Anyway, you see what I mean. You are never sure you can trust a robot. I don’t wonder Adam Link couldn’t get himself accepted as a human. There ain’t no feeling of companionship about a robot’s company.
Anyhow, this particular tin man nods his head at the door of the airlock and points. He wanted to go inside. He might have been asking us nicely to let him in or he might have been giving orders. You couldn’t tell.
Anyway, in we all went.
Wimp’s eyes bulge, and she says, “Who’s your friend?”
“A visitor from another world,” said the robot, in Martian.
It made me jump to hear him speak, although of course I should have expected it. The voice was dry, whirring, metallic, with a sound like a scraping phonograph needle in it. Just what you would expect.
“Look here,” I said, “are you Adam Link?”
“How did you know?” whirred the robot.
“I’ve read all about you,” I said. “You have no business to be here. I’ve a good mind to tell Mr. Binder!”
“Pfff! Him!” said Adam.
“I think you are disrespectful to a very clever and popular author!” I said.
“And so what?” asked Adam, casually sucking down electricity from our batteries and blowing out a cloud of sparks.
“It’s my opinion, Adam,” I went on firmly, “that you are a rogue at heart, and so cunning that you have even fooled your creator!”
“My creator!” repeated Adam. “Go on. You are quite amusing.”
“You two seem to be old friends,” said Wimp, coldly. “When you have a moment to spare you might tell us about it. And what you might do about those Venusians.”
ADAM and I had been talking in English, which of course she and Vans do not understand.
“Sorry,” I said. “This tin man is from Earth. His name is Adam Link. The fact that he can talk English proves it.”
“Absolutely,” said the robot. “Who can talk English except Adam Link? If you could talk English you would be Adam Link. According to him.”
I don’t like sarcasm, especially from a tin man.
“How did you get here?” I asked.
“Easy. Robots don’t have to have air. All I needed to get here was a good rocket motor, a device for turning the energy of the sun’s rays into current and a warm coat of paint.”
“And can you help us against those fellows down there?”
“They out to get you?”
“Yes.”
He looked.
“The easiest way would be to take Deimos in one hand and the rocket-ship in the other and bang them together.”
“Yes, of course, Adam,” I said hastily. “I might have known you would get out of the jam some way like that. But we don’t want to hurt those fellows. They’re our friends really.”
“Making things awkward, aren’t you?” asked Adam. “Then you’ll have to hide.”
“We thought of that,” I said. And explained about those Venus patrolmen that Vans had set so untidily sprawling all over the space around Deimos.
“Is that all that’s troubling you? asked Adam. “Give me six paper bags full of paint.”
It seemed funny, but we did. And Adam, when the first Venus patrolman floated past, carefully threw the paper bag. It was a perfect shot. Adam’s mechanical brain had calculated perfectly. The bag hit the Venusian full in the face, and burst. Very soon all the human satellites of Deimos were blinded with paint.
“Beautiful work!” I said to Adam, as he came in.
“Would have been,” he said. “If I had not missed with one bag and it hit the door and burst and covered me with paint. But one of your patrolmen had drifted back to Deimos, so that I had enough bags all the same.”
By now the rocket-motors of the Venus ship were heating up, so that we hadn’t much time. We slipped round to the other side of Deimos, took our little space-boat into the air-lock of a large bubble and sank her in the lake.
It seemed odd to be pushing around so easily an object weighing quite a few tons, but in the gravity of Deimos it was quite easy.
CHAPTER V
Paint and Pirates
AND while all this was going on Wimp’s poppa wasn’t having such a good time either. To start with, Hek and him and the General had clean lost their voices and could only roar like lions or growl like bears or scream like parrots or make other noises that you don’t expect from a reasonable human unless he’s on the stage or broadcasting or amusing a kid’s tea-party or in some other place where people can let themselves go without getting locked up for it. For myself, when I first came to the Imperial Palace of Mars I carefully learned the cries of some of the more deadly of the giant Martian beasts and snakes. I used to practise them sometimes in the Palace grounds. It amused Wimp. Especially when her ladies-in-waiting all ran for their lives. But when the guard turned out and turned on the big searchlights and started sweeping the place with deathrays she made me stop it.
But it was not funny to Emperor Usulor. I suppose an Emperor has to look dignified and not be laughed at. I don’t know why. And he was very worried. Suppose this whatever it was, that had happened to him, did not wear off! He’d have to go back to Mars and lay foundation stones and attend dinners and inspect his troops and pin medals on generals and not be able to say a word. He wouldn’t be able to make speeches. The Emp loved making speeches. More than people loved listening to them. Now he would have to wear a bandage round his neck and say he had a sore throat. Even so the rumor would get around and he’d be laughed at. Horrible to think of!
Still, perhaps it would wear off.
True, the same thing had happened to Detective Hektorum and General Dattease. That didn’t matter. No trouble to get a new detective and a new general. Retire these two with fat pensions. And medals. “For disabilities suffered in defense of the person of the Emperor.” That would sound good. But what the Emperor didn’t like was the idea of retiring the Emperor on pension and getting a new Emperor. It’s funny. Kings and Emperors say they have such hard times. Speeches to make, foundation stones to lay, luncheons to eat, medals to pin on generals. Yet they seem to get a lot of fun out of it. I never knew one that didn’t want to go on playing to the last possible moment.
Anyway, like most Emperors, the Emperor of Mars wanted to go on batting as long as he could. Even if his speeches on the radio did send people to sleep better han any doctor could. And it looked as though this might end his innings. You could have an Emperor with only one leg, or only one arm, or only with one eye. Or even, a blind Emperor. Mad Emperors are so common that nobody notices it.
But an Emperor without a voice! Pffffff!
And while old man Usulor was worrying himself bald like this the radio crackled out the words I told you about.
“Ahoy there, Martian spaceboat! Who are you? Answer or we fire!”
It was taking an unfair advantage. Emperor Usulor could not answer. Nor could Hek or Dattease. They just looked at the radio with their mouths open.
Hektorum pointed to the view of Deimos on the screen before them. Near the speckled black outline of the pirate’s old ship, the Ace of Spades, was another ace, the Ace of Hearts. An orange vessel of the Venusian pirate-chasing fleet.
“Baroo, Baroo! Bump! Weezor!” shouted Usulor.
Hek understood that one. It was easy. Usulor was saying “They can’t do this to the Emperor of Mars!” or something like that.
“And how are you going to tell them who you are?” Hek asked.
“We don’t know what your game is,” barked the radio. “We give you ten seconds to answer properly. Funny noises will not help you.”
Looks nasty, Hek thought. He got out three space-suits, put one on and made the others understand they must do the same.
THEN they looked at the screen again, No time to waste! A radio-controlled rocket shell was streaming at them. A few more seconds and their boat would be blown to pieces.
They didn’t wait to go through the air-lock. They broke the big o
bservation window, jumped into the the hole and kicked the space-boat away from them as hard as they could kick.
Then that shell reached that boat and went off, and what was left of the boat wasn’t much use to anybody.
If they had been on the ground Usulor, Hek and the general would have been blown up too. In space it was different. The blast spent itself in the vacuum. There was no air to carry sound. All they noticed was a cloud of smoke that spread outwards and made everything dark. Luckily, none of the bits of the space-boat, spreading out all ways, hit them.
It was minutes before the smoke thinned out well enough for old Usulor to see about him. The boat was gone.
He had expected that. Hek and the general were nearby. Deimos was near. The three of them were still traveling towards it with the velocity of the boat that now was no more. Blown to bits, the boat was still doing its job of getting them to Deimos.
On Deimos itself the Ace of Spades and the Ace of Hearts lay close together among the glass bubbles. There were other figures in space-suits floating about in space too. He saw two hauled down onto Deimos with magnets on ropes.
Deimos seemed to be turning under him. He was floating in an orbit round it. Then he saw another space-boat. It seemed to be hiding from the Ace of Spades and the Ace of Hearts by keeping on the other side of Deimos.
It looked rather like the spaceboat that Princess Wimpolo had gone on her madcap adventure in. He wished he could speak to it. He tried waving his arms.
Someone stood in the open air-lock of the boat. A man about the size of an Earthling, dressed in an all-metal spacesuit. Funny. Another thing he could not understand. He wished he could ask Weil Hektorum about it.
He could see Hektorum, rising like another sun above the horizon of Deimos. The general was at the zenith, arms and legs spread out as though he too was pretending to be the sun.
“Oh, no, no, no! shouted Emp Usulor.
The man in iron clothes had something in his hand, and was taking aim at the general. Something flew. It hit the general full in the head.
Usulor expected to see the general blown to bits. There was a great splash of red. Usulor, horrified as he was, thought that the unlucky general’s head had a surprisingly large amount of blood in it.
The general was still kicking. He tried to wipe his helmet plate. Just as though he was still alive.
Then the Emperor saw that he was still alive. The red stuff was not blood but only paint.
“Oh, no, no, no, no!” he shouted. “Don’t you dare!”
For the man in metal clothes was now aiming at Usulor. But the missile came on. Nothing could stop it.
All at once the entire universe turned green. Bright green. A bag of green paint had struck his space-helmet, covering it. A green sun shone through a green ocean. He could see nothing else. No more Deimos, no more spaceboat or iron man. No more Hektorum, rising like the sun. No more Aces of any suit.
FOR some time Emperor Usulor went on floating in space, trying to wipe the paint off his space helmet. He didn’t get very far at the job. The hands of his space-suit were not made for a job like that.
At last he felt something pulling him along. What it was of course he didn’t know. Then he struck against something, but not hard, and felt hands take hold of his suit. Men were talking in Venusian. Then someone spoke in Martian.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?”
“I might ask you that,” he barked, or thought he did. “Why did you shell my boat?”
Squeaks and squawks of amazement from the Venusians.
“Say!” snapped the Martian voice. “Snap out of it! Making those queer noises like you did over the radio won’t get you any place.”
Usulor had forgotten that his voice had gone, queer animal noises taking its place.
Hands began to take off his helmet. Two men were arguing in Martian. “What I want to know is, if the party we shelled is the same one as the one that knocked our men off Deimos, how did this guy get the paint on him? I reckon there is another boat about somewhere.”
“Yes, maybe. But who is this guy that can’t talk like a man?”
“Dunno. I thought his boat looked like a Martian boat, but I’m not sure. We haven’t seen enough Martian boats to be certain.”
“You think this guy ain’t at Martian? He certainly ain’t a Venusian. And he’s much too big for an Earthling. I can’t place him yet.”
“I ain’t heard of any other inhabited planet.”
“There may be one all the same. Mercury perhaps.”
Then Usulor’s helmet came off. The paint had made it stick.
Around him were Venusians and Martians. He had expected to see Venusians only, if this was a Venusian space patrol. And only a few of the Venusians were in uniform. General Dattease was here too, and he tried to tell the Emp how pleased he was to see him unharmed, but all he could get out of him were roarings and whistlings.
“It’s right enough, Belangor,” said the man. “These guys can’t talk like Martians or Venusians or Earthlings. They must be from another planet.” Usulor and the general stiffened at the name. Belangor the space-pirate! With a ship disguised as a Venusian patrol ship and some of his men in captured uniforms!
“Sure they are not stalling?” Belangor asked.
“Certain.”
“Find out where they do come from then. Maybe we could do business with this new planet, now that pesky Venus Patrol has made things so hot in this quarter.”
Belangor was planning to do some pirating in new fields.
A chart of the Solar System was brought, showing all the planets and asteroids. Belangor pointed to himself, then to Mars. He pointed to one of his Venusians, and then to Venus. Then he pointed at Usulor himself, and handed him the pointer.
Usulor thought, then pointed to one of the satellites of Jupiter.
Belangor whistled.
“Ganymede! They come from Ganymede! And a rich world it must be, judging by this guy’s clothes. Ought to be good plunder there. And now I’ve got my Ace of Spades ship back again. Boys! Get everything ready. We are off to give Ganymede the once-over.”
“And what about the other boat?” his lieutenant asked.
“Was there another boat?”
“Well, somebody must have thrown the paint at these two guys. There were three people who landed on Deimos. One was a little guy from Earth. One, the men think, was a woman. And the other was a big fellow, much bigger than either of these two. Where have they gone?”
“Did you see anything of them in your search in the other ship?”
“No, but—”
“Then forget them. We blast for Ganymede.”
CHAPTER VI
Wimpolo in Pursuit
WEIL HEKTORUM saw General Dattease splashed with red paint. Then he saw the Emp blotted out with a great splash of green. And all the while, whether he wanted to or not, he was coming closer to this crazy tin man whose one idea seemed to be to brighten up the Solar System by throwing paint around.
He saw that the space-boat was the one Wimp had been using, but that did not help him any.
Now the tin man was aiming again, and aiming with a certainty than an ordinary human brain could not equal. Hek realized that he was going to get painted, whether he wanted painting or not.
Plonk! The universe turned blue. But not before Hek had put both hands in front of his face. When he took his hands away he was able to see quite well.
The space boat landed, and the four people in it, counting the robot, tucked it away out of sight in one of the glass air and heat traps of Deimos.
Good. Now to get down to them. And J hope I don’t get greeted with more paint, Hek thought.
But how to get down? Well, action and reaction are equal and opposite. His space-suit was made for repair work on the outside of space-ships. It had tools. Spanners, screw-drivers, a hammer and wirecutters. If he pulled them out and threw them with all his strength in front of him the recoil ought to check his orbital speed and
allow him to land.
It did. He got his feet on the top of one of the bubbles, skated over it and landed on the far side on the ground, rolling over and over.
Now he was nearly as badly off as ever. Because, in rolling over the paint on the top of his helmet got disturbed and ran all over his face-plate. He was as blind as Usulor and the General had been.
But he had been seen. Presently something jabbed in his back. A plug was pushed into the plug-hole of his space-suit telephone, and a voice said. “Don’t try anything.”
“Vans Holors!” Hek exclaimed delighted.
“I don’t know what your idea is,” Holors growled. “This is not the place for animal imitation.”
By now I had wiped some of the paint off Hek’s face-plate and saw who he was.
“It’s your father’s Secret Service man,” I told Wimp.
“Then why can’t he talk sense?”
We got Hek into one of the glass bubbles, got his helmet off, and he wrote on paper what had happened to him.
“Just like my dad,” said Wimp. “The hot headed old fool is sure to get into trouble if I’m not there to look after him. As though I wasn’t safe enough, with my husband and the wrestling champ of Mars to look after me. What more does he want? Must I cart a whole army around with me wherever I go?”
“Maybe,” wrote Hek, “your dad was glad of an excuse for a bit of fun himself. A day or so off from the affairs of state sort of thing.”
“Of course he was. Think I don’t know my dad? Well, he got more fun than he expected. Serve the old blatherskite right,” said this undutiful daughter. “Perhaps after this he’ll let me run around without trying to keep me tied to his apron strings.”
“And what are we going to do now?”
“Oh, hang about here awhile I suppose. Till those Venus patrol guys have sent my dad home with apologies, as they will when they know who he is. Then we slip out and dive for home too. All my plans for a run round in the Ace of Spades are off. I can’t let my dad find out we threw the paint at him.”
The Complete Saga of Don Hargreaves Page 36