by Earl
He mistreated the natives and had a dark reputation in his dealings with even his fellow Earthmen. His hut was only five miles to the north.
Lon turned and looked up at him. He was scowling blackly and his general manner was one of desperation.
“Dozing, eh, Ralston?” spoke Warner again. “Thanks—for making it easy for me. I’m here to take your—xipho!”
Involuntarily, at the mention of xipho, Lon jerked and made a grab for his gun, only to find it gone from its holster. Warner had quietly slipped it out already.
Warner laughed. His voice was ugly. “I’d just as soon shoot you as not, so let me have it. I’m desperate. I’ve had a rotten season—got only ten pounds of xipho, barely enough to pay expenses. Where do you keep yours? Speak up, or I’ll let Jupiter-light in on your liver and take my time looking!”
“In the closet,” said Lon tonelessly.
Warner backed to the closet door and jerked it open. His eyes glistened when he saw the huge sack. “Man, that’s a young fortune of it there—”
Warner kept his eyes on the sack too long. Lon’s lean, hard body shot across the room like a human bullet in the light gravitation. The two men went down in a heap. Warner’s gun roared once but the bullet went wild. Lon grabbed Warner’s wrist and twisted viciously. Warner screamed in pain, dropping the pistol. Quick as a flash, Lon clutched it, also his own from Warner’s holster, and jerked away with both guns in his hands.
“Now, Warner,” he said calmly. “Stand where you are.”
Still moaning from the pain of his wrenched wrist, Warner had stumbled to his feet and stood there crestfallen.
“I wonder just what I should do with you, Warner,” went on Lon. “You came here to rob me of every flake of xipho and even to murder me if you had to, all because your muddled brain figured it was my fault for having more xipho than you.”
“Don’t kill me!” begged Warner cravenly, alarmed at the menace in Lon’s cold, biting tones. “Let me go. I’ll never bother you again, I swear it! Let me go and you can keep my gun.”
“No,” said Lon grimly. “I’m going to give you the beating you deserve—bare fists!”
Warner cringed. He was shorter and slighter than the burly Lon and knew he was in for a thorough drubbing. Lon locked the guns in his table drawer and advanced on Warner with grim lips and tightly balled fists.
“You wretched little sneak-thief!” Lon rasped. “I’m going to beat you within an inch of your life, so you’ll never—never—”
He stopped and swayed a little. A subtle change came over his face. The pupils of his eyes dilated and the corners of his mouth began to twitch loosely.
“So you’ll never try that trick again, see?”
HE went on with an effort, voice thickening. “But on secon’ thought, maybe it isn’ worth my while to soil m’ hands on you.”
Lon had unclenched his fists and clutched at the table for support. Warner, crouched against the wall, lost the fear in his eyes. Instead, he began to grin foolishly.
A minute passed, while both men breathed heavily.
“Look here,” said Lon suddenly, “c’n ya sing, Warner—”
Presently, the two of them were standing in the doorway, arms about one another’s shoulders, projecting their doubtful duet over the floral quiet of Io. Their lungs had drawn in air richly tainted with ether, which, combined with the high percentage of oxygen, produced a degree of intoxication seldom exceeded by alcoholic beverages. An unbiased observer would quickly classify them, by that quaint Earth expression, as “out on their feet.”
Lon knew nothing consciously of what went on in the next hour while the huge ether-cloud infused the air around his hut. He did not know that after a few sentimental ballads together, he and his new-found friend began to weep maudlin tears. They were all alone in a cold, cruel world, like exiles from Earth.
Then Warner opened the depths of his heart and told the sad, bitter story of how he had been driven to this deed. How the natives had been so lazy and brought in so little xipho, though he had treated them like brothers. How he had gone foraging himself and suffered cruelly, picking the rare xipho finds from among thorny growths with bleeding fingers. How it was all for his mother back home.
“Lon, my ol’ frien’,” he sobbed brokenly at the end, “I’m ashamed of myself from bottom of m’ soul. I came here to rob ya, you my bes’ pal in all the system—in all the universe! But I was driv’n to it, by li’l devils in my mind. I didn’t mean to do it, but I—”
“Say no more!” commanded Lon, still weeping at the story. “Not ’nother word more.” He struggled to his feet and staggered to the closet. He came out dragging his sack of xipho.
“Matt ol’ boy,” he said solemnly. “This is yours! Nobuddy c’n say I haven’t a human heart beneath my rough ’xterior. Throw this over your shoulder and take it back with ya. But wait—one more chorus ’gether!”
The single chorus blossomed into a half dozen, but finally Matt Warner was stumbling down the trail with the sack of xipho on his back. He turned to wave at the edge of the jungle and then vanished. Alone, Lon clung to the doorpost.
“Oh, I won’ be home unnil morning—”
Some hours later his swimming thoughts reached shore and it occurred to him that the loan who had been tugging at his arm and lisping a continuous streak for the past fifteen minutes might want his attention. His clearing eyes focused on a bundle of triangular green leaves bordered with red. Business instincts alert, Lon finally convinced the native that he was out of sulfur, and traded him for the rubber heels of both his pairs of boots and the inner lining of his spare parka, also of rubber.
LON took the bundle of xipho inside and shredded it. He went to the closet to haul out his sack. He stopped short and blinked his eyes when he looked in. He closed his eyes, shook his head, and looked again.
“I’ve been robbed!” he yelled. “I’ve—”
Then, in a mad rush, his memory broke through the temporary amnesia he was under.
“Jumping Jupiter!” he exclaimed weakly as he sat down to think things over. A dim picture floated out of the confused impressions of the recent hours. A picture of a short, slender Earthman trudging down the trail toward the jungle with a canvas sack over his shoulder. This picture gave rise to earlier ones and when Lon had pieced them all together, he knew it hadn’t been a nightmare.
Wearily he sat there, chin in hand. What a fool he had been! And yet it hadn’t been exactly his fault. That damned ether-jag that had stolen up on him was the cause, and when Lon was intoxicated it was his fate to be tender-hearted and generous as a saint. But no use crying over spilt xipho tea.
The thing for Warner to do, if he had a spark of honor in him, was to bring the sack back. Warner—honor! Warner had come here to rob him in the first place. No chance of him playing the gentleman and giving it back.
Lon began cursing the hospital-plants, Warner, the world he was on, and himself indiscriminately. He cursed the natives, too, on general principles.
All his dreams of going back to Earth nine thousand to the good and starting Bob off right were shattered, unless he got that sack of xipho back in his closet.
“I’ve got to get it back!” he told himself. “I’ve got to!”
He strapped on his pistol holster, which had been tossed aside some time during the previous debauch, and made sure his pistol was loaded. He would have trouble with Warner. Io was not policed in any shape, manner or form. It would be man to man—He hurried out of his hut and stalked down the trail to the north, toward Warner’s cabin. Then he noticed a native following him.
“Go ’way,” he growled over his shoulder. “Can’t trade with you now. I’m busy. Besides, I have no rubber or sulfur.”
“No wan’ thulfur,” returned the loan. “Have thulfur—thee?” He held up a carton as Lon stopped and turned. It was the same native he had traded his last sulfate to that morning.
“Well, then what do you want?” asked Lon in irritation.
Lon laughed bitterly. “You help me? Might as well expect help from a rag doll. Your heart’s in the right spot, Oyloy, but your brain isn’t. Now run along—”
Lon was already striding forward in long, unearthlike leaps. The loan stubbornly followed, trying to match the Earthman’s speed, but fell behind. He stopped, snatched a lump of sulfate from his supply and gulped it down. A new energy propelled him forward with flying feet and he caught up with Lon, dogging his footsteps silently.
GRIM-lipped, Lon forced his way bodily through clinging vines and snake-like lianas. The slovenly natives made no attempt to keep their trails clear. Around stretched the limitless floral jungle that covered most of Io’s surface.
Lon barely glanced at strange life-forms that people on Earth paid good money to see in museums. There was the talking-lily whose shrill gibberish sounded so much like human utterance. The harpoon-cactus whose prehensile vine could fling its barbed end a full ten feet, to snare some unwary small mammal and later digest it within a sac-like appendage. The python-vine which deliberately wound itself around its victim and crushed out its life.
Most of the loan plants were carnivorous and took an appreciable toll of the natives, as well as of the hordes of small animals that browsed in the jungle. But Lon was in no danger of his life. Io had never known large animals and consequently the preying plants were not capable of killing so large and strong a creature as an Earthman. At times cordlike vines whipped about his ankles, but he simply kicked himself free, tearing them apart. Yet he was annoyed at the delay.
Suddenly he was startled to hear a sharp scream behind him. He whirled to see Oyloy being dragged several feet off the trail toward a huge, bulbous, quivering plant. The loan was struggling desperately but could not worm his feet out of the twisting liana. When the opening of the great pitcher-plant turned his way, ready to engulf its victim, Lon flung himself forward, grasped the vine in his gloved hand and ripped it apart. The plant shuddered and twisted convulsively with its semi-sentient life.
Lon jerked the loan to his feet and shook him angrily. “I thought I told you to stay away, you poor excuse for a scarecrow. Now go back!”
“Oyloy afraid!” entreated the native, rolling his big eyes. “Come along?”
Lon growled and seriously contemplated kicking a native for the first time, but thought better of it and once more took up the trail. The loan scampered along behind, like his shadow, motivated by some strange psychology which Lon gave up trying to fathom, or change.
Two hours later Lon peered out into the clearing in which Warner’s hut stood. He tried to see into the open window-hole but could only vaguely make out a shadow moving about in the gloomy interior.
Lon shoved Oyloy back among the bushes. “Stay here,” he commanded. “If I come back with the xipho, I’ll let you carry a handful. If I don’t—you can dig a hole and bury me, for Warner wouldn’t!”
Somehow, the loan’s face saddened in understanding, though the natives had no burial customs, giving their dead as offerings to the preying plants.
“Well, here goes!” said Lon grimly to himself. He stepped out and crossed the clearing tensely, ready at a moment’s notice to draw his gun. When he was halfway across, a loud report shattered the silence, and a bullet whined past Lon’s ear. Lon jerked out his gun and flung himself among the thick grasses on the ground.
ANOTHER bullet hummed over him and then Warner’s shrill voice came from the cabin:
“Let that be a warning, Ralston. I’ve got this sack of xipho and I’m keeping it, by the ten moons! Better go while the going’s good. If you take one more step toward me, I’ll shoot to kill!”
There was no use to argue with the man, of that Lon was sure.
“I’m here to get that sack, Warner, so come out,” he bellowed. “One of us has to taste lead!”
A deriding laugh came from the hut. “Why should I come out? Let’s see you come in and take it from me!” Warner had all the advantage. He was practically invisible to Lon, while the latter was clearly limned in the combined light of the sun and Jupiter. Lon bit his lip. He knew he couldn’t even retreat now. No sooner would he turn his back than Warner would put a bullet in it. He must go through with it—for Bob—
Face gray, Lon was about to jump up and storm the hut when a thought struck him. He looked up and grinned. The great bright star that was the sun was very near Jupiter’s huge rim. He had only to wait a few minutes—
It suddenly became darker, when that time, had passed. More than half of the light in the sky died as the friendly sunlight withdrew, leaving only Jupiter’s gloomy shine. It was the mid-day eclipse. Jupiter’s bulk daily eclipsed the sun for Io, and also for Europa, Callisto and Ganymede. The eclipse on Io lasted almost exactly two hours. Thus for two hours in the middle of each “day” period of twenty-one hours, Jupiter-shine alone streamed down on Io, as it did at “night” again for another twenty-one hours.
It was now so dusky that Lon’s speeding figure looked more like a shadow than a solid body as he raced for the cabin. Three shots rang out from Warner’s gun, but his aim was wild in the half-darkness and Lon reached the hut safely. He flattened against the wall just beside the door.
“All right, Warner,” he announced. “I’ll give you ten seconds to toss your gun out through the door. If you don’t I’m coming in with lead flying!”
The seconds passed by silently, with only Lon’s panting audible. Warner made no sound. Lon began to sweat in the suspense.
After counting ten to himself, with no sign of surrender from Warner, Lon stepped back three paces and grimly catapulted himself through the doorway headfirst, at an angle. In the light gravitation of Io he knew he could not be hurt. The rest was confusion.
As he sailed into the dark interior of the hut, he could see nothing except the stab of flames as Warner shot twice—and missed. Lon emptied his gun blindly in that direction, three times while in motion, three times after his outstretched arm cushioned his crash against the wall. He heard an answering shot and the bullet drummed past his nose. Then he saw Warner, crouched in the corner behind a chair. Lon leaped at him desperately, and felt his spine crinkle, for Warner’s gun was aimed straight for him.
LON looked down the barrel, seeing death—but there was a click! Warner’s gun was also empty!
Lon finished his leap and tangled with his adversary. He had Warner flat on his back, arms pinioned, in a moment.
“There we are, mister!” panted Lon. “Now—ahr—”
That was the only sound he made as Warner, with a burst of strength, wrenched his right arm free and brought the stock of his pistol down on Lon’s head with a sodden crack. Dimly, before he went out, Lon saw the demoniacal glare in Warner’s bloodshot eyes—a killing glare—
Lon opened his eyes, mind blank. Then he remembered and wondered why he was still alive, at the same time tensing and turning his head. He let out a startled oath when he saw Warner’s body sprawled on the floor, neck oddly twisted. Lon did not have to look twice—Warner was dead.
But who or what had done it? Then he noticed an Ioan’s spindly figure standing to the side. It was Oyloy! He was looking down at Warner’s body, wide-eyed. One of his broomstick arms dangled uselessly, broken.
“What happened?” demanded Lon. “Who was here—who did that to Warner?”
“Oyloy do it!” said the native.
“What!” shrieked Lon. “Why, you haven’t the strength of a worm—”
“Thulfur do it,” amended the loan. He held out the empty carton sadly. “All gone—”
It took Lon a full minute to accept the truth, that the loan, with no more natural strength than an sickly child, had been able to kill Warner through the abnormal power given him by the sulfate. It was not so strange. Narcotics on Earth had been known to give addicts ma
niacal strength for a short time.
“All gone—” the loan was saying again, still more sadly.
“That’s all right,” murmured Lon. “I’ll bring you more—a barrel of it—”
THE LIFE BATTERY
An Elderly Doctor Harnesses the Forces of Science-and Dies Twice in a Lifetime!
THE museum was quiet. It was especially quiet in the Egyptology room, where numerous mummy cases were on display. People generally feel awed in the presence of antiquity and the signs of ancient death, and the few persons who were in the room this bright, sunny morning spoke in whispers, as though fearing to wake the long dead.
They were Clustered about the prize exhibit, the gnarled, misshapen naked-brown mummy of Ank-Ra-Isar, king of the Ninth Dynasty of ancient Egypt, clearly revealed in an upright glass case.
A uniformed attendant, rocking back and forth gently on his heels, with hands behind his back, amused himself by thinking how amazed the spectators would be if the mummy blinked its eyeless sockets and came to life. But no use to think of that, he told himself, for such a downright, impossible miracle would never happen—
Yet happen it did!
Among the spectators, two old maids turned pale, shrieked, then began to run. A young man swept up his gasping sweetheart and staggered toward the door. It became a stampede.
Startled, the guard rushed over to see what had occurred to frighten these people. The mummy of Ank-Ra-Isar, in its glass case, was performing a series of incredible movements. Its hinged jaw waggled up and down. Its folded arms unbent and beat a tattoo on the glass cover, as though it were begging to get out. All these motions were accompanied by a horrible dry rustling sound that seeped out of the case.
The inevitable happened. Joints and ligaments that had been rusted together by time broke apart. Fractures appeared all over the mummy, exposing gaping holes. Scales and impalable dust showered over the writhing figure and settled slowly.
In another moment the mummy became an amorphous heap of shattered bits that piled up in the lower part of the glass case. The mummy of Ank-Ra-Isar now was nothing more than a small mass of dessicated debris that heaved and trembled with some alien horror of pseudo-life.