Once, in Bible times, three men were
cast into a fiery furnace--and lived!
Now, on far-off, frozen Titania, three
space-bitten Shadrachs faced the
same awful test of godship.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Fall 1941.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The man at the end of the bar was very drunk. That was not, in itself,
unusual. Xuerl's Cosmobar, dangling like a leech on the drab outskirts
of Mars Central, did not cater to a select clientele. It was not noted
for its culture or gentility; it was famed from one end of the System
to another as a place where a hard-fisted, full-pursed spaceman, newly
in from the mines or out from Earth, could get a weapon or a wench, a
bottle or a battle, any or all with equal celerity. And at an instant's
notice.
But the man at the end of the bar was very drunk. So drunk, indeed,
that he seemed neither to notice nor to be concerned about the actions
of his comrades. And they, Chip Warren thought as he watched the bleary
man pour yet another jigger of green from a malevolently gleaming
bottle of _lisk_, were a particularly evil-looking and ill-assorted
lot. Even for a dive like this.
"A Venusian," he mused, "a greenie, a runt--and an Earthman. Like bugs
in a rug...."
"Trink?" piped a thin, reedy voice at Chip's elbow. "Trink, ssor?"
Chip shook his head in reply to the Martian barman's query. Damned
chrysanthemum! he thought. Damned squeaking, upright chrysanthemum! He
would never, so long as he lived, get used to hearing English speech
emanating from the curled petals that served as a Redlander's head.
Martians tried to look like Earthlings. They braced their soft, pallid
bodies in steel uprights, they underwent serious and probably painful
operations to give themselves a humanoid appearance, but they still
looked--and always would to Chip--like ungainly flowers of madness.
"No," he said. "Not just now, thanks. Later." He returned his gaze to
the group at the end of the bar. A new member had joined the quartet.
Another Earthman. Warren's eyes became more speculative as the newcomer
drew the Jovian aside, queried him briefly, then moved to the drunken
man's shoulder.
"Trink?" piped the persistent voice of the barman.
"Blast jets!" said Chip curtly. "I'll order when I get damn good
and--_hey!_"
* * * * *
The gasp broke unbidden from his lips. In the din and confusion of
Xuerl's Cosmobar it went unnoticed, even as had gone unnoticed by
everyone else the momentary byplay he had glimpsed.
As the newcomer slipped his arm about the drunken man's shoulder, the
first Earthman, turning suddenly, dropped from his hand to the floor
a previously concealed _something_. A silvery, glistening, round
_something_ that hit the floor--and bounced!
Four figures reacted immediately, violently, eagerly. The Venusian, the
Uranian, the Jovian--like four minds with but a single thought they
formed a wall of flesh around the drunken one. The other Earthman's
hand leaped out greedily to catch the bouncing blob on the rebound. But
in vain. The drunk had retrieved the object, shoved it into a pocket.
But Chip Warren knew what the object was. It was a ball of ekalastron!
Ekalastron! Most recently discovered, rarest, and most precious of
all metals known to man! A metal so unique that up to the time of its
discovery there had been no place for it in man's supposedly "complete"
periodic table.
A metal that, defying man's previous deliberations on the habits of
metals, supplied man with the most valuable servant he had ever known.
A metal so light that a child could carry enough in one hand to coat
the entire hull of a space-cruiser--yet so adamant that a gossamer
film of it would deflect the impact of a meteoride or the battering
crush of a rotor-gun shell! A metal strong enough to grind diamonds to
powder--but so resilient that, when molded and properly treated, it
would bounce like a rubber ball!
In all the wide universe, hungry mankind had found less than two tons
of this vitally precious new metal. An ounce was worth a prince's
ransom; so jealously was each gram weighed, guarded and distributed
that the U.S.C.--Universal Science Council--could account for every
known ounce of it. Yet here, in the noisy bar of Mars' most infamous
refuge for scoundrels, a drunken miner toyed with a chunk the size of a
billiard ball!
If Chip Warren's attention had previously been attracted by the
oddly-assorted quintet, it was riveted now. Fierce curiosity hunched
him forward. Abandoning all shame at eavesdropping, he strained eyes
and ears upon the group.
It was well that he did so. Otherwise he would not have seen the
sober Earthman's gesture to the bartender, the bartender's furtive
acquiescence, the tentacular hand opening a colorless phial, pouring
its contents into the miner's bottle of _lisk_. There would have been
no one to protect the drunken man from the drug that would swiftly have
left him at the mercy of his companions.
But Chip was watching. And moving on raw instinct, without a thought
for the consequences, he surged forward. His arm brushed the surprised
Uranian aside, his hand thrust just in time to sweep the doped drink
from the miner's lips. Glass shattered on the floor, singing a shrill
song. Chip's challenging voice echoed its brittle crispness.
"Hold course a minute, buckoes!" he ordered. "What in space goes on
around here?"
* * * * *
Chip thought afterward that never in his life had he ever looked upon
such stark, forbidding coldness as that which, in the next moment,
flamed upon him from the eyes of the newly arrived Earthman.
Everything about the man was cold, bitter and bleak as the hostile
depths of space. His eyes were glacier-gray, his lips thin and
bloodless as hoarfrost; the hand he shoved forward to grip Chip's wrist
in steely grasp was like ice.
The coldness of death was in his voice, although he spoke with infinite
quietude.
"I might ask the same of you, sailor." The man had raven-black hair
save where, from a widow's peak, one single swatch of pure white sprang
startlingly to lie like a stream of ice between dark banks. "By what
right do you intrude on a private party?"
Chip shook the man's hand from his wrist. His eyes parried with hot
defiance the stranger's frigid calm.
"By the right of any man," he growled, "to see fair play! I saw--"
"A moment, sailor!" The man's voice was like a low note struck in
warning. "Before you tell what you saw, you might like to know who I
am. My name is Blaze Amborg."
"I don't give a portside blast," snarled Chip, "if your name is Lucifer
himself. I saw--"
"You haven't been out here long, have you, sailor? Well--that's your
misfortune, I fear. Torth!"
He inclined his head gently toward the giant Venusian. The big man
rolled forward. His hamlike paws reached for Chip. But fast as he
moved, Chip moved faster still; in the split of a second his hand had
found his belt. The dull lights of the Cosmobar glinted sallowly on
metal that prodded Amborg's middle.
"So that's the way it is, eh?" gritted Chip. "Your bullies do your
fighting for you? Well, maybe you're right. I haven't been out here
long. But where I come from, men do their own scrapping. Now--tell
these scum of yours to keep their distance, or by the Seven Sacred
Stars, I'll let ether through you!"
A man could not tell by studying Amborg's features if his lips were
white with fear or what. But the ice in his eyes was deeper, more
shadowy. And he said, "Back, Torth!"
"That's better!" approved Chip. "And now--come out of it, you!" The
drunken man had finally slipped out of the picture. Blissfully unaware
of what was going on about him, his head had slumped to the bar.
He was asleep, lips loosely agape, breath coming in sodden grunts.
Chip grasped the nape of his neck, shook him roughly. "Pull yourself
together!" he commanded. "We're getting out of here!"
The man came to with a start, stared at Chip Warren blearily.
"W-whuzzup? Whuzzmatter? Don' shake me like that, ole boy. All pals
t'gether. All good ole pals...."
His head dropped forward again, and Chip sighed. It was like kicking
a pup, he thought, but it had to be done. His rousing slap jarred the
drunk to grieved awareness.
"Hey! _Don'_ do that! We're pals, ain't we? All--"
"I wouldn't know about that," snorted Chip. "But I _do_ know these
other 'pals' of yours are getting ready to dig you for that--that stuff
in your pocket."
* * * * *
That did it. The warning drove its way through the miner's stupor. His
head jerked up, his eyes widened, and a hand clawed at his pocket.
"_What?_ My ekalastron? The filthy thieves--!"
His loud voice carried throughout the room clearly. Too clearly. For
with a sudden fear, Chip could feel a tension tighten through the hard
habitues of the bar. Nervous scrapings of feet, the _frou-frou_ of
suddenly intense voices. "Ekalastron! Eka--"
For a moment, Chip's guard relaxed. He twisted his head to survey a new
and potent danger. And as he did so, a sharp cry burst from Amborg's
lips. "Raat 'Aran! Torth!"
Chip whirled back to face immediate trouble. Shapes were plunging
down upon him. He wheeled, slipped, tumbled to one side even as
the scorching burst of a needle gun seared a hissing path past his
shoulder. Someone behind screamed a high, thin scream that died in a
choked gurgle....
Then all was madness! The magic word "ekalastron" had wakened the
riches-lust of the mob; now the presence of death had roused its
blood-lust. In the space of a moment's time, a score of guns were
drawn and wildly flaming as the throng charged the bar.
Chip only lived in that moment because he lay helplessly asprawl upon
the floor. The hobnailed boots of miners kicked and trampled him, thick
bodies struggled, cursed and groaned above him. Once as he tried to
scramble to his feet his hand slipped nauseatingly in a pool of freshly
spilled and steaming blood.
He was aware that somewhere in the howling mob that fought, not knowing
why, and fighting died, the glacier-eyed Amborg strained for sight of
him. But the tide of conflict, sweeping over and about them, separated
them.
There came a reedy cry in the voice of the Martian barman; the lights
went out suddenly, and the room was alive and spiteful with the flames
of criss-crossing fire-needles. A questing hand found Chip's throat
in the darkness, fingers tightened. But in a flash of fire, Chip saw
the figure atop him suddenly crumple, steel clattered aimlessly beside
him as his assailant choked and died. Thus close to him walked mad,
unreasoning Death.
But he was on his feet again, now, and armed! Chip forced his way
toward that spot at the bar where last he had glimpsed the drunken
miner. No figure stood there, but his feet stumbled against a yielding
body. He stooped--then he blinked as the lights suddenly flared on
again.
He looked upon a frightful scene of carnage. Where men had fought, a
dozen bodies lay upon the floor like broken things; elsewhere about the
room a dozen struggling piles of life, human and humanoid, white, coral
and green, Earthborn and spawn of a dozen globes, still fought their
purposeless battle. And at the far side of the room--
Amborg!
But Amborg had seen him first. Even as he raised his needle-gun, Chip
realized the dousing of the lights, the sudden return of them, had been
a trick of Amborg's to gain advantage. The other man had the drop on
him ... even now his hand was tightening on the press.