“Hey, look out for my camera,” shrieked the senator.
The Martian said nothing, but he hung a beauty on the senator’s left eye. He had aimed it at Gramp.
A table toppled with a crash. The crowd hooted in utter delight.
The senator glimpsed his camera on the floor, reached out and grabbed it. Someone stepped on his hand and he yelled. Jurg Tec grabbed Gramp by the beard.
“Cut it out,” boomed a voice and two policemen came charging through the crowd. They jerked Gramp and Jurg Tec to their feet. The senator got up by himself.
“What you fellows fighting about?” asked the big policeman.
“He’s a dog-gone Marshy,” yelled Gramp.
“He said one Earthy could lick ten Martians,” squeaked Jurg Tec.
The big policeman eyed the senator. “What have you got to say for yourself?” he asked.
The senator was suddenly at a loss for words. “Why, nothing, officer, nothing at all,” he stammered.
“I don’t suppose you were down there rolling around with them?” snarled the policeman.
“Why, you see, it was this way, officer,” the senator explained. “I tried to separate them. Tried to make them quit fighting. And one of them hit me.”
The policeman chuckled. “Peacemaker, eh?” he said.
The senator nodded, miserably.
The officer turned his attention toward Gramp and Jurg Tec. “Fighting the war over again,” he said. “Can’t you fellows forget it? The war was over forty years ago.”
“He insulted me,” Jurg Tec squeaked.
“Sure, I know,” said the officer, “and you were insulted pretty easy.”
“Listen here, officer,” said the senator. “If I take these two boys and promise you they won’t make any more disturbance, will you just forget about this?”
The big policeman looked at the little policeman.
“Who are you?” the little policeman asked.
“Why, I’m—I’m Jack Smith. I know these two boys. I was sitting talking with them before this happened.”
The two policemen looked at one another again.
Then they both looked at the senator.
“Why, I guess it would be all right,” agreed the little policeman. “But you see they keep peaceable or we’ll throw all three of you in the jug.”
They eyed him sternly. The senator shifted uneasily. Then he stepped forward and took Gramp and Jurg Tec by the arm.
“Come on, boys, let’s have a drink,” he suggested.
“I still say,” protested Gramp, “that one Earthman can lick ten Marshies—”
“Here, here,” warned the senator, “you pipe down. I promised the police you two would be friends.”
“Friends with him?” asked Gramp.
“Why not?” asked the senator. “After all, this reunion is for the purpose of demonstrating the peace and friendship which exists between Mars and Earth. Out of the dust and roar of battle rises a newer and clearer understanding. An understanding which will lead to an everlasting peace—”
“Say,” said Gramp, “danged if you don’t sound like you was makin’ a speech.”
“Huh,” said the senator.
“Like you was makin’ a speech,” said Gramp. “Like you was one of them political spellbinders that are out gettin’ votes.”
“Well,” said the senator, “maybe I am.”
“With that eye of yourn,” Gramp pointed out, ”you ain’t in no shape to make any speech.”
Senator Brown strangled on his drink. He set down his glass and coughed.
“What’s the matter with you?” asked Jurg Tec.
“I forgot something,” the senator explained. “Something very important.”
“It can wait,” Jurg Tec said. “I’ll buy the next round.”
“Sure,” agreed Gramp, “ain’t nothin’ so important you can’t have another drink.”
“You know,” said the senator, “I was going to make a speech.”
The two old soldiers stared at him in disbelief.
“It’s a fact,” the senator told them, “but I can’t with this eye. And will I catch hell for not making that speech! That’s what I get for sneaking out with my camera.”
“Maybe we can help you out,” suggested Gramp. “Maybe we could square things for you.”
“Maybe we could,” squeaked the Martian.
“Listen, boys,” said the senator, “if I were to go out in a ship for a tour of the surface and if the ship broke down and I couldn’t get back in time to make my speech, nobody would blame me for that, would they?”
“You’re dang right they wouldn’t,” said Gramp.
“How about the eye?” asked Jurg Tec.
“Shucks,” said Gramp, “we could say he run into somethin’.”
“Would you boys like to come along with me?” asked the senator.
“Bet your life,” said Gramp.
Jurg Tec nodded.
“There’s some old battle hulls out there I’d like to see,” he said. “Ships that were shot down during the battle and just left there. Shot up too bad to salvage. The pilot probably would land and let us look at one or two of them.”
“Better take along your camera,” suggested Gramp. “You’d ought to get some crackin’ good pictures on one of ’em old tubs.”
IV
The navigator tore open the door of the control room, slammed it behind him and leaned against it. His coat was ripped and blood dripped from an ugly gash across his forehead.
The pilot started from his controls.
“The robots!” screamed the navigator. “The robots are loose!”
The pilot blanched. “Loose!” he screamed back.
The navigator nodded, panting.
In the little silence they could hear the scraping and clashing of steel claws throughout the ship.
“They got the crew,” the navigator panted. “Tore them apart, back in the engine room.”
The pilot looked through the glass. The surface of Ganymede was just below. He had been leveling off with short, expert rocket blasts, for an easy coast into Satellite City.
“Get a gun!” he shouted. “Hold them off! Maybe we can make it.”
The navigator leaped for the rack where the heavy flame rifles hung. But he was too late.
The door buckled beneath a crushing weight. Savage steel claws caught it and ripped it asunder.
The pilot, glancing over his shoulder, saw a nightmare of mad monsters clawing into the control room. Monsters manufactured at the Robots, Inc., plant on Mars, enroute to Satellite City for the show at the Ganymede Battle reunion.
The flame rifle flared, fusing the hideous head of one monster, but the tentacles of another whipped out, snared the pilot with uncanny ease. The pilot screamed, once—a scream chopped short by choking bands of steel.
Then the ship spun crazily, out of control, toward the surface.
“An old cruiser hull is right over that ridge,” the pilot told the senator. “It’s in pretty good condition, but the nose was driven into the ground by the impact of its fall, wedged tight into the rock, so that all hell and high water couldn’t move it.”
“Earthian or Marshy?” asked Gramp.
The pilot shook his head. “I’m not sure,” he said. “Earth, I think.”
The senator was struggling into his space suit.
“You remember the deal we made?” he asked the pilot. “You’re to say your ship broke down. You’ll know how to explain it. So you couldn’t get me back in time to make the speech.”
The pilot grinned. “Sure do, senator,” he said.
Gramp paused with his helmet poised above his head. “Senator!” he shouted.
He looked at the senator.
“Just who in tarnation are you?
” he asked.
“I’m Senator Sherman Brown,” the senator told him. “Supposed to dedicate the battle monument.”
“Well, I’ll be a freckled frog!” said Gramp.
Jurg Tec chuckled.
Gramp whirled on him. “No wisecracks, Marshy,” he warned.
“Here, here,” shouted the senator. “You fellows quiet down. No more fighting.”
Space-armored, the four of them left the ship and tramped up the hill toward the ridge top.
Faintly in his helmet-phones, Gramp heard the crunch of carbon dioxide snow beneath their feet, its hiss against the space suits.
Jupiter was setting, a huge red and orange ball with a massive scallop gnawed from its top half. Against this darkened, unseen segment of the primary rode the quarter moon of tiny Io, while just above, against the black of space, hung the shining sickle of Europa.
The sun had set many hours before.
“Pretty as a Christmas tree,” Gramp said.
“Them tourists go nutty over it,” the pilot declared. “That taxi of mine has been worked to death ever since the season started. There’s something about old Jupiter that gets them.”
“I remember,” Jurg Tec said, “that it was just like this before the battle. My pal and I walked out of camp to look at it.”
“I didn’t know you Marshies ever got to be pals,” said Gramp. “Figured you were too danged mean.”
“My pal,” said Jurg Tec, “was killed the next day.”
“Oh,” said Gramp.
They walked in silence for a moment.
“I’m right sorry about your pal,” Gramp told the Martian then.
They topped the ridge.
“There she is,” said the pilot, pointing.
Below them lay the dark shape of a huge space ship, resting crazily on the surface, with the stern tilted at a grotesque angle, the nose buried in the rock-hard soil.
“Earth, all right,” said Gramp.
They walked down the hillside toward the ship.
In the derelict’s side was a great hole, blasted by a shot of long ago, a shot that echoed in dim memory of that battle forty years before.
“Let’s go in,” said the senator. “I want to take some pictures. Brought some night equipment along. Take pictures in pitch black.”
Something moved inside the ship, something that glinted and shone redly in the light of setting Jupiter.
Astonished, the four fell back a step.
A space-armored man stood just inside the ship, half in shadow, half in light. He held two flame pistols in his hands and they were leveled at Gramp and the other three.
“All right,” said the man, and his voice was savage, vicious, with just a touch of madness in it. “I got you covered. Just hoist out your guns and let them drop.”
They did not move, astounded, scarcely believing what they saw.
“Didn’t you hear me!” bellowed the man. “Drop your guns onto the ground.”
The pilot went for his flame pistol, in a swift blur of motion that almost tricked the eye.
But the gun was only half out of its holster when one of the guns in the hands of the man inside the ship blasted with a lurid jet of flame. The charge struck the pilot’s space suit, split it open with the fury of its energy. The pilot crumpled and rolled, with arms flapping weirdly, down the hill, to come to rest against the old space derelict. His suit glowed cherry-red.
“Maybe now you know I ain’t fooling,” said the man.
Gramp, with one finger, carefully lifted his pistol from its holster and let it drop to the ground. Jurg Tec and the senator did likewise. There was no use being foolish. Not when a killer had you covered with two guns.
The man stepped carefully out of the ship and waved them back. He holstered one of his guns, stooped and scooped up the three weapons on the ground.
“What’s the meaning of this?” demanded the senator.
The man chuckled.
“I’m Spike Cardy,” he said. “Maybe you heard of me. Only man to escape from Ganymede prison. Said nobody could break that crib. But Spike Cardy did.”
“What are you going to do with us?” asked the senator.
“Leave you here,” said Spike. “I’m going to take your ship and leave you here.”
“But that’s murder,” shouted the senator. “We’ll die. We only have about four hours’ air.”
Spike chuckled again. “Now,” he said, “ain’t that just too damn bad.”
Jurg Tec spoke.
“But you lived here somehow. It’s been three weeks since you escaped. You haven’t been in a space suit all that time. You haven’t had enough air tanks to hold out that long.”
“What are you getting at?” asked Spike.
“Why,” said Jurg Tec, “just this. Why don’t you give us a chance to live? Why don’t you tell us how you did it? We might be able to do the same, keep alive until somebody found us. After all, you are taking our ship. It won’t serve any purpose to kill us. We haven’t done anything against you.”
“Now,” said Spike, “there’s some reason to that. And I’ll tell you. Friends of mine fixed up a part of this old ship, walled it off and installed a lock and a small atmosphere generator. Atmosphere condenser, rather. ’Cause there’s air enough here, only it ain’t thick enough. When I made my getaway I came out here and waited for a ship that was supposed to pick me up. But the ship didn’t come. Something went wrong and it didn’t come. So I’m taking yours.”
“That’s sporting of you,” said the senator. “Would you mind telling us whereabouts in the ship you’ve got this hideaway?”
“Why, no,” said Spike. “Glad to. Anything to help you out.”
But there was something about the way he said it, the ugly twist to his mouth, the mockery in his words, that Gramp didn’t like.
“Just go down into the nose of the ship,” said Spike. “You can’t miss it.”
An evil smile tugged at Spike’s mouth.
“Only,” he said, “it won’t do you a damn bit of good. Because the condenser broke down about half an hour ago. It can’t be fixed. I tried. I was getting ready to try to make it back to Satellite City and take my chances there when you showed up.”
“It can’t be fixed?” asked the senator.
Spike shook his head inside his space suit.
“Nope,” he said, cheerfully, “there’s a couple of parts broke. I tried to weld them with my flame gun, but it didn’t work. I ruined them entirely.”
V
Spike backed away, toward the top of the ridge.
“Stay back,” he warned, with his gun still leveled. “Don’t try to follow. I’ll let you have it if you do.”
“But,” shrieked the senator, “you don’t mean to leave us here, do you? We’ll die!”
The bandit waved his pistol toward the southeast.
“Satellite City is over that way. You can make it on four hours of air. I did.”
His laugh boomed in their helmets.
“But you won’t. Not creaking old scarecrows like you.”
Then he was gone over the ridge.
Gramp, suddenly galvanized into action, leaped toward the lifeless body of the pilot. He tugged the space-suited figure over and his hand reached out and jerked the flame pistol free.
One swift glance told him it was undamaged.
“You can’t do that!” Jurg Tec yelled at him.
“Get outta my way, Marshy,” yelped Gramp. “I’m goin’ after him.”
Gramp started up the hill.
Topping the ridge, he saw Spike halfway to the ship.
“Come back and fight,” Gramp howled, waving his gun. “Come back and fight, you ornery excuse for a polecat.”
Spike swung about, snapped a wild burst of flame along his backtrail and then
fled, in ludicrous hops, toward the space ship.
Gramp halted, aimed the flame pistol carefully and fired. Spike turned a somersault in mid-air and sprawled on the ground. Gramp saw the guns Spike had taken from them flash redly in the Jupiter-light as the flame struck home.
“He dropped the guns!” Gramp yelled.
But Spike was up again and running, although his left arm hung limply from the shoulder, swinging freely as he hopped over the surface.
“Too far away,” grunted Jurg Tec, overtaking Gramp.
“I had ’im dead center,” Gramped yelled, “but it was a mite long range.”
Spike reached the ship and leaped into the port.
Cursing, Gramp laid down a blast of flame against the ship as the bandit swung in the outer lock.
“Dang it,” shrieked Gramp, “he got away.”
Dejectedly the two old veterans stood and stared at the ship.
“I guess this ends it for us,” said Jurg Tec.
“Not by a dang sight,” declared Gramp. “We’ll make it back to Satellite City easy.”
But he didn’t believe it. He knew they wouldn’t.
He heard the sound of footsteps coming down the hill and turned. The senator was hurrying toward them.
“What happened to you?” demanded Jurg Tec.
“I fell and twisted my ankle,” the senator explained.
“Sure,” said Gramp, “it’s plumb easy for a feller to sprain his ankle. Especially at a time like this.”
The ground shuddered under their feet as the ship leaped out into space with rockets blasting.
Gramp plodded doggedly along. He heard the hissing of the snow against his space suit. Heard it crunching underfoot. Heard the stumbling footsteps of the other two behind him.
Jupiter was lower in the sky. lo had moved away from its position against the darkened segment of the primary, was swinging free in space.
Before him Gramp saw the bitter hills, covered with drift snow, tinted a ghastly red by the flood of Jupiter-light.
One foot forward and now another. That was the way to do it. Keep plugging away.
But he knew it wasn’t any use. He knew that he would die on Ganymede.
“Forty years ago I fit here and came through without a scratch,” he told himself. “And now I come back to die here.”
The Works of Clifford D. Simak Volume Two Page 18