The Arthur Leo Zagat Science Fiction Megapack

by Arthur Leo Zagat

  Suddenly Arnim halted, bent low, was staring at something through the bleached foliage. Haldane obeyed the covert signal to halt. After long minutes, Penger gestured for him to come up.

  “Look at that!” Penger pointed with his projector through the leafy screen. Britt strove to pierce the mist and the rain, could make out nothing in the haze. Then a vagrant breeze cleared away the obscuring fog. He was looking at a clearing, man-made. He could see the hacked stumps of the jungle growth, still raw.

  In the center of the opening was a tangled mass of wires, coils, broken glass. The ground was blackened and scarred as if a lightning bolt had just struck. To one side, a depression in the mud, rapidly filling with water, showed where the Martian sphere had rested.

  “That’s where the whining noise came from. I half-thought Chris was delirious—but I see it now. That’s why the Curtain failed—why we couldn’t hear Bell. Some ray-projector like a searchlight—that neutralized the Grendon vibration where it impinged and also drowned the communication waves.

  “Concentrated, it was powerful enough to open a passage for the darts, but when they diffused it to cover a space big enough for a man to get through it neutralized only partly. That’s what killed the savage.”

  “How could the natives have invented anything like this?” ventured Britt.

  “Natives, phooey! It’s Rutnom, up to his old tricks. Using the savages to cover his own tracks, so that he could put on a bland smile of innocence when the B. P. C. police investigate. He pulled that before on Jupiter. But why? Why? There’s plenty of web here for both of us.”

  “Mr. Bell said something about filing papers on the Wanderer—and a letter.”

  “Of course. I see it now. That was a jovium burn on his arm. And I thought he was raving, was dreaming himself back in the old days. Wait. The Satona, the Mitco relief ship, is due here in a week. We have no time to lose. Come on!”

  The trader was off at a run, reckless of possible ambush. Britt followed, wondering, back into the compound.

  “No time to bury him now. We’ll be back,” Penger shouted as he sealed shut the door of Bell’s tomb. In moments the Earthmen were in the little two-man flier. Penger sprang to the control levers, a roaring blast stirred the mud beneath. Then the Wanderer had leaped free, was shooting through the cloud banks at terrific speed.

  Britt was thrust to the floor by the tremendous force of acceleration. Arnim clung to the control levers, gasping. In the visor screen there was nothing but grey drifting wisps of vapor. Then came a sudden glorious burst of light—the sun!—the sun the Terrestrials had not seen for half an Earth year!

  CHAPTER II

  The Chase through Space

  The Wanderer reached the limit of its la normal speed, settled down to its steady pace of two hundred Earth miles a second. Released from the pressure of the acceleration, Britt felt a sudden lightness. Already they were far enough from Venus to be losing the effects of her gravity.

  Penger switched on the coils that normalized this condition within the ship. He studied the banked gauge faces, with their serried rows of quivering needles, leafed rapidly through the chart book conveniently clamped beside the control levers. Then he made certain adjustments, and locked the levers.

  “All set. She’s on the automatic control now. Nothing to do about navigation until we get within a quarter-million miles of Ganymede. Now let’s take a look at what’s happening behind.”

  He twirled the wheel of the periscope. On the visor screen, against the blackness of space with its myriad golden twinkling points, the great ball of Venus stood out, a vast sphere of heaving vapors, glowing glorious in the light of the sun. The two men crowded close to the screen, searching for sign of a pursuer.

  “The Martian isn’t following. Wise boy, his small boat hasn’t the speed of the Wanderer; we’d walk away from him.”

  “Here’s the letter, sir, that Mr. Bell spoke about.”

  A fleeting smile crossed Arnim’s face. “Oh, you want to know what it’s all about, do you. Can’t blame you. Hand it over.” Penger read aloud:

  “Arnim: I’m writing this to drop down into your enclosure from the Wanderer before I make off for Ganymede. I’ve got great news for you, but I don’t dare talk to you over the tele-talker, for fear the Martians will overhear.

  “First, I owe you an apology. For the first time, I think, in the nearly twenty years we’ve fought together as Venus, Inc. men, I’ve kept a secret from you. And that’s because it wasn’t my secret. Last time I was on Earth, Stromstein told me, in strictest confidence, that the jovium mines on Jupiter, both ours and Mitco’s, were petering out. He didn’t think they’d last another two years.”

  “No wonder!” Arnim exclaimed. Britt looked at him questioningly, but Penger resumed his reading.

  “You know what that would mean, of course. So you can imagine how I felt when, on that mapping trip I took, I stumbled on a mountain of the peculiarly greenish rock that is characteristic of the jovium deposits on Jupiter.

  “I immediately staked the claim, then worked back through the jungle to where, about twenty miles away, I had left the Wanderer. I had to get a badinite flash, you see, to take a sample in, according to the rules of the B. P. C. Mineral Claims Commission. The stuff was almost pure. I got a nasty burn on my arm when I brushed against it, too.

  “On my way back after I got my sample, I ran into Astna, Rutnom’s sidekick. He looked queerly at the flask, and the burn on my arm, but I thought fast and told him I was out collecting insects, and the flask was the only thing I could find to put them into. I think I fooled him, but I’m a little worried.”

  “Yeah, he fooled him!” Penger interrupted himself. “You can’t put much over on those Martians.”

  “Nothing much more. I’ve got the Wanderer all set for a long trip, and as soon as I finish this I take off for Ganymede to file the claim. After that we can thumb our noses at Rutnom.

  “You’ll be back on Earth by the time I return. Lucky fellow. Give my regards to the bright lights. And tell the kid I’ll get in touch with him as soon as I get back. Venus won’t be such a lonely place when they start working the mine. So long. Chris.”

  “Just about what I figured,” Penger concluded, “When I saw what Rutnom had been up to. Let’s take a look at the location papers.”

  “Here’s the dispatch box, sir. But it’s sealed.”

  “Sealed! Well I’ll be darned.” Penger looked disconsolately at the square box of argento-platinoid that Britt held out to him. “That’s a tough note. Suppose we lose that somehow—only Bell knew where that deposit is; and he’s gone.”

  Even captains of interplanetary trading ships are sometimes venal, and Mitco was ever willing to pay well for a glimpse of the reports and other dispatches that shuttle across the skies between the Earth Company’s far flung stations and the great Central Headquarters at Denver.

  Hence these dispatch boxes were devised. Once sealed, they could not be opened save by the intricate unsealing apparatus that existed only at Denver and, by virtue of the supreme power of the B. P. C., at such control points of the august body as the Mineral Claims Office on Ganymede Any attempt to get at the contents by force, released a chemical within that utterly destroyed everything enclosed.

  “Well, we’ll have to take good care we don’t lose it,” Arnim continued. “I see the badinite flask is here, with the sample. Good. Now what do you say we get some food into us?”

  “I think that’s a splendid idea. Mr. Bell certainly stocked the ship up well with food tablets. And the water tanks are all filled. Say, if it wasn’t for thinking of him lying back there, this would be a lark. I never expected to be on my way to Jupiter.”

  “It’s no junket, and don’t kid yourself. I’ve never known Rutnom or any other Mitco man to give up without a scrap. They’ll be after us, beyond a doubt. And we’ll have our job cut out to beat them.”

  “I’m not worried, Mr. Penger,” Britt retorted confidently. “I know you’ll win out
.”

  “Say, Mr. Penger,” the lad broke out after a silence, during which both had busied themselves with disposing of enormous doses of concentrated food, “Why should Rutnom go to such lengths to jump our claim? After all, the governments have a monopoly of jovium. There’s no question of anybody making any money out of it.”

  “Plenty of reason. If we don’t get this claim filed, there won’t be any Earthmen worrying about making money after a few years. You heard what Bell wrote about the mines on Jupiter petering out?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well—you know what jovium is used for. It’s the catalyst that made interplanetary voyaging practical. Oh, we had space ships before the deposits were found on Jupiter. But they had to carry such enormous volumes of fuel to get anywhere that there was neither space nor carrying capacity left for commercially practicable freight nor, what is more important, in the present instance, heavy armament.

  “All they were fit for was to carry two or three men on exploration trips. That was the case on Mars as well as on Earth. Their fuel differed somewhat, but the principle was the same.

  “Mercury, it is true, had had solar energy motors for ages, but they refuse to divulge the secret.

  “Their civilization is so far ahead of ours that they refuse to have anything to do with Terrestrials or Martians, whom they look down upon as we look down upon the savages of Jupiter and Venus. True, they keep the peace, but that is because they feel it an obligation placed on them because of their superiority.

  “The discovery of jovium initiated the commercial exploitation of the far planets. It initiated also a race in spatial armament between Mars and Earth, that so far has been a dead heat.”

  Britt was listening attentively. He had, naturally, heard all this on the school-broadcasts, but listening to dry history, and hearing it told by a man who had seen the history in the making, had helped to make it, were different matters.

  Besides, he thrilled at the thought, he was even now taking part in a new chapter of the stirring story.

  “You have seen a little of the ruthless nature of the Martians. What do you think would happen to Earth if our jovium mines were exhausted and they still had a plentiful supply, such as Bell credits to this, new deposit?”

  “They’d drive Earth out of space.”

  “Yes, and probably attack us at home. So you see how vitally important it is for us to get that box and what it contains safely to Ganymede.”

  “Why were you in such a rush to get off? Once we were away from Venus, Rutnom couldn’t, give us any more trouble. You said yourself that his flier hasn’t nearly the speed of the Wanderer.”

  “His ship hasn’t, but the Satona is due in a week. It will take us twenty days to make the trip at our best rate. She can do it in ten. With her armament, we wouldn’t stand the chance of a snowball on the Sun against her should she catch up with us. And she’ll try, my boy, she’ll try.”

  “We ought to make it with about forty-eight hours to spare, but those Mitco boats don’t adhere to schedule very closely, and she might well reach Venus a day ahead of time. If she does, you’ll see some fun.”

  Day after day the Wanderer drove across the immensity of space. Day after day the Terrestrials watched the visor screens, took turns scanning the wide velvety blackness of the heavens through the electro-telescope. Only the glory of the widespread firmament met their weary glance. A week passed by, and still there was no sign of a pursuer. The Earthmen began to breathe more freely. A little more, and they would be beyond reach of the Martians.

  Then, on the eighth day, Britt, at the telescope, suddenly exclaimed.

  “Mr. Penger, what’s this? A new star, or…”

  Penger sprang to the telescope. Glowing redly in the oblique rays of the sun was a new body, a star where no star should be. Even as he gazed it grew, took the form of a tiny half-disk.

  “It’s the Satona all right. And just as I was beginning to think we’d get away with it. Look at her come! Here Britt, watch her while I try to get some more speed out of this scow.”

  Haldane clung, fascinated, to the eyepiece while Penger thought desperately of how he might avoid them. With his given energy his speed was sadly limited and the pointer of the speed indicator would not move above the 250 mark on its dials. It would be suicidal to use up energy in getting any more out of the Wanderer.

  “Gosh, Mr. Penger, she’s overhauling us hand over fist. She must be doing five hundred a second.

  “She’s Mitco’s fastest. I’ve heard she made six-fifty on her test trip. Well, we’ll dodge her as long as we can.”

  The Satona was clearly defined now on the large visor screen, a hemisphere glinting in the oblique rays of the sun. On and on sped the little Wanderer without rest across the void, its occupants thinking and thinking, as if seeking to increase the speed of their craft by the very intensity of their wills. And on and on came the pursuer, bulking ever larger on the screen.

  “Isn’t there anything we can do to keep those papers from them?” Britt grated out once between clenched teeth.

  “If worse comes to worst, I’ll smash the box. That will destroy them, but it won’t do much good—only delay matters. They’ll search Venus till they find Bell’s mine and make sure no Earthmen has a chance to run across it.”

  “But we can send out expeditions too.”

  “Yeah? Earth will never know, till it’s too late. You don’t think they’ll leave us alive to tell the story. No. Our only chance is to get the box through to Ganymede. And I’m darned if hold on, I’ve got a hunch. It might work.”

  Penger’s eye had drifted mechanically to the ground glass chart across which a red dot was moving to indicate the Wanderer’s position in the reaches of interstellar space. Blue disks showed the direction of Earth, the Sun, Venus; Jupiter, the other planets. But an inch ahead a band of tiny blue dots wandered across the map. They represented the Asteroids—small fragments of a blasted planet following their own orbit around the central Sun.

  The veteran changed the field of the visor screen. The following Satona, Venus, the Sun swept out of sight. Directly ahead the periscope pointed. Golden in the tremendous distance, Jupiter beckoned. But here—not forty thousand miles ahead, was a light fleck, something catching the sunlight. Penger grunted.

  “Get bearings on the Satona, Britt. How far behind is she?”

  “Only a hundred and ten thousand miles. Relative speed about four hundred per second. She’ll have us in five minutes.”

  “Here!” the other snapped. “Take the controls. Hold her on the mark I’ve set.”

  Britt sprang to obey. A question trembled on his lips, but Penger’s peremptory tone, the grim set of his jaw, forbade. The Wanderer had veered from her course, was driving for the asteroid, revealed now as a blurred ball, ten miles in diameter, revolving at incredible speed. Arnim had snatched up the precious box, was in the nose of the ship, his hand on the handle of the bow porthole. The flier would miss the asteroid by scant miles. They were passing it.

  “Turn her, man, turn her left! Quick!” Even as Britt twisted the dial to obey Arnim had the port open, was throwing the box out in the direction of the Wanderer’s curving flight, was struggling to close the thick glass against the outrush of air. The flier curved in a great semicircle around the whirling midget planet, headed back toward the Satona, now right at hand. Penger was at the telescope.

  CHAPTER IV

  Caught!

  A voice sounded in the chamber, a grating, metallic voice.

  “Halt, Wanderer!”

  Arnim’s eye was glued to the telescope eyepiece. To Haldane’s wonder he paid not the slightest attention to the challenge. The youth hesitated, then with a flush of anger reddening his face he sprang to the controls.

  Some wild scheme of escape must have inspired him at he swung lever after lever, sending the little flier darting about in mad, erratic zigzags. And still no sound came from Penger, save a muttered, “I think it’s working!”

 
Again the voice sounded, coldly contemptuous, from the Wanderer’s space-radio receiver.

  “Do not resist, Earthman, it is useless. Rutnom speaking.”

  Britt’s face was livid with fury. He shook his fist at the image that filled the visor screen, the great bulking image of the Martian spaceship a rusty red egg of metal with the intertwining symbols that spelled M. I. T. Co. in the Martian graphs.

  Suddenly the Wanderer lurched, her darting rushes checked in midspace. A tremendous force had seized her, was drawing her irresistibly toward her enemy. The Earthship shook with the thunder of her rocket-tubes, the void about, seethed with flaring gases.

  But the power that could send her careening through space at twice a hundred miles a second was puny against the pull of the Martian’s magnetic fields. Inexorably the little flier was drawn back, back, back, until at last she drifted against the metallic side of the Satona and clung there.

  Now at last Penger was torn from the telescope that so queerly absorbed him.

  “Cut it out, you fool!” he whispered urgently to Britt. “Let me handle this.” Then, aloud, as the tube-exhausts dwindled and died, “Penger speaking. What do you want of us, Rutnom?”

  “Ah, it’s Penger I have to deal with!” There was satisfaction in the metallic tone. “You know what I want. The location map of the jovium mine Bell found. Deliver that, together with the sample flask, pledge me your word not to report this occurrence and you shall be permitted to return to Venus, unharmed.”

  Penger’s response was cold and very calm. “Sorry, I haven’t the chart.”

  “Don’t trifle with me. You would not be making this hurried voyage toward Antka1 had your comrade not delivered it to you. Come now, you must realize that you are helpless. And, you of all Earthmen should know it is dangerous to play with me.”

  “You know my reputation. I do not lie. I had the chart, it is true. But when I saw that I could not escape you, I threw the dispatch box that contained it from the bow port of my ship. It is beyond your reach.”