Valley of Pretenders. John Russell Fearn
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always right’ smile.
“I am so sorry, ladies and gentlemen, but the Interplanetary Corporation reserves the right to land in an emergency.…. Thank you.” He departed as silently as he had come.
Mart Latham looked disgustedly out the window again.
“Well, what do you know about that?” he grunted. “Ditched for four hours on the fifth satellite from Saturn with nothing to look at but jungle, and rocks—and things,” he finished vaguely.
The girl by his side looked up from a half-doze and revealed a freshly youthful face framed in corn-colored hair.
“Never mind, darling,” she consoled him. “It’ll give you time to realize how beautiful I am.”
“I don’t feel like being gallant,” Mart growled. “Besides, a guy doesn’t tell his wife how beautiful she is after being married to her for five years.… Or does he?” he mused.
Eda Latham elevated her tip-tilted nose disdainfully.
“Noted chemist on holiday from Europa trade satellite makes analysis of matrimony,” she sniffed. “O.K., be high hat if you want to!”
“Rhea,” Mart murmured, hardly listening to her, his gray eyes fixed on the 1,500-mile diameter moon of Saturn as the vast space liner curved around towards it. “Y’know, I’ve often wondered what Rhea has on it. Titan’s pretty well known, of course, but the other smaller moons, Rhea among them, hasn’t had much to say for itself. Inhabitants of sorts, I understand; even an atmosphere. But devilish hot.”
“Naturally, being near Saturn,” Eda said, regarding him with level blue eyes. “Let me think now.… Rhea is 337,000 miles from the primary. Right?”
“Right!” Mart agreed laconically. “Revolves in relation to the Sun at the speed of 4 days, 12 hours, and 25 minutes. Gravitation somewhat less than that of Earth’s moon. Atmosphere breathable, but only to a height of 1,500 feet. Satisfied?—or shall I get you a guide book?”
The girl didn’t answer. She was watching the little moon rising up to meet the ship. Exhaust sparks, prevented from igniting the vegetation below by reason of subsidiary foam nozzles, spouted from the under-jets. Saturn, vast and magnificent with its planetoidial rings, dominated all space. A partly molten, partly solid, but at all times rather grim, world.
Further in the distance beyond the rings moved the trading moon of Titan, and at varied intervals the but little explored other moons of Hyperion, Japetus, and Phoebe.…
Eda started to speak as the ship began to settle down carefully over a waste of sprawling green jungle; then she stopped and turned a little as a voice cut above hers. It was a slow voice, sonorously British, steeped in the toneless impartiality of the law courts.
“…but, m’lud, I would bring to your learned notice the case of Simmons-v-Simmons in 2415, exactly five years ago There, the plaintiff alleged—”
“I am not interested, Sir Basil! Not interested in the least.”
Sir Basil Emmot, world and space renowned interplanetary Counsel of British law, mopped a bald head and blinked protruding, bovine eyes. Next to him, Judge Asa Walbrook—thin and wizened as a disinterred corpse, and about as attractive—looked at him sourly. Nobody spoke. Nobody dared to. Judge Walbrook had captured and condemned more criminals in his career than any other man alive; even now he was heading earthwards to preside over the trial of Nick Andrews, long evasive spatial filibuster.
“Cheery looking old dear, isn’t he?” Eda murmured, turning back to Mart. “That face of his would make any lemon jealous.”
She stopped again as the ship suddenly jolted slightly and became still. The throbbing of the tremendous rocket engines ceased; the vessel lay in the half-shade of towering trees that stretched upwards to surprising heights against the slight gravity. The multiple lights of Saturn and the moons filled the outside jungle with a curiously ghostly white tinge, not unlike indirect floodlighting.
The steward appeared again. “If you wish to take exercise, ladies and gentlemen, you are at liberty to do so. But you are warned not to move more than two hundred yards from the ship. We are by no means sure of what this moon contains. If you go any further, you do so at your own risk. Kindly leave your names with the purser as you go out, so a complete check of passengers may be made before we start again. We have four hours’ wait.”
He disappeared actively, and Mart got to his feet. Languidly he zipped up his shoes. They were special shoes, worn by every space traveler—steel-soled to hold firmly to the attractive gravity-compensator plates in the floor. Nor were they any too comfortable.…
“Guess we might as well have a look at Rhea,” he murmured. “How about you, Eda?”
“Naturally!” She fixed her own shoes and patted her hair. Behind her, Judge Walbrook rose up with a face of vinegar, Emmot beside him.
“I have always felt, Sir Basil, that your learned talents are better exercised in unconfined surroundings,” Walbrook observed, chopping his words with vicious economy. “We can continue this discussion on Simpson-v-Simpson outside.”
“Simmons-v-Simmons, I assure you,” the Counsel corrected hotly, tugging out his pipe and filling it.
“Don’t be impudent! And kindly refrain from lighting that archaic incinerator in here, too! Come!”
Mart stared after them, grinning. “That Simmons-v-Simmons case must be a honey,” he said seriously. “Be glad you married a chemist and not a judge.…”
He took the girl’s arm and headed from the lounge into the main hall. Men and women were queued up before the purser’s desk. Then in a few minutes Mart found himself outside the airlock on Rhea’s soft, vegetation-smothered surface. Immediately a sense of amazing lightness buoyed him up. Years on Europa, however, with its slight attraction, had made him—and Eda too—practiced in the art of counterbalancing themselves.
“Pretty dry here,” Eda remarked, stirring the tindery stuff at her feet. “The other satellites are wet by comparison.”
“Less humidity here,” Mart observed.
For a moment or two they both stood, accustoming themselves, breathing the somewhat dry but tolerable atmosphere, conscious too of sweltering, burning warmth.
The people broke up into parties, wandered around the giant liner, peered into the corners of the clearing. The sound of the ship’s mechanics began to echo vigorously—but above them came a fading, occasional didactic reference to “Simmons-v-Simmons” as Walbrook and Emmot wandered off to the far side of the clearing, oblivious to all warnings to stay near the ship.
“Well, what now?” Eda asked, dabbing her face languidly. “Do we stick around, or look around?”
Mart answered her by strolling towards the wall of jungle. Through the trees, the remarkably near horizon was visible, giving the odd effect of the jungle suddenly sloping away almost in sheerness.
“Mart, what exactly is that?” asked the girl suddenly, when they reached the jungle’s first trees, and she pointed to a quivering rim of pale fire just visible over the near horizon. In some strange way it resembled a pale edition of the Earthly Northern Lights.
Mart shrugged. “No idea—and we can’t risk going too far to find out. Pity! You know, I’d like to come here someday and—” He broke off, sniffing hard. “Smell something?” he asked sharply.
Eda elevated her nose, then looked surprised. “I believe I do! Burning wood.… Maybe old Lemon Pan and the Counsel have built themselves a fire, seeing it’s only one hundred and thirty in the shade—”
“Look!” Mart interrupted her, pointing, and she gave a startled gasp at a vision of sooty smoke rising into the air perhaps a quarter of a mile distant.
“It’s a fire all right,” Mart went on tensely. “And if this stuff gets ablaze—Holy Smoke! We’ve got to warn them