Chapter III

The pilot was actually a Neptunian. But a beautifully made synthetic skin served him as an undetectable protection against both heat and gravity ... made him, to all appearances, an Inner-Worldian. Timmy was amazed. These Neptunians were _surgeons_ ... and thermal engineers.

"This way," motioned the Neptunian, and drew in a vast breath of Neptune's methane atmosphere. His chest swelled until its minute scales seemed on the verge of separating. Man-like in height and size, his adaptation to a terrible gravity had made him a creature of steel-hard sinew and muscle. Thurner, or whatever his proper name might be, was almost as solid and several inches taller. No wonder he could consume Callistonian whisky by the quart and still navigate a ship successfully.

They walked across the plain, dropped downward into a slit-like canyon. Ahead of them lay a fortress whose only decoration was the simple symbol of the Tsom clan. Its walls bristled with blast guns, but closer examination showed Timmy that they were all of an obsolete pattern. Methane had clogged their rifling and made them utterly useless.

"These aren't used," said their guide. "Just there to frighten away lower forms of life. Watch!" He flicked a switch, and the wall's outer surface raised to reveal a vast network of grids. "Heat grids," he explained. "Perfect defense against the other clans."

"But we don't need defence," added Thurner. "Neptune is a united planet now."

The gates swung wide, and Timmy, with an empty feeling, walked in. Johnny Damokles followed. His antiquarian interests still shielding him from the horror of their situation.

The council chamber, holy-of-holies, audience room, or whatever the Neptunians called it, was perhaps the most impressive place either Timmy Gordon or Johnny Damokles had ever entered.

Black rock lined the walls and seemed one with the primeval essence of absolute cold. Atmosphere, at 17 G's, pressed hard against them, barely repelled by their space suits. The Neptunian turned. "If this," he said, "were a nightmare, I'd order you to kneel and worship at the feet of the Clan Tsom's god."

"Why not?" Timmy's belligerent Irish chin thrust out.

"Because, my dear guests, we have advanced considerably beyond such idle superstitions. Neptune, and the Tsoms, are the perfection of true civilization. We _know_ there are no gods. We are neither concerned with ritual nor rank. Here, all are equal, under my _leadership_."

"Interesting," commented Timmy. "I seem to have heard it before."

Johnny Damokles nodded. "She are wonderfuls idea ... but gods is dam' important fellers. So is old time's history."

The Neptunian looked at him. "What," he asked Thurner, "is this? Some primitive?"

"A Greek," the pilot explained. "Sticks to the old beliefs and the old ways of Terra."

Those nictitating lids nicked up. "Then ... he's of no use to us."

"He'll do for raw material." Thurner shoved the little Greek to the floor, "Use him for Extract 47-a. Humanizing fluid."

The Neptunian shuddered. "The thought," he said, "of treating another of our people with that semi-humanizing element is repulsive. But sacrifice in the interest of conquest is needed. We must have more Neptunians capable of resisting higher temperatures and lower gravities."

Thurner grinned. "Precisely," he said. He turned to Timmy, and judged him as a man might judge a Percheron stallion. "This one is too lean."

The Leader nodded. "Our dear guest will be of use in research and mechanics. We might even grant him certain liberties."

Timmy glared at the monster, hating that assumed tolerance, then spat with deliberation on the floor. "Try to use me," he grunted.

* * * * *

"_A challenge?_" The Leader pressed a button. A bell rang, and two squat Neptunians glided into the chamber. There was a burble and a hissed command. The Neptunians retreated, then returned dragging a small box behind them. Its wires were a tangle maze of tentacles. Icy cold exuded from it, to chill the two Callistonians even through their heavily-heated space suits. The Leader barked an order. Timmy found himself flat on his back with a Neptunian servant pressing the face-plate of his suit down hard. There was a little whirl of power. Agonies unimaginable shot through every nerve of his skull. He screamed. Restraint was impossible. The pain eased.

"You see!" said the Neptunian, "that treatment does no harm to nerves or tissues, and actually prolongs life."

Timmy looked past the grinning faces of his tormenters and fixed his glare on the reptilian Leader. "Try again," he said. "I'm still tough."

The pain came back. It spun through skull and brain like a biting buzz-saw. Timmy gritted his teeth, then again came the inevitable scream. He wanted to faint. He prayed for death. But that buzzing pain was an elixir ... a stimulating and eternal torment. Timmy's hands thumped hard against the floor. His feet jerked, his spine arched, and he screamed again and again in a great crescendo. The pain eased.

"Could you stand that," said the grinning Neptunian, "for a lifetime?"

"_No!_"

"Then I warn you, the next time we apply it, you'll be alone in a dark room ... with a time clock on the door set for a one-week period. No one will enter. No one can stop the _treatment_. Will you cooperate?"

"Within limits."

"That's for me to judge. Give me the figures on how you managed to create that ship of yours."

"That's agreeable. You could take them anyhow." Timmy reached into a pocket of his space suit. He pulled out a bundle of papers and handed them to the Leader. "I warn you," he added, "they won't work." Then he swore at himself for saying that. If, by ingenuity, he could manage to convince the Neptunians that his ship would work, he might waste a lot of their time in research and give the Inner Worlds time to find out what was happening. "I might manage to make one work at that," he added swiftly.

The Neptunian scanned the papers. "No," he said, "this report of your scientific laboratories is definitely conclusive. I can see that you've done everything possible. The ship you have, or _had_, is a freak. But you're an expert in mechanics and photography. We'll put you in the research labs. Your friend can go with you until we need him."

The Neptunian cast one final look at the two captives, smiled, and walked away. Thurner jerked his head at an inner door. "Come on," he ordered. "Your quarters will be near the labs." He led them down a succession of corridors to a room where temperature and gravity stood at Earth-norm, and Callisto constant. "You can do without those suits," he said, and shut the door.

Timmy and Damokles looked around. The room was lighted quite brightly. A window gave onto the plain. Above them, Triton whirled its endless mad dance, speeding across the sky in the opposite direction of the planet's rotation. Timmy watched it. Here and there in the dark sky, synthetic power-moons hovered to steal energy from the cosmos.

"They gonna feed us, anyhows," said Johnny Damokles, and turned on the faucet of a food conveyor. Hot, spicy-scented edibles poured forth, but Timmy wasn't interested. Not far from them, half-lost in the gray light, two giant semi-globes towered heavenwards. Tim stared at them. Apparently the Neptunians were building another power-moon to add to that whirling band above. He watched as squat figures moved up and down its side, then walked from the window in a fog. Damokles tried to engage him in conversation, but Timmy was too defeated. He fell asleep.

* * * * *

Morning dawned swiftly because of the giant planet's rapid rotation. Seven hours of total blackness were then followed by a _day_ ... but a day in name only. The sun out here had only one one-thousandth of its Earthian strength. For human purposes, it was useless. Timmy was standing by the window when the door swung open. Thurner stood on the threshold.

"Come on," he ordered, "your job is ready." He looked at Johnny Damokles. "Might as well use you, too. Get into your space suit." The little Greek obeyed.

The next seven hours passed as a nightmare for Timmy. For Johnny, working outside as a slave on the power-moon, they must have been pure hell.

Timmy returned to their room that evening to find a tired little Greek sprawled on the couch. "Work you hard, chum?"

Damokles groaned. A livid weal ran down the side of his face, where a blow had slammed his head about in his helmet. "We get these Neptune bums ... Timmy," he said.

"Sure thing, pal. But how?"

The Greek shrugged his shoulders. "They guards you close?"

"No ... but we couldn't get away without the ship."

"Yeah." Damokles' chin dropped on his chest. "I guess we gives up." But despite the Greek's apparent despair, he had an idea of some sort. Timmy Gordon knew it, but he also knew that Johnny was afraid to talk about it in a room where sound detectors might pick up any hint of escape. "Let's go to sleep, Johnny," he said.

"Yeah ... you stay your side of bed, too. Last night you kick me blacks and blue in rib."

Which was distinctly untrue.

But if that was the way Johnny wanted things ... it was distinctly QX with Timmy Gordon. He stretched himself on the narrow couch beside Johnny. For twenty minutes he seemed to doze, then began kicking about fretfully, and muttering as though in the clutch of a nightmare.

"That's right, Timmy," the little Greek whispered. "Keep her going. You kicks hard ... yells ... them spies are too busy watching you. I can talks."

Timmy's reply was another boot to Johnny's shin. "Go on," he whispered, then kicked again.

"Remember what I say to you in ships?"

"About what?"

"About fool gods Neptune ... cataltickic agents ... Aristotle."

"Yes."

"Maybe I are right."

"So what?"

"Maybe if impervium get soaked on Neptune long enough ... then maybes it behave like metal in your ship?"

"Go on." Timmy groaned, thrashed about. Threw a fist that thudded into Johnny's ribs. The Greek grunted, and resumed his whispering.

"They puts me working on power-moons outside."

"Yes?"

"She are mades from metal of wrecked space-liner. I see one plate who say XC-34 on her."

"Great Jupiter, Johnny! That's the liner I got the metal for my ship from ... just one fin was all I had to work with."

"Shut up! Dam' fools. Want him Neptune stinkers hear you?"

Instead of answering, Timmy grunted in his supposed sleep. Damokles whispered on: "They don't guards me! They make me be dam' fool clowns for Neptuners to laugh at. 'Get sky hook! Get bucket steam-ice!' That's what them lizards-men holler at me."

"Yes?"

"Then ... _cracks_! Hit Greek with fist. Don't like."

"Skip it, Johnny. What's your idea?"

"I hear them say ... artificial power moon ain't gonna be that at all. Gonna be giant bomb. Gonna load with tons an' tons an' tons of _dynotron_. Shoot him to Jupiter ... blow all air off everythings!"

"Good lord! Dynotron would do just that ... and then they'll repeat the procedure."

"Is right! I hear lizard-pig say just that!"

"How do you figure on stopping 'em, Johnny?"

Damokles wriggled, poked Timmy hard with his elbow. "Lay still!" he shouted. "I can no sleeps!" He butted up against Timmy, and began to whisper in fast chaotic broken murmurs. "I got a long story to tells you, Timmy. All about powerful old Greeks' king."

For half an hour they trashed about, while Damokles unfolded his plan. At last, Timmy grunted. "QX," he said. "Can do!" He rolled over and fell into an extremely troubled sleep.