The Space Opera Megapack: 20 Modern and Classic Science Fiction Tales

by John W. Campbell

  “How’s that, Pendris? Close enough?”

  Pendris grunted. He sat upright, his helmet enclosed by an enfolding mask, both hands thrust deep into the gloves of the waldo attachments.

  “Can you get it a bit closer?”

  Power thrummed as the ship edged forward. Nanset looked up from his dials.

  “We shouldn’t make actual contact,” he said. “The field is becoming unbalanced, the energies grounding from the area of contact.”

  “Can you compensate?”

  “I’m trying. For a time, yes, I think I can manage it. But be quick.”

  Pendris grunted again. “Quick? The damned thing’s covered with scrap. I’ll have to cut it free before we can hope to fasten the grapnels.”

  “Then get on with it!” Durgan was sharp, worried, on edge now that he had nothing to do. Now they had arrived, Pendris was the main factor. “Don’t waste time flapping your mouth!”

  “I’ll get you!” said Pendris. “When we get out of here, I swear that I’ll get you!”

  “Any time you fancy!” Durgan drew a shuddering breath. “Now get busy earning your pay!”

  On the screen, he could see the waldo attachments unfold from their housings, literal extensions of Pendris’s hands and arms, stretching, reaching, bright fire blazing as lasers cut through jagged pieces of metal. From the operator’s mask, Pendris’s voice came as a musing drone.

  “Tough. The damned thing is built like a safe. Solid metal strapped and reinforced like the vault of a bank. Lucky for us in a way, that’s why it stayed in one piece, but what the hell would they be carrying to take such precautions?”

  The lasers died, were replaced by mechanical claws that ripped the tattered remains from the bulk of the container. A hook caught in one of the openings, pulled, dropped free as it made no impression. Again Pendris tried to turn the container, to shift it from its bed. A third failure and he swore in savage irritation.

  “It’s too heavy! Those walls must be six inches thick! Why the hell didn’t Creech warn us?”

  “Maybe he didn’t know.” Durgan leaned closer to the screen. As the container was situated, it was impossible to weld grapnels and hope to lift it from the planet. The strain would be too great. “Maybe I can use the ship to turn it. Lift your waldos and I’ll try.”

  Nanset warned, “I’m getting close to maximum output.”

  “Keep a five percent safety margin,” said Durgan “When you reach it, let me know.”

  As the waldos lifted from the container, he fed power to the jets, inching forward, using the bulk of the vessel to ram against the container. For a moment it resisted, then suddenly gave. Durgan edged back and turned from the controls.

  “All right, Pendris Try again.”

  Once more the mechanical attachments clawed at the misshapen bulk. Pendris’s drone was a mutter of rising frustration.

  “It’s no good. The thing is too damaged and too heavy. Maybe if I cut away the metal it might be possible to weld some grapnels to the interior.”

  Durgan said, “Can’t you fix holding straps around the outside?”

  “No. I can’t manipulate it. If we try hooking direct to the box, its own weight will tear it free before we’ve lifted a dozen miles. The entire thing is busted all to hell.”

  The hooks lifted and were replaced by the lasers. Sparks flew and molten droplets ran from yielding metal as the torches cut into the thick walls of the container. Pendris was an expert at his job. The searing beams answered to his expert manipulation, cutting just deep enough, flaring at carefully determined angles, dying before they could burn the interior. Again the hooks swung down, gripped lifted and tore the top of the box completely free.

  From the interior of the container rose a cloud of vivid green vapor.

  It spread, pluming, fanning as it rose, clinging to the waldo attachments, condensing into a nimbus of darkening emerald.

  Pendris swore in sudden anger.

  “What the hell? The damn waldos don’t respond!”

  The gas lifted again, thinning, coiling as it hovered over the opened container. It hung for a moment like a cloud and then moved again to settle beside the vessel.

  “A chemical reaction,” said Nanset. “It has to be. The heat of the lasers triggered off a progressive interaction probably converting crystals into gases and ending with a stable compound.”

  “Nice,” sneered Pendris. His hands worked for a moment within the gloves then he turned from the mask, his face sweating behind the faceplate of his helmet. “And what of the attachments?”

  “They are activated by a series of interacting magnetic fields. It is possible that the gas has somehow neutralized the components.” The engineer spoke as if he were addressing a classroom of students. “The thing is theoretically possible. An energized gas can be artificially generated down here. With the extreme pressure and alien chemistry, it could happen naturally.”

  Durgan didn’t join the discussion. He looked at the screens, at the exposed interior of the cargo container The thing had been built to withstand any conceivable emergency. The exterior walls were merely the outer casing. Within, suspended on a mesh of springs and insulating baffles, hung a smaller box. Distorted, torn, but still in one piece. Inside would rest the shedeena crystals.

  The largest fortune a man could hope to gain. Within sight. Within reach, almost, but with the waldos inoperative there was only one way it could be secured. This force field,” said Durgan thickly. “Can it be applied to a suit?”

  It was a gambler’s throw with a fortune as the prize and a life as the stake, and only a trickle of current providing the chance of success. If it should falter, the potential fail, a wire break—then death would be instantaneous.

  Durgan tried not to think about it. He moved his left leg, the power-units of the suit accentuating his motion, enhancing his muscular power so that the limb moved, the foot lifted, fell with abrupt savageness beneath the clawing drag of a gravity which more than doubled his weight.

  Beneath his boots the surface was rough, scored by the winds which tore past in a droning whine, pushing with savage intent.

  Stooped over the cargo container, Pendris lifted a wrapped slug of the precious crystals, using both hands, turning so as to allow Durgan to grip it with his left hand, pass it to where Nanset stood before the ship’s open doors.

  Light streamed from the interior, a warm, comforting glow, throwing distorted shadows over the eerie configurations of the Jovian landscape. More shadows moved as, far to one side, a gust of ruby flame stabbed through the darkness. Closer, from where the ruby stream fell from the crest to the pool of bubbling crimson, a dull glow shone, reflecting from the hull of the vessel, painting it with the uneasy color of blood.

  Pendris’s voice was harsh in the confines of the helmet.

  “Awkward,” he muttered. “I’ve got to stoop right over. Some of the wrappings are torn and there’s more of that damned green gas.”

  A ball of it rose with him as he painfully straightened, clinging to the end of a slug, rising to wreath his suited arms. Mechanically Durgan took it, turned, passed it to Nanset. In a glowing pool at the side of the ship, the green vapor that had streamed from the opened container rested like a smoky cloud of emerald. It seemed unaffected by the wind, streamers reaching to both ship and ground as if it clung with deliberate intent.

  “Hurry,” said Nanset. “I can’t trust the generator to compensate on automatic for too long. Hurry!”

  His voice shook a little, and Durgan could understand his fear. He felt it himself. The unimaginable tons of pressure all around, the crushing force held back only by the magic of the force field. It revealed itself as a blue shimmer around the suits so that each man moved in a halo of nebulous light.

  “Here!” Pendris held out yet another slug. “The damned stuff’s getting harder to reach. It’s padded all to hell.” His breath sucked between his lips. “Money,” he breathed. “A mansion on the Himalayas. Another at Polar North. Fine f
oods, women, the best of wine. My own ship, maybe!”

  The lure that made them agree to take the insane gamble. Durgan had told them what the container held, dangling the bait of incredible wealth before their eyes, forcing the engineer to adapt his field to guard the suits. What did Nanset want, he wondered. A school of his own? A complete laboratory with money enough to staff it with the best brains available? A converted ship to plumb the secrets of Uranus?

  Mechanically, he passed on the slug.

  The wind gusted, suddenly slamming with increased force against the ship, the men, the open container of the precious crystals. The ground shook a little, a low rumble echoing through the helmets as the suits carried the grinding vibrations. Orange flame lifted to one side, interspersed with shafts of vivid blue, and the droning wind carried specks of dancing green. They swirled like snowflakes, like scraps of wispy cloud, meeting, uniting, growing into streamers of coiling vapor which clung to the suited figures, fogging the faceplates with emerald dazzle, passing to hang like gossamer from the ship and container.

  Nanset’s voice was a ragged whisper. “I don’t like this. There’s something strange down here, something terrifying. I get the impression that something is watching us.”

  “Shut up!” snapped Durgan. “There’s nothing down here but gas and pressure.”

  “There could be life,” insisted the engineer. “How do we know there isn’t? The temperature is high enough for an ammonia-based metabolism. I—”

  “Shut up and keep working!” Pendris snarled with impatience, fear edging his words. “Time for thinking is when we get out of here. Now move! Damn you, move!”

  A blue ghost, he lifted another slug, passed it to Durgan, who took it and handed it to the engineer. Nanset was clumsy. He stumbled and the slug fell from his hands into the pool of green vapor that clung stubbornly to the side of the vessel. He stopped to recover it, his hands plunging into the enigmatic mist. And vanished.

  He disappeared like the flame of a blown-out candle. One second he was a blue-lined figure stooping, his arms wreathed with green. And then, instantly, there was nothing.

  Nothing but a metallic smear edge with red, a paste of flesh and blood and bone, an ooze of organic and inorganic compounds from which trailed the wire which had fed his force field.

  “God!” Pendris’s voice echoed his terror. “What happened?”

  “His field collapsed.” Durgan fought his rising terror as he stood, afraid to move, afraid even to breathe for fear that any movement, no matter how slight, would send him after the engineer.

  “His field—we’ve got to get out of here!”

  Pendris turned from where he stood and began to move towards the open port of the vessel. Over the radio, his breathing was harsh, ragged, the sound of a man on the edge of panic. Durgan caught his arm as he drew level.

  “Wait!”

  “Let me go! For God’s sake, man! Let’s get out of here!”

  “Watch your feet! Break the wire and you’ll die. Move carefully. If you fall, who knows what might happen?” Durgan swallowed, hating the dryness of his mouth, the fear that sent sweat oozing from every pore. “Be careful, damn you! For God’s sake, go easy!”

  Carefully he edged towards the open port, moving in inches, dying a hundred deaths at each tiny step. Always there had been the danger, but now it had become horribly real. He had seen what the pressure could do, had actually seen it. Nanset had died before his very eyes!

  He reached the edge of the port, climbed in, moved through the air lock and into the cabin. With exaggerated care, he moved to the pilot’s couch and called soft orders.

  “Make sure that both wires are well within the cabin. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “Then hit your couch. Fasten restraints. Right?”

  Again Pendris said, “Right.”

  Durgan moved his hands. The outer door swung shut, sealing the hull. The inner door followed to seal the cabin. The engines woke to life, the roar of power drumming with heavy vibrations through the vessel. On the screen, the blast looked like a sword of impossibly brilliant flame.

  Praying, his mouth filled with the taste of blood from his bitten lips, Durgan sent the ship streaking upwards from the Jovian terrain.

  “Sheila to Brad. Come in Brad. Sheila to Brad. Come in Brad. Answer please. Answer, damn you! Sheila to Brad.”

  “Are you going to answer?” Pendris had caught the voice over the intersuit radio. His own was suggestive. “You don’t have to. For all they know we died down there with Nanset.”

  “Watch your pressures!” Durgan concentrated on the instruments, the red hand of the gauge. He had relaxed a little now that they had risen well into the atmosphere, passing the danger point, the engines thrusting them even higher towards the empty cleanliness of space.

  “Pressure compensated.” Pendris operated his valves. “We won’t explode. We can cut the field now and maybe get out of these damned suits.”

  “Not yet.”

  “Hell, why not? We’re high enough for the hull to take normal pressure. “We’ve got solid oxygen in the tanks and all we need do is warm it and clear the cabin of accumulated gas. I’m sore,” he complained. “And I itch like the devil. That ride up wasn’t easy.”

  He hadn’t known the half of it, his inexperience saving him from the worst. A man couldn’t fear what he didn’t know, but Durgan had known all too well. He had ridden on his nerves, eyes strained as they checked the instruments, imagination cringing as he visualized what could so easily happen. A flaw, a single fragment of metal crystallizing beneath the pressure and vibration, anything and they would have joined the engineer in instantaneous extinction.

  Now he rode the winds like an artificial bird, rising higher with each passing second, his relief an intoxication.

  “Sheila to Brad. Come in Brad. For God’s sake answer, damn you! Sheila to Brad. Come in Brad.”

  “They’re hungry,” said Pendris. “Eager for the loot.” His voice carried his disgust. “A lousy five million. That’s all they wanted to pay for the price of a world. To hell with them!”

  The ship bucked a little. Durgan steadied it and said, “You’ve got ideas?”

  “Maybe.” Pendris was cautious. “You going to clear the cabin? Give us some clear air to breathe?”

  Durgan reached out and threw a couple of switches.

  Heating coils would vaporise the stored blocks of solid oxygen. He would flush the cabin when the pressure grew high enough and when they had reached near-space. Then more blocks would provide a breathable atmosphere.

  “Give it some time,” he said. “These ideas of yours—what have you in mind?”

  “You need me to spell it out? Hell, Durgan, you’re no fool, you can recognize the big time when you see it.” Pendris was eager. “That stuff we collected is worth how much? Sold legitimate, a real bundle—and sold under the counter, a damn sight more. The combines alone would give us more than what Creech promised. And how do you know that he’ll delíver? We’ve done the job, and he won’t need us any more. A couple of shots and he’s saved a bundle. The girl, too—she won’t be needed, either. We do the dirty work and Creeeh gets all the reward.”

  “We made a deal,” said Durgan flatly.

  “Sure we did—and it was completed when the waldos failed. From then on we were working for ourselves. Why else do you think we agreed to take that kind of a risk? You didn’t spell it out, Durgan, but you didn’t have to. The stuff’s ours any way you want to look at it. We sweated for it, and Nanset died getting it. I don’t figure on letting it go.”

  “No,” said Durgan. “I didn’t think you would.”

  A lamp flashed on the panel. There was the thin whine of escaping air. On the screens, the clouds suddenly thinned to wisps of vapor, fell as the ship continued to climb, merged with the misty ball of Jupiter. On a close orbit, the ship swung over the mighty planet, building velocity so as to spiral from the savage tug of the gravity well.

  “We’
ll be able to breathe soon,” said Pendris. “Real air instead of this regenerated stink. What do you say, Durgan?”

  “I’m thinking about it.”

  “What’s there to think about? We’ve got our hands on the jackpot, and all we need to do is to hang on to it. Creech? He can be taken care of. The girl? She’s yours if you want her. I’ve a couple of contacts who can handle the sale and pay cash on the nail.”

  The lamp flashed again, and a needle rose on a dial. Pendris grunted and lifted his hands to his faceplate. A gush of vapor came from within the suit as it opened, air heated by his own body-temperature, loaded with the moisture from his sweat.

  Painfully he released the couch-restraints and swung his legs to the floor of the cabin. Moving awkwardly, he began to divest himself of the cumbersome suit.

  “I can’t manage,” he said. “Durgan, help me get out of this thing and I’ll do the same for you.”

  Durgan turned. Pendris looked a wreck. Blood seeped from raw patches on his hands and wrists, more from the side of his jaw. His face was red, lined with strain and fatigue, his eyes bloodshot, red-rimmed and angry.

  Durgan was in no better condition. He felt gritty and knew he stank. He needed a long, hot bath, a massage and about twenty hours sleep.

  He flipped the catches on Pendris’s suit, then returned to the controls. Pendris moved to the back of the cabin where the salvaged cargo was stored. The man was clearly excited, eager to see what they had won.

  “What do you think, Durgan? Should we rendezvous with Creech and take care of him? We could use his ship, and he has the girl. Or maybe it would be better to let them both think we died trying.” He laughed, a hoarse chuckle rasping from his sore lips. “Died! We damn near did at that. But it was worth it. Man! How it was worth it! When I think of all the things this stuff can buy—” His voice broke. “Durgan!”