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Title: The ghost of Lancelot Biggs
Author: Nelson S. Bond
Release date: July 12, 2024 [eBook #74024]
Language: English
Original publication: New York, NY: Weird Tales, 1941
Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GHOST OF LANCELOT BIGGS ***
The Ghost of Lancelot Biggs
BY NELSON S. BOND
_The shade of that gangling genius of
the spaceways--Lancelot Biggs--comes
back to haunt his old ship mates._
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Weird Tales January 1942.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Folks say I'm hard-boiled; well, maybe so. My mama told me a long time
ago--when I was a brat in three-cornered britches--that if you keep
your upper lip rigid and a steely glint in the old optics and _le
craque sage_ dripping from your tongue, not many people will be hopping
around, pushing chips off your shoulder and daring you to take off
your glasses.
And mama was right. So I'm commonly known as "that smart-Aleck Bert
Donovan," and folks think I'm hard-boiled--but I didn't feel like any
ten-minute egg the afternoon Diane Hanson, her pop, Cap Hanson, skipper
of the freighter _Saturn_, and I came home from Lancelot Biggs' funeral.
Lancelot Biggs was dead. Or missing for more than seven weeks in
the gray nothingness of negative space--which is the same thing. He
had hurled himself into this desolate matrix universe deliberately,
sacrificing himself to save the lives of his friends and shipmates when
we were all doomed to die horribly by crashing headlong into massive
Jupiter.
[Illustration: Lancelot Biggs was dead; or else missing in the gray
nothingness of negative space....]
Since the life-skiff in which he had entombed himself was tiny,
poorly provisioned and inadequately supplied with water, there was
no longer the faintest glimmer of hope that he might, somehow and
miraculously, have survived. Even had he found some way of escaping the
minus boundaries of the weird nega-universe into which he had fled.
Therefore, today he had been formally "buried". In spirit, so to speak,
or by remote control. The way the old boys in the 19th Century used to
bury lost mariners. With a long cortege and a tall stone, engraven with
the words: _Here lies So-and-so--Lost at Sea._
Only this being the enlightened 22nd Century and we being a bit more
reasonable, Biggs' marker read: _In Memory of Lt. Lancelot Biggs--Lost
in Space._
So we were a sad looking trio when we came back to the apartment
which Lanse Biggs and I used to share near Long Island Spaceport.
Cap Hanson had lost the finest First Mate to ever tread the ramps of
a space-lugger, I had lost the best friend a man had ever had, and
Diane--well, her loss was the greatest. She had lost the man she loved,
the lean, gangling man to whom, had not fate's grim hand intervened,
she would now be married.
And like I said--folks call me hard-boiled. But I reckon I'm only
gently poached compared to the men who operate under the title of Big
Business, because when we entered the apartment the telephone was
jangling like an opium addict's nerves, and when I picked it up I was
talking to the Assignment Clerk of the I.P.C., the Corporation from
which we draw our weekly credit checks.
"Donovan?" he yelped. "Is that you, Donovan?"
"Mmm," I said.
"Is Captain Hanson there?"
I glanced at the skipper, whose arms were about his quietly sobbing
daughter. He was a gruff old codger, Hanson; a more irascible
space-tyrant never lifted gravs. But he had a heart buried somewhere
beneath that crust, a heart that was now as hurt and grieved as my own.
"Why?" I asked.
"Never mind why!" snapped the A.C. "Put him on!"
I said grimly, "Okay, Buster! I'll play toddle-top with you. I'll _put_
him on now and _take_ you on the next time I see you. Skipper--" And I
handed him the phone.
Whatever the A.C. told the Old Man, it threw a jolt into him. I saw
Hanson stiffen like a rheumatic neck, and he roared, "_Wha-a-at!_
Impossible! Why, you damned young jackanapes, don't you know the staff
and crew of the _Saturn_ are in mourning? We won't--"
* * * * *
Then there was clacking from the ear-piece, metallic and ominous,
and the Old Man's face turned from crimson to an outraged mauve.
But anxious lines corrugated his brow and he forced a modulated
acquiescence to his voice.
"I see," he said thoughtfully. "So that's the way it is, eh? Well--"
Grudgingly "--all right, then. But I don't like it, sir. And you may
tell your superiors--"
The A.C. must have hung up on him. He turned to us slowly. "Sparks--"
he said.
Diane Hanson stared at her father. "Daddy, what is it? Is it--some news
about Lancelot?"
"No, honey," said the Old Man gravely. "Don't keep that hope burning,
dear. You'll only torture yourself. This is something entirely
different. Something--" His stifled anger burst out afresh "--something
dastardly! They should be boiled in oil, the whole rotten kit and
kiboodle of them! But I'm helpless. Orders are orders. Sparks, get in
contact with the staff and crew immediately. Tell them to pack their
duffle and be aboard the _Saturn_ by midnight."
I said, "What! But, Skipper, we were granted leave to mourn Biggs--"
"I know it! But the Corporation has countermanded our leaves.
We're to lift gravs at twelve sharp for Europa. Polarium has just
been discovered there, and the whole solar system has gone crazy.
Prospectors from every corner of the universe are blasting for Europa
as fast as their jets will push them. And since the _Saturn_ is the
fastest lugger in the I.P.S. fleet, we've got to get there and stake
claims for the Corporation.
"I--I'm sorry it has to be this way, Diane. I don't want to leave you.
But the clerk said if I refused to take command, they'd appoint someone
else--"
"I know, Daddy," said Diane. She forced a wisp of a smile to her lips.
She understood as well as I did what he was trying to tell us. The
Old Man was--and is--one of the greatest skippers who ever blasted a
rocket. But he's an old man in fact as well as title. Twice before
our employers had threatened to remove his command, ground him, give
his bridge to a younger officer. A man of action, the Skipper dared
not look forward to the day when he had to bid farewell to space. To
refuse this emergency command would be to risk everything. And so:
"I understand, Daddy," said Diane Hanson "But you don't have to leave
me."
"And, Sparks, tell Todd he'll serve as First Mate," the skipper told
me. "Wilson will be Second--_hey?_ What did you say, Diane?"
Diane's voice was gentle, but there was a tightness about her eyes and
lips I recognized. I'd seen it before, on her father's face. I knew
what it meant. Stubbornness mixed with a dash of determination.
"You won't leave me," she said calmly, "because I'm going with you!"
"You're going with--Oh, no! No, you're not! This isn't any shuttle for
a girl. There's danger out there near Jupiter, honey. I won't let you--"
"You can't stop me, Dad. Can't you see I've _got_ to go? Please!
I'll go crazy sitting home here by myself. And besides, it was out
there--near Jupiter--that _he_--"
Well, I saw how she felt. And I didn't much blame her for feeling she
had a right to make at least one farewell trip to the part of space
wherefrom her lover had disappeared. The Old Man growled softly. Then
he wiped his glasses with a sort of savage vehemence. And he said,
"Well, then, get your things packed. And Sparks--call Chief Garrity.
Tell him to have the hypos and all control equipment ready for
immediate flight--"
Thus at twelve midnight sharp, Earth time, which is 7-R-4 Solar
Constant, the _Saturn_ lifted gravs for Europa, the second satellite of
monstrous Jupiter.
* * * * *
There's no use boring you with the routine details. We blasted from a
Long Island cradle, set course and constant for Europa, waited till
we were about six hours away from the Earth's gravitational field,
then cut over to the V-I unit--the "velocity intensifier" invented
by Lancelot Biggs which had made the _Saturn_ the fastest ship in
space, increasing its speed potential from a slovenly 200,000 _mph_ to
something only a trifle less than the limiting velocity of light.
In the old days, before the installation of the V-I unit, a shuttle
to Jupiter meant a journey of about a hundred days, more or less,
depending on the positions of the planets. Now, however, the _Saturn_
had a speed potential of 650,000,000 miles per hour! Which _didn't_
mean that we could actually get to Jupiter in an hour. There were other
factors which had to be allowed for: initial velocity, deceleration
upon approaching our goal, and all that stuff.
To make a short story stubby, though, we could look forward confidently
to setting foot on Europa within two days at the most.
Which gave us a big jump over the rest of those who were high-balling
it for the wealth-laden satellite.
Dick Todd, looking awkward and a trifle embarrassed in his First
Officer's braid, came to my turret at the end of our first day's
flight. Things had happened so suddenly that no one had found time to
tell him the score. He was one huge question mark on toes.
"How come, Sparks?" he demanded. "What's this all about? First we're on
leave of absence, then they dump us in the _Saturn_ and shove us off
for Europa. Why?"
I said, "The answer's as simple as your half-witted brother. What do
you get from the bank, stupid?"
"Loans," said Todd promptly, "at five percent. But what has that got to
do with--"
"The correct answer," I sighed, "is--_shekels_! The sinews of war,
lamebrain. Cash. Gelt. Credits. The root of all evil. Filthy lucre.
There's a polarium-rush at Europa, which if I'm any prophet will make
the old gold-rushes on mama Earth and the radium-rush on Venus in 2078
look like Bargain Day in the Ladies' Basement.
"The Corporation that supplies our bread-and-butter wants in on the
ground floor. So we're elected the official claim-stakers."
"Polarium!" echoed Dick. "That's that new element, isn't it? Number
106? The impossible one?"
I stared at his First Officer's stripes sourly.
"When I think of the genius who used to wear those stripes," I sighed,
"and then look at _you_--Oh, well! Listen to papa, whackypot. Polarium
is Element No. 106, yes! But it ain't impossible, no! Because they
found it. And I have yet to hear of anybody finding anything which
doesn't exist. It's a brand-new discovery, apparently rare as ideas in
that spongy bulb you hopefully call your 'brain,' and it's _so_ new
that nobody knows, yet, exactly what its properties are.
"Nevertheless, it's got a cash value. So we're on our way to collect
some of the aforesaid same."
Todd said aggrievedly, "That's not a very nice way to talk to a
superior officer, Sparks. Damned if I wouldn't report you--if I had
any idea who to report you to. But--Europa, you said? That's kind of
dangerous, isn't it? Our attempting to land there, I mean."
"No more dangerous," I told him, "than attempting to brush the teeth
of a sabre-toothed tiger. Any time a ship gets within umpteen miles of
Jupiter, pal, it's hold your hat and breath and give the prayerbook a
quick riffle. That hunk of red goo has gravitational power--spelled
with a capital, 'Phew!' More spaceships than you have corpuscles have
fallen within old Jupe's drag, crashed on the planet. And not a man has
ever yet managed to escape, get back to tell us what it's like.
"From what we know or can guess, the planet is not inhabited or
habitable. But that's guesswork. Until we can explore it as we've
explored its satellites, we'll never know. And we'll never be able to
explore Jupiter until some clever jasper invents an anti-gravitational
shield--"
"Say!" enthused Todd. "Now, there's a great idea, Sparks! I think I'll
work on that!"
I looked at him and groaned.
"_You_ invent an anti-gravitational shield? What are you going to use
for brains? Buttons? I've never known but one man in my life with the
genius to pull that miracle--and he's dead. Lanse Biggs. I hope that
wherever he is he can't hear you. He'll be rolling over in his grave
so fast they'll call him 'Revolving Biggs.' Either that, or he'll come
back and haunt you for daring to--"
And then it happened. Todd, who had been listening to me petulantly,
suddenly stiffened. His jaw dropped ... his eyes popped out like
marbles on stalks ... and his hair climbed two full, quivering inches
off his scalp.
"S-s-sparks!" he wailed. "D-d-don't say that! Behind you!"
Then he keeled over in a dead faint. I turned. My heart took a running
leap for my lips, and I think I screamed. Because I was staring at
a thin, wavering nebulosity--a form gray and ghastly--a transparent
simulacrum of--
_Lancelot Biggs!_
* * * * *
What happened next, I wouldn't rightly know. All I know is that for the
first time I realized how a deep-rooted tree must feel when a pup comes
sniffing at it with malice in his eyes. My brain said, "Get going,
babies! Double-quick!" But my pedal extremities were as nerveless as a
batch of yesterday's dough.
But there was nothing wrong with my senses. On the contrary: they
were as sharp as a creditor's letter. And for the first time in my
life I realized that the old stories you hear about ghosts are on
the up-and-up. For this shimmering wraith of Biggs carried along with
it all the visual, audible and olfactory accoutrements with which the
ghosts of lore are usually endowed.
My ears hummed with a high, thin singing; a sort of weird, unearthly
harmonic vibration. There was a biting odor in my nostrils, a scent so
subtle I could not tell whether it were charnelly repugnant or just
plain annoying. The phantom itself was gray, drab, colorless. Immobile.
Tense, strained of visage. For a moment its white lips seemed to move--
Then it was gone! As quickly as it had come it was gone, and the
paralysis left my limbs, and I was on my knees beside Todd, shaking him.
He came out of his blackout howling. "Did you see him, Sparks? It was
Biggs' ghost! Standing right there--"
"What the hell's going on in here?" interrupted the irate voice of Cap
Hanson. The door had burst open; he stood in the archway with Diane
a few feet behind him. "What's all this, Mister Todd? The two of you
groveling on the floor--drunk again, eh? Well, my two fine sirs--"
Todd pulled himself to his feet uncertainly. His voice was cracked,
incoherent.
"N-no, sir! S-something horrible. This ship is--is _haunted_, sir! I
saw--_Upph!_"
My elbow caught his bread-basket just in time. His next words
represented my own private opinion. But I didn't want Diane Hanson to
hear them. After all, it isn't soothing to a heartbroken gal to learn
that her lover has turned into a noisy, malodorous, spaceship spook.
"Haunted?" roared Hanson. "Are you mad, Lieutenant Todd? What do you
mean, haunted?"
I tried to catch the skipper's eye so I could give him the business to
lay off the quiz program for the time being. But my finger-flagging
came to naught. Diane shouldered past her father and into the room. Her
voice was intense, eager.
"Sparks," she said, "tell me! It was--_he_, wasn't it? Lancelot?"
Too late, Dick understood why I'd poke-checked him. He turned red and
began gobbling like a block-bound turkey.
"N-no, Miss Diane. N-nothing like that. Bert and I were just having a
little horseplay. We'd had a drink--"
"Don't lie to me, Dick! It _was_ Lancelot! It must have been. I--I saw
him myself!"
Well! That was one for the books. It was our turn to gape. Cap Hanson
stared from one to another of us wildly.
"What's this? You saw Lancelot, Diane? Where?"
"In my cabin. An hour or so ago. I was trying to take a little nap.
Something wakened me--I don't know what--and I saw him standing in the
middle of the room. He was so pale. So thin, and so sad. Oh, Daddy--"
* * * * *
She buried her face on his shoulder. Hanson said, "Now, there, honey!"
He looked like an accident hunting for some place to happen. He stared
at us dismally.
"Is that the truth, boys? Is that what you saw?"
We nodded. I said, "I'm not what you might call a superstitious guy,
Skipper, but I know what I see. It was his ghost, all right."
Todd wailed miserably, "And it was all my fault. I brought the haunt on
by bragging--"
"Nonsense!" snapped the Old Man. He wore a worried frown on his pan. He
released Diane, took a few swift paces across the room, spun, came back
to us. "Sheer nonsense!" he repeated angrily. "It isn't reasonable!"
I said, "Yeah, I know. That's what folks have been saying for
centuries, Skipper. That ghosts aren't reasonable. But the fact
remains, people _see_ them--"
"That's not what I mean. I don't give a hoot about the possibility or
impossibility of a ghostly afterworld, I'm just saying that it's not
reasonable we should see a ghost of _Biggs_! Lanse wasn't that kind of
boy. He wouldn't come back from the--from Beyond for no better purpose
than to frighten the living daylights out of his old friends and the
woman he loved. He was a logical man--
"Here's what I think! If you saw Biggs--"
"We did!"
"Very well! Then it wasn't his _ghost_ you saw! It was some sort of
projection of him. Don't ask me what kind, or how he did it, or where
he is. But I'll bet my last cent--Lancelot Biggs is not dead!"
The pronouncement galvanized Diane. Her eyes shone and she cried, "Oh,
Daddy--do you mean that?" Looking upon her joy, I groaned inwardly. It
was cruel of the Old Man to reawaken false hopes in her like that. As
I said before, I know what I see. And that vision of Biggs didn't look
like the projection of a living man's image. It wasn't flat. It was
transparent and tri-dimensional. And filmy--
I opened my mouth to protest. But I never got one chirp out of my
peeper. For at that moment the turret audio rasped to life, Chief
Garrity's grizzled face gleamed on the screen, and the C. E.'s Scottish
burr accosted us with accusing indignation.
"Captain Hanson, sirrr!"
"Yes, Chief?"
"Will ye be so kind as to accept my rrreseegnation, sirrr, _ee_-fective
_ee_-meejuttly! I willna ha' fairther dealin' wi' sooch scand'lous
nonsense as is now goin' on down here!"
Hanson snarled, "Resignation be damned, Chief! I've got troubles of my
own. Don't come bellyaching to me because you can't handle your own
men--"
"'Tisna _my_ men are ablatherin'!" declared the Chief in high dudgeon.
"'Tis one o' y'r ain men who by all rights should be dead an'
planted these past seven weeks! 'Tis the ghost o' the late Lootenant
Biggs--down here tryin' to gie my men orrrders f'r the _con_-struction
o' some fantastic machine!"
* * * * *
I think we all must have said something, but what I said I can't
remember. For I was conscious only of Hanson's exuberant roar. "See?
I told you so!" and of Diane's glad little cry, "Daddy! Let's go
down!"--then we were all high-balling it down the ramps toward the
engine-room.
What we found there was Bedlam. Bedlam in greasy overalls. The hypos,
hooked up the V-I unit, were perking along in their usual smooth
fashion. The rotor-pistons were chugging back and forth in their
channels with the calm precision of a five-year-old sucking a lollypop.
But in one corner of the room the members of Garrity's black gang were
huddled, wide-eyed, white-faced, closer than a duffer and his topped
drive; in another corner stood Chief Garrity, staring with speechless
wrath at a figure in the middle of the floor.
The figure was that which we had seen up topside. The wavering spectre
of Lancelot Biggs.
It's funny how the mind works. Even in that moment of stress I found
myself thinking that translation into the afterworld had not done
much to improve Biggs' handsomeness. He didn't look much like the
chubby cherubs or stalwart angels you see pictures of. He was the same
old Biggs I'd known and loved. Tall, gangling, lean to the point of
ridiculousness--dressed in space-blues rather the worse, I thought, for
wear--tousle-haired, grave-eyed, with that old familiar Adam's-apple
bobbing up and down in his scrawny throat like a half-swallowed orange.
There was one difference, though. He was not quiet, motionless, as he
had been when I had seen him in my turret. There was a look of fretful
anxiety in his eyes. He was gesturing impatiently to his awe-struck
watchers, motioning them to approach him. His lips were moving, but
no sound issued from them. There was in the air that same high, thin
whining I had noted before; that same sharp, rather ammoniac odor.
Then Diane cried, "Lanse! Oh, Lanse, darling--!" and rushed forward.
Straight toward, up to, into and _through_ the spectre of her lost
lover. And she stopped, dazed. Her arms waved wildly. "B-but he's gone!
He's not here? Where did he--"
I choked weakly, "D-don't look now, Diane, but you sort of--er--broke
him up. Little chunks of him are floating around you."
Which was the God's-honest truth, so help me! When she burst into that
phantom, it popped apart like pieces of a jig-saw puzzle.
Shattered into a thousand little shimmering, quivering bits, as an
image will shatter in a quiet pool when you chuck a rock into it. Diane
stepped back. The hunks of Biggs came drifting back together again. I
saw, now, that he wore a happy smile. His lips moved, and we read the
name he spoke. "_Diane!_"
Hanson whirled on the scowling Chief Engineer.
"How long has he been here, Chief? What's he want?"
Garrity's reply was as sultry as a Venusian sunset.
"And joost how, Captain Hanson, would I be capable of knowin' the
_de_-sires of a disembodied speerit? I'm a mon of broad expeerience,
sirrr, but I dinna pretend to comprehend _ee_-cleesiastical mysteries.
_Shoo!_" He waved his arms at the ghostly Biggs. "Go 'way, ye bodiless
demon! 'From ghoulies an' ghosties an' all sairts o' beasties an'
things thot go "Boomp!" in the nicht, O Laird, deliverrr us!'"
Hanson turned to me in desperation.
"He's trying to tell us something, Sparks. You and him was friends.
Can't you understand him?"
I was already pondering that problem. It was plain that Biggs' motions
were not purposeless, that he was trying to communicate some message.
I stepped forward, facing the wraith, formed short words clearly on my
lips.
"Lanse--can you hear me?"
He shook his head.
"But you can read writing?" I had some crazy idea of scribbling
messages to him for his perusal. Of course, it was a one-way ticket
to the Observation Ward if anybody ever found out I'd been holding a
chalk-talk confab with a ghost, but----
He didn't like that idea, either. He raised both arms. Then he
did a funny thing. He started waving his paws in the air. Left
paw--right--right again--left--left--
Todd groaned, and looked for a soft spot to faint on. "Not only a
spook," he wailed, "but a _dancing_ spook--"
"Shut up!" I yelled. "Cap, shove that alleged Mate through the airlock.
This ain't cuckoo--it's _code_! Go on, chum! I'm getting it!"
For:
"S ... p ... a ... r ... k ... s," Lancelot Biggs was left-righting to
me, "g ... o ... t t ... o b ... e b ... r ... i ... e ... f. Power
limited. Tell Chief line inner hull posi-charge steel lining, throw
nega-circuit through outer. Have Todd revise course to following
trajectory...."
I'll spare you the rest. It was all technical. So technical, in fact,
that I couldn't make head or tail of it. There wasn't a man aboard the
_Saturn_ who could. It was, furthermore, absolute proof that we were
dealing with no spook, but with L. Biggs himself. For this was typical
"Biggsian" mathematics.
And he was right in saying his time was short. He was beginning to
fade before he had completed the algebraic and mechanical formulæ he
wigwagged to me. Toward the end I had to strain my eyes to find out
which hand he was wiggling. But I caught the last waves.
"Follow instructions blindly," he signaled, "and we'll soon be together
again. Luck! My love ... Diane...."
Then he was gone.
* * * * *
Boy, now, I'll tell you the following hours were hectic. Our normal
complement is a twenty-men crew, of which only six men are engineers or
engine-room helpers. And the job Biggs had laid out for us was weighty
enough to stagger the resources of a Patrol repairship.
But Hanson turned on the heat, and when the Old Man shoots the juice,
things hop! We drafted everyone on board. Staff, crew, engine-room,
Ordinaries--even Slops and the mess boy burned blisters on the pinkies
performing the task Biggs had assigned us.
Most of us bent to our labors eagerly. Myself, for instance--I didn't
know what Biggs had in mind, or what the final result of our efforts
would be. But I knew damned well that Biggs never gave purposeless
orders. Some good would be the end of this fantastic webwork of plates,
wires and coils we were weaving through, in and about the _Saturn_.
Diane, despite the fact that her hands soon became raw and sore,
insisted on doing a share of the manual labor.
"I must, Sparks!" she declared. "I'd never respect myself again if I
didn't help in some small way. Because he promised this would bring us
together again. Where, I don't know--" She straightened, staring at me
speculatively. "I don't know!" she whispered. "Sparks--he never told
us where he is!"
"He didn't have time," I reassured her. "His power was limited, he
said. But everything's going to be O.Q."
But later, Dick Todd raised the same point, when I spoke to him in the
control-turret. He had been checking the course Biggs had designated.
Now, frowning, he laid his computations before me.
"You see what this means, Bert?"
"Yeah," I said, looking at the rumpled sheet. "It means you ought to
wash your hands more often. Well, what?"
"This course," said Todd nervously, "sets a direct trajectory
to--_Jupiter_!"
I said, "O.Q. So it sets a direct traj--_What did you say?_"
"Jupiter!" repeated Todd miserably. "I've checked and rechecked it. I
can't be wrong." He stared at me, small dancing lights of fear in his
eyes. "Sparks," he whispered, "that _was_ Biggs we saw, wasn't it?"
"If it wasn't," I told him, "I'm a ring-tailed baboon. And no cracks!"
"But everyone seems to be taking it for granted he is still _alive_."
Todd fidgeted nervously. "That his orders will help us, somehow.
Suppose--suppose, Sparks, our _first_ hunch was right, after all? That
Biggs is really dead? And that it _was_ his ghost we saw?"
I wet my suddenly dry lips. "Go on!" I said.
"They say the dead are lonely," husked Todd. "And Biggs, who died in
the loneliness of negative space might be doubly so. Suppose he wants
company. After all, he didn't promise us success. He only said, 'We'll
soon be together.' But where, Sparks--where? In this world, or--"
I shook myself savagely. I couldn't deny that his words had given me
a bad case of icicles on the vertebræ. I knew something else, though,
too. That Lancelot Biggs, alive or dead, had never yet given me a bum
steer. And that I, for one, meant to see this thing through--or bust!
Bust! I didn't like that word, either. Not when I thought of our new
course, and us blasting hell-for-leather toward massive, crushing
Jupiter.
* * * * *
Then somehow twenty-four hours, Earth standard, had passed. And by
labors verging on the miraculous, we had completed the task set before
us. And now, with the second part of Biggs' instruction before us, we
were standing in the control turret of the weirdly altered _Saturn_,
watching the small hand of the chronometer creep toward the thin black
mark that represented our deadline.
Cap Hanson, who had been a bulwark of strength when there was work to
do, was as squirmy as a hen on a cactus egg now that all we had to do
was wait. He paced anxiously back and forth between the control-banks
and the visiplate. Once he squinted through the perilens and turned to
me nervously.
"You're _sure_ you got that message right, Bert?" he demanded for maybe
the thousandth time. "You couldn't have made a mistake."
"I could have," I reassured him, "but I'll bet you my pension I didn't.
I've been pushing keys for too long not to get my did-da-dits straight,
Skipper."
"We're awfully close to Jupiter," scowled the Old Man. "_Awfully_
close. I--I don't like it. Not only that--but we're running away from
Europa as fast as we can. If the Corporation ever finds out about
this--"
"They can't miss," I said. "They know how long it should have taken us
to get to Europa. Matter of fact, Cap, we should be landing there right
now. We're going to lose a little time in establishing those claims.
But if by losing a little time we can find Lanse Biggs again, why--"
"_Awfully_ close!" complained the skipper. He turned to Todd suddenly.
"Dick--we can't risk it! There must be a mistake somewhere. Jupiter
fills all space before us. If we get caught in its gravitational power,
we'll all be killed.
"We've got to turn back. Send the message down to the engine-room.
Reverse motors and lift!"
Diane cried, "Daddy! But Lanse--"
"I'm sorry, honey. But we can't risk twenty lives and a quarter million
credits' worth of Corporation property on the hazard of finding one
man. Give the order, Mr. Todd!"
Todd said willingly, "Aye, sir!" and reached out to push the audio
stud. My heart sank. The needle was almost upon the split second that
should have seen us putting Biggs' mysterious plan into operation. I
yelled, "Skipper, _please_!"
"Give the order, Todd!" repeated Hanson regretfully.
But Todd's hand never reached the button. For just then there came a
terrific, straining lunge of the ship; the floor seemed to slip beneath
my feet, I toppled headlong to my knees. Plates groaned and creaked in
metal agony. I felt a sensation of wild acceleration, a dizzying sense
of speed intensified, plunging us forward--downward--
And Todd cried, "Too late! Too late, Skipper! God help us--we're
falling onto Jupiter!"
* * * * *
I told you folks say I'm hard-boiled. People also claim I'm a wingding.
They say lots of things about me--none of them nice. But I'll say this
one thing for myself in self-defense. That once in a million times I
show a good streak of common sense.
This was one of those times. While everyone else was wailing and
hollering and going off the top of their buds, I got smart and carried
on.
I roared, "Dammit all, Lanse _knew_ this was going to happen, and
planned for it. Depress that No. 3 lever, Todd! Shoot the juice through
those coils we've been building!"
And Todd was so rattled that he obeyed me. Like I told you before, we'd
created a wild-looking network of wires all over the framework of the
_Saturn_. We had even constructed a whole new inner hull, juicing it
according to some diagram that didn't appear to make sense.
Now rheostats rheostated and condensers condense and the air got so
full of electricity that my teeth began to hum like bees in a bathtub.
And it got hot in the control-turret. But--
But our frightful plunging motion ceased! Not just like _that_, you
know; I don't mean we stopped stock-still and hung motionless in space.
But we drifted into an easy glide. A gentle, leaf-in-the-breeze sort of
motion.
Cap Hanson's jaw fell down to his fourth button. A gasp worked its way
up out of his lumbar region. "It--it's impossible!" he said. "I--I
don't believe it!"
I didn't either. For what we were seeing mirrored on the turret
visiplate was something no man in the universe had ever seen
before--and lived to tell about it. We were seeing the troposphere, the
stratosphere, the surface atmosphere of the massive planet Jupiter at
easy visual range. And we were drifting to solid ground so gently that
we were in no more danger than a parachutist approaching a field full
of sofa cushions!
It didn't even occur to me, then, to notice how far off the scientists
had been in attributing fantastic characteristics to unstudied
Jupiter. Because its density was so much less than Earth's, they had
envisioned it as a gaseous or semi-liquid planet. Which was so much
hogwash. It was a normal-sized core surrounded by blankets, thousands
of miles deep, of atmosphere. It was lush, luxuriant, green. Steamy
with vapors, riotous with vegetable life. Protected by its swaddling
clothes, it was the most likely abode of life Man had ever found
outside his native Earth!
But as I say, I scarcely noticed this at first. I was conscious only of
my own pulse-numbing astonishment, of the casual, lazy motion of our
ship, of Captain Hanson gasping beside me in a cracked, incredulous
voice, "Anti-gravitation! _He's found it!_"
Our task was not yet done. The instructions called for the lifting and
depression of a dozen more studs. But by now, Dick Todd--who is a damn
sight better navigator than he is a mental giant--was hunched over his
controls playing the intricate keys like a master organist.
In three hours that sped by like as many minutes we had gained the
surface of Jupiter. We sought the declension points Biggs' ghost had
set forth to us. We hovered over the juncture ... spotted a small,
glistening mote of silver beneath us ... lowered on our amazing
anti-gravitational beam. It was a perfect landing. Less than an eighth
of a mile from the lean, gangling, radiant, unspace-suited figure who
came racing across the field toward us--
* * * * *
Afterward, when everyone had stopped trying to talk at once, and a
modicum of coherence worked its way into our glad reunion, I pressed
Biggs for explanations. He grinned in that amiable, modest way of his.
"Why, it wasn't much, really, Sparks," he protested. "I never was lost
in hyper-space, of negative space, at all! You see, when I cut myself
loose in the life-skiff from the 'infinite mass' of the _Saturn_, in
order to reestablish the ship's finiteness, I also made my _own_ craft
finite again. Which is pure common sense. Anything less than infinite
is necessarily finite--"
"Comes the dawn," I groaned. "And I like to think I've got brains. But
go on!"
"Well, by sheer accident, the spot in space where I became finite
again happened to be here. On the surface of Jupiter. I was pretty
much surprised, as you can guess, to learn that this is a definitely
habitable planet. Good air, plenty of food and water--no handicaps but
its tremendous bulk." He sobered momentarily. "None of the others who
ever crashed here survived, I guess," he said. "I've found three or
four spaceships, broken to bits--
"Well, anyway--I realized that the only way for me to ever get away was
to find some method of counteracting the planet's terrific gravity.
And it suddenly occurred to me that the answer lay in a laboratory
curiosity created way back in the 20th Century. A piece of magnetized
steel that floated within upright supports above a counter-magnetized
plate.
"I adapted this principle and gave it a few refinements of my own. The
instructions I gave you created a dual-magnet hull for the _Saturn_.
Inner hull positively charged, outer hull negative. Counterbalance,
you see. The outside of the ship repelled the gravitational attraction
of Jupiter so strongly that it could never have landed. The inner hull
tempered the effect of the outer so that an easy, drifting motion was
obtained. You could vary the speed of this simply by altering the
amount of E.M.F. running through the coils--"
"We discovered that," interrupted the Old Man. "But you still haven't
told us, son, about your 'ghost.' You like to scared the almighty hell
out of all of us. How--"
Lance grinned shyly.
"Well, I can't take credit for that, Skipper. You see, it was sheer
accident. I found a deposit of some strange new substance here on
Jupiter with the most peculiar properties. The stuff seems to polarize
light at its source--and reorganize it into a tri-dimensional image at
a distance which can be controlled by electric power.
"When I discovered that my own life-skiff couldn't make the long trip
to Europa or Io, I decided to project my image out into space in the
hope I'd find someone. The telekaleidoscopic rays--I guess we can call
'em that till we get a better name--are naturally attracted to metals.
This cut down the haphazardness of the attempt.
"It was sheer chance, though, that you should be my rescuers. Though I
might have known you wouldn't abandon me without a long search. I--I'm
mighty grateful to you, sir."
His words struck Hanson like a thunder-clap. And the Old Man groaned.
"_Omigawd!_"
"What's wrong, Skipper?"
"I just remembered--we was supposed to be on Europa twenty-four hours
ago! By this time, all the available claims will be gobbled up. When
the Corporation learns about this, we're all going to be sunk!"
Diane said indignantly, "Ridiculous! You've made the first landing on
Jupiter, Daddy. Surely that should be enough glory for them."
"That's glory," admitted Hanson dolefully, "but it ain't enough glory
for _them_. I know this outfit, honey. I been working for them, man and
boy, for nigh onto forty years. Their motto is: Get all you can and
then some!
"It ain't going to matter to them that we found our lost First,
discovered anti-grav, and made the first landing on a new planet. No
sirree! They sent us out to find polarium deposits, and if we don't
come home with the best claim--"
Biggs said, "Polarium? Did you say polarium, Cap?"
"That's what I said," groaned the skipper. "Now be a good boy, Lanse.
Go 'way and let me suffer in peace."
"Why," grinned Biggs, "I don't believe there's any reason to suffer,
Captain. Because, you see, that strange new substance I mentioned--the
one out of which I constructed my telekaleidoscope--is polarium! There
are tremendous deposits of it here on Jupiter. Why not? This is the
mother planet of Europa--"
* * * * *
So--there you are! That's Lancelot Biggs for you. Screwball, genius,
wizard and luck-box extraordinary. Toss him in a mud puddle and he'll
come up clutching a diamond every time. Not once in a while. Every time.
And I guess it was just about now that the Old Man slipped me the
high-sign to drag hips out of there.
"Look, Sparks," he suggested, "how about you and me take a little walk
and explore this here new planet?"
I said, "Oh, I'm quite comfortable here, Cap--"
He jabbed an elbow into my ribs ferociously. "Are you coming
peaceable?" he hissed, "or do I have to pull off your leg and beat you
over the head with the bloody stump?"
I got it then. Diane and Biggs. They were eyeing each other like two
marshmallows ready to melt. So I said, "Well, all right, Skipper. If
you want to. 'Bye, folks!"
And do you know--they never even heard me?
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