you see it here, was discovered but a short time ago, in a small, rocket-propelled space-
ship which we found some distance outside of the orbit of Jupiter. Its source of power
had been destroyed by the cold of outer space, but re-powering it was, of course, a
small matter. The crew of the vessel were all dead. They were, however, of human
stock, and of a type adapted for life upon a satellite. I deduce, from your compact
structure, your enormous atmospheric pressure, and your to us unbelievably high body
temperature, that you must be planet-dwellers. I suppose that you are natives of Jupiter
?”
“Not quite.” Stevens had in a measure recovered from his stunned surprise. “We
are from Tellus, the third planet,” and he revealed rapidly the events leading up to their
present situation, concluding: “The people in the other sphere were, we believe, natives
of Jupiter or of one of the satellites. We know nothing of them, since we could not look
through their screens. You rescued us from them; do you not know them?”
“No. Our visirays also were stopped by their screens of force—screens entirely
foreign to our science. This is the first time that any vessel from our Saturnian system
has ever succeeded in reaching the neighborhood of Jupiter. We came in peace, but
they attacked us at sight and we were obliged to destroy them. Now we must hurry back
to Titan, for two reasons. First, because we are already at the extreme limit of our power
range, and Jupiter is getting further and further away from Saturn. Second, because our
mirrors, which we had thought perfect reflectors of all frequencies possible of
generation, are not perfect. Enough of those forces came through the mirrors to
volatilize half our crew, and in a few minutes more none of us would have been left
alive. Why, in some places our very atmosphere became almost hot enough to melt
water! If another of those vessels should attack us, in all probability we should all be
lost. Therefore we are leaving, as rapidly as is possible.”
“You are taking the pieces of our ship along—we do not want to encumber you.”
“It is no encumbrance, since we have ample supplies of power. In fact, we are
now employing the highest acceleration we Titanians can endure for any length of time.”
Stevens pondered long, forgetting that his thoughts were plain as print to the
Titanian commander. Thank Heaven these strangers had sense enough to be friendly—
all intelligent races should be friends, for mutual advancement. But it was a mighty long
stretch to Saturn and this acceleration wasn’t so much—how long would it take to get
there? Could they get back? Wouldn’t they save time by casting themselves adrift,
making the repairs most urgently needed, and going back to Ganymede under their own
power —but would they have enough power left in the wreck to get even that far? And
how about the big tube? He was interrupted by an insistent thought from Barkovis.
“You will save time, Stevens, by coming with us to Titan. There we shall aid you
in repairing your vessel and in completing your transmitting tube, in which we shall be
deeply interested. Our power plants shall supply you with energy for your return journey
until you are dose enough to Jupiter to recover your own beam. You are tired. I would
suggest that you rest—that you sleep long and peacefully.”
“You seem to be handling the Forlorn Hop? without any trouble—the pieces
aren’t grinding at all. We’d better live there, hadn’t we?”
“Yes, that would be best, for all of us. You could not live a minute here without
your suits; and, efficiently insulated as those suits are, yet your incandescent body
temperature makes our rooms unbearably hot—so hot that any of us must wear a
space-suit while in the same room with you, to avoid being burned to death.”
The “incandescently hot” Terrestrials were wafted into the open airlock of their
lifeboat upon a wand of force, and soon had prepared a long overdue supper, over
which Stevens cast his infectious, boyish grin at Nadia.
“Sweetheart, you are undoubtedly a ‘warm number’, and you have often
remarked that I ‘burn you up’. Nevertheless I think that we were both considerably
surprised to discover that we are both hot enough actually to consume persons
unfortunate enough to be confined in the same room with us!”
“You’re funny, Steve—like a crutch,” she rebuked him, but smiled back sunnily,
an elusive dimple playing in one lovely brown cheek. “Looking right through anybody is
too ghastly for words, but I think they’re perfectly all x, anyway, in spite of their being so
hideous and so cold-blooded, so there!”
CHAPTER 6 A Frigid Civilization
I, Percival van Schravendyck Stevens!” Nadia strode purposefully into Stevens’ room
and seized him by the shoulder. “Are you going to sleep all the way to Saturn? You
answered me when I pounded on the partition with a hammer, but I don’t believe that
you woke up at all. Get up, you—breakfast will be all spoiled directly!”
“Huh?” Stevens opened one sluggish eye; then, as the full force of the insult
penetrated his consciousness, he came wide awake. “Lay off those names, ace, or
you’ll find yourself walking back home!” he threatened.
“All x by me!” she retorted. “I might as well go home if you’re going to sleep all
the time!” and she widened her expressive eyes at him impishly as she danced blithely
back into the control room. As she went out she slammed his door with a resounding
clang, and Stevens pried himself out of his bunk one joint at a time, dressed, and made
himself presentable.
“Gosh!” he yawned mightily as he joined the girl at breakfast. “I don’t know when
I’ve had such a gorgeous sleep. How do you get by on so little ?”
“I don’t. I sleep a lot, but I do it every night, instead of working for four days and
nights on end and then trying to make up all those four nights’ sleep at once. I’m going
to break you of that, too, Steve, if it’s the last thing I ever do.”
“There might be certain advantages in it, at that,” he conceded, “but sometimes
you’ve got to work when it’s got to be done, instead of just between sleeps. However, I’ll
try to do better. Certainly is a wonderful relief to get out of that mess, isn’t it ?”
“I’ll say it is! But I wish that those folks were more like people. They’re nice, I
think, really, but they’re so . . . so . . . well, so darn-awfully ghastly that it simply gives
me the blue shivers just to look at one of them!”
“They’re pretty gruesome, no fooling,” he agreed, “but you get used to things like
that. I just about threw a fit the first time I ever saw a Martian, and the Venerians are
even worse in some ways—they’re so clammy and dead-looking —but now I’ve got real
friends on both planets. One thing, though, gives me the pip. I read a story a while
ago—that latest best-seller thing of Thornton’s, named ‘Interstellar Slush’ or some such
tr . . . ”
” ‘Cleophora—An Interstellar Romance,’ ” she corrected him. “I thought it was
wonderful!”
“I didn’t. It’s fundamentally unsound. Look at our nearest neighbors, who
probably came from the same original stock we did. A Tellurian can admire, respect, or
like a Venerian, yes. But for loving one of them—Phooie!” and he held his nose in a
pantomime of disgust. “Beauty is purely relative, you know. For instance, I think that you
are the most perfectly beautiful thing I ever saw; but no Venerian would. He’d think you
were something his cat had caught and dragged in by mistake. Any Martian that hadn’t
seen many of us would have to go rest his eyes after taking one good look at you.
Considering what love means, it doesn’t stand to reason that any Tellurian woman could
possibly fall in love with any man not of her own breed. Any writer is cuckoo who
indulges in inter-planetary love affairs and mad passions. They simply don’t exist. They
can’t exist—they’re against all human instincts.”
“Inter-planetary—in this solar system—yes. But the Dacrovos were just like us,
only nicer.”
“That’s what gives me the pip. If our own cousins of the same solar system are
so repulsive to us, how would we be affected by entirely alien forms of intelligence ?”
“Maybe you’re right, of course—but you may be wrong, too,” she insisted. “The
Universe is big enough so that people like the Dacrovos may possibly exist in it
somewhere. Maybe the Big Three will discover a means of interstellar travel—then I’ll
get to see them myself, perhaps.”
“Yes, and if we do, and if you ever see any such people, I’ll bet that the sight of
them will make your hair curl right up into a ball, too! But about Barkovis—remember