Chapter IV

"Who hit'm boss? Boss hit'm heap hard!" Baron Munchy, hardly able to lift the damp towel, was dragging it across his mouth, smothering him. Link Raeburn watched the operation interestedly, but not cautiously, from his position before the instrument panel. Lana Hilton was sitting up dazedly, rearranging her hair.

"I knew it was too much to expect," she commented. "Couldn't leave us alone, could you, Link? I was just beginning to like the idea of getting away from you for good. Ooooh, my head!"

"I hope our friend had the foresight to stock his larder well," said Link Raeburn with a shrug. "We may be cooped up here for some time."

Lonny sat up, shaking his head dazedly.

"I ought to whale the tar out of you," he cried angrily. "But I've got more sense than to do it at a time like this. Maybe I'll do it when the sub-boat comes up to the surface again. I never did have too much faith in you, Raeburn."

Link Raeburn laughed. "You won't do it then, or ever, Lonny. There isn't an ounce of fight left in you. The planet's got you. I've always believed that you had enough pearls stacked away to make a fortune on earth, but you kept putting the time for departure off into the future."

His taunts acted as harsh irritants to Lonny Higgens, who doubled his fists and took a couple of steps forward.

"Slap 'im down, Boss," urged Baron Munchy, and Lonny stopped, his shoulders falling.

"That's right," he said, grinning at the little elf. "Fight to the death, like all these insensate creatures of Uranus. No, I'll not do it. I'm saving myself, against the day I'll get back to earth."

"You're a fool," said Link Raeburn. "Next time I'll get you for keeps."

"At least you can save it until we get up from here," returned Lonny, brushing past the other and examining the instruments. "Depth indication--now four thousand feet. And sinking slowly."

With luck, they would be on the surface again in a few hours. Then he would either knock the tar out of Link Raeburn or kick him out in the mud. He felt a deepseated, lethargic contempt for the mud-fisher. The dapper man was a despicable murderer at heart, and now he felt only a distant sort of loathing for him.

Lana was different. In a way she might have been a good sort. He had a hunch that Uranus was affecting her much as it had him, bringing forth his irritable nature, sapping his energy, dulling his sensations in a sluggish, remote way. He had an idea that she would cut an amazingly attractive figure in one of the late translucent evening gowns, back in one of the live spots of the populated planets. At the moment, she was highly intolerable and self-centered. He would do well to be rid of both of them.

Baron Munchy was soaring up and down the room, catching midges, when Lonny descended to the lower decks. The atomic motors, he found, were in good condition for an emergency. The trouble with them was that they provided merely a horizontal propulsion. The natural buoyancy of the vessel, coupled with the lessening of surface pressure, would have to raise it from the murky depths.

The lower deck was almost hemispherical in shape, and fully occupied with power apparatus.

"They steal'm, Boss!" warned Baron Munchy vindictively. "Now you fight, huh?"

"Fighting wouldn't do any good," Lonny explained wearily. "People don't fight on Uranus. They're always fagged out, enervated."

"Fagged--" began the impish creature helplessly.

"I mean that life is too boring to be taken seriously," went on Lonny. "Otherwise, I'd have knocked the slats out of that smirking back-biter long ago. I may have to do it yet."

"You oughta fight'm," declared Baron Munchy angrily. "They steal house. Steal everything! Why no earthmen fight, Boss?"

"Because earthmen have to get mad to fight," returned Lonny, "and you can't get mad here somehow. Oh, shut up! I don't know how to explain it. Earthmen just don't feel violent emotions here on Uranus. They don't get mad at anything! They don't fall in love! They're just sapped dry of everything."

His head was aching. It was a good thing his body had recovered from its exposure to the heavy pressure area. He climbed the rampway for the upper deck, and stood motionless, breaking upon a surprising scene.

* * * * *

All of the compartments had been searched, and he saw his cache of Uranusian pearls open to view. The wall safe hung ajar--apparently the deft fingers of Link Raeburn had encountered no great difficulty in finding the combination. His eyes were glittering with fascination, and the girl, too, seemed unable to wrench her eyes from the inviting spectacle.

"That's enough," gasped Link Raeburn, "to set a fellow up for life."

"Yeh, and here we are," returned the girl hollowly, "stuck deep in the mud of Uranus."

"Maybe you forget who they belong to," snorted Lonny, stalking into their midst and slamming his treasure back into its hiding place. "The indicator says we're at six thousand five hundred and forty-one feet."

"Then we've stopped," said Raeburn. "It read the same five minutes ago."

Lonny stood watching the gauges and found that the other was right. The mud-submarine had indeed come to a halt. It meant that some sort of an equilibrium was being established in the barometric storm center that raged above.

"I'll start the motors and try jarring the ship around a little," he said, seating himself before the mechanisms. At a touch of his finger, dial bulbs lighted up, and from the lower depths came the whine of machinery. Almost instantly they felt a sidewise lurch, and then a slow climbing motion.

"It looks good, anyway," said Link Raeburn. "We're going up again."

"Thank Heaven for small favors," breathed Lana thankfully, and watched attentively as Lonny began juggling the controls alarmedly. Link's eyes watched the indicator, and began to show new amazement.

"We're not ascending now," said Lonny grimly. "I don't know what's the matter. The motor-drive is okay, but we're making a crazy circle, over and over, and not getting any higher."

"You're nuts!" burst out Raeburn, stalking forward, waving his arms. Yet the yellow pallor of his face showed that he too had noticed the mud-ship's erratic behavior. "It's just not possible! Uranus is all mud--just plain fluid mud!"

"Or that's what we've thought, up to now," said Lonny significantly.

"What do you mean?" demanded Lana. "You can't mean that we're trapped here with a fortune just in our grasp."

The whine of the lower motors mounted, and as a result the mud-submarine began spinning around like a top. Yet the depth pointer had not moved.

"It means that there's some sort of a skeletal core to Uranus after all," said Lonny with a vanquished sigh, snapping off the motors and pushing back from the controls. "Add what's more, it means that we've bumped into it."

"But how?" demanded Raeburn. "Even if there is a solid core, nothing would prevent our ship from floating up again."

"Unless our vessel happened to get caught under a ledge," returned Lonny pointedly. "We sank while the pressure was heavy, and then when it lessened, began to ascend. We climbed a short way and stopped. Then our horizontal screws sends the ship around in a short circle, indicating that we are in a shelving pocket. We can't descend unless the pressure storm gets violent again! And we can't climb through a shelving ledge of solid core. So our chances of getting out of here are rather slim."

Raeburn's furtive eyes were glowing, like those of a beast at bay. He whirled around, struck out wildly at the controls, started the engines and sent the mud-submarine spinning around again, but to no avail. Lana Hilton watched his every move, and she too was like a tigress at bay.

Like animals they glared around at the berylumin hulls, thinking of the millions of pounds per square inch waiting beyond--trying to press in upon them. An instant's exposure to that and a human body would be but a pulpy mass.

They felt helpless and insignificant. To the two who glared unbelievingly at the controls, the apparent unconcern of Lonny Higgens amounted to madness. He appeared not to be able to fully appreciate the true reasons for their violent perturbation. He was humming a tune through his teeth, and searching among tiny wall niches, from which he presently withdrew a tiny skillet.

"No use getting excited," he told them. "The chances are that the pressure storms won't come around soon enough to do us any good. At any rate, there's nothing to stop us from eating while we're hungry--that is, while the food supply holds out."