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SPACE-WOLF
The lure of precious zolonite drew Morgan to barren Titan--to find a weird beast-empire ruled by a cold-eyed Earth-girl queen.
Solo Morgan laid his small portable spectroscope on the rock and sat down beside it to rest. He was panting, breathless from the climb up to these precipitous heights, even though the gravity here on Titan was less than that of Earth. It was night. The pallid little Sun had swiftly set behind a distant line of jagged mountain peaks. At the other horizon Saturn was rising, a monstrous glowing ball with a foreshortened segment of the rings spreading in a great iridescent flame of pale prismatic color across half the sky.
From here, Solo Morgan could just see the tiny blob of his one-man space-ship where he had left it down in the hollow. "He travels fastest who travels alone," had always been Solo Morgan's motto. But now at the age of twenty-eight, a big, rangy, handsome fellow with curly, crisp brown hair, it seemed to Morgan that he was somewhat a failure. So far he had failed to strike it rich; and a single big strike had always been what he was after. He set his jaw grimly as he thought of it. Well, now was the time. There was a lode of Zolonite here on this moon of Saturn. The spectroscopic evidence of it had been faint, yet unmistakable. Doubtless it was a single, small concentration; Zolonite perhaps in an almost pure state. Immensely more valuable than radium; more valuable, than any other radioactive substance known to earth.
He started forward; and suddenly from nearby there was a sharp crack, an explosive report with a stab of yellow-red flame that mingled with the iridescent sheen of Saturn's glow. And there was a ping, a tanging whistle past his head with a thud against one of the nearby rocks where a leaden pellet flattened itself and dropped beside him.
An old-fashioned bullet! Morgan dropped to the rocks, into a shadow from which in a moment he cautiously raised his head. There was nothing to be seen, except that from a distant clump a little spiral of smoke was rising. What in the devil was this? Titan, so far as anyone knew, was uninhabited. For a second it had flashed to Morgan that it might be a band of space-pirates who had followed him here.
But an old-fashioned bullet-projector! Modern space-pirates would laugh at such a thing! They had nothing but the most modern electronic flash-guns, as Morgan himself in several classes could well testify. Explosive bullet-projectors were museum pieces now. Yet here was one on Titan, handled by somebody, trying to drill him!
Thoughts are instant things. Morgan was flat in the rock hollow. And as he cautiously raised his head there came another crack. The bullet thudded into the metal of his tri-cornered hat, knocking it off. Too close for comfort. His flash-cylinder was in his hand. He sent a bolt sizzling against the distant rocks. It hit nothing but the rocks; but now, abruptly to one side of where he had struck, he saw a flutter--a blue-white drape fluttering in the iridescent light. And in the silence there was a frightened, startled cry. A girl's voice! In that second she had dropped back into the rock-clump. But Morgan had seen her; a white-limbed girl clad in blue drapes, with dark hair flowing down over her shoulders.
Amazement was on Morgan's rugged bronzed face. But his grim lips twitched into a vague, startled smile. Holding the metal hat-brim, he raised the hat. A bullet thudded into it. Her aim was certainly too good to trifle with! Cautiously he stared out over the glowing iridescent rocks. There was no sign of movement; no sound save the distant reverberations of the girl's last shot. Morgan quietly discarded his equipment; his cylinders of synthetic food, water, the radiometer and the big insulated leaden cylinder in which he hoped to take home the Zolonite-concentrate. Thus unburdened he hitched himself back into a deeper hollow. Then he stood half erect, with his gun clipped to his belt, tensing his leg muscles for a jump. She might be able to wing him in the air during the arc of his leap, but he doubted it.
There was a rock-ledge some thirty feet away over a little chasm. The crouching Morgan eyed it, took a few running, crouching steps, straightened and leaped. His body sailed in a great flattened arc over the chasm. There was another startled exclamation from the girl; another explosive report, but the bullet went wide. Morgan, chuckling, landed in a heap on the ledge, behind a little line of intervening rocks. He could stand erect here, unseen by the girl. The line of rocks extended diagonally toward her. Morgan ducked along behind them. He ran perhaps a hundred feet, crouched down again where there was a break in his rocky shield.
He could see her plainly now. She was a huddled blob with a long-barreled bullet-gun resting in a rock crevice as she peered out at the line of rocks behind which his leap had carried him. He was much nearer to her now; not over twenty feet. And he cautiously peered, more amazed than ever. The pearly, glowing sheen of the Saturn-light glistened on her skin. Her oval face, framed by her flowing black hair, was set and grim, but he could see that it was a beautiful face.
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