Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction (118 page)

He must find the Ganymedans and come to grips with them. There was no doubt in his mind that somehow they had been responsible for the cataclysm. Just how, he did not know, but he would find out.

But the girl. He could not leave her. Duty and something else stirred into conflict. He hesitated. In the flap of the suit was an emergency flash. Throwing the beam on the walls and flooring, he managed to retrace his steps to the cabin where he had left her. As he flashed it inside, his heart gave a great bound. She was standing now.

“Feel all right?” he spoke into the tiny transmitter that was part of the regulation equipment.

“Fine.” Her warm, rich voice spoke in his ear. “But I’m not thinking of myself. Are the others on board safe? What happened?”

“I’m afraid we are the only ones alive,” he told her gravely. “As to what happened, I can only guess. We seem to have hit an unusually heavy meteor shower that riddled us through and through, though—” He paused.

“Though what?”

He ignored her question. “The first thing we’ve got to do is find out where we are.” His flash sought the window switch and found it. He went over and pressed it. A section of the beryllium-steel casing slid smoothly open, disclosing a thick flawless quartzite port. He stared out at the dark pattern of space. Long he gazed, then a stifled exclamation reached the girl.

“What is it?” she cried.

“Come and look,” he told her gravely, and made room for her.

* * * *

At first she saw only the unwinking stars of space. Then her eyes shifted forward. Jupiter lay ahead, a vast cloud-girt disk. It was ominously near. Somehow it gave the effect of rushing straight at her.

Right along the equator floated, or seemed to float, a huge red oval—the Great Red Spot of Jupiter. She had heard of it before. But what caught her immediate attention was a tiny flare of intense illumination, right in the very heart of the Spot. Bright orange it was, tinged with yellow, dazzling even at this distance. She watched it eagerly. Then she gave a sudden start.

“You’ve seen it.” Grant’s voice sounded quietly in her helmet.

“Yes. Why, it—it pulsates!”

“Exactly. Now look along the hull of the ship.”

She did so, and gasped again. The steel-shod sides were bathed in an unearthly orange glow.

“Why, that must be the light from the orange spot down there.”

Grant nodded. “Yes, and more than that. They are power waves of a nature that we’ve known nothing of before. We are being pulled down along that beam straight for Jupiter, straight for the source of that light!”

“But that means there are intelligent beings on Jupiter.”

“No doubt.”

“But—but everyone know that there’s no life on Jupiter. It’s a frozen waste swathed in impenetrable whirlwind clouds.”

“How does everyone know?” Grant retorted. “Has anyone ever penetrated through those clouds?”

“No,” she admitted; “though there have been plenty of expeditions that tried, and never came back.”

“That of course doesn’t prove anything. Mind you,” he added. “I didn’t say there was native life existing on Jupiter. I merely said there were intelligent beings operating that illumination.”

“Who could it be then?”

“We’ll find out when we get down there.”

* * * *

The very calmness of his matter-of-fact statement brought her back abruptly to their precarious situation.

“But, great heavens, we’ll smash and be killed. Can’t we do something?”

“We’ll not smash.” Grant said positively. “Though very likely we shall be killed. As for doing something, we can only wait and take our chances, if the gentry who are hauling us in will only give us an opportunity. You know,” he added with a fine inconsecutiveness, “I don’t even know your name.”

She bubbled with sudden laughter. “Nona—Nona Gail. I was on my way to Callisto, to meet my father,” she explained. “He’s an engineer, doing some construction work for Interspace Products. But now that I’ve told you all, what and who may you be?”

He was frank. There was now no need for concealment. “Grant Pemberton, an unimportant unit of the Interplanetary Secret Service.”

“Then you knew that the trip would be dangerous,” she challenged.

“Yes.”

“Why did you come?”

“It is part of my duties.”

There was silence between them. He turned to stare out of the quartz port-hole again. Jupiter was perceptibly nearer; an enormous, convex globe that blotted out half the heavens. They were being drawn at a frightful velocity toward the mysterious pulsating point, now blinding in its brilliance.

They both saw it simultaneously: a space-suited figure, far out in the depths of interstellar space, caught up in a sudden flare of orange illumination. The strange figure seemed to whirl around, straighten up, and shoot at breakneck speed headlong for Jupiter. Behind it, and in a direct line with the winking flame in the Great Spot, another space denizen glowed luridly, startlingly, out of the blackness beyond, whirled, and shot down the long invisible path.

Nona cried out: “Grant, tell me quickly, what are they; what is pulling them?”

Even as she spoke, more and more figures were blazoned in that orange ray, until a long file of beings were catapulting in a single straight line past the space-ship, outdistancing it until they became faint specks in the distance.

* * * *

Pemberton’s hand was upon her shoulder, his eyes literally blazing through the goggles, while his voice shouted in her ears. “Come with me: We haven’t a second to lose.”

“But,” she gasped, “you haven’t told me—”

“No time,” he interrupted, and, shoving her in front of him, he rushed her through corridor after corridor until they came to the air-lock of the liner.

“If only we have time,” he groaned, and cursed himself for a bungling fool for not having surmised the maneuver earlier.

Just as he had expected, the great lock was open. The ship was as silent as the grave. There was no air anywhere, only the unutterably cold airlessness of space. Without pausing in his headlong rush, he pushed the bewildered girl through the open port, out into the overwhelming, intangible blackness. Nona’s smothered cry of fear came to him as the next instant he stepped forward and left the solid footing to float in sudden weightlessness in a vast sea of nothingness.

The girl reached out and caught his arm convulsively. Even through the fabric of their suits he could feel her trembling. Pemberton had taken good care to retain a hold on the edge of the open air-lock. The two swung unsteadily.

“What is the reason for this?” Grant sensed, rather, than heard, the tremor in her voice. She was making a desperate effort to control herself. “We’ll be lost—out here in space.”

“Don’t worry,” he said soothingly. “I’ll explain in due course. In the meantime you’ll have to trust me. Did you see where that invisible ray held when it illumined the last Ganymedan?”

“Ganymedan?” she echoed in surprise. “What makes you think—”

“Never mind that. Did you?” he insisted.

“Yes,” she admitted, “it was about over there.” She indicated the spot with an outthrust arm. “About a hundred yards, I should judge.”

“Exactly,” he agreed. “Well, young lady, our lives, and far more, depend upon our reaching that exact line in space immediately.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about, but even so, how can we make it? I’m not a rocket.”

“It’s difficult, I admit, but we must. Now hold on tight to my arm, and press your feet firmly against the wall of the ship.” She obeyed.

“Now when I count three, shove off violently, and pray that we’re going straight. Are you game?”

She stiffened; then, very slowly, “All right; start counting.”

“Good girl,” Grant said approvingly. “One—two—th-r-ee-ee!”

They flexed their legs in perfect unison. And shoved off.

* * * *

Out into the blackness of space they shot, lost to all sense of motion: yet the hull of the space-flier, dimly gleaming in the thin light of the far off sun, retreated from them with terrifying swiftness.

They were alone in space! It was an uncanny, a horribly helpless sensation. All about them was infinity, a vast void out of which peered at them the cold, unwinking stars. They were like swimmers in mid-ocean, without even the buoyant feel of the salt water to comfort them.

Nona’s grip on Grant’s arm was agonizing in its intensity.

“Scared?” Grant queried.

“A—a little,” she admitted; “but don’t bother about me. I’m all right.”

She could be depended upon to keep up her end, Grant thought admiringly.

On and on they floated in the welter of space. And still there was no ray, nothing but unrelieved blackness. Pemberton was somewhat worried. Had the saving ray been quenched at the source? Were they too late? If so, they were doomed to a frightful obliterating fall to the surface of the planet, or worse still, they were destined to swing endlessly in space. Already the liner was far away, out of their grasp, even had they desired to return.

His breath was coming in quick gasps now. “Scared?” he once more asked the silent figure beside him.

“Frightfully—but carry on. We’ll get there, wherever it is.”

Her gay determination strengthened him wonderfully. On and on they floated.

Suddenly the dim, dark bulk of the girl caught the uncanny orange light. The next instant the creatoid fabric of his own suit caught it, too.

“Thank God,” he cried joyously. “It’s still on. Just relax, Nona, the ray will take care of us now.”

He felt a powerful tug at his body, he was whirled completely around, and then there was a steady pull. He was being catapulted down the ray to the mysterious point of brilliance in the Great Red Spot. The girl was right beside him. The space-liner was passed with a smooth rush, and soon receded to a dwindling speck.

* * * *

“Now will you explain?” asked Nona impatiently, after she had caught her breath in sudden relief.

Grant stretched luxuriously before he began.

“Certainly. There’s nothing for us now to do but wait until we get pulled down to Jupiter, and that’ll take some time. I hope we look like Ganymedans.”

“Will you get on with your story!” she cried.

He obeyed. He started from the beginning and went right up to the time when he had so rudely thrust her out into space.

“You see,” he explained. “I had put the puzzle together a bit, but there were still pieces missing. For instance, those chaps down there know that every space-liner is equipped with emergency space-suits. Why pull the ship down with live men on board? That would naturally mean a fight, and we have no mean weapons, what with disintegrator ray-projectors and explosive electro-bullets.” Then, again, for some reason, there were Ganymedans on board. They would very likely be whiffed out in the melee. The ship might be destroyed also, and they evidently are very careful about getting the ship down intact. The little meteor holes can easily be plugged up, and the liner made as good as new. At least that was my guess.

“I was trying to puzzle it out, rather hopelessly,” he continued, “when I saw the ray out in space pick up those floating figures. That was the last little piece in the jigsaw.

“The Ganymedans evidently had to leave the ship because, as it approaches the planet, something will be done to kill off any unfortunates who are still alive, waiting their chance to fight the invisible enemy. Possibly a penetrating lethal gas that will be forced into the interior. So they evolved the ray to carry the Ganymedan passengers down gently, safely. And we are stowaways,” he concluded grimly.

Nona had listened intently to the long recital.

“But why,” she expostulated, “was it necessary to have their own people on board? The meteors that riddled the ship were projectiles shot from their station on Jupiter. So was the attraction-ray that pulls the ship down.”

“Because they required a sufficient force to disable the radio apparatus. All radio waves used on interplanetary liners are shielded from interference. It is impossible to blank them out. And with the radio intact, every battle flier in space would be on their trail in a hurry.”

* * * *

Several hours passed, and still they fell endlessly through space, unaware of their motion except that Jupiter was now a huge orb blotting out the universe. The grim face of the giant planet was enswathed in endless billowing clouds. No one had ever penetrated to the real core. But what held their eager, straining attention was a vast blood red disk, cyclonic in character, directly beneath them. The Great Red Spot! And immediately in the center of it was the tiny, blindingly brilliant yellow orange oval, winking up at them with quick, steady pulsations.

“What can it be?” Nona wondered.

“The source of their power, evidently. But what interests me more just now is where the Ganymedans have their hangout in those clouds, and what they’re doing with the ships they capture.”

Jupiter was now a flat level stretch that reached on all sides as far as the eye could see. Grant felt a sudden sensation of weight again, as though something was pressing with crushing force against his chest.

“Hello,” he said, “our fall is being checked. They’re making sure their friends come to no harm.” And he laughed bitterly, thinking of the men and women lying with lungs ruptured, cold and stiff, in the interior of the Althea; of the possible few wretches who had managed to huddle into space-suits, ignorant of the deadly gas that was soon to search out their seemingly impenetrable habiliments.