Chapter V

"Only twenty-two men, Luhor?" Commander Cynthia Marnik stood very straight and very slim in the center of the air-lock, surveying the new men plus a sprinkling of others, preparatory to the trip outside. "Even less than the last trip!" Annoyance creased a frown between her blue eyes.

"All we can spare, Commander. Every available man's at the furnaces; your father has ordered it so." Turning to the waiting men, Luhor began to instruct them in the operation of their metal surface suits.

"As you can see, they're two suits in one," he explained tersely, "operating on the vacuum principle. Here's the cooling device between each metal sheathing. You'll have to bear more heat than you've ever endured, but don't get panicky. Here's where you regulate the oxygen flow into the helmet." He indicated a little dial.

Each man was assigned to a wide, flat-bottomed sled which he was to pull behind him. They were also equipped with curious, spur-like picks. Mark failed to understand the reason for such primitive methods, but remained discreetly silent.

"You men who have made the trip before, help the new arrivals," Luhor ordered curtly. Mark noted that Luhor himself was not going to accompany them, but Cynthia Marnik was already encased in her suit. Ernest Carston went over to help her adjust the helmet.

"I can manage quite all right, thank you," she said. But it did not escape Mark that her voice was soft and that she smiled at Carston. Carston came over to give Mark a hand. He smiled reassuringly through his helmet's visiplate, then flicking on Mark's radio-phone, said briefly:

"Stay close to me! I'm one of the veterans."

"Bring Vulc, we're about ready," the Commander's voice sounded startlingly inside Mark's headpiece.

"Who's Vulc?" Mark asked Carston in a whisper.

Before the latter could answer, there was a sudden unearthly rumbling behind them. Mark turned, stared, then froze in his tracks. A huge, awesome apparition was lumbering in a straight line for the Commander. It was vaguely human in that it possessed a head, torso, four limbs of elephantine proportions, and it waddled upright. But the human resemblance went no further.

The creature's skin, if skin it was, gleamed silvery metallic and gave the impression of being fluid! It reminded Mark of nothing so much as an immense blob of mercury that might at any moment collapse into a puddle and spread over the floor.

But Vulc didn't collapse. He approached the Commander and stood docilely waiting. She patted the creature's arm and then handed him a package of something. Vulc rumbled his appreciation and poured the contents into a gash that appeared in his face. Then he waddled contentedly to a large sled and took up the reins.

"Wow! Where did you ever dig up _that_?" Mark turned white-faced to Carston.

"Vulc? He's a native of this planet, but more than that, he's our ambassador of peace!"

The Commander's crisp voice made further conversation impossible. "Single file, you men. Stay as close to each other as the sleds will permit. Carston, you stay in the middle, as usual, and watch out for the Blitzees. If you men work hard, we should be back within ten hours."

Silently the outer door of the lock slid open and the men began to file out, with the gigantic Vulc at the head. The brightness was intense, although they were on the planet's "dark side." Shimmering waves of heat danced before them over the flat terrain.

At the very end of the line Commander Cynthia kept pace with them.

* * * * *

"What did you mean by 'ambassador of peace,' Carston?" Mark had purposefully fallen into line next to him.

"Adjust your radio-phone to its shortest distance communication," Carston directed him, "so it will be inaudible to anyone else." As Mark did so, Carston continued, "We couldn't get out the metal we're after, without Vulc. His home is on the Neutral strip where we're going--that part of the planet where the outward and sunward side meet. All of Vulc's kin are there, and they resent us. They have attacked us before. We bring Vulc as an evidence of friendly intentions; they have a speech of sorts, and Vulc's supposed to pacify them."

"What was it the Commander gave him before we left?"

"Powdered metal, filings, and tiny scraps from the factories. That's what's in those big sacks up there on Vulc's sled--a peace offering for his people."

"They subsist on metal!" Mark Denning was aghast.

"Everything on this planet does--that is, everything native to it. And they're impervious to heat, of course. If Vulc had not been captured by George Marnik almost immediately after it was born, it would never have been conditioned to the comparatively cool atmosphere of the Base."

In silence they trudged mile after mile, following the same line of black hills that housed their Base. Mark marvelled at how comfortable the vacuum suits were, but he knew the real heat hadn't started yet.

It came presently, as they veered further outward from the hills. The heat increased steadily and became more intense than anything Mark had ever experienced. Perspiration dripped stickily within his suit. He wanted to wipe his face but couldn't; he could only shake his head to keep the sweat from his eyes.

But there was no keeping the mirages from his eyes. In every direction the terrain rocked and rolled under huge undulating hazes of heat. Horizons leaped at him in wave after wave, and fled away again. The men ahead seemed to do fantastic dances.

They no longer trod on rock. The ground beneath was soft, white and leprous looking, powdery almost as dust. Mark felt it hot around his metal-clad ankles. Now he realized the reason for the flat-bottomed sleds. He knew, too, that a spaceship could never venture over here and get back safely; compasses and magniplates and everything else would go haywire. Peering ahead, he discerned Vulc's fantastic bulk which now had turned a glowing cherry red! He shuddered at the thought of what would happen to a man suddenly bereft of the protecting vacuum suit.

Out of the silence, a vast rumbling sound rose like magnified thunder. Mark saw Carston fumble with his radio-phone then peer all about into the haze.

"Blitzees coming!" he yelled into his instrument.

Everyone stopped. Mark followed Carston's line of sight, but he couldn't see a thing.

"Swarm coming from the left!" Carston yelled again.

The Commander moved hurriedly along the line. "Lie down everyone, face to the left! Upend your sleds and if you value your lives, stay behind them!"

For a second all was confusion as the men flung themselves to the powdery soil; then a metal barrier sprang up as the sleds came end to end. Still nothing could be seen.

* * * * *

Suddenly then they came. The air was blue from crackling sparks as dozens of the Blitzees struck the sleds with the impact of bullets. A sound like the humming of millions of hornets was in their ears, as the greater part of the swarm passed overhead. Mark had a confused vision of electric blue streaks that writhed and zig-zagged, landed and leaped again, propelling themselves blindly. As suddenly as it had come, the danger was over.

The men arose somewhat shakily. The ground about them was strewn with the snake-like Blitzees. Mark picked one up and found it to be metallic, about five inches in length, transparent blue in color. The head was triangular, eyeless; along its back Mark felt a thin, wiry sort of filament!

"They're like living bolts of electricity," Carston told him. "They seem to short-circuit themselves when they strike the sleds." The caravan continued.

Hours later they arrived at their destination, a small rise in the terrain before them, covered with glittering crystals in huge, boulder-like lumps. The sides of the little hill was composed of the same ore, apparently in limitless amount.

But as if guarding it against them, rows of redly-glowing Vulcs stood motionless, elephantine, facing them. Mark couldn't tell whether they were friendly or hostile. To him there was no expression to be seen on those fluid heads. But Commander Cynthia's Vulc went over to his henchmen and jabbered in rumbling noises, pointing to the huge sacks on his own sled. Presently three of the Vulcs came over and snatched at the sacks, opened them and grabbed handfuls of the metallic filings. Seemingly satisfied, the trio lumbered off followed by the rest, bearing the sacks.

The men began to work then, loading the ore on the sleds and breaking it with their small hand-picks. Even to have come here was bad enough, and to breathe was an agony--but to work, in this inferno of unimaginable heat and blinding glare, was a nightmare. More than once Mark felt himself sway, and stood quite still until the dizziness passed. One of the men pitched forward and lay still.

Commander Cynthia examined the fallen man. She gestured to Vulc who grasped him and stretched him over the ore in his own sled. The Commander's face was drawn and white through the visiplate, and her eyes were tragic. Mark was seeing evidences today that she was not entirely cold and heartless, as he had at first thought.

It seemed an eternity before they were through with their task. At last the sleds were loaded to capacity, and they rested a while before starting the return journey.

They could only pull the heavy sleds slowly now, and only the knowledge that every mile brought them nearer to the Base, away from this suffocating hell, spurred them on.

After a while the Commander called a halt, and the men sank down against their sleds like puppets whose strings have been cut. There was a strange absence of curses and rebellion against the appalling experience they were undergoing; there was not enough strength left for that.

Then Mark saw Commander Cynthia suddenly stand up. Through the visiplate her eyes were wide, and they mirrored horror!