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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 58688 ***
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+                           Jungle in the Sky
+
+                           By Milton Lesser
+
+             _The hunters wanted animals that lived on far
+   Ganymede--though not as badly as the animals wanted the hunters._
+
+[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science
+Fiction, May 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
+the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
+
+
+The big man looked at home among his trophies. Somehow his scowl seemed
+as fierce as the head of the Venusian swamp-tiger mounted on the wall
+behind him, and there was something about his quick-darting eyes which
+reminded Steve of a Callistan fire-lizard. The big man might have been
+all of them wrapped into one, Steve thought wryly, and there were a lot
+of trophies.
+
+[Illustration: _The big man looked at home among his trophies._]
+
+He was the famous Brody Carmical, and rumor had it he was worth a
+million credits for each of the many richly mounted heads.
+
+"So you're fresh out of school with a degree in Extra-terrestrial
+zoology," Carmical grumbled. "Am I supposed to turn cartwheels?"
+
+Steve cleared his throat. "The Placement Service thought you might have
+a job--"
+
+"I do, I do. That doesn't mean any young pup who comes along can fill
+it. Ever been off the Earth, Mr. Stedman?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Ever been off the North American continent?"
+
+"No."
+
+"But you want to go galavanting around the Solar System in search of
+big game. Tell me--do you think they have a Harvard club on every
+stinking satellite you'll visit? Do you think you can eat beefsteak
+and drink martinis in every frontier-world dive? Let me tell you, Mr.
+Stedman, the answer is no."
+
+"Try me, sir. That's all I ask--try me."
+
+"We're not running a school, Mr. Stedman. Either a man's got it or
+he hasn't. You haven't. Come back in ten years. Ship out around the
+Solar System the hard way, and maybe we can use you then--if you still
+remember what you learned about Extra-terrestrial zoology. What in
+space ever made you study extra-zoo, anyway?"
+
+"I found it interesting," Steve said lamely.
+
+"Interesting? As a hobby, it's interesting. But as business, it's
+hard work, a lot of sweat, a lot of danger, squirming around on your
+soft belly in the muck and mud of a dozen worlds, that's what it is.
+Just how do you think Carmical Enterprises got where they are? Sweat
+and grief, Mr. Stedman." Carmical yawned hugely and popped a glob of
+chocolate into his mouth. His fat lips worked for a moment, then his
+Adam's apple bobbed up and down.
+
+Steve got up, paced back and forth in front of the desk. "I won't take
+no for an answer, Mr. Carmical."
+
+"Eh? What's that? I could have you thrown out of here."
+
+"You won't," Steve told him calmly. "Maybe I'm just what the doctor
+ordered, but you'll never know until you try me. So--"
+
+"So nothing! I said this isn't a school."
+
+"They tell me the _Gordak_ leaves on a ten-world junket tomorrow. All I
+ask is this: let me ship along as the zoology man. Then, if you're not
+satisfied, you can leave me at your first port-of-call--without pay."
+
+Carmical smiled triumphantly. "You know where we space out for first,
+Mr. Stedman? Mercury, that's where. I'd love to see a sassy young pup
+like you set loose on Mercury in one of the Twilight Cities."
+
+"Is it a deal?"
+
+"It sure is, Stedman. It sure is! But I warn you, we'll expect
+perfection. You'll not have a chance to profit from your own mistakes.
+You won't have a chance to make mistakes. One slip and you've had it,
+is that understood?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I'm not going, of course," Carmical said, patting his great paunch and
+saying with the action that he was too old and too fat for space. "But
+I'll hear all about the way you were stranded on Mercury, among a lot
+of Merkies and--"
+
+Steve smiled grimly, said: "No you won't. Next time you see me will be
+after the ten-world junket. Whom do I ask for on the _Gordak_?"
+
+Carmical dialed for a bromo, watched it fizz in the glass, drank it,
+belched. "T. J. Moore's in charge," he told Steve. "Old T. J.'s a
+mighty rough taskmaster, Stedman. Don't say you weren't warned."
+
+"Thanks."
+
+"Well, I'll hear about how you were stranded on Mercury," Carmical
+predicted.
+
+"You'll see me after the ten-world junket," said Steve, and closed the
+door softly behind him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Pit-monkeys scurried about the great jet-slagged underside of the
+_Gordak_, spraying fresh zircalloy in the aft tubes. Spaceport officers
+were everywhere in their crisp white uniforms, checking cargo, giving
+terse directives to the crew of the _Gordak_, lounging importantly at
+the foot of the gangplank.
+
+"Name?" one of them snapped at Steve.
+
+"Stedman."
+
+The man flipped through a list of the expedition's members. "Stedman,
+huh? I don't see--oh, here it is, in pencil at the bottom. Last minute
+addition, huh, Stedman?"
+
+"Something like that," Steve admitted.
+
+"Well, climb aboard."
+
+And then Steve was walking up the gangplank and into the cool metal
+interior of the _Gordak_. His palms were clammy, and he wondered if any
+of the crewmen within the ship noticed the sweat beading his forehead.
+He'd managed to come this far with a surprising degree of objectivity,
+and only now did reaction set in, causing his heart to beat fiercely
+and his limbs to grow weak. _That T. J. Moore must have been spawned
+in hell_, Charlie had said--and now Charlie was dead. Because of T. J.
+Moore? Indirectly, perhaps, but T. J. Moore was responsible. Or, if you
+looked at it on a different level, the cut-throat competition between
+_Carmical Enterprises_ and _Barling Brothers Interplanetary_ was to
+blame. It didn't matter, not really. Charlie was dead. That alone
+mattered.
+
+A big man with incredibly broad shoulders, hair the color of flame and
+a florid face to match it, came stalking down the companionway. Steve
+said, "I wonder if you know where I can find T. J. Moore."
+
+The giant smiled. "You crew or expedition?"
+
+"Expedition," said Steve, extending his hand: "Steve Stedman's my name."
+
+The hand that gripped his was hard and calloused. "I'm Kevin McGann,
+boy. Sort of a liaison man between the crew and the expedition, only
+they call me the Exec to make everything official. Better take some
+advice--don't look for T. J. now. T. J.'s busy doing last minute
+things, and T. J. hates to be disturbed. Why don't you wait till after
+_Brennschluss_, when we're out in space?"
+
+"It can't wait. I've got to see that Moore knows I'm aboard and under
+what conditions, because I don't want to be thrown off this ship at the
+space-station. If Moore doesn't like the conditions, Mr. Carmical can
+be called. But after we blast off it'll be too late."
+
+Kevin McGann shrugged. "It's only advice I gave you, boy. You'll find
+T. J. down on the third level looking over the cargo holds. Good luck."
+And McGann took a pipe from his pocket, tamping it full, lighting it
+and staring with frank, speculative curiosity at Steve. "Stedman, eh?"
+he mused. "The name's familiar."
+
+"You think about it," said Steve, and made his way toward the third
+level. Perhaps some of them aboard the _Gordak_ had known Charlie, and
+McGann, being the Exec, must have been around a long time.
+
+The third was the lowest level of the _Gordak_, or that part of
+the ship nearest the tubes with the exception of the fission-room
+itself. Here on the third level were the cages which, in the months
+that followed, would hold the big game brought within the _Gordak_.
+But the word cage, Steve realized, can be misleading. A rectangular
+enclosure, its wall composed of evenly spaced bars--that's a cage.
+But the bubble-cages of the _Gordak_ were something else again;
+precisely as the name implied, they were huge bubbles of plastic,
+complete with remote-controlled airlocks. You could pump in any kind of
+atmosphere, from Jupiter's lethal methane-ammonia mixture to the thin,
+oxygen-starved air of Mars, and under any desired pressure, too.
+
+And now on the third level a battery of experts was busy checking the
+bubble-cages for defects, since a leak _after_ some noxious gas had
+been pumped into one of the bubbles could mean death for everyone
+aboard the _Gordak_. Steve stood there nervously for what seemed a long
+while. He let his gaze rove up and down the third level, but he only
+saw the coverall-clad technicians checking the bubble-cages. Kevin
+McGann had said he could find Moore here, but unless Moore zipped on
+a pair of coveralls himself and joined in the work--which certainly
+seemed unlikely--then Moore wasn't around.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Someone tapped Steve's shoulder. Startled, he whirled around. A woman
+stood there, just behind him, staring at him insolently. She was tall,
+as tall as Steve himself, with her close-cropped blond hair peeking out
+around the edges of a black cap. She wore what looked to Steve like a
+glossy black Martian sand-cape which she let fall straight down behind
+her so that it almost brushed the floor. Under it, she wore a brief
+pair of shorts, also black, and a halter. She was muscular in that
+lithe, feminine way which had grown so popular in the twenty-second
+century--the century which had finally seen women come abreast of men
+in all sporting activities and surpass them in some which required
+special grace and lithe-limbed skill.
+
+"I hope you found whatever you're looking for," she said. She spoke
+with a complete lack of warmth which startled Steve for the second time
+in a few moments.
+
+She was a beautiful woman, he realized, but she looked so completely
+incongruous among the coveralled men that Steve found himself whistling
+softly. "I never expected to find a girl here," he admitted. "Not on
+this expedition."
+
+"What's the matter, are you old fashioned? This is the twenty-second
+century, the enlightened century, remember? There's nothing a girl
+can't do if she sets her mind to it. A recent survey shows that
+forty-percent of the homemakers in the U.S.N.A. are men, sixty percent
+women. Okay, it's only logical that some of the remaining forty percent
+of females have some tough jobs, too."
+
+"I read the books of the feminist movement," Steve assured her. "But
+it's going to take a lot to convince me of that. Me and a lot of other
+people, I suspect."
+
+"Is that so, Mr. Smart-guy? Are you a member of the expedition?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, anytime you want to hustle down to the gym with me and go a few
+rounds, let me know."
+
+"Are you serious?"
+
+"Of course I'm serious."
+
+"Well," Steve said, deciding to change the subject and feeling utterly
+ridiculous about the whole conversation, "let's forget it. I was
+looking for T. J. Moore."
+
+The woman smiled coldly. "That's me. I'm T. J. What do you want?"
+
+"I--uh--_what_? You're T. J.? You--a girl?"
+
+"Will you please hurry with whatever you want to tell me? I haven't got
+all day."
+
+"My name's Stedman." Steve felt his composure returning. The fact that
+T. J. Moore was a woman didn't make any difference. But unconsciously,
+Steve regarded her as a member of the weaker sex, and a large chunk
+of her fearsome reputation vanished because of it. "I wonder, if Mr.
+Carmical contacted you--"
+
+"He sure did, Stedman."
+
+"Good, then we can--"
+
+"Maybe you think it's good. I think it stinks. Listen, Stedman, maybe
+you think you can pull the wool over my eyes like you did over Brody
+Carmical--but you can't. He didn't recognize your name, I did. No kid
+brother of Charlie Stedman's going to make trouble for me because he
+thinks I was responsible for his brother's death."
+
+"I didn't say--"
+
+"You didn't have to say. I can see it in your face. But get this
+straight, Stedman. Your brother died on Ganymede three years ago--of
+natural causes, that is, if you can call some of the local fauna
+'natural causes'. He worked for _Barling Brothers Interplanetary_, so
+I guess the rivalry between them and us didn't help. But no one killed
+him."
+
+"I didn't say--"
+
+"Is that all you can say, 'you didn't say?' Try to tell me why you came
+aboard the _Gordak_; go ahead, try."
+
+"I'm an expert in Extra-terrestrial zoology, and you needed one. Mr.
+Carmical hired me."
+
+"I know that. But I guess I also know a thing or two which Brody
+Carmical doesn't. All right, Stedman. You come as far as Mercury. But
+one slip, just one slip--"
+
+"Okay, T. J.," Steve said, almost jauntily. "I'll watch my step."
+
+"I'm the _Gordak_'s captain. You'll call me that. Captain--is it clear?"
+
+"No," said Steve, and laughed. The ten-world junket would be a hard,
+driving, gruelling ordeal come what might, and he wouldn't kowtow to T.
+J. Moore, male or female, here at the beginning. "No," he said again,
+forcing the laughter out. "This isn't a military ship, so you won't
+impose any arbitrary discipline on me."
+
+The woman laughed too, but it was more effective. "I won't, won't
+I? Once we leave Earth, Stedman, everything we do is dangerous.
+Everything. I've got to have full authority, every order obeyed at the
+drop of a hat. Understand?"
+
+"No."
+
+The woman removed the black cap from her head, and Steve noticed, not
+without surprise, that her pale blond hair wasn't close-cropped after
+all. It had been piled up inside the cap, and now it spilled down
+loosely about her shoulders. Smiling, she dropped the cap to the floor.
+"Pick it up," she said.
+
+"Are you kidding? I'm an expert on Extra-terrestrial zoology. That's
+what Mr. Carmical hired me for. If you want that hat picked up, better
+do it yourself." Vaguely, Steve wondered if Charlie had met the woman
+those final days on far Ganymede, had fought with her tooth and nail
+for some priceless specimen--and lost, with no witness but the bleak,
+desolate topography of the Jovian moon.
+
+The woman turned away from him, called: "LeClarc! LeClarc, come here."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One of the coveralled figures approached them, a thick-thewed man whose
+muscular strength couldn't be hidden by the baggy clothing. Not as tall
+as Steve or the woman, he was broad of shoulder and thick through the
+chest. He had a dark face and deep-set black eyes, and a thin scar ran
+the length of his right cheek, from eye to chin. "Yes, Captain?"
+
+"Stedman here is new. He questions my authority. I wondered if you'd
+like to work him over some--"
+
+"A pleasure," growled the stocky, gnarled Frenchman, and swung his
+right fist up in a quick, blurring motion.
+
+Steve didn't have time to parry it. The blow caught him flush on the
+mouth and jarred his teeth, sent him crashing back against the wall
+where he slid down slowly until he was sitting on the floor. Groggily,
+he got to his feet, wiping his bloody lips with the fingers of one
+hand. LeClarc, chuckling, hit him once more before he could quite pull
+himself together. The right hand slammed against his stomach this time,
+driving the wind from his lungs.
+
+He started to fall, but he clawed at LeClarc's middle as he went down,
+and held on. Still chuckling, LeClarc cuffed him about the ears almost
+playfully, but the open-palmed blows stung him and sent wild rage
+coursing through his blood. Clearly, that was the idea. LeClarc was
+enjoying himself--but LeClarc wanted him to fight back.
+
+Steve got a hand up in front of his body, palm up, and drove it against
+the Frenchman's chin. He felt the neck snap back sharply, heard the
+sudden click as LeClarc's teeth met with savage force. Bellowing,
+the Frenchman came at him again, fighting southpaw and bringing a
+roundhouse left from back behind his body.
+
+But Steve's wind had returned and now he sobbed air in great gulps. He
+ducked the wild swing and found the Frenchman wide-open, pounded lefts
+and rights to the man's midsection. LeClarc, stunned now, brought his
+guard down. Steve was in no hurry. He chased the dazed LeClarc around
+an ever-widening circle, was dimly aware that the other technicians had
+stopped their work to watch. He jabbed with his left hand, covering
+the olive face with purple welts. He held the right cocked but did
+not throw it. Soon, though, he could hear the other technicians--who
+probably liked a good brawl--muttering. The idea, as they saw it,
+wasn't to cut LeClarc up completely but instead, to win swiftly.
+
+Shrugging, Steve realized that the anger he felt for the woman had
+blinded him, and after that, he unleashed his right hand, felt the
+searing contact with LeClarc's jaw, saw a couple of teeth clatter off
+the wall as the Frenchman's mouth flew open. Sagging first at the
+knees, then the waist, LeClarc fell to the floor and huddled there
+inertly.
+
+Steve turned to the woman, spoke out of fast-swelling lips. "You're the
+Captain and I only work here, Teejay," he made the initials sound like
+a name. "So I'll take your orders--provided they make sense. That one
+about the cap didn't. If you want it picked up, you'd better stoop for
+it yourself."
+
+Not looking back, he climbed the stairs toward the second level, wiping
+his bloody lips with a handkerchief.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was Kevin McGann who showed him around the _Gordak_ after
+_Brennschluss_. Newton's second law of motion carried the ship forward
+through the near-vacuum of space now, and it would continue that way,
+plowing ahead at seven miles per second until it was caught and slowed
+by the space-station's gravity. There the bunkers would be reloaded
+with slow-fission plutonium for the long dash sunward to Mercury.
+
+" ... and through there you'll find the fission-room," Kevin was
+saying. "That's about the size of it, boy. But I warn you to keep away
+from the fission-room as long as that red light is blinking. Everything
+inside gets pretty hot, and there's enough radiation to kill an army
+unless the shields are up. Even then, I'd recommend a vac-suit."
+
+"I'll remember that," Steve said, lighting a cigarette.
+
+"Word gets around a ship like the _Gordak_ pretty fast. I didn't see
+your fight with LeClarc, but I sure heard enough about it. There's only
+one man aboard ship who can beat the Frenchman in a fair fight, and--"
+
+"You?" Steve wanted to know. But it was hardly a question. It looked to
+him like Kevin could take on two LeClarcs with no trouble at all.
+
+"Yes, boy. Me. But now there are two of us, and you've made yourself an
+enemy. LeClarc doesn't forget easy, so you'd better be on your guard."
+
+"I'll remember that, too," said Steve, laughing. "But it looks like you
+keep warning me about something all the time, Kevin. Why?"
+
+"You're Charlie Stedman's kid brother, aren't you?"
+
+"Yeah. Yeah, but how did--"
+
+"How did I know, boy? It's written all over your face, and Charlie may
+have been with _Barling Interplanetary_, but a lot of us knew him.
+Charlie was the best, boy."
+
+"Thanks. Kevin, how did Charlie die?"
+
+The giant shrugged eloquently. "I don't know. It was T. J. who found
+him out on Ganymede. She was out tracking an anthrovac, and you don't
+track anthrovacs in crowds. Well, it seems Charlie had landed for
+Barling, and Charlie had the same idea."
+
+"He never told me Teejay was a woman, but he said once she must have
+been reared in hell."
+
+Again, Kevin shrugged. "It's open to question, boy. I don't like T. J.,
+but I like working for her. You take a man like LeClarc, he'll die for
+T. J. All she'd have to do is ask him, and he'd die. You see, boy, big
+game hunters don't come any smarter. Trouble is, T. J. knows it and
+flaunts it. Also, she's a woman but she's strong as a man and knows
+that, too. She dares you to fight her every step of the way, and it
+takes a big man to--"
+
+"I thought you said Charlie was the best!"
+
+"And I still do. But a man's got to have some flaws. Maybe he couldn't
+take T. J. and had to let her know. The same thing happened to you,
+after only five minutes. The gals have won their spurs in every field
+which was strictly masculine a hundred years ago. Men tend to resent
+that, especially when a talented woman like T. J. let's them know it,
+and no bones about it. So, that's T. J."
+
+"Yeah," said Steve, frowning. "That's Teejay."
+
+"What's the trouble, boy?"
+
+"I've got to find out what happened to Charlie, that's all. But
+Teejay's going to be a problem."
+
+"The grandmother of all problems, you mean. With all of that, though,
+she can still be all female when she wants to be. Maybe Charlie fell
+for her--"
+
+"Charlie falling for that cheap, no good--"
+
+"Careful, boy. She's my Captain, and a good one. I wouldn't ship out on
+the _Gordak_ if I didn't think so. Careful." Then Kevin smiled. "You'll
+learn, in time. Anyway, Charlie was a good-looker and attractive to the
+girls, he was romantic--so maybe T. J. fell for him, too. Then they had
+a parting of the ways and--"
+
+"Sure!" Steve exploded. "Sure, they fell in love or something only
+Charlie forgot to mention in any of his letters she was a woman. You're
+barking up the wrong tree, Kevin."
+
+"Maybe. Maybe not. I'm only talking off the top of my head, boy. But
+it's worth considering." Kevin jabbed a thick finger against his
+calloused palm. "What I'm getting at is this, whether they made love or
+not, I don't think T. J. would kill anyone out of cold blood."
+
+"I'll think about it," said Steve, and then a whistle shrilled through
+the length of the ship. They were nearing the space-station, half as
+far from Earth as Luna, and deceleration came upon them gradually
+and would continue to increase until they all had to bed down in the
+accel-hammocks for landing.
+
+Unexpectedly, Teejay herself was checking in the members of the
+expedition as their two-hour stop over at the station drew to an end.
+As he approached her along the gangplank, Steve looked down and saw the
+station-men wheeling the small but tremendously heavy plutonium bunkers
+under the ship, each compact unit weighing a couple of tons with its
+concrete shielding.
+
+"Well, Stedman," said the woman, the broad black sand-cape wrapped
+around her completely now, as if only the members of her crew had the
+right to see what lay beneath it, "I see you've never watched a ship
+getting ready for blast off."
+
+"That's right," Steve admitted. "First trip out."
+
+"You want some pretty sound advice? I'd suggest you stay here at the
+station and wait for the first Earthbound ship."
+
+"Thanks," said Steve. "But Mr. Carmical hired me at least as far as
+Mercury, so that's where I'm going."
+
+Teejay grinned. "You're a plucky kid, Stedman. All right, Mercury it
+is--but LeClarc can do the honors when it's time to see you off the
+_Gordak_ for good. He doesn't exactly like you, Stedman."
+
+"I've been told that."
+
+"All right, move along. There's a whole line of men I've got to check
+in behind you."
+
+A plucky kid, Steve thought, and laughed. She'd called him that,
+although he knew she'd probably have a hard time matching his
+twenty-five years. Well, she'd spent her life in space and on the
+frontier worlds. Maybe that did make a difference.
+
+Five minutes later, they blasted clear of the space-station on an orbit
+that would intersect the Mercurian ellipse at perihelion. From there,
+the _Gordak_ would visit Venus, Mars, the planetoid Ceres, the four
+large Jovian moons, Titan and Uranus. Ten worlds in all the hunters
+would touch on--and each world would offer up its native fauna for the
+_Brody Carmical Circus_. Steve wondered if there'd be trouble with
+_Barling Brothers Interplanetary_. There generally was. But then he
+smiled without mirth, for the chances were he'd never get beyond the
+first landing on Mercury, anyway.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There were fifty men in the _Gordak_'s crew and another thirty-odd in
+the expedition, and a space ship being the complicated, labyrinthine
+device that it is, it wasn't too strange that Steve failed to
+encounter LeClarc until immediately before landing on Mercury. Then
+the _Gordak_'s deceleration tubes had cut in and Steve found the most
+readily available accel-hammock in the general lounge. The Frenchman
+was stretched out on the cushions three feet from him.
+
+LeClarc said, "This will be a terrible, hot place."
+
+"I know. At perihelion, Mercury's not much more than thirty million
+miles from the sun." If the Frenchman wanted to bury the hatchet, fine.
+
+LeClarc strained to raise himself on his elbows against the increasing
+deceleration. "Sure," he said, "a hot place. After you foul up,
+Stedman, my vote will be to leave you on the hot side instead of giving
+you passage to the twilight zone."
+
+The Frenchman was being illogical and pointlessly childish. "I didn't
+ask you to fight with me," Steve told him. "Why don't we forget all
+about it?"
+
+"If you want to, forget. I, LeClarc, never forget."
+
+"By space, LeClarc--" the voice came from the other side of the lounge
+"--then you're a spoiled little child." It was the big Exec officer who
+spoke, Kevin McGann.
+
+LeClarc did not answer. Kevin winked at Steve, then set his face grimly
+against the bone-crushing deceleration. Fifteen minutes later, they
+landed at Furnacetown. The names of the new frontier settlements,
+Steve thought with a grin, were as picturesque as the names of the old
+Wild West towns.
+
+There was a huge, priceless matrix of ruby far below the surface near
+Furnacetown, and the frontier settlement existed to mine from it. But
+the place was named aptly, for here on the hot side of Mercury, the
+temperature was hot enough to melt tin and lead. A community of half a
+thousand hearty souls, Furnacetown shielded itself from the swollen,
+never-setting sun with a vacuum-insulated dome and a hundred million
+credits worth of cooling equipment. Even so, the atmosphere within the
+dome was a lot like New Orleans on a sultry summer day.
+
+The mayor of the town, a man named Powlaski, met them at the landing
+field. "It's hot," said Teejay, offering her hand and shaking with the
+plump official, man-fashion.
+
+"It's always hot, Captain Moore. At any rate, be happy that you've
+beaten Barling here this time."
+
+"Oh, did we? Good. We'll need three asbestos suits, Powlaski. I never
+did trust plain vac-suits on the sunward side of this boiling mess of a
+planet. Say, has anyone got a cool drink? I'm roasting."
+
+Someone wheeled out a portable refrigerator and the synthetic
+gin-and-orange stored therein tasted to Steve's thirsty lips almost
+like the real thing. Then LeClarc, who had ventured into one of the
+squat buildings with Powlaski's lieutenant, a middle-aged woman,
+returned with three heavy asbestos suits draped ponderously over his
+arm. Their combined weight was perhaps two hundred pounds, but it
+became negligible under Mercury's weak gravity.
+
+"We're ready," he said, extending one of the suits to Teejay and
+helping her slip it on over her shorts and halter. This was the first
+time that Steve had ever seen her without the black cape, which seemed
+a sort of affected trade-mark.
+
+"Three suits?" Steve demanded. "What for?"
+
+"The third one's for you, Stedman," the woman told him. "I know your
+job is to see that the game stays alive in our bubble-cages, but I
+don't think it would hurt if you had a look-see at the stone worm in
+its own environment."
+
+"That's not what I meant," Steve told her. "Why LeClarc?"
+
+Teejay shrugged, zipping up the suit. "Because I said so, that's why.
+Also, LeClarc's something of an expert on the inner planets and he goes
+wherever I do, anyway."
+
+"Sort of a bodyguard," the Frenchman purred, strapping a neutron gun to
+the belt of his asbestos suit. "Hey, who's got those helmets?"
+
+And then Steve felt them slipping the thick, clumsy helmet over his
+head. Kevin stood nearby and the Exec looked like he wanted to say
+something, but Steve's helmet had snapped into place and from that
+point he could only talk by radio--and over the crackling interference
+of the swollen sun, at that.
+
+Moments later, he'd stepped through an airlock at the side of the
+Furnacetown dome and plodded out on the surface of Mercury.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On Venus there was the thick, soupy atmosphere and the verdant tropical
+jungles. On Mars, the rusty desert and the ruins of an eon-old
+civilization. But on Mercury you knew at once that you trod upon an
+alien world. At perihelion, the sun swelled to almost four times its
+size as seen from Earth, and because Mercury's tenuous atmosphere had
+boiled off into space half a billion years ago, the sky was black. The
+sun had lost its spherical shape, too. Great solar prominences licked
+out at the blackness, and the visible corona seemed to swell and pulse.
+
+Underfoot, Steve could feel the crunchy ground powdering beneath
+his asbestos boots with every step. And far off toward the horizon,
+a jagged ridge of blood-red mountains bit at the black sky like
+festering, toothless gums.
+
+Before long, Teejay's voice sang in Steve's earphones. "Over here,
+you boys." And Steve could see her crouching, shapeless in the loose
+asbestos suit, off to his left. The sun's heat had parched a long,
+snaking crack in the surface and Steve lumbered over to it clumsily,
+letting his shadow fall across the crevice. "Those stone worms are
+umbra-tropic," he called, and waited.
+
+"I don't wonder," said Teejay, looking up at the sun through the smoked
+goggles of her helmet.
+
+The stone worms, Steve knew, were attracted by darkness--hence they
+generally dwelled in the deepest crevices, although a man's shadow
+might bring them to the surface. He'd never seen a stone worm, but he'd
+read about them and seen their pictures.
+
+"You'll see something very unlovely," Teejay predicated. "The stone
+worm isn't a carbon-basic animal, but a silicate creature with a
+sodium-silicon-nitrogen economy. It's about four feet long and kind of
+like some ghastly white slug. It--hey, Stedman, get on your toes!"
+
+The worm was coming.
+
+It poked its head up out of the crevice first, and then the slug-like
+body followed, curling quite instinctively until the whole thing lay
+in Steve's shadow. Four feet long and a foot across at the middle, it
+looked like the product of nightmare. The head was one huge, lidless,
+glassy eye--with a purple-lipped mouth where the pupil should have
+been! The mouth opened and shut like that of a fish, but when Steve
+lifted the monster by its middle and brought it out into the sun,
+the lips puckered completely shut and the white slug began to thrash
+dangerously.
+
+But under the influence of the sun's heat it soon subsided. Trouble
+was, Steve thought vaguely as they made their way back toward
+Furnacetown with the quiescent monster, the sun's heat did not subside.
+Probably, it was his imagination, but the sun had seemed to become, if
+anything, stronger. He looked at the others, but they merely walked
+forward, completely unconcerned. Maybe he'd tired himself subduing the
+stone worm, for he knew that might seem to intensify the heat.
+
+Inside his asbestos suit, Steve began to sweat. It did not start
+slowly, but all at once the perspiration streamed down his face and
+body.
+
+It was then that his left leg began to burn. Down below the knee it
+was, a knife-edged burning sensation which became worse with each
+passing second. Someone had heated a knife white-hot, had applied its
+sharp point to the nerve-endings of his leg--and then twisted. It felt
+like that.
+
+Screaming hoarsely, Steve fell, watched through burning eyes as the
+stone worm commenced crawling laboriously away. It was LeClarc who went
+after the worm and retrieved it, but Teejay knelt at Steve's side and,
+surprisingly, real concern was in her voice when it came over the radio.
+
+"What's the trouble, Stedman?"
+
+"I don't know," Steve gritted. "I'm hot all over--and my leg feels like
+it's on fire. Yeah, right there--ow!--go easy!"
+
+Teejay frowned or at least Steve guessed she frowned by the way she
+spoke. "There's nothing much we can do about it, Stedman. Seems to be a
+hole--just a pinprick, but a hole--in the asbestos. It's a wonder you
+weren't screaming bloody murder before this. How's the air?"
+
+It _was_ getting hard to breathe, Steve realized, but dimly, for his
+senses were receding into a fog of half-consciousness. Something hissed
+in his ears and he knew Teejay had turned the outside dial of his
+air-pump all the way over. It made him feel momentarily better, but the
+pain still cut into his leg.
+
+"I've got the worm," said LeClarc. "But what happened to him?" He
+asked the question innocently--too innocently.
+
+Teejay didn't answer. Instead: "Can you walk, Stedman?"
+
+"I--I don't think so."
+
+"Then I'll carry you. But remember this: if we get you back all right,
+you can thank the twenty-second century feminist movement. Can you
+picture an old-fashioned gal slinging a man over her shoulder and
+toting him away to safety like a sack of grain? Here we go."
+
+And she got her arms under Steve's shoulder, tugging him upright and
+swinging him across her back in a fireman's carry. He felt in no mood
+to question her motive, but he could sense the triumph in her as if she
+had said, "See, I'm as strong as a man, and don't you forget it."
+
+In spite of himself, he couldn't help responding to the unspoken
+challenge. "Sure," he said, "I can thank the feminist movement, but
+more than that I can thank Mercury's light gravity, Teejay. We're lucky
+I don't weigh more than fifty pounds here."
+
+An hour later they arrived back at Furnacetown, but by then Steve was
+unconscious from the pain.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"How are you feeling, boy?" It was Kevin McGann, the battered, unlit
+pipe clamped tightly between his teeth as he spoke.
+
+Steve sat propped up in a bed in the _Gordak_'s infirmary, his left leg
+wrapped in bandages from knee to ankle. "Pretty good, I guess. Kind of
+weak, but there's no pain."
+
+"You're lucky the Captain got you back here in time. Four inches of
+your calf was cooked third degree, but she carried you back here
+soon enough to cut it away before deep decomposition, and spray on
+syntheplasm. You'll be as good as new in a week, and no scar, either.
+Thanks to the Captain, boy."
+
+"Yeah," Steve admitted. "Sure. But what I want to know is this: how did
+it happen?"
+
+Kevin shrugged his massive shoulders. "I won't make any accusations,
+boy, not without positive proof. But I took the liberty to examine
+your suit, and it looked to me like someone had punctured a small hole
+almost all the way through. The heat did the rest."
+
+"You mean LeClarc?"
+
+"I never said that. But LeClarc was the one who got the suits, so
+he--more than anyone--was in a position to do something like that.
+Further than that I won't carry it. This is not an accusation."
+
+"Suits me," Steve told him. "And thanks, Kevin. But after this,
+Frenchie had better watch his step. Are we out in space again?"
+
+"Yes. Passed _Brennschluss_ forty-eight hours ago."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Sure. They had you doped up for two days, till the syntheplasm had a
+chance to set."
+
+"How soon can I get out of bed?"
+
+"Depends. If you don't mind hobbling around on crutches, today
+probably. If you want to wait till you can walk, four or five days.
+What's your hurry, boy?"
+
+"I've got to take care of that stone worm, remember?"
+
+"Say, that's right! No one knew what to do, so they suspended it in a
+deep freeze until you could go to work. A hideous brute, I might add."
+
+"Will you ask the doctor to give me some crutches? Swell. First,
+though, I'd like a good meal. And listen, Kevin--I guess Teejay saved
+my life, at that. Want to tell her I'd like to see her?"
+
+"Of course," said Kevin, and left the white-walled infirmary, grinning
+from ear to ear.
+
+By the time Teejay arrived, Steve was eating his first solid meal
+in two days. "Hello," he said. He almost found himself adding,
+"Captain"--but he checked the impulse just in time.
+
+"McGann tells me you're ready to get to work today."
+
+"That's right."
+
+"Good. That stone worm won't stay in ice indefinitely--not when it
+lives on the sun-side of Mercury."
+
+"Teejay, I want to--well, I want to thank you for saving my life."
+
+The woman opened her cape, reached inside, took a pack of cigarettes
+from an inside pocket and puffed on one until it glowed. "Don't thank
+me," she said coolly. "It really isn't necessary. You're the only
+extra-zoo man aboard, Stedman, so we needed you. I'd have saved a
+valuable machine under the same circumstances."
+
+"Well, thanks anyway."
+
+"There's one thing more, Stedman. As far as I'm concerned, you haven't
+proven yourself yet. So the same conditions apply to our next landing
+point."
+
+"Where's that?"
+
+"Venus, of course. Do you think I want to play hop-scotch all over the
+Solar System? Well, you finish your meal and give that stone worm a
+nice comfortable bubble to live in." And Teejay departed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Later, after he'd evacuated the air from one of the bubble-cages
+and increased the temperature to seven hundred degrees Fahrenheit,
+after he'd supervised a slow warming process for the worm and seen it
+deposited, still drowsy, in the bubble with sufficient quantities of
+silicon-compounds to keep it well fed, Steve hobbled with his crutches
+to the general lounge. Teejay sat there with half a dozen of the
+Venusian experts, for the hunt would be much more protracted on that
+teeming jungle-world. The woman stood up at once and crossed the floor
+to Steve. "How's the worm?"
+
+"Fine." He always felt a little edgy and on his guard when the woman
+spoke to him.
+
+"And how's the extra-zoo expert's bum leg?"
+
+"Coming along, I think."
+
+Teejay turned to the six men seated around the lounge, said: "This
+is Steve Stedman, our extra-zoo man--at least temporarily. Stedman,
+Phillips knows more about amphibians than any man alive, Ianello is our
+arboreal expert, Smith ferrets out the cave-dwelling mammals--we hope,
+Waneki goes floundering around after sea-monsters, St. Clair is--"
+
+Then something buzzed shrilly on the adjacent wall, and Teejay flipped
+a toggle switch. "Captain here."
+
+"Radio from Earth, Captain. Mr. Brody Carmical himself."
+
+"Is that so?" said Teejay, her eyebrows lifting. "Give me a circuit."
+And, a moment later, "What's the trouble, Brody?"
+
+The big man's voice came through faint and metallic over more than
+fifty million miles of space. "Plenty, T. J., Barling decided to start
+in the middle this year. Some of our--er, contacts told us his ship's
+rocketing for Ganymede, and fast. You'll have to get there first if you
+can, naturally."
+
+"We'll get there," said Teejay, quite grim, and cut the connection.
+
+Steve had time to think one thought before he was swept along in
+the general rush, crutches and all, after the woman galvanized into
+activity. She might take orders from Brody Carmical, but she even had a
+way with the big man, making him cow to her--perhaps unconsciously.
+
+Teejay was yelling and pointing, it seemed, in all directions at once.
+"Hey you, Ianello, shake a leg down to the fission-room and tell 'em to
+start straining. Smith, get me Kevin McGann on the intercom. Waneki,
+you can forget all about those Venusian sea-monsters and tell the docs
+to be ready for plenty of acceleration cases. You better bed down
+right now, Phillips, you're not as strong as the rest of us, not with
+sixty years of junketing behind you. Hello, McGann? Listen, Mac, I
+want the entire crew assembled in General inside of ten minutes. Yeah,
+expedition too. Everyone but those boys down in fission. And tell your
+orbit-man to figure a way to get us off this trajectory and on a quick
+ellipse from here to the Jovian moons. Yes, that's what I said--the
+Jovian moons."
+
+She paused long enough to take a breath and turn to Steve. "Well,
+Stedman, we'll be dropping down over your brother's grave on Ganymede
+before you know it. Maybe then you'll be able to remove that chip from
+your shoulder."
+
+"Me? From _my_ shoulder? Sister, you've got things backwards."
+
+But the woman pivoted away, and Kevin's voice bleated over the
+intercom: "Crew and expedition--all to general lounge on the double!
+You boys in fission stay put, Captain's orders. This is urgent."
+
+Almost before Kevin's voice had stopped echoing through the corridors,
+LeClarc popped into the lounge. "You wanted me, Captain? May I help?"
+
+"I wanted everyone. Everyone can help. Just sit still till the rest of
+'em get here."
+
+LeClarc appeared hurt, but he took a seat in glum silence. In twos
+and threes the members of the crew began to drift in, wild rumors
+circulating among them in whispers. Finally, LeClarc counted noses and
+told his Captain that everyone except the fission crew was present.
+
+Teejay nodded, stepped to the center of the floor. She removed her cape
+and dropped it, discarding it so suddenly and yet with such a polished
+flourish that a complete silence fell upon the large room almost at
+once.
+
+She paced back and forth, her bare, lithe limbs flashing under the
+green-glowing wall panels. "You've all come to know that cape," she
+said, her voice strident and alive. "It's a sort of affectation I
+have. But it's not necessary. Like everything that's not necessary, it
+must be discarded, at least temporarily. Men, we're in serious trouble."
+
+Just like that, inside of a few seconds, she had them eating out of the
+palm of her hand. She went on to say that Barling's ship had already
+blasted off from the Earth for Ganymede, how, unless their efforts
+here on the _Gordak_ were Herculean and then some, Barling's ship
+would reach Ganymede first. "And you all know what that would mean,"
+she continued. "Like the elephant of two centuries ago, the Ganymeden
+anthrovac is the one solid necessity for any circus sideshow. But the
+anthrovacs have a way of going into hiding when they're disturbed.
+So, if Barling gets to Ganymede first, we've had it. We can all
+start looking for jobs after that, do you understand? I want full
+acceleration from here to Ganymede, as soon as we can get the new
+orbit plotted. Nothing but the immediate problem--to reach the Jovian
+moons before Barling--nothing else matters. If I tell you to work two
+shifts and go without sleep one night, you will do that. If I decide
+that a man must go beyond the shieldings in fission, he'll climb into a
+vac-suit and hope for the best. It's going to be like that, men, and I
+can't help it. I crack the whip and you jump. Any questions?"
+
+She stood dramatically, hands on hips, somehow poised on tip-toes
+without straining, a tall, impressive and quite beautiful figure.
+
+"Yes," said one of the orbiteers. "I have a question. Can I get to
+work on the new orbit at once?"
+
+There were hoarse shouts of approval, some applause and a scattering of
+deep-throated laughter. Steve watched Teejay walk off her improvised
+stage, complete master of the situation. If it were humanly possible
+for the _Gordak_ to reach Ganymede before Barling, they'd do it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the weeks which followed, Steve learned something of what the big
+Exec officer had meant that first day he had spoken about Teejay. She
+drove her men relentlessly and some of them may have resented it. But
+she drove herself as well, and once when a crewman had gone beyond
+the shieldings to repair the mechanical arms which regulated the flow
+of powdered plutonium fuel from the bunkers and had emerged with a
+serious case of radiation sickness, Teejay donned a vac-suit and went
+in herself to finish the job.
+
+Most of the men liked her. Some, frankly, did not. But all of them knew
+they served under a captain as good as any.
+
+Two days before landing on Ganymede, Teejay gathered her chief
+lieutenants for a final planning session. Kevin was there, and LeClarc,
+and a tall, wraith-thin man with a bushy head of white hair named
+Simonson, and Steve. Teejay spread a chart out and peered down at
+it intently. "This is Ganymede Northeast," she said, indicating the
+circled, central area of the map. "It is here that, for some reason,
+the anthrovacs gather. And here inside the circle is an area of one
+thousand square miles which Mr. Simonson has marked off--yes, Stedman,
+the red square. We'll be operating there. If the Barling ship has
+landed ahead of us, we can assume the same for them."
+
+Teejay paused to light a cigarette, then crushed it out after her first
+puff. "The darn smoke gets in my way when I try to think," she smiled,
+and went on, "Anyway, here's the square. We'll be using the crew and
+the expedition--everyone aboard ship--because we're in a hurry. Simply
+put, we'll be a bunch of beaters to drive the anthrovacs together at
+the center of the square. Then, well, then it's up to Mr. Simonson and
+Stedman. Any questions?"
+
+"Yes, Captain," said LeClarc. "Just how do we get the anthrovacs aboard
+ship?"
+
+"Don't ask me. But you might ask Mr. Simonson."
+
+The bushy-haired man named Simonson grunted. "Umm-mm. There are several
+ways. We could set up elaborate traps, such as Thorndyke employed two
+years ago, and--"
+
+"Can't," Teejay objected. "No time."
+
+"Why don't we just clobber them?" LeClarc suggested. "A few might die,
+but we'll get the specimens we want."
+
+Steve shook his head. "You don't know your anthrovacs. Chase them and
+they'll try to run away. But hurt them--just hurt one of them so the
+rest of them can see--and they'll swarm all over you until either all
+the men or all the anthrovacs are dead, or both. No, there's another
+way."
+
+"What's that?" Teejay leaned forward, chin cupped in hands, definitely
+interested.
+
+"Anthrovacs are non-breathers. Most gasses won't hurt them, but you can
+give them a good, old-fashioned oxygen jag with the slightest whiff of
+pure oxygen."
+
+"I've heard of that," Simonson said.
+
+"Sort of like getting them drunk, isn't it, boy?" Kevin wanted to know.
+
+But LeClarc wasn't satisfied. "I still say we ought to clobber them. We
+can't waste time experimenting with any crazy jags."
+
+"It's no experiment," Steve told him coldly. "It works."
+
+"I still say we ought to--"
+
+"Clobber them, I know," Teejay finished for him. "If there's any
+clobbering to be done, LeClarc, I'll let you know. Meanwhile, we're
+trying Stedman's plan. Any further questions?"
+
+And, when no one spoke: "Good. Mac, I want you to let Mr. Simonson
+and Stedman pick three men to help 'em. You're to divide the rest of
+us into groups of half a dozen each, with each group serving under a
+leader. I'll give each leader a designated area in that square, so
+there won't be a lot of bumbling around when we land on Ganymede.
+LeClarc!"
+
+"Yes, Captain?"
+
+"Take yourself a group of three idle technicians and check all the
+vac-suits. If there's any trouble, make sure it's repaired before we
+land. What are you gawking at me like that for?"
+
+"I only thought--"
+
+"What? What did you think? Speak up, man!"
+
+"I thought you would have a job of more import for me. Had you, for
+example, decided that we ought to clobber--"
+
+"Clobber, clobber, clobber! Will you shut up and get to work?"
+
+"Yes, Captain." And more than a little stooped of shoulder, LeClarc
+left the lounge.
+
+Teejay didn't pause for breath. "You, Stedman! What's so funny? What
+are you laughing about?"
+
+"Nothing. It's just the way LeClarc--"
+
+"Forget it, before _you_ get clobbered."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ganymede.
+
+After the landing, an unreasoning fear gripped Steve tightly. It
+wasn't anything he could put his finger on, but he felt it gnawing at
+the fringes of his mind, probing, seeking, thrusting for a way in.
+There was nothing to be afraid of, and Steve smoked one cigarette
+after another while the six-man parties disembarked to take up their
+beater-stations on the edges of the square.
+
+Ganymede, he recited to himself, is the largest satellite in the Solar
+System. 664,200 miles from Jupiter, it has a diameter of thirty two
+hundred and six miles, or bigger than the planet Mercury and almost
+as large as Pluto. It swings around Jupiter in a little over seven
+Earth days and in appearance the moonscape's enough like Luna to be a
+twin-brother, except for fat, bloated Jupiter hanging in the sky.
+
+What was there to be afraid of? Steve didn't know. His brother had died
+on Ganymede--and the circumstances of Charlie's death still bordered
+on the mysterious. Well, he'd see for himself about that. Did the fear
+crawl around the edges of his brain because he thought Teejay was
+responsible? But that didn't make sense, for to a certain degree he'd
+thought that all along. Unless the appalling thought of having to fight
+Teejay and her whole loyal crew had taken hold of him unconsciously.
+
+"What are you moping about, boy?"
+
+"Huh? Oh, Kevin. Nothing much, I guess. I--"
+
+"You look to me like you've seen a ghost. What is it, scared?"
+
+"Yeah. Yeah, I guess so."
+
+"So what? Buck up, boy."
+
+"I don't want to be scared, Kevin."
+
+"Who does?"
+
+"That's not what I mean. It's one thing to say that if you aren't--"
+
+"Who isn't? Don't look at me, boy. And didn't you watch all the men
+trooping outside with the blood drained from their faces, and their
+eyes sort of big and too bright behind the face-plates? We're all
+scared."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"Mean to say you spent so much time on zoology and forgot about other
+things? Like, for instance, Ganymede-fear?"
+
+"Huh? How's that?"
+
+"Everyone is afraid, Steve. Everyone. Whenever a man gets near
+Ganymede, he suddenly becomes afraid. It's some sort of a
+psychological or maybe para-psychological phenomenon and none of the
+medicos could ever figure it out. It isn't the kind of fear that
+paralyzes, boy, but still, it holds on all the time a man's on Ganymede
+and it doesn't leave until he blasts off again. Didn't you ever hear
+about that?"
+
+"No. That is, I knew it happened somewhere, but I forgot where."
+
+"Well, that's all there is to it, boy."
+
+"All! Don't you think it's enough? Something lurks out there, something
+makes people afraid, and we've never been able to find out why, but you
+say--"
+
+Teejay came up and smiled at them, but there was something grim about
+her smile. "You can always tell when someone comes to Ganymede for
+the first time. He's jumpier. Just relax, Stedman. By the time they
+start beating the anthrovacs in toward the _Gordak_ you'll be feeling
+better--and raring to go to work with that oxygen-jag stunt of yours,
+too." And she added, "Say, have you been watching your stone worm?"
+
+"He sure has," Kevin told her. "He took me down there yesterday and
+that worm's been growing fat on all the sand he's fed it. Sand--for
+food, that's what the worm eats. Imagine how that would settle the
+over-population problems on Earth if people, too, could eat sand."
+
+"Yes, and then--" Teejay was speaking again--but words, just words, and
+Steve stopped listening. It occurred to him all at once that they were
+engrossed in their meaningless conversation for one reason only--to
+keep the fear from their minds. If you thought about something else,
+the fear would retreat at least in part, and if you could hold a
+conversation about everything and nothing, that was even better.
+
+Steve almost jumped off the floor when a metallic voice blared forth
+from the loudspeaker, echoing and re-echoing in the near-empty room.
+
+"Captain! Captain, this is Moretti, Group Seven."
+
+"Go ahead, Moretti," Teejay said into the mike. "I'm listening."
+
+"Who the devil's on radar, Captain?"
+
+"Why--no one! We forgot."
+
+"There's a ship coming down. We can see it plain as day out here."
+
+"What ship?" Teejay asked softly, but they all knew the question was
+totally unnecessary.
+
+Moretti's voice jumped an octave as he cried: "It's Barling!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Within ten minutes, all the beaters had been called in. Barling's big
+ship, the _Frank Buck_, snorted back and forth angrily on its landing
+jets.
+
+"Are they gonna land or ain't they gonna land?" someone said as Kevin
+broke out the neutron guns and saw that every third man had one.
+
+"Depends on their boss," said Kevin. "If he figures we can be scared
+off, he'll land. Otherwise, maybe he'll go away."
+
+"Not that little stinker," Teejay told him. "Not Schuyler Barling. He
+won't go away. Will the fact that we're here first matter? It will
+not, for Schuyler knows we can't prove it. You ought to know better
+than to hope for that, Kevin. No, we can figure that Schuyler will move
+in on us."
+
+"What happens then?" Steve demanded.
+
+Teejay shrugged her bare, beautiful shoulders. "That I don't know.
+Schuyler may be a stinker and may be predictable, but he's not _that_
+predictable. Hey, it looks like the _Frank Buck_ is coming down!"
+
+The big ship, Steve saw, was doing precisely that. Its jets had been
+cut, and the ship fell like a stone. Twice its length separated it from
+the rubble-strewn pumice when the pilot kicked his jets over again, and
+something seemed to slap the _Frank Buck_ back up toward the starry
+sky. The result was a first-rate landing.
+
+"That would be Schuyler showing off," said Teejay wearily. "He must
+have been born in a tube and weaned on jet-slag, and he sure lets you
+know it."
+
+Fifteen minutes later, Schuyler Barling and three of his officers
+entered the _Gordak_.
+
+Barling got out of his vac-suit first, a tall, handsome man of about
+thirty, with short-cropped blond hair, pale blue eyes and petulant
+lips. "Captain Moore," he said, bowing slightly from the waist. Making
+fun of Teejay.
+
+"Mr. Barling." As ever, the woman seemed cool and unruffled.
+
+"With us," said Schuyler Barling, "it's in the family. I work for my
+father. Obviously, it means something to me whether he succeeds or
+not. But you, Captain Moore, you're a hired hand. You work for Brody
+Carmical, on a paycheck. Therefore, your loyalty could not possibly be
+as strong as mine, and--"
+
+"Get to the point!"
+
+"We arrived here on Ganymede almost simultaneously. One of us will have
+to leave."
+
+"It didn't look simultaneous to me."
+
+Barling ignored her. "Yes, one will have to leave, because the
+anthrovac is frightened off easily and unless a hunt is carried on with
+the utmost precision and timing, no one will catch any anthrovacs."
+
+"Go on," said Teejay. She spoke quietly, but Steve knew the woman well
+enough to realize her temper was coming to a boil, inside.
+
+"My _Frank Buck_ got here first," Barling told her blandly. "Therefore,
+you will leave."
+
+"That's a stinking lie!" Teejay cried. "We were here first and you know
+it."
+
+"Who can prove it? The _Frank Buck_ landed first." Barling's hand
+flashed down to his waist, came up gripping a neutron gun. "If we have
+to, we'll force you to leave."
+
+Teejay stood with hands on hips, facing him. "I know I'm not conducting
+myself like a lady, but then, this is the twenty-second century," she
+said, smiling--and struck out with her balled right fist. It bounced
+off Barling's jaw with savage force and the man stumbled back against
+the wall and crashed to the floor, his neutron gun clattering away.
+Barling shook himself, tried to rise. He got to hands and knees, then
+fell forward on his face.
+
+Teejay whirled on his officers. "All right, get him out of here! Come
+on, move."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The three men looked at each other. None of them did anything.
+
+"You see, boy?" said Kevin, grinning. "That's our Captain and we'll
+fight for her. She won the beauty pageant five years ago in Cerestown,
+and she can fight like a man. She's a woman for the stars, and we're
+proud to--"
+
+"Shut up," said Teejay. "That won't get us anywhere."
+
+By now, Barling had stirred, had come up, dazed, into a sitting
+position. He rubbed his jaw, winced. "Assuming we return to our ship,
+we still won't leave Ganymede. Not without our anthrovac."
+
+"Nor will we."
+
+"But you had to hit me! You had to flaunt your--"
+
+"No one told you to draw your gun."
+
+"--flaunt your Amazonian prowess."
+
+"Stop sniveling, Schuyler. I think we'll have to reach some sort of a
+compromise, but I'll dictate terms, not you."
+
+"Yes?" Barling growled up at her. "Who says we'll obey?"
+
+"Oh, get up off the floor! You look so silly, sitting there and rubbing
+your chin."
+
+Barling stood up, retrieving his gun but holstering it. Kevin watched
+him, toying with his own weapon--not pointing it at anyone in
+particular, but tossing it back and forth idly from hand to hand.
+
+"Give us twenty four hours," said Teejay. "We'll look for our
+anthrovac. In that time, none of your men is to leave the _Frank
+Buck_. After that, you get twenty four hours, and we're confined to
+the _Gordak_. Then us, then you. And so on, till one of us gets his
+anthrovac. Then he pulls out and the other is left here. Is it a deal?"
+
+Barling considered, said: "Well, yes--with one change. _We_ get the
+first twenty four hours."
+
+"No."
+
+"Then you can forget your deal, Captain Moore."
+
+"Well, then let's toss for it." Teejay reached into a pocket of her
+cape, flipped a coin to Steve. "Here, Stedman. You toss it."
+
+"Who gets to call?" Barling demanded.
+
+"Do you want to?"
+
+"Well--"
+
+"Good. Then I will. Ladies first, you know. Go ahead, Stedman."
+
+Steve tossed the coin, and Teejay cried: "Heads!"
+
+Palming the coin, Steve flipped it over on the back of his left hand,
+peered at it. Staring up at him was the metallic likeness of Angus
+MacNamara, first man to reach the planet Mars. "Heads," said Steve, and
+one of Barling's officers came over to verify it.
+
+Barling shook his head stubbornly. "How do I know it isn't a phony, a
+two-headed coin?"
+
+Teejay glared at him. "That's insulting, Schuyler."
+
+"Well, I'd like to look at it. How do I know--"
+
+"You don't. But I said it's insulting. So, if you want to see the coin,
+you'll have to fight me!"
+
+"Never mind," said Barling, climbing into his vac-suit. "You get first
+try." And all of them garbed in their vac-suits once more, the men of
+the _Frank Buck_ departed.
+
+"Get those beaters out again!" Teejay was calling into her microphone,
+and Kevin grasped Steve's arm, said:
+
+"Go ahead, boy. Look at the coin."
+
+Steve did. It had two heads.
+
+And later, Teejay said to him: "Listen, Stedman. All the beaters are
+out now, but frankly, I don't trust Schuyler."
+
+Steve said he did not blame her, and Kevin was there to nod his red
+head.
+
+"So, Stedman, the beaters have their jobs to do. That's almost
+everyone. But temporarily at least, it leaves you and Mac here with
+nothing to do."
+
+"That's true," said Kevin.
+
+"But not for long, Mac. Schuyler may try something, I don't know what.
+You two are probably the strongest men on this ship. I know what you
+can do, Mac--and I saw a sample of Stedman at work when he had that
+little run-in with LeClarc. All right: you two hop into a couple of
+vac-suits. That is, if Stedman's ready to fight for us if he has to--"
+
+Steve chuckled. "I don't go around carrying two-headed coins, Teejay,
+but I know a rat when I see one. I'll go, and your friend Schuyler
+better not try anything." Almost, he was surprised at his own words.
+Teejay had a way of commanding respect, and if he didn't watch himself,
+he'd be talking like Kevin soon. Well, perhaps the woman merited it....
+His thoughts took him that far, and then he remembered Charlie. "I'll
+go," he said again, almost growling.
+
+"But you still have a chip on your shoulder--well, never mind. I'll
+expect quarter-hourly reports from you two."
+
+"You'll get them," said Kevin, and climbed into his vac-suit.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Incredibly, Steve found himself out on the bleak, desolate surface of
+Ganymede, walking with Kevin past the long, silent length of the _Frank
+Buck_. And here, outside the confining walls of their spaceship, the
+Ganymede-fear seemed stronger. Steve felt it as something palpable,
+clutching at his heart and constricting it, bringing sweat to his
+forehead and clouding the inside of his helmet with moisture.
+
+Fear--of what?
+
+Not of the frontier world itself, surely. Not of some unknown menace
+lurking out among the craterlets and ringwalls. No, for while Ganymede
+was not yet as familiar as Mars or Venus, mankind still had explored it
+extensively. There were the strange anthrovacs, animals which looked
+like over-sized and less brutish gorillas but which were not protoplasm
+creatures and which took their energy directly from sunlight and cosmic
+radiation. But that was all--no other life existed on Ganymede, and the
+anthrovacs on their frigid, airless world were something of an oddity.
+
+Then what caused the fear? And was the fear responsible in any way for
+what had happened to Charlie?
+
+"Hey, Steve--snap out of it!" Kevin's voice, floating in thinly on the
+intercom.
+
+"Huh? Oh, yeah, Kevin. Sure. It's that fear, sort of gets you out
+here. You can't help it."
+
+"I know. A ship seems to cut it off to some extent, boy. But it's
+around, lurking, waiting to get you."
+
+"What do you mean, waiting to get you?"
+
+"Well, not directly. But it makes you make mistakes. Men have died that
+way--paying so much attention to the fear that they didn't pay enough
+attention to whatever was happening."
+
+"Kevin, do you know anything about how Charlie died you haven't told
+me?"
+
+"Maybe. Maybe not. It's kind of vague, boy. Teejay went out alone and
+when she came back--why, she looked scared. That's common enough on
+Ganymede--everyone looks scared. But Teejay looked puzzled and confused
+also, and that's not like her. She wouldn't talk much for a time, and
+when she did she just said she'd found Charlie Stedman, your brother,
+dead."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"What do you mean, where? Out here on Ganymede, naturally."
+
+"No, I mean exactly where. What was done with the body?"
+
+"That I don't know," said Kevin, and Steve could picture him frowning
+inside his helmet.
+
+"Well--listen, Kevin! Do you hear something?"
+
+"Hear something? How can you hear anything on Ganymede, with no air to
+carry it? Except on the radio, of course. I hear you, but get a grip on
+yourself, boy."
+
+"No. I hear something. There it is, louder. My God, Kevin! My God--"
+And clumsily in his vac-suit, Steve began running away across the
+pumice.
+
+"Hey, come back! Back here, you crazy fool--" Kevin charged after him,
+taking long, ungainly strides in the light gravity. But Steve was
+quicker and soon the distance between them increased and Kevin realized
+he wouldn't be able to overtake Steve at all.
+
+"Come back! What do you hear, boy? At least tell me that."
+
+Steve told him, and ran on. Amazed, Kevin lumbered back toward the
+_Gordak_.
+
+"But what made him do it?" Teejay demanded, later.
+
+"I told you all I know, Captain. He said he heard something and started
+running. I chased after him, couldn't catch him. He told me what he
+heard."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Well, you won't like this, because it doesn't make sense. But he said
+he heard his brother--calling him. Charlie Stedman, calling."
+
+"Charlie Stedman is dead." Suddenly, Teejay was curt, pre-emptory.
+
+"That's what I thought, too."
+
+"Forget it. It's the Ganymede-fear, Mac. Somehow it got to Stedman
+stronger than it got to most people. Maybe his brother was hit that
+way, too. Maybe, right now, Stedman is off his rocker, running out
+across the pumice somewhere, shouting his brother's name into the
+soundless void of space."
+
+"We'll have to find him," said Kevin.
+
+"How can we, Mac? He's got air for five or six hours, and Ganymede is
+big."
+
+"I'm going to take a set of shoulder-jets and go looking for him,
+Captain. I hope you won't try to stop me. I'm going either way."
+
+Shrugging, Teejay went to a cabinet, handed Kevin a pair of
+shoulder-jets, which he strapped at once to his vac-suit. The woman
+took another suit and another pair of jets. "Once I heard voices out
+here on Ganymede, too," she said. "So did Charlie Stedman. They killed
+Charlie and they almost killed me. Enough's enough, Mac. I'm going with
+you."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The ringwall was not very large. Slowed by his vac-suit, a man might
+cover its diameter in half an hour. But Steve did not traverse the
+circular area. Instead, he climbed the ringwall laboriously and then
+made his way down, tumbling and sliding, to the rocky floor of the
+shallow crater.
+
+The voice came from within it--from within the crater. It could not be!
+He told himself that more than once. The rock of Ganymede itself might
+carry sound, but you'd feel it only as a throbbing through the soles of
+your boots, for the vacuum of space which encroached on all sides could
+not transmit sound-waves.
+
+That was science. That was elementary. But the voice whispered in his
+ears, ebbing and flowing, first loud, then soft--and science be damned.
+
+Charlie was calling. _I am Charlie Stedman. I am Charlie Stedman_--That
+was all, but it was enough. Charlie's name, and Charlie's voice.
+
+"It can't be happening," Steve said, aloud, and heard his own
+voice roaring inside the helmet. It drove the other voice, the
+impossible voice, out for a moment, but it returned. Around the inner
+circumference of the ringwall Steve ran, seeking a source for the
+impossible. Sobbing, stumbling, he plunged ahead. It was only when he
+returned to his starting point, a needle-like pinnacle of rock, that he
+realized his supply of air would be exhausted in three hours.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"He couldn't have gone much farther than this, Mac."
+
+"We've got plenty of air, Captain. I'm not giving up--"
+
+The two figures soared on spurting jets a hundred feet above the
+surface of Ganymede. When Teejay went higher every few moments, she
+could barely make out the two spaceships, far away to the left.
+Occasionally she saw the beaters working in teams of six, cumbersome
+tanks of oxygen strapped to their backs.
+
+"Did you hear the voice, Mac?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Had Stedman been drinking?"
+
+"That's ridiculous. The boy was with us, and you saw for yourself."
+
+"True. And I've said that the voices of Ganymede are no strangers to
+me, anyway. Maybe I was trying to rationalize."
+
+"We'll see when we find Steve."
+
+"_If_ we find him. The fear can make you do crazy things out here, Mac.
+Like going for too long without sufficient oxygen."
+
+"That's what I'm worrying about."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A phonograph needle caught in one groove, spinning out its brief
+message over and over again--that was the voice. _I am Charlie
+Stedman._ And the ringwall might have been the record, Steve thought
+bitterly, except that it was utterly deserted. He hadn't covered its
+entire rock-strewn area; an army of searchers would be necessary to do
+that. But he had seen enough to convince him that--
+
+The thought fled.
+
+Coming toward him over the floor of the ringwall was a huge anthrovac,
+walking erect with a shuffling gait. Charlie's voice grew louder.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"It's no good, Mac. We can't find him."
+
+"As soon as we turn back he's as good as dead."
+
+"Our air won't last forever," Teejay said.
+
+"He's got even less."
+
+"Ten more minutes?"
+
+"All right, ten. But why did you come out here with me if you're ready
+to give up so easy?"
+
+"Who said I am? I'm trying to be practical, Mac. Listen, I saved
+Stedman's life once already--and stayed out on the hot side of Mercury
+longer than a person should, too. I like Stedman, but if we ever find
+him, better not say that or I'll break your neck, hear? So I want
+to find him, but I don't want to sacrifice your life or mine in the
+attempt. Is that clear?"
+
+Kevin said that it was.
+
+A moment later, Teejay climbed higher. Half a thousand feet above the
+surface of Ganymede she circled. Abruptly, she leveled off at a hundred
+feet again, said:
+
+"There's something over there, Mac. In that ringwall."
+
+"What?"
+
+"I don't know. Movement. A big figure and a little one. The big one
+seems too large for a man, but the smaller--well, let's go."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The anthrovac paused a dozen yards from Steve. There had been nothing
+hostile in its movements to begin with, and now it might have been a
+statue for all the activity it displayed. From crown of head to small,
+hand-like feet, it stood almost a yard taller than Steve, but it did
+not have the great-muscled girth of a gorilla. Instead, it looked quite
+manlike, except for the incredibly broad shoulders, the thick, matted
+hair covering its entire body, the too-long arms, the nine feet of
+height.
+
+Did the voice emanate from it?
+
+Now that the creature had approached him, Steve wasn't sure. The voice
+continued, pulsing and throbbing in his ears like the Ganymede-fear
+itself--_but in his ears_. Not from the bleak terrain around him, and
+certainly not from the anthrovac.
+
+"I'm going crazy," he said, aloud, driving the voice away temporarily.
+"No. No, I'm not, because I realize it too soon. A crazy man doesn't
+realize it and doesn't warn himself about it--certainly not at the
+outset." But did that mean the voice had any real existence? How could
+it?
+
+_I am Charlie Stedman...._
+
+Smiling bleakly, Steve picked up a loose chunk of rock, tossed it at
+the anthrovac. The creature merely swung its huge body gracefully
+at the hips, avoiding the missile. Then it stooped, found a stone
+for itself, hurled it at Steve. He ducked, feeling completely and
+tremendously foolish. He should have been prepared, for the anthrovacs
+are playful and can mime almost any human action.
+
+He did not duck in time. He felt the stone _thunk_ against his helmet,
+peered with horror at the glassite inches from his face until he
+saw that it hadn't cracked. Grinning now, he shook his fist at the
+creature, watched it duplicate the motion with its great hairy hand. It
+was a game, Steve told himself, a lot like the meaningless conversation
+Teejay and Kevin had had to dispell the Ganymede-fear.
+
+_But if the anthrovac could mime human actions, perhaps the anthrovac
+could also mime voices!_ That would necessitate telepathic powers,
+naturally. But the anthrovac, like many denizens of terrestrial forests
+and tundras, changed its habits immensely in captivity. A captured
+anthrovac, one which had been reared with one of the circus troupes,
+could never tell you what a wild anthrovac was like. And a wild
+anthrovac, somehow living on airless Ganymede and taking its energy
+directly from cosmic and solar radiation, might be able to do anything.
+
+_I am Charlie Stedman...._
+
+Steve carried the thought to its logical conclusion. Suppose an
+anthrovac--_this_ anthrovac which faced him now--had somehow heard
+Charlie speaking. Charlie might have been introducing himself to
+someone: "I am Charlie Stedman."
+
+But the hypothesis wasn't much more than a bubble, and it burst
+completely when Steve remembered he was the only one who could hear the
+voice.
+
+"Hey, Stedman! You trying to kill yourself?"
+
+Steve whirled, looked up. Two figures, no more than vaguely human
+in their cumbersome vac-suits, hovered over him, jetting around in
+circles. The anthrovac had seen them too--and now, apparently alarmed
+by the twin forms floating just out of reach, the creature turned and
+bounded away over the uneven terrain.
+
+"What gave you that idea?" Steve called into his intercom. "The
+anthrovac wasn't looking for trouble."
+
+"I don't mean that, stupid." Teejay had a way of jarring him back to
+reality with a few words. "I mean, how much air have you left?"
+
+Steve looked at the gauge. "Enough to return to the _Gordak_, provided
+I get on my horse."
+
+"We'll walk with you, then," said Teejay, and dropped to the ground at
+his side. "I think I'll hold onto your arm, too. You're liable to go
+wandering again, and we might not be able to find you."
+
+Kevin alighted, switched off his jets. "How about the voice, boy? Do
+you still hear it?"
+
+"Why--no! But I did a minute ago, until the anthrovac ran away."
+
+"That's peculiar."
+
+"There's a lot that's peculiar out here on Ganymede, Kevin. I think--"
+
+"Stop thinking and start walking," Teejay told him.
+
+Less than two hours later, they reached the _Gordak_. A vac-suited
+man met them at the airlock, and Steve saw LeClarc's face through the
+glassite helmet.
+
+"I'll bet you were worried," said Teejay.
+
+"Sure," LeClarc answered, drawing a neutron gun from his belt. "See, my
+Captain, I'm so worried I can hardly think straight. Will the three of
+you please turn around and march over to the _Frank Buck_?"
+
+They were too stunned to do anything else.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Don't mind me," Kevin said, within the _Frank Buck_. "If I'm confused
+it's merely because I can't believe this. Not you, LeClarc, not you."
+
+They'd been ushered into the main lounge of the _Frank Buck_, a ship
+of about the _Gordak_'s dimensions, but two or three years older.
+LeClarc stood there with his neutron gun, watching them carefully. In
+a few moments, Schuyler Barling joined them, a greasy salve covering
+the discoloration on his jaw. The jaw looked painfully swollen too,
+and Barling rubbed it speculatively. "I won't forget this," he growled
+briefly to Teejay, then turned to LeClarc. "Kevin McGann I know, but
+what about this man?"
+
+"Stedman?" said LeClarc. "You'll want him, because he's the extra-zoo
+man on the _Gordak_. If you took McGann and the woman alone, they still
+might be able to do their work on Carmical's ship. But with Stedman
+your prisoner as well, their hands are tied over there."
+
+"What is this?" Teejay demanded defiantly. "What's the meaning of--"
+
+"Will you be quiet and let me do the talking?" Barling interrupted her.
+"It was LeClarc who radioed and told me your coin had two heads. If you
+wanted to play the game that way, I wasn't going to stand by and let
+you. So--"
+
+"So," LeClarc took up the thread for him, "we got together, Mr. Barling
+and I."
+
+"But you, LeClarc," said Kevin. "You'd jump through a fire-hoop into a
+pit of acid if Captain Moore told you to."
+
+"Would I?" LeClarc chuckled softly.
+
+"Yes. Yes, you would."
+
+"Perhaps there was a time I'd have done that, McGann. Perhaps. But then
+I thought the Captain needed me, and wanted me to help her, too. Now,
+with you and Stedman--well, LeClarc isn't so important, is he?"
+
+"So that's it!" Kevin roared. "You're jealous. Not jealous the way a
+man should be, when he loves a woman, but jealous because you believed
+Captain Moore had discarded you--had decided you weren't such an
+essential cog in the _Gordak_ machine."
+
+"Shut up." LeClarc took a quick step toward Kevin and hit him, hooking
+his left fist at the bigger man's jaw. Kevin staggered but did not go
+down. Bellowing, he charged at LeClarc, but the Frenchman waved him off
+with the neutron gun.
+
+"Stop it, LeClarc!" Barling snapped. "I didn't have you bring
+them here to make a shambles of the lounge. Just stand off in the
+corner--that's right, there--and watch them. I'll do the talking."
+
+"You realize, of course," Teejay told him calmly, "that this is
+kidnapping."
+
+"Is it? Who is to say? You never entered the _Gordak_; LeClarc met you
+within the airlock. For all your crew knows, the three of you are out
+on Ganymede somewhere--with not much air left. After a time, they'll
+have to give you up as dead. With the Captain gone, and the Exec, and
+the expert on Extra-terrestrial zoology--their expedition won't amount
+to much. It looks to me like old man Carmical will be without a circus
+this year, unless he resorts to a strictly terrestrial shindig."
+
+"What happens then?" Teejay wanted to know.
+
+"Well, I'll be frank with you. I haven't decided. I can't simply return
+you to civilization, of course."
+
+"Of course," Teejay echoed him acidly.
+
+"Then you'd be able to holler 'kidnapper'. It would seem that you give
+me only one alternative. Ah--excuse me a moment."
+
+A trio of men had entered the lounge and the leader, a stocky man of
+about thirty-five, was beaming. "We've got three," he said.
+
+"Splendid, splendid. In that case, nothing remains to keep us on
+Ganymede."
+
+"Chief, I'm sure glad of that. This place can give you the heebies, and
+you never know why. Those three anthrovacs should be a fine core to
+build your circus around, though."
+
+"Three anthrovacs?" Teejay cried, her composure fading for the first
+time. "You've got three anthrovacs?"
+
+Barling nodded. "LeClarc here was good enough to tell us Stedman's
+plan. A first-rate idea, as you can see, only we were able to carry it
+out. Frankly, I wasn't so optimistic at first."
+
+"Let's get back to us," Teejay suggested. "You were saying...?"
+
+"Umm-mm, yes. There's only one alternative, and much as I regret--"
+
+"What is it? What's the alternative?"
+
+"Please, must I say it? I think you know, and there's no need for me
+to--"
+
+"No, I want to hear it."
+
+"Suit yourself," said Barling. "The only solution is this: we'll have
+to eliminate you."
+
+"When?"
+
+"The sooner the better. But Captain Moore, you're making me feel--"
+
+"That's all I wanted to know!" Teejay cried, and hurled herself at
+Barling. "We might as well try to escape while we still have a chance."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After that, things happened almost too fast for Steve to follow. Kevin
+got the idea at once, charging at LeClarc before the Frenchman had
+time to gather his wits. The neutron gun hissed violently, searing a
+three-inch chunk out of the ceiling. But then LeClarc was struck by two
+hundred pounds of Kevin McGann, and went down before the onslaught.
+
+Something exploded against Steve's jaw and he did a quick flip and
+landed on his back. He'd hardly had time to declare himself in the
+battle, when one of Barling's men had jumped him. Now the man came down
+atop him, flailing with both fists, but Steve chopped at his face with
+short, clubbing blows and scrambled to his feet while the man caught
+his breath.
+
+Steve didn't wait, plunging toward the man with murder in his eyes--and
+failed to reach him. An arm circled his neck from behind and he was
+dragged to the floor again, by the second of the three anthrovac
+hunters. He rolled over, saw Kevin and LeClarc off to his right,
+standing toe-to-toe and slugging. And beyond them, Teejay was cuffing
+Barling around the lounge with lusty, man-sized blows. Barling went
+down under the onslaught, falling at the woman's feet, but then the
+third hunter had grasped her swirling black cape from behind, throwing
+it over her head and tripping her. She fought blindly as she went down,
+taking the hunter with her; and with Barling, they became a tangled
+melee of thrashing arms and legs.
+
+Steve rolled out from under the second hunter, but the first one met
+him halfway and pole-axed him down to the floor again with a hard right
+hand. Sobbing, clutching at the man's legs, Steve began to pull himself
+upright and got a knee in his face. He went down again, and this time
+everything in the room receded into a vague, shadowy fog.
+
+When Steve could see again, there was still no order to the chaos.
+He hadn't lived a violent life like Kevin or Teejay--such things were
+not part of his background, although he'd boxed in college and won the
+light-heavyweight championship, too. But there was something different,
+something elemental about a free-for-all brawl.
+
+LeClarc lay on his back, supine. He looked out of it for the duration,
+which still set the odds at four to three against the trio from the
+_Gordak_. Right now Kevin held his own with the two hunters who'd
+done Steve in, at least temporarily. But that couldn't last, for both
+were big, muscular men. And Teejay? She was a woman, so perhaps the
+odds were even worse. Steve smiled grimly as he clambered to his feet
+to help Kevin. Teejay was a woman, but she was the new twenty-second
+century woman, and proud of it. The third hunter kicked and thrashed
+helplessly on the floor as she held him in a head-scissors and at the
+same time fended off Barling who was crawling around them and looking
+for an opening. Teejay, definitely, was an asset.
+
+Steve got to hunter number three quickly, pulling him off Kevin and
+straightening him with an uppercut. After that, it was a set-up. Steve
+pounded once and then again with his left hand at the man's midsection,
+then finished by crossing his right and feeling it crunch against the
+man's jaw.
+
+"Now I see how you could take care of LeClarc that first day!" Kevin
+yelled, and promptly polished off the other hunter with a blow that
+lifted him completely off the floor.
+
+As one, they whirled around to face the other side of the room.
+Barling and his henchman had finally got the upper hand. Teejay
+lay on her side, her hands behind her back. Not unconscious, she
+was completely spent, and an almost equally exhausted Barling was
+attempting to tie her hands with the black cape. The hunter sat there,
+dull-eyed, watching them. It was Kevin who lifted the hunter and hurled
+him away, and when Steve rolled Barling over and pushed him against the
+wall, the man did not resist.
+
+Teejay climbed to her feet, unsteadily. "I--guess I'm growing--soft,"
+she panted. "Maybe--I don't know--maybe training and muscle-toning
+from--infancy--aren't the answer. A gal just isn't cut out for rough
+and tumble fighting." Her hand flashed up to her forehead, the back of
+it resting against her brow. "Ooo, Steve, catch me--"
+
+She fainted in his arms.
+
+Somehow, they got Teejay into her vac-suit. The walls of the lounge
+were sound-proofed, and the struggle had attracted no one. Silently
+they made their way out of the lounge and through the corridors of
+the _Frank Buck_, heading for the airlock. Steve toted Teejay over
+his shoulder, and remembering Mercury, felt very good about it. He
+ached all over from the fight and he knew he'd need some mending. But
+she'd called him Steve, and that--suddenly and ridiculously--was most
+important.
+
+"What's going on here?" A crewman met them in the corridor and bellowed
+his challenge.
+
+Kevin raised the neutron gun he had taken from LeClarc.
+
+He never used it.
+
+A fraction of a second later, the _Frank Buck_ blasted off from the
+surface of Ganymede, and sudden acceleration threw them all to the
+floor. As Steve was to learn later, no hands were at the controls. No
+_human_ hands.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"This, roughly, is the situation," began Barling, pacing back and
+forth, speaking out of swollen lips and averting the right side of
+his face with its puffy cheek and blackened eye. "We are all in this
+together, and--"
+
+"You hypocrite!" cried Teejay. "Six hours ago, you wanted to kill
+us. Now, because something unexpected pops up, you change your mind.
+Temporarily, for as long as you can use us, is that it?"
+
+"No. If we can get out of this I'll forget about killing, provided you
+forget about kidnapping."
+
+"Well...."
+
+"You haven't any other choice, Captain Moore."
+
+"He's right," Kevin admitted. "But what's the trouble we're in, Mr.
+Barling?"
+
+"Six hours ago you three jumped us and almost made your escape. But the
+_Frank Buck_ took off; suddenly, without warning. _None of my men was
+at the controls._"
+
+"That doesn't make sense," Steve objected.
+
+"I didn't think so, either. I almost don't know how to explain it, what
+I've seen with my own eyes after my men held you in detention here in
+the lounge."
+
+"Why don't you begin at the beginning?" Teejay said, and yawned.
+
+"Don't be funny. Somehow, the anthrovacs escaped from their bubbles
+and--"
+
+"What?" This was Steve, more than slightly incredulous. "Anthrovacs
+are mild creatures and unless they're attacked they won't do anything
+violent."
+
+"That's what I thought, Stedman. I don't know what to think now. The
+anthrovacs escaped--and freed all the other animals. We've been out
+longer than the _Gordak_, we have a couple of dozen prize specimens.
+Lead by the anthrovacs, they've taken over the ship."
+
+"Now you're joking," Teejay told him. "They're all brainless, those
+creatures, except for the anthrovacs."
+
+"They _were_ brainless, Captain Moore. But not now. Now they behave
+logically, with a purpose, and they've taken over the _Frank Buck_ from
+stem to stern--all except those animals that need a special sort of
+atmosphere to breathe, and they've remained in their bubbles.
+
+"Otherwise, the animals took over. And I suppose you can imagine--the
+crew was too astounded to resist, especially since the anthrovacs
+had gotten hold of neutron guns and seemed to know how to use them.
+Result--we've all been disarmed, we're prisoners aboard our own ship,
+and bound for I don't know where."
+
+"Sounds crazy to me," Teejay said, and stalked toward the door.
+
+Steve took a quick step after her, but Barling held him back. "Let her
+find out for herself, Stedman. Then maybe we can talk sense."
+
+Teejay opened the door, stepped out into the corridor. Tensely, Steve
+waited, ready to bolt after her at the first indications of trouble.
+But what he heard was a yelp of surprise from the woman, and then she
+came running back into the lounge, slamming the door behind her.
+
+"A Martian desert cat!" she cried. "It didn't do anything; it just
+stood there, all ten feet of it, looking at me!"
+
+"Then you believe me?" Barling demanded. "As I see it, we must have
+been struck by some cosmic radiation which mutated the animals, and--"
+
+"No," Steve told him bluntly. "That's impossible. First place, any
+such change would have to be selective. _All_ the animals wouldn't be
+affected. And more important, mutation takes generations to manifest
+itself. You never see the change at all in the original creature. Look
+at Earth, way back in the early years of atomics. Genes were mutated at
+those two island cities--Nagasaki and, umm-mm, I forget the name of the
+other. Anyway, genes were mutated, but it took over two hundred years
+for those mutations to become apparent. See what I mean?"
+
+"I do," said Barling. "And that's precisely why I think we ought to
+fight this thing together. I had an idea, you helped me with it. We can
+continue like that."
+
+"Well," Steve nodded, "we have a first-class problem on our hands. We
+can't do anything about it until we know what's going on--only the
+mystery's a little deeper than you think. First, I heard a voice out on
+Ganymede. My brother's voice."
+
+"Your brother's?" Barling scratched his head. "Oh, wait a minute! You
+must mean Charlie Stedman who was killed out here a few years back?"
+
+"Yeah, Charlie. You can't hear voices on Ganymede, but I heard them,
+inside my head. Also, don't forget the Ganymede-fear. I'd say the three
+things will fit together when we begin to learn what's going on."
+
+"Provided we can find out," Teejay told him. "You can keep your
+scientific mysteries for a while, Steve. What I want to know is this:
+where are we going, and why?"
+
+"Ask your desert cat out there." Kevin's laughter was sour.
+
+"What we need is a good turncoat," Teejay assured him. "Someone who can
+go out among the animals and ask questions. I'm joking, of course, but
+if anyone could do it, it would be that rat, LeClarc."
+
+Steve frowned. "That's not as funny as it sounds. Has anyone seen
+LeClarc since the fight?"
+
+"No!" Kevin slammed fist against palm.
+
+Steve was about to answer, but quite suddenly the lights blinked out.
+Somewhere outside, a dozen animals roared their fear. Within the
+lounge, Kevin commenced cursing lustily and an involuntary moan escaped
+Barling's lips.
+
+The darkness was the bleak, utter black of deep space. Further, Steve
+realized, the steady humming of the fission engines had ceased.
+
+Minutes later, impossible pain gripped him and flung him, sobbing to
+the floor. He'd never felt anything like it, a gripping, grinding,
+twisting torment which tried to turn him inside out. He heard the
+others dimly, reeling about the lounge and falling to the floor, and in
+the darkness someone fell near him.
+
+"Steve? Steve, is that you?" Teejay....
+
+"Yeah." The pain seemed to come in waves, and Steve gritted his teeth
+when the second turned out to be worse than the first. He reached out
+with his hand, found Teejay's and squeezed it. "Hold on, kid. It can't
+last forever."
+
+"It better--not."
+
+When her hand tensed in his, then relaxed, Steve knew she'd fainted.
+And soon after that, his own senses reeled and deserted him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Teejay's hand was still tightly clenched in his when he regained
+consciousness. A dozen feet from them, Kevin sat up, shaking his head
+slowly back and forth. Schuyler Barling lay stretched out on his
+stomach.
+
+"Whatever happened," Kevin growled, "I didn't like it."
+
+Teejay extricated her hand, looked at Steve, smiled. "It's still awful
+quiet outside."
+
+It didn't remain that way for long. As if Teejay's words had been a
+signal, a voice boomed at them from the wall-microphone. "We have
+landed. All humans will please file out into the main corridor in an
+orderly fashion and make their way to the airlock."
+
+Schuyler Barling sat up groggily.
+
+Teejay said, "I could swear I know that voice from somewhere."
+
+"And I," Kevin told them. "It's familiar, though I can't place it."
+
+Steve felt his heart pounding. The voice was Charlie's.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They stood on a flat, grassy plain which stretched halfway to the
+horizon and then began to undulate into low hills. And far off,
+shrouded by purple mists, a range of mountains loomed distantly.
+
+Purple mist; a purplish cast to the sky; a fiercely bright blue sun.
+"What world is this?" said Kevin.
+
+The crew of the _Frank Buck_--a hundred men--stood in a long, thin
+file outside the ship. They'd balked at first, but silently, the
+three anthrovacs had ferreted them out with their neutron guns, never
+uttering a sound, merely motioning with the weapons. Of the other
+animals Steve saw nothing, but within the corridors of the _Frank Buck_
+he'd encountered a sand crawler and a desert cat, both dead.
+
+The seconds fled, became minutes. When half an hour had passed, the
+crew became restless and some of them ambled off on the grassy plain
+until one of the anthrovacs herded them back. The _Frank Buck_'s Exec,
+a short, wiry man, strode within the ship and came out a few moments
+later, scratching his head. "I can't understand it," he said. "None of
+the instruments work. I thought we could just pile back into the ship
+and blast off, but apparently someone has other ideas."
+
+Someone did.
+
+Someone came striding across the plain, a small dot of a figure at
+first. He came closer.
+
+Steve ignored the anthrovacs, ran forward. "Charlie!" he cried.
+"Charlie!"
+
+The man was shorter than Steve, and stockier. His eyes searched Steve's
+face briefly, and he said: "Should I know you?"
+
+"Should you! I'm your brother!"
+
+"Interesting, but quite impossible."
+
+The words hardly registered, and Steve babbled on, "We thought you
+were dead. It was Teejay here who reported back to Earth saying you'd
+died on Ganymede. Now you're alive and--" Abruptly he whirled, turned
+to Teejay. "You lied, damn you! Here's Charlie, see? Charlie was never
+dead. But you said--"
+
+"I said Charlie was dead." The woman met his gaze levelly. "He was. I
+know a dead man when I see one. He was dead."
+
+"But--"
+
+"But nothing. I don't know who this is. I can't explain it. That has
+nothing to do with what happened on Ganymede years ago."
+
+"Yes? Then what did happen? Why did Charlie write once that you must
+have been spawned in hell? You never did want to tell me what happened
+on Ganymede, did you? Maybe Charlie can."
+
+"That is my name, Charlie Stedman. It is the name this body has always
+had, although when I do not inhabit it I assure you I am not Charlie
+Stedman," the stocky man said. "You see, the original inhabitant of the
+garment--the body--was destroyed. The name applied to the body as well
+as the inhabiting mind. The language remained engraved in the brain
+cells, and impersonal parts of the memory, too. In that sense, I am
+Charlie Stedman. Does it satisfy you?"
+
+"Hell, no," said Steve, bewildered. Mystery had been piled upon
+mystery, with no solution in sight. And grim confusion turned to
+grimmer anger as he faced Teejay once more. "All right, start talking.
+Just how did you find Charlie? And what made him hate you like that?
+Talk, damn you!"
+
+"Okay, I will. But I don't know why Charlie hated me, and that's the
+truth. I only met him once or twice and--unless it was Schuyler here.
+Hey, Schuyler!"
+
+Barling joined them. "What do you want?"
+
+"Answer this question: do you make a practise of poisoning the minds of
+your crew against me?"
+
+"Well, I don't know what you mean by poi--"
+
+Teejay grabbed a handful of his shirt and twisted, constricting the
+collar about his throat. "Answer me," she said. "And no run around."
+
+"I--I guess so. It's only business, Captain Moore. The more they hated
+you, the more they'd be willing to fight you in the hunt every step of
+the way."
+
+"How about Charlie Stedman?"
+
+"I don't remember. Probably, it was like that."
+
+Teejay flung him away from her. "Does that satisfy you, Steve?"
+
+"For that part, yes. But what about the rest of it?"
+
+"Not much to tell. I was out alone on Ganymede, a few miles from the
+ship. I thought I heard voices, sort of inside my head. I went forward
+to explore, just like you did, and also like you, I almost didn't have
+enough air to get back. Especially since I found your brother on the
+way."
+
+"And he was dead?" As he spoke, Steve looked at his brother, standing
+right there in front of him, and wondered if anyone ever asked a more
+impossible question.
+
+"Yes. He was dead. I don't know how he died, but I placed my ear
+against the chest of his vac-suit. The heart-beat is amplified through
+it, you know. But there wasn't any. After that, I ran back to the
+_Gordak_, and I had barely enough air to make it. I reported Charlie's
+death, of course."
+
+Charlie's death. Well, she sounded sincere. But there was Charlie,
+standing two paces to her right and apparently listening to an account
+of his own demise.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Charlie cleared his throat. Quite evidently, it wasn't Charlie at
+all, but Steve could think of the man in no other way, for down to
+the smallest physical detail, he was Charlie. "That will suffice," he
+said. Again, it was Charlie's voice, but expressionless. "Enough of
+bickering. You will all march with me toward those hills, and we have a
+long journey before sunset."
+
+The nine-foot anthrovacs took up their positions one on each side of
+the column and one behind it, and no one disobeyed. Once Steve looked
+back over his shoulder and saw the purple mists had almost completely
+swallowed the _Frank Buck_.
+
+Then the irony of the situation struck Steve and he smiled--almost.
+He'd come to Ganymede after anthrovacs. But he'd left the satellite
+under an anthrovac guard! Fine thing. A mighty hunter was he! Clear
+across the universe to be bagged by his own game!
+
+Obviously, Steve thought as they marched on, the blue day-star was
+not Earth's sun. Somehow, in a matter of moments, they'd left the
+Solar System entirely. He knew that theories had been advanced about
+traveling through something called sub-space, something which could
+make flight to the farthest stars almost instantaneous, since sub-space
+existed outside the space-time continuum. And that wrenching from one
+spatial plane to another might explain the tremendous pain they'd
+undergone, too. But surely the _Frank Buck_ had never been equipped
+for such flight. The whole concept of sub-space flight was strictly
+theoretical and hadn't even reached the drawing-board stage.
+
+Then how had it happened?
+
+Kevin had some vague, half-formed ideas on the subject, and he let
+Steve know about them. "It's a puzzler, boy. They took us a long way,
+space alone knows how far. I don't pretend to know why; we can't figure
+that out, not yet. But I know this: they could not have done that
+without help. Someone had to bring the ship."
+
+"The anthrovacs?" Steve suggested.
+
+"Not the anthrovacs. For all their handling neutron guns and taking the
+_Frank Buck_ over, they're just big apes to me. Maybe they were able to
+take the ship off Ganymede, but no more than that. They had help, boy,
+and from the inside."
+
+"Who? Who do you mean?"
+
+"I'm not sure I know. But look at it this way. The _Gordak_ wasn't
+taken, the _Frank Buck_ was. Why? I'll tell you why, or at least
+I'll tell you one possibility. There were scores of men on each
+ship, but while the _Gordak_ had only one animal--the stone worm you
+got on Mercury--the _Frank Buck_ had dozens. All right so far, boy?
+Well, here's what I think: _whoever took the ship wanted both men and
+animals._"
+
+"I still don't understand."
+
+"I'm not sure I do, either. Let's get back a little. The _Frank Buck_,
+not the _Gordak_, was taken. Strange, isn't it, that just before that
+happened LeClarc bolted our ranks and joined the enemy! Does that mean
+LeClarc had to be on the _Frank Buck_ before anything happened? And
+where'd he get to, anyway? I haven't seen him since the fight; I don't
+think anyone has. Now, a man spends years idolizing a woman--I've been
+around, and I think I told you LeClarc would have done anything for
+Captain Moore. Suddenly, he gets sulky because he's out of favor with
+her, and decides on a double-cross.
+
+"It smells bad, boy. Sure, he was sulky, but the LeClarc I knew would
+have come crawling to Captain Moore, anyway. This one didn't." Kevin
+paused, ran a hand through his red hair. "Maybe it means he isn't the
+same man. Maybe it means he's something like that thing which calls
+itself your brother. That's not Charlie Stedman and you know it.
+Trouble is, boy, you can't admit it to yourself."
+
+"I won't argue about it," Steve replied. "But you're off the beam
+there. Charlie doesn't remember me, but LeClarc's memory seemed fine."
+
+"That's true, Steve. I can't explain it, except like this: whatever
+happened to both of them, we don't know a thing about it. Maybe it
+works in a different way on different people. Maybe because Charlie was
+dead first, his personal memories were a loss, but LeClarc's weren't
+because he might have been possessed alive."
+
+"Possessed?"
+
+"Yes, possessed. Oh, not by spirits, that's for sure. But possessed
+nevertheless. I won't say the anthrovacs were possessed, for we don't
+know enough about them to begin with. But look at those other animals
+now, the ones that died. You won't deny that something took over their
+brains?"
+
+"Damned right I won't. But I still don't see how it all adds up."
+
+"Nor do I," said Kevin. "Unfortunately, the brutes seemed to have
+perished in transit from Ganymede to here, wherever here is. It
+could be that the strain on their brain-tissue, with sentience and
+intelligence taking over where before only sentience had resided, was
+too great."
+
+Kevin paused, then concluded: "whatever the reason, whatever the reason
+for all of it--I think you'll find LeClarc knows all about it."
+
+The blue sun had neared the horizon and the purple mists had become
+cool and chilling at journey's end. It was then that they saw LeClarc.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The column of men had traversed the grassy plain, had climbed steadily
+through the region of undulating hills. And suddenly, hidden until the
+last moment by a rise in the terrain and spread out at the foot of
+the higher mountains, they saw a city. Circular, walled, pleasantly
+pastel-tinted despite the purple gloom, it lay before them, lights
+which might or might not have been electricity winking on to dispel the
+gathering darkness.
+
+And there, at the city's gateway, stood LeClarc. LeClarc--and not
+LeClarc. The man seemed as much LeClarc as the short stocky figure who
+led the procession seemed Charlie Stedman. "Welcome to Uashalume," he
+said, and Steve pulled up short at the sound of his voice. There was
+something of the volatile Frenchman in it, but something else which was
+alien.
+
+"You will be billeted in temporary quarters for the night," LeClarc
+continued. "You will of course have no need for such quarters after
+tomorrow's bazaar."
+
+"Of course, my foot!" Teejay cried petulantly. "See here, LeClarc,
+we've been getting orders and directives without knowing what they mean
+or why they were given or--"
+
+"Must you be so impatient?" LeClarc's smile was almost devoid of mirth.
+"You've come one hundred thousand light years, and surely you can wait
+until morning."
+
+"Light years!" This was Steve.
+
+And Kevin, "One hundred thousand!"
+
+The academic problem didn't bother Teejay as much as the human one. She
+said, defiantly, "What he needs is a good swift kick."
+
+LeClarc failed to wait for that, or anything else. Chuckling, he led
+the first anthrovac through the high-arched stone gateway and the
+other two creatures herded the humans in after him. Charlie--although
+obviously, the man was not Charlie--went on ahead with LeClarc, and
+Steve had to restrain Teejay with a few terse words.
+
+The purple mists cloaked the city completely now, and as they plodded
+along a wide roadway, Steve half-saw figures watching them from the
+darkness. He could not make the figures out, however, and he heard
+nothing but the sounds their feet made on the stone roadway.
+
+Presently, they came to a smaller, divergent path which led back to the
+base of the wall. Here, in deepest shadow, was their destination--a
+squat, rectangular building carved from stone. A gate creaked and
+clanged open before them; they streamed through, weary after hours of
+forced march; the gate clanged resoundingly behind them. Charlie had
+not entered with them, nor LeClarc, nor the anthrovacs. It took Steve
+only a moment to discover the gate had been securely fastened from the
+outside.
+
+"I guess we bed down here for the night," he said, grinning ruefully.
+
+Teejay shrugged, wrapped the black cape tightly about her. It was cold
+and damp in the one large chamber which took up the interior of the
+building. In the center of the place stood a stone table, and on it a
+gas lamp which flickered and spluttered and cast grotesque shadows as
+the men wandered about. There were no beds, no furniture of any sort
+except for the table. And the two small peep-hole windows were fifteen
+or more feet off the ground.
+
+The crew of the _Frank Buck_ gathered in small, anxious knots and
+whispered grimly among themselves. After a time, men circulated between
+one group and another, and finally one of them, evidently designated as
+spokesman for the rest, approached Schuyler Barling.
+
+He seemed nervous, frightened, unsure of himself. "Captain Barling, my
+name's Steiner, and the fellows thought that--well, that I might speak
+for them. We don't know what's going on, but we do know this much: we
+don't like it."
+
+"I can't blame you," said Barling.
+
+"Point is, sir, we want you to do something about it."
+
+"Eh? Me? What can I do?"
+
+"We don't know that, sir. But a spaceman's a peculiar individual; some
+say he's got characteristics you won't find elsewhere, and one of them
+is this: he has complete confidence in his captain."
+
+"Why, thank you, Steiner."
+
+"Me, I work in fission. I like to have that confidence and the rest of
+the men, they like to have it too. When they lose it, they're kind of
+at a loss. We don't want to think we've lost it here, sir."
+
+"What do you want me to do?" Barling was restless, fidgety, twisting
+his hands together.
+
+"Lead us, sir. Tell us you can get us out of here. Tell us we must be
+prepared to fight behind you and maybe to die, but lead us."
+
+"But how can you expect me to lead you when I don't know what's
+happening? How can I plan for escape when I don't know what it is we
+have to escape from?"
+
+"There's talk among the men, sir," Steiner went on. "Some of them are
+for you, although I'll be frank. There aren't many, sir. But they need
+a leader, all of them agree on that. What they want to know is this:
+are you their man?"
+
+Barling squared his thin shoulders arrogantly. "I'm the _Frank Buck_'s
+Captain."
+
+"The _Frank Buck_ lies behind us in those purple mists, sir. Could you
+find it? Finding it, could you make it run again?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Then the fact that you captain the _Frank Buck_ doesn't mean much.
+We've decided that leaves us without a leader, sir. We need a leader."
+
+Barling smiled coldly. "Are you trying to tell me the men have selected
+you?"
+
+"No, sir. I'm not. But the majority of the men have their choice--and
+that is Captain Moore. We who have been with the _Frank Buck_ longest
+have heard a lot of bad talk about Captain Moore, but that changes
+completely whenever we make planetfall. The talk in all the frontier
+towns is all in Captain Moore's favor. When there are decisions to be
+made, sir, we'd like her to make them."
+
+"A woman? When all your lives may be at stake?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One of the three hunters who'd fared so poorly in the lounge fight
+strode forward, saying: "Look at yourself, sir. You're beaten and
+battered, and that's Captain Moore's work. Did her sex matter then?"
+
+Barling reddened, said nothing.
+
+"We have a pressing need for a leader," Steiner continued. "Our
+behavior cannot be chaotic. The leader must plan for us, and we must
+be prepared to carry out those plans with no hesitation. We must have
+faith in our leader."
+
+Teejay joined them, grinning. "Thank you, Mr. Steiner. There was a time
+not long ago when what you've just finished saying would have meant
+more to me than anything. Literally, more than anything. But would you
+think it strange if you hear that I don't think that now?"
+
+"What do you mean?" Steiner demanded.
+
+"I'm a twenty-second century female, strong as a man and proud of it.
+_Too_ proud, Mr. Steiner, for I've spent my whole life trying to prove
+it. Plenty of men have cursed me for it, I'll bet, and I guess they
+were right.
+
+"So I don't want that job you offer. It took a kind of free-for-all
+brawl to make me realize it, but a woman's still a woman, and that's
+one thing I had to learn. I fought your Captain Barling and I beat him.
+Probably, I could do it again. But I--well, I was fighting with Captain
+Barling and saying to myself all the time, 'This is stupid. What are
+you--a girl--doing this for? Don't you know you shouldn't go around
+fighting like a man?'" Steve noticed in the dim light that Teejay had
+begun to blush. "I hate to bare my life before you like this, Mr.
+Steiner, but the way it adds up I've suddenly found I've had enough of
+fighting and galavanting around. So the answer is no: I won't be your
+captain. The way I feel now, I can't be."
+
+"Where does that leave us?" Steiner asked her sullenly. "We don't think
+Captain Barling can do the job, whatever the job turns out to be. It's
+one thing to serve on a largely automatic ship under Captain Barling,
+but another thing to have to take his orders here--wherever we are."
+
+"May I make a suggestion?" Teejay asked. And, after Steiner nodded and
+most of the men grumbled their assent: "There are two men here who can
+lead us the way we should be led. One is Kevin McGann, Exec of the
+_Gordak_; the other is Steve Stedman."
+
+A stir of surprise passed among the men. It was one thing to offer
+their allegiance to the Captain of another ship--and an unusual thing
+at that--but quite another to offer it to a couple of men they hardly
+knew. The men began heated discussions once more, louder this time, and
+Teejay drew Steve off into a corner.
+
+"Does that surprise you?"
+
+"It sure does, Teejay. On both counts. But I'll tell you this: I think
+I could like you a lot better in your new role, and--Teejay?"
+
+"What?" Her voice was soft and he felt her hand snuggle into his.
+
+"I--I like you plenty right now." He slid his arms around her
+waist, drew her toward him, one small part of his mind expecting a
+roundhouse right-handed wallop from the old Teejay. But she merely
+sighed contentedly and slipped her arms around his neck. He kissed
+her--tentatively at first--then long and deep, and Teejay's eyes were
+all aglow when he finished.
+
+"You lug," she said, "if you didn't do something like that, and soon, I
+was going to be an Amazon just once more to make you do it."
+
+Someone--Steve saw it was Steiner--stood before them clearing his
+throat. "Captain Moore?"
+
+"Yes?" Teejay hardly saw him.
+
+"The men have decided to accept your recommendation. McGann and Stedman
+it is, Captain Moore. They bark and we'll jump. And we'll be hoping
+something comes of it."
+
+"If it's at all possible, they'll get us out of here," Teejay
+predicted, and squeezed Steve's hand.
+
+"Any orders, sir?" Steiner looked at Steve.
+
+"Umm-mm, no. Except that we'd like to have this corner to ourselves for
+a while."
+
+"Done," said Steiner, smiling and striding away.
+
+"I have one order," Kevin called out loudly, and silence fell on the
+room quite abruptly. "Let's all get the hell to sleep before we're too
+tired to do anything when morning comes."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A purple-blue dawn crept in through the two small windows, bringing
+strange bird-sounds with it. Steve was stiff and chilled and he'd slept
+badly on the hard stone floor. The groans and frowns all around the
+room showed him he wasn't the only one. Teejay slept like a baby, the
+cape wrapped about her, and she didn't arise until one of the men began
+to bang on the stone and metal door.
+
+"Is it morning?" said Teejay, coming into Steve's arms almost before
+she was fully awake. "I had the nicest dreams, darling!"
+
+Abruptly, Steve whirled away from her. The door had begun to creak in
+ponderously on little-used hinges.
+
+An anthrovac bent and came within the chamber, bearing a bath-tub-sized
+bowl of what looked like hot, steaming cereal. It was deposited near
+the table, along with a dozen or so stone spoons. Foolishly, one of
+the men darted for the doorway. Reaching out with a long, hairy arm,
+the anthrovac scooped him up by the scruff of the neck and flung him
+back inside. He got to his feet with a nasty gash on his forehead which
+Teejay bandaged with a strip of cloth ripped from the hem of her black
+cape.
+
+The spoons were passed around after that, and the men of the _Frank
+Buck_ dug into the gruel with gusto. It had been fifteen hours since
+any of them had eaten and surprisingly, the gruel turned out to be
+quite palatable, with an appealing, nut-like flavor.
+
+The anthrovac waited fifteen minutes, then lifted the huge bowl and
+departed with it. But the door didn't close fully.
+
+Charlie Stedman came through it.
+
+"Good morning," he said. "We're a little late, and we'll have to hurry
+if we want to reach the bazaar in time for opening."
+
+"Are you sure we want to?" Kevin demanded sarcastically.
+
+And Steiner suggested: "Maybe you'd like to answer a few questions
+first."
+
+"Sure." This was Teejay. "About a thousand questions."
+
+It was as if the man hadn't heard them at all. "Outside a vehicle
+awaits you. There is room for all, provided each man occupies one of
+the squares you will find marked off on the floor. Let's go."
+
+Angry, sullen, but still thoroughly bewildered, the men trooped outside.
+
+The vehicle was a sort of bus, although the noise of a gasoline engine
+or the purring of a fission engine would have shocked Steve here on
+the world called Uashalume. As it turned out, the bus started with a
+whining whistle which quickly climbed to the super-sonic and faded
+beyond the level human ears could reach. Within the vehicle there were
+no seats, but the floor had been divided into two-foot squares, a thin
+white line marking off each box. When each man had occupied his square,
+the bus slipped away from the squat building and was soon streaking
+down the roadway at a good clip.
+
+Steve saw other buildings, most of them squat and shapeless. And now,
+with the coming of daylight, he could see some of the inhabitants
+of Uashalume. He'd steeled himself for it. He hadn't expected human
+beings. Any variety of six-legged, multi-tentacled, bug-eyed creatures
+would have been strictly in order.
+
+He gasped.
+
+He got more than he bargained for. Hardly two of the creatures gazing
+in at them were alike! The differences were not those you might expect
+to find among the members of a particular species. The differences were
+_extreme_.
+
+A furry thing hovered alongside the open-windowed bus on six
+gauze-like wings.
+
+Multiple eyes stared up at them out of a pool of amorphous protoplasm.
+
+A bony, stick-like creature with four arms and one cyclopean eye
+covering almost its entire head peered at them.
+
+An ecto-skeletoned monstrosity made clicking noises as they passed.
+
+Big horrors and little horrors.
+
+Steve found himself laughing harshly. What did all his knowledge of
+Extra-terrestrial zoology amount to now? Extra-terrestrial--that meant
+the Solar System, one tiny, inconsequential corner of a great galaxy.
+But here, here on Uashalume, denizens of a hundred Solar Systems might
+have been gathered.
+
+Why?
+
+Such utterly different creatures--each conforming to a particular
+environmental niche--would not be found together. Unless someone had
+probed the depths of space for life-forms that might all be capable
+of surviving on Uashalume, as, indeed, humans could survive there!
+But why? The question returned, taunted him. Again, such a gathering
+wouldn't be out of direct choice. If each of the creatures seemed so
+completely strange, so horrible, so ludicrous to human eyes--they
+probably appeared that way to one another as well.
+
+Steve wondered how some of them might describe the obnoxious,
+featherless, hairless bipeds which walked upright on two limbs and
+carried two other limbs for more varied purposes than walking. Bipeds
+which called themselves humans. And that, precisely, was the point.
+Such a gathering stemmed from no natural cause. Such a gathering had
+been imposed arbitrarily, but for what purpose? And what, if anything,
+did the bazaar have to do with it? A bazaar of the worlds, bringing
+together for trade, creatures of every form and size and color? Steve
+doubted that somehow, for the bazaar would lack a universal means
+of exchange, and even if barter were resorted to, how could totally
+alien life-forms assess the value of completely foreign produce? They
+couldn't.
+
+That left Steve with nothing but a lot of half-formed questions and no
+answers at all.
+
+He had a hunch he'd begin to get some answers when the bus reached its
+destination. As with the inhabitants of Uashalume, he was to get more
+than he bargained for.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They milled about in confusion on a large raised platform under the
+blue sun. A sea of impossible creatures rolled and seethed on all sides
+of them, shutter-eyes, pin-hole eyes, simple light-sensitive receptors,
+multiple-tube eyes--hundreds of varieties all intent upon them.
+
+Steve heard voices around him on the platform, confused, alarmed.
+"What's happening?"
+
+"This place looks like an auction block!"
+
+"Look at those creatures, will you?"
+
+"Are we for sale or something?"
+
+The human voices faded into a meaningless babble. Someone else was
+speaking, but not aloud. It was like Charlie Stedman's voice, that
+day on Ganymede. Steve heard it inside his head and this time--because
+they all stood about more bewildered than ever--he knew that the _Frank
+Buck_'s crew heard it too.
+
+"Friends of Uashalume," the voice purred mentally, "here, at opening
+day of the bazaar, we have a most unusual treat. Most unusual. Two of
+us, as you know, have already tested the models in question, and we
+find them entirely satisfactory."
+
+Charlie Stedman and LeClarc stepped forward, bowed.
+
+"For the rest of you, one hundred choice specimens! We set no
+fixed price, but let this be said about the new garments. They are
+unspoiled, virgin material; they've not been used before. You'll
+find them stimulating for that reason alone, I'm sure. As for the
+vital statistics, they vary in height from three and a half to five
+_klars_; in weight from fifteen to twenty-nine _jarons_; they are a
+bisexual lot, although only one female of the species is present; their
+intellectual capacity is on the seventh level, their better minds can
+attain to problems of relativity and universal field; emotionally, they
+have twice the range of any previous garment!"
+
+The voice paused significantly, permitted that point to sink in. "Yes,
+twice the range. We none of us have ever experienced such strong, vital
+emotions. Can you imagine, twice the emotional range of the _scouradi_
+of Deneb XIX! It means a new way of life for those among us who select
+some of these humans for their own.
+
+"Now, the auction-master will please step forward."
+
+"We _are_ for sale," Steiner gasped.
+
+It was Charlie Stedman who came to the fore, climbing the auction-block
+and looking around him. After a time, he singled out Steiner and pulled
+the man forward by an elbow. "The first specimen is typical," he droned
+in English, and Steve figured he spoke mentally to the assembled
+throngs, reeling off the height, weight, and other vital statistics for
+Steiner. Finally: "What am I bid?"
+
+Mental voices sang out, one after another:
+
+"Three _char_!"
+
+"Four."
+
+"Six."
+
+"Ten _char_."
+
+"Ten?" The man who was Charlie Stedman laughed. "Ten char indeed! One
+hundred is not enough."
+
+The bidding continued, became hot, became a contest between two mental
+voices. Steiner went for seventy-four _char_, whatever a _char_ was.
+
+They took him down and carted him away, struggling. It looked like an
+ugly scene would develop, for a score of men surged toward the front
+of the block angrily. But some of the creatures held what looked like
+strange, possibly lethal weapons, and Kevin growled: "Not now! There's
+no sense getting all of us killed. Relax, and we'll see."
+
+Grumbling, the men subsided, and Kevin turned to Steve: "If this isn't
+the damndest cosmic joke of all."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"We're hunters, big game hunters. We go out into space to hunt for
+specimens, only this time we've become specimens ourselves! This time
+we weren't the hunters, but the quarry!"
+
+The auction continued, and one by one the men were sold. Once one
+of them, a radar technician, bolted and ran. He was cut down quite
+efficiently by one of the hand-weapons and Charlie Stedman asserted it
+was a pity one of the specimens had been lost. "Keep your tempers,"
+Kevin said grimly as a wave of anger washed over the auction block.
+"I don't like it any more than you do, but we won't fight until we
+understand--and then perhaps we'll have a chance."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When half the men had been taken, Charlie Stedman reached for Teejay
+and dragged her forward. "This," he said, "is the female of the
+species. You will notice the long hair atop her head and the twin
+out-thrust developments of the upper ventral region; these are the
+marks of distinction. And for two reasons we will demand a special
+price for the female.
+
+"First, we are primarily interested in these humans for emotion.
+Stronger garments we have, and garments which live longer. But none
+attain to the human emotional level. And, among the humans, the female
+is capable of stronger surges of emotion, perhaps because in general
+she is physically weaker and must compensate for it, although, from
+what I've seen, this particular specimen is a physical match for the
+others.
+
+"Second, one specific high degree of emotion is possible only when a
+male and a female are in one another's presence. Therefore, whichever
+one of you owns the female can be certain of that added stimulus, and,
+as a consequence, certain of a more satisfactory garment from the
+emotional point of view. Now, what am I offered?"
+
+Teejay went for three hundred _char_.
+
+Kevin had to circle Steve's body with his huge arms and hold him firm
+as they took Teejay away. He'd found the woman quite suddenly, and he
+loved her all the more for it. His potential worst enemy had become
+his lover. And now, brief hours later she was taken from him, perhaps
+forever. "Let go of me! Get your filthy hands off me. That's Teejay
+they're taking! Teejay!"
+
+"And they'll take you too. But you're going alive, not dead. Stand
+still and let them get on with this."
+
+"Don't you realize what they've been talking about?" Steve shouted his
+rage. "They'll _wear_ us, like clothing. They'll get inside our brains
+and share our bodies with us, like they've done with all these other
+creatures. Did you think these monsters were all native to Uashalume? I
+wouldn't be surprised if none of them was. They've all been taken, as
+we have, from their own worlds. They all live here--as clothing. Maybe
+the masters don't have physical form at all, maybe they're just mental
+essence.
+
+"And all they want to do is run the gamut of our emotions. They know
+how to play with emotions, too. Remember the Ganymede-fear, Kevin?"
+
+"I remember, boy." Kevin still held him.
+
+"Well, that was their work. Probably, Ganymede was their base in our
+Solar System, although it's possible they first got into LeClarc's
+brain on Mercury. And Kevin, all those theories you had were right!"
+
+"Yes, I know. And sub-space--"
+
+"The hell with that. They're taking Teejay and they may take all of us
+and spread us out all over the face of this world. We'll never find
+each other. We'll--"
+
+"You're next, Steve Stedman." It was Charlie's voice, and Steve felt
+Kevin release him with a word of warning, felt himself drawn to the
+front of the block. Somehow, he found he was incredibly objective as
+the bidding began. He was claimed for one hundred fifty _char_ and led
+away by a creature with a stilt-like body and six arms. Or rather, he
+thought, that was the garment. But the real creature--the mental entity
+within it--had grown tired of last year's cloak, and Steve was to take
+its place.
+
+Moments later, Steve's buyer whisked him away in a smaller version of
+the bus that had taken the _Frank Buck_'s crew to the bazaar. On the
+outskirts of the city, the car stopped. Steve climbed out, followed
+the stilt-figure up a flight of stairs as a round, fat, furry creature
+bounced up behind him with a weapon.
+
+Inside, the place looked like a laboratory. And at the center of the
+room squatted a great round tank, large enough to hold a man. A green
+liquid boiled within it, but somehow Steve got the impression of
+boiling without much heat. He became absorbed in the idea, reached up
+over the lip of the tank to verify it on a thoroughly peculiar impulse.
+
+Something struck him from behind. He staggered to his knees and tried
+to keep his eyes opened. The hard stone floor slammed against his face
+as he lost consciousness.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He was floating, and when he could see again, a murky green haze
+surrounded him.
+
+_Floating, completely submerged!_
+
+He felt no desire to breathe. He did not have to breathe at all. It was
+as if his life had been suspended completely, as if there was no need
+for his body to carry out its normal functions. But he wasn't dead. He
+could open his eyes and stare at the green liquid, and he could think.
+
+And after a time, vague forms appeared outside. He saw the walls of the
+laboratory and the shining instruments--through green murk. And he saw
+something else moving about, a shadowy form. The stilt-like creature?
+
+Abruptly, sharp pain lanced from the front of his skull to the back.
+Briefly. And it did not repeat itself.
+
+A voice whispered, "You are struggling. Do not struggle, for it can
+only prolong the inevitable. Transfer takes time, of course; but the
+longer it takes the more unpleasant it will be for you."
+
+"Go to hell."
+
+It was then that the pain came back--stronger. And something almost
+physical pushed in at his mind, something ugly, unclean, wet with a
+damp, chilling moisture which brought twinges of fright. _Like the
+Ganymede-fear, but more intense._
+
+"To struggle is useless."
+
+The wet feeling, like fingers now, fingers which oozed slime, clung to
+his brain, probed it, bore inward.
+
+"Why struggle? I think you will make a good fit."
+
+"Go away. Damn you, go away!"
+
+"I see the auction-master was right. Emotionally, you are strong."
+
+The fingers departed, came back again, more insistent. No longer wet,
+they were digits of fire now, burning, burning.
+
+Steve screamed soundlessly and fainted.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Steve came to, he was outside the tank. He was tired and did
+not feel like walking. Nevertheless, he walked. At first he did not
+understand. He thought: _I will sit down and rest._
+
+His body failed to obey, continued walking.
+
+"We share this body," the voice whispered to him, within his skull.
+"You are merely an observer as long as I am awake. I am in control.
+Henceforth, I dwell in this body."
+
+"I want to sleep."
+
+"You will learn that your mind can sleep while your body does not. And
+the body interests me, human. The body is capable of strong emotion. I
+want to feel that emotion."
+
+The place, Steve realized later, was a sort of proving-grounds. He felt
+himself walking, walking. He reached the edge of a cliff, stared down
+from giddy heights. He felt himself teetering on the edge, saw jagged
+rocks far below him. He jumped. He did not want to, but he jumped.
+
+"We'll be killed!" he cried, icy fear making his heart pound.
+
+"That is fear," said the voice in his skull. "That is wonderful fear.
+So strong--"
+
+Something cushioned their fall, slowly. It _was_ that, Steve knew.
+_Their_ fall, not his alone. For the creature shared it with him.
+
+He tumbled, but slowly, like a feather, like a wraith of fog. He
+alighted on the rocks with hardly a jar, cushioned by some advanced
+application of a force-field. A large cube of metal was there to convey
+them to the top once more.
+
+After that, he became giddy. He did not know why, but the impulse to
+laugh was too strong to resist. He laughed until it grew painful,
+laughed until the tears came to his eyes.
+
+"That is joy," said the voice. "I can instill joy in you. But the way
+you express it, that is unique. More!"
+
+And Steve's laughter bubbled up insanely again. The creature was
+wrong--not joy. Hysteria, more nearly. Unused to emotions, the creature
+could not tell them apart.
+
+Something grabbed his arms and held it. A giant vise which could crush
+and twist. He saw nothing, realized that it was some mental trick--but
+thoroughly effective. His arm was being wrenched from its socket,
+slowly, terribly.
+
+He clenched his teeth, groaned. From somewhere far off, the voice
+laughed calmly. "I like that. Oh yes, I do. I like your reaction to
+pain."
+
+An intense loathing he had never before experienced took hold of him.
+At first he thought it was another trick, but he could sense alarm in
+the creature which shared him. The loathing, then, was his body's
+reaction to its parasite. Almost, he could feel the creature squirming,
+and he gave free reign to the emotion.
+
+"Stop!" The voice was strident, alarmed.
+
+_I hate you_, Steve thought intensely. _I hate you._
+
+"Stop! I warn you, you will kill us with that, or drive us insane."
+
+Vertigo followed the loathing as the creature fought back. Steve was
+tired, suddenly more tired than he'd ever been. He sank back into
+blackness, knew even as his senses fled that his mind alone would
+sleep, not his body. With two minds, the body would not sleep at
+all--and in a matter of months it would perish of fatigue. But the
+creature within him feared his hatred, and that he must remember.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The days followed each other in a slow, tortuous procession. Nothing
+seemed to satiate the parasite, for each day it strove for new
+emotions, and after a time Steve learned he could frustrate it by
+regarding everything as unreal, imaginative, non-existent.
+
+Sometimes, the guest slept when the host did not. At such times,
+Steve found, he had freedom of a sort. His field of action was not
+circumscribed in any way except that violent activity would awaken the
+parasite. Steve toyed with his freedom, timorously at first, then grew
+more confident. He played with it, basked in it after steady days of
+control. He even discovered he could use the telepathic abilities of
+his uninvited mental guest.
+
+He missed Teejay, wondered about her, longed for her. His astonishment
+was so extreme when he first heard her voice within his head that he
+almost awakened the parasite.
+
+"Steve? Steve, is that you?"
+
+"Teejay--"
+
+"I've been trying to reach you. When these creatures sleep, we can use
+_their_ minds."
+
+"Then you're all right?"
+
+"I'm as all right as can be expected, Steve. But they've been running
+me through all sorts of emotional mazes. My clothing is torn and they
+don't care about it. My skin is torn and bruised. They don't care
+about that, either. They'll run us down. Did you notice all the other
+creatures here? Some of their bones are broken--if they have bones--and
+they've never been set. They're bruised and bloody and infected and the
+parasites don't care! Why should they, they can get new bodies? But
+Steve--oh, Steve, I've never felt so unclean in all my life and it's
+just as if I've been defiled and--"
+
+"Take it easy, Teejay. Thinking like that won't help."
+
+"I hate them. Oh, I hate them. I--"
+
+"Listen. I want you to concentrate like that. Hate weakens them.
+Remember how the animals aboard the _Frank Buck_ died? Well, since our
+emotions are so much stronger than the parasites, maybe, maybe--"
+
+"You mean it could work in reverse?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"You want me to try, darling?"
+
+"Yes--no! We can't do it now. If it works, we'd still be leaving a
+hundred men here. They're doomed, Teejay. We're all doomed unless
+we can do something about it, and soon. But at night they sleep.
+Yeah, they sleep at night! If we can contact the others, and make
+a concentrated effort of it, using the telepathic powers of the
+parasites--"
+
+"Shh! That's enough, Steve. My friend here is getting up. I can feel
+him stirring inside my head. Shh, later!"
+
+At the end, hope had made Teejay her old spunky self again. But when
+Steve's own master awakened, that hope seemed mighty slim indeed.
+
+Each night they managed to contact two or three of the others, and the
+word was supposed to be passed on. Finally, it was arranged. The night
+for action was decided upon, and for some few of them it would be a
+gamble, for there was no guarantee that all the parasites would be
+asleep. Once the attempt was made, however, there would be no turning
+back. Whoever was left behind--was left behind.
+
+Provided the plan worked at all.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The creature was asleep again.
+
+"I hate you," Steve said quietly.
+
+Silence.
+
+"_I hate you._" He thought it now, thought it with all his being--and
+somehow he could sense the thought was being reinforced as scores of
+men concentrated on it around the city. The mind within him stirred
+sluggishly, but he pushed it under again. Hate, hate, hate.
+
+Hadn't the creature said it could kill them both? A gamble. Everything
+was a gamble. Naturally the parasite would say that.
+
+Steve began to sweat, physically. He was weak and the muscles of his
+arms and legs trembled. His mind found the strange telepathic channel
+of the parasite, traveled inward along it--with hatred. That, at least,
+was easy. He did _hate_ the creature so thoroughly and so completely
+that the feeling pushed everything else from his mind.
+
+A concert of hatred, all over the city. And slumbering masters who
+might or might not awaken.
+
+"Stop!" A clarion command inside his skull. The parasite was fighting
+back.
+
+Steve tumbled to the floor, lay there writhing. Two minds fought for
+control of his body, and he was being pushed back and out of control.
+He got to his feet stiffly, strode to a cabinet, took out a knife. He
+stared at the knife, fascinated, pointed it toward his chest.
+
+"One of us must die, human, but it shall not be I!"
+
+He drove the knife inward, slowly, an inch at a time toward his chest.
+He felt the point sting, saw a thin trickle of blood. For a moment,
+he fought to possess his arms and the knife with them. That was a
+mistake--almost, a fatal one.
+
+The parasite wanted that, for, in such a battle, it would win
+everytime. Perhaps it could not fight his hatred, but it could fight
+anything else he had to offer.
+
+The knife went in, scraped against a rib.
+
+Steve yelled hoarsely, drenched every atom of his soul in hatred.
+Slowly, he withdrew the knife, watched bright red blood well up after
+it.
+
+Something tugged at his mind, slipped away--first scalding, then wet.
+It oozed out, and pain blurred Steve's vision as he tumbled to the
+floor again.
+
+When he got up moments later and managed to staunch the flow of blood,
+he knew the parasite had perished.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Barely sixty of them met near the city gate--grim and weary, most of
+them with fresh wounds. Steve's joy was an emotion the dead parasite
+would have loved to share when he saw Teejay among the sixty. Kevin
+was there too, and Steiner. Surprisingly, Schuyler Barling seemed more
+sprightly than the rest.
+
+"LeClarc?" Steve demanded.
+
+"He was the first," said Kevin. "Stronger control, perhaps. He's among
+those who could not make it."
+
+"Maybe they're still alive."
+
+"No," Teejay told him. "I saw three men die, horribly. Most of the
+others probably did, too."
+
+"Don't you see, boy, we can't chance survival for all of us to seek out
+one or two who might still be alive! It wouldn't be fair." Kevin shook
+his head grimly.
+
+Steve knew he was right. He was far too exhausted to argue, anyway.
+"Then we'll go as we are?"
+
+"Well, there are half a dozen others in the gate-house now, forcing
+information from some of the hosts."
+
+"What information?"
+
+"About sub-space, boy. A hunter named McSweeney was possessed by a
+scientist of sorts, and he learned the sub-space gear is a compact
+little device which a man can carry. They store a few dozen of 'em in
+the gate-house, and--hello!"
+
+Half a dozen men emerged from the stone structure, and one of them fell
+as a beam of energy seared out and caught him. A variety of creatures
+streamed out after them, triggering strange weapons. Soon the fighting
+became general, and it looked for a time as though the humans--without
+weapons of any sort--would be slaughtered. But Steve grabbed one of
+the stilt-creatures, twisted its neck quickly, heard a sharp cracking
+sound. The creature fell and Steve plunged down with it, coming up with
+the hand-weapon and firing into the ranks that bore down upon them.
+
+As others of the aliens fell, men retrieved their weapons, fighting
+back with ever-increased fire-power, although their numbers were
+decreasing. And battling thus, they broke through the gate and out
+among the purple-misted hills. Hissing beams of energy emitted
+sufficient light to see by, and Kevin's voice could be heard roaring
+above the sounds of fighting:
+
+"Stick together! If a man's lost in this purple fog, he's done for!
+Stick together!"
+
+It was a nightmare. Steve fought shoulder to shoulder with Teejay. Now
+that he'd been reunited with her, there'd be no more separation, he
+vowed silently. Not unless he died here on the purple world.
+
+Energy beams crossed back and forth as the men retreated, stumbling
+and darting among the little hillocks. Time lost its normally rigid
+control. Hours might have been minutes, or the other way around. Time
+became utterly subjective, with each man living in his own particular
+continuum. For Steve it seemed at least a short version of eternity
+until they reached the _Frank Buck_. And when they did, dawn was
+streaking the horizon with pale blue radiance, casting a deep purple
+shadow from the ship to where they fought.
+
+It was Kevin who reached the airlock first, Kevin who sprung it open.
+Two by two they filed in, still facing the aliens and firing their
+weapons. At the last moment--when fully half of those who remained had
+entered the ship--the three anthrovacs appeared, came loping across the
+plain toward them.
+
+Steve cut the first one down and drew careful aim on the second. It
+wasn't necessary. The third anthrovac abruptly turned on its fellow
+and sent it reeling, senseless, with one blow. In the confusion, its
+parasite must have been careless, must have relaxed its control. The
+anthrovac, which made a habit of miming men, whirled and began to
+wreack havoc among the pursuers.
+
+It helped turn the tide of battle, and with Steve and Teejay, it was
+the last to enter the ship.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Twenty-two of us," Kevin said grimly. "There are twenty-two who
+survived." They all sat about, nursing their wounds. The ship had flung
+itself through hyper-space, now hovered a million miles off Ganymede.
+
+"You're wrong. There are twenty-three." It was Charlie Stedman. In the
+darkness and confusion, he'd managed to fight his way back with them.
+But why?
+
+"Charlie!" Steve forgot the question. "You're free too."
+
+Charlie lifted a neutron gun. "No. You're wrong. None of us is free.
+You'll find a ship has followed you here. And you're going to follow it
+back."
+
+Of course, Steve thought dully. Charlie was dead. Charlie could not
+return as himself. But they were right back where they started from,
+for the creature who was Charlie could force their return.
+
+Kevin stood near the viewport, spoke grimly. "He's not lying. There's a
+ship out there."
+
+Schuyler Barling smiled coldly, took up his position near Charlie. "You
+all rejected my command once," he said. "You shouldn't have. I had no
+desire to come back to Earth like that. I've also learned that I can
+share my body on an equal basis with my master, something none of you
+would consider. Now we'll take you back."
+
+Almost eighty men had died--for nothing. Steve held Teejay's hand
+briefly, released it. One life more wouldn't matter, and if there were
+a chance....
+
+"Charlie, don't you remember anything?"
+
+"What should I remember?"
+
+"I'm your brother."
+
+"That much I knew when I called you on Ganymede. But there are no
+emotional ties. Keep back!"
+
+Steve took a step toward him. "You're my brother, and you wouldn't
+kill me. You can't."
+
+It was wild, impossible, and he knew it. The creature was not his
+brother, had not been his brother for years. Yet if some small vestige
+of his brother's emotional memories remained--
+
+"Keep back, I warn you!"
+
+Steve could see the finger tightening on the trigger when he dove. His
+shoulder jarred Charlie's knees, and they went down together, rolling
+over and over on the floor. The neutron gun hissed once, between them,
+and Charlie relaxed.
+
+A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth for a moment, and he said,
+"Steve." He died that way, with the smile still on his lips.
+
+Schuyler Barling was laughing and screaming, froth flecking his chin.
+The delicate balance between parasite and host had been entangled,
+possibly beyond repair. Neither could dominate, and the result was a
+hopeless, gibbering hulk of a man.
+
+"Poor devil," said Kevin. "He'll get psychiatric treatment on Earth, if
+that will help."
+
+Steve crossed to the airlock, climbed into a spacesuit.
+
+"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Teejay wanted to know.
+
+"You're forgetting about the other ship. We haven't got a blasting
+cannon on the _Frank Buck_, and there isn't one down on the _Gordak_,
+either. But with no absorbing medium in space, one of these neutron
+guns can be a potent weapon." Steve clamped the fishbowl helmet down
+over his head and activated the airlock.
+
+Soon he stood outside, with nothing but space on three sides of him.
+On the fourth, his magnetic boots gripped the _Frank Buck_'s steeloid
+hull as he set himself, ready to fire the small hand gun.
+
+Energy flared brightly from its muzzle, and the other ship, a slim,
+sinister shape miles off in the void, flared up with it and dissolved
+in a shower of sparks and mist. But the neutron gun had a kick which
+dislodged Steve from the hull and sent him spinning off into space.
+
+Through the lock-port, no more than four feet away, he saw Kevin
+donning a vac-suit. The big Exec reached out to grab him but his arm
+fell a full foot short. All at once, Kevin was dwarfed by the anthrovac
+as the big animal joined him, scratching its head as Kevin reached out
+hopelessly into space. The gap was increasing.
+
+Did the anthrovac understand? No, Steve thought; an anthrovac could no
+more understand than a parrot could actually talk. But like a parrot,
+an anthrovac could mimic.
+
+A huge hairy arm reached out into space, the hand locking on Steve's
+gauntleted fist. He was drawn back into the _Frank Buck_ and to safety,
+and it was many minutes before they could stop the anthrovac from
+probing out experimentally into empty space.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"You know," Steve told Teejay and Kevin later, "I think at the last
+minute my brother understood."
+
+"It looked that way to me, boy," Kevin nodded. "So he died happy. But
+there's a lot of work for Earth to do. We'll have to clear the System
+of anything that remains here of Uashalume's power. And then maybe
+someday we'll have to get up an expedition and clean out that foul
+place."
+
+"One good thing came from it," Steve told them. "We've got sub-space
+drive now, and the stars are ours." He lit a cigarette, frowning. "But
+I think we ought to go easy on our game-hunting, and you can tell that
+to Brody Carmical or anyone else, Teejay. Those, creatures out there
+were hunters too, you know."
+
+"Forget about the past, will you?" Teejay snapped at him, then grinned
+when he looked hurt. "I still feel unclean, Steve. I'd love to sit in a
+hot bath for about twenty-four hours straight."
+
+Steve grinned back. "If we were married, I could scrub around your
+shoulder-blades for you."
+
+Kevin cleared his throat ominously. "They made me Captain of this ship,
+didn't they. What are we waiting for?"
+
+The ceremony was brief, and after it, Steve and Teejay hustled back to
+the recreation rooms and swimming pools with a bar of strong soap, a
+couple of washcloths, and a lot of pleasant ideas.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Jungle in the Sky, by Milton Lesser
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 58688 ***