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The Callistan Menace
“Damn Jupiter!” growled Ambrose Whitefield viciously, and I nodded agreement.
“I’ve been on the Jovian satellite run,” I said, “for fifteen years and I’ve heard those two words spoken maybe a million times. It’s probably the most sincere curse in the Solar System.”
Our watch at the controls of the scoutship Ceres had just been relieved and we descended the two levels to our room with dragging steps.
“Damn Jupiter-and damn it again,” insisted Whitefield morosely. “It’s too big for the System. It stays out there behind us and pulls and pulls and pulls! We’ve got to keep the Atomos firing all the way. We’ve got to check our course- completely-every hour. No relaxation, no coasting, no taking it easy! nothing but the rottenest kind of work.”
There were tiny beads of perspiration on his forehead and he swabbed at them with the back of his hand. He was a young fellow, scarcely thirty, and you could see in his eyes that he was nervous, and even a little frightened.
And it wasn’t Jupiter that was bothering him, in spite of his profanity. Jupiter was the least of our worries. It was Callisto! It was that little moon which gleamed a pale blue upon our visiplates that made Whitefield sweat and that had spoiled four nights’ sleep for me already. Callisto! Our destination!
Even old Mac Steeden, gray mustachioed veteran who, in his youth, had sailed with the great Peewee Wilson himself, went about his duties with an absent stare. Four days out- and ten days more ahead of us-and panic was reaching out with clammy fingers.
We were all brave enough in the ordinary course of events. The eight of us on the Ceres had faced the purple Lectronics and stabbing Disintos of pirates and rebels and the alien environments of half a dozen worlds. But it takes more than run-of-the-mill bravery to face the unknown; to face Callisto, the “mystery world” of the Solar System.
One fact was known about Callisto-one grim, bare fact. Over a period of twenty-five years, seven ships, progressively better equipped, had landed-and never been heard from again. The Sunday supplements peopled the satellite with anything from super-dinosaurs to invisible ghosts of the fourth dimension, but that did not solve the mystery.
We were the eighth. We had a better ship than any of those preceding. We were the first to sport the newly-developed beryl-tungsten hull, twice as strong as the old steel shells. We possessed super-heavy armaments and the very latest Atomic Drive engines.
Still-we were only the eighth, and every man jack of us knew it.
Whitefield entered our quarters silently and flopped down upon his bunk. His fists were clenched under his chin and showed white at the knuckles. It seemed to me that he wasn’t far from the breaking point. It was a case for careful diplomacy.
“What we need,” said I, “is a good, stiff drink.”
“What we need,” he answered harshly, “is a hell of a lot of good, stiff drinks.”
“Well, what’s stopping us?”
He looked at me suspiciously, “You know there isn’t a drop of liquor aboard ship. It’s against Navy regulations!”
“Sparkling green Jabra water,” I said slowly, letting the words drip from my mouth. “Aged beneath the Martian deserts. Melted emerald juice. Bottles of it! Cases of it!”
“Where?”
“I know where. What do you say? A few drinks-just a few-will cheer us both up.”
For a moment, his eyes sparkled, and then they dulled again, “What if the Captain finds out? He’s a stickler for discipline, and on a trip like this, it’s liable to cost us our rating.”
I winked and gri
Whitefield stared at me long and hard, “All right. Lead me to it.”
We slipped down to the supply room, which was deserted, of course. The Captain and Steeden were at the controls; Brock and Charney were at the engines; and Harrigan and Tuley were snoring their fool heads off in their own room.
Moving as quietly as I could, through sheer habit, I pushed aside several crates of food tabs and slid open a hidden panel near the floor. I reached in and drew out a dusty bottle, which, in the dim light, sparkled a dull sea-green.
“Sit down,” I said, “and make yourself comfortable.” I produced two tiny cups and filled them.
Whitefield sipped slowly and with every evidence of satisfaction. He downed his second at one gulp.
“How come you volunteered for this trip, anyway, Whitey?” I asked, “You’re a little green for a thing like this.”
He waved his hand, “You know how it is. Things get dull after a while. I went in for zoology after getting out of college-big field since interplanetary travel-and had a nice comfortable position back on Ganymede. It was dull, though;
I was bored blue. So I joined the Navy on an impulse, and on another I volunteered for this trip.” He sighed ruefully, “I’m a little sorry I did.”
“That’s not the way to take it, kid. I’m experienced and I know. When you’re panicky, you’re as good as licked. Why, two months from now, we’ll be back on Ganymede.”
“I’m not scared, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he exclaimed angrily. “It’s-it’s,” there was a long pause in which he frowned at his third cupful. “Well, I’m just worn out trying to imagine what the hell to expect. My imagination is working overtime and my nerves are rubbing raw.”
“Sure, sure,” I soothed, “I’m not blaming you. It’s that way with all of us, I guess. But you have to be careful. Why, I remember once on a Mars-Titan trip, we had-”
Whitefield interrupted what was one of my favorite yarns- and I could spin them as well as anyone in the service-with a jab in the ribs that knocked the breath out of me.
He put down his Jabra gingerly.
“Say, Jenkins,” he stuttered, “I haven’t downed enough liquor to be imagining things, have I?”
“That depends on what you imagined.”
“I could swear I saw something move somewhere in the pile of empty crates in the far corner.”
“That’s a bad sign,” and I took another swig as I said it. “Your nerves are going to your eyes and now they’re going back on you. Ghosts, I suppose, or the Callistan menace looking us over in advance.”
“I saw it, I tell you. There’s something alive there.” He edged towards me-his nerves were plenty shot-and for a moment, in the dim, shadowy light even I felt a bit choked up.
“You’re crazy,” I said in a loud voice, and the echoes calmed me down a bit. I put down my empty cup and got up just a wee bit unsteadily. “Let’s go over and poke through the crates.”
Whitefield followed me and together we started shoving the light aluminum cubicles this way and that. Neither of us was quite one hundred per cent sober and we made a fair amount of noise. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Whitefield trying to move the case nearest the wall.
“This one isn’t empty,” he grunted, as it lifted very slightly off the floor.
Muttering under his breath, he knocked off the cover and looked in. For a half second he just stared and then he backed away slowly. He tripped over something and fell into a sitting position, still gaping at the case.
I watched his actions with raised eyebrows, then glanced hastily at the case in question. The glance froze into a steady glare, and I emitted a hoarse yell that rattled off each of the four walls.
A boy was sticking his head out of the case-a red-haired dirty-faced kid of thirteen or thereabouts.
“Hello,” said the boy as he clambered out into the open. Neither of us found the strength to answer him, so he continued, “I’m glad you found me. I was getting a cramp in my shoulder trying to curl up in there.”
Whitefield gulped audibly, “Good God! A kid stowaway! And on a voyage to Callisto !”
“And we can’t turn back,” I reminded in a stricken voice, “without wrecking ourselves. The Jovian satellite run is poison.”
“Look here,” Whitefield turned on the kid in a sudden belligerence. “Who are you, you young nut, and what are you doing here?”
The kid flinched. “I’m Stanley Fields,” he answered, a bit scared. “I’m from New Chicago on Ganymede. I-I ran away to space, like they do in books.” He paused and then asked brightly, “Do you think we’ll have a fight with pirates on this trip, mister?”
There was no doubt that the kid was filled to the brim with “Dime Spacers.” I used to read them myself as a youngster.
“How about your parents?” asked Whitefield, grimly.
“Oh, all I got’s an uncle. He won’t care much, I guess.” He had gotten over his first uneasiness and stood gri
“Well, what’s to be done?” said Whitefield, looking at me in complete helplessness.
I shrugged, “Take him to the Captain. Let him worry.”
“And how will he take it?”
“Anyway he wants. It’s not our fault. Besides, there’s absolutely nothing to be done about the mess.”
And grabbing an arm apiece, we walked away, dragging the kid between us.
Captain Bartlett is a capable officer and one of the deadpan type that very rarely displays emotion. Consequently, on those few occasions when he does, it’s like a Mercurian volcano in full eruption-and you haven’t lived until you’ve seen one of those.
It was a case of the final straw. A satellite run is always wearing. The image of Callisto up ahead was harder on him than on any member of the crew. And now there was this kid stowaway.
It wasn’t to be endured! For half an hour, the Captain shot off salvo after salvo of the very worst sort of profanity. He started with the sun and ran down the list of planets, satellites, asteroids, comets, to the very meteors themselves. He was starting on the nearer fixed stars, when he collapsed from sheer nervous exhaustion. He was so excited that he never thought to ask us what we were doing in the storeroom in the first place, and for that Whitefield and I were duly grateful.
But Captain Bartlett is no fool. Having purged his system of its nervous tension, he saw clearly that that which ca
“Someone take him and wash him up,” he growled wearily, “and keep him out of my sight for a while.” Then, softening a bit, he drew me towards him, “Don’t scare him by telling him where we’re going. He’s in a bad spot, the poor kid.”