Spacehounds of IPC

edean

ress became faster and faster. Large as the "Forlorn Hope" was, space was soon at a premium, for their peculiarly-shaped craft became a veritable factory, housing a variety of machinery and equipment unknown in any si

Hope." All high-tension apparatus was shielded and grounded, so that no stray impulses could reveal to the possible detectors of the Jovians the presence of this foreign power plant. Housings, frames, spiders, all stationary parts were rough, crude and massive; but bearings, shafts, armatures, all moving parts, were of a polished and finished accuracy and balance that promised months and years of trouble-free operation. Everything ready for the test, Stevens took off his frayed and torn leather coveralls and moccasins and climbed nimbly up the penstock. He never walke

cing at the sun, he noted tha

e boss just loves to wait meal

eetheart that the long awaited moment had arrived-

led. "How come you no blow the dinner

A rapid tour of inspection quickly confirmed that which he already knew only too well. Forgotten was his hunger, forgotten the power plant, forgotten ever

h heavy steel at every point, and the lenses of the helmet, already of unbreakable glass, had been re-enforced with thick steel bars. Tank and valves supplied air at normal pressure, so that his powerful body could function at full efficiency, not handicapped by the lighter atmosphere of Ganymede. The sleeves terminated in steel-protected rubber wristlets which left his hands free, yet sheltered from attack-wristlets tight enough to maintain the difference in pressure, yet not tight enough to cut off the circulation. He took up his mighty war-bow and the full quiver of heavy arrows-full-feathered and pointed with savagel

at he could do it, but what it takes to do things, he's got lots of," she continued to improvise the song as she left the "Hope" with its multitudinous devices whose

t upon her work. She was thinking of Stevens, of their love, of the power which he might turn on that very day, and of the possible rescue for which she had hitherto scarcely dared to hope. Thus it was that she walked miles beyond

-like creature, much larger than anything she had as yet seen. But it was meat and her time was short, therefore she crept within range and loosed an arrow with the full power of her hunting bow. Unfamiliar as she was with the anatomy of the peculiar creature, the arrow did not

us flower, at least a foot in diameter and indescribably beautiful in its crimson and golden splendor. Almost level with her head the gorgeous blossom waved upon its heavy stem; based by a massive cluster of enormous, smooth, dark green leaves. Entranced by this unexpected and marvelous floral display, Nadia breathed deeply of the inviting fragrance-and collapsed

upon the scene there crashed a vegetable-animal nightmare-the paren

ctor base composed of extensible leaves which by their contraction and expansion propelled the mass along the ground. Parent and child fell upon the hexaped and soon bones and hair were all that remained The slender shoots then wandered about the unconscious girl in her strange covering, and as a couple of

ound that district. Finally he saw a few freshly broken twigs, and scanned the scene with care. He soon found the trail of fresh blood which marked the path of the flight of the hexaped, and with the peculiar maneuverability of the device he was using, it was not long until he was studying the scene where the encounter had taken place. He gasped when he saw the bones and perceived three of Nadia's arrows, but soon saw tha

er now flowing was ample to operate the lookout plates, yet it would be many hours before

ll x," he muttered savagely, as he took careful note of the location

nster, well equipped with mighty weapons of offense and defense. Well it was for the struggling man that he was encased in armor steel as those saw-edged, hard-spiked leaves drove against him with crushing force; well it was for him that he had his own independent air supply, so that that deadly perfume eddied ineffective about his helmeted head! Hard and fiercely driven as those terrible thorns were, they could do no more than dent his heavy armor. His powerful left arm, driving the double-razor-edged dirk in short, resistless arcs, managed to keep the snaky tendrils from coiling about his right

He stopped, astounded, and started to unscrew his helmet, whereupon she dashed back toward him, signaling him emphatically to leave his armor exactly as it was. He stood still and stared at her, an exasperated question large upon his face, until she made clear to him that he was to follow her at a safe distance, then she set off at a rapid walk. She led him back to where the hexaped had fallen, where she retrieved her bow and arrows; then, keeping a sharp lookout upon all sides, she went on to a small s

of fire! I thought maybe you were still a little cuckoo. Anaesthetic perfume, huh? Hot stuff,

him sharply, "Forget it-d

long way from home. Don't know whether I could find my way back in the dark or not; and just between yo

d him, fervently. "I'd lots rat

gry as a wolf, too, now that I have time to think of it. We'll eat and de

fire blazing in front of the retreat. There they ate of the provisions Stevens had brought. Then, while the man rolled

tream of energy into his accumulators. He thought of the ultra radio-where could he get all the materials needed? He thought of his friends, wondering whether or not they would receive his message. He thought o

ickering ruddy light throughout the little cavern. Nadia lay there her head pillowed upon one strong, brown little hand. Her lips were red and sweetly curved, her cheek was smooth and firm as so much brown velvet. She was lit

turbed her, and even in her sleep her subconscious mind sent out an exploring hand, to touch her Steve and thus be reassured. He pressed her hand and she settled back comfor

d away, the fragrance of roasting meat permeated the atmosphere, and Nadia was making a

she exclaimed. "Roll out or roll up! C

hen he saw that she had shot a bird and had cooked brea

in ten minutes, swinging this frightful snickersnee of yours. Why, you played with it as thoug

n mentioned?" he tried to steer the talk

't mind talking about you-it's thinking about

I get you rig

ly had they started however, than Nadia's keen eyes saw a movement through the trees, and, sh

lie low," he instructed her as he screwed on

Aren't you coming i

mor-thank Heaven we made it as solid as we did-and I'll fight 'e

rrows into position over his shoulder, placed one at the ready on his bow-string and turned to face the horde of things rushing up the valley toward him. Wild animals he had supposed them, but as he stood firm and raised his weapon shril

ue to a mid-section jointing of the six-foot-long, almost cylindrical body, could be used at will as either legs or arms. Now, out of range, as they supposed, they halted and gathered about one who was apparently t

that mighty bow twanged a yard-long arrow transfixed at least one of the red horde-and a body through which had torn one of those ghastly, hand-forged arrow-heads was of very little use thereafter. Accurately-sped arrows splintered harmlessly against the re-enforced windows of his helmet and against the steel guards protecting his hands. He was almost deafened by the din as the stone missiles of the slingers rebounded from his reverberating shell of steel, but he fired carefully, steadily, and powerfully until his last arrow had been loosed. Then, the wicked dirk in his left hand and the long and heavy saber weaving a circular

nsters threw themselves upon the prostrate man, but not sufficiently versed in armor to seek out its joints, their fierce short spear thrusts did no damage. Presently four more corpses lay still and Stevens, with his, to them incredible, earthly strength, was once more upon his feet in spite of their utmost efforts to pinion his mighty limbs,

ing away the boulders. "Didn't get

in the battle, I guess. Did they hurt you while the

get through. 'Sa darn small opening there, too-must have bent my foot 'way around to get in at all. Have to tighten that joint up a

e, that cleaver of yours is a frightful thing i

and something tells me that we'd better make it snappy. Th

the sight of that--let alone wade through

now that it's all over! It's a pretty ghastly mess, I k

of that place yet?" sh

"but you're sitting pretty, aren't you? And you

crack I won't play with you any more at

the way back across the foothills Stevens shot another hexaped, and upon the plateau above the river Nadia bagged several birds and smal

o wearing armor while we're hunting. It scared me o

not going to get more than a meter away from you from

hi

ot

tching plant, or they may be a link between the animal and the vegetable kingdom. However, we don't intend to study 'em, so

civilized races

es, each struggling toward civilization. They ce

s? Things have been so calm and peaceful that we thought we had th

probably a high-altitude organism, living in the mountains and never coming as low as we are down here. As for the savages-whatever they are-they probably never

ch about our new

ore about it until we get organized for trouble, either. Well, her

Stevens had read his meters, learning with satisfaction that the full cu

running at last, what next?" asked

ned up except for the tube, but that's got me stopped cold. You see, fields of force are all right in most places, but I've got to have one tube, and it's got to have the hardest possible vacuum. That means a mercury-vapor super pump. Mercury is absolutely the only thing that will do the trick and the m

after the perfectly unbelievable things that you have done already-but I see n

tube-a fifty-kilowatter, at least. I'd give my left leg to the knee joint for one of those

up those tubes and us

ldn't possibly work them over into a big one. Then, too, we haven't got many spare tubes, and if I smash the ones we're using, I put o

me there's no mercury

of satellites, you come to the same conclusion-that heavy metals are either absent or most awfully scarce and buried deep down toward the center. There are lots of heavy metals in Jupiter somewhere, but we probably couldn't find them. Jupiter's atmosphere is one mass of fog, and we couldn't see, since we haven't got an infra-r

're..." Nadia broke off,

out to drift it. I was thinking only of building the tube. And I'm tr

uliar for something or other. But what has Cantrell's Comet got to do with the

l after they built those thousand-foot reflectors on the Moon, where the seeing is always perfect, but it has been studied a lot since then. Its nucleus is small, but extremely heavy-it seems to have an av

face, then disappeared as rapidly as it had come into

d speaking of vacuum ... whoopee! We don't need mercury any more than a goldfish needs a gas-mask. When we get Mr. Tube done, we'll take him out into space, leaving his mouth op

asionally, don't you? But how do we get o

we've got some field-generators here on board that I can use, so it won't be so bad. And our comet is in this part of

hink. It's a good thing you kept the chronometers g

even on our plate, since we'll be out of this atmosphere. And it might not be a bad idea for us to get away, anyway. I'm afraid of those folks on that space-ship, whoever they were, and they must live around here somewhere. Cantrell's Comet swings about fifty million kilometers outside Jupiter's o

om now on, in whatever you think best to do. I know that

y event, since we'll have to have them in case the radio fails. You'd better lay in a lot of supplies while I'm working on that stuff, but don't go out of sight, and yell like fury if you see anything. We'd both better we

ptor units which would connect his great turbo-alternator to the accumulators of their craft, wherever it might be in space. From the force-field generators of the "Forl

was finished, and the beam transmitter was almost ready to

ctorily surveying the surrounding territory. "They're coming! Thousands of them! They'r

for them," he commented grimly, as he stared over her shoulder into the communicator plate

l those rays and

m Brandon, but never paid any attention to it. I've got some nice ultra-violet, though, and a short-wave oscillatory that'll cook an elephant to a cinder in about eight seconds.

e was neither shrieking nor yelling; the weird creatures advanced silently and methodically. Here and

right now. They're going to throw rocks at us that'll have both mass and momentum. With those things they can cave in our

the target. The huge stranded springs of hair, fiber, and sinew were wound up to the limit, and enormous masses of rock were toilsomely rolled upon the platforms. Each "gunner" seized his trip, and as the leader shrieked his signal the six ponderous masses of metalliferous rock heaved into the air as one. Bu

barbaric urgings. Horns and arms tossed fiercely, savage noises rent the air, and arrows splintered harmlessly u

power plug. Pretty soon somebody's going to touch a hot sp

g the triplex lead and joined his followers at its terminus. Pointing with his horns, he jabbered orders and three red monsters, one at each cable, bent to lift the plug, while the leader himself thrust an arm into each of the three contact holes. There was a flash of se

ures that the demons of the falls had indeed been annoyed beyond endurance by their intrusion; for, as if in response to the flash of fire from the power plug, that structure so peculiarly and so stolidly hanging in the air came plunging down toward them. From it there reached down twin fans of death and destr

erever that wide-sweeping fan encountered combustible material. In the face of power supernatural they lost all thought of attack or of conquest, and sought only and madly to escape. Weapons were thrown away

at this falls was inhabited by devils or not, they think so now. I'll bet that it will be six hundred Jovian years before any of them ever come within a hundr

ust said that we have sc

ect detectors all over the system, and it's up to us to get this beam projector set up,

ing the highest acceleration Nadia could endure. Hour after hour the massive wedge of steel bored outward, away from Jupiter; hour after hour Stevens' anxious eyes scanned his instruments; hour aft

al of Interplanetary Life and T

rk of Space," an

RT

ounds

n it has a hyperbolic orbit, which would make it impossible to come back. Yet it may return-apparently contradicting the geometry of conic sections. This only goes to prove once more that it i

e" and then continue

Went

evens, designer of space ships and computer. He checks computations made by astronomers stationed in floating observatories, and after he has located any trouble and sugg

vessel. Nadia has herself had a good science education. While they are down at the bottom of the ship-nearing the end of their tour-Stevens feels a barely perceptible movement o

ntly effective vigilance of the enemy destroyer, Stevens and Nadia make their getaway in the lifeboat, which they aptly call "Forlorn Hope," and finally make a safe landing on Ganymede, where Stevens plans to bu

to start for Cantrell's Comet, where Stevens believes he can obtain the necessary metal for his giant transmitting tube, they experien