by Earl
God! Was there no justice?
KARNE moaned a little, at the table of the Starshell, though fortunately the sound was not heard in the general babble. But the grim, taciturn man at his left glanced at him cynically. The Interplanetary Ranger Police were always cynical of their prisoners’ thin explanations.
“Brother,” he had said when Karne, finally caught, sobbingly protested his innocence, “men don’t skip to Saturn’s moon when they’re innocent!”
Flight, Karne now realized, had been a serious mistake. The mark of guilt now branded him indelibly. But he had been driven to it, by a sensitive mind half crazed by the stigma against him. Insane with resentment at society, he had stolen away the day after his indictment, fled across the country. Pursued, he had stowed away on a Mars express, eluding the police for the time being.
Mars’, proved a brief haven. Then the Interplanetary Rangers had found his trail—Flight again, out into the dreaded deserts of Mars—near death from thirst—capture by Martian bandits—escape—slavery among Martian savages—torture and imminent death. Finally rescue by a Ranger plane.
Rescue! How ironic! Why hadn’t they let him die among the savages? They were taking him back to Earth, at great effort and expense, just to die anyway. Did it matter where a man died? Those people babbling about Earth, green Earth, lovely Earth, did not know that to him Earth was—death! Death for a crime he had not committed! For the thousandth time he asked the gods of the Universe—is there no justice?
Something—an elbow—prodded Armand Karne in the ribs.
“Take it easy, Skipper!” came the calm whisper of the Ranger. “You’ve bent your fork like it was rubber and people are looking at you. Don’t go to pieces, mister, or it’s solitary confinement for you!”
Armand Karne nodded dumbly, forced his nerves to calmness, and his fellow passengers looked away. They did not know he was a criminal. The Rangers were considerate about that, at least. Karne tried to interest himself in the blessedly trivial conversation around him. Everyone seemed so content, so happy. If only he could be! If only he could be as radiantly cheerful as the enthusiastic young man across the table, who kept talking of the Canal Reclamation Project. . . .
YOUNG WILLIAM DARVY pounded his fist on the table for emphasis.
“Twenty thousand years old!” he repeated to his fascinated audience. “Yes sir, it’s a Ripley, but true. Those canals were built twenty thousand years ago, at the height of White Martian science, by a disintegration process. The secret is lost now, or carefully hidden away. Anyway, it was a colossal achievement, considering that they had to dispose of enough rock and dirt to make a continent as large as Australia—and a mile high!”
After an impressive pause, he went on.
“These, canals, bringing polar waiter to the equatorial-regions, rejuvenated that dying civilization for ten thousand years. However, the desert race, the Green Martians, grew continually stronger. At about the time Earth civilization was crawling out of the paleolithic mud, in ancient Egypt, the Green Martians overran the White race, killed or enslaved most of them. Neglected, the canals soon fell into disrepair.
“Today, the canals have been reclaimed and rebuilt by Earth engineering. It was a big enough job, though nothing like the original project. The Green savages are pretty well driven back into their deserts. White civilization is again predominant, in coalition with Earth civilization.”
The enthused speaker enjoyed the effect his dramatic story was creating. He went on.
“I had the honor of being assistant chief engineer in the reclamation of the last canal, named the Hallworth Canal in honor of the president of Earth’s world-state. This canal links Mare Chronium with Thyle II, thus bottling the savages in Thyle I. We had armed guards at all times, and had some pretty skirmishes with the Greens. But in another decade or so that region will be as safe as other territory patrolled by Earth. Pocket battleships from the Chronium docks will steam down Hallworth Canal by next-year.”
He pounded his fist again.
“Earth can certainly be proud of what it’s done for Mars. The Canal Reclamation Project has made interplanetary history!”
William Darvy subsided on this grandiose note and decided to get down to his eating. He felt proud of his part in the great project. But behind his pride in that was a great happiness. Just an hour before he had gone to the radio-room and sent a heliogram to Earth—to the sweetheart he had left two years before at the last Earth-Mars opposition.
“Meet me at the dock,” he had written. “We will be married right away. Have thought of you every minute. All my love.”
Two years they had been apart! He hadn’t seen her, toughed her, kissed her, in all that time. But now they could afford to get married. He had a good job, and money saved up. His dream come true! He loved her madly, and she loved him, of that he was certain. Hadn’t she told him as much, two years ago?
Little William Darvy knew that his dream was to be shattered; the dream he had nourished, slaved for on an alien world for two years. Knew not that the beautiful blond girl who read his message laughed scornfully and handed it to the man who had his arm around her, back there on Earth.
Living in his borrowed heaven, William Darvy surveyed the women passengers at the table. But only to assure himself that not one of them was half as lovely as his Judith. No, not one. Not even that very attractive red-haired girl whom all the other men eyed surreptitiously
CHAPTER II
Strange Destinies
ERLENE EDGEWOOD pecked at her food listlessly, femininely aware that she was the cynosure of all male eyes, but at the same time-more concretely aware that at her right sat her stern father, and at her left her soon-to-be husband. Both of them discouraged even the simplest of flirtations by their very presence.
In keeping with her red hair, Erlene had always been headstrong and self-willed for the twenty-three years of her life. She had rejected the proposals of scores of men. Those who were poor, in her opinion, were after her money. Those who weren’t poor, weren’t men. At least, they didn’t measure up to her ideal.
Perhaps it was odd for her to have an ideal. That went back to the medieval times of the 19th or 20th centuries or thereabouts. But she did, and was willing to wait for him to happen along in her life. But her father had different ideas. In his opinion a girl was a spinster at twenty-three. They had quarreled often over the question. Finally, he demanded that she marry in her own circle. And it was precisely in that circle that Erlene knew she would never find her ideal.
A year ago her father had given his ultimatum. She must marry John Bedlow III, of staid Boston society. If she refused, she was to be disinherited. All his other daughters, five of them, had obediently married his choice of husbands; why shouldn’t she?
Erlene glanced sideward at the profile of John Bedlow III. He was suave, well-mannered. But he was dull, an oaf. There was not one spark of animation in him. To escape him, she would gladly marry almost any other man, she thought rebelliously, but futilely.
Why, even that bald, blank-faced, goggled man across the table would be more interesting.
THE expression on Alfred Pearson’s face was not one of vacuity, as interpreted by the girl. Rather, it was one of haunted study. He scarcely realized her existence, nor of the fifty others on all sides. He carried a burden on his soul, one that crushed his spirit.
Sir Alfred Pearson, Earth’s ambassador to Mars, was traveling incognito, in disguise. No one aboard realized who he was or they would have been thrilled to be in company with this great man.
For, twenty years he had been ambassador. For twenty years he had deftly molded diplomatic relations between Mars and Earth. But now the White Martian civilization muttered openly against possible domination by the Earthman.
It was the old story of resentment against authority, once its beneficence had been exploited. Freed of the Green Martian menace by Earth’s aggressive campaign against them, the White Martians were quick to demand their independence.
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br /> For twenty years Sir Alfred Pearson had soothed the friction between Mars and Earth. But now, he was mentally haggard, haunted by a little document bearing the radium-seal of the White Martian Tribunal, its highest court. They had tried and condemned ah Earthman to death, for the first time. His offense was perhaps deserving of that fate, for, a millionaire, he had stolen, by legal trickery, a large tract of radium-bearing land from its rightful Martian owners. The scoundrel deserved death, yes—but Sir Pearson shuddered at the consequences.
When the defiant document was delivered, Earth would not tolerate this violation of-an-Earthman’s sovereign right to live. There would be war between two great worlds! Between two powerful civilizations!
Sir Pearson had argued eloquently with the Martian Tribunal. But the court had been adamant. They had given him the belligerent document for delivery to the World-State Council on Earth, temporarily severing all relations between the two worlds.
Alfred Pearson moaned a little, his mind weighted by his Herculean responsibility. He tried to eat the moon-flower salad before him, to answer the conversational sallies of the lady at his left with more than low grunts, but it was no use.
He continued to brood over the puerility of the whole thing—a mere piece of paper to cause a holocaustic war! Several times, he had been tempted to throw the document out into the limitless void. Undelivered, Earth would not know of this treason. The prisoner would be executed on Mars, the matter smoothed over adroitly by Pearson himself at a later date. And then, perhaps, in a few years he could bring Earth and Mars to a solution of their relationship.
But Alfred Pearson found himself first of all an Earthman. Some inherent feature of his character grimly refused to take that underhanded course, even though he realized it might be for the best. He shuddered at the thought of going mad before the trip was over. The dilemma was driving him crazy!
Perhaps they would land him on Earth as a deranged creature. He wondered whether he would look like that old fellow in the wheelchair, who was being fed like a baby by his valet. . . .
COMMANDER Alamo Jackson was a hopeless paralytic, with arms, legs and body useless. Mind, too. He was not old, but was white-bearded, wrinkled and yellow of face. His attendant fed soft foods to his quivering lips and toothless gums. His vacant, rheumy eyes were almost blind. He was a pitiful picture, a broken hulk of a man, more fit for the grave than for life.
Yet somehow, one could not fail to see that he had once been a man of men. Even yet his shoulders were broad, powerful. His great, gnarled hands gripped the arm-rests with muscles that must formerly have been of crushing strength. The lines of his big body, though wasted, were those of a one-time athlete. His face, too, showed beneath obliterations of pain and illness an aristocratic uplift of brow, strong chin, and formerly intelligent, shrewd eyes.
At times he spoke, though his fogged brain was only dimly aware of those around him. His cracked voice had the overtones of a once stentorian bellow, and the subtle tinge of the authority that had been his in previous days. His words were rambling, dim reflections from a glorious past. Those around him accorded him due respect despite the sad picture he now presented. They whispered to one another of his epic exploits. Not three years before he had been the leader of the gallant Pluto Expedition, first to set foot on that incredibly distant, bitter planet. Previous to that, since the age of twenty, he had been one of interplanetary history’s heroes—a trail-blazer of the spaceways. In this one man was rolled the entire challenge of Earthmen to the Solar system.
Lindbergh, Columbus and Daniel Boone in one, he had amazed a world with his daring ventures. He had led his hard-bitten, heroic crews from one planet and satellite to the next, exploring, fighting, founding settlements, putting the stamp of Earth in a dozen inimical, alien environments. A horde of pioneers had followed his hard-won trails, thankful for his earlier explorations.
His resourcefulness and strength became almost mythical. On Mars, he had routed twenty Green Martian savages single-handed by wading into them with a wooden club as his only weapon against their knives and axes. On Venus he had strangled a full-grown winged tiger-dragon. He had tramped a hundred miles on mighty Jupiter, laden with an air-helmet, to rescue a lost man.
On Uranus, without fuel and marooned, he had driven his weakened, despairing crew to pump the atmospheric methane into their tanks and thus manufacture enough power to plunge sunward. He had returned from Titan a gaunt skeleton, the sole survivor of a crew of men dead from starvation and hardship.
Earth had soon come to recognize Alamo Jackson’s value. He was given lavish equipment, commissioned to dangerous expeditions. He had been feted, honored, decorated, given scores of medals. His name was destined to echo down the halls of fame and time.
BUT now, that was all of the past. No more could he pit his strong body against perils, his ingenuity against impossibilities, his courage against the challenge of the Universe. He was doomed to sit weakly in a chair, an invalid with only half a mind, a pathetic shell of his former self.
There had been a sudden crash during the Pluto Expedition, his last great exploit. He had been seriously hurt, losing most of his mental and physical abilities. His men had finally struggled back to Earth, sadly delivering the crippled wreck of a man. His spine healed from its damage, but there remained a lesion of the brain that made him a paralytic. Earth’s government, in recognition of his great services, had done all in its powers, sending him to various specialists for cure. All without avail.
As a last resort he had been sent to Mars, to the great Martian surgeons. They, too, had given up, for the delicate brain operation necessary was beyond their skill. And so Commander Alamo Jackson was being returned to Earth, doomed to his wheelchair.
His mental state was a curiously variable one. Much of the time he muttered to himself vaguely, totally unaware of his condition or surroundings. Again, he would have lucid intervals, complain against the wheelchair, talking rationally to his valet about it. This man had attended the spaceman for three years and his eyes were sad with an infinite pity.
At the table—which Commander Jackson in one of his lucid periods, had insisted on attending—heads turned his way as his weakened but firm voice spoke out. He began telling of his Pluto exploit. His audience’s eyes gradually shone with the excitement of his modest, stirring narrative.
Suddenly the invalid’s tones changed as he told of the space ship plunging down out of control. He stopped. A bewilderment came into his eyes. Then his cracked voice went on querulously.
“What is this chair I’m in? Who has put me in it? By Jupiter, I’ll crack the skull of the man who has done this. Let me out, do you hear? Let me out!”
His voice had risen in insane rage, and all-could see how he strained to rise from his chair. Suddenly he relaxed, became quiet. A tear rolled from each of his dim eyes and followed the furrows of his cheeks. He began mumbling aimlessly, lost again in a deep mental mist. The valet silently wheeled him away, while people became suddenly intent on their food.
CHAPTER III
Life and Death
THE dinner over, the group broke up and dispersed through the ship, some to their cabins, others to the promenade deck and general lounge. Fifty people, each with individual thoughts, hopes, troubles. Among these fifty, five were meeting a crossroad of fate upon arrival on Earth. . . .
Armand Karne had no hopes, only bitterness that he must die by manmade laws though innocent, hating the Space Ranger beside him for what he represented.
Not knowing he had been betrayed by the girl he loved with all his romantic nature, William Darvy roamed through his air-castles, too intent to notice any other woman.
Erlene Edgewood contemplated kicking John Bedlow III in the shin just to embarrass him,-and wondered why her ideal, for whom she would gladly sacrifice every penny of a million-dollar inheritance, did not happen along in her life.
So nervous that his hands trembled, Sir Alfred Pearson told himself again not to be an utter fool and del
iver that worthless scrap of paper which would start the millstones of war to grinding, and again heard an inner voice roaring “duty.”
Commander Alamo Jackson beat with weak hands at the embracing wheelchair and cried for someone to release him, while the sad look in his valet’s eyes grew deeper.
The Starshell plunged on, negotiating the black gulf between Mars and Earth in rapid time. It had been several weeks since she had left her first port, Saturn’s outer moon. The nose rockets began to thrum powerfully. Passengers were obliged to cling to conveniently placed hand-rails and straps in the artificial gravity-field. The moon hove to at starboard and became a huge, silver bubble among the stars, its face pock-marked from an ancient geological disease.
Earth grew out of the void like a rare green blossom, with gossamer puffs of cotton white over parts of it.
The promenade deck now became popular and most of the passengers sat under the long, clear observation ports, watching eagerly as their home world bulged put of the surrounding inimical nothingness. Many emotions misted the eyes of the passengers. . . .
Armand Karne, face wan, gazed at earth and visioned his body writhing in agony as electricity burned his life out. William Darvy, smiling radiantly, gazed happily in his mind’s eye at his beautiful bride in white beside him. Erlene Edgewood sighed dismally as she imagined John Bedlow III across the breakfast table from her, emptily talking about nothing she cared to hear. Sir Alfred Pearson’s worried face became yet more haggard as he visioned fleets of Earth’s warships winging grimly to Mars. Commander Alamo Jackson’s heart gladdened—home at last after that long, dangerous exploration on Ganymede, or was it Neptune?
The Starshell slowed down more than usually to give the passengers a longer view of the moon. It was rarely that the moon lay in a ship’s course and most people had never seen it this near. Velocity was cut to a mile a second, to remain within the gravitational field a while longer.