"The key. I don't want to hurt you."
Bartock lunged. Jane turned and ran, slamming the door behind her. It
clanged, and echoed. The echo didn't stop. Bartock, on the point of
opening the door and sprinting down the companionway after her, stopped.
It wasn't the echo of metal slamming against metal. It was the radar
warning.
Either _Mozart's Lady_ was within dangerous proximity of a meteor, or a
ship was following them.
Bartock ran to the radar screen.
The pip was unmistakable. A ship was following them.
A ship as fast--or faster--than _Mozart's Lady_.
Cursing, Bartock did things with the controls. _Mozart's Lady_, already
straining, increased its speed. Acceleration flung Bartock back in the
pilot's chair. Pluto loomed dead ahead.
* * * * *
Johnny Mayhem knew at what precise moment he had been discovered, for
suddenly the speed of _Mozart's Lady_ increased. Since this had occurred
an hour and a half after Mayhem had first got a clear pip of the bigger
ship on his radar, it meant he'd been spotted.
Prone with his hands stretched forward in the coffin-like experimental
ship, Mayhem worked the controls, exactly matching speed with _Mozart's
Lady_.
He tried to put himself in the position of the escaped convict. What
would he do? His best bet would be to swing in close around Pluto, as
close as he dared. Then, on the dark side of the planet, to change his
orbit abruptly and come loose of its gravitational field in a new
direction. It was a dangerous maneuver, but since the escaped convict
now knew for sure that the tiny ship could match the speed of _Mozart's
Lady_, it was his only hope. The danger was grave: even a first-rate
pilot would try it only as a last resort, for the gravitational pull of
Pluto might upset _Mozart's Lady_'s orbit. If that happened, the best
the convict could hope for was an emergency landing. More likely, a
death-crash would result.
Seconds later, Mayhem's thinking was confirmed. _Mozart's Lady_ executed
a sharp turn in space and disappeared behind the white bulk of Pluto.
Mayhem swore and followed.
"He's trying to kill us all!"
"He doesn't know how to pilot a ship! We're helpless, helpless!"
"Do something, Mrs. Moriarity!"
"Now girls, whatever happens, you must keep calm. We can only assume
that Jane was right about what she saw, but since none of us can pilot a
spaceship, we'll have to bide our time...."
"Bide our time!"
"We're all as good as dead!"
One of the girls began screaming.
Mrs. Moriarity slapped her. "I'm sorry, dear. I had to hit you. Your
behavior bordered on the hysterical. And if we become hysterical we are
lost, lost, do you understand?"
"Yes'm."
"Good. Then we wait and see what happens."
* * * * *
What was happening was an attempt at what test-pilots term
planet-swinging. Moving in the direction of Pluto's orbit, _Mozart's
Lady_ swung in very close behind the planet. Then, as the rotation of
Pluto on its axis hurled it forth again, as a sling-shot hurls a pellet,
_Mozart's Lady_'s rockets would alter the expected direction of flight.
Unless a pursuing ship followed exactly the same maneuver, it would be
flung off into space at top-speed in the wrong direction. It might be
hours before the first ship's trail could be picked up again--if ever.
House Bartock, aware of all this--and one other factor--sat sweating it
out at the controls.
The one other factor was closeness to Pluto. For if you got too close,
and the difference was only a matter of miles covered in an elapsed time
of mili-seconds, Pluto might drag you into a landing orbit. If that
happened, traveling at tremendous speed, there'd be the double danger of
overheating in the planet's atmosphere and coming down too hard. Either
way the results could be fatal.
His hands sweating, Bartock struggled with the controls. Now already he
could see Pluto bulking, its night-side black and mysterious, in the
viewport. Now he could hear the faint shrill scream of its atmosphere.
Now....
Trying to time it perfectly, he slammed on full power.
A fraction of a mili-second too late.
_Mozart's Lady_ stood for an instant on its tail, shuddering as if it
were going to come apart and rain meteoric dust over Pluto's surface.
That had happened too in such a maneuver, but it didn't happen now.
Instead, _Mozart's Lady_ went into a landing orbit.
But its speed was still terrific and, lowering, it whizzed twice around
Pluto's fifteen thousand mile circumference in twenty minutes.
Atmosphere screamed, the heat siren shrilled, and a cursing House
Bartock applied the braking rockets as fast as he could.
Pluto's surface blurred in the viewport, coming closer at dizzying
speed. Bartock stood _Mozart's Lady_ on its tail a second time, this
time on purpose.
The ship shuddered, and struck Pluto.
Bartock blacked out.
* * * * *
When Mayhem's radar screen informed him that _Mozart's Lady_ had failed
to break free of Pluto's field of gravity, Mayhem immediately went to
work. First he allowed the tiny scout-ship to complete its planet-swing
successfully, then he slowed down, turned around in deep space, and came
back, scanning Pluto with radar scopes and telescope until he located
the bigger ship. That might have taken hours or days ordinarily, but
having seen _Mozart's Lady_ go in, and having recorded its position via
radar, Mayhem had a pretty good idea as to the landing orbit it would
follow.
It took him three-quarters of an hour to locate the bigger ship. When he
finally had located it, he brought it into close-up with the more
powerful of the two telescopes aboard the scout.
_Mozart's Lady_ lay on its side in a snow-tundra. It had been damaged,
but not severely. Part of the visible side was caved in, but the ship
had not fallen apart. Still, chances were that without extensive repairs
it would not be able to leave Pluto.
There was no way, Mayhem knew, of making extensive repairs on Pluto.
_Mozart's Lady_ was there to stay.
The safe thing to do would be to inform Neptune and wait in space until
the police cruisers came for House Bartock. The alternative was to
planetfall near _Mozart's Lady_, take the convict into custody, and then
notify Neptune.
If Bartock were alone the choice would have been an easy one. But
Bartock was not alone. He had a hundred girls with him. He was
desperate. He might try anything.
Mayhem had to go down after him.
* * * * *
The trouble was, though, that of all the worlds in the galaxy--not
merely in Sol System--Pluto was the one most dangerous to Johnny Mayhem.
He had been pursuing House Bartock for three days. Which meant he had
two days left before it was imperative that he leave his current body.
This would mean notifying the hub of the Galaxy by sub-space radio to
pull out his _elan_, but Pluto's heavyside layer was the strongest in
the solar system, so strong that sub-space radio couldn't penetrate it.
And that was not the only thing wrong with Pluto. It was, in fact, an
incredible anomaly of a world. Almost four billion miles from the sun at
its widest swing, it still was not too cold to support life. Apparently
radioactive heat in its core kept it warm. It even had an Earth-type
atmosphere, although the oxygen-content was somewhat too rich and apt to
make you giddy. And it was a slow world.
Time moved slowly on Pluto. Too slowly. When you first landed, according
to the few explorers who had attempted it, the native fauna seemed like
statues. Their movement was too slow for the eye to register. That was
lucky, for the fauna tended to be enormous and deadly. But after a
while--how long a while Mayhem didn't know--the fauna, subjectively,
seemed to speed up. The animals commenced moving slowly, then a bit
faster, then normally. That, Mayhem knew, was entirely subjective. The
animals of Pluto were not changing their rate of living: the visitor to
Pluto was slowing down to match their laggard pace.
* * * * *
Two days, thought Mayhem. That was all he had. And, hours after he
landed, he'd start to slow down. There was absolutely no way of telling
how much time elapsed once that happened, for the only clocks that did
not go haywire on Pluto were spring-wind clocks, and there hadn't been a
spring-wind clock in the solar system for a hundred and fifty years.
Result? On Pluto Mayhem would slow down. Once he reached Pluto's normal
time rate it might take him, say, ten minutes to run--top-speed--from
point A to point B, fifteen yards apart. Subjectively, a split-second of
time would have gone by in that period.
Two days would seem like less than an hour, and Mayhem would have no way
of judging how much less.
If he didn't get off Pluto in two days he would die.
If he didn't land, House Bartock, growing desperate and trying to scare
him off or trying to keep control of the hundred girls while he made a
desperate and probably futile attempt to repair the damaged _Mozart's
Lady_, might become violent.
Mayhem called Neptune, and said: "Bartock crash-landed on Pluto,
geographical coordinates north latitude thirty-three degrees four
minutes, west longitude eighteen degrees even. I'm going down. That's
all."
He didn't wait for an answer.
He brought the space-bound coffin down a scant three miles from
_Mozart's Lady_. Here, though, the tundra of Pluto was buckled and
convoluted, so that two low jagged ranges of snow-clad hills separated
the ships.
Again Mayhem didn't wait. He went outside, took a breath of
near-freezing air, and stalked up the first range of hills. He carried a
blaster buckled to his belt.
* * * * *
When he saw the scout-ship come down, Bartock didn't wait either. He
might have waited had he known anything about what Pluto did to the
time-sense. But he did not know. He only knew, after a quick inspection,
that the controls of _Mozart's Lady_ had been so badly damaged that
repair was impossible.
He knew too that the scout-ship had reported his whereabouts. He had, on
regaining consciousness, been in time to intercept the radio message.
True, it would take any other Neptune-stationed ship close to two weeks
to reach Pluto, so Bartock had some temporal leeway. But obviously
whoever was pursuing him in the one-man ship had not come down just to
sit and wait. He was out there in the snow somewhere. Well, Bartock
would go out too, would somehow manage to elude his pursuer, to get
behind him, reach the scout-ship and blast off in it. And, in the event
that anything went wrong, he would have a hostage.
He went arearships to select one.
Went with his desperation shackled by an iron nerve.
And a blaster in his hand.
"... very lucky," Matilda Moriarity was saying, trying to keep the
despair from her voice. "We have some cuts and bruises, but no serious
casualties. Why, we might have all been killed."
"Lucky, she says! We're marooned here. Marooned--with a killer."
Before the widow Moriarity could defend her choice of words, if she was
going to defend them, House Bartock came into the rear lounge, where the
entire symphony and its chaperone was located. They would have locked
the door, of course; they had locked it ever since they had learned who
Bartock was. But the door, buckled and broken, had been one of the
casualties of the crash-landing.
"You," Bartock said.
He meant Jane Cummings.
"Me?"
"Yes, you. We're going outside."
"Out--side?"
"That's what I said. Let's get a move on."
Jane Cummings didn't move.
The widow Moriarity came between her and Bartock. "If you must take
anyone, take me," she said bravely.
"The girl."
Still the widow Moriarity didn't move.
House Bartock balled his fist and hit her. Three of the girls caught her
as she fell. None of them tried to do anything about Bartock, who had
levelled his blaster at Jane Cummings.
Trembling, she went down the companionway with him.
A fierce cold wind blew as they opened the airlock door.
* * * * *
It looked like a sea-serpent floundering in the snow.
Only, it was caught in the act of floundering, like an excellent candid
shot of a sea-serpent floundering in snow.
Its movements were too slow for Mayhem's eyes to register.
Which meant, he realized gratefully, that he hadn't begun to slow down
yet.
He had to be careful, though. If he were Bartock he would make
immediately for the scout-ship. It would be his only hope.
Realizing this, Mayhem had gone through deep snow for what he judged to
be fifteen minutes, until he had reached a spine of rock protruding from
the snow. Then he had doubled back, now leaving no footprints, along the
spine. He was waiting in the first low range of hills not four hundred
yards from the scout-ship, his blaster ready. When Bartock prowled into
view, Mayhem would shout a warning. If Bartock didn't heed it, Mayhem
would shoot him dead.
It seemed like an airtight plan.
And it would have been, except for two things. First, Bartock had a
hostage. And second, Pluto-time was beginning to act on Mayhem.
He realized this when he looked at the sea-serpent again. The long neck
moved with agonizing slowness, the great gray green bulk of the monster,
sixty feet long, shifted slowly, barely perceptibly, in the snow.
Mountains of powdery snow moved and settled. The spade-shaped head
pointed at Mayhem. The tongue protruded slowly, hung suspended, forked
and hideous, then slowly withdrew.
The neck moved again, ten feet long, sinuous. And faster.
Faster? Not really.
Mayhem was slowing down.
* * * * *
Then he saw Bartock and the girl.
They were close together. Bartock held her arm. Walking toward the
scout-ship, they were too far away and too close together for Mayhem to
fire. Bartock would know this and wouldn't heed any warning.
[Illustration: Mayhem was blocked. The gun was useless.]
So Mayhem didn't give any warning. He left the spine of rock and rushed
down through the snow toward the space-bound coffin.
A low rumble of sound broke the absolute stillness.
It was the monster, and now that his own hearing had slowed down, Mayhem
was able to hear the slower cycles of sound. How much time had really
passed? He didn't know. How much time did he have left before death came
swiftly and suddenly because he had been too long in his temporary body?
He didn't know that either. He sprinted toward the scout-ship. At least
it felt like he was sprinting. He didn't know how fast he was really
moving. But the sea-serpent creature was coming up behind him, faster.
No place near what would have been its normal apparent speed, but
faster. Mayhem, his breath coming raggedly through his mouth, ran as
fast as was feasible.
So did Bartock and the girl.
It was Bartock, spotting Mayhem on the run, who fired first. Mayhem
fell prone as the raw _zing_ of energy ripped past. The
sea-serpent-like-creature behind him bellowed.
And reared.
It didn't look like a sea-serpent any longer. It looked like a dinosaur,
with huge solid rear limbs, small forelimbs, a great head with an
enormous jaw--and speed.
Now it could really move.
Subjectively, time seemed normal to Mayhem. Your only basis was
subjective: time always seemed normal. But Mayhem knew, as he got up and
ran again, that he was now moving slower than the minute hand on a
clock. Slower ... as objective time, as measured in the solar system at
large, sped by.
He tripped as the creature came behind him. The only thing he could do
was prop up an elbow in the snow and fire. Raw energy ripped off the two
tiny forelimbs, but the creature didn't falter. It rushed by Mayhem,
almost crushing him with the hind limbs, each of which must have weighed
a couple of tons. It lumbered toward Bartock and Jane Cummings.
Turning and starting to get up, Mayhem fired again.
His blaster jammed.
Then the bulk of the monster cut off his view of Bartock, the girl and
the scout-ship. He heard the girl scream. He ran toward them.
Jane Cummings had never been so close to death. She wanted to scream.
She thought all at once, hysterically, she was a little girl again. If
she screamed maybe the terrible apparition would go away. But it did not
go away. It reared up high, as high as a very tall tree, and its fangs
were hideous.
Bartock, who was also frightened, raised his blaster, fired, and missed.
Then, for an instant, Jane thought she saw someone running behind the
monster. He had a blaster too, and he lifted it. When he fired, there
was only a clicking sound. Then he fired again.
Half the monster's bulk disappeared and it collapsed in the snow.
That was when Bartock shot the other man.
Mayhem felt the stab of raw energy in his shoulder. He spun around and
fell down, his senses whirling in a vortex of pain. Dimly he was aware
of Bartock's boots crunching on the snow.
They fired simultaneously. Bartock missed.
And collapsed with a searing hole in his chest. He was dead before he
hit the snow.