Ironic destiny had brought outlaw Steve Nolan
across the star lanes to icy Pluto and tangled
his life again with the man he had sworn to
kill. Once more he was trapped in a maze of
Galactic intrigue that reached far back into
his past--and forward to his death.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Fall 1944.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Steve Nolan was three years dead, pyro-burned in the black space off
Luna when a prison break failed. But Nolan had a job to do. Nolan came
back.
Where the Avalon Trail bends across Annihilation Range, a thousand icy
miles from Pluto's northern stem, Nolan stopped and closed the intake
valve of his helmet. Count five seconds, and he unhooked the exhausted
tank of oxygen; count ten more and it was spinning away, end over end
over Pluto's frozen surface, and a new tank was already in place. He
slipped the pressure valve and inhaled deeply of the new air.
He'd come ten miles by the phosphorescent figures on the nightstone
markers beside the trail. Fifteen more miles to go.
His cold black eyes stared absently at the east, where the pseudo-life
of the great Plutonian crystals rolled in a shifting, tinkling sea. He
noted the water-avid crystals, and noted the three crablike crawlers
that munched a solitary clump of metallic grass. You don't walk, talk
and breathe after a Tri-planet Lawman has declared you dead unless you
note everything around you and react to what may be dangerous.
But he was looking beyond the familiar Plutonian drear, to the eastern
horizon where faint lights gleamed in the dark. That was Port Avalon.
That was where Steve Nolan was bound.
Woller was in Avalon. The Alan Woller who had made him an outlaw,
roaming the star trails from Pluto to the Satellites, never daring to
return to the inner worlds where Tri-planet kept order.
There was a slow pulse mounting in Nolan's throat as he walked on,
savagely kicking a crab-shelled crawler from his path. He'd seen
the newssheet, months old, in a rickety old port on one of the
Satellites--Io? Ganymede?--when he was down to forty credits and a
friendly bartender. It hadn't been much of an item. The kind a country
editor throws into his finance column when he unexpectedly loses an ad
and has to fill space.
"The new shipping company, which expects to do much for improving
commercial relations with the outer planets, is headed by Alan
Woller, formerly with the Interplanetary Telenews Company. Woller
is remembered as the prosecution's star witness in the trial of
Steve Nolan, the Junta agent indicted for treason three years ago.
Nolan, sentenced to life imprisonment in Luna Cave, was killed
while attempting to escape.
"The new company is capitalized at over a billion dollars, and has
already taken options on bases in...."
The drink had drained out of Steve Nolan when he saw that. And the
bartender had been too friendly for his own good. He'd been a soft
touch for five hundred credits.
That had been rocket fare to Pluto for Nolan.
* * * * *
He felt the drumming with the soles of his feet, a hard, grinding
sensation against his metal boots. He jumped off the trail quickly and
whirled to watch for the approaching skid.
It was moving slowly, chugging along on a single jet.
_Clogged feeders_, Nolan thought as he felt the uneven vibrations. _If
he doesn't watch out he'll have a backblast._
The skid faltered past him, no faster than he could run. He looked away
from the incandescent flare of the one tail jet, then that stopped too.
Tall as a man, a dozen feet long, the skid lay waiting on the trail.
Waiting for Steve Nolan?
Anything was better than walking. Nolan walked up to the skid, not
fast, and kicked solidly at the entrance. It slid open with a creaking
noise and he was in the tank, sealing the outer door behind him.
The inner door didn't open. A female voice from a speaker said, "Who
are you?"
Steve waited till he saw the pressure and temperature gauges shoot up
to normal, then swung open his faceplate. "Matthews is the name," he
lied easily, out of three long years of practice. "I thought you were
waiting for me. Say the word and I'll get out again if I was wrong."
"Oh, no." The girl's voice hesitated a second. "What are you doing out
here?"
"I'm on my way to Avalon, out of Aylette. A skid bus took me across the
Ice Plains, then I caught a lift on a prospector's skid. He turned off
ten miles back and I decided to walk the rest of the way."
"Do you know anything about skids? Mine isn't working very well. I'll
pay you if you can--"
"I'm not a mechanic," Nolan said wearily.
"Oh. Then you can't fix it."
"I didn't say that. You can't pay me for it. I'll take a lift to
Avalon, though."
"A lift? But I don't know you from Adam."
Nolan sighed. "Lady, I don't know you either. Believe me, all I want is
a ride. It'll take me four hours to walk to Avalon. I can't spare the
time if I can help it." He waited a second. No answer. He shrugged and
finished his speech. "I'll make you a proposition. Let me in and I'll
fix your jets. We'll be in Avalon in twenty minutes, I'll get out and
we'll never see each other again. Don't let me in and I'll tear these
ignition wires right out of the lock. Then we'll both hitchhike."
The girl's voice came with controlled anger. "You win," she said. "Come
in." There was a soft click, and the inner door yielded under Nolan's
hand. He stepped in.
"No hard feelings," he said mildly. "I really wanted the ride. One
thing you might remember in the future, though--there are no ignition
wires in an air lock."
* * * * *
She was pretty, she was small, she was blue-eyed and brunette. But
she didn't say a word to him. She kept to her seat at the controls,
watching him lift the top off the distributing chamber, prod around in
the gummy mess inside for a second, then replace it and nod.
"You can start it up now, lady," he said. He glanced over her shoulder
through the plastic panel, to where Avalon's lights were glowing. Where
Woller was. "And the quicker," he said, "the better."
The girl looked at him curiously but said nothing. She turned and
fingered the controls. The song of power that came out of the skid's
jets brought a quick, slight smile to her lips. Nolan caught a glimpse
of her eyes reflected back at him from the plastic panel. Appreciative
eyes.
He averted his look. Would there be another time when he could meet the
gaze of a decent girl and answer it?
_When Woller's dead_, his subconscious answered him. _Until then you're
not a man, Nolan. You're a weapon!_
The skid was climbing, hugging the side of one of the vast foothills
to Annihilation Range itself, a hundred-foot chasm on one side and the
cliff on the other. Nolan watched the girl's hands for a sharp second,
then relaxed. She knew what she was doing. Unerringly the skid split
the center of the trail, following its many turns as though on a track.
But--
A sudden high sound escaped her lips. Her foot trod hard on the
back-jet pedal. The skid slewed crazily, its side crunching against the
cliff as it halted.
"What the--" snarled Nolan, hand leaping to the concealed pyro he wore
under his shirt. Then he saw.
Ahead of them was an immense rounded bulk, dome-shaped, black as the
frozen night. A crawler ... but what a crawler! Its horny shell was
half again the height of a man, filling the trail from cliff to chasm
brink. There was no passing that beast. No wonder there had been no
traffic from Avalon!
Mutely the girl turned to Nolan. He grinned sourly, then clambered into
the heat suit he'd just put off.
He eyed the girl for a second. "I'm going to have to trust you. I have
to get to Avalon, so I have to get this misbegotten monstrosity out of
my way. And I have to leave the skid to do it. That gives you a fair,
clear chance."
The girl shook her head. "I'll take you to Avalon. I owe you that much.
But--but how--"
"Watch," Nolan said curtly, and climbed into the tank. Before he closed
the door a thought struck him.
He poked his head out at her. "If anything should go wrong," he said,
"and I find myself scattered all over that valley down there, you'd
better stay put. Keep the crawler away with the brake jet. And wait for
someone to come along. You're not the skidster to back this crate all
the way down the trail, with just a brake jet."
Then he slammed the inner door, sealed his helmet, pushed his way out.
The crawler was even bigger than he'd thought. Standing within ten
feet of it, he felt tiny and weak, a toy before this massive brute.
Like ancient Earth dinosaurs, the crawlers kept growing as long as
they lived. Tiny as the palm of a man's hand, foot-high creatures like
those Nolan had kicked out of his way an hour before or monstrosities
like the one before him--all three types existed side by side. Only
seldom did they grow as great as this. Invulnerable though they were,
they perished of starvation, when their bulk grew too much for their
thousands of tiny legs to carry.
Out of the ebon hulk of the thing came poking a minute head,
goggle-eyed, with a luminous halo of green tendrils surrounding it.
It blinked weakly at Nolan. He waited patiently. If the thing was
convinced he was harmless.
It was. Recovering from the shock of the skid's arrival it began to
prepare for motion again. The head poked out toward the skid on a long,
scrawny neck, examined it minutely. The big carapace shivered and rose
slightly off the ground as the multitude of tiny legs took up the task
of carrying it forward.
Nolan stood motionless. The creature moved ponderously toward him,
ignoring him. In the dull mind of the creature an object as tiny as
a man was nothing. Even the skid was merely another sort of boulder,
against which it could lean, send it hurtling over to destruction, out
of its way.
It moved forward till the hard horn almost touched him. Then Nolan
leaped.
This was the moment of decision. He circled the long neck with one
lashing arm, clamped on it all the pressure he could bring to bear. It
was the one sensitive spot the creature had--and protected, normally,
by armor battleship-thick.
Nolan strained the muscles of his arm, cursing the cushion of air
inside his suit that made a pillow for the beast. The slippery flesh
coiled and writhed in his grip; the beast exhaled a great, whistling
screech of agony and the snakelike neck curved around. The popeyed head
darted in at him, tiny mouth distended to show raw, red flesh inside.
It battered ineffectually against the heavy plastic faceplate of his
suit.
The crawler vented its whistling sigh again and staggered drunkenly
away. Away from the remorseless pressure on its sore spot, away from
the agonizing weight of him. Its tiny legs carried it rocking sidewise.
Then abruptly they tried to halt it, gave sharp warning to the tiny
brain. It was too late.
The scrambling legs flailed for a foothold and found vacuum. Nolan gave
a final heave, felt the thing slide away from him, leaped back. Just
in time. He himself was teetering on the brink of the chasm as the
crawler, tiny head darting frantically, soundlessly around, slid over
and disappeared.
He didn't look down. The clattering and crashing vibrations from below
told what happened. He turned, shook himself and headed for the skid.
The girl was waiting for him. Nolan was mildly surprised. She looked at
him curiously as he entered.
"A dirty job," she offered tentatively.