_The Pipe-like Men_
Brand began to slacken speed on the morning of the thirteenth day
(morning, of course, being a technical term: there are no horizons in
space for the sun to rise over). Jupiter was still an immense distance
off; but it took a great while to slow the momentum of the space ship,
which, in the frictionless emptiness of space, had been traveling
faster and faster for nearly three hundred hours.
Behind them was the distant ball of sun, so far off that it looked no
larger than a red-hot penny. Before them was the gigantic disk of
Jupiter, given a white tinge by the perpetual fog blankets, its
outlines softened by its thick layer of atmosphere and cloud banks.
Two of its nine satellites were in sight at the moment, with a third
edging over the western rim.
"Makes you think you're drunk and seeing triple, doesn't it?"
commented Dex, who was staring out the thick glass panel beside Brand.
"Nine moons! Almost enough for one planet!"
Brand nodded abstractly, and concentrated on the control board.
Rapidly the ship rocketed down toward the surface. The disk became a
whirling, gigantic plate; and then an endless plain, with cloud
formations beginning to take on definite outline.
"About to enter Jupiter's atmosphere." Brand spoke into the radio
transmitter. Over the invisible thread of radio connection between the
space ship and Earth, four hundred million miles behind, flashed the
message.
"All right. For God's sake, be careful," came the answer, minutes
later. "Say something at least every half hour, to let us know
communication is unbroken. We will sound at ten second intervals."
The sounding began: _peep_, a shrill little piping noise like the
fiddle of a cricket. Ten seconds later it came again: _peep_.
Thereafter, intermittently, it keened through the control room--a
homely, comforting sound to let them know that there was a distant
thread between them and Earth.
* * * * *
Lower the shell rocketed. The endless plain slowly ceased its rushing
underneath them as they entered the planet's atmosphere and began to
be pulled around with it in its revolution. Far to the west a faint
red glow illumined the sky.
The two men looked at each other, grimly, soberly.
"We're here," said Dex, flexing the muscles of his powerful arms.
"We are," said Brand, patting the gun in his holster.
The rapid dusk of the giant planet began to close in on them. The thin
sunlight darkened; and with its lowering, the red spot of Jupiter
glared more luridly ahead of them. Silently the two men gazed at it,
and wondered what it held.
They shot the space ship toward it, and halted a few hundred miles
away. Watery white light from the satellites, "that jitter around in
the sky like a bunch of damned waterbugs," as Dex put it, was now the
sole illumination.
They hung motionless in their space shell, to wait through the
five-hour Jovian night for the succeeding five hours of daylight to
illumine a slow cruise over the red area that, in less than a year,
had swallowed up three of Earth's space ships. And ever as they
waited, dozing a little, speculating as to the nature of the danger
they faced, the peep, peep of the radio shrilled in their ears to tell
them that there was still a connection--though a very tenuous
one--with their mother planet.
* * * * *
"Red spot ten miles away," said Brand in the transmitter. "We're
approaching it slowly."
The tiny sun had leaped up over Jupiter's horizon; and with its
appearance they had sent the ship planing toward their mysterious
destination. Beneath them the fog banks were thinning, and ahead of
them were no clouds. For some reason there was a clarity unusual to
Jupiter's atmosphere in the air above the red section.
"Red spot one mile ahead, altitude forty thousand feet," reported
Brand.
He and Dex peered intently through the port glass panel. Ahead and far
below, their eyes caught an odd metallic sheen. It was as though the
ground there were carpeted with polished steel that reflected red
firelight.
Tense, filled with an excitement that set their pulses pounding
wildly, they angled slowly down, nearer to the edge of the vast
crimson area, closer to the ground. The radio keened its monotonous
signal.
Brand crawled to the transmitter, laboriously, for his body tipped the
scales here at nearly four hundred pounds.
"We can see the metallic glitter that Journeyman spoke of," he said.
"No sign of life of any kind, though. The red glow seems to flicker a
little."
Closer the ship floated. Closer. To right and left of them for vast
distances stretched the red area. Ahead of them for hundreds of miles
they knew it extended.
"We're right on it now," called Brand. "Right on it--we're going over
the edge--we're--"
Next instant he was sprawling on the floor, with Dex rolling
helplessly on top of him, while the space ship bounced up twenty
thousand feet as though propelled by a giant sling.
* * * * *
The peep, peep of the radio signalling stopped. The space ship rolled
helplessly for a moment, then resumed an even keel. Brand and Dex
gazed at each other.
"What the hell?" said Dex.
He started to get to his feet, put all his strength into the task of
moving his Jupiter-weighted body, and crashed against the top of the
control room.
"Say!" he sputtered, rubbing his head. "Say, what _is_ this?"
Brand, profiting by his mistake, rose more cautiously, shut off the
atomic motor, and approached a glass panel again. "God knows what it
is," he said with a shrug. "Somehow, with our passing into the red
area, the pull of gravity has been reduced by about ten, that's all."
"Oh, so that's all, is it? Well, what's happened to old Jupe's
gravity?"
Again Brand shrugged. "I haven't any idea. Your guess is as good as
mine."
He peered down through the panel, and stiffened in surprise.
"Dex!" he cried. "We're moving! And the motor is shut off!"
"We're drawing down closer to the ground, too," announced Dex,
pointing to their altimeter. "Our altitude has been reduced five
thousand feet in the last two minutes."
Quickly Brand turned on the motor in reverse. The space ship, as the
rushing, reddish ground beneath indicated, continued to glide forward
as though pulled by an invisible rope. He turned on full power. The
ship's progress was checked a little. A very little! And the metallic
red surface under them grew nearer as they steadily lost altitude.
"Something seems to have got us by the nose," said Dex. "We're on our
way to the center of the red spot, I guess--to find whatever it was
that Journeyman found. And the radio communication his been broken
somehow...."
Wordlessly, they stared out the panel, while the shell, quivering with
the strain of the atomic motor's fight against whatever unseen force
it was that relentlessly drew them forward, bore them swiftly toward
the heart of the vast crimson area.
* * * * *
"Look!" cried Brand.
For over an hour the ship had been propelled swiftly, irresistibly
toward the center of the red spot. It had been up about forty thousand
feet. Now, with a jerk that sent both men reeling, it had been drawn
down to within fifteen thousand feet of the surface; and the sight
that was now becoming more and more visible was incredible.
Beneath was a vast, orderly checkerboard. Every alternate square was
covered by what seemed a jointless metal plate. The open squares,
plainly land under cultivation, were surrounded by gleaming fences
that hooked each metal square with every other one of its kind as
batteries are wired in series. Over these open squares progressed
tiny, two legged figures, for the most part following gigantic
shapeless animals like figures out of a dream. Ahead suddenly appeared
the spires and towers of an enormous city!
Metropolis and cultivated land! It was as unbelievable, on that raw
new planet, as such a sight would have been could a traveler in time
have observed it in the midst of a dim Pleistocene panorama of young
Earth.
It was instantly apparent that the city was their destination. Rapidly
the little ship was rushed toward it; and, realizing at last the
futility of its laboring, Brand cut off the atomic motor and let the
shell drift.
Over a group of squat square buildings their ship passed, decreasing
speed and drifting lower with every moment. The lofty structures that
were the nucleus of the strange city loomed closer. Now they were
soaring slowly down a wide thoroughfare; and now, at last, they
hovered above a great open square that was thronged with figures.
Lower they dropped. Lower. And then they settled with a slight jar on
a surface made of reddish metal; and the figures rushed to surround
them.
* * * * *
Looking out the glass panel at these figures, both Brand and Dex
exclaimed aloud and covered their eyes for a moment to shut out the
hideous sight of them. Now they examined them closely.
Manlike they were: and yet like no human being conceivable to an Earth
mind. They were tremendously tall--twelve feet at least--but as thin
as so many animated poles. Their two legs were scarce four inches
through, taper-less, boneless, like lengths of pipe; and like two
flexible pipes they were joined to a slightly larger pipe of a torso
that could not have been more than a foot in diameter. There were four
arms, a pair on each side of the cylindrical body, that weaved feebly
about like lengths of rubber hose.
Set directly on the pipe-like body, as a pumpkin might be balanced on
a pole, was a perfectly round cranium in which were glassy, staring
eyes, with dull pupils like those of a sick dog. The nose was but a
tab of flesh. The mouth was a minute, circular thing, soft and flabby
looking, which opened and shut regularly with the creature's
breathing. It resembled the snout-like mouth of a fish, of the sucker
variety; and fish-like, too, was the smooth and slimy skin that
covered the beanpole body.
* * * * *
Hundreds of the repulsive things, there were. And all of them shoved
and crowded, as a disorderly mob on Earth might do, to get close to
the Earthmen's ship. Their big dull eyes peered in through the glass
panels, and their hands--mere round blobs of gristle in the palms of
which were set single sucker disks--pattered against the metal hull of
the shell.
"God!" said Brand with a shudder. "Fancy these things feeling over
your body...."
"They're hostile, whatever they are," said Dex. "Look out: that one's
pointing something at you!"
One of the slender, tottering creatures had raised an arm and leveled
at Brand something that looked rather like an elongated, old-fashioned
flashlight. Brand involuntarily ducked. The clear glass panel between
them and the mob outside gave him a queasy feeling of being exposed to
whatever missile might lurk in the thing's tube.
"What do we do now?" demanded Dex with a shaky laugh. "You're chief of
this expedition. I'm waiting for orders."
"We wait right here," replied Brand. "We're safe in the shell till
we're starved out. At least they can't get in to attack us."
But it developed that, while the slimy looking things might not be
able to get in, they had ways of reaching the Earthmen just the same!
* * * * *
The creature with the gun-like tube extended it somewhat further
toward Brand.
Brand felt a sharp, unpleasant tingle shoot through his body, as
though he had received an electric shock. He winced, and cried out at
the sudden pain of it.
"What's the matter--" Dex began. But hardly had the words left his
mouth when he, too, felt the shock. A couple of good, hearty Earth
oaths exploded from his lips.
The repulsive creature outside made an authoritative gesture. He
seemed to be beckoning to them, his huge dull eyes glaring
threateningly at the same moment.
"Our beanpole friend is suggesting that we get out of the shell and
stay awhile," said Dex with grim humor. "They seem anxious to
entertain us--_ouch!_"
As the two men made no move to obey the beckoning gesture, the
creature had raised the tube again; and again the sharp, unpleasant
shock shot through them.
"What the devil are we going to do?" exclaimed Brand. "If we go out in
that mob of nightmare things--it's going to be messy. As long as we
stay in the shell we have some measure of protection."
"Not much protection when they can sting us through metal and glass at
will," growled Dex. "Do you suppose they can turn the juice on harder?
Or is that bee-sting their best effort?"
As though in direct answer to his words, the blob-like face of the
being who seemed in authority convulsed with anger and he raised the
tube again. This time the shock that came from it was sufficient to
throw the two men to the floor.
"Well, we can't stay in the ship, that's certain," said Brand. "I
guess there's only one thing to do."
Dex nodded. "Climb out of here and take as many of these skinny
horrors with us into hell as we can," he agreed.
Once more the shock stung them, as a reminder not to keep their
captors waiting. With their shoulders bunched for abrupt action, and
their guns in hand, the two men walked to the trap-door of the ship.
They threw the heavy bolts, drew a deep breath--and flung open the
door to charge unexpectedly toward the thickest mass of creatures that
surrounded the ship!
* * * * *
In a measure their charge was successful. Its very suddenness caught
some of the tall monstrosities off guard. Half a dozen of them stopped
the fragile glass bullets to writhe in horrible death on the red metal
paving of the square. But that didn't last long.
In less than a minute, thin, clammy arms were winding around the
Earthmen's wrists, and their guns were wrenched from them. And then
started a hand-to-hand encounter that was all the more hideous for
being so unlike any fighting that might have occurred on Earth.
With a furious growl Dex charged the nearest creature, whose huge
round head swayed on its stalk of a body fully six feet above his own
head. He gathered the long thin legs in a football grip, and sent the
thing crashing full length on its back. The great head thumped
resoundingly against the metal paving, and the creature lay
motionless.
For an instant Dex could only stare at the thing. It had been so easy,
like overcoming a child. But even as that thought crossed his mind,
two of the tall thin figures closed in behind him. Four pairs of arms
wound around him, feebly but tenaciously, like wet seaweed.
They began to constrict and wind tighter around him. He tore at them,
dislodged all but two. His sturdy Earth leg went back to sweep the
stalk-like legs of his attackers from under them. One of the things
went down, to twist weakly in a laborious attempt to rise again. But
the other, by sheer force of height and reach, began to bear Dex down.
Savagely he laced out with his fists, battering the pulpy face that
was pressing down close to his. The big eyes blinked shut, but the
four hose-like arms did not relax their clasp. Dex's hands sought
fiercely for the thing's throat. But it had no throat: the head, set
directly on the thin shoulders, defied all throttling attempts.
* * * * *
Then, just as Dex was feeling that the end had come, he felt the
creature wrench from him, and saw it slide in a tangle of arms and
legs over the smooth metal pavement. He got shakily to his feet, to
see Brand standing over him and flailing out with his fists at an ever
tightening circle of towering figures.
"Thanks," panted Dex. And he began again, tripping the twelve-foot
things in order to get them down within reach, battering at the great
pulpy heads, fighting blindly in that expressed craving to take as
many of the creatures into hell with him as he could manage. Beside
him fought Brand, steadily, coolly, grim of jaw and unblinking of eye.
Already the struggle had gone on far longer than they had dreamed it
might. For some reason the grotesque creatures delayed killing them.
That they could do so any time they pleased, was certain: if the
monsters could reach them with their shock-tubes through the double
insulated hull of the space ship, they could certainly kill them out
in the open.
Yet they made no move to do so. The deadly tubes were not used. The
screeching gargoyles, instead, devoted all their efforts to merely
hurling their attenuated bodies on the two men as though they wished
to capture them alive.
Finally, however, the nature of the battle changed. The tallest of the
attackers opened his tiny mouth and piped a signal. The ring of
weaving tall bodies surrounding the two opened and became a U. The
creatures in the curve of the U raised their shock-tubes and, with
none of their own kind behind the victims to share in its discharge,
released whatever power it was that lurked in them.
The shock was terrific. Without the glass and metal of the ship to
protect them, out in the open and defenceless, Brand and Dex got some
indication of its real power.
Writhing and twitching, feeling as though pierced by millions of red
hot needles, they went down. A swarm of pipe-like bodies smothered
them, and the fight was over.