Spacehounds of IPC Part 8

"Fine business, ace! Then we can save what's left of our civilized clothes for the return trip. What do we eat?"

"The eternal question of the hungry laboring man! I've got a roasted bongo, a fried filamaloo bird, and a boiled warple for the meat dishes.

For vegetables, mashed hikoderms and pimola greens. Neocorn bread."

"Translate that, please, into terms of food."

"Translate it yourself, after you eat it. I changed the system on you today. I've named all the things, so it'll be easier to keep track of those we like and the ones we don't."

With appet.i.tes sharp-set by long hours of hard labor they ate heartily; then, in the deepening twilight, they sat and talked in comradely fas.h.i.+on while Stevens smoked one precious cigarette.

It was not long until Nadia had her work well in hand. Game was plentiful, and the fertile valley and the neighboring upland yielded peculiar, but savory vegetable foods in variety and abundance; so that soon she was able to spend some time with Stevens, helping him as much as she could. Thus she came to realize the true magnitude of the task he faced and the real seriousness of their position.

As Stevens had admitted before the work was started, he had known that he had set himself a gigantic task, but he had not permitted himself to follow, step by step, the difficulties that he knew awaited him. Now, as the days stretched into weeks and on into months, he was forced to take every laborious step, and it was borne in upon him just how nearly impossible that Herculean labor was to prove--just how dependent any given earthly activity is upon a vast number of others. Here he was alone--everything he needed must be manufactured by his own hands, from its original sources. He had known that progress would be slow and he had been prepared for that; but he had not pictured, even to himself, half of the maddening setbacks which occurred time after time because of the crudity of the tools and equipment he was forced to use. All too often a machine or part, the product of many hours of grueling labor, would fail because of the lack of some insignificant thing--some item so common as to be taken for granted in all terrestrial shops, but impossible of fabrication with the means at his disposal. At such times he would set his grim jaw a trifle harder, go back one step farther toward the Stone Age, and begin all over again--to find the necessary raw material or a possible subst.i.tute, and then to build the apparatus and machinery necessary to produce the part he required. Thus the heart-breaking task progressed, and Nadia watched her co-laborer become leaner and harder and more desperate day by day, unable in any way to lighten his fearful load.

In the brief period of rest following a noonday meal, Stevens lay p.r.o.ne upon the warm, fragrant gra.s.s beside the "Forlorn Hope," but it was evident to Nadia that he was not resting. His burned and blistered hands were locked savagely behind his head, his eyes were closed too tightly, and every tense line of his body was eloquent of a strain even more mental than physical. She studied him for minutes, her fine eyes clouded, then sat down beside him and put her hand upon his shoulder.

"I want to talk to you a minute, Steve," she said gently.

"All x, little fellow--but it might be just as well if you didn't touch me. You see, I'm getting so rabid that I can't trust myself."

"That's exactly what I want to talk to you about." A fiery blush burned through her deep tan, but her low, clear voice did not falter and her eyes held his unflinchingly. "I know you better than you know yourself, as I've said before. You are killing yourself, but it isn't the work, frightfully hard and disheartening as it is, that is doing it--it's your anxiety for me and the uncertainty of everything. You haven't been able to rest because you have been raging and fuming so at unavoidable conditions--you have been fighting _facts_. And it's all _so_ useless, Steve, between you and me--everything would check out on zero if we'd just come out into the open."

The man's gaunt frame seemed to stiffen even more rigidly.

"You've said altogether too much or else only half enough, Nadia. You know, of course, that I've loved you ever since I got really to know you--and that didn't take long. You know that I love you and you know how I love you--with the real love that a man can feel for only one woman and only once in his life; and you know exactly what we're up against. Now that _does_ tear it--wide open!" he finished bitterly.

"No, it doesn't, at all," she replied, steadily. "Of course I know that you love me, and I glory in it; and since you don't seem to realize that I love you in exactly the same way, I'll tell you so. Love you!

Good heavens, Steve, I never dreamed that such a man as you are really existed! But you're fighting too many things at once, and they're killing you. And they're mostly imaginary, at that. Can't you see that there's no need of uncertainty between you and me? That there is no need of you driving yourself to desperation on my account? Whatever must be is all x with me, Steve. If you can build everything you need, all well and good. We'll be engaged until then, and our love will be open and sweet. If worst comes to worst, so that we can neither communicate with Brandon and Westfall nor leave here under our own power--even that is nothing to kill ourselves about. And yes, I do know exactly what we are facing. I have been prepared for it ever since I first saw what a perfectly impossible thing you are attempting. You are trying to go from almost the Age of Bronze clear up to year-after-next in a month or two.

Not one man in a million could have done as much in his lifetime as you have done in the last few weeks, and I do not see how even you, with what little you have to work with, can possibly build such things as power-plants, transmitters, and ultra-radio stations. But what of it? For the day that it becomes clear that we are to remain here indefinitely; that day we will marry each other here, before G.o.d.

Look around at this beautiful country. Could there be a finer world upon which to found a new race? When we decided to cut loose from the _Arcturus_ I told you that I was with you all the way, and now I'll repeat it, with a lot more meaning. No matter what it's like, Steve, no matter where it leads to, I'm with you--_to--the--end--of--the--road_.

Here or upon Earth or anywhere in the Universe. I am yours for life and for eternity."

While she was speaking, the grim, strained lines upon Stevens' face had disappeared, and as she fell silent he straightened up and gently, tenderly, reverently he took her lithe body into his arms.

"You're right, sweetheart--everything _will_ check out on zero, to nineteen decimals." He was a man transfigured. "I've been fighting windmills and I've been scared sick--but how was I to think that a wonder-girl like you could ever love a mutt like me? You certainly are the gamest little partner a man ever had You're the world's straightest shooter, ace--you're a square brick if there ever was one. Your sheer nerve in being willing to go the whole route makes me love you more than ever, if such a thing can be possible, and it certainly puts a new face on the whole c.o.c.k-eyed Universe for me. However, I don't believe it will come to that. After what you've just said, I sure will lick that job, regardless of how many different factories it takes to make one armature--I'll show that mess of sc.r.a.p-iron what kind of trees make s.h.i.+ngles!"

The girl still in his arms, he rose to his feet and released her slowly, reluctantly, unwilling ever to let her go. Then he shook himself, as though an overwhelming burden had been lifted from his shoulders, and laughed happily.

"See this cigarette?" he went on lightly. "The Last of the Mohicans.

I'm going to smoke it in honor of our engagement." He drew the fragrant smoke deep into his lungs and frowned at her in mock seriousness.

"This would be a nice world to live on, of course, but the jobs here are too darn steady. It also seems to be somewhat lacking in modern conveniences, such as steel-mills and machine tools. Then, too, it is just a trifle too far from the Royal and Ancient for you really to enjoy living here permanently, and besides, I can't get my favorite brand of cigarettes around here. Therefore, after due deliberation, I don't believe we'll take the place--we'll go back to Tellus. Kiss me just once more ace, and I'll make that job think a cyclone has struck it right on the center of impact. Like Samuel Weller, or whoever it was, I'm clear full of 'wigor, wim, and witality'!"

The specified kiss and several others duly delivered he strode blithely away, and the little canyon resounded with the blows of his heavy sledge as he attacked with renewed spirit the great forging, white-hot from his soak-pit, which was to become the shaft of his turbo-alternator. Nadia watched him for a moment, her very heart in her eyes, then picked up her spanner and went after more steel, breathing a long and tremulous, but supremely happy sigh.

CHAPTER IV

Ganymedean Life

Slow, hard, and disheartening as the work had been at first, Stevens had never slackened his pace, and after a time, as his facilities increased, the exasperating setbacks decreased in number and severity and his progress became faster and faster. Large as the "Forlorn Hope"

was, s.p.a.ce was soon at a premium, for their peculiarly-shaped craft became a veritable factory, housing a variety of machinery and equipment unknown in any single earthly industrial plant. Nothing was ornamental--everything was stripped to its barest fundamental necessities--but every working part functioned with a smooth precision to delight the senses of any good mechanic.

In a cavern under the falls was the great turbine, to be full-fed by the crude but tight penstock which clung to the wall of the gorge, angling up to the brink of that stupendous cataract. Bedded down upon solid rock there was a high-tension alternator capable of absorbing the entire output of the mighty turbine. This turbo-alternator was connected to a set of converters from which the energy would flow along three great copper cables--the receptors of the lifeboats being altogether too small to carry the load--to the now completely exhausted acc.u.mulators of the "Forlorn Hope." All high-tension apparatus was s.h.i.+elded and grounded, so that no stray impulses could reveal to the possible detectors of the Jovians the presence of this foreign power plant. Housings, frames, spiders, all stationary parts were rough, crude and ma.s.sive; but bearings, shafts, armatures, all moving parts, were of a polished and finished accuracy and balance that promised months and years of trouble-free operation. Everything ready for the test, Stevens took off his frayed and torn leather coveralls and moccasins and climbed nimbly up the penstock. He never walked down. Opening the head-gate, he poised sharply upon its extremity and took off in a perfect swan-dive; floating unconcernedly down toward that boiling maelstrom two hundred feel below.

He struck the water with a sharp, smooth "slup!" and raced ash.o.r.e, seizing his suit as he ran toward the turbo-alternator. It was running smoothly, and, knowing that everything was tight at the receiving end, he lingered about the power plant until he was a.s.sured that nothing would go wrong and that his home manufactured lubricating oil and grease would keep those ma.s.sive bearings cool.

Hunger a.s.sailed him, and glancing at the sun, he noted that it was well past dinner-time.

"Wow!" he exclaimed aloud. "The boss just loves to wait meals--she'll burn me up for this!"

He ran lightly toward "home," eager to tell his sweetheart that the long awaited moment had arrived--that power was now flowing into their acc.u.mulators.

"Hi, Diana of the silver bow!" he called. "How come you no blow the dinner bell? Power's on--come give it a look!"

There was no answer to his hail, and Stevens paused in shocked amazement. He knew that never of her own volition would she be out so late--Nadia was gone! A rapid tour of inspection quickly confirmed that which he already knew only too well. Forgotten was his hunger, forgotten the power plant, forgotten everything except the fact that his Nadia, the buoyant spirit in whom centered his Universe, was lost or ... he could not complete the thought, even to himself.

Swiftly he came to a decision and threw off his suit, revealing the body of a Hercules--a body ready for any demand he could put upon it.

Always in hard training, months of grinding physical labor and of heavy eating had built him up to a point at which he would scarcely have recognized himself, could he have glanced into a mirror. Mighty but pliable muscles writhed and swelled under his clear skin as he darted here and there, selecting equipment for what lay ahead of him. He donned the heavily armored s.p.a.ce-suit which they had prepared months before, while they were still suspicious of possible attack. It was covered with heavy steel at every point, and the lenses of the helmet, already of unbreakable gla.s.s, had been re-enforced with thick steel bars. Tank and valves supplied air at normal pressure, so that his powerful body could function at full efficiency, not handicapped by the lighter atmosphere of Ganymede. The sleeves terminated in steel-protected rubber wristlets which left his hands free, yet sheltered from attack--wristlets tight enough to maintain the difference in pressure, yet not tight enough to cut off the circulation. He took up his mighty war-bow and the full quiver of heavy arrows--full-feathered and pointed with savagely barbed, tearing heads of forged steel--and slipped into their sheaths the long and heavy razor-sharp sword and the double-edged dirk, which he had made and ground long since for he knew not what emergency, and whose bell-shaped hilts of steel further protected his hands and wrists.

Thus equipped, he had approximately his normal earthly weight; a fact which would operate to his advantage, rather than otherwise, in case of possible combat. With one last look around the "Forlorn Hope," whose every fitting spoke to him of the beloved mistress who was gone, he filled a container with water and cooked food and opened the door.

"It won't be long now; now it won't be long." Nadia caroled happily, buckling on her pack straps and taking up bow and arrows for her daily hunt. "I never thought that he could do it, but what it takes to do things, he's got lots of," she continued to improvise the song as she left the "Hope" with its mult.i.tudinous devices whose very variety was a never-failing delight to her; showing as it did the sheer ability of the man, whose brain and hands had almost finished a next-to-impossible task.

Through the canyon and up a well-worn trail she climbed, and soon came out upon the spa.r.s.ely timbered bench that was her hunting grounds. Upon this day, however, she was full of happy antic.i.p.ation and her mind was everywhere except upon her work. She was thinking of Stevens, of their love, of the power which he might turn on that very day, and of the possible rescue for which she had hitherto scarcely dared to hope.

Thus it was that she walked miles beyond her usual limits without having loosed an arrow, and she was surprised when she glanced up at the sun to see that half the morning was gone and that she was almost to the foothills, beyond which rose a towering range of mountains.

"Snap out of it, girl!" she reprimanded herself. "Go on wool-gathering like this and your man will go hungry--and he'll break you right off at the ankles!" She became again the huntress, and soon saw an animal browsing steadily along the base of a hill. It was a six-legged, deer-like creature, much larger than anything she had as yet seen. But it was meat and her time was short, therefore she crept within range and loosed an arrow with the full power of her hunting bow. Unfamiliar as she was with the anatomy of the peculiar creature, the arrow did not kill. The "hexaped," as she instantly named it, sped away and she leaped after it. She, like her companion, had developed amazingly in musculature, and few indeed were the denizens of Ganymede, who could equal her speed upon that small globe, with its feeble gravitational force.

Up the foothills it darted. Beyond the hills and deep into a valley between two towering peaks the chase continued before Nadia's third arrow brought the animal down. Bending over the game, she became conscious of a strange but wonderful sweet perfume and glanced up, to see something which she certainly had not noticed when the hexaped had fallen. It was an enormous flower, at least a foot in diameter and indescribably beautiful in its crimson and golden splendor. Almost level with her head the gorgeous blossom waved upon its heavy stem; based by a ma.s.sive cl.u.s.ter of enormous, smooth, dark green leaves. Entranced by this unexpected and marvelous floral display, Nadia breathed deeply of the inviting fragrance--and collapsed senseless upon the ground.

Thereupon the weird plant moved over toward her, and the thick leaves began to enfold her knees. This carnivorous thing, however, did not like the heavy cloth of her suit and turned to the hexaped. It thrust several of its leaves into the wounds upon the carca.s.s and fed, while two other leaves rasped together, sending out a piercing call.

In answer to the sound the underbrush crackled, and through it and upon the scene there crashed a vegetable-animal nightmare--the parent of the relatively tiny thing whose perfume had disabled the girl.

Its huge and gorgeous blossom was supported by a long, flexible, writhing stem, and its base was composed of many and highly specialized leaves. There were saws and spears and mighty, but sinuous tendrils; there were slender shoots which seemed to possess some sense of perception; there was the ma.s.sive tractor base composed of extensible leaves which by their contraction and expansion propelled the ma.s.s along the ground. Parent and child fell upon the hexaped and soon bones and hair were all that remained The slender shoots then wandered about the unconscious girl in her strange covering, and as a couple of powerful tendrils coiled about her and raised her into the air over the monstrous base of the thing, its rudimentary brain could almost be perceived working as it sluggishly realized that, now full fed, it should carry this other victim along, to feed its other offspring when they should return to its side.

Barely outside the door of the "Forlorn Hope" Stevens whirled about with a bitter imprecation. He had already lost time needlessly--with a lookout plate he could cover more ground in ten minutes than he could cover afoot in a week. He flipped on the power and shot the violet beam out over the plateau to the district where he knew Nadia was wont to hunt. Not finding her there, he swung the beam in an ever widening circle around that district. Finally he saw a few freshly broken twigs, and scanned the scene with care. He soon found the trail of fresh blood which marked the path of the flight of the hexaped, and with the peculiar maneuverability of the device he was using, it was not long until he was studying the scene where the encounter had taken place.

He gasped when he saw the bones and perceived three of Nadia's arrows, but soon saw that the skeleton was not human and was rea.s.sured. Casting about in every direction, he found Nadia's bow, and saw a peculiar, freshly trampled path leading from the kill, past the bow, down the valley. He could not understand the spoor, but it was easily followed, and he shot the beam along it at headlong speed until he came up with the monstrous creature that was making it--until he saw what burden that organism was carrying.

He leaped to the controls of the lifeboat, then dropped his hand. While the stream of power now flowing was ample to operate the lookout plates, yet it would be many hours before the acc.u.mulator cells would be in condition to drive the craft even that short distance.