Astounding Science Fiction Stories Vol 1

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Astounding Science Fiction Stories Vol 1 Page 71

by Anthology


  The freighter officer bit his lip indecisively, but before he could speak, Gerry's temper slipped its leash a trifle.

  "Nonsense!" she cried sharply. "A blind man could see that you and this bunch of down-at-heel underlings aren't equal to anything. You must have a leader, someone to tell you what to do. Without a chief you wouldn't know enough to come in out of a meteor shower!"

  There was dumfounded silence as the pilots all gathered close for a good view of this phenomenon.

  "Well, split my rocket-tubes if I ain't seen her on the news!" one woman exploded.

  "I'm Gerry Carlyle," she announced imperiously, "and I'm in a very great hurry. I insist upon seeing your chief at once!"

  The giant opened his mouth to bellow in Gerry's face, but something changed his mind at the last instant. He shut his mouth, scratched his chin in bewilderment.

  "Maybe we better let Frenchy figure this one out," one of the others suggested.

  There was general assent, and the party moved across the field to the pilots' living quarters. A blast of warm air struck their faces as the door opened, and everyone shucked off his furs. There were four more women and men inside and one of them, a man with black spade beard and dark, flashing eyes, was obviously French.

  "Hey, Frenchy, there was a passenger landed today," the big man said.

  The Frenchman was busy with something in his hands and did not look up.

  "So, my good Bullwer? And this passenger, what is it that he wishes?"

  "Wants to see our chief. Ain't that a laugh?" Bullwer looked around and saw it was no laugh. It was obvious everyone in that room accepted the mild-looking little Frenchman as nominal leader.

  The latter looked up, handling Bullwer with his eyes. "So you bring this passenger to see Louis Duval, is it not?" Bullwer squirmed.

  "Okay. No need to get sore. The passenger's here, but it's just a dame."

  Duval looked around, startled, saw Gerry. For a moment of breathless silence he stared as if it had been given to him to see a vision. Then he sprang to his feet.

  "A dame, yes!" he breathed. "But a dame of the most magnificent, is it not? Louis Duval, Mademoiselle, at your service!" And he bowed low over Gerry's hand.

  Suddenly Duval glared about him.

  "Swine!" he roared. "Take off your hats! A chair for the lady! Refreshments! Vite! Vite!"

  But Gerry was not to be swerved from her purpose.

  "Monsieur Duval," she said tensely, "I'm here for a reason. Every minute that passes may mean the difference between life and death to many men. I must, at the earliest possible moment, get to Satellite Five. The only men and women in the System with the courage and skill to get me there in time are right in this room. Will you aid me?"

  The pilots, who had lounged about in interested silence while Duval held the floor, now burst into concerted, ironic laughter.

  "The dame don't want much," one said. "Just a mass suicide!"

  "Satellite Five!" ejaculated a second. "There ain't two dozen ships in the System could make Five. And they ain't none of em anywheres near this dump of a Ganymede!"

  Duval's eyes darkened with genuine regret.

  "Mademoiselle," he declared earnestly, "there is nothing on this world or any world we would not do for you gladly-if it can be done. But the journey to Satellite Five-it is not possible."

  He took Gerry gently by the arm, led her to a window.

  "Look. There is one of the vehicles so splendid in which we make our trips regular to the other satellites."

  Gerry stared. The ship was an ancient iron hull. Its rocket exhausts were badly corroded; the plates were warped and buckled, roughened by the relentless pelting of thousands of wandering meteorites. A far cry from The Ark's streamlined power which would take it anywhere in the System.

  "That wreck!" Gerry ejaculated. "Why that's a condemned crate if I ever saw one! That thing wouldn't last thirty minutes in space! It'd fall apart!"

  "Frequently they do fall apart, Mademoiselle. For example, Scoffino is two days overdue from Io. Soon we will drink the toast."

  Gerry's eyes followed Duval's to a shelf which ran across the rear of the room. On it were ranged a row of shattered goblets; etched in acid across each was a name.

  "Great heavens!" Gerry was indignant. "That's criminal!"

  "But no one can blame the company. They would be very foolish to risk ships valuable, costing many thousands of dollars, on these routes hazardous. Besides, there is genius -- I, Duval, admit it-among the mechanics. They continue to patch and to patch and somehow most of us we manage to return alive with our cargoes. But to journey to Five -- ' Duval hunched his shoulders in the inimitable shrug with which a Frenchman can express so little or so much.

  Something rose suddenly in Gerry's throat, chokingly. Was it to be failure this time? And what about Tommy Strike, facing some alien horror with empty weapons? He was so quixotically reckless that be would never consent to turn tail and flee, even when his own life was in danger. Was he, too, to die with succor so near at hand because she couldn't dig up transportation to bridge a little gap of a few hundred thousand miles of space?

  Not while the strongest in Gerry's arsenal of weapons was yet unused. She had a hypodermic tongue, and the knack of injecting caustic, rankling remarks. She whirled on the group of lounging pilots, fire in her eye.

  "That's a laugh!" she cried in piercing tones. "That's a real laugh! My fiance is down there on Satellite Five right now, fighting it out with some monstrous thing no man has ever seen 'to tell of. There's nothing the matter with his insides; he's got what it takes. But because of a scheming rat back in New York, he's out there defenseless with a weapon that won't work. I have the real one, and I came to the only place in the entire System where I could find men and women supposedly with the skill and guts to pilot me to Satellite Five.

  "And what do I find? A bunch of no-good tramps, half-baked defeatists playing cribbage for matches! Telling each other how tough they really are, living perpetually in the shadow of death! Dramatizing themselves! Breaking a two-bit goblet every time one of their worthless carcasses takes a dive into Jupiter-the cheapest kind of theatrics! If the whole lot of you were laid end to end, it would be a darned good job! All told, you couldn't muster up the courage of a sick rabbit!"

  It was a cruel, bitter indictment, completely unjust; but it was the last trump in Gerry's hand. If it failed to take the trick, she was through. With a final sweeping glance of unutterable scorn, she strode out of the barracks and slammed the door behind her.

  There was thick silence in the pilots' quarters after Gerry left, broken finally by sheepish stirrings and a muttered, "Whew!"

  Of all the people gathered there, Gerry's denunciation affected Duval most poignantly. He had all the Frenchman's traditional romanticism and chivalry and love of beauty. For three seemingly endless years he had been a lonely exile on Ganymede, far from the beloved Gascony of his birth.

  Paris was a dim memory; he had not seen a cultured woman in years.

  All the ideals in his romantic soul had become magnified to an unnatural extent. Despite the fact that be dominated this hardy crew, he was a misfit. By nature he was cut out to be a reincarnation of the chevalier Bayard,sans peur et sans reproche ; cruel circumstance had made him -- what he was. And now this flame of a young woman had poured salt on his wounds. Boy and girl in love, and in need. It meant everything such a situation means to any Frenchman, a hundred times keener. And he with opportunity to make his worthless life meaningful again.

  Purposefully Duval strode to a cupboard, yanked out a handful of charts, pored over them. He sat down with pencil and calculator, muttering to himself, figuring.

  "Name of a pipe," he whispered presently. "It might be done."

  Duval hurried out after Gerry and found her by the freighter, which was now taking on its load of ore concentrates, trying bitterly and hopelessly to argue its commander into attempting to make Satellite Five.

  "Mademoiselle!" called Duval breat
hlessly. "Mademoiselle, I believe there is a possibility of the faintest --"

  "Duval!" Gerry cried, her face lighting like a torch from within. "You mean you'll try it? Oh, that's marvelous! And I'll see you're properly rewarded, too. I have influence. Plenty. I don't know what you did back home, but if it can be fixed --"

  Duval brushed this aside.

  "We have perhaps one chance in the hundred to arrive safely. After that is time to talk of the rewarding. Fortunately, the Satellite Five is almost directly opposite Ganymede, on the other side of Jupiter --"

  They were moving rapidly across the field tarmac toward the battered rocket ship in its starting cradle, Duval's feet fairly twinkling to match Gerry's eager strides. The paralysis ray swung at her side. She nodded incisively.

  "I see what you mean. We dive straight into the heart of Jupiter to gather terrific momentum, then cut over in a hump and utilize our speed to draw clear and make our objective. Splendid! I knew there must be some rocket-buster around here with the stuff to make this trip."

  Duval beamed.

  "You are willing to risk the life with me?"

  "Perfectly."

  Drawn by curiosity, some of the pilots drifted around as Duval made a swift final check-up before taking off. A few, a bit embarrassed by anything like a display of emotion, diffidently shook the Frenchman's hand in a manner clearly indicating they never expected to see him again. Just before they scaled the entrance port, Bullwer poked his head inside.

  "Say! You really gonna shoot for V, Frenchy?" he asked incredulously.

  Duval drew himself up to every inch of his five feet. "And why not? If there is anyone who can it achieve, I, Duval, am he, is it not?"

  Bullwer grinned.

  "Maybe so. But I'll lay a week's pay you can't."

  "Done!" And Duval slammed the port shut, nearly decapitating Bullwer. Flames spewed from the rocket-tubes in tenuous streamers along the ground; thunder shook the ship. Scarcely waiting for the motors to warm up properly, Duval poured on the power, and the strangely assorted couple took off on perhaps the most hazardous journey in the history of rocketry.

  Chapter XII.

  Re-birth

  Gerry always remembered that trip with the breathless terror of a nightmare. Once in the ship, there was no time to adjust herself to the danger, none of the usual hours of preparation, of preliminary approach, during which one can screw up courage to the sticking point. Instead, one instant the clang of the port was ringing in her cars, the next, the booming of the engines, and all at once they were dropping like a plummet straight into the maw of the gigantic golden bubble of Jupiter, which burgeoned before them like a mighty blossom of disaster.

  Duval was a grim figure strapped in the pilot's seat, his magic hands flying over the control board, delicately probing, guiding the old cracker-box ship miraculously, wary of indications of Jovian magnetic storms which would mean destruction for them. Completely ignoring the physical effects of acceleration, Duval soon had the rocket ship hurtling down at speeds she had never achieved before, and for which she was never built.

  Soon the sinister, swirling globe of Jupiter filled every corner of the visi-screen. Duval spoke sharply without turning his bead.

  "The straps, Mademoiselle! Make certain they are tight! Soon we must make our move!"

  Gerry set her teeth grimly, watching with almost impersonal admiration the skill of Duval. Too late to turn back now; already a faint scream was audible as they bulleted through the extreme upper reaches of the Jovian atmosphere. Then Duval's fingers plunged downward on the firing keys, and the underrockets flowered crimson petals of flame.

  The ship lurched, groaned hideously in every joint as if in some strange cosmic labor, striving to tear itself free. Instantly the steely fingers of Jupiter's gravity wrenched powerfully at the ancient bull. Seams squealed, ripping open as the rivets sprung; the plates twisted tortuously under the unprecedented strains. Air pressure dropped as the precious mixture whistled out through a dozen tiny vents. The obsolete air-o-stat pumped valiantly in a grim losing battle.

  Temperature suddenly rose, rapidly becoming intolerable as the outer air became thicker and friction heated the hull. Sweat poured into Gerry's eyes, but she maintained her stoic calm.

  The picture of Jupiter on the visi-screen was shifting erratically; a matter of a few seconds would tell the story. . . .

  They made it. Their incredible velocity defeated the greedy powers of Jovian gravity. One final burst in which the rockettube flames burst completely around the ship's nose, obscuring everything, and they had cleared the "hump," missed the surface of Jupiter c1eanly and burst through the layers of upper atmosphere into open space again. Ahead, moving round to its assignation with the ship, was Satellite Five, barren and bright in the Jupiter-glow.

  The rest was comparatively simple. Jupiter's gravity still had a strong claim on them; it was as if they were chained to the giant planet by a cosmic rubber band, which tightened inexorably the further they coasted away. Handling this mighty force with dexterity, Duval jockeyed the ship so it was barely moving when it reached the appointed spot in space. They came to rest with a jar that completed the wrecking of the ship, but they were safe.

  Gerry took Duval's hand and squeezed hard.

  "You were magnificent, Duval; I'll never forget it. But now we've got work to do. Ready?"

  They piled into space-suits, Gerry seized the paralysis equipment, and the two left the wreckage. There was nothing moving in sight on the fairly level plane, spawled off by Jupiter's fierce heat when the System was young, whose horizon was a scant mile away. So they started walking. Gravitation was surprisingly strong, indicating unusual density. This fact, plus the intense cold which slows down the dance of the atoms, accounted for the fact that Five still retained remnants of an atmosphere.

  The hikers even saw traces of water vapor, in form of frost. Occasionally they passed clumps of mossy or lichenous growth. Twice they observed colonies of sluglike creatures growing, reproducing, and dying with amazing rapidity. And then, like an enormous silver cigar looming over the horizon, The Ark came into view. It looked almost as large as the Satellite itself, and there was furious activity going on. A half-dozen suited figures scurried about the nose of The Ark. From the pilot house another figure was throwing out instruments to those below.

  Gerry and Duval drew quickly near, and she shouted into her head-set, "Hey. Tommy! Tommy Strike!"

  All the moving figures turned sharply, in varying attitudes of astonishment. Then one of them gestured sharply and came lumbering over the plain as fast as possible.

  As the two from Ganymede moved forward, Duval tripped and sprawled ludicrously, though harmlessly, on his face. He scrambled carefully to his feet and bent over to see what had caused his humiliation. He uttered a sharp exclamation.

  "Name of a pipe! What a monster of the most incredible!"

  Gerry, too, stopped to examine the thing stretched out on the rocky ground. It was something beyond even Gerry's vast experience in extra-terrestrial life. From tip to tip it might have measured as much as twenty feet, and its ugly, warty gray hide was divided into armored sections along its entire length with soft spots between the plates. It was oval-shaped in lateral cross-section, something like a gigantic cut-worm that has been stepped upon but not quite squashed. Duval was for leaving the nauseous horror strictly alone.

  Gerry's clinical instinct, however, prompted her to turn it over with her foot. About a fourth of the way along the under side were six short legs, arranged with no particular symmetry, just stuck here and there. Sprouting about the front end of the thing was a forest of what looked like dead gloved fingers-sensory organs of some kind. The mouth parts resembled a funnel, much like the proboscis of the common house-fly. Two eyes set on either side of the head were glazed in death. While the entire lower half of the abdomen was slit wide open; inside was nothing but a sickening mess of half-devoured vitals.

  At that moment Tommy Strike finally galloped
up, spluttering.

  "Gerry! How the dickens did you ever manage to get here? And why? And --"

  "Never mind all that!" interrupted Gerry. "Duval here brought me from Ganymede by rocket. He's the greatest pilot in the System. And I came because the paralysis ray equipment you have is no good."

  "No kidding!" Strike was bitterly sarcastic. "You came a long ways just to tell us that. We found it out a few hours ago. It cost us two lives. Leeds and Machen are gone, burned to cinders."

  "Burned!" Gerry rocked back on her heels, stunned at the loss. "Then this-this Cacus really does breathe fire?"

  "And how it does! You've never seen anything like it. But what I want to know is about the ray apparatus. What -- '

  Gerry quickly explained about Trevelyan's treachery. "I have the genuine article with me now." She displayed Lunde's other model.

  Strike seized it avidly.

  "Then let me have it! Will we give that monkey what-for!"

  "But wait a minute, Tommy. What about this thing here?" She kicked at the empty dead thing at their feet. "Is this the Cacus?"

  "Well, it was the Cacus." Strike looked a bit befuddled. "Though now the Cacus has helped itself to The Ark. Just walked in and took over. The pilot-house and engine rooms are locked, keeping it out of there, but the boys trapped in the nose of the ship are jettisoning the valuable stuff in case the Cacus decides to burn its way in there." He swore. "It's a mess!"

  Gerry shook her head.

  "Then you mean there's more than one Cacus; you killed this one, but another showed up. That it?"

  "No, that isn't it! There's only one Cacus. It -- it -- " Strike stopped and drew a deep breath. He rolled the carcass over on its side and began again. "See that heat-ray burn? Well, here's what happened. When we found the paralysis apparatus on the blink, we were practically here already, so we figured we'd take this freak with our regular equipment. We found it crawling around with little jets of fire occasionally licking out of its mouth or snout or whatever it is. It was burning this mossy junk that grows all over, and also toasting plenty of these snaillike things, and then siphoning them up. Omnivorous.

 

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