The next day, at Neptune's dawn, Johnny Damokles was led back to his
work on the _dynotron_ bomb. Timmy, sleepy-eyed and wavering, followed
his captors to a place in the mech lab. He worked quietly for half an
hour, then beckoned to his overseer.
"Yes?" hissed the Neptunian.
"I want to see your leader."
"Why?"
"None of your blasted business. Just do what you're told, or be mighty
blasted sorry."
The Neptunian scratched an itching neck flange. "All right," he said,
"but you'd better have something to make this worth while." He shoved
Timmy forward, released a door catch, and led him down the hall.
Three staccato raps opened another door, and Timmy again stood in the
presence of Neptune's Leader.
"Yes?" the Leader's voice was suave, but flat. "Oh, it's you ... you've
something important?"
"I want to work in the photo-lab."
"Something to do with your way of sensitizing impervium?"
"That's right."
"Utterly useless. We've checked the figures of your own labs and find
that they are completely accurate. That ship of yours is a freak ...
and we can see no reason as to _why_ it works."
"I still have an idea."
The Neptunian glared at him, and again that dead-alive membrane
concealed all key to his thoughts. "You're not trying to convince me
you're willing to join us, are you?"
"Nope," Timmy's Irish jaw shot out belligerently, "I just figure it'll
be easy to escape from there."
A hiss was apparently the Outer-worldian's manner of laughing, for the
hiss he emitted was as jovial a sound as Timmy had heard since landing
on the planet. "I mean it!" Timmy finished, "and I warn you to watch
me."
"Your spirit," the Neptune said, "is admirable." He scrawled a few
notes, handed them to Timmy. "Here," he said, "is an order to work in
the photo-labs. I shall watch your struggles with great pleasure." His
hand closed on Timmy's shoulder and Timmy gritted his teeth, shook his
way loose, and walked to the door.
Mockingly, the Leader laughed.
* * * * *
That night, when Timmy returned to their room, he found the little
Greek seated, eyes blazing, on the bed. "S'matter, chum?"
"Dam-blasted Shelton Thurner ... chase me all over hell for sky-hook.
Don't like it!"
"Forget it. You're tired and so am I. Grab off a mouthful of that
synthi-food and let's hit the hay." He turned on the faucet, drew a cup
of steaming brew and handed it to the Greek.
"I got the mixture," he whispered between gulps. "Did you get the
metal?" The Greek nodded. "Yep," he replied, then in a louder tone.
"Let's get to bed, Timmy."
Lights were quickly extinguished, and the two, with much moaning and
groaning, crawled under the covers. But tonight there was need for
action, not talk. Timmy pushed the blankets up to make a low tent, and
handed Johnny a torch he'd stolen. Improvised though it was, their bed
made a flawless, light-tight darkroom. Timmy climbed out to make sure
no ray escaped, then plunged into bed again.
"The metal!" he grunted. Johnny Damokles handed him a tiny piece of
impervium. It was, approximately, three inches square.
"Swell," said Tim. "Now hold this light." He dug deep into his pockets
and pulled forth a bottle of stolen liquid. "As nearly as I can tell,
this is the same mixture I used in making my other ship." He dipped the
square of impervium in it, then waited. Dry at last, he wiped the metal
square until it shone, and grinned as the first reactions started.
"It works!" he nearly shouted. But that was neither the time nor the
place for shouting. "Watch!" he whispered. Taking the torch from Johnny
Damokles, he held it close against his treated impervium. The little
square darted away so swiftly that it nearly tore loose from his hand.
It did pull him a foot or so toward the edge of the bed before he
switched off his light. There was no doubt about it. Impervium, when
exposed to some unknown Neptunian radiation, underwent an untestable
change and behaved precisely as had the metal of his ship.
"Hallelujahs!" burbled Damokles beneath his breath. "Now we fix up dam'
fool Shelton Thurners."
"Maybe?" said Tim with unexpected pessimism. "I've stolen enough fluid
for feet on that dam' bomb." He paused, "Are you sure the whole thing's
impervium?"
"Yep! But how I gonna rub this stuff on ship?"
"Don't rub it. Pour this bottle on a high perpendicular point and let
it run down the sides. We'll take a chance that the dim light here on
Nep will prevent our process from knocking your bomb over ahead of
time."
"Yeah. Then you get more solutions. We pour her on ... an' dam' bomb go
sail away fast as hell!"
Timmy grinned. "Not quite, pal," he said, "I'm figuring on something
just a little more effective." He took a piece of paper and made a few
hasty sketches. Johnny Damokles watched with interest. Then he broke
into a smile.
"I see," nodded the Greek. "She are just like story I tell you about
old Greek king."
"Exactly.... And now, let me have time enough to get rid of our scrap
of test metal and we'll turn in."
"No," protested Damokles. "Give me this piece impervium. I got good
idea. Secret."
Timmy, without further question, handed Johnny the bit of treated
impervium and added to it his bottle of stolen liquid. "Good night,
chum," he mumbled, and rolled over to sleep.
* * * * *
Ten days and ten nights passed in that way. Each night Timmy had
another flask of his sensitizer to give Johnny. And each night Damokles
reported another successful application of the fluid. Miraculous that
the two of them could so successfully hoodwink their captors? Yes.
But then the Neptunians thought of the two as members of a lesser
race, and gave them almost complete freedom of movement ... within
limits. Timmy blessed the arrogance from which this stemmed. From the
photo-labs he stole his sensitizer. In the mech labs he succeeded in
removing and assembling certain vital cogs and rheostats. Put together
they would give him control of Neptune's gigantic _dynotron_ bomb. And
Timmy Gordon was the man to put any machinery together. He did it on
the tenth day. That same day, he stole a length of steel chain and a
sharpened metal hook. Why he stole them, Timmy Gordon didn't know. But
Damokles had asked him to, and he'd given his promise.
"Here you are," he said when he reached their room that night. He
slipped the hook and chain to Johnny beneath the covers of their bed.
"Goin' fishin' with it, chum?"
"You bet your dam' boots. I catch fat fish, too."
Timmy smiled. Then, quietly, he showed Johnny Damokles the piece of
apparatus he'd constructed. It looked somewhat like the primitive
20th Century radio sets one saw in museums, but its purpose, as Tim
explained, was more important. Compact, weighing no more than fifty or
sixty grams, it gave him complete radio control of anything treated
with his sensitizing fluid. What was more important, it took its power
from almost any faint source of light, and should be effective up to
two or three thousand miles.
"She work?" asked Damokles.
"She will if static doesn't cut me out too much."
"Dam' good," grunted the Greek. "Now we show them dam-blast Neptuners
what good Old Greek History are."
"Correct, chum. When will the bomb be ready?"
"She are ready now."
"Swell! I might as well blast her off."
"No!" Johnny Damokles' tone was urgent, pleading. "You wait ... do him
tomorrow when Neptune fellers can see."
Morning dawned with its usual dim lessening of the Neptunian murk.
A methane breeze rolled down from some distant mountain range and
swirled in noxious vapors across the plain. Two Neptunian guardsmen
saw a flicker of movement in a nearby sandheap and cut loose with the
fullest fury of their heat-grids. There was a crackle. An unassimilated
tribesman rolled over, kicked a spurred foot in the air, arched his
haunches and died.
The little tragedy, repeated time and again on that ruthless planet,
was no more than window-dressing for more significant events. The
crackling, burning grids were crackling arcs of doom. Like Gabriel's
trumpet, they served to awaken Tim and Johnny Damokles.
"What's dam' noise?" grunted the Greek.
"Target practice." Timmy was about to deliver further comments, but a
rap at the door cut him loose. "Come in!" he barked. The door opened.
The Leader entered.
"Ahhhh. Good morning, my dear guests." He rubbed his hands in a gesture
that grated scales together. "We've a special _treat_ for you this
morning. And perhaps, since you've displayed certain interests in
_history_, you'd enjoy sharing in the history of the future."
"Would we?" queried Timmy.
"Belligerence is an ill-fitting trait of yours, Mister Gordon," said
the Neptunian. "An inadequate one, I'll add."
"We're wasting time," interrupted Tim. "Get on with it!"
"Impetuous? You've a right to be. Get into your space suits and come
outside. We're launching a special present for the Jovian System ...
and feel that you gentlemen would enjoy it."
"I know," muttered Timmy.
"Of course, you do." The Leader was grinning as he spoke. "We've given
your companion full opportunity to tell you about it. But come
along ... unless you prefer a few rather ... delicate ... adjustments
of the nervous system."
Johnny Damokles laughed. But beyond that, neither he nor Tim had
anything further to say. They climbed into their space clothes and
followed the Leader out into the Neptunian twilight.
V
In a natural amphitheater, walled in at one side by the cliff of the
ravine and sheltered from the methane wind by the parapets of the Tsom
fortress, stood the gigantic Neptunian bomb. Its impervium walls glowed
with a faint, cold light. Regularly, down its sides from ten points,
uneven streaks marked the course of Timmy's sensitizing fluid. Their
exact placement was coincidentally fortunate. Each served to counteract
the other, though the inward pressure they exerted must have been
tremendous indeed.
The Leader was laughing in a repulsively reptilian way as he ascended
his rostrum. Timmy and Damokles followed. "Observe," said the Leader,
"the ingenious controls by which I guide the rocket-blasts from this
remote station." He pointed to his control board, motioned Timmy and
Johnny to stay away from it, and chuckled as they obeyed. Then, for a
full hour, he delivered an impassioned and almost insane address to his
followers.
As near as Timmy could judge, the Leader's address was a skilful bit of
vituperation against the injustices done Neptune. But it was effective.
A frenzied circle of lizard-men howled as he finished speaking. "And
now," said the Leader, "we send our little present on his way."
He reached for the control board. The bomb shot heavenward.
Yes, it shot heavenward.
But the Leader _hadn't touched_ the controls.
Timmy's fingers anticipated him. A flick on his own secret control
board had shot the bomb silently out toward the void. The Leader's
finger froze in mid-air. His jaw dropped. He followed the bomb in its
flight, and every muscle tightened, when it stopped dead at a point
half a mile above Neptune. There the bomb hovered, unmoving. Its orbit,
if an orbit you could call it, held it exactly above the center of the
Tsom fortress. The Leader's finger jammed down on his control button.
Flames blasted from the bomb's jets. It whirled crazily on its own
axis ... but was otherwise immovable.
"Interesting, isn't it?" said Timmy mockingly.
* * * * *
The Leader looked at him. "You've done this?" His tone was most
incredulous. He darted toward Timmy.
"Don't move," ordered the Earthman. He flicked a button and the great
bomb dropped silently. The Leader stopped. There was utter silence as
every creature in the amphitheater realized what was happening.
"Well," said the Leader at last, "it's an impasse, isn't it."
"No ... it's check ... and check-mate."
"Yes," chuckled Johnny Damokles, "she are old Greeks' gambit."
* * * * *
The Leader darted back to his control board. Again and again he shot
every ounce of power into the bomb's blasts. Nothing happened. It spun
about at that same tantalizing half-mile above their heads.
"Most ingenius," said the Leader. "You falsified those papers on how
your principle worked?"
"Believe that if you want," said Timmy with a shrug. "And now ... I'm
taking over."
The Leader bowed.
But Johnny Damokles stepped into the picture.
"I take over first," he said. "I gots present for dam' blast Shelton
Thurner." He leaned over the front of the rostrum and caught the
big Neptunian spy by the coat collar. Timmy, guarding against any
treacherous assault, kept his eyes on the Leader and the bomb.
"Holla, Meester Shelton Thurner," greeted the Greek, "You ask Johnny
Damokles dam' fool question. You want sky-hook? Good! I gots sky-hook."
From a capacious pocket of his space britches he drew a hook and a
dangling length of chain. He tightened the collar and jabbed the hook
through it. "Goombye, Meester No-goods!" he chortled. He jerked the
rest of the chain from his pocket. A few scraps of treated impervium
were hitched to its end. Light hit them. They shot aloft, dragging
Thurner behind them like the tail of a crazy kite, and dangled high
above the plain.
"How you like sky-hooks?" yelled the Greek.
Timmy laughed.
"I regret," said the Leader in a suavely courteous tone, "the loss of
an aide. But tell me, how did you evolve this ingenious plan? Am I
over-inquisitive?"
"The plan ... belongs to Johnny Damokles."
"Sure Mikes!" blurted the Greek. "She are old Greeks' story. You tell
her, Timmy. My talk all mixed with sky-hooks!"
Timmy fingered his control board. "Long ago," he said, "a Greek king
acquired excessive power through force. As a symbol of that force ...
a sword dangled always above his head. By a hair. The king's name ...
like that of my friend ... was Damocles. They call the story, _The
Sword of Damocles_."
Above their heads hovered that menacing ball of _dynotron_, enough to
blast all life from Neptune. The Neptunian leader watched it.
"I believe ... that I understand." He turned away, then swung back
again. "One must accept facts intelligently. Visiphone your Terrestian
diplomats. Neptune will accept any reasonable terms."
Overhead, the sword of Johnny Damokles glowed faintly.
"The Greeks," Johnny Damokles said softly to nobody in particular,
"have a word for it. _Freedom!_" He smiled. "Let'sa call home, Tims.
I'm cold!"