Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Amazing Stories December 1942. Extensive
research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this
publication was renewed.
THE WORLD WITH A THOUSAND MOONS
[Illustration: The forest was a hell of vicious brutes]
by EDMOND HAMILTON
Grim death was the only romance to be found on this world
that boasted a thousand moons
* * * * *
CHAPTER 1
Thrill Cruise
Lance Kenniston felt the cold realization of failure as he came out of
the building into the sharp chill of the Martian night. He stood for a
moment, his lean, drawn face haggard in the light of the two hurtling
moons.
He looked hopelessly across the dark spaceport. It was a large one,
for this ancient town of Syrtis was the main port of Mars. The forked
light of the flying moons showed many ships docked on the tarmac--a
big liner, several freighters, a small, shining cruiser and other
small craft. And for lack of one of those ships, his hopes were
ruined!
A squat, brawny figure in shapeless space-jacket came to Kenniston's
side. It was Holk Or, the Jovian who had been waiting for him.
"What luck?" asked the Jovian in a rumbling whisper.
"It's hopeless," Kenniston answered heavily. "There isn't a small
cruiser to be had at any price. The meteor-miners buy up all small
ships here."
"The devil!" muttered Holk Or, dismayed. "What are we going to do? Go
on to Earth and get a cruiser there?"
"We can't do that," Kenniston answered. "You know we've got to get
back to that asteroid within two weeks. We've got to get a ship here."
Desperation made Kenniston's voice taut. His lean, hard face was bleak
with knowledge of disastrous failure.
The big Jovian scratched his head. In the shifting moonslight his
battered green face expressed ignorant perplexity as he stared across
the busy spaceport.
"That shiny little cruiser there would be just the thing," Holk Or
muttered, looking at the gleaming, torpedo-shaped craft nearby. "It
would hold all the stuff we've got to take; and with robot controls we
two could run it."
"We haven't a chance to get that craft," Kenniston told him. "I found
out that it's under charter to a bunch of rich Earth youngsters who
came out here in it for a pleasure cruise. A girl named Loring,
heiress to Loring Radium, is the head of the party."
The Jovian swore. "Just the ship we need, and a lot of spoiled kids
are using it for thrill-hunting!"
Kenniston had an idea. "It might be," he said slowly, "that they're
tired of the cruise by this time and would sell us the craft. I think
I'll go up to the Terra Hotel and see this Loring girl."
"Sure, let's try it anyway," Holk Or agreed.
The Earthman looked at him anxiously. "Oughtn't you to keep under
cover, Holk? The Planet Patrol has had your record on file for a long
time. If you happened to be recognized--"
"Bah, they think I'm dead, don't they?" scoffed the Jovian. "There's
no danger of us getting picked up."
Kenniston was not so sure, but he was too driven by urgent need to
waste time in argument. With the Jovian clumping along beside him, he
made his way from the spaceport across the ancient Martian city.
The dark streets of old Syrtis were not crowded. Martians are not a
nocturnal people and only a few were abroad in the chill darkness,
even they being wrapped in heavy synthewool cloaks from which only
their bald red heads and solemn, cadaverous faces protruded.
Earthmen were fairly numerous in this main port of the planet.
Swaggering space-sailors, prosperous-looking traders and rough
meteor-miners made up the most of them. There were a few tourists
gaping at the grotesque old black stone buildings, and under a
krypton-bulb at a corner, two men in the drab uniform of the Patrol
stood eyeing passersby sharply. Kenniston breathed more easily when he
and the Jovian had passed the two officers without challenge.
* * * * *
The Terra Hotel stood in a garden at the edge of town, fronting the
moonlit immensity of the desert. This glittering glass block,
especially built to cater to the tourist trade from Earth, was
Earth-conditioned inside. Its gravitation, air pressure and humidity
were ingeniously maintained at Earth standards for the greater comfort
of its patrons.
Kenniston felt oddly oppressed by the warm, soft air inside the
resplendent lobby. He had spent so much of his time away from Earth
that he had become more or less adapted to thinner, colder
atmospheres.
"Miss Gloria Loring?" repeated the immaculate young Earthman behind
the information desk. His eyes appraised Kenniston's shabby
space-jacket and the hulking green Jovian. "I am afraid--"
"I'm here to see her on important business, by appointment," Kenniston
snapped.
The clerk melted at once. "Oh, I see! I believe that Miss Loring's
party is now in The Bridge. That's our cocktail room--top floor."
Kenniston felt badly out of place, riding up in the magnetic lift with
Holk Or. The other people in the car, Earthmen and women in the
shimmering synthesilks of the latest formal dress, stared at him and
the Jovian as though wondering how they had ever gained admittance.
The lights, silks and perfumes made Kenniston feel even shabbier than
he was. All this luxury was a far cry from the hard, dangerous life he
had led for so long amid the wild asteroids and moons of the outer
planets.
It was worse up in the glittering cocktail room atop the hotel. The place
had glassite walls and ceiling, and was designed to give an impression of
the navigating bridge of a space-ship. The orchestra played behind a phony
control-board of instruments and rocket-controls. Meaningless space-charts
hung on the walls for decoration. It was just the sort of pretentious
sham, Kenniston thought contemptuously, to appeal to tourists.
"Some crowd!" muttered Holk Or, looking over the tables of richly
dressed and jewelled people. His small eyes gleamed. "What a place to
loot!"
"Shut up!" Kenniston muttered hastily. He asked a waiter for the
Loring party, and was conducted to a table in a corner.
There were a half dozen people at the table, most of them young
Earthmen and girls. They were drinking pink Martian desert-wine,
except for one sulky-looking youngster who had stuck to Earth whisky.
One of the girls turned and looked at Kenniston with cool, insolently
uninterested gaze when the waiter whispered to her politely.
"I'm Gloria Loring," she drawled. "What did you want to see me about?"
She was dark and slim, and surprisingly young. There were almost
childish lines to the bare shoulders revealed by her low golden gown.
Her thoroughbred grace and beauty were spoiled for Kenniston by the
bored look in her clear dark eyes and the faintly disdainful droop of
her mouth.
The chubby, rosy youth beside her goggled in simulated amazement and
terror at the battered green Jovian behind Kenniston. He set down his
glass with a theatrical gesture of horror.
"This Martian liquor has got me!" he exclaimed. "I can see a little
green man!"
Holk Or started wrathfully forward. "Why, that young pup--"
Kenniston hastily restrained him with a gesture. He turned back to the
table. Some of the girls were giggling.
"Be quiet, Robbie," Gloria Loring was telling the chubby young
comedian. She turned her cool gaze back to Kenniston. "Well?"
"Miss Loring, I heard down at the spaceport that you are the charterer
of that small cruiser, the _Sunsprite_," Kenniston explained. "I need
a craft like that very badly. If you would part with her, I'd be glad
to pay almost any price for your charter."
* * * * *
The girl looked at him in astonishment. "Why in the world should I let
you have our cruiser?"
Kenniston said earnestly, "Your party could travel just as well and a
lot more comfortably by liner. And getting a cruiser like that is a
life-or-death business for me right now."
"I'm not interested in your business, Mr. Kenniston," drawled Gloria
Loring. "And I certainly don't propose to alter our plans just to help
a stranger out of his difficulties."
Kenniston flushed from the cool rebuke. He stood there, suddenly
feeling a savage dislike for the whole pampered group of them.
"Beside that," the girl continued, "we chose the cruiser for this trip
because we wanted to get off the beaten track of liner routes, and see
something new. We're going from here out to Jupiter's moons."
Kenniston perceived that these bored, spoiled youngsters were out here
hunting for new thrills on the interplanetary frontier. His dislike of
them increased.
A clean-cut, sober-faced young man who seemed older and more serious
than the rest of the party, was speaking to the heiress.
"Unhardened space-travellers like us are likely to get hit by
gravitation paralysis out in the outer planets, Gloria," he was saying
to the heiress. "I don't think we ought to go farther out than Mars."
Gloria looked at him mockingly. "If you're scared, Hugh, why did you
leave your nice safe office on Earth and come along with us?"
The chubby youth called Robbie laughed loudly. "We all know why Hugh
Murdock came along. It's not thrills he wants--it's you, Gloria."
They were all ignoring Kenniston now. He felt that he had been
dismissed but he was desperately reluctant to lose his last hope of
getting a ship. Somehow he _must_ get that cruiser!
A stratagem occurred to him. If these spoiled scions wouldn't give up
their ship, at least he might induce them to go where he wanted.
Kenniston hesitated. It would mean leading them all into the deadliest
kind of peril. But a man's life depended on it. A man who was worth
all these rich young wastrels put together. He decided to try it.
"Miss Loring, if it's thrills you're after, maybe I can furnish them,"
Kenniston said. "Maybe we can team up on this. How would you like to
go on a voyage after the biggest treasure in the System?"
"Treasure?" exclaimed the heiress surprisedly. "Where is it?"
They were all leaning forward, with quick interest. Kenniston saw that
his bait had caught them.
"You've heard of John Dark, the notorious space-pirate?" he asked.
Gloria nodded. "Of course. The telenews was full of his exploits until
the Patrol caught and destroyed his ship a few weeks ago."
Kenniston corrected her. "The Patrol caught up to John Dark's ship in
the asteroid, but didn't completely destroy it. They gunned the pirate
craft to a wreck in a running fight. But Dark's wrecked ship drifted
into a dangerous zone of meteor swarms where they couldn't follow."
"I remember now--that's what the telenews said," conceded the heiress.
"But Dark and his crew were undoubtedly killed, they said."
"John Dark," Kenniston went on, "looted scores of ships during his
career. He amassed a hoard of jewels and precious metals. And he kept
it right with him in his ship. That treasure's still in that lost
wreck."
"How do you know?" asked Hugh Murdock bluntly.
"Because I found the lost wreck of Dark's ship myself," Kenniston
answered. He hated to lie like this, but knew that he had no choice.
* * * * *
He plunged on. "I'm a meteor-miner by profession. Two weeks ago my
Jovian partner and I were prospecting in the outer asteroid zone in
our little rocket. Our air-tanks got low and to replenish them, we
landed on the asteroid Vesta. That's the big asteroid they call the
World with a Thousand Moons, because it's circled by a swarm of
hundreds of meteors.
"It's a weird, jungled little world, inhabited by some very queer
forms of life. In landing, my partner and I noticed where some great
object had crashed down into the jungle. We discovered it was the
wreck of John Dark's ship. The wreck had drifted until it crashed on
Vesta, almost completely burying itself in the ground. No one was
alive on it, of course."
Kenniston concluded. "We knew Dark's treasure must still be in the
buried wreck. But it would take machinery and equipment to dig out the
wreck. So we came here to Mars, intending to get a small cruiser, load
it with the necessary equipment, and go back to Vesta and lift the
treasure. Only we haven't been able to get a ship of any kind."
He leaned toward the girl. "Here's my proposition, Miss Loring. You
take us and our equipment to Vesta in your cruiser, and we'll share
the treasure with you fifty-fifty. What do you say?"
The blonde girl beside Gloria uttered a squeal of excitement. "Pirate
treasure! Gloria, let's do it--what a thrill it would be!"
The others showed equal excitement. The romance of a treasure hunt in
the wild asteroids lured them, rather than the possible rewards.
"We'd certainly be able to take back a wonderful story to Earth if we
found John Dark's treasure," admitted Gloria, with quick, eager
interest.
Hugh Murdock was an exception to the general enthusiasm. He asked
Kenniston, "How do you know the treasure's still in the buried wreck?"
"Because the wreck was still undisturbed," Kenniston answered. "And
because we found these jewels on the body of one of John Dark's crew,
who had been flung clear somehow when the wreck crashed."
He held out a half-dozen gems he took from his pocket. They were
Saturnian moon-stones, softly shining white jewels whose brilliance
waxed and waned in perfect periodic rhythm.
"These jewels," Kenniston said, "must have been that pirate's share of
the loot. You can imagine how rich John Dark's own hoard must be."
The jewels, worth many thousands, swept away the lingering incredulity
of the others as Kenniston had known they would.
"You're sure no one else knows the wreck is there?" Gloria asked
breathlessly.
"We kept our find absolutely secret," Kenniston told her. "But since I
can't get a ship any other way, I'm willing to share the hoard with
you. If I wait too long, someone else may find the wreck."
"I accept your proposition, Mr. Kenniston!" Gloria declared. "We'll
start for Vesta just as soon as you can get the equipment you'll need
loaded on the _Sunsprite_."
"Gloria, you're being too hasty," protested Hugh Murdock. "I've heard
of this world with a Thousand Moons. There're stories of queer,
unhuman creatures they call Vestans, who infest that asteroid. The
danger--"
Gloria impatiently dismissed his objections. "Hugh, if you are going
to start worrying about dangers again, you'd better go back to Earth
and safety."
Murdock flushed and was silent. Kenniston felt a certain sympathy for
the young businessman. He knew, if these others did not, just how real
was the alien menace of those strange creatures, the Vestans.
"I'll go right down to the spaceport and see about loading the
equipment aboard your cruiser," Kenniston told the heiress. "You'd
better give me a note to your captain. We ought to be able to start
tomorrow."
"Pirate treasure on an unexplored asteroid!" exulted the enthusiastic
Robbie. "Ho for the World with a Thousand Moons!"
Kenniston felt guilty when he and Holk Or left the big hotel. These
youngsters, he thought, hadn't the faintest idea of the peril into
which he was leading them. They were as ignorant as babies of the dark
evil and unearthly danger of the interplanetary frontier.
He hardened himself against the qualms of conscience. There was that
at stake, he told himself fiercely, against which the safety of a lot
of spoiled, rich young people was absolutely nothing.
Holk Or was chuckling as they emerged into the chill Martian night. He
told Kenniston admiringly, "That was one of the smoothest jobs of
lying I ever heard, that story about finding John Dark's treasure.
Take it from me, it was slick!"
The Jovian guffawed loudly as he added, "What would their faces be
like if they knew that John Dark and his crew are still living? That
it was John Dark himself who sent us here?"
"Be quiet, you idiot!" ordered Kenniston hastily. "Do you want the
whole Patrol to hear you?"