Salvage in Space
Page 5
hills by Helion.
The diary, it appeared, had not been kept very devotedly. Most of thepages were blank.
One of the first entries, dated a year and a half before, told of aparty that Linda had attended in San Francisco, and of her refusal todance with a certain man, referred to as "Benny," because he had beenunpleasantly insistent about wanting to marry her. It ended:
"Dad said to-night that we're going off in the _Dragon_ again. All the way to Uranus, if the new fuel works as he expects. What a lark, to explore a few new worlds of our own! Dad says one of Uranus' moons is as large as Mercury. And Benny won't be proposing again soon!"
Turning on, Thad found other scattered entries, some of them dealingwith the preparation for the voyage, the start from San Francisco--anda huge bunch of flowers from "Benny," the long months of the tripthrough space, out past the orbit of Mars, above the meteor belt,across Jupiter's orbit, beyond the track of Saturn, which was thefarthest point that rocket explorers had previously reached, and on toUranus, where they could not land because of the unstable surface.
* * * * *
The remainder of the entries Thad found less frequent, shorter,bearing the mark of excitement: landing upon Titania, the third andlargest satellite of Uranus; unearthly forests, sheltering strange andmonstrous life; the hunting of weird creatures, and mounting them formuseum specimens.
Then the discovery of a ruined city, whose remains indicated that ithad been built by a lost race of intelligent, spiderlike things; thefinding of a temple whose walls were of precious metals, containing acrystal chest filled with wondrous gems; the smelting of the metalinto convenient ingots, and the transfer of the treasure to the hold.
The first sinister note there entered the diary:
"Some of the men say we shouldn't have disturbed the temple. Think it will bring us bad luck. Rubbish, of course. But one man did vanish while they were smelting the gold. Poor Mr. Tom James. I suppose he ventured away from the rest, and something caught him."
The few entries that followed were shorter, and showed increasingnervous tension. They recorded the departure from Titania, made almostas soon as the treasure was loaded. The last was made several weekslater. A dozen men had vanished from the crew, leaving only gouts ofblood to hint the manner of their going. The last entry ran:
"Dad says I'm to stay in here to-day. Old dear, he's afraid the thing will get me--whatever it is. It's really serious. Two men taken from their berths last night. And not a trace. Some of them think it's a curse on the treasure. One of them swears he saw Dad's stuffed specimens moving about in the hold.
"Some terrible thing must have slipped aboard the flier, out of the jungle. That's what Dad and the captain think. Queer they can't find it. They've searched all over. Well...."
Musing and regretful, Thad turned back for another look at the smilinggirl in the photograph.
What a tragedy her death had been! Reading the diary had made him likeher. Her balance and humor. Her quiet affection for "Dad." The calmcourage with which she seemed to have faced the creeping, lurkingdeath that darkened the ship with its unescapable shadow.
How had her body come to be in the coffer, he wondered, when all theothers were--gone? It had shown no marks of violence. She must havedied of fear. No, her face had seemed too calm and peaceful for that.Had she chosen easy death by some poison, rather than that otherdreadful fate? Had her body been put in the chest to protect it, andthe poison arrested decomposition?
Thad was still studying the picture, thoughtfully and sadly, when thedog, which had been silent, suddenly growled again, and retreated fromthe door, toward the corner of the room.
The invisible monster had returned. Thad heard its claws scratchingacross the door again. And he heard another dreadful sound--not thelong, shrill scream that had so grated on his nerves before, but ashort, sharp coughing or barking, a series of shrill, indescribablenotes that could have been made by no beast he knew.
* * * * *
The decision to open the door cost a huge effort of Thad's will.
For hours he had waited, thinking desperately. And the thing outsidethe door had waited as patiently, scratching upon it from time totime, uttering those dreadful, shrill coughing cries.
Sooner or later, he would have to face the monster. Even if he couldescape from the room and avoid it for a time, he would have to meet itin the end. And it might creep upon him while he slept.
To be sure, the issue of the combat was extremely doubtful. Themonster, apparently, had succeeded in killing every man upon theflier, even though some of them had been armed. It must be large andvery ferocious.
But Thad was not without hope. He still wore his Osprey-suit. Theheavy fabric, made of metal wires impregnated with a tough, elasticcomposition, should afford considerable protection against the thing.
The welding arc, intended to fuse refractive meteoric iron, would beno mean weapon, at close quarters. And the quarters would be close.
If only he could find some way to make the thing visible!
Paint, or something of the kind, would stick to its skin.... His eyes,searching the room, caught the jar of face powder on the dressingtable. Dash that over it! It ought to stick enough to make the outlinevisible.
So, at last, holding the powder ready in one hand, he waited until atime when the pressure upon the door had just relaxed, and he knew themonster was waiting outside. Swiftly, he opened the door....
* * * * *
Thad had partially overcome the instinctive horror that the unseenbeing had first aroused in him. But it returned in a sickening wavewhen he heard the short, shrill, coughing cries, hideously eager, thatgreeted the opening of the door. And the quick rasping of naked clawsupon the floor. _Sounds from nothingness!_
He flung the powder at the sound.
A form of weird horror materialized before him, still half invisible,half outlined with the white film of adhering powder: gigantic andhideous claws, that seemed to reach out of empty air, the side of ahuge, scaly body, a yawning, dripping jaw. For a moment Thad could seegreat, hooked fangs in that jaw. Then they vanished, as if an unseentongue had licked the powder from them, dissolving it in fluids whichmade it invisible.
That unearthly, half-seen shape leaped at him.
He was carried backward into the room, hurled to the floor. Claws wererasping upon the tough fabric of his suit. His arm was seizedcrushingly in half-visible jaws.
* * * * *
Desperately he clung to the welding tool. The heated electrode wasdriven toward his body. He fought to keep it away; he knew that itwould burn through even the insulated fabric of his suit.
A claw ripped savagely at his side. He heard the sharp, rending sound,as the tough fabric of his suit was torn, and felt a thin pencil ofpain drawn along his body, where a claw cut his skin.
Suddenly the suit was full of the earthy fetor of the monster's body,nauseatingly intense. Thad gasped, tried to hold his breath, andthrust upward hard with the incandescent electrode. He felt warm bloodtrickling from the wound.
A numbing blow struck his arm. The welding tool was carried from hishand. Flung to the side of the room, it clattered to the floor; andthen a heavy weight came upon his chest, forcing the breath from hislungs. The monster stood upon his body and clawed at him.
Thad squirmed furiously. He kicked out with his feet, encountering agreat, hard body. Futilely he beat and thrust with his arms againstthe pillarlike limb.
His body was being mauled, bruised beneath the thick fabric. He heardit tear again, along his right thigh. But he felt no pain, and thoughtthe claws had not reached the skin.
It was the yellow dog that gave him the chance to recover the weapon.The animal had been running back and forth in the opposite end of theroom, fairly howling in excitement and terror. Now, with the madcourage of desperation, it le
aped recklessly at the monster.
A mighty, dimly seen claw caught it, hurled it back across the room.It lay still, broken, whimpering.
For a moment the thing had lifted its weight from Thad's body. AndThad slipped quickly from beneath it, flung himself across the room,snatched up the welding tool.
In an instant the creature was upon him again. But he met it with theincandescent electrode. He was crouched in a corner, now, where itcould come at him from only one direction. Its claws still slashed athim ferociously. But he was able to cling to the weapon, and meet eachonslaught with hot metal.
Gradually its mad attacks weakened. Then one of his blind, thrustingblows seemed to burn into a vital organ. A terrible choking,strangling sound came from the air. And he heard the thrashingstruggles of wild convulsions. At last all was quiet. He prodded thething again and again with the hot electrode, and it did not move. Itwas dead.
The creature's body was so heavy that Thad had to return to thebridge, and shut off the current