Chapter II

The Martian night was clear and cold. Its thin air was sweetly welcome to Chip's nostrils. When they gained the street outside, Salvation spoke to him suddenly. "Where is your ship, my son?"

"Ship, sir?" queried Warren. "But why--?"

"Don't waste time!" snapped the old man. "We're in grave danger. Blaze Amborg is a man of violence. In a few minutes he'll figure out what happened to the ekalastron and be out looking for us."

Chip stared at him. "The ekalastron? But what _did_ happen to it? It disappeared--"

"Into," grunted Salvation, "my pocket! While I was arranging Jenkins' clothing. 'He who taketh in the cause of righteousness hath done the will of the Lord!' Amborg is an evil, wilful man. He would have used the ekalastron for his own wicked purposes. In our hands, all mankind shall profit of its beneficence. But, come! Where?"

"C-churchill Field," stammered Chip. "Dock 31, Bin A. T-this way, Padre."

They moved at quickened stride through the darkened streets. As they neared the cradles wherein lay the vessels of a thousand diverse ports, Salvation questioned Chip still further.

"What type of ship is it, lad?"

"Not a very new one, sir. A Challenger 7-jet, four berth explorer. But in good shape. My friend and I managed to get it cheap, reconditioned it--"

"Then you have a companion?"

"Yes, Padre. Syd Palmer. He's waiting aboard. We had planned to lift gravs tomorrow for a prospecting tour of the planetoids. I visited the Cosmobar because I thought I might run into some old space-dodger who would give me a tip on a lode-rock--"

"And you ran into," said the missionary, "something which may turn out to be the greatest discovery ever made by man. Murder ... thievery ... wealth ... is this the ship?"

They had stopped before one of the smaller cradles. Chip pressed a signal button, a buzzer responded, there came from within the familiar wheeze of an air-lock generator.

"This is it, sir. Please step in. 'Lo, Syd. This is Doctor--Mister--"

"Call me 'Salvation'," said the old man. "I'm used to it. Palmer, I take it you're the chief engineer of this jaloppy?"

Syd Palmer was short and chubby; his hair was a tow colored bristle that stood up like a cock's-comb when he was excited or annoyed. It stood up now, and his pale blue eyes danced with tiny, indignant sparks.

"I'm the engineer of this _ship_!"

"Call it what you will," grunted Salvation. "Is it fast?"

Palmer grinned. "Puh-lenty! I've hepped the hypos to super-max. The _Chickadee_ can outrun anything its size in space, and a lot of bigger ones, besides!"

"Good! And have you got clearance papers?"

"Why, yes, but--"

"Excellent: 'Verily, He taketh care of His own nor faileth them in time of need.'" Salvation nodded to Warren. "We'll lift gravs," he said, "immediately!"

Palmer stared at him, then at his companion.

"What is this, Chip? Old boy off his jets?"

"Far from it," said Chip seriously. "Can't explain everything now, Syd; time's too short. But you like a good, old-fashioned fight, don't you?"

"Fight? Sa-a-ay, now--"

"Then warm the hypos," ordered Chip, "while I plot a course. We're lifting gravs immediately--for Titania."

* * * * *

During the long days that followed, there was time and to spare in which to clarify the situation to Syd. When he heard of Chip's adventure at the Cosmobar, his pale eyes gleamed and fists less chubby than they appeared tightened at his sides. "Wish I'd been there--" he muttered. Salvation glared at him and snorted, "'Verily they are fools who do not rejoice that they have escaped woe!'"

And when Chip showed him the ball of ekalastron--

"Glory be!" exclaimed Syd. "There's enough to dip a whole battle unit in that one ball! What are we going to Titania for? Why not fly this to Earth immediately and let the Council know--"

"Because Amborg knows," replied Chip grimly, "that this came from Titania. He was nearby when Jenkins said so in his dying breath. That was probably the secret Amborg's thugs had been trying to probe from the miner all night. I have a hunch that Amborg is out there somewhere right now!"

He nodded toward the quartzite view-pane. Outside lay space--the long, dreary reaches of space between Mars and Uranus. But it didn't look like space. Not like space as navigators a short ten years ago had known it, an eternal pall of blackness spangled with the livid dots of a myriad stars.

This was a blotched, striped, crazy-quilt of color. Crimson, ochre, emerald--all the hues of the rainbow merged into a faery, magic loveliness. This was space as seen when Man traveled at the terrific speed attainable only through the use of the recently developed V-I unit, velocity intensifier, invented by that mad genius of the spaceways, Lancelot Biggs of the lugger, _Saturn_.

Five years ago, in the year 2210, the fastest craft in the ether had had a top speed of approximately 200,000 miles per hour. Now almost every ship was equipped with the V-I adapter that gave it a flight-potential limited only by the critical velocity of light. Where once it would have required almost ten months to reach Titania, second satellite of far Uranus, the trio could now expect to gain their destination, traveling at a speed of more than 650,000,000 mph., in something less than half that many _days_!

"I have a hunch," repeated Chip, "that Amborg and his crew are somewhere out there right now, speeding, as we are, to Titania. Of course we can't tell. We're not equipped with a magno-tector, and we couldn't see them unless by sheer chance they should approach within our visibility parellax.

"But when we get to Titania and slow down, we must go on the alert. Salvation has told me about Amborg. He's a hard, brilliant man with a dangerously criminal mind. Let him find Jenkins' ore-deposit and the Federation of Planets would pay through the nose for his discovery. Jenkins said there was a whole mine of ekalastron. With that at his disposal, Amborg could make himself a robber baron. An Emperor of the outlaw world."

"Which is why," Salvation offered gravely, "we must get there before he does. Lay claim to the deposit, somehow secure its safety against the arrival of I.P.S. troops. Can we but find the mine, soldiers will come in jigtime from New Oslo on Uranus. But--"

Syd nodded.

"I see. But we couldn't walk into the garrison and hand them a line about a "mine" of ekalastron. They'd shove us into the nearest looney-bin. And I wouldn't blame them a bit. If I didn't know Chip Warren like I know my own lovely pan--but suppose we meet Amborg?"

"'The Lord,'" said Salvation, "'is my strength and my salvation. In His hands do I place my guidance.'" His lean hands flexed powerfully. "We destroy them," he said gently, "like the rats they are...."

Thus four days sped by in plan and conjecture. And on the fifth day Syd Palmer cut the velocity-intensifiers to normal, and a scant thousand miles beneath them, so accurate had been Chip's astrogation, gleamed the silvery mote which was Titania, second child of the mother planet, Uranus.

"Well done, my son!" approved Salvation. "The best landcast I've ever seen!"

Palmer was less exuberant. He stared at Titania, scratched his yellow crest morbidly.

"A damn snowball!" he mourned. "A damned snowball, eight hundred miles in diameter! Sweet crimes of Beelzebub, Chip, how do you ever expect to find a pinpoint of a mine on that huge hunk of ice? It will take us ages!"

"We'll cruise at low elevation," said Chip, "until we see something. There must be a dark spot showing against that sheen of white somewhere. Jenkins spoke of caverns and natives and flame. We have plenty of supplies--_look out!_"

He leaped even as he shouted. Leaped to the panels and jammed the full strength of his six foot plus frame to a deflecting lever. The control room of the _Chickadee_ whirled giddily as the little ship spun into a crazy spiral; Palmer yelped, skidding helplessly across the floor. Salvation let loose a roar and clung ardently to a stanchion, his silvery locks whipping straight out from his head with the force of the drive.

Chip threw himself into the bucket-shaped pilot's-chair, gained possession of the controls. An instant later, the _Chickadee_ was tossing through the maddest gyrations Chip could devise. Fore, loft and jet, with hypos throbbing, the little craft was blasting, shaking, quivering like a leaf in a cyclone.

And above the tumult of racing hypos came the sound of Syd's voice: "What is it, Chip? Amborg?"

Chip nodded tightly, his hands gripping the control levers, his eyes glued to the perilens through which he saw the enemy craft. A larger ship, with a red fang darting from its prow, slashing viciously at the bobbing _Chickadee_. "It's Blaze Amborg, all right! And he means business! He's got an Ingermann ray-rotor on that crate of his; he's trying to burn us clean out of the ether!"

* * * * *

Chip Warren and Syd Palmer were the co-owners of the _Chickadee_; it was Chip whose alertness had saved them in that first, terrifying moment, Chip it was who still held the controls. But it was Salvation Smith who usurped the mastership during the crisis.

"Hell's flaming damnation!" he cried, and there rang in his voice a rage above weak need of profanity. "Lend now Thy servant strength, O Lord, to smite these sons of Hurkan!" He whirled on Palmer, snarling. "Break out bulgers for us in case they should pierce the hull! Chip, son, do the controls answer well? Good! Keep dodging. Swing aft; the beam can't nip you there! You've armament aboard this heap?"

Syd, tugging three spacesuits from the store-closet, puffed over his shoulder, "Only a low-cycle heat-gun. There! Under that tarp. Press the green stud to clear the nose from the hull-plates. It's retractable--"

"You're telling me," bellowed Salvation, "how to rig a cannon? I was teethed on a lanyard, praise be to Jehovah!" He had the tarpaulin off in a jiffy, the fore-irons open, and shot an experimental burst from the small weapon. He smiled. "Good! But you've got to get closer to him, Chip; this thing is only effective at short range."

Chip said dubiously, "I don't know, Padre. Perhaps we should cut and run for it. If that beam hits us--"

"Are we mice," bellowed Salvation, "or men? You've got to get closer! The Lord is our right hand. 'Surely the evil shall fail, yea, the way of the transgressor shall perish!'" He loosed another blast from the small gun, breathed a sigh of satisfaction. "Aaah! that's better! Closer!"

"You're the skipper!" decided Chip suddenly. A jab of the finger, the stern-jets crackled and the _Chickadee_ cut suddenly to starboard, swinging straight toward the craft of Blaze Amborg.

So unexpected was the move that it caught the enemy gunner napping. For an instant he had a clear target before him. But he had not been expecting such luck, and before he could center his sights on the _Chickadee_, the smaller vessel was streaking down upon and over his own.

And Salvation Smith's voice shouted triumph through the room. "'Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord!'" he intoned, "'I shall repay!'" His hand jerked the release-stud.

And as though the metal skin of the enemy boat were tinfoil held above a flame, there appeared suddenly upon its hull a leprous spot of black, from the curling edges of which silvery alloy sloughed off in rolling, sluggish waves. From within the ship small motes poured forth, sucked out by the frigid vacuum of space to explode and die frightfully; sore, raw, pressured clots of matter that had been men. The other ship reeled for a moment like a stricken hart, then crumpled upon itself, a wildly spinning boomerang of death.

"You got 'em!" squealed Syd Palmer from his vantage spot at the perilens. "Got 'em all, Padre! No--there goes a life-skiff from the wreck!" His voice rose in sharp fear. "_Omigod!_ Swing out, Chip! Swing--"

But Chip had seen the new danger as quickly as his comrade. Here was peril beyond Amborg's fondest devising. As the stricken ship, folding upon itself, spun aimlessly in space, its forejet wheeled like a flaming spiral--and from the prow still flamed the withering, crimson ray now untended by living hands!

Like a gigantic scythe it flailed the ether, swinging a huge curve directly toward the _Chickadee_. Vainly Chip jammed the studs before him, striving to escape above, below or beyond that sword of doom.

There came the ear-splitting crash of impact, metal screamed thin agony, rending itself to shreds somewhere aft; the _Chickadee_ shuddered like a pole-felled steer under its mortal wound.

Instinct shot Chip's hands to the lock-stud which sealed the control chamber airtight from the rest of the ship; that action alone spared them for a few minutes. But each of them knew the ship was doomed to crash. Syd croaked, "Here! The bulgers! Get in them--_quick_!"

Split seconds later, they were three grotesque figures huddled before the control board, staring through quartzite globular headpanes at Chip's last, frenzied efforts to break the fall of the _Chickadee_. The studs beneath his fingers were unresponsive as the inarticulate phalanges of a broken limb. In vain and desperately he struggled to gain a modicum of control over the falling craft, now firmly gripped by Titania's gravitational field. They had fallen into the high atmosphere of the little globe, now; thin winds howled and bansheed about their sharded hull, and the walls of the room began to heat.

The aft jets were dead, the anti-gravs broken, helpless. There remained but one possible way in which to keep them from being crushed to bits. A prow landing, braked by the fore jets. It was dangerous, but--

"There!" cried Syd. "Look there, Chip! Below us!"

Chip risked a brief glance, saw that the smooth and icy surface of Titania was broken by a long, ragged swatch of black. Ironic laughter curled the corners of his tight-set lips. What a quirk of fate that here, with death but a hair's-breadth removed, they should unwittingly find that for which under happier circumstances they might have sought endlessly and in vain. The promised spot of habitation on the bleak little moon of Uranus.

"I'm fore-jetting!" he crisped. "Stand by for--a fadeout!"

Salvation's hand was on his shoulder, reassuringly, somehow warm despite its casement of rubberoid fabric. "Be of strong heart, my son," he said simply, "He who watcheth the fall of the smallest sparrow, He shall not fail His own in their hour of need."

Then Chip pressed the necessary, the only remaining responsive keys. And the control room trembled like a hurt thing, seemed to stop stock-still in space, shake itself for a moment--then plunge on. Forejets flamed blast upon roaring blast. Chip felt the gravitational force seem to lessen as the flares beat stubbornly against the adamant breast of the globe below. Drop ... stagger ... drop again ... the shocking concussion of brakes ... then a swift, dizzy, headlong fall....

Wild winds howled, and the din of metals tortured beyond endurance slashed at Chip's eardrums. He was aware of the last cry of Syd Palmer, his life-long friend. "Luck, Chip, old pal--!" And the remembered ghost of Salvation's promise. "He shall not fail His own--"

Then a horrendous crash jarred his head back on the seat. A smashing veil of crimson settled before his eyes ... then there was darkness. And silence.

* * * * *

He felt some mad conceit that this was death ... that the restless fingers of the gray unalive plucked at his arm, bidding him rise and stir forward toward he knew not what.

Then suddenly he was awake, alive, and conscious--and it was not death, but life; fingers _did_ tug at him, but they were the figures of--

"_'Ranies!_" cried Chip. "Hands off, you! Or--"

The green complexioned native growled some guttural comment, moved closer rather than away, and pinioned Chip's arms to his sides. Chip saw, now, that the _Chickadee_, though battered and broken beyond hope of repair, had miraculously grounded without destroying them all. For Syd was stirring, and Salvation, too, but each of them was surrounded by green natives, as was Chip. These creatures, the nearest approach to Man's physiology that had ever been found in the System, were tall and rugged, masterfully built. They were equipped with native lariats or bolas; these they whipped cuttingly about their captives.

Chip strained lashed fingers toward the heat-pistol in his belt. But Salvation, seeing his motion, stopped him.

"No, lad! Relax! Don't make a hostile move!"

Chip growled, "No damned greenie is going to make a trussed duck out of me. If I can reach this gun--"

"If you value your life," said Salvation, "and your welfare, keep your hands quiet and your wits active! These creatures aren't Uranians. They're Titanians. An offspring of the parent race, but as savage and untamed as beasts.

"I don't know what they plan to do with us. I have heard they are a strange, mystical race; their tribal rites and taboos are many and--dangerous! Our only chance is to be quiet, try to reason with them, convince them we are not foes but friends--"

All three were securely tied, now, save for their legs. The tallest Titanian, evidently the group chieftain, grunted a word of command. Strong arms prodded Chip and his fellows forward, out of the broken _Chickadee_, into the bleak landscape of Titania.

They had crashed in the dark spot Chip had viewed from above. They discovered, now, that this spot was dark because--incredibly--here the thick, icy blanket had been stripped away to discover the raw and rocky core of the Uranian moon.

Black rocks thrust jagged spires skyward, mountains of stone girdled this one clear space on the whole of Titania; greater wonder still, gnarled and stunted trees, lichens of hardiest verdure, eked a precarious existence from the grudging soil.

And here the natives had--a village. One coarser, cruder, than the village of the meanest of Earth's savages, but a village nonetheless. Slab dwellings dabbed with thick black clay, a central structure, larger than the rest, something that looked like a market--or community gathering-spot.

Chip's wonderment had made him impervious at first to such trivia as personal comfort and discomfort. He found now, though, that he was cold. By dint of much effort, he managed to squirm a hand to his belt-studs, operate the tiny needle that increased the warmth of his space-suit.

Almost immediately there came a howl from the green native maintaining a vigilant grip on Chip's arm; the fellow leaped away, bellowing angry, guttural speech at his leader.

And Salvation spun to Chip swiftly.

"Chip--turn down that heat, boy!"

"B--but--" stammered Chip.

"Quickly!"

Chip obeyed. It was well he did so, for the leader was moving toward him menacingly. With a cautious finger he touched Chip's suit. Then, apparently mollified to discover it satisfactorily cold, he snarled a word or two and the little party moved on.

Chip stared at the old missionary.

"But, why?" he demanded. "What did I do wrong? I don't get it. I was freezing, and--"

"Then you've got to freeze," said Salvation Smith, "and like it. Until we can escape from these creatures. Do you have any idea how cold it is here on Titania, my boy?"

Chip said, "Why, plenty cold, I suppose--"

"About minus 380° Fahrenheit!" said Smith. "That's all. Uranians and Titanians may _look_ like Earthmen, lad, but they're built entirely different. They are not children of the Sun, as we are. Their bodies are so constituted as to be able to stand extremes of frigidity that would quick-freeze us like salmon. Sluggish basal metabolism, dermal, rather than pneumonic respiration--these enable them to endure what to us appear the impossible living conditions of a world on which mercury and gallium are adamant solids, liquid hydrogen forms seas, and the snow is carbon dioxide.

"When you turned on the heating unit of your bulger you subjected that native's hand to what was to him a burning, unendurable heat!"

Chip nodded.

"I see. That makes sense. But--but there must be some warmth around here? A cleared patch--"

"I haven't yet decided whether this patch was cleared by heat or labor," said Salvation. "If we can make them believe we are friends, I may learn. I can sling their talk a little. It's not unlike the Uranian language. But--"

He stopped, and his voice rose to a shout. "Behold! Thou hast delivered mine enemy into mine hands, O Lord; Thou hast brought the wicked even unto judgment!"

And Chip, following his gaze, saw a second party of Titanians approaching the central gathering place from the opposite direction. These natives held captive, even as he and Salvation and Syd were held, an ill-assorted foursome in spacemen's bulgers. A giant Venusian, a greenie, a dwarfed Jovian and an Earthman!

"Amborg!" yelled Chip. "Blaze Amborg and his crew! They got away on that life-skiff, but they were caught when they landed! Padre--"

It had not occurred to him that the arms of Amborg and his men would not be, like their own, lashed securely. Thus it came as a heart-stopping shock to hear Amborg's cry ring in their ears, a sharp cry of command--then suddenly there flamed from the sidearms of the other captive group the withering blasts of heat-guns!