded his head gloomily. "that is true, my son--partly true, at least. we shall not be destroyed, however. kondal shall triumph. the discoveries were made by a kondalian, but i am as ignorant as are you concerning their nature. an obscure inventor, living close to the bordering ocean, was the discoverer. he was rash enough to wireless me concerning them. he would not reveal their nature, but requested a guard. the mardonalian patrol intercepted the message and captured both him and his discoveries before our guard could arrive." "that's easily fixed," suggested seaton. "let's get the skylark fixed up, and we'll go jerk nalboon out of his palace--if he's still alive--bring him over here, and read his mind." "that might prove feasible," answered the kofedix, "and in any event we must repair the skylark and replenish her supply of copper immediately. that must be our first consideration, so that you, our guests, will have a protection in any emergency." the karfedix went to his duties and the other three made their way to the wrecked space-car. they found that besides the damage done to the hull, many of the instruments were broken, including one of the object-compasses focused upon the earth. "it's a good thing you had three of them, mart. i sure hand it to you for preparedness," said seaton, as he tossed the broken instruments out upon the dock. dunark protested at this treatment, and placed the discarded instruments in a strong metal safe, remarking: "these things may prove useful at some future time." "well, i suppose the first thing to do is to get some powerful jacks and straighten these plates," said seaton. "why not throw away this soft metal, steel, and build it of arenak, as it should be built? you have plenty of salt," suggested dunark. "fine! we have lots of salt in the galley, haven't we, mart?" "yes, nearly a hundred pounds. we are stocked for emergencies, with two years' supply of food, you know." * * * * * dunark's eyes opened in astonishment at the amount mentioned, in spite of his knowledge of earthly conditions. he started to say something, then stopped in confusion, but seaton divined his thought. "we can spare him fifty pounds as well as not, can't we, mart?" "certainly. fifty pounds of salt is a ridiculously cheap price for what he is doing for us, even though it is very rare here." dunark acknowledged the gift with shining eyes and heartfelt, but not profuse, thanks, and bore the precious bag to the palace under a heavy escort. he returned with a small army of workmen, and after making tests to assure himself that the power-bar would work as well through arenak as through steel, he instructed the officers concerning the work to be done. as the wonderfully skilled mechanics set to work without a single useless motion, the prince stood silent, with a look of care upon his handsome face. "worrying about mardonale, dunark?" "yes. i cannot help wondering what that terrible new engine of destruction is, which nalboon now has at his command." "say, why don't you build a bus like the skylark, and blow mardonale off the map?" "building the vessel would be easy enough, but x is as yet unknown upon osnome." "we've got a lot of it...." "i could not accept it. the salt was different, since you have plenty. x, however, is as scarce upon earth as salt is upon osnome." "sure you can accept it. we stopped at a planet that has lots of it, and we've got an object-compass pointing at it so that we can go back and get more of it any time we want it. we've got more of it on hand now than we're apt to need for a long time, so have a hunk and get busy," and he easily carried one of the lumps out of his cabin and tossed it upon the dock, from whence it required two of kondal's strongest men to lift it. the look of care vanished from the face of the prince and he summoned another corps of mechanics. "how thick shall the walls be? our battleships are armed with arenak the thickness of a hand, but with your vast supply of salt you may have it any thickness you wish, since the materials of the matrix are cheap and abundant." "one inch would be enough, but everything in the bus is designed for a four-foot shell, and if we change it from four feet we'll have to redesign our guns and all our instruments. let's make it four feet." seaton turned to the crippled skylark, upon which the first crew of kondalian mechanics were working with skill and with tools undreamed-of upon earth. the whole interior of the vessel was supported by a complex falsework of latticed metal, then the four-foot steel plates and the mighty embers, the pride of the great macdougall, were cut away as though they were made of paper by revolving saws and enormous power shears. the sphere, grooved for the repellers and with the members, braces, and central machinery complete, of the exact dimensions of the originals, was rapidly moulded of a stiff, plastic substance resembling clay. this matrix soon hardened into a rock-like mass into which the doors, machine-gun emplacements, and other openings were carefully cut. all surfaces were then washed with a dilute solution of salt, which the workmen handled as though it were radium. two great plates of platinum were clamped into place upon either side of the vessel, each plate connected by means of silver cables as large as a man's leg to the receiving terminal of an enormous wireless power station. the current was applied and the great spherical mass apparently disappeared, being transformed instantly into the transparent metal arenak. then indeed had the earth-men a vehicle such as had never been seen before! a four-foot shell of metal five hundred times as strong and hard as the strongest and hardest steel, cast in one piece with the sustaining framework designed by the world's foremost engineer--a structure that no conceivable force could deform or injure, housing an inconceivable propulsive force! * * * * * the falsework was rapidly removed and the sustaining framework was painted with opaque varnish to render it plainly visible. at seaton's suggestion the walls of the cabins were also painted, leaving transparent several small areas to serve as windows. the second work-period was drawing to a close, and as seaton and crane were to be married before koprat, they stopped work. they marveled at the amount that had been accomplished, and the kofedix told them: "both vessels will be finished tomorrow, except for the controlling instruments, which we will have to make ourselves. another crew will work during the sleeping-period, installing the guns and other fittings. do you wish to have your own guns installed, or guns of our pattern? you are familiar with them now." "our own, please. they are slower and less efficient than yours, but we are used to them and have a lot of x-plosive ammunition for them," replied seaton, after a short conference with crane. after instructing the officers in charge of the work, the three returned to the palace, the hearts of two of them beating high in anticipation. seaton went into crane's room, accompanied by two attendants bearing his suitcase and other luggage. "we should have brought along dress clothes, mart. why didn't you think of that, too?" "nothing like this ever entered my mind. it is a good thing we brought along ducks and white soft shirts. i must say that this is extremely informal garb for a state wedding, but since the natives are ignorant of our customs, it will not make any difference." "that's right, too--we'll make 'em think it's the most formal kind of dress. dunark knows what's what, but he knows that full dress would be unbearable here. we'd melt down in a minute. it's plenty hot enough as it is, with only duck trousers and sport-shirts on. they'll look green instead of white, but that's a small matter." dunark, as best man, entered the room some time later. "give us a look, dunark," begged seaton, "and see if we'll pass inspection. i was never so rattled in my life." they were clad in spotless white, from their duck oxfords to the white ties encircling the open collars of their tennis shirts. the two tall figures--crane's slender, wiry, at perfect ease; seaton's broad-shouldered, powerful, prowling about with unconscious, feline suppleness and grace--and the two handsome, high-bred, intellectual faces, each wearing a look of eager happiness, fully justified dunark's answer. "you sure will do!" he pronounced enthusiastically, and with seaton's own impulsive good will he shook hands and wished them an eternity of happiness. "when you have spoken with your brides," he continued, "i shall be waiting to escort you into the chapel. sitar told me to say that the ladies are ready." dorothy and margaret had been dressed in their bridal gowns by sitar and several other princesses, under the watchful eyes of the karfedir herself. sitar placed the two girls side by side and drew off to survey her work. "you are the loveliest creatures in the whole world!" she cried. they looked at each other's glittering gowns, then margaret glanced at dorothy's face and a look of dismay overspread her own. "oh, dottie!" she gasped. "your lovely complexion! isn't it terrible for the boys to see us in this light?" there was a peal of delighted laughter from sitar and she spoke to one of the servants, who drew dark curtains across the windows and pressed a switch, flooding the room with brilliant white light. "dunark installed lamps like those of your ship for you," she explained with intense satisfaction. "i knew in advance just how you would feel about your color." before the girls had time to thank their thoughtful hostess she disappeared and their bridegrooms stood before them. for a moment no word was spoken. seaton stared at dorothy hungrily, almost doubting the evidence of his senses. for white was white, pink was pink, and her hair shone in all its natural splendor of burnished bronze. in their wondrous osnomian bridal robes the beautiful earth-maidens stood before their lovers. upon their feet were jeweled slippers. their lovely bodies were clothed in softly shimmering garments that left their rounded arms and throats bare--garments infinitely more supple than the finest silk, thick-woven of metallic threads of such fineness that the individual wires were visible only under a lens; garments that floated and clung about their perfect forms in lines of exquisite grace. for black-haired margaret, with her ivory skin, the kondalian princess had chosen a background of a rare white metal, upon which, in complicated figures, glistened numberless jewels of pale colors, more brilliant than diamonds. dorothy's dress was of a peculiar, dark-green shade, half-hidden by an intricate design of blazing green gems--the strange, luminous jewels of this strange world. both girls wore their long, heavy hair unbound, after the kondalian bridal fashion, brushed until it fell like mist about them and confined at the temples by metallic bands entirely covered with jewels. seaton looked from dorothy to margaret and back again; looked down into her violet eyes, deep with wonder and with love, more beautiful than any jewel in all her gorgeous costume. unheeding the presence of the others, she put her dainty hands upon his mighty shoulders and stood on tiptoe. "i love you, dick. now and always, here or at home or anywhere in the universe. we'll never be parted again," she whispered, and her own beloved violin had no sweeter tones than had her voice. a few minutes later, her eyes wet and shining, she drew herself away from him and glanced at margaret. "isn't she the most beautiful thing you ever laid eyes on?" "no," seaton answered promptly, "she is not--but poor old mart thinks she is!" * * * * * accompanied by the karfedix and his son, seaton and crane went into the chapel, which, already brilliant, had been decorated anew with even greater splendor. glancing through the wide arches they saw, for the first time, osnomians clothed. the great room was filled with the highest nobility of kondal, wearing their heavily-jeweled, resplendent robes of state. every color of the rainbow and numberless fantastic patterns were there, embodied in the soft, lustrous, metallic fabric. as the men entered one door dorothy and margaret, with the karfedir and sitar, entered the other, and the entire assemblage rose to its feet and snapped into the grand salute. moving to the accompaniment of strange martial music from concealed instruments, the two parties approached each other, meeting at the raised platform or pulpit where karbix tarnan, a handsome, stately, middle-aged man who carried easily his hundred and fifty karkamo of age, awaited them. as he raised his arms, the music ceased. it was a solemn and wonderfully impressive spectacle. the room, of burnished metal, with its bizarre decorations wrought in scintillating gems; the constantly changing harmony of colors as the invisible lamps were shifted from one shade to another; the group of mighty nobles standing rigidly at attention in a silence so profound that it was an utter absence of everything audible as the karbix lifted both arms in a silent invocation of the great first cause--all these things deepened the solemnity of that solemn moment. when tarnan spoke, his voice, deep with some great feeling, inexplicable even to those who knew him best, carried clearly to every part of the great chamber. "friends, it is our privilege to assist today in a most notable event, the marriage of four personages from another world. for the first time in the history of osnome, one karfedix has the privilege of entertaining the bridal party of another. it is not for this fact alone, however, that this occasion is to be memorable. a far deeper reason is that we are witnessing, possibly for the first time in the history of the universe, the meeting upon terms of mutual fellowship and understanding of the inhabitants of two worlds separated by unthinkable distances of trackless space and by equally great differences in evolution, conditions of life, and environment. yet these strangers are actuated by the spirit of good faith and honor which is instilled into every worthy being by the great first cause, in the working out of whose vast projects all things are humble instruments. "in honor of the friendship of the two worlds, we will proceed with the ceremony. "richard seaton and martin crane, exchange the plain rings with dorothy vaneman and margaret spencer." they did so, and repeated, after the karbix, simple vows of love and loyalty. "may the first cause smile upon this temporary marriage and render it worthy of being made permanent. as a lowly servant of the all-powerful first cause i pronounce you two, and you two, husband and wife. but we must remember that the dull vision of mortal man cannot pierce the veil of futurity, which is as crystal to the all-beholding eye of the first cause. though you love each other truly, unforeseen things may come between you to mar the perfection of your happiness. therefore a time is granted you during which you may discover whether or not your unions are perfect." a pause ensued, then tarnan went on: "martin crane, margaret spencer, richard seaton, and dorothy vaneman, you are before us to take the final vows which shall bind your bodies together for life and your spirits together for eternity. have you considered the gravity of this step sufficiently to enter into this marriage without reservation?" "i have," solemnly replied the four, in unison. "exchange the jeweled rings. do you, richard seaton and dorothy vaneman; and you, martin crane and margaret spencer; individually swear, here in the presence of the first cause and that of the supreme justices of kondal, that you will be true and loyal, each helping his chosen one in all things, great and small; that never throughout eternity, in thought or in action, will either your body or your mind or your conscious spirit stray from the path of fairness and truth and honor?" "i do." "i pronounce you married with the eternal marriage. just as the faidon which you each now wear--the eternal jewel which no force of man, however applied, has yet been able to change or deform in any particular; and which continues to give off its inward light without change throughout eternity--shall endure through endless cycles of time after the metal of the ring which holds it shall have crumbled in decay: even so shall your spirits, formerly two, now one and indissoluble, progress in ever-ascending evolution throughout eternity after the base material which is your bodies shall have returned to the senseless dust from whence it arose." * * * * * the karbix lowered his arms and the bridal party walked to the door through a double rank of uplifted weapons. from the chapel they were led to another room, where the contracting parties signed their names in a register. the kofedix then brought forward two marriage certificates--heavy square plates of a brilliant purple metal, beautifully engraved in parallel columns of english and kondalian script, and heavily bordered with precious stones. the principals and witnesses signed below each column, the signatures being deeply engraved by the royal engraver. leaving the registry, they were escorted to the dining hall, where a truly royal repast was served. between courses the highest nobles of the nation welcomed the visitors and wished them happiness in short but earnest addresses. after the last course had been disposed of, the karbix rose at a sign from the karfedix and spoke, his voice again agitated by the emotion which had puzzled his hearers during the marriage service. "all kondal is with us here in spirit, trying to aid us in our poor attempts to convey our welcome to these our guests, of whose friendship no greater warrant could be given than their willingness to grant us the privilege of their marriage. not only have they given us a boon that will make their names revered throughout the nation as long as kondal shall exist, but they have also been the means of showing us plainly that the first cause is upon our side, that our age-old institution of honor is in truth the only foundation upon which can be built a race fitted to survive. at the same time they have been the means of showing us that our hated foe, entirely without honor, building his race upon a foundation of bloodthirsty savagery alone, is building wrongly and must perish utterly from the face of osnome." his hearers listened, impressed by his earnestness, but plainly not understanding his meaning. "you do not understand?" he went on, with a deep light shining in his eyes. "it is inevitable that two peoples inhabiting worlds so widely separated as are our two should be possessed of widely-varying knowledge and abilities, and these strangers have already made it possible for us to construct engines of destruction which shall obliterate mardonale completely...." a fierce shout of joy interrupted the speaker and the nobles sprang to their feet, saluting the visitors with upraised weapons. as soon as they had reseated themselves, the karbix continued: "that is the boon. the vindication of our system of evolution is easily explained. the strangers landed first upon mardonale. had nalboon met them in honor, he would have gained the boon. but he, with the savagery characteristic of his evolution, attempted to kill his guests and steal their treasures, with what results you already know. we, on our part, in exchange for the few and trifling services we have been able to render them, have received even more than nalboon would have obtained, had his plans not been nullified by their vastly superior state of evolution." the orator seated himself and there was a deafening clamor of cheering as the nobles formed themselves into an escort of honor and conducted the two couples to their apartments. alone in their room, dorothy turned to her husband with tears shining in her beautiful eyes. "dick, sweetheart, wasn't that the most wonderful thing that anybody ever heard of? using the word in all its real meaning, it was indescribably grand, and that old man is simply superb. it makes me ashamed of myself to think that i was ever afraid or nervous here." "it sure was all of that, dottie mine, little bride of an hour. the whole thing gets right down to where a fellow lives--i've got a lump in my throat right now so big that it hurts me to think. earthly marriages are piffling in comparison with that ceremony. it's no wonder they're happy, after taking those vows--especially as they don't have to take them until after they are sure of themselves. "but we're sure already, sweetheart," as he embraced her with all the feeling of his nature. "those vows are not a bit stronger than the ones we have already exchanged--bodily and mentally and spiritually we are one, now and forever." chapter xvii bird, beast, or fish? "these jewels rather puzzle me, dick. what are they?" asked martin, as the four assembled, waiting for the first meal. as he spoke he held up his third finger, upon which gleamed the royal jewel of osnome in its splendid belcher mounting of arenak as transparent as the jewel itself and having the same intense blue color. "i know the name, 'faidon,' but that's all i seem to know." "that's about all that anybody knows about them. it is a naturally-occurring, hundred-faceted crystal, just as you see it there--deep blue, perfectly transparent, intensely refractive, and constantly emitting that strong, blue light. it is so hard that it cannot be worked, cut, or ground. no amount of the hardest known abrasive will even roughen its surface. no blow, however great, will break it--it merely forces its way into the material of the hammer, however hard the hammer may be. no extremity of either heat or cold affects it in any degree, it is the same when in the most powerful electric arc as it is when immersed in liquid helium." "how about acids?" "that is what i am asking myself. osnomians aren't much force at chemistry. i'm going to try to get hold of another one, and see if i can't analyze it, just for fun. i can't seem to convince myself that a real atomic structure could be that large." "no, it is rather large for an atom," and turning to the two girls, "how do you like your solitaires?" "they're perfectly beautiful, and the tiffany mounting is exquisite," replied dorothy, enthusiastically, "but they're so awfully big! they're as big as ten-carat diamonds, i do believe." "just about," replied seaton, "but at that, they're the smallest dunark could find. they have been kicking around for years, he says--so small that nobody wanted them. they wear big ones on their bracelets, you know. you sure will make a hit in washington, dottie. people will think you're wearing a bottle-stopper until they see it shining in the dark, then they'll think it's an automobile headlight. but after a few jewelers have seen these stones, one of them will be offering us five million dollars apiece for them, trying to buy them for some dizzy old dame who wants to put out the eyes of some of her social rivals. yes? no?" "that's about right, dick," replied crane, and his face wore a thoughtful look. "we can't keep it secret that we have a new jewel, since all four of us will be wearing them continuously, and anyone who knows jewels at all will recognize these as infinitely superior to any known earthly jewel. in fact, they may get some of us into trouble, as fabulously valuable jewels usually do." "that's true, too. so we'll let it out casually that they're as common as mud up here--that we're just wearing them for sentiment, which is true, and that we're thinking of bringing back a shipload to sell for parking lights." "that would probably keep anyone from trying to murder our wives for their rings, at least." "have you read your marriage certificate, dick?" asked margaret. "not yet. let's look at it, dottie." she produced the massive, heavily-jeweled document, and the auburn head and the brown one were very close to each other as they read together the english side of the certificate. their vows were there, word for word, with their own signatures beneath them, all deeply engraved into the metal. seaton smiled as he saw the legal form engraved below their signatures, and read aloud: "i, the head of the church and the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of kondal, upon the planet osnome, certify that i have this day, in the city of kondalek, of said nation and planet, joined in indissoluble bonds of matrimony, richard ballinger seaton, doctor of philosophy, and dorothy lee vaneman; doctor of music; both of the city of washington, district of columbia, united states of america, upon the planet earth, in strict compliance with the marriage laws, both of kondal and of the united states of america. tarnan." witnesses: roban, emperor of kondal. tural, empress of kondal. dunark, crown prince of kondal. sitar, crown princess of kondal. marc c. duquesne, ph. d., washington, d. c. "that is some document," remarked seaton. "probably a lawyer could find fault with his phraseology, but i'll bet that this thing would hold in any court in the world. think you'll get married again when we get back, mart?" both girls protested, and crane answered: "no, i think not. our ceremony would be rather an anticlimax after this one, and this one will undoubtedly prove legal. i intend to register this just as it is, and get a ruling from the courts. but it is time for breakfast. pardon me--i should have said 'darprat,' for it certainly is not breakfast-time by washington clocks. my watch says that it is eleven-thirty p. m." "this system of time is funny," remarked dorothy. "i just can't get used to having no night, and...." "and it's such a long time between eats, as the famous governor said about the drinks," broke in seaton. "how did you know what i was going to say, dick?" "husbandly intuition," he grinned, "aided and abetted by a normal appetite that rebels at seventeen hours between supper and breakfast, and nine hours between the other meals. well, it's time to eat--let's go!" * * * * * after eating, the men hurried to the skylark. during the sleeping-period the vessel had been banded with the copper repellers: the machine guns and instruments, including the wonderful osnomian wireless system, had been installed; and, except for the power-bars, she was ready for a voyage. the kondalian vessel was complete, even to the cushions, but was without instruments. after a brief conversation with the officer in charge, dunark turned to seaton. "didn't you find that your springs couldn't stand up under the acceleration?" "yes, they flattened out dead." "the kolanix felan, in charge of the work, thought so, and substituted our compound-compensated type, made of real spring metal, for them. they'll hold you through any acceleration you can live through." "thanks, that's fine. what's next, instruments?" "yes. i have sent a crew of men to gather up what copper they can find--you know that we use practically no metallic copper, as platinum, gold, and silver are so much better for ordinary purposes--and another to erect a copper-smelter near one of the mines which supply the city with the copper sulphate used upon our tables. while they are at work i think i will work on the instruments, if you two will be kind enough to help me." seaton and crane offered to supply him with instruments from their reserve stock, but the kofedix refused to accept them, saying that he would rather have their help in making them, so that he would thoroughly understand their functions. the electric furnaces were rapidly made ready and they set to work; crane taking great delight in working that hitherto rare and very refractory metal, iridium, of which all the kondalian instruments were to be made. "they have a lot of our rare metals here, dick." "they sure have. i'd like to set up a laboratory and live here a few years--i'd learn something about my specialty or burst. they use gold and silver where we use copper, and platinum and its alloys where we use iron and soft steel. all their weapons are made of iridium, and all their most highly-tempered tools, such as their knives, razors, and so on, are made of opaque arenak. i suppose you've noticed the edge on your razor?" "how could i help it? it is hard to realize that a metal can be so hard that it requires forty years on a diamond-dust abrasive machine to hone a razor--or that once honed, it shaves generation after generation of men without losing in any degree its keenness." "i can't understand it, either--i only know that it's so. they have all our heavy metals in great abundance, and a lot more that we don't know anything about on earth, but they apparently haven't any light metals at all. it must be that osnome was thrown off the parent sun late, so that the light metals were all gone?" "something like that, possibly." the extraordinary skill of the kofedix made the manufacture of the instruments a short task, and after crane had replaced the few broken instruments of the skylark from their reserve stock, they turned their attention to the supply of copper that had been gathered. they found it enough for only two bars. "is this all we have?" asked dunark, sharply. "it is, your highness," replied the kolanix. "that is every scrap of metallic copper in the city." "oh, well, that'll be enough to last until we can smelt the rest," said seaton. "with one bar apiece we're ready for anything mardonale can start. let 'em come!" the bars were placed in the containers and both vessels were tried out, each making a perfect performance. upon the following kokam, immediately after the first meal, the full party from the earth boarded the skylark and accompanied the kofedix to the copper smelter. dunark himself directed the work of preparing the charges and the molds, though he was continually being interrupted by wireless messages in code and by messengers bearing tidings too important to trust into the air. "i hope you will excuse all of these delays," said dunark, after the twentieth interruption, "but...." "that's all right, dunark. we know that you're a busy man." "i can tell you about it, but i wouldn't want to tell many people. with the salt you gave us, i am preparing a power-plant that will enable us to blow mardonale into...." he broke off as a wireless call for help sounded. all listened intently, learning that a freight-plane was being pursued by a karlon a few hundred miles away. "now's the time for you to study one, dunark!" seaton exclaimed. "get your gang of scientists out here while we go get him and drag him in!" * * * * * as dunark sent the message, the skylark's people hurried aboard, and seaton drove the vessel toward the calls for help. with its great speed it reached the monster before the plane was overtaken. focusing the attractor upon the enormous metallic beak of the karlon, seaton threw on the power and the beast halted in midair as it was jerked backward and upward. as it saw the puny size of the attacking skylark, it opened its cavernous mouth in a horrible roar and rushed at full speed. seaton, unwilling to have the repellers stripped from the vessel, turned on the current actuating them. the karlon was hurled backward to the point of equilibrium of the two forces, where it struggled demoniacally. seaton carried his captive back to the smelter, where finally, by judicious pushing and pulling, he succeeded in turning the monster flat upon its back and pinning it to the ground in spite of its struggles to escape. soon the scientists arrived and studied the animal thoroughly, at as close a range as its flailing arms permitted. "i wish we could kill him without blowing him to bits," wirelessed dunark. "do you know any way of doing it?" "we could if we had a few barrels of ether, or some of our own poison gases, but they are all unknown here and it would take a long time to build the apparatus to make them. i'll see if i can't tire him out and get him that way as soon as you've studied him enough. we may be able to find out where he lives, too." the scientists having finished their observations, seaton jerked the animal a few miles into the air and shut off the forces acting upon it. there was a sudden crash, and the karlon, knowing that this apparently insignificant vessel was its master, turned in headlong flight. "have you any idea what caused the noise just then, dick?" asked crane; who, with characteristic imperturbability, had taken out his notebook and was making exact notes of all that transpired. "i imagine we cracked a few of his plates," replied seaton with a laugh, as he held the skylark in place a few hundred feet above the fleeing animal. pitted for the first time in its life against an antagonist, who could both outfly and outfight it, the karlon redoubled its efforts and fled in a panic of fear. it flew back over the city of kondalek, over the outlying country, and out over the ocean, still followed easily by the skylark. as they neared the mardonalian border, a fleet of warships rose to contest the entry of the monster. seaton, not wishing to let the foe see the rejuvenated skylark, jerked his captive high into the thin air. as soon as it was released, it headed for the ocean in an almost perpendicular dive, while seaton focused an object-compass upon it. "go to it, old top," he addressed the plunging monster. "we'll follow you clear to the bottom of the ocean if you go that far!" there was a mighty double splash as the karlon struck the water, closely followed by the skylark. the girls gasped as the vessel plunged below the surface at such terrific speed, and seemed surprised that it had suffered no injury and that they had felt no jar. seaton turned on the powerful searchlights and kept close enough so that he could see the monster through the transparent walls. deeper and deeper the quarry dove, until it was plainly evident to the pursuers that it was just as much at home in the water as it was in the air. the beams of the lights revealed strange forms of life, among which were huge, staring-eyed fishes, which floundered about blindly in the unaccustomed glare. as the karlon bored still deeper, the living things became scarcer, but still occasional fleeting glimpses were obtained of the living nightmares which inhabited the oppressive depths of these strange seas. continuing downward, the karlon plumbed the nethermost pit of the ocean and came to rest upon the bottom, stirring up a murk of ooze. "how deep are we, mart?" "about four miles. i have read the pressure, but will have to calculate later exactly what depth it represents, from the gravity and density readings." as the animal showed no sign of leaving its retreat, seaton pulled it out with the attractor and it broke for the surface. rising through the water at full speed, it burst into the air and soared upward to such an incredible height that seaton was amazed. "i wouldn't have believed that anything could fly in air this thin!" he exclaimed. "it is thin up here," assented crane. "less than three pounds to the square inch. i wonder how he does it?" "it doesn't look as though we are ever going to find out--he's sure a bear-cat!" replied seaton, as the karlon, unable to ascend further, dropped in a slanting dive toward the lowlands of kondal--the terrible, swampy region covered with poisonous vegetation and inhabited by frightful animals and even more frightful savages. the monster neared the ground with ever-increasing speed. seaton, keeping close behind it, remarked to crane: "he'll have to flatten out pretty quick, or he'll burst something, sure." * * * * * but it did not flatten out. it struck the soft ground head foremost and disappeared, its tentacles apparently boring a way ahead of it. astonished at such an unlooked-for development, seaton brought the skylark to a stop and stabbed into the ground with the attractor. the first attempt brought up nothing but a pillar of muck, the second brought to light a couple of wings and one writhing arm, the third brought the whole animal, still struggling as strongly as it had in the first contest. seaton again lifted the animal high into the air. "if he does that again, we'll follow him." "will the ship stand it?" asked duquesne, with interest. "yes. the old bus wouldn't have, but this one can stand anything. we can go anywhere that thing can, that's a cinch. if we have enough power on, we probably won't even feel a jolt when we strike ground." seaton reduced the force acting upon the animal until just enough was left to keep the attractor upon it, and it again dived into the swamp. the skylark followed, feeling its way in the total darkness, until the animal stopped, refusing to move in any direction, at a depth estimated by crane to be about three-quarters of a mile. after waiting some time seaton increased the power of the attractor and tore the karlon back to the surface and into the air, where it turned on the skylark with redoubled fury. "we've dug him out of his last refuge and he's fighting like a cornered rat," said seaton as he repelled the monster to a safe distance. "he's apparently as fresh as when he started, in spite of all this playing. talk about a game fish! he doesn't intend to run any more, though, so i guess we'll have to put him away. it's a shame to bump him off, but it's got to be done." crane aimed one of the heavy x-plosive bullets at the savagely-struggling monster, and the earth rocked with the concussion as the shell struck its mark. they hurried back to the smelter, where dunark asked eagerly: "what did you find out about it?" "nothing much," replied seaton, and in a few words described the actions of the karlon. "what did your savants think of it?" "very little that any of us can understand in terms of any other known organism. it seems to combine all the characteristics of bird, beast, and fish, and to have within itself the possibilities of both bisexual and asexual reproduction." "i wouldn't doubt it--it's a queer one, all right." the copper bars were cool enough to handle, and the skylark was loaded with five times its original supply of copper, the other vessel taking on a much smaller amount. after the kofedix had directed the officer in charge to place the remaining bars in easily-accessible places throughout the nation, the two vessels were piloted back to the palace, arriving just in time for the last meal of the kokam. "well, dunark," said seaton after the meal was over, "i'm afraid that we must go back as soon as we can. dorothy's parents and martin's bankers will think they are dead by this time. we should start right now, but...." "oh, no, you must not do that. that would rob our people of the chance of bidding you goodbye." "there's another reason, too. i have a mighty big favor to ask of you." "it is granted. if man can do it, consider it done." "well, you know platinum is a very scarce and highly useful metal with us. i wonder if you could let us have a few tons of it? and i would like to have another faidon, too--i want to see if i can't analyze it." "you have given us a thousand times the value of all the platinum and all the jewels your vessel can carry. as soon as the foundries are open tomorrow we will go and load up your store-rooms--or, if you wish, we will do it now." "that isn't necessary. we may as well enjoy your hospitality for one more sleeping-period, get the platinum during the first work-period, and bid you goodbye just before the second meal. how would that be?" "perfectly satisfactory." the following kokam, dunark piloted the skylark, with seaton, crane, and duquesne as crew, to one of the great platinum foundries. the girls remained behind to get ready for their departure, and for the great ceremony which was to precede it. the trip to the foundry was a short one, and the three scientists of earth stared at what they saw--thousands of tons of platinum, cast into bars and piled up like pig-iron, waiting to be made into numerous articles of every-day use throughout the nation. dunark wrote out an order, which his chief attendant handed to the officer in charge of the foundry, saying: "please have it loaded at once." seaton indicated the storage compartment into which the metal was to be carried, and a procession of slaves, two men staggering under one ingot, was soon formed between the pile and the storage room. * * * * * "how much are you loading on, dunark?" asked seaton, when the large compartment was more than half full. "my order called for about twenty tons, in your weight, but i changed it later--we may as well fill that room full, so that the metal will not rattle around in flight. it doesn't make any difference to us, we have so much of it. it is like your gift of the salt, only vastly smaller." "what are you going to do with it all, dick?" asked crane. "that is enough to break the platinum market completely." "that's exactly what i'm going to do," returned seaton, with a gleam in his gray eyes. "i'm going to burst this unjustifiable fad for platinum jewelry so wide open that it'll never recover, and make platinum again available for its proper uses, in laboratories and in the industries. "you know yourself," he rushed on hotly, "that the only reason platinum is used at all for jewelry is that it is expensive. it isn't nearly so handsome as either gold or silver, and if it wasn't the most costly common metal we have, the jewelry-wearing crowd wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole. useless as an ornament, it is the one absolutely indispensable laboratory metal, and literally hundreds of laboratories that need it can't have it because over half the world's supply is tied up in jeweler's windows and in useless baubles. then, too, it is the best thing known for contact points in electrical machinery. when the government and all the scientific societies were abjectly begging the jewelers to let loose a little of it they refused--they were selling it to profiteering spendthrifts at a hundred and fifty dollars an ounce. the condition isn't much better right now; it's a vicious circle. as long as the price stays high it will be used for jewelry, and as long as it is used for jewelry the price will stay high, and scientists will have to fight the jewelers for what little they get." "while somewhat exaggerated, that is about the way matters stand. i will admit that i, too, am rather bitter on the subject," said crane. "bitter? of course you're bitter. everybody is who knows anything about science and who has a brain in his head. anybody who claims to be a scientist and yet stands for any of his folks buying platinum jewelry ought to be shot. but they'll get theirs as soon as we get back. they wouldn't let go of it before, they had too good a thing, but they'll let go now, and get their fingers burned besides. i'm going to dump this whole shipment at fifty cents a pound, and we'll take mighty good care that jewelers don't corner the supply." "i'm with you, dick, as usual." soon the storage room was filled to the ceiling with closely-stacked ingots of the precious metal, and the skylark was driven back to the landing dock. she alighted beside dunark's vessel, the _kondal_, whose gorgeously-decorated crew of high officers sprang to attention as the four men stepped out. all were dressed for the ceremonial leave-taking, the three americans wearing their spotless white, the kondalians wearing their most resplendent trappings. "this formal stuff sure does pull my cork!" exclaimed seaton to dunark. "i want to get this straight. the arrangement was that we were to be here at this time, all dressed up, and wait for the ladies, who are coming under the escort of your people?" "yes. our family is to escort the ladies from the palace here. as they leave the elevator the surrounding war-vessels will salute, and after a brief ceremony you two will escort your wives into the skylark, doctor duquesne standing a little apart and following you in. the war-vessels will escort you as high as they can go, and the kondal will accompany you as far as our most distant sun before turning back." for a few moments seaton nervously paced a short beat in front of the door of the space-car. "i'm getting more fussed every second," he said abruptly, taking out his wireless instrument. "i'm going to see if they aren't about ready." "what seems to be the trouble, dick? have you another hunch, or are you just rattled?" asked crane. "rattled, i guess, but i sure do want to get going," he replied, as he worked the lever rapidly. "dottie," he sent out, and, the call being answered, "how long will you be? we're all ready and waiting, chewing our finger-nails with impatience." "we'll soon be ready. the karfedix is coming for us now." scarcely had the tiny sounder become silent when the air was shaken by an urgently-vibrated message, and every wireless sounder gave warning. chapter xviii the invasion the pulsating air and the chattering sounders were giving the same dire warning, the alarm extraordinary of invasion, of imminent and catastrophic danger from the air. "don't try to reach the palace. everyone on the ground will have time enough to hide in the deep, arenak-protected pits beneath the buildings, and you would be killed by the invaders long before you could reach the palace. if we can repel the enemy and keep them from landing, the women will be perfectly safe, even though the whole city is destroyed. if they effect a landing we are lost." "they'll not land, then," seaton answered grimly, as he sprang into the skylark and took his place at the board. as crane took out his wireless, seaton cautioned him. "send in english, and tell the girls not to answer, as these devils can locate the calls within a foot and will be able to attack the right spot. just tell them we're safe in the skylark. tell them to sit tight while we wipe out this gang that is coming, and that we'll call them, once in a while, when we have time, during the battle." before crane had finished sending the message the crescendo whine of enormous propellers was heard. simultaneously there was a deafening concussion and one entire wing of the palace disappeared in a cloud of dust, in the midst of which could be discerned a few flying fragments. the air was filled with mardonalian warships. they were huge vessels, each mounting hundreds of guns, and the rain of high-explosive shells was rapidly reducing the great city to a wide-spread heap of debris. seaton's hand was upon the lever which would hurl the skylark upward into the fray. crane and duquesne, each hard of eye and grim of jaw, were stationed at their machine-guns. "something's up!" exclaimed seaton. "look at the kondal!" something had happened indeed. dunark sat at the board, his hand upon the power lever, and each of his crew was in place, grasping his weapon, but every man was writhing in agony, unable to control his movements. as they stared, momentarily spellbound, the entire crew ceased their agonized struggles and hung, apparently lifeless, from their supports. "they've got to 'em some way--let's go!" yelled seaton. as his hand tightened upon the lever, a succession of shells burst upon the dock, wrecking it completely, all three men fancied that the world had come to an end as the stream of high explosive was directed against their vessel. but the four-foot shell of arenak was impregnable, and seaton shot the skylark upward into the midst of the enemy fleet. the two gunners fired as fast as they could sight their weapons, and with each shot one of the great warships was blown into fragments. the mardonalians then concentrated the fire of their entire fleet upon their tiny opponent. from every point of the compass, from above and below, the enemy gunners directed streams of shells against the dodging vessel. the noise was more than deafening, it was one continuous, shattering explosion, and the earth-men were surrounded by such a blaze of fire from the exploding shells that they could not see the enemy vessels. seaton sought to dodge the shells by a long dive toward one side, only to find that dozens of new opponents had been launched against them--the deadly airplane-torpedoes of osnome. steered by wireless and carrying no crews, they were simply winged bombs carrying thousands of pounds of terrific electrical explosive--enough to kill the men inside the vessel by the concussion of the explosion, even should the arenak armor be strong enough to withstand the blow. though much faster than the osnomian vessels, they were slow beside the skylark, and seaton could have dodged a few of them with ease. as he dodged, however, they followed relentlessly, and in spite of those which were blown up by the gunners, their number constantly increased until seaton thought of the repellers. "'nobody holme' is right!" he exclaimed, as he threw on the power actuating the copper bands which encircled the hull in all directions. instantly the torpedoes were hurled backward, exploding as the force struck them, and even the shells were ineffective, exploding harmlessly, as they encountered the zone of force. the noise of the awful detonations lessened markedly. "why the silence, i wonder?" asked seaton, while the futile shells of the enemy continued to waste their force some hundreds of feet distant from their goal, and while crane and duquesne were methodically destroying the huge vessels as fast as they could aim and fire. at every report one of the monster warships disappeared--its shattered fragments and the bodies of its crew hurtling to the ground. his voice could not be heard in even the lessened tumult, but he continued: "it must be that our repellers have set up a partial vacuum by repelling even the air!" * * * * * suddenly the shelling ceased and the skylark was enveloped by a blinding glare from hundreds of great reflectors; an intense, searching, bluish-violet light that burned the flesh and seared through eyelids and eyeballs into the very brain. "ultra-violet!" yelled seaton at the first glimpse of the light, as he threw on the power. "shut your eyes! turn your heads down!" out in space, far beyond reach of the deadly rays, the men held a short conference, then donned heavy leather-and-canvas suits, which they smeared liberally with thick red paint, and replaced the plain glasses of their helmets with heavy lenses of deep ruby glass. "this'll stop any ultra-violet ray ever produced," exulted seaton, as he again threw the vessel into the mardonalian fleet. a score of the great vessels met their fate before the skylark was located, and, although the terrible rays were again focused upon the intruder in all their intensity, the carnage continued. in a few minutes, however, the men heard, or rather felt, a low, intense vibration, like a silent wave of sound--a vibration which smote upon the eardrums as no possible sound could smite, a vibration which racked the joints and tortured the nerves as though the whole body were disintegrating. so sudden and terrible was the effect that seaton uttered an involuntary yelp of surprise and pain as he once more fled into the safety of space. "what the devil was that?" demanded duquesne. "was it infra-sound? i didn't suppose such waves could be produced." "infra-sound is right. they produce most anything here," replied seaton, and crane added: "well, about three fur suits apiece, with cotton in our ears, ought to kill any wave propagated through air." the fur suits were donned forthwith, seaton whispering in crane's ear: "i've found out something else, too. the repellers repel even the air. i'm going to shoot enough juice through them to set up a perfect vacuum outside. that'll kill those air-waves." scarcely were they back within range of the fleet when duquesne, reaching for his gun to fire the first shot, leaped backward with a yell. "beat it!" once more at a safe distance, duquesne explained. "it's lucky i'm so used to handling hot stuff that from force of habit i never make close contact with anything at the first touch. that gun carried thousands of volts, with lots of amperage behind them, and if i had had a good hold on it i couldn't have let go. we'll block that game quick enough, though. thick, dry gloves covered with rubber are all that is necessary. it's a good thing for all of us that you have those fancy condensite handles on your levers, seaton." "that was how they got dunark, undoubtedly," said crane, as he sent a brief message to the girls, assuring them that all was well, as he had been doing at every respite. "but why were we not overcome at the same time?" "they must have had the current tuned to iridium, and had to experiment until they found the right wave for steel," seaton explained. "i should think our bar would have exploded, with all that current. they must have hit the copper range, too?" seaton frowned in thought before he answered. "maybe because it's induced current, and not a steady battery impulse. anyway, it didn't. let's go!" "just a minute," put in crane. "what are they going to do next, dick?" "search me. i'm not used to my new osnomian mind yet. i recognize things all right after they happen, but i can't seem to figure ahead--it's like a dimly-remembered something that flashes up as soon as mentioned. i get too many and too new ideas at once. i know, though, that the osnomians have defenses against all these things except this last stunt of the charged guns. that must be the new one that mardonale stole from kondal. the defenses are, however, purely osnomian in character and material. as we haven't got the stuff to set them up as the osnomians do, we'll have to do it our own way. we may be able to dope out the next one, though. let's see, what have they given us so far?" "we've got to hand it to them," responded duquesne, admiringly. "they're giving us the whole range of wave-lengths, one at a time. they've given us light, both ultra-violet and visible, sound, infra-sound, and electricity--i don't know what's left unless they give us a new kind of x-rays, or hertzian, or infra-red heat waves, or...." "that's it, heat!" exclaimed seaton. "they produce heat by means of powerful wave-generators and by setting up heavy induced currents in the armor. they can melt arenak that way." "do you suppose we can handle the heat with our refrigerators?" asked crane. "probably. we have a lot of power, and the new arenak cylinders of our compressors will stand anything. the only trouble will be in cooling the condensers. we'll run as long as we have any water in our tanks, then go dive into the ocean to cool off. we'll try it a whirl, anyway." * * * * * soon the skylark was again dealing out death and destruction in the thick of the enemy vessels, who again turned from the devastation of the helpless city to destroy this troublesome antagonist. but in spite of the utmost efforts of light-waves, sound-waves, and high-tension electricity, the space-car continued to take its terrible toll. as seaton had foretold, the armor of the skylark began to grow hot, and he turned on the full power of the refrigerating system. in spite of the cooling apparatus, however, the outer walls finally began to glow redly, and, although the interior was comfortably cool, the ends of the rifle-barrels, which were set flush with the surface of the revolving arenak globes which held them, softened, rendering the guns useless. the copper repellers melted and dripped off in flaming balls of molten metal, so that shells once more began to crash against the armor. duquesne, with no thought of quitting apparent in voice or manner, said calmly: "well, it looks as though they had us stopped for a few minutes. let's go back into space and dope out something else." seaton, thinking intensely, saw a vast fleet of enemy reinforcements approaching, and at the same time received a wireless call directed to dunark. it was from the grand fleet of kondal, hastening from the bordering ocean to the defense of the city. using dunark's private code, seaton told the karbix, who was in charge of the fleet, that the enemy had a new invention which would wipe them out utterly without a chance to fight, and that he and his vessel were in control of the situation; and ordered him to see that no kondalian ship came within battle range of a mardonalian. he then turned to crane and duquesne, his face grim and his fighting jaw set. "i've got it doped right now. give the lark speed enough and she's some bullet herself. we've got four feet of arenak, they've got only an inch, and arenak doesn't even begin to soften until far above a blinding white temperature. strap yourselves in solid, for it's going to be a rough party from now on." they buckled their belts firmly, and seaton, holding the bar toward their nearest antagonist, applied twenty notches of power. the skylark darted forward and crashed completely through the great airship. torn wide open by the forty-foot projectile, its engines wrecked and its helicopter-screws and propellers completely disabled, the helpless hulk plunged through two miles of empty air, a mass of wreckage. [illustration: the skylark darted forward and crashed completely through the great airship.... she was an embodied thunderbolt; a huge, irresistible, indestructible projectile, directed by a keen brain inside....] darting hither and thither, the space-car tore through vessel after vessel of the mardonalian fleet. she was an embodied thunderbolt; a huge, irresistible, indestructible projectile, directed by a keen brain inside it--the brain of richard seaton, roused to his highest fighting pitch and fighting for everything that man holds dear. tortured by the terrible silent waves, which, now that the protecting vacuum had been destroyed, were only partially stopped by the fur suits; shaken and battered by the terrific impacts and the even greater shocks occurring every second as the direction of the vessel was changed; made sick and dizzy by the nauseating swings and lurches as the skylark spun about the central chamber; seaton's wonderful physique and his nerves of steel stood him in good stead in this, the supreme battle of his life, as with teeth tight-locked and eyes gray and hard as the fracture of high-carbon steel, he urged the skylark on to greater and greater efforts. though it was impossible for the eye to follow the flight of the space-car, the mechanical sighting devices of the mardonalian vessels kept her in as perfect focus as though she were stationary, and the great generators continued to hurl into her the full power of their death-dealing waves. the enemy guns were still spitting forth their streams of high-explosive shells, but unlike the waves, the shells moved so slowly compared to their target that only a few found their mark, and many of the vessels fell to the ground, riddled by the shells of their sister-ships. * * * * * with anxious eyes seaton watched the hull of his animated cannon-ball change in color. from dull red it became cherry, and as the cherry red gave place to bright red heat, seaton threw even more power into the bar as he muttered through his set teeth: "well, seaton, old top, you've got to cut out this loafing on the job and get busy!" in spite of his utmost exertions and in spite of the powerful ammonia plant, now exerting its full capacity, but sadly handicapped by the fact that its cooling-water was now boiling, seaton saw the arenak shell continue to heat. the bright red was succeeded by orange, which slowly changed, first to yellow, then to light yellow, and finally to a dazzling white; through which, with the aid of his heavy red lenses, he could still see the enemy ships. after a time he noted that the color had gone down to yellow and he thrilled with exultation, knowing that he had so reduced the numbers of the enemy fleet that their wave-generators could no longer overcome his refrigerators. after a few minutes more of the awful carnage there remained only a small fraction of the proud fleet which, thousands strong, had invaded kondal--a remnant that sought safety in flight. but even in flight, they still fought with all their weapons, and the streams of bombs dropped from their keel-batteries upon the country beneath marked the path of their retreat with a wide swath of destruction. half inclined to let the few remaining vessels escape, seaton's mind changed instantly as he saw the bombs spreading devastation upon the countryside, and not until the last of the mardonalian vessels had been destroyed did he drop the skylark into the area of ruins which had once been the palace grounds, beside the kondal, which was still lying as it had fallen. after several attempts to steady their whirling senses, the three men finally were able to walk, and, opening a door, they leaped out through the opening in the still glowing wall. seaton's first act was to wireless the news to dorothy, who replied that they were coming as fast as they could. the men then removed their helmets, revealing faces pale and drawn, and turned to the helpless space-car. "there's no way of getting into this thing from the outside...." seaton began, when he saw that the kofedix and his party were beginning to revive. soon dunark opened the door and stumbled out. "i have to thank you for more than my life this time," he said, his voice shaken by uncontrollable emotion as he grasped the hands of all three men. "though unable to move, i was conscious and saw all that happened--you kept them so busy that they didn't have a chance to give us enough to kill us outright. you have saved the lives of millions of our nation and have saved kondal itself from annihilation." "oh, it's not that bad," answered seaton, uncomfortably. "both nations have been invaded before." "yes--once when we developed the ultra-violet ray, once when mardonale perfected the machine for producing the silent sound-wave, and again when we harnessed the heat-wave. but this would have been the most complete disaster in history. the other inventions were not so deadly as was this one, and there were terrible battles, from which the victors emerged so crippled that they could not completely exterminate the vanquished, who were able to re-establish themselves in the course of time. if it had not been for you, this would have been the end, as not a kondalian soldier could move--any person touching iridium was helpless and would have been killed." he ceased speaking and saluted as the karfedix and his party rounded a heap of boulders. dorothy and margaret screamed in unison as they saw the haggard faces of their husbands, and saw their suits, dripping with a thick substance which they knew to be red, in spite of its purplish-black color. seaton dodged nimbly as dorothy sought to take him in her arms, and tore off his suit. "nothing but red paint to stop their light-rays," he reassured her as he lifted her clear from the ground in a soul-satisfying embrace. out of the corner of his eye he saw the kondalians staring in open-mouthed amazement at the skylark. wheeling swiftly, he laughed as he saw a gigantic ball of frost and snow! again donning his fur suit, he shut off the refrigerators and returned to his party, where the karfedix gave him thanks in measured terms. as he fell silent, dunark added: "thanks to you, the mardonalian forces, instead of wiping us out, are themselves destroyed, while only a handful of our vessels have been lost, since the grand fleet could not arrive until the battle was over, and since the vessels that would have thrown themselves away were saved by your orders, which i heard. thanks to you, we are not even crippled, though our capital is destroyed and the lives of some unfortunates, who could not reach the pits in time, have probably been lost. "thanks to you," he continued in a ringing voice, "and to the salt and the new source of power you have given us, mardonale shall now be destroyed utterly!" after sending out ships to relieve the suffering of the few wounded and the many homeless, dunark summoned a corps of mechanics, who banded on new repellers and repaired the fused barrels of the machine-guns, all that was necessary to restore the skylark to perfect condition. * * * * * facing the party from earth, the karfedix stood in the ruins of his magnificent palace. back of him were the nobles of kondal, and still further back, in order of rank, stood a multitude of people. "is it permitted, oh noble karfedo, that i reward your captive for his share in the victory?" he asked. "it is," acquiesced seaton and crane, and roban stepped up to duquesne and placed in his hand a weighty leather bag. he then fastened about his left wrist the order of kondal, the highest order of the nation. he then clasped about crane's wrist a heavily-jeweled, peculiarly-ornamented disk wrought of a deep ruby-red metal, supported by a heavy bracelet of the same material, the most precious metal of osnome. at sight of the disk the nobles saluted and seaton barely concealed a start of surprise, for it bore the royal emblem and delegated to its bearer power second only to that of the karfedix himself. "i bestow upon you this symbol, karfedix crane, in recognition of what you have this day done for kondal. wherever you may be upon kondalian osnome, which from this day henceforth shall be all osnome, you have power as my personal representative, as my eldest son." he drew forth a second bracelet, similar to the first except that it bore seven disks, each differently designed, which he snapped upon seaton's wrist as the nobles knelt and the people back of them threw themselves upon their faces. "no language spoken by man possesses words sufficiently weighty to express our indebtedness to you, karfedix seaton, our guest and our savior. the first cause has willed that you should be the instrument through which kondal is this day made supreme upon osnome. in small and partial recognition of that instrumentality, i bestow upon you these symbols, which proclaim you our overlord, the ultimate authority of osnome. while this is not the way in which i had thought to bid you farewell, the obligations which you have heaped upon us render all smaller things insignificant. when you return, as i hope and trust you soon will, the city shall be built anew and we can welcome you as befits your station." lifting both arms above his head he continued: "may the great first cause smile upon you in all your endeavors until you solve the mystery: may your descendants soon reach the ultimate goal. goodbye." seaton uttered a few heartfelt words in response and the party stepped backward toward the skylark. as they reached the vessel the standing karfedix and the ranks of kneeling nobles snapped into the double salute--truly a rare demonstration in kondal. "what'll we do now?" whispered seaton. "bow, of course," answered dorothy. they bowed, deeply and slowly, and entered their vessel. as the skylark shot into the air with the greatest acceleration that would permit its passengers to move about, the grand fleet of kondalian warship fired a deafening salute. * * * * * it had been planned before the start that each person was to work sixteen hours out of the twenty-four. seaton was to drive the vessel during the first two eight-hour periods of each day. crane was to observe the stars during the second and to drive during the third. duquesne was to act as observer during the first and third periods. margaret had volunteered to assist the observer in taking his notes during her waking hours, and dorothy appointed herself cook and household manager. as soon as the skylark had left osnome, crane told duquesne that he and his wife would work in the observation room until four o'clock in the afternoon, at which time the prearranged system of relief would begin, and duquesne retired to his room. crane and margaret made their way to the darkened room which housed the instruments and seated themselves, watching intently and making no effort to conceal their emotion as first the persons beneath them, then the giant war-vessels, and finally the ruined city itself, were lost to view. osnome slowly assumed the proportions of a large moon, grew smaller, and as it disappeared crane began to take notes. for a few hours the seventeen suns of this strange solar system shone upon the flying space-car, after which they assumed the aspect of a widely-separated cluster of enormous stars, slowly growing smaller and smaller and shrinking closer and closer together. at four o'clock in the afternoon, washington time, duquesne relieved crane, who made his way to the engine room. "it is time to change shifts, dick. you have not had your sixteen hours, but everything will be regular from now on. you two had better get some rest." "all right," replied seaton, as he relinquished the controls to crane, and after bidding the new helmsman goodnight he and dorothy went below to their cabin. standing at a window with their arms around each other they stared down with misty eyes at the very faint green star, which was rapidly decreasing in brilliance as the skylark increased its already inconceivable velocity. finally, as it disappeared altogether, seaton turned to his wife and tenderly, lovingly, took her in his arms. "littlest girl.... sweetheart...." he whispered, and paused, overcome by the intensity of his feelings. "i know, husband mine," she answered, while tears dimmed her glorious eyes. "it is too deep. with nothing but words, we can't say a single thing." chapter xix the return to earth duquesne's first act upon gaining the privacy of his own cabin was to open the leather bag presented to him by the karfedix. he expected to find it filled with rare metals, with perhaps some jewels, instead of which the only metal present was a heavily-insulated tube containing a full pound of metallic radium. the least valuable items in the bag were scores of diamonds, rubies, and emeralds of enormous size and of flawless perfection. merely ornamental glass upon osnome, dunark knew that they were priceless upon earth, and had acted accordingly. to this great wealth of known gems, he had added a rich and varied assortment of the rare and strange jewels peculiar to his own world, the faidon alone being omitted from the collection. duquesne's habitual calmness of mind almost deserted him as he classified the contents of the bag. the radium alone was worth millions of dollars, and the scientist in him exulted that at last his brother scientists should have ample supplies of that priceless metal with which to work, even while he was rejoicing in the price he would exact for it. he took out the familiar jewels, estimating their value as he counted them--a staggering total. the bag was still half full of the strange gems, some of them glowing like miniature lamps in the dark depths, and he made no effort to appraise them. he knew that once any competent jeweler had compared their cold, hard, scintillating beauty with that of any earthly gems, he could demand his own price. "at last," he breathed to himself, "i will be what i have always longed to be--a money power. now i can cut loose from that gang of crooks and go my own way." he replaced the gems and the tube of radium in the bag, which he stowed away in one of his capacious pockets, and made his way to the galley. * * * * * the return voyage through space was uneventful, the skylark constantly maintaining the same velocity with which she had started out. several times, as the days wore on, she came within the zone of attraction of various gigantic suns, but the pilot had learned his lesson. he kept a vigilant eye upon the bar, and at the first sign of a deviation from the perpendicular he steered away, far from the source of the attraction. not content with these precautions, the man at the board would, from time to time, shut off the power, to make sure that the space-car was not falling toward a body directly in its line of flight. when half the distance had been covered, the bar was reversed, the travelers holding an impromptu ceremony as the great vessel spun around its center through an angle of one hundred and eighty degrees. a few days later the observers began to recognize some of the fixed stars in familiar constellations and knew that the yellowish-white star directly in their line of flight was the sun of their own solar system. after a time they saw that their course, instead of being directly toward that rapidly-brightening star, was bearing upon a barely visible star a little to one side of it. pointing their most powerful telescope toward that point of light, crane made out a planet, half of its disk shining brightly. the girls hastened to peer through the telescope, and they grew excited as they made out the familiar outlines of the continents and oceans upon the lighted portion of the disk. it was not long until these outlines were plainly visible to the unaided vision. the earth appeared as a great, softly shining, greenish half-moon, with parts of its surface obscured by fleecy wisps of cloud, and with its two gleaming ice-caps making of its poles two brilliant areas of white. the returning wanderers stared at their own world with their hearts in their throats as crane, who was at the board, increased the retarding force sufficiently to assure himself that they would not be traveling too fast to land upon the earth. after dorothy and margaret had gone to prepare a meal, duquesne turned to seaton. "have you gentlemen decided what you intend to do with me?" "no. we haven't discussed it yet. i can't make up my own mind what i want to do to you, except that i sure would like to get you inside a square ring with four-ounce gloves on. you have been of too much real assistance on this trip for us to see you hanged, as you deserve. on the other hand, you are altogether too much of a thorough-going scoundrel for us to let you go free. you see the fix we are in. what would you suggest?" "nothing," replied duquesne calmly. "as i am in no danger whatever of hanging, nothing you can say on that score affects me in the least. as for freeing me, you may do as you please--it makes no difference to me, one way or the other, as no jail can hold me for a day. i can say, however, that while i have made a fortune on this trip, so that i do not have to associate further with steel unless it is to my interest to do so, i may nevertheless find it desirable at some future time to establish a monopoly of x. that would, of course, necessitate the death of yourself and crane. in that event, or in case any other difference should arise between us, this whole affair will be as though it had never existed. it will have no weight either way, whether or not you try to hang me." "go as far as you like," seaton answered cheerfully. "if we're not a match for you and your gang, on foot or in the air, in body or in mind, we'll deserve whatever we get. we can outrun you, outjump you, throw you down, or lick you; we can run faster, hit harder, dive deeper, and come up dryer, than you can. we'll play any game you want to deal, whenever you want to deal it; for fun, money, chalk, or marbles." his brow darkened in anger as a thought struck him, and the steady gray eyes bored into the unflinching black ones as he continued, with no trace of his former levity in his voice: "but listen to this. anything goes as far as martin and i personally are concerned. but i want you to know that i could be arrested for what i think of you as a man; and if any of your little schemes touch dottie or peggy in any way, shape or form, i'll kill you as i would a snake--or rather, i'll take you apart as i would any other piece of scientific apparatus. this isn't a threat, it's a promise. get me?" "perfectly. good-night." for many hours the earth had been obscured by clouds, so that the pilot had only a general idea of what part of the world was beneath them, but as they dropped rapidly downward into the twilight zone, the clouds parted and they saw that they were directly over the panama canal. seaton allowed the skylark to fall to within ten miles of the ground, when he stopped so that martin could get his bearings and calculate the course to washington, which would be in total darkness before their arrival. duquesne had retired, cold and reticent as usual. glancing quickly about his cabin to make sure that he had overlooked nothing he could take with him, he opened a locker, exposing to view four suits which he had made in his spare time, each adapted to a particular method of escape from the skylark. the one he selected was of heavy canvas, braced with steel netting, equipped with helmet and air-tanks, and attached to a strong, heavy parachute. he put it on, tested all its parts, and made his way unobserved to one of the doors in the lower part of the vessel. thus, when the chance for escape came, he was ready for it. as the skylark paused over the isthmus, his lips parted in a sardonic smile. he opened the door and stepped out into the air, closing the door behind him as he fell. the neutral color of the parachute was lost in the gathering twilight a few seconds after he left the vessel. the course laid, seaton turned almost due north and the skylark tore through the air. after a short time, when half the ground had been covered, seaton spoke suddenly. "forgot about duquesne, mart. we'd better iron him, hadn't we? then we'll decide whether we want to keep him or turn him loose." "i will go fetch him," replied crane, and turned to the stairs. he returned shortly, with the news of the flight of the captive. "hm ... he must have made himself a parachute. i didn't think even he would tackle a sixty-thousand-foot drop. i'll tell the world that he sure has established a record. i can't say i'm sorry that he got away, though. we can get him again any time we want him, anyway, as that little object-compass in my drawer is still looking right at him," said seaton. "i think he earned his liberty," declared dorothy, stoutly, and margaret added: "he deserves to be shot, but i'm glad he's gone. he gives me the shivers." at the end of the calculated time they saw the lights of a large city beneath them, and crane's fingers clenched upon seaton's arm as he pointed downward. there were the landing-lights of crane field, seven peculiarly-arranged searchlights throwing their mighty beams upward into the night. "nine weeks, dick," he said, unsteadily, "and shiro would have kept them burning nine years if necessary." the skylark dropped easily to the ground in front of the testing shed and the wanderers leaped out, to be greeted by the half-hysterical jap. shiro's ready vocabulary of peculiar but sonorous words failed him completely, and he bent himself double in a bow, his yellow face wreathed in the widest possible smile. crane, one arm around his wife, seized shiro's hand and wrung it in silence. seaton swept dorothy off her feet, pressing her slender form against his powerful body. her arms tightened about his neck as they kissed each other fervently and he whispered in her ear: "sweetheart wife, isn't it great to be back on our good old earth again?" the end +--------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | transcriber's notes & errata | | | | the editorial notes associated with the three installments | | of the story have been placed in ascii text boxes and | | incorporated at the appropriate places in the text. | | | | illustrations have been moved to the appropriate place in | | the text. | | | | the chemical symbol for water is represented as h o. | | | | the following typographical errors have been corrected. | | | | |error |correction | | | | | | | | |plantinum |platinum | | | |refused. |refused." | | | |we |"we | | | |abstruce |abstruse | | | |i love |"i love | | | |chapte |chapter | | | |food |fool | | | |unmistakeable |unmistakable | | | |ever |even | | | |mat |mart | | | |gravity. |gravity." | | | |completely. |completely." | | | |ecstacy |ecstasy | | | |embarassment |embarrassment | | | |naloon |nalboon | | | |inumerable |innumerable | | | |but |"but | | | |efficient |efficient." | | | |dare |"dare | | | |wit |wait | | | |they produce |"they produce | | | | | | | variable hyphenation | | | | the number of times each form appears in the text is given | | in parentheses. | | | | |blue-prints ( ) |blueprints ( ) | | | |border-line ( ) |borderline ( ) | | | |break-down ( ) |breakdown ( ) | | | |devil-fish ( ) |devilfish ( ) | | | |good-bye ( ) |goodbye ( ) | | | |good-bye ( ) |goodbye ( ) | | | |good-night ( ) |goodnight ( ) | | | |half-way ( ) |halfway ( ) | | | |hand-rail ( ) |handrail ( ) | | | |hand-rails ( ) |handrails ( ) | | | |home-coming ( ) |homecoming ( ) | | | |major-domo ( ) |majordomo ( ) | | | |near-by ( ) |nearby ( ) | | | |nitro-glycerin ( ) |nitroglycerin ( ) | | | |to-night ( ) |tonight ( ) | | | | +--------------------------------------------------------------+ none far from home [illustration] by j. a. taylor illustrated by emsh _"far" is strictly a relative term. half a world away from home is, sometimes, no distance at all!_ someone must have talked over the fence because the newshounds were clamoring on the trail within an hour after it happened. the harassed controller had lived in an aura of "restricteds," "classifieds" and "top secrets" for so long it had become a mental conditioning and automatically hedged over information that had been public property for years via the popular technical mags; but in time they pried from him an admittance that the station service lift rocket a. j. "able jake" four had indeed failed to rendezvous with space station one, due at : greenwich that morning. the initial take-off and ascent had gone to flight plan and the pilot, in the routine check-back after entering free flight had reported no motor or control faults. at this point, unfortunately, a fault in the tracking radar transmitter had resulted in it losing contact with the target. the controller did not, however, mention the defection of the hungover operator in fouling up the signal to the standby unit, or the consequent general confusion in the tracking network with no contact at all thereafter, and fervently hoped that gentlemen of the press were not too familiar with the organization of the tracking system. at least one of the more shrewd looking reporters appeared as though he were mentally baiting a large trap so the controller, throwing caution to the winds, plunged headlong into a violent refutal of various erroneous reports already common in the streets. able jake did not carry explosives or highly corrosive chemicals, only some waste disposal cylinders, dry foodstuffs and sundry station household supplies. furthermore there was no truth in the oft-revived rumors of weaknesses in the so-called "spine-and-rib" construction of the baur and hammond type three vessel under acceleration strain. the type had been discontinued solely because the rather complicated structure raised certain stowage difficulties in service with overlong turnabout times resulting. there may have been a collision with a meteor he conceded, but, it was thought, highly unlikely. and now, the urgent business of the search called, the controller escaped, perspiring gently. able jake was sighted a few minutes later but it was another three hours before a service ship could be readied and got away without load to allow it as much operating margin as possible. getting a man aboard was yet another matter. at this stage of space travel no maneuver of this nature had ever been accomplished outside of theory. fuel-thrust-mass ratios were still a thing of pretty close reckoning, and the service lift ships were simply not built for it. the ship was in an elliptical orbit and a full degree off its normal course. a large part of the control room was demolished and there was a lengthy split in the hull. there was no sign of the pilot and some of the cargo was missing also. the investigating crew assumed the obvious and gave it as their opinion that the pilot had been literally disintegrated by the intense heat of the collision. the larger part of the world's population made it a point to listen in on the first space burial service in history over the absent remains of johnny melland. * * * * * such a small thing to cause such a fury. a mere twenty earth pounds of an indifferent grade of rock and a little iron, an irregular, ungraceful lump, spawned somewhere a billion years before as a star died. but it still had most of the awesome velocity and inertia of its birth. able jake, with the controlling influence of the jets cut, had yawed slightly and was now traveling crabwise. the meteor on its own course, a trifle oblique to that of the ship, struck almost directly the slender spring steel spine, the frightful energy of the impact transmuted on the instant into a heat that vaporized several feet of the nose and spine before the dying shock caused an anguished flexing of the ship's backbone; thrust violently outward along the radial members and so against the ribs and hull sheathing on that side. able jake's hull split open like a pea pod for fully half its length and several items of its cargo burst from their lashings, erupted from the wound. johnny was not inboard at the time, but floating, spacesuited alongside, freeing a fouled lead to the radar bowl, swearing occasionally but without any real passion at the stupidity of the unknown maintenance man who failed to secure it properly. for some odd reason he had never quite lost the thrill of his first trip "outside," and, donning pressure suit with the speed of long practice, sneaked as many "inspections" as possible, with or without due cause. the second's fury that reduced the third stage of a $ , , rocket to junk was evident to him only as a brilliant blue-white flash, a hammer-like shock through the antennae support that left his wrist and forearm numb. then a violent wrench as a long cylinder, expelled from the split hull, caught the loop of his life line and dragged him in till he clashed hard against it, the suddenly increased tension or a sharp edge parting the line close to the anchored end. he clawed blindly for a hold, found something he could not at that moment identify and hung on. for a short time his vision seemed dulled and that part of his mind, trained to the quick analysis of sudden situations groped but feebly through a haze of shock to understand what had happened. orienting himself he found he was gripping a brace of the open-mounted motor on one of the waste disposal cylinders. about him he could see other odd items of the cargo, some clustering fairly closely, others just perceptibly drifting farther away. to one side, or "downwards" the earth rolling vastly, pole over pole, and with her own natural rotation giving an odd illusion of slipping sideways from under him. only a sudden sun glint on the stubby swept-back wings showed him where able jake was. far away--too far, spinning slowly end over end. his sideways expulsion from the ship then had been enough to give him and his companion debris a divergent course. spacemen accept without question the fact of a ship or a station always at hand with a safety man on watch at all times over those outside and a "bug" within signaling distance constantly. they do not conceive of any other state of affairs. now johnny had to face the fact that he was in such a position--entirely and utterly alone, except for the useless flotsam that came with him. he might have flung himself into a mad chase after the ship on his suit jets except that the thought of leaving his little island, cold comfort though it was, to plunge into those totally empty depths was suddenly horrible. the tide of panic rose within him. he knew the sickening bodily revolt of blind unreasoning terror--the terror of the lost, the terror of certain untimely death, but mostly of death so dreadfully alone. he might have gone insane. in the face of the insoluble problem his mind might have retreated into a shadow world of its own, perhaps to prattle happily the last few hours away. but there was something else there. the pre-flight school psychiatrist had recognized it, johnny himself probably wouldn't have and it wasn't their policy to tell him. it saved him. the labored heart pounding and the long shuddering gasps slowed in time and with the easing of his physical distress he found enough heart to muster a wry little smile at the thought that of the castaways of history he at least stood fair to be named the most unique. * * * * * and after a while, shaking himself mentally, a little ashamed of his temporary fall from grace, he followed the example of the more intelligent of his predecessors and settled down to itemize his assets, analyze his position and conjecture the chances of survival. item: he was encased in a denby bros. spacesuit, mark iii, open space usage, meant for no gravity use. therefore it had no legs as such, the lower half being a rigid cylinder allowing considerable movement within and having a swivel mounted rocket motor at its base controlled by toe pedals inside. the upper half, semiflexible with jointed arms ending in gloves from which by contorting the shoulders the hands could be withdrawn into the sleeves when not in use. a metal and tinted plastic helmet with earphones, mike and chin switch. an oxy air-conditioning and reprocessing unit with its spare pure oxygen tank; on this he could possibly depend for twelve hours given no undue exertion and with the most rigid economy all the time. the power pack for suit operation and radio had a safety margin of one hour over the maximum air supply, if the radio wasn't used. at this time johnny couldn't see much use for it. item: one waste disposal cylinder, expendable, complete with motor and full fuel tanks, packed, according to his loading manifest with sundry supplies to avoid dead stowage space. seldom used, since most station waste was ferried down in the otherwise empty service ships, they occasionally handled certain laboratory refuse it was considered best to destroy in space. the cylinders were decelerated and allowed to fall into atmosphere where the friction of the unchecked plunge burned up what the magnesium charge inside had not already. the rest of the shipwrecked material had by now drifted beyond easy reach and johnny did not feel like wasting fuel rounding it up. position? a matter of memory and some guesswork by now. some ten minutes out of powered flight at the time of collision, coasting up to station orbit where a quick boost from the jets would have made up his lost velocity to orbit standard. but there would be no boost now. so he'd just fall off around the other side, falling around and into mother earth, to skim atmosphere and climb on past and up to touch orbit altitude--and down again. a nice elliptical orbit, apogee a thousand odd miles, perigee, sixty-seventy--perhaps. how much speed had he left? how long would it be before he brushed the fringe of atmosphere once too often and too deep? just another meteor. and survival. a comparatively simple problem since the mechanics of it were restricted by a simple formula in which his role would seem to be a passive one. to survive he must be rescued by his own kind in twelve hours or less. to be rescued he must be seen or heard. since his radio was a simple short-range intercom it followed that he must be seen first and heard later. being seen meant making a sufficiently distinguishable _blip_ on somebody's radar screen to arouse comment over a _blip_ where, according to schedule no orbiting _blip_ should be. * * * * * johnny was painfully aware that the human body is very small in space. the cylinder would be a help but he doubted it would be enough. then he thought of the material inside the cylinder. he pried back the lugs holding the cover in place with the screwdriver from his belt kit. he started pulling out packages, bags, boxes, thrusting them behind him, above him, downwards; cereals, ready mixed pastries, bundles of disposable paper overalls--toilet paper! he worked furiously, now stuck halfway down the cylinder, kicking the bundles behind him. he emerged finally in a flurry of articles clutching a large plastic bag that had filled the entire lower end of the tank. about him drifted a sizable cloud of station supplies, stirring sluggishly after his emergence. he pushed them a bit more, distributing them as much as possible without losing them altogether. johnny tore open the big bag and was instantly enveloped in clinging folds of ribbon released from the pressure of its packing. he knew what it was now, the big string of ribbon chutes for the venus expedition, intended for dropping a remote controlled mobile observer to the as yet unseen and unknown surface. johnny had ferried parts of the crab-like mechanical monster on the last run, and illogically found himself worrying momentarily over the set-back to the probe his mischance would cause. but in the next minute he was making fast the lower end of the string to the wd cylinder, then, finding the top chute he toed his pedals and jetted himself out, trailing the string out to its full extent. now the period of action was over and he had done all he could, johnny found himself dreading the time of waiting to follow. he would have time for thinking, and thinking wasn't profitable under the circumstances unless it were something definitely constructive and applicable to his present and future well-being. waiting was always bad. surely they would find him soon. surely they would press the search farther even when they found able jake as they couldn't fail to in time. a tightness started in his throat. johnny quickly drowned the thought in a flood of inconsequential nonsense, a trick he had learned as a green pilot. he might sleep though, if sleep were a possible thing in this cold emptiness. no one, to his recollection, had ever done so outside a ship or station--the space psychology types would be interested doubtless. * * * * * johnny tied his life line to the wd cylinder and then jetted clear of his artificial cloud, positioning himself so that it formed a partial screen between himself and the sun. he turned his oxygen down to the bare minimum and the thermostat as low as he dared. he commenced a relaxation exercise and was pleased when it worked after a fashion--a mental note for beaufort at the station. a drowsiness crept over him, dulling a little the thin edge of fear that probed his consciousness. face down towards the earth he hung. the slow noise of his breathing only intensified the complete silence outside. the well padded suit encompassed him so gently there was no sense of pressure on his body to make up for the weightlessness. johnny felt as though he were bodiless, a naked brain with eyes only hanging in nothingness. beneath, earth rolled over with slow majesty, once every two hours. his altered course was evident now, passing almost directly over the geographic poles proper instead of paralleling the twilight zone where night and day met. sometimes he caught the faint glow of a big city on the night side but the sight only stirred the worm of anxiety and he closed his eyes. johnny was beginning to feel very comfortable. he supposed sleepily that this was the way you were assumed to feel while freezing to death in a snowbank, or so he'd heard. air and heat too low perhaps. he should really turn it up a notch. on the other hand it was perhaps a solution to the problem of dying--a gentle sleep while the stomach was still full enough from the last meal to be reasonably comfortable and the throat yet unparched. would it be the act of an unbalanced mind or one of the most supreme sanity? he dozed and dreamed a bit in fragments and snatches but it was not a good sleep--there was no peace in it. at one time he seemed to be standing outside the old fretworked boarding house he lived in--looking in at the window of the "sitting room" where the ancient, wispy landlady sat among her antimacassared chairs and the ridiculous tiny seashell ashtrays that overflowed after two butts. he wanted desperately to get in and sprawl in the huge bat-winged chair by the fire and stroke the enormous old gray cat that would leap up and trample and paw his stomach before settling down to grumble to itself asthmatically for hours. it was cold and dark out here and he wanted to get in to the friendliness and the warmth and the peaceful, familiar security, but he didn't dare go around to the door because he knew if he did the vision would vanish and he'd never find it again. he scratched and beat at the window but his fingers made no sound, he tried to shout but his cries were only strangled whispers and the old lady sat and rocked and talked to the big gray cat and never turned her head. the fire seemed to be flaring up suddenly, it was filling the whole room--a monstrous furnace; it shouldn't do that he knew, but the old lady didn't seem to mind sitting there rocking amid the flames--and it was so nice and warm. the fire kept growing and swelling though--soon it burst through the window and engulfed him. too hot. too hot. * * * * * johnny swam hazily back to consciousness with an aching head and thick mouth. he saw that he had drifted clear of his protective screen somehow and the sun beat full on him. with clumsy, fumbling hands that seemed to belong to somebody else he managed the air valve; the increased oxygen reviving him enough to find the pedals and jet erratically about till he gained the shadow once more. now he was entering upon the worst phase of the living nightmare. awake, the doubts and fears of his position tormented him; wearied, he feared to sleep, yet continually he found himself nodding only to jerk awake with that suddenness that is like a physical blow. each one of these awakenings took away a little more of his self-control till he was reduced to near hysteria, muttering abstractly, sometimes whimpering like a lost child; now seized with a feverish concern for his air supply. he would at one instant cut it down to a dangerous minimum, then, remembering the near disaster of his first attempt at economy, frantically turn it up till he was in danger of an oxygen jag. in a moment he would forget and start all over again. in addition, he was now realizing bitterly what he had subconsciously denied to himself for so long, that they had found able jake and drawn the obvious conclusion. that he had been obliterated or blown out through the hull by the collision without warning or preparation. that he was undoubtedly dead if not vaporized altogether and, as they must, considering the expense of a probably fruitless search, abandon him. there came the moment when johnny accepted this in full. this was directly after the time when, sliding down the long hill to the perigee of his orbit, he turned on his radio and cried for help. it was a bare hundred miles or less to that wonderful world below, but there was the heaviside layer, and the weak signals beat but feebly against it. all that seeped through by some instant's freak of transmission was a fragment of incoherent babble to reach the uncomprehending ear of an arkansas ham and give that gentleman uneasy sleep for some time to come. he kept calling mechanically even after perigee was long past, praying for an answer from the powerful transmitters below or from a searching ship. but when there was no slightest whisper in his phones or answering flare among the stars, johnny came to the end of faith. even of awareness, for his own ears did not register the transition of his calls to an insane howling of intermixed pleas, threats, condemnation--a sewer flood of foul vilification against those who had betrayed him. bright and beautiful, earth rolled blandly beneath him, the sun was a remote impersonal thing and the stars mocked silently. after a while the radio carried only the agonized sounds of a man who had forgotten how to cry and must learn again. there were times after this when he observed incuriously a parade of mind pictures, part memory, part pure hallucination and containing nothing of reason; other times when he thought not at all. the sun appeared to dwindle, retreating and fading far away into a remote place where there were no stars at all. it became a feeble candle, guttered unsteadily a moment and suddenly winked out. abruptly johnny was asleep. * * * * * he opened his eyes and surveyed the scene with an oddly calm and dispassionate curiosity, not that he expected to find his status changed in any way but because he had awakened with a queer sense of unreality about the whole business. he knew vaguely that he'd had a bad time in the last few hours but could remember little of the details save that it was like one of those fragmentary nightmares in the instant between sleeping and waking when it is difficult to divide the fact from the dream. now he must reassure himself that this facet of it was real and when he had done so, realized with a faint shock that he was no longer afraid. fear, it seemed, had by its incessant pressure dulled its own edge. the acceptance of inevitable death was still there, but now it seemed to have little more significance than the closing of a book at the last page. it is possible that johnny was not wholly sane at this point, but there is no one to witness this and johnny, not given to introspection at any time, felt no spur to self-analysis, beyond a brief mental registration of the fact. so he made his visual survey, saw that it was real, nothing had changed; noted with mild surprise that he'd somehow remained in the shadow of his screen this time. he had lost track of time entirely but the suit's air supply telltale was in the yellow indicating about two hours more or less to go on breathing. in quick succession he reviewed the events, accepted the probability of the abandoned search without a qualm and made his decision. there was no need to wait about any longer. a quick flip of the helmet lock, a moment's unpleasantness perhaps, and out. as for the rest--a spaceman needs no sanctified ground, the incorruptible vault of space is as good a place as any and perhaps the more fitting for one of the first to travel its ways. well then--quickly. johnny raised his hands. but still-- man has his pride and his vanity. johnny, though not necessarily prone to inflated valuation of himself still has just enough vanity left to resent the thought of this anonymous snuffing out in the dark. there should be, he thought, at least some outward evidence of his passing, something like--a flare of light perhaps, that would in effect say, if only to one solitary star gazer: "here at this position, at this instant, johnny melland, spaceman, had his time." the whimsy persisted. johnny, casting about mentally for some means to the end recalled the thermite bomb for the wd cylinder and was hauling himself in to it when he remembered the charges for this lot had gone up with sally uncle one two days before. but now he'd actually touched the metal cylinder and, as though the brief contact had completed some obscure mental circuit, the mad idea was conceived, flared up into an irrepressible brilliance and exploded in a harsh bark of laughter. one last push to his luck then, hardly worse than a gambler's last chip except that the consequences of failure were somewhat more certain. either way he'd have what he wanted--survival or, in the brief incandescence of friction's heat, a declaration of his passing. a waste disposal cylinder will carry the equivalent of about three tons of refuse. its motor is designed to decelerate that mass by , mph in order to allow it to assume a descending orbit. less the greater part of the customary mass, it should be considerably more effective, and since he was already in what constituted a descent path, but for a few miles and a little extra velocity, there would not be the long fall afterwards to pick up what he'd lost. * * * * * from there on his plan entered the realm of pure hypothesis; except for the broad detail the rest depended on luck and whatever freakish conditions might arise in his favor during the operation. these, too, would be beyond his control and any move to take advantage of them would have to be instinctive, providing he was in any shape to do so. the tendency to gnaw worriedly at a thousand disturbing possibilities drowned quickly in a rapidly rising sense of reckless abandon that possessed him. the prospect of positive action of any sort served to release any tension left in him and almost gayly he moved to set his plan in action. he jimmied the timer on the rocket motor so it would fire to the last drop. the string of ribbon chutes he reeled in hand over hand stuffing it into the cylinder, discovering in the process why the chute section hands at base wore that harried look. the mass of slithering, incompressible white-and-yellow ribbon and its shrouds resisted him like a live thing; in the end johnny managed to bat and maul the obstreperous stuff down the length of the tank. even so, it filled it to within a couple of inches of the opening. [illustration] now he cut off a length of his life line and attached one end to the spring-loaded trigger release on the motor control, leaving enough to trail the length of the cylinder and double back inside when he wanted it. he blessed the economically minded powers that insisted on manual firing control on these one-shot units instead of the complex radio triggers beloved of the technical brains. making fast to the chutes was a major problem but eventually he managed a makeshift harness of the remainder of the safety line. he wound it awkwardly around himself with as many turns as possible, each returned again and again through, the ring at the end of the master shroud. by now he was casting anxious glances at the earth below, aware that he must have passed apogee several minutes before and that not more than some twenty minutes were left before the low point of this swing would be near. he was grimly aware also that it must be this time or not at all. the air telltale was well through the yellow band and the next possible chance after this one was an hour's time away, when conditions inside the suit would be getting pretty sticky. jockeying the unwieldy cylinder into line of flight and making it stay there took a lot longer than johnny counted on. with no other manual purchase than that afforded by his own lesser mass, the job proved almost impossible and he had to use his suit motor. this caused some concern over his meager fuel supply since his plan called for some flat-out jetting later on. in the frantic flurry of bending, twisting, over and under--controlling, the veneer of aplomb began to wear. johnny was sweating freely by the time he had the cylinder stabilized as best he could judge and had gingerly worked himself into the open end as far as he could against the cushioning mass of ribbon chute. he took the trigger lanyard loosely in hand and craning his neck to see past the bulk of the cylinder he watched and waited. * * * * * to the experienced lift pilot there are certain subtle changes in color values over the earth's surface as one approaches more closely the outer fringe of atmosphere. while braking approaches are auto-controlled, the pilot taking over only after his ship is in atmosphere, the conscientious man makes himself familiar with the "feel" of a visually timed approach--just in case--and johnny was a good pilot. watching equatorial africa sliding obliquely towards him johnny suddenly gave thought to a possible landing spot for the first time. not that he had any choice but a picture of a cold, wet immersion in any of several possible bodies of water was not encouraging. the suit would probably float but which end first was a matter for conjecture and out of it he would be as badly off for johnny could not swim a stroke. nor had he any clear idea how long it would take to slow down to a vertical drop. able jake made a full half swing of the globe to brake down but able jake was an ultra-streamlined object with many times the mass and weight of johnny and his rig; furthermore the ships were controllable to a certain degree while johnny was not. beyond the certain knowledge that the effect of the chutes would be quite violent and probably short-lived, the rest was unpredictable. he tried to shake off gloomy speculation, uneasily aware that much of the carefree confidence of the last hour had deserted him. in a more normal state of mind again he became prey to tension once more, a pounding heart and dry mouth recalling mercilessly the essential frailties of his kind. so, with aching neck and burning eyes he strained for a clear view past the length of the cylinder and-- there! the preliminary to the visual changes, a sudden sweep of distortion over the landscape as his angle of sight through the refracting particles became more shallow. now was the time he had judged the throat vane gyros should begin their run-up. he worked the lanyard back carefully, fearful an awkward movement might upset the cylinder's line-up, pulling the trigger lever over to half-cock where the micro switch should complete circuit with the dry power pack. there should be approximately one minute before the major color changes began, which was also the minimum time for gyro run up. johnny resumed the watching and the waiting. how long is a minute? is it the time it takes the fear-frozen trainee, staring glass-eyed at the fumbled grenade to realize that this one at his feet is a dud? or is it the time before the rock-climber, clinging nail and toe to the rock face with the rope snapped suddenly taut, feels it at last slacken and sees the hands gripping safely come into sight? perhaps the greenhorn, rifle a-waver, watching the glimpse of tawny color in the veldt-grass and waiting the thunder and the charge, could say. they'd all be wrong. it's much longer. long enough for johnny to think of a dozen precautions he could have taken, a dozen better ways to rig this or that. long enough to worry about whether the gyros were really running up as they should. a thousand queries and doubts piled mountainously upward to an almost unbearable peak of tension till suddenly the browns and greens below flashed a shade lighter and it was time, and the savage snap on the lanyard a blessed relief and total committal. * * * * * in the few seconds after the firing of the prime and before the busy little timer snapped the valves wide open johnny managed to slip his toes under the jet pedals to avoid accidental firing. at the same time he braced himself as rigidly as possible with aching arms against the walls of the cylinder. he saw briefly the flare of the jet reflected off the remnants of his cloud of station stores before deceleration with all its unpleasantness began. the lip of the cylinder's mouth swept up past his helmet as he was rammed deep into the absorbent mass of ribbon chute. this wasn't a padded contour chair under a mild g lift. the chutes took the first shock, but johnny took the rest the hard way, standing bolt upright. he found with some surprise his head was right down through the neck ring and inside the suit proper, his arms half withdrawn from the sleeves, knees buckled to an almost unbelievable angle considering the dimensions of the lower case. he had time to hope fervently the cheap expendable motor wouldn't burn out its throat and send him cart-wheeling through space, or blow the surrounding tanks before the blackout came down. he came out of it sluggishly, to find the relief from the dreadful pressure almost as stupefying as the deceleration itself. while his conscious mind screamed the urgency of immediate action, his bruised and twisted body answered but feebly. the condition of complete weightlessness and the springy reaction of the ribbon mass was all that allowed him finally to claw himself out of the cylinder to where he could use the suit jet without fear of burning the precious chutes. he was so tired. his muscles of their own accord seemed to relax intermittently, interfering with the control of his movements. only the sudden sight of the earth, transformed by a weird illusion of position from a bright goal to an enormous, distorted thing, looming, apparently, over him with glowing menace, spurred his flagging resolution to frantic activity. he jetted straight back trailing his string of chutes behind him, then, before the last was free of the cylinder, kicked himself around to assume the original course once more. at this stage it was no longer possible, even granted the time, to judge visually how near he was to the atmosphere. the uneasy feeling that he must already be brushing the troposphere jarred his nerve so that he merely gave himself a short flat-out boost in the right direction before spinning bodily one hundred eighty degrees so that he was traveling feet first. reflected in the curved helmet face, the string of chutes obediently followed-my-leader around a ragged u-shape, the last--the small pilot-chute trailed limply around as he watched. there could surely be but a few seconds left before the grand finale. johnny found he was unconsciously holding his breath, and, as he deliberately inhaled long slow draughts of his already staling air, realized abstractly that he seemed to be attempting to meet his possible end with some degree of dignity if not with resignation, and wondered if he were the exception or the rule. possibly, he thought sardonically, because there is so little room for dignity in our living years, and was mildly surprised at an uncharacteristic excursion into the realm of philosophy. there was a faintly perceptible tug on the harness. it was sustained and now there came a definite strain. reflected for a moment in the helmet face was a glimpse of the lead chute slowly opening out like a gigantic flower. then swiftly, in half a breath the harness coils were tightening about him like steel fingers, the heavy ring at the end of the master shroud clashed against the back of his helmet and began a sickening, thrumming vibration there. the harness encompassed his torso like a vise but his legs were unsupported and weighed what seemed a thousand tons. he could feel them stretching. somewhere a coil slipped a fraction. his arms were jerked suddenly upwards and johnny knew a sensation he'd never believed possible. at the same time his leaden feet crashed down on the jet pedals. for a few, brief, blessed moments the intolerable extension eased a fraction with the firing of the suit jets. he cringed mentally from the thought of what was to come and thought hazily: "this is what the rack was like. this is going to be bad, bad, bad!" it was impossible and johnny went out with the last drop of fuel. * * * * * somewhere there was a queer coughing sound like wind through a crevice. he strained to identify it but an awful agony swamped him and he fled before it back into the darkness. and later still a thumping and a rushing, gurgling sound. * * * * * dim, grotesque figures moved about him or swooped and hovered over him. he felt an unreasoning fear of them and tried to shut them out. they were holding him down, hurting him. one was pulling and twisting at his arm. he shouted and swore at it telling it to leave him alone, but it ignored him or didn't seem to hear. there was a sudden dull snapping sound and a little of the pain abated. the figures flowed together and swirled around like some great oily vortex but never quite left him. then there was a time when they separated jerkily and became the hazy but definable figures of men in rough seaman's clothes. johnny had never heard breton french before; in his dazed condition the apparently insane gabble might well have been the tongue of another world and gave him little assurance. he hurt so badly and so generally that he could not have determined that he was lying down save for a view of white clouds scudding overhead. some of the men were holding up what looked like a crumpled parody of a man. he recognized it without surprise as the soaking remains of his spacesuit, battered and with tattered shreds of outer cover and insulation hanging in festoons. a sharp, bearded face shot into focus abruptly, waving a hypodermic needle. it spoke english and observed passionately either to johnny or itself that: "name of a spanish cow! what is it in men that they must abuse themselves so? now here is one who was both squeezed and stretched alternately as well as hammered, dehydrated and almost asphyxiated, is it not? this will bear watching. it is alive but there will have to be x-rays in profusion." it danced long sensitive fingers over the welts and bruises and commented bluntly that it was well the fishermen had returned his arms and legs into their sockets before he fully regained consciousness. it muttered and clucked to itself as it used the hypo which johnny could not feel. "formidable!" the pleasant drowsiness came down just as he was identifying the queer smell as ozone, brine and good fresh air. after a while they moved him to a small hospital in an upcoast town, where he slept much, suffered not a little and, even waking, viewed the world incuriously through drug-laden eyes. finally they allowed him to waken fully and the sharp-faced doctor, together with half a dozen others from various parts of the world decided that, after all, he seemed to be surviving. johnny lay and itched intolerably in the cast that covered him from nape to thigh and listened to the bustling of the elderly nursing sister who, good soul, having never been more than ten miles from her town in her life, reminded him that it wanted but two days to christmas and opined that: "such a tragedy for m'sieu. to be so far from home!" johnny smiled at the ceiling, not daring to laugh yet, and sniffed at the salt sea air with its undertone of rank seaweed and gloried in it; even a chance whiff of that particular cigarette tobacco that only a frenchman can appreciate. he thought that here, as across the water, night and day followed each other in their proper order and the ground was a solid thing beneath the feet. why--he could never be closer. fin. +--------------------------------------------------------------+ | transcriber's note | | | | this etext was produced from astounding science fiction, | | december . extensive research did not uncover any | | evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was | | renewed. | | | | a few obvious typographical errors have been corrected. | | | | punctuation has been left as is. | +--------------------------------------------------------------+ a little journey by ray bradbury illustrated by thorne [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from galaxy science fiction august . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] she'd paid good money to see the inevitable ... and then had to work to make it happen! there were two important things--one, that she was very old; two, that mr. thirkell was taking her to god. for hadn't he patted her hand and said: "mrs. bellowes, we'll take off into space in my rocket, and go to find him together." and that was how it was going to be. oh, this wasn't like any other group mrs. bellowes had ever joined. in her fervor to light a path for her delicate, tottering feet, she had struck matches down dark alleys, and found her way to hindu mystics who floated their flickering, starry eyelashes over crystal balls. she had walked on the meadow paths with ascetic indian philosophers imported by daughters-in-spirit of madame blavatsky. she had made pilgrimages to california's stucco jungles to hunt the astrological seer in his natural habitat. she had even consented to signing away the rights to one of her homes in order to be taken into the shouting order of a temple of amazing evangelists who had promised her golden smoke, crystal fire, and the great soft hand of god coming to bear her home. none of these people had ever shaken mrs. bellowes' faith, even when she saw them sirened away in a black wagon in the night, or discovered their pictures, bleak and unromantic, in the morning tabloids. the world had roughed them up and locked them away because they knew too much, that was all. and then, two weeks ago, she had seen mr. thirkell's advertisement in new york city: come to mars! stay at the thirkell restorium for one week. and then, on into space on the greatest adventure life can offer! send for free pamphlet: "nearer my god to thee." excursion rates. round trip slightly lower. "round trip," mrs. bellowes had thought. "but who would come back after seeing _him_?" and so she had bought a ticket and flown off to mars and spent seven mild days at mr. thirkell's restorium, the building with the sign on it which flashed: thirkell's rocket to heaven! she had spent the week bathing in limpid waters and erasing the care from her tiny bones, and now she was fidgeting, ready to be loaded into mr. thirkell's own special private rocket, like a bullet, to be fired on out into space beyond jupiter and saturn and pluto. and thus--who could deny it?--you would be getting nearer and nearer to the lord. how wonderful! couldn't you just _feel_ him drawing near? couldn't you just sense his breath, his scrutiny, his presence? "here i am," said mrs. bellowes, "an ancient rickety elevator, ready to go up the shaft. god need only press the button." now, on the seventh day, as she minced up the steps of the restorium, a number of small doubts assailed her. "for one thing," she said aloud to no one, "it isn't quite the land of milk and honey here on mars that they said it would be. my room is like a cell, the swimming pool is really quite inadequate, and, besides, how many widows who look like mushrooms or skeletons want to swim? and, finally, the whole restorium smells of boiled cabbage and tennis shoes!" she opened the front door and let it slam, somewhat irritably. she was amazed at the other women in the auditorium. it was like wandering in a carnival mirror-maze, coming again and again upon yourself--the same floury face, the same chicken hands, and jingling bracelets. one after another of the images of herself floated before her. she put out her hand, but it wasn't a mirror; it was another lady shaking her fingers and saying: "we're waiting for mr. thirkell. _sh!_" "ah," whispered everyone. the velvet curtains parted. mr. thirkell appeared, fantastically serene, his egyptian eyes upon everyone. but there was something, nevertheless, in his appearance which made one expect him to call "hi!" while fuzzy dogs jumped over his legs, through his hooped arms, and over his back. then, dogs and all, he should dance with a dazzling piano-keyboard smile off into the wings. mrs. bellowes, with a secret part of her mind which she constantly had to grip tightly, expected to hear a cheap chinese gong sound when mr. thirkell entered. his large liquid dark eyes were so improbable that one of the old ladies had facetiously claimed she saw a mosquito cloud hovering over them as they did around summer rain-barrels. and mrs. bellowes sometimes caught the scent of the theatrical mothball and the smell of calliope steam on his sharply pressed suit. but with the same savage rationalization that had greeted all other disappointments in her rickety life, she bit at the suspicion and whispered, "this time it's _real_. this time it'll work. haven't we got a _rocket_?" mr. thirkell bowed. he smiled a sudden comedy mask smile. the old ladies looked in at his epiglottis and sensed chaos there. before he even began to speak, mrs. bellowes saw him picking up each of his words, oiling it, making sure it ran smooth on its rails. her heart squeezed in like a tiny fist, and she gritted her porcelain teeth. "friends," said mr. thirkell, and you could hear the frost snap in the hearts of the entire assemblage. "no!" said mrs. bellowes ahead of time. she could hear the bad news rushing at her, and herself tied to the track while the immense black wheels threatened and the whistle screamed, helpless. "there will be a slight delay," said mr. thirkell. in the next instant, mr. thirkell might have cried, or been tempted to cry, "ladies, be seated!" in minstrel-fashion, for the ladies had come up at him from their chairs, protesting and trembling. "not a very long delay." mr. thirkell put up his hands to pat the air. "how long?" "only a week." "a week!" "yes. you can stay here at the restorium for seven more days, can't you? a little delay won't matter, will it, in the end? you've waited a lifetime. only a few more days." _at twenty dollars a day_, thought mrs. bellowes, coldly. "what's the trouble?" a woman cried. "a legal difficulty," said mr. thirkell. "we've a rocket, haven't we?" "well, ye-ess." "but i've been here a whole month, waiting," said one old lady. "delays, delays!" "that's right," said everyone. "ladies, ladies," murmured mr. thirkell, smiling serenely. "we want to see the rocket!" it was mrs. bellowes forging ahead, alone, brandishing her fist like a toy hammer. mr. thirkell looked into the old ladies' eyes, a missionary among albino cannibals. "well, now," he said. "yes, _now_!" cried mrs. bellowes. "i'm afraid--" he began. "so am i!" she said. "that's why we want to see the ship!" "no, no, now, mrs.--" he snapped his fingers for her name. "bellowes!" she cried. she was a small container, but now all the seething pressures that had been built up over long years came steaming through the delicate vents of her body. her cheeks became incandescent. with a wail that was like a melancholy factory whistle, mrs. bellowes ran forward and hung to him, almost by her teeth, like a summer-maddened spitz. she would not and never could let go, until he died, and the other women followed, jumping and yapping like a pound let loose on its trainer, the same one who had petted them and to whom they had squirmed and whined joyfully an hour before, now milling about him, creasing his sleeves and frightening the egyptian serenity from his gaze. "this way!" cried mrs. bellowes, feeling like madame lafarge. "through the back! we've waited long enough to see the ship. every day he's put us off, every day we've waited, now let's see." "no, no, ladies!" cried mr. thirkell, leaping about. they burst through the back of the stage and out a door, like a flood, bearing the poor man with them into a shed, and then out, quite suddenly, into an abandoned gymnasium. "there it is!" said someone. "the rocket." and then a silence fell that was terrible to entertain. there was the rocket. mrs. bellowes looked at it and her hands sagged away from mr. thirkell's collar. the rocket was something like a battered copper pot. there were a thousand bulges and rents and rusty pipes and dirty vents on and in it. the ports were clouded over with dust, resembling the eyes of a blind hog. everyone wailed a little sighing wail. "is that the rocket ship _glory be to the highest_?" cried mrs. bellowes, appalled. mr. thirkell nodded and looked at his feet. "for which we paid out our one thousand dollars apiece and came all the way to mars to get on board with you and go off to find him?" asked mrs. bellowes. "why, that isn't worth a sack of dried peas," said mrs. bellowes. "it's nothing but junk!" _junk_, whispered everyone, getting hysterical. "don't let him get away!" mr. thirkell tried to break and run, but a thousand possum traps closed on him from every side. he withered. everybody walked around in circles like blind mice. there was a confusion and a weeping that lasted for five minutes as they went over and touched the rocket, the dented kettle, the rusty container for god's children. "well," said mrs. bellowes. she stepped up into the askew doorway of the rocket and faced everyone. "it looks as if a terrible thing has been done to us," she said. "i haven't any money to go back home to earth and i've too much pride to go to the government and tell them a common man like this has fooled us out of our life's savings. i don't know how you feel about it, all of you, but the reason all of us came is because i'm eighty-five, and you're eighty-nine, and you're seventy-eight, and all of us are nudging on toward a hundred, and there's nothing on earth for us, and it doesn't appear there's anything on mars either. we all expected not to breathe much more air or crochet many more doilies or we'd never have come here. so what i have to propose is a simple thing--to take a chance." she reached out and touched the rusted hulk of the rocket. "this is _our_ rocket. we paid for our trip. and we're going to _take_ our trip!" everyone rustled and stood on tiptoes and opened an astonished mouth. mr. thirkell began to cry. he did it quite easily and very effectively. "we're going to get in this ship," said mrs. bellowes, ignoring him. "and we're going to take off to where we were going." mr. thirkell stopped crying long enough to say, "but it was all a fake. i don't know anything about space. he's not out there, anyway. i lied. i don't know where he is, and i couldn't find him if i wanted to. and you were fools to ever take my word on it." "yes," said mrs. bellowes, "we were fools. i'll go along on that. but you can't blame us, for we're old, and it was a lovely, good and fine idea, one of the loveliest ideas in the world. oh, we didn't really fool ourselves that we could get nearer to him physically. it was the gentle, mad dream of old people, the kind of thing you hold onto for a few minutes a day, even though you know it's not true. so, all of you who want to go, you follow me in the ship." "but you can't go!" said mr. thirkell. "you haven't got a navigator. and that ship's a ruin!" "you," said mrs. bellowes, "will be the navigator." she stepped into the ship, and after a moment, the other old ladies pressed forward. mr. thirkell, windmilling his arms frantically, was nevertheless pressed through the port, and in a minute the door slammed shut. mr. thirkell was strapped into the navigator's seat, with everyone talking at once and holding him down. the special helmets were issued to be fitted over every gray or white head to supply extra oxygen in case of a leakage in the ship's hull, and at long last the hour had come and mrs. bellowes stood behind mr. thirkell and said, "we're ready, sir." he said nothing. he pleaded with them silently, using his great, dark, wet eyes, but mrs. bellowes shook her head and pointed to the control. "takeoff," agreed mr. thirkell morosely, and pulled a switch. everybody fell. the rocket went up from the planet mars in a great fiery glide, with the noise of an entire kitchen thrown down an elevator shaft, with a sound of pots and pans and kettles and fires boiling and stews bubbling, with a smell of burned incense and rubber and sulphur, with a color of yellow fire, and a ribbon of red stretching below them, and all the old women singing and holding to each other, and mrs. bellowes crawling upright in the sighing, straining, trembling ship. "head for space, mr. thirkell." "it can't last," said mr. thirkell, sadly. "this ship can't last. it will--" it did. the rocket exploded. mrs. bellowes felt herself lifted and thrown about dizzily, like a doll. she heard the great screamings and saw the flashes of bodies sailing by her in fragments of metal and powdery light. "help, help!" cried mr. thirkell, far away, on a small radio beam. the ship disintegrated into a million parts, and the old ladies, all one hundred of them, were flung straight on ahead with the same velocity as the ship. as for mr. thirkell, for some reason of trajectory, perhaps, he had been blown out the other side of the ship. mrs. bellowes saw him falling separate and away from them, screaming, screaming. _there goes mr. thirkell_, thought mrs. bellowes. and she knew where he was going. he was going to be burned and roasted and broiled good, but very good. mr. thirkell was falling down into the sun. _and here we are_, thought mrs. bellowes. _here we are, going on out, and out, and out._ there was hardly a sense of motion at all, but she knew that she was traveling at fifty thousand miles an hour and would continue to travel at that speed for an eternity, until.... she saw the other women swinging all about her in their own trajectories, a few minutes of oxygen left to each of them in their helmets, and each was looking up to where they were going. _of course_, thought mrs. bellowes. _out into space. out and out, and the darkness like a great church, and the stars like candles, and in spite of everything, mr. thirkell, the rocket, and the dishonesty, we are going toward the lord._ and there, yes, _there_, as she fell on and on, coming toward her, she could almost discern the outline now, coming toward her was his mighty golden hand, reaching down to hold her and comfort her like a frightened sparrow.... "i'm mrs. amelia bellowes," she said quietly, in her best company voice. "i'm from the planet earth." a golden griffon space adventure rip foster in ride the gray planet by blake savage golden press new york golden griffon tm of western publishing company, inc. copyright by western publishing company, inc. all rights reserved. printed in the u.s.a. published by golden press, new york, n.y. first golden griffon printing, table of contents chapter one: spacebound chapter two: rake that radiation! chapter three: capture and drive! chapter four: find the needle! chapter five: the gray world chapter six: rip's planet chapter seven: earthbound! chapter eight: duck--or die! chapter nine: repel invaders! chapter ten: get the scorpion! chapter eleven: hard words chapter twelve: mercury transit chapter thirteen: peril! chapter fourteen: between two fires chapter fifteen: the rocketeers chapter sixteen: ride the planet! chapter seventeen: visitors! chapter eighteen: courtesy--with claws chapter nineteen: spacefall chapter twenty: on the platform chapter one spacebound a thousand miles above earth's surface the great space platform sped from daylight into darkness. once every two hours it circled the earth completely, spinning along through space like a mighty wheel of steel and plastic. through a telescope on earth the platform looked to be a lifeless, lonely disk, but within it, hundreds of spacemen and planeteers went about their work. in a ready room at the outer edge of the platform, a planeteer officer faced a dozen slim, black-clad young men who wore the single golden orbits of lieutenants. this was a graduating class, already commissioned, having a final informal get-together. the officer, who wore the three-orbit insignia of a major, was lean and trim. his short-cropped hair covered his head like a gray fur skull cap. one cheek was marked with the crisp whiteness of an old radiation burn. "stand easy," he ordered briskly. "the general instructions of the special order squadrons say that it's my duty as senior officer to make a farewell speech. i intend to make a speech if it kills me--and you, too." the dozen new officers facing him broke into grins. maj. joe barris had been their friend, teacher, and senior officer during six long years of training on the space platform. he could no more make a formal speech than he could breathe high vacuum, and they all knew it. lt. richard ingalls peter foster, whose initials had given him the nickname "rip," asked, "why don't you sing for us instead, joe?" major barris fixed rip with a cold eye. "foster, three orbital turns, then front and center." rip obediently spun around three times, then walked forward and stood at attention, trying to conceal his grin. "foster, what does sos mean?" "special order squadrons, sir." "right. and what else does it mean?" "it means 'help!' sir." "right. and what else does it mean?" "superman or simp, sir." this was a ceremony in which questions and answers never changed. it was supposed to make planeteer cadets and junior officers feel properly humble, but it didn't work. by tradition, the planeteers were the cockiest gang that ever blasted through high vacuum. major barris shook his head sadly. "you admit you're a simp, foster. the rest of you are simps, too, but you don't believe it. you've finished six years on the platform. you've made a few little trips out into space. you've landed on the moon a couple of times. so now you think you're seasoned space spooks. well, you're not. you're simps!" rip stopped grinning. he had heard this before. it was part of the routine. but he sensed that this time joe barris wasn't kidding. the major absently rubbed the radiation scar on his cheek as he looked them over. they were like twelve chicks out of the same nest. they were about the same size, a compact five feet eleven inches, pounds. they wore belted, loose black tunics over full trousers which gathered into white cruiser boots. the comfortable uniforms concealed any slight differences in build. all twelve were lean of face, with hair cropped to the regulation half inch. rip was the only redhead among them. "sit down," barris commanded. "here's my speech." the twelve seated themselves on plastic stools. major barris remained standing. "well," he began soberly, "you are now officers of the special order squadrons. you're planeteers. you are lieutenants by order of the space council, federation of free governments. and--space protect you!--to yourselves you're supermen. but never forget this: to ordinary spacemen, you're just plain simps. you're trouble in a black tunic. they have about as much use for you as they have for leaks in their air locks. some of the spacemen have been high-vacking for twenty years or more, and they're tough. they're as nasty as a callistan _teekal_. they like to eat planeteer junior officers for breakfast." lt. felipe "flip" villa asked, "with salt, joe?" major barris sighed. "no use trying to tell you space chicks anything. you're lieutenants now, and a lieutenant has the thickest skull of any rank, no matter what service he belongs to." rip realized that barris had not been joking, no matter how flippant his speech. "go ahead," he urged. "finish what you were going to say." "okay. i'll make it short. then you can catch the terra rocket and take your eight weeks' earth leave. you won't really know what i'm talking about until you've batted around space for a while. all i have to say adds up to one thing. you won't like it, because it doesn't sound scientific. that doesn't mean it isn't good science, because it is. just remember this: when you're in a jam, trust your hunch and not your head." the twelve stared at him, openmouthed. for six years they had been taught to rely on scientific methods. now their best instructor and senior officer was telling them just the opposite! rip started to object, but then he caught a glimmer of meaning. he stuck out his hand. "thanks, joe. i hope we'll meet again." barris grinned. "we will, rip. i'll ask for you as a platoon commander when they assign me to cleaning up the goopies on ganymede." this was the major's idea of the worst planeteer job in the solar system. the group shook hands all around; then the young officers broke for the door on the run. the terra rocket was blasting off in five minutes, and they were to be on it. rip joined flip villa, and they jumped on the high-speed track that would whisk them to valve two on the other side of the platform. their gear was already loaded. they had only to take seats on the rocket, and their six years on the space platform would be at an end. "i wonder what it will be like to get back to high gravity," rip mused. the centrifugal force of the spinning platform acted as artificial gravity, but it was considerably less than earth's. "we probably won't be able to walk straight until we get our earth legs back," flip answered. "i wish i could stay in colorado with you instead of going back to mexico city, rip. we could have a lot of fun in eight weeks." rip nodded. "tough luck, flip. but anyway, we have the same assignment." both planeteers had been assigned to special order squadron four, which was attached to the cruiser _bolide_. the cruiser was in high space, beyond the orbits of jupiter and saturn, doing comet research. they got off the track at valve two and stepped through into the rocket's interior. two seats just ahead of the fins were vacant, and they slid into them. rip looked through the thick port beside him and saw the distinctive blue glow of a nuclear drive cruiser sliding toward the platform. "wave your eye stalks at that job," flip said admiringly. "wonder what it's doing here." the space platform was a refueling depot, where conventional chemical fuel rockets topped off their tanks before flaming for space. the newer nuclear drive cruisers had no need to stop. their atomic piles needed new neutron sources only once every few years, and they carried thousands of tons of methane, compressed into solid form, for their reaction mass. the voice horn in the rocket cabin sounded. "the scn _scorpius_ is passing valve two, landing at valve eight." "i thought that ship was with squadron one on mercury," rip recalled. "wonder why they pulled it back here." flip had no chance to reply, because the chief rocket officer took up his station at the valve and began to call the roll. rip answered to his name. the rocket officer finished the roll, then announced: "buttoning up in twenty seconds. blast off in forty-five. don't bother with acceleration harness. we'll fall free, with just enough flame going for control, after ten seconds of retrothrust to de-orbit." the ten-second-warning bell sounded, and, before the bell had ceased, the voice horn blasted. "get it! foster, r.i.p., lieutenant. report to the platform commander. show an exhaust!" rip leaped to his feet. "hold on, flip. i'll see what the old man wants and be right back." "get flaming," the rocket officer called. "show an exhaust, like the man said. this bucket leaves on time, and we're sealing the port." rip hesitated. the rocket would leave without him! flip said urgently, "you better ram it, rip." he knew he had no choice. "tell my folks i'll make the next rocket," he called, and ran. he leaped through the valve, jumped for the high-speed track, and was whisked around the rim of the space platform. he ran a hand through his short red hair, a gesture of bewilderment. his records had cleared. so far as he knew, all his papers were in order, and he had his next assignment. he couldn't figure why the platform commander would want to see him. but the horn had called, "show an exhaust!" which meant to get there in a hurry. he jumped off the track at the main crossrun and hurried toward the center of the platform. in a moment he was at the commander's door, waiting to be identified. the door swung open, and a junior officer in the blue tunic and trousers of a spaceman motioned him to the inner room. "go in, lieutenant." "thank you." he hurried into the commander's room and stood at attention. commander jennsen, the norwegian spaceman who had commanded the platform since before rip's arrival as a raw cadet, was dictating into his command relay circuit. as he spoke, printed copies were being received in the platform personnel office, at special order squadron headquarters on earth, aboard the cruiser _bolide_ in high space, and aboard the newly landed cruiser _scorpius_. rip listened, spellbound. "foster, r.i.p., lieutenant, sos. serial seven-nine-four-three. assigned sos four. change orders, effective this date-time. cancel earth leave. subject officer will report to commander, scn _scorpius_, with detachment of nine men. senior noncommissioned officer and second in command, koa, a.p., sergeant major, sos. serial two-nine-four-one. commander of _scorpius_ will transport detachment to coordinates given in basic cruiser astro-course; deliver orders to detachment en route. take required steps for maximum security. this is federation priority a, space council security procedures." rip swallowed hard. the highest possible priority, given by the federation itself, had canceled his leave. not only that, but the cruiser to which he was assigned was instructed to follow space council security procedures, which meant that the job, whatever it was, was more urgent than secret! commander jennsen looked up and saw rip waiting. he snapped, "did you get all of that?" "y-yes, sir." "you'll get written copies on the cruiser. now flame out of here. collect your men and get aboard. the _scorpius_ leaves in five minutes." rip ran. the realization hit him that the big nuclear cruiser had stopped at the platform for the sole purpose of collecting him and nine enlisted planeteers. the low gravity helped him cover the hundred yards to the personnel office in five leaps. he swung to a stop by grabbing the push bar of the office door. he yelled at the enlisted spaceman on duty. "where do i find nine men?" the spaceman looked at him vacantly. "what for? you got a requisition, lieutenant?" "never mind requisitions," rip snapped. "i've got to find nine planeteers and get them on the _scorpius_ before it flames off." the spaceman's face cleared. "oh. you mean koa's detachment. they left a few minutes ago." "where. where did they go?" the spaceman shrugged. the doings of planeteers were no concern of his. his shrug said so. rip realized there was no use talking further. he ran down the long corridor toward the outer edge of the platform. the enlisted men's squad rooms were near valve ten. so was the supply department. his gear had departed on the terra rocket, and he couldn't go into space with only the tunic on his back. he swung to the high-speed track and braced himself as he sped along the platform's rim. there was no moving track inward to the enlisted planeteers' squad rooms. he legged it down the corridor in long leaps, muttering apologies as blue-clad spacemen and cadets moved to the wall to let him pass. the squad rooms were on two levels. he looked in the upper ones and found them deserted. the squads were on duty somewhere. he ran for the ladder to the lower level, took the wrong one, and ended up in a snapper-boat port. he had trained in the deadly little fighting rockets, and they never failed to interest him. but there wasn't time to admire them now. he went back up the ladder with two strong heaves, found the right ladder, and dropped down without touching. his knees flexed to take up the shock. he came out of the crouch facing a black-clad planeteer sergeant who snapped to rigid attention. "koa," rip barked. "where can i find him?" "he's not here, sir. he and eight men left fifteen minutes ago. i don't know where they went, sir." rip shot a worried glance at his wrist chronometer. he had two minutes left before the cruiser departed. no more time now to search for his men. he hoped the sergeant major had sense enough to be waiting at some reasonable place. he went up the ladder hand over hand and sped down the corridor to the supply room. the spaceman first class in charge of supplies was turning an audio-mag through a hand viewer, chuckling at the cartoons. at the sight of rip's flushed, anxious face he dropped the machine. "yessir?" "i need a spack. full gear, including bubble." "yessir." the spaceman looked him over with a practiced eye. "one full space pack. medium-large, right, sir?" "correct." rip took the counter stylus and inscribed his name, serial number, and signature on the blank plastic sheet. gears whirred as the data was recorded. the spaceman vanished into an inner room and reappeared in a moment lugging a plastic case called a space pack, or "spack" for short. it contained complete personal equipment for space travel. rip grabbed it. "fast service. thanks, rocky." all spacemen were called "rocky" if you didn't know their names. it was an abbreviation for rocketeer, a title all of them had once carried. valve eight was some distance away. rip decided a cross ramp would be faster than the moving track. he swung the spack to his shoulder and made his legs go. seconds were ticking off, and he had an idea that the scn _scorpius_ would make space on time, whether or not he arrived. he lengthened his stride and rounded a turn by going right up on the wall, using a powerful leg thrust against a ventilator tube for momentum. he passed an observation port as he reached the platform rim, and caught a glimpse of ruddy rocket exhaust flames outlined against the dark curve of earth. that would be the terra rocket making its controlled fall to home, with flip aboard. without slowing, he leaped across the high-speed track, narrowly missing a senior space officer. he shouted his apologies, and gained the entrance to valve eight just as the high buzz of the radiation warning sounded, signaling a nuclear drive cruiser preparing to take off. nine faces of assorted colors and expressions turned to him. he had a quick impression of black tunics and trousers. he had found his detachment! without slowing, he called, "follow me!" the cruiser's safety officer had been keeping an eye on the clock, his forehead creased in a frown as he saw that only a few seconds remained to departure time. he walked to the valve opening and looked out. if his passengers were not in sight, he would have to reset the clock. rip went through the valve opening at top speed. he crashed head on into the safety officer. the safety officer was driven across the deck, his arms pumping for balance. he grabbed at the nearest thing, which happened to be the deputy cruiser commander. the preset clock reached firing time. the valve slid shut and the takeoff bell reverberated through the ship. and so it happened that the spacemen of the scn _scorpius_ turned their valves, threw their controls and disengaged their boron control rods, and the great cruiser flashed into space--while the deputy commander and the safety officer were completely tangled with a very flustered and unhappy new planeteer lieutenant. sergeant major koa and his men had made it before the valve closed. koa, a seven-foot hawaiian, took in the situation and said crisply in a voice all could hear, "i'll bust the bubble of any son of a space sausage who laughs!" chapter two rake that radiation! the deputy commander and the safety officer got untangled and hurried to their post, with no more than black looks at rip. he got to his feet, his face crimson with embarrassment. a fine entrance for a planeteer officer, especially one on his first orders! around him the spacemen were settling in their acceleration seats or snapping belts to safety hooks. from the direction of the stern came a rising roar as methane, heated to a liquid, dropped into the blast tubes, flaming into pure carbon and hydrogen under the terrible heat of the atomic drive. rip had to lean against the acceleration. fighting for balance, he picked up his spack and made his way to the nine enlisted planeteers. they had braced against the ship's drive by sitting with backs against bulkheads or by lying flat on the magnesium deck. sergeant major koa was seated against a vertical brace, his brown face wreathed in a grin. rip looked him over carefully. there was a saying among the planeteers that an officer was only as good as his senior sergeant. koa's looks were reassuring. his face was good-humored, but he had a solid jaw and a mouth that could get tough when necessary. rip wondered a little at his size. big men usually didn't go to space; they were too subject to space sickness. koa must be a special case. rip slid to the floor next to the sergeant major and stuck out his hand. he sensed the strength in koa's big fist as it closed over his. koa said, "sir, that was the best _fleedle_ i've ever seen an earthling make. you been on venus?" rip eyed him suspiciously, wondering if the big planeteer was laughing at him. koa was grinning, but it was a friendly grin. "what is a _fleedle_?" rip demanded. "i've never been on venus." "it's the way the water hole people fight," koa explained. "they're like a bunch of rubber balls when they get to fighting. they ram each other with their heads." rip searched his memory for data on venus. he couldn't recall any mention of _fleedling_. venusians, if his memory was right, had a sort of blowgun as a main weapon. he told koa so. the sergeant major nodded. "that's when they mean business, lieutenant. _fleedling_ is more like us fighting with our fists. sort of a sport. great cosmos! the way they dive at each other is something to see." rip grinned. "i didn't know i was going to _fleedle_ those officers. it isn't the way i usually enter a cruiser." he hadn't entered many. he added, "i suppose i ought to report to someone." koa shook his head. "no use, sir. you can't walk around very well until the ship reaches _brennschluss_. besides, you won't find any space officers who'll talk to you." rip stared. "why not?" "because we're planeteers. they'll give us the treatment. they always do. when the commander of this bucket gets good and ready, he'll send for you. until then, we might as well take it easy." he pulled a bar of venusian _chru_ from his pocket. "have some. it'll make breathing easier." the terrific acceleration made breathing a little uncomfortable, but it was not too bad. the chief effect was to make rip feel as though a ton of invisible feathers were crushing him against the vertical brace. he accepted a bite of the bittersweet vegetable candy and munched thoughtfully. koa seemed to take it for granted that the spacemen would give them a rough time. he asked, "aren't there any spacemen who get along with the special order squadrons?" "never met one." koa chewed chru. "and i was on the _icarus_ when the whole thing started." rip looked at him in surprise. koa didn't seem that old. the bad feeling between spacemen and the special order squadrons had started about eighteen years ago, when the cruiser _icarus_ had taken the first planeteers to mercury. he reviewed the history of the expedition. the spacemen's job had been to land the newly created special order squadron on the hot planet. the job of the squadron was to explore it. somehow confusion developed, and the spacemen, including the officers, later reported that the squadron had instructed them to land on the sun side of mercury, which would have destroyed the spaceship and its crew, or so they believed at the time. the commanding officer of the squadron denied issuing such an order. he said his instructions were to land as close as possible to the sun side, but not on it. whatever the truth--and rip believed the sos version, of course--the crew of the _icarus_ mutinied, or tried to. they made the landing on mercury with squadron guns pointed at their heads. of course, they found that a sun-side landing wouldn't have hurt the ship. the whole affair was pretty well hushed up, but it produced bad feeling between the special order squadrons and the spacemen. "trigger-happy space bums," the spacemen called them, and much worse, besides. the men of the special order squadrons, searching for a handy nickname, had called themselves planeteers, because most of their work was on the planets. as maj. joe barris had told the officers of rip's class, "you might say the spacemen own space, but we planeteers own everything solid that's found in it." the planeteers were the specialists--in science, exploration, colonization, and fighting. the spacemen carried them back and forth, kept them supplied, and handled their message traffic. the planeteers did the hard work and the important work--or so they believed. to become a planeteer, a recruit had to pass rigid intelligence, physical, aptitude, and psychological tests. fewer than fifteen out of each one hundred who applied were chosen. then there were two years of hard training on the space platform and the moon before a recruit was finally accepted as a planeteer private. out of each fifteen who started training, an average of five fell by the wayside. for planeteer officers, the requirements were even tougher. only one out of each five hundred applicants finally received a commission. six years of training made them proficient in the techniques of exploration, fighting, rocketeering, and both navigation and astrogation. in addition, each became a full-fledged specialist in one field of science. rip's specialty was astrophysics. sergeant major koa continued, "that business on the _icarus_ started the war, but both sides have been feeding it ever since. i have to admit that we planeteers lord it over the spacemen like we were old man cosmos himself. so they get back at us with dirty little tricks while we're on their ships. we command on the planets, but they command in space. and they sure get a great big nuclear charge out of commanding us to do the dirty work!" "we'll take whatever they hand us," rip assured him, "and pretend we like it fine." he gestured at the other planeteers. "tell me about the men, koa." "they're a fine bunch, sir. i handpicked them myself. the one with the white hair is corporal nels pederson, from sweden. i served with him at marsport, and he's a real tough spacewalker in a fight. the other corporal is paulo santos. he's from the philippines, and the best snapper-boat gunner you ever saw." he pointed out the six privates. kemp and dowst were americans. bradshaw was an englishman, trudeau a frenchman, dominico an italian, and nunez a brazilian. rip liked their looks. they were as relaxed as acceleration would allow, but you got the impression that they would leap into action in a microsecond if the word were given. he couldn't imagine what kind of assignment was waiting, but he was satisfied with his planeteers. they looked capable of anything. he made himself as comfortable as possible and encouraged koa to talk about his service in the special order squadrons. koa had plenty to tell, and he talked interestingly. rip learned that the tall hawaiian had been to every planet in the system, had fought the venusians on the central desert, and had mined nuclite with sos one on mercury. he also found that koa was one of the seventeen pure-blooded hawaiians left. during the three hours that acceleration kept them from moving around the ship, rip got a new view of space and of service with the sos--it was the view of a planeteer who had spent years around the solar system. "i'm glad they assigned you to me," rip told koa frankly. "this is my first job, and i'll be pretty green, no matter what it is. i'll depend on you for a lot of things." to his surprise, koa thrust out his hand. "shake, lieutenant." his grin showed strong white teeth. "you're the first junior officer i ever met who admitted he didn't know everything about everything. you can depend on me, sir. i won't steer you into any meteor swarms." koa had half turned to shake hands. suddenly he spun on around, banging his head against the deck. rip felt a surge of relaxing muscles that had been braced against acceleration. at the same time, silence flooded in on them. rip murmured "_brennschluss_," and the murmur was like a trumpet blast. the _scorpius_ had reached velocity, and the nuclear drive had cut out. from terrific acceleration, they had dropped to zero. the ship was making high speed, but velocity cannot be felt. for the moment the men were weightless. a nearby spaceman had heard rip's comment. he spoke in an undertone to the man nearest. his voice was pitched low enough that rip couldn't object officially, but loud and clear enough to be heard by everyone. "get this, gang. the planeteer officer knows what _brennschluss_ is. he doesn't look old enough to know which end his bubble goes on." rip started to his feet, but koa's hand on his arm restrained him. with a violent kick, the big sergeant major shot through the air. his line of flight took him past the spaceman, and somehow their arms got linked. the spaceman was jerked from his post, and the two came to a stop against the ceiling. koa's voice echoed through the ship. "sorry. i'm not used to no-weight. didn't mean to grab you. here, i'll help you back to your post." he whirled the helpless spaceman like a bag of feathers and slung him through the air. the force of the action only flattened koa against the ceiling, but the hapless spaceman shot forward head first and landed with a clang against the bulkhead. he didn't hit hard enough to break any bones, but he would carry a bump on his head for a day or two. koa's voice floated after him. "great cosmos! i sure am sorry, spaceman. i guess i don't know my own strength." he kicked away from the ceiling, landing accurately at rip's side. he added in a hard voice all could hear, "they sure are a nice gang, these spacemen. they never say anything about planeteers." no spaceman answered, but koa's meaning was clear. no spaceman had better say anything about the planeteers! rip saw that the deputy commander and the safety officer had appeared not to notice the incident. technically, there was no reason for an officer to take action. it had all been an "accident." he smiled. there was a lot he had to learn about dealing with spacemen, a lot koa evidently knew very well indeed. suddenly he began to feel weight. the ship was going into rotation. the feeling increased until he felt normally heavy again. there was no other sensation, even though the space cruiser was now spinning on its axis through space at unaltered speed. the centrifugal force produced by the spinning gave them an artificial gravity. now that he thought about it, _brennschluss_ had come pretty early. the trip apparently was going to be a short one. _brennschluss_--funny, he thought, how words stay on in a language, even after their original meaning is changed. _brennschluss_ was german for "burn out." it was rocket talk, and it meant the moment when all the fuel in a rocket burned out. it had come into common use because the english "burn out" could also mean that the engine itself had burned out. the german word meant only the one thing. now, in nuclear drive ships, the same word was used for the moment when power was cut off. words interested him. he started to mention it to koa just as the telescreen lit up. an officer's face appeared. "send that planeteer officer to the commander," the face said. "tell him to show an exhaust." rip called instantly to the safety officer. "where's his office?" the safety officer motioned to a spaceman. "show him, nelson." rip followed the spaceman through a maze of passages, growing more weightless with each step. the closer to the center of the ship they went, the less he weighed. he was drawing himself along by plastic pull cords when they finally reached the door marked commander. the spaceman left without a word or a salute. rip pushed the lock bar and pulled himself in by grabbing the door frame. he couldn't help thinking it was a rather undignified way to make an entrance. seated in an acceleration chair, a safety belt across his middle, was space commander kevin o'brine, an irishman out of dublin. he was short, as compact as a deto-rocket, and obviously unfriendly. he had a mathematically square jaw, a lopsided nose, green eyes, and sandy hair. he spoke with a pronounced irish brogue. rip started to announce his name, rank, and the fact that he was reporting as ordered. commander o'brine brushed his words aside and stated flatly, "you're a planeteer. i don't like planeteers." rip didn't know what to say, so he kept still. but sharp anger was rising inside of him. o'brine went on. "instructions say i'm to hand you your orders en route. they don't say when. i'll decide that. until i do decide, i have a job for you and your men. do you know anything about nuclear physics?" rip's eyes narrowed. he said cautiously, "a little, sir." "i'll assume you know nothing. foster, the designation scn means space cruiser, nuclear. this ship is powered by a nuclear reactor--in other words, an atomic pile. you've heard of one?" rip controlled his voice, but his red hair stood on end with anger. o'brine was being deliberately insulting. this was stuff any planeteer recruit knew. "i've heard, sir." "fine. it's more than i had expected. well, foster, a nuclear reactor produces heat. great heat. we use that heat to turn a chemical called methane into its component parts. methane is known as marsh gas, foster. i wouldn't expect a planeteer to know that. it is composed of carbon and hydrogen. when we pump it into the heat coils of the reactor, it breaks down and creates a gas that burns and drives us through space. but that isn't all it does." rip had an idea what was coming, and he didn't like it. nor did he like commander o'brine. it was not until much later that he learned that o'brine had been on his way to terra, to see his family for the first time in four years, when the cruiser's orders were changed. to the commander, whose assignments had been made necessary by the needs of the special order squadrons, it was too much. so he took his disappointment out on the nearest planeteer, who happened to be rip. "the gases go through tubes," o'brine went on. "a little nuclear material also leaks into the tubes. the tubes get coated with carbon, foster. they also get coated with nuclear fuel. we use thorium. thorium is radioactive. i won't give you a lecture on radioactivity, foster. but thorium mostly gives off the kind of radiation known as alpha particles. alpha is not dangerous unless breathed or eaten. it won't go through clothes or skin. but when mixed with fine carbon, thorium alpha contamination makes a mess. it's a dirty mess, foster--so dirty that i don't want my spacemen to fool with it. "i want you to take care of it instead--you and your men. the deputy commander will assign you to a squad room. settle in, then draw equipment from the supply room and get going. when i want to talk to you again, i'll call for you. now blast off, lieutenant, and rake that radiation. rake it clean." rip forced a bright and friendly smile. "yes, sir," he said sweetly. "we'll rake it so clean you can see your face in it, sir." he paused, then added politely. "if you don't mind looking at your face, sir--to see how clean the tubes are, i mean." rip turned and got out of there. koa was waiting in the passageway outside. rip told him what had happened, mimicking o'brine's irish accent. the sergeant major shook his head sadly. "this is what i meant, lieutenant. cruisers don't clean their tubes more'n once in ten accelerations. the commander is just thinking up dirty work for us to do, like i said." "never mind," rip told him. "let's find our squad room and get settled, then draw some protective clothing and equipment. we'll clean his tubes for him. our turn will come later." he remembered the last thing joe barris had said, only a few hours before. _joe was right_, he thought. _to ourselves we're supermen, but to the spacemen we're just simps._ evidently o'brine was the kind of space officer who ate planeteers for breakfast. rip thought of the way the commander had turned red with rage at that crack about his face, and he resolved, _he may eat me for breakfast, but i'll be a very tough mouthful!_ chapter three capture and drive! commander o'brine had not exaggerated. the residue of carbon and thorium on the blast tube walls was stubborn, dirty, and penetrating. it was caked on in a solid sheet, but when scraped, it broke up into fine powder. the planeteers wore coveralls, gloves, and face masks with respirators, but that didn't prevent the stuff from sifting through onto their bodies. rip, who directed the work and kept track of the radiation with a gamma-beta ion chamber and an alpha proportional counter, knew they would have to undergo personal decontamination. he took a reading on the ion chamber. only a few milliroentgens of beta and gamma radiation. that was the dangerous kind, because both beta particles and gamma rays could penetrate clothing and skin. but the planeteers wouldn't get enough of a dose to do any harm at all. the alpha count was high, but so long as they didn't breathe any of the dust, it was not dangerous. the _scorpius_ had six tubes. rip divided the planeteers into two squads, one under his direction and one under koa's. each tube took a couple of hours' hard work. several times during the cleaning, the men would leave the tube and go into the main mixing chamber while the tube was blasted with live steam to throw the stuff they had scraped off out into space. each squad was on its last tube when a spaceman arrived. he saluted rip. "sir, the safety officer says to secure the tubes." that could mean only one thing: deceleration. rip rounded up his men. "we're finished. the safety officer passed the word to secure the tubes, which means we're going to decelerate." he smiled grimly. "you all know they gave us this job just out of pure love for the planeteers. so remember it when you go through the control room to the decontamination chamber." the planeteers nodded enthusiastically. rip led the way from the mixing chamber, through the heavy safety door, and into the engine control room. his entrance was met with poorly concealed grins by the spacemen. halfway across the room, rip turned suddenly and bumped into sergeant major koa. koa fell to the deck, arms flailing for balance--but flailing against his protective clothing. the other planeteers rushed to pick him up, and somehow all their hands beat against each other. the protective clothing was saturated with fine dust. it rose from them in a choking cloud and was picked up and dispersed by the ventilating system. it was contaminated dust. the automatic radiation safety equipment filled the ship with an earsplitting buzz of warning. spacemen clapped emergency respirators to their faces and spoke unkindly of rip's planeteers in the saltiest space language possible. rip and his men picked up koa and continued the march to the decontamination room, grinning under their respirators at the consternation around them. there was no danger to the spacemen, since they had clapped on respirators the moment the warning sounded. but even a little contamination meant the whole ship had to be gone over with instruments, and the ventilating system would have to be cleaned. the deputy commander met rip at the door of the radiation room. above the respirator, his face looked furious. "lieutenant," he bellowed, "haven't you any more sense than to bring contaminated clothing into the engine control room?" rip was sorry the deputy commander couldn't see him grinning under his respirator. he said innocently, "no, sir, i haven't any more sense than that." the deputy grated, "i'll have you up before the discipline board for this." rip was enjoying himself thoroughly. "i don't think so, sir. the regulations are very clear. they say, 'it is the responsibility of the safety officer to insure compliance with all safety regulations by both complete instructions to personnel and personal supervision.' your safety officer didn't instruct us, and he didn't supervise us. you'd better run _him_ up before the board." the deputy commander made harsh sounds into his respirator. rip had him, and he knew it. "he thought even a stupid planeteer had sense enough to obey radiation safety rules," he yelled. "he was wrong," rip said gently. then, just to make himself perfectly clear, he added, "commander o'brine was within his rights when he made us rake radiation. but he forgot one thing. planeteers know the regulations, too. excuse me, sir. i have to get my men decontaminated." inside the decontamination chamber, the planeteers took off their masks and faced rip with admiring grins. for a moment he grinned back, feeling pretty good. he had held his own with the spacemen, and he sensed that his men liked him. "all right," he said briskly. "strip down and get into the showers." in a few moments they were all standing under the chemically treated water, washing off the contaminated dust. rip paid special attention to his hair, because that was where the dust was most likely to stick. he had it well lathered when the water suddenly cut off. at the same moment, the cruiser shuddered slightly as control blasts stopped its spinning and left them all weightless. rip saw instantly what had happened. he called, "all right, men. down on the floor." the planeteers instantly slid to the shower deck. in a few seconds the pressure of deceleration pushed at them. "i like spacemen," rip said wryly. "they wait until just the right moment before they cut the water and decelerate. now we're stuck in our birthday suits until we land--wherever that may be." corporal nels pederson spoke up in a soft stockholm accent. "never mind, sir. we'll get back at them. we always do!" while the _scorpius_ decelerated and started maneuvering for a landing, rip did some rapid calculations. he knew the acceleration and deceleration rates of cruisers of this class, measured in terms of time, and part of his daily routine on the space platform had been to examine the daily astroplot, which gave the positions of all planets and other large bodies within the solar system. there was only one possible destination: mars. rip's pulse quickened. he had always wanted to visit the red planet. of course, he had seen all the films, audio-mags, and books concerning it, and he had tried to see the weekly spacecast. he had a good idea of what the planet was like, but reading or viewing was not like actually landing and taking a look for himself. of course, they would land at marsport. it was the only landing area equipped to handle nuclear drive cruisers. the cruiser landed and deceleration cut to zero. at the same moment the water came on. rip hurriedly finished cleaning up, dressed, then took his radiation instruments and carefully monitored his men as they came from the shower. private dowst had to go back for another try at getting his hair clean, but the rest were all right. rip handed his instruments to koa. "you monitor dowst when he finishes. i want to see what's happening." he hurried from the chamber and made his way down the corridors toward the engine control room. there was a good possibility he might get a call from o'brine, with instructions to take his men off the ship. he might finally learn what he was assigned to do! as he reached the engine control room, commander o'brine was giving instructions to his spacemen on the stowage of equipment that evidently was expected aboard. rip felt a twinge of disappointment. if the _scorpius_ had landed to take on supplies of some kind, his assignment was probably not on mars. he started to approach the commander with a question about his orders, then thought better of it. he stood quietly near the control panel and watched. the air lock hissed, then slid open. a martian stood in the entryway, a case on his shoulder. rip watched him with interest. he had seen martians before, on the space platform, but he had never gotten used to them. they were human, still.... he tried to figure out, as he had before, what it was that made them strange. it wasn't the blue-whiteness of their skins nor the very large, expressionless eyes. it was something about their bodies. he studied the martian's figure carefully. he was slightly taller and more slender than the average earthman, but his chest measurements would be about the same. nor were his legs very much longer. suddenly rip thought he had it. the martian's legs and arms joined his torso at a slightly different angle, giving him an angular look. that was what made him look like a caricature of a human, although he was human, of course--as human as any of them. rip saw that other martians were in the air lock, all carrying cases of various sizes and shapes. they came through into the control room and put them down, then turned without a word and hurried back into the lock. they were all breathing heavily, rip noticed. of course! the artificial atmosphere inside the spaceship must seem very heavy and moist to them, after the thin, dry air of mars. the lock worked, and the martians were replaced by others. they, too, deposited their cases. but these cases were bigger and heavier. it took four martians to carry one, which meant they weighed close to half a ton each. the martians could carry more than double an earthman's capacity. when the lock worked next time, a planeteer captain came in. he breathed the heavy air appreciatively, fingering the oxygen mask he had to wear outside. he saluted commander o'brine and reported, "this is all, sir. we filled the order exactly as terra sent it. is there anything else you need?" o'brine turned to his deputy. "find out," he ordered. "this is our last chance. we have plenty of basic supplies, but we may be short of audio-mags and other things for the men." he turned his back on the planeteer captain and walked away. the captain grinned at o'brine's retreating back, then walked over to rip. they shook hands. "i'm southwick, sos two. canadian." rip introduced himself and said he was an american. he added, "and aside from my men, you're the first human being i've seen since we made space." southwick chuckled. "trouble with the spacemen? well, you're not the first." talking about assignments wasn't considered good practice, but rip was burning with curiosity. "you don't by chance know what my assignment is, do you?" the captain's eyebrows went up. "don't you?" rip shook his head. "o'brine hasn't told me." "i don't know a thing," southwick said. "we got instructions to pack up a pretty strange assortment of supplies for the _scorpius_, and that's all i know. the order was in special cipher, though, so we're all wondering about it." the deputy commander returned, reported to o'brine, then walked up to rip and southwick. "nothing else needed," he said curtly. "we'll get off at once." southwick nodded, shook hands with rip, and said in a voice the deputy could hear, "don't let these spacemen bother you. trouble with them is they all wanted to be planeteers and couldn't pass the intelligence tests." he winked, then hurried to the air lock. spacemen worked quickly to clear the deck of the new supplies, stowing them in a nearby workroom. within five minutes the engine control room was clear. the safety officer signaled, and the radiation warning sounded. taking off! rip hurried to the squad room and climbed into an acceleration chair. the other planeteers were already in the room, most of them in their bunks. koa slid into the chair beside him. "find out anything, sir?" "nothing useful. a bunch of equipment came aboard, but it was in plain crates. i couldn't tell what it was." acceleration pressed them against the chairs. rip sighed, picked up an audio-circuit set, and put it over his ears. might as well listen to what the circuit had to offer. there was nothing else to do. music was playing, and it was the kind he liked. he settled back to relax and listen. _brennschluss_ came some time later. it woke rip up from a sound sleep. he blinked, glancing at his chronometer. great cosmos! with that length of acceleration they must be high-vacking for jupiter! he waited until the ship went into the gravity spin, then got out of his chair and stretched. he was hungry. koa was still sleeping. he decided not to wake him. the sergeant major would see that the men ate when they wanted to. in the messroom only one table was occupied--by commander o'brine. rip gave him a civil hello and started to sit alone at another table. to his surprise, o'brine beckoned to him. "sit down," the spaceman invited gruffly. rip did and wondered what was coming next. "we'll start to decelerate in about ten minutes," o'brine said. "eat while you can." he signaled, and a spaceman brought rip the day's ration in an individual plastic carton with thermo-lining. the planeteer opened it and found a block of mixed vegetables, a slab of space meat, and two units of biscuit. he wrinkled his nose. space meat he didn't mind. it was chewy but tasty. the mixed vegetable ration was chosen for its food value and not for taste. a good mouthful of earth grass would be a lot more palatable. he sliced off pieces of the warm stuff and chewed thoughtfully, watching o'brine's face for a clue as to why the commander had invited him to sit down. it wasn't long in coming. "your orders are the strangest things i've ever read," o'brine stated. "do you know where we're going?" rip figured quickly. they had accelerated for six and a half hours. now, ten minutes after _brennschluss_, they were going to start deceleration. that meant they had really high-vacked it to get somewhere in a hurry. he calculated swiftly. "i don't know exactly," he admitted. "but from the ship's actions, i'd say we were aiming for the far side of the asteroid belt. anyway, we'll fall short of jupiter." there was a glimmer of respect in o'brine's glance. "that's right. know anything about asteroids, foster?" rip considered. he knew what he had been taught in astronomy and astrogation. between mars and jupiter lay a broad belt in which the asteroids swung. they ranged from ceres, a tiny world only miles in diameter, down to chunks of rock the size of a house. no accurate count of asteroids--or minor planets, as they were called--had been made, but the observatory on mars had charted the orbits of thousands. a few were more than a mile in diameter, but most were great boulders of irregular shape, from a few feet to several hundred feet at their greatest dimension. "i know the usual stuff about them," he told o'brine. "i haven't any special knowledge." o'brine blinked. "then why did they assign you? what's your specialty?" "astrophysics." "that might explain it. second specialty?" "astrogation." he couldn't resist adding, "that's more advanced than the simple space navigation you use, commander." o'brine started to retort, then apparently thought better of it. "i hope you'll be able to carry out your orders, lieutenant," he said stiffly. "i hope, but not much. i don't think you can." rip asked, "what are my orders, sir?" o'brine waved in the general direction of the wall. "out there somewhere in the asteroid belt, foster, there is a little chunk of matter about one thousand yards in diameter. a very minor planet. we know its approximate coordinates as of two days ago, but we don't know much else. it happens to be a very important minor planet." rip waited, intent on the commander's words. "it's important," o'brine continued, "because it happens to be pure thorium." rip gasped. thorium! the rare, radioactive element just below uranium in the periodic table of the elements, the element used to power this very ship! "what a find!" he said in a hushed voice. no wonder the job was federation priority a, with space council security! "what do i do about it?" he asked. o'brine grinned. "ride it," he said. "your orders say you're to capture this asteroid, blast it out of its orbit, and drive it back to earth!" chapter four find the needle! rip walked into the squad room with a copy of the orders in his hand. after one look at his face, the planeteers clustered around him. santos woke those who were sleeping, while rip waited. "we have our orders, men," he announced. suddenly he laughed. he couldn't help it. at first he had been completely overcome by the responsibility and the magnitude of the job, but now he was getting used to the idea, and he could see the adventure in it. ten wild planeteers riding an asteroid! sunny space, what a great big thermonuclear stunt! koa remarked, "it must be good. the lieutenant is getting a real atomic charge out of it." "sit down," rip ordered. "you'd better, because you might fall over when you hear this. listen, men. two days ago the freighter _altair_ passed through the asteroid belt on a run from jupiter to mars." he sat down, too, because deceleration was starting. as his men looked at each other in surprise at the quickness of it, he continued, "the old bucket found something we need--an asteroid of pure thorium." the enlisted planeteers knew as well as he what that meant. there were whistles of astonishment. koa slapped his thigh. "by gemini! what do we do about it, sir?" "we capture it," rip said. "we blast it loose from its orbit and ride it back to earth." he sat back and watched their reactions. at first they were stunned. trudeau, the frenchman, muttered to himself in french. dominico, the italian, held up his hands and exclaimed, "santa maria!" kemp, one of the american privates, asked, "how do we do it, sir?" rip grinned. "that's a good question. i don't know." that stopped them. they stared at him. he added quickly, "supplies came aboard at marsport. we'll get the clue when we open them. headquarters must have known the method when they assigned us and ordered the equipment they thought we'd need." koa stood up. he was the only one who could have moved upright against the terrific deceleration. he walked to a rack at one side of the squad room and took down a copy of _the space navigator_. then, resuming his seat, he looked questioningly at rip. "anything else, sir? i thought i'd read what there is about asteroids." "go ahead," rip agreed. he sat back as koa began to recite what data there was, but he didn't listen. his mind was going ten astro-units a second. he thought he knew why he had been chosen for the job. word of the priceless asteroid must have reached headquarters only a short time before he was scheduled to leave the space platform. he could imagine the speed with which the specialists at terra base had acted. they had sent orders instantly to the fastest cruiser in the area, the _scorpius_, to stand by for further instructions. then their personnel machines must have whirred rapidly, electronic brains searching for the nearest available planeteer officer with an astrophysics specialty and astrogation training. he could imagine the reaction when the machine turned up the name of a brand-new lieutenant. but the choice was logical enough. he knew that most, if not all, of the planeteer astrophysicists were in either high or low space on special work. chances were there was no astrophysicist nearer than ganymede. so the choice had fallen to him. he had a mental image of the terra base scientists feeding data into the electronic brain, taking the results, and writing fast orders for the men and supplies needed. work at the planeteer base had probably been finished within an hour of the time word was received. when they opened the cases brought aboard by the martians, he would see that the method of blasting the asteroid into a course for earth was all figured out for him. rip was anxious to get at those cases. not until he saw the method of operation could he begin to figure his course. but there was no possibility of getting at the stuff until _brennschluss_. he put the problem out of his mind and concentrated on what his men were saying. "... and he slugged into that asteroid going close to seven au's," santos was saying. the corporal shrugged expressively. rip recognized the story. it was about a supply ship, a chemical drive rocket job, that had blasted into an asteroid a few years before. private dowst shrugged, too. "too bad. high vack was waiting for him. nothing you can do when old man nothing wants you. not a thing in space!" rip listened, interested. this was the talk of old space hands, who had given the high vacuum of empty space a personality, calling it "high vack," or "old man nothing." with understandable fatalism, they believed--or said they believed--that when high vacuum really wanted you, there was nothing you could do. rip had come across an interesting bit of word knowledge. spacemen and planeteers alike had a way of using the phrase "by gemini!" gemini, of course, was the constellation of the twins, castor and pollux. both were useful stars for astrogation. the roman horse soldiers of ancient history had sworn "by gemini," or "by the twins." the romans believed the stars were the famous greek warriors castor and pollux, placed in the heavens after their deaths. in later years, the phrase degenerated to the simple "by jiminy," and its meaning had been lost. now, although few spacemen knew the history of the phrase, they were using it again, correctly. other space talk grew out of space itself, not out of history. for instance, the worst thing that could happen to a man was to have his helmet broken. let the transparent globe be shattered, and the results were both quick and final. hence the oft heard threat, "i'll bust your bubble." speaking of bubbles ... rip realized suddenly that he and his men would have to live in bubbles and space suits while on the asteroid. none of the minor planets were big enough to have an atmosphere or much gravity. if only he could get a look into those cases! but the ship was still decelerating, and he would have to wait. he put his head against the chair rest and settled down to wait as patiently as he could. _brennschluss_ was a long time coming. when the deceleration finally stopped, rip didn't wait for gravity. he hauled himself out of the chair and the squad room and went down the corridor hand over hand. he headed straight for where the supplies were stacked, his planeteers close behind him. commander o'brine arrived at the same time. "we're starting to scan for the asteroid," he greeted rip. "may be some time before we find it." "where are we, sir?" rip asked. "just above the asteroid belt near the outer edge. we're beyond the position where the asteroid was sighted, moving along what the _altair_ figured as its orbit. i'm not stretching space, foster, when i tell you we're hunting for a needle in a junk pile. this part of space is filled with more objects than you would imagine, and they all register on the rad screens." "we'll find it," rip said confidently. o'brine nodded. "yes. but it probably will take some hunting. meanwhile, let's get at those cases. the supply clerk is on his way." the supply clerk arrived, issued tools to the planeteers, then opened a plastic case attached to one of the boxes and produced lists. as the planeteers opened and unpacked the crates, rip and o'brine inspected, and the clerk checked off the items. the first case produced a complete chemical cutting unit, with an assortment of cutting tips and adapters. rip looked around for the gas cylinders and saw none. "something's wrong," he objected. "where's the fuel supply for the torch?" the supply clerk inspected the lists, shuffled papers, and found the answer. "the following," he read, "are to be supplied from the _scorpius_ complement. one landing boat, large, model twenty-eight. eight each, oxygen cutting unit gas bottles. four each, chemical cutting unit fuel tanks." "that's that," rip said, relieved. apparently he was supposed to do a lot of cutting on the asteroid, probably of the thorium itself. the hot flame of the torch could melt any known substance. the torch itself could melt in unskilled hands. the next case yielded a set of astrogation instruments, carefully cradled in a soft, rubbery plastic. rip left them in the case and put them to one side. as he did so, sergeant major koa let out a whistle of surprise. "lieutenant, look at this!" corporal santos exclaimed, "well, stonker me for a stupid space squid! do they expect us to find any people on this asteroid?" the object was a portable rocket launcher designed to fire light attack rockets. it was a standard item of fighting equipment for planeteers. "i recognize the shape of those cases over there, now," koa said. "ten racks of rockets for the launcher, one rack to a case." rip scratched his head. he was as puzzled as santos. why supply fighting equipment for a crew on an asteroid that couldn't possibly have any living thing on it? he left the puzzle for the future and called for more cases. the next two yielded projectile-type handguns for ten men, with ammunition, and standard planeteer space knives. the space knives had hidden blades, which were driven forth violently when the operator pushed a thumb lever, releasing the gas in a cartridge contained in the handle. the blades snapped forth with enough force to break a bubble or to cut through a space suit. they were designed for the sole purpose of space hand-to-hand combat. the planeteers looked at each other. what were they up against, that such equipment was needed on a barren asteroid? private dowst opened a box that contained a complete tool kit, the tools designed to be handled by men in space suits. yards of wire, for several purposes, were wound on reels. two hand-driven dynamos capable of developing great power were included. corporal pederson found a small case which contained books, the latest astronomical data sheets, and a space computer and scratch board. these were obviously for rip's personal use. he examined them. there were all the references he would need for computing orbit, speed, and just about anything else that might be required. he had to admire the thoroughness of whoever had written the order. the unknown planeteer had assumed that the space cruiser would not have all the astrophysics references necessary and had included a copy of each. several large cases remained. koa ripped the side from one and let out an exclamation. rip hurried over and looked in. his stomach did a quick orbital reverse. great cosmos! the thing was an atomic bomb! commander o'brine leaned over his shoulder and peered at the lettering on the cylinder: equivalent ten kt. in other words, the explosion the harmless-looking cylinder could produce was equivalent to ten thousand tons of tnt, a chemical explosive no longer in actual use but still used for comparison. rip asked huskily, "any more of those things?" the importance of the job was becoming increasingly clear to him. nuclear explosives were not used without good reason. the fissionable material was too valuable for other purposes. the sides came off the remaining cases. some of them held fat tubes of conventional rocket fuel in solid form, the igniters carefully packed separately. there were three other atomic bombs, making four in all. there were two bombs each of five kt and ten kt. commander o'brine looked at the amazing assortment of stuff. "does that check, clerk?" the spaceman nodded. "yes, sir. i found another notation that says food supplies and personal equipment to be supplied by the _scorpius_." "well, vack me for a venusian rabbit!" o'brine muttered. he tugged at his ear. "you could dump me on that asteroid with this assortment of junk, and i'd spend the rest of my life there. i don't see how you can use this stuff to move an asteroid!" "maybe that's why the federation sent planeteers," rip said--and was sorry the moment the words were out. o'brine's jaw muscles bulged, but he held his temper. "i'm going to pretend i didn't hear that, foster. we have to get along until the asteroid is safely in an orbit around earth. after that, i'm going to take a great deal of pleasure in feeding you to the space fish, piece by piece." it was rip's turn to get red. "i'm sorry, commander. accept my apologies." he certainly had a lot to learn about space etiquette. there was a time for spacemen and planeteers to fight each other and a time for them to cooperate. "i'm sure you'll be able to figure out what to do with this stuff," o'brine said. "if you need help, let me know." and rip knew his apology was accepted. the deputy commander arrived, drew o'brine aside, and whispered in his ear. the commander let out an exclamation and started out of the room. at the door he turned. "better come along, foster." rip followed as the commander led the way to his own quarters. at the door two space officers were waiting, their faces grave. o'brine motioned them to chairs. "all right, let's have it." the senior space officer held out a sheet of flimsy. it was pale blue, the color used for highly confidential documents. "sir, this came in space council special cipher." "read it aloud," o'brine ordered. "yes, sir. it's addressed to you, this ship. from planeteer intelligence, marsport. 'consops cruiser departed general direction your area. agents report crew _altair_ may have leaked data re asteroid. take appropriate action.' it's signed 'williams, sos, commanding.'" rip saw the meaning of the message instantly. the consolidation of people's governments, of earth, traditional enemies and rivals of the federation of free governments, needed radioactive minerals as badly as, or worse than, the federation. in space it was first come, first take. they had to find the asteroid quickly. it was to prevent consops from knowing of the asteroid that security measures had been taken. they hadn't worked, because of loose space chatter at marsport. o'brine issued quick orders. "now, get this. we have to work fast. accelerate fifty percent, same course. i want two men on each screen. if anything of the right size shows up, decelerate until we can get mass and albedo measurements. snap to it." the space officers started out, but o'brine stopped them. "use one long-range screen for scanning high space toward mars. let me know the minute you get a blip, because it probably will be that consops cruiser. have the missile ports cleared for action." rip's eyes opened. clear the missile ports? that meant getting the cruiser in fighting shape, ready for instant action. "you wouldn't fire on that consops cruiser, would you, sir?" o'brine gave him a grim smile. "certainly not, foster. it's against orders to start anything with consops cruisers. you know why. the situation is so tense that a fight between two spaceships might plunge earth into war." his smile got even grimmer. "but you never know. the consops ship might fire first. or an accident might happen." the commander leaned forward. "we'll find that asteroid for you, mr. planeteer. we'll put you on it and see you on your way. then we'll ride space along with you, and if any consops thieves try to take over and collect that thorium for themselves, they'll find kevin o'brine waiting. that's a promise." rip felt a lot better. he sat back in his chair and regarded the commander with mixed respect and something else. against his will, he was beginning to like the man. no doubt of it, the _scorpius_ was well named. and the sting in the scorpion's tail was o'brine himself. chapter five the gray world rip rejoined his planeteers in the supply room and motioned for them to gather around him. "i know why terra base sent us the fighting equipment," he announced. "they were afraid word of this thorium asteroid would leak out to consops--and it has. a connie cruiser blasted off from marsport and it's headed this way." he watched the faces of his men carefully, to see how they would take the news. they merely looked at each other and shrugged. conflict with consops was nothing new to them. "the freighter that found the asteroid landed at marsport, didn't it?" koa asked. getting a nod from rip, he went on, "then i know what probably happened. the two things spacemen can't do are breathe high vack and keep their mouths shut. some of the crew blabbed about the asteroid, probably at the space club. that's where they hang out. the connies hang out there, too. result, we get a connie cruiser after the asteroid." "you hit it," rip acknowledged. corporal santos shrugged. "if the connies try to take the asteroid away, they'll have a real warm time. we have ten racks of rockets, twenty-four to a rack. that's a lot of snapper-boats we can pick off if they try to make a landing." the planeteers stopped talking as the voice horn sounded. "get it! we are going into no-weight. prepare to stay in no-weight indefinitely. rotation stops in two minutes." rip realized why the order was given. the _scorpius_ could not maneuver while in a gravity spin, and o'brine wanted to be free to take action if necessary. the voice horn came on again. "now get it again. the ship may maneuver suddenly. prepare for acceleration or deceleration without warning. one minute to no-weight." rip gave quick orders. "get lines around the equipment and prepare to haul it. i'll get landing boats assigned, and we can load. then prepare space packs. lay out suits and bubbles. we want to be ready to go the moment we get the word." lines were taken from a locker and secured to the equipment. as the planeteers worked, the ship's spinning slowed and stopped. they were in no-weight. rip grabbed for a hand cord that hung from the wall and hauled himself out into the engine control room. the deputy commander was at his post, waiting tensely for orders. rip thrust against a bulkhead with one foot and floated to his side. "i need two landing boats, sir," he requested. "one stays on the asteroid with us." "take numbers five and six. i'll assign a pilot to bring number five back to the ship after you've landed." "thank you." rip would have been surprised at the deputy's quick assent if commander o'brine hadn't shown him that the spacemen were ready to do anything possible to aid the planeteers. he went back to the supply room and told koa which boats were to be used, instructed him to get the supplies aboard, then made his way to commander o'brine's office. o'brine was not in. rip searched and found him in the astroplot room, watching a 'scope. green streaks called "blips" marked the panel, each one indicating an asteroid. "all too small," o'brine said. "we've only seen two large ones, and they were too large." "space is certainly full of junk," rip commented. "at least this corner of it is pretty full." a junior space officer overheard him. "this is nothing. we're on the edge of the asteroid belt. closer to the middle, there's so much stuff a ship has to crawl through it." rip wandered over to the main control desk. a senior space officer was seated before a simple panel on which there were only a dozen small levers, a visiphone, and a radar screen. the screen was circular, with numbers around the rim like those on an earth clock. in the center of the screen was a tiny circle. the central circle represented the _scorpius_. the rest of the screen was the area dead ahead. rip watched and saw several blips on it that indicated asteroids. they were all small. he watched, interested, as the _scorpius_ overtook them. once, according to the screen, the cruiser passed under an asteroid, with a clearance of only a few hundred feet. "you didn't miss that one by much," rip told the space officer. "don't have to miss by much," he retorted. "a few feet are as good as a mile in space. our blast might kick them around a little, and maybe there's a little mutual mass attraction, but we don't worry about it." he pointed to a blip that was just swimming into view, a sharp green point against the screen. "we do have to worry about that one." he selected a lever and pulled it toward him. rip felt sudden weight against his feet. the green point on the screen moved downward, below center. the feeling of weight ceased. he knew what had happened, of course. around the hull of the ship, set in evenly spaced lines, were a series of blast holes through which steam was fired. the steam was produced instantly by running water through the heat coils of the nuclear engine. by using groups or combinations of steam tubes, the control officer could move the ship in any direction, set it rolling, spin it end over end, or whirl it in an eccentric pattern. "how do you decide which tubes to use?" rip asked. "depends on what's happening. if we were ducking missiles from an enemy, i'd get orders from the commander. but to duck asteroids, there's no problem. i go over them by firing the steam tubes along the bottom of the ship. that way, you feel the acceleration on your feet. if i fired the top tubes, the ship would drop out from under those who were standing. they'd all end up on the overhead." rip watched for a while longer, then wandered back to commander o'brine. he was getting anxious. at first the task of capturing an asteroid and moving it back to earth had been rather unreal, like some of the problems he had worked out while training on the space platform. now he was no longer calm about it. he had faith in the terra base planeteer specialists, but they couldn't figure out everything for him. most of the problems of getting the asteroid back to earth would have to be solved by lt. richard ingalls peter foster. a junior space officer suddenly called, "sir, i have a reading at two-seventy degrees, twenty-three degrees eight minutes high." commander o'brine jumped up so fast that the action shot him to the ceiling. he kicked down again and leaned over the officer's 'scope. rip got there by pulling himself right across the top of the chart table. the green point of light on the 'scope was bigger than any other he had seen. "it's about the right size," o'brine said. there was excitement in his voice. "correct course. let's take a look at it." all hands gripped something with which to steady themselves as the cruiser spun swiftly onto the new course. the control officer called, "i have it centered, sir. we'll reach it in about an hour at this speed." "jack it up," o'brine ordered. "heave some neutrons into it. double speed, then decelerate to reach it in thirty minutes." the control officer issued orders to the engine control room. in a moment acceleration plucked at them. o'brine motioned to rip. "come on, foster. let's see what analysis makes of this rock." rip followed the commander to the deck below, where the technical analysts were located. his heart was pounding a little faster than usual, and not from acceleration, either. he found himself wetting his lips frequently and thought, _get hold of it, boy. you've got nothing to worry about but high vacuum._ he didn't really believe it. there would be plenty to worry about. like detonating nuclear bombs and trying to figure their blast reaction. like figuring out the course that would take them closest to the sun without pulling them into it. like a thousand things--all of them up to him. the chief analyst greeted them. "we got the orders to change course, commander. that gave us the location of the asteroid. we're already working on it." "anything yet?" "no, sir. we'll have the albedo measurement in a few minutes. it'll take longer to figure the mass." the asteroid's efficiency in reflecting sunlight was its albedo. the efficiency depended on the material of which it was made. the albedo of pure metallic thorium was known. if the asteroid's albedo matched it, that would be one piece of evidence. in the same way, the mass of thorium was known. the measurements of the asteroid were being taken. they would be compared with a chunk of thorium of the same size. if it worked out, that would be evidence enough. commander o'brine motioned to chairs. "might as well sit down while we're waiting, foster." he took one of the chairs and looked closely at rip. suddenly he grinned. "i thought planeteers never got nervous." "who's nervous?" rip retorted, then answered his own question truthfully. "i am. you're right, sir. the closer we get, the more scared i get." "that's a good sign," o'brine replied. "it means you'll be careful. got any real doubts about the job?" rip thought it over and didn't think so. "not any real ones. i think we can do it. but i'm nervous just the same. great cosmos, commander! this is my first assignment, and they give me a whole world to myself and tell me to bring it home. maybe it isn't a very big world, but that doesn't change things much." o'brine chuckled. "i never expected to get an admission like that from a planeteer." "and i," rip retorted, "never expected to make one like that to a spaceman." the chief analyst returned, a sheet of computations in his hand. "report, sir. the albedo measurement is correct. this may be it." "how long before we get the measurements and comparisons?" "ten minutes, perhaps." rip spoke up. "sir, there's some data i'll need." "what, lieutenant?" the analyst got out a notebook. "i'll need all possible data on the asteroid's speed, orbit, and physical measurements. i will have to figure a new orbit and what it will take to blast the mass into it." "we'll get those. the orbit will not be exact, of course. we have only two reference points. but i think we'll come pretty close." o'brine nodded. "do what you can, chief. and when foster gets down to doing his calculations, have your men run them through the electronic computer for him." rip thanked them both, then stood up. "sir, i'm going back to my men. i want to be sure everything is ready. if there's a connie cruiser headed this way, we don't want to lose any time." "good idea. i think we'll dump you on the asteroid, foster, and then blast off. not too far, of course. just enough to lead the connie away from you if its screen picks us up." that sounded good to rip. "we'll be ready when you are, sir." the chief analyst took less than the estimated ten minutes for his next set of figures. commander o'brine called personally while rip was still searching for the right landing-boat ports. the voice horn bellowed, "get it, lieutenant foster! the mass measurements are correct. this is your asteroid. estimated twelve minutes before we reach it. your data will be ready by the time you get back here. show an exhaust!" rip found koa and the men and asked the sergeant major for a report. "we're ready, sir," koa told him. "we can get out in three minutes. it will take us that long to get into space gear. your stuff is laid out, sir." "get me the books and charts from the supplies," rip directed. "have santos take them to the chief analyst. i'm going back and figure our course. no use doing it the hard way on the asteroid, when i can do it in a few minutes here with the ship's computer." he turned and hurried back, hauling himself along by handholds. the ship had stopped acceleration and was at no-weight again. as he neared the analysis section, it went into deceleration, but the pressure was not too bad. he made his way against it easily. the chief analyst was waiting for him. "we have everything you need, lieutenant, except the orbital stuff. we'll do the best we can on that and have an estimate in a few minutes. meanwhile you can mark up your figures. incidentally, what power are you going to use to move the asteroid?" "nuclear explosions," rip said, and saw the chief's eyes pop. he added, "with conventional chemical fuel for corrections." he felt rising excitement. the whole ship seemed to have come to life. there was excited tension in the computer room when he went in with the chief. spacemen, all mathematicians, were waiting for him. as the chief led him to a table, they gathered around him. rip took command. "here's what we're after. i need to plot an orbit that will get us out of the asteroid belt without collisions, take us as close to the sun as possible without having it capture us, and land us in space about ten thousand miles from earth. from then on i'll throw the asteroid into a braking ellipse around the earth, and i'll be able to make any small corrections necessary." he spread out a solar system chart and marked in the positions of the planets as of that moment, using the daily almanac. then he put down the position of the asteroid, taking it from the paper the chief analyst handed him. "will you make assignments, chief?" the chief shook his head. "make them yourself, lieutenant. we're at your service." rip felt a little ashamed of some of the unkind things he had said about spacemen. "thank you." he pointed to a spaceman. "will you calculate the inertia of the asteroid, please?" the spaceman hurried off. "first thing to do is plot the orbit as though there were no other bodies in the system," rip said. "where's santos?" "here, sir." the corporal had come in unnoticed with rip's reference books. rip had plotted orbits before, but never one for actual use. his palms were wet as he laid it out, using prepared tables. when he had finished he pointed to a spaceman. "that's it. will you translate it into analogue figures for the computer, please?" he assigned to others the task of figuring out the effect mercury, the sun, and earth would have on the orbit, using an assumed speed for the asteroid. to the chief analyst he gave the job of putting all the data together in proper form for feeding to the electronic brain. it would have taken all spacemen present about ten days to complete the job by regular methods, but the electronic computer produced the answer in three minutes. "thanks a million, chief," rip said. "i'll be calling on you again before this is over." he tucked the sheets into his pocket. "anytime, lieutenant. we'll keep rechecking the figures as we go along. if there are any corrections, we'll send them to you. that will give you a check on your own figures." "don't worry," rip assured him, "we're going to have plenty of corrections before we're through." deceleration had been dropping steadily. it ceased altogether, leaving them weightless. o'brine's voice came over the speaker. "get it! valve crews take stations at landing boats five and six. the planeteers will depart in five minutes. lieutenant foster will report to central control if he cannot be ready in that time." santos grinned at rip. "here we go, lieutenant." rip's heart would have dropped into his shoes if there had been any gravity. only a little excitement showed on his face, though. he waved his thanks at the analysts and grinned back at santos. "show an exhaust, corporal. high vack is waiting!" chapter six rip's planet rip rechecked his space suit before putting on his helmet. the air seal was intact, and his heating and ventilating units worked. he slapped his knee pouches to make sure the space knife was handy to his left hand, the pistol to his right. koa was already fully dressed. he handed rip the shoulder case that contained the plotting board. santos had taken charge of rip's astrogation instruments. a spaceman was waiting with rip's bubble. at a nod, the spaceman slipped it on his head. rip reached up and gave it a quarter turn. the locking mechanism clamped into place. he turned his belt ventilator control on full, and the space suit puffed out. when it was fully inflated, he watched the pressure gauge. it was steady. no leaks in suit or helmet. he let the pressure go down to normal. koa's voice buzzed in his ears. "hear me, sir?" rip adjusted the volume of his communicator and replied, "i hear you. am i clear?" "yessir. all men dressed and ready." rip made a final check. he counted his men, then personally inspected their suits. the boats were next. they were typical landing craft, shaped like rectangular boxes. there was no need for streamlining in the vacuum of space. they were not pressurized. only men in space suits rode in the ungainly boxes. he checked all blast tubes to make sure they were clear. there were small single tubes on each side of the craft. a clogged one could explode and blow the boat up. koa, he knew, had checked everything, but the final responsibility was his. in space, no officer took anyone's word for anything that might mean lives. each checked every detail personally. rip looked around and saw the planeteers watching him. there was approval on the faces behind the clear helmets, and he knew they were satisfied with his thoroughness. at last, certain that everything was in good order, he said quietly, "pilots, man your boats." dowst got into one and a spaceman into the other. dowst's boat would stay with them on the asteroid. the spaceman would bring the other back to the ship. commander o'brine stepped through the valve into the boat lock. a spaceman handed him a hand communicator. he spoke into it. rip couldn't have heard him through the helmet otherwise. "all set, foster?" "ready, sir." "good. the long-range screen picked up a blip a few minutes ago. it's probably that connie cruiser." rip swallowed. the planeteers froze, waiting for the commander's next words. "our screens are a little better than theirs, so there's a slim chance they haven't picked us up yet. we'll drop you and get out of here. but don't worry. we have your orbit fixed, and we'll find you when the screens are clear." "suppose they find us while you're gone?" rip said. "it's a chance," o'brine admitted. "you'll have to take spaceman's luck on that one. but we won't be far away. we'll duck behind vesta, or another of the big asteroids, and hide so their screens won't pick up our motion. every now and then we'll sneak out for a look, if the screen seems clear. if those high-vack vermin do find you, get on the landing-boat radio and yell for help. we'll come blasting." he waved a hand, thumb and forefinger held together in the ancient symbol for "everything right," then ordered, "get flaming." he stepped through the valve. "clear the lock," rip ordered. "open outer valve when ready." he took a quick, final look around. the pilots were in the boats. his planeteers were standing by, safety lines already attached to the boats and their belts. he moved into position and snapped his own line to a ring on dowst's boat. the spacemen vanished through the valve, and the massive door slid closed. the overhead lights flicked out. rip now snapped on his belt light, and the others followed suit. in front of the boxlike landing boats a great door slid open, and air from the lock rushed out. rip knew it was only imagination, but he felt as though all the heat from his suit was radiating into space, chilling him to near absolute zero. beyond the lights from their belts, he saw stars and recognized the constellation for which the space cruiser was named. a superstitious spaceman would have taken that as a good sign. rip admitted that it was nice to see. "float 'em," he ordered. the planeteers gripped handholds at the entrance with one hand and launching rails on the boats with the other, then heaved. the boats slid into space. as the safety lines tightened, the planeteers were pulled after the boat. rip left his feet with a little spring and shot through the door. directly below him, the asteroid gleamed darkly in the light of the tiny sun. his first reaction was "great cosmos! what a little chunk of rock!" but that was because he was used to looking from the space platform at the great curve of terra or at the big ball of the moon. actually the asteroid was fair-sized, when compared with most of its kind. the planeteers hauled themselves into the boats by their safety lines. rip waited until all were in, then pulled himself along his own line to the black square of the door. koa was waiting to give him a hand into the craft. the planeteers were standing, except for dowst. rip had never seen an old-type railroad, or he might have likened the landing boat to a railroad boxcar. it was about the same size and shape, but had huge "windows" on both sides and in front of the pilot--windows that were not enclosed. the space-suited men needed no protection. "blast," rip ordered. a pulse of fire spurted from the top of each boat, driving them bottom first toward the asteroid. "land at will," rip said. the asteroid loomed large as he looked through an opening. it was rocky, but there were plenty of smooth places. dowst picked one. he was an expert pilot, and rip watched him with pleasure. the exhaust from the top lessened, and fire spurted soundlessly from the bottom. dowst balanced the opposite thrusts of the top and bottom blasts with the delicacy of a woman threading a needle. in a few moments the boat was hovering a foot above the asteroid. dowst cut the exhausts, and rip stepped out onto the tiny planet. the planeteers knew what to do. corporal pederson produced hardened steel spikes with ring tops. private trudeau had a sledge. driving the first spike would be the hardest, because the action of swinging the hammer would propel the planeteer like a rocket exhaust. in space, the law that every action has an equal and opposite reaction had to be remembered every moment. rip watched, interested in how his man would tackle the problem. he didn't know the answer himself, because he had never driven a spike on an airless world with almost no gravity, and no one had ever mentioned it to him. pederson searched the gray metal with his torch and found a slender spur of thorium, perhaps two feet high, a short distance from the boat. "here's a hold," he said. "come on, frenchy. you too, bradshaw." trudeau, carrying the sledge, walked up to the spur of rock and stood with his heels against it. pederson sat down on the ground with his legs on either side of the spur. he stretched, hooking his heels around trudeau's ankles, anchoring him. with his gloves, he grabbed the seat of the frenchman's space suit. bradshaw took a spike and held it against the gray metal ground. the frenchman swung, his hammer noiseless as it drove the tough spike. a few inches into the metal was enough. bradshaw took a wrench from his belt, put it on the head of the spike, and turned it. below the surface, teeth on the spike bit into the metal. it would hold. the rest was easy. the spike was used to anchor trudeau while he drove another, at his longest reach. then the second spike became his anchor, and so on, until enough spikes had been set to lace the boat down against any sudden shock. the boat piloted by the spaceman was tied to the one that would remain, and the planeteers floated its supplies through a window. it took only a few moments, with planeteers forming a chain from inside the boat to a spot a little distance away. the crates weighed almost nothing, but still retained their mass. once their inertia was overcome, they moved from one man to the next like ungainly balloons. "all clear, sir," koa called. rip stepped inside and made a quick inspection. the box was empty except for the spaceman pilot. he put a hand on the pilot's shoulder. "on your way, rocky. thanks." "you're welcome, sir." the pilot added, "watch out for high vack." rip and koa stepped out and walked a little distance away. santos and pederson cast the landing boat adrift and shoved it away from the anchored boat. in a moment fire spurted from the bottom tube, spreading over the dull metal and licking at the feet of the planeteers. rip watched the boat rise upward to the great, sleek, dark bulk of the _scorpius_. the landing boat maneuvered into the air lock with brief flares from its exhausts. in a few moments the sparkling blast of auxiliary rocket tubes moved the spaceship away. o'brine was putting a little distance between his ship and the asteroid before turning on the nuclear drive. the ship decreased in size until rip saw it only as a dark, oval silhouette against the milky way. then the exhaust of the nuclear drive grew into a mighty column of glowing blue, and the ship flamed into space. for a moment rip had a wild impulse to yell for the ship to come back. he had been in vacuum before, but only as a cadet, with an officer in charge. now, suddenly, he was the one responsible. the job was his. he stiffened. planeteer officers didn't worry about things like that. he forced his mind to the job at hand. the next step was to establish a base. the base would have to be on the dark side of the asteroid, once it was in its new orbit. that meant a temporary base now and a better one later, when they had blasted the little planet into its new course. he estimated roughly the approximate positions where he would place his charges, using the sun and the star canopus as visual guides. "this will do for a temporary base," he announced. "rig the boat compartment. while two of you are doing that, you others break out the rocket launcher and rocket racks and assemble the cutting torch. koa will make assignments." while the sergeant major translated rip's general instructions into specific orders for each man, the young lieutenant walked to the edge of the sun belt. there was no atmosphere, so the edge was a sharp line between dark and light. there wasn't much light, either. they were too far from the sun for that. but as they neared the sun, the darkness would be their protection. they would get so close to sol that the metal on the sun side would get soft as butter. he bent close to the uneven surface. it was clean metal, not oxidized at all. the thorium had never been exposed to oxygen. here and there, pyramids of metal thrust up from the asteroid, sometimes singly, sometimes in clusters. they were metal crystal formations. he guessed that once, long ages ago, the asteroid had been a part of something much bigger, perhaps a planet. one theory said the asteroids were formed when a planet exploded. this asteroid might have been a pocket of pure thorium in the planet. there would be plenty to do in a short while, but meanwhile he enjoyed the sensation of being on a tiny world in space with only a handful of planeteers for company. he smiled. "king foster," he said to himself. "monarch of a thorium space speck." it was a rather nice feeling, even though he laughed at himself for thinking it. since he was in command of the detachment, he could in all truth say that this was his own personal planet. it would be a good bit of space humor to spring on the folks back on terra. "yep, once i was boss of a whole world. made myself king. emperor of all the metal molecules and king of the thorium spurs. and my subjects obeyed my every command." he added, "thanks to planeteer discipline. the detachment commander is boss." he reminded himself that he had better stop gathering space dust and start acting like a detachment commander. he walked back to the landing boat, stepping with care. with such low gravity, a false step could send him high above the asteroid. of course, that would not be dangerous, since space suits were equipped with six small compressed-air bottles for emergency propulsion. but it would be embarrassing. inside the boat, dowst and nunez were setting up the compartment. sections of the rear wall swung out and locked into place against airtight seals, forming a box at the rear end of the boat. equipment sealed in the stern, next to the rocket tube, supplied light, heat, and air. it was a simple but necessary arrangement. without it, the planeteers could not have eaten. there was no air lock for the compartment. the half of the detachment not on duty would walk in, seal it up, turn on the equipment, wait until the gauges registered sufficient air and heat, and then remove their space suits. when it was time to leave, they would don suits, open the door, and walk out, and the next shift would enter and repeat the process. earlier models had permanent compartments, but they took up too much room in craft designed for carrying as many men and as much equipment as possible. they were strictly work boats, and hard experience had dictated the best design. the rocket launcher was already set up near the boat. it was a simple affair, with three adjustable legs bolted to ground spikes. the legs held a movable cradle in which the rocket racks were placed. high-geared hand controls enabled the gunner to swing the cradle at high speed in any direction except straight down. a simple, illuminated optical sight was all the gunner needed. since there were neither gravity nor atmosphere in space, the missiles flashed out in a straight line, continuing on into infinity if they missed their targets. proximity fuses made this a remote possibility. if the rocket got anywhere near the target, the shell would explode. rip found his astrogation instruments set carefully to one side. he removed the data sheets from his case and examined them. now came the work of finding the spots in which to place his atomic charges. since the computer aboard ship had done all the mathematics necessary, he needed only to take sights to determine the precise positions. he took a transit-like instrument from the case, pulled out the legs of its self-contained tripod, then carried it to a spot near where he had estimated the first charge would be placed. the instrument was equipped with three movable rings to be set for the celestial equator, for the zero meridian, and for the right ascension of any convenient star. using a regular level would have been much simpler. the instrument had one, but with so little gravity to activate it, the thing was useless. the sights were specially designed for use in space, and his bubble was no obstacle in taking observations. he merely put the clear plastic against the curved sight and looked into it much as he would have looked through a telescope on earth. as he did so, a hint of pale pink light caught the corner of his eye. he backed away from the instrument and turned his head quickly, looking at the colorimeter-type radiation detector at the side of his helmet. it was glowing. an icy chill sent a shiver through him. great, gorgeous galaxies! he had forgotten ... had koa and the others? he turned so fast that he lost his balance and floated above the surface like a captive balloon. santos, who had been standing nearby to help if requested, hooked a toe on the ground spike, caught him, and set him upright on the ground again. "get me the radiation detection instruments," he ordered. koa sensed the urgency in his voice and got the instruments himself. rip switched them on and read the illuminated dial on the alpha counter. plenty high, as was natural. but no danger there--alpha particles couldn't penetrate the space suits. then, his hand clammy inside the space glove, he switched on the other meter. the gamma count was far below the alpha, but there were too many of the rays around for comfort. inside the helmet his face turned pale. there was no immediate danger. it would take many days to build up a dose of gamma that could hurt them. but gamma was not the only radiation. they were in space, fully exposed to equally dangerous cosmic radiation. the planeteers had gathered while he read the instruments. now they stood watching him. they knew the significance of what he had found. "i ought to be busted to recruit," he told them. "i knew this asteroid was thorium and that thorium is radioactive. if i had used my head, i would have added nuclite shielding to the list of supplies the _scorpius_ provided. we could have had enough of it to protect us while around our base, even if we couldn't be protected while working on the charges. that would at least have kept our dosage down enough for safety." "no one else thought of it, either, sir," koa reminded him. "it was my job to think of it, and i didn't. so i've put us in a time squeeze. if the _scorpius_ gets back soon, we can get the shielding before our radiation dosage has built up very high. if the ship doesn't come back, the dosage will mount." he looked at them grimly. "it won't kill us, and it won't even make us very sick. i'll have the ship take us off before we build up that much dosage." santos started. "but, sir! that means--" "i know what it means," rip stated bitterly. "it means the ship has got to return in time to give us some nuclite shielding, or we'll be the laughingstock of the special order squadrons--the detachment that started a job the spacemen had to finish!" chapter seven earthbound! there was something else that rip didn't add, although he knew the planeteers would realize it in a few minutes. probably some of them already had thought of it. to move the asteroid into a new orbit, they were going to fire nuclear bombs. most of the highly radioactive fission products would be blown into space, but some would be drawn back by the asteroid's slight gravity. the craters would be highly radioactive, and some radioactive debris was certain to be scattered around, too. every particle would add to the problem. "is there anything we can do, sir?" koa asked. rip shook his head inside the transparent bubble. "if you have a good luck charm in your pocket, you might talk to it. that's about all." nuclear physics had been part of his training. he read the gamma meter again and did some quick calculations. they would be exposed for the entire trip, at a daily dosage of-- koa interrupted his train of thought. evidently the sergeant major had been doing some calculations of his own. "how long will we be on this rock, sir? you've never told us just how long the trip will take." rip said quietly, "with luck, it will take us a little more than three weeks." he could see their faces faintly in the dim sunlight. they were shocked. spaceships blasted through space between the inner planets in a matter of hours. the nuclear drive cruisers, which could approach almost half the speed of light, had brought even distant pluto within easy reach. the inner planets could be covered in a matter of minutes on a straight speed run, although to take off from one and land on the other meant considerable time used in acceleration and deceleration. the planeteers were used to such speed. hearing that it would take over three weeks to reach earth had jarred them. "this piece of metal isn't a spaceship," rip reminded them. "at the moment, our speed around the sun is just slightly more than ten miles a second. if we just shifted orbits and kept the same speed, it would take us months to reach terra. but we'll use one bomb for retrothrust, then fire two to increase speed. the estimate is that we'll push up to about forty miles a second." koa spoke up. "that's not bad when you think that mercury is the fastest planet, and it only makes about thirty miles a second." "right," rip agreed. "after the asteroid is kicked out of orbit, it will fall toward the sun. at our closest approach to the sun, we'll have enough velocity to carry us past safely. then we'll lose speed constantly until we come into earth's gravitational field and have to brake." it was just space luck that terra was on the other side of the sun from the asteroid's present position. by the time they approached, it would be in a good place, just far enough from the line to the sun to avoid changing course. of course, rip's planned orbit was not aiming the asteroid at earth, but at where earth would be at the end of the trip. "that means more than three weeks of radiation, then," corporal santos observed. "can we take it, sir?" rip shrugged, but the gesture couldn't be seen inside his space suit. "at the rate we're getting radiation now, plus what i estimate we'll get from the nuclear explosions, we'll get the maximum safety limit in just three weeks. that leaves us no margin, even if we risk getting radiation sickness. so we have to get shielding pretty soon. if we do, we can last the trip." private dominico saluted and moved forward. "sir, may i ask a question?" rip turned to face the planeteer, still worrying over the problem. he nodded and said, "what is it, dominico?" "sir, i think we can't worry too much about this radiation, eh? you will think of some way to take care of it. what i want to ask, sir, is when do we let go the bombs? i do not know much about radiation, but i can set those bombs like you want them." rip was touched by the planeteer's faith in his ability to solve the radiation problem. that was why being an officer in the special order squadrons was so challenging. the men knew the kind of training their officers had, and they expected them to come up with technical solutions as the situation required. "you'll have a chance to set the bombs in just a short while," he said crisply. "let's get busy. koa, load all bombs but one ten kt on the landing boat. stake the rest of the equipment down. while you're doing that, i'll find the spots where we plant the charges. i'll need two men now and more later." he went back to his instrument, putting the radiation problem out of his mind--a rather hard thing to do with the colorimeter glowing pink next to his shoulder. koa detailed men to load the nuclear bombs into the landing craft, left pederson to supervise, and then brought santos with him to help rip. "the bombs are being put on the boat, sir," koa reported. "fine. there isn't too much chance of the blasts setting them off, but we'll take no chances at all. koa, i'm going to shoot a line straight out toward alpha centauri. you walk that way and turn on your belt light. i'll tell you which way to move." he adjusted his sighting rings while the sergeant major glided away. moving around on a no-weight world was more like skating than walking. a regular walk would have lifted koa into space with every step. of course, the asteroid had some gravity, but so little that it hardly mattered. rip centered the top of the instrument's vertical hairline on alpha centauri, then waited until koa was almost out of sight over the asteroid's horizon, which was only a few hundred yards away. he turned up the volume on his helmet communicator. "koa, move about ten feet to your left." koa did so. rip sighted past the vertical hairline at the belt light. "that's a little too far. take a small step to the right. that's good ... just a few inches more ... hold it. you're right in position. stand where you are." "yessir." rip turned to santos. "stand here, corporal. take a sight at koa to get your bearings, then hold position." santos did so. now the two lights gave rip one of the lines he needed. he called for two more men, and trudeau and nunez joined him. "follow me," he directed. rip picked up the instrument and carried it to a point ninety degrees from the line represented by koa and santos. he put the instrument down and zeroed it on messier , the beehive star cluster in the constellation cancer. for the second sighting star he chose beta pyxis as being closest to the line he wanted, made the slight adjustments necessary to set the line of sight, since pyxis wasn't exactly on it, then directed trudeau into position as he had koa. nunez took position behind the instrument, and rip had his cross fix. he called for dowst, then carried the instrument to the center of the cross formed by the four men. using the instrument, he rechecked the lines from the center out. they were within a hair or two of being exactly on, and a slight error wouldn't hurt, anyway. he knew he would have to correct with rocket blasts once the asteroid was in the new orbit. "x marks the spot," he told dowst. he put his toe on the place where the crosslines met. dowst used a spike to make an x in the metal ground. "all set," rip announced. "you four men can move now. let's have the cutting equipment over here, koa." the planeteers were all waiting for instructions now. in a few moments the equipment was ready, fuel and oxygen bottles attached. "who's the champion torchman?" rip asked. koa replied, "kemp is, sir." kemp, one of the two american privates, took the torch and waited for orders. "we need a hole six feet across and twenty feet deep," rip told him. "go to it." "how about direction, sir?" kemp asked. "straight down. we'll take a bearing on an overhead star when you're in a few feet." dowst inscribed a circle around the x he had made and stood back. kemp pushed the striker button and the torch flared. "watch your eyes," he warned. the planeteers reached for belt controls and turned the rheostats that darkened the clear bubbles electronically. kemp adjusted his flame until it was blue-white, a knife of fire brighter by far than the light of the sun at this distance. koa stepped behind kemp and leaned against his back, because the flame of the torch was like an exhaust, driving kemp backward. kemp bent down, and the torch sliced into the metal of the asteroid like a hot knife into ice. the metal splintered a little as the heat raised it instantly from almost absolute zero to many thousands of degrees. when the circle was completed, kemp adjusted his torch again, and the flame lengthened. he moved inside the circle and cut at an angle toward the perimeter. his control was quick and certain. in a moment he stood aside, and koa lifted out a perfect ring of thorium. it varied from a knife edge on the inner side to eighteen inches on the outer side. in the middle of the circle there was now a cone of metal. kemp cut around it, the torch angling toward the center. a piece shaped like two cones set base to base came free. since the metal cooled in the bitter chill of space almost as fast as kemp could cut it, there was no heat to worry about. alternately cutting from the outside and the center of the hole, kemp worked his way downward until his head was below ground level. rip called a halt. kemp gave a little jump and floated straight upward. koa caught him and swung him to one side. rip stepped into the hole, and santos gave him a slight push to send him to the bottom. rip knelt and sighted upward. kemp had done a good job. the star rip had chosen as a guide was straight overhead. he bounced out of the hole, and, as koa caught him, he told kemp to go ahead. "dominico, here's your chance. get tools and wire. find a timer and connect up the ten-kiloton bomb. nunez, bring it here while dominico gets what he needs." kemp was burning his way into the asteroid at a good rate. every few moments he pushed another circle or spindle of thorium out of the hole. rip directed some of the men to carry them away, to the other side of the asteroid. he didn't want chunks of thorium flying around from the blast. the sergeant major had a sudden thought. he cut off his communicator, motioned to rip to do the same, then put his helmet against rip's for direct communication. he didn't want the others to hear what he had to say. his voice came like a roar from the bottom of a well. "lieutenant, do you suppose there's any chance the blast might break up the asteroid? maybe split it in two?" the same thought had occurred to rip on the _scorpius_. his calculations had showed that the metal would do little more than compress, except where it melted from the terrific heat of the bomb. that would be only in and around the shaft. he was sure the men at terra base had figured it out before they decided that a-bombs would be necessary to throw the asteroid into a new orbit. he wasn't worried. cracks in the asteroid would be dangerous, but he hadn't seen any. "this rock will take more nuclear blasts than we have," he assured koa. he turned his communicator back on and went to the edge of the hole for a look at kemp's progress. he was far down now. pederson was holding one end of a measuring tape. the other end was fastened to kemp's shoulder strap. the swedish corporal showed rip that he had only about eight feet of tape left. kemp was almost down. rip called, "kemp, when you reach bottom, cut toward the center. leave an inverted cone." "got it, sir. be up in two more cuts." dominico had connected cable to the bomb terminals and was attaching a timer to the other end. without the wooden case, the bomb was like a fat, oversized can. it had been shipped without a combat casing. "koa, make a final check. you can untie the landing boat, except for one line. we'll be taking off in a few minutes." "right, sir." koa glided toward the landing boat, which was moored out of sight beyond the horizon. it was nearly time. rip had a moment's misgiving. had his figures or his sightings been off? his scalp prickled at the thought. but the ship's computer had done the work, and it was not capable of making a mistake. kemp tossed up the last section of thorium and then came out of the hole himself, carrying his torch. rip inspected the hole, saw with satisfaction that it was in almost perfect alignment, and ordered the bomb placed. he bent over the edge of the hole and watched trudeau pay out wire while dominico pushed the bomb to the bottom. the italian made a last-minute check, then called to rip. "ready, sir." rip dropped into the hole and inspected the connections himself, then personally pulled the safety lever. the bomb was armed. when the timer acted, it would go off. back at ground level, he turned up his communicator. "koa, is everything ready at the boat?" "ready, sir." the planeteers had already carried away the torch and its fuel and oxygen supplies. the area was clear of pieces of thorium. rip announced, "we're setting the explosion for ten minutes." he leaned over the timer, which rested near the lip of the hole, took the dial control in his glove, and turned it to position ten. he held it long enough to glance at his chronometer and say, "starting now!" then he let it go. wasting no time, but not hurrying, he and dominico returned to the landing boat. the planeteers were already aboard, except for koa, who stood by to cast off the remaining tie line. rip stepped inside and counted the men. all present. he ordered, "cast off." as koa did so and stepped aboard, rip added, "pilot, take off. straight up." the landing boat rose from the asteroid. rip counted the men again, just to be sure. the boat seemed a little crowded, but that was because the rear compartment took up quite a bit of room. rip watched his chronometer. they had plenty of time. when the boat reached a point about ten miles above the asteroid, he ordered, "stern tube." the boat moved at an angle. he let it go until a sight at the stars showed they were in about the right position, ninety degrees from the line of blast and where they would be behind the asteroid as it moved toward the new course. he looked at his chronometer again. "two minutes. line up at the side if you want to watch, but darken your helmets to full protection. this thing will light up like nothing you've ever seen before." it was a good thing space cruisers depended on their radar and not on sight, he thought. usually spacemen opened up visual ports only when landing or taking a star sight for an astroplot. the clear plastic of the domes had to be shielded from chance meteors. besides, radar screens were more dependable than eyes, even though they could pick up only solid objects. if the consops cruiser happened to be searching visually, it would see this blast. but the chance had to be taken. it wasn't really much of a chance. "one minute," he said. he faced the asteroid, then darkened his helmet, counting to himself. the minute ticked off rapidly, though his count was a little slow. when he reached five, brilliant, incandescent light lit up the interior of the boat. rip saw it even though his helmet was dark. the light faded slowly, and as it did, he gradually put his helmet back on full transparent. a mighty column of fire now reached out from the asteroid into space. rip held his breath until he saw that the little planet was sheering off its course under the great blast. then he sighed with relief. all was well so far. someone muttered, "by gemini! i'm glad we're out here instead of down there!" the column of fire lengthened, thinned out, grew fainter, until there was only a glow behind the asteroid. rip took his astrogation instruments and made a number of sights. they looked good. the first blast had worked about as predicted, although he wouldn't be able to tell how much correction was needed until he had taken star sights over a period of five or six days. "let's go home," he ordered. back on the asteroid, a pit that glowed with radioactivity marked the site of the first blast. rip ordered the men to stay as far from it as possible, to avoid increasing their radiation doses. he plotted the lines for the second blast, found the spot, and put kemp back to work on a new hole. two hours later the second blast threw fire into space. in another three hours, with the asteroid now speeding on its new course, rip set off the explosion that blasted straight back and gave extra speed. three radioactive craters marked the asteroid. rip checked the radiation level and didn't like it a bit. he decided to set up the landing boat and their supplies as far away from the craters as possible, which was on the sun side. they could move to the dark side as they approached the orbit of earth. by then the radioactivity from the blasts would have died down considerably. he was selecting the location for a base when dowst suddenly called, "lieutenant foster!" there was urgency in the planeteer's voice. "what is it, dowst?" "sir, take a look, about two degrees south of rigel!" rip found the constellation orion and looked at bright rigel. for a moment he saw nothing; then, south of the star, he saw a thin, orange line. nuclear drive cruisers didn't have exhausts of that color, and there was only one rocket-drive ship around, so far as they knew. rip said softly, "let's get our house in order, gang. looks as if we're going to get a visit from the connies!" chapter eight duck--or die! sergeant major koa's great frame loomed in front of rip. "think they've spotted us, sir?" rip hated to say it. "probably. koa, can you estimate from the exhaust how far away they are?" "not very well, lieutenant. from the position of the streak, i'd say they're decelerating." the planeteers looked at rip. he was in command, and they expected him to do something about the situation. rip didn't know what to do. the rocket launcher, their only weapon, wasn't designed for fighting spaceships. it was useful against snapper-boats and people, but firing at a cruiser would be like sending mosquitoes to fight elephants. he sized up their position. for one thing, they were right out in the open, exposed to anything the connie cruiser might throw at them. if they could get under cover, there might be a chance. at least it would take the connies a while to find them. for a moment he thought of hurrying into the landing boat and sending out a call for help to the _scorpius_, but he thought better of it. they weren't certain that connie had spotted them. he would wait until there was no doubt. meanwhile, they had to find cover. his searching eyes fell on the cutting torch. if they could use that to cut themselves right into the asteroid.... suddenly he knew how it could be done. on the sun side he remembered a series of high-piled, giant crystals of thorium. they could cut into the side of one of those. and with kemp's skill, they might be able to do it in time. he called, "kemp, koa, bring the torch and fuel and follow me." in his haste he took a misstep and flew headlong a few feet above the metal surface. koa, gliding along behind him, turned him upright again. he saw that the sergeant major was grinning. rip grinned back. it was the second time he had lost his footing. they reached the peaks of thorium, and rip looked them over. the tallest was perhaps forty feet high. it was roughly pyramidal, with a base about sixty feet thick. it would do. "kemp." the private hurried to his side. "take the torch and make us a cave. make it big enough for the entire crew and the equipment." kemp was a good planeteer. he didn't stop to ask questions. he said, "i'll make a small entrance and open the cave out inside." he picked up the torch and got busy. rip smiled. the planeteer was right. he should have thought of it himself, but it was good to see increasing proof that his men were smart as well as tough and disciplined. "bring up all supplies," he told koa. "move the boat over here, too. we won't be able to bury that, but we want it close by." he had an idea for their boat. it was able to maneuver infinitely faster than the big cruiser. they could put the supplies in the cave, then take to the boat, depending on its ability to turn quickly and on dowst's skill at piloting to play hide and seek. dowst certainly could keep the asteroid between them and the cruiser. the plan would fail when the cruiser sent a landing party. they would certainly come in snapper-boats, and those deadly little fighting craft could blast rings around the landing boat. the snapper-boats had gotten their name because fast acceleration and quick changes of position could snap a man right out of his seat if he forgot to buckle his harness tightly. the solution would be to keep the landing boat close to the asteroid. at the first sign of a landing party, they would take to the cave, using the rocket launcher as a defense. the supplies began to arrive. the planeteers towed them two crates at a time in a steady line of hurrying men. kemp's torch sent an incandescent knife three feet into the metal at each cut. he was rapidly slicing out a cave. he cut the metal out in great triangular bars, angling the torch from first one side, then the other. koa came and stood beside rip. "i haven't seen the connie's exhaust for a while, sir. they've probably stopped decelerating. we can't see them at all." "meaning what?" rip asked. he thought he knew, but he wanted koa's opinion. "they're in free fall now, sir. that could mean they're just hunting in the area. or it could mean that they've stopped somewhere close by. they could be looking us over right now, for all we know." rip surveyed the stars. "if that's so, they're not too close, koa. otherwise they'd block out a patch of stars." "well, sir--" koa hesitated. "i mean, if you were looking over this asteroid, and you weren't sure whether the enemy had it or not, how close would you get?" "probably about one au," rip said jokingly. that was one astronomical unit, equal to about ninety-three million miles, the distance from earth to the sun. "that's a safe distance, sir," koa agreed with a grin. "but let's suppose the connie isn't as timid as i am," rip went on. "he might be only a few miles out. the question is, would he wait to get closer before launching his snapper-boats?" the tall officer answered frankly, "i've never been in a space grab like this. i don't know the answer." "we'll soon know," rip replied grimly. a thought had just struck him. the _scorpius_ had trouble finding the asteroid because it was just one of many sailing along through the belt. but now the asteroid was the only one traveling _across_ the belt. it would make an outstanding blip on any radarscope. it wasn't possible that the connie cruiser had missed the blip and its significance. "the connie may be looking us over," rip added, "but i'll tell you one thing. he knows we've taken the asteroid." koa looked wistfully at the atomic bomb which remained. "if we had a way to throw that thing at them...." "but we haven't. and the thing wouldn't explode, anyway. we don't have the outside casing with an exploder mechanism, so it has to be turned on electrically." rip could see no way to use the atomic bomb against the connies. it was too big for use against a landing party. besides, it would put the planeteers themselves in danger. "ever have trouble with the connies before?" he asked koa. "more'n once, sir. sometimes it seems like i'll never get a job where i don't have to fight connies." rip was trained in science and planeteer techniques, and he didn't pretend to know the ins and outs of interplanetary politics. just the same, he couldn't help wondering about the strange relationship between the consolidation of people's governments and the federation of free nations. connies and feds, mostly planeteers but sometimes spacemen, were constantly skirmishing. they fought over property, over control of ports on distant planets and moons, and over space salvage. often there was bloodshed. sometimes there were pitched battles between groups of platoon size. but at that point the struggle ended. the law of the federation said that no spaceship could fire on a connie spaceship or on connie land bases, except with special permission of the space council. the theory was that brief struggles between men, or even between small fighting craft like the snapper-boats, was not war. but firing on a spaceship was considered an act of war, and the first such act could mean the beginning of a war throughout the entire solar system. it made a sort of sense to rip when he thought about it. little fights here and there were better than a full war among the planets. koa suddenly gripped his arm. "sir! look up!" the short hairs on the back of rip's neck prickled. far above, blackness in the shape of a spaceship blotted out stars. the connie had arrived! rip ordered urgently, "kemp! stop cutting! the rest of you get the stuff under cover. ram it!" he hurried to lend a hand himself, hustling crates into the cave. kemp had made astonishing progress. there was room for the crates, if stacked properly, and for the men, besides. rip supervised the stacking and then the placement of the rocket launcher at the entrance. "all hands inside the boat," he ordered. "dowst, be ready to take off at a moment's notice. you'll have to buck this box around as never before." he explained to the pilot his plan to dodge, keeping the asteroid between the boat and the cruiser. "we'll make it, sir," dowst said. "i'm not worried," rip replied--and wished it were true. he looked up at the connie again. it was getting larger. the cruiser was within a few miles of the asteroid. as rip watched, fire spurted from the cruiser, and it moved with gathering speed toward the asteroid's horizon. he watched the exhaust trail, wondering why the connie had blasted off. "he has something up his sleeve," koa muttered. "wish we knew what." "let's take no chances," rip stated. "come on." the men were already in the boat. he and koa joined them. they stood at a window, watching the connie's trail. the trail dwindled. koa said, "something's up!" suddenly new fire shot from one side of the cruiser, and it spun. balancing fire came from the other side, and for an instant the three exhausts formed a cross, with the darkness of the connie's hull in the center. then they could see only the exhausts from the sides. the stern flame was out of sight. "he's made a full turn to come back this way," rip stated tensely. "dowst, get ready." the connie was perhaps twenty miles away. it grew larger, and the side jets winked out. a few seconds later, fire spurted from the nose. rip figured rapidly. the cruiser had gone far enough away to make a turn. it had straightened out, heading right for them. now the nose tube was blasting, slowing the cruiser down. he sighted, holding out one glove, and gauging the connie's distance above the horizon, and his heart speeded. the connie was right on the horizon! "ram it!" rip called. "around the asteroid. quick!" acceleration jammed him back against his men as dowst blasted. no sooner had he recovered than acceleration in a different direction shoved him up to the ceiling so hard that his bubble rang. he clawed his way to the window as the connie cruiser flashed by, bathing the asteroid in glowing flame. there was a chorus of gasps from the men as they saw the thing rip had realized a moment before. the consops cruiser was playing it safe, using its rocket exhaust as a great blowtorch to burn the surface of the asteroid clean of any possible life! the sheer inhumanity of the thing made rip's stomach tighten into a knot. no asking for surrender, no taking of prisoners, not even a clean fight. the connie was doing its arguing with fire, knowing that the exhaust would char every man on the asteroid's surface. the planeteers watched as the connie sped away, blasted with side jets, and turned to come back. dowst tensed over the controls, trying to anticipate the next move. he delicately touched the firing levers, letting out just enough flame to maneuver. he slid the craft across the asteroid's surface to the side away from the connie, going slowly enough that they could watch the enemy's every move. "here he comes," rip snapped, and braced for acceleration. the landing craft shot to safety as the cruiser's nose jet flamed. dowst was just in time. tiny sparks from the edge of the fiery column brushed past the boat. rip realized that the connie couldn't know the federation men were in a boat, dodging. the cruiser would make about two more runs, just enough to allow for hitting every bit of the asteroid. then it would assume that anything on it was finished and send a landing party. "he'll be back," he stated. "about twice more. three at most." he suddenly remembered the landing boat's radio. "dowst, where is the radio connection?" the pilot handed him a wire with a jack plug on the end of it. rip plugged it into his belt. now his voice would be heard on the _scorpius_. "calling _scorpius_! calling _scorpius_! foster reporting. we are under attack. repeat, we are under attack. over to you." the answer rang in his helmet. "_scorpius_ to foster. hold 'em, planeteers. we're on our way!" "here comes the connie," koa yelled. rip braced. the landing boat shot forward, then piled the planeteers in a heap on the bottom as dowst accelerated upward. there was a sudden wrenching crash that sent the planeteers in a jumbled mass into the front of the boat. it whirled crazily, then stopped. rip was not hurt. he shoved at someone whose bubble was in his stomach and cleared the way. "turn on belt lights," he called. "quick!" lights flared on. he searched quickly, swinging his light. the planeteers were getting to their feet. his light focused on private bradshaw, and he gasped. bradshaw's face was scarlet, and his skin was flecked with drops of blood. his eyes were closed and bulging horribly. rip jumped forward, but koa was even faster. the hawaiian jerked a repair strip from a belt pouch and slapped it on the crack in bradshaw's bubble. rip wasted no time, either. by the time koa had the strip in place he had pulled the connection from his belt light. he ran the tips of the wires over the edges of the strip. the current sealed the patch in place instantly. koa grabbed the atmosphere control on bradshaw's belt and turned it. the suit puffed up. rip watched the repair anxiously in the light from koa's belt. it held. rip reconnected his light as he asked swiftly, "anyone else hurt? answer by name." there were quick replies. no one else had been injured. "run for the cave," rip commanded. "follow koa. santos and pederson, drag bradshaw." the englishman's voice sounded bubbly. "i can make it." "good for you!" rip exclaimed. "call if you need help." koa was already out of the craft and leading the way. rip went out through a window and saw the cause of the trouble. dowst had been a hair too close to the asteroid. a particularly high crystal of thorium had snagged the landing craft. rip looked for the connie and saw it make another turn. they had only a moment or two before the next run. "show an exhaust!" he called. the connie must have blasted the opposite side of the asteroid while they were hung up. the cave was a quarter of the asteroid away. rip stayed in the rear, watching for stragglers, but even bradshaw was moving rapidly. koa reached the cave well ahead of the rest, reached for a rack of rockets, and slapped it into the launcher. rip urged the men on. the connie was squared off for another run. they catapulted to safety as the cruiser flamed past, the exhaust splashing over the metal and sending sparks into the cave. rip looked out. that, if he had guessed right, was the last run. he watched the connie's stern jet cut off, saw the nose exhaust as the cruiser decelerated to a fast stop. "check your weapons," he ordered. he pulled his pistol from his knee pocket and checked it carefully. there was a clip in the magazine. other clips were in his pocket. the clips were loaded with high velocity shells that exploded on contact. one slug could stop a venusian _krel_, a mammoth beast that had been described as a cross between a sea lion and a cactus plant. his knife was in place in the other knee pocket. the connie cruiser decelerated, went into reverse, and came to a full stop about a mile from the asteroid. the planeteers saw fire in two places along the hull, marking the exhausts of two small craft. "snapper-boats," koa said tonelessly. "five men in each, if those are the regular connie kind." rip made a quick decision. with only one launcher they couldn't guard the whole asteroid. "we'll stay under cover, except for santos and pederson. you two sneak out. take advantage of every bit of cover you can find. i don't want you spotted. when a boat lands, report its position. the connies operate on different communicator frequencies, so they won't overhear. we'll let them think they've burned the asteroid clean." he paused. "they'll search for a while. then, when they're pretty well satisfied that all is quiet, we'll show up." rip grinned at his planeteers. "we can have a real, old-fashioned surprise party." koa slid the safety catch from his pistol. "with fireworks," he added. chapter nine repel invaders! the snapper-boats came out of the darkness of space, leaving a glowing trail of fire. they were not graceful. rip could see no beauty in their lines, but to his professional eye there was plenty of deadly efficiency. the connie fighting craft looked like three globes strung evenly on a steel tube. the middle globe was larger than the end ones, and it was transparent. from it projected the barrels of two kinds of weapons--explosive and ultrasonic. five men usually rode in the middle ball. one piloted. the other four were gunners. the end globes were pierced by five large holes. they were blast tubes for the rocket exhaust. unlike the landing boats, each tube did not have its own fuel supply. one fuel tank served each globe. the pilot could direct the exhaust through any tube or combination of tubes he wished, by operating valves that either sealed or opened the vents. the system gave high maneuverability to the boats. by playing on the controls with the skill of an organist, the pilot could shift direction with dazzling speed. snapper-boats used by the federation operated on the same principle, but they were of american design, and they showed the americans' love of clean lines. federation fighter craft were slim and streamlined, even though the streamlining was of no use whatever in space. with blast holes at each end, they looked like double-ended needles. the pilot's canopy in the center controlled guns that fired through the front only. rear guns were handled by a gunner, who sat with back to the pilot. where connie snapper-boats carried five men, the federation boats carried two. the connies could fire in any direction. the federation pilots aimed by pointing the snapper-boat itself, as fighter pilots of conventional aircraft had once aimed their guns. rip watched the boats approach. he was ready to duck inside if they decided to look the asteroid over before landing. he hoped they wouldn't catch sight of his two scouts. he also hoped his nervousness would vanish when the fight started. he knew what to do, at least in theory. he had gone through combat problems on the moon during training. but this was different. this was real. the lives of his men depended on his being right, and he was afraid of making a wrong decision. sergeant major koa, an experienced planeteer with true understanding, came and stood beside him. he said, "guess i'll never get over being jittery while waiting for the fight to start. i'm sweating so hard my dehumidifier is humming like a callistan honey lizard. but it doesn't last long once the shooting begins. i get so busy i forget to be jittery." before rip could reply, the snapper-boats flashed over the cave, circled the asteroid once, and landed on the dark side, close to the bomb craters. the first scout reported. "santos, sir. i'm fifty yards beyond the stakes where we had the first base. the snapper-boats landed between the first two craters. men coming out of one boat. i count six. now they're coming out of the other boat, but i can't see very well." the other scout picked up the report, his voice thick with excitement. "i can see them, sir! by cosmos! there are seven in this boat on my side. i am behind a rock forty yards to sunward of the second crater." rip turned up the volume of his communicator. "how are they armed? santos, report." "one has a chatter gun. the rest have nothing." "pederson, report." "no weapons i can see, sir." koa looked at rip. "they must think the asteroid is clean. otherwise they'd have more than a chatter gun in sight. you can bet they have knives and pistols, too." rip had been playing with an idea. he tried it on his men. "these connies would be useful to us alive, if we could capture them." dowst caught his meaning first. "as hostages, sir?" "that's it. if we could capture them, the connie cruiser would be helpless. we could use the snapper-boat radios to warn the ship that any false move would mean harm to their men." koa shook his head doubtfully. "i'm not sure the connies worry about their men, but it's worth the try. we can capture some of them if they split up to search the asteroid. but we won't be able to sneak up on them all." "we have an advantage," rip reminded them. "we've been on the asteroid longer. we know our way around, and we're used to space walking. they've just come out of deceleration, and they won't have their space legs yet." santos reported. "they're breaking up into groups of two. three are guarding the snapper-boats. one is the man with the chatter gun." "are their belt lights on?" "yes." "then keep out of the beams. don't let them walk into you. keep low, and keep moving. stay on the dark side." "we'd better get to the dark side ourselves," koa warned. he was right, rip knew. the connies didn't have far to search before reaching the sun side. "koa, you take trudeau and kemp. i'll take dowst and dominico. nunez and bradshaw stay here to guard the cave. if they arrive in twos, let them get into the cave before you jump them. bradshaw, how do you feel?" "i'm all right, lieutenant." rip admired the planeteer's nerve. he knew bradshaw was in pain, because bleeding into high vacuum was always painful. the crack in the englishman's helmet had let most of the air out, and his own blood pressure had done the rest. he would carry the marks for days. a few more moments, and all air and all heat would have been gone, with fatal results. fortunately, bubbles didn't shatter easily when cracked. to destroy them took a good blow. "all right. let's travel. koa, go right. i'll go the other way, and we'll work around the asteroid until we meet." rip led the way, gliding as rapidly as he could toward the edge of darkness. he called, "santos. anyone coming in the direction of the cave?" "two pairs. about fifty yards apart. they will be out of my sight in a few seconds." that meant they would be within sight of rip and the others. he knew koa had heard the message, too. both groups put on more speed and reached the safety of darkness. "get down," rip ordered. they could still be seen, if silhouetted against the edge of sunlight. starlight gave a little light, but it was too faint to help much. rip's plan was that the connies would supply the light needed for an attack. in a few seconds, as santos had predicted, belt light beams cut sharp paths through the darkness. rip sized up the possibilities. there were two teams of two men each, and they were getting farther apart with each step. one team was coming almost directly toward them. the other two men slanted away from them and would soon be out of sight behind the thorium crystals in which the cave was located. fortunately, the connies were going away from the cave. a connie from the nearby team swung his beam back and forth, and it cut space over their heads. rip saw a few low pyramids of thorium a few rods away. quickly he ordered, "dowst, hang on to my boots. dominico, hang on to dowst's boots." he lay face down on the metal ground until he felt hands grip his boots, then he asked, "all set?" two voices answered, "ready." rip put his gloves on the ground, then heaved forward and slightly upward to overcome his inertia and that of his men. the trio moved slowly, almost parallel with the surface. once or twice rip reached down to a convenient crystal and put his strength into changing course and altitude. those were the only times when he felt the tug of his men. he reached the first pyramid of thorium and directed, "get behind these rocks and stay down. feel your way. use me for a guide. i'll hold on until you're under cover." he gripped a crystal. "come on." dominico pulled himself along dowst's prone form and then along rip's. when dominico had reached the shelter of the crystals, dowst crawled along, with rip's body for his guide, passed over him, and reached cover. rip followed. the belt lights of the two connies were almost abreast of them. far to their left, rip saw another pair of lights. that was a pair he hadn't seen before. "we'll wait until they pass," he told his men. "then we'll get up and rush them from behind. they can't hear us coming. dowst, you take the near one. i'll take the far one. dominico, you help as needed, but concentrate on cutting off their equipment. the first thing we must do is cut their communicators; otherwise they'll warn the rest. then turn off their air supplies and collapse their suits." one thing was in their favor. the space suits worn by the connies were almost the same as theirs. the controls were of the same kind. the only way to know a connie was by his bubble, which was a little more tubular than the round bubbles of the federation. rip suddenly realized that he wasn't nervous anymore. he grinned. after all, this was what he was trained for. the connies came abreast and passed. "let's go," rip said, and as he rose he heard koa's voice. the sergeant major said, "kemp, kneel on their right side. trudeau and i will hit them from the left and tumble them over you. get their communicators first." koa had his own methods and they sounded good. rip started slowly. he wanted to get directly behind the connies. he stayed down low until he was sure they couldn't see him unless they turned. dowst and dominico were right with him. "come on," he said, and started gliding after the helmeted figures. he kept his eyes on the one he had selected, and he called on all the myriad stars of space to give him luck. if the men turned, his plan for quick victory would fail. he sensed his planeteers beside him as the figures loomed ahead. he gave a final spring that sent him through space with knees bent and outthrust, his hands reaching. his knees connected solidly with the connie's thighs, and his hands groped around the bulky space suit. he felt a rheostat control and twisted savagely, then groped for the distinctive star-shaped button of the air supply. the connie wrenched violently and threw them both upward. rip felt the star shape and twisted. if he could only deflate the connie's suit! but the man was writhing from his grip, clawing for a weapon. then rip stopped reaching for the deflation valve. he grabbed his knife, jerked it free, and thrust it against the middle of the connie's back. then he clanged his bubble against the man's helmet for direct communication and shouted, "grab some space, or i'll let vack into you!" the connie understood english. most earthlings did. but even better was his understanding of the pressure on his back. he stopped struggling; his arms shot starward. rip breathed freely for the first time since he had leaped, and exultation grew in him. he had his first man! his first hand-to-hand fight had ended in victory so easily that he could hardly believe it. he took time to look around him and saw that he was a good five feet above the asteroid. below him, a connie belt light sent its shaft parallel with the ground, and he knew the second man was down. the question was, had either of them shouted before their communicators were cut off? "dowst," he called urgently. "all okay?" "no," dowst said grimly. "we got the connie, but he got dominico. cut his leg with a space knife. i'm putting a patch on it. you okay?" "yes. when you can, pull me down." "right you are." dominico spoke up. "don't worry about me, sir. nothing bad. i don't lose much air." "fine, dominico. glad it wasn't worse." but rip knew it wasn't good, either. a cut with a space knife let air out of the suit and created at least a partial vacuum. if it also cut flesh, the vacuum let the blood pressure force out blood and tissue to turn a minor wound into an ugly one. they would have to bring this space flap with the connies to a quick end, rip thought. he had to get his men into air somehow, to take a look at their wounds. bradshaw needed attention immediately, and now so did dominico. dowst reached up, took rip's ankle, and pulled him down. rip held on to his captive. then the private bound the connie's hands, jerked his communicator control completely off, and turned his air back on. since rip had been unable to collapse the suit, the connie was comfortable enough. the reason for collapsing the suit was to deprive the enemy of air instantly, so that he could be tied up while helpless from lack of oxygen. there was enough air in the suit for only a few breaths once the supply was cut off. the connie on the ground was neatly trussed. rip's prisoner joined him. dowst switched off his belt light. "now what, sir?" dominico was standing patiently nearby. he said nothing. rip knew that no more could be done for the italian at present. "go back to the cave, dominico," he ordered. "i can stay with you, sir." "no, dominico. thanks for the offer, but we'll get along. go back to the cave." "yes, sir." rip was a little worried. he had heard nothing from koa since that first exchange. he told dowst as much. but koa himself heard and answered. "lieutenant, we're all right. got two connies, and i don't think they had a chance to yell. but i'm sorry about one, sir. kemp had to swing at him and busted his bubble." "fatal?" "no, we patched it in time. but worse than bradshaw." "tough." rip couldn't feel too sympathetic. after all, it was the connie cruiser's fault bradshaw had felt high vack. "all right. we have four. that leaves nine." santos came on the circuit. "sir, this is santos. only three men are at the snapper-boats. if you could get here without being seen, maybe we could knock them off. the rest wouldn't be much good if we had their boats." "you're right, santos," rip replied instantly. why hadn't he seen that for himself? he knew how he and dowst could approach the craters without being spotted, now that they had removed two teams of connies. "we're on our way. koa, make it if you can." "yes, sir." dominico was already making his way back to the cave. rip and dowst started for the horizon at a good walk, not afraid now to use their lights, at least for a few yards. if any of the remaining connie search teams saw the lights, they would think they were their own men's. rip remembered the lay of the ground and santos' description of the snapper-boats' position. he circled almost to the horizon, then told dowst to cut his light. he cut his own. in a moment they topped the horizon and, standing with only helmets visible from the snapper-boats, looked the situation over. the three connies were standing between them and the boats. to the left of the boats was the second crater. rip studied the ground as best he could in the connie belt lights and decided on a plan of action. calling to dowst, he circled again. presently they were approaching the crater. the connies were just about twenty-five yards from the crater's opposite rim. rip said, "i hate to do this, dowst, but i can't see any way out. we have to go into the crater." dowst merely said, "yes, sir." the extra radiation might put both of them well over the safety limits long before earth was reached, and they both knew it. he reached the crater's edge and walked right down into it. they were out of sight of the connies now. rip walked up the other side of the crater until his bubble was just below ground level. the chunks of thorium he had ordered thrown in to block some of the radiation made walking a little difficult. "santos," he said, "we're in the second crater." "sir, i'm beyond the first, between two crystals. pederson is near you somewhere." "good. when i give the word, turn up your helmet light until they can see a pretty good glow. keep watching them." the bubbles were equipped with lights, but they were seldom used. he outlined his plan swiftly. both santos and dowst acknowledged. koa reported in. "we're after two more connies near the wreck of the landing boat, sir." "be careful. pederson, go help koa. nunez, how are things at the cave?" "nunez reporting, sir. two connies in sight, but they haven't seen us yet." "let me know when they spot the cave." "yes, sir." "santos, go ahead." for long moments there was silence. rip felt for a solid foothold, found one, and flexed his knees. he kept his back straight and his eyes on the crater rim. his hands were occupied with two air bottles taken from his belt, and his thumbs were on their valve releases. he waited patiently for word from santos that his helmet glow had been seen. santos yelled, "now!" rip's legs straightened with a mighty thrust. he flashed into space headfirst, at an angle that took him over the crater's rim and fifty feet above the ground. he caught a glimpse of santos' helmet, glowing like a pink balloon, and of the three connies facing it. rip's arms flashed above his head. his thumbs compressed. air spurted from the two bottles, driving him downward feetfirst, directly at the heads of the connies! chapter ten get the scorpion! from the corner of his eye, rip saw dowst's heavy space boots and knew the private was right with him. as they drove down, one of the connies stepped a little distance away from the others, probably to get a better look at santos. the connie sensed something and turned, just as rip and dowst flashed downward on his two mates. rip's boots caught one connie where his bubble joined his suit, and the impact drove the man downward to the unyielding surface of the asteroid with a soundless smash. rip threw up his arms to cushion his helmet as he struck the ground beyond his enemy. he threw the air bottles away. he fought to keep his feet under him and almost succeeded, but his knees hit the ground, and pistol and knife bit into them painfully. two figures came into his view, locked tightly together, arms flailing. it was dowst and the second connie. he got to his feet and was moving to the planeteer's aid when santos' voice shrilled in his helmet. "sir! look left!" rip whirled. the connie who had stepped aside was advancing, pistol in hand. his light caught rip full in the face. the young officer thought quickly. the connie hadn't fired. why? suddenly he had it. the man hadn't fired for fear of hitting his friend, who was battling with dowst. rip was in front of them. quickly he dropped to one knee, reaching for his own pistol. the connie wouldn't dare fire now. the high-velocity slug would go right through him, to explode in one of the struggling figures behind--and the wrong one might get it. the connie saw rip's action and tossed his pistol aside. he, too, knew he couldn't fire. he reached into a knee pouch and drew out his space knife. he leaped for the planeteer. rip pulled frantically at his pistol. it was stuck fast, probably caught in the fabric by his knee landing. the space knife wouldn't be caught. it was smooth, with no projections to catch. he shifted knees and jerked it out. the connie's flying body hit him, and a powerful arm circled his waist. rip thrust upward with his knees, one hand reaching for the connie's suit valve. but the connie had one arm free, too. he drove his glove up under rip's heart. rip let go of the valve and used his elbow to lever away, just as the connie pressed his knife's release valve. the blade slammed outward and drove into the inside of rip's right arm, just above the elbow. pain lanced through him, and he felt the blood rush to the wound as air poured through the gap in his suit. he gritted his teeth and smashed at the connie with his own knife. it rammed home, and he squeezed the release. the blade connected solidly. he was suddenly free. he pressed the wounded arm to his side, stopping the outpouring of air. the cut hurt like all the devils of space. with his other hand he increased the air in his suit, then looked swiftly around. the connie was on his knees, both gloves pressed tightly to his side. dowst was just finishing a knot in the safety line that bound a second enemy's hands. the connie rip had rocketed down on was still lying where he had fallen. and corporal santos, the enemy's pneumatic chatter gun at the ready, was standing guard. rip turned up the volume in his communicator. he tried to sound calm, but the shakiness of triumph and excitement was in his voice. "all planeteers. we have the connie snapper-boats. koa, bring your men here." he felt someone working on his arm and turned to see corporal pederson, his face one vast grin in the glare from dowst's belt light. "koa didn't need me," he said. rip grinned back. "nunez," he called, "how are things at the cave?" "sir, this is nunez. two connies were prowling around, but they didn't see the entrance. then, a minute ago, they hurried away." rip considered. "koa, how many connies have you?" "four, sir." with the five he and dowst had taken, that meant four sill at large, and from nunex's report, some connie yelling had been going on. the four certainly knew by this time that there were federal men on the asteroid. unless something were done quickly the four connies would be shooting at them from the darkness. he ordered, "all planeteers, kill your belt lights." the lights on the connies they had just taken still glowed. dowst was putting a patch on the connie rip had stabbed. he waited until the private had finished, then said, "turn out the connies' lights, too." if he could get in touch with the connies, he could tell them they were finished. but using the snapper-boat radios was out, because the enemy cruiser would hear. the cruiser couldn't hear the helmet communications, though, because they carried only a short distance. the cruiser was close enough so that a helmet communicator turned on full volume might barely be heard, although it was unlikely. he couldn't stick his head in a connie helmet, but he could talk to a connie by direct communication and have him give instructions. there was complete darkness with all belt lights out, but he groped his way to the connie dowst had been patching, felt for his helmet, and put his own against it. he yelled, "do you hear me?" "yes." then he asked, "why did you patch me?" it was a perfect opening. "because we don't want to kill you. listen. we have all but four of you. understand?" "yes. what will you do with us?" "treat you as prisoners--if you behave. get on your communicator and tell those four men to surrender. tell them to come to the boats, with lights on. tell them we'll give them five minutes. if they don't come, we'll hunt them with rockets. make that clear." "they will come," the connie said. "they don't want to die. i will do it." rip kept his helmet against the connie's, but the man spoke in another language, which rip identified as the main consops tongue. when he had finished, rip told his planeteers to have weapons ready and to keep lights off. time enough for light when the connies were all disarmed. it didn't take five minutes. the connie teams came quickly and willingly, and they seemed almost glad to give up their pistols and knives. this was not unusual. rip had seen many planeteer reports that spoke of the same thing. many connies, it seemed, were glad to get away from the iron consops rule, even if it meant becoming federation prisoners. inside one of the snapper-boats a light glowed. rip put his helmet against that of the man who had given the surrender order and demanded, "what's that light?" "the cruiser wants us." rip considered demanding that the connie answer, then thought better of it. he would do it himself. after all, they had hostages. the cruiser wouldn't take any further action. he climbed into the snapper-boat and hunted for the plug-in terminal. it fitted his own belt jack. he plugged in and said, "go ahead." there was an instant of silence, then an accented voice demanded, "why are you speaking english?" rip replied formally, "this is lieutenant foster, federation special order squadrons, in charge on the asteroid. your landing party is in our hands, as prisoners, two wounded, none dead. if you agree to withdraw, we will send the wounded men back to you in one boat. the rest will remain here as hostages for your good behavior." "stand by," the voice said. there was silence for several moments, then a new voice said, "this is the cruiser commander. we make a counteroffer. if you release our men and surrender to them, we will spare the lives of you and your men." rip listened incredulously. the commanding officer didn't understand. he, rip, held the whip hand, because the lives of the connie prisoners were in his hands. he repeated his offer. "and i repeat," the commander retorted. "surrender or die. choose now." "i refuse," rip stated flatly. "try anything, and your men will suffer, not us." "you are mistaken," the harsh voice said. "we will sweep the asteroid clean with our exhaust, but this time we will be more thorough. when we have finished, we will hammer you with guided missiles. then we will send snapper-boats with rockets to hunt down any who remain. we intend to have that thorium. you had better surrender." rip couldn't believe it. the cruiser commander had no hesitation in sacrificing his own men! and it was not a bluff. he knew instinctively that the connie commander meant it. instantly he unplugged the radio connection from his belt and spoke urgently. "koa, get everyone under cover in the cave. hurry! collect all the connies and take them with you." then he plugged in again. "commander, i must have time to think this over." "you have one minute." he watched his chronometer, planning the next move. when the minute ended, he asked, "commander, how do we know you will spare our lives if we surrender?" through the transparent shell of the snapper-boat he saw lights moving toward the horizon and knew koa was following orders. "you don't know," the cruiser answered. "you must take our word for it. but if you surrender, we have no reason to wish you harm." rip remained silent. the seconds ticked past until the commander snapped, "quickly! you have no more time." "sir," rip said plaintively, "two of my men do not wish to surrender." "shoot them, fool! are you in command or not?" rip grinned. he made his voice whine. "but, sir, it is against the law of the federation to shoot men without a trial." the commander lapsed into his own language, caught himself, then barked, "you are no longer under federation law. you are under the consolidation of people's governments. do you surrender or not? answer at once, or we take action anyway. quick!" rip knew he could stall no longer. he said coolly, "if you had brains in your head instead of high vacuum, you'd know that planeteers never surrender. blast away, you filthy space pirate!" he jerked the plug loose, hesitated for a second over whether or not to take the snapper-boat, and decided against it. he wasn't familiar with connie controls, and there wasn't time to experiment. he headed for the cave. the connie cruiser lost no time. its stern tubes flamed, then its steering tubes. it was going to drive directly at the asteroid without making a long run! rip estimated quickly and realized that the connie would get to the asteroid at the same time that he reached the cave--if he made it. he speeded up as fast as he dared. with little gravity on the asteroid, he couldn't fall, but a false step could lift him into space and make him lose time while he got out an air bottle to propel him down again. the thought gave him an idea. without slowing he took two bottles from his belt, turned them so the openings pointed backward, squeezed the release valves. the connie was gaining speed, blasting straight toward him. rip sped forward and crossed to the sun side, intent on the cave entrance but no longer sure he would make it. the connie's nose tube shot a cylinder of flame forward, reaching for the asteroid. he saw the fire lick downward and sweep toward him with appalling speed as he put everything he had into a frantic dive for the cave entrance. the flaming rocket exhaust seemed to snatch at him as a dozen hands pulled him to safety, then beat the sparks from his suit. he was safe. he leaned against koa, his heart thumping wildly. for a moment or two he couldn't speak; then he managed, "thanks." koa spoke for the planeteers. "we're the ones to say thanks, sir. if you hadn't thought of stalling the cruiser, and if you hadn't stayed behind to give us time, we'd have some casualties, and so would the connies we captured." "there wasn't anything else i could do," rip replied. "come on, koa. let's see what the cruiser is doing." they stepped outside. the metal was already cold again. things didn't stay hot in the vacuum of space. they didn't see the connie until the fire of its exhaust suddenly blasted above the horizon, and then they ducked for cover. the cruiser had taken a swing at the other side of the asteroid. they peered out again and saw it turning. "he won't get us," rip said confidently. "our tough time will come when he sends a fleet of snapper-boats." "we'll get a few," koa replied grimly. "wait! what's he doing?" the cruiser had started for the asteroid. suddenly jets flamed from every quarter of the ship. he was using all steering jets at once! rip watched, bewildered, as the great ship spun slowly, advanced, then settled to a stop just at the horizon. "he can't be launching boats already," he said worriedly. "what's he up to?" they ran forward a short distance until they could see below the cave's horizon level. the cruiser released exhausts from both sides of the ship, the outer ones the slightest bit stronger. rip exclaimed, "great cosmos, he's cuddling right up to the asteroid! why?" "hiding," koa said. "by gemini! come on, sir!" rip saw his meaning instantly, and they raced to the side of the asteroid away from the ship. as they crossed into the dark half, rip looked back. he couldn't see the cruiser from here. but he looked out into space, across the horizon, and knew that koa's guess had been right. the distinctive glow of a nuclear drive cruiser was clear among the stars. the _scorpius_ had returned! "the connie saw it," rip said worriedly, "but didn't blast away. that means he's intending to ambush the _scorpius_. koa, if he does, that means war." the tall officer shook his head. "sir, the connie has guided missiles with atomic warheads, just as our ship has. if he can launch one from ambush and hit our ship, that's the end of it. the _scorpius_ will be nothing but space junk. commander o'brine will never have time to get off a message, because he'll be dead before he knows there is danger." the logic of it sent a chill down rip's spine. the connie could get the _scorpius_ with one nuclear blast and then clean up the asteroid at leisure. the federation would suspect, but it would be unable to prove anything, because there would be no witnesses. if the connie took time to tow the remains of the _scorpius_ deep into the asteroid belt, it likely would never be found, no matter how the federation searched. they had to warn the ship. but how? their helmet communicators wouldn't reach it until it was right at the asteroid, and that would be too late. they had no other radio. if only the radios in the snapper-boats were on a federation frequency.... hey! they could take one of the boats and intercept the cruiser! he was hurrying toward them before koa understood what he was saying. he tried to make his legs go faster, but they were unsteady. he knew he was losing blood. he had lost plenty. he gritted his teeth and kept going. the snapper-boats seemed miles away to rip, but he plugged ahead until his belt light picked them up. he took a long look, then turned away, heartsick. the connie's exhaust had charred them into wreckage. "now what?" he asked. "i don't know, sir," koa answered somberly. they went back to the cave, not hurrying because rip no longer had the strength to hurry. weakness and a deep desire to sleep almost overcame him, and he knew that he was finished, anyway. his wound must be too deep to clot, which meant it would bleed until he bled to death. whether he warned the _scorpius_ or not, his end was the same. back in the cave, he leaned against the wall and asked tiredly. "how is dominico?" "i am fine, sir. my wound stopped bleeding." "how is the connie i got?" "unconscious, sir," santos replied. "he must be bleeding badly, but we can't tell. the one you landed on is all right now, but he may have a broken rib or two." because his voice was weak, rip had to turn up the volume on his communicator to tell the planeteers about the _scorpius_. they were silent when he finished. then dowst spoke up. "looks like they have us, sir. but we'll take plenty of them with us before we're finished." "that's the spirit," rip told them. "i won't last much longer. when i get too weak, koa will take over. meanwhile, i want to get outside. bring the rocket launcher outside, too. who's the gunner? santos? stand by, then. we'll need you, in case the connie decides to send a few snappers before it goes after the scorpius." the cruiser's glow was plain above the horizon now. it was so close that they could make out its form against the background of stars. o'brine was decelerating, and rip was certain he was watching his screens for a sign of the enemy. he would see nothing, because the enemy was in the shadow of the asteroid. he would think the coast was clear and would come to a stop nearby while he asked why rip had called for help. failing to get a reply, since the landing boat was wrecked, he would send a landing party, and the connie would attack while he was launching boats, off guard. rip watched the prediction come true. the nuclear cruiser slowed gradually, its great bulk nearing the asteroid. o'brine was operating as expected. rip was having trouble keeping his vision from blurring. he leaned against the rocket launcher, and his glove caressed one of the sharp noses in the rack. he heard his own voice before the idea had even taken full form. "santos! do you hear me? santos! get the _scorpius_! fire before it comes to a stop. and don't miss!" santos started to protest, but koa bellowed, "do it! the lieutenant's right. it's the only chance we've got to warn the ship. get the scorpion, santos. dead amidships!" the young corporal swung into action. his space gloves flew as he cranked the launcher around, turned on the illuminated sight, and bent low over it. rip stood behind the corporal. he saw the cruiser's shape stand out in the glow of the sight, saw the sighting rings move as santos corrected for its speed. the corporal fired. fire flared back past his shoulder. the rocket flashed away, its trail dwindling as it sped toward the great bulk above. it reached _brennschluss_, and there was darkness. rip held his breath for long seconds, then gave a weak cry of victory. a blossom of orange fire marked a perfect hit. chapter eleven hard words the _scorpius_ could have taken direct hits with little or no major damage from a hundred rockets of the kind rip had used, but commander o'brine took no chances. when the alarm bell signaled that the outer hull had been hit, the commander acted instantly with a bellowed order. the planeteers on the asteroid blinked at the speed of the cruiser's getaway. fire flamed from the stern tubes for an instant, and then there was nothing but a fading glow where the _scorpius_ had been. rip had a mental image of everything movable in the ship crashing against bulkheads with the terrific acceleration. and in the same moment, the consops cruiser reacted. the connie commander was ready to fire guided missiles, when his target suddenly, mysteriously, blasted into space at optimum acceleration. there was only one reason the connie could imagine: his cruiser had been spotted. the ambush had failed. it was one thing for the connie to lie in ambush for a single, deadly surprise blast at the federation cruiser. it was quite another to face the nuclear drive ship with its missile ports cleared for action. the connie knew he had lost. rip and the planeteers saw the consops ship suddenly flame away, then turn and dive for low space below the asteroid belt, in a direction opposite to the one the _scorpius_ had taken. the planeteers' helmet communicators rang with their cheers. the young officer clapped santos on the shoulder and exclaimed weakly, "good shooting!" the corporal turned anxiously to koa. "the lieutenant's pretty weak. can't we do something?" "forget it," rip said. there was nothing anyone could do. he was trapped inside his space suit. there was nothing anyone could do for his wound until he got into air. koa untied his safety line and moved to rip's side. "sir, this is dangerous, but there's just as much danger without it. i'm going to tie off that arm." rip knew what koa meant. he stood quietly as the big sergeant major put the line around his arm above the wound, then put his massive strength into the task of pulling the line tight. the heavy fabric of the suit was stiff, and the air pressure gave further resistance that had to be overcome. rip let most of the air out of the suit, then fought for breath until the pain in his arm told him that koa had succeeded. he inflated the suit again and thanked the sergeant major weakly. the tight line stopped the bleeding, but it also cut off the air circulation. without the air, the heating system couldn't operate efficiently. it was only a matter of time before the arm froze. "stand easy," rip told his men. "nothing to do now but wait. the _scorpius_ will be back." he set an example by leaning against the thorium crystal in which the cave was located. it was a natural but rather meaningless gesture. with virtually no gravity pulling at them, they could remain standing almost indefinitely, sleeping upright. rip closed his eyes and relaxed. the pain in his arm was less now, and he knew the cold was setting in. he was getting lightheaded, and, most of all, he wanted to sleep. well, why not? he slumped a little inside the suit. he awoke with koa shaking him violently. rip stood upright and shook his head to clear his vision. "what is it?" "sir, the _scorpius_ has returned." rip blinked as he stared out into space to where koa was pointing. he had trouble focusing his eyes at first, and then he saw the glow of the cruiser. "good," he said. "they'll send a landing boat first thing." "i hope so," koa replied. rip wanted to ask why the big planeteer was dubious, but he was too tired to phrase the question. he contented himself with watching the cruiser. in a short time the _scorpius_ was balanced, with nose tubes counteracting the thrust of stern tubes, ready to flash into space again at a second's notice. rip watched, puzzled. the cruiser was miles away. why didn't it come any closer? then suddenly it erupted a dozen fiery streaks. "snapper-boats!" someone gasped. rip jerked fully awake. in the ruddy glow of the fighting rockets' tubes, he had seen that the cruiser's missile ports were yawning wide, ready to spew forth their deadly nuclear charges in an instant. the snapper-boats flashed toward the asteroid in a group, sheered off, and broke formation. they came back in pairs, streaking space with the sparks of their exhausts. "into the cave," koa shouted. the planeteers obeyed instantly. koa took rip's arm to lead him inside, but the young officer shook him off. "no, koa. i'll take my chances out here. i want to see what they're up to." "great cosmos, sir! they'll go over this rock like martian beetles. you'll get it, for sure." "get inside," rip ordered. he gathered strength enough to make his voice firm. "i'm staying here until i figure out some way to call them off. we can't just stand here and let them blast us. they're our own men." "then i'm staying, too," koa stated. a pair of snapper-boats flashed overhead and vanished below the horizon. two more swept past from another direction. rip watched, curious. what were they up to? another pair quartered past them at high speed, then two more. the boats seemed to be crisscrossing the asteroid in a definite pattern. a pair streaked past, and something sped downward from one of them, trailing yellow flame. it exploded in a ball of molten fire that licked across the asteroid in waves. rip tensed, then saw that the chemical would burn out before it reached them. "fire bomb," koa muttered. rip nodded. he had recognized it. the planeteers were trained in the use of fire bombs, tanks of chemicals that burned even in an airless world. they were equipped with simple jets for use in space. the snapper-boats drew off, back toward the _scorpius_. rip watched, searching for some reason for their actions. then one of the boats pulled away from the others. it returned to the asteroid, with stern jet burning fitfully. "is he landing?" koa asked. rip didn't know. the snapper-boat was moving slowly enough to make a landing. directly above the asteroid it changed direction, circled, and returned over their heads. rip could almost have picked it off with a pistol shot. santos could have blasted it into space dust with one rocket. the snapper-boat changed direction, and for a fraction of a second stern and side tubes "fought" each other, making the boat yaw wildly. then it straightened out on a new course. koa exclaimed, "that's a drone!" rip got it then. a pilotless snapper-boat! that's why its actions were a little uneven. only one thing could explain its deliberate slowness. it was bait. the _scorpius_ had sent piloted snapper-boats over the asteroid at high speed, crisscrossing in order to cover the thorium world completely, expecting to have the unknown rocketeer fire at them. then a fire bomb had been dropped as a further means of getting the asteroid to fire. but no rockets had been fired from the asteroid, so the pilot in control of the drone had sent it at low speed, a perfect target. that meant o'brine wasn't sure of what was going on. he must have seen the blip on his screen as the connie cruiser flamed off, kip reasoned. but the commander probably suspected that the connies had overcome the planeteers and were in control of the asteroid. he had sent the snapper-boats to try to draw fire, in an attempt to find out more surely whether planeteers or connies had the thorium rock. "the _scorpius_ doesn't know what's going on," rip told his planeteers. "o'brine didn't know the cruiser was waiting to ambush him, so the rocket we fired made him think the connies had taken us over." he put himself in o'brine's place. what would his next step be? the snapper-boats hadn't drawn fire, even when a drone was sent over at low speed. the next thing would be to send a piloted boat over slowly enough to take a look. rip hoped o'brine would hurry. there was no longer any feeling in his arm below koa's safety line. that meant the arm had frozen. he had to get medical attention from the _scorpius_ pretty soon. he gritted his teeth. at least he was no longer losing blood. he wasn't getting any weaker. but every now and then his vision fogged, and he had to shake his head to clear it. the pilotless snapper-boat made another slow run, then put on speed and flashed back to the group of boats near the cruiser. another boat detached itself from the squadron and moved toward the asteroid. rip wished for a communicator powerful enough to reach the _scorpius_, but he knew it was useless to try with his helmet circuit. the carrier waves of the snapper-boats were on the same frequency, and they would smother the faint signal from his bubble. but the boats might be able to hear if they got close enough! he had a swift memory of the communications circuits. the pilots were plugged into their boat communicators. if a boat got near enough, he could turn up his bubble to full volume and yell. not only would the boat pilot hear him, but also his voice would go through the pilot's circuit and be heard in the ship! rip grabbed koa's arm. "let's move away from the cave a little farther." the two of them stepped away from the cave and stood in full view as the snapper-boat moved cautiously down toward the asteroid. rip planned what he would say. "commander o'brine, this is foster!" no, that wouldn't do. connies would know that kevin o'brine commanded the _scorpius_, and if they had taken over the planeteers on the asteroid, they would also have learned rip's name. he had to say something that would immediately identify him beyond the shadow of a doubt. the snapper-boat was closing in slowly. rip knew the pilot and gunner must be tense, frightened, ready to blast with their guns at the first wrong move on the asteroid. he groped with his good arm and turned up his helmet communicator to full volume. the fighting rocket drew closer, cut in its nose tube, and hovered only a few hundred feet above the planeteers. rip summoned enough strength to make his voice sharp and clear. his words sped through space into the bubble of the pilot, echoed in the helmet, were picked up by the pilot's microphone, and then were hurled through the snapper-boat circuit and through space to the cruiser's control room. o'brine stiffened as the speaker threw rip's voice at him, amplified and hollow-sounding from reverberations in the snapper-boat pilot's helmet. "_o'brine is so ugly he won't look at his face in a clean blast tube! that no-good irishman wouldn't know what to do with an asteroid if he had one!_" the commander turned purple with rage. he bellowed, "foster!" a junior space officer hid a grin and murmured, "looks like the planeteers still have the asteroid." o'brine bent over the communicator and yelled, "deputy commander! launch landing boats. get those planeteers and bring them here under armed guard. ram it!" the snapper-boat pilot through whose circuit rip had yelled turned to look wide-eyed at his gunner. "did you hear that? throw a light down on the asteroid. it must have come from there." the gunner threw a switch, and a searchlight port opened in the boat's belly. its beam searched downward, swept past, then steadied on two space-suited figures. "it worked," rip said tiredly. he closed his eyes to guard them against the brilliant glare, then waved his good arm. santos called from the cave entrance. "sir, landing boats are being launched!" "bring out the prisoners," rip ordered. "line them up. planeteers fall in behind them." the landing boats, with snapper-boats in watchful attendance, blasted down to the surface of the asteroid. spacemen jumped out, awkward at first on the no-weight surface. an officer glided to meet rip, and he had a pistol in his hand. "it's all right," rip told him. "the connies are our prisoners. you won't need guns." the spaceman snapped, "you're under arrest." rip stared incredulously. "what for?" "the commander's orders. don't give me any arguments. just get aboard." "i can't argue with a loaded gun," rip said wearily. he called to his men. "we're under arrest. i don't know why. don't try to resist. do as the spacemen order." rip got aboard the nearest landing boat, his head spinning. o'brine had made a mistake of some kind. the landing boats, loaded with planeteers and connies, lifted from the asteroid to the cruiser. they slid smoothly into the air locks and settled. the massive lock doors slid closed and lights flickered on. rip waited, trying to keep consciousness from slipping away. the lock gauges registered normal air, and the inner valves slid open. commander o'brine stepped through, his square jaw outthrust and his face flushed with anger. he bellowed, "where's foster?" his voice was so loud that rip heard him even through the bubble. he stepped out of the boat and faced the irate commander. o'brine ordered, "get him out of that suit." two spacemen jumped forward. one twisted rip's bubble free and lifted it off. the heavy air of the ship hit him with physical force. o'brine grated, "you're under arrest, foster, for firing on the _scorpius_, for insubordination, and for conduct unbecoming an officer. get out of that suit and get flaming. it's the space pot for you." rip had to grin. he couldn't help it. he started to reply, but the heavy air of the cruiser, so much richer and denser than that of the suits, was too much. he fell, unconscious. there was no gravity to pull him to the floor, but the action of his relaxing muscles swung him slowly until he lay facedown in the air a few feet above the floor. commander o'brine stared for a moment, then took the unconscious planeteer and swung him upright. his quick eyes took in the patch on the arm, the safety line tied tightly. he roared, "quick! get him to the wound ward!" * * * * * rip came back to consciousness on the operating table. the wound in his arm had been neatly repaired, and below the wound, where his arm had frozen, a plastic temperature bag was slowly bringing the cold flesh back to normal. on his other side, a pulsing pressure pump forced new blood from the ship's supplies into his veins. a senior space officer, with the golden lancet of the medical service on his tunic, bent over him. "how do you feel?" rip's voice surprised him. it was as full and strong as ever. "i feel wonderful. can i get up?" "when we get enough blood into you, and your arm is fully restored." commander o'brine appeared in the door frame. "can he talk?" "yes. he's fine, sir." o'brine glared down at rip. "can you give me a good reason why i shouldn't have you treated for space madness and then toss you in the space pot until we reach earth?" "best reason in the galaxy," rip said cheerfully. "but before we talk about it, i want to know how my men are. one got cut, and another had his bubble cracked. also, one of the connies got badly cut, another had some broken bones, and a third one bled into high vack when koa cracked his bubble." the doctor answered rip's question. "your men are all right. we put the one with the cracked bubble into high compression for a while, just to relieve his pain a little. the other one didn't bleed much. he's back in the squad room right now. two of the prisoners are patched up, but the third one is in the other operating room. i don't know whether we can save him or not. we're trying." o'brine nodded. "thanks, doctor. now, foster, start talking. you fired on this ship, scored a hit, and broke the air seal. no casualties, fortunately. but by forcing us to accelerate at optimum speed, you caused so much breakage of ship's stores that we'll have to put into marsport for new stocks. and on top of all that, you insulted me within the hearing of every man on the ship. i don't mind being insulted by planeteers. i'm used to it. but when it's done over the communications system, it's bad for discipline." rip tried to keep a straight face. he said mildly, "sir, i'm surprised you even give me a chance to explain." "i wouldn't have," o'brine said frankly. "i would have shot off a special message to earth, relieving you of command and asking for discipline board action. but when i saw those connie prisoners, i knew there was more to this than just a young space pup going vack-wacky." "there was, commander." rip recited the events of the past few hours while the irishman listened with growing amazement. "i had to convince you in a hurry that we still held the asteroid, so i used some insulting phrases that would let you know, without any doubt, who was talking. and you did know, didn't you, sir?" o'brine flushed. for a long moment his glance locked with rip's, then he roared with laughter. rip grinned his relief. "my apologies, sir." "accepted," o'brine chuckled. "i'm rather sorry i don't have an excuse for dumping you in the space pot, though, foster. your explanation is acceptable, but i have a suspicion that you enjoyed calling me names." "i might have," rip admitted, "but i wasn't in very good shape. the only thing i could think of was getting into air so i could have my arm treated. commander, we've moved the asteroid. now we have to correct course. and we have to get some new equipment, including nuclite shielding. also, sir, i'd appreciate it if you'd let my men clean up and eat. they haven't been in air since we left the cruiser." for answer, o'brine strode to the operating-room communicator. "get it," he called. "the deputy commander will prepare landing boat one and issue new space suits and helmets for all planeteers with damaged equipment. put in two rolls of nuclite. sergeant major koa will see that all planeteers have an opportunity to clean up and eat. they will return to the asteroid in one hour." rip asked, "will i be able to go into space by then?" the doctor replied, "your arm will be normal in about twenty minutes. it will ache some, but you'll have full use of it. we'll bring you back to the ship in about twenty-four hours for another look at it, just to be sure." sixty minutes later, clean, fed, and contented, the planeteers were again on the thorium planet, while the _scorpius_, riding the same orbit, stood by a few miles out in space. the asteroid and the great cruiser arched high above the belt of tiny worlds in the orbit rip had set, traveling together toward distant mars. chapter twelve mercury transit the long hours passed, and only rip's chronometer told him when the end of a day was reached. the planeteers alternately worked on the surface and rested in the air of the landing boat compartment, while the asteroid sped steadily on its way. when a series of sightings over several days gave rip enough exact data to work on, he recalculated the orbit, found the amount that the course had to be corrected, and supervised the cutting of new holes in the metal. tubes of ordinary rocket fuel were placed in these and fired, and the thrust moved the asteroid slightly, just enough to make the corrections rip needed. it was not necessary to take to the landing boat for these blasts. the planeteers retired to their cave, which was now lined with nuclite as a protection against radiation. rip watched his dosimeter climb steadily as the radiation dosage mounted. then he took the landing boat to the scorpius, talked the problem over with the ship's medical department, and arranged for his men to take injections that would keep them from getting radiation sickness. they left the asteroid belt far behind and passed within ten thousand miles of mars. the _scorpius_ sent its entire complement of snapper-boats to the asteroid for protection, in case consops made another try, then flamed off to marsport to put in new supplies to replace those damaged when rip had forced sudden and disastrous acceleration. the asteroid had reached earth's solar orbit before the cruiser returned, though earth itself was on the other side of the sun. rip ordered a survey and found the best place on the dark side to make a new base. the planeteers cut out a cave with the torch, lined it with nuclite, and moved in the supplies. it would be their base to the end of the trip. the sun was very hot now. on the sunny side of the asteroid the temperature had soared far past the boiling point of water. but on the dark side, rip measured temperatures close to absolute zero. when the _scorpius_ returned, he arranged with commander o'brine for the planeteers to take turns going to the cruiser for showers and decent meals. the asteroid approached the orbit of venus, but the bright planet was some distance away, at its greatest elongation to the east of the sun. mercury, however, loomed larger and larger. they would pass close to the hot planet. o'brine recalled rip to the _scorpius_ and handed him a message. asteroid now within protection reach of mercury and terra bases. your escort no longer required. proceed immediately titan, take on cargo and personnel. the commander sighed. "looks like i'll never get to earth long enough to see my family." rip sympathized. "tough, sir. perhaps the cargo from titan will be scheduled for terra." "that's what i hope," o'brine agreed. "well, here's where we part. is there anything you need?" rip made a mental check on supplies. he had more than enough. "the only thing we need is a long-range communicator, sir. we'll need one to contact the planet bases." "i'll see that you get one." the irishman thrust out his hand. "stay out of high vack, foster. too bad you didn't join us instead of the planeteers. i might have made a decent officer out of you." rip grinned. "that's a real compliment, sir. i might return it by saying that you have the makings of a planeteer officer yourself." o'brine chuckled. "all right. let's declare a truce, planeteer. we'll meet again. space isn't very big." a short time later rip stood in front of his asteroid base and watched the great cruiser drive into space. a short distance away a snapper-boat was lashed to the landing boat. o'brine had left it, with a word of warning. "these connies are plenty smart. i don't like leaving you unprotected, even within reach of mercury and terra, but orders are orders. keep the snapper-boat, and you'll at least be able to put up a fight if you bump into trouble." the asteroid sped on its lonely way for two days, and then a cruiser came out of space, its nuclear drive glowing. the planeteers manned the rocket launcher, and rip and santos stood by the snapper-boat, just in case, but the cruiser was the _sagittarius_, out of mercury. capt. go sian-tek, a chinese planeteer officer, arrived in one of the cruiser's boats with three enlisted men. captain go greeted rip and his men, then handed over a plastic stylus plate ordering rip to deliver six cubic meters of thorium for use on mercury. while koa supervised the cutting of the block, rip and the captain chatted. the mercurian planeteer base was in the twilight zone, but the planeteers always worked on the sun side, wearing special alloy suits to mine the precious nuclite that only the hot planet provided. at some time during its first years, mercury had been so close to the sun that its temperature was driven high enough to permit a subatomic thermonuclear reaction. the reaction had shorn some elements of their electrons and left a thin coating of material composed almost entirely of neutrons. the nuclite was incredibly dense. it could be handled only in low gravity because of its weight. but nothing else provided the shielding against radiation and meteors half so well, and it was in great demand. "things aren't so bad," go told rip. "the base is comfortable, and we only work a two-hour shift out of each ten. we've had a plague of silly dillies recently. they got into one man's suit while we were working, but mostly they're just a nuisance." rip had heard of the creatures. they were like earth armadillos, except that they were silicon animals and not carbon like those of earth. they were drawn to oxygen like iron to a magnet, and their diamond-hard tongues, used for drilling rock in order to get the minerals on which they lived, could drive right through a space suit. or, if these animals worked undetected for a while, they could drill through the shell of a space station. _scralabus primus_ was the scientific name of the creature, but the fact that it looked like a silicon armadillo had given it the popular name of "silly dilly." apart from its desire for oxygen, it was harmless. koa reported, "sir, the block of thorium is ready. we've hung it on a line behind the landing-boat. the blast won't hurt it, and it's too big to get inside the boat." "fine, koa. well, captain, that does it." the mercurian planeteers got into their craft and blasted off, trailing the block of thorium in their exhaust. rip watched the cruiser take the craft and thorium aboard, then drive toward mercury, brilliant sunlight reflecting from its sleek sides. the planet was only a short distance away by spaceship. it was the largest thing in space, except for the sun, as seen from the asteroid. past the orbit of mercury, the sun side of the asteroid grew dangerously hot for men in space suits. rip and the planeteers stayed in the bitter cold of the dark side, which ceased to be entirely dark. the temperature rose somewhat. they were close enough to the sun that the prominences, great flaming tongues of hydrogen that sped many thousands of miles into space, gave them light and enough heat to register on rip's instruments. mercury was left far behind, and earth could not be seen because of the sun. there was nothing to do now but ride out the rest of the trip as comfortably as possible, until it was time to throw the asteroid into a series of ever-tightening elliptical orbits around earth, known as braking ellipses. the method would use earth's gravity to slow them down to the proper speed. a single atomic bomb and a half dozen tubes of rocket fuel remained. then, as rip was enjoying the comfort of air during his off-watch hour in the boat compartment, koa beat an alarm on the door. rip and the planeteers got into suits and opened up. "it's terra base calling on the communicator, sir," koa reported. "urgent message, they said, and they want to talk to you personally." rip hurried to the cave. the communicator indicator light was glowing bright red. he plugged in his helmet circuit and said, "this is lieutenant foster. go ahead." a voice crackled across space from earth. "this is terra base. foster, a consops cruiser has apparently been hiding behind the sun waiting for you. our screens just picked it up, heading your way. we've sent orders to the _sagittarius_ on mercury to give you cover, and the _aquila_ has taken off from here. but get this, foster. the consops cruiser will reach you first. you have about one hour. do you understand?" rip understood all right. he understood too well. "got you," he said shortly. "now what?" the communicator buzzed. "take any appropriate action. you're on your own. sorry. sending the cruisers is all we can do. we'll stand by for word from you. if you think of any way we can help, let us know." rip asked, "how long before the cruisers arrive?" "you're too close to us for them to move fast. they'll have to use time accelerating and decelerating. the _sagittarius_ should arrive in something less than two hours and the _aquila_ a few minutes later." the communicator paused, then continued. "one thing more, foster. the connies know how badly we want that asteroid, but they also know we don't want it enough to start a war. got that?" "got it," rip stated wryly. "i got it good. thanks for the warning, terra base. foster off." "terra base off. stay out of high vack." fine advice, if it could be taken. rip stared up at the brilliant stars, thinking fast. the connie would have almost an hour's lead on the space-patrol cruisers. in that hour, if the connie were willing to pay the price in blasted snapper-boats, consops would have the asteroid. and terra base had made it clear that the space patrol would not try to blast the connie cruiser, because that would mean war. added together, the facts said just one thing: they had one hour in which to think of some way to hold off the connies for an additional hour. the planeteers were clustered around him. rip asked grimly, "any of you ever study the ancient art of magic?" the planeteers remained silent and tense. "magic is what we need," rip told them. "we have to make the whole asteroid disappear, or else we have to conjure up a space cruiser out of the thorium. otherwise, we have barely an hour till we're either prisoners or dead!" chapter thirteen peril! sergeant major koa asked thoughtfully, "sir, would it do the connie much good to launch boats this close to the sun? they'd have to use too much fuel just keeping position." "you could be right," rip said slowly. koa had a point! to counter gravitational attraction took velocity, which meant consumption of fuel. maneuvering boats meant rapid velocity changes. against the sun's terrific gravity at this distance, it also meant maximum thrust and maximum fuel flow most of the time. the asteroid, in a planned orbit with the correct velocity, was safe enough, and the connie cruiser would simply match the asteroid's orbit. but boats, which had to maneuver, were another matter. rip figured quickly. in accordance with newton's law, gravitational attraction increased rapidly on approaching a body. if he could put the asteroid even closer to the sun, the boat problem would become worse, until even a small velocity change in the wrong direction could leave a boat in the terrible position of not having enough thrust for a long enough time to keep from being drawn into the sun. but to change the asteroid's orbit was dangerous! it meant losing just enough velocity to be drawn closer to the sun, and then picking up a much higher velocity to get free again! rip got his instruments and pulled out a special slide rule designed for use in space. he had koa stand by with stylus and computation board and take down his figures. he recalculated the safety factor he had used when deciding how close to the sun to put the asteroid, then took quick star sights to determine their exact position. they were within a few miles of perihelion, the point at which they would be closest to sol. rip tapped gloved fingers on his helmet absently. if they could blast out of the orbit and drive into the sun.... he estimated the result. a few miles per second of less speed would let them be pulled so far within the sun's field of gravity that, within an hour or so, small boats would venture into space only at their peril. he reviewed the equipment. they had tubes of rocket fuel, but the tubes wouldn't give the powerful thrust needed for this job. they had one atomic bomb. one wasn't enough. not only must they drive toward the sun, but also they must keep reserve power to blast free again. if only they had a pair of nuclear charges! he called his planeteers together and outlined the problem. perhaps one of them would have an idea. but no useful suggestions were forth-coming--until dominico spoke up. "sir, why don't we make two bombs from one?" "i wish we could," rip said. "do you know how?" "no, lieutenant. if we had parts, i could put bombs together. i can take them apart, but i don't know how to make two out of one." the italian planeteer looked accusingly at rip. "i thought maybe you knew, sir." rip grunted. if they had parts, he could assemble nuclear bombs, too. part of his physics training had been concerned with fission and its various applications. but no one had taught him how to make two bombs out of one. the theory behind this particular bomb design was simple. two or more correctly sized pieces of plutonium or uranium isotope, when brought together, formed what was known as a critical mass, which would fission. the fissioning released energy and produced the explosion. but there was a wide gap between theory and practice. a nuclear bomb was actually pretty complicated. it had to be complicated to keep the pieces of the fissionable material apart until a chemical explosion drove them together fast and hard enough to create a fission explosion. if the pieces weren't brought together rapidly enough, the mass would fission in a slow chain reaction with no explosion. rip was trained in scientific analysis. he tackled the problem logically, considering the design of a nuclear bomb and the reasons for it. atomic bombs had to be carried. that meant an outer casing was necessary. the casing had a lot to do with the design. suppose no casing were required? what would be needed? he took the stylus and computation board from koa and jotted down the parts required. first, two or more pieces of plutonium large enough to form a critical mass. second, a neutron source--the type of radioactivity that produced neutrons--to accelerate the reaction. third, some kind of neutron reflector. and fourth, explosive to drive the pieces together. did they have all those items? he checked them off. their single five kt bomb contained at least enough plutonium for two critical masses, if brought together inside a good neutron reflector. each mass should give about a two kiloton explosion. and they did have a good neutron reflector--nuclite. there wasn't anything better. "what have we got for a neutron source?" he asked aloud. he was really asking himself, but he got a quick answer from koa. "sir, some of the stuff left in the craters from the other explosions gives off neutrons." "you're right," rip agreed instantly. a small piece from one of the craters, when combined with half of the neutron source in the bomb, should be enough. as for the explosive, they had exploding heads on their attack rockets. in other words, he had what he needed--except for a method of putting all the pieces together to create a bomb. if only they had a tube of some sort that would withstand the chemical explosion--the one that brought the critical mass together! he told the planeteers what he had been thinking, then asked, "any ideas for a tube?" "how about a tube from the snapper-boat?" santos suggested. rip shook his head. "not strong enough. they're designed to withstand the slow push of rocket fuel, not the fast rap of an explosion. when i say slow, i mean slow-burning when compared with explosive. any more ideas?" kemp, the expert torchman, said, "sir, i can burn you a tube into the asteroid." rip grabbed the planeteer so hard they both floated upward. "kemp, that's wonderful! that's it!" the details took form in his mind even as he called orders. "dominico, tear down that bomb. santos, remove two heads from your rockets and wire them to explode on electrical impulse. kemp, we'll want the tube just a fraction of an inch wider than a rocket head. get your torch ready." he took the stylus and began calculating. he talked as he worked, telling the planeteers exactly what they were up against. "i'm figuring out where to put the charge so it will do the most good, but my data isn't complete. if our homemade bomb goes off, i don't know exactly how much power it will give. if it gives too much, we'll be driven so close to the sun we'll never get free of its gravity." bradshaw, the english planeteer, said mildly, "don't worry, lieutenant. if it isn't the solar frying pan, it's connie fire." a chorus of agreement came from the other planeteers. "what a crew!" rip thought. "what a great gang of space pirates!" he finished his calculations and found the exact place where kemp would cut. a few feet away from the spot was a thick pyramid of thorium. that would do, and they could cut into it horizontally instead of drilling straight down. he pointed to it. "let's have a hole straight in for six feet. and keep it straight, kemp. allow enough room for a lining of nuclite. koa, cut a sheet of nuclite to size." kemp's torch already was slicing into the metal. rip asked, "can you weld with that thing, kemp?" "just show me what you want, sir." "good." rip motioned to trudeau. "frenchy, we'll need a strong rod at least eight feet long." the french planeteer hurried off. rip consulted his chronometer. less than ten minutes had passed since the call from terra base. he went over his plan again. it had to work! if it didn't, asteroid and planeteers would end up as subatomic particles in the sun's photosphere, because he had calculated his blast to drive the asteroid past the limit of safety. it was the only way he could be sure of putting them beyond danger from connie landing boats or snapper-boats. the connie would have only one chance--to bring his cruiser down. if he tried that, rip thought grimly, he would get a surprise. the second nuclear charge would be set, ready to be fired. the connie cruiser was so big that no matter how it pulled up to the asteroid, some part of it would be close enough to the charge to be blown into space dust. no cruiser could survive an atomic explosion within five hundred yards, and the connie would have to get closer to the nuclear charge than that. dominico reported that the bomb had been dismantled. rip went to it and examined the raw plutonium, being careful to keep the pieces widely separated. this particular bomb design used five pieces of plutonium which were driven together to form a ball. rip made a quick estimate. two were enough to form a critical mass. he would use two to blast into the sun and three to blast out again. he would need the extra kick. there was only one trouble. the pieces were wedge shaped. they would have to be mounted in thorium in order to keep them rigid. only kemp could do that. they had no cutting tool but the torch. santos appeared, carrying a rocket head under each arm. they had wires wound around them, ready to be attached to an electrical source. rip hurried back to where kemp was at work. the private was using a cutting nozzle that threw an almost invisible flame five feet long. in air, the nozzle wouldn't have worked effectively beyond two feet, but in space it cut right down to the end of the flame. kemp had his arm inside the hole and was peering past it as he finished the cut. "done, sir," he said, and adjusted the flame to a spout of red fire. he thrust the torch into the hole and quickly withdrew it as pieces of thorium flew out. a stream of water hosed into the tube would have worked the same way. rip took a block of plutonium from dominico and handed it to kemp. "cut a plug and fit this into it. then cut a second plug for the other piece. they have to match perfectly, and you can't put them together to try out the fit. if you do, we'll have fission right here in the open." kemp searched and found a piece he had cut in making the tube. it was perfectly round, ideal for the purpose. he sliced off the inner side where it tapered to a cone, then, working only by eye estimate, cut out a hole in which the wedge of fission material would fit. he wasn't off by a thirty-second of an inch. skillful application of the torch melted the thorium around the wedge and sealed it tightly. koa was ready with a sheet of nuclite. trudeau arrived with a pole made by lashing two crate sticks together. rip gave directions as they formed a cylinder of nuclite. kemp spot-welded it, and they pushed it into the hole. nunez found a small piece of material in one of the earlier craters. it would provide some neutrons to start the chain reaction. rip added it to the front of the plutonium wedge, along with a piece of beryllium from the bomb, and kemp welded it in place. they put the thorium block which contained the plutonium into the hole, the plutonium facing outward. trudeau rammed it to the bottom with his pole. the neutron source, the neutron reflector, and one piece of fissionable material were in place. kemp sliced another round block of thorium out of a nearby crystal and fitted the second wedge of plutonium into it. at first rip had worried about the two pieces of plutonium making a good enough contact, but kemp's skillful hand and precision eye removed that worry. the torchman finished fitting the plutonium and carried the block to the tube opening. he tried it, removed a slight irregularity with his torch, then said quietly, "finished, sir." rip took over. he slid the thorium-plutonium block into the tube, took a rocket head from santos, and used it to push the block in farther. when the rocket head was about four inches inside the tube, its wires trailing out, rip called kemp. at his direction, the torchman sliced a thin slot up the face of the crystal. rip fitted the wires into it and held them in place with a small wedge of thorium. kemp cut a plug, fitted it into the hole, and welded the seams closed. the tube was sealed. when electric current fired the rocket head, the thorium carrying the plutonium wedge would be driven forward to meet the wedge in the back. and, unless rip had miscalculated the mass of the two pieces, they would have their nuclear blast. rip surveyed the crystal with some anxiety. it looked right. dominico already had rigged the timer from the atomic bomb. he connected the wires. "do i set it, sir?" "load the communicator, the extra bomb parts, the rocket launcher and rockets, the cutting equipment, my instruments, and the tubes of fuel," rip ordered. "leave everything else in the cave." the planeteers ran to obey. rip waited until the landing boat was nearly loaded, then told dominico to set the timer for five minutes. he wondered how they would explode the second charge, since they had only the one timer left, then forgot about it. time enough to worry when faced with the problem. "i'll take the snapper-boat," he stated. "santos in the gunner's seat. koa in charge in the landing boat. dowst pilot. let's show an exhaust." he fitted himself into the tight pilot seat of the snapper-boat while santos climbed in behind. then, handling the controls with the skill of long practice, he lifted the tiny fighting rocket above the asteroid and waited for the landing boat. when it joined up, rip led the way to safety. as he cut his exhaust to wait for the explosion, he sighted past the snapper-boat's nose to the asteroid. even though both boats had been careful to match velocity with the asteroid as closely as possible, the slight difference remaining caused them to drift sunward. rip cut his jets in to compensate, and saw dowst do the same. another few miles toward the sun, and the landing boat wouldn't have the power to get away from sol's gravity. a few miles beyond that, even the powerful little snapper-boat would be caught. below, the timer reached zero. a mighty fan of fire shot into space. the asteroid shuddered from the blast, then swerved gradually, picking up speed as well as new direction. rip swallowed hard. now they were committed. they would reach a new perihelion far beyond the limits of safety. _p_ for perihelion and _p_ for peril. in this case, they were the same thing! chapter fourteen between two fires back on the asteroid, the planeteers started laying the second atomic charge. rip selected the spot, found a nearby crystal that would serve to house the bomb, and kemp started cutting. the planeteers knew what to do now, and the work went rapidly. rip kept an eye on his chronometer. according to the message from terra base, he had about fifteen minutes before the consops cruiser arrived. "we have one advantage we didn't have back in the asteroid belt," he remarked to koa. "back there they could have landed anywhere on the rock. now they have to stick to the dark side. snapper-boats could last on the sun side, but men in ordinary space suits couldn't." "that's good," koa agreed. "we have only one side to defend. why don't we put the rocket launcher right in the middle of the dark side?" "go ahead. and have all men check their pistols and knives. we don't know what's likely to happen when that connie flames in." rip walked over to the communicator and plugged his suit into the circuit. "this is the asteroid calling terra base. over." "this is terra base. go ahead, foster. how are you doing?" "if you need anything cooked, send it to us," rip replied. "we have heat enough to cook anything, including tungsten alloy." he explained briefly what action they had taken. a new voice came on the communicator. "foster, this is colonel stevens." rip responded swiftly, "yes, sir!" stevens was the top planeteer, commanding officer of all the special order squadrons. "we've piped this circuit into every channel in the system," the colonel said. "every planeteer in the squadrons is listening and rooting for you. is there anything we can do?" "yes, sir," rip replied. "do you know if terra base has been plotting our course this far?" there was a brief silence, then the colonel answered, "yes, foster. we have a complete track from the time you started showing on the terra screens, about halfway between the orbits of mars and earth." "did you just get our change of direction?" "yes. we're following you on the screens." "then, sir, i'd appreciate it if you'd put the calculators to work and make a time-distance plot for the next few hours. the blast we're saving to push to escape velocity is about three kilotons. let us know the last moment when we can fire." "you will have it within fifteen minutes. anything else, foster?" "nothing else i can think of, sir." "then, good luck. we'll be standing by." "yes, sir. foster off." rip disconnected and turned up his helmet communicator, repeating the conversation to his men. koa came and stood beside him. "lieutenant, how do we set off this next charge?" there was only one way. when the time came to blast, they would be too close to the sun to take to the boats. the blast had to be set off from the asteroid. "we'll get underground as far away from the bomb as we can," rip said. he surveyed the dark side, which was rapidly growing less dark. "i think the second crater will do. kemp can square it off on the side toward the blast to give us a vertical wall to hide behind." koa looked doubtful. "plenty of radiation left in those holes, sir." rip grinned mirthlessly. "radiation is the least of our problems. i'd rather get an overdose of gamma then get blasted into space." a yell rang in his helmet. "here comes the connie!" rip looked up, startled. the consops cruiser passed directly overhead, about ten miles away. it was decelerating rapidly. rip wondered why they hadn't spotted it earlier, then realized the connie had come from the direction of the hot side. the enemy cruiser was probably the same one that had attacked them before. he must have lain in wait for days, keeping between the sun and terra. that way, the screens wouldn't pick him up, since very few observatories scanned the sun with regularity. to the observatories, the cruiser would have been only a tiny speck, too small to be noticed. or, if they had noticed it, the astronomers probably decided it was just a very tiny sunspot. the planeteers worked with increased speed. kemp welded the final plug into place, then hurried to the crater from which they would set off the charge. dominico and dowst connected wires from the rocket head to a reel of wire and rolled it toward the crater. nunez got a hand-driven dynamo from the supplies and tested it for use in setting off the charge. santos stood by the rocket launcher, with pederson ready to put another rack of rockets into the device when necessary. rip and koa watched the connie cruiser. it decelerated to a stop for a brief second, then started moving again, with no jets showing. "that's the sun pulling," rip said exultantly. "they'll have to keep blasting to maintain position." the consops commander didn't wait to trim ship against the sun's drag. his air locks opened, clearly visible to rip and koa because that side of the cruiser was brilliant with sunlight. ten snapper-boats sped forth. rip was certain now that this was the enemy cruiser they had fought off back in the asteroid belt. two connie snapper-boats had been destroyed in that clash, which explained why the commander was sending out only ten boats instead of a full quota of twelve. the squadron instantly formed a v, like a strange space letter made up of globes. the sun's gravity pulled at them, dragging them off course. rip watched as flames poured from their stern tubes. they were firing full speed ahead, but the drag of the sun distorted their line of flight into a great arc. rip saw the strategy instantly. the connie commander knew the situation exactly, and he was staking everything on one great gamble, sending his snapper-boats to land on the asteroid--to crash-land if necessary. the asteroid was so close to the sun that even the powerful fighting rockets would use most of their fuel in simply combating its gravity. "all hands stand by to repel connies," rip shouted, and he drew his pistol. he looked into the magazine, saw that the clip was full, and then charged the weapon. santos was crouched over the rocket launcher, his space gloves working rapidly as he kept the rockets pointed at the enemy. rip called, "santos, fire at will." the planeteers formed a skirmish line which pivoted on the launcher. only kemp remained at work. his torch flared, slicing through the thorium as he prepared their firing position. the atomic charge was ready. the wires had been laid up to the rim of the crater in which kemp worked, and the dynamo was attached. rip was everywhere, checking on the launcher, on kemp, on the pistols of his men. and santos, hunched over his illuminated sight, watched the connie snapper-boats draw near. "here we go," the corporal muttered. he pressed the trigger. the first rocket sped outward in a sweeping curve, and for a moment rip opened his mouth to yell at santos. the sun's gravity affected the attack rockets, too! then he saw that the corporal had allowed for the sun's pull. the rocket curved into the squadron of on-coming boats, and they all tried to dodge at once. two of them met in a sideways crash, then a third staggered as its stern globe flared and exploded. santos had scored a hit! rip called, "good shooting!" the corporal's reply was rueful. "sir, that wasn't the one i aimed at. the sun's pull is worse than i figured." the damaged snapper-boat instantly blasted from its nose tubes, decelerated, and went into reverse, flipping through space crabwise as it tried to regain the safety of the cruiser. the two boats that had crashed while trying to dodge were blasting in great spurts of flame, following the example of their damaged companion. "seven left," rip called, and another rocket flashed on its way. he followed its trail as it curved away from the asteroid and into the squadron. its proximity fuse detonated in the exhaust of a connie boat, blowing the tube out of position. the boat yawed wildly, cut its stern tubes, and blasted to a stop from the bow tube. then it, too, started backward toward the cruiser. six left! flame blossomed a few yards from rip. he was picked up bodily and flung into space, whirling end over end. koa's voice rang in his helmet. "watch it! they're firing back!" rip tugged frantically at an air bottle in his belt. he pulled it out and used it to whirl him upright again; then its air blast drove him back to the surface of the asteroid. sweat poured from his forehead, and the suit ventilator whined as it picked up the extra moisture. great cosmos! that was close! santos fired again, twice, in rapid succession. the connie snapper-boats scattered as the proximity fuses produced flowers of fire among them. two near misses, but they threw the enemy off course. rip watched tensely as the boats fought to regain their course. he knew asteroid, cruiser, and boats were speeding toward the sun at close to fifty miles a second, and the drag was getting terrific. the connies knew it, too. there was an exultant yell from the planeteers as two of the boats gave up and turned back, using full power to regain the safety of the mother ship. four left! santos scored a direct hit on the nose of the nearest one, but its momentum drove it to within a few yards of the asteroid. five space-suited figures erupted from it, holding hand propulsion units, tubes of rocket fuel used for hand combat in empty space. the connies lit their propulsion tubes and drove feet first for the asteroid. the planeteers estimated where the enemy would land, and they were there waiting, with aimed handguns. the connies had their hands over their heads, holding the propulsion tubes. they took one look at the gleaming planeteer guns, and their hands stayed upright. the planeteers lashed the connies' hands behind them with their own safety lines and, at rip's orders, dumped all but one of them into the crater where kemp was just finishing his cutting. three snapper-boats remained. rip watched, holding tightly to the arm of the connie he had kept at his side. the man wore the insignia of an officer. the remaining snapper-boats were going to make it. santos threw rockets among them and scored hits, but the boats kept coming. the connies were too far away from the cruiser to return, and they knew it. getting to the asteroid was their only chance. rip called, "santos! cease fire. set the launcher for ground level. let them land, but don't fire until i give the word." he put his helmet against his prisoner's for direct communication. "you speak english?" the man shouted back, "yes." "good. we're going to let your friends land. as soon as they do, i want you to yell to them. say we have assault rockets trained on them. tell them to surrender, or they'll be killed in their tracks. got that?" the connie replied, "suppose i refuse?" rip put his space knife against the man's stomach. "then we'll get them with rockets. but you won't care, because you won't know it." the truth was that santos couldn't hope to get them all with his rockets. they might overcome the connies in hand-to-hand fighting, but there would be a cost to pay in planeteer casualties. rip hoped the connie wouldn't call his bluff, because that's all it was. he couldn't use a space knife on an unarmed prisoner. the connie didn't know that. in rip's place he would have no compunctions about using the knife, so instead of calling rip's bluff, he agreed. the snapper-boats blew their front tubes, decelerating, and squashed down to the asteroid in a roar of exhaust flames, sending the planeteers running out of the way. rip thrust harder with his space knife and yelled, "tell them!" the connie officer nodded. "turn up my communicator." rip turned it on full, and the connie barked quick instructions. the exhausts died, and five men filed out of each boat, with hands held high. rip blew a drop of perspiration from the tip of his nose. empty space! it was a good thing connie morale was bad. the enemy's willingness to surrender had saved them a costly fight. the planeteers rounded up the prisoners and secured them, while rip took an anxious look at the communicator. it was about time he heard from terra base. the light was glowing. for all he knew, it might have been glowing for many minutes. he plugged into the circuit. "this is foster on the asteroid." "terra base to foster. listen. you will reach optimum position on the time-distance curve at twenty-three-oh-six." "got it. we will reach optimum position at twenty-three-oh-six." he looked at his chronometer, and his pulse stopped. it was : ! they had just eight minutes before the sun caught them forever, atomic blast or no! and the connie cruiser was still overhead, with no friendly cruisers in sight. he looked up, white-faced. not only was the connie still there, but its main air lock was sliding open to disclose a new danger. in the opening, ready to launch, an assault boat waited. the assault boats were something only the connies used. they were about four times the size of a snapper-boat, less maneuverable but more powerful. they carried twenty men and a pair of guided missiles with atomic warheads! chapter fifteen the rocketeers rip ran for the snapper-boat, feet moving as rapidly as lack of gravity would permit. he called instructions. "santos! turn the launcher over to pederson and come with me. koa, take over. start throwing rockets at that boat, and don't stop until you run out of ammunition." he reached the snapper-boat and squeezed in, santos close behind him. as he strapped himself into the seat he called, "koa! get this, and get it straight. at twenty-three-oh-five, fire the bomb. fire it whether i'm back or not." koa replied, "got it, sir." that would give the planeteers a minute's leeway. not much of a safety margin, especially when he wasn't sure how much power the atomic charge would produce. he plugged into the snapper-boat's communicator and called, "ready, santos?" "ready, lieutenant." he braced himself against acceleration and flipped the speed control to full power. the fighting rocket rammed out from the asteroid, snapping him back against the seat. he made a quick check. gunsight on, fuel tanks almost full, propulsion tubes racked handy to his hand. they drove toward the enemy cruiser at top speed, swerving in a great arc as the sun pulled at them. the enemy's big boat was out of the ship, its jets firing. rip leaned over his illuminated gunsight. the boat showed up clearly, the rings of the sight framing it. he estimated distance and the pull of the sun, then squeezed the trigger on the speed control handle. the cannon up in the nose spat fire. he watched tensely and saw the charge explode on the hull of the connie cruiser. he had underestimated the sun's drag. he compensated and tried again. he missed. now that he was closer and the charge had less distance to travel, he had overestimated the sun's effect. he gritted his teeth. the next shot would be at close range. the fighting rocket closed space, and the landing boat loomed large in the sight. he fired again, and the shot blew metal loose from the top of the boat's hull. a hit, but not good enough. he leaned over the sight to fire again, but before he had sighted, an explosion blew the assault boat completely around. koa and pederson had scored a hit from the asteroid! the big boat fired its side jets and spun around on course again. flame bloomed from its side as connie gunners tried to get the range on the snapper-boat. rip was within reach now. he fired at point-blank range and flashed over the boat as its front end exploded. santos, firing from the rear, hit it again. rip threw the rocket into a turn that rammed him against the top of his harness. he steadied on a line with the crippled connie craft. it was hard hit. the bow jets flickered fitfully, and the stern tubes were dead. he sighted, fired. a charge hit the boat aft and blew its stern tubes off completely. and at the same moment, a connie gunner got a perfect bead on the snapper-boat. space blew up in rip's face. the snapper-boat slewed wildly as the connie shot took effect. rip worked his controls frantically, trying to straighten the rocket out more by instinct than anything else. his eyes recovered from the blinding flash, and he gulped as he saw the raw, twisted metal where the boat's nose had been. he managed to correct the boat's twisting by using the stern tubes, but he lost full control of the ship. for a moment panic gripped him. without full control he couldn't get back to the asteroid! then he forced himself to calm down. he sized up the situation. they were still underway, the stern tubes pushing, but their trajectory would take them right under the crippled connie boat. there was nothing he could do but pass close to the connie. the enemy gunners would fire, but he had to take his chances. he looked down at the asteroid and saw an orange trail as koa launched another rocket. the shot from the asteroid ticked the bottom of the connie boat and exploded. the connie rolled violently. tubes flared as the pilot fought to correct the roll. he slowed the spinning as rip and santos passed, just long enough for a connie gunner to get in a final shot. the shell struck directly under rip. he felt himself pushed violently upward, and, at the same moment, he reacted--by hunch and not by reason. he rammed the controls full ahead, and the dying rocket cut space, curving slowly as flaming fuel spurted from the ruptured tanks. rip yelled, "santos! you all right?" "i think so. lieutenant, we're on fire!" "i know it. get ready to abandon ship." when the main mass of fuel caught, the rocket would become an inferno. rip smashed at the escape hatch above his head, grabbed propulsion tubes from the rack, and called, "now!" he pulled the release on his harness, stood up on the seat, and thrust with all his leg power. he catapulted out of the burning snapper-boat into space. santos followed a second later, and the crippled rocket twisted wildly under the two planeteers. "don't use the propulsion tubes," rip called. "slow down with your air bottles." he thrust the tubes into his belt, found his air bottles, and pointed two of them in the direction they had been traveling. he wanted to come to a stop, to let the wild snapper-boat get away from them. the compressed-air bottles did the trick. he and santos slowed down as the little jets overcame the inertia that was taking them along with the burning boat. the boat was spiraling now, burning freely. it moved away from them, its stern jets still firing weakly. rip took a look toward the enemy cruiser. the assault boat was no longer showing an exhaust. instead, it was being dragged rapidly away from the connie cruiser by the pull of the sun. at least it was hit in time to prevent launching of the atomic guided missiles. or, he thought, perhaps the enemy had never intended using them. the principal effect, besides killing the planeteers, would have been to drive the asteroid into the sun at an even faster rate. the enemy assault boat was no longer a menace. its occupants would be lucky if they succeeded in saving their own lives. rip wondered what the connie cruiser commander would try now. only one thing remained, and that was to set the cruiser down on the asteroid. if the connie tried, he would arrive at just about the time set for releasing the nuclear charge. and that would be the end of the cruiser--and probably of the planeteers as well. santos asked coolly, "lieutenant, wouldn't you say we're in a sort of bad spot?" rip had been so busy sizing up the situation that he hadn't thought about his own predicament. now he looked down and suddenly realized that he was floating free in space, a considerable distance above the asteroid, and with only small propulsion tubes for power. he gasped, "great space! we're in a mess, santos." the corporal asked, still in a calm voice, "how long will it be before we're dragged into the sun, sir?" rip stared. santos had used the same tone he might have used in asking for a piece of venusian _chru_. an officer couldn't be less calm, so rip replied in a voice he hoped was casual, "i wouldn't worry, santos. we won't know it. the heat will get through our suits long before then." in fact, the heat should be overloading their ventilating systems right now. in a few minutes the cooling elements would break down, and that would be the end. he listened for the accelerated whine as the ventilating systems struggled under the increased heat load but heard nothing. funny. had it overloaded and given out already? no, that was impossible. he would be feeling the heat on his body if that were the case. he looked for an explanation and realized for the first time that they weren't in the sunlight at all. they were in darkness. his searching glance told him they were in the cone of shadow stretching out from behind the asteroid. the thorium rock was between them and the sun! his lips moved soundlessly. maj. joe barris had been right. _in a jam, trust your hunch._ he had acted instinctively, not even thinking as he used the last full power of the stern tubes to throw them into the shadow cone. and he knew in the same moment that it could save their lives. the sun's pull would only accelerate their fall toward the asteroid. he said exultantly, "we're staying out of high vac, santos. light off a propulsion tube. let's get back to the asteroid." he pulled a tube from his belt, held it above his head, and thumbed the striker mechanism. the tube flared, pushing downward on his hand. he held steady and plummeted feet first toward the rock. santos was only a few seconds behind him. rip saw the corporal's tube flare and knew that everything was all right, at least for the moment, even though the asteroid was still a long way down. he looked upward at the connie cruiser and saw that it was moving. its exhaust increased in length and deepened slightly in color as rip watched. then he saw side jets flare out from the projecting control tubes and knew the ship was maneuvering. rip realized suddenly that the cruiser was going to pick up the crippled assault boat. he hadn't expected such a humane move, after his first meeting with the connie cruiser when the commander had been willing to sacrifice his own men. this time, however, there was a difference, he saw. the commander would lose nothing by picking up the assault boat, and he would save a few men. rip supposed that manpower meant something, even to consops. his propulsion tube reached _brennschluss_, and for a few moments he watched, checking his speed and direction. then, before he lit off another tube, he checked his chronometer. the illuminated dial registered : . they had just four minutes to get to the asteroid! he spoke swiftly. "waste no time in lighting off, santos. that nuclear charge goes in four minutes!" rip pulled a tube from his belt, held it overhead, and triggered it. his flight through space speeded up, but he wasn't at all sure they would make it. he turned up his helmet communicator to full power and called, "koa, can you hear me?" the sergeant major's reply was faint in his helmet. "i hear you weakly. do you hear me?" "same way," rip replied. "get this, koa. don't fail to explode that charge at twenty-three-oh-five. can you see us?" the reply was very slightly stronger. "i will explode the charge as ordered, lieutenant. we can see a pair of rocket exhausts, but no boats. is that you?" "yes. we're coming in on propulsion tubes." koa waited for a long moment, then asked, "sir, what if you're not with us by twenty-three-oh-five?" "you know the answer," rip retorted crisply. of course koa knew. the nuclear blast would send rip and santos spinning into outer space, perhaps crippled, burned, or completely irradiated. but the lives of two men couldn't delay the blast that would save the lives of eight others, not counting prisoners. rip estimated his speed and course and the distance to the asteroid. he was increasingly sure that they wouldn't make it, and the knowledge was like the cold of space in his stomach. it would be close but not close enough. a minute would make all the difference. for a few heartbeats he almost called koa and told him to wait that extra minute, to explode the nuclear charge at : , at the very last second. but even planeteer chronometers could be off by a few seconds, and he couldn't risk it. his men had to be given some leeway. he surveyed the asteroid. the nuclear charge was on his left side, pretty close to the sun line. at least he and santos could angle to the right, to get as far away as possible. the edge of the asteroid's shadow was barely visible. that it was visible at all was due to the minute particles of matter and gas that surrounded the sun, even millions of miles out into space. he reduced helmet power and told santos, "angle to the right. get as close to the edge of shadow as you can without being cooked." as an afterthought, he asked, "how many tubes do you have?" "one after this, sir. i had three." "save the one you have left." rip didn't know yet what use they would be, but it was always a good idea to have some kind of reserve. the connie cruiser was sliding up to the crippled assault boat. rip took a quick look, then shifted his hands and angled toward the edge of shadow. when he was within a few feet, he reversed the direction of the tube to keep from shooting out into the sunlight. a second or two later the tube burned out. santos was several yards away and slightly above him. rip saw that the planeteer was all right and turned his attention back to the cruiser. it was close enough to the assault boat to haul it in with grappling hooks. the hooks emerged and engaged the torn metal of the boat, then drew it into the waiting port. the massive air door slid closed. the question was, would the connie try to set his ship down on the asteroid? rip grinned without mirth. now would be a fine time. his chronometer showed a minute and a half to blast time. he took another look at his own situation. he and santos were getting close to the asteroid, but there was still over a half mile of earth distance to go. they would cover perhaps three-fourths of that distance before koa fired the charge. he had a daring idea. how long could he and santos last in direct sunlight? the effect of the sun in the open was powerful enough to make lead run like water. their suits could absorb some heat, and the ventilating system could take care of quite a lot. they might last as much as three minutes, with luck. they had to take a risk with the full knowledge that the odds were against them. but if they didn't take the risk, the blast would push them outward from the asteroid--into full sunlight. the end result would be the same. "we're not going to make it, santos," he began. "i know it, sir," santos replied. rip thought anyone with that much coolness and sheer nerve rated some kind of special treatment. and the young corporal had shown his ability time and time again. he said, "i should have known you knew, _sergeant_ santos. we still have a slight chance. when i give the word, use an air bottle to push yourself into the sunlight. when i give the word again, light off your remaining tube." "yessir," santos replied. "thank you for the promotion. i hope i live to collect the extra rating." "same here," rip agreed fervently. his eyes were on his chronometer, and with his free hand he took another air bottle. when the chronometer registered exactly one minute before blast time, he called, "now!" he triggered the bottle and moved from shadow into glaring sunlight. a slight motion of the bottle turned him so his back was to the sun; then he used the remaining compressed air to push himself downward along the edge of shadow. the sun's gravity tugged at him. he pulled the last tube from his belt and held it ready while he watched his chronometer creep around. with five seconds to go, he called to santos and fired it. acceleration pushed at him. in the same moment, the nuclear charge exploded. chapter sixteen ride the planet! a mighty hand reached out and shoved rip, sweeping him through space like a dust mote. he clutched his propulsion tube with both hands and fought to hold it steady. he swiveled his head quickly, searching for santos, and saw the corporal a dozen rods away. from the far horizon of the asteroid the incandescent fire of the nuclear blast stretched into space, turning from silver to orange to red as it cooled. rip knew they had escaped the heat and blast of the explosion, but now there was a question of how much prompt radiation they had absorbed. during the first few seconds, a nuclear blast sprayed gamma radiation and neutrons in all directions. he and santos certainly had gotten plenty. but how much? his lower-level colorimeter had long since reached maximum red, and his high-level dosimeter could be read only on a measuring device. meanwhile, he had other worries. radiation had no immediate effect. at worst, it would be a few hours before he felt any symptoms. as he sized up his position and that of the asteroid, he let out a yell of triumph. his gamble would succeed! he had estimated that going into the direct gravity pull of the sun at the proper moment and lighting off their last tubes would put them into a landing position. the asteroid was moving rapidly, into a new orbit that would intersect the course he and santos were on. he had planned on the asteroid's change of orbit. in a minute at most they would be back on the rock. his propulsion tube flared out, and he released it. it would travel along with him, but his hands would be free. then he saw something else. the blast had started the asteroid turning! he reacted instantly. turning up his communicator he yelled, "koa! the rock is spinning! cut the prisoners loose, grab the equipment, and run for it! you'll have to keep running to stay in the shadow. if sunlight hits those fuel tanks or the rocket tubes, they'll explode!" koa replied tersely, "got it. we're moving." at least the connie cruiser couldn't harm them now, rip thought grimly. he looked for the cruiser and failed to find it for several seconds. it had moved. he finally saw its exhausts some distance away. he forgot his own predicament and grinned. the connie cruiser had moved, but not because its commander had wanted to. it had been right in the path of the nuclear blast and had been literally shoved away. then rip forgot the cruiser. his suit ventilator was whining in the terrific heat, and his whole body was now bathed in perspiration. the sun was getting them. it would be only a short time until the ventilator overloaded and burned out. they had to reach the asteroid before then. the trouble was that there was nothing further he could do about it. he had only air bottles left, and their blast was so weak that the effect wouldn't speed him up much. nevertheless, he called to santos and directed him to use his bottles. santos spoke up. "sir, we're going to make it." in the same instant, rip saw that they would land on the dark side. the asteroid was turning over and over. for a second he had the impression that he was looking at a turning globe of the earth, the kind used in elementary school back home. but this gray planet was scarcely bigger than the giant globe at the space council building on terra. he knew he was going to hit hard. the way to keep from being hurt was to turn the vertical energy of his arrival into motion in another direction. as he swept down to the metal surface he started running, his legs pumping wildly in space. he hit with a bone-jarring thud, lost his footing and fell sideways, both hands cradling his helmet. he got to his feet instantly and looked for santos. "you all right, sir?" santos called anxiously. "i think the others are over there." he pointed. "we'll find them," rip said. his hip hurt like fury from smashing against the unyielding metal, and the worst part was that he couldn't rub it. the blow had been strong enough to hurt through the heavy fabric and air pressure, but his hand wasn't strong enough to compress the suit. just the same, he tried. and while he was trying, he found himself in direct sunlight! he had forgotten to run. standing still on the asteroid meant turning with it, from darkness into sunlight and back again. he yelled at santos and legged it out of there, moving in long, gliding steps. he regained the shadow and kept going. the first order of business was to stop the rock from turning. otherwise they couldn't live on it. rip knew that they had only one means of stopping the spin. that was to use the tubes of rocket fuel left over from correcting the course. they had three tubes left, but he didn't know if that was enough to do the job. moving rapidly, he and santos caught up to koa and the planeteers. the connie prisoners were pretty well bunched up, gliding along like a herd of fantastic sheep. their shepherds were pederson, nunez, and dowst. the three planeteers had a pistol in each hand. the spares were probably those taken from prisoners. the planeteers were loaded down with equipment. a few connie prisoners carried equipment, too. trudeau had the rocket launcher and the remaining rockets. kemp had his torch and two tanks of oxygen. bradshaw had tied his safety line to the squat containers of chemical fuel for the torch and was towing them behind like strange balloons. the only trouble with that system, rip thought, was that bradshaw could stop, but the fuel would have a tendency to keep going. unless the englishman was skillful, his burden would drag him off his feet. dominico had a tube of rocket fuel under each arm. the italian was small, and the tubes were bulky. each was about ten feet long and two feet in diameter. with any gravity or air resistance at all, the italian couldn't have carried even one. santos took the radiation detection instruments and the case with the astrogation equipment from koa. rip greeted his men briefly, then took his computing board and began figuring. he knew the men were glad he and santos had made it. but they kept their greetings short. a spinning asteroid was no place for long and sentimental speeches. he remembered the dimensions of the asteroid and its mass. he computed its inertia, then figured out what it would take to overcome the inertia of the spin. the mathematics would have been simpler under normal conditions, but doing them on the run, trying to watch his step at the same time, made things a little complicated. he had to hold the board under his arm, run alongside santos while the new sergeant held the case open, select the book he wanted, open it and try to read the tables by his belt light, and then transfer the data to the board. his ventilator had quieted down once he got into the darkness, but now it started whining slightly again because he was sweating profusely. finally he figured out the thrust needed to stop the spin. now all he had to do was compute how much fuel it would take. he had figures on the amount of thrust given by the kind of rocket fuel in the tubes. he also knew how much fuel each tube contained. but the figures were not in his head. they were on reference sheets. he collected the data on the fly, slowing down now and then to read something, until a yell from santos or koa warned that the sun line was creeping close. when he had all data noted on the board, he started his mathematics. he was right in the middle of a laborious equation when he stumbled over a thorium crystal. he went headlong, shooting like a rocket three feet above the ground. his board flew away at a tangent. his stylus sped out of his glove like a miniature projectile, and the slide rule clanged against his bubble. it happened so fast that neither koa nor santos had time to grab him. the action had given him extra speed, and he saw with horror that he was going to crash into trudeau. he yelled, "frenchy! watch out!" then he put both hands before him to protect his helmet. his hands caught the french planeteer between the shoulders. chapter seventeen visitors! trudeau held tight to the launcher, but the rocket racks opened and spilled attack rockets into space. they flew in a dozen different directions. trudeau gave vent to his feelings in colorful french. koa and santos laughed so hard they had trouble collecting the scattered equipment. rip, slowed by his crash with trudeau, got his feet under him again. when the asteroid turned into the sun, they still had not collected rip's stylus and five of the attack rockets. the space pencil was the only thing that could write on the computing board. it had to be found. "next time around," rip called to the others. he then led the way full speed ahead until they reached the safety of shadow again. rip suspected the stylus was somewhere above the rock and probably wouldn't return to the surface for some minutes. while he was wondering what to do, there was a chorus of yells. a rocket sped between the planeteers and shot off into space. "our own rockets are after us," trudeau gasped. there hadn't been time to collect them all after rip's unwilling attack on the frenchman had scattered them. now the sun was setting them off. another flashed past, fortunately over their heads. the sun's heat was causing them to fire unevenly. "three more to go," koa called. "watch out!" only two went, and they were far enough away to offer no danger. santos had been fishing around in the instrument case. suddenly he produced another stylus. "it was under the sextant," he explained triumphantly. "if we get through this, i'll propose you for ten more stripes," rip vowed. "we'll make you the highest ranking sergeant that ever made a private's life miserable." working slowly but more safely, rip figured that slightly more than two and a half tubes would do the trick. now to fire them. that meant finding a thorium crystal properly placed and big enough. there were plenty of crystals, so that was no problem. the next step was for kemp to cut holes with his torch, so that the thrust of the rocket fuel would be counter to the direction in which the asteroid was spinning. rip explained to all hands what had to be done. the burden would fall on kemp, who would need a helper. rip took that job himself. he took one oxygen tank from kemp. koa took the other, leaving the torchman with only his torch. then rip took a container of chemical fuel from bradshaw. working while running, he lashed the two containers together with his safety line. then he improvised a rope sling so they could hang on his back. kemp, meanwhile, assembled his torch and put the proper cutting nozzle in place. when he was ready, he moved over to rip's side and connected the torch hoses to the tanks the lieutenant carried. kemp had the torch mechanism strapped to his own back. it was essentially a high-pressure pump that drew oxygen and fuel from the tanks and forced them through the nozzle, under terrific pressure. when he had finished, he pressed the trigger that started the cutting torch going. the fuel ignited about a half inch in front of the nozzle. the nozzle had two holes in it, one for oxygen and the other for fuel. the holes were placed and angled to keep the flame always a half inch away, otherwise the nozzle itself would melt. "how do we work this?" kemp asked. "we'll get ahead of the others," rip explained. "keep up speed until we're running at the forward sun line. then, when the crystal we want comes around into the shadow, we stop running and work until it spins back into the sunshine again." rip estimated the axis on which the asteroid was spinning and selected a crystal in the right position. he had to be careful, otherwise their counterblast might do nothing more than start the gray planet wobbling. he and kemp ran ahead of the others. the planeteers and their prisoners were running at a speed that kept them right in the middle of the dark area. it was like running on a treadmill. the planeteers were making good speed, but were actually staying in the same place relative to the sun's position, keeping the turning asteroid between them and the sun. rip and kemp ran forward until they were right at the sun line. then they slowed down, holding position and waiting for the crystal they had chosen to reach them. as it came across the sun line into darkness, they stopped running and rode the crystal through the shadow until it reached the sun again. then the two planeteers ran back across the dark zone to meet the crystal as it came around again. there was only a few minutes' working time each revolution. kemp worked fast, and the first hole deepened. rip helped as best he could by pushing away the chunks of thorium that kemp cut free, but it was essentially a one-man job. as kemp neared the bottom of the first hole, rip reviewed his plan and realized he had overlooked something. these weren't nuclear bombs; they were simple tubes of chemical fuel. the tubes wouldn't destroy the hole kemp was cutting. he reached a quick decision and called koa to join them. koa appeared as kemp pulled his torch from the hole and started running again to avoid the sun. rip and koa ran right along with him, crossing the dark zone to meet the crystal as it came around again. "there's no reason to drill three holes," rip explained as they ran. "we'll use one hole for all three charges. they don't have to be fired all at once." "how do we fire them?" koa asked. "electrically. who has the igniters and the hand dynamo?" "dowst has the igniters. one of the connies is carrying the dynamo." speaking of the connies--rip hadn't seen the consops cruiser recently. he looked up, searching for its exhaust, and finally found it, some distance away. the connie commander was stalemated for the time being. he couldn't land his cruiser on a spinning asteroid, and he had no more boats. rip thought he probably was just waiting around for any opportunity that might present itself. the federation cruisers should be arriving. he studied his chronometer. no, the nearest one, the _sagittarius_ from mercury, wasn't due for another ten minutes or so. he turned up his helmet communicator and ordered all hands to watch for the exhaust of a nuclear drive cruiser, then turned it down again and gave koa instructions. "have trudeau turn his load over to a connie and collect the igniters and the dynamo. we'll need wire, too. who has that?" "another connie." "get a reel. cut off a few hundred feet and connect the dynamo to one end and an igniter to the other." the crystal came around again, and kemp got to work. rip stood by, again reviewing all steps. they couldn't afford to make a mistake. he had no margin for error. kemp finished the hole a few seconds before the crystal turned into the sunlight again. rip told him to keep the torch going. there might be some last minute cutting to do. then the lieutenant hurried off at an angle to where dominico was plodding along with the fuel tubes. koa had turned the tube he carried over to a connie. rip got it and told dominico to follow him. then he angled back across the asteroid to where kemp was holding position. the asteroid turned twice before koa arrived. he had a coil of wire slung over his arm, and he carried the dynamo in one hand and an igniter in the other, the two connected by the wire. rip took the igniter. "uncoil the wire," he directed. "go to its full length at right angles to the hole. we have to time this exactly right. when the crystal comes around again, i'll shove the tube into the hole, then scurry for cover. when i'm clear i'll yell, and you pump the dynamo. dominico and kemp stay with koa. make sure no one is in the way of the blast." koa unreeled the wire, moving away from rip. the lieutenant pushed the igniter into one end of the fuel tube and crimped it tightly with his gloved hand. koa and the others were as far away as they could get now, the wire stretching between them and rip. kemp had made sure no one was running near the line of blast. rip watched for the crystal. it would be coming around any second now. he held the tube with the igniter projecting behind him, ready for the hole to appear. koa's voice echoed in his helmet. "all set, lieutenant." the crystal appeared across the sun line and moved toward him. he met it, slowed his speed, put the end of the tube into the hole, and shoved. kemp had allowed enough clearance. the tube slid into place. rip turned and angled off as fast as he could glide. when he was far enough away from the blast line he called, "fire!" koa squeezed the dynamo handle. the machine whined, and current shot through the wire. a column of orange fire spurted from the crystal. rip watched the stars instead of the exhaust. he kept running as it burned soundlessly. in air, the noise would have deafened him. in airless space, there was nothing to carry the sound. the apparent motion of the stars was definitely slowing. the spinning wouldn't cease entirely, but it would slow down enough to give them more time to work. the tube reached _brennschluss_, and rip called orders. "same process. get ready to repeat." while koa was connecting another igniter to the wire, rip took a tube from dominico. "take your space knife and saw through the tube you have left. we'll need about three-fifths of it. keep both pieces." dominico pulled his knife, pressed the release, and the gas capsule shot the blade out. he got to work. koa called that he was ready. rip took the wired igniter from him and thrust it into the tube dominico had given him. as the crystal came around again, the process was repeated. the hole was undamaged. there was more time to get clear because of the asteroid's slower speed. the second tube slowed the rock even more, so that they had to wait long minutes while the crystal came around again. rip did some estimating. he wanted to be sure the next charge would do nothing more than slow the asteroid to a stop. if the charge were too heavy, it would reverse the spin. he didn't want to make a career of running on the asteroid. he was tired, and he knew his men were getting weary, too. he could see it in their strides. he decided it would be best to use a little less fuel rather than a little more. if the asteroid failed to stop its spin completely, they could always set off a small charge or two. "hold it," he ordered. "we'll use the small end of dominico's tube and save the big one." the fuel was a solid mass, so cutting the tube in two sections caused no difficulty. rip pushed the igniter into the small section, seated it in the hole, and hurried to cover. as he watched the fuel burn, he wondered why the last nuclear charge had started the spin. he had made a mistake somewhere. the earlier blasts had been set so they wouldn't cause a spin. he made a mental note to look at the place where the charge had exploded. the rocket fuel slowed the asteroid down to a point where it was barely turning, and rip was glad he had been cautious. the heavier charge would have reversed it a little. he directed the placing of a very small charge and was moving away from it so koa could set it off when santos suddenly yelled, "sir! the connie is coming!" rip called, "fire the charge, koa," then looked up. the consops cruiser was moving slowly toward them. the canny connie had been waiting for something to happen on the asteroid, rip guessed. when the spinning slowed and then stopped, the connie probably had decided that now was the time for a final try. "where is the communicator?" rip asked the sergeant major. "one of the connies has it." "get it. i'll notify terra base of what happened." koa found the connie with the communicator, tested it to be sure the prisoner hadn't sabotaged it, and brought it to rip. "this is foster to terra base. over." "come in, foster." rip explained briefly what had happened and asked, "how is our orbit? i haven't had time to take sightings." "you're free of the sun," terra base answered. "your orbit will have to be corrected sometime within the next few hours. the last blast pushed you off course." "that's a small matter," rip stated. "unless we can think of something fast, this will be a connie asteroid by then. the consops cruiser is moving in on us. he's careful, because he isn't sure of the situation. but even at his present speed he'll be here in ten minutes." "stand by." terra base was silent for a few moments, then the voice replied, "i think we have an answer for you, foster. terra base off. go ahead, macfife." a scottish burr thick enough to saw boards came out of the communicator. "foster, this is macfife, commander on the _aquila_. y'can't see me on account of i'm on yer sunny side. but, lad, i'm closer to ye than the connie. we did it this way to keep the asteroid between us and him. also, lad, if ye'll take a look up at gemini, ye'll see somethin' ye'll like. look at alhena, in the twins' feet. then, lad, if ye'll be patient the while, ye'll have a grandstand seat for a real big show." rip tilted his bubble back and stared upward at the constellation of the twins. he said softly, "by gemini!" for there, a half degree south of the star alhena, was the clean line of a nuclear cruiser's exhaust. the _sagittarius_, out of mercury, had arrived. he cut the communicator off for a moment and spoke exultantly to his men. "stand easy, you hairy planeteers. forget the connie. he doesn't know it, but he's caught. he's caught between the archer and the eagle!" chapter eighteen courtesy--with claws sagittarius, constellation of the archer, and aquila, constellation of the eagle, had given the two federation patrol cruisers their names. the eagle was commanded by a tough scotsman, and the archer by a frenchman. commander macfife spoke through the communicator. "switch bands to universal, lad. me'n galliene are goin' to talk this connie into a braw mess. macfife off." rip guessed that the two cruiser commanders had been in communication while enroute to the asteroid and had cooked up some kind of plan. he turned the band switch to the universal frequency with which all long-range communicators were equipped. each of the earth groups had its own frequency, and so did the martians and jovians. but all could meet and talk on the universal band. special scrambling devices prevented eavesdropping on regular frequencies, so there was no danger that the connie had overheard the plan. rip wondered what it was. he knew the cruisers had to be careful not to cross the thin line that might lead to war. the _sagittarius_ loomed closer, decelerating with a tremendous exhaust. the connie couldn't have failed to see it, rip knew. he was right. the consops cruiser suddenly blasted more heavily, rushing in the direction away from the federation ship. the direction was toward the asteroid. at the same moment, the _aquila_ flashed above the horizon, also decelerating. the connie was caught squarely. a suave voice spoke on the universal band. "this is federation scn _sagittarius_, calling the consolidation cruiser near the asteroid. please reply." rip waited anxiously. the connie would hear, because every control room monitored the universal band. a heavy, reluctant voice replied after a pause of over a minute. "this is consolidation cruiser sixteen. you are breaking the law, _sagittarius_. your missile ports are open, and they are pointing at me. close them at once, or i will report this." the suave voice, with its hint of french accent, replied, "ah, my friend! do not be alarmed. we have had a slight accident to our control circuit, and the ports are jammed open. we are trying to repair the situation. but i assure you that we have only the friendliest of intentions." rip grinned. this was about the same as a man holding a cocked pistol at another man's head and assuring him that it was nothing but a nervous arm that kept the gun so steady. the connie demanded, "what do you want?" the two friendly cruisers were within a few miles of the connie now, and their blasts were just strong enough to keep them edging closer, while still counteracting the sun's pull. the french spaceman spoke reassuringly. "my friend, we want only the courtesy of space to which the law entitles us. we have had an unfortunate accident to our astrogation instruments, and we wish to come aboard to compare them with yours." rip laughed outright. every cruiser carried at least four sets of instruments. there was as much chance of all of them being knocked off scale at once as there was of his biting a cruiser in half with bare teeth. macfife's voice came on the air. "foster, switch to federation frequency." rip did so. "this is foster, commander." "lad, it's a pity for ye to miss the show. i'm sending a boat for ye." "the sun will get it!" rip exclaimed. "never fear, lad. it won't get this one. now, switch back to universal and listen in." rip did so in time to catch the connie commander's voice. "... and i refuse to believe such a story! great cosmos, do you think i am a fool?" "of course not," the frenchman replied. "you are not such a fool as to refuse a simple request to check our instruments." the _sagittarius_ commander was right. rip understood the strategy. equipment sometimes did go out of operation in space, and connies had no hesitation in asking federation cruisers for help, or the other way around. such help was always given, because no commander could be sure when he might need help himself. "i agree," the connie commander said with obvious reluctance. "you may send a boat." macfife's scotch burr broke in. "federation scn _aquila_ to consolidation sixteen. mister, my instruments are off scale, too. i'll just send them along to ye, and ye can check them while ye're doing the _sagittarius_!" "i object!" the connie bellowed. "come, now," macfife burred soothingly. "checking a few instruments won't hurt ye." a small rocket exhaust appeared, leaving the _aquila_. the exhaust grew rapidly, more rapidly than that of any snapper-boat. rip watched it, while keeping his ears tuned to the space conversation. "surely sending boats is too much of a nuisance," the french commander said winningly. "we will come alongside." "it's a trick," the connie growled. "you want me to open my valves, and then your men will board us and try to take over my ship!" "my friend, you have a suspicious mind," galliene replied smoothly. "if you wish, arm your men. ours will have no weapons. train launchers on the valves, so our men will be annihilated before they can board if you see a single weapon." this was going a little far, rip thought, but it was not his affair, and he didn't know exactly what macfife and galliene had in mind. the _aquila's_ boat arrived with astonishing speed. rip saw it flash in the sunlight and knew he had never seen one like it before. it was a perfect globe, about twenty feet in diameter. blast holes covered the globe at intervals of six feet. the boat settled to the asteroid, and a new voice called over the helmet circuit, "where's foster? show an exhaust! we're in a rush." "yes, sir." he hurried to the boat and stood there, bewildered. he didn't know how to get in. "up here," the voice called. he looked up and saw a hatch. he jumped, and a space-suited figure pulled him inside. the door shut, and the boat blasted off. acceleration shoved him backward, but the spaceman snapped a line to his belt, then motioned him to a seat. rip pulled himself up the line and got into the seat, snapping the harness in place. "i'm hawkins, senior space officer," the spaceman said. "welcome, foster. we've been losing weight wondering if we'd get here in time." "i was never so glad to see spacemen in my life," rip said truthfully. "what kind of craft is this, sir?" "experimental," the space officer answered. "it has a number, but we call it the ball-bat because it's shaped like a ball and goes like a bat. we were about to take off for some test runs around the space platform when we got a hurry call to come here. the _aquila_ has two of these. if they prove out, they'll replace the snapper-boats. more power, greater maneuverability, heavier weapons, and they carry more men." rip looked out through the port and saw the two federation cruisers closing in on the connie. apparently the connie commander had agreed to let the cruisers come alongside. the ball-bat blasted to the _aquila_, paused at an open port, then slid inside. the valve was shut before rip could unbuckle his harness. air flooded into the chamber, and the lights flicked on. the space officer gave rip a hand out of the harness, and the young planeteer went through the hatch to the deck. the inner valve opened, and a lean, sandy-haired officer in space blue, with the insignia of a commander, stepped through. grinning, he hurried to rip's side and twisted his bubble, lifting it off. "hurry, lad," he greeted rip. "i'm macfife. get out of that suit quick, because ye don't want to miss what's aboot to happen." with his own hands he unlocked the complicated belt with its gadgets and equipment. rip slipped the upper part over his head and stepped out of the bottom. "thanks, commander. i'm one grateful planeteer, believe me!" "come on. we'll hurry right across ship to the opposite valve. lad, i've a son in the planeteers, and he's just about your own age. he's on ganymede. he and the others will be proud of what ye've done." macfife was pulling himself along rapidly by the convenient handholds. rip followed, his breathing a little rapid in the heavier air of the ship. he followed the scottish commander through the maze of passages that crossed the ship. they stopped at a valve where spacemen were waiting. with them was an officer who carried a big case. "the instruments," macfife said, pointing. "we've tinkered with them a bit, just to make it look real." "but why do you want to board the connie?" macfife's eye closed in a wink. "ye'll see." there was a slight bump as the cruiser touched the connie. the waiting group recovered balance and faced the valve. rip knew that spacemen in the inner lock were making fast to the connie, setting up the airtight seal. it wasn't long before a bell sounded, and a spaceman opened the inner valve. two men in space suits were waiting, and beyond them the outer valve was joined by a tube to the outer valve of the connie ship. rip stared at the connie spacemen in their red tunics and gray trousers. one, an officer with two pistols in his belt, stepped forward. rip noted that the other connies were heavy with weapons, too. none of his group had any. "i'm the commander," the scowling connie said. "bring your instruments in. we'll check them; then you get out." "ye're no verra friendly," macfife said, his burr even more pronounced. he led rip and the officer with the instruments into the connie ship. a handsome federation spaceman with a moustache, the first rip had ever seen, stepped into the room from a passageway on the opposite side. the spaceman bowed with exquisite grace. "i have the honor of making myself known," he proclaimed. "commander rémy galliene of the _sagittarius_." the connie commander grunted. he was afraid, rip realized. the connie suspected a trick, and he had no idea what it might be. galliene saw rip's black uniform and hurried to shake his hand. "so this is the young lieutenant who is responsible! lieutenant, today the spacemen honor the planeteers because of you. most days we fight each other, but today we fight together, eh? i am glad to meet you!" "and i'm glad to meet you, sir," rip returned. he liked the twinkle in the frenchman's eye. he would have given a lot to know what scheme galliene and macfife had cooked up. the connie had overheard galliene's greeting. he glared at rip. the frenchman saw the look and smiled happily. "ah, you do not know each other? commander, i have the honor to make known lieutenant foster of the federation special order squadrons. he is in command on the asteroid." the connie blurted, "so! i send boats to help you, and you fire on them!" so that was to be the consops story! rip thought quickly, then held up his hand in a shocked gesture that would have done credit to the frenchman. "oh, no, commander! you misunderstand. we had no way of communicating by radio, so i did the only thing we could do. i fired rockets as a warning. we didn't want your boats to get caught in a nuclear explosion." he shrugged. "it was very unlucky for us that the sun threw my gunner's aim off and he hit your boats--quite by accident." macfife coughed to cover up a chuckle. galliene hid a smile by stroking his moustache. the connie commander growled, "and i suppose it was accident that you took my men prisoner?" "prisoner?" rip looked bewildered. "we took no prisoners. when your boats arrived, the men asked if they might not join us. they claimed refuge, which we had to give them under interplanetary law." "i will take them back," the connie stated. "you will not," galliene replied with equal positiveness. "the law is very clear, my friend. your men may return willingly, but you cannot force them. when we reach terra we will give them a choice. those who wish to return to the consolidation will be given transportation to the nearest border." the connie commander motioned to a heavily armed officer. "take their instruments. check them quickly." he put his lips together in a straight line and stared at the federation men. they stared back with equal coldness. the minutes ticked by. rip wondered again what kind of plan macfife and galliene had. additional minutes passed, and the officer returned with the cases. wordlessly he handed them to galliene and macfife. the connie commander snapped, "there. now get out of my ship." galliene bowed. "you have been a most courteous and gracious host," he said. "your conversation has been stimulating, inspiring, and informative. our profound thanks." he shook hands with rip and macfife, bowed to the connie commander again, and went out the way he had come. there wasn't anything to say after the frenchman's sarcastic farewell speech. macfife, rip, and the officer with the instruments went back through the valves into their own ship. once inside, macfife called, "come with me. hurry." he led the way through passages and up ladders, to the very top of the ship, to the hatch where the astrogators took their star sights. the protective shield of nuclite had been rolled back, and they could see into space through the clear-vision port. rip and macfife hurried to the side where they were connected to the connie. rip looked down along the length of the ship. the valve connection was in the middle of each ship, at the point of greatest diameter. from that point each ship grew more slender. macfife pointed to the connie's nose. projecting from it like great horns were the ship's steering tubes. unlike the federation cruiser, which blasted steam through internal tubes that did not project, the connie used chemical fuel. "watch," macfife said. there were similar tubes on the connie's stern, rip knew. he wondered what they had to do with the plan. macfife walked to a wall communicator. "follow instructions." he turned to rip. "remember, lad, the _sagittarius_ is on the other side of the connie, about to do the same thing." rip waited in silence, wondering. then the voice horn called. "valve closed!" a second voice yelled, "blast!" a tremor jarred its way through the entire ship, making the deck throb under rip's feet. he saw that the ship's nose had swung away from the connie. what in space-- "blast!" the nose swung into the connie again, with a jar that sent rip sliding into the clear plastic of the astrodome. his nose jammed into the plastic, but he didn't even wince, because he saw the connie cruiser's steering tubes buckle under the _aquila's_ sudden shove. and suddenly the picture was clear. the two federation cruisers hadn't cared about getting into the connie ship. they had only wanted an excuse to tie up to it so they could do what had just been done. they had sheared off the enemy's steering tubes, first at the stern, then at the bow, leaving him helpless, able to go only forward or back in the direction in which he happened to be pointing! macfife had a broad grin on his face. as rip started to speak, he held up his hand and pointed at a wall speaker. the connie commander came on the circuit. he screamed, "you planned that! you--you--" galliene's voice spoke soothingly. "but my dear commander! how can i apologize? believe me, the man responsible will be reward--i mean, the man responsible will be disciplined. you may rest assured of it. how unfortunate! i am overcome with shame." macfife picked up a microphone. "same here, connie. a terrible accident. aye, the man who did it will hear from me." "it was no accident," the connie screamed. "ah," galliene replied, "but you cannot prove otherwise. commander, do you realize what this means? you are helpless. interplanetary law says that a helpless space ship must be salvaged and taken in tow by the nearest cruiser, no matter what its nationality. we will do this jointly, the _aquila_ and the _sagittarius_. we will take turns towing you, my friend. we will haul you to terra--like any other piece of space junk." macfife could remain quiet no longer. "yes, mister. and that's no' the end o' it. we will collect the salvage fee. one half the value of the salvaged vessel. aye! my men will like that, since we share and share alike on salvage. now, put out a cable from your nose tube. i'll take ye in tow first." he cut the communicator off and met rip's grin. the two spacemen had figured out the one way to repay the connie for his attempts on the asteroid. they couldn't fire on him, but they could fake an accident that would cripple him and cost consops millions of dollars in salvage fees. nor would consops refuse to pay. salvage law was clear. whoever performed the salvage was not required to turn the ship back to its owners until the fee had been paid. and there was another angle. the cruisers would tow the connie into the federation spaceport in new mexico. if past experience was any indication, the connie would lose about half its crew, perhaps more. they would claim sanctuary in the federation. rip shook hands solemnly with the grinning scotchman. it would be a long time before consops tried piracy again. "we'll be back at our family fight again tomorrow," macfife said, "but today we celebrate together. ah, lad, this is pure joy to me. i've had a score to settle with yon connies for years. now i've done it." he put an arm around rip's shoulders. "while i'm in a givin' mood, which is not the way of us scots, is there anything ye'd like?" rip could think of only one thing. "a hot shower. for me and my men. and will you take the prisoners off our hands?" "yes to both. anything else?" "we'll need some rocket fuel. terra says we have to correct course. also, we'll need a nuclear charge to throw us into a braking ellipse. and we need a new landing boat. the sun baked the equipment out of ours." macfife nodded. "so be it. i'll send men to the asteroid to bring back the prisoners and your planeteers." he smiled. "we'll let yon rock go by itself while hot showers and a good meal are had by all. ye've earned it, lad." rip started to thank the scot, but his stomach suddenly turned over, and black dizziness flooded in on him. he heard macfife's sudden exclamation, felt hands on him. white light blinded him. he shook his head and tried to keep his stomach from acting up. a voice asked, "were you shielded from those nuclear blasts?" "no," he said past a constricted throat. "not from the last. we got some prompt radiation." "when was that? the exact time?" rip tried to remember. he felt horrible. "it was twenty-three-oh-five." "bad," the voice said. "he must have taken enough roentgens of gamma and neutrons to reach or exceed the median-lethal dose." rip found his voice again. "santos," he said urgently. "on the asteroid. he got it, too. the rest were shielded." macfife snapped orders. the ball-bat would have santos in the ship within minutes. being sick in a space suit was about the most unpleasant thing that could happen. a hypospray tingled against rip's arm. the drug penetrated, caught a quick lift to all parts of his body through the bloodstream. consciousness slid away. chapter nineteen spacefall rip was never more eloquent. he argued, he begged, and he wheedled. the _aquila's_ chief physician listened with polite interest, but he shook his head. "lieutenant, you simply are not aware of the close call you've had. another two hours without treatment, and we might not have been able to save you." "i appreciate that," rip assured him. "but i'm fine now, sir." "you are not fine. you are anything but fine. we've loaded you with antibiotics and blood cell regenerator, and we've given you a total transfusion. you feel fine, but you're not." the doctor looked at rip's red hair. "that's a fine thatch of hair you have. in a week or two it will be gone, and you'll have no more hair than an egg. a well person doesn't lose hair. your head will shine like a space helmet." the ship's radiation safety officer had put both rip's and santos' dosimeters into his measuring equipment. they had taken over a hundred roentgens of hard radiation above the tolerance limit. this was the result of being caught unshielded when the last nuclear charge went off. "sir," rip pleaded, "you can load us with suppressives. it's only a few days more before we reach terra. you can keep us going until then. we'll both turn in for full treatment as soon as we get to the space platform. but we have to finish the job; can't you see that, sir?" the doctor shook his head. "you're a fool, even for a planeteer. before you get over this, you'll be sicker than you've ever been. you have a month in bed waiting for you. if i let you go back to the asteroid, i'll only be delaying the time when you start full treatment." "but the delay won't hurt if you inject us with suppressives, will it?" rip asked quickly. "don't they keep the sickness checked?" "yes, for a maximum of about ten days. then they no longer have sufficient effect, and you come down with it." "but it won't take ten days," rip pointed out. "it will only take a couple, and it won't hurt us." macfife had arrived to hear the last exchange. he nodded sympathetically. "doctor, i can appreciate how the lad feels. he started something, and he wants to finish it. if y'can let him, safely, i think ye should." the doctor shrugged. "i can let him. there's a nine to one chance it will do him no harm. but the one chance is what i don't like." "i'll know it if the suppressives start to wear off, won't i?" rip asked. "you certainly will. you'll get weaker rapidly." "how rapidly?" "perhaps six hours. perhaps more." rip nodded. "that's what i thought. doctor, we're less than six hours from terra by ship. if the stuff wears off, we can be in the hospital within a couple of hours. once we go into a braking ellipse, we can reach a hospital in less than an hour by snapper-boat." "let him go," macfife said. the doctor wasn't happy about it, but he had run out of arguments. "all right, commander--if you'll assume responsibility for getting him off the asteroid and into a terra or space platform hospital in time." "i'll do that," macfife assured him. "now get your hyposprays and fill him full of that stuff you use. the corporal, too." "sergeant," rip corrected. his first action on getting back to the asteroid would be to recommend santos' promotion to terra base. he intended to recommend kemp for corporal, too. he was sure the planeteers at terra would make the promotions. the two federation cruisers were still holding course along with the asteroid, the connie cruiser between them. within an hour, rip and santos, both in false good health, thanks to medical magic, were on their way back to the asteroid in a ball-bat boat. the remaining time passed quickly. the sun receded. the planeteers corrected course. rip sent in his recommendations for promotions and looked over the last nuclear crater to see why the blast had started the asteroid spinning. the reason could only be guessed. the blast probably had opened a fault in the crystal, allowing the explosion to escape partially in the wrong direction. once the course was corrected, rip calculated the position for the final nuclear charge. when the asteroid reached the correct position relative to earth, the charge would not change its course but only slow its speed somewhat. the asteroid would go around earth in a series of ever tightening ellipses, using terra's gravity, plus rocket fuel, to slow it down to orbital speed. when it reached the proper position, tubes of rocket fuel would change the course again, putting it into an orbit around earth, close to the space platform. it wasn't practical to take the thorium rock in for a landing. they would lose control, and the asteroid would flame to earth like the greatest meteor ever to hit the planet. putting the asteroid into orbit around earth was actually the most delicate part of the whole trip, but rip wasn't worried. he had the facilities of terra base within easy reach by communicator. he dictated his data and let them do the mathematics on the giant electronic computers. he and his men rode the gray planet past the moon, so close they could almost see the planeteer lunar base, circled terra in a series of ellipses, and finally blasted the asteroid into its final orbit within sight of the space platform. landing craft and snapper-boats swarmed to meet them, and within an hour after their arrival the planeteers were surrounded by spacemen, cadets from the platform, and officers and men wearing planeteer black. a cadet approached rip and looked at him with awe. "sir, i don't know how you ever did it!" and rip, his eyes on the great curve of earth, answered casually, "there's one thing every space chick has to learn if he's going to be a planeteer. there's always a way to do anything. to be a planeteer, you have to be able to figure out the way." a new voice said, "now, that's real wisdom!" rip turned quickly and looked through a helmet at the grinning face of maj. joe barris. barris spoke as though to himself, but rip turned red as his hair. "funny how fast a man ages in space," the planeteer major remarked. "take foster. a few weeks ago he was just a cadet, a raw recruit who had never met high vack. now he's talking like the grandfather of all space. i don't know how the special order squadrons ever got along before he became an officer." rip had been feeling a little too proud of himself. "it's good to get back," rip said. chapter twenty on the platform there were two things rip could see from his hospital bed on the space platform. one was the great curve of earth. he was anxious to get out of the hospital and back to terra. the second thing was the asteroid. spacemen were at work on it, slowly cutting it to pieces. the pieces were small enough to be carried back to earth in supply rockets. it would be a long time before the asteroid was completely cut up and transported to terra base. sergeant major koa came into the hospital ward and sat on rip's bed. the plastifoam mattress compressed under his weight. "how are you feeling, sir?" "pretty good," rip replied. the worst of the radiation sickness was over, and he was mending fast. here and there were little bloodstains, just below the surface of his skin, and he had no more hair than a plastic ball. otherwise he looked normal. the stains would go away, and his hair would grow back in a few weeks. santos, now officially a sergeant, was in the same condition. the rest of rip's planeteers had resumed duties on the space platform. he saw them frequently, because they made a point of dropping in whenever they were near the hospital area. koa looked out at the asteroid. "i sort of hate to see that rock cut up. there isn't much about a chunk of thorium to get sentimental over, but after fighting for it the way we did, it doesn't seem right to cut it into blocks." "i know how you feel," rip admitted, "but, after all, that's what we brought it back for." he studied koa's dark face. the sergeant major had something on his mind. "got vack worms chewing at you?" he asked. vack worms were a spaceman's equivalent of "the blues." "not exactly, sir. i happened to overhear the doctor talking today. you're due for a leave in a week." "that's good news!" rip exclaimed. "you're not unhappy about it, are you?" koa shrugged. "we were all hoping we'd be together on our next assignment. the gang liked serving under you. but we're overdue for shipment to somewhere, and if you take eight weeks' leave, we'll be gone by the time you come back to the platform." "i liked serving with all of you, too," rip replied. "i watched the way you all behaved when the space flap was getting tough, and it made me proud to be a planeteer." maj. joe barris came in. he was carrying an envelope in his hand. "hello, rip. how are you, koa? am i interrupting a private talk?" "no, major," koa replied. "we're just passing the time. want me to leave?" "stay here," barris said. "this concerns you, too. i've been reassigned. my eight years on the platform are up, and that's all an instructor gets. now i'm off for space on another job." rip knew that instructors were assigned for eight-year periods. and he knew that the major's specialty was the planeteer science of exploration, a specialty which required him to be an expert in biology, zoology, anthropology, navigation and astrogation, and land fighting--not to mention a half dozen lesser things. only ten planeteers rated expert in exploration, and all were captains or majors. "where are you going?" rip asked. "off to explore something?" "that's it." major barris smiled. "remember once i said that when they gave me the job of cleaning up the goopies on ganymede, i'd ask for you as a platoon leader?" rip stared. "don't tell me that's your assignment!" "almost. tell me, would you recommend any more of your men for promotion? i'll need a new sergeant and two more corporals." rip thought it over. "koa can check me on this. i'd suggest making pederson a sergeant and dowst and dominico corporals. kemp and santos already have promotions." "that would be my choice, too," koa agreed. "fine." barris tapped the envelope. "i'll correct the orders in here and recommend the promotions. we'll get sixteen new recruits from the graduating class at luna, and that will complete the platoon i'm supposed to organize. two full platoons are waiting, and the new platoon will give me a full-strength squadron, except for new officers. how about flip villa for a platoon commander, rip?" rip knew the mexican officer was among the best of his own graduating class. "i have to admit prejudice," he warned. "flip is a pal of mine. but i don't think you could do better." his curiosity got the better of him, and he asked "can you tell me what this is all about?" joe barris reached over and rubbed rip's bald head. "by the time fur grows back on that irradiated dome of yours, i'll be on my way with koa, pederson, and the new recruits. santos and the rest of your crew will report to terra base. flip villa will join them there. you'll be on earth leave for eight weeks, but it will take about that much time for flip and the men to assemble the supplies and equipment we'll need." he pulled a sheaf of papers out of the envelope. "koa, here are orders for you and your men. they say you're to report to special order squadron seven, on ganymede. sos seven is a new squadron, the first one organized exclusively for exploration duties, and i'm its commanding officer. koa, you'll be my senior noncommissioned officer. i want you and pederson with me, because you can organize the new recruits en route. they have a lot more to learn from you than they got in their two years of training. you'll make real planeteers out of 'em." he picked a paper from the sheaf and waived it at rip. "this is for you, lieutenant foster." he read, "foster, r. i. p., lieutenant, sos. serial seven-nine-four-three. authorized eight weeks' leave upon discharge from hospital. upon completion of leave, subject officer will report to terra base for transportation to sos seven on ganymede." joe barris handed rip his new orders. "you'll be on the same ship with flip villa and your men. flip will be another of my platoon leaders. i'll be waiting for you on ganymede. the moons of jupiter are going to be our home for quite a while, rip. our first assignment is to explore callisto from pole to pole." rip didn't know what to say. to serve under barris, to have his own men in a regular squadron platoon, to have flip villa in the same outfit, and to be assigned to exploration duty--dirtiest but most exciting of all planeteer jobs--was just too much. he couldn't say anything. he could only grin. maj. joe barris looked at rip's shiny head and chuckled. "from what i hear of callisto, we're in for a rough time. your hair will probably grow back just in time to turn gray!" the gravity business by james e. gunn illustrated by ashman [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from galaxy january . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] _this little alien beggar could dictate his own terms, but how could he--and how could anyone find out what those terms might be?_ the flivver descended vertically toward the green planet circling the old, orange sun. it was a spaceship, but not the kind men had once dreamed about. the flivver was shaped like a crude bullet, blunt at one end of a fat cylinder and tapering abruptly to a point at the other. it had been slapped together out of sheet metal and insulation board, and it sold, fully equipped, for $ , . it didn't behave like a spaceship, either. as it hurtled down, its speed increased with dramatic swiftness. then, at the last instant before impact, it stopped. just like that. a moment later, it thumped a last few inches into the ankle-deep grass and knee-high white flowers of the meadow. it was a shock of a jar that made the sheet-metal walls boom like thunder machines. the flivver rocked unsteadily on its flat stern before it decided to stay upright. then all was quiet--outside. inside the big, central cabin, grampa waved his pircuit irately in the air. "now look what you made me do! just when i had the blamed thing practically whipped, too!" grampa was a white-haired -year-old who could still go a fast round or two with a man (or woman) half his age, but he had a habit of lapsing into tantrum when he got annoyed. "now, grampa," fred soothed, but his face was concerned. fred, once called young fred, was grampa's only son. he was sixty and his hair had begun to gray at the temples. "that landing was pretty rough, junior." * * * * * junior was fred's only son. because he was thirty-five and capable of exercising adult judgment and because he had the youngest adult reflexes, he sat in the pilot's chair, the control stick between his knees, his thumb still over the off-on button on top. "i know it, fred," he said, frowning. "this world fooled me. it has a diameter less than that of mercury and yet a gravitational pull as great as earth." grampa started to say something, but an -year-old boy looked up from the navigator's table beside the big computer and said, "well, gosh, junior, that's why we picked this planet. we fed all the orbital data into abacus, and abacus said that orbital perturbations indicated that the second planet was unusually heavy for its size. then fred said, 'that looks like heavy metals', and you said, 'maybe uranium--'" "that's enough, four," junior interrupted. "never mind what i said." those were the peppergrass men, four generations of them, looking remarkably alike, although some vital element seemed to have dwindled until four looked pale and thin-faced and wizened. "and, four," reba said automatically, "don't call your father 'junior.' it sounds disrespectful." reba was four's mother and junior's wife. on her own, she was a red-haired beauty with the loveliest figure this side of antares. that junior had won her was, to grampa, the most hopeful thing he had ever noticed about the boy. "but everybody calls junior 'junior,'" four complained. "besides, fred is junior's father and junior calls him 'fred.'" "that's different," reba said. grampa was still waving his puzzle circuit indignantly. "see!" the pircuit was a flat box equipped with pushbuttons and thirteen slender openings in the top. one of the openings was lighted. "that landing made me push the wrong button and the dad-blasted thing beat me again." "stop picking on junior," joyce said sharply. she was junior's mother and fred's wife, still slim and handsome as she approached sixty, but somehow ice water had replaced the warm blood in her veins. "i'm sure he did the best he could." "anybody talks about gravitational pull," grampa said, snorting, "deserves anything anybody could say about him. there's no such thing, junior. you ought to know by now that gravitation is the effect of the curving of space-time around matter. einstein proved that two hundred years ago." "go back to your games, grampa," fred said impatiently. "we've got work to do." * * * * * grampa knitted his bushy, white eyebrows and petulantly pushed the last button on his pircuit. the last light went out. "you've got work to do, have you? whose flivver do you think this is, anyhow?" "it belongs to all of us," four said shrilly. "you gave us all a sixth share." "that's right, four," grampa muttered, "so i did. but whose money bought it?" "you bought it, grampa," fred said. "that's right! and who invented the gravity polarizer and the space flivver? eh? who made possible this gallivanting all over space?" "you, grampa," fred said. "you bet! and who made one hundred million dollars out of it that the rest of you vultures are just hanging around to gobble up when i die?" "and who spent it all trying to invent perpetual motion machines and longevity pills," joyce said bitterly, "and fixed it so we'd have to go searching for uranium and habitable worlds all through this deadly galaxy? you, grampa!" "well, now," grampa protested, "i got a little put away yet. you'll be sorry when i'm dead and gone." "you're never going to die, grampa," joyce said harshly. "just before we left, you bought a hundred-year contract with that life-begins-at-ninety longevity company." "well, now," said grampa, blinking, "how'd you find out about that? well, now!" in confusion, he turned back to the pircuit and jabbed a button. thirteen slim lights sprang on. "i'll get you this time!" four stretched and stood up. he looked curiously into the corner by the computer where grampa's chair stood. "you brought that pircuit from earth, didn't you? what's the game?" grampa looked up, obviously relieved to drop his act of intense concentration. "i'll tell you, boy. you play against the pircuit, taking turns, and you can put out one, two or three lights. the player who makes the other one turn out the last light is the winner." "that's simple," four said without hesitation. "the winning strategy is to--" "don't be a kibitzer!" grampa snapped. "when i need help, i'll ask for it. no dad-blamed machine is gonna outthink grampa!" he snorted indignantly. * * * * * four shrugged his narrow shoulders and wandered to the view screen. within it was the green horizon, curving noticeably. four angled the picture in toward the ship, sweeping through green, peaceful woodland and plain and blue lake until he stared down into the meadow at the flivver's stern. "look!" he said suddenly. "this planet not only has flora--it has fauna." he rushed to the air lock. "four!" reba called out warningly. "it's all right, reba," four assured her. "the air is within one per cent of earth-normal and the bio-analyzer can find no micro-organisms viable within the terran spectrum." "what about macro-organisms--" reba began, but the boy was gone already. reba's face was troubled. "that boy!" she said to junior. "sometimes i think we've made a terrible mistake with him. he should have friends, play-mates. he's more like a little old man than a boy." but junior nodded meaningfully at fred and disappeared into the chart room. fred followed casually. then, as the door slid shut behind him, he asked impatiently. "well, what's all the mystery?" "no use bothering the others yet," junior said, his face puzzled. "you see, i didn't let the flivver drop those last few inches. the polarizer quit." "quit!" "that's not the worst. i tried to take it up again. the flivver--it won't budge!" * * * * * the thing was a featureless blob, a two-foot sphere of raspberry gelatin, but it was alive. it rocked back and forth in front of four. it opened a raspberry-color pseudo-mouth and said plaintively, "fweep? fweep?" joyce drew her chair farther back toward the wall, revulsion on her face. "four! get that nasty thing out of here!" "you mean fweep?" four asked in astonishment. "i mean that thing, whatever you call it." joyce fluttered her hand impatiently. "get it out!" four's eyes widened farther. "but fweep's my friend." "nonsense!" joyce said sharply. "earthmen don't make friends with aliens. and that's nothing but a--a blob!" "fweep?" queried the raspberry lips. "fweep?" "if it's four's friend," reba said firmly, "it can stay. if you don't like to be around it, grammy, you can always go to your own room." joyce stood up indignantly. "well! and don't call me 'grammy!' it makes me sound as old as that old goat over there!" she glared malignantly at grampa. "if you'd rather have that blob than me--well!" she swept grandly out of the central cabin and into one of the private rooms that opened out from it. "fweep?" asked the blob. "sure," four said. "go ahead, fweep--i mean sweep." swiftly the sphere rolled across the floor. behind it was left a narrow path of sparkling clean tile. grampa glanced warily at joyce's door to make sure it was completely closed and then cocked a white eyebrow at reba. "good for you, reba!" he said admiringly. "for forty years now, i've wanted to do that. never had the nerve." "why, thanks, grampa," reba said, surprised. "i like you, gal. never forget it." "i like you, too, grampa. if you'd been a few years younger, junior would have had competition!" "you bet he would!" grampa leaned back and cackled. then he leaned over confidentially toward reba and whispered, "beats me why you ever married a jerk like junior, anyhow." reba looked thoughtfully toward the airlock door. "maybe i saw something in him nobody else saw, the man he might become. he's been submerged in this family too long; he's still a child to all of you and to himself, too." reba smiled at grampa brilliantly. "and maybe i thought he might grow into a man like his grandfather." * * * * * grampa turned red and looked quickly toward four. the boy was staring intently at fweep. "what you doing, four?" "trying to figure out what fweep does with the sweepings," four said absently. "the outer inch or two of his body gets cloudy and then slowly clears. i think i'll try him with a bigger particle." "that's the idea, four. you'll be a peppergrass yet. how about building me a pircuit?" "you get the other one figured out?" "it was easy," grampa said breezily, "once you understood the principle. the player who moved second could always win if he used the right strategy. dividing the thirteen lights into three sections of four each--" "that's right," four agreed. "i can make you a new one by cannibalizing the other pircuit, but i'll need a few extra parts." grampa pushed the wall beside his chair and a drawer slid out of it. inside were row after row of nipple-topped, flat-sided, flexible free-fall bottles and a battered cigar box. "thought you'd say that," he said, picking out the box. "help yourself." with the other hand, he lifted out one of the bottles and took a long drag on it. "ahhh!" he sighed, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and carefully put the bottle away. "what is that stuff you drink, grampa?" four asked. "tonic, boy. keeps me young and frisky. now about that pircuit--" "did you ever work on niccolò tartaglia's puzzle about the three lovely brides, the three jealous husbands, the river and the two-passenger rowboat?" "yep," grampa said. "too easy." four thought a moment. "there's a modern variation with three missionaries and three cannibals. same river, same rowboat and only one of the cannibals can row. if the cannibals outnumber the missionaries--" "sounds good, boy," grampa said eagerly. "whip it up for me." "okay, grampa." four looked at fweep again. the translucent sphere had paused at grampa's feet. grampa reached down to pat it. for an instant, his hand disappeared into fweep, and then the alien creature rolled away. this time its path seemed crooked. its gelatinous form jiggled. "hic!" it said. * * * * * as if in response, the flivver vibrated. grampa looked querulously toward the airlock. "flivver shouldn't shake like that. not with the polarizer turned on." the airlock door swung inward. through the oval doorway walked fred, followed closely by junior. they were sweat-stained and weary, scintillation counters dangling heavily from their belts. "any luck?" reba asked brightly. "do we look it?" junior grumbled. "where's joyce?" asked fred. "might as well get everybody in on this at once. joyce!" the door to his wife's room opened instantly. behind it, joyce was regal and slim. the pose was spoiled immediately by her avid question: "any uranium? radium? thorium?" "no," fred said slowly, "and no other heavy metals, either. there's a few low-grade iron deposits and that's it." "then what makes this planet so heavy?" reba asked. junior shrugged helplessly and collapsed into a chair. "your guess is as good as anybody's." "then we've wasted another week on a worthless rock," joyce complained. she turned savagely on fred. "this was going to make us all filthy rich. we were going to find radioactives and retire to earth like billionaires. and all we've done is spent a year of our lives in this cramped old flivver--and we don't have many of them to spare!" she glared venomously at grampa. "we've still got fweepland," four said solemnly. "fweepland?" reba repeated. "this planet. it's not big, but it's fertile and it's harmless. as real estate, it's worth almost as much as if it were solid uranium." "a good thing, too," junior said glumly, "because this looks like the end of our search. short of a miracle, we'll spend the rest of our lives right here--involuntary colonists." joyce spun on him. "you're joking!" she screeched. "i wish i were," junior said. "but the polarizer won't work. either it's broken or there's something about the gravity around here that just won't polarize." "it's these ' models," grampa put in disgustedly. "they never were any good." * * * * * the land of the fweep turned slowly on its axis. the orange sun set and rose again and stared down once more at the meadow where the improbable spaceship rested on its improbable stern. the sixteen earth hours that the rotation had taken had changed nothing inside the ship, either. grampa looked up from his pircuit and said, "if i were you, junior, i would take a good look at the tv repairman when we get back to earth. _if_ we get back to earth," he amended. "you can't be four's father. all over the universe, gravity is the same, and if it's gravity, the polarizer will polarize it." "that's just supposition," junior said stubbornly. "the fact is, it isn't because it doesn't. q.e.d." "maybe the polarizer is broken," fred suggested. grampa snorted. "broken-shmoken. nothing to break, young fred. just a few coils of copper wire and they're all right. we checked. we know the power plant is working: the lights are on, the air and water recirculation systems are going, the food resynthesizer is okay. and, anyway, the polarizer could work from the storage battery if it had to." "then it goes deeper," junior insisted. "it goes right to the principle of polarization itself. for some reason, it doesn't work here. why? before we can discover the answer to that, we'll have to know more about polarization itself. how does it work, grampa?" grampa gave him a sarcastic grin. "now you're curious, eh? couldn't be bothered with grampa's invention before. oh, no! too busy. accept without question the blessings that the good lord provideth--" "let's not get up on any pulpits," fred growled. "come on, grampa, what's the theory behind polarization?" grampa looked at the four faces staring at him hopefully and the jeering grin turned to a smile. "well," he said, "at last. you know how light is polarized, eh?" the smile faded. "no, i guess you don't." * * * * * he cleared his throat professorially. "well, now, in ordinary light the vibrations are perpendicular to the ray in all directions. when light is polarized by passing through crystals or by reflection or refraction at non-metallic surfaces, the paths of the vibrations are still perpendicular to the ray, but they're in straight lines, circles or ellipses." the faces were still blank and unillumined. "gravity is similar to light," he pressed on. "in the absence of matter, gravity is non-polarized. matter polarizes gravity in a circle around itself. that's how we've always known it until the invention of spaceships and later the polarizer. the polarizer polarizes gravity into a straight line. that makes the ship take off and continue accelerating until the polarizer is shut off or its angle is shifted." the faces looked at him silently. finally joyce could endure it no longer. "that's just nonsense! you all know it. grampa's no genius. he's just a tinkerer. one day he happened to tinker out the polarizer. he doesn't know how it works any more than i do." "now wait a minute!" grampa protested. "that's not fair. maybe i didn't figure out the theory myself, but i read everything the scientists ever wrote about it. wanted to know myself what made the blamed thing work. what i told you is what the scientists said, near as i remember. now me--i'm like edison. i do it and let everybody else worry over 'why.'" "the only thing you ever did was the polarizer," joyce snapped. "and then you spent everything you got from it on those fool perpetual-motion machines and those crazy longevity schemes when any moron would know they were impossible." grampa squinted at her sagely. "that's what they said about the gravity polarizer before i invented it." "but you don't really know why it works," junior persisted. "well, no," grampa admitted. "actually i was just fiddling around with some coils when one of them took off. went right through the ceiling, dragging a battery behind it. i guess it's still going. ought to be out near the horsehead nebula by now. luckily, i remembered how i'd wound it." "why won't the ship work then, if you know so much?" joyce demanded ironically. "well, now," grampa said in bafflement, "it rightly should, you know." * * * * * "we're stuck," reba said softly. "we might as well admit it. all we can do is set the transmitter to send out an automatic distress call--" "which," joyce interrupted, "might get picked up in a few centuries." "and make the best of what we've got," reba went on, unheeding. "if we look at it the right way, it's quite a lot. a beautiful, fertile world. earth gravity. the flivver--even if the polarizer won't work, there's the resynthesizer; it will keep us in food and clothes for years. by then, we should have a good-sized community built up, because out here we won't have to stop with one child. we can have all the babies we want." "you know the law: one child per couple," joyce reminded her frigidly. "you can condemn yourself to exile from civilization if you wish. not me." junior frowned at his wife. "i believe you're actually glad it happened." "i could think of worse things," reba said. "i like your spunk, reb," grampa muttered. "speaking of children," junior said, "where's four?" "here." four came through the airlock and trudged across the room, carrying a curious contraption made of tripod legs supporting a small box from which dangled a plumb bob. behind four, like a round, raspberry shadow, rolled fweep. "fweep?" it queried hopefully. "not now," said four. "where've you been?" reba asked anxiously. "what've you been doing?" "i've been all over fweepland," four said wearily, "trying to locate its center of gravity." "well?" fred prompted. "it shifts." "that's impossible," said junior. "not for fweep," four replied. "what do you mean by that?" joyce suspiciously asked. "it shifted," four explained patiently, "because fweep kept following me." "fweep?" junior repeated stupidly. "fweep?" fweep said eagerly. "he's why the flivver won't work. what grampa invented was a linear polarizer. fweep is a circular polarizer. he's what makes this planet so heavy. he's why we can't leave." * * * * * the land of the fweep rotated once on its axis, and grampa lowered the nippled bottle from his lips. he sighed. "i got it figured out, four," he said, holding out the pircuit proudly. "a missionary takes over a non-rowing type cannibal, leaves him there, and then the rowing cannibal takes over the other cannibal and leaves him there and--" "not now, grampa," four said inattentively as he watched fweep making the grand tour of the cabin. the raspberry sphere swept over a scattering of crumbs, engulfed them, absorbed them. four looked at joyce. joyce was watching fweep, too. "rat poison?" four asked. joyce started guiltily. "how did you know?" "there's no use trying to poison fweep," four said calmly. "he's got no enzymes to act on, no nervous system to paralyze. he doesn't even use what he 'eats' on a molecular level at all." "what level does he use?" junior wanted to know. "point the scintillation counter at him." junior dug one of the counters out of the supply cabinet and aimed the pickup at fweep. the counter began to hum. as fweep approached, the hum rose in pitch. as it passed, the hum dropped. junior looked at the counter's dial. "he's radioactive, all right. not much, but enough. but where does he get the radioactive material?" "he uses ordinary matter," four said. "he must have used up the few deposits of natural radioactives a long time ago." "he uses ordinary substances on an atomic level?" junior said unbelievingly. four nodded. "and that 'skin' of his--whatever it is he uses for skin--is more efficient in stopping particle emissions than several feet of lead." fred studied fweep thoughtfully. "maybe we could feed him enough enriched uranium from the pile to put him over the critical mass." "and blow him up? i don't think it's possible, but even if it were, it might be a trifle more than disastrous for us." four giggled at the thought. * * * * * joyce glared at him furiously. "four! act your age! we've got to do something with him. it's preposterous that we should be detained here at the whim of a mere blob!" "i don't figure it's a whim," grampa said. "circular gravity is what he's got to have for one reason or another, so he just naturally bends the space-time continuum around him--conscious or subconscious, i don't know. but protoplasm is always more efficient than machines, so the flivver won't move." "i don't care why that thing does it," joyce said icily. "i want it stopped, and the sooner the better. if it won't turn the gravity off, we'll just have to do away with it." "how?" asked four. "fweep's skin is pretty close to impervious and you can't shoot him, stab him or poison him. he doesn't breathe, so you can't drown or strangle him. you can't imprison him; he 'eats' everything. and violence might be more dangerous to us than to him. right now, fweep is friendly, but suppose he got mad! he could lower his radioactive shield or he might increase the gravity by a few times. either way, you'd feel rather uncomfortable, grammy." "don't call me 'grammy!' well, what are we going to do, just sit around and wait for that thing to die?" "we'd have a long wait," four observed. "fweep is the only one of his kind on this planet." "well?" "probably he's immortal." "and he doesn't reproduce?" reba asked sympathetically. "probably not. if he doesn't die, there's no point in reproduction. reproduction is nature's way of providing racial immortality to mortal creatures." "but he must have some way of reproduction," reba argued. "an egg or something. he couldn't just have sprung into being as he is now." "maybe he developed," four offered. "it seems to me that he's bigger than when we first landed." "he must have been here a long, long time," fred said. "fweepland, as four calls it, kept its atmosphere and its water, which a planet this size ordinarily would have lost by now." * * * * * reba looked at fweep kindly. "we can thank the little fellow for that, anyway." "i thank him for nothing," joyce snapped. "he lured us down here by making us think the planet had heavy metals and i want him to let us go _immediately_!" fred turned impatiently on his wife. "well, try making him understand! and if you can make him understand what you want him to do, try making him do it!" joyce looked at fred with startled eyes. "fred!" she said in a high, shocked voice and turned blindly toward her room. grampa lowered his bottle and smacked his lips. "well, boy," he said to fred, "i thought you'd never do that. didn't think you had it in you." fred stood up apologetically. "i'd better go calm her down," he muttered, and walked quickly after joyce. "give her one for me!" grampa called. fred's shoulders twitched as the door closed behind him. from the room came the filtered sound of high-pitched voices rising and falling like some reedy folk music. "makes you think, doesn't it?" grampa said, looking at fweep benignly. "maybe the whole theory of gravitation is cockeyed. maybe there's a fweep for every planet and sun, big and little, polarizing the gravity in circles, and the matter business is not a cause but a result." "what i can't understand," junior said thoughtfully, "is why the polarizer worked for a little while when we landed--long enough to keep us from being squashed--and then quit." "fweep didn't recognize it immediately, didn't know what it was or where it came from," four explained. "all he knew was he didn't like linear polarization and he neutralized it as soon as he could. that's when we dropped." * * * * * "linear polarization is uncomfortable for him, is it?" grampa said. "makes you wonder how something like fweep could ever develop." "he's no more improbable than people," said four. "less than some i've known," grampa conceded. "if he can eat anything," reba said, "why does he keep sweeping the cabin for dust and lint?" "he wants to be helpful," four replied without hesitation, "and he's lonely. after all," he added wistfully, "he's never had any friends." "how do you know all these things?" joyce asked from her doorway, excitement in her voice. "can you talk to it?" behind her, fred said, "now, joyce, you promised--" "but this is important," joyce cut him off eagerly. "can you? talk to it, i mean?" "some," four admitted. "have you asked it to let us go?" "yes." "well? what did it say?" "he said he didn't want his friend to leave him." at the word, fweep rolled swiftly across the floor and bounced into four's lap. it nestled against him lovingly and opened raspberry lips. "fwiend," it said. "well, now," grampa said maliciously, his eye on joyce, "that's no problem. we can just leave four here with fweep." in a voice filled with sanctimonious concern, joyce said, "that's quite a sacrifice to ask, but--" "joyce!" reba cried, horrified. "grampa was joking, but you actually mean it. four is only a baby and yet you'd let him--" "never mind, reba," four said evenly. "it was just what i was going to suggest myself. it's the one really logical solution." "fwiend," said fweep gently. * * * * * the land of the fweep turned like a fat old man toasting himself in front of an open fire, and junior sat at the computer's keyboard swearing in a steady monotone. "junior!" said joyce, shocked. junior swung around impatiently. "sorry, mother, but this damned thing won't work." "i'm sure that calling it names won't help, and besides, you shouldn't expect a machine to do something that we can't do. and if it did work, it would only say that the logical answer is the one i sug--" "mother!" junior warned. "we decided not to talk about it any more. four is strange enough without encouraging him to think like a martyr. it's out of the question. if that's the only way we can leave this planet, we'll stay here until four has a beard as white as grampa's!" "well!" joyce said in a stiff, offended tone and sat back in her chair. grampa lowered the nippled bottle from his lips and chortled. "junior, i apologize for all the mean things i ever said about you. maybe you got the makings of a peppergrass yet." junior turned back to the keyboard and studied it, his chin in his hand. "it's just a matter of stating the problem in terms the computer can work on." "i take it all back," said grampa. "that computer won't help you with this problem, junior. this ain't a long, complicated calculation; it's a simple problem in logic. it's a pircuit problem, like the one about the cannibals and the missionaries. we can't leave fweepland because fweep won't let our polarizer work. he won't let our polarizer work because he doesn't like gravity that's polarized in a straight line, and he don't want four to leave him. "now fweep ain't the brightest creature in the universe, so he can't understand why we're so gosh-fired eager to leave. and as long as he's got four, he's happy. why should he make himself unhappy? as a favor to four, he'd let us leave--if we'd leave four here with him, which we ain't gonna do. "that's the problem. all we got to do is figure out the answer. no use making a pircuit, because a puzzle circuit is just a miniature computer with the solution built in; if you can build the pircuit, you've already solved the problem. and if you can state the problem to abacus, you've already got the answer. all you want from it then is decimal points." "that may be," junior said stubbornly, "but i still want to know why this computer won't work. it won't even do simple arithmetic! where's four? he's the only one who understands this thing." "he's outside, playing in the meadow with fweep," reba said, her voice soft. "no, here they come now." * * * * * through the airlock came four, carrying fweep on his shoulder like a raspberry cat without head or tail. four's thin face glowed with exertion and glistened with sweat. already the orange sun had begun to paint his skin tan. "we've been playing dodge ball," four panted. "fweep was the ball and i had to dodge him." "there's something wrong with this computer," junior complained. "take a look at it." "sure, daddy," four said promptly, and he took his father's place at the keyboard. after a few moments, he began to frown, then detached a front panel. he started sorting through the maze of wires and electronic components. grampa watched him with a wary eye. joyce was unable to restrain herself any longer. "the way you people talk, a person would think we were never going to leave this godforsaken, miserable, uncivilized planet." "that seems to be the general idea," grampa chuckled, enjoying her dismay. "unless we can build a reaction rocket ship to push us out of fweep's range," fred said glumly. "we've got the iron ore!" junior put in eagerly. grampa snorted. "come on, use your brains. you'd have to build a ship; these flivvers weren't built for the stresses of reaction flight. by the time you've solved all the problems of motors and alloys and rocket-tube linings, fuel, ship construction, personnel protection, and all the rest of it, this planet would be another detroit and your great-great-great-grandchildren would be living in it. you couldn't build a blast furnace even if you had the complete congressional microfilm library! you'd do better trying to figure out how fweep does what he does and doing some practicing on that." "well," junior said peevishly, "trying to get away is better than sitting here talking about it." reba stared thoughtfully at junior and said, "maybe fweep would go with us." "yes!" joyce said excitedly. "maybe the dear little thing _would_ go with us. that would solve everything!" * * * * * without looking around, four said, "i asked him already. fweep's afraid to come along." "i'm sure we would be very good to him," joyce said swiftly. "i've always liked pets. why, i once had a goldfish of my very own!" "which you let die," fred said dryly, "because you forgot to feed it." "oh, he's not afraid of _people_," four told them. "he's afraid of space and unpolarized gravity and things like that. he's lived here all his life--that's a long time--and it makes him feel awful funny just to think about leaving. he says he can still remember the way our linear gravitation felt inside when we landed." "well," joyce said firmly, "he'll just have to fight it, that's all. if a person let that kind of neurotic impulse rule his life, he'd be completely demoralized in no time." four glanced over his shoulder at joyce, as if to see if she were joking. shaking his head, he returned to the computer's innards. a moment later, he swung around and stared accusingly at grampa. "you've cannibalized abacus!" "well, now," grampa protested, licking his lips nervously. "you see, i--" "that's where you got the parts for the pircuits!" four said with merciless logic. joyce stood up virtuously and shook her finger at grampa. "first you entice us out here in this nasty old flivver; then you get us stuck; and now you've ruined the computer for your nasty old games!" "well, now," grampa blustered, "the goldarn thing wouldn't work, would it? we didn't need it--not with four around. he figures everything out in his head and we just used abacus to sort of check him. ain't that right now?" five pairs of eyes stared at him in silence. "well, now," grampa said defensively, "i got it all worked out anyhow. we can leave here any time we get ready." * * * * * the land of the fweep turned and grew small in the view screen, and junior sat in the pilot's chair, his hand on the control stick, his eyes fixed on the moving dials in front of him. there were three others in the room: reba, who looked at the dwindling fweepland and sighed; joyce, who sat tautly in her chair, her face fixed and unbelieving; and fred, who looked at joyce and shook his head. grampa opened the door to his room and stepped cockily into the central cabin, shutting the door behind him. "well?" he demanded confidently. "are we heading for earth?" junior gestured toward the screen. "if four's coordinates are right." "speaking of coordinates," grampa said briskly, "make sure we got the coordinates of fweepland. it'll take a long time for that atmosphere to dissipate. a nice little world like that is worth its weight in uranium to a good real estate salesman." "how did you do it?" joyce challenged. grampa slapped her familiarly on the shoulder. "a problem of gravity," he said gayly, "but a simple one. nothing for an old pircuit man like me. i guess you folks won't laugh at grampa and his pircuits any more. not only did grampa get you out of fweepland, but he's taking you back with a valuable little subdivision in the third quadrant to file on." "i hate to spoil the party," fred said, "but have you thought about what you're going to do with fweep?" "fweep?" grampa repeated, puzzled. "why should i do anything with fweep?" "we can't take him back to earth with us." "why not?" grampa demanded. "in the first place, the immigration authority would have to pass on him. that might take years, with fweep's powers and abilities. more important, if fweep got loose on earth, every flivver would have the same problem there that we had here. and next time fweep might not be so cooperative. i don't know what you did to fweep in there, but if he's still alive, the i.a. isn't going to take a chance." grampa considered the prospect without dismay. "i wonder if we could smuggle him in. with all those flivvers not working, they'd have to pay us before they could take off." "grampa!" fred said sternly. "that would be blackmail--or worse. besides getting in trouble with the i.a., you'd get it from the w.b.i. and the i.c.c." * * * * * grampa waved his hand impatiently. "we'll solve that problem when we come to it. after all, an old pircuit man like me--" "what _did_ you _do_ to fweep?" joyce repeated insistently. grampa cleared his throat with pride. "well, now, i'll tell you. i just happened to notice that fweep liked my tonic. every time i took a little nip, the little beast was around my chair, trying to clean my hand for me." "tonic!" joyce sniffed. "liquor, you mean!" "now that's not right," grampa objected. "i said tonic and i mean tonic. got a little alcohol in it for a preservative, maybe, but the important part is the minerals. that's the longevity institute's secret. it's what keeps me young. want a little nip?" he leered at joyce. "you mean you got fweep drunk?" fred exclaimed. "well, now, that was the _effect_, but i can't swear it was the alcohol. not unless fweep can use the stuff on the molecular level if he wants. on the other hand, maybe it was the minerals in there that affected him. little world like fweepland, maybe it lacked a few things when it was made. but the way i looked at it, it stood to reason the little fellow could use a drink. alone all these centuries, he must've got pretty dry. but whatever it was, he sure got high. lost all control." "poor fweep," reba murmured. "poor nothing," grampa said. "he was the happiest little critter i ever saw. when four explained to him just what we wanted, he went right to work on that bottle and--" gramp's door swung open once more. "grampa! grampa!" four shouted. "fweep! he--i mean--well, we've been calling him by the wrong pronoun. look!" four came running out of the room. behind him rolled a tiny raspberry sphere about the size of a marble. occasionally it hopped in the air and said, "fweep?" in a small, high voice. behind it rolled and hopped a second raspberry marble. "fweep?" it said. behind it came another and another until the cabin was full of them, rolling, bouncing, calling "fweep?" * * * * * dazedly, junior counted them. "one hundred and one, one hundred and two, one hundred and--" "oh, junior," reba said, hugging him excitedly. "aren't they cute?" "what happened?" grampa asked, as dazed as junior. "maybe it was the tonic," four said, "but i suspect it was the the unpolarized gravity. all of a sudden, fweep started splitting like an amoeba, over and over. do you suppose that was what made him nervous?" "that's the way the little fellow reproduces, all right," said grampa. "i wonder if he has to wait until a race becomes civilized enough to discover the polarizer, eh?" "ugh!" gasped joyce, brushing a fweep out of her lap. grampa looked at the cabin and its occupants happily. "i'd like to remind you," fred said gravely, "that this multiplies our problem of what to do with fweep over one hundred times." "what problem?" asked grampa. "the only problem we got is how we're gonna spend the cash. we're in business--the gravity business. we'll call it gravity, incorporated, and we can reclaim every little hunk of rock in the solar system. each one of those little fellows is worth a fortune! we'll give the satellites and the asteroids earth-normal gravities and atmospheres and, by golly, we're rich!" "rich?" joyce echoed. a smile slowly replaced the expression of distaste. she snapped her fingers. "here, fweepie," she said in her most enticing tone. "here, little darlings! come to dear joyce!" but they had all hopped to four and were clustered around him like a raspberry bubble bath. through them, his face peered, thin and happy. grampa looked at reba. she was hugging junior happily and smiling at four. grampa looked back at the boy. "we'll have to be exclusive, though," grampa said. "considering the fweeps' likes and dislikes, that is. we'll sell only to people with children." double standard by alfred coppel illustrated by mac lellan [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from galaxy science fiction february . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] he did not have the qualifications to go into space--so he had them manufactured! it was after oh-one-hundred when kane arrived at my apartment. i checked the hall screen carefully before letting him in, too, though the hour almost precluded the possibility of any inquisitive passers-by. he didn't say anything at all when he saw me, but his eyes went a bit wide. that was perfectly natural, after all. the illegal plasti-cosmetician had done his work better than well. i wasn't the same person i had been. i led kane into the living room and stood before him, letting him have a good look at me. "well," i asked, "will it work?" kane lit a cigarette thoughtfully, not taking his eyes off me. "maybe," he said. "just maybe." i thought about the spaceship standing proud and tall under the stars, ready to go. and i knew that it had to work. it _had_ to. some men dream of money, others of power. all my life i had dreamed only of lands in the sky. the red sand hills of mars, moldering in aged slumber under a cobalt-colored day; the icy moraines of io and callisto, where the yellow methane snow drifted in the faint light of the sun; the barren, stark seas of the moon, where razor-backed mountains limned themselves against the star fields-- "i don't know, kim; you're asking a hell of a lot, you know," kane said. "it'll work," i assured him. "the examination is cursory after the application has been acted on." i grinned easily under the flesh mask. "and mine has." "you mean kim hall's application has," he said. i shrugged. "well?" kane frowned at me and blew smoke into the still air of the room. "the kim hall on the application and you aren't exactly the same person. i don't have to tell you that." "look," i said. "i called you here tonight to check me over and because we've been friends for a good long time. this is important to me, kane. it isn't just that i _want_ to go. i _have_ to. you can understand that, maybe." "yes, kim," he said bitterly. "i can understand. maybe if i had your build and mass, i'd be trying the same thing right now. my only chance was the eugenics board and they turned me down cold. remember? sex-linked predilection to carcinoma. unsuitable for colonial breeding stock--" i felt a wave of pity for kane then. i was almost sorry i'd called him over. within six hours i would be on board the spaceship, while he would be here. earthbound for always. unsuitable for breeding stock in the controlled colonies of mars or io and callisto. i thought about that, too. i knew i wouldn't be able to carry off my masquerade forever. i wouldn't want to. the stringent physical examination given on landing would pierce my disguise easily. but by that time it would be too late. i'd _be_ there, out among the stars. and no earthbound spaceship captain would carry my mass back instead of precious cargo. i'd stay. if they wanted me for a breeder then--okay. in spite of my slight build and lack of physical strength, i'd still be where i wanted to be. in the fey lands in the sky.... "i wish you all the luck in the world, kim," my friend said. "i really do. i don't mean to throw cold water on your scheme. you know how few of _us_ are permitted off-world. every one who makes it is a--" he grinned ruefully--"a blow struck for equality." he savored the irony of it for a moment and then his face grew serious again. "it's just that the more i think of what you've done, the more convinced i am that you can't get away with it. forged applications. fake fingerprints and x-rays. and _this_--" he made a gesture that took in all of my appearance. flesh, hair, clothes. everything. "what the hell," i said. "it's good, isn't it?" "very good. in fact, you make me uncomfortable, it's so good. but it's too damned insane." "insane enough to work," i said. "and it's the only chance. how do you think i'd stack up with the eugenics board? not a chance. what they want out there is big muscle boys. tough breeders. this is the only way for me." "well," kane said. "you're big enough now, it seems to me." "had to be. lots to cover up. lots to add." "and you're all set? packed and ready?" "yes," i said. "all set." "then i guess this is it." he extended his hand. i took it. "good luck, kim. always," he said huskily. "i'll hear if you make it. all of us will. and we'll be cheering and thinking that maybe, before we're all too old, we can make it, too. and if not, that maybe our sons will--without having to be prize bulls, either." he turned in the doorway and forced a grin. "don't forget to write," he said. * * * * * the spacefield was streaked with the glare of floodlights, and the ship gleamed like a silvery spire against the desert night. i joined the line of passengers at the checking desk, my half-kilo of baggage clutched nervously against my side. my heart was pounding with a mixture of fear and anticipation, my muscles twitching under the unaccustomed tension of the plastiflesh sheath that hid me. all around me were the smells and sounds and sights of a spaceport, and above me were the stars, brilliant and close at hand in the dark sky. the queue moved swiftly toward the checking desk, where a gray-haired officer with a seamed face sat. the voice of the timekeeper came periodically from the loudspeakers around the perimeter of the field. "_passengers for the martian queen, check in at desk five. it is now h minus forty-seven._" i stood now before the officer, tense and afraid. this was critical, the last check-point before i could actually set foot in the ship. "_it is now h minus forty-five_," the timer's metallic voice said. the officer looked up at me, and then at the faked photoprint on my papers. "kim hall, age twenty-nine, vocation agri-technician and hydroponics expert, height centimeters, weight kilos. right?" i nodded soundlessly. "sums check within mass-limits. physical condition index . . fertility index . . compatibility index . ." the officer turned to a trim-looking assistant. "all check?" the uniformed girl nodded. i began to breathe again. "next desk, please," the officer said shortly. i moved on to the medics at the next stop. a gray-clad nurse checked my pulse and respiration. she smiled at me. "excited?" she asked. "don't be." she indicated the section of the checking station where the breeders were being processed. "you should see how the bulls take it," she said with a laugh. she picked up an electrified stamp. "now don't worry. this won't hurt and it won't disfigure you permanently. but the ship's guards won't let you aboard without it. government regulations, you know. we cannot load personal dossiers on the ships and this will tell the officers all they need to know about you. weight limitations, you see." i almost laughed in her face at that. if there was one thing all earth could offer me that i wanted, it was that stamp on my forehead: a passport to the stars.... she set the stamp and pressed it against my forehead. i had a momentary fear about the durability of the flesh mask that covered my face, but it was unnecessary. the plastiskin took the temporary tattoo the way real flesh would have. i felt the skin and read it in my mind. i knew exactly what it said. i'd dreamed of it so often and so long all my life. my ticket on the _martian queen_. my pass to those lands in the sky. cert sxf hall, k. rs mart queen sn . i walked across the ramp and into the lift beside the great tapering hull of the rocket. my heart was singing. the timer said: "_it is h minus thirty-one_." and then i stepped through the outer valve, into the _queen_. the air was brisk with the tang of hydrogenol. space-fuel. the ship was alive and humming with a thousand relays and timers and whispering generators, readying herself for space. * * * * * i lay down in the acceleration hammock and listened to the ship. this was everything i had wished for all my life. to be a free man among the stars. it was worth the chances i had taken, worth the lying and cheating and danger. the conquest of space had split humanity in a manner that no one could have foreseen, though the reasons for the schism were obvious. they hinged on two factors--mass and durability. thus it was that some remained forever earthbound while others reached for the sky. and bureaucracy being what it was, the decision as to who stayed and who went was made along the easy, obvious line of demarcation. i and half the human race were on the wrong side of the line. from the ship's speakers came the voice of the timer. "_it is h minus ten. ready yourselves for the takeoff._" i thought of kane and the men i had known and worked with for half of my twenty-nine years. they, too, were forbidden the sky. tragic men, really, with their need and their dream written in the lines of pain and yearning on their faces. the speaker suddenly snapped: "_there is an illegal passenger on board! all persons will remain in their quarters until he is apprehended! repeat: there is an illegal passenger on board! remain in your quarters!_" my heart seemed to stop beating. somehow, my deception had been uncovered. how, it didn't matter, but it had. and the important thing now was simply to stay on board at all costs. a space ship departure could not be delayed. the orbit was computed. the blastaway timed to the millisecond.... i leaped to the deck and out of my cubicle. a spidery catwalk led upward, toward the nose of the ship. below me i could hear the first sounds of the search. i ran up the walk, my footsteps sounding hollowly in the steel shaft. a bulkhead blocked my progress ahead and i sought the next deck. the timer said: "_it is h minus six_." it was a passenger deck. i could see frightened faces peering out of cubicles as i ran past. behind me, the pursuit grew louder, nearer. i slammed open a bulkhead and found another walk leading upward toward the astrogation blisters in the topmost point of the _queen_. behind me, i caught a glimpse of a ship's officer running, armed with a stun-pistol. my breath rasped in my throat and the plastiskin sheath on my body shifted sickeningly. "_you there! halt!_" the voice was high-pitched and excited. i flung through another bulkhead hatch and out into the dorsal blister. i seemed to be suspended between earth and sky. the stars glittered through the steelglass of the blister, and the desert lay below, streaked with searchlights and covered with tiny milling figures. the warning light on the control bunker turned from amber to red as i watched, chest heaving. "_it is h minus three_," the timer said. "_rig ship for space._" i slammed the hatch shut and spun the wheel lock. i stood filled with a mixture of triumph and fear. they could never get me out of the ship in time now--but i would have to face blast away in the blister, unprotected. a shock that could kill.... through the speaker, the captain's talker snapped orders: "_abandon pursuit! too late to dump him now. pick him up after acceleration is completed._" and then maliciously, knowing that i could hear: "_scrape him off the deck when we're in space._ that _kind can't take much_." i felt a blaze of red fury. _that_ kind. the earthbound kind! i wanted to live, then, more than i had ever wanted to live before. to make a liar out of that sneering, superior voice. to prove that i was as good as all of them. "_it is h minus one_," said the timer. orders filtered through the speaker. "_outer valves closed. inner valves closed._" "_minus thirty seconds. condition red._" "_pressure in the ship. one-third atmosphere._" "_twenty seconds._" "_ship secure for space._" "_ten, nine, eight_--" i lay prone on the steel deck, braced myself and prayed. "_seven, six, five_--" "_gyros on. course set._" "_four, three, two_--" the ship trembled. a great light flared beyond the curving transparency of the blister. "_up ship!_" a hand smashed down on me, crushing me into the deck. i thought: _i must live. i can't die. i won't die!_ i felt the spaceship rising. i felt her reaching for the stars. i was a part of her. i screamed with pain and exaltation. the hand pressed harder, choking the breath from me, stripping the plastiskin away in long, damp strips. darkness flickered before my eyes. i lay helpless and afraid and transfigured with a joy i had never known before. distorted, half-naked, i clung to life. * * * * * when i opened my eyes, they were all around me. they stood in a half-circle, trim, uniformed. their smooth faces and cropped hair and softly molded bodies looked strange against the functional steel angularity of the astrogation blister. i staggered to my feet, long strips of plastic flesh dangling from me. the _queen_ was in space. i was in space, no longer earthbound. "yes," i said, "i lived! look at me!" i stripped off the flesh mask, peeled away the red, full lips, the long transformation. "i've done it. others will do it, too. not breeders--not brainless ornaments to a hyper-nymphoid phallus! just ordinary men. ordinary men with a dream. you can't keep the sky for yourselves. it belongs to all of us." i stood with my back to the blazing stars and laughed at them. "in the beginning it was right that you should be given priority over us. for centuries we kept you in subjection and when the age of space came, you found your place. your stamina, your small stature, everything about you fitted you to be mistresses of the sky.... "but it's over. over and done with. we can all be free--" i peeled away the artificial breasts that dangled from my chest. i stood swaying drunkenly, defiantly. they came to me, then. they took me gently and carried me below, to the comfort of a white bunk. they soothed my hurts and nursed me. for in spite of it all, they were women and i was a man in pain. _when mr. o'hara won the prize story contest recently conducted by the fantasy writers' workshop at the college of the city of new york, in conjunction with fantastic universe, it was the unanimous opinion of the judges that a second story by mr. o'hara, rescue squad, deserved honorable mention. we think you'll agree with that decision when you've read this documentary-type science-fiction yarn, which so excitingly combines realistic characterization with the mystery, suspense and terror of the near future's exploration of space and a lone pilot's struggle to survive._ rescue squad _by ... thomas j. o'hara_ stark disaster to a brave lad in space may--to the mind that loves--be a tragedy pridefully concealed. the mail ship, mr , spun crazily through space a million miles off her trajectory. her black-painted hull resembled a long thermonuclear weapon, and below her and only a scant twenty million miles away burned the hungry, flaming maw of the sun. the atomic-powered refrigeration units of the mr were working full blast--and still her internal and external temperatures were slowly and inexorably rising. her atomic engines had been long since silenced--beaten by the inexhaustible, fiery strength of the invincible opponent waiting patiently a narrowing twenty million miles "below." hal burnett twisted painfully on the narrow space-bunk, his tormented body thrusting desperately against the restraining bands of the safety straps that lashed him in against the dangers of non-gravity. he moaned, and twisted sideways, while his half-asleep mind struggled on an almost instinctive level against a dimly-remembered, utterly intolerable reality. it was a losing battle. he was suddenly wide awake, staring in horror at the vibrating bulkheads of the deserted little mail ship. for a moment his conscious barriers against reality were so completely down that he felt mortally terrified and overwhelmed by the vast emptiness about him. for a moment the mad idea swept into his mind that perhaps the universe was just another illusion, an echo of man's own inner loneliness. realizing his danger, burnett quickly undid the restraining safety straps, sat up and propelled himself outward from the edge of his bunk. the sudden surge of physical action swept the cobwebs from his mind. he thought of his father--and there was bitterness in his heart and frustration, and a rebellious, smouldering anger. the old man would never know how close he had come to cracking up. for a moment he wondered fearfully if his father's cold and precise appraisal of his character and courage had been correct. suppose he _was_ unable to stand the rigid strains and pressures of a real emergency. suppose-- he tightened his lips in defiant self-justification. what did they expect of a twenty-year-old kid anyway? he was, after all, the youngest and probably the greenest mail pilot in the entire universal run. suddenly the defensive barriers his mind had thrown up against the grievous flaw in his character, which made him feel uncertain of himself when he should have felt strong and capable, crumbled away completely. he could no longer pretend, no longer deceive himself. he hated his father because the elder burnett had never known a moment of profound self-distrust in his entire life. he remembered his father's favorite line of reasoning with a sudden, overwhelming resentment. "fear can and must be controlled. if you have your objective clearly in mind a new experience, no matter how hazardous, will quickly become merely a routine obstacle to be surmounted, a yardstick by which a man can measure his own maturity and strength of purpose. you'll find peace of mind in doing your work ably and well and by ignoring all danger to yourself." it was so easy to say, so hard to live up to. how, for instance, could a twenty-year-old kid on his _first_ mail run hope to completely outwit fatigue, or even forget, for a single moment, that it _was_ his first run. fatigue had caused his undoing, but had he been completely fearless he might have found a way to save himself, might have managed somehow to prevent the small, navigational errors from piling up until they had carried him past the point of no return. a constant re-checking of every one of his instruments might have saved him. but he had been too terrified to think straight, and too ashamed of his "first-run" inexperience to send out a short wave message requesting emergency instructions and advice. now he was hopelessly off his course and it was too late. too late! he could almost feel the steadily-growing pull of his mindless enemy in the distant sky. floating and kicking his way over to the tele-screen, he quickly switched the instrument on. rotating the control dials, he brought the blinding white image of the onrushing solar disk into perfect focus. automatically he adjusted the two superimposed polaroid filters until the proper amount of light was transmitted to his viewing screen. they really built ships and filters these days, he reflected wryly. now if they could only form a rescue squad just as easily-- even through the viewing screen he could almost feel the hot blast of white light hit his face with the physical impact of a baseball bat. with what was almost a whimper of suppressed fear he rocked backward on his heels. the sun's ghastly prominences seemed to reach beckoning fingers toward him, as its flood of burning, radiant light seared through the incalculable cold of space, and its living corona of free electrons and energy particles appeared to swell and throb menacingly. fearfully he watched the flaming orb draw closer and closer, and as its pull grew more pronounced he wondered if it were not, in some nightmarishly fantastic fashion becoming malignantly aware of him. it resembled nothing so much as a great festering sore; an infection of the very warp-and-woof stuff of space. he flipped off the power control on the tele-screen and watched the image fade away with a depleted whine of dying energy. that incandescent inferno out there-- grimly he tried to recall the name of the man who had said that, philosophically, energy is not actually a real thing at all. he knew better than to waste time trying the pilot controls again. they were hopelessly jammed by the great magnetic attraction of the sun. they had been jammed for hours now. he forced his way back to his bunk, and securely lashed himself to it again. sleep was his only hope now, his only real escape from the growing, screaming hysteria within him. he flung an arm across his tired face. his thin features trembled as he remembered the continuous alterations in his trajectory that had brought him within range of the sun's mighty pull. he remembered also every detail of the last and gravest of the series of miscalculations that had swept him from the established route of the regular venus-mercury mail run, and threatened him with a violent, flaming end. greatly off course, he had been approaching mercury, a routine thirty-six million miles from the sun. on this, the final leg of his long journey, he had deviated just far enough from the extreme limits of safety to find himself and his ship gripped inexorably in the mighty magnetic fields of the sun's passage.... he remembered a name-- josephine. there would be no lover's meeting now on the green fields of earth in the dusk of a summer evening. there would be no such meeting now. not unless the prayers and dreams a boy and a girl had shared had followed him, plunging senselessly into the cold glacial heart of interstellar space. his false bravado began to break and he began to weep quietly. he began to wish with all his heart that he had never left home. the sudden crackling of the almost static-jammed ultra-wave radio snapped through to his mind. quickly he began to free himself from the bunk. "mr , come in, mr ." an eternity seemed to pass as he floated across the room, deliberately disregarding the strategically-placed hand-grips on the walls, floor, and ceiling. it seemed aeons before he reached the narrow little control compartment, and got the ultra-wave radio into action, nearly wrecking it in his clumsy-fingered haste. "mr to earth. over." he waited a few moments and then repeated the message as no acknowledgment came through. then he abruptly remembered the nearby presence of the sun and its interference with radio transmission and reception. he was white and shaken by the time his message was received and his report requested and given. he gave the whole tragic picture in frantic short wave. the amount of atomic fuel left in the ship, the internal and external temperatures, the distance from the sun, and the strength of the solar disk's magnetic field and his rate of drift toward it--along with a staggering list of other pertinent factors. at last it was over and he stood by awaiting the decision from earth headquarters. it came at last. "mr ." the growling voice was donnelly's, the huge space-engineer in charge of the smaller mail-rocket units. "you're in a tough spot but we've got an expert here from the government. he's worked on deals like this with me before and he's got an idea. "here's the substance of it. we're going to send out a space tug from mercury to see if we can haul you in. it's a new, experimental tug and it's been kept under wraps until now. but it's been designed for jobs like this and we figure it can sure as hell do it. "there's just one hitch, though, kid. it's a mighty powerful ship so there's going to be a terrific shock when it contacts you and the magnetic grapples set to work. in your medicine kit you'll find a small hypo in a red-sealed plastic box. take the shot that's in it immediately and we'll have the tug out there as soon as we can. it will probably take about twelve hours." donnelly's voice broke and he hesitated strangely for a moment. "you'll be out fast," he went on. "so you won't feel a thing when the shock wave hits you. there's less chance of injuries, this way." * * * * * "it's a lousy thing to do," cried donnelly as he snapped off the set. "a rotten, heartless way of giving the lad false hopes. but then you don't give a damn about anybody's feelings but your own, do you, doc?" "take it easy, joe--" "shut up, williams. i'm talking to this little government time-server over here, not to you." the psychiatrist shrugged wearily. "i don't care what you think. i've worked with you both on cases similar to this before, though i'll admit that none of them were quite as hopeless. in any case, i'll do it my way, or not at all." "maybe you will, maybe you will," said donnelly. "but if i had to wait thirty days in that thing and somebody told me it was only a matter of hours--" "i know what i'm doing even if you think that i don't. the government has developed a set approach in matters like this. fortunately, there aren't many of them. perhaps if there were--" "let me take over, doc," broke in donnelly. "i'm a space-engineer and that makes me far better qualified to handle this than you are. why the hell they ever put a psychiatrist on this job in the first place is something i'll never know, if i live to be a hundred and ten. it's a job for an engineer, not a brain washer." "there's a lot of things you'll never know, donnelly," the gaunt, thin little man sighed wearily. he sat down at the long mahogany table in the radio room. with a careless wave of one arm, he swept a pile of papers and magazines to the floor. "try and get this through your head, donnelly. there's not too much you can do by yourself for that boy up there. you just don't know how to cope with the psychological intangibles. that's why they have me here--so that we could work together as a team. "now the sooner you get on that radio and follow my instructions for the pilot the sooner we'll get this over with. then maybe i can go home and spend a hundred years trying to forget about it. until then please try and keep your personal opinions to yourself. please." donnelly's face flushed a still deeper red. his fists clenched and, as a muscle started to twitch warningly in his cheek, he started to get up. he stopped for a moment--frozen in silence. then he relaxed and pushed back his chair. with a heavy sigh, he maneuvered his huge bear of a body to its feet. he rumbled something disgustedly in his throat and then spat casually on the floor. "williams," he thundered. "get the hell out of here and get us some coffee." he waited a moment until the only witness had left the room and then, with grim determination, he turned to the little psychiatrist seated at the table. "you, doc," he said coldly and with deliberate malice, "are a dirty, unclean little--" * * * * * williams, when he eased his slight body through the door a few minutes later, found a suspicious scene. the little doctor, his face flushed and rage-twisted, his effortless and almost contemptuous composure shaken for once, was on his feet. speechless, he faced the grinning space-engineer who was waving a huge and warning finger in his face. "easy, doc," donnelly roared in a friendly voice. "i might take advantage of it if you keep on giving me a good excuse. then where would all your psychiatry and your fine overlording manners get you?" "joe," yelled williams in explosive sudden fright. "leave him alone. you're liable to have the government police down on us." "sure, williams. the police and the newspapers too. they'd just love to have the taxpayers find out what they're doing to those kids out in deep space. what would they call it, doc? just an interesting psychological experiment? is that what it's meant to be, eh, doc?" he chuckled suddenly as the little doctor flinched under his virulent attack. "i really hit the spot that time, didn't i, doc? so that's what the government's so scared and hush-hush about. they're really scared to hell and back, aren't they? i wonder what's really going on behind all this?" he leaned forward, suddenly roaring and ferocious. "why are williams and i followed everywhere we go when we leave here? to see who we talk to? is that the way of it? why do quite a few of the ships you and i and williams have rescued in the past few years never show up again? just where are they? i don't see them reported missing in the newspapers, either." he leaned back in exhausted satisfaction at the look on the little doctor's face. "yeah, doc, the only way to get anything out of you is to blast it out, isn't it?" pale and frightened, williams hurried across the room to the table and, with shaky hands, took out three containers of coffee from the paper bag and passed them out. nobody bothered to thank him. the hidden tension in the room had begun to mount steadily, so donnelly helped it out a little. "is this the first time you've ever been on the defensive, doc?" he asked. williams jumped in before the explosion. "when will the rocket get to the kid's ship, doctor?" he asked. "in about thirty days," the little man answered, coldly and deliberately. williams blinked in surprise. "good lord," he said. "i thought it was supposed to be in twelve hours or so?" "that's the whole point," snapped donnelly. "that's what i'm so fighting mad about. think of it yourself, williams. suppose you had a son or a brother up there, how would you feel about this whole infernal, lying business? "i don't get it," he went on. "i just don't get the big central idea behind it. don't all these tugs we send out ever get there? first they tell the kid he'll have his life saved in twelve hours or so. then they get him to take a shot so his mind won't crack up while he's waiting. "now they know very well the shot won't last for thirty days. if it did he'd starve to death. so what have they accomplished? nothing. as a matter of fact they've made things worse instead of better. what's going to happen to that poor kid when he wakes up in twelve hours and finds out he still has to wait for thirty more days? what's going to happen to him then, doc? don't you think that kid will really go off his rocker for sure?" donnelly and williams both looked at the little psychiatrist. he sat again at his former place at the table, white and shaken. his face was once again buried in one hand. "come on, doc," whispered williams, quietly. "what's going on here, anyway?" "that's enough," cried the doctor, suddenly. he sprang up and strode toward the door. "leave me alone," he exclaimed, almost in tears. "by heaven, i've had enough of this. i've had all i can stand." donnelly moved to block the door and the psychiatrist came abruptly to a halt. "that ain't enough, doc. you get out after you talk." "for god's sake, joe." "shut up, williams, i'm warning you for the last time." "let me by. i warn you, donnelly. let me by." williams moved in, regaining a sudden spurt of assurance. "what about that kid up there, doc? nobody's letting him by, are they, doc?" a look of utter weariness swept across the doctor's face. "all right," he said. "you may as well know the truth then. you won't like or understand it, but here it is anyway. you see, there isn't any tug up there, experimental or otherwise. there was only our need for a good excuse--in this present case--to get him to take the drug. you're a space-engineer and a good one, donnelly. that's why you were chosen for this job. if anybody could help those kids, you could." donnelly's face tightened warningly and the doctor hurried on. "you would have known about it if there had been any experimental models developed even if they had been secret. as a matter of fact, with your standing, you would probably have been working on them." "why all this, then, doc? why?" "because," the little doctor hesitated--and then shrugged. "i may as well tell you. it's not going to make any difference now, anyway. it was all done to put him out for several hours until--" "until what, doc?" donnelly's tone was harsh and uncompromising. "you must understand that i'm under orders. i'm doing what is done in all these cases. though heaven help me, i wish i didn't have to--" "doc," donnelly roared. "you have been contradicting yourself all along and i intend to find out why." "there isn't much more to find out.... wait." the doctor strode quickly over to the radio, and glanced at his wristwatch. his face haggard with strain, he turned to williams. "will you contact the mr , please?" he held up a silencing hand to donnelly. "there's a reason behind all this. just wait for a moment, please. just wait and listen--" * * * * * it was a fumbling-fingered ten minutes later, after donnelly had signed off, that hal burnett finally found the tiny red plastic box in the little emergency medical kit. trembling he held it in his hand as he floated in free fall. it was a little red key--a key to earth, to life and to the chance to ram every cold, precise, contemptuous word down his father's over-analytical mouth. he didn't really hate the old man but he knew that he feared him. he feared also that his father might be right about him after all. who in his own mind, he thought bitterly, should know a son better than that son's own father. a quick surge of elation swept over him as he swam quickly to the tele-screen and switched it on. it wasn't a bit like saying good-bye to an old friend, he thought, as he gazed at the flaming prominences not so far below him. after a while he switched the instrument off and swam triumphantly back to his bunk. there were some tri-dimensional color slides in the ditty bag hanging by his bunk. he took them out and looked at them. none of them were of his father. the girl was there, though. she was a small, cute girl with a rainbow of laughter wreathed about her. she hadn't been really important before, but she sure was important now that he was going to live. his old man had foretold that, too. after a little while he put the slides back in the portable holder and broke open the plastic box. it contained a gleaming hypo filled with what looked like a small quantity of water. there was an odd peppermint-like odor about it. there were no instructions. just the needle and the little red box. he wondered how many hours he would have to wait before help would come. but that didn't matter. he would be asleep, anyway. the temperature had climbed. it was burning, roaring hot. gently he slid the needle into his arm and depressed the plunger.... * * * * * the mr continued to spin even more lazily in space. her sun-blackened hull, pitted by the glancing blows of by-passing meteor fragments, was slowly overheating. her refrigeration units were gradually breaking down under their tremendous overload. she was inching in ever-shortening circles always in the direction of the massive, molten globe not so far below.... sometime later, hal burnett awakened slowly, as if from some distant and dimly-remembered dream. the haze of a deep and foggy sleep clung to the unfamiliar mass that was his mind. a distant alarm bell had rung deep within the primitive, subcortical levels of his brain. it had rung--but not loudly nor insistently enough. it had failed to cut through the eddying fog that was rising slowly into his ebbing consciousness. he did not remember undoing the straps with benumbed and aching fingers. he did not remember the befogged and stumbling "walk" into the control room. dimly, as if viewing himself and the room from a distant world, he switched on the dying hum of the radio and tried futilely to transmit a message. the faint crackle of the radio grew more distant. he slumped forward in the bucket seat, his head striking the controls in front of him--and, for him, the sounds of the muted radio died out completely. the burning heat seared into the metal hull of the mr . its outer hull was almost at the boiling point. inside, it was a burning, suffocating hell. perhaps it was the heat that aroused hal burnett once again. somehow he managed to stumble to the tele-screen. with the last vestige of a waning strength, he managed to switch it on and hold himself erect. the stupendous white blast of the sun struck across his staring eyes, but he did not flinch. unconscious, his hands clutched at the control knobs as his sagging legs let him drift weightlessly toward the floor. he was like a drowning swimmer, out of control and helplessly floating under water. he seemed to become aware for a moment as a last flicker of consciousness crossed his mind. he mouthed something unintelligible--a last, forgotten word. anchored only by his grip on the control knobs, his weightless body floated aimlessly in the almost steaming cabin as the awful stillness re-echoed throughout the hollow vault of the ship. down below, with ever-growing closeness, the sun waited patiently, like a bright and hovering vulture. the mr swung and pivoted gently like a ship at sea straining at its anchor in the first, fresh breezes of a gathering storm. for a moment it seemed to hesitate like a coy maiden on the verge of some unknown threshold. then, abruptly, she climaxed her voyage and plunged directly toward the waiting sun some twenty million miles below, carrying with her only her dead cargo; her pilot-- * * * * * the radio crackled noisily after hal burnett's last incoherent transmission. it crackled aimlessly for a few moments--and then was still. "something's wrong," said williams, a thin thread of moisture shining down his face. "something's gone wrong up there!" "it sure has," said donnelly, quietly. "and i know who i'm going to ask about it." the little doctor said nothing. his face was an embittered parchment mask. "it's happened. god help me. it's happened. he's gone," he muttered, almost inaudibly. donnelly sighed heavily, a look almost of defeat sweeping momentarily across his features. "see here, doc," he said exhaustedly. "don't be so heartless about people. you've got a son of your own in space, so you ought to understand how other people feel. what kind of a father would do a thing like this to another man's son anyway?" "look, donnelly," said the little man with bitter weariness. "do me a favor will you? you fill out the reports tonight. somehow or other i just don't feel up to it." "maybe it's your conscience," said donnelly, sarcastically. "but i'll be damned if i'll do it for you. you don't like to do your own dirty work, do you, doc? i thought you just loved to fill out government reports." "donnelly, donnelly," cried the doctor in sudden anguish. "can't you understand yet. even an undertaker's job is unpleasant but somebody's got to do it. don't you see yet? _it has to be done!_" with a muffled groan of disgust, donnelly sprang to the radio once again, pushing williams roughly aside. futilely, and in desperation he strained at the controls for a moment and then, with a roar of fury, he turned back to the doctor. "now see here, doc--" he thundered, and then stopped in amazement. the door to the dim and ill-lighted outer hallway of the lab was standing open. and at the far end, the outer door was quietly closing behind the disappearing figure of the bent-shouldered little man. donnelly started to spring after him, and then abruptly stopped. his huge figure slumped in sudden despairing futility as he recognized the tragic hopelessness of the situation. "let him go," rasped williams. "there's nothing we can do now anyway, joe." "yeah, yeah. let's write the report up ourselves. that's real important, you know. the government needs it." he sat down at the typewriter, his heavy features twisted in hopeless bitterness and anger. he started typing, and then stopped for a moment. "what was this kid pilot's full name, williams?" williams checked the government order sheet. "hell," he said. "strangely, it's the same as the doctor's, dr. alfred burnett. only the kid's name is harold burnett." donnelly sat, suddenly transfixed, staring at his typewriter. a peculiar look flashed across his face. then he shook his massive head in an unbelieving gesture of agonized understanding. "hell, no," he muttered to himself. "it couldn't be. it just couldn't be. it just isn't possible. burnett! _burnett!_" swiftly he was on his feet and moving through the door after the vanished figure of the little doctor, his face a mask of grim remorse. "it was merciful," he muttered. "yes, it _was_ merciful. it was the only thing doc burnett could have done." williams stared after donnelly's disappearing figure in frank and open-mouthed amazement. "hey, joe," he yelled. "where the hell are you going?" the outer door slammed shut on the departing echo of his words. "well, i'll be hung for an ugly son!" he muttered to himself. "nobody makes sense around this place, any more." he shrugged half to himself and then began to type out the rest of the report. "i don't get it," he mumbled to himself. "i just don't get it at all. there's no logic in it." transcriber's note: this etext was produced from _fantastic universe_ september . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed. minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note. although _polaroid_ appears as originally printed, given the lack of a capital letter, it may be a printer's error for _polarized_. once a greech by evelyn e. smith illustrated by dillon [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from galaxy science fiction april . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] [sidenote: _the mildest of men, iversen was capable of murder ... to disprove harkaway's hypothesis that in the midst of life, we are in life!_] just two weeks before the _s. s. herringbone_ of the interstellar exploration, examination (and exploitation) service was due to start her return journey to earth, one of her scouts disconcertingly reported the discovery of intelligent life in the virago system. "thirteen planets," captain iversen snarled, wishing there were someone on whom he could place the blame for this mischance, "and we spend a full year here exploring each one of them with all the resources of terrestrial science and technology, and what happens? on the nineteenth moon of the eleventh planet, intelligent life is discovered. and who has to discover it? harkaway, of all people. i thought for sure all the moons were cinders or i would never have sent him out to them just to keep him from getting in my hair." "the boy's not a bad boy, sir," the first officer said. "just a thought incompetent, that's all--which is to be expected if the service will choose its officers on the basis of written examinations. i'm glad to see him make good." iversen would have been glad to see harkaway make good, too, only such a concept seemed utterly beyond the bounds of possibility. from the moment the young man had first set foot on the _s. s. herringbone_, he had seemed unable to make anything but bad. even in such a conglomeration of fools under captain iverson, his idiocy was of outstanding quality. the captain, however, had not been wholly beyond reproach in this instance, as he himself knew. pity he had made such an error about the eleventh planet's moons. it was really such a small mistake. moons one to eighteen and twenty to forty-six still appeared to be cinders. it was all too easy for the spectroscope to overlook flimbot, the nineteenth. but it would be flimbot which had turned out to be a green and pleasant planet, very similar to earth. or so harkaway reported on the intercom. "and the other forty-five aren't really moons at all," he began. "they're--" "you can tell me all that when we reach flimbot," iversen interrupted, "which should be in about six hours. remember, that intercom uses a lot of power and we're tight on fuel." but it proved to be more than six _days_ later before the ship reached flimbot. this was owing to certain mechanical difficulties that arose when the crew tried to lift the mother ship from the third planet, on which it was based. for sentimental reasons, the iee(e) always tried to establish its prime base on the third planet of a system. anyhow, when the _herringbone_ was on the point of takeoff, it was discovered that the rock-eating species which was the only life on the third planet had eaten all the projecting metal parts on the ship, including the rocket-exhaust tubes, the airlock handles and the chromium trim. "i had been wondering what made the little fellows so sick," smullyan, the ship's doctor, said. "they went wump, wump, wump all night long, until my heart bled for them. ah, everywhere it goes, humanity spreads the fell seeds of death and destruction--" "are you a doctor or a veterinarian?" iversen demanded furiously. "by betelgeuse, you act as if i'd crammed those blasted tubes down their stinking little throats!" "it was you who invaded their paradise with your ship. it was you--" "shut up!" iversen yelled. "shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up!" so dr. smullyan went off, like many a ship's physician before him, and got good and drunk on the medical stores. * * * * * by the time they finally arrived on flimbot, harkaway had already gone native. he appeared at the airlock wearing nothing but a brief, colorful loincloth of alien fabric and a wreath of flowers in his hair. he was fondling a large, woolly pink caterpillar. [illustration] "where is your uniform, sir!" captain iversen barked, aghast. if there was one thing he was intolerant of in his command, it was sloppiness. "this is the undress uniform of the royal flimbotzi navy, sir. i was given the privilege of wearing one as a great _msu'gri_--honor--to our race. if i were to return to my own uniform, it might set back diplomatic relations between flimbot and earth as much as--" "all right!" the captain snapped. "all right, all right, all right!" he didn't ask any questions about the royal flimbotzi navy. he had deduced its nature when, on nearing flimbot, he had discovered that the eleventh planet actually had only one moon. the other forty-five celestial objects were spacecraft, quaint and primitive, it was true, but spacecraft nonetheless. probably it was their orbital formation that had made him think they were moons. oh, the crew must be in great spirits; they did so enjoy having a good laugh at his expense! he looked for something with which to reproach harkaway, and his eye lighted on the caterpillar. "what's that thing you're carrying there?" he barked. raising itself on its tail, the caterpillar barked right back at him. captain iversen paled. first he had overlooked the spacecraft, and now, after thirty years of faithful service to the iee(e) in the less desirable sectors of space, he had committed the ultimate error in his first contact with a new form of intelligent life! "sorry, sir," he said, forgetting that the creature--whatever its mental prowess--could hardly be expected to understand terran yet. "i am just a simple spaceman and my ways are crude, but i mean no harm." he whirled on harkaway. "i thought you said the natives were humanoid." the young officer grinned. "they are. this is just a greech. cuddly little fellow, isn't he?" the greech licked harkaway's face with a tripartite blue tongue. "the flimbotzik are mad about pets. great animal-lovers. that's how i knew i could trust them right from the start. show me a life-form that loves animals, i always say, and--" "i'm not interested in what you always say," iversen interrupted, knowing harkaway's premise was fundamentally unsound, because he himself was the kindliest of all men, and he hated animals. and, although he didn't hate harkaway, who was not an animal, save in the strictly darwinian sense, he could not repress unsportsmanlike feelings of bitterness. why couldn't it have been one of the other officers who had discovered the flimbotzik? why must it be harkaway--the most inept of his scouts, whose only talent seemed to be the egregious error, who always rushed into a thing half-cocked, who mistook superficialities for profundities, harkaway, the blundering fool, the blithering idiot--who had stumbled into this greatest discovery of iversen's career? and, of course, harkaway's, too. well, life was like that and always had been. "have you tested those air and soil samples yet?" iversen snarled into his communicator, for his spacesuit was beginning to itch again as the gentle warmth of flimbot activated certain small and opportunistic life-forms which had emigrated from a previous system along with the terrans. "we're running them through as fast as we can, sir," said a harried voice. "we can offer you no more than our poor best." "but why bother with all that?" harkaway wanted to know. "this planet is absolutely safe for human life. i can guarantee it personally." "on what basis?" iversen asked. "well, i've been here two weeks and i've survived, haven't i?" "that," iversen told him, "does not prove that the planet can sustain human life." harkaway laughed richly. "wonderful how you can still keep that marvelous sense of humor, skipper, after all the things that have been going wrong on the voyage. ah, here comes the _flim'tuu_--the welcoming committee," he said quickly. "they were a little shy before. because of the rockets, you know." "don't their ships have any?" "they don't seem to. they're really very primitive affairs, barely able to go from planet to planet." "if they _go_," iversen said, "stands to reason _something_ must power them." "i really don't know what it is," harkaway retorted defensively. "after all, even though i've been busy as a beaver, three weeks would hardly give me time to investigate every aspect of their culture.... don't you think the natives are remarkably humanoid?" he changed the subject. they were, indeed. except for a somewhat greenish cast of countenance and distinctly purple hair, as they approached, in their brief, gay garments and flower garlands, the natives resembled nothing so much as a group of idealized south sea islanders of the nineteenth century. gigantic butterflies whizzed about their heads. countless small animals frisked about their feet--more of the pink caterpillars; bright blue creatures that were a winsome combination of monkey and koala; a kind of large, merry-eyed snake that moved by holding its tail in its mouth and rolling like a hoop. all had faces that reminded the captain of the work of the celebrated twentieth-century artist w. disney. "by polaris," he cried in disgust, "i might have known you'd find a _cute_ planet!" "moon, actually," the first officer said, "since it is in orbit around virago xi, rather than virago itself." "would you have _wanted_ them to be hostile?" harkaway asked peevishly. "honestly, some people never seem to be satisfied." from his proprietary airs, one would think harkaway had created the natives himself. "at least, with hostile races, you know where you are," iversen said. "i always suspect friendly life-forms. friendliness simply isn't a natural instinct." "who's being anthropomorphic now!" harkaway chided. iversen flushed, for he had berated the young man for that particular fault on more than one occasion. harkaway was too prone to interpret alien traits in terms of terrestrial culture. previously, since all intelligent life-forms with which the _herringbone_ had come into contact had already been discovered by somebody else, that didn't matter too much. in this instance, however, any mistakes of contact or interpretation mattered terribly. and iversen couldn't see harkaway not making a mistake; the boy simply didn't have it in him. "you know you're superimposing our attitude on theirs," the junior officer continued tactlessly. "the flimbotzik are a simple, friendly, _shig-livi_ people, closely resembling some of our historical primitives--in a nice way, of course." "none of our primitives had space travel," iversen pointed out. "well, you couldn't really call those things spaceships," harkaway said deprecatingly. "they go through space, don't they? i don't know what else you'd call them." "one judges the primitiveness of a race by its cultural and technological institutions," harkaway said, with a lofty smile. "and these people are laughably backward. why, they even believe in reincarnation--_mpoola_, they call it." "how do you know all this?" iversen demanded. "don't tell me you profess to speak the language already?" "it's not a difficult language," harkaway said modestly, "and i have managed to pick up quite a comprehensive smattering. i dare-say i haven't caught all the nuances--_heeka lob peeka_, as the flimbotzik themselves say--but they are a very simple people and probably they don't have--" "are we going to keep them waiting," iversen asked, "while we discuss nuances? since you say you speak the language so well, suppose you make them a pretty speech all about how the earth government extends the--i suppose it would be hand, in this instance--of friendship to flimbot and--" harkaway blushed. "i sort of did that already, acting as your deputy. _mpoo_--status--means so much in these simple societies, you know, and they seemed to expect something of the sort. however, i'll introduce you to the flimflim--the king, you know--" he pointed to an imposing individual in the forefront of the crowd--"and get over all the amenities, shall i?" "it would be jolly good of you," iversen said frigidly. * * * * * it was a pity they hadn't discovered flimbot much earlier in their survey of the virago system, iversen thought with regret, because it was truly a pleasant spot and a week was very little time in which to explore a world and study a race, even one as simple as the gentle flimbotzik actually turned out to be. it seemed amazing that they should have developed anything as advanced as space travel, when their only ground conveyances were a species of wagon drawn by plookik, a species of animal. but iversen had no time for further investigation. the _herringbone's_ fuel supply was calculated almost to the minute and so, willy-nilly, the earthmen had to leave beautiful flimbot at the end of the week, knowing little more about the flimbotzik than they had before they came. only harkaway, who had spent the three previous weeks on flimbot, had any further knowledge of the flimbotzik--and iversen had little faith in any data he might have collected. "i don't believe harkaway knows the language nearly as well as he pretends to," iversen told the first officer as both of them watched the young lieutenant make the formal speech of farewell. "come now," the first officer protested. "seems to me the boy is doing quite well. acquired a remarkable command of the language, considering he's been here only four weeks." "remarkable, i'll grant you, but is it accurate?" "he seems to communicate and that is the ultimate objective of language, is it not?" "then why did the flimbotzik fill the tanks with wine when i distinctly told him to ask for water?" of course the ship could synthesize water from its own waste products, if necessary, but there was no point in resorting to that expedient when a plentiful supply of pure h_{ }o was available on the world. "a very understandable error, sir. harkaway explained it to me. it seems the word for water, _m'koog_, is very similar to the word for wine, _mk'oog_. harkaway himself admits his pronunciation isn't perfect and--" "all right," iversen interrupted. "what i'd like to know is what happened to the _mk'oog_, then--" "the m'koog, you mean? it's in the tanks." "--because, when they came to drain the wine out of the tanks to put the water in, the tanks were already totally empty." "i have no idea," the first officer said frostily, "no idea at all. if you'll glance at my papers, you'll note i'm temperance by affiliation, but if you'd like to search my cabin, anyway, i--" "by miaplacidus, man," iversen exclaimed, "i wasn't accusing you! of that, anyway!" everybody on the vessel was so confoundedly touchy. lucky they had a stable commanding officer like himself, or morale would simply go to pot. * * * * * "well, it's all over," harkaway said, joining them up at the airlock in one lithe bound--a mean feat in that light gravity. "and a right good speech, if i do say so myself. the flimflim says he will count the thlubbzik with ardent expectation until the mission from earth arrives with the promised gifts." "just what gifts did you take it upon yourself to--" iversen began, when he was interrupted by a voice behind them crying, "woe, woe, woe!" and, thrusting himself past the three other officers, dr. smullyan addressed the flim'puu, or farewell committee, assembled outside the ship. "do not let the earthmen return to your fair planet, o happily ignorant flimbotzik," he declaimed, "lest wretchedness and misery be your lot as a result. tell them, 'hence!' tell them, 'begone!' tell them, 'avaunt!' for, know ye, humanity is a blight, a creeping canker--" he was interrupted by the captain's broad palm clamping down over his mouth. "clap him in the brig, somebody, until we get clear of this place," iversen ordered wearily. "if harkaway could pick up the flimbotzi language, the odds are that some of the natives have picked up terran." "that's right, always keep belittling me," harkaway said sulkily as two of the crewmen carried off the struggling medical officer, who left an aromatic wake behind him that bore pungent testimonial to where a part, at least, of the _mk'oog_ had gone. "no wonder it took me so long to find myself." "oh, have you found yourself at last?" iversen purred. "splendid! now that you know where you are, supposing you do me a big favor and go lose yourself again while we make ready for blastoff." "for shame," said the first officer as harkaway stamped off. "for shame!" "the captain's a hard man," observed the chief petty officer, who was lounging negligently against a wall, doing nothing. "ay, that he is," agreed the crewman who was assisting him. "that he is--a hard man, indeed." "by caroli, be quiet, all of you!" iversen yelled. the very next voyage, he was going to have a new crew if he had to transfer to colonization to do it! even colonists couldn't be as obnoxious as the sons of space with which he was cursed. * * * * * it was only after the _herringbone_ had left the virago system entirely that iversen discovered harkaway had taken the greech along. "but you can't abscond with one of the natives' pets!" he protested, overlooking, for the sake of rhetoric, the undeniable fact that harkaway had already done so and that there could be no turning back. it would expend too much precious fuel and leave them stranded for life on virago xi^a. "nonsense, sir!" harkaway retorted. "didn't the flimflim say everything on flimbot was mine? _thlu'pt shig-nliv, snusnigg bnig-nliv_ were his very words. anyhow, they have plenty more greechi. they won't miss this little one." "but he may have belonged to someone," iversen objected. "an incident like this could start a war." "i don't see how he could have belonged to anyone. followed me around most of the time i was there. we've become great pals, haven't we, little fellow?" he ruffled the greech's pink fur and the creature gave a delighted squeal. iversen could already see that the greechik were going to be flimbot's first lucrative export. from time immemorial, the people of earth had been susceptible to cuddly little life-forms, which was why earth had nearly been conquered by the zz^{iu} from sirius vii, before they discovered them to be hostile and quite intelligent life-forms rather than a new species of tabby. "couldn't bear to leave him," harkaway went on as the greech draped itself around his shoulders and regarded iversen with large round blue eyes. "the flimflim won't mind, because i promised him an elephant." "you mean the diplomatic mission will have to waste valuable cargo space on an _elephant_!" iversen sputtered. "and you should know, if anyone does, just how spacesick an elephant can get. by pherkad, lieutenant harkaway, you had no authority to make any promises to the flimflim!" "i discovered the flimbotzik," harkaway said sullenly. "_i_ learned the language. _i_ established rapport. just because you happen to be the commander of this expedition doesn't mean you're god, captain iversen!" "harkaway," the captain barked, "this smacks of downright mutiny! go to your cabin forthwith and memorize six verses of the spaceman's credo!" the greech lifted its head and barked back at iversen, again. "that's my brave little watch-greech," harkaway said fondly. "as a matter of fact, sir," he told the captain, "that was just what i was proposing to do myself. go to my cabin, i mean; i have no time to waste on inferior prose. i plan to spend the rest of the voyage, or such part as i can spare from my duties--" "you're relieved of them," iversen said grimly. "--working on my book. it's all about the doctrine of _mpoola_--reincarnation, or, if you prefer, metempsychosis. the flimbotzi religion is so similar to many of the earlier terrestrial theologies--hindu, greek, egyptian, southern californian--that sometimes one is almost tempted to stop and wonder if simplicity is not the essence of truth." iversen knew that, for the sake of discipline, he should not, once he had ordered harkaway to his cabin, stop to bandy words, but he was a chronic word-bandier, having inherited the trait from his stalwart viking ancestors. "how can you have learned all about their religion, their doctrine of reincarnation, in just four ridiculously short weeks?" "it's a gift," harkaway said modestly. "go to your cabin, sir! no, wait a moment!" for, suddenly overcome by a strange, warm, utterly repulsive emotion, iversen pointed a quivering finger at the caterpillar. "did you bring along the proper food for that--that thing? can't have him starving, you know," he added gruffly. after all, he was a humane man, he told himself; it wasn't that he found the creature tugging at his heart-strings, or anything like that. "oh, he'll eat anything we eat, sir. as long as it's not meat. all the species on flimbot are herbivores. i can't figure out whether the flimbotzik themselves are vegetarians because they practice _mpoola_, or practice _mpoola_ because they're--" "i don't want to hear another word about _mpoola_ or about flimbot!" iversen yelled. "get out of here! and stay away from the library!" "i have already exhausted its painfully limited resources, sir." harkaway saluted with grace and withdrew to his cabin, wearing the greech like an affectionate lei about his neck. * * * * * iverson heard no more about _mpoola_ from harkaway--who, though he did not remain confined to his cabin when he had pursuits to pursue in other parts of the ship, at least had the tact to keep out of the captain's way as much as possible--but the rest of his men seemed able to talk of nothing else. the voyage back from a star system was always longer in relative terms than the voyage out, because the thrill of new worlds to explore was gone; already anticipating boredom, the men were ripe for almost any distraction. on one return voyage, the whole crew had set itself to the study of hittite with very creditable results. on another, they had all devoted themselves to the ancient art of alchemy, and, after nearly blowing up the ship, had come up with an elixir which, although not the quintessence--as they had, in their initial enthusiasm, alleged--proved to be an effective cure for hiccups. patented under the name of herringbone hiccup shoo, it brought each one of them an income which would have been enough to support them in more than modest comfort for the rest of their lives. however, the adventurous life seemed to exert an irresistible lure upon them and they all shipped upon the _herringbone_ again--much to the captain's dismay, for he had hoped for a fresh start with a new crew and there seemed to be no way of getting rid of them short of reaching retirement age. the men weren't quite ready to accept _mpoola_ as a practical religion--harkaway hadn't finished his book yet--but as something very close to it. the concept of reincarnation had always been very appealing to the human mind, which would rather have envisaged itself perpetuated in the body of a cockroach than vanishing completely into nothingness. "it's all so logical, sir," the first officer told iversen. "the individuality or the soul or the psyche--however you want to look at it--starts the essentially simple cycle of life as a greech--" "why as a greech?" iversen asked, humoring him for the moment. "there are lower life-forms on flimbot." "i don't know." the first officer sounded almost testy. "that's where harkaway starts the progression." "harkaway! is there no escaping that cretin's name?" "sir," said the first officer, "may i speak frankly?" "no," iversen said, "you may not." "your skepticism arises less from disbelief than from the fact that you are jealous of harkaway because it was he who made the great discovery, not you." "which great discovery?" iversen asked, sneering to conceal his hurt at being so overwhelmingly misunderstood. "flimbot or _mpoola_?" "both," the first officer said. "you refuse to accept the fact that this hitherto incompetent youth has at last blossomed forth in the lambent colors of genius, just as the worthy greech becomes a zkoort, and the clean-living zkoort in his turn passes on to the next higher plane of existence, which is, in the flimbotzik scale--" "spare me the theology, please," iversen begged. "once a greech, always a greech, i say. and i can't help thinking that somehow, somewhere, harkaway has committed some horrible error." "humanity is frail, fumbling, futile," dr. smullyan declared, coming upon them so suddenly that both officers jumped. "to err is human, to forgive divine, and i am an atheist, thank god!" "that _mk'oog_ is powerful stuff," the first officer said. "or so they tell me," he added. "this is more than mere _mk'oog_," iversen said sourly. "smullyan has been too long in space. it hits everyone in the long run--some sooner than others." "captain," the doctor said, ignoring these remarks as he ignored everything not on a cosmic level, which included the crew's ailments, "i am in full agreement with you. young harkaway has doomed that pretty little planet--" "moon," the first officer corrected. "it's a satellite, not a--" "we ourselves were doomed _ab origine_, but the tragic flaw inherent in each one of our pitiful species is contagious, dooming all with whom we come in contact. and harkaway is the most infectious carrier on the ship. woe, i tell you. woe!" and, with a hollow moan, the doctor left them to meditate upon the state of their souls, while he went off to his secret stores of oblivion. "wonder where he's hidden that _mk'oog_," iversen brooded. "i've turned the ship inside out and i haven't been able to locate it." the first officer shivered. "somehow, although i know smullyan's part drunk, part mad, he makes me a little nervous. he's been right so often on all the other voyages." "ruchbah!" iversen said, not particularly grateful for support from such a dithyrambic source as the ship's medical officer. "anyone who prophesies doom has a hundred per cent chance of ultimately being right, if only because of entropy." he was still brooding over the first officer's thrust, even though he had been well aware that most of his officers and men considered him a sorehead for doubting harkaway in the young man's moment of triumph. however, iversen could not believe that harkaway had undergone such a radical transformation. even on the basis of _mpoola_, one obviously had to die before passing on to the next existence and harkaway had been continuously alive--from the neck down, at least. furthermore, all that aside, iversen just couldn't see harkaway going on to a higher plane. although he supposed the young man was well-meaning enough--he'd grant him that negligible virtue--wouldn't it be terrible to have a system of existence in which one was advanced on the basis of intent rather than result? the higher life-forms would degenerate into primitivism. but weren't the flimbotzik virtually primitive? or so harkaway had said, for iversen himself had not had enough contact with them to determine their degree of sophistication, and only the spaceships gave harkaway's claim the lie. * * * * * iversen condescended to take a look at the opening chapter of harkaway's book, just to see what the whole thing was about. the book began: "what is the difference between life and death? can we say definitely and definitively that life is life and death is death? are we sure that death is not life and life is not death? "no, we are not sure! "must the individuality have a corporeal essence in which to enshroud itself before it can proceed in its rapt, inexorable progress toward the ultimate non-actuality? and even if such be needful, why must the personal essence be trammeled by the same old worn-out habiliments of error? "think upon this! "what is the extremest intensification of individuality? it is the all-encompassing nothingness. of what value are the fur, the feathers, the skin, the temporal trappings of imperfection in our perpetual struggle toward the final undefinable resolution into the infinite interplay of cosmic forces? "less than nothing!" at this point, iversen stopped reading and returned the manuscript to its creator, without a word. this last was less out of self-restraint than through sheer semantic inadequacy. the young man might have spent his time more profitably in a little research on the biology or social organization of the flimbotzik, iversen thought bitterly when he had calmed down, thus saving the next expedition some work. but, instead, he'd been blinded by the flashy theological aspects of the culture and, as a result, the whole crew had gone metempsychotic. this was going to be one of the _herringbone's_ more unendurable voyages, iversen knew. and he couldn't put his foot down effectively, either, because the crew, all being gentlemen of independent means now, were outrageously independent. however, in spite of knowing that all of them fully deserved what they got, iversen couldn't help feeling guilty as he ate steak while the other officers consumed fish, vegetables and eggs in an aura of unbearable virtue. "but if the soul transmigrates and not the body," he argued, "what harm is there in consuming the vacated receptacle?" "for all you know," the first officer said, averting his eyes from iversen's plate with a little--wholly gratuitous, to the captain's mind--shudder, "that cow might have housed the psyche of your grandmother." "well, then, by indirectly participating in that animal's slaughter, i have released my grandmother from her physical bondage to advance to the next plane. that is, if she was a good cow." "you just don't understand," harkaway said. "not that you could be expected to." "he's a clod," the radio operator agreed. "forgive me, sir," he apologized as iversen turned to glare incredulously at him, "but, according to _mpoola_, candor is a step upward." "onward and upward," harkaway commented, and iversen was almost sure that, had he not been there, the men would have bowed their heads in contemplation, if not actual prayer. * * * * * as time went on, the greech thrived and grew remarkably stout on the earth viands, which it consumed in almost improbable quantities. then, one day, it disappeared and its happy squeal was heard no longer. there was much mourning aboard the _herringbone_--for, with its lovable personality and innocently engaging ways, the little fellow had won its way into the hearts of all the spacemen--until the first officer discovered a substantial pink cocoon resting on the ship's control board and rushed to the intercom to spread the glad tidings. that was a breach of regulations, of course, but iversen knew when not to crowd his fragile authority. "i should have known there was some material basis for the spiritual doctrine of _mpoola_," harkaway declared with tears in his eyes as he regarded the dormant form of his little pet. "was it not the transformation of the caterpillar into the butterfly that first showed us on earth how the soul might emerge winged and beautiful from its vile house of clay? gentlemen," he said, in a voice choked with emotion, "our little greech is about to become a zkoort. praised be the impersonal being who has allowed such a miracle to take place before our very eyes. _j'goona lo mpoona_." "amen," said the first officer reverently. all those in the control room bowed their heads except iversen. and even he didn't quite have the nerve to tell them that the cocoon was pushing the _herringbone_ two points off course. * * * * * "take that thing away before i lose my temper and clobber it," iversen said impatiently as the zkoort dived low to buzz him, then whizzed just out of its reach on its huge, brilliant wings, giggling raucously. [illustration] "he was just having his bit of fun," the first officer said with reproach. "have you no tolerance, captain, no appreciation of the joys of golden youth?" "a spaceship is no place for a butterfly," iversen said, "especially a four-foot butterfly." "how can you say that?" harkaway retorted. "the _herringbone_ is the only spaceship that ever had one, to my knowledge. and i think i can safely say our lives are all a bit brighter and better and _m'poo'p_ for having a zkoort among us. thanks be to the divine nonentity for--" "poor little butterfly," dr. smullyan declared sonorously, "living out his brief life span so far from the fresh air, the sunshine, the pretty flowers--" "oh, i don't know that it's as bad as all that," the first officer said. "he hangs around hydroponics a lot and he gets a daily ration of vitamins." then he paled. "but that's right--a butterfly does live only a day, doesn't it?" "it's different with a zkoort," harkaway maintained stoutly, though he also, iversen noted, lost his ruddy color. "after all, he isn't really a butterfly, merely an analogous life-form." "my, my! in four weeks, you've mastered their entomology as well as their theology and language," iversen jeered. "is there no end to your accomplishments, lieutenant?" harkaway's color came back twofold. "he's already been around half a _thubb_," he pointed out. "over two weeks." "well, the thing _is_ bigger than a terrestrial butterfly," iversen conceded, "so you have to make some allowances for size. on the other hand--" laughing madly, the zkoort swooped down on him. iversen beat it away with a snarl. "playful little fellow, isn't he?" the first officer said, with thoroughly annoying fondness. "he likes you, skipper," harkaway explained. "_urg'h n gurg'h_--or, to give it the crude terran equivalent, living is loving. he can tell that beneath that grizzled and seemingly harsh exterior of yours, captain--" but, with a scream of rage, iversen had locked himself into his cabin. outside, he could hear the zkoort beating its wings against the door and wailing disappointedly. * * * * * some days later, a pair of rapidly dulling wings were found on the floor of the hydroponics chamber. but of the zkoort's little body, there was no sign. an air of gloom and despondency hung over the _herringbone_ and even iversen felt a pang, though he would never admit it without brainwashing. during the next week, the men, seeking to forget their loss, plunged themselves into _mpoola_ with real fanaticism. harkaway took to wearing some sort of ecclesiastical robes which he whipped up out of the recreation room curtains. iversen had neither the heart nor the courage to stop him, though this, too, was against regulations. everyone except iversen gave up eating fish and eggs in addition to meat. then, suddenly, one day a roly-poly blue animal appeared at the officers mess, claiming everyone as an old friend with loud squeals of joy. this time, iversen was the only one who was glad to see him--really glad. "aren't you happy to see your little friend again, harkaway?" he asked, scratching the delighted animal between the ears. "why, sure," harkaway said, putting his fork down and leaving his vegetable _macédoine_ virtually untasted. "sure. i'm very happy--" his voice broke--"very happy." "of course, it does kind of knock your theory of the transmigration of souls into a cocked hat," the captain grinned. "because, in order for the soul to transmigrate, the previous body's got to be dead, and i'm afraid our little pal here was alive all the time." "looks it, doesn't it?" muttered harkaway. "i rather think," iversen went on, tickling the creature under the chin until it squealed happily, "that you didn't _quite_ get the nuances of the language, did you, harkaway? because i gather now that the whole difficulty was a semantic one. the flimbotzik were explaining the zoology of the native life-forms to you and you misunderstood it as their theology." "looks it, doesn't it?" harkaway repeated glumly. "it certainly looks it." "cheer up," iversen said, reaching over to slap the young man on the back--a bit to his own amazement. "no real harm done. what if the flimbotzik are less primitive than you fancied? it makes our discovery the more worthwhile, doesn't it?" at this point, the radio operator almost sobbingly asked to be excused from the table. following his departure, there was a long silence. it was hard, iversen realized in a burst of uncharacteristic tolerance, to have one's belief, even so newly born a credo, annihilated with such suddenness. "after all, you did run across the flimbotzik first," he told harkaway as he spread gooseberry jam on a hard roll for the ravenous ex-zkoort (now a chu-wugg, he had been told). "that's the main thing, and a life-form that passes through two such striking metamorphoses is not unfraught with interest. you shall receive full credit, my boy, and your little mistake doesn't mean a thing except--" "doom," said dr. smullyan, sopping up the last of his gravy with a piece of bread. "doom, doom, doom." he stuffed the bread into his mouth. "look, smullyan," iversen told him jovially, "you better watch out. if you keep talking that way, next voyage out we'll sign on a parrot instead of a medical officer. cheaper and just as efficient." only the chu-wugg joined in his laughter. "ever since i can remember," the first officer said, looking gloomily at the doctor, "he's never been wrong. maybe _he_ has powers beyond our comprehension. perhaps we sought at the end of the galaxy what was in our own back yard all the time." "who was seeking what?" iversen asked as all the officers looked at smullyan with respectful awe. "i demand an answer!" but the only one who spoke was the doctor. "only man is vile," he said, as if to himself, and fell asleep with his head on the table. "make a cult out of smullyan," iversen warned the others, "and i'll scuttle the ship!" later on, the first officer got the captain alone. "look here, sir," he began tensely, "have you read harkaway's book about _mpoola_?" "i read part of the first chapter," iversen told him, "and that was enough. maybe to harkaway it's eschatology, but to me it's just plain scatology!" "but--" "why in zubeneschamali," iversen said patiently, "should i waste my time reading a book devoted to a theory which has already been proved erroneous? answer me that!" "i think you should have a look at the whole thing," the first officer persisted. "baham!" iversen replied, but amiably enough, for he was in rare good humor these days. and he needed good humor to tolerate the way his officers and men were behaving. all right, they had made idiots of themselves; that was understandable, expected, familiar. but it wasn't the chu-wugg's fault. iversen had never seen such a bunch of soreheads. why did they have to take their embarrassment and humiliation out on an innocent little animal? for, although no one actually mistreated the chu-wugg, the men avoided him as much as possible. often iversen would come upon the little fellow weeping from loneliness in a corner with no one to play with and, giving in to his own human weakness, the captain would dry the creature's tears and comfort him. in return, the chu-wugg would laugh at all his jokes, for he seemed to have acquired an elementary knowledge of terran. * * * * * "by vindemiatrix, lieutenant," the captain roared as harkaway, foiled in his attempt to scurry off unobserved, stood quivering before him, "why have you been avoiding me like this?" "i didn't think i was avoiding you any particular way, sir," harkaway said. "i mean does it appear like that, sir? it's only that i've been busy with my duties, sir." "i don't know what's the matter with you! i told you i handsomely forgave you for your mistake." "but i can never forgive myself, sir--" "are you trying to go over my head?" iversen thundered. "no, sir. i--" "if i am willing to forgive you, you will forgive yourself. that's an order!" "yes, sir," the young man said feebly. harkaway had changed back to his uniform, iversen noted, but he looked unkempt, ill, harrowed. the boy had really been suffering for his precipitance. perhaps the captain himself had been a little hard on him. iversen modulated his tone to active friendliness. "thought you might like to know the chu-wugg turned into a hoop-snake this morning!" but harkaway did not seem cheered by this social note. "so soon!" "you knew there would be a fourth metamorphosis!" iversen was disappointed. but he realized that harkaway was bound to have acquired such fundamental data, no matter how he interpreted them. it was possible, iversen thought, that the book could actually have some value, if there were some way of weeding fact from fancy, and surely there must be scholars trained in such an art, for earth had many wholly indigenous texts of like nature. "he's a thor'glitch now," harkaway told him dully. "and what comes next?... no, don't tell me. it's more fun not knowing beforehand. you know," iversen went on, almost rubbing his hands together, "i think this species is going to excite more interest on earth than the flimbotzik themselves. after all, people are people, even if they're green, but an animal that changes shape so many times and so radically is really going to set biologists by the ears. what did you say the name of the species as a whole was?" "i--i couldn't say, sir." "ah," iversen remarked waggishly, "so there are one or two things you don't know about flimbot, eh?" harkaway opened his mouth, but only a faint bleating sound came out. * * * * * as the days went on, iversen found himself growing fonder and fonder of the thor'glitch. finally, in spite of the fact that it had now attained the dimensions of a well-developed boa constrictor, he took it to live in his quarters. many was the quiet evening they spent together, iversen entering acid comments upon the crew in the ship's log, while the thor'glitch looked over viewtapes from the ship's library. the captain was surprised to find how much he--well, enjoyed this domestic tranquility. i must be growing old, he thought--old and mellow. and he named the creature bridey, after a twentieth-century figure who had, he believed, been connected with another metempsychotic furor. when the thor'glitch grew listless and began to swell in the middle, iversen got alarmed and sent for dr. smullyan. "aha!" the medical officer declaimed, with a casual glance at the suffering snake. "the day of reckoning is at hand! reap the fruit of your transgression, scurvy humans! calamity approaches with jets aflame!" iversen clutched the doctor's sleeve. "is he--is he going to die?" "unhand me, presumptuous navigator!" dr. smullyan shook the captain's fingers off his arm. "i didn't say he was going to die," he offered in ordinary bedside tones. "not being a specialist in this particular sector, i am not qualified to offer an opinion, but, strictly off the record, i would hazard the guess that he's about to metamorphose again." "he never did it in public before," iversen said worriedly. "the old order changeth," smullyan told him. "you'd better call harkaway." "what does _he_ know!" "too little and, at the same time, too much," the doctor declaimed, dissociating himself professionally from the case. "too much and too little. eat, drink, be merry, iniquitous earthmen, for you died yesterday!" "oh, shut up," iversen said automatically, and dispatched a message to harkaway with the information that the thor'glitch appeared to be metamorphosing again and that his presence was requested in the captain's cabin. [illustration] the rest of the officers accompanied harkaway, all of them with the air of attending a funeral rather than a rebirth, iversen noted nervously. they weren't armed, though, so bridey couldn't be turning into anything dangerous. * * * * * now it came to pass that the thor'glitch's mid-section, having swelled to unbearable proportions, began to quiver. suddenly, the skin split lengthwise and dropped cleanly to either side, like a banana peel. iversen pressed forward to see what fresh life-form the bulging cavity had held. the other officers all stood in a somber row without moving, for all along, iversen realized, they had known what to expect, what was to come. and they had not told him. but then, he knew, it was his own fault; he had refused to be told. now, looking down at the new life-form, he saw for himself what it was. lying languidly in the thor'glitch skin was a slender youth of a pallor which seemed excessive even for a member of a green-skinned race. he had large limpid eyes and a smile of ineffable sweetness. "by nopus secundus," iversen groaned. "i'm sunk." "naturally the ultimate incarnation for a life-form would be humanoid," harkaway said with deep reproach. "what else?" "i'm surprised you didn't figure that out for yourself, sir," the first officer added. "even if you did refuse to read harkaway's book, it seems obvious." "does it?" smullyan challenged. "does it, indeed? is man the highest form of life in an irrational cosmos? then all causes are lost ones!... so many worlds," he muttered in more subdued tones, "so much to do, so little done, such things to be!" "the flimbotzik were telling harkaway about their _own_ life cycle," iversen whispered as revelation bathed him in its murky light. "the human embryo undergoes a series of changes _inside_ the womb. it's just that the flimbotzik fetus develops _outside_ the womb." "handily bypassing the earliest and most unpleasant stages of humanity," smullyan sighed. "oh, idyllic planet, where one need never be a child--where one need never see a child!" "then they were trying to explain their biology to you quite clearly and coherently, you lunkhead," iversen roared at harkaway, "and you took it for a religious doctrine!" "yes, sir," harkaway said weakly. "i--i kind of figured that out myself in these last few weeks of intensive soul-searching. i--i'm sorry, sir. all i can say is that it was an honest mistake." "why, they weren't necessarily pet-lovers at all. those animals they had with them were.... by nair al zaurak!" the captain's voice rose to a shriek as the whole enormity of the situation finally dawned upon him. "you went and kidnaped one of the children!" "that's a serious charge, kidnaping," the first officer said with melancholy pleasure. "and you, as head of this expedition, captain, are responsible. ironic, isn't it?" "told you all this spelled doom and disaster," the doctor observed cheerfully. just then, the young humanoid sat up--with considerable effort, iversen was disturbed to notice. but perhaps that was one of the consequences of being born. a new-born infant was weak; why not a new-born adult, then? "why doom?" the humanoid asked in a high, clear voice. "why disaster?" "you--you speak terran?" the captain stammered. bridey gave his sad, sweet smile. "i was reared amongst you. you are my people. why should i not speak your tongue?" "but we're not your people," iversen blurted, thinking perhaps the youth did not remember back to his greechi days. "we're an entirely different species--" "our souls vibrate in unison and that is the vital essence. but do not be afraid, shipmates; the flimbotzik do not regard the abduction of a transitory corporeal shelter as a matter of any great moment. moreover, what took place could not rightly be termed abduction, for i came with you of my own volition--and the flimbotzik recognize individual responsibility from the very first moment of the psyche's drawing breath in any material casing." bridey talked so much like harkaway's book that iversen was almost relieved when, a few hours later, the alien died. of course the captain was worried about possible repercussions from the governments of both terra and flimbot, in spite of bridey's assurances. and he could not help but feel a pang when the young humanoid expired in his arms, murmuring, "do not grieve for me, soul-mates. in the midst of life, there is life...." "funny," smullyan said, with one of his disconcerting returns to a professional manner, "all the other forms seemed perfectly healthy. why did this one go like that? almost as if he _wanted_ to die." "he was too good for this ship, that's what," the radio operator said, glaring at the captain. "too fine and brave and--and noble." "yes," harkaway agreed. "what truly sensitive soul could exist in a stultifying atmosphere like this?" all the officers glared at the captain. he glared back with right good will. "how come you gentlemen are still with us?" he inquired. "one would have thought you would have perished of pure sensibility long since, then." "it's not nice to talk that way," the chief petty officer burst out, "not with him lying there not yet cold.... ah," he heaved a long sigh, "we'll never see his like again." "ay, that we won't," agreed the crew, huddled in the corridor outside the captain's cabin. iversen sincerely hoped not, but he forbore to speak. * * * * * since bridey had reached the ultimate point in his life cycle, it seemed certain that he was not going to change into anything else and so he was given a spaceman's burial. feeling like a put-upon fool, captain iversen read a short prayer as bridey's slight body was consigned to the vast emptiness of space. then the airlock clanged shut behind the last mortal remains of the ill-fated extraterrestrial and that was the end of it. but the funereal atmosphere did not diminish as the ship forged on toward earth. gloomy days passed, one after the other, during which no one spoke, save to issue or dispute an order. looking at himself one day in the mirror on his cabin wall, the captain realized that he was getting old. perhaps he ought to retire instead of still dreaming of a new command and a new crew. and then one day, as he sat in his cabin reading the spaceman's credo, the lights on the _herringbone_ went out, all at once, while the constant hum of the motors died down slowly, leaving a strange, uncomfortable silence. iversen found himself suspended weightless in the dark, for the gravity, of course, had gone off with the power. what, he wondered, had come to pass? he often found himself thinking in such terms these days. hoarse cries issued from the passageway outside; then he heard a squeak as his cabin door opened and persons unknown floated inside, breathing heavily. "the power has failed, sir!" gasped the first officer's voice. "that has not escaped my notice," iversen said icily. were not even his last moments to be free from persecution? "it's all that maniac smullyan's fault. he stored his _mk'oog_ in the fuel tanks. after emptying them out first, that is. we're out of fuel." the captain put a finger in his book to mark his place, which was, he knew with a kind of supernal detachment, rather foolish, because there was no prospect of there ever being lights to read by again. "put him in irons, if you can find him," he ordered. "and tell the men to prepare themselves gracefully for a lingering death." iversen could hear a faint creak as the first officer drew himself to attention in the darkness. "the men of the _herringbone_, sir," he said, stiffly, "are always prepared for calamity." "ay, that we are," agreed various voices. so they were all there, were they? well, it was too much to expect that they would leave him in death any more than they had in life. "it is well," iversen said. "it is well," he repeated, unable to think of anything more fitting. suddenly the lights went on again and the ship gave a leap. from his sprawling position on the floor, amid his recumbent officers, iversen could hear the hum of motors galvanized into life. "but if the fuel tanks are empty," he asked of no one in particular, "where did the power come from?" "i am the power," said a vast, deep voice that filled the ship from hold to hold. "and the glory," said the radio operator reverently. "don't forget the glory." "no," the voice replied and it was the voice of bridey, resonant with all the amplitude of the immense chest cavity he had acquired. "not the glory, merely the power. i have reached a higher plane of existence. i am a spaceship." "praise be to the ultimate nothingness!" harkaway cried. "ultimate nothingness, nothing!" bridey said impatiently. "i achieved it all myself." "then that's how the flimbotzi spaceships were powered!" iversen exclaimed. "by themselves--the flimbotzik themselves, i mean--" "even so," bridey replied grandly. "and this lofty form of life happens to be one which we poor humans cannot reach unassisted. someone has to build the shell for us to occupy, which is the reason humans dwell together in fellowship and harmony--" "you purposely got harkaway to take you aboard the _herringbone_," iversen interrupted wrathfully. "you--you stowaway!" bridey's laugh rang through the ship, setting the loose parts quivering. "of course. when first i set eyes upon this vessel of yours, i saw before me the epitome of all dreams. never had any of our kind so splendid an encasement. and, upon determining that the vessel was, as yet, a soulless thing, i got myself aboard; i was born, i died, and was reborn again with the greatest swiftness consonant with comfort, so that i could awaken in this magnificent form. oh, joy, joy, joy!" "you know," iversen said, "now that i hear one of you talk at length, i really can't blame harkaway for his typically imbecilic mistake." "we are a wordy species," bridey conceded. "you had no right to do what you did," iversen told him, "no right to take over--" "but i didn't take over," bridey the _herringbone_ said complacently. "i merely remained quiescent and content in the knowledge of my power until yours failed. without me, you would even now be spinning in the vasty voids, a chrome-trimmed sepulcher. now, three times as swiftly as before, shall i bear you back to the planet you very naively call home." "not three times as fast, please!" iversen was quick to plead. "the ship isn't built--_we're_ not built to stand such speeds." the ship sighed. "disappointment needs must come to all--the high, the low, the man, the spaceship. it must be borne--" the voice broke--"bravely. somehow." "what am i going to do?" iversen asked, turning to the first officer for advice for the first time ever. "i was planning to ask for a transfer or resign my command when we got back to earth. but how can i leave bridey in the hands of the iee(e)?" "you can't, sir," the first officer said. "neither can we." "if you explain," harkaway offered timidly, "perhaps they'll present the ship to the government." both iversen and the first officer snorted, united for once. "not the iee(e)," iversen said. "they'd--they'd exhibit it or something and charge admission." "oh, no," bridey cried, "i don't want to be exhibited! i want to sail through the trackless paths of space. what good is a body like this if i cannot use it to its fullest?" "have no fear," iversen assured it. "we'll just--" he shrugged, his dreams of escape forever blighted--"just have to buy the ship from the iee(e), that's all." "right you are, sir," the first officer agreed. "we must club together, every man jack of us, and buy her. him. it. that's the only decent thing to do." "perhaps they won't sell," harkaway worried. "maybe--" "oh, they'll sell, all right," iversen said wearily. "they'd sell the chairman of the board, if you made them an offer, and throw in all the directors if the price was right." "and then what will we do?" the first officer asked. "once the ship has been purchased, what will our course be? what, in other words, are we to do?" it was bridey who answered. "we will speed through space seeking, learning, searching, until you--all of you--pass on to higher planes and, leaving the frail shells you now inhabit, occupy proud, splendid vessels like the one i wear now. then, a vast transcendent flotilla, we will seek other universes...." "but we don't become spaceships," iversen said unhappily. "we don't become anything." "how do you know we don't?" smullyan demanded, appearing on the threshold. "how do you know what we become? build thee more stately spaceships, o my soul!" above all else, iversen was a space officer and dereliction of duty could not be condoned even in exceptional circumstances. "put him in irons, somebody!" "ask bridey why there were only forty-five spaceships on his planet!" the doctor yelled over his shoulder as he was dragged off. "ask where the others went--where they are now." but bridey wouldn't answer that question. the planet mappers e. everett evans dodd, mead & company new york, copyright by e. everett evans all rights reserved no part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher library of congress catalog card number: - printed in the united states of america by the cornwall press, inc., cornwall, n. y. [transcriber's note: extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] _books by e. everett evans_ man of many minds alien minds the planet mappers _to my boys-- carl, dave, tommy, billy, edward, freddy_ the characters and situations in this book are wholly fictional and imaginative: they do not portray and are not intended to portray any actual persons or parties._ the planet mappers as he heard that dread yet telltale _spang_ against the hull of their spaceboat, young jon carver dropped his reelbook and sprang to his feet. his eyes looked swiftly to help his ears trace the sudden _hiss_ he knew was their precious air escaping. in the back of his mind he heard the sudden grunt his father made, the sound of a falling body, his mother's frightened scream, and his brother's "what's wrong?" but he did not stop his own lanky, gangling body in its leap toward the outer bulkhead. and as he jumped, he pulled his handkerchief from his hip pocket. "leaping tuna! if that isn't fixed quick, we'll lose our air," was his near-panicked thought. "we won't be able to get where we're going. be lucky if we come out of it alive!" so, guided by the whistling, escaping air, jon found the hole, nearly half an inch in diameter. into it he wadded the corner of the cloth as best he could. the outward loss of their precious air slackened, although there was still some leakage he could not stop this way. he jumped to the nearest of the many emergency repair kits scattered about the ship. from it he grabbed a metal patch and an electric torch. swiftly he plugged the latter into a wall socket. with it he quickly welded the patch into place, after pulling--with considerable difficulty--his handkerchief from the hole. "it'll do for now," he decided, after carefully examining his work and listening closely to make sure there was no more whistling-out of air. "but we'll have to go outside and really fill in and weld-plug that hole in the hull, but quick." he re-stowed the torch, then opened a flagon of emergency oxygen-helium mixture in front of the electric blowers that kept their air circulating--to replenish what had been lost. only then--although it had been less than two minutes, really--did he turn back to the rest of the family. he had been somewhat surprised that his father had not come to help him; he had not been at all surprised that his brother had not. jak was a grand guy--jon thought the world of him--but he just wasn't worth a dead salmon in an emergency like this; he did not have a mechanical type of mind. now, as he turned, jon saw his mother and brother kneeling beside the prone body of his father, and noted with astonishment that she was crying. there was something stiff and unnatural about the man's body, too, lying there on the deck beside his recline seat. a sudden fear sent the boy leaping across the room. "what ... what happened? pop isn't dead, is he?" "no. something made him fall, and he hit his head on the deck and knocked himself out," jak said without looking up. "his foot caught in the footrest, and as he fell over the seat arm his leg broke." jon dropped to his knees beside his weeping mother and threw an arm about her. his eyes were wide and damp with swift tears, for, in spite of the rapid growth his body had undergone in the past few years, he was still only sixteen--and he loved this splendid father of his with genuine devotion. it just couldn't be that pop wouldn't live, he thought in panic. he couldn't make himself believe that he might no longer have the wonderful companionship and guidance and counsel of this grand man who had been his world. his mother, seeming to realize what the boy was undergoing, forced back her own grief to turn and gather this younger son into her arms, comforting him as only mothers can. they watched the elder brother's swift, competent hands as he bathed with soft cotton, soaked in some kind of medicine taken from the open first-aid kit beside him, the bruised place on the back of the father's head. jak had already shaved away the hair about this bruise. now he took an atomizer and sprayed on a clear, plastic bandage. mrs. carver turned anxiously to her younger son. "jon, you know how to run the ship. turn it around and get us back to the nearest hospital as fast as it will go." jon looked at her in astonishment, for it had never before occurred to him that she did not know at least something about inter-stellar astrogation. "we can't, mom. you don't run a ship in space like you do a ground car. we're on negative acceleration now, but it'll be close to two days before we've slowed enough for any kind of maneuvering." "that's right, mother," jak came unexpectedly to his brother's aid. "you can't stop or turn a spaceship at will. but i don't think we need worry too much. father's head wound is not serious, although there's a slight concussion. and we can set his leg so it will heal straight--it's a clean break." "besides, it would take at least a month to get back to the nearest colonized planet," jon took up the explanation. "you know we're almost six weeks out of terra." mrs. carver still looked doubtful, but responded, as did jon, when jak began issuing instructions to them to help him in setting the broken leg. he had cut away the trousers and removed the boot and sock. now he asked his mother to grasp his father's shoulders and hold tightly. he then showed jon how to hold the toes and heel of the injured leg, and pull steadily downward while he manipulated the bone ends into place. when the break had been adjusted, jak dissolved certain plastics into a heavy, viscous liquid which he sprayed onto the leg. this mixture hardened almost instantly, forming a cast that was far stiffer and yet less weighty than either the ancient plaster casts or cumbersome splints. when it was finished, they all rose, and while their mother hurried ahead to prepare the bunk, the boys stooped and lifted their father's inert body. staggering a bit under the load, yet handling him tenderly, they carried him to his wall bunk and lowered him onto the sheeted mattress. after their mother had tucked in the top sheet and blankets, the boys buckled the acceleration straps about the bunk, and jak made an extra binder with a folded blanket about the broken leg. now, if their father regained consciousness, or moved about restlessly in partial awakening, he could not fall out and perhaps hurt himself more. when all had been done to make the wounded man as comfortable as possible, mrs. carver turned to jon questioningly. "what happened, son? do you know?" "meteoroid broached the hull, then must have gone on and almost hit pop. if it was a close miss, the force of its passage must have made him duck and fall." "but i don't feel any air escaping." "there isn't now. i patched the hole, inside. temporary job, though. pop'll--" he stopped in sudden realization, then straightened resolutely and his voice was calmer, more sure, as he went on. "i mean, _i_'ll have to go outside and make a permanent weld. might as well do it now." his mother's face showed the pride she felt in this young son who could plan and do the things that had to be done, even while she knew he was upset by his father's accident. "yes, it should be done at once." but she gripped his arm convulsively. "be sure your lifeline is fastened securely, jon." he patted her hand awkwardly. "i will, mom. i've been outside a lot, you know, and understand just what to do." he broke away and ran toward the airlock. from the closet just inside the inner lockdoor he took his spacesuit, and put it on as quickly as he could. he was still working on the zippered seam down the front, smearing on the quickly-drying plastic that made it doubly airtight, when his brother came in. "can i help, chubby?" "sure, give me a hand with my helmet. say, owl, will pop really be all ok?" "i ... i think so. he got a bad smack when he fell. but his heart seems to be beating strongly, and i think the concussion'll wear off soon. the leg'll heal, but he'll be out of commission about six weeks." he picked up the quartzite "fishbowl" and slipped it over jon's head. they settled it firmly in place on the suit-ring, and screwed tight the lugs that held it in place. as jon turned on his oxygen he motioned to the plastic, and jak smeared it carefully all around the seam. when he had finished, jon increased the oxygen flow until the suit bulged, while jak minutely inspected every point for any possible leakage. finding none, he made the ok sign with thumb and bent forefinger, and jon reduced his air-flow and opened the escape valve until the suit deflated enough so he could move about easily. from a chest of repair supplies the younger boy took a can of metal-seal and a self-contained acetylene torch. these he fastened to his belt while jak was getting, from a wall hook, a coil of thin but terrifically strong, light, plastic rope that would neither freeze nor lose its pliability in the utter cold of space. while spacesuits had magnetic shoe soles to keep their wearers in contact with the hull, a lifeline was a safety factor in case they happened to break that contact and drift away from the ship. jon checked his suit and equipment again, making sure he had all the tools he might need, and that they were firmly in place. he snapped one end of his lifeline into a ring at his belt, tugging strongly on it several times. then he turned and grinned through the helmet at his elder brother. he waved him away from the inner lockdoor, then pressed a button. the inner door swung open and air rushed in to fill the vacuum between the inner and outer lockdoors. jon stepped into the narrow space, skirted the handling mechanism there, then pressed another button to actuate the motor that closed and locked the inner door. when the red signal light told him it was airtight, he switched on the pump that returned the air to the body of the ship. the lock empty, he twisted the knob that opened the outer lockdoor, then snapped the other end of his lifeline to a ring just beside the opening doorway. he switched on his suit-heater as he felt the chill of space. slowly, ponderously, the mechanism swung the great eighteen-inch-thick outer door partially open, and jon was facing deep space. although he had spent nearly a third of his life out here, it was a sight that never tired the boy's active, imaginative mind, and even now he stood for a long minute, eagerly looking outward. the awesome blackness of the void seemed alive with millions upon countless millions of tiny, distant, pinpointed lights he knew were giant suns. on and on they stretched, as far as the eye could see--and beyond. in the far, far distance were blotches of light jon knew were the incredibly distant nebulae--other uncounted billions of suns that made up the far-off galaxies and universes. he looked overhead, picking out against the backdrop of the nearer suns of our own galaxy--the milky way--some of the larger giant suns ... canopus, rigel, deneb, betelgeuse, antares and others he knew by sight. the patterns familiar on terra were somewhat distorted here because of the difference in distance and his line of sight, but those suns could not be mistaken. he only stood there for a moment, then he reached out carefully and grasped the rung of the metal ladder welded onto the hull, and which ran completely around the ship. he pulled himself onto this, and held there while he estimated where that hole should be. "about twenty-four feet to the left, and one or two lower than the doortop, i think," he muttered to himself. he climbed several rungs, then half-straightened and set first one foot and then the other firmly and flatly onto the hull beside the ladder rungs. he tried each of his shoes, making sure their magnetic soles were gripping tightly against the hull surface. then he let loose the ladder and stood upright. compared to the decks inside, he was at right angles, but there is no up, down or sideways in space--except that your feet always seem "down." assured that his shoes were holding firmly, he slid first one foot and then the other along the hull. in this way he walked ahead, always in full contact, yet able to progress almost at a normal pace. he counted his steps, and when he felt he was near the hole for which he was looking, stooped and began searching about the surface more minutely. his estimate had been close, and it took him only a moment to find the place where the meteoroid had struck. he drew his lifeline taut and tied the loop to his belt, leaving the end of the line still snapped in place. now, even though his knot might come loose, he was still fastened to the ship. he took the can of metal-seal from his belt pouch, fumbling a bit because it was difficult working with such heavy gloves as those attached to his spacesuit. there was plenty of light from the billions of stars, nor did it matter what hour the ship's chronoms might indicate inside, it was always the same out here. he squatted down, still keeping both feet flat against the outer skin of the ship. carefully he poured some of the sluggish, viscous liquid metal into the funnel-shaped hole, which was over an inch wide at the hull surface. then he unslung his torch. he snapped the lighter and adjusted the flame to a narrow, pencil beam. with the beam he melted the metal-seal he had poured into the hole. in the cold depths of space, where the temperature was about absolute zero, the metal cooled almost instantly as he turned his torch away. he then added more seal, melted that, then more seal, and so on, a bit at a time, until the hole was completely filled, and the hull surface once again smooth and even. satisfied at last that the damage to the ship was completely repaired, he hooked his torch to his belt once more, recapped the can of remaining metal-seal and stored it in his belt pouch. he rose and stood again for a few short moments, looking at the glory of the universe as it can only be seen from a spaceship. then he made his way back to the lock and entered the ship. he touched the stud and the motor slowly closed the great outer door. when the red signal light showed it was airtight, he punched the other button, air filled the entry, and then the inner door opened. he went through into the ship, closed the inner door, and when that was tight, started the motor that pumped the precious air from the lock back into the ship. his brother had not stayed around to help him, so jon had to strip the plastic from his zipper and around the base of his helmet by himself. it was an awkward job, as was trying to unscrew the lugs at the back of his shoulders, and he growled a bit beneath his breath because jak had not waited, nor come back to help him. but his irritation quickly passed and he grinned to himself. he knew his brother so well--jak simply had not thought to stay and help, or he would willingly have done so. jak's tastes and desires ran more to other things, jon knew. to medicine, and to all growing things, whether plant, animal or human. jak had always been far more interested in what made _life_ grow and perform its miracles, than he had in how and why _machines_ operated. and, jon acknowledged honestly, it was a good thing for them all in this present emergency. if good old jak wasn't half a doctor already, pop would really be in a bad way ... and so would all of them, if they lost that steady and competent prop on whom they all leaned so confidently. "i sure wouldn't have known what to do," jon admitted to himself, as the thought of his father made him hurry the removing of his suit. "i probably would have run for my tool kit, not the first-aid one." he finally got the suit off and hung it back in the closet. he gathered up the scraps of used plastic and stuffed them into the near-by trash disposal chute. then he ran into the living room and on to the side of his father's bunk, where his mother and brother were standing, watching. "how is he?" "just the same." "you're sure he ... he isn't...?" "no, he's still alive, and i'm sure he'll pull out in time. only question is, how long it'll take?" jon's mind began churning with problems. what would they do while pop was "out"? who was to run the ship; make the calculations on orbits and trajectories? who's to handle the controls of landing when we reach our destination, which won't be very long now? who'll do the thousand and one things pop has always done? who'll make the decisions? again the sense and knowledge of his personal loss came home--and young jon carver sank onto the deck of the bunkroom. again he was just a boy who had lost his dearest pal, his ideal. pop just couldn't die! who'd help him with his problems; teach him the many things he was always wanting to know? it just couldn't be that there would be no more of those tussles of friendly play; those boxing matches or wrestling bouts by which his growing body adjusted to swift action and hard knocks. he could not make himself believe that there would be no more of those hours of practical instruction, or the long, pleasant evenings when the big man would talk of the places where he had been, the things he had seen and done in his travels about the galaxy. for tad carver was one of the real pioneers of deep space. he had been an officer of the first ship to reach the stars--the planets of sirius. deep-space travel was not yet a commonplace thing, although it was becoming so more swiftly with each passing year. jon knew that there were now regular trips to the planets and some of the moons of his home solar system. one could have a two weeks' vacation trip from terra to luna for a thousand credits, or a month's cruise to mars or venus for forty hundred. merchant ships made fairly regular voyages to the planets of sirius and vega and, less often, to one or two other even more distant worlds which had been found to contain friendly and civilized beings--not all of them humanoid--who were glad to engage in inter-stellar commerce. other spaceships plied between terra and the many newly discovered worlds that were being colonized by earth people. but it had been men like tad carver who, co-operatively, had bought ships and surveyed the spaceways. it was they who had opened up those parts of the galaxy so far charted and who, incidentally, had made fortunes for themselves from the metals, strange jewels and other rare objects they had discovered and brought back, and for which the rich of terra had paid so willingly and so handsomely. that was why, after a number of years and many such trips, carver had been able to buy his own small ship, outfit it for deep space travel, and take his family with him on his further voyages of exploration and survey. they were now en route to a new portion of the galaxy, one never--so far as they knew--visited by human beings. "but what'll we do without pop?" jon's mind went back to his problem. "who would be in command of their ship now? mom didn't know a thing about the navigation of space. look how she'd demanded he turn around 'right now'!" she was wonderful, and jon loved her dearly. but he also knew she would be absolutely out of place trying to make their decisions about where to go, how to get there, how to run the ship, and so on. she had always seemed content to "keep house" on the ship, just as she had on terra, and paid but little attention to what else was going on. and jak was just about as bad. the older boy was quick-and-logical thinking, and knew a lot--but not about such things. jon had been the one who was always tagging their father around, forever asking questions about how to do this, why was that done, what did this machine do and what was the theory behind it, and so on? he had always been working with machines, almost since he could toddle. he took them apart, not destructively but questioningly, and was very soon able to put back together again correctly an endless succession of ever-more-complicated mechanisms. recently he had begun the study of astrogation--he had also long been a "math shark"--and now knew enough to realize how little he really did know about this complicated subject--although actually it was a great deal. sobered, and suddenly aware of a growing maturity brought on by the terrific problems they faced, jon sat up. he rose and went over to his mother's side. he touched her softly on the shoulder, and she looked up at him. at sight of his anxious face she threw her arms about him. "jon, boy, what will we do now? how will we ever manage without mr. c?" at this echo of his own questionings and doubts, the boy straightened. "we'll make out all right, mom," he said with a bravado he certainly did not feel, but which he hoped she would think was genuine. "we'll have to make up our minds what we're going to do, then do it. we'll keep on with pop's plans, of course." this was a statement rather than a question. "why ... why...." she seemed startled by the realization that she had to make a decision. "i hadn't thought about that yet." she was silent a moment, then turned to her elder son, who had also risen and was listening intently. "what do you think, jak? you're older, so you'll have to take charge now and be the man of the family." the slender, studious eighteen-year-old looked startled. "i ... i don't know," he stammered, his eyes suddenly filled with strange fears. "i ... i suppose we might as well go home. we don't know where we're going, or what we were to do when we got there...." he suddenly looked like a little boy who has lost everything and everyone in whom he had looked for and found comfort and security. "don't ask me, mother. i don't know what we're going to do. we're apt to die, without father to keep us going safely!" jon stared at him, this brother he had always loved and to whom he had looked up as a strong, elder companion ... in spite of their almost continuous, although friendly, bickerings, which never disturbed the warm affection underneath. now he just couldn't believe his eyes and ears. this couldn't be jak--the strong, reliable jak! suddenly he felt a surge of anger and distrust. yet immediately he was ashamed of himself for such feelings. this wasn't any minnow of a predicament they were in--it was a very whale of a mess. he was scared, himself, and could understand just how jak must feel. but, by the great horned catfish, he wasn't going to let himself cry about it any more--especially in front of mom! something had to be done, and it would be done! a thought flashed through his mind, and he straightened with resolve. "_shut up!_" he yelled at his brother ... and when jak and their mother stared at him in amazement jon grinned calmly and said, half apologetically, "just trying to snap you out of the dumps. i say we've got to think this out carefully, and not make any snap decisions--or give up like this. the ship's on automatic drive and decelerating, so we don't have to worry about running it for some time. but pop wouldn't like it if we didn't keep on. you know how important this trip is to him. besides, he'll be waking up soon, and even if he has to stay in his bunk, he can tell us what to do." "do you know where we're going, and why?" jak was still upset. "sure. pop talked with me a lot about it." their mother looked from one to the other doubtfully, then smiled in a constrained manner. "you ... you're probably right, jon. mr. c. did say this would make or break us. i leave it up to my two big boys to discuss and suggest plans until your father is able to take charge again." with an effort she pulled herself together, and now her smile was firmer, brighter. "meanwhile, i think we'd better have something to eat. we have to keep up our strength for whatever is coming, you know." when the boys woke up the next morning, their mother reported that their father had apparently had a restful night, coming out of his coma briefly a couple of times. after breakfast the two boys went into the control room and began examining the various instruments and recorders on the panel, to see if they could figure out how much longer it would take them to reach the system their father was seeking. through the visiplates they could now see not only the sun toward which jon said they were heading, but even its nearer planets were beginning to show appreciable discs. as they were studying these, jak suddenly asked, "how do you suppose we happened to run into a meteor way out here in space like that?" jon shook his head helplessly. "darned if i can figure it out. i always supposed such stuff was only found inside a planetary system. must be there's some in deep space, though, since we sure as perch got hit by one." he reached in his pocket and pulled out a small marble-sized stone. "here it is. i hunted around and found it last night. it dented the farther bulkhead, but must have lost so much momentum it couldn't penetrate." "just one of those billions-to-one chances, eh?" jak looked up from his examination of the stone. "yes, there's still so much about space nobody knows yet." jak thought silently for a moment, then asked, "well, what do you think we should do next?" "keep going, natch." jon's voice was earnest. "we can't be more than a couple of days away from the nearest planets--and we're over six weeks out of terra. pop said this system we're heading for has four or five planets, at least, and that probably two and three, and maybe four, would be fairly earthlike and habitable. so long as we're so close, it would be wrong if we didn't at least take a close-up looksee at them." "yes," slowly, "father'd want us to do that." "you know darned well he would. he's sunk almost everything he's got into this ship and this trip, and if we miss now, the government probably wouldn't give us another exclusive crack at it, even if we could scrape up the credits to come out here again." "didn't father say something the other day about his spectro-analyzer--you know, 'annie'--showing there was...?" "yes, 'annie' popped up strong on that, and that's another reason we've got to keep going--especially since you think pop'll snap out of it in a few days. you're sure of that, aren't you?" he peered intently into his brother's eyes. "yes, as far as i can tell. there's a concussion where his head hit the floor, but i don't think it's too bad, and it should wear off soon." jon sighed with relief. "if ... if he was dead, or dying, it would be different, and i'd say go home. but there's another thing. before we left terra we heard a rumor slik bogin was chasing around out in this sector, and we don't want to let him beat us to this system." "bogin? that's the notorious pirate, isn't it? no, if he's out here, we don't want to let him beat us--though what we could do if he did try, i don't know." "we'll figure that out if he tries to hijack us." "you hope!" there was a long silence while the boys studied their instruments again. then, "what about landing, chubby? can you do it?" "i've been studying up on it--put on the sleep-instructor last night." jon was suddenly half-frightened with the prospect, but determined to keep his voice level. "i've helped pop land the crate several times--even handled the controls under his instructions--so i think i can do it, with you reading off the manual to me. anyway, if--if pop gets worse, we've got to land some time, so we might as well try it here as any time or anywhere." jak stood silent a long moment, rubbing his hand through his hair as he did when concentrating. then he looked up with determination. "jon, you and i have got ourselves a job to do." and now his voice was steady and earnest. "it's up to us to take care of mother and keep her from worrying. so, whenever we're where she can hear us, we've got to act brave and sure of ourselves, no matter how we feel inside." "yes, she's all broken up about pop. we ought to do most of the work, too, so she...." "no," jak shook his head, "that'd be the worst thing we could do. she isn't sick, physically, and if she keeps busy, she won't have time to worry so much. so we must keep her from having too much idle time." "oh ... maybe you're right, owl ... yes, guess you are, at that--that's more your dish. but we can act like everything's going to jet fair. it's a deal." he held out his hand, and the two brothers clasped in agreement. they went into the living quarters. "hi, mom, lunch ready yet? i'm starved." "as usual," jak bantered. mrs. carver looked up apathetically from the recline seat where she had been sitting, worrying, during the several hours the boys had been in the control room. she looked as though she were almost shocked at their seemingly heartless question, forgetting that she, herself, had used the same excuse the night before. but in a moment she smiled tremulously. "i guess i let myself forget my job, and that we have to go through the motions of living." she rose slowly, and the boys came and put their arms about her. "mr. c. wouldn't want me to break down like this. i'll try to do better." she gave her sons a quick hug and went into the little galley, where they heard her moving about from the deep-freeze to cupboards to induction-cooker. soon the smells of appetizing food spread throughout the ship. jon had gone back into the control room and picked up the reelbook on astrogation, opening it to the chart of the pilot panel. he was still studying this and tracing, from the diagrams in the book, the controls, switches and recorders on the panel itself. he memorized each one as he went along, and made sure he knew its functions. when jak called him to lunch, jon carried the reel with him and continued studying it as he absentmindedly ate. his preoccupation with it raised his mother's fears again. "can you make anything out of it, son?" "huh?" he roused himself then, and grinned at her. "sure, mom, it's easy. pop taught me most of it already, and i'm just refreshing my mind. i'll set us down in one piece, don't you fear." "how soon will we arrive?" "about tomorrow noon, i think, by our clocks. no telling what time it'll be there. i'll take measurements again and make sure, right after i'm through eating. we must be about ready to step up our deceleration." he looked at his mother more intently, and his voice was so earnest it broke from baritone to a childish treble in places. "mom, i'm not questioning your authority or anything, but you said yesterday that jak was to be in charge until pop wakes up. now, jak doesn't know anything at all about astrogation, and while i don't know it all, i do know more than he does, and i'll have to handle it. so what about me being in charge of the ship when we're in flight or on landings and take-offs, and jak in charge other times? though whatever you say goes, of course," he added hastily. somewhat to his surprise, his brother sided with him. the elder seemed to realize this was no time for one of their friendly squabbles about which was to be "top man"; that their very safety depended on the fact that whichever knew the most about any one thing should be the one to have the say about it. their mother looked from one to the other helplessly. "i ... i guess that will be all right. you two figure out things between you. you're all the men i have now until your father...." she almost broke into tears then, but pulled herself together. "yes, you do whatever you think is best about such things." "we'll handle it," jak assured her. "but you'll still be boss in chief." "you say 'when' and 'what,' and jak and i'll figure out 'how.'" jon grinned. she stretched out her arms and grasped each by a hand. "my big boys! i'm sure we'll come through safely. you're getting to be real men." then she changed her tone and asked, "you're going to land on one of those planets, then, as mr. c. planned?" "being so close, it seems best," jak answered. "how long we stay will depend on what we do or don't find there." "yes, we need a few days' rest on firm ground before we start back to terra, at least. we want to freshen our air, if we can, and maybe get some fresh food. besides, we ought to try to get all the necessary data to prove pop's discovery, if the planets are uninhabited but worth colonizing." "i agree," seconded jak, "even if we have to land in some secluded spot and just rest." "i'll leave it up to you, then." their mother appeared more like her usual happy self than the boys had seen her since the accident. "i'll keep house like i always have, and you boys do whatever else you think best." jak laughed. "we'll be like those musketeers in that old book i read some time ago. 'all for one and one for all.'" he held out his hand dramatically. "put your hands on mine, and we'll all swear to it." laughing, they did as he suggested, although their mother pretended severity. "you know i don't like swearing, boys." jak grinned. "but i meant this in the sense of 'taking an oath,' not of 'cussing.'" "oh," she krinkled her nose at him, grinning with her old-time impishness, "that's different." jon rose from the table. "i'll get back to my studying." "you listen to your mother, and don't study too hard," she warned, knowing how he was apt to "lose himself" in his books. "you need plenty of rest for tomorrow." "all right, mom." but when she went into the control room long after dinner, he was still deep in his reelbook. she took it away from him. "get to bed, jon. you promised." "i'm sorry, mom. just got so interested i forgot time." he kissed her. "'night, mom. and don't worry. we'll make out swell." "i'm sure of it." her words were brave but he could see the tears were perilously close. "you'd better ask jak for some barbit, or you won't sleep any better than you did last night," he counseled. "remember, he and i are going to take turns watching pop." "thank you, son. good night." he touched a switch and the glolights dimmed and went dark as he followed her out. all the next morning mrs. carver and her two sons were in the control room--except for their frequent trips to mr. carver's bunk, to see how their patient was getting along. they were studying through the telescopic visiplates the solar system they were rapidly approaching. jon had figured the sun was a type g dwarf, much like sol, but a little larger. it had, they now knew, only five planets. three of these--two, three and four--had seven satellites among them. from their distances from the sun, the boys figured that probably two and three would have climates that human colonists, with some adaptation, could stand. now they were peering even more closely into their plates, as their ship circled the globe beneath them. jon had maneuvered it into a spiral course about planet two, in such a manner that, from a height of about a hundred miles, they could get a good view of the world beneath them, in their telescopic plates. "lots of plant life, but i haven't seen anything that looks like cities," jak said at last. "nor i," from their mother and, "me neither," jon added. their first measurements of this new planet had shown it to be almost the size of terra, and they had been delighted to see that there was a moon of considerable size, although not as large as luna. it was about one hundred and fifty thousand miles out. "there's a number of large seas or oceans," jak commented without taking his eyes from his visiplate. "look at that plant life, though--it evidently coats the whole planet. from here it looks like jungle." "lots of lakes and rivers on it, and in those plains we saw." jon was excited. "it sure looks like a wonderful world where men can live." as they crisscrossed the planet from pole to pole, they saw small ice fields about each. "that means there'll be varied seasons here," jon stated. "not necessarily," jak argued. "in fact, while possible, it's not even probable." "says you," jon sniffed. then later, "i figure the year here at about three hundred days. just an approximation, of course, but probably within five per cent. i'm not too good at such things." "you're probably wrong," jak snorted, and their mother interrupted what she thought was the beginning of another of their interminable arguments. "are you going to land here, or go on to another planet first?" she asked jon. "i'm going low enough to test atmosphere and temperature before i decide," he told her. "well," resignedly, "do as you boys think best." jon manipulated his controls and as the ship tilted slightly, they could see in their plates the ground coming closer. slowly, under the increased reaction of the powerful bow tubes, the ship slowed until it was cruising at about one thousand miles an hour and about a mile above the surface--or the tops of the vegetation, at least. then jon leveled it off. "you know how to test atmosphere, jak?" he asked. "the temp now is about . degrees fahrenheit, so it probably isn't over at ground level." "yes, father taught me that." jak moved over to the hull wall where there was an atmosphere-trap and the mechanism that tested and recorded the contents of any air they might encounter on a new planet. he worked this and studied the results. this latest invention of terran aeroscopic technies was simple to operate. a chart, already prepared to show the constituents of earth's atmospheric limits compatible to human needs, was placed beneath a stylus. the latter drew a curve showing the components of the new air, and if the lines did not go above or below the red one on the prepared chart, the atmosphere was safe for human consumption. "carbon dioxide a little higher, and when i tested density with a spring balance the ten-pound weight showed nine and a half," jak reported. "that means we'll feel a trifle lighter, and won't find walking and lifting as hard." their mother had been hovering nervously in the background. now she stepped up and asked, "are you sure it is safe here?" "we will be before we go outside, mother," jak assured her, then turned to jon. "where are you going to land?" "soon as i find a good spot. keep your eyes peeled for a large clearing." but they had gone only a few more miles when jak yelled, "there, jon! off to the left a mile or so." at his first words jon had increased the negative acceleration. his darting eyes spotted the clearing, and he put the ship into a circle and elevated the nose so they climbed to a height of some twenty miles. "grab that astrogation book and get ready to read me the checks, owl. mom, you strap in. is pop all right?" mrs. carver assured him that on her recent trip to her husband's bunk she had seen to it that he was safely fastened down, in anticipation of their landing. jak picked up the book and opened it to the book-marked page. he sank into the co-pilot's seat, and fastened the safety belt. "ready when you are." their mother now reported, "all fast, jon." a moment while the younger boy glanced quickly at his various dials, then he said tensely, "shoot." "check decelerometer." "on the hairline." "check outside air pressure." "seven four two." "terrain indicator." "level." "altimeter." "four thousand three hundred. going down a hundred per second." "let her down." anxious seconds of jockeying, jon's eyes flashing from indicator to gauge to telltale to screen, his hands and feet moving here and there on the controls. the two others gasped as they saw the ground rushing toward them so swiftly. the ship landed--but with a jar that shook them all. "off bow retarders," jak yelled. the roar of the tubes ceased and they were almost stunned by the sudden silence. "down landing props." the grind of a motor, then a gentle jar and the ship seemed to straighten a bit. "props down." "close fuel petcocks." "closed." "shut off fuel pump." "shut." "all controls in neutral." jon's hands flashed over several levers, knobs and switches. "everything neutral." he turned in his seat then, and his face wore a wide grin of triumph. "we did it. we're down." he noticed his mother's white, strained face, and called to her, "relax, mom. i set you down in one piece, just as i said i would." jak broke in with a scoffing comment--although his eyes showed the secret pride he felt in his younger brother's ability--"lousy landing. what's the big idea, jolting us all like that? want to bust up the ship?" "now, boys," their mother hastened to break up this incipient quarrel before it had the chance to get started--which was exactly what jak intended--"i think jon did exceptionally well, considering it was his first solo landing. i'm not hurt at all, and i'm sure the ship isn't, either." jak pretended to look ashamed, although neither of the boys could completely hide their grins, and had to face away from her. "yes, i was just steaming off. it was really a swell job, chubby." but jon had already pushed out of his seat and was at one of the window-ports, peering eagerly outside. however, he did fling back over his shoulder, "you helped a lot, owl. couldn't have done it without you." the other two came up quickly to stand beside him, staring at this strange, new world. the clearing in which the ship rested, they could see now, was about a hundred acres in extent. near the ship the strange grass with which the clearing was carpeted was seared and black from their landing blasts, and burning in places. but toward the huge trees that walled the clearing, the grass was in its natural green state, covered with tiny, whitish blossoms. the trees visible from the ship were mostly very tall, averaging well over three hundred feet, the carvers estimated. they looked somewhat like douglas firs, but with a difference the terrans could not at the moment figure out. the three could see no animal or bird life, but guessed this did not mean there was none. the jungle might be teeming with life, but it would probably have been frightened away for the time being by this strange, fire-breathing monster that had descended from the skies to land on their world. "think it's safe to go out?" jak asked. "now you listen to your mother, and don't take any chances." "we won't," jon told her, then answered his brother. "we'll wait an hour and see what we can see from here, then decide." "i sure want a closer look at that plant life." jak's eyes glistened, and he ran to get his binoculars to see better. "i ought to examine the hull and tubes, too, to make sure they aren't fouled or corroded," jon told his mother. "it's nearly time for lunch." she turned away. "at least you must stay in until after that." it was plain she was still worried, and the boys tried to reassure her and quiet her fears. when she called they reluctantly left their vantage points at the ports and went in to eat the lunch she had prepared. several times she had to caution them against bolting their food, as they talked eagerly of what they might find here. finally finished, jon rose. "come on, owl," he urged, "let's go outside and give it the once-over lightly." "better break out our rifles first," the elder advised. "no telling what we'll run into." "if it's dangerous enough for guns, i wish you wouldn't go." their mother was worried again. "they're just a precaution, same as father would take if he was in charge," jak soothed. "we won't go out of this clearing this first time." "you'd better give mr. c. another feeding first, hadn't you?" jak consulted his wrist-chronom. "yes, it's nearly time, and we might not be back by the regular hour." the problem of keeping their father fed and in good health, apart from his head and leg injuries, had not proven too hard when they became convinced that he was not going to wake up often enough to eat normally. jak, while working as orderly in the centropolitan hospital the previous summer, had assisted the interns and nurses in giving intravenous feedings to unconscious patients. so he knew the general procedure, as well as the composition and quantity of the nutrient liquid to be administered. "will you come help me, mother," he had asked when he was sure he was ready for that first feeding. "we've got to find certain things in our food stores." "you're sure you know how to do it?" "yes, it's not hard. we need liquid proteins, salt, sugar and glucose." with his mother helping, he had gathered these from their stores, and taken them into the galley. there he had carefully measured out and mixed these ingredients in the proportions his books stated. then he and jon had gone into the workshop and there the younger, under his brother's supervision, and with pictures of the apparatus as a guide, had rigged up a drip-regulator to go into the mouth of a large bottle. to this they had attached a long, slender, plastic tube, and to the far end of that a large, hollow feeding needle. as the others watched anxiously, jak had inserted the needle into the large vein on the inside of his father's left elbow. with his thumb jak had softly rubbed the vein just above the needle's point, to assist the flow of the nutrient. soon it was done. mr. carver had stirred and his eyelids had fluttered when the needle was inserted but he had not fully regained consciousness. that first feeding so successfully accomplished, mrs. carver did not seem to worry quite so much about her husband, although she was careful to keep track of the feeding times, and to remind her sometimes forgetful son of his duty. the feeding given this day, the boys consulted together. "shall we wear our spacesuits?" jon asked. "i don't see why. it's hot outside, but bearable, and the air's all right," jak answered positively. "i not only tested it, but i breathed the sample i took in through the trap. it smells good, and hasn't hurt me any. we'll take our guns, and i want my magnifying glass and knapsack for specimens." "and i'll put some multiform tools in my belt. then, in case there's anything that needs doing on the tubes or hull, i can do it quickly." the two brothers assembled their gear and jon was just reaching for the button to open the inner door when they stopped short and shrank back. for a terrific roar came from outside ... such a tremendous sound it penetrated even the hull of their ship! at that horrid noise, the two boys stood frozen a moment, then with one accord raced to the control room, where they peered out of the quartzite ports. "great whales, look at that thing!" jon shouted as they caught their first glimpse outside. "yeow!" jak yelled in amazement. "what do you suppose it is?" "never saw anything like it before." they stared in awe at the tremendous creature standing in the little clearing, looking belligerently toward their ship. it was so unlike any earth beast it was no wonder the boys were startled. the huge body was covered with heavily matted fur. it must have been at least a dozen feet long, and stood about eight feet tall. but the striking thing was that the body was triangular, and the beast was three-legged--two at the back and one in front. there was no tail, and the blocky legs--one at each corner of the weirdly triangular body--seemed to end in clawed feet. the head was shaped something like that of a horse, but the huge mouth, now partly open, was seen to contain great fangs, larger than those of any beast the boys had ever seen in terran zoos or on any planet they had visited. two of the tusks were almost like the ones they had seen in pictures of ancient saber-toothed tigers. the whole getup gave such an effect of fierceness that both boys felt a shiver run down their spines. jak's voice was tremulous as he spoke. "yipe! i'm sure glad i'm not out there with that." jon was slow in answering. "yet, if we're going out at all...." he hesitated, then continued, "we'll either have to chase it away, or kill it." "if we can," his brother retorted. "i think our guns'll handle it," jon said. "the question is, how are we going to do it without exposing ourselves?" jak thought swiftly. "maybe we could open the outer lock door a crack, just enough to see through and aim our guns." "yes, i guess that's it." "don't say anything to mother," jak cautioned. "of course not, silly. come on, let's see if we can kill it." the two ran to the airlock and opened the inner door. leaving it open, they examined their guns to make sure they were fully loaded. then jon punched the button to open the outer lockdoor. it was possible to do this while the inner one was still open, since there was now air outside to equalize the pressure. when the door had swung open a couple of feet, jon stopped the motor, and joined his brother, who was peering through the opening. the huge creature was still facing them, about forty yards from the ship. one of its rear feet was now pawing at the ground, tearing up great chunks of sod, while it roared its mighty challenge time and again. "i'll kneel and aim for the left eye. you stand over me and try to hit the other." jak took swift command. "then try for the brain or heart, and keep pumping while our ammo lasts or until we kill it." "right." jon took his place and aimed his gun. "count three and we'll fire together." jak knelt and steadied his rifle with one elbow on his extended knee. "one ... two ... three ... fire!" as the two shots crashed out the creature sprang into the air a couple of feet. a great scream of pain and rage shook the very ground and made the air tremble. it hesitated only a moment, then charged toward the ship at terrific speed. the boys pumped shots as fast as they could. both had hit the head, but neither had put out an eye as they had hoped. they kept firing as fast as they could work their guns. blood spouted from numerous wounds on the beast. but still it came on madly, with swift though lumbering bounds. "back quick, and shut the door," jak yelled as his hammer clicked on an empty gun. he pushed backward and scrambled to his feet as jon leaped to the door controls. the heavy door swung shut ... and the boys breathed a sigh of relief. but almost at once their eyes filled with fear. they cringed back when they felt the ship itself shudder as that heavy body struck against it. as swiftly as their trembling legs would carry them, they raced back to the control room. they reached it just in time to see the huge triped lunge against the side of the ship a second time ... and again held their breaths as it did so once more. the beast's slow mind evidently realized, then, that it could not so easily overthrow this strange, great thing that had appeared so mysteriously in its jungle clearing. it backed away some little distance, still roaring out in that horrible voice. once again the beast bunched its mighty muscles for another attack ... when it seemed to stop in the middle of a roar. it wobbled a bit. slowly its mighty legs buckled, and it sprawled on the ground. a few spasmodic shudders, a convulsive shiver that ran through the tremendous frame, then it was still. the boys let out their breaths. they were just beginning to congratulate themselves when the door of the control room opened and their mother's frightened face appeared. "what was that, boys? i was taking a nap, but your shooting woke me, than i felt the ship shake as though there was an earthquake or something." "it was noth...." jon began, but jak went up to her and put his arm about her. "it was just a big animal, mother. jon and i killed it." "an animal? big enough to jar the ship that way? where is it?" she gasped. jak pointed silently toward the port, and she hurried to look out. at sight of that huge mountain of flesh she cried out, and her face became ever more white and strained. "what a horrible beast! are you sure it's dead?" "quite sure. it wasn't hard to kill." jak minimized the danger and made himself grin encouragingly. "i'm going out and hack off some steaks. bet they'll be good, too." "you'll do no such thing!" she cried, shocked. "now you boys listen to your mother. you're not to budge outside the ship. i want you to leave this awful world at once." the two boys looked at their mother, and suddenly they seemed to feel strength and maturity growing within them. as though the act had been discussed and rehearsed, they both came up and, taking their mother each by an arm, led her out of the control room and back to their living quarters. there they sat her down in her favorite recline seat. "look, mother, you know how much we both love you and want to obey you always," jak said earnestly. "but we're in a peculiar situation here...." "on a strange planet, and pop out of commission," jon broke in. "i know jon and i are still boys," jak continued, "but we're all the men here right now. we think you've got to begin trusting us to make the decisions." "jak's right," jon chimed in. "we're not going to take any fool chances, but i say we've got to go ahead and do things just as we think pop would if he was well and in command. as best we can, that is." mrs. carver looked from one son to the other doubtfully for a long minute, then smiled tremulously. "i keep forgetting you're not my babies any longer," she said slowly. "mothers do that, you know. you're both almost grown men; i know you have good minds, almost mature minds. the various things you've been through have done that. so i release you from my apron strings. you two take charge, and do whatever you feel necessary." they threw themselves on their knees, one on either side of her, their arms about her. "oh, mother, we didn't mean it like that!" "we never felt you had us tied to your apron strings, mom," jon added. "we still want to be your boys, even though we do have to act like men--at least until pop takes charge again." her smile now was warm and tender, all hesitancy and most of the fears gone. "mr. c. and i have tried to make you self-reliant and resourceful, and he'll be as proud of you as i am. you're right--you are the men of the party and must do whatever you decide should be done. but be careful," she could not help adding. "we will, mother." "we think just as much of us as you do," jon quipped. they left her sitting there, then, and went back to the control room. as they came close to the window-ports they peered through eagerly, and were surprised to see the huge carcass of the triped literally covered with strange looking winged, featherless but fur-covered, bird-things. the latter had large, sharp beaks, with which they were tearing great gobs of flesh from the hulk, gulping them down with ravenous relish. "scavengers!" jon exclaimed, his eyes glued to the scene. "yes, there go our steaks." jak's tone was so lugubrious that jon looked up and laughed. "i had hoped for some fresh meat." "there'll be plenty later on," jon consoled his brother. "probably this one would've been too tough, anyway." jak suddenly chuckled. "yes, like the fox said, the grapes were probably sour." they grinned companionably at each other, then turned back to watch through the port again. so numerous and so voracious were the scavenger birds that within a few minutes they had even that mammoth carcass stripped of flesh, leaving only the huge bones. one by one, the birds then flew into the forest, the last ones fighting among themselves for the few remaining scraps of stringy flesh or entrails before they, too, took wing. "shall we try it now?" jak asked after the last of the bird-things had gone. "might as well. we sure don't want to be cooped up here forever." they went back to the airlock again, making sure their guns were reloaded and their ammo belts filled. when both boys were in the lock, jon punched the button that closed the inner door, then opened the outer one. "safer for mom to have one of them shut," he exclaimed. the two stood there a moment, looking all about them. except for that strange pile of huge bones, now covered thickly with some sort of reddish, chitinous-covered, ant-like insects, the clearing seemed empty of all life except the peculiar, flower-like grasses. jon climbed down to the ground and jak followed closely. they walked a short distance away, then turned and looked back, scanning carefully in all directions to make sure no enemy was at their backs. "let's go over and study that jungle a bit," jak suggested when they were sure their rear was not, apparently, menaced. jon had been looking at the remains of the beast. "i'd like to try to salvage those tusks," he said, and with jak at his side went up to them. the two boys managed, after considerable work, to get the great fangs out of the jaws. they brushed off the clinging insects, then ran back and placed the tusks inside the lock. "thanks, owl. now we'll go take a look at your trees. then i want to examine the tubes and the outside of the ship. but we'd better stick together, at least this first time. so i'll sort of cover you, then when you've had a looksee, we'll go back and you keep guard while i see what shape the boat's in." "right. let's get going." once past the seared place, they found that the peculiar, flower-tipped grasses were as stiff as wheat stubble. the grass-blades were knife sharp, but unable to penetrate the heavy, knee-high leather boots the boys wore. jak stooped to examine and study them. "the blossoms all seem to have three of these whitish petals," he said as he rose at last, "and that yellowish bulb in the center will be the seed pod." when they started on again, they found walking difficult until they learned the trick of scuffling along without trying to raise their feet above the tops of the grasses each step. then it was easier, particularly since the gravity here was about five per cent less than that of terra, so they weighed less and their strength consequently seemed greater. the trees were closely clustered for the most part, and after studying them for some time jak said, "they're a lot like some of the pines back home, although not too much like any i ever saw." "notice how there're no limbs until you get up thirty feet or so?" jon asked. "they'd be hard to climb without spurs." indeed, after anyone did reach the first low limbs he would not be in much better shape for climbing, for the branches were ten to fifteen feet apart all the way up. "don't see any fruits, though maybe we're just not where any fruit trees are growing," jak said after a bit. "yes, lots of woods back home don't have any fruit or nut trees in them." the strange grasses grew only in small, occasional clusters inside the forest, but the ground was so deeply covered with fallen twigs, rotted branches and the needle-like leaves of previous years, that walking was extremely difficult, almost impossible in places. "there're probably trails somewhere--that triped would've made some sort of path." "he sure was heavy enough, and if this was part of his regular stamping ground, he undoubtedly used the same route." "maybe, but not necessarily. he might've been attracted by our descent. anyway, we can look for that later. let's go back now so you can look over the ship while it's still light. we should be ready for a quick take-off, if we run into anything too hot to handle." jon looked the surprise he felt. this sudden responsibility was making jak more practical than he had ever been before ... just the same as it was making him. after all, it was to be expected. jon knew jak had an excellent mind--the elder brother had just used it for what jon had previously felt were unimportant things--not mechanics, math, or such practical interests. but the way jak had taken care of pop; the way he had figured out how to feed him, and the right medicines to use on the bruise on his head--that must have injured pop inside--and had known how to set his leg--it was a danged good thing, after all, that jak had spent so much time studying those other subjects. maybe mechanics and such sciences were not the main things in life, after all. other things had their uses, too. now the two went back to the ship and around to the stern. there, while jak stayed on the ground on guard, watching in all directions in turn for any possible dangers, jon surveyed the great driving tubes. he climbed the metal rungs set into the ship for that purpose, so he could reach each of the tubes. with his glotorch he studied the lining of each tube, crawling partially inside each one in turn. finally he backed out of the last one and down to the ground. "they're all in fine shape," he reported happily to his brother. "can't find a single thin spot in any of them. that new alloy is really something." although the older brother did not know too much about such things, he felt a sudden relief at this report, for he felt that jon did know, and he had real confidence in him. he had long realized the differences in their temperaments, and for several years had known his brother was almost a genius in the mechanical field. he remembered mentioning this matter to their father one time, and how his eyes had shone with pride as he answered, "jon's really remarkable. some day, if he keeps on like this, he's going to be known all over the galaxy because of what he'll do in mechanics." nor had jak been jealous at this high praise of his younger brother. "jon's just a kid," he had said, "and he's thoughtless rather than conceited. but sometimes he makes me so darned mad." his father laughed. "yes, like all kids, he hates the thought of letting anyone get ahead of him. that's particularly true of younger brothers. they feel, within themselves, that they are just as good or better than the older members of the family, and sometimes can't help showing it." jak grinned. "i'll bust him one yet, some day, though, if he doesn't watch out." but he knew, and so did his father, that he never would. for both knew the real love that existed between the two brothers. jak realized that his swiftly growing brother--now several inches taller and many pounds heavier than he--had a terrific mind. so, as now, he generally respected jon's ideas, and shrugged away any momentary angers when jon was particularly "bossy." jak followed as jon walked slowly along the side of the ship, giving it a careful survey, especially toward the bottom, to see if anything on the lower surfaces appeared wrong. "i'll climb up and give the top a going-over tomorrow," jon said as they went ahead. the _star rover_ was really a space-yacht. it was seventy-two feet long, and about eighteen feet in diameter at its thickest part, which was about a third of the way back from the bow. the front of the ship was bluntly rounded, and contained the control room with its thick, quartzite window-ports, and just outside that room the four bow-retarding tubes, which jon also carefully examined when the boys reached them. just aft of the control room were the living quarters. these consisted of the large, comfortable living room, and two small but compact bunkrooms, the bath-toilet, the kitchen and many ingeniously designed closet and drawer spaces for stowing personal belongings, clothing and supplies. beyond these were the storerooms for food, tools and other supplies and equipment. the stern two-fifths of the ship was devoted to the storage of fuel and the various machines that drove the space-yacht and kept it a self-contained world while in space. here were the refrigerators and heaters, the air- and water-purifiers, the generators of electricity for light and cooking and for their auxiliary motors, such as the ones controlling the airlock doors and pumps. in the lower part of the hull, under their living and control rooms and storerooms, were hydroponic tanks which not only grew vegetables and greens for their table, but which furnished oxygen to replace that unavoidably lost when the locks were opened. at the far stem were the driving mechanisms. the latter were the latest development in the atomic-powered field, and were surprisingly small for the tremendous work they did. even jon did not yet fully understand how they operated, although he knew how to run them. he did know they took specially-treated copper, in the form of small nuggets, and utilized the tremendous force locked within their atoms as the propelling medium by which the ship operated. in some manner these nuggets were vaporized inside the generators, into which they were automatically fed from the storage bins as needed--the power-controls regulating the speed with which they were fed into the generators. this vaporized copper was run through some sort of a modified cyclotron-type mechanism, where the binding-force of its atoms was liberated. that indescribable power then forced its vaporized particles out through the tubes--using the newtonian law of action and reaction to propel the ship. suddenly jon turned to his brother. "hey, i just happened to think. we ought to rig up a siren or something, so mom can call us if she needs us when we're away from the ship." "sounds like a swell idea. can fix?" "sure, nothing to it. we may even have one among the stores. if not, it's just a diaphragm inside a tube, oscillated by electricity. i'll see if we've got one, or else make one and install it." as they neared the entrance to the ship they saw their mother standing in the opened lock, getting a breath of fresh air, and looking about the clearing with an interested expression. jon had just opened his mouth to call to her when suddenly, without warning, without even a change in the light or feeling in the air, rain began coming down in great sheets. the boys, after only a momentary start of surprise, raced for the airlock. their mother stayed to help them climb in. but by the time they were inside and the outer door was closed, they were wet through to the skin. "wow, that's sure some storm! wonder if it's a regular feature here?" "i wouldn't know," jak panted. "did you get a look at that lightning, and hear the thunder?" "didn't take time--i was too busy running." jon laughed as he tried to wring the worst of the water out of his coveralls before going through the living room to the bunkroom, where they could change to dry garments. as they came out their mother, now also in dry clothes, met them with a smile. "i think your father is getting better--he moved about quite a bit a while ago, although he didn't completely regain consciousness." "wonderful!" "that's super!" later, as the three were eating dinner, jak suddenly laid down his fork in excitement. "just happened to think. we didn't see any cities here, so doesn't that make this a prime discovery?" "that it do, that it do," jon said delightedly. "then that means we have the right to name and claim this system...." "unless there are intelligent inhabitants on some of the other planets." "seems to me if there were any, they'd be here--this is certain to be the most logical world to support life. what'll we call this system?" "'carveria,' of course, stupid. after pop," jon answered witheringly. "that's very thoughtful of you, son." his mother smiled at him fondly. "we'll call the sun 'carveria,' then, and the five planets will be 'tad,' 'marci,' 'jak,' 'jon,' and 'rover.'" "ouch, how corny can you get?" jon sniffed. "since there are five, i know the fifth should be named for the ship, and we can't very well call it 'star rover.' but certainly not just 'rover,' either." "why not leave off the last 'r' and just call it 'rove'?" their mother suggested. "good!" "swell!" the two exclaimed at once. "that means this one is named after you, mom. how does it feel to have a whole world named after you?" "you ought to know," she retorted with a smile that brought out her dimples in the old way. "you've each got one named for you." "then let's call this moon 'diana,' after the ancient goddess of the moon," jak said. "look, owl, this is mom's planet. she has the right to name her own moon." jon's voice was almost a sneer. "i think 'diana' is a very nice name, and i'll accept that, although i'm going to make it 'diane,'" his mother soothed. "that has always been my favorite girl name. if i'd ever had a daughter, i probably would have named her 'diane.' so it will make a doubly fine name for my moon." "haven't time to measure or weigh it now, but i'll bet it's big enough, and close enough, to cause tides," jon said meditatively. "what's that got to do with the price of onions in bermuda?" "nothing, just thought it was interesting. well, bed for me. need a good rest tonight." "why, especially, son? what do you plan for tomorrow?" "just some more exploring, that's all. and we'll be careful," jon added hastily as he saw the familiar words forming on her lips. "'night, mom." at breakfast the next morning jon suddenly stopped eating. "say, as we were coming down, did you notice a small river or creek just over there to the right? i was pretty busy at the time, but seem to remember something of the sort." "yes, there was one near, but don't know just how far. why?" the boy grinned. "if there's a stream, there're probably fish. i was thinking we could get some fresh supplies that way." "you and your fishing! don't you ever think of anything else?" "sure i do, but i notice you always eat your share when i catch any and mom cooks 'em." their mother said quickly, "some fresh fish would taste good, boys. if you have time and can catch any, i know we would all appreciate them." "look, jak, you want to explore some more of that jungle, and i want to see if there's any of that stuff pop was looking for, near here. we can just as well do both while working toward that creek, and i can take my rod along. but first, we've got to set up our marker here in the clearing." "that's right, i'd almost forgotten your telling us about that. and we don't want to stay too long, either. didn't you say we have to place one on each planet in order to prove our claim as original discovers?" "yes, and one in an orbit about the sun, too." jon pushed back his chair and rose. "i'll go get one from the storeroom." "i'll get my specimen cases ready, and see to the guns." jak, too, rose, then forestalled his mother by turning to her, "i'll feed father first, and we'll be careful outside. you can call us back with the new siren jon installed, if you need us." "all right, boys." she smiled at them. "mr. c. seemed to rest well last night, although i do wish he would regain full consciousness. i've plenty of housekeeping to keep busy while you're gone. really should do some washing, but that doesn't take long. just don't stay out too late." "we won't," they both assured her. "we'll be back long before dark." the marker which jon fetched from the storeroom and placed near the inner lockdoor, ready to take outside and set up, was one developed by the scientists and technies of terra for just such use. it consisted of an exceptionally strong broadcasting unit that beamed the message of a tape, continuously, toward terra. jon made up the tape while jak was giving the feeding. it read, "this planetary system was first discovered by tad carver, on fourteenth january, . this is the second planet, and has been named 'marci.'" over and over, at five-minute intervals, the sender would broadcast that message on a beam aimed at terra. the controlling mechanism was a marvelously precise uranium clock, and a small atomic motor with fuel enough for five years gave all the needed power. by the terms of the terran colonial laws, this was supposed to entitle the prime discover to certain rights in the system. for one thing, he would receive a one-half per cent share of the value of all minerals, oils, jewels and certain other natural resources later colonists might wrest from those planets, for twenty years following his discovery and the acceptance of his claim. in this way, the colonial board of the world government of terra sponsored and assured the far-flung exploration which the development of deep-space travel had made possible. the dangers and expense were so considerable that something well worth while had to be offered to make individuals or companies willing to gamble on the hardships and tremendous costs of exploration. when the boys left the ship to place the marker, they left both lockdoors open so that the fresh morning air from outside could circulate throughout the ship, replacing the somewhat stuffy, although chemically pure air that their purifiers kept renewed. "keep your eyes and ears open, and shut the doors if you think there's any danger," both boys cautioned their mother, after making sure she knew how to work the door controls. "i will," she promised with a laugh, and couldn't help adding, "just you be as careful as i'll be." the boys carried the signal-sender to a distant corner of the clearing, to what jon said was a good spot. "the book says to dig a hole and plant it with the top projecting three inches above the ground, whenever such a thing is possible." "you know what to do, so take charge," jak said simply. when they had dug the hole and placed the sender in it, they shoveled the dirt back, then jon opened the lid. he started the tape reels and the broadcasting unit, then carefully shut and locked the cover. in digging, they found the ground here to be damp and soggy, apparently from that terrific downpour of the previous evening. it was almost like a wet clay, although, even to their inexperienced eyes, it seemed to be a very rich type of soil. "look how wet it is, even over two feet down," jon said. "that was a real rain last night," jak shook his head slowly, "but somehow i can't believe it made this. maybe this is the rainy season." they started toward the jungle, but turned to look back toward the ship. they saw their mother at the open door, and waved to her. after seeing her answering wave, they plunged into the forest at a point where they saw a trail, left either by the frequent passings of the great triped they had shot, or by other beasts of some type not yet seen. memory of that gigantic beast, though, made them doubly cautious. "sure don't want to meet his relatives," jon said. "especially the mate," jak added, and could not conceal a shiver. they had noticed with considerable interest and surprise that those native ant-like scavengers had almost entirely eaten the bones of the triped. "apparently we'll not find much in the way of remains on this world," jak commented as they walked carefully along the trail. "those scavenger birds and ants sure clean up things in a hurry." "except for old vegetation," jon grunted as he stumbled over a dead branch protruding out into the trail. he was keeping his rifle ready in his hands, and his keen eyes alert to one side and then the other, rather than downward. knowing his younger brother was so carefully on guard, jak felt free to study and examine the various trees and other plant life near the irregular path they were following. he was almost in a frenzy of delight, constantly darting off the trail a few yards to look at some specimen he had detected, studying it carefully and exclaiming over his find. "hey, this one is like an _acer compestris_," he yelped, intently studying the bark with his magnifying glass. "spik englis," jon scolded. "what is it?" "a hard maple," jak's voice was condescending. then he ran over to another. "this one's almost like a silver poplar. see how its light bark glints where the sunlight hits it?" he started toward another farther away, but jon called him back. "don't get so far from the trail." reluctantly, jak retraced his steps, only to be off again a moment later. "this 'un's got nuts almost like small coconuts." he picked a fallen one from the ground and tossed it to jon. "see if you can crack it and find out what's inside." but when jon had done so, it proved to be dried and half-rotted. they could not get a fresh one from the tree by shaking, and it was too smooth and high to climb without spurs. jak quickly filled his knapsacks with first one and then another of the smaller plants, twigs and leaves he was continually finding. soon jon was laughing heartily, for his brother now had to discard an older specimen to make room for the new. "you'll have to make several trips to get anywhere near all of those just around here, owl," jon called at last. "you can't take back everything, anyway. way you're going now, you'd soon have the ship so full of your junk there'd be no place for us. and this is only the first planet, remember?" "but these are unique," jak wailed. "botanists will want to study them." "then let them come here," jon stated practically. jak looked at him, and grew shamefaced. "guess i did go a little nuts," he said. but before long his excitement rose to fever pitch again. "there's so much here that's new and different, yet something like the ones we know. i must take back samples of everything." "how many different kinds of--oh, say, roses--are there on terra?" "why ... why ... i don't really know. hundreds, i'm sure. maybe thousands. what's that got to do with this?" "simply trying to make you realize you can't take back samples of 'everything,' as you said." "ouch!" jak laughed good-naturedly then. "you've got me, pal. i'll take it easier." but he soon forgot his good intentions as he found ever newer and more different plants and trees and mosses. there was such a dissimilarity, yet at the same time so many points of likeness between the plant life of this new world and that of terra, that the young botanist was in a continual state of excitement. jon, meanwhile, although still keeping a sharp watch for any possible dangers, had been noticing the profusion of other life in this jungle. there were a number of different bird forms, although he saw that those he was close enough to examine were fur-covered rather than feathered. nor did they seem to be songsters, for the only noises he heard were the soughing of the wind through the trees and vines and bushes, and the _swish_ of wings as the birds flew past. they had gone some distance when he stopped short. off at one side there was movement among the small bushes. a quick sibilant whisper froze jak in his tracks. jon raised his gun, his eyes searching quickly. then two quick shots ... and a threshing in the underbrush. soon stillness--and the two boys advanced cautiously, both with their guns at the ready. in the bushes they found what jon had shot--two small tripeds somewhat resembling large jack rabbits. "hah, these should be good eating." jon was in transports as he picked them up, examining them carefully. "should be tender, at least, if the flesh is suitable to us." jak was excited, too. "there's enough for a good meal." jon took a piece of cord from his coverall pocket and tied the hind legs together, then slung them over his shoulder. "let's keep going." jak continued finding new and different plants, and jon kept on guard. once they saw one of the huge tripeds in the distance, and stopped instantly, being very quiet as they slipped behind the boles of large trees, from which they peered out cautiously. but apparently the great beast had not heard, seen nor smelled them--it finally wandered away--grazing. "well, i'll be a tadpole!" jon exclaimed. "a grass-eater." but jak was not so sure. "lots of meat-eaters also eat a little grass. those teeth didn't look like the ones of a herbivore. i think i'll keep away from them, anyway." "you and me both!" jon was agreeable to the idea. at last, after nearly two hours, the two boys came to the banks of the stream, which was about a quarter mile wide at this point, and seemed not too deep, at least near the shore. now it was jon's turn to become the most excited. he ran to the edge and peered into the shallow depths, then called out delightedly at seeing dozens of darting forms of some type of marine life in the clear waters. "you watch while i fish," he commanded, dropping his gun and the two hare-like creatures. he took the carrying case from his shoulder, opened it and in moments had his rod, reel and line ready. "yippee!" he yelled as he got an immediate strike on his first cast. with true fisherman's skill, he played the now fighting, swiftly darting denizen of the river. carefully he reeled in his catch, giving line when the fish ran or plunged, reeling in when he felt the least bit of slack, exerting only enough pressure to force the fish-thing in toward him without losing it. soon the wriggling creature was in shallow water, and jon waded out with his landing net. a quick, darting movement with hand and net, and he had his first catch. he took it carefully from the net and held it aloft, examining and admiring it, while jak danced about on the shore near him, uttering shrill yelps of triumph. they could see that jon's catch was streamlined almost like a trout or barracuda. it was nearly fifteen inches long, and very slender. there seemed to be no scales--the skin was more like that of an eel or bullhead. "fish or snake?" jak asked. "don't know for sure." jon was still studying it. "think it's a fish, all right, but it hasn't any fins, and swims with the same wriggles a snake uses. i think it's more eel than snake, though, and i'm quite sure it'll be good eating." the mouth was large and ran back almost three and a half inches. when jon pried it open to remove his hook he saw there was a triple row of needle-sharp teeth, so quickly took a pair of pliers from his tool belt, and used these to remove the deeply swallowed hook. the eel-fish freed, he dropped it into his creel, then cast again. it was apparent these water denizens were unused to lures, for hardly had his spinner touched the surface of the water than he had another strike. as swiftly as he could reel in and remove one from his hook and cast again, jon brought in fish after fish. all this time jak was dancing about, now as excited as his brother at this prospect of fresh food to replace for the time the nourishing but hardly-delectable concentrates and frozen foods on which they had been living for so long. but when jon finally was satisfied with the size of his catch, he found that leaving the river was not to be a simple matter of wading ashore. so intent had he been on his fun he had not noticed that his feet were sinking further and further into the bottom. only now, as he tried to return to shore, did he find he could not lift his feet. they were firmly embedded in the sand or muck, more than halfway to his knees. for a long moment he struggled to pull first one foot and then the other from the clinging stuff. then he realized he must be in a sort of quicksand, and he began to panic. "quick, jak, come help me! i'm caught." but almost instantly he countermanded that sharply. "no! stay back. the bottom here's quicksand or something." jak had come running at jon's first cry. at this warning, though, he slid to a halt just short of the water. "how can i help?" he cried anxiously. "catch these first." and jon threw first his rod, then his creel filled with fish. jak caught each and tossed them farther back onto the bank. he then looked quickly about, and spied a long, fallen branch at some little distance. he called to his brother, who was still trying desperately to free himself, "hang on a minute. i'll be right back." racing for the branch, he picked it up and brought it back to the water's edge. but when he extended it toward jon, it was too short by several feet, even though both leaned forward. jak would have gone into the water with it, but jon would not let him. "we'll have to try something else, then." jak was getting really worried now, for he could see that the water was up to jon's waist. "you'll have to make it snappy," jon spoke as calmly as he could. "i'm sinking deeper all the time." again jak searched swiftly and purposefully about him. he saw something he thought might help and ran swiftly toward one of the smaller trees. with difficulty, because of the scarcity of limbs, he climbed this and soon was hacking, with his machete-like knife, at the long, slender liana or climbing vine that hung downward from it. it took only a few moments to sever the top end, then jak slid down the trunk and traced the vine to its root, cutting it there. with this long section he ran back to the water's edge. "catch," he yelled--but it took several attempts before he could get the unwieldy vine-end near enough for jon to grasp. jak dug his heels into the ground and started pulling. his face grew red, cords stood out in his neck, and his muscles bulged. but quickly the strain proved too great for him. since he was the lighter and weaker he was being pulled toward the water, rather than freeing his embedded brother. "i ... can't ... do it," jak panted, his strength gone, his muscles and limbs aching and trembling. "tie your end around a tree. i'll try to work myself out." jak did so, and the muscles on jon's more powerful arms, back and shoulders stood out in ridges as he threw all his splendid young strength into this climactic effort. he pulled, he wriggled about from side to side. slow, heartbreaking moments passed as the tug of war continued. inch by hard-fought inch jon was withdrawing his imprisoned legs from the sucking, gripping stuff that was so determined not to yield its victim. but he was still only a boy, and he had neither the strength nor the endurance to continue for long this tremendous struggle. slowly his efforts grew weaker and less successful. the sand began reclaiming that which it had lost. before long jon sank back, and the strain on the vine relaxed. "can't ... make it. you've been a great brother...." he tried to smile. "take care of mom and pop ... and break it to them gently." "shut up, you dope," jak yelled, but there was a catch in his voice. "we're not licked yet!" desperately his mind raced. he must think of some more effective mode of leverage. if only he knew how to handle the ship! he could bring that here, and with the loading winch in the lock drag his brother loose. but that was out--he didn't know how to handle it. he thought of going after his mother, but realized quickly that before he got her and brought her back, jon would be gone. no, it was strictly up to him--and time was swiftly running out. jak carver's eyes searched the edge of the jungle feverishly for any idea--for some means of rescuing his younger brother, embedded in the quicksand of the stream there. suddenly he spied a slim but stout-looking tree close to the water's edge ... and a trick the two boys had often played with a small tree in their back yard at home sprang into his mind. "got an idea, jon. slack off a minute." for jon had been trying again and again, as he felt a momentary return of part of his strength, to pull himself free. he had, by this means, barely managed to keep from sinking further, but that was all. now, with a quick twist, jak unfastened the end of the liana from the tree to which he had tied it. "tie your end about you, just under the arms," he called. then, placing his end of the vine in his mouth and gripping it firmly with his teeth, he started climbing that slim tree. it was about seven inches in diameter at the base, and some forty to forty-five feet tall. his brother instantly recognized what he had in mind. so, as jak climbed, jon made sure his end was securely fastened about him. then he grasped the vine firmly with both hands, a few inches in front of his chest. as jak climbed ever higher into the tree, the slender sapling bent beneath his weight. he still climbed, but carefully now, on the side nearest the water, so the treetop would bend in that direction. the higher he climbed the tree, the more his weight made it curve downward, so that toward the last, his back was almost parallel to the ground. holding with his legs wrapped about the trunk, when he was almost three-quarters of the way up, jak fastened his end of the liana tautly in place. this was extremely difficult because of his unnatural position, as well as the stiffness of the vine and his having to work with one hand. but without wasting time, he took pains to make sure the knot was tight and secure. then he started climbing again, further and further toward the slender top of the now bent tree. but carefully, lest his weight and the bending splinter or snap the treetop as it bent still further. "get tight, jon. be ready for the yank when i let go." "all set and line tight. yell when you drop." glancing down to see that the way was clear below him, jak let his legs go and swung by his arms until he was hanging clear. he yelled sharply and let go--plunging down the fifteen or eighteen feet to the ground. disregarding the shock, he scrambled up, and peered closely at the tree, then the vine, then at jon. the tree was straining to pull back into its accustomed erectness. the liana was taut--but bits of its bark were flecking off. it creaked so alarmingly jak was afraid it would break. all the time jon was wriggling and twisting to help free his feet and legs. and the vine held, as the tree proved its natural strength and desire for an upright position. slowly but surely jon's body was pulled from its prison. as he came more nearly free the tree snapped upright so swiftly he was whipped out of the water and a dozen feet onto the sand. he landed, face down, with a terrific jar. jak ran up and helped untie the vine. jon sat up slowly with his brother's help. his face was scuffed where it had slid along the sandy beach, and he slowly, painfully wiped it somewhat clean with his handkerchief. his breath came in gasps from the terrible constriction of the vine about his chest, and from his unusual exertions. sympathetically, jak hovered about until finally jon's breathing was a bit easier. when his brother started to try to get up, he helped and held him. "guess i can make it now." jon finally broke away and did manage to stand alone, although he still reeled a bit from the fatigue and the terrible ordeal through which he had been. he walked slowly about, rolling his shoulders and moving his arms and fingers, exercising his cramped muscles. jak gave him a couple of anti-fatigue pills from his pocket first-aid kit, and jon swallowed these. finally, he began collecting his rod and creel. "they'd danged well better be good to eat," he declared, shaking the offending fish basket. "it certainly wasn't worth all that narrow escape," jak said soberly as he took the things from his brother and went over to pick up the little animal carcasses. but when he got there he exclaimed in disgust, "darn, those ants have eaten them almost all up!" "we mustn't let mom know how close i came to not getting back," jon said as he staggered along the little trail, although as he went his strength and limberness returned somewhat. "i'll say not. i'll keep my trap shut. one thing's sure, though. there'll be no more fishing trips here." "aw, i wouldn't say that," jon snapped back. "i know enough now to stay on the bank. and if these are good eating, it's too easy a way to get fresh food to waste." they were just climbing into the lock when again that sudden heavy downpour of rain began. jon grinned as he opened the inner door. "glad to see the rain this time. it'll keep mom from wondering why my clothes are so wet." as soon as they had changed to dry clothing, jon went to clean his "fish," then took them to his mother in the galley. jak, meanwhile, was in the control room, rearranging and trying to begin the classification of his plant specimens. when their mother called them to table, the boys sniffed appreciatively at the delicious odor of the nicely browned fish-things. "they cook nicely, but how do we tell if they're good to eat?" mrs. carver asked. jak flipped one onto his plate and cut off a tiny portion. "tell you soon." and he forked the piece into his mouth. with his tongue and teeth he tested it, but did not swallow. "tastes good," he said a moment later, retrieving the piece with his fork and laying it on the side of his plate. "one more test." he cut off another small piece and took it into the storeroom, where he placed a piece in one of the cages containing half a dozen white rats. a couple of them came up immediately, smelled the food, then one of them gobbled it up. jak watched anxiously for a moment, then gave another rat a piece. it, too, gobbled it up, and then joined the rest who were pressed against the wires begging for more. jak stood watching for one minute, then two, then three. satisfied that the meat had done the rodents no harm, he returned to the table. "it's all right," he said and began eating. "the rats liked it and it didn't seem to hurt them." the others pitched in then, and soon the entire platterful was reduced to a pile of bones on the three plates. "how's father been today," jak asked. "he was asleep when i glanced at him after getting back." "he moved about several times, tossing and groaning a bit, and seeming to be trying to touch his broken leg, although...." "probably it itches inside the cast," jak said. "he didn't regain full consciousness, but i tried spooning some concentrated broth into his mouth, and he was able to swallow a little of it." "golly, that's great!" jak exclaimed in relief. "his drifting out of his coma from time to time shows there is no real damage to his brain, and now he's evidently beginning to come out of the concussion." "whatever it is, i feel more sure he'll soon regain consciousness and be all right." mrs. carver spoke with quiet confidence. "of course he will, mom. pop's too tough for a busted leg and a bump on the head to kill him." jon smiled at her comfortingly. "as the surface wound heals, the brain tissues beneath will also be healing," jak said pedantically. "as long as we can keep him fed and otherwise healthy, the concussion will grow less and finally dissipate entirely." "doctor carver, i presume." jon sniggered, and his brother flushed a bit, then poked him in the ribs. jon tried not to wince at that light jab. luckily their mother had not noticed anything so, as quickly as possible, he said, "well, owl, let's hit the sack. want to move around this planet tomorrow and get our pics and info, then take a look at the others." jak started to protest, but caught his brother's almost imperceptible but frantic signal, and changed his words. "maybe jon's right at that, and we should get an early start. 'night, mother." "good night, boys." she responded to their kisses, and soon the two were in their bunkroom, with the door closed. jak turned swiftly on his brother. "what's the big idea, making us go to bed so early, and why that funny look you gave me?" "i had to get out of there." jon winced as he began taking off his shirt, and jak crammed his fist into his mouth to keep from crying out as he saw the great, angry red welts and the terrible black-and-blue splotches on jon's torso. "great guns! what happened?" "that vine must have really hurt when it pulled me loose from that quicksand. i didn't notice it particularly, though, until you poked me in the ribs." jak quickly dragged his large first-aid kit from its place in the wall cupboard, and opened it. "lie down on the bunk, and i'll fix you up," he said as he took out tubes of unguents, bottles of antiseptic and rolls of bandages and plasters from the kit. "golly, kid, i had no idea you were in that shape, or i'd have done this before." jon gritted his teeth as the other gently felt to see if any ribs were broken, and later as jak applied the healing lotions and sometimes smarting antiseptics. but he could not entirely restrain his exclamations of pain, although he muffled them with his pillow lest their mother hear and come to investigate. he knew his brother was being sympathetically gentle, and when at last it was done, jon did feel easier. the burning had largely stopped, and some of the ache was gone. "i'd better give you some barbit so you'll sleep sounder." jak shook two small pills from a bottle. "the calmer you sleep, the less you'll mess up those dressings, and the quicker you'll heal." he got a glass of water and jon took the pills and washed them down. "you do have your uses now and then," he growled, but the grateful look in his eyes belied the ungraciousness of his words--and jak was well content. * * * * * in the morning much of the soreness and discoloration was gone, and there was no sign of inflammation or pus. after jak had again tended to the abrasions and friction sores, the two boys dressed and went in to breakfast. their mother was in good spirits. "mr. c.'s breathing seems much easier than it was," she announced with delight. they all went in to see him, and while jak was redressing the now almost healed head wound, jon looked on happily. "won't be long now." he hugged his mother joyfully. "i hope not," she sighed. "he does seem to be getting better, though." "we're lucky we still have him, mother." jak's voice was serious. "if that rock had even touched him, it would have been the end. his leg looks ok--no signs of swelling or inflammation." breakfast was quiet, and as soon as they finished jon rose purposefully. "i'll take us up now, and we'll cruise around and see what we can see. have to take lots of recordings and pictures, you know." "are you sure you understand all that has to be done?" his mother's voice was anxious. "sure, mom. it tells all about it on the papers the colonial board furnished. all we have to do is follow their instructions. you coming, jak?" "right with you." his brother hastily drank the rest of his coffee and rose, wiping his mouth. "be sure you strap down at the signal, mother, if you aren't coming with us." she flashed him a smile. "i will. meanwhile, i'll clear the table--if i have time?" she looked questioningly at jon. "sure, it'll take ten--fifteen minutes to get ready, and i'll give you a couple of one-minute warnings." when all was ready, jak strapped himself down in the co-pilot's seat, the book of instructions in his hand. jon touched the stud of the buzzer, waited a full minute then punched two buzzes. then he nodded at his brother. "close fuel dump valves," jak said, referring to the manual. "valves closed." "switch on fuel pumps." "pumps on." "switch on generators." "gens on." "open all oil valves." "oil open." "check heaters." "heaters on." "check refrigerators." "frigs on." "fire tube one and balance." jon snapped a switch. a dull rumbling began and the ship seemed to strain as the first tube started functioning, although at minimum strength. he carefully watched a dial to see that it was working smoothly. finally, "tube one firing." in like manner tubes four, two and then three were started and tested, and finally reported firing evenly. the ship seemed more than ever straining, as though anxious to get into the air and into free space--but remained on the ground. "up landing props." jon touched another stud, and they could feel the motor lifting the landing props into their slots in the hull. "take off." the roar deepened as jon increased the amounts of fuel being fed into the tubes. the ship lifted effortlessly, easily, into the air. "check acceleration pressure." "normal to speed." "check altimeter." "one thousand seven hundred." "level off." a moment of maneuvering, then jon reported, "ship level at twenty-four hundred, traveling parallel to ground surface." "check rocket balance." "all tubes on balance." "switch on auto-pilot." "auto on, but keeping ready to switch back to manual if necessary." jak loosened his straps and went to look out of the port, but jon kept his gaze fastened on the lookout plate before him, his hands resting lightly on the controls, although they were not connected now. beneath them the land was sliding by, as the ship cruised at the slow speed, for it, of just under a thousand miles an hour. the boys saw the same sort of jungle forests, the same occasional clearings. from time to time the glint of water revealed rivers or lakes, the latter seldom more than a mile or so in width or length. after nearly an hour, they were flying above a huge plain, covered with some sort of grass or grain. they had been above this for some minutes when jon uttered an exclamation and jak came up quickly to see what his brother had spotted in the magnifier-screen. "look down there, owl," the younger brother was excited. "thousands of cattle!" "whew! most like those old buffalo-herds we read the old pioneers saw on the western plains of noramer. hey, those things are tripeds, too, like the big one we shot, and the rabbits." "yes, i see. must be the usual thing here. but those down there are smaller, like cows. wonder if they're good to eat, or give milk?" "don't know, but we sure want to report this." he took several pictures with the recording camera, then made notations in the data book. the two continued watching until the tremendous herd was out of sight behind them, and they were flying once more above a great forest. they had gone almost two thousand miles when they saw ahead and downward the beginnings of what was either an ocean or a great sea. as they drew closer, they still could not see its further shore. "i don't remember this from before, do you?" jon looked perplexed. "yes, i think this must be the one we saw part of from the north--that is, i assume it was north, as we were near the icecap. but i didn't realize it was so...." "hey, look down there! that proves i was right." jon pointed triumphantly toward his visiplate. "see those high-water marks along the shore? that means this moon is big enough to cause tides, same as luna does to terra." "what good, really, are tides?" "why," superciliously, "they're one of the most useful things god has given man. they ... they...." jon stopped, flushed, then laughed. "darned if i know what they're good for. of course, if they're high enough, men can make tide-motors and produce power, but now that we've got atomics, we don't need those." "i suppose we should record them, though." jak was tactful enough not to laugh. "yes, write it down." they were over an hour passing above this ocean, and had begun to wonder if it was greater in extent than terra's pacific. but finally they made out in the distance the dim blueness of the farther shore. "that's some ocean all right. shows there's lots of water here on two." "with those heavy rains there'd almost have to be. this'll be of special interest to colonists--means not only plenty of water, but if that stream was any example, there'll be lots of fish down there to start a big food industry later." about two hundred miles past the eastern shore of the ocean, they saw the blue of mountains in the decreasing distance. soon jon had to rise higher and higher to clear them safely. some of the individual peaks seemed to be nearly five miles high, and one or two of them, almost at the range of visibility, the boys estimated to be even taller. "probably lots of metals here," jon commented. "i'll swing back and over them again, and let 'annie' get to work." "yes, this list says to report on metallic ores. say, doesn't it seem funny to you that there are no people on a world as capable as this of supporting life? wonder why?" "no telling. pop says lots of earthlike planets don't have any inhabitants capable of any sort of civilization. but that means more ready-made worlds for terrans to colonize." jon made their ship circle above the mountains while the boys took readings with the spectro-analyzer. then they started on again. after almost another hour, when they were over one of the few desert places they had seen, jon suddenly leaned forward with a little intake of breath that his brother noticed. "what's up?" "not sure. but listen to 'annie' click. from the reading, i think there must be some of that metal pop was so positive about, down there somewhere." "the stuff for a new fuel?" "yes. we don't know it'd be any good as fuel, but its atomic weight seems to be so high pop was all excited when the spectrogram of this sun showed it. he said he felt sure we'd find it on at least one of these planets." "it'll take a lot of time to locate it exactly, won't it?" "not too much, with the new gadgets they have for locating metal ores." jon tried not to sound impatient with his brother's ignorance. "we've got one that lets us cruise around in the air and spot it fairly close, then land and find the exact place quite easily." "what sort of gadget?" jon shrugged. "don't know exactly how they work, but i can use one. something like a spectroscope that works without first having to heat the metals into gas. plus something like those old geiger counters they used to trace radioactives. plus some other ideas the technies put into them. it tells about them in one of our reelbooks there. you go get ours--i think it's in bin , in the storeroom. looks like a small black suitcase with carrying straps. meanwhile, i'll get ready to set us down." "i'll hurry so's to be back to read the routine for you." while his brother was gone, jon activated the bow retarders--after snapping off the stern tubes. then he sent the ship into a curve that would bring them back nearer the place where he wanted to land. but only part of his mind was doing that--the rest was wondering why there had to be so much fuss and detail in landing and taking-off with a ship. why couldn't it be fixed so one man could navigate and pilot without all this bother? it ought not to be too difficult.... jak was soon back with the recorder, and jon showed him how to read it. soon they located what seemed to be the center of that strange disturbance, and with jak's help, jon set the ship down on the sand, fairly close to where they thought that hoped-for metal or its ore might be found. when the two boys went into the living room, they told their mother what they had landed for, and that they were going out to look for the source of this excitement. "is it really necessary?" she asked anxiously. "mr. c. didn't say anything to me about any such thing. haven't we got fuel enough to get home on?" "sure, mom," jon hastened to explain. "but pop thought this new stuff would be a lot more powerful than the fuel we're using. said it ought to give us far greater cruising range with lots less storage space. if we found something of the sort, it would be a great contribution to space travel." "that's right," jak added, "and if we do find such a thing here, miners will soon be flocking after it, and that'll mean _beaucoup_ credits for us." "well," doubtfully, "i guess you know best. your father seems to be growing better, and lets me feed him, even though he hasn't ever seemed to regain full consciousness. if you are sure this is what he'd do if awake, i suppose it is what you should do." * * * * * "looks like a funny place for ore," jon said as the two boys left the ship and started at a fast pace in the direction "annie" had pointed out as the center of activity. "i'd have expected it to be in the mountains, not in a desert like this." "yes, i was wondering about that." the elder brother shook his head slowly. "but you can tell there's something here. what is it we're really looking for? oh, i know it's metal or ore of some kind," he added hurriedly as he saw jon start a retort. "what i mean is, is it ore or natural nuggets, and is it radioactive, or what?" jon grinned as he trotted along. "don't really know much more than you. i know how to detect it, and i'll know it if we find it. but to tell ahead of time, i haven't the minnow of an idea." they had actually gone less than a quarter of a mile when the heat of the sun, reflected from the hot, white, desert sand, became almost unbearable. finally jak stopped, wiping the pouring perspiration from his face and neck. "we can't take much of this. better go back and get our suits." "yes, guess you're right." jon was also working his handkerchief overtime. "the refrigs in them will keep us cooler, even if they're harder to walk in." "and the suit-goggles will protect us better from the actinic rays of this sun," jak said. "we're so close--only sixty-five or seventy millions, you said?--that the solar rays are lots stronger than those we get back on terra, even in the deserts." "sure, those jungle trees protected us before, so we didn't notice them." their mother heard them as they returned and came to see what the trouble was. when they explained, as they were putting on their suits, she again warned them to be careful. then she added, somewhat hastily, "it's just a mother's instinct to keep warning her children to be careful. i know you boys always are--the fact that you came back rather than take chances shows this. please don't feel badly that i keep nagging at you." "heck, mom, we know you aren't nagging." jon hugged her. "if you ever quit warning us, that's when we'd really get worried." their suits on and the refrigerators working, the pair began retracing their steps. jon led the way, since he was carrying the detector. they went in a decreasing spiral to locate the center, then made a beeline for that spot. but after almost a mile the signal seemed to grow weaker, and they stopped for a conference. "must have passed it," jon said over his suit-radio as his puzzled eyes studied the meters on the finder. "try going back thirty or forty yards to the right, then back toward the left," jak suggested. soon jon shouted and started off in a new direction, but more slowly, and jak ran quarteringly toward him. inside half a mile jon lost the beam again, and once more they quartered to find it. in narrower and narrower circles they searched. suddenly jak stumbled and fell to the ground. as he started to rise, jon heard his excited yell coming through his earphones. at his brother's eager cry, jon ran over toward where the older boy was stooping down, examining carefully something almost completely embedded in the sand. he saw jak rise, take his shovel from the carrying straps on his suit's back, and start uncovering whatever it was he had stumbled over. as jon came up, he uttered an exclamation of surprise. "why ... what ... that's a metal plate. what is it, jak?" "don't ... know ... yet," the elder panted as he worked even more feverishly with his shovel. jon quickly laid down the detector, which was clicking excitedly, to unsling his own shovel and begin digging. in a few moments they had completely bared the metal plate, and could now see it was about ten by four feet, and hinged on one side. "looks like a trap door." "sure does. lend a hand--let's see if we can open it." the crack along the edge was not wide enough for the gloved fingers of their suits, so jon inserted his shovel tip in the crack as a prize. jak did the same and after many attempts--for it was much heavier even than they expected--they managed to lift the edge a bit. "can you hold it alone a sec?" jak asked. "try," jon threw his whole weight on the end of the shovel handle, while jak quickly found a small stone and wedged it in the opening. then, with jon moving his shovel farther and farther back along the edge, jak pushed ever larger stones closely behind him, and they finally managed to get the cover high enough so they were able to tip it back, but only after considerable straining and puffing. "what do you suppose is down there?" jon hopped about, digging at the sand with his boot tip. "don't know, but it has sure been a long time since anyone used this." jak spoke slowly. "how can you tell?" "because of all the sand that's sifted in here, silly. you don't think this is just a box of sand, do you? it could have been here thousands and thousands of years." "you mean ... there were people living here then?" the elder boy shook his head. "maybe yes, maybe no. it could have been folks who merely visited here. well, what do we do now?" jon picked up his shovel. "you're the one that's silly now. we clear it out and look." for some time the two made the sand fly, then jak's shovel struck metal, and feverishly the two concentrated on that spot. another few minutes and they could see it was a large metal chest that almost filled this covered, metal-lined pit. when they finally had the top of the box completely exposed, they found its cover fastened with a simple hasp, which was quickly opened. then they lifted this second lid. inside, the box was completely filled with thousands of small cubes of some sort of glistening metal. jak started to reach for one but jon struck his hand away. "listen to that detector--it has gone crazy," he yelled. "that stuff's deadly radioactive, i bet." he started to scramble out of the hole after slamming down the lid. "we get out of here, but fast. then we talk about it." jak had sense enough to heed his brother's warning, and lost no time in following. some little distance away, the two stopped to debate what they were to do. "you know what i think?" jon's eyes gleamed. "i think this was a fuel cache left by people who used to make trips around the galaxy, and not something left by people who once lived here." "you're nuts. who--and when--and why didn't they ever come to terra, if they had space-flight? if they came this close, wouldn't they have gone there, too?" "not necessarily--space is so big and sol is relatively small, you know. but maybe they did get to earth, at that." jon grew more thoughtful. "remember our reading about all the strange things people reported seeing, hundreds...." "you mean those old 'flying saucer' reports a couple of centuries ago?" "yes, them. and even before that, there'd been reports of strange airships and things. why, there was one--that's almost four hundred years ago--of a dutch sea captain who saw something in the air above the indi ocean and reported it in his log. even made a sketch of it, that was almost exactly like those made later by people who said they'd seen it." "_mmmm_," jak had been thinking back, "then maybe the bible story of ezekiel's 'wheel within a wheel' he saw in the air, was one?" "sure. earth people for centuries have seen all sorts of unknown things." "then maybe your idea isn't so wild, after all." "the question now is," jon ignored the apology, "how do we take some of this stuff back to the ship, and how do we test it to see if it's fuel--or don't we?" "that's more your line than mine. what do you suggest?" jon thought seriously for several minutes, then brightened. "you stay here so i can see where i'm going, and i'll go get the ship and bring it here. then we'll try one of those cubes in the generator." "you ... you think it's safe?" "what would get you, out here in this desert?" "i didn't mean that, and you know it. i meant, do you think it's safe to try this stuff that way?" "oh, that? sure." jon threw down the extra things he was carrying, and started away at a trot. when he reached the ship and was inside the airlocks, he called to his mother as he was sitting down at the controls. "what's the matter, jon?" she asked as she came in and saw him working at the controls. "and where's jak?" "we found something out there too heavy to carry, and jak's watching it while i bring up the ship. strap down." she sank into the co-pilot's seat and fastened the broad belt about her even as jon was activating the generator and tubes. raggedly, since he was trying to handle the controls and read the directions at the same time--it simply didn't occur to him to ask his mother to read them to him--the boy finally got the ship into the air. "what is it you've found?" his mother could contain her curiosity no longer. "something we think is that new fuel pop talked about, but it's radioactive and we didn't dare try to carry it without special equipment," he told her absently as the ship began lowering. he maneuvered it to a bumpy landing close to his brother, whom they could now see through the port, excitedly waving his arms at them. "we think it's something some other people left here as a cache, a long, long time ago," jon explained as he put his controls in neutral, his voice an excited squeak. "some other earth people?" she asked incredulously. "you mean we aren't the first ones here, after all?" "no, we don't think it was terrans," he said as he unstrapped. but before he could get out of the seat, they heard the lockdoor mechanisms working, and knew jak was coming inboard, so the two stayed in the control room. jon answered his mother's anxious questions as best he could. jak soon came running in and the two boys held a quick council, almost ignoring their mother in the excitement of trying to figure a safe way of bringing some of the fuel-stuff aboard and trying it out. but at last she made herself heard. "i think you should wait and let mr. c. decide about this," she said with determination. "how is he--awake?" "about the same--still unconscious." "then don't you see, mom, that there's no telling when he'll wake up, and we don't want to wait that long?" "i still say you mustn't take the chance of blowing us all to kingdom come before you can have his advice and help in deciding what to do with that new, untried and dangerous metal," she declared so firmly that they could not ignore her. "now you listen to your mother. this is once when i'm setting my foot down. i will _not_ let you do it!" nor could their pleas move her. "all right, mother," jak finally conceded defeat with--if the truth must be told--an inner sense of relief. he, too, had been more than a little afraid of that untried stuff. but jon had seemed so sure, while he knew very little about it. "we'll leave it here while we go set our markers on the other planets." "unless pop wakes up before we're finished here," jon added sullenly, somewhat humiliated because he felt his mother was treating him like a little boy instead of the man and scientist he now considered himself to be. "when he does, though, you'll see he'll say we should have tried it." his mother, understanding well how he felt, but still worried over the possibilities for danger her anxious mind insisted on painting, patted his shoulder. "in that case, son," she said softly, "i'll apologize." "we'd better go out and shut that trap door and mark the place some way before we leave." jak tried to lighten the tension. "i'll take measurements of where we are, and that'll do just as well." jon's voice still held that injured tone. mrs. carver kept her voice level, but her eyes caught and held those of her younger son. "i'm sorry if i seem too stubborn about this, jon; but i just don't like the idea of you boys trying to handle, alone, something you don't know anything about, especially since you yourselves admit that it's highly dangerous." jon's petulance slowly disappeared, and finally he grinned and kissed her. "you're right, as always, mom. i'm getting too big for my coveralls. i'll calculate courses to one, and to and around the sun, and we'll let this ride until pop wakes up." while jak and mrs. carver busied themselves at other tasks, jon sweated over the complicated math of the new courses. he knew how important this was, especially the plan he had in mind for placing the marker in its orbit about the sun. he knew their very lives depended on the correctness of his calculations. so he did them slowly, carefully, and checked them closely to make sure he had done them right and made no mistakes. but when he was finished, he put the sheets of calculations in a drawer, took more paper and figured the courses over a second time. that solution he also put in the drawer, and figured it the third time, without consulting what he had done before. when he had completed this third computation he took out the other two sets and compared the three. all came out exactly the same ... and he gasped in relief and sank back, trembling with thankfulness, in the pilot's seat. they must be right. * * * * * while mrs. carver and her sons were eating lunch they heard a weak call from the bunkroom, and ran in to find their father fully awake. he seemed surprised at his condition, but jak explained swiftly what had happened, and jon told briefly what they had done and were planning to do next. "that's good; that's very good," he said drowsily, and before jon could say anything about finding that new metal, his father had again sunk into sleep--or unconsciousness; not even jak could tell which. "well," jon tried to be brave about his disappointment, "i guess we'll just have to go ahead. but isn't it swell that pop woke up fully?" "it certainly is." mrs. carver had tears of joy in her eyes. "now we know he'll soon be all right." the trip to planet one--"tad"--was neither long nor eventful, once they got started. they found, as expected, that the small world--smaller than sol's mercury--was so close to the sun that it was fearfully hot, even on the equator, or "intermediate" zone. despite the refrigerators on the ship, it was becoming hot inside, and all stripped as far as decency allowed. the planet had no real atmosphere, but many of the metals--indeed, the very rocks, themselves--were so largely molten, especially on the eternally sunward side, that there was a fog of gasses about the surface. these gaseous emanations were in a state of motion much like that of earthly cyclones, constantly swirling and blowing with terrific velocity. the boys carefully examined their spectro-analyzer, but "annie" showed none of that strange fuel-metal they were so keen to locate in its natural state. "maybe we found all there is here," jak suggested. "perhaps, but somehow i can't feel that way." jon's voice was worried. "i must have slipped somewhere. don't see how just one boxful could have shown up so clearly from as many light years away as we first discovered it." despite the conditions the young planet mappers found here on one, the colonial law required that a sending beacon be set up on all planets, or else in an orbit about them. they decided to place theirs on top of one of the highest of the small mountains that comprised the twilight zone. jon made up the tape for this planet's signal-marker, while jak brought it from the storeroom. when the tape was installed and running, the sender was placed in the lock between the inner and outer doors, and the boys returned to the control room. jon directed the ship toward the range of mountains and when he neared them jak--from his co-pilot's seat--worked the remote controls and the outer lockdoor swung open. then he activated the "distant hands"--the handling mechanism that was an integral part of the airlock's equipment, for handling materials into and out of the ship. watching through his special visiplate--really a sort of two-way television--jak made the grips pick up the signal-sender box, ready to deposit it on the hard, hot ground outside when jon would swoop down over the pre-selected mountaintop. "move it outside," jon called, and jak did so. "set it down." jon yelled, and as soon as he was sure jak had placed the sender solidly, sent the space-yacht rising higher and away from the planet. then jak closed the outer door; turned in his co-pilot's seat, and tuned in their receiver. soon they caught the message and knew everything was jetting fair. "nice going, owl," jon applauded. "aw, you're just saying that because it's true," jak grunted, and jon turned his attention once more to his controls and the new course he had plotted for their swing around the sun of this system, now less than thirty million miles away. "how close d'you go?" jak was more interested than fearful, having confidence in his brother's skill. "we have to follow a course so that when the sender is dumped, it will take up a closed orbit--the more nearly circular the better--around the sun. also, we'll have to have speed enough so we won't get fried to a crisp at the near-point, which figures to be about ten million miles." "isn't that pretty close?" their mother, who had slipped into the control room quietly just after jak had placed the sender, tried not to sound too frightened. "relax, mother, the kid knows what he's doing," jak tried to calm her. "i've figured this three times, mom," jon said earnestly. "got the same answer each time, so i _know_ we can do it." "well," still doubtfully, "i guess you do know what you are doing, but that seems awfully close." she struggled with herself and finally managed a weak smile. "i promised to let you boys make the decisions. i'll go lie down in my bunk so i won't know what's happening until it's all over." "you do that, mother. i'm not worrying. jon really knows his stuff," jak assured her brightly. but as soon as she had left the control room, he turned worried eyes to his brother. "i ... i hope you actually do, chubby." his voice quavered a bit. jon grinned mockingly. "there's one sure thing. if i'm wrong, we'll never know it. but i've studied this a lot since i knew it was up to me. i know the technique and, as i said before, i've computed our course three times and come up with the same figures each time. and we have to set it as close as possible. now, either hit your bunk or set your seat to recline. we're up to better than two g's already, and i'm building to five." "yes, i feel us getting heavier. i'll stay with you." jak made sure his straps were in place, then tilted his seat. jon cranked his own to recline, the control panel automatically slanting to keep it in the same relative position. his arms were resting on movable slides, and the controls he would have to manipulate on this dangerous orbit were all beneath his hands and fingers. closer and closer they drove to the sun with ever mounting speed. their gallant little ship's refrigerators were full on; all shutters in place. their only view of the outside was through one visiplate whose aperture was closed until only a tiny slit was open. but it was enough, although jon was forced to keep building up layer after layer of protective, colored plastic to make the intense, blinding light of the swiftly approaching sun bearable. clearly visible now were the tremendous streamers of matter the sun was throwing up as prominences. jon was able to see huge sunspots occurring here and there about the surface of that mighty furnace--tremendous cyclonic storms of atomic disintegration. so interested was he in this first close view of a sun that he almost forgot the reason for this dangerous trip. almost--but not quite, for his mind was well-trained to remember the things that had to be recalled, young as he was. so his eyes glanced often at the distance gauge. soon he yelled at jak, "get ready to throw out the sender." jak struggled to place his hands on the controls, a thing he had not had the foresight to do before jon started building up that tremendous acceleration. his muscles strained. sweat broke out on him even worse than that the heat from the sun brought. his breathing became gasps. there seemed to be a constricting band about his chest. his eyes felt as though the balls were being pushed down into his head. he just couldn't possibly move a muscle under this terrible pressure. still he exerted every force of will and of muscle. slowly, painfully, he stretched out his fingertips a fraction of an inch. he dug them into the fabric of the arm rest and pulled the palm of his hand along. then he forced the rest of his arm to follow his fingers and hand. over and over, straining to do what had to be done. then victory at last--his hand and arm were on the sliding arms. now it was easier, and soon his fingers were on the controls. "s-say when," he panted then. "open the outer door now ... we're almost there," jon commanded, watching his controls intently. "we're going ... so fast ... won't have ... much time." "you're sure ... sender'll keep ... correct orbit?" "sure," jon's voice was confident. "if we don't dump ... exactly on zero ... it'll just change shape ... of orbit a little ... that's all." "door open," jak reported a moment later. "lift sender, but don't eject yet." "right." more minutes while the heat increased, and even through that tiny aperture and the covering shields, the blinding light was coming in so fiercely jon was tempted to close it entirely. then, with a snort of disgust at his stupidity, he did close it--and breathed a sigh of relief as that piercing beam died. he didn't need to see. there was no reason to look. even if there was, it was too late now to do anything about it. if his calculations were correct, the ship would get away safely. if his figures were wrong ... he shuddered. well, they'd never know it, that was for sure. he made himself forget that dire possibility and kept his eyes glued to his indicators. "almost there." "ready." jak tensed his hand and fingers above the controls. he hoped he could do it when the time came. but this awful heat ... this horrible acceleration pressure.... "drop it!" jon yelled suddenly. jak tensed hand and fingers and tried to depress the button. it seemed he couldn't move. he gritted his teeth, and again called upon his inner strength, his will. from that hidden depth he found that extra measure of energy necessary to curve his fingertip downward. his eyes, peering into the shielded intercom visiplate, saw those distant hands--the servo-mechanism in the lock--swing the box out through the opened doorway. when he could no longer see it, because of the angle at which his visiplate was set, he touched and depressed the second button. now, if the mechanism was still functioning in spite of that terrific heat, its arms were opening and the box slipping away. he withdrew the handling arms, and as they came into sight again he saw with satisfaction that they were empty. he locked them into their cradle, then closed the outer lockdoor. "done," he reported thankfully ... and let himself go. unconsciousness claimed him at once. why suffer, had been his thought, when he could so easily sleep until this intolerable pressure was gone. so quickly did he slip away he did not realize that jon, too, after a final quick glance at his board, and knowing that everything necessary had been done, had also relaxed into unconsciousness. did not know, or care, that their ship was now speeding around and away from the sun. did not realize that all four of the carvers were now unconscious. but their blackout did not last too long. in a few hours, during which the auto-pilot took them smoothly and accurately away from that titanic furnace, safety distance was attained and the frightful acceleration began to ease. by the time they were traveling at a little less than two gravities, jon stirred. his memory cells began functioning once more, and slowly he awakened. as soon as he realized where he was, and why, he glanced at his various telltales. "we made it!" he yelled triumphantly. then, as he heard no reply from his brother, he quickly raised his seat to upright, and turned to look at jak. the latter was still lying down, his face white and strained. quickly, anxiously, jon released himself and sprang across to his brother's side. he rubbed jak's wrists and temples. soon the flush of returning blood showed, and the elder sighed and opened his eyes. "we made it!" jon cried again as he pushed jak's seat into erect. "everything went off shark-y." jak struggled into full consciousness, then began loosening his straps. "mother and father?" he exclaimed. "did they come through all right?" at jak's question, jon started. "haven't looked yet. let's go see." the two raced into the living room and into their parents' bunkroom. mrs. carver was just opening her eyes, and seeing the boys' anxious looks, struggled to sit up. they helped her, and jak turned quickly to look at his father. to his relief, the latter's pulse was no weaker, and his breathing was regular. "we got through all safely," jon assured his mother, and she threw her arms about him and broke into tears. "hey, no need of crying now; it's all over." "i know." she reached down for a corner of her apron and wiped her eyes. "just relief, i guess. is mr. c. all right?" she asked jak. "didn't seem to hurt him a bit." indeed, just then there was a mutter from mr. carver's lips, and his eyelids fluttered open. the three gathered closely beside him, and were tremendously heartened at the look of sane awareness in his eyes. "hullo?" as though surprised to find himself in bed and the others gathered about him. "did i oversleep?" jak reached out and took his father's hand. "no, father. you've been a little ill and unconscious, that's all. but you're almost well now. a bit more rest and you'll be all ok." the invalid looked surprised, then doubtfully at his wife, who quickly stooped and kissed him. "jak's right, mr. c. you get some more sleep so you'll get strong quicker." dutifully he closed his eyes and immediately his regular breathing told the three he was asleep once more. quietly jak drew the others out of the bunkroom and closed the door. then his eyes shone and he grabbed his mother and danced her about, while jon "tried to get into the act." "he's almost well; he's almost well!" jak chanted. jon yelled in honest praise. "you did a grand job, owl." but his voice broke into a boyish treble with the excitement. after several minutes of jubilation, jon went back into the control room and began figuring their course to planet three. he turned on the receiver and pointed the directional antenna. soon the broadcast of their solar signal came in. this one about the sun had most worried him, but he could read it clearly: "this solar system was first discovered and charted by tad carver of terra, on fourteenth january, . it has been named 'carveria,' and the five planets and seven satellites are being charted and named. details will be filed with the terran colonial board." finally jon finished his astrogation, then went back into the living quarters. "ready to set course to three, folks. strap down while i change course." "how long'll it take?" "just under a couple of days at two g's." "ouch! do we have to go that fast?" jak complained. "you want to get there, don't you?" jon turned away indifferently, while mrs. carver smiled at jak and shrugged. during the balance of that "day" jon stayed in the control room. when either of the others looked in, he was studying intently. right after breakfast the next morning he put in a long session at the computer and his drawing board, then after lunch went into the storeroom. after a while he came out with his arms filled with wires, cells, relays and other oddments, which he carried into the control room. the others, busy with their own work and chores, paid no special attention to what jon was doing. seeing him busy like this had become so commonplace they seldom bothered even asking what he was doing when he did not volunteer the information. but as they approached planet three early the following morning, under negative acceleration, all three were in the control room, peering intently into the visiplates. what would they find there? would there be people of some sort? cities? jungles, deserts, ice fields? all three minds were busy with such conjectures as they came closer in. their instruments had already told them three possessed an atmosphere containing water vapor, so they knew it could not be entirely untenable, unless the air contained poisonous gases. but what real conditions they would discover there remained to be seen. they had already found, charted and photographed the two small moons that circled the planet. one of these was fairly large--about nine hundred miles in diameter, and the other much smaller, about a hundred and fifty. three, itself, was about five thousand miles through. "there are clouds down there," jak called suddenly as they approached ever nearer at constantly decreasing speed. "yes, i see them." "and there's a big ocean!" their mother was equally excited. "three's only about thirty million farther away than two, although on the opposite side of the sun right now. so there shouldn't be too much difference, except three'll be colder," jon stated. "we're about a hundred miles up now, so i'm throwing us into a descending spiral." "there's a big mountain range, and some of the peaks are snow-covered," jak called out a few minutes later. "i see them. we're down to about twenty miles now, and i'm setting a crisscross orbit for two or three revolutions to get a better view and take our first pictures. mom, if you can tear yourself away, i'm hungry." she stepped back from the screen, laughing. "you're always hungry." then she glanced at her wrist-chronom and gasped in dismay. "no wonder--it's over an hour past lunchtime!" "we'll yell if anything especially interesting shows up," jak called as she was leaving. by circling the planet from east to west they kept to the daylight side most of the time, and as the hours passed they were able to get most of their pictures and reports on the geography, climate and other conditions. their spectro-analyzer showed considerable mineral deposits in many of the places over which they passed. they saw plenty of vegetation and jon exclaimed about its coloring. "must be fall here," jak explained. "unless, of course, those plants don't contain chlorophyll, which i doubt." but nowhere did they see anything that looked like the works of intelligent beings. like planet two, there was no sign of people anywhere. when they became so tired they could no longer keep awake, jon set the ship into a higher, safer orbit, and they all went to bed. their father had awakened only once during the day, and then only for a few minutes, nor had his wife allowed him to talk, greatly as the boys, especially, desired it. * * * * * after breakfast the next morning jon maneuvered the ship down closer to the surface and they completed exploring the planet, taking their pictures and recordings. jak made tests and reported the atmosphere not poisonous, although so scant they would have to wear suits most of the time when outdoors. "it's lots better than mars, but not near as dense as terra or two back there," he told jon. "temp's below freezing, but i imagine it'll get warmer when the sun's nearer noon here." "humans can adapt themselves to living here, then." jon's voice was joyful. "they've already colonized planets worse than this, as far as temperature and air are concerned." "yes, the human animal seems to be marvelously adaptable to almost any conditions not actually poisonous," jak said admiringly. "there's even a colony of people from the high andes of souamer living on mars now, without domes." "they could transport those andean indians to mars direct because they were used to living in the rarefied atmosphere of the high mountains, eh?" "that's right. those indians would have suffocated at sea level back on terra. indeed, they seldom went down the mountains below ten thousand feet because of the discomfort. on mars, they had some difficulty at first, but i understand the second generation born there are perfectly at home." jon's blue eyes had been watching his detectors, even while his ears had been listening to jak's explanations. so far he had not discovered any of that strange fuel-metal--if it was fuel--they had found on two. he spoke of this now to his brother. "wonder if those people didn't leave any caches here on three, or what?" "maybe they didn't like cold weather." jak grinned. "more likely, though, either we haven't come close enough to detect it, or else they may only have made a cache on one planet in a system." "that's probably it. i've been watching for it all the way in, and 'annie' didn't chirp at all. well, do we land and see what the joint is like?" "don't know about you, chubby, but i sure want to. how about closer to the equator? ought to be warmer there, and more comfortable. i want to study that plant life." "ok by me--if you don't try to load the boat with your specimens." jon laughed, and jak joined in sheepishly. "i promise not to go hog-wild like i did last time." "going to land, mom. strap down," jon called into the intercom. jak reached for the sheet of landing instructions, but jon shook his head. "don't think we'll need those. tighten your belt, here we go." "hey, what gives?" jak's eyes widened as he saw his brother throw in one switch and then take his hands off the controls, although his eyes were alertly watching his many dials and lights, and his body was tensely ready for emergencies. jon did not answer, and jak watched in the plate as the ground below appeared to rush closer each second. it almost seemed to him they were not slowing as fast as was usual on landings, but he was not unduly worried--he trusted jon to know what he was doing ... even if he didn't! but apparently jon was not satisfied--for when the ship was only a few hundred yards above ground, he suddenly worked frantically at his controls, and the nose of the little yacht came up sharply and she zoomed into the upper air with a push from her stern tubes. thirty-some miles up, jon set the ship into a circular orbit, then got out of his pilot's seat and began tinkering with some of the controls. "what's wrong?" jak asked. "how come you went down without following the manual, and then came up again?" but jon was tight-lipped and uncommunicative. their mother's voice came over the intercom, asking why they had not landed, and jon answered her question. "just a slight miscalculation of height, mom, so i came up to try again," he answered. "stay strapped down--i'll be going down again in a minute." soon he was back in his seat, scanning his various instruments, then again jak saw him throw that one switch. once more the little ship began settling toward the ground beneath, without any handling of the controls. this time the landing was smooth, soft and even. still without any move by jon, jak could feel the various generators and engines stop, the landing props go down, and finally the board show a clear green "neutral" condition. "how ... how come?" jak gasped, and this time jon chose to answer. "just rigged up a series of photo-electric cells and relays, so now all i have to do is throw one switch and it takes care of all the little details of landing, just as this other one does of take-offs." jon tried to make it sound like an offhand comment. "my height-to-descent-speed ratio was off a bit, and that was what i had to fix." "but ... but that's something brand new, isn't it? i never heard of such a thing before." jak still could hardly believe what he had just witnessed. "oh, it wasn't so much a much." jon looked down as he guessed that his brother would soon realize what a remarkable thing he had done. "boy, you're good!" jak applauded, and as their mother came into the control room, he almost shouted, "jon's gone and...." "landed so we could go out a bit and make a fuller report in our log," jon cut in sharply, with a warning look at his senior. "how's pop?" "been moving about some, although he hasn't wakened fully yet today. his breathing is much easier. he still makes noises--but then, he always did sort of snore when he slept." the boys went with her into the bunkroom to look at their father before they started outside. there was a flush of color on his skin, although it was paler than its usual state. when jak examined the side of his patient's head he could see that it was practically healed. also, the broken leg seemed in fine shape, as seen through the clear plastic of the cast. "he'll be waking up for good any day now, i'm sure," he said thankfully. "gosh, i hope so," jon said. "i feel like a fish out of water without my pop." "you seem to be doing fine, anyway," his mother cheered him. "and so is jak," she hastened to add, fearful her elder son might think her prejudiced. the boys went out to get ready for their outside trip. "what's the big idea, not letting me tell mother about your new dinkus for landings and take-offs?" jak railed. "aw, she wouldn't understand it, and it'd worry her for fear it wouldn't work." jon was clearly uncomfortable about the praise he could not help seeing in his brother's eyes. "i'll tell pop, when he wakes up. come on, i'll race you into our suits." the boys donned their spacesuits, and examined each other to make sure they were "tight." they saw to it that their guns and bandoliers were fully loaded; that they had with them what tools and other equipment they felt might be needed. then they opened the lockdoors and went outside. they started off in a predetermined direction, having made plans to go about five miles. then they would swing in a circle around the ship. if they saw anything they thought exceptionally interesting, they would make short side trips, and if necessary, complete their circle on another day. in any event, they had promised their mother to be back by dark. the first leg of their journey was completed without any excitement, although jak was continually finding new plants he wanted to collect for future study. "nix, owl, not this trip," jon kept protesting. "you promised, remember?" "oh, all right, killjoy. but there's so much here i want to find out about." "yes, so much you couldn't even make a dent in it in a lifetime. want us to leave you behind to do it?" "you just try that, and i'll knock your teeth loose." "you and what platoon of space marines?" jon jeered good-naturedly, knowing that with his greater size and strength jak could not make good his threat--even if he had really wanted to. bickering in more or less friendly fashion, they covered their first five miles, then turned to the left and started circling. about a mile of this and they entered a fairly large wood. the trees here were so strange the boys looked about them with a growing excitement. unconsciously, they drew closer together, and finally jon voiced what was in both their minds. "i'm beginning to get scared, jak. ought we to keep trying to go this way?" "i'm not sure," slowly. "i'm getting a feeling there's something here that seems to be unfriendly--perhaps dangerous. but there isn't a thing we can see--not even animal life." "maybe it's only because this forest is so unlike either those on terra or the ones on two." but jon gripped his rifle more tightly, and his thumb unlocked the safety catch. the two boys finally came to a dead halt in a small clearing perhaps a hundred feet in diameter, and examined more closely the few trees and bushes about them. the ground on which they were now standing was bare and sandy, although beneath the trees it had been more like black loam. "this sand must be why there's practically no vegetation here," jak said. he dug into the ground a bit, and found it to be sand as deep as he went. rising, he looked even more closely at the trees about the edge of the clearing. not one of them was the straight, slim type with which they were familiar. these were ungainly and appeared stunted, although many were actually close to thirty feet tall. even so, they looked too large in diameter for their height. none of them had more than five or six twigless, leafless limbs, and those were almost as large in diameter as the trunks from which they grew. these branches twisted and curved, although in most cases the curve was upward, so that the leafless limbs often ended at a higher point than the main trunk of the tree. suddenly jak began laughing--but with a high-pitched, mirthless laughter. as jon looked at him in surprise, the elder tried to calm himself. "i know what makes them look so scary," he finally said between gasps. "it's that weird look. but remember those pictures we've seen of the zona and newmex deserts in noramer, back home? remember the josha trees growing there? they're as alien-looking as anything on terra, and these look something like them." jon, too, began grinning as remembrance came. "'most let ourselves get scared over nothing, didn't we? come on, let's travel." and he started forward. yet the strangeness persisted, and before the boys had passed through the fringe of those tortured trees on the other side of that wood they started to get that queazy feeling again, in spite of their realization of what caused it. they began going more slowly, cautiously; ready for a quick turn and run, yet both inwardly hating themselves for the fear, and each determined not to let the other know he was afraid. but it was with a distinct sense of relief that they saw the end of that forest ahead of them. unconsciously they hurried their steps until they were almost trotting. for the balance of their trip jon was strangely acquiescent as jak became more and more engrossed in the strange plant life of this world three. he knew that this was jak's dish, and he was perfectly willing to defer to the elder's knowledge and desire to learn. his main concern was to keep his brother from overloading himself with specimens, or from loitering too much. jak had been especially studying the soil here, jon noticed, and finally he asked about it. "notice one peculiar thing about this planet?" "what's on your mind?" "the total absence, as far as we've seen, of any sort or type of protoplasmic life," jak reported. "hey, that's right, though i hadn't thought of it before. our examination from the air, i remember now, showed no animals, birds or people. plenty of vegetation, though." "yes, it has everything in that line. i wonder, though...." he paused, and he grew thoughtful. "wonder what?" "how those plants can grow, without any worms or ants or anything to loosen and irrigate the soil, and no animals or birds to make fertilizers, or bees or butterflies or anything to carry pollen?" jon shrugged. "wouldn't have the foggiest. that's your line, not mine. but they must do it some way--there's sure lots of plant life here." but jak was still shaking his head in puzzlement as they finally returned to the ship. it was quite dark outside when the boys went into the control room after dinner. jon went over to the window-ports, while jak began working with his plant specimens. "jak, come here," jon called after a moment or two. the elder, prompted by the curious urgency in his brother's voice, left his specimens and ran to the other's side. "what're those things?" jak stared through the port in amazement. outside, drifting across the clearing, were nearly a dozen large, spherical things like ghostly white balloons. they must have been almost a yard in diameter, and by straining their eyes the boys could see tentacles or tendrils of some sort depending from the bottom surfaces. "gosh, never saw anything like those. let's go out and see what they are." "let's not and say we did," jon retorted. "i want to find out more about them first." he went over to the control panel and switched on the searchlight, as well as the pilot's visi-screen. looking into the latter, he was able to direct the light so it shone on a couple of the floating balls. jak was studying the plants--for so he believed them to be--more carefully, now that they were lighted. but after a moment he yelped excitedly, "hey, they're deflating. must be the light does it." jon was watching them in his screen. "yes, i see now. what causes it?" "i don't know," jak answered sadly and absently. "but i sure want to know. how's about covering me while i go out and see if i can get one?" "well, maybe in your suit you'd be safe." once suited up, jak went outside and across the short distance to where the balls seems to be slightly closer together. he tried first one way and then another to catch one, but at his lightest touch they burst and deflated. after several unsuccessful attempts, though, he called excitedly through his suit-sender. "jon, you read me?" "coming through." "i'm going to try fanning one toward the air-analyzer. i want to see if we can get an idea of what's inside. i've got a screwy hunch." "right, i'll switch the light away from them, up into the air." carefully jak herded one of the globes near the ship, and was finally successful in getting it close to the hull-vent of the air-analyzer. when it was almost touching the ship's side, he reached out and touched it, and it promptly broke. "get anything?" he yelled. "yes, gas of some sort. taking the reading now. it seems to be mostly nitrogen." "hah, that's it, then! i'm coming in." when jak was back inside, jon helped him remove his helmet, then demanded curiously, "what's it all about, owl?" "i'm not positive, of course, but i bet those things take the place of bees for pollinating, and also furnish the fertilizer for the ground when they burst and their nitrogen gets into the soil some way." later that evening jon carver sat for nearly an hour, studying intently from one of his reelbooks, and the frown on his face grew deeper and deeper. jak had been working over their father. he had given him a careful sponge bath, then fed him another intravenous dosage of the combined liquid protein, salt, sugar and glucose. even though their mother had been able to spoon-feed her husband small amounts of food each day, the young hoped-to-be doctor felt additional nourishment was necessary. when he finished his task and started to seek a comfortable seat in the living quarters of the space yacht, to relax with a little reading of his own, he noticed his brother's intent look and worried face. "what's the matter, jon?" "eh?" the younger boy looked up, startled, from his deep study. then, as jak repeated the question, he answered unhappily, "i just don't know enough, owl. i can't figure out why pop found such strong spectroscopic lines of that new element while we were billions of miles away, and yet we can't find any traces of it anywhere on these planets, except what we found in that cache." "maybe it's in the sun." "i tried that when we were out there, but 'annie' didn't even peep." the elder brother studied the problem a moment. "could it be so strong that even the little bit we found would have shown those lines?" "maybe," doubtfully, "but i don't think so. tomorrow morning, when the sun comes up, i'm going to try to take a new reading from here. i tried to read two, but couldn't get anything. however, i'm not so hot with the regular spectrograph, and that's why i'm boning up on it." "is this important?" their mother had laid her sewing in her lap to listen to them, trying to follow and understand what her sons were talking about. "pop thought it was, mom," jon explained. "one of the things men have been looking for ever since they first started dreaming of rockets and spaceships, was the best possible fuel. we knew the one we're using now isn't the ultimate, but it's the best they've been able to get so far. pop thought perhaps this new stuff might be it--_if_ we could find it, and _if_ we could learn how to use it." "why can't we use it if you find it?" jak wanted to know. "there are so many problems. maybe it would be so radioactive we wouldn't be able to handle it or keep it in the storage bins without endangering the people on the ship. maybe the exciters and convertors wouldn't handle it without a lot of new experimenting and new designs we wouldn't have the scientific or technical know-how to make. or it might be that instead of getting a steady stream of power as we do with our present activated-copper fuel, the stuff would want to blow up all at once. if the metal's as powerful as i think it is, it might cause an explosion that would make man's biggest h- or c-bomb look like a firecracker." "then don't you go experimenting with it and blow us all up," his mother said sharply. jon grinned at her. "you needn't worry about that, mom, now that i've had a chance to learn how little i know. although i would've gone off half-cocked that day you stopped me--for which i'm grateful, even though i was sore at you for a while then. but i'm sure going to study it as soon as we get the other markers set and can get back to two." "by that time father will be well again," jak said. "isn't it wonderful that he really is coming around all right? seems to be taking an awful long time for him to recover fully, though." "i'm sure he'll be his own keen self again soon ... although he'll have to stay in bed until that leg is strong enough to stand on again." "well, let's hit the sack, so we can get a good start in the morning. 'night, mom." * * * * * during their journeys over the surface of planet three the boys conscientiously tended the machines and recorders that gave them the data on land and water conditions, the proportions of each, the approximate amounts of metallic ores their analyzers showed, the information on weather, temperature and humidity. they took numerous pictures as required by law--their mother often helping in this, after jak had taught her how to operate the cameras. these pictures jak developed and printed as he had time, and mounted them in their data book for the colonial board to study when they got back. they also mapped and recorded the size and distances of three's two moons. jak named these "zinnia" and "begonia," much to jon's sarcastic and openly-expressed derision. "this'll make a swell home for people who like cold weather." jak tried to change the subject. "yes, just as two will for those who like it hotter." jon's eyes shone. "pop sure picked a winner when he decided to explore this system. even with just these two worlds he has a prize." "_if_ they accept our work as proof. wonder what the fourth planet will be like?" jak continued in a different tone. "cold. lots colder, probably, than mars." "then it won't do us any good?" "depends on what's on it in the way of metals that can be mined. maybe we'll find something there. might be natural gems or jewels, too." "and anyway, cold never stopped man." "that's right," jon said admiringly. "they have mines on pluto, even--although they're mostly worked by automatics while the men stay warm in their bubble-cities." as the _star rover_ approached closer to the distant, smaller planet they had named "jon," their instruments showed it to have a diameter of about miles, and a density of about . , a little lighter than terra. this meant the gravity would be a bit weaker, and they would weigh less than on their home planet. four was almost a quarter of a billion miles from the sun, and would be very cold, as jon had said. while their ship drove in closer, the boys' mother came into the control room. all three carvers stared excitedly into their visiplates, watching their rapid approach to this new world. would they find anything of value there, or was it simply a barren wasteland of ice and frozen air and rocks, far too cold and forbidding for men even to bother trying to explore it? when jak, eyes still glued to the telescopic sights of his spectro-analyzer, voiced something of this, jon drawled, "you know better than that, owl. we said just yesterday that there's no place, no matter how bad, that man won't explore to see if there's anything he can possibly use. they'll follow us here, don't worry." after cruising about the surface for some time, recording their data and taking the needed pictures, they saw a fairly level valley, ice-covered and bare, and jon set the ship down there. by now he was becoming an expert astrogator and pilot, and with his new controls they could hardly feel the jar of the ship's landing. "how's the temp outside?" jak was examining the gauges. "about a hundred below, and not a bit of moisture, naturally. going to try going out?" "i don't...." their mother started to speak against it, but made herself stop. her boys were showing such resourcefulness and unexpected habits of caution that she felt she must let them decide things for themselves, even though her motherly instinct was always to hold them back from possible dangers. "sure we're going out for a bit," jon answered his brother, then faced their mother. "it'll be all ok, mom," he said affectionately. "we'll wear our suits, of course, with the heaters on. we won't go far, because the moment we feel any cold we'll run back. but i want to see what it's like out there, and if there's any sort of life. we're supposed to report...." "life? here?" incredulously. it was jak who answered this. "sure, mother, there can be life-forms anywhere. oh, not necessarily nor even probably anything we know on terra. but there should be some sort of moss or lichen in the plant line." "yes, it has been learned from experience there's some sort of life almost everywhere," jon chimed in. "even though most of it's so different from the basic protoplasm-type we're used to that it's hard to realize it's really life at all," jak continued. "but then, remember back on terra, the vast difference between animal and vegetable life--so totally unlike each other. i second jon's plan to go out. i'd really like to see what's out there." she sighed as if in recognition of the fact that these boys of hers were fast becoming reliable, self-sufficient men. they were not her babies any more. she was proud, of course--but she couldn't resist the motherly impulse to warn, "well, be careful, anyway." "sure, we will." jon locked all the controls in neutral, and the two boys went to put on their suits. knowing, as they did, the vital necessity of making sure they were "tight" and fully equipped, they examined and inspected their own and each other's spacesuits carefully before they opened the inner lockdoor. once outside, they stood on the icy ground for several minutes to make sure their heaters were working capably enough to keep them--and especially their feet--warm. finding they were as completely comfortable as anyone ever can be inside that sort of a suit, they started off across the frozen plain, headed for the near-distant hills on the side of the valley closest to the ship. jak examined the ground about them intently as they walked, hoping to find some sort of plant life, while jon kept his eyes mostly on the portable analyzer he carried, hoping they might discover valuable deposits of inorganics. was there any of that unknown fuel-metal here, he wondered anxiously. their big analyzer had not shown it as they were coming in on the survey or landing spiral, but that did not necessarily mean the portable wouldn't show it on closer approach, or that there might not be some on a portion of the surface they had not yet covered from above. their trips about and above the surface had, however, shown traces of iron, manganese, gold, silver, copper and several other metals, although not strongly enough to indicate great deposits. but jon knew experience had shown over the years that one of the inefficiencies of such analyzers was that they would not show the _depth_ of a deposit. many times, when only a slight trace had been detected while flying above the surface, prospectors on the ground had found veritable bonanzas, once they started mining. even though the gravity was about eight per cent lighter than on terra, the boys found walking not too easy. the terrain was mostly rough, although there were many spots of slick, glare ice. too, there were many hillocks, and cracks and crevasses between the slippery places. so, even though they had added caulks to their metallic suit-boots, walking was unsafe and hard. by the time they reached the base of the first low hills they were winded and glad to rest a few minutes. "not a thing so far," jak panted into his suit-mike. "i can't see even a bit of color--just this white glare." "'annie' hasn't let out a peep, either. guess this is a dead 'un all right." "at least this district looks it." "let's climb a ways, and if we don't find anything there, go back to the ship and try somewhere else." "i'll buy a chunk of that." they started up the hill before them. the climbing was difficult because of the ice and because in most places the side of the hill was not a gradual slope, but a starkly steep climb. it was evident there had been no gradual "weathering" here, to produce rounded edges and rolling slopes, although there were occasional smooth places. these, though, the boys knew could not be climbed at all without special equipment which they did not carry. "this isn't frozen-water ice, is it?" jon asked as they panted upward. "no, silly. there can be no water vapor here, any more than there is on neptune or pluto back home. this is mostly frozen carbon dioxide." "well, it's just as cold and just as hard to climb as polar ice." they climbed the quarter mile to the crest of the first hill and peered eagerly over its top. in front and slightly below was another valley--not as deep as the one in which their ship lay, but even larger. from their higher position the floor of this new valley seemed quite smooth. "but that can be just an optical illusion," jak answered jon's statement, adding, "the glare of white would make it look smoother from a height." jon ignored the tone of superiority. "good thing our suits have tinted lenses. do we go down?" "natch." jak had already started. "off there to the right and part way down are some darker places. i want to look at them." "could lichens grow here?" "some could, possibly, though not exactly like the kind we'd find on earth. if there's life here, it's probably a type that can convert energy directly from the elements in the ground or ice, instead of using photo-synthesis or other methods of obtaining nourishment we know about." half-sliding, half-climbing, they made their difficult way to the little patch of gray-greenness, which jak examined with growing delight. "hey, that's gneiss." "what's nice about ... oh!" jon grew red-faced at having been caught that way. "you and your education!" he snorted. "see how brittle it is," jak ignored the interruption as he touched a stem, only to have it snap off like a slim glass fibre. "can't tell without a more thorough microscopic examination, but i'll bet this is some sort of silicon-based life--crystalline instead of being like the gneissic rocks back home." jon, meanwhile, had been surveying the valley with his binoculars. suddenly he gave a gasp, and focussed his glasses more steadily on something that had caught his eye. for some minutes he studied it, then called excitedly, "hey, owl, give a look over there. see, beside that spire of rock," he pointed as his brother rose and unlimbered his own pair of binoculars. "there's movement of some sort there, though it's very, very slow, on that sort of pyramid a yard or so high." for long moments the two studied the spot through their high-powered glasses, then jak said slowly but with mounting excitement, "i think you're right, chubby, and that we've got to see." in their excitement, the two started off faster and more carelessly than was safe. they found out that fact when both, almost at the same time, lost their footing and fell, coasting down the remainder of the hill. faster and faster they slid, shaken and becoming bruised, although luckily neither broke any bones. at the bottom they picked themselves up and started on again. both walked more gingerly now, and jak limped a bit from a twisted ankle. yet they were so eager to see what this strange movement might be, they soon forgot their bruises and hurried once more. it was a good half mile across the valley floor to their destination. but there, sure enough, they found _life_! strange, unearthly life it was, but they soon discovered that it had reproduction, growth and movement--the three main criteria of life-forms. "crystalline, by golly!" jon yelled. jak was squatting beside the growing thing. it was somewhat pyramidal, yet the sides were not smooth. rather, they were many-faceted, like the pieces of rock crystal with which the boys were familiar. it was a grayish-white color--with just enough of the gray in it so it had been visible from a distance, against the white background. but now, as the boys were on the sunward side of one of the pyramids, for there were many of them about, they could see that the light reflected from it was kaleidoscopic coloration at times. jak reached out a gloved hand and rapped on the pyramid ... and it gave forth a tinkling sound, then collapsed into a thousand tiny shards. "you ... you broke it." "yes, i'm sorry. i didn't mean to kill it. had no idea it was so fragile." jak rose, moved over to another pyramid, and squatted beside it, examining it closely, but careful not to touch it. jon sank onto his heels beside him. for a few seconds as they watched there was no change. but suddenly they heard a small, clear _ping_, and a new crystal sprang into existence near the base. almost at once there was a repetition of the sound and another appeared further up on the adjoining side of the structure--or creature. as the boys continued watching this was repeated over and over--with each tiny sound a new facet came into being somewhere on the pyramid. before their very eyes the crystal-being was growing. "boy, that's something!" jon exclaimed admiringly. "yes, it's a life-form, all right," jak said more seriously, without taking his eyes from it. "it's all new to us, but i'll bet there's silicon of some sort beneath this carbon-dioxide ice, and that this thing gets its nourishment from that." "what makes it keep growing?" "what makes a man or an animal or plant grow when it eats?" "oh!" then, "do you suppose it has any mentality?" jak was silent a moment, mulling that over. then he looked at his brother, a crease of concentration on his forehead. "i feel quite sure that it probably has, but of a sort we wouldn't be able to understand, even if we could get in contact with its so-called 'mind.' even reading that, i doubt very much if we'd be able to understand its way of thinking, reasoning, or the motivations by which it lives." he went back to studying the strange crystallization. "_ummm_, probably you're right," jon agreed after some thought. a moment later he asked, "is it good for anything? i mean, can man use it for something?" jak wrenched his gaze away from that astounding growth to look up in shocked disgust. "is that all you think about in the face of such a marvel as this--whether it's worth anything or not? here we've found an entirely new type of life, and...." "hey, keep your suit tight, owl. we have to report this, you know, and i'm just trying to find out what to write down." "oh!" jak spoke slowly, his voice now admitting the lightness of that point of view. "i can't, offhand, see any practical value, especially considering how easily these crystals are broken. but i know geologists--and possibly chemists--will be intensely interested in studying them. there's a lot they can learn here, i'm sure. we'll naturally report all that, you're right, and the location of this valley." "think they may occur all over the planet?" "no telling, but probably if they can find the right sort of soil nourishment. we didn't see any while coming down, but they might've been there and we missed them, not expecting anything like this." "we didn't see any other life-forms, either, that we could recognize. maybe these're the dominant species here." jak rose to his feet and looked all about him. there were hundreds of the pyramids to be seen, some towering a dozen or more feet high and as large across each base line; others very small--babies, he thought with a grin. again he watched one of the smaller ones intently, noticing how it grew. jon walked about, looking at the different structures of that mysterious, growing crystal. suddenly he stiffened, straining, listening. then he called, "hey, jak, you hear anything?" "huh?" his brother tore his gaze from the crystallization he was watching. "hear what?" "turn up the power of your suit receiver. there. there it is again.... hey, sounds like our siren!" "yes, i heard it then. mother must be in trouble, or something." jak's last words were flung back across his shoulder as he ran as fast as he could across the icy wastes of the valley floor. nor was jon far behind. in fact, after a few strides the younger, but longer-legged boy was beside him, then forged ahead. "hurry, owl! mom wouldn't signal unless it was urgent." "maybe father's worse." they tried to conserve their breath after that for running and climbing. once jon broke the silence. "turn your oxygen a little higher, jak," he said as he twisted the small lever at his own shoulder to increase the flow of the strength-giving energy. they were panting and winded by the time they reached the top of the hill. but they disregarded fatigue in the face of their mother's probable danger--or their father's. jon looked quickly to one side and then the other. as jak topped the ridge he saw his brother run some twenty feet or so to where he had spotted a fairly smooth downward slope. down this the younger boy launched himself feet first, sliding on his suit's back. jak instantly realized the reason, and threw himself after his brother. in less than a tenth of the time it would have taken them to climb down, the boys were at the foot of the hill. they struggled to their feet and started off toward the ship. both were again shaken and sorely bruised from their rough slide, but they trotted on. mother had called--nothing else mattered. as they came closer to the ship they saw her reason for summoning them. all about the outer lockdoor were those strange crystalline structures, growing swiftly. as the two boys came still closer, they could see that streamers of the crystals had already reached the lower edge and were trying to force their way through the almost imperceptible crack. "they'll never get ... through there," jon panted as he raced the last few feet. "don't see ... how they can ... but watch 'em." jak waded into the alien, growing things. his gloved fists smashed right and left as he spoke. jon was already doing the same. but whether these crystal-beings were of a different type from those that jak had broken in the distant valley, or just what was the reason, the boys now found it more difficult to break these crystals down. "these aren't ... like those ... back there." jon had now seen that these crystals did not always grow in pyramidal shape. "no, they grow ... new crystals ... wherever needed." jak had been concentrating on the tendrils, or chains of crystals that were reaching, always reaching, toward the lockdoor, while jon had been trying to break the bases of the pyramids from which these arms sprang. although the crystals were still fairly easy to break--especially the tentacles, which were only a thin string--new ones replaced them so swiftly, and their numbers increased so constantly, that it seemed almost a losing battle. "these're growing lots faster than the others." jon gritted his teeth as he now tried crushing the bases with his heavy metallic boots, hoping thus to make it harder for the crystal-beings to reach the door. for minutes the two boys fought in desperation; then jon grunted in disgust at his thoughtlessness, and yanked out his flame-gun. "never thought of this," he yelled as he trained it on the crystal-beings. the terrifically hot flame washed off them in coruscating showers--but did no damage. "try bullets," jak unlimbered his gun from his back, and started firing it into the base of the crystals nearest the lockdoor. the heavy bullets shattered the crystals easily, and soon the boys could begin to see that they were clearing the way. "you keep firing while i open the door and climb in," jon yelled. "then you climb in while i'm going to the control room and i'll lift ship." "right," jak replied and fired even faster as jon touched the outer mechanism-stud that opened the lock. hardly had it begun opening, however, than they heard the sound of another gun being fired through the opening. they looked up in surprise and saw it was their mother, shooting a shotgun. jon scrambled up into the lock. "good work, mom, but get back in. i'm lifting ship." he dashed through the inner doorway and into the control room. he threw the switch and _star rover_ shuddered as its tubes roared into life. jon punched on the intercom visiplate that scanned the interior of the lock, and saw his mother pulling jak into the ship, then closing the outer door. quickly jon put the ship into a slow cruising orbit and switched on the auto-pilot. remembering the open doors and the bitter outside cold, he glanced to see that the automatic heaters were taking care of the inside temperature, then ran back toward the lock. there he found his brother desperately trying to warm their mother's unsuited body, now growing blue from that terrible cold. "help me carry her into bed." jak rose and grasped her arms, but jon pushed him aside. stooping, he picked her up bodily. he ran, staggering a bit, with her into the bunkroom. jak was right behind, and pulled some extra blankets from a drawer. then, while he was piling covers about her, jon dashed into the galley. he drew hot water from the tap and quickly made a cupful of instant tea, then ran back with it to the bunkroom. some minutes later they saw with satisfaction that their mother's color was growing more natural, and her body tremors were slowing from the combined warmth of the extra blankets and hot drink. only then did the boys stop to help each other out of their suits. "thanks for the help, mother, but don't you know enough to wear a suit in weather as cold as this?" jak's worry made his voice sharp. "yes, who's always fussing about us being careful?" jon added. "then pull a stunt like this." their mother looked up at them, and the old impish grin they had seen so seldom of late came onto her face. "you've got me, chums," she drawled. "from now on i reckon i'll keep my big mouth shut." jon howled, and jak added in the same sort of drawl, "well, now, i wouldn't go for to say it was 'big,'" and ducked as she slapped out at him. soon the two boys sobered down. "we'd better go examine the lock and make sure no crystals got in," jak said. "yow, i forgot about that!" jon sprang forward. "we sure don't want any of them in or on the ship." despite jon's desire to get away from this unfriendly world that bore his name, he was careful to see that the signal-marker was set out and functioning, and that the ship's log contained as complete a record of the resources and data on the planet as was required by the terran colonial board. the same was true of four's four moons. jak checked all the work, nor did they leave four until both boys were satisfied it was complete. their mother was a great help in taking the numerous photographs needed, having become quite competent in handling the cameras. she was so relieved at the steady progress of her husband's convalescence that she put extra enthusiasm into her photography. the family still felt that mr. carver should be kept as quiet as possible and away from any mental strain in connection with the ship and the planet mapping and, in his weakness, he seemed content to leave it that way for the time being. he asked few questions and accepted the reassuring answers contentedly. nor, even though jon wished to get back to friendly two as soon as he could, did he forget they still had to visit planet five, and scout and record that. so, as soon as they were completely done on four, he lost no time setting course for five. once on the way, he announced his names for the four moons of four, and now it was jak's turn to scoff. "well, if you can name yours after flowers, i don't see why you've got any kick coming because i name mine after fish," jon asserted. "i leave it to you, mom--aren't tuna, betta, sturgeon and porpoise nice names?" "i think they are fine, just as i think zinnia and begonia are aptly named," she said diplomatically. the two boys made faces at each other, then jon turned back to his computations. "i'm not as good at figuring these things out as pop is, but i think five is about a half billion miles from the sun. it's almost three hundred and fifty million miles from here, since it's further around the sun. but we'll cut across on a direct route." to his surprise, jak came up and clapped him on the shoulder. "you're doing a grand job of astrogating, chubby. i'm really proud of you." his voice was sincere and appreciative. "yes," their mother came over and kissed jon, rumpling his hair affectionately. "i've been unexpectedly relieved that you've managed to get us to each world so surely and to land us so gently. though maybe i shouldn't have been so surprised, at that." she laughed gaily as her younger son flushed from this unexpected praise. "aw, you guys are just saying that because i'm so wonderful." jon tried to joke, but they could tell how deeply he felt their compliments. * * * * * a day later, when jon announced they were approaching this outermost planet, the other two joined him in the control room, and all were soon deeply engrossed in the sight revealed to them in their visiplates. an hour or so later jon was examining their spectro-analyzer, when he let out a yelp of excitement. "hey, that fuel-stuff's showing up. it must've come from five." and a moment later, "listen to 'annie' rattle. it sure is there--but plenty." they clustered about him, and even though they could not tell anything from the lines on the spectrograph that he pointed out, they could hear the machine chattering, and they grew excited from his exultation. "miners can use the same type of automatics they use on pluto to get it, can't they?" jak asked. "i'd imagine so, although i really don't know anything about it. however, if we find we can use it, there's where they can get it, and that's the important thing." their plates again showed only the blinding whiteness of ice they knew was frozen carbon dioxide rather than frozen water or snow. for even more than on four, there could be no water here, even in its most frozen form. they cruised about above the surface, watching their instruments to find and record any metallic ore deposits, especially the new one. the terrain was so forbidding, so desolate, that even the irrepressible jon felt no desire to land on it, or to go outside. again their mother took most of the needed photographs, while the boys recorded all the other data of geography, size and conditions generally. finally, jon set the ship down on a fairly level plateau close to what they figured was the equator. "well, here we are and that's all i care about," jon announced with a shiver. "we'll use the distant hands to put out the marker. then we'll see if we can find the location of that fuel deposit." jak agreed. "i wouldn't go out there for a million credits." he shuddered as he looked out the port while the others crowded about to view that forbidding scene. "maybe we should, but i sure wouldn't get any fun out of it." "doubt if our suits would be able to keep us warm, even with the heaters at max." "no," their mother said sharply, although they could detect the relief in her voice that they had already made the decision. "this is one time i would have set my foot down, and not allowed it. this place gives me the creeps." while jon was making up the tape, jak carried a signal-sender into the lock and placed it beneath those "distant hands." jon came in and installed the tape, then started the mechanism running. they returned to the control room, and jak, whistling unmelodiously between his teeth, operated the controls that opened the outer door, then used the lifting servo-mechanism to set the signal-sender outside on the icy ground. when the outer door was closed, he nodded to jon and the latter lifted the ship again. "i'm going up a couple of miles, then circle about to look for deposits of that fuel metal. meanwhile, as we go we can get the rest of our dope, and then scoot out of here." jak again took his place at the recorders, while his mother was at the cameras. jon set the ship into a quartering circle, and when he had located the direction in which the analyzer showed the strongest indications of the enigmatic metal, swung into that course. they had gone less than five hundred miles when they noticed a reddish glow in the distance. as they came closer, they saw that ahead and below was a terrific, whirling mass of colored gas. "wow, look at that storm!" jak yelled. but he could not help adding, "did you ever see anything more beautiful?" "better get well above it, hadn't you?" mrs. carver asked anxiously. "it looks dangerous." "i'm sure not going through it." jon was already lifting the ship. "but 'annie' says the stuffs right close." at five miles high he leveled off and put the ship into a narrowing spiral. from that vantage point they could see that the storm was a purely localized affair, perhaps some twenty miles in diameter. "wonder what makes those colors?" jak called from the telescopic-visiplate into which he was staring. "suppose it could be a volcano?" "could there be volcanic action on so cold a planet?" their mother asked in astonishment. "i don't see how there could be," jak answered slowly, "but that certainly looks like flames of some sort down there." "maybe the experts from terra can figure it out from our color pictures," mrs. carver said. "i'm taking a lot of extra ones, with the variable focus lens." "that new metal's down there, though, whatever it is. since those other people mined it, our miners'll figure out how to get it, too, i'll bet." "i wonder." jak was suddenly diffident. "don't laugh now, but do you suppose maybe those flames could be some sort of life, and that they're feeding on the metal, which you said was highly radioactive?" "now who's nutty?" jon asked witheringly, while mrs. carver gasped at the daring concept. "well, some of those flames are coming higher and aiming for us." jak tried to defend his position. "we'd have said such crystal-creatures as we found on four were impossible, but we know they aren't and that they have some sort of--well, intelligence, from the way they tried to get our ship. so why not flame-beings?" "do you think they're dangerous?" their mother's voice held a frightened note as she saw in her plate those swiftly approaching flames. "don't see how they could possibly hurt the ship, or us." jon tried to speak calmly ... but he tilted the nose and the space-yacht was soon nearly ten miles high, although it still continued circling. "man, oh man, they're certainly beautiful!" jak was enthralled as those bright, shining tongues of flame grew taller and taller. "there ... there does seem to be a ... a purpose in the way they act, though." his tone changed to a more anxious one. the flames were now high above the storm of fire that constituted the main ... body? now these tongues broke loose, and as they continued rising toward the ship they became more spherical in shape--were no longer simply extensions of the planet-based fires. and as they rose ever higher and faster, they seemed to the anxious watchers to be really thinking, intelligent entities. "let's move away from here," their mother pleaded. "i'm getting the feeling that they are actually pursuing us--and for no good purpose, either." jon touched the controls, and the ship began rising more swiftly. "no, don't leave; i want to study ..." jak began, but jon interrupted him. "so would i like to know more about them, but if mom wants to leave, away we go." yet there was an undercurrent of relief in his voice. but as if guessing his intention, the flames hurtled after them at such tremendous speed that before the ship had barely begun accelerating, they were almost up to it. "hang on tight!" jon yelled, and increased the acceleration. soon the ship had left the flames behind. peering in their telescopic plates, the three could see the flames, reluctantly and as if baffled, return at last to their home below. "all gone, mother. we're safe now," jak said comfortingly. "thank you, god," she said devoutly and sank limply into a seat. "i was afraid for awhile...." "so was i," jon's teeth began chattering and his body shaking so hard that he, too, was glad he was sitting down. now that it was all over the shock of that strangeness--that utter alienness--was hitting him. nor was jak in much better shape, in spite of his expressed desire to stay and study the enigmatic flame-life. it was many minutes before the trio were able to discuss the matter calmly, and to realize they had been in actual danger. "i see now we sure would have been, if jon hadn't zoomed us out of there so fast," jak said. finally, mrs. carver shook herself. "i'll go get lunch. it must be time, hungry as i feel." "me, too," jon laughed. "but then, i'm always hungry." as soon as the three had finished eating, mrs. carver and jak went to sit with the invalid and watch hopefully for those semi-conscious moments which were becoming more and more frequent. jon went back to check his course back to planet two, and to lounge later in the pilot's seat, studying from one of his reelbooks. "there must be," he told himself, "some way of handling that fuel, and of storing and using it. the fact that it was cached there on two shows that. but then, those folks who used it were so evidently far advanced in science." a bit later the thought intruded, "hey, if that stuff's so powerful now, after all the untold time it was stored there, what was it like when it was new?" an hour or so later he heard his name called, urgently. he sprang up and ran into the other room, to see his brother beckoning him from the doorway of their parents' bunkroom. as he came up jon saw his mother inside, bending over the bunk. "is--is pop worse? he'd been so much better!" jon's heart was clogging his speech. "no, he seems to be waking up fully." jak turned a radiant face toward him, then immediately knelt by his father's side. jon knelt, too, his eyes fastened on the still figure in the bed. but even as he watched, the eyelids slowly fluttered a bit, then a hand was raised to the forehead. mr. carver's head turned from side to side, restlessly, and then his eyes opened. they seemed to be studying each of the three watchers in turn, as well as the room in which he was lying. "what--" the voice was low, and they strained to hear, "what happened to me?" his wife answered quietly, "don't you worry about that now, dear. you were hurt and have been unconscious for some time. but now you're getting well, and i'll tell you all about it when you wake up again. go back to sleep now. you are getting stronger that way." mr. carver seemed to be weighing that advice, then to accept it. "all right," he said with an affectionate smile. he closed his eyes, and soon the rhythmic breathing told the three anxious watchers he was asleep once more. jon let out his breath in a happy sigh, there were tears of joy in his mother's eyes. jak exclaimed delightedly, "he's getting well, mother! in another day or so he'll be all right. naturally he'd not remember clearly for a while. my textreels say people with concussions seldom do. but as soon as he gets a little stronger and those damaged places in his brain completely restore themselves, he will, you'll see." jon chimed in quickly, although he was not too sure of what he was saying. "it's just the shock, like jak says. he'll snap out of it in a day or so." she wiped her eyes on the corner of her apron, and smiled tremulously, "of course, boys. i ... i guess i've just been so nervous and--and he was so much more like himself this time." "no wonder," jon laid his hand gently on her arm. "you've been under a terrible strain, too, what with pop sick and us boys roaming around on alien planets. but we'll be back on two where it's more like home, and there's only a little more to be done before we can start back for terra. anyway, we did and are doing what had to be done to prove up pop's claim, and we've beaten slik bogin, supposing he's out here trying to cheat us out of this system." the boys went into the control room. "we'll have to figure out where to lay out our townsite, and which planet is best to put it on." "i vote for two," jak said after only a moment's hesitation. "it seems the most homelike to me, and we can stand the climate so much better there. won't have to work in suits all the time." "yes, that's where i wanted it, too. this is a funny system, in a way, though--there's a much greater difference in the distances between the planets than we usually find." "why's that?" "ask some astronomer, not me. has something to do with sizes and densities, i believe--but i'm not sure even of that. maybe it's because this sun is larger and denser than the others we've studied. i know it's almost a quarter bigger than sol." "two's almost as far away from this sun as terra is from sol, didn't you say?" "yes, earth's average is about ninety-three million miles, while two is about eighty-seven, which accounts for its warmth. then, near as i can figure it out, three is lots closer than mars, yet five is only a little further than jupe, and four is between them." "didn't i read somewhere that sol's asteroid belt is really a broken-up planet?" "some people think so. but nobody knows for sure, yet. "all right, then, let's put our city on two." jak grinned. "has the mastermind decided where to put it?" "not the exact location." jon flushed, but grinned back. "colonial says it must be fairly close to good water, good soil, forests, and mineral deposits, however." he sobered and looked at his brother appealingly. "golly, owl, any chance of pop getting entirely well before we have to start it, so that it wouldn't hurt him to do brainwork? i don't know very much about city planning, you know--only the specs colonial furnished." "he could--but maybe he won't. i don't know enough to say how soon. i've been fooled before--thought it would only take a few days, when he was first hurt." "what about his being so ... so ... dreamy?" "you mean, when he woke up just now? that's really nothing to worry about, honestly, just as i told you and mother. i looked it up again, and the text says amnesiacs often act that way just before they recover full consciousness." jon let out his breath in relief. "but listen," jak changed back to the old subject. "if you don't know anything about city planning--and i don't either--how're we going to know what has to be done to satisfy the colonial board?" "it's all in the papers they gave us that have to be filled out to file when we get back. it tells how much area to cover, how far apart the streets are to be and how wide, and how to mark out everything." "gosh, that sounds like a complicated deal. it'll take us an awful long time, won't it?" "not as much as you'd think. if we work really hard, i figure we should be able to do it in a couple of weeks. we just have to sketch in the bare outline, not fill it all in. "get out the papers, then, and we'll study them." "right!" with the various members of the carver family busy with their studies and chores, it did not seem long before they came close to planet two, and jon laid down his reelbooks to begin preparing for the landing. he had started down through the atmosphere when jak suddenly roused. "why don't we circle around a bit and look for our townsite from the air?" "i was going to," jon said with a disarming grin. "just wanted to get close enough to see well before i called you in to help me decide." at about five miles above the surface he leveled off and began circumnavigating the globe. he headed in the direction which--he remembered from their previous visit--would soonest bring them near the great ocean, but zigzagged from north to south as they proceeded eastward. "watch for rivers," he said. "a fairly large one that empties into the ocean." they were about halfway between the north pole and the equator, as they had already decided the climate in that latitude would probably be the most suitably average. in a few minutes of traveling they saw ahead a plain that looked to be just what they wanted. quickly jon maneuvered the ship downward and soon landed. they were just a few miles from the edge of the great ocean, at the mouth of a large river of considerable width and length, and not far from an extensive forest to the south, and a range of considerable mountains to the west. "hope the soil here is good," jon commented as he locked the controls in neutral. "everything else seems perfect." "the spec-anal shows minerals fairly close, in those hills to the west." jak was eagerly peering from the port. "i know--that's why i chose this spot. nice flat land here; good river; close to the ocean, mountains less than a hundred miles away, and not too high. ideal place, i'd say. "that it is; that it is. going out today?" "why not? nearly four hours till sundown. we can start planning today, then get busy in the morning." their mother came in just then. "i thought it felt like we had landed. what are you going to do here?" she glanced out of the port. "we have to lay out a townsite," jon answered, and at her astonished look he explained. she shook her head admiringly and with surprise. "you boys continually amaze me--you seem able to do anything." jon shrugged that off. "when a thing has to be done, a fellow usually can figure out some way of doing it." "besides," jak grinned, "we're like those old chaps on terra who used to say, 'the difficult we do immediately, the impossible takes a little longer.'" they left her then and hurried out of the ship. even though they felt there could be no possible danger here--they could see for miles in every direction, and noticed nothing moving--they were wise enough from experience to carry their rifles slung across their backs, and wore bandoliers of ammunition. in addition, both carried tools and what equipment they felt might be needed. once outside, they ran first to the river, and tested the water. it was fresh and clear, and they knew this would be a good source of water for their proposed city ... until men might pollute it with their garbage and wastes. "got your pedometer?" jak asked. "sure, right here in my coverall pocket. why?" "i suggest this would be a good place for the center of the town's north side...." "yes, here by the riverbank would...." "i'll go east and you go west a half mile each, then we'll set our corner stakes." "then we'll both walk south a mile and set those, and have the four corners done. sometimes, owl, i have to give you credit for having brains." "wish i could say the same about you." jak reached out and gave his brother a friendly shove. "get going, stupe. and when we start south, be sure you keep your line straight." "look who's yelping. mine'll be as plumb as yours--probably more so, because i'm a better plumber than you are." jon started his pacing, while jak went in the opposite direction after a pretended "_grrr_" at jon's horrible pun. when they returned to the ship, as the sun was going down, they felt they had made a good beginning. but as they went into the control room to talk alone, away from their mother's hearing--lest they worry her--they were not too cheerful. "you know anything about surveying?" jak slumped into a seat. "nope, not a sardine's worth." jon paced forth and back in the little room. "that's what has me worried. how're we going to place those other marking stakes in exactly the right spots." "guess we'll have to measure them some other way." "how?" "darned if i know. you're the mechanically--minded one--i thought you could figure it out." jon continued his pacing, his young forehead creased with thought. finally, just as their mother called them to dinner, he looked up excitedly. "hey, it'll be easy, after all!" "how?" jak was as excited as his brother as they went in to the living quarters and sat down at the table. "a light plastic line that won't stretch, exactly measured, and fastened to two metal pin-stakes. we'll make two sets, and...." "i get it. one the length of the blocks, the other the width of the streets." "right. stick a pin in the ground, measure out the line, then plant one of our regular stakes." "then give a yank, pull the pin out and haul it in. then use the other set to measure the street...." "yes, just keep going. hey, i believe with that system we could each work alone, so i'll make two sets." jak thought all this over swiftly for several minutes, working fork and knife and jaws meanwhile. finally, between mouthfuls, he said slowly, "i can't see a flaw in it--as long as we're mighty careful. do you think it'll pass inspection?" "if we take our time and make sure we're right, i don't see why not." "what're you boys talking about now?" their mother set a refilled dish of steaming chlorella stew on the table, and resumed her own seat. they explained, and told her the necessity of what they had to do in order to prove up their father's claim on this system, when they returned to terra and appeared before the colonial board with their proofs of prime discovery. the worried look came back into her eyes. "i always understood that surveying was a mighty exact profession. do you really think you can measure it exactly enough to take the place of a regular survey?" "i think we can make it close enough so that when pop wakes up and shows us how to do the final survey with the instruments, we can save a lot of time, at least," jon assured her. "that's what we're thinking and planning about now." "you see, mother," jak broke in, "if we have the stakes all set, all we'll have to do is to make the sights on each one, after father teaches us how to use the transit. then, if we should be off anywhere, we can fix them easily." "yes, it'll cut down the time a lot," jon went on, "and now we're so near done, i want to get everything finished so we can go back to terra immejit." "why? getting homesick?" his mother teased. "not so much that, but we want to get our claim before the board. anything can happen when such distances and time are concerned...." "and we just don't want anything to spoil father's chances of having this valuable claim verified." "i see." she smiled now in relief, and again her eyes showed the pride she felt in her two manly boys who were daily proving themselves more than equal to the unusual situations in which they found themselves. "your father woke up again while you were out, and...." "he did?" it was a duet of happy excitement. "... and while he still didn't seem to realize what had happened, he acted even more as though he recognized me. he let me feed him some broth, then went back to sleep again very contentedly." "golly, that's great!" jon reached out and patted her hand. the three chatted together with more freedom and animation than they had known since the terrible accident first occurred. it seemed as though their worst troubles were over. for tad carver was so reliable, so confident in himself, so trust-inspiring--even beyond their natural love for him--that they felt everything would just have to work out right, once he was again in command. as soon as they had finished eating, the boys hurried to the storeroom and found some metal rods. "cut me four lengths about fifteen inches each," jon ordered as he went to the workbench. he cleared a space, then began getting the tools he wanted, and hooking up the induction furnace. "you'll need eight for two full sets, won't you?" "i got to thinking we'd better make only one set for now. if it works out all ok, then we can make the other." by the time jak had the pieces cut, jon was ready to heat one end of each in the furnace, then bend it into a small eye. the other end he sharpened on the emery wheel. "now measure out pieces of that plastic rope," he ordered, pointing to a reel of small-diametered but very strong line. "figure about six inches extra on each...." "look, chum, you tend to your job and give me credit for brains enough to know that much." jak's tone was almost cross, for sometimes this younger brother got on his nerves, since jon did occasionally get quite "bossy." but the elder quickly subdued that feeling--helped by the surprised and somewhat hurt look in jon's eyes. he knew so well that jon was merely trying--as he himself was learning to do--to see that neither made any mistakes in this important work they were attempting to do in their father's absence. father was always cautioning them to take pains with whatever they were doing, and they usually accepted his warning and advice--as they did their mother's--without any more grumbling than boys ordinarily make about such "fussing." but now each of them--and both of them together--had to be, and did try to be, extra painstaking in all the things their father would have cautioned them about, and they checked and rechecked each other constantly. so jak said nothing more, and quietly helped jon complete the stakes-and-line sets. after all, he admitted honestly, there were undoubtedly times when he got just as "bossy" as jon did. soon the two sets of pins and line were done. each of the boys measured each once--twice--to make doubly sure their work was right. then they cut up and sharpened a number of wooden stakes from some inch-by-inch strips they found in the storeroom. the next morning they started out early. each carried a bundle of the marking stakes, and jon had a small sledge in one hand. in addition, they had their rifles slung across their backs. "working together to begin with," jon said at breakfast, "we can start the eastward leg from the southwest corner, and run it a ways, then come back and start the northward one from this same corner." "yes, if we get that first corner square and right, there's less chance of the other three being wrong--they'll more or less check themselves." they soon found they could work at quite a swift pace, and at lunch time jon cried, "at this rate we'll have time to go back and re-check everything, and still get done within our two weeks." "yes, if we don't run into any trouble, this seems to be working out fine. much better than i'd have given you credit for being able to figure out, chubby." "catfish to you, brother!" jon grinned. "hey, that reminds me. i want to see if that river's got any fish in it--and no...." he caught himself and stopped, but jak knew what he meant. their mother still didn't know about that quicksand jon had been almost trapped in, and they didn't want her to learn of it. "i suppose it would be worth knowing," jak had hastened to say, almost as if interrupting. "for once your eternal love of fishing will have its good points--as well as getting us fresh food. what about the ocean?" "i'll try that, too, if i have time. surf-fishing won't tell us too much about the deeper sea, and i haven't any heavy tackle for anything very big if we happen to run into it. but probably, close to shore like i'll have to fish, we wouldn't catch anything my lines and hooks won't handle." "if _you_ can handle 'em," jak said with a grin. "don't you worry about me," jon retorted. "i can pull in anything i can get my hook on." "except a sunken ship," jak jibed, and jon's face grew red. that incident, when he and his father had been fishing off the coast of southern california, back in terra's pacific ocean, was still a tender subject with him. he had had to cut his line that time, because they could not loosen his hooks, and he had lost a favorite spinner and leader and half his best line. that first week passed uneventfully. the boys worked hard, from shortly after sunup to almost sundown. so hard, in fact, that their mother finally protested after noticing that they were so weary that they slumped in their chairs at the table and could hardly eat each evening when they returned to the ship. "now you boys listen to your mother," she commanded one night at dinner. "i'm just as anxious to get back to earth as you are, but there's no sense killing yourselves to save a day or two. from now on, you are to start an hour later, and quit an hour earlier." jak managed a weak grin. "guess you're right, mother. but we are coming along fine." "sure, we've almost completed outlining the site. we'll have to take tomorrow off anyway, to go to the forest out there and cut some more stakes," jon added. "it'll make a nice vacation. i'm really fed up with so much sameness of hard work." "yes, it's been a steady grind, no fooling, but we wanted to get it done as quick as we can, so pop can check it." for their father had been waking up several times every day, their mother reported. true, he had only been conscious for short periods, and was still too weak to be bothered with any of their problems. but, she told the boys, he was able to eat something each time he awoke, and his mind was clear again. she was preparing easily eaten and digested foods that would bring back his strength quickly. jak asked anxiously whether his father had mentioned how the leg felt, and mrs. carver told him, "he says it doesn't pain any, although sometimes it itches beneath the cast." later on, just as they finished eating, jak suggested, "take your tackle along tomorrow, chubby, and we'll chop where the woods meet the river." "why, t'anks, pal, you're a good kid." jon made a fake pass at his brother, who jumped up from the table and yanked the other's chair backward, starting a small scuffle which their mother wisely did not try to stop, knowing that, tired as they were, it would last only a few seconds and would be good for them. * * * * * when the boys returned from their expedition the next night, with arms and backs loaded with bundles of stakes, and jon's creel well-filled with two's fish-things, she met them anxiously at the lockdoor. "did you boys hear or see the ship that passed over us this morning?" "ship?" "no, we didn't see nor hear a thing. sure it was a ship?" "no, i didn't see it, either. i thought i heard one, and ran to look out, but couldn't locate anything. maybe it was just my imagination." "spaceship or airship?" jon asked. "i couldn't tell you that, either, except that if i did really hear one, it must have been a spaceship to disappear so quickly." "unless it was a fast jet--they're just as hard to spot." they discussed the affair for some time, but could come to no conclusions. if it was a ship, why hadn't it stopped or signalled? and if it wasn't one, what had she heard? or had she actually heard anything? two evenings later the two boys had completed outlining their city site, and were just climbing into the _star rover_ when they heard their mother's voice. "that you, boys? come in here. hurry!" at the urgency in her voice, they ran quickly and found her sitting at the side of their father's bunk. as they got closer they saw his head turn toward them, and recognition in the wide-open eyes. "hello, fellows!" his voice was weak but happy. "father!" "oh, pop, you're awake at last!" the two almost fought to be closest to him, but their mother moved a little and both sank to their haunches beside the bunk, each with one of their father's somewhat emaciated hands in theirs. "your mother tells me i've been sick quite a long time, and that you chaps have been carrying on. i'm grateful, and proud." "you should see the way mom has caught on to doing things," jon said quickly. "she does almost all our photographing now." "and jon has developed into a real astrogator," jak said. "yes, pop, but you wouldn't be as well as you are today if it hadn't been for owl knowing how to set your leg and make a cast for it, and giving you the proper medicines and intravenous feedings." jon turned to smile at his brother, who grew red in the face and tried to stop the compliments, but the younger boy rushed on. "he's really a whiz as a doctor. knew exactly what to do for you. how's your leg feel?" "fine, thanks to you, jak." "oh, it wasn't so much--and i didn't _know_. i had to study a lot to find out...." "anyway, i'm still alive and that shows you did a fine job." mr. carver lifted a weak hand to caress his elder son's face. then he turned toward jon. "i've had fine reports of you, too, son. your mother says...." "yes, if anyone deserves praise around here, it's jon," jak broke in. "he has done all the piloting and figuring courses, and he even invented a one-man control so he can land and take off without all the trouble and preciseness needed before. why, he...." "nix owl!" jon was the one to be embarrassed now. "that can wait until pop's stronger. the main thing is to report now, so he can tell us what to do next." "where are we--and what has been done so far?" mr. carver asked. "your mother hasn't--or wouldn't--tell me, except that we've reached the new system, and are landed on one of the worlds there." "we're on planet two, and we're laying out the city site that the board requires. this sun has five planets, and two and three are perfectly habitable for humans, but no natives above animal level," jak began. "there're seven moons--one at two, two at three, and four at four," jon took up the tale. "we've visited all the planets, and have set out the automatic signal-senders, with tapes giving you the credit for the prime discovery." "they named the sun 'carveria' after you, mr. c." his wife leaned forward, eyes shining with pride, and an arm across the shoulders of each of the boys. "they named the planets after one of us, each, and the fifth one after the ship, and we've given names to the moons, too." "this world will be swell for people who like it warm, and three will be just as good for those who prefer colder weather. both are a lot like terra at different seasons and sections, and both are rich in soil, water, forests, metals and...." "and we discovered a cache of that new fuel-metal you thought you saw in the spectroscope," jon broke in, his voice bubbling with eagerness. "right here on two. not a mine or a vein, understand, but a cache, in a metal box buried in the sand. must have been some people a long, long time ago, because from the sand drifted inside the box it apparently hadn't been touched for thousands of years. and it showed up on five...." "but it's guarded by some sort of sentient flames," jak burst in. his father's face lighted up. "have you tried it yet?" he asked jon. "no," the boy's face showed disappointment. "mom wouldn't let me take any chances when i first wanted to, but now i'm glad--it's very highly radioactive still, in spite of who knows how many half-life deteriorations. it might've blown us higher than up. maybe, though, when you get better we can study...." "if we haven't got a small lead box, you ought to be able to make one," his father broke in. "you could probably handle a small quantity of it that way, to bring it in so we can study it. maybe, though," as an afterthought, "if it's that strong, you'd better wait for me to help before trying any of it in the generators." "it's in little cubes, a bit smaller than our copper pellets. that's why i'm so sure it's a fuel, and that it was put here by some sort of people who had advanced space travel a long, long time ago." jon was still excited. "we figure all we have to do is finish laying out the town here, and then we can start back for terra and put your claim before the colonial board," jon said. "of course, we all hoped and expected you'd be well enough to check what we've done...." "but we tried to follow all the items in the papers the board gave us," jak added seriously. "and now you're well, we can make sure...." "you father is far from well yet," their mother broke in, her voice imperative. "we are all so happy he's awake at last, but i can see he's very weak and that all this excitement has been almost too much for him. you boys say 'good night' to him now, and then run off and eat your dinner, and let him sleep. tomorrow evening you can finish your report." reluctantly the boys obeyed, and went into their living quarters and to the table. "golly, i should think pop'd want to hear all about it now." jon frowned with disappointment. "he does, don't you worry," jak tried to cheer him. "i should have watched him more closely to see we didn't excite or overtire him, but i was just as happy and eager as you were. he'll be stronger after another good long sleep, but we've got to be careful not to expect too much of him for some time yet." "yes, i know you're right." then jon's face lighted with relief. "but it's sure swell to have him awake so we can talk to him and he can take charge of things again. you did a grand job, owl, bringing him through." "that's another thing, you big bum. you go handing out praise like that again, and i'll bust you one." "oh, yeh, and who was the parrotfish talking up so big the few little things i did?" jak came over and threw his arm across the shoulders of his taller but younger brother. "both of us were so carried away by our enthusiasm we forgot to belittle each other," he said sagely. "maybe we do sort of like each other, after all." jon pushed him away with rough tenderness, but his eyes were suspiciously moist. his words, though, were an attempted snort, as he picked up his knife and fork. "what do you want--the next waltz?" when the boys came into the dinette the next morning, their mother was humming happily as she prepared breakfast, and greeted them with a cheery smile. "pop awake yet?" jon asked as he saw her mood. "no, but he's sleeping so sweetly i know he's all right," she answered. they sat down and began eating. after finishing, jak said, "well, we might as well go out and work some more on our townsite." "call us when pop wakes up, will you, please?" jon took a last sip of his juice-concentrate. "that'd be silly." jak frowned. "we know he can't come and help us, so why should we run several miles back here when we can see him when we get back?" jon opened his mouth to reply, his eyes flashing almost angrily, but their mother interrupted quickly with a question, "boys, just why do you have to lay out such a site?" "the board requires it," jon answered shortly. "in the early days of exploration," jak explained more patiently, "some of the space crews used to make their reports after merely flying above the surface of the planets of a new system. in fact, some of them didn't even go that close, and merely made up sketchy reports." "then when colonists got there," jon, who had simmered down by now, took up the explanation, "they often found conditions very different, and many times quite dangerous to them." "yes, sometimes there were even intelligent inhabitants who hadn't been reported, so their planets couldn't be used for colonization. so the board made this new ruling," jak continued. "now we have to have so many photos taken from various heights and at different places all over the surface of each planet, and each moon more than one hundred miles in diameter. and we have to lay out a townsite on the most earthlike planet, mostly to show we actually have been there and spent some time there...." "and it really doesn't make any difference whether the people who'll come here to live use it or not...." "but we think they will use ours because we selected a place close to a river and the ocean, close to forests and fairly near minerals." "yes, you have done a wonderful job, i know that much about it." "well, we'll go out and re-check our lines," jon said. "i've been studying and experimenting with the theodolite, and i can...." "what is that?" she asked. "what's what? oh, the 'theodolite'? that's the surveyor's telescope. i've learned enough about it so i can tell if our lines have been run straight, and as we were so careful in measuring the distances, i'm quite sure they're fairly accurate." "yes," jak chimed in, "i'll bet none of them are more than an inch off, if that." "optimist," jon scoffed. "i'd take that bet away from you, only it'd be cheating an infant." jak started a retort, then thought better of it, and shut up. they left the ship soon, jon carrying the surveying instrument over his shoulder, and jak the marker-pole. arrived at the nearest corner of their townsite, jon set the instrument down, while jak went on to the next stake. by means of the graduated circle attached just below the telescope, and the plumb line suspended from it, jon adjusted the collapsible legs until he felt sure it was correctly focussed. then, as jak went ahead from stake to stake, jon took sights to make sure each marker was centered on his cross hairs. the ones that were not, he indicated by hand signals, and jak reset them to left or right, until jon was satisfied. they completed all of one side before lunch, then returned to the ship. they found their mother had opened both lockdoors while they were gone, and fresh, crisp, though warm, air was circulating through the ship, blowing out the old chemically pure yet "stale-feeling" air their purifiers had been re-circulating for so long. their father was awake, but still so weak he was making no attempt to sit fully up in bed, although his wife had slipped an extra pillow beneath his head. "ho, fellows!" he greeted the boys as they came into the bunkroom. "how's the job coming?" "just fine, pop." "we have the townsite all laid out, and now we're checking to make sure the lines are straight," jak told him. he frowned a bit. "how did you manage it? neither of you is a surveyor. or have you learned how to do that, too?" "i think i've figured out the theodolite well enough to tell if our lines are straight, and that's what we're using now," jon continued. "i can't measure distances with it, though." jak explained more in detail how they had measured the blocks and street widths, and rechecked them all. "i can't see why it won't pass," their father said when they finished. "probably no one will ever check it, unless they actually use the site when the colonists come. it shows we were landed here long enough to do the work, and that's the important thing. what about the rest of the mapping?" "i'll go get the papers." jon ran out, to return in a few minutes with the book of reports, and the rolls of film and prints they had made on all the planets and satellites. "you can check these as you feel up to it, pop, and anything that looks wrong we can go back and re-check or do over." mr. carver riffled quickly through the pages, and saw that each question had been answered; each measurement given an answer--though whether correct or not, of course, he could not know. all the information required had been supplied, at least. he gave the boys his old-time grin, even as he was shaking his head in wonder. "you chaps certainly have done a job. looks like i'll have to take the backseat from now...." "_no!_" the two boys were shocked by that. "not on your life, pop! we maybe did fairly well, but we need you, just the same." "i'll say we do," jak chimed in. "there's so much yet you can teach us. why, we've only begun learning most of the things we want to know." mr. carver smiled up at his sons. "i'm always glad to tell you anything i can, fellows. it's good to see you growing up, though." he turned his head to face jon more directly. "what's that about a new system you rigged up so you can land and take off with only one switch?" jon explained, and the two were soon deep in technical talk of electronic relays and cells, and automatic switch-overs. finally, mrs. carver came in with a tray of lunch for her husband, and told the boys their food was on the table. "all right, you chaps, go and eat," mr. carver said. "i'll take another nap while you're out this afternoon. then maybe i'll feel up to talking some more this evening, and going over these reports with you." * * * * * the second day later the boys finished their re-checking, and came back to the ship in midafternoon. their father was again awake, and they went in to see him. "we're all done here, pop, so what say we go back to that fuel-metal cache and see about getting the stuff aboard?" jon asked. "i guess from all you've said that's the most important thing now," he agreed after a moment's consideration. "only thing is, i've been wondering if you couldn't move me into the control room, and fix a couch for me there?" "sure, that's easy," jak told him. but jon frowned in thought. "yes, we can do it, but we'll have to figure out first how to fasten the cot down and then make some arrangement so you can stand any acceleration we may have to use." "how about fixing the co-pilot's seat into a bunk?" "hey, that's the ticket!" jon brightened. he ran out and soon was helping his mother gather blankets, sheets and pillows, and going with jak to bring an extra mattress from the storeroom. they set the seat to recline, and then while mrs. carver was making up the bed, the boys carried their father--a much lighter load now than when he had first been hurt--and put him in his new bed. "say, this is all right!" mr. carver exclaimed after jon had lowered the co-pilot's visiplate so his father could look into it without distortion or neck-craning. "all the comforts of home." he grinned at his wife. she stooped and kissed him. "be sure and let us know any time you get too tired, though, mr. c." "i will, honey," he assured her. "but actually, i'm so comfortable i don't see why i can't stay here as well as in bed, until the leg's strong enough to start getting up." everything else ready, he watched anxiously, then admiringly, as jon started the tubes firing, balanced them and took them off with the throwing of his one switch. in his visiplate the elder man watched with intense interest the scenery over which they were passing--jon had set course so they would go completely around this world of two until they came to that desert. mr. carver made many enthusiastic comments about this splendid planet that now bore his wife's name. "yes, and three's just as nice, only colder," jon reported eagerly. "folks who like cold weather can live there without too much trouble at all." "it's funny, though," jak declared with a frown, "that there's no protoplasmic life there at all. that we could find," he hastened to add. "lots of vegetation, though," jon added. "that means the soil will be good for growing things, doesn't it?" "it certainly sounds like it." his father smiled. "the colonists may have to adapt their earth-seeds to fit, and probably bring their own worms and bees and so on. but they should be able to farm there. from your surveys, it appears there are plenty of minerals so they can start mines and factories of all kinds right away. yes, this looks like a pretty good solar system." "you bet, pop. you sure picked a winner in this one," jon's eyes gleamed with satisfaction. "i had an idea, from the spectroscopic examinations we made 'way back there near sirius, that we'd find it fairly good here. but, to be honest, i didn't dare hope it would be this good. to tell the truth, i was really more interested in that line which seemed to indicate that fuel-stuff, than i was in new planets for colonization, although we needed those, too, to make the trip pay off." before long they came above the beginning of that well-remembered desert, and jon slowed and circled, preparatory to landing. jon kept his eyes upon his instruments, and when he saw they were close to the actual latitude and longitude, he killed the speed to their slowest cruising range, and their height to a few hundred yards. when he knew he was almost at the exact spot, he stared intently into his pilot's magnifying visiplate, at the same time keeping his fingers tautly on the landing switch. soon, in his plate, he saw the top of that cache cover in the nearing distance. he circled until he judged he could land close to it, then closed the switch. softly, easily, the space-yacht came in to a landing on the hard packed sand, and jon shut off the power and put everything in neutral. his father had wisely kept silent during this maneuvering, but now he let out his breath in a _whoosh_. "that's the neatest landing i ever saw," he told jon admiringly. "that gadget of yours will make you a young fortune when we get it back to terra." jon actually blushed with pleased embarrassment. "aw, it's...." but jak interrupted him almost fiercely. "don't go playing coy, chubby. you know darned well it's wonderful." "sure i do." jon laughed then, and the rest joined in. "but you'd have tromped on me if i'd been the one to say so." he turned quickly to face his father. "what do we do about this?" "_ummm._ my suggestion would be for you to put on your suit and go out and open those covers you told me about. give me the analyzer first, and i'll study the stuff's emanations when you get it uncovered." "i'll go out," jak offered quickly. "you and jon had better study it together. i don't know anything about it, but the kid does, and he'll be the one to handle it until you're well." "better take the jack--that cover's heavy, remember?" jon said, and jak ran out. "i'd never have been able to do anything if it hadn't been for jak's wiser advice," jon said honestly as he brought the analyzer to his father from the instrument rack. "i'm apt to go off half-cocked, you know." mr. carver looked fondly up at his wife, who moved quickly to his side, and put her hand against his cheek. "a couple of grand fellows you raised, darling," he said softly. "_we_ raised, you mean, mr. c." she smiled down at him. "they fight all the time, but when it comes to the pinch, they work together and i know they really love and admire each other very much." jon chuckled and spoke into the mike. "the folks are taking our good names in vain, owl." "yes, i heard them," came back the elder boy's voice from the speaker. "if they only knew what we really think of each other," and then followed his attempt at a sneering laugh. in their visiplates those inside the ship could see jak, in his spacesuit, trotting awkwardly across the sand toward the cache. he carried the jack, and when he got there, used it to raise the heavy cover and throw it back. he jumped into the hole and took the cover off the smaller box. then scrambled quickly out and ran some distance away. "shall i come back now, or wait here to cover it again?" he asked over his suit-sender. "maybe you'd better wait out there a few minutes," his father replied into the mike attached to his seat. "if we can't figure out something in a fairly short time, i'll tell you and you can recap the boxes and come back." he busied himself adjusting the analyzer, and he and young jon studied the lines carefully for quite a time. finally the father roused. "this is going to take a lot of study and work," he told his younger son. then he spoke into the mike. "better come back in, jak." he turned his head again to face the boy with him. "did you find a lead box, jon?" "no, sir, we haven't anything like that in our stores," jon answered. "but there is quite a roll of lead foil. can we do anything with that?" "how much is there? and how thick is it?" "the foil's twenty inches wide and about twelve feet long," jon reported as he came back after a quick run to the storeroom to measure the foil. he had delayed a moment or two at the lock to help jak out of his suit. "it's a thirty-second thick." "_hmmm._ that's not so good. let's see. if we quadrupled it, that would give us an eighth ... no, that's not enough. better take a piece and fold it to at least eight thicknesses, then go wrap it around a piece of that metal and bring it into the lock." "that's not too much protection if the stuff's so strong, is it, pop?" "well, double that, then. but i think it'll keep the rays off you long enough to bring it in--especially since you'll be in your suit, and if you put on lead-lined gloves." "all right." jon started out, then turned back. "what about the rest of it when we leave? do we take it all with us?" "no," slowly. "i doubt if anyone else would find it and steal it before we get back. on the other hand, the more we can take back with us, supposing we learn how to use it and it's as good as we think, the more we could get for it on terra to give another immediate stake to come back." "i have a thought, pop. why not just weld-fasten the whole big box it's now in to the outside of the ship, and make a small box that'll hold some to bring into the ship to experiment with?" jon's eyes blazed eagerly. "that's a thought!" jak exclaimed, while their father answered more slowly, "yes, i believe that could be done safely, especially if we put it back near the stern. is the ship close enough so the lock servo-mechs can bring in the big box?" "i don't think so," jon answered after a searching look out of the port-window. "but with our suits on, jak and i could carry it, couldn't we?" "we've been close to the stuff several times for about as long as it'd take," jak added, "and it doesn't seem to have hurt us any." "kind of a large box, isn't it?" mr. carver asked quizzically. "might be sort of heavy." the boys flushed, and jon picked up his slide rule and did some quick figuring. then he announced, crestfallen, "great mackerel, i sure went off half-baked that time. ok, i'll take the ship up and bring it down closer." "that's mighty delicate maneuvering." his mother looked at him in astonishment. "sure you can do it?" jon shrugged. "if i can't the first time, i'll try again." his father had to smile at the boy's confidence in himself, but he merely said, "this i've got to watch." assured everyone was safely strapped in, jon started the tubes firing, raised the ship into the air--watching his plate closely as he circled about--then came down again ... right beside and not over five feet from port-lock to box. "that's perfect," his father cried delightedly, watching in his plate. "you're sure getting to be an expert pilot, son." "and you're getting too excited and too tired from all this, tad," mrs. carver said determinedly. "we'll have no more of it today. you boys go into the living room, and you, mr. c., relax and take a nap. we can't have you getting sick again." the boys started to protest but their father grinned. "our mistress' voice, boys. and she's right, i was trying too much. we're not in that big a hurry. jon, you and jak go make a box to hold our specimen." they left him, and in moments he was asleep from exhaustion. in the storeroom, jon found some pieces of one-inch oak, and jak and he made up their box, finishing just as their mother called them to dinner. it was a six-inch cube, sturdily fastened with plenty of screws; strong enough to hold solid osmium. the lead foil was carefully fitted into the interior, and was now twelve layers thick--three-eighths of an inch. "that ought to do it," jak said, and jon agreed. "let's go out and fill it after we eat." jak was all eagerness. jon shook his head. "not unless pop says to. now that he's awake, i just don't like to make decisions." jak grinned. "you're right, of course. guess we got too big-headed, having to do things ourselves while he was unconscious." "yes, we're still pretty inexperienced, and i'm glad we don't have to figure things out now." "still, we can't go back to depending too much on him," jak said thoughtfully. "that way, we'll never get the habit of thinking for ourselves, and deciding--and that would be bad. but about this, i agree fully," he added quickly as he saw his brother about to protest. "even if i don't know much about it, i can see that this stuff's dangerous to monkey with." their father awakened later, much refreshed by his nap. after the boys had explained and exhibited their new box, he agreed it would be all right for them to go out and get a single piece of the metal. "leave it in the lock, though," he added. "then, in the morning, maybe i'll feel like helping jon study and experiment with it." the two boys ran to get into their suits, and soon were outside, carrying their lead-lined box. they jumped into the large cache box after lifting off the lid, and took the top from the inner one. they set the carrier beside it, then ran back to the ship. with the "distant hands," jon flipped a nugget into the small box, and set it aside on the sand. using the same servo-mechanism, he closed both covers. then he brought the little box back and deposited it on the floor of the lock. the two boys took off their suits and hung them in the wall closet, then went into the control room. "you were right, pop. we sure couldn't have handled the big box at all." jon grinned, still panting. "even the little one is really heavy with just one nugget in it." his father grinned back. "i had an idea, but thought i'd let you learn the hard way. now maybe you'll remember it longer." "anyway, we got it in the lock, and tomorrow, if you feel up to it, we can start experimenting." "just how big are the pellets?" "a little over half the size of our treated-copper ones," jon told him. "we'll have to cut it before we try working with it." jak, having disposed of the used plastic from their suits, had come into the control room and was listening interestedly, as was their mother, who was hovering near, not quite sure she liked the idea of her menfolks fussing with this unknown but admittedly dangerous metal. "that means we'll have to make and install a smaller injector, too, doesn't it?" jon asked. and when his father nodded, he added "i'll see about making it." "later, when we've found out whether we can use the stuff. right now we'd all better get some sleep. i'm bushed, and i imagine you chaps are, too. how about you, marci?" mr. carver turned to his wife. "well, i could use some sleep," she admitted. "right, pop. good night. 'night, mom." early the next morning the boys were clamoring to get started, but their mother would not let them go into the control room. "now you listen to mother," she protested, using a favorite phrase of hers. "your father hasn't made any sign yet. you wait until he's awake and has had something to eat. i know how anxious you are to do all these things, but you must remember he isn't strong yet, and we must not let him overdo. he is as much a child about such things as you two are, but someone has to watch him." the boys laughed rather shamefacedly. "it's just we get so interested in things, mom," jon apologized. "yes, i know. but if you will look in your dictionary, you will find a word called 'moderation.'" she smiled. "never heard of it." jon grinned as he went to get a reelbook on radioactives, and began studying. jak, too, went back to studying and trying to classify the various specimens he had obtained from the two worlds. however, they soon remembered their usual duties--and whisked through their various chores about the ship, then went back to their absorbing occupations. they had been at these nearly an hour when they heard their father's voice. dropping everything, they sprang toward the control room, and found him wide-awake and looking much better. mrs. carver came running in, and they were told, "feel fine. this is a wonderful bed. seem to be much stronger today, too." "that's wonderful, mr. c. i'll go get you some breakfast." jon ran for a basin of water and towels, and he and jak helped their father with his toilet. "while you're eating, pop, how about me cutting off that piece of the new metal so we can start studying it?" "how big a piece were you figuring on?" mr. carver asked with that quizzical look. jon flushed and mentally changed the size he had planned to get. "about a gram?" he asked. "i'd say more like a few milligrams." his father grinned. "that's plenty for our initial studies and analyses, and shouldn't hurt us any if we're careful and wear insulation." "but that's only a pin-head size." "well?" again quizzically. jon flushed once more. "yes, that's big enough to test, i realize now. it's a good thing i waited for you to help me. i'd probably have burned myself but bad. actually," he smiled now, "i was figuring on about a quarter of a pellet." his father frowned. "you should have known better than that, jon. i thought i'd taught you something about being careful, and the dangers of rashness or impulsiveness. especially around anything as dangerous as this stuff undoubtedly is." "you did, sir, and i'm sorry. but i forget sometimes, when i get too enthusiastic." "well," philosophically, "you'll probably learn as you grow older ... if you live that long!" but again there was that disarming grin, which jon repaid in kind before leaving to get his tools and go after the mite of new metal. this time, he did not neglect his precautions. he wore his suit, and put on a pair of extra-thick, lead-impregnated gloves. carefully he lifted a pellet from the box, wrapped it in several layers of lead foil left after making the box. he carried it so into the storeroom, locked it in a vice, and with a fine hacksaw cut off a tiny bit. still wrapped carefully in the lead foil, he carried the remainder of the pellet back to the box in the lock, closed the lid and then took the sample inside. he took off his suit and donned a lead-impregnated, hooded gown and the leaded gloves. "good," his father said when jon told what he had done. "i think i feel well enough to sit up a bit. suppose you crank this seat halfway up, then i can watch better while you make the tests." "just be sure you don't get too tired," jon said solicitously as he raised the seat and locked it at half-recline. he had brought in another of the leaded-gowns, and he slipped this over his father's head, arms and upper torso, arranging the balance of it down over his blanket-enwrapped legs. then, acting on his father's various instructions, he took the particle from its wrappings and began his tests. he measured the amount of radioactivity, and together they computed its half-life. "wow! that sure is high-pressure stuff," jon exclaimed when they had completed the various tests which they had the equipment to make. his father silently motioned him to set the seat back to full recline and lay there, concentrating, for some time before he spoke. "yes," he said at last, "it's even higher in the scale than i thought. lots higher than curium, even now. and no telling, by any tests we can make, what it was originally, before its many half-life reductions that must have taken place over the long time it has undoubtedly been lying out there. probably way above anything known, even theoretically, to terran scientists." "can we use it?" jon was quivering with excitement. "if we can figure out a way to do so safely, so it doesn't want to disintegrate all at once, i think we've really got a fuel--a super fuel. but we'll have to go at it mighty slow and easy. that stuff could blow us higher than up, if used wrongly." "yes, i know. but after our scientists first liberated atomic energy for their bombs, many people said they couldn't control a hydrogen bomb, but they did. and later the thorium bomb. and then they got our activated copper. so i'm betting they can figure this out." both fell silent, although there were a dozen eager questions the boy wanted so much to ask. but he did not interrupt his father's line of thought, even though long, long minutes dragged away while the elder still pondered the problem. at last, after more than a quarter of an hour, tad carver stirred and looked up. "this is going to take a long time to figure out," he said slowly. "i'm not too much on atomics, myself, and neither are you. now you run along and do whatever else you have to do. it's a cinch we won't be able to try this stuff right away--if we try it at all." the disappointment on jon's face was plain, but he restrained any protests, knowing his father was right, and not wishing to call down on himself another verbal chastisement like that recent one. "what about the rest of the stuff?" he asked instead. "shall i get the box out of the cache and weld it onto the hull, as we thought we might do?" "i don't see why not. we want to take it back to terra with us, whether we figure out how to use it, or decide the job's too big for us and turn it over to the scientists there to handle." "right." jon went over to the controls of the handling arms in the lock. watching in the special visiplate, he opened the outer lockdoor, extended the "hands" and guided them down into the cache, after using them to lift the lid off the larger pit-box. carefully he manipulated them to grasp the inner box by its lower end-edges, and experimentally lift it an inch or so. finding that it balanced, he slowly made the servo-mechanism lift the heavy container from its ages old resting place and up onto the "top" surface of the ship, near the stern. making sure it was securely held there, he put on his suit, gathered up his welding outfit, and went outside and climbed onto the hull. going to where the box rested, he began the task of welding its bottom back-edge onto the metal hull. then he released the grip of the handlers and, leaving them dangling in the air, welded the other three bottom edges. finished, he turned off his torch, rose to his feet and started back. but after a step or two he stopped and thought. "pop," he said into his suit-radio, "do you hear me?" "yes, jon," the answer came back at once into his earphones. "what is it?" "i was just wondering if it wouldn't be a good idea to spot-weld a few places along the edges of the cover, too, so there'd be less chances of its coming open. it'd be easy to open it later." "how's it fastened now?" "just a simple hasp." "better touch it in a few places, then, to make sure." "right." when this was done, jon returned inside the ship, and saw to it that all the equipment was put back in place and carefully locked. only then did he doff his suit and return to the control room. "well, that's done. what now?" "anything else you need to do here on this planet?" "no-o-o, not that i know of. why?" "i was thinking that if everything has been taken care of, we might as well start back to terra. no use staying any longer than is necessary." "i ... i think we've done everything. have you checked the record book and the pictures?" "no, not fully. and i probably should, before we take off, at that. but i think i'd better have another nap or rest now, so i'll go over them after a while. put them on the table here, so i can reach them." "right, sir. you take plenty of time to rest. if jak's not too busy to go with me, i think i'll go fishing in the river, out there by the edge of the desert. maybe we can get quite a haul to take with us, for fresh food on the trip." "good idea. your mother said they were delicious." when the two boys returned with full creels late that afternoon, they went at once to see how their father was getting along. he was awake, and studying the records they had made. "hi, fellows! everything seems to be in fine shape. you chaps certainly did a job while i was _non compos_. get any fish?" "lots of them. they sure bite swell here. maybe because no one has ever fished them before, and they have no idea of lures and hooks." "then let's just rest and eat and sleep, and plan to take off in the morning, eh?" "you bet. i'll sure be glad to get back home again," jak declared. "this chasing around is fun, but i'm homesick for terra, i guess." "me, too, kind of. besides, i want to get some more schooling at one of our atomic institutes," jon added more slowly. "going to give up inter-stellar exploration, son?" his father asked drily. "no, sir. but i figured we'd have to stay on terra for a year or so while you get everything straightened out about this discovery, and get the ship ready for the next trip. so while you're doing that, i might as well be trying to learn something more." "we will, and you should. and i presume," he turned to face jak, "you want to study medicine?" "that, and other things," the elder boy responded soberly. "if we can afford it, sir, i'd like to get several top men in various branches to give me some special coaching, instead of going to a school. that would get me started straight, and they could recommend good books for me to be studying while we're on our future trips." their father looked up at his wife with a smile. "what's happened to our babies, marci?" "they've just grown up, mr. c.--but we have some pretty wonderful men in their place." her eyes shone. "it was pretty hard, at first, after you got hurt and they had to take charge of everything, to realize that they had grown away from us. but i soon found that they hadn't, really," she continued hastily as the boys gave cries of dismay. "they have matured wonderfully, but we have not lost our boys at all." "well i should say not!" jak cried hotly. "we're still kids, not men," jon declared. "why, there's still so much to learn--and experience to gain--we've barely started growing up." "you can keep learning back on terra," their mother said. "as for me, i'm glad we're going to be there a year or more. i want to live in a house again, on land i know." "then we'd all better get to bed," their father said with his old-time roguish smile. "otherwise we'll all be too fagged out to take off for home tomorrow." * * * * * as soon as breakfast was finished the next morning the carvers all assembled in the control room for the start back to terra. jon had already made the astrogational calculations for their trip, having worked on them off and on during many evenings of the past several weeks. but just as they were all strapping down, his father stopped jon with a sudden exclamation. "wait, son! i think we'd better go back close enough to all the planets and the sun to make sure all the signals are working right. that's one of the most important things the colonial board will check." "oh, i'm sure they're ok, pop. we listened to each one after we'd placed it." "but cases have been known where a sender failed--especially those on extremely hot or exceptionally cold planets. i'm not doubting that you handled them all right--it's just that i think it worth the time and effort to check them and make sure while we're still out here." "all right, you're the captain." jon opened the drawer in the control desk and hunted out the sheets on which he had figured his former flight plans to the various planets. "we won't need to land if the signals are working," his father said. "just get us close enough in line so we can receive the messages." "in that case, we can fly almost by sight, merely taking into consideration the direction and speed of the planets." jon shoved his papers back into the drawer. "let's see ... we'll make the best time going to one, then the sun, then three, four and five, and then circling about and heading for home." "fine! get going." "strap down, everybody." a quick glance to see that they were all secure, then jon closed the master switch of his new interlocking controls. smoothly, with increasing acceleration, the _star rover_ lifted upward through the atmosphere on the planet marci--carveria two. ever more swiftly it flew, and a special sort of gladness was in each heart at the thought that soon they would be once more speeding toward their home on far distant terra. traveling about the universe, seeing new suns, new planets, new and interesting--even though alien, and sometimes dangerous--forms of life of various kinds, all this was a constant source of interest and delight. still there was within each of them, even tad carver, a love of and a longing for the planet that had given them birth. men had always found it so--it was probable that men born on terra always would. probable, too, that men born on other planets would always long for a return to _their_ mother world. it took a special type of person to become a colonist on another and alien planet. much the same type of pioneer as those great-grandparents, many times removed, who had made the terrible journey across the western plains and mountains of noramer to conquer the great, wealth-producing west, and _their_ forefathers and mothers who had braved the perilous and unknown oceans to come from the old to the new world in colonial days, to search for freedom and opportunity. it had been found that, even among those willing to make the sacrifices and uprootings necessary to become colonists on other worlds, there were always a few who realized they could not stand it, after all. these unfortunate people usually returned to terra--if they had the funds to do so. nor did it seem to matter how much this new planet was like earth, nor how great the opportunities for gaining wealth and prestige. it was that inner feeling of always _remembering_ that they were so far from home and everything and everyone they had formerly known and loved. tad carver was a true "son of wanderlust." he had the itching foot; the urge to travel; the zest for new places, new scenes, new outlooks. but even he, after a certain time away, felt that indefinable yet exceedingly strong _must_ to return to his home world for a while. the boys were young, which meant they were eager for new experiences, whether on their own or other worlds. they had not yet come to an age where terra meant a great deal to them. life was so thrilling, so interesting--there was so much to see and do. yet even they did feel nostalgia after too long an absence. it was marci carver who felt it most--this longing, this _need_ for the old home. while it is true that her great love for her husband and sons made "home" for her any place in the universe where they might be, yet she had no real interest in exploration, no great desire or even curiosity to see other lands or other worlds. the deeps of space brought such an _awe_ to her that they almost made her afraid. no, if her menfolk had been satisfied there, she would never have dreamed of leaving earth. she would have been perfectly content to live in one town or city all her life--in the same house, even. she did not have the pioneer spirit; did not in the least desire new scenes. her home and her man and boys--these were all she asked of life. yet she did have the rare knack of making any place where she might be, home. she could make a mansion or a hovel--or this spaceship--seem such a perfect home to her men that they were perfectly happy and contented with their living quarters. it was not a matter of furnishings or their arrangement--not just material things like pictures, books, pillows or other knickknacks placed just so. rather it was the "spirit of home" with which she impregnated every place in which her family might be living at the moment. the boys had not yet noticed this consciously--they were so filled with the joy of living and doing and learning that they had not yet stopped to think about such matters. but tad carver recognized it, and loved his wife all the more because of her ability. he often remarked of her, "put her in even a hotel room for ten minutes, and she'll make it home for me." he sometimes felt moments of guilt that he made her chase around so much, instead of letting her stay in one place--and remaining with her there. but he could not stay put--and he knew she would not want to remain any place without him. that was why he had arranged things so she and the boys could travel with him. and, until he had been hurt and she, with the boys, had had to take over his duties, she had seldom left the ship while on other planets, although she always looked out through port or visiplate in the various places where they had gone, with the keen interest in anything new that made her such a delightful traveling companion. so now all four felt that eagerness to be done with this matter of last-minute re-checkings, so they could be on their way back to terra. it made the time pass swiftly--yet made it so draggingly prolonged, it seemed they would never reach their destination. the ship soon reached an acceleration of two earth gravities, and jon asked, "is this fast enough, pop, or can you stand more?" "you might step it up to three g's for an hour. there's no use loafing around here longer than necessary to make the curve so we can come fairly near each planet on the line between it and terra." "and that'll get us up to cruising speed quicker when we do start the straight stretch for home," jon said, and turned back to his controls to apply another notch of speed. it was not long before they approached planet one--"tad." jon had plotted a course that would take them to within about thirty thousand miles of the little, hot planet, on the earthward side. as they flashed past it, their receiver clearly picked up the broadcast of their signal-unit. "that one's all right," their father said in a pleased voice, and jon looked up and back from his calculations on the orbit to circle them about the sun, to grin his pleasure at the approval. "jak put it on top of a peak in the intermediate zone," he explained. "the weather--if you can call it weather--there is more nearly normal than either on the sunward or the spaceward side." an hour later jak struggled up from his chair, staggering beneath the triple weight of his body at that acceleration. seeing him, jon called, "wait, owl, i'm just about to reduce to two g's." and in a moment the older boy found it easier to get the sandwiches and bottles of nourishing broth their mother had prepared before take-off, and distribute them to the others. gratefully, they all ate and drank. "after we circle the sun and are en route to three, i'll cut down to one gravity while we have a real meal," jon promised. "aw, let's not slow down just for ..." jak began. "it won't cut our speed, just our acceleration, which means 'constantly added' speed," his father explained good-naturedly. "as soon as we've passed them all and are heading for home, we'll cut to one gravity for the greater part of the trip, but our speed will have been built up tremendously." "oh, sure, i know that, but i forgot for the minute." as they circled toward the sun mr. carver studied it carefully in his visiplate. "just about the same type of sun as sol," he said after a while. "that's what i figured, only that it's about one quarter larger and heavier," jon told him. "i was hoping you'd be well enough before we left to check it for me." "how close did you set your signal-sender orbit here?" "ten million miles." "_ten million!_" the man gasped, then laughed in relief as he thought the boy was just trying to spoof him. "oh, come off it, jon. how far out were you, really?" "unless my figures are all wrong," jon's voice held a hurt note, "it was really only ten million miles. you can check my calculations. the book says quote said orbit to be as nearly circular and as close to the discovered sun as possible unquote, so i sent us in on a van sicklenberg throw-out orbit apexing at ten million." "boy, that was really taking a chance. you don't need to repeat it for my benefit." "i wasn't planning to, sir." jon grinned now. "we'll go around at about twenty million this time, but the same type of orbit as before." "that's better. well, i think i'll go back to sleep. all of us should, i suggest." "mother has already dropped off," jak said softly, glancing toward the recline seat in which she lay. "switch on the auto, chubby, then douse the glotubes. 'night, father." and soon the little ship was speeding across the interplanetary wastes, guided only by the automatic pilot, while inside four weary people slept peacefully, knowing the mechanisms would guide them safely and surely to their distant, plotted destination. for, outside of a possible recurrence of the accident that had caused mr. carver's injury--and that was a billions-to-one chance that could not possibly strike them again--what was there to fear away out here? nevertheless, it was the sudden ringing of an alarm bell that woke them all into instant, wondering wakefulness. "what in the world?" jon's eyes snapped open and immediately began scanning the various telltales on the panel, while from the other three came a chorused, "what's wrong?" "something out here using atomic energy." jon's surprised voice made them raise their seats quickly to upright, so they could better see for themselves. mr. carver hastily adjusted his visiplate to maximum magnification, and began searching the heavens surrounding them. "a ship, you think?" "yes, and quite close." and a moment later, aided more surely by his more complex instruments, jon cried, "there it is! ra ; square on the plate." his father's flying fingers found the object, then narrowed his focus of vision and stepped up the magnification. his eyes grew large, then hard and tense, as he studied the close-up image. "slik bogin's ship--i'd know that anywhere!" he exclaimed, and the boys looked at him in puzzled concern. "then i must have been right, that day i thought i heard a ship," mrs. carver declared. "you must have been," jak agreed. "but what's bogin doing out here?" jon asked with a touch of fear in his voice. "nothing good, you can bet." his father's voice was grimmer than any of them had ever heard it before. "any time you run across that pirate, you can lay mighty big odds there's skullduggery afoot." "great catfish! he's trying to beat us out of this system." "i'll lay a thousand to one he is, if he thinks he can get away with it." "what can we do about it, father?" there was now a trace of a tremor in jak's voice. "jon and i have worked so hard to map these planets--how can bogin possibly do the same and still beat us?" "no telling. he's a slippery cuss, and if he really wants to try claim-jumping, he'll figure out some dirty scheme." "can't we get back to earth ahead of him, mr. c., and report to the colonial board first?" mrs. carver was almost in tears. her husband gave her a tight-lipped smile. "we'll sure try, honey." his forehead creased with a frown of concentration for some minutes, then he faced jon, who was watching him from the pilot's seat. "bogin's headed in the opposite direction, so no use chasing him to see what he's doing. besides, i've heard his ship is armed, and we aren't, except for our rifles, which are absolutely no good in space. i say, continue our course, checking our signals, then beat it for home. after all, we don't _know_ for sure that bogin's trying anything--and our best bet is to finish our job as though nothing had happened, but not waste any time doing it ... just in case." "right, pop. as near as i could tell, we have twice his speed, and we don't need to worry. we have all the data and pictures to prove we're the prime discoverers, and we didn't hear any signals to show he's put out any senders." but there was an uneasy and unhappy silence as the little space-yacht continued to eat up the millions of miles. tad carver had intended having his younger son slow down near planet three and go into an orbit close enough so he could get a good generalized view of this other earthlike, though colder, planet. but now he would not do so. speed and time were essential in getting back to terra. he would try to keep his worries from the others as much as possible, but there was a deep foreboding in his mind. only too well he knew the various types of men who braved the spaceways, and that many of them were out and out criminals. and this slik bogin was the most ruthless pirate and cutthroat of them all, from reports. there were so many, many crimes charged against him ... though it was true that none had ever been proven. yet such was the man's evil reputation that all honest spacemen hated him, even as they were somewhat in fear of him. mr. carver was sure that the man's spacer was almost a warship in her armament. nor did he doubt that the master criminal would not hesitate to use his heavy rays to blast out of existence anyone he felt was a menace to his nefarious plans. and this new system the carvers had discovered was a prize well worth stealing, if possible. although mr. carver had not seen these splendid worlds with his own eyes, he had carefully studied the boys' concise and complete reports, and their many detailed pictures, so he knew what a rich treasure they had struck in finding this sun and its planets and moons. it would make him and his family rich beyond their fondest dreams ... and he would be worse than flat broke if they lost out on getting their claim approved. for mr. carver had not told even his wife that all their possessions, including their ship, were mortgaged for every credit he could secure, to enable them to make this costly journey. it was true he had won great wealth on his previous trips into space--but several of his largest investments on terra had gone sour, and this was a last desperate chance to recoup his fortune in one intensive campaign. as they neared the point in their trajectory that brought them to the earthward side of planet three, jon began tuning his receiver and turning his directional antenna-loops, so he could pick up the continuous message of their sender. soon he began hearing words, and tuned more closely, stepping up his power. the four sat erect, expectant. then their faces blanched and their fists tightened as they heard the words: "this sun and system of five planets, of which this is the third, were discovered and surveyed by michael bogin and his crew, on the tenth day of january in the terran year of ." over and over the message was repeated, while the carvers stared at each other in horrified surprise and consternation. but mr. carver rallied quickly. "he has changed the tape in your senders, boys. we'll probably find the same on four and five, and he's on his way to two now to do the same." "but he'll not be able to change the one we set out around the sun, will he, pop?" jon's voice quavered and broke into a boyish soprano. "he can't get in as close as we did, and still slow down enough to retrieve such a small thing, can he?" "i don't see how he could. but he has some darned good technies in that pirate crew of his. they'll figure out some way to destroy ours and substitute one of their own, i'll bet. well, this changes the picture. now we know what he's up to, so we'll just have to get to terra ahead of him, and lay our facts before the board first." "they'll take our word against his, won't they, especially since we have such complete records and so many photographs?" jak asked, hoping to be reassured. "there's no telling," mr. carver spoke slowly, shaking his head. "if bogin is trying to get this claim--and now we know he is--he'll work out some way of getting pictures and records, too. we can only hope." "and pray," their mother added determinedly. "we'll make out some way," jon tried to cheer them all. "meanwhile, i suggest i cut to one g and that mom fixes us some grub. we have to eat." "that's a good idea," his father agreed, and jon manipulated his controls. they all felt the sudden relief of once more being their accustomed weight. mrs. carver unstrapped herself and left for the galley. jak also unstrapped, saying, "i'll go help mom." "ask her to make a pile of sandwiches, too, and to bring plenty of drinks so we can eat later without slowing our acceleration," his father called, then added, "don't let your mother talk about this. get her mind on something else and keep it there." "right, father." "this is serious, jon," mr. carver said when the two were alone in the control room. "i don't like to worry any of you any more than's necessary, but our chances aren't too good, now that those signals have been changed." "we've got some hope left, though, haven't we?" came the anxious inquiry. "i see two fairly good ones--but it all depends on so many factors," mr. carver answered after a moment of thought. "we've got to try to get back first and report and show them our records and pictures--which are very detailed, thanks to you two boys. second, we've got to hope someone back there caught our original signals, and then noticed the change--_if_ they could tell they came from the same system." "how are you making out under this acceleration?" "all right. i don't seem to be any weaker ... but then, what with all the excitement and disappointment, there may be a relapse. but that's not important...." then, hearing his son's gasp of dismay, he continued rapidly and grimly, "no, jon, really. i mean that, and i want you to keep it in mind at all times on the rest of this trip. i'm expendable, if we can prove our case. not that i intend to die," he hastened to add with a grin as jon started to protest. "but i'd rather take longer to get well and know that you all are provided for the way you should be." "if we cut for terra right away, without waiting to go on to four and five, bogin couldn't possibly build up speed enough to beat us in, could he?" jon questioned anxiously. "not unless his ship's a lot faster than ours. it probably is, because his crew can undoubtedly stand more acceleration, and he'll drive to the limit. but if he stops to change those other signals, i don't see how he can do it. go ahead, change course, and let's hike for home." "right. let's see, now. terra's behind and down from where we are and the way we're heading. i'll set us into a circle while we're figuring out our course." "make it just an approximation for now. we can refine it as we go." "right." jon worked swiftly at his computer, then at his controls, and they could feel the gallant little ship begin to strain toward the right. "don't try too short a turn," his father warned. "ok, i'll let up a bit. i was figuring on a two million radius." "better make it three for safety." in time their circling was completed, the new homeward bound course figured. for days the little ship and its anxious crew were on their way. three times each day their acceleration was stepped up to two earth-gravities for a period of four hours, then back to one and a quarter for the same period--four on and four off continually, to give them a rest from the burden of doubled weight, and to make it easier to prepare and eat their meals, and to do what personal and ship's chores had to be done. in between times, as they could, they slept. jon had set their receptor and analyzer to react to atomics. it was now fanning out behind them in a cone-shaped funnel of force. he hoped by this to be able to tell if bogin began overtaking them. of course, space was so vast, and the distance to sol and terra so great, and their points of trajectory so different, that the pirate ship might be taking an entirely different course, and not come anywhere near them until the two ships were almost home. on the other hand, jon was taking the most direct route--and he was sure bogin would undoubtedly do the same--so they were quite apt to converge sooner or later. and since jon's receptors covered an ever-larger sphere of space the farther away they reached, he and his father hoped they would be able to tell if and when their enemy began catching up with them. meantime, the two studied almost continuously together the problem of that supposedly new fuel-metal they had discovered on the planet marci--hoping it could be used in their engines. they were sadly handicapped, both because neither was an atomic physicist, and because their little ship--well-stocked and provided with many instruments as it was--did not contain anywhere near all the testing equipment needed for such a delicate and complex and dangerous task. yet they learned much. jak took over the routine duties of their flight, after some additional instruction on points about which he was not sure. in between times, as the lessened pressure allowed, he studied the new specimens he had collected, saw to it that the ship's hydroponics kept operating correctly, and did whatever he could to relieve his brother and his father of their ordinary duties so they could devote all their waking time to study and experiment. their mother attended to her housekeeping, and saw to the comfort and well-being of her menfolk. mr. carver knew, deep within himself, that he was overdoing, considering his illness. his partially-healed broken leg so often pained and throbbed that he had difficulty concealing his hurt from the sharp eyes of his family. but he loved his wife and sons so greatly that their future well-being was far more important to him than his own, and so he never mentioned these things. the sturdy little yacht had covered almost half the tremendous distance back to sol. the carvers were beginning to let up a bit in their anxiety and fears. surely, each one felt, they were winning the race. then suddenly their alarm rang. three of them found themselves on their feet, rushing toward the control panel. "how close are they, jon?" their father yelled from his co-pilot's couch. "_mmmm._ i've stepped this up about two hundred per cent.... i figure it about half a billion miles." "not very far--in space. they must have lots more speed than we do to have caught up with us like that." "what shall we do?" mrs. carver grabbed her husband's arm with trembling fingers. he turned his head and smiled up at her. "we'll figure out some way to beat them, honey," he soothed. "there's lots more can be done yet." "sure, mom, they're still a long way behind us." jon tried to keep the anxiety out of his voice. "and you know the old saying, 'a stern chase is a long chase.'" "can't we increase our acceleration and so our speed?" jak asked. "yes, we'll have to do that, at least." mr. carver's voice was grim. he looked at jon. "step it up to two and a half, as soon as you're all in your seats. we'll stay there more of the time from now on, and we'll change the period to six in and two up." "how about one and a half for the two hours?" "we'll try it. if we sleep or nap more while we're at max, we ought to be able to stand it." "we're still almost ..." jon figured rapidly at the computer, "... three weeks out of terra, even at that increased speed." his father grimaced, while his wife and elder son uttered gasps of dismay. "i know. it'll be tough, but we've _got_ to win." but after a moment he looked first at his wife, than at jak. "this is an order," he said seriously. "the minute any of you feel you can't take it any more, say so and we'll cut down, even if we do lose speed. i guess i went off half-cocked just now in saying that we had to win. our health is more important...." "except yours, you're trying to say," jak broke in. "you haven't been sparing yourself any, i notice, and i know enough doctoring to know you're not getting well as fast...." "pooh, i'm all right, and i'm used to ship accelerations." mr. carver turned his head toward his son and made himself grin. "even under these three g's, i can still get up and lick you, even with a half-healed leg." jon realized at once that his father was warning him not to worry their mother any more, and forced himself to reply, pretending to be shamefaced, "yes, sir, you could at that. i'll be good." but the next morning, by the ship's chronoms, after they had fully awakened from a night of tortured sleep, jon studied his instruments for some time, then reported to his father, "bogin's still catching up. he's only about four hundred million behind us now." "but how can he possibly be?" jak demanded. "probably staying on three g's or better all the time," jon answered. "or else he has a different means of propulsion than we have that affects his whole ship and contents, including crew," his father said slowly. "i don't know what it could be. but theoretically there are a lot of different ways of traveling faster than any we've learned how to use yet." "but how could they, mr. c.?" his wife gasped. "i don't pretend to know much about such things, but i thought that better fuels merely meant increased efficiency in the use of the engines, not an increase of speed. isn't it acceleration that makes the speed faster?" he turned his head with difficulty--at three gravities acceleration their apparent weight was tripled, and his body now "weighed" over five hundred and fifty pounds, instead of its normal one eighty plus! "you're both right and wrong, honey," he explained. "the better the fuel, the less we have to carry for the same distance traveled, and that makes our thrust-to-mass ratio less. we can go home faster than we came out here, because some of our fuel is gone and we have less mass. but that's not what i'm talking about. theoretically, as i said, there are other ways, none of which our scientists have yet figured out how to use, as far as i know. there could be a complete or partial nullification of gravity or of inertia. or some type of space warp. or some method of 'cutting through' the other dimensions, so we could go almost instantly from one point in space to another." jak gasped. "why, how's that possible, father?" jon answered quickly. "i can illustrate, i think. imagine a sheet of paper, with a dot near either end. the normal way to connect them would be a straight line drawn from one to the other--which is analogous to the way we travel in space now. what pop's talking about would be the same as if we folded the paper so the two dots touched, and moved from one to the other direct." "that wouldn't be...." "that's silly." the two phrases came simultaneously from jak and his mother. "it's not silly, honey. we merely haven't figured out how to do it yet. but theoretical science knows that there are 'folds' in space. we just haven't learned how to use them yet." "no," jak snorted, "and i'll bet you never do." "and i'll bet they will," jon blazed. "you just don't realize how wonderful science is--in other lines than your own, i mean. you think it's perfectly natural that medical science has made such tremendous advances in the past couple of centuries. why shouldn't other branches make just as great strides?" "because the advances in medicine and surgery have been logical," his brother began hotly, but their father interrupted. "whoa now, boys, don't get started on an endless argument. you're both right--and both wrong. i'll admit that the three methods i mentioned are pretty far-fetched. but after all, science is always doing the unexpected and the impossible. there's no telling what they'll do next--not even of telling what they may have done while we've been gone." "i'd read about that 'simultaneity' thing," jon stated. "it was a concept about being able to reproduce the exact nucleonic pattern of some other space and thus being able to transfer to it instantly." "another idea is of a 'tube' or 'vortex' method of transversing space at almost instantaneous speeds--and many other such," mr. carver declared. "but it's a cinch none of us have brains enough to figure out any of them before we reach terra. and that bogin's not using any of them, either, since he's so apparently on a straight-line flight like we are. he may have better engines, or better fuel, but to overtake us like he is--now that i've stopped to think about it--can only be done by using greater acceleration than we are, and for a longer time. so while those other ideas are interesting conjectures, they won't help us out of our present predicament." "that's right, pop." jon wrenched his mind back to their immediate problem. "we've got to figure out what we can do _right now_ to beat bogin." they all lapsed into silence then, partly to think of their problem, and partly because their personal energy was weakened by the tremendous pressures they were undergoing. their new schedule was hard on them all--none of them were really rested, even though they now slept or dozed most of the time. but they were keeping more nearly ahead, although when jon took his next readings, bogin's ship had crept up another third of a hundred million miles. "that means he'll catch up with and pass us in about eleven days, and we're still almost twenty out of terra." jon could not entirely keep the worry out of his voice. during the noon respite, according to ship's time, they cut their acceleration to one and a half, and mrs. carver prepared a hot meal, and cold lunches for the balance of that day. while they were eating, there in the control room, jak suddenly looked up at his father. "i just wondered, sir. how much pressure could a person stand for long periods, if he was unconscious under some kind of an anaesthetic?" "why," the elder hesitated, "i don't know exactly. i imagine around five gravities or so, if it was to be for some time, especially if one was in a pressure pack. why do you ask?" "i've been doing a lot of thinking, and i remembered reading about a series of experiments a swedish scientist has been making about putting animals--even people--into an unconscious state. it's in one of my reelbooks. seems to me i remember its saying he has found he could keep them there for several days at a time without any sign of permanent harm." "how'd he do it?" jon dropped his fork to lean forward. "with a drug he invented. wait, i'll go get the book." jak jumped up from the table, but his mother's voice stopped him. "we're not going to try anything like that," she said worriedly. "not even to beat bogin." mr. carver reached out from his recline seat to lay a hand soothingly on his wife's. "wait, now, marci, let's find out first what this is all about. maybe the boy has something, maybe not. but let's examine it before we decide, shall we?" her eyes still held the worried look, but she returned the pressure of his hand. "well, i guess there's no harm in that, mr. c. but i just don't like taking dangerous chances, that's all." he smiled at her fondly. "pioneers always have to take chances, honey," he said gently. "men would never have gotten anywhere if they hadn't. but we'll make sure we know all about what we're getting into before we leap, you can bet." "besides," jon tried to reassure her, "even if this stuff would work, owl hasn't any of that new drug, so we couldn't try it, much as we might want to." "oh, that's right. i hadn't thought of that." she smiled with relief. in a moment jak came running back with a reelbook. "here it is. let's see now." he rapidly scanned through the reel with his finder. "ah, here it is!" he read aloud rapidly, and the three listened intently. "so you see," jak raised his head triumphantly when he had finished reading, "it's perfectly possible to put us to sleep for a week at a time. and you said the ship was fully automatic," he turned to jon, "so it doesn't need guiding, and would keep on its course whether we were awake or not." "well, it's way past our two hours." mr. carver spoke up hastily to prevent his wife from saying anything. "time we were getting back into stepped-up acceleration again. strap down, and we can study this later." "i still don't like the idea," mrs. carver said as the four made themselves as comfortable as possible in the recline seats before jon turned on more acceleration. during the next two or three "waking periods" jak busied himself studying his reeltext, but this was such a common sight it attracted no special attention. nor did the others notice that he began disappearing into the ship's storeroom each "up" period, and had to be called repeatedly when the meal was ready, or it was time to strap down again. he said nothing of what he was doing, nor did any of the others think to ask, for the boys were customarily here and there about the ship, busy at their many tasks and activities. but at the start of one "up" period jak went at once to the storeroom and workshop, and when he came back to the table set in the control room he showed his family a large corked test tube filled with a colorless liquid. "i've got it!" he exclaimed, his eyes shining. "i found all the ingredients needed in our stores and my medical kit, and made up a batch of the cataleptic fluid. we inject four cc's in each of us and...." "what're you talking about?" jon demanded. "the stuff to make us unconscious so we can stand five g's of acceleration." jak looked up in hurt surprise. "what we were talking about the other...." "i thought we were going to forget that nonsense," his mother said sharply. "wait, now, marci, let's hear what the boy has," her husband said gently. then, "go ahead, jak, tell us more about this." "this medicine, injected into our blood streams, puts us into suspended animation for several days, depending on how much of the fluid we use. we first take an injection of glucose and other nutrients, of course, then this stuff puts us into deep sleep--slows our metabolism. you said in such a state we could stand much heavier acceleration, father. then with this we can beat bogin." "what sort of shape will it leave us in?" his father almost raised up in interest, and held up his hand when his wife would have broken in. "are there any after-effects?" "the book says the doctor never discovered any, especially after he started giving people the nutrient injections first. he has had people under for as much as two weeks. four cc's will act for about five days, so i thought we could use that much the first time, at least." "five g's would certainly put us 'way ahead of bogin's ship." jon had jumped up from the table and had been working swiftly with the computer. "two such five-day periods--three more days on positive acceleration, then seven on negative--ought to give us a controllable velocity somewhere near sol. we'd have to compute it more exactly, of course, before we take each shot." mr. carver thought slowly and intently, then spoke decisively. "i believe that this is our best bet, if it's sure. we certainly want to get back first, if possible, and according to our present routine, which is all we can stand as we are, bogin can beat us in. besides, he will undoubtedly shoot down the _star rover_ if he catches up with it--and you know what would happen to us!" "yes, when i checked today he was only about two hundred million behind." "let's try it!" jak was all eagerness. "take it easy, son. we've got to talk and study this a lot first." mr. carver then turned to his wife, who had sunk back into her seat, biting her lips to keep from crying out, her hands clenched tightly. "well make as sure as we possibly can before we decide to do anything, honey, but don't you see the advantage of this if it will work? we must get to terra first if we can, and this seems to be the only way we know of doing it." "i see that," she said with a sigh of resignation, "and i know you'll know what you're doing before you do it." "we sure will." then mr. carver turned back to jak. "tell us again all about this stuff, and what the book says." jak talked rapidly but concisely for nearly five minutes. afterwards he showed his father the reel, and his table of components of the mixture. mr. carver studied the book carefully for some time, and minutely compared the formula as given there with the one jak had used. then he lay back and thought with intense concentration for nearly a quarter of an hour. finally he raised his head with determination. "i think we should try it. it seems safe, from all the evidence here. i have faith enough in jak's ability to trust him to have made the fluid correctly--his formula checks exactly with the one in the reels. and if it works, we can win out." jon rose purposefully. "right, pop. come on, jak, let's break out the pressure packs and get them hung." they went into the storeroom, and soon came back, each staggering under the weight and inconvenience of two packs. these they hung from the bulkhead hooks built into the ship for just that purpose, and made sure they were securely anchored. "how much time after the injection before we blank out, owl?" jon asked then. "a minute or so, i guess. why?" "figuring how long i'll have to handle the controls. a minute is plenty of time, as i can have everything set up, and only have one switch to throw." mr. carver reached out a hand and patted his wife's cheek as she stood by his side. "it's going to work out all right, honey." his voice was bright and assured. "these boys of ours are really up on their stuff." "yes," she agreed. "i know they know what they are doing, and that you are checking them carefully. it is mainly my not knowing that makes me afraid sometimes." she gave him a lopsided smile. "i hate being the weak member of the party." "you're nothing of the kind!" he grinned as the boys murmured protests which meant the same thing. "you're the best fellow in the gang." and he blew her a kiss as the boys helped him into his pack and saw to it that he was securely and comfortably strapped in. then they did the same for their mother. jak went to his room and came back quickly with his hypodermic needles, and the bottles of glucose and concentrates. he put these beside the test tube with the new fluid. carefully he administered the dosage of nutrients to the other three, then lay down on his recline seat and gave himself his own dose. he rested there for a couple of minutes, then rose. carefully he drew four cubic centimeters of the new, clear fluid into his needle, then approached his mother. "ready?" he asked, smiling, but with tight lips. she pushed up her left sleeve. "ready, son." and now her voice was soft but steady. he tipped the needle into the light, carefully expelled a couple of drops to make sure all air was out of the tube. then quickly and with a sureness he had trouble making his hands achieve, he pushed the slim needle into her arm, and injected the drug. with the ball of his thumb he rubbed the puncture gently for a moment. "sleep tight, mother." he smiled and leaned down to kiss her. "who's next?" he turned to the others. "me, of course." his father bared his arm. "jon has to be awake last to handle the controls." again jak filled his needle, and as carefully as before he injected the sleeping drug into his father. then he stepped up to the pilot's pressure pack where his younger brother was adjusting the controls. "ready, jon?" "just a sec." the boy was still working, pushing in a button there, turning a switch here, stopping to tighten a wire or connection somewhere else. but in a few moments he had finished, and then rested his right hand on the handle of the master switch, ready to push it into contact. but just as jak brought the needle close to his arm the younger boy pushed it away. "wait now, jak. how about you? can you make it to your pack and get in and strapped down and settled, and then give yourself the shot before i throw the switch and the five g's take effect?" "don't worry about me," his brother said gruffly. "i'll make out some way." "not good enough," jon said positively. "let's figure this down to seconds. if i don't close the switch before i black out, all this'll be wasted. how about if you inject yourself first? will you have time enough to give me my shot and then get back into your pack and strap down before you go under?" jak thought swiftly a moment. "your point's well taken, jon, but you didn't figure it right. your way, i'd have to give you your injection besides doing all the rest in the same length of time. if i give you yours first, i can get into my pack and give myself mine there. you merely stay awake until i'm done." "yes, guess you're right. but fix your pack so you can be sure of getting in without any trouble." jak did this, then came back, filled the needle and injected it into jon's arm. swiftly then he ran to his own pack, climbed in and fastened the straps. he filled the needle, plunged it into his arm, and pushed home the plunger. jon had been watching his brother, forcing back the drowsiness that sought to engulf him. as he saw jak's nod that all was done, he turned to his panel. a quick glance about his board with his fast-diminishing senses told him everything was on the green. with his last measure of consciousness, he rammed home the switch. he settled back into a more comfortable position, and felt himself plunging down into the blackness of unconsciousness. * * * * * jon felt himself coming awake, and his first, startled thought was, "didn't the stuff work?" he began to open his eyes ... and noticed at once how stiff his eyelids felt, but he forced them open. he looked at the date-clock and smiled with relief. the five days and several hours had passed, seemingly in an instant. now almost fully awake, his eyes sought the various meters, dials, gauges and telltales on his panel. everything seemed to be working properly. he tuned in his receptor, and applied greater and still greater power. space behind was blank of atomics. smiling thankfully and beginning to unloosen his straps, jon now noticed how dry his mouth was, and that his skin felt dry, too, and feverish. but he had no headache, and his thoughts seemed to be functioning as clearly and swiftly as always. "boy, i sure need a bath and drink, and something to eat!" he thought--then realized that the others would be feeling the same way. the others! he turned quickly to look at them. they were all still lying in their packs, somewhat pale, but with a peaceful, unstrained look on their faces. jon tried to rise, but reeled back and almost fell as he got onto his feet. he held himself erect a moment, and gradually felt a measure of strength returning. as soon as he could, he went into the galley. quickly he prepared a cup of instant broth, and drank it gratefully. much refreshed, he made more of the consomme, and further enriched it with some anti-fatigue pills dissolved in the steaming liquid. he set four cups of it on a tray and carried them into the control room. his first quick glance showed the others beginning to stir. "morning, folks," he called cheerily. "soup's on." they opened their eyes slowly, almost uncomprehendingly, but awareness came quickly, and his mother and brother sat up and fumbled at their straps. "did we make it?" his father called anxiously. but jak noticed at once how weak his father's voice sounded, and went across to his side. "we sure did." jon smiled broadly. "we were out just a little over five days, and the receptors don't show a thing behind. i woke up just a few minutes ahead of you, and that's one of the first things i looked at. then i found i was weak and dry, so i went out and made this broth." he passed the cups and, as the others drank gratefully, jon spoke again. "i've got to hand it to you, owl. you sure fixed us fine this time." "he certainly did." mr. carver spoke as forcefully as he could, having already privately warned jak to say nothing of his weakened condition. he looked solicitously over at his wife. "you all right, marci?" "yes, i feel fine, now that i've had this good consomme jon was so thoughtful as to make." she smiled with real relief that they had all come through this dangerous experiment so successfully. mr. carver turned to jon. "it feels like we're only at one gravity." "yes, i rigged the automatics so they'd take care of that at the end of one hundred and twenty-five hours," the boy explained. "probably it was the relief from pressure that woke us, as well as the wearing off of the stuff jak gave us." then he looked at his brother. "how come we're not famished after five days? that little glucose and stuff you gave us wouldn't last that long, would it?" "no, but the drug not only made us unconscious, but slowed down our metabolism so that we burned up hardly any energy." there was silence then while the four sipped their broth. finally mr. carver looked up at jak. "how soon can we go through this again?" "the book says the doctor gave as high as four doses to people, one right after the other as they woke up, with only a few hours' rest between them." "_hmmm_, then we'd better take some time out. we'll all want baths, plenty of your mother's good cooking, and jon and i will have to do some computing." "if bogin holds his acceleration, plus and minus, we can take most of the day, and still beat him in." jon had been doing some rapid preliminary figuring. "but it'll take a couple of hours--maybe more--to compute the last hop. it's tricky. especially, i'll have to look in the ephemeris to find the position of luna when we get near her orbit." "right, we don't want to hit her. well, we can keep at one gravity for at least twelve hours, then," his father said, and mrs. carver breathed a sigh of relief. she was still a bit worried about their undergoing such untried experiments, even though she trusted the abilities of her menfolks, and knew they had all come safely through the first time. "i'll make notes of all this, and ask each of you for your full reactions," jak said animatedly. "then when we get home i'll write up a complete report and send it to dr. svendholm. i'm sure he'll be tickled pink to get this added confirmation of his studies and experiments." "that's thoughtful of you, son." his father smiled. "you're developing into a true research scientist." "he sure is!" his younger brother paid deserved tribute. jak reddened a bit and hastily left the control room to help his mother with her work. they all took warm baths and changed their clothing. as jak was helping his father, he asked anxiously, "now that we're alone, father, did you really come through all right? you look a bit more tired and worn than before we started this." "sure, i'm ok," mr. carver said quickly, but he could not meet his son's eyes. "you're not, sir, and you know it and i know it," jak smiled a bit strainedly. "i don't like it, but i know how you feel about this, so i'll keep quiet. how's your leg?" "thanks, son. our getting back first is very important to me, and i can rest and get well after we reach earth and get the board's confirmation on our claim. and don't forget that we might not get back at all if bogin catches up with us. he's ruthless about anyone who gets in his way.... as for the leg, it aches some, but not like it did before. i really think it's healing in fine shape." "let's have a look." jak threw back the covers, and peered closely at the leg, lifting it so he could better see all around it. "yes," he said finally, as he tucked in the blankets again. "it's almost healed, and there isn't a sign of inflammation. not even a bump where the break was. i ... i sure hope i set it right, so that it won't bother you later on." his father patted his hand. "you did a grand job, i know, son, and i'm very grateful to you--as well as proud of having such a fine boy." "two fine boys, then, for jon is certainly every bit as deserving of your praise as i am, sir." "that i'll certainly buy!" mr. carver's eyes shone. they all sat about during the day, eating as much as they could hold of mrs. carver's fine cooking, and relaxing gratefully in the comfortable one-gravity earth-weight. jon and his father worked tirelessly until they had computed precisely where they were and how soon and how much more deceleration they would have to use to finish their trip. then they, too, relaxed for the balance of the day. late that afternoon jon suddenly swiveled his chair about to face his father's recline seat. "i think i've figured out something on that new fuel and how to use it, pop. ships'll have to be changed, though. the bins will have to be heavily lead-lined, of course, and so would the injector tubes have to be shielded. the nozzles would have to be made smaller, so the pellets will fit better. i figure the people who used to handle the stuff made the nuggets that exact size on purpose--that we'd not want to try making them the same size as our copper ones." "that sounds reasonable. what about shielding for the generators?" "there'd have to be a lot more of that, too. probably thick shields of neocarbolloy and paraffin. but can't they surround the generators, bins and everything with force fields, as an added precaution?" "_mmmm_, maybe they could at that. we'd better put it up to the scientists and technies back on terra. neither of us knows enough to handle it ourselves, when it comes down to the actual work." the boy's face fell, then he forced a smile. "i hate to give in to anyone else on this, but you're right as rain, pop. it is too big a fish for us to handle alone. but i'm sure going to learn before i finish, and some day when i run up against anything like this again, you can bet i'll know what to do." "what's the use of going to all that trouble when you only have that small amount of fuel you found?" their mother asked curiously. "ouch! you would have to think of that," jon grumbled, but mr. carver smiled up at his wife. "there's plenty on planet five, remember? and probably in other places about the universe. you can bet that prospectors will be hunting--and finding it--once we announce our discovery ... if we and the scientists can figure out what it was before it started losing its half life, and if we can learn how to use it," he said firmly. "once metallurgists have had the chance to analyze it, they won't take long to figure out exactly what it is, and where it can probably be found--the type of sun and planet that would have it, i mean," he added. "and under the prime discoverer's code, we'll get a percentage of the process, won't we, pop?" "i think so. that'll be up to the board, but they're usually pretty square about such things." when it was time, jak again gave the family the dosages of nutrients, and then the shots. jon had filled four thermos bottles with strength-regaining soup his mother had made, and these were placed at each pressure-pack, ready for their awakening. again the four lapsed into the complete unconsciousness of suspended animation--knowing neither discomfort nor the long passage of time--while their little ship bored through the immensities of space at a constant negative acceleration of five gravities. as before, when they awakened they felt as though they had just gone to sleep. as soon as they had taken their initial feedings of the thermos-hot broth, jon and his father set to work taking observations and making long and intricate calculations of their present speed and placement. where were they? how much of their utterly incomprehensible top speed did they have left? "practically perfect!" jon exclaimed happily after nearly an hour of careful computations, as he read the last tapes from the calculator. "it works out at one point eight four g's to atmosphere." "o positively k," mr. carver agreed. "a master computer couldn't have done any better. and jak has certainly proved himself to be a grand doctor." "it's not my credit. dr. svendholm's the one who...." "but it was you who made up the fluid and induced us to take it." his mother came over and ran her hand gently through his hair. "i'm proud of you all." jon had been tuning his receptors carefully, but was unable to get any trace of bogin's ship, and all were happy at his report. warm baths and changes of clothing, and the fine meals prepared by mrs. carver, plus the fact they were rapidly nearing sol, which could be seen on their telescopic plates, made them all very gay and full of chatter. "i've decided i want to go back to the hospital-school and really prepare myself to be a doctor," jak said in no uncertain terms. "later i want to go into medical research." "and i still want to enroll at the centropolitan institute of atomics." jon's eyes were shining. "aren't you boys forgetting one little detail?" their father asked drily. while the long sleeps had relaxed his body, and had practically completed the healing of his broken leg, the pressure had not been good for him, and his condition as a whole was worse. but his spirits were high, and he was careful not to let any of his family know just how weak he felt. at his question they all looked up, astonished, and he continued, "there's the small matter of getting the colonial board's approval of our claim against the counter-claim we feel so sure bogin is coming in to make." "pooh, he hasn't got a chance," jon said airily. "you hope," jak scoffed, suddenly serious and worried. "how about it, mr. c.?" mrs. carver asked. "our pictures and data are so detailed i don't see how bogin can possibly match them," her husband answered slowly and thoughtfully. "i think we can prove our claim. besides, their receivers there on terra should have picked up the broadcasts of our signals, and then the change--and that should have made them wonder why, so our explanation ought to satisfy them." "that reminds me." jon swung back to his panel. "let's see if we can pick up our signals from here ... or bogin's, rather!" his lips tightened. in a few moments his tubes had warmed up, but nothing came in over his ultra-range receivers. he stepped up the power, and swung his directional loops forth and back, although mostly he aimed them directly toward the carveria system's known coordinates. for long, anxious minutes he worked, but still no sounds, save the noise of cosmic rays and the other forces of the void that made long-distance communication such a problem. with a weary gesture jon finally turned off the set, and swung about with a stricken face. "what do you suppose is wrong, pop?" the elder shook his head slowly. "only thing i can think of is that we're so far away the senders can't reach this far." "won't that be in our favor?" jak asked. "if they can't hear any signals at all, our records ought to be enough." "maybe yes, maybe no," mr. carver answered with a tired smile. "and after all our hard work, too." jon's tone was dispirited. "and the dangers you were up against." mrs. carver's eyes were tear-dimmed. their father caught himself and looked at each with a disarming grin. "hey, we're all crossing bridges where maybe there isn't even a creek to be spanned." he made his voice mockingly cheerful. "what's happened to the good old carver spirit?" "you're right, pop." jon shook away his dismay and began to smile. "we're not licked yet." but while they were eating, a short time later, jon turned his seat to face his father. "don't like to start worrying again, pop," he said in a low voice, "but our receptor is picking up atomic activity behind us again. of course," he added quickly, "this close to terra it could be some other ship, not bogin's." "could be, and probably is." his father stroked his chin reflectively. "i don't see how he could've caught up with us, but we don't know what his ship can do." "the guy's tricky and dirty, but he does have a brain and he has some darned good technies in his crew. he'd know, from his own receptors, when we started speeding up so fast, and he'd do something to counteract that, if he could." "i've heard things like that about him, but i don't know him." "i do," grimly. "we've had brushes before, when i was in other ships. he's a skunk and ought to be behind bars--but so far no one has been able to produce any real evidence of what all spacemen know must be true." "if the board accepts our claim and data against his, won't that be proof against him?" "it should be. you can bet your tackle i'll work on that angle. space will be cleaner if that hellhound isn't in it." "you bet, pop. i hope you sink your hook in him this time." his father laughed grimly. "it won't be for lack of trying, that's for danged sure." jon carver spoke into the microphone of his ship radio. "exploration ship _star rover_, tad carver owner, jon carver pilot, asking permission to land. we are circling at ten miles up." a moment's crackling noise from the speaker, then a cheery, feminine voice, "centropolitan spaceport. landing permission granted. what size is your ship?" "a seventy-two foot space-yacht." "do you need servicing?" "we will in a day or so, but not at the moment." "use cradle forty-three in section d. land in four minutes." "instructions received with thanks. _star rover_ off." carefully jon sighted through his visiplate until he located the cradle marked with a large " " in the section of the tremendous spaceport also clearly marked "d." he lowered the ship slowly and gently, keeping his eyes closely on the chronom and its big sweep-secondhand. so expert had he become at handling the ship, and so well did his new automatic technique work, that the ship settled gently into the cradle dead center ... and only one point three zero seconds off the four minutes specified. "nice handling, chubby," jak cheered as they felt the mighty engines and generators shut off. "aw, it was rotten. i was almost a second and a half off in my timing." "who cares?" there was a lilt of joy and pure thankfulness in their mother's voice. "we are back on earth--home--and all of us are whole. that's the best part of all." her husband looked up from the recline seat where he was still lying, and winked at his sons. then he faced his wife. "the eternal mother." he smiled gently at her, and his voice was soft with emotion. "happiest when her brood is safe. and," he added hastily at the look coming into her eyes, "how thankful mankind is, or should be, that womenfolk have always had that feeling. man would never have gone as far as he has if she hadn't." jak soon came in from the other part of the ship. "all our data books, pictures and specimens are packed and stashed by the inner lockdoor," he reported. jon jumped from his pilot's seat and started toward the living quarters. "let's get our street clothes on, and get going to the colonial board headquarters." "yes," mrs. carver said eagerly. "after all we've gone through to make sure we beat that bogin and his ship back home, let's not waste any time." "well," mr. carver's eyes twinkled, "go put on your prettiest frock and all your war paint, so you can make a good impression on the board members." she krinkled her nose at him, but went in to the bunkroom. mr. carver raised his chair to upright, and began struggling to get up. the two boys, watching closely, saw how weak he was, and ran to help him. with his arms across their shoulders, he finally managed to half-walk, half be carried, into the other room. the boys lowered him into a seat. "i'll get your clean clothes, and your razor and some hot water," jak said. jon went back into the control room, and turned on his radio-sender. "service, please," he said when the operator came on, and in a moment, "_star rover_, cradle , section d. please have a taxi-hopper here in thirty minutes, and a wheel chair with it. thanks." when the four got outside on the landing platform and tad carver saw the wheel chair he was indignant. "i'm not going to ride in any lousy perambulator," he grumbled, but the boys were insistent. finally his wife came over and put her hand on his arm. "you might as well give in, mr. c. besides, your leg is not strong enough to do without one--yet." still grumbling, he let the boys help him into the wheel chair ... but they noticed his sigh of relief when he was settled and the weight was taken off his feet. his body trembled with weakness, in spite of his efforts to control himself. the chair, their books and cases were soon loaded into the copter, then jon directed, "colonial board building, please." the little ship rose swiftly on her whirling vanes, then streaked through the clear air toward the center of the great city of centropolis, while the four watched the familiar sights of "home" with eager, happy eyes. "look at the trees and flowers," jak called excitedly, pointing at the riot of color below. "they're getting green and in full bloom. it's late spring here, yet it was fall back on three." "different suns, different seasons on the various planets." there was amusement in his father's voice. "sure, you ought to know that," jon said condescendingly. "i do know it, you fathead. i was just...." "now, boys," their mother interposed--and the two grinned covertly at each other. poor mother never seemed to realize there was no real animosity behind their bickerings. it took only a few minutes for the swift taxi-hopper to ferry them from the spaceport to the roof of the huge colonial building. tad carver paid the fare, the boys again filled their arms with their books and cases, and mrs. carver pushed the wheel chair to the elevator. they descended to the board headquarters' floor. in the anteroom their father propelled his chair to the receptionist's desk. "i'm tad carver, owner of the _star rover_, just back from a trip. we wish to present a claim as prime discoverers of a new planetary system." "oh, splendid!" the stately brunette's eyes lighted. "is it a good one?" she asked as she reached into one of the drawers of her desk for a sheet of forms. mr. carver smiled. "five planets and seven moons. two of the planets are very earthlike, and there are lots of metal, wood and many other worth-while things." a distant look came into the girl's eyes. "i've never been out in space. it must be wonderful...." she straightened with determination. "please answer these preliminary questions. then i'll get your appointment with the board." rapidly she put the questions as listed on her forms, and filled in the vacant places as he answered her. finished, she rose, said, "just a moment, please," and went in through a side door with the papers in her hand. mr. carver wheeled himself back to his family, who were sitting stiffly in chairs against the further wall. "are they going to allow our claim?" jon asked nervously. the others leaned forward to hear the answer. "take it easy." mr. carver's eyes showed amusement. "the girl has merely gone in to make an appointment for us. this takes time, you know. we probably won't have the answer for several days." "oh!" it was a trio of disappointment, and they sat back to wait, glumly, impatiently. but only a few minutes later they straightened expectantly as they saw the receptionist coming back. she crossed over to them. "the board is at liberty to hear your preliminary claim now," she told them. "please follow me." she led them through the same side door and into a large room beyond. the four looked eagerly about them, seeing a well-lighted, wood-paneled office. across the room was a large, heavy table-desk, behind which were seated five men. "mr. and mrs. tad carver, and their two sons," the girl introduced them before leaving. "please take those chairs." from his seat at the center of the table the chairman indicated comfortable chairs on the side of the table opposite him. jon pushed one aside while jak propelled the wheel chair into the vacant space. then the other three carvers seated themselves in adjoining seats. "i am robert wilson, chairman of the board. the other members are phil silverman, james dougherty, will irwin, and sam reardon." he indicated in turn the other men at the table. "i see you claim to be the prime discoverers of a new solar system. that's wonderful! we're expanding so rapidly, what with the increasing birth rate on terra and the other colonized planets, that we already and always need more room. tell us more about your find." "it's a five-planet system with a sun much like sol, only about a quarter larger. the coordinates are right ascension . , declination minus . , distance about sixty-two light years." swiftly mr. carver gave the pertinent facts about the habitability of planets two and three, and presented their books of data, and their cases of photographs. "how come we haven't received your signals--or didn't you place any?" irwin asked. "we did place them, sir, but we noticed several days ago, coming in, that we could not hear them with our own receivers. it is my opinion that the distance is too great for the strength of the senders." "that's possible," silverman spoke up. "your claim is farther away than any yet presented to us. i happen to know that the signal-senders furnished by our board technicians ordinarily have a theoretical range of not quite fifty light-years." mr. carver half-rose, then settled back and spoke with a level voice, while his eyes swept from one to the other of the five men. "i want to report honestly on this case, sirs. just before we left, we started back along a course that would take us fairly close to all our planets and the sun, to make sure our senders were functioning correctly. we started from two, where we had just completed marking-out our city site, went past one and around the sun, planning to make a big swing to the other planets and so back home. the senders of one, two and the sun were working all right, but as we neared three we heard, instead of our own, signals stating that the system had been charted and claimed by michael bogin and his...." "slik bogin!" several of the board members exclaimed in concert, and chairman wilson added, grimly, "so he's at work again." mr. carver waited until they were silent, then continued, "we think he either destroyed our senders or substituted his own tapes in ours. however, we put our sun-signal into an orbit so close to the sun's surface we doubt if he'll be able to do anything about it. it's only about ten million miles...." "ten million!" reardon almost yelled the question, and the others sat upright in excited astonishment, doubt showing in their faces. "how could you do that?" "i figured a van sicklenberg, sir, to give our sender a circular orbit apexing at ten million miles," jon carver explained simply. "we used the servo-mechs in our lock to throw the sender out when at minimum distance." "you?" there was a concerted expression of disbelief and mr. reardon said, witheringly, "why, you're not a listed astrogator. how could you compute a ... a what was it you called it?" "a van sicklenberg throw-out orbit, sir. i...." "never heard of a van sicklenberg. what is it ... what sort of nonsense are you talking?" jon opened his mouth to reply, but his mother forestalled him. she rose determinedly. "my jon is 'only a boy,' gentlemen, but he has also become an expert pilot and an excellent astrogator, if i do say so myself. he is also an inventor, and will shortly apply for patents on a new automatic piloting system--which i don't pretend to understand anything about, but which i do know from watching its use is far in advance of anything you now have. you can be sure he knows how to do such a simple thing as plot an orbit." she sat down, eyes defiant, her mouth in a straight line. the men's faces showed astonishment at her words as much as at her outburst. "i had been knocked unconscious and my leg was broken," mr. carver took up the explanation, "so i was out of action for a long time. i'm not fully recovered yet, which is the reason for the discourtesy of this wheel chair. the two boys had to take over all the work of mapping the new system. but i have examined their books and pictures, and feel sure you will find everything in order and complete, and that it will prove our rights as prime discoverers, no matter what bogin may have to say when he gets here. he is following us, but we managed to beat him in." "_hmmm._" the chairman frowned in thought, then whispered for some moments to the other men on either side of him. the four carvers sat nervously, awaiting the decision of the final arbiters. finally chairman wilson addressed them directly. "you can well understand that we will have to make a rather more thorough examination than usual in this case, mr. carver, and that we will have to wait a few days to see whether or not michael bogin is going to make a counter-claim. knowing you got here first, he may decide not to do so. where are you located, so we can get in touch with you later?" "we came directly from our ship, sir, so do not have an address as yet. however, as soon as we have found a place, i'll call your secretary and leave our address and visiphone number." "you do that, please." then, as the carvers rose to depart, chairman wilson halted them, his voice kindly, yet grim. "this is a peculiar case, carver, as you can well understand. we know the reputation of bogin, but we also know he has never been found guilty of any of the things rumor claims he has done. we board members try always to be fair and honest in these matters, and you can feel certain and confident you and your claims will be given careful consideration. we will get in touch with you in a few days." "thank you, gentlemen. i'm content to rest my claim in your hands." the four bowed, then left the office and the building. "what do you think, father?" jak asked anxiously as they were riding a ground-cab whose driver had been instructed to find them a good apartment hotel. "i don't know," mr. carver added a weary smile. "it's all in the future, and i'm not a seer. however, i'm sure we'll get an honest and unbiased hearing and decision, and i'm equally positive we have the better claim. so let's forget it until we're notified to appear, and enjoy our return to terra." "mr. c.'s right, boys," their mother agreed. "we've done our best, and thanks to you boys, it's a very fine best. now we must wait, but not worry." their cabby found them a nice place where there was a vacancy, and soon the four were unpacking their gear and getting settled in their new home. mr. carver visiphoned at once to give the new address and phone number to the board's receptionist. then the carvers settled down to wait, with as much patience as they could muster, for the call. jak insisted on having a good doctor called at once. the latter made a thorough examination. he had mr. carver taken to an x-ray laboratory, where it was determined that the broken leg had been perfectly set, and was now practically healed, although it would be some time before the strength returned to it. he also prescribed a course of medications to bring back the invalid's full health and vigor. the call came from the board three days later, in the middle of a morning when, fortunately, the four carvers were all in the apartment. they hurried down to the street, where they flagged a ground-cab and were driven swiftly to the colonial building. the same brunette girl ushered them at once into the board room. inside, they found the complete board in session, and in chairs opposite them sat slik bogin and his chief lieutenant, who glared at the carvers sullenly as they entered. hardly were the four seated when bogin sprang to his feet. "what's the big idea, carver," he almost yelled, "trying to claim our discovery? you've got a crust, trying something...." "sit down, mr. bogin, and keep quiet," chairman wilson spoke in a low but commanding voice. "we're here to judge the facts as presented, not to indulge in charges, countercharges and vituperation. now, the board has examined minutely both sets of claims. both parties have presented all the data required by us, and these have been studied by each of us individually. dougherty," he turned to one of the board members, "please review the data sheets for us." a tall, serious-faced man rose, and arranged the two sets of sheets before him. "according to the carver claim, as presented here," he gestured toward one set of books, "they arrived at the system and made their first landing on planet two on january th of this year, . the bogin claim is that they first discovered the system and landed on planet three on january tenth, also of the year . both parties claim they set out the required signal-senders, although neither have been heard by our listening posts here. however, we know that signals from these senders cannot, ordinarily, be read at distances in excess of fifty light-years, and the system under consideration is said to be over sixty. we have asked the communications department to check with ships and planets nearer the system in question, to learn whether or not any signals from it have been received." he paused a moment and looked at his fellow members first, then at the expectant six across the table. "i said that both parties have presented complete data. however, it seems to us, after careful scrutiny, that one set of data was obtained from the air and from the surface of three of the five planets, and from a height of less than twenty miles above the seven moons, and less than five from the other two planets, as our regulations specify. the other books clearly show that the observations were all taken from above the surface." there was relief on the faces of the four carvers, nervous side glances between bogin and his henchman, none of which escaped the sharp eyes of the five board members, watching closely the reactions of the two opposing parties. "we have here the two sets of photographs, taken from a height of five miles as specified by our rulings, of the townsite that we require to be laid out." he held one set out to each party across the table. "please examine them and let us know if you see any differences." there was silence for several long, anxious moments, then after the two groups had studied the photographs handed them, jon carver suddenly let out a gasp, and looked up eagerly. "may i speak, sirs?" "you may." "this is not the picture we took," indicating one. "if you will compare the two, you will find that this one was taken before the work was fully completed. see, there is a gap here along the east side where not all the stakes are in." "oh," his mother looked up quickly, and took up the story. "then i was right, that time. i did hear a ship. you see, sirs," she addressed the board members more directly, "the boys ran out of stakes and had to go to the forest there some miles to the northwest of the ship to cut more. look, you can see just the edge of our ship right here on the margin. while they were gone, i thought i heard a ship passing over ours, but when i got to the control room and could look through a plate, either it had gone out of sight or i was mistaken. the boys said, when asked after they got back, that they had neither heard nor seen it--they were in the woods at the time. but i believe now that i did hear a ship, that it was mr. bogin's, and that he took this picture at that time. it took the boys nearly a day and a half longer to complete their work, and not until after that was our picture taken." the board chairman smiled at her, then turned a severe face toward bogin and his lieutenant. "that is exactly what the pictures show--that one is complete and the other is not. what have you to say about that?" the man's face was black with fury. "i say they're liars," he shouted. "this one here," shaking the photograph he held, "is our picture. that one is theirs." mr. carver started to rise, but jak was before him, and it was the latter whose voice cut through the din. "oh, no, and i can prove which is our picture, if you will examine all the rest. i did all the developing and printing, and you'll find a small 'c' down in the lower right-hand corner of all our pictures. i marked all our negatives that way, as you can determine if you'll send someone to our ship to get the negatives from the darkroom." the board members huddled over the sheaves of pictures for a moment, then turned severely toward bogin. "the young man is correct. all the carver pictures are so marked, and so is this one of the completed townsite." jon carver broke in. "ask them to describe the animal life they found on planet three," he suggested. "well?" the chairman looked levelly at bogin. "why ... why...." the latter was quite taken aback by this sudden challenge. "why, there are several species ... and ... and they were more or less like ours here, although not exactly like them, of course." "ha, that proves he was never on the ground there," jon cried out in triumph. "we found, and so will anyone else you care to send there, that while planet three has a lot of vegetation and is perfectly habitable--though cold--there is absolutely no protoplasmic life to be found there. at least," he added honestly, "on any of the surface we covered, and our ship's log will show, as you can see there, that we flew at less than five miles up for eight complete but spiral revolutions about the planet, and were on the ground in several places, which we explored and photographed thoroughly." "the young man is right," mr. silverman spoke up. "i noticed that fact mentioned in their records, and intended asking more about it, because this is the first planet of which i've heard, that is otherwise completely habitable by mankind, where such a condition has obtained--where there is voluminous floral life but no protoplasmic life of any kind. being something of a botanist, that fact struck me at once." bogin rose, sneering, but also feeling safe in this part of his claim. "bah! they just didn't happen to sit down in the same places we did ... if they were there at all. we saw lots of animal life there." "and you took pictures of such life?" mr. carver asked pointedly. "why, no, it isn't required." there was a discreet rap on the door, and when the chairman gave permission, the receptionist entered and handed him a sheet of paper. he examined it quickly, then passed it to his fellow members. the five conferred together in quick whispers for several minutes--while bogin and his man glared in sullen anger at the carvers. four of the board members finally resumed their seats, while chairman wilson stood at his place. he pressed a buzzer, then took up his gavel. he struck three loud, solemn notes with it. "it is the considered opinion of the terran colonial board, here assembled in official meeting," he intoned, "that tad carver has proven his claim as prime discoverer of the solar system henceforth to be known as 'carveria,' and this decision shall be so entered in our records as of this date. congratulations," he added, smiling as he turned to the happy four, who were attempting the almost impossible task of each hugging all the others at the same time. bogin and his lieutenant rose wrathfully and started to leave the room. "just a moment, bogin," chairman wilson said authoritatively. "you are under arrest for an illegal attempt to defraud by false testimony." bogin, eyes blazing, suddenly seemed to go berserk. he drew a blaster from an underarm holster, and waved it about as he and his man backed toward the door. "you ain't gonna arrest nobody. we're leaving here--and we cinder the first one of you that moves." but, unseen by them, the door behind had opened and three space marines, guns in hand, had entered in response to the chairman's buzzed call. "drop that gun, mister," their leader said sharply, his own muzzle pushed against bogin's back. the latter, face livid, did so. in moments the two pirates were handcuffed. the sergeant saluted the board members. "guards will be sent to the spaceport at once to arrest the other members of the bogin crew, sir, pending examination and trial." "thank you, sergeant. we will prefer charges at once." as the marines started leading the two away, bogin pulled back suddenly, and faced mr. carver. "one thing i'd like to know. we were catching up with you, fast, and all of a sudden you pulled away from us as though we was standing still, yet we were all in slings, and doing three and a half g's. how'd you do it?" mr. carver smiled lazily. "we're submitting a full report to _the space pilot's gazette_. you can read it there--if they let you read where you're going." he turned back to the board members and again expressed the thanks of himself and his family. chairman wilson held out a sheet of paper. "you may be interested in this report. it came from the communications center on petrarch three, and was the deciding factor in your case." the four clustered close to read: "carver signals heard first, then ceased one by one and the bogin signals began, although one carver signal, the solar one, is still heard." mr. carver turned to the board members and said, "like most crooks, bogin was yellow. he didn't have nerve enough to run in as close to the sun as these youngsters of mine did, and so couldn't change their signal there. the boys are great planet mappers--both of them." * * * * * edward everett evans was born in coldwater, michigan, the youngest of the four children of john and nellie evans. enlisting in the u. s. navy after leaving high school, he served as a musician before and during the first world war. he played in concert and dance bands for several years after leaving the service and still finds enjoyment in listening to good music, although he no longer performs on any instrument. he learned to read even before he entered kindergarten and has always had a fondness for the strange and off-trail in stories. when science fiction and fantasy first gained their own magazines, he became a regular reader of them--and still is. evans began attending conventions of the "fans" of science fiction with the first "chicon," or chicago convention, and he has not missed one since. he finds both enjoyment and profit from meeting the people who are also interested in this kind of literature. from reading to writing was a logical step--although not an easy one, but mr. evans has made the step successfully. in addition to his novels, he has over forty short stories to his credit. all of these reflect his optimism about the future of the human race, and his firm belief that the great majority of people are "swell guys." he confidently expects to see man's first spaceship make a successful flight within his lifetime--and thinks it will not be long after that before many of the astonishing happenings and forward-looking inventions of his stories will be actualities. transcriber's note: this etext was produced from imagination april . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed. [illustration: illustrated by h. w. mccauley] [illustration] nobody knew very much about the sargasso area of the void; only one thing was certain: if a ship was caught there it was doomed in-- the graveyard of space _by_ _milton lesser_ he lit a cigarette, the last one they had, and asked his wife "want to share it?" "no. that's all right." diane sat at the viewport of the battered old gormann ' , a small figure of a woman hunched over and watching the parade of asteroids like tiny slow-moving incandescent flashes. ralph looked at her and said nothing. he remembered what it was like when she had worked by his side at the mine. it had not been much of a mine. it had been a bust, a first class sure as hell bust, like everything else in their life together. and it had aged her. had it only been three years? he thought. three years on asteroid , a speck of cosmic dust drifting on its orbit in the asteroid belt between jupiter and mars. uranium potential, high--the government had said. so they had leased the asteroid and prospected it and although they had not finished the job, they were finished. they were going home and now there were lines on diane's face although she was hardly past twenty-four. and there was a bitterness, a bleakness, in her eyes. the asteroid had ruined them, had taken something from them and given nothing in return. they were going home and, ralph meeker thought, they had left more than their second-hand mining equipment on asteroid . they had left the happy early days of their marriage as a ghost for whomever tried his luck next on . they had never mentioned the word divorce; diane had merely said she would spend some time with her sister in marsport instead of going on to earth.... "we'd be swinging around to sunward on ," ralph mused. "please. that's over. i don't want to talk about the mine." "won't it ever bother you that we never finished?" "we finished," diane said. he smoked the cigarette halfway and offered it to her. she shook her head and he put the butt out delicately, to save it. then a radar bell clanged. "what is it?" ralph asked, immediately alert, studying the viewport. you had to be alert on an old tub like the gormann ' . a hundred tonner, it had put in thirty years and a billion and some miles for several owners. its warning devices and its reflexes--it was funny, ralph thought, how you ascribed something human like reflexes to a hundred tons of battered metal--were unpredictable. "i don't see anything," diane said. he didn't either. but you never knew in the asteroid belt. it was next to impossible to thread a passage without a radar screen--and completely impossible with a radar screen on the blink and giving you false information. you could shut it off and pray--but the odds would still be a hundred to one against you. "there!" diane cried. "on the left! the left, ralph--" he saw it too. at first it looked like a jumble of rocks, of dust as the asteroid old-timers called the gravity-held rock swarms which pursued their erratic, dangerous orbits through the asteroid belt. but it was not dust. "will you look at that," diane said. the jumble of rocks--which they were ready to classify as dust--swam up toward them. ralph waited, expecting the automatic pilot to answer the radar warning and swing them safely around the obstacle. so ralph watched and saw the dark jumble of rocks--silvery on one side where the distant sunlight hit it--apparently spread out as they approached it. spread out and assume tiny shapes, shapes in miniature. "spaceships," diane said. "spaceships, ralph. hundreds of them." they gleamed like silver motes in the sun or were black as the space around them. they tumbled slowly, in incredible slow motion, end over end and around and around each other, as if they had been suspended in a slowly boiling liquid instead of the dark emptiness of space. "that's the sargasso," ralph said. "but--" "but we're off course. i know it. the radar was probably able to miss things in our way, but failed to compensate afterwards and bring us back to course. now--" suddenly ralph dived for the controls. the throbbing rockets of the gormann ' had not responded to the radar warning. they were rocketing on toward the sargasso, rapidly, dangerously. "hold on to something!" ralph hollered, and punched full power in the left rockets and breaking power in the right forward rockets simultaneously, attempting to stand the gormann ' on its head and fight off the deadly gravitational attraction of the sargasso. the gormann ' shuddered like something alive and ralph felt himself thrust to the left and forward violently. his head struck the radar screen and, as if mocking him the radar bell clanged its warning. he thought he heard diane scream. then he was trying to stand, but the gravity of sudden acceleration gripped him with a giant hand and he slumped back slowly, aware of a wetness seeping from his nose, his ears-- all of space opened and swallowed him and he went down, trying to reach for diane's hand. but she withdrew it and then the blackness, like some obscene mouth as large as the distance from here to alpha centauri, swallowed him. * * * * * "are you all right, diane?" he asked. he was on his knees. his head ached and one of his legs felt painfully stiff, but he had crawled over to where diane was down, flat on her back, behind the pilot chair. he found the water tank unsprung and brought her some and in a few moments she blinked her eyes and looked at him. "cold," she said. he had not noticed it, but he was still numb and only half conscious, half of his faculties working. it _was_ cold. he felt that now. and he was giddy and growing rapidly more so--as if they did not have sufficient oxygen to breathe. then he heard it. a slow steady hissing, probably the sound feared most by spacemen. air escaping. diane looked at him. "for god's sake, ralph," she cried. "find it." he found it and patched it--and was numb with the cold and barely conscious when he had finished. diane came to him and squeezed his hand and that was the first time they had touched since they had left the asteroid. then they rested for a few moments and drank some of the achingly cold water from the tank and got up and went to the viewport. they had known it, but confirmation was necessary. they looked outside. they were within the sargasso. the battered derelict ships rolled and tumbled and spun out there, slowly, unhurried, in a mutual gravitational field which their own gormann ' had disturbed. it was a sargasso like the legendary sargasso seas of earth's early sailing days, becalmed seas, seas without wind, with choking sargasso weed, seas that snared and entrapped.... "can we get out?" diane asked. he shrugged. "that depends. how strong the pull of gravity is. whether the gormann's rocket drive is still working. if we can repair the radar. we'd never get out without the radar." "i'll get something to eat," she said practically. "you see about the radar." diane went aft while he remained there in the tiny control cabin. by the time she brought the heated cans back with her, he knew it was hopeless. diane was not the sort of woman you had to humor about a thing like that. she offered him a can of pork and beans and looked at his face, and when he nodded she said: "it's no use?" "we couldn't fix it. the scopes just wore out, diane. hell, if they haven't been replaced since this tub rolled off the assembly line, they're thirty years old. she's an ' ." "is there anything we can do?" he shrugged. "we're going to try. we'll check the air and water and see what we have. then we start looking." "start looking? i don't understand." "for a series eighty gormann cruiser." diane's eyes widened. "you mean--out there?" "i mean out there. if we find a series eighty cruiser--and we might--and if i'm able to transfer the radarscopes after we find out they're in good shape, then we have a chance." diane nodded slowly. "if there are any other minor repairs to make, i could be making them while you look for a series eighty gormann." but ralph shook his head. "we'll probably have only a few hours of air to spare, diane. if we both look, we'll cover more ground. i hate to ask you, because it won't be pretty out there. but it might be our only chance." "i'll go, of course. ralph?" "yes?" "what is this sargasso, anyway?" * * * * * he shrugged as he read the meters on the compressed air tanks. four tanks full, with ten hours of air, for two, in each. one tank half full. five hours. five plus forty. forty-five hours of air. they would need a minimum of thirty-five hours to reach mars. "no one knows for sure about the sargasso," he said, wanting to talk, wanting to dispel his own fear so he would not communicate it to her as he took the spacesuits down from their rack and began to climb into one. "they don't think it's anything but the ships, though. it started with a few ships. then more. and more. trapped by mutual gravity. it got bigger and bigger and i think there are almost a thousand derelicts here now. there's talk of blasting them clear, of salvaging them for metals and so on. but so far the planetary governments haven't co-operated." "but how did the first ships get here?" "it doesn't make a hell of a lot of difference. one theory is ships only, and maybe a couple of hunks of meteoric debris in the beginning. another theory says there may be a particularly heavy small asteroid in this maze of wrecks somewhere--you know, superheavy stuff with the atoms stripped of their electrons and the nuclei squeezed together, weighing in the neighborhood of a couple of tons per square inch. that could account for the beginning, but once the thing got started, the wrecked ships account for more wrecked ships and pretty soon you have--a sargasso." diane nodded and said, "you can put my helmet on now." "all right. don't forget to check the radio with me before we go out. if the radio doesn't work, then you stay here. because i want us in constant radio contact if we're both out there. is that understood?" "yes, sir, captain," she said, and grinned. it was her old grin. he had not seen her grin like that for a long time. he had almost forgotten what that grin was like. it made her face seem younger and prettier, as he had remembered it from what seemed so long ago but was only three years. it was a wonderful grin and he watched it in the split-second which remained before he swung the heavy helmet up and in place over her shoulders. then he put on his own helmet awkwardly and fingered the outside radio controls. "hear me?" he said. "i can hear you." her voice was metallic but very clear through the suit radios. "then listen. there shouldn't be any danger of getting lost. i'll leave a light on inside the ship and we'll see it through the ports. it will be the only light, so whatever you do, don't go out of range. as long as you can always see it, you'll be o.k. understand?" "right," she said as they both climbed into the gormann ' 's airlock and waited for the pressure to leave it and the outer door to swing out into space. "ralph? i'm a little scared, ralph." "that's all right," he said. "so am i." "what did you mean, it won't be pretty out there?" "because we'll have to look not just for series eighty gormanns but for any ships that look as old as ours. there ought to be plenty of them and any one of them could have had a gormann radarscope, although it's unlikely. have to look, though." "but what--won't be pretty?" "we'll have to enter those ships. you won't like what's inside." "say, how will we get in? we don't have blasters or weapons of any kind." "your suit rockets," ralph said. "you swing around and blast with your suit rockets. a porthole should be better than an airlock if it's big enough to climb through. you won't have any trouble." "but you still haven't told me what--" "inside the ships. people. they'll all be dead. if they didn't lose their air so far, they'll lose it when we go in. either way, of course, they'll be dead. they've all been dead for years, with no food. but without air--" "what are you stopping for?" diane said. "please go on." "a body, without air. fifteen pounds of pressure per square inch on the inside, and zero on the outside. it isn't pretty. it bloats." "my god, ralph." "i'm sorry, kid. maybe you want to stay back here and i'll look." "you said we only have ten hours. i want to help you." all at once, the airlock swung out. space yawned at them, black enormous, the silent ships, the dead sargasso ships, floating slowly by, eternally, unhurried.... "better make it eight hours," ralph said over the suit radio. "we'd better keep a couple of hours leeway in case i figured wrong. eight hours and remember, don't get out of sight of the ship's lights and don't break radio contact under any circumstances. these suit radios work like miniature radar sets, too. if anything goes wrong, we'll be able to track each other. it's directional beam radio." "but what can go wrong?" "i don't know," ralph admitted. "nothing probably." he turned on his suit rockets and felt the sudden surge of power drive him clear of the ship. he watched diane rocketing away from him to the right. he waved his hand in the bulky spacesuit. "good luck," he called. "i love you, diane." "ralph," she said. her voice caught. he heard it catch over the suit radio. "ralph, we agreed never to--oh, forget it. good luck, ralph. good luck, oh good luck. and i--" "you what." "nothing, ralph. good luck." "good luck," he said, and headed for the first jumble of space wrecks. * * * * * it would probably have taken them a month to explore all the derelicts which were old enough to have gormann series eighty radarscopes. theoretically, ralph realized, even a newer ship could have one. but it wasn't likely, because if someone could afford a newer ship then he could afford a better radarscope. but that, he told himself, was only half the story. the other half was this: with a better radarscope a ship might not have floundered into the sargasso at all.... so it was hardly possible to pass up any ship if their life depended on it--and the going was slow. too slow. he had entered some dozen ships in the first four hours turning, using his shoulder rockets to blast a port hole out and climb in through there. he had not liked what he saw, but there was no preventing it. without a light it wasn't so bad, but you needed a light to examine the radarscope.... they were dead. they had been dead for years but of course there would be no decomposition in the airless void of space and very little even if air had remained until he blasted his way in, for the air was sterile canned spaceship air. they were dead, and they were bloated. all impossibly fat men, with white faces like melons and gross bodies like tweedle dee's and limbs like fat sausages. by the fifth ship he was sick to his stomach, but by the tenth he had achieved the necessary detachment to continue his task. once--it was the eighth ship--he found a gormann series eighty radarscope, and his heart pounded when he saw it. but the scope was hopelessly damaged, as bad as their own. aside from that one, he did not encounter any, damaged or in good shape, which they might convert to their own use. four hours, he thought. four hours and twelve ships. diane reported every few moments by intercom. in her first four hours she had visited eight ships. her voice sounded funny. she was fighting it every step of the way he thought. it must have been hell to her, breaking into those wrecks with their dead men with faces like white, bloated melons-- in the thirteenth ship he found a skeleton. he did not report it to diane over the intercom. the skeleton made no sense at all. the flesh could not possibly have decomposed. curious, he clomped closer on his magnetic boots. even if the flesh had decomposed, the clothing would have remained. but it was a skeleton picked completely clean, with no clothing, not even boots-- as if the man had stripped of his clothing first. he found out why a moment later, and it left him feeling more than a little sick. there were other corpses aboard the ship, a battered thompson ' in worse shape than their own gormann. bodies, not skeletons. but when they had entered the sargasso they had apparently struck another ship. one whole side of the thompson was smashed in and ralph could see the repair patches on the wall. near them and thoroughly destroyed, were the thompson's spacesuits. the galley lockers were empty when ralph found them. all the food gone--how many years ago? and one of the crew, dying before the others. cannibalism. shuddering, ralph rocketed outside into the clear darkness of space. that was a paradox, he thought. it was clear, all right, but it was dark. you could see a great way. you could see a million million miles but it was darker than anything on earth. it was almost an extra-dimensional effect. it made the third dimension on earth, the dimension of depth, seem hopelessly flat. "ralph!" "go ahead, kid," he said. it was their first radio contact in almost half an hour. "oh, ralph. it's a gormann. an eighty-five. i think. right in front of me. ralph, if its scopes are good--oh, ralph." "i'm coming," he said. "go ahead inside. i'll pick up your beam and be along." he could feel his heart thumping wildly. five hours now. they did not have much time. this ship--this gormann eighty-five which diane had found--might be their last chance. because it would certainly take him all of three hours to transfer the radarscope, using the rockets from one of their spacesuits, to their own ship. he rocketed along now, following her directional beam, and listened as she said: "i'm cutting through the porthole now, ralph. i--" her voice stopped suddenly. it did not drift off gradually. it merely ceased, without warning, without reason. "diane!" he called. "diane, can you hear me?" * * * * * he tracked the beam in desperate silence. wrecks flashed by, tumbling slowly in their web of mutual gravitation. some were molten silver if the wan sunlight caught them. some were black, but every rivet, every seam was distinct. the impossible clarity of blackest space.... "ralph?" her voice came suddenly. "yes, diane. yes. what is it?" "what a curious thing. i stopped blasting at the port hole. i'm not going in that way. the airlock, ralph." "what about the airlock?" "it opened up on me. it swung out into space, all of a sudden. i'm going in, ralph." fear, unexpected, inexplicable, gripped him. "don't," he said. "wait for me." "that's silly, ralph. we barely have time. i'm going in now, ralph. there. i'm closing the outer door. i wonder if the pressure will build up for me. if it doesn't, i'll blast the outer door with my rockets and get out of here.... ralph! the light's blinking. the pressures building. the inner door is beginning to open, ralph. i'm going inside now." he was still tracking the beam. he thought he was close now, a hundred miles perhaps. a hundred miles by suit rocket was merely a few seconds but somehow the fear was still with him. it was that skeleton, he thought. that skeleton had unnerved him. "ralph. it's here, ralph. a radarscope just like ours. oh, ralph, it's in perfect shape." "i'm coming," he said. a big old bartson cruiser tumbled by end over end, a thousand tonner, the largest ship he had seen in here so far. at some of the portholes as he flashed by he could see faces, dead faces staring into space forever. then diane's voice suddenly: "is that you, ralph?" "i'm still about fifty miles out," he said automatically, and then cold fear, real fear, gripped him. _is that you, ralph?_ "ralph, is that--oh, ralph. ralph--" she screamed, and was silent. "diane! diane, answer me." silence. she had seen someone--something. alive? it hardly seemed possible. he tried to notch his rocket controls further toward full power, but they were straining already-- the dead ships flashed by, scores of them, hundreds, with dead men and dead dreams inside, waiting through eternity, in no hurry to give up their corpses and corpses of dreams. he heard diane again then, a single agonized scream. then there was silence, absolute silence. time seemed frozen, frozen like the faces of the dead men inside the ships, suspended, unmoving, not dropping into the well of the past. the ships crawled by now, crawled. and from a long way off he saw the gormann eighty-five. he knew it was the right ship because the outer airlock door had swung open again. it hung there in space, the lock gaping-- but it was a long way off. he hardly seemed to be approaching it at all. every few seconds he called diane's name, but there was no answer. no answer. time crawled with the fear icy now, as cold as death, in the pit of his stomach, with the fear making his heart pound rapidly, with the fear making it impossible for him to think. fear--for diane. i love you, di, he thought. i love you. i never stopped loving you. we were wrong. we were crazy wrong. it was like a sargasso, inside of us, an emptiness which needed filling--but we were wrong. diane-- * * * * * he reached the gormann and plunged inside the airlock, swinging the outer door shut behind him. he waited. would the pressure build up again, as it had built up for diane? he did not know. he could only wait-- a red light blinked over his head, on and off, on and off as pressure was built. then it stopped. fifteen pounds of pressure in the airlock, which meant that the inner door should open. he ran forward, rammed his shoulder against it, tumbled through. he entered a narrow companionway and clomped awkwardly toward the front of the ship, where the radarscope would be located. he passed a skeleton in the companionway, like the one he had seen in another ship. for the same reason, he thought. he had time to think that. and then he saw them. diane. on the floor, her spacesuit off her now, a great bruise, blue-ugly bruise across her temple. unconscious. and the thing which hovered over her. at first he did not know what it was, but he leaped at it. it turned, snarling. there was air in the ship and he wondered about that. he did not have time to wonder. the thing was like some monstrous, misshapen creature, a man--yes, but a man to give you nightmares. bent and misshapen, gnarled, twisted like the roots of an ancient tree, with a wild growth of beard, white beard, heavy across the chest, with bent limbs powerfully muscled and a gaunt face, like a death's head. and the eyes--the eyes were wild, staring vacantly, almost glazed as in death. the eyes stared at him and through him and then he closed with this thing which had felled diane. it had incredible strength. the strength of the insane. it drove ralph back across the cabin and ralph, encumbered by his spacesuit, could only fight awkwardly. it drove him back and it found something on the floor, the metal leg of what once had been a chair, and slammed it down across the faceplate of ralph's spacesuit. ralph staggered, fell to his knees. he had absorbed the blow on the crown of his skull through the helmet of the suit, and it dazed him. the thing struck again, and ralph felt himself falling.... somehow, he climbed to his feet again. the thing was back over diane's still form again, looking at her, its eyes staring and vacant. spittle drooled from the lips-- then ralph was wrestling with it again. the thing was almost protean. it all but seemed to change its shape and writhe from ralph's grasp as they struggled across the cabin, but this time there was no weapon for it to grab and use with stunning force. half-crazed himself now, ralph got his fingers gauntleted in rubberized metal, about the sinewy throat under the tattered beard. his fingers closed there and the wild eyes went big and he held it that way a long time, then finally thrust it away from him. the thing fell but sprang to its feet. it looked at ralph and the mouth opened and closed, but he heard no sound. the teeth were yellow and black, broken, like fangs. then the thing turned and ran. ralph followed it as far as the airlock. the inner door was slammed between them. a light blinked over the door. ralph ran to a port hole and watched. the thing which once had been a man floated out into space, turning, spinning slowly. the gnarled twisted body expanded outward, became fat and swollen, balloon-like. it came quite close to the porthole, thudding against the ship's hull, the face--dead now--like a melon. then, after he was sick for a moment there beside the airlock, he went back for diane. * * * * * they were back aboard the gormann ' now, their own ship. ralph had revived diane and brought her back--along with the other gormann's radarscope--to their battered tub. the bruise on her temple was badly discolored and she was still weak, but she would be all right. "but what was it?" diane asked. she had hardly seen her attacker. "a man," ralph said. "god knows how long that ship was in here. years, maybe. years, alone in space, here in the sargasso, with dead men and dead ships for company. he used up all the food. his shipmates died. maybe he killed them. he needed more food--" "oh, no. you don't mean--" ralph nodded. "he became a cannibal. maybe he had a spacesuit and raided some of the other ships too. it doesn't matter. he's dead now." "he must have been insane like that for years, waiting here, never seeing another living thing...." "don't talk about it," ralph said, then smiled. "ship's ready to go, diane." "yes," she said. he looked at her. "mars?" she didn't say anything. "i learned something in there," ralph said. "we were like that poor insane creature in a way. we were too wrapped up in the asteroid and the mine. we forgot to live from day to day, to scrape up a few bucks every now and then maybe and take in a show on ceres or have a weekend on vesta. what the hell, di, everybody needs it." "yes," she said. "di?" "yes, ralph?" "i--i want to give it another try, if you do." "the mine?" "the mine eventually. the mine isn't important. us, i mean." he paused, his hands still over the controls. "will it be mars?" "no," she said, and sat up and kissed him. "a weekend on vesta sounds very nice. very, very nice, darling." ralph smiled and punched the controls. minutes later they had left the sargasso--both sargassos--behind them. the end none none none _progress is relative; senator o'noonan's idea of it was not particularly scientific. which would be too bad, if he had the last word!_ progress report by mark clifton and alex apostolides illustrated by paul orban it seemed to colonel jennings that the air conditioning unit merely washed the hot air around him without lowering the temperature from that outside. he knew it was partly psychosomatic, compounded of the view of the silvery spire of the test ship through the heatwaves of the nevada landscape and the knowledge that this was the day, the hour, and the minutes. the final test was at hand. the instrument ship was to be sent out into space, controlled from this sunken concrete bunker, to find out if the flimsy bodies of men could endure there. jennings visualized other bunkers scattered through the area, observation posts, and farther away the field headquarters with open telephone lines to the pentagon, and beyond that a world waiting for news of the test--and not everyone wishing it well. the monotonous buzz of the field phone pulled him away from his fascinated gaze at the periscope slit. he glanced at his two assistants, professor stein and major eddy. they were seated in front of their control boards, staring at the blank eyes of their radar screens, patiently enduring the beads of sweat on their faces and necks and hands, the odor of it arising from their bodies. they too were feeling the moment. he picked up the phone. "jennings," he said crisply. "zero minus one half hour, colonel. we start alert count in fifteen minutes." "right," colonel jennings spoke softly, showing none of the excitement he felt. he replaced the field phone on its hook and spoke to the two men in front of him. "this is it. apparently this time we'll go through with it." major eddy's shoulders hunched a trifle, as if he were getting set to have a load placed upon them. [illustration] professor stein gave no indication that he had heard. his thin body was stooped over his instrument bank, intense, alert, as if he were a runner crouched at the starting mark, as if he were young again. colonel jennings walked over to the periscope slit again and peered through the shimmer of heat to where the silvery ship lay arrowed in her cradle. the last few moments of waiting, with a brassy taste in his mouth, with the vision of the test ship before him; these were the worst. everything had been done, checked and rechecked hours and days ago. he found himself wishing there were some little thing, some desperate little error which must be corrected hurriedly, just something to break the tension of waiting. "you're all right, sam, prof?" he asked the major and professor unnecessarily. "a little nervous," major eddy answered without moving. "of course," professor stein said. there was a too heavy stress on the sibilant sound, as if the last traces of accent had not yet been removed. "i expect everyone is nervous, not just the hundreds involved in this, but everywhere," jennings commented. and then ruefully, "except professor stein there. i thought surely i'd see some nerves at this point, prof." he was attempting to make light conversation, something to break the strain of mounting buck fever. "if i let even one nerve tendril slack, colonel, i would go to pieces entirely," stein said precisely, in the way a man speaks who has learned the language from text books. "so i do not think of our ship at all. i think of mankind. i wonder if mankind is as ready as our ship. i wonder if man will do any better on the planets than he has done here." "well, of course," colonel jennings answered with sympathy in his voice, "under hitler and all the things you went through, i don't blame you for being a little bitter. but not all mankind is like that, you know. as long as you've been in our country, professor, you've never looked around you. you've been working on this, never lifting your head...." * * * * * he jerked in annoyance as a red light blinked over the emergency circuit, and a buzzing, sharp and repeated, broke into this moment when he felt he was actually reaching, touching stein, as no one had before. he dragged the phone toward him and began speaking angrily into its mouthpiece before he had brought it to his lips. "what the hell's the matter now? they're not going to call it off again! three times now, and...." he broke off and frowned as the crackling voice came through the receiver, the vein on his temple pulsing in his stress. "i beg your pardon, general," he said, much more quietly. the two men turned from their radar scopes and watched him questioningly. he shrugged his shoulders, an indication to them of his helplessness. "you're not going to like this, jim," the general was saying. "but it's orders from pentagon. are you familiar with senator o'noonan?" "vaguely," jennings answered. "you'll be more familiar with him, jim. he's been newly appointed chairman of the appropriations committee covering our work. and he's fought it bitterly from the beginning. he's tried every way he could to scrap the entire project. when we've finished this test, jim, we'll have used up our appropriations to date. whether we get any more depends on him." "yes, sir?" jennings spoke questioningly. political maneuvering was not his problem, that was between pentagon and congress. "we must have his support, jim," the general explained. "pentagon hasn't been able to win him over. he's stubborn and violent in his reactions. the fact it keeps him in the headlines--well, of course that wouldn't have any bearing. so pentagon invited him to come to the field here to watch the test, hoping that would win him over." the general hesitated, then continued. "i've gone a step farther. i felt if he was actually at the center of control, your operation, he might be won over. if he could actually participate, press the activating key or something, if the headlines could show he was working with us, actually sent the test ship on its flight...." "general, you can't," jennings moaned. he forgot rank, everything. "i've already done it, jim," the general chose to ignore the outburst. "he's due there now. i'll look to you to handle it. he's got to be won over, colonel. it's your project." considering the years that he and the general had worked together, the warm accord and informality between them, the use of jennings' title made it an order. "yes, sir," he said. "over," said the general formally. "out," whispered jennings. the two men looked at him questioningly. "it seems," he answered their look, "we are to have an observer. senator o'noonan." "even in germany," professor stein said quietly, "they knew enough to leave us alone at a critical moment." "he can't do it, jim," major eddy looked at jennings with pleading eyes. "oh, but he can," jennings answered bitterly. "orders. and you know what orders are, don't you, major?" "yes, sir," major eddy said stiffly. professor stein smiled ruefully. both of them turned back to their instrument boards, their radar screens, to the protective obscurity of subordinates carrying out an assignment. they were no longer three men coming close together, almost understanding one another in this moment of waiting, when the world and all in it had been shut away, and nothing real existed except the silvery spire out there on the desert and the life of it in the controls at their fingertips. "beep, minus fifteen minutes!" the first time signal sounded. * * * * * "colonel jennings, sir!" the senator appeared in the low doorway and extended a fleshy hand. his voice was hearty, but there was no warmth behind his tones. he paused on the threshold, bulky, impressive, as if he were about to deliver an address. but jennings, while shaking hands, drew him into the bunker, pointedly, causing the senator to raise bushy eyebrows and stare at him speculatively. "at this point everything runs on a split second basis, senator," he said crisply. "ceremony comes after the test." his implication was that when the work was done, the senator could have his turn in the limelight, take all the credit, turn it into political fodder to be thrown to the people. but because the man was chairman of the appropriations committee, he softened his abruptness. "if the timing is off even a small fraction, senator, we would have to scrap the flight and start all over." "at additional expense, no doubt." the senator could also be crisp. "surprises me that the military should think of that, however." the closing of the heavy doors behind him punctuated his remark and caused him to step to the center of the bunker. where there had seemed adequate room before, now the feeling was one of oppressive overcrowding. unconsciously, major eddy squared his elbows as if to clear the space around him for the manipulation of his controls. professor stein sat at his radar screen, quiet, immobile, a part of the mechanisms. he was accustomed to overbearing authority whatever political tag it might wear at the moment. "beep. eleven minutes," the signal sounded. "perhaps you'll be good enough to brief me on just what you're doing here?" the senator asked, and implied by the tone of his voice that it couldn't be very much. "in layman's language, colonel. don't try to make it impressive with technical obscurities. i want my progress report on this project to be understandable to everyone." jennings looked at him in dismay. was the man kidding him? explain the zenith of science, the culmination of the dreams of man in twenty simple words or less! and about ten minutes to win over a man which the pentagon had failed to win. "perhaps you'd like to sit here, senator," he said courteously. "when we learned you were coming, we felt yours should be the honor. at zero time, you press this key--here. it will be your hand which sends the test ship out into space." apparently they were safe. the senator knew so little, he did not realize the automatic switch would close with the zero time signal, that no hand could be trusted to press the key at precisely the right time, that the senator's key was a dummy. "beep, ten," the signal came through. jennings went back over to the periscope and peered through the slit. he felt strangely surprised to see the silver column of the ship still there. the calm, the scientific detachment, the warm thrill of co-ordinated effort, all were gone. he felt as if the test flight itself was secondary to what the senator thought about it, what he would say in his progress report. he wondered if the senator's progress report would compare in any particular with the one on the ship. that was a chart, representing as far as they could tell, the minimum and maximum tolerances of human life. if the multiple needles, tracing their continuous lines, went over the black boundaries of tolerances, human beings would die at that point. such a progress report, showing the life-sustaining conditions at each point throughout the ship's flight, would have some meaning. he wondered what meaning the senator's progress report would have. he felt himself being pushed aside from the periscope. there was no ungentleness in the push, simply the determined pressure of an arrogant man who was accustomed to being in the center of things, and thinking nothing of shoving to get there. the senator gave him the briefest of explanatory looks, and placed his own eye at the periscope slit. "beep, nine," the signal sounded. "so that's what represents two billion dollars," the senator said contemptuously. "that little sliver of metal." "the two billion dollar atomic bomb was even smaller," jennings said quietly. * * * * * the senator took his eye away from the periscope briefly and looked at jennings speculatively. "the story of where all that money went still hasn't been told," he said pointedly. "but the story of who got away with this two billion will be different." colonel jennings said nothing. the white hot rage mounting within him made it impossible for him to speak. the senator straightened up and walked back over to his chair. he waved a hand in the direction of major eddy. "what does that man do?" he asked, as if the major were not present, or was unable to comprehend. "major eddy," jennings found control of his voice, "operates remote control." he was trying to reduce the vast complexity of the operation to the simplest possible language. "beep, eight," the signal interrupted him. "he will guide the ship throughout its entire flight, just as if he were sitting in it." "why isn't he sitting in it?" the senator asked. "that's what the test is for, senator." jennings felt his voice becoming icy. "we don't know if space will permit human life. we don't know what's out there." "best way to find out is for a man to go out there and see," the senator commented shortly. "i want to find out something, i go look at it myself. i don't depend on charts and graphs, and folderol." the major did not even hunch his broad shoulders, a characteristic gesture, to show that he had heard, to show that he wished the senator was out there in untested space. "what about him? he's not even in uniform!" "professor stein maintains sight contact on the scope and transmits the iff pulse." the senator's eyes flashed again beneath heavy brows. his lips indicated what he thought of professors and projects who used them. "what's iff?" he asked. the colonel looked at him incredulously. it was on the tip of his tongue to ask where the man had been during the war. he decided he'd better not ask it. he might learn. "it stands for identification--friend or foe, senator. it's army jargon." "beep, seven." _seven minutes_, jennings thought, _and here i am trying to explain the culmination of the entire science of all mankind to a lardbrain in simple kindergarten words_. well, he'd wished there was something to break the tension of the last half hour, keep him occupied. he had it. "you mean the army wouldn't know, after the ship got up, whether it was ours or the enemy's?" the senator asked incredulously. "there are meteors in space, senator," jennings said carefully. "radar contact is all we'll have out there. the iff mechanism reconverts our beam to a predetermined pulse, and it bounces back to us in a different pattern. that's the only way we'd know if we were still on the ship, or have by chance fastened on to a meteor." "what has that got to do with the enemy?" o'noonan asked uncomprehendingly. jennings sighed, almost audibly. "the mechanism was developed during the war, when we didn't know which planes were ours and which the enemy's. we've simply adapted it to this use--to save money, senator." "humph!" the senator expressed his disbelief. "too complicated. the world has grown too complicated." "beep, six." the senator glanced irritably at the time speaker. it had interrupted his speech. but he chose to ignore the interruption, that was the way to handle heckling. "i am a simple man. i come from simple parentage. i represent the simple people, the common people, the people with their feet on the ground. and the whole world needs to get back to the simple truths and honesties...." jennings headed off the campaign speech which might appeal to the mountaineers of the senator's home state, where a man's accomplishments were judged by how far he could spit tobacco juice; it had little application in this bunker where the final test before the flight of man to the stars was being tried. "to us, senator," he said gently, "this ship represents simple truths and honesties. we are, at this moment, testing the truths of all that mankind has ever thought of, theorized about, believed of the space which surrounds the earth. a farmer may hear about new methods of growing crops, but the only way he knows whether they're practical or not is to try them on his own land." the senator looked at him impassively. jennings didn't know whether he was going over or not. but he was trying. "all that ship, and all the instruments it contains; those represent the utmost honesties of the men who worked on them. nobody tried to bluff, to get by with shoddy workmanship, cover up ignorance. a farmer does not try to bluff his land, for the crops he gets tells the final story. scientists, too, have simple honesty. they have to have, senator, for the results will show them up if they don't." * * * * * the senator looked at him speculatively, and with a growing respect. not a bad speech, that. not a bad speech at all. if this tomfoolery actually worked, and it might, that could be the approach in selling it to his constituents. by implication, he could take full credit, put over the impression that it was he who had stood over the scientists making sure they were as honest and simple as the mountain farmers. many a man has gone into the white house with less. "beep, five." five more minutes. the sudden thought occurred to o'noonan: what if he refused to press the dummy key? refused to take part in this project he called tomfoolery? perhaps they thought they were being clever in having him take part in the ship's launching, and were by that act committing him to something.... "this is the final test, senator. after this one, if it is right, man leaps to the stars!" it was jennings' plea, his final attempt to catch the senator up in the fire and the dream. "and then more yapping colonists wanting statehood," the senator said dryly. "upsetting the balance of power. changing things." jennings was silent. "beep, four." "more imports trying to get into our country duty-free," o'noonan went on. "upsetting our economy." his vision was of lobbyists threatening to cut off contributions if their own industries were not kept in a favorable position. of grim-jawed industrialists who could easily put a more tractable candidate up in his place to be elected by the free and thinking people of his state. all the best catch phrases, the semantically-loaded promises, the advertising appropriations being used by his opponent. it was a dilemma. should he jump on the bandwagon of advancement to the stars, hoping to catch the imagination of the voters by it? were the voters really in favor of progress? what could this space flight put in the dinner pails of the smiths, the browns, the johnsons? it was all very well to talk about the progress of mankind, but that was the only measure to be considered. any politician knew that. and apparently no scientist knew it. man advances only when he sees how it will help him stuff his gut. "beep, three." for a full minute, the senator had sat lost in speculation. and what could he personally gain? a plan, full-formed, sprang into his mind. this whole deal could be taken out of the hands of the military on charges of waste and corruption. it could be brought back into the control of private industry, where it belonged. he thought of vast tracts of land in his own state, tracts he could buy cheap, through dummy companies, places which could be made very suitable for the giant factories necessary to manufacture spaceships. as chairman of the appropriations committee, it wouldn't be difficult to sway the choice of site. and all that extra employment for the people of his own state. the voters couldn't forget plain, simple, honest o'noonan after that! "beep, two." * * * * * jennings felt the sweat beads increase on his forehead. his collar was already soaking wet. he had been watching the senator through two long minutes, terrible eon-consuming minutes, the impassive face showing only what the senator wanted it to show. he saw the face now soften into something approaching benignity, nobility. the head came up, the silvery hair tossed back. "son," he said with a ringing thrill in his voice. "mankind must reach the stars! we must allow nothing to stop that! no personal consideration, no personal belief, nothing must stand in the way of mankind's greatest dream!" his eyes were shrewdly watching the effect upon jennings' face, measuring through him the effect such a speech would have upon the voters. he saw the relief spread over jennings' face, the glow. yes, it might work. "now, son," he said with kindly tolerance, "tell me what you want me to do about pressing this key when the time comes." "beep, one." and then the continuous drone while the seconds were being counted off aloud. "fifty-nine, fifty-eight, fifty-seven--" the droning went on while jennings showed the senator just how to press the dummy key down, explaining it in careful detail, and just when. "thirty-seven, thirty-six, thirty-five--" "major!" jennings called questioningly. "ready, sir." "professor!" "ready, sir." "three, two, one, zero!" "press it, senator!" jennings called frantically. already the automatic firing stud had taken over. the bellowing, roaring flames reached down with giant strength, nudging the ship upward, seeming to hang suspended, waiting. "_press it!_" the senator's hand pressed the dummy key. he was committed. as if the ship had really been waiting, it lifted, faster and faster. "major?" "i have it, sir." the major's hands were flying over his bank of controls, correcting the slight unbalance of thrusts, holding the ship as steady as if he were in it. already the ship was beyond visual sight, picking up speed. but the pip on the radar screens was strong and clear. the drone of the iff returning signal was equally strong. the senator sat and waited. he had done his job. he felt it perhaps would have been better to have had the photographers on the spot, but realized the carefully directed and rehearsed pictures to be taken later would make better vote fodder. "it's already out in space now, senator," jennings found a second of time to call it to the senator. the pips and the signals were bright and clear, coming through the ionosphere, the heaviside layer as they had been designed to do. jennings wondered if the senator could ever be made to understand the simple honesty of scientists who had worked that out so well and true. bright and strong and clear. and then there was nothing! the screens were blank. the sounds were gone. * * * * * jennings stood in stupefied silence. "it shut! it shut off!" major eddy's voice was shrill in amazement. "it cut right out, colonel. no fade, no dying signal, just out!" it was the first time jennings had ever heard a note of excitement in professor stein's voice. the phone began to ring, loud and shrill. that would be from the general's observation post, where he, too, must have lost the signal. the excitement penetrated the senator's rosy dream of vast acreages being sold at a huge profit, giant walls of factories going up under his remote-control ownership. "what's wrong?" he asked. jennings did not answer him. "what was the altitude?" he asked. the phone continued to ring, but he was not yet ready to answer it. "hundred fifty miles, maybe a little more," major eddy answered in a dull voice. "and then, nothing," he repeated incredulously. "nothing." the phone was one long ring now, taken off of automatic signal and rung with a hand key pressed down and held there. in a daze, jennings picked up the phone. "yes, general," he answered as though he were no more than a robot. he hardly listened to the general's questions, did not need the report that every radarscope throughout the area had lost contact at the same instant. somehow he had known that would be true, that it wasn't just his own mechanisms failing. one question did penetrate his stunned mind. "how is the senator taking it?" the general asked finally. "uncomprehending, as yet," jennings answered cryptically. "but even there it will penetrate sooner or later. we'll have to face it then." "yes," the general sighed. "what about safety? what if it fell on a big city, for example?" "it had escape velocity," jennings answered. "it would simply follow its trajectory indefinitely--which was away from earth." "what's happening now?" the senator asked arrogantly. he had been out of the limelight long enough, longer than was usual or necessary. he didn't like it when people went about their business as if he were not present. "quiet during the test, senator," jennings took his mouth from the phone long enough to reprove the man gently. apparently he got away with it, for the senator put his finger to his lips knowingly and sat back again. "the senator's starting to ask questions?" the general asked into the phone. "yes, sir. it won't be long now." "i hate to contemplate it, jim," the general said in apprehension. "there's only one way he'll translate it. two billion dollars shot up into the air and lost." then sharply. "there must be something you've done, colonel. some mistake you've made." * * * * * the implied accusation struck at jennings' stomach, a heavy blow. "that's the way it's going to be?" he stated the question, knowing its answer. "for the good of the service," the general answered with a stock phrase. "if it is the fault of one officer and his men, we may be given another chance. if it is the failure of science itself, we won't." "i see," the colonel answered. "you won't be the first soldier, colonel, to be unjustly punished to maintain public faith in the service." "yes, sir," jennings answered as formally as if he were already facing court martial. "it's back!" major eddy shouted in his excitement. "it's back, colonel!" the pip, truly, showed startlingly clear and sharp on the radarscope, the correct signals were coming in sure and strong. as suddenly as the ship had cut out, it was back. "it's back, general," colonel jennings shouted into the phone, his eyes fixed upon his own radarscope. he dropped the phone without waiting for the general's answer. "good," exclaimed the senator. "i was getting a little bored with nothing happening." "have you got control?" jennings called to the major. "can't tell yet. it's coming in too fast. i'm trying to slow it. we'll know in a minute." "you have it now," professor stein spoke up quietly. "it's slowing. it will be in the atmosphere soon. slow it as much as you can." as surely as if he were sitting in its control room, eddy slowed the ship, easing it down into the atmosphere. the instruments recorded the results of his playing upon the bank of controls, as sound pouring from a musical instrument. "at the take-off point?" jennings asked. "can you land it there?" "close to it," major eddy answered. "as close as i can." now the ship was in visual sight again, and they watched its nose turn in the air, turn from a bullet hurtling earthward to a ship settling to the ground on its belly. major eddy was playing his instrument bank as if he were the soloist in a vast orchestra at the height of a crescendo forte. jennings grabbed up the phone again. "transportation!" he shouted. "already dispatched, sir," the operator at the other end responded. through the periscope slit, jennings watched the ship settle lightly downward to the ground, as though it were a breezeborne feather instead of its tons of metal. it seemed to settle itself, still, and become inanimate again. major eddy dropped his hands away from his instrument bank, an exhausted virtuoso. "my congratulations!" the senator included all three men in his sweeping glance. "it was remarkable how you all had control at every instance. my progress report will certainly bear that notation." the three men looked at him, and realized there was no irony in his words, no sarcasm, no realization at all of what had truly happened. "i can see a va-a-ast fleet of no-o-ble ships...." the senator began to orate. but the roar of the arriving jeep outside took his audience away from him. they made a dash for the bunker door, no longer interested in the senator and his progress report. it was the progress report as revealed by the instruments on the ship which interested them more. the senator was close behind them as they piled out of the bunker door, and into the jeep, with jennings unceremoniously pulling the driver from the wheel and taking his place. over the rough dirt road toward the launching site where the ship had come to rest, their minds were bemused and feverish, as they projected ahead, trying to read in advance what the instruments would reveal of that blank period. the senator's mind projected even farther ahead to the fleet of space ships he would own and control. and he had been worried about some ignorant stupid voters! stupid animals! how he despised them! what would he care about voters when he could be master of the spaceways to the stars? jennings swerved the jeep off the dirt road and took out across the hummocks of sagebrush to the ship a few rods away. he hardly slacked speed, and in a swirl of dust pulled up to the side of the ship. before it had even stopped, the men were piling out of the jeep, running toward the side of the ship. and stopped short. * * * * * unable to believe their eyes, to absorb the incredible, they stared at the swinging open door in the side of the ship. slowly they realized the iridescent purple glow around the doorframe, the rotted metal, disintegrating and falling to the dirt below. the implications of the tampering with the door held them unmoving. only the senator had not caught it yet. slower than they, now he was chugging up to where they had stopped, an elephantine amble. "well, well, what's holding us up?" he panted irritably. cautiously then, jennings moved toward the open door. and as cautiously, major eddy and professor stein followed him. o'noonan hung behind, sensing the caution, but not knowing the reason behind it. they entered the ship, wary of what might be lurking inside, what had burned open the door out there in space, what had been able to capture the ship, cut it off from its contact with controls, stop it in its headlong flight out into space, turn it, return it to their controls at precisely the same point and altitude. wary, but they entered. at first glance, nothing seemed disturbed. the bulkhead leading to the power plant was still whole. but farther down the passage, the door leading to the control room where the instruments were housed also swung open. it, too, showed the iridescent purple disintegration of its metal frame. they hardly recognized the control room. they had known it intimately, had helped to build and fit it. they knew each weld, each nut and bolt. "the instruments are gone," the professor gasped in awe. it was true. as they crowded there in the doorway, they saw the gaping holes along the walls where the instruments had been inserted, one by one, each to tell its own story of conditions in space. the senator pushed himself into the room and looked about him. even he could tell the room had been dismantled. "what kind of sabotage is this?" he exclaimed, and turned in anger toward jennings. no one answered him. jennings did not even bother to meet the accusing eyes. they walked down the narrow passage between the twisted frames where the instruments should have been. they came to the spot where the master integrator should have stood, the one which should have co-ordinated all the results of life-sustenance measurements, the one which was to give them their progress report. there, too, was a gaping hole--but not without its message. etched in the metal frame, in the same iridescent purple glow, were two words. two enigmatic words to reverberate throughout the world, burned in by some watcher--some keeper--some warden. "_not yet._" the end * * * * * transcriber notes this etext was produced from if worlds of science fiction july . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed. typo was corrected on page : original text: "son," he said with a ringing thrill in his voice. "mankind much reach the stars! we must allow ... changed text: "son," he said with a ringing thrill in his voice. "mankind must reach the stars! we must allow ... tillie by craig browning [transcriber note: this etext was produced from amazing stories december . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] [sidenote: she was just a blob of metal, but she had emotions like any woman. she, too, wanted romance, and wasn't coy about running after her "guy"] "there you are!" judson taylor, the eccentric physics prof, pulled a metallic object out of his pocket and laid it on the table between us. the object was a solid chunk of some kind of metal, judging from its bright silver color, about the size and shape of a pocket knife. i looked at it stupidly and said, "_where_ are we?" i am bill halley. some of the adolescent undergraduate brats at this one-horse college have nicknamed me "comet" and it burns me up every time some pimply-faced baby waves his arm at me and says, "hiya, comet." but i smile and don't let them know i don't like it, because if they knew there would be no living with them. jud is head of the physics department and i am one of the three profs under him. when i first came here last fall he looked at my papers, said "bill halley?" and since then has treated me with the respect he reserves only for the gods of physics. probably assumed i was a direct descendant of the halley who got his name plastered all over halley's comet. anyway, between classes this morning he had excitedly asked me to meet him at the campus lunch during the noon hour and he would show me his latest discovery--and here we were, wherever that was. i picked up the hunk of metal and turned it over in the palm of my hand, sipping my coffee from a cup held in my other hand, and tried to figure out why he was so excited. there was a peculiar warmth to the stuff. maybe it was radioactive. but no, it was too light to be one of the heavy elements. i tossed it back to the table top and then nearly rose to the ceiling. the stuff hadn't bounced with a metallic sound at all, but had settled slowly, coming to rest with no sign of a bump. i picked it up again and looked at jud, puzzled. he grinned and said, "watch this." then he looked at the lump of metal in a peculiar manner like he might be trying mental telepathy out on it, and suddenly the stuff weighed a ton. it forced my hand down so fast that it bruised as it struck the table. as suddenly the stuff became light again and judson taylor had hold of my hand, rubbing it. "oh, i'm so sorry, bill. i am not too good at controlling it yet." "what the hell is that stuff?" i ground out. "i don't know, exactly," he replied. "mallory, the biochemist, made it and brought it to me. he said he got a lot of chemicals spilled. one of them was a rare enzyme that he didn't want to lose, so he mopped up the mess and put it in a large flask and added some alcohol, getting ready to recover this valuable enzyme. suddenly this stuff started to form on the sides of the flask, just like silver in the mirror coating process. but all the chemicals were pure hydro-carbons with no silver or other metal present. according to mallory this stuff is some unknown hydro-carbon. i've been playing with it for two days now." judson taylor put the stuff back in his pocket and rose. "let's go over to my lab. i want to show you some things i've found out about it." i gulped down the rest of my coffee and followed him. we crossed the campus of good old puget u to the antique building which housed the physics department. we climbed the creaking stairs to the third floor which was devoted mostly to jud's own private research and was filled with apparatus that he had accumulated during the thirty years he had been kingpin of this department. jud crossed over to a bench on which there was a balance and some other stuff and placed the hunk of mystery on one tray of the balance. on the other tray he placed a ten-gram weight. the balance swayed a little and then came to rest on the zero mark, showing the stuff weighed exactly ten grams. then he placed another ten-gram weight on the tray and the balance came to rest on the zero mark, showing the stuff weighed exactly twenty grams! "now watch," he said. he placed the silver chunk on the same side as the two ten-gram weights, leaving the tray it had been in absolutely empty. the balance fluctuated a little and again came to rest on the zero mark, showing a minus twenty grams! by that time i had stopped believing what my eyes told me. "that's quite a trick," i said skeptically. "how do you work it?" and i stooped to look under the table, hoping to see a setup of magnets hidden there that would help restore my belief in my sanity. "i don't work it," jud exclaimed irritably. "it acts that way itself." * * * * * i forgot my one o'clock class entirely. jud and i played around with that hunk of metallic hydro-carbon most of the afternoon, arguing back and forth about what caused it to do the things it did. i found out that if i thought of beefsteak rare while i looked at it, it would weigh exactly ten pounds, and if i thought of a chicken with its neck being wrung the stuff would float up to the ceiling. i tried all sorts of thoughts on it and got some of the craziest results. but whatever i thought, when i thought of the same thing again i got the same results. but my results were different than jud's! when he thought of a chicken with its neck being wrung the stuff didn't float up to the ceiling but instead made the floor creak and groan. finally we took it over to the feed company and put it on their car scales. then when jud thought of a chicken with its neck being wrung, we found that the stuff weighed twelve thousand four hundred and eighty pounds! and it was no bigger than a pocket knife! as we stood there and looked at the feed scales in utter amazement i said, "look, jud, we've got something here. i've got an idea. suppose we rig up a strong resting place for this stuff in my car. then when i think of the right thing it will push the car forward at any speed i want to go. we'll have to be careful or it will wreck us, but--maybe after we know what we are doing we can build a space ship!" well, to cut a long story short, two days later mallory, the biochemist, jud taylor, and i were speeding along the state highway with the needle hovering around eighty-five, the engine out of gear and dead, and a crazy bit of silver stuff encased in a special frame in the dashboard with reinforcing bars down to the chassis holding it steady. it took two of us to drive the car, though, because one of us had to drive and the other concentrate on the stuff. jud had named the stuff "tellepan" before he showed it to me that noon, but i pointed out that tellepan sounded too much like japanese for turtle, so he renamed it "tellecarbon." mallory had been wracking his brains trying to figure the chemical composition of the stuff, but all he had found out was that the stuff could not absorb any heat whatever, nor emit any, it had any weight you wanted to give it, and when left alone assumed any weight it seemed to fancy at the moment. moreover, no reagent could touch it. even aqua regia and hydrofluoric acid couldn't touch it. it could be manipulated like putty and molded into any shape with a little persuasion; it always remained the same bright silver color, and it seemed to be the connecting link between gravity and thought. mallory even got some more bottles of the chemicals he had spilled and spilled them over again, cleaning them up and putting some alcohol in the mess like he had done the first time, but no more tellecarbon appeared. we finally had to face the facts. tellecarbon was some complex hydro-carbon because all of its basic constituents were hydro-carbons. we had the only bit of it in existence and no more could be made. * * * * * after we had driven for a couple of hours, jud changed his thought to something else and we came to a halt on the highway. no one was in sight so we decided to try our second experiment. for that i had to do the thinking because none of jud's thoughts seemed to work in the attempts we had made in the laboratory. i brought to my mind's eye the image of a chicken with its neck being wrung. then made it two of them. the car rose slowly off the ground. then jud thought his thoughts that made it move forward. by regulating the number of dying chickens in my thoughts i could cause the car to rise or sink at will. soon we were quite high, or at least mallory said we were. i looked out of the window to see and the car started to hurtle to the ground. it scared me so much that i almost couldn't calm my mind enough to think of chickens, but finally made it just in time. by a supreme effort of will i managed to get the car down safely on the highway again. then i gave in to my emotions and shook like a leaf. we had had enough for the day, so we covered up the tellecarbon and started the motor, getting back to the u at dusk. when we alighted from the car in front of the boarding house in which mallory and i stayed, we were still a little shaky over our narrow escape. we stood on the sidewalk by the car for a moment trying to decide whether to go up to my room, to mallory's or down the street a block to jud's house. we compromised on pokey's malt shop at the corner and finally settled with a sigh of relief in a booth way at the back. with a round of black coffee in front of us we settled down to business. nothing less than a space ship would do. here in our hands, or rather out in my car, we had the secret of untold power. with that little hunk of tellecarbon and a certain amount of concentration on it we could travel to mars and back like nothing flat. during summer vacation for the last two years mallory and i had worked in the shipyards and gained practical experience in welding, boilermaking and sheetmetal work. the two of us could build a small space ship by ourselves. all that would be necessary would be to make it airtight, with enough insulation to keep our heat from radiating into space. the rest of the problem involved only ordering stuff from catalogues. carbon dioxide absorbers, tanks of oxygen, food, various instruments, and so on. that would be jud's work. just as we were finishing our coffees, lahoma rice, the secretary in the dean's office, came in and discovered us. mallory and i had been more or less competing for her affections for some time. it was the only thing that had ever come between us in our years at college together and the years since then. we both tried to keep it on a friendly basis, but underneath it had become pretty serious. when we saw her coming jud whispered quickly, "keep quiet about all this in front of her. we don't want anybody to know about our amazing discovery at this early date." coming over, she slid into the booth beside jud and flashed a smile at me and mallory. "well, what's all the hush-hush about?" "oh, nothing," answered mallory, looking completely unconcerned. "ha, ha. that's right. absolutely nothing at all," i echoed, to make it more convincing. but somehow it didn't sound quite as convincing as i had intended. even i noticed that at once, and a secret dangled before the nose of a woman. it awoke in her an undefeatable urge. before we could rally our forces she was in on the secret and determined to go with us when we went to mars. "but lahoma," mallory desperately pleaded, "you don't need to come along. i'll be all right." "i wasn't thinking of you," lahoma retorted icily, and although she did not look at me as she said that, my heart quickened its tempo at the hidden inference in her words. so it was settled. the four of us were to go as soon as school let out the next summer. during the winter mallory and i would build the space ship in the old boat house down on the beach just a few blocks from the campus. * * * * * it was really fun that winter, working late into the night putting the space ship together. our crowning achievement was retractible wings for steering the ship in atmosphere. in space, of course, steering would have to be done by small steering rockets. the main drive force, though, would be the missing link, as we had been calling it all winter. came the spring, as somebody in the english department might say, and the ship was complete. during the spring months we used the last of our joint resources to stock it with all sorts of things, including seeds for planting, in case we could not get back, or didn't want to come back. our final load, at the end of the school year, was books. nothing but books, and literally tons of them on everything from languages to philosophy, from farming to the bessemer process. then we were ready. during the winter we had all read everything we could get on interplanetary travel. most of it was, of course, fiction, but each author had his own little idea that we could consider, so that by the time we were ready to shove off we had a fairly complete grasp of every problem we could possibly encounter--or so we fondly hoped. the ship was cigar-shaped, about eighty feet long and twenty feet in diameter. it had been built so that in space, away from gravity, we could start it spinning with the small rockets and use centrifugal force to keep us on the deck, which lined the shell. there were ballast tanks to keep one side down when in a gravity field, the water ballast being transferred to the center tube tank before the spin was started, to transfer the center of mass of the ship to the axis of rotation. we started early in the evening, heading into the east to take advantage of the thousand-mile-an-hour speed of the earth's surface. the missing link, the hunk of tellecarbon, was encased in a polished brass case in the exact center of gravity of the ship, strong girders connecting it to the shell. a sound-proof booth surrounded it in which the operator would not be distracted. a panel of signal lights was immediately below it where the operator could see it without taking his eyes off the tellecarbon. when we took off i was in the driver's seat, lahoma standing beside me. we had found that when she thought of hamburger sandwiches the tellecarbon became antigravitational, just as when i thought of chickens being killed. it took the combined power of our thoughts to lift the ship. as we found out later, the ship rose sluggishly from the water and floated erratically upward, reaching the stratosphere in a little over an hour. by midnight we were over two thousand miles above the earth's surface and rising more and more rapidly. by then both of us were exhausted and spelling each other off every ten minutes. jud was constantly determining our position and speed. at two o'clock in the morning he relieved lahoma and concentrated on the tellecarbon to give us more forward speed. by eight o'clock in the morning our speed and direction of travel were correct for escape from the earth's gravity field toward the planet mars, and i crawled out of the control booth, practically a wreck. * * * * * from there on it was smooth sailing. we would coast along for two months before nearing mars, and play with the gadgets we had brought along for taking all sorts of measurements in outer space. space is very different than most writers picture it. instead of being dark it is intensely bright in all directions. it was fortunate that we had movable dark shields on each porthole. by varying the number over a porthole we could block out most of the light and keep our objective in view. our most amazing discovery was that the temperature of interplanetary space is not absolutely zero. our outside thermostat, carefully shielded against all rays, that is, infrared, visible, and ultraviolet, and in the vacuum of space, showed a constant temperature of minus one hundred and three degrees f. at all times in outer space. jud explained that this was probably due to x-rays and cosmic rays which could penetrate the protective shield. on the fifty-eighth day after leaving the earth, jud, at the forward telescope, became suddenly excited. dashing from the telescope to the chart table he began scribbling figures, ignoring our queries as to what was wrong. after fifteen minutes of figuring he straightened up, a worried frown on his face. muttering, "i was afraid of that," he brushed by us to the control booth and slammed the door behind him. a half-hour later he came out and again went to the telescope. glancing through it, he made adjustments and then read them. dashing back to the table he again scribbled some figures. when he had finished he stood there, his head bowed, staring at them. then he looked up at our faces and said solemnly, "what i have been fearing in the back of my mind has happened. the tellecarbon no longer responds to mental suggestion. it has taken over control of the ship itself and, judging from our present course, we aren't going to ever get to mars." "what do you mean?" lahoma asked. "i mean," jud answered slowly, "that at present we have a velocity great enough to escape from the solar system and that it is increasing every moment. furthermore, a half-hour of concentration on the tellecarbon has not altered our course in the slightest. wherever we are headed, it is not any planet in this system!" * * * * * the effect of his words cannot be imagined by anyone not in the position we were in. we stood there stunned. our little, spinning world of iron and steel kept on spinning. our gravity, which we had become accustomed to, was different in many ways than flat gravity. for example, our floor was curved, yet a dime dropped on it would roll in any direction along the curve just like it was a flat surface. but something near the center tube of the ship was practically weightless. so the center of gravity of our bodies was not the same as its center of mass. this made itself felt in thousands of little things. heart action, sense of balance, and even in walking. picture, if you can, jud standing several feet from me, his body forming an angle of about thirty degrees with mine, both of our bodies erect, our expressions serious. picture also lahoma and mallory, their bodies at still different angles. throw in the absolute silence of that moment. not a single sound except our breathing, not even a creak from the ship. if there had only been a cricket to chirp, or a snake, or a fly buzzing, to make it seem like good old terra firma--but there was only the interstellar silence and the absolute lack of vibration in the air and the ship. and nearly two months of it, soaked into the marrow of our bones. i for one would have welcomed a hit against the hull at that moment to take us out of ourselves and make us fight for our existence. anything except the silent impersonal inexorableness of the lonely universe. in ten more months our food would be exhausted. in two years our air could no longer be renewed because the chemicals which renewed it would be no good. our water supply would last forever, with the system of recovery by distillation we had set up. but what is a year's food supply? if we tossed the tellecarbon out into the void and rode free it would be hundreds of years before our ship again entered the solar system in its long ellipse. and if we kept the tellecarbon in the ship, in another week even that hope would be gone. we could never return! unless we could regain control of the tellecarbon. lahoma voiced the question that came to all our minds at the same time. "what could possibly be the cause of the change in the tellecarbon?" and none of us had an answer. but that was the key to our salvation. if we could regain control of the tellecarbon we could at least return to earth and give up our grand plans of exploration and discovery. not a one of us would have been unwilling to return to good old pu at that moment and stay there, living our humdrum lives for the rest of our days! "we'd better get busy," i said, taking the initiative. "we must cut a bit of the tellecarbon off the parent chunk and experiment with it. we must also keep constant check on our course to find out just what accelerating force is now acting, and whether it changes any. and we must all think of everything we can that might be the cause of this revolt of the tellecarbon." * * * * * suiting my actions to my words i got a wood chisel out of the tool locker and went into the booth, going to work on the missing link. to my surprise i had no trouble obtaining a thin slice of the silvery stuff. it lay in my hand, apparently as tame as any other substance. i carried it out of the booth and laid it on the desk. the four of us stood looking at it. suddenly it jumped forward and plastered itself against the forward porthole frame. we felt a slight lurch. the ship was gaining speed! what had happened? in all our experience with the stuff it worked only by thought. it had jumped forward, and the lurch of the ship told us that the parent chunk as well as the sliver had acted together! only one thing could account for that. some intelligence was controlling it. some intelligence so powerful that it could reach across space and blank out our control completely, taking over the direction of our ship! we crowded around the forward porthole and peered out. somewhere, far ahead, was our destination. and at our destination some creature of vast mental power was aware of our presence. was forcing us to come to it. we were all aware of that without speaking. suddenly lahoma began to laugh hysterically. the insane noise shattered the silence with painful abruptness. i grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. her laughter changed to sobs. and now the acceleration of the ship had become so great that it was hard to stand erect. the rubber soles of our shoes was all that kept us from sliding to the stern of the ship. lahoma got hold of herself by a tremendous effort, and shook off my arm which i had placed around her to keep her from falling. "look," she said to us, "maybe there isn't any super intelligence sucking us into outer space. maybe it's our own thoughts. i don't know how the rest of you have been feeling, but for several days now i have had a fear of outer space that has been growing simply terrific. something like the fear of falling as you look over the edge of a cliff. could that have anything to do with what's going on?" "maybe that's it!" jud exclaimed. "we don't know half enough about this stuff. it could be that such a fear would make it do the very thing feared." as if in answer, the ship stopped accelerating. "that must be it!" mallory shouted. "we have a clue i hadn't thought of," jud added. looking at me he went on, "when you think of a chicken with its head being wrung, what thought goes with it?" "why," i hesitated, "i think of a swell chicken dinner." "i think of how awful it is to kill!" jud exclaimed. "it doesn't react to the idea but to the emotion." we experimented from that basis--without result. the tellecarbon was in complete revolt. it paid no attention to us. * * * * * two more days and we had to admit we were licked. jud voiced what we had all begun to suspect. "the tellecarbon must have developed a mind of its own," he said dispiritedly. "we should have taken that into account. it reacts to thought, so undoubtedly it has a few of the properties of the mind. what we must try to do now is reason with it--try to find out why it has become uncooperative. let's all concentrate on that question and direct it at the tellecarbon and see what happens." we tried it. nothing seemed to happen for quite a while. "an idea just came into my mind," lahoma said suddenly. "it's absurd. i just thought, 'suppose there is another chunk of tellecarbon out here and our chunk is lonesome?' the way it has been cruising around the past few days and ignoring us, it might have sensed another piece like it out here and be looking for it!" "that's funny," i spoke up. "the thought just occurred to me too!" "me too," mallory exclaimed. "then it must be so," jud said. "obviously the thought came from the tellecarbon in reply to our question!" "but how can it think?" mallory questioned. "after all it was precipitated as a fine film, and you can quash it and even slice it up without any trouble." "in science," jud said, "you don't try to argue away facts. you accept the facts and go on from there." "let's go on from there, then," lahoma spoke up. "tillie--we might as well call her that now that we know she, the tellecarbon, you know, thinks--is looking for a companion. we might as well help her look." "how do you know it isn't a him?" i asked. "oh, just a feeling," lahoma replied. "oh, fine," mallory groaned. "we should have suspected it was a female the way it started galivanting all over the solar system." "so that's the way you think of us females, mallory!" lahoma exclaimed angrily. i smiled to myself. a few more remarks like that from mallory and i would have the field to myself. if we ever got back to the earth, which i doubted. secretly i agreed with mallory. if the chunk of tellecarbon was a female we had much less of a chance than if it were a male or an it. jud went to the telescope and started looking for a stray chunk of silvery looking stuff. an air of semi-hopelessness began to settle over all of us. the chances of finding such a thing were extremely slim. almost at once, though, jud let out an exclamation of triumph. we rushed to his side and took turns looking into the telescope. there, less than a quarter of a mile ahead of us, was something that flashed with silvery brilliance like the belly of a trout in a clear stream. we followed the flashes and soon figured out that tillie was not searching for her companion, but had found him long ago and was, female like, pursuing him! * * * * * when the distance between them shortened, the silvery chunk ahead of us speeded up. when the distance between us increased, it slowed down again. it was obviously enjoying the chase. "this could go on forever," mallory groaned, sticking his foot in his mouth again. lahoma ignored the opening. "it's obvious what we must do," she said, sounding quite capable. "tillie needs a little advice on love making. i'm quite sure that oscar, or whatever his name is, would pursue tillie if she stopped chasing him. we've got to convince her of that and get her to try it." evidently she didn't need convincing. she got the idea direct from lahoma and acted on it. the silver flash ahead swung away. half an hour later it showed up in the stern telescope. this seemed to delight tillie, the tellecarbon, no end. she cavorted about like a drunken puppy, giving us all a bad case of sea sickness. "now," lahoma gasped. "we must coax tillie into setting us back on earth. i don't know how you men feel, but i would be quite willing to turn tillie loose so she could join her mate--once we were safely home." "but if we did that we wouldn't be able to explore the solar system!" jud exclaimed. "and if we don't we'll probably wind up flattened against some asteroid as soon as tillie decides to break out of her shell," lahoma snapped. i blanched at the thought. mallory's knees buckled and he sat down on the floor weakly. jud himself swayed a little. that eventuality just hadn't occurred to us before. obviously tillie would get tired of the chase and want to settle down and get cozy some day. if she hadn't acquired the idea from us she might figure it out by herself and dash us against some jagged bit of space rock. "all right. all right," jud said weakly. "let's see if we can talk tillie into taking us back home in exchange for her freedom. as an arguing point you might all visualize the smashed ship, with her still imprisoned and all of us dead and unable to help free her." an invisible hand seemed to push us to the back of the ship. we were picking up speed faster than we ever had before. [illustration: the blob of metal clung to the space ship's trail like a pursuing nemesis.] i slowly climbed to the forward telescope and looked through it. dead center was a small twinkling earth with the moon hovering near it. i informed the rest. they shouted with relief. we were on our way home! the stern telescope showed the other piece of tellecarbon following us--almost sniffing at our heels. it held there, day after day, while the earth grew larger and larger. * * * * * at the last jud stood at the telescope and directed us in. after circling about ten thousand miles up until puget sound was directly below us, tillie dipped down in obedience to his unspoken command. the whistling sound of atmosphere on the shell was the sweetest music ever played by gods or men! we landed on puget sound opposite the campus. the minute we touched shore i took a wrench and unscrewed the framework that held the tellecarbon in place in the center tube. i could feel a rapid, excited vibration as it waited--i mean she. no sooner was the last bolt loosened than she darted away. she almost reached the open porthole where mallory had taken his first breath of fresh air when she stopped and returned. tillie, the silvery blob of matter, came back and touched my cheek softly. then she did the same to lahoma. we wasted no time in climbing out of the ship to the shore. there we looked up. far over our heads were two silver flashes of brilliance that zoomed in ever-widening spirals. i felt someone beside me and glanced down. lahoma was standing there. cautiously i put my arm around her waist. with a starry look in her bright eyes as she glanced at me, she twined her arm around me. then we looked up again. far above we saw a wonderful sight. the two silver flashes seemed to come together. there was a blinding light as from a tremendous explosion; but unlike an explosion it remained bright. it was like a morning star--a sun, far, far away. it grew smaller and smaller until at last it seemed just another star twinkling in the heavens. there was an aftermath. we sold the space ship to a ferry boat company and they transformed it into a streamlined excursion boat with a conventional motor to drive it. but that isn't what i'm talking about. lahoma and i got married shortly after. i had sense enough to capitalize on the romance of the tellecarbons and proposed right then and there. she accepted, of course. but it was two years later when our first child was born--little william lawrence. one sunday we were down at the beach strolling along, pushing the go-cart in the twilight. a full moon beamed down upon us and a million stars twinkled in the clear sky. the waves washed with sleepy sounds against the sandy shore and now and then a sea gull came close enough so we could hear the swishing of its wings. into this pleasant scene came a sound--at first so faint it could hardly be heard. it was a shrill scream of some object hurtling through the atmosphere above, almost like the whine of plane struts, only much higher pitched. lahoma and i glanced up. there, far up, something silvery flashed. as our eyes adjusted themselves we saw that there were at least two of them, and they were coming closer. just as they seemed about to crash into the sandy beach they paused. there were two large pieces of silvery substance and five small pieces. they hovered near us, quivering and scintillating. then one of the two larger ones came over and touched my cheek softly. the warmth of its touch was almost human. with coruscating brilliance it left me to pause and touch lahoma's cheek. then it darted down the beach, the other large piece just behind it, and the five little ones trailing along. lahoma put her arm around my waist and looked up into my eyes. and we both chuckled and chuckled and chuckled. transcriber's note: this etext was produced from imagination stories of science and fantasy february . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed. pioneer _by william hardy_ if you could travel through time to a few years hence you'd find a stone monument in honor and memory of a brave deed you may shy away from! * * * * * i didn't much like the way max--that's the guy who trained me--fastened the broad leather straps over my body. there was a smell of nervous excitement in the air and max's hand trembled as he fumbled with the buckles. thinking back on it, the whole morning had been like that. nervous and excited. right after breakfast, max had given me a good bath and loaded me in the car. i always like to ride in the car and this time max even allowed me to stick my head out the window. he doesn't usually let me do that, but i was too engrossed in the exhilarating rush of air to pay any attention to the change of routine. when we drew up in front of a large brick building a multitude of strange and peculiar odors assailed my nose, tantalizingly anonymous. max's big hand caught me before i got halfway through the window. that disgusted me, because i wanted to investigate the funny smells, and i pouted all the way into the building. as the events of the next hour progressed i got madder and madder. first there was the doctor, poking around in my mouth, stabbing my eyes with a blinding beam of light, and prodding and squeezing my body. it reminded me of the day i came to live with max and i was tempted to take a hunk out of this doctor's hand like i did the other one. but max was there and that stopped me. i didn't want to see the hurt look that would come to his eyes every time i did something wrong. after the doctor finished max led me into a gleaming white room where i was surrounded by a gushing mob of women dressed in white uniforms. their "ohs!" and "ahs!" and "isn't he beautiful!"--i'm not beautiful and i detest the description--put the finishing touch to what had once been a wonderful day. i flopped to the floor, trying to ignore them. then, indignities of indignities, one of the "girls" tried to pick up my eighty pounds of blue-gray masculinity. that was the last straw! i let out a deep-throated growl, and sprang clear of her encircling arms. fangs bared, ears flat against my head, i must have presented a terrifying appearance to the women, because they fled to all corners of the room, squealing and bleating like a bunch of sheep. for the fun of it, i made a short dash at the one who had tried to pick me up. with a high-pitched scream she slumped to the floor in a dead faint. i could hardly keep from laughing as i turned to search for a new victim. about this time max came barging through the door and grabbed me by the scruff of the neck, putting an end to my fun. he wasn't mad, although he pretended to be, and i could detect the humor in his voice while he scolded me. back in the car again, max roared with laughter while patting me on the head and saying, "you old devil, you!" in that special way he has when amused at something i've done. when he finally got control of himself, he started the car and drove in the direction of the funny smells. as the smells got stronger, i began to get uneasy. looking at max, i sensed that he was uneasy too. "what was going on?" i wondered as the car dipped down a ramp and entered a dimly lit cave where the smells became overpowering. the cave was jammed with huge tank-trucks and that was where the strange smells were coming from. i don't know what was in the trucks, but max said something about nitric acid and hydrozine fuel when he noticed my interest in them. leaving the car, we walked down a short passage branching off the cave, climbed a couple flights of stairs and emerged in the bright sunlight. i nearly yipped in surprise as i caught sight of the over-grown thing beside me. it looked for all the world like a giant cigar that had been cut in half and stood on end. there were still three or four trucks around the base of the thing and a kind of fear spread through my mind. the magic of the strange smells was gone and here, at close quarters, the smell was raw and uninviting. * * * * * max led me to a group of men and they talked for a few minutes. i didn't pay much attention to what they said until one of them, a big man with a lot of stars on his shoulder, reached down and patted my back. "better get him loaded," said the starman. "only ten minutes till blast-off." max led me to a kind of open-air elevator and started up the side of the gleaming monster. at the top max put me into a padded cage inside the cigar, fastened the straps, and patted me. then he was gone and a large door slid into place, leaving me in vile smelling, pitch darkness. i lay there quietly, but the uneasy feeling kept getting worse. a sudden hissing noise nearly scared me to death; then i remembered my training. the hissing was only air, the same as had been in the cage at home, and wouldn't hurt me. even so, i struggled against the straps, trying to reach them with my teeth. nothing doing and again i lay quiet--waiting. i must have dozed off because the next thing i knew my cage was trembling violently and a powerful roaring dinned in my ears. this lasted only a second, then something crushed my body flat in the cage. my legs grew heavy and a racking, tearing pain ripped at my muscles. a black film blotted out the lighter blackness of my cage. i don't know what happened in the interval, but when i came to the roar was gone and my body felt like it was floating in the air. my head felt swollen and i experienced some difficulty in swallowing. i couldn't hear a thing except the hiss of air and i was suddenly overcome by the feeling that i was a long way from home. slowly i became aware that my body was regaining its weight. the cage was becoming quite warm now and i licked my nose, wishing for a cold drink of water. suddenly i was jerked against the straps and i forgot all about my other troubles. the jerks didn't hurt me as much as they scared me. i had experienced somewhat the same thing when max hit the car brakes hard, but he wasn't here to pat me reassuringly. the cage was getting real hot now and the jerks were coming with increasing frequency. the air had stopped too and i desperately wanted a drink. the last thing i remember before the crash was wishing that max would open the door and let me out like he always had at home. max's gentle voice sounded a long way off. "good boy!" he kept repeating. "good boy!" i couldn't find the strength to open my eyes so i just lay quietly and listened to the talk, thankful that the smell, that had penetrated the entire day, was gone now. "i was afraid that those parachutes wouldn't cut the speed enough to get him down alive," said the starman who had patted my back earlier. "no sign of radiation," said a strange voice. "his blood count is normal and he isn't hurt physically unless there are internal injuries." "what about his weakness?" asked max, patting me. "you'd be weak too, if you had been through the ordeal he has," said strange-voice. "he'll get over that soon and live to father a good many space-puppies." strange-voice was absolutely right in his forecast and it's with pardonable fatherly pride that i lead each new family to the great stone monument which reads: "_in honor of rex, a german shepherd dog, who pioneered man's first flight into outer space._" * * * * * suzy by watson parker [transcriber note: this etext was produced from amazing stories march . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] [sidenote: her voice was his only link with sanity. it was a beautiful voice. he never really thought what she might be.] "suzy, suzy, suzy!" whit clayborne looked at the luminous face of the bulkhead clock for the hundredth time that day. sweat started out on his forehead, and he gripped his face with a convulsed hand, moaning in helpless anguish. "suzy, suzy, suzy!" the clock clicked impersonally in the darkness, and whit moaned again. the cold. the darkness. the quiet. and the solitude. but there was always suzy, linking him to the earth so many miles away. "one hundred and forty-three days out, four hundred and seven to go." the ritual of the report, designed to keep him thinking, day after day. "nothing to report, sir, all equipment functioning. all graphs tracking. no abnormality of any kind. my health is good...." in four hundred and seven days they would bring him down, nearly mad, nearly dead, but his records well made on earth, and the record was what counted. five hundred and fifty days in an observation capsule, the economical human machine that did the work of fifty tons of unprojectable electronic equipment. five hundred and fifty days of cold and quiet and solitude. the first eight men had died in the cold and loneliness of space, until they thought of suzy, there in the wac manned offices at point magu. "suzy! my god, suzy, where are you?" whit could stand the waiting until the time came close, then his mind would give away until her voice, bridging the space void came to him and brought him peace. "whit? whit, wake up, in case you're asleep. it's me, it's suzy." "asleep! you know i'm not asleep! you know i stay awake for you! i'll always be awake, suzy. i wouldn't miss a minute with you, not a second." "gee, whit, you're nice. you're awful nice." "suzy, for the hundredth time, will you marry me?" "aw, whit, you know i can't. you know they made me promise that before i took the job." "promise to be a talking floozy to fifty men in space, to hold 'em all at arm's length, let 'em love you, then leave 'em in the cold when they came back down to earth. they made you promise to keep us stringing along, until we got back home safe and sound, then turn us loose with our love for you burning a hole in our hearts! they made you promise a thing like that, suzy? "you can't handle the merchandise, whit. when you come down, then we'll talk over things together." "suzy, i love you, i love you!" "i mustn't say that i love you too, whit. they made me promise that i wouldn't say that. but whit, you're awful nice." * * * * * whit sat silent, and suzy kept on talking. she could always talk. no matter what you said to her, no matter how you felt, no matter where you were, suzy could always talk to you and make your life seem brighter, and the trip back home again worth fighting to make. you fell in love with suzy, they all did, but as she always said, they made her promise not to say she loved you back. not until you got back home, safe and sound and sane. that was suzy's job on earth, in a drab little office with an engineer who controlled her channels, and sometimes blushed at what he heard go out over them. she spoke, sometimes gaily, sometimes gently, sometimes with all the frail strength of her body, into a microphone beamed to each capsule in turn, and in those capsules were men, who, but for her, would go mad before their time was up. and suzy never cheated, and she never lied, and she never changed. she was the love light of outer space, she and a dozen others at point magu. she kept men sane, and she brought them home, and she kept her promise never to love and never to marry until they came back again. "whit? what we were talking about yesterday. did you think about that?" "you mean about the gardenias?" "umhummm. my gardenias, to pin on my blouse." "suzy, i'll bring you a thousand, one each day, until you say you love me. i'm drawing them now, on paper, one every day, for you." "aw, whit, you're awful nice." then, after frantic good-byes, shouting, screaming, pounding on the microphone, hoping that the dead metal would somehow speak once more, whit would settle back for another day's dreaming of suzy, while he kept his tiny house-in-space, read his little gauges, and kept his dreams alive. it was only in the afternoon that madness came too close, and in the power-saving darkness he raged and cursed and pled and begged, until suzy's voice came winging out of space to comfort him for another day, when they talked of all the beautiful things that people talk about when there is love between them. * * * * * for suzy loved her men, all seven of them. to know them well, to listen time and again to their recorded conversations, to pick out points that were worth repeating, to avoid the subjects that depressed them, to say what would bring them home in love with her was a pleasure to her, and she worked hard at the job. all alone, late into the night, suzy would sit in her little office, listening to her records, and planning the next day's battle for the sanity of her men. "now al," she'd muse, "he'll want to know how that recipe came out, the one with the mushrooms. poor guy, he does like to eat. i'll tell him about the party i went to with sheila, and how she ate up all the rum cakes and could hardly find her way home again. he'll like that." "and jim. he'd like to have another problem, like the twelve coin one. i wish i had a mind like his. maybe miss graham can find me a book on math problems that a man can do in his head. and i'll tell him how nice it would be to be a professor's wife, and a little college in the north. he doesn't want _me_ yet, but he wants somebody...." "i guess i'll have to talk sex to crazy cat, too. it's about the only thing he likes to think about, and that's my job. i hope he doesn't realize i'm not the hellcat he seems to think i am. maybe some of the girls could give me some ideas he'd like to think about; my dates are pretty dull. they really should have given crazy cat to somebody else. some psychiatrist slipped up there, i guess. but i'll bring him down! i'll bring him down sane if i have to wade in filth up to my eyeballs! that's a joke." "whit's hopeless, he loves me so. i hope he doesn't go off the deep end, and end up whacky. maybe we'll have to relay him some instrument checks, to keep him busy. or maybe, if i told him i'd marry him it would keep him leveled for a while. can't say that too soon, though, or he'd go nuts from jealousy. i guess i'll just have to keep on letting him love me, just being me, just showing him i care about him as much as i can. he's a dear, really." that was the way suzy mused, in her drab little office, after hours, doing her job for her men, her hopes up in the sky where only her voice and her love could reach them. * * * * * miss graham was stiff, and stood tall in her prim tailored suit. her dark man's necktie clashed with her hair and her complexion, but her face was kind and her voice, although firm, was soft and understanding. "suzy, i want to talk to you. don't get up." "yes, miss graham?" "i've been listening to some of your records. some of this stuff you've been putting out is going to make us trouble, you know." "i'm sorry, miss graham. i try to do what i think is best, and you know i spend a lot of time planning. it's too late to shift poor crazy cat to anybody else, and it's the only thing that seems...." "i'm not talking about crazy cat tompkins, suzy," interrupted miss graham. "i'm talking about whit clayborne." "i see. i know i shouldn't have said that i'd marry him, but gosh, he was just about to go to pieces, right while i was talking to him. i could hear him grit his teeth, and i could hear the mike squeak with the grip he had on it. it was awful, miss graham." "couldn't you have waited? you could have asked me what to do, you know. men ask our girls to marry them every day; it isn't as if it was a new problem that we hadn't handled before." "but he needed me, right then. i didn't think he could wait. i _had_ to say i'd marry him, or he'd have been biting pieces out of his mattress." "i know you did your best, suzy. those rules, well, they're not only for his protection, you know. what are you going to do when whit clayborne lands, and comes in here to claim his bride? had you thought of that?" "honestly, miss graham, i didn't think of anything, except that he needed me at the time. but of course i'll let him go. i'd let him go even if the rules didn't say i had to." miss graham's voice was unexpectedly gentle. "you want to get married, don't you? we _could_ break a rule, just this once." "not like that, miss graham. not like that. it wouldn't be fair to hold him to a promise that he made in space. even if you'd let me do it, i wouldn't marry him. i couldn't live with myself. he doesn't know, well, about me. he wouldn't have loved me if i'd told him. he's never seen me; all he's in love with is a voice that understands how to keep him sane. i wouldn't hold him to that promise, miss graham, if he was the last chance to marry that i'd ever have." * * * * * miss graham was silent for a few moments, then turned to the door. "you've figured out how to let him know that you won't marry him?" "i'll tell him when he comes down." "and you think that just telling him will do the trick, suzy?" "the way i'll tell him, it'll stick, oh it'll stick all right." suzy choked off the last words, and blinked back the tears that seemed to come into her eyes. "i'm glad you've got it figured out, dear." miss graham said approvingly. "his orbit got knocked loose somehow, and he'll be in this evening, to talk things over." suzy gasped. "so soon? i mean, well, i've got it sort of figured, but, well," she paused, collecting her thoughts. "as well now as ever, i guess. i'll wait for him." "do you think he'd get violent? i could leave a couple of engineers in the closet, or maybe you'd like to have sheila...." "no, i can handle him, and i'd rather not have sheila here when he comes in. i'll handle him. and thank you, miss graham." the door closed on miss graham's back, and suzy began to think of whit clayborne. * * * * * the door opened slowly, and the pale young airman came into the office on unsteady feet, his hat in his left hand, and a small package tucked under his arm. "is this suzy's office? i mean, will she be in soon? where can i find her?" the questions came eagerly. "i'm suzy." for a minute the words meant nothing to him. he looked, blankly, round the office, then back to the seated figure. "you recognize the voice, don't you, whit?" he gulped, and the expression drained from his face, leaving it blank, and helpless. suzy's heart went out to him, as her voice had gone to him through space. "i know, the wheel chair, the rug to cover my knees, the brace on my arm. there wasn't any other way, whit. i couldn't tell you. my voice, whit, was all that counted, up there. down on earth, other things count, too. forgive me, whit." his head seemed to swim, and his unsteady feet fumbled with the floor as he came to her. "you could have told me. i'd have loved you, i'd have loved you anyway." "would you?" her face turned away from him as he came to her. "would you, whit? would you have stayed alive for a broken girl like me? would you have waited out your trip for the sake of a cripple in a wheel chair? i know you, whit, i know your heart and your soul, and i know you'd have never loved me if i had told you what i was from the beginning." whit didn't speak, and suzy continued. "it was a job for me, whit. i had to bring you down. i lied to you and i deceived you, and now you're free, and you can go away, to live a better life than i can give you." "suzy, you're saying that. you've thought it out, and you've written it down, and it's what you planned to say to me. is it the truth, suzy?" "whit, go away. i've said my piece. i've turned you loose. now go! go away, and don't ever come back to me again." whit's body seemed to straighten up, and he put his little green package down on the desk in front of her, then moved away. "open it up, suzy. it's a gardenia that i brought you. sick or well, crippled or sound, i'll bring you another every day, until you say you love me." then he went away. suzy rose slowly, kicking the rug from her knees. she folded the wheel chair into a compact bundle, and stretching up on her toes, put it back on the highest shelf in the closet. quietly, she put her hat and coat on, and went out of the office, locking the door behind her. the click of her high heels echoed bravely in the silence as she felt her way along the vacant hallway. "sheila, sheila, come to me, girl," she called. the big german shepherd shook herself as she rose from her bed beside the doorway, and with the practiced skill of years brought the handle of her harness beneath her mistress's groping hand. suzy knelt beside the big dog, and put her arms around her furry neck, weeping softly into the thick fur. "sheila, sheila, i think he's going to marry me!" she said. the end thy name is woman by kenneth o'hara illustrated by zimmerman [transcriber note: this etext was produced from if worlds of science fiction march . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] [illustration: _there wasn't a woman left on earth. they had just packed their bags and left._] [sidenote: _women of earth had finally attained their objective: a new world all their own and--without men! but was it?_] after the doctor gave him the hypo and left the ship, bowren lay in absolute darkness wondering when the change would start. there would be pain, the doctor had said. "then you won't be aware of anything--anything at all." that was a devil of a thing, bowren thought, not to be aware of the greatest adventure any man ever had. he, eddie bowren, the first to escape the earth into space, the first man to mars! he was on his back in a small square steel cubicle, a secretly constructed room in the wall of the cargo bin of the big spaceship cradled at the new chicago port. he was not without fear. but before the ship blasted he wouldn't care--he would be changed by then. he would start turning any minute now, becoming something else; he didn't know exactly what, but that wouldn't matter. after it was over, he wouldn't remember because the higher brain centers, the cortex, the analytical mind, would be completely cut off, short-circuited, during the alteration. the cubicle was close, hot, sound-proofed, like a tomb. "you will probably make loud unpleasant noises," the doctor had said, "but no one will hear you. don't worry about anything until you get to mars." that was right, bowren thought. my only problem is to observe, compute, and get back into this dungeon without being observed, and back to earth. the idea was to keep it from the women. the women wouldn't go for this at all. they would object. the women would be able to bring into effect several laws dealing with spaceflight, among them the one against stowaways, and especially that particular one about aberrated males sneaking into space and committing suicide. a lot of men had tried it, in the beginning. some of them had managed it, but they had all died. for a long time, the men's egos hadn't been able to admit that the male organism was incapable of standing the rigors of acceleration. women had had laws passed, and if the women caught him doing this, the punishment would be extreme for him, personally, and a lot more extreme for earth civilization in general. if you could call it a civilization. you could call it anything, bowren groaned--but it didn't make sense. a world without women. a birthrate reduced to zero. a trickle of sweat slid past bowren's eyes, loosening a nervous flush along his back that prickled painfully. his throat was tense and his heart pounded loud in the hot dark. a sharp pain ran up his body and exploded in his head. he tried to swallow, but something gagged in his throat. he was afraid of retching. he lay with his mouth open, spittle dribbling over his lips. the pain returned, hammered at his entrails. he fought the pain numbly, like a man grappling in the dark. the wave subsided and he lay there gasping, his fists clenched. "the pain will come in increasingly powerful waves," the doctor had said. "at a certain point, it will be so great, the analytical mind will completely short-circuit. it will stay that way enroute to mars, and meanwhile your body will rapidly change into that of a beast. don't worry about it. a catalytic agent will return you to normal before you reach the planet. if you live, you'll be human again." * * * * * a male human couldn't stand the acceleration. but a woman could. animals could. they had experimented on human males and animals in the giant centrifuges, and learned what to do. animals could stand "g" consistently, or centrifugal forces as high as revolutions a minute. about "g" was the limit of female endurance. less for men. it had never been thoroughly determined why women had been able to stand higher acceleration. but human females had the same physical advantages over men as female rats, rabbits, and cats over males of the same species. a woman's cellular structure was different; her center of gravity was different, the brain waves given off during acceleration were different. it was suspected that the autonomic nervous system in women could function more freely to protect the body during emergency situations. the only certainty about it was that no man had ever been able to get into space and live. but animals could so they had worked on it and finally they decided to change a man into an animal, at least temporarily. geneticists and biochemists and other specialists had been able to do a lot with hormones and hard radiation treatment. especially with hormones. you could shoot a man full of some fluid or another, and do almost anything to his organism. you could induce atavism, regression to some lower form of animal life--a highly speeded up regression. when you did that, naturally the analytical mind, the higher thought centers of a more recent evolutionary development, blanked out and the primal mind took over. the body changed too, considerably. bowren was changing. then the pain came and he couldn't think. he felt his mind cringing--giving way before the onslaught of the pain. dimly he could feel the agony in his limbs, the throbbing of his heart, the fading power of reason. he retched, languished through flaccid minutes. there were recurring spasms of shivering as he rolled his thickened tongue in the arid cavity of his mouth. and then, somewhere, a spark exploded, and drowned him in a pool of streaming flame. * * * * * consciousness returned slowly--much as it had gone--in waves of pain. it took a long time. elements of reason and unreason fusing through distorted nightmares until he was lying there able to remember, able to wonder, able to think. inside the tiny compartment were supplies. a hypo, glucose, a durolene suit neatly folded which he put on. he gave himself a needle, swallowed the tablets, and waited until energy and a sense of well-being gave him some degree of confidence. it was very still. the ship would be cradled on mars now. he lay there, relaxing, preparing for the real challenge. he thought of how well the earth investigation committee had planned the whole thing. the last desperate attempt of man to get into space--to mars--a woman's world. at least it was supposed to be. whatever it was, it wasn't a man's world. the women didn't want earth anymore. they had something better. but what? there were other questions, and bowren's job was to find the answers, remain unobserved and get back aboard this ship. he would then hypo himself again, and when the ship blasted off to earth, he would go through the same transition all over again. he put on the soft-soled shoes as well as the durolene suit and crawled through the small panel into the big cargo bin. it was empty. only a dim yellow light shone on the big cargo vices along the curved walls. he climbed the ladders slowly, cautiously, through a gnawing silence of suspense, over the mesh grid flooring along the tubular corridors. he wondered what he would find. could the women have been influenced by some alien life form on mars? that could explain the fact that women had divorced themselves completely from all men, from the earth. something had to explain it. there was one other possibility. that the women had found human life on mars. that was a very remote possibility based on the idea that perhaps the solar system had been settled by human beings from outer space, and had landed on two worlds at least. bowren remembered how his wife, lora, had told him he was an idiot and a bore, and had walked out on him five years before; taken her three months course in astrogation, and left earth. he hadn't heard of her or from her since. it was the same with every other man, married or not. the male ego had taken a beating for so long that the results had been psychologically devastating. the ship seemed to be empty of any human being but bowren. he reached the outer lock door. it was ajar. thin cold air came through and sent a chill down his arms, tingling in his fingers. he looked out. it was night on mars, a strange red-tinted night, the double moons throwing streaming color over the land. across the field, he saw the glowing luciferin-like light of a small city. soaring spherical lines. nothing masculine about its architecture. bowren shivered. he climbed down the ladder, the air biting into his lungs. the silence down there on the ground under the ship was intense. he stood there a minute. the first man on mars. man's oldest dream realized. but the great thrill he had anticipated was dulled somewhat by fear. a fear of what the women had become, and of what might have influenced their becoming. he took out a small neurogun and walked. he reached what seemed to be a huge park that seemed to surround the city. it grew warmer and a soft wind whispered through the strange wide-spreading trees and bushes and exotic blossoms. the scent of blossoms drifted on the wind and the sound of running water, of murmuring voices. the park thickened as bowren edged into its dark, languid depth. it seemed as though the city radiated heat. he dodged suddenly behind a tree, knelt down. for an instant he was embarrassed seeing the two shadowy figures in each others arms on a bench in the moonlight. this emotion gave way to shock, anger, fear. one of them was a--man! bowren felt the perspiration start from his face. an intense jealousy surrendered to a start of fearful curiosity. where had the man come from? bowren's long frustration, the memory of his wife, the humiliation, the rejection, the abandonment, the impotent rage of loneliness--it all came back to him. he controlled his emotion somehow. at least he didn't manifest it physically. he crept closer, listened. "this was such a sweet idea," the woman was whispering. "bringing me here to the park tonight. that's why i love you so, marvin. you're always so romantic." "how else could i think of you, darling," the man said. his voice was cultured, precise, soft, thick with emotion. "you're so sweet, marvin." "you're so beautiful, darling. i think of you every minute that you're away on one of those space flights. you women are so wonderful to have conquered space, but sometimes i hate the ships that take you away from me." the woman sighed. "but it's so nice to come back to you. so exciting, so comfortable." the kiss was long and deep. bowren backed away, almost smashing into the tree. he touched his forehead. he was sweating heavily. his beard dripped moisture. there was a hollow panicky feeling in his stomach. now he was confused as well as afraid. another couple was sitting next to a fountain, and a bubbling brook ran past them, singing into the darkness. bowren crouched behind a bush and listened. it might have been the man he had just left, still talking. the voice was slightly different, but the dialogue sounded very much the same. "it must be wonderful to be a woman, dear, and voyage between the stars. but as i say, i'm glad to stay here and tend the home and mind the children, glad to be here, my arms open to you when you come back." "it's so wonderful to know that you care so much. i'm so glad you never let me forget that you love me." "i love you, every minute of every day. just think--two more months and one week and we will have been married ten years." "it's so lovely," she said. "it seems like ten days. like those first thrilling ten days, darling, going over and over again." "i'll always love you, darling." "always?" "always." the man got up, lifted the woman in his arms, held her high. "darling, let's go for a night ride across the desert." "oh, you darling. you always think of these little adventures." "all life with you is an adventure." "but what about little jimmie and janice?" "i've arranged a sitter for them." "but darling--you mean you--oh, you're so wonderful. you think of everything. so practical, yet so romantic ... so--" he kissed her and ran away, holding her high in the air, and her laughter bubbled back to where bowren crouched behind the bush. he kept on crouching there, staring numbly at the vacancy the fleeing couple had left in the shadows. "good god," he whispered. "after ten years--" he shook his head and slowly licked his lips. he'd been married five years. it hadn't been like this. he'd never heard of any marriage maintaining such a crazy high romantic level of manic neuroticism as this for very long. of course the women had always expected it to. but the men-- and anyway--_where did the men come from?_ * * * * * bowren moved down a winding lane between exotic blossoms, through air saturated with the damp scent of night-blooming flowers. he walked cautiously enough, but in a kind of daze, his mind spinning. the appearance of those men remained in his mind. when he closed his eyes for a moment, he could see them. perfectly groomed, impeccably dressed, smiling, vital, bronze-skinned, delicate, yet strong features; the kind of male who might be considered, bowren thought, to be able to assert just the right degree of aggressiveness without being indelicate. why, he thought, they've found perfect men, their type of men. he dodged behind a tree. here it was again. same play, same scene practically, only the players were two other people. a couple standing arm in arm beside a big pool full of weird darting fish and throwing upward a subdued bluish light. music drifted along the warm currents of air. the couple were silhouetted by the indirect light. the pose is perfect, he thought. the setting is perfect. "you're so wonderful, darling," the man was saying, "and i get so lonely without you. i always see your face, hear your voice, no matter how long you're away." "do you? do you?" "always. your hair so red, so dark it seems black in certain lights. your eyes so slanted, so dark a green they seem black usually too. your nose so straight, the nostrils flaring slightly, the least bit too much sometimes. your mouth so red and full. your skin so smooth and dark. and you're ageless, darling. being married to you five years, it's one exciting adventure." "i love you so," she said. "you're everything any woman could want in a husband. simply everything, yet you're so modest with it all. i still remember how it used to be. back there ... with the other men i mean?" "you should forget about _them_, my dear." "i'm forgetting, slowly though. it may take a long time to forget completely. oh, he was such an unpleasant person, so uninteresting after a while. so inconsiderate, so self-centered. he wasn't romantic at all. he never said he loved me, and when he kissed me it was mere routine. he never thought about anything but his work, and when he did come home at night, he would yell at me about not having ordered the right dinner from the cafelator. he didn't care whether he used hair remover on his face in the mornings or not. he was surly and sullen and selfish. but i could have forgiven everything else if he had only told me every day that he loved me, that he could never love anyone else. the things that you do and say, darling." "i love you," he said. "i love you, i love you. but please, let's not talk about _him_ anymore. it simply horrifies me!" bowren felt the sudden sickening throbbing of his stomach. the description. now the slight familiarity of voice. and then he heard the man say, murmuring, "lois ... darling lois...." lois! lois! bowren shivered. his jowls darkened, his mouth pressed thin by the powerful clamp of his jaws. his body seemed to loosen all over and he fell into a crouch. tiredness and torn nerves and long-suppressed emotion throbbed in him, and all the rage and suppression and frustration came back in a wave. he yelled. it was more of a sound, a harsh prolonged animal roar of pain and rage and humiliation. "lois ..." he ran forward. she gasped, sank away as bowren hit the man, hard. the man sighed and gyrated swinging his arms, teetering and flipped backward into the pool among the lights and the weird fish. a spray of cold water struck bowren, sobering him a little, sobered his burst of mindless passion enough that he could hear the shouts of alarm ringing through the trees. he turned desperately. lois cringed. he scarcely remembered her now, he realized. she was different. he had forgotten everything except an image that had changed with longing. she hadn't been too impressive anyway, maybe, or maybe she had. it didn't matter now. he tried to run, tried to get away. he heard lois' voice, high and shrill. figures closed in around him. he fought, desperately. he put a few temporarily out of the way with the neurogun, but there were always more. men, men everywhere. hundreds of men where there should be no men at all. well-groomed, strong, bronzed, ever-smiling men. it gave him intense pleasure to crack off a few of the smiles. to hurl the gun, smash with his fists. then the men were swarming all over him, the clean faces, the smiling fragrant men, and he went down under the weight of men. he tried to move. a blow fell hard and his head smashed against the rocks. he tried to rise up, and other blows beat him down and he was glad about the darkness, not because it relieved the pain, but because it curtained off the faces of men. * * * * * after a time it was as though he was being carried through a dim half-consciousness, able to think, too tired to move or open his eyes. he remembered how the men of earth had rationalized a long time, making a joke out of it. laughing when they hadn't wanted to laugh, but to hate. it had never been humorous. it had been a war between the sexes, and the women had finally won, destroying the men psychologically, the race physically. somehow they had managed to go on with a culture of their own. the war between the sexes had never really been a joke. it had been deadly serious, right from the beginning of the militant feminist movements, long before the last big war. there had always been basic psychological and physiological differences. but woman had refused to admit this, and had tried to be the "equal" if not the better of men. for so long woman had made it strictly competitive, and in her subconscious mind she had regarded men as wonderful creatures, capable of practically anything, and that woman could do nothing better than to emulate them in every possible way. there was no such thing as a woman's role unless it had been the same as a man's. that had gone on a long time. and it hadn't been a joke at all. how ironic it was, there at the last! all of man's work through the ages had been aimed at the stars. and the women had assumed the final phase of conquest! for a long time women had been revolting against the masculine symbols, the levers, pistons, bombs, torpedoes and hammers, all manifestations of man's whole activity of overt, aggressive power. the big h-bombs of the last great war had seemed to be man's final symbol, destructive. and after that, the spaceships, puncturing space, roaring outward, the ultimate masculine symbol of which men had dreamed for so long, and which women had envied. and then only the women could stand the acceleration. it was a physiological fact. nothing could change it. nothing but what they had done to bowren. all of man's evolutionary struggle, and the women had assumed the climax, assumed all the past wrapped up in the end, usurped the effect, and thereby psychologically assuming also all the thousands of years of causation. for being held down, being made neurotic by frustration and the impossibility of being the "equal" of men, because they were fundamentally psychologically and physiologically different, women had taken to space with an age-old vengeance. personal ego salvation. but they hadn't stopped there. what had they done? what about the men? a man for every woman, yet no men from earth. that much bowren knew. native martians? what? he had been transported somewhere in a car of some kind. he didn't bother to be interested. he couldn't get away. he was held fast. he refused to open his eyes because he didn't want to see the men who held him, the men who had replaced him and every other man on earth. the men who were destroying the civilization of earth. the gimmicks whereby the women had rejected earth and left it to wither and die in neglect and bitter, bitter wonderment. he was tired, very tired. the movement of the car lulled him, and he drifted into sleep. he opened his eyes and slowly looked around. pretty pastel ceiling. a big room, beautiful and softly furnished, with a marked absence of metal, of shiny chrome, of harshness or brittle angles. it was something of an office, too, with a desk that was not at all business-like, but still a desk. a warm glow suffused the room, and the air was pleasantly scented with natural smelling perfumes. a woman stood in the middle of the room studying him with detached interest. she was beautiful, but in a hard, mature, withdrawn way. she was dark, her eyes large, liquid black and dominating her rather small sharply-sculptured face. her mouth was large, deeply red. she had a strong mouth. he looked at her a while. he felt only a deep, bitter resentment. he felt good though, physically. he had probably been given something, an injection. he sat up. then he got to his feet. she kept on studying him. "a change of clothes, dry detergent, and hair remover for your face are in there, through that door," she said. he said: "right now i'd rather talk." "but don't you want to take off that awful--beard?" "the devil with it! is that so important? it's natural isn't it for a man to have hair on his face? i like hair on my face." she opened her mouth a little and stepped back a few steps. "and anyway, what could be less important right now than the way i look?" "i'm--i'm gloria munsel," she said hesitantly. "i'm president of the city here. and what is your name, please?" "eddie bowren. what are you going to do with me?" she shrugged. "you act like a mad man. i'd almost forgotten what you men of earth were like. i was pretty young then. well, frankly, i don't know what we're going to do with you. no precedent for the situation. no laws concerning it. it'll be up to the council." "it won't be pleasant for me," he said, "i can be safe in assuming that." she shrugged again and crossed her arms. he managed to control his emotions somehow as he looked at the smooth lines of her body under the long clinging gown. she was so damn beautiful! a high proud body in a smooth pink gown, dark hair streaming back and shiny and soft. * * * * * it was torture. it had been for a long time, for him, for all the others. "let me out of here!" he yelled harshly. "put me in a room by myself!" she moved closer to him and looked into his face. the fragrance of her hair, the warmth of her reached out to him. somehow, he never knew how, he managed to grin. he felt the sweat running down his dirty, bearded, battered face. his suit was torn and dirty. he could smell himself, the stale sweat, the filth. he could feel his hair, shaggy and long, down his neck, over his ears. her lips were slightly parted, and wet, and she had a funny dark look in her eyes, he thought. she turned quickly as the door opened, and a man came in. he was only slightly taller than gloria and he nodded, smiled brightly, bowed a little, moved forward. he carried a big bouquet of flowers and presented them to her. she took the flowers, smiled, thanked him, and put them on the table. the man said. "so sorry, darling, to intrude. but i felt i had to see you for a few minutes. i left the children with john, and dashed right up here. i thought we might have lunch together." "you're so thoughtful, dear," she said. the man turned a distasteful look upon bowren. he said. "my dear, what is _this_?" "a man," she said, and then added. "from earth." "what? good grief, you mean they've found a way--?" "i don't know. you'd better go back home and tend the yard today, dale. i'll tell you all about it when i come home this evening. all right?" "well i--oh, oh yes, of course, if you say so, darling." "thank you, dear." she kissed him and he bowed out. she turned and walked back toward bowren. "tell me," she said. "how did you get here alive?" why not tell her? he was helpless here. they'd find out anyway, as soon as they got back to earth on the cargo run. and even if they didn't find out, that wouldn't matter either. they would be on guard from now on. no man would do again what bowren had done. the only chance would be to build secret spaceships of their own and every time one blasted, have every member of the crew go through what bowren had. it couldn't last. too much injury and shock. as he talked he studied the office, and he thought of other things. an office that was like a big beautiful living room. a thoroughly feminine office. nor was it the type of office a woman would fix for a man. it was a woman's office. everything, the whole culture here, was feminine. when he had finished she said, "interesting. it must have been a very unpleasant experience for you." he grinned. "i suffered. but even though i've failed, it's worth all the suffering, if you'll tell me--where did all the ah--men come from?" she told him. it was, to say the least, startling, and then upon reflection, he realized how simple it all was. no aliens. no native martians. a very simple and thoroughly logical solution, and in a way, typically feminine. hormone treatment and genetic manipulation, plus a thorough reconditioning while the treatment was taking place. _and the women had simply turned approximately half of their number into men!_ she paused, then went on. "it was the only way we could see it, mr. bowren. earth was a man's world, and we could never have belonged in it, not the way we wanted to. men wouldn't stand it anyway, down there, having us going into space, usurping their masculine role. and anyway--you men of earth had become so utterly unsatisfactory as companions, lovers, and husbands, that it was obvious nothing could ever be done about it. not unless we set up our own culture, our own civilization, our way." "but meanwhile we die down there," bowren said. "logic is nice. but mass murder, and the death of a whole world civilization seems pretty cold from where i'm standing. it's pathological, but it's too late to think about that. it's done now." "but we're happy here," she said. "for the first time in a long, long time, we women feel like ourselves. we feel truly independent. the men around us are the kind of men we want, instead of us being what they want us to be, or even worse, the men being what we want them to be but resenting it and making life unbearable for both. all through the process of being changed into men, our women undergo such a thorough conditioning that they can never be anything else but model men in every sense. their attitude as women with which they started treatment helped. they knew what they wanted in men, and they became what we wanted them to be, as men." "very logical," bowren said. "it smells to heaven it's so logical." it was purely impulse, what he did then. he couldn't help it. it wasn't logical either. it was emotional and he did it because he had to do it and because he didn't see any reason why he shouldn't. he put his arm out suddenly, hooked her slim waist, and pulled her to him. her face flushed and his eyes were very wide and dark as she looked up at him. "listen," he said. "the whole thing's insane. the lot of you are mad, and though i can't help it, i hate to see it happen this way. what kind of men are these? these smiling robots, these goons who are nothing else but reflections in a woman's mirror? who'd want to be a man like that. who would really want a man like that? and who would want a woman who was just what a man wanted her to be? where's the fire? where's the individuality? where's the conflict, the fighting and snarling and raging that makes living. all this is apathy, this is death! you don't grow by being agreeable, but by conflict." "what are you trying to sell now?" she whispered. he laughed. it was wild sounding to him, not very humorous really, but still it was laughter. "selling nothing, buying nothing." he pulled her closer and kissed her. her lips parted slightly and he could feel the warmth of her and the quick drawing of breath. then she pushed him away. she raised her hand and brushed it over his face. she shook her head slowly. "it feels rather interesting," she said, "your face. i've never felt a man's face before, that wasn't smooth, the way it should be." he laughed again, more softly this time. "why reform your men? you women always wanted to do that." "we don't reform men here," she said. "we start them out right--from the beginning." she backed away from him. she raised her hand to her face and her fingers touched her lips. wrinkles appeared between her eyes and she shook her head again. not at him, but at something, a thought perhaps, he couldn't tell. finally she said. "that was an inexcusable, boorish thing to do. a typical thoughtless egomanical earth-male action if there ever was one. our men are all perfect here, and in comparison to them, you're a pretty miserable specimen. i'm glad you showed up here. it's given me, and other women, a good chance for comparison. it makes our men seem so much better even than they were to us before." he didn't say anything. "our men are perfect! perfect you understand? what are you smiling about? their character is good. they're excellent conversationalists, well informed, always attentive, moderate, sympathetic, interested in life, and always interested in _us_." "and i suppose they are also--human?" "this is nonsense," she said, her voice rising slightly. "you will take that door out please. the council will decide what's to be done with you." he nodded, turned, and went through the door. there were two men there waiting for him. they were both blond, with light blue eyes, just medium height, perfectly constructed physically, perfectly groomed, impeccably dressed. they smiled at him. their teeth had been brushed every morning. one of them wrinkled his nose, obviously as a reaction to bowren. the other started to reach, seemed reluctant to touch him. "then don't touch me, brother," bowren said. "put a hand on me, and i'll slug you." the man reached away, and it gave bowren an ecstatic sensation to send his fist against the man's jaw. it made a cracking sound and the man's head flopped back as his knees crumbled and he swung around and stretched out flat on his face on the long tubular corridor. "always remember your etiquette," bowren said. "keep your hands off people. it isn't polite." the other man grunted something, still managing to smile, as he rushed at bowren. bowren side-stepped, hooked the man's neck in his arm and ran him across the hall and smashed his head into the wall. he turned, opened the door into munsel's office, dragged both of them in and shut the door again. he walked down the corridor several hundred feet before a woman appeared, in some kind of uniform, and said. "will you come this way please?" he said he would. * * * * * it was a small room, comfortably furnished. food came through a panel in the wall whenever he pressed the right button. a telescreen furnished entertainment when he pushed another button. tasty mixed drinks responded to other buttons. he never bothered to take advantage of the facilities offered for removing his beard, bathing, or changing clothes. whatever fate was going to befall him, he would just as soon meet it as the only man on mars who looked the part--according to bowren's standards, at least--at least by comparison. he thought of trying to escape. if he could get away from the city and into the martian hills, he could die out there with some dignity. it was a good idea, but he knew it was impossible. at least so far, it was impossible. maybe something would come up. an opportunity and he would take it. that was the only thing left for him. he was in there for what seemed a long time. it was still, the light remaining always the same. he slept a number of times and ate several times. he did a lot of thinking too. he thought about the men on earth and finally he decided it didn't matter much. they had brought it on themselves in a way, and if there was anything like cause and effect operating on such a scale, they deserved no sympathy. man had expressed his aggressive male ego until he evolved the h-bombs and worse, and by then the whole world was neurotic with fear, including the women. women had always looked into the mirror of the future (or lack of it), of the race, and the more she had looked, the more the insecurity. the atomic wars had created a kind of final feeling of insecurity as far as men were concerned, forced them to become completely psychologically and physiologically self-sufficient. they had converted part of their own kind into men, their own kind of men, and theoretically there wouldn't be any more insecurity brought on by the kind of male psychology that had turned the earth around for so long. all right, drop it right there then, he thought. it's about all over. it's all over but the requiem. sometime later he was in a mood where he didn't mind it when an impersonal face appeared on the screen and looked right at him and told him the council's verdict. it was a woman, and her voice was cold, very cold. "mr. eddie bowren. the council has reached a verdict regarding what is to be done with you. you are to be exterminated. it is painless and we will make it as pleasant as possible." "thanks," bowren said. a woman's world was so polite, so mannerly, so remembering of all the social amenities. it would be so difficult after a while to know when anyone was speaking, or doing anything real. "thanks," he said again. "i will do all in my power to make my extermination a matter of mutual pleasure." by now he was pretty drunk, had been drunk for some time. he raised his glass. "here's to a real happy time of it, baby." the screen faded. he sat there brooding, and he was still brooding when the door unlocked and opened softly. he sat there and looked at gloria munsel for a while, wondering why she was here. why she would look so provocative, so enchanting, so devastating, whatever other words you cared to dream up. she moved toward him with a slight swaying motion that further disturbed him. he felt her long white fingers rubbing over the stiff wiry beard of his face. "i dreamed about the way that beard felt last night," she said. "silly of me wasn't it? i heard of the way you smell, of the way you yelled at me, so impolitely. why did i dream of it, i said this morning, so now i'm here to find out why." "get out and let me alone," bowren yelled. "i'm going to be exterminated. so let me alone to my own company." "yes, i heard about that verdict," she said. she looked away from him. "i don't know why they made that choice. well, i do in a way, they're afraid of you, your influence. it would be very disruptive socially. several of our men--" "it doesn't matter why," bowren said. "what matters is that it will be as pleasant as possible. if you're going to kill a man, be nice about it." she stared down at him. chills rippled down his back as her warm soft fingers continued to stroke his bearded chin and throat. he got up. it was too uncomfortable and it was torture. he said, "get out of here. maybe i'm not a conformist, but i'm damn human!" she backed away. "but--but what do you mean?" he got up and put the flat of his hands cupping her shoulder blades. her eyes stared wildly, and her lips were wet and she was breathing heavily. he could see the vein pulsing faster in her slim throat. she had an exciting body. he saw it then, the new slow smile that crept across her face. his left hand squirmed at the thick piled hair on her shoulders and he tugged and her face tilted further and he looked at the parted pouting lips. the palm of his right hand brushed her jaw and his fingers took her cheeks and brought her face over and he spread his mouth hard over her mouth. her lips begged. hammers started banging away in his stomach. music from the screen was playing a crescendo into his pulse. they swayed together to the music, her head thrown back, her eyes closed. she stepped back, dropped her arms limply at her sides. there was the clean sweet odor of her hair. "i'd better go now," she whispered. "before i do something that would result in my not being president anymore." * * * * * he wiped his face. don't beg, he thought. the devil with her and the rest. a man could lose everything, all the women, not one, but all of them. he could live alone, a thousand miles from nowhere, at the north pole like amundsen, and it didn't matter. he could be killed pleasantly or unpleasantly, that didn't matter either. all that mattered was that he maintain some dignity, as a man. he stood there, not saying anything. he managed to grin. finally he said, "goodbye, and may your husband never say a harsh word to you or do anything objectionable as long as you both shall live, and may he love you every hour of every day, and may he drop dead." she moved in again, put her arms around him. there were tears in her eyes. she placed her cheek on his shoulder. "i love you," she whispered. "i know that now." he felt a little helpless. tears, what could you do with a woman's tears? she sobbed softly, talking brokenly. maybe not to him, but to someone, somewhere. a memory, a shadow out of a long time back.... "maybe it's ... it's all a mistake after all ... maybe it is. i've never been too sure, not for a while now. and then you--the way you talked and looked--the excitement. i don't know why. but the touch of your beard--your voice. i don't know what happened. we've carried it to extremes, extremes, eddie. it was always this way with us--once we were sure of our man, and even before, when he was blinded by new love, we tried to make him over, closer to _our_ idea of what was right. but now i know something ... those faults and imperfections, most of them were men's, the real men's chief attractions. individuality, that's the thing, eddie, that's it after all. and it's imperfections too, maybe more than anything else. imperfections.... oh, eddie, you're close, much closer to human nature, to real vitality, through _your_ imperfections. not imperfections. eddie--your beard is beautiful, your dirt is lovely, your yelling insults are wonderful--and...." she stopped a minute. her hands ran through his hair. "when you get a man made over, he's never very nice after that, eddie. never--" she sobbed, pulled his lips down. "eddie--i can't let them kill you." "forget it," he said. "no one can do anything. don't get yourself in a jam. you'll forget this in a little while. there's nothing here for a guy like me, and i'm not for you." she stepped way, her hands still on his shoulders. "no--i didn't mean that. i've got to go on living in the world i helped make, among the men we all decided we would always want. i've got to do that. listen, eddie, how did you intend to get back to earth?" he told her. "then it's just a matter of getting back aboard that same ship, and into this secret room unobserved?" "that's all, gloria. that and keep from being exterminated first." "i can get you out of here. we'll have to do it right now. take that beard off, and get that hair smoothed down somehow. i hate to see it happen, but i've got to get you out of here, and the only way to do it is for you to be like one of the men here." he went to work on his face and hair. she went out and returned with a suit like the other men wore. he got into it. she smiled at him, a hesitant and very soft smile, and she kissed him before they left the room and cautiously went out of the city. * * * * * the way was clear across the moonlit field and under the deep dark shadow of the ship. he kissed her and then took hold of the ladder. she slipped a notebook of velonex, full of micro-film, into his hands. "goodbye, eddie," she said. "take this with you. it may give you men down there a way out. i never thought much before of how mad it must be for you." he took the folder. he looked up at the double moons painting the night a fantastic shifting wave of changing light. and then he looked down at gloria munsel again, at the glinting shine of her hair. "goodbye," he said. "i might stay after all--except that a lot of men on earth are waiting for me to tell them something. they'll be surprised. i--" he hesitated. her eyes widened. warmth of emotion moved him and he said, or started to say, "i love you," and many other things, but she interrupted him. "don't please, eddie. anything you said now would sound just like what my devoted husband says, every day. i'd rather you wouldn't say anything at all now, eddie, just goodbye." "goodbye then," he said again. he looked back from the opened door in the ship's cargo bin. her face was shining up at him, her lips slightly parted, her cheeks wet. it was a picture he would never be able to forget, even if he wanted to. "when you forget to shave in the mornings, eddie, think of me." * * * * * bowren stood up and addressed the investigation committee which had sent him to mars. he hadn't made any statements at all up to this moment. the ten members of the committee sat there behind the half-moon table. none of them moved. their faces were anxious. some of them were perspiring. eddie told them what he had seen, what he had heard, his own impressions about the whole thing, about his escape. he left out certain personal details that were, to him, unnecessary to this particular report. the committee sat there a while, then started to talk. they talked at once for a while, then the chairman rapped for order and stood up. his face had an odd twist to it, and his bald head was pocked with perspiration. eddie bowren took the book of micro-film from under his arm, the one gloria munsel had given him. he put it on the table. "that has been thoroughly checked by scientists, and their report is included. i thought it surely was a false report, until they checked it. the first page there gives a brief outline of what the micro-film contains." the chairman read, then looked up. he coughed. he mopped at his head. eddie said. "as i saw it up there, this is the way it's going to stay. we'll never get into space, not without using the methods that were used with me. and they're too destructive. i've been examined. i could never go through it again and live. and that's the only way earth men can ever get into space. the women aren't coming back to us. they have husbands of their own now. believe me, those women aren't going to leave their perfect husbands. they've set up a completely feminine culture. it's theirs, all theirs. they'll never give it up to return to a masculine world, and that's what earth will always be to them. there are only a few women left on earth, and they're of such subnormal intelligence as to be only a menace to any possible future progeny. our birthrate has stopped. we are living under extremely abnormal circumstances without women. i have, as i said before, but one recommendation to this committee, and you take it for what it's worth. i personally don't care--much--and that isn't important either." "what is your recommendation, bowren?" "i assure you that the formulas in that book will work for us, mr. chairman. will you accept the reports of the scientists who investigated those formulas?" "i will," the chairman said hoarsely. "i'll accept it. why not--?" bowren grinned thinly at the ten men. "there's the secret of doing what the women have done. it'll work for us too. our only chance for survival is to follow their procedure. we've got to start turning at least a percentage of ourselves into women." one man leaned forward and put his head on his arms. the others sat there, in a kind of stunned numb attitude, their eyes drifting vaguely. the chairman coughed and looked around the silent hall, and at the other ten men in it. "any volunteers?" he whispered. transcriber's note: this etext was produced from astounding science fiction, october, . extensive research did not reveal any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed. minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. dialect spellings, contractions and discrepancies have been retained. unspecialist [illustration] _a machine can be built to do any accurately described job better than any man. the superiority of a man is that he can do an unexpected, undescribed, and emergency job ... provided he hasn't been especially trained to be a machine._ by murray f. yaco banner ripped open his orders, read them, stared in disbelief for a quick moment, then cursed wildly while reaching for the telephone. "hello, gastonia? yes, i got 'em. what kinda way to waste our time you lunkheads think ... oh, it's you, colonel!" banner dropped the receiver and let it dangle. he sank into the only soft chair in the apartment and watched hypnotically as the phone's receiver limply coiled and uncoiled at the end of the wire. somebody knocked on, then opened the door. "hi, pretty boy, you got our orders?" "come on in and hear about it," banner said. he got up from the chair, ran his hands compulsively through his recently short-cropped red hair, hung up the phone and shoved the orders into his co-pilot's hands. harcraft read them over three times, then sank into the chair just vacated by banner. finally--while banner poured them both a drink--he managed to blurt, "potato fertilizer and tractor fuel--oh, no. oh, no, no, no!" "oh, yes, yes, yes," banner said bitterly. "we are heroes of the spaceways; yes, indeed. we train for ten years. acquire great skill in the art of the patrol. we dedicate ourselves to the protection of the federation. we ready ourselves for war. we gird our young, strong loins, we--" "you're getting hysterical," said warcraft, who poured himself another drink, began pacing the floor and took up where banner had left off. "we've never even been lost on patrol. and now they do this. it's unbelievable! potato fertilizer and tractor fuel. we're supposed to travel thirty-six light-years, pick up one thousand sleds of the stuff, deliver it to some god-forsaken farm planet another thirty years out, and return to base. you know what they'll do then?" he turned to banner, pointed his finger accusingly and repeated, "you know what they'll do then?" "how would i know," said banner, glumly staring into his drink. "well, i can tell you what they'll do. yes, sir, i can tell you." warcraft's pudgy face and oversize brown eyes seemed to melt into each other, giving him the appearance of an angry, if not very bright, chimpanzee. "o.k., what'll they do?" banner said. "they'll give us medals. that's what they'll do. for safe delivery of one million tons of tractor fuel, you two fine specimens of manhood are hereby presented with the order of the oil. and for your courageous service in delivering two million tons of potato fertilizer, you are also awarded the shield of--" "never mind," banner said. "it could be worse. they could've saddled us with a bean brain. come on. let's go to some bar and get sober. we're leaving for freight duty at ." * * * * * the bean brain met them at the air lock. "name is arnold. here's my orders." banner stared at warcraft, warcraft stared at arnold. "get inside," said banner. the bean brain smiled, "er ... could you sort of lead the way? i've never been inside a ship before. if you got some kind of can, it would save a mess. i'll probably vomit a while." they stopped calling him bean brain three days later. he was still sick, miserably spacesick, and neither banner nor warcraft had the heart to keep needling him. on the fourth day he managed to get up and around. they ate their first meal together that day. "let's get something straight right off the bat," banner said. "neither warcraft nor i got anything against you 'cept prejudice. that right, warcraft?" "right," warcraft said. "in short," continued banner, between puffs on a cigarette, "all we know is what we've heard." "and that's not good," said warcraft. "item one," said banner, blowing smoke at the ceiling ventilator. "patrol command came up with the bean brain idea about six months ago. patrol command, in its infinite wisdom, has never seen fit to explain _why_ bean brains are sometimes assigned, evidently at random, to small patrol vessels such as this. the orders always state that the 'passenger' will accompany pilot and co-pilot throughout the entire trip, will obey orders, yet is equal in rank to the ship's commanding officer. the bean brain has no duties aboard. this seems to make sense, at least, since bean brains aren't trained for anything and can't do anything." "item two," said banner, taking his eyes off the ceiling and pointing a finger at arnold. "i have, or had, two good friends--both patrol captains--who had the honor of taxiing bean brains around the universe. one never came back. the other, captain slatkin, came back and got a big medal for reasons he'll never talk about." "and slatkin liked to brag," said warcraft, knowingly. arnold stood up slowly. he was a small man, but as he looked up at the ship's pilot and co-pilot, he gave both the impression of height and strength. "i'll tell you something, too," he said, speaking slowly as if in pain. "i don't know why bean brains are assigned to ships like this either. i've never been told. i took the job because i didn't like what i was doing before. i've never had any real training, and this seemed like a chance to do something that sounded like fun. "like i said, i've never been told anything. they tested me for a lot of things, then gave me my orders and told me to come along. and if you're wondering, i flunked the esp tests, so there's nothing there. you want to consider me dead weight? o.k., your privilege. leave me alone if you want to, i'll do the same. be friendly, i'll be friendly. ask me to help. i'll do my best." then he got up and went back to his bunk. * * * * * during the next six weeks, arnold spent most of the time in his bunk, scanning tapes from the ship's micro-library on an overhead viewer. at meal times he was polite, offering no further information about himself, yet entering into any conversation that centered around such trivia as terrestrial sports, taxes, money, liquor, food, government agencies. by mutual, if silent, agreement, neither women nor work were discussed. working in the ship's control room, sometimes together, sometimes spelling each other, banner and warcraft speculated bitterly and endlessly about their passenger. theories to explain his presence--most of them propounded by warcraft--were created, torn apart, modified, exploded, in giant sequences of effort which left both men finally exhausted and tired of the whole business. on the second day of the seventh week out, their ennui vanished. a ship was picked up by the spec-spanner, and at their delight at the break in routine, they summoned arnold up to the cabin. "take a good look," said banner, "it's an ankorbadian ship. probably the first and last you'll ever see." arnold watched as banner's finger tracked a slowly moving point of light across a recessed ceiling screen. "yes, sir," said warcraft, "you are looking at the representatives of mankind's only sibling. the noble ankorbades." then he recited in a singsong voice: "a simple race the ankorbades they wear no clothes and live in caves but out in space they do in minutes what our ships do at speeds infinite." "cultural paranoia," added warcraft. "huh?" "i mean just what i said. you and a million others recite that ditty, or variations of it every day of the week. it all adds up to the fact that the world is full of small-egged animals who for ten years have done nothing but just scream that we're about to be attacked by the savage ankorbades." "_tch, tch_," said banner, "treason, my lieutenant, treason. of you i had expected at least a show of chauvinism." "stop _tch-tch_ing me," warcraft said irritably. "you've known how i felt about this mess for a long time." "yes, indeed," said banner, yawning, "ever since you took that micro-course in culturology you have insights into the situation denied to the rest of the race." "anyway," warcraft said, making a small adjustment on the screen, "you and countless other atavisms are reacting in a very predictable way. since you can't reconcile the naked ankorbades and their superior technology, and since they are alien to point of showing no interest whatsoever in our elaborate art, institutions, rituals--" "and since," piped up arnold, startling both men, "the human unconscious can't help but equate nakedness with savagery, we have armed our mighty planet to the teeth, convinced that armageddon is around the corner." "well," said the surprised warcraft. "where'd you pick that up," asked banner. "from captain slatkin," said arnold, smiling. "i met him when i was indoctrinated. he took the same micro-course in culturology. 'course, he only believed that stuff when he was scared." "oh, you don't say," said banner. "tell us, my little friend, are you too, convinced that armageddon is around the corner? not that i really think you're capable of having an opinion." "i got plenty of opinions, all right," said arnold quietly, staring at his shoes. "opinion number one is this: we're not really at war yet, but within the past two years, fifty-six patrol ships have disappeared in the vicinity of our friendly neighbor." "that's not an opinion," banner said. "and disappeared can mean a lot of things." "opinion number two," continued arnold, scratching himself under an arm. "about the only diplomatic relations we got with them animals is when they write a note complaining about some patrol ship getting too close to some piece of dirt in their system." "speaking of that, you'll have to excuse me for a moment," warcraft said. "stop clowning," snapped banner. "listen to him. here's your chance to get some insight into the nature of the thorn in your side. go on, bean brain. any more opinions?" "yeah. if you're such a wise guy, tell me why you're here right now. why?" arnold's mouth screwed itself into a knowing, bitter smile. "when both of you were children you heard the story about the big fleet. so you made it into the patrol, spent the rest of your life training, looking, thinking that some day--" warcraft broke in, "that tale about an ankorbadian fleet build-up has been discredited a full thousand times. when they pried that crazy scout out of his ship, he was an hour away from the crematorium. you try spending forty-six days in space without food or water sometime! you'll see hidden arsenals of alien ships till hell won't have it." "and," added banner, "where is this fleet build-up supposed to take place? the patrol has had every planet in reachable space under scheduled surveillance for the past twenty years. you don't hide a thousand s-type cruisers in somebody's pocket." "so nobody's scared, huh?" said arnold. "so the entire space command has been playing footsie all over the galaxy for twenty years looking for a thousand ships that aren't there in the first place, huh?" "routine surveillance," said warcraft. "a thousand ships," said arnold, slapping his sweating forehead. "they'll burn through our defense system like--" "you're a paranoid rabble rouser," said banner lightly. "we've got work to do up here. how about getting back to your bunk?" * * * * * two days later they made scheduled contact with the caravan of potato fertilizer and tractor fuel. one thousand sleds, in tandem, were in proper orbit two hundred miles above sedor ii. their orders provided for a landing on the planet and a short ship-leave, at the discretion of the ship's pilot to refresh personnel. banner and harcraft decided against landing. all necessary contact, now that they were out of hyperdrive, could be accomplished with the ship's radio. short planetfalls were, psychologically, more trouble than they were worth, often destroying the hard-earned, delicate space orientation which was their only defense against the abysmal boredom. "it's a dull place anyway," explained harcraft to arnold, who had come up to the control room. "it's a mining and processing settlement. maybe five hundred families altogether. got a funny religion, too." "huh, what kind?" "well," began harcraft breezily, "sort of sacrificial you might say. they believe in killing strangers who annoy their women." "a dull place," agreed arnold, wiping his nose with his sleeve. "speaking of religion," said banner, "i just talked to their monitor on the radio. they've picked up twelve big ships on their scanner during the past two days." "ankorbades?" asked arnold quickly. "uh-huh. but not what you think. it's easter time or some such thing at home. they all return to the home planet and stay there for about thirty days in the spring. religious festival." "oh, yeah. they paint themselves blue and howl at both of their moons for a month. i read about it once." "we'll be home, too, pretty soon," ventured harcraft, for whom the return journey was subjectively always short. "let's hitch up to those sleds," banner said. "it's time to get going." four weeks later two of the fertilizer sleds went out of phase and automatically cut the ship out of hyperdrive. "a welcome diversion," said banner to harcraft, "you are now about to meet your mortal enemy face to face." "manual labor? never," said harcraft, assuming the pose of a man bravely facing the firing squad. "patrol duty is my lifeblood. even freight duty such as this i can stomach. but manual labor! please captain, let the air out of the ship, if you will, but never shall these hands--" "somebody call me?" asked arnold, appearing silently. "yeah," said banner, "how'd you like to help?" "sure, what you got." "couple sleds are out of phase. you and harcraft are going to slip into suits and go out and find the trouble." arnold shrugged, "o.k. with me, when do we start?" "pretty quick," said banner, who had turned to look at the ship's spec-scanner. "looks like we're in a belt of meteorites. we'll be able to match velocities, but we could still be creamed if the path gets too eccentric. show him the way, harcraft. i don't want to take any longer than necessary, either. understand?" fifteen minutes later, both arnold and harcraft were out of the air lock, each clutching a new phase unit. harcraft called instructions to arnold over his suit's inter-com, but within minutes the smaller man was, if anything, more adept at the business of maneuvering himself through the void than his teacher. they replaced the phase unit in the first sled--the fiftieth from the ship--with harcraft doing the work and arnold watching. "can you do the next one alone?" harcraft asked. "easy as pie," arnold said. "where is it?" "about two hundred sleds farther back. numbers on the side. number two hundred sixty-three. can you remember?" "i ain't dumb. where you gonna be?" "back in the ship. we'll be waiting for you." * * * * * back again in the control cabin with banner, harcraft was about to congratulate himself on inventing the apprentice system, when a piercing scream brought both men to their feet. "it's arnold," banner said. "arnold, you all right?" harcraft pushed banner away from the speaker. "arnold, what's wrong, you o.k.?" the speaker remained silent. "you better suit up," banner said quietly. "yeah," harcraft said, staring dumbly at the speaker. "yeah, i better suit up." "wait. better take a look on the viewscreen." "hey, he's coming this way! quick, get ready at the air lock!" it was fifteen minutes before they could get anything out of him, and then he wasn't too coherent. they gave him an injection of herodine to quiet him down, but his eyes still rolled wildly and all he could manage was: "big hunk of rock ... big hunk of rock ... rock, quick ... monkey ships." "any idea what he's talking about?" "no," banner said thoughtfully. "there was a sizable meteorite that came pretty close while you were on your way back to the ship, but i'd already tracked it before either one of you went outside." "how close?" "hm-m-m. visually, a dozen kilometers, i'd guess. i could run the tape if you--" "velocities almost the same?" asked harcraft, who was now fiddling with the viewscreen controls. "yeah. shouldn't be too hard to find. how about lugging bean brain back to his bunk. i'll run the tape, then you can plot it on the screen." when harcraft returned to the control cabin, banner had already plotted it on the screen. "i'll say it's a big piece of rock! about four kilometers in diameter." "yeah, but nothing out of order." "uh-huh. let me turn up the magnification a little and see if--" banner watched as harcraft turned control buttons, skillfully increasing magnification without losing the held of view. suddenly, the object exploded into iridescence. "what--" "watch," harcraft said. he bumped the magnification as much as he dared. "the ankorbadian fleet," said banner between clenched teeth. they spent the next hour scanning the ship's micro-library for anything at all on ankorbadian religious practices. there was nothing. arnold awoke in another hour and seemed remarkably free of hysteria. "what do you know about our friends' religious holiday?" asked banner. "we checked the library without any luck." arnold scratched the side of his face. "lemme think. yeah, i remember. they go home to celebrate spring, like you said." "they all go home?" "uh-huh. they got to. only time they can mate. only place, too." "how long they stay? i've heard it's about one of our months, but we have to know exactly." "that's all i know. read it some place a long time ago. can i go back to sleep now?" "go back to sleep," said banner. they spent the next three hours maneuvering carefully around the asteroid. they took six thousand feet of movies and stared at the projections for another three hours. one thousand seven hundred and thirty silvery needles flashed reflected starlight into astonished, wild eyes. "at least," whispered banner, "there's nobody there." "a lot of good that does us. they'll be back from their home planet in a few weeks, just as soon as the breeding season is over. why should they leave anybody here? there's not a map in the galaxy that indicates the position of this piece of rock. and we haven't any weapons." "i don't suppose the computer--" "you can't compute an orbit without at least one more reference point. besides, we're four weeks from any kind of fleet contact." "great. in other words, they'll be back here, ready to roll before we can even tell anybody that we don't know how to find it again." "right. and since there's not any room left to park another ship of that size, it's a pretty safe assumption that they are ready to roll." "armageddon," muttered harcraft. "you sure we don't have anything to--" "weapons? yeah. we have a pistol and three small nitro paks in a locker some place. you couldn't even blow your way inside one of those ships. and if you could, you'd spend two weeks and then blow yourself to hell before you'd know anything about the armament." "o.k., let's land and look around. go get arnold." * * * * * they cut off the sleds and plunged down, landing between two of the ships. before putting on suits, banner sent arnold to the locker to get the three nitro paks. he hoped it would help him overcome the terrible feeling of nakedness and impotence. they spent only a little time out of the ship. there was nothing to see that hadn't been seen before, and the heavy artificial gravity generated by the alien ships--coupled with a maze of deep crevices--made walking difficult and dangerous. back in the control cabin, banner turned to harcraft, "any ideas?" "ideas? you mean for saving homo sapiens? i'm afraid not. i simply do not feel up to saving six billion sentient organisms today. i feel--" "you're getting hysterical," said banner, whose own tight, small voice was barely audible. "i got an opinion," said arnold. "you guys stop crying for a minute and i'll tell you." it took him five minutes to explain the whole thing. when he was through, both banner and harcraft turned him down flat. "not a chance," said banner. it would take a week to set the thing up, and then it wouldn't work. our best chance is a long one, but maybe we'll make it. we're four weeks away from any fleet contact, but it's the only sensible course of action." "that makes it a total of eight weeks, with four weeks to get back here. that's two months," said arnold. "you think they're gonna wait two months before they shove out of here?" "maybe not," banner said. "but that's the only thing to do. and the sooner we get started the better the chances. let's get going." "you look here--" arnold began. "no more opinions, bean brain. you're not entitled to an opinion. you think we should take your word for everything you told us? tell me why. you said yourself you never had any training. so you're guessing and hoping. it would take a staff of two dozen highly specialized technicians to even evaluate your idea, much less put it into action. hell, man, face it. what do you know about geology, chemistry, mining? what do you know about anything?" arnold pointed a trembling finger at banner. "look, i told you that i know rock. i know plenty of gardening, too. i gave you guys a chance to say o.k. you still say no? have it your way, but we'll do it my way." both banner and harcraft found themselves staring into the barrel of the ship's only weapon. harcraft recovered from his astonishment quicker than banner. "o.k., bean brain, have it your way." quickly, casually he started for the cabin door. then, with such speed that banner hardly saw the movement, he chopped down viciously toward arnold's wrist with the edge of his hand. harcraft recovered consciousness a half hour later. "don't try that again, little boy," said arnold with unconcealed hatred. "i'll give you another thirty minutes to catch your breath. then we all go to work." it took ten days instead of seven. under arnold's close supervision, they made the ship perform like a tractor, an air hammer, a foundation borer and an angledozer. once, when they told him that some particular maneuver couldn't be done, he took the controls himself, and came so close to killing them all that banner, out of sheer terror, took over and made it do the things arnold decreed necessary. finally it was finished. two million tons of potato fertilizer, one million tons of tractor fuel combined into a slimy pulp lay jammed into the largest crevice on the asteroid. a few hours later they were a thousand miles out in space. "now?" asked banner. "now," said arnold. with the viewscreen at maximum magnification, they watched as the asteroid blew itself into a thousand million pieces. * * * * * in the control cabin, a short week away from fleet contact, banner was still gloating over the movies. "look at these. before and after. how many medals you think we can carry on our strong, manly chests?" "i really couldn't care less," answered harcraft. "while you've been sitting there enriching your fantasy life, i've solved the mystery of mysteries." "out with it." "o.k. while our little friend has been lying on his bunk ruining his beady eyes on the micro-viewer, i've been asking myself significant questions. question number one: what kind of person does it take to survive the inactivity and boredom of three, four, maybe six months in a space can like this? answer: it takes a highly trained and conditioned person such as yours truly or yourself. arnold is obviously not such a person." "obviously." "question number two: under what circumstances can a person as obviously intelligent as arnold manage not to become a highly specialized member of society? and last, what kind of person can be so revoltingly unspecialized as to know, with fanatical certainty, that the main ingredient of a good potato fertilizer is ammonium nitrate; that such a substance is rather ineffective as an explosive unless you mix it with a good oxidizable material, such as diesel fuel; that a four-square mile chunk of rock is 'brittle'--" "and don't forget to add another nice facet--that he's a lot cleverer in the manly art of self-defense than you'll ever be." "i acknowledge my humiliation and at the same time repeat my question: what kind of person can be so unspecialized and at the same time so miserably competent?" "i give up. do you really know the answer?" "i know this. i know that whoever he is, it makes good sense to send somebody like him along with two overspecialized robots like us. look at us. you couldn't pull a cotter pin with a pair of pliers if you knew what a cotter pin was. as for myself, if i'd of gotten that gun away from arnold, i'm not even sure i'd have known how to fire it." "which still doesn't answer any questions." "there are still a hundred places on our primitive homeland that provide the answer," said harcraft thoughtfully. "places where men spend half the year working with vegetables and fertilizer--" "and the other half breaking rock with a sledge hammer?" "yes. and there's probably no better place than a cell to train for the isolation of space." "uh-huh. it also explains a certain familiarity with makeshift explosives and weapons." "and, brother bean brain," summed up harcraft wistfully. "what better place in the universe to find asylum from specialization." the end genesis! by r. r. winterbotham renzu was mad, certainly! from venus' lifeless clay he dreamed of moulding a mighty race; a new creation, with himself as god! [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from planet stories summer . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] the unreal silence of outer space closed in about _the traveler_. in front of the huge atom-powered space rocket hung the sun's dazzling disc and behind the pale, silver face of the earth echoed the light. captain vic arlen was a god in the heavens; dave mcferson, the engineer, was a demi-god. and what was harry renzu? it was hard to call a great scientist a devil. there was gheal--neither god nor devil, only a poor, hideous, half-human slave that had been brought with renzu to the earth from a previous expedition to venus. captain arlen quit trying to classify himself and his passengers. they were neither gods nor devils. not even men, taking the group as a whole. an ominous chill seemed to reach through the beryllium hull of the ship from outer space, caressing arlen's backbone. a faint cry sounded in the passageway that led to the sleeping quarters behind the control room. the captain tripped the controls into neutral. the acceleration was complete and from now until the braking rockets were fired, the craft would follow its carefully calculated orbit. again came the cry, a groan of pain and a moaning sob. the captain strode into the passage. "gheal!" he called, recognizing the venusian's hoarse voice. "gheal! what's the matter?" a repetition of the cry was the only answer. the passageway was open, but the sobs seemed to be coming from the cabin of harry renzu, the scientist who had chartered the moon rocket for his second expedition to venus. the captain paused before the cabin door, listening. the cry came again and he pushed open the door. the hideous venusian was on the floor, looking upward with his two light-sensitive eye-glands at renzu, who stood over him with an upraised cane. gheal's rubbery, lipless mouth was agape, revealing his long, sharp teeth. he had raised one of his long, rope-muscled arms to catch the descending blow. his hairless, leathery body trembled slightly with pain. "you dumb, dim-witted chunk of venusian protoplasm!" renzu snarled as he brought the cane crashing over the monster's shoulders. "when i want a thing done, i want it done!" arlen pushed into the room and seized renzu's arm before the scientist could strike again. "hold on, renzu!" arlen commanded, pushing the scientist back and seizing the cane. "lay off! can't you treat this miserable wretch with decency?" renzu's face flushed angrily. his deep-set eyes burned with fury. "this is none of your affair!" renzu snapped. "go back to your business of running this ship. i didn't hire you to run my business." "this may be your expedition," arlen replied stubbornly, "but while we're in space, i'm the captain of this ship and my orders are to be obeyed. my orders are to give this venusian beast humane treatment." a whimpering sob broke from the throat of the brute on the floor. renzu sullenly twisted his arm loose from the captain's grasp. he appeared more calm now. "you are right, arlen," he said. "your orders are to be obeyed. but you aren't a scientist. you don't know gheal. he's not like the animals we know on the earth. he has to be beaten." "not while we're in space. i won't stand for it." "you can't stand in the way of science, arlen. i shall whip gheal, if i deem it necessary." renzu ended his words with a suggestive snap of his fingers in gheal's direction. the monster cringed into a corner of the stateroom. "come with me, gheal," arlen ordered, beckoning to the monster. the creature, seeming to understand, rose to his feet and followed arlen out of the door. <tb> the captain took the venusian forward into the control room, where he daubed the welts on the creature's naked shoulders with arnica. mcferson, easy-going, but dependable old spaceman, watched the operation critically. gheal winced as the arnica touched his skin. he squirmed and tried to resist. "hold on a minute, cap," mcferson said. "look at the right shoulder, where you put the arnica; it's red and inflamed." "so it is, but arnica ought to help." "look at the left shoulder, where you haven't put any arnica." "great guns! it's almost healed!" "i'd say maybe arnica wasn't the best treatment." captain arlen corked the bottle and put it aside. "gheal looks like a man. sometimes he acts like a man. yet he's entirely different most of the time. "i've been watching him, cap. i somehow get the idea that gheal finds it unhandy, most of the time, to be built like a man." the captain laughed. he took gheal's arm and held it up. "look at that. good, human bones, but the body of a monster. i wish you could talk, gheal. i wish you could tell us more about yourself. why are you almost a man yet the farthest point south?" gheal uttered a sort of deep-throated growl. "renzu says you can be vicious--that you're a killer at heart. renzu said one of your kind killed jimmy brooks on the first expedition. you don't look like a killer. brooks was a big man. you'd have a hard time killing him." gheal's sight-glands stared from arlen to mcferson. arlen laughed and patted gheal's hairless head and pointed to a built-in seat in the corner. "you're welcome to stay here as long as you don't bother us," he said. gheal shuffled uneasily and whimpered, but he did not go to the seat. instead, he turned and moved toward the door. the creature looked ridiculous, clad as he was only in a pair of renzu's discarded trousers, which had been rolled at the bottom to fit his stubby legs. at the door the venusian hesitated and glanced back at the captain. then he slowly turned and shuffled down the passageway. "hey you!" captain arlen shouted. "come back here!" gheal did not stop. he was striding to renzu's room. he pushed open the door. a fear for renzu's safety rushed into the captain's mind. he ran after the creature and entered renzu's cabin. but as he opened the door he gasped in astonishment. gheal was crawling into a corner of the room, while renzu stood nearby laughing. "you see, arlen," smiled renzu, "i'm his master. he recognizes my authority and no one else's. he would not desert me, no matter how i treated him." renzu picked up the cane that arlen had tossed on the bunk a few minutes before. as the scientist shook the stick at gheal, arlen thought he saw a look of satisfaction creep into the creature's face. "just the same," arlen said, "i can't stand your beating him. he may enjoy it. he may be a masochist at heart, but i won't stand for it." "your mind is provincially human, arlen," said renzu. "when you look at gheal you see the product of an entirely different evolution. you see a creature without emotions, without ethics. he's devoid of every terrestrial feeling, especially gratitude. he may even hate you for taking his side against me." there was a trace of bitterness in renzu's voice. "i wouldn't be too sure, renzu," arlen said. "if the laws of physics apply on venus, as well as the earth, why couldn't biological and psychological laws apply there also. even the lowest of creatures show understandable reactions on earth. why not on venus?" "because gheal has been made differently," renzu said, with a repulsive grin. <tb> hour by hour captain arlen watched venus grow in size. the planet expanded from a glowing crescent to the size of the moon as seen from the earth; soon it floated large in space, filling half the sky ahead of the ship, a billowing, fluffy ball of shining clouds. its surface was entirely obscured by its misty atmosphere. arlen began braking the ship and he called renzu into the control room for a conference on where to pierce the cloud blanket. renzu, huge and muscular, overdid himself in graciousness as he greeted arlen in the control room. the scientist seemed to radiate exaltation and he strained himself to appear congenial. the man was excited, arlen decided, for arlen himself was thrilled at the prospect of adventure, of seeing strange sights on a strange planet. but the reaction was different in arlen. where renzu swelled and swaggered, arlen looked dreamily into the clouds ahead. "i'm bringing the ship around to the sunward side," arlen said. "it's best to land about noon--that is the noon point. the planet turns once in thirty hours and that will give us a little more than seven hours of daylight to orient ourselves after the landing." renzu nodded in agreement. all this had been threshed out before. "very well," he said, "but it is best that you pierce the clouds at about forty-five degrees north latitude. there's ocean there that nearly circles the planet and there's fewer chances of running into mountains beneath the clouds. once we're through the cloud belt, we'll have no difficulty. the clouds are three or four miles above the surface and there's plenty of room to maneuver beneath them." arlen twisted the valves and the deceleration became uncomfortably violent. renzu's first trip had determined the existence of a breathable atmosphere on the surface of venus, although the cloud belt was filled with gases given off by venusian volcanoes, and many of these gases were poisonous to man. in a few minutes the rocket ship stood off just above the cloud belt. mcferson checked the landing mechanism and made his final report to the captain. arlen checked the gravity gauge, which now would be used as an altimeter during the blind flying in the venusian clouds. "okay!" captain arlen called. "okay!" echoed mcferson. _the traveler_ nosed downward into the rolling clouds. a whistling whine arose as the craft struck the atoms of the atmosphere. repulsion jets set up their thunder and the landing operation began. the ship settled slowly through the clouds. the mist completely obscured everything outside the craft and arlen flew blind, trusting his meteor detection devices to warn him of mountain peaks, which he feared despite renzu's assurance that there were no high ranges at this latitude. at last the craft dropped through the wispy canopy to float serenely over a calm ocean which bulged upward toward them in the solar flood tide. to the northwest was a dim coastline. high mountains were faintly visible against the horizon. "perfect!" said renzu. "that is my continent--our destination. sail toward it." the ship zoomed toward the land at the comparatively slow speed of five hundred miles an hour. in a few minutes it was decelerating again, with the continent before them. the high mountain range clambered up from a narrow plain that skirted the sea. this plain was sandy, a desert waste, but renzu indicated it was the spot for the landing. arlen brought _the traveler_ down gently alongside a broad stream that emptied into the sea. when the dust of the landing cleared away, he looked with dumbfounded amazement at the venusian scene. as far as his eyes could see were barren rocks and sand: there were no trees, no grass, no signs of life. the planet was as sterile as an antiseptic solution. even seaweed and mosses were missing from the seashore. "maybe you know what you're doing, renzu," arlen said, "but it looks to me as if you've directed us to the edge of a desert." "'tain't no small desert, either," chimed mcferson. "my dear arlen," renzu replied, cracking his lips in another of his irritating smiles, "this is one of the most fertile spots on the entire planet. you must remember, venus is much different from the earth." <tb> immediately after the landing all hands, including renzu, were busy with the routine duties that the expedition required. gheal was given simple tasks, such as unpacking boxes of equipment to be used by the expedition, but the venusian seemed to attend to these in a preoccupied manner. he worked in sort of a daze, frequently whimpering like a sick dog, and turning his globular eyes from time to time out of the porthole at the landscape of his native planet. "he's homesick," mcferson suggested to arlen. "but look! what's he got in his hand?" it was a long white bar of metal. arlen quickly seized the bar and examined it. it was pure silver. gheal had been unpacking a box crammed with silver bars of assorted lengths and thicknesses, ranging from the size of small wire up to rods half an inch thick and a foot or more in length. a fortune in silver had been transported to venus. "well, that's renzu's business, not mine," arlen decided. he returned to his duties. there was much to do: the engines had to be recharged, preparatory to a quick takeoff, should conditions arise to make the planet untenable for earthmen. tests of the soil revealed utter sterility of all forms of life. it was baffling. some sort of bacteria should have been in the soil, even though the place was only a desert. arlen opened the arms chest and issued small but powerful atomic disintegrators to mcferson, renzu and himself. he did not give gheal one of the weapons, for gheal did not appear to have the skill necessary to operate it. his uncanny ignorance was so obvious. the disintegrators were simple magnetic mechanisms capable of collapsing atoms of atmosphere and sending the resultant force of energy in a directed stream toward a target. fire from disintegrators could melt large rocks almost instantly and it could destroy any living creature known to man. renzu strapped his weapon at his side and turned to arlen. "i'm going outside for a walk with gheal," he said. "gheal seems nervous and uneasy. perhaps his actions are due to his return to his native land. a walk might make him happier, in his own peculiar way." arlen nodded and went back to the control room to talk to mcferson. he found the engineer looking out of a porthole. "look!" mcferson said, pointing out the porthole. trudging along the beach, carrying the case containing the silver rods, were renzu and gheal. the venusian was walking with difficulty, but as he faltered, renzu would kick him unmercifully and force him on. "the devil!" captain arlen said. "he doesn't dare beat gheal when he knows i'm watching." mcferson shook his head. "maybe he's right, treating gheal that way," he said. "after all, renzu is a scientist and he knows more about gheal than we do. maybe he's right in saying beating is the only treatment gheal understands. besides, i don't know if i trust gheal. since we've landed he's acted like a tiger in a cage. gheal's a venusian and venusians are supposed to have murdered renzu's partner on the first expedition." "but even the worst creature on earth--except man, perhaps--doesn't kill without a reason. and even man sometimes has a reason, when apparently he hasn't." darkness descended rapidly on venus and renzu did not return. the two spacemen decided it was unnecessary to stand guard and turned in. renzu knew how to operate the space locks from the outside of the ship and could enter when he returned. gheal, whose clumsy fingers were too unwieldly even to operate a disintegrator gun, would not be able to operate the locks, nor would any creature like him. it was still dark when arlen awakened. the long, fifteen-hour venusian night was completed and still renzu had not returned. the captain awakened mcferson. they ate a light breakfast and did minor chores on the ship until daylight suddenly lighted the landscape. "do you suppose we ought to look for them? maybe gheal went haywire. maybe something's happened." arlen considered. renzu was armed, while gheal was not. renzu claimed complete mastery over the venusian, yet something might have happened to give gheal the upper hand. not that renzu didn't deserve it. "i'll go outside and look around," arlen said. arlen stepped through the locks. the warm venusian air was invigorating. he took a deep breath. a shuffling sound behind him caused the captain to turn. there, rounding the end of the ship was a creature, fully naked, staring at him with gland-like eyes and baring his teeth in a vicious snarl. "gheal!" arlen cried. "gheal! where's renzu?" the creature did not reply. instead, it advanced slowly with a shuffling crouch, stretching his arms menacingly toward arlen. <tb> arlen's hand went to his disintegrator. the creature resembled gheal, but it did not act like gheal. the captain's eyes swept over the animal again. no, it wasn't gheal. there were differences. it was another of gheal's race. arlen hesitated to kill the creature. if there were a tribe of the creatures in the vicinity, such an act would arouse enmity. it would lead to complications that would endanger renzu, who was away from the ship. yet, arlen could not be sure what reaction would follow a slaying. renzu had said that venusians had no emotions, in the sense that man has them. but gheal certainly had been nostalgic on the day before. that at least was understandable in a human sense. arlen leveled his pistol. suddenly another figure appeared. a low-voiced whine sounded as the second figure darted forward. it was the real gheal. he was still wearing renzu's trousers. the first venusian turned. he hesitated stupidly, undecided whether to continue his charge toward arlen, or to meet the foe who came from behind. finally, the beast apparently decided that arlen was the most tempting. the animal sprang at the captain. arlen held his gun ready to fire, but the venusian had acted with a swiftness that belied his clumsy appearance. before arlen could fire, a heavy, rubbery arm crashed down on his skull. a meteor shower seemed to flash through arlen's brain, and then darkness closed in about him as he tumbled to the sandy beach. arlen opened his eyes. he had no way of telling how long he had lain on the ground. on venus one never sees the sun; daylight appears and daylight fades, but there is no way of telling the time of day from the position of the sun overhead. the captain's head ached as he lifted himself from the ground. he shook his head to clear away the haze and he stretched his arms to rise. his fingers struck something leathery and cold. there at his side lay the venusian monster who had attacked him. a wave of nausea swept over him as he saw the lifeless body horribly mutilated and torn. the sandy soil of the beach was torn with the struggle that had taken place. arlen forgot his aching head at he examined the dead venusian. his disintegrator had not slain the venusian; clearly gheal had done the job. "so gheal came to my rescue!" arlen exclaimed. "renzu must have been wrong. these venusians do have gratitude." his eyes saw something else as they traveled over the body. protruding from the body was a silver rod. gingerly arlen tried to pull the rod from the animal's body, but it would not budge. was it a weapon? arlen saw other rods sticking from the animal, covered with blood. all of them seemed firmly set in the body of the venusian. arlen looked behind him. the locks of the space ship were open. he moved wearily to the door and stuck his head inside. "mcferson!" he called. there was no answer. arlen entered the ship. he carried his disintegrator in his hand. venusians might have entered the ship ahead of him. lights were still burning in the living quarters, but mcferson was gone. arlen moved on; he searched each cabin, but there was no sign of mcferson, until he reached the control room. there furniture had been overturned, instruments smashed, and a pool of blood lay on the floor. gheal had done this. arlen was sure that no other venusian could have entered the ship and crept up on mcferson without arousing suspicion. mcferson's disintegrator lay on the floor beside the pool of blood, indicating that mcferson had grown suspicious too late. the gun had not been discharged. the first thing arlen had to do was to protect himself from further attack. he drew his own gun and closed the outer locks. the next thing would be to decide what had happened and what to do. renzu probably had suffered the same fate as mcferson, arlen decided. he was alone, in a strange world, face to face with a race of mankilling monsters. the only thing in his favor was that one of these monsters had befriended him. but how long and how far could arlen trust this friendship? there was, however, a chance that mcferson or renzu still might be living. he had to know for sure about this before he did anything else. and the only way to learn was to investigate. he left the ship, carefully closing the locks and fastening them behind him. he found many tracks leading away from the ship, along the banks of the stream that flowed from the mountains. from among the tracks he picked out renzu's bootprints. there were tracks of gheal going away, coming back, and going away again. he distinguished the two sets of gheal's prints leading toward the mountains by the fact that one set was more deeply imprinted in the moist sand than the other. gheal had been carrying mcferson's body. but what was this? there was another set of tracks coming toward the space ship. they were not gheal's prints, for they were three toed. gheal had five toes. gheal and the creature who had attacked arlen were different--one had three, the other five toes. gheal might not have rescued arlen out of gratitude after all. a natural enmity might have existed between the two races of venusians. arlen's rescue might have been an accident. arlen studied. there was something else that fitted into the picture. if he could fit it correctly, he would have the answer. somehow, now, he doubted if gheal had rescued him out of gratitude; yet, he doubted if the rescue had been purely accidental. arlen returned to the space ship and loaded a haversack with food. he was going into the mountains to get to the bottom of the mystery. he scribbled a note and left it in the control cabin in case renzu or mcferson returned; if either were alive. <tb> the captain followed the stream into a deep-walled canyon opening into the mountains. a short distance from the ship he found gheal's discarded trousers, indicating beyond a doubt that the venusian had come this way after arlen had been knocked unconscious in the sand. a mile or so farther on he saw a print where gheal had placed mcferson on the ground. then, a thrill of gratitude swept over arlen, another set of boot prints appeared on the trail. mcferson was not dead. he was walking. the daylight was fading and arlen realized he would not have much more time to follow the tracks without the aid of his flashlight. the walls of the gorge were almost perpendicular now and nearly a mile high on each side of the stream. the river boiled and churned over the barren rocks, but its movement was the only animation of the scene. nowhere were there signs of life, excepting the footprints on the trail. at last the trail forked upward from the stream, following a narrow ledge of rock along the canyon wall. the footprints of the slain venusian now were wide apart and deeply imprinted in the sand, indicating that the creature had run rapidly down the path. "he probably spotted our ship landing and headed toward us right away," muttered arlen. "his presence outside the craft may have been what made gheal so uneasy yesterday. gheal sensed an enemy near at hand." but this didn't seem to be the answer, either. beyond the next curve the canyon walls slid back and the ledge widened into a gentle slope leading to the top of the canyon. as arlen climbed over the rim he found himself on a plateau. it was dark now, but the place was lighted by a huge campfire not far away. huddled around the campfire were four figures. in the still air of the night, arlen heard guttural grunts of venusians and above these tones he heard the sharp voice of harry renzu issuing commands to these alien beasts. arlen crept forward and concealed himself behind a rock. there were three venusians. he saw something else, too. mcferson, his head swathed in bandages, was sitting in the shadow of a huge square stone. arlen watched. he could not hear renzu's words and he moved forward to obtain a better view, when his hand sank into a sticky mass of slime. "ugh!" he grunted in disgust, lifting his hand. it was covered with a thick, viscous jelly. it was sticky and as he turned his flashlight on the stuff he saw that it was colorless and translucent. it was not a plant or an animal. it did not move, it was cold, and had no structure, nor roots. shielding his light so that it could not be seen from the campfire, arlen examined the ground around him. there were other small pools of the stuff in the hollows of rocks and in thick masses on the ground. the captain examined the material more closely. it looked strangely familiar, and some of the text-book science he had learned in college came back to him. he remembered examining stuff like this once under a microscope. it was not petroleum, but something vastly different--something that was synonymous with life. it was protoplasm! <tb> vic arlen gasped. "protoplasm! inanimate protoplasm!" he forgot he had been nauseated by the slime a moment before and began to examine the stuff closely. of course, it was protoplasm, it couldn't be anything else. vic arlen had studied it. he knew. nothing could hold water granules in suspension in exactly the same way; nothing had the same baffling construction. but there was a question: scientists admitted life could not exist without protoplasm, but could protoplasm exist without life? in living protoplasm, death alters the structure. but other processes than life could, conceivably, preserve the stability of the substance. this would explain the existence of inanimate protoplasm on venus. and why didn't inanimate protoplasm exist on the earth? arlen thought for a moment and had the answer for that too. animal life lives on protoplasm, as well as being protoplasm itself. animate protoplasm can reproduce its kind, but the inanimate kind can neither fight back nor replace its losses. the inanimate protoplasm on the earth had disappeared with the appearance of the first animal life. the coming of the first microbes had caused it to "decay." if protoplasm existed on the face of venus it meant there were no bacteria, no germs of any sort--_no life!_ how could arlen explain gheal without evolution from the simple to the complex? was evolution working differently on venus? again arlen had run up a blind alley. the campfire cast a flickering red glow against the clouds. in spots above the skies were tinted with other glows from the craters of venusian volcanoes. it was not absolutely dark, but it was far from being as light as a moonlit night on the earth. arlen crept closer to the scene. he could see the venusians plainly now. two of them had three toes, while one had five. the five-toed one was gheal. renzu stood before them, grasping his cane. he would make sharp commands and the venusians would rise. if they disobeyed, he would strike them with the cane. they would shriek with pain. at last these maneuvers ceased and renzu turned to mcferson. "they have to be taught everything," he said. "they have no reflex actions, no emotions, no instinct--nothing that the lowest creatures on earth may have. yet they have everything that makes those things in the creatures of the earth." mcferson did not reply. he was watching with staring eyes; eyes filled with horror. renzu reached behind a rock. he drew what appeared to be a human skeleton from the shadow. as arlen looked a second time, he saw that it was not a human skeleton, but an imitation built of the silver rods and wires that renzu had transported to venus. the truth was dawning on arlen, but it was unnecessary now, for renzu was explaining. "i have created life, mcferson. i have moulded a human likeness out of protoplasm and fitted it over bones of silver. an electrical device i have made starts the biological processes going and the protoplasm, working with chemical exactitude, reforms itself into glands, organs, muscles and nerves. the product is a beast, inferior to man but superior to the highest animal on earth, except that he is totally devoid of such things as reflexes, instincts, emotions and other survival psychological processes." as he spoke, renzu was moulding some of the protoplasm over the framework of bones. arlen understood now why the silver rods had protruded from the venusian he had found on the beach. those pieces of silver had been the creature's bones. "i made four of the creatures on my previous expedition. brooks helped me construct three of them, including the creature that attacked and killed arlen on the beach. i made gheal myself. gheal was a masterpiece. he was almost, but not quite human. that is why i took him to earth with me." "you're inhuman, renzu!" mcferson managed to say. "you're less human than gheal!" "gheal was more human than you think, mcferson. brooks, you know, was killed by one of his creations. the same monster that killed arlen accounted for him. yet that monster, in some ways, was above average. at least he had the beginnings of an instinct. he wanted to kill. after brooks was killed, i used his bones for gheal's skeleton." arlen stared in speechless horror and amazement. "and that isn't all. i'm going to use arlen's bones for a creature more human than gheal. perhaps, mcferson, your bones may be used for something greater still. i will make other men, and women, from silver wire and protoplasm, and create a race of venusians that will bring life to this planet. think of a planet that has evolution beginning with man and ending with something greater than man has ever dreamed. and i, mcferson, will be the god of this race!" mcferson tried to rise, but gheal rose with a low throated growl, and the spaceman sank back on the ground. <tb> renzu had finished moulding the protoplasm over the silver bones. with the help of one of the venusians he lifted the still form into the air and placed it carefully inside the stone behind mcferson. the stone had been hollowed to form a rock sarcophagus. arlen saw in the firelight that electric wires ran from a small battery beside the box. renzu touched the switch. there was a flash of blinding light and sparks flew over the box. then renzu turned off the current and opened the sarcophagus. he worked rapidly with his hands and then stepped back, holding his cane before him. from the box emerged another venusian. a replica of gheal's three-toed companions. for a moment the creature stood motionless, staring from the sight glands at his surroundings. renzu struck the monster sharply with his cane. the brute moved. again renzu struck and the creature moved. at last it seemed to understand, after renzu struck it repeatedly. the beast got out of the box. renzu belabored his creation unmercifully with the cane, each movement had to be directed. "they have to be taught everything," renzu said. "they understand nothing but pain. i have to beat instincts and reflexes into their dumb brains, for they have no inherited ones." that also explained why renzu was a complete master over gheal. the venusian depended on renzu for everything. so interested was arlen watching renzu train the newly made venusian, that the captain did not hear the scrape of a leathery hide on the rocks behind him. he was unaware of the danger until a ropy cord of some vile, repulsive tentacle seized him, pulled him off his feet to the ground and dragged him toward the camp fire. the rays of the firelight revealed arlen's captor: a serpent as large as a python which held him in the crushing folds of its body as it moved deliberately toward renzu. renzu was amazed at the sight of arlen. "i thought you were dead!" he gasped. "no," arlen said. "your creation didn't quite succeed in killing me." renzu smiled. "but i see that you did bring your fine bones to me after all!" he struck the serpent sharply with his cane and the monster released his grip on arlen. "the animal that caught you, captain, was one of our first experiments. it was by charging a string of protoplasm with electricity, that we discovered that we could make it live. the result was the pseudo-python, who makes a good watchdog, if nothing else. it's entirely harmless, since it feeds entirely on inanimate protoplasm. unfortunately for brooks, it was this creature that caught him and held him while no. --the venusian--killed him." "it was deliberate murder," said arlen. "perhaps terrestrial law would define it as murder," renzu said. "but here on venus there is no law. it was a scientific experiment." "and you will murder mcferson and me?" "i need your skeletons. they will be a fine heritage for future races of venusians. think how you and mcferson will be glorified in venusian mythology." renzu's eyes were glowing in the firelight with madness. arlen looked at the hideous venusians, seated nearby, watching idiotically. it was diabolical! "now comes an important decision. shall i use you, or mcferson, first?" <tb> mcferson closed his eyes. "the man's insane, cap!" arlen looked about him. the python was nearby, coiled neatly beside a rock, ready to spring if he tried to escape. one of the venusians rose and threw some shale on the fire. it was crude petroleum shale. an idea came to arlen. if he could put out the fire, he might be able to escape in the darkness. then arlen remembered. his disintegrator was still in his pocket. renzu, interested in his experiment, had forgotten to search him, believing perhaps that arlen had been disarmed in the attack on the beach. arlen was tempted to use the weapon now, and to blast renzu and his hideous tribe of monsters out of existence. but to kill a man without giving him a chance was not arlen's way of doing things. the venusians, too, now had a right to live. had they attacked, arlen would not have hesitated to kill, but arlen realized that the only vicious venusian was dead. perhaps renzu himself had taught that single venusian how to kill. "mcferson," spoke arlen, "are you all right? did gheal hurt you?" "he bloodied my nose and knocked me out," mcferson said. "he didn't mean to harm me. gheal really is gentle as a kitten." "i think i will use your bones first, arlen," said renzu. "you may sit down beside mcferson. i may as well warn you that there is no chance of escape. the python guards the only way back and my venusians enjoy the creation of another of their kind. they won't let a chance to see it be spoiled." renzu began filling some woven baskets with the inanimate protoplasm as arlen sat down beside his companion. "could you run for it, if i knocked out the campfire?" arlen asked. "i can run, but how will you knock out the fire?" vic arlen acted quickly. his hand brought the disintegrator out of his pocket and he fired straight into the center of the campfire. the atomic blast instantly consumed the inflammable material in the fire and the plateau was dark. "run!" arlen cried. "and look out for the python." arlen sprang forward. he heard a leathery scrape ahead of him. it was the serpent. he dodged back. suddenly from behind came a hoarse cry. arlen turned, ready to blast the venusian that had shouted. but the venusian did not attack. instead, it darted forward, and with a flying leap it sprang upon the python. a roar came from the venusian's throat. it was gheal. arlen would have recognized the voice anywhere. the faint glow from the volcanoes showed him the edge of the plateau. renzu was screaming behind him and he heard the pad-pad of the running feet of the three remaining venusians. but arlen was clear and mcferson was running beside him. arlen took his flashlight from his pocket and used it to follow the narrow ledge down the mountain into the canyon. behind the two men, sounds of pursuit grew fainter. "we're safe," arlen said, slackening his pace. "renzu won't follow us as long as he knows we're armed." "he's armed, too," mcferson said. "he wants our bones too badly to use a disintegrator on us," arlen laughed. the two men traveled on. the venusian dawn came swiftly. "you see, mac," arlen went on, "we're not human beings to renzu, but part of an experiment. science has overshadowed renzu's sense of values. perhaps he murdered jimmy brooks; we know he would have murdered us to perfect an experiment. renzu was creating life, and he would kill to do it. he wanted to be the god of a world that started with a complex organism instead of a simple microbe." "the only trouble is that the life lacked instincts that it took terrestrial animals millions of years to acquire," mcferson added. "that's what creation may be, mac," said arlen. "we did more in a few minutes than renzu did with all his scientific knowledge. gheal learned the meaning of gratitude. i treated him kindly, and he repaid me by helping us escape." they reached the ship. the sea was boiling over the sands. here and there, along the water's edge as the dawn broke over venus, they saw globose formations of inanimate venusian protoplasm, seemingly awaiting the spark that would turn them into living organisms. venus was in an azoic age, but life was beginning to appear. it was life created by a human god, who also was a human devil, a monster. future generations of venusians might worship harry renzu, unknowing that it was the lowly gheal that brought the first worthwhile instinct to their race. somewhere, far behind in the canyon, were four hideous monsters and a beast that resembled a serpent. this stampede of protoplasmic creation was led by its mad god, driven onward by the lust of this insane demiurge for the bones of his fellow deities. "okay!" said arlen, priming the rockets. "okay!" shouted mcferson. _the traveler_ was ready to rocket home. spillthrough by daniel f. galouye [transcriber note: this etext was produced from imagination stories of science and fantasy january . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] [sidenote: ships switching from hyper to normal space had to do it in a micro-second--if the crews were to live. but it would take brad suicidal minutes!] like the sibilant, labored breathing of a dying monster, the tortured ship wailed its death sobs as it floundered in deep hyperstellar space. _clank-sss, clank-sss_, went the battered safety valve of the pile cooling system. _boom ... boom ... boom ... boom._ a severed and dangling piston rod crashed in monotonous rhythm against a deck beam as the rest of the auxiliary compression unit strained to satisfy its function. an off-beat bass viol strum added its depressive note to the symphony of destruction's aftermath--_throom-throom ... throom-throom_. it was the persistent expansion of plate metal reacting to heat from a ruptured tube jacket. forward, in the control compartment of the cargo craft, the sounds were muted. but the intervening bulkheads did not lessen their portent. brad conally ran a hand over the stubbles on his cheek and swayed forward in the bucket-type seat, his head falling to rest against the control column. somewhere aft the ship groaned and metal scraped against metal with a sickening rending sound. there was a lurch and brad was jerked to one side, his head ramming against the inclination control. the ventral jet came to life in unexpected protest and fired once. his hand shot out instinctively to return the loose, displaced lever to neutral. but the force of the single burst had already taken effect and the lower part of his stomach tied itself in a knot. centrifugal force reeled him to the fringe of consciousness. he struggled to reach the dorsal-ventral firing lever, praying that the linkage was not severed and the mechanism was still operative. his hand found the lever and jerked. the dorsal jet came to life with a roar. he jockeyed the control back and forth across neutral position. the two jets fired alternately. the sickening, end-over-end gyration became gentler. the ship steadied itself again into immobility. but a snap sounded from back aft. it was followed by a grating noise that crescendoed and culminated in a terrific crash. his ears popped. a _clang_ reverberated, evidence of an automatic airlock sealing off another punctured section of the vessel. shrugging fatigue from his body, he looked up at the panel. the massometer showed a decrease of six tons. the explanation was simple, brad laughed dryly: a good one-quarter of his load of crated inter-calc audio retention banks had rammed through the hull and floated into space. he glanced at the scope. the twenty odd crates, some of them taking up an orbital relationship with the vessel, were blips on the screen. twisting the massometer section selector, he read off the figures. hold one showed full cargo of inter-calc equipment. hold two, with its thirty bins of hematite, was intact. the third cargo compartment, containing more crated inter-calc units, was the damaged one. the massometer reading for that hold accounted for the missing weight. * * * * * "how're you doing, brad?" the receiver rasped feebly. he recoiled at the unexpected sound. "she's still in one piece, jim," he shouted to compensate for the strength the signal would lose in traveling the distance to the fleeing lifecraft. "have you cleared through your second hyperjump yet?" "getting ready to go into the third. there won't be any more communicating after that ... not with this short-range gear and your faulty transmitter. find out the trouble yet?" brad ignored the question. "how long, jim?" his voice was eager. "how long before you get to port?" "three jumps in one day. seven more to go. that figures out to a little over two more days. i'm making better time than we expected with this peanut. allow two more days for the slow tows to return.... still think it'll hold together?" brad was silent. "brad," jim's voice went into low gear. "i've still got enough juice to come back and pick you up. after all, one ship and one load of cargo ... it's just not worth it." brad listened to the ominous convulsions of the ship for a moment. "your orders are to continue to vega iv. i'm sticking." "but, skipper! dammit! there's always the chance of spilling through into normal! that's a torturous way to go!" brad's lips brushed roughly against the bulkhead mike. "if i fall through it's just me, isn't it?" although the sound level was too low, he knew there was a sigh on the other end. "okay," the speaker whispered. "if i can't convince you...." brad leaned against the bulkhead and shivered. he'd have to see whether he couldn't get more output from the heat converter--if he could chance going past the leaking pile again. or _was_ it the cold that was causing him to tremble?--if he entered normal space at less than minimum breakthrough speed.... he didn't complete the distasteful mental picture. he thought of his only functioning hyperdrive tube. its gauge showed a power level that was only high enough to boost the craft back onto the hyperspace level when it started to conform with the normal tendency to fall through. how many times the tube could be counted on to repeat the performance he couldn't guess. it might be painful if he should let the drop gain too much momentum before correcting--human beings were built to cross the barrier in nothing longer than a micro-second. but, he resolved, he would worry about that when the time came. "why don't you let it go, brad?" the voice leaped through the grating again. brad started. he thought jim had cut the communication. "you know the score. if we swing this we can get all of west cluster supplies' work. we'll need an extra ship--several of them. but with the contract we'll be able to borrow as much as we want." jim laughed. "at least i'm glad there's a rational, mercenary motive. for a while i thought you were going through with that go-down-with-the-ship routine." boom ... _boom_ ... boom. the loose rod pounded with suddenly increasing fury. he lunged through the hatch. at least the compression unit was forward of the faulty pile. and, while he did the job which automatic regulators had abandoned, he would not have to keep track of his time of exposure to hard radiation. * * * * * "calling space ship fleury. repeat: calling space ship fleury.... answer please." brad jerked his head off the panel ledge. hot coffee from a container that his limp hand half-gripped sloshed over the brim and spilled on the deck. he turned a haggard, puzzled face to the bulkhead speaker. it had flooded the compartment with sound--live, vibrant sound. the signal had been loud and clear. not weak. not like the one from jim's lifecraft two jumps away. "this is the ss fleury!" he shouted, stumbling forward eagerly and gripping the gooseneck of the mike. "come in!" "fleury from ss cluster queen.... answering your sos." his hopes suddenly vanished. "is that altman? what are you doing on this run?" "yeah, conally. this is altman. freeholding to vega.... what's your trouble? anything serious?" altman had come in to unload at arcturus ii spaceport while the fleury was still docked, brad recalled. the huge ship had been berthed next to his. "main drive jacket blown out in the engine compartment," brad said hoarsely. "it happened at the end of the eighth jump. we're about a half-notch into hyper--just barely off the border." "that's tough." there was little consolation in the tone. "got any passengers?" "no. none this trip. i'm solo now. my engineer's gone off in the craft." "can't you replace that jacket and limp through?" "got a faulty gasket on the replacement. can't be patched up." "you're in a helluva fix, conally. even a lunar ferry pilot's got enough sense to check his spare parts before blastoff." "i check mine after each landing. there isn't much that can happen to it when the pile's cold.... can you give me a tow, altman?" "can't do that, conally. i'm not...." "if you'll just give me a boost then. to the crest of this hyperjump. then i won't have to worry about slipping through." "like i started to tell you," altman intoned insistently, "one of my grapples is sheared." "you still have two more." "uh-uh. this wise boy ain't gonna take a chance of a line snapping and knocking a hunk outta my hull. especially when you got cargo spilling all over space." brad clenched his fists. he spoke through his teeth. "look, altman. regulations say...." "... i gotta help you," the other cut him short. "i know that, pal. that's why i happen to be stopping off at this not too enticing spot. and i'm offering help.... come aboard any time you want." "and hang up a free salvage sign on the fleury?" altman didn't answer. twisting the gooseneck in his hand, brad sucked in a deep breath and blew it out in a rush. but he didn't say what had leaped into his mind. instead he glanced over at the panel's screen. altman's ship showed up there--a large, greenish-yellow blip. there were other small dots on the scope too. as he looked, the large blip coasted over to one of the dots. the two became one mark on the screen. "you're picking up my cargo!" brad shouted. "the stuff not in orbit around the fleury ain't yours any longer, conally," altman laughed. "you oughta bone up on your salvage laws." "you damned scavenger!" "now, now, brad," the other said smoothly. "what would you do if you were in my position? would you let top priority cargo slip through to normal and get lost off the hyperlane? or would you scoop it up and bring it in for bonus price?" "you're not after a bonus," brad roared into the mike. "you're after a contract.... altman, i'll pay two thousand for a ten-minute tow up-arc. that'll almost wipe out my profit on this haul." "no sale." brad gripped the mike with both hands. "so you're just going to sit around and pick up cargo droppings!" "the book says i gotta stick around until you come aboard, until you get underway on hyperpower, or until there just ain't any more ship or crew.... might as well pick up cargo; there's nothing else to do." "and when i come aboard you'll want to unload the fleury too, i take it." "wouldn't you?" * * * * * half the spilled crates were in close orbit around the ss fleury. the tri-d scope showed that. brad estimated distances of several of the objects as he clamped the helmet to the neckring of his suit and clattered to the pilot compartment airlock. in the lock he unsnapped the hand propulsor from its bulkhead niche and clamped it to his wrist plate while the outer hatch swung open and the lock's air exploded into a void encrusted with a crisscross of vivid, vari-colored lines. the individual streaks, he estimated, averaged at least ten degrees in length. that indicated he was a reasonable period of time away from spillthrough into normal space where the lines would compress into the myriad normal pinpoints that were stars, undistorted by hyperspace perspective. when the streaks decreased to four or five degrees, he reminded himself, that was the time to start worrying about dropping out the bottom of the trough. he waited until one of the square, tumbling objects rolled by, obscuring sections of the out-of-focus celestial sphere as it whirled in its orbit. timing it, he waited for the box to complete another revolution. just before it arrived the third time, he pushed off. as he closed in on the crate, he knew his timing had been correct. he intercepted it directly above the hatch and clung clumsily to a hand ring as its greater mass swept him along in an altered orbit. a quick blast from his propulsor eliminated the rotation he had imparted to the object and he reoriented himself with respect to the ship. spotting the ruptured sideplate where the cargo had burst through the hull, he steered his catch toward the hole with short bursts of power. [illustration] the bent plate made a natural ramp down which he slid the crate onto the gravity-fluxed deck. inside, he degravitated the chamber, floated the box into position and double-lashed it to the deck. pushing away from the ship again, he checked the length of the stellar grid streaks. they were still approximately ten degrees long. it looked hopeful. he might have time to collect all the orbiting cargo before he got dangerously close to spillthrough. then he'd see about pushing on up-arc until the fuzzy streaks stretched to forty or fifty degrees--perhaps even ninety, if he could allow himself the luxury of wishful thinking. there he'd be at quartercrest and would have time to rest before worrying about being drawn down the arc again toward normal space. while he jockeyed the fourth crate into the hold, a huge shadow suddenly blotched out part of the star lines off to the port side. it was the cluster queen pursuing a crate not in orbit around the fleury. brad shrugged; he'd be unable to pick up the ones that far out anyway. but his head jerked upright in the helmet suddenly. if altman was after a free box, he realized, the cluster queen _could not_ appear in sharp outline to an observer in the fleury system! the fleury, sliding down the hyperspatial arc with its orbiting crates, would be moving slowly toward normal space in response to the interdimensional pull exerted by its warp flux rectifier, hidden inaccessibly in the bowels of the pile, as it was on most outdated ships. but the free boxes, in another time-space system with the cluster queen, would be stationary on the arc and would appear increasingly fuzzy as the planal displacement between the two systems became greater. the truth, brad realized, was that the cluster queen was drawing closer both spatially and on the descending node of the hyperspatial arc! altman was violating the law; he was going to take the cargo in orbit. and he could well get away with it too, since it would be the word of only one man aboard the fleury against the word of the entire crew of the queen. * * * * * there were still six boxes in orbit. he pushed out again toward the closest and saw he had not been wrong in his reasoning. the queen's outline was razor-edge sharp; it was close enough to stretch across fifty-five degrees of the celestial sphere. he kept it in the corner of his vision as he hooked on to the crate and started back to the ship. the queen was reversing attitude slowly. when he had first spotted it, it was approaching at an angle, nose forward. but now it had gyroed broadside and was continuing to turn as it drifted slowly toward brad and the box. "altman!" he cried into his all-wave helmet mike. "you're on collision course!" brad kicked away from the crate and streaked back toward the fleury. there was a laugh in the receiver. "did you hear something, bronson?" "no, captain," another voice laughed. "for a moment i thought maybe i picked up a small blip near that crate. but i don't guess conally would be stupid enough to suit up and try to hustle his own cargo." brad activated his propulsor again and gained impetus in his dash for the fleury's hatch. "still," altman muttered, "it seems like i heard somebody say something about a collision course." the cluster queen was no longer turning. it had stabilized, with its tubes pointed in the general direction of the fleury and her floating crates. perspiration formed on brad's forehead as he glanced up and saw the other ship steady itself, settling on a predetermined, split-hair heading. somebody, he realized grimly, was doing a good job of aiming the vessel's stern. he got additional speed out of his propulsor, but the tubes swung slowly as he covered more of the distance to his hatch. it seemed he couldn't escape his position of looking up into the mouths of the jets. "i don't know, boss," the speaker near his ear sounded again. "maybe he _is_ out there." "we better not take chances, then," altman was not hiding the heavy sarcasm in his words. "blast away!" brad kicked sideways, stiffened his arm and hit the wrist jet full force. he shot to one side on a course parallel with the fleury. a blinding gusher of raw energy exploded--a cone of blistering, scintillating force that streaked through space between himself and the disabled ship. the aiming was perfect. had he not swerved off when he did, had he stayed on his original course, he would have been in the center of the lance of hell-power. as he drifted shakily into the hatch, the queen wasn't even a dot against the trellis of star traces. but, while he looked, a miniature lance of flame burst in the general direction in which altman's vessel had gone--scores of miles away. he was maneuvering a standard turn to approach again, brad realized. if he repeated the performance against the hull of the fleury, he would shake things up considerably, but at least the alloys of the plates could stand the heat--possibly the thrust too ... but not for long. * * * * * invigorating effects of hot coffee flowed through brad as he sat strapped in the pilot's seat and allowed himself the luxury of a cigarette. but his eyes were fastened on the screen. the cluster queen was drawing up to the last orbiting crate. he watched the large blip and the dot become one. abruptly, there was motion in the direct-view port overhead. the queen and the crate drifted into view. he switched his gaze from the screen and watched grapples clamp the crate like giant mandibles, drawing it into the queen. his chest and abdomen hurt and he wanted to get out of the seat and stretch, move around, do something. but that might be disastrous. if altman was going to play any more tricks with his tubes, he would be ready to do it now, after the last box had been retrieved. and brad realized it wouldn't be healthy being shaken around inside an erratically spinning compartment. "that's the last one, altman," he spoke dully into the mike. "say!" the irony was still in the other's voice. "were you out there when we blasted to avoid collision?" brad said nothing. "sorry if we warmed your tail," altman continued. "but you should'a stayed inside. our instruments show you're getting close to spillthrough. ain't you gonna do anything about it?" brad snapped to alertness. now he realized the origin of the pains in his stomach and chest--the pin-prick sensations that seemed to be spreading throughout his flesh. he glanced out the direct-view port. altman was right. the sky was no longer a grid of star streaks. the lines had shrunken; their lengths now stretched scarcely over three or four degrees. the scope showed the queen was still there spatially, but the fuzziness of her outline indicated she was well out of danger--high up on the ascending node of the arc. "what's on the program, altman?" brad asked bitterly. "let me guess.... i slip through the barrier. passage at slow speed makes pretty much of a pulpy mess out of my body. you pop the queen through in a milli-second.... you got a nice story to tell: you arrived as i was slipping through. you couldn't do anything to stop me. you plunged through after me. with a dead skipper aboard, the ship and cargo were free to the first one who came along. you took the cargo, it being high priority stuff. you left the ship, it being outdated, battered, useless and drifting in normal interstellar where it would never be found. you took what was left of the skipper, it being good evidence to substantiate your tale." "now brad, boy!" altman stretched the words out in mock reprimand. "you know _i_ wouldn't do a thing like _that_. you know the west cluster contract doesn't mean _that_ much to _me_!" there was a long silence. apparently altman wasn't going to interrupt it. brad looked back at the scope. the queen had withdrawn spatially and hyperspatially. the pains in his body rose sharply and he grimaced, biting down on his lips. a knife slipped into his abdomen, twisted and shot up through his chest and into his head. then an incendiary bomb went off somewhere in his stomach. he reached for the control of the good main hyperjet. then, as his face contorted with near agony, he punched down on it. the pain left swiftly. the ship rattled and clanked and ground hatefully, its new cacophony of protest drowning out the old _clank-sss_, _boom_ and _throom-throom_. the small blurs in the sky elongated--five degrees, ten, twelve, twenty, twenty-five, forty.... the cluster queen's outline on the scope became sharp and then faded into fuzziness once more as the fleury passed it hyperspatially along the ascending node of the arc. he pressed the normal drive jet lever and it spluttered weakly, creating not even enough discordant sounds in the wracked ship to drown out the _boom, throom, clank-sss_ symphony. the dot on the scope representing the queen faded into insignificance. with a sweep of his hand, he killed power in the automatic distress transmitter. now it would take the queen a little while to get a bearing on him along four co-ordinates. it would be a reprieve of several' hours--even the fleet ships couldn't do it in less time than that without a signal to home in on. he had no idea what the skipper of the queen would do next. but at the moment he wasn't interested. the sharp pains were gone. but they had been replaced by an uncontrollable, reactive nausea. he unclamped his safety harness and stumbled to the jettison bin, holding a hand over his mouth. he made it just in time. then he dropped onto the bunk, exhausted. * * * * * the reprieve gained by his elusive tactics must have been a long one. when brad awoke he felt fresher than he had at any time since the engine compartment eruption. he had no way of knowing how long he had slept; the secondary bus bar off which the ship's clocks operated had gone up in the initial blast when a section of the plate from the ruptured tube jacket had smashed through the junction box. evenly spaced _swooshing_ sounds were emitting from the speaker. that, he realized, was what had awakened him. someone was blowing into a mike to see if it was alive. "ss fleury, ss fleury, ss fleury," the sounds were suddenly exchanged for words--altman's. brad swung his legs out of the bunk and stood swaying, rubbing a hand over his chafed, bearded face. the elongated blip was back on the radar screen--clear, close. "answer, conally," the receiver barked. brad strode to the panel and looked out the direct-view port he had slept longer than he had at first suspected. the stellar trellis had shortened considerably. they were back in the neighborhood of fifteen degrees. "distress regulation four-oh-eight-two," the speaker droned, "says that if a disabled ship don't answer by radio or visually within fifteen minutes after being called steadily, standby craft is to board it and may take immediate possession." "what do you want, altman?" brad said resignedly into the mike. altman hissed irritably. "conally, there's no sense in playing hide-'n-seek with the little power you've got left. get off that damned piece of junk and come aboard." "go to hell." "listen! i'm tired of wasting time! if you don't...." "i'll sign a release and shoot it over to you. that's all you need to clear you of rescue and standby responsibility. i'll keep my distress signal off until you get out of range." "uh-uh. it ain't as simple as that. i want your cargo. and i'm going to get it. now let's be sensible. you know you don't have a chance." "maybe i've learned a few tricks." the other snarled impatiently. "okay, bright boy. i've had enough of this horseplay. i'm gonna let you see just the way things are.... notice anything odd? any peculiar noises aboard the fleury?" * * * * * brad cocked his head toward the stern. the complaining clanks and groans and off-beat thumpings maintained their steady rhythm. there were some new noises. "i been listening to it get louder for the past three hours," altman hinted. then brad's ears picked it up--an erratic, excited _clackety-clack-clackety-clack_. he gasped. altman laughed. "that counter's setting up quite a sing-song, ain't it? i sorta think that pile might go _boom_ in a few hours. but i'm hoping i can get your cargo aboard before then. you can come too if you want." brad swung swiftly and lurched for the passageway aft. "wish i was there to help you with the cad rod insertions," the laughing voice raced after him. the dial on the forward side of the shielded bulkhead read oh-oh-point-oh-two-four. he applied the figure to the adjacent graph and learned he could remain in the engine compartment for one minute and fourteen seconds, with a safety factor of ten per cent. in that period of time, he rationalized, he ought to be able to insert a sufficient number of cadmium control rods to bring the pile under control. the counter clicked gratingly overhead as he undogged the hatch, swung it open and lunged into the steam-tormented acrid compartment. he broke open the first locker and jerked the remaining three cad rods from their racks. coughing and waving smoke from in front of his face, he swung open the door of the first reserve compartment. it was empty! the second reserve compartment was empty too, as were the two emergency compartments. only three cadmium rods when he needed at least three dozen! in a rapid dash around the pile block, he inserted the rods at spaced intervals in their slots. at least they would mean a few hours' grace. as he slid the last rod in he cursed himself and swore that if he ever commanded another ship he would not leave it unmanned at the dock--specifically if there was somebody like altman berthed anywhere at the same spaceport. the ruptured hypertube jacket, he wondered suddenly, not losing his count of seconds. it seemed unlikely now that it had let go as a result of defective material. he stepped to the flange that connected it with the stern bulkhead. the tube, inactivated immediately after the blowout, was cold. he looked where his suspicions directed.... the aperture control valve had been readjusted! it had been displaced a full fifteen degrees on the topside of optimum power! a cunning setting--one that would trap and concentrate enough residual di-ions at normal power output to cut loose somewhere between the fifth and tenth jump. he thought, too, of his transmitter that hadn't been powerful enough to reach farther than a couple of jumps since he had left spaceport. when, he asked himself, had altman's radioman worked on it? * * * * * after he slammed the hatch and dogged it, he leaned against the thick metal for a long while. the _clack-clack_ overhead was somewhat pacified. but it wouldn't remain that way long. he quelled the fear sensations that were racing through him and tried to think. how long? how long had it been since jim left? he was three jumps away a few hours ago--or was it longer than that?--and he still had seven to go or was it six? had it been just a few hours ago, or was it days? he had slept some--twice, he believed--since then. but for how long? and if the tow ships did make it back in time, would they have spare rods? he gave it up as a hopeless speculation and started back up the passageway, shoulders drooping. _karoom!_ the new sound reverberated through the agonized vessel and the bulkheads of the passageway shuddered in fanatic sympathy with it. the deck shifted crazily beneath his feet and a port beam--the bulkhead and the rest of the ship following it--swung over to crash into his shoulder. a stabbing pain shot up his arm as he slid down the tilting wall and landed in the right angle between the deck and the bulkhead. massaging the torn ligament in his arm, he sat up and swayed dizzily in resonance with the pendulum-like motion of the vessel. then he struggled to his feet and stood upright--one foot planted at an angle against the deck and the other against the port bulkhead. overhead was the corresponding juncture made by the ceiling plate and the starboard bulkhead. nausea welled as he tried to adjust to the new, perverted up and down references. he didn't have to wonder what had happened. the starboard gray coil that ran under the overheated converter, he knew, had finally shorted out. the port coil was still operating normally. he considered turning it off, but conceded it was better to struggle around in an apparently listing ship than to be wracked by the nausea of weightlessness. straddling the deck and port bulkhead, he waddled back to the hatchway, threw a leg over its edge and lifted himself into the control compartment, sliding down the floor to the port side. he worked his way to the control seat, readjusted its tilt and crawled in it. then he tore a strip out of his jacket and wrapped it around his shoulder as tightly as he could. the pressure eased the pain in his aching muscle. the air gauge showed an almost normal two-nine-point-three-two pounds, sufficient oxygen content, and a satisfactory circulatory rate. he eagerly fished a cigarette from his jacket. he had earned it, he assured himself. while he smoked he counted on the screen the amount of cargo that had spilled out when the loose crates had lurched with the vessel. almost as fast as he counted it, the cluster queen swooped down on it and scooped it into her hatch. numbed, he found he could no longer react to the total disregard of his rights with any degree of excited resentment. he closed his eyes indifferently. shuddering, he squeezed the cylinder of tobacco between his fingers without being aware of the action. the glowing end bent back and burned his knuckle. tossing the cigarette away, he realized suddenly his fight was futile. he couldn't possibly hold out until jim returned, or in the hope that some other vessel would happen along. the pile, his arm, spillthrough, the fleury threatening to break in two ... he enumerated all the factors. if he went aboard the cluster queen now, altman would at least give him passage to port. any charges brad would make would never hold up without substantiation. and altman would see that he brought nothing with him that could back up the accusations. it would be just as easy for the crew of the queen to prove that brad conally had conceived the whole weird account of assault and piracy as a means of winning back the cargo he was faced with losing. he knew, however, that no matter what happened, he could kiss the fleury goodbye. altman would never allow it to reach port. there might be evidence aboard--perhaps evidence as simple as finger prints--to prove that altman or one of his crew had tampered with the machinery. brad reached out to extend the gooseneck of the mike toward him. * * * * * but the stellar grid showing through the direct-view port was blotted out suddenly. he jerked his gaze to the scope. the queen was overhead--almost within grappling distance! he started to shout out, but at the same time brilliant hell exploded outside. the cluster queen's jetwash raked across the upper bow of the fleury, throwing its nose down and its tail up and over in a hateful, wrenching spin. the spin continued, losing none of its neck-snapping vehemence, as the queen burst off into space. the harness cut across brad's aching arm and set up a new, rending torture. but his good arm shot out and found the forward belly jet lever. with what mushily reacted like the last erg of energy in the normal drive converter tanks, the jet responded feebly. he nursed the power carefully, determined not to waste juice through overcorrection. finally the fleury steadied and resumed immobility of attitude. "sorry, conally," altman apologized with exaggerated concern. "but her majesty's acting up frisky-like. can't seem to do much with her.... maybe if you came aboard we might find some way to quiet her down. how about it?" brad bit his lips and tightened his good fist until fingernails knifed into the palm. "no, damn you!" he shouted with all the volume his lungs could muster. he summoned all the spacewise epithets any stevedore or crewman had ever used, added a few he imagined no one had thought of before, and held them in abeyance until altman would answer. but no sound came out of the speaker. the reason was apparent on the scope. a half dozen of the massive crates had crashed through the hull--this time out of hold number one, the massometer showed--and the cluster queen was on her way to take them aboard. but he was more concerned with another complication. the red power utilization indicator of the good hypertube was in motion, swinging back to zero on its dial. he saw the flicker of the needle in the corner of his vision. he checked the suspicion against the blips on the scope and obtained verification ... the outlines of the queen and the crates were fuzzy, despite the fact they were still nearby spatially. the fuzziness could only result from the fleury's being removed hyperspatially from that vicinity. he had accidentally touched the hyperjet lever while applying normal power to correct the three-dimensional spin. which way had he moved it? had he gone further into hyperspace? or had he fallen further down the descending node toward spillthrough? studying sensations in his body for an indication of abnormal pain, he stared abruptly out the view port. the twisting pain was there--inside his chest. the star lines were short. he swore and scowled at his luck. then, as the pain intensified, he grasped the lever of the hyperjet again and thrust it forward. the tube sputtered feebly, came on full force for a second, sputtered again and was silent. he jerked the lever back and forth on the forward side of neutral and rammed it desperately all the way forward. the tube coughed, grabbed once more for a moment, and sputtered out. he goosed it four more times, but only got two boosts as a result. then he twisted it past the stop to the first emergency position. it wheezed, fired for two seconds and died. sweat forming in beads on his face, he ignored the pain in his shoulder and reached to the control column with his injured arm. he swung back the second safety stop bar out of the way and rammed the lever all the way forward. the tube fired for another second, but that was all. he had used the last erg. but how much time had he bought with his final means of retreat from the spillthrough trough? he checked the celestial crisscrosses.... not much.... * * * * * altman? he wondered suddenly. where was the cluster queen? it wasn't showing up on the scope any longer. neither were the crates. had he retrieved them and shoved off? brad jiggled the scope's brilliance control, wondering whether it was faulty and was simply not registering the queen. an abrupt _thud_, coincident with a sharp jar throughout the ship and a sudden shifting of the pseudogravitational field almost to normal, brought him upright in his seat. he realized immediately what was happening. he hadn't been able to pick up the queen on the scope because it was too close to register as a blip separate from the central luminescence on the screen which was representative of the fleury itself. altman had maneuvered alongside, aligned the hatch flanges of the two ships and activated his magnetic grapples. the nearness of his grav coils had restored some of the fleury's internal stability. he was preparing to board the fleury. he would be aboard within ten minutes.... it took that long to make minute adjustments in order to insure perfect superimposition of the flange surfaces. brad smiled grimly and unsnapped his harness with nervous fingers. if he could get into his suit in time, it would be simple to open a hatch aft and let the air spill from the fleury. then when altman undogged the inner hatch of the fleury's air lock, it would be sucked open violently and pull the skipper of the cluster queen into a vacuum. it would make a mess out of the air lock and the control compartment--but that would be advantageous. it would be evidence to prove at least that altman had taken the initiative in boarding the fleury without first dispatching his intention of doing so to the nearest port, as required by the law. brad planned that if he then found the queen's locks dogged, he would temporarily close the fleury's inner lock and fill the between-ships passage with normal pressure air so he would be able to open the queen's hatches against the thirty-pound pressure in the other ship. after opening her hatches, he would leap back to the fleury's inner hatch, release the single doglatch and let the vacuum suck all the air from the other ship too. he would immediately report the defensive action to vega iv, borrow emergency cad rods from the queen, prevent an internal pile blast aboard the fleury and withdraw the crippled ship, together with its engine compartment evidence, to the node of the arc to await the arrival of investigators. he clamped the helmet on his neck ring with a minute to spare as he reassured himself it was a perfect plan and had a reasonable chance to success. it was one too that required no physical exertion. he couldn't go through any rough stuff with his sprained arm. * * * * * stiffening, he watched the first of the six doglatches on the hatch swing to the unlocked position. he moved over against the starboard bulkhead, well away from the hatch. he would have to get out of the suit again, and it would be a messy job if he were standing close to altman when the vacuum went to work on him. the final doglatch unsnapped. the hatch crashed open and he imagined he could almost hear the swoosh of escaping air. instead he heard a mocking voice over his audio. "you were right, captain," the voice laughed. "who'd think conally would try a trick like that?" altman taunted, extending a spacesuit clad leg across the hatch ledge. "you would and did.... he'll probably be right behind the hatch to the left there, boss." brad sprang forward. but altman turned suddenly in his direction and pointed a gun at brad's stomach. it checked the attack. brad backed away hopelessly. "okay," altman jerked his head in the confines of the helmet, "go to work." the crewman from the queen stepped into the control cabin and walked toward the passageway aft while altman held the gun on brad. "think you can do it quick enough?" altman asked the crewman. "radiation, you know." the crewman thrust the wide-mouthed gun above his shoulder where altman could see it. "it'll just take one shot with this." he disappeared down the passageway. "hell, captain," the voice sounded a minute later. "it's dead. he musta used up all his reserve juice in that last surge upward." "okay," altman smiled--a weird, distorted smile as seen through the thick, rounded helmet. "come on back." he looked at brad. "so you can't pull away from the trough any longer? that's tough." brad wanted to say, okay, altman, i'll go aboard the queen with you. but he didn't. he realized the plea would have been futile anyway as he watched the crewman rejoin altman and heard the latter say: "just think, conally, you could have come aboard. i would have let you a while back. but you've made this thing too tough and gave my boys the chance to convince me we might have slipped up somewhere and you might be able to prove your side of the story." the pair retreated to the air lock. brad stood motionless, staring, not breathing. "the pile'll hold," the crewman announced, "for another four hours, just about." "fine!" altman exclaimed. "this junk'll slip through within an hour. that'll give us another three hours, at least, to get this stiff aboard the queen and transfer cargo before she blows. then we can mop up on whatever crates we've...." but the air lock closed and the rest of his words were cut off. * * * * * if he could only get cleaned up before it came. if he could only enjoy the luxury of a bath, a shave, clean clothes. brad laughed at the last item, wondering how clothes could be expected to remain clean if they were on someone making the spillthrough transition at coasting speed. the fleury lurched as the queen cut loose and blasted away. brad had watched the pressure gauge climb back to normal and was removing his helmet at the time. the ship's one-sided gravity field caught hold unexpectedly and he toppled to the deck rolling to the port bulkhead. his hurt shoulder rammed into metal and new pain knifed into existence as the heavy helmet clattered down and crashed against his head. the blow almost stunned him. but it left him with enough awareness to wish it _had_ knocked him insensible--permanently insensible. the scope showed more cargo had spilled out in the last lurch. the queen started over toward the crates, but coasted past, turned and came back to take post spatially alongside the disabled craft. already the other ship's outline was beginning to blur as the fleury slipped away from her hyperspatially--down the arc. brad straddle-stepped on the deck and bulkhead to the control column and broke out his pack of cigarettes. suddenly his feet left the deck. the port gray coil had gone out, he realized grimly, the current having dropped below the minimum requirements. for a moment he became concerned over weightlessness. then he cut in the heel magna-grips of his suit and clanged onto the floor. at least, he wasn't confronted with a topsy-turvy ship any longer. he blew a cloud of smoke into the air and half-centered his attention on the scope. two more crates had left the fleury's holds. with the grav fields out on the ship, they did not take up orbit. they just floated away, at an almost imperceptible speed. but the queen was still apparently not interested in picking them up. there would be plenty of time to do that; right now she must stick close to the fleury spatially, brad realized, so her instruments would indicate the moment the spillthrough to normal space occurred, so her crew could get to work. as though hypnotized in inconsequential thought, he watched the crates slowly draw away. almost incredibly expensive cargo. cargo that altman would surely not allow to go unrecovered. even as booty, the crated equipment would bring every bit of what it was worth. but altman would see that they were delivered--every one of them. a contract with west cluster meant a good deal more than the face value of the one shipment of inter-calc banks. brad started and his face became alive with expression as a sudden realization drove home. it was followed almost immediately by a second jarring consideration. he tossed away the half-consumed cigarette. it wasn't more than fifteen minutes later when he stood before the mike again. "altman," he called out. silence. "altman," he shouted louder. "go ahead and answer him, captain. let's see what he has to say." "you can't come aboard, conally," altman said finally. "if you don't let me come aboard i'll slip through and be killed." "ain't that touching!" "you mean you won't pick me up?" "we'll pick you up all right--we wanna take what's left of you back to show how you died." "it's like that then? you're going to kill me to get the cargo?" "you're learning fast." "are you going to hook on to the fleury and drag her in to port?" "are you nuts? the inspectors could easily find out that we worked her over before you left port.... what's the matter--got a sentimental attachment for that old crate?" "look, altman...." "go to hell, conally." the background hum died out of the fleury's receiver abruptly. brad called twice. but there was no answer. * * * * * the ss fleury was vibrant with the final pounding of its weakening vital parts. _clank-sss, clank-sss_, the coolant's safety valve hissed. _boom ... boom_, the jangling piston rod pounded. the expanding metal plate added its _throom-throom_ note. the counter in the passageway _clackety-clacked_ louder. their lines snapped by persistent tremors and lurches, more crates danced in the holds. some of them eventually found their way to the gaping holes in the hull and, receiving a final, brief kick from jagged metal, floated lightly out into space. in the scope of the cluster queen, the fleury's outline became fuzzier. with mounting groans, the tortured vessel wrenched violently as she slipped down the descending arc. then suddenly she was through--in normal space where stars shown with pinpoint brilliancy and where the celestial sphere was no longer a lazy, crazy crisscross of blurred lines. the cluster queen started a wide hyperspatial turn, remaining spatially alongside the fleury. she gathered speed as she swung around and straightened out and, with hyperjets blasting full force, plunged through the barrier in somewhat less time than a milli-second. ahead, the fleury was picked up immediately on the scope. like a hawk, the queen closed the distance to the other trembling, silent ship. * * * * * vega iv's spaceport was bathed in brilliant, blue-cast light from the magnificent sun. the cluster queen was docked. a tractor kept itself busy rolling up the ramp into the ship and out again with huge crates that were apparently in somewhat poorer condition than when they left arcturus ii. an occasional splintered board jutted outward, held to its box only by loose nails. three men were next to the hold's hatch. they stood grouped about an elongated form that lay on the concrete apron, covered with a white square of linen. a spacesuit clad arm jutted out under one side of the covered square. "we'll take you over to the office," inspector graham was saying. "you'll have to make out an affidavit, you know. we'll need a couple of your crewmen to verify it." "be glad to," altman answered. "any time you're ready." "as soon as they pick up--conally," the inspector looked down at the form. "i don't understand it," jim muttered, rubbing a thumb and forefinger over closed eyelids. "_maybe i've got a version that's easier to understand, jim_," the voice sounded forcefully from the direction of the hatch. inspector graham and altman spun around. jim didn't have to. he was facing the hatch. altman blanched; backed away; stopped, and held his ground. "brad!" jim shouted unbelievingly and rushed forward to grasp his arms as the fleury's skipper leaped off the side of the ramp. he was haggard but smiling. "who's this?" the inspector asked. "this is conally, the skipper of the fleury," jim explained jubilantly. the inspector started, looked at the form on the apron, back at brad, then at altman. "a trick!" altman cried hoarsely. "i see it all, inspector. it's a damned trick! i've been roped in!" he was putting on a rather good act, brad thought. but he went along with his story anyway. as brad unfolded the incidents of sabotage, threat, assault, refusal to assist, pirating cargo, plotting murder and disregard of space code regulations, he watched altman gain more control over himself. "i realized about an hour before spillthrough," brad was approaching the end of his account, "that the fleury was no longer holding the spilled cargo in an orbit because its grav system wasn't working. whatever crates broke free from the holds also broke free from the ship's system and were no longer being dragged down the descending node toward spillthrough. they were remaining stationary on the arc--where altman was sure to pick them up. "your spacesuit, jim, came in handy. without it, nothing could have been done. i just filled it up with anything i could find--extra clothing, insulation from the ruptured tube, a few utensils. it didn't make any difference. the crew members who would handle the "body" would believe it felt as torn apart as any other space suited body that experienced spillthrough at a snail's pace. "to add weight, i broke open a bin of hematite and poured about a hundred pounds or so of the stuff into the suit. i stirred it gently; got more hematite--red ocher, you know--and half-filled the helmet. we had enough control column oil left to wet it down rather thoroughly. the new mixture had a rich, dark-red color, just like i thought it would. i sloshed the goo around in the helmet so all the inner surface was coated with the mixture and with small bits of indistinguishable odds and ends; then i clamped the dome onto the suit and harnessed it in the pilot's seat. "i put on my own helmet again, went aft and crawled into a half-busted crate. with the wrist propulsor, i jockeyed the thing out of the hold to make damned sure it would break free of the fleury's system and wouldn't spill through with the ship. after i saw i was drifting off, i worked my way well into the bracing between the crate and the inter-calc unit so i couldn't be seen through the broken sections of the box. "sure enough--about three hours later, along comes grabbenheimer," he threw a thumb in altman's direction, "with his grapples. i was able to squeeze out of the suit an hour or so after that. but i've been cramped up in that crate for two days, with only emergency rations." * * * * * altman loosed a sarcastic laugh and turned to the inspector. "it's a damned clever trick, inspector!" he shouted. "i been grappled in on the scheme.... like i said, i arrived when he was slipping through. i couldn't do anything to stop it. naturally i wasn't going to let the cargo go to waste. naturally i was going to bring back what i thought was his body--regulations say i gotta do that. "but he knew for a couple of hours that i was coming in answer to his sos. i had gotten a fix on the point where he was slipping through and he was certain i would follow the fleury through to normal space, pick up his body and the cargo that was aboard and go back into hyper to get the rest of the cargo. he had time to make all those preparations. so he dreams up the scheme of hiding in with the cargo that's free in hyper and telling this story later. you see...." brad laughed. "your tongue's working a little too fast, altman. when i picked the crate i was going to ride in, i picked a very special one. the tractor's bringing it out now." he pointed to the ramp. part of the space suit was visible through the splintered side of the box. "that crate," he continued, "will carry more weight as evidence than the oaths of all your crewmen on a pile of bibles stacked from here to arcturus." altman frowned puzzledly. jim and the inspector looked at each other. "inside is one of west cluster's integrator-calculator audio retention banks," brad explained. "it took only ten minutes to hook leads from the bank input to the intercommunication jackbox in the hold and to switch it in on the radio voice system. with that setup, everything said on the voice radio afterward spilled over into the retention bank. the only reason why i held that final conversation with you was to get you to repeat what you had done and were planning." brad turned to graham. "how about it inspector? do you think the courts will see that we get compensation for the loss of the fleury?" "the least you'll get," graham said, "is the cluster queen." brad looked up appraisingly at the massive vessel. "she ought to do as security on a loan to cover the purchase of two or three other spaceworthy freighters to go with her. wouldn't you think so, jim?--that'd make a nice nucleus for a fleet!" fly by night by arthur dekker savage illustrated by ed emsh [transcriber note: this etext was produced from if worlds of science fiction may . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] [sidenote: _a young man and a young woman alone on the first over-the-moon ship. the world cheered them as the most romantic adventurers in all history. do-gooders decried them as immoral stunters. gaunt, serious militarists pronounced them part of the most crucial experiment ever undertaken...._] the general introduced them in the ship's shadow, a trim lieutenant, a clean-cut major. "you probably already think of each other as carol and ken. at any rate, there are no two people in the world who have heard as much about each other without previously meeting." she offered her hand and he took it, held it for a long moment while their eyes locked. "hello, carol," he said warmly. "i'd have known you from your pictures." and he realized as never before what a poor substitute were the hoarded scraps of paper. "hello--ken." a smile made her face radiant. "i've sort of studied your pictures too." ken turned his eyes to the crowd--a roaring, cheering multitude surrounding the poised rocket ship here on the california desert in this zero hour. to certain harried physicists and engineers, it was a moment promising paramount achievement. to romanticists of , watching their video screens avidly, it was fulfillment of their most sensual dreams: a beautiful girl being given wholly and unreservedly to a handsome young man; the flight around the moon was merely an added fillip. to a few gaunt military psychologists it was the end of a long nightmare of protests by women's clubs, demonstrations by national female societies and actual attempts at murder by fanatical blue-noses; and a mere beginning of the most crucial experiment ever undertaken--which _had_ to be a success. [illustration] suddenly ken was angry at the knowing looks from the throng's nearest ranks. while the general continued his prepared speech into the mike, focus of the hollow, hungry eyes of the video cameras, ken pulled carol to his side and held her with an arm about her waist, glaring when the crowd murmured and the cameras swung their way again. he had not questioned the actions of the military, of the world, before. but now--a public spectacle-- during the years of rigorous, specialized training almost from childhood they had kept him away from carol, teasing him--it was the only word that now occurred to his mind--with the dangled promise of her presence on the flight. they had let him see her pictures--intimate, almost-nude photos harvested by the gossip columnists, snaps of her glory in bathing attire as she lounged by a swimming pool. swimming. since he had been selected as a boy, every free afternoon he had been made to swim, swim, swim--developing the long, smooth muscles they wanted him to have. it had been, he knew, the same with carol. had they taunted her with his pictures too? had she responded by wanting him, loving him, longing for him? how did she feel about their first moment together being shared by the greedy eyes of continents? the president was speaking now, rolling sonorous sentences into the mike, words which would officially sanction this unorthodox act of the military, which would justify the morally unprecedented dispensing of maid to man without benefit of--anything. because the psychologists had wanted it that way. ken leaned down to whisper in her ear, "i wish i could get you inside the ship." she looked at him with sudden coolness. "impatient, major?" she turned away quickly and he could feel her body stiffen. had he said something wrong? or--the new thought was jarring disharmony: did he represent the end of this girl's--_his_ girl's--hopes for a conventional, happy marriage? did she think him the altar of sacrifice, whereupon she would accrue the moralist's scorn and, tomorrow, attract only the lecherous? or was it just an act? what, besides ship and instrument operation, had they taught her? grimly he listened to the president, who was then extolling their merits as though--well, as though they were some sort of laboratory specimens. "... acute hearing, / vision ... perfect health ... highest combination of intelligence and fast physical reactions ... exceptional bravery and loyalty." cheers. "... intensive training ... youngest to receive their military ranks ... expert pilots ... _fittest humans for this attempt_." stubbornly, ken continued to hold her waist. he watched the sun sneak around one stubby wing of the _latecomer_. he'd need those glinting wings to land. land? what were the actual odds against circling the moon and landing again on earth? that phase--and a lot of others--had never been discussed. the speeches were over and he put the thought from his mind. they were extending the mike to him, waiting for his farewell--or his last words? abruptly, ignoring the mike, he swung carol up the ramp and crawled in through the port behind her. * * * * * in the narrow confines she slipped out of her uniform. she glanced at him once, quickly, then cast down her eyes. "you don't have to look, you know." there was a hurt in his throat. "i want to look, carol. i don't ever want to stop looking at you. i--" he choked off, tore his eyes from her and hurriedly began to get out of his uniform. hidden from the spectators outside, they divested themselves of all but filmy, clinging, chemically inert garb. carol's body was sheathed in a kind of sarong. ken wore a short, kilt-like affair. they pulled on soft, tough-soled sandals. the medics had insisted on this specific attire, but the psychologists had planned it that way. their discarded clothing was dropped into a basket. ken shoved it out the port, down the ramp, slammed and bolted the hatch. then he stared at it. clamped to the inner side were two knives: one was about the length of a bayonet, shaped like a saber; the other was half that length, and straight. both were sheathed, with belts wrapped around checkered handles. all his official instructions flashed through his head in an instant. all the technical data, instrument operation, procedures, emergency measures. there had never been mention of knives. except--of course. survival training. if he were unable to bring the ship to its proper destination, was forced down in uninhabited territory, a knife would be essential equipment. but so would a gun, fishing tackle, matches, clothing.... the ship's radio said, "fourteen minutes to take-off." ken flung himself on the couch. carol moved in quietly beside him. "you understand, carol," he said, "you're to touch no controls unless i'm unable to." "yes." "you'll handle the cameras only, but you'll keep reminding me of every step to be taken, as though i'd forgotten, and make sure i answer sensibly each time." "yes, ken." yes, _ken_. a pulse throbbed in his temple. they watched the crowd on the screen--scattered now, far from that area below and behind the ship which would be washed in radiation. they listened to the radio calling off the minutes before departure. ken kept his thoughts on the structure of the space vessel, similar in many ways to vastly cheaper atmosphere models he and carol had flown--separately--for hundreds of training hours. behind them, and lining the inner hull, was a light, spongy wall protecting them from the atomic converters aft. the surrounding couch could be regulated to form a resilient cocoon during high-g acceleration and deceleration, or during periods of weightlessness. forward were the controls, instruments and hooded viewport. escape velocity was not needed to pull away from gravity. with atomic engines and the new, low-mass shielding, fuel quantity was a problem of dollars only--and none had been spared for this voyage. the psychologists had seen to that. "eight minutes to take-off." he started the atomic reactors, a mighty purring here in the sealed cabin. gently, watching the instruments, he tested bow and stern rockets, matching fore and aft forces delicately, tentatively increasing stern thrust until the craft barely stirred in its silicone-greased, magnetized launching rack. "two minutes to take-off." they placed their faces against soft masks in the couch, down through which they could watch the instruments, in a mirror, the video screen and bow viewport. the couch encompassed them, their arms in padded slots reaching to the controls. "... thirty-four, thirty-three, thirty-two, thirty-one...." thunder hammered at their ears. the couch squeezed them as the _latecomer_ shot beyond its ramp, increased its velocity. ken gripped a lever which cut in the autopilot to take them beyond atmosphere, beyond gravity. * * * * * ken unhooded the viewport, leaving covered only that section which blocked a tiny blinding sun. they stared into an utter, absolute ebony that suddenly seemed to be straining against the thick canopy, mocking the dim lights of the compartment. for many hours now, nothing to do but wait and watch, make occasional control corrections. he caused the couch to relax, offered carol a water sausage. they had eaten nothing, and drunk but sparingly, since twenty-four hours before take-off. her hand touched his as she took the container. it was like an electric shock, and his heart thudded. deliberately, he brushed his fingers over hers, clasped her wrist, looking at her. she became motionless. then she looked up at him, lingeringly. her lips parted. the pressure within him mounted. almost reverently he reached for her--then stopped when tears formed in her eyes. he drew back, uncomprehending. could desire be coupled with sorrow? or was he merely reading desire into some emotion not remotely connected with passion? she had been given to him without reservation, but he could not bring himself to take her unwillingly. the difference, he realized, between love and lust--damn the psychologists. he let out his breath, fumbled in a small plastic box near the controls, dug out several nutriment bars. he handed a couple to carol without looking at her and munched unhappily at the chocolate-flavored ration. they watched the blackness of space for hours. the stars appeared as bright glowing blobs sunk dismally far into the heavy depths of some stygian jelly. it was a time to be savoring the first experience of man beyond his mortal sphere, but ken stared unseeingly, his mind dulled, vacant with indecision and disillusion that was almost a physical hurt. the zest of adventure, in the midst of adventure, was throttled before it saw life. the sustaining dreams of training and preparation were dusty misery. robotically, he watched the instruments, occasionally made microscopic adjustments. carol's hands, close to his, infrequently changed camera settings. unexpectedly the radio sounded. ken tuned to maximum volume, strained to hear the muted words. it was a moment before he realized they were drawling, abnormally slow, like one of the old spring-wound phonographs running down. when he caught it, the message stunned him. "_late-comm-merr_ pers-sonn-nell. re-turnn noww, noww, noww. emerr-genn-cy orr-derr of the prezz-zi-dent. _llate-comm-merr_ pers-sonn-nell...." he listened to it twice more before silencing the radio. turn back? now? he looked at carol. she returned his stare, drawing her arms up out of the slots and leaning on her elbows, frowning in puzzlement. her breasts were pendent promises of--further disappointment? were both love and life to be reduced, in a day, to twin voids of defeat? love was carol and life was a successful flight around the moon. discipline kept his act just short of viciousness as he slapped the controls back to manual. grimly he silenced the stern rockets, cut in the bow units slowly. the flight was to have been a loop "over" the moon, almost intersecting its orbit at the precise time it swung ponderously by. what possible emergency could have arisen? * * * * * ken couldn't remember just when the fear had started--maybe on the way outward, now that he thought of it: the feeling of deep depression. they were in free fall, weightless, the couch adjusted to keep them floating within a few inches of its confines. the brilliant, abandoned moon had just swung behind its big-sister world, the glaring furnace of sol was still thwarted by a section of bow hood. he felt the fear mount--little tugging fingers frantically at work within his chest. the blue sphere of earth seemed to recede in the black muck, although he knew it was only an optical effect of space--of the vast, scornful emptiness in which the stars were but helpless, hopelessly enmeshed droplets of dross. he shivered involuntarily. with the movement he touched the side of the couch and rebounded against carol. she screamed. he stared at her, his fear mounting swiftly through panic to abject, uncaring terror. carol had drawn herself up into a knot, the fetal position of infantile regression; her eyes were wide, unseeing, her mouth open in the scream that was now soundless. ken felt his mind brinking on madness. he continued to stare in a terrified frenzy until, from some tiny nook of sanity deep inside him, came the realization that this was carol beside him--carol, who was his, who needed him.... he fought. he staggered up from depths of bleak despair, aided by that deep-rooted male instinct which rouses raging fury at danger to his beloved. the innate protective impulse was heightened, strengthened by that emotional desire which is strongest at first contact, undiluted by familiarity and the consequent dissolution of ideals. the prime strength of manhood blasted in a coruscating mental flare against the forces of darkness and the unknown. tenderly, he encircled her floating body with his arms and drew her close. he soothed her as one might a baby. slowly her eyes came back from horrific infinity. slowly they focused on his. and then, comprehension returned, she pressed tightly against him, clung to him, sobbing with the remnant fear of fear remembered. he talked to her for an hour, caressing, reassuring, until her responses were normal beyond any doubt. then he told her he loved her. she raised her head from where it was burrowed against his chest. "_love_ me, ken? love _me_?" he blinked in astonishment. "of course i love you. it seems like i've always loved you. i tried to tell you. i--" but she was crying again, shaking her head a little, saying, "ken, ken," over and over. this time he continued to hold her intimately close. "what's the matter? anything wrong with love?" "but ken--you could have any girl in the world!" "me? where'd you get that idea?" "why, everyone knows the story of your training, and what it was for. the swoon clubs must have sent you tons of letters!" "i never got any." "censors?" he shrugged. "could be. i used to drive myself nuts thinking of all the guys you must be going out with. your story was spread around just as much as mine." "they picked my few escorts with care. i used to lie awake thinking of you running around with hundreds of girls." ken snorted. "the army kept me too busy. i went out with a few, but i never loved anybody but you. hell, i'm only nineteen, you know." she nodded, her eyes bright with happiness. she was a year younger. then her words came in a flood. "i couldn't believe you'd love me. they told me i was to go with you and do anything you said--anything. no explanation, but i knew what they meant and i agreed because you were doing such a great thing for the world and--i wanted you too. but i thought you'd just want me for the trip, and afterward you'd go back to your other girls, and--" he kissed her. again. and again. surely there never was, never could be, a greater delight embracing than in the floating, heady, free fall of null-g. certainly the psychologists knew no other method of retaining sanity in the cruelly endless jet pit engulfing the stars. which was why they had planned it that way. * * * * * well out of atmosphere he began to brake skillfully, easing the craft into an orbital arc that would later be changed to a descending spiral. biting into rarified air, he adjusted the hull heat distributor, cut in the refrigeration unit, increased oxygen a trifle. he removed a small envelope from its taped position on a panel and opened it to read his landing instructions. then he looked questioningly at carol. "southwest oregon. the oregon caves national monument. we're to go in on a beacon signal." "you don't suppose they want us to show survival ability?" "on a deal like this? no, something's haywire here. first, there's not a strip that'll take the _latecomer_ for at least a hundred miles around, and the only road into the area twists like a snake. this baby wasn't built with a chute, either. second, it's only about ten miles from some ranches, even if there's no one at the chateau, so it wouldn't be a survival problem." he dropped the craft's nose a few more degrees. "are there any more instructions?" "must be." he unfolded the slip. "'abandon ship immediately upon landing. enter bronze portal to caves with all possible haste. look for inscribed square beside door, with a slot at each corner. activate door as follows: simultaneously insert curved blade of longer knife entirely in upper left-hand slot, and straight blade of shorter knife entirely in lower right-hand slot. extreme emergency. memorize and destroy these orders.'" carol hadn't seen the knives. they lay in stunned silence until she gasped, "but, ken--this means they _knew_ about the emergency before we took off!" he nodded grimly. "we were never supposed to reach the moon." he crumpled the paper, thrust it into his mouth and chewed on it awhile, then slipped it into the waste disposal unit. "well, we'll pick up the beacon and buzz the caves area for possibilities. there was nothing said about making radio contact, so we'll just listen in. want to take over the radio on the way down?" he forced the _latecomer_ into as tight a spiral as he dared. the wings were still useless here in the ionosphere. carol turned on the receiver, dialed expectantly. "ken--the whole band is silent!" "take it easy, lieutenant honey--we're barely through the f_{ } layer." but all bands remained dead except for sun static. rockets chattering for a g brake and directional control, they plunged through the f_{ } stratum, losing sol behind the eastern rim of terra. down, down for dim countless minutes, through the thin ionization of e, past the lowest ranges of auroras and noctilucent clouds and below the ozone layer. still no signals of any kind on any frequency. at last ken leveled off in the troposphere, at an altitude of five miles. a placid, swollen sun rode into view while they flashed west-ward over the atlantic in a straight and lowering course that would take them over new york. the momentous--even though aborted--flight was over. each tiniest mechanism of the _latecomer_ had functioned perfectly. ken took a deep breath at the sheer pleasure of normal gravity. man held the key to the planets, at least--if the psychologists could figure some way to nullify the soul-shattering fear imbued by deep space. or had he and carol reached the maximum distance life could tolerate? was that the foreseen emergency, withheld from them lest it sap their carefully-nurtured morale? he felt a vague, gnawing worry about the silence of earth's transmitters. new york would supply the answer. over new york the cacaphony of blaring broadcasts would practically tear the receivers from their moorings. and new york did yield an answer--of sorts. with long island in visual range, and not a sound or a picture on any wave length which carol's flying fingers tuned in at maximum volume, ken dipped below legal ceiling to drag the city. then his reactions galvanized him to motion of a speed outstripping his thoughts. hardly hearing carol's gasp of dismay, he snapped the coccoon tight about them like a sprung trap, blasted the ship's nose to a skidding vertical and spurted away from the yawning craters of new york city at five gs. * * * * * he leveled off in ozone over canada and relaxed the couch. unbelievingly, he looked at carol. she looked back at him, wide-eyed. "listen, carol--we can't both be crazy the same way. you tell me exactly what you saw." "well--everything had been bombed." "what else?" "there--there wasn't any movement or people or--" "_what else._" "there--oh, ken, there were _trees growing in the craters_!" some of the tenseness left his features. "okay, honey. now we know a little bit. the war came and went and there's not an active transmitter in the world. somebody knew it was coming, even before we left, so they want us to land at a hideout in oregon. there'll be a landing strip there--they've had more than a month to build it since i was at the caves, and it only took a day for the whole war, for the radiation to clear up--and for twenty--maybe fifty-year-old trees to grow!" his ending sarcasm was directed at himself; youth angers at the spur of illogicalness. carol pressed his shoulder and kissed him. "darling--maybe we shouldn't even think about it now. they must be waiting for us in oregon." "yeah," he said absently. "wonder what happened farther inland?" he herded the _latecomer_ down along the border of lakes ontario and erie. cleveland was dotted with lakes, the city rubble choked with brush. on a zig-zag course, detroit was a wilderness, chicago almost a part of lake michigan. carol's spirits sank with each revelation. they arced high above the jet winds, on course to oregon. ken almost shouted with joy when their beacon code came in weakly, strengthening as they approached the pacific. carol hugged him until he relinquished control to the autopilot and gave her his undivided attention. the chronometer ticked away time, but sol gave up the unequal race, and so it was another morning of the same day when ken slipped the _latecomer_ over the mighty cascades, homing on the beacon until they both saw the outline of a long, level, arrow straight runway carved from forested mountainside and spanning chasmal, growth-choked gulches. but it was the outline only, discernible through a light rain. "at least two years' work," mused ken, "littered with at least a hundred years' debris. _and we've only been gone a day._" he killed signal reception, circled the runway. carol pressed his arm. "it's been longer than a day, ken. i mean, we've actually used up more time, because it was morning when we were over new york, and it's still--" "okay--day and night don't mean much. but we've clocked a little over thirty-three hours since we took off. that's _our_ time." there was a catch in her throat. "i know, darling. something's horribly wrong. everybody we know must be dead!" his jaw set, then he said gently, "snug down, kitten, we're going in." she glanced through the port. "but how can you land on _that_?" he tightened the couch about them. "blow the stuff out of the way," he said cheerfully. "maybe." he swooped in from the east. "keep an eye peeled for the caves' entrance--i bet it won't look like it did last month." the _latecomer_ touched the runway at little more than a hundred miles per hour. its forward rockets braked sharply, blasting aside the scattered dead limbs and smaller trees--roaring, bucking and hissing. its underside buckled from triphammer contact with rock slides and a few larger logs. it grated to a bumpy halt, gouged, scarred, split, its warped hull a forever useless thing. before opening the port he buckled the long knife at his waist, had carol do the same with the short one. he climbed out, breathing deeply of the warm, moist air, savoring the incense of pine while helping carol to the ground. * * * * * they avoided the radioactive path made by the ship, picked their way along the side of the strip until carol pointed and cried, "there it is!" ken gripped her arm. "you follow behind me, and if the welcoming committee moves this way you get up in that big madrona over there." "_what?_" he pointed out the bear, watching from a wet tangle of brush. "if it's a male--or a female with no cubs--we're probably all right." "oh. but what will _you_ do?" "don't argue, lieutenant." his hand moved to the pommel of his knife. ranger training wasn't exactly qualification for tangling with a bear, but long odds were becoming commonplace. the animal remained where it was. they climbed over a rock slide and faced a wide bronze door protected by a concrete foyer. out a way from the door was-- "look, ken--that's been a recent campfire!" he whipped the blade from its sheath. "c'mon, kitten--get that knife out!" he vaulted the ashes. a six-inch square was cut deeply in the dense metal. ken poised his knife over a slot, and as carol plunged her blade into the wall he rammed his home to the guard. with a squeak and a sigh the door, terraced like a vault portal, swung outward slowly. ken grabbed a recessed knob to hurry it up. lights flashed inside, flooding a man-changed interior. he leaped across the raised threshold, dragging carol with him, swung the door shut and shot home two great bolts on its inner surface. on a rack just beside the door was an automatic rifle, ready for instant use. the psychologists had not known about the campfire, but they had planned for the possibility of a hostile builder. ken and carol looked about the first of the labyrinthine caverns. squared walls were lined solidly with glass-enclosed bookshelves stretching as far as they could see. crowding the floor were machines, cabinets of tools, implements, instruments, weapons and medical and surgical supplies. they moved to stand before a large video screen set near the door. ken flipped the single toggle below it. a scene grew, showing a white-haired army colonel seated behind a desk, facing them. "ken--it's dr. halsey," carol whispered. "_was_ dr. halsey," said ken heavily. "i used to wonder if we had the same instructors." the officer's lips moved. "hello, ken and carol. i've been selected to make this film to greet you, and i know both of you will return to see it." his eyebrows lifted in the quizzical expression they knew well. "i'm going to rattle off a lot of explanations and suggestions, but i imagine the first thing you'll want to know is how all the things you've seen could have happened so quickly. and knowing that, will clarify the rest. "you remember the experiments the air force made, sending small animals above the stratosphere. by means of controlled diets and more complicated devices you'll find explained in a book, we learned that these animals were not subjectively experiencing the time-span they should have aloft. in effect, they were aging hardly at all away from gravity--the farther away, the less aging. "we got some fairly accurate figures on the time-distance ratios. briefly, assuming you held to your course until you were recalled, you can figure that an average of ten years has elapsed on the earth's surface for every hour you were in space." ken muttered, "we were actually out of atmosphere about twenty-four hours. that would make it the year--" "about ," finished carol breathlessly. "... how or why, but that time was evidently a variable. the realm of physics was a madhouse--discreetly so, lest our enemies profit by our knowledge. there is no visual or other subjective means to sense the deceiving change in time-rate, or its illogical effects; we knew, for instance, that you would not see the moon as a solid ring girding a gyroscopic earth, as might seemingly be expected. "your message of recall was a record, slowed down to be within an intelligible range of fast chatter or slow drawl when you received it. we could have told you to open the envelope at a certain time or distance, but even minutes and miles were critical and"--the pictured features smiled paternally--"we knew your interest in each other might cause a delay, while"--the expression changed to serious sympathy--"we didn't know just when space-fear would strike." carol blushed and laid her cheek against ken's chest. "they knew everything that would happen, didn't they? they--they _planned_ everything!" he crushed her to him. "lucky they did, honey. seems like they've put all their hopes in us." "... imminent war, and what radiation would do to surface life. we could not go with you, nor was there time to build underground installations for surviving more than half a century and emerging to a temporarily unproductive soil. we selected you to inherit the world, and you have had the hopes and prayers of your nation and your people." they sat on a low chest and listened to the psychologist's voice for nearly an hour more. he finished on a message of hope. "you have seen the results of war. with the knowledge and material at hand, and the atmosphere craft waiting at the sealed exit, you can contact what survivors' descendants you may find in hidden corners of the world and lead them to the peaceful glory of earth's future. "obviously, life will not visit back and forth between the stars, or even the planets. the laws of space and time confine man to one world--but it _can_ be made the best of all possible worlds, free of war within, and free of conquest from without, since the reasons which keep man from visiting other spheres will keep other life from visiting him." the screen faded and was silent, followed by a clear, trilling whistle which swelled in a paean of lilting sound. while ken squeezed carol's hand in mounting amazement, the piping strain formed clearly into words-- _with understanding of universal laws, life may do as it wills, go where it wills ... we have come to your planet to help you ... may we?_ the psychologists had not foreseen quite everything.... none the snare by richard r. smith illustrated by weiss [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from galaxy january . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] _it's easy to find a solution when there is one--the trick is to do it if there is none!_ i glanced at the path we had made across the _mare serenitatis_. the latin translated as "the sea of serenity." it was well named because, as far as the eye could see in every direction, there was a smooth layer of pumice that resembled the surface of a calm sea. scattered across the quiet sea of virgin moon dust were occasional islands of rock that jutted abruptly toward the infinity of stars above. considering everything, our surroundings conveyed a sense of serenity like none i had ever felt. our bounding path across the level expanse was clearly marked. because of the light gravity, we had leaped high into the air with each step and every time we struck the ground, the impact had raised a cloud of dustlike pumice. now the clouds of dust were slowly settling in the light gravity. above us, the stars were cold, motionless and crystal-clear. indifferently, they sprayed a faint light on our surroundings ... a dim glow that was hardly sufficient for normal vision and was too weak to be reflected toward earth. we turned our head-lamps on the strange object before us. five beams of light illuminated the smooth shape that protruded from the moon's surface. the incongruity was so awesome that for several minutes, we remained motionless and quiet. miller broke the silence with his quavering voice, "strange someone didn't notice it before." * * * * * strange? the object rose a quarter of a mile above us, a huge, curving hulk of smooth metal. it was featureless and yet conveyed a sense of _alienness_. it was alien and yet it wasn't a natural formation. something had made the thing, whatever it was. but was it strange that it hadn't been noticed before? men had lived on the moon for over a year, but the moon was vast and the _mare serenitatis_ covered three hundred and forty thousand square miles. "what is it?" marie asked breathlessly. her husband grunted his bafflement. "who knows? but see how it curves? if it's a perfect sphere, it must be at least two miles in diameter!" "if it's a perfect sphere," miller suggested, "most of it must be beneath the moon's surface." "maybe it isn't a sphere," my wife said. "maybe this is all of it." "let's call lunar city and tell the authorities about it." i reached for the radio controls on my suit. kane grabbed my arm. "no. let's find out whatever we can by ourselves. if we tell the authorities, they'll order us to leave it alone. if we discover something really important, we'll be famous!" i lowered my arm. his outburst seemed faintly childish to me. and yet it carried a good measure of common sense. if we discovered proof of an alien race, we would indeed be famous. the more we discovered for ourselves, the more famous we'd be. fame was practically a synonym for prestige and wealth. "all right," i conceded. miller stepped forward, moving slowly in the bulk of his spacesuit. deliberately, he removed a small torch from his side and pressed the brilliant flame against the metal. a few minutes later, the elderly mineralogist gave his opinion: "it's steel ... made thousands of years ago." someone gasped over the intercom, "thousands of years! but wouldn't it be in worse shape than this if it was that old?" miller pointed at the small cut his torch had made in the metal. the notch was only a quarter of an inch deep. "i say _steel_ because it's _similar_ to steel. actually, it's a much stronger alloy. besides that, on the moon, there's been no water or atmosphere to rust it. not even a wind to disturb its surface. it's _at least_ several thousand years old." * * * * * we slowly circled the alien structure. several minutes later, kane shouted, "look!" a few feet above the ground, the structure's smooth surface was broken by a circular opening that yawned invitingly. kane ran ahead and flashed his head-lamp into the dark recess. "there's a small room inside," he told us, and climbed through the opening. we waited outside and focused our lamps through the five-foot opening to give him as much light as possible. "come on in, marie," he called to his wife. "this is really something! it _must_ be an alien race. there's all kinds of weird drawings on the walls and gadgets that look like controls for something...." briefly, my lamp flickered over marie's pale face. her features struggled with two conflicting emotions: she was frightened by the alienness of the thing and yet she wanted to be with her husband. she hesitated momentarily, then climbed through the passage. "you want to go in?" my wife asked. "do you?" "let's." i helped verana through the opening, climbed through myself and turned to help miller. miller was sixty years old. he was an excellent mineralogist, alert mentally, but with a body that was almost feeble. i reached out to help him as he stepped into the passageway. for a brief second, he was framed in the opening, a dark silhouette against the star-studded sky. the next second, he was thrown twenty yards into the air. he gasped with pain when he struck the ground. "_something_ pushed me!" "are you all right?" "yes." he had fallen on a spot beyond our angle of vision. i started through the passage.... ... and struck an invisible solid wall. * * * * * my eyes were on the circular opening. a metal panel emerged from a recess on one side and slid across the passage. the room darkened with the absence of starlight. "_what happened?_" "the door to this damned place closed," i explained. "_what?_" before we could recover from the shock, the room filled with a brilliant glare. we turned off our lamps. the room was approximately twelve feet long and nine feet wide. the ceiling was only a few inches above our heads and when i looked at the smooth, hard metal, i felt as if i were trapped in some alien vault. the walls of the room were covered with strange drawings and instruments. here and there, kaleidoscopic lights pulsed rhythmically. kane brushed past me and beat his gloved fists against the metal door that had imprisoned us. "miller!" "yes?" "see if you can get this thing open from the outside." i knelt before the door and explored its surface with my fingers. there were no visible recesses or controls. over the intercom network, everyone's breath mingled and formed a rough, harsh sound. i could discern the women's quick, frightened breaths that were almost sobs. kane's breath was deep and strong; miller's was faltering and weak. "miller, get help!" "i'll--" the sound of his breathing ceased. we listened intently. "what happened to him?" "i'll phone lunar city." my fingers fumbled at the radio controls and trembled beneath the thick gloves. i turned the dials that would connect my radio with lunar city.... static grated against my ear drums. _static!_ * * * * * i listened to the harsh, erratic sound and my voice was weak by comparison: "calling lunar city." "static!" kane echoed my thoughts. his frown made deep clefts between his eyebrows. "there's no static between inter-lunar radio!" verana's voice was small and frightened. "that sounds like the static we hear over the bigger radios when we broadcast to earth." "it does," marie agreed. "but we wouldn't have that kind of static over _our_ radio, unless--" verana's eyes widened until the pupils were surrounded by circles of white--"unless we were in outer space!" we stared at the metal door that had imprisoned us, afraid even to speak of our fantastic suspicion. i deactivated my radio. marie screamed as an inner door opened to disclose a long, narrow corridor beyond. simultaneous with the opening of the second door, i felt air press against my spacesuit. before, our suits had been puffed outward by the pressure of air inside. now our spacesuits were slack and dangling on our bodies. we looked at each other and then at the inviting corridor beyond the open door. we went single file, first kane, then his wife marie. verana followed next and i was the last. we walked slowly, examining the strange construction. the walls were featureless but still seemed alien. at various places on the walls were the outlines of doors without handles or locks. kane pressed his shoulder against a door and shoved. the door was unyielding. i manipulated the air-vent controls of my spacesuit, allowed a small amount of the corridor's air into my helmet and inhaled cautiously. it smelled all right. i waited and nothing happened. gradually, i increased the intake, turned off the oxygenating machines and removed my helmet. "shut off your oxy," i suggested. "we might as well breathe the air in this place and save our supply. we may need the oxygen in our suits later." they saw that i had removed my helmet and was still alive and one by one removed their own helmets. * * * * * at the end of the corridor, kane stopped before a blank wall. the sweat on his face glistened dully; his chest rose and fell rapidly. kane was a pilot and one of the prerequisites for the job of guiding tons of metal between earth and the moon was a good set of nerves. kane excited easily, his temper was fiery, but his nerves were like steel. "the end of the line," he grunted. as though to disprove the statement, a door on his right side opened soundlessly. he went through the doorway as if shoved violently by an invisible hand. the door closed behind him. marie threw herself at the door and beat at the metal. "harry!" verana rushed to her side. another door on the opposite side of the corridor opened silently. the door was behind them; they didn't notice. before i could warn them, marie floated across the corridor, through the doorway. verana and i stared at the darkness beyond the opening, our muscles frozen by shock. the door closed behind marie's screaming, struggling form. verana's face was white with fear. apprehensively, she glanced at the other doors that lined the hall. i put my arms around her, held her close. "antigravity machines, force rays," i suggested worriedly. for several minutes, we remained motionless and silent. i recalled the preceding events of the day, searched for a sense of normality in them. the kanes, miller, verana and i lived in lunar city with hundreds of other people. mankind had inhabited the moon for over a year. means of recreation were scarce. many people explored the place to amuse themselves. after supper, we had decided to take a walk. as simple as that: a walk on the moon. we had expected only the familiar craters, chasms and weird rock formations. a twist of fate and here we were: imprisoned in an alien ship. my legs quivered with fatigue, my heart throbbed heavily, verana's perfume dizzied me. no, it wasn't a dream. despite our incredible situation, there was no sensation of unreality. * * * * * i took verana's hand and led her down the long corridor, retracing our steps. we had walked not more than two yards when the rest of the doors opened soundlessly. verana's hand flew to her mouth to stifle a gasp. six doors were now open. the only two that remained closed were the ones that the kanes had unwillingly entered. this time, no invisible hand thrust us into any of the rooms. i entered the nearest one. verana followed hesitantly. the walls of the large room were lined with shelves containing thousands of variously colored boxes and bottles. a table and four chairs were located in the center of the green, plasticlike floor. each chair had no back, only a curving platform with a single supporting column. "ed!" i joined verana on the other side of the room. she pointed a trembling finger at some crude drawings. "the things in this room are food!" the drawings were so simple that anyone could have understood them. the first drawing portrayed a naked man and woman removing boxes and bottles from the shelves. the second picture showed the couple opening the containers. the third showed the man eating from one of the boxes and the woman drinking from a bottle. "let's see how it tastes," i said. i selected an orange-colored box. the lid dissolved at the touch of my fingers. the only contents were small cubes of a soft orange substance. i tasted a small piece. "chocolate! just like chocolate!" verana chose a nearby bottle and drank some of the bluish liquid. "milk!" she exclaimed. "perhaps we'd better look at the other rooms," i told her. * * * * * the next room we examined was obviously for recreation. containers were filled with dozens of strange games and books of instructions in the form of simple drawings. the games were foreign, but designed in such a fashion that they would be interesting to earthmen. two of the rooms were sleeping quarters. the floors were covered with a spongy substance and the lights were dim and soothing. another room contained a small bathing pool, running water, waste-disposal units and yellow cakes of soap. the last room was an observatory. the ceiling and an entire wall were transparent. outside, the stars shone clearly for a few seconds, then disappeared for an equal time, only to reappear in a different position. "hyper-space drive," verana whispered softly. she was fascinated by the movement of the stars. for years, our scientists had sought a hyperspatial drive to conquer the stars. we selected a comfortable chair facing the transparent wall, lit cigarettes and waited. a few minutes later, marie entered the room. i noticed with some surprise that her face was calm. if she was excited, her actions didn't betray it. she sat next to verana. "what happened?" my wife asked. marie crossed her legs and began in a rambling manner as if discussing a new recipe, "that was really a surprise, wasn't it? i was scared silly, at first. that room was dark and i didn't know what to expect. something touched my head and i heard a telepathic voice--" "telepathic?" verana interrupted. "yes. well, this voice said not to worry and that it wasn't going to hurt me. it said it only wanted to learn something about us. it was the _oddest_ feeling! all the time, this voice kept talking to me in a nice way and made me feel at ease ... and at the same time, i felt _something_ search my mind and gather information. i could actually _feel_ it search my memories!" "what memories?" i inquired. she frowned with concentration. "memories of high school mostly. it seemed interested in english and history classes. and then it searched for memories of our customs and lives in general...." * * * * * kane stalked into the room at that moment, his face red with anger. "_do you know where we are?_" he demanded. "when those damned aliens got me in that room, they explained what this is all about. we're guinea pigs!" "did they use telepathy to explain?" verana asked. i suddenly remembered that she was a member of a club that investigated extra-sensory perception with the hope of learning how it operated. she was probably sorry she hadn't been contacted telepathically. "yeah," kane replied. "i saw all sorts of mental pictures and they explained what they did to us. those damned aliens want us for their zoo!" "start at the beginning," i suggested. he flashed an angry glance at me, but seemed to calm somewhat. "this ship was made by a race from another galaxy. thousands of years ago, they came to earth in their spaceships when men were primitives living in caves. they wanted to know what our civilization would be like when we developed space flight. so they put this ship on the moon as a sort of booby-trap. they put it there with the idea that when we made spaceships and went to the moon, sooner or later, we'd find the ship and enter it--_like rabbits in a snare!_" "and now the booby-trap is on its way home," i guessed. "yeah, this ship is taking us to their planet and they're going to keep us there while they study us." "how long will the trip take?" i asked. "six months. we'll be bottled up in this crate for six whole damned months! and when we get there, we'll be prisoners!" marie's hypnotic spell was fading and once more her face showed the terror inside her. "don't feel so bad," i told kane. "it could be worse. it should be interesting to see an alien race. we'll have our wives with us--" "maybe they'll dissect us!" marie gasped. verana scoffed. "a race intelligent enough to build a ship like this? a race that was traveling between the stars when we were living in caves? dissection is primitive. they won't _have to_ dissect us in order to study us. they'll have more advanced methods." "maybe we can reach the ship's controls somehow," kane said excitedly. "we've got to try to change the ship's course and get back to the moon!" "it's impossible. don't waste your time." the voice had no visible source and seemed to fill the room. * * * * * verana snapped her fingers. "so that's why the aliens read marie's mind! they wanted to learn our language so they could talk to us!" kane whirled in a complete circle, glaring at each of the four walls. "where are you? _who_ are you?" "i'm located in a part of the ship you can't reach. i'm a machine." "is anyone else aboard besides ourselves?" "no. i control the ship." although the voice spoke without stilted phrases, the tone was cold and mechanical. "what are your--your masters going to do with us?" marie asked anxiously. "you won't be harmed. my masters merely wish to question and examine you. thousands of years ago, they wondered what your race would be like when it developed to the space-flight stage. they left this ship on your moon only because they were curious. my masters have no animosity toward your race, only compassion and curiosity." i remembered the way antigravity rays had shoved miller from the ship and asked the machine, "why didn't you let our fifth member board the ship?" "the trip to my makers' planet will take six months. there are food, oxygen and living facilities for four only of your race. i had to prevent the fifth from entering the ship." "come on," kane ordered. "we'll search this ship room by room and we'll find some way to make it take us back to earth." "it's useless," the ship warned us. for five hours, we minutely examined every room. we had no tools to force our way through solid metal walls to the engine or control rooms. the only things in the ship that could be lifted and carried about were the containers of food and alien games. none were sufficiently heavy or hard enough to put even a scratch in the heavy metal. * * * * * six rooms were open to our use. the two rooms in which the kanes had been imprisoned were locked and there were no controls or locks to work on. the rooms that we could enter were without doors, except the ones that opened into the corridor. after intensive searching, we realized there was _no way_ to damage the ship or reach any section other than our allotted space. we gave up. the women went to the sleeping compartments to rest and kane i went to the "kitchen." at random, we sampled the variously colored boxes and bottles and discussed our predicament. "trapped," kane said angrily. "trapped in a steel prison." he slammed his fist against the table top. "but there must be a way to get out! every problem has a solution!" "you sure?" i asked. "what?" "_does_ every problem have a solution? i don't believe it. some problems are too great. take the problem of a murderer in our civilization: john doe has killed someone and his problem is to escape. primarily, a murderer's problem is the same principle as ours. a murderer has to outwit an entire civilization. we have to outwit an entire civilization that was hundreds of times more advanced than ours is now when we were clubbing animals and eating the meat raw. damned few criminals get away these days, even though they've got such crowds to lose themselves in. all we have is a ship that we can't control. i don't think we have a chance." my resignation annoyed him. each of us had reacted differently: kane's wife was frightened, verana was calm because of an inner serenity that few people have, i was resigned and kane was angry. * * * * * for several minutes, we sampled the different foods. every one had a distinctive flavor, comparable to that of a fruit or vegetable on earth. kane lifted a brown bottle to his lips, took a huge gulp and almost choked. "whiskey!" "my masters realized your race would develop intoxicants and tried to create a comparable one," the machine explained. i selected a brown bottle and sampled the liquid. "a little stronger than our own," i informed the machine. we drank until kane was staggering about the room, shouting insults at the alien race and the mechanical voice that seemed to be everywhere. he beat his fist against a wall until blood trickled from bruised knuckles. "please don't hurt yourself," the machine pleaded. "_why?_" kane screamed at the ceiling. "why should you care?" "my masters will be displeased with me if you arrive in a damaged condition." kane banged his head against a bulkhead; an ugly bruise formed rapidly. "shtop me, then!" "i can't. my masters created no way for me to restrain or contact you other than use of your language." it took fully fifteen minutes to drag kane to his sleeping compartment. after i left kane in his wife's care, i went to the adjoining room and stretched out on the soft floor beside verana. i tried to think of some solution. we were locked in an alien ship at the start of a six months' journey to a strange planet. we had no tools or weapons. solution? i doubted if two dozen geniuses working steadily for years could think of one! i wondered what the alien race was like. intelligent, surely: they had foreseen our conquest of space flight when we hadn't even invented the wheel. that thought awed me--somehow they had analyzed our brains thousands of years ago and calculated what our future accomplishments would be. they had been able to predict our scientific development, but they hadn't been able to tell how our civilization would develop. they were curious, so they had left an enormously elaborate piece of bait on the moon. the aliens were incredibly more advanced than ourselves. i couldn't help thinking, _and to a rabbit in a snare, mankind must seem impossibly clever_. i decided to ask the machine about its makers in the "morning." * * * * * when i awoke, my head was throbbing painfully. i opened my eyes and blinked several times to make sure they were functioning properly. i wasn't in the compartment where i had fallen asleep a few hours before. i was tied to one of the chairs in the "kitchen." beside me, verana was bound to a chair by strips of cloth from her skirt, and across from us, marie was secured to another chair. kane staggered into the room. although he was visibly drunk, he appeared more sober than the night before. his dark hair was rumpled and his face was flushed, but his eyes gleamed with a growing alertness. "awake, huh?" "what have you done, harry?" his wife screamed at him. her eyes were red with tears and her lips twisted in an expression of shame when she looked at him. "obvious, isn't it? while all of you were asleep, i conked each of you on the head, dragged you in here and tied you up." he smiled crookedly. "it's amazing the things a person can do when he's pickled. i'm sorry i had to be so rough, but i have a plan and i knew you wouldn't agree or cooperate with me." "what's your plan?" i asked. he grinned wryly and crinkled bloodshot eyes. "i don't want to live in a zoo on an alien planet. i want to go home and prove my theory that this problem has a solution." i grunted my disgust. "the solution is simple," he said. "we're in a trap so strong that the aliens didn't establish any means to control our actions. when men put a lion in a strong cage, they don't worry about controlling the lion because the lion can't get out. we're in the same basic situation." "so what?" verana queried in a sarcastic tone. "the aliens want us transported to their planet so they can examine and question us. right?" "right." "ed, remember that remark the machine made last night?" "what remark?" "it said, '_my_ masters will be displeased with _me_ if you arrive in a damaged condition.' what does that indicate to you?" * * * * * i assumed a baffled expression. i didn't have the slightest idea of what he was driving at and i told him so. "ed," he said, "if you could build an electronic brain capable of making decisions, how would you build it?" "hell, i don't know," i confessed. "well, if i could build an electronic brain like the one running this ship, i'd build it with a _conscience_ so it'd do its best at all times." "machines always do their best," i argued. "come on, untie us. i'm getting a crick in my back!" i didn't like the idea of being slugged while asleep. if kane had been sober and if his wife hadn't been present, i would have let him know exactly what i thought of him. "_our_ machines always do their best," he argued, "because we punch buttons and they respond in predetermined patterns. but the electronic brain in this ship isn't automatic. it makes decisions and i'll bet it even has to decide how much energy and time to put into each process!" "so what?" he shrugged muscular shoulders. "so this ship is operated by a thinking, conscientious machine. it's the first time i've encountered such a machine, but i think i know what will happen. i spent hours last night figuring--" "what are you talking about?" i interrupted. "are you so drunk that you don't know--" "i'll show you, ed." he walked around the table and stood behind my chair. i felt his thick fingers around my throat and smelled the alcohol on his breath. "can you see me, machine?" he asked the empty air. "yes," the electronic brain replied. "watch!" kane tightened his fingers around my throat. verana and marie screamed shrilly. my head seemed to swell like a balloon; my throat gurgled painfully. "please stop," the machine pleaded. "what will your masters think of you if i kill all of us? you'll return to them with a cargo of dead people!" * * * * * the machine didn't answer. i waited for the electronic brain to interfere and, with a cold knot in my stomach, realized the machine had said it had no way to control our actions! "your purpose won't be fulfilled, will it?" kane demanded. "not if you return with dead specimens!" "no," the machine admitted. "if you don't take us back to the moon," kane threatened, "i'll kill _all of us_!" the alien electronic brain was silent. by this time, i couldn't see and kane's voice was a hollow, faraway thing that rang in my ears. i tugged at my bindings, but they only tightened as i struggled. "if you take us back to the moon, your masters will never know you failed in your mission. they won't know you failed because you won't bring them proof of your failure." my fading consciousness tried to envision the alien mechanical brain as it struggled with the problem. "look at it this way," kane persisted. "if you carry our corpses to your masters, all your efforts will have been useless. if you return us to the moon alive, you'll still have a chance to carry out your mission later." a long silence followed. verana and marie screamed at kane to let go. a soft darkness seemed to fill the room, blurring everything, drowning even their shrieks in strangling blackness. "you win," the machine conceded. "i'll return the ship to the moon." kane released his grip on my throat. "see?" he asked. "didn't i tell you every problem has a solution?" i didn't answer. i was too busy enjoying breathing again. swenson, dispatcher by r. dewitt miller illustrated by francis [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from galaxy science fiction april . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] there were no vacuums in space regulations, so swenson--well, you might say he knew how to plot courses through sub-ether legality! it was on october , , that swenson staggered into the offices of acme interplanetary express and demanded a job as dispatcher. they threw him out. they forgot to lock the door. the next time they threw him out, they remembered to lock the door but forgot the window. the dingy office was on the ground floor and swenson was a tall man. when he came in the window, the distraught acme board of directors realized that they had something unusual in the way of determined drunks to deal with. acme was one of the small hermaphroditic companies--hauling mainly freight, but shipping a few passengers--which were an outgrowth of the most recent war to create peace. during that violent conflict, america had established bases throughout the solar system. these required an endless stream of items necessary for human existence. while the hostilities lasted, the small outfits were vital and for that reason prospered. they hauled oxygen, food, spare parts, whisky, atomic slugs, professional women, uniforms, paper for quadruplicate reports, cigarettes, and all the other impedimenta of war-time life. with the outbreak of peace, such companies faced a precarious, devil-take-the-hindmost type of existence. * * * * * the day that swenson arrived had been grim even for acme. dovorkin, the regular dispatcher, had been fired that morning. he had succeeded in leaving the schedule in a nightmarish muddle. and on dovorkin's vacant desk lay the last straw--a special message. _acme interplanetary express_ _ z street_ _new york_ _your atomic-converted ship number is hereby grounded at luna city, moon, until demurrage bill paid. your previous violations of space regulations make our action mandatory._ _planetary commerce commission_ the acme board of directors was inured to accepting the inevitable. they had heard rumors along blaster's alley of swenson's reputation, which ranged from brilliance, through competence, to insanity. so they shrugged and hired him. his first act was to order a case of beer. his second was to look at what dovorkin had left of a dispatch sheet. "number is still blasting through the astraloids. it should be free-falling. why the hell isn't it?" old mister cerobie, chairman of the board, said quietly: "before you begin your work, we would like a bit of information. what is your full name?" "patrick m. swenson." "what does the m stand for?" "i don't know." "why not?" "my mother never told me. i don't think she knows. in the name of god, why don't you send number ...." "what's your nationality?" "i'm supposed to be a swede." "what do you mean, 'supposed'?" "will you open one of those beers?" "i asked you...." swenson made a notation on the dispatch sheet and spun around in the swivel chair. "i was born on a _swallow class_ ship in space between the moon and earth. my mother said my father was a swede. she was irish. i was delivered and circumcised by a rabbi who happened to be on board. the ship was of venutian registry, but was owned by a czechoslovakian company. now you figure it out." "how did you happen to come here?" "i met dovorkin in a bar. he told me that you were in trouble. you are. is one of the moulton trust's ships at luna city?" "yes." "then that's why you're grounded. they've got an in with the planetary commerce commission. what's the demurrage?" "seventy-six thousand dollars." "can you raise it?" "no." * * * * * swenson glanced at the sheet. "how come number is in new york?" "we're waiting for additional cargo. we have half a load of snuff for mars. and we've been promised half a load of canned goods for luna city. it's reduced rate freight that another company can't handle." "dovorkin told me about the snuff. that's a starter, anyway." swenson turned back to the dispatch sheet and muttered to himself: "always a good thing to have snuff for mars." mister cerobie became strangely interested. "why?" swenson paid no attention. "what are you taking a split load for?" "we had no choice." "you know damn well that the broken-down old stovepipes you buy from war surplus are too slow to handle split loads. who promised you the canned goods?" "lesquallan, ltd." "oh, lord!" said swenson. "an outfit that expects lions to lie down with lambs!" the red _ship-calling_ light flashed on. "number to dispatcher. this is captain elsing. dovorkin...." "dispatcher to number . dovorkin, hell. this is swenson. what blasts?" "b jet just went out. atomic slug clogged." "how radioactive is the spout?" asked swenson. "heavy." "have somebody who's already had a family put on armor and clean up the mess," swenson said, "and alter course for luna city. i'll send you the exact course in a few minutes. when you get to luna, land beside the moulton trust's ship. now stand by to record code." swenson reached back to mister cerobie. "acme private code book." silently, the chairman of the board handed it to him. when swenson had finished coding, he handed the original message to mister cerobie. the message read: "captain elsing, have crew start fight with moulton's crew. not much incentive will be necessary. see that no real damage is done. urgent. will take all responsibility. explain later. cerobie." "swenson," mister cerobie said quietly, "you _are_ insane. tear that up." with slow dignity, swenson put on his coat. he stood there, smiling, and looking at mister cerobie. the memory of dovorkin stalked unpleasantly through the chairman's mind. everything was hopeless, anyway. better go out with a bang than a whimper. "all right, send it," he said. "there is plenty of time to countermand--after i talk to you." * * * * * when swenson had finished sending the coded message, he turned back to mister cerobie. "what's this i hear from dovorkin about a senator being aboard number at luna?" a member of the board began: "after all...." mister cerobie cut him off: "your information is correct, swenson. a senator has shipped with us. however, i would prefer to discuss the matter in my private office." swenson crossed the room to the astrographer in the calculating booth and said: "plot the free-falling curve for number to mars." then he followed mister cerobie into the chairman's office. half an hour later, they came out and swenson went back to his desk. first he glanced at the free-falling plot. then he snorted, called the astrographer and fired him. next he said to mister cerobie: "is that half load of snuff...." "yes, it is. you know martians as well as i do. with their type of nose, they must get quite a sensation. i understand they go a bit berserk. that's why their government outlaws snuff as an earth vice. however, our cargo release states that it is being sent for 'medicinal purposes.' it's no consequence to us what they use the snuff for. we're just hauling it. and i don't have to tell you how fantastic a rate we're getting." "to hell with the canned goods part of the load," swenson said. "can you get a full haul of snuff?" "possibly. but it would cost." "even this outfit can afford to grease palms." "i'll see what i can do." "what's the senator on the moon for?" "he's supposed to make a speech on conquest day." mister cerobie lit a cigar. "that's day after tomorrow," he added. "exactly where is this eloquence to be expounded?" * * * * * "the senator is speaking at the dedication of the new underground recreation dome. it's just outside luna city. they've bored a tunnel from the main dome cluster. this dedication is considered very important. everybody in luna will be there. it's been declared an official holiday, with all crews released. even the maintenance and public service personnel have been cut to skeleton staffs." "with that fiesta scheduled on our beloved satellite," said swenson, "we won't have to worry about getting the senator off for some time. his name's higby, isn't it?" mister cerobie nodded. "then he'll whoop it up long enough for you to get that demurrage mess straightened out." "unfortunately, it isn't that simple. the senator is due for another speech on mars. the timing is close--he only has a minimum of leeway. as you mentioned, number is grounded for demurrage. and we can't ship the senator out on number because of the bad jet." swenson was silent for a long time. the beer gurgled pleasantly as he drank it. then a bright smile--which could have been due either to inspiration or beer--spread across his face. "if that idiot dovorkin can be trusted," he said, "the senator is speaking in the early afternoon, our time. do you happen to know just when he starts yapping? and the scheduled length of the spiel?" "i'll check it." mister cerobie turned to one of his assistants. swenson took down the _luna data handbook_ and thumbed through it. a moment later, the assistant handed a slip of paper to the board chairman. "the senator," mister cerobie said, "will speak from hours to hours." swenson smiled and stuck a marker in the _luna data handbook_. "now," he said, "about this snuff. can you have it loaded by tomorrow night?" "i don't see how." "remember our agreement in the office. if we don't do something, we're through, so all we can do is lose. leave me be and don't ask questions. i want to blast number into low earth-orbital tomorrow night." mister cerobie looked off into that nowhere which was the daily destiny of acme. "all right," he said, "i was born a damn fool. i'll do my best to have a full load of snuff aboard--somehow--tomorrow night." swenson went back to his dispatch sheet. during the next five hours, he looked up only long enough to order another case of beer and a new astrographer. finally, he called heilberg, the assistant dispatcher who was on the night shift, gave him a lecture concerning dispatching in general and the present situation in particular, promoted a date with one of the stenographers, and departed. * * * * * when swenson came back the next morning, he was sober, ornery and disinclined to do any work. he cornered o'toole, the labor relations man, and began talking women. o'toole was intrigued but evasive. "your trouble," swenson said, "is not with women. it's with evolution. i don't blame evolution for creating women. i blame it for abandoning the egg. just when it had invented a reasonable method of reproduction which didn't make the female silly-looking and tie her down needlessly for nine months...." "i don't think they're silly-looking." "maybe you don't, o'toole, but i do. and you must admit that nine months is a hell of a long time to fool around with something that could be hatched in an incubator under automatic controls. look at the time saving. if evolution hadn't abandoned the egg idea, half the human race wouldn't waste time being damned incubators." o'toole backed away. he had never heard the legend of swenson's egg speech. "don't tell me," swenson went on, "that evolution is efficient. are you married, o'toole?" "yes, i--" "wouldn't you rather your wife laid an egg than--" "i don't know," o'toole interrupted, "but i do know that i'd like to find out what the dispatch situation is at the moment." swenson grabbed a piece of paper and drew a diagram. while o'toole was studying the diagram, someone laid a special message on swenson's desk. swenson glanced at it: _acme interplanetary express_ _ z street_ _new york_ _your ship number is hereby grounded at luna city, pending an investigation of a riot involving your men, and for non-payment of bill for atomic slug purification. your number is also charged with unpaid demurrage bill._ _planetary commerce commission_ * * * * * swenson muttered: "good!" and threw the special message in the wastebasket. mister cerobie, who had just entered the office, fished the form out and read it. "it never rains, but it pours," he said. "you can't stand long on one foot," swenson answered without looking up. "put all your troubles in one basket and then lose the basket. _morituri te salutamus._ have you heard my theory about the advantage of reproduction via the egg? and get me a beer." "i will get you a beer, but if you say a word about that egg theory, i will fire you. i heard you talking to o'toole." "okay. we'll forget the egg for the nonce. did you pilfer that snuff?" "it's being loaded. and it cost acme--" "did you expect it would fall like manna from heaven?" swenson flipped the switch of the intercom to acme's launching area. "give me number . captain wilkins." "what are you going to do?" mister cerobie asked. "don't you remember what i told you yesterday? where's that beer?" mister cerobie smiled, a weary, dogged smile, the smile of a man who had bet on drawing to a belly straight. "captain wilkins," came over the intercom, "calling swenson, dispatcher, for orders." "blast as soon as loaded for low altitude earth-orbital." swenson was silent a moment, then: "hell, don't you know the plot? all right, i'll give it to you. full jets, two minutes, azimuth...." mister cerobie interrupted quietly: "swenson, don't you think you'd better check with the astrographer?" turning off the intercom, swenson spun in his chair. "any decent dispatcher knows that one by heart. so maybe i'm wrong. then number will pile up on either the moon or the earth. if that happens, you can collect the insurance and get out of this mess." he flipped on the intercom switch. "sorry, captain wilkins, brass interference. as i was saying, azimuth...." * * * * * mister cerobie made no effort to continue the conversation. he was reading an astrogram, which had just been handed to him. acme interplanetary express z street new york earth hear persistent rumor your ship on which i am a passenger held here for non-payment of demurrage. must make world crisis speech on mars as scheduled. astrogram truth of situation at once. investigation of such matters now pending before subcommittee. do not astrogram collect. sen. hiram c. higby swenson snapped off the intercom, glanced at his dispatch sheet, leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. he was silent for the next half hour and drank three beers, looking either thoughtful or asleep. mister cerobie smoked a cigar until it burned his mustache. when the third beer was finished, swenson reached for an astrogram blank and wrote: hon. senator hiram c. higby esq. acme interplanetary express luna city rumor re unpaid demurrage utterly un-founded. information here that rumor started by your opposition. have vital new data for your luna city speech. will send speech insert at once. james cerobie mister cerobie, who had been reading over swenson's shoulder, said: "you know that demurrage rumor is true." "if things don't work out and we have any trouble, you can say you hadn't heard about the demurrage. by the way, can you write an insert to a political speech?" "i suppose so. i've lied before." "make sure it will take ten minutes to deliver--even talking fast--which senators don't usually do." "what," inquired mister cerobie, "shall i write about?" "you know that scandal senator higby's opposition just got involved in. that business about slave labor exploitation on venus. the story broke this morning. get in touch with my friend max zempky on _telenews_ and have him give you some inside details. it doesn't matter if they're important or not. the senator will grab anything that might pep up his speech. besides, he's probably been having a large time in luna city and hasn't heard about this morning's story." mister cerobie executed a sweeping bow. "yes, sir. and if this thing doesn't work, i told you yesterday in my office what would happen." swenson shrugged. "kismet." * * * * * as mister cerobie opened the door to his private office, swenson called after him: "where's this outfit's attorney?" "in the board room." "find him and send him in here." mister cerobie nodded. "and," swenson added, "be damned sure that speech insert will run at least ten minutes. more, if possible." mister cerobie slammed the door. five minutes later, slim, soft-spoken van euing, acme's attorney, coughed behind the dispatcher's chair. swenson swiveled from coding the astrogram and dropped his cigarette. "what the hell--oh, you. lawyers are like policemen--they sneak up on people." "how did you know i was the firm's attorney?" "i watched you try that unfair-trade-practice suit against lesquallan ltd. two years ago. it was snowing outside. i was broke and the courtroom was warm. you should have won the case. some of their evidence looked phony to me. anyway, you did a good job." "thank you." "did you ever stop to think about the advantage of the egg--" "mister cerobie said you wished to speak to me." "that's right. i want you to draw up a something-or-other--you know what i mean--grounding moulton trust's ship on the moon until this fight hassle is settled." "you mean you wish me to prepare a restraining order?" "restrain, yeah! and restrain them as long as you can. i wish you could restrain them forever. this solar system would be a better place." "on what grounds am i to base my order?" "claim they started the fight and our crew's so bashed up that we haven't enough able men to blast off." "but i'm afraid we can't prove that." "and what's it going to cost us to try? you're on retainer. the total bill for said restraining order will be only the price of some legal paper and the services of a notary. the steno's hired by the month, like you." van euing looked puzzled. "what good will it do?" "you know how long it takes courts to do anything. before your order is tossed out, moulton will have been grounded for a week." van euing lit his pipe. "in legal parlance, it is something irregular, which, being translated, means it's a slick trick." "all it's going to cost _you_ is being half an hour late to lunch." van euing puffed a moment on his pipe and said: "because of your audacity, swenson, and furthermore, because you'll be fired tomorrow, i'll prepare the restraining order." swenson put out his hand and his blunt fingers closed around van euing's delicate ones. when van euing had gone, swenson returned to coding the astrogram. he checked the form twice and sent it. then he turned over his desk to an apprentice dispatcher, left orders to be called if anything broke down, and went out to lunch. * * * * * it was : p.m. when news of the restraining order arrived in the quiet, streamlined offices of the moulton trust. two minutes later, the offices were still streamlined, but not quiet. the three major stockholders of the great organization, n. rovance, f. k. esrov, and cecil neinfort-whritings, formed a tiny huddle at one end of the long conference table. esrov was waving a copy of the order. "gentlemen, we can consider this nothing but an outrage!" "blackmail, really!" it was neinfort-whritings's lisping voice. "whatever it is, this sort of nonsense must be stopped at the beginning. it might set a precedent." "may i suggest," rovance broke in, "that, as the matter of precedent is sure to arise, we take no action without first consulting lesquallan ltd." "an excellent idea," esrov nodded. he switched on the intercom to his first secretary. "connect me with lesquallan ltd. i want to speak with novell lesquallan. inform him that it is urgent." "he just entered our office." the voice that came from the intercom carried the slightest trace of surprise. "he said he desired to discuss something about canned goods and snuff. i shall send him in at once." rovance turned to neinfort-whritings. "i fear that old cerobie is becoming senile. apparently he has lost his mind." "but really, did he ever have one?" nobody laughed. esrov slammed the restraining order on the conference table and stood up. "gentlemen, what shall we do concerning--" "yes, gentlemen, that is just what i want to know." three heads pivoted. novell lesquallan, sole owner of lesquallan ltd., stood in the doorway. he was a broad, ruddy-faced man with a voice trained to basso interruptions. "i understand, mr. lesquallan," esrov said, "that you have a matter to discuss with us." "yes! sit down, f.k. we have some talking to do--about that bankrupt, dishonest acme interplanetary express." "quite a coincidence," neinfort-whritings murmured. "you got trouble with that outfit, too? that settles it. they've cluttered up the orderly progress of free enterprise long enough. out they go." novell lesquallan swiftly read the document and bellowed an unintelligible remark. "something, quite," neinfort-whritings agreed. * * * * * lesquallan got his voice under control. "what action do you intend to take?" "we hadn't decided," rovance answered. "we received the order only a few minutes ago." "before we form our plans," esrov said, "we would like some information about your problems with acme. we understand it involves canned goods and snuff." "yes, those damned.... at the last minute, they turned down a small load of canned goods for luna that we'd been decent enough to give them at reduced rates. they can't get away with that kind of thing long. but that's just the beginning. they got hold of the contract and permit to haul a consignment of medicinal snuff to mars. we had already arranged for that cargo. you know that snuff situation. through certain contacts, we have been able--perfectly legally--to have permits issued. that customs man must have taken a double--" "we understand," rovance broke in. "we have had occasion to make similar arrangements. the rates--and other inducements--are extremely satisfactory." "well, gentlemen," lesquallan demanded, "what are we going to do about this unprecedented situation?" "i suggest," neinfort-whritings said, "that we have our legal staffs meet in joint session. we should impress on them that the quashing of this restraining order is urgent. perhaps we should consider debts owed us by the judiciary we helped elect." "an excellent idea," lesquallan declared. "i will take care of that part of it myself, personally." "as to the snuff matter," esrov said, "i think we should emphasize to our mutual contact that he should be more discriminating in issuing permits." "that's all right for now," lesquallan snapped. "but he's done with, too. i'll see to it that he's replaced." "as to the canned goods situation," rovance said, "it seems to me that we should have a subsidiary company to handle our excess cargoes--at reduced rates, of course. it shouldn't cost too much to pick up one of the less financially secure companies--such as acme." esrov nodded. "an excellent idea." "i agree," lesquallan said and sat down. "but first we must dispose of today's damned annoyances. i suggest that we outline a plan for immediate action." "to begin with," esrov reminded him, "we must deal with the restraining order." * * * * * when swenson came back from lunch, he was not as sober and thus in a better mood. mister cerobie's insert to the senator's speech was on his desk. swenson read the first few lines: as a further indication of the methods, devices, malfeasances, and corrupt practices employed, used, and sustained by those with whom you have called upon me to negotiate in the highest tribunal in washington, let me cite the following information which i have just received. although this information is top-drawer, restricted and highly secret, i was able to obtain it through certain channels which, as a man of honor, i must leave undisclosed. the right of all creatures to be free is a fundamental, an inviolable, right and yet on venus.... swenson said to himself: "mister cerobie is in the wrong business," and started coding the insert. he had almost finished when the ship-calling light flashed red. "number to dispatcher. captain verbold speaking." "dispatcher to number . this is swenson. go ahead." "i'm afraid you can't help me. may i speak to mister cerobie?" "he's out to lunch." "this matter is serious. i am faced with what amounts to mutiny." "sorry, but i got troubles, too. maybe i can find mister cerobie, maybe i can't. why don't you tell me your grief?" captain verbold hesitated. "it's something i've been expecting. the crew has stated that they will leave the ship at mars." captain verbold's next sentence was pronounced word by word in code. "i even have private information that there is a plot to take over the ship and blast directly to earth, where the crew feel their case can be more justly presented." "what are they squawking about?" "everything. wages have not been paid for six months. poor radiation shielding. food not up to standard. you know the story." "it's not the first time i've heard it." "what am i to do?" * * * * * "first, read them section in your copy of _space regulations_," said swenson. "if they divert ship from mars without your permission, it's mutiny. that means the neutron death chamber or, if they are very lucky, life sentences to the luna penal colony. get them all together and read it to them. you're free-falling now, so even the jetters won't have to be on duty." "but if i could talk to mister cerobie--" "i've already told you i don't know where the hell he is. he couldn't do you any good, anyway. didn't you ever read _space regulations_? section : 'the captain of a ship in flight is _solely responsible_ for the maintenance of discipline and his orders cannot be changed or overruled'." "swenson, you said a moment ago that this was your first suggestion. i presume, therefore, that you have others." "i have two others." swenson paused long enough for a brief study of his master ship location chart, which he had just brought up to date. the chart showed the position of all ships at the moment in space. "there's a patrol cruiser loaded with gendarmes three million miles behind you on a course paralleling yours. it's one of the new arrow class and if they blast full, they can catch you in ten hours. mention to the crew that you could notify the police boys and have them pick you up and escort you to mars." "what is the patrol ship's number and call letters?" "arrow--british--earth--number . call letters mmxah." "thanks. if things get too bad, i might take advantage of our valiant guarders of the spaceways. all right, you said you had three suggestions. what's the third?" "some goons on a moulton trust ship, parked beside our number on the moon, started a fight and beat up our boys. we're about to sue moulton for plenty. tell your crew about it and suggest that if they behave, we'll cut them in on the proceeds from the suit, in addition to paying their wages as soon as a snuff cargo that i had to send into orbital gets to mars." "on whose authority am i to make such a statement?" "swenson's. you don't need any other, do you? i know most of the boys on your mobile junkyard. they trust me, so they'll trust you. you have my word that cerobie will go for the idea." "you talk to cerobie and let me know what happens. meanwhile, i'll think over your suggestions." * * * * * the ship-calling light blinked off and swenson went back to coding the speech insert. as he was finishing, o'toole came in. swenson looked up. "o'toole, sure and it's one hell of a job you're doing. you've got me in a fight with myself. my swedish half wants to ignore you and my irish half wants to punch you in the nose. you're supposed to handle labor relations. and i just received a message from captain verbold of number that his crew is about to mutiny." "mother of god, what can i do?" cried o'toole. "this outfit's so broke, it doesn't have enough money to pay the filing fee for bankruptcy." "in the face of adversity, you should spit." "who are you quoting?" "me." "look, swenson, i'm supposed to supervise labor relations, sure. labor is something you hire. that's done by paying wages--on time." "at least you should have brains enough to understand the advantage of the egg." "what?" asked o'toole blankly. "i've already explained it to you. apparently it didn't get past your hair. i shall therefore make a second attempt. do you understand the principle of the egg?" "i don't--" "of course not. you never stopped to analyze it. you just assumed that because human beings are born the way they are, it is the best method. how much pain and trouble does a hen have laying an egg? does she--" "getting back to number ," o'toole said firmly, "what did captain verbold--" "consider the advantage of the egg from another angle, o'toole. let's say your wife lays an egg and, at the moment, you don't have money enough to support another child. all you would have to do is put the egg in cold storage until your ship comes in. then you can take the egg out and incubate it. instead of being--" the click of the latch as o'toole closed the door caused swenson to spin in his chair. tossing his pencil on the dispatch sheet, he put on his coat and went home. * * * * * when the dispatcher for acme interplanetary express arrived at the office the following morning, a special message lay in sublime isolation on his desk. swenson opened a beer and read the message. _board of directors_ _acme interplanetary express_ _gentlemen_: _your restraining order concerning our ship at luna city can only be considered as representing a warped and intolerable concept of justice. we will take every legal action available to us._ _moreover, your action in refusing, without notice, a load which we were so kind as to offer you and your immoral dealings in contraband snuff force us to sever all commercial relations with your organization._ _we are taking appropriate action with the planetary commerce commission._ _yours sincerely_, _moulton trust_ _lesquallan ltd._ swenson was smiling cherubically and bringing his master chart up to date when o'toole came in. "swenson, did you have eggs for breakfast? and how goes with the dispatch?" carefully noting the last change of ship position on the master chart, swenson turned to o'toole. "things are like so," he said, and drew a diagram. while o'toole was studying the diagram, swenson placed a call to moulton trust. "give me esrov. yes, esrov himself. this is swenson, acme interplanetary. if esrov doesn't want to talk to me, jets to him, but i think i have some information he can use." "will you please hold on, mr. swenson? i will convey your message." swenson looked at o'toole for a moment in silence. "no, i don't like eggs for eating. my theory concerns another aspect--" "i know," said o'toole resignedly. * * * * * esrov's urbane voice came from the desk speaker. "mr. swenson, you have some information for us?" "yes, esrov. i've just seen your message to our board and i want you to know that i can certainly understand your position. i could not prevent the restraining order. however, i have a suggestion as to what you can do about it." "we are doing everything we can." "didn't you support senator higby for re-election last year? well, he has shipped with us on an inspection tour of planetary outposts. right now, he's on the moon and will speak at : this afternoon at the official opening of the new recreation center. it occurred to me that it might be worthwhile for you to send him a message suggesting that he incorporate in his speech something about the laxity of the planetary commerce commission that allowed you to get into this mess." "an excellent idea, mr. swenson. we shall give it immediate consideration. and, by the way, if for any reason your employment with acme should terminate, we should be able to find a suitable position for you with our company." "thanks, esrov." swenson switched off the set. "you dirty, stinking," o'toole blared, "doublecrossing--" "calm down, o'toole. don't get off the rocket until she's on the ground. i've got reasons." "reasons? you haven't even got _reason_! and you're a crook!" "now don't let my irish half get on top. i want that senator to talk as long as possible. let's go back to the egg." "you've laid it." "for the last time, let me explain. if evolution had followed my theory, i, being a man, would not lay eggs. women would and therefore they would escape--" "swenson," mister cerobie called from the door of the board room, "you are hired--tentatively--as a dispatcher, not an egg-evolution theorist. now come in here. the board wants to talk to you." swenson jerked the diagram out of o'toole's hand and followed cerobie. ten minutes later, he came out of the board room, saying: "gentlemen, the senator speaks at : this afternoon. at : either fire me, crucify me and make me drink boiled beer alone, or give me a raise." * * * * * the clock on the wall over the dispatcher's desk showed : when swenson called acme's luna city terminal. "dispatcher to numbers and , have crew stand by to blast off in exactly minutes. i don't give a damn about regulations or the p.c.c. this is an order from your company. it must be obeyed. number will follow course as originally planned--destination mars. number will blast for earth, curve to be given in space." fifteen minutes later, the dispatcher's office at acme interplanetary express was quieter than an abandoned and forgotten tomb. the board of directors stood silently in a semi-circle behind swenson. every employee, even the stenographers, were jammed into the frowsy room. as the hand of the clock sliced off the last second of the minutes, swenson looked over his shoulder--and laughed, a great, resounding laugh. then he flicked the switch and picked up the microphone. "swenson dispatcher to and . blast! over. swenson dispatcher to and . blast!" suddenly the silent room was filled with the roar of the jets as they thundered in the imaginations of the men and women crowded around the dispatcher's desk. the tension broke as almost a sob of gladness. what if it proved a hopeless dream, a mere stalling of inevitable ruin? they were no longer grounded. they were in space. to those in the room, it seemed only an instant until the ship-calling light flashed on. "number to dispatcher. in space. all clear." "dispatcher to number , steady as she goes." the red light was off for a moment. then: "number to dispatcher. in space. all clear." "dispatcher to number . temporary curve a . will send exact curve plot in half an hour." swenson turned to the astrographer. "give me a plot for chicago. i don't want to land her in this state. just a matter of prudence. she's registered in this state." the astrographer shouldered his way through the crowd. when he reached the calculators, his swift fingers began pushing buttons. swenson leaned back. "mischief, thou art a'space," he said. "now take whatever course thou wilt." * * * * * at : , swenson reached again for the microphone. "dispatcher to number . you are circling earth at low orbital. decelerate and drop to stratosphere. maintain position over new york. curve and blasting data...." at : , he called max zempky at _telenews_. "anything frying at luna?" "my god, yes! senator higby yapped sixteen minutes overtime and the shadow knife-edge caught everybody with their air tanks down. the control crews were listening to the speech and there wasn't anybody left to switch over the heating-cooling system. you've been to the moon, so you know what happens. when day changes to night and you haven't got any atmosphere, the temperature drops from boiling to practically absolute zero. sure, the automatic controls worked, but there wasn't any crew to adjust and service the heaters and coolers. it's a mess. say, haven't you got a ship or two up there?" "i got 'em out in time." "well, moulton didn't. their ship's been considerably damaged." "thanks, max. let me know if anything else breaks." while swenson had been talking, two special messages and an astrogram had been laid on his desk. he first read one of the special messages. _acme interplanetary express_ _ z street_ _new york_ _gentlemen_: _we are holding you responsible for the damage to our ship number , now on the moon. the captain of your ship should have known the potential danger and warned senator higby of the time factor._ _we will contact the pcc at once._ _f. k. esrov_ _moulton trust_ swenson scribbled an answer and handed it to an assistant. _moulton trust_ _nuts, esrov. you've got to think up something better than that. we have no control over public officials, except during flight. bellyache all you want to the pcc._ _sedately_, _swenson_ the astrogram was from senator hiram c. higby: my being stranded on moon unmitigated and unparalleled outrage. must speak as scheduled on mars. find me transportation. will deal later with your company concerning infamous treatment. sen. hiram c. higby swenson replied: unfortunate circumstance unavoidable. your speech magnificent. will make every effort to secure immediate transportation to mars. swenson * * * * * the second special message was from the pcc and asked with crisp and blunt formality why two acme ships, which had been officially grounded by the commission, had blasted off the moon. in answer, swenson was mild and apologetic. what else could he have done? surely the commission must understand that his first duty was to save his ships from damage. he had been informed by his captains that the shadow knife-edge was almost due, and there was no possibility of the control crews servicing the temperature-change compensators in time. it was an emergency. the matter of the grounding could be settled later. when his answer was finished, he coded it, along with the special message from moulton trust, the astrogram from senator higby, and his replies. finally, he coded the special message from pcc. then he called number . "number to dispatcher. this is verbold. what goes on now?" "you tell me. dwelleth thy household in peace?" "for the moment." "have you followed my instructions?" "in general, yes." "did your crew hear senator higby's speech?" "most of them. what else is there to do in this rat-trap?" "i could think of a lot of things. but as long as the crew heard the honorable's spiel, that's all that matters. do you know about the little affair half an hour ago at luna city?" "no." "check your news recorder. have the item broadcast to the crew. then decode the sequence of messages i'm about to send and read them--at your discretion--to the men. stand by to record code." when he had finished, swenson leaned back and opened a beer. "all we can do now is wait. but i'd give my grandmother's immortal soul, if the old shrew had one, to be in the sacred sanctum of moulton trust." * * * * * lesquallan sat on the edge of the long table in moulton's board room. he spoke slowly and for once his voice was low: "esrov, did you or did you not suggest to our senator higby that he lengthen his speech on the moon to include certain new information? and did that information involve my company along with yours?" "mr. lesquallan, the matter concerns only a minor aspect of policy," said esrov placatingly. "minor aspect of policy, hell! it concerns business. look what happened at luna. and you let us get publicly involved in it. such matters must never be handled openly." esrov did not answer. "did you send such a message, rovance?" rovance shook his head. lesquallan turned to neinfort-whritings. "did you?" "no, lesquallan." neinfort-whritings gently pulled a special message form from beneath esrov's folded hands as they lay on the gleaming conference table. lesquallan swung back to esrov. "did _you_ send it?" esrov looked down at his folded hands. at last he said quietly: "yes, i sent a message to the senator--in our mutual interests." "was it your own idea? or did someone else suggest it?" "the basic thought came from a most unexpected source. it was, we might say, one of those happy breaks of industry. the dispatcher at acme had the sense to cooperate with us. he gave me certain otherwise unavailable information, and--" "what was his name?" "i don't--oh, yes, it was swenson." "you ... you fool ... _idiot_!" neinfort-whritings handed lesquallan the special message he had taken from esrov. it was the one from swenson, which began: "nuts, esrov." lesquallan read the message. then he said slowly: "i've dealt with that clown swenson before--over minor matters. i never thought he had that much brains." he looked at esrov. "or insight. swenson's a smart man. therefore, he must be eliminated." "i still maintain," rovance said, "that the basis of the matter is the strangling of free enterprise." "i agree," said lesquallan. "what right has acme to interfere with free enterprise? they haven't a dollar to our million." "what shall we do?" neinfort-whritings murmured. "follow swenson's suggestion. we're going to the pcc--and we're going to our top contacts. they owe us plenty." "shall we dictate a memo?" esrov put in. "call the pcc," lesquallan ordered. "we're not dictating anything. and we're not sending any messages to anybody. let the pcc send them!" * * * * * no employee of acme interplanetary express had left the smoke-dense office when the ship-calling light went on: "number to swenson. verbold speaking." "dispatcher to number . go ahead." "uproar under control. i followed your instructions. a crew that's laughing won't mutiny. the crew sends thanks and their most pious wishes for the distress of moulton. the men expect shares of the proceeds, if any, in the lawsuit. but they insist on being paid on mars." "they will be, captain verbold. now i've got to keep this beam clear. good luck." swenson turned to mister cerobie. "i presume you can at least find enough cash for the back pay?" mister cerobie did not answer. he was staring at a special message which had just been handed to him. he dropped it on swenson's desk. _acme interplanetary express_ _ z street_ _new york_ _because of your violation of space regulations and unprecedented effrontery, your ships numbers and are hereby ordered to return to the moon. there they will be impounded. a police patrol escort has been dispatched to insure your compliance with our order._ _planetary commerce commission_ swenson read the message and looked up. "well?" asked mister cerobie. the murmur of voices died. the dispatcher's office of acme interplanetary express was a silent, isolated world. swenson wrote an astrogram and handed it to the chairman of the board. "shall i code it?" mister cerobie read the astrogram. he read it a second time and his perplexity vanished. "but will it work?" he asked. swenson shrugged. "it ought to. remember what happened when solar system freight lost that chemical load? we're stratosphering over new york. anyway, he wouldn't dare take the chance. shall i code it, mister cerobie?" "absolutely!" * * * * * the men and women of acme crowded and squirmed for a look at the astrogram on swenson's desk. o'toole realized first and yelled. slowly, as understanding came, other voices took it up, until the office was a chaos of sound. bottles appeared from nowhere. o'toole raised one of them: "sure and st. patrick would have loved it!" calmly, swenson coded: senator hiram c. higby acme interplanetary express luna city only transportation available our ship now in earth stratosphere above new york with cargo snuff. will dispatch this ship special to moon for your disposal. however must jettison cargo to lighten ship. will notify air pollution and pcc. only alternative complete clearance by pcc our ships numbers and . will then dispatch one of them to pick you up. order to jettison will be given in half an hour unless we receive word from you. have you any influence with the pcc? send reaction at once. urgency obvious. swenson the dispatcher for acme said to himself: "i doubt very seriously if any sane senator up for re-election would want the official records to show that, because he talked too long on the moon, a cargo of snuff was dumped over new york. sneezing voters cannot see candidate's name on ballot." twenty minutes later, the replying astrogram was in swenson's hand. acme interplanetary express z street new york earth order clearing your ships and approved by pcc. have ship immediately reverse course and pick me up. under no circumstances jettison snuff. send further information concerning slave labor exploitation venus for inclusion in my forthcoming mars speech. have speech insert in same form as before. senator hiram c. higby * * * * * "and that, mister cerobie," said swenson, "is how you slide out of a jam. you'll get enough cash for that snuff haul to mars to pay the crew of number when she lands there. and you'll have enough left over to pay the demurrage and repair charges at luna. now open me a beer." mister cerobie opened the beer wearily. "you're fired, swenson," he said. "i'll be damned if i'll write another speech or be your bartender." swenson drank and smiled. the ship-calling light flashed red. "number to dispatcher. this is captain marwovan. compartment holed by meteorite. cannot land on ganymede until we make repairs. send me the orbital curve so we can circle until the hole is patched. and tell mister cerobie that the crew is complaining about back pay." transferring the beer to his other hand, swenson grabbed the microphone. "dispatcher to number ...." transcriber's note: this etext was produced from imagination stories of science and fantasy june . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed. the star lord _by boyd ellanby_ [illustration] to some passengers a maiden voyage was a pleasure cruise; to others it meant a hope for new life. only the captain knew of its danger! the _star lord_ waited, poised for her maiden voyage. the gigantic silvery spindle, still cradled in its scaffoldings, towered upwards against the artificial sky of satellite y. [illustration] the passengers were beginning to come on board before captain josiah evans had finished checking the reports of his responsible officers. the ship was ready for space, now, and there was nothing more he could do until takeoff. with long, deliberate steps he walked to his cabin, closed the door, and in the privacy he had come to regard as the greatest luxury life had to offer him, he sank into his chair and reached for the post-bag which had been delivered by the morning's rocket ferry from earth. there were no personal letters for him. he rarely received any and never really expected any, for his career had always been more important to him than personal ties. shoving aside the official documents, he picked up the small brown parcel, slit the pliofilm covering with his pocket knife, and inspected the red leather cover with its simple title: _ley's rockets and space ships._ at the bottom of the cover was a date: may , , volume . in the nearly five hundred years since the publication of volume one, which listed all the earth's rocket ships on half of one page, the annual edition of this book, regularly edited and brought up to date, had become the spaceman's bible. captain evans was annoyed to find that his hands were shaking as he leafed through the pages, and he paused a few seconds, trying to control his excitement. his black hair had begun to turn gray above his ears, and there were a few white hairs in his bushy eyebrows. but a healthy pink glowed under the skin of his well-fleshed cheeks, and the jut of his chin showed the confidence of one used to receiving immediate, unquestioning obedience. when his long fingers had stopped their trembling, he found the entry he had been looking for, and a triumphant smile lighted his heavy features as he settled deeper in his chair and read the first paragraph. "_star lord: newest model in space-ships of the famed star line. vital statistics: construction begun february , on satellite y. christened, october, . maiden voyage to almazin iii scheduled spring, ._" he looked up at the diagram of the ship which hung on the wall at his right, then glanced at the zodiometer on his desk. may , late spring. "_powered by twenty-four total conversion piles. passenger capacity . crew and maintenance . six life boats, capacity . captain. josiah evans._" his throat swelling, he was almost choked with pride as he read the final statistic. this, he thought was the climax of his career, the place he had been working towards all his life. it had been a long road from his lonely boyhood in a kansas orphanage, to captain of the earth's finest spaceship. the _star lord_ was the perfection of modern space craft, the creation of the earth's most skilled designers and builders, the largest ship ever launched. protected by every safety device the ingenuity of man had been able to contrive, she was a palace to glide among the stars. his heart beat more rapidly as he read the next section. "_prediction: her maiden voyage will break all previous speed records, and regain for her backers the coveted blue ribbon, lost ten years ago to the light lines._" no question of that, he thought. no faster ship had ever been built. but he frowned as he read the final paragraph: "_sidelights: reviving a long obsolete custom, certain astrologers in london have cast the horoscope of the star lord and pronounced the auguries to be unfavorable. this verdict, plus the incident at the christening, has caused some head-shaking among the superstitious fringe, and some twittering about 'cosmic arrogance'. but few of the lords of the earth, we imagine, will therefore feel impelled to cancel their passages on this veritable lord of the stars._" * * * * * evans remembered that christening. high in the scaffolding he had stood on the platform with the christening party: the secretary of interstellar commerce, the ambassador from almazin iii, the governor of satellite y, and president and mrs. laurier of earth. swaying gently in the still air, the traditional bottle of champagne hung before them, suspended at the end of a long ribbon. mrs. laurier's eyes were shining, her cheeks flushed, as she looked at her husband for a signal. at his smile and nod she had said in a high clear voice, "i christen thee _star lord_!" and then reached out to grasp the bottle. before she could touch it, somewhere above them the slender ribbon broke. the bottle fell like a stone, plummeted straight down and crashed into a million fragments on the floor of the satellite. an instant's shocked silence, and then a roar of voices surged up from the crowds watching below. mrs. laurier had put her hand to her mouth, and shivered. "what a dreadful thing!" she whispered. "does that mean bad luck?" president laurier had frowned at her, but the secretary of interstellar commerce had laughed. "don't be alarmed, mrs. laurier. there is no such thing as luck. even without a bath of champagne, this magnificent vessel will prove that man is certainly master of the universe. she begins her life well and truly named." the star line ought to abandon that silly custom of christening a new ship, thought captain evans. it was an archaic ceremony, utterly irrational, a foolish relic of a primitive world in which people had been so uncertain of their machines that they had had to depend on luck, and to beg good fortune of unpredictable gods. taking up _ley's space ships_ again, he began fondly to reread the page, when there was a knock at the door and a crewman entered. "mr. jasperson to see you, sir." the captain stared, a tiny muscle in his cheek quivering. "you know i'm not to be disturbed until after takeoff, stacey." "yes, sir. but mr. jasperson insisted. he says he knows those rules don't apply to _him_." evans closed the book, laid it on his desk, and stood up. he leaned forward and spoke softly. "tell mr. jasperson--" "tell him what, josiah?" boomed a voice from the opening door. "you can tell me yourself now." burl jasperson was a portly little man with legs too short for his bulging body, and clothes that were too tight. his head was bald except for a fringe above the ears, and he might have been a comical figure but for the icy blue eyes that probed from under the dome of his forehead. "what have you got to tell me? you're quite right not to let the ragtag and bobtail bother you at a time like this, but i know your old friend burl jasperson is always welcome." with scarcely a pause, the captain extended his hand. "how are you, burl? won't you come in? i hope the purser has taken care of you properly?" "i'm comfortable enough, thanks, and i'm looking forward to the trip. it's odd, come to think of it, that though i've been chairman of the board of directors, and have spent some thirty years managing a fleet of space liners, yet i've never before made a trip myself. i don't like crowds of people, for one thing, and then i've been busy." "what made you decide to go along on this one?" * * * * * reaching across the table, jasperson picked up the silver carafe and poured himself a glass of water. "ah! nothing like a drink of cold water! the fact is, i wanted to check up on things, make notes of possible improvements in the star line's service, and sample passenger reactions. then too, i'll have the satisfaction of being present on the trip which will establish the line's supremacy, once and for all. this crossing will make history. it means everything to us, josiah. you know we're counting on you to break the record. we want to win back the blue ribbon, and we expect you to manage it for us." "i shall do my best." "that's the spirit i like to see. full speed ahead!" "certainly--consistent with safety." "consistent with _reasonable_ safety, of course. i know you won't let yourself be taken in by all this nonsense about the imaginary dangers of hyperspace." "what do you mean?" "all this nonsense about the thakura ripples! but then, of course you're a sensible man or we wouldn't have hired you, and i'm sure you agree with me that the _star lord_ can deal with anything that hyperspace has to offer." jasperson adjusted the set of his jacket over his plump stomach while he waited for an answer, and captain evans stared at him. "is that why you're wearing a pistol?" he said dryly. "to help the ship fight her battles?" "this?" his face reddened as he patted his bulging pockets. "oh, it's just a habit. i don't like being without protection; i always wear a gun in one pocket and my recorder in the other." "you'll scarcely be in any danger on the ship, burl. better leave it in your cabin." "all right. but about the ripples--you aren't going to take them seriously, are you?" "i wish you'd be a little more frank, mr. chairman. has the star line suddenly lost confidence in me?" "no, no, nothing of the sort! we've every confidence in you, of course. but i've been hearing rumors, hints that we may have to make a slow crossing, and i've been wondering. but then, i'm sure that a man of your intelligence doesn't take the ripples any more seriously than i do." "i don't know what gossip you have been hearing," said the captain, hesitantly. "'ripples' is probably a very inaccurate and inadequate name for the phenomenon. thakura might equally well have called them rapids, falls, bumps, spaces, holes, or discontinuities." "then why did he choose to call them ripples?" "probably because he didn't know exactly what they are. the whole problem is a very complicated one." "complicated nonsense, i call it. well, we won't quarrel, my dear josiah, but don't let them hold us back. remember, we're out to break all records!" * * * * * under the artificial sky, crowds of people streamed into the administration building of satellite y. the jumping-off place for all rockets and ships going to and from the stars, y-port was a world of its own, dedicated to only one purpose, the launching and berthing of ships. it was a quiet and orderly place as a rule, and its small permanent colony of workmen and officials lived a spartan existence except for their yearly vacations on earth. but today it seemed as if half the earth's people, friends and relatives of the passengers, had chosen to make the port a holiday spot of their own, to help celebrate the launching of the _star lord_ on her maiden voyage. the rocket ferry between y-port and earth had had to triple its number of runs in the past week, and this morning's rocket had brought in the last of the passengers for almazin iii. alan chase trudged wearily along with the crowd entering the building, trying to close his ears to the hundreds of chattering voices. he was tall and very thin, and his white skin clothed his bones like brittle paper. walking was an effort, and he tried to move with an even step so he would not have to gasp for breath as he moved slowly forward with the line before the customs desk. in his weakness, the gaiety around him seemed artificial, and the noise of voices was unendurable. just ahead of him in line was a young man in an obviously new suit; the pretty girl holding to his arm still had a few grains of rice shining in her hair. "that will be all," said the inspector. "i hope you and mrs. hall have a very happy honeymoon. next!" he gritted his teeth to stop his trembling as the inspector reached for the passport, glanced at a notation, then looked up. "i'll have to ask you to step in and see dr. willoughby, our ship's doctor. it will only take a moment, dr. chase." "but i'm not infectious!" "but there seems to be some question of fitness. in cases like yours the star line likes to have a final check, just to make sure you'll be able to stand the trip. we're responsible, after all. last door on my right." close to exhaustion, alan walked down the hall to the last door and stepped inside. a healthy, rugged man with prominent black eyes looked at him with a speculative glance. "and what can i do for you?" holding out his passport, alan sank down into a chair, glad of a chance to rest, while dr. willoughby studied the document, then looked up, the routine smile wiped off his face. "well! so you're dr. alan chase. i've been much interested in the papers you've been publishing recently. but this is bad news, dr. chase. i suppose you had an independent check on the diagnosis?" "not even one of our freshmen could have missed it, but i had it confirmed by simmons and von kramm." "then there's no question. how did you pick it up, doctor? neosarcoma is still rather a rare disease, and it's not supposed to be very infectious." alan tried to speak casually, although just looking at the rugged good health of the man opposite him made him feel weaker. "no, it's not very infectious. but after medical school, i went into research instead of practice, and i worked on neosarcoma for nearly five years, trying to devise a competitive chemical antagonist. then, as used to happen so often in the old days, i finally picked it up myself--a lab infection." * * * * * the older man nodded. "well, you're doing the right thing now in going to almazin iii. i've made some study of the disease myself, as you may know, and i entirely agree with your theory that it is caused by a virus, and kept active by radiation. since the atomic wars, the increased radioactivity of the earth undoubtedly stimulates mitosis of the malignant cells. it feeds the disease, and kills the man. but on a planet like almazin iii where the radiation index is close to zero, the mitosis of the sarcoma cells stops abruptly, virus or no virus." "i'm glad to hear that," said alan. "i've read some of your papers on the subject, and the evidence sounds pretty convincing." "it's conclusive. if you arrive in time you've nothing to worry about. i've seen men as badly off as you, with malignant growths well advanced, who migrated to almazin iii and recovered within a year. without radioactivity to maintain it, the disease seems to be arrested immediately, and if the tissue damage has not gone too far, the tumor regresses and eventually disappears. once you're cured, you can come back to earth and take up your work where you left off. well, let's check you over." the examination was brief. dr. willoughby initialed the passport, and offered his hand. "you should stand the trip all right. but i'm glad you didn't put it off any longer than you did. another two months of earth's emanations, and i'm afraid i couldn't have certified you. it's lucky for you that the _star lord_ is the fastest ship in space. that's all, dr. chase. i'll be seeing you on board." in the swiftly moving elevator cage alan ascended the slender pylon to the boarding platform, crowded by a group of quarreling children in charge of an indifferent nursemaid. the chief steward, rustling in starched whites, stepped forward at the port, clicked his heels, and curved his thin lips into a smile. "how do you do, sir. the star line wishes you a happy voyage. will you be kind enough to choose?" following his nod, alan looked down at the silver tray extended for his inspection, and then stepped back as a heavy perfume assaulted his nostrils. "what are those?" "carnations, sir, for the gentlemen's coats, and rose corsages for the ladies' gowns. compliments of the star line." "but they're white!" "yes, sir. the white flowers, the only kind we are able to grow in y-port, are symbols of the white light of the stars, we like to think." "what idiot gave the star line that idea?" said dr. chase. "you know stars are all colors--white, green, yellow, blue, and even red. but white carnations are a symbol of death." steward davis lowered his tray. "then you don't care to wear one, sir?" "not until i have to," said alan. "now please call some one to show me my cabin." "band playing in the lounge, sir. tea is being served in the moon room, and the bar is open until just before takeoff." "thanks, but i've been ill. i just want to find my cabin." "boy!" called steward davis. "show this gentleman to q." * * * * * alan followed the pageboy through a complex of corridors, ascending spirals of stairs, down a hall, and to the door of cabin q. the boy threw open the door and alan stepped in, then halted in shocked disbelief at sight of a white-haired old man who was just lifting a shirt from an opened suitcase. "i am dr. chase. isn't this cabin q?" the old man beamed, his pink skin breaking into a thousand tiny wrinkles. "that's right. q it is." "then what are you doing here?" "have you no powers of observation? unpacking, of course. i was assigned to this cabin." staggering over to a bunk, alan sagged back against the wall. he lifted his tired eyelids and stared at the sprightly old gentleman. "but i was promised a cabin by myself!" the old man looked distressed. "i'm very sorry, young man. i, too, hoped to have a cabin to my self. i learned only a few minutes ago that i was to be quartered with another passenger--evidently you. somebody made a mistake, there's no question of that, but the purser tells me that every bit of space is occupied, and no other arrangements can be made. unless you want to postpone your voyage, and follow in a later ship?" "no," said alan. his voice had sunk to a whisper. "no, i can't do that." "then we'll have to make the best of it, young man," he said, picking up a pile of handkerchiefs, and putting them in the drawer he had pulled out from the wall. "let me introduce myself. i am wilson larrabee--teacher, or student, according to the point of view. some years of my life i've spent being a professor of this or that at various universities, and the other years i've spent in travel. whenever the bank account gets low, i offer my knowledge to the nearest university, and stay there until i pile up enough credits so i can travel again." "sounds a lonely sort of life, with no roots anywhere." "oh, no! my wife loved travelling as much as i do, and wherever she was, was home." he paused, his hand arrested in the act of hanging up his last necktie, and for a moment his face was somber. then he finished hanging up the tie, gave it a little pat, and continued cheerfully. "we saw most of the world, in the fifty years we had together. the last trip she made with me, to the moon and back, was in some ways the pleasantest of all. after we returned, we started planning and saving and dreaming of making one last grand tour outside the solar system. and then--well, she was more than seventy, and i try to think that she isn't dead, that she just started the last tour a little ahead of me. that's why i'm making this jaunt now, the one we planned on the _star lord_. it's lonely, in a way, but she wouldn't have wanted me to give up and stay home, just because i had to go on alone." * * * * * glancing at alan's bent head, professor larrabee abruptly banged shut the lid of his empty suitcase and shoved it into the conveyor port in the wall to shoot it down to luggage. then he straightened up and rumpled his white hair. "that's done, young man. will you join me in the bar for a spacecap?" "sorry, sir. i'm very tired. i just want to rest and be quiet." "but a frothed whiskey would help you to relax. come along, and let me buy you a final drink before we take off for eternity." alan noticed with distaste the white carnation in the coat lapel of his companion. "i hardly like to think of this trip as being synonymous with eternity," he said. "you sound as though you didn't expect to come back." "do i? perhaps i made an unfortunate choice of words. but do you believe in premonitions, dr. chase?" "no. all premonitions stem from indigestion." "no doubt you are right. but from the moment of boarding this ship i have been haunted by the memory of an extremely vivid story i once read." "what kind of a story?" "oh, it was a scientific romance, one of those impossible flights of fancy they used to publish in my boyhood, about the marvels of future science. this was in the days before we had got outside the solar system, but i still remember the tale, for it was about a spaceship which was wrecked on its first voyage." "but there've been hundreds of other such stories! why should this particular one be bothering you now?" "well, you see," said the professor apologetically, "it's because of the name. the coincidence of names. this other ship, the one in the story--it was called the _star lord_." "i wouldn't let that worry me. surely it's a logical name for a spaceship?" professor larrabee laughed. "logical, and perhaps a trifle presumptuous. but i'm sure it's a meaningless coincidence, my boy. now how about that drink?" alan shook his head. "come, dr. chase. allow me the liberties of an old man. you're obviously ill, you want to crawl into a hole and pull the hole in after you, and enjoy the deadly luxury of feeling sorry for yourself. but we can't do that sort of thing. let me prescribe for you." with an effort, alan smiled. "all right, professor. i usually do the prescribing myself, but right now i'm too tired to argue. i'll accept a spacecap with pleasure." he swallowed a panedol tablet to ease his pain, then pulled himself up. "that's the spirit, my boy! we will drink to the _star lord_, that she may have a happier fate than her namesake." * * * * * five minutes before takeoff. the first signal had sounded. the bar was closed by now, the lounges deserted, and in theory the twelve hundred and fifty passengers were secure in their cabins, waiting for the instantaneous jump into hyperspace. at the port, chief steward davis leaned against the wall with his tray of wilting flowers, while the second officer and two crewmen stood by, waiting for the final signal to close the port. they were startled by a sudden commotion, a flurry of voices, and turned to see the elevator doors open on the loading platform. a group of laughing people surged forward. "but i'm late again, darlings!" cried a vibrant voice. "you must let me go now! the ship is waiting just for me, i know. stop holding me!" "but we don't want to lose you!" called a man. "you know i'll be back in the fall." "but the theater can't get along without you!" "but it won't be forever, darling!" still laughing, tanya taganova pulled away from her teasing friends. she was a tall woman, very slender; very beautiful, with her burnished auburn hair and warm brown eyes. she walked forward with the swift precision of a dancer, in her flared gown of stiff green satin, whose ruff stood out about her slender neck to frame a regal head. in her arms she carried an enormous sheaf of red roses. with light steps she entered the port, then turned to wave at her friends and give them a last challenging smile. the second officer asked sharply, "are you a passenger, madame? you're rather late." "and i tried _so_ hard to be on time for once in my life! i'm very sorry, lieutenant!" "quite all right, madame. you got here in time, and that's what counts. but you'll have to hurry to get to your cabin before takeoff." "wait!" said steward davis. his long face had come to life as he looked at her admiringly and extended his tray of flowers. "white roses? for me?" she said. "yes, madame. compliments of the star line." turning her head, she moved away. "thank you, but i'm not ready to wear white roses, yet. it's not that they're not lovely, but--" she raised her arms, burdened with their scented blooms, "you see that i already have so many flowers, and the red rose is still for the living!" davis banged his tray to the floor and shoved it aside with his foot. "all right, madame. now we'll have to hurry. we'll have to run!" * * * * * a final bell rang, a final light flashed. on the floor below the ship, the crowds of relatives and wistful stay-at-homes gazed up; at the beautiful metal creation, poised on its slender fins, nose pointed towards the opened dome. a vibration began, a gentle, barely perceptible shuddering of the ground which increased in frequency. it beat through the floor, into their feet, until their whole bodies quivered with the racing pulse that grew faster, faster, as the twenty-four total conversion piles in the ship released their power. then, as the people watched, between one instant and the next, the ship vanished. in the blink of an eyelid she had shifted to hyperspace. the _star lord_ had begun her maiden voyage. * * * * * by the second day out, most of the passengers felt completely at home. the ship had become a separate world, and the routines they had left behind them on earth, and the various routines they would take up again some six weeks from now on almazin iii seemed equally remote and improbable. life on the _star lord_ was the only reality. she moved through the uncharted realms of hyperspace, travelling in one hour's time as measured by earth watches, more than twenty light years distance, if measured in the units of real space. the ship itself was quiet. the vibration of the takeoff had ended in a moment, and now the passengers could hear no noise and hum of motors, could feel no motion against swelling waves, no battering against a barrier of uneven air. the artificial gravity induced a sense of security as absolute as though the ship were resting on living rock. although most of the cabins were small, they were cleverly designed to provide the maximum of comfort, even the least expensive of them. for the very wealthy, the rulers of the galaxy's finance, the owners of the galaxy's industries, the makers of the galaxy's entertainment, there were the luxury cabins. the floors glowed with the soft reds of oriental rugs, the lounge chairs were upholstered in fabrics gleaming with gold thread. cream-colored satin curtains fluttered in an artificial breeze at the simulated windows, and on the walls hung tranquil landscapes in dull gold frames. to those who had engaged them, the ornate cabins seemed only appropriate to their own eminent positions in life. delicious meals were served three times a day in the several dining rooms, the softly lighted bar was never closed, and every day three theaters offered a varied program of stereo-dramas. there was even--the most marvelous, daring, expensive luxury of all--a swimming pool. the pool was small, and was open only to the first cabin passengers, but the fact that a ship travelling to a distant solar system could afford room enough for a pool, and extra weight for the water needed to fill it, seemed evidence that man had achieved a complete conquest of the inconveniences of space travel. one luxury, however, freely accessible to even the poorest sheep herder on earth, was denied the passengers of the _star lord_. they could not see the stars. they could not see the sky. the ship had portholes, of course, and observation rooms which could be opened if at any time she cruised in normal space, but the ports and observation windows were closed now, for there was nothing to see. the ship was surrounded by blackness, the impenetrable, unknowable blackness, of hyperspace, but this black emptiness did not frighten the passengers because they never bothered to think about it. but the builders of the ship had designed it so that even the simple pleasure of looking at a friendly sky should not be denied its passengers. an artificial day and night of the appropriate length was maintained by the dimming and brightening of lights, and the main lounges were bounded with special walls which looked like windows, through which could be glimpsed bright summer days, fleecy clouds drifting over a blue sky, and, in the evenings, soft starlight. * * * * * every passenger should have been soothed into contentment by these devices, but by the end of the first week, burl jasperson was restless. he hated to sit still, and the hours and the days seemed endless. his bald head and portly body were a familiar sight as he roamed the ship, inspecting every detail as though it were his personal responsibility. once a day he called on captain evans to check on the progress of the _star lord_, once a day he chafed under the cold courtesy of the captain's manner, and then wandered on. in his jacket he wore his pocket recorder, and he was momentarily cheered whenever he found an excuse for making a memorandum: "chairs in lounge should be two centimeters lower. sell deutonium shares. how about monogrammed linens for the first cabins? install gymnasium?" as he walked, he murmured these thoughts to his recorder, and each night his meek and colorless secretary sat up late to transcribe them into the locked notebook which was his special charge, after jasperson had taken his sleeping pills and crawled into bed. on the evening of the eighth night out, burl jasperson wandered into the bar, and drummed his pudgy fingers on the table as he waited to give his order. "a glass of ice water, and a moon fizz. and be sure you make it with genuine absinthe. you fellows seem to think you can get away with making it with _'arak_, and your customers won't know the difference. well, just remember i'm one customer that does, and i want _real_ absinthe." "yes, sir, mr. jasperson," said the bar steward. turning restlessly in his chair, burl let his eyes stop on the white-haired old gentleman beside him, happily consuming a brandy and soda. after a moment's inspection, he stuck out his hand confidently. "my name's jasperson. everything all right? enjoying the trip?" the pink skin wrinkled in amusement. "i am wilson larrabee. everything's fine, thank you, except that the ship is almost too luxurious for a man of my background. a professor's salary does not often permit him indulgences of this kind." "you a professor? of what?" "various things at various times. philosophy, physics, elizabethan drama, history of science--" "myself, i never could understand why a sensible man would go into that business. no money. no prestige. never doing anything, just reading and thinking." "every man to his taste," said larrabee. "yes, within limits. but the things some of you professors think up! most of the ideas do more harm than good, scaring people to death, hurting business. you'd think they ought to have more sense of responsibility!" he tasted his drink, then nodded knowingly at the bartender. "this is something like! _real_ absinthe." professor larrabee studied his companion. "i can hardly suppose, mr. jasperson, that you hold professors responsible for all the ills of the world. and yet you seem disturbed. did you have something in particular in mind?" "yes. the thakura ripples!" * * * * * amusement vanished from the professor's eyes. "what about them?" "why are people so afraid of them? as far as i can see, they're just a piece of nonsense thought up by a dreamy-eyed physics professor, and he hypnotized people into believing in them. but as i was telling captain evans last night, they've never been seen, never been measured, and there's nothing at all to prove that they have any existence outside the mind of a madman. and yet people are afraid of them!" "and just what are the thakura ripples?" said alan chase, drawing up a chair. "waiter, i'll have a spacecap." "feeling a little better tonight, alan?" asked his friend. "some, thanks. i just had a checkup from dr. willoughby, and he thinks i'm more than holding my own. now go on about the ripples. where are they? what do they do?" "suit yourself," jasperson muttered. "if you want to tell ghost stories, go ahead." "thank you. the thakura ripples, my boy, are an unexplained phenomenon of hyperspace. we do not know what they are--only that they are dangerous." "but i thought that space was entirely uniform?" "alas, no. not even normal space can be called uniform. it has been known for a long time that variations exist in the density of the interstellar gases. just why they occur, what pattern they follow, if any, was for many years one of the major unsolved problems confronting astronomers and physicists. then they learned that these variations in density of the interstellar gases were directly connected with the development of the successive ice ages on the earth, and eventually a study of the collisions and interactions of the various light forces from the stars in the galaxy made the pattern clear. we know, now, that the variations occur only in a certain band of space. they may occur at any given place within that band, but their position is constantly shifting and unpredictable." "now you see it, now you don't?" said alan. "exactly. now it was thakura's theory that the ripples are an analogous band of mysterious forces existing in hyperspace. they may be tangible barriers, they may be force barriers, we do not know. but a ship entering this lane _may_ go through it without damage, and by pure chance take a course which misses all these bumps in space. or, by going slowly and using his instruments to feel his way, a navigator can often sense them ahead, and if he is skillful he may be able to dodge them. but if, in some terrible moment, he smashes head-on against the thakura ripples, the conversion piles which power his ship are immediately affected. they begin to heat, perhaps to heat irreversibly, and if they get out of control, they may vaporize. in the last fifty years at least five ships have vanished in this region, and it was thakura's belief that they were disintegrated on the ripples." "but there isn't any evidence!" jasperson exploded. "isn't a demolished space ship evidence?" "no! it's evidence that something went wrong, certainly, but it doesn't tell us _what_ went wrong. i'm not an unreasonable man, professor, i'm a hardheaded business man, and i like to deal with facts." "i don't have an intimate knowledge of these matters, of course," said larrabee, "but it was my impression that in the past fifty years since travel in hyperspace became common, several ships have been unaccountably lost." "your first figure was right. five ships have been lost--that much is fact. why they were lost is still a question. it's my considered opinion that they were lost by human failure; the crewmen let the piles get hot, and the ships were helpless. in the early days they had to get along with only one or two piles, and if they went wrong the ship was done for. but we've changed all that. that's why the _star lord_ has twenty-four piles. no matter what happens it's impossible that _all_ of them should go bad at once. she can ditch the dangerous piles and still always have power enough left to make port. one thing is certain, this ship will never be wrecked on the ripples of a mad scientist's imagination! a phenomenon like the ripples, is impossible. if it existed, we'd have had some proof of it many years ago." "but surely you don't mean to imply that if we don't know a fact, it is therefore impossible?" "not at all. but you know yourself, professor larrabee--you're an educated man--that by this time our physicists understand the universe completely, from a to z. there are no unexplained phenomena. thakura is shut up in a madhouse now. in my opinion, he was already insane when he published his theory." larrabee was nodding, thoughtfully. "i wonder what makes you so certain of your theory?" "what theory? i never deal in theories. i'm talking fact." "your theory that we have unveiled all the mystery of the universe; how do you know? every now and then, of course, man lives through a century of such amazing progress that he concludes that nothing remains to be learned. but how can he ever be certain?" "but we are certain! most physicists are in agreement now that there hasn't been one single unexplained physical aberration in the past century!" "most physicists except thakura, you mean?" "but thakura is insane! we understand all the physical phenomena of the universe." "except the thakura ripples?" jasperson slammed down his glass and stood up, his face red and puffy. "steward! more ice water! i'm getting tired of those words, professor. do you think for one minute i'd have risked my life to come on this trip if i'd thought there was the slightest danger?" alan looked up languidly. "you mean you wouldn't mind sending a crew and passengers into danger--as long as you could take care to be safe yourself?" "surely you're not afraid, mr. jasperson?" said larrabee. "no. what is there to be afraid of?" he gulped down his drink. "nothing can wreck the _star lord_!" * * * * * when dr. alan chase woke up next morning and glanced at his wrist watch, he realized that the breakfast hour was nearly over. professor larrabee had already left the cabin. alan was not hungry. it had been many months since he had really enjoyed an appetite for food, but he got up and began to dress, so that he could perform the duty of eating. but his clothes, he noticed, were beginning to fit a little more snugly. he fastened his belt at a new and previously unused notch, buttoned his jacket, and then performed the ritual he carried out every morning and every evening. touching a facet in the ornamentation of his wrist watch, he walked about, geigering the room. radiation normal, somewhat less than earth's normal, in fact. the twenty-four piles were well shielded, and if this continued, he should survive the journey in fair shape. at the door of the dining room he paused, for the entrance was blocked by steward davis and the young couple he had noticed the day they left y-port. the tall young man with rumpled black hair was arguing, while the pretty girl clung to his arm and watched his face admiringly, as though he were the only man in the world. "but steward," said the young man, "dorothy and i--that is, mrs. hall and i--we felt sure we'd be able to have a table by ourselves. we don't want to be unreasonable, it's only that this is our honeymoon, maybe the only time we'll ever get to spend together, really, and we like to eat alone, together, i mean. that's the reason we chose the _star lord_, because the advertisements all talked about how big and roomy it was, and how it didn't have to be so miserly with its space as they did in earlier ships. they said you could have privacy, and not have to crowd all together in one stuffy little cabin, the way they used to." "i'm sorry, mr. hall," said the steward crisply. "we are all proud of the spaciousness of our ship, but not even the _star lord_ can provide separate tables for everybody who--oh, _good_ morning, mr. jasperson! glad to see you, sir." turning his back on tom, he smiled and bowed to the new arrival "everything all right, sir?" "good morning, dr. chase. no nightmares last night? 'morning davis. tell that waiter of mine to be more particular about giving me plenty of ice water. i like plenty of water, and i like it cold." "sorry, sir. i'll speak to him at once." he bowed again as jasperson strode on. "then could we--" tom began. davis whirled with an impatient frown. "what? are you still here? surely i made it clear that there's nothing i can do, mr. hall?" "but couldn't you at least move us to another table?" "i regret that you are dissatisfied with our arrangements. all table space was allocated before we took off from y-port." "but you've put us with such noisy people!" said tom stubbornly. "they keep talking about how much money they made in deutonium, and they refer to us, right in front of us, as the babes in the woods. they may be rich, but they haven't the manners of a six-year old. we _can't_ stay at that table." "mr. hall, i can't waste any more time with you. if all our passengers were to demand special privileges--" he shrugged his shoulders. * * * * * dorothy hall whispered shyly, "ask him, then, what about that man?" and she nodded her head slightly to the right. "yes," said tom. "you say there isn't enough room, but what about that table over there? it's made to seat two, and there's just that one man who eats alone." davis glanced over. "oh, yes. but that's mr. jasperson! he likes to be by himself." "who's mr. jasperson?" "a very important man." "and i'm not?" alan broke in. "excuse me, mr. hall. i am dr. chase. won't you join my table? three of the people assigned places there are almazanians, a diplomatic mission, i think, and they naturally prefer to have their own cuisine in their own cabins, so we have room for three more." "how about it, steward," said tom. "any objections?" shrugging his shoulders, davis strolled away. tom glared at the retreating back. "that guy has the face of a murderer. he can't be decent to anybody with less than a million credits." dorothy laughed. "never mind, tom. someday you'll be the most famous lawyer in the interstellar courts, and maybe you'll get a chance to prosecute him for arson or treason." alan led them to the rear of the dining room, where his two table companions were finishing the last sips of their coffee, and lighting the first cigarette of the morning. "miss taganova, may i present tom and dorothy hall, who would like to share our table." tanya lifted her beautiful auburn head and smiled a welcome. professor larrabee stood up, his pink cheeks crinkling with pleasure as he shook hands with tom. "young people make the best companions," he said, "especially on long journeys." alan sat down and reached for the vitamin dispenser. "these particular young people want privacy. they're on their honeymoon, and would hardly shed a tear if all the rest of the world suddenly ceased to exist." "it's not quite like that, dr. chase," said tom, his face reddening, "but those people at our other table were just out of our class, one way or another. the men talked all the time about their bank accounts, and the women clawed at each other about which one had the biggest house, and the biggest pearls and diamonds and emeralds, until we began to feel smothered in a blanket of credits and diamonds." "credits and diamonds must be very nice things to have," said tanya. "i've never managed to collect many of either." "i've nothing against them in themselves," said tom, "but right now they don't seem to matter very much. we had to wait five long years to be married, five years for me to finish my law training, and for dorothy to wear out her family's opposition. they didn't want her to throw herself away on a penniless lawyer." "as if i were a child who didn't know her own mind," said dorothy. "well, i wanted tom, penniless or not; and anyway, in a few years he's going to be the finest lawyer in the interstellar courts." "i hope you'll always be as happy as you are now, children." the professor's eyes were misty as he stood up. "come, miss tanya. take a stroll with me, and bring back to an old man a brief illusion of youth." "but you'll never be old!" she said affectionately. "you're still the most fascinating man on the ship." like every other man in the room, alan watched with envious eyes as tanya took the professor's arm and sauntered to the door, the heavy taffeta skirts of her pearl-gray gown swishing and rustling as she walked. * * * * * within the sealed hulk of the _star lord_ the twenty-four piles silently did their work, out of sight, out of the thoughts of the passengers. driving the ship through the unknowable infinities of hyperspace, they held her quiet, steady, seemingly without motion. they behaved as they were intended to, their temperatures remained docilely within the normal limits of safety, and the ship sped on. the technicians and maintenance men, the navigators, the nucleonics men, all kept aloof from the social eddies frothing at the center of the ship. they lived in another world, a world of leashed power, in which the trivial pursuits of the passengers were as irrelevant as the twitterings of birds. in the central tiers occupied by the passengers, each morning the walls of the lounges and dining rooms resumed their daily routine of simulating the panorama of earth's day. lights glowed into a clear sunrise, brightened into a sunny sky across which light clouds scudded. children played in the nurseries, grownups idled through the hours, eating the delicious food, taking a dip in the priceless pool, attending the stereodrams, and playing games. at the cocktail hour, the orchestra played jaunty tunes, old-fashioned polkas, waltzes, mazurkas; at dinner, it shifted to slower, muted melodies, suitable background for high feminine voices, deep male laughter, and the heavy drone of talk. in the walls, the sun set, twilight crept in, and the stars came out. after the stars had been advancing for several hours, people finished their dancing and card games, walked out of the theaters, had a final drink at the bar, paused at the bulletin board which detailed the ship's daily progress, and went to bed. dr. alan chase followed his own routine. each morning and each evening he geigered his cabin and found the radiation still below the earth normal. he was surprised to find that he was holding his own, physically, instead of becoming progressively weaker, as he had expected, and he began to feel hopeful that he might quickly regain his health on the inert atmosphere of almazin iii. he was not strong enough, however, to take part in the active games of the passengers, and had not enough energy to try to make friends, except for the people at his dining table--particularly tanya. of all the lovely women on board, he thought tanya taganova the loveliest. he knew he was not alone in this, for the arresting planes of her face, the dramatic color of her rustling taffeta gowns, attracted many followers. he would sit in the lounge at night and watch her dancing, and then realize, suddenly, that she had disappeared, long before the evening was over. she was an elusive creature, as unpredictable as a butterfly. wandering listlessly about the ship, one afternoon he stepped through the open door of the library. in the almost empty room he saw the auburn head of tanya, bent over so as to hide her face and show him only her glowing hair. she raised her head as he approached. "are you looking for a book, dr. chase?" "no, i just wondered what was interesting you so much." * * * * * she shifted her seat, to let him see a large sheet of rough drawing paper covered with a chalk sketch of a desolate gray marsh over which green waves swirled from the sea, behind them loomed rose-colored granite hills. "i'm a scene designer, you know. but at home, somehow, i never have time to myself. people will never believe i'm serious, and when i want to get some real work done, i run away on a trip, by myself. right now i'm sketching out a set for a new stereodrama we're staging next autumn. this particular one is for a melancholy suicide on venus. i've several more here." she pointed to a scattered heap of drawings. the soft chime of the library telephone interrupted them. tanya rose and moved to the desk. "yes? not now, youngster. i'm working. yes, maybe tomorrow." alan had been examining her drawings. "is this what you do during the hours when you disappear?". "usually. sometimes i drop into the playroom to chat with the children. they're more interesting than their parents, for the most part, and nobody ever seems to pay much attention to them." "but do you have to work at night, too? when you disappear in the middle of the evening, everybody misses you. the men all watch for you to come back, their wives sigh with relief, and old man jasperson toddles around and searches the dance floor and bleats, 'where's miss tanya? she was here just a little while ago, and now i can't find her anywhere!'" "i know. but one dance an evening with him is about all i can stand. i don't really like the man." "but why? he's a little stupid, but he seems a harmless sort of duck. in a financial deal, of course, i can see that he'd be sharp and ruthless--that's how men like him become millionaires--but he can't knife anybody on shipboard." tanya slashed a heavy black line across her drawing, bearing down so hard that she broke the chalk, and threw the pieces to the floor. "he's a coward! haven't you ever noticed the way he bullies the waiters? how he patronizes professor larrabee, and ignores the young halls? and to hear him tell it, you'd think only his advice makes it possible for captain evans to run the ship! i'm afraid of men like that. they're cowardly and boastful, and in a crisis they are dangerous!" "what an outburst over a fat little bald-headed man! aren't you letting your dramatic sense run away with you?" laughing, tanya picked up her chalk and resumed sketching. "probably, but after all, i earn my living with my imagination." "then you aren't just a rich young woman dabbling in the theater?" "no indeed. if you could see my bank account! no, i'm going to almazin iii to make authentic sketches of the landscape. we may do a show set in that locale, next year." "i wish i could see some of the shows you stage." "when we get home, i'll send you a pass." he did not answer. suddenly the melancholy venusian scene she was creating depressed him, as if it had been a reflection of his own barren life. "or don't you like the theater, dr. chase?" "it's not that," he said hastily. "only--" he shrugged his shoulders. "something about this ship, i suppose. home seems so very far away." "have you felt that too? i've had the feeling, sometimes, that earth isn't there any more, and that this ship is the only reality." * * * * * by the end of the third week out, burl jasperson was afflicted by an almost intolerable tension. he prowled the ship like a tiger, for he could think of nothing more to do. for the moment there were no more improvements to suggest to the star line, no more brilliant financial deals to execute, and each empty minute seemed to swell into an endless hour. he tried to relax by viewing the dramas on the stereoscreen, but he was always too uneasy to sit through an entire performance, and would leave in the middle to resume his pacing of the corridors. at his private table in the dining room he stared at the empty chair across from him, munching his food mechanically, seething with unrest. he could see tanya's gleaming head across the room, with alan chase's beside her, and he tortured himself with imagining the light laughter, the friendly talk which must be taking place there. never, before this trip, had he been made to feel so unnecessary, so much an outsider. wasn't he a lord of finance, a master of industry, the kind of a man to be respected and admired? of course, less successful men called him ruthless, he realized, but he was not ruthless--only realistic. he was an able man, and if he expected people in general to take orders from him, it was only because he was more intelligent and more capable than the people to whom he gave his orders. nothing wrong with that. but these miserable empty days were beginning to frighten him. he felt lost. the ship ran by herself, without needing his help, and there was no doubt at all that she would win the blue ribbon. although he questioned captain evans sharply, and checked every day on the minutest data of the voyage, so far he had found nothing to criticize--except the coldness of josiah evans' manner. he ground his teeth through a stalk of celery in a vicious bite. after all, wasn't he chairman of the board of directors of the star line? wasn't it his right, even his duty, to make sure that everything was going well? the crowd of diners had grown thin, now, and he could see clearly the little group at tanya's table. they were laughing, and he could see the delightful animation which always disappeared whenever he tried to talk to her. steward davis sidled up, a deferential smile on his long face. "is everything all right, mr. jasperson?" "um." "looks like we'll get the blue ribbon this trip, doesn't it, sir?" "um." "if you should ever want any special dishes, sir, any little delicacies not available to everyone, i should be glad to speak to the chef." jasperson pushed his plate away. "i'll remember, davis." throwing down his napkin he stood up. his waiter came running. "dessert, sir?" * * * * * without answering, he strode across the room, trying to compose his mouth into a smile as he reached his goal. "miss taganova, would you care to join me in the bar for a drink?" they all looked up at him in astonishment. "but i've just finished dinner," she said. he waited, uncertainly. at last professor larrabee pointed to the unoccupied chair. "perhaps you'd care to join us, instead?" no one else spoke, and he sat down nervously. conversation had stopped, and at last he broke out with explosive force. "i wish captain evans would speed up this ship. it feels as if we'd been on the way forever. and still three weeks to go!" "do you find three weeks so long a time?" asked the professor. "it seems like eternity. i wish something would happen. why can't we have a little excitement?" "couldn't you find any more banks to break today?" alan drawled. "no gambles on the stock exchange?" the professor broke in soothingly. "now, there's an idea! you're obviously a gambling man, a man of action. do you play poker? why don't you get up a little game among your friends? that ought to provide you with excitement for one evening at least." "would you join the game?" "no, no, my dear mr. jasperson! you and i do not move in the same circles. i confess, i enjoy the delightful uncertainties of poker, but i could never afford to play for your stakes." "then we'll make the stakes what you can afford. each raise limited to five credits?" "in that case, i might consider it." "you, dr. chase?" "too exciting for an invalid, i'm afraid." "you, mr. hall?" tom squeezed dorothy's hand under the table. "no, thank you, mr. jasperson. my wife and i, we have other plans." "if it's money, young fellow, i'll stake you, and you can have a year to pay me back." tom grinned. "you're very generous. but what makes you so sure you'd be the winner?" "i always win. will you join the game, miss taganova?" he accepted her silent head-shake without protest. "then i'll try to round up two or three others. we don't want a big crowd--too many people make me nervous. perhaps willoughby will play, and i'll get captain evans. he doesn't like the game, but he'll sit in if i insist. see you in my suite in half an hour." * * * * * the poker game had been in progress for more than an hour when captain evans entered the parlor. frowning, jasperson looked up. "you're late, josiah. i told you we'd begin at nine." "sorry, burl. i was delayed." jasperson paused in the act of raking in the pot, and looked up sharply. "anything wrong?" "no, all serene." "anything you need my advice on?" "no, just a routine conference with the navigator." "then pull up a chair and get in the game." nearly half the chips were piled in front of jasperson, and across from him a modest heap sat before the professor. at his right the baggy-eyed only son of a deutonium millionaire fingered his dwindling pile indifferently, and on his left dr. willoughby stared unbelievingly at his few remaining chips, three blues and a couple of whites. "i'll just watch," said the captain. "you know i'm not much of a gambler. chess is my game." "oh, come on, josiah. i insist that you play. prove that you've got red blood in your veins." evans hesitated, but remained standing. "i'd rather just look on." "now look here, captain. doesn't the star line always try to please its passengers? well, i'm a passenger. or is it just your native caution that makes you afraid of losing?" his laugh did not entirely disguise the irritation in his voice. "all right, anything to oblige," said evans wearily, pulling up a chair. "what stakes are you playing for?" the captain lost, slowly and steadily. mechanically he went through the motions of dealing, discarding, drawing, and betting, but it was obvious that his mind was not on the game. jasperson rarely lost a hand, if he had stayed at all, while professor larrabee's luck was unpredictable, the pile of chips before him fluctuating, growing or diminishing with startling swiftness. they were interrupted once when a waiter came in with a tray of bottles and glasses. the captain refused. "but one drink won't do you any harm," said jasperson. "i never drink in space. for one thing, the rules of the star line explicitly forbid it, as you should know." "yes, i helped make that rule. that means i can release you from it." but evans was firm. "i never drink in space," he repeated. "i'll take two cards--no, make it three." the professor surveyed his hand with his customary sprightly air. "i'll play these," he said. jasperson discarded. "i'll take one." captain evans languidly opened the betting, but after the first round he dropped out, and only jasperson and the professor remained. each raised the other persistently, and while jasperson grew more and more excited, the professor smiled as usual, his eyes glinting with amusement. "and another five," said larrabee. for the first time, jasperson hesitated. "you sure you mean it, professor? i kind of hate to clean you out, especially because i doubt if you can afford it." "suppose you let me be the judge of what is, after all, a private matter?" "all right, it's you that will go bankrupt, not me. and another five." "see you, and raise you five!" * * * * * jasperson sat back and pondered, his cold eyes calculating. "now let's review the situation, just among friends. the professor's a smart man, and he isn't rich. he saw me draw one card, so he can make a pretty good guess what i probably hold, if i drew the right card, but he's playing a pat hand, and playing as if he meant it. well, i've put a lot of credits in that pot, but i never did believe in throwing good money after bad, even in a friendly game. i quit." "what? you mean you're going to drop out without even seeing me?" "i know when i'm licked. five credits is five credits, even to me." he threw down his cards and reached to gather in the deck. slowly professor larrabee raked in the chips, as jasperson went on complacently. "that's the only principle a practical man can work on. know when you're licked. get all the facts, analyze all the data, and then act on the logical conclusion, no matter how much you may hate to. it was clear to me that you must have drawn a pat flush that would top my straight, so i simply decided not to waste any more money." "thank you, mr. jasperson. i appreciate the gift." "it was no gift. you had me beat." "did i? only if you had all the facts, only if you analyzed all the data, and only if you reached the correct conclusion. perhaps you ought to see what i held." deliberately he turned over his hand and spread the cards. jasperson jumped to his feet in a rage. "but that's a handful of junk! not even a pair! you held a bust, and i had you beat!" "certainly. but you didn't know it. without all the facts, you acted on a faulty conclusion." breathing noisily, his plump face flushed, jasperson smashed his fist into his pile of chips and scattered them to the floor. "a pure bluff! i hate bluffing!" "then you miss a great deal of fun in life," said larrabee calmly. "i find it dull just to analyze data and then bet on a sure thing. i like a little excitement." slowly the financier sank back into his chair. he gulped in a large breath of air and tried to steady himself, a sickly smile around his mouth. "excuse me, professor. but you took me by surprise." hands trembling, he began to shuffle the deck. there was a knock at the door, and a crewman entered. "what is it, stacey?" said captain evans. "chief wyman is waiting to see you in your quarters, sir." with a sigh of relief, the captain turned in his few chips. "time for me to quit, anyway." his face still red, jasperson looked up hopefully. "shall i come with you? any way i can be of use?" "no thank you, burl. i'll leave you to your little game." * * * * * in the captain's quarters, chief wyman was pacing the floor. "sir!" he burst out. "this is it! we've hit the thakura ripples!" "impossible, wyman! it's too soon. what's happened?" "you told me to report as soon as we ran across anything suspicious, sir. well, look what our screen has been picking up." he handed over a plastic record tape, perforated by minute notches which outlined an unsystematic, jagged line of peaks and hollows. "we've been getting this stuff all evening." "doesn't seem to mean anything. it doesn't show any sort of pattern." "no, sir, and it may not mean anything, but it's different from what we've been getting up till now. and then another thing. it's probably not serious, but the number ten pile has started to heat." "begun to heat? what's wrong with pile ten? one of your men been getting careless?" "i'm positive not, sir. i have complete confidence in all of them." captain evans studied the record tape, a worried frown on his forehead. "it's just possible, i suppose, that the ripples--is pile ten heating fast?" "no, sir. it's still below the critical level, and of course we're putting in dampers." "i wish we _knew_ something definite about the thakura ripples," the captain burst out, "what they are, what they do, what they look like, and _how_ they affect our atomic piles! if only thakura were still a sane man, and could finish up his calculations!" "maybe thakura was crazy to start with," said chief wyman, "or maybe the ripples drove him crazy. i don't know. but i do know pile ten is heating." "well, keep watching it. double the checks on the other piles, and let me know of even the slightest rise." as soon as the door had closed, evans opened the desk panel and buzzed operations. "pilot thayer? captain evans here. i am about to give you an order. as soon as you have executed it, come at once to my cabin, and bring navigator smith with you. here it comes. reduce speed immediately, repeat immediately, to one-half, repeat one-half. that's all." * * * * * nobody felt the alteration in the progress of the _star lord_. within the metal casing of the ship nothing was changed. the sunny scenes in the walls were just as bright, and the synthetic light of the slowly moving stars at night was just as soothing. for the passengers, the black menace outside the ship did not exist. because change of speed cannot be felt in hyperspace, they had no way of realizing that the _star lord_ had slackened her pace and was feeling her way cautiously as a blind man to avoid the ominous barriers of the thakura ripples. on their way to their cabins that night, there were a few people who noticed that the bulletin which detailed the day's run had not been posted on the board, but they wondered only for a moment why it had been omitted, and then forgot the matter. going in to breakfast next morning, burl jasperson stopped to read the bulletin as usual, to find how many light years distance had been put behind him in this interminable journey, and he clenched his fist at finding a blank board before him. abruptly turning his back on the dining room, he proceeded straight to the captain's quarters, where stacey stopped him in the anteroom. "where's captain evans?" "i'm sorry, mr. jasperson. the captain left orders he was not to be disturbed." "he'll see _me_. let him know i'm here." "i'm sorry, sir. my orders were, nobody was to be admitted. he was very specific." stacey did not budge, but the inner door swung open and the captain's tired face peered out. "you have a very penetrating voice, burl. i suppose you might as well come in. it's all right, stacey. stand by." he moved to let jasperson enter, and closed the door. about the desk sat chief engineer wyman, chief pilot thayer, and chief navigator smith, all studying a chart laid out before them, and making computations. they looked up at the interruption. "what's going on here?" said jasperson. "if you're having a conference of some kind, i should be in on it." "just routine work, burl. what is it you want?" "somebody is getting careless. the bulletin of yesterday's run has not been posted. it's little things like that that make all the difference in the reputation of a shipping line. somebody ought to be reprimanded. what was the day's run, by the way? well, speak up, josiah! i'm waiting." evans reached for a sheet of paper from the desk and silently handed it across. jasperson looked at the figures, frowned, and spoke angrily. "have your computers broken down, captain evans? or is this a joke? why, that's only about two-thirds our usual distance. at this rate it will take us from now to eternity to arrive." "you'd better sit down, burl." the captain looked steadily at him. "those figures explain why i ordered that the bulletin was not to be posted. not one passenger out of a hundred would have noticed much change in the figures, but i do not want to alarm even that one in a hundred. i have ordered the ship to proceed at half-speed." "what? have you lost your mind?" "we are approaching the thakura ripples. it just isn't safe to go any faster." expelling a long breath, jasperson spoke more calmly. "that means we'll be late in reaching almazin iii?" "three or four days, perhaps, not more. eventually we'll get through this danger zone, and then we can resume speed." "but we _can't_ be late, captain evans! surely you haven't forgotten that we're out after the blue ribbon? the light line's ships have made it in forty-three days, and we've got to do it in forty-two or less. this trip is a matter of prime importance to the star line, and a delay of even three days would keep us from breaking the record. i thought you understood all that?" * * * * * sighing, the captain shook his head. "i know all that. but we are in dangerous regions, and i can't risk my ship just for a piece of silk! last night pile ten started heating. it's still hot, and we may have to expel it. i hadn't expected to reach the ripples so soon, and had even hoped we could avoid them entirely, but evidently the limits of the band haven't been charted very accurately. the only safe thing is to go slow." "but the ripples are imaginary! why do you think we've hit them?" "there's the number ten pile." "but why should only that one out of the twenty-four be affected? and even if it is heating, that's no good reason for slackening speed." captain evans glared back at the plump little man, then his eyes wavered, and his fingers fiddled uncertainly with the papers on his desk. his chief officers were watching him intently. at last he straightened his shoulders and spoke sternly. "mr. jasperson. surely it will not be necessary to remind you that i am the captain of this ship. i am in sole command. is that correct?" "yes, but--" "would you seriously advise me to go contrary to my own knowledge, my own instinct? to run this ship into an area of danger, to risk the lives of the passengers, all for a piece of ribbon? would you want to take the responsibility of giving me such an order, even if i should agree?" as jasperson looked around at the watchful faces of the engineer, the pilot, and the navigator, some of the belligerence left his voice. "certainly not, josiah! and anyway, it's not your knowledge i'm quarreling with. if you run the ship according to the facts, you'll do all right. it's when you let your judgment be influenced by your imagination that i object. but by all means, do as you think best. when the star line loses confidence in its captains, they replace them. i'll look in again, if i may, later in the day." when the door had closed behind him, pilot thayer shook his head wonderingly. "you'd think he ruled the universe!" "he's a man of very limited imagination," said the captain. "but never forget, he wields a great deal of power. now, are your orders clear? smith, you'll continue your charting." "i'm doing my best, captain, but what am i charting? sometimes i wonder if maybe your friend jasperson isn't right. if the ripples are imaginary, maybe i'm getting gray hairs trying to make a map of something that isn't there!" "chart it anyway! we can't take chances. wyman, i'm not a bit satisfied with the way pile ten is behaving. it should have cooled to normal before now. watch it. if we have to dump it, we want to act before it gets too hot. anything else?" "one other thing, sir," said engineer wyman, pointing to the diagram of the ship which hung on the wall. "pile ten is located just below lifeboat c, and the radiation index of boat c is getting a little high." "that's bad. well, keep shoving in the dampers, and keep me posted." after they had gone, he sat for a while at his desk, studying the data on the papers before him. he paced the room for a few minutes, then paused to pick up the little red volume of _ley's space ships_. he had no need to open it. it fell open of itself at the well-read page, and his eyes rested for one rich moment on the words: _captain: josiah evans_. what name, he wondered, feeling almost physically sick with uncertainty, what name would be printed in the next edition? * * * * * the orchestra played melodiously at lunch time. the chef had produced delicacies even more delectable than usual, and at each table the waiters poured sparkling white wine into long-stemmed glasses, while murmuring softly, "compliments of the captain!" "is this a special occasion?" asked tanya. "not that i know of, miss." "every meal feels like a special occasion," said alan, "because i get to talk to you." "sh-h! here come the halls." tom and dorothy flitted in to the table, hand in hand, still absorbed in the wonder of being together, scarcely aware of the world about them, then left, without finishing their dessert. alan and tanya looked after them with affectionate amusement, but professor larrabee seemed withdrawn and a little sad, as though they evoked memories of a time now lost to him forever. "they make me feel so _old_!" said tanya. "and lonely?" "perhaps, a little. they seem so sure, somehow, that all the rest of their lives will be just as happy as this, always." "and why not?" said professor larrabee. the orchestra swayed into a final soft chord, and immediately a voice spoke from a loudspeaker in the ceiling. "ladies and gentlemen!" conversation stopped, the room became quiet. "ladies and gentlemen. the customary lifeboat drill will be held this afternoon at hours. the attendance of all passengers is requested." the voice stopped, the orchestra resumed its playing, and the passengers sipped their coffee. "i wonder why he said 'customary'?" said tanya. "we've been out about three weeks, and this will be the first drill we've had. do you suppose something is wrong?" "i'm afraid your sense of the dramatic gets the better of you," said alan. "what could be wrong with the _star lord_?" "maybe her name," murmured professor larrabee, and his eyes looked haunted. * * * * * solitary at his table, burl jasperson sipped at a glass of ice water as he pondered. for the first time in his life he was not quite sure what course to follow. he wanted that blue ribbon for the star line, and yet--he did not know what to do. while he listened to the announcement of the lifeboat drill, his lip twisted in contempt. just like josiah evans, he thought, to be over-cautious and run the risk of starting a panic. still thinking, he left the dining room and went to the main lounge to study the illuminated map of the ship. the three-dimensional panorama showed the slim and elegant body of the _star lord_, tapered like a silver spindle. six small ships, three on each side of the long axis, each capable of carrying people, were fastened into her hulk. seemingly a part of the ship itself, their outer walls forming a part of the ship's wall, they were designed to be detached at the touch of a button, and launched into space as free craft. when the warning bells rang, he joined the crowd of passengers who were assigned to boat f, peered at the boat through the transparent panel, and listened attentively to the instructions. it was steward davis, he noted approvingly, who was in charge. "passengers will file in through the usual port and walk to the farthest unoccupied seat, and buckle themselves into place. they have nothing further to do. crewmen will take care of the mechanics of detaching and launching the boat. you will note that there are no separate cabins, only rows of seats as in the primitive airplanes, but you will find this no real discomfort, since the boat would undoubtedly be picked up after a very short interval by some alerted space liner." jasperson raised his voice above the crowd's hum. "what about provisioning? are the boats stocked on y-port?" "no, mr. jasperson, except for food concentrates, and one air tank which is placed there for the greater comfort of the crewmen who must go in to clean or to make minor adjustments. the boats are not fully provisioned until the need arises. after all, we don't want to invite trouble, do we?" people laughed appreciatively. "no," he went on, "if there should be an emergency, we have specially trained crewmen whose job it is to stock reserves of air and water. they would go to work as automatically and efficiently as machines. any other questions?" jasperson lingered after the indifferent crowd, to inspect the boat more closely, then slouched away. * * * * * all that afternoon he prowled the ship, trying to make up his mind. he stopped now and then to question a business acquaintance, ask a journalist his opinion, and he quizzed larrabee again, more sharply than before, about the hypothetical ripples. he kept moving, and as he walked he calculated, bringing to bear all the power of a mind which he believed to be logical, and which his financial success had proved to be keen and intelligent. all his life he had trusted his judgment, and it had rarely failed him--barring accidents like that unfair poker game. at last, as the hours went on, his decision crystallized. he had made up his mind. at dinner he drank champagne in addition to his usual ice water, and only half heard the scraps of conversation in the dining room. there was to be a special masquerade dance, he gathered. people around him were excitedly planning the improvisation of costumes. he would not get himself up in any silly costume, he decided, but if his plans went well, he might look in later in the evening, on the chance to being allowed to glide over the waxed floor with the lovely tanya. after finishing his last drop of coffee he went directly to the cabin of captain evans, who had just begun to eat his simple dinner. the chairman of the board of directors pulled up a chair and sat down, without waiting to be asked. "look here, josiah, i want to talk to you. i've been thinking. i'm afraid i was too brusque this morning. that's a bad habit of mine, and i want to apologize. but after all, we should not be quarreling, for your interests and mine are the same, as you surely realize." captain evans pushed away his tray, lit a cigar, and puffed stolidly. "i realize that i must consider the safety of my passengers, if that's what you mean." "that's included, of course." jasperson made his voice warm and persuasive, the voice that had swayed boards of directors, the voice that reassured hesitant bankers. "passenger safety is always paramount, of course, and i respect your attitude there. but in this particular case, isn't it possible that you are being too cautious?" "but burl! can the captain of a ship _ever_ be too cautious? think of his responsibility!" "his responsibility is very great, and i would never advise you, nor permit you, to shirk yours. but sometimes caution may cease to be a virtue. think about this caution of yours for a minute. surely you believe that i would never urge you to do anything against the interests of the ship, or against your own conscience? now you have an excellent mind--logical, objective, clear. that was one reason we chose you for this place. try to consider, for a moment, the bare possibility that your decision to reduce speed may not have been justified." * * * * * evans was silent, and finally burl asked, "how far did we get today?" " light years." "and if you decide to continue at that speed for five or six days, that means we'll be approximately three days behind schedule in touching almazin iii?" "about that." "and that means we won't break the record. now consider the reason for this very unhappy situation. think about it with an open mind. you have one pile heating--but has that never happened to a ship before, even in normal space? you and i both know it happens, and that ships have been lost because of a defective pile. logically, why shouldn't this be just another such case? you say it is caused by the ripples, but as man to man, what objective evidence can you bring forward to prove their existence? i'm not trying to browbeat you, you understand, but just to ask you to look at the matter carefully. you said yourself, this morning, that you hadn't expected to be meeting the ripples at this point--you had thought they occurred in a rather different area of hyperspace. couldn't that mean that they don't really exist, anywhere?" captain evans wiped his glistening forehead with his handkerchief. "yes," he said. "i was surprised. i'll admit i didn't expect them here. but there's so much we don't know about hyperspace!" "no, there's so much we _do_ know! are you a child, to fancy there are goblins outside just because it's dark? there is a perfectly rational, alternative explanation for the things that worry you. why can't you accept them?" evans got up and began to pace the floor. "i guess i'm following a hunch." "but would you make us lose the blue ribbon for a mere hunch? don't you trust your own objective judgment?" sweating heavily, the captain tried to stub out his cigar, but his hands were moist and his fingers trembled. "i don't know!" he shouted. then he went on, his voice low and tired. "you may be right. burl. you may be right. we may not have hit the ripples. the ripples may not even exist, although some very competent spacemen and some very brilliant physicists are convinced they do. but how can i judge? how can i be sure?" jasperson leaned forward, intent as a cat on a bird. "none of the other piles have started to heat? there's nothing else to make you suspicious?" "nothing except the space record tape, and that makes no sense." "exactly. then why don't you look at this situation as a hardheaded spaceman should, and order full speed ahead?" "burl, there are fifteen hundred lives dependent on me. how can i take such a chance?" "it wouldn't be a chance. and if by the one unlucky chance in ten million there should be trouble, you have ample lifeboat space for everyone. isn't it worth the gamble?" "i don't like gambling lives against a piece of blue silk ribbon." * * * * * jasperson sighed. "come, josiah, be reasonable. i wouldn't think of giving you an order, or trying to interfere with your decision in any way, but surely i may be allowed to help you to reach the correct decision? how will you feel when the _star lord_ limps into port four or five days late, and you have to explain to the board that she was delayed because you were trying to dodge some non-existent ripples. you are afraid! change your frightened point of view, and that will make you change your orders and get us on the way once more, full speed!" muttering to himself, wiping his brow, captain evans walked around the little room, while jasperson sat back and watched him with cold, intent eyes. evans glanced once at the little red book, half covered with papers, and pain contorted his face. suddenly he stepped to his desk and called engineer wyman. "what about that space tape, wyman? has smith been able to detect any pattern in the impulses?" "no, sir. no pattern of any sort we can recognize, anyway." "and what report on pile ten?" "pile ten is doing nicely, sir. lost half a degree in the last hour. by tomorrow she ought to be back to normal limits." clicking the phone, evans resumed his pacing in the heavy silence. at last he faced jasperson and spread out his palms, his face gray as parchment. "all right, burl. you're probably right. i won't argue any longer." "good man! the star line will know how to appreciate your decision." he hesitated, and asked, "you'll agree, now, i didn't push you into this? it's your own free decision?" calmly, evans answered. "it is my own responsibility." he buzzed operations. "wyman? captain evans speaking. full speed ahead!" * * * * * on the dance floor late that night, a crooner in blue venusian mask and wig hummed the melody while the orchestra wailed and zinged behind him. the lights had been dimmed to a purple midnight, and shadowy couples flitted about the room, swaying, humming, laughing. horned devils danced with angels, pirates and roman senators guided in their arms lovely cleopatras and sinuous mermaids. hunched over the little tables, clinking glasses, grotesque silhouettes of martians, venusians, and apollonians whispered intimately. the walls of the room displayed the evening stars of late summer, and, special event for a gala evening, a fat yellow half moon sailed lazily in the sky. the _star lord_ shuddered, briefly. briefly the crooner's voice wavered, the notes of the violins hesitated, but no one noticed. a second quiver of the ship, and the dancers paused to look at one another questioningly, then laughed and danced on. jasperson had been sitting beside the wall, vainly searching among the dancers for tanya. he stood up, his forehead suddenly wet with sweat. plowing through the dancers and out of the door, in the corridor he ran into steward davis, gliding along on silent, slippered feet. "what was that, davis?" "don't know, sir. nothing serious, or the alarm lights would be on." "come with me." he flung open the door of the captain's cabin. it was empty. stacey was not in the anteroom, and the inner cabin was silent. the water carafe had been turned over on the desk, and a few papers lay scattered on the floor. "they might be in operations, sir." "show me the way!" they raced down the corridors, past the open door of the room where dancers still swayed and the orchestra still played. through a hall, down an escalator, down, down, to the center of the ship. jasperson paused. "you needn't wait, davis. but i may want you again. i'll let you know." pushing aside the crewmen who stood guard at the door, he rushed into the room. "josiah! what was that shock? i demand to know what's happened!" evans threw him a glance of pure, intense hatred, and then resumed his questioning of chief wyman. "you say number ten just let go?" "not exactly, sir. for a couple of hours or so after we resumed speed, it stayed steady. all of a sudden, it started to climb. they called me, but by the time i got there it was already at critical level. we put in more dampers, but it kept going up and up, and i thought it might vaporize any minute. i hadn't any choice, sir. there wasn't time to call you and get orders. i had to drop it." "certainly. i'm not criticizing you. but there's one thing we hadn't counted on. chief thayer says pile ten took lifeboat c along with it." "but how could that happen?" "boat c was just above, you remember. the heat triggered the release mechanism, and the boat launched itself into space." jasperson interrupted, trying to speak calmly. "what's happened? tell me what's wrong?" "we've hit the imaginary thakura ripples," evans said savagely, "and they're tearing us apart!" the plump soft body of burl jasperson seemed to deflate. the truculence drained from his face, leaving his skin a dirty white as he whispered, "then the thakura ripples _are_ real? and we're in danger?" the captain's laugh was bitter. "what do _you_ think? don't you want to give me the benefit of your advice now?" again the door burst open, and a crewman ran in. "captain evans, sir. piles fourteen and fifteen have started to heat. they're already at critical level." "dump them!" the phone buzzed, and evans listened with a face which was turning a graveyard gray. "if you can hold them down, keep them. if they pass the critical point, shoot them away." turning, he looked straight into the dilated eyes of jasperson, and spoke as if every word were a knife thrusting into the pudgy body. "every one of the piles is starting to heat. every last one. one life boat is lost. that means fifteen hundred people to be crowded into five little boats!" "what are you going to do?" croaked the little man. "i've already reduced speed. i've sent out and am still sending out calls for help, over phase wave. we'll shift to normal space, and we'll launch the lifeboats as soon as they can be provisioned and loaded. and then we'll pray. and now, burl jasperson, how do you like the thakura ripples?" bracing himself against the desk, burl tried to smile. "if there's any way i can help, of course, just let me know." with a feeble attempt at jauntiness, he staggered out of the cabin. * * * * * opening the long-closed shutter of the observation port, captain evans could see the suns of normal space glittering in the blackness about the ship, unfamiliar and alien. before the shift to normal space he had sent out sos calls throughout the galaxy, but he had not waited for any replies before shifting. he could not know whether the calls had been heard, or even whether there were any ships close enough to send help after hearing the calls. he hoped, with all his being, that they had come out in a region of inhabited planet systems, in a regular shipping lane, so that his passengers could be picked up and taken to port--any port. he kept his line open to operations, and every minute or so wyman spoke to him, giving the data on the climbing piles. ten had been jettisoned in hyperspace, and so had fourteen and fifteen. since their shift to normal space, it had been necessary also to detach the entire bank of nineteen, twenty, and twenty-one, whose index had risen at a terrifying rate. wyman's voice spoke in his ear. "one, two, and three are climbing fast, sir." "shoot them away!" "no good, sir. i've tried. the release mechanism has fused, and those three piles are welded to the ship!" evans closed his eyes. that meant that the life of the ship was doomed. there would be no way to save her. but the passengers could still be saved, if they got away soon enough, before the three piles vaporized. "wyman!" he whispered despairingly, "is there any single pile that isn't heating?" "no, sir." "is there any single pile that's responding to your dampers?" "no, sir, not one." "then, in your experience, they are all bound to go, sooner or later?" "i've never seen anything like this in my experience, sir. it looks bad." the door opened, and jasperson slunk in. his skin had lost its cushioning, gray folds sagged under his cheek bones, and black hollows outlined his glittering blue eyes. the captain ignored him, and spoke into the phone. "very well. in exactly fifteen minutes i shall sound the alarm and we'll abandon ship. i can't take a chance on waiting any longer. keep a skeleton crew at work on those piles to hold them down as much as possible, and have all other crewmen report to their lifeboat stations." "right, sir. but boat c has gone, you remember. when we dumped pile ten." "yes. distribute her passengers among the remaining boats." he turned to look at jasperson, who was shivering as though he were freezing. "is there no hope, josiah? is this the end?" "the end of the _star lord_, yes. i hope to save the passengers. you heard me. in fifteen minutes all preparations should be finished, then i sound the alarm. don't worry, burl. there's room enough for everybody, your skin is safe." "but won't the lifeboats be horribly crowded?" "crowded, yes, but not impossibly so. if they can carry two hundred and fifty people in fair comfort, they can jam in three hundred by squeezing a bit." jasperson shuddered. "so many people! and so close together! i can't bear crowds, josiah, you know that. they make me feel sick and confused. it will be terrible!" "whether you like it or not, there's nothing else to do if we want to save lives. i'll sound the alarm in a quarter of an hour. get yourself ready, but whatever you do, don't tell the others yet. i don't want a panic on my hands until i'm ready to deal with it." biting his lip, jasperson turned, without a word, and shuffled out of the cabin. * * * * * once in the corridor, he began to run, a shrivelled old man waddling on wings of fear down the hall to the dining room where empty tables waited in the elegant silence of gleaming silver and crisp white linen for the breakfast hour. davis was standing at the sideboard, staring blankly at the flashing red light above the door. jasperson ran up to him and clutched his arm. looking around cunningly to see that they were alone, he whispered. "davis, i want to talk to you." "later, sir. that red light means i'm wanted at the briefing room." "yes, but wait a minute!" "i'm supposed to go at once, sir." "a thousand credits if you'll listen to me a minute!" as davis hesitated, burl went on. "listen, davis, the ship is in trouble. the captain is going to launch the lifeboats. you're in charge of boat f, aren't you? you know how to operate it?" "of course, mr. jasperson." "then come with me, and we'll take the boat now. i'll pay you well." "but we can't do that!" "why not? the _star lord_ is doomed. in fifteen minutes this place will be a madhouse, and there may not be room for everybody. i want to get out of here before the mob. we'll take boat f." steward davis' eyes were thoughtful as he replied. "but sir, we can't just take a boat for ourselves, like that. there's two hundred and fifty people assigned to boat f." "worse than that! three hundred! one lifeboat has been lost already. it's dangerous to wait--there'll be a stampede and the lifeboats might even be wrecked. no, we must take her alone, davis. i'll give you ten thousand credits if you'll do it, and as long as you live you'll have me as a friend." the steward's little eyes looked sidewise at the pleading man. "but i'd be found out for sure, mr. jasperson, and then what would become of me? i'd never get another job as long as i lived. i'd have to change my name, disguise myself, and maybe live on some other planet, and all that would take money. i'm a poor man, and i don't see how i could afford it." "but if i have to squeeze into one of those boats with three hundred other people crowding against me, i'll go crazy! we'll go to some out-of-the-way planet, and you can change your identity and be perfectly safe. can't you understand, man? my life is at stake, and my sanity. i'll give you fifteen thousand credits!" "well," said davis. "could you make it twenty-five?" "done! meet me at boat f in five minutes." jasperson rushed to his cabin. yanking open the wall safe he dragged out his brief case and the locked memorandum book, thrust his pistol into his pocket, and ran to the door. "follow me!" he called to his startled secretary, and hurried from the room. running past the library door, he glimpsed tanya at work, her auburn head bent over her sketching. on impulse, he stopped and ran back. panting from the physical punishment of running, nearly smothered by the pounding of his terrified heart, he gasped out his invitation. "tanya! the ship is going to blow up! don't tell anyone. come with me now, before the crowd, and i'll get you off safely in my lifeboat. i'll take care of you, tanya." she pulled away. "have you lost your mind, mr. jasperson?" "don't argue. there's no time. come, i'll protect you. we'll have plenty of room. if you wait, it may be too late." "go with you, and leave the others? you're mad!" "but if you wait, you'll be trampled to death by the mob. i'm giving you a chance to save your life." "but you can't take that boat for yourself. what would happen to the other people? that would be murder. get away from me! i'm going to call captain evans." as she ran to the phone and pressed the dial, he padded out of the door and resumed his flight to boat f where davis waited, peering nervously up and down the hall. waving his secretary to follow, jasperson rushed through the port. "everything ready, davis? provisions all in?" "all set. i saw the tail end of the truck leaving just as i got here, but i'll just check--" "hurry, man! there's no time to waste." he cocked his head, listening to the low rumble of an approaching motor. davis ran inside, and together they watched from the port. coming swiftly down the corridor was a small motor truck. it stopped, and the driver jumped out and shouted. "get out of that boat! she's not ready yet! what are you--" with a steady hand jasperson drew his pistol and pressed the trigger. the man fell without a sound. "what are you waiting for, davis? shove off!" the port door slid shut. a few seconds delay, and lifeboat f, carrying three persons, shot away from the _star lord_ into space. * * * * * alarm bells rang, red lights flashed. sickening with the inexorable rise of her fevered power units, the _star lord_ trembled with the clangor of bells ringing in library and nursery, in lounges and dance hall, in bar and cabins, in dining rooms and theaters. the orchestra crashed to a stop, the dancers halted, startled and vaguely frightened, half laughing at themselves as they listened to the bells. then silence, and the voice of captain evans. "ladies and gentlemen. do not be alarmed. because of certain mechanical difficulties the _star lord_ has shifted to normal space. there is no immediate danger, but purely as a precautionary measure we shall launch the lifeboats. remember, there is no danger, but i ask each of you to proceed at once, in calm orderly fashion, to the station to which you are assigned, and there obey the orders of the officer in charge. the passengers formerly assigned to boat c will be placed in other boats. do not wait to go to your cabins. proceed immediately to your lifeboats." the voice clicked off. a few seconds of silence, and then the quiet was broken by the patter of hurrying feet. in a moment, the public lounges were empty. * * * * * in the library, tanya was still calling into the phone. "operator, operator!" she cried. "i must speak to the captain. it's a matter of life and death!" but the phone was dead. [illustration] when the alarm bells rang, she listened to the announcement and then slowly put back the useless instrument. back in her corner, she picked up her chalk, shuffled her drawings into an orderly heap, paused, and with a wry smile dropped them all to the floor and hurried away. a sound of crying wailed from the open door of the playroom, and she looked in to see a group of children, none of them more than six, huddled together and sobbing. she walked up to them and smiled, hands on her hips. "well, small fry! what are you doing up so late? why the big howls?" still they cried, ignoring their abandoned toys. around the room hobby horses sat quietly, alphabet blocks lay scattered, and picture books and sprawling dolls littered the floor. "so," she said. "your nurses ran out on you, did they? left you to shift for yourselves? never mind, youngsters, aunt tanya will look after you. take hands, now, and come with me." * * * * * when the alarm rang in the bar, a glass crashed to the floor as the only son of the deutonium millionaire jumped to his feet and ran. [illustration] professor larrabee deliberately finished his drink, gently put down the glass, and stood up. "our final spacecap," he said. "well, alan, it's been a good trip, but i can't say i'm surprised at its ending. the ship had the wrong name, from the beginning." "we'd better hurry, professor. we must find tanya and the halls." "you're walking too fast for me, my boy. don't worry. they're in boat f, with us, and we're sure to find them there." in the corridor leading to f station their way was blocked by the crowd, many of them still wearing the grotesque costumes of the masquerade dance, now pale and tawdry in the bright lights. stunned with horror, they stared through the transparent wall at the gaping socket where the lifeboat had been. crewmen formed a tight circle around the truck and the man who lay moaning on the floor. pistols ready, they held back the crowd while dr. willoughby administered an intravenous shot of panedol, and captain evans, kneeling beside the dying man, tried to catch his whispers. "it was mr. jasperson, sir. he got me before i could do a thing. i tried to stop him." "you say you warned him?" "i called to him, sir, and said the boat wasn't ready. but he didn't give me a chance. he shot me." the boy closed his eyes, and evans stood up. "through an error, ladies and gentlemen, boat f has already gone. you will please go to the other stations and wait for assignment to the other boats." the crowd whispered, staring uncomprehendingly at the captain's stony face. "did you ever teach mathematics, professor?" alan murmured. "how do you divide fifteen hundred people among four boats?" larrabee only smiled, a faraway look in his eyes. a frightened voice cried, high and loud, "but there won't be enough room!" someone screamed. someone else started to run. in a few seconds a mob of running, panic-stricken people jammed the corridor, fighting their way out. alan and the professor, an old man and an invalid, had no strength to resist and were helplessly carried along by the living wave. "stop those people!" shouted the captain. a gun fired into the air and the mob hesitated, then surged on, shouting, past the lounges, to join the throngs waiting at the other stations. "it's no use," said evans wearily. "chief thayer. send men to all the stations to guard the boats. you proceed to boat e and load it first. if any person tries to force his way in, shoot to kill!" * * * * * in their small cabin, dorothy hall raised herself on one elbow and looked down at her sleeping husband. his hair was rumpled, his face calm and placid. "tom," she whispered. "wake up, tom!" mumbling sleepily, he opened his eyes, then smiled and tried to draw her down to him. "wait, tom. did you hear the captain's message?" "what message?" "i was so sleepy i didn't understand it very well. something about the ship, and we must all go to our lifeboats." "you must have been dreaming. what time is it?" "not quite midnight. do you think everything is all right?" "of course. you just had a bad dream. the _star lord_ can't be in any trouble. you know that." "don't you think we ought to go see?" playfully he towsled her hair. "trying to get away from your husband? tired of me already?" relaxing, she snuggled down beside him with a happy sigh. "i'd never be tired of you, tom, in a million years. wherever you are, that's where i want to be, always." she closed her eyes. * * * * * the children were no longer afraid, and they had stopped crying. leading them through the maze of corridors towards boat station f, tanya laughed and told them jokes until, reaching a corner, she suddenly found the passage blocked with a screaming mass of people, fighting, gouging, jamming the hall so that forward movement was almost impossible. she drew back, huddling the children behind her. "no place for us here, youngsters," she said. "let's go back, where it isn't so noisy." obediently they followed her back to the library, where she settled them in her favorite corner and picked up the abandoned chalk and paper. "now aunt tanya will tell you a story," she said. "and if you're very good and don't cry at all, i'll even draw you some pictures to go with the story. once upon a time...." * * * * * there was not enough room. a lifeboat which had been designed to carry two hundred and fifty persons could not suddenly expand to take in three hundred and seventy-five, although chief thayer did his best. at boat e he stood with drawn pistol, sorting the crowd, and ordering them one by one through the port according to custom as ancient as the race. "women and children first," he repeated, again and again. "_women and children first!_" they could hear from distant corridors an occasional shout and the clatter of running feet, but the first panic had subsided, and under the menace of the crew's guns the people had become subdued. white-faced men stepped back and made themselves inconspicuous in the shadows, watching their wives and children file through the port, and looking after them hungrily. once, a man screamed and tried to crash through the cordon. thayer shot him, and he fell moaning to the floor. dr. willoughby moved through the crowd, soothing the hysterical, jollying the frightened, until he spied alan chase standing at the edge of the group. he pushed through to alan and threw his arm around the bony shoulder, encouragingly. "i'm assigned to this first boat, chase, and they'll want you in one of the others. we want at least one medical man in each boat. but i must warn you--" he look-ed around cautiously, but they might have been alone in a desert for all chance there was of anyone's listening to them, "be sure to get off in boats b or d. don't wait for boat a." "what difference does it make?" "boat a lies above two of the piles that had to be dumped, and the radioactivity index is sure to be high. normal people won't be harmed in the brief time they'll be on board if they're rescued, and if they're not rescued, of course, it won't matter anyway. even you might not be harmed, but with your condition you shouldn't take the risk." "but does it really matter?" "what do you mean?" "i mean that we'd counted on my reaching almazin iii quickly and living in an inert atmosphere in order to cure the neosarcoma. now that the _star lord_ is wrecked, i may not be able to get there for months, and that will be too late. if i'm going to die, i'd rather stay with the ship and get it over with." "don't be an idiot, doctor! don't you realize how much better you are? the mitosis was definitely decreasing the last time i checked you. this delay won't be fatal, i'm convinced." alan shook his head skeptically. "dr. willoughby!" called thayer. "boat ready to launch!" a grip of the hand, and he had gone. the port shut. boat e, jammed with three hundred and twenty-five persons, released itself and shot out into star-studded space. * * * * * boat b was the second to be launched, and boat d followed. keeping to the back of the crowds, alan watched, admiring the efficiency with which chief thayer worked, shouting, wheedling, cursing, until three hundred and thirty people were squeezed in, like frightened cattle in a pen. there remained only boat a, and from the shadows he watched nearly five hundred tense faces, drawn with the anxiety of wondering who was to go, and who remain. good thing the women and children had all been taken off in the earlier boats, alan reflected thankfully. it would be heartbreaking enough for thayer to have to choose among the men, and say to some, _go_, and to some, _stay_. captain evans appeared, flanked by thayer and stacey, each with drawn pistol. he faced the silent crowd and spoke with terrifying calm. "i will take charge here," he said. "i cannot ask thayer to take on such a responsibility. i am sure it is not necessary to tell you that there is not room enough in this boat for all of you. if rescue ships arrive in time, those who must remain behind will be taken off. if not--i realize that no human being has the right arbitrarily to send some men to life and keep others for possible death. but since choice of some sort is necessary to avoid a panic which might result in unnecessary deaths, i shall choose which ones are to enter this boat, as nearly as possible according to the random positions in which you are now standing. anyone trying to change his place will be shot!" no one moved. no one spoke. "thayer, you will send in two crewmen to help run the boat. you yourself will be the last man in, to take command. as for the rest--" he paused, wiped his hand over his reddened eyes, and staggered. in a few seconds he had regained control of himself, and with shoulders erect he pointed his arm and called out, "you go, and you, and you, and you...." alan heard a low chuckle behind him, and turned to find professor larrabee. "what a climax, my boy! do you believe in premonitions, now?" "why haven't you gone?" "too old, alan. i don't want to go. my life is done. but i can't say i really mind. it's been a wonderful adventure, sharing the life and death of the _star lord_." the boat was nearly half full when the tense quiet was broken by the treble voice of a child. captain evans whirled to face the corridor, along which came tanya, holding to the hands of the two smallest children, while the others clung tightly to the stiff folds of her taffeta gown. his stare was ghastly. "miss taganova! i thought you'd gone! where have you been? and why weren't these children sent off in the other boats? didn't you hear the warnings?" "somebody's always scolding me for being late," said tanya, lightly. "but i really couldn't help it. these children seem to have been abandoned by the nursemaids and lost or forgotten by their parents. i have been trying to amuse them until it seemed safe to bring them to you. if i'd come before they would have been trampled to death." "well, luckily it's not too late. in you go, the lot of you." the six youngsters were scrambling through the port, and the captain had resumed his "you, and you, and you...." when alan darted forward and clasped tanya's hand. "i just want you to know," he whispered. "if the _star lord_ had gone on to port i'd never have dared say it. but since it can't matter now, tanya--i'd like you to know--" she smiled. "i know, alan. i've known it for many days. and i'd have made a good doctor's wife, i think!" her lips were trembling as she turned away and entered the port. "dr. chase!" roared the captain. "what are you doing here? you were supposed to go on boat d!" "there isn't room for all of us, captain. i thought the healthy men should have the preference. i prefer to stay here." "personal preferences mean nothing at all at this moment. get into the boat." "let some one else have my place, sir. i haven't long to live anyway, you know. i don't mind staying behind." * * * * * the captain steadied his pistol. "get in. that's an order. this is no time for mock heroics. you should have gone with boat d to look after the women and children. whether you live a month or a year doesn't matter to me, but it is important that you use your medical skill to take care of these people until they are rescued." with a dazed look, alan walked through the port. "and you, and you, and you...." thayer called out at last. "that's all, sir. no more room." "none at all? you're sure?" "certain, sir. the talley is three hundred and thirty...." nearly a hundred men remained in the corridor. ashen-faced but calm, they stared at the rectangular doorway which would have meant a chance to live. "in you go, thayer," said the captain. "prepare to release." into the tense silence broke the brittle clicking of high heels as tom and dorothy hall sauntered up, arm in arm, a puzzled frown on their foreheads. the captain moaned. "another woman! wait, thayer. we've one more woman here. which one of you men in boat a will volunteer to give up his place to young mrs. hall?" an elderly man walked serenely back into the ship, and joined the others. dorothy looked bewildered. "but what's happened? we kept hearing so much noise we decided to get up. is something wrong?" "we're abandoning ship. this gentleman is giving up his place to you. get in." she clung to tom's arm. "not without my husband!" "mrs. hall! we can't waste time on hysterics. this ship might be vaporized while we're talking. a man has given up his chance at life for you. get in." she held back. "and tom?" with a haggard smile, tom pat-ted her shoulder. "never mind me, honey. you go jump in. i'll be all right." "mrs. hall, i'm willing to deprive one man of his chance, because you are a woman. but i will not ask anyone else to give up his place to your husband. every man in the lifeboat has as much right to his life as your husband, and so has every man who must be left behind. go, now. it's your last chance!" her face had become calm and all hint of tears was gone. without hesitating she looked up at her husband and spoke softly. "tell the man to go back. whether we live or we die, we'll do it together." smiling at tom, she took his hand to lead him away. "come, tom. let's go look at the sky. i believe these stars are real ones." "close the port!" the door slid shut. a minute's long wait, then the boat released herself and shot out into the blackness. the last of the lifeboats was gone. professor larrabee materialized from the shadows and approached evans with outstretched hand. "well done, captain!" "you here? i'd hoped you'd gone with the others." "what for? my life is over. i've had my pleasures. and this way, i shall be seeing my wife all the sooner. she always loved adventure, and i shall tell her all about the thakura ripples. will you join me in a drink, captain evans?" "no, thank you." his voice broke. "no. i need to be alone." he turned and strode away. in the privacy of his cabin he buzzed operations. "what news, wyman?" "slow, steady climb, sir. all piles have passed critical stage." slowly he replaced the phone, and covered his eyes. * * * * * huddled against the wall of boat f, burl jasperson stared out of the observation port, his cold eyes intent on the distant, fast receding lights of the _star lord_. now that he felt himself to be safe, he was weak and exhausted. beside him sat his secretary, a wizened little man who stared numbly at his clasped hands. jasperson coughed. "yes, mr. jasperson?" "get me a panedol tablet and a glass of water. i don't suppose there's any ice, but if there is, put in some ice. i'm thirsty." meekly the secretary shuffled down the long length of the boat, solitary as a ghost, to the cubicle labelled rations. he was gone a long time, thought burl, and when at last he returned his feet were dragging more than ever. "there isn't any water, mr. jasperson." "you idiot! there's got to be water." "i couldn't find any, mr. jasperson." "davis!" he roared. "davis, get me a glass of water!" davis looked out from the control room. "get it yourself. this isn't the ship's dining room any more, jasperson. i've got other things to do now than taking orders from you." "but i don't know where it is!" "all right. i'll get it for you this time and show you where it's kept, but after this you wait on yourself." leading the way to rations, he opened a steel cupboard and reached in. suddenly anxious, he groped about frantically, then cried, "but there isn't any water!" jasperson swallowed, with dry throat. "there isn't any water?" he asked plaintively. "but i'm _thirsty_!" as the hours crawled by, jasperson sat in the vast emptiness of the boat and stared out at the alien stars. he could not bear to look at the long rows of empty seats, seats that might have been occupied by living men, two hundred and forty-seven silent, omnipresent accusers. his eyes were glowing coals, his skin sagged in wrinkles over his haggard face, and his voice was a mere croak. "are you _sure_ there's no water?" he asked again. "are you certain?" "yes, i'm certain, as i've told you a thousand times," said steward davis. "don't you suppose i'm thirsty too? if you hadn't been in such a hurry to sneak away we'd have been all right. that man you shot was probably getting ready to load the water tanks." "but you told me the boat was all provisioned!" "i thought it was, when i saw the tail-end of that truck! but you didn't give me time to check. why did you have to be in such a hurry?" groaning, jasperson turned again to peer at the unfamiliar suns. "how long will it take us to reach an inhabited planet, do you think?" "i don't know, because i don't know just where we are. with luck, maybe a week, maybe two." "how long can we live without water?" "longer than you'd think. twelve to fifteen days if we don't move around. we may be able to land somewhere before then. if not--" his voice rose to a sudden shriek. "_what good are those twenty-five thousand credits going to do me now?_" the secretary sat in numb collapse, but jasperson prowled the room, up and down, up and down, past the rows of empty seats, while davis sat and watched him with glittering eyes. jasperson's head was aching, and he was aware, all at once, that he was out of breath, as though he had been climbing a steep hill under a broiling sun. "have to see to this," he muttered. "they can't treat me this way." stumbling, he lurched down the aisle towards davis, staggering like a drunken man. "got to have more air, davis. this won't do." insolently, davis got up and looked at the oxygen indicator set in the wall. "needle's falling a bit. i'll turn on another tank." he touched the switch, then sat down again. jasperson began to laugh. "what's so funny?" with shaking hand he pointed, laughing harder, his sagging cheeks quivering as he roared. "it's those chairs! ever see such silly chairs? the way they sit there, and look at you?" "hey, man, you're drunk! i wonder...." he got up to look at the oxygen dial again. the needle had fallen still further. "where's that oxygen?" he shouted. he rushed into the inner compartment and was back immediately, his eyes black with terror. "no air reserve either! only that one tank! you great, blundering, condemned fool! a man can live for fifteen days without water, but he can't live ten minutes without air. we're done for!" jasperson giggled. davis collapsed, and he, too, began to laugh, a helpless, gasping laugh. they had entirely forgotten the self-effacing secretary, but the noise of their dying laughter did not disturb him. he had already fallen sideways in his chair, and would never wake again. * * * * * on the _star lord_, tom and dorothy sat in the empty lounge, looking through the observation port at the real stars that studded the void. they were holding hands. they were not afraid, and there was nothing they needed to say. some of the doomed passengers sat in the bar, drinking steadily. others sat and stared at nothingness. professor larrabee lay in his cabin, his face turned to the wall, his eyes closed. but he was not sleeping. he was thinking of his wife, and a smile clothed his face. * * * * * in his cabin captain josiah evans waited alone. his hair was almost white, now, his cheeks were sunken, and all semblance of youth had left him. knowing the futility of his action, nevertheless he completed the day's entry in the ship's log, and closed the volume. as the hours crept by he noticed that the temperature in the room was rising. once more, for the last time, he called operations. "it's no use, wyman. let the piles alone. it's only a matter of hours now--or perhaps minutes." "shall i cast loose the other piles, sir?" "no, no use in that, since you can't jettison piles one, two and three. when they go, we all go. it's impossible, now, that any rescue ship could get to us in time. you've done a good job, wyman. you are now released from duty." his hands were sweating, his whole body was wet from the high summer torridness of the room. captain evans wiped his sticky hands on his handkerchief and picked up the little red book, _ley's space ships_. opening the book, he read for the last time the well-loved page. then he took up his pen and made a new notation in the margin. "_star lord: lost, may , , on the thakura ripples._" he paused a moment, and then with firm, steady strokes he wrote the final entry: "_destroyed by the arrogance of her owners, and the criminal pride and weakness of her captain._" he put down the pen, and laid his head on his desk. * * * * * hour after hour boat a circled the dying _star lord_, its weary passengers tense with hope for the all but impossible rescue. alan sat next to tanya, guarding the sleeping children. suddenly she sat up. "what's that? out there?" over the loudspeaker came thayer's voice. "we have successfully made contact with a rescue ship. a space cruiser will reach us in approximately eight hours." tanya scarcely heard him. she was still peering out, her eyes on the faint lights of the _star lord_. "look!" she cried. "shut your eyes!" shouted thayer. "everybody turn your head!" far out in space where the _star lord_ had been was a brilliant red glow, like many suns. it changed, suddenly, to a blinding light, so bright that it was more blue than white, then vanished. man had not yet made himself lord of the stars. _the ultradrive had just one slight drawback: it set up a shock wave that made suns explode. which made the problem of getting back home a delicate one indeed...._ [illustration] time fuze by randall garrett illustrated by paul orban commander benedict kept his eyes on the rear plate as he activated the intercom. "all right, cut the power. we ought to be safe enough here." as he released the intercom, dr. leicher, of the astronomical staff, stepped up to his side. "perfectly safe," he nodded, "although even at this distance a star going nova ought to be quite a display." benedict didn't shift his gaze from the plate. "do you have your instruments set up?" "not quite. but we have plenty of time. the light won't reach us for several hours yet. remember, we were outracing it at ten lights." the commander finally turned, slowly letting his breath out in a soft sigh. "dr. leicher, i would say that this is just about the foulest coincidence that could happen to the first interstellar vessel ever to leave the solar system." leicher shrugged. "in one way of thinking, yes. it is certainly true that we will never know, now, whether alpha centauri a ever had any planets. but, in another way, it is extremely fortunate that we should be so near a stellar explosion because of the wealth of scientific information we can obtain. as you say, it is a coincidence, and probably one that happens only once in a billion years. the chances of any particular star going nova are small. that we should be so close when it happens is of a vanishingly small order of probability." commander benedict took off his cap and looked at the damp stain in the sweatband. "nevertheless, doctor, it is damned unnerving to come out of ultradrive a couple of hundred million miles from the first star ever visited by man and have to turn tail and run because the damned thing practically blows up in your face." leicher could see that benedict was upset; he rarely used the same profanity twice in one sentence. they had been downright lucky, at that. if leicher hadn't seen the star begin to swell and brighten, if he hadn't known what it meant, or if commander benedict hadn't been quick enough in shifting the ship back into ultradrive--leicher had a vision of an incandescent cloud of gaseous metal that had once been a spaceship. the intercom buzzed. the commander answered, "yes?" "sir, would you tell dr. leicher that we have everything set up now?" leicher nodded and turned to leave. "i guess we have nothing to do now but wait." when the light from the nova did come, commander benedict was back at the plate again--the forward one, this time, since the ship had been turned around in order to align the astronomy lab in the nose with the star. alpha centauri a began to brighten and spread. it made benedict think of a light bulb connected through a rheostat, with someone turning that rheostat, turning it until the circuit was well overloaded. the light began to hurt benedict's eyes even at that distance and he had to cut down the receptivity in order to watch. after a while, he turned away from the plate. not because the show was over, but simply because it had slowed to a point beyond which no change seemed to take place to the human eye. five weeks later, much to leicher's chagrin, commander benedict announced that they had to leave the vicinity. the ship had only been provisioned to go to alpha centauri, scout the system without landing on any of the planets, and return. at ten lights, top speed for the ultradrive, it would take better than three months to get back. "i know you'd like to watch it go through the complete cycle," benedict said, "but we can't go back home as a bunch of starved skeletons." leicher resigned himself to the necessity of leaving much of his work unfinished, and, although he knew it was a case of sour grapes, consoled himself with the thought that he could as least get most of the remaining information from the five-hundred-inch telescope on luna, four years from then. as the ship slipped into the not-quite-space through which the ultradrive propelled it, leicher began to consolidate the material he had already gathered. * * * * * commander benedict wrote in the log: _fifty-four days out from sol. alpha centauri has long since faded back into its pre-blowup state, since we have far outdistanced the light from its explosion. it now looks as it did two years ago. it_-- "pardon me, commander," leicher interrupted, "but i have something interesting to show you." benedict took his fingers off the keys and turned around in his chair. "what is it, doctor?" leicher frowned at the papers in his hands. "i've been doing some work on the probability of that explosion happening just as it did, and i've come up with some rather frightening figures. as i said before, the probability was small. a little calculation has given us some information which makes it even smaller. for instance: with a possible error of plus or minus two seconds alpha centauri a began to explode the instant we came out of ultradrive! "now, the probability of that occurring comes out so small that it should happen only once in ten to the four hundred sixty-seventh seconds." it was commander benedict's turn to frown. "so?" "commander, the entire universe is only about ten to the seventeenth seconds old. but to give you an idea, let's say that the chances of its happening are _once_ in millions of trillions of years!" benedict blinked. the number, he realized, was totally beyond his comprehension--or anyone else's. "well, so what? now it has happened that one time. that simply means that it will almost certainly never happen again!" "true. but, commander, when you buck odds like that and win, the thing to do is look for some factor that is cheating in your favor. if you took a pair of dice and started throwing sevens, one right after another--_for the next couple of thousand years_--you'd begin to suspect they were loaded." benedict said nothing; he just waited expectantly. "there is only one thing that could have done it. our ship." leicher said it quietly, without emphasis. "what we know about the hyperspace, or superspace, or whatever it is we move through in ultradrive is almost nothing. coming out of it so near to a star might set up some sort of shock wave in normal space which would completely disrupt that star's internal balance, resulting in the liberation of unimaginably vast amounts of energy, causing that star to go nova. we can only assume that we ourselves were the fuze that set off that nova." benedict stood up slowly. when he spoke, his voice was a choking whisper. "you mean the sun--sol--might...." leicher nodded. "i don't say that it definitely would. but the probability is that we were the cause of the destruction of alpha centauri a, and therefore might cause the destruction of sol in the same way." benedict's voice was steady again. "that means that we can't go back again, doesn't it? even if we're not positive, we can't take the chance." "not necessarily. we can get fairly close before we cut out the drive, and come in the rest of the way at sub-light speed. it'll take longer, and we'll have to go on half or one-third rations, but we _can_ do it!" "how far away?" "i don't know what the minimum distance is, but i do know how we can gage a distance. remember, neither alpha centauri b or c were detonated. we'll have to cut our drive at least as far away from sol as they are from a." "i see." the commander was silent for a moment, then: "very well, dr. leicher. if that's the safest way, that's the only way." benedict issued the orders, while leicher figured the exact point at which they must cut out the drive, and how long the trip would take. the rations would have to be cut down accordingly. commander benedict's mind whirled around the monstrousness of the whole thing like some dizzy bee around a flower. what if there had been planets around centauri a? what if they had been inhabited? had he, all unwittingly, killed entire races of living, intelligent beings? but, how could he have known? the drive had never been tested before. it couldn't be tested inside the solar system--it was too fast. he and his crew had been volunteers, knowing that they might die when the drive went on. suddenly, benedict gasped and slammed his fist down on the desk before him. leicher looked up. "what's the matter, commander?" "suppose," came the answer, "just suppose, that we have the same effect on a star when we _go into_ ultradrive as we do when we come out of it?" leicher was silent for a moment, stunned by the possibility. there was nothing to say, anyway. they could only wait.... * * * * * a little more than half a light year from sol, when the ship reached the point where its occupants could see the light that had left their home sun more than seven months before, they watched it become suddenly, horribly brighter. _a hundred thousand times brighter!_ ... the end * * * * * transcriber's note this etext was produced from _if worlds of science fiction_, march . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u. s. copyright on this publication was renewed. [illustration] the dope on mars by jack sharkey _somebody had to get the human angle on this trip ... but what was humane about sending me?_ illustrated by wood my agent was the one who got me the job of going along to write up the first trip to mars. he was always getting me things like that--appearances on tv shows, or mentions in writers' magazines. if he didn't sell much of my stuff, at least he sold _me_. "it'll be the biggest break a writer ever got," he told me, two days before blastoff. "oh, sure there'll be scientific reports on the trip, but the public doesn't want them; they want the _human_ slant on things." "but, louie," i said weakly, "i'll probably be locked up for the whole trip. if there are fights or accidents, they won't tell _me_ about them." "nonsense," said louie, sipping carefully at a paper cup of scalding coffee. "it'll be just like the public going along vicariously. they'll _identify_ with you." "but, louie," i said, wiping the dampness from my palms on the knees of my trousers as i sat there, "how'll i go about it? a story? an article? a _you-are-there_ type of report? what?" louie shrugged. "so keep a diary. it'll be more intimate, like." "but what if nothing happens?" i insisted hopelessly. louie smiled. "so you fake it." i got up from the chair in his office and stepped to the door. "that's dishonest," i pointed out. "creative is the word," louie said. so i went on the first trip to mars. and i kept a diary. this is it. and it is honest. honest it is. * * * * * _october , _ they picked the launching date from the march, , new york _times_, which stated that this was the most likely time for launching. trip time is supposed to take days (that's one way), so we're aimed toward where mars will be (had _better_ be, or else). there are five of us on board. a pilot, co-pilot, navigator and biochemist. and, of course, me. i've met all but the pilot (he's very busy today), and they seem friendly enough. dwight kroger, the biochemist, is rather old to take the "rigors of the journey," as he puts it, but the government had a choice between sending a green scientist who could stand the trip or an accomplished man who would probably not survive, so they picked kroger. we've blasted off, though, and he's still with us. he looks a damn sight better than i feel. he's kind of balding, and very iron-gray-haired and skinny, but his skin is tan as an indian's, and right now he's telling jokes in the washroom with the co-pilot. jones (that's the co-pilot; i didn't quite catch his first name) is scarlet-faced, barrel-chested and gives the general appearance of belonging under the spreading chestnut tree, not in a metal bullet flinging itself out into airless space. come to think of it, who _does_ belong where we are? the navigator's name is lloyd streeter, but i haven't seen his face yet. he has a little cubicle behind the pilot's compartment, with all kinds of maps and rulers and things. he keeps bent low over a welded-to-the-wall (they call it the bulkhead, for some reason or other) table, scratching away with a ballpoint pen on the maps, and now and then calling numbers over a microphone to the pilot. his hair is red and curly, and he looks as though he'd be tall if he ever gets to stand up. there are freckles on the backs of his hands, so i think he's probably got them on his face, too. so far, all he's said is, "scram, i'm busy." kroger tells me that the pilot's name is patrick desmond, but that i can call him pat when i get to know him better. so far, he's still captain desmond to me. i haven't the vaguest idea what he looks like. he was already on board when i got here, with my typewriter and ream of paper, so we didn't meet. my compartment is small but clean. i mean clean now. it wasn't during blastoff. the inertial gravities didn't bother me so much as the gyroscopic spin they put on the ship so we have a sort of artificial gravity to hold us against the curved floor. it's that constant whirly feeling that gets me. i get sick on merry-go-rounds, too. they're having pork for dinner today. not me. * * * * * _october , _ feeling much better today. kroger gave me a box of dramamine pills. he says they'll help my stomach. so far, so good. lloyd came by, also. "you play chess?" he asked. "a little," i admitted. "how about a game sometime?" "sure," i said. "do you have a board?" he didn't. lloyd went away then, but the interview wasn't wasted. i learned that he _is_ tall and _does_ have a freckled face. maybe we can build a chessboard. with my paper and his ballpoint pen and ruler, it should be easy. don't know what we'll use for pieces, though. jones (i still haven't learned his first name) has been up with the pilot all day. he passed my room on the way to the galley (the kitchen) for a cup of dark brown coffee (they like it thick) and told me that we were almost past the moon. i asked to look, but he said not yet; the instrument panel is top secret. they'd have to cover it so i could look out the viewing screen, and they still need it for steering or something. i still haven't met the pilot. * * * * * _october , _ well, i've met the pilot. he is kind of squat, with a vulturish neck and close-set jet-black eyes that make him look rather mean, but he was pleasant enough, and said i could call him pat. i still don't know jones' first name, though pat spoke to him, and it sounded like flants. that can't be right. also, i am one of the first five men in the history of the world to see the opposite side of the moon, with a bluish blurred crescent beyond it that pat said was the earth. the back of the moon isn't much different from the front. as to the space in front of the ship, well, it's all black with white dots in it, and none of the dots move, except in a circle that pat says is a "torque" result from the gyroscopic spin we're in. actually, he explained to me, the screen is supposed to keep the image of space locked into place no matter how much we spin. but there's some kind of a "drag." i told him i hoped it didn't mean we'd land on mars upside down. he just stared at me. i can't say i was too impressed with that x view of outer space. it's been done much better in the movies. there's just no awesomeness to it, no sense of depth or immensity. it's as impressive as a piece of velvet with salt sprinkled on it. lloyd and i made a chessboard out of a carton. right now we're using buttons for men. he's one of these fast players who don't stop and think out their moves. and so far i haven't won a game. it looks like a long trip. * * * * * _october , _ i won a game. lloyd mistook my queen-button for my bishop-button and left his king in jeopardy, and i checkmated him next move. he said chess was a waste of time and he had important work to do and he went away. i went to the galley for coffee and had a talk about moss with kroger. he said there was a good chance of lichen on mars, and i misunderstood and said, "a good chance of liking _what_ on mars?" and kroger finished his coffee and went up front. when i got back to my compartment, lloyd had taken away the chessboard and all his buttons. he told me later he needed it to back up a star map. pat slept mostly all day in his compartment, and jones sat and watched the screen revolve. there wasn't much to do, so i wrote a poem, sort of. _mary, mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow? with martian rime, venusian slime, and a radioactive hoe._ i showed it to kroger. he says it may prove to be environmentally accurate, but that i should stick to prose. * * * * * _october , _ learned jones' first name. he wrote something in the ship's log, and i saw his signature. his name is fleance, like in "macbeth." he prefers to be called jones. pat uses his first name as a gag. some fun. and only days to go. [illustration] * * * * * _april , _ i've skipped over the last days or so, because there's nothing much new. i brought some books with me on the trip, books that i'd always meant to read and never had the time. so now i know all about _vanity fair_, _pride and prejudice_, _war and peace_, _gone with the wind_, and _babbitt_. they didn't take as long as i thought they would, except for _vanity fair_. it must have been a riot when it first came out. i mean, all those sly digs at the aristocracy, with copious interpolations by mr. thackeray in case you didn't get it when he'd pulled a particularly good gag. some fun. and only days to go. * * * * * _june , _ only days to go. i saw mars on the screen today. it seems to be descending from overhead, but pat says that that's the "torque" doing it. actually, it's we who are coming in sideways. we've all grown beards, too. pat said it was against regulations, but what the hell. we have a contest. longest whiskers on landing gets a prize. i asked pat what the prize was and he told me to go to hell. * * * * * _june , _ mars has the whole screen filled. looks like death valley. no sign of canals, but pat says that's because of the dust storm down below. it's nice to have a "down below" again. we're going to land, so i have to go to my bunk. it's all foam rubber, nylon braid supports and magnesium tubing. might as well be cement for all the good it did me at takeoff. earth seems awfully far away. * * * * * _june , _ well, we're down. we have to wear gas masks with oxygen hook-ups. kroger says the air is breathable, but thin, and it has too much dust in it to be any fun to inhale. he's all for going out and looking for lichen, but pat says he's got to set up camp, then get instructions from earth. so we just have to wait. the air is very cold, but the sun is hot as hell when it hits you. the sky is a blinding pink, or maybe more of a pale fuchsia. kroger says it's the dust. the sand underfoot is kind of rose-colored, and not really gritty. the particles are round and smooth. no lichen so far. kroger says maybe in the canals, if there are any canals. lloyd wants to play chess again. jones won the beard contest. pat gave him a cigar he'd smuggled on board (no smoking was allowed on the ship), and jones threw it away. he doesn't smoke. * * * * * _june , _ got lost today. pat told me not to go too far from camp, so, when i took a stroll, i made sure every so often that i could still see the rocket behind me. walked for maybe an hour; then the oxygen gauge got past the halfway mark, so i started back toward the rocket. after maybe ten steps, the rocket disappeared. one minute it was standing there, tall and silvery, the next instant it was gone. turned on my radio pack and got hold of pat. told him what happened, and he told kroger. kroger said i had been following a mirage, to step back a bit. i did, and i could see the ship again. kroger said to try and walk toward where the ship seemed to be, even when it wasn't in view, and meantime they'd come out after me in the jeep, following my footprints. started walking back, and the ship vanished again. it reappeared, disappeared, but i kept going. finally saw the real ship, and lloyd and jones waving their arms at me. they were shouting through their masks, but i couldn't hear them. the air is too thin to carry sound well. all at once, something gleamed in their hands, and they started shooting at me with their rifles. that's when i heard the noise behind me. i was too scared to turn around, but finally jones and lloyd came running over, and i got up enough nerve to look. there was nothing there, but on the sand, paralleling mine, were footprints. at least i think they were footprints. twice as long as mine, and three times as wide, but kind of featureless because the sand's loose and dry. they doubled back on themselves, spaced considerably farther apart. "what was it?" i asked lloyd when he got to me. "damned if i know," he said. "it was red and scaly, and i think it had a tail. it was two heads taller than you." he shuddered. "ran off when we fired." "where," said jones, "are pat and kroger?" i didn't know. i hadn't seen them, nor the jeep, on my trip back. so we followed the wheel tracks for a while, and they veered off from my trail and followed another, very much like the one that had been paralleling mine when jones and lloyd had taken a shot at the scaly thing. "we'd better get them on the radio," said jones, turning back toward the ship. there wasn't anything on the radio but static. pat and kroger haven't come back yet, either. * * * * * _june , _ we're not alone here. more of the scaly things have come toward the camp, but a few rifle shots send them away. they hop like kangaroos when they're startled. their attitudes aren't menacing, but their appearance is. and jones says, "who knows what's 'menacing' in an alien?" we're going to look for kroger and pat today. jones says we'd better before another windstorm blows away the jeep tracks. fortunately, the jeep has a leaky oil pan, so we always have the smears to follow, unless they get covered up, too. we're taking extra oxygen, shells, and rifles. food, too, of course. and we're locking up the ship. * * * * * it's later, now. we found the jeep, but no kroger or pat. lots of those big tracks nearby. we're taking the jeep to follow the aliens' tracks. there's some moss around here, on reddish brown rocks that stick up through the sand, just on the shady side, though. kroger must be happy to have found his lichen. the trail ended at the brink of a deep crevice in the ground. seems to be an earthquake-type split in solid rock, with the sand sifting over this and the far edge like pink silk cataracts. the bottom is in the shade and can't be seen. the crack seems to extend to our left and right as far as we can look. there looks like a trail down the inside of the crevice, but the sun's setting, so we're waiting till tomorrow to go down. going down was jones' idea, not mine. * * * * * _june , _ well, we're at the bottom, and there's water here, a shallow stream about thirty feet wide that runs along the center of the canal (we've decided we're in a canal). no sign of pat or kroger yet, but the sand here is hard-packed and damp, and there are normal-size footprints mingled with the alien ones, sharp and clear. the aliens seem to have six or seven toes. it varies from print to print. and they're barefoot, too, or else they have the damnedest-looking shoes in creation. the constant shower of sand near the cliff walls is annoying, but it's sandless (shower-wise) near the stream, so we're following the footprints along the bank. also, the air's better down here. still thin, but not so bad as on the surface. we're going without masks to save oxygen for the return trip (jones assures me there'll _be_ a return trip), and the air's only a little bit sandy, but handkerchiefs over nose and mouth solve this. we look like desperadoes, what with the rifles and covered faces. i said as much to lloyd and he told me to shut up. moss all over the cliff walls. swell luck for kroger. * * * * * we've found kroger and pat, with the help of the aliens. or maybe i should call them the martians. either way, it's better than what jones calls them. they took away our rifles and brought us right to kroger and pat, without our even asking. jones is mad at the way they got the rifles so easily. when we came upon them (a group of maybe ten, huddling behind a boulder in ambush), he fired, but the shots either bounced off their scales or stuck in their thick hides. anyway, they took the rifles away and threw them into the stream, and picked us all up and took us into a hole in the cliff wall. the hole went on practically forever, but it didn't get dark. kroger tells me that there are phosphorescent bacteria living in the mold on the walls. the air has a fresh-dug-grave smell, but it's richer in oxygen than even at the stream. we're in a small cave that is just off a bigger cave where lots of tunnels come together. i can't remember which one we came in through, and neither can anyone else. jones asked me what the hell i kept writing in the diary for, did i want to make it a gift to martian archeologists? but i said where there's life there's hope, and now he won't talk to me. i congratulated kroger on the lichen i'd seen, but he just said a short and unscientific word and went to sleep. there's a martian guarding the entrance to our cave. i don't know what they intend to do with us. feed us, i hope. so far, they've just left us here, and we're out of rations. kroger tried talking to the guard once, but he (or it) made a whistling kind of sound and flashed a mouthful of teeth. kroger says the teeth are in multiple rows, like a tiger shark's. i'd rather he hadn't told me. * * * * * _june , , i think_ we're either in a docket or a zoo. i can't tell which. there's a rather square platform surrounded on all four sides by running water, maybe twenty feet across, and we're on it. martians keep coming to the far edge of the water and looking at us and whistling at each other. a little martian came near the edge of the water and a larger martian whistled like crazy and dragged it away. "water must be dangerous to them," said kroger. "we shoulda brought water pistols," jones muttered. pat said maybe we can swim to safety. kroger told pat he was crazy, that the little island we're on here underground is bordered by a fast river that goes into the planet. we'd end up drowned in some grotto in the heart of the planet, says kroger. "what the hell," says pat, "it's better than starving." it is not. * * * * * _june , , probably_ i'm hungry. so is everybody else. right now i could eat a dinner raw, in a centrifuge, and keep it down. a martian threw a stone at jones today, and jones threw one back at him and broke off a couple of scales. the martian whistled furiously and went away. when the crowd thinned out, same as it did yesterday (must be some sort of sleeping cycle here), kroger talked lloyd into swimming across the river and getting the red scales. lloyd started at the upstream part of the current, and was about a hundred yards below this underground island before he made the far side. sure is a swift current. but he got the scales, walked very far upstream of us, and swam back with them. the stream sides are steep, like in a fjord, and we had to lift him out of the swirling cold water, with the scales gripped in his fist. or what was left of the scales. they had melted down in the water and left his hand all sticky. kroger took the gummy things, studied them in the uncertain light, then tasted them and grinned. the martians are made of sugar. * * * * * later, same day. kroger said that the martian metabolism must be like terran (earth-type) metabolism, only with no pancreas to make insulin. they store their energy on the _outside_ of their bodies, in the form of scales. he's watched them more closely and seen that they have long rubbery tubes for tongues, and that they now and then suck up water from the stream while they're watching us, being careful not to get their lips (all sugar, of course) wet. he guesses that their "blood" must be almost pure water, and that it washes away (from the inside, of course) the sugar they need for energy. i asked him where the sugar came from, and he said probably their bodies isolated carbon from something (he thought it might be the moss) and combined it with the hydrogen and oxygen in the water (even _i_ knew the formula for water) to make sugar, a common carbohydrate. like plants, on earth, he said. except, instead of using special cells on leaves to form carbohydrates with the help of sunpower, as earth plants do in photosynthesis (kroger spelled that word for me), they used the _shape_ of the scales like prisms, to isolate the spectra (another kroger word) necessary to form the sugar. "i don't get it," i said politely, when he'd finished his spiel. "simple," he said, as though he were addressing me by name. "they have a twofold reason to fear water. one: by complete solvency in that medium, they lose all energy and die. two: even partial sprinkling alters the shape of the scales, and they are unable to use sunpower to form more sugar, and still die, if a bit slower." "oh," i said, taking it down verbatim. "so now what do we do?" "we remove our boots," said kroger, sitting on the ground and doing so, "and then we cross this stream, fill the boots with water, and _spray_ our way to freedom." "which tunnel do we take?" asked pat, his eyes aglow at the thought of escape. kroger shrugged. "we'll have to chance taking any that seem to slope upward. in any event, we can always follow it back and start again." "i dunno," said jones. "remember those _teeth_ of theirs. they must be for biting something more substantial than moss, kroger." "we'll risk it," said pat. "it's better to go down fighting than to die of starvation." the hell it is. * * * * * _june , , for sure_ the martians have coal mines. _that's_ what they use those teeth for. we passed through one and surprised a lot of them chewing gritty hunks of anthracite out of the walls. they came running at us, whistling with those tubelike tongues, and drooling dry coal dust, but pat swung one of his boots in an arc that splashed all over the ground in front of them, and they turned tail (literally) and clattered off down another tunnel, sounding like a locomotive whistle gone berserk. we made the surface in another hour, back in the canal, and were lucky enough to find our own trail to follow toward the place above which the jeep still waited. jones got the rifles out of the stream (the martians had probably thought they were beyond recovery there) and we found the jeep. it was nearly buried in sand, but we got it cleaned off and running, and got back to the ship quickly. first thing we did on arriving was to break out the stores and have a celebration feast just outside the door of the ship. it was pork again, and i got sick. * * * * * _june , _ we're going back. pat says that a week is all we were allowed to stay and that it's urgent to return and tell what we've learned about mars (we know there are martians, and they're made of sugar). "why," i said, "can't we just tell it on the radio?" "because," said pat, "if we tell them now, by the time we get back we'll be yesterday's news. this way we may be lucky and get a parade." "maybe even money," said kroger, whose mind wasn't always on science. "but they'll ask why we didn't radio the info, sir," said jones uneasily. "the radio," said pat, nodding to lloyd, "was unfortunately broken shortly after landing." lloyd blinked, then nodded back and walked around the rocket. i heard a crunching sound and the shattering of glass, not unlike the noise made when one drives a rifle butt through a radio. well, it's time for takeoff. * * * * * this time it wasn't so bad. i thought i was getting my space-legs, but pat says there's less gravity on mars, so escape velocity didn't have to be so fast, hence a smoother (relatively) trip on our shock-absorbing bunks. lloyd wants to play chess again. i'll be careful not to win this time. however, if i don't win, maybe this time _i'll_ be the one to quit. kroger is busy in his cramped lab space trying to classify the little moss he was able to gather, and jones and pat are up front watching the white specks revolve on that black velvet again. guess i'll take a nap. * * * * * _june , _ hell's bells. kroger says there are two baby martians loose on board ship. pat told him he was nuts, but there are certain signs he's right. like the missing charcoal in the air-filtration-and-reclaiming (afar) system. and the water gauges are going down. but the clincher is those two sugar crystals lloyd had grabbed up when we were in that zoo. they're gone. pat has declared a state of emergency. quick thinking, that's pat. lloyd, before he remembered and turned scarlet, suggested we radio earth for instructions. we can't. here we are, somewhere in a void headed for earth, with enough air and water left for maybe three days--if the martians don't take any more. kroger is thrilled that he is learning something, maybe, about martian reproductive processes. when he told pat, pat put it to a vote whether or not to jettison kroger through the airlock. however, it was decided that responsibility was pretty well divided. lloyd had gotten the crystals, kroger had only studied them, and jones had brought them aboard. so kroger stays, but meanwhile the air is getting worse. pat suggested kroger put us all into a state of suspended animation till landing time, eight months away. kroger said, "how?" * * * * * _june , _ air is foul and i'm very thirsty. kroger says that at least--when the martians get bigger--they'll have to show themselves. pat says what do we do _then_? we can't afford the water we need to melt them down. besides, the melted crystals might _all_ turn into little martians. jones says he'll go down spitting. pat says why not dismantle interior of rocket to find out where they're holing up? fine idea. how do you dismantle riveted metal plates? * * * * * _june , _ the afar system is no more and the water gauges are still dropping. kroger suggests baking bread, then slicing it, then toasting it till it turns to carbon, and we can use the carbon in the afar system. we'll have to try it, i guess. * * * * * the martians ate the bread. jones came forward to tell us the loaves were cooling, and when he got back they were gone. however, he did find a few of the red crystals on the galley deck (floor). they're good-sized crystals, too. which means so are the martians. kroger says the martians must be intelligent, otherwise they couldn't have guessed at the carbohydrates present in the bread after a lifelong diet of anthracite. pat says let's jettison kroger. this time the vote went against kroger, but he got a last-minute reprieve by suggesting the crystals be pulverized and mixed with sulphuric acid. he says this'll produce carbon. i certainly hope so. so does kroger. * * * * * brief reprieve for us. the acid-sugar combination not only produces carbon but water vapor, and the gauge has gone up a notch. that means that we have a quart of water in the tanks for drinking. however, the air's a bit better, and we voted to let kroger stay inside the rocket. meantime, we have to catch those martians. * * * * * _june , _ worse and worse. lloyd caught one of the martians in the firing chamber. we had to flood the chamber with acid to subdue the creature, which carbonized nicely. so now we have plenty of air and water again, but besides having another martian still on the loose, we now don't have enough acid left in the fuel tanks to make a landing. pat says at least our vector will carry us to earth and we can die on our home planet, which is better than perishing in space. the hell it is. * * * * * _march , _ earth in sight. the other martian is still with us. he's where we can't get at him without blow-torches, but he can't get at the carbon in the afar system, either, which is a help. however, his tail is prehensile, and now and then it snakes out through an air duct and yanks food right off the table from under our noses. kroger says watch out. _we_ are made of carbohydrates, too. i'd rather not have known. * * * * * _march , _ earth fills the screen in the control room. pat says if we're lucky, he might be able to use the bit of fuel we have left to set us in a descending spiral into one of the oceans. the rocket is tighter than a submarine, he insists, and it will float till we're rescued, if the plates don't crack under the impact. we all agreed to try it. not that we thought it had a good chance of working, but none of us had a better idea. * * * * * i guess you know the rest of the story, about how that destroyer spotted us and got us and my diary aboard, and towed the rocket to san francisco. news of the "captured martian" leaked out, and we all became nine-day wonders until the dismantling of the rocket. kroger says he must have dissolved in the water, and wonders what _that_ would do. there are about a thousand of those crystal-scales on a martian. so last week we found out, when those red-scaled things began clambering out of the sea on every coastal region on earth. kroger tried to explain to me about salinity osmosis and hydrostatic pressure and crystalline life, but in no time at all he lost me. the point is, bullets won't stop these things, and wherever a crystal falls, a new martian springs up in a few weeks. it looks like the five of us have abetted an invasion from mars. needless to say, we're no longer heroes. i haven't heard from pat or lloyd for a week. jones was picked up attacking a candy factory yesterday, and kroger and i were allowed to sign on for the flight to venus scheduled within the next few days--because of our experience. kroger says there's only enough fuel for a one-way trip. i don't care. i've always wanted to travel with the president. --jack sharkey transcriber's note: this etext was produced from _galaxy magazine_ june . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed. minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.