Tama Princes of Mercury Read online

  By 4 A.M. it was in the rarer, upper strata, a hundred miles up. Then two hundred. Swiftly, steadily accelerating its velocity. Clinging to the shortest, straight-upward path.

  And then swinging eastward toward the Sun. Heading for Mercury.

  Guy, Toh and I sat together near the doorway of the Cube. It loomed above us, a great fifty-foot sugar lump, with an observatory dome on top like a little conical hat, and the bulging balcony-deck girding its middle. There was nothing we three could do to speed our departure.

  Dr. Grenfell came up to us. "Got your personal things all insider "Yes." Grenfell, commander of the expedition, was a middle-aged, thickset man with wide, deep chest and thick, hunched shoulders. He gazed down at us.

  "Better get aboard. Well be starting in a few minutes." It had seemed an interminable delayevery lost moment an eternity vv?th that Mercurian vehicle fading into the unknown.

  Grenfell smiled gently, l can imagine the shock of it to you three." The scientist hastened away and boarded the Cube, mounting to the second of its three interior tiers, to stand at one of the bulls-eye windows of its narrow, corridor-like enclosed deck.

  And Guy burst out, "If they'd only let us help them-l Do something. God, this delay" The dawn was just coming when we left the Earth, pursuing the silver ball into space.

  II AN UNKNOWN VOICE FBOM WHAT Jimmy afterward told me, I can construct a picture of what happened to him from the time he left us that noon of March 15. From our secluded camp he flew his dragon directly back to Boston. His little monoplane the fleetest, most agile type of flyer of its daymounted high into the clouds. Jimmy was taking no chances that a newscaster's plane might be on the lockout for him, guess that he bad been visiting us, and thus reveal our vicinity.

  The dragon had its own insignia in chameleon letters on its underwing surface, but Jimmy could light the wings to show other official insignia.

  When he left our cottage his wings bore a naval device.

  His plane, constructed for instant camouflage, dangled a false landing gear, and wore wide, spreading false upper wings. No observer at a distance could have guessed it was Jimmy's dragon.

  He mounted to high altitudes, changed the angles of incidence of his wing surfaces, switched the pressure air into bis carburator for rarified flying, and kept mounting. At sixty thousand feet he swung southeast toward Boston.

  "Coming," he told the chief over the ether-phone. "Be there in an hour." Over Boston he nosed down. The false plane-shape ribs were folded. The camouflaged landing gear had been drawn "~ up. His wing surfaces carried his own familiar device.

  He landed on the Commonwealth Building; descended to his office, dispatched his routine work.

  At about two o'clock his televisor phone puzzed.

  "James Turk speaking. Interstate Patrol, New England, Division Four. Who wants me?" The call-sorter's voice answered him. "Someone wants you through the Bangor Broadcasting Studio. Do you accept the call, please?"

  "Plug 'em in," said Jimmy.

  "I would speak to Jimmy Turk," came a soft, low-spoken man's voice.

  "I'm Turk. Who are you? Where's your image?" The sorter cut in. "I can't get his image, Mr. Turk."

  "Let him come through without it." The soft voice sounded: "Iyou do not know me. I am a friend of Rowena."

  "Rowena?" Was this some hoax? Some newscaster trying to work a game on him? "Rowena"the voice barely whispered"is in dangergreat danger. And Tamayou know Tama"

  "Who in the devil are you?" Jimmy bent at his sending grid with tense vehemence.

  "A friend." The voice now spoke with furtive swiftness.

  "Rowena and Tamathey are together? Both in the same place?"

  "None of your damned business!"

  "They are in danger. I do not ask you to go to them. Come to me." Jimmy still thought it was a hoax; but in spite of himself his heart was thumping.

  "I'm not going to them. You want me to come to you? Why? Where-"

  "I will tell you of the danger if you will meet me. It must be secret."

  "Where will I meet you?"

  "Moosehead Lake, in Maine." The voice was intensely earnest. "There is a landing fieldM 56and another landing fieldM 57. From the air a line connecting them would cross a north arm of that lake. I will be where it crosses the lakeshore." -When?"

  "In an hour."

  "I'll come," Jimmy agreed. "And look here, if this is some damned newscaster's joke, I'll slam you into pulp."

  "Danger is no joke. You will come alone? If you do not, you will never find me."

  "Don't worryI'll come alone." They broke connection. Jimmy left orders to trace the call, and in five minutes had his dragon in the air. Jimmy Turk was afraid of nothing. His worst fault was that he was too hasty, heedless. There was a chance that one of the many criminals with whom he constantly dealt was using this method of luring him to a lonely spot. But a landing on Moosehead Lake in broad daylight was nothing in Jimmy's life; and his dragon was nimble as a flea and a veritable arsenal of weapons.

  Nevertheless, as he approached the rendezvous, he flew high, gazing cautiously down, sweeping his binoculars over the white, frozen landscape. The afternoon sun was shining.

  The forest stretched white, with sharp black shadows; every twig of the underbrush was touched with winter's fairy fingers, glittering in the sunlight.

  He could see, some ten miles apart, the two landing fields which the unknown voice had namedthe hangars, repair shops, and the towns nearby. Mentally he drew a line connecting them.

  Jimmy made a wide circle. There were a few towns, shapeless in the snow, overhead an occasional plane, and camps in the forest, most of them deserted in this season. The town of Quogg was visible, and far off to the south, a patch on the lakeshore marked the snow-piled site of the White Summer Camp for Girls, where the Mercurian invaders had made their first raid the summer before.

  Jimmy saw nothing suspicious. The designated spot was obviousa level snow field near the lake shore with the forest set close around it. A desolate, lonely spot.

  Jimmy flashed on his wing insignia, dropped his snow-skid gear and descended. The dragon skimmed the naked treetops like an albatross, struck the field, slid its length, and stopped with the forest edge and a thick line of underbrush twenty feet beyond its propeller nose.

  For a minute Jimmy sat in his little open pit, waiting.

  The forest was silent; the small open field lay blue-white in the sunlight, an unbroken surface save for the double track of his skids.

  No one was waiting here. Then it occurred to Jimmy that he had the dragon in a wrong position. He pressed down his turning spikes, wheeled the little plane around, facing the open field for a quick takeoff.

  Jimmy was alert. He was awkward in his thick suit, but he had flung back his face visor, taken off his gloves, and in his hand he held his automatic. As the dragon wheeled with its tail to the nearby forest edge, a figure appeared from the underbrush there. Jimmy did not see it at once; but he saw it an instant later when he raised himself cautiously up to gaze back over the pit-cowl.

  "Hil" called Jimmy. "Stand where you arethat's close enough." The single figure stopped obediently. It was a small man bundled in a huge gray-white fur garment with a hood over his head. His pale face was uncovered, but his hands were lost in the voluminous fur.

  Jimmy noticed that at once and ducked back of his cowl, clicking open a tiny slit through which he poked the muzzle of his gun. Down in the pit where he crouched, his periscope mirror showed him the standing figure. The stranger was only twenty feet away; the astonished expression of his face at Jimmy's actions was plainly discernible.

  Jimmy called, "I've got you covered. Better throw your hands up. Up I tell you! I never talk to strangers when they hide their hands like that." The man's arms went up. His hands were seemingly empty. His voicethe soft voice of the phone callsaid, "Are you Jimmy Turk?"

  "Yes. What is it you want to tell me?"

  "I cannot shout it. Can I come closer?"

 
; "Yes. But keep your hands up." The man came walking with a slow, dragging tread. To Jimmy's mind flashed the thought that he was a cripple, his feet laboriously scuffling the snow.

  And then another thought came: a realization. Jimmy's heart leaped. His finger very nearly pressed the trigger of his leveled automatic. But it was not Jimmy's way to kill in cold blood. He shouted, "Hey there1 say, wait a minutel Stand still!" The man stopped. He was only ten feet from Jimmy now.

  His hands were over his head and one of them flipped forward suddenly.

  Jimmy fired. He thought he saw the man's knees knock together, an instant in advance of the shot. At the stranger's waist a spreading stab of blue-green light leaped out. Jimmy's bullet went into the light-radiance: melted in a harmless puff of ignited gas.

  All in a second. Jimmy was aware of the tiny object the man had flipped, dropping into the open pit beside him as he crouched. It shattered into a tiny puff of light, almost invisiblecolorlessincredibly bright. Stabs of pain leaped in Jimmy's eyeballs. The pit interior went dazzling white, then dark. Black.

  Jimmy felt himself firing again, blindly. He biinked. The pain in his eyeballs was horribleconfusing, blurring. His eyes were open. But he was blind.

  He felt arms reaching in to seize him. He swung up his automatic, but it was knocked from his hand. Then something struck his heada blow dulled by his headgear, but it was enough. His senses whirled; he felt himself falling backward to the floor of his pit.

  Ill THIRD DEGREE JIMMY'S FIRST returning consciousness brought again those stabbing pains in his eyeballs. The white puff of light had caused only a temporary blindness: a horribly brilliant actinic ray which narrowed his pupils and paralyzed their nerves so that they could not expand when the light was gone.

  The effect was wearing off now. He could see dim blurred shadows around him; and out of the shadows of unconsciousness the murmur of voices became audible.

  Jimmy felt himself to be lying upon something soft. He moved his hand and struck a curved, smooth metal surface. He felt his head. His hair was matted with blood, drying now, stiffly sticky. A scalp wound where something had struck him.

  He realized that his headgear had been taken off; and then that his flying suit was off. But he was warm, lying in some interior. His returning senses were clarifying, the sounds around him becoming less blurred. He could hear footsteps, and men's voices in a strange, unintelligible language.

  Then he heard the approaching tread of heavy footsteps.

  A shape bent over him and a face took forma woman's face with a wide, flat nose, flabby, sagging pallid-gray cheeks. Over her thick shoulder, he could distinguish the arch of gray-feathered wings.

  She said in a gutteral, broken English, "You better? No hurt now?"

  "No," said Jimmy. "But I can't see. Where am I? That man"

  "No talk." She pushed at him with a flabby hand as he tried to sit up. "You no move. He kill." Jimmy sank back. "If he's here, you send him to me." She straightened and moved away into the blurred shadows of the room. Jimmy lay motionless and felt his strength coming back to him. He felt now that he was capable of standing, fighting But he was still very nearly sightless, and unarmed. He felt his clothes. There was no weapon upon him. He was in a lighted room; several men were here. A room unmoving, vibrationless.

  Again approaching footsteps. A man this time. As the face came down, Jimmy saw a man with a smallish face of perhaps thirty. His black hair grew down in a little peak on his white forehead to give him a curiously satanic look. Jimmy recognized the soft voice of the man who had phoned him, he was saying, "And you have your senses now?"

  "Yes. What the devil do you mean by" Jimmy broke off.

  That line of talk was useless. He amended, "You've done something to my eyes. I'm blind."

  "That will wear off presently. Have no fear, I have not banned you." The man sat down beside him.

  "Look here," said Jimmy. "What's this all about? Who are you?" The man laughed softly. "My name you have heard, just as I have heard of you. I am Roc." Roc, the Mercuriani Jimmy had never seen him before, but from Guy Palisse he had heard of him. He was the son of the giant Croat who had come to Earth last summer and met his death. In the Light Country of Mercury this man Roc had risen to be chief of the army in Tama's native Hill City. Guy had taught him English, had known him for nearly ten years.

  At Jimmy's exclamation. Roc chuckled grimly.

  "You have heard of mel But you and Palisse, that Jack Dean and the rest never thought I would come to your Earth. Well, I came, to find out what became of my father and his spaceship" Jimmy interrupted cautiously, "Did they come to Earth? Well, I don't know"

  "You lie! You know his ship was destroyed. He was a fool to bother with your accursed Earthwomen. I told him so.

  I told him he was not clever enough to come here. He is dead now. Well for me, because it leaves me to be master of the Light Country... . He had another spaceship in the Cold Country of Mercury. It was nearly completed and I have finished it: this ball you are now in."

  "I can't see a thing," said Jimmy calmly. "Where are we?" Again Roc chuckled. "Hidden in the forest, near where I caught you. It is still daylight. We descended last night.

  For one never here before, I know this land very well. Guy Palisse was nice to teach me your language, and to draw me maps." He seemed ready enough to talk. A conceited fellow, proud of his own cleverness; pleased on the whole that his father was dead. Jimmy could barely see him as a blurred shape sitting nearby. Roc told with bland conceit how he had crept upon a farmhouse not far from here, listened to its radiogrid. Every grid these days shouted of nothing but the Bolton Flying Cube; the death of the marauding Croat last fall; the hidden Tama, Rowena, Guy Palisse and Jack Dean; and Jimmy Turk, the patrol flyer who knew their whereabouts but would not tell.

  Roc was shrewd, quick to learn; and he was fairly familiar with Earth -devices. He had found no trouble in communicating with Jimmy.

  "Well," said Jimmy. "You're a clever fellow, aren't you? What comes next?" Roc retorted softly, "I want Tama, that is all. Your Earth does not interest me. I never liked my father's plan to populate Mercury with your Earthwomen. But the virgins of the Light Country are rebellious. They fly off in revolt if one crosses them."

  "You mean, if you mutilate their wings," Jimmy put in.

  "Clip their wings. I passed a law that their wings should be clipped. But that is not important now. When I return to Mercury, I shall be master of the Light Country. Everything is ready: from the cold Country our armies are coming."

  "When are you going to return?"

  "Tonight, when the darkness comes."

  "Well, I'm not interested in your Mercury. Suppose you let me out of here and I'll go" Roc suddenly gripped him with thin, talon-like fingers and a fair amount of strength.

  "You are a fooll If I had weapons to do it, I would destroy this Flying Cube that dares plan a flight to Mercury. At any rate, your Earth can give me Tama and that Earthgirl, Rowena. There is a comrade with me herebig like herwho would like to see her." The grip of Roc's fingers tightened. "Tonight, when the darkness comes, you are going to lead me to where Tama and that Rowena hide."

  "I don't know where they are," said Jimmy.

  "You lie!" Jimmy's sight was steadily returning. He was lying in a triangular room which was evidently a segment of a small metallic globe. The metal ceiling arched concavea dull white metal surface, with a small lens-paned window. It stood partly open. There were tree branches close outside, dimly visible in the fading daylight. Other figures had been in the room, but they had moved away now. Their voices were audible through one of the interior doorways.

  Roc leaned closer. "I am going to have trouble with you then?"

  "You are, if you expect me to tell you what I don't know."

  "We shall see." Jimmy felt a sudden stab of pain on the upper flesh of his arm. A burning, blistering heat as though a small whitehot needle had been laid against his skin and instantly withdrawn. The smell of burning
cloth, his coat sleeve, wafted to him. In Roc's hand was a small black object the size and shape of a metal lead pencil.

  "That is nothing," Roc sneered, "Just a hint. Will you tell me now where those two girls are living?" Jimmy suddenly lunged. His flying fist caught Roc in the face. Roc went over backward, with Jimmy on top of him.

  They were about the same size, but Jimmy was far stronger.

  Roc's pencil-weapon emitted a tiny silent flash. It missed Jimmy. He knocked the thing from Roc's hand. His fingers encircled the Mercurian's slender throat, choking him; but Roc had been able already to shout. Footsteps were approaching.

  Jimmy let go of his writhing adversary and sprang to his feet. The bulk of a giant man's figure loomed before him.

  Jimmy's sight was still far from normal. He ducked sidewise, trying to gain the doorway. A stab of light flashed past him; missed him. Roc was shouting, struggling erect. There were other men's figures.

  Jimmy stumbled over something. Fell, with the curiously light weight but bulging bulk of the giant on top of him. He felt something damp against his face. The acid smell of a drug. His senses blurred. He went limp.

  Jimmy did not lose consciouness this time. All his muscles seemed paralyzed. As though in some strange form of catalepsy, he lay helpless, unable to move, but with his eyes wide open. There was a blurred sense of sight and hearing.

  Blurred thoughts, as though something were pulling at him, striving to waft him off into a phantasm of chaos. He fought against it vainly.

  He was lying on his back. They had shoved him against the wall of the room. Someone was talking nearby.

  Jimmy fought for consciousness. He biinked. He could twitch the muscles of his face a little. Not quite dead! He could swallow awkwardly, with effort. His tongue seemed swollen, but would move.

  Time passed. Jimmy suddenly realized that he had relaxed and floated off into a wild, drugged sleep. Someone had held more of the drug against his nose and mouth. He had a vague recollection of it.