The Best of Stanley G. Weinbaum Part 23

"If you follow," he said with a cold intensity, "I shoot!" He strode away not toward the pa.s.s, but toward the ridge itself, back along the slopes that lay nearest the Minos, hidden from view in the other valley. Of course, Gogrol could cross those airless heights, secure in this helmet, carrying his air supply like the bladder birds.

He seemed to seek the shelter of an ascending ridge. As the jutting rock concealed him, I leaped to a boulder.

"Come on!" I said. "Perhaps we can beat him through the pa.s.s to the s.h.i.+p!"

"No!" screamed Claire, so frantically that I halted. "My Lord, noI Didn't you see the blaster he left?"

The singing teakettle noise! I had barely time to throw my-self beside the girl crouching behind a rock when the little atomic bomb let go.

I suppose everybody has seen, either by eye or television, the effect of atomic explosions. All of us, by one means or the other, have watched old buildings demolished, road grades or ca.n.a.ls blasted, and those over forty may even remember the havoc-spreading bombs of the Pacific War. But none of you could have seen anything like this, for this explosion had a low air pressure and a gravitation only one-eighth normal as the sole checks to its fury.

It seemed to me that the whole mountain lifted. Vast ma.s.ses of crumbling rock hurtled toward the black sky. Bits of stone, whistling like bullets and incandescent like meteors, shot past us, and the very ground we clung to heaved like the deck of a rolling rocket.

When the wild turmoil had subsided, when the debris no longer sang about us, when the upheaved ma.s.ses had either fallen again or had spun beyond Europa's gravitation to crash on indifferent Jupiter, the pa.s.s had vanished. Mountain and vacuum hemmed us into a prison.

Both of us were slightly stunned by the concussion, al-though the thin atmosphere transmitted a strangely high-pitched sound instead of the resounding b-o-o-m one would have heard on the Earth.

When my head stopped ringing, I looked around for Gogrol, and saw him at last seven or eight hundred feet up the slope of the mountain. Anger surged in me; * I seized a stone from the margin of the pool,and flung it viciously at him. One can throw amazing dis-tances on small worlds like Europa; I watched the missile raise dust at his very feet.

He turned; very deliberately he raised the automatic, and stone splinters from the boulder beside me stung my face. I dragged Claire down behind the shelter, knowing beyond doubt that he had meant that bullet to kill. In silence we watched him climb until he was but a tiny black speck, near-ing the crest.

He approached a bladder bird crawling its slow way along the airless heights. Up there the creatures were slow as snails, for their flight membranes were useless in the near vacuum. But they had normally no enemies on the peaks.

I saw Gogrol change his course purposely to intercept the thing. Intentionally, maliciously, he kicked a hole in the in-flated bladder, collapsing it like a child's balloon. He stood watching while the miserable creature flopped in the agonies of suffocation, then moved methodically on. It was the coldest exhibition of wanton cruelty I had ever witnessed.

Claire shuddered; still in silence we watched the man's lei-surely progress along the ridge. There was something in his att.i.tude that suggested searching, seeking, hunting. Suddenly he quickened his pace and then halted abruptly, stooping over what looked to me like a waist-high heap of stones, or per-hapsmerely a hummock on the ridge.

But he was burrowing in it, digging, flinging stones and dirt aside. And at last he stood up; if he held anything, dis-tance hid it, but he seemed to wave some small object at us in derisive triumph. Then he moved over the crest of the hills and disappeared.

Claire sighed despondently; she seemed very little like the proud and rather arrogant Golden Flash.

"That settles it," she murmured disconsolately. "He's got it, and he's got us trapped; so we're quite helpless."

"Got what?" I asked. "What was he digging for up there?" Her blue eyes widened in amazement.

"Don't you know?" "I certainly don't. I seem to know less about this d.a.m.n trip than anybody else on it."

She gazed steadily at me. "I knew Stefan was wrong," she said softly. "I don't care what you were when you wrecked the Hera, Jack Sands; on this trip you've been decent and brave and a gentleman.'

"Thanks," I said dryly, but I was a little touched for an that because, after all, the Golden Flash was a very beautiful girl. "Then suppose you let me in on a few of the secrets. For instance, what was Coretti wrong about? And what did Go-grol dig for?"

"Gogrol," she said, watching me, "was digging in Gunder-son's cairn."

I looked blank. "Gunderson's what? This is news to me."

She was silent for a moment. "Jack Sands," she said at last, "I don't care what Stefan or the government or anybody thinks of you. I think you're honest, and I think you've had an injustice done you somehow, and I don't believe you were to blame in the Hera crash. And I'm going to tell you all I know about this matter. But first, do you know the object of Gun-derson's expedition to Europa?"

"I never knew it. I'm a pilot; I took no interest in their scientific gibberish.

She nodded. "Well, you know how a rocket motor works, of course. How they use a minute amount of uranium or ra-dium as catalyst to release the energy in the fuel. Uranium has low activity; it will set off only metals like the alkalis, and s.h.i.+ps using uranium motors burn salt. And radium, being more active, will set off the metals from iron to copper; so s.h.i.+ps using a radium initiator usually burn one of the com-moner iron or copper ores."

"I know all that," I grunted. "And the heavier the metal, the greater the power from its disintegration."

"Exactly." She paused a moment. "Well, Gunderson wanted to use still heavier elements. That required a source of rays more penetrating than those from radium, and he knew of only one available source-Element 91, protactinium. And it happens that the richest deposits of protactinium so far discovered are those in the rocks of Europa; so to Europa he came for his experiments.

"Well?" I asked. "Where do I fit in this mess?"

"I don't quite know, Jack. Let me finish what I know, which is all Stefan would tell me. Gunderson succeeded, they think; he's supposed to have worked out the formula by which pro-tactinium could be made to set off lead, which would give much more power than any present type of initiator. But if he did succeed, his formula and notes were destroyed when the Hera crashed!"

I began to see. "But what-what about that cairn?" "You really don't know?"

"I'll be double d.a.m.ned if I do! If Gunderson built a cairn, it must have been that last day. I had the take-off, so I slept through most of it. But-why, they did have some sort of ceremony!"

"Yes. Gunderson mentioned something about it when your s.h.i.+p touched at Junopolis on Io. What the government hopes is that he buried a copy of his formula in that cairn. They do, you know. Well, n.o.body could possibly know of the location except you and a man named Kratska, who had disappeared.

"So Interplanetary, which is in bad anyway because of some stock transactions, was ordered to back this expedition with you as pilot-or at least, that's what Stefan told me. I guess I was taken along just to give the corporation a little more publicity, and, of course, Stefan was sent to watch you, in hopes you'd give away the location. The formula's immensely valuable, you see."

"Yeah, I see. And how about Gogrol?"

She frowned. "I don't know. Stefan hinted that he had some connections with Harrick of Interplanetary, or perhaps some hold over him. Harrick insisted on his being a member."

"The devil!" I exploded suddenly. "He knew about the cairn! He knew where to look!"Her eyes grew wide. "Why, he did! He's-could he be the representative of some foreign government? If we could stop him! But he's left us absolutely helpless here. Why didn't he kill us?"

"I can guess that," I said grimly. "He can't fly the Minos alone. Henshaw's dead, and if Coretti dies-well, one of us is due for the job of pilot."

A tremor shook her. "I'd rather be dead, too," she mur-mured, "than to travel with him alone."

"And I'd rather see you so," I agreed glumly. "I wish to heaven you had stayed out of this. You could be home en-joying your money."

"My money!" she flashed. "I haven't any money. Do you think I take these chances for publicity or thrills or admira-tion?"

I gaped; of course, I'd thought exactly that.

She was literally blazing. "Listen to me, Jack Sands. There's just one reason for the fool things I do-money! There isn't any Avery fortune, and hasn't been since my father died. I've needed money desperately these last two years, to keep the Connecticut place for my mother, because she'd die if she had to leave it. It's been our family home for two hundred years, since 1910, and I won't be the one to lose it!"

It took a moment to adjust myself to what she was saying. "But a racing rocket isn't a poor man's toy," I said feebly. "And surely a girl like you could find-"

"A girl like me!" she cut in bitterly. "Oh, I know I have a good figure and a pa.s.sable voice, and perhaps I could have found work in a television chorus, but I needed real money. I had my choice of two ways to get it: I could marry it, or I could gamble my neck against it. You see which way I chose. As the Golden Flash, I can get big prices for endorsing break-fast foods and beauty preparations. That's why I gambled in that race; my racing rocket was all I had left to gamble with. And it worked, only"-her voice broke a little-"I wish I could stop gambling. I-I hate it!"

It wasn't only pity I felt for her then. Her confession of poverty had changed things; she was no longer the wealthy, unattainable being I had always imagined the Golden Flash to be. She was simply a forlorn and unhappy girl; one who needed to be loved and comforted. And then I remembered the evening of the eclipse, and Coretti's arms about her. So I gazed for an instant at the sunlight on her hair, and then turned slowly away.

After a while we gathered some liver-leaves and cooked them, and I tried to tell Claire that we were certain to be rescued. Neither of us believed it; we knew very well that Gogrol would carry no living companion to Io; whoever helped him run the Minos would certainly be dead and cast into s.p.a.ce before landing. And we knew that Gogrol's story, whatever it might be, would not be one likely to encourage a rescue party. He'd simply report us all dead somehow or other.

"I don't care," said Claire. "I'm glad I'm with you."

I thought of Coretti and said nothing. We were just sitting in glum silence near the fire when Gogrol came over the hills again.

Claire saw him first and cried out. Despite his helmet, neither of us could mistake his broad, squat figure. But there was nothing we could do except wait, though we did drawcloser to the area of wild and tumbled boulders about the central pool.

"What do you suppose-" asked Claire nervously. "Coretti may have died, or may be too injured to help." Pain twisted her features. "Yes, or-Oh, I know, Jack!

It's that Gogrol can't plot a course. He can pilot; he can follow a course already laid out, but he can't plot one-and neither can Stefan!"

Instantly I knew she must be right. Piloting a s.h.i.+p is just a question of following directions, but plotting a course in-volves the calculus of function, and that, let me tell you, takes a mathematician. I could do it, and Claire handled a simple route well enough-one had to in rocket racing-but astrogators were not common even among pilots.

You see, the difficulty is that you don't just point the s.h.i.+p at your destination, because that destination is moving; you head for where the planet will be when you arrive. And in this case, a.s.suming Gogrolmeant to make for Io, a journey from Europa to that world meant speeding in the direction of the colossal ma.s.s of Jupiter, and if a rocket once pa.s.sed the critical velocity in that direction-good night!

A hundred feet away Gogrol halted. "Listen, you two," he yelled, "I'm offering Miss Avery the chance to join the crew of the Minos."

"You're the crew," I retorted. "She's not taking your offer."

Without warning he leveled his revolver and fired, and a shock numbed my left leg. I fell within the shelter of a boulder, thrusting Claire before me, while Gogrol's bellow followed the crash of his shot: "I'll shut your mouth for you!"

There began the weirdest game of hide and seek I've ever played, with Claire and me crawling among the tumbled boulders, scarcely daring to breathe. Gogrol had all the advan-tage, and he used it. I couldn't stand upright, and my legs began to hurt so excruciatingly that I was afraid each minute of an involuntary groan forcing its way through my lips. Claire suffered with me; her eyes were agonized blue pools of torment, but she dared not even whisper to me.

Gogrol took to leaping atop the boulders. He glimpsed me, and a second bullet struck that same burning leg. He was deliberately hunting me down, and I saw it was the end.

We had a momentary shelter. Claire whispered to me, "I'm going to him. He'll kill you otherwise, and take me anyway." "No!" I croaked. "No!"

Gogrol heard, and was coming. Claire said hastily. "He's -b.e.s.t.i.a.l. At least I can plot a course that will-kill us!" Then she called, "Gogrol! I'll surrender."

I s.n.a.t.c.hed at her ankle-too late. I went crawling after her as she strode into the open, but her steps were too rapid. I heard her say, "I give up, if you won't-shoot him again."

Gogrol mumbled, and then Claire's voice again, "Yes, I'll plot your course, but how can I cross the peaks?"

"Walk," he said, and laughed.

"I can't breathe up there."

"Walk as far as you can. You won't die while I take you the rest of the way."

There was no reply. When I finally crept into the open, they were a hundred feet up the slope.

Helpless, raging, pain-maddened, I seized a stone and flung it. It struck Gogrol in the back, but it struck with no more force than if I'd tossed it a dozen feet on Earth. He spun in fury, thrust the screaming Claire aside, and sent another bullet at me. Missed me, I thought, thought I wasn't sure, for pain had numbed me. I couldn't be sure of anything.

Claire saw that I still retained some semblance of consciousness. "Goodbye!" she called, and added something that I could not hear because of the red waves of pain, but I knew Gogrol laughed at it.

Thereafter, for what seemed like a long time, I knew only that I was crawling doggedly through an inferno of torture.

When the red mist lifted, I was only at the base of the rise. Far above I could see the figures of Claire and Gogrol, and I perceived that though he strode with easy steps, protected by his helmet, the girl was already staggering from breathlessness. While I watched, she stumbled, and then began to struggle frantically and spasmodically to jerk away from him. It wasn't that she meant to break her promise, but merely that the agonies of suffocation drove her to attempt any means of regaining breathable air.

But the struggle was brief. It was less than a minute before she fainted, pa.s.sed out from air starvation, and Gogrol slung her carelessly under one arm-as I said, she weighed about twelve pounds on Europa-and pressed on. At the very crest he paused and looked back, and in that thin, clearair I could see every detail with telescopic distinctness, even to the shadow he cast across Claire's drooping golden head.

He raised the revolver to his temple, waved it at me with a derisive gesture, and then flung it far down the mountain-side toward me. His meaning was unmistakable; he was advising me to commit suicide.

When I reached the revolver, there was a single unused catridge in the clip; I looked up, tempted to try it on Gogrol himself, but he was gone across the ridge.

Now I knew all hope was gone. Perhaps I was dying from that last bullet anyway, but whether I wereor not, Claire was lost, and all that remained for me was the madness of solitude, forever imprisoned by empty s.p.a.ce in this valley. That or-suicide.

I don't know how many times I thought of that single cartridge, but I know the thought grew very tempting after a few more hours of pain. By that time, for all I knew, the Minos might have taken off on its dash to death, for the roar of its blast could not carry over the airless heights, and it would be so high and small by the time I could see it above the hills that I might have missed it.

If only I could cross those hills! I began to realize that more important than my own life was Claire's safety, even if it meant saving her for Coretti. But I couldn't save her; I couldn't even get to her unless I could walk along the hills like a bladder bird.

Like a bladder bird! I was sure that it was only the delirium of fever that suggested that wild thought.

Would it work? I answered myself that whether it worked or failed it was better than dying here without ever trying.

I stalked that bladder bird like a cat. Time after time I spent long minutes creeping toward a copse of song-bushes only to have the creature sail blithely over my head and across the valley. But at last I saw the thing crouched for flight above me; I dared not delay longer lest my wounds weaken me too much for the trial of my plan, and I fired. There went my single cartridge.

The bladder bird dropped! But that was only the beginning of my task. Carefully-so very carefully-I removed the creature's bladder, leaving the vent tube intact. Then, through the opening that connects to the bird's single lung, I slipped my head, letting the b.l.o.o.d.y rim contract about my throat.

I knew that wouldn't be air-tight, so I bound it with strips torn from my clothing, so closely that it all but choked me. Then I took the slimy vent tube in my mouth and began an endless routine. Breathe in through the vent tube, pinch it shut, breathe out into the bladder-over and over and over. But gradually the bladder expanded with filthy, vitiated, stinking, and once-breathed air.

I had it half filled when I saw that I was going to have to start if I were to have a chance of living long enough for a test. Breathing through the vent tube as long as there was air enough, peering dully through the semitransparent walls of the bladder, I started crawling up the hill.

I won't describe that incredible journey. On Earth it would have been utterly impossible; here, since I weighed but eighteen pounds, it was barely within the bounds of possibility. As I ascended, the bladder swelled against the reduced pressure; by the time I had to start breathing the fearful stuff, I could feel it escaping and bubbling through the blood around my neck.

Somehow I made the crest, almost directly above the Minos. It was still there, anyway. Gogrol hadn't come this way, and now I saw why. There was a sheer drop here of four hundred feet. Well, that only equaled fifty on Earth, but even fifty- But I had to try it, because I was dying here on the peaks. I jumped.

I landed with a wrench of pain on my wounded leg, but much more lightly than I had feared. Of course! Jumping down into denser air, the great bladder had acted like a parachute, and, after all, my weight here was but eighteen pounds. I crawled onward, in agony for the moment when I could cast off the stinking, choking bladder.

That moment came. I had crossed the peaks, and before me lay the Minos. I crawled on, around to the side where the air lock was. It was open, and a voice bellowed out of it. Gogrol!

"You'll trick me, eh!" he screeched. "You'll lay a course that will crash us! We'll see! We'll see!" There came the unmistakable sound of a blow, and a faint whimper of pain.

Somewhere I found the strength to stand up. Brandis.h.i.+ng the empty automatic, I swayed into the air lock, sliding along the walls to the control room.

There was something about the figure that bent in the dusk above a sobbing girl that aroused a flash of recognition. Seeing him thus in a shadowed control room with the sun s.h.i.+elds up-I knew what I should have known weeks ago. Gogrol was-Kratska!

"Kratska!" I croaked, and he whirled. Both he and Claire were frozen into utter rigidity by surprise and disbelief. I really think they were both convinced that I was a ghost.

How-how--" squeaked Gogrol, or rather Kratska.

"I walked across. I'd walk across h.e.l.l to find you, Kratska." I brandished the gun. "Get out and getaway quick, if you expect to escape the blast. We're leaving you here until police from Io can pick you up-on that Hera matter among others." I spoke to the dazed Claire. "Close the air lock after him.

We're taking off."

"Jack!" she cried, comprehending at last. "But Stefan's wired to a tree out there. The blast will incinerate him!"