by Don Wilcox
“You’d better have some air,” Rustan laughed, throttling the cab along. “After you had me released, our friend Hobart saw his pack of cards shattering. He had counted on my being hanged—and quickly—for he knew I had the goods on him. I’ll admit you sold the hanging to him in short order; but with me free and in cahoots with the capital’s bodyguards, he knew it was coming. His quick decision saved him from facing a public scandal.”
“You mean—Hobart was guilty?”
“As guilty as a worm in an apple. He must have followed me up the rope to your roof garden that night, intent on using my sword. On my way down, hand over hand, I made the discovery that someone had gone down ahead of me—with blood-stained hands. Another bodyguard and I caught Hobart washing his bloody hands—and that’s when I hit for the trees to keep from getting shot—or poisoned, like Van Hise.”
“Van Hise!” Venzita gasped. “That was another murder he wrote into his confession—and I thought he did it for a joke!”
“For an enchantress, you’re darned innocent,” Rustan laughed.
Venzita laughed at herself as the car rolled along, her thoughts drifting back over the strange events. Suddenly she gave a little shriek.
“Rustan, you would have been hanged!”
“If it hadn’t been for you—yes. I thought you were in love with Hobart. My hanging would have left him in the clear.”
Venzita gave a horrified gasp, then another little shriek of terror. “Rustan, I would have been hanged—if—if Hobart hadn’t come—”
“Not on your life, Mary. Those capital guards have their own grapevine that reaches all the way to the hangman, and every man of them was on my side. Where are we going, Mary?”
The mountains were looming purple and blue on the distant horizon. The girl edged closer to Rustan, put her hand in the crook of his elbow. Her red hair fluttered against his shoulder.
She spoke a bit timidly, for one with such a reputation for enchantment. “Would you care for a honeymoon in Blue Valley?”
Rustan grinned. “The season’s right for making hay.”
[*] History and legend, are full of stories on enchantresses and sorceresses, all very lovely, who have cast their spell over men and enthralled them in a net of witchcraft. Sheba was one, and Cleopatra, and Circe. The oracle of Delphi was only a whisper in a well, but her attendants were lovely girls who were selected to keep the temple in order. It is to be suspected that there was nothing of magic in the power these women held over men, but simply their beauty, and the weird atmosphere they wove around themselves, that made men’s minds reel to the unknown.
THE STEVEDORE OF JUPITER
First published in Amazing Stories, November 1941
There was something strange about Jupe. Was he really of Jupiter? But the oddest thing was the uncanny way he could compute weights—even the weight of Death!
“Snap it up. Get that stuff loaded!” It was the season of storms—not a favorable time for a salvaging expedition. But Captain Branaugh was an impatient man. So he ignored the danger.
The silver sands swept through these bad lands of Jupiter, scouring the copper-red crags and illuminating the air with a satin-silver glow. The gray old abandoned hull that had once been a space freighter had weathered eighteen years of these sand storms and it looked it. But the name, John Heen, painted on the prow, could still be distinguished.
Captain Branaugh and his mate of the brand new freighter, Hanover, had handpicked six seasoned thugs to make up their six-man army of guards. They had filled out their crew with three desert-skilled workmen, one of them a veteran of an earlier expedition to this planet.
One additional pickup, however, had occurred at a lonely oasis here on Jupiter, where the expedition had made a preliminary stop to replenish their water supply. There Captain Branaugh had picked up “Jupe.”
The heavy end of the job of transferring the cargo of the John Keen to the hold of Branaugh’s gleaming Hanover fell to Jupe. For Jupe was young and willing and able.
“What wouldn’t I give for some of his muscle!” said Stephens, the youngest of the three workmen.
“Better not tell your blonde girlfriend about him, Steve,” said Peterson, unrolling a drum of steel cable.
“He’s different from any native Jupiterian I ever saw before,” said Keller. “I spent two years up here with Captain Heen and I saw a lot of them—to© many.”
“I am differment,” said Jupe, smiling proudly at being able to take part in a foreigner’s conversation. “I am a castout.”
“Wonder where he learned to speak English,” Peterson said.
“No telling,” said Keller, “if he’s an outcast from his own tribe, he probably makes a practice of hanging around foreign traders.”
The three workmen, with Jupe’s willing help, succeeded in stretching the steel cable across the dry river bed, in spite of whipping winds. Then the work began . . .
The mate and the six guards had nothing to do but eat, drink, sleep, and play cards, while the cargo was being taken on. This they did until two of them grew restless and ventured through the sand storm to the old abandoned ship to pass the time of day with the captain.
How’s he behavin’, Capt’n?” one of the guards asked in a sly undertone. “Everything under control?”
“Stop your worrying, you dumb thugs,” the Captain snarled. “Go back and sleep if you’ve nothing better to do.”
“Right you are, sir,” said the second guard. “We just thought we’d ask. You’ve been inside this wreck for the last six hours with no protection—”
“And that Jupiter guy does have menacin’ muscles,” said the first guard. “You gotta admit that.”
“Stop being jealous,” said the captain. “I tell you he’s harmless. He knows enough English to obey orders, and not enough to talk back. Hell, he’s even friendly. I call him Jupe.” The Captain’s snarl warmed up into a sarcastic haw-haw. “I even pound him on the back.”
By way of illustration Captain Branaugh took a crack at the wall of the sand-drifted companionway. The whip—a short length of lithe steel cable looped around his hand—shattered the rotting panel, and brought down a shower of sand.
Then Jupe came trudging out of the freight room bearing another steel chest on his powerful shoulders, and the captain couldn’t resist. With a cool wink at his two Right-You-Are-Sirs, he flung the steel lash at Jupe’s back.
Jupe apparently did not feel the blow. The stroke left no mark, nor did it have any visible effect upon the big fellow’s balance.
One of the guards, emboldened by this demonstration, said, “Hi, Jupe, old pal,” and threw a foot out to trip him. For an instant the guard’s black boot and Jupe’s bare ankle were interlocked. Then Jupe was trudging on with his burden and the guard was picking himself up out of a heap.
Jupe, narrowing his eyes against the blowing silver sands, toted the steel case out to the sand embankment to place it in a neat row with the others already there.
From the improvised entrance in the old ship’s hull the guards watched him. His enormous muscles fairly streamed with perspiration. Naked except for trunks, he looked like an over developed football man coming out of a shower—after a victory. That broad smile was his normal expression, and his large purple eyes and big white teeth gleamed with a mystery as deep as the mysteries of this little known planet.
“No work for us as long as that bird’ll stick around.” one of the guards mused. “Between him and the Capt’n’s three heavy-labor boys, we won’t have to turn a hand. Let’s get back to the ship.”
“If you ask me, that Jupe ain’t typical Jupiterian, accordin’ to the pictures in the papers. He’s some sort of crossbreed. An’ that’s most likely got something to do with knowin’ English.”
“Hell, I thought he was English when we first come on him all alone down at the oasis. The Captain asks him what he’s doin’ there all alone, and the fellow says he’s a outcast, so the captain says to come on an’ we’ll feed him. So he
gets aboard, an’ eats like a horse, an’ drinks like an elephant, and then we make the final hop and set down beside this old wreck, an’ the captain puts him to work.”
“Damn funny the way the captain can’t pull himself away from that old wreck, even for a meal.”
“Yeah. After eighteen years waitin’ for this trip, knowin’ the stuff was up here free for first comers, I guess he’s plenty anxious to get it loaded an’ back to earth.”
“What the hell did he say the stuff was—mictite?”
“Mictorjite. He said he wouldn’t trade it for diamonds, ounce for ounce. The U.S.A. metal markets are cryin’ their eyes out for it. Um-mmm . . . Say—” the guard turned to make sure no one was within hearing. Silver sands were screaming through the dry river channel that separated the old abandoned John Heen from Captain Branaugh’s new freighter. The guard muttered in a gravelled undertone. “There’s six of us guards—all of us with the right kind of records. Me, I used to apply baseball bat diplomacy to strikers. You, you’re a grad from Sing-Sing—”
“H-s-s-sh.” His companion silenced the conversation until the big Jupiterian passed. Then, “Plenty of time for this talk after we start back.”
Stephens and Peterson helped the two guards back across the channel to the Hanover. The storm was fairly blinding by this time, and the sand bombarded their space helmets like tiny pellets of flying steel.
Without the steel cable the game would have been called on account of bad weather. But with one man to hook each steel box onto the pulley, and two to tow it across, the work went on as speedily as the captain could drive it. Two men to every trip, the captain had warned—a warning well taken. The pull of gravity, more than double that of the earth, was enough to make the very act of walking a burden. The high wind and rugged terrain cut the men down to the mobility, as Stephens noted, of huge snails.
But Jupe’s muscles were adapted to these conditions. In spite of his heavy build he had an agility and a grace—yes, and something more subtle. Something that could be seen in the way he leaned into a surprise blast of high wind, or gauged the swing of a steel box when Keller would hook it onto the pulley cable. It was an uncanny sense of balance, a sense of the weights and strengths of the forces everywhere about him.
Perhaps it was instinctive. Perhaps it had developed out of the Jupiterians’ age-old combat with strong gravity.[*]
Captain Branaugh grinned at himself as he watched this young giant’s muscles play. All brawn and no brains, thought Branaugh. And an outcast—he could readily understand that. Jupe was definitely off-stripe. His legs, though stocky, weren’t as short and thick as the typical Jupiterian’s. His head was of less extreme broadness. And, most disconcerting, he had picked up the English quicker than the unfriendly natives Branaugh had encountered on the voyage eighteen years before.
“These boxes next.” Branaugh pointed to the pile in the middle of the sand-drifted room.
“But those—” Jupe pointed to the boxes in the far corner.
“Not those, Jupe. We’ll leave them here.”
“You said take all,” said Jupe.
“Shut up with your damned arguing,” said Branaugh, His tone brought a fierce light into Jupe’s perpetual smile, and he felt constrained to temper his words. “The corner ones are heavier cases. I remember. I helped Heen pack them. We may not have room for all. We’ll leave that corner to the last.”
Jupe frowned with partial understanding. Earlier he had been querying the captain and the workmen about English units of weight. Now he picked up a handful of sand, poured it into Captain Branaugh’s hands.
“How many ounces?” Jupe asked. “About eight. Why? What the devil are you up to?”
The young Jupiterian walked into the forbidden corner and picked up one of the boxes, brought it over to Branaugh, beaming eagerly.
“This box is twelve, maybe thirteen, ounces not so heavy,” said Jupe, “as last box. So you see, you mistooken. I try another.”
“Come out of that corner!” Branaugh cracked his lash against a steel lid, but Jupe had already acted on his impulse. He lifted another box.
“This one only two ounces heavier. . . And this one—Uuugh!”
A human skeleton fell from among the steel chests. Its dry rotting bones scattered. Jupe bent over them.
“Get back to work, you damned devil!” Branaugh roared. “What the hell you staring at? That’s nothing but a pile of bones.”
Jupe didn’t move until the captain struck him the fourth time with the steel cable lash. The captain’s other hand held a revolver. Even then Jupe bent down and picked up something up before moving away—an engraved gold ring. This Branaugh could not see, for Jupe’s back was turned.
“Get moving, I tell you!” The captain’s words scraped like a steel saw against stone.
Jupe suddenly obeyed in the most literal fashion. He marched out of the dilapidated hull and struck out across the desert.
Go after him, you men. Don’t get lost. Take a rope, tie yourselves together. Run him down. We need him.”
All three of the workmen struck out, somewhat dubious over such an undertaking. Keller knew there was no chance of out-running a native Jupiterian on his own planet. “He’s got a hundred yards on us and we’re not gaining. If he’d only look back—Jupe! Jupe!!!” It was useless to shout against the screeching winds.
“I’m for letting him go,” Peterson declared. “What right has the captain got to make him work?”
“Or to drive him off into the desert?” Stephens added. “No man could live more than a few days in these bad lands. I’m for bringing him back.”
“We’re all three for giving the fellow a square deal,” said Keller. “That’s why the captain sent us.”
“What do you mean?”
“Jupe has discovered we don’t disrespect him the way the guards do. He might come back for us when he wouldn’t for them”
“You’re giving Jupe credit for a lot of intelligence,” said Peterson. “We’re all foreigners to him. Can he discriminate? I figure if he’s sore enough at the captain he’ll tear us all up.”
“What do you suppose happened between him and the cap—” Stephens suddenly changed his tone. “Look! We’re gaining on him.”
Out of the silver haze of sand, Jupe’s bright purple eyes and white teeth gleamed amiably as the three men dragged up to where he waited.
“I take you back,” said Jupe, “before you three will lost yourself.”
Back they went and again the work went on.
The three workmen, after sixteen hours of toil, demanded rest before finishing.
But Jupe’s life was not tuned to a twenty-four hour day. The captain put him to work on the Hanover side of the channel, carting the steel chests into the sleek freighter, packing them back in the hold.
Jupe was again smiling. A simple soul, thought Captain Branaugh. Afraid of skeletons, offended at sharp words, restored to peaceful subservience by a square meal. All right, the fellow could work on while the crew slept.
The captain gave him specific instructions about loading the hold compactly. It was a job that called for precision. Jupe apparently was in the mood for carrying out orders precisely. The captain watched him for a few minutes, heard him naming aloud the weights—pounds and ounces—of each box he lifted. So many nonsense syllables, thought the captain, and took himself off to bed.
Some hours later, Stephens, Peterson and Keller were awakened by the Jupiterian’s low whisper.
“The captain wants you. Go to upstairs room,” said Jupe with a little less than his usual big grin. “Wait there for captain, you three.” He added the number with emphasis.
The men muttered among themselves as they ascended. The only room at the head of the stairs was the emergency control room, rarely used, even in flight.
“It’s screwy,” said Stephens, shaking out of his sleepiness. “But captains are supposed to know what they want. I doubt if he’s dressed yet, but we’ve got to be on the spot waiting
.”
They lounged on the emergency control room bench at the head of the stairs. They didn’t have to wait long. Without warning from below, a book whizzed up the stairs and fell on the floor before them.
Keller picked it up. “What’s the idea?”
No answer came from below.
Keller opened the book, Stephens and Peterson looked over his shoulder.
At that moment a door sounded and Captain Branaugh bounded up the stairs. He had a pistol in his hand. Two Right-You-Are-Sirs followed at his heels, guns ready.
“So it’s conspiracy, is it?” The Captain blatted in a voice that shook the dials. He glared through sullen sleepy eyes. He wore only his sleeping garments, as did the guards.
Obviously the three of them had just been awakened by Jupe, and their fire-alarm manner suggested intentions of murder.
“There’s no conspiracy,” Keller snapped. “We were told to wait here for you.”
“You’ll have to talk faster than that,” Branaugh growled, “Your pal Jupe spilled it. I ought to kill you outright. Gimme that account book, you damned sneaks.”
One of the guards snatched it.
“You’re wrong, Cap!” Stephens cut his words bitterly. “We just picked it up—”
“To pry into my wealth—I know.” The captain was on a trigger edge. “The next word I hear about this plot to kill me—”
“Jupe lied, I tell you,” Keller rasped.
“Shut up! Another breath and I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” Stephens defied.
For an instant everyone thought the captain would fire. Then his expression changed to a cold brutal smile.
“Aren’t you the sweet innocent things,” he said with saccharine sarcasm. “Get bundled up and move the rest of that cargo before I do something unpleasant . . .”
The three workmen had plenty of time to discuss this strange turn of events in the hours that followed.
Not one of them was surprised at the captain’s part in the affair. His middle name had been brutality from the start. And Keller remembered he had played a similar role in the expedition of eighteen years before.