Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930

  CHAPTER XVIII

  _Marooned on an Asteroid_

  A fair little world. I had thought so before; and I thought so now as Igazed at the asteroid hanging so close before our bow. A huge, thincrescent, with the Sun off to one side behind it. A silver crescent,tinged with red. From this near viewpoint, all of the little globe'sdisc was visible. The shadowed portion lay dimly red, mysteriously; thesunlit crescent--widening visibly is we approached--was gleaming silver.Inky moonlike shadows in the hollows, brilliant light upon the mountainheights. The seas lay in gray patches. The convexity of the disc wassharply defined. So small a world! Fair and beautiful, shrouded withclouded areas.

  "Where is Miko?"

  "In the lounge, Gregg."

  "Can we stop there?"

  Moa turned into the lounge archway. Strange, tense scene. I saw Anita atonce. Her robed figure lurked in an inconspicuous corner; her eyes wereupon me as Moa and I entered, but she did not move. The thirty-oddpassengers were huddled in a group. Solemn, white-faced men, frightenedwomen. Some of them were sobbing. One Earth-woman--a young widow--satholding her little girl, and wailing with uncontrolled hysteria. Thechild knew me. As I appeared now, with my gold-laced white coat over myshoulders, the little child seemed to see in my uniform a mark ofauthority. She left her mother and ran to me.

  "You, please--you will help us? My moms is crying."

  I sent her gently back. But there came upon me then a compassion forthese innocent passengers, fated to have embarked upon this ill-starredvoyage. Herded here in this cabin, with brigands like pirates of oldguarding them. Waiting now to be marooned on an uninhabited asteroidroaming in space. A sense of responsibility swept me. I swung upon Miko.He stood with a nonchalant grace, lounging against the wall with acylinder dangling in his hand. He anticipated me.

  "So, Haljan--she put some sense into your head? No more trouble? Thenget into the turret. Moa, stay there with him. Send Hahn here. Where isthat ass Coniston? We will be in the atmosphere shortly."

  I said, "No more trouble from me, Miko. But these passengers--whatpreparation are you making for them on the asteroid?"

  * * * * *

  He stared in surprise. Then he laughed. "I am no murderer. The crew ispreparing food, all we can spare. And tools. They can build themselvesshelter--they will be picked up in a few weeks."

  Dr. Frank was here. I caught his gaze, but he did not speak. On thelounge couches there still lay the quarter-score bodies. Rankin, whohad been killed by Blackstone in the fight; a man passenger killed; awoman and a man wounded.

  Miko added, "Dr. Frank will take his medical supplies--he will care forthe wounded. There are other bodies among the crew." His gesture wasdeprecating. "I have not buried them. We will put them ashore; easierthat way."

  The passengers were all eyeing me. I said:

  "You have nothing to fear. I will guarantee you the best equipment wecan spare. You will give them apparatus with which to signal?" Idemanded of Miko.

  "Yes. Get to the turret."

  I turned away, with Moa after me. Again the little girl ran forward.

  "Come--speak to my moms! She is crying."

  It was across the cabin from Miko. Coniston had appeared from the deck;it created a slight diversion. He joined Miko.

  "Wait," I said to Moa. "She is afraid of you. This is humanity."

  I pushed Moa back. I followed the child. I had seen that Venza wassitting with the child's weeping mother. This was a ruse to get wordwith me.

  I stood before the terrified woman while the little girl clung to mylegs.

  I said gently, "Don't be so frightened. Dr. Frank will take care of you.There is no danger--you will be safer on the asteroid than here on theship."

  I leaned down and touched her shoulder. "There is no danger."

  * * * * *

  I was between Venza and the open cabin. Venza whispered swiftly, "Whenwe are landing, Gregg, I want you to make a commotion--anything--just asthe women passengers go ashore."

  "Why? No, of course you will have food, Mrs. Francis."

  "Never mind! An instant. Just confusion. Go, Gregg--don't speak now!"

  I raised the child. "You take care of mother." I kissed her.

  From across the cabin Miko's sardonic voice made me turn. "Touchingsentimentality, Haljan! Get to your post in the turret!"

  His rasping note of annoyance brooked no delay. I set the child down. Isaid, "I will land us in an hour. Depend on it."

  Hahn was at the controls when Moa and I reached the turret.

  "You will land us safely, Haljan?" he demanded anxiously.

  I pushed him away. "Miko wants you in the lounge."

  "You take command here?"

  "Of course, Hahn. I am no more anxious for a crash than you."

  He sighed with relief. "That is true. I am no expert at atmosphericentry, Haljan--nor Coniston, nor Miko."

  "Have no fear. Sit down, Moa."

  I waved to the look-out in the forward watch-tower, and got his routinegesture. I rang the corridor bells, and the normal signals came promptlyback.

  "It's correct, Hahn. Get away with you." I called after him. "Tell Mikothat things are all right here."

  Hahn's small dark figure, lithe as a leopard in his tight fittingtrousers and jacket with his robe now discarded, went swiftly down thespider incline and across the deck.

  "Moa, where is Snap? By the infernal, if he has been injured!--"

  * * * * *

  Up on the helio-room bridge the brigand guard still sat. Then I saw thatSnap was out there sitting with him. I waved from the turret window, andSnap's cheery gesture answered me. His voice carried down through thesilver moonlight: "Land us safely, Gregg. These weird amateurnavigators!"

  Within the hour I had us dropping into the asteroid's atmosphere. Theship heated steadily. The pressure went up. It kept me busy with theinstruments and the calculations. But my signals were always promptlyanswered from below. The brigand crew did its part efficiently.

  At a hundred and fifty thousand feet I shifted the gravity plates to thelanding combinations, and started the electronic engines.

  "All safe, Gregg?" Moa sat at my elbow; her eyes, with what seemed aglow of admiration in them, followed my busy routine activities.

  "Yes. The crew works well."

  The electronic streams flowed out like a rocket tail behind us. The_Planetara_ caught their impetus. In the rarified air, our bow liftedslightly, like a ship riding a gentle ground swell. At a hundredthousand feet we sailed gently forward, hull down to the asteroid'ssurface, cruising to seek a landing space.

  A little sea was now beneath us. A shadowed sea, deep purple in thenight down there. Occasional green-verdured islands showed, with thelines of white surf marking them. Beyond the sea, a curving coastlinewas visible. Rocky headlines, behind which mountain foothills rose inserrated, verdured ranks. The sunlight edged the distant mountains; andpresently this rapidly turning little world brought the sunlightforward.

  * * * * *

  It was day beneath us. We slid gently downward. Thirty thousand feetnow, above a sparkling blue ocean. The coastline was just ahead: greenwith a lush, tropical vegetation. Giant trees, huge-leaved. Longdangling vines; air plants, with giant pods and vivid orchidlikeblossoms.

  I sat at the turret window, staring through my glasses. A fair littleworld, yet obviously uninhabited. I could fancy that all this wasnewly-sprung vegetation. This asteroid had whirled in from the cold ofthe interplanetary space far outside our Solar System. A few yearsago--as time might be measured astronomically, it was no more thanyesterday--this fair landscape was congealed white and bleak, with asweep of glacial ice. But the seeds of life miraculously were here. Themiracle of life! Under the warming, germinating sunlight, the verduresprung.

  "Can you find landing space, Gregg?"

  Moa's question brought back my wandering fancies. I saw an upland glade,a
level spread of ferns with the forest banked around it. A cliff-heightnearby, frowning down at the sea.

  "Yes. I can land us there." I showed her through the glasses. I rang thesirens, and we spiraled, descending further. The mountain tops were nowclose beneath us. Clouds were overhead, white masses with blue skybehind them. A day of brilliant sunlight. But soon, with our forwardcruising, it was night. The sunlight dropped beneath the sharply convexhorizon; the sea and the land went purple.

  A night of brilliant stars; the Earth was a blazing blue-red point oflight. The heavens visibly were revolving; in an hour or so it would bedaylight again.

  On the forward deck now Coniston had appeared, commanding half a dozenof the crew. They were carrying up caskets of food and the equipmentwhich was to be given the marooned passengers. And making ready thedisembarking incline, loosening the seals of the side-dome windows.

  Sternward on the deck, by the lounge oval, I could see Miko standing.And occasionally the roar of his voice at the passengers sounded.

  * * * * *

  My vagrant thought flung back into Earth's history. Like this, ancienttravelers of the surface of the sea were herded by pirates to walk theplank, or put ashore, marooned upon some fair desert island of thetropic Spanish main.

  Hahn came mounting our turret incline. "All is well, Gregg Haljan?"

  "Get to your work," Moa told him sharply. "We land in an hour-quadrant."

  He retreated, joining the bustle and confusion which now was beginningon the deck. It struck me--could I turn that confusion to account? Wouldit be possible, now at the last moment, to attack these brigands? Snapstill sat outside the helio-room doorway. But his guard was alert, withupraised projector. And that guard, I saw, in his position highamidships, commanded all the deck.

  And I saw too, as the passengers now were herded in a line from thelounge oval, that Miko had roped and bound all of the men. And aclanking chain connected them. They came like a line of convicts,marching forward, and stopped on the open deck-space near the base ofthe turret. Dr. Frank's grim face gazed up at me.

  Miko ordered the women and children in a group beside the chained men.His words to them reached me: "You are in no danger. When we land, becareful. You will find gravity very different--this is a very smallworld."

  I flung on the landing lights; the deck glowed with the blue radiance;the search-beams shot down beside our hull. We hung now a thousand feetabove the forest glade. I cut off the electronic streams. We poised,with the gravity-plates set at normal, and only a gentle night-breeze togive us a slight side drift. This I could control with the lateralpropeller rudders.

  For all my busy landing routine, my mind was on other things. Venza'sswift words back there in the lounge. I was to create a commotion whilethe passengers were landing. Why? Had she and Dr. Frank, perhaps, somelast minute desperate purposes?

  * * * * *

  I determined I would do what she said. Shout, or mis-order the lights.That would be easy. But to what advantage?

  I was glad it was night--I had, indeed, calculated our descent so thatthe landing would be in darkness. But to what purpose? These brigandswere very alert. There was nothing I could think of to do which wouldavail us anything more than a possible swift death under Miko's anger.

  "Well done, Gregg!" said Moa.

  I cut off the last of the propellers. With scarcely a perceptible jar,the _Planetara_ grounded, rose like a feather and settled to rest in theglade. The deep purple night with stars overhead was around us. I hissedout our interior air through the dome and hull-ports, and admitted thenight-air of the asteroid. My calculations--of necessity meremathematical approximations--proved fairly accurate. In temperature andpressure there was no radical change as the dome-windows slid back.

  We had landed. Whatever Venza's purpose, her moment was at hand. I wastense. But I was aware also, that beside me Moa was very alert. I hadthought her unarmed. She was not. She sat back from me; in her hand wasa small thin knife-blade.

  She murmured tensely, "You have done your part, Gregg. Well andskillfully done. Now we will sit here quietly and watch them land."

  Snap's guard was standing, keenly watching. The look-outs in the forwardand stern towers were also armed; I could see them both gazing keenlydown at the confusion of the blue-lit deck.

  The incline went over the hull-side and touched the ground.

  "Enough!" Miko roared. "The men first. Hahn, move the women back!Coniston, pile those caskets to the side. Get out of the way, Prince."

  * * * * *

  Anita was down there. I saw her at the edge of the group of women. Venzawas near her.

  Miko shoved her. "Get out of the way, Prince. You can help Coniston.Have the things ready to throw off."

  Five of the steward-crew were at the head of the incline. Miko shoutedup at me:

  "Haljan, hold our shipboard gravity normal."

  "Yes," I responded.

  I had done so. Our magnitizers had been adjusted to the shiftingcalculations of our landing. They were holding now at intensities, sothat upon the _Planetara_ no change from fairly normal Earth-gravitywas apparent. I rang a tentative inquiry signal; the operator in thehull-magnetizer control answered that he was at his post.

  The line of men were first to descend. Dr. Frank led them. He flashed alook of farewell up at me and Snap as he went down the incline with thechained men passengers after him.

  Motley procession! Twenty odd, dishevelled, half-clothed men of threeworlds. The changing, lightening gravity on the incline caught them. Dr.Frank bounded up to the rail under the impetus of his step: caught andheld himself, drew himself back. The line swayed. In the dim, blue-litglare it seemed unreal, crazy. A grotesque dream of men descending aplank.

  They reached the forest glade. Stood swaying, afraid at first to move.The purple night crowded them; they stood gazing at this strange world,their new prison.

  "Now the women."

  Miko was shoving the women to the head of the incline. I could feelMoa's steady gaze upon me. Her knife-blade gleamed in the turret light.

  She murmured again, "In a few minutes you can ring us away, Gregg."

  * * * * *

  I felt like an actor awaiting his cue in the wings of some turgid dramathe plot of which he did not know. Venza was near the head of theincline. Some of the women and children were on it. A woman screamed.Her child had slipped from her hand, bounded up over the rail, andfallen. Hardly fallen--floated down to the ground, with flailing armsand legs, landing in the dark ferns, unharmed. Its terrified wail cameup.

  There was a confusion on the incline. Venza, still on the deck, seemedto send a look of appeal to the turret. My cue?

  I slid my hand to the light switchboard. It was near my knees. I pulleda switch. The blue-lit deck beneath the turret went dark.

  I recall an instant of horrible, tense silence, and in the gloom besideme I was aware of Moa moving. I felt a thrill of instinctive fear--wouldshe plunge that knife into me?

  The silence of the darkened deck was broken with a confusion of sounds.A babble of voices; a woman passenger's scream; shuffling of feet; andabove it all, Miko's roar:

  "Stand quiet! Everyone! No movement!"

  On the descending incline there was chaos. The disembarking women wereclinging to the gang-rail; some of them had evidently surged over it andfallen. Down on the ground in the purple-shadowed starlight I couldvaguely see the chained line of men. They too were in confusion, tryingto shove themselves toward the fallen women.

  Miko roared:

  "Light those tubes! Gregg Haljan! By the Almighty, Moa, are you upthere? What is wrong? The light-tubes--"

  Dark drama of unknown plot! I wonder if I should try and leave theturret. Where was Anita? She had been down there on the deck when Iflung out the lights.

  I think twenty seconds would have covered it all. I had not moved. Ithought, "Is Snap concerned with this
?"

  Moa's knife could have stabbed me. I felt her lunge against me; andsuddenly I was gripping her, twisting her wrist. But she flung the knifeaway. Her strength was almost the equal of my own. Her hand went for mythroat, and with the other hand she was fumbling.

  * * * * *

  The deck abruptly sprang into light again. Moa had found the switch andthrew it back.

  "Gregg!"

  She fought me as I tried to reach the switch. I saw down on the deckMiko gazing up at us. Moa panted, "Gregg--stop! If he--sees you doingthis, he'll kill you--"

  The scene down there was almost unchanged. I had answered my cue. Towhat purpose? I saw Anita near Miko. The last of the women were on theplank.

  I had stopped struggling with Moa. She sat back, panting; and then shecalled: "Sorry, Miko. It will not happen again."

  Miko was in a towering rage. But he was too busy to bother with me; hisanger swung on those nearest him. He shoved the last of the womenviolently at the incline. She bounded over. Her body, with thegravity-pull of only a few Earth-pounds, sailed in an arc and dropped tothe sward near the swaying line of men.

  Miko swung back. "Get out of my way!" A sweep of his huge arm knockedAnita sidewise. "Prince, damn you, help me with those boxes!"

  The frightened stewards were lifting the boxes, square metalstorage-chests each as long as a man, packed with food, tools, andequipment.

  "Here, get out of my way, all of you!"

  My breath came again; Anita nimbly retreated before Miko's angry rush.He dashed at the stewards. Three of them held a box. He took it fromthem; raised it at the top of the incline. Poised it over his head aninstant, with his massive arms like gray pillars beneath it. And flungit. The box catapulted, dropped; and then, passing the Planetara'sgravity area, it sailed in a long flat arc over the forest glade andcrashed into the purple underbrush.

  "Give me another!"

  * * * * *

  The stewards pushed another at him. Like an angry Titan, he flung it.And another. One by one the chests sailed out and crashed.

  "There is your food--go pick it up! Haljan, make ready to ring us away!"

  On the deck lay the dead body of Rance Rankin, which the stewards hadcarried out. Miko seized it, flung it.

  "There! Go to your last resting place!"

  And the other bodies. Balch Blackstone, Captain Carter, Johnson--Mikoflung them. And the course masters and those of our crew who had beenkilled; the stewards appeared with them; Miko unceremoniously cast themoff.

  The passengers were all on the ground now. It was dim down there. Itried to distinguish Venza, but could not. I could see Dr. Frank'sfigure at the end of the chained line of men. The passengers were gazingin horror at the bodies hurtling over them.

  "Ready, Haljan?"

  Moa prompted me. "Tell him yes!"

  I called, "Yes!" Had Venza failed in her unknown purpose? It seemed so.On the helio-room bridge Snap and his guard stood like silent statues inthe blue-lit gloom.

  The disembarkation was over.

  "Close the ports," Miko commanded.

  The incline came folding up with a clatter. The port and dome-windowsslid closed. Moa hissed against my ear:

  "If you want life, Gregg Haljan, you will start your duties!"

  Venza had failed. Whatever it was, it had come to nothing. Down in thepurple forest, disconnected now from the ship, the last of our friendsstood marooned. I could distinguish them through the blur of the closeddome--only a swaying, huddled group was visible. But my fancy picturedthis last sight of them--Dr. Frank, Venza, Shac and Dud Ardley.

  They were gone. There were left only Snap, Anita, and myself.

  * * * * *

  I was mechanically ringing us away. I heard my sirens sounding downbelow, with the answering clangs here in the turret. The _Planetara's_respiratory controls started; the pressure equalizers began operating,and the gravity plates shifted into lifting combinations.

  The ship was hissing and quivering with it, combined with the grating ofthe last of the dome ports. And Miko's command:

  "Lift, Haljan."

  Hahn had been mingled with the confusion of the deck, though I hadhardly noticed him; Coniston had remained below, with the crew answeringmy signals. Hahn stood now with Miko, gazing down through a deck window.Anita was alone at another.

  "Lift, Haljan."

  I lifted us gently, bow first, with a repulsion of the bow plates. Andstarted the central electronic engine. Its thrust from our stern movedus diagonally over the purple forest trees.

  The glade slid downward and away. I caught a last vague glimpse of thehuddled group of marooned passengers, staring up at us. Left to theirfate, alone on this deserted little world.

  With the three engines going we slid smoothly upward. The forestdropped, a purple spread of tree-tops, edged with starlight andEarth-light. The sharply curving horizon seemed following us up. I swungon all the power. We mounted at a forty degree angle, slowly circling,with a bank of clouds over us to the side and the shining little seabeneath.

  "Very good, Gregg." In the turret light Moa's eyes blazed at me. "I donot know what you meant by darkening the deck-lights." Her fingers dugat my shoulders. "I will tell my brother it was an error."

  I said, "An error--yes."

  "An error? I don't know what it was. But you have me to deal with now.You understand? I will tell my brother so. You said, 'On Earth a man maykill the thing he loves.' A woman of Mars may do that! Beware of me,Gregg Haljan."

  Her passion-filled eyes bored into me. Love? Hate? The venom of a womanscorned--a mingling of turgid emotions....

  * * * * *

  I twisted away from her grip and ignored her; she sat back, silentlywatching my busy activities; the calculations of the shifting conditionsof gravity, pressures, temperatures; a checking of the score or more ofinstruments on the board before me.

  Mechanical routine. My mind went to Venza, back there on the asteroid.The wandering little world was already shrinking to a convex surfacebeneath us. Venza, with her last unknown play, gone to failure. Had Ifailed my cue? Whatever my part, it seemed now that I must have horriblymis-acted it.

  The crescent Earth was presently swinging over our bow. We rocketed outof the asteroid's shadow. The glowing, flaming Sun appeared, making acrescent of the Earth. With the glass I could see our tiny Moon,visually seeming to hug the limb of its parent Earth.

  We were away upon our course for the Moon. My mind flung ahead.Grantline with his treasure, unsuspecting this brigand ship. Andsuddenly, beyond all thought of Grantline and his treasure, there cameto me a fear for Anita. In God's truth I had been, so far, a verystumbling inept champion--doomed to failure with everything I tried. Itswept me, so that I cursed my own incapacity. Why had I not contrived tohave Anita desert at the asteroid? Would it not have been far better forher there? Taking her chance for rescue with Dr. Frank, Venza and theothers?

  But no! I had, like an inept fool, never thought of that! Had left herhere on board at the mercy of these outlaws.

  And I swore now that, beyond everything, I would protect her.

  Futile oath! If I could have seen ahead a few hours! But I sensed thecatastrophe. There was a shudder within me as I sat in that turret,docilely guiding us out through the asteroid's atmosphere, heading usupon our course for the Moon.