by Earl
Simple to tell of it. But it took six weeks of labor, planning, and sleepless nights of thinking.
Thus the electrical system of wiring was restored. The battery problem was not so simple. Ganymede, as Parletti reported from the first, has no heavy-metal deposits. Where would we get our lead?
Captain Atwell broke out the lifeboat for the emergency, for the first time. He and Parletti scouted all the way around this wintry little world, stopping here and there for tests of underlying ores. Parletti’s reports were always the same—lots of magnesium, beryllium, calcium, aluminum. Traces only of lead, zinc, silver, gold, mercury. The elements drop sharply, after iron, in point of plenitude.
“Well,” shrugged Captain Atwell, “we can’t get lead on Ganymede. That’s that. But we can go to Callisto, or Io or Europa for it. Thank God for the lifeboat!”
Hold on a minute.
Attention, Tycho Observatory and all Earth telescopes! Markers has just spotted a new comet that has swung around Jupiter and is heading for the sun. Watch for it five degrees south of Jupiter, in the constellation Taurus. This is one of the fifty or more short-period comets that use the sun and Jupiter as the foci of their elliptical orbits.
Two-hundred-seventy-second day.
The lifeboat went on its short jaunt to Callisto, the next nearest moon outward from Jupiter. Only 503,000 miles. It came back a week later. Atwell and Parletti dejectedly reported no heavy metals. Callisto, like Ganymede, was all light elements.
“Well, there are still Io, Europa and then the other ten moons,” Atwell said, brightening. “We’ll try them all.”
Parletti shook his head. He spoke reluctantly, knowing he was dampening our spirits still more.
“Afraid it’s no use, Captain. It’s likely that in the whole Jovian system, heavy metals are rare. The average density of Jupiter and his satellites is only one and one-third that of water. This means the bulk of their material is of the light elements. Maybe their cores are dense, but buried under miles and miles of the light matter.
“This agrees with orthodox theory. When a passing star caused the sun to erupt molten balls, the lighter ones were thrown farthest. That is, the lighter ones in point of density, not total weight. Gravitational forces work by rules of mass per unit. These low-density balls became the planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. The denser balls did not fly so far. They cooled to Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars.”
YOU can guess what happened.
Atwell tried an expedition to Io and Europa. Again no heavy metals were found. Parletti was right.
From then on, we knew our situation was really grave. In the whole Jovian system—one huge planet and fourteen moons—there was seemingly no deposit of lead ore!
Incidentally, Halloway begged to be allowed on the trip to Callisto, where a photograph had shown a pyramid. If nothing else, we would at least solve the Martian mystery. Halloway examined the Callistan pyramid eagerly—only to find it useless for his quest. It had no inscriptions. The apex wasn’t even completed.
“The Martians built it nearly to completion, then abandoned it for some reason,” he muttered. “Of all the rotten luck!”
He wheedled his way along to Io and Europa, but in all their flights over those two satellites, looking for lead ore, not a pyramid was sighted.
Fate has been doubly unkind to us, we feel. It has been an obsession with us all, not only Halloway, to solve the pyramid’s secret. We would almost gladly accept death here, if only before the final moment we could radio to Earth a thrilling announcement:
“Attention, Earth! The pyramids were built by the ancient Martians in order to—”
A month ago the lifeboat expeditions crushed our last hope of finding lead ore. After that, for a time, we lived, ate and slept mechanically, cursing the gods of this cruel universe.
I see, in telling these woes, that I’ve forgotten to mention the blight of super-evolution which has now disappeared. The yeast worked perfectly, destroying the mutation-enzyme in our bloodstreams. Fire fighting fire, for yeast is an enzyme.
Swinerton explained it as follows. Yeast is a strictly Earth enzyme. The mutation-enzyme is strictly Ganymedian. The two are as incompatible as white corpuscles in the bloodstream, and germs. The yeast acted like white corpuscles, devouring the mutation-enzyme.
The return to normal was startlingly rapid. Our long, coarse hair fell out in bunches. Toenails crumbled and dropped off. Fingers regained their flexibility. Downy fur on our bodies shed swiftly. Thickened lips shrank. From shaggy half-brutes in appearance, we became ordinary human beings. All in one short week.
Karsen dared to look in her hand-mirror one day. She shrieked in joy, wept suddenly, then dried her eyes and cooked a meal. We men didn’t burst with joy, or cry, but we felt that way. Karsen once again took out her miniature camera and snapped us going about our daily tasks. The nightmare was over at last.
At least, that nightmare. We’ve been saved from turning into Ganymedian life-forms. What is to save us from becoming Ganymedian death-forms? We don’t know yet.
You’ll be interested in my latest report.
Markers has interpreted some of the photographs taken of Jupiter, weeks before.
With a red-fog filter, he and Parletti had photographed Jupiter’s actual surface, through the thick pall of atmosphere. A great “continent” of what seems frozen sludge occupies one-quarter of the globe. This continent is so huge in area that it would take a fast automobile months to cross it. It’s about 100,000 miles in its greatest length—four times around Earth!
FURTHER, this “continent” on Jupiter is lapped on all sides by “oceans” of liquid ammonia and methane. The surface temperature is at least two hundred degrees below zero. On the continent are mountains. Judging by their shadows, they must be ninety miles high. A dozen Mount Everests, piled on top one another, would not stand even with this colossal range of peaks.
But most intriguing of all is the Great Red Spot. It’s still there, though its color has faded from the crimson it was in the last century, to a pale rose. The Red Spot, Parletti says, is really a vast outpouring of gases from the interior of the mighty planet. The fumes come up through a pit that is ten thousand miles wide. Thus the whole Earth could be dropped into this hole without touching the sides.
Parletti hazards wildly that the pit drops right down to the center of Jupiter for forty-three thousand miles. If so, Earth, Venus, Mercury and Mars could be stuffed into it and fail to fill it. The red gas that billowed and fumed out last century became a permanent bubble thirty thousand miles long by seven thousand wide, far larger than all of Earth’s land area. The red gas is no longer bubbling out, due to some enigmatic geological reasons.
At any rate, we’re witnesses at first hand of a world built on a giant scale. It awes us, makes us feel small, when even our world could drop down one of Jupiter’s pores and not be noticed. If all Earth fell into the vast seas of liquid gases, the splash would barely send a rill up on the shores of that stupendous continent.
As for Jupiter’s gravitational force, Markers says the fourteenth moon (which he discovered) is twenty-hine million miles out. Thus Jupiter holds sway in space further than the conjunction distance between Earth and Venus. Therefore, if Jupiter were in Earth’s orbit, Venus would become its moon!
CHAPTER X
Jupiter’s Super-gravity
TWO-hundred-seventy-fourth day. I mentioned that now, as of the present time, we have hopes of getting lead ore. Here’s why. Parletti electrified us a week ago. Captain Atwell had just called us together for a conference.
“Men, this is a crisis. Our food reserves are low. The lifeboat will hold all of us, but will take six months to reach Earth, with its small engine. Our food wouldn’t last six months. Not for ten of us. And we can’t use Ganymedian food.”
We shuddered at the thought of eating that food, impregnated with the strange super-evolution enzyme, and once more mutating. To arrive on Earth, perhaps, as horrible monstrosities.<
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“Three of us can reach Earth, in the lifeboat, on our restricted food rations. Seven of us would be left behind. Which three shall it be?”
Three to live! Seven to die!
Karsen was chosen first, naturally, being a woman. Captain Atwell, though he stormed and raved, was forced to accept himself as second choice. Halloway was third, being the youngest man. None of us wanted Karsen to arrive on Earth with a broken heart, anyway.
“Go back without the ‘Secret of the Pyramids’ ?” Halloway tried to remonstrate. “Not me! I tell you I won’t.”
We knew that behind the excuse he meant simply that he thought others of us more worthy of life.
But the choice remained at those three. Well, Earth, we knew what we meant to each other at that moment, as we fell to silence, the three looking at the seven in heart-sick farewell. Of the seven of us, three had been to Mars, Venus and Mercury: Parletti, Markers and myself.
Strange to think of laying our bones, at last, on Ganymede.
Jupiter shone outside our window, mockingly. Parletti had been staring at Jupiter fixedly, all through the proceedings.
“Wait,” he said suddenly. “Maybe there’s lead ore on Jupiter itself!”
“Are you mad?” Atwell snapped.
Parletti dashed away and returned with the photoprints taken of Jupiter’s surface.
“Look! This giant hole from which came the Great Red Spot—trillions of tons of heavy gases. The hole probably drops to the center of Jupiter. It’s like an active crater. Craters give out gases—and also molten matter from below. This molten matter should be of heavy metals, from Jupiter’s core!”
Stunned silence. Atwell’s face lighted for a moment, then fell.
“Are you mad?” he said again. “Jupiter’s surface gravity is two-point-six that of Earth. The lifeboat would drop like a stone. And what man, or men, could last an hour if he weighed nearly five hundred pounds? It’s impossible!”
Our shoulders sagged again, after that brief ray of hope.
“It’s impossible,” Captain Atwell repeated. “But—we’ll try it!”
SO, in the past week, we’ve been preparing for that last desperate gamble. After hours of figuring, Tarnay nodded.
“Might work. I can rev up the lifeboat’s motor twice normal. That’ll be close to the danger point of explosion, but it will give the crew of three a chance to land safely. A chance I can’t guarantee!”
“Which will it be, men?” Atwell began. “Three returning to Earth without question, or a chance to save us all?”
I think Karsen was ready to scratch his eyes out, if he had said another word.
Halloway asked, “Which three men will make the flight to Jupiter, Captain?”
Parletti was first choice, naturally, being key man in any search for ore. Swinerton and again Halloway were the other two, being the youngest and strongest. They would need to be strong and young for an experience no man had ever tried before—challenging two-and-a-half times normal Earth gravity.
All is ready for the start tomorrow morning.
Tarnay just finished stepping up the lifeboat’s engine to twice-normal rocket blasting. Three space-suits were broken out of stock, and carefully tested for inflation. Three compressed oxygen tanks are strapped to the backs. A reserve of six more are packed in the lifeboat, along with two weeks’ supply of food and water.
It is doubtful they can stay more than one week in that frightful gravity. In fact, we don’t know if they can last a day!
But Swinerton is confident that the human organism is tougher under trial than generally known. To toughen themselves up, the three men have been running around the camp daily, for the past week. It’s no joke, in this thin air, where you pant if you just walk.
Yesterday they ran for eight hours straight, coming in so weary that they could barely stagger to their bunks and drop into instant sleep. But upon awakening, twelve hours later, they felt fit as a fiddle, physically tuned up, and ready for the worst.
God knows what that worst will be.
Thanks for the special musical program dedicated to us, Earth, of last night. Picked it up clear as a bell, even across 400 million miles of space. We especially liked that new hit you say is sweeping Earth—“The Pyramid Blues.” That’s what we’ve had for six months, since circumstances have prevented us tracking down the “Secret of the Pyramids.”
Two-hundred-seventy-sixth day.
They’ve gone!
The lifeboat took off smoothly from camp and darted into the sky. It was limned as a black speck against the shining bulk of Jupiter for a moment, rockets flaring, before it vanished into smallness. They left ten hours ago. They should make the 664,000 miles in about that time. No radio report from them yet.
STAND by! Report coming in . . .
Recontacting. Parletti just reported. I’ll give his words verbatim.
“Hello, Ganymede! We’re ten thousand miles above Jupiter, preparing to land. I didn’t report before, so as to save battery current. We’ll need it for the rocket system. Just want to say it’s a glorious sight—Jupiter spreading in all directions, glowing in vivid colors. We’re slowed to a standstill, with the first wisps of its atmosphere around us.
“We’re reconnoitering the atmosphere bands. From this close vantage, they all seem to be stormy, so we’ll drop right down into the Red Belt near the equator. And nearest our destination.
“Well, here we go. It’s like holding your breath and diving into unknown waters. Signing off. Will resume when we land.”
That was all. When we land, Parletti staunchly said. We know as well as he that there is an implied if.
Well, Earth, our hopes have gone with those three men.
They’re fighting their way down through Jupiter’s stormy atmosphere. Fighting a gravity that swings fourteen moons around it like pebbles. Fighting a gravity that has yanked fifty wandering bodies into a closed orbit, and made them comets. Fighting a gravity that grips a satellite larger than Mercury. Fighting a gravity that disturbs the orbits of the asteroids, though they are further from Jupiter than Earth is from the sun.
Stand by. I will notify you the moment we hear from them again.
Sorry, no good news. No report yet from the lifeboat expedition. Not a word from them since yesterday—eighteen hours. Needless to say, we’re worried.
Markers has kept busy at his telescope, refusing to bite his nails. The rest of us wish we could achieve that calm. Markers has spotted another new comet. Seven degrees east of Jupiter, I think he said. It isn’t important.
Will resume later.
CHAPTER XI
Challenge of Jupiter
TWO-HUNDRED-SEVENTY-EIGHTH day.
No word yet, Earth. We’ve about given up hope. The lifeboat was yanked down by crushing gravity, bobbed like a cork in Jupiter’s storms, and smashed up somewhere in a nameless graveyard. That must be what happened.
Captain Atwell hasn’t given up hope. This morning he forced us, almost at the point of a gun, to play cards. Yelled at us to stop whining like children, and get our minds off the matter. For a while we caught his spirit and played poker. As stakes, we divided up the moons, two for each.
One hand was interesting. Ling and Von Zell cleaned out the rest of us in short order. Then Von Zell, catching a full house, bet four moons. Ling raised it one. Von Zell bet his remaining four. Ling called, with two. When Von Zell remonstrated, Ling smiled and said,
“But I’m betting Callisto. Callisto is worth two other moons, eh?”
Von Zell agreed and Ling took the whole pot with his four jacks.
Betting moons may sound a little mad, or ridiculous. But it is a grand feeling to be out here, and know no other men have ever been here. We sometimes felt as though we actually owned the moons, by right of discovery.
The game over, we lapsed instantly into our moodiness. Even Captain Atwell now has a bleak look in his eyes. He has the courage of a lion. It’s terrible to see hope fading out of his fierce eyes.
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br /> How can there be hope? The three men have been gone thirty-six hours. They lie on Jupiter somewhere, crushed, broken—
Stand by! Signal coming in!
Resuming.
They landed safely, Earth! All the stars be praised! Here’s Parletti’s report.
“Hello, Ganymede! Safe landing, except for a jolt that threw the radio out of commission. It took us eighteen hours to descend. Halloway, at the controls, let her drop for a while. It scared us the way our drop ran up to a thousand miles an hour, just from gravity-pull. Halloway started the under jets and after that we kept them going steadily.
“It was a fight all the way down. At five thousand miles, surrounded by Jupiter’s atmosphere, we were blind. Swinerton read off the height dial at five-minute intervals. At three thousand miles Halloway had to gun the engine way up, to keep from going into a drop and spin.
“The last few hours were pretty bad. At a thousand miles, the storms hit us. I don’t know whether you’d call it the stratosphere or what, but the thick gases began whistling by. Then they began roaring. And finally they began blowing us back and forth in vicious gusts.
“Well, we were pretty well bruised up. Halloway’s seat strap gave way, and it took Swinerton and me an hour to lash him back in. Halloway had one hand on the controls all the time, the other hanging on the seat-rail for dear life. Good thing Halloway is strong as an ox.”
It makes me jealous just to recount such adventure! Gillway speaking, Earth. Continuing with Parletti’s report.
“When we got below a hundred miles, the real fight began. We were wrenched and buffeted and battered till we thought every rivet had been ripped loose. At fifty miles, Swinerton yelled that we were dropping like a stone. Halloway revved the engine for all it was worth. We could feel Jupiter’s true gravity tugging at us now.