by E. E. Smith
CHAPTER IV
Ganymedean Life
Slow, hard, and disheartening as the work had been at first, Stevenshad never slackened his pace, and after a time, as his facilitiesincreased, the exasperating setbacks decreased in number and severityand his progress became faster and faster. Large as the "Forlorn Hope"was, space was soon at a premium, for their peculiarly-shaped craftbecame a veritable factory, housing a variety of machinery andequipment unknown in any single earthly industrial plant. Nothingwas ornamental--everything was stripped to its barest fundamentalnecessities--but every working part functioned with a smooth precisionto delight the senses of any good mechanic.
In a cavern under the falls was the great turbine, to be full-fed by thecrude but tight penstock which clung to the wall of the gorge, anglingup to the brink of that stupendous cataract. Bedded down upon solidrock there was a high-tension alternator capable of absorbing the entireoutput of the mighty turbine. This turbo-alternator was connected toa set of converters from which the energy would flow along three greatcopper cables--the receptors of the lifeboats being altogether too smallto carry the load--to the now completely exhausted accumulators of the"Forlorn Hope." All high-tension apparatus was shielded and grounded,so that no stray impulses could reveal to the possible detectors ofthe Jovians the presence of this foreign power plant. Housings, frames,spiders, all stationary parts were rough, crude and massive; butbearings, shafts, armatures, all moving parts, were of a polishedand finished accuracy and balance that promised months and years oftrouble-free operation. Everything ready for the test, Stevens took offhis frayed and torn leather coveralls and moccasins and climbed nimblyup the penstock. He never walked down. Opening the head-gate, he poisedsharply upon its extremity and took off in a perfect swan-dive; floatingunconcernedly down toward that boiling maelstrom two hundred feel below.He struck the water with a sharp, smooth "slup!" and raced ashore,seizing his suit as he ran toward the turbo-alternator. It was runningsmoothly, and, knowing that everything was tight at the receiving end,he lingered about the power plant until he was assured that nothingwould go wrong and that his home manufactured lubricating oil and greasewould keep those massive bearings cool.
Hunger assailed him, and glancing at the sun, he noted that it was wellpast dinner-time.
"Wow!" he exclaimed aloud. "The boss just loves to wait meals--she'llburn me up for this!"
He ran lightly toward "home," eager to tell his sweetheart that thelong awaited moment had arrived--that power was now flowing into theiraccumulators.
"Hi, Diana of the silver bow!" he called. "How come you no blow thedinner bell? Power's on--come give it a look!"
There was no answer to his hail, and Stevens paused in shockedamazement. He knew that never of her own volition would she be out solate--Nadia was gone! A rapid tour of inspection quickly confirmed thatwhich he already knew only too well. Forgotten was his hunger, forgottenthe power plant, forgotten everything except the fact that his Nadia,the buoyant spirit in whom centered his Universe, was lost or ... hecould not complete the thought, even to himself.
Swiftly he came to a decision and threw off his suit, revealing thebody of a Hercules--a body ready for any demand he could put upon it.Always in hard training, months of grinding physical labor and of heavyeating had built him up to a point at which he would scarcely haverecognized himself, could he have glanced into a mirror. Mighty butpliable muscles writhed and swelled under his clear skin as he dartedhere and there, selecting equipment for what lay ahead of him. He donnedthe heavily armored space-suit which they had prepared months before,while they were still suspicious of possible attack. It was covered withheavy steel at every point, and the lenses of the helmet, already ofunbreakable glass, had been re-enforced with thick steel bars. Tank andvalves supplied air at normal pressure, so that his powerful body couldfunction at full efficiency, not handicapped by the lighter atmosphereof Ganymede. The sleeves terminated in steel-protected rubber wristletswhich left his hands free, yet sheltered from attack--wristlets tightenough to maintain the difference in pressure, yet not tight enoughto cut off the circulation. He took up his mighty war-bow and the fullquiver of heavy arrows--full-feathered and pointed with savagely barbed,tearing heads of forged steel--and slipped into their sheaths the longand heavy razor-sharp sword and the double-edged dirk, which he hadmade and ground long since for he knew not what emergency, and whosebell-shaped hilts of steel further protected his hands and wrists.Thus equipped, he had approximately his normal earthly weight; a factwhich would operate to his advantage, rather than otherwise, in caseof possible combat. With one last look around the "Forlorn Hope," whoseevery fitting spoke to him of the beloved mistress who was gone, hefilled a container with water and cooked food and opened the door.
* * * * *
"It won't be long now; now it won't be long." Nadia caroled happily,buckling on her pack straps and taking up bow and arrows for her dailyhunt. "I never thought that he could do it, but what it takes to dothings, he's got lots of," she continued to improvise the song as sheleft the "Hope" with its multitudinous devices whose very variety wasa never-failing delight to her; showing as it did the sheer ability ofthe man, whose brain and hands had almost finished a next-to-impossibletask.
Through the canyon and up a well-worn trail she climbed, and soon cameout upon the sparsely timbered bench that was her hunting grounds. Uponthis day, however, she was full of happy anticipation and her mind waseverywhere except upon her work. She was thinking of Stevens, of theirlove, of the power which he might turn on that very day, and of thepossible rescue for which she had hitherto scarcely dared to hope.Thus it was that she walked miles beyond her usual limits withouthaving loosed an arrow, and she was surprised when she glanced up atthe sun to see that half the morning was gone and that she was almostto the foothills, beyond which rose a towering range of mountains.
"Snap out of it, girl!" she reprimanded herself. "Go on wool-gatheringlike this and your man will go hungry--and he'll break you right offat the ankles!" She became again the huntress, and soon saw an animalbrowsing steadily along the base of a hill. It was a six-legged,deer-like creature, much larger than anything she had as yet seen. Butit was meat and her time was short, therefore she crept within rangeand loosed an arrow with the full power of her hunting bow. Unfamiliaras she was with the anatomy of the peculiar creature, the arrow didnot kill. The "hexaped," as she instantly named it, sped away and sheleaped after it. She, like her companion, had developed amazingly inmusculature, and few indeed were the denizens of Ganymede, who couldequal her speed upon that small globe, with its feeble gravitationalforce.
Up the foothills it darted. Beyond the hills and deep into a valleybetween two towering peaks the chase continued before Nadia's thirdarrow brought the animal down. Bending over the game, she becameconscious of a strange but wonderful sweet perfume and glanced up,to see something which she certainly had not noticed when the hexapedhad fallen. It was an enormous flower, at least a foot in diameter andindescribably beautiful in its crimson and golden splendor. Almost levelwith her head the gorgeous blossom waved upon its heavy stem; basedby a massive cluster of enormous, smooth, dark green leaves. Entrancedby this unexpected and marvelous floral display, Nadia breathed deeplyof the inviting fragrance--and collapsed senseless upon the ground.Thereupon the weird plant moved over toward her, and the thick leavesbegan to enfold her knees. This carnivorous thing, however, did not likethe heavy cloth of her suit and turned to the hexaped. It thrust severalof its leaves into the wounds upon the carcass and fed, while two otherleaves rasped together, sending out a piercing call.
In answer to the sound the underbrush crackled, and through it and uponthe scene there crashed a vegetable-animal nightmare--the parent of therelatively tiny thing whose perfume had disabled the girl.
Its huge and gorgeous blossom was supported by a long, flexible,writhing stem, and its base was composed of many and highly specializedleaves. There were saws and spears and mighty, but sinuous tendrils;
there were slender shoots which seemed to possess some sense ofperception; there was the massive tractor base composed of extensibleleaves which by their contraction and expansion propelled the mass alongthe ground. Parent and child fell upon the hexaped and soon bones andhair were all that remained The slender shoots then wandered about theunconscious girl in her strange covering, and as a couple of powerfultendrils coiled about her and raised her into the air over the monstrousbase of the thing, its rudimentary brain could almost be perceivedworking as it sluggishly realized that, now full fed, it should carrythis other victim along, to feed its other offspring when they shouldreturn to its side.
* * * * *
Barely outside the door of the "Forlorn Hope" Stevens whirled aboutwith a bitter imprecation. He had already lost time needlessly--with alookout plate he could cover more ground in ten minutes than he couldcover afoot in a week. He flipped on the power and shot the violet beamout over the plateau to the district where he knew Nadia was wont tohunt. Not finding her there, he swung the beam in an ever wideningcircle around that district. Finally he saw a few freshly broken twigs,and scanned the scene with care. He soon found the trail of freshblood which marked the path of the flight of the hexaped, and with thepeculiar maneuverability of the device he was using, it was not longuntil he was studying the scene where the encounter had taken place.He gasped when he saw the bones and perceived three of Nadia's arrows,but soon saw that the skeleton was not human and was reassured. Castingabout in every direction, he found Nadia's bow, and saw a peculiar,freshly trampled path leading from the kill, past the bow, down thevalley. He could not understand the spoor, but it was easily followed,and he shot the beam along it at headlong speed until he came up withthe monstrous creature that was making it--until he saw what burden thatorganism was carrying.
He leaped to the controls of the lifeboat, then dropped his hand. Whilethe stream of power now flowing was ample to operate the lookout plates,yet it would be many hours before the accumulator cells would be incondition to drive the craft even that short distance.
"It'll take over an hour to get there--here's hoping I can check in allx," he muttered savagely, as he took careful note of the location anddirection of the creature's trail and set off at a fast jog-trot.
The carnivorous flower's first warning that all was not well wasreceived when Stevens' steel-shod feet landed squarely upon its baseand one sweeping cut of his sword lopped off the malignant blossom andsevered the two tendrils that still held the unconscious Nadia. With aquick heave of his shoulder, he tossed her lightly backward into thesmooth-beaten track the creature had made and tried to leap away--butthe instant he had consumed in rescuing the girl had been enough for thething to seize him, and he found himself battling for his very life. Nosoft-leaved infant this, but a full-grown monster, well equipped withmighty weapons of offense and defense. Well it was for the strugglingman that he was encased in armor steel as those saw-edged, hard-spikedleaves drove against him with crushing force; well it was for him thathe had his own independent air supply, so that that deadly perfumeeddied ineffective about his helmeted head! Hard and fiercely driven asthose terrible thorns were, they could do no more than dent his heavyarmor. His powerful left arm, driving the double-razor-edged dirk inshort, resistless arcs, managed to keep the snaky tendrils from coilingabout his right arm, which was wielding the heavy, trenchant sword.Every time that mighty blade descended it cleaved its length throughsnapping spikes and impotently grinding leaves; but more than oncea flailing tendril coiled about his neck armor and held his helmetimmovable as though in a vise, while those frightful, grinding sawssought to rip their way through the glass to the living creature insidethe peculiar metal housing. Dirk and saber and magnificent physiquefinally triumphed, but it was not until each leaf was literally severedfrom every other leaf that the outlandish organism gave up the ghost.
* * * * *
Nadia had been tossed out into pure air, beyond the zone of thestupefying perfume, and she recovered her senses in time to see thefinish of the battle. Stevens, assured that his foe was _hors ducombat_, turned toward the spot where he had thrown Nadia's body. He sawthat she was unharmed, and sprang toward her in relief. He was surprisedbeyond measure, however, to see her run away at a pace he could not hopeto equal, encumbered as he was; motioning frantically at him the whileto keep away from her. He stopped, astounded, and started to unscrew hishelmet, whereupon she dashed back toward him, signaling him emphaticallyto leave his armor exactly as it was. He stood still and stared at her,an exasperated question large upon his face, until she made clear tohim that he was to follow her at a safe distance, then she set off at arapid walk. She led him back to where the hexaped had fallen, where sheretrieved her bow and arrows; then, keeping a sharp lookout upon allsides, she went on to a small stream of water. She made the dumbfoundedman go out into the middle of the creek and lie down and roll overin the water, approaching him sniffing cautiously between immersions.She made him continue the bathing until she could detect not even theslightest trace of the sweet, but noxious fragrance of that peculiarlyterrible form of Ganymedean life. Only then did she allow him to removehis helmet, so that she could give him the greeting for which they bothhad longed and tell him what it was all about.
"So that's it, ace!" he exclaimed, still holding her tightly in his ironembrace. "Great balls of fire! I thought maybe you were still a littlecuckoo. Anaesthetic perfume, huh? Hot stuff, I'd say--no wonder youbit--I would, too. It's lucky for us I was air-tight--we'd both befee...."
"Stop it!" she interrupted him sharply, "Forget it--don't ever eventhink of it!"
"All x, ace. It's out like the well known light. What to do? It'sgetting darker than a hat, and we're a long way from home. Don't knowwhether I could find my way back in the dark or not; and just betweenyou and me, I'm not particularly keen on night travel in these partsafter what's just happened. Are you?"
"Anything else but," she assured him, fervently. "I'd lots rather stayhungry until tomorrow."
"No need of that--I've brought along enough supper for both of us. I'mhungry as a wolf, too, now that I have time to think of it. We'll eatand den up somewhere--or climb a tree. Those wampuses probably can'tclimb trees!"
"There's a nice little cave back there about a hundred meters. We'llpretend it's the Ritz," and they soon had a merry fire blazing in frontof the retreat. There they ate of the provisions Stevens had brought.Then, while the man rolled up boulders before the narrow entrance ofthe cave, Nadia gathered leaves and made a soft bed upon its warm,dry floor.
"Good night, lover," and the girl, untroubled and secure now thatStevens was at her side, was almost instantly asleep; but the man wasnot sleepy. He thought of the power plant, even now sending its terrificstream of energy into his accumulators. He thought of the ultraradio--where could he get all the materials needed? He thought of hisfriends, wondering whether or not they would receive his message. Hethought of Breckenridge and the other human beings who had been aboardthe _Arcturus_, wondering poignantly as to their fate. He thought ofNewton and of his own people, who had certainly given them up for deadlong since.
But above all he thought of the beautiful, steel-true companion lyingthere asleep at his mailed feet, and he gazed down at her, his heart inhis eyes. The firelight shone through the chinks between the boulders,casting a flickering ruddy light throughout the little cavern. Nadia laythere her head pillowed upon one strong, brown little hand. Her lipswere red and sweetly curved, her cheek was smooth and firm as so muchbrown velvet. She was literally aglow with sheer beauty and with perfecthealth; and the man reflected, as he studied her hungrily, that thiswild life certainly had agreed with her--she was becoming moresurpassingly beautiful with every passing day.
"You little trump--you wonderful, lovely, square little brick!" hebreathed silently, and bent over to touch her cheek lightly with hislips. Slight as the caress was, it disturbed her, and even in her sleepher subconscious mind sent out an exp
loring hand, to touch her Steve andthus be reassured. He pressed her hand and she settled back comfortably,with a long, deep breath; and he stretched his iron-clad length besideher and closed his eyes, firmly resolved not to waste a minute of thiswonderful night in sleep.
When he opened them an instant later, it was broad daylight, theboulders had been rolled away, the fragrance of roasting meat permeatedthe atmosphere, and Nadia was making a deafening clamor, beating hissteel breastplate lustily with the flat of his huge saber.
"Daylight in the swamp, you sleeper!" she exclaimed. "Roll out or rollup! Come and get it, before I throw it away!"
"I must have been kind of tired," he said sheepishly, when he saw thatshe had shot a bird and had cooked breakfast for them both while he hadbeen buried in oblivion.
"Peculiar, too, isn't it?" Nadia asked, pointedly. "You only didabout ten days' work yesterday in ten minutes, swinging this frightfulsnickersnee of yours. Why, you played with it as though it were aknitting-needle, and when I wanted to wake you up with it, I couldhardly lift it."
"Thought you didn't want that subject even mentioned?" he tried to steerthe talk away from his prowess with the broadsword.
"That was yesterday," airily. "Besides, I don't mind talking aboutyou--it's thinking about us being ... you know ... that I can't stand."
"All x, ace. I get you right. Let's eat."
* * * * *
Breakfast over, they started down the valley, Stevens carrying hishelmet under his arm. Hardly had they started however, than Nadia's keeneyes saw a movement through the trees, and, she stopped and pointed.Stevens looked once, then hand in hand they dashed back to their cave.
"We'll pile up some of the boulders and you lie low," he instructed heras he screwed on his helmet. She snapped open his face-plate.
"But what about you? Aren't you coming in, too?" she demanded.
"Can't--they'd surround us and starve us out. I'm safe in thisarmor--thank Heaven we made it as solid as we did--and I'll fight 'em inthe open. I'll show 'em what the bear did to the buckwheat!"
"All right, I guess, but I wish I had my armor, too," she mourned as hesnapped shut his plate and walled her into the cave with the same greatrocks he had used the night before. Then, Nadia safe from attack, hedrew his quiver of war-arrows into position over his shoulder, placedone at the ready on his bow-string and turned to face the horde ofthings rushing up the valley toward him. Wild animals he had supposedthem, but as he stood firm and raised his weapon shrill whistlessounded in the throng, and he gasped as he realized that those frightfulcreatures must be intelligent beings, for not only did they signalto each other, but he saw that they were armed with bows and arrows,spears, and slings!
Six-limbed creatures they were, of a purplish-red color, with huge,tricornigerous heads and with staring, green, phosphorescent eyes. Twoof the six limbs were always legs, two always arms; the intermediatetwo, due to a mid-section jointing of the six-foot-long, almostcylindrical body, could be used at will as either legs or arms. Now, outof range, as they supposed, they halted and gathered about one who wasapparently their leader; some standing erect and waving four hands whileshaking their horns savagely in Stevens' direction, others trottingaround on four legs, busily gathering stones of suitable size for theirvicious slings.
Too far away to use their own weapons and facing only one smallfour-limbed creature, they considered their game already in the bag, butthey had no comprehension of earthly muscles, nor any understanding ofthe power and range of a hundred-pound bow driving a steel-headed wararrow. Thus, while they were arguing, Stevens took the offensive, anda cruelly barbed steel war-head tore completely through the body oftheir leader and mortally wounded the creature next beyond him. Thoughsurprised, they were not to be frightened off, but with wild, shrillscreams rushed to the attack. Stevens had no ammunition to waste, andevery time that mighty bow twanged a yard-long arrow transfixed at leastone of the red horde--and a body through which had torn one of thoseghastly, hand-forged arrow-heads was of very little use thereafter.Accurately-sped arrows splintered harmlessly against the re-enforcedwindows of his helmet and against the steel guards protecting his hands.He was almost deafened by the din as the stone missiles of the slingersrebounded from his reverberating shell of steel, but he fired carefully,steadily, and powerfully until his last arrow had been loosed. Then,the wicked dirk in his left hand and the long and heavy saber weavinga circular path of brilliance in the sun, he stepped forward a coupleof paces to meet the attackers. For a few moments nothing could standbefore that fiercely driven blade--severed heads, limbs, and fragmentsof torsos literally filled the air, but sheer weight of numbersbore him down. As he fell, he saw the white shaft of one of Nadia'shunting-arrows flash past his helmet and bury itself to the flock inthe body of one of the horde above him. Nadia knew that her arrows couldnot harm her lover, and through a chink between two boulders she wasshooting into the thickest of the mob speeding her light arrows withthe full power of her bow.
Though down, the savages soon discovered that Stevens was not out. Insuch close quarters he could not use his sword, but the fourteen-inchblade of the dirk, needle-pointed as it was and with two razor-sharp,serrated cutting edges, was itself no mean weapon, and time after timehe drove it deep, taking life at every thrust. Four more red monstersthrew themselves upon the prostrate man, but not sufficiently versed inarmor to seek out its joints, their fierce short spear thrusts did nodamage. Presently four more corpses lay still and Stevens, with his,to them incredible, earthly strength, was once more upon his feet inspite of their utmost efforts to pinion his mighty limbs, and was againswinging his devastating weapon. Half their force lying upon the field,wiped out by a small, but invincible and apparently invulnerable being,the remainder broke and ran, pursued by Stevens to the point where thered monsters had first halted. He recovered his arrows and returned tothe cave, opening his face-plate as he came.
"All x, sweetheart?" he asked, rolling away the boulders. "Didn't getanything through to you, did they?"
"No, they didn't even realize that I was taking part in the battle, Iguess. Did they hurt you while they had you down? I was scared to deathfor a minute."
"No, the old armor held. One of them must have gnawed on my anklesome, between the greave and the heel-plate, but he couldn't quite getthrough. 'Sa darn small opening there, too--must have bent my foot'way around to get in at all. Have to tighten that joint up a little,I guess. I'll bet I've got a black spot and blue spot there the size ofmy hand--maybe it's only the size of yours, though."
"You won't die of that, probably. Heavens, Steve, that cleaver of yoursis a frightful thing in action! Suppose it's safe for us to go home?"
"Absolutely--right now is the best chance we'll ever have, and somethingtells me that we'd better make it snappy. They'll be back, and next timethey won't be so easy to take."
"All x, then--hold me, Steve, I can't stand the sight of that---letalone wade through it. I'm going to faint or something, sure."
"As you were!" he snapped. "You aren't going to pass out now that it'sall over! It's a pretty ghastly mess, I know, but shut your eyes andI'll carry you out of sight."
"Aren't we out of sight of that place yet?" she demanded after a time.
"I have been for quite a while," he confessed, "but you're sittingpretty, aren't you? And you aren't very heavy--not here on Ganymede,anyway!"
* * * * *
"Put me down!" she commanded. "After that crack I won't play with youany more at all--I'll pick up my marbles and go home!"
He released her and they hurried hack toward their waterfall, keepingwary eyes sharp-set for danger in any form, animal or vegetable. On theway back across the foothills Stevens shot another hexaped, and upon theplateau above the river Nadia bagged several birds and small animals,but it was not until they were actually in their own little canyon thattheir rapid pace slackened and their vigilance relaxed.
"After this, ace, we hunt together a
nd we go back to wearing armor whilewe're hunting. It scared me out of a year's growth when you checkedup missing."
"We sure do, Steve," she concurred emphatically. "I'm not going to getmore than a meter away from you from now on. What do you suppose thosehorrible things are?"
"Which?"
"Both."
"Those flowers aren't like anything Tellus ever saw, so we have no basisof comparison. They may be a development of a flycatching plant, or theymay be a link between the animal and the vegetable kingdom. However,we don't intend to study 'em, so let's forget 'em. Those animals wereundoubtedly intelligent beings; they probably are a race of savages ofthis satellite."
"Then the really civilized races are probably...."
"Not necessarily--there may well be different types, each strugglingtoward civilization. They certainly are on Venus, and they once were onMars."
"Why haven't we seen anything like that before, in all these months?Things have been so calm and peaceful that we thought we had the wholeworld to ourselves, as far as danger or men were concerned."
"We never saw them before because we never went where they lived--youwere a long ways from your usual stamping-grounds, you know. Thatanimal-vegetable flower is probably a high-altitude organism, livingin the mountains and never coming as low as we are down here. As forthe savages--whatever they are--they probably never come within fivekilometers of the falls. Many primitive peoples think that waterfallsare inhabited by demons, and maybe these folks are afflicted the sameway."
"We don't know much about our new world yet, do we?"
"We sure don't--and I'm not particularly keen on finding out much moreabout it until we get organized for trouble, either. Well, here weare--just like getting back home to see the 'Hope,' isn't it?"
"It _is_ home, and will be until we get one of our own on earth," andafter Stevens had read his meters, learning with satisfaction that thefull current was still flowing into the accumulators, he began to cutup the meat.
"Now that you've got the power-plant running at last, what next?" askedNadia, piling the cuts in the freezer.
"Brandon's ultra-radio comes next, but it's got more angles to it thana cubist's picture of a set of prisms; so many that I don't know whereto begin. There, that job's done--let's sit down and I'll talk at youawhile. Maybe between us we can figure out where to start. I've goteverything to build it lined up except for the tube, but that's got mestopped cold. You see, fields of force are all right in most places, butI've got to have one tube, and it's got to have the hardest possiblevacuum. That means a mercury-vapor super pump. Mercury is absolutelythe only thing that will do the trick and the mercury is one thingthat is conspicuous by its absence in these parts. So are tungsten forfilaments, tantalum for plates, and platinum for leads; and I haven'tfound anything that I can use as a getter, either--a metal, you know, toflash inside the tube to clean up the last traces of atmosphere in it."
"I didn't suppose that such a simple thing as a radio tube could holdyou up, after the perfectly unbelievable things that you have donealready--but I see now how it could. Of course, the tubes in ourreceiver over there are too small?"
"Yes, they are only receiver and communicator tubes, and I need ahigh-power transmitting tube--a fifty-kilowatter, at least. I'd givemy left leg to the knee joint for one of those big water-cooled,sixty-kilowatt ten-nineteens right now--it would save us a lot ofgrief."
"Maybe you could break up those tubes and use the plates and so on?"
"I thought of that, but it won't work--there isn't half enough metalin the lot, and the filaments in particular are so tiny that I couldn'tpossibly work them over into a big one. Then, too, we haven't gotmany spare tubes, and if I smash the ones we're using, I put ourcommunicators out of business for good, so that we can't yell for helpif we have to drift home--and I still don't get any mercury."
"Do you mean to tell me there's no mercury on this whole planet?"
"Not exactly; but I do mean that I haven't been able to find any, andthat it's probably darned scarce. And since all the other metals I wantworst are also very dense and of high atomic weight, they're probablymighty scarce here, too. Why? Because we're on a satellite, and nomatter what hypothesis you accept for the origin of satellites, you cometo the same conclusion--that heavy metals are either absent or mostawfully scarce and buried deep down toward the center. There are lots ofheavy metals in Jupiter somewhere, but we probably couldn't find them.Jupiter's atmosphere is one mass of fog, and we couldn't see, since wehaven't got an infra-red transformer. I could build one, in time, butit would take quite a while--and we couldn't work on Jupiter, anyway,because of its gravity and probably because of its atmosphere. And evenif we could work there, we don't want to spend the rest of our livesprospecting for mercury." Stevens fell silent, brow wrinkled in thought.
"You mean, dear, that we're..." Nadia broke off, the sentenceunfinished.
"Gosh, no! There's lots of things not tried yet, and we can always setout to drift it. I was thinking only of building the tube. And I'mtrying to think ... say, Nadia, what do you know about Cantrell'sComet?"
"Not a thing, except that I remember reading in the newspapers that itwas peculiar for something or other. But what has Cantrell's Comet gotto do with the high cost of living--or with radio tubes? Have you gonecuckoo all of a sudden?"
"You'll be surprised!" Stevens grinned at her puzzled expression."Cantrell's Comet is one of Jupiter's comet family and is peculiar inbeing the most massive one known to science. It was hardly known untilafter they built those thousand-foot reflectors on the Moon, where theseeing is always perfect, but it has been studied a lot since then.Its nucleus is small, but extremely heavy--it seems to have an averagedensity of somewhere around sixteen. There's platinum and everythingelse that's heavy there, girl! They ought to be there in such quantitythat even such a volunteer chemist as I am could find them!"
* * * * *
"Heavens, Steve!" A look of alarm flashed over Nadia's face, thendisappeared as rapidly as it had come into being. "But of course, cometsaren't really dangerous."
"Sure not. A comet's tail, which so many people are afraid of as beingpoison gas, is almost a perfect vacuum, even at its thickest, and we'dhave to wear space-suits anyway. And speaking of vacuum ... whoopee!We don't need mercury any more than a goldfish needs a gas-mask. Whenwe get Mr. Tube done, we'll take him out into space, leaving his mouthopen, and very shortly he'll be as empty as a flapper's skull. Thenwe'll seal him up, flash him out, come back here, and start spillingour troubles into Brandon's shell-like ear!"
"Wonderful, Steve! You do get an idea occasionally, don't you? But howdo we get out there? Where is this Cantrell's Comet?"
"I don't know, exactly--there's one rub. Another is that I haven'teven started the transmitter and receptor units. But we've got somefield-generators here on board that I can use, so it won't be so bad.And our comet is in this part of the solar system somewhere fairlyclose. Wish we had an Ephemeris, a couple of I-P solar charts, anda real telescope."
"You can't do much without an Ephemeris, I should think. It's a goodthing you kept the chronometers going. You know the I-P time, day, anddates, anyway."
"I'll have to do without some things, that's all," and the man staredabsently at the steel wall. "I remember something about its orbit, sinceit is one thing that all I-P vessels have to steer clear of. Think I canfigure it close enough so that we'll be able to find it in our littletelescope, or even on our plate, since we'll be out of this atmosphere.And it might not be a bad idea for us to get away, anyway. I'm afraid ofthose folks on that space-ship, whoever they were, and they must livearound here somewhere. Cantrell's Comet swings about fifty millionkilometers outside Jupiter's orbit at aphelion--close enough for us toreach, and yet probably too far for them to find us easily. By the timewe get back here, they probably will have quit looking for us, if theylook at all. Then too, I expect these savages to follow us up. What say,little ace--do we try it or do we stay here?"
/> "You know best, Steve. As I said before, I'm with you from now on, inwhatever you think best to do. I know that you think it best to go outthere. Therefore, so do I."
"Well," he said, finally, "I'd better get busy, then--there's a lot todo before we can start. The radio doesn't come next, after all--thetransmitter and receptor units come ahead of it. They won't meanwasted labor, in any event, since we'll have to have them in case theradio fails. You'd better lay in a lot of supplies while I'm workingon that stuff, but don't go out of sight, and yell like fury ifyou see anything. We'd both better wear full armor every time we goout-of-doors--unless I'm all out of control we aren't done with thosesavages yet. Even though they may be afraid of the demons of the falls,I think they'll have at least one more try at us."
While Nadia brought in meat and vegetables and stored them away,Stevens attacked the problem of constructing the pair of tight-beam,auto-dirigible transmitter and receptor units which would connect hisgreat turbo-alternator to the accumulators of their craft, wherever itmight be in space. From the force-field generators of the "Forlorn Hope"he selected the two most suitable for his purpose, tuned them to theexact frequency he required, and around them built a complex system ofcondensers and coils.
Day after day passed. Their larder was full, the receptor was finished,and the beam transmitter was almost ready to attach to theturbo-alternator before the calm was broken.
"Steve!" Nadia shrieked. Glancing idly into the communicator plate, shehad been perfunctorily surveying the surrounding territory. "They'recoming! Thousands of them! They're all over the bench up there, and justsimply pouring down the hills and up the valley!"
"Wish they'd waited a few hours longer--we'd have been gone. However,we're just about ready for them," he commented grimly, as he stared overher shoulder into the communicator plate. "We'll make a lot of thoseIndians wish that they had stayed at home with their papooses."
"Have you got all those rays and things fixed up?"
"Not as many as I'd like to have. You see, I don't know the compositionof the I-P ray, since it is outlawed to everybody except the police.Of course I could have found out from Brandon, but never paid anyattention to it. I've got some nice ultra-violet, though, and a short-waveoscillatory that'll cook an elephant to a cinder in about eight seconds.We'll keep them amused, no fooling! Glad we had time to cover our opensides, and it looks as though that meteorite armor we put over theprojectors may be mighty useful, too."
On and on the savages came, massed in formations showing some signs ofrude discipline. This time there was neither shrieking nor yelling; theweird creatures advanced silently and methodically. Here and there weremassed groups of hundreds, dragging behind them engines which Stevensstudied with interest.
"Hm ... m ... m. Catapults," he mused. "You were right, girl of mydreams--armor and bows and arrows wouldn't help us much right now.They're going to throw rocks at us that'll have both mass and momentum.With those things they can cave in our side-armor, and might even dentour roof. When one of those projectiles hits, we want to know where itain't, that's all."
Stevens cast off the heavily-insulated plug connecting the power plantleads to his now almost fully charged accumulators, strapped himself andNadia into place at the controls, and waited, staring into the plate.Catapult after catapult was dragged to the lip of the little canyon,until six of them bore upon the target. The huge stranded springs ofhair, fiber, and sinew were wound up to the limit, and enormous massesof rock were toilsomely rolled upon the platforms. Each "gunner" seizedhis trip, and as the leader shrieked his signal the six ponderous massesof metalliferous rock heaved into the air as one. But they did notstrike their objective, for as the signal was given, Stevens shotpower into his projectors. The "Forlorn Hope" leaped out of the canyonand high into the air over the open meadow, just as the six greatprojectiles crashed into the ground upon the spot which, an instantbefore, she had occupied.
* * * * *
Rudimentary discipline forgotten, the horde rushed down into the canyonand the valley, in full clamor of their barbaric urgings. Horns andarms tossed fiercely, savage noises rent the air, and arrows splinteredharmlessly upon steel plate as the mystified and maddened warriors uponthe plain below gave vent to their outraged feelings.
"Look, Nadia! A whole gang of them are smelling around that power plug.Pretty soon somebody's going to touch a hot spot, and when he does,we'll cut loose on the rest of them."
The huge insulating plug, housing the ends of the three great cablesleading to the converters of the turbo-alternator, lay innocently uponthe ground, its three yawning holes invitingly open to savage arms. Thechief, who had been inspecting the power-plant, walked along the triplexlead and joined his followers at its terminus. Pointing with his horns,he jabbered orders and three red monsters, one at each cable, bent tolift the plug, while the leader himself thrust an arm into each of thethree contact holes. There was a flash of searing flame and the reekingsmoke of burning flesh--those three arms had taken the terrific no-loadvoltage of the three-phase converter system, and the full power of thealternator had been shorted directly to ground through the comparativelysmall resistance of his body.
Stevens had poised the "Forlorn Hope" edgewise in mid-air, so thatthe gleaming, heavily armored parabolic reflectors of his projectors,mounted upon the leading edge of the fortress, covered the scene below.As the charred corpse of the savage chieftain dropped to the ground,it seemed to the six-limbed creatures that the demons of the falls hadindeed been annoyed beyond endurance by their intrusion; for, as if inresponse to the flash of fire from the power plug, that structure sopeculiarly and so stolidly hanging in the air came plunging down towardthem. From it there reached down twin fans of death and destruction: oneflaming and almost invisibly incandescent violet which tore at the eyesand excruciatingly disintegrated brain and nervous tissues; the otherdully glowing an equally invisible red, at the touch of which bodytemperature soared to lethal heights and foliage burst cracklingly intospontaneous flame.
In their massed hundreds, the savages dropped where they stood, liferived away by the torturing ultra-violet, burned away by the blastof pure heat, or consumed by the conflagrations that raged instantlywherever that wide-sweeping fan encountered combustible material.In the face of power supernatural they lost all thought of attack or ofconquest, and sought only and madly to escape. Weapons were thrown away,the catapults were abandoned, and, every man for himself, the mob fledin wildest disorder, each striving to put as much distance as possiblebetween himself and that place of dread mystery, the waterfall.
"Well, I guess that'll hold 'em for a while," Stevens dropped theircraft back into its original quarters in the canyon. "Whether they everbelieved before that this falls was inhabited by devils or not, theythink so now. I'll bet that it will be six hundred Jovian years beforeany of them ever come within a hundred kilometers of it again. I'm gladof it, too, because they'll let our power plant alone now. Well, let'sget going--we've got to make things hum for a while!"
"Why all the rush? You just said that we have scared them away forgood."
"The savages, yes, but not those others. We've just turned loose enoughradiation to affect detectors all over the system, and it's up to us toget this beam projector set up, get away from here, and get our powershut off before they can trace us. Snap it up, ace!"
The transmitter unit was installed at the converters, the cable was tornout, and, having broken the last material link between it and Ganymede,Stevens hurled the "Forlorn Hope" out into space, using the highestacceleration Nadia could endure. Hour after hour the massive wedge ofsteel bored outward, away from Jupiter; hour after hour Stevens' anxiouseyes scanned his instruments; hour after hour hope mounted and relieftook the place of anxiety as the screens remained blank throughout everyinquiring thrust into the empty ether. But they knew they would have tokeep sharp vigilance.
* * * * *