The great jet engines gasped and died.
Johann gave Chuck a quick chop with the butt of the gun that plunged him into unconsciousness, then spun about. The stars beyond the window seemed sharper, more clear – and something else.
Light flooded the cabin as the great airship tilted and an immense planet swam into view below. Filling half of the sky, glowing with reflected sunlight. A planet far greater than Earth.
And girded with great glinting rings that floated in space around it.
4
A VICTORIOUS BATTLE ENDS IN TERROR
The Russian spy was petrified by the sight, stock still and gaping. It was a sight to paralyze anyone, and concealed in the ship behind him Sally had been seized by the same paralysis. But not Jerry! He had been expecting something and had planned for this moment, in fact was scarcely aware of what was happening outside the plane. The instant that Johann had appeared and turned his back Jerry raced soundlessly to the attack, hurling himself forward like a human bullet. In fact, if there had been observers, they would have discovered that he had broken the Olympic record for the ten yard dash. The paralysis was only momentary, and the spy was turning and raising his gun but – too late! – for Jerry was upon him, his arm drawn back, his fist cocked. Before the gun could come up, the decadent enemy jaw felt the full impact of a good American fist in all its fury, and that was the end of the ball game.
Unconscious, the spy stretched his length upon the deck while Sally retrieved the fallen gun and Jerry rubbed his sore hand, which was already beginning to swell and turn red; it felt as if half the bones were broken. At this moment there was a groan from the cubby, and Chuck appeared, rubbing at his sore neck.
"Sorry about that," he said, nodding at the great planet swimming in space beyond the window. "I was kind of rushed. It looks like I misread the decimal on the knob and gave the machine a tenth of a volt instead of a thousandth."
"A tenth of a volt did that?" Sally gasped, speaking for all of them. "What would have happened if you had used one hundred and eleven volts?"
There was awe in Chuck's voice that finally broke the silence that enwrapped them. "A tenth of a volt to go from Earth to Saturn. We have the universe in our palms."
"Isn't the air getting a little thin in here?" Sally asked, suddenly frightened.
"Yes," Jerry responded. "We are in interstellar space where there is no oxygen; that is why the jets stopped. This plane is reasonably airtight, but I imagine our air is leaking out slowly through the compressors. . . ."
"We're going to die!" Sally screamed and began to tear at her hair.
"There, there," Chuck said reassuredly. "We'll work something out." He calmed her and wiped away the sudden beading of sweat that had sprung to her forehead and opened her tight clamped fingers and removed the great handfuls of lovely blond hair.
"We have a problem here," Jerry said, bemusedly.
"But not one that can't be solved!" Chuck smiled, and his friend smiled in return. They would buckle down and lick this thing.
"First off let's tie up our spy friend so he doesn't cause any more trouble," Jerry suggested. "My arm's a bit sore, so you had better take care of that, Chuck. Take plenty of wire and tie him down to one of the chairs in the cabin. And bring back some of those little bottles of vodka. I think Sally will feel better if we pour a couple of those into her. And I'll put my thinking cap on and find a way out of this."
The air in the cabin was a good deal thinner and cooler by the time Chuck came back. The third miniature bottle of vodka rattled against the wall, and Sally was getting a glazed look about the eyes. Jerry pointed at a glowing sphere that had appeared below the twisting plane, while Saturn rode high above them.
"If I'm not mistaken that is Titan, Saturn's biggest moon. I have been watching and we seem to be in her gravitational field and dropping down toward her."
"Lesh go home," Sally said suddenly. "Press the button on your new erector set and lesh go home."
"It's not that easy, Sally darling," Jerry explained, pressing her hand in his in a reassuring manner. "If we activate the cheddite projector now, there is no way of telling where we will end up. Before we throw the switch again, we have to align the resonant frequencies, determine the angle of the solar ecliptic, vibrate the oscillator and. . . ."
"Bullsh-shit," Sally muttered. "Press the frigging button and get us the hell out of here."
"There, there," Chuck said tenderly and led her back to the cabin to curl up in the seat across the aisle from the glowering spy, who had regained consciousness and who was now straining against his unyielding bindings and muttering curses in foreign tongues continuously.
"Here's a thought," Jerry suggested when Chuck had rejoined him at the controls. "We know that Titan has an atmosphere and we seem to be dropping that way. Break out the emergency oxygen cylinders, and we'll hold out until we hit the atmosphere. If there is enough oxygen in the atmosphere, we can do a power landing; if not, a dead stick will have to do. Once down we can calibrate and align the cheddite projector on the solid lunar base so when we activate the mechanism again we will certainly end up back on Earth."
"Great," Chuck enthused. "I'll get the oxy going back there – wait, there it goes by itself." As the pressure dropped, the emergency system had been activated and oxygen masks had dropped down in front of all four hundred seats in the great plane. Jerry put on his mask while Chuck dug out a walkaround cylinder and mask and went back to the cabin. Johann tried to bite him when he offered him the mask but relented as his eyeballs began to bulge and then permitted his enemy to fix the mask in place. Sally was asleep, snoring and gasping alternately, and settled down nicely with the mask and a blanket pulled up over her. After that Chuck went through the plane and tied knots in all the dangling plastic oxygen tubes over all the seats to prevent further loss of this precious gas. By the time he had rejoined Jerry he saw that the moon Titan was swelling quickly below them.
"All okay," Chuck said, dropping into the copilot's seat and pulling at his sore fingers. "How does it look ahead?"
"Not bad. A little lift from the controls, so I think we are at the edge of the atmosphere."
"Doesn't look too darn hospitable," Chuck mused, looking down at the landscape of ice-covered mountains, glaciers, snowfields and barren wastes.
"I don't know." Jerry smiled. "Sort of reminds me of home. So here we go!"
"If that reminds you of home, I'm beginning to see why you came south. Do you realize that the temperature down there is minus two hundred degrees?"
"Doesn't sound too bad," Jerry muttered, all his attention on flying the plane. "Plenty of lift now, but the motors won't catch."
"Probably because the atmosphere consists of methane, ammonia vapor, nitrogen and inert gases – and no oxygen."
"You took the words right out of my mouth. So dead stick it is. Full flaps, drop the landing gear, and let's have the lights."
Down and down they swooped, hurtling toward the jagged frozen peaks below, a nightmare wilderness of fanged rocks and glaring frozen gas that sparkled in multiple colors as the strong lights penetrated the shadows.
"If I can clear that ridge," Jerry murmured, "it may be better on the other side."
Fighting the controls with every particle of his strength and skill, he rode the giant 747 like a behemoth charger of the skies, firm in the saddle and strong on the reins. The great ship quivered as the nose came up, about to stall, while the black fangs of rock reached out hungrily for them. Basing the nose down ever so lightly to prevent the stall, they slid over the escarpment with only feet to spare between the ship and certain death.
"That ice field, there, off to port!" Chuck shouted jubilantly.
"That's the ball game!" Jerry chortled, and tilted the plane into a sharp turn.
Smoothly and easily they drifted down from out of the midnight sky and sped in silence over the smooth ice before dropping to a perfect eighteen-point landing. The air brakes popped up, and the wheel brakes took hold,
and instants later they quivered to a halt. The first men on Titan!
"We're the first men on Titan," Chuck said, "and I think maybe we're going to have to stay here."
"Don't be a wet blanket! AU we have to do is align the cheddite projector like I said, and wham-o, we're back on Earth."
"That's right. But we were excited and we sort of forgot that the projector is unreliable in an atmosphere."
"So what's the problem? We take off again and fire away from up on top."
"Take off?"
"Sure. Rig a feedline from the oxygen tanks to the engines and away we go."
"Hmmm, yes, that should work. But we have another problem."
"Like what?"
"I've been looking out the window, and that is the third creature with tentacles, a hideous beak, and four bulging eyes that I have seen climb up on the wing."
"Say!" Jerry spun about to see for himself. "Do you think there is life on this moon?"
Before he could answer, a shrill scream pierced through the air, and on the instant both men were running at breakneck speed back to the cabin. Sally was standing on the back of her seat and pointing with quivering finger at the window, still screaming. They followed her finger and smiled and helped her down, still screaming, and tried to soothe her.
"There, there," Jerry said, soothingly, "it's just a native of this moon. All the natives have tentacles, hideous beaks, and four bulging eyes." She screamed louder.
"It can't get in, so don't worry." Chuck laughed, and she stopped screaming. Not because of his reassurance, but because her mask had come off while she screamed, and she was unconscious from deficient oxygenation of her blood. They put her gently back in her seat and adjusted the oxygen flow. The cabin was silent except for the scratch, scratch of the Titanians' beaks on the windows.
"Loosen my bonds," Johann said. "They are too tight and are cutting off my circulation."
"You would try to escape then," Chuck said curtly. "So you will have to suffer just what a Red Commie spy deserves."
"Schweinhund!"
"I have a graduate degree in German so I know what you are saying, and it doesn't bother me." Sally had recovered consciousness and had listened to this exchange and could not bear it.
"Stop it!" she cried. "Here we are, millions of miles from home, four lost Americans, and you carry on like that. Enough!"
"Silence, woman," Johann said sternly. "I am citizen of Democratic Republic of East Germany and a Soviet agent. Not American."
"But you are," she insisted. "I know one half of you is East German. But the other half is American! Your father was a good American, and that makes you as good an American as any of us."
Silence filled the great cabin, and they saw a large tear form at the comer of each of the spy's eyes and then course down his cheeks. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse with emotion.
"Of course. They lied to me. Made me their own. Never told me I was an American. Deprived me of my birthright. When all the time I was as American as apple pie!"
"Right!" Chuck said, tearing the binding wires free from John's body. "You're one of us."
"I can get a passport, pay income tax, vote in the Presidential election, go to baseball games and eat hot dogs!" "Darn right!" Jerry shouted as he pumped John's hand. Then Chuck shook his hand, and John turned to kiss Sally but realized maybe he was an American but not that American, so he shook her hand as well.
"It's great to be part of the team again." John grinned and knuckled the tears from his cheeks. "What can I do to help?"
"We have a little problem," Jerry explained. "We have to take off so the cheddite projector will be able to work, but there is no oxygen in the atmosphere here. So we have to rig a supply of oxygen from the tanks here to the engines. . . ."
"I'm afraid that's out," Chuck said after mumbling some quick equations to himself. "I've worked out the amount of oxygen the engines need and how much we have in the tanks and I figure we have just enough to move us one hundred and ten feet. Allowing no time for engine warm-up."
"Then that's out." Chuck grimaced, striking his fist into his open palm. "So we'll just have to find another way."
"That seems sort of obvious." John smiled. "Being an American has really stirred up my old brain box, and I'm thinking in a realistic capitalistic way, instead of slavishly socialistic, and believe me, it works wonders! The answer is right outside that window."
They all looked and Sally started screaming again at the sight of the beaks, eyes and tentacles. John went on.
"While I was sitting there, I had plenty of time to look at those critturs and think about them. What attracted them to this plane? Not just curiosity, they don't seem that type, but something. Not heat, our temperature would be like a blowtorch to them. And I noticed that they are most thick out there around the air compressors."
"Oxygen!" Jerry said, snapping his fingers. "Of course. As it leaks out, they suck it up. They like oxygen. Which proves that this planet once had an Earthlike atmosphere, and these creatures are nothing but degenerate descendants of the former inhabitants. They must have a source of oxygen. All we have to do is find it and we can take off. We're going out there."
"The Titanians will attack us for the oxygen in our blood," Chuck said, realistically.
"Then we'll fight," John said, jaw set firmly. "And they'll know they've been in a fracas."
Preparations were quickly made. They sawed through the floor to gain access to the forward cargo hold, where the team's luggage was stored. Since the temperature outside was 200 degrees below zero, they had to bundle up warmly. Each of them put on layer after layer of football clothes and pads and helmets to protect their heads, slinging portable oxygen tanks at their waists. Sally was busy too, using needle and thread that she found in her purse to make them all gloves from the cheerleaders' uniforms.
Chuck wore his own uniform with his big number one blazoned front and back. They found number two for Jerry, who, though he could play football of course, did not go out for it since he was too busy captaining the hockey team, as well as captaining the fencing and chess teams. Since John was new to the team and not enrolled in the school, he smilingly settled for ninety-nine.
"We need weapons," Chuck said, taking command of the team. "I'll use the ax from the rescue kit."
"Heat is their enemy, so the oxyhydrogen torch is mine," Jerry added.
"If I use the alcohol from the first-aid kit, I can clean all the lubrication from my submachine gun, and it will fire at two hundred degrees below zero," John concluded.
"Here we go, team," Chuck said. "Lock the door behind us, Sally, and only open it if we knock three times."
"Good luck, boys," Sally said, and patted each rugged shoulder as it rushed by her into the fight.
The battle was joined. Evidently the smell of hot oxygen drove the Titanians into a frenzy of lust, and they hurled themselves to the attack with a terrible fury. Back to back the Americans faced them and coolly wreaked havoc in their hideous ranks. Tirelessly the great arm of Chuck rose and fell like a butcher's over the block, and tentacles and eye-bulging heads flew in all directions, green ichor spurting like rain. Nor was Jerry being sluggard. His torch cut through the advancing ranks of the enemy like a sword of victory, sizzling them into dismembered and cooked fragments. Coolly, John sighted his gun and fired only single shots, yet every single shot went true, right between the second and third eye of a hideous head and into the malformed brain behind it. And still they came. And still they died. To face the enemy the comrades had to climb the mounting pile of dead bodies that grew about them, and so the slaughter went on until the last of the vile attackers met his well-deserved fate. Smoke curled from the hot barrel of the gun, ichor dripped from the nowlowered ax, and the oxyhydrogen torch was turned off to save the gas.
"Well done, men," Chuck said, and they clambered and slipped down the forty-foot-high mountain of corpses to the ground. "Anyone hurt?"
"A few scratches." The others laughed. "Nothing that
counts."
"Then let's go get that oxygen. During the battle I noticed that most of the Titanians were coming from that direction, and if you look closely at that ridge, you will see a kind of white band toward the bottom. I'll bet my bottom dollar that that is frozen oxygen!"
They hurried toward the ridge, but before they could reach it, tragedy struck.
A shrill scream pierced the thin Titanian atmosphere, and they stopped as one and spun about on their heels. To see a sight so awful that it would be branded in their memories forever.
The cabin door stood open, and dropping down from the wing were a dozen of the hideous Titanians.
And carried in their midst, wrapped about by slimy tentacles, was the screaming, struggling, lovely form of Sally Goodfellow.
5
DEFEAT RUDELY SNATCHED FROM THE JAWS OF VICTORY
Paralysis gripped them, but only momentarily. Before the enemy had slithered another foot with the captive girl, the vengeful Americans were hot on their trail, weapons awave.
"Chin up, Sally!" Chuck bellowed. "Here we come!"
"I don't think . . . she can hear you," Jerry answered between gasping breaths. "She has no oxygen tank, so she is already unconscious."
And so she was, her screams were silenced, and she hung limply down the repulsive back of her captor. The fleeing Titanians looked back, easy enough to do since it could be seen now that they had four more eyes in the backs of their heads, and upon spotting the rushing avengers, they took defensive action. Half their number stopped and waited, frigid grasping tentacles raised for the attack. The battle was quickly joined. Heads flew right and left, and sundered tentacles littered the ground like so many salamis, and the Earthmen barely slowed in their rush. But more were waiting for them, and they were dispatched just as neatly. Now the coast was clear, the last of the rear guard dead, and only the fleeing Titanian with the unconscious girl across its shoulders remained.
Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers Page 3
