_Casey Ritter, the guy who never turned
down a dare, breathed a prayer to the gods
of idiots and spacemen, and headed in toward
the great red spot of terrible Jupiter._
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Fall 1954.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Those methane and ammonia planets, take it from me, they're the
dead-end of creation, and why the Old Man ever thought them up I'll
never know. I never thought I'd mess around any of them, but things
can sure happen. A man can get himself backed into a corner in this
little old solar system. It just ain't big enough for a gent of scope
and talent; and the day the Solar System Customs caught me red-handed
smuggling Kooleen crystals in from Mars, I knew I was in that corner,
and sewed up tight.
Sure, the crystals are deadly, but I was smuggling them legitimately,
in a manner of speaking, for this doctor to experiment with. He wasn't
going to sell them for dope. But--and this was the 'but' that was
likely to deprive the System of my activities--even experimenting with
them was illegal even if it needed to be done; also, I had promised not
to rat on him before taking the job.
Well, Casey Ritter may be a lot of things we won't mention, but he
doesn't rat on his clients. So there I was, closeted with the ten
members of the S.S. Customs Court, getting set to hear the gavel
fall and the head man intone the sentence that would take me out of
circulation for a long, long time. And instead, blast me, if they
didn't foul me with this trip to good old Jupiter.
I didn't get it at first. I'd argued with 'em, but inside I'd been all
set for the sentence, and even sort of reconciled to it. I could even
hear the words in my mind. But they didn't match what the judge was
saying. I stood there gaping like a beached fish while I sorted it out.
Then I croaked, "Jupiter! What for? Are you running outa space in stir?
Want to choke me to death in chlorine instead?" Being civil to the
court didn't seem important just then. Jupiter was worse than the pen,
a lot worse. Jupiter was a death sentence.
The senior judge rapped sharply with his gavel. He frowned me down and
then nodded at the judge on his right. This bird, a little old hank of
dried-up straw, joined his fingertips carefully, cleared his scrawny
throat, and told me what for.
"You've no doubt heard tales of the strange population of Jupiter,"
he said. "Every spaceman has, I am sure. Insect-like creatures who
manifestly migrated there from some other system and who inhabit
the Red Spot of the planet, floating in some kind of artificial
anti-gravity field in the gaseous portion of the atmosphere--"
I snorted. "Aw, hell, judge, that's just one of those screwy fairy
tales! How could any--"
The senior judge rapped ferociously, and I skidded to a halt. Our
little story teller patiently cleared his skinny throat again.
"I assure you it is no fairy tale. We possess well-authenticated
photographs of these inhabitants, and if you are prepared to visit them
and in some way worm from them the secret of their anti-gravity field,
the government stands ready to issue you a full pardon as well as a
substantial monetary reward. Your talents, Mr. Ritter, seem, shall we
say, eminently suited to the task."
* * * * *
He beamed at me. I looked around. They were all beaming. At me!
Suddenly I smelled a rat as big as an elephant. That whole Kooleen
caper: Had it been just a trap to lead me straight to this? I hadn't
been able to figure how they'd cracked my setup....
At the thought my larynx froze up tight. This was worse than I'd
thought. Government men trapping me and then beaming at me. And a full
pardon. And a reward. Oh, no! I told myself, it wasn't possible. Not
when I already had more counts against me than a cur has fleas. Not
unless it was a straight suicide mission!
I feebly massaged my throat. "Pictures?" I whispered. "Show me 'em."
Crude, but it was all I could squeeze out.
I squeezed out more when I saw those pictures, though. Those
inhabitants were charming, just charming if you like scorpions. Well,
a cross between a scorpion and a grasshopper, to be accurate. Floating
among that red stuff, they showed up a kind of sickly purple turning to
gangrene around the edges.
The bleat of anguish that accompanied my first view of those beauties
had taken my voice again. "How big?" I whispered.
He shrugged, trying for nonchalance. "About the size of a man, I
believe."
I raised my shrinking head. "Take me to jail!" I said firmly, and
collapsed onto my chair.
A crafty-eyed buzzard across the table leaned toward me. "So this is
the great Casey Ritter, daredevil of the Solar System!" he sneered.
"Never loses a bet, never turns down a dare!"
I shuddered. "You're telling that one! And besides, a man's got to draw
the line somewhere. And I'm drawing it right here. Take me to jail!"
They were really stumped. They hadn't expected me to take this attitude
at all. No doubt they had it figured that I'd gratefully throw myself
into a sea of ammonia among man-size scorpions just for the hell of
it. Nuts! After all, in the pen a man can eat and breathe, and a guard
won't reach in and nip off an arm or leg while he's got his back
turned. How stupid could they get?
When I finally wore them down and got to my little cell, I looked
around it with a feeling of real coziness. I even patted the walls
chummily and snapped a salute at the guard. It makes me grind my molars
now to think of it. The way that bunch of stuffed shirts in the S.S.C.
made a gold-barred chimpanzee out of me has broken my spirit and
turned me into an honest trader. Me, Casey Ritter, slickest slicker in
the Solar System, led like a precious infant right where I'd flatly
refused to go! In plain English, I underestimated the enemy. Feeling
safe and secure in the grip of the good old Iron College, I relaxed.
At this strategic point, the enemy planted a stoolie on me. Not in my
cell block. They were too smart for that. But we met at recreation, and
his mug seemed familiar, like a wisp of smoke where no smoke has got a
right to be; and after awhile I braced him.
I was right. I'd met the shrimp before when I was wound up in an
asteroid real estate racket. Pard Hoskins was his alias, and he had the
tag of being a real slick operator. We swapped yarns for about a week
when we met, and then I asked him what's his rap this trip.
"Oh, a pretty good jolt if they can keep hold of me," he says. "I just
made a pass at the Killicut Emeralds, that's all, and got nabbed."
"Oh, no!" I moaned. "What were you trying to do, start a feud between
us and Mars?"
He shrugged, but his little black-currant eyes began to sparkle with
real passion, the high voltage kind that only a woman in a million, or
a million in a bank, can kindle in a guy. "Buddy," he said reverently,
"I'd start more than that just to get me mitts on them stones again!
Why, you ain't never seen jools till you've seen them! Big as hen's
eggs, an even dozen of 'em; and flawless, I'm a-shoutin', not a flaw!"
His eyes watered at the memory, yearning like a hound-dog's over a
fresh scent.
I couldn't believe it. Those emeralds were in the inner shrine of the
super-sacred, super-secret temple of the cavern-dwelling tribe of
Killicuts on Mars--the real aborigines. Bleachies, we call them, sort
of contemptuously; but those Bleachies are a rough lot when they're
mad, and if Pard had really got near those emeralds, he should be
nothing but a heap of cleaned bones by now. Either he was the world's
champion liar or its bravest son, and either way I took my hat off to
him.
"How'd you make the getaway?" I asked, taking him at his word.
He looked loftily past me. "Sorry. Gotta keep that a secret. Likewise
where I cached 'em."
"Cached what?"
"The rocks, stupe."
I hardly heard the cut. "You mean you really did get away with them?"
My jaw must've been hanging down a foot, because I'd just been playing
along with him, not really believing him, and now all of a sudden I
somehow knew that he'd really lifted those emeralds. But how? It was
impossible. I'd investigated once myself.
He nodded and then moved casually away. I looked up and saw a guard
coming.
That night I turned on my hard prison cot until my bones were so much
jelly, trying to figure that steal. The next morning I got up burning
with this fever for information, only to find that Pard had got himself
put in solitary for mugging a guard, and that really put the heat on
me. I chewed my fingernails down to the quick by the time he got out a
week later.
* * * * *
By that time he really had me hooked. I'd of sworn he was leveling
with me. But he wouldn't tell me how he'd worked the steal. Instead,
he opened up on the trade he'd booked for the string. He said, "When I
chisel me way outa this squirrel cage, I'm gonna hit fer good old Jupe
and sell 'em to Akroida. She's nuts about jools. What that old girl
won't give me fer 'em--" He whistled appreciatively, thinking about it.
"Jupiter!" I goggled at him. "Akroida! Who's she?"
He looked at me as if I hadn't yet got out from under the rock where he
was sure I'd been born. "Don't you know nothin', butterhead?"
From him I took it. I even waited patiently till the master spoke
again. The memory still makes me fry.
"Akroida," he explained in his own sweet time, "is the queen-scorp
of them idiotic scorpions that lives on Jupiter. I sold her the
Halcyon Diamond that disappeared from the World Museum five years ago,
remember?" He winked broadly. "It come from Mars in the first place,
you know. Mars! What a place fer jools! Damn desert's lousy with 'em,
if it wasn't so much trouble to dig 'em out--" He went off into a dream
about the rocks on Mars but I jerked him back.
"You mean those scorpions have really got brains?"
"Brains!" he snorted. "Have they got brains! Why, they're smarter than
people! And not ferocious, neither, in spite of how they look, if you
just leave 'em alone. That's all they want, just to be left alone.
Peace an' quiet, and lots of methane and ammonia and arsenic, that's
fer them. Besides, the space suit rig you got to wear, they can't bite
you. Akroida's not a bad old girl. Partial to arsenic on her lettuce,
so I brought her a hundred pounds of the stuff, an' she went fer that
almost like it was diamonds, too. Did I rate around there fer awhile!"
He sighed regretfully. "But then I went and made her mad, an' I'm kinda
persona non grata there right now. By the time I gnaw outa this here
cheese trap, though, I figger she'll be all cooled off and ready fer
them emeralds."
I went back to my cot that night, and this time instead of biting my
nails, I bit myself. So I faced it. Casey Ritter lost his nerve, and
along with it, the chance of a lifetime. A better man than me had
already penetrated the Great Red Spot of old Jupiter and come out
alive. That thought ate me to the quick, and I began to wonder if it
was too late, after all. I could hardly wait for morning to come, so
that I could pry more information out of Pard Hoskins.
But I didn't see Pard for a few days. And then, a week later, a group
of lifers made a break that didn't jell, and the whole bunch was locked
up in the blockhouse, the special building reserved for escapees. Pard
Hoskins was in the bunch. He'd never get out of there, and he knew it.
So did I.
For three more days I worked down my knuckles, my nails being gone,
while I sat around all hunched up, wondering feverishly if Pard would
make a deal about those emeralds. Then I broke down and sent out a
letter to the S.S.C.
The Big Sneer of the conference table promptly dropped in on me,
friendly as a bottle of strychnine. But for a lad headed for Jupiter
that was good training, so I sneered right back at him, explained the
caper, and we both paid a visit to Pard. In two days the deal was made
and the caper set up. There were a few bits of info that Pard had to
shell out, like where the emeralds were, and how to communicate with
those scorpions, and how he'd made Akroida mad.
"I put on a yeller slicker," he confessed sadly. "That there ammonia
mist was eatin' into the finish on my spacesuit, so I draped this
here slicker around me to sorta fancy up the rig before goin' in to
an audience with the old rip." He shook his head slowly. "The kid
that took me in was colorblind, so I didn't have no warning at all.
I found out that them scorpions can't stand yeller. It just plain
drives them nuts! Thought they'd chaw me up and spit me out into the
chlorine before I could get outa the damn thing. If my colorblind pal
hadn't helped me, they'd of done it, too. And Akroida claimed I done it
a-purpose to upset her."
Then he winked at me. "But then I got off in a corner and cooked up
some perfume that drives them nuts the other way; sorta frantic with
ecstasy, like the book says. Didn't have a chance to try it on Akroida,
though. She wouldn't give me another audience. It's in the stuff they
cleaned outa me room: a poiple bottle with a bright green stopper."
He ruminated a few minutes. "Tell you what, chump. Make them shell out
with a green an' poiple spacesuit--them's the real Jupiter colors--an'
put just a touch o' that there perfume on the outside of it. Akroida'll
do anything fer you if she just gets a whiff. Just anything! But
remember, don't use but a drop. It's real powerful."