Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Planet Stories July 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
_If I'm going to die it's going to be my way--that was Latham's last thought._]
ONE PURPLE HOPE!
By HENRY HASSE
_Once he had been a tall, straight spaceman, free as the galaxies. Now Joel Latham was a tsith-addict, a beach-comber at Venusport. Maybe he'd get one last chance...._
* * * * *
His sleep-drugged mind was slow to respond. He was lying face down, heknew that. And he ought to get up. If he didn't get up he would drown.Something hot and heavy, like a huge hand, was pressing him deeperinto the brackish mire. He pondered. Perhaps it were better to drown.For a moment he allowed himself the luxury of the thought, thendecided against it. Plenty of time later for drowning. First there wassomething he had to do!
So it was that Joel Latham, Earthman, age thirty, occupation spacedrifter, avocation tsith drinker, awakened on this most momentous ofmornings.
Moaning in protest, he slowly rolled himself over. The sun slapped himhard against the eyes. He blinked against the pain and saw that he wasstill in Venusport; rather he was at the edge of the swamp near thesprawling compound. Overhead the ionic field was aglow, hummingsoftly, beating back the obscurant mists.
He managed to stand up. Some of the pallid-faced gweels, out in theswamp, stopped their work to stare at him. Latham grimaced. Everyfiber of him, especially his brain, seemed to have been squeezed dry.Then it came. He felt it coming and there was nothing he could do tostop it. The hammering nausea took him suddenly about the middle,bending him double.
"I'm an Earthman," Joel Latham groaned aloud. That was invariably thefirst reaction of the tsith hound, at least with Terrestrials whoindulged in the deadly stuff; a piteous protest half in defiance, halfin despair. The nausea reached up through his stomach, through hischest and into his throat. It became more than nausea. It grew thornsthat stabbed inwardly, jagged edges that sawed away at his brain witha terrible need. He fell forward on hands and knees ... and that'swhen he saw the little Martian who crouched a few feet away, watchinghim.
"I went through mine a few minutes ago," the Martian said in amonotone. "Yours will go away presently."
"I know ... it will. Been through this ... before."
"You obviously have. Many times."
Many times was an understatement, Latham thought wretchedly. But thiswas one of the worst ones, even worse than the time on Callisto.Thinking about it didn't help.
He turned his gaze back to the Martian. That didn't help either.
Most Martians are lean and brown and ugly. This one was that, andmore. What had once been clothes were tattered and spattered withswamp mud. The hair was a wisp, the teeth only a memory. The skin wastight and leathery across the bony structure of the face, the eyesdistended and yellow, the unmistakable sign of a tsith hound.
Latham grimaced, managed to grind out: "Do I look as bad as you?"
"Worse," the little Martian was matter-of-fact.
"I believe you." He looked long and hard at the Martian. "I rememberyou now. Name's Kueelo. You were with me last night--"
Kueelo grinned, showing the stumps of yellowish teeth. "Correction.Four nights ago. That's when it began."
Latham climbed to his feet. The reaction was going away but there wasstill a dull apathy about his brain. Just to think was an achingeffort.
"Four days," he muttered. "How'd I come here?"
"So you don't remember that? You came on the pleasure yacht. The onefrom Turibek."
* * * * *
"Turibek--" Latham was remembering now. Turibek, capital city ofVenus, far on the other side of the planet. He'd had a small stake andwas lucky at the gaming tables. Before that it was Callisto, where hehad struck it rich in the iridium fields; anyway, rich enough to keephim supplied with tsith for a year. Before Callisto it had been Mars.He had worked the rocket rooms of Jovian freighters, he had served astourist guide in the dark little streets of Ganymede City, and whenfortune was lowest he had begged in those streets and done worsethings than begging. Before that he couldn't remember. He wentwherever whim and fortune took him, but the whims were short-lived andthe fortune invariably ended at the bottom of a glass. The deadlytsith twisted his brain awry and took its toll and drove him on. Hehad been "on the beach" on half a dozen planets. Earth he shunned. Hehadn't set foot there in more years than he could remember. At firstit was because he was ashamed, but even that was gone now. Only a coldsickness was left in the soul of Joel Latham.
He stared at this fellow tsith hound, this shell of a Martian, andsaid, "What happened last night?"
"What always happens," Kueelo said wearily. "We used up all ourcredit. Penger kicked us out."
It took Joel Latham a full minute to absorb that piece of information.Mixed up with the agony in his eyes was a pensive look, but noresentment; his need just now was too dire for resentment. He staredacross the swamp at the outpost's straggling street. Jake Penger wasthe law here, and he owned the only supply of tsith. Latham recalledhim vaguely, a huge man, inscrutable, uncompromising.
"Penger," he muttered. "That's it. I knew there was something I wasgoing to do."
"What were you going to do?" Kueelo moved in closer, a sudden light ofinterest in his eyes.
"See Penger, of course."
"Why?"
"I need tsith! And I'm going to need it worse before this day's over."
Kueelo's eyes went dull again. "We both do. How do you think you'regoing to manage it?"
"I'll show you. Never let it be said that Joel Latham was helpless inface of an emergency." With unsteady fingers he began a search of hisclothes. And that's when the final realization descended upon JoelLatham. These weren't his clothes, not the ones he had when he camehere.
He stared into the Martian's mango-like face. "I had a lucky piece. Anancient Deimian jewel set in platinum. It's always been good forcredit."
Kueelo's sigh was like a wind through withered leaves. "That," hesaid, "was used up two nights ago."
"I had a dis-gun, too! What happened to it?"
"We used that up last night. Penger allowed us four drinks apiece forit."
Latham nodded miserably. "The space yacht. I guess it's already gone."
"Two days ago. Your fine feathered friends shunned you when theylearned you were a tsith hound. But I stuck by you," Kueelo addedcunningly.
Latham sank heavily onto a clump of swamp grass. He stared at hisright hand. It had started trembling. He couldn't stop the trembling.He wondered dully if he was frightened, or if that was a result of theterrible craving that twisted and writhed within him. He stared upinto the Martian's face.
"Stranded," he said weakly. "But I'll get out of here. I'll hire outon one of the freighters--"
"You won't." Kueelo's voice was matter-of-fact again. "Not when theylearn you're a tsith hound. And Penger will let them know, you can beton that. He's a devil, that Penger."
"But he's an Earthman, and I'm an Earthman!" Latham's voice was almosta wail. His soul was withering within him.
"Tell Penger that and see what he answers you. You're on the beach, myfriend. You've been there before, but this is the final beach--theswampside of Venus. And here you'll stay until Penger is ready to letyou go. I've been here five years."
Joel Latham put his head in his hands and tried to think. Kueelo'svoice dron
ed on:
"You'll work for Penger. You'll work in the swamps. An Earthman, aMartian, a Ganymedian can do ten times the work of one of thesegweels." He gestured at the pallid-faced low-Venusians who movedlistlessly through the mud, pulling up the draanga-weed. "You'll workfor the amount of tsith Penger portions out to you, and glad to getit."
At the word _tsith_, Latham's head came up. The dawning fear was gonefrom his eyes.
"All right! I'll do it, but only for a while, mind you! I'll find away out of this. I'm getting back to the iridium fields on Callisto."
He plunged wildly into the mud