Amazingly, the period of readjustment was not long, nor was it arduous.
It was accomplished briefly, surely, in a series of emphatic object
lessons. There was Enid Andrews, for instance. On her first afternoon
in the cave she called 'Tina to her side, ordered the beautification of
her face, her hair, her nails, and with a sigh of relief surrendered to
the ministrations of the younger girl.
Greg, witness to this, frowned. But he motioned for silence when Aunt
Maud would have made some irate comment.
That evening, by former agreement, Enid washed the dinner dishes. When
'Tina stepped forward to dry them, Greg stopped her.
"Sit down, 'Tina. Mrs. Andrews will dry them."
Enid started, gasped, stared at the huge pile appalled. 'Tina said,
"But there are so many of them, Greg. Ten of us--"
"You have done extra work today," said Greg suavely, "to earn your
rest. Mrs. Andrews is in your debt. She must work out her obligation.
We have," he continued pointedly, "no servants or masters here.
Courtesies must be repaid in kind."
Only twice more did the lessons have to be repeated; once when Bert
Andrews gluttonously devoured an entire berry pie and was made to spend
the next lunch-hour picking fruit for another; again when Breadon
carelessly fouled the spring by washing in it, and in penance was
required to construct a clay-and-stone dam below the spring, that in
the future the community might have adequate bathing facilities; after
that everyone understood that he had his alloted share of work, that
the work must be done, that meals, warmth, comfort and safety could be
earned only by sweat and toil.
And gradually the rude cave dwelling began to take on the semblance of
a home. During the short days at their disposal before Titan, pursuing
its cosmic rounds, plunged into the umbra of its gigantic mother
planet, every member of the refugee corps worked feverishly to prepare
and fortify for the dark days to come.
It was well that they did so, for when the darkness descended, ensued a
bleakness even more terrifying than Greg had anticipated. The eclipse
of Titan by its parent was no mild, momentary phenomenon like the
eclipsing of Earth by Luna; it was a five day cessation of all heat and
light.
With the darkness came sweeping, icy winds, gales monstrously violent,
and incredible cold. From a sky black and terrible came the snow, five
inches of it in an hour, eight feet of it in a day. It was alarming at
first. Then Greg and all of them realized that the very ferocity of
the storm was their salvation! Were there to be this frightful cold
_without_ snow, not all the fires of Gehenna, not all the clothing and
blankets in the universe, could have protected them. But the snow,
dropping like a sodden, white blanket, choked and filled the mouth of
their cave, piled thicker and thicker, enswaddling them in a fleecy
comfort that kept out the bone-brittling blasts.
Then they thanked the foresight that had led them to build up a
roof-touching fuel reserve, a store of fresh produce and game, for they
could not leave their refuge. They were snowbound until Titan left the
shadow of Saturn and the warmth should again melt their prison walls.
But those days were not days of idleness; they were days of
accomplishment. The women, under 'Tina's guidance, ripped apart
unneeded goods salvaged from the skiff's stores--tarpaulins, extra
bedding and napery, carpeting, drapes--and restitched them into more
needed, more practical articles of wearing and household apparel.
* * * * *
Breadon and Greg, laying aside a mutely-acknowledged hostility,
pooled their knowledge and ingenuity in an effort to ascertain their
whereabouts on the satellite. Neither had studied mathematics closely,
a fact each now bewailed. But they had a few books on astrogation,
taken from the skiff, and they had determination and intelligence.
Utilizing some of their precious, dwindling store of forged metal, they
constructed a crude but--they believed--reasonably accurate sextant
with which, when the darkness was gone, they hoped to take celestial
readings that would aid their computations.
In the making of this, Greg was forced to sacrifice something that
had been for almost ten years as much a part of him as his arms and
legs. His spectacles. Strangely, he did not miss them much after the
first day. Their purpose had been mainly to protect him from eyestrain
and headaches in a confined vocation that required much reading. But
here on Saturn's satellite, health improved by hard labor, Greg had
experienced no headaches. He was, in fact, almost disgustingly healthy.
He could tell by the straining of his clothes at throat and chest and
waist-band that he was gaining weight; his appetite had improved and
when night came, he did not have to read himself to sleep.
Young Tommy took upon himself the task of chronicling their exile.
His method, though extravagantly romantic as befitted his years
and enthusiasm for this adventure, was nonetheless efficient. He
laboriously scraped smooth a wide portion of the cave-wall; on this
he inscribed a calendar, a log, and a map of such portions of the
satellite as they had so far explored.
Meanwhile Sparks Hannigan fretted over his damaged radio set. An
accomplished bug-pounder, he took little time to get the wiring
rearranged. The replacement of metal parts was a tougher problem, but
it, too, he solved with the aid of their acetylene torch.
One final job, however, stopped him cold. He shook his head when he
spoke of it to Malcolm.
"The tubes, Greg. It just ain't no use. We can't operate the radio
less'n we got tubes, and ours is gone. I guess I'm just wasting my
time."
Greg said, "Isn't there a type of radio that works without tubes?
Operates on a crystal, or something?"
Sparks said, "Yeah. But it ain't got no power. We got to get a message
plumb off the satellite, out into space where it can be picked up by a
Space Patrol cruiser. Or the Saturn lightship."
"And that's impossible? Suppose you had glass?"
"Can you make it?" scoffed Sparks.
"Maybe," said Greg. "Glass was accidentally discovered in the first
place, you know, by Phoenician sailors who built a fire on a sandy
beach wherein was imbedded raw chunks of natron. We might be able to do
the same."
Sparks shook his head glumly. "O.Q. So that gives us glass. We still
got to blow it, and figger out some way of sucking the air out, and
winding filaments. Oh, understand, I ain't saying we can't _do_ it,
Greg. But it'll take years."
Greg nodded soberly.
"Well, we'll overlook no bets. Sparks--tell you what to do. You go
ahead and build one of those simple 'crystal' sets, just in the event
that someday a scout ship or exploration plane should come within our
range. Andrews is an important man, you know. Earth won't dismiss him
casually as 'Lost in Space.' We'll also, as soon as the Sun comes back,
clear a wide swath in the plain below us and construct a huge SOS sign
of wood and underbrush that will be visible by day and can be set afire
by night.
"Then, if we should ever hear the signal of a scout ship, we'll hope
they see our marker."
"If!" grunted Sparks.
"What's that?"
"Skip it!" said Hannigan. "I was just making book against myself."
* * * * *
So Greg maintained an optimism before the others, an optimism he did
not entirely feel himself. Always he talked of the day they would leave
Titan, but sometimes he wondered if that day would ever come.
And truth to tell, there were periods when he almost hoped that day
would not ever come! For here, a thousand million miles from the Earth
that had borne him, Gregory Malcolm had finally come into the rulership
that, on Earth, he could never win, but that here was his by right of
greater strength and knowledge.
He gazed about him, musing, and saw a cavern bright with candles that
_he_ had taught the womenfolk to render from the fats of wild beasts,
warm with a flame _he_ had kindled and nurtured, comfortable with
furnishings _he_ had constructed to their purpose. He saw nine men and
women, a half dozen of whom had been his "superiors" aforetime, but who
now looked to him for guidance, protection and leadership.
His mind's eye pierced the rock walls of the cavern and gazed,
marveling, at the cosmos as viewed from desolate Titan. When these
snows melted he could stand upon the hillside beneath the flaming
moons of Saturn, beneath the never-ending wonder of Saturn's massive,
multi-colored Rings, and say with Defoe's ancient castaway that here
he, indeed, was monarch of all he surveyed.
This was his ordained fate; this was his brave, new world; these people
were his subjects. And he was, for howsoever brief or long a time, an
Emperor. And the white, the whirling stars--these were his empire!
Perhaps he was not the only one of that group who saw this truth. For
there was more than mere grudging lip-service in the changed attitude
of Andrews and his wife and son. Bert Andrews was a changed boy. His
wilfulness had vanished; his allegiance to Greg was ardent. Maud
Andrews' affection for Greg was an obvious thing. She saw to it that he
was first fed, first clothed, first taken care of in all things; hers
was an attitude of fierce maternalism, springing from a breast that had
never known motherhood.
And--and there was another strange thing, too. A thing of singing
glory that Greg could scarce believe, even though its truth was
exhibited to him in a thousand little ways.
Crystal Andrews!
A great change had come upon Crystal Andrews since the loss of the
_Carefree_. Of the old Crystal, only one part remained. Her blindingly
radiant beauty. Her selfishness, her coldness, had fled, had been
banished as her accustomed languidness had been banished by the
obligation of labor.
Daily her attitude toward Greg grew more intimate. From aloofness she
melted into acceptance, acceptance faded and became approval. Approval
waxed as transpiring events proved time and again Greg's wisdom and his
right to rule; there came upon the girl an eagerness to be the first to
do whatever he suggested.
This was good, and as it should be. But there was something else, too;
something deeper. At first Greg could not understand it, then gradually
its meaning became clear even to his wholly-masculine mind. The sudden
glance ... the lingering touch of hand against hand as they chanced
to pass one another ... the host of unnecessary little questions that
brought them into contact a dozen times a day ... the sweeping flush
when he, looking up unexpectedly, met her gaze. All these and other
things. The lithe, sure, free, but overwhelmingly feminine allure of
her body, shoulder brushing his as they sat before the fireplace in the
long evenings. The slow caress of her voice when she spoke his name.
The moment of swift alarm--a torpid snake that had somehow wriggled
into the cavern, toward the warmth of the fire--and Crystal in his
arms for all too short a moment. And drawing away reluctantly when the
"danger" was past.
* * * * *
He should have known from these things. Or from the amused glances of
Sparks Hannigan, or the increased surliness of Ralph Breadon, or from
the sudden loss of gaiety on the part of 'Tina.
"What's the matter with you, 'Tina? Don't you feel well lately?"