Astounding Science Fiction Stories Vol 1

by Anthology

"What were you going to do?" Kueelo moved in closer, a sudden light of interest in his eyes.

  "See Penger, of course."

  "Why?"

  "I need tsith! And I'm going to need it worse before this day's over."

  Kueelo's eyes went dull again. "We both do. How do you think you're going to manage it?"

  "I'll show you. Never let it be said that Joel Latham was helpless in face of an emergency." With unsteady fingers he began a search of his clothes. And that's when the final realization descended upon Joel Latham. These weren't his clothes, not the ones he had when he came here.

  He stared into the Martian's mango-like face. "I had a lucky piece. An ancient Deimian jewel set in platinum. It's always been good for credit."

  Kueelo's sigh was like a wind through withered leaves. "That," he said, "was used up two nights ago."

  "I had a dis-gun, too! What happened to it?"

  "We used that up last night. Penger allowed us four drinks apiece for it."

  Latham nodded miserably. "The space yacht. I guess it's already gone."

  "Two days ago. Your fine feathered friends shunned you when they learned you were a tsith hound. But I stuck by you," Kueelo added cunningly.

  Latham sank heavily onto a clump of swamp grass. He stared at his right hand. It had started trembling. He couldn't stop the trembling. He wondered dully if he was frightened, or if that was a result of the terrible craving that twisted and writhed within him. He stared up into the Martian's face.

  "Stranded," he said weakly. "But I'll get out of here. I'll hire out on one of the freighters--"

  "You won't." Kueelo's voice was matter-of-fact again. "Not when they learn you're a tsith hound. And Penger will let them know, you can bet on that. He's a devil, that Penger."

  "But he's an Earthman, and I'm an Earthman!" Latham's voice was almost a wail. His soul was withering within him.

  "Tell Penger that and see what he answers you. You're on the beach, my friend. You've been there before, but this is the final beach--the swampside of Venus. And here you'll stay until Penger is ready to let you go. I've been here five years."

  Joel Latham put his head in his hands and tried to think. Kueelo's voice droned on:

  "You'll work for Penger. You'll work in the swamps. An Earthman, a Martian, a Ganymedian can do ten times the work of one of these gweels." He gestured at the pallid-faced low-Venusians who moved listlessly through the mud, pulling up the draanga-weed. "You'll work for the amount of tsith Penger portions out to you, and glad to get it."

  At the word tsith, Latham's head came up. The dawning fear was gone from his eyes.

  "All right! I'll do it, but only for a while, mind you! I'll find a way out of this. I'm getting back to the iridium fields on Callisto."

  He plunged wildly into the mud and sank to his waist. But it was the thought of tsith that drove him on, not Callisto. Kueelo stood by and watched, a thin, knowing smile creasing his leathery lips.

  A sort of frenzy had come upon Joel Latham. He tore at the stubborn draanga-weed and brought it up dripping, tossing the long lengths across his shoulder. He knew of this stuff.

  When properly synthesized draanga-weed had a medicinal value on the various planets. Penger shipped it out four times a year, at a neat little profit.

  Latham moved on. A yellowish fog had come down, the dreaded igniis fatui. Unless one kept moving, decomposition of the blood set in, essential salts within the body were dissolved and cellular activity ceased. Latham grinned wryly. He doubted if it could touch him! There was too much tsith within his alchemy. Nevertheless he moved and worked ceaselessly. He could see that caricature of a Martian standing back there watching.

  Then it happened; the thing happened which was to prove both a promise and a despair. Joel Latham felt a hardness at his heel, an irritating lump inside his neoprene boot.

  He moved back to higher ground, lifted his foot from the mire and removed the boot. He shook something out into his hand. It was round and hard and shiny, perhaps an inch in diameter. He held it aloft between thumb and forefinger. The filtering sunlight struck it and sent back lambent fires.

  Joel Latham stared and gasped, felt his senses reeling.

  "Purple!" he sobbed. "A purple Josmian!"

  * * * * *

  He was clambering back toward Kueelo. Forgetting the sweat in his eyes and the insufferable heat, he held the thing aloft.

  "Look at it!" he sobbed again. "Look at it shine! Look at the size!"

  Kueelo was indeed looking. His yellowish eyes bulged. "A Josmian," he whispered. "We've struck it rich!"

  Joel Latham regarded the little caricature with astonishment. Something of sanity came back to Joel Latham. "We?" he said. "I found it. It's mine. I never knew you until four days ago!"

  "But I stood by you," the Martian wailed. "Your friends deserted you, but I stood by. Aren't we partners?"

  Latham considered that. "No," he decided. "You stood by me as long as I had credit for tsith! Until my money and lucky piece and dis-gun and clothes were gone. Did you offer to help me out there?" he waved at the swamp. "This Josmian is going to get me back to Callisto! Penger ought to give me plenty for it."

  What happened next was too swift for Latham's reeling senses. A claw-like hand darted out, and Kueelo snatched the Josmian; his other hand swung around and caught Latham hard across the throat, sending him back into the swamp where he staggered for a moment and sat down abruptly.

  "Hey!" Latham protested. "Hey, look here--"

  But the Martian was scuttling away like a huge fiddler crab, the Josmian clutched in one scrawny fist.

  Joel Latham came slowly up out of the mud, shaking his head and grinning stupidly. It was very unkind of Kueelo to treat him like this. He watched the Martian's departing figure. He made no effort to follow--not at once--not until a strange new emotion, part frustration and part despair, rose up in his breast, and close upon that the dawning realization that he was being cheated of a last hope.

  Even then he didn't hurry. He followed Kueelo, swinging along in slow loping strides, but not gaining. He felt weak and sick. That jagged need for tsith was again sawing away at his entrails. His feet tangled in the outlying swamp grass, he plunged headlong and picked himself up.

  Kueelo was heading for higher ground away from the compound. Kueelo was yelling as he ran. Latham wondered why the devil he was yelling. Then, some distance ahead, Latham could see a third man lifting himself from the ground. The Jovian! Suddenly Latham remembered him. The Jovian had been with them last night too. Now Kueelo was tugging at the man, yelling, showing him the Josmian.

  The Jovian hoisted his bulk erect, turned and waited for Latham, grinning broadly. The grin didn't fool Latham. All Jovians grinned. Some of them grinned while breaking a man's vertebrae. This was one of the big ones, Latham noticed, and he was ugly, with long reaching arms and wiry hair and a face that looked as if he'd slept in it.

  Latham stopped just short of him and reached out a hand. "I want the Josmian," said Joel Latham.

  The Jovian came a step forward. "You leave Kueelo alone. Kueelo, he's my friend."

  "I'm going to have that Josmian," said Joel Latham.

  The Jovian thrust out a huge fist with amazing speed. Latham caught at it and hung on grimly. The Jovian brought his other hand around in an arc that caught the Earthman across the face, sent him sprawling ten feet away.

  "Josmian belongs to us, now. You leave us alone."

  Joel Latham sat there wiping blood from his face, watching the bestial pair as they headed around the compound and into the matted jungle. His last glimpse, just before darkness swallowed them up, was of Kueelo grinning gleefully back at him.

  Latham sighed. He stood up. The blow had shaken some of the resolve out of him. He turned east, northeast, east-by-north, like a compass on a binge. Then he saw Penger watching him from the outer gate of the compound. Apparently Penger had seen it all.

  Latham turned and ran toward Jake Penger.

  "You saw them
!" Latham wailed. "You saw it. They stole my Josmian! You've got to stop them!"

  * * * * *

  Penger planted his feet wide apart and surveyed the snivelling Earthman. Penger's dark face was hard-cut and impassive. He'd seen these tsith hounds before. They came here and died here. He hated them all.

  Penger said, "They did what?"

  "The Josmian, the purple Josmian! I found it and they stole it from me. You've got to help me, Penger!"

  Penger said, "You're crazy."

  "But I found it, I tell you! A big one. I'll sell it to you, Penger. I'll--"

  Penger said, "You're crazy with tsith. There hasn't been a Josmian found in this swamp for ten years."

  "Penger, listen to me--"

  Penger said, "Forget it. You want tsith? You'll have tsith. But you'll work and you'll work hard. You'll get the draanga-weed out."

  "Penger, I'm an Earthman! I'm asking you as one Earthman to another--" Latham stopped. He shivered. He looked into Penger's colorless eyes and what he saw made his soul curl up within him.

  "You're a what? An Earthman? You were an Earthman! Now you're a grubby little specimen of the genus tsith! You're a miserable, whining little speck of matter wriggling toward the final transfixation! In another year you won't even be that. You'll be dead and forgotten. Don't come crawling to me talking about Earthmen!" The voice scraped across Latham's naked nerve-ends. Penger's eyes blazed, and in his trembling anger he almost raised a fist.

  Latham cringed away. From out of his forgotten past something came to Latham. He stared at the loom of jungle where Kueelo and the Jovian had disappeared.

  "I've seen the day," he complained miserably, "when they wouldn't get away with this!"

  "You've seen the day--period!"

  "I'm asking you once more, Penger. Help me! At least give me back the dis-gun."

  "The dis-gun? Now what would you want with the dis-gun? You'd only come trading it back to me. You bring in the draanga-weed, that's all I'm interested in! And if you work especially hard, there'll be some tsith--enough for your needs."

  Latham's eyes went fever-bright. His lips writhed back, a fit of trembling took possession of his limbs. Almost, he succumbed to the immediate vision of the tsith; almost, he forgot about the Josmian. But somewhere deep in his alchemy was a well of stubbornness he never knew he possessed.

  He clutched at Penger's sleeve as the man turned away. He found himself screaming, "Then I'll go without the gun! I'm going to get that Josmian, do you hear? You'll believe me then! You'll believe when you see it, Penger!"

  Penger shook him away. "Sure, sure. You bring me a Josmian. Then we'll talk a deal."

  He wanted to ask for a drink, just one drink of tsith right now, but Latham had learned the essential fact that there could be no compromising with this man. He reeled away. His brief outburst had left him weak and trembling. Nevertheless, he went stumbling toward the looming wall of jungle.

  He heard Penger's voice, a little annoyed: "Where are you going?"

  Latham stumbled on.

  "You fool, you don't know these jungles! You'll die in there! You won't last an hour!"

  Latham didn't look back. Penger didn't call again. Latham could almost imagine the man's shrug of indifference.

  Vision stopped five yards away. A soft glutinous muck, worse than the outer swamp, tugged at his ankles. Corrupt fungi-growth and giant spiked ferns reached far above him in the blanketing fog.

  Penger was wrong! He wouldn't die in here. Latham knew where he was going. Kueelo had told him of the gweel village a mere few miles away, where the foothills came down to touch the jungle edge. Kueelo and the Jovian had undoubtedly headed for there and planned to lie low for a while; when the time was propitious, they would sneak back to the outpost and make a deal with Penger for the Josmian.

  The route was long and circuitous, hugging the fringe of jungle. The gweels traveled it every day. But Latham had a better plan. By cutting directly through the morass, he might just arrive there ahead of them!

  He would arm himself somehow and wait ... the element of surprise ... that's all he could hope for now.

  He left the glutinous path, and to his surprise it wasn't so bad. The growths towered many times higher but were not so dense. Occasionally the sun evidenced itself against the paling of mists hundreds of feet above. Lusty, primeval odors were almost an opiate to his senses.

  He plunged on for some ten minutes before he began to doubt. Gradually the gloom came alive with motion and sound and unseen terrors. He tried to segregate those that might mean danger. There came first a gentle whirring of wings through the mist, sweeping close above him and away. There came a gentle ripple through the foliage beside him, a slither of sound that kept pace endlessly.

  Was this what Penger meant? Still Latham had seen nothing. He wished he had his dis-gun, though.

  He wished it desperately, as a heavier sound came near. A grayish bulk charged directly across his path. It was monstrous, semi-reptilian, with wings arched sinuously along its spine as it half reared toward him. Latham fell back against a tree bole and stood motionless, staring into glittering feral eyes. The beast coughed raucously and went thrashing back into the welter of jungle and mud.

  Latham stepped away. His foot caught in a root and he fell headlong. Instantly, tiny spheres of diaphanous substance showered about his head, to burst in a scatter of violet spores. Those that touched his skin turned instantly blood-red, and seemed to grow, burrowing deep. Frantically he pulled them from his flesh, leaving raw red sores.

  There was no trail to guide him now, but he did not immediately mind that. He trekked the South Mars Desert and he had weathered the jungles of Io. Tsith hound or no, he had an unerring instinct for direction. He was sure the foothills couldn't be far ahead. But he must have a weapon!

  * * * * *

  A silent dark shadow floated down. He glimpsed a razor-clawed reptilian body, ten feet from wing to wing, its serpentine neck darting wickedly. Latham threw himself aside as the tremendous whirr of wings beat the air above his head. Close upon it came three others, and Latham hit the mud. Looking back, he saw that one of the creatures in its mad rush had hurtled into a giant fern, impaling itself upon a four-foot thorn where it hung, screaming raucously as its life-fluid ebbed away.

  Latham crawled from the spot. Reaching another fern, he managed to climb high enough to tear away one of the thorns. It was crude, but it would serve as a weapon!

  He was realizing his error now. He should have gone by the outer route. He would never reach the gweel village ahead of Kueelo and the Jovian, if indeed he reached it at all! Danger and death lay everywhere about him. Time and again those serpentine shapes winged down, silent and unwarning. He fended them off. Twice he speared them, saw ocherous blood spill from their shiny integument. Other times he wasn't so lucky, as sharp claws left a row of furrows in his back. The miasmic yellow fog bit deep into his wounds.

  Hours resolved into a nightmare of mud and heat and battle. Other creatures crossed his path or curved at him from out of the tangled fronds. He was becoming awfully weak, but a terrible madness lay across Latham's mind like a patina, driving him on. Through feverish turmoil, through waves of heat and pain and nausea that encompassed the universe, Joel Latham pursued his course.

  He never remembered the end. He never remembered coming out of that deadly jungle. He pressed with his palms against moist earth, and thought he must have been lying there for some time. His left arm was shredded. His back was shredded. Inside his clothes he felt the warm stickiness of his own blood. Outside his clothes was other substance which he knew wasn't his blood.

  Something long and shiny lay beneath his hands. The thorn! He clutched at it frantically.

  He felt if he could just lie there a moment, strength would come back to him. But he didn't lie there. He tottered to his feet, and just a few yards ahead the foothills sheered up and away from the jungle.

  Every step was an agony. He followed along the foothills, trying
to find the gweel village. He had to find it! That much he remembered. A tiny Martian and a brute of a Jovian were there, and they had something that belonged to him. He had quite forgotten now what it was, but it meant something to him, he knew, it meant a great deal.

  He came upon the village, a cluster of clay huts high upon an escarpment. Latham began climbing. He had to be careful now, something pounded that warning into his brain. He saw groups of frail, pallid-faced gweels moving about. They were harmless enough, Latham knew that; but if those other two were here--

  He reached the level of the village and moved nearer, staying behind rocks and clumps of growth. Then he saw Kueelo! The Martian huddled beside an open fire, stirring some substance in a huge gourd. As Latham watched, Kueelo opened a leather pouch at his waist and took something out. The Josmian! He held it up to the flickering firelight, and the purple sheen of the gem was no more brilliant than the gleeful look that appeared in Kueelo's yellowish eyes.

  In that instant Latham almost leaped forward, but a tightness in his temples stopped him. The distance was too great. And the Jovian must be somewhere about! Quick surprise was his only chance. His gaze roved up to the steepening cliff behind the village, and he saw the way.

  Still clutching the thorn-weapon, he followed a little ravine up to a rocky abutment. Thence along a ledge, to a spot just above the hut near Kueelo. He judged the distance, decided he could make it in two leaps; first to the roof of the hut, then to the ground.

  Latham paused the merest instant, then launched himself downward. He struck the roof with a force that jarred him to the teeth. He sprang again, and that's when luck deserted him. His feet tangled in the coarse thatchwork. He felt himself going over the edge, spinning wildly off-balance, plunging headlong into the ground as the thorn-weapon was flung far out of his grasp.

  With a startled oath, Kueelo whirled about. Latham had a vision of the man's ludicrous face. Then a tiny, shiny tube appeared like magic in the Martian's hand. A power-rapier. Latham had heard that Martians carried them always. Tiny and easy to conceal. A press of a stud released a rapier-like shaft of electronic power that reached perhaps five feet.