The Siykulans demanded pay for Myra and Steve's
freedom. The price was small--merely the losing
of their sanity in the spider's ray-trap.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Winter 1942.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Myra Horn awoke from her nap on the couch in the control room and
looked at her husband. He was hunched over the Simplimatic 50-Button
control board of their sleek Skypiercer space-launch, peering through
the vision shield with a grim intensity.
Myra turned her involuntary smile into a wifely frown at his muscular
back.
"Steve!" she said sharply. "Will you stop chasing that meteor? Aren't
you ever going to grow up?"
Steve Horn glanced at her over his shoulder.
"Hush, dear," he grinned. "Papa's in the money."
Myra sat up and smoothed her satin-leather jumper. She looked again at
the meteor they were pursuing. "What a funny color!" she exclaimed.
"The Primary Color," said Steve. "It's a flying goldmine. I think we're
gaining on it."
"What are you going to do when you catch up with it?"
"Lasso it," replied her husband. "In half an hour," he paused
impressively, "--we'll be Horns of plenty."
Myra made a face at his back. "Bless your heart, darling," she said.
"If there were another man closer than Jupiter I'd divorce you."
"I'm captain here," said Steve Horn, "with power of life, death and
divorce. You'll do no such thing. Grab the keyboard while I trip up our
quarry."
Myra slipped into his seat while Steve jumped to a boxlike affair that
jutted from the floor on a pedestal. It was one of the "accessories
optional at slight additional cost" which Myra had insisted they could
do without--a Netaction wireless-grapple capable of exerting a magnetic
pull on objects up to half a mile distant.
Myra fell into the spirit of the chase. She accelerated their little
craft until they were within snaring distance of the meteor.
"Take it easy," advised Steve. "Don't get too close. You might dent it."
He flicked over a switch on the wireless grapple.
"Got it!" he cried triumphantly a moment later.
"How do you know?" demanded Myra. "You can't see any more than I
can--and I don't notice any difference."
"Try decelerating," Steve suggested.
Myra cut the motor. There was a silence they hadn't experienced since
the start of their trip to Jupiter, more than two weeks before. It was
broken almost immediately by a series of less-deep, sonorous staccato
bursts from the Retarderockets in the nose of the ship.
"You're right, Steve. There is a definite forward drag not caused by
momentum."
"'Course, I'm right."
"But, Steve," said Myra abruptly, "that can't be gold. Since when has
gold been attracted by a magnet?"
He opened his mouth to argue, then closed it again and looked disgusted.
"Oh, well," Myra said after a moment, "don't let go. Maybe we can sell
it to a Jovian museum as a rare curio. Probably worth millions!"
"Probably iron pyrite. Probably worth less than twenty bucks. Pfah!"
Steve snorted impatiently. "We'll throw it back. We haven't got time to
lug museum pieces around the solar system, however scholarly we may be."
"Okay!" Myra pouted prettily.
* * * * *
Steve flicked the grappler indicator to "off." Nothing happened. The
retarding rockets continued to blast vainly away. The gold colored
meteor sped before them; their ship followed it inexorably.
"What's the matter?" asked Myra. "Change your mind?"
Steve stared at the fleeting meteor in amazement.
"I let go," he said. He indicated the silent grapple. "Look. It's dead."
"Don't tell me," purred Myra sarcastically, "that you're going to let a
little hunk of rock kidnap us."
"Hell of a thing," muttered Steve. "Maybe I used too much power. Maybe
the thing's charged with magnetism."
"And exerting an attraction strong enough to affect us--half a mile
away?" Suddenly the ship lurched sideways. Myra drew herself erect,
rubbing a painful nose. "Now I ask you--is that any way for a full
grown meteor to act?"
Steve picked himself off the floor, where the sudden swerve of the
ship had thrown him. He joined his wife at the shield. The meteor was
twisting and turning like a thing demented. The Skypiercer, in its
magnetic grasp, followed the crazy course helplessly.
Steve looked very wise. "Something's wrong. I have a hunch it isn't a
meteor."
"Hear! Hear!" applauded Myra. "First it isn't a goldmine. Now it isn't
a meteor. What won't it be next, my profound husband?"
Steve ignored her. He cut off the Retarderockets. "Save fuel, anyway,"
he said.
There was another cessation of sound.
The Horns looked at each other in astonishment. They were slowing down!
The meteor drifted slowly through space--then stopped.
"Everything," said Myra softly, "is all wacked up. Where is the physics
of yesteryear?"
Steve was staring open mouthed at the gold colored piece of rock.
"Little demons!" he breathed. "It's turning around. It wants to say
hello. Isn't that nice! Pad a cell for me, old fruitcake, I feel a
spasm coming on."
The "meteor" described a wide arc that brought it to the side of the
Horns' ship, now halted in space. It circled them a few times; then
stopped and bobbed up and down in a friendly manner.
"It wants to play," said Steve wearily. "Go shake hands with it."
"If it's a ship," said Myra practically, "it's done a very good job of
disguising itself. There aren't any rocket tubes, or ports, or landing
gear, as far as I can see."
Their golden companion began to whirl rapidly, like a miniature planet.
Above it, English characters appeared against the black curtain of
space in lines of fire. They were badly made, and misspelled, but
readable.
"GUD MORNIG," they said. "HELO CQ UGH."
"Ugh," said Steve. He put his hands over his eyes and sat down. He
moaned, "This," he said, "is too much."
* * * * *
When, in 2021, the government created a Department of Education, it
consolidated hundreds of colleges and universities throughout the
country and introduced robot lecturers. Hundreds of instructors were
left without jobs. One of them was Stephen Horn, Professor of American
Literature.
He faced no immediate worry, however. His salary had permitted him to
save enough to provide for him and his wife for a few years. Myra Horn,
more popularly known as Myra Classon, was a novelist whose books had
received considerable attention--especially in Steve's American Lit
classes, where he shamelessly proclaimed her to be one of the greatest
living authors.
After a period of futile searching for another professorial position
in America or abroad, Steve came bouncing home one day waving a
pink Space-Cable form. It had been addressed to him care of his old
University, and read:
"IMPERATIVE NEED FOR LIT PROF HERE SALARY PHENOMENAL STOP WHAT
ARE YOU WAITING FOR LOVE TO MYRA
(Signed) ART WILDER
UNIVERSITY OF JUPITER"
Art, Myra and Steve were old friends, and had attended the same
college. But when Steve and Myra married, Art disappeared. They heard
nothing of him for three years, until one day there arrived in the
trans-spatial mail a copy of Art's home-town paper, marked at an
article lauding Wurtsboro's native son for his successful founding of a
university at the booming Earth colony of New City, Jupiter.
The upshot of his message was that, after several more cables, Steve
went out and bought a space-launch, fully equipped for travel to high
and far off places like the Sun's fifth planet.
The Horns hadn't expected an uneventful trip, having once taken a
weekend excursion to the Moon. Myra had a vivid recollection of the
things that had happened to them at that time: events including coping
with a pyromaniac, an undecided suicide who leaped overboard in a
space-suit, and a crackpot mutineer who had tried to enlist their aid
in overcoming the captain and setting up an anarchist Utopia on Mars
with the thirty-two passengers aboard.
But she had never expected to encounter a talking meteor.
* * * * *
"Shall we ignore it?" she asked her husband. "Or shall we be civil and
chat a while?"
"I wash my hands of the matter," said Steve. "If you want to strike up
an acquaintance with every impossibility that comes along, it's up to
you."
The meteor was getting impatient. It began to bob up and down again,
like a balloon caught in an air current. More letters appeared above it
in space.
"HELLO?" it said. "EXTRA ENGLISH WHAT?"
"Okay, okay," soothed Myra. "Just a minute."
She tore a page out of a notebook and printed something on it. She held
it up to a porthole.
The meteor bounded closer, so that it was almost touching their ship.
Now they could see tiny mounds on its surface, about the size of
walnuts.
"Good grief!" said Steve. "It's got eyes. Like...."
"Like a potato," finished Myra.
The meteor bounced off again and stood stationary for a moment.
"What'd you say?" Steve asked.
"I said, 'I'm a married woman. But stick around.'"
"Fine," said Steve. "Nothing like a little comedy to buck one up in
moments fraught with suspense. What's it doing now?"
The meteor was whirling again in a state of industrious agitation.
Suddenly it stopped. A white, sticky substance began to pour out of it.
As it grew it congealed into something resembling frosted glass, which
formed a gigantic bubble, big enough to enclose several ships the size
of the Horns.
There was a large opening at one point. The transparent bubble drifted
toward them. Before they could move they had entered it through the
opening. The meteor-ship followed them, then spurted some more of the
gelatine substance, sealing the opening.
A nozzle poked its way through the hull of the golden ship. Through
the hull of their ship they could hear a hissing noise. Presently it
stopped. The nozzle was withdrawn.
Their neighbor hopped over to them again. One of its "eyes" expanded
until it was the size of a basketball, and transparent. More letters of
fire, much smaller now, appeared within.
"AIR," they said. "EARTH AIR SAFE OPEN DOOR."
A section of the golden ship dropped. On it stood a creature less than
two feet tall, colored a deep bronze. Vaguely terrestrial in shape, it
stood on one thick limb which became its body without widening at what
might be called its hips. It terminated below in a ball-shaped foot
and above in a shapeless bumpy head, featureless, except that each of
the bumps seemed to be an eye. Three arms, of various sizes, each with
different joints, extended from its body--one just below the head, in
front, one halfway down on its left side and one at what should have
been the top of its right thigh.
It was a thoroughly unnerving spectacle.
"My two-headed aunt!" cried Steve. "The side show's in town."
"No remarks," said Myra. "You should see yourself in the morning. But
what are we going to do about it?"
"Ask it to tea." He twisted a little wheel on the control board. "I'll
have the data in a minute. Maybe the little fella isn't lying. Maybe
there is air in the bubble."
"Temperature 72°, humidity 84 percent," announced Steve. "Tomorrow
fair, with slowly rising food prices."
"Laugh and you laugh alone," said Myra. "I don't understand it, but do
we let him in?"
"Sure. Maybe he can play rummy."
Steve stepped on the treadle that started the motor in the airlock. The
lock rumbled slowly outward.
"Steve--" Myra's voice was a little uncertain. "Maybe the instruments
aren't working?"
Steve sighed. "I like the way you think of these things just _after_
the nick of time. If that were so, we'd be frozen corpses by now. The
door's open. It's a little muggy, but that's all."
Now they could see the bronze midget more clearly. He looked no
more inviting at close range, being wider and heavier than they had
imagined, but what he lacked in looks he made up for in affability. He
waved all three arms at them once, like a happy windmill.
Steve waved back. "Nice day," he said.
* * * * *
The creature left off waving at them and signalled his ship. It drifted
closer soundlessly, until the two ships were touching.
"Look," whispered Myra. "He's all over fuzz. Like a peach."
[Illustration: _"Look," whispered Myra, "he's all over fuzz, like a
peach!"_]
Steve craned his neck to look down at their visitor, who had stepped
onto the platform of their ship and seemed to be inspecting their knees
with great interest.
Steve squatted down until he was almost on a level with their guest. He
held out his hand. The fuzzy one let it overflow in one of his curious
three-fingered hands and looked at it critically.
He couldn't tell whether he was being looked at and listened to, or
not. The creature's eyes were scattered all over its gold-hair-covered
head. Their pupils were hairlike, resembling those of a horse.
A low-pitched hum, rising and falling, ceasing occasionally, came
from the three-armed one. It emanated from no particular spot, but
surrounded him like an aura.
"No savvy," said Steve. "C'mon. I want to see how you walk."
* * * * *
He got up and stepped backward. The creature followed, in an
effortless, gliding motion. He appeared to have a ball set into a
socket of his foot, which, combined with a delicate sense of balance,
gave him a wonderful mobility.
Abruptly he turned, gave a little hop to his own craft and disappeared.
"What do you make of that?" Myra asked.
"He just remembered a previous engagement," soothed Steve. "What's the
matter, darling--jealous?"
In a moment the creature reappeared, carrying a plain black box, about
six inches square.
"I told you he played rummy," said Steve. "Look--he brought chips."
He set the box on the floor and threw back a lid. Inside the lid were
three fine wires that ended in buttons. He handed one each to Myra and
Steve and took one himself.
"Now," said a metallic voice, "we'll be able to understand each other."
The Horns looked at each other, then at the animate piece of bronze
fuzz. At the same time the voice had spoken, there had been the hum
they assumed to be his method of communication. Steve's eyebrows shot
up in inquiry.
"Does that thing act as a translator?"
As he spoke, a hum came from the box.
"Exactly," said the box, while the bronze one hummed.
"Amazing," murmured Myra. "This should take the place of the
self-lighting cigarette. Speaking of which, how about one? We'll be
burning up Peach's air, not ours."
"I think we both need one," said Steve. He handed her one, popped one
in his own mouth. After looking in vain for a mouth on Peachy, he put
the pack back in his pocket. They puffed, and smoke curled from the
glow that was suddenly at the end.
Peachy looked at them curiously.
"First," he said, "my name isn't Peachy. It's WalmearFgon. Secondly,
what are those?"
"Wal...." Steve made a face. "We'll let it go at Peachy. Secondly,
these are cigarettes. Also known as smokes, fags, the White Menace and
coffin-nails. They stain your fingers, befoul the atmosphere, use up
oxygen, give you bad breath and shorten your life-span."
"Then why do you use them?"