"I--I don't think so."
"Then I'll carry you. But remember this: if we get you back all right,
you can thank the twenty-second century feminist movement. Can you
picture an old-fashioned gal slinging a man over her shoulder and
toting him away to safety like a sack of grain? Here we go."
And she got her arms under Steve's shoulder, tugging him upright and
swinging him across her back in a fireman's carry. He felt in no mood
to question her motive, but he could sense the triumph in her as if she
had said, "See, I'm as strong as a man, and don't you forget it."
In spite of himself, he couldn't help responding to the unspoken
challenge. "Sure," he said, "I can thank the feminist movement, but
more than that I can thank Mercury's light gravity, Teejay. We're lucky
I don't weigh more than fifty pounds here."
An hour later they arrived back at Furnacetown, but by then Steve was
unconscious from the pain.
* * * * *
"How are you feeling, boy?" It was Kevin McGann, the battered, unlit
pipe clamped tightly between his teeth as he spoke.
Steve sat propped up in a bed in the _Gordak_'s infirmary, his left leg
wrapped in bandages from knee to ankle. "Pretty good, I guess. Kind of
weak, but there's no pain."
"You're lucky the Captain got you back here in time. Four inches of
your calf was cooked third degree, but she carried you back here
soon enough to cut it away before deep decomposition, and spray on
syntheplasm. You'll be as good as new in a week, and no scar, either.
Thanks to the Captain, boy."
"Yeah," Steve admitted. "Sure. But what I want to know is this: how did
it happen?"
Kevin shrugged his massive shoulders. "I won't make any accusations,
boy, not without positive proof. But I took the liberty to examine
your suit, and it looked to me like someone had punctured a small hole
almost all the way through. The heat did the rest."
"You mean LeClarc?"
"I never said that. But LeClarc was the one who got the suits, so
he--more than anyone--was in a position to do something like that.
Further than that I won't carry it. This is not an accusation."
"Suits me," Steve told him. "And thanks, Kevin. But after this,
Frenchie had better watch his step. Are we out in space again?"
"Yes. Passed _Brennschluss_ forty-eight hours ago."
"What?"
"Sure. They had you doped up for two days, till the syntheplasm had a
chance to set."
"How soon can I get out of bed?"
"Depends. If you don't mind hobbling around on crutches, today
probably. If you want to wait till you can walk, four or five days.
What's your hurry, boy?"
"I've got to take care of that stone worm, remember?"
"Say, that's right! No one knew what to do, so they suspended it in a
deep freeze until you could go to work. A hideous brute, I might add."
"Will you ask the doctor to give me some crutches? Swell. First,
though, I'd like a good meal. And listen, Kevin--I guess Teejay saved
my life, at that. Want to tell her I'd like to see her?"
"Of course," said Kevin, and left the white-walled infirmary, grinning
from ear to ear.
By the time Teejay arrived, Steve was eating his first solid meal
in two days. "Hello," he said. He almost found himself adding,
"Captain"--but he checked the impulse just in time.
"McGann tells me you're ready to get to work today."
"That's right."
"Good. That stone worm won't stay in ice indefinitely--not when it
lives on the sun-side of Mercury."
"Teejay, I want to--well, I want to thank you for saving my life."
The woman opened her cape, reached inside, took a pack of cigarettes
from an inside pocket and puffed on one until it glowed. "Don't thank
me," she said coolly. "It really isn't necessary. You're the only
extra-zoo man aboard, Stedman, so we needed you. I'd have saved a
valuable machine under the same circumstances."
"Well, thanks anyway."
"There's one thing more, Stedman. As far as I'm concerned, you haven't
proven yourself yet. So the same conditions apply to our next landing
point."
"Where's that?"
"Venus, of course. Do you think I want to play hop-scotch all over the
Solar System? Well, you finish your meal and give that stone worm a
nice comfortable bubble to live in." And Teejay departed.
* * * * *
Later, after he'd evacuated the air from one of the bubble-cages
and increased the temperature to seven hundred degrees Fahrenheit,
after he'd supervised a slow warming process for the worm and seen it
deposited, still drowsy, in the bubble with sufficient quantities of
silicon-compounds to keep it well fed, Steve hobbled with his crutches
to the general lounge. Teejay sat there with half a dozen of the
Venusian experts, for the hunt would be much more protracted on that
teeming jungle-world. The woman stood up at once and crossed the floor
to Steve. "How's the worm?"
"Fine." He always felt a little edgy and on his guard when the woman
spoke to him.
"And how's the extra-zoo expert's bum leg?"
"Coming along, I think."
Teejay turned to the six men seated around the lounge, said: "This
is Steve Stedman, our extra-zoo man--at least temporarily. Stedman,
Phillips knows more about amphibians than any man alive, Ianello is our
arboreal expert, Smith ferrets out the cave-dwelling mammals--we hope,
Waneki goes floundering around after sea-monsters, St. Clair is--"
Then something buzzed shrilly on the adjacent wall, and Teejay flipped
a toggle switch. "Captain here."
"Radio from Earth, Captain. Mr. Brody Carmical himself."
"Is that so?" said Teejay, her eyebrows lifting. "Give me a circuit."
And, a moment later, "What's the trouble, Brody?"
The big man's voice came through faint and metallic over more than
fifty million miles of space. "Plenty, T. J., Barling decided to start
in the middle this year. Some of our--er, contacts told us his ship's
rocketing for Ganymede, and fast. You'll have to get there first if you
can, naturally."
"We'll get there," said Teejay, quite grim, and cut the connection.
Steve had time to think one thought before he was swept along in
the general rush, crutches and all, after the woman galvanized into
activity. She might take orders from Brody Carmical, but she even had a
way with the big man, making him cow to her--perhaps unconsciously.
Teejay was yelling and pointing, it seemed, in all directions at once.
"Hey you, Ianello, shake a leg down to the fission-room and tell 'em to
start straining. Smith, get me Kevin McGann on the intercom. Waneki,
you can forget all about those Venusian sea-monsters and tell the docs
to be ready for plenty of acceleration cases. You better bed down
right now, Phillips, you're not as strong as the rest of us, not with
sixty years of junketing behind you. Hello, McGann? Listen, Mac, I
want the entire crew assembled in General inside of ten minutes. Yeah,
expedition too. Everyone but those boys down in fission. And tell your
orbit-man to figure a way to get us off this trajectory and on a quick
ellipse from here to the Jovian moons. Yes, that's what I said--the
Jovian moons."
She paused long enough to take a breath and turn to Steve. "Well,
Stedman, we'll be dropping down over your brother's grave on Ganymede
before you know it. Maybe then you'll be able to remove that chip from
your shoulder."
"Me? From _my_ shoulder? Sister, you've got things backwards."
But the woman pivoted away, and Kevin's voice bleated over the
intercom: "Crew and expedition--all to general lounge on the double!
You boys in fission stay put, Captain's orders. This is urgent."
Almost before Kevin's voice had stopped echoing through the corridors,
LeClarc popped into the lounge. "You wanted me, Captain? May I help?"
"I wanted everyone. Everyone can help. Just sit still till the rest of
'em get here."
LeClarc appeared hurt, but he took a seat in glum silence. In twos
and threes the members of the crew began to drift in, wild rumors
circulating among them in whispers. Finally, LeClarc counted noses and
told his Captain that everyone except the fission crew was present.
Teejay nodded, stepped to the center of the floor. She removed her cape
and dropped it, discarding it so suddenly and yet with such a polished
flourish that a complete silence fell upon the large room almost at
once.
She paced back and forth, her bare, lithe limbs flashing under the
green-glowing wall panels. "You've all come to know that cape," she
said, her voice strident and alive. "It's a sort of affectation I
have. But it's not necessary. Like everything that's not necessary, it
must be discarded, at least temporarily. Men, we're in serious trouble."
Just like that, inside of a few seconds, she had them eating out of the
palm of her hand. She went on to say that Barling's ship had already
blasted off from the Earth for Ganymede, how, unless their efforts
here on the _Gordak_ were Herculean and then some, Barling's ship
would reach Ganymede first. "And you all know what that would mean,"
she continued. "Like the elephant of two centuries ago, the Ganymeden
anthrovac is the one solid necessity for any circus sideshow. But the
anthrovacs have a way of going into hiding when they're disturbed.
So, if Barling gets to Ganymede first, we've had it. We can all
start looking for jobs after that, do you understand? I want full
acceleration from here to Ganymede, as soon as we can get the new
orbit plotted. Nothing but the immediate problem--to reach the Jovian
moons before Barling--nothing else matters. If I tell you to work two
shifts and go without sleep one night, you will do that. If I decide
that a man must go beyond the shieldings in fission, he'll climb into a
vac-suit and hope for the best. It's going to be like that, men, and I
can't help it. I crack the whip and you jump. Any questions?"
She stood dramatically, hands on hips, somehow poised on tip-toes
without straining, a tall, impressive and quite beautiful figure.
"Yes," said one of the orbiteers. "I have a question. Can I get to
work on the new orbit at once?"
There were hoarse shouts of approval, some applause and a scattering of
deep-throated laughter. Steve watched Teejay walk off her improvised
stage, complete master of the situation. If it were humanly possible
for the _Gordak_ to reach Ganymede before Barling, they'd do it.
* * * * *
In the weeks which followed, Steve learned something of what the big
Exec officer had meant that first day he had spoken about Teejay. She
drove her men relentlessly and some of them may have resented it. But
she drove herself as well, and once when a crewman had gone beyond
the shieldings to repair the mechanical arms which regulated the flow
of powdered plutonium fuel from the bunkers and had emerged with a
serious case of radiation sickness, Teejay donned a vac-suit and went
in herself to finish the job.
Most of the men liked her. Some, frankly, did not. But all of them knew
they served under a captain as good as any.
Two days before landing on Ganymede, Teejay gathered her chief
lieutenants for a final planning session. Kevin was there, and LeClarc,
and a tall, wraith-thin man with a bushy head of white hair named
Simonson, and Steve. Teejay spread a chart out and peered down at
it intently. "This is Ganymede Northeast," she said, indicating the
circled, central area of the map. "It is here that, for some reason,
the anthrovacs gather. And here inside the circle is an area of one
thousand square miles which Mr. Simonson has marked off--yes, Stedman,
the red square. We'll be operating there. If the Barling ship has
landed ahead of us, we can assume the same for them."
Teejay paused to light a cigarette, then crushed it out after her first
puff. "The darn smoke gets in my way when I try to think," she smiled,
and went on, "Anyway, here's the square. We'll be using the crew and
the expedition--everyone aboard ship--because we're in a hurry. Simply
put, we'll be a bunch of beaters to drive the anthrovacs together at
the center of the square. Then, well, then it's up to Mr. Simonson and
Stedman. Any questions?"
"Yes, Captain," said LeClarc. "Just how do we get the anthrovacs aboard
ship?"
"Don't ask me. But you might ask Mr. Simonson."
The bushy-haired man named Simonson grunted. "Umm-mm. There are several
ways. We could set up elaborate traps, such as Thorndyke employed two
years ago, and--"
"Can't," Teejay objected. "No time."
"Why don't we just clobber them?" LeClarc suggested. "A few might die,
but we'll get the specimens we want."
Steve shook his head. "You don't know your anthrovacs. Chase them and
they'll try to run away. But hurt them--just hurt one of them so the
rest of them can see--and they'll swarm all over you until either all
the men or all the anthrovacs are dead, or both. No, there's another
way."
"What's that?" Teejay leaned forward, chin cupped in hands, definitely
interested.
"Anthrovacs are non-breathers. Most gasses won't hurt them, but you can
give them a good, old-fashioned oxygen jag with the slightest whiff of
pure oxygen."
"I've heard of that," Simonson said.
"Sort of like getting them drunk, isn't it, boy?" Kevin wanted to know.
But LeClarc wasn't satisfied. "I still say we ought to clobber them. We
can't waste time experimenting with any crazy jags."
"It's no experiment," Steve told him coldly. "It works."
"I still say we ought to--"
"Clobber them, I know," Teejay finished for him. "If there's any
clobbering to be done, LeClarc, I'll let you know. Meanwhile, we're
trying Stedman's plan. Any further questions?"
And, when no one spoke: "Good. Mac, I want you to let Mr. Simonson
and Stedman pick three men to help 'em. You're to divide the rest of
us into groups of half a dozen each, with each group serving under a
leader. I'll give each leader a designated area in that square, so
there won't be a lot of bumbling around when we land on Ganymede.
LeClarc!"
"Yes, Captain?"
"Take yourself a group of three idle technicians and check all the
vac-suits. If there's any trouble, make sure it's repaired before we
land. What are you gawking at me like that for?"
"I only thought--"
"What? What did you think? Speak up, man!"
"I thought you would have a job of more import for me. Had you, for
example, decided that we ought to clobber--"
"Clobber, clobber, clobber! Will you shut up and get to work?"
"Yes, Captain." And more than a little stooped of shoulder, LeClarc
left the lounge.
Teejay didn't pause for breath. "You, Stedman! What's so funny? What
are you laughing about?"
"Nothing. It's just the way LeClarc--"
"Forget it, before _you_ get clobbered."
* * * * *
Ganymede.
After the landing, an unreasoning fear gripped Steve tightly. It
wasn't anything he could put his finger on, but he felt it gnawing at
the fringes of his mind, probing, seeking, thrusting for a way in.
There was nothing to be afraid of, and Steve smoked one cigarette
after another while the six-man parties disembarked to take up their
beater-stations on the edges of the square.
Ganymede, he recited to himself, is the largest satellite in the Solar
System. 664,200 miles from Jupiter, it has a diameter of thirty two
hundred and six miles, or bigger than the planet Mercury and almost
as large as Pluto. It swings around Jupiter in a little over seven
Earth days and in appearance the moonscape's enough like Luna to be a
twin-brother, except for fat, bloated Jupiter hanging in the sky.
What was there to be afraid of? Steve didn't know. His brother had died
on Ganymede--and the circumstances of Charlie's death still bordered
on the mysterious. Well, he'd see for himself about that. Did the fear
crawl around the edges of his brain because he thought Teejay was
responsible? But that didn't make sense, for to a certain degree he'd
thought that all along. Unless the appalling thought of having to fight
Teejay and her whole loyal crew had taken hold of him unconsciously.
"What are you moping about, boy?"
"Huh? Oh, Kevin. Nothing much, I guess. I--"
"You look to me like you've seen a ghost. What is it, scared?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I guess so."
"So what? Buck up, boy."
"I don't want to be scared, Kevin."
"Who does?"
"That's not what I mean. It's one thing to say that if you aren't--"
"Who isn't? Don't look at me, boy. And didn't you watch all the men
trooping outside with the blood drained from their faces, and their
eyes sort of big and too bright behind the face-plates? We're all
scared."
"But why?"
"Mean to say you spent so much time on zoology and forgot about other
things? Like, for instance, Ganymede-fear?"
"Huh? How's that?"
"Everyone is afraid, Steve. Everyone. Whenever a man gets near
Ganymede, he suddenly becomes afraid. It's some sort of a
psychological or maybe para-psychological phenomenon and none of the
medicos could ever figure it out. It isn't the kind of fear that
paralyzes, boy, but still, it holds on all the time a man's on Ganymede
and it doesn't leave until he blasts off again. Didn't you ever hear
about that?"
"No. That is, I knew it happened somewhere, but I forgot where."
"Well, that's all there is to it, boy."
"All! Don't you think it's enough? Something lurks out there, something
makes people afraid, and we've never been able to find out why, but you
say--"
Teejay came up and smiled at them, but there was something grim about
her smile. "You can always tell when someone comes to Ganymede for
the first time. He's jumpier. Just relax, Stedman. By the time they
start beating the anthrovacs in toward the _Gordak_ you'll be feeling
better--and raring to go to work with that oxygen-jag stunt of yours,
too." And she added, "Say, have you been watching your stone worm?"
"He sure has," Kevin told her. "He took me down there yesterday and
that worm's been growing fat on all the sand he's fed it. Sand--for
food, that's what the worm eats. Imagine how that would settle the
over-population problems on Earth if people, too, could eat sand."
"Yes, and then--" Teejay was speaking again--but words, just words, and
Steve stopped listening. It occurred to him all at once that they were
engrossed in their meaningless conversation for one reason only--to
keep the fear from their minds. If you thought about something else,
the fear would retreat at least in part, and if you could hold a
conversation about everything and nothing, that was even better.
Steve almost jumped off the floor when a metallic voice blared forth
from the loudspeaker, echoing and re-echoing in the near-empty room.
"Captain! Captain, this is Moretti, Group Seven."
"Go ahead, Moretti," Teejay said into the mike. "I'm listening."
"Who the devil's on radar, Captain?"
"Why--no one! We forgot."
"There's a ship coming down. We can see it plain as day out here."
"What ship?" Teejay asked softly, but they all knew the question was
totally unnecessary.