Battle on Mercury

by Lester del Rey (as Erik van Lhin)

  Charlie made them stop for lunch, having found a place where some kind of action of the shifting shadows, caused by the wobbling of the planet, had cracked off soft stone. It was soft enough to break into dust as he walked on it, and the dust formed a kind of cushion under them.

  “Be lost without the robot, Dick,” he admitted. “You were dead right, back there in Sigma. Together, we can make it, maybe. But I sure would’ve been out of luck if I’d gone highballing along alone.” Dick nodded. “That’s what partners are for, I guess. Ever have one before, Charlie?” “Sometimes,” the old man said. “Yeah. I mind one you’d be surprised at. Or didn’t anyone ever tell you your grandfather came up to Mercury with the first group—your mother’s father, that is? ’S a fact. Taught me half what I know, before he struck it rich and went back Earthside. I was just a kid then, myself. He wanted me to go back with him. But I guess I ain’t sorry I stuck—not even now. Come on, we gotta get going again.”

  Then the rough ground suddenly turned into the smoothest of their whole trip, and they found themselves on something that might have been a sea- bottom once, except that Mercury had never had seas. It was probably a great flow of some material that had leveled out as it cooled and never been disturbed again. Pete took the load completely, and Dick and Charlie moved along almost as easily as though they’d been walking the streets of Sigma dome.

  Johnny had been doubtful about going through it, and had seemed to waver between two courses, though the men couldn’t see why. It was obviously a big help, since they were making much better time. But now Johnny was nervous, fudging by his actions. He kept leaping upward, as if to study the terrain ahead, and skittering about to check up on things at the side.

  Dick wasn’t too surprised when he saw one of the big demons appear; at least, he was sure it was a demon, because it made no attempt to communicate with Johnny, as the true wispies seemed to do.

  But this time it made no move to harm them. It paced along beside them, while Johnny tried to quicken their gait. Once or twice it moved toward them, and Johnny swooped back, apparently bristling with his own type of anger, since their earphones crackled with static each time. But nothing more seemed to come of it all.

  Dick had almost decided it hadn’t been a demon after all when the second one appeared on the other side. Then more came into view. There were about twenty of them, moving in toward the little caravan, and more seemed to be coming up over the edge of the plain.

  Johnny had apparently expected two or three, and had somehow figured they could get through. Perhaps they were more sluggish here, near the edge of the hotlands. Or perhaps it was simply that the little packs of batteries didn’t offer them the satisfying meal they could get from a dome or a tractor. But in any event, this whole colony had come as a complete surprise to the wispy. He wobbled about unhappily.

  Then, abruptly, Johnny seemed to make up his mind. He rose upward, shrinking to a tiny ball. He hung there a second, and then went scooting off, heading back toward the hotlands at the highest speed he could make. Dick turned to stare, and saw him disappear from sight.

  Suddenly Dick felt completely lost and alone. He’d come to depend on Johnny more than he realized. In fact, he’d expected Johnny to get him out of this mess, too. Now, when Johnny simply gave up and beat a retreat, leaving him and Charlie alone, it was too much.

  He stared helplessly back where Johnny had disappeared, and then toward the demons that were now slowly drawing closer. There wasn’t even a good piece of wire with which to defend himself.

  “Dick!” Charlie’s voice hit his ears, snapping him out of his shock. “Dick, give me a hand. We ain’t dead yet.”

  He swung to see the old man frantically unloading the sled, with the robot making a clumsy attempt to help. The metal oxygen tanks went spilling off first, and Charlie began to drag the sled toward a spot on the floor of the rocky stuff near them. “There’s metal here,” he said.

  Dick couldn’t see how it would do much good. And then he got it, as Charlie turned the sled over, making a place under its curvature just big enough for the two men and the robot. He grabbed up the oxygen tanks and began carrying them over, piling them along the sled, so arranged that some touched the metal Charlie had spotted, and the rest touched ones which did touch the metal.

  There were chinks in their armor of oxygen tanks when they were finished, but it seemed possible that they could get by for a while. By touching their suits to the ground, they had an additional armor against the creatures.

  Dick directed Pete up toward the front, since that was most completely covered by the oxygen bottles. There was no sense in protecting themselves without taking care of the robot, since they still needed him to carry their supplies. Then the two men slid under, rearranging the bottles to shield them as best they could.

  The demons held off for a while, and then began to approach. Unlike the wispies, there seemed to be no effort among them to communicate. They simply began to bunch together and sidle in against the men.

  “Don’t you go blaming Johnny for running out on you, Dick,” Charlie told him. “You can’t blame him. Sticking around here wouldn’t do us any good, because they’d eat him up in no time. I told you them things eat wispies. And he had enough sense to know he’d only keep them here longer if he did try to keep just out of their way. Maybe this way we’ll be able to wait ’em out.”

  Dick had no desire to blame Johnny, but he felt a strong sense of loss now, and a growing feeling for the future—a feeling of pure fear. They’d be lost without Johnny. So far, the only hope they had saved out of the wreck of the tractor had been the fact that they had a guide through the edge of the hotlands who could be depended on.

  “Just an error—a mistake. Proves them things are as real as we are, I guess,” Charlie went on. “Johnny figgered he could get us through, and he slipped up. Can’t blame him for trying—probably the other ways were worse’n this one. He . .

  He broke off his alibi in the middle, and suddenly pointed through a chink in their armor. Dick bent forward with a mixture of hope and fear, and his heart sank. Coming through the space from the north were another group of spooks, traveling as if they were late for the feast. If the demons kept increasing in number, some were bound to break through. If enough attacked, most would be grounded, but some would be sure to find a chink that hadn’t been protected.

  Then he let out a cry. “Johnny 1 Charlie, its Johnny, coming back with his people!”

  “How can you …” Charlie stopped, and sudden hope spread over his face. “By golly, Dick, you’re right. That group is a-talking it over, and the demons don’t do that.”

  The new group had drawn back, and a few seemed to be moving about, giving orders, or passing on information.

  There were more of them than there were of the demons, Dick saw. But he knew that a lot of them would have tough going, since the demons made up in ferocity for their lack of numbers.

  “Come on, Charlie,” Dick cried. He tossed the sled aside and got to his feet. While Charlie stood up in doubt, he began stacking the oxygen tanks on top of each other, steadying them until he had a pile of them, reaching well above his head and touching the metal lode at the bottom. Charlie nodded quickly, and began erecting a similar pile.

  ‘‘You figger them things is going to come down just to kill themselves?” he asked.

  “I dunno,” Dick said. “Maybe we can attract them to us somehow. Or the wispies can use these as a goal to shoot between. You claim the demons aren’t too smart.”

  He couldn’t finish his ideas, though. Before he could go further, the wispies moved into action. Five of them seemed to work together as a unit. They suddenly darted for some of the demons, each group of five picking on one of the enemy and surrounding him.

  The demons not attacked seemed to be uncertain about this strange maneuver. Some of them moved up to enter the battle, but most of them drew back. And the five around each of the trapped demons went into action, herding their captive
along at a rush. They didn’t all succeed, but there was a rapid succession of crackles of electricity as the ones they had fooled were driven against the metal of the oxygen tanks, and grounded out of existence.

  They moved back for more, repeating the same maneuver. Dick saw one of the wispies miss its aim in its effort to keep its captive in line. It went down the tanks to the ground with the demon. But the others went on. And now there were two wispies for each demon.

  A sudden streak of blue fire lashed through the space above them, and jerked toward the ground behind them. Dick swung about, just as he saw something strike the robot. Pete stood for a second, and then began toppling. And the wispy over him drew back, bobbing unhappily about. Johnny had seen the danger, but he hadn’t been in time to save Pete!

  Dick swung around and moved toward the robot. The demons had had enough by then, and were running in full flight, with the wispies after them. They vanished over the horizon. A moment later the wispies were back. Johnny went up and made contact. When he returned, the other wispies darted away, toward the direction from which they had come.

  The battle had been a short one, and evil had been vanquished by good in the proper style, Dick knew. But he couldn’t feel too cheerful about it as he bent over Pete. The robot had been their assurance of a reasonably full supply line. Now he was gone.

  The demon that had landed on him had shown none of the restraint Pete had been used to from Johnny. Johnny had kept carefully away from all main power sources, and the demon had gone straight to those power supplies. Now Pete’s circuits were as dead as the demons that had been driven down the columns of oxygen tanks.

  But there was no use crying over spilled robots, Dick knew. In a way, they were lucky. They still had Johnny. Pete had been nothing more than a mechanical horse to them, but Johnny had proved again and again that he was a friend as well as a help to them.

  Charlie helped him right the sled and begin reloading it. They tossed out the batteries that had been spares for Pete first. And then, reluctantly, but driven by the fact that they couldn’t take more than they could drag with them, they began laying aside bottles of oxygen and other supplies. It was a much smaller load when they finished, but it was still enough for the two of them.

  Johnny hovered around Pete uncertainly, as if mourning for a friend. But at last he lifted himself and prepared to begin the trip again. He hesitated, and seemed to hover uncertainly. Then he moved to the batteries that had been for Pete.

  “Go to it,” Dick told him. They were no good for anything else now, since they wouldn’t fit the suits.

  In a few seconds Johnny had used up the electricity in the batteries and was moving ahead of them again. But he hardly looked as if he’d had a full meal.

  Dick began to realize that they couldn’t count on much more help from Johnny, either. As they moved out of the hotlands, the wispy was getting less and less energy from the sun, while expending energy at a steady rate in guiding them. Sooner or later Johnny would have to go back where he could let the sun do a thorough job of recharging him.

  When that happened, Dick and Charlie would be strictly on their own.

  Chapter 11 River of Lead

  Hour by hour, Johnny seemed to shrink and lose energy now, but he kept on. And his fatigue could have been no worse than that of the two men. The sled was heavy and clumsy, and they were already strained with the constant pressure to go a little faster.

  Twice Johnny located caverns for them to hole up in, and twice they went on past them, trying to get just a little more distance behind them before they dropped. But at the third one, Dick gave up, recognizing that they were about ready to drop.

  “Anyhow,” he told Charlie, “Johnny can’t go on like this forever. He must go back to the hotlands when we sleep. He doesn’t look as if he does, but he should.”

  “Probably hangs around to watch over us,” Charlie said wearily. They were beginning to realize that Johnny had taken on more responsibility than one wispy should have to bear. To Johnny, they must seem pretty feeble creatures, having to protect themselves in heavy suits and carry ponderous supplies to live at all. But apparently Johnny had a stern determination to finish what he had started.

  Now he hovered around them as they went down into the little cavern. It was below the ground this time, and not as good as the ones they had passed up. But they were too tired to care much. The wispy watched them begin to settle down, and bobbed about uncertainly.

  “Go on back, Johnny,” Dick told him. “Go back where you can find some of those fires coming out of the rocks to eat. You look half spent.”

  The wispy still hesitated, but finally took off. Charlie watched him leave through fatigue-reddened eyes, and shook his head. “Sometimes, lately, I begin to think I can figger what the beggar’s feeling, Dick. And right now, he acts plumb scared. Maybe it’s dangerous for him to travel across this country—maybe more demons are around waiting for him.”

  Dick had the same feeling, though there was no way of being sure of much that went on inside the little ball of lightning. He speculated idly on it, but he couldn’t keep his mind on anything except the constant ache in his legs and his shoulders, or the messy, dirty feeling he had from being in the suit so long.

  But even that couldn’t keep him awake this time. He ate part of a normal meal, then put the rest back on the storage shelf in his suit. He found a place where he could he back, and started to settle into a comfortable position. But before he had touched his head to the cavern wall he was asleep.

  He began having a series of fantastic dreams then, in which his grandfather was pulling a broken tractor across a lake of boiling lead and swatting demons aside with a wave of his hand. The figure turned to that of Charlie, who was trying to run away from him. And then he was back home in bed, with his mother trying to feed him a big bowl of electricity, and worrying because he couldn’t digest it properly.

  Then the nightmares really came. He had no clear pictures. There was just a feeling of horror that shifted around, growing worse each second. And physical pain coupled in, so that he seemed to be feeling hot needles of shock hitting him.

  Dick became half conscious then, but everything was still fuzzy. He shook his head, then leaned back to try to sleep again.

  Something bit him, with a sharp, stinging sensation.

  He jerked awake this time, to see Johnny dancing up and down in front of Charlie. As he watched, a tiny flash of electric energy shot out, striking against the older man’s helmet. Charlie jerked and moaned, while his beard seemed to spread out and stand on end.

  Dick blinked. For a second he thought he had been wrong, and that it was a demon in the cavern with them. But now Johnny came over, and seemed to realize that Dick was awake. He jerked out the entrance of the cavern, then darted back, and jerked out again.

  Dick didn’t stop to think it out. He knew that Johnny wanted them out of there, and that it was urgent. With a moan of agony, he got to his feet and began shaking Hotside Charlie. The old man came to at that, and got to his feet, striking out with a heavy fist, but missing Dick. Then his eyes were open, and he started to apologize.

  Dick didn’t give him time. “Out! Grab our stuff and get out, Charlie,” he said. “Johnny’s going crazy!”

  It was true. The wispy was dashing up and down, trying to get them into motion. Dick grabbed for some of the supplies they had brought into the little cavern, and began scrambling up to the surface. As he moved, he seemed to feel the wall of the little hole begin to move. And Charlie must have felt it too, since he let out a sharp cry and redoubled his efforts.

  The wall of the cavern slanted upward steeply, and they had trouble with their loads, but they were outside, just as the opposite wall of the little cavern broke open and a torrent of liquid lead came bursting out!

  In another few seconds they would have been caught in it. Now it bubbled up and began cooling off. They were far enough beyond the true hotlands for it to cool to a solid state, and Dick shuddered as he
realized what might have happened if they had been caught in it. Their suits could stand hot lead for a while, but they wouldn’t have been able to free themselves from lead that was turning solid around them!

  Johnny had arrived in time—but it had been too narrow an escape to suit Dick. He frowned down at the stuff that was still oozing up from a few places where the surface hadn’t yet hardened.

  “How come?” he asked. “I thought we were beyond all the real hot stuff.”

  Charlie shook his head doubtfully. “Underground river of it—probably stirred up by the storm. Must come down here from some lake further back, and may even get clear to the twilight belt. Mercury has plenty of heat inside here to keep the stuff warm, if it finds a good passage.”

  Dick might have argued with him, but he’d seen it, and he had more than enough proof. Whether it was a river that ran under the surface or only a product of some local volcanic activity didn’t matter. They’d gotten out in time, and they could worry later about how it had all happened.

  Then he looked down, and frowned. “We’ve lost more supplies, Charlie,” he said slowly. “I got some of them, and you have a lot there. But even so, were short at least half of our oxygen.”

  They began checking, but gave up. There was no use in counting tanks and batteries now. They knew that there weren’t enough, and figuring just how much they were lacking didn’t help things.

  Johnny looked a little better, but he wasn’t his old self, and he seemed to be a bit slower as he cruised along. They came out of the good, flat section, and again had to go through a rough scraggle of little hills and sharp crevices that required hard work in pulling the sled.

  There seemed to be little more trouble that could happen to them, but they hadn’t really had it all yet, as they found out later. They were working their way across a sharp break in the ground, like a huge mud crack twelve feet across and about thirty feet deep. Dick stood at the rear of the sled, holding it by his rope, and Charlie was already across the little chasm. Johnny was hanging around, waiting while they worked the sled over. Then suddenly Dick’s rope broke under the load.