“You mean the legend,” he said. “Never paid much attention. When a ship cracks up in space, the crew go to the Black Planet after they die. Spaceman’s heaven.”
“Yeah. A legend, that’s all. When wrecks are found, all the bodies are found in ’em—naturally! But the story is that there are winged women—call them Valkyries—who live in an invisible world somewhere in the System.”
“You think they exist?”
“I think there’s truth behind the legend. It isn’t merely a terrestrial belief. Martians, Vesuvians, Callistans—they all have their yarns about winged space-women.” Esterling coughed in the smoky atmosphere. “Well?”
“Here it is. Not long ago I met up with an archeologist, a guy named Beale. James Beale. He’s got a string of degrees after his name, and for ten years he’s been going through the System, checking up on the Black Planet, collecting data all over the place. He showed me what he had, and it was plenty convincing. It added up. A scrap of information from Venus, a story from beyond Io. Legends mostly, but there were facts too. Enough to make me believe that there’s an invisible world somewhere in space.”
“How invisible?”
“I don’t know. Beale says it must be a planet with a very low albedo—or something of the sort. It absorbs light. The winged people live on it. Sometimes they leave it. Maybe they have ships, though I can’t tell about that, of course. So we have the legends. Beale and I are going to the Black Planet.”
“All right,” Esterling said. “It sounds crazy enough, but you could be right. Only—what do you expect to find there?”
DAMON smiled. “Dunno. Excitement, anyhow. Beale’s sure there are immense sources of power on the black world. I don’t suppose we’ll lose anything on the deal. Hell, I’m fed up with doing nothing, knocking around the System waiting for something to happen—and it never does. I’m not alive unless I’m fighting. This is a fight, in a way.”
“Well?”
“Want a job?”
“You short-handed?”
“Plenty. You look strong—” Damon reached across the table and squeezed the other’s biceps. His face altered, not much, but enough to convince Esterling of what he already suspected.
“Okay, Damon.” He rolled up his sleeve, revealing an arm-bracelet of heavy gold clasped about his upper arm. “Is this what you’re after?”
The captain’s nostrils distended. He met Esterling’s stare squarely.
“You want the cards on the table?”
“Sure.”
Damon said, “I just got back from Norway, on Earth. I went there to look you up. Beale found out about that bracelet.”
Esterling nodded. “It’s an heirloom. Belonged to my great-grandmother, Gudrun. I don’t know where she got it.”
“It has an inscription. A copy of it was made about a hundred years ago for the Stockholm Museum. Beale ran across that copy. He can read Runic, and the bracelet carries an inscription—”
“I know.”
“Do you know what it means?”
“Something about the Valkyries. Part of an old Edda, I suppose.”
Damon made a noise deep in his throat. “Not quite. It gives the location of the Black Planet.”
“The hell it does!” Esterling removed the bracelet and examined it carefully. “I thought it was merely symbolism. The rune doesn’t mean anything.”
“Beale thought it did. He saw the copy, I said, and it was incomplete. But he found enough to convince him that the complete inscription gave the location of the Black Planet.”
“But why—”
“How should I know? Maybe the winged people visited Earth once, maybe somebody found the Black Planet by accident and remembered his space-bearings. He wrote it down where he’d have it safely—on an arm-bracelet. Somehow your great-grandmother got it.”
Esterling stared at the golden band. “I don’t believe it.”
“Will you sign on with me, as supercargo, to look for the Black Planet? You can use a job, by the looks of your clothes.”
“Sure I can. But a job like that—”
“Talk to Beale, anyway. He’ll convince you.”
Esterling grimaced. “I doubt that. However, I suppose I can’t lose.” He looked again at the bracelet. “Okay, I’ll see him.”
Damon rose, tossing coins on the stained metalloy table. Esterling finished his satha, conscious that the treacherous Martian distillate was affecting him. Satha did that. It gave you a deceptive cold clarity that disguised its potency. Martians could take it, with their different metabolism; but it was dangerous to Earthmen.
CHAPTER TWO
No Air for Killers
IT WAS doubly dangerous for Esterling now. He walked beside Damon along the curving street, the ornate, fragile-seeming buildings of Marspole North towering above him—the ones that were not in ruins. It was possible to build tall towers on Mars, because of the slight gravity-pull, but the frequent quakes that shook the ancient planet often brought down those towers in crashing wreckage.
Near the spaceport a man was waiting, thin, dwarfish, and with a pinched, meager face. He was fingering a scrubby mustache and shivering with cold in his thin whites.
“You kept me waiting long enough,” he said complainingly, his voice a high-pitched whine. “I’m nearly frozen, drat it. Is he Esterling?”
Damon nodded. “Yeah. Esterling—Beale. He’s got the bracelet.”
Beale’s fingers fluttered at his mouth. “Heavens, that’s a relief. We’ve been tracking you all over the System, man. A week ago we learned you’d shipped out of Io for Marspole North, so we came here by fast express to wait for you. I suppose the captain’s told you about the Black Planet.”
Esterling was feeling a little sick in the icy air. He had a moment’s qualm, wondering if Damon had doped his drinks. Automatically his hand went to his belt, but he’d pawned his gun that morning.
Damon said, “You talk to him. I’ll attend to the ship.” He slipped off into the shadows.
Beale peered up at the Norseman. “Would you mind letting me see the bracelet? Thanks . . .” He blinked nearsightedly at the golden band. The two moons gave little light, and Beale took out a tiny flashlight. His breath hissed out.
“Good heavens, Mr. Esterling, you can have no idea what this means to me. That copy in the Stockholm museum was incomplete, you know. Some of the runes were illegible. But this—”
“It tells where to find this—this black world? I’m a little drunk, but the whole yarn sounds crazy to me.”
Beale blinked. “No doubt. No doubt. The legends about the Valley of Kings in Egypt seemed crazy till the tombs were finally discovered. The legend of the Valkyries—the flying women—is extremely widespread in space. There are clues . . . I reasoned by induction. It added up. I’m firmly convinced that there is such a planet, and that a hundred thousand years ago the winged people visited our own world. They left traces. Perhaps they’ve died out by now, but their artifacts remain.”
“So?”
“I picked these up on Venus. They were found floating free in space. What do you make of them?” Beale fumbled in his pockets and drew out a bit of bone and a thin, pencil-like rod.
Esterling examined them with puzzled interest.
“It looks like a human shoulder-blade—or part of it.”
“Yes, of course! But the extension—the prolongation! The osseous base for a wing, man! Notice the ball-and-socket arrangement, and the grooves where tendons have played, tendons strong enough to move wings.”
“A freak?”
“No scientist would agree with you,” Beale said shortly, and put the bone back in his pocket. “Look at the rod.”
Esterling could make nothing of it. “Is it a weapon?”
“A weapon without power, at the moment. I took it apart. It’s based on an entirely different principle from anything we’ve known. Atomic quanta-release, perhaps. I don’t know. But I mean to find out, and there’s only one place where I can do that.”
“We’re short-handed. There are difficulties—” Beale shivered again, glancing toward the dark spaceport. “I am a poor man, and it takes much money to outfit a ship.”
“I thought Damon had a boat—the Vulcan
BEFORE Beale could answer, a faint whistle came out of the dark. The scientist caught his breath. “All right,” he said. “Come on.” He gripped Esterling’s arm and urged the big man toward the field.
A ship loomed there, dull silver in the light of the double moons. Silhouetted against the entrance port was Damon, waving. Beale said, “Hurry up,” in a light voice, and started to run.
Satha had dulled Esterling’s senses—or Damon had drugged his liquor. He sensed something amiss, but a heavy, languid blanket lay over his mind, making thought an intolerable effort. He let himself be guided toward the ship.
Damon reached down, seized his hand, and drew him up. The man was remarkably strong, for all his slight build. Esterling, off balance, went lurching against a bulkhead, and brought up sharply, against the wall of the lock. He turned in time to see Beale clambering up, spider-like.
Footsteps sounded. A man in port officer’s uniform came racing across the field, his voice raised in a shout. Esterling saw Beale turn, biting his lips nervously, and draw a gun. He shot down from the air-lock, the bullet striking the officer squarely between the eyes.
The shock of that sobered Esterling abruptly. But before he could move, Damon thrust him back into the ship. In the distance the faint wail of a siren began.
Beale said, “Drat it!” and came scrambling into the cabin. The valves slid shut with a dull thud. Esterling, his body numb with liquor or drugs, took a step forward. “What the devil—”
Damon snapped, “Watch him, Beale! I’ve got to blast off.”
The scientist’s gun leveled at Esterling. Beale licked his lips. “Good heavens,” he burst out. “Why does everything always go wrong . . . Don’t move, Mr. Esterling.”
Damon had eased himself into the control seat. He spoke briefly into the mike, and then stabbed at the rocket jet buttons. The floor pressed hard against Esterling’s feet.
Beale reached up and gripped a strap. “Hold on,” he commanded. “That’s right. We haven’t time to take a smooth orbit out. They’ll be after us—”
“They are after us,” Damon said dryly. Esterling stole a glance at the visiplate. Marspole North was dropping away below, and a patrol ship was taking off with a burst of red rocket-fire. The ground swung dizzily as Damon played the controls.
Esterling said, “Obviously, this isn’t your ship, Captain.”
“Of course not,” Beale snapped. “But we had to get one. They don’t guard the spaceports. Damon picked up a dozen drifters and armed them—enough to take care of the skeleton crew. So—”
“So you killed the crew. I get it.”
Without turning, Damon said, “Right. And we’re manned by drunken roustabouts who don’t know a jet from an escape valve. You’ll come in handy, Esterling—you’re an A. B.”
The ship lurched sickeningly. The plates were red-hot in the atmosphere, and the visiplate was useless now. But speed was necessary to provide escape velocity. The hull was strong enough, Esterling knew; there was no danger through friction. The real peril lay in the patrol ship.
Damon grunted. “This is a fast boat. Once we’re beyond the gravity-pull, we’ll be safe. Nobody can catch us. Now—” He jammed on more power. The red flare on the visiplate faded. They were beyond the atmosphere.
The patrol vessel was visible, specks of light flaming from its sides. Beale grimaced. “Magnetic torpedoes, eh? We—we’ll be killed, Damon. Did we have to take such chances?”
THEN it happened. The Vulcan seemed to stop in mid-course, a grinding, shaking vibration jolting through its hull. Esterling felt the floor drop away beneath him. He was slammed against the wall, the breath going out of his lungs in an agonizing rush. He saw Beale still clinging to the strap, his lean body jerking and tossing like a puppet on wires. Damon was hurled forward against the instrument board. He pushed himself half erect, blood streaming from a pulped face. Somehow he was still alive. His fingers went out toward the buttons.
Beale was screaming, “Torpedo! The air—”
Damon cursed him thickly, indistinctly. He dashed the blood from his eyes and peered at the visiplate. Under his swift hands the ship lurched again, jolted, and leaped forward like an unleashed greyhound.
It seemed faster now.
“Any leaks?” Damon asked quietly. Beale was clutching the strap, eyes closed, face gray. Esterling hesitated a moment and then made a circuit of the control cabin, listening at the doors and valves for any betraying hiss of air.
“Try a cigarette,” Damon said. “Got one? Here.” He extended a blood-stained pack.
Esterling watched the smoke curl out of his nostrils. The only draft was toward the ventilator system, so that was all right. He nodded briefly.
Damon’s black eyes were like glacial ice.
He indicated the mike.
“Been trying to raise the men. They were in the bow. No answer. Suppose you put on a suit and check up, eh?”
“Okay,” Esterling said. He went to a locker and took out a regulation spacesuit, slipping into it with the ease of familiarity. “What about the patrol boat?”
“We’re losing it.”
Beale dropped down to a sitting position on the floor-plates, gripping his gun with both hands. He was praying in a low whisper, but interrupted himself to mumble, “Take off the rockets, Mr. Esterling. We don’t want you to leave us.”
The Norseman compressed his lips, but a glance at the gun muzzle, aimed directly at his heart, made him nod with sardonic resignation. He shrugged out of the rocket harness and let it drop to the floor.
He went out through the hull hatch, Beale handling the levers. Already Mars was far behind, a dull red ball against the black sky. The magnetic soles on his boots held him firmly against the hull, and Esterling clumped laboriously toward the bow. If he had had his rocket harness . . .
Without it, the ship’s gravitation prisoned him. He could not escape. Where was the patrol boat?
He could not locate it among the star-points. Well, it scarcely mattered now. He was in for it. Breath misted the faceplate of his helmet, and he turned on the heater coils.
Esterling felt a little sick when he reached the place where the bow had been. The entire nose of the ship had been blown off. Fragments of scrap and parts of bodies were plastered against the hull, covered by a treacly black fluid which Esterling recognized as rocket fuel. He paused on the jagged edge of the gap, peering down into the hole that had been blasted out of the ship. After a moment he took a deep breath and swung into the darkness.
TEN minutes later he returned to the control cabin and stripped off his suit. Beale was still praying. Damon was at the controls, mopping at his face with a crimson handkerchief. He looked up.
“Well? What damage?”
“Nobody’s left alive but us three.”
“What damage to the ship?” Beale shrilled. “Good heavens, man, that’s the important thing!”
Esterling grinned unpleasantly. “Did you know the Vulcan carried a full cargo of rocket fuel?”
“What of it?” Beale asked.
Damon turned sharply, a cold rage in his eyes. He showed his teeth in a snarl. “Damn!” The oath exploded from him. “Yeah,” Esterling said. “The nose of the ship is blown off, and the inside bulkheads won’t stand atmospheric friction. When we hit air again, the plates will get plenty hot. Rocket fuel won’t explode without heat and oxygen, so we’re safe as long as we’re in space. But the minute we touch atmosphere, we go up like a rocket.”
“Good heavens!” Beale gasped, fingers fluttering at his lips. “Damon, we’ve got to unload that fuel!”
The captain snorted. “In space? We can’t. The ship’s
gravity would pull it right back again.”
“Then we’ve got to land on an airless planet and unload it!”
Damon pointed at the visiscreen. “The patrol boat’s following our jets. We’re faster, but the minute we slow down, they’ll be on our tail. Nope. We’ve just got to keep going till we lose the patrol. After that—”
“Yes. I suppose so. We’ll head out, eh?”
“It’s the safest course. We’ll jet toward Pluto.”
Esterling lit a cigarette. “You’re space-tight. You can’t dodge the patrol. Why not call it a day and send out a white jet?” Beale shook his head. “We can’t do that. Once we reach the Black Planet we’ll be safe.”
“We’d better be,” Damon said. “Just to make you feel better, I might as well tell you the Vulcan’s washed up. Our bow tubes are gone. We can make a crash landing, with spacesuits, but we can’t take off again. You still think we’ll find spaceships on the black world?”
“Yes. Yes, indeed. The winged people visited Earth, as well as other planets, in the past. It’s a gamble, of course, but—”
“It’s a gamble we’ve got to take.” Damon looked at Esterling sardonically. “Want a gun?”
“Eh?”
“Here.” The captain tossed over a compressed-air automatic. “I don’t know what we’ll find on the Black Planet, but it may be trouble. You won’t use that blaster on us, anyway. D’you think the patrol would believe we’d kidnaped you?” Esterling slowly holstered the weapon. “I suppose not. But you’re taking a chance.”
“I don’t think so. We’ll split with you on whatever we find on the black world. According to Beale, that’ll mean big money. Enough to buy off the law. Try any tricks, and the best you can expect is a patrol trial, with the cards stacked against you. Hell, keep the gun,” Damon finished, with a careless shrug. “You’re no fool. You’ll play along.”
“Yeah,” Esterling said. “There’s not much else I can do, I guess.”
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