She didn’t answer. Her whole attention was on the controls. Finally she snapped a switch and sparks flared from the globe.
It began to rise again, a whole mass of grey lumps clinging to it like barnacles to a ship. Gradually it began to rise back toward Ganymede, became larger on the screen.
Casper moved over to the outlook port and began to give directions as he watched the sky. Then when he bundled on a spacesuit and went outside I guessed the globe had arrived back again. The girl operated switches on the control board and there came a rumbling thud from the firing tube. Evidently the globe had been drawn back into place by magnetism ready for the next trip.
Then there were other sounds from a remoter part of the ship. Valcine Drew waited impatiently; until at length Casper returned holding the Ganymedian by one arm. He tossed down the limply dangling body as though it were a rag doll and then commenced to take off his spacesuit.
“He’s dead,” he shrugged, seeing the girl’s glance. “Died, the same as they all do under the strain of leaving that hell-fired world. Well, it was worth it. He cleaned up about twenty million credits’ worth of mineral that time. I’ve put it in the safety locker.”
The girl nodded composedly. “Ship okay for the next trip?”
“All set and ready.”
I’d heard of a few cold-blooded rackets in my time as special agent but this had them all licked. Suddenly I thought of my micro-camera. Carefully I eased it into focusing position as the girl fired her ray pistol at the dead Ganymedian. I caught her in the very act of destroying him while Casper looked on. And I did something else too. I slipped in trying to get a better vantage point for a second photograph.
Instantly two pairs of eyes stared up at the ventilator. I put my camera away promptly, waited. Just for a moment I saw real fear leap into Valcine Drew’s lovely face, then it froze again into bleak hate. A gun flashed in her hand. Almost as quickly Casper yanked one out too. He reached up with a long rod and slammed up the hatchway, stared into my face.
“You!” A start shook him. “What in hell do you think you’re doing there? Come down, damn you!” he roared.
Slowly I obeyed, dropped to the floor. The girl got up grimly from the control board, her green eyes blazing at me with unholy fury.
“How did you get up there?” Her voice was low, deadly.
“I climbed. I engineered trouble below, then while you and Casper here quelled it I did a bit of muscling up. Simple, eh?”
“Don’t try and be funny with me!” she spat back. “I’ve had my suspicions of you from the very first. In the confusion down in the hold I never noticed your absence.”
“I counted on that,” I murmured.
“You’re no ordinary rocket engineer,” she went on slowly. “Just who are you?”
“Just an adventurer,” I smiled, and for that smile I was rewarded with a stinging slap in the face from the palm of her free left hand. I kept my grin as it was and that seemed to infuriate her even more.
“You’ve seen everything!” she panted. “You know—”
“I know you are slave trading through the aid of a bunch of wanted murderers,” I nodded. “I know too you are deliberately killing Ganymedians to gain critanium mineral and save your own skin and Casper’s here. I know you’re building up a fortune through methods pretty similar to those adopted by a one-time Simon Legree. But one day, Valcine Drew, the law is going to catch up with you.”
“Only if you talk,” she said coldly. “I can stop that! If I choose I could have your tongue torn out so you couldn’t speak; your hands amputated so you couldn’t write. I did that once to a man who thought he could cross me.”
“Perhaps that was where you got the name of the ‘Granite Angel’?” I asked quietly.
Her only immediate response was a look of such icy fury that I knew she was quite capable of carrying out her threat. Then all of a sudden she turned aside and drummed impatiently on the control bench.
“All right,” she said slowly, thinking, “since you are so anxious to poke your nose into my affairs, you might as well go the whole hog. You saw what happened to him?” She gestured in contempt to the Ganymedian.
“Well?” I asked.
“You can die being of service to me: that’s fitting. You’ll get into that safety globe and go to Jove, operate the three levers and bring back the next load of critanium.”
“What makes you think I will? You’re not dealing with a Ganymedian now, Angel. I’m an Earthman.”
“If you don’t,” she stated, coming back to me, “I’ll not withdraw the globe from Jupiter until you’ve died out there, alone, unable to move. I’ll throw a negative power over the driving controls, which will lock them. I’ll destroy you. See?”
“Are you doing this because you’re afraid to kill me outright with that pop-gun of yours?” I asked dryly.
Her eyes flamed again. “I’m not afraid of anything! But I happen to have a crew to bring back to Earth. One short would raise an inquiry, especially if that one was found to have flame gun wounds as the cause of death. If, however, you died from pressure and spacestrain—not uncommon in space and unavoidable when leaving Jupiter—I’d have a legitimate reason for your demise. I like to play safe with the law.”
I daresay I could have played my cards well enough to make her change her view, only I didn’t. As a matter of fact another idea had formed in my mind, and it was well worth putting to the test. I noticed she looked surprised when 1 gave a slow nod.
“You win, Angel,” I said quietly. “Though I’d remind you I’m none too sure Jupiter will kill me. I’m no brittle man of Ganymede, remember; I’m two hundred and twenty pounds of Earthman.”
“If Jupiter doesn’t oblige, I will—and take the consequences,” she retorted. “Now get into that safety-globe.”
Shrugging, I moved to the valve and unscrewed it, clambered into the globe beyond and sank into the cushioned seat at the controls.
CHAPTER 3
Trapped on Jupiter
Suddenly the valve slammed shut again. Radio control also closed the airlock. I sat back and waited. All of a sudden I was seized with the most ghastly sinking sensation as the globe went hurtling outwards from the tube, flinging me tight back in my seat. Staring through the port I saw I was spiraling high over the rocky surface of Ganymede.
The view changed as I seemed to turn a somersault and found Jupiter suddenly below me with his heaping cloudbanks. The radio remote control was in full sway now, guiding the globe unerringly on the same course as before. In these few minutes of trip I had the chance to study the radio equipment, satisfied myself that a few brief conversions could make it suitable for ordinary short-wave transmission. That was what I wanted, later.
Again I turned my attention to the outlook port. In all directions, once I struck the cloud belts, there was just fog and nothing more—fog blown into a million wraiths and shapes by the eternal winds which roar over Jove’s surface; ammonia winds, blasted by hurricanes of between four and five hundred miles an hour in velocity.
Certainly there is no planet in the System grimmer than Jupiter, a planet whereon no big space machine had ever dared to land for fear it might never again depart from the giant’s toils, or else because of the ever-present hazard of meeting destruction in the furious hurricanes. Only a small globe such as the one I was in stood any real chance by very reason of its shape.
The temperature gauge showed me what I already knew—that the external temperature was minus two hundred Fahrenheit; the air-sampler confirmed the presence of ammonia, methane, and other deadly gases in profusion.
Swiftly, still under radio control, the globe dropped until the clouds suddenly cleared and I burst on an inimical landscape. I was directly over the plateau I had seen in the X-ray telescreen—that plateau of gleaming, glassy black, frozen solid and marked here and there by the grayish lumps of the precious mineral deposits.
The lower I dropped the more I disliked the view. I cannot conceive of anythi
ng more desolate. Buffeted and battered by the atmospheric twists I went lower and lower, staring at the jagged peaks of the valley. They reared up like black towers, their basic darkness not entirely concealed by the sheen of eternal ice covering them. Half way up their Cyclopean heights the mists were swirling, blotting them out. I had only my imagination to tell me what sort of a hell must exist at the top of those monsters.
Once I landed I did more things than pull the levers to attract the critanium. I made a few tests of Jove’s surface for the first time in my life. Atmosphere pressure and quality I already knew. The other thing I discovered was the vast pull of the gravity, so enormous I could scarcely move my jaws without experiencing pain. My hands suddenly seemed to weigh tons. I thanked God I was seated for it enabled my heart to keep a fairly steady though labored action. Certainly there was a gravity nullifier on the control board that would have put things right, only like every other switch it was locked by radio power.
Despite the physical distractions I was interested in the exterior. The ground was flint-hard, scored into innumerable rifts and furrows by the swirling hurricanes, blowing in their track monstrous surges of pebbled dust that had gouged out tracks in the ice-caked rocks. Without doubt Jupiter is no place for a vacation.
Then all of a sudden the radio controls operated again and I found myself being borne upwards with the globe once more. Hell gripped me. I gasped and choked under the strain of forcing against that titanic gravity. I realized in those moments why the weak, fragile Ganymedians had been destroyed once their job was done. Strong though I am I was doing everything in my power to protect my life. I conserved my breathing, made no movements, was gratefully content to even retain consciousness at all.
Nor did the strain weaken much for the pull of Jupiter is as strong when near Ganymede as it is when close to the surface. The only relief was when the accelerating motion ceased and I was gripped by Ganymede’s own field. Swiftly the globe spiraled back to the satellite’s desolate surface, landed finally only a few yards from the Silver Eagle.
Magnets got to work and pulled it back into the tube. I don’t think I saw two faces ever look so surprised as Casper and the girl’s as I stepped forth unharmed through the valve into the control room.
Valcine Drew studied me for a moment, then she said briefly to Casper, “Go and see the minerals are fixed.”
She waited until he was gone in his spacesuit then advanced toward me slowly, playing with her gun.
“So the big fellow is tough,” she murmured.
“Can’t say I didn’t warn you.” I shrugged.
“Pity it failed,” she said bitterly. “I’ll have to use the other way after all.”
“Before you do,” I interrupted her, as she leveled her gun, “there is something you ought to know. You could never have known it if you hadn’t sent me to Jupiter as you did. You see, you’re just wasting your time collecting critanium.”
“Oh, I am! I’m quite satisfied,” she answered curtly.
“But you wouldn’t be if you’d seen what I’ve seen,” I insisted. “Down in that Jovian valley are whole seams of tranite-x! You can’t see it in that teleplate of yours because it’s below surface, but it’s there. I’ve seen it. I don’t suppose I have to add that tranite-x is worth three times as much as the stuff you keep collecting?”
Her gun lowered as she stared at me. Then Casper came back and took off his helmet. She turned to him quickly.
“You ever hear of tranite-x?”
“That’s all I have done—hear of it,” he grunted. “Frozen mineral deposit used for medical services. What about it?”
“There are whole seams of it waiting to be frisked up on Jove,” I answered him. “Just below the surface ice. And that,” I finished, looking back at the girl, “means real money.”
They were silent for a moment, then Casper looked at me in ugly suspicion.
“What’s the idea, feller? You trying to buy your liberty or something?”
I eyed him steadily. “I’m suggesting we forget our differences and get the stuff while we can. Two crates of that will make all your critanium sales look like pocket money. If you’re willing, Angel, I’ll take you with me and show you the exact spot. We can soon decide on the disposal method.”
She hesitated for a long moment.
“Afraid?” I asked cynically; and that made her flush.
“Of course I’m not afraid! I’m just thinking that it might be dangerous to lower the Eagle to Jove. We might never get away again.”
“We wouldn’t,” I confirmed grimly. “Our only chance is to use the globe. There’s room enough for the pair of us, anyway.”
“All right,” she said slowly. “We can’t afford to pass up a chance of getting tranite-x. I’ll get some samples first and bring them back for examination. If it’s the real thing we’ll have the Ganymedians mine all they can.”
“Better put some instruments in the ship—electric cutters and so forth,” I advised. “That ice is going to take a lot of smashing open.”
She nodded and motioned Casper. Still eying me with some doubt he put the necessary tackle into the globe, then stood aside. I clambered through the airlock into the spare seat next the control board and the girl followed me a moment later. Casper slammed the airlock with a viciousness that clearly expressed his suspicions were deep.
I smiled grimly to myself and eyed the girl as she detached the radio remote control equipment and shifted the power levers. Casper released the power that gave us the initial send off from the tube; immediately the girl had the globe under control and we were dropping toward the storm-swept surface of Jupiter.
I sat in dead silence, but I was doing plenty of thinking. Finally my gaze dropped to the flame-gun in the holster at her waist. Abruptly, before she had the least chance to grasp my intention, I’d whipped the gun free and leveled it straight at her.
She glared at me tigerishly with those green eyes of hers, but she didn’t take her hands off the controls. She dared not.
“What’s the idea?” she demanded savagely.
“Just to make sure I have the initiative,” I smiled. “Keep on driving and you’ll be okay. Two people can play with a gun Angel, and I’m not exactly an amateur either. Keep your hands on those switches!” I snapped, as for a moment she released them.
Her face set she looked through the port upon the swirling scum of Jove below. I don’t think I ever saw such bleak fury on a woman’s face before. It was more than anger at being tricked; it was a sheer baleful malice out of all proportion with the situation. And suddenly it must have mastered her, for her hands left the controls again.
Violently she swung in her seat and dived for my face. Just in time I jerked my head back but even at that her long, sharp nails dug savagely into my cheek. I felt the trickle of warm blood.
“You think you can do this to me?” Her voice was a positive screech as she leapt up and battered away at my head with her fists. “You clumsy great fool! You can’t—”
“The switches!” I reminded her hoarsely. “We’re falling!”
She was too blind with fury to notice it so I leaned across to them. Seizing her chance she picked up a spanner and brought it down with stinging force across my wrists. My hands went numb. Controlling the globe was hopeless. Helplessly I fell back in my seat, the gun dropping from my unfeeling hand. Then it was leveled at me. I stared into the girl’s cruel face as she tossed the tumbled hair out of her eyes.
“Get out of that chair, you no account space tramp!”
I moved slowly.
“Quickly!” she yelled, suddenly directing a startled glance through the window. “We’re falling!”
She dived to hurry me out of the chair and I saw her hand slide up to the gun button. In self-preservation I did the only thing possible—delivered a right uppercut that hit her straight under the jaw. She collapsed her length on the metal floor.
Right then I’d no time to notice her. Frantically I worked on the controls,
but I was unfamiliar with them. In any case we had dropped into the full tug of Jupiter’s field and were whizzing downwards with diabolical speed through dense cloudbanks.
I stared out into the pall in horror.
Then we landed. The shock was terrific. I was pitched right out of the chair and landed against the padded wall. From outside came the crash of rending ice; then the globe started to roll over and over like a fast traveling snowball, came to halt finally amidst the rasp and crackle of crumbling ice shards. Somehow, dazed and bumped though I was, I managed to retain my senses.
Carefully I moved again, but the iron weights of Jupiter had sway once more. With superhuman effort I crawled to the port and stared out. All was unnaturally dark, for Jupiter has a surface twilight glow. I fingered the switches until I found the one to operate the external searchlight.
The blaze showed me we were not on the surface of the planet at all but in some kind of glassy cavern, its walls made up of sheer, black ice. For a long time I puzzled over the situation, then heard Valcine Drew moan slightly. Immediately I returned to her and with considerable difficulty hauled her into a chair. Her weight was stupendous.
Slowly she came back to consciousness, fingering her jaw. Then as remembrance flashed back into her brain her green eyes blazed malevolently and she reached out for the gun on the floor. I was a shade quicker however and slipped it in my trousers’ belt.
“You won’t need it,” I told her briefly. “In fact neither of us will. Unless I miss my guess we’re going to be lucky if we either of us get out of this alive.”
That got her on her feet, with a strain that brought anguish into her lovely face. She stumbled to the control board and closed a switch. Immediately the weights fell from us as Earth-norm was established in the floor. Then she went over to the port and stared outside with me. Finally her hate-filled gaze turned to me.
John Russell Fearn Omnibus Page 62
