The Collected Stories

by Earl

  With clumsy haste he extracted a long rope from the supply chest against one wall. Then he looked speculatively at Hanson’s bulk, trying to figure the best way to put hands on him to get him into the metal bench along the front wall. With much puffing and blowing, Timothy dragged the unconscious man to the bench and heaved him onto it easily enough, what with the light gravity and his desperate haste lest he awaken too soon.

  Timothy lashed him securely to the bench, knotting the ends carefully out of possible reach of a freed hand.

  He looked over his handiwork and grinned in satisfaction.

  “Guess that’ll hold him till he gets his right mind back.”

  This great task done, the liquor filled prospector sat down to wait for Hanson’s return from dream-land. But the monotony and utter stillness bit into his nerves. He climbed the short ladder to the pilot room which was a little one man cell whose roof was glass almost as tough and strong as steel. He seated himself in the pilot seat and gazed around with bleary eyes. From this position the pilot commanded the entire view on all sides and also upward. Only the portion of the ariew blocked by the boat itself was invisible.

  Timothy, drunkard though he was, was no mean hand at the controls and in his younger days had stored away quite a bit of space mechanics, so that he was more fit than many a man to pilot an ether boat. He threw the switch which sent waves of heat around the rocket tubes in back to warm them up to the point where it would be safe to explode gases through their sturdy length.

  Ten minutes later, during which time he strained to hear if Hanson had come to yet, he set the keys to send the ship up at an angle. He pulled the starting handle a fraction of an inch along its smooth grooved course. With a mighty rumble the rear tubes blasted their song of power and in a graceful arc the little blunt-nosed, cylindrical ether boat left its roosting place. Once safely away from the asteroid, Timothy reset the keyboard for a straight course, peered long and steadily at the void in front of the boat to make sure he was not running into another asteroid, and then took his eyes away from the sky.

  Thumbing the course-book clumsily, he looked up the approximate position of Mars in relation to their region, his blurring eyes and alcohol befuddled brain hardly able to interpret the printed words and figures. Satisfied, he stopped the rockets, set the keys as the course-book prescribed, and again pulled the rocket tube control for the back. He reeled to the side of his seat as the boat swung in a gentle curve, and then fastened his eyes onto the regions of space in front. Even in his benumbed state he knew and remembered that he must avoid asteroids.

  Just a short time later as the boat gradually picked up velocity at small acceleration, Timothy blinked his eyes at what he saw on one of the asteroids that loomed to one side and receded again to the back. He shook his head unbelievingly and then flung his trembling hands at the keys.

  “Unless I’ve gone cuckoo, I saw that three-cornered rock,” he muttered as he set the keys for a complete half turn. “And not just one of those strangely familiar rocks, but the very same one I saw by that platinum bed!”

  The cylindrical vehicle gently swung in a half circle at his manipulations with the keys, and blasted the rear tubes straight into its course of flight. But Timothy put on all the rocket force it was safe to use to slow the boat. He was pressed uncomfortably back into the seat. Far in front he could see the black outline of the asteroid he wanted to reach, that he had just passed. It grew smaller for a while as the rockets cut down the forward inertia, then began to grow in size as the boat was pushed back along its previous course.

  l Timothy, his brain cleared by the excitement of the discovery, judged the distance nicely and applied deceleration at just the right time to bring the boat to a light halt within the asteroid’s effective gravitation field. Anxiously he peered over the nose of the boat at the dim surface of the asteroid as the boat settled downward like a thistle.

  “Hurray!” he screamed as he made out the sharp outline of a three-cornered rock at the peak of a low, jagged hill. “That’s the one . . . and no mistake this time!”

  A few clever thrusts with the rockets and the space vehicle bumped to a gentle landing not twenty yards from the hill whose peak was a triangular rock, symbol of wealth in Timothy’s mind by past association.

  Shutting off the engine control, the little man, sobered wonderfully by the thrilling thought of the waiting platinum, scrambled down the ladder. He slipped just below the ceiling of the main room and floated majestically to the metal floor. After a few kicks he regained his upright posture and dived into the supply chest after a hasty glance at the still senseless Hanson.

  He dragged out a vacuum suit and laid it out on the floor, back side up. Then he dashed into a little room off the main one. Set in one wall was an air seal. Pulling a handle at the side, he waited nervously a few seconds till there was a bang from beyond the seal. Then he wrenched at the handle and swung back the seal. An electric motor did the actual opening. His puny muscular strength could never have pulled open the seal which had a vacuum on its other side. No man can conquer internal air pressure against a vacuum.

  As the seal first opened a crack, the air rushed in to fill the vacuum, whistling loudly as it was sucked into the crack. As Timothy snapped on the light inside the vacuum refrigerator in which was kept their food and oxygen, his hand grew numb from the intense coldness of the air. But in total disregard of such a trifling thing, he who had frozen oft and miserably, pulled out an oxygen tank, after carefully wrapping a cloth around the space-cold metal handle. He looked at the gauge. It read nearly full.

  He banged shut the seal, jammed the handle upward. As he left, the hiss of escaping air resounded in the metal walls. The little pantry was again a vacuum.

  Timothy carried the tank to the main room and pushed it down on its clamps that held it to the back of the suit. Then he screwed in the air line. Holding the suit aloft, he slipped his frail body into it from the top. Then he pushed the ingenious air-tight flanges together and tucked the padding carefully about his neck. Hardly able to control his agitation, he fitted the globular glass helmet onto his neckpiece and sealed the flanges. Then he screwed in the oxygen pipe which came under his armpit from the back. The pipe leading to the carbon dioxide absorber was the last connection. Just below the neck was the valve. He opened it slowly to let in the oxygen and closed the valve connected to the open air.

  He was now sealed off from the atmosphere of the room altogether. He allowed full pressure from the oxygen tank at first till the suit bulged out, just to see that all the connections were tight. This he could determine by watching the pressure gauge on the arm of his suit. If it remained constant, there was no leak.

  Satisfied, he reduced the pressure to normal by opening the escape valve momentarily. Now he was ready to venture out to see if he had really struck the right place, although in his mind there was little doubt. He crouched into the tiny dark air lock and pulled the handle release for the outside door. With a soft “whoosh” the air in the lock fled and Timothy’s suit bulged out to its maximum limits. He didn’t take along a pick for he knew if this were the right place there would be ore samples lying around from the previous visit.

  Madly he bounded like a bloated frog to the base of the low hill which was peaked by a three-cornered rock. Then he sank to his knees On the hard rock and babbled incoherently as he saw evident signs of the marks of sharp picks and drills. Grasping a lump of rock he held it close to his eyes against the glass and turned to let the sun light fall upon it. He had to slowly turn his body to keep its rays centered on the rock because the sun and all the Heavens revolved most distressingly due to the peculiar rotations of this asteroid on its axis.

  But it was unmistakably there—gray stains and lines running through the rock. Platinum! A tremendous fortune of it spread before his eyes. That whole hill beside which he stood was probably reeking with it because that other time they had been there, samples taken from all this region had carried those gray lines.

/>   Timothy, stunned for a moment by the thought of what this find would mean to him and his companion, suddenly broke his trance and fell to picking up some of the samples to bring to the boat. Hanson wouldn’t try to choke him anymore—not if he held before his eyes those rocks and told him what they were. Hanson would be only too glad that he had failed in his mad attempt at murder before. But Timothy wouldn’t hold that against him; in the glow of fleeting visions of future opulence, he would have pardoned a dozen such misdemeanors.

  CHAPTER III

  Murder

  l Hanson was quietly looking at Timothy when the latter again entered the boat and dumped his rocks on the floor. His piggish eyes, at first angry and baleful, opened as wide as they could at the sight of Timothy’s radiant face. His anger died by fits and gusts and was replaced by curiosity at the strange antics of the little man.

  Timothy took off his helmet, and in doing so, dropped it. Clumsily he grabbed at it as it floated floorwards, but only succeeded in knocking it down faster. It hit the metal floor with a clang and bounced around like an animated creature. It did not break; it was the so-called steel-glass.

  But Timothy lost all interest in it after that wild attempt to catch it. He was engaged in the process of taking off the vacuum suit, trying to do it slowly and with dignity, but with the worst Of luck, finally losing his balance and cavorting all about the room before he won free of the affair. Then he straightened himself up to full height and tucked his trousers to a semblance of order.

  Hanson had watched all this in astonishment. Now he could contain himself no longer.

  “Timothy, take off these ropes.”

  The little man, however, paid no heed to him. He carefully picked up two of the rocks and looked at them closely.

  “Timothy, take off these ropes!” roared Hanson exasperated. Then he added quite naturally, “Don’t worry, I won’t try to touch you.”

  The drunkard, feeling the effects of the liquor again as the intensest thrills from finding the triangular rocks were over, arched his eyebrows in an attempt to look sternly nonchalant, as if trying to make a little boy feel his guilt for having done a wrong.

  “Of course you won’t touch me, Hanson,” said Timothy, his voice pulsating with excitement so that his companion looked at him closely.

  “You’ve been drinking, Timothy, and you’re off your head.”

  “Yes, I’ve been drinking, and I’m going to do a lot more drinking . . . in the near future. All I want from now on. Won’t have to worry where the money’s coming from either. I’ll just drink and drink and . . .”

  “Timothy!” roared Hanson. “Will you take off these ropes and tell me what’s got into you? No, you don’t have to tell me—you’re just crazy drunk again. Listen, untie me and hurry. I was a . . . a little angry before, but I’m over it now. But what in the wide world were you doing Outside, anyway?”

  “Hanson, I’ll tell you,” said the little man grandiloquently, almost proudly, if there was any pride left in him. “We’re on a different asteroid than the one where you tried to maul me. In fact, we’re by the three-cornered rock. Look, Hanson,”—Timothy lost all his posturing and eagerly held the rock lumps in front of the other’s nose, hands trembling—“Platinum, white metal, loads of it! Outside! By the three-cornered rock!”

  For a moment Hanson looked dazed, incredulous. Once he looked sharply at the little man who was muttering “platinum, loads of it, millions” to see if he were not perhaps insanely drunken. But the rocks—Hanson could see with his own eyes that it was platinum.

  Timothy feverishly untied his companion. Hanson raised his great bulk and stretched the kinks out of his body. Then he fell to examining the lumps with a magnifying glass, as did Timothy. Then they looked at each other with a queer feeling inside them. A wealth in platinum! A dream come true!

  * * *

  Hanson turned his little puckered eyes on the babbling little man as they were sorting out a batch of lumps, separating the poor ones from those rich in platinum. It was a week later. In that time they had picked, drilled, and pounded into the rich ore beds with energy inspired by the glistening thought of the wealth that was now theirs. This was their last time. A ton of ore (figured by earth weight) lay in their ore room. That would be all the little boat could safely handle. With that they would pay the government for plotting the claim, and finance all negotiations necessary to legalize their ownership of the find.

  All during that time Timothy had refrained from drinking himself to incapacity, partly because he was as eager as Hanson to get back to Mars, mainly because Hanson had threatened to toss out every bottle if the little man didn’t do his share of the work. Hanson had also hoped that the constant soberness would quiet his ambling tongue, but it was not to be.

  Intoxicated by the thought of wealth, Timothy poured out oceans of words—nonsensical, inane words that brought a growl from the fat man when driven to the verge of exasperation. Then Timothy would remain silent for a while till the incident was forgotten. A short time later he would be going full steam, flavoring his speech with an impossible conception of what he would do back on Mars.

  This last day Hanson let him babble on without interruption. A thought had arisen in his mind—a thought that he first quelled and then nurtured. It was a sane thought that had come to him in a sane mood. It was not a blazing thought induced by his flaming temper. The thought was—murder!

  He had wanted to do murder once before on the little man, but that was in a fit of disappointed anger. Now he wanted to do murder so that he could have that fortune on the asteroid all to himself. In a week’s time, Hanson had become dazzled by the thought of wealth. Wherever they dug, there was the precious white metal. There was enough to make ten men sickeningly opulent, but Hanson’s narrow, degenerate mind began to covet the 30 per cent that would be Timothy’s by former agreement. Coupled with his greed, there was an urge of hatred in Hanson against the voluble little fellow. It was hatred nurtured by contempt and exasperation at his pitiful, childish talk and his colorless, mouse-like personality.

  l Finally the last of the rocks was tossed into the ore tub. Timothy sprang up full of that intense energy he had had all during that last week, grasped the handle of the tub, and proceeded to drag it to the ore room.

  Hanson did not stir from his stool. His mind began to work on the idea that had stolen upon him that day. There would be no danger, no future complications, if Timothy were murdered, Hanson knew. Hardly anyone On Mars would remember the little rednosed man, and furthermore few, if any, persons had been aware of the partnership of these two men.

  There had been no eye witnesses of their departure in each other’s company, and even if someone back on Mars did ask about Timothy, Hanson knew he could say almost anything and be believed. For many a man had left his bones on the asteroids. Hanson could easily explain away his partner’s disappearance; he could say he had gone prospecting alone on some asteroid and never returned to the boat; he could say he had died from fever or the ague that was so common among prospectors.

  How should he do the deed? Strangely, that bothered Hanson a good deal. If he could once work himself into a deadly rage, his baser instincts would do the job without hesitation. He would strangle him then. But Hanson could not wait for anger to supply him with inspiration and blind purpose; he must do away with the little man cold-bloodedly and sanely and quickly. He could not poison him nor shoot him, having neither the poison nor the gun. There were ways that presented themselves in his mind, but they were revolting in their horribleness. Then a thought struck him that brought a gleam to his puckered little eyes. He licked his fat lips and closed the question in his mind. It was decided.

  After some banging around while emptying the tub in the ore room, Timothy returned, unaware of the stare that greeted him from the fat man who still sat on the stool like a graven image.

  “That was the last of it, Hanson,” gurgled Timothy as he picked up the bottle of liquor beside his stool. “Tomorrow we st
art back to Mars.”

  He took a long draught at the bottle. “A good night’s sleep and then we’ll skip. We’ve got the exact figures now. You checked them three times yourself. Won’t we surprise the boys back at Port Monto? I’m going to walk in with a roll tof ten dollar notes and scatter ’em to the four winds. Then I’m going to buy a little place to live and stock up with the best drinks in the . . .”

  Timothy stopped his rapid verbal outpourings, suddenly cognizant that his companion had a peculiar glint in his eyes. Fear arose unbidden in the little man’s heart and he swallowed painfully. He knew Hanson enough to know that when he persisted in staring at him—ordinarily Hanson brutally disregarded Timothy as if he were a stick of wood—he must be thinking about him; and that frightened Timothy all the more that Hanson should be thinking about HIM!

  The fat man swayed his bulk slightly and ran a dark tongue across his lower lip. “Timothy, there’s a king’s ransom outside Our boat.”

  The little man nodded jerkily and waited breathlessly for the other to go on.

  “A king’s ransom,” repeated Hanson. “What have you ever done, you drunken rat, to deserve part of it?”

  Timothy gasped and spluttered, attempted to answer the surprising question, and then turned to his bottle for courage and inspiration.

  “Nothing!” roared Hanson, answering his own query, causing Timothy to choke on his liquor and drop the bottle. “Absolutely nothing. You don’t deserve to have a bit of that wealth. You’ve pickled yourself in alcohol all your life. No liquor-reeking thing like you are deserves . . .”

  But Timothy cut him off with a sudden display of spirit “I deserve it as much as you, Hanson. You would never have found it without me. And I’m getting only thirty per cent. Besides, what’s the use of quarreling about it? There is more than enough white metal out there for both of us.”

  There was a moment of deathly silence. Hanson’s pebbly eyes blazed in greed and avarice. Hatred for his red-nosed companion and lust for his share of the find radiated from his grossly sensuous face with its fatted jowls.