by Various
He was not drunk, except on oxygen. Not drunk yet. But thirsty. The street was garish with display of drinkeries. In neon lights a tilted glass dripped beads of color. There was a name in luminous pastel-tubing:
Pot o' Stars.
Beneath the showering color stood a girl. Tod Denver's blood pressure soared nimbly upward and collided painfully with blocked safety valves. The look was worth it. Tremendous. Hot stuff.
Wow!
When bestially young he had dreamed lecherously of such a glorious creature. Older, bitter experience had taught him that they existed outside his price class. His eyes worked her over in frank admiration and his imagination worked overtime.
She was Martian, obviously, from her facial structure, if one noticed her face.
Martian, of course. But certainly not one of the Red desert folk, nor one of the spindly yellow-brown Canal-keepers. White. Probably sprang originally from the icy marshes near the Pole, where several odd remnants of the old white races still lived, and lingered painfully on the short rations of dying Mars.
She was pale and perilous and wonderful. Hair was shimmering bright cascade of spun platinum that fell in muted waves upon shoulders of naked beauty. Her eyes swam liquid silver with purple lights dwelling within, and her sullen red lips formed a heartshaped mouth, as if pouting. Heavy lids weighed down the eyes, and heavier barbaric bracelets weighted wrists and ankles. Twin breasts were mounds of soft, sun-dappled snow frosted with thin metal plates glowing with gemfire. Her simple garment was metalcloth, but so fine-spun and gauzelike that it seemed woven of moonlight. It seemed as un-needed as silver leafing draped upon some exotic flowering, but somehow enhanced the general effect.
Her effect was overpowering. Denver followed her inside and followed her sweet, poisonous witchery as the girl glided gracefully along the aisle between ranked tables. As she entered the glittering room talk died for a moment of sheer admiration, then began in swift whispered accents. Men dreamed inaudibly and the women envied and hated her on sight.
She seemed well-known to the place. Her name, Denver learned from the awed whispering, was--Darbor....
The Pot o' Stars combined drinking, dancing and gambling. A few people even ate food. There was muffled gaiety, glitter of glass and chromium, and general bad taste in the decoration. The hostesses were dressed merely to tempt and tease the homesick and lovelorn prospectors and lure the better-paid mine-workers into a deadly proximity to alcohol and gambling devices.
* * * * *
The girl went ahead, and Denver followed, regretting his politeness when she beat him to the only unoccupied table. It had a big sign, Reserved, but she seemed waiting for no one, since she ordered a drink and merely played with it. She seemed wrapped in speculative contemplation of the other customers, as if estimating the possible profits to the house.
On impulse, Denver edged to her table and stood looking down at her. Cold eyes, like amber ice, looked through him.
"I know I look like a spacetramp," he observed. "But I'm not invisible. Mind if I pull up a cactus and squat?"
Her eyes were chill calculation.
"Suit yourself ... if you like to live dangerously."
Denver laughed and sat down. "How important are you? Or is it something else? You don't look so deadly. I'll buy you a drink if you like. Or dance, if you're careless about toes."
Her cold shrug stopped him. "Skip it," she snapped. "Buy yourself a drink if you can afford it. Then go."
"What makes you rate a table to yourself? I could go now but I won't. The liquor here's probably poison but who pays for it makes no difference to me. Maybe you'd like to buy me a short snort. Or just snort at me again. On you, it looks good."
The girl gazed at him languorously, puzzled. Then she let go with a laugh which sparkled like audible champagne.
"Good for you," she said eagerly. "You're just a punk, but you have guts. Guts, but what else? Got any money?"
Denver bristled. "Pots of it," he lied, as any other man would. Then, remembering suddenly, "Not with me but I know where to lay hands on plenty of it."
Her eyes calculated. "You're not the goon who came in from the Appenines today? With a wild tale of murder and claim-jumpers and old Martian workings?"
Quick suspicion dulled Denver's appreciation of beauty.
She laughed sharply. "Don't worry about me, stupid. I heard it all over town. Policemen talk. For me, they jump through hoops. Everybody knows. You'd be smart to lie low before someone jumps out of a sung-bush and says boo! at you. If you expected the cops to do anything, you're naive. Or stupid. About those Martian workings, is there anything to the yarn?"
Denver grunted. He knew he was talking too much but the urge to brag is masculine and universal.
"Maybe, I don't know. Martian miners dabbled in heavy metals. Maybe they found something there and maybe they left some. If they did, I'm the guy with the treasure map. Willing to take a chance on me?"
Darbor smiled calculatingly. "Look me up when you find the treasure. You're full of laughs tonight. Trying to pick me up on peanuts. Men lie down and beg me to walk on their faces. They lay gold or jewels or pots of uranium at my feet. Got any money--now?"
"I can pay ... up to a point," Denver confessed miserably.
"We're not in business, kid. But champagne's on me. Don't worry about it. I own the joint up to a point. I don't, actually. Big Ed Caltis owns it. But I'm the dummy. I front for him because of taxes and the cops. We'll drink together tonight, and all for free. I haven't had a good laugh since they kicked me out of Venusport. You're it. I hope you aren't afraid of Big Ed. Everybody else is. He bosses the town, the cops and all the stinking politicians. He dabbles in every dirty racket, from girls to the gambling upstairs. He pays my bills, too, but so far he hasn't collected. Not that he hasn't tried."
Denver was impressed. Big Ed's girl. If she was. And he sat with her, alone, drinking at Big Ed's expense. That was a laugh. A hot one. Rich, even for Luna.
"Big Ed?" he said. "The Scorpion of Mars!"
Darbor's eyes narrowed. "The same. The name sounds like a gangsters' nickname. It isn't. He was a pro-wrestler. Champion of the Interplanetary League for three years. But he's a gangster and racketeer at heart. His bully-boys play rough. Still want to take a chance, sucker?"
A waitress brought drinks and departed. Snowgrape Champagne from Mars cooled in a silver bucket. It was the right temperature, so did not geyser as Denver unskilfully wrested out the cork. He filled the glasses, gave one to the girl. Raising the other, he smiled into Darbor's dangerous eyes.
"The first one to us," he offered gallantly. "After that, we'll drink to Big Ed. I hope he chokes. He was a louse in the ring."
Darbor's face lighted like a flaming sunset in the cloud-canopy of Venus.
"Here's to us then," she responded. "And to guts. You're dumb and delightful, but you do something to me I'd forgotten could be done. And maybe I'll change my mind even if you don't have the price. I think I'll kiss you. Big Ed is still a louse, and not only in the ring. He thinks he can out-wrestle me but I know all the nasty holds. I play for keeps or not at all. Keep away from me, kid."
Denver's imagination had caught fire. Under the combined stimuli of Darbor and Snowgrape Champagne, he seemed to ascend to some high, rarified, alien dimension where life became serene and uncomplicated. A place where one ate and slept and made fortunes and love, and only the love was vital. He smoldered.
"Play me for keeps," he urged.
"Maybe I will," Darbor answered clearly. She was feeling the champagne too, but not as exaltedly as Denver who was not used to such potent vintages as Darbor and SG-Mars, 2028. "Maybe I will, kid, but ask me after the Martian workings work out."
"Don't think I won't," he promised eagerly. "Want to dance?"
Her face lighted up. She started to her feet, then sank back.
"Better not," she murmured. "Big Ed doesn't like other men to come near me. He's big, bad and jealous. He may be here tonight. Don't push you
r luck, kid. I'm trouble, bad trouble."
Denver snapped his fingers drunkenly. "That for Big Ed. I eat trouble."
Her eyes were twin pools of darkness. They widened as ripples of alarm spread through them. "Start eating," she said. "Here it comes!"
Big Ed Caltis stood behind Denver's chair.
III
Tod Denver turned. "Hello, Rubber-face," he said pleasantly. "Sit down and have a drink. You're paying for it."
Big Ed Caltis turned apoplectic purple but he sat down. A waitress hustled up another glass. Silence in the room. Every eye focused upon the table where Big Ed Caltis sat and stared blindly at his uninvited guest.
Skilfully, Denver poured sparkling liquid against the inside curve of the third glass. With exaggerated care, he refilled his own and the girl's. He shoved the odd glass toward Big Ed with a careless gesture that was not defiance but held a hint of something cold and deadly and menacing.
"Drink hearty, champ," he suggested. "You'll need strength and Dutch courage to hear some of the things I've wanted to tell you. I've been holding them for a long time. This is it."
Big Ed nodded slowly, ponderously. "I'm listening."
Denver began a long bill of particulars against Big Ed Caltis of Crystal City. He omitted little, though some of it was mere scandalous gossip with which solo-prospectors who had been the objects of a squeeze-play consoled themselves and took revenge upon their tormentor from safe distance. Denver paused once, briefly, to re-assess and recapture the delight he took in gazing at Darbor's beauty seated opposite. Then he resumed his account of the life and times of Big Ed, an improvised essay into the folly and stupidity of untamed greed which ended upon a sustained note of vituperation.
Big Ed smiled with sardonic amusement. He was in his late forties, running a bit to blubber, but still looked strong and capable. He waited until Tod Denver ran down, waited and smiled patiently.
"If you've finished," he said. "I should compliment you on the completeness of the picture you paint of me. When I need a biographer, I'll call on you. Just now I have another business proposition. I understand you know the location of some ancient Martian mine-workings. You need a partner. I'm proposing myself."
Denver paled. "I have a partner," he said, nodding toward the girl.
Big Ed smiled thinly. "That's settled then. Her being your partner makes it easy. What she has is mine. I bought her. She works for me and everything she has is mine."
Darbor's eyes held curious despair. But hatred boiled up in her.
"Not altogether," she corrected him evenly. "You never got what you wanted most--me! And you never will. I just resigned. Get yourself another dummy."
But Ed stood up. "Very good. Maudlin but magnificent. Let me offer my congratulations to both of you. But you're mistaken. I'll get everything I want. I always do. I'm not through with either of you."
Darbor ignored him. "Dance?" she asked Denver. He rose and gallantly helped her from her chair.
Big Ed Caltis, after a black look, vanished toward the offices and gambling rooms upstairs. He paused once and glanced back.
Denver laughed suddenly. Darbor studied him and caught the echo of her own fear in his eyes. He mustered a hard core of courage in himself, but it required distinct effort.
"When I was a kid I liked to swing on fence-gates. Once, the hinges broke. I skinned my knee."
Her body was trembling. Some of it got into her voice. "It could happen again."
He met the challenge of her. She was bright steel, drawn to repel lurking enemies.
"I have another knee," he said, grinning. "But yours are too nice to bark up. Where's the back door?"
The music was Venusian, a swaying, sensuous thing of weirdest melodies and off-beat rhythms. Plucked and bowed strings blended with wailing flutes and an exotic tympany to produce music formed of passion and movement. Tod Denver and Darbor threaded their way through stiffly-paired swaying couples toward the invisible door at the rear.
"I hope you don't mind scar tissue on your toes," he murmured, bending his cheek in impulsive caress. He wished that he were nineteen again and could still dream. Twenty-seven seemed so aged and battered and cynical. And dreams can become nightmares.
They were near the door.
"Champagne tastes like vinegar if it's too cold," she replied. "My mouth is puckery and tastes like swill. I hope it's the blank champagne. Maybe I'm scared."
They dropped pretense and bolted for the door.
In the alley, they huddled among rubbish and garbage cans because the shadows lay thicker there.
* * * * *
The danger was real and ugly and murderous. Three thugs came boiling through the alley door almost on their heels. They lay in the stinking refuse, not daring to breathe. Brawny, muscular men with faces that shone brutally in the blazing, reflected Earthlight scurried back and forth, trying locked doors and making a hurried expedition to scout out the street. Passersby were buttonholed and roughly questioned. No one knew anything to tell.
One hatchetman came back to report.
Big Ed's voice could be heard in shrill tirade of fury.
"You fools. Don't let them get away. I'll wring the ears off the lot of you if they get to the spaceport. He was there; he was the one who spotted us. He can identify my ship. Now get out and find them. I'll pay a thousand vikdals Martian to the man who brings me either one. Kill the girl if you have to, but bring him back alive. I want his ears, and he knows where the stuff is. Now get out of here!"
More dark figures spurted from the dark doorway. Darbor gave involuntary shudder as they swept past in a flurry of heavy-beating footsteps. Denver held her tightly, hand over her mouth. She bit his hand and he repressed a squeal of pain. She made no outcry and the pounding footsteps faded into distance.
Big Ed Caltis went inside, loudly planning to call the watch-detail at the spaceport. His word was law in Crystal City.
"Can we beat them to the ship?" Denver asked.
"We can try," Darbor replied....
The spaceport was a blaze of light. Tod Denver expertly picked the gatelock. The watchman came out of his shack, picking his teeth. He looked sleepy, but grinned appreciatively at Darbor.
"Hi, Tod! You sure get around. Man just called about you. Sounded mad. What's up?"
"Plenty. What did you tell him?"
The watchman went on picking his teeth. "Nothing. He don't pay my wages. Want your ship? Last one in the line-up. Watch yourself. I haven't looked at it, but there've been funny noises tonight. Maybe you've got company."
"Maybe I have. Lend me your gun, Ike?"
"Sure, I've eaten. I'm going back to sleep. If you don't need the gun, leave it on the tool-locker. If you do, I want my name in the papers. They'll misspell it, but the old lady will get a kick. So long. Good luck. If it's a boy, Ike's a good, old-fashioned name."
Tod Denver and Darbor ran the length of the illuminated hangar to the take-off pits at the far end. His space sled was the last in line. That would help for a quick blast-off.
Darbor was panting, ready to drop from exhaustion. But she dragged gamely on. Gun ready, he reached up to the airlock flap.
Inside the ship was sudden commotion. A scream was cut off sharply. Scurried movement became bedlam. Uproar ceased as if a knife had cut through a ribbon of sound.
Denver flung open the flap and scrabbled up and through the valve to the interior.
Two of Big Ed's trigger men lay on the floor. One had just connected with a high-voltage charge from Charley. The other had quietly fainted. Denver dumped them outside, helped Darbor up and closed the ship for take-off. He switched off cabin lights.
He wasted no time in discussion until the ship was airborne and had nosed through the big dome-valves into the airless Lunar sky.
A fat hunk of Earth looked like a blueberry chiffon pie, but was brighter. It cast crazy shadows on the terrain unreeling below.
Darbor sat beside him. She felt dazed, and wondered briefly what had happened to her.
Less than an hour before she had entered the Pot o' Stars with nothing on her mind but assessing the clients and the possible receipts for the day. Too much had happened and too rapidly. She could not assimilate details.
Something launched itself through darkness at her. It snugged tightly to shoulder and neck and made chuckling sounds. Stiff fur nuzzled her skin. There was a vague prickling of hot needles, but it was disturbing rather than painful. She screamed.
"Shut up!" said Denver, laughing. "It's just Charley. But don't excite him or you'll regret it."
From the darkness came a confused burble of sounds as Charley explored and bestowed his affections upon a new friend still too startled to appreciate the gesture. Darbor tried vainly to fend off the lavish demonstrations.
Denver gunned the space sled viciously, and felt the push of acceleration against his body. He headed for a distant mountain range.
"Just Charley, my pet moondog," he explained.
"What in Luna is that?"
"You'll find out. He loves everybody. Me, I'm more discriminating, but I can be had. My father warned me about women like you."
"How would he know?" Darbor asked bitterly. "What did he say about women like me?"
"It's exciting while it lasts, and it lasts as long as your money holds out. It's wonderful if you can afford it. But Charley's harmless. He's like me, he just wants to be loved. Go on. Pet him."
"All males are alike," Darbor grumbled. Obediently, she ran fingers over the soft, wirelike pseudo-fur. The fingers tingled as if weak charges of electricity surged through them.
"Does it--er, Charley ever blow a fuse?" she asked. "I'd like to have met your father. He sounds like a man who had a lot of experience with women. The wrong women. By the way, where are we going?"
* * * * *
Tod Denver had debated the point with himself. "To the scene of the crime," he said. "It's not good, and they may look for us there. But we can hole up for a few days till the hunt dies down. It might be the last place Big Ed would expect to find us. Later, unless we find something in the Martian workings, we'll head for the far places. Okay?"