Space Lawyer

by Mike Jurist

  Kerry shot first. The silent pellet sped from his weapon. The man jerked violently, the gun flew from his fingers, and he fell in a twisted heap.

  "Okay, boys!" shouted Jem joyfully. "Let the others have it; but don't let 'em see you."

  Ray guns and projectile guns flashed and clicked. Frantically climbing outlaws threw up their arms and came rolling and bouncing down the steep incline, to lie in sprawling immobility.

  But the majority had already vanished over the rim of the crater, and were doubtless pounding over the tessellated surface for their distant rocket ship.

  Kerry raced out into the open with a great cry. "Sally!"

  The figure turned. The eyes were open and there was an impish light in them that penetrated the eerie glow.

  Then he had her in his arms. Even until then he had had some doubts. But the feel of warm, yielding flesh penetrated even the rubberoid of his space suit. "Sally!" he cried again, almost unbelievingly. "It was crazy! Suppose they didn't scare! Suppose they had shot!"

  She smiled her old impudent smile at him. "But they didn't, you see. Now if you will kindly remove your . . . er . . . fatherly embrace, I'll try and get rid of my war paint."

  She was without her space suit; and the iridescence clung to her close-fitting dress. She took out a handkerchief; rubbed vigorously at her cheeks, forehead, hair, neck, and then her garments. Slowly the glow faded and paled. A faint aura remained, but once more she was a living, breathing and normal young lady—if the last designation could be used accurately in connection with such a decorative work of nature as Sally.

  Kerry said first: "Jem, send a man up the slope to keep an eye out for the outlaws, just in case they get over their scare and return."

  Then, to Sally: "How in heaven's name did you manage this eerie masquerade?"

  "Young man," she said severely, "it is obvious you know little about women." She reached into the pocket of her dress, came out with a flat gold case.

  "A make-up kit!" he gasped.

  "Right the first time. Since I was determined literally not to be seen dead with my lips askew, I started to fix up my face while waiting for the outlaws to come charging in. The next thing I knew Jem was staring at me as if I were something from a Venusian swamp."

  "That ain’t so!" interrupted that worthy with considerable embarrassment. "It was jest that Miss Sally's face was shining with a funny light; as if she were—"

  "A haunt, to use your exact words, my dear Jem. But that gave me an idea. If I scared the daylights out of Jem, who knew who I was; what would it do if I rubbed the stuff all over me and emerged suddenly on the outlaws. I must say," she added complacently, "my first and only appearance as a haunt was a tremendous success."

  "It was all of that," agreed Kerry. "It saved our lives. That war paint of yours is evidently allergic to this radioactive air; for which, many thanks."

  The man peering over the rim of the crater suddenly shouted, and began to gesticulate madly. The distance was too great for them to make out what he was saying, but it was evident that he was laboring under intense excitement.

  Kerry started violently. "They must be coming back. Come on!"

  He took the long smooth slope on the run, with the others panting and struggling after him. As he swung over the top, the guard was already standing, boldly silhouetted against the level plain.

  "Look, Mr. Dale!" he crowed. "They're getting the hell outa here; We beat 'em!"

  Far off, flames were jetting from the pirate ship and a distant roaring came across the surface of the tiny world. Then, as they watched, the ship lifted, moved swiftly upward and disappeared into the iridescent fog overhead.

  "A good riddance, say I," exulted Jem. "Now we kin really get at that stuff."

  But Kerry was strangely quiet. The jubilation of the others passed over him like a wave, but did not penetrate.

  Sally was the first to detect the strangeness. "What is wrong, Kerry?" she asked anxiously. "Isn't this good?"

  "Good!" be echoed; then laughed harshly. "Good that we are stranded on a comet, without a ship, without even a pellet of food or drink upon us! As long as that pirate ship was here, we had a chance to capture it and get away. But now—" He gestured hopelessly.

  The others looked at one another. They had not thought of that. Jem was the first to break the frozen silence.

  "But the Flash 'll come back," he cried. "Sparks ain’t gonna desert us."

  "He's on his way to Ganymede," Kerry said quietly. "He evidently could not fix the space cannon. I told him to go on myself. Even if he raises help by radio before he gets there, it will take over a week for it to come. Within a week, we'll be dead of thirst, if not of hunger."

  The realization of it stunned them a moment. Then Sally rallied. "Perhaps," she said hopefully, "some of those dead pirates down there had more forethought than we had. Maybe they have some pellets on them."

  Jem's face cleared. "In course they have!" he grinned. "Let's take a look."

  But his grin was short-lived. They toiled down the slope again, and examined each dead body carefully. There was nothing. They came last to the outlaw whom Kerry had shot. He too had nothing but the usual impedimenta that any man might carry in his pockets.

  "Our last hope gone," declared Kerry dully, as he rose from his fruitless search.

  But Jem was staring at the twisted, rage-filled features of the man who had evidently been the Boss. "Jumping lizards of a Martian canal!" he gulped. "It's Pyotra!"

  Kerry jumped, looked at the man more closely. He had evidently been handsome, imperious once. The ravages of long evil and a hell of emotions hadn't eliminated all traces. He had never seen Pyotra—he had been only a boy in school at the time—but the case had been a cause célèbre.

  Pyotra had been a famous scientist in the North Eurasian Department of Earth. What the whole story was, very few knew—it had been a closely guarded secret of the Earth Council. But there were rumors that Pyotra had planned a coup—to seize the members of the Council and proclaim himself dictator of the Earth. The plot had been discovered, and the Council sent swift patrols to the frozen north to seize the plotter. But Pyotra had vanished. Though he was legally declared an outlaw, it was generally believed that in despair he had committed suicide.

  Kerry stared curiously at the dead body of the man who had been possessed of the demoniac urge for power. Then a thought struck him. "How do you know this is Pyotra, Jem?” he asked. "As I remember it, very few knew him personally. And no picture was ever published."

  Jem gulped, hemmed, hawed and turned a fiery red. "I—I useta get around a bit," he stammered.

  "Oh! Oh!" Kerry thought remorsefully, "I'll have to learn to keep my big mouth shut." Jem's past was a well-kept secret. No one knew his last name even. There were rumors about him, I though; that his real name was on the police records of the far-flung stations of the System; but no one ever inquired. Whatever he had been before, Jem was thoroughly okay now.

  Aloud, Kerry said briskly. "There's only one thing to do. We'll have to hike over to that radiation-gusher at which they were anchored. Perhaps in their haste they left something."

  At Sally's urgent plea they took with them the tiny effigy which the pirates had dropped. "If we ever do get off this place," she said with a catch in her voice, "I'd like to have it along. I'm sure it's a mummy case; that inside there's one of the little folk who inhabited this world eons ago."

  It was remarkably heavy; but no one said her nay. They staggered under the load the five long miles to the eternal fount that loomed before them like a tumbling, rushing, dazzling geyser.

  Halfway there, Kerry paused. They had all taken off their space suits for greater walking ease. "Put them on again," he warned. "And snap your helmets shut. So far we've found no evidence that the radiations are harmful. But they may be in large doses."

  Once more accoutered, they wearily made the final distance.

  Already they were thirsty from their long exertions; but no one mentioned it. Wh
at was the sense of complaining when nothing could be done about it?

  The gusher was a magnificent sight. Pure energy boiled up from a seething hole, flowed like fiery liquid into the iridescent fog. Kerry approached it cautiously. He removed his tiny radiation counter from its leaden case. The needle swung violently to the farther end—and broke!

  "Jumping Jupiter!" he exclaimed. "This counter was geared to take the heaviest man-made radiation in the System—stuff that would burn any form of life to a crisp."

  "All I feel," said Sally, "is a pleasant tingling."

  One of the crew said anxiously: "Maybe its effects will show up later, Mr. Dale."

  Kerry shook his head. "It's possible; but we must remember that Pyotra and his gang have been working here for many hours; and evidently they were unharmed."

  They searched the terrain. They found scattered mining equipment which the panic-stricken crew had left behind. They found also two dazzling white blocks; cubes not more than six inches square.

  "Hell!" said Jem disgustedly. "Is that all those babies could mine in the time they was here?"

  Kerry approached them gingerly. Cautiously, with gloved hands, he tried to pick one up. A fairly heavy electrical shock ran through his body; though his suit was insulated. He tried again. He couldn't lift it. He called Jem over; then the two members of the crew. They tugged and strained; but they couldn't budge the tiny block.

  Kerry straightened, said in awe: "This stuff is compressed energy of the order of a dwarf star. This little cube weighs at least a ton. No wonder Pyotra, for all his scientific knowledge and equipment, was able only to get out these two so far.

  He tried to brush his hand across his face, forgetting that the helmet was on. "But it won't matter to us," he said wearily.

  “Has anyone found any drink pellets yet."

  "Not a one!" they chorused.

  Kerry stared up at the overlay of fog, tried to pierce its colorful depths. If only he hadn't given such definite orders to the Flash to keep going!

  Already his tongue was beginning to swell, and his mouth felt as though it were stuffed with spun fiber. He stared at the others. Jem's lips were working ominously. He caught Kerry's gaze and stopped their movement. Sally met his eyes with a wan attempt at a smile. Her face showed pale through the glassite visor.

  "Another few hours of this—an Earth day at the most—" drought Kerry with a sinking sensation, "and we'll be dead in torments. Why, for God's sake, did Sally have to be in this?"

  Doggedly he searched among the abandoned equipment.

  "It's no use, Kerry." Sally's voice was thick, unlike its usual bell-like quality. "We've searched thoroughly. There isn't a pellet around."

  Kerry found what he was looking for. A thin-edged cutting blaster. With slow, painful movements he turned on the power, etched in the hard metallic surface of the planet the symbols and indicia of title—that he, Kerry Dale, citizen of Earth, laid claim to the entire Comet X as his personal possession.

  Ile straightened up to meet their joint stupefied gaze. He managed a grin, but his tongue was so swollen be could barely understand what he himself was saying. "At least," he mumbled, "our legal heirs will have the avails."

  Jem said thickly, uncertainly. "Nary a chance. The Commission'll take all. Remember you won't be there to fight 'em."

  But Sally's eyes glowed. She managed to say: "Kerry, I—I love your spirit. I—love you!"

  Then she swayed and would have fallen had Kerry not caught at her, and held her limp body.

  They all sat down; they found it difficult to stand any more. Seated, they stared at one another. The thirst began to burn and rage. The strange little planet from another universe was taking its revenge on these rash intruders. The boiling lake, the curving metal surface, the blanketing glow overhead, mocked them and began to swim and dazzle in their disordered vision.

  The end was not far off!

  CHAPTER 14

  CLEM BORDEN, with Simeon Kenton to spur him on, drove his racing Deimos in furious twists and turns all over space the hell and gone to Ganymede. Every time he paused and protested: "It's no go, Mr. Kenton. There's not a sign of them anywhere!" old Simeon exploded afresh. "Dad blast it, Clem," he yelled. "Keep going till I tell you to stop; and then keep going some more!"

  But there came a time when even Simeon, reeling with fatigue, and spelling Borden at the controls, was compelled to confess that they couldn't search much farther. That was when the fuel gave signs of running out.

  "Okay, Clem," he said finally. "Turn 'er in to Ganymede."

  "And give it up?" asked the racer hopefully.

  "No, dingburn ye! We're taking on fuel, an' going on to the comet."

  Borden stared as if he hadn't heard right. "What!" he exclaimed. "That's out beyond Jupiter. No one's ever been there yet."

  "Then we'll be the first. Besides," old Simeon added bitterly: "That rubble-dyed impscallion Dale is goin' there—and my daughter."

  "I won't go," declared Borden firmly.

  "Ha!" shouted Kenton. "But you blamed well will. Look 't your contract. You go wherever I want ye to go. And if you don't, I'll sue you for your shirt. It's all in the contract—forfeiture, quintuple liquidated damages and—and—everything. My Legal Department does things right, I'll have you know."

  He didn't see fit to add that it was this same "impscallion" Kerry Dale who had thoughtfully inserted those clauses into the standard contract of hire during his short sojourn in the Legal Department of Kenton Space Enterprises, Unlimited.

  Borden gave it up. They landed in Ganymede, where the racer morosely superintended the refilling of the tanks. Old Simeon hastened in the meantime toward the local office of the Space Patrol, located on the edge of the landing field.

  As he rushed toward the office, his thin white hair flapping with the speed of his passage, hastily gathered reporters rushed after him.

  "Mr. Kenton!" they implored. "Have you found out anything?"

  "Can you give us a story?"

  "No use trying the Patrol. They haven't a thing."

  "Shut up, boys!" he snapped back at them as they almost clung to his coattails. "There ain’t no story and there isn't going to be one."

  "Oh, no?" cried one of the newshounds with sudden jubilation. "Look who's coming out of the Communications Building! Jericho Foote himself, as large as life, if not as natural."

  It was Foote, looking as pleased as his vulpine features would permit him to look. He had just received a code message from Pyotra through a most complicated and circuitous relay. From the pirate ship to their hideout in the Asteroid Belt, to an automatic sending station hidden inside a hollowed-out bit of flotsam in space, to Ganymede. It took several days for the message to pass through the circuit, but it effectually guarded against any tracing of it to its original source. Pyotra merely reported that he had landed at his destination, and that the prospects of doing good business were terrific. By that Foote knew that the outlaws had discovered something immensely valuable. No wonder he was pleased!

  But his pleasure vanished when he saw old Simeon Kenton come striding purposefully across the field toward him, followed by a rout of reporters who seemed literally to be licking their chops in anticipation.

  Foote's hand went instinctively to the scar on his face—the memento of his last meeting with that old maniac, Simeon Kenton. And now, as he knew only too well, he had given Kenton even more provocation than at that time.

  His beady eyes darted frantically around for escape, for help. But the field was bare, except for the oncoming Kenton and the newshounds. And, he remembered bitterly, they hadn't interfered the other time until he was half dead. Why wasn't there an officer of the law around? What the hell did he pay taxes for—when he couldn't help himself—if he got no protection?

  Then his questing gaze caught sight of the Space Patrol station. Ah! With a long sigh of relief he turned and made for it with that peculiar gait of a man who doesn't wish to appear as though he were running away, but actual
ly is. Even Kenton, crazy as he was, wouldn't dare attack him in the presence of the Patrol.

  "Good day, sir," he commenced hurriedly to the uniformed Commander at the desk, when old Simeon came barging in almost at his heels. The next instant the place was crowded with eager reporters.

  Old Kenton made straight for Foote, his fist raised to strike. "You rubble-dyed, blast-doodled, slime-guttered scoundrel!" he yelled. "I'll teach ye to wrap your filthy tongue around the name o' my daughter!"

  Foote shrank in terror against the farther wall. "Stop him, some one!" he screamed. "The man is mad!"

  The Commander, who had come startled to his feet at this sudden invasion of his peaceful precincts, signaled to a Space Patrolman at another desk. The Patrolman jumped up, interposed his brawny form between attacker and his projected victim.

  "Now, now, Mr. Kenton," he said soothingly. "You know you can't do that."

  Foote took courage. His dark face twisted eagerly. "You all saw that—that maniac assault me. I want him arrested. I'm pressing charges."

  Dancing with rage, old Simeon tried to dart around the intervening officer. "I ain’t had a chance to bash you yet. Lemme at him, so he'll have a real good case.

  But at every rush, the Patrolman was deftly there in front of him, warding him off. Then the Commander came out to take a hand. "I'm surprised at your actions, Mr. Kenton. A man of your standing—"

  "I want him arrested," persisted Foote shrilly. "He almost killed me on Planets."

  "I'm sorry I didn't!" Simeon shouted.

  "You hear that? I demand he be placed in jail."

  The Commander looked uneasy. Secretly he sympathized with Kenton. The provocation had been ample. And Kenton was also one of the most powerful men in the system. But the law was the law. There had been at least an attempted assault, and in the presence of witnesses.

  With a sigh he asked: "You insist, Mr. Foote?"