II

Real powerful, said the man. What an understatement! But the day I was

set adrift in that sea of frozen ammonia clouds mixed with nice cozy

methane gas I sure prayed for it to be powerful, and I clutched that

tiny bottle like that boy Aladdin clutching his little old lamp.

I'd had a lot of cooperation getting that far. An Earth patrol had

slipped down onto the Red Desert of Mars and picked up the Killicut

Emeralds from where Pard Hoskins had cached them; and safe out in space

again, we had pored over that string of green headlights practically

slobbering. But the Big Sneer of the S.S.C., the fellow that had got

me into this caper, was right there to take the joy out of it all and

to remind me that this was public service, strictly.

"These--" he had proclaimed with a disdainful flourish, like a placer

miner pointing to a batch of fool's gold--"These jewels are as nothing,

Ritter, compared with the value of the secret you are to buy with

them. And be assured that if you're man enough to effect the trade--"

He paused, his long nose twitching cynically--"IF you succeed, your

reward will be triple what you could get for them in any market. Added

to which, IF you succeed, you will be a free man."

That twitch of the nose riled me no little. "I ain't failed yet!" I

snarled at him. "Just you wait till I do, feller!" I slipped the string

of emeralds back into its little safe. "Instead of sniping at me, why

don't you get that brain busy and set our rendezvous?"

With that we got down to business and fixed a meeting point out on

Jupiter's farthest moon; then they took me in to the edge of Jupiter's

ice-cloud and turned me loose in a peanut of a space boat with old Jupe

looming ahead bigger than all outdoors and the Red Spot dead ahead. I

patted my pretty enameled suit, which was a study in paris green and

passionate purple.

I patted the three hundred pounds of arsenic crystals for Akroida and

anyone else I might have to bribe. I anxiously examined my suit's air

and water containers and the heating unit that would keep them in

their proper state. I had already gone over the space boat. Yeah, I

was as nervous as a cat with new kittens. Feeling again for my little

bottle of horrid stench, I breathed a prayer to the god of idiots and

spacemen, and headed in. The big ship was long gone, and I felt like a

mighty small and naked microbe diving into the Pacific Ocean.

That famous Red Spot was that big, too. It kept expanding until the

whole universe was a fierce, raw luminous red. Out beyond it at first

there had been fringes of snow-white frozen ammonia, but now it was all

dyed redder than Mars. Then I took the plunge right into it. Surprise!

The stuff was plants! Plants as big as meadows, bright red, floating

around in those clouds of frozen ammonia like seaweed! Then I noticed

that the ammonia around them wasn't frozen any more and peeked at the

outside thermometer I couldn't believe it. It was above zero. Then I

forgot about the temperature because it dawned on me that I was lost. I

couldn't see a thing but drifting ammonia fog and those tangles of red

floating plants like little islands all around. Cutting down the motor,

I eased along.

But my green boat must have showed up like a lighthouse in all that

red, because it wasn't long until I spotted a purple and green

hopper-scorp traveling straight toward me, sort of rowing along with

a pair of stubby wings. He didn't seem to be making much effort, even

though he was climbing vertically up from the planet. In fact, he

didn't seem to be climbing at all but just going along horizontally.

There just wasn't any up or down in that crazy place. It must be that

anti-grav field, I concluded. The air was getting different, too, now

that I was further in. I'm no chemist, and I couldn't have gotten out

there to experiment if I had been, but those plants were certainly

doing something to that ammonia and methane. The fog thinned, for one

thing, and the temperature rose to nearly forty.

Meanwhile the hopper-scorp reached the ship. Hastily I squirted some of

my Scorpion-Come-Hither lure on the chest of my spacesuit, opened the

lock, and popped out, brave as could be. Face to face with that thing,

though, I nearly lost my grip on the handle. In fact, I'd have fainted

dead away right there if Pard Hoskins hadn't been there already and

lived. If that little shrimp could do it, I could, too.

I braced up and tapped out the greeting Pard had taught me. My

fiendish-looking opponent tapped right back, inquiring why the hell

I was back so soon when I knew that Akroida was all set to carve me

into steaks for just any meal. But the tone was friendly and even

intimate--or rather, the taps were. There was even a rather warm

expression discernible in the thing's eyes, so I took heart and decided

to ignore the ferocious features surrounding those eyes. After all, the

poor sinner's map was made of shell, and he wasn't responsible for its

expression.

I tapped back very politely that he must be mistaking me for someone

else. "I've never been here before, and so I've never met the charming

lady," I informed him. "However, I have something very special in the

way of jewels--not with me, naturally--and the rumor is that she might

be interested."

He reared back at that, and reaching up, plucked his right eye out of

the socket and reeled it out to the end of a two-foot tentacle, and

then he examined me with it just like an old-time earl with one of

those things they called monocles. Pard hadn't warned me about those

removable eyes, for reasons best known to himself. I still wake up

screaming....

Anyway, when that thing pulled out its eye and held it toward me, I

backed up against the side of the ship like I'd been half-electrocuted.

Then I gagged. But I could still remember that I had to live in that

suit for awhile, so I held on. Then that monstrosity reeled in the eye,

and I gagged again.

My actions didn't bother him a bit. "Jewels, did you say?" he tapped

out thoughtfully, just like an ordinary business man, and I managed to

tap out yes. He drifted closer; close enough to get a whiff....

* * * * *

A shudder of ecstasy stiffened him. His head and eyes rolled with it,

and he wafted closer still. Right there I began to harbor a premonition

that there might be such a thing as being too popular in Scorpdom, but

I thrust this sneak-thief idea back into limbo.

Taking advantage of his condition, I boldly tapped out, "How's about

taking me on a guided tour through this red spinach patch to Akroida,

old pal?" Or words to that effect.

He lolled his hideous cranium practically on my shoulder. "Anything!

Just anything you desire, my dearest friend."

I tried to back off from him a bit, but the ship stopped me. "I'm Casey

Ritter. What's your label, chum?"

"Attaboy," he ticked coyly.

"Attaboy?" Things blurred around me. It couldn't be. It was just plain

nuts. Then I got a glimmer through my paralyzed gray matter. "Who named

you that?"