_That gangling frame, that easy, fluent grin--lost
in the nameless depths of the crypts of space!_
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Weird Tales September 1941.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
We're supposed to be an Earth-Mars lugger, but when we got to Mars
Central spaceport, the bug-pounder there gave me this solar-gram from
Terra. It said:
"PROCEED URANUS IMMEDIATELY PICK UP CARGO GALLIUM."
So I shoved a frantic for the Old Man over the ship audio, and pretty
soon he came lumbering up to my radio room, picking his teeth and
scowling like a man with only a half a tummyfull of victuals.
"It's a fine state of affairs," he snarled, "when a skipper can't even
finish his dinner in peace! Well, what's the matter now, Sparks? You
seeing pink rhinoceroses again? 'Cause if you are--"
[Illustration: "Well, what's the matter now, Sparks? Seeing pink
rhinoceroses again?"]
"I'm not," I told him with quiet dignity, "and they aren't pink rhinos,
they're lavender lobsters, and anyway, I haven't had a drink for
months. Or maybe it's since yesterday? Anyhow, here's the grief." And I
gave him the wire.
He read it. Read it, your Aunt Nelly--he screamed it out loud.
"_Uranus!_" he bellowed. "_This_ crate make _that_ trip? They must be
stark, staring mad!"
"Them," I agreed, "or me. Flip a coin. What shall I do, Skipper? Tell
'em we can't do it? Tell 'em--?"
"No, wait a minute." Cap Hanson's brow looked like a freshly ploughed
field. I knew why. The _Saturn_ is an old lugger. And by old, I _do_
mean ancient. It was built before the turn of the century, and by all
laws of logic and reason should have been taken off the spaceways long
ago, only that Cap Hanson and our screwball First Mate, Lancelot Biggs,
had demonstrated time and time again, and in startlingly devious ways,
that the old scow was still spaceworthy.
But if the _Saturn_ were removed from active service, the chances were
ten to one that Hanson would be junked with her. Which was Reason
Numero Uno--and a damned good one--why the skipper couldn't risk
refusing this order.
"We'll go, Sparks," he said slowly. "We've got to. But I could wring
his scrawny neck, blast his jets!"
I didn't have to ask whom he meant. "Scrawny neck" would mean only one
inmate of our void-perambulating asylum. Lancelot Biggs. Genius and
crackpot, scarecrow and sage--and soon to become son-in-law of the
skipper.
I said, "But why blame Biggs for this, Skipper? Is it his fault if the
Home Office has gone squirrelly?"
"It is," grumbled Hanson savagely. "I never should have agreed to let
Diane marry him. He started this mess at my house. Colonel Brophy and
him was having dinner with me and Biggs told Brophy all about that new
'velocity intensifier' he invented--"
I shuddered. "You mean the gadget which got us all bolixed up in the
negative universe? Till Hank Cleaver came from the past to get us out?"
"That's it. Well, he told Brophy about it, bragged that it would make
the _Saturn_ the fastest ship in the ether. And now," Hanson groaned,
"just because he shot off his big face, we've got to push this leaky
old tin-can to Uranus!"
I said consolingly, "Well, maybe everything will be all right, Skipper.
I admit Mr. Biggs is a bit of a whacky-pot, but he's pulled us out of
plenty of tough spots before. Like the time he thwarted Red Hake and
his pirate crew. And the time he beat the _Slipstream_--"
Hanson stared at me somberly.
"Nope, I guess you ain't. You couldn't have."