by Eando Binder
It was the most deadly trap ever devised by the human mind. Jon almost reeled as he stood up.
“You are free for 24 hours,” Kastorex said. “I will let you live till Earth surrenders so you can see that humiliating event. Then I’ll kill you as I will later purge the whole Space Patrol.”
* * * *
Jon left the dome in his spacesuit. He was free to wander around, but not to leave the asteroid. He saw a grim guard before his rocketship, ray gun in hand. Jon knew Zan Kastorex would become the dictator of all the planets, unless…
Jon’s mind whirled in desperate thought. There was one slim hope. But to carry out his plan, he had to get back in his ship. Jon idly picked up a stone the size of his fist and hurled it straight up into the sky. Because of the asteroid’s light gravity, the stone would fly up several miles before it came down.
Then Jon approached the guard.
“Look!” yelled Jon. “Behind you! Space Patrol men!”
The guard laughed. “Boy, what an old one! I don’t bite on things like that.”
“I figured you wouldn’t,” Jon said glumly.
But at that moment, a dull sound thudded in the thin atmosphere behind the guard. As he whirled instinctively, Jon leaped and felled him with one terrific blow.
“Tricked him,” Jon muttered in elation. “That sound he heard was the stone I threw up in the sky landing back on the ground!”
Jon leaped into his ship and zoomed up with a roar of rockets. As he expected, a voice boomed from his radio.
“Pretty smart,” gloated Kastorex. “I’m glad you made a run for it. Because now I can shoot you down with the Kastorex Ray.”
Looking back at the dome, Jon saw the flashes from the ray machine. If the ray hit him and exploded the iron atoms of his ship. Jon would be doomed. Desperately, he twisted the ship from side to side as he sped away. But the deadly ray-charges came nearer and nearer. Kastorex was playing with him.
But Jon was also playing a game—a road game. Several miles from the dome, he suddenly shot downward toward the asteroid’s surface. His maneuver brought the asteroid’s horizon between him and the dome, thus protecting him. But as he dived the ray followed him relentlessly, almost touched him—but not quite. The ray glanced off a small hill, behind which Jon had zoomed.
The next instant was an inferno. A gigantic blast cracked the whole asteroid apart. The concussion hurled Jon’s ship around like a cork in a whirlwind.
Minutes later, his dizzy senses swam back, and he realized he was alive. He had not planned to come out alive. But he had planned for the destruction of X-457. Kastorex had been so eager to shoot Jon down that he had not noticed till too late that Jon had dived below the horizon. Thus the ray had hit the asteroid itself. And like all other bodies in space, the asteroid had iron atoms in it.
Jon straightened up, steadied his ship, and set course for home. Then he aimed his radio beam for Earth.
“Attention, headquarters! Lt. Jon Jarl calling! Ignore ultimatum of Zan Kastorex. He and his asteroid just blew up. That is all. Signing off.”
TREASURE ON SATURN
Lt. Jon Jarl of the Space Patrol reported to Saturnian Headquarters on his routine tour of the planets. The Space Police Station was located on Titan, the largest of Saturn’s eleven moons.
“Yes, we have a case for you,” said the captain. “A prospector, Tim Allison, has been missing for a month. He went out among Saturn’s rings. See if you can locate him, Lieutenant.”
Jon was surprised. “What in the universe would a prospector be doing among Saturn’s rings?”
The captain smiled. “He had a crazy idea that he would find gold or diamonds there! You see, the rings of Saturn are composed of millions of tiny bodies, circling the planet. Most of them no bigger than rocks. Tim had the hunch that some of them might be lumps of pure gold, or even big jewels. So he went to look for them. A crackpot of course. He went to Sector B.”
Saluting, Jon Jarl left the station, checked his fuel, and then took off in his one-man rocketship. He set his course inward from Titan, to where the mother planet hung like a huge moon in space. An hour later, he reached the outer fringe of the rings and could see they were composed of a myriad of tiny whirling bodies.
Theory had it that the closest moon to Saturn had blown apart, through gravitational stress, and formed the rings. They were the dust and debris of a small world. Jon could see all sorts of strange bodies whirl by in their orbits—bits of petrified wood, black coal, even fossil bones. Mainly they were plain rocks, however. Still, could Tim Allison’s odd idea be right? Could lumps of valuable material also exist among the useless bits of an exploded world?
Reaching Sector B, Jon carefully threaded his way among the motes. Most of them were less than a few feet in diameter, but occasionally a huge one, big as a house, would flash by. It was dangerous work, avoiding collision, and Jon gave up hope for Tim Allison. Undoubtedly he had smashed into a big one and had been killed.
But Jon kept on searching, cruising slowly toward the inner edges of the rings. He was almost ready to turn back when he saw a small spaceship among the ring bodies. He had found the missing man!
As Jon drew near in his ship, he saw a peculiar thing. The prospector’s ship was chained to two lumps of gleaming white rock. And on one white rock sat the prospector in a spacesuit.
Jon braked his ship close donned his own spacesuit, and stepped out. Or rather, he shoved himself out, and according to the laws of motion in free space, he floated to the rock and grabbed a chain to stop himself. Then he switched on his helmet radio.
“Tim Allison?” he asked. “I was sent to locate you. Glad to find you alive.”
The face of the prospector, behind the glassine visor, had a strange exalted look. “I’m rich!” he yelled. “Rich as a king! Yayyyy, I’m rich, I tell you. Look at these rocks. They are…pure diamond!”
Jon gasped, looking down at the jagged surface on which he was standing with the prospector. He could see the prismatic glow of the stones, such as only a diamond could produce. It was true! It was a huge diamond, several feet in diameter. The largest diamond ever known in all history!
“I didn’t examine the other one yet,” chortled Tim Allison, “but it looks just like this one so I’m taking it back too. I can analyze it later.”
Jon floated across to the other diamond-appearing rock.
The prospector was raving in his excitement. “They took me for a crackpot when I said some of the ring bodies would be pure diamond or gold. Now who’s crazy? I’m rich.”
His voice suddenly changed, as he turned to Jon, glaring suspiciously. “You’ve come to rob me! I’ll—”
“Don’t be a fool,” snapped Jon. “Can’t you see my uniform? I’m a space cop. I was sent to find out why you didn’t return. What’s been keeping you?”
The prospector’s face fell and he waved dejectedly at his ship. “Ran out of fuel. I found the diamonds a week ago, and chained them up, ready to tow them in. Then I found my fuel tanks empty! Can you imagine how I’ve felt, sitting here for a week, rich as a king—but facing death?”
“It’s a wonder you didn’t go mad,” Jon agreed.
“But now you can tow me in,” returned the prospector joyfully. “My troubles are over.”
“Hmm, wait,” said Jon. “Pretty big load, your ship and two big rocks. I can tow your ship in all right, but you’ll have to leave the diamonds and pick them up later.”
“No!” Tim yelled. “I’d never find them again. I won’t leave my diamonds! No—no—no!”
At that moment, both of them saw a third ship approaching. It was a big space tug. Tim jumped up and waved his arms frantically. The tug saw and braked to a stop. Soon the captain came across in his spacesuit and stood on the rock with Jon.
“Just picked up a load of fruit on Saturn,” said the captain, “and was returning to Titan. I’m Captain Smollet. What’s the trouble here?”
Tim explained excitedly. “I found these two big diamon
ds! You can tow me in with your big ship!”
“Diamonds?” The captain was as shocked as Jon had been. And over his ruddy face Jon could see an avaricious gleam already spreading.
“Well, now, let’s make a fair bargain,” said the captain. “I’ll tow you in—for the price of one of these diamonds!”
“Robber!” Tim screeched the word and would have attacked the captain in rage if Jon hadn’t stopped him.
“Take it or leave it,” said the captain.
“Listen,” Tim pleaded. “I’ve been a prospector all my life, on Mars, Jupiter, and all the planets. I never struck it rich. Now when I do, you come along and want half of my bonanza. Please, can’t you lower your price?”
Captain Smollet laughed gratingly. “Those are my terms. I want one of the diamonds. I’ll give you ten seconds to answer, or else I leave!”
Jon choked down his own anger at the greedy captain. He scuffed with his metal-tipped toe at the diamond they stood on. Suddenly, he leaped over to the rock on which Tim was standing.
“Let him have it, Tim,” he said. “After all one diamond will make you plenty wealthy. Give him the other one—the one he’s standing on.
Tim finally agreed, reluctantly, and Smollet signaled his ship to throw out a tow line. In a short time, it was all done. Smollet had his diamond securely chained to his ship. A long towing cable led back to Tim’s ship and pulled him and his diamond along. Jon followed in his own ship back to Titan.
When the ships were all safely moored at the Titan docks, Smollet came out and strode with a satisfied smile to unchain his diamond.
Tim watched glumly. “Robber! Cheat! I should never have done it. I should have waited for another ship to come along.”
“What, and starve in the meantime?” said Jon. “No, you had to accept his stiff terms, Tim. But just watch what happens now!”
Captain Smollet began to unchain his diamond. Suddenly he stopped in dismay. The stone was melting! Drops of fluid trickled down its side and formed a puddle on the ground.
“W-what is this?” gasped Smollet. “This is no diamond!”
Jon strolled up, smiling. “Of course not, Smollet. It happens to be ice. Plain frozen water. You see, out in space, where it is frigidly cold, ice stays in its solid form. But as soon as you brought it down into this warm air, it melted.”
“I’ve been tricked,” roared Smollet. “I’ll take half of Allison’s diamond—”
“No you won’t,” said Jon firmly. “You asked for one diamond—and got it. It was up to you to examine it and find out if it was real or not. Ice has almost the same refractive index as diamond, and sparkles just like it. That’s what fooled you—and Allison, too. He hadn’t bothered to analyze it, either. You’ve been paid off, fair and square! And I’m the witness.”
Smollet stomped away mumbling curses. Jon turned to Tim.
“Don’t worry about your diamond. It won’t melt. It’s the real thing. But maybe you ought to thank Captain Smollet for the free tow, eh?”
HUMAN PETS OF NEPTUNE
The tiny rocketship of Lt. Jon Jarl of the Space Patrol sped away from Earth at 1,000 miles a second, its powerful motor droning like low thunder. Yet even at this stupendous velocity, it took him 60 hours to reach the planet Neptune, for it was almost three billion miles from the sun.
An exploring expedition of five men had gone to Neptune’s single moon a month before. Their radio reports had suddenly ceased. Headquarters had then given Lt. Jon Jarl the special commission of trying to locate the missing party, or learn what its fate had been.
Neptune’s moon was large, twice as large as Earth’s moon. Jon slanted his ship down, expecting to find a frozen, bitter world. But to his surprise, he saw wide areas of green vegetation and luxuriant forests, only lightly tufted with snow. No worse than Alaska on Earth. By all rights, so far from the sun, the world should have been frozen solid.
Jon quickly found the answer. Here and there he saw huge live volcanoes, pouring out their sprays of lava and tremendous volumes of heat. It was the inner heat of the satellite’s molten center that warmed the surface.
Jon knew the approximate latitude and longitude at which the explorers had landed. Navigating to the spot, he noticed what seemed to be a small city amid the forests. That was surprise number two. No one had ever suspected that a civilized race might be living on Neptune’s moon.
Landing his ship in a forest clearing, Jon stepped out in his parka, finding the temperature not much below zero, and the air thin but breathable. He hiked through the forest toward the community he had seen. Very likely it was the first thing the explorers had done, too. What had happened to them at the alien city? Had the unknown race been hostile?
A sound made him whirl, and he pulled his ray guns in a flash. Peering through the leaves of a nearby bush was a man! Or—was it a man? It was completely human in form, but wore only a girdle about its middle. It had wild, uncut hair down to its shoulders, and somehow, the eyes were fierce and untamed, like an animal’s.
Was it the native intelligent race of this world? Jon raised a hand in the universal gesture of peace and took one step forward, but the creature only growled. The next second it was gone, vanishing in the forest underbrush like a slinking wolf.
Jon was puzzled. The creature had been no more than a wild man, a beast in human form. Then who were the intelligent people living in the city?
He pressed on and soon came close to the outlying sections of the small city. The buildings were of stone, built like domes. He cautiously approached cautiously, and a third overwhelming surprise hit him. For the “people” he saw were animals! They seemed to be a cross between a bear and an ape, walking upright, and clad in finely-woven clothing. But they were shaggy and seemed totally out of place in a city.
Jon lost count of surprises when next he saw one of the bear-people with a leash, and attached to the leash was a human form, grinning foolishly and prancing along quite like a dog with its master.
“Some crazy world,” Jon muttered to himself. “The leading citizens are civilized animals, and they use human beings as pets!”
Jon was too occupied to notice the two bear-men who crept up silently behind him. In a second they grabbed his arms and held him imobile. He tried to pull his guns, but they adroitly snatched them away.
As they hustled him along, Jon realized he had been picked up by some “policemen” of this world…perhaps their version of dog catchers! No doubt they considered him a lost pet.
“Now wait a minute,” Jon remonstrated. “Let me explain who I am and where I came from. Don’t you understand me at all?”
The two bear-men grinned at each other, quite as if a talking. parrot had cackled something meaningless, and kept pulling him along. They brought him to a building with barred windows and thrust him inside. It was not a jail. It was a large cage!
In the cage were a dozen others of human form. Seven of them were like the wild brutes of the forest, but the other five rushed at Jon in welcome joy. They were the missing explorers.
“Another Earthman!” one bearded man yelled, gripping his hand.
“Professor Thorne?” Jon said to the leader of the men. “I’m Jon Jarl of the Space Patrol. I was sent to find you. I’ve found you all right—but what is this place?”
“A dog-pound!” growled Thorne. “That’s what it is. We’re kept in here like a bunch of stray dogs till someone comes to claim us. Of all the silly, ridiculous, humiliating—”
Jon could not help grinning as Thorne went on angrily. He had expected to find them in great danger, perhaps dead. But here they were, locked up in a cage like vagrants. It was almost funny.
The professor calmed down. “You see, on this world, the animals are the intelligent race. And the humans are dumb brutes. As soon as we fell into their hands, the bear-people clapped us in here, assuming we were the same.”
“Have you tried to communicate with them?” Jon asked. “They don’t know our language, of course, but couldn’t
you draw pictures or make signs or something, letting them know you’re as intelligent as they are?”
Thorne threw up his hands. “We tried till we were blue in the face. The keepers only smile at each other, as if amused by our antics, and pat our heads soothingly, and then walk out. I tell you. Lieutenant, it’s maddening! They rate us about like clever dogs.”
“It’s quite a trap,” Jon said, soberly. “And I’m in it too now. If we could only communicate with them—”
“The worst of it is, this Mental Telepathy Machine isn’t working.” Thorne held up a small box with dials on it. “It’s a new invention designed to translate any unknown language into thought waves, which are then converted into our language. And vice versa. If it were only working, it would translate our language into theirs. But the blasted thing won’t give out a peep.”
Jon took the little box curiously, about to examine it, when suddenly shouts came from the street outside. A bear-man keeper, outside their barred door, snatched up a weapon like a blunderbuss, and waited as if for attack.
It was an attack. A wild, yelling horde of the forest-men swarmed into the city, armed with crude clubs, battering down their hated enemy, the bear-people. Jon saw the attack from the window. Somehow, his sympathies were with the bear-people! Animals they might be, in outward form, but their minds were “human” whereas the forest-men had human form, but the savage ruthless hearts of beasts. It was a weird reversal of things.
The wave of attack swept close to the prison. Three forest-men attacked the cage keeper. Valiantly, he shot down two of them with his weapon, but the third forest-man brained him with his club, and ran on with a blood-curdling yell of triumph.
Jon hung the Mental Telepathy Machine on his belt and leaped forward. The keeper’s body had fallen against the bars. Jon reached out, got his key-ring, and unlocked the door. “Come on.” he yelled to the explorers. “We’re going to help these bear-people against the forest-brutes!”