IV

Within another day, we were close over it. Of necessity our velocity

was much less now. We had tilted so that the asteroid was under

us, with our base gravity plates in negation. Zura for twenty-four

earth-hours had been repulsing us, retarding us, as we dropped upon it.

Dr. Livingston had made careful calculations. The total mass of Zura,

small as the asteroid was in size, he had figured to be nearly that of

the earth. We confirmed it now, by the repulsing effect it had upon us.

Gradually we slowed, poised now midway in the northern hemisphere,

Zura had a rotation on its axis of almost exactly four hours. That we

had been able to check now--there had been six rotations in the span

of an earth-day, as measured by our chronometer. A thousand miles up?

It seemed now that we were no more than that. The Benson curve-rays,

here in the turret, showed us on our tilted mirrors the full image of

the little world directly under us. Its convexity long since had been

apparent. It spread now like a huge cloud-enveloped ball, covering

almost all the lower firmament.

"The clouds are lessening," Dr. Livingston said, as again he and I were

alone in the turret. "We'll be able to descend easily through this

atmosphere."

"Yes," I agreed.

There had been faint, though unmistakable, evidences of Xalite in many

places. We had decided that our best course was to descend before the

storms came back. Most of the moisture-masses seemed clustered over

the southern hemisphere now. Here in the north, for six Zurian days

it had been fairly clear. Swift alternation of day and night--days

of gray, hazy light, with the sunlight often striking through. And

nights of glittering stars. We had seen all the surface of the northern

hemisphere now. Everywhere it was the same--bleak, metallic-looking

gray rocks, wildly tumbled; huge, fantastic ice and snow formations;

strewn pools of water, choked with melting ice.

Alan and I had mentioned that weird vision we had had of a living girl,

so strangely fashioned in human mold. Was she real--or had our fancy

tricked us? Dr. Livingston had blankly stared. From the big, handsome

Peter Duroh had come a laugh and a ribald expression of hope that we

were right. James Carruthers had merely stared incredulously, with his

thin lips smiling and a look in his alert eyes that somehow seemed

predatory.

But whether we had seen something animal or human, assuredly it had

been alive. This atmosphere then, doubtless would be breatheable to us;

and the temperature down there, by daylight at least, must be around

40F.

Dr. Livingston was checking his instruments. Another hour had passed.

"Only five hundred miles of altitude now," he said. "I think we may use

a little less repulsion for a time, and then the final retardation must

begin."

Awesome descent. It took us another eighteen earth-hours while the

weird convex surface of little Zura came up at us. I was often in the

turret alone. Queerly an ominous sense of disaster was upon me. I could

not tell why. Fear that we might not land safely? Surely it was not

that. Rather was it as though, here in the little _Planeteer_ which had

been our world, something was impending. Somehow I had grown to dislike

Pete Duroh and Jim Carruthers. Just little things. That ribald laugh.

A way they had seemingly of watching me, whispering together while I

was at the spectroscope, checking what evidence I could find of the

presence of Xalite on the asteroid's surface.

And young Grant, boyish multiple murderer, whom now I had come somehow

to like--what was it that he had wanted to tell me? I had tried several

times to see him alone to ask him; but obviously he was avoiding me

now. Whatever it was, he had repented the impulse.

We were all five in the turret during the descent through the Zurian

atmosphere. Only fifty thousand feet up now. It was night, with

glittering stars above us, and below, that wild, tumbled, fantastic

landscape spreading now off to the horizon, bleak and grim in the

starlight....

* * * * *

Twenty thousand feet. Sudden daylight had come and then night again.

We were moving with Zura now in her swift axial rotation, dropping

almost vertically down, slowly now with a constant retardation. I did

not mention it, but I realized that we were poised very nearly over

where Alan and I had seen--or thought we had seen--that strange vision

of a girl. She had not reappeared. Were there others like her here? A

race of people so much like earth humans that one of them could be a

beautiful young girl, so like a girl of earth that I had resented the

ribald attitude of Carruthers and Duroh?

My thoughts seemed totally impossible, according to scientific logic.

Yet Alan and I surely had seen her....

"This damn heat," Duroh said. He sat slumped on the control room floor,

his lanky body in trousers and shirt. His black wavy hair was plastered

on his forehead with sweat. He mopped it with his big handkerchief.

"You'll get it cold enough pretty soon," Carruthers laughed. "Take your

time, Pete."

Carruthers was alertly watching Dr. Livingston as he shifted the

gravity plates for a still greater retardation. "Going to slow us some

more, Doc?"

"Yes. Yes, I don't want to take any chances."

Five thousand feet.... Then two thousand. Off to the right the great

cauldron depression was like a mile-wide lake--black water choked with

floating ice on which the starlight glistened prismatic. A great ramp

of the gray metallic rock went up like a glacier to the left. Beside

it, the foothills of distant mountains went up in great terraced tiers.

Everywhere there were ice-filled gullies, with water pouring down out

of many of them. Gullies, ravines and crevices; pits yawning with inky

blackness....

And then I noticed that, weirdly, there seemed light inherent to these

Zurian rock-masses. Some of the cave-mouths were not quite black--a

little light appeared in them, glowing with a prismatic sheen.

A thousand feet. I was at the gravity control-board now, executing Dr.

Livingston's swift murmured orders. Without our modern rocket-streams,

the little _Planeteer_, I must admit, was unwieldy. We were dropping

slowly, with a side drift. In a corner Alan sat staring at us, with his

hands gripped between his knees, his fingers working nervously. Duroh

and Carruthers were standing tense beside me.

It was a touchy few minutes. We were some two hundred feet above a

broken ice-strewn plateau, with a side drift that was carrying us

toward a small cliff. I could see where Dr. Livingston intended to land

now--a little shallow bowl-depression near the cliff, where the bottom

seemed flat, with soft snow. The _Planeteer_ was hovering upright, with

a very slow, vertical axis rotation, so that as I used the cliff's

repulsion to check our drift, I was shifting the current constantly in

our side gravity plates.

Queer how one may think of two things at once! I was seated at the

control table, with my fingers roving its gravity-plate shifting keys.

Dr. Livingston was tensely peering through the side bull's-eyes,

gauging our position, our downward and sidewise drift; calling out

to me his orders. Certainly my mind had never been more alertly on

anything than it now was on those gravity keys. But nevertheless,

suddenly I was aware of an electric feeling here in the control room.

Carruthers and Duroh exchanging glances. And over in the corner young

Alan, with his hands between his knees, his fingers writhing, his dark

gaze brooding on me.

"Base negation! Full--quickly now!" Dr. Livingston called.

We were almost over the snowy depression--hardly the height of the

_Planeteer_ above it. I flung on the base repulsion; held it only some

ten seconds. Then gave attraction for an instant.

That may have been the first landing of any space-ship in the history

of the Universe. I do not know, of course; but I will say we eased

the little _Planeteer_ down as light as a falling snowdrop. There was

hardly a bump as we landed, with the base flat in the melting snow, and

the globe of the _Planeteer_ almost exactly upright.

"Good enough, John. We did it!" Dr. Livingston was triumphant. He swung

toward me, his face flushed with pleasure. Jim Carruthers was close

beside him. "Good work, wasn't it, Jim?"

"Yes," Carruthers said, with his thin smile. "You did nicely,

Doctor." He was partly behind Dr. Livingston; I saw his arm raised

behind Livingston's back. I had no more warning than that. The knife

Carruthers was clutching stabbed deeply. I saw the smile fade off poor

Dr. Livingston's face, with a dazed look of wonderment spreading there

as he tossed up his arms and sprawled forward. He dropped in a crumpled

heap almost at my feet, with the alumite knife-handle sticking from his

back where a ghastly crimson stain already was spreading on his white

shirt.

"Why--why, good Lord--" I gasped. I was on my feet; mind blurred,

numbed with horror. My fists clenched as I whirled at Carruthers.

"Why--why, you damned--"

"Easy there!" It was Peter Duroh's growling voice behind me. I swung

to face him. His big lanky figure leaned nonchalantly against one of

the side bull's-eye windows. Both his hands were at his hips--his hands

gripping an old-fashioned bullet-projector and a Banning heat-gun, with

muzzles leveled at my chest!

V

"So what are you going to do with me?" I demanded.

"Take it easy. Sit where you are." They had shoved me back into my

chair at the instrument board. Over in a corner Alan still sat with his

hands clasped between his knees, and his fingers working. Just a boy.

He could not meet the glance I flung at him.

"Is Dr. Livingston dead?" I said. "If he isn't--Good Lord, are you

going to let him just lie there?"

"Oh, he's dead all right," Duroh growled.

"You have no objection if I see, have you?"

"No. Go ahead."

"We'll go out by the lower door," Carruthers said impassively. "Keep

your muzzle on him, Pete--I'm going down. Livingston said we'll use a

portable spectroscope to locate the Xalite. It's in the base; I'll go

rig it up."

"You better not open that base door too quickly," I warned. "If this

atmosphere is wrong, in chemical content or pressure--kill us all here

like rats in a trap."

"Don't you worry, Taine." From the head of the little incline stairway

Carruthers grinned at me with his tight-lipped, ironic smile. "That's

why you're alive. We realize you know more about a lot of things in

this than we do."

Damnable cold-blooded villain. He waved his hand with jaunty irony at

me as he vanished down the staircase. With Duroh's weapons alertly

on me, I bent over the crumpled Dr. Livingston. He was dead, beyond

question. For years he had been my best, almost my only, friend. There

was a lump in my throat as I went back to my seat at the table.

"About this Xalite," Duroh said pleasantly. "In what form do we

expect to find it? Pretty pure? Can you tell how pure it is with your

instruments? If it's in a pretty pure state, we won't need so much,

will we? Fifty pounds or so--to deal out to a panting world for all our

lifetime and make us rich enough for any man's dreams."

"So you all three have decided to be murderers?" I retorted. "One of us

I should have thought was enough--contaminating damn business--"

My bitter words brought a burst from Alan. "So what can I do?" he flung

at me; but still he did not look at me. "You think I want to live here

on this God-forsaken little world--and die maybe in a day? Or go back

to Earth? Dr. Livingston would have turned me over--you know he would--"

One crime with such ghastly fecundity begets another! Heaven knows

I could hardly blame the boy. He was only sixteen; pushed into

desperation.

"What will he do?" Duroh grinned. "Why, that's easy, isn't it,

Alan? He'll go back to earth--rich. When you're rich--you can bribe

officials. Or, at worst, you can't be hunted like a sewer rat as he was

before. Money buys hiding places, clothes and food. Easy to hide out,

when you've got the decimars."

"And me?" I persisted. "You need my help now? All right--let's say I'll

give it. And then what?"

"When we get back to earth we'll turn you loose," he smiled. "Why not?

You can hunt us all you like. We'll be gone."

Was that their plan for me? I doubted it a great deal. But I could see

no reason now to balk them. Certainly it was to my interest to find

the Xalite, get it aboard and start back. With Alan to help me--or

possibly even alone, for that matter--I could navigate back to earth.

The landing there, on one of the big flying fields, would be far less

difficult than here. Meanwhile, I would watch my chance. And get a word

alone with Alan if I could. I was still convinced that he wasn't the

same stripe as these other two cold-blooded villains.

* * * * *

Duroh was questioning me now, and I answered him freely. A fairly

rich deposit of the Xalite should be somewhere near here where we had

landed. It would exist, probably as a strata in the metallic rock--not

recognizable perhaps with the naked eye, but identifiable with the

portable spectroscope.

"And with a pick and shovel we dig it out?" Duroh said. "You damn sure

better find it, Taine, if you know what's good for you."

"I will if I can," I agreed.

Carruthers came back. "Come on down and rig up this gadget, Taine. Then

we'll get on some heavy clothes and make a start."

Docilely I let them shove me down past our dim living quarters, into

the base storeroom. I saw now that Carruthers had a heat-gun clipped to

his belt with his knife. Alan apparently was unarmed. Dr. Livingston,

I knew, had brought some weapons. They were in his sleeping room--more

than these cut-throats had taken--but I had no way of getting to them

now.

In the base-room I rigged the small spectroscope, with its lenses,

prisms and batteries. Duroh brought us heavy trousers, boots, mackinaws

and heavy caps.

"Now," he said, "we're about ready, aren't we? If that air out there

is no good, we'll have to go through the midsection air-lock, with

air-helmets. That the idea, Taine?"

"That's it," I agreed. "And maybe with pressure suits, for all I know."

But none of that was necessary. Cautiously I admitted the air. It was

at once apparent that there was no great difference of pressure. It

came slowly hissing in, stopping our ears for a moment. It was cold and

dank, heavy to breathe and momentarily oppressive. But the feeling soon

passed.

"Very good," Carruthers said. "Open wide, Taine."

I swung the bull's-eye inward ... Zura. As my foot crunched into the

moist, wet snow, a pang shot through me. Perhaps I was the first living

thing ever to set foot upon an alien world. How different this landing

was from what I had anticipated! Dr. Livingston dead; myself a captive

in the hands of these cut-throats.

We had cut off the _Planeteer's_ interior gravity, and had found that

Zura was little different. As I walked now out into the raw, bleak

night, a sense of physical lightness was upon me. I was conscious that

if I took a leap it would be prodigious. Gravity perhaps was a quarter

less; but the difference certainly was no greater than that.

"We're leaving everything to you," Duroh growled at my elbow. "Make it

quick now, Taine, if you know what's good for you. All we want is a

supply of the Xalite, and get back and get away in a hurry."

Duroh and I were leading. He kept his little bullet-projector with

its muzzle rammed into my side. Behind us came Alan and Carruthers. I

carried the small electro-spectroscope, with its batteries slung across

my back.

"I have no idea which way to go," I said. "It's all a chance. Suppose

we go a little way; then stop and make a test."

"Suit yourself," Carruthers agreed from behind me. "We're cut off, down

here in this depression. Once we get up on the level, almost anywhere

should do for a start."

It was a weird, fantastic night-scene, as in a moment we emerged up

upon the lip of the little depression. Overhead the myriad stars

glittered in an inky, frosty sky. Around us spread the wild, tumbled

landscape. It was a queerly small area, viewed now from the surface

level. The convexity of the little world was instantly apparent, with

the horizon everywhere crowding close; the stars in the dark sky which

were low at the horizon seemed hanging there, as though one might make

a leap and seize them.

* * * * *

We were hardly more than a hundred feet from the ragged little cliff

which towered now grimly over us. I flung a glance around. Everywhere

great boulders and ice-masses were strewn, wildly tumbled. The

starlight glittered prismatic on their tops. The shadows between them

were black, yawning pits of emptiness. Everywhere a frigid desolation.

But its congealed beauty was marred by the blight of warmth upon it.

Veils of ice hung from the ragged, honeycombed little cliff--but they

were leprous veils, their beauty eaten away by the blight of warmth,

like some hideous disease rotting them. Everywhere water was dripping,

running in rivulets, gathering into pools on which the starlight

shimmered with a faint opalescent sheen.

"Stop here," Carruthers commanded.

We had picked our tortuous, sloshing way perhaps halfway to the little

cliff. "Try the spectroscope here," Carruthers added. "Along the base

of that precipice. If there's an outcropping there, it would be easy to

get at."

His words struck me with apprehension. Carruthers seemed to know more

about this thing than I had hoped. It was my plan now to locate the

Xalite if I could. But somehow I feared to let them get their hands on

it. With it safely on board the _Planeteer_, it might easily occur to

them that they could successfully navigate back to earth. Their purpose

in keeping me alive would be ended.... I could not forget with what

cold-blooded nonchalance Carruthers had smiled at poor Dr. Livingston

and then stabbed the knife into his back. I was alert every second now.

If only I could get Duroh interested, with his weapon turned from me

just for a moment. With half a chance I would risk a fight now, rather

than cold-blooded murder later on.

"Now, let's hope--" Carruthers muttered, as I set up the little hooded

spectroscope screen, and trained the instrument on the base of the

cliff.

In a breathless moment the band spread out on the screen, glorious

little splash of colors, diffusing from one into the next, with the

thin dark lines of radiotronic emanations vertical streaks in the band.

Xalite! It was here, unmistakable. I glanced up from the hooded

screen. Off there, where starlight was glittering at the ragged base

of the little cliff, there was a narrow sword-slash of gray-white

rock streaking the rock-face. It was visible now, where ice probably

only recently had melted from it. Ore of Xalite! Dr. Livingston had

described to me what probably it would look like in its crude state

here on Zura. A hundred pounds of that ore would be enough for a

lifetime of earth's needs!

"Well," Duroh growled. "What do you see?"

I had been standing silent, peering at the cliff. Had something moved

off there? A sort of white shadow, quickly shifting. I had that

vague impression. And out of the tail of my eye, vaguely I noticed a

huge rock-cluster some ten feet from us. It was piled with fantastic

ice-formations, blue-white in the starlight. But it seemed that there

were white blobs there which had not been visible a moment ago.

"What's that screen show? Damn you, speak up." Annoyed at my silence,

Carruthers prodded me in the ribs with his weapon. "Looks like Xalite--"

"That rock off there," I murmured. "Carruthers, look--"

Whatever vague sort of warning I had intended to give came too late.

From beside us in the white, frosty starlight, weird white blobs

materialized. Men? Were they? I had a vague glimpse of little white

creatures, perhaps the height of my shoulder--white arms, legs, huge

round heads, shining bald, slate-gray in the starlight. A horde of them

in that second engulfed us.

The spectroscope went clattering as I fell, fighting, with half a dozen

of them on top of me. Gruesome little creatures. To my grip their flesh

was solid, sleek and cold.... I heard Alan give a startled cry, and

then a groan as he went down. Duroh's weapon cracked, with its weird

yellow-red stab of flame as the exploding powder in the old-fashioned

gun hurled its bullet. The lead slug must have found a mark. There was

an eerie, blood-chilling scream--inhuman, like some weird, unnamable

animal in its death-cry; and I was aware of one of the little creatures

leaping a dozen feet into the air and crashing down.

* * * * *

But Duroh had no chance to fire again. The swarming, snarling little

things bore him down. And Carruthers was down. I had tumbled to my

back, with half a dozen of them on me. They were heavy; more solid

perhaps than an earthman. They seemed to have no weapons; their little

fists, small as a child's, were thudding at me like hard balls of ice.

Frantically I lunged, but the weight of them held me. A white, furry

garment seemed tied around their middle. One of the faces came down

above mine; weird face with eyes like slits, holes for nostrils and a

wide slit of mouth that jabbered at me with guttural, unintelligible

syllables.

"Don't fight," I heard Carruthers shouting. "Better give up--don't goad

them to kill us."

It seemed reasonable advice. They were jabbering like monkeys all

around us, but now they seemed more eager to make us stop fighting than

to harm us. I yielded suddenly, lying limp with their weight pressing

me.

"All right," I muttered. "Damn you--get off me."

They understood at least my sudden limpness, and in a moment climbed

away, and with a strength fully as great as my own, hauled me to my

feet. Carruthers and Duroh now were up, with the little white Zurians

gripping them. And I saw Alan, standing pallid and trembling, with

blood streaming from a gash in his forehead.

"Got us," Duroh muttered. "Gosh, look at them."

There seemed a hundred or more of the little white forms materializing

in the starry whiteness of the Zurian night. The protective coloration

of nature. They were hardly visible except when they moved. The group

that gripped us were fending off their crowding fellows now as they

milled forward, wildly jabbering, peering to see these four strange

beings which they had captured.

"Well, they don't seem to want to hurt us," I said. I peered down into

the face of the one who was at my side, his small white hands, with

long, thin fingers strong as little pincers, gripping my arm. "Take it

easy," I said. "Let's be friends."

I tried grinning at him. Perhaps he vaguely understood the grin. The

skin on his round white face was hairless, perhaps poreless, sleek as

gray-white, polished marble. But it wrinkled with his grimace. I saw

that he had no eyelids. The slits of the two sockets suddenly opened

wide, so that I could see his huge round white eyeballs, with a very

big purple-black lens in their center. It was a grotesque face, but

suddenly I realized that it was not unintelligent.

Then we were being shoved forward. For an instant the big Duroh,

towering head and shoulders over his little captors, made resistance.

"Don't be an idiot," I shouted at him. "Let them have their way."

The crowd milled around us as we were shoved along the base of the

cliff. I could see Alan, pale, silent, with his bloodstained face;

the grim, tight-lipped, pallid Carruthers; and Duroh, docile now.

And it occurred to me then, as I caught a look of frightened appeal

from Duroh, how different things may be, all in a moment or two. I

had been captive of Duroh and Carruthers and Alan, just a moment ago.

Murderous cut-throats, they would have dispatched me, no doubt, when I

had helped them all they needed. But now they looked to me as though we

four earthmen were allied here against this fantastic enemy. And it was

apparent that, like many bloodthirsty villains, Carruthers and Duroh

were terrified. Cowards at heart.

We were being separated in the crowd. "Take it easy," I shouted. "Don't

anger or frighten them--they'll kill us all." Certainly I had no wish

to have Duroh go into a wild panic, with the Zurians killing me as well

as the rest of us. We were all four unarmed now. They had searched

us. One or two of them were carrying Duroh's and Carruthers' weapons,

carrying them gingerly, awed and puzzled by them.

Where were they taking us? We came to an end of the little ice-cliff,

rounded it, and I saw a dark yawning hole, like a cave-entrance in

the honeycombed cliffside. The little white Zurians who were leading

us plunged into it. I was shoved forward more swiftly now, with the

darkness engulfing me--darkness filled with jabbering little voices and

the patter of their huge bare feet.

* * * * *

It may have been that at first my eyes were not accustomed to the

greater darkness, and that presently, with expanding pupils, I began

to see. That, of course. But now I was aware of that sheen of light,

inherent to the rocks of this strange little world. A vaguely luminous,

opalescent sheen which grew in intensity as we advanced so that it

illumined the darkness with a weird, beautiful glitter.

I saw now that we were advancing into a widening tunnel. Already it was

some fifty feet wide, with lifting ceiling so that presently I could

only dimly see it, far up as it glistened in the opalescent light.

Moisture was up there--a myriad tiny drops, glittering like opalescent

gems in the eerie glow. Occasionally one would drop and hit my face.

Steadily the jabbering little crowd, with excited guttural voices,

pushed forward. I had the feeling at first that we were descending;

this winding, broadening tunnel going downward at an ever increasing

angle. Then presently it was as though the tunnel were level and as

we advanced, the whole little Zurian world seemed turning forward and

up over us. All in the viewpoint. Up or down; top or bottom--they are

meaningless terms except for comparison.

It was growing steadily colder now. The roof moisture seldom dropped.

Ice formations were everywhere here. There was a place where the roof

was suddenly much lower, so that I could see an intricate lacery of

ice-clusters up there, prismatic with glorious colors. Like stalagmites

here on the tunnel floor, the ice stood in great columns, crinkled,

glittering with a myriad facets of sparkling sheen. There were other

tunnels crossing us now. I tried to imagine how far we had gone.

Certainly a mile.

Then I was aware, as we rounded a curve, that ahead of us the shining

passage was opening up into some sort of apartment. The light-sheen

there was more intense. The crowd of Zurians had fallen silent now; and

as another passage crossed us at an angle, our immediate captors herded

most of their fellows away. Silently we advanced, with three Zurians

gripping each of us. It was as though now we were advancing into some

sacred place, so that our captors were suddenly respectfully silent.

"What the devil," Carruthers muttered, as I was shoved close to him.

We came out of the tunnel. I had a quick glimpse of a big blue-white

ice-grotto here--walls glittering with an opalescent sheen on hanging

veils of ice. And then I gasped; stared, numbed.

The Ice Maiden! The girl Alan and I had seen through the _Planeteer's_

telescope! At the end of the grotto, perhaps a hundred feet from us

now, on a small raised dais, she reclined on a pile of white furs. Her

head and shoulders were raised on one elbow, her graceful pink-white

limbs half revealed by the short white fur garment draped over her

loins and breasts. Her hair, blue-white as spun ice, fell in profusion

over her shoulders, framing her small oval face that was beautiful with

a perfection of earth-beauty!