_Here is Adventure and Danger.
Mud-fishers, and a girl,--and a
quasi-human looking for trouble._
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Comet May 41.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Lonny Higgens, once of the earthly planet, stretched out in the
conning-tower of his mud-submarine, an aquatic monstrosity of globular
reinforced steel that was at home either above or below the surface of
the squirming mud seas of Uranus, and sighed lazily.
"Blast it!" he moaned sleepily and almost regretfully. "There's
something about this planet that makes you have spring fever the year
round, and it gets worse and worse! Lonny Higgens, you're a lazy,
nogood fool!--and you'll never get around to the things you used to
dream about."
The circular hatch was open over his head, showing a patch of black
swirling mists through which dark midges maneuvered in tiny swarms.
Just as he was dozing comfortably, forgetful of the humming insects
on the outside and the occasional flopping sounds made by things that
squirmed in the muddy ocean, something dropped from the mist, falling
plunk on his forehead. He jerked sidewise, just as another pellet
of balled mud struck him on the end of his nose. He glimpsed a tiny
visage, half insect and quasi-human, peering over the hatch rim for an
instant.
"Baron Munchy!" exclaimed Lonny irritably, recognizing this curious
specimen of Uranusian life. "Cut that out, or I'll wring your little
neck. I haven't got time for any of your monkey-shines."
A winged thing soared down from the mists, landing on the chair beside
his couch, and "Baron Munchy", like a dragon-fly come to mysterious
humanlike life, folded his transparent wings back like a cloak and
paced back and forth.
"Me mad! Me plent' mad," rasped Baron Munchy, who produced his tones by
a vibration of his wings.
"Ah, beat it," snorted Lonny, turning his head away. The small being
had brought with him the dank, stagnant aroma of the outer swamps, and
that reminded him of untended netlines hanging in the mud. He was bored
with Baron Munchy and his endless lying and conniving. When he had
first come to Uranus, two years before, the little rascal had showed up
on the landing deck, more dead than alive from a terrific beating at
the hands of several of his fellows. Baron Munchy was a born fighter.
He survived under the ministrations of the lonely terrestrial and had
become attached to the mud-submarine. But he dearly loved to stir
up trouble, and nothing pleased the little demon more than to shout
insults at mud-monkeys until they fought among themselves. "Go way. I'm
tired of listening to your silly chatter."
"Me mad as heck!" cried Baron Munchy, sitting down on the edge of the
chair like a tiny mannikin and doubling his tiny fists beneath his
chitinous chin. "That man say the Boss no good. He say the Boss one big
blonde devil. He say--"
"Shut up," protested Lonny. "Raeburn's all right. He's just a
mud-fisher like me, and has got to get along. It's natural that he
doesn't like a rival, and I'm not a bit riled by your chatter."
He was presently snoring and Baron Munchy looked across the space
through squinting, calculating eyes. For a moment the mischievous
glitter in his faceted eyes became dulled, and then he soared across
the bed and sat astride Lonny's neck, using the adam's apple for a
saddle. Lonny roused with a start and gulped. The small insectlike
visage was thrust grimly down to the end of his nose, and a tiny finger
was raised emphatically.
"He say he knock the holy feather from you, Boss," he chirped grimly.
"He say you fish for pearls in mud that belong him. He say that girl
make him one fine cook, and--"
"Huh!" demanded Lonny Higgens. "What girl! Oh, he probably means Lana.
Blast it, Munchy, can't you let a guy sleep? If she wants to fall for a
flat tire like Raeburn, it's no business of mine."
Grunting reluctantly, Lonny got up and stretched, cursing in a fervent
undertone, at which Baron Munchy looked hopeful.
"Good Lord, Munchy," he growled. "Why I ever put up with you and your
stirring up trouble is more than I know." Yet he knew that the little
creature's chatter had helped to break the deadly monotony of the long
winter hours in which he had managed to teach pidgin English to the
Uranusian.
He climbed up the ladder, through the hatch, just as a rocking movement
was apparent in the hull of the mud-submarine. Down past the oblong
landing he saw great circular movements in the mud, where his nets had
been a few moments before. Tiny midges were falling into the mud and
being drawn into the gyrating vortices.
Now thoroughly awake, he leaped down and across the landing. In a few
seconds he stood cursing at the broken strands of the anchor-lines
where his nets had been ripped away.
"Damn you Whirl-Rays," he cursed, shaking his fist in the direction
of the whirlpools that surged in and out like living things, which of
course they were, under their coating of slimy mud. The Whirl-Rays
had a way of forcing a stream of mud in a downward spout and creating
a resultant whirlpool which sucked everything into its voracious
clutches. "That's my tenth set of nets you've got that way."
Baron Munchy fluttered out from below and landed on the railing,
preening his wings. There was an I-told-you-so expression on his
insectivorian countenance ... when he saw the angry expression on the
terrestrial's face and heard the flow of vitriolic words, he hopped up
and down with impish ecstacy.
"My goodness, Boss," he chirruped. "You heap mad! Maybe somethin' goin'
happen now, huh? Maybe you whip tar out of Raeburn, huh?"
Lonny swatted at Baron Munchy with his open palm, but the blow never
landed. Out of the mists, coming soddenly from somewhere across
the squirming quagmire, came the sounds of a human being crying in
desperation.
"Help! Help!" sounded the voice, and the thing that so startled Lonny
Higgens was that the words were unmistakably feminine.
"Good Lord!" he exploded. "Do you suppose Raeburn really has got Lana
in his mud-submarine! Damn it, Baron Munchy, why didn't you say so
before you spoke?"