“I thought you said they weren’t dangerous,” Wolfe observed.
“They’re not,” Quade gulped, moving his fingers experimentally. “Ouch! That was just—ah—curiosity.”
“Well, what now?”
“We’ll unload the equipment. Get the cameras set up. The Zonals can wait a bit. I want to think things over.”
Quade was hoping he didn’t sound as baffled as he felt. He had hoped that Udell might have educated the amphibians somewhat, but apparently the creatures were dumber than apes—a lot dumber. Somehow that didn’t jibe with the sizable brain-cases of the Zonals. Their cranial indices seemed to hint that there was intelligence in those sleek furry heads—and Udell had managed to use that savvy. But how?
How, indeed?
IV
Crack-Up
Quade had arranged the compact two-man cruiser as a miniature replica of the giant camera ship and carrying identical equipment. It was a complete traveling laboratory, with built-in cameras and searchlights that could stab out from every angle through the transparent nose. During space flights it remained in its cradle within the larger vessel, but now it rested on the lava plain near by, ready for a takeoff.
Three days had passed and Quade was still stumped. He couldn’t penetrate the wall of stupidity that shielded the Zonals from all advances. Once or twice he thought he was making some headway with the first Zonal they had encountered—whom Wolfe had irreverently dubbed Speedy. But Speedy, though extremely curious, shot off like a rocket whenever Quade felt he was getting somewhere.
In the great camera-ship Quade was donning his protective armor. He had decided to make a survey of the surrounding terrain in the little cruiser, on the chance that Udell’s trained Zonals might have wandered away. The icy rampart was no barrier to them, for they rocketed over it like birds.
Wolfe, leaning against a table stacked with experimental apparatus, looked tired.
“Want me to go along, Tony?” he asked.
“You’d better stay here and keep things moving,” Quade said.
“What things?”
“Yeah, I know. Everything’s ready for shooting. We could roll any time—except for the Zonals. I’ve got to find some way—”
Quade, struggling into his suit, lurched into a cabinet and deftly caught a small bottle as it fell.
“Neo-curare. Don’t want to smash that. I may use it on myself if I have to face Von Zorn without a picture.”
“Tony,” Wolfe said hastily. “I think I see Kathleen Gregg.”
“What!”
Quade whirled awkwardly, peering through the ship’s nose. A gyroplane had landed and a slim figure in gleaming space-armor was clambering out. It was, indeed, Kathleen.
“Blast!” Quade said, lurching toward a port. Halfway out he remembered the neo-curare and hastily stuck it in one of the self-sealing pockets in his suit. Pumice ground under his heels. The gyroplane, he saw, was already surging up, angling toward the ice barrier. Kathleen was trotting along briskly, but there was a certain hesitancy in the look she gave Quade.
He halted in front of the girl. She smiled.
“Why, hello, Tony.”
“Just what are you doing here?” Quade asked. “Or should I guess?”
“It’s sweet of you to say so,” Kathleen observed, tilting her nose Saturnward. “As a matter of fact, I got rather tired hanging around—”
“So you thought you’d drop in and say hello,” Quade finished for her. “Now you can turn around and say goodbye and go home.”
“How?”
Quade peered after the departed gyroplane.
“How’d you get here?”
“Took a tramp ship to New Macao and hired a pilot to fly me the rest of the way.”
“Okay,” Quade said. “See that two-man camera ship? You’re going to march into it and I’m going to fly you back to New Macao and put you on a Sunward ship. Catch?”
“Won’t,” Kathleen said, starting to run. Quade deftly caught her, lifted her kicking figure, and carried her to the cruiser. He dumped her in it and turned to Wolfe, who had followed.
“Be back as soon as I can. Keep things moving.”
“Right. Hello, Kathleen,” Wolfe said pleasantly. “Goodbye now.”
He shut the port and departed. Quade silently turned to the controls and lifted the ship. Kathleen, standing beside him, was not silent. She finished by saying that her engagement to Quade was off, and that he was a rat.
“Sure I am,” Quade said. “But this is my job and I think it’s a little dangerous. I’m sure I can handle it. Just the same, I don’t want you around. For one thing you distract me and for another I’m still wondering about that virus disease that killed Udell.”
Kathleen sniffed.
“Ha. Hey! We’re being followed.”
Quade threw a magnifying plane on the scanner. A sleek projectile was rocketing along after the camera cruiser.
“Oh, that’s Speedy,” Quade said. “One of the Zonals. He won’t follow us long.”
But this proved inaccurate. Speedy stayed on the trail for twenty miles before he was lost in the distance. Then nothing was visible but the frigid, Cyclopean peaks of the Devil’s Range, icy and alien in the pale light of Saturn.
Things began to happen with alarming suddenness.
There are plenty of safety devices on spacecraft, but these depend on the assurance that you have a skilful and a conscious operator. Quade was skilful enough, but unfortunately he was knocked cold when the vessel sideslipped in a sudden blast of air, powerful as a cyclone, that screamed up from the Devil’s Range. A geyser-heated valley below made a thermal of racing air that created a maelstrom where the icy atmosphere of Titan met it.
The camera cruiser turned sidewise and Quade went spinning into the controls. His head banged against his helmet, which made him lose all interest in the fact that the ship was plunging down.
Kathleen couldn’t do much about it, though she tried hard enough. She was wedged under a tangle of apparatus, which imprisoned her but saved her from serious injury when the ship struck, with a splash that sent water leaping high.
Creamy, luminous liquid crept over the ship’s nose. An oddly-shaped fish came to stare in pop-eyed amazement. Then it swam hastily away.
The ship grounded. Kathleen fought her way free and scrambled up the tilted floor to where Quade lay. There was blood oozing
