scared sick—but how was I to think that a wonder-girl like you could ever love a guy like
me ? You certainly are the gamest little partner a man ever had. You’re the world’s
straightest shooter, ace—you’re a square brick if there ever was one. Your sheer nerve
in being willing to go the whole route makes me love you more than ever, if such a thing
can be possible, and it certainly puts a new face on the whole cock-eyed Universe for
me. However, I don’t believe it will come to that. After what you’ve just said, I sure will
lick that job, regardless of how many different factories it takes to” make one
armature—I’ll show that mess of scrap-iron what kind of trees make shingles!”
The girl still in his arms, he rose to his feet and released her slowly, reluctantly,
unwilling ever to let her go. Then he shook himself, as though an overwhelming burden
had been lifted from his shoulders, and laughed happily.
“See this cigarette ?” he went on lightly. “The Last of the Mohicans. I’m going to
smoke it in honor of our engagement.” He drew the fragrant smoke deep into his lungs
and frowned at her in mock seriousness.
“This would be a nice world to live on, of course, but the jobs here are too darn
steady. It also seems to be somewhat lacking in modern conveniences, such as steel-
mills and machine tools. Then, too, it is just a trifle too far from the Royal and Ancient for
you really to enjoy living here permanently, and besides, I can’t get my favorite brand of
cigarettes around here. Therefore, after due deliberation, I don’t believe we’ll take the
place—we’ll go back to Tellus. Kiss me just once more, ace, and I’ll make that job think
a cyclone has struck it right on the center of impact. Like Samuel Weller, or whoever it
was, I’m clear full of Vigor, wim, and witality’!”
The specified kiss and several others duly delivered he strode blithely away, and
the little canyon resounded with the blows of his heavy sledge as he attacked with
renewed spirit the great forging, white-hot from his soak-pit, which was to become the
shaft of his turbo-alternator. Nadia watched him for a moment, her very heart in her
eyes, then picked up her spanner and went after more steel, breathing a long and
tremulous, but supremely happy sigh.
CHAPTER 4 Ganymedean Life
Slow, hard, and disheartening as the work had been at first, Stevens had never
slackened his pace, and after a time, as his facilities increased, the exasperating
setbacks decreased in number and severity and his progress 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 single Earthly industrial plant. Nothing was ornamental— everything
was stripped to its barest fundamental necessities—but every working part functioned
with a smooth precision to delight the senses of any good mechanic.
In a cavern under the falls was the great turbine, to be full-fed by the crude but
tight penstock which clung to the wall of the gorge, angling up to the brink of that
stupendous cataract. Bedded down upon solid rock there was a high-tension alternator
capable of absorbing the entire output of the mighty turbine. This turbo-alternator was
connected to a set of converters from which the energy would flow along three great
copper cables—the receptors of the lifeboats being altogether too small to carry the
load—to the now completely exhausted accumulators of the Forlorn 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, every stationary part, 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—he never
walked down—and climbed nimbly up the penstock. Opening the head-gate, he poised
sharply upon its extremity and took off in a perfect swan-dive; floating unconcernedly
downward toward that boiling maelstrom two hundred feet below. He struck the water
with a sharp, smooth “slup!” and raced ashore, seizing his suit as he ran toward the
turbo-alternator. It was running smoothly, and, knowing that everything was tight at the
receiving end, he lingered about the power plant until he was assured that nothing
would go wrong and that his home-distilled lubricating oil and grease would keep those
massive bearings cool.
Hunger assailed him, and glancing at the sun he noted that it was well past
dinner-time.
“Wow!” he exclaimed aloud. “The boss just loves to wait meals—she’ll burn me
up for this!”
He ran lightly toward “home”, eager to tell his sweetheart that the long-awaited
moment had arrived—that power was now flowing into their accumulators.
“Hi, Diana of the silver bow!” he called. “How come you no blow the dinner bell?
Power’s on—come give it a look!”
There was no answer to his hail, and Stevens paused in shocked amazement.
He knew that never of her own volition would she be out so late—Nadia was gone! A
rapid tour of inspection quickly confirmed that which he already knew only too well.
Forgotten was his hunger, forgotten the power plant, forgotten everything except the
fact that his Nadia, the buoyant spirit in whom centered his Universe, was lost or . . . he
could not complete the thought, even to himself.
Swiftly he came to a decision and threw off his suit, revealing the body of a
Hercules—a body ready for any demand he could put upon it. Always in hard training,
months of grinding physical labor and of heavy eating had built him up to a point at
which he would scarcely have recognized himself, could he have glanced into a mirror.
Mighty but pliable muscles writhed and swelled under his clear skin as he darted here
and there, selecting equipment for what lay ahead of him. He donned the heavily
armored space-suit which they had prepared months before, while they were still
suspicious of possible attack. It was covered with heavy steel at every point, and the
lenses of the helmet, already of unbreakable glass, had been re-enforced with thick
steel bars. Tanks 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 savagely
barbed, tearing heads of forged steel—and slipped into their sheaths the long and
heavy razor-sharp sword and the double-edged dirk, which, he had made and ground
long since for he knew not what emergency and whose bell-shaped hilts of steel further
protected his hands and wrists. Thus equipped, he had approximately his normal
Earthly weight; a fact which would operate to his advantage, rather than otherwise, in
case of possible combat. With one last look around the Forlorn Hope, whose every
fitting shrieked aloud to him of the beloved mistress who was gone, he filled a container
with water and cooked food and opened the door.
* * * * *
“It won’t be long now, now it won’t be long,” Nadia caroled happily, buckling on her pack
straps and taking up bow and arrows for her daily hunt. “I never thought that 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 very variety was a never-
failing delight to her; showing as it did the sheer ability of the man whose brain and
hands had almost finished a next-to-impossible task.
Through the canyon and up a well-worn trail she climbed, and soon came out
upon the sparsely timbered bench that was her hunting grounds. Upon this day,
however, she was full of happy anticipation and her mind was everywhere except 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 her usual limits without having loosed
an arrow, and she was surprised when she glanced up at the sun to see that half the
morning was gone and that she was almost to the foothills, beyond which rose a
towering range of mountains.
“Snap out of it, girl!” she reprimanded herself. “Go on wool-gathering like this and