Read Ebook: The Marooner by Stearns Charles A Summers Leo Illustrator

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Ebook has 129 lines and 7677 words, and 3 pages

"Terrible," Mr. Wordsley said.

DeCastros smiled reminiscently. "He fled, but we caught him. He really had a lame ankle, you know."

The mice of apprehension scampered up and down Mr. Wordsley's spine. "You killed him." It was a statement of certainty.

"No, indeed. That would have been too easy. We left him there with one portable water-maker and all of that unpalatable but nourishing fungus which thrives upon Avis Solis that he could eat. I have no doubt that he lived until madness reduced his ability to feed himself."

"That was drastic," Mr. Wordsley felt called upon to say. "Perhaps--perhaps it occurred to you later on that, in charity to your brother, the er--woman might not have been altogether blameless."

For a moment he thought that Captain DeCastros was about to strike him again. He did not. Instead he spat at Mr. Wordsley. He had the speed of a cobra. There was not time to get out of the way. Mr. Wordsley employed a handkerchief on his face.

"She was my wife, you know, Mr. Wordsley," Captain DeCastros said pleasantly.

At nineteen-over-four the contamination buzzers sounded their dread warning.

Mr. Wordsley got the alarm first. He had been furtively repairing the viewscreen and thinking dark thoughts the while. There was sick dread for him in the contemplation of the future, for after this last unfortunate blunder DeCastros would be certain to keep his promise and have him examined. This might very well be his last voyage, and Mr. Wordsley had known for quite a long time that he could not live anywhere except out here in the void.

Only in space, where the stars were like diamonds. Not in the light of swirling, angry, red suns, not upon the surface of any planet, so drab when you drew too near. Only in the sterile purity of remote space where he could maintain and nourish the essential purity of his day-dreams. But of course one could not explain this to the Board of Examiners; least of all to Captain DeCastros.

Moreover, he was afraid that Avis Solis, which he had been permitted to behold for only a few seconds, would be out of range before he got the scanner to working again. The aspect of this magnificent gem diminishing forever into the limitless night brought a lump to his throat.

But then, at last, the screen came alive once more, and there it loomed, more brilliant than ever, now so huge that it filled the screen, and it had not become drab, neither gray-green or brown. No, it was cake frosting, and icicles, and raindrops against the sun, and all of the bright, unattainable Christmas tree ornaments of his childhood.

So rapt was he that he scarcely heard the alarm. Yet he responded automatically to the sound that now sent him scrambling into his exposure suit. He fitted one varium-protected oxy-tank to his helmet and tucked another one under his arm for Captain DeCastros.

This was superfluous, for DeCastros not only had donned his rig; he had managed to recall to memory a few dozen vile, degrading swear words gleaned from the sin-pits of Marronn, to hurl at Mr. Wordsley.

No one could have helped it, really. Ships under the Drive are insulated from contamination clouds and everything else in normal space. The substance polluting the ventilation system, therefore, must have been trapped within their field since Vega. Now it had entered the ship through some infinitesimal opening in the hull.

It was the engineer's job to find that break. It was not easy, especially with DeCastros breathing down one's neck. Mr. Wordsley began to perspire heavily, and the moisture ran down and puddled in his boots.

Another precious hour was taken from them. Mr. Wordsley emerged wearily from the last inspection hole.

"Well?" DeCastros snapped. "Well--well?" His face was greenish from the effects of the special, contamination resistant mixture that they were breathing.

"I found the leak," Mr. Wordsley said.

"Did you fix it?"

"It was one of the irmium alloy plugs in the outer hull beneath the pile. They were originally placed there, I believe, for the installation of a radiation tester. The plug is missing, and I am sorry to say that we have no extras. Anything other than irmium would melt at once, of course."

"We have less than eight hours of pure air in the tanks," DeCastros said. "Have you thought of that, you rattle-head?"

"Yes, sir," Mr. Wordsley said. "And if I might be allowed to speculate, Captain, I would say that we are finished unless we can make a planetfall. Only then would I be able to remove the lower port tube, weld the cavity, seal the ship and fumigate."

"We're four weeks from the nearest star, Fomalhaut; you know that as well as I do."

"I was thinking," said Mr. Wordsley, with a sudden, suffused glow in his cheeks, "of Avis Solis."

Mr. Wordsley shut his eyes as they were going down, because he wanted to open them and surprise himself, at the moment of landing. But the cold, white glare was more intense than he had expected, and he had to shut them again and turn on the polarizer.

He buckled on his tools and the carbo-torch, and went down the ladder. He dropped at once to his knees, not because of the gravity, which was not bad, but because of a compulsion to get his face as near to the surface of Avis Solis as possible. It was even lovelier than when seen from space. He trod upon a sea of diamonds. A million tiny winkings and scintillations emanated from each crystal. A million crystals lay beneath the sole of his boot. He would rather not have stepped on them, but it could not be helped. They were everywhere. Mr. Wordsley gloated.

DeCastros dropped like a huge slug from the ladder behind him. "What are you doing?" he said. "Picnicking?"

"I was tying my shoe," Mr. Wordsley said, and got to work with an alacrity that was wholly false.

The dark sun-satellites rose by twos and threes over the horizon, felt rather than clearly seen. There was a dry wind that blew from the glittering wasteland and whistled around the base of the rockets as Mr. Wordsley labored on and on.

Captain DeCastros had withdrawn to a level outcropping of igneous rock and sat staring at the nothing where the greenish-black sky met the pale gray horizon.

The tube was loosened on its shackles and presently fell, with a tinkling sound, upon the surface of Avis Solis. The opening was sealed and welded. Mr. Wordsley was practically finished, but he did not hurry. Instead, he went around to the opposite side of the ship on a pretense of inspection, and sat down where DeCastros could not see him.

For awhile he stared at the many-faceted depths of the crystals; then he leaned over and touched them with his lips. They were smooth and exciting. They cut his lip.

But he had the distinct feeling that there was something wrong with this idyll. It seemed to him that he was being spied upon. He sneaked a furtive glance behind him. DeCastros was still sitting where he had been, with his back to him.

Mr. Wordsley slowly lifted his gaze to the plateau of shimmering glass that was before him. At its rim, a hundred feet above him, a silent figure stood gazing down upon him.

A man even six feet tall might easily have frightened Mr. Wordsley into a nervous breakdown by staring at him with that gaunt, hollow-eyed stare, but this creature, though manlike, was fully fifty feet tall, incredibly elongated, and stark naked. Its hair was long and matted; its cheeks sunken, its lips pulled back in an expression which might have been anything from a smile to a cannibalistic snarl.

Mr. Wordsley cried out.

Captain DeCastros heard and came running across the intervening distance with swiftness incredible in one of his bulk at this gravity. His blizzer was out. It was one of the very latest models of blizzers. Very destructive. Mr. Wordsley had always been afraid to touch it.

He fired, and part of the plateau beneath the titan's feet fell away in a sparkling shower. The creature vanished.

DeCastros was red-faced and wheezing. "That was Malmsworth," he said. "Now how the devil do you suppose he managed to stick it out all these years!"

"If that was Malmsworth," Mr. Wordsley said, "he must be a very tall man."

"That was merely dimensional mirage. Come along. We'll have to hurry if we catch him."

"Why do we want to catch him?" Mr. Wordsley said.

Captain DeCastros made a sound of sober surprise. Even of pious wonder. "Malmsworth is my only brother," he said.

Mr. Wordsley wanted to say, "Yes, but you shot at him." He did not, because there was no time. He had to hurry to catch up with DeCastros, who was even now scrambling up the steep slope.

From the rim they could see Malmsworth out there on the flat. He was making good time, but Captain DeCastros proceeded to demonstrate that he was no mean hiker, himself. Mr. Wordsley's side began to hurt, and his breath came with difficulty. He might have died, if he had not feared to incur DeCastros' anger.

At times the naked man was a broad, flat monster upon that shimmering tableland. Again he seemed almost invisible; then gigantic and tenuous.

Presently he disappeared altogether.

"Oho!" DeCastros said, "If I am not mistaken, old Malmsworth has holed up in that very same rift where we caught him at his dirty business seventeen years ago. He's as mad as a Martian; you can lay to that. He'd have to be."

The rift, when they arrived at its upper reaches, was cool and shadowy. In its depths nothing sparkled. It was ordinary limestone. The walls were covered with a dull yellow moss, except for great, raw wounds where it had been torn off.

"That's Malmsworth's work," Captain DeCastros said. "In seventeen years, Mr. Wordsley, one will consume a lot of moss, I daresay. Shall we descend?"

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