The Edmond Hamilton Megapack: 16 Classic Science Fiction Tales (53 page)

Kenniston spoke slowly, to Murdock and Gloria and the others. “It wasn’t merely Ricky’s life at stake that made me sacrifice you all. It was more than that. I tried to tell you before, but you wouldn’t listen.”

Kenniston went across the hut and brought back the square black medicine-case of his young physician-brother. He opened it, and out of the vials and instruments inside he took a square bottle of milky fluid.

“This is what I sacrificed everything to save,” Kenniston said simply.

They all stared. “What is it?” Gloria asked, puzzled.

“It’s Ricky’s discovery,” Kenniston said. “It’s a preventative and cure for gravitation-paralysis.”

Captain Walls, himself an oldtime spaceman, was first of the group to appreciate the significance of the statement. The captain gasped.

“A preventative for gravitation-paralysis? Kenniston, are you
sure
?”

Kenniston nodded gravely. “Yes. Ricky had been working on the problem a long time, back in the Institute of Planetary Medicine. He thought he’d found a way to prevent gravitation-paralysis, the most awful scourge of all the outer System, the thing that’s doomed so many spacemen. But his formula required rare elements found only in the outer planets.

“Ricky and I,” he continued, “went out there and secured those elements. He made up this formula, and tried it on a gravitation-paralysis case—a spaceman who’s lain paralyzed for years. The formula was designed to strengthen the human nervous system against the shock of varying gravitations, to re-establish an already damaged nerve-web. And it worked.”

Kenniston’s voice was husky as he concluded. “It worked, and that living log became a man again. The formula was a success. Ricky and I started back for Earth, where he intended to announce the discovery and arrange for its manufacture on a big scale. But, on the way back, Dark’s pirates captured us.”

Kenniston flung out his hand in a tortured gesture. “
That’s
why I went to any lengths to save Ricky’s life! It’s because Ricky is the only person who knows the intricate formula of this serum. If he were to die, the secret of the cure would die with him. And that would mean that thousands on thousands more of spacemen would be stricken into living death by gravitation-paralysis in the future, just as so many thousands of old friends and shipmates of mine have been stricken in the past!”

Captain Walls was the first to speak. Quietly, the plump master of the
Sunsprite
extended his hand.

“Kenniston, will you shake hands with me? And will you forgive me for everything? You did absolutely right. I’m an old spaceman and I
know
what gravitation-paralysis is.”

Gloria’s dark eyes were glimmering with tears. “If we’d only known,” she murmured to Kenniston. “No one could blame you for sacrificing a lot of worthless idlers like us, for a thing like this.”

“But you’re going to be all right—all of you,” Kenniston assured her. “John Dark will make you pay a big ransom, but you can afford that and you’ll get back safely to Earth.”

“Thank Heaven for that!” exclaimed Mrs. Milsom. “I can’t understand all this scientific talk of yours, but I do know that that pirate chief means no good to me. Didn’t you see the lustful looks he gave me?”

The laugh that greeted this lessened the tension. Kenniston turned as Ricky plucked at his arm.

“What about ourselves, Lance?” Ricky asked quietly. “Dark still won’t let us go, you know. He still needs me as a doctor.”

Hugh Murdock stepped forward. “Dark would let you both go, for a big enough ransom. I’d like to pay it for you.”

The handsomeness of Murdock’s gesture moved Kenniston. He was only able to mutter his thanks.

While Ricky was treating Captain Walls’ burned arm, the officer kept looking fascinatedly at that square bottle of milky fluid.

He said hesitantly, “I’ve a son—back on Earth. For five years he’s lain in a cot from the gravitation-paralysis that hit him out on Jupiter. Do you suppose—”

Ricky nodded. “Yes, Captain. I’m sure that we can cure him, now.”

There was an uproar out in the clearing. Kenniston went to the door and looked out.

The electric wall had temporarily been dropped, and Kin Ibo and the main body of the pirates were hastily entering the camp with their improvised power-sledges that bore heavy loads of machinery and materials.

Kenniston heard Kin Ibo reporting shrilly to John Dark, “We lost two men to the Vestans on the way here—and nearly lost two more! All this activity has drawn them from all over the asteroid! Look at that!”

Outside the electric wall, which had been hastily re-raised, could be glimpsed the shapes of lurking asteroidal animals. Meteor-rats, big striped cats, flame-birds—and every one of those lurking animals bore attached to its neck one of the little gray Vestan parasites.

John Dark was saying harshly, “We’ve got to have the rest of those materials to repair the
Falcon
.”

“I tell you, it’d be suicide to try another trip through those jungles!” expostulated the Martian. “Those Vestans are devils!”

“Bah, you Martians are all alike—no good when your superstitions get aroused,” snorted Dark contemptuously. “I’ll take the men down myself. Come on, men—unload those sledges and we’ll go back to the wreck.”

His indomitable personality drove the scared, unwilling pirates into the task. Again the electric wall was faded out for a moment to let them out.

When they returned some time toward morning, Kenniston heard the crash of atom-guns heralding their approach. And when the wall was momentarily dropped, John Dark and his men stumbled into the camp with their loaded sledges in sweating haste.

“Turn on the wall again—quick!” bellowed Dark’s bull voice. “The jungle’s swarming with the gray devils now—they got five of us on the way back!”

Ricky, looking over Kenniston’s shoulder, spoke appalledly. “Good God, Lance—look at them! I didn’t know there
were
so many Vestans!”

Outside the barrier of shimmering electricity, scores of animals and birds dominated by the dreaded little gray parasitical creatures were now swarming. And their number seemed growing every minute.

“All this activity of the night has drawn the Vestans from far and wide,” Kenniston muttered. “I don’t like it. If that electric wall should fail, the creatures would be in on us in a moment.”

Dark himself seemed to feel something of the same apprehension, for he was shouting urgent orders. “Hook up those atomic welders, and start putting the new plates into the
Falcon’s
tail. Kin Ibo, have your gang fit in the new rocket-tubes. I’ll see to installing the new cycs. If we work, we can get the job done by tomorrow night and get out of here.”

Through the day, the pirates toiled with an energy that showed their earnest desire to leave the asteroid. That desire was reinforced by the ever-larger number of Vestans that now swarmed outside the wall.

There were literally hundreds of the gray parasites now outside the barrier. To have tried going outside the wall now would have been sheer suicide. The creatures were apparently driven by unholy eagerness to possess themselves of human bodies.

Gloria, looking out with Kenniston, shuddered deeply. “This horrible world! It’s like a nightmare.”

“We’ll soon be away from it,” Kenniston reassured. “See, they’ve almost finished repairing the
Falcon
.”

The urgent toil of the pirates was showing results. By the time night came again, and the meteor-moonlets blazed forth with magic beauty in the dark heavens, the task of repair was almost done.

Kenniston and his companions had not ventured forth from the hut. Pirates were everywhere in the clearing, and all had heard John Dark’s strict order to blast down the captives if they left their prison.

But from the hut, Kenniston and the others could see that the horde of Vestan-dominated animals around the camp had further increased. With ghastly avidity, they kept circling the shimmering, electric wall.

Kenniston turned in alarm at a ripping sound from the back of the log hut. Two of the logs were being torn out bodily. The battered green face and giant shoulders of Holk Or came through the opening.

“Kenniston, I came in this way because I didn’t dare let Dark see me talking to you!” the Jovian exclaimed. His face was urgent in expression. “I’ve found out that Dark doesn’t mean to let your friends here get away from Vesta alive.”

“What?” exclaimed Kenniston. “That’s impossible! Dark said he was going to hold Gloria and the others for ransom.”

Holk Or nodded hastily. “I know, and he meant it, then. But since then, he’s found out something that’s changed his plans. He found it out from me—like a big fool, I told him everything when he questioned me.”

The Jovian continued rapidly. “I told him that Murdock had sent that telaudio message back to Patrol headquarters, asking about my record. Now Dark figures that the Patrol will come out here to find out if that message meant that some of John Dark’s outfit had actually escaped.

“Dark wants the Patrol to keep thinking that he and his outfit were destroyed—so he can slip out to Pluto and prepare a new base. So Dark, when he leaves here, is going to drop Miss Loring and her friends by the wrecked
Sunsprite
, so the Patrol will find ’em dead by the wreck and will believe their cruiser crashed accidentally. That way, they won’t go on searching as they would if Miss Loring’s party was all missing. And Dark will have a chance to get out to Pluto without an alarm going out.”

Kenniston was suspicious. “Why do you tell us this, Holk? You’re one of the pirates yourself.”

“I know, but I’m afraid Dark means to drop
me
with the others by the
Sunsprite
!” Holk Or exclaimed. “He didn’t say so, but I believe he figures on doing it so that the telaudio inquiry about me would be explained when I was found dead with the others by the wreck.”

Murdock said swiftly, “The Jovian’s right, Kenniston. All this is just what Dark
would
do, to hide his trail, now that he knows my telaudio message may have aroused the Patrol’s suspicion.”

Holk Or said emphatically, “I’m with you if you can figure out any way to take the
Falcon
, Kenniston!”

Kenniston paced to and fro. His whole mind was suddenly in a wild turmoil of stark fears. This meant death for Gloria and the others, and the ultimate responsibility for that death would be his.

“There is one possible chance for us to take the
Falcon
,” he muttered finally. “But my God, it seems like an insane idea—”

“Wait a minute!” Captain Walls interrupted. “Dark won’t drop you and your brother to die, Kenniston. He still needs your brother as a physician. You two will be safe even if we are killed.”

“What of that? I can’t let Gloria and the rest of you be murdered! I was willing to sacrifice you when I thought it was only a question of your being held for ransom, but this changes everything,” Kenniston said wildly.

“It doesn’t change anything,” the captain said firmly. “Your duty is to keep your brother alive at all costs, to save that formula that means life and hope for thousands of gravitation-paralysis victims like my son.”

“You mean—I should let you all be killed so Ricky and I can be saved?” Kenniston cried. “I’m damned if I will!”

“We’ll never do that!” Ricky Kenniston agreed warmly. “No formula in the world is worth that.”

“
This
formula is,” Gloria said earnestly to Kenniston. “The captain is right.”

“I won’t do it,” Kenniston repeated. “I have an idea by which we might be able to take the
Falcon
. We’re going to try it.”

“Be reasonable, Kenniston,” pleaded Hugh Murdock. “None of us except Holk Or has a weapon. What chance would we have against half a hundred armed pirates?”

Kenniston looked at his brother. “Ricky, your formula strengthens the nervous system against any form of shock or damage, doesn’t it? You said it did it by sheathing the nerves themselves with an impenetrable coating.”

Ricky nodded puzzledly. “Yes, that’s the principle. But how is that going to help us?”

“The Vestans,” Kenniston reminded, “seize control of their victims by inserting those tiny needle antennae of theirs into the victim’s nerve-system to establish contact. Wouldn’t your formula insulate the nerves against such contact? Wouldn’t it make a man immune to Vestan attack?”

“Why, it would!” Ricky declared wonderingly. “I never thought of it, yet it’s entirely logical.”

“Then,” Kenniston said swiftly, “I want you to give every one of us, including yourself, an injection of the formula right now.”

The driving purpose in his voice brushed aside all their bewildered questions and objections. Hastily, Ricky prepared his hypodermics and rapidly made an injection of the milky fluid into the big nerve-centers in the neck of each of them. Kenniston did the same for Ricky himself.