Chapter VII

Gavin Murdock was on watch below, when the _Nova_ sliced into the upper strata of Jupiter's atmosphere. She dived in at a slant on the opposite side of the planet for Jovopolis and was quickly smothered from view by the thick translucent air.

To the early astronomers, Jupiter had appeared enormous although it was only about a third denser than water. But the Huygen expedition in the first years of interplanetary travel had resolved the enigma. Jupiter consisted of a small solid core surrounded by an intensive and very dense atmosphere. The force of gravity at the surface was only between two and three times that on Terra.

Nominally, Jupiter was a colony of the Terran empire. But every attempt at settlement had proved disastrous. Today Jovopolis was an outpost, consisting of rotting shacks, a trading post, and one modern structure which housed the Huygen Memorial Institute of Science. Even the interplanetary patrol had made no attempt to install a permanent base. The officers and men lived in their ship while they were assigned to the station.

The _Nova_ began to settle Jove-ward. Gavin never left the bridge televisor, pulling switches, relaying orders to the jetman and master mechanic as the clumsy monster performed the ticklish job of landing.

Villanowski, who had been routed out of his bunk by the landing alarm, paced back and forth the length of the engine room, his eyes everywhere. He didn't interfere, though.

Then the _Nova_ struck with a bump which threw the chief engineer to his hands and knees.

He scrambled up, brushing off his shorts. "Nice landing." He patted Gavin's shoulder. "Nice landing."

It _was_ a nice landing. Gavin's bony freckled features relaxed. Broken ankles, bruises and sprains were only too frequent when setting a ship down without the benefit of spaceways.

"How long will it take us to load?"

"Five days," Villanowski replied. "Jovian time."

The Jovian day, Gavin knew, was only nine hours and fifty-five minutes long. That meant the Nova would be on Jupiter forty-nine hours. Gavin made a hasty mental calculation. It cut the margin of success to the barest minimum time. He would have to act and act quickly.

He started for the ladder, feeling the increased gravity tug at his flesh.

"Not so fast, lad," said Villanowski.

Gavin paused.

The chief engineer's attitude had undergone such a remarkable change that Gavin's own suspicions had been aroused. It dated from the second meal following the little death. Nadia had regaled the officers with her dream--the one in which Gavin had been a T.I.S. agent and contrived the capture of them all on Jupiter.

Villanowski's homely face had clouded. Then he had remarked with a wry expression that stranger things could happen.

Oddly enough, however, he no longer evinced the slightest suspicion of Gavin. But an occasional joshing reference to Murdock, the T.I.S. agent, revealed that he hadn't forgotten Nadia's dream.

Gavin said, "Yes sir," in a doubtful tone. He couldn't afford to arouse any doubts now.

"The Captain wants to see you before you go ashore."

"Yes, sir."

Wondering what Cabot wanted with him, he struggled up the ladder. Sweat began to pour from his skin. It was like climbing with the old man of the sea anchored to his back.

By the time he reached his cabin he was exhausted. He stretched out on his bunk, drew his breath in sobbing gasps. No wonder colonization of Jupiter had proved so difficult.

At length, he drove himself to his feet. The plan, which had been hatched in the head office of the T.I.S., would brook no delay. Captain Cabot would have to wait.

Stooping, he pulled a bundle of tough, specially-treated fiberoid, a material used in the construction of space suits, from under his bunk, slung it across his shoulder. Next, he dragged forth a clock-like instrument to which had been attached a magnesium flare, and lastly a cylinder of hydrogen.

The hydrogen Gavin had refined from water by a crude electrolysis. The rest of the equipment he had slipped from the engine room, working on it during leisure moments since the little death.

He opened his door. The corridor was deserted.

Twice during the ascent topside, Gavin had to stop and rest. Even breathing was an effort. At length he reached the arched outer skin of the monster, pried open an escape hatch.

* * * * *

The thick yellow air of Jupiter poured down upon him like soup. It smelled and tasted faintly like swamp gas. He had a momentary fear that he would strangle. A spasm of coughing seized him as he gulped in the first breaths.

Then, his lungs having adjusted themselves, he clambered to the outer shell.

A hundred feet below, he could make out the surface, only sketchily visible through the yellow pea-soup air. Slave pens and cantonments were all swallowed by the dense fog.

He set to work assembling his instruments. The cold knifed to his bones. A wind was blowing, too. It pushed against him like the sluggish current of a river.

The fiberoid package, unfolded, proved to be a balloon almost ten feet in diameter. It had a safety valve in it to neutralize the pressure when the bag reached the stratosphere. Gavin attached the clock and flare, started the clock in operation, inflated the bag. The instant it tugged at his numbed fingers, he shut off the hydrogen, cast it free.

It was scarcely a fifth inflated, but the heavy pressure caused it to float slowly, upward out of sight.

The clock was timed to ignite the flare when the balloon reached the stratosphere. Observatories on Io, Europa, Callisto, and Ganymede had their instruments trained on Jupiter. As soon as the flare was discovered, a check was to be made of the prevailing winds in that area. A simple parabola would indicate the balloon flare's probable course. The information then would be relayed to a flight of five patrol spacers held in readiness on the nearer moon.

That was the way it had been planned. But now Gavin was not so sure. So many things could interfere. He closed the trap overhead and retreated back to his cabin.

Sweating profusely, he flung himself on his bunk. He was still there, his breath rasping in his throat, when his door was pushed silently open from the outside.

Gavin whipped his dart-gun from its spring clip and slipped it under his pillow. He didn't move, but lay still with his eyes closed except for the barest fraction of an inch.

The door yawned wider.

Then the figure of Nadia Petrovna slipped soundlessly inside, eased the door shut. She stood over him, watching him with a desperate intentness. Satisfied that he slept, she set to work searching his cabin.

Gavin lay quiet, observing her skill appreciatively. The girl was efficient. She went rapidly through his closet, his chest, his bags.

She probed the lone chair cushion with a long needle, peered under his bed, then vanished in the shower. After a moment she reappeared, stood over him again, a puzzled expression on her pretty slavic features.

"No luck, eh?" murmured Gavin pleasantly. He opened his eyes and sat up.

Nadia gasped.

Gavin narrowed his eyes and roared in a suddenly harsh voice, "What the hell are you prying through my luggage for?"

The girl jumped. "I--I ..." she began, and then lapsed into confusion.

He waited.

"It sounds so foolish," she confessed, her long black eyes on the deck. Her fingers were twining about each other nervously. "But I can't get that dream out of my mind." She glanced up at him with a frightened expression.

"What dream?"

"The little death. When you turned out to be a T.I.S. agent. I--I begged you to give me a chance, let me try to escape."

"Yes," asked Gavin with a show of interest. "What did I do?"

"You laughed at me. I can't forget it."

"I wouldn't laugh at you," he replied somberly.

The girl's eyes softened. They were remarkable eyes, long and black and lustrous, the lashes half-hiding them.

"Why, Gavin, I believe you're flirting with me."

There was an odd little laugh in the words. It was the first time she'd called him Gavin.

"Don't be too sure," said Gavin gruffly. His arms went around her waist. He pulled her to a seat beside him and kissed her roughly.

Someone rapped at the door. Nadia sprang to her feet. Gavin called out, "Who is it?"

"The steward, sir. The Captain sent me to fetch you to the messroom."

* * * * *

When Gavin entered the officer's mess, he saw the Captain seated across a table from the thinnest man he had ever encountered.

"This is Hendricks," Cabot introduced them. The Captain was cold sober and hard-eyed. "He's the factor here at the cantonment."

Gavin shook hands. The factor had an amazing grip. His flesh hung on in tough strings. He looked more like an animated skeleton than a man, but Gavin was conscious of a tremendous wiry strength in him.

"You going ashore, Mr. Murdock?" the factor inquired.

Gavin nodded. "Miss Petrovna and I were planning to visit the cantonment." He saw a glance pass between Cabot and the factor.

The factor said, "Splendid," and rubbed his emaciated hands together. "Allow me to play host. The officers are already at my establishment."

Gavin thanked him.

"But let me warn you," went on the factor. "Don't wander off. The gravity aboard the ship here is bad enough. The atmosphere is much worse. It's easy to get lost, I've known newcomers to die of exhaustion only a few steps from the cantonment."

Gavin thanked him again, started to withdraw when the factor halted him.

"I've bearers waiting outside," he explained. "They're at your service while you're here. I really advise you not to walk any more than necessary."

This time Gavin made good his escape. He had been politely instructed not to pry, he realized. Villanowski might be confident of him, but not the Captain.

Gavin was smiling when he met Nadia at the main port, but his eyes were hard. Both of them had donned outer insulating garments of thermal cloth.

"We're going to be carried in litters like ancient Oriental potentates," he informed her.

Nadia laughed. "You've never been to Jupiter before?"

He shook his head.

They passed through the lock into the swirling yellow air. It was like swimming. They crept down the gangplank. The bearers were standing patiently at the surface.

Gavin had seen Jovian dawn men before, but they never failed to excite his curiosity. Huge, almost seven feet tall, and muscled like gladiators, they were imposing as Greek gods. Their skin was the vivid blue of polished turquoise, their long manes as yellow as a sunburst.

"There's a double litter," Nadia pointed out. "Let's take that."

Gavin followed her inside. The litter was cushioned like a divan. One was borne along in a semi reclining position. Nadia clapped her hands and cried, "Cantonment!"

Four naked blue giants swung the litter to their shoulders and started off at a rapid trot. In a few paces, the ship had disappeared. They were like a tiny raft, alone in a welter of yellow oppressive fog.

Gavin, peering over the edge, saw that the giants were following a paved road. After a moment they began to pass an endless procession of dawn men, chained ankle to ankle and moving sluggishly toward the _Nova_.

Already the loading had started.

Gavin stared at the half-men curiously. They crept along, features drawn, their yellow manes matted with dirt. There was a haunted look in their eyes like caged animals.

Thirty percent would die in the crossing, he knew. Within a year ninety percent of the rest would be dead, victims of home-sickness, of pneumonia and measles and Venusian lung rot, not to mention a score of other diseases. The terrible rate of fatality was good business for the slavers. It held up the demand.

"They aren't really human," said Nadia in a faint voice as if reading his thoughts. "They're sub-men."

Gavin nodded. Some place along the evolutionary scale the Jovians had taken a wrong turning. They would never evolve into true _homo sapiens_. But even cattle weren't treated as they were.

The walls of the cantonment hove suddenly in view through the murky atmosphere. The giants paused before a massive entrance like the gate of a feudal castle.

Gavin climbed out of the litter and started to help Nadia down. Somewhere off in the distance he heard a faint popping.

"What is it?" cried the girl, struck by his strained air of attention.

"It sounds like the dum-dum fire. Listen!"

They both fell silent.

* * * * *

From the direction of the _Nova_ came faintly a sound like a string of fire-crackers going off together. "It _is_ dum-dum fire!"

"But it can't be! It's impossible."

The sound of explosions drifted to them again.

Gavin sprang back into the litter.

"Wait here," he cried. "Something's wrong at the ship." He knew that it couldn't be the Terran patrol spacers attacking. The balloon hadn't time to rise into the stratosphere yet.

A great fear for the _Nova's_ safety gripped him. Whatever the cost, the ship must be preserved intact so that Terra's scientists could examine her space drive. It had become the paramount issue, over-shadowing in importance even the detestable slave trade.

"No!" Nadia cried. "Don't go back there." She flung herself on him, pressing her body flat against his. "Please, for my sake, Gavin!"

He pushed her rudely aside.

Just then the chief astrogator burst upon them, running from inside the cantonment. His strides were labored, his breath wheezing in his chest. He saw Gavin and shouted: "The ship's being attacked! They've radioed the cantonment for help!"

"Who by?"

"X's men!" The chief astrogator began to run down the paved highway toward the _Nova_ and was swallowed by the fog.

Gavin heard something whine through the air. He flung himself flat on his face, shouting at Nadia, "Down! They're shelling the cantonment!"

The shell burst out of sight in the fog. A blast of air hit him like a wall of water.

Nadia sat up, her face smudged where she'd groveled in the dirt. She was cursing like a spaceman.

Gavin yanked her to her feet. "Clear out!" He began to haul her away from the doomed cantonment.

Another shell lobbed over their heads to explode directly behind them. Gavin's hands were torn from the girl. He was blown a dozen feet by the blast.

He lay where he lit, knowing nothing, feeling nothing.