Battle on Mercury

by Lester del Rey (as Erik van Lhin)

  “Okay,” Rogers’ voice answered wearily. “Go ahead with repairs. Not that it matters much, I guess.”

  He snapped back to the private radio channel and jerked a thumb. Dick switched back at his signal.

  At the first word, Dick knew that it was the Chief Engineer speaking to him, rather than his father.

  “You can turn in your key at the locker room, Dick, and pick up your belongings,” Rogers said without a sign of emotion. “You won’t need them here. In fact, from now on, the mine’s out of bounds for you. Take the rest of the week off, and start work in hydroponics Monday. That’s all!”

  He swung on his heel and started up the tunnel, his helmet torch cutting a thin slice of fight as he moved away. Dick dropped back onto the stool, swallowing painfully. He’d had it coming, he knew; but it didn’t make it any easier to take. His throat ached and his eyes were burning. With a jerk, he cut off his helmet light and hunched over in the darkness, his shoulders heaving.

  Blue-white light suddenly hit his eyes, and he looked up to see Johnny come darting down the tunnel. It stopped, then sped back, to return again, teasing him to follow.

  “Johnny, you …!” Dick began thickly, but there were no words to fit his feelings. His hand jumped toward the blaster at his hip, and he yanked it out. Johnny immediately darted to the box, shrinking to a tiny ball, and began sliding through the plastic wall until he was gone from sight. Dick started forward. Then he dropped the gun slowly back into its holster! He couldn’t even make himself shoot the little wispy, he thought bitterly. He was just a kid playing with pets, unable to act like a man. He didn’t belong in the mines.

  Half an hour later he stood outside in the glaring red, yellow, and brown of Mercury’s surface. He looked back at the little dome that marked the entrance to the mine and again he swallowed thickly. It didn’t look like much—just a half-sphere of silicone plastic, covered with a film of aluminum that was shiny bright here where no air could corrode it. It served to reflect most of the glare of the sun and also to keep out the wispies, since the metal film was grounded.

  A mile away lay Sigma, the larger dome where they lived. It had been built over the first mine, until that vein had been exhausted. Then there had been talk of building a tunnel to the new mine, but nothing had come of it. Dick headed for the big dome and began walking slowly toward it. He might as well get used to it, since he’d be a farmer there the rest of his life!

  The cooling unit in his suit mumbled dully, and the air from his tank sighed slowly as he breathed. He wouldn’t be any ordinary tank farmer, even— he’d be the black sheep of the whole dome, thanks to Johnny Quicksilver.

  A heavier suit-sleeve reached over his shoulder and cut on his radio. “Not supposed to be out here without that on, Dick,” his father said, as the older man fell into step beside him. “We’re quitting for the day, and I’ve been calling you five minutes. Sore at me?”

  Dick shook his head, not trusting his voice.

  “I had a dog once, back on Earth,” Rogers told him. “Crazy fool dog that got vicious when he was old. I got into plenty of trouble over him. Got your pet with you?”

  “You’re not going to shoot him, are you?” Dick asked quickly.

  Rogers shook his head. “No—I don’t want you feeling the way I felt when they shot my dog. Just get rid of him. And no more fooling with him, Dick. When a thing gets dangerous, it stops being a pet.” Dick called uncertainly, but this time Johnny obeyed, slipping through the plastic and leaping out. The wispy bobbed up and down, and immediately began his teasing efforts to get Dick to chase him. The boy walked along numbly, until the spook finally gave up and went scooting off over the horizon at better than a thousand miles an hour.

  “Good riddance,” Rogers said. “He could have ruined the whole mine. We’ll probably have to shut down, anyhow.”

  Dick jerked his eyes up to his father’s. He’d known there was trouble, but nothing that bad. In his whole life the mines had never been shut down, except once when the sun broke out in a major storm that lashed Mercury with wild radiation. Then the miners had all been driven back to the twilight belt for safety. Four of the domes had been ruined permanently.

  “Storm coming,” his father confirmed his guess, looking up at the sun, where the flames leaped out from its surface and spots showed clearly on its face. “Might not be too bad, if we had supplies to weather it out. But the supply rocket was due two days ago, and we don’t know what happened to it. We’re too short for an emergency, so I guess we’ll have to close down in a couple of days, unless another rocket comes. Better not tell your mother about this.”

  It was the last sentence that told Dick how serious things really were. With supplies low and the dome subject to a first-rate solar storm …

  “We’ll make out,” he said quickly. But seeing his fathers grim face, he wasn’t so sure of it.

  Chapter 2 New Life for Pete

  Dick discovered the next morning that there was no use in not telling his mother. After all her ” years on Mercury, she had guessed at once the reason for the worry of the miners. And it was impossible to hide the fact that the ship hadn’t come with the supplies.

  But Dick’s younger sister, Ellen, was still running around happily, not worrying about anything as long as the school was closed. He came down late to find her all set for him.

  “Dickie lost his job! Dickie lost his job!” Her voice was shrill, and she seemed to like it that way. “Dickie . .

  Dick’s mother had come up behind her. “All right, Ellen, I told you to behave. For that, you can wash the dishes and go to the store! Now get along with you. Dick, your breakfast’s on the table.”

  But the damage was done. His mother sat with him, trying to conceal her worry and to pretend that everything was as it should be. But there was no way to make him forget all that had happened the day before.

  Finally he got up, almost wishing he were starting at hydroponics that morning. At least it would give him something to do. With seven hundred people in the dome of Sigma, there was no chance that the news hadn’t spread to everyone. He thought about applying early at the tank farm, but he did not want to see people yet.

  Dick moped around another half-hour, until he finally began to feel that the little apartment was a trap, filled with his mother’s worry and the sneering face of his sister. He picked up his spacesuit and went out through the door, trying to look as if he had important business.

  It wasn’t until he was halfway to the outer lock of the dome that he remembered Pete. Then his steps quickened, and he began to forget the worst of his misery.

  Pete was the first robot ever shipped to Sigma dome. He was an old-model robot, originally meant for housework on Earth, but converted to stand the heat here. His body was entirely of silicone plastic, which made him fairly light, but which also had proved too weak for the constant pressure at the mine. Finally, he’d been turned over to hydroponics, where he’d spent a great number of years. Eight months before, he’d failed for the last time. The repair crew admitted that they couldn’t fix him, and that they didn’t even understand some of his circuits, since he was such an old model.

  Dick had found him in the discard and had rescued him. At his request, the robot had become his, to do with as he liked. For months he had spent his spare time working on it.

  He put on his spacesuit at the lock and went out, being careful to let them know where he was going, so nobody would remind him that he couldn’t go to the mine. Pete was stored in the “out” shed, where much of the repair work was done. It was a simple open pit, covered with a reflecting roof, built just outside the dome. There, without air, repair work of delicate machines was much easier. A vacuum tube could be opened and repaired, then the glass sealed again. And tricky soldering was easier where there was no oxygen to corrode the metal.

  This morning there was no one else working there, and Dick was relieved by that. He was out of view of everyone, though the watchman sometimes wandered over to make sure
no wispies were coming too close to the dome.

  Pete lay as Dick had left him, with his whole chest off and the delicate wiring inside exposed. He looked like a complete mess, partly because his normal condition was almost human. Unlike the new mining robots, he had only two legs and could have been mistaken for a man at a distance.

  Actually, Dick felt that Pete was almost repaired. There had been a few old books that helped, and Dick had been able to puzzle out most of the trouble with him. He had a natural flair for mechanics and electronics, and had begun to make sense of all the circuits. There hadn’t been anything too badly wrong with the robot except that his insulation had begun to break down, and some of the little resistors were burned out.

  Dick began working on Pete, delicately wiring in the new parts he had bought with his working money and trying to test the operation with a small meter. Nobody on Mercury had a private robot— and if he could take one home to his mother, she’d be the most envied woman on the planet. Besides, a robot would be as good a pet as Johnny Quicksilver.

  There was a sudden burst of static in Dick’s earphones as he thought of the creature, and he turned around to find the wispy at his shoulder, as if trying to see what he was doing. It may have been waiting for minutes or have just arrived. But Dick wondered for the hundredth time whether it could read his mind.

  “Johnny, you’ve got to stay away ..Dick began. But a sudden glowing spot on the ground beyond interrupted him. He ducked quickly, while Johnny suddenly went scooting off. It had been an ion beam from a blaster, and that wasn’t good medicine for men or spooks.

  The watchman came thundering up and then gulped noisily into his radio. “Dick—I never saw you! Hey, did I crisp you? Saw a blamed wispy and took a shot at it! Uh, good thing I missed.”

  Dick got up furiously. Old Manny was getting too old for his post if he went around firing first and then looking. But the old man had already cut off his radio and was legging it around the dome, where Johnny had gone, his gun again making sharp bursts against the dome.

  Johnny was back beside Dick, almost at once, dancing even more excitedly.

  “Okay, have your fun,” Dick told him. “Go ahead and play. You’ll find it unhealthy around here now. After what you did yesterday, being my pet wont save you. They’re after you!”

  Johnny bobbed about and then began teasing again. But Dick turned his head away. He’d been disappointed in the wispy, who knew better than to tackle machinery. And he wasn’t going to reward it by giving in to its ideas now. Johnny continued to try for a few minutes more, and then came over to rest disconsolately by Dick’s shoulder and hover over the robot.

  The job was nearly finished now. Dick had done all he could to it, and it should be in working order. It might not work quite as it had done when new of course, but it should be good enough. He screwed the plastic cover back on to its chest and threw in the power switch.

  Johnny darted down against Pete, cautiously testing for metal which might be dangerously grounded. Finding none, he sank part way into Pete’s chest and then rose up to the solid head of the robot, added for ornamental purposes only. Johnny seemed to like to work his way through anything that was a good insulator.

  Pete twitched and squirmed. He bent his knees awkwardly, and suddenly doubled in the middle. A squawking sound came from his mouth, and his head twisted crazily. Johnny jumped out in apparent surprise and then back in quickly.

  “Pete,” Dick called over the radio, as quickly as he could set it to the robot frequency. “Pete, this is your new master, Dick. Stop that, and get up.”

  “Yes, master Dick,” the robot answered dutifully.

  Its speech had been the part that Dick had been most doubtful of, but obviously that worked properly. Yet the robot went on writhing and twisting. Then, very slowly, it began to get to its feet! Johnny had sunk entirely inside it now, and Dick had a strong suspicion that the trouble was coming from him.

  “Come out of there, Johnny. If you ruin Pete, 111 turn you over to the watchman,” he warned.

  Johnny slipped out. As he left the robot’s body, Pete suddenly straightened and turned about firmly. He faced Dick, and waited, the picture of the proper behavior of a house robot.

  Johnny obviously had been doing things to Pete, but he hadn’t harmed the robot, Dick decided. Maybe this was fun to the wispy. He could probably trigger the little relays inside the robot with his own electrical energy, and make the body move about in ways that Pete’s not-too-intelligent mind couldn’t stop.

  “Go to sleep, Pete,” Dick said. The old robots had a device for cutting off their limited thinking, just as a man might sleep, but still leaving their bodies ready for emergencies.

  Almost instantly, Johnny darted back into Pete s body, until he was completely invisible.

  This time Pete wobbled only a little. He took two steps away from Dick, turned again, and began beckoning with one hand. As the action became smoother, it took on a note of real urgency.

  In spite of himself, Dick was impressed. The wispy had been acting oddly for two days now— but this motion was unmistakable, if it meant what it would mean from a normal robot. “Something important, Johnny?” he asked doubtfully.

  The robot head nodded quickly and emphatically. Again the gesture to follow was repeated.

  Dick considered it doubtfully. There were legends that the wispies sometimes had led a prospector to a good strike, but there were other stories of how they lured a man out into the hotlands where others of their own kind could fall on him. Dick was pretty sure that Johnny liked him—but still …

  Dick swayed doubtfully, until the robot apparently got tired of waiting—or Johnny inside him did. The black silicone body turned more surely this time and began walking away. After a few feet it started off at a run.

  Dick jumped out after it. “Johnny, come back here! Don’t you go running off with my robot. Come back here!”

  In answer, there was a glow around the robot’s head, as if Johnny had let himself swell up a little and project outside. But the feet moved on, even faster.

  Dick gave in. “Okay, you will-o’-the-wisp, if I agree to come with you, will you wait for me?”

  It seemed to be the right idea. Almost instantly, the glow disappeared, and the robot stopped, waiting until Dick could catch up with it. Then, at a more sedate speed, just fast enough to keep Dick working hard to follow, it turned out across the hotlands.

  This was a fine business, Dick decided. If his father knew what he was doing, he would really catch it. Yet he couldn’t let all his months of work on the robot go to waste. And Johnny was driving it along just out of his reach, where there was no chance of his reaching the little shut-off lever.

  He glanced down at his air supply and figured carefully. He had a full day’s ration on him. If the robot didn’t go too far, no harm would be done. And his suit was made with a metal outer covering, down to his feet, which were solidly on the ground. He wouldn’t be in too much trouble from other wispies, at least. But he didn’t like the idea of having to walk half a day, and maybe turn around then to go back without the robot. He wished he could trust Johnny better.

  They came to a big pool of liquid bronze—lead and tin mixed. Immediately the robot turned aside and began skirting around it, though the depth couldn’t have been too great for it. Dick grunted in surprise. Johnny had learned a lot about people; he seemed to know that wading through the hot metal put too much of a strain on a man’s cooling system, and was setting the path accordingly.

  When he came right down to it, Dick had to admit that the wispy obviously knew a lot more about him than he did about it. And right now he could have used a little more knowledge. He was getting more worried with each step, now that the dome was lost to sight.

  One more mile, he promised himself. Then, if Johnny wouldn’t return the robot, he’d just have to forget it.

  At the end of the mile, though, Johnny was closer than before, seeming at times to be within reach. Dick kept trying to su
rprise him, and to bound within reach of the power switch. Johnny managed to avoid him, each time, but it was close enough that Dick felt sure it was only a matter of time until the robot missed.

  They came down a ravine of rocky stuff, where there was very little metal. Here Dick hesitated.

  On that he’d be pretty well insulated, and it might be safe for spooks to attack him. He had his blaster with him, but if they ganged up on him, he wouldn’t be able to take care of all of them quickly enough.

  They were almost through, though, when another wispy appeared. It came hurtling from the north at full speed, jerking to a stop over the robot before Dick could draw his blaster. The glow spread out from Pete’s head again, as Johnny came out of the shell. Dick hesitated, seeing no further sign of hostility, but not knowing what to expect.

  For a second, the new wispy touched the edge of the glow that was Johnny. Then it jerked off north again. Johnny retreated into Pete, and the arm of the robot beckoned Dick along more compellingly than before. Pete’s legs stepped along faster, too, trying to draw Dick to a higher speed.

  He thought of a whole host of dangers, and yet he was curious. It might have been a wispy signaling that there was to be an ambush for Dick further on. But it might have been anything else, just as easily. And the fact that he had been allowed to pass through the danger spot unharmed made Dick doubt that he had anything further to fear. Still, he couldn’t go much further before it became wiser to return. He still had more than enough air, but on Mercury it didn’t pay to take chances.