From below, the strain of the _Ecstasiana_ rose to engulf them in a
flood of melody.
She laid a sculptured hand on his arm. She was silent. She was waiting.
The _Dekka's_ summons brooked no delay. For this was no game of mere
intrigue, but a gigantic fight instinct with the overwhelming drama
of the unseen. The huge Mutant on the floor groaned and rolled to one
knee. He had the strength and courage of a _Felirene_. He got up and
rushed with scorn and hatred written on his features. He came with all
rockets firing. Julian stood there in the battering storm and fought
back. He dug his left into the flesh of the Mutant inches deep, then
ripped a hook to his jaw. In the clinch that followed he could hear
Narda's sobbing breath, as the Mutant's laces pounded low; he countered
with secret, murderous tactics of his own. Then, he pulled the trigger
on his left hand, aiming with precision at a vital spot. He let it go.
He heard the Mutant crash against the floor and lay still. Julian stood
for a moment with his tongue on fire, his lungs heaving like bellows
with the effort. He bent down and forced himself to search the man, but
there were no clues on the giant.
* * * * *
From above, Atalanta was like a gargantuan bottle left behind by some
god in his cups. Narda at the controls brought the intra-Moon spacer
spiraling down expertly to a landing behind a concealing rampart of
rock. Ahead of them a black, basaltic cliff reared its jagged crags,
its boulder-strewn base seemingly impassable. Nevertheless, the two
masked and cloaked figures hurried their steps toward the desolate
barrier.
"We're probably late!" Julian observed. "We seem to be the last to
arrive." He drew his dark, _Felirene_-lined cloak closer about him and
led the way forward.
"Small loss if we've missed the preliminaries!" Narda replied. "I
wonder how much longer the _Dekka's_ going to wait? For fifty years
Mutants have been appearing in our midst in small numbers--changed
overnight, rendered sterile--and the scientists did nothing about it.
Lately it has become a plague that threatens the Moons with extinction,
and still we're fumbling in the dark! Oh, Julian!" Her voice rose in an
ascending scale of grief.
"Don't move!" Julian whispered harshly and froze into immobility. He'd
detected motion--something that had stirred among the boulders to his
right. Instinctively his fingers groped for the handle of the tiny
weapon under his arm-pit. No bigger than a toy-gun, its electronic
stream was devastating at close quarters. He aimed it at the spot where
he had sensed movement and fired as a darker shadow catapulted out of
the gloom.
The spectral-blue beam of radiance from the weapon met the creature
in midair and melted a jagged hole in its side; there was a fiendish
scream of agony, then briefly a muffled tumult among the boulders.
"What on Jupiter was it?"
Narda stepped forward to investigate, but Julian stopped her. "No time
now." It mattered little what manner of beast had waylaid them. The
Jovian satellites, even frigid Callisto, had teemed with life of their
own before colonization by Man. And, since the Terrans had preferred
to build stupendous cities within transparent, berylo-plastic shields,
shaped like bottles, there had been small point in the systematic
destruction of native fauna. The cities were largely self-sustaining,
anyway. All commerce and intercourse was carried on by air. Only
adventurers and fools would venture into the wastelands ... adventurers
and fools, and perhaps, members of the _Dekka_.
As they reached the base of the cliff, Julian glanced back at Narda and
smiled. "Be alert, I'm forcing issues tonight ... inaction's killing
me!" He was like a Martian eagle--poised for battle.
Narda sensing his mood smiled thinly in the shadows.
She wondered silently what new, macabre mission would be assigned to
them this time. And hoped that the summons meant something far more
than the usual battle between rival Societies striving to milk the
venom from each other's fangs. For on at least three major Moons, Io,
Europa and Callisto, men and women were struck by an invisible foe that
left them trembling with fever, and when that dwindled away, a tide of
silver rose from the roots of their hair, and even the eyes became
luminous with the deadly patina. Nothing was known of Ganymede. It was
hard to tell in the absence of reports, for Ganymede, aside from its
own native civilization, had been colonized by Terran Mutants, who
could and did procreate, thus perpetuating their race. But the victims
of the Silver Plague were left sterile. It was hard to differentiate.
Meanwhile the Moons were dying!
And yet, a stubborn feeling in her heart kept insisting that perhaps
the _Plague_ was something man-made, and like all poisons should have
an antidote. She glanced at Julian and shuddered with anguish--there
would be no progeny for them--her own turn might be next! What a
fiendish weapon, if _it was a weapon_, she thought. The ultimate in
refinement of warfare--a refinement that in their Moons had been going
on for three hundred years!
* * * * *
Narda shivered again, increasingly cold, as she let her mind rove
briefly over their past history and their centuries of spurious
peace. For nothing as crude as open, physical warfare disturbed ever
the equilibrium of the various Moons. On the surface, the various
governments maintained the most cordial relations--idyllic almost.
But underneath--that was a different story! The most ruthless strife
had never abated for even an hour. It might take the form of secretly
systematic destruction of vibroponic farms of a world desperately in
need of food; or perhaps the categorical embargo of essential supplies
non-existent in another Moon. Or the proselyting of vast members of
colonists from a sister world by means of economic lures. The loser
always paid enormous ransom in whatever it was the victor coveted.
Thus the subterranean warfare was carried on by secret Societies, much
as hitherto the Ancients on Terra had employed secret agents, members
of the powerful "Intelligence." Only that on the "Moons," the Societies
had much greater power than the _laissez-faire_ governments themselves.
Each Moon had its "Society," disavowed, legendary, invisible. They
maintained secret armies of Astro-operatives and space navies always in
readiness for _any_ eventuality--or an initial _open_ break that none
of them had the courage to be the first to start. But more important
still, in their vast, secret laboratories, armies of scientists and
technicians toiled ceaselessly on new techniques and inventions.
Delved into intricate psychological data that was a miracle of
ingenuity, calculated always to prepare as far as possible against the
_unpredictable_.
The murmuring wind of Io swirled among the stones and laved them with
its icy caress, and Narda trembled violently again. This time the spasm
failed to abate, and she whispered through chattering teeth:
"Please, Julian ... hurry. I'm chilled to the marrow ... d-dear...."
"You're what?" His voice was suddenly a rasping in his throat.
Julian straightened slowly from where he kneeled at the base of the
cliff, where he'd been activating the mechanism of the concealed
entrance with the wrist transmitter. He eyed the convulsed form of
Narda then touched her burning forehead; he noted the tendons corded
at her throat. A cold sweat of anguish beaded his brow as he said
casually, "It is cold, darling," and then he punched carefully,
precisely, and cried with agony as he felt his hand touch her flesh.
He caught her tenderly as she slumped in his arms without a sound. He
kissed her cold cheek and sought consolation in the fact that she would
not suffer the first harrowing convulsive fever of the Plague. It would
last for two hours. _How well he knew from experience the course of the
disease!_ And he hoped Narda would not come to before then.
Quickly he retraced his steps to where they had left the ship, and
deposited her inert form in the control room. Then he prepared a note
which he placed in her hand, it read: "_It was the kindest thing to do,
darling. Wait until I return. There's hope._"
He finally adjusted the wrist-transmitter to the exact wave-length
required to open the entrance to the _Dekka's_ Hall of Sessions, raced
swiftly toward the cliff like a disembodied shadow. In the distance
a golden _Felirene_ wailed its banshee love-call, urgent, savage--as
savage as the burning agony that stifled Julian's breath, and as
primordial.