There was no trouble. Stover was an actor to the core. But he loved to go on a binge. Now that he’d got that out of his system he’d be okay for a while.
“Know where Clint Padrick is?” Quade asked the star.
Stover’s bushy eyebrows came down. His voice was a husky roar.
“Aboard the Meteor, I think,” he said. “He had a scrap with Edith and headed for—”
That was all Quade needed to know. He nodded and headed for the street, where a taxi whisked him to the spaceport. His two-man cruiser, a speedy, powerful ship with the usual transparent nose of camera-craft, was ready for him, and in half an hour he was hurtling up from Hollywood on the Moon, siren screaming to warn aircraft away, gravity plates set.
The Meteor was a luxury liner, a gambling space ship that hung in the voil a hundred miles or so above the surface of the Moon. The elite of filmdom went there for a thrill.
A blaze of searchlights stabbed out. The Meteor’s outside gravity plates kept an atmosphere around its huge hull, otherwise the flare of the varicolored lights would have been invisible in the vacuum. However, radio beams guided ships to it, for the great arc-lamps were useless in direct sunlight.
Funnels of metal mesh protruded from various points on the Meteor. Quade guided his cruiser within one of these and shut off the power as powerful magnetic fields took hold, sliding the little ship smoothly into an air-lock.
Within the Meteor was a blaze of color. Fountains spurted, rainbow-hued; precious tapestries lined the walls; objets d’art from all the planets were here. An orchestra provided dance music, but the attention of most of the patrons was riveted on the various gambling devices. The most popular was a variation of the ancient pinball game, in which the operator tried to direct a miniature rocket ship into a small target on the board.
Quade nodded to an attendant, resplendent in white satin.
“Clint Padrick here?” he asked.
“In the roulette room, I think,” the other told him, pointing. Quade went into the roulette room.
In a great sunken pit in the center of the floor was a wheel, rising to a cone in the middle, and rimmed with small compartments, each numbered. The croupier was just calling, “All bets in!”
Quade stared down for a moment at the gleaming space ship, not a foot in diameter, that suddenly popped into view on the wheel. It was studded with rocket ports, and from one of them blasted a fiery explosion. The spherical little ship drove against the side of the pit, and rolled down into one of the numbered compartments. Again a rocket banged, and the craft whisked out of its resting place, presently dropping into another.
LOOKING around, Quade saw Clint Padrick. A lock of dark hair was plastered wetly to the star’s tanned forehead, and the somewhat sullen lips were drawn into a hard line. Padrick was handsome, no doubt of that; good-looking as the devil, and with the devil’s temper. He turned quickly as Quade touched his arm.
“Oh, it’s you, eh? Well, what d’you want?”
Quade told him.
“Yeah. You go on to Mars. I’ll be along directly.”
“That won’t do,” Quade said. “The deadline on The Star Parade’s in four weeks. You—”
Padrick ignored him. He turned to watch the rocket-roulette, and cursed under his breath as the croupier shouted a number. Quade hesitated, shrugged, and found an attendant. He slipped him a bill, and presently the waiter returned with a glass of blue-green liquor. Exchanging a wink with Quade, he went to Padrick’s side. The drink was doped, of course. The staff of the Meteor kept a supply of soporifics for just such a purpose, keeping the good-will of the studios by cooperating with them whenever a star got out of hand.
Padrick suspected nothing when the waiter offered him the glass, with the murmur, “Your order, sir.” He drank, and after a moment his eyes dulled. Quade took his arm and guided him to the port where the cruiser waited.
The drug was effective. Padrick’s will was in complete abeyance, as the hypnotic—a harmless derivative of hyoscyamine—went into action as a cerebral depressant. When the star recovered consciousness, he would be on Mars, with no memory of the intervening hours.
Some of Quade’s regular crew, headed by Wolfe, a thin-faced, capable youngster, were waiting at the spaceport. He knew them all—dependable men, who had worked with him for years. Stover was aboard, with an ice-bag on his bushy head; Quade guided Padrick to a stateroom where the star’s wife, Edith Rudeen, sat reading. She was a pretty little blonde whose Dresden china appearance was aided by her curiously tender blue eyes. But when she saw Padrick she got up and called him a tramp.
“Get out of here, you half-witted atom,” she said furiously, and then paused, staring. The anger went out of her eyes. “Tony—what’s happened to Clint?”
“Nothing. I had to dope him a bit to get him aboard. He’ll be okay pretty soon. Can you take care of him?”
The girl didn’t answer, but the look on her face as she guided Padrick to a chair was answer enough. Grinning, Quade went out. He sobered as he remembered the temperamental Ailyn Van. Where was she?
A LOUD scream told him the answer. Ailyn Van came striding along the corridor. Quade repressed a shudder as he met the blaze of her platinum eyes. Centuries before gold and platinum had been used to treat weakened eyes, but only lately had the iris-tattooing vogue come into fashion. Ailyn’s face, for all its streamlined boniness, was strikingly attractive, as movie audiences had testified. She was, however, temperamental as a murri.
“Where’s Kathleen Gregg?” Ailyn demanded, her platinum-coated nails twitching convulsively. “She said she was coming here! She’s got Picasso-kidnaped him!”
Hastily, Quade disclaimed all knowledge of the missing Picasso, wondering what Ailyn was talking about. The star flung away, vituperating Kathleen Gregg, and presently Kathleen herself emerged from a stateroom, her brown hair disheveled.
“Let’s go, Tony,” she said softly. “Everybody’s on board.”
Quade nodded, called an order into a diaphragm set in the wall. The siren screamed. Though there was no sense of movement, Quade knew that the giant camera-ship was racing up through the atmosphere.
“How did you do it?” he asked. “What’s Picasso, anyway?”
“Her pet,” Kathleen chuckled. “She loves it like a husband. She wouldn’t come, so I snatched Picasso and ran for my taxi. I knew she’d trail me. This is Picasso.” She pointed at her shoulder.
Quade blinked. As far as he could see, the girl was indicating her black dress. Kathleen fumbled at her shoulder, lifted something and extended it to Quade. It looked like a plastic heap of clay that suddenly turned from black to flesh-color. She put the thing on Quade’s gray leather tunic, and it hastily turned gray.
“It’s an—an animal, I think. They’ve just made a few in the bio labs. It’s about six inches tall, and it—what was it Ailyn told me?—it’s got muscles like a squid. What did she mean?”
“Oh,” Quade said. “I remember hearing something about ’em. Chromatic camouflage. Loligo’s a cephalopod—”
“Come again?”
“Squid, cuttle-fish, octopus, and so on. They’ve got chromatophores.”
“Good for them,” Kathleen said grimly. “Stop showing off and tell me what you’re talking about.”
“Single cells, pigmented in different colors, just under the epidermis. Usually they’re hidden, but they can expand as the muscles around ’em contract, so the color of the squid’s skin is changed. It’s just camouflage.”
He touched Picasso with an exploring finger, and the animal folded itself around his hand, turning pale. “If it’s on a red surface, the red chromatic cells are pushed up on the surface. On a blue surface, the blue cells get their inning. Sabe?”
Kathleen nodded.
“Yeah. Well—” She glanced aside as the sound of hasty footsteps came to them. “Give Picasso to Ailyn. I think that’s our star coming now. If she asks for me, tell her I’m dead.” And the girl promptly disappeared into a stateroom.
THE camera-ship landed about fifty miles west of Elysium, on the equator of Mars. The planet became less habitable as one moved toward the poles, until eventually spacesuits were necessary for outdoor work. But on the equator the direct rays of the sun, penetrating through the rarefied atmosphere, made the climate pleasantly warm.
Moreover, it was spring, and the thawing of the ice-caps had released an unusual amount of water vapor into the air, compensating to some extent for its usual dryness.
As the ship slanted down past Deimos the surface features of Mars were distinctly visible, veiled in a few places by tenuous clouds. The camp, Quade had learned, was in a forest clearing, a jungle surrounded on three sides by one of the great saline deserts. He took over the controls, and made an easy landing a hundred feet from the group of metal-mesh tents. Now the hard work would begin.
Four weeks to complete The Star Parade—and the most difficult batch of stars on Nine Planets’ payroll! Padrick and Edith were fighting viciously; and Ailyn Van had relapsed into a state of sullen rage, augmented by the fact that her pet, Picasso, had conceived a deep-rooted affection for the Bouncer, who was aboard.
The chromatic animal spent most of his time clinging affectionately to the Bouncer’s plump body, taking on the white hue of Bill’s fur.
“Bill,” Quade said to Kathleen as he helped her unpack, “is having a hard time of it. He picks up thought-vibrations, you know. And Ailyn’s feebleminded pet keeps hanging on him, broadcasting affection. That’s what I figure, anyway. Look at that.”
The Bouncer hopped dispiritedly into the room, peering down at his stomach. He never was sure when Picasso was clinging to him, since the little animal’s camouflage was so perfect, and his weight so small, especially on Mars. He said feebly, “Nice and . . . warm. Nice . . . nice.” Kathleen looked at Quade inquiringly. The film expert shrugged.
“Bill’s pretty intelligent, you know. I imagine he gets Picasso’s thoughts and translates them into English. Naturally that super-chameleon hasn’t much of a brain, so its thoughts aren’t very coherent. I gather it thinks Bill’s nice and warm.”
The Bouncer came to Kathleen’s side and hugged her leg, squeaking unhappily. She bent and fumbled in the fur until she had dislodged Picasso, who hastily turned a warm tan. She carried it to the door and shut it out.
“If I knew what the thing looked like, I might stand it better,” Kathleen observed. “But it’s camouflage is always so perfect it blends completely with its surroundings.” She glanced out of a porthole. “Are we going to sleep in those tents, Tony?”
“Suit yourself. There isn’t room for everybody on the ship. The tents are comfortable enough.”
KATHLEEN shuddered. “But—it gets cold here at night, doesn’t it? We’ll freeze to death.”
“Far from it! Those tents have got high-frequency coils in them. The electricity warms you up by inducing currents in your conducting tissue. But you have to wear special lounging-suits, ones without any metal in ’em. Otherwise you might have holes burned in your hide.”
“Live and learn,” the girl murmured. She leaned her elbows on the porthole, her gaze dwelling on the blue-green jungle all around. Save for the bluish tint and the extraordinary size of the leaves, it might have been a terrestrial forest.
All Martian vegetation had unusually large leaf-surface, of course, in order to gather the necessary amount of radiation from the Sun, which was between thirty-five and sixty-three million miles further away than on Earth. This variation was caused by the eccentricity of its orbit—0.0933, greater than that of any other major planet except Mercury.
A wry smile twisted the girl’s lips as she saw the white-haired Stover following unsteadily in the trail of Clint Padrick and Edith Rudeen, who were quarreling loudly. There was trouble ahead, she foresaw.
Actually there was far more trouble to come than Kathleen guessed—for a certain inhabitant of the Martian forest was becoming increasingly curious about these strange visitors . . .
CHAPTER III
Close-up: Jigsaw
SHOOTING a picture presupposes close cooperation. Quade got it from the technical crew—photographers, sound mixers, set dressers and builders, color engineers—and he got it from most of the actors. The stars were another matter.
Kathleen Gregg, of course, was all right. But Stover always wanted to go off on a bender. Where he’d hidden the Venusian drink he habitually imbibed, Quade did not know, although he’d made a hasty search of the ship. Picasso wasn’t thriving on Mars, for some reason—insufficient oxygen, perhaps—and that made more friction with Ailyn Van. Half the time Clint Padrick and Edith Rudeen refused to work together. Quade tore his hair, swore, argued, pleaded, and eventually got about half of the picture shot. It took all of three weeks.
Moreover, a curious air of unrest hung over the camp. Many had the disquieting feeling of being watched. They would glance over their shoulders quickly, without reason. There was furtive movement in the jungle all around them. And, too, inexplicable noises began to be heard—deep-throated roaring bellows from far away. Naturally this caused trouble for the sound recorders.
Quade was the first to discover the claw—the green thing of which Fowler had spoken in the Lunar hospital. He was examining the Inferno, with Kathleen, standing near the edge of the great crater that sloped steeply down to incredible depths. Nearly a mile in diameter, the pit’s sides were so jagged and precipitous that its descent would be a feat of mountaineering. Quade, peering through his binoculars, was frowning.
“Von Zorn’s crazy,” he said. “The Inferno can’t be filmed. We’ve made tests with those armor-plated suits of his, and they don’t hold up. They worked all right in the labs, but the rays down there are stronger than anything a scientist can build up.”
“Why not use robots?” Kathleen asked.
“We thought of that. But a robot has to be guided, and the crater’s too steep and dangerous for that, and the Inferno’s way down out of sight; we’d have to work blind. Anyway, the rays would upset the radio control. We’ve an automatic camera, one that works on powerful springs, because electricity would go haywire down there.”
“What’s so wonderful about the place, anyway?”
“For one thing, it’s never been filmed before,” Quade told her. “Except for one hazy snapshot. There’s a city down there, and the energy storms make an effect as spectacular as a Solar eruption. It’ll make the picture big box-office—if we can film it. Don’t get too close. Even at this distance it isn’t any too safe.”
A STRANGE something scampered into view, running rapidly up the slope behind them. Quade suddenly chuckled. “Kate,” he said softly, “Look at that.” He picked up a stone and hurled it, kicking up dust near the object, which sat down.
“For heaven’s sake!” the girl gasped. “What is it?”
“It’s a Teapot,” Quade said. “See?”
The Teapot wasn’t a bird, though it looked rather like one, but was actually a reptile, covered with hard, chitinous scales. On stiltlike legs was supported a rotund body, with a little spike of a tail at one end and a long, boneless neck at the other.
It had a head like a tortoise’s, and now, as the pebble Quade had thrown thudded near it, the creature hastily folded up its legs and collapsed. Its neck curved, writhing, and abruptly the head seemed to vanish into the reptile’s body.
“Pouch on his stomach, like a kangaroo has,” Quade explained. “See the reason for its name?”
Indeed, the fat creature resembled nothing more than an ordinary teapot, with its spiked tail and its long neck, now curved so that it resembled a handle. Quade went on, smiling.
“Nothing can hurt it now, Kate. Its only vulnerable part is its head. A chisel can’t cut through that armor-plate. Look.” He stepped forward, bent to pick up the Teapot by its “handle.” Then he paused, staring.
Something scuttled out of the bushes and snatched at the Teapot. It was a claw. Nothing else. Just a big green claw a foot long.
The Teapot, sensing danger, unsheathed its head, sprang erect, and ran away. It ran into the crater, the claw in pursuit.
Quade looked amazed. “It looks like a claw,” he said dazedly.
“It—is!” The girl swallowed nervously.
“And it had a lot of little legs under it—I noticed that. But it’s impossible. I’ve seen plenty of queer things on the planets, but even the Ganymedean leeches had more to them than that. I—”
He broke off, his words dying in a startled gulp. An eye was looking at him. With a cold, fishy stare it was gazing searchingly up from the top of a small boulder, a round eyeball covered, except for the pupil, with a horny shell. Quade made a tentative motion toward it, and the eye arose on a dozen spidery legs. With deceptive speed it glided down the rock and ran into the crater after the Teapot and the green claw.
The Martian reptile was having trouble. Quade lifted the binoculars.
“It’s got within range of the rays,” he said. “Its brain-tissue is burning out—”
Far down the precipitous slope the Teapot slowed, stopped, and fell over, kicking. In a last desperate gesture it thrust its head into the protective stomach-pouch. The green claw grabbed it and quickly retraced its steps, the eye keeping pace with it. Presently the unusual group passed over the crater’s edge some distance from the two humans, and was lost in the forest.
“Let’s get back to camp,” Quade said. “I don’t get this at all.”
THERE was trouble at the ship. One of the cameramen had been bitten. A green claw had attacked him, he said; and already his leg was purple and swollen. The doctor was attending him, as well as taking care of a script girl who had encountered “a snake with legs—with suckers all over it.” Quade thought it sounded like a tentacle, but he knew that tentacles don’t wander around by themselves. What fantastic forms of life had they encountered in this Martian outpost?
One good thing resulted. Floyd Stover, his leonine mane flying, staggered into the camera-ship with horror written all over him. He called Quade into a space-lock.
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