"Well, I'd like to look at it. How do I know--"
"You don't. But I said it's insulting. So, if you want to see the coin,
you'll have to fight me!"
"Never mind," said Barling, climbing into his vac-suit. "You get first
try." And all of them garbed in their vac-suits once more, the men of
the _Frank Buck_ departed.
"Get those beaters out again!" Teejay was calling into her microphone,
and Kevin grasped Steve's arm, said:
"Go ahead, boy. Look at the coin."
Steve did. It had two heads.
And later, Teejay said to him: "Listen, Stedman. All the beaters are
out now, but frankly, I don't trust Schuyler."
Steve said he did not blame her, and Kevin was there to nod his red
head.
"So, Stedman, the beaters have their jobs to do. That's almost
everyone. But temporarily at least, it leaves you and Mac here with
nothing to do."
"That's true," said Kevin.
"But not for long, Mac. Schuyler may try something, I don't know what.
You two are probably the strongest men on this ship. I know what you
can do, Mac--and I saw a sample of Stedman at work when he had that
little run-in with LeClarc. All right: you two hop into a couple of
vac-suits. That is, if Stedman's ready to fight for us if he has to--"
Steve chuckled. "I don't go around carrying two-headed coins, Teejay,
but I know a rat when I see one. I'll go, and your friend Schuyler
better not try anything." Almost, he was surprised at his own words.
Teejay had a way of commanding respect, and if he didn't watch himself,
he'd be talking like Kevin soon. Well, perhaps the woman merited it....
His thoughts took him that far, and then he remembered Charlie. "I'll
go," he said again, almost growling.
"But you still have a chip on your shoulder--well, never mind. I'll
expect quarter-hourly reports from you two."
"You'll get them," said Kevin, and climbed into his vac-suit.
* * * * *
Incredibly, Steve found himself out on the bleak, desolate surface of
Ganymede, walking with Kevin past the long, silent length of the _Frank
Buck_. And here, outside the confining walls of their spaceship, the
Ganymede-fear seemed stronger. Steve felt it as something palpable,
clutching at his heart and constricting it, bringing sweat to his
forehead and clouding the inside of his helmet with moisture.
Fear--of what?
Not of the frontier world itself, surely. Not of some unknown menace
lurking out among the craterlets and ringwalls. No, for while Ganymede
was not yet as familiar as Mars or Venus, mankind still had explored it
extensively. There were the strange anthrovacs, animals which looked
like over-sized and less brutish gorillas but which were not protoplasm
creatures and which took their energy directly from sunlight and cosmic
radiation. But that was all--no other life existed on Ganymede, and the
anthrovacs on their frigid, airless world were something of an oddity.
Then what caused the fear? And was the fear responsible in any way for
what had happened to Charlie?
"Hey, Steve--snap out of it!" Kevin's voice, floating in thinly on the
intercom.
"Huh? Oh, yeah, Kevin. Sure. It's that fear, sort of gets you out
here. You can't help it."
"I know. A ship seems to cut it off to some extent, boy. But it's
around, lurking, waiting to get you."
"What do you mean, waiting to get you?"
"Well, not directly. But it makes you make mistakes. Men have died that
way--paying so much attention to the fear that they didn't pay enough
attention to whatever was happening."
"Kevin, do you know anything about how Charlie died you haven't told
me?"
"Maybe. Maybe not. It's kind of vague, boy. Teejay went out alone and
when she came back--why, she looked scared. That's common enough on
Ganymede--everyone looks scared. But Teejay looked puzzled and confused
also, and that's not like her. She wouldn't talk much for a time, and
when she did she just said she'd found Charlie Stedman, your brother,
dead."
"Where?"
"What do you mean, where? Out here on Ganymede, naturally."
"No, I mean exactly where. What was done with the body?"
"That I don't know," said Kevin, and Steve could picture him frowning
inside his helmet.
"Well--listen, Kevin! Do you hear something?"
"Hear something? How can you hear anything on Ganymede, with no air to
carry it? Except on the radio, of course. I hear you, but get a grip on
yourself, boy."
"No. I hear something. There it is, louder. My God, Kevin! My God--"
And clumsily in his vac-suit, Steve began running away across the
pumice.
"Hey, come back! Back here, you crazy fool--" Kevin charged after him,
taking long, ungainly strides in the light gravity. But Steve was
quicker and soon the distance between them increased and Kevin realized
he wouldn't be able to overtake Steve at all.
"Come back! What do you hear, boy? At least tell me that."
Steve told him, and ran on. Amazed, Kevin lumbered back toward the
_Gordak_.
"But what made him do it?" Teejay demanded, later.
"I told you all I know, Captain. He said he heard something and started
running. I chased after him, couldn't catch him. He told me what he
heard."
"What?"
"Well, you won't like this, because it doesn't make sense. But he said
he heard his brother--calling him. Charlie Stedman, calling."
"Charlie Stedman is dead." Suddenly, Teejay was curt, pre-emptory.
"That's what I thought, too."
"Forget it. It's the Ganymede-fear, Mac. Somehow it got to Stedman
stronger than it got to most people. Maybe his brother was hit that
way, too. Maybe, right now, Stedman is off his rocker, running out
across the pumice somewhere, shouting his brother's name into the
soundless void of space."
"We'll have to find him," said Kevin.
"How can we, Mac? He's got air for five or six hours, and Ganymede is
big."
"I'm going to take a set of shoulder-jets and go looking for him,
Captain. I hope you won't try to stop me. I'm going either way."
Shrugging, Teejay went to a cabinet, handed Kevin a pair of
shoulder-jets, which he strapped at once to his vac-suit. The woman
took another suit and another pair of jets. "Once I heard voices out
here on Ganymede, too," she said. "So did Charlie Stedman. They killed
Charlie and they almost killed me. Enough's enough, Mac. I'm going with
you."
* * * * *
The ringwall was not very large. Slowed by his vac-suit, a man might
cover its diameter in half an hour. But Steve did not traverse the
circular area. Instead, he climbed the ringwall laboriously and then
made his way down, tumbling and sliding, to the rocky floor of the
shallow crater.
The voice came from within it--from within the crater. It could not be!
He told himself that more than once. The rock of Ganymede itself might
carry sound, but you'd feel it only as a throbbing through the soles of
your boots, for the vacuum of space which encroached on all sides could
not transmit sound-waves.
That was science. That was elementary. But the voice whispered in his
ears, ebbing and flowing, first loud, then soft--and science be damned.
Charlie was calling. _I am Charlie Stedman. I am Charlie Stedman_--That
was all, but it was enough. Charlie's name, and Charlie's voice.
"It can't be happening," Steve said, aloud, and heard his own
voice roaring inside the helmet. It drove the other voice, the
impossible voice, out for a moment, but it returned. Around the inner
circumference of the ringwall Steve ran, seeking a source for the
impossible. Sobbing, stumbling, he plunged ahead. It was only when he
returned to his starting point, a needle-like pinnacle of rock, that he
realized his supply of air would be exhausted in three hours.
* * * * *
"He couldn't have gone much farther than this, Mac."
"We've got plenty of air, Captain. I'm not giving up--"
The two figures soared on spurting jets a hundred feet above the
surface of Ganymede. When Teejay went higher every few moments, she
could barely make out the two spaceships, far away to the left.
Occasionally she saw the beaters working in teams of six, cumbersome
tanks of oxygen strapped to their backs.
"Did you hear the voice, Mac?"
"No."
"Had Stedman been drinking?"
"That's ridiculous. The boy was with us, and you saw for yourself."
"True. And I've said that the voices of Ganymede are no strangers to
me, anyway. Maybe I was trying to rationalize."
"We'll see when we find Steve."
"_If_ we find him. The fear can make you do crazy things out here, Mac.
Like going for too long without sufficient oxygen."
"That's what I'm worrying about."
* * * * *
A phonograph needle caught in one groove, spinning out its brief
message over and over again--that was the voice. _I am Charlie
Stedman._ And the ringwall might have been the record, Steve thought
bitterly, except that it was utterly deserted. He hadn't covered its
entire rock-strewn area; an army of searchers would be necessary to do
that. But he had seen enough to convince him that--
The thought fled.
Coming toward him over the floor of the ringwall was a huge anthrovac,
walking erect with a shuffling gait. Charlie's voice grew louder.
* * * * *
"It's no good, Mac. We can't find him."
"As soon as we turn back he's as good as dead."
"Our air won't last forever," Teejay said.
"He's got even less."
"Ten more minutes?"
"All right, ten. But why did you come out here with me if you're ready
to give up so easy?"
"Who said I am? I'm trying to be practical, Mac. Listen, I saved
Stedman's life once already--and stayed out on the hot side of Mercury
longer than a person should, too. I like Stedman, but if we ever find
him, better not say that or I'll break your neck, hear? So I want
to find him, but I don't want to sacrifice your life or mine in the
attempt. Is that clear?"
Kevin said that it was.
A moment later, Teejay climbed higher. Half a thousand feet above the
surface of Ganymede she circled. Abruptly, she leveled off at a hundred
feet again, said:
"There's something over there, Mac. In that ringwall."
"What?"
"I don't know. Movement. A big figure and a little one. The big one
seems too large for a man, but the smaller--well, let's go."
* * * * *
The anthrovac paused a dozen yards from Steve. There had been nothing
hostile in its movements to begin with, and now it might have been a
statue for all the activity it displayed. From crown of head to small,
hand-like feet, it stood almost a yard taller than Steve, but it did
not have the great-muscled girth of a gorilla. Instead, it looked quite
manlike, except for the incredibly broad shoulders, the thick, matted
hair covering its entire body, the too-long arms, the nine feet of
height.
Did the voice emanate from it?
Now that the creature had approached him, Steve wasn't sure. The voice
continued, pulsing and throbbing in his ears like the Ganymede-fear
itself--_but in his ears_. Not from the bleak terrain around him, and
certainly not from the anthrovac.
"I'm going crazy," he said, aloud, driving the voice away temporarily.
"No. No, I'm not, because I realize it too soon. A crazy man doesn't
realize it and doesn't warn himself about it--certainly not at the
outset." But did that mean the voice had any real existence? How could
it?
_I am Charlie Stedman...._
Smiling bleakly, Steve picked up a loose chunk of rock, tossed it at
the anthrovac. The creature merely swung its huge body gracefully
at the hips, avoiding the missile. Then it stooped, found a stone
for itself, hurled it at Steve. He ducked, feeling completely and
tremendously foolish. He should have been prepared, for the anthrovacs
are playful and can mime almost any human action.
He did not duck in time. He felt the stone _thunk_ against his helmet,
peered with horror at the glassite inches from his face until he
saw that it hadn't cracked. Grinning now, he shook his fist at the
creature, watched it duplicate the motion with its great hairy hand. It
was a game, Steve told himself, a lot like the meaningless conversation
Teejay and Kevin had had to dispell the Ganymede-fear.
_But if the anthrovac could mime human actions, perhaps the anthrovac
could also mime voices!_ That would necessitate telepathic powers,
naturally. But the anthrovac, like many denizens of terrestrial forests
and tundras, changed its habits immensely in captivity. A captured
anthrovac, one which had been reared with one of the circus troupes,
could never tell you what a wild anthrovac was like. And a wild
anthrovac, somehow living on airless Ganymede and taking its energy
directly from cosmic and solar radiation, might be able to do anything.
_I am Charlie Stedman...._
Steve carried the thought to its logical conclusion. Suppose an
anthrovac--_this_ anthrovac which faced him now--had somehow heard
Charlie speaking. Charlie might have been introducing himself to
someone: "I am Charlie Stedman."
But the hypothesis wasn't much more than a bubble, and it burst
completely when Steve remembered he was the only one who could hear the
voice.
"Hey, Stedman! You trying to kill yourself?"
Steve whirled, looked up. Two figures, no more than vaguely human
in their cumbersome vac-suits, hovered over him, jetting around in
circles. The anthrovac had seen them too--and now, apparently alarmed
by the twin forms floating just out of reach, the creature turned and
bounded away over the uneven terrain.
"What gave you that idea?" Steve called into his intercom. "The
anthrovac wasn't looking for trouble."
"I don't mean that, stupid." Teejay had a way of jarring him back to
reality with a few words. "I mean, how much air have you left?"
Steve looked at the gauge. "Enough to return to the _Gordak_, provided
I get on my horse."
"We'll walk with you, then," said Teejay, and dropped to the ground at
his side. "I think I'll hold onto your arm, too. You're liable to go
wandering again, and we might not be able to find you."
Kevin alighted, switched off his jets. "How about the voice, boy? Do
you still hear it?"
"Why--no! But I did a minute ago, until the anthrovac ran away."
"That's peculiar."
"There's a lot that's peculiar out here on Ganymede, Kevin. I think--"
"Stop thinking and start walking," Teejay told him.
Less than two hours later, they reached the _Gordak_. A vac-suited
man met them at the airlock, and Steve saw LeClarc's face through the
glassite helmet.
"I'll bet you were worried," said Teejay.
"Sure," LeClarc answered, drawing a neutron gun from his belt. "See, my
Captain, I'm so worried I can hardly think straight. Will the three of
you please turn around and march over to the _Frank Buck_?"
They were too stunned to do anything else.
* * * * *
"Don't mind me," Kevin said, within the _Frank Buck_. "If I'm confused
it's merely because I can't believe this. Not you, LeClarc, not you."
They'd been ushered into the main lounge of the _Frank Buck_, a ship
of about the _Gordak_'s dimensions, but two or three years older.
LeClarc stood there with his neutron gun, watching them carefully. In
a few moments, Schuyler Barling joined them, a greasy salve covering
the discoloration on his jaw. The jaw looked painfully swollen too,
and Barling rubbed it speculatively. "I won't forget this," he growled
briefly to Teejay, then turned to LeClarc. "Kevin McGann I know, but
what about this man?"
"Stedman?" said LeClarc. "You'll want him, because he's the extra-zoo
man on the _Gordak_. If you took McGann and the woman alone, they still
might be able to do their work on Carmical's ship. But with Stedman
your prisoner as well, their hands are tied over there."
"What is this?" Teejay demanded defiantly. "What's the meaning of--"
"Will you be quiet and let me do the talking?" Barling interrupted her.
"It was LeClarc who radioed and told me your coin had two heads. If you
wanted to play the game that way, I wasn't going to stand by and let
you. So--"
"So," LeClarc took up the thread for him, "we got together, Mr. Barling
and I."
"But you, LeClarc," said Kevin. "You'd jump through a fire-hoop into a
pit of acid if Captain Moore told you to."
"Would I?" LeClarc chuckled softly.
"Yes. Yes, you would."
"Perhaps there was a time I'd have done that, McGann. Perhaps. But then
I thought the Captain needed me, and wanted me to help her, too. Now,
with you and Stedman--well, LeClarc isn't so important, is he?"
"So that's it!" Kevin roared. "You're jealous. Not jealous the way a
man should be, when he loves a woman, but jealous because you believed
Captain Moore had discarded you--had decided you weren't such an
essential cog in the _Gordak_ machine."
"Shut up." LeClarc took a quick step toward Kevin and hit him, hooking
his left fist at the bigger man's jaw. Kevin staggered but did not go
down. Bellowing, he charged at LeClarc, but the Frenchman waved him off
with the neutron gun.
"Stop it, LeClarc!" Barling snapped. "I didn't have you bring
them here to make a shambles of the lounge. Just stand off in the
corner--that's right, there--and watch them. I'll do the talking."
"You realize, of course," Teejay told him calmly, "that this is
kidnapping."
"Is it? Who is to say? You never entered the _Gordak_; LeClarc met you
within the airlock. For all your crew knows, the three of you are out
on Ganymede somewhere--with not much air left. After a time, they'll
have to give you up as dead. With the Captain gone, and the Exec, and
the expert on Extra-terrestrial zoology--their expedition won't amount
to much. It looks to me like old man Carmical will be without a circus
this year, unless he resorts to a strictly terrestrial shindig."
"What happens then?" Teejay wanted to know.
"Well, I'll be frank with you. I haven't decided. I can't simply return
you to civilization, of course."
"Of course," Teejay echoed him acidly.
"Then you'd be able to holler 'kidnapper'. It would seem that you give
me only one alternative. Ah--excuse me a moment."
A trio of men had entered the lounge and the leader, a stocky man of
about thirty-five, was beaming. "We've got three," he said.
"Splendid, splendid. In that case, nothing remains to keep us on
Ganymede."
"Chief, I'm sure glad of that. This place can give you the heebies, and
you never know why. Those three anthrovacs should be a fine core to
build your circus around, though."
"Three anthrovacs?" Teejay cried, her composure fading for the first
time. "You've got three anthrovacs?"
Barling nodded. "LeClarc here was good enough to tell us Stedman's
plan. A first-rate idea, as you can see, only we were able to carry it
out. Frankly, I wasn't so optimistic at first."
"Let's get back to us," Teejay suggested. "You were saying...?"
"Umm-mm, yes. There's only one alternative, and much as I regret--"
"What is it? What's the alternative?"
"Please, must I say it? I think you know, and there's no need for me
to--"
"No, I want to hear it."
"Suit yourself," said Barling. "The only solution is this: we'll have
to eliminate you."
"When?"
"The sooner the better. But Captain Moore, you're making me feel--"
"That's all I wanted to know!" Teejay cried, and hurled herself at
Barling. "We might as well try to escape while we still have a chance."
* * * * *
After that, things happened almost too fast for Steve to follow. Kevin
got the idea at once, charging at LeClarc before the Frenchman had
time to gather his wits. The neutron gun hissed violently, searing a
three-inch chunk out of the ceiling. But then LeClarc was struck by two
hundred pounds of Kevin McGann, and went down before the onslaught.
Something exploded against Steve's jaw and he did a quick flip and
landed on his back. He'd hardly had time to declare himself in the
battle, when one of Barling's men had jumped him. Now the man came down
atop him, flailing with both fists, but Steve chopped at his face with
short, clubbing blows and scrambled to his feet while the man caught
his breath.
Steve didn't wait, plunging toward the man with murder in his eyes--and
failed to reach him. An arm circled his neck from behind and he was
dragged to the floor again, by the second of the three anthrovac
hunters. He rolled over, saw Kevin and LeClarc off to his right,
standing toe-to-toe and slugging. And beyond them, Teejay was cuffing
Barling around the lounge with lusty, man-sized blows. Barling went
down under the onslaught, falling at the woman's feet, but then the
third hunter had grasped her swirling black cape from behind, throwing
it over her head and tripping her. She fought blindly as she went down,
taking the hunter with her; and with Barling, they became a tangled
melee of thrashing arms and legs.
Steve rolled out from under the second hunter, but the first one met
him halfway and pole-axed him down to the floor again with a hard right
hand. Sobbing, clutching at the man's legs, Steve began to pull himself
upright and got a knee in his face. He went down again, and this time
everything in the room receded into a vague, shadowy fog.
When Steve could see again, there was still no order to the chaos.
He hadn't lived a violent life like Kevin or Teejay--such things were
not part of his background, although he'd boxed in college and won the
light-heavyweight championship, too. But there was something different,
something elemental about a free-for-all brawl.
LeClarc lay on his back, supine. He looked out of it for the duration,
which still set the odds at four to three against the trio from the
_Gordak_. Right now Kevin held his own with the two hunters who'd
done Steve in, at least temporarily. But that couldn't last, for both
were big, muscular men. And Teejay? She was a woman, so perhaps the
odds were even worse. Steve smiled grimly as he clambered to his feet
to help Kevin. Teejay was a woman, but she was the new twenty-second
century woman, and proud of it. The third hunter kicked and thrashed
helplessly on the floor as she held him in a head-scissors and at the
same time fended off Barling who was crawling around them and looking
for an opening. Teejay, definitely, was an asset.
Steve got to hunter number three quickly, pulling him off Kevin and
straightening him with an uppercut. After that, it was a set-up. Steve
pounded once and then again with his left hand at the man's midsection,
then finished by crossing his right and feeling it crunch against the
man's jaw.
"Now I see how you could take care of LeClarc that first day!" Kevin
yelled, and promptly polished off the other hunter with a blow that
lifted him completely off the floor.
As one, they whirled around to face the other side of the room.
Barling and his henchman had finally got the upper hand. Teejay
lay on her side, her hands behind her back. Not unconscious, she
was completely spent, and an almost equally exhausted Barling was
attempting to tie her hands with the black cape. The hunter sat there,
dull-eyed, watching them. It was Kevin who lifted the hunter and hurled
him away, and when Steve rolled Barling over and pushed him against the
wall, the man did not resist.
Teejay climbed to her feet, unsteadily. "I--guess I'm growing--soft,"
she panted. "Maybe--I don't know--maybe training and muscle-toning
from--infancy--aren't the answer. A gal just isn't cut out for rough
and tumble fighting." Her hand flashed up to her forehead, the back of
it resting against her brow. "Ooo, Steve, catch me--"
She fainted in his arms.
Somehow, they got Teejay into her vac-suit. The walls of the lounge
were sound-proofed, and the struggle had attracted no one. Silently
they made their way out of the lounge and through the corridors of
the _Frank Buck_, heading for the airlock. Steve toted Teejay over
his shoulder, and remembering Mercury, felt very good about it. He
ached all over from the fight and he knew he'd need some mending. But
she'd called him Steve, and that--suddenly and ridiculously--was most
important.
"What's going on here?" A crewman met them in the corridor and bellowed
his challenge.
Kevin raised the neutron gun he had taken from LeClarc.
He never used it.
A fraction of a second later, the _Frank Buck_ blasted off from the
surface of Ganymede, and sudden acceleration threw them all to the
floor. As Steve was to learn later, no hands were at the controls. No
_human_ hands.
* * * * *
"This, roughly, is the situation," began Barling, pacing back and
forth, speaking out of swollen lips and averting the right side of
his face with its puffy cheek and blackened eye. "We are all in this
together, and--"
"You hypocrite!" cried Teejay. "Six hours ago, you wanted to kill
us. Now, because something unexpected pops up, you change your mind.
Temporarily, for as long as you can use us, is that it?"
"No. If we can get out of this I'll forget about killing, provided you
forget about kidnapping."
"Well...."
"You haven't any other choice, Captain Moore."
"He's right," Kevin admitted. "But what's the trouble we're in, Mr.
Barling?"
"Six hours ago you three jumped us and almost made your escape. But the
_Frank Buck_ took off; suddenly, without warning. _None of my men was
at the controls._"
"That doesn't make sense," Steve objected.
"I didn't think so, either. I almost don't know how to explain it, what
I've seen with my own eyes after my men held you in detention here in
the lounge."
"Why don't you begin at the beginning?" Teejay said, and yawned.
"Don't be funny. Somehow, the anthrovacs escaped from their bubbles
and--"
"What?" This was Steve, more than slightly incredulous. "Anthrovacs
are mild creatures and unless they're attacked they won't do anything
violent."
"That's what I thought, Stedman. I don't know what to think now. The
anthrovacs escaped--and freed all the other animals. We've been out
longer than the _Gordak_, we have a couple of dozen prize specimens.
Lead by the anthrovacs, they've taken over the ship."
"Now you're joking," Teejay told him. "They're all brainless, those
creatures, except for the anthrovacs."
"They _were_ brainless, Captain Moore. But not now. Now they behave
logically, with a purpose, and they've taken over the _Frank Buck_ from
stem to stern--all except those animals that need a special sort of
atmosphere to breathe, and they've remained in their bubbles.
"Otherwise, the animals took over. And I suppose you can imagine--the
crew was too astounded to resist, especially since the anthrovacs
had gotten hold of neutron guns and seemed to know how to use them.
Result--we've all been disarmed, we're prisoners aboard our own ship,
and bound for I don't know where."
"Sounds crazy to me," Teejay said, and stalked toward the door.
Steve took a quick step after her, but Barling held him back. "Let her
find out for herself, Stedman. Then maybe we can talk sense."
Teejay opened the door, stepped out into the corridor. Tensely, Steve
waited, ready to bolt after her at the first indications of trouble.
But what he heard was a yelp of surprise from the woman, and then she
came running back into the lounge, slamming the door behind her.
"A Martian desert cat!" she cried. "It didn't do anything; it just
stood there, all ten feet of it, looking at me!"
"Then you believe me?" Barling demanded. "As I see it, we must have
been struck by some cosmic radiation which mutated the animals, and--"
"No," Steve told him bluntly. "That's impossible. First place, any
such change would have to be selective. _All_ the animals wouldn't be
affected. And more important, mutation takes generations to manifest
itself. You never see the change at all in the original creature. Look
at Earth, way back in the early years of atomics. Genes were mutated at
those two island cities--Nagasaki and, umm-mm, I forget the name of the
other. Anyway, genes were mutated, but it took over two hundred years
for those mutations to become apparent. See what I mean?"
"I do," said Barling. "And that's precisely why I think we ought to
fight this thing together. I had an idea, you helped me with it. We can
continue like that."
"Well," Steve nodded, "we have a first-class problem on our hands. We
can't do anything about it until we know what's going on--only the
mystery's a little deeper than you think. First, I heard a voice out on
Ganymede. My brother's voice."
"Your brother's?" Barling scratched his head. "Oh, wait a minute! You
must mean Charlie Stedman who was killed out here a few years back?"
"Yeah, Charlie. You can't hear voices on Ganymede, but I heard them,
inside my head. Also, don't forget the Ganymede-fear. I'd say the three
things will fit together when we begin to learn what's going on."
"Provided we can find out," Teejay told him. "You can keep your
scientific mysteries for a while, Steve. What I want to know is this:
where are we going, and why?"
"Ask your desert cat out there." Kevin's laughter was sour.
"What we need is a good turncoat," Teejay assured him. "Someone who can
go out among the animals and ask questions. I'm joking, of course, but
if anyone could do it, it would be that rat, LeClarc."
Steve frowned. "That's not as funny as it sounds. Has anyone seen
LeClarc since the fight?"
"No!" Kevin slammed fist against palm.
Steve was about to answer, but quite suddenly the lights blinked out.
Somewhere outside, a dozen animals roared their fear. Within the
lounge, Kevin commenced cursing lustily and an involuntary moan escaped
Barling's lips.
The darkness was the bleak, utter black of deep space. Further, Steve
realized, the steady humming of the fission engines had ceased.
Minutes later, impossible pain gripped him and flung him, sobbing to
the floor. He'd never felt anything like it, a gripping, grinding,
twisting torment which tried to turn him inside out. He heard the
others dimly, reeling about the lounge and falling to the floor, and in
the darkness someone fell near him.
"Steve? Steve, is that you?" Teejay....
"Yeah." The pain seemed to come in waves, and Steve gritted his teeth
when the second turned out to be worse than the first. He reached out
with his hand, found Teejay's and squeezed it. "Hold on, kid. It can't
last forever."
"It better--not."
When her hand tensed in his, then relaxed, Steve knew she'd fainted.
And soon after that, his own senses reeled and deserted him.
* * * * *
Teejay's hand was still tightly clenched in his when he regained
consciousness. A dozen feet from them, Kevin sat up, shaking his head
slowly back and forth. Schuyler Barling lay stretched out on his
stomach.
"Whatever happened," Kevin growled, "I didn't like it."
Teejay extricated her hand, looked at Steve, smiled. "It's still awful
quiet outside."
It didn't remain that way for long. As if Teejay's words had been a
signal, a voice boomed at them from the wall-microphone. "We have
landed. All humans will please file out into the main corridor in an
orderly fashion and make their way to the airlock."
Schuyler Barling sat up groggily.