Read Ebook: The Madcap Metalloids by Athanas Verne

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 136 lines and 8262 words, and 3 pages

The Madcap Metalloids

Plucked from the space-lanes by its ravening magnetism, the two intrepid Terrans defied the death of this deadly radio-active worldlet by playing games with the roly-poly natives!

Jonathan Drake swam back to consciousness as a bubble rises through molasses--slowly, and with great effort. His arms lay heavily on the padded rests of the shock-chair, and his lids drooped persistently despite the shouted commands of his brain. A bubble of air rose reluctantly up his throat to operate his paralyzed vocal cords.

"Doc," he croaked. "Doc?" The words bounced off the polished metal walls of the room. There was no sound after that but the soft purr of the control board.

Jonathan walked his hand along the arm rest like a spider, each finger a leg drawing the weighted hand a step further like a tremendous body. Finally a finger found the cup of the release button, and the pneumatic pads fell free of thigh, belly and chest. He slid the button forward and the shock-seat tilted him forward and decanted him gently onto the floor.

He could hear Doc breathing now, the sound of it harsh above the quiet humming of the dynamics, and he rolled on over and heaved his body off the floor with both arms.

"Puny," he muttered to himself. "Weak as a baby. Must have been a rough landing."

He fought his way to his hands and knees, but his body rebelled at the task of rising to his feet.

He stepped swiftly to the other shock-chair and released the restrainers with one impatient stabbing finger. Doc had a bluish tinge about his mouth and his breathing was a bit ragged.

"Doc," said Jon sharply. He thumbed one of Doc's eyes open and studied the pupil. "Too much deceleration," he muttered, and wheeled to the black kit on the wall.

His eye caught the visi-plate over the control panel in passing, and he gave the bleak plain it showed a casual glance. Something round and black traveled across the field of vision, but was gone almost as soon as it caught his attention. He flicked a quick look to see that the automatic cameras were recording, and returned to Doc.

Doc made no response to the jab of the needle, but within ten seconds the color flooded to his face and he snapped his head up with alert attention.

"We made it," said Doc with instant comprehension. Doc was bald as an egg, though he was not yet thirty-five, and his lips were red and full and smiled easily. Behind those twinkling blue eyes--as Jon knew full well--was a brain that operated at its peak during stress, a mind that knew neither dismay nor panic.

His eyes twinkled now with sharp inquiry. "How does it look, Jon?"

The lean dark-haired pilot shrugged. "I haven't seen much of it yet. Instruments show that we aren't cracked--outer and inner hulls still holding pressure. Tremendous gravity, no atmosphere. Entire area slightly radio-active. Haven't had time to check the recording tapes yet. I blacked out about the same time you did."

Doc caught his lower lip between his white even teeth for a moment. Then he tilted himself out of the shock-chair and rolled the stiffness out of his broad shoulders. "Tapes first," he said.

Jon clipped another reel into the recorder and stopped the whirring of the one he wanted. He slipped it onto the reversing spindle, pulled out the tag-end inside and fed it into the slot. Then he tapped two cigarettes alight on his thumbnail, gave one to Doc and stepped back to watch.

The asteroid showed up with surprising suddenness out of the void that was deep space. Its outlines were blurry at first, but sharpened as the spotter focused on it. It was traveling at tremendous speed, for the star patterns behind it changed even as they watched. The metallic voice of the sound track came in now, recording the instrument readings.

"Ship's course Z-point RD 3784. Object's course Z-point AD 1892." The speaker droned on with data, speed of ship, computed speed of object, drive ratings. Then: "Collision course. Collision course. Repeating. Collision course."

The black mass of the asteroid shifted on the screen and momentarily went out of focus as the ship spun on its axis and the rear viewers took over. Then the scene was streaked with flame as the main jets put on full emergency deceleration.

The rest of the recording tape was nightmarish. The flaring of the jets stuttered--then stopped. The dispassionate mechanical voice of the speaker reported the main converter feed jammed, and almost instantly reported that auxiliary units were operating.

Doc shuddered reminiscently at this. He recalled the tortuous crawl through the tunnel into the converter room, the shoving of the screen ahead of him in the flickering blue glow of the room, the unjamming of the 'foolproof' feeding reel that had been installed especially for this exploration.

The twenty minutes it took had been enough. The ship lurched to the pull of this concentrated hulk of God-knew-what, and went into a tight orbit around the asteroid.

They were just too close. They came in lower and lower, and finally Jon threw on full power. Hobson's choice. Fall into the mass or kill themselves with high-G deceleration. Jon chose deceleration.

Both pairs of eyes watched the changing pictures with fascinated gaze. This was where they had blacked out.

It was sheer luck. The tape showed that they had gone tumbling across the bleak land below in a crazy pinwheeling motion. The nose dropped forward into the line of flight just as the belly of the ship slammed into the plain. For perhaps fifty Earth miles the ship cut its screaming swath across the bosom of the naked plain. Then motion stopped, and the tape showed nothing but the dead land for minute after minute.

"All right," said Doc, and Jon reached for the switch.

Then motion showed on the screen. A sphere came out of the side, rolled up to the nose of the ship, hesitated, then rolled on almost out of the range of the lens. Then it simply disappeared. The tape whirred on to its end, and the machine clicked off.

"Now what in the name of the Sacred Blick of Venus," said Jon, "was that?"

"I pass," replied Doc. "Let's see that again."

They saw it again. And again. What appeared to be a solid sphere of shiny black metal rolled across the plain, paused before the nose of the ship, rolled on--and simply disappeared!

"Well," said Doc at last, "this is still Exploration Unit X-3. First we eat, then we start getting this all down on tapes. Then we check the ship, and maybe we take a look-see around. Then we get the hell out of here. But first we eat."

Jon busied himself breaking out the rations. This consisted of picking two tins out of the locker, rapping them sharply on the rod that protruded from the case and setting them aside. In about thirty seconds the tins emitted a tired sigh and the lids raised slightly. The portions of food, each in its own clear plastic bag, were hot and ready.

Doc dropped his postprandial cigarette into the disposal slot and came to his feet.

"On your feet, Fly-boy," he ordered. "Plenty workee, so chop chop, up and at it."

"Slave driver," sneered Jon. He squirmed into his antirad suit. He poised the helmet and fired his blast. "I gotta sweat my head off, back there, and you play with tapes up here. Talk about your men and boys. Hah!" And he dogged down the helmet. He could see Doc's lips moving and grinned pleasantly. He made motions to show that he wasn't hearing a word.

He was still grinning when he undogged the tunnel lock and closed it behind him. Between the double doors, he twisted his body in the cramped space to undog the second door. When it swung open, he had to crawl through the narrow opening into the tunnel. He thrust head and shoulders into the opening, and the weight of the world fell on him. He was jammed against the floor with an unbearable weight, and the threshold of the lock-door was slowly cutting him in two.

"Doc!" he screamed into the mouthpiece in his helmet. "Doc, give me a hand!" Then a cold hand closed over his heart.

He lashed out frantically with his lead-soled feet, for they could still move. He tried to pound the lead soles in the distress code, but the pain of his crushed ribs was telegraphing down his nerves and the rhythm was erratic.

He caught his breath and gagged. He looked up into Doc's anxious eyes and pulled the mask that was feeding him oxygen off his face.

"Whoosh," he said. "What was that?"

"Just plain gravity," replied Doc. "The Stable-G unit just covers the flight-compartment here, as you well know. When you stuck your head into the tunnel, you went over the edge, and the part of you that was in the tunnel must have weighed tons. I had to put a power winch on you to drag you out. Wonder it didn't pull you in two. We'd have thought of that if we both hadn't been trying to be funny." They considered this soberly for some minutes.

"Well," said Jon, raising a soothing hand to his aching neck, "that takes care of that. The drive compartment is out of bounds for us until we can get Stable-G into that tunnel."

"Yes," said Doc shortly. He turned to the rack where he had been working. He tossed the correlation tapes to Jon.

"Read 'em and weep," he said grimly.

Jon skimmed the tapes quickly. Twice he went back and checked the cold merciless facts. Finally he looked up and took a deep breath. It was unescapable fact, this asteroid was radio-active. It was only a matter of time until the ship would be contaminated.

"How long?" He forced his voice into steadiness.

Doc tapped a cigarette alight and took a deep lungful of smoke. He pursed his lips and gazed at the glowing end with deep distaste. "Between three and four days," he said slowly. "Say seventy-two hours to be safe."

"Well," said Jon, "let's see about getting this can the hell out of here." He settled himself in his seat and his experienced hands ran smoothly over the multitude of controls.

The amber READY light slowly slid through the spectrum until it reached green. Then the red warning lights came on above the firing switches.

"Set," he said over his shoulder, and Doc slid into his shock-chair and clicked the switch. "Right," said Doc.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet