"We're exceeding the speed of light ... right now!"
"And you're sure this principle of yours won't work on any other ship.
Was there anything mixed with the impervium?"
"Central labs checked it," Timmy replied. "It was pure impervium."
"Where'd you get it?"
"By _coincidence_ ... from Neptune."
Thurner's face went red. "Look, guy," he said, "The war's off, and I
don't like being played for a fool. There's no impervium on Neptune."
"Sorry, Thurner. This metal did come from Neptune. I bought the back
fin of the old XC-34 ... it was towed in from Nep back in '67."
"I see." Thurner's brows knitted, and he muttered an apology. Then,
turning away, he ran through the logarithms in Maconachy, made a few
quick checks, shifted dials coolly and competently, and leaned back.
"I'll take her in from here," he said.
"From the dark side," cautioned Tim.
"Okay. I'll drive part way to Pluto ... then swing back."
"QX," said Gordon. He spun about and walked to the back of the little
ship. "How do you like it, Johnny?" he asked, and Damokles' face
lighted up.
"She's one dam' fine ship ... go like go-to-hell fireball ... but look
it here, Meester Timmy."
"Yes?"
"Why you say she won't work for any other ships?"
"Just won't. That's all."
"Maybe this planets Neptune do it."
"How, Johnny? We tested the impervium from every angle, and found it
nothing but pure metal."
"Maybe is so. Dam' gods, Neptune, are funny feller. Sometimes he look
like friend ... sometimes he are foe. Sometimes just do nothing ... but
plenty happen just because Neptune are there. See?"
Tim whistled. "I see what you mean. Like a catalytic agent. You can't
detect it. You don't test it ... _but it does something_."
"Who's the difference? Call her cataltickic agents ... call her fool
gods Neptune. What them hells!" The little Greek shrugged his shoulders
and was silent.
* * * * *
Up in the _Solabor's_ bow, later, Thurner spun the dials on the
automatic calculator. Timmy watched him idly, then, moving away from
the window, fell asleep. Johnny Damokles hummed an old tune, and
lost himself in reveries on Greece. It was strange that so intense a
national feeling could survive the melting pot of world assimilation.
Yet the Greek national feeling had survived unchanged for more than
three thousand years. The greasy old suit which Johnny Damokles wore,
remained almost unchanged from the 20th Century attire which his
ancestors had worn at Crete and in the long, bloody fight down through
the mountains from Olympus. Alone amongst all the people of the 28th
Century, the Greeks remembered their past glory, and the bloody history
which had split them as a nation, yet welded the iron of heroism into
their souls.
Only the Greeks, in a world of mechanics and science, were still
concerned with events now dead and gone. Small nations may live ... in
tradition.
Johnny Damokles let his gaze slowly fall from that wild pattern of
unvisited universes which spread before him in the _Solabor's_
ports ... and slowly turned the pages of his beloved Aristotle. An
essay on the nature of the order of things caught his attention, but
reading was no pleasant occupation inside the _Solabor's_ stuffy little
cabin. Johnny's head nodded. His eyes fluttered. He fell asleep.
* * * * *
Timmy Gordon's return from slumber was rather like the awakening of a
city-dweller whose ear is annoyed by a sudden onslaught of silence.
Accustomed by now to the sensation of motion, immobility woke him up.
"Stopped?" he yawned. "Why?" The cabin was dark, and in that velvety
obscuration, Timmy could barely see the recumbent sleeping form of
Johnny Damokles. He leaped to his feet. Strange, his body felt heavy,
leaden, drugged.
A faint bluish light, barely enough to weaken the black of night,
pushed its way through the window. Timmy staggered forward to the
control bench. Shelton Thurner was gone!
But where? How? Where were they?
Timmy reached for the starting button to test his motors, but the
panel had been stripped. Bare.
The answer came swiftly. To the accompaniment of a blast of noisome
gas, the door swung open. Two figures entered. The door thumped shut.
"Thurner!" gasped Timmy. "But what? Where've you been?" His questions
were interrupted, sharply. Behind Shelton Thurner, and barely visible,
stood the hulking figure of a Neptunian.
Thurner's hand shot out and clamped on Tim Gordon's arm, "Bow!" he
said. "You're on Neptune now ... you swine."
Timmy's fist shot out with the speed of a striking cobra, and a solid
blow bounced off the renegade pilot's jaw. Nothing happened. Thurner
grinned. His evil gapped-teeth gleamed. He raised his hand and brought
it down with a flat _thwack_ on the young Earthman's cheek. Timmy felt
as though a sharpened file had hit him. Warm blood ran down his chin,
and dripped floorward.
"Things are different now," said Thurner. "I don't have to take
anything from you pigs." He drew back his hand for a second blow, but
the figure behind him stepped forward.
"No!" it ordered. "Not now. There'll be time ... yet."
"What's all this?" snapped Timmy.
Thurner smirked, "You're on Neptune ... and are ... shall we say ... a
guest of the Tsom Clan."
"Distinctly," hissed the semi-human figure behind Thurner. "Oh most
distinctly ... a guest."
"And this ... renegade?"
"You allude to Shelton Thurner?"
"Yes!"
The Neptunian looked from Timmy to the big pilot. "I do not believe,"
he said, "that you will understand this easily. But you do your late
associate an injustice. He is no renegade ... but a leader of the Tsom
Clan."
"A Neptunian? Impossible!"
"Not at all my dear sir. We Neptunians have science. Given the proper
materials, our surgeons can duplicate the ... rather ... loathesome
appearance of you humans."
"You can make men out of a semi-human?"
"We are adaptable, my dear sir." The creature's nictitating membrane
drew up over his eyeballs and gave him a deceptively sleepy appearance.
"But what about the temperature? How could Thurner stand Callistonian
heat and gravity, when built for that of Neptune?"
"Enough of this foolish questioning!" barked Thurner, "Take the fools
outside."
The creature at his side raised a leather-clad hand in a peaceful,
gentle gesture. "Patience, friend," he said, "We owe our _guest_ much.
For he has much to give us."
"I have!" blurted Timmy.
"Yes!" the Neptunian's manner was calm and unruffled. "You, a skilled
practical mechanic, can contribute to a glorious Neptunian victory."
"And you think I will?"
"I know you will. No human-being has the nerve structure to stand up
under our harsher persuasive methods. It is quite important for us to
learn your method of treating impervium for these faster-than-light
ships."
"But my method doesn't work."
"That's true," interjected Thurner. "We talked about it on the way out."
"Most regrettable!" Again that unpleasant, half-dead membrane flashed
across the Neptunian's eyes. He seemed to sleep. Minutes passed before
he looked up again. "In that event," he said, "you must suffer for
the good of Neptune. Follow me." He waited while Timmy climbed into a
heated, anti-gravitational space suit.
Thurner cuffed Johnny Damokles to his feet and motioned for him to
put on a space suit. Then completely in command of the situation, the
Neptunians led Tim and Johnny out into the blue cold of a monster and
horrible world. They paused long enough for Thurner and his companion
to remove the space suits they'd worn in the heated cabin of the
_Solabor_, and when Thurner seemed to peel his very skin from his
body, Timmy understood the miracle by which the pilot had posed as a
Callistonian.