Tommy Strike grinned wryly. “You know the answer, kitten—”
“Don’t call me kitten!”
“Cat,” Tommy amended. “The Ark is absolutely out of the picture. Every motor in her hull’s been torn completely apart, for checking over. She won’t be going anywhere for a long, long time . . . And, by the way, I can see you’re in an evil temper.”
“I’m not!”
“So let me warn you not to take it out on me, because I’m not feeling very gay myself. On the slightest provocation, I’m going to turn you over my knee and give you a whaling.”
Gerry glanced keenly at the usually easygoing Tommy, and decided that he meant what he said. She knew her master’s voice when it took that tone. She smiled ruefully, and turned as the door opened once more.
A SMALL man, with a face like a pallid prune, came in. Spectacles glinted perkily from amid the wrinkles. A badly fitting toupee was askew on the head of Professor Langley of the Mount Everest Observatory.
“Um, Miss Carlyle,” said Langley, in a squeaky voice. “I have collected the data you desired.” He referred to a scrap of paper clutched in one hand, and began to read in a swift, monotonous voice. “Almussen’s Comet is one of the largest ever to enter the Solar System. Its nucleus is eight thousand miles, almost as large as that of Donati’s Comet of Eighteen fifty-eight. And it seems to be much denser, probably dense enough to support the weight of a human being.”
“Tommy!” Gerry’s eyes were alight with excitement. “Do you hear?”
Strike nodded slowly, frowning. He realized that this information only made it harder for Gerry, because she couldn’t take advantage of it.
“Um—The nucleus is not quite as large as our own Moon. The comet seems to Be one of the long period comets, or perhaps a wanderer of space, not a part of our System at all. In other words”—even Langley’s cold voice was pained—“we shall never see its return in our lifetimes.”
Gerry chewed her lip. Strike glanced at her and then quickly looked away.
“Cyanogen is present in great quantities, also sodium, common metals, such as iron and bauxite, and the hydrocarbons.”
“Hydrocarbons!” Gerry said. “That may mean—life!”
Langley knitted his brows. “On a comet? Rather fantastic. Miss Carlyle.”
“I’ve run across life-forms existing in much less probable conditions,” the girl said stubbornly.
“And how would you reach the comet?” Langley asked.
“How do you suppose?” Gerry asked defiantly. “Crawl on my hands and knees?” But her voice was bitter—hurt and bewildered by her helplessness.
CHAPTER II
Gerry Takes Dictation
LANGLEY permitted himself the luxury of a faint smile.
“It would take a specially equipped ship. Comets don’t only shine by reflected light. The Sun’s light and electron streams also excite their tenuous gases. But more important, they are electrically charged. You must have protection against the electronic bombardment of the coma—which is much larger than the nucleus. A head may be from eighteen thousand to a million, nine hundred thousand miles in diameter, while the nucleus is from four hundred forty yards to eight thousand miles. It would be like entering the Sun’s chromosphere.”
“Not quite,” Gerry said thoughtfully. “It could be done. Am I right?”
The professor pondered. “Yes,” he admitted at last. “It might be done. And there might be life on the comet. But if so, it would be so utterly alien, that it would be incomprehensible to a human being.”
“What a scoop!” Gerry murmured ecstatically.
Repelled by this unscientific demonstration, Langley withdrew, ostentatiously shutting the door behind him. The girl turned to Strike.
“I know,” he said. “It’s tough. Not a ship in the System—” He stopped suddenly.
“No,” Gerry sighed defeatedly. “Nothing. And no time to prepare one. Not a crate that would take us to the comet.”
“Mm-m.” Strike unpocketed a battered pipe and sucked at it, an enigmatic expression on his space-tanned face.
For a moment there was silence, while Gerry leaned back to scrutinize her man.
“Why the reticence?” she asked.
“Well, as a matter of fact there is a big ship being prepared to tackle the comet. I heard of it in a roundabout way. Supposed to be kept secret till the takeoff. Then there’ll be a great fanfare of publicity.”
Gerry clutched Strike’s shoulders.
“Why, you—Why didn’t you say so before? Who’s handling it? I’ll get in touch with ’em right away . . .”
She paused. Tommy had mentioned a fanfare of publicity. He had been reluctant to broach the matter at all. Was it—A horrible suspicion seeped into her mind.
“Good Lord!” she cried. “Don’t tell me Nine Planets Pictures is disrupting my life again!”
TOMMY STRIKE stood up, balancing on his feet as if ready to duck.
“Now look, kitten. There’s no use losing your temper.”
‘‘Well, blast me,” was all Gerry said. But she made it sound like a searing oath.
“In fact, it might be a good idea to swallow your pride and make a deal with ’em. It’s your only chance.”
“Oh, is that so?” Gerry snapped. “Hollywood on the Moon! Nine Planets Films, Incorporated. The biggest bunch of crooked fakers in the System. They duplicate the life-forms I’ve captured at the risk of my life—Venusian whips, Jovian thunder-dragons. And how do they do it? They make cheap robots. Radio-controlled robots at that. That’s what gets in my hair, Tommy. I take all the risks, and they grab the credit and the cash.”
“They make good pictures,” Strike said. That was a tactical mistake.
“Good?” Gerry almost shrilled. “Corny, you mean. You can’t duplicate life-forms even with biologically created robots. But the public goes to Nine Planets’ pictures and stays away from the London Zoo. Do you think that’s fair?”
“Oh, well,” Strike soothed, “this Quade, the guy who’s in charge isn’t such a bad egg. from all I hear. He ought to be willing to give us a lift. After all, you saved Nine Planets’ whole works up on the Moon six months ago.”
“Quade? Their ace trouble-shooter? The man who doublecrossed me by taking newsreel shots when I wasn’t looking?” Gerry looked ready to explode. But, suddenly and inexplicably, she quieted. A gleam came into her eye.
“I see,” she went on, after a pause. “Maybe you’re right. Quade ought to be willing to give us a lift. And if he does—If I once get on that comet—” Gerry’s smile became sweetly ferocious. “Mr. Quade will find out just what it means to be doublecrossed.” Strike’s jaw dropped. “Lord help Quade!” he whispered under his breath. “Lord help him!”
ONE day later, Gerry reached the Moon.
She came unheralded, bursting upon the horizon of Nine Planets like a nova. Nobody was expecting her, and Tony Quade with his boss, Von Zorn, lolled unsuspectingly in a Turkish bath on Lunar Boulevard.
These establishments flourished in Hollywood on the Moon. The gay night-life of the pleasure city produced innumerable hangovers. Great gambling ships hanging out in space, hundreds of clubs for dancing, dining and wining, the famous Silver Space Suit—“Eat with the Stars”—all gave plenty of opportunity for inviting terrific headaches. Yet everybody in the System wanted to visit Hollywood on the Moon, the most glamorous, fascinating, incredible city ever built.
It lay on the other side of the Moon, away from Earth, in a vast hollow that volcanic activity had blasted out eons before. There, nestled under the Great Rim, glowed and sparkled Hollywood on the Moon, Mecca of the Movie Makers. It had the advantages of a perfect artificial atmosphere and climate, which therefore made it vacation-land for the elite and the socialite. For the studio men, it was a place of arduous, grueling, but utterly interesting work.
Here Nine Planets Films, Inc., had its headquarters. Here the interplanetary sagas were plotted and planned by ingenious script writers. He
re the technical experts consulted, the experimental labs created robot-life forms and artificial other-worldly conditions—And here Von Zorn ruled like a czar. He was the President of Nine Planets and Tony Quade was his ace man. When Von Zorn was in a spot, when experts said a picture couldn’t be canned, he sent for Quade. And Quade had always proved the experts wrong.
Quade was the one who got the first fourdimensional films ever made. He was the daredevil maniac who captured the spectacularly deadly Plutonian life-forms on celluloid. He even shot the great Martian Inferno, the hottest SRO grosser in years. Against her will and without her knowledge, he had once filmed Gerry Carlyle. After Gerry Carlyle it was only a step to a comet.
Though Quade was worried, he didn’t show it.
There was no point in explaining to Von Zorn that the chances of returning from the comet alive were practically absolute zero.
Quade listened hard, peering through clouds of steam. The acrid stimulation of Martian sour-grass tickled his nostrils. Weirdly swathed figures loomed momentarily through thin spots in the mist, then disappeared. There were strangely muffled voices, heavy breathing, the sound of wet feet slapping on glass-tile.
“And in the office it’s spies everywhere,” Von Zorn said excitedly. “Try to keep secrets with gossip columnists and fan mag writers searching like vultures, and slickers from the other companies trying to scoop us. A Turkish bath is the only place I feel safe . . . Tony, we’re set! The ship’s almost ready. The special shields are done, and the equipments being put in right on our own lot, the abandoned Thunder Men set near the Rim. But we’ve got to keep it quiet for awhile longer.”
Quade’s lanky, hard-muscled figure stirred uneasily. His lean, tanned face was impassive as he studied the remarkable form of his employer. Quade was trying not to lauch.
Von Zorn resembled two eggs, the smaller atop the larger, with strange, limp appendages sprouting in the form of arms and legs. He was as peculiar a life-form as Quade had ever filmed. No one would have guessed that inside that bristle-thatched head was one of the shrewdest executive brains of the System. Von Zorn dominated his whole gigantic plant, from the highest-paid star to the lowliest grip.
“Keep it quiet awhile longer,” Von Zorn repeated. “Scientists, reporters, everybody in the Universe will want to go along the minute they find out that we’re tackling the comet. We have to refuse ’em, and that makes bad publicity.”
Von Zorn lived in terms of box-office receipts and publicity.
‘When we do break the news, it’s on the eve of the take-off,” he continued. “No time for anybody to get their feelings hurt. See? Besides, this is a moving picture venture, Tony. You’re going to get the pix of a lifetime. Sensational background for our super-epic of cosmic adventure—”
“Yeah. I know. Call of the Comet. Starring so-and-so. Produced by so-and-so. And maybe a tiny, buried screen credit for Quade, cameraman.”
“No, I’m making you associate producer for this one!” cried Von Zorn, on the spur of the moment. “Maybe director, too. Who knows? Your name in lights—”
A DOOR opened somewhere, and a draught of cool air surged in.
“Mr. Von Zorn!” a voice called. “Mr. Von Zorn!”
“Well?” Von Zorn yelled back, grateful for the interruption.
“There’s a lady outside to see you. Says her name’s Gerry Carlyle. That’s what she says, honest.”
Quade looked at Von Zorn. Von Zorn looked at Quade.
“Tell her I’m out,” the film magnate yelped. “I’m speaking to nobody. I’m under a doctor’s care, I’m a sick man!”
“She says if you ain’t out in five minutes, she’s comin’ in,” the attendant said apologetically.
“She wouldn’t dare!” Von Zorn sputtered.
Quade suddenly intervened. “Don’t kid yourself. Chief. That dame’ll charge in here they way she walks into a pack of wild animals. We’d better take a shower and talk to her. Mr. Von Zorn’s office in fifteen minutes,” he said to the attendant.
“But get this straight, Chief,” he said when they were comparatively alone again. “That rocket in skirts isn’t going to join any expedition I’m running.”
Gerry and Strike were waiting as Von Zorn and Quade, freshly groomed and still smelling faintly of sour-grass, entered. Von Zorn strutted around his vast desk and eyed Gerry across its glassy expanse as one might scout an enemy across a battlefield.
“Ah, Strike, he said. “Met you before, I think, Guess everyone knows everyone else except maybe you and Quade. Tony Quade, Strike.”
As the two men advanced warily to shake hands, they looked each other over very carefully. They were well matched physically, though Quade was perhaps a bit taller. Despite himself. Strike couldn’t help liking what he saw before him.
Gerry started the ball rolling. “You owe me a debt of gratitude, Mr. Von Zorn, for that affair of the energy-eaters. It’s probably bad taste to mention it, but I’m desperate to get to Almussen’s Comet while it’s still possible to do so.”
Von Zorn’s simian face beamed at her proposal.
“Yes, indeed,” he said. “We haven’t always seen eye to eye in the past. Miss Carlyle, but bygones can be bygones. If you. Strike and a few of your men want to go along, it could be arranged.”
Gerry rocked on her heels, jolted with amazement. This was too easy.
“You mean we can make a bargain?” she gasped.
“I mean I can make a bargain,” Von Zorn amended shrewdly.
“Chief!” Quade said urgently. “Remember what I told you!”
Nobody paid him the slightest attention.
“All right,” Gerry grudged. “You’re calling the turn.”
“Well, first off, this is a movie expedition. The idea is to take pictures. After we have our background shots for later double-takes, it’s okay to mess around. I don’t think there’s any organic life on the comet. But if there is, you’re the girl who can catch what’s there. You bring back two of each life-form you find there. One goes to Nine Planets, and the other to the London Zoo. But if you bring back only one specimen, it belongs to Nine Planets.
“It’s for my own protection,” Von Zorn went on. “Your exhibits have got the public down on my synthetic movie monsters. If there are any real ones to be had, I’m using them in Call of the Comet. That’s how I’m going to overcome public prejudice—”
“Chief!” Quade broke in.
“I agree,” Gerry said. Her lovely eyes had taken on a keen glint. “Tommy, myself and six of my best men. We’ll have our equipment ready within twenty-four hours.”
CHAPTER III
Blasting Off
QUADE’S mouth was a single hard line. “Chief, I want to talk to you,” he grated menacingly.
Von Zorn hesitated. When he glimpsed Tony’s narrowed eyes, he nodded.
“All right. Will you excuse us, Miss Carlyle?”
The girl smiled brilliantly and left, trailing Strike Tike a captive balloon. As the door shut, Quade turned blazing eyes on his employer.
“I quit,” he stormed. “You can’t doublecross me like that!”
“Now, now.” Von Zorn raised placating hands. “Don’t jump to conclusions like that, Tony. I have your best interests at heart. You know that.”
“Yeah? I told you once that dame slides in, I step out.”
“But why? You want to film this picture. It’s the biggest break you’ve ever had. Your name as associate producer—No, I’ll make it producer. Tony, I’ll let you in on something. I’ve planned this all along—to get Gerry Carlyle interested.
“What?” Quade demanded in horror.
“Sure. Figure it out. Think of the publicity when Gerry Carlyle goes on a Nine Planets expedition to the comet. Our picture will be the box office sock of the century. It’ll break all records for that one reason alone. And you’ll have the credit!”
“I see,” Quade said slowly. He rubbed his lean jaw and eyed Von Zorn. “Maybe . . . Well, we’ll see. I still don’t tr
ust you. You’d cut your grandmother’s throat for the publicity. But I’m not going to stay here on the Moon and let Gerry Carlyle take over my job.”
“I’d hate to put somebody else in your place,” Von Zorn murmured gently.
“I get it. Okay, it’s a deal. But I can tell you this right now. That Carlyle dame is out to doublecross me. I can smell it.”
“Afraid of a girl?” Von Zorn taunted.
Quade smiled unpleasantly. “Afraid? Nope. I’m going to show Catch-’em-Alive Carlyle just what doublecrossing really means.”
He went out. Von Zorn looked after his ace man and blinked. His simian face twisted into a wry grin.
“Lord help Gerry Carlyle!” he whispered under his breath.
AS the hours dragged past, it became apparent that Gerry and Quade were mixing like oil and water. The chief bone of contention lay in the preparations for the voyage. Despite the huge size of the supership, every available inch would be utilized for equipment.
What sort of equipment?
Gerry had her own ideas. As an explorer of some experience, she knew the vital necessity of preparing for every contingency. Gas-guns, complicated snares and traps, special lures, weapons, protective devices, a hundred and one other gadgets were rushed from the girl’s London headquarters through space to Hollywood on the Moon. Meanwhile, Quade grimly superintended the installation of special cameras, complicated lighting facilities, ranging from hydrocarbon to ultraviolet, cases of various lenses, telescopic, microscopic, spectroscopic, electroscopic . . .
“Hell,” snapped Quade to Gerry as they stood in the snip’s port, violently arguing. “The business is to film whatever’s on Almussen’s Comet. What’s the use of all this junk of yours? Do you think well find dinosaurs?”
“We might,” Gerry said maliciously. “And if we do, you’d look swell trying to down one with a camera. It doesn’t pay to take chances in my business. You’ll learn.”
Collected Fiction Page 144