Gavin Murdock was on watch below, when the _Nova_ sliced into the upper
strata of Jupiter's atmosphere. She dived in at a slant on the opposite
side of the planet for Jovopolis and was quickly smothered from view by
the thick translucent air.
To the early astronomers, Jupiter had appeared enormous although it was
only about a third denser than water. But the Huygen expedition in the
first years of interplanetary travel had resolved the enigma. Jupiter
consisted of a small solid core surrounded by an intensive and very
dense atmosphere. The force of gravity at the surface was only between
two and three times that on Terra.
Nominally, Jupiter was a colony of the Terran empire. But every attempt
at settlement had proved disastrous. Today Jovopolis was an outpost,
consisting of rotting shacks, a trading post, and one modern structure
which housed the Huygen Memorial Institute of Science. Even the
interplanetary patrol had made no attempt to install a permanent base.
The officers and men lived in their ship while they were assigned to
the station.
The _Nova_ began to settle Jove-ward. Gavin never left the bridge
televisor, pulling switches, relaying orders to the jetman and master
mechanic as the clumsy monster performed the ticklish job of landing.
Villanowski, who had been routed out of his bunk by the landing
alarm, paced back and forth the length of the engine room, his eyes
everywhere. He didn't interfere, though.
Then the _Nova_ struck with a bump which threw the chief engineer to
his hands and knees.
He scrambled up, brushing off his shorts. "Nice landing." He patted
Gavin's shoulder. "Nice landing."
It _was_ a nice landing. Gavin's bony freckled features relaxed. Broken
ankles, bruises and sprains were only too frequent when setting a ship
down without the benefit of spaceways.
"How long will it take us to load?"
"Five days," Villanowski replied. "Jovian time."
The Jovian day, Gavin knew, was only nine hours and fifty-five minutes
long. That meant the Nova would be on Jupiter forty-nine hours. Gavin
made a hasty mental calculation. It cut the margin of success to the
barest minimum time. He would have to act and act quickly.
He started for the ladder, feeling the increased gravity tug at his
flesh.
"Not so fast, lad," said Villanowski.
Gavin paused.
The chief engineer's attitude had undergone such a remarkable change
that Gavin's own suspicions had been aroused. It dated from the second
meal following the little death. Nadia had regaled the officers with
her dream--the one in which Gavin had been a T.I.S. agent and contrived
the capture of them all on Jupiter.
Villanowski's homely face had clouded. Then he had remarked with a wry
expression that stranger things could happen.
Oddly enough, however, he no longer evinced the slightest suspicion
of Gavin. But an occasional joshing reference to Murdock, the T.I.S.
agent, revealed that he hadn't forgotten Nadia's dream.
Gavin said, "Yes sir," in a doubtful tone. He couldn't afford to arouse
any doubts now.
"The Captain wants to see you before you go ashore."
"Yes, sir."
Wondering what Cabot wanted with him, he struggled up the ladder. Sweat
began to pour from his skin. It was like climbing with the old man of
the sea anchored to his back.
By the time he reached his cabin he was exhausted. He stretched out on
his bunk, drew his breath in sobbing gasps. No wonder colonization of
Jupiter had proved so difficult.
At length, he drove himself to his feet. The plan, which had been
hatched in the head office of the T.I.S., would brook no delay. Captain
Cabot would have to wait.
Stooping, he pulled a bundle of tough, specially-treated fiberoid, a
material used in the construction of space suits, from under his bunk,
slung it across his shoulder. Next, he dragged forth a clock-like
instrument to which had been attached a magnesium flare, and lastly a
cylinder of hydrogen.
The hydrogen Gavin had refined from water by a crude electrolysis. The
rest of the equipment he had slipped from the engine room, working on
it during leisure moments since the little death.
He opened his door. The corridor was deserted.
Twice during the ascent topside, Gavin had to stop and rest. Even
breathing was an effort. At length he reached the arched outer skin of
the monster, pried open an escape hatch.
* * * * *
The thick yellow air of Jupiter poured down upon him like soup. It
smelled and tasted faintly like swamp gas. He had a momentary fear that
he would strangle. A spasm of coughing seized him as he gulped in the
first breaths.
Then, his lungs having adjusted themselves, he clambered to the outer
shell.
A hundred feet below, he could make out the surface, only sketchily
visible through the yellow pea-soup air. Slave pens and cantonments
were all swallowed by the dense fog.
He set to work assembling his instruments. The cold knifed to his
bones. A wind was blowing, too. It pushed against him like the sluggish
current of a river.
The fiberoid package, unfolded, proved to be a balloon almost ten feet
in diameter. It had a safety valve in it to neutralize the pressure
when the bag reached the stratosphere. Gavin attached the clock and
flare, started the clock in operation, inflated the bag. The instant it
tugged at his numbed fingers, he shut off the hydrogen, cast it free.
It was scarcely a fifth inflated, but the heavy pressure caused it to
float slowly, upward out of sight.
The clock was timed to ignite the flare when the balloon reached the
stratosphere. Observatories on Io, Europa, Callisto, and Ganymede
had their instruments trained on Jupiter. As soon as the flare was
discovered, a check was to be made of the prevailing winds in that
area. A simple parabola would indicate the balloon flare's probable
course. The information then would be relayed to a flight of five
patrol spacers held in readiness on the nearer moon.
That was the way it had been planned. But now Gavin was not so sure. So
many things could interfere. He closed the trap overhead and retreated
back to his cabin.
Sweating profusely, he flung himself on his bunk. He was still there,
his breath rasping in his throat, when his door was pushed silently
open from the outside.
Gavin whipped his dart-gun from its spring clip and slipped it under
his pillow. He didn't move, but lay still with his eyes closed except
for the barest fraction of an inch.
The door yawned wider.
Then the figure of Nadia Petrovna slipped soundlessly inside, eased
the door shut. She stood over him, watching him with a desperate
intentness. Satisfied that he slept, she set to work searching his
cabin.
Gavin lay quiet, observing her skill appreciatively. The girl was
efficient. She went rapidly through his closet, his chest, his bags.
She probed the lone chair cushion with a long needle, peered under his
bed, then vanished in the shower. After a moment she reappeared, stood
over him again, a puzzled expression on her pretty slavic features.
"No luck, eh?" murmured Gavin pleasantly. He opened his eyes and sat up.
Nadia gasped.
Gavin narrowed his eyes and roared in a suddenly harsh voice, "What the
hell are you prying through my luggage for?"
The girl jumped. "I--I ..." she began, and then lapsed into confusion.
He waited.
"It sounds so foolish," she confessed, her long black eyes on the deck.
Her fingers were twining about each other nervously. "But I can't get
that dream out of my mind." She glanced up at him with a frightened
expression.
"What dream?"
"The little death. When you turned out to be a T.I.S. agent. I--I
begged you to give me a chance, let me try to escape."
"Yes," asked Gavin with a show of interest. "What did I do?"
"You laughed at me. I can't forget it."
"I wouldn't laugh at you," he replied somberly.
The girl's eyes softened. They were remarkable eyes, long and black and
lustrous, the lashes half-hiding them.
"Why, Gavin, I believe you're flirting with me."
There was an odd little laugh in the words. It was the first time she'd
called him Gavin.
"Don't be too sure," said Gavin gruffly. His arms went around her
waist. He pulled her to a seat beside him and kissed her roughly.
Someone rapped at the door. Nadia sprang to her feet. Gavin called out,
"Who is it?"
"The steward, sir. The Captain sent me to fetch you to the messroom."
* * * * *
When Gavin entered the officer's mess, he saw the Captain seated across
a table from the thinnest man he had ever encountered.
"This is Hendricks," Cabot introduced them. The Captain was cold sober
and hard-eyed. "He's the factor here at the cantonment."
Gavin shook hands. The factor had an amazing grip. His flesh hung on in
tough strings. He looked more like an animated skeleton than a man, but
Gavin was conscious of a tremendous wiry strength in him.
"You going ashore, Mr. Murdock?" the factor inquired.
Gavin nodded. "Miss Petrovna and I were planning to visit the
cantonment." He saw a glance pass between Cabot and the factor.
The factor said, "Splendid," and rubbed his emaciated hands together.
"Allow me to play host. The officers are already at my establishment."
Gavin thanked him.
"But let me warn you," went on the factor. "Don't wander off. The
gravity aboard the ship here is bad enough. The atmosphere is much
worse. It's easy to get lost, I've known newcomers to die of exhaustion
only a few steps from the cantonment."
Gavin thanked him again, started to withdraw when the factor halted him.
"I've bearers waiting outside," he explained. "They're at your service
while you're here. I really advise you not to walk any more than
necessary."
This time Gavin made good his escape. He had been politely instructed
not to pry, he realized. Villanowski might be confident of him, but not
the Captain.
Gavin was smiling when he met Nadia at the main port, but his eyes were
hard. Both of them had donned outer insulating garments of thermal
cloth.
"We're going to be carried in litters like ancient Oriental
potentates," he informed her.