The Sphere of Sleep Part 1

The Sphere of Sleep.

by Chester S. Geier.

[Sidenote: Brad Nelson had a perfect way to kill Big Tim without any danger of being accused. Then his foot slipped and he was hurled into an unknown world.]

"I've got to kill you, Big Tim. I've just got to kill you! I want Laura--and you're standing in my way...."

The thought beat urgently and continuously in Brad Nellon's mind. He was absorbed in it to the extent that the terrible t.i.tanian gale which roared beyond the shelter of his thermalloy suit was forgotten.

Beside him, the object of his deadly thoughts strode unknowing. His large, brown face crinkled in a grin of boyish enjoyment, Tim Austin was fighting his way through the fierce drive of wind and snow. That grin was always there. It was as much a part of him as his thick, tow hair, his gentle brown eyes and giant's frame. He was big and carefree, and life ran rich and full in his veins.

On Brad Nellon's face there was no enjoyment in the battle against the storm. There was not even his usual resentment of the bitter cold and the thick, white snow. His grey eyes were covered with a heavy film of thought. He walked in a world where there was no storm save that of his emotions, no reality outside of the imagery constructed by his brain.

His stocky, powerful form plodded along mechanically.

They moved in a world of snow and ice and screaming wind. Great pinnacles and ridges, worn into fantastic shapes by the gale, towered on every side. The curtain of snow occasionally lifted to reveal white hills marching upon white hills, huge, glittering ice sheets, yawning chasms. And sometimes, farther in the distance, there would be awesome alien vistas.

The dark thread of Brad Nellon's thoughts was broken abruptly by the sudden hum of his helmet earphones. He looked up with guilty quickness.

Awareness of his companion, of the frigid h.e.l.l of his t.i.tanian surroundings, rushed back in a flood.

"On the watch, guy," the voice of Big Tim Austin cautioned. "We're almost near Tower Point."

Nellon moved his head in a jerky nod of understanding. His eyes probed momentarily into those of the other, then dropped quickly back to the snow. His earphones hummed again.

"Say, Brad, anything wrong?"

Nellon's face tautened in sudden panic. Again his eyes flashed to Austin. But he did not find in them the suspicion which he expected.

There was only solicitous wonder.

"I'm all right," Nellon answered. "Just a bit tired, that's all." He realized that his voice sounded hoa.r.s.e and unnatural. With masked gaze, he tried to learn its effect upon Austin.

But it was the content of his voice, not its tone which had registered upon Big Tim. Nellon was startled by the unexpected flood of vehemence which poured in through his earphones.

"That's the result of short rations, d.a.m.n it! I knew it would get us sooner or later. We should've been on our way home long ago. The whole expedition has been a mess from beginning to end.

"You shouldn't have come with me, Brad, when I volunteered to go after old Ryska's stuff. But I thought it would be all right, because we're the only real he men among all those runty scientists. They're good for nothing but theory-spinning. They've thrown the expedition off schedule with their mental b.u.t.terfly chasing, and got the rest of us down on short rations. And now, just as we're ready to leave at last, one of them has to remember that he left a pile of valuable equipment lying around somewhere in the snow."

Austin was silent a while. When he spoke again, the old laughter-lights were back twinkling in his eyes.

"Oh, h.e.l.l, Brad. I guess I'm just sore because I'm being kept away from Laura every second the brain-gang holds us back. I can't wait to see her again."

"Yes, I know how it is," Nellon muttered.

"Swell kid, isn't she?"

"Yes." Nellon forced out the answer with difficulty.

"Well, keep your eyes peeled for Tower Point up there. As soon as we've got old Ryska's junk, we'll all be heading for home."

Nellon felt a weary sort of satisfaction. No, Big Tim didn't suspect.

Big Tim didn't know that he was never going home again. Nellon had accompanied him on this final little trip to make sure of that.

They were nearing the lower end of a long ravine. Here, the invisible trail which they followed rose steeply and entered a narrow cleft between two huge slabs of ice. Then it dipped around the base of a great pinnacle, which thrust like an undaunted finger into the rage of the storm. This was the unique landmark which the expedition members had christened Tower Point.

Tower Point served as a great, white warning signal. For the trail skirting it gave way abruptly from powdery snow to ice of mirror slickness and slanted down sharply to a frozen lake which, unsheltered from the terrible wind, was polished constantly. One end of the lake had once been a falls, for here it ended, dropping down as sheerly as a precipice for hundreds of feet.

The way around Tower Point was one of the chief dangers, for there was no telling where the snow ended and the ice began. A sudden slip meant a swift slide down and onto the frozen surface of the lake. There, where the wind swept in all its unbroken force, one would be blown helplessly over the icy edge of the falls and dashed to death on the jagged ice teeth far below. d.i.c.k Fulsom, metallurgist, had already lost his life that way.

And that was the way Nellon had planned Big Tim Austin would die. Tower Point would mark the scene of another tragedy. Just the merest of shoves on that deadly borderline between ice and snow, and Big Tim would go flas.h.i.+ng down to the lake and over the falls.

It was as simple as that. Nellon knew that nothing could ever be proved against him. Nor would the faintest thought of suspicion ever enter the minds of the others. For to them he and Big Tim had always been pals in the truest, deepest sense of the word.

No, he had nothing to fear. The only reckoning would be with his conscience, but he did not allow that to trouble him now, for all he wanted to think of was Laura. Laura would be his. He knew that with a grim, satisfying certainty.

Now they were starting up the difficult rise which led to Tower Point.

Nellon slipped gradually behind, until he walked in Austin's rear. His eyes settled and fixed to the metal back of the other's suit.

Very soon, now, it would be over. And then he would be on his way back home to Earth. Laura would be there on Earth, waiting. Laura.

Laura had silky chestnut hair that glinted with deep, red lights and fell in thick curls to her shoulders. Her eyes were very brown and level and filled with dancing motes of laughter. Her nose was short and pert, and he remembered the tiny mole which lay like a speck of soot just near the left nostril. Her lips were a little too wide, but they were firm and full and could quirk up in a smile that was rich and warming. Her body was small and sweet in the gentle swelling of its curves.

But it was her smile which Nellon thought of now. A bitter pain shot through him as he recalled it. Though in his thoughts it was all for him, he knew that its actual warmth was shed upon Tim Austin. Big Tim, who was so large and happy and tousled that he looked like an overgrown boy.

It was together that they had met Laura. And it was together that they had dated her. But as the three-sided friends.h.i.+p deepened, the inevitable change had occurred.

Strangely enough, it had been Nellon himself who brought it about. It had happened the evening he had had Laura with him alone for the first time. The spell of her charm had been concentrated upon him alone, and he had lost his head to such an extent that he proposed.

Laura had said no, and things had never been the same between them again. Though Big Tim may have wondered at times, he hadn't been sensitive enough to realize the change. Nellon had, in fact, concealed his pain and desire so effectively that Big Tim had never awakened to the truth.

Nellon remembered almost the exact words Laura used that evening. Even now the tones of her voice rang in his ears, gentle and sad.

"I'm sorry, Brad," she had said. "Please try to understand. I really do like you--an awful lot. You're like a rock, solid and strong, something to cling to. But Tim is like a big, clumsy playful dog--so terribly lovable. I can't help it. Really, Brad, if it wasn't for Tim, I'd never hesitate to marry you."

For two and a half years her words had drummed in his mind. "If it wasn't for Tim--"

At first he had tried to ignore the early thoughts of murder which had crept insidiously into his brain. But they persisted, grew stronger, and before long he had been making actual plans. Several times the cold hand of death had reached for Tim Austin, but each time Nellon's instincts had revolted and the thing had remained undone.

But now the members of the expedition were preparing to return home to Earth. Nellon knew that if Big Tim reached Earth alive the Laura he remembered and wanted would be lost to him forever. If Big Tim was to die, it would have to be done before the s.h.i.+p left, for once sealed within its confines, the risks would be too overwhelmingly large.

It had been old Sigmund Ryska who had presented Nellon with what he had realized was his final and only chance. Old Ryska had left several pieces of valuable scientific equipment lying in a small hut which he had set up for some experiments. He had remembered them at the last moment. Someone had to fetch them before leaving, and Big Tim Austin had volunteered. Nellon, because of the purpose which motivated him, had gone along.