come with me, I will show you what Imean."
Sliss grasped the edge of his tub with webbed hands and swung hiswebbed, yellow-skinned feet free from the water which kept thesensitive membranes from drying, and at the same time supplied his bodytissues with liquid. Falling upon all fours, like a great, misshapenpet, he waddled awkwardly after his host.
Negu Mah led him to an elevator within the house. This took them to ahigher floor, and there they followed a corridor to the rear of thebuilding. Here Negu Mah, without showing a light, opened a door, and insilence they moved out upon a small balcony overlooking the reargardens, which were shrouded in darkness because rising Jupiter was onthe opposite side of the building.
They had stood there only a moment when below them a door opened, and asmall figure slipped through. Another figure appeared from beneath theshadows of a cluster of slender, purple neklo trees and moved forwardto greet the first. They met in the center of a tiny open space, wherea fountain spurting through holes in crystal made a sweet murmuringmusic. And to the two watchers rose whispered words--"Nanlo! Nanlo, mydarling!" "Hugh! Oh, Hugh, my love, hold me close and tell me thateverything is ready for us to leave!"
* * * * *
Hugh Neils' arms held her close, and his lips were hot on hers. That hewas here as they had planned meant that he had succeeded in the otherplans they had agreed upon. Exultation soared higher in Nanlo's breast.
"Then we can go? Go now?" she asked eagerly, as Hugh Neils releasedher. "The crew is asleep? You were able to arrange it?"
The young engineer looked down at her, his thin face a pale blur in thedarkness.
"In five minutes, just five minutes, Nanlo, my own," he whispered. "Ileft the guard half an hour ago, drinking molkai into which I put asleeping powder. Give him five more minutes to fall asleep, then we cango to the ship unseen, unchecked. Until then, we can wait here in thegarden."
He led her toward the trilling fountain and they sat down upon a benchbefore it, of rare Callisto crystal. They still were in darkness, butthe flame-like Jupiter light touched the tops of the neklo trees abovethem with a ruddy light which brought faint glimmerings from theradioactive leaves.
Hugh Neils was a recent college graduate whom Negu Mah had hired as anassistant supervisor in the refining mills on Callisto, where theprecious uranium 235 was separated from the ordinary metal. It was nota desirable job, but the best Hugh Neils could get. His college recordof reckless scrapes and entanglements with women had been against him.Indeed, this position had only come to him because his home was in thesame section as Nanlo's, and Negu Mah had thought that perhaps hiscompany on occasion would help alleviate Nanlo's restlessness.
It had--but to an extent Negu Mah had not foreseen.
"In less than a quarter of an hour, Nanlo my darling," Hugh Neilswhispered now, "we'll be gone from here, and you'll belong only to me.We'll leave this infernal barren satellite to spin itself dizzy outhere in no place. We'll leave that humpty-dumpty husband of yours andhis hypocritical good-nature to whistle for his wife and his ship. Wewon't care. We'll be together, always together from now on, and he'llnever see us again."
Nanlo leaned against his shoulder, the prospect that he painted seemedvery sweet to her.
"You're sure you can manage the ship alone?" she asked. "But of course,I can help, a little anyway. You can teach me."
"Of course," Hugh Neils answered confidently, and bent to kiss heragain. "I've been studying her for a week, asking questions, makingfriends with the crew. I can handle her one-handed. We'll take off andcircle Jupiter first. They may think we landed on the other side, inthe Outlaw Crevice. Or they may figure that we went on to Saturn, andwill hide somewhere in the system there.
"But we won't do either, and they won't know where to look for us.Instead of turning back on the other side of Jupiter, we'll make atangential angle out into space. We'll hold it for a month, forsafety's sake. We could hold for fifty years, or a hundred, if weneeded to. There's fuel and provisions, meant for the mines, enough tolast that long.
"At the end of the month, we'll swing back, cut into the path of thesun, and pick up Mars as she comes in from behind Sol.
"On Mars, we can sell the Vulcan. There's an outfit in the EquatorZone, in the mountains west of the Great Canal, that will buy her andno questions asked. I learned about them from a fraternity brotherwhile I was in college. He'd run into some hard luck, they gave him ajob, and he was making money hand over fist. They're asteroid miners.The work they do is illegal, but it's perfectly justified morally. Whatright have men with more money than they know what to do with to owneverything in the Solar System? How can a young fellow get a start anymore, when corporations and rich old fogies own everything?
"Maybe I'll join up with this outfit. After we've sold the ship I'llsee. How does that sound to you?"
"Wonderful, Hugh," Nanlo whispered. "But I don't care about that. All Iwant is for us to be together. Always. You and me, and our love,together for eternity. That's all I want."
"That's all I want, too, darling Nanlo," Hugh Neils told her passionately,and kissed her. "Together, forever. Just you and me."
Nanlo sighed, with luxuriant happiness, and peered at his radiumitewrist watch.
"The five minutes are up," she murmured. "Can't we go now?"
Hugh Neils nodded.
"We've waited plenty long enough," he decided. "The guard will beasleep by now. The crew were that way when I left them, in thedormitory. I saw that they had plenty of spiked molkai at dinner.Pretended it was my birthday celebration. And the ship's all ready andwaiting for the take-off. All we have to do is lock the port and closethe rising switch."
The two on the bench by the fountain rose, and for a long minute werelocked in an embrace. Then they turned toward the dark-shadowed treesand disappeared beneath them, in the direction of the nearby spaceport.
* * * * *
Negu Mah silently turned back into the house. Sliss shuffled after him.The uranium merchant led the way back to the vitrite covered garden andthere, a little wearily, resumed his seat and picked up his mug again.Sliss climbed back into his tub of water, sighed gratefully at thecomfort it gave him, and then turned his pop-eyes toward his host. Heblinked once, inquiringly, and Negu Mah understood that the intelligentamphibian was asking if he intended to do nothing to stop the pair whowere running away.
Negu Mah sipped pensively at his drink.
"If she had only told me," he murmured. "If she had only come to me andsaid she desired her freedom. If they had only both come together andfaced me, saying that though it meant giving up all they had, theywanted only each other! I would have been generous. I would have beenindulgent. But they did not. They had not the courage. They were afraidof me. And they hated me."
Negu Mah was silent for a moment. Both he and his guest stared towardthe graceful shaft of the Vulcan, now fully silhouetted against thewhole tremendous bulk of Jupiter, sitting like a titanic scarlet eggupon the horizon of Callisto. The Jupiter light flooded the vitritegarden, gave the plants there, chosen with an eye to this, strange,exotic, glowing colors, flushed Negu Mah and Sliss with a rubyradiance.
Towards that dark, waiting craft the two they had watched were even nowstealing, tense with the weight of their daring and their crime. In amoment they would reach her, enter her, actuate machinery that wasmiraculous in its complex simplicity, and be gone then on the wings itgave them into the concealing embrace of universal space.
"You see, my friend Sliss," Negu Mah said finally, "Nanlo is beautiful,but there is nothing within. Her beauty deceived me. I thought thatwhere such loveliness existed, there must be a soul to animate it. Iwas wrong. She is like an imitation gem--beautiful on the surface,paste within. Yet the mistake was mine, and I did not blame her. Iindulged her, and still hoped that something real would bloom withinher."
He drained the molkai in his mug, one great gulp, and slumped back.
"The young man, too, Hugh
Neils. I thought he would be a companion forher. But he too is weak. Yet they say they love each other. Theyswear--we heard them--that they want only each other and their love forall time."
Sliss blinked, twice, and Negu Mah nodded.
"Yes," he said. "If they carry out their plans as we heard them, thatfeeling will soon go. The sale of the Vulcan, even as stolen property,would give them many credits. After that--luxury, self-indulgence. Andtheir natures are too weak to withstand the ravages of such things. SoI have been troubled to know what to do.
"You see, my friend from Venus, though I would have let Nanlo go hadshe asked me, my own honor is at stake when she seeks to deal me aninjury by slipping