No 4 $4.50 , Toles of Scientif iction

Adventures 'frStar Pirate battles the murder monsters of Mercury P l a n e t

A \ s v Monorail to Eternity by Carl Jacobi

Number Four Agril 1988

CONTENTS

The Control Room 2

Monorail to Eternity...... Carl Jacobi 3 Condemned by the Rulers of an alien world to endless, aimless flight beneath the planet's surface!

Planet in Peril Lin Carter 27 Star Pirate battles the murder monsters of Mer c u r y !

Zeppelins of the V o i d ...... Jason Rainbow 43 Can even galactic vigilante Solar Smith de­ feat the pernicious pirates of space?

What Hath M e ? ...... Henry Kuttner 55 He felt the lifeblood being sucked out of him— deeper stabbled the gelid cold . . . then the voice came, "Crush the heart!"

Ethergrams...... 77 We've got quite a crew assembled some years back for the ill-starred here for our latest madcap mission pulp Spicy Zeppelin Stories before into make-believe mayhem! Me, I'm that mag folded. Alas! Finally, Captain Astro, and my trusty crew our terrific "Tales from the Time- of raygun-slingers are just itching Warp" features Henry Kuttner's "What to see some extraterrestrial action. Hath Me?," a neglected classic from Let me introduce you. First off, Planet Stories. Thanks to space- there's Carl Jacobi, veteral of pulps hounds Robert Weinberg who suggested from Startling Stories to Comet Sci­ this one and Dan Gobbett who dredged ence Fiction, bringing you this time up a copy for us! With a team like another atom-smashing epic from his this, I'm sure you'll agree that old space-trunk, "Monorail to Eter­ Astro-Adventures #4 is just the sec­ nity." Then galactic goodguy Lin ret weapon we need to save the uni­ Carter fires off another swashbuckle verse from the clutches of scheming starring Star Pirate, today's man aliens and plotting mad scientist of tomorrow, this one called "Planet masterminds! Will you join us? in Peril." Rollicking rocketeer Jason Rainbow contributes "Zeppelins of the Void," a tale first written Captain A s t r o MONORAIL TO ETERNITY

by Carl Jacobi

Condemned by the Rulers of an alien world to end­ less , aimless flight beneath the planet's surface!

My Lord Chancellor was a pitiless The Chancellor languidly brushed man, hawkfaced, with little gimlet his lips with a plum-colored ker­ eyes that gazed upon me with bored chief. complacency. He took a pinch of "I sentence you to thirty years azaf in his high gilded box over­ on the monorail, and may the horrors looking the Royal Mercurian Court of The Core lead you to repentance and waved me forward. A moment later for your crime." I stood on the dais for the con­ Thirty years! What mockery of demned as a hush fell over the court­ trial was this that could condemn room. a man for something he did not under­ "Prisoner, you have been tried stand, let alone commit? Blind rage and found guilty of treason against seized me. I gripped the rail and the Oligarchy of Mercury. Have you shook my fist. "I'm innocent!" I anything to say?" shouted. "Innocent, do you hear?" Tense, dry-lipped, I looked up The Chancellor regarded me emo- into that bland face in silence. tionlessly and nodded again. Hands

3 4 / Astro-Adventures gripped my arms. Two saffon—clad a bachelor. I lived alone in guards dragged me out of the court­ third-tier apartment in the capita room, now a babel of confusion, down city of Umbra, and my only entertain­ a corridor and into a narrow cubile ment was my books. at the far end. One of the guards Up until that time I had nursed said, a promise that as soon as my savings "You leave in an hour. If you were sufficient I would quit Mercury have any last messages to write, take passage on one of the liners do it now." and begin anew on Mars or Venus where The door thudded shut, and an freedom still prevailed. But in overhead light went on, bathing the 3437 the Residence Manifesto was cubicle in a merciless violet glare. proclaimed, forbidding any citizen I slumped down on the bare settee to leave the planet, and I realized and buried my head in my hands. Thir­ my future was sealed. ty years . . . ! This then was my life until twen­ It wasn't possible. All this ty-six days ago. must be some wild dream from whose In the Bureau of Standards it phantasmagoria I would awake pres­ was my work to correlate the daily ently to laugh at my fears. But reports of the various utility organ­ no, the bare fibrex walls, the glar­ izations throughout the city. One ing light attested only too well morning as I was laboriously going to reality. Nervous reaction came through a stack of registries I came then, and I sat there in a kind of upon a square sheet of blue paper. stupor, conscious only of the hammer­ In the upper left corner was the ing of my heart. printed design of a comet against At the end of half an hour I got the background of a double circle. up, drank a cup of water from the And across the middle of the sheet urn on the table and took hold of was written: M. DAINLEY, YOUR APPLI­ myself. In slow deliberate retros­ CATION HAS BEEN' ACCEPTED. STAND pection I went over each detail of BY FOR ORDERS. this passing chain of events, vainly Though I must confess to having seeking an answer to it all. paid little attention to the visi reports during recent months, the My name is Mark Dainley. I was significance of that design suddenly born on Earth of Earth parentage, struck me hard. It was the emblem but moved at an early age to this for the Club of Revolt, a vague and planet nearer the sun. My father shadowy society dedicated in some was a Salvage-Ratio clerk, class uncertain way to the overthrow of 3, which is to say he had advanced the Oligarchy. Who were its leaders as far as he could in the complicated or members, no one knew, but the social strata of this shadow-belt government had issued stern warnings civilization. In 3412 my father against anyone possessing or distrib­ died, and being the eldest son, I uting its literature. followed custom and took over his And yet this paper bore my name. position in the governmental Bureau What did it mean? of Standards. A fellow clerk came forward then, For ten years I worked in this and I thrust the paper aside. But manner, and although I had once vowed on the morrow, hidden as before in I would never be shackled by the a stack of reports was a second mes“ monotony which the Mercurian over­ sage. Here again I saw my name and lords imposed on their citizens, read: PROCEED ACCORDING TO PLAN AND I gradually found myself settling ADVISE US ACCORDINGLY. down into my accepted social groove. It is strange what a man, con At the age of thirty-five I was still fronted by something he d o e s n ' t un Monorail to Eternity / 5 derstand, will do. By all manner vealing an iron cage suspended from of logic I should have reported the a cable. matter to the Chief Technician. Or We took our places, and with a failing that, I should have destroyed lurch the cage began to descend, the papers. I did neither. I placed slowly at first, then with breath­ them in an envelope and hid that taking speed. Blood pounded at my envelope in an inner drawer of my temples and my stomach reeled with desk. nausea. Enclosed lifts with hydro- In this fashion six different auricular stabilizers were of course communications made their appearance. common to Umbra, but no such luxur­ It was as I was reading the last ies were afforded the prisoners. that a shadow fell over my desk, An hour— a nightmare hour— passed and I looked up to face the accusing before the cage jarred to a stand­ eye of the Chief Technician. still before a lighted platform. The rest is confusion. I remember In a chained-off area were some two but vaguely the details of my arrest. dozen prisoners, prisoners like my­ All my denials were sneered at, and self guilty of offenses against the when in stubborn defiance I refused government. The majority were second to procure a defense-pleader, one and third class Earthmen, but a few was appointed for me by the state. were Venusians, and three were wafer­ That trial ran the gamut of hys­ headed high-caste Martians. Each terical oratory. The six messages bore the look of despair and resig­ were exhibited as evidence. But nation that I knew must be mirrored more than that— and here I could by my own face. Saffron-clad drag­ only close my eyes and wonder— wit­ oons looked on stoically. ness after witness came forward to But the thing that caught my gaze verify treasonable remarks which was the long tube-shaped monster the inquisitors put in my mouth. drawn up at the edge of the platform Now at length it was over with — the monorail in which I was to a single detail clear in my mind. make endless circumnavigations of I was but a key in a larger plan Mercury fifty miles beneath its still shrouded in secrecy. crust. Like a segmented bullet it The door opened and the guards extended on beyond the platform, stood before me. fashioned of lustreless black zoro- We went through the corridor and dium, with heavy blinds drawn over out the main ramp into the streets each port. of Umbra. At the curb I halted a As I stepped onto the platform moment gazing up at the crystalline the dragoons unfastened the chains, dome which cupped the city. Nostal­ and I found myself drawn along with gia seized me. With all its evils the others to the entrance panel Mercury was the only home I could of the first coach. We went through remember. There were the cube-shaped that panel in groups of two, and buildings with their flying buttress­ the prisoner who accompanied me was es and elliptical roofs. There were a girl. For a brief instant her the first, second and third tier eyes met mine— dark, hazel eyes set runways carrying their network of in a young oval face. Then she was traffic, most of it converging on pacing down the aisle ahead of me. the space-port to the east. A hun­ The interior of that mobile prison dred yards from the courtbuilding was grey throughout, save the celling stood the triangular tower that mark­ which was black. There was a single ed the shaft leading to The Core. row of chair-seats running down the Here one of the guards touched a left side, grouped in two's, a cur­ stud on an upright panel. A section tained port between each. A swinging of the arkite wall slid open, re­ bar, fastened on a swivel, would, 6 / Astro-Adventures when locked into position, prevent that you can't type an individual the prisoner from moving. by his looks. With all its iron- An instant later the entrance bound regulations, Mercury has fos­ panel slid shut, and the monorail tered some of the worst criminals started. My thirty-year journey in the System. That Martian over had begun! there, for example, looks gentle enough. Yet he slit the throats of two crewmen, attempting to escape II this planet by stowing away on a space freighter." Those first hours were agony. I had an impulse to recite all Dully I sat there, living over again the details of my own case. Yet the grueling hours of my trial, the somehow in these surroundings, all earlier bewildering events of my talk of the past seemed futile. I arrest. There was no sensation of said simply, speed, only a gentle swaying and "My term is thirty years." a dull vibration of the wheels above She nodded. "Perhaps one can on the overhead rail. No conversa­ learn to adjust himself to a life tion broke the silence of the coach. without future, without hope. I The prisoners sat like wooden images, don't know." staring blankly ahead of them. At the far end of the car the In the seat opposite me was the panel opened, and a little old man girl I had noticed on entering the entered. From prisoner to prisoner coach. She was dark-haired and slen­ he made his way, engaging each in der, and she was dressed modishly a long conversation, making notes in a tweed cape-tunic with a rakish in a small black book. At length short cap set jauntily on her head. he stood before us. And then I saw the blue star on her "I'm the monitor," he said. "I'll cape lapel. have to ask you a few questions. "You're a newspaperwoman," I said. Name, class, occupation?" "In heaven's name, what are you doing I answered him mechanically, and here?" the girl said, "Jamaica Lee, press- She started a little and regarded reporter, Class 2, Umbra-News-Visi, me dully. "What are any of us doing morning edition." here?" He looked like a grey-haired man­ "But you wear the blue star of nikin with his trimmed Van Dyke and the press, which means you're beyond his blue uniform. There was a the jurisdiction of the Oligarchy." friendliness in his eyes, a look A wan smile touched her lips. of sincerity about his broad brow "I thought so too. But nothing, and wide mouth. it seems, is beyond the jurisdiction "The primary thing for you to of the Oligarchy, especially when do," he said quietly, "is to train the charge is murder." yourselves to accept all the horrors I thought that over and studied of your new surroundings objectively. her more closely. "At least you Life on the monorail will not be don't look like a criminal." pleasant; in fact, it will be quite Again she smiled, and this time terrible. Make no mistake," he add­ some of the bitterness left her eyes. ed. "I'm a prisoner myself, an<* She opened her purse, took out a today marks my fifteenth year in Martian cigarette and lit it slowly. The Core." "Thank you for that. My claims He closed his book and p a s s e d of innocence have been ridiculed a hand over his eyes wearily. so often I'm afraid I've become a "The government demands I SlV® cynic. I do know enough of the pas­ the following information to each senger list here, however, to say prisoner. The Core was first dis- Monorail to Eternity / 7

covered in 2096 by the creator of independent of his fellows. It's the first Oligarchy, Jargas Quay. a good thing they can't be united, It lies approximately fifty miles for if they were, there's no telling beneath Mercury's crust and has been what they might do. As it is, how­ divided into five districts: the ever, they make your civilization Zones of Silence, Sound, Heat, Cold, on the outer crust possible." and Shadows. We are now passing Jamaica Lee looked up. "Just through the Zone of Silence, and what do you mean by that?" during that time you will be re­ The oldster stroked his beard. stricted to this coach. Later you "Has it never occurred to you that may have freedom of the monorail. those enormous heat and cold modera­ "Of the five zones, only two, tion units and the gravitors which that of Silence and Sound, have been are a part of every domed metropolis explored. The greater part of The on this planet do not operate by Core is a vast morass, teeming with themselves? The trouble with you the most horrible forms of life in is you live in a civilization that the lower cycle of the evolutionary recognizes only a middle or second scale. The overhead rail upon which class at the bottom of its ladder. this train runs is, of course, sus­ The slave labor— the Gnarbies— is pended from the Dome and was con­ a concealed entity, existing like structed by boring shafts through a cancer under your social veneer." from the outer crust. Power is form­ His soft modulated voice had held ed by solar-condensers, passed down me in close attention. I leaned through conduits from the sunward back and sucked deliberately a mo­ side of Mercury. To replenish it, ment. I said, the monorail stops once each day "What do you know of the Club at a power station, and there also of Revolt?" the exterior of each coach is sluiced He stiffened. The color flowed down. While the monorail is in a out of his face and a gleam of latent power station, you will be fastened fear entered his eyes. Slowly he to your seats. returned his book to his pocket. "I need not warn you that any "My name is Floy. Ephraim Floy. attempt at escape not only would Whenever you want me, the call bell be foolhardy but quite useless. In is just over your head." the vestibule between each coach are two armed dragoons who will shoot on sight any passengers attempting Ill to leave. Besides that, it is doubt­ ful if you could go more than fifty On through the blackness and the yards without being devoured by the silence the monorail bored its way. monsters that live in the swamps Only the presence of the girl, Ja­ or attacked by the Gnarbies." maica Lee, kept me from venting my I got a cheroot out of my pocket, emotions. She too was living on ran my tongue over the end and lit the last strand of nerve endurance, it. I said, and in an effort to surround our­ "What are the Gnarbies?" selves with an aura of false cour­ He scowled. "The Gnarbies are age, we talked endlessly those first the intelligent form of aboriginal hours. She told me of her family life found in The Core. Intelligent, which like mine had migrated from yet in violation of all sociological Earth, of her schooling, of her many laws, they lack a common means of and varied experiences as a reporter. communication. They're individual­ There was something pathetic and ists in the exact sense of the word, at the same time terribly rational each developing his mental powers in her attempt to maintain poise 8 / Astro-Adventures and restraint in the face of the a few minutes ago," he said. "May incredible disaster that faced her. I see it again?" Yet her indomitable will was evident "My watch?" Puzzled, I took out in her every movement. At length my magno timepiece, a gift from my sheer weariness claimed both of us, father, and handed it across. Floy and I leaned back and closed my eyes. examined its inscription closely. I awoke with all hell in my ears. "Was your father Philip Dainley?" My first impression was that the I nodded. Floy stroked his beard coach had been wrecked; then I saw slowly. "That's very interesting," Jamaica Lee calmly stuffing bits he said. "Now one thing more. j of cotton in her ears from a first note by the roster that you're here aid kit in her purse. on a charge of espionage. Suppose The Zone of Sound! you tell me about it." The air was choked with screams "There's nothing to tell," I said. and cries as of a thousand souls He was silent a moment. "Perhaps in distress, with grindings, gratings not. Perhaps on the other hand it and cracklings like titanic bottles would help to get things off your breaking under heat— all blended chest." into a hideous cacophony that grew I thought it over, and I began steadily louder. to talk, and I didn't skip the de­ The other passengers had come tails. Bitterness flowed from my to life now. They had wrapped scar­ lips. When I had finished the sweat ves and torn strips of clothing about of anger was on my face. Floy peered their heads; one or two were sobbing at me through the gloom with new softly. interest. For a quarter of an hour the up­ He turned now to Jamaica Lee. roar continued. Gradually the last "The roster says you were convicted shriek faded into the distance and on a charge of murder in connection silence returned. The swaying of with the Senlow case. Is that the coach lessened, and a moment right?" later ceased altogether. The girl nodded. Jamaica Lee said, "We've stopped." "Details?" said Floy. The panel at the far end opened, She hesitated. "I'm a reporter and two dragoons strode down the and I was the last person seen with aisle, locking the swivel bars in Senlow before his death. Senlow place before each passenger. The was an unprincipled scoundrel, and overhead lights went out. Beyond he deserved to die, but I didn't the port shadowy figures of workmen kill him." hurried back and forth. Abruptly For several moments Floy stood a loud swish sounded, and the quartz there digesting this information. became a miniature waterfall. Then he swung on his heel and re­ "It's the power station," Jamaica treated through the connecting panel. Lee said. "They're sluicing down But a moment later he was back, eyes the cars. Remember?" glinting with excitement. Floy's explanation came back to "I'm giving you a chance," he me, but it didn't make sense. Why said. "Maybe I'm a fool, but I don't should the Oligarch officials be think so. Listen. We stay here so concerned over the otuward ap­ fifteen minutes more. In three min­ pearance of the prison train as to utes go through the panel into the wash the exterior of the coaches vestibule. Wait there five minutes. every day? And then in the half Then go through the next five c o a c h ­ darkness someone tapped me on the es. In the vestibule between the shoulder. The Monitor. fifth and sixth coach you will fin(^ "I saw you take out your watch a ladder and a hatch leading to the Monorail to Eternity / 9 roof. Once there you must find a places. Then abruptly behind us way to the ground floor. Keep low quick steps sounded, and with a sink­ until the power station lights go ing feeling I remembered I had for­ off, then follow the overhead rail." gotten to close the hatch. An in­ I felt a hand reach out and grasp stant later a shadow was outlined mine. Then he was gone, shuffling against the light, and a dragoon down the aisle. leaped upon the roof. Jamaica Lee stirred uneasily. He stood there blinking. He saw "Can we trust him?" me, jerked his heat pistol to aim Trust or not, it was our only and fired pointblank, but the charge chance. I took out my watch, counted went wild. I kicked myself forward, three minutes by the luminous dial, seized his gun-wrist and twisted then rose quietly, pushed aside the with every ounce of strength I pos­ unlocked swivel bar and led the girl sessed. The man screamed. I blud­ toward the rear panel. geoned my fist into his jaw, and We waited a moment, then stepped he slumped down in a heap. into the swaying vestibule. Two But the report and the flash of dragoons, one on each side, had their his heat gun had not gone unnoticed. backs to us, and they didn't turn. Inside the coach below me an alarm Again, following Floy's instruc­ bell began to tocsin wildly. Hollow tions, I waited tensely. With Jamai­ and muffled I heard shouted commands. ca Lee following, I entered the next I said to the girl, "We'll have coach. to jump it." Confusion greeted us as we made There was an arelium steel gutter our way down the aisle. Here was encircling the lip of the coach wall. the captured underworld of Mercury, I gripped it with one hand, swung all the tide and wash of the outer the girl out in space with the other crust. Here were bland-faced con­ and then let myself go. Even as fidence men, carmine-lipped women- my feet jarred on the ground, heavy of-the-streets, sniveling space rats hands entwined themselves about my from the limehouse districts of Umbra throat. Panting, a voice said, and Rocket City. Groups sat together "Prison swine! For this your playing cards. A blue-haired Venus- term will be life." ian girl with a dress cut daringly I brought my knee up into his low winked at me brazenly. midsection, and I struck out savagely We reached the vestibule between with my fist. He delivered a blow the fifth and sixth coaches without low down in my vitals that sent a interruption. Outside the sluicing wave of nausea surging through me. down operation continued. I gripped I struck again, and this time his the girl's hand. head cracked against the coach wall, "Still game?" and I felt him slide slowly downward She nodded. We mounted the lad­ senseless. der, passed through the hatch and And now all was confusion. The emerged onto the roof of the coach. water jets went off, and a revolving Directly above all was blackness, stola light began to sweep in a wide but on the right a triple shaft of ellipse overhead, bathing us in a violet light played on the train, white glare. Down the length of revealing intermittent towers with the monorail three dragoons pounded jets of spraying water. A curtain toward us, firing as they came. A of fine mist swirled over us. heat charge seared across my arm. For an eternity we crouched there. But as I stood there in that split The air was warm with the strange second of indecision I saw three earthy smell one finds in underground things. Ten feet beyond the right- 10 / Astro-Adventures of-way was a short declivity at the undersized creatures, white of body bottom of which yawned black water. clad in a kind of plastic envelope At my side within arms' reach was Their faces were featureless, yet a white segmented tower with a loop­ featureless in a caricature-like ing crossbar that ran longitudinally way that emphasized each bulging toward the front of the monorail. distortion. There was something At the bottom of that tower was a utterly malignant about them, and heavy switch and a red letter placard as they walked in groups of two that read: EMERGENCY. conversing loudly, I noted that there The oncoming dragoons fired again. was no sign of understanding on the I gave Jamaica Lee a violent shove, part of one pair for another. The catapulting her over the declivity girl at my side moved closer. into the water. "The Gnarbies," she said. "The I reached forward and slammed people of The Core." down hard that switch. A bullet-headed Earthman strode The effect was electric. Man- at the end of the column, flicking high on the walls of each coach trap- a ramba whip. The last of the pro­ boards sprang open and a brace of cession filed through the barracks sub-sonic vibra-guns ran out. Some­ door, and the Earthman overseer slam­ where a siren burst into a deafening med the barrier closed and ran a scream. The lights went out, and heavy bar across it. He turned then, the monorail began to grind forward. discarded the whip for a heat pistol I heard cries of profanity and and began to advance under the light a rush of steps as the dragoons raced cautiously. to board the train. The overhead I linked my hand in the girl's rail began to sing as the coaches and edged forward through the roily gathered momentum. Came a rush of water. A dozen yards, and we came wind, a last wail of the siren, and upon a narrow but deep sluiceway we were alone in silence and black­ that apparently was a run-off for ness . the excess water used in washing the monorail. Even as I moved into it, I puzzled again over the motive IV behind such a washing procedure. Heads down, we followed the The water was warm and seemed sluiceway to its far end where a to have an adhesive quality as it series of smaller channels radiated swirled gently about my body. It spoke-like from a central hub. We smelled of rotting vegetation, and stood still listening to the dimin­ the bottom was a clinging ooze that uendo of the overseer's steps. quivered under my feet. At my side "It's now or never," I said. Jamaica Lee laughed tremulously. I braced myself against a low "That's no way to treat a lady. abutment, climbed to the ground level Are we safe now?" and pulled the girl up after me. "Not yet." My magno watch pulsed For a single instant we were outlined audibly in my pocket; save for that there in the glare, and that instant and the purling of the water there was almost fatal. Opposite the bar­ was no sound for ten long minutes. racks the overseer wheeled and fired Then across at the power station twice in quick succession. He miss­ the lights went on again, and a line ed, but one of the charges b u r n e d of workmen began to file like auto­ a black streak across the c o l l a r matons across the ramp to a barracks­ of Jamaica Lee's cape-tunic. Cauti°n like structure at the far end. to the winds, we raced into the Workmen, yes, but not Earthmen, blackness. not Mercurians. They were short it was like plunging into a bot" Monorail to Eternity / 11 tomless well. Blindly we ran, ex­ faces. Plant tentacles uttered pecting any minute to blunder into strange mewling cries as we trod some unseen obstacle. At the end on them. Once I heard a slow heavy of five minutes I knew from the pulsation like an exposed heart, girl's hoarse breathing that she beating on the surface of the black could go no farther, and we dropped w ater. to our knees, listening. I got the impression that we were There was no sign of pursuit. traversing a slender aisle whose Behind us the lights of the power boundaries for some reason were in­ station were tiny candles against violable and that on either side a velvet backdrop. Presently they unspeakable horrors watched us hun­ were extinguished, and the darkness grily as we passed. was complete. Ahead the distant glow grew brigh­ Not quite complete. Ahead of ter. Now its illumination had reach­ us, far off near the limit of my ed up to the very Dome, and on that vision, I thought I detected a vague arched ceiling I could see fantastic glow reaching up toward the Dome murals in kaleidoscopic pastel with of The Core. All was still save double and triple perspectives. At for the purling of water somewhere that height and in that vague radi­ on either side. ance their outlines were deceptive, "Listen," I said to the girl, but I knew that they were what had "we're in a fix proper. We can't been left behind by the ancient Mer- go back there and follow the overhead curians who had lived here before rail as Floy, the monitor, advised. migrating to the outer crust. And we can't go on like this." There was no need of the beam She made no reply, and I heard now; it had in fact disappeared; her moving back and forth. the light was everywhere, a blue- "Come over here," she said ab­ tinted effulgence that seemed to ruptly. "Look at that distant glow continue to infinity. The aisle and tell me what you see." ended abruptly. We were on firm I strained my eyes a long time. footing with the jungle behind us. "Nothing. It might be a man-made Here was a rolling landscape, marked light and then again it might not. by intermittent low rolling hills We're too far away to tell." and dotted at intervals with the "But don't you see the beam?" spongy pod-shaped Telutia trees of There was a single ray radiating Venus and the red geometric bush from that glow like a violet thread of Mars. stretched across the blackness. I "A lot of transplanting work," had taken it at first for a trick I said to Jamaica Lee. "These of my eyes. Now, as I moved to the growths aren't wild." right, I saw that beam slowly widen. Proceeding slowly, we went on A few steps to the left, and it dis­ another quarter mile, and then the appeared . girl drew up abruptly. A man was "A direction-beam," I said. "We sauntering toward us, a man out of follow it and we stay on firm ground. the pages of a history book. He Let's go." was twentieth-century Earth in every We slogged forward again on what detail: a loose-fitting suit of seemed a floating mat of compressed tweed, an outlandish ribbon about vegetation. At times we sank to his throat I remembered they called our knees in clinging ooze; our bod­ a cravat or tie, a cap and a cane. ies were bathed in perspiration. He came along swinging the cane, Life was all around us, the alien and he said, "Cheerio." sub-evolutionary life of The Core. When he was abreast of us I looked Velvet-winged shadows brushed our him over deliberately. An Earthman, 12 / Astro-Adventures born on Mercury beyond a doubt. The "And now," he said briskly when markings were there: the transparent we had finished, "enough of this lustre to the skin, the slightly foolishness. You may as well forget elongated ears, the crisp wiry qual­ that I'm your prisoner, for without ity to the hair. the information I can give you, you "Cheerio," he said again, smiling won't go two miles without being as if this were the most ordinary caught." meeting. "I see you made it so far." He stepped between us, linked "Made what?" I had my fists his arms in the girl's and mine and clenched in my pockets, and I kept began to move forward in an easy my eyes on that cane. distance-eating stride. As he walk­ He smiled. "Why, your escape ed, he began a rapid-fire soliloquy. from the monorail, of course." "You were told," he said, "that The impact of his words left me The Core is all jungle and miasma stunned. I stood there foolishly and horrible monsters. As far as a moment, then seized him by the half of it goes, that's true enough, shoulder. "Waht do you mean?" but away from the path of the mono­ He only laughed shortly. "Don't rail lies a district that's habitable get excited, my friends. I'm not enough and comparatively— I say com­ going to report you. In fact, as paratively— free from danger. The you can see there isn't anyone here Gnarbies, some of whom you must have to report you to. I simply deduced seen by now, are the natives here. an obvious fact. You see, you must But there is still an older race, have come from the monorail because the descendants of the first Mercur- you wear no zone badge and because ians who remained behind in The Core you are strangers." when the great majority of their His entire manner was so disarm­ fellows migrated to the outer crust. ing that I relaxed my grip. He took "They number today less than a from his pocket a Martian gorea pipe, thousand, and to a man they are de­ which apparently was still burning, voted to the science of research. for he began to smoke in great gusts. The Oligarchy discovered their pres­ "Tell me," he said, "who helped ence a long time ago and soon real­ you escape? Was it Ephraim Floy?" ized that they had a much higher As I continued to glare at him intelligence quotient than their in silence, he nodded again and own. Accordingly they placed them chuckled. "Yes, I suppose it was in bondage, forced them to spend Floy. We've suspected him for a long the greater part of their lives dis­ time, but never got around to doing covering and developing new labor- anything about it. saving techniques for the benefit "I'm Said Valcour, assistant Res­ of life on the outer crust." ident of this Zone," he continued. "But," I interrupted, "I thought Jamaica Lee, who had said nothing the Gnarbies were the slave labor during this exchange of conversation, here. Floy said . . ." came forward now and looked at me. Said Valcour nodded. "That is "What do you think, Mark?" true. The Gnarbies are the machin­ "I don't know," I said. "This ery, the old Mercurians the guiding may be a trick. See if he has any force, and the Oligarchs the single weapons." operating unit. The system has work­ A quick search of his outlandish ed only because all factories and clothing revealed nothing save cre­ technical plants on the outer crust dentials that proved beyond a doubt have kept sealed doors to the public- the position he had claimed. Said The Oligarchs fostered the idea that Valcour offered no resistance at their civilization had reached a all to the search. He seemed amused state of machine-perfection w h e r e i n by i t . all humdrum duties were robot-oper Monorail to Eternity / 13 ated. Whereas ..." in the midst of their rest period. "Whereas," Jamaica Lee said, "life I told you they act as a unit. Now there was in one of the oldest social watch." states in System history, feudalism." For several minutes the music Again Valcour nodded. He paced continued. Then it ended in a series on a few yards in silence, puffing of final chords. The Mercurians his pipe furiously. turned as one man, descended from "House of cards that it is, the their platforms and filed like a system has succeeded so far because column of infantry toward a low rect­ of two major reasons. First, the angular structure half hidden in Gnarbies are individualists, without a cleft of the hills. even a common form of communication. "You see?" Valcour said. "They're And second, through a process of refreshed now from their few moments time the old Mercurians have devel­ of playing, and they'll return to oped into a communal state that acts their labors with new vigor." entirely as a group." I looked at the girl and at the I said, "That's not possible. assistant Resident, and I scowled. No society, however well organized, What sort of world was this with can ..." life not only alien but in contra­ He smiled. "Isn't it? In a mo­ diction to all accepted rules of ment I'll show you." existence? We had been climbing a high rise "Look," I said. "It's about time that grew steadily steeper as we for a showdown. Where are you taking advanced. Abruptly we topped its us?" summit, and I found myself looking Valcour started to reply, but down into a narrow valley. Looking, his gaze strayed upward, and his I say, while my jaw dropped in as­ words clipped off half way. A look tonishment . of fear entered his face. He leveled Stretching the length of the val­ a finger over our heads. ley was a triple row of rectangular "The Garaldas1" platforms, fashioned of white carp- He threw himself into a deep fis­ onium. In the center of each plat­ sure that ran zigzag down the in­ form was a white grand piano; not cline. Simultaneously I was con­ the modern magnafonic device found scious of an approaching deep-pitched in the homes of the upper classes drone like the hum of a thousand on the outer crust, but the ancient hornets. High up near the roof of instrument of the masters, copied the muraled Dome a greenish shadow from Earth models. Seated before raced toward us with lightning speed. each piano was a white-robed Mer­ Without further question, the curian. girl and I leaped into the fissure Presently, like a vast machine, and ran headlong down its length those hundreds of pianos began to until an overcropping slab of plinth play. It was hollow booming music hid us from sight. Said Valcour thrown back in discordant harmonies said, by the Dome, but it was synchronized "Keep down." and precise as a metronome. I watched that shadow as it came. Jamaica Lee looked down on the It was a dense flying formation of scene with flashing eyes. "In heav­ winged bird-like creatures with long en's name, what does it mean?" double appendages trailing out be­ Said Valcour knocked the dottle hind. Their heads were crowned with from his pipe and restored it to long waving blonde hair, and fastened his pocket. firmly in the claws of each was a "It means," he said, "that those round container that caught the light are the old Mercurians, and they're and glistened. Something must have 14 / Astro-Adventures aroused their suspicions, for they to a small door opening on the side. halted their forward flight to drop Through this we passed to find our­ lower and circle above us several selves in a small automatic lift. times. With hoarse squawking cries Mechanism hummed, and we shot up­ they wheeled again and passed on wards. A moment later Valcour opened overhead. a panel and ushered us into a large Valcour heaved a sigh of relief. chamber. "Luck," he said. "If they have rec­ The room was sumptuously furnish­ ognized you two as strangers I would ed. There were soft volpan rugs have had some explaining to do." on the floor, divans and eash chairs. "What are they?" Jamaica Lee said. The walls were artistically decora­ "I told you. Garaldas. Tech­ ted with Zelti etchings and at the nically sub-Ithiospathia. They're far wall stood a handsome book-cabi­ the patrol force of The Core and net equipped with a synchronized one of the strongest weapons the read-timing device. Oligarchy wields." Valcour motioned us to chairs We moved on again, climbed and and sat down before us. descended two more hillocks. Then "As you must now understand," in the distance a towering building he said, "it will be necessary for loomed up before us. It was an H- you to pose as officials from a shaped structure with two enormous neighboring zone. There are quite wings on either side and an open a number of details to take care plaisance in the center. Before of and things you will have to commit it stretched a broad park dotted to memory to complete the role. You with geometric bush and Telutia must know, for example, the condi­ trees. tions in the zone from which you "The Residency," Valcour said, supposedly come. You must be ac­ waving his hand before him. quainted with various colloquialisms The scene under the soft light which we officials employ in govern­ looked strangely peaceful and quiet. mental matters. Also we'll have Yet surrounding the park I could to fix up some visa papers for you." see the low battlements of an fm- I shoved my hands deep in my pock­ penetration wall; and flanking either ets and looked him over from head side of a broad central gate were to foot. I said, two vibra-cannon. "Just where do you figure in all We moved down the rise toward this?" that gate. Reaching it, we faced Valcour leaned back and smiled. a sentry who saluted as he recognized "You don't trust me?" he said. "Well, Valcour. The assistant Resident I’m not sure I would if I were in said casually, your position either. Suppose we "District lieutenants from Zone call it a personal matter, a private 3 on an official visit to the Resi­ affair of my own. Suppose you'd been dent ." in The Core for six years, serving The sentry nodded, pressed a stud as assistant Resident. Suppose you on an upright panel. The gate folded were the logical persion in line back. for the Resident's position when We went down a broad avenue of that office was suddenly left open. the park for a hundred yards until And suppose another man with far an intervening fringe of trees hid less ability wormed his way into us from sight of the gate. Valcour the graces of powerful over-officials then struck off into the grounds and snatched the position right out and approached the left wing of the of your hands. What would you do? Residency. A series of ramps now As I said nothing, Valcour made made their appearance. Valcour turn­ fists of his hands. "Some men might ed into the second and led the way take that lying down. I'm not like Monorail to Eternity / 15

that. I figure that when the Oli­ at the central gate?" garch officials learn Resident Sar­ Valcour smiled blandly. "I gent has failed to capture two es­ thought to keep it a surprise." caped monorail prisoners, the admin­ After that the assistant Resident istration here will break wide open. made introductions. Basil Sargent By that time you will be well on was a stern slow-moving man whose your way back to the outer crust, eyes were a mystery. But there was of course. But it will pave the nothing mysterious about the welcome way for me to prove my worth and he heaped upon us. He questioned the lack of ability on the part of us briefly about conditions in the my superior." He got to his feet. zone from which we were supposed "And now to work." to have come. Here I let Jamaica Valcour proved an excellent in­ Lee handle the replies, and she did structor. Politics, geography, his­ it in a manner that if evasive arous­ tory and odds and ends of informa­ ed no suspicion at all. tion, all of which gave me an insight As she talked I noticed casually into some of the mysteries of The a small arched doorway behind Sar­ Core. When finally he was satisfied gent's desk equipped with a lattice he had given us all the essential opening for observation. Abruptly facts, he moved across to a desk I caught the gleam of watching eyes and busied himself with stylus and behind that lattice. A moment later dal-paper. A moment later he handed the door opened, and a girl entered us two documents. the room. "Your visas," he said. "Not too She was a creature of startling good, but they'll pass a quick in­ beauty. A quarter-caste Earth Mer- spection ." curian girl with unmistakable traces He opened the door then and led of Venusian and Martian blood. She us to another automatic lift. We had the blue hair of a Venusian, rode up two more stories and found but it was a softer blue, and her ourselves in a broad chamber, one eyes were the black wells of the side of which was formed entirely Martian crypts. She moved to the by tall mullioned windows. Across Resident's side with all the supple the threshold I stopped short, sur­ grace of a leopard. veying the interior with an amazed "My daughter, Varessa," Sargent eye. If Valcour's quarters had been said. "I leave her in your hands." luxurious, this chamber was a hundred times more so. The same fantastic murals I had seen on the Dome adorned V the lofty ceiling. The rugs were thick valora weavings, the walls The girl conducted us to commo­ ornately carved fibrex. dious quarters on the same level. Behind a flat-topped desk sat Here Varessa paused to flash a be­ a huge Earthman with a round moon witching smile upon me. face and a short bristly mustache. "I will be back when you have Valcour advanced to the front rested," she said. "I will show of the desk and bowed. you about the Residency and the "I have the honor, your excel­ grounds." lency, to present two officials from After she had gone I crossed to Zone three." a chair and sat down slowly. My The Resident raised his eyebrows head ached from the bewildering cycle in surprise. of events. I was tired unto exhaus­ "Zone officials? Visit?" His tion, and somewhere in the back of voice was deep and booming. "Why my head there brooded a cloud of wasn't I advised of their presence uneasiness. 16 / Astro-Adventures

There was something wrong here. She moved closer to me, and her heady I could feel it with every fibre perfume stole into my nostrils like of my body. Our escape had been an opiate. too easy. Warnings of our break "I'm glad you've come," she said. from the monorail must have reached "It's been lonely here in The Core." the Residency long before us. Yet "Tell me," I said, "is life al­ Sargent had accepted our story prac­ ways placid here in this part of tically without question. And Said your Zone?" Valcour whom we had left with the She gave me a quick glance, then Resident . . . Was he to be trusted? nodded slowly. "Why, yes. Why do I tried to tie it all in with you ask?" the information given us by Ephraim "Those impenetration walls, the Floy, the monitor, and I didn't get vibra-cannon at the gate, the Mer­ any place. Could there be any con­ curian guards ..." nection between the set-up here and "Oh, those." She broke into my the Club of Revolt which had been words with a short laugh. "They're the cause of my arrest and convic­ protection against the Gnarbies, tion? To these questions I could I suppose." offer no answers at all, and I sat I lit a cheroot. "But I thought there scowling in perplexity. the Gnarbies had no common means There were other things: the oval of communication. It seems to me containers carried by the Garaldas, It the Garaldas themselves, and the Varessa coyly drew closer, brought attitude of Varessa which certainly her lips temptingly close to mine. went beyond the bounds of official "Let us talk of other things," hospitality. she said. The feeling of unease grew upon Her large eyes were wide now, me and did not lessen as Jamaica and as I gazed into them I felt their Lee and I sat there waiting. spell sweep over me. Yet even in At length the door opened, and that moment I did not forget myself. Varessa and a Mercurian guard stood I kissed her, and I said softly, before us. In her sibilant voice "You love Said Valcour, don't the quarter-caste girl said, "Lieu­ you?" tenant, you will go with us. Artor It was a wild shot, but it hit will conduct your companion." its mark. Varessa drew back on the If Jamaica Lee resented this atti­ instant, eyes blazing. tude on the part of the Resident's "He told you that," she snapped. daughter, she did not reveal it. "He told you my father, the Resident, We went down the corridor, descended had promised me to him in marriage. by lift again to the main level and Oh, the fool!" Her lips tightened presently passed through an arched spasmodically. "I wouldn't marry doorway into the grounds. Her Ar­ him for all the wealth of the outer tor, the Mercurian and Jamaica Lee crust." headed down a path that led toward Again I drew her to me, and again the front of the Residency, while I kissed her. "He is very handsome,' Varessa and I moved toward the rear I said. "I wonder you should dislike of the vast structure. him." The quarter-caste girl spoke qui­ "He frightens me," she a n s w e r e d . etly, describing the various trans­ "Only today he . . ." planted growths of the gardens. But A loud whirring drone interrupted as we went deeper into the maze of her. High up over the Telutia trees terraces her air of reserve was sup­ a squadron of those strange bird-like planted by one of frank familiarity. creatures, the Garaldas, swept over We sat down on a stone bench. the garden. As a unit they volplaned Monorail to Eternity / 17 to the ground and disappeared into he pestered my father, the Resident, a small wing of the Residency. That until he agreed to let the Garaldas wing, I noted, was equipped with carry those containers here." more than the usual number of win­ "But why?" I demanded. dows . The quarter-caste girl smiled. "What's in there?" I said. "Valcour is clever. Before he in­ She was on her feet now, rear­ stituted the washing process, the ranging her dress. "Valcour's lab­ monorail required a tremendous amount oratory. Would you care to see it?" of power to drive it. Much more Arm in arm we strode down the power than the laws of gravitation path to that many-windowed wing. and friction would lead one to be­ Before the door the girl paused to lieve. Valcour discovered that in dart a cautious glance over her its passage through the various Zones shoulder. of The Core the monorail gathered "Said would be furious if he knew an organic matter which he called we entered here without his permis­ Eromklat. Eromklat acted like iron sion," she said. She turned the filings to a magnetic field of pecu­ latch and entered, motioning me to liar properties in The Core. Remov­ follow. ing it increased the speed and less­ My first glance at that room was ened the power necessary to the mono­ disappointing. It was a laboratory, rail by more than forty percent." but a rather poorly equipped one. I strode forward to the vat and Racks of vials filled with colored peered into it. Colorless liquid liquids stood on three sides. In was pouring through feed pipes from the center was a large sunken vat, the floor vent. I said, the walls of which were interlaced "What's Valcour's idea in bringing with a network of tenorium pipes. the stuff here?" Above the vat was a large panel with "Experiments," she replied. "He a series of dials and switches stag­ If gered across its surface. The girl's voice broke off as The flying Garaldas stood in a steps sounded in the doorway. Said close group at one side of the room. Valcour stood there, looking at us. Their wings were folded back now, He smiled amiably. and they were carefully emptying "You have discovered my little the liquid contents of the oval con­ hobby, I see," he said. "But we tainers they carried into a large had best not linger here. An acid floor vent. Two Mercurians stood will be added to that solution in by, overseeing the procedure. the vat, and the fumes may be toxic." I noted the features of those creatures at close range. They were undoubtedly avian, and with their VI long blonde hair and beady eyes they presented an appearance that was Back in our quarters in the Resi­ utterly malignant. The two Mercur­ dency I found Jamaica Lee waiting ians looked at us sharply at first, for me with mild hostility in her then paid no further attention. Var- eyes. She said nothing, however, essa pointed to the vat. about my walk with Varessa, and I "Valcour spends most of his time moved across to the desk, took a in this laboratory. That liquid sheet of dal-paper and a stylus. which the Garaldas are emptying into In chronological order I set down the floor vent is a portion of the each of. the events that had occurred residue from the washing process since my arrest on the outer crust. that is done to the monorail at the Then I sat back and studied them power stations. Valcour arranged carefully. for that sluicing operation, and That I was skirting the crux of 18 / Astro-Adventures some mystery I was positive. Yet have developed to a point where they at the end of five minutes I was cannot be stopped. The big push as much in the dark as before. will begin tonight." Meanwhile Jamaica Lee had been Valcour nodded. "They are ready examining with an appreciative eye to accept my orders?" the intricate panelling of the walls. "Quite ready. Your command is Adorned with bas-reliefs based on unquestioned. There is only one the early mythology of Mercury, they thing ..." were things of beauty to behold. "Yes?" On one of them the eyes of a bird "The Eromklat. Sufficient reserve were inset with bits of metal, and quantities must be sent at once." idly she touched it with her fingers. Valcour nodded again. "I have A whirring noise sounded, the taken care of that. Go now and see panel slid back to reveal a spanner that you are not observed leaving screen, complete with control dials the garden." and verniers. The assistant Resident returned "That's odd," Jamaica Lee said. to his laboratory then. I continued "Why do you suppose they hid the to watch him for several minutes, screen this way?" but his actions after that were all I crossed to the instrument, routine. touched the control switch. The I looked at Jamaica Lee. Her screen glowed, and I saw that I face was set in a troubled frown. was viewing the Resident's main "What do you make of it?" I said. reception room. There sat Basil "I don't know. There's something Sargent busily writing at his desk. about this Said Valcour. . . . What's I turned the dials. The central Eromklat?" corridor of the building came into "The residue left from sluicing view on the screen. down the monorail. It . . ." "It's a spanner of the entire I stopped as a sudden wild thought Residency," I said. struck me. I swung and feverishly A moment later I found myself began to turn the spanner dial again. looking once again at the interior Through a succession of fast-fading of Said Valcour's laboratory. Val­ blurs— the Residency rooms— I tuned cour was there, bending over the until a scene on the screen arrested large vat in the center of the room. my attention. He was testing the liquid with some It was a scene at the outer edge kind of a glass meter. But pres­ of the great underground swamp. A ently a light high up on the wall score of Gnarbie workmen stood in flashed on and off several times. a group before the large white tent Valcour straightened, put aside his that seemed to be some kind of a instrument and went out the door. headquarters. As I looked one by Quickly I adjusted the spanner one a Gnarbie left his fellows to dial. By adjusting it I found I enter this tent, within which stood could follow the assistant Resident a Mercurian. As each native ap­ as he strode through the grounds. proached, the Mercurian swabbed a When he was deep in the garden, a place low on his throat, then in­ tall Mercurian suddenly emerged from serted a long needle and forced a a clump of Telutia trees and greeted quantity of colorless liquid into him shortly. his veins. "What luck?" Valcour asked. His No apparent effect was visible voice reached my ears clearly. on the Gnarbie. He left the tent The Mercurian smiled. "I can and joined another group of natives report success," he replied. "All on the far side of the clearing. is in readiness. Even now events But there his attitude suddenly Monorail to Eternity / 19 changed. No longer was he a soli­ of Revolt whose web had reached out tary individualist. The entire group and caught me up in this bewildering was talking fast and excitedly among cycle of events . . . that same Club themselves. They had a common means of Revolt must have its source here. of communication. And civilization on the outer crust I had it then, and I sat back . I thought of the lives, the piecing the details together while untold millions, the energy that a bead of sweat broke out on my fore­ had been spent by both the Mercurians head. Spinning the dial again, I and the Earth colonists in making saw group after group of Gnarbies this world a better place to live. gathered before white tents. A hun­ True, the Oligarchy ruled with an dred times I saw those needles make iron hand. And it was also true their injections. that liberty and freedom had been In other scenes columns of Gnar­ stolen away from the masses. Yet bies were marching, trundling curious I knew that this was but an immediate elongated parabolic horns mounted state of affairs. Already growing on wheels. In a deep recess in the restrictions had been placed on the swamp where light was given by hun­ power of the Oligarchy. Already dreds of torches was a great encamp­ the influence of Mars and Venus was ment of Gnarbies. A Mercurian stood making itself felt. Was everything in their midst, speaking in a loud to be ruined now by one fanatic rene­ voice, but his words were unintellig­ gade? ible to me. Mechanically I twisted the spanner "Jamaica," I said quietly, "we're dial again. The scene had returned up against something big. The Gnar­ to Valcour's laboratory. A door bies are uniting." on the side wall was open there. "What do you mean?" Mercurians were packing small vials "I mean that Eromklat in some into cartons and sliding those car­ way enables the Gnarbies to have tons down a chute through a doorway a common means of communication. where other Mercurians were stacking How, I don't know, but it apparently them on shelves. serves as the one necessary stimulus I clicked off the switch and turn­ their brains needed. I mean that ed. "Stay here," I said to Jamaica Valcour has enlisted the Mercurians Lee. "See if you can figure a way here in The Core to aid him in mar­ out of this place." shalling the entire Gnarbie native Before she could reply I went f r o n t ." out the door and made my way down "With what purpose?" the lift and down the corridors to "War against the outer crust! the grounds. Keeping well in the It's their only logical move!" shadow of the Telutia trees I began She stared at me in silence. She to approach Valcour's laboratory. crossed to a chair and sat down weak­ Abreast of it I stopped and made ly- a careful survey. The Dome here "If what you say is true," she was high up, the fantastic murals said, "we've got to do something." vague and indistinct. At a point Abruptly her eyes lighted. "The directly above the laboratory I could Resident?" discern a deeper concave depression I shook my head. "You forget in the ceiling out of which projected that Valcour holds the whip-hand a huge conical tube ringed by a over us. If we talk, he talks. As strange-looking helix of glinting fugitives I'm afraid our words would metal. On the roof of the laboratory carry little weight." was a similar tube, much smaller Even as I spoke I mentally filled in size, but with insulated conduits in the missing details. The Club running down the outer walls and 20 / Astro-Adventures ending at a rectangular cabinet forward. "Dainley, you haven't the mounted near the door. slightest idea of why you're here, For a long moment I stood there have you?" in deep thought. A vent through I studied him. There was a glit­ the Dome of The Core into the outer ter in his eyes, and there was a crust could only mean one thing. tenseness of repressed emotions on We were directly under the sunward his face. side of Mercury. Radiating solar "Your father was a Salvage Ratio power was transmitted from that tube clerk before you in the Bureau of to the receiving tube on the labora­ Standards," the man continued. "Pos­ tory roof. sibly you may recall that about twen­ I listened a moment, then ran ty-two years ago your father turned lightly across the intervening space over to the police a fellow employee to the cabinet on the wall. I yanked who was later convicted of plotting it open and saw an inner panel cov­ against the Oligarchy. Perhaps if ered with rheostats and an array I mention the name, Jan Arnoldy, of switches. The main switch oper­ you will remember." ated a cut-out condenser. I pulled A light broke upon me. "You're this blindly, shoved a rheostat mark­ Arnoldy?" ed in red over to its farthest con­ Valcour nodded. "I served ten tact. Then, very quietly, I shut years on that damned monorail, Dain­ the cabinet and made my way back ley, and I swore that someone would to the Residency entrance. pay for those lost years. When my Without interruption I reached term was up, your father was dead. the door of our quarters. But when There still remained, however, his I opened it, a voice said, son. "Cheerio." "His son," Valcour repeated. "I Said Valcour sat in a chair in made plans for that son, and I used the center of the room, smoking his them. I framed a duplicate cause Martian pipe. Opposite him was Ja­ for his arrest in every detail the maica Lee, face drawn, eyes blazing. same as my own. I saw him sentenced "Cheerio," Valcour said again. to the monorail just as I had been. "I'm glad you've come. I was just And"— he tapped the bowl of his pipe about to start looking for you." significantly— "Fate went quite a I shut the door and entered the bit out of her way to aid me. For room. "What the hell do you want?" even though you managed to escape I said. the prison train, you stumbled right The assistant Resident chuckled. into my hands a second time." "Perhaps you'd better sit down, Dain­ I got out a cheroot and lit it ley, while we have a little talk." with steady hands. "Is that all?" He opened his tweed coat, drew forth "No, not all." Valcour leaped a heat pistol and leveled it at me. to his feet. "You represent one "Firs't of all," he went on, "it of the classes of the outer crust was quite foolish of me to overlook I have learned to hate, Dainley. that spanner glass. All similar Stolid, supercilious, correct. Your instruments in the Residency are class is just as bad as the ruling under my control, but this one appar­ Oligarchy. But your time is short. ently was installed here by one of I have planned great changes for the early Residents, and until a this planet. No, do not misunder­ few moments ago I didn't know of stand me. I want no power. I want its existence. Fortunately the in­ no governing office save that which strument in my own quarters detected rightfully belongs to me. For years it." now I have been trampled on, perse­ His smile vanished, and he leaned cuted, and this ends it. Monorail to Eternity / 21

"Even now my army of Gnarbies this heat pistol, of course, but is forming to invade the outer crust. I prefer a more gentlemanly action." Even now couriers are carrying vials He took the sword in his right hand, of Eromklat to every outpost and tossed the pistol to the floor. Zone of The Core. And Eromklat will Reaching to the wall again, he drew ii from its hangings two metal-studded "I know all about Eromklat." baldrics, one of which he tossed He looked at me. "I see," he to m e . said quietly. "Very well, let me "Put it on, Dainley. I'm sure show you that I am not exaggerating." you know the procedure." He crossed to the spanner, switch­ Like all Earth colonists on Mer­ ed it on, and then made an adjustment cury I had in the past taken a few of a small almost invisible control fencing instructions with the EM I had not noticed before. The screen sword. Now as I draped the tight- remained dark, but a voice, heavy fitting belt about my shoulders and with Mercurian accent, began to waist, I realized only too well what speak: I was up against. Your EM— electro­ "Zone 2, Operator 6 reporting. magnetic— sword is a strange weapon All Gnarbie troops in this area com­ whose early history is lost in anti­ pletely mobilized. Shastur's brigade quity. It consists of a rapier with racing through lower swamps to meet a forked prong, the ends of which Henlow's regiment at Lookout Ridge. are not only sharpened to a needle Corpan with two divisions will meet point but which also carry a powerful there in one hour. Urgent: This electric charge. In fencing, the zone must have two thousand erlotos duelist wears a baldric equipped of Eromklat immediately." with copper buttons, each of which Valcour turned the control another covers a vital or semi-vital spot notch. A new voice filled the room: of the body. As the electric cur­ "Zone 3, Operator 5 reporting. rent passes through the sword points, Two divisions ready to march at Bax­ it sets up a magnetic field which ter's Hollow. Fonlan's brigade de­ all but guides the rapier to the layed but will arrive shortly. Await­ vulnerable points covered by the ing arrival of more Eromklat■ Please copper buttons. r u s h ." I took down the second EM sword Valcour switched off the spanner and switched on its current. Across and smiled. "You're wondering about the room Jamaica Lee gazed at us the Garaldas, the flying patrol force in silence. of the Oligarchy. They have been "Don't do it, Mark," she said taken care of, I assure you. As suddenly. "He'll kill you." for Basil Sargent, the Resident, Valcour lifted his sword in sal­ he doesn't have the slightest know­ ute. "Are you ready, sir? On guard." ledge of what is going on. This There was no doubt of it, the is the Club of Revolt, Dainley, and man was a paranoiac, but he was also it's now under full swing." an athlete in spite of his years. I watched his gun hand as he talk­ He fought with skill and cunning, ed, and I measured the distance to and he moved his rapier in and out the door. But there was no chance with amazing confidence. We crossed for escape. Valcour's eyes never the room twice, blades crashing. left us. Abruptly he moved to the Beside the center table Valcour wall and pulled down a curious object feinted and lunged. I could hear mounted there. An EM sword. He the magnetic coils of his weapon motioned to a similar weapon hanging hum, but I parried and escaped his near it. thrust by inches. "I have a flair for dramatics," Valcour laughed. "You fight well, he said. "I could kill you with 22 / Astro-Adventures

Again he feinted and lunged, but for ten miles," she said. "Then this time 1 returned with a riposte turn east along the green road. If that clicked one point of my sword you're stopped anywhere simply show against the button just below his your visas." throat and sent the other probing I shook my head. "We can't run lightly into his flesh. He mouthed out now. There's more at stake than an oath, and attacked with new fury. our two lives. Valcour is sending And now I saw I could never rely a shipment of Eromklat to . . ." on trickery to defeat him. My only "You fool!" Her eyes blazed at hope lay in keeping a defense until me. "I know everything. The ship­ he would tire himself out. This ment will be moving east along the hope was dashed when a moment later green road. You've got to stop it!" by a series of cunning maneuvers She swung herself over the driv­ he backed me into a corner and poised er's seat and planted her carmine for the final attack. lips against mine. "Luck, my Lieu­ And then behind him the door open­ tenant," she whispered. Then she ed. Varessa, the quarter-caste girl, leaped to the wall and pulled down stole into the room. Her eyes fell a glass-handled switch. A section upon Valcour’s pistol on the floor of the building wall folded back. where he had thrown it, and swift The automatic ramp catapulted us as a shadow she scooped it up. Val­ forward. Moments later we were cour caught my look and glanced over speeding past the Residency, winding his shoulder. through the grounds to the main gate. "Varessa!11 The sentry barely glanced at our The girl said nothing. She stood papers. The gate opened, and we shot there motionless, holding the heat across the plain toward the distant pistol; her face was slightly drawn hills. On we swept, the wind humming and white; other than that she dis­ over the forward-screen, the powerful played no emotion. engines throbbing dully. Jamaica "Varessa, you don't understand. Lee sat at my side in tense silence. These people ..." When it came, the vibration was "Get out!" She said it quietly. deafening. To the rear a great But Valcour caught and understood grinding roar sounded. Looking back her tone. He hesitated a moment, I saw a sheet of yellow flame and then flung his sword to the floor, black smoke vomit upward from the crossed the room and went out the rear wing of the Residency. door. When he had gone Varessa slam­ "Valcour's laboratory," I said. med the barrier shut and pressed "At least he'll manufacture no more against it. Eromklat for a while." "Quick!" she said. "You haven’t a moment to lose. Even now he's on his way to the Resident." VII She opened a connecting door that led into an adjoining chamber, led Though the way before us was rough the way to a staircase that descended and uneven I drove hard and fast to a lower level. Down this we raced for some time. There was no sign to find ourselves at length in a of pursuit. The low rolling land­ huge grotto. Varessa clapped her scape of The Core with its inter­ hands, and a Mercurian came running mittent Telutia tree groves and its up. The girl gave a short order, orderly rows of geometric bush seemed and a moment later a small two-seater to continue on to infinity. Above tracto-car came trundling down an us the Dome was almost lost in the automatic ramp. heights, yet as I looked up I could "Drive parallel with the swamps see for the first time the explana­ Monorail to Eternity / 23

tion of the light in this underground the same, all convering from the world. It too was man-made, achieved same hub. I stopped the car. by a series of titanic longitudinal "What's the matter?" said Jamaica prisms which caught the solar light L e e . striking the sunward side of the "Matter? I don't know which road outer crust and diffused its heat to take. That's what's the matter!" and radiance gently and evenly. And The girl stared at me. "Are you then the dark wall of the swamp came crazy? There's only one road." into view on our left, brooding, I rubbed my eyes, but there was forbidding. I began to grow impa­ nothing wrong with my vision. Six­ tient. Varessa had said ten miles. teen roads— I counted them— fanned We had covered more than that. Yet out before me in every direction there was still no sign of the green except toward the swamp. As I gazed ro a d . at them I saw two more make their It rose up before us abruptly, appearance. a narrow ribbon of emerald-colored "Slide over here in the driver's macadam that followed the curving seat and tell me what you see," I line of the swamp in a great arc. said. I swung the tracto-car into it and We exchanged places, and the girl turned on more power. uttered an exclamation of astonish­ What was I seeking? A caravan? ment . A single tracto-car? I didn't know, "How strange. I'll have to give and I damned the contingency that you directions while you drive." had made necessary leaving the Resi­ But as she spoke the multiple dency before I could question Var­ roads came into view from the secon­ essa. On and on we raced, ever pene­ dary position too. trating deeper into the unknown. "It's Valcour," I said. "He threw Jamaica Lee found a compartment up this direction-maze to thwart in the side of the car and drew forth pursuit." a heat pistol and a three-dimensional "But how?" topographic map. She focused an "I don't know entirely. But I enlarging glass over it and studied can guess. You'll note the light it some moments in silence. in this Zone issues from a compar­ "Apparently this road is the con­ atively centralized area. In some necting link between all occupied way Valcour has succeeded in bending Zones of The Core," she said. "See. the light rays or at least in re­ Here is the Residency, and here is fracting them at this particular where we are. And over here, bisect­ spot. You might say we're looking ing the swamp, is the monorail. All through a prism." we have to do is continue down this "But one of them must be the real highway until we come up with the road." Eromklat shipment." I shook my head. "If you ask I shook my head. It was too easy. me, Valcour's Eromklat shipment With his cunning, Said Valcour would didn't go this way at all. It headed have foreseen this possible pursuit directly into the swamp. There must and would have taken precautions. be a way through." Sooner or later we'd run into trou­ A cleverly concealed passage into ble. the marsh revealed itself presently, Trouble came before I had fin­ a narrow mat-thatched lane flanked ished the thought. One moment the on either side by black water. The emerald road stretched before us roadway - wavered and billowed as the into the measureless distance; the tracto-car glided onto it. It was next it was multiplying into four, perilous driving. The slightest eight, sixteen roads, all identically twist to right or left and . . . 24 / Astro-Adventures

I preferred not to think of the con­ a raging holocaust, the glare of sequences. As we went deeper into its fire throwing crimson tongues the swamp, the light slowly faded, toward the Dome. The overhead rail and despair began to mount within was a vibrating roar, and as I pulled me. Suddenly we came out on a narrow Jamaica Lee into the underbrush, aisle where the vegetation had been the black bulk of the monorail thun­ burned clear. dered down upon us. Wheels ground, "Stop!" said Jamaica Lee. 1 threw slowed. A siren sent its plangent over the control as she pointed up­ stream echoing through the silence. ward. "The overhead rail." Not five feet from where we crouched There it was, extending in either the lead motor-coach came to a stand­ direction as far as the uncertain still. light permitted us to see, a single It was now or never. Gripping hexagon-shaped track suspended by the heat pistol, I vaulted across mighty cables from the Dome. As the intervening space, swung up the we sat there a low humming vibration two-rung ladder and thrust the barrel sounded. hard intot he midsection of the as­ "The monorail's coming," she said. tonished driver. "It must have made a complete circum­ "They tell me in ancient Earth navigation of The Core." history there was a chap by the name 1 moved the car forward from under of Jesse James," I said quietly. the track and sat there a moment "I don't know much about the gentle­ in indecision. Valcour's Eromklat man, and you won’t either unless shipment definitely had left the you get going." green road and come this way on the He moved quickly. An instant swamp trail. Why? The answer struck later the monorail was boring into me hard. To be packed on the mono­ the swamp. rail. What better means of trans­ Standing there beside the panel shipping the stuff from one Zone of those massive motors, I watched to another? This swamp road doubt­ Jamaica Lee as she coolly moved a- less continued on to a secondary cross to the driver and searched power station or loading platform him for weapons. He had none, and where the exchange could be made. there was no indication of trickery Valcour would drive a long distance about the man. A windowless con­ through the marsh to throw off sus­ necting door led from the motor-cab picion. And the more I thought of to the first adjacent coach. Delib­ it, the more positive I was that erately I pushed this door open and Valcour himself was in command of pressed close to the wall beside that shipment now. in some way he it, waiting. had bypassed us, gone ahead to take A figure appeared in the doorway. charge. I raised the head gun, then lowered The overhead rail was singing it with a sigh of relief. now like a giant violin. "Floy!" I climbed out of the car, motioned The little mannikin of a man open­ the girl after me. I leaned back ed his mouth in astonishment as he over the dash, turned the motor rheo­ saw us. Then he tugged at his clip­ stat to its farthest marking, then ped beard and chuckled. using all my strength, snapped off "For a couple of ex-prisoners a piece of the steering bar. I reach­ you certainly move fast," he said. ed under the cowl and jammed that "Where the devil have you been?" bar across the positive and negative In rapid sentences Jamaica Lee contacts and leaped back. poured out our story. Ephraim Floy A sheet of flame spiralled up­ listened attentively, his button wards. In an instant the car became eyes slowly narrowing as the girl Monorail to Eternity / 25 explained about Eromklat and its tracto-cars. There were no occupants intended use. When she had finished, in the cars, but a number of Mercur­ his face was stern. ians stood waiting on the platform. "So that's the meaning behind I looked through the telescopic those sluicing operations at the sights, trained the vibra-gun on power stations," he said. "Yes, the three tracto-cars. I rested we're due to stop at an emergency my finger on the trigger. A whole station just ahead. Official orders civilization rested on this shot, were visiphoned us to pick up a and I meant to make it good. The shipment there. The orders didn't monorail was slowing down. say what the shipment contained." I fired! A column of dirt and He peered through the stepto-glass water geysered upward ten yards in vision screen. "We'll be there in front of the platform, but the three a moment." cars remained untouched. Desperately "Can you keep the guards away I pushed aside the telescopic sight from here until we do?" I said. swivel and pressed the trigger a "I don't know." Floy looked wor­ second time. ried. "I'm afraid you two have bit­ This time luck was with me. There ten off more than you can chew." was no explosion, no sheet of flame, I cast an eye over the interior but the tracto-cars seemed to disin­ of the motor-coach. "That shipment tegrate before my eyes. Girders has got to be stopped. Is there and body slowly dissolved into noth­ anything here that can be used to ingness. Then I swung on the driver ii of the monorail. "All right, open "Wait!" The Monitor tugged his her up." beard fiercely. "There's a vibra-gun Our speed began to increase again, in the prow. It takes pretty expert but as the monorail sped past the shooting to hit anything when the platform a man ran frantically and monorail is under way, but you can hurled himself at the tracing coach­ try. Here." He pressed a stud, es. Looking back, I saw him clutch and a panel tripped open revealing a grab-iron, swing there like a pen­ a long arelium steel barrel equipped dulum for a moment, then slowly mount with telescopic sights. I handed to the top of the car. the heat pistol to Jamaica who kept I said to Jamaica Lee, "We'll it trained on the driver; then I have a visitor in a moment. Said watched as Floy showed me how the Valcour is here." weapon operated. Suddenly Jamaica There was a short ladder and a Lee said, "I can see lights ahead." circular hatch leading to the roof The driver glanced at me as if for of the car. I stood below it, wait­ instructions. I said, ing. And that was my first and al­ "Slow down in the usual way. And most last mistake. A voice said, no false moves. Understand?" "Cheerio," and a heat gun charge Floy touched the siren button slammed past my head to turn the twice in what apparently was the door frame of the connecting coach regular signal. He said, into a charred mess. I wheeled, "Good luck. I'll tell the drag­ realizing that only the swaying of oons something or other." He went the motor-coach around a curve had through the door into the adjoining prevented that charge from reaching coach. Peering through the stepto- its mark. glass screen, I saw the lights ahead Valcour stood beside the grow brighter, saw a low platform vibra-gun. The open stepto-glass in the midst of a circular clearing window showed his way of entrance. swim into view. Beside it, drawn He leveled the heat gun again, and up in a row, were three large-sized I could see his finger tighten on 26 / Astro-Adventures the trigger. But even as I threw gently. I felt the Monitor's wrist. myself to the floor of the cab, two The pulse was a feeble flutter, but shots sounded almost simultaneously. even as I held the hand, that pulse Valcour spun around and crashed faded and ceased altogether. backward. Behind me in the open "He's gone," I said. "He was doorway of the connecting coach I a nice little guy." saw Ephraim Floy holding his own She stood up, brushed moisture smoking pistol clutch at his waist. from her eyes. "What now, Mark?" "Floy!" Unmindful of the driver "Now," I said, "home. Which means who had turned to stare foolishly, back to the outer crust. New trials Jamaica Lee ran to the Monitor and for you and myself. Even if the passed her arm under his shoulders. Gnarbie revolt continues without "Floy!" the Eromklat shipment, which I doubt, The little man slowly slumped we'll arrive back at Umbra in time to his knees. He tried to speak to spread a warning. As Valcour but blood bubbled to his lips. He said, this ends it." tugged at his beard, raised his hand Her eyes showed satisfaction yet in a feeble gesture of triumph and seemed filled with sadness. "I'm lay still. not so sure," she said. Across the cab Said Valcour, face "What do you mean?" livid, was propped against the step- "I'm not sure what I mean. But to-glass screen. There was a crimson it's too pat, too complete, too fi­ spot on the upper part of his tweed nal. Don't you see, Mark, we've coat, and the pistol had slipped been living straight melodrama ever from his useless fingers. In spite since we left the monorail. We've of his wound, he forced a chuckle. met obstacles and overcome them at "Well, Dainley, I guess this ends terrific odds. Always we managed it. You've got the Eromklat ship­ to slide through on top. Life isn't ment, and you've got me. I like like that." things tidied up, Dainley. We may I laughed. "It is this time. as well write this up and close the Nothing this side of Pluto is going book. Here." He reached in his to . . ." inner pocket with his good hand and "Life isn't like that," she said threw forward a sheaf of papers. again. "An even amount of failure "Everything you need, Dainley, to is always mixed with success. That complete your case: organization may be a fatalistic outlook, but of the Club of Revolt, secret of it's been my philosophy for years, Eromklat, even statements which will and somehow it always seems to have prove your own innocence in any court held true. Look, Mark, for a time of law. As I said, I played my hand we held the whole future of Mercury and lost. You've won, Dainley, and in the palm of our hands. It's in­ since you've won, you might as well conceivable that we should peg every­ win all." He reached down, tore thing in its correct position without a globe-shaped metallic charm from stumbling against destiny ourselves.” his watch chain and tossed it before "You're done up," I said. "Sit him on the cab floor. "Oh . . . down and you'll feel better in a Cheerio." moment. I . . ." He didn't fall. He simply stood And then it happened. Five feet there, propped against the glass away the globe-shaped good-luck charm screen, but a last shudder passed which Valcour had torn from his watch through him, and his eyes became chain suddenly began to rotate on glazed. I turned to Jamaica Lee its peg-bottom with a loud hiss. who still knelt by the motionless Ephraim Floy. The girl was sobbing Continued on p . 42 PLANET IN PERIL

by Lin Carter

Star Pirate battles the murder monsters of Mercury!

I. Flaming Doom! and so slowly that it always pre­ sents the same side to that cosmic The richest and most powerful Earth furnace of intolerable blazing heat. colony on Mercury is called Belt The Sunside, as it is called, is City. Once a lawless, rip-roaring of course uninhabitable, hotter than frontier town, filled with saloons the interior of a blast furnace... and bawdy houses and dope-dens, where a strange and awesome desert of a man's life wasn't worth a plugged parched and crumbling rocks, savage credit unless he was handy with his gorges and rivers of lava, where power guns, Belt City is now staid, lakes of liquid silver and pools quiet and respectable, and the center of molten copper make inhospitable of the Colonial Government, with this region, where men can venture jurisdiction over all citizens, col­ but briefly, and then only under onists and the queer, gold-eyed, heavy heatproof energy shields, to mahogany-skinned natives themselves. mine and prospect the pure metals Tiny, heat-baked Mercury, smallest needed to feed the insatiable maw of the Nine Worlds, circles perilous­ of Earth's industries. ly close to the mighty sun itself, A weird contrast is the second 28 / Astro-Adventures hemisphere of this diminutive world— blistering blaze of the gigantic the Darkside, whose face is ever Sun— which filled nearly the entire turned to the cold, uncaring stars sky of the Sunside, from horizon a frozen tundra region of to horizon— longer than most Earth­ crawling glaciers, whose soil is ling miners could manage, even with eternally locked under a thick sheath triple-strength heat-shields. of mile-deep ice. The only hospit­ Slipping a little in a puddle able region on Mercury is that thin of rancid mud as he came off the zone of temperate climate which ex­ porch of the saloon and stepped down ists between the two extremes: the to the crooked alley of beaten earth Twilight Belt, it is called, and that served as a "street," Wild Bill it is there in the Belt that the cursed and regained his balance with first explorers and colonists and some little difficulty. He leaned prospectors from Earth reared Belt against the porch rail for a few City. moments, until the scenery stopped While, as already stated, most revolving around and around him like of Belt City has long outlived its a merry-go-round run out of control, scarlet past and its reputation for then went lurching up the street murder, iniquity and greed, the last towards The Nine Worlds, where he lingering remnants of the old days had booked a room for the night. cluster in the rotting slums down Along the way he paused to aim near the spaceport, where decaying a kick and a cringing cur gnawing sheds and hovels of sheet-plastic some semi-edible snack from amidst and corrugated tin slump into ruin a heap of rotting garbage. The crea­ from decades of neglect. There, ture hissed and snapped at him, but narrow, garbage-choked alleys of scuttled aside and darted into an raw muddy dirt meander between rows inky-black walk-through between the of gambling dens, flophouses, wine­ buildings on its six scaly legs. shops, cheat hotels, and even less What he had mistaken for an Earthly reputable establishments. mutt thus proved to be one of the It was from one of these, the large lizard-things which the native Golden Horseshoe, that the first Mercurians tamed as house-pets. recorded victim of the Fire Troll Wild Bill cursed again, damning emerged into the fresh evening all the slinking, crafty, vindictive breeze. His name was Wild Bill natives, with their teakwood hides, Borden, and he was pure Texan eyes like gold coins, and dour, hu­ American, all six feet and five morless ways. The Earthlings and inches of him— beefy, crafty, strong the native Mercurians lived together as a bull, and dangerous as a rattler under an uneasy, ramshackle truce, who has just been stepped on. and old suspicions and distrusts— Wild Bill was never more dangerous deep-rooted and of long standing— than when he had taken aboard a bel­ still caused a lot of tension between lyful of his favorite beverage, a the races. However, the Earthside potent brew of what purported to colonists needed servants to tidy be genuine Kentucky sourmash bourbon, their bungalows over in the more and went under the label of "01* fashionable quarter of Belt City, Space Ranger" . . . although it was the cafes and hotel kitchens needed greatly to be doubted if the powerful busboys, dish-washers, and cheap liquor had ever seen Kentucky, or, help to carry out the garbage, scrub for that matter, Earth itself. the floors, and perform such menial he was a rare metals prospector, tasks as most Earthlings would not was Wild Bill, and one of the best. care to soil their hands with... With his iron strength and granite so the Mercurians swallowed their endurance, he could toil under the ancient pride, concealed their cold Planet in Peril / 29 contempt for these outworlders, and atmosphere to their breast, but Haven accepted their money. was one of these, and that was the These thoughts were perhaps drift­ reason why Star Pirate had chosen ing hazily through Wild Bill's whis- Haven, back in the wild, lawless key-soaked brain as he turned around days when he was a buccaneer of the a corner into the black mouth of spaceways, for his secret hideout. a side-alley which led to the sleazy Even today, a free man, his past little hotel which he had honored record wiped clean with a blanket that night with his patronage, when pardon from a grateful System gov­ he stepped out of the waking world ernment, now when he devoted his and directly into nightmare— keen wits and space-honed skills Something taller than a man, with to fighting crimes, not committing a huge, bulging bald pate crowned them, Star still dwelt on Haven. with lyre-covered horns, its snarling It was a late afternoon. In one face all blazing red eyes and curved part of the huge dome-room, Star beak like a parrot's, stepped into sat at a desk of polished mineral, his path and lifted hideous, smoking, poring over sheafs of computer print­ white-hot four-clawed paws to clutch outs and depth-photos of the puzzling him by neck and shoulder. As the petroglyphs left behind ages ago awful heat of those burning paws by the mysterious inhabitants of seared Bill's dingy, faded coveralls the lost planet, Aster, whose breakup black and smouldering, the hapless in the gravitic tug-of-war between Earthling screamed like a stallion Jupiter and Saturn on the one hand under the gelding wire. and the mighty sun on the other had But such was his superhuman created the zone of huge rock-frag- strength and endurance, that Wild ments which circle ever between the Bill clung to consciousness just orbits of Mars and the giant, Jupi­ long enough to whisper an enigmatic ter. The attempt to decipher the phrase to the ear of the first medic enigmatic records the lost race had to reach his side . . . a weird, left, here and there, carven on the uncanny phrase which soon adorned stony surface of a handful of aster­ the headlines of the front page of oids, was Star's consuming hobby— no: every newsfax in the Nine Worlds: his passion. "... A Fire Troll got me! ... At the opposite side of the shal­ Gawd in heaven, it was a Fire Troll low curved dome, through whose lucent plasteel surface the stars blazed and flashed and sparkled like dia­ monds strewn on black velvet, Star's II. Calling Star Pirate sidekick and buddy, Phath, reclined on a rattan lounger, plucking moodily On Haven, that tiny worldlet lost on an eleven-stringed pittipak from among a whirling meteor-swarm in his native Venus. The plaintive, the uncharted regions of the Asteroid moaning tune he played was one of Zone, rugged cliffs and scarps of the poignant, atonal love-songs from naked stone lifted to the distant the Low Swamp country, his homeland. stars. Their slopes and the vales From time to time, when no adventure that stretched between them were beckoned, no tantalizing mystery thickly grown with an odd forest taunted with its allure of the Un­ of queer-looking trees which closely known, the slim, albino-pale Venusian resembled titanic ferns. lapsed into a melancholy of home­ Few of the asteroids retain enough sickness . super-heavy metals at their core And this was just such a time. to sustain sufficient gravity to It had been weeks since last they hold moisture and any kind of an had been summoned to the aid of be­ 30 / Astro-Adventures leaguered justice, to do battle a- "And all killed the same way, gainst a mystery-mastermind of super- burnt to death, apparently by the crime, and the languid, moody Venus­ searing heat of white-hot paws," ian was suffering from acute boredom. rapped Star harshly. Then the flashing of a sharp green Carew nodded slowly. "Yes, the light over the ground-glass screen throat or torso of each victim bore of the huge televisor roused him the same horrible burn-marks left from his lethargy. Phath tossed by four-clawed paws. I understand the musical instrument on the couch Fire Trolls are supposed, in Mercur- and bounded lithely to his feet, ian myths, to have four-clawed hands excitement sparkling in his strange and feet." pink eyes. Star Pirate looked up "What's the story on these Fire from his work, frowning. Trolls, anyway, Commander?" burst "That will be Carew," he guessed. in Phath the Venusian. "Anything "And about this nasty 'Fire Troll' to the notion, or is it just pure business out on Mercury, I'll bet," legend . . .?" said the Ace of Space distractedly. "Insofar as we know, they fall Phath looked exultant, because he into the same class with vampires, knew his chief had to be right: only werewolves and goblins," said Carew, Commander Jason Carew, senior Space with the ghost of a smile. "However, Patrol officer on Pallas, was en­ the System's a big place, and lots trusted with a few trusted others of strange mysteries and curious with the secret combination of wave­ creatures may lurk just beyond the lengths used to contact Star Pirate's edges of discovery . . . will you hideout on his special multiwave see to it for us, Star? The colo­ televisor. nists on Mercury are panicky, on Light and color swirled in the the verge of open revolt and whole­ ground-glass screen, and tightened sale flight, unless something is into focus. Now a lean, hawk-faced done soon— " man with a space-tan of deep bronze "On our way, Carew," said Star, and keen, steady gray eyes under rising to his feet and buckling on a trim head of hair the same precise his gunbelt. The screen went dark. shade peered out at them. He wore "Ready the Jolly Roger for flight the high-necked tunic and slacks, within the hour, Phath; I want to space-black, of the Patrol. be on our way to Mercury before the "Glad you were in, Star," said Universe is an hour older!" the officer in clipped tones. De­ "By Yakdar's iridium intestines— spite his calm, his self-control, some action at last!" grinned Phath. he looked worried and tense. And whether his ejaculation was in "What's up, Commander? This Mer­ the nature of a curse or a prayer, cury business?" inquired the younger none could say. Perhaps it was both. man. Jason Carew relaxed his stiff features, permitting himself a re­ Only thirty minutes later Star's luctant half-smile. trim little speedster lifted from "Can't catch you napping, lad! the rocky, fern-clad surface of the Never could when you were on the jungle moonlet, raising to the stars wrong side of the law, and still on a plume of rocket-fire. The dead­ can't, even now that you're fighting ly "moat" of whirling meteors which the good fight on our side. Yes surrounded Haven would be sudden seven murders, each in the death to any craft ignorant of the same manner, the most recent at nine secret freeway through the maze of o'clock this morning, Solar Standard hurtling rock, ice and iron . time. All the victims men of no but Star had long ago planted radio­ particular consequence— " beacons on key meteors, and by their Planet in Peril / 31 coded signals the Jolly Roger1s plains of ochre dust, the half-ruined "brain" (a compact, but superbly cities of ancient amber marble, the capable computer) guided them broad belts of rubbery blue vegeta­ unerringly through the moat of tion which were the famous "canals" whirling death. They emerged into clear ether without so much as a "Phath, keep trying to get Zoar scratch to mar the black enamel which on the 'visor," he directed. "I'm made the little speedster all but going back to consult the library invisible in the dark night of space. computer. We need all the dope we Falling well below the plane of can get on these Fire Trolls, legen­ the ecliptic, so as to be safely dary or not!" beyond most of the asteroids in the "Right, chief," nodded the Venus­ Zone, Star switched on the robot ian. autopilot and turned in his huge A little while later, finding swivel-chair to the televisor. He nothing of use in the computer mem­ began fiddling with the vernier dials ory, Star returned to the control while his Venusian sidekick watched cabin and discovered that Phath had curiously. just managed to get through to Dr. "Who you callin', chief? Pallas Zoar. Indeed, the dwarfish Martian Base?" was glaring out of the screen at "No; I need to consult briefly the grinning Venusian. "What is with Zoar." it now, you moss-eared swamp-lizard?" The pallid-skinned Venusian screw­ snapped the savant impatiently, bend­ ed up his face, with the expression ing a malignant scowl on the albino. of one experiencing a very bad smell. "Don't you realize that I am on the The bald and wrinkled green dwarf, verge of a momentous discovery— ?" Dr. Zoar, one of the wisest and most Phath flushed a little and his learned of the philosophic savants pink eyes went hard and venomous. of Mars, was Star Pirate's old mentor "Izzat so, you knee-high green toad? and ally. Little love was lost be­ Why, you wouldn't know a momentous tween Phath and Zoar, however, and discovery if you fell over one— whenever they got together the bick­ which, considering your height, so ering and name-calling between them called, wouldn't be hard to do!" was vituperative and seemed childish he returned with vigor in his hiss­ to Star. ing tones. "Calling Dr. Zoar . . . this is Zoar's scowl, if possible, grew Star Pirate, calling Dr. Zoar," the even more malignant than before. redheaded adventurer spoke into the "Now listen, you web-footed, mud- microphone. But the ground-glass wallowing, fungus-eating— !" screen whirled with a vortex of mean­ "Why, you dust-swallowing midget! ingless colors and did not resolve I'd step on you, if I didn't know into the wrinkled, scowling features that with your bloated ego, you'd of the little Martian scientist. explode like a pricked balloon, you __i" "Children— children!" sighed Star III. Fire Trolls Pirate in long-suffering tones, step­ ping between the Venusian and the Riding its arch of atom-fire, Martian mirrored in the 'visor the Jolly Roger hurtled through the screen. Grumbling a curse to his void, passing "beneath" the asteroids low swamp devil-god, the lithe and approaching the orbit of Mars. Venusian relinquished the chair and Ere long the Red Planet could be Star took a seat before the machine. seen dead ahead, and in his mind's At the sight of him, Zoar relaxed eye Star Pirate could see the vast his ferocious scowl and his 32 / Astro-Adventures age-seamed and time-wrinkled features the Twilight Belt invade their parch­ assumed an expression almost mild. ed and burning wastes, they kill "Oh, it's you, lad! You’ll be ruthlessly and without compassion interested to hear the results of . . . searing the flesh of ordinary my latest observations— I have de­ mortals to the bone with a touch tected the most interesting slight of their super-heated four-clawed perturbations in the orbit of Pluto! paws. And that's about all I can If they recur on a periodic basis, tell you, lad: just dusty old Mer­ I may have found proof of the exis­ curian legends, dating from the old tence of a trans-Plutonian planet— days long before the arrival of the the one astronomers have inferred first Earthling explorers." and alleged may well exist on the Star asked: "Any possibility such uttermost verge of the Solar System— creatures might actually exist?" the long-rumored ’Persephone,' Plu­ Dr. Zoar puffed out his sunken to’s ancient companion on the long cheeks. "Absolutely not, boy! Noth­ voyage through the blackness of space ing that lives, not even the hardiest bacteria, could survive for an in­ "Interesting, Doc, but some other stant in temperatures that turn solid time," rapped Star. "I'm on a case iridium, cadmium, silver and lead that seems to have the Patrol baf­ to pure liquids." fled, and I need some information After a few more words, Star sign­ on the Mercurian legends of so-called ed off and the televisor screen went Fire Trolls. Can you give me a blank and lifeless. He turned away hand?" from the machine, a slight frown Zoar’s froglike face became on his space-tanned features. thoughtful. "Extra-planetary anthro­ "Find out what you were lookin' pology and folklore is a little out for, chief?" inquired Phath hope­ of my range, lad," he admitted slow­ fully. ly, "but, of course, I have glanced Slowly, reluctantly, Star shook at the material a time or two, over his red head. the decades. Precisely what do you "The only thing I found out I need to know?" already had a hunch I knew," he mut­ "That’s the trouble," Star said tered. "That the monsters we're ruefully. "At this stage in the looking for don't even exist— and game, I haven’t a wisp of an idea c a n ’t!" what might or might not be of help to me, in the way of data. First, what are they supposed to look like?" IV. City of Fear "Crudely humanoid; broad-shoul­ dered, deep-chested, hump-backed; It was obvious that Belt City flat, hairless heads crowned with was haunted by a nameless fear. You immense cow-horns; glaring red eyes; could read it in the drawn and hag­ parrot-like beak; yellow, rugose gard features of the folk who hur­ hide— " ried down the narrow streets, search­ Phath, at Star's shoulder, wrin­ ing the shadows and probing the dark kled up his slim nose. "*Rugose'?" leering mouths of gloom-drenched he murmured. "What's 'rugose'— ?" alleys with wary, suspicious, fearful "Scaly," Star snapped, with an eyes. Star and Phath had hardly impatient shrug of burly well-mus­ left the spaceport before they no­ cled shoulders. "Don't interrupt! ticed the difference between the Go on, Doc, anything else?" Mercurian capital and other towns. "They supposedly dwell on the "Yakdar!" swore the slender Venus­ Sunside, since their own bodies are ian. "Chief, you notice how the as hot as molten lead," said the people scurry from shop to shop... scientist. "When strangers from like something, some unseen horror, Planet in Peril / 33 was snappin' at their heels?" our citizens are on it, fleeing from Star's handsome, bronzed face the horror that hovers over our heads was grim, his green eyes— usually and strikes seemingly where and when sparkling with deviltry and mis­ it will ..." chief— were brooding and somber. "Your law-enforcement agencies He nodded curtly. are certainly policing the "I also notice they do their shop­ streets— ?" ping in little groups— twos and The Governor nodded, silvery hair threes— I don't see anyone who's glistening in the muted light of walking all alone," he retorted in tooled lamps of native Mercurian a low voice to his partner. craftsmanship. "Of course! I've Many of the shops and stores they recalled every member of the Civic passed were closed, boarded up, dark­ Guard from vacation or sick leave, ened and empty. More than a few drafted government clerks to free sported hastily painted "For Sale" other officers from desk jobs, so signs. For a thriving young metro­ they can patrol the streets. But polis, the rich capital of a metals- nothing serves to halt the spread wealthy world, this seemed more than of these horrible crimes ..." odd . . . "The Fire Troll," murmured Star It seemed . . . sinister! Pirate thoughtfully, and was startled When they reached System House to see the effect his unthinking near the square where stood the trad­ words had on the older man, who paled itional First Landing monument, so to the lips, and swayed as if about similar to those on many other to collapse. worlds, they were hustled into the "Steady there, sir!" snapped Star, Governor's study. He was a lean, bracing the Governor with a strong harried-looking man, with fine arm about his shoulders. He eased aristocratic features in a worn, the other- into a nearby chair and tired face, under a trim head of pressed a hip-flask of potent Jovian silver hair. He greeted the two brandy to the older man's lips. After adventurers with relief and optimism a grateful sip or two, the Governor almost visible in his manner. was breathing more easily, the color "Welcome to Mercury, sir! Thank returning to his worn and weary face. heaven you've come," he said in tones He drew a deep breath and attempted that shook, just a little, with ten­ a rather shaky smile. sion. "The Patrol seems helpless "You must forgive me, sir; I'll to do combat with this mystery-menace admit I have been under considerable — this shadowy terror that stalks strain these last two weeks . . . our streets, and is driving our citi­ these ghastly murders, the inability zens away from Belt City in of the police to capture this droves— !" fiend— " "Which explains the abnormal num­ As if on cue, a burly, heavy-set ber of closed and shuttered shops man in a dark uniform came brusquely we noticed on the way here," comment­ into the room, stopping short when ed Star. The Governor nodded sadly. he saw the visitors. He had a "I've tried to put heart into square, red face and eyes as cold my people, to remind them of their and hard and gray as fractured steel. hardy forebears, those staunch and "Sorry, Grayson! Didn't know fearless men and women who pioneered you were in conference," he said a rugged, lawless, unexplored fron­ shortly. The Governor beckoned him tier world teeming with unknown per­ near and made the introductions. ils . . . but civilizatisn has soft­ The newcomer was Commissioner Hard- ened their fibre, I'm afraid. Not rock, commander of the local law- a ship leaves for Earth, or Luna, enforcement agencies. He eyed Star or Venus, but dozens and dozens of and the slim Venusian distrustfully— 34 / Astro-Adventures even truculently. But at the same notice that this was the second time time something very much like relief the near vicinity of this establish­ glimmered in his cold gray eyes. ment has been the scene of one of "Star Pirate, eh?" he barked. the Fire Troll's murders?" "Heard of you, of course. Patrol Phath blinked in thought. "The says you've reformed; work for the first was that big miner, Bill Bor­ law these days, not against it. Hope den, right? Wild Bill, they used so!" Then, abruptly, Hardrock turned to call him ..." to the Governor and crisply reported Star nodded curtly. "Right. Bor­ that there had been another murder. den had just left the saloon. He Governor Kirkland blanched, his hadn't gone more than a block before fine, aristocratic features wincing the Troll stepped out of the shadows with pain. "A-another, you say? to slay him with his burning touch Where, man?" . . and now another is killed in "Alley behind the Golden Horse­ the same way, and within a stone's shoe," rapped the Commissioner. "Min­ throw of the first." er called Sam McCallister . . . been "Think it means something, chief?" with Mercury Metals & Minerals for Star shrugged. "We'll see." eighteen years. Lean and leathery little fellow, all steel wire and The manager of The Golden Horse­ whipcord. Didn't die until after shoe was a fat, good-humored, moon­ the medics got to him. Dragged him­ faced Uranian, with the butter-yellow self a block or so, following the skin and liquid black eyes of his Troll— " kind. His name was Aardh. He was "Great heavens! . . . Even with totaling up the receipts of the pre­ the kind of burns he must have had?" vious night when they entered the cried Grayson Kirkland in amazement. saloon, which was a huge, cavernous Reluctant admiration showed in structure of prefabricated plastex Hardrock's blunt features. "Cursed panelling braced with struts of tough and gutsy little fellow," he synthe-steel. The central feature nodded. "Don't think I could have of the big room was a deeply curved done it myself, and I'm no weakling!" stage which thrust out from the wings "Did McCallister say in which and glowed with rich carvings of direction the Fire Troll went?" in­ the rare Mercurian marble called quired Star Pirate, keen interest goldstone. The horseshoe-shaped lighting his green eyes. Hardrock stage and its hue explained the es­ nodded. tablishment's name. "Eastaway, down Settlers' Street," The fat Uranian gave them a jolly he said. But he said the words to glance as they approached. He saw Star Pirate's back, for already the two ordinary-looking spacemen in tall space-adventurer was halfway drab gray zipper-suits, the kind out of the door. of one-piece coveralls spacemen usu­ ally wore under their space gear. "Ain't open yet, gents," he boomed V. The Golden Horseshoe in hearty tones. "Place don't open for business till noon, y'know— local "Where we goin', chief?" demanded ordinance. Come back then, boys, Phath, panting as he struggled to and it'll be my pleasure to stand keep up with his partner's long, the two of you to a mug of your fa­ rangy stride. "Settlers' Street, vorite tipple— " I'll bet!" He broke off, words trailing away, "Later," said Star Pirate briefly. eyes bulging with disbelief, when "First I want to check out this Gol­ the tall, bronzed Earthling of the den Horseshoe saloon . . . did you duo held out flat in his palm a queer Planet in Peril / 35 five-sided token of strange black night . . . drank a couple stiff metal. Although the stuff wherefrom brandies at the bar, played a hand it was made seemed solid and opaque, or two of cards with some of his a thousand minute stars twinkled mates, then ambled off to seek his and flickered within its murky lodgings." depths. It was like a fragment cut A few quick questions elicited from the night sky, and it was the the simple facts that neither victim, rarest of all the rare artifacts Borden nor McCallister, had behaved in the entire System— a monetary in any way peculiar on the nights plaque left behind by the mysterious of their murders, or had spoken mys­ Asterians, the dwellers on the lost teriously or done anything else to planet Aster. attract special attention. They No other mate to this fabulous had, in fact, behaved as they nor­ black coin had ever been discovered mally did. Star and Phath then turn­ . and it was the unique means ed to leave The Golden Horseshoe. by which Star Pirate chose to iden­ On sudden impulse, Star turned back tify himself to strangers. at the door. "S-Star Pirate!" gasped the gog­ "Do you know in which direction gle-eyed Uranian. Abruptly his air Borden went that night?" he queried. of careless, glad-handed jollity The Uranian shrugged. turned into one of respectful ob­ "Sure! Down Settlers' Street sequiousness. "Yessir, Mr. Star! towards the Temple ..." While it's against the law for me "And McCallister?" to sell you a drink this early in "Believe he went a ways further— the day, there's no law on Mercury but in the same direction, towards says I can't give you and your aide, the Temple.— You sure, Mr. Star Pi­ here, a drink on the house! Name rate, I can't offer you boys a quick your poison, as the fellow says!" one before you leave— just a bit Phath, licking his lips, ran his of a pick-me-up, as people say?" eye judiciously down the rows of Star declined, politely but firm­ bottles behind the bar, searching ly, and left the saloon with Phath for his favorite Venusian cordial. at his heels. "Where to now, chief?" But Star made a brusque negative "We'll take a look-see at the gesture with one hand. place where McCallister was found "It's too early in the day for by the medics. The boys from the a drink," he said, "and besides, Patrol will have been over it inch we're working on these Fire Troll by inch, of course. Still and all murders. I understand the first II of the Troll's victims had been in Star shrugged whimsically, and, your saloon just beofre his fatal briefly, his old, mischievous grin meeting with the monster, or what­ lightened his space-tanned features. ever it is. But what about the most As the crime-fighters of an earlier recent murder— miner called McCal- era might put it, The game' s afoot lister?" and already he was feeling The fat Uranian shuddered, rolled that heady exultation he knew so his black liquid eyes, and made an well, the excitement of knowing that expansive gesture with one hand, he was on the murderer's trail. waving pudgy fingers on which far too many gems twinkled and flashed. "Can I help it if half the space­ VI. Temple of the Sun port trade prefers my establishment to those of my competitors, Mr. Pi­ The site where McCallister col­ rate?" whined Aardh plaintively. lapsed after dragging himself on "True, McCallister was in here last the Fire Troll's trail nearly two 36 / Astro-Adventures blocks from the narrow alley behind talk to the temple staff," he sug­ the saloon where he had encountered gested. They entered the tall doors the fiery monster, was depressingly of imitation bronze, which stood ordinary. A mere rectangle of muddy open as if to welcome devotees and soil, of rank and sour dirt pounded would-be converts. Inside the two by innumerable feet. The site was found rows of pews with a long aisle still marked off by the four spikes between, leading to an altar of the and red ribbons the Patrol cops had same bright-glazed bricks of the left. Star scrutinized the immediate facade, blazing brilliantly under vicinity with a variety of miniatur­ the beams of track-lighting in the ized but surprisingly powerful and ceiling overhead. Behind the altar sensitive detecting instruments, a huge jag-edged mirror caught and finding nothing of interest. reflected blindingly the rays of He rose to his feet, dusted his light from above. knees, and looked around keenly. "This joint would seem to be a A dilapidated row of ramshackle temple of the sun, eh, chief?" grin­ sheet-plastic huts with tarpaper ned Phath sarcastically. or rust-red corrugated iron sheeting "Your Venusian compatriot is com­ roofs were all that was to be seen. pletely accurate in his guess, sir," The narrow street seemed deserted spoke a deep, resonant voice from at this hour. Some of the rundown behind them. They turned to see structures were residences, others a tall imposing Earthling with iron- were shops. There was a native open- gray hair, attired in yellow robes front wineshop which offered the blazoned on breast and back with heavy, syrupy mead made from North­ the omnipresent solar emblem. He lands moss which the natives fancied, had a weathered, long-jawed face, and one or two Mercurians lounged with blue eyes which bore within within at small tables, tossing dice their depths a humorous twinkle. or snoozing over their bottles. A "This is, indeed, the First Temple slovenly native woman polishing mugs of Our Lord the Sun, friends, and watched the two of them with unread­ you are more than welcome! I am able golden eyes as they went by. Father Langston . . . and if you A small grocery store purveyed are wondering that my little flock hydroponic vegetables from the colony and I worship anything so simple farms: turnips, red beans, a paltry and obvious as the sun, recall that selection of wilted greens and over­ so did the wise Egyptians and Baby­ ripe fruit, parsnips, potatoes. An­ lonians and Incas of ancient times, other shop, scarcely bigger than back Earthside. Not only do the a mere booth, sold tobacco-deriva- beneficent rays of the sun warm our tives, licorice, magazines. worlds, drive away cold and bitter At the far end of the block, how­ darkness, bring health and sustain ever, rose a more imposing edifice nourishment and life itself, but of glazed mustard-yellow brick set the sun is the source of all life in step-back tiers like a pyramid and the author of our being." or ziggurat. Its roof tapered to The tall priest made a self-dep­ a blunt spire topped by a revolving recating gesture that was somehow jag-edged disc of gold-colored plas­ modest and even endearing. "Oh, tic . don't misunderstand me, friends! "That must be the temple the Uran- It is not the actual sundisc itself, ian mentioned, chief," observed the the sphere of super-heated gases, Venusian. Star nodded. that we worship, but That which the "The Patrol cops will already sun symbolizes and stands for: light, have questioned everybody on the warmth, goodness— the antithesis street as to whether they saw or of darkness, depravity and evil." heard anything interesting, but let's The tall priest grinned suddenly. Planet in Peril / 37

"In the days before I— ah— I have the deadly side of the solar force to say 'saw the light,' although . . for the sun can warm and bless I deplore the play on words as bor­ living things, but it can also kill dering on irreverence!"— and here them swiftly and mercilessly, like he chuckled a little— "I was a min­ any other great natural force... eralogist in the pay of Mercury Met­ beyond that, I would not care to als & Minerals, and as a scientist venture an opinion." I knew that the sun was the very They thanked the gray-haired man source and origin of those precious and left the Sun Temple, heading minerals I was paid to discover. back to their ship. Star carried Of course, this was long before I with him the beginnings of a liking came to realize that Our Lord the for the older man, who might well Sun was so very much more than merely prove a friend in need. a great light in the sky, that it was the source of spiritual illumina­ tion and the visible symbol of the VII. "Star Pirate to the Rescue!" creative and paternal force in the universe . . . but I suspect my fer­ Back at the Jolly Roger, Star vor has run away with my tongue, Pirate and Phath made a few calls and that you men are here about quite to Patrol headquarters for the Mer­ another business— ?" cury/Venus jurisdiction, and checked "True enough," nodded Star, and on a few things with the vast arch­ asked a few questions. Father Lang­ ives of Computer Central, where ex­ ston told him that not only had Bor­ haustive records of every description den and McCallister not been commu­ were stored for instant access. nicants of his Temple, but that his They dined that evening at Gover­ little flock consisted only of native nor Kirkland's executive mansion, Mercurians, and, while outworlders where the cuisine was an interesting were welcome, none had yet converted mixture of traditional Earthling to the solar faith. dishes, such as sirloin of beef, "They are a poor, downtrodden asparatus in mustard sauce and chef's folk," murmured Langston. "Few of salad, and certain exotic native them aspire to a good education in Mercurian dishes, including deli­ the free schools the Colonial Govern­ ciously crunchy fried moss-cakes, ment has established, and fewer yet a simmering stew of spicy tubers rise beyond the lowly rank of clerk swimming in fungus-broth, and tasty, or computer programmer . . . although tender lichen-balls with Sunside some do become jurists, physicians, pepper. even spaceship officers. The sun The only other guest at the Gov­ was the object of their ancient ernor's table was Hardrock, the po­ faith, and in bringing them before lice commissioner. He was a grim, His altars again I am but bringing taciturn fellow, and said little them home to the most ancient and outside of an occasional grunt and sacred of their ancestral traditions nod of the head during the meal. • I Afterwards, in the Governor's library Star queried the friendly priest over a superb Martian brandy and about the myth of the Fire Trolls, aromatic cigars of golden-ripe Venus­ and as to whether Langston believed ian tobacco, the commissioner waxed such creatures might actually exist, a little more eloquent. hidden away in some, remote fastness "Understand you've been question­ of the hostile and all-but-impene- ing that crazed charlatan, who calls trable Sunside. The priest pursed himself the 'High Priest of the his lips judiciously and would not Sun,"' he said gruffly. give an opinion on this. "We have," Star nodded quietly. "In Mercurian myth, they represent "But while he may prove to be a char­ 38 / Astro-Adventures latan of sorts, I didn't find him headlines that announced— 'crazed’ in particular." hardrock gave vent to a harsh STAR PIRATE TO THE RESCUE! bark of laughter. "Fellow has high Famed Adventurer to Bat tie degrees in his field from Earth's Fire Troll! finest universities," he growled. "Had an excellent job here with Mer­ Star bit his lip in vexation. cury Metals, checking sites in the It had not occurred to him to ask Belt for unsuspected deposits of the manager of the Golden Horseshoe rare radioactives. Threw the whole to keep his, Star's, presence on thing over— job, career, everything! Mercury a secret. . . . — to go bump his forehead on the ground, grovelling before the cursed While the Governor’s private flyer sun. Mad— and dangerous!" had picked them up at the field and Star cocked one eyebrow quiz­ had flown them to the executive man­ zically. "How— 'dangerous'?" he sion, Star elected to stroll back inquired in lazy tones. The heavy­ to where they had berthed their trim faced man scowled at him with eyes little speedster, afoot. It was like cold steel. a mild and splendid night, with a "A fanatic, isn't he? All fana­ pleasant breeze from the north, redo­ tics are dangerous . . . or can be!" lent of the strange but not unplea­ "Maybe . . . but he seemed sane sant aroma of native moss-farms and and normal when I talked to him, lichen-groves. Stars blazed in the and he answered my questions openly dim amber-purplish haze that was and frankly enough," commented Star. the sky of the Twilight Belt and Hardrock showed him a nasty, thin­ very few were abroad, except for lipped grin. alert and wary officers on patrol "Probably didn’t know who you against further enormities by the were," the bigger man grunted. "May Fire Troll. find it kinda hard to get folks to Phath eyed the night sky dubious­ answer your questions from here on ly- in, Mr. Star Pirate— now that every­ "Cursed if I can see how anybody body in town knows you’re here on can tell night from day, here in Mercury, hoping to bust these Fire the Belt," he complained. "The sky Troll murders wide open!" looked exactly the same at noon as "What do you mean?" asked Star it does now ..." with a slight frown. "Certainly a big change from night The commissioner chuckled, put and day on Venus, I bet," said Star down his cigar, and drew a crumpled with a straight face. Phath flushed sheet of flimsy paper from the inner and bit his lip. As everyone knew, pocket of his uniforn tunic. He the sun and stars and open sky were rapped it with a blunt forefinger. completely hidden by the eternal "That fat fool who runs the Horse­ clouds which veiled from view the shoe must have blabbed his head off," face of his wet and swampy home growled Hardrock. "’Cause the after­ world. noon newsfax has your picture smeared "Speakin’ of daylight," said all over the front page, under big Phath, adroitly changing the subject, scare headlines." "you beginnin' to see any yet, chief? And he showed Star the afternoon This case sure looks mury as midnight edition of the Belt City Sentinel. to me!" Just as he had said, an excellent Star shook his head slowly. "May­ likeness of the redheaded adventurer be a glimmer, here and there, but and his Venusian sidekick occupied there are still plenty of unanswered most of the front page, under roaring questions." Planet in Peril / 39

"Like what?" pressed the Venusian And horrible four-fingered paws, as they sauntered along the deserted sizzling and smoking with heat, slum streets near the spaceport. reached out to clutch— and kill! "Like the chance that neither Bill Borden nor the latest victim, Sam McCallister, actually saw what VIII. The Thing That Would Not Die they both said they saw," retorted the redhead. Phath blinked pink With the swiftness and agility eyes at him. of an acrobat, Star sprang backwards, "Then why in the name of Yakdar thrusting Phath behind him with one did they say they— ?" arm while whipping his proton needle "Both men were drinking shortly from its worn holster with the other before they were killed," rapped hand. He aimed the powerful handgun Star Pirate briefly. "Suppose some­ directly at the center of the ungain­ body slipped a drug into their last ly monster's broad chest and harshly drink of the night. A hallucinogen, commanded it to halt. let's say?" "Freeze in your tracks, or I'll Phath rubbed his hairless jaw fire!" he snapped. reflectively. "Hmm . . . hadn't The creature— a blurred and ghost­ thought of that trick, chief, I gotta ly apparition in the murk— ignored admit!" They were just passing the the warning and shuffled forward, Golden Horseshoe, from whose swinging grisly paws still extended to sear doors came light and heat and sounds and maim. The hackles rose at the of loud music and louder jollity. nape of the tall redhead's neck— he The Venusian suggested they go in could actually hear the crackle and and ask the plump Uranian who served sizzle of the shimmering waves of that last drink to the two murdered heat that arose from those four­ men. Star shook his head. fingered paws. They must have burned "They might still have the bar with white-hot temperatures tab for McCallister, but the one in fact, he could feel the heat from for Borden would long ago have been them against his face, like desert tossed in the trash," he said. "No, sunshine. that trail's a cold one— if trail He depressed the firing stud. it is." The prong of the needier glowed with The blaze and clamor of the bust­ green lambent force. A blazing spear ling saloon faded behind them; the of emerald fire lanced from the ener­ muddy path they trod was completely gy weapon— to catch the Fire Troll deserted and steeped in darkness. full in the center of its shieldlike The two continued on their way, both chest. deep in their thoughts. And then, But the bolt, which could have without the slightest warning— burnt a hole through armor steel "Chief! Look out— !" yelled Phath and would have slaughtered the larg­ hoarsely, his voice raw with shock est beast that ever stalked the sur­ and surprise, and something very face of this world or any other— close to terror. rebounded harmlessly from the Troll's Out of the black yawning maw of scaly hide! a filthy alley lurched into the dim­ Star could hardly believe his ness a monstrously tall, hulking eyes, but he retreated a swift step figure. It was naked, its yellow or two, and fired again— this time hide glinting with thick scales. smack in that scowling beaked face. Eyes of scarlet fury burned through The second bolt from his proton nee­ the murk above a cruel hooked beak; dle proved as ineffective as the sleek, curved horns swayed against first had been. the wan glimmer of the distant An icy tingle went crawling down stars— the spine of the red-headed adven­ 40 / Astro-Adventures turer. He had done battle with men Commissioner Hardrock's runabout and monsters on many worlds before parked before the Temple of the Sun, now, but always he had relied upon and the commissioner himself desiring his energy weapons— which had never entrance, with two officers in two. failed him before. The solar priest led them into an "Oh, Yakdar's iridium intestines— office where he kept his files and the cursed thing just won't die," other papers, but before he could moaned the Venusian at his side. do more than exchange polite civil­ Phath shared the primitive super­ ities with Hardrock, other uninvited stitions of his low swamp ances­ guests began to arrive. Among these tors, Star Pirate knew, but it was were the Governor himself, Star Pi­ heartening to see that, even though rate and his Venusian sidekick, he was half-crazed with terror, the Phath. Venusian stubbornly stood his ground. "I've called you all together He had his own guns in his hands here because a few things have come and was loosing bolt after bolt of up that need clarification," said green fire at the oncoming monster. the redhead. "Father Langston, be­ His needlers, too, failed to so fore you 'saw the light,' as you much as slow down the lurching, shuf­ put it, you were a mineralogist in fling advance of the gigantic thing. the employ of Mercury Metals— isn't Proton-fire exploded from the scaly that right?" chest in showers of crackling emerald "Yes, certainly," murmured the sparks that sizzled when they fell tall priest, looking puzzled as to to the wet mud underfoot. where this line of questioning was Star whirled, grabbed Phath's leading to. shoulder— "More specifically, you were asked "No good! Run for it— !" he rap­ to look into rumors that a large ped. The two pelted from the scene: bed of precious heavy metals or some much as it went against their grain other rare mineral existed underneath to run from any adversary, when you the foundations of Belt City itself— can't kill the thing you're fighting, am I still correct?" discretion certainly becomes the "Yes, sir ..." better part of valor. "You took core samples, and what­ Back at the Jolly Roger, the two ever else it is mineralogists do relaxed and Phath poured himself when they are searching for buried a strong drink of fiery liquor. metals, but you found nothing of "First time I found anything a need­ any particular value— is that cor­ ier couldn't kill," muttered the rect?" The priest nodded. Venusian. He seemed to take the Star handed the Governor a fax Troll's failure to fall almost as from the archives of Computer Cen­ a personal affront. tral. Governor Kirkland studied Star didn't reply: he was busy it bewilderedly. at the keyboard, tapping into the "It says here that the testing archives of Computer Central. Ob­ laboratories on Venus examined some taining the answers to a few key core samples from a Dr. Langston questions that had occurred to him, on— " he read off the date "— and the daredevil of the spaceways went reported back to him that the samples to the viewscreen, tuned it to the consisted of almost entirely pure view outside their trim little speed­ . . . uranium!" ster, and stared thoughtfully out There was a stunned silence. Hard­ upon the night. rock blinked slowly. The tall priest flushed but said nothing. The two That next morning, Father Lang­ officers Hardrock had brought with ston was somewhat surprised to find him at Star's request unobtrusively Planet in Peril / 41 loosened their proton needlers in His mouth hung open. their holsters. "Your refinement of a mode whereby "That date coincides, 1 believe, at whichever part of the wearer a with the date of the termination needier was fired, the mini-computer of your investigation of the strata built into the shield projector cal­ beneath Belt City," said Star, and culates the target point and focuses it was not a question. the full power of the screen at that Langston bit his lip but made point. Or screens, I should say. no response. When we locate the place where you Suddenly, the redheaded adventur­ hide your Mardi Gras monster costume, er's questions took a totally dif­ I suspect we'll find, not one, but ferent tack. probably five field projectors, mi­ "When you were at college, you cro-miniaturized, built into the studied subelectronics as well as humped back and extraordinarily deep mineralogy," he stated. "You proved chest of the costume— " to be quite a prodigy in both areas Phath muttered an imprecation — in fact, while in your early twen­ to his tribal deity, and said: "But, ties you took out a couple patents Star— the burning paws— how did he in force field technology. Your work that trick?" knowledge of field technics probably The Pirate grinned that irrepres­ came in handy when you went into sible boyish grin of his. mineralogy, came to Mercury, and "That's the simplest thing of began work— often under hazardous all, a mesh heating-grid concealed conditions, and then only with the just beneath the thin but non-flam­ aid of heat-shields, which are a mable outer skin of the palms. Try refinement of general force fields, sticking your hand against the heat­ designed to repel radiant energy." ing gride of a microwave cooker some­ Langston remained unspeaking, time, if you want to learn how the but a droplet of perspiration ran so-called 'Fire Troll' murdered his down his brow and his fine, intel­ victims!" ligent eyes were bright and wary— "And this whole . . . monstrous like the eyes of a forest animal plot . . . was concocted to serve caught in a hopeless trap. what purpose?" croaked the Governor "Heat-shields are heterodyning hoarsely. electromagnetic fields which employ Star sobered. "The uranium field a part of the energy spectrum simi­ beneath Belt City has to be the larg­ lar to the frequencies of the molecu­ est, most extensive and most valuable lar binding-force that hold atoms ever found. Worth enough to make together," Star continued. "We're multiple murder a cheap price to talking of the so-called 'strong pay. Langston hoped to panic the force,' which happens to be the most populace, drive them into flight powerful force in the physical uni­ to other colonies or immigration verse. To repel heat, the field off-planet, leaving Belt City empty operates in a bubble around the wear­ and deserted. He would then, as er of the field projector. It was a 'friend' of the Mercurian natives, not too difficult for a scientist who belonged to his phony church, of your cleverness to redesign the claim the land and become, most like­ heat-shield so that it could repel ly, the richest man that ever lived." and negate the bolts from energy "'A consummation devoutly to be weapons, such as the proton needle— wished,'" said Langston suddenly, whose beams are, after all, only and in a queerly childish voice. heat." Then, shockingly, he giggled, and Phath looked stupefied; Hardrock turned on them eyes from which all was staring unbelievingly at Star. intelligence had vanished, leaving 42 / Astro-Adventures bland idiocy in its place. Within the hour, the Jolly Roger Hardrock turned gray and cursed rose atop a column of atomic fire under his breath; the Governor turned and was soon hurtling through space his face away, looking sick. Star at breakneck velocities, for Haven beckoned to the two officers standing and home. Having skipped breakfast, by the door. except for hasty cups of coffee, "I think he'll go quietly," said Star and his pal relaxed in their the redhead. "But take no chances little breakfast nook and dawled with him!" over steaming hot scrambled eggs, "Right, sir!" snapped one of the crisp Venusian sausages, fresh-baked men crisply. They hustled Langston bread with Earthside butter, and to his feet, focused a tangle-field pots of luscious pod-fruit preserves on him which held his arms immobil­ from the fertile canal-belts of Mars. ized, and led him from the Temple. "What put you onto Langston in "Got a question," said Hardrock. the first place, chief?" queried "If there is so much uranium ore Phath. "I thought you rather liked beneath the city, why didn't our the guy." geigerscopes detect it before all "I did," admitted the redhead. this happened?" "When we first talked he was amiable "Because right above the uranium and open and friendly, not knowing ore is a very thick layer of lead who I was. Then he saw the afternoon and cadmium, the two heavy metals newsfax and realized I was a danger­ which insulate against uranium radia­ ous adversary and had to be removed. tion," explained Star. The timing was too exact, and Lang­ "Devils of Darkside! How did ston was the only one we talked to you find out that?" demanded the who didn't already know who I was, commissioner. Star shrugged, assum­ as did the Governor, Commissioner ing a bland expression. Hardrock, and that fat Uranian, "From the lab report on the core Aardh, who runs the Golden sample, of course," he said. "When Horseshoe ..." you drill deep enough to hit the While they lazily talked over uranium, you have to pass through the delicious breakfast Phath had the layers of lead and cadmium. A prepared, the Jolly Roger flashed 'plug' of those two metals was part down the spaceways, en route to a of the core sample ..." host of new and exciting adventures.

Continued from p. 26:

Abruptly a streamer of yellow fire a fog of yellow smoke I saw the erupted from the top surface. I girl reel backward and fall to the threw myself forward. But before cab floor. I could reach the thing, it swept "Jamaica!" I cried. through the air straight toward Ja­ There was no answer. Only the maica Lee. There was a dull explo­ roar of the monorail as it sped deep­ sion and a short scream. Through er into the swamp. ZEPPELINS OF THE VOID

by Jason Rainbow

Can even galactic vigilante Solar Smith defeat the pernicious pirates of space?

The first time the Nine Worlds rever­ Those black eyes were the thing berated to the name of "Solar" Smith that the maitre d1 noticed first: was when the latter walked into a the irises were the same reflective Martian bistro. black as the pupils, but they were The Martian equivalent to a maitre dappled blue— a point which later d1 was understandably uneasy as he led to some speculation over the asked for the spaceman's identity inter-world radio network. Then and reservation. Smith stood over the maitre d1 noticed the look in six feet in height, most of that those eyes and the set of the space lean muscle and hard bone. He wore flyer’s features as he replied fi­ a padded black-and-silver atmo-suit nally. "Solar Smith," he had said, which added to his imposing stature. "and I’m looking for a man." It His bubble helmet was thrown back was a predatory look; as the maitre on its hinge, revealing his hard, d * later stated under questioning, scarred features, his jet-black hair Solar Smith had the "look of eagles" and his even blacker eyes. — except the Martian didn’t really 44 / Astro-Adventures say "eagles," but some Martian bird The Orion Rex was a luxury liner which resembled an eagle, and the which had been making regular passen­ radio translated that part. ger runs between Earth and Venus, The second thing that the nervous and she carried neither cargo nor Martian noticed was the worn atom arms. Midway through her run, con­ blaster which hung heavy at Solar tact was lost between her and her Smith’s hip as the latter pushed ports. The Planet Patrol inves­ past him, which greatly increased tigated. The Orion Rex was found, his state of excitement. As Smith’s dead in space— her passengers and eyes roved around the garish, argon- crew mercilessly slaughtered, the lit interior, his scarred, horny anti-gravity gas sucked from her hand was never far from the weapon's crystal-cells, and stripped of her bu t t . anti-ether engines. The atom blaster didn't remain It was assumed by the Patrol to idle long. Solar Smith spied a jack­ be the work of one of the many bands legged green Jovian— well-dressed— of Space Pirates who preyed on the seated in a far corner drinking some system's ships. Which band was a concoction. His eyes narrowed at question, however. Furthermore, once, and the blaster jumped level it was known that the asteroid belt to his hip. which lay between Mars and Jupiter The jack-legged Jovian never knew harbored the many bands of pirates, what hit him. That corner went up the many bases therein too heavily in an eerie purple flare to the ac­ defended to allow for a raid. companiment of hoarse cries and high- The Planet Patrol vowed swift pitched screams, and all that was retribution over the world networks, left of the Jovian was a pile of but privately wrote off the matter vitrified bone. of the Orion Rex, which was then Solar Smith turned on his heel considered to be the greatest outrage without a word or backward glance, ever perpetrated by Space Pirates. and strode out. No one got in his Not long afterward, a small elec- way. trum rocket, the name Sunscourge burned along her hull, bellied down The ether carried the story within on the Nine Worlds Council lawn, an earth hour, and the echoes of breaking a dozen laws in the process. the incident didn't die down for A hatch propped open as Council weeks. Especially when an anonymous guards rushed toward the ship, guns package arrived at the headquarters drawn. They caught a glimpse of a of the Nine Worlds Council, on Earth. man in a black-and-silver atmo-suit The package contained irrefutable who shoved a bound Venusian onto proof that the slain Jovian— a highly the sward before taking off. influential personage— had engineered Under questioning, the Venusian the assassination of the Dreel of babbled a wild story about being Mars not long before. Later, two the lone survivor of a pirate band other bodies turned up— what remained whose asteroid base had been auda­ of them, rather— with a note at­ ciously raided by a lone hand— Solar tached, claiming that the remains Smith. Smith, according to the Ven­ constituted the actual assassins, usian, had single-handedly atom- themselves. blasted the pirate leader, his crew, This note was signed, Solar Smith and destroyed a leviathan corsair — not that there was any doubt by Zep which was being built from the that time. salvaged equipment of the Orion Rex. Solar Smith was next heard from The Venusian readily admitted in the wake of the pillaging of the that his was the cut-throat crew Space Zep, Orion Rex. who had doomed the Space Zep. He Zeppelins of the Void / 45 was soundly shaken up, and spoke became a legend among the Nine Worlds of the affair as if he hadn't quite — and a terror to the wicked. believed what had happened. The officials weren't certain as to Jingsara Koor wasn't thinking whether the Venusian rascal couldn't of Solar Smith, as he watched the accept Solar Smith's lightning raid, great Space Zep Janus being loaded or the fact that he allowed this at Port Terra. Not that the husky sole pirate to survive. Neptunian hadn't been giving Smith Not that the Venusian survived a great deal of thought lately, but long; he was executed a week later. the time for thought was rapidly giving way to future action. For The name Solar Smith crackled Jingsara Koor was the leader of one across the ether again. Even after of the asteroid-band pirates. the incident of the raid died down, He wasn't dressed the part, true, wild, speculative newscasts kept as he wore an ordinary Earth business Solar Smith's name fresh. The sto­ suit, but his brutal face— purple ries didn't accomplish much. with the true Neptunian white mott­ No one knew who Solar Smith was, ling— marked him as a cruel fellow. or where he hailed from. It was He had viper-red eyes that were never assumed that Solar Smith was not still. They reflected his greed his real name, but even that was as he watched a huge square box of not certain. Smith was assumed to a thing being hoisted into the Janus' be an Earthman, based upon eyewit­ cargo belly. ness testimony, but even that was "What do you suppose that might in doubt as the Martian maitre d' be, Thole?" he asked. had described those jet-black, blue- The rat-like Neptunian who had dappled eyes. Venusians alone in been addressed shrugged and ventured, the system possessed such eyes, "Machinery of some kind; what else though Smith did not have the gray would be that size? It's as big hide of a native of Venus. That as a small house." Solar Smith was a half-breed seemed The master brigand grunted, "When likely, but there were many of these we are in space, I want you to find inhabiting the Nine Worlds. out what it contains. It may be Smith's motives made for several worth stealing." stories as well. It was thought "I thought the anti-gravity gas that he might have been a friend and ether tubes were all we were of the Dreel of Mars, which would to take," Thole objected. account for the incident in the Mar­ "True," the pirate leader replied, tian bistro. But that possibility "but we must never close our eyes didn't explain the pirate raid. One to other possible gain. You and theory had it that Solar Smith was I should be able to cripple the Janus a Planet Patrol officer who, dis­ from within, making our compatriot's gusted with red tape and the uncheck­ attack that much simpler. We will ed pirate menace, had forsaken the take all the necessary material with Patrol to take up the vigilante which to build our own Zep, of trail. While another theory claimed course, but why stop there?" He that Smith was an ex-pirate who, watched the first lines of passengers sickened with that life, had turned boarding the Janus by gravity tube, upon his former comrades. noting well the flowing movement Of course, no one knew for cer­ of the many pink-skinned earth women, tain. Neither could the Patrol, and added: "We might even take a who had sworn to bring Smith in re­ prisoner or two, eh?" gardless of the deeds, and find his Thole licked his thin lips and secret base. In the meanwhile, Solar his ratty eyes grew more wicked. Smith's exploits increased and he Then he shivered. "But— but what 46 / Astro-Adventures about Solar Smith? What if he should heavenward. Stern rocket tubes thun­ show up?" dered, providing forward thrust. "I expect him to," Jingsara Koor In a trice, the giant Zep had broken said calmly. free of the atmosphere and into the Thole nearly jumped a foot cosmic void, with its myriad stars straight up. "What!!" twinkling like the eyes of cosmic "I want him to enter into our spiders. little game. In fact, I have let In space, the rockets shut down whispers of our plans filter through and the ether tube was brought into the Nine Worlds, where they may reach play. Smith himself. He may even be among The ether tube hung from the Ja­ the passengers, in disguise, of nus' underbelly, extending from bow course." to tail. Open at both ends, it en­ "By Grux!" Thole cursed. "Why?" closed four alloy screws, which suck­ "Why? Because to have a Space ed in the ether at one end, processed Zep under my command would allow it, and expelled it with terrific me to bring all the other pirate force from the stern. The tail sec­ bands under my lead— and the destruc­ tion of the tube was a ball-and- tion of Solar Smith would clinch socket affair, and this shifted, that. What do you think, Thole? pointing the Zep toward her planet Jingsara Koor, Gompeer of All Pi­ of destination— red Mars. rates . . ." Thole chuckled appreciatively, Jingsara Koor was playing the but as they left the shadow of the part of a suave, wealthy Neptunian spaceport to board the great Zep, businessman, and he was playing it his eyes held a fear-haunted look. well. He mingled with his fellow He was thinking of Solar Smith . . . passengers in the Janus' stateroom with a practiced ease that belied The Janus was a full 700 feet his cut-throat background. He had of meteor alloy. Her hull was an sent Thole to check Into the cargo oblong, tapered at both ends. She hold, incidentally to keep the ratty was one of only seven such ships pirate from discouraging developing in the System— six, now that the friendships. Orion Rex was a dead hulk— the rarety Koor had already done well in of such ships stemming from the ex­ that department. He had, armed with treme scarcity of anti-gravitation his history, won the friendship— if gas, which can be found only on not the confidence— of the Janus' Earth's moon. skipper, Captain Morgan. It had The precious gas was enclosed not been difficult. Few people knew in twelve crystal cells lined up that the word "Zep" derived from within the Zep's envelope, but lead- "Zeppelin" or that the modern Space lined baffles controlled its natural Zeps were derived from the old air­ repulsive action. At high noon, ships. Fewer still were aware that after all passengers had boarded, the clique of Zep flyers were the the gravity tube was retracted, and actual descendants of the twentieth- ray grapples were disconnected from century Zeppelin "family," including the Zep's blunt nose and vane as­ Captain Morgan. sembly. The baffles were opened But Koor knew, and he made good and the Janus floated into the sky use of his knowledge, engaging the like an ascending balloon, no longer grizzled old captain in a long talk subject to Earth's gravity. about the development of the Zeppelin When she climbed into the strato­ from the old lighter-than-air gasbags sphere, the stern baffles were half­ to the modern space-going super-Zeps. closed, and the Janus' nose pointed All of which fitted in with the Zeppelins of the Void / 47 pirate's plan to take over the Janus. "Captain Morgan!" the girl ex­ He had hopes of being granted per­ claimed. Her violet eyes went wide, mission to watch the ship from the and a soft smile lighted her full, control station, where he would be pleasant face. She brushed back in an excellent position to sabotage a strand of chestnut hair with a her. half-nervous gesture. "Why— why, But right now, Koor was letting of course; this is your ship! I'd his evil eyes wander over the pas­ forgotten somehow . . .it's been sengers as they thronged about. There so long ..." were Martians, Venusians in plenty "Four years." He took her hand aboard, with a hugh quota of Earth- in his and gripped it warmly. "And men. An occasional Jovian or Mer­ how have you been? Are you still curian sauntered by. For the most with the Earth-Mars Press— still part, the Earthmen were innocuous- a reporter?" looking. "Yes; but I'm on vacation now." Koor noticed one Earthman who Her violet eyes acquired an odd, had not removed his smoked goggles veiled look. She asked, and her as did the others, after they had voice trembled ever so slightly, entered the void. This man was tall, but not so slightly that both Captain lean, with black hair and, as Koor Morgan and Jingsara Koor did not watched, he stood in one corner of catch it: "Have— have you heard from the stateroom engaging a thin Venus­ Carl?" ian in conversation. "No. Not in all the four years The Venusian was as unusual as since— " He broke off, and his face the Earthman. He was clad in the went craggy. long golden robes and skullcap of "It's as if the Universe had swal­ a Lanth— one of the fierce, knife- lowed him up . . ." Virginia said. wielding mountain tribesmen of Venus. She turned abruptly away, and faced His skin was a slatey gray, and his the port. thin eyes were dappled blue. As The moon bathed her face and body, Koor watched with interest, the Ven­ and the viper eyes of Jingsara Koor usian padded out of the stateroom. drank the vision in. She was of At the same time, Captain Morgan, fair height, and she carried herself erect and white-haired, strode into with a certain pride, a self-assur­ the stateroom. As Koor arose to ance which accentuated her sturdy catch his attention, Captain Morgan's limbs, which, in motion, moved with gaze traveled around the room, fall­ a liquid grace. But now her shoul­ ing upon a young woman who stood ders were drooping, and her head at the observation window. The cap­ bowed as if the moonlight was an tain's face registered momentary oppressive thing. She was daringly shock, then pleasure, which Koor attired in an open, silver-mesh gown took in with some interest. He edged worn over a blue silk halter and toward the two, who had joined in skirt. The fulsome curve of her conversation. high, pointed breasts showed in pro­ The Janus, outward bound, was file, sweeping down to a flat stom­ passing the moon, whose weird glow ach and bow-shaped hips. bathed the two as it streamed through Jingsara Koor had a yen for Earth­ the long observation port. women, and this one, especially, The captain's face was seamed, caused his pale yellow blood to surge as were those of most spacemen who within his beefy limbs. With an braved the solar winds, but his pale eye toward future possibilities, blue eyes were young anti twinkling. he decided to make her acquaintance "Virginia! My dear, how are you? forthwith. he ambled over, as if I didn't know you were aboard." casually. 48 / Astro-Adventures

"Ah, Captain Morgan!" he gushed. Jingsara Koor smacked one hairy "Good to see you once again." fist into a thick palm. "Solar Smith The Zep commander responded in is on board then! Excellent— excel­ kind, though he seemed a little put lent! He is very clever, that Smith; out by the Neptunian's intrusion. he must have smuggled his craft "And you, Jingsara Koor. Permit aboard." me to introduce an old friend, Miss "The— there's more. I was seen— Virginia Dray. Virginia, this is by a Venusian— one of those damned Jingsara Koor, who may know more hill fighters. He was there, but about the old Zeps than even I." I escaped him." The Earth-girl and the Neptunian "Venusian?" A cunning smile crept shook hands, murmuring politely. over the pirate's broad face. He Koor's regard was unabashedly frank, peered back into the stateroom. There but the violet eyes of Virginia Dray was no sign of the Earthman who had narrowed with dislike— something been with the Venusian earlier . . . which only made her more desirable in the pirate's eyes. A lean, golden-robed Venusian In an effort to evade the oily paused before an alloy door and drum­ Koor, Virginia gazed out at the moon, med his knuckles cryptically upon where tiny blue flashes winked amid it. He waited, and was admitted the craters. "Oh, look!" she cried. by a black-haired Earthman, who wore "What are those, captain?" smoked goggles even in the dim argon "Lunar dwendis, Miss Dray," the light. pirate interjected. "A form of life "Trouble, Tan Cree?" the Earthman something like a cross between a asked. flower and an amoeba. Quite strik­ "Yes, my master," the Venusian ing, are they not?" spit. "A foul rat of a Neptunian "Yes," she breathed absentminded- I caught skulking about our ship!" ly. Her eyes had an inward look He drew a knife out of his robes in them. and gesticulated angrily. "A pi­ Captain Morgan, sensing her dis­ rate, if this servant knows his skul­ comfort in the presence of the Nep­ king rats! A pirate, I say!" tunian, was about to suggest they "Did you follow him, Tan Cree?" retire to the bridge, when Koor him­ The Earthman whipped off his goggles, self hastily excused himself: "A and the eyes that were revealed spar­ thousand pardons— captain, Miss Dray kled. They were black; their irises — but I see an old friend. Will a dappled blue . . . you both please excuse me? Thank "Yes, my master; I followed that you." one. He had conference with another Jingsara Koor fairly stormed out Neptunian pig. Their throats I would of the stateroom, where he fell upon have cut, had my master not bade his aide, Thole, in the privacy of me to hold this blade in readiness a deserted companionway. only!" The long knife described "Waht do you mean by signalling a glittering arc in the argon light. me like that? I told you to keep "There are only two Neptunians to yourself when I'm with others!" aboard, Tan Cree. I know one of Thole was trembling so hard that them by name. Jingsara Koor. He his teeth chattered. He was a full claims to be a businessman . . ." minute getting his words out: "The— The Earthman lapsed into thoughtful that crate! I checked it— there's silence. Then: "How much do you a ship inside— a ship!" think this skulker learned?" "Ship?" The Venusian's white teeth spar­ "The Sunscourge!" Thole's voice kled in his gray face, his black, rose so high it squeaked. blue-dappled eyes shone with venom. Zeppelins of the Void / 49

"That rat had pried a board loose; They left their prisoner and made he has recognized our ship— of this for the navigation bridge, eyes as X am certain!" red as drops of bright blood . . . "This will call for special meas­ ures, Tan Cree . . ." The gray Venusian's face was set in hard lines as he again drummed An hour later, two figures lurked his cryptic knock upon the Earth­ outside the Earthman's room, ex­ man's door. When no answer came, changing whispers. They gripped his knife flashed out of his golden old-fashioned ozone pistols in their robes and he applied a magneto-key fists. to the lock. "We can't betray Smith to the A hiss escaped between his even captain," Jingsara Koor was saying. teeth when he found the room empty, "He would be clapped in irons, to evidence of a struggle in the over­ be sure, but he would betray us, turned and shattered argon lamp. in turn, to Captain Morgan. This He sheathed his knife; his blue- is the best way, just follow orders." dappled eyes shone like variegated Thole was visibly panicky, but agates as he pulled a small chest he set himself as his Gompeer knocked from under the bunk. Within lay upon the alloy portal, saying, "Mes­ the distinctive black-and-silver sage, sir." atmo-suit of Solar Smith. A gray When the tall Earthman answered, hand closed about the worn butt of they swarmed over him. The butt Smith's atom pistol . . . of an ozone pistol cracked against his black head and he fell as Thole It was late when the two Neptunian snapped the portal closed. pirates strode into the luxurious "It— it worked!" Thole squeaked. stateroom of the Space Zep Janus. "It worked!" He was beside himself Thus, there were few passengers about with joy. "Look! He has the eyes! and what few remained were well into He is Smith!" their cups. The sight of two atmo- "Take his legs," the pirate com­ suited Neptunians with drawn weapons manded. "Back to our cabin!" They startled them nonetheless, but no carried the unconscious form to their one moved against them. own room, and tied him up with Mar­ Just to be certain, Jingsara Koor tian spider-silk. shot down one at random, a searing "Kill him!" Thole implored. white bolt leaving a wide hole in "No! The ozone flash would at­ the victim's chest that stank of tract too much attention. He will ozone. not bother us now. Come! Now is Koor and Thole took the bridge the time! We will strike!" Jing­ by storm, while the screams from sara Koor doffed his suit and slipped the stateroom were still trailing into an atmo-suit, belting on his off. They began by burning down ozone pistol. Thole did the same. the first officer and the navigator. "What about the Venusian?" Thole The crewmen were not armed, and they asked. quickly raised their hands, standard "He will be no problem. Shoot procedure in these instances. that one on sight." Koor opened The bridge was a large, semi­ a suitcase, revealing a special eth­ circular compartment set in the Zep's er-wave radio. He spoke quickly nose. Fully twenty crewmen went into it, giving orders. Then he about their many tasks here, at the straightened. complex controls of the space lev­ "The others are ready; we need iathan. A band-like port gave for­ only give the signal that we are ward vision into space. in control of the Janus ■ Now let Jingsara Koor pointed toward this us gain control of the Janus!" port, which was like a grimace on 50 / Astro-Adventures the face of the Zep. "You are my struggled, and the Neptunian wrapped prisoners! Prepare to be boarded! a thick arm around her supple waist. Resisters will be annihilated!" Her body, partially revealed in her All eyes turned toward the port. brief blue silk undergarments, writh­ They saw the four needle-like cor­ ed warmly against his own, and Jing­ sair rockets bearing down upon them. sara Koor, in his passion, almost Even the strong among them trembled; forgot his surroundings . . . they knew their fate. Space Pirates! The most vicious Then the main hatch crashed open of interplanetary criminals! with a metallic noise, knocking the ratty Thole down and spilling his Only one man dared to stand a- ozone gun from his grasp. gainst Jingsara Koor. That was Cap­ Thole looked back, and decided tain Morgan. He advanced, crying: to leave his pistol where it lay. "How dare you— you scoundrel— " Jingsara Koor looked up, and forgot Thole raised his ozone gun, a the lovely charms of Virginia Dray. wicked smile adorning his ratty feat­ A foul Neptunian oath dribbled from ures. But his Gompeer interfered. his lips. "No, we need him— to keep the others A terrible sight met the red eyes in line." Koor let the captain ap­ of the space pirates. A sight they proach, then he brought a mailed hadn't expected to see. fist down upon the other's white Solar Smith stood full in the head. Captain Morgan fell uncon­ door, the top of his bubble helmet scious at his feet. nearly grazing the arch of the hatch­ "Thole!" he commanded. The little way. His stark atmo-suit gleamed Neptunian pirate knew his duty; he and his much-scarred face was a grim stationed himself, gun level, before mask. If the black bore of his lev­ the hatch leading back into the Zep. eled atom pistol was awesome, the Then Koor herded the crew off to look that came into his eyes when one side, and took the ether-tube he saw the half-nude figure of Vir­ stick in his fist. ginia Dray in the coarse arms of The Janus' great engines dropped the space pirate was even more so. from a whine to a drone, and she Jingsara Koor saw that look, and stopped dead in space, her ether- cannily took advantage of its impli­ tube no longer expelling force. Koor cation. He placed the bulbous muzzle quickly contacted his confederates, of his ozone gun against the girl's saying: "Board at will!" temple and rasped: "I will kill this The needle rockets closed in . . . woman if you try to stop me, Solar The big Neptunian pirate turned Smith!" from the controls, his ugly face Smith stood immobile in the door­ wearing a sneer of triumph. He open­ way. He neither backed off nor ad­ ed his mouth to vent his feelings vanced, and Koor quickly realized when he spied, behind the astro- that a stalemate would be the only gator, the flash of a pale leg. His result of this confrontation; he mouth closed and his sneer turned dared not press Smith to surrender. into a leer. The lone spaceman would not, he knew With a rapid movement, he pulled the crouching Virginia Dray from Koor thought quickly. "Thole! her hiding place by her chestnut Follow!" hair. She screamed, and Koor laughed Jingsara Koor backed away, drag­ deep inside his belly. ging the struggling girl along with "Miss Dray, I'm so very pleased him. She fought him, apparently to see you again," he purred. Then oblivious to Solar Smith or anything he ripped the silver mesh of her else. Her halter tore with her ef­ gown from her body. Virginia Dray forts. Zeppelins of the Void / 51

Thole scrambled for his ozone stick, Tan Cree; I'll man the atom gun and scampered in his Gompeer' s cannon!" wake. They slipped into an open "Yes, my master!" access tube, which led to an emer­ Two pair of Venusian eyes glit­ gency life-rocket. The tube clanged tered with a vengeful light . . . shut; there was a roar; and the tor­ pedo craft was expelled from the The pirate craft numbered four, Zep's nose. but that did not bother Solar Smith. Solar Smith plunged back into He saw that they each possessed a the ship proper, without a backward single nose-ozone cannon, which al­ glance. He worked his way to the ways betrayed itself with a white passenger compartments, until he flash before a bolt could strike. located Jingsara Koor's cabin. His No problem to outmaneuver them, un­ atom blaster made short work of the less they boxed him in. His own alloy portal. modern atom cannon was more than Beyond the smoking door, another a match for these. Solar Smith struggled in his spider- There was a flash. "Tan Cree!" silk bindings. When he saw the Smith yelled. The Venusian under­ first, his dappled-blue eyes snapped, stood and bore the ship over, out and he spoke: "It worked, my master." of the line of the searing bolt. "In part, Tan Cree," Solar Smith Smith responded with his atom can­ rapped, as he cut the disguised Ven­ non. A purple flare burst out, and usian free with the latter's own one corsair erupted soundlessly. longknife. "They thought they had Simultaneously, another of the Solar Smith and their way was clear slim rockets crept behind the Sun­ to take the Janus. I got the drop scourge . Tan Cree caught her out on them, and would have held it, of the corner of his eye. He pulled but Jingsara Koor had taken a female the stick back against his chest. prisoner, and they escaped in a life- The Sunscourge abruptly reared up, rocket ." then swept over and behind, until Tan Cree bounded to his feet, they were looking into the stern stripping his atmo-suit off, as well rockets of their erstwhile pursuer. as a rubberoid mask to reveal his That rocket, too, went up in slate countenance. "We follow?" bright purple radiance. "We do." The Venusian hissed in satisfac­ Solar Smith and Tan Cree raced tion. "But two more, my master!" into the cargo compartment, where he exulted. a large metal-bounded, wooden crate Solar Smith nodded wordlessly. stood. They pressed concealed studs In their last maneuver, he had gotten in the frame, and the crate folded a momentary glimpse of the life- open to reveal the streamlined curves rocket used by Jingsara Koor, but of their electrum rocket, the Sun- now it was lost from sight. He saw scourge. the remaining pirate rockets hanging Tan Cree opened the airlock and back, warily in space. Behind them, they warmed the craft up. Fire spurt­ the great streamlined bulk of the ed from tail jets, and the Sunscourge Janus was getting under way, a blue eased slowly into the automatic air­ trail issuing from her ether tube. lock tube, which allowed life-rockets Perhaps Koor's rocket was behind to pass in and out of the Space Zep. the Janus, hiding; or perhaps it They flashed straight into a nest was within her . . . of corsair rockets, which scattered Jingsara Koor had just rendez­ in surprise. The corsairs, recover­ voused with his compatriot pirates ing, swept around and bore down upon when the Sunscourge burst into space the electrum ship. like a thunderbolt. Thole was at Within the Sunscourge: "Take the the stick, as Koor himself had his 52 / Astro-Adventures hands full with Virginia Dray, who tail at the Sunscourge's approach. was desperately trying to gouge his "These pirate dogs have lost their red eyes out. fight," Tan Cree laughed. "See how "Smith again!" Thole squeaked. they run?" "What will we do?" "Make them fight," Smith ordered, Koor, in his seat, easily shifted his gloved fists gripping the atom Virginia Dray in his arms, putting cannon's controls. his face out of her reach. Little The Venusian sent the trim craft remained of her blue undergarments, spurting ahead, and they rapidly other than a silken shred which closed on the fleeing pirates. The clung, provocatively, to her white needle rockets, losing ground, split hips. Her high breasts heaved with and came about, one at each flank her sobs, but otherwise she bore of the Sunscourge. her captivity stoically, neither A white bolt crossed the electrum threatening nor attempting to pla­ ship's bow, missing. A purple flare cate the piebald Neptunian. answered the bolt. When it subsided, "Smith will not attack us with there was only one pirate craft left, Miss Dray aboard. Look! He is going and it was too close to the Sun­ after the others— see?" scourge to do anything except fight. "We can run!" Thole ventured. "Keel rockets!" Smith yelled, "Back to the asteroids. He may not and under the Venusian's quick gray follow." hands the ship shot straight up, "Smith?" Koor snorted. "He will as a white-hot jet of lightning pass­ not rest until he has tracked us ed under her tail fins, soon followed down." His eyes glimmered cruelly. by the rocketing pirate ship herself. "I have it! Return to the Janus!" The Sunscourge veered around, "What? We can't carry away her and swept after the pirate ship, cells and ether tube in this life- whose tube-flame danced redly before rocket." their eyes. "We're not going to strip the Suddenly that flame died, and Zep; we're going to steal it whole!" they found the Sunscourge bearing Koor thundered. His white-mottled down on a motionless quarry! A sui­ purple hands caressed the Earth- cide move! girl's pale flesh at the thought. Tan Cree tried to sheer off, but Virginia Dray shuddered, and bit there was no time. Smith coolly her lips. triggered his atom cannon, and the "And how would be get that tub Sunscourge flew into a bursting past the Planet Patrol?" Thole de­ purple flare where the rocket had manded . been. They wondered if she'd emerge "I should have thought of it soon­ intact again. er!" the big pirate said. "We will The electrum rocket made it. Red- keep the passengers alive— as perma­ hot shards of the destroyed pirate nent insurance that our corsair Zep craft rebounded hollowly off her remains unmolested by the Patrol. smooth lines, but she pulled free Why build our own ship, when the with only minor dents in her hull. Janus will serve? Now, back to the "The gods smile," Tan Cree mur­ Janus— hurry! That accursed Smith mured . will be busy with those rockets for "So far . . ." Smith assented. some time ..." "But I don't see Koor's rocket. I wonder ..." But Solar Smith, even as the Nep­ tunian pirate was speaking, was rap­ On the navigation bridge of the idly closing in on the remaining great Space Zep Janus, things were two pirate rockets. They turned only just beginning to settle down. Zeppelins of the Void / 53

Captain Morgan was still unconscious, the observation port in abject fear. and had been laid out in the state­ The two Neptunians depicted a picture room, for want of a better place of utter evil in their scarlet suits. in this emergency. As the first Their eyes were hell-red, and their officer was now dead, the helmsman piebald purple-and-white hides re­ took command. His first command sembled those of lizards. was to order the Janus out of the "We are now heading for the aster­ fighting at top speed. oid belt," Koor began, at the same Most of the passengers and crew, time trying to see past his prisoners aroused from sleep by the white and into space, for sign of the Sun- purple flashing outside their ports, scourge. He saw nothing. "You will crowded into the stateroom, to watch all— " the battle. "So-so-so-so-Solar Smith!" Thole In the turmoil, no one noticed squealed suddenly. the returning life-rocket— or gave it any thought— until Jingsara Koor What next occurred occupied but and Thole, ozone pistols leveled the space of mere seconds, but was and dragging the beautiful Virginia vividly impressed upon the brains Dray in their wake, reentered the of the passengers and crew of the bridge through the access tube that Janus, and became a legend in the had served their escape so well. Nine Worlds. Koor didn't waste words, he shot Jingsara Koor whirled to the far down half the crew then and there, door, where his confederate had Thole helping, before he asked for pointed, just as Thole, with a rat- a general surrender. When he did squeal of utter terror, broke and ask, he got it. ran for the opposite door. The big pirate grabbed the helms­ The little Neptunian went through man by the back of his neck. "Set the door; there was a swish-chunk course for the asteroid belt! No of a sound; and Thole hopped back­ tricks, the lives of your crew and wards into the room on one leg. He passengers depend upon your following managed three jumps, his arms wind- orders!" milling, before falling dead in a The helmsman nodded stonily. pool of his own yellow blood. The "If there are no tricks, you will blood oozed from the stump where all live. I, Jingsara Koor, promise his other leg had been. this. Now— the rest of you! Into Tan Cree then entered the room, the stateroom!" wiping Neptunian blood from his glit­ Leaving the lone helmsman to his tering longknife . . . duty, they herded everyone back. At the opposite door, Solar Smith They were met by screams of fear stood, legs spread wide. His scarred as the passengers spied their red face was cold with fury, and his atmo-suits with the skull and cross- blue-dappled eyes were colder gems. bones design, but no one resisted. Solar Smith said nothing, nor "You are my prisoners!" Koor in­ did Jingsara Koor. All saw their formed them, as he sent Virginia weapons come level with their hips Dray sprawling into a corner with at the same instant. They saw, too, the others. He wanted her out of the weird, blinding flash as atom the way for the time being; he knew blaster and ozone gun triggered si­ there would be plenty of time for multaneously, and the purple-white her later . . . explosion as Smith's flare and Koor's Jingsara Koor and Thole stood bolt met— head on! side by side, their ozone guns men­ It was many minutes before the acing the cowering crew and passen­ eyes of the passengers and crew of gers who were pressing back against the Janus were able to see again, 54 / Astro-Adventures and when their sight cleared, all "But he only wanted the best for that remained of Jingsara Koor was you ..." a pile of blackened bones, in which "He wanted me to become a Zep hot ash sifted slowly. captain, like his father, and all Of their rescuers, Solar Smith the generations before that. That and Tan Cree, there was no sign— wasn't the life I wanted." nor did anyone, in the excitement, "So you ran— away from the trad­ notice that Virginia Dray was also ition, from him— and from me." among the missing . . . "You didn't understand, either," the Earthman said coldly, but his Below, in the cargo hold, Solar voice, too, held a quivering note. Smith and Tan Cree were clambering "Not then, Carl— but I do— now aboard the Sunscourge, their work I do. He'll be waking up, soon. done. Smith paused in his closing Why don't you come back; we can patch of the hatch when the slap of bare things up. It will be like it was feet sounded out in the companionway. before." Her violet eyes were soft Virginia Dray stepped into the and imploring. pale argon light, and stopped. Her Solar Smith, in spite of himself, soft violet eyes met the hard, blue- yielded to an impulse, and kissed dappled orbs of Solar Smith. Smith, her full on the mouth. Then he pull­ with a word to Tan Cree, stepped ed away, shaking his black-haired out to meet her. head. A wisp of silk about the hips "No, Virginia. I'm Solar Smith was Virginia's sole garment, and now. It can't be like it was before; her full bosom shuddered with some I have a job to finish. Maybe— maybe repressed emotion, but neither of when the last of the space pirates them paid any attention to her na­ are no more, I can stop being Solar kedness . Smith, but not until that day." "Hello, Virginia," he said. With a half-savage gesture, the "Hello, Carl," she answered, and man who was Solar Smith to the Nine her red lips quivered. Worlds clamped his bubble-helmet "It's been a long time ..." over his head. "Good-bye, Virginia," "Four years," she breathed. he said and reentered the waiting "You haven't changed, Virginia; Sunscourge■ you're still as beautiful as moon­ As the trim electrum ship slipped light." into the airlock tube, Virginia Dray "But you have, Carl— or should watched it depart, her eyes luminous I say 'Solar Smith'?— your face— with tears. Her ripe lips framed those scars . . ." She shivered words that were barely audible to and wrapped her full arms across her own ears, never mind those of her breasts. "I would never have Solar Smith. They were: guessed; neither would your father— " "Good-bye, Solar Smith. I'll "Leave him out of this," Solar keep your secret and— I'll be wait­ Smith said. ing ..."

Copyright © 1988

Contents of this issue by Cryptic Publications Robert M. Price, Editor 107 East James Street Mount Olive, North Carolina 28365 Cover art by Stephen E. Fabian Art on pages 1, 3, 27, and 47 by Robert H. Knox Art on pages 2 and 77 by Jason C. Eckhardt Art on page 55 by Hollingsworth WHAT HATH ME? by Henry Kuttner

He felt the lifeblood being sucked out of him— deeper stabbed the gelid cold . . . then the voice came, "Crush the heart!"

The man running through the forest the leaf-ceiling parted, a blaze gloom breathed in hot, panting gusts, of terribly bright stars flamed in pain tearing at his chest. Under­ the jet sky. It was cold and dark, foot the crawling, pale network of and the man knew that he was not tree-trunks lay flat upon the ground, on Earth. and more than once he tripped over They were following him, even a slippery hole and crashed down, here. but he was up again instantly. A sq'uat yellow figure, huge-eyed, He had no breath to scream. He inhuman, loomed in his path— one sobbed as he ran, his burning eyes of the swamp people of Southern Ven­ trying to pierce the shadows. Whis­ us. The man swung a wild blow at pers rustled down from above. When the thing, and his fist found noth­

55 56 / Astro-Adventures ing. It had vanished. But beyond "But he fights the gods. The it rose a single-legged giant, a only gods men know in these evil Martian, bellowing the great, gusty days— " laughter of the Redland Tribes. The The man awakened. man dodged, stumbled, and smashed Triphammers beat ringingly inside down heavily. He heard paddling his skull. He opened his eyes and footsteps and tried, with horrible closed them quickly against the sul­ intensity of purpose, to rise. He len red glow that beat down from could not. above. He lay motionless, gathering The Martian crept toward him— but his strength. it was no longer a Martian. An Earth­ What had happened? man, with the face of some obscene He didn't know. The jolting im­ devil, came forward with a sidling, pact of that realization struck him slow motion. Horns sprouted from violently. He felt a brief panic the low forehead. The teeth were of disorientation. Where— ? fangs. As the creature came nearer, I’m Derek Stuart, he thought. it raised its hands— twisted, gnarled At least it isn't complete amnesia. talons— and slid them about the man’s _I know who I am. But not where 1^ throat. a m . Through the forest thundered the This time when he opened his eyes deep, booming clangor of a brass they stayed open. Overhead a broad- gong. The sound shattered the phan­ leafed tree arched. Through its tom as a hammer shatters glass. In­ branches he could see a dark, starry stantly the man was alone. sky, the glowing, ringed disc of Making hoarse, animal sounds in Saturn very far away, and a deeply his throat, he staggered upright scarlet glow. and lurched in the direction from Not Earth, then. A Saturnian which the sound came. But he was moon? No, Saturn didn't eclipse too weak. Presently he fell, and most of the sky. Perhaps the aster­ this time he did not rise. His arms oid belt. moved a little and then were still. He moved his head a little, and He slept, lines of tortured weariness saw the red moon. twisting the haggard face. A e s i r ! Very faintly, from infinite dis- The message ripped along his stances, he heard a voice . . . two nerves into his brain. Stuart re­ voices. Inhuman. Alien— and yet acted instantly. His hard, strong with a warmth of vital urgency that body writhed, whipped over, and then stirred something deep within him. he was in a half-crouch, one hand "He has passed our testing." flashing to his belt while his eyes Then a stronger, more powerful searched the empty silence of the voice— answering. forest around him. There was no "Others have passed our testing— sound, no movement. but the Aesir slew them." Sweat stood on Stuart's forehead, "There is no other way. In this and he brushed it away impatiently. man 1^ sensed something— a little His deeply tanned face set into harsh different. He can hate— he has ha­ lines of curiously hopeless despera­ ted." tion. There was no blaster gun at "He will need more than hatred— " his belt; that didn't matter. Guns the deeper voice said. "Even with couldn't help him now— on Asgard. us tc) aid him. And there is little The red moon had told him the time. Strip his memories from him answer. Only one world in the System now, so that he may not be weakened had a red moon, and men didn't go by them— " to that artificial asteroid willing­ "May the gods fight with him." ly. They went, yes— but only to What Hath Me? / 57 be doomed and damned. From Venus Stuart picked up a heavy branch to Callisto spacemen spoke of Asgard that might serve as a club. Then, in hushed voices— Asgard where the shrugging, he turned westward, strik­ Aesir lived and ruled the worlds ing at random through the forest. of Man. No use waiting here till the Watchers No spaceships left Asgard, except came. At least— he could fight, the sleek black cruisers manned by as he had always fought as far back the priests of Aesir. No man had as he could remember. ever returned from Asgard. There wasn't much room for fight­ Stuart grinned mirthlessly. He'd ers any more. Not under the Aesir learned a lesson, though he'd never rule. There were nations and kings profit by it now. Always before and presidents, of course, but they he'd been confident of his ability were puppet figures, never daring to outdrink anyone of his own weight to disobey any edicts that came from and size. And certainly this slight, the mystery-shrouded asteroid hanging tired-eyed man at the Singing Star, off the orbit of Mars, the tiny, in New Boston, should have passed artificial world that had ruled the out long before Stuart— under normal System for a thousand years. circumstances. The Aesir. The inhuman, cryptic So the circumstances hadn't been beings who— if legend were true— once quite normal. It was a frame. A had been human. Stuart scowled, beautiful, air-tight frame, because trying to remember. he'd never come back to squawk. No­ An— entropic accelerator, that body came back from Asgard. was it. A device, a method that He shivered a little and looked speeded up evolution tremendously. up warily. There were legends, of That had been the start of the tyr­ course. The Watchers who patrolled anny. A machine that could accel­ the asteroid ceaselessly— robots, erate a man's evolution by a million men said. They served the Aesir. years— As, in a way, all men served the Some had used that method. Those A esir. were the ones who had become the No sound. No movement. Only Aesir, creatures so far advanced the sullen crimson light beating in the evolutionary scale that they down ominously from that dark sky. were no longer remotely human. Much Stuart took stock of his cloth­ was lost in the mists of the past. ing. Regular leatheroid spaceman's But Stuart could recall that much— rig; they'd left him that, anyway. the knowledge that the Aesir had Whoever they were. He couldn't re­ once been human, that they were human member anything that had happened no longer, and that for a thousand after the fifth drink with the tired­ years they had ruled the System, eyed man. There was a very faint very terribly, from their forbidden recollection of running somewhere— asteroid that they named Asgard— home seeing unpleasant things— and hearing of the legendary Norse gods. two oddly unreal voices. But the Maybe the tired-eyed man had been memories slipped away and vanished an Aesir priest, collecting victims. as he tried to focus on them. Certainly no others would have dared The hell with it. He was on As­ to land a ship on Asgard. Stuart gard. And that meant— something swung on, searching the empty skies, rather more unpleasant than death, and now a queer, unreasoning excite­ if the legends were to be believed. ment began to grow within him. At A very suitable climax to an unortho­ least, before he died, he'd learn dox life, in this era wh^n obedience what the Aesir were like. It prob­ at>d law enforcement were the rigid ably wouldn't be pleasant knowledge, rule. but there'd be some satisfaction 58 / Astro-Adventures in it. And there'd be even more trembling horror crawled along his satisfaction if he thought he had skin. Bodiless the thing might be— a chance of smashing a hard fist but it was dangerous, infinitely into the face of one of the Aesir s o ! priests— or even— Pressure, shifting, quicksand Hell, why not? He had nothing pressure, was all about him. That to lose now. From the moment he stealthy cold crept into his flesh had touched Asgard soil, he was damn­ and bones, frigid icicles jabbing ed anyway. But of one thing Stuart into his brain. Gasping with shock, was certain; he wouldn't be led like Stuart struck out. He had dropped a helpless sheep to the throat-cut- the club. Now he stooped and groped ting. He wouldn't die without fight­ for it, but he could see nothing ing against them. except a glittering veil of dia­ The forest thinned before him. monds that raced like a mad torrent There was a flicker of swift motion everywhere. far ahead. Stuart froze, his grip The humming rose again— ominously tightening on the cudgel, his eyes triumphant. searching. Cursing, Stuart staggered forward. Between the columnar trees, bright The star-cloak stayed. He tried amid the purple shadows, a glitter to grip it somewhere, to wrench it of sparkling nebulae swept. A web free, but he could not. The thou­ of light, Stuart thought— so dazzling sands of tiny eyes raced past him, his eyes ached as he stared at the— glittering with alien ecstasy, shin­ the thing. ing brighter and ever brighter as Bodiless, intangible, the shifting they fed. net of stars poised, high above his He felt the life being sucked head. Hundreds of twinkling, glit­ out of him. . . . Deeper stabbed tering pinpoints flickered there, the gelid cold . . . louder roared so swiftly it seemed as though an that throbbing tone in his ears. arabesque spider-web of light weaved He heard his voice gasping fur­ in the still, dark air— web of the ious, hopeless oaths. His eyes ached N o r n s ! with the strain of staring at that Each flickering star-fleck— watch­ blinding glitter. Then— ed. Each was an eye. The heart of the Watcher. Crush And as the thing poised, a hor­ the h e a r t ! rible, half-human hesitancy in its The words crashed like deep thun­ stillness, a deep, humming note der in his brain. Had someone spoken sounded, from its starry heart. them— ? No . . . for, with the com­ Star-points shook and quivered mand, had come a message as well. to the sound. Again it came— deeper, As though a thought had spoken within more menacing. his mind, a telepathic warning from— Questioning! where? Was this one of the— Watchers? His eyes strained at the dazzle. Was this one of them? Now he saw that there was a brighter Abruptly its hesitancy vanished; core that did not shift and change it swept down upon Stuart. Instinct­ when the rest of the star-cloud wove ively he swung his cudgel in a smash­ its dreadful net. A spot of light ing blow that sent him reeling for­ that— ward— for there was no resistance. He reached out . . . the nucleus The star-creature was as intangible darted away . . . he lurched forward, as air. on legs half-frozen, and felt a stone And yet it was not. The dazzling turn under his foot. As he crashed web of light enfolded him like a down, his hand closed and tightened blazing cloak. Instantly a cold, on something warm and living that What Hath Me? / 59 pulsed frantically against his palm. He went on, the curious tide of The humming rose to a shrill defiance rising higher and ever high­ scream . . . frightened er in his blood. It was a strangely warning. intoxicating sense of— of pure, crazy Stuart tightened his grip. He self-confidence such as no man should lay motionless, his eyes closed. rightfully have felt on this haunted But all around him he could feel asteroid. the icy tendrils of the star-thing He wondered— but the drunkenness lashing at him, drinking his human was such that he did not wonder much. warmth, probing with avid fingers He did not question. at his brain. He thought: To hell with the He felt that warm— core— writhe A e s i r ! and try to slip between his fingers. The forest ended. At his feet He squeezed . . . a road began, leading off into the The scream burst out, an inhuman purple horizons of the flat plain agony in its raw-edged keening. before him. At the end of that road It stopped. was a thrusting pillar of light that In Stuart's hand was— nothing. rose like a tower toward the dark He opened his eyes. The dazzling sky. glitter of star-points had vanished. There were the Aesir. . . . Only the forest, with its purple shadows, lay empty and silent around him. II Stuart got up slowly, swallowed dry-throated. The creatures of the Every spaceman has an automatic Aesir were not invulnerable, then. sense of orientation. In ancient Not to one who knew their weaknesses. days, when clipper ships sailed the How had he known? seas of Earth, the Yankee skippers What voice had spoken in his knew the decks beneath their feet, brain? There had been an odd, im­ and they knew the stars. Southern possible familiarity to that— that Cross or Pole Star told them in what mental voice, now that he remembered latitudes they sailed. In unknown it. Somewhere he had heard it, waters, they still had their familiar sensed it before. keels with the familiar stars. That gap in his memory— So it is with the spacemen who He tried to bridge it, but he drift from Pluto to Mercury Darkside, could not. There was only a quick­ trusting to metal hulls that shut ening of the desire to go on west­ in the air and shut out the vast ward. He felt suddenly certain that abysses of interplanetary space. he would find the Aesir in that di­ When they work outship, a glance rection. at the sky will tell a trained man He took a hesitant step— and an­ where he is— and only tough, trained other. And with each step, a queer, men survive the dangerous commerce unmotivated confidence poured into of space. On Mercury the blazing him. As though some barrier in his solar corona flames above the hori­ mind had broken down, letting some zon; on clouded Venus the green star strange flood of proud defiance rush of Earth shines sometimes. On Io, in. Callisto, Ganymede, a man can orient It was impossible. It was dan­ himself by the gigantic mother planet gerous. But— certainly— no more — Saturn or Jupiter— and in the As­ dangerous than supinely waiting here teroid Belt, there is always the °n Asgard till another Watcher came strange procession of little worlds to destroy him. There were worse like lanterns, some half-shadowed, things than the starry Watchers here, others brightly reflecting the Sun's if legends were to be trusted. glare. Anywhere in the System the 60 / Astro-Adventures sky is friendly— into the silver mists. Except on Asgard. Jupiter was Twenty steps he took— and paused, too far and too small; Mars was as something dark and shapeless swam scarcely visible; the Asteroid Belt into view before him. A pit— at not much thicker than the Milky Way. his feet. The unfamiliar magnitudes of the In the dimness he could not see planets told Stuart, very surely, its bottom, but a narrow bridge cros­ that he was on unknown territory. sed the gulf, a little to his left. He was without the sure, safe anchor Stuart crossed the bridge. Solidity that spacemen depend upon, and that was again under his feet. lack told him how utterly he stood With shocking suddenness, a great, alone now. brazen bellow of laughter roared But the unreasoning confidence out. Harsh mockery sharpened it. did not flag. If anything, it mount­ And it was echoed. ed stronger within him as he hurried All around Stuart the laughter along the road, his rangy legs eating thundered— and was answered. The up the miles with easy speed. The walls gave it back and echoed it. sooner he reached his goal, the bet­ The bellowing laughter of gods deaf­ ter he'd like it. Nor did he wish ened Stuart. to encounter any more of the Aesir's The mists drifted away— were suck­ guardians— his business was with ed down into the pit. They vanished. the Aesir! As though they fled from that The tower of light grew taller evil laughter. as he went on. Now he saw that it Stuart stood in a chamber that was a cluster of buildings, massed must have occupied the entire base cylinders of varying heights, each of that enormous tower. Behind him one gigantic in diameter as well the abyss gaped. Before him a shift­ as height, and all shining with that ing veil of light hid whatever lay cold, shadowless radiance that ap­ behind it. But all around, between parently came from the stone— or monstrous pillars, were set thrones, metal— itself. The road led directly ebon thrones fifty feet tall. to the base of the tallest tower. On the thrones sat giants! It ran between shining pillars— a Titan figures, armored in glit­ gateless threshold— and was lost tering mail, ringed Stuart, and in­ in silvery mists. No bars were need­ stantly his mind fled back to half­ ed to keep visitors out of this fort­ forgotten folk-lore. . . . Asgard, ress ! Jotunheim, the lands of the giants Briefly a cool wind of doubt blew and the gods. Thor and Odin, sly upon Stuart. He hesitated, wishing Loki and Baldur— they were all here, he had at least his blaster gun. he thought, bearded colossi roaring But he was unarmed; he had even left their black laughter into the shaking the club back in the forest. air of the hall. He glanced around. Watching him from their height— The red moon was sinking. A heav­ Then he looked up, and the giants ier darkness was dreeping over the were dwarfed. land. Very far away he thought he The chamber was roofless. At saw the shifting flicker of dancing least he could see no roof. The lights— a Watcher? pillars climbed up and up tremend­ He hurried onward. ously all around the walls that were Cyclopean, the tower loomed above hung with vast stretches of tapestry, him, like a shining rod poised to till they dwindled to a pinpoint strike. His gaze could not pierce far above. The sheer magnitude of the mists beyond the portal. the tower made Stuart's mind rock He stepped forward— between the dizzily. twin pillars. He walked on blindly Still the laughter roared out. What Hath Me? / 61

But now it died. . . . vanish— not many— and the black ships Thundered through the hall a voice of the Aesir priests sped back to . deep . . . resonant . . . the Asgard iwth their captives. voice of the Aesir. Not one looked up. Frozen motion­ "A human, brother!" less as stone, they stood there in "A y e ! A human— and a mad o n e , the pit— waiting. to come here." Again the laughter crashed out. "To enter the hall of the Aesir." The redbeard was watching Stuart. A red-bearded colossus bent down, "His courage flags," the great his glacial blue eyes staring at voice boomed. "Speak the truth, Stuart. "Shall 1^ crush him?" Earthman. Have you courage to face Stuart sprang back as an immense the gods?" hand swooped down like a falling Stuart stubbornly refused to an­ tree upon him. Instinctively his swer. He had an odd, reasonless hand flashed to his belt, and sud­ impression that this was part of denly the red-beard was shouting some deep game, that behind the mock­ laughter that the others echoed. ing by-play lay a more serious pur­ "He has courage■" pose . "Let him live." "He has courage now," a giant "Aye ■ Let him live. He may amuse said. "But did he always have cour­ us for a while. ..." age? Has there never been a time "And then?" in his life when courage failed him? "Then the pit— with the others■" Answer, Earthman!" The others? Stuart slanted a Stuart was listening to another glance downward. The silver mists voice, a quiet, infinitely distant had dissipated now, and he could voice within his brain that whis­ see that the abyss was not bottom­ pered: Do not answer them! less. Its floor was fifty feet below "Let him pass our testing," the the surface on which he stood, and redbeard commanded. "If he fails, a dozen figures were visible beneath. there is an end. If he does not They stood motionless— like stat­ fail— he goes into the pit to walk ues. A burly, leather-clad Earthman the Long Orbit." who might have been whisked from The giant leaned forward. some Plutonian mine; a slim, scantily "Will you match skill— and courage clad Earthgirl, her hair powdered — with us, Earthling?" blue, her costume the shining sequin- Still Stuart did not answer. More suit of a tavern entertainer. A than ever now he sensed the violent, stocky, hunch-shouldered Venusian hidden undercurrents surging beneath with his slate-gray skin; a Martian the surface of this by-play. More girl, seven feet tall, with limbs than he knew swung in the balance and features of curious delicacy, h e r e . her hair piled high atop that narrow He nodded. skull. Another Earthman— a thin, "He has courage," a giant repeat­ pale, clerklike fellow. A white­ ed. "But did he always have cour­ skinned, handsome Callistan slave, age?" looking like Apollo, and, like all "We shall see . . ." the redbeard Callistans, harboring the cold sav- s a i d . agery of a demon behind that smooth The air shimmered before Stuart. nask. Through its shaking his senses played A dozen of them— drawn from all him false. He knew quite well who Parts of the System. Stuart remem­ he was and where he stood, in what bered that this was the time of the deadly peril— but in that shimmer Perioding tithing— which meant noth- which bewildered the eyes and the :'-ng less than a sacrifice. Once mind he was a boy again, seeing a each month a few men and women would certain hillside he had not seen 62 / Astro-Adventures except through his boyhood's eyes. child's horror, resurrected from And he saw a black horse standing the caves of sleep to ruin him. above him on the slope, pawing the ground and looking at him with red With a superhuman effort he broke eyes. And an old, old terror came that frozen fear, snatching for the flooding over him that he had not flying reins, whirling as the mon­ remembered for a quarter of a cent­ strous thing swept past him in a ury. A boy's acute and sudden ter­ thunder of terrifying hoofs. Des­ ror . . . perately he clung to the reins, and Who had opened the doors of his as the thing rushed by he somehow mind and laid this secret bare? He got a clutching hand upon the saddle- himself had long forgotten— and who horn and found a stirrup that swung upon this alien world could look sickeningly when it took his weight. back through space and time to remind Then he was in the saddle, dizzy him of that long-ago day when the still with the terrors of childhood, vicious black horse had thrown an but astride the nightmare. inexperienced boy rider and planted And now, with a sudden intoxica­ a seed of terror in his mind which ting clarity, the fear fell from he had been years outgrowing? But his mind. For an instant he sat the fear was long gone now, long high on the back of the incredible gone .... Was it ? fanged thing, an old, old terror Then whence had come this mon­ clearing from his mind. Confidence strous black stallion that pawed which was, he knew, his own and no the floor of the hall, glaring down bodiless reassurance drawn from red-eyed at him and showing teeth dreams, such as he had felt in the like fangs? No horse, but a monster jungle, flooded warmly through him. in the shape of a horse, a monster He was not afraid any more— he would ten feet high at the shoulder, wear­ never be afraid. The festering ter­ ing the shape of his boyhood night­ ror buried deep in his childhood mare that woke in Stuart even now had come to light at last and was the old, unreasoning horror . . . wiped away. He caught the reins It was stamping down upon him, tight and flashed a sudden grin a- shaking its bridled head, snorting, round the hall— lifting its lip above the impossible Brazen laughter boomed through teeth. He saw the reins hanging the building. And beneath his knees loose, he saw the saddle and the Stuart felt the horse's body alter swinging stirrips. He knew that incredibly. One moment he was grip­ the only safety in this hall for ping a solid, warm-fleshed, hairy him was paradoxically upon the night­ thing whose body had a familiar pitch mare's back, where the hoofs and and motion beneath the saddle. Then, fangs could not reach him. But the then— terror and revulsion which the boy Indescribably the body writhed had buried long ago came welling under him. The warm hairy flesh up from founts deep-buried in the flowed and changed. Cold struck man's subconscious mind. . . . through leatheroid against his Now it was rushing him, head like thighs, and it was a smooth, pouring a snake's outthrust, hissing like cold of many alien muscles working a snake, reins flying like Medusa- powerfully together in a way no mam­ locks as it stretched to seize him. mal knows. He looked down. For one instant he stood there para­ He was riding a monstrous snake lyzed. He had faced dangers on many that twisted its head to look at worlds to which this nightmare was him in the moment he realized what nothing, but he had never since boy­ had happened. Its great diamond­ hood felt the paralysis of horror shaped head towered high and came that gripped him now. It was a looping down toward him, wide-mouth­ What Hath Me? / 63 ed, tongue like a flame flickering. And it was from there that the crawl­ ing dread reached out to him. It laid its cold, smooth cheek Faintly he heard laughter . . . of against his with a hideous caressing the gods . . . of the Aesir. The motion, sliding around his neck, Aesir? Who— what were they? How sliding down his arm and side, lay­ had he, Derek Stuart, ever heard ing a loop of cold, scaly strength of them except as a name whispered around him and pressingm pressing. in fear as the spaceships streaked through the clouds above that Dakota His hands closed around the thick­ farmstead. . . . ness of its throat, futilely— and Derek Stuart . . . a boy of ele­ the throat melted in his grasp and ven . . . was hairy with a hairiness no mammal But— but— that was wrong, somehow. ever knew. The motion of the body He wasn't a child any more. He had he bestrode changed again and was matured, become a spaceman— incredibly springy and light. Dreams. The dreams of an eleven- He rode a monstrous spider. His year-old. hands were sunk wrist-deep in loath­ Yet the hollow, dreadful laughter some coarse hair, and his eyes stared throbbed somewhere, in the vaults into great cold faceted eyes that of the blue overhead, in the solidity mirrored his own face a thousandfold. of the very ground beneath him. He saw his own distorted features This had happened before. It looking back at him in countless had happened to a boy in South Dakota miniatures, but behind the faces, — a boy who had not known what lay in the great eyes of the spider, concealed in that verdant clump of he saw no consciousness regarding w e e d s . him. The cold multiple eyes were But now, somehow— and very not aware of Derek Stuart. Behind strangely— Stuart knew what he would the shield of its terrible face the find there. spider shut away its own arachnid He was afraid. Horribly, sicken- thoughts and the memories of the ingly afraid. Cold nausea crawled red fields of Mars that were its up his spine and the calves of his home. With dreadful, impersonal legs. He wanted to turn and run aloofness its mandibles gaped for­ to the farmhouse half a mile away. ward toward its prey. He almost turned, and then paused Loathing ran in waves of weakness as the distant laughter grew louder. through Stuart's whole body, but They wanted him to run. They he shut his eyes and blindly struck were trying to scare him— and, once out at the nearer of those great the defenses of his courage had bro­ mirroring eyes, feeling wetness shat­ ken, he would be lost. Stuart knew ter against his fist as— as— that with an icy certainty. As the horror shifted and van­ Somewhere, very far away, he sens­ ished, while rippling waves of green ed a man standing in a cyclopean light darkened all about him. Now hall— a man in ragged spaceman's they coagulated, drew together into garb, hard-faced, thin-lipped, angry- a meadow, cool with Earthly grass, eyed. A familiar figure. The man bordered by familiar trees far away. was urging him on— telling him to Primroses gleamed here and there. go on toward that clump of weeds— Above him was the blue sky and the Derek Stuart obeyed the voiceless warm bright sun that shone only upon command. His throat dry, his heart the hills of Earth. pumping, he forced himself across But what he felt was horror. the meadow till he stood at his goal Twenty feet from him was a rank, and looked down at the bloody, twist­ founded patch of weeds. His gaze ed corpse of the tramp who had been Was drawn inexorably to that spot. knifed by another hobo, twenty years 64 / Astro-Adventures before, on that Dakota farm. The nificance by comparison did not old nausea of shocked horror took trouble him. him by the throat and strangled him. Whether or not he could have the He fought it down. This time slightest hope of winning this game— he didn't run screaming back to the at least he was giving his enemies farmhouse. . . . a run for their money! And suddenly the laughter of the A sound from the pit roused him. gods was stilled. Derek Stuart, Stuart walked warily toward the edge. a man once more in mind, stood again The dozen motionless figures were in the tower of the Aesir. The still there, fifty feet below, and thrones between the monstrous pillars among them was one he had not noticed were vacant. before— an Earthgirl, he thought, The Aesir were gone. with curling dark hair framing a white face as she tilted up her chin and stared at him. Ill At this distance he could make out few details; she wore a close- Stuart let out his breath in a fitting green suit which left slender long sigh. He had no illusions about arms and legs bare. the vanishment of the Aesir; he knew "Earthman— " she said, in a clear, he had not conquered those mighty carrying voice. "Earthman! Quick! beings. It would take more than The Aesir will be back— go now! Leave human powers to do that. But at their temple before they— " least he had a respite. All but "Don't waste your breath," Stuart the most stolid spacemen develop said. "This is Asgard." Whoever hypertension, and there seems to the girl was, she should know the be a curious mathematical rule about impossibility of leaving the taboo that; it increases according to the world. "If I can find a rope— " distance from the Sun. Which may She said quickly, "You won't find be explained by the fact that envir­ one. Not here, in the temple." onmental differences also increase "How can I get you out of there? as the outer planets are reached— And the others?" and alien environments breed alien "You're mad," the girl said. "What ceatures. A great many men have good would it do. . . ." She shook gone insane on Pluto. . . . her head. "Better to die at once." This was not Pluto; it was nearer Stuart narrowed his eyes at the Sunward than Jupiter, but the utter dozen frozen figures. "I don't think alienage that brooded over Asgard so. Fourteen of us can put up a was almost palpable. Even the sol­ better fight than one. If your idity under Stuart's feet, the very friends wake up— " stones of the planetoid, were arti­ The girl said, "On your left, ficially created, by a science a between the pillars, there's a tap­ million years beyond that of his estry showing Perseus and the Gorgon. own time. And the Aesir— Touch the helm of Perseus and the Unexpectedly his deep chest shook hand of Andromeda. Then go carefully with laughter. The inexplicable — there may be traps." self-confidence that had first come "What is it?" to him in the Asgard forests had "It will lead you down here. You not waned; it seemed to have grown can free us. If you hurry— oh, but even stronger since his meeting with it's hopeless! The Aesir— " the Aesir giants. Now he stared "Damn the Aesir," Stuart snarled. around the colossal hall, his eyes "Wake up the others!" He whirled straining toward the spot of light and ran toward the distant wall, far above where those incredible where he could see the Perseus tap­ columns converged. His own insig­ estry, brown and gold, a huge curtain What Hath Me? / 65 between two columns. disturbingly lovely interplanetary If the Aesir saw, they made no halfbreeds. Earth-blood she had, move. . . . of course, and predominantly, but Stuart's lips twisted in a bitter there was something more, the pure smile. The crazy confidence had essence of beauty that blazed through not left him, but he was conscious her like a flame kindled in a lamp of a reassuring warmth; at least of crystal. In all his wanderings he was no longer completely alone. between the worlds, Stuart had never That would help. Between the worlds, seen a girl as breathtakingly lovely and on the desolate planets that as this one. swing along the edge of the System, His hand moved on the controls: loneliness is the lurking terror, the door slid silently open. The more horrible than the most exotic girl's eyes brightened. She gave monster ever spawned by the radio­ a little gasp and ran toward him. active Plutonian earth. Without question she sought refuge He touched the tapestry twice; in his arms, and for a moment Stuart it swept away from him, and a stair­ held her— not unwillingly. case was visible, leading down He thrust her away gently. through stone or metal— he could "The others." not tell which. Stuart fought back She said, "It's useless. The the impulse that urged him to race paralysis— " down those curving spiral steps. Stuart scowled and stepped across The girl had spoken of traps. the threshold into the pit. Uneasi­ He went warily, testing each tread ness crawled along his spine as he before he put his weight upon it. did so. The Aesir might be watching Though he did not think that the from above, or— or— snares of the Aesir would be so sim­ There was nothing. Only dead ple . silence, and the uneven breathing At the bottom, he emerged into of the girl as she stood in the door­ a vaulted chamber, tiny by comparison way watching. Stuart stopped before with the one he had left. It was the leather-clad Earthman and tested oval, domed ceiling and walls and a burly arm. The man stood frozen, floor shining with a milky radiance— his flesh cold and hard as stone, except at one spot. his eyes staring glassily. He was There he saw a door— transparent. not even breathing. Through it he looked into the pit. So with the others. Stuart grim­ He was on a level with the floor aced and shrugged. He turned back of that shaft now; he could see the toward the girl, and felt a pulse dozen figures still standing motion­ of relief as he stepped into the less in a huddled group, and a few shining chamber. He might be no feet beyond the glassy pane was the safer here, but at least he wasn't Earthgirl. She was looking directly so conscious of inhuman eyes that at him, but her dark eyes had a blind might be watching from above. Not seeking, as though the door was opa­ that solid stone might be any bar­ que from her side. rier to the Aesir's probing gaze. Stuart paused, his hand on the complicated mechanism that, he guess­ The girl touched the mechanism; ed, would open the portal. His hard, the door slid silently shut. "It's dark face was impassive, but he was no use," she said. "The paralysis conscious of an unfamiliar stirring holds all the others. Only I could deep within him. From above, he battle it— a little. And that was had not seen the girl's beauty. because— " He saw it now. "Save it," Stuart said. He turned She couldn't be an Earthgirl— en­ toward the door by which he had en­ tirely. She must be one of those tered, but an urgent hand gripped 66 / Astro-Adventures his w r i s t . It faded and was gone. "Let me talk," the quiet voice "There's nothing," Stuart said said. "We're as safe here as any­ finally, and Kari moved her shoulders where . And there may be a way— now uneasily. that I can think clearly again." "No help there, then." "A way out? A safe way?" "Tell me one thing. What's the There was a haunted look in her Aesir's power? Hypnotism?" dark eyes. "I don't know. I've "No," Kari said, "or not entirely. lived here for a long time. The They can make thoughts into real others— " she pointed toward the things. They are— what the race door of the pit. "The sacrifices of man will evolve into in a million were brought to Asgard only yester­ years. And they have changed, into day. But I've been here many moons. beings utterly alien to humans." The Aesir kept me alive for a bit, "They looked human— giants, to amuse them. Then they tired, though." and I was thrown in with the others. "They can assume any shape," Kari But I learned a little. I— I— no told him. "Their real form is unim­ one can dwell here in the Aesir aginable. Being of pure energy stronghold without— changing a lit­ . mental force . . . matrixes tle. That's why the paralysis didn't of electronic power. They were stri­ hold me as long as it holds the king at you through your mind." others." Stuart said, "I wondered why they "Can we save them?" didn't set some of their Watchers "I don't know," she said, with on me." a small, helpless shrug. "I don't "I don't know why they didn't," even know if we can save ourselves. Kari frowned. "Instead, they ham­ It's been so long since I was brought mered at your weaknesses— old fears to Asgard that I— I scarcely remember that hung on to you for years. Ex­ my life before that. But I have periences that frightened you in learned a little of the Aesir— and the past. They sent your mind back that may help us now." into that past— but you were too Stuart watched her. She tried strong for them." to smile, but not successfully. "Too strong— ?" She said, "I'm Kari. The rest— "Then. They have other powers, I've forgotten. You're— " Stuart— incredible powers. You can't "Derek Stuart." fight them alone. And you must fight "Tell me what happened." them. In a thousand years no one "We haven't time," Stuart said has dared— " impatiently, but Kari shook her head. Stuart remembered something. "Two "We'll need weapons, and I must dared— once." know— first— if you can use them. Kari nodded. "I know. I know Tell me!" the legends, anyway. About John Well, she was right. She had Starr and Lorna. The great rebels knowledge that Stuart needed. So who first defied the Aesir when the he told her, very briefly, what he tyranny began. But they may have remembered. been only legendary figures. Even She stared at him. "Voices— in if they were real— they failed." your mind?" "Yes, they failed. And they're "Something like that. I don't a thousand years dead. But it shows know— " something— to me at least. Man wasn't "No. No. Or— wait— " He tried to be a slave to these monsters. to focus his thoughts upon a far, Rebellion— " faint calling that came from infinite Kari watched him. Stuart's eyes distances. His name— an urgent sum­ were shadowed. mons— "John Starr and Lorna," he whis- What Hath Me? / 67 pered. "I wonder what their world what I want." was like, a thousand years ago? We've "A blaster wouldn't help," Kari got all the worlds now, all the plan­ said. "This is more than a piece ets of the System from Jupiter to of cloth, Stuart. It is half alive— the smallest asteroid. But we don't made so by the sciences of the Aesir. rule them, as men owned their own Wear it! It will protect you." E a r t h in t h o s e days. We're slaves She swung the great, scarlet bil­ to the Aesir." lows about Stuart's shoulders. Her "The Aesir are— are gods." fingers fumbled with the clasp at "John Starr didn't think so," his throat. And then— Stuart said. "Neither do I. And She li e s ! at worst I can always die, as he The desperate urgency of the did. Listen, Kari." He gripped thought roared through Stuart's mind. her arms. "Think. You've lived He knew that soundless voice, so here for a while. Is there any weap­ sharp now with violent intensity. on against those devils?" His hands came up to rip the cloak She met his gaze steadily. "Yes," from him— she said. "But— " He was too late. Kari sprang "What is it? Where?" back, wide-eyed, as the fastenings Abruptly Kari's face changed. of the cloak tightened like a noose She pressed herself against Stuart, about Stuart's neck. He felt a stin­ avoiding his lips, simply seeking— he ging shock that ran like white fire knew— warmth and companionship. She along his spine and up into his was crying softly. brain. One instant of blazing dis­ "So long— " Kari whispered, her orientation, a hopeless, despairing arms tight around him. "I've been cry in his mind— a double cry, as here so long— with the gods. And of two telepathic voices— and then, I'm so lonely, Derek Stuart. So his muscles too weak to hold him, lonely for green fields and fires he crashed down upon the floor. and the blue sky. I wish— " It was not paralysis. He was "You'll see Earth again," Stuart simply drained of all strength. There promised. At that Kari pulled away. was pressure about his throat, cold Her strange half-breed loveliness flames along his spine and in his was never more real than then, with brain, and he could feel the texture tears sparkling on her dark lashes, of the cloak wrapped about him, stri­ and her mouth trembling. king through his spaceman's garb— She said, a catch in her voice, tingling, sentient, half-alive! "I'll show you the weapon, Stuart." He whispered an oath. Kari's She turned toward the wall. Her face had not changed. He read some­ hand moved in a quick gesture. A thing strangely like pity in her panel opened there in the glowing dark ey e s . surface. From the gap in the wall whence Kari reached in, and when she she had drawn the cloak came a fig­ withdrew her arm, it was as though ure, cloaked in black, a jet cowl she held a torrent of blood that hiding its head and face completely. poured !.:■'«!: from her grip. It was It was taller than the girl by a a clos.; , . ft saw, made of some foot. It shuffled forward with an material so tine that it rippled odd, rocking gait, and paused near like water. Its crimson violence h e r . was bizarre against the cool green Stuart whispered, "I— should have °f Kari's garment. remembered. The— the Aesir can "This cloak— " she said. "You change their shapes. Those giants must wear it if we face the Aesir." I saw weren't real. And neither ■Stuar grimaced. "What good is are you— not even human!" a piece of cloth? A blaster gun's Kari shook her head. "I am real," 68 / Astro-Adventures she said slowly. "He is not." She his captivity and the deeper dark gestured toward the black-cloaked of his loneliness, now that the voic­ figure. "But we are all of the Ae- es were stilled. Lovely, exotic, sir. And, as we thought, you were with the eyes full of longing and sent by the Protectors. Now your terror— what lies they told!— and power is gone, and you must walk that lovely, that dazzling smile. the Long Orbit with the other cap­ Bitterness made a wry taste in tives ." his mouth. Either she was one of The cowled creature came forward. the Aesir, or she served them. Served It bent, but Stuart could see nothing them well. A knife in the heart in the shadow of the hood. A fold was the only answer he had for her, of cloth writhed out and touched and he meant to give her that edged Stuart's forehead. answer if he lived. But she was Darkness wrapped him like the so very lovely. . . . shroud of the scarlet cloak. Slowly the veil of darkness lift­ ed. He saw a face he had seen be­ fore— the harsh, seamed features IV of the burly Earthman in the pit. And beyond him, the slim Martian For a long time he had only his girl. All motionless, standing like thoughts for company. They were statues beside him . . . beside him! not pleasant. He felt alone, as For Stuart was one of them now. He he had never felt so utterly lonely was in the pit, with the other cap­ and deserted before anywhere in the tives . System. Now he realized that ever Sensation came back slowly. With since his landing on Asgard, he had it came a tingling, a warm vibration had companionship of a sort— that along his spine . . . about his the twin voices murmuring in his throat . . . inside his brain. He brain had been more real than he could not move, but at the corner had realized. A living warmth, a of his range of vision flamed a crim­ sense of— of presence— had been with sonness— the cloak. He still wore him then. i t . But it was gone now. Its absence He wondered if the other captives left a black void within him. He could see him, if their minds were stood alone. as active as his in their congealed And Kari . . . If he saw her again bodies. Or whether the chill of when his hands were free, he would deathlike silence held their brains kill her. He knew that. But— but with their frozen limbs. her shining smile lightened the dark­ A slow, volcanic fury began to ness that engulfed him now. He had glow within him. Kari— traitor and never seen loveliness like Kari's, murderess! Was she Aesir? Was she and he had known so many women, so Earth-born? And that black-cloaked, many, too many. . . . A man who has cowled creature . . . which was not fought his way Sunward and back again real. Another projector of the Ae­ by way of Pluto's chasmed midnight sir, as the giants had been? is not so easily misled by the smile You were sent by the Protectors. of a pretty woman. Memory of Kari's phrase came back Kari was no ordinary woman— God to Stuart now. And with it, as knew she was not! Perhaps not even though he had somehow unbarred a human, perhaps not even real at all. locked gate, opened it mere crak, It might be that very touch of alien­ came a— a whispering. age that had stamped her shining Not audible. Faint, far away, image upon his memory, but he could like the shadow of a wind rustling not put the image aside now. He ghosts of autumn leaves, the murmur saw her clearly in the darkness of rose and fell . . . calling him. What Hath Me? / 69

The scarlet cloak moved Like a slowly rising tide, Stu­ writhed . . . flowed more closely art's past began to return. He did about him. Fainter grew the voices. not question how this was done; he Stuart strained after them. His was too busy lifting the veil that soul sprang up . . . reaching toward had darkened his mind since— since those friendly, utterly inhuman whis­ that night at the Singing Star in pers that came from nowhere. New Boston. A few drinks with the A dull lethargy numbed him. The tired-eyed man, and then darkness— cloak drew tighter. . . . But the curtain was lifting now. He ignored it. Deep in the cita­ He remembered . . . del of his mind, he made himself He remembered a tiny, underground receptive, all his being focused room, with armed men— not many of on that— that strange calling from them— staring at him. A voice that beyond. said, "You must either join us or And, suddenly, there were words. die. We dare run no risks. For hundreds of years a tiny band of "Perk Stuart. Can you hear us? us has survived, only because the Answer!" Aesir did not know we existed." His stiff lips could not speak, "Rebels?" he had asked. but his thoughts formed an answer. "Sworn to destroy the Aesir," And, rising and falling as though the man told him, and an answering the frequency of that incredible glow burned briefly in the eyes of telepathy pulsed and changed contin­ the others. ually, the message came— Stuart laughed. "We have lost. You have lost "You have courage," the man said. too, Stuart. But we will stay with "You' 11 need it. I know why you you— we must stay now— and perhaps laugh. But we don't fight alone. your death will be easier because Have you ever heard of the Protec­ of that. ..." tors?" "Who are you?" he thought, oddly "Never." awed by the personality he sensed "Few have. They aren't human, behind that voice that was really any more than the Aesir are. But two voices. they are not evil. They're human­ "There is little time." The— ity's champions. They have sworn sound?— faded into a thin whisper, to destroy the Aesir, as we have— then grew stronger. "The cloak makes and so we serve them." it hard for us to communicate with "Who are they, then? What are you. And now we can give you none they?" of our power at all. It is a m on­ "No man knows," the other said strous thing— a blasphemy such as quietly. "Who— and where— they are only the Aesir would create. Half- is a secret they keep to themselves. alive— it makes an artificial synapse But we hear their messages. And between the individual and outside once in a lifetime, not oftener, mental contacts. We cannot help they tell us where we may find some you— " man they have winnowed the planets "Who are you?" to discover. In our lifetime, Stu­ "We are the Protectors. Listen art, you are the man." now, Stuart, for soon you must walk He gaped at them. "Why? I— " the Long Orbit with the others. We "To be a weapon for the Protectors removed some of your memories, so — a champion for mankind. The Pro­ the Aesir could not read your mind tectors are so far beyond humanity and have time to prepare themselves— they cannot fight our battles in hoped we might destroy them this their own forms. They need a— a time. But— we have failed again. vessel into which they can pour their Now— we give you your memories back." power. Or— call it a sword to wield 70 / Astro-Adventures against the Aesir. They have search­ gathered in hidden rooms and sworn ed the worlds over for a long while vows against tyranny and oppression? now, and you— " The man hesitated, How many times before had Earthmen looking narrowly at Stuart. "You dedicated themselves and their son's are the only vessel they found. You sons, if need be, to the old, old have a great destiny, Derek Stuart." dream that though men may die, man­ He had scowled at them. "All kind must in the end be free? right, suppose I have. What do they Here in this crowded room the offer?" torch of freedom still burned, de­ The man shook his head. "Death— spite the hell of slavery under which if you're lucky. No man before you the worlds toiled now. has ever won a battle for the Protec­ He hesitated. tors. You know that— the Aesir still "It won't be easy, Stuart," the rule! Every chance is against you. man warned. "A sword-blade must In a thousand years no man has won be hammered on the anvil, heated the gamble. But this is greater in flame, before it's tempered. The than you or us, Derek Stuart. Do Protectors will test you— so that you think you have any choice?" your mind may be toughened to resist Stuart stared the other man in the attacks of the Aesir later. You the eyes. "There's no chance?" will suffer. . . ." The leader smiled. All mankind's He had suffered. Those agonizing, indomitable hope was in the smile. nightmare dreams in the forest, the "Would the Protectors have spent phantoms that had tortured him— other all their efforts, and ours, to find trials he did not want to remember. you if there were no hope? They But there had been no flaw in the have mighty and terrible powers. blade. In the end— the Protectors With the right man for their vessel, had been satisfied, and had entered they could be stronger than the Ae­ his mind— maintaining contact that sir. No man could stand alone a- still held, though thinly now. gainst the Aesir. The Protectors And the voices he heard still could not stand alone. But together whispering within him were the voices — sword and hald and brain welded of his mentors. . . . into one— yes, Stuart, there's a "We took your memories from you. c h a n c e !" So that the Aesir could not read "Then why have the others failed?" too much in your mind, and be fore­ "No one has yet been quite strong warned. Now that does not matter, enough. Only once in forty years— and you will be stronger with your fifty— is a man born who might, with memory restored. But when you let luck, have the courage and the the girl clasp the cloak about you— strength. Look at us here— do you that was failure." think we would not offer ourselves "If I could move," Stuart thought. gladly? Instead, the Protectors "If I could rip it off— " guided us to you. If you are willing "It is part of you. We do not to let them establish contact with know how it can be removed. And your mind, enter it, possess it— while you wear it, we cannot give there's a chance the Aesir can be you our power." destroyed. There's a chance that Stuart said bitterly, "If you'd man's slavery may be ended!" His given me that power in the first voice shook with that mighty hope. place— " Stuart glanced around at the ard­ "We did. How do you think you ent, fanatical faces, and something survived the first testing by the in him took a slow fire in theirs. Aesir? And it is dangerous. We A deep and vital purpose, as old must gauge it carefully, so that as humanity— how many times before we do not transmit too much of our in Earth's history had men of Earth mental energy to you. You are merely What Hath Me? / 71 human— if we let you draw on a tenth "We will take the risk. But un­ 0f our power, that would burn you derstand— we must leave you if the oUt like a melting wire under a peril grows too great. And will— strong current." inevitably." "So— what now?" "Thanks," Stuart said, and meant "We have lost again. You have it. "One thing. What about Kari? lost, and we are sorry. All we can Who is she?" do is give you an easy death. We "A hundred years ago she was hu­ possess you now, mentally; if we man. Then she was brought here, should withdraw from your brain, and the Aesir possessed her— as we you would die instantly. We will possess you. She has grown less do that whenever you ask. For the human in that time, as the alien Aesir will kill you anyhow now, and grows stronger within her. She has not pleasantly." only faint memories of her former "I'm not committing suicide. As life now, and they will vanish soon. long as I live, I can still fight." Contact with the Aesir is like an "We also. This has happened be­ infection— she will grow more and fore. We have chosen and possessed more like them. Perhaps, eventually, other champions, and they have fail­ become one of them." ed. We withdrew from their minds Stuart grimaced. "If the Aesir before the Aesir . . . killed . . . should withdraw from her— " so that we could survive to try a- "She would die, yes. Her own gain. To wage another battle. Some life-force has been sapped too far. day we will win. Some day we shall You and she are kept alive only as destroy the Aesir. But we dare not long as the bond of possession cling to our broken swords, lest holds." we too be broken." Nice, Stuart thought. If the "So when the going gets tough Aesir were destroyed, Kari would you step out!" die with him. And if he faced doom, Stuart sensed pity in the strange he too would die, as the Protectors twin voice. "We must. We fight withdrew to avoid sharing his fate. for the race of man. And the great­ Hell— what did he care whether est gift we can give you now is quick Kari lived or died? It was only death." the glamor of half-alienage that "I don't want it," Stuart thought had drawn him to the girl. A dagger furiously. "I'm going to keep on in her throat— fighting! Maybe that's why you've Besides, he was certainly facing always failed before— you were too doom now. ready to give up. So I'll die if "All I can do— " he said— and you step out of my mind? Well— it's stopped abruptly. He was speaking a lousy bargain!" aloud. Patiently the twin voice There was no anger, only a strong­ in his brain waited for him to con­ er overtone of pity in the still tinue . voice. Slowly he flexed his arms. He "What is it you want, Stuart?" tilted back his head, staring up "Nothing from you! Just let me at the rim of the pit fifty feet go on living. I'll do my own fight­ above him. He could see the titan ing. There'll be time enough to pillars rising toward the roof of take a powder when the axe falls. that mighty tower, incredibly far I'm asking you simply this— keep above. But there was no sign of ®e alive until I've had another crack lif e. at the Aesir!" "I can move," he said. "I— " A pause. "It is dangerous. Dan­ Struck by a new thought, he grip­ gerous for us. But— " ped the folds of the cloak. It was "Well?" nauseously warm and vibrant. It 72 / Astro-Adventures seemed to move under his hands. He glaring flames . . . flame-hot. With­ jerked at it, and felt a twinge of in that white curtain stirred swift agonizing pain along his spine and movement, like the leaping of fires. about his throat, while a white-hot Above the recess a symbol was em­ lance stabbed into his skull. bossed in the stone. The sign of "If I could get rid of this— you Mercury. could help me?" "Mercury," said a voice in Stu­ "We could give you our power, art's mind. "The Servant of the to use against the Aesir. But we Sun. The Swift Messenger. Mercury, do not know how to remove the cloak." that drinks the Sun's fires and bla­ "I don't either," Stuart growled, zes like a star in the sky's abyss. and paused as a movement caught his First in the Long Orbit— Mercury." eye. The muscular Earthman near The crowd of prisoners, dull­ him was stirring. eyed, swayed to and fro, a ripple He turned slowly. Beyond him of excitement rustling through them. the Martian girl swayed her feathery- Abruptly the Martian girl darted crested head and lifted supple, slen­ forward— der arms. And the others— all about Was engulfed in the milky flames. Stuart they were wakening to motion. Stood there, while curdled opal­ But no life showed in their dull escence veiled her. On her face eyes. No understanding. Only a sheer horror, as— blind, empty withdrawal. "The Aesir feed," the voice whis­ They turned, trooped toward the pered. "They drink the cup of her wall of the pit . . . toward an arch­ life . . . to its last dregs." ed opening that was gaping suddenly. The captives were moving again. "The Long Orbit," said the voice Silently Stuart followed them along in Stuart's mind. the tunnel. Now another recess show­ "What's that?" ed in the wall. "Death. As the Aesir feed. They Blue . . . blue, this time, as feed on the life-force of living hazy seas of enchantment . . . misted organisms." with fog, with slow shifting movement "Is that the only way out?" within it. . . . "The only way open to you. Yes." "The sign of Venus," said the Stuart went slowly after the oth­ voice. "The Clouded world. Planet ers. They had crossed the threshold of life and womb of creation. Ruler now, and were pacing along a tunnel, of mists and seas— Venus!" lit with cold blue brilliancy, that The Earthman was drawn into the curved very gradually toward the alcove. Stood there, while azure left. Behind him a panel closed. seas washed higher and higher about The cloak swayed like a great him. Through that glassy veil his bloodstain behind him, moving in face glared, stiff with alien fear. a motion not entirely caused by Stu­ art's movements. He tried again The sacrifices went on. to unfasten it, but the clasp at There was no alcove, no symbol his throat only drew tighter. And for Earth. The Aesir had forgotten the tingling sensation increased the world that had been their place along his spine. of birth. An artificial synapse . . . block­ "Mars! Red star of madness! Ruler ing his nerve-ends so that he could of man's passion, lord of the bloody not draw upon the Protectors' power. seas! Where scarlet sands run through Time's hourglass— Mars, third At his left was an alcove in the in the Long Orbit!" tunnel wall. It was filled with The crimson glow of a dusty ruby coagulated light . . . bright with the face of a Venusian, What Hath Me? / 73

strained, twisted in agony cloak could not be removed in any £he hunger of the Aesir. . . . other way— perhaps it could be ripped "The Little Worlds! The Great off! Belt that girdles the Inner System! He gripped the half-living fabric The Broken Planet— " at its bottom, brought his arm behind Tiny goblin lights, dancing and him— and tore the horror from him! flickering, blue and sapphire and Stark, abysmal nerve-shock poured dull orange, wine-red and dawn-yel­ like a current of fire up his spine low— and into his brain. It was like The hunger of the Aesir. tearing off his own skin. Sick, "Jupiter! Titan! Colossus of blind, gasping dry-throated sobs, the Spaceroads! Jupiter, whose Stuart stumbled away from the black mighty hands seize the ships of man alcove, tearing at the cloak. It and drag them to his boiling heart! tried to cling to him— The Great One-fifth in the Long He ripped it away— hurled it from Orbit!" him. And as it fell— it screamed! The hunger of the Aesir. But he was free. "Ringed Saturn light-crowned! For an instant sheer weakness Guardian of the outer skies! Sat­ overwhelmed him. Then into him pour­ urn— " ed a racing, jubilant torrent of Uranus . . . Neptune. . . . strength, of mighty, intoxicating Pluto. power that seemed to heal his wounds The hunger of the Aesir. . . . and revivify him instantly. Beyond Pluto, dark worlds Stuart Into him surged the power of the had not known. Until finally he Protectors! was alone. The last of his compan­ From the alcove a finger of dark­ ions had been drawn into one of the ness tendrilled out. He was borne vampire alcoves of the Long Orbit. away from it . . . along the passage. He went on. Dimly, through drifting mists, he There was another recess in the sensed that he was moving up a ramp wall at his left. It was filled through a wall that seemed with night. Jet blackness, cold to grow intangible as he approached and horrible, brimmed it. it . . . up and up . . . Something like an invisible cur­ He was in the hall of the Aesir. rent dragged him forward, though Above him the cyclopean pillars he fought with all his strength to towered, dwarfing the thrones set resist. Instinctively he sent out between them. Before him hung the a desperate call to the Protectors. shifting wall of light. "We cannot aid you. We must leave He was carried toward it— through you . . . you will die instantly." i t . "Wait! Don't— don't give up yet! He stood on a black dais. Facing Give me your power— " him was the cloaked, cowled figure "We cannot. While you wear the he had last seen with Kari. cloak." And beside the Aesir stood Kari! The edge of blackness touched The creature lifted its arm Stuart with a frigid impact. He . a red flame spouted toward felt something, avid with horrible Stuart. Sudden, mocking laughter hunger, strain forward from the al­ spilled from his lips. He no longer cove, reaching for him. The cloak fought alone. The tremendous power billowed out— of the Protectors blazed within him, Sweat stood out on Stuart's face. power and energy and force that could For, suddenly, he had seen the way. smash suns. might mean death, it would In midair the fiery lance failed Certainly mean frightful agony— but and died. The Aesir drew back a could go down fighting. If the step, drawing its cloak about it 74 / Astro-Adventures as if in surprise. And Kari— Kari face his forebear was pure, blazing, shrank back, too, and something blinding energy. Twice as tall as strangely like hope flashed for a a man it stood, shining with supernal moment across her dazzling, her more brilliance, terrible and magnificent. than mortal loveliness. Hope? But The great hall rang soundlessly she was of the Aesir now. And if with the power of the Protectors. they failed, she died. Then why— And then from above a streak of The Aesir's cloak flickered, and light came flashing, and another, a second gush of fiery light foun- and another. And were engulfed in tained toward Stuart. the one Aesir who stood shining be­ Up surged the tide of power in fore its adversary, growing ever him again. Blind and dazed with brighter and more terrible. The his own tremendous energy, Stuart rest of the Aesir, coming to the felt a curve like a dim shield flung aid of their fellow, forming a single up to meet that lance. The Aesir's entity to crush the champion of man­ fire struck— and flashed into blazing kind . fragments on the Protector's shield. Stuart braced himself for the Each droplet sang intolerable music incredible torrent of energy that as it faded and winked out. And would come blasting through him from behind the Aesir, more dazzling than the Protectors. And in a split sec­ any immortal fire had been, Stuart ond— it came! saw Kari's sudden, shining smile. Mind and body reeled beneath the impact of that power as force flared She would die if the Aesir failed. through him and struck out at the She must know she would die. But tower of lightning which was the the brilliance of her smile struck Aesir. But the force which was try­ him as the Aesir's spear of fire ing his human body to its utmost could never strike. He knew, then. was not force enough to touch that He understood. . . . blinding column. Energy lashed out The Aesir's cloak whirled like from it, struck him a reeling blow— a storm-cloud, in dark, deep bil­ Stuart dropped to his knees, the lows. The Aesir itself grew taller hall swimming in fire around him. for a moment, as if it drew itself But what he saw was not the ter­ up to a godlike height. And then rible, blazing image of his adver­ it did for Derek Stuart what no Aesir sary, but Kari's face beyond. His had ever done for a mortal man be­ falling meant her life— but when fore. No Aesir had ever needed to. she saw him go down the brilliance It cast off the hampering cloak and dimmed upon her features. The hope stood stripped for battle with this he had seen there went out like a primitive manling whose forebears candle-flame and she was once more immemorially long ago had been the only a vessel of human flesh which Aesir's forebears. There was in the Aesir had possessed and degraded. that stripping something almost of In his despair and his dizziness kinship— an acknowledgment that here he cried soundlessly, "Help me, Pro­ at last in the hall of the Aesir tectors! Give me your power!" stood an equal, sprung of equal The still double-voice said, "You stock. . . . could not hold it. You would be Naked in its terrible power, the burned out utterly." Aesir stood up to face the man. "I'll hold it long enough!" he Not human. Not ever human, except promised desperately. "One second in the mysterious basics which these of power— only that! Enough to smash people of a thousand millenniums the Aesir. Then death— but not till in the future had chosen to retain. then!" The flesh they had cast off, and There was one instant when time the flesh the Aesir stood up in to stopped. That cataclysmic horror that What Hath Me? / 75 jiad risen a thousand years ago and of cosmic violence ended that battle. raged through the worlds like a holo­ But suddenly, without warning, the caust stood blazing before Stuart's vast column of the Aesir pulsed with eyes. It stooped toward him, poising violent brilliance and the whole for the hammer blow that would smash hall rang with a cry too shrill and him to nothing— terrible for ears or the very mind Then a power like the drive of to hear, except as a thrilling of galaxies through space thundered despair. into Stuart's mind. The tower rocked. All the bright He had not expected this. Nothing tapestries billowed and flowed a- in human experience could have taught gainst the walls. And the radiant him to expect it. For the Protectors thing that was the Aesir— were not human. No more human than Went out like a blown flame. Stu­ the Aesir themselves. And the un­ art saw it darken in the quickness leashed energy that roared soundless­ of a heartbeat from blinding bright­ ly through Stuart rocked his very ness to an angry, sullen scarlet, soul on its foundations. He could and then to the color of embers, not stir. He could not think. He and then to darkness. could only stay upon his knees facing There was nothing there at all. the Aesir-thing as galactic power And Stuart's brain dimmed with thundered through him and wielded it. One last glimpse he had of the him like a sword against man's ene­ shining smile on Kari's face, tri­ mies . umph and delight, in the instant Higher and higher rose the crash­ before the cloudiness of oblivion ing tides of contest. The citadel blotted her features out. shook ponderously open upon the rocks He was not dead. Somewhere, far of the god-made little world. Per­ away, his body lay prone upon the haps that world itself staggered cold pavement of the Aesir's hall, in space as the titans battled to­ a hall terribly empty now of life. gether on its rocking surface. But Stuart himself hung in empty Faster spun the core of radiant space, somewhere between life and light which was the Aesir. Faster death. raced the tides of power through The thought of the Protectors Stuart's blasted body, seeming to touched him gently, almost caress­ rip his very flesh apart and blaze ingly. in his brain like hammers of cosmic "You are a mighty man, Derek Stu­ fi r e . art. Your name shall not be for­ Terribly, terribly he yearned gotten while mankind lives." for surcease, for the end of this With infinite effort he roused unthinkable destruction that was his mind. tearing his brain and body apart. "Kari— " he said. And he knew he could end it in a There was silence for a moment— a moment, if he chose to let go. . . . warm silence. But the voices, speak­ Grimly he clung to the power that ing as one, said gently, "Have you was destroying him. Second by sec­ forgotten? When the Aesir died, ond, counting each moment an eter­ Kari died too. And you, Derek Stuart nity, he clung to consciousness. — you can never go back to your body The crashing lanches of the Protec­ now. You remember that?" tors drove on upon the armor of the Sudden rebellion shook Stuart's Aesir, and the cyclopean pillars bodiless brain. "Get out of my of the great hall reeled upon their mind!" he raged at the double voice. foundations, and the veryair blazed "What do you know about human beings? into liquid fire around him. I've won for mankind— but what did He never knew what final blow I win for myself? Nothing— nothing! 76 / Astro-Adventures

And Kari— Get out of my mind and one— for us." let me die! What do you know about Stuart thought, "But Kari is love ?" de a d ." Amazingly, laughter pulsed softly. The woman said, "Her body is empty "Love?" said the double voice. of the Aesir life-force. And yours "Love? You have not guessed who is burned out by the power we poured we are?" through it, so that no human could Stuart's bewildered mind framed live in it again unless— unless one f only a voiceless question. more than human upheld you." "We know humanity," the twin voi­ "Lorna— " ces said. "We were human once, a "We must part for awhile, John. thousand years ago. Very human, We have been one for a long while. Derek Stuart. And we remembered Now we must be two again, for the lo v e ." sake of these two. Until the change. He half guessed the answer. "You II are— II "What change?" asked Stuart ea­ "There was a man and a woman gerly. once," the voices told him gently. "As we changed, so would you, "Mankind still remembers their leg­ if our lives upheld yours. Entropy end— John Starr and Lorna, who defied would move for you as it moved for the Aesir." the Aesir and for us. And that, "John Starr and Lorna!" too, I think, is good. Mankind will "We fought the Aesir in the days need a leader. And we can help— John when we and they were human. We and I— more surely if we taste again worked with them on the entropy de­ of humanity. After awhile— after vice that made them what they are millenniums— the circle will close now— and made us— ourselves. When and John and I will be free to merge we saw what they planned with their again. And you and Kari, too." power, we fought. . . . But they Stuart thought, "But Kari— will were five, and strong because they it be Kari?" were ruthless. We had to flee." "It will be," the gentle voice The voices that spoke as one voice said. "Cleansed of the evil of the were distant, remembering. Aesir, supported by my own strength, "They grew in power on their As­ as you by John's. You will be your­ gard world, changing as the millen­ selves again, with the worlds before niums swept over them, as entropy you, and afterward— a dwelling among accelerated for them. And we chang­ the stars, with us. . . ." ed, too, in our own place, in our The man's voice said, "Lorna, different way. We are not human Lorna— " now. But we are not monsters, as "You know we must, beloved," the the Aesir were. We have known fail­ softer voice said. "We have asked ure and bitterness and defeat many too much of them to offer nothing times, Derek Stuart. But we remember in repayment. And it will not be * humanity. And as for love— " goodbye." Stuart said bitterly: There was darkness and silence. "You know your love. You have Stuart was dimly aware of cyclo- f it forever. But Kari . . . Kari pean heights rising above him. Pain­ is dead." fully he stirred. He was clothed in The voices were very gentle. "You his own body again, and the battle- have sacrificed more than we. You blasted hall of the dead Aesir tow­ gave up your love and your bodies. ered high into the dimness above him. We— " He turned his head. Silence again. Then the woman, Beside him on the dais a girl, serene and gentle-voiced, "There lying crumpled in the shower of her is a way, John. But not an easy hair, stirred and sighed.

Lin Carter's "Ghosts of Ganymede" so 1 looked through Bob Weinberg's displayed all the qualities that The Weird Tales Story where, sure have always made his science fic­ enough, I found the title illo for tion tales my favorites among his Edmond Hamilton's "Corsairs of the works: his imaginative construction Cosmos"! I guess when you've read of the "everyday" aspects of the as much as Mr. Carter has, you sooner future, like religion, technology, or later stop remembering what you've and economics, coupled with a wonder­ read and what you've written! ful feel for the pace and dynamics Bill Mendel of good old pulp fiction! Keep 'em Sioux City, IA coming, Captain Lin! Jerry Fielding My favorite story in Astro-Adventures Forest Hills, NY If 3 has to be Jacobi's "Nebula and the Necklace," partly because the tale itself is a good pulpish rouser, Frank Long's presence in your maga­ but partly for the quaintness of zine gives it the authentic pedigree the 30's atmosphere. It's a riot of a real SF pulp! 1 was tickled to see the little features of life to see his "The Soaring" in your in a writer's own day that he thought first issue, but was dismayed not would carry over into the distant to find a follow-up in #2. Imagine future! But that's just the charm my delight at devouring Long's "Sauce of these stories! Don't change a for the Gander"! Still, I would thing! like to see some real space opera Helen Brady from Mr. Long. Hey, how about a Los Angeles, CA new "John Carstairs, Space Detective" tale? Sal Venezia Mr. Comtois is very versatile indeed! Philadelphia, PA Haven't 1 seen him represented in recent issues of Shudder Stories. Cromlech, and who knows what else? I think I have discovered just who Tell him to keep up the good work. the real "Star Pirate" around this Jacobi, Carter, and Long were super­ magaizne i£! I thought Lin Carter's lative as usual, needless to say. "Corsairs of the Cosmos” [Astro- Lenny Pickett Adventures #2] sounded familiar, Raleigh, NC