World Without Chance

by John Russell Fearn

  “May be poisoned!” I warned her quickly. “Take it easy!”

  Slowly I turned it over, and in doing so I saw something I could hardly believe. The tip of the dart was tempered jilian steel! Actually tempered. Yet Earth chemists can’t get the stuff to melt under 8,000 degrees C. I happened to know they’d been trying it ever since the stuff was first discovered in ore form deep in the Martian deserts. The rest of the dart was ordinary shaving-brush wood stubbed with rocket-bird feathers.

  “What’s—what’s the matter, Dick?” Ada asked anxiously, seeing my startled expression.

  “Let’s get back to camp!” was my abrupt answer. I was feeling decidedly worried.

  * * * *

  In ten minutes we were back, but the rest of our party had retired to their tents. Reid was still up, however. I could see his shadow on the tent canvas cast by the portable gas-glow light on his table. I left Ada and went in to him.

  “Reid, I want a word with you,” I said brusquely.

  He straightened from a survey of a map on the table and looked at me coolly. The desk light made his eyes look like colorless marbles.

  “As many as you wish,” he assented easily. “Sit down.” He lighted one of his Titan-flower cigarettes and watched me through the smoke. Without any trimmings I shot the whole story to him and finished up by flinging the dart on the table.

  “I demand that we all be supplied with flame guns!” I finished grimly. “It obviously isn’t safe to go wandering around unarmed in this place—much less so with things like this flying about. We’ve got enemies! And how the devil did that dart get a jilian steel tip? I thought that particular ore belonged solely to Mars. Do you realize that Miss Brook or I might have been killed?”

  He shook his dark head. “I think not,” he said, quite unperturbed. “This dart is not poisoned, nor was it intended to kill. It was more in the form of a warning.”

  “A warning!” I echoed blankly. “A warning against what, I’d like to know?”

  Without answering he went on slowly, “There is no need for arms on Io, Cambridge. I should have thought you’d know that. There are no dangerous animals—only the underbrush bugs and rocket-birds, and they’re harmless. Furthermore, I don’t think it prudent that any of us should have flame guns. Suppose one of us got delusion fever? It’s a not uncommon symptom of straight moon fever. Suppose Hu Ling got it, for instance? Why, he’d murder the lot of us!”

  “I’m not Hu Ling, and I’m not liable to get fever,” I said bitterly. “Give me a gun and quit playing around.”

  He took up the dart and turned it over slowly in his long, sensitive fingers.

  Suddenly his eyes looked at me steadily.

  “I cannot grant that request. I thought I had made that quite clear.”

  “Too damned clear!” I exploded. “There’s something phony about this whole expedition, and you’re the only person who can explain it. I insist on those guns, for the safety of the entire camp. Especially for Miss Brook. At least she oughtn’t to be jeopardized—especially as she’s your fiancée!” I couldn’t help the bitterness I got into that last line—but his moon-white face didn’t alter in the least.

  “I’m quite aware of our engagement,” he said softly, “but after all, Cambridge—I am the leader of this expedition. You are a little overwrought by this experience. Suppose you remain what you are—an astrogator?”

  From the way he said it, I might have been an animalcule. I quivered on retorting—on demanding to know about the dart tip—then realizing that if I hit him it might lead to complications, I swallowed my fury and stalked outside. I felt his pale eyes watch me go.

  III.

  As I moodily returned toward my own tent I encountered Hu Ling moving silently toward me. He gave his little obeisance. “Mister Nick would converse with you,” he said smoothly.

  I nodded shortly and headed for our tent. Nick was sprawled on his bunk as I entered. Immediately he sat up. “Ling found you then? Where’d you go? I’ve been looking for you.”

  For a moment I hesitated, then— After all, Nick was to be completely trusted. Briefly I told him what had happened.

  “I—see,” he mused slowly. “Matter of fact, it was about guns that I wanted to see you. I don’t feel safe being unarmed with that guy Reid around. He’s the nastiest bit of work I’ve seen in a year of moonrises. So it seems to me that the only way to get guns is to take ’em, tonight.”

  “But there’s never any night on Io,” I reminded him.

  “I know that—but Io has a forty-two-hour revolution, and that means that in roughly two more hours the Sun and Jupiter will both be out of sight. That leaves Europa and Ganymede light to worry over, and they’re not very strong. Pretty low albedoes— I think I could make it across the river to the ship without being noticed.”

  I nodded slowly. “O.K. It’s an idea. I’ll keep watch while you—”

  I stopped short. Both of us twisted our heads sharply at a sudden wild shriek from the clearing outside. Immediately we were at the tent opening. Reid, Ada, and her father also came into view. The only other person in sight was Hu Ling, staring steadily toward the bushes. A jackknife glittered wickedly in his hand.

  “What’s all this noise about?” demanded Reid, striding toward him. “Was it you, Ling?”

  The Oriental started out of his immobile posture. “The blue-skinned infidel attacked my honorable personage. I will not be defiled by the scum of this moon—”

  Reid’s jaws clamped shut for a moment, then turning to the jungle he shouted Kiol’s name. Amidst a rustling of tickle-brush the Ionian slunk into view. Reid eyed him with a cruel stare. “You attacked Hu Ling?” he asked tonelessly.

  “No agree in shelter,” said the Ionian helplessly. “We not fitted to keep company—”

  Reid didn’t let him finish. Swinging round his fist he struck Kiol in the chest. Since Reid was a powerful man on Earth with three times normal strength on Io, the blow sent the native hurtling backward to the ground where he lay whimpering in fright.

  “You’ll have to learn that while you’re in this company you must keep your hands to yourself. You are only an Ionian native—we are Earthlings, no matter what our color.” Reid stopped, then spat out, “Get back in that shelter! Quick!”

  “Just a minute!” It was Ada who moved quickly forward and placed her slim body defensively in front of Reid as the Ionian slowly rose. She went on hotly, “You’ve not the least right to treat Kiol like this, Lud! It doesn’t matter what world he belongs to, or what creed. Quite probably Hu Ling had just as much to do with it!”

  The Chinaman’s slant eyes smoldered a little brighter in the moonlight, but he said nothing, The rest of us closed the circle as the girl went on talking, her voice now cutting with anger.

  “At least I know now what sort of a man you are, Lud!” Deliberately she turned her back on Reid and nodded sympathetically to the Ionian. He looked at her steadily for a moment, unmistakable gratitude in his eyes, then nodded toward the jungle.

  “Sleep there—more natural to me,” he said briefly. “Come back in few hours.”

  “You’d better!” Reid ground out. “Be here with the rise of Jupiter—” He turned to the white-faced, rigid girl as the native crept away into the lofty grasses. “Most heroic of you, my dear,” he murmured, smiling faintly. “Perhaps you forget that I understand natives far better than you. To allow another world native to attack an Earthling is to admit the lowering of interplanetary prestige—”

  “Be hanged to your prestige!” the girl flamed back. “Kiol has feelings just as you and I—if you’ve got any feelings, that is! You acted like a—a brute!” She flashed him a biting glance then turned and strode back to her tent. Without a word we others broke up.

  For a long time Reid stood thinking, stroking the lapel of his immaculate white coat. Then at last he returned to his tent. An hour later his gas-glow light went out.

  “O.K.,” I murmured to Nick. “He’s doused the light. Now’s your
chance.”

  Quickly he kicked off his boots, stripped to the waist, and slid softly into the river at the clearing’s edge. I watched him go, his head like a blob in that silvery ribbon, dimly saw him reach the other side and move quickly to the gray ovum of the spaceship. In fifteen minutes he was back, bitter-faced.

  “No dice!” he snapped, “That damned Reid has locked up the arms cabinet. I don’t like it, Dick!”

  I hardly answered him. Somehow his discovery seemed to confirm my worst suspicions. I sat staring through the tent opening across the shadowed clearing, trying to imagine what possible purpose the cold-blooded Reid had in mind.

  I fell asleep thinking about him.

  When I awoke, Jupiter was just pushing his rim over the horizon. I looked around for Nick, but instead of finding him I discovered a note pinned to his bunk. It stated briefly that Reid had set off upriver in a motorboat with Kiol to look for the ilution trees, and that Nick had decided to follow him in another boat in an effort to discover what his game was.

  “The damned fool!” I breathed bitterly, crushing the note in my hand. “If Reid’s the man 1 think he is and sees you, you’ll never get back to this camp alive. And unarmed, too!”

  That was the main thing that worried me. Nick was the kind of reckless guy who’d do anything. His only source of protection was a jackknife!

  Small wonder that I was jumpy through the hours that followed. I hardly answered any of the questions that Ada directed toward me after we’d finished Hu Ling’s most excellent breakfast.

  “It’s Nick,” I explained, when she finally cornered me staring anxiously up the river. “He followed Reid.”

  She looked surprised. “Well…is there anything wrong in that? After all, we’re bound to know where the ilution trees are one day, and—”

  I turned quickly to her. Her pretty face was puzzled in the queer light. “Listen, Ada, do you really believe we came here for rubber trees?” I asked seriously.

  “Well of course! What else should we come for?”

  “That’s just what I’m wondering,” I muttered. “The more I think of it, the more I believe that Reid planned this whole expedition as an excuse to get here. It takes plenty of money to equip a spaceship and for some reason he—” I stopped and looked round impatiently as Hu Ling appeared before us. His yellow face was troubled.

  “Quickly, Miss Brook! Your honorable father is ill!”

  “Ill!” she cried, startled, then we turned together and went quickly into Brook’s tent. He was lying flat on his bunk, breathing noisily, his face a delicate green hue that wasn’t altogether caused by the shifting lights.

  “Moon fever,” I said cryptically, instantly recognizing the symptoms. Turning to the anxious girl I said, “Fetch me my kit from the tent. You can go, Ling. There’s nothing you can do.”

  For that matter, there isn’t much anybody can do with moon fever. It gets you right away, lays you out flat—and you stay flat until the crisis wipes you out or you recover with startling suddenness.

  I gave the magnate an injection of galpha, made him as comfortable as possible, and left it at that. The attack might last anywhere from a few hours to a few Earth-days.

  “No use worrying, Ada,” I said to her, as she stood moodily outside the tent. “He’ll be all right.”

  She nodded despondently. Worry for her father and my own worry for Nick’s safety kept up apart quite a deal, and at the end of several more hours we were a pretty morose pair. But at least we had diversion by the return of Reid from upriver, accompanied by the Ionian.

  Instantly I was all anxiety, looking for Nick. There was no sign of him. Striding across the clearing I intercepted Reid as he was about to enter his tent. I noticed that he carried in his hand a container full of rubbery-smelling sap.

  “Where’s Nick Charteris?” I demanded stonily.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Should I know?”

  “You know damn well you should! He followed you upriver when you set off. He hasn’t come back.”

  “Really?” He meditated a moment, then shrugged. “I wonder if you’d mind coming into the tent? This sap is a trifle odorous.” He turned deliberately and entered, switching on the gas-glow light. Putting the pot down off the bench he lighted one of his eternal Titan-flower cigarettes.

  “So Charteris followed me, did he? For what reason?”

  “Because, like me, he thinks you’re up to something!” I said bluntly. “Seems mighty queer you didn’t see him—”

  “Well, I didn’t! Nor do I like these constant innuendoes!” For a moment he looked at me nastily, then smiled disarmingly. “After all, Cambridge, I am sure you are worrying yourself quite needlessly. There are no dangerous creatures in the jungles, and one has only to follow the river to get back to camp.”

  “You stand there and say there’s nothing dangerous, and yet darts get thrown around?” I cried hotly. “That isn’t very convincing, Reid. What’s more, I don’t believe you! What’s behind all this? What have you done with Nick?”

  He was still smiling cynically. “Your concern is most touching, Cambridge, but I can only repeat what I’ve said. And now, if you’ll be so good as to leave me, I have work to do with this ilution sap.”

  He turned very definitely to the chemical bottles on the bench. I swallowed hard in my throat and longed to punch him in the jaw. Then I growled out, “Mr. Brook’s ill with fever.”

  “At 120° F. that’s not very surprising,” he murmured, preparing to remove his white coat.

  I stared at his back. “You mean you’re not even interested enough to go over and see him?”

  “Why should I? What can I—?”

  It was Ada who cut him short. Her worried, frightened face appeared suddenly in the tent opening.

  “Come quickly, both of you! Nick’s boat is drifting downstream but there’s no sign of him. I think the boat’s got something heavy in it.”

  I was outside in a flash, vaulted the distance to the river edge in two leaps and stood staring fixedly at the stretch. Ada was right. A silent motorboat was drifting along, but weighted as few things on Io are weighted—so much so the boat’s top was nearly level with the river.

  Wading into midstream I grabbed it as it came floating within reach, tugged it quickly to the bank. Dazedly I stared in its bottom. Ada’s breath caught quickly as she looked over my shoulder.

  Nick was lying there all right, but something had happened to him. It was just as if he was a stone statue, an effigy of himself, and when I slipped my hands under his shoulders I encountered hard, brittle heaviness! Even in such slight attraction it took me all my time to raise him.

  Perforce we had to call Reid and he gave us a hand to carry that unnaturally stiff body into his tent. In the gas-glow light we could see more clearly—and what we saw sent a cold chill of horror down my spine and caused Ada to gasp and back into a corner of the tent with a hand to her lips.

  Nick’s face was frozen into an expression of utter terror. His lips were drawn back and fixed—gray and hard. His eyes stared like frosty balls. Every part of his body was cast in the same inflexible mould. Even his teeth had turned greenish.

  “Why, he’s—he’s turned to stone! Petrified!” I screamed huskily. “Reid, do you see? He’s petrified!”

  He nodded very slowly. “He must have gotten out of his boat at one of the calcium areas—probably cut himself. The stuff entering his bloodstream in such undiluted form could easily transform him into stone—”

  “And then he got up, walked to the boat, and lay down?” I sneered bitterly. “Be damned to that for a tale! Somebody did this, and if any man knows anything at all, it’s you!”

  He looked at me icily. “You’re a damned fool!” he said flatly.

  “Even if you didn’t actually do it, you’re responsible!” I went on hotly. “You wouldn’t let any of us have guns. Nick went with his life in his hands.”

  “That was his fault; I didn’t ask him to follow me.”

  Reid
paused a moment as Ada, evidently finding things too much for her, moved quietly out of the tent. I turned back to Reid with a glare.

  “Now get this, Reid; it’s time for a showdown! I’m not putting up with anything more like this. Bring out those guns and come clean on what you’re up to. You’re not hunting for ilution. You’re hunting for something that only you and Kiol know about!”

  He elevated an eyebrow toward the sap he’d brought in. “What would you call that, then?”

  “I wouldn’t know—I’m only an astrogator! Even if it is ilution in a natural state, it’s only a cover up for something else. Come on—out with it!”

  For reply the pocket of his white coat suddenly bulged ominously. I saw that his hand was thrust in it.

  “Get out!” he ordered stonily.

  I looked at the pocket. I could tell from the outline that it hid a small but powerful flame gun. And I could tell, too, from the brittle, snaky stare in Reid’s pale eyes that he meant those two words.

  There was nothing else for it. I went.

  IV.

  An hour later we buried poor Nick’s remains in the soft, oozy ground beyond the main clearing. Reid recited a burial service that was clipped, heartless, and brief—then he went back to his tent and had a meal brought to him.

  I roamed around in moody silence, listening to the moans and cries of Brook as he reached the delirium stage of his fever. Ada wandered about alone, too, avoiding all company, so heavy was the general worry on her mind.

  Since Kiol was missing, I presumed that now his particular work was done, he’d slipped off into the jungle to rest. As for Hu Ling, he was only visible now and again as he came outside his cooking tent to throw away water and waste into the river.

  I stood idly watching him on one of these occasions, trying to figure out some way of getting the truth out of Reid—then I suddenly stood upright. Hu Ling had uttered a gasping scream. His water pail floated from his hand and bobbed to the ground; he himself went over and over in a sudden frantic effort to remove something from his neck.

  I hurled myself across the clearing, but by the time I’d reached him he was almost dead, yellow, trembling fingers clutching for the last time at a tiny barb protruding from his throat. He relaxed, became still.