World Without Chance: Classic Pulp Science Fiction Stories in the Vein of Stanley G. Weinbaum. John Russell Fearn
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you call it. Peroxides, too. Plenty of those. And crystals—like I saved your life for. You got them.”
“Hm-m-m,” Cardew murmured, frowning. “Strikes me as queer to find a fellow like you hopping about on a mad world like this, and yet you can read thoughts. High mental development, eh?”
“Very high,” Jo agreed modestly. “I am clever. I have oriental, too. No, not oriental—orientation!”
“What’s that?” Claire asked in puzzlement.
“Sort—sort of homing instinct common in pigeons,” Cardew explained. “And you’ve got it, Jo?”
“You’re right I have! And I smell, too!”
Cardew grinned. “You’re telling us! But I suppose you mean you have a strong sense of smell? Well, thanks for the help, anyway. We’ve got to be getting along.”
“You can’t do without my clever ideas,” Jo remarked flatly. “I’m coming like hell with you.”
Cardew winced as he caught sight of the girl coolly smiling at him.
“Seems to be reading your language quite well, doesn’t he?” she asked sweetly.
He looked anxiously. “Just what I’m afraid of! If he happens on the language I used at the settlement, he’ll set the atmosphere on fire.”
He caught her by the arm, and they pushed on again, followed constantly by the tireless Jo, occasionally directing their path. He stopped only now and again to break off pieces of unclassifiable crystallized bark and jam it in his mouth. Then, with that same look of asinine foolishness on his face, he sprang on behind them.
By another nightfall they had cleared the jungle—but away to the west, under the lowering sky, there beat scarlet tremblings and pulsings.
“Guess we ought to rest, but I don’t like risking it with that going on,” Cardew muttered wearily.
“The Great Red Spot, eh?” Claire mused.
“Correct. And from the look of things, it’s in a state of eruption. It may mean a thousand-mile flood of destruction. Coming our way, too! Eh, Jo?”
The joherc fixed his odd eyes on the disturbance. “Better step on hurry,” he suggested anxiously. “Give yourselves gas, I imagine. The way is straight; I know it.”
“What way?” Cardew demanded irritably. “For Heaven’s sake, pick your words straight, Jo! Can we rest, or is the danger too great?”
“I’ll say!” Jo responded surprisingly. “Straight is the way to Seven Peaks, and then to Turquoise Sea and oxygen block cliffs—out to spaceship. That’s where you head?”
“Sure, but how did you know?” Cardew shrugged wearily. “Oh, I’d forgotten your thought reading for the moment. If you know the way, why didn’t you say so in the first place?”
Jo didn’t answer the question. Instead, he said slyly, “Way guided for crystals only. Like hell I want them now. Step on it!”
Cardew grimaced and handed him some more from the container.
“There you are. Now lead on.”
Jo needed no second bidding. He leaped forward with astounding energy, leading the way across the barren red plain in the direction of the main giant cleft in the Seven Peak range. Weary, unutterably leaden, the two jogged after him. Then, suddenly, Claire, exhausted beyond measure, could stand it no longer. She sank weakly to the ground. “It’s no good; I can’t make it!” she panted, her face pale and strained in the Europa light.
Cardew braced himself against the screaming wind and looked down at her in perplexity. Certainly he could not carry her; his own weight was severe enough. He glanced anxiously to the rear and beheld visible streams of redness crawling through the night—searing overflows from the erupting Spot. Once through the cleft there would be safety, but here— To wait until dawn meant certain death.
“Only another few miles, Claire!” he implored desperately. “We’ve got to make it! It’s the difference between life and death—”
She did not answer—only lay flat and relaxed.
Then Jo descended from the gloom. “No dice?” he questioned anxiously. “Claire lie down?”
“It’s the damned gravity,” Cardew growled. “We’re not used to it.”
Jo did not respond. Without a moment’s hesitation he bent down and hauled the girl, spacesuit and all, onto his broad left shoulder; then, before Cardew could grasp the situation, he was treated likewise on the other shoulder. The next thing he knew he was flying through the air with dizzying speed, heart and lungs strained to the uttermost by the upward pulls against the gravity.
“Trifles mere!” Jo tossed out enthusiastically, vaulting mightily with legs and tail. “I have clever brain and big legs. Strength in large size. Get you safe, or else—”
Cardew couldn’t reply; he was too strained for that. But the apparent marvel of Jo’s activity soon vanished from his mind. The odd creature, gifted by Nature with a complex brain in which there ran a decided streak of generosity, was deliberately risking his own life to save two people of another world—unless it was for love of the smelling salts. The extraordinary nature of his giant strength became more and more evident as time passed. He seemed to regard the weight on his shoulders with no more concern than a man would trouble over a couple of canaries.
And he kept it up, mixing American slang with observations of considerable scientific significance ever and again—until at last the mountain cleft was reached and all possible danger from the overflowing Red Spot was far behind.
Ahead, in the light of the moons, lay the amazing Turquoise Ocean, greenish blue in the pale light—enormous in extent, pure ammonia; its heavy, turgid waves thundering ear-splittingly on a beach that was red rock, backed to the rear with crawling cliffs of white, frozen oxygen.
Here Jo stopped and dropped his burdens rather violently on the shore. Like a gray streak, he headed toward the cliffs and began tearing at their frozen hardness, until, at last, he wrested free a jagged, splintering square.
By the time Cardew and the girl had sat up, he was eating the stuff hungrily. When at last he finished, he came forward rather sheepishly.
“The eats,” he explained.
Cardew nodded as he and Claire allowed tabloids to drop into their own mouths. “Not surprised, old man. Guess I’d never get used to your diet any more than you’d get used to mine. Incidentally, how much further shall we have to go after staying the night?”
“No further. Spaceship right here.”
“Here!” Cardew looked round in puzzlement. He only saw the bleak desolation of that ammoniated shore. “Think again, Jo!” he said. “I reckon we’ve another hundred and fifty miles to cover at least.”
“Get wise to yourself!” Jo suggested calmly. Then he motioned, with his thick arm, toward the cliffs.
Fatigued though they were, the two got to their feet and followed him, stopping finally before the argent masses. Jo pointed to the red ground and grinned gleefully.
Cardew started and the girl gave a little cry as they beheld a mighty circle of metal, apparently similar to itanium, sunken into the redness—a colossal manhole cover.
“We live below,” Jo explained calmly. “Rarely come up except for special reason. Two reasons this time. We have many instruments. They showed us spaceship fall and two people leaving prison settlement. I was told to get the lot—you and spaceship.”
Cardew felt something clutch at his heart. “You—you damned traitorous little horror!” he burst out. “You mean you’ve kept up with us all this time so you could turn us into your rotten underworld? Why, you—”
“Keep on shirt!” Jo interrupted quickly.