Produced by Greg Weeks and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding Stories,
September, 1931. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
The Copper-Clad World
A COMPLETE NOVELETTE
_By Harl Vincent_
[Sidenote: Blaine comes out of the hypnosis of the pink gas to find
himself deep within Io, the copper-clad second satellite of Jupiter.]
CHAPTER I
_Into the Unknown_
Adrift in space! Blaine Carson worked frantically at the controls, his
jaw set in grim lines and his eyes narrowed to anxious slits as he
peered into the diamond-studded ebon of the heavens. A million miles
astern he knew the red disk of the planet Mars was receding rapidly
into the blackness. And the RX8 was streaking into the outer void at a
terrific pace--out of control.
Something had warned him when they left Earth; the Martian cargo of
k-metal was of enormous value and a direct invitation to piracy. Of
course there was the attempt at secrecy and the shippers had sent along
those guards. His engineer, Tom Farley, was thoroughly reliable, too.
But this failure of the control rocket-tubes, missing their destination
as a result--there was something queer about it.
"Tommy," he called into the mike. "Find anything yet?"
"We-e-ll, something," the audio-phone drawled after a moment: "I'm
coming up."
"What is it, Tom?" he asked when the engineer's round face appeared at
the head of the engine room companionway.
Farley dropped his voice and his customary smile was gone. "I found the
stern rocket-tube ignition jammed so it's firing continuously," he
said; "and the others are all dead: won't fire at all. That's why she
doesn't swing to the controls?"
"Can't you fix it? Lord, man, we're headed out into the belt of
planetoids. We'll be wrecked."
"Nothing I can do, Blaine, without shutting down the atomic engines.
Then we'd freeze to death and run out of oxygen. These ships ought to
have a spare engine just to take care of the heating and air
conditioning. I always said so."
"What happened to the ignition system?"
Tom Farley looked over his shoulder apprehensively. "Dirty work,
Blaine," he whispered. "I'm sure of it. Tool marks on the breech of the
stern tube. And there's one of those guards I don't like the looks of."
"Nonsense. The k-metal people know their men; they picked these three
especially for the job."
"Who else could do it? There's only the five of us on board."
There might be something in what Tommy said, at that. A thing like this
couldn't just happen by itself. And, come to think of it, one of those
guards was a queer looking bird: dwarfed and hunch-backed, sort of, and
with long dangling arms. It would be better to investigate.
"Get 'em up here, Tommy," Blaine said.
* * * * *
The RX8 drove on and on through the uncharted wastes outside the orbit
of Mars. None of the space ships of the inner planets ever ventured out
this far, and Blaine knew there was grave danger of colliding with some
of the small bodies with which the zone was infested. If one of those
guards was the traitor he was risking his own neck as well as theirs.
Two of them entered the control room with Tom Farley, big, husky
fellows of stolid countenance and armed with regulation flame-ray
pistols and gas grenades.
"Where's the other, the dwarf?" Blaine asked, his suspicions mounting
immediately.
"In his bunk," Tom replied with a meaning look. "He said he'd be up in
a few minutes."
The pilot-commander addressed the guards. "Fellows," he said, "I
suppose you know we're in a serious fix. The ship is out of control and
we've missed Mars, where your metal was to be delivered. We're speeding
out into the unknown, out past the limits of space-travel toward the
orbits of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus--God knows where. And my engineer
thinks that one of your number has tampered with the machinery. Know
anything about it?" Blaine eyed them keenly.
One of the guards, Mahoney, flushed hotly. "No, sir," he snapped. "At
least Kelly and meself had nothin' to do with it. But we've been
suspicionin' that little Antazzo ever since we came out. It's a
peculiar way he has about him, the divil."
"You think he--"
* * * * *
An incisive voice from the doorway way interrupted, "Never mind what he
thinks, Carson. I'll do the thinking from now on."
At one man they turned to face the speaker. It was the guard, Antazzo,
and he was clothed from neck to ankles in a garment of bright metallic
stuff that shimmered with shifting colors like those of a soap bubble.
A mask of similar stuff covered his face, and in each hand there was a
weapon resembling a ray pistol but of strangely unfamiliar design.
Mahoney shot from the hip and his stabbing ray splashed full on the
hunchback's chest--but harmlessly. That lustrous garment was an
insulating armor; the traitorous guard should have been shriveled to a
cinder at the contact. Antazzo laughed evilly as his own weapons loosed
strange and terrible energies.
Tom Farley ducked, and Blaine watched in horrified amazement as the
crackling streamers of blue radiance from the dwarf's pistols found
their marks. Mahoney and Kelly, standing there, bathed for a brief
instant in horrid blue fire: tottering, swaying, their mouths opened
wide in a last agonized effort, to cry out. Tiny pinpoints of brilliant
pyrotechnics flashing and exploding within the columns of blue fire.
Then, nothing! Where the two husky guards had stood there was utter
emptiness; not even a shred of clothing remained. The air in the
control room became heavy and acrid.
"Antazzo!" White-faced and shaking, Blaine cried out in futile protest,
"My God, man, what have you done? What does this mean?"
And then, in a blaze of rage, he was on his feet. Murder was in his
heart as he set himself for a crashing charge that would sweep the
beast from his feet. His own flame-pistol was missing; it was a case of
killing this monster with his bare hands. Tom was circling, over there,
cursing horribly. One of them would get him. Strangely, Antazzo had
lowered the muzzles of his pistols.
* * * * *
A terrific punch, started from the floor, never reached its mark.
Blaine saw a tiny puff of pinkish vapor that spurted from the bosom of
that metallic garment. He was coughing and gasping; helpless. Muscles
refused to do his bidding. With a moan he dropped into the pilot's
seat, knowing that Antazzo's will compelled him. That gas had hypnotic
powers. Mechanically, his fingers strayed to the controls.
And Tom--good old Tommy--he was under the influence of the stuff too,
creeping there on hands and knees toward the engine room companionway.
Antazzo was talking. "We come now to the matter of instructions," he
said. "You, Farley, will assist me in restoring the ignition system to
normal. You, Carson, will keep to the controls and will lay a course to
Jupiter as soon as the control rocket-tubes will respond. Understand?"
Tom growled reluctant assent from where he was crawling.
Strange, this hypnotic gas! Blaine's mind functioned clearly enough,
yet he was utterly at the mercy of this madman's will--a robot of flesh
and blood. "Jupiter!" he exclaimed. "Why man, it's nearly a half
billion miles from the sun. Not habitable, either."
Antazzo had removed his mask and now smiled a superior smile. "We'll
reach it," he said: "the RX8 is very fast. And it's not the planet
itself we're bound for, but its second satellite. Io, your astronomers
call this body, and it's a world sadly in need of this marvelous
k-metal."
"But--but--"
"Enough!" The hunchback snarled his rebuke in Blaine's face and
turned to Tom. "Come, Farley," he said, as if talking to a child, "we
must get to work."
* * * * *
In a daze of conflicting emotions, Blaine turned to gaze through the
forward port when the two had left the control room. The RX8 was
accelerating rapidly under the steady discharge of gases from the stern
rocket-tube and had already reached the speed of one thousand miles a
second. If one of those tiny asteroids, even one no larger than a
marble, should meet up with them it would crash through the hull plates
as if they were paper. His heart went cold at the thought.
Oddly enough, he found himself _wanting_ to make this trip with the
demoniac Antazzo. It was the effects of the pink gas. Even with the
misshapen guard down there in the engine room the power of his will was
effective. The devil must be an Ionian, he thought. But how in the name
of the sky-lane imps had he reached Earth? How had he wormed his way
into the confidence of the k-metal people? He must have been there
several years, working to this very end.
There was a tinkling crash on the starboard side amidships; a screaming
swish as something slithered along the side and caromed off into the
void. One of those little planetoids. Probably no bigger than a pea,
and luckily they had struck it glancingly. He wiped the sudden
perspiration from his forehead.
Pressure on the directive rocket controls brought no response. Would
they never finish with that ignition system?
A gleaming light-fleck segregated itself from the mass of stars ahead.
At first he thought he imagined it, but a second examination, this time
through the telescope, convinced him it was growing larger. Drawing
nearer, it was, and resolving itself into a well defined orb that was
directly in their path. Fifteen hundred miles a second, the indicator
read now! They'd never know what happened when they struck.
"Tommy!" he bellowed into the mike. "Are you fellows ever going to
finish down there?"
* * * * *
There was no reply for a moment, and the blue-white globe drove madly
toward them. He consulted the chart. Pallas--an asteroid some three
hundred miles in diameter. Not very big as celestial bodies go, but big
enough!
"Just one minute now." It was Tommy's voice coming drearily,
unnaturally through the audiophone. A minute! Ninety thousand miles! It
seemed the asteroid was that close already.
Antazzo was in the control room then, and the effect of his mental
dominance became more pronounced. Suddenly the dwarf let out a shriek
of terror when he looked through the port and saw the brilliant body
that now loomed so close. Blaine experienced a savage joy in the
knowledge that the hunchback was mortally afraid.
"Latza! Latza!" In his fear Antazzo lapsed into his own tongue. Then,
remembering, he shouted, "We're ready, Carson. Swing wide!"
The directive rockets answered to their controls now. Quick pressure on
this, a swift pull on that, swinging the energy value to maximum,
brought results. The little vessel groaned and shivered under the
strain as a full blast from the forward tubes retarded them. Her hull
plates twisted and screeched as the steering tubes belched full energy
in swinging them from their course. They were thrown forward violently,
though the deceleration compensators were working to the utmost.
Pallas swung around in their field of vision, and there was a fleeting
glimpse of sun-lit spires of mountains, shadowed valleys, and
mysterious crevasses from which clouds of steam and yellow vapor
curled. Still it seemed they must crash against one of those slender
pinnacles. Nearer it came like a flash; a dizzying blur, now, that
drove directly in their straining faces.
And then, abruptly, it was gone. Already thousands of miles astern, the
danger was past. Miraculously, they had escaped.
Antazzo laughed; a hollow mirthless cackle. His fingers shook crazily
when he untwisted them from their grip on the port rail.
"Good work, my friend. Very good, indeed," he jabbered, his chin
quivering in nervous reaction. "And now we carry on--on to Io."
Blaine Carson, almost wishing they had collided with the spire, set
himself grimly to the task. He was powerless to refuse.