Chapter III

The atmosphere was somewhat tenuous, but it was breathable, provided a man didn't exert himself. To the silent crew of the I.S.P. Cruiser, the strange world to which Koerber's magnetic Beam had drawn them, was anything but reassuring. Towering crags jutted raggedly against the sky, and the iridescent soil of the narrow valley that walled in the cruiser, had a poisonous, deadly look. As far as their eyes could reach, the desolate, denuded vista stretched to the horizon.

"Pretty much of a mess!" Dennis Brooke's face was impassive as he turned to Scotty Byrnes. "What's your opinion? Think we can patch her up, or are we stuck here indefinitely?"

Scotty eyed the damage. The atom-blast had penetrated the hull into the forward fuel chambers and the armor had blossomed out like flower petals. The crash-landing had not helped either.

"Well, there's a few beryloid plates in the storage locker, Captain, but," he scratched his head ruminatively and shifted his precious cud.

"But what? Speak up man!" It was Tom Jeffery, his nerves on edge, his ordinarily gentle voice like a lash.

"But, you may as well know it," Scotty replied quietly. "That parting shot of Koerber's severed our main rocket feed. I had to use the emergency tank to make it down here!"

For a long moment the four men looked at each other in silence. Dennis Brooke's face was still impassive but for the flaming hazel eyes. Tom tugged at the torn sleeve of his I.S.P. uniform, while Scotty gazed mournfully at the damaged ship. Dallas Bernan looked at the long, ragged line of cliffs.

"I think we got Koerber, though," he said at last. "While Tom was doing a job of navigation, I had one last glimpse of him coming down fast and out of control somewhere behind those crags over there!"

"To hell with Koerber!" Tom Jeffery exploded. "You mean we're stuck in this hellish rock-pile?"

"Easy, Tom!" Captain Brooke's tones were like ice. On his pale, impassive face, his eyes were like flaming topaz. "Where's Randall?"

"Probably hiding his head under a bunk!" Dallas laughed with scorn. His contemptuous remark voiced the feelings of the entire crew. A man who failed to be at his battle-station in time of emergency, had no place in the I.S.P.

"Considering the gravity of this planetoid," Dennis Brooke said thoughtfully, "it's going to take some blast to get us off!"

"Maybe we can locate a deposit of anerioum or uranium or something for our atom-busters to chew on!" Scotty said hopefully. He was an eternal optimist.

"Better break out those repair plates," Dennis said to Scotty. "Tom, you get the welders ready. I've got a few entries to make in the log book, and then we'll decide on a party to explore the terrain and try to find out what happened to Koerber's ship. I must know," he said in a low voice, but with such passion that the others were startled.

A figure appeared in the slanting doorway of the ship in time to hear the last words. It was George Randall, adjusting a bandaged forehead bumped during the crash landing.

"Captain ... I ... I wanted ..." he paused unable to continue.

"You wanted what?" Captain Brooke's voice was terse. "Perhaps you wanted to explain why you weren't at your battle station?"

"Sir, I wanted to know if ... if I might help Scotty with the welding job...." That wasn't at all what he'd intended to say. But somehow the words had stuck in his throat and his face flushed deep scarlet. His candid blue eyes were suspiciously brilliant, and the white bandage with its crimson stains made an appealing, boyish figure. It softened the anger in Brooke's heart. Thinking it over calmly, Dennis realized this was the youngster's first trip into the outer orbits, and better men than he had cracked in those vast reaches of space. But there had been an instant when he'd found Randall cowering in the rocket-room, in the grip of paralyzing hysteria, when he could cheerfully have wrung his neck!

"Certainly, Randall," he replied in a much more kindly tone. "We'll need all hands now."

"Thank you, sir!" Randall seemed to hesitate for a moment, opened his mouth to speak further, but feeling the other's calculating gaze upon him, he whirled and re-entered the ship.

"But for him we wouldn't be here!" Dallas exclaimed. "Aagh!" He shook his head in disgust until the several folds of flesh under his chin shook like gelatin. "Cowards are hell!" He spat.

"Easy, Dallas, Randall's a kid, give 'im a chance." Dennis observed.

"You Captain ... you're defending 'im? Why you had a greater stake in this than we, and he's spoiled it for you!"

"Yep," Dennis nodded. "But I'm still keeping my senses clear. No feuds on my ship. Get it!" The last two words cut like a scimitar.

Dallas nodded and lowered his eyes. Scotty shifted his cud and spat a thin stream of juice over the iridescent ground. One by one they re-entered the cruiser.

* * * * *

Absorbedly Randall added finishing flourishes to the plate of beryloid he had just finished welding. With the heavy atomic welder in his hands, he paused to inspect the job. Inwardly he wished that Scotty and Dallas would hurry with that final plate. He could just barely hear them pounding it into shape, within the cruiser. Unconsciously he shivered.

Outside the cruiser, it was cold, and breathing was laborious, for despite the gravity, the atmosphere was thin, diffused. Besides, this shadowy world of dark crags and palely creeping sunlight had an uncanny feel, as if it were evil. For the hundredth time he twisted around and surveyed the rocky terrain behind him. Determinedly he squared his shoulders and jutted out his chin. It was bad enough to have muffed a chance to add glory to the I.S.P., not to speak of having the rest of the crew think him demented. Still the feeling of being _watched_ persisted. Randall cursed his imagination, and over-wrought nerves that made him feel what palpably didn't exist. He closed his young eyes for a second and strove to steady his nerves.

He breathed deeply of the tenuous atmosphere and exhaled slowly; then he opened his eyes, feeling more calm and turned to make one final survey, and stood rooted to the ground as if petrified.

From a dark crevice in the jagged wall behind the I.S.P. Spacer, something seemed to glide effortlessly into the open. About twenty feet from Randall it paused and remained stationary, hovering above the rocky surface. It was perfectly spherical, fully three feet in diameter, and had George Randall not been hysterical with dread, he would have seen that it was exquisitely beautiful, a softly shining, transparent globe that pulsed rhythmically with lambent fires. A wavering, lavender corona, like an aura, surrounded it as it began to spin slowly.

From nerveless hands the atomic welder dropped to the ground, as a wave of surging panic engulfed Randall. With an eerie, half-strangled scream he clawed for the atom-blast at his hip. He had a brief impression that the globe was sentiently alive, and that something that felt like tendrils of fire probed his brain. His hair stood on end as the icy fear deepened to the verge of madness.

"Scotty! Dallas!" He shouted, and then realized he couldn't be heard above the pounding within the cruiser. He aimed at the globe and squeezed the trigger. The tremendous energy released by the atom-blast flung the globe back, by blasting the surrounding air in furious waves, but regaining its equilibrium the globe began to zoom forward again, _undamaged_!

Randall waited no longer, he raced for the open hatch of the cruiser with the speed of horror. He scrambled madly, almost dived into the opening and had the presence of mind to pull the lever that slammed the door shut behind him. He lay there panting, completely unnerved by the experience.

Dishevelled and horror-stricken was the way Scotty and Dallas found him, when on hearing the hatch clang shut, they rushed in to investigate.

"What happened, an attack? Koerber's men?" Scotty queried.

"Speak up, Randall!" Dallas shook him briefly. "What was it? You look as if you'd seen a ghost!"

"There's something out there.... I don't know what it is, but it's alive. It almost got me!" He shuddered.

"Something alive on this barren world? Unless it was one of Koerber's men, you've been seeing ghosts again, kid!" Scotty said not unkindly. He was well aware of spacemen's mirage, the affliction that sometimes drove newcomers mad.

"It was real," Randall persisted. "And it was alive ... a glowing globe of energy that hung just above me, a few feet away. I blasted at it with my gun, and it just spun, then came forward."

* * * * *

He rose from the floor and moved over to the starboard port to look outside. Scotty and Dallas stood beside him. They gazed curiously in every direction, as far as they could see.

"Don't see a thing," Dallas said stolidly. "Come on, son! I'll fix you a sedative," he said contemptuously.

"Wait a minute Dallas," Scotty interrupted. "Randall's right. Take a look at that big pile of rocks over there ... to the left, Dallas!"

"By the red-tailed Picaroons on Jupiter's satellites!" Dallas swore swiftly. "I've seen a lot of queer sights, but nothing like this!" he exclaimed. Suddenly he turned to Randall. "How do you know it's alive? For all we know it's just a globe of radio-active energy native to this hell-spot."

Randall colored, hesitated and finally blurted out. "I ... I just felt it was alive. I sensed it trying to contact my mind.... Oh, I know it sounds crazy, I know you'll laugh, but the thing was trying to probe my brain, Dallas!"

Scotty suddenly thought of Captain Brooke and Tom Jeffery who had gone on an exploratory trip. "I wonder about the Captain and Tom," he said in alarm. "If there's one of these whirling demons on this rock there's sure to be others." He raced to the communications set and turned it on. But it was silent.

Dallas gazed at Randall for a second with a faint, scornful smile. "Alive, eh? We'll see." He patted the atom-blast at his hip.

"Never saw nothin' dangerous yet that this couldn't put a hole through!" He exclaimed inelegantly.

"Hold on, Dallas!" The more prudent Scotty tried to dissuade him. "If that thing's radio-active, it may be deadly! We're not afraid of it, man ... but we don't know what it is."

"You boys stay and play the radio!" Dallas turned lightly on his feet for all his tremendous bulk and soon the airlock had hissed open and he was gone.

Both Scotty and Randall watched him half-fearful, half in admiration as he strode away from the cruiser. The luminous, iridescent sphere hovering over the rocks, whirled faster and faster as Dallas moved away from the ship. Rapidly the whirling accelerated until it was a pulsing vortex of exquisite hues of living light. Then, it began to move slowly forward toward the walking man.

In the macabre landscape of the planetoid, the rotund Dallas was not unlike a sphere himself, as gun in hand he unhesitatingly went forward to meet the globe. Calmly he aimed the atom-blast and suddenly there was a flash from the muzzle of the gun. But the flood of vicious atomic energy failed to harm the globe, on the contrary, it seemed to flame in a cataract of colors, flaming into living light. Then the fluorescent flare died down to normal again and the sphere stopped, motionless as if it were appraising Dallas.

In unfeigned wonder, the blimp-like Dallas Bernan stared at the globe. "A full charge from the blaster, and the damn thing takes it like a drink of milk!" he murmured audibly. Reaching over he picked up a good sized rock and threw it at the sphere. But the rock bounced back as if it had hit an impenetrable wall of energy. The globe was unharmed, it merely hung there quiescent now, as if observing the strange creature from another planet that had suddenly appeared.

Another rock followed the first, then another and another, until rocks were flying in every direction as they rebounded from the globe. And Dallas began to laugh! To his matter-of-fact mind, the sphere was merely a bunch of radio-active gas that repelled matter of certain types like the stones he had thrown, and was drawn by organic matter. A bunch of gas! He roared. And the globe was retreating, floating backwards effortlessly, whirling faster and faster, until as Dallas flung a final rock it darted upward and swiftly disappeared down the great valley. As Dallas turned to go back to the cruiser, a flicker of movement caught his eye. Instantly he aimed his atom-blast, but as quickly lowered, and a joyous expression came into his vast face.

Clambering down the tumbled rocks and boulders just ahead of the spacer, Captain Brooke and Tom Jeffery were hurrying toward him, the latter carrying the insulated leadite specimen box.

"Hiya, Captain! We just laid a ghost. See our pretty company?" Dallas roared with laughter.

"Yes, we saw it," Captain Brooke replied. "What was it? Looked like a transparent globe of some sort. Radioactive?"

"Naw! Just a bunch of gas!" Dallas explained.

"Well, we have another kind of company ... about twenty miles from here," Dennis said grimly. "Get into the ship, we're holding a conference, Dallas."

* * * * *

Seated in the small dining-room of the cruiser, the entire crew listened to the Captain's report on their trip, while Scotty brewed coffee skillfully and cocked his ears to the narrative. Tom laid the leadite specimen box on the table without a word, then sat back.

"I'll cut corners on this," he began. "Because we have a lot to do, and a very short time to do it in. Approximately twenty miles westwards, there's a cavern that runs through the crags around us. Jeffery and I started to explore it, but fortunately stopped just in time. It happens that Koerber and his thugs have landed on the other side of the crags. This cave is filled with some sort of radio-active mineral, unfortunately, the main deposits are at the other end of the cavern system, and Koerber and his gang are already in possession! He must have crashed there. Pity the situation is not reversed, we'd have ample fuel then!"

"But, Captain," Randall spoke impulsively, "why can't we get some of the mineral from this end of the cavern and blast off this awful place?"

Dallas gave the youngster a look of withering disgust from across the table.

"No good," Tom Jeffery answered for the Captain without looking at Randall. "The stuff at this end's mostly rubble; we had to dig the better part of an hour to find a piece rich enough to use." He pointed to the leadite box.

"The plan is simplicity itself," Captain Brooke continued. "We'll use this specimen for fuel to zoom over the crags and attack Koerber ... we've got to take possession of the other end of the cave. Without sufficient fuel, we can't fight Koerber to a finish, and I intend to go into that black cruiser of his if I have to crack it open like a Venusian palm-nut!"

Dallas and Scotty's eyes glowed. "Any time you say, Captain!" the latter said eagerly. "Cruiser's hull's finished but for a few minor touches. Just give the word!"