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The outer hull of the Phobos rose before us and overshadowed us with its might. The giant vessel lay in the dark green stubble, silent as death. One of the seven that had attempted and failed. And we were the eighth.
Charney broke the uneasy silence, “What are these white smears on the hull?”
He put up a metal-encased finger and rubbed it along the steel plate. He withdrew it and gazed at the soft white pulp upon it. With an involuntary shudder of disgust, he scraped it off upon the coarse grass beneath.
“What do you think it is?”
The entire ship as far as we could see-except for that portion immediately next the ground-was besmeared by a thin layer of the pulpy substance. It looked like dried foam-like-
I said: “It looks like slime left after a giant slug had come out of the lake and slithered over the ship.”
I wasn’t serious in my statement, of course, but the other two cast hasty looks at the mirror-smooth lake in which Jupiter’s image lay unruffled. Charney drew his hand Lectronic.
“Here!” cried Steeden, suddenly, his voice harsh and metallic as it came over the radio, “that’s no way to be talking. We’ve got to find some way of getting into the ship; there must be some break in its hull somewhere. You go around to the right, Charney, and you, Jenkins, to the left. I’ll see if I can’t get atop of this thing somehow.”
Eyeing the smoothly-round hull carefully, he drew back and jumped. On Callisto; of course, he weighed only twenty pounds or less, suit and all, so he rose upwards some thirty or forty feet. He slammed against the hull lightly, and as he started sliding downwards, he grabbed a rivet-head and scrambled to the top.
Waving a parting to Charney at this point, I left.
“Everything all right?” the Captain’s voice sounded thinly in my ear.
“All O.K.,” I replied gruffly, “so far.” And as I said so, the Ceres disappeared behind the convex bulge of the dead Phobos and I was entirely alone upon the mysterious moon.
I pursued my round silently thereafter. The spaceship’s “skin” was entirely unbroken except for the dark, staring portholes, the lowest of which were still well above my head. Once or twice I thought I could see Steeden scrambling monkey-like on top of the smooth hulk, but perhaps that was only fancy.
I reached the prow at last which was bathed in the full light of Jupiter. There, the lowest row of portholes were low enough to see into and as I passed from one to the other, I felt as if I were gazing into a shipful of spectres, for in the ghostly light all objects appeared only as flickering shadows.
It was the last window in the line that proved to be of sudden, overpowering interest. In the yellow rectangle of Jupiter-light stamped upon the floor, there sprawled what remained of a man. His clothes were draped about him loosely and his shirt was ridged as if the ribs below had moulded it into position. In the space between the open shirt collar and engineer’s cap, there showed a gri
A shout in my ears caused my heart to leap. It was Steeden, exclaiming profanely somewhere above the ship. Almost at once, I caught sight of his ungainly steel-clad body slipping and sliding down the side of the ship.
We raced towards him in long, floating leaps and he waved us on, ru
“I caught sight of it from the heights of the ship,” said Steeden, somewhat breathlessly, as he turned the suited figure over.
What we saw caused all three of us to explode in a simultaneous cry. Through the glassy visor, there appeared a leprous countenance. The features were putrescent, fallen apart, as if decay had set in and ceased because of the limited air supply. Here and there a bit of gray bone showed through. It was the most repulsive sight I have ever witnessed, though I have seen many almost as bad.
“My God!” Charney’s voice was half a sob. ‘They simply die and decay.” I told Steeden of the clothed skeleton I had seen through the porthole.
“Damn it, it’s a puzzle,” growled Steeden, “and the answer must be inside the Phobos.” There was a momentary silence, “I tell you what. One of us can go back and get the Captain to dismount the Disintegrator. It ought to be light enough to handle on Callisto, and at low power, we can draw it fine enough to cut a hole without blowing the entire ship to kingdom come. You go, Jenkins. Charney and I will see if we can’t find any more of the poor devils.”
I set off for the Ceres without further urging, covering the ground in space-devouring leaps. Three-quarters of the distance had been covered when a loud shout, ringing metallically in my ear, brought me to a skidding halt. I wheeled. in dismay and remained petrified at the sight before my eyes.
The surface of the lake was broken into boiling foam, and from it there reared the fore-parts of what appeared to be giant caterpillars. They squirmed out upon land, dirty-grey bodies dripping slime and water. They were some four feet long, about one foot in thickness, and their method of locomotion was the slowest of oxygen-conserving crawls. Except for one stalky growth upon their forward end, the tip of which glowed a faint red, they were absolutely featureless.
Even as I watched, their numbers increased, until the shore became one heaving mass of sickly gray flesh.
Charney and Steeden were ru
Charney’s voice sounded faintly in my ear, “Get help! My head is splitting. I can’t move! I-” Both lay still now.
I started towards them automatically, but a sudden sharp pang just over my temples staggered me, and for a moment I stood confused.
Then I heard a sudden unearthly shout from Whitefield, “Get back to the ship, Jenkins! Get back! Get back!”
I turned to obey, for the pain had increased into a continuous tearing pain. I weaved and reeled as I approached the yawning airlock, and I believe that I was at the point of collapse when I finally fell into it. After that, I can recall only a jumble for quite a period.
My next clear impression was of the control-room of the Ceres . Someone had dragged the suit off me, and I gazed about me in dismay at a scene of the utmost confusion. My brain was still somewhat addled and Captain Bartlett as he leant over me appeared double.
“Do you know what those damnable creatures are?” He pointed outwards at the giant caterpillars.
I shook my head mutely.
“They’re the great grand-daddies of the Magnet Worm Whitefield was telling us of once. Do you remember the Magnet Worm?”
I nodded, “The one that kills by a magnetic field which is strengthened by surrounding iron.”
“Damn it, yes,” cried Whitefield, interrupting suddenly. “I’ll swear to it. If it wasn’t for the lucky chance that our hull is beryl-tungsten and not steel-like the Phobos and the rest-every last one of us would be unconscious by now and dead before long.”
“Then that’s the Callistan menace.” My voice rose in sudden dismay, “But what of Charney and Steeden?”
“They’re sunk,” muttered the Captain grimly. “Unconscious -maybe dead. Those filthy worms are crawling towards them and there’s nothing we can do about it.” He ticked off the points on his fingers. “We can’t go after them in a spacesuit without signing our own death warrant-spacesuits are steel. No one can last there and back without one. We have no weapons with a beam fine enough to blast the Worms without scorching Charney and Steeden as well. I’ve thought of maneuvering the Ceres nearer and making a dash for it, but one can’t handle a spaceship on planetary surfaces like that-not without cracking up. We-”
“In short,” I interrupted hollowly, “we’ve got to stand here and watch them die.” He nodded and I turned away bitterly.
I felt a slight twitch upon my sleeve, and when I turned, it was to find Stanley’s wide blue eyes staring up at me. In the excitement, I had forgotten about him, and now I regarded him bad-temperedly.
“What is it?” I snapped.
“Mr. Jenkins,” his eyes were red, and I think he would have preferred pirates to Magnet Worms by a good deal, “Mr. Jenkins, maybe I could go and get Mr. Charney and Mr. Steeden.”
I sighed, and turned away.
“But, Mr. Jenkins, I could. I heard what Mr. Whitefield said, and my spacesuit isn’t steel. It’s vitri-rubber.”
“The kid’s right,” whispered Whitefield slowly, when Stanley repeated his offer to the assembled men. “The unstrengthened field doesn’t harm us, that’s evident. He’d be safe in a vitri-rubber suit.”
“But it’s a wreck, that suit!” objected the Captain. “I never really intended having the kid use it.” He ended raggedly and his ma
“We can’t leave Neal and Mac out there without trying, Captain,” said Brock stolidly.
The Captain made up his mind suddenly and became a whirlwind of action. He dived into the space-suit rack for the battered relic himself, and helped Stanley into it.
“Get Steeden first,” said the Captain, as he clipped shut the last bolt. “He’s older and has less resistance to the field. -Good luck to you, kid, and if you can’t make it, come back right away. Right away, do you hear me?”
Stanley sprawled at the first step, but life on Ganymede had inured him to below-normal gravities and he recovered quickly. There was no sign of hesitation, as he leaped towards the two prone figures, and we breathed easier. Evidently, the magnetic field was not affecting him yet.
He had one of the suited figures over his shoulders now and was proceeding back to the ship at an only slightly slower pace. As he dropped his burden inside the airlock, he waved an arm to us at the window and we waved back. He had scarcely left, when we had Steeden inside. We ripped the spacesuit off him and laid him out, a gaunt pale figure, on the couch.
The Captain bent an ear to his chest and suddenly laughed aloud in sudden relief, “The old geezer’s still going strong.”
We crowded about happily at hearing that, all eager to place a finger upon his wrist and so assure ourselves of the life within him. His face twitched, and when a low, blurred voice suddenly whispered, “So I said to Peewee, I said-” our last doubts were put to rest.