IV

"Who hit'm boss? Boss hit'm heap hard!" Baron Munchy, hardly able to

lift the damp towel, was dragging it across his mouth, smothering him.

Link Raeburn watched the operation interestedly, but not cautiously,

from his position before the instrument panel. Lana Hilton was sitting

up dazedly, rearranging her hair.

"I knew it was too much to expect," she commented. "Couldn't leave

us alone, could you, Link? I was just beginning to like the idea of

getting away from you for good. Ooooh, my head!"

"I hope our friend had the foresight to stock his larder well," said

Link Raeburn with a shrug. "We may be cooped up here for some time."

Lonny sat up, shaking his head dazedly.

"I ought to whale the tar out of you," he cried angrily. "But I've got

more sense than to do it at a time like this. Maybe I'll do it when the

sub-boat comes up to the surface again. I never did have too much faith

in you, Raeburn."

Link Raeburn laughed. "You won't do it then, or ever, Lonny. There

isn't an ounce of fight left in you. The planet's got you. I've always

believed that you had enough pearls stacked away to make a fortune on

earth, but you kept putting the time for departure off into the future."

His taunts acted as harsh irritants to Lonny Higgens, who doubled his

fists and took a couple of steps forward.

"Slap 'im down, Boss," urged Baron Munchy, and Lonny stopped, his

shoulders falling.

"That's right," he said, grinning at the little elf. "Fight to the

death, like all these insensate creatures of Uranus. No, I'll not do

it. I'm saving myself, against the day I'll get back to earth."

"You're a fool," said Link Raeburn. "Next time I'll get you for keeps."

"At least you can save it until we get up from here," returned

Lonny, brushing past the other and examining the instruments. "Depth

indication--now four thousand feet. And sinking slowly."

With luck, they would be on the surface again in a few hours. Then he

would either knock the tar out of Link Raeburn or kick him out in the

mud. He felt a deepseated, lethargic contempt for the mud-fisher. The

dapper man was a despicable murderer at heart, and now he felt only a

distant sort of loathing for him.

Lana was different. In a way she might have been a good sort. He had a

hunch that Uranus was affecting her much as it had him, bringing forth

his irritable nature, sapping his energy, dulling his sensations in a

sluggish, remote way. He had an idea that she would cut an amazingly

attractive figure in one of the late translucent evening gowns, back

in one of the live spots of the populated planets. At the moment, she

was highly intolerable and self-centered. He would do well to be rid of

both of them.

Baron Munchy was soaring up and down the room, catching midges, when

Lonny descended to the lower decks. The atomic motors, he found, were

in good condition for an emergency. The trouble with them was that they

provided merely a horizontal propulsion. The natural buoyancy of the

vessel, coupled with the lessening of surface pressure, would have to

raise it from the murky depths.

The lower deck was almost hemispherical in shape, and fully occupied

with power apparatus.

"They steal'm, Boss!" warned Baron Munchy vindictively. "Now you fight,

huh?"

"Fighting wouldn't do any good," Lonny explained wearily. "People don't

fight on Uranus. They're always fagged out, enervated."

"Fagged--" began the impish creature helplessly.

"I mean that life is too boring to be taken seriously," went on Lonny.

"Otherwise, I'd have knocked the slats out of that smirking back-biter

long ago. I may have to do it yet."

"You oughta fight'm," declared Baron Munchy angrily. "They steal house.

Steal everything! Why no earthmen fight, Boss?"

"Because earthmen have to get mad to fight," returned Lonny, "and you

can't get mad here somehow. Oh, shut up! I don't know how to explain

it. Earthmen just don't feel violent emotions here on Uranus. They

don't get mad at anything! They don't fall in love! They're just sapped

dry of everything."

His head was aching. It was a good thing his body had recovered from

its exposure to the heavy pressure area. He climbed the rampway for the

upper deck, and stood motionless, breaking upon a surprising scene.

* * * * *

All of the compartments had been searched, and he saw his cache of

Uranusian pearls open to view. The wall safe hung ajar--apparently the

deft fingers of Link Raeburn had encountered no great difficulty in

finding the combination. His eyes were glittering with fascination,

and the girl, too, seemed unable to wrench her eyes from the inviting

spectacle.

"That's enough," gasped Link Raeburn, "to set a fellow up for life."

"Yeh, and here we are," returned the girl hollowly, "stuck deep in the

mud of Uranus."

"Maybe you forget who they belong to," snorted Lonny, stalking into

their midst and slamming his treasure back into its hiding place. "The

indicator says we're at six thousand five hundred and forty-one feet."

"Then we've stopped," said Raeburn. "It read the same five minutes ago."

Lonny stood watching the gauges and found that the other was right. The

mud-submarine had indeed come to a halt. It meant that some sort of an

equilibrium was being established in the barometric storm center that

raged above.

"I'll start the motors and try jarring the ship around a little," he

said, seating himself before the mechanisms. At a touch of his finger,

dial bulbs lighted up, and from the lower depths came the whine of

machinery. Almost instantly they felt a sidewise lurch, and then a

slow climbing motion.

"It looks good, anyway," said Link Raeburn. "We're going up again."

"Thank Heaven for small favors," breathed Lana thankfully, and watched

attentively as Lonny began juggling the controls alarmedly. Link's eyes

watched the indicator, and began to show new amazement.

"We're not ascending now," said Lonny grimly. "I don't know what's the

matter. The motor-drive is okay, but we're making a crazy circle, over

and over, and not getting any higher."

"You're nuts!" burst out Raeburn, stalking forward, waving his arms.

Yet the yellow pallor of his face showed that he too had noticed the

mud-ship's erratic behavior. "It's just not possible! Uranus is all

mud--just plain fluid mud!"

"Or that's what we've thought, up to now," said Lonny significantly.

"What do you mean?" demanded Lana. "You can't mean that we're trapped

here with a fortune just in our grasp."

The whine of the lower motors mounted, and as a result the

mud-submarine began spinning around like a top. Yet the depth pointer

had not moved.

"It means that there's some sort of a skeletal core to Uranus after

all," said Lonny with a vanquished sigh, snapping off the motors and

pushing back from the controls. "Add what's more, it means that we've

bumped into it."

"But how?" demanded Raeburn. "Even if there is a solid core, nothing

would prevent our ship from floating up again."

"Unless our vessel happened to get caught under a ledge," returned

Lonny pointedly. "We sank while the pressure was heavy, and then when

it lessened, began to ascend. We climbed a short way and stopped.

Then our horizontal screws sends the ship around in a short circle,

indicating that we are in a shelving pocket. We can't descend unless

the pressure storm gets violent again! And we can't climb through a

shelving ledge of solid core. So our chances of getting out of here are

rather slim."

Raeburn's furtive eyes were glowing, like those of a beast at bay. He

whirled around, struck out wildly at the controls, started the engines

and sent the mud-submarine spinning around again, but to no avail. Lana

Hilton watched his every move, and she too was like a tigress at bay.

Like animals they glared around at the berylumin hulls, thinking of the

millions of pounds per square inch waiting beyond--trying to press in

upon them. An instant's exposure to that and a human body would be but

a pulpy mass.

They felt helpless and insignificant. To the two who glared

unbelievingly at the controls, the apparent unconcern of Lonny Higgens

amounted to madness. He appeared not to be able to fully appreciate

the true reasons for their violent perturbation. He was humming a tune

through his teeth, and searching among tiny wall niches, from which he

presently withdrew a tiny skillet.

"No use getting excited," he told them. "The chances are that the

pressure storms won't come around soon enough to do us any good. At any

rate, there's nothing to stop us from eating while we're hungry--that

is, while the food supply holds out."

V

"You're not human," said Link Raeburn accusingly, and he shook a

quivering finger at Lonny. "Here we are in the face of death, and all

you think of is your stomach."

"There's not much choice," said Lonny Higgens, "when a fellow's empty.

And the menu never changes here. Besides, eating might help you to

think."

"You shouldn't think while you're eating," reprimanded Lana. "It'll

give you indigestion."

"Great Space!" broke out Raeburn. "You too! Who gives a hang about

indigestion? Listen, you pair of fools, we're snagged down here on the

bottom of a sea of mud. Pearls won't mean a thing to us in this fix!

We'll be lucky if we ever get out of this with a whole skin." He began

pacing up and down the room, swinging his hands, while Lonny inspected

the storage compartment.

"Looks like a fish dinner," he sighed. "Of course there are clams, of

the mud-kelp variety, and Uranusian lobsters--they're really delicious

at this time of the year. Then we've got a very good variety of that

piscatorial wonder known here as a whirl-ray, whose steaks are rather

tasty. But in the last analysis, just fish."

"I'll take the same," groaned Lana Hilton, rolling her eyes toward the

ceiling with an attitude of unwilling acquiescence. "Between going

nuts and getting the d. t.'s I'll take the nuts. Maybe I can forget a

few trifles of life by just being in your company. At least it'll keep

me from thinking over what a swell opportunity I had for being a good

little girl. By the way, Lonny, do you think there's a Hereafter, here

on Uranus?"

"Why not?" asked Lonny with a grimace as he laid thick white slices of

whirl-ray in the skillet and turned on an electric grid. "I suppose

they'd picture there as some sort of a glorified place where mud just

couldn't exist."

"Yeh, probably with green fields, waterfalls, and mountains," returned

Lana, leaning on her fist with a reminiscent sigh, "Gosh, sometimes I

wonder why I ever left those good things, and then again--what's the

diff?"

* * * * *

The fried steaks sent a not unpleasant aroma drifting through the

control room. Lonny sat a tiny side plate on the table, and pulled up

a high slender chair like a baby's high-chair, to which Baron Munchy

soared. He tucked a napkin under his chin and sat waiting, with tiny

knife and fork raised high. The sight was so amusing that somehow Lana

found time to laugh.

"You really coddle the little rascal, don't you?" she asked, "and for

some reason I never really considered these manlike dragon-flies with

having any intelligence whatever."

"Oh, they're smart in a way," agreed Lonny between bites. "You know

I've always had a theory that his race of beings came from one of the

moons of Uranus. There are four of them, you know. I suspect he came

from Umbriel."

"Well, little man," said Lana. "Maybe you're an Umbriellian. But where

is your umbrella?"

"Or an Arielite," suggested Lonny. "Without a lantern."

"Or a Titanian, or an Oberonian," said Lana.

"Slap 'em down," sighed Baron Munchy in a flattered manner. "Give both

barrels."

"Say, let up with that kind of chatter, won't you?" groaned Link

Raeburn, after trying again and again to get the mud-ship from beneath

the deep ledge. "I'm going batty, I tell you. Completely batty!"

"Probably it's the pressure," commented Lonny. "High blood pressure."

With the table cleared, Lana's good spirits had taken another slump.

She went gloomily with Raeburn to check the air, food, and water

supplies of the strange craft. When they returned Lonny Higgens was

curled up on a couch, snoring lustily.

"I don't get it," said Raeburn, throwing up his hands in despair. "He

isn't like a man any more. He isn't like anything living. It's his

ship, and he ought to know more about it than anyone. Oh well, if

everybody else is going to give up the ghost, why should I worry?"

"Sure," said Lana. "Why should we worry. Maybe his surmise wasn't true.

Maybe it's something else holding us down. Maybe it's our imagination."

She sat down, her mind in a daze. How long she sat there in a

trance-like state she didn't know, but a movement from Lonny Higgens

aroused her. Link Raeburn was stretched out on the floor, his mouth

wide open, eyes closed with complete exhaustion and utter relaxation.

"I think I've got an idea," said Lonny, stretching his arms and

staggering to his feet. He looked at the controls and found that they

were at the same depth. 6,541 feet. Their position had not altered a

trifle. "We've been here over eight hours. No barometric storm ever

lasted that long on Uranus. The pressure must have been released on

the upper surface by now. And we've got to have a heavy pressure area

again somewhere. It just occurred to me that we might create that

heavy pressure on the roof of this ledge that we're under, which would

suffice just as well."

"But how?" demanded Lana, and followed as he went to the berylumin

hull at one end of the control room and pulled down a shutter. He had

exposed a transparent plate of glassite, now black as ink with the

outer mud, in whose center a pair of binoculars had been frozen into

the vitreous substance.

"We'll use the field glass as a terminal," he explained, making

disconnections at the control board and bringing two current wires in

the direction of the wall. He affixed one wire to the binoculars and

clamped the other against a rim of the porte. "This glassite will act

as an insulator and we can force an electric current through the outer

mud. There's a possibility that the current will react on the watery

content to release hydrogen and oxygen through electrolysis. I really

don't think it will work, but it's a good way to occupy our minds."

* * * * *

She watched as he made the terminals secure, then stepped up the

amperage on the desk instruments. Very faintly, blue lightning flashes

of electricity could be seen streaking through the outer mud against

the glassite. For long moments they watched as nothing happened.

Then he sighed disappointedly.

"No use, I guess," he said reluctantly. "Too much outer pressure for

gases to form."

"You mean--it's the end?" she asked in a tiny voice. Her hands reached

out and caught him by the shoulders abruptly. For a moment the outer

mask of her face had slipped and her frightened soul stared through.

When Lonny started to draw back, she held on.

"Gosh, Lonny," she said hurriedly. "Maybe I'm a little fool to break

down like this. I think--I think I may even be going to cry. But I've

seen what you're really like these last few hours--under the stress of

everything, I mean. You're really pretty decent and brave. You needn't

deny that you've got courage, and a lot of other admirable qualities.

Your only trouble has been in letting the awful lethargy of Uranus get

hold of you. That's all that's wrong, and what you need is something

to jar you loose from this planet. Then you'd be a great guy. I really

mean it, Lonny."

Her eyes were shining like stars. She was on the verge of a complete

breakdown. Yet Lonny Higgens was held as though in a spell, for her

words had done something that had not happened in a long time, had

broken through his apathy.

Now, moving swiftly, she pressed her lips against his own, and they

stood in a long silent embrace. Lonny's head was whirling, and he

stumbled back, his hand crashing against a rheostat. A thunderous surge

of high voltage crackled suddenly, kniving along the glassite, and the

motors from the lower decks sang a mounting, thunderous song.

At the same time, everything shifted. Something had dealt the

mud-submarine a tremendous blow from above. They were sent careening

against the hull and then to the floor, which began to tilt. Link

Raeburn had been thrown to his hands and knees. Now his eyes goggled up

at the instrument panel. Lonny Higgens sat sprawled out with the girl a

tumbled heap in his arms.

"Good going, Lonny!" cried Raeburn incredulously. "We're sinking again.

How did you manage to do it?"

Lonny blinked through a cascade of tumbling russet curls and looked up

wonderingly.

"I suppose the electrolysis worked after all," he answered weakly.

"Under the pressure, the high voltage must have produced liquid oxygen,

and then ignited it. And if the propellers are working we ought to be

able to wriggle out into the clear some way."

"That puts a different light on the entire matter," said Raeburn,

getting to his feet and drawing a ray pistol from his pocket. "I told

you I would do you in for good the next time I made a try. Get up,

Lonny, and start saying your prayers."

"My goodness," gasped Baron Munchy, crawling up over the edge of the

control chair and looking on with glittering, faceted eyes.