“He—I didn’t ask him. He was down to a few tanks. He’s got a wife and kids, you know—” Pender looked uncomfortable. “But maybe somebody else can spare—”
Harding swung around, fury glowing in his hard black eyes.
“You wasted enough oxygen and fuel taking the tractor to Morse’s farm. There’s nobody else for eighty miles; you know that.” He waved down the other’s protest. “Shut up, Mat. We’re down to half a tank of oxy, and when the supply ship conies, we’re going to take what we need—and not at Dain’s new prices, either. I let you try to get some from Morse—and so what? Here!”
He thrust the rifle into Pender’s unwilling hands.
“I’ll need your help, if Dain sends his usual gang of thugs. Lucky we’ve got two guns.”
PENDER laid the weapon aside and slowly crawled out of his suit. He found a cigarette, hesitated, and put it back carefully in the pack. Harding grinned savagely.
“Can’t smoke,” he mocked. “Wastes air. Yeah!”
“Morse feels the same way you do,” Pender said. “He’s laying for the O-Trust men. Says he’ll shoot ’em on sight—he fired at me by mistake, in fact. But I was lucky.”
“Good for Morse. If all the medicine farmers on this hell-forsaken world would get together, we could buck Dain. But he plays us off one against the other, cutting his oxygen rates to the guys who string along with him. And stringing along with Dain means giving him a half-interest in your farm.”
Pender breathed a little painfully and leaned toward the window.
“Here’s the supply tractor. Red ship, O-Trust insignia. Jim—” He turned abruptly. “This is murder!”
Harding sucked in his breath with an angry little sound. He rose, picked the rifle from the table, and glared at his partner.
“Listen,” he said. “Just in case you don’t know the set-up—nobody lives long on this planet without the O-Trust’s regular delivery of oxygen. Dain keeps upping the prices. When I went to his headquarters last week—a hundred and eighty miles in a bluestorm—he said I’d have to pay a dollar more per cubic foot. I told him ‘no’ !”
“Of course,” Pender muttered. “We don’t make that sort of money medicinefarming.”
“Raising plants and herbs that’ll grow only on Planetoid 31—yeah. Dain wants a monopoly on the farming here. He offered to buy us out—and that blasted girl kept chiming in with him.”
“She got in your hair, all right,” Pender observed.
“Yeah. His new assistant, or something. I won’t say she wouldn’t wipe her feet on a medicine farmer—she probably would, if there wasn’t a doormat handy. But here’s the tractor. Remember—we need that oxygen!” Harding thrust the gun into Pender’s big hands, and turned to the window.
The red ship had halted, and a spacesuited figure was battling the wind toward the house. It went out of sight, and a moment afterward the buzzer rang. With a soundless oath Harding pumped air into the lock and stationed himself by the inner door.
“Have that gun ready,” he cautioned, holding his own weapon steady. “Those thugs shoot first and talk later. Don’t give ’em a chance.”
He turned a lever, thrust the valve open, and with Pender beside him sprang into the lock. The first thing he saw was a murderous little electromatic leveled at his heart.
Almost he squeezed the trigger automatically. Then he heard Pender’s grunt of surprise, and for the first time realized who his opponent was—a girl in a heat-suit, with the transparent hood thrown back over her shoulders, revealing a small, lovely face framed by chestnut curls.
It was the same girl Harding had seen a week before, in Dain’s office. Now she had an electromatic in each hand.
There was no evidence of surprise in her cool glance. Frowning a little, she said, “Put them down, boys. Guns won’t do you any good.”
Harding didn’t move. His eyes were searching. A mound of snow had been blown into the lock when the girl entered, and now lay in a blue heap at her feet. And Harding noticed a small bubble forming in the crust . . .
HIS fingers shifted from the trigger, and the girl nodded in approval.
“That’s it. Put ’em away and we can talk. I—”
There was a stir of sudden movement beneath her. The bluesnow churned as a sharp brown muzzle was thrust up into the warmer air. The girl involuntarily glanced down, and at that moment Harding leaped.
He smashed the rifle down on the slim arms, with enough force to knock the electromatics from the gloved fingers that held them. The girl gave a soft cry of pain and dived for the weapons. Harding stopped her, which was like stopping a pint-sized wildcat.
But at last he held a panting, unresisting prisoner, while Pender, having collected the various weapons, led the way into the interior of the house.
Harding pulled at the girl’s arm; she came along willingly enough. He sat her down in a chair and grinned at her.
“Saved by a snowhog,” he mocked. “Lucky that pig blew in with you.”
At the girl’s involuntary look of surprise Harding bent to scoop up a small, soft-bodied creature shaped somewhat like an ordinary hedgehog, save that its skin was smooth and covered with large pores. It had crept out from the snowbank in the lock and wandered into the room.
Harding chuckled. “One of the few imported animals that survived on Planetoid 31. Came from Venus—they’re used to an atmosphere heavy on hydrogen. But some of ’em got acclimated here, and they hibernate under the snow in winter.”
He set the snowhog down on the table, amid the remnants of supper, and the little creature hastily waddled over to a glass half full of water and tried to cram himself into it. He failed, but managed to drink all the water.
Harding turned back to the girl, and his eyes hardened.
“So Dain sent you out, eh? Who are you, anyway?”
“The name is Susan Dain,” she responded, ignoring Pender’s low whistle of surprise.
“Don’t tell me you went and married that buzzard,” the big redhead requested.
“Fred Dain is my half-brother. I came out here to help him—”
“Two slave-drivers instead of one,” Harding snapped. “I get it. He figured we wouldn’t start anything with a dame—that we’d be pushovers and pay up with a smile. Or maybe he wanted to save his thugs from getting hurt.”
Susan shrugged and started to light a cigarette. Harding knocked it from her lips.
“We can’t waste oxygen—till we get some more, anyhow. Where is it?”
“Outside in the tractor—with a couple of ‘thugs’. It’ll be delivered as soon as you pay for it. You know the price.”
Harding nodded. “I see. Well, listen to this. We haven’t got the money, and we’ve just half a tank of oxy. So tell your friends to deliver, pronto.” He gestured to the radio set in the corner.
“Sorry.”
“Okay. Then you’ll stay here till the oxy’s delivered.”
SUSAN settled back comfortably in her chair.
“I’m ’way ahead of you. I’m a psychologist, farmer, in my own sweet little way—and if I don’t return to the tractor in five minutes, it’ll head back to headquarters. This is the last farm on our rounds.”
Harding’s brows contracted. “And you’ll stay here—with half a tank of oxy? Know how long we’d last?”
The girl’s foot tapped impatiently on the floor.
“You’re not a good bluffer, man. You’ve got the money—and you’ll pay up.” She nodded toward the window. “See? There’s the tractor pulling out.”
It was true. The red leviathan wobbled slowly away into the blue, shifting curtain of snow, the mutter of its exhaust dying.
“Well?” Susan asked. “Shall I radio them to come back? Or—”
Harding didn’t answer. He stared at the window. The drifts fell endlessly outside. The storm was rising. If there were only some way of extracting oxygen from the bluesnow itself! But electrolysis wouldn’t work on the stuff; it was just another freak of this bitter, deso
late world.
Pender got up and wandered uneasily around the room. Time dragged on. Finally Susan said, “You’d better make up your mind before the tractor gets too far. Radios don’t work well in these bluestorms.” Nobody answered her. She bit her lip angrily; then rose and moved about aimlessly. She was ignored.
“Make yourself at home,” Harding said ironically.
Susan took his words literally enough, and her sharp gaze was probing as she strolled here and there. Eventually she went into the tractor shed which, since the door was shut, was safe enough.
When she returned, the look in her eyes had changed.
“Harding!”
“Yeah?” He turned lazily.
“Where’s your oxygen?”
“There. That tank.”
“But—the rest of it!”
“That,” said Harding with bitter emphasis, “is all there is. There isn’t any more.”
“You—you must have a reserve supply! You wouldn’t commit suicide by letting the tractor go off—”
Pender interrupted, “Lady, we’re out of oxy and nearly out of money. Jim wasn’t lying to you.”
“Is that the truth?” The light eyes were probing as Susan turned to Harding. “Is it?”
“Sure. Next trip your pals will find us all here—frozen stiff and suffocated.”
The girl’s lips set tightly. She went to the radio, flung the switch, and began to call a message.
“Tractor Three . . . Susan Dain calling . . . Tractor Three . . .”
A voice broke in, scarcely audible through heavy static.
“Miss Dain! We’ve been trying to contact you—can you hear us?”
“I—yes. What’s wrong?”
“We cracked up.” Static drowned the voice for a moment. “. . . gulley. Broke a tread and the oxygen’s leaking. We’re afraid it’ll get to the exhaust and ignite. Our radio won’t reach headquarters in this storm. Can you—”
Susan turned a look of silent inquiry on Harding, who shook his head.
“We can’t reach far with this set. It’s underpowered. And in a bluestorm—”
HE was interrupted by a sharp cry from the transmitter. The static faded, and the voice sounded startlingly clear in the silent room.
“The oxygen’s caught! We—”
A bellowing report ripped out; then the radio was still, save for the crackling of static. Susan caught her lower lip between her teeth. Her hand went up to her throat.
“God!” Pender gasped. “Their tanks must have gone up!”
The girl asked, in a strained voice, “Do you think they have a chance?” Harding snapped, “You haven’t been on Planetoid 31 long, sister. Those poor devils are dead all over the place by now. It’s blackout for all of us!” Susan turned back to the radio, trying frantically to reach headquarters, 180 miles away. She gave up at last, Harding favored her with a sardonic grin.
“Too bad Dain’s not here instead of you. I hate to think of that rat still living after I’ve cashed in.”
The girl had regained all her cool self-control. Frowning, she stared into space.
“Half a tank of oxygen—we can’t make it to headquarters on that, can we?”
“Not in this storm,” Pender told her. “The going’s too rough. It’d take us twice as long to make the trip as it would under normal conditions. If the storm died, we might make it—I dunno.”
“Isn’t there another farm near here?”
The redhead nodded. “Morse’s. Didn’t you leave any tanks at his place?”
Susan scowled. “No. We got a radio from him—he said he’d shoot us if we came within range. I didn’t believe him, but he wasn’t lying. He—he’d planted mines, too.”
“I know,” Pender said, and exchanged grim glances with Harding. “Morse buried dynamite all around his place. He told me if I’d showed up a few hours later, it’d have been just too bad. He was laying for the O-Trust ship, all right.”
“The man’s mad!” Susan burst out.
Harding grunted. “Sure. He’s got a wife and kids, and can’t make more than a living out of medicine-farming. If he doesn’t pay Dain’s rates—your rates—he knows what’ll happen. He’s crazy, sure, the poor devil.”
“I feel sorrier for rattlesnakes,” the girl said, in cold fury. “Medicine farmers . . . scum! Harding! I’ll make a bargain with you. I don’t want to die any more than you do. Let me use your tractor to get to Morse’s place, and I’ll guarantee you free oxygen as long as you stay on Planetoid 31.”
Harding’s eyes were veiled as he considered.
“You don’t want to die, eh? Well—you’d never make it to Morse’s. I’ll take you up on that, sister. Mat! Snap into your suit.”
“Huh?” The big man looked puzzled.
“We’re pulling out—all of us. Morse has enough oxy to last us all for a week, and as soon as the storm dies we can radio headquarters. Come on!”
The three were galvanized into activity. Hastily they donned their heated suits and glassite helmets. Harding paused to scoop up the snowhog and carry the little beast outside through the lock. He stared around till he located a cluster of blisters in the bluish, frigid crust, and then dropped the creature there. It immediately burrowed down out of sight, its motions growing slower and slower as it disappeared.
HARDING stood for a moment staring at the spot where the snowhog had vanished. Queer animals. This one would hibernate all winter; and then migrate, with its companions, to the great swamps into which the slopes drained.
“Damned little hydrogen eater,” Harding muttered, and joined the Others in the tractor.
Pender had already taken the precious tank of oxygen into the ship. There was little space in the cramped quarters, and even when Harding mounted the small ladder to the transparent turret, he could see practically nothing through the murk. He swung himself uncomfortably into the control seat and sent the tractor lurching forward, dividing his gaze between a compass and the blue maelstrom outside. It would be easy to fall into a gulley without seeing it.
But he knew the path he must take, knew it by heart. Very often he had shuttled back and forth between Morse’s place and his own. If he knew the way to headquarters as well, it would be possible to get there before the oxygen gave out. Well, that couldn’t be done in the bluestorm. Their only hope was Morse. And Morse had set dynamite traps . . .
Harding found himself thinking of the girl. Arrogant, self-sufficient, and officious. Far different from her half-brother Fred Dain in appearance, but in character quite like the owner of the O-Trust. Unpleasantly so. Harding’s hard young face was bleak as the icy hell outside the ship.
He stopped the tractor and climbed down the ladder. Without a word he donned a heat-suit and released a scanty supply of oxygen into the feed tank high on the back of the suit. The others watched him from their seats.
“What are you doing?” Susan asked at last. Pender glanced at her.
“He’s going to walk the rest of the way. If we took the ship any further, we’d be blown sky-high. A man on foot can get through safely, though.”
“Oh,” Susan said, remembering the dynamite mines Morse had laid.
Harding nodded at his partner, clamped the glassite helmet into place, and stepped into the tiny airlock, closing the door behind him. He turned on the heat unit, feeling a warm glow course over his skin. Oxygen trickled slowly from the little tank. Harding opened the outside door and was blinded by bluesnow that blasted in on him.
Quickly he stepped out on the surface. He sank to his knees before finding footing on solid crust. It was difficult to see more than a few feet in the filtered, pale light, but occasionally there would be a rift in the gale. During such a lull Harding made out the distant, squat bulk of Morse’s farm.
He advanced warily. The white tractor vanished before he had gone far. The wind was the worst; it buffeted him with harsh, unexpected blows, and knocked him sprawling twice. Yet he kept on doggedly, making steady though gradual progress.
A RIFLE! Morse was firing at the intruder, mistaking him for an O-Trust man. Perhaps he thought Dain’s hirelings were returning after their initial failure to outbluff him. At any rate, Harding thought as he flung himself face-down in the snow, it would be suicide to keep on now.
-He blinked smarting eyes. There was no radio on the tractor, nor did he have a portable set in his suit. Those things cost money, which medicine farmers didn’t have. He tried clearing the rime from outside his helmet, but it was a futile task, nor could Morse have recognized him at this distance. In a bluestorm everybody looked alike. Harding felt a pain in his throat and blinked again. Funny. It felt like—
Like oxy-thirst!
His body tight with sudden apprehension, Harding flung back an exploratory hand. The oxygen tank on his back was empty. And his probing, gloved fingers found a long rip in the shoulder of the suit. His arm, he realized abruptly, was already numb from the bitter, freezing cold.
But this couldn’t be happening! Not with oxygen and heat not half a mile away, both in the tractor and in Morse’s farm. It was impossible irony. It wasn’t real—
It was real—and the oxy-thirst clutched Harding by the throat!
Gasping, the man flung himself to his knees. The storm veiled him from Morse’s eyes, so there was no danger of rifle fire. Yet the immediate peril was far worse. For Harding could not drag himself upright. Already weak for lack of air, he fell into the blue, feathery surface of the snow.
His left arm was numb and without feeling. The icy tendrils spiraled through his flesh, reaching for his heart.
Simultaneously dry tentacles of pain clawed down from his throat. Like hands reaching, to clutch his heart and stop it. . . .
He strained to breathe. It was a choking agony. His lips drew back in a mirthless grin of torture. He tried to hold his breath, and when he could resist no longer, found no relief. A sick, whirling blackness was crawling toward him, folding down to smother him, and he was suddenly very tired.
Collected Fiction Page 165
