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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Space Oasis, by Raymond Z. Gallun
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+
+
+Title: Space Oasis
+
+Author: Raymond Z. Gallun
+
+Release Date: May 21, 2020 [EBook #62186]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SPACE OASIS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+ <img src="images/cover.jpg" width="347" height="500" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="titlepage">
+
+<h1>SPACE OASIS</h1>
+
+<h2>By RAYMOND Z. GALLUN</h2>
+
+<p>Space-weary rocketmen dreamed of an<br />
+asteroid Earth. But power-mad Norman<br />
+Haynes had other plans—and he<br />
+spread his control lines in a<br />
+doom-net for that oasis in space.</p>
+
+<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br />
+Planet Stories Fall 1942.<br />
+Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br />
+the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p>I found Nick Mavrocordatus scanning the bulletin board at the Haynes
+Shipping Office on Enterprize Asteroid, when I came back with a load of
+ore from the meteor swarms.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at me with that funny curve on his lips, that might have been
+called a smile, and said, "Hi, Chet," as casually as though we'd seen
+each other within the last twenty-four hours.... "Queer laws they got
+in the Space Code, eh? The one that insists on the posting of casualty
+lists, for instance. You'd think the Haynes Company would like to keep
+such things dark."</p>
+
+<p>I didn't say anything for a moment, as my eyes went down those narrow,
+typed columns on the bulletin board: Joe Tiffany—dead—space armor
+defect.... Hermann Schmidt and Lan Harool—missing—vicinity of
+Pallas.... Irvin Davidson—hospitalized—space blindness....</p>
+
+<p>There was a score of names of men I didn't know, in that
+space-blindness column. And beneath, there was a much longer line of
+common Earth-born and Martian John-Henrys, with the laconic tag added
+at the top—<i>hospitalized</i>—<i>mental</i>. Ditto marks saved the trouble of
+retyping the tag itself, after each name.</p>
+
+<p>One name caught my eye.</p>
+
+<p>Ted Bradley was listed there. Ted Bradley from St. Louis, my and Nick
+Mavrocordatus' home town. It gave me a little jolt, and a momentary
+lump somewhere under my Adam's Apple. I knew the state Bradley would be
+in. Not a man any more—no longer keen and sure of himself. A year out
+here among the asteroids had changed all that forever.</p>
+
+<p>Shoving from one drifting, meteoric lump to another, in a tiny space
+boat. Chipping at those huge, grey masses with a test hammer that
+makes no sound in the voidal vacuum. Crawling over jagged surfaces,
+looking for ores of radium and tantalum and carium—stuff fabulously
+costly enough to be worth collecting, for shipment back to the
+industries of Earth, at fabulous freight rates, on rocket craft whose
+pay-load is so small, and where every gram of mass is at premium.</p>
+
+<p>No, Ted Bradley would never be himself again. Like so many others. It
+was an old story. The almost complete lack of gravity, out here among
+the asteroids, had disturbed his nerve-centers, while cosmic rays
+seeped through his leaded helmet, slowly damaging his brain.</p>
+
+<p>There was more to it than the airlessness, and absence of weight, and
+the cosmic rays. There was the utter silence, and the steady stars, and
+the blackness between them, and the blackness of the shadows, like the
+fangs of devils in the blazing sunshine. All of this was harder than
+the soul of any living being.</p>
+
+<p>And on top of all this, there was usually defeat and shattered hope.
+Not many futures were made among the asteroids by those who dug for
+their living. Prices of things brought from Earth in fragile, costly
+space craft were too high. Moments of freedom and company were too
+rare, and so, hard-won wealth ran like water.</p>
+
+<p>Ted Bradley was gone from us. Call him a corpse, really. In the
+hospital here on Enterprize, he was either a raving maniac, or
+else—almost worse—he was like a little child, crooning over the
+wonder of his fingers.</p>
+
+<p>It got me for a second. But then I shrugged. I'd been out here two
+years. An old timer. I knew how empires were built. I knew, better
+than most, how to get along out here. Be fatalistic and casual. Don't
+worry. Don't plan too much. That way I'd stayed right-side-up. I'd even
+had quite a lot of fun, being an adventurer, against that gigantic,
+awesome background of the void.</p>
+
+<p>I didn't consider my thoughts about Ted Bradley worth mentioning to
+Nick Mavrocordatus. He was probably thinking about Ted, too, and that
+was enough.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on, Nick," I said. "They've got my ore weighed and analyzed for
+content in the hopper rooms. I'm going into the pay-office and get my
+dough. Then we might shove off to the Iridium Circle, or some other
+joint, and have us a time, huh?"</p>
+
+<p>Nick laughed, then, good-naturedly, triumphantly. I gave him a sharp
+glance, noticing that under his faintly bitter air, there seemed to be
+something big. Some idea that gripped him, confused him, thrilled him.
+His small, knotty body was taut with it; his dark eyes, under the curly
+black hair that straggled down his forehead, glowed with a far-away
+look.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, he was still very young—only twenty-two, which to me,
+at twenty-five, with a six-months edge of asteroid-lore beyond his
+year and a half of experience, made me feel old and disillusioned and
+practical, by comparison.</p>
+
+<p>"All right, Chet," he said at last. "Let's get your money. Celebrations
+are in order—on me, though. But I guess we'd better soft-pedal them
+some. I've got a lot to tell you, and more to do."</p>
+
+<p>I didn't give his words proper attention, just then. I swaggered into
+the pay office, where a couple of stenogs clicked typewriters, and
+where Norman Haynes, acting head of the Haynes Shipping Company, sat at
+his desk, under the painted portrait of his uncle, that grizzled old
+veteran, Art Haynes, who had retired years ago, and who now lived on
+Earth.</p>
+
+<p>I knew old Art only by reputation. But that was enough to arouse my
+deep respect. Between nephew and uncle there was a difference as great
+as between night and day. The one, the founder, unafraid to dirty his
+hands and face death, and build for the future. Tough, yes, but square,
+and willing to pay bonuses to miners even while he'd been struggling
+to expand his company, and open up vast, new space trails. The other,
+an arm-chair director, holding on tight, now, to an asteroid empire,
+legally free of his control, but whose full resources came eventually
+into his hands at the expense of others, because he controlled the
+fragile, difficult supply lines.</p>
+
+<p>At sight of me, Norman Haynes arose from his chair. He was very tall,
+and he wore an immaculate business suit. He was smooth-shaven, with a
+neat haircut, in contrast to my shaggy locks and bristles. Across his
+face spread a smile of greeting as broad as it was false.</p>
+
+<p>"Well—Chet Wallace," he said. "You've done some marvelous meteor
+mining, this trip: Nineteen hundred dollars' worth of radium-actinium
+ore! Splendid! Maybe you'll do even better next time!"</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Yeah! I'd seen and heard Norman Haynes act and talk like this before.
+He handed out the same line to all of the miners. To me it was forever
+irritating. Always I'd wanted to turn that long nose of his back
+against his right ear. He and his words were both phony. Always he used
+a condescending tone. And I felt that he was a bloodsucker. My anger
+was further increased, now, because of Ted Bradley.</p>
+
+<p>I guess I sneered. "Don't worry about those nineteen hundred dollars,
+Mr. Haynes," I said. "When I buy grub, and a few things I need, and
+have a little blow, you'll have the money all back."</p>
+
+<p>Beside the office railing there was a machine—a cigarette vendor. Into
+a roller system at its top, I inserted two five-dollar bills from my
+pay. There was a faint whir as the robot photographic apparatus checked
+the denominations of the notes, and proved their authenticity. Two
+packs of cigarettes slipped down into the receiver arrangement.</p>
+
+<p>"Five bucks apiece, Haynes," I said. "At a fair shipping rate,
+cigarettes brought out from Earth aren't worth much more than three
+bucks. But you're just a dirty chiseller, not satisfied with a fair
+profit. Costs here in the asteroids are naturally plenty steep; but you
+make a bad situation worse by charging at least twenty-five per-cent
+more than's reasonable! A Venutian stink-louse is more of a gentleman
+than you are, Haynes!"</p>
+
+<p>Oh, there was a Satanic satisfaction in feeling the snarl in my throat,
+and seeing Haynes' face go purplish red, and then white with surprise
+and fury. Some other space men had entered the pay office, and they hid
+their grins of pleasure behind calloused palms.</p>
+
+<p>First I thought Norman Haynes would swing at me. But he didn't. He
+lacked that kind of nerve. He began to sputter and curse under his
+breath, and I thought of a snake hissing. I felt the danger of it,
+though—danger that broods and plans, and doesn't come out into the
+open, but waits its chance to strike. Knowing that it was there,
+sizzling in Haynes' mind, gave me a thrill.</p>
+
+<p>Casually I tossed one of the packs of cigarettes to Nick Mavrocordatus,
+who had come with me into the pay office. He gave me a nudge, which
+meant we'd better scram. When we were out of the building, he held
+me off from going to any of the few tawdry saloons there under the
+small, glassed-in airdome of Enterprize City, the one shabby scrap of
+civilization and excuse for comfort.</p>
+
+<p>"No drinks now, Chet," Nick whispered. "Can't chance it. Got to keep
+on our toes. In one way I'm glad you talked down to that—whatever you
+want to call him. But you've made us the worst possible enemy we could
+have—now."</p>
+
+<p>I shrugged. "What were you gonna tell me before, Nick?" I demanded. "I
+gathered you had something plenty big in view."</p>
+
+<p>He answered me so abruptly that I didn't quite believe my ears at
+first. "Pa and Sis and Geedeh and I, have made good, Chet," he said.
+"We found—not just pickings—but a real fortune in ore, on planetoid
+439. So rich is the deposit that we could buy our own smelting and
+purifying machinery, and hire ships under our own control, to take the
+refined metals back to Earth!"</p>
+
+<p>"You're kidding, Nick," I said amazedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a bit of it," he returned.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Then I was pumping his hand, congratulating him. Really good luck was
+a phenomenon among the asteroids. That friends of mine, among the
+thousands of hopeful ones that I didn't know, should grab the jack-pot,
+seemed almost impossible.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you'll all be leaving us soon," I told him. "Going back to
+Earth, living the lives of millionaires. I'm glad for you all, kid.
+Your Pa can raise his flowers and grapes, instead of starting up in the
+truck-garden business again. Your sis, Irene, can study her painting
+and her music, like she wants to."</p>
+
+<p>Anybody can see the way my thoughts were going just then. When you
+start out green for the Minor Planets, that's part of what's in your
+mind, first—get rich, come back to Earth.</p>
+
+<p>Nick sighed heavily as we walked along. That funny smile was on
+his lips again. He glanced around, and the emerald light of the
+illuminators was on his young face.</p>
+
+<p>Then he said, "I don't think it's quite safe to talk here, Chet.
+Better come to our old space jaloppy, the <i>Corfu</i>."</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Corfu</i> was on the ways outside the dome. We put on space suits to
+reach it. Inside, the old crate smelled of cooking odors, some of them
+maybe accumulated over the eighteen months the Mavrocordatuses had been
+asteroid mining. Old ships are hard to ventilate, with their imperfect
+air-purifiers.</p>
+
+<p>The instruments in the control room, were battered and patched; and
+from the living quarters to the rear, issued a duet of snores—one
+throaty and rattly, Pa Mavrocordatus' beyond doubt; and the other an
+intermittent hiss, originating unquestionably in the dust-filtering
+hairs in the larynx of Geedeh, the little Martian scientist, whom Nick
+had befriended.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't figure you out, Nick," I said. "Rich, and not leaving this
+hell-hole of space. You're an idiot."</p>
+
+<p>"So are you, Chet," he returned knowingly. "In my place, you wouldn't
+go either—at least not without regrets. In spite of all hell, there's
+something big here in space that gets you. You feel like nothing,
+yourself. But you feel that you're part of something terribly huge and
+terribly important. You'd be happy on Earth for a week; then you'd
+begin to smother inside. The Minor Planets have become our home, Chet.
+It's too late to break the ties."</p>
+
+<p>Slowly it soaked into my mind that Nick was right.</p>
+
+<p>"Not to say anything bad against old Mother Earth, Chet," he continued.
+"Far from it! That's just what's needed out here—a little touch of
+our native scene. Growing things. A piece of blue sky, maybe. Enough
+gravity to make a man believe in solid ground again."</p>
+
+<p>Right then I began to smell Nick's plan, not only what it was, but all
+the impractical dreamer part of it.</p>
+
+<p>I began to grin, but there was a kind of sadness in me, too. "Sure!
+Sure, Nick!" I chided. "The idea's as old as the hills! Rejuvenate
+some asteroid. Bring in soil and water and air from Earth. Install a
+big gravity-generating unit. Ha! Have you any idea how many ships it
+would take to bring those thousands and thousands of tons of stuff out
+here—even to get started?"</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>I was talking loud. My voice was booming through the rusty hull of the
+<i>Corfu</i>, making ringing echoes. So just about as I finished, they were
+all around me. Pa Mavrocordatus, in pajamas and ragged dressing gown,
+his handle-bar moustaches bristling. Geedeh, the tiny Martian, draped
+in a checkered Earthly blanket, his great eyes blinking, and his tiny
+fingers, with fleshy knobs at their ends instead of nails, twiddling
+nervously near the center of his barrel-chest. And Irene, too, standing
+straight and defiant and little, in her blue smock.</p>
+
+<p>Irene hadn't been sleeping. Probably she'd been washing dishes, and
+straightening up the galley after supper. She still had a dish towel in
+her hands. Wealth hadn't altered the Mavrocordatus' mode of life, yet.
+Irene looked like a bold little kewpie, her dark head of tousled, curly
+hair, not up to my shoulder. She was exquisitely pretty; but now she
+was somewhat irritated.</p>
+
+<p>She shook a finger up at me, angrily. "You think Nick has a dumb idea,
+eh, Chet Wallace?" she accused. "That's only because you don't know
+what you're talking about! We won't have to bring a drop of water, or a
+molecule of air or soil, out from Earth! You ask Geedeh!"</p>
+
+<p>I turned toward the little Martian. The dark pupil-slits, and the
+yellow irises of his huge eyes, covered me. "Irene has spoken the
+truth, Chet," he told me in his slow, labored English. "The Asteroid
+Belt, the many hundreds of fragments that compose it, are the remains
+of a planet that exploded. So there is soil on many of the asteroids.
+Dried out—yes—after most of the water and air disappeared into space,
+following the catastrophe. But the soil can still be useful. And there
+is still water, not in free, liquid form, but combined in ancient rock
+strata; gypsum, especially. It is like on Mars, when the atmosphere
+began to get too thin for us to breathe, and the water very scarce on
+the dusty deserts."</p>
+
+<p>I said nothing, wished I had kept silent.</p>
+
+<p>"We roasted gypsum in atomic furnaces," Geedeh finished, "driving
+the water out as steam, and reclaiming it for our underground
+cities. The same can be done here among the Minor Planets. And since
+water is hydrogen dioxide, oxygen can be obtained from it, too, by
+electrolysis. Nitrogen and carbon dioxide, necessary to complete the
+new atmosphere, which will be prevented from leaking into space by the
+force of the artificial gravity, can be obtained from native nitrates,
+and other compounds. Only vital parts of the machinery need be brought
+out from Earth and Mars by rocket. The rest can be made here, from
+native materials."</p>
+
+<p>Geedeh's voice, as he spoke to me, was a soft, sibilant whisper, like
+the rustle of red dust in a cold, thin, Martian wind.</p>
+
+<p>"You bet," Pa Mavrocordatus enthused. "Nick's got a good idea. I'm
+gonna raise my flowers! I'm gonna raise tomatoes and cabbages and
+carrots, right here on one of them asteroids!"</p>
+
+<p>It struck me as funny—asteroids—cabbages! Nothing I could think of,
+could seem quite that far apart. Black, airless vacuum, rough rocks,
+and raw, spacial sunshine! And things from a truck garden! It didn't
+match. But then, Pa Mavrocordatus didn't match the asteroids either!
+He'd had a truck garden once, outside of St. Louis. And yet he was out
+here in space, and had been for a year and a half!</p>
+
+<p>Well, even if the idea <i>was</i> practical, I thought first that they were
+still just dreaming—kidding themselves that it would be a cinch to
+accomplish. And not being able to fight through.</p>
+
+<p>Then I glanced back at Nick. That look on his face was there again. A
+strange mixture of confidence, worry, grimness, and vision. It came to
+me then that he was no kid at all.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>"Let me in on the job?" I asked hopefully.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure!" Nick returned. "We wouldn't be telling you all this, if we
+didn't want you. That's why we came back to Enterprize—hoping to find
+you around some place."</p>
+
+<p>So I was in. Part of a wild scheme of progress—more thrilling
+and inspiring because it seemed so wild. An asteroid made into a
+tiny, artificial Earth! A boon to void-weary space men! A source of
+cheap food supplies, as well as a place to rest up. A new stage of
+colonization—empire building!</p>
+
+<p>And then I thought I heard a sound—a faint clinking outside of the
+hull of the <i>Corfu</i>. At once, I was alert—taut. Maybe half of my
+sudden worry was intuition, or a form of telepathy. When you've been
+out in deep space, a million miles away from any other living soul, you
+feel a vast, hollow loneliness, that perhaps is mostly the absence of
+human telepathy waves from other minds. But when you have people around
+you once more, your sixth sense seems keener for the period of lack.
+That was why I was sure of an eavesdropper, sensing his presence. With
+proper sub-microphonic equipment, a man outside a space ship can hear
+every word spoken inside.</p>
+
+<p>Nick felt it too. "But we'd better look and see," he whispered. "Norman
+Haynes keeps spies around. And he may have heard rumors. You can't keep
+a project like ours secret very long. It's too big."</p>
+
+<p>My pulses jumped with fear, as I piled into my space suit. But when
+Nick and I got through the airlock together, there was nobody in sight.
+Only some footprints in the faint rocket dust of the ways, covering our
+own footprints, where we'd passed before, coming to the <i>Corfu</i>. Our
+flashlights showed them plainly.</p>
+
+<p>"Having a rejuvenated asteroid in these parts, producing fresh food
+and so forth, would take a lot of trade away from the Haynes Shipping
+Company, wouldn't it?" I said when we were back in the cabin once
+more. "Norman Haynes wouldn't be practically boss of the Minor Planets
+anymore, would he? He wouldn't like that. He'll fight us."</p>
+
+<p>"We need you, Chet," Irene said, her eyes appealing. That was enough
+for me.</p>
+
+<p>"We'd better blast off right away," Nick added. "We're going to
+asteroid 487, Chet. Its new name is Paradise. It's the one we've
+picked."</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p class="ph1">II</p>
+
+<p>Asteroid 487 was the usual thing. A torn, jagged, airless fragment.
+It was no paradise yet, unless it was a paradise of devils. Nick had
+a thousand men hired—space roustabouts, and a lot of mechanics and
+technicians, mostly fresh from Earth. Sure, it's hard handling a bunch
+like that, but there was nothing in this difficulty that we didn't know
+was part of the job. Some of our outfit gave us horse-laughs, but they
+worked. The pay was good.</p>
+
+<p>The ships came through with the packed loads of machinery. Atomic
+forges blazed, purifying native meteoric iron to complete the vast
+gravity-generating machine, sunk in a shaft at the center of the
+planetoid, ten miles down. Geedeh directed most of the work. Nick and
+I saw that orders were carried out, swearing, sweating, and making
+speeches intended to inspire.</p>
+
+<p>And then the trouble started.</p>
+
+<p>A rocket, bringing in food, and money to pay our crews, blew up in
+space, just as it was coming close. The light of the blast was blinding
+and awesome, making even the bright stars seem to vanish for a moment.
+Atomic rocket fuel going up. Gobs of molten metal dripped groundward,
+like real meteors heated in an atmosphere which still didn't exist.</p>
+
+<p>It could have been an accident. You can't always control titanic atomic
+power, and space ships fly to pieces quite frequently. But then I had a
+suspicion that maybe this wasn't an accident.</p>
+
+<p>Nick and I were in the open plain to see it happen. He'd just come from
+the airtight barracks we'd built. His face didn't change much behind
+the quartz crystal of his oxygen helmet—it only sobered a trifle.
+While the fiery wreckage of the rocket was still falling in shreds and
+fragments, he spoke, his voice clicking in my receptor phones:</p>
+
+<p>"Yeah, Chet.... And there's trouble on asteroid 439, too, where our
+mines are located. I just got the radio message, back at the office.
+Sabotage, and some men killed. It seems that some of the workmen are
+trying to break things up for us. Harley's in charge. I think he can
+handle matters—for a while."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope so," I answered fervently. "If the work only turns out right at
+this end. With that ship smashed, we'll be on short rations for a week.
+And we've lost some important machinery. The pay money's insured, but
+the men won't like the delay."</p>
+
+<p>I didn't expect much trouble from the crew—yet. It was Irene that
+really helped the most—mastered the situation. She'd taken over the
+management of the kitchens since the start of the work.</p>
+
+<p>But now she had an additional job. She talked to that rough crew of
+ours. "We're going to win, boys!" she told them. "We know what we've
+got to do: Our task is for the good of every one of us—and for many
+people yet to come!"</p>
+
+<p>Simple, straightforward, inspiring talk. Funny what men will do for
+a pretty girl—against hell itself. But that wasn't all of it. The
+paintings of hers, that she'd hung in our recreation room, showed what
+asteroid 487 <i>could</i> be, when we were finished with it.</p>
+
+<p>Space men are the toughest kind of adventurers that ever lived. But
+adventurers are always optimists, sentimentalists, romanticists, no
+matter how hard the exterior. And space men, by the very nature of the
+appalling region to which they belong, believe in miracles.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>They cheered the thought—most of those tough men. I cheered, too. But
+the miracle hadn't happened yet, and in the back of my mind, there
+was always the fear that it wouldn't happen. Those crags were still
+bleak and star-washed. Deader than any tomb! It wasn't an impossible
+wonder—technically—to change all this. But perhaps it was impossible,
+anyway—because of Norman Haynes! He was the only person who had the
+power and the reason to stop all that we were attempting. The sabotage
+and killings must be incited by him—certain members of our crews must
+be in his hire. Quite probably the rocket that had blown up had been
+secretly mined with explosive, under his orders, too.</p>
+
+<p>But there is nothing harder to fight than those subtle methods. We had
+no proof, and no easy means of getting it. We could only go on with
+our task. Geedeh and the rest of us worked hopefully. One segment of
+asteroid 487, had been part of the surface of that old world that had
+exploded. From here we spread the dry soil over the planetoid's jagged
+terrain, drawing it in atom trucks. More soil was brought in from other
+asteroids. The great rock-roasting furnaces were put up. Gypsum was
+heated in them, releasing its water in great clouds of steam, which
+the artificial gravity kept from drifting off into space. Some of the
+water, under electrolysis, yielded oxygen. Nitrogen came from nitrates.</p>
+
+<p>Our gravity machine needed readjustments now and then. To a large
+extent, the thousands of parts that composed it were electrical. Great
+coils converted magnetic force into gravitation.</p>
+
+<p>One ship reached us all right, bringing seeds and food. Another didn't.
+It blew up in space, the second to go. Then somebody tried to get
+Geedeh, the Martian, with a heat ray. Another food ship failed to
+arrive.</p>
+
+<p>Then Norman Haynes came to visit us. He landed before we had a chance
+to refuse to receive him. He had a body-guard of a dozen men. He was
+our enemy, but we couldn't prove it. He seemed to have forgotten the
+little brush between himself and me, at his office.</p>
+
+<p>"Splendid layout you've got, Wallace and Mavrocordatus!" he said to
+Nick and me, pronouncing Nick's name perfectly. He sounded very much
+like his usual self. "Of course there's bound to be difficulties.
+Trouble with crews, and so on. It's hard to get people to believe in
+a project as fantastic as this. I didn't quite believe in it, either,
+at first. But the facts are proved, now that the groundwork is laid.
+You'll need help, fellows. I can give it to you."</p>
+
+<p>He was smiling, but under the smile I could see a snaky smirk, which
+probably he didn't know showed. I felt fury rising inside me. He was
+trying to get control of our project, now that he saw for sure that it
+could amount to something. Competition he feared, but if he had control
+he could enforce his high prices, keep his empire, and expand his
+wealth by millions of dollars. His dirty work must have been partly an
+attempt to force the issue.</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks," Nick told him quietly. "But we prefer to do everything alone."</p>
+
+<p>Our visitor shrugged, standing there at the door of his space boat.
+"Okay," he breezed. "Get in touch with me, if you feel you need me!"</p>
+
+<p>Some hours later, a radiogram came through from Earth.
+"<i>Congratulations!</i>" it read. "<i>Stick to your guns! I like people with
+imagination. Maybe I'll be back in harness soon myself.—Art Haynes.</i>"</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>"He's probably just being sarcastic," I said bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>"Old devil!" Pa Mavrocordatus growled.</p>
+
+<p>Two men were killed just thirty minutes after the message was received.
+A little thin-faced fellow named Sparr did it. But he got away in a
+space boat before we could catch him. A paid killer and trouble maker.</p>
+
+<p>The incident put our crew more on edge than before. A half dozen of the
+newcomers—mechanics from Earth—quit abruptly. Our food was almost
+gone. We got another shipload in, but the growing unrest didn't abate,
+though we kept on for another month. There was similar trouble on 439,
+where the Mavrocordatus money came from. But maybe we'd make the grade,
+anyway.</p>
+
+<p>We had a pretty dense atmosphere already, on Paradise Asteroid. The
+black sky had turned blue now. The ground was moist with water. Earthly
+buildings were going up. Pa Mavrocordatus had had seeds and small trees
+and things planted. It was that deceptive moment of success, before the
+real blow came.</p>
+
+<p>After sunset one night, I heard shots. I raced out of the barracks,
+Geedeh, Irene, and Pa Mavrocordatus following me. We all carried blast
+tubes.</p>
+
+<p>We found Nick in a gorge, his body half burned through, just above his
+right hip. But he was still alive. He had a blast tube in one hand.
+Two men lay on the rocks and earth in front of him, dead. Beside them,
+glinting in our flashlight beams, was an aluminum cylinder.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a bacteria culture container, Chet," Nick whispered. "They had me
+caught, and they bragged a little before I did some fast moving, and
+got one of their blast tubes. Venutian Black-Rot germs. They were going
+to dump them in the drinking water supply. They mentioned—Haynes...."</p>
+
+<p>Nick couldn't say much more than that. But he'd saved our lives. He
+died there in my arms, a hero to progress, a little breeze in the new
+atmosphere he'd helped to create rumpling his curly hair. He'd died for
+his dream of beauty and betterment.</p>
+
+<p>Poor little Irene couldn't even cry. Her face was white, and she was
+stricken mute. Her pa was shaken by great sobs, and he babbled threats.
+I told him to shut up. Geedeh cursed in his own language, his voice a
+soft, deadly hiss, his little fists clenching and unclenching.</p>
+
+<p>"Too bad Nick had to kill these men!" I growled. "We could have made
+'em talk. We'd have evidence. The law would take care of Norman
+Haynes!"</p>
+
+<p>"But we ain't got nothing!" Pa Mavrocordatus groaned. "Nothing!"</p>
+
+<p>Geedeh's face was twisted into a Martian snarl of hate. Irene stared,
+as though she were somewhere far away. I tried putting my arm around
+her, to bring her back to us. It was a minute before she seemed to
+realize I was there.</p>
+
+<p>"Irene," I said. "I love you. We all love you. Buck up, kid. We can't
+quit now—ever! We'd be letting Nick down."</p>
+
+<p>She just nodded. She couldn't talk.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>A couple of hours later I was meeting our workers in our office. Most
+of them tried to be decent about it. "We'd like to stick, Wallace. But
+how can we? Nothing to eat...." That was what most of them said, in one
+way or another.</p>
+
+<p>And how could I answer them?</p>
+
+<p>Some were not so regretful, of course. Some were downright ugly. A
+little crazy with space perhaps, or else hopped up with propaganda that
+secret agents in Haynes' hire had been spreading among them.</p>
+
+<p>"Why should we work for you anyway?" they snarled. "Even for good
+money, most of which we haven't collected? You're probably like what
+we're used to. Just fixing up another place here, to clip us in the
+end, charging us prices sky high. Your 'Paradise' is just a little
+fancier, that's all."</p>
+
+<p>So they turned away, and the exodus began. The freight ships blasted
+off, one by one, with loads of men. We couldn't stop them. And soon the
+silence closed in. We were left alone to bury Nick. The small sun was
+bright on the rough pinnacles, and their naked grey stone was bluely
+murky in the new air. There was a humid warmth of summer around us.</p>
+
+<p>Just then, I didn't even feel exactly angry, in the blackness of
+failure, Norman Haynes had won, so far. What would be his next step in
+completing our final defeat?</p>
+
+<p>I spent some time in the office, going over records. Presently Pa
+Mavrocordatus came rushing from the barracks. His whole fat body
+sagged, as he paused before me. His face was like paste. He didn't seem
+quite alive.</p>
+
+<p>"Irene," he croaked. "She's gone ... too...."</p>
+
+<p>I ran with him to her quarters. There was some disorder. A picture of
+her mother was tipped over on a little metal dressing table. A rug was
+rumpled, and there was some clothing scattered on the floor. That was
+all.</p>
+
+<p>Geedeh had entered her quarters, too. "Kidnapped," he hissed.</p>
+
+<p>What Haynes meant to accomplish by having his agents, carry off Irene,
+I couldn't imagine. The hate I felt blurred all but the thought of
+getting her back to safety. The urge was like a dagger-point, sharp and
+clear in the chaos of memories. I knew how much she meant to me now.</p>
+
+<p>"I need a rocket," I said quietly. "The fastest we've got. I want to
+radio the Space Patrol, too."</p>
+
+<p>"There are no ships left here," Geedeh returned. "The men took them
+all, except a little flier, which they meant us to have. But somebody
+has smashed it. Our big radio transmitter is smashed, also."</p>
+
+<p>A minute later I was clawing in the wreckage of tubes and wires, there
+in the radio room. The apparatus was completely beyond repair. For the
+time being we were helpless, stranded on our asteroid. For a moment
+I felt little shouts of madness shrieking in my brain. But Geedeh's
+stabbing glance warned me that this was not the way. I fought back, out
+of that flash of mania.</p>
+
+<p>"We'd better break out all of our weapons, Geedeh," I said. "Haynes has
+gone too deep to back out now. He's in danger of the Patrol if we talk,
+so he'll have to strike at us soon."</p>
+
+<p>Thus we prepared ourselves as well as we could, for attack. Geedeh,
+Pa Mavrocordatus, and I. We equipped ourselves with our best
+armament—atomic rifles. Pa Mavrocordatus had gotten over most of his
+confusion. He was still sick with grief, but necessity seemed to have
+steadied him. He clutched his rifle grimly as we took up positions
+behind rock masses at the edge of the landing field.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p class="ph1">III</p>
+
+<p>We waited silently. The asteroid turned on its axis. The brief night
+came. Then we saw the rockets approaching—flaming in on shreds of
+blue-white rocket fire. As the two ships slowed for a landing, the
+three of us discharged a volley.</p>
+
+<p>Our atomic bullets burst on impact, dazzling in the dark. The
+concussion was terrific.</p>
+
+<p>"Got one!" I heard Pa Mavrocordatus shout after a moment, his voice
+thin through the ringing in my ears. My dazzled eyes saw one ship lying
+on its side on the landing field, its meteor armor unpunctured by our
+small missiles, but with its landing rockets damaged. The other ship
+had grounded itself perfectly.</p>
+
+<p>We were ready to fire again, when the paralytic waves swept over us.
+I saw Geedeh half rise, doubling backward in a rigid spasm, his rifle
+flying wide.</p>
+
+<p>Then I knew no more, until I heard Norman Haynes speaking to us. We
+were bound firmly, and it was daylight again, and our captor and his
+score of henchmen were smirking.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm just trying to figure out how to make your deaths seem as
+accidental as possible," Haynes said, looking at me. "A couple of men
+of mine seem to have bungled a little business of bacteria. Maybe
+they blabbed before you fellows killed them. Now, of course, I can't
+take any chances. Too bad your reconditioned asteroid has to appear a
+failure for a while. But I can't let my taking over seem too obvious.
+Have to wait a while. I may be able to start up something here later,
+when people sort of forget."</p>
+
+<p>"What have you done with Irene?" I stormed blackly.</p>
+
+<p>Haynes' look was quizzical. "Why ask me?" he answered. "She probably
+ran off with one of your roustabouts. Or else they decided that she'd
+be nice company to have around, and made her go along."</p>
+
+<p>He laughed cynically. Maybe he was telling the truth about not knowing
+where Irene was. But if this was true, it didn't make me feel much
+better. If some of his gang, who'd been working with us, had kidnapped
+her, there was no telling how badly she'd fare.</p>
+
+<p>My fears showed on my face, and Norman Haynes seemed to enjoy them,
+though he was nervous, dangerously so. It was getting daylight again,
+now. He kept glancing at the sky, twiddling his soft hands. He didn't
+like physical danger.</p>
+
+<p>"Your gravity generator seems to be the answer to my prayers, Wallace,"
+he informed me. "At full force it'll develop at least fifty Earth
+gravities, before breaking down and melting itself. We've inspected it.
+Power like that'll destroy all of you. It will look like an accident—a
+breakdown of the machinery."</p>
+
+<p>Though Pa Mavrocordatus kept cursing Haynes continuously, and Geedeh
+kept calling him names that no Earthman could have translated into our
+less vitriolic English, our captor paid them no attention. He kept
+directing his threats at me. That was how I knew he was still thinking
+of the time in his office at Enterprize, when I'd called him by his
+true colors. He still held that grudge, and he meant to pay me back
+with fifty gravities. Which means that every pound of Earth-weight
+would be increased to fifty pounds! In a grip like that a man as big as
+me would weigh a good four tons!</p>
+
+<p>That meant a heart stopped by the load of the blood it tried to pump,
+and tissues crushed by their own weight! Like being on the surface of
+some dead star of medium dimensions, where gravity is terrific!</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>At Haynes' order, six of his twenty henchmen picked up Geedeh and Pa
+and me. The whole bunch was an ugly looking lot, the scum of the space
+ports. Some of these men were commanded to stay on the surface of the
+planetoid, while we were carried to the elevator shed. In the cage we
+descended at dizzying speed to that vault at the center of 487 where
+the gravity machinery was housed in its crystal shell. At that depth,
+under the load of the column of air above, the atmospheric pressure was
+very high. One could not breathe comfortably in that stuffy medium.</p>
+
+<p>"Courage!" Geedeh gasped to Pa Mavrocordatus and me, while his great
+eyes kept roving around, looking for some chance that wasn't there.</p>
+
+<p>Haynes began to examine the machinery. He was smirking again. "Simple
+to do!" he said to his companions. "Set the robot control for gradually
+increasing power, so that we'll have time to get away. Break the manual
+controls, so that no readjustments can be made. You can cut our friends
+loose now, Zinder, so there won't be any ropes to show this was a
+put-up job. But keep your blasters on these men—all of you!"</p>
+
+<p>This was the end, all right. I was sure of it. I'd die without even
+knowing what had happened to Irene. Irene, whom I knew now that I
+loved....</p>
+
+<p>We'd been freed of our bonds when the surface phone rang. The lookout
+party, whom Haynes had left above, was calling. Our captor snapped on
+the switch of the speaker. A voice boomed in that busy cavern of metal
+giants, green light, and glinting crystal:</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, Chief! There's a bunch of specks to the right of the sun.
+They're getting bigger fast. Must be a flock of space ships. Couldn't
+be any of yours. What'll we do?"</p>
+
+<p>I saw Haynes' weak features go sallow. Briefly my spirits rose. I
+couldn't imagine whom those ships could belong to. But they must be
+rescuers of some kind. They were coming to stop Norman Haynes' madness.</p>
+
+<p>But Haynes was clever, as he quickly proved. "Friends of Wallace here,
+I suppose. Maybe even Space Patrol boats," he said over his phone to
+the lookout party. "You'll all have to take a discomfort for a while.
+We'll use gravity on them, too! They'll never land successfully."</p>
+
+<p>Pa Mavrocordatus looked at me and Geedeh. "What's he mean—use gravity?"</p>
+
+<p>Geedeh was a bit quicker than I in giving the obvious answer. "Just
+as with us," he said. "Increase the output of the gravity generator
+here to a certain degree. From space, the increase will be practically
+unnoticeable. The rockets will try to land—but without taking into
+consideration the multiplied attractive force, they will crash!"</p>
+
+<p>"Many birds with one stone!" Haynes chuckled gleefully. "You will
+have a short reprieve, friends, while I take care of these intruders,
+whoever they are. I can't use too great a gravity on them at first. It
+might warn them, if they notice that their ships are accelerating too
+rapidly. They might as well be part of my 'accident', even if they do
+happen to be police. The Space Patrol has accidents now and then, just
+like anybody else!"</p>
+
+<p>Haynes started to work the manual controls of the generator. The
+area in which he and his several aides stood, was shielded against
+the greater attraction, having been thus arranged by us for testing
+purposes. The shrill hum of the machines grew louder.</p>
+
+<p>I felt the weight of my prone body increase suffocatingly. The
+heat increased too, as the great coils, gleaming in the glow of
+illuminators, gradually absorbed more power. And I knew that, out in
+space, those slender fingers of force were reaching and strengthening,
+invisible and treacherous. Our unknown friends were doomed.</p>
+
+<p>Not only were they doomed, but our whole idea was destined to failure.
+The dream that Nick had died for. The vast progress that it meant.
+Worlds out here—worlds with largely a self-sufficient production—real
+colonization. Fair play. Norman Haynes would resist all that, because
+progress would weaken his power here. He was master of the asteroids,
+because he was master of their imports and exports. And unless he
+could control the rejuvenated asteroids himself, they would never be.
+With him directing, they would not represent a real improvement—only
+another means of robbing from the colonists. And colonists weren't rich.</p>
+
+<p>I could see those same thoughts, that gouged savagely into my own
+brain, burning in Geedeh's cat eyes, where he sprawled near me. Being
+a Martian, born to a lesser gravity than the terrestrial, he was
+suffering more than I—physically. But perhaps my mental torture was
+worse. Geedeh was Irene's friend, but I loved her. She was gone—lost
+somewhere—maybe dead. That, for me, was the worst—much worse than
+that crushing weight.</p>
+
+<p>I couldn't let things remain the way they were! My seething fury and
+need lashed me on, even in my helplessness. God—what could I do? I
+tried to figure something out. Could I break the gravity machinery some
+way? Impossible, now, certainly!</p>
+
+<p>I tried to remember my high school physics. Principles that might be
+used to give warning signals, and so forth. And just what that awful
+gravity would do to things.</p>
+
+<p>Close to me was the base of the domelike crystal shell that covered
+the gravity generator. It wasn't a vital part, certainly, just stout
+quartz. But it was the only thing I could reach. As I lay there on the
+floor, I drew my foot back, doubling my knee. I stamped down against
+the quartz with all my strength. The first blow cracked it. The second
+drove my metal-shod boot-heel through with a crashing sound. A small
+hole, eighteen inches long, was made in the barrier. The sounds of the
+great machinery went on as before. The gravity kept slowly increasing.
+Geedeh, suffering more, now, looked at me puzzledly. Pa Mavrocordatus
+stared anxiously. And Norman Haynes at the surface phone laughed
+unpleasantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Cracking up, eh, Wallace?" he sneered. "I know who your would-be
+helpers on those space ships are, now. I suppose I should be surprised
+at their identities. They're calling to you. Want to listen? My men
+above have locked this surface phone to our ship radio."</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+ <img src="images/illus.jpg" width="393" height="500" alt=""/>
+ <div class="caption">
+ <p><i>"Cracking up, eh, Wallace?" Norman Haynes sneered.</i></p>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p>He turned up the volume of the reproducer.</p>
+
+<p>Irene's voice was the first in the speaker. "Chet!" she was urging.
+"Chet Wallace! Pa! Geedeh! Do you hear me? I left 487 of my own free
+will. I couldn't waste time, going to the Space Patrol for help—they'd
+want proof, and that would take a while to present. So—there was only
+one person and I thought you'd mistrust him.... Why don't you answer?
+Or have you left 487 too? I'm turning the mike over to somebody else,
+now. I found him on Enterprize, just come from Earth, Mr. Arthur
+Haynes...."</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p class="ph1">IV</p>
+
+<p>I gasped, listening to Irene. I didn't know what surprised and confused
+me most—her being alive and safe, or what she'd done about old Art
+Haynes. Could I trust old Art? I had no way of telling. Had Irene
+told him about his nephew, or had she kept silent? Did he know he was
+opposed to Norman Haynes, or did he think it was somebody else who had
+sabotaged the project? Where would his loyalties be, if he found out?
+It was a ticklish situation.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as Irene's ragged, excited breathing died away in the speaker,
+Norman Haynes took it upon himself to clarify his own stand, and my
+uncertainties. He looked at Geedeh and Pa and me, tense and suffering
+in the grip of the gravity, and tortured with doubt.</p>
+
+<p>"Uncle Art is an old fool," he said. "So he thinks he'll come back to
+the asteroids, and replace me in the business, does he? Well, he should
+have died long ago, and now is as good a time as any! He might as well
+be part of the accident, too, along with those space bums of yours.
+Nobody'll ever know!"</p>
+
+<p>It was tragic that old Art couldn't have heard that. But his nephew
+wasn't broadcasting. He was just listening quietly. And now his uncle's
+voice was coming through:</p>
+
+<p>"We're blasting in to land, Wallace, if you're listening. There won't
+be any more trouble, now. I'll see to that! We'll find out who's back
+of this sabotage. We'll put an end to it!"</p>
+
+<p>For me it was bitter, black irony—old Art proving himself our friend,
+now! He didn't know his enemy. He was nearly ninety—a grim old
+fighter, with real vision. Irene too, who meant everything to me. She
+didn't know that with the intensified gravity those incoming ships
+would be smashed and blazing!</p>
+
+<p>My mind was growing a bit dim in the strangling pressure of
+the artificial gravitation. Sweat was streaming from me in the
+smothering heat that added to the oppressiveness of the heavy air. Pa
+Mavrocordatus was groaning the name of his daughter. Geedeh's great
+eyes were fixed on me in helpless suffering.</p>
+
+<p>Through the shrill sounds of the engines I listened for more words
+from Irene and old Art. But none came. They must know their doom by
+now. They must be fighting savagely and hopelessly to get away. Still
+some distance from 487, they were already caught, deep in the web of
+invisible force.</p>
+
+<p>After some moments, I heard a distant crash, a roll of sound. What was
+it? A huge rocket, hitting the jagged crags above, at meteoric speed?
+Crumpling, destroying itself and those inside it? I thought my heart
+would burst with the added weight of my anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>The first crash was only the beginning. Others followed in quick
+succession—inexorably. And there was a faint, far-off roar, coming
+down from ten miles above.</p>
+
+<p>And that roar was the roar of titanic rain. Of floods of water coming
+down this shaft, where the gravity machine was! All the countless tons
+of water that we'd baked from ancient rocks, and which had been mostly
+suspended as vapor in our synthetic atmosphere, was condensing now,
+coming down in torrents!</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Norman Haynes kept grinning satanically, while he and his aides
+attended to the gravity machine. Triumph showed in his eyes. But
+presently he began to look puzzled, as that soughing roar that
+accompanied the crashing din, increased. It was a little early for the
+space ships to be smashing up, anyway.</p>
+
+<p>I could feel a grim smile coming over my lips, against my will. Had my
+guesses and hopes, which had seemed so unsubstantial, been correct?
+Norman Haynes was glancing doubtfully at the reproducer. I could see
+that he was wondering why his surface watchers didn't communicate any
+more—and tell him what was happening up there on the crust of 487.</p>
+
+<p>I knew the answers, now! Geedeh did, too. The excitement of knowledge
+was in his withered, pain-wracked face. Those distant crashes were not
+what I'd feared they might be, but part of what I'd hoped for. They
+were gigantic thunder-claps—the noise of terrific lightning bolts!
+Norman Haynes had made a simple oversight in his plan to destroy those
+incoming space craft. There was a fearsome electrical storm going on
+above—one of inconceivable proportions—utterly beyond the Earthly!
+Doubtless all of Norman Haynes' surface watchers, up above, had been
+killed by that sudden deluge of electricity! The multiplied gravitation
+up there, had pinned them down, so that they could neither escape, nor
+warn their chief!</p>
+
+<p>Before Norman Haynes understood what was happening, foam-flecked muddy
+water was at the door of the machinery room, rushing and gurgling past
+the threshold! He and his helpers stared at it stupidly, and I laughed
+at them.</p>
+
+<p>"You didn't realize it, did you, Haynes?" I grunted. "You didn't
+realize that increased gravity would increase the weight of the
+atmosphere, as well as of everything else! And increased weight of
+the air, means increased atmospheric pressure, too, pushing molecules
+together, creating greater density. And what happens? Go back to your
+high school physics, Haynes! It's like when you store air in the tank
+of a compressor pump. The moisture in it liquifies. And in the case
+of an atmosphere as big as 487 has now, static electricity would be
+suddenly and violently condensed, besides."</p>
+
+<p>Norman Haynes stared at me, stunned with consternation. But his
+recovery was fairly prompt. His sudden sneer had a rattish desperation.
+"Hell," he said. "Just a thunder storm. A lot of rain. What of it? The
+gravity machine still works. The ships will still be destroyed."</p>
+
+<p>I knew that that was true—unless what I'd planned happened. Those
+rockets, manned by our old construction crew, and Irene, and old Art
+Haynes, had been too close to asteroid 487 for the last couple of
+minutes, to effect an escape, even if the sudden dark clouds had warned
+them that something dangerous was afoot.</p>
+
+<p>"Watch this—Haynes," Geedeh panted, and it was hard for the acting
+head of the Haynes Shipping Company to guess what the little Martian
+meant, at first.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Under the pull of that terrific gravity, the water was coming into that
+room like an avalanche. Geedeh and Pa and I were floundering in it
+feebly, held to the floor by that awful weight. I was sure we'd drown.
+But as we coughed and sputtered, the flood found its way through the
+hole I'd kicked, low down in the side of the crystal dome that covered
+that gigantic machinery. There was a flash of electrical flame, as the
+water interfered with the functioning of the apparatus.</p>
+
+<p>It was pandemonium, then. Every man for himself. Geedeh, the scientist,
+and I, who, under the force of grim need, had somehow contrived to plan
+this finale, had the advantage of knowledge. We'd figured out a little
+of what to do.</p>
+
+<p>The gravity winked off suddenly—reaching the low of practically
+nothing, here at the center of this tiny world, whose normal
+attraction, even at the surface, was very small. We struggled to our
+feet, in a muddy swirl that was now a yard in depth. But before we
+could take advantage of our sudden lightness, and leap clear, the
+gravity machines gave a last gasp of power, and we were pulled down
+again, smothering. Then, with a grating roar, the apparatus stopped.
+The bedlam ceased, except for a low whine of expanding atmosphere, and
+screams from Haynes and his men.</p>
+
+<p>Presently, I felt all hell stabbing through me. My ears rang as
+with the after effects of some colossal explosion. My whole body
+ached. I clutched at Geedeh, who seemed on the point of collapse. Pa
+Mavrocordatus managed to help me....</p>
+
+<p>But strained by gravity vastly stronger than that of Mars, and now
+facing a circumstance even more dangerous, tough little Geedeh still
+had his wits, fortunately for us all. He pointed to an airtight crystal
+cage at one edge of the chamber. The cage was necessary in routine
+testing of the machinery here, which called for variations in the
+output of the gravity generators, and consequent great variations in
+air pressure.</p>
+
+<p>"Inside the cage—all of us!" Geedeh squeaked. "Quickly! Bends!..."</p>
+
+<p>Do you know what the air pressure is, at the bottom of a ten-mile
+shaft, even at normal Earth gravity? Yeah, something pretty high! Then
+you can imagine what it had just been like, here, at six or seven
+gravities! But when the generators had quit entirely, there had been
+that sudden loss of weight in the air, sudden expansion, thinning, loss
+of pressure!</p>
+
+<p>The three of us got inside the cage, and sealed the door. I spun
+valves. There was a hiss of entering atmosphere, and the pressure rose
+again, far above the norm of sea-level, on Earth. I felt better at
+once, but I knew it had been a close call.</p>
+
+<p>We looked out at Norman Haynes and his henchmen. They weren't drowning,
+now. Tottering, they stood with their heads well above the flood. It
+was something else that was killing them. Not suffocation, either.
+Their faces were bloated and congested in the glow of illuminators.
+Their bodies seemed to swell.</p>
+
+<p>Norman Haynes raised his blast tube, as did several of the others,
+trying to fire at the crystal shelter where we had taken refuge. Norman
+Haynes must have known his failure, then. Why had it happened. How we
+had won. It may be that he even realized some justice in his hideous
+punishment. He had tried to obstruct progress and fair play.</p>
+
+<p>The blast tube dropped from his fingers. He opened his mouth to shriek
+in his agony. But dark blood gushed forth, and, with his henchmen, he
+toppled back into the water.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>"Bends!" Geedeh said again. "Haynes had a worse case of bends than any
+deep-sea diver ever experienced."</p>
+
+<p>The flood had almost stopped, now, outside the cage. We waited.
+Vengeance was complete. And it wasn't quite as satisfying as I might
+once have thought.</p>
+
+<p>Presently they were with us. Irene. And old Art—proving that the
+Haynes name was still great, even though one who bore it had soiled it
+some. We emerged from our sealed cage, after the pressure around us was
+gradually lowered to normal.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't think it was Norman who was guilty," old Art breathed sadly
+when he spoke to us. "I knew he was high-handed, but I didn't realize
+it was as bad as it was. I guess Norman got what he deserved," he
+finished, and there were tears in his heavy voice.</p>
+
+<p>We went to the surface in the elevator. We needed space suits again,
+up there, with the air as expanded as it was. A lot of the atmosphere
+was leaking away from 487, being held down only by the tiny natural
+gravity. But there was nothing that couldn't be repaired and replaced.</p>
+
+<p>"We must have pumps rigged to draw the water out of the vault, so that
+we can dry and repair the gravity machinery, and start it again,"
+Geedeh stated.</p>
+
+<p>We started again, almost as we had done at the first, for quite a
+bit of the air and water had been whisked into space. We lived in
+space-suits for days, rebuilding and repairing the damaged machinery.
+Then with the aid of Art Haynes, and with extended credit now that our
+plans were made fully known and approved, we imported machinery to pump
+the water from the vault.</p>
+
+<p>We hired specialists to come in, each of them with a trained crew of
+men to do the work that our old crews lacked the technical skill to do.
+Slowly, our planet of hope grew again, and there were bulletins sent
+through the asteroid belt that workers were wanted again on Paradise
+Asteroid.</p>
+
+<p>The specialists left, replaced by the crews that had worked on the
+asteroid before. With unlimited credit, our great freighting ships
+piled materials in regular formation, and the returning crews set their
+ships down on the landing fields, the men pouring eagerly forth, ready
+to set up the buildings that would be the nucleus of another Earth in
+space.</p>
+
+<p>With our old crews returned, it took about a hundred hours to
+accomplish this. Asteroid 487 was almost the same as before the final
+trouble with Norman Haynes, now, except that the air was a little
+thinner. But that could be quickly taken care of. Pa Mavrocordatus
+was working with his vineyards and trees, and his tomato and cabbage
+patches, again. The big trouble was all finished, now. The dream was
+coming true. A little Earth, fresh and green, for tired miners of the
+Path of Minor Planets. Space madness could never be so common now. And
+cheap, fresh products would be theirs.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p class="ph1">V</p>
+
+<p>Irene and I walked in the warm night. The crews were whooping it up
+in the lighted barracks. Somebody was playing a harmonica. The stars
+were brilliant, and there were a thousand things to think of. How
+we'd all struggled. How Nick Mavrocordatus, had dreamed and worked
+and died. How once the asteroids had been a planet, with almost human
+inhabitants, dreaming, planning, struggling, too. Their rock carvings
+were everywhere.</p>
+
+<p>"It's the beginning, Chet," Irene whispered. "Asteroid 487 is the
+first. But there'll be others—other small, beautiful, living planets.
+There's a lot of work to be done. And when it's all finished that will
+be almost unfortunate—too tame."</p>
+
+<p>I knew what she meant. She was pioneer stuff, just as all of us were.
+The greatness of life was in its battles. On and on, to vaster and
+vaster heights. That was what had driven us into the interplanetary
+void in the first place.</p>
+
+<p>I kissed her. "Don't worry, Honey," I said. "There's no end to it. No
+point of final stagnation. It goes on and on. There'll always be a
+frontier—something bigger to reach and conquer...."</p>
+
+<p>And we looked up in awe toward the infinite stars.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Space Oasis, by Raymond Z. Gallun
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diff --git a/62186-h/images/cover.jpg b/62186-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5e1be60 --- /dev/null +++ b/62186-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/62186-h/images/illus.jpg b/62186-h/images/illus.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e52901f --- /dev/null +++ b/62186-h/images/illus.jpg diff --git a/62186.txt b/62186.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7f4984d --- /dev/null +++ b/62186.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1517 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Space Oasis, by Raymond Z. Gallun
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+
+
+Title: Space Oasis
+
+Author: Raymond Z. Gallun
+
+Release Date: May 21, 2020 [EBook #62186]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SPACE OASIS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ SPACE OASIS
+
+ By RAYMOND Z. GALLUN
+
+ Space-weary rocketmen dreamed of an
+ asteroid Earth. But power-mad Norman
+ Haynes had other plans--and he
+ spread his control lines in a
+ doom-net for that oasis in space.
+
+ [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
+ Planet Stories Fall 1942.
+ Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
+ the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
+
+
+I found Nick Mavrocordatus scanning the bulletin board at the Haynes
+Shipping Office on Enterprize Asteroid, when I came back with a load of
+ore from the meteor swarms.
+
+He looked at me with that funny curve on his lips, that might have been
+called a smile, and said, "Hi, Chet," as casually as though we'd seen
+each other within the last twenty-four hours.... "Queer laws they got
+in the Space Code, eh? The one that insists on the posting of casualty
+lists, for instance. You'd think the Haynes Company would like to keep
+such things dark."
+
+I didn't say anything for a moment, as my eyes went down those narrow,
+typed columns on the bulletin board: Joe Tiffany--dead--space armor
+defect.... Hermann Schmidt and Lan Harool--missing--vicinity of
+Pallas.... Irvin Davidson--hospitalized--space blindness....
+
+There was a score of names of men I didn't know, in that
+space-blindness column. And beneath, there was a much longer line of
+common Earth-born and Martian John-Henrys, with the laconic tag added
+at the top--_hospitalized_--_mental_. Ditto marks saved the trouble of
+retyping the tag itself, after each name.
+
+One name caught my eye.
+
+Ted Bradley was listed there. Ted Bradley from St. Louis, my and Nick
+Mavrocordatus' home town. It gave me a little jolt, and a momentary
+lump somewhere under my Adam's Apple. I knew the state Bradley would be
+in. Not a man any more--no longer keen and sure of himself. A year out
+here among the asteroids had changed all that forever.
+
+Shoving from one drifting, meteoric lump to another, in a tiny space
+boat. Chipping at those huge, grey masses with a test hammer that
+makes no sound in the voidal vacuum. Crawling over jagged surfaces,
+looking for ores of radium and tantalum and carium--stuff fabulously
+costly enough to be worth collecting, for shipment back to the
+industries of Earth, at fabulous freight rates, on rocket craft whose
+pay-load is so small, and where every gram of mass is at premium.
+
+No, Ted Bradley would never be himself again. Like so many others. It
+was an old story. The almost complete lack of gravity, out here among
+the asteroids, had disturbed his nerve-centers, while cosmic rays
+seeped through his leaded helmet, slowly damaging his brain.
+
+There was more to it than the airlessness, and absence of weight, and
+the cosmic rays. There was the utter silence, and the steady stars, and
+the blackness between them, and the blackness of the shadows, like the
+fangs of devils in the blazing sunshine. All of this was harder than
+the soul of any living being.
+
+And on top of all this, there was usually defeat and shattered hope.
+Not many futures were made among the asteroids by those who dug for
+their living. Prices of things brought from Earth in fragile, costly
+space craft were too high. Moments of freedom and company were too
+rare, and so, hard-won wealth ran like water.
+
+Ted Bradley was gone from us. Call him a corpse, really. In the
+hospital here on Enterprize, he was either a raving maniac, or
+else--almost worse--he was like a little child, crooning over the
+wonder of his fingers.
+
+It got me for a second. But then I shrugged. I'd been out here two
+years. An old timer. I knew how empires were built. I knew, better
+than most, how to get along out here. Be fatalistic and casual. Don't
+worry. Don't plan too much. That way I'd stayed right-side-up. I'd even
+had quite a lot of fun, being an adventurer, against that gigantic,
+awesome background of the void.
+
+I didn't consider my thoughts about Ted Bradley worth mentioning to
+Nick Mavrocordatus. He was probably thinking about Ted, too, and that
+was enough.
+
+"Come on, Nick," I said. "They've got my ore weighed and analyzed for
+content in the hopper rooms. I'm going into the pay-office and get my
+dough. Then we might shove off to the Iridium Circle, or some other
+joint, and have us a time, huh?"
+
+Nick laughed, then, good-naturedly, triumphantly. I gave him a sharp
+glance, noticing that under his faintly bitter air, there seemed to be
+something big. Some idea that gripped him, confused him, thrilled him.
+His small, knotty body was taut with it; his dark eyes, under the curly
+black hair that straggled down his forehead, glowed with a far-away
+look.
+
+Of course, he was still very young--only twenty-two, which to me,
+at twenty-five, with a six-months edge of asteroid-lore beyond his
+year and a half of experience, made me feel old and disillusioned and
+practical, by comparison.
+
+"All right, Chet," he said at last. "Let's get your money. Celebrations
+are in order--on me, though. But I guess we'd better soft-pedal them
+some. I've got a lot to tell you, and more to do."
+
+I didn't give his words proper attention, just then. I swaggered into
+the pay office, where a couple of stenogs clicked typewriters, and
+where Norman Haynes, acting head of the Haynes Shipping Company, sat at
+his desk, under the painted portrait of his uncle, that grizzled old
+veteran, Art Haynes, who had retired years ago, and who now lived on
+Earth.
+
+I knew old Art only by reputation. But that was enough to arouse my
+deep respect. Between nephew and uncle there was a difference as great
+as between night and day. The one, the founder, unafraid to dirty his
+hands and face death, and build for the future. Tough, yes, but square,
+and willing to pay bonuses to miners even while he'd been struggling
+to expand his company, and open up vast, new space trails. The other,
+an arm-chair director, holding on tight, now, to an asteroid empire,
+legally free of his control, but whose full resources came eventually
+into his hands at the expense of others, because he controlled the
+fragile, difficult supply lines.
+
+At sight of me, Norman Haynes arose from his chair. He was very tall,
+and he wore an immaculate business suit. He was smooth-shaven, with a
+neat haircut, in contrast to my shaggy locks and bristles. Across his
+face spread a smile of greeting as broad as it was false.
+
+"Well--Chet Wallace," he said. "You've done some marvelous meteor
+mining, this trip: Nineteen hundred dollars' worth of radium-actinium
+ore! Splendid! Maybe you'll do even better next time!"
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Yeah! I'd seen and heard Norman Haynes act and talk like this before.
+He handed out the same line to all of the miners. To me it was forever
+irritating. Always I'd wanted to turn that long nose of his back
+against his right ear. He and his words were both phony. Always he used
+a condescending tone. And I felt that he was a bloodsucker. My anger
+was further increased, now, because of Ted Bradley.
+
+I guess I sneered. "Don't worry about those nineteen hundred dollars,
+Mr. Haynes," I said. "When I buy grub, and a few things I need, and
+have a little blow, you'll have the money all back."
+
+Beside the office railing there was a machine--a cigarette vendor. Into
+a roller system at its top, I inserted two five-dollar bills from my
+pay. There was a faint whir as the robot photographic apparatus checked
+the denominations of the notes, and proved their authenticity. Two
+packs of cigarettes slipped down into the receiver arrangement.
+
+"Five bucks apiece, Haynes," I said. "At a fair shipping rate,
+cigarettes brought out from Earth aren't worth much more than three
+bucks. But you're just a dirty chiseller, not satisfied with a fair
+profit. Costs here in the asteroids are naturally plenty steep; but you
+make a bad situation worse by charging at least twenty-five per-cent
+more than's reasonable! A Venutian stink-louse is more of a gentleman
+than you are, Haynes!"
+
+Oh, there was a Satanic satisfaction in feeling the snarl in my throat,
+and seeing Haynes' face go purplish red, and then white with surprise
+and fury. Some other space men had entered the pay office, and they hid
+their grins of pleasure behind calloused palms.
+
+First I thought Norman Haynes would swing at me. But he didn't. He
+lacked that kind of nerve. He began to sputter and curse under his
+breath, and I thought of a snake hissing. I felt the danger of it,
+though--danger that broods and plans, and doesn't come out into the
+open, but waits its chance to strike. Knowing that it was there,
+sizzling in Haynes' mind, gave me a thrill.
+
+Casually I tossed one of the packs of cigarettes to Nick Mavrocordatus,
+who had come with me into the pay office. He gave me a nudge, which
+meant we'd better scram. When we were out of the building, he held
+me off from going to any of the few tawdry saloons there under the
+small, glassed-in airdome of Enterprize City, the one shabby scrap of
+civilization and excuse for comfort.
+
+"No drinks now, Chet," Nick whispered. "Can't chance it. Got to keep
+on our toes. In one way I'm glad you talked down to that--whatever you
+want to call him. But you've made us the worst possible enemy we could
+have--now."
+
+I shrugged. "What were you gonna tell me before, Nick?" I demanded. "I
+gathered you had something plenty big in view."
+
+He answered me so abruptly that I didn't quite believe my ears at
+first. "Pa and Sis and Geedeh and I, have made good, Chet," he said.
+"We found--not just pickings--but a real fortune in ore, on planetoid
+439. So rich is the deposit that we could buy our own smelting and
+purifying machinery, and hire ships under our own control, to take the
+refined metals back to Earth!"
+
+"You're kidding, Nick," I said amazedly.
+
+"Not a bit of it," he returned.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Then I was pumping his hand, congratulating him. Really good luck was
+a phenomenon among the asteroids. That friends of mine, among the
+thousands of hopeful ones that I didn't know, should grab the jack-pot,
+seemed almost impossible.
+
+"I suppose you'll all be leaving us soon," I told him. "Going back to
+Earth, living the lives of millionaires. I'm glad for you all, kid.
+Your Pa can raise his flowers and grapes, instead of starting up in the
+truck-garden business again. Your sis, Irene, can study her painting
+and her music, like she wants to."
+
+Anybody can see the way my thoughts were going just then. When you
+start out green for the Minor Planets, that's part of what's in your
+mind, first--get rich, come back to Earth.
+
+Nick sighed heavily as we walked along. That funny smile was on
+his lips again. He glanced around, and the emerald light of the
+illuminators was on his young face.
+
+Then he said, "I don't think it's quite safe to talk here, Chet.
+Better come to our old space jaloppy, the _Corfu_."
+
+The _Corfu_ was on the ways outside the dome. We put on space suits to
+reach it. Inside, the old crate smelled of cooking odors, some of them
+maybe accumulated over the eighteen months the Mavrocordatuses had been
+asteroid mining. Old ships are hard to ventilate, with their imperfect
+air-purifiers.
+
+The instruments in the control room, were battered and patched; and
+from the living quarters to the rear, issued a duet of snores--one
+throaty and rattly, Pa Mavrocordatus' beyond doubt; and the other an
+intermittent hiss, originating unquestionably in the dust-filtering
+hairs in the larynx of Geedeh, the little Martian scientist, whom Nick
+had befriended.
+
+"I can't figure you out, Nick," I said. "Rich, and not leaving this
+hell-hole of space. You're an idiot."
+
+"So are you, Chet," he returned knowingly. "In my place, you wouldn't
+go either--at least not without regrets. In spite of all hell, there's
+something big here in space that gets you. You feel like nothing,
+yourself. But you feel that you're part of something terribly huge and
+terribly important. You'd be happy on Earth for a week; then you'd
+begin to smother inside. The Minor Planets have become our home, Chet.
+It's too late to break the ties."
+
+Slowly it soaked into my mind that Nick was right.
+
+"Not to say anything bad against old Mother Earth, Chet," he continued.
+"Far from it! That's just what's needed out here--a little touch of
+our native scene. Growing things. A piece of blue sky, maybe. Enough
+gravity to make a man believe in solid ground again."
+
+Right then I began to smell Nick's plan, not only what it was, but all
+the impractical dreamer part of it.
+
+I began to grin, but there was a kind of sadness in me, too. "Sure!
+Sure, Nick!" I chided. "The idea's as old as the hills! Rejuvenate
+some asteroid. Bring in soil and water and air from Earth. Install a
+big gravity-generating unit. Ha! Have you any idea how many ships it
+would take to bring those thousands and thousands of tons of stuff out
+here--even to get started?"
+
+ * * * * *
+
+I was talking loud. My voice was booming through the rusty hull of the
+_Corfu_, making ringing echoes. So just about as I finished, they were
+all around me. Pa Mavrocordatus, in pajamas and ragged dressing gown,
+his handle-bar moustaches bristling. Geedeh, the tiny Martian, draped
+in a checkered Earthly blanket, his great eyes blinking, and his tiny
+fingers, with fleshy knobs at their ends instead of nails, twiddling
+nervously near the center of his barrel-chest. And Irene, too, standing
+straight and defiant and little, in her blue smock.
+
+Irene hadn't been sleeping. Probably she'd been washing dishes, and
+straightening up the galley after supper. She still had a dish towel in
+her hands. Wealth hadn't altered the Mavrocordatus' mode of life, yet.
+Irene looked like a bold little kewpie, her dark head of tousled, curly
+hair, not up to my shoulder. She was exquisitely pretty; but now she
+was somewhat irritated.
+
+She shook a finger up at me, angrily. "You think Nick has a dumb idea,
+eh, Chet Wallace?" she accused. "That's only because you don't know
+what you're talking about! We won't have to bring a drop of water, or a
+molecule of air or soil, out from Earth! You ask Geedeh!"
+
+I turned toward the little Martian. The dark pupil-slits, and the
+yellow irises of his huge eyes, covered me. "Irene has spoken the
+truth, Chet," he told me in his slow, labored English. "The Asteroid
+Belt, the many hundreds of fragments that compose it, are the remains
+of a planet that exploded. So there is soil on many of the asteroids.
+Dried out--yes--after most of the water and air disappeared into space,
+following the catastrophe. But the soil can still be useful. And there
+is still water, not in free, liquid form, but combined in ancient rock
+strata; gypsum, especially. It is like on Mars, when the atmosphere
+began to get too thin for us to breathe, and the water very scarce on
+the dusty deserts."
+
+I said nothing, wished I had kept silent.
+
+"We roasted gypsum in atomic furnaces," Geedeh finished, "driving
+the water out as steam, and reclaiming it for our underground
+cities. The same can be done here among the Minor Planets. And since
+water is hydrogen dioxide, oxygen can be obtained from it, too, by
+electrolysis. Nitrogen and carbon dioxide, necessary to complete the
+new atmosphere, which will be prevented from leaking into space by the
+force of the artificial gravity, can be obtained from native nitrates,
+and other compounds. Only vital parts of the machinery need be brought
+out from Earth and Mars by rocket. The rest can be made here, from
+native materials."
+
+Geedeh's voice, as he spoke to me, was a soft, sibilant whisper, like
+the rustle of red dust in a cold, thin, Martian wind.
+
+"You bet," Pa Mavrocordatus enthused. "Nick's got a good idea. I'm
+gonna raise my flowers! I'm gonna raise tomatoes and cabbages and
+carrots, right here on one of them asteroids!"
+
+It struck me as funny--asteroids--cabbages! Nothing I could think of,
+could seem quite that far apart. Black, airless vacuum, rough rocks,
+and raw, spacial sunshine! And things from a truck garden! It didn't
+match. But then, Pa Mavrocordatus didn't match the asteroids either!
+He'd had a truck garden once, outside of St. Louis. And yet he was out
+here in space, and had been for a year and a half!
+
+Well, even if the idea _was_ practical, I thought first that they were
+still just dreaming--kidding themselves that it would be a cinch to
+accomplish. And not being able to fight through.
+
+Then I glanced back at Nick. That look on his face was there again. A
+strange mixture of confidence, worry, grimness, and vision. It came to
+me then that he was no kid at all.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+"Let me in on the job?" I asked hopefully.
+
+"Sure!" Nick returned. "We wouldn't be telling you all this, if we
+didn't want you. That's why we came back to Enterprize--hoping to find
+you around some place."
+
+So I was in. Part of a wild scheme of progress--more thrilling
+and inspiring because it seemed so wild. An asteroid made into a
+tiny, artificial Earth! A boon to void-weary space men! A source of
+cheap food supplies, as well as a place to rest up. A new stage of
+colonization--empire building!
+
+And then I thought I heard a sound--a faint clinking outside of the
+hull of the _Corfu_. At once, I was alert--taut. Maybe half of my
+sudden worry was intuition, or a form of telepathy. When you've been
+out in deep space, a million miles away from any other living soul, you
+feel a vast, hollow loneliness, that perhaps is mostly the absence of
+human telepathy waves from other minds. But when you have people around
+you once more, your sixth sense seems keener for the period of lack.
+That was why I was sure of an eavesdropper, sensing his presence. With
+proper sub-microphonic equipment, a man outside a space ship can hear
+every word spoken inside.
+
+Nick felt it too. "But we'd better look and see," he whispered. "Norman
+Haynes keeps spies around. And he may have heard rumors. You can't keep
+a project like ours secret very long. It's too big."
+
+My pulses jumped with fear, as I piled into my space suit. But when
+Nick and I got through the airlock together, there was nobody in sight.
+Only some footprints in the faint rocket dust of the ways, covering our
+own footprints, where we'd passed before, coming to the _Corfu_. Our
+flashlights showed them plainly.
+
+"Having a rejuvenated asteroid in these parts, producing fresh food
+and so forth, would take a lot of trade away from the Haynes Shipping
+Company, wouldn't it?" I said when we were back in the cabin once
+more. "Norman Haynes wouldn't be practically boss of the Minor Planets
+anymore, would he? He wouldn't like that. He'll fight us."
+
+"We need you, Chet," Irene said, her eyes appealing. That was enough
+for me.
+
+"We'd better blast off right away," Nick added. "We're going to
+asteroid 487, Chet. Its new name is Paradise. It's the one we've
+picked."
+
+
+ II
+
+Asteroid 487 was the usual thing. A torn, jagged, airless fragment.
+It was no paradise yet, unless it was a paradise of devils. Nick had
+a thousand men hired--space roustabouts, and a lot of mechanics and
+technicians, mostly fresh from Earth. Sure, it's hard handling a bunch
+like that, but there was nothing in this difficulty that we didn't know
+was part of the job. Some of our outfit gave us horse-laughs, but they
+worked. The pay was good.
+
+The ships came through with the packed loads of machinery. Atomic
+forges blazed, purifying native meteoric iron to complete the vast
+gravity-generating machine, sunk in a shaft at the center of the
+planetoid, ten miles down. Geedeh directed most of the work. Nick and
+I saw that orders were carried out, swearing, sweating, and making
+speeches intended to inspire.
+
+And then the trouble started.
+
+A rocket, bringing in food, and money to pay our crews, blew up in
+space, just as it was coming close. The light of the blast was blinding
+and awesome, making even the bright stars seem to vanish for a moment.
+Atomic rocket fuel going up. Gobs of molten metal dripped groundward,
+like real meteors heated in an atmosphere which still didn't exist.
+
+It could have been an accident. You can't always control titanic atomic
+power, and space ships fly to pieces quite frequently. But then I had a
+suspicion that maybe this wasn't an accident.
+
+Nick and I were in the open plain to see it happen. He'd just come from
+the airtight barracks we'd built. His face didn't change much behind
+the quartz crystal of his oxygen helmet--it only sobered a trifle.
+While the fiery wreckage of the rocket was still falling in shreds and
+fragments, he spoke, his voice clicking in my receptor phones:
+
+"Yeah, Chet.... And there's trouble on asteroid 439, too, where our
+mines are located. I just got the radio message, back at the office.
+Sabotage, and some men killed. It seems that some of the workmen are
+trying to break things up for us. Harley's in charge. I think he can
+handle matters--for a while."
+
+"I hope so," I answered fervently. "If the work only turns out right at
+this end. With that ship smashed, we'll be on short rations for a week.
+And we've lost some important machinery. The pay money's insured, but
+the men won't like the delay."
+
+I didn't expect much trouble from the crew--yet. It was Irene that
+really helped the most--mastered the situation. She'd taken over the
+management of the kitchens since the start of the work.
+
+But now she had an additional job. She talked to that rough crew of
+ours. "We're going to win, boys!" she told them. "We know what we've
+got to do: Our task is for the good of every one of us--and for many
+people yet to come!"
+
+Simple, straightforward, inspiring talk. Funny what men will do for
+a pretty girl--against hell itself. But that wasn't all of it. The
+paintings of hers, that she'd hung in our recreation room, showed what
+asteroid 487 _could_ be, when we were finished with it.
+
+Space men are the toughest kind of adventurers that ever lived. But
+adventurers are always optimists, sentimentalists, romanticists, no
+matter how hard the exterior. And space men, by the very nature of the
+appalling region to which they belong, believe in miracles.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+They cheered the thought--most of those tough men. I cheered, too. But
+the miracle hadn't happened yet, and in the back of my mind, there
+was always the fear that it wouldn't happen. Those crags were still
+bleak and star-washed. Deader than any tomb! It wasn't an impossible
+wonder--technically--to change all this. But perhaps it was impossible,
+anyway--because of Norman Haynes! He was the only person who had the
+power and the reason to stop all that we were attempting. The sabotage
+and killings must be incited by him--certain members of our crews must
+be in his hire. Quite probably the rocket that had blown up had been
+secretly mined with explosive, under his orders, too.
+
+But there is nothing harder to fight than those subtle methods. We had
+no proof, and no easy means of getting it. We could only go on with
+our task. Geedeh and the rest of us worked hopefully. One segment of
+asteroid 487, had been part of the surface of that old world that had
+exploded. From here we spread the dry soil over the planetoid's jagged
+terrain, drawing it in atom trucks. More soil was brought in from other
+asteroids. The great rock-roasting furnaces were put up. Gypsum was
+heated in them, releasing its water in great clouds of steam, which
+the artificial gravity kept from drifting off into space. Some of the
+water, under electrolysis, yielded oxygen. Nitrogen came from nitrates.
+
+Our gravity machine needed readjustments now and then. To a large
+extent, the thousands of parts that composed it were electrical. Great
+coils converted magnetic force into gravitation.
+
+One ship reached us all right, bringing seeds and food. Another didn't.
+It blew up in space, the second to go. Then somebody tried to get
+Geedeh, the Martian, with a heat ray. Another food ship failed to
+arrive.
+
+Then Norman Haynes came to visit us. He landed before we had a chance
+to refuse to receive him. He had a body-guard of a dozen men. He was
+our enemy, but we couldn't prove it. He seemed to have forgotten the
+little brush between himself and me, at his office.
+
+"Splendid layout you've got, Wallace and Mavrocordatus!" he said to
+Nick and me, pronouncing Nick's name perfectly. He sounded very much
+like his usual self. "Of course there's bound to be difficulties.
+Trouble with crews, and so on. It's hard to get people to believe in
+a project as fantastic as this. I didn't quite believe in it, either,
+at first. But the facts are proved, now that the groundwork is laid.
+You'll need help, fellows. I can give it to you."
+
+He was smiling, but under the smile I could see a snaky smirk, which
+probably he didn't know showed. I felt fury rising inside me. He was
+trying to get control of our project, now that he saw for sure that it
+could amount to something. Competition he feared, but if he had control
+he could enforce his high prices, keep his empire, and expand his
+wealth by millions of dollars. His dirty work must have been partly an
+attempt to force the issue.
+
+"Thanks," Nick told him quietly. "But we prefer to do everything alone."
+
+Our visitor shrugged, standing there at the door of his space boat.
+"Okay," he breezed. "Get in touch with me, if you feel you need me!"
+
+Some hours later, a radiogram came through from Earth.
+"_Congratulations!_" it read. "_Stick to your guns! I like people with
+imagination. Maybe I'll be back in harness soon myself.--Art Haynes._"
+
+ * * * * *
+
+"He's probably just being sarcastic," I said bitterly.
+
+"Old devil!" Pa Mavrocordatus growled.
+
+Two men were killed just thirty minutes after the message was received.
+A little thin-faced fellow named Sparr did it. But he got away in a
+space boat before we could catch him. A paid killer and trouble maker.
+
+The incident put our crew more on edge than before. A half dozen of the
+newcomers--mechanics from Earth--quit abruptly. Our food was almost
+gone. We got another shipload in, but the growing unrest didn't abate,
+though we kept on for another month. There was similar trouble on 439,
+where the Mavrocordatus money came from. But maybe we'd make the grade,
+anyway.
+
+We had a pretty dense atmosphere already, on Paradise Asteroid. The
+black sky had turned blue now. The ground was moist with water. Earthly
+buildings were going up. Pa Mavrocordatus had had seeds and small trees
+and things planted. It was that deceptive moment of success, before the
+real blow came.
+
+After sunset one night, I heard shots. I raced out of the barracks,
+Geedeh, Irene, and Pa Mavrocordatus following me. We all carried blast
+tubes.
+
+We found Nick in a gorge, his body half burned through, just above his
+right hip. But he was still alive. He had a blast tube in one hand.
+Two men lay on the rocks and earth in front of him, dead. Beside them,
+glinting in our flashlight beams, was an aluminum cylinder.
+
+"It's a bacteria culture container, Chet," Nick whispered. "They had me
+caught, and they bragged a little before I did some fast moving, and
+got one of their blast tubes. Venutian Black-Rot germs. They were going
+to dump them in the drinking water supply. They mentioned--Haynes...."
+
+Nick couldn't say much more than that. But he'd saved our lives. He
+died there in my arms, a hero to progress, a little breeze in the new
+atmosphere he'd helped to create rumpling his curly hair. He'd died for
+his dream of beauty and betterment.
+
+Poor little Irene couldn't even cry. Her face was white, and she was
+stricken mute. Her pa was shaken by great sobs, and he babbled threats.
+I told him to shut up. Geedeh cursed in his own language, his voice a
+soft, deadly hiss, his little fists clenching and unclenching.
+
+"Too bad Nick had to kill these men!" I growled. "We could have made
+'em talk. We'd have evidence. The law would take care of Norman
+Haynes!"
+
+"But we ain't got nothing!" Pa Mavrocordatus groaned. "Nothing!"
+
+Geedeh's face was twisted into a Martian snarl of hate. Irene stared,
+as though she were somewhere far away. I tried putting my arm around
+her, to bring her back to us. It was a minute before she seemed to
+realize I was there.
+
+"Irene," I said. "I love you. We all love you. Buck up, kid. We can't
+quit now--ever! We'd be letting Nick down."
+
+She just nodded. She couldn't talk.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+A couple of hours later I was meeting our workers in our office. Most
+of them tried to be decent about it. "We'd like to stick, Wallace. But
+how can we? Nothing to eat...." That was what most of them said, in one
+way or another.
+
+And how could I answer them?
+
+Some were not so regretful, of course. Some were downright ugly. A
+little crazy with space perhaps, or else hopped up with propaganda that
+secret agents in Haynes' hire had been spreading among them.
+
+"Why should we work for you anyway?" they snarled. "Even for good
+money, most of which we haven't collected? You're probably like what
+we're used to. Just fixing up another place here, to clip us in the
+end, charging us prices sky high. Your 'Paradise' is just a little
+fancier, that's all."
+
+So they turned away, and the exodus began. The freight ships blasted
+off, one by one, with loads of men. We couldn't stop them. And soon the
+silence closed in. We were left alone to bury Nick. The small sun was
+bright on the rough pinnacles, and their naked grey stone was bluely
+murky in the new air. There was a humid warmth of summer around us.
+
+Just then, I didn't even feel exactly angry, in the blackness of
+failure, Norman Haynes had won, so far. What would be his next step in
+completing our final defeat?
+
+I spent some time in the office, going over records. Presently Pa
+Mavrocordatus came rushing from the barracks. His whole fat body
+sagged, as he paused before me. His face was like paste. He didn't seem
+quite alive.
+
+"Irene," he croaked. "She's gone ... too...."
+
+I ran with him to her quarters. There was some disorder. A picture of
+her mother was tipped over on a little metal dressing table. A rug was
+rumpled, and there was some clothing scattered on the floor. That was
+all.
+
+Geedeh had entered her quarters, too. "Kidnapped," he hissed.
+
+What Haynes meant to accomplish by having his agents, carry off Irene,
+I couldn't imagine. The hate I felt blurred all but the thought of
+getting her back to safety. The urge was like a dagger-point, sharp and
+clear in the chaos of memories. I knew how much she meant to me now.
+
+"I need a rocket," I said quietly. "The fastest we've got. I want to
+radio the Space Patrol, too."
+
+"There are no ships left here," Geedeh returned. "The men took them
+all, except a little flier, which they meant us to have. But somebody
+has smashed it. Our big radio transmitter is smashed, also."
+
+A minute later I was clawing in the wreckage of tubes and wires, there
+in the radio room. The apparatus was completely beyond repair. For the
+time being we were helpless, stranded on our asteroid. For a moment
+I felt little shouts of madness shrieking in my brain. But Geedeh's
+stabbing glance warned me that this was not the way. I fought back, out
+of that flash of mania.
+
+"We'd better break out all of our weapons, Geedeh," I said. "Haynes has
+gone too deep to back out now. He's in danger of the Patrol if we talk,
+so he'll have to strike at us soon."
+
+Thus we prepared ourselves as well as we could, for attack. Geedeh,
+Pa Mavrocordatus, and I. We equipped ourselves with our best
+armament--atomic rifles. Pa Mavrocordatus had gotten over most of his
+confusion. He was still sick with grief, but necessity seemed to have
+steadied him. He clutched his rifle grimly as we took up positions
+behind rock masses at the edge of the landing field.
+
+
+ III
+
+We waited silently. The asteroid turned on its axis. The brief night
+came. Then we saw the rockets approaching--flaming in on shreds of
+blue-white rocket fire. As the two ships slowed for a landing, the
+three of us discharged a volley.
+
+Our atomic bullets burst on impact, dazzling in the dark. The
+concussion was terrific.
+
+"Got one!" I heard Pa Mavrocordatus shout after a moment, his voice
+thin through the ringing in my ears. My dazzled eyes saw one ship lying
+on its side on the landing field, its meteor armor unpunctured by our
+small missiles, but with its landing rockets damaged. The other ship
+had grounded itself perfectly.
+
+We were ready to fire again, when the paralytic waves swept over us.
+I saw Geedeh half rise, doubling backward in a rigid spasm, his rifle
+flying wide.
+
+Then I knew no more, until I heard Norman Haynes speaking to us. We
+were bound firmly, and it was daylight again, and our captor and his
+score of henchmen were smirking.
+
+"I'm just trying to figure out how to make your deaths seem as
+accidental as possible," Haynes said, looking at me. "A couple of men
+of mine seem to have bungled a little business of bacteria. Maybe
+they blabbed before you fellows killed them. Now, of course, I can't
+take any chances. Too bad your reconditioned asteroid has to appear a
+failure for a while. But I can't let my taking over seem too obvious.
+Have to wait a while. I may be able to start up something here later,
+when people sort of forget."
+
+"What have you done with Irene?" I stormed blackly.
+
+Haynes' look was quizzical. "Why ask me?" he answered. "She probably
+ran off with one of your roustabouts. Or else they decided that she'd
+be nice company to have around, and made her go along."
+
+He laughed cynically. Maybe he was telling the truth about not knowing
+where Irene was. But if this was true, it didn't make me feel much
+better. If some of his gang, who'd been working with us, had kidnapped
+her, there was no telling how badly she'd fare.
+
+My fears showed on my face, and Norman Haynes seemed to enjoy them,
+though he was nervous, dangerously so. It was getting daylight again,
+now. He kept glancing at the sky, twiddling his soft hands. He didn't
+like physical danger.
+
+"Your gravity generator seems to be the answer to my prayers, Wallace,"
+he informed me. "At full force it'll develop at least fifty Earth
+gravities, before breaking down and melting itself. We've inspected it.
+Power like that'll destroy all of you. It will look like an accident--a
+breakdown of the machinery."
+
+Though Pa Mavrocordatus kept cursing Haynes continuously, and Geedeh
+kept calling him names that no Earthman could have translated into our
+less vitriolic English, our captor paid them no attention. He kept
+directing his threats at me. That was how I knew he was still thinking
+of the time in his office at Enterprize, when I'd called him by his
+true colors. He still held that grudge, and he meant to pay me back
+with fifty gravities. Which means that every pound of Earth-weight
+would be increased to fifty pounds! In a grip like that a man as big as
+me would weigh a good four tons!
+
+That meant a heart stopped by the load of the blood it tried to pump,
+and tissues crushed by their own weight! Like being on the surface of
+some dead star of medium dimensions, where gravity is terrific!
+
+ * * * * *
+
+At Haynes' order, six of his twenty henchmen picked up Geedeh and Pa
+and me. The whole bunch was an ugly looking lot, the scum of the space
+ports. Some of these men were commanded to stay on the surface of the
+planetoid, while we were carried to the elevator shed. In the cage we
+descended at dizzying speed to that vault at the center of 487 where
+the gravity machinery was housed in its crystal shell. At that depth,
+under the load of the column of air above, the atmospheric pressure was
+very high. One could not breathe comfortably in that stuffy medium.
+
+"Courage!" Geedeh gasped to Pa Mavrocordatus and me, while his great
+eyes kept roving around, looking for some chance that wasn't there.
+
+Haynes began to examine the machinery. He was smirking again. "Simple
+to do!" he said to his companions. "Set the robot control for gradually
+increasing power, so that we'll have time to get away. Break the manual
+controls, so that no readjustments can be made. You can cut our friends
+loose now, Zinder, so there won't be any ropes to show this was a
+put-up job. But keep your blasters on these men--all of you!"
+
+This was the end, all right. I was sure of it. I'd die without even
+knowing what had happened to Irene. Irene, whom I knew now that I
+loved....
+
+We'd been freed of our bonds when the surface phone rang. The lookout
+party, whom Haynes had left above, was calling. Our captor snapped on
+the switch of the speaker. A voice boomed in that busy cavern of metal
+giants, green light, and glinting crystal:
+
+"Listen, Chief! There's a bunch of specks to the right of the sun.
+They're getting bigger fast. Must be a flock of space ships. Couldn't
+be any of yours. What'll we do?"
+
+I saw Haynes' weak features go sallow. Briefly my spirits rose. I
+couldn't imagine whom those ships could belong to. But they must be
+rescuers of some kind. They were coming to stop Norman Haynes' madness.
+
+But Haynes was clever, as he quickly proved. "Friends of Wallace here,
+I suppose. Maybe even Space Patrol boats," he said over his phone to
+the lookout party. "You'll all have to take a discomfort for a while.
+We'll use gravity on them, too! They'll never land successfully."
+
+Pa Mavrocordatus looked at me and Geedeh. "What's he mean--use gravity?"
+
+Geedeh was a bit quicker than I in giving the obvious answer. "Just
+as with us," he said. "Increase the output of the gravity generator
+here to a certain degree. From space, the increase will be practically
+unnoticeable. The rockets will try to land--but without taking into
+consideration the multiplied attractive force, they will crash!"
+
+"Many birds with one stone!" Haynes chuckled gleefully. "You will
+have a short reprieve, friends, while I take care of these intruders,
+whoever they are. I can't use too great a gravity on them at first. It
+might warn them, if they notice that their ships are accelerating too
+rapidly. They might as well be part of my 'accident', even if they do
+happen to be police. The Space Patrol has accidents now and then, just
+like anybody else!"
+
+Haynes started to work the manual controls of the generator. The
+area in which he and his several aides stood, was shielded against
+the greater attraction, having been thus arranged by us for testing
+purposes. The shrill hum of the machines grew louder.
+
+I felt the weight of my prone body increase suffocatingly. The
+heat increased too, as the great coils, gleaming in the glow of
+illuminators, gradually absorbed more power. And I knew that, out in
+space, those slender fingers of force were reaching and strengthening,
+invisible and treacherous. Our unknown friends were doomed.
+
+Not only were they doomed, but our whole idea was destined to failure.
+The dream that Nick had died for. The vast progress that it meant.
+Worlds out here--worlds with largely a self-sufficient production--real
+colonization. Fair play. Norman Haynes would resist all that, because
+progress would weaken his power here. He was master of the asteroids,
+because he was master of their imports and exports. And unless he
+could control the rejuvenated asteroids himself, they would never be.
+With him directing, they would not represent a real improvement--only
+another means of robbing from the colonists. And colonists weren't rich.
+
+I could see those same thoughts, that gouged savagely into my own
+brain, burning in Geedeh's cat eyes, where he sprawled near me. Being
+a Martian, born to a lesser gravity than the terrestrial, he was
+suffering more than I--physically. But perhaps my mental torture was
+worse. Geedeh was Irene's friend, but I loved her. She was gone--lost
+somewhere--maybe dead. That, for me, was the worst--much worse than
+that crushing weight.
+
+I couldn't let things remain the way they were! My seething fury and
+need lashed me on, even in my helplessness. God--what could I do? I
+tried to figure something out. Could I break the gravity machinery some
+way? Impossible, now, certainly!
+
+I tried to remember my high school physics. Principles that might be
+used to give warning signals, and so forth. And just what that awful
+gravity would do to things.
+
+Close to me was the base of the domelike crystal shell that covered
+the gravity generator. It wasn't a vital part, certainly, just stout
+quartz. But it was the only thing I could reach. As I lay there on the
+floor, I drew my foot back, doubling my knee. I stamped down against
+the quartz with all my strength. The first blow cracked it. The second
+drove my metal-shod boot-heel through with a crashing sound. A small
+hole, eighteen inches long, was made in the barrier. The sounds of the
+great machinery went on as before. The gravity kept slowly increasing.
+Geedeh, suffering more, now, looked at me puzzledly. Pa Mavrocordatus
+stared anxiously. And Norman Haynes at the surface phone laughed
+unpleasantly.
+
+"Cracking up, eh, Wallace?" he sneered. "I know who your would-be
+helpers on those space ships are, now. I suppose I should be surprised
+at their identities. They're calling to you. Want to listen? My men
+above have locked this surface phone to our ship radio."
+
+[Illustration: _"Cracking up, eh, Wallace?" Norman Haynes sneered._]
+
+He turned up the volume of the reproducer.
+
+Irene's voice was the first in the speaker. "Chet!" she was urging.
+"Chet Wallace! Pa! Geedeh! Do you hear me? I left 487 of my own free
+will. I couldn't waste time, going to the Space Patrol for help--they'd
+want proof, and that would take a while to present. So--there was only
+one person and I thought you'd mistrust him.... Why don't you answer?
+Or have you left 487 too? I'm turning the mike over to somebody else,
+now. I found him on Enterprize, just come from Earth, Mr. Arthur
+Haynes...."
+
+
+ IV
+
+I gasped, listening to Irene. I didn't know what surprised and confused
+me most--her being alive and safe, or what she'd done about old Art
+Haynes. Could I trust old Art? I had no way of telling. Had Irene
+told him about his nephew, or had she kept silent? Did he know he was
+opposed to Norman Haynes, or did he think it was somebody else who had
+sabotaged the project? Where would his loyalties be, if he found out?
+It was a ticklish situation.
+
+As soon as Irene's ragged, excited breathing died away in the speaker,
+Norman Haynes took it upon himself to clarify his own stand, and my
+uncertainties. He looked at Geedeh and Pa and me, tense and suffering
+in the grip of the gravity, and tortured with doubt.
+
+"Uncle Art is an old fool," he said. "So he thinks he'll come back to
+the asteroids, and replace me in the business, does he? Well, he should
+have died long ago, and now is as good a time as any! He might as well
+be part of the accident, too, along with those space bums of yours.
+Nobody'll ever know!"
+
+It was tragic that old Art couldn't have heard that. But his nephew
+wasn't broadcasting. He was just listening quietly. And now his uncle's
+voice was coming through:
+
+"We're blasting in to land, Wallace, if you're listening. There won't
+be any more trouble, now. I'll see to that! We'll find out who's back
+of this sabotage. We'll put an end to it!"
+
+For me it was bitter, black irony--old Art proving himself our friend,
+now! He didn't know his enemy. He was nearly ninety--a grim old
+fighter, with real vision. Irene too, who meant everything to me. She
+didn't know that with the intensified gravity those incoming ships
+would be smashed and blazing!
+
+My mind was growing a bit dim in the strangling pressure of
+the artificial gravitation. Sweat was streaming from me in the
+smothering heat that added to the oppressiveness of the heavy air. Pa
+Mavrocordatus was groaning the name of his daughter. Geedeh's great
+eyes were fixed on me in helpless suffering.
+
+Through the shrill sounds of the engines I listened for more words
+from Irene and old Art. But none came. They must know their doom by
+now. They must be fighting savagely and hopelessly to get away. Still
+some distance from 487, they were already caught, deep in the web of
+invisible force.
+
+After some moments, I heard a distant crash, a roll of sound. What was
+it? A huge rocket, hitting the jagged crags above, at meteoric speed?
+Crumpling, destroying itself and those inside it? I thought my heart
+would burst with the added weight of my anxiety.
+
+The first crash was only the beginning. Others followed in quick
+succession--inexorably. And there was a faint, far-off roar, coming
+down from ten miles above.
+
+And that roar was the roar of titanic rain. Of floods of water coming
+down this shaft, where the gravity machine was! All the countless tons
+of water that we'd baked from ancient rocks, and which had been mostly
+suspended as vapor in our synthetic atmosphere, was condensing now,
+coming down in torrents!
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Norman Haynes kept grinning satanically, while he and his aides
+attended to the gravity machine. Triumph showed in his eyes. But
+presently he began to look puzzled, as that soughing roar that
+accompanied the crashing din, increased. It was a little early for the
+space ships to be smashing up, anyway.
+
+I could feel a grim smile coming over my lips, against my will. Had my
+guesses and hopes, which had seemed so unsubstantial, been correct?
+Norman Haynes was glancing doubtfully at the reproducer. I could see
+that he was wondering why his surface watchers didn't communicate any
+more--and tell him what was happening up there on the crust of 487.
+
+I knew the answers, now! Geedeh did, too. The excitement of knowledge
+was in his withered, pain-wracked face. Those distant crashes were not
+what I'd feared they might be, but part of what I'd hoped for. They
+were gigantic thunder-claps--the noise of terrific lightning bolts!
+Norman Haynes had made a simple oversight in his plan to destroy those
+incoming space craft. There was a fearsome electrical storm going on
+above--one of inconceivable proportions--utterly beyond the Earthly!
+Doubtless all of Norman Haynes' surface watchers, up above, had been
+killed by that sudden deluge of electricity! The multiplied gravitation
+up there, had pinned them down, so that they could neither escape, nor
+warn their chief!
+
+Before Norman Haynes understood what was happening, foam-flecked muddy
+water was at the door of the machinery room, rushing and gurgling past
+the threshold! He and his helpers stared at it stupidly, and I laughed
+at them.
+
+"You didn't realize it, did you, Haynes?" I grunted. "You didn't
+realize that increased gravity would increase the weight of the
+atmosphere, as well as of everything else! And increased weight of
+the air, means increased atmospheric pressure, too, pushing molecules
+together, creating greater density. And what happens? Go back to your
+high school physics, Haynes! It's like when you store air in the tank
+of a compressor pump. The moisture in it liquifies. And in the case
+of an atmosphere as big as 487 has now, static electricity would be
+suddenly and violently condensed, besides."
+
+Norman Haynes stared at me, stunned with consternation. But his
+recovery was fairly prompt. His sudden sneer had a rattish desperation.
+"Hell," he said. "Just a thunder storm. A lot of rain. What of it? The
+gravity machine still works. The ships will still be destroyed."
+
+I knew that that was true--unless what I'd planned happened. Those
+rockets, manned by our old construction crew, and Irene, and old Art
+Haynes, had been too close to asteroid 487 for the last couple of
+minutes, to effect an escape, even if the sudden dark clouds had warned
+them that something dangerous was afoot.
+
+"Watch this--Haynes," Geedeh panted, and it was hard for the acting
+head of the Haynes Shipping Company to guess what the little Martian
+meant, at first.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Under the pull of that terrific gravity, the water was coming into that
+room like an avalanche. Geedeh and Pa and I were floundering in it
+feebly, held to the floor by that awful weight. I was sure we'd drown.
+But as we coughed and sputtered, the flood found its way through the
+hole I'd kicked, low down in the side of the crystal dome that covered
+that gigantic machinery. There was a flash of electrical flame, as the
+water interfered with the functioning of the apparatus.
+
+It was pandemonium, then. Every man for himself. Geedeh, the scientist,
+and I, who, under the force of grim need, had somehow contrived to plan
+this finale, had the advantage of knowledge. We'd figured out a little
+of what to do.
+
+The gravity winked off suddenly--reaching the low of practically
+nothing, here at the center of this tiny world, whose normal
+attraction, even at the surface, was very small. We struggled to our
+feet, in a muddy swirl that was now a yard in depth. But before we
+could take advantage of our sudden lightness, and leap clear, the
+gravity machines gave a last gasp of power, and we were pulled down
+again, smothering. Then, with a grating roar, the apparatus stopped.
+The bedlam ceased, except for a low whine of expanding atmosphere, and
+screams from Haynes and his men.
+
+Presently, I felt all hell stabbing through me. My ears rang as
+with the after effects of some colossal explosion. My whole body
+ached. I clutched at Geedeh, who seemed on the point of collapse. Pa
+Mavrocordatus managed to help me....
+
+But strained by gravity vastly stronger than that of Mars, and now
+facing a circumstance even more dangerous, tough little Geedeh still
+had his wits, fortunately for us all. He pointed to an airtight crystal
+cage at one edge of the chamber. The cage was necessary in routine
+testing of the machinery here, which called for variations in the
+output of the gravity generators, and consequent great variations in
+air pressure.
+
+"Inside the cage--all of us!" Geedeh squeaked. "Quickly! Bends!..."
+
+Do you know what the air pressure is, at the bottom of a ten-mile
+shaft, even at normal Earth gravity? Yeah, something pretty high! Then
+you can imagine what it had just been like, here, at six or seven
+gravities! But when the generators had quit entirely, there had been
+that sudden loss of weight in the air, sudden expansion, thinning, loss
+of pressure!
+
+The three of us got inside the cage, and sealed the door. I spun
+valves. There was a hiss of entering atmosphere, and the pressure rose
+again, far above the norm of sea-level, on Earth. I felt better at
+once, but I knew it had been a close call.
+
+We looked out at Norman Haynes and his henchmen. They weren't drowning,
+now. Tottering, they stood with their heads well above the flood. It
+was something else that was killing them. Not suffocation, either.
+Their faces were bloated and congested in the glow of illuminators.
+Their bodies seemed to swell.
+
+Norman Haynes raised his blast tube, as did several of the others,
+trying to fire at the crystal shelter where we had taken refuge. Norman
+Haynes must have known his failure, then. Why had it happened. How we
+had won. It may be that he even realized some justice in his hideous
+punishment. He had tried to obstruct progress and fair play.
+
+The blast tube dropped from his fingers. He opened his mouth to shriek
+in his agony. But dark blood gushed forth, and, with his henchmen, he
+toppled back into the water.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+"Bends!" Geedeh said again. "Haynes had a worse case of bends than any
+deep-sea diver ever experienced."
+
+The flood had almost stopped, now, outside the cage. We waited.
+Vengeance was complete. And it wasn't quite as satisfying as I might
+once have thought.
+
+Presently they were with us. Irene. And old Art--proving that the
+Haynes name was still great, even though one who bore it had soiled it
+some. We emerged from our sealed cage, after the pressure around us was
+gradually lowered to normal.
+
+"I didn't think it was Norman who was guilty," old Art breathed sadly
+when he spoke to us. "I knew he was high-handed, but I didn't realize
+it was as bad as it was. I guess Norman got what he deserved," he
+finished, and there were tears in his heavy voice.
+
+We went to the surface in the elevator. We needed space suits again,
+up there, with the air as expanded as it was. A lot of the atmosphere
+was leaking away from 487, being held down only by the tiny natural
+gravity. But there was nothing that couldn't be repaired and replaced.
+
+"We must have pumps rigged to draw the water out of the vault, so that
+we can dry and repair the gravity machinery, and start it again,"
+Geedeh stated.
+
+We started again, almost as we had done at the first, for quite a
+bit of the air and water had been whisked into space. We lived in
+space-suits for days, rebuilding and repairing the damaged machinery.
+Then with the aid of Art Haynes, and with extended credit now that our
+plans were made fully known and approved, we imported machinery to pump
+the water from the vault.
+
+We hired specialists to come in, each of them with a trained crew of
+men to do the work that our old crews lacked the technical skill to do.
+Slowly, our planet of hope grew again, and there were bulletins sent
+through the asteroid belt that workers were wanted again on Paradise
+Asteroid.
+
+The specialists left, replaced by the crews that had worked on the
+asteroid before. With unlimited credit, our great freighting ships
+piled materials in regular formation, and the returning crews set their
+ships down on the landing fields, the men pouring eagerly forth, ready
+to set up the buildings that would be the nucleus of another Earth in
+space.
+
+With our old crews returned, it took about a hundred hours to
+accomplish this. Asteroid 487 was almost the same as before the final
+trouble with Norman Haynes, now, except that the air was a little
+thinner. But that could be quickly taken care of. Pa Mavrocordatus
+was working with his vineyards and trees, and his tomato and cabbage
+patches, again. The big trouble was all finished, now. The dream was
+coming true. A little Earth, fresh and green, for tired miners of the
+Path of Minor Planets. Space madness could never be so common now. And
+cheap, fresh products would be theirs.
+
+
+ V
+
+Irene and I walked in the warm night. The crews were whooping it up
+in the lighted barracks. Somebody was playing a harmonica. The stars
+were brilliant, and there were a thousand things to think of. How
+we'd all struggled. How Nick Mavrocordatus, had dreamed and worked
+and died. How once the asteroids had been a planet, with almost human
+inhabitants, dreaming, planning, struggling, too. Their rock carvings
+were everywhere.
+
+"It's the beginning, Chet," Irene whispered. "Asteroid 487 is the
+first. But there'll be others--other small, beautiful, living planets.
+There's a lot of work to be done. And when it's all finished that will
+be almost unfortunate--too tame."
+
+I knew what she meant. She was pioneer stuff, just as all of us were.
+The greatness of life was in its battles. On and on, to vaster and
+vaster heights. That was what had driven us into the interplanetary
+void in the first place.
+
+I kissed her. "Don't worry, Honey," I said. "There's no end to it. No
+point of final stagnation. It goes on and on. There'll always be a
+frontier--something bigger to reach and conquer...."
+
+And we looked up in awe toward the infinite stars.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Space Oasis, by Raymond Z. Gallun
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SPACE OASIS ***
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