Space Lawyer (22 page)

Outside, the outlaws stood indecisively; and for a moment the hope sprang up in Kerry that they'd be too scared and superstitious to try another burial place. But finally, though with manifest reluctance, they began to drift toward the tunnel. Kerry swore under his breath. Even in their fear they instinctively came on in a sort of skirmish line, presenting no massed target.

By now Kerry's projectile gun was in his hand, ready to pump pellets as fast as his finger could press. The perspiration trickled down inside his space suit. Where were his own men? Hadn't Jem seen his signal?

On and on came the outlaws. There was a certain dragging to their gait. One of them had his ray gun in his hand; but the hand seemed to wobble and the gun described an erratic arc.

Still on and on. Crouching in the semi-darkness, Kerry lifted his gun. If only he knew which one was the Boss! If only he had time, without betraying his presence, to rip off his helmet and shout back to Jem.
Everything,
he thought in despair, had gone wrong!

The outlaws were by now a bare thirty paces away. And still no touch on his shoulder from behind, to show that his crew had seen and come up to support him. It was too late to run back to warn them; by then the outlaws would have swarmed into the tunnel. He must hold the entrance alone. Perhaps, once the shooting started, the inexcusably negligent Jem and his fellows would hurry up. By that time, of course, it would be too late.

Only twenty-five paces away. In another moment he must begin to fire. He sighted on the lead man, praying desperately that
he
was the Boss. His finger tensed to press down on the firing button.

What was that? He started violently. There had been a touch on his shoulder, a slight pressure. His knees wobbled a little. Thank God at least for that! Jem—good old Jem—had seen his signal. His men were backing him up. Now there would be a fight of it and not a trapped entombment.

He dared not turn his head. Watching straight ahead, he nodded imperceptibly to show that he had felt the supporting touch. His gun, which had momentarily sagged, came up again.

The next instant it was pulled down violently from behind; and someone brushed past him. A cry of astonishment swelled in his throat, choked off abruptly. The pirates would hear. Was Jem crazy? What was going on?

The push had staggered him against the wall. He righted himself angrily. Then the veins swelled in his forehead until they seemed ready to burst. An inarticulate cry came from his lips. Someone, something, was moving past him and out of the tunnel into the open.

Now
he
must be mad! For the figure, rigid, hieratic, walking with a stiff, mechanical gait, was one of the effigies—magnified—enlarged! The cheeks were palely tinted, the eyes half-closed, the hair fell in shimmering folds to the delicate shoulders. The arms were rigid and extended as though the thing were walking in its sleep. A strange glow enveloped the slender form so that it seemed half-hidden in a glittering mist; an eerie iridescence made a halo round the shapely head.

Kerry's heart hammered. An effigy had come to life; but an effigy enlarged to almost twice the height of the one he had seen. As if—as if—this were some immortal goddess of the ancient race!

The figure walked slowly, steadily toward the oncoming pirates. They had stopped at the first emergence of the apparition. For a split moment they stood as rigid as the approaching figure; then a simultaneous cry of horror burst from a score of throats.

"They—they've come to life!"

"It's a ghost!"

"Oh, Lord, lemme outa here!"

Something tugged at Kerry's mind; something about that eerie, marching figure. Then came whelming realization. Fear and horror mixed in explosive mixture; gun in hand, he jerked forward.

Strong arms caught him from behind, pulled him back. I lands tugged at his helmet clamps; forced them open. A well-remembered voice hissed in his ear. "Easy does it, Kerry! You'll spoil everything. She's doin' fine."

He struggled a moment; then subsided panting. Jem was right.

A long moment the tableau held in frozen immobility outside. Then it burst violently asunder. With his helmet off, Kerry could not hear the shrieks of the helmeted pirates. But they spun on their heels and fled; each man for himself, scrambling up the steep smooth slopes, clawing for footholds, falling, slipping, stumbling in wildest terror.

One man alone remained behind, his arms flailing and his helmeted head bobbing as if he were shouting fierce curses on the fugitives. With a sudden furious gesture he whirled on the approaching figure. His hand darted to his belt, came up with a ray gun.

Kerry shot first. The silent pellet sped from his weapon. The man jerked violently, the gun flew from his fingers, and he fell in a twisted heap.

"Okay, boys!" shouted Jem joyfully. "Let the others have it; but don't let 'em see you."

Ray guns and projectile guns flashed and clicked. Frantically climbing outlaws threw up their arms and came rolling and bouncing down the steep incline, to lie in sprawling immobility.

But the majority had already vanished over the rim of the crater, and were doubtless pounding over the tessellated surface for their distant rocket ship.

Kerry raced out into the open with a great cry. "Sally!"

The figure turned. The eyes were open and there was an impish light in them that penetrated the eerie glow.

Then he had her in his arms. Even until then he had had some doubts. But the feel of warm, yielding flesh penetrated even the rubberoid of his space suit. "Sally!" he cried again, almost unbelievingly. "It was crazy! Suppose they didn't scare! Suppose they had shot!"

She smiled her old impudent smile at him. "But they didn't, you see. Now if you will kindly remove your . . . er . . . fatherly embrace, I'll try and get rid of my war paint."

She was without her space suit; and the iridescence clung to her close-fitting dress. She took out a handkerchief; rubbed vigorously at her cheeks, forehead, hair, neck, and then her garments. Slowly the glow faded and paled. A faint aura remained, but once more she was a living, breathing and normal young lady—if the last designation could be used accurately in connection with such a decorative work of nature as Sally.

Kerry said first: "Jem, send a man up the slope to keep an eye out for the outlaws, just in case they get over their scare and return."

Then, to Sally: "How in heaven's name did you manage this eerie masquerade?"

"Young man," she said severely, "it is obvious you know little about women." She reached into the pocket of her dress, came out with a flat gold case.

"A make-up kit!" he gasped.

"Right the first time. Since I was determined literally not to be seen dead with my lips askew, I started to fix up my face while waiting for the outlaws to come charging in. The next thing I knew Jem was staring at me as if I were something from a Venusian swamp."

"That ain’t so!" interrupted that worthy with considerable embarrassment. "It was jest that Miss Sally's face was shining with a funny light; as if she were—"

"A
haunt,
to use your exact words, my dear Jem. But that gave me an idea. If I scared the daylights out of Jem, who
knew
who I was; what would it do if I rubbed the stuff all over me
and emerged suddenly on the outlaws. I must say," she added complacently, "my first and only appearance as a haunt was a tremendous success."

"It was all of that," agreed Kerry. "It saved our lives. That war paint of yours is evidently allergic to this radioactive air; for which, many thanks."

The man peering over the rim of the crater suddenly shouted, and began to gesticulate madly. The distance was too great for them to make out what he was saying, but it was evident that he was laboring under intense excitement.

Kerry started violently. "They must be coming back. Come on!"

He took the long smooth slope on the run, with the others panting and struggling after him. As he swung over the top, the guard was already standing, boldly silhouetted against the level plain.

"Look, Mr. Dale!" he crowed. "They're getting the hell outa here; We beat 'em!"

Far off, flames were jetting from the pirate ship and a distant roaring came across the surface of the tiny world. Then, as
they watched, the ship lifted, moved swiftly upward and disappeared into the iridescent fog overhead.

"A good riddance, say I," exulted Jem. "Now we kin really get at that stuff."

But Kerry was strangely quiet. The jubilation of the others passed over him like a wave, but did not penetrate.

Sally was the first to detect the strangeness. "What is wrong, Kerry?" she asked anxiously. "Isn't this good?"

"Good!" be echoed; then laughed harshly. "Good that we are stranded on a comet, without a ship, without even a pellet of food or drink upon us! As long as that pirate ship was here, we had a chance to capture it and get away. But now—" He gestured hopelessly.

The others looked at one another. They had not thought of that. Jem was the first to break the frozen silence.

"But the
Flash
'll come back," he cried. "Sparks ain’t gonna desert us."

"He's on his way to Ganymede," Kerry said quietly. "He evidently could not fix the space cannon. I told him to go on myself. Even if he raises help by radio before he gets there, it will take over a week for it to come. Within a week, we'll be dead of thirst, if not of hunger."

The realization of it stunned them a moment. Then Sally rallied. "Perhaps," she said hopefully, "some of those dead pirates down there had more forethought than we had. Maybe
they
have some pellets on them."

Jem's face cleared. "In course they have!" he grinned. "Let's take a look."

But his grin was short-lived. They toiled down the slope again, and examined each dead body carefully. There was nothing. They came last to the outlaw whom Kerry had shot. He too had nothing but the usual impedimenta that any man might carry in his pockets.

"Our last hope gone," declared Kerry dully, as he rose from his fruitless search.

But Jem was staring at the twisted, rage-filled features of the man who had evidently been the Boss. "Jumping lizards of a
Martian canal!" he gulped. "It's Pyotra!"

Kerry jumped, looked at the man more closely. He had evidently been handsome, imperious once. The ravages of long evil and a hell of emotions hadn't eliminated all traces. He had never seen Pyotra—he had been only a boy in school at the time—but the case had been a cause célèbre.

Pyotra had been a famous scientist in the North Eurasian Department of Earth. What the whole story was, very few knew—it had been a closely guarded secret of the Earth Council. But there were rumors that Pyotra had planned a coup—to seize the members of the Council and proclaim himself dictator of the Earth. The plot had been discovered, and the Council sent swift patrols to the frozen north to seize the plotter. But Pyotra had vanished. Though he was legally declared an outlaw, it was generally believed that in despair he had committed suicide.

Kerry stared curiously at the dead body of the man who had been possessed of the demoniac urge for power. Then a thought struck him. "How do you know this is Pyotra, Jem?” he asked. "As I remember it, very few knew him personally. And no picture was ever published."

Jem gulped, hemmed, hawed and turned a fiery red. "I—I useta get around a bit," he stammered.

"Oh! Oh!" Kerry thought remorsefully, "I'll have to learn to keep
my big mouth shut." Jem's past was a well-kept secret. No one knew his last name even. There were rumors about him, I though; that his real name was on the police records of the far-flung stations of the System; but no one ever inquired. Whatever he had been before, Jem was thoroughly okay now.

Aloud, Kerry said briskly. "There's only one thing to do. We'll have to hike over to that radiation-gusher at which they were anchored. Perhaps in their haste they left something."

At Sally's urgent plea they took with them the tiny effigy which the pirates had dropped. "If we ever
do
get off this place," she said with a catch in her voice, "I'd like to have it along. I'm sure it's a mummy case; that inside there's one of the little folk who inhabited this world eons ago."

It was remarkably heavy; but no one said her nay. They staggered under the load the five long miles to the eternal fount that loomed before them like a tumbling, rushing, dazzling geyser.

Halfway there, Kerry paused. They had all taken off their space suits for greater walking ease. "Put them on again," he warned. "And snap your helmets shut. So far we've found no evidence that the radiations are harmful. But they may be in
large doses."

Once more accoutered, they wearily made the final distance.

Already they were thirsty from their long exertions; but no one mentioned it. What was the sense of complaining when nothing could be done about it?

The gusher was a magnificent sight. Pure energy boiled up from a seething hole, flowed like fiery liquid into the iridescent fog. Kerry approached it cautiously. He removed his tiny radiation counter from its leaden case. The needle swung violently to the farther end—and broke!

"Jumping Jupiter!" he exclaimed. "This counter was geared to take the heaviest man-made radiation in the System—stuff that would burn any form of life to a crisp."

"All I feel," said Sally, "is a pleasant tingling."

One of the crew said anxiously: "Maybe its effects will show up later, Mr. Dale."

Kerry shook his head. "It's possible; but we must remember that Pyotra and his gang have been working here for many hours; and evidently they were unharmed."

They searched the terrain. They found scattered mining equipment which the panic-stricken crew had left behind. They found also two dazzling white blocks; cubes not more than six inches square.

"Hell!" said Jem disgustedly. "Is that all those babies could mine in the time they was here?"

Kerry approached them gingerly. Cautiously, with gloved hands, he tried to pick one up. A fairly heavy electrical shock ran through his body; though his suit was insulated. He tried again. He couldn't lift it. He called Jem over; then the two members of the crew. They tugged and strained; but they couldn't budge the tiny block.