Grotto of the Dancing Deer : And Other Stories

Hunger Death

Old Doc Trowbridge was napping in his office, with his feet on the desk and an empty bocca bottle on the floor beside him. Angus MacDonald, New Chicago’s marshal, shook him gently. Doc opened one eye and stared at Angus in mild reproach.

“Radium City wants to talk to the health officer,” announced Angus. “I guess that’s you.”

Doc pulled his feet off the desk and slowly rose. He rubbed his eyes and glanced at the marshal’s dripping raincoat.

“Still raining,” he remarked.

“Hell, it always rains on Venus,” said Angus.

Doc stretched his arms over his head and yawned.

“Better hurry along, Doc,” urged Angus. “Maybe some of the big doctors over at Radium City want to call you into consultation.”

Doc snorted. Once he might have been insulted by so thinly veiled sarcasm. But Doc now was past the possibility of being insulted. Ten years on Venus, a hand-to-mouth existence and rotten liquor had taken their toll.

Doc puffed into his raincoat and followed Angus down the rickety stairs. Rain beat at them as they stepped from the building and sloshed up the red mud slough that was the main street of New Chicago.

At the radio station on the edge of the landing field, the town’s only contact with the outside world, they were greeted by Angus’ son, Sandy.

“I’ll get Radium City for you,” said Sandy. “It sounded as if it might be important.”

“Nothing important ever happens in New Chicago,” Doc grumbled. “Nothing since old Jake Hansler died. And they blamed that on me.”

Sandy was speaking into the transmitter. “New Chicago calling Radium City. Answer please. New Chicago calling Radium City. Answer please.”

Out of the amplifier came the voice of the Radium City operator. “Radium City answering New Chicago. Have you located Dr. Trowbridge?”

“Just a second,” said Sandy.

He switched off the amplifier and handed Doc a set of headphones. Doc clamped them over his ears and lowered his rolypoly body into the operator’s chair. He hiccoughed slightly and spoke into the transmitter.

“This is Dr. Trowbridge,” he said.

“Dr. Trowbridge,” said the voice in Radium City, “my name is Tony Paulson. I am a reporter for the Inter-World Press Service. I’m just checking up on this new disease—the Hunger Disease. Have you any cases in New Chicago?”

“Hunger Disease,” snapped Doc. “What are you talking about? I never heard of such a disease.”

“This is something different,” said the voice. “A new disease. It has broken out all over Venus. Quite a few cases on Earth, too. Patient can’t seem to get enough to eat. That’s why we call it the Hunger Disease.”

“Never heard of it,” declared Doc.

“Are there any other doctors in New Chicago?” asked the reporter.

“No,” said Doc. “I’m the only one and they could get along without me. Practically starving me to death. Never saw a healthier place in all my life.”

“You’re sure there’s nobody sick in New Chicago,” persisted the newspaperman.

“Sure I’m sure,” protested Doc. “Last time anybody was sick here was when Steve Donagan’s kid, Susan, had the measles. And that was three months ago.”

“O.K.,” said the voice. “Thank you, doctor. Any other news out in New Chicago?”

“Not a damn thing ever happens here,” Doc declared.

“O.K.—good-by then, and thanks again.”

“Good-by,” said Doc, slipping the headphones from his ears.

He heaved himself to his feet.

“That’s what comes of being buried in a mud-hole like this,” he announced to Angus and Sandy. “Here I am, not knowing a thing about this new disease. Why, once I was regarded as an authority on diagnosis. That was before I came to New Chicago. Fellow in Radium City says there is a new disease breaking out there. Acute hunger is one symptom. He didn’t tell me anything more about it. Never heard anything like that before.”

He shook his head dolefully and headed for the door.

“Thanks for calling me,” he said and plunged out into the rain.

The marshal and his son saw him waddle rapidly down the street, heading for the Venus Flower saloon.

“He’ll tell the boys about this new disease,” said Angus, “and they’ll buy him drinks. Before night he’ll be a disgrace to humanity.”

Arthur Hart, editor of the Evening Rocket, tapped his finger against a paragraph in a news story appearing on the front page of the early afternoon edition.

“Something funny here,” he told Bob Jackson.

He shook his head. “Mighty funny,” he mused.

Bob Jackson said nothing. He scented trouble in the air. Whenever the chief took to shaking his head and muttering to himself it meant trouble for someone. Bob had the feeling he was the victim this time.

“Listen to this,” commanded Hart.

He read the paragraph: “The only community on Venus reporting no cases of the Hunger Disease is New Chicago. Dr. Anderson Trowbridge, health officer, told the Inter-World Press Service today there was no sickness of any sort in that city.”

“Healthy place,” said Bob, wondering if he was saying the right thing.

“Too damn healthy,” snapped Hart. “That’s what makes it funny. With this Hunger Disease rampant over the whole face of the planet, why does New Chicago escape? People dying like flies everywhere else and the folks in New Chicago not bothered a bit.”

Hart fixed the reporter with a steely glare.

“That’s where you come in,” he announced.

“Listen,” Bob bristled, “if you think you’re going to pack me off to some God-forsaken trading post on Venus to find out why nobody ever gets sick there, you better start looking for someone to take my place. I was on Venus once and I don’t like it. It gives me the creeps. Rains all the time. Never see the sun. Sticky-hot. Why, the rain is even lukewarm. And bugs—man, there’s millions of them. All shapes and all sizes. I hate the damn things.”

Hart laid down the paper, carefully smoothed it out on his desk.

“Now, Bob,” he said softly, “I’m asking you to do this because you are the one man I can depend on. If there’s anything to be found in New Chicago, you are the man to find it. And I think there is something to find. Something mighty important.

“Right now the Earth is faced by one of the gravest threats it has known in years. The Hunger Disease. You know what it is. Speeds up metabolism. Speeds it up to a point that a man must eat almost continuously to provide the body with fuel to keep going. And all the time the victim ages visibly. His skin wrinkles, his hair turns gray, his teeth fall out. In only a few days he lives the equivalent of years, and in a week or ten days he dies of what amounts to old age.”

Hart’s eyes narrowed and his voice was sharper now.

“Our medical authorities haven’t a single clue. They haven’t been able to isolate the germ or bacteria or whatever it is that causes the disease. They know it is contagious and that just about sums up their knowledge. They don’t know what causes it. They don’t know how to prevent it or cure it. So far, every single person who has contracted the disease has died—or is going to die.”

Hart fixed Jackson with a frigid stare.

“I am offering you a chance,” he said, “to do a great service to humanity. There must be some reason New Chicago has not been hit by the disease. If you could find this reason—Don’t you see, Bob, it’s a chance to save the Earth!”

“It’s a chance for the Evening Rocket to pull down a billion bucks of gilt-edge promotion,” snarled Bob. “Big headlines. Rocket Reporter Finds Cure for Hunger Disease.”

Hart sighed.

“There’s only one thing that appeals to your sordid soul,” he said. “There isn’t a fleck of human kindness in you. You have a heart of zero steel. How much does the Rocket have to pay you to get you to go out to Venus?”

Bob pondered.

“I hate that place, Hart,” he said. “I don’t like it at all. There’s too many bugs there. Too damn many bugs. Let’s say a bonus of—well—of about five thousand.”

“All right,” snarled Hart. “Now you get out of my sight before I lose control of myself. You get out to Venus just as soon as a space eater can get you there—and so help me Hannah, if you flunk out on this assignment I’ll put you on the obituary desk and what’s more, by the Lord Harry, I’ll see that you stay there.”

Outside the door, Bob gave himself a mental kicking.

“You damn fool,” he told himself, “you should have made it ten thousand. He’d have paid it just as quick.”

Zeke Brown sat disconsolately on the chopping block in front of his weather-beaten cabin and watched his neighbor, Luther Bidwell, come down the road.

Luther was a nondescript figure. Clad in blue denim overalls, he bore an unshaven and unwashed look. His ragged hat sagged over a shock of disordered hair, hanging halfway to his shoulders. His gait was a half slouch, half gallop, as if he might be in a hurry, but didn’t want anyone to think he was.

Zeke hailed him from a distance.

“Howdy, Luther.”

“Howdy, Zeke,” Luther called back.

Zeke waited, smoking his pipe, his eyes sweeping the pitiful failure and delusion of his Venusian farm. The fields covered by huge patches of polka-dot weeds, the encroaching jungle, the rusting machinery, the steaming pools of water drowning out the last of his stand of corn. From the jungle came the high-pitched chirping of the dingbats, insects which in their own proper time would come forth to devour whatever might be left in the fields.

Something rustled in a clump of polka-dot weeds near the wood pile and Zeke, turning swiftly, saw a pair of pointed ears and two gleaming eyes staring at him. With a swift motion he whipped out the gun which dangled from the belt at his hip. But before he could clear the weapon the evil face had disappeared.

“Dang you,” said Zeke without emphasis, “just stick your head out again. I’ll get you.”

But the skink was gone. Zeke grumbled and holstered his gun.

Turning his eyes back to the road, he watched Luther continue down the trail, raising little spurts of mud as his feet clopped on the ground. Luther turned in at the sagging gate and took a seat beside Zeke.

“Just saw you pull your gun,” he commented. “See something?”

“A skink,” said Zeke. “Dang things overrunning the place. Just about cleaned out the chickens. Just a few old hens left now.”

“They cleaned me out the other night,” Luther said. “Killed every hen on the place and then got into the hog pen. Tackled the hogs, I guess, but them porkers was too much for them. Must of been quite a herd of them at that, for they chawed some of them pigs up right handsome. The hogs killed a couple of them and I ain’t been able to go into that hog house since then. They sure carry a powerful scent, them fellers. Worse than the polecats back in Iowa. Hogs don’t mind, seems. They ate ‘em.”

“They give me the creeps,” said Zeke. “Almost like human beings running around on all four legs. Naked, not a single hair on them and meaner than poison. If you get them mad, they’ll go around stinking up a place just out of pure orneriness, like they was trying to get even. But I cleared quite a few of them out of this neck of the woods lately.”

He patted the gun at his side.

“But you know what I’d like best of all, Luther?” Zeke asked.

“Nope,” said Luther.

“I’d like to catch up with that slick land agent. I would sure burn his hide full of fancy holes. He’s the feller I’d really like to get in front of this gun. But he’s still back on Earth. He knew dang well that after he got us out here on Venus we couldn’t ever get back to Earth.

“Remember the things he told us? He talked slick as all get out when he came to our little place back in Iowa. Told us about all the advantages there were on Venus for a progressive farmer. He sure painted a pretty picture. He said there wasn’t no winter here and that a feller could grow four or five crops a year. He said there was always plenty of rainfall. He was plumb full of talk about the virgin soil of Venus, how it had never been plowed and was just waiting to grow bumper crops and make us all rich. And how there’d always be a big market for everything we grew because the farms were right on the edge of New Chicago. Remember how he told us New Chicago was going to be a big city and the folks there would be willing to pay high prices for the stuff we grew?”

“Sure I remember it,” said Luther. “He told me the same thing. So me and Ma talked it over and we decided to come out here. After all, we figured Venus had been colonized for over 300 years and was getting pretty civilized. Sounded pretty good to me, I admit. Matter of fact, soil was getting mighty puny back on Earth. Even good old Iowa soil. Just about all the good drained out of it and all cut up by ditches. You can’t farm the same land for over five thousand years without taking proper care of it and still expect the crops to grow the way they ought to.”

The skink stuck its head out of the clump of weeds beside the wood pile again and Zeke swore sulphurously as it disappeared before he could clear his gun.

“Dang you, I’ll get you yet,” he shouted, waving the gun. From the wood pile came the sneering chittering of the animal.

Zeke holstered his gun and stuffed his pipe with a fresh load of Venusian tobacco.

“But there was a lot of things that feller didn’t tell us, Luther,” he said. “He didn’t tell us that this planet was full of all sorts of wild animals and birds and that it had reptiles ten times as poisonous as rattlers. And that it had a billion different kinds of bugs, all ornery as hell. He said there was plenty of rainfall—but he didn’t tell us there was so much that it would drown out our crops. He didn’t say a dang thing about the dingbats that eat up every green thing in sight when the hunger comes on them and he plumb forgot to mention the elephant-lizards that can tramp down a field of corn quicker than you can blink your eye. He didn’t tell us it was so damp all our machinery would rust and not make even good scrap iron.”

Luther spat disgustedly and added his words to the indictment.

“And not a word did that slicker tell us of what kind of a city New Chicago was. He told us it was a growing city, which was stretching the truth a dang sight farther than the law allows. A stinking little trading post with just a few stores and saloons and a couple of hell-joints for the hunters and prospectors and traders who come to town once or twice a year. He said there’d be a market for our stuff. Of course, that doesn’t matter much, because we ain’t had nothing to sell. We been here five years and ain’t had a thing to sell all that time. We’re lucky if we have eating for ourselves.”

“Been eating on wild game and jungle fruit and greens ourselves for the past month,” said Zeke.

“We got a little flour and some sugar over at our house,” offered Luther. “Not much, but be glad to divvy up with you.”

Zeke shook his head.

“No,” he said. “You keep it. You got young ones and they need it. There’s just the old woman and me. We’ll get along. We been a pack of fools, Luther, and I lay awake nights trying to figure out what to do about it. But there don’t seem no way. We couldn’t raise money enough among the whole fifty families of us to buy even one ticket back to Earth. If we could do that, one of us might go back and see if somebody couldn’t help us. But I guess we just been a bunch of suckers, that’s all.”

Luther sighed.

“Wish I was back in Iowa,” he said.

“Nope,” rumbled Doc, “I can’t tell you a thing about it. Don’t even know what this Hunger Disease is, except for what you told me just now. First I ever heard of it was when that newspaperman from Radium City called me up about it.”

Doc tilted a bottle of bocca and drank. He waved the bottle at Bob.

“Want a snort?” he invited.

Bob shook his head. “Too early in the morning to start drinking,” he explained.

“Listen,” said Doc, “any time of the day or night is the proper time to drink in New Chicago. Hell, drink is the only excitement we have around this dump. Only fun I ever had since I been here was when old Jake Hansler died. Interesting case. Something he caught on Mars. Bug bit him or something. Wish he had lived longer so I could have studied it better. People blamed me for him dying. Said I was drunk. Wouldn’t have made any difference, though, because it was a funny disease.”

He helped himself to another long one.

“Jake Hansler,” said Bob. “That name sounds familiar. I’ve heard it somewhere before.”

“Sure you have,” said Doc. “Dr. Jacob Hansler, the great botanist.”

“That’s it,” said Bob. “I remember that he died on Venus.”

“He came here to do some experimental work and to study some of our plant life,” Doc rumbled. “Queer old fellow. Folks here didn’t like him any too well, because he wouldn’t pay much attention to them. But he talked to me. Got to be good friends. He told me a lot about what he was doing, but I can’t remember much about it now. He brought a bunch of seeds here that he found on Mars. Found them in the ruins of an old laboratory dating back to the Genzik dynasty. The seeds were all dried up and most of them wouldn’t grow, but some of them did and he nursed them along. Claimed those seeds were thousands of years old. He brought them here, because he figured the soil and climate on Venus were just right for plant life. Said if a plant wouldn’t grow on Venus it wouldn’t grow anywhere.”

“What happened to the plants after Dr. Hansler died?” Bob asked.

Doc snorted.

“You ought to see the damn things now,” he said. “They’re regular pests. Growing all over town. Just weeds now. One of them is a sort of rose, with big purple blooms. Real pretty flower and the women around town sort of coddle them along for the bouquets. Not that they need much coddling. Then there’s another one that’s sort of a wild pea. Pretty good eating. Then there’s the polka-dot weed. Makes a right good dish of greens. Got spinach beat all hollow.”

“Dr. Hansler sounds like an interesting person,” said Bob.

“Mighty funny old duck,” said Doc, wagging his head. “Had all sorts of funny notions. Obstinate old cuss. Other botanists told him the seeds he got on Mars wouldn’t grow. They must of been over 5,000 years old. But he thought they would and he tried them and they did. That’s him all over.

“He had another idea, too, that everybody laughed at, but he died believing that it was the truth. It wasn’t exactly in his line of work and so he never said a great deal about it. He told me, though. You know about the Genzik dynasty, don’t you?”

Bob nodded. “Took a course in Martian history in school,” he said.

“Well,” said Doc, “you’ll remember, then, that the Genzik dynasty was composed of a group of scientists that practically ruled Mars. They must have been old hell-cats for a fact, because the Martians rose up and rebelled against them and, history tells you, wiped out every last one of them. They destroyed all the laboratories the Genziks had set up and did everything possible to erase any memory of them. As a result there isn’t much known about them now.”

“Martian history suggests they were only a higher Martian race,” said Bob. “I know there’s all sorts of myths about them.”

“Well, sir,” said Doc, “Jake had a myth about them that would knock your hat off. He claims that a few of them escaped the general massacre and fled to the deserts and that their descendants are still there. Got it from desert tribes who claimed to know all about it. And Jake thought the Genziks were Earth people, maybe folks from Atlantis, who had reached Mars thousands of years ago, long before the present Terrestrial race sent a spaceship there.”

“That’s a new one,” said Bob. “Never heard that before. Have you got any of Jake’s notes around here? Did he leave any books or anything?”

Doc chuckled. “Looking for a story, I see,” he said.

“The chief will sure give me hell if I don’t get something on this trip,” Bob told him, “and you certainly haven’t helped me any with this Hunger Disease business.”

Doc finished off the bottle with gusto, then held it up to the light and sighed. “There’s one story you could write,” said Doc, setting the bottle on the window ledge, along with several others. “A story that should be written. It’s about those farmers here. The Venus Land Company brought them out. Knew they couldn’t grow a thing, but that didn’t stop those sharks. Took everything those poor devils had and dumped them in the jungle here. It does beat hell how the new land racket will get the suckers. Venus Land cooked up this farm scheme and sold it to a bunch of poor Iowa farmers. The worst of it is that the farmers don’t even own the land they’ve built their homes on. Some of them came up to see me about getting their money back. You know how it is—they figure a doctor knows everything, not ever dreaming how damn little some doctors do know. I looked over their contracts. Far as I can see they’re airtight. But I found the farmers settled on the wrong tract of land. I asked them how they knew what land they had bought and they told me a company representative staked it out for them. They settled on the east side of town and the land they bought is on the west side.”

“Do they know about this?” Bob asked.

Doc shook his head. “No, I didn’t tell them,” he said. “Don’t suppose it makes much difference. Venus Land won’t bother them any more. They got all the boys had and the land is worthless anyhow.”

Boots clumped on the stairs and in a moment Angus MacDonald loomed in the doorway. “Doc,” he said, “Steve Donagan’s kid is sick again.”

Doc heaved out of his chair.

“If some of the rest of the people in New Chicago were like Susan,” he said, “maybe I could gain back some of my self-respect. She’s the only one who ever gets sick around here.”

“Doc,” said Angus and one could sense stark terror in his voice.

“Yes, yes, go on,” snapped Doc. Angus swallowed and started over again. “Doc,” he said, “Steve thinks she’s got that Hunger Disease.”

Johnny Mason, wire editor, laid a slip of yellow paper on Editor Hart’s desk. “A special just out of New Chicago,” he explained.

Hart snapped up the paper and read:

Hart flung the paper down on the desk.

“Johnny,” he said, “right now, you’re looking at the biggest damn fool in the newspaper business. I got a hunch and sent Bob out there after a big story. He isn’t there more than ten hours and the story is all shot to hell.”

Zeke Brown and his wife, Mary, sat on the doorstep of their cabin and gazed out over their farm.

Night was closing down over the land and in the jungle night-things were awakening. Howls, roars, bellows and yelps mingled to make the night hideous. Zeke shivered as he listened and his hand crept to the butt of his gun. For five years he had heard this nightly chorus of hate and murder, but it always brought tremors of terror with each coming of darkness.

“We’d ought to have some ‘taters pretty soon, Mary,” he said, striving to keep a tremble out of his voice. “I was looking at them today. Planted them in that sandy patch and the water drained off pretty good. They’ll taste fine.”

He heard soft sobs and saw that his wife was weeping.

“What’s the matter, Mary?” he asked. “Dog-gone, what are you crying for?”

“It’s the chickens, Zeke,” she told him. “I set such stock by them hens of mine. And now they’re all gone. We won’t have no more eggs.”

Zeke cursed.

“Next time I see a skink,” he said, “I’m going to catch him alive and dunk him into one of them acid pools over there by the river.”

Roughly he patted his wife’s shoulder.

“I’ll sure fix them for what they done to our chickens,” he said.

A thrumming roar sounded over the horizon and Zeke looked up quickly. The roar became louder and louder. With tubes red-hot, a flier swept over the edge of the jungle, dipped toward the ground with forward rockets blasting.

Zeke leaped to his feet, waving his arms, cursing.

“Keep out of my ‘tater patch, damn you!” he screamed. “I’ll sure for certain take the hide off you if you bust up my ‘tater patch.”

The ship plunged downward, too fast for a safe landing. Its nose struck the potato patch, ripping into the soft soil, throwing it aside in great furrows like the mold-board of a giant plow.

“Now you done it, damn it, now you done it,” shrieked Zeke. “You ruined my ‘tater crop!”

He raced swiftly through the waist-high patches of polka-dot weeds that lay between the cabin and the potato patch.

The ship’s nose was buried deep in the cushioning earth, but it did not appear to be damaged. As Zeke approached, the cabin door opened and a man staggered out.

At the sight of Zeke he cried out, a piteous, animal-like cry. “Food, for the love of Heaven—food!” he cried. “I’m starving!”

In the light which flooded from the cabin door Zeke saw the man’s face and his anger turned swiftly to pity. He saw an old man, his form emaciated, his face pinched, eyes staring out of deep hollows, his cheeks sunken—a living skeleton.

The man took a step forward, staggered and fell. Zeke scooped him up and galloped for the house.

“Mary,” he yelled. “Get some food. This man is nearly starved.”

A voice sounded out of the gloom. It was Luther, on his way over to spend a few hours with his friend.

“What’s the matter, Zeke?”

“Plane crashed,” Zeke yelled. “Better run to town and get Doc. There’s some other fellers in there. They look bad hurt.”

“Be back in a minute with Doc if he’s sober,” Luther yelled back.

Zeke heard his feet pounding rapidly down the road.

“Zeke,” Mary’s voice was on the verge of despair, “I ain’t got nothing but a mess of greens. That ain’t fitten food for a sick man.”

“It’s better than nothing,” said Zeke. “Give me a dish of it. This feller’s starved, I tell you.”

“About all you can say for New Chicago is that nobody bothers you much here,” Doc told Bob. “Right good place for a man to hide out if he’s got something he don’t want known.

“Take the feller who runs the Venus Flower saloon. He was a big racketeer back in Old Chicago on Earth. Came here three or four years ago. Then Angus MacDonald, you seen him this afternoon. His real name isn’t Angus MacDonald. Folks say he was one of the pirates that raised so much hell on the Earth-Mars run years ago. Then there’s old Hank Smith. Nice old feller. But he’s the head of a utility company that went haywire back on Earth. Lots of investors would like to get their fingers on him.”

“How about yourself, Doc?” asked Bob. “No skeletons rattling around in your closet, is there?”

“Hell, no,” said Doc. “I was just a damn fool who came out here to grow up with the country.”

Doc patted the bottle that stood on the desk.

“You certainly are a proper judge of liquor,” he said. “First time I had anything like this for years.”

He tilted the bottle and it gurgled pleasantly.

A rattle of footsteps sounded on the stairs.

Luther Bidwell stormed into the room. “Doc,” he shouted, “a plane just crashed out in Zeke Brown’s potato patch. Some of the fellers are in bad shape.”

Doc reached for his raincoat. “Business picking up today,” he commented. “Two calls in a few hours.”

He slipped the bottle into his coat pocket.

With Luther in the lead, the three men raced down the stairs and out into the street. The weather had cleared to some extent, but the street was one vast mud-hole.

Running, they took the road to Zeke’s house, a little over a mile distant.

Zeke greeted them at the doorway. “Hated to bother you, Doc,” he said, “but didn’t know how bad it was. Starving man and four dead men in the plane. Looks like they died from starvation. Old men, white hair and every one of them just skin and bones. The feller I brought here was pretty bad off when I picked him up, but Mary fed him up and he seems all right now.”

“Starving,” asked Doc. “Do you mean they look like they died because of lack of food?”

“Sure do,” Zeke affirmed.

Bob shoved the farmer to one side and ducked into the cabin. He made out the figure of a man lying on the bed. With one stride he was across the room and bending over the man.

“Were you the man in the plane?” he asked.

“Yes, I was,” the flier replied. “This farmer tells me all the others died.”

“Did you have the Hunger Disease?” demanded Bob.

“I guess so,” the man answered weakly. “We were at a post on the Pearl River. Heard about it over the radio and figured we were lucky to be out of touch with everyone. Thought we were safe. But it hit us day before yesterday. We started for Radium City, thinking we might find help there.”

“How do you feel now?” asked Bob.

The man ran a skeletonlike hand over his stomach, pressed and punched his midriff.

“Pain’s all gone,” he announced. “Feel fine. Not hungry any more. First time I haven’t been hungry for two days. Before this it didn’t matter how much I ate, I was always hungry.”

“Did you eat much here?”

“No, just a dish of greens of some sort. Seemed to fill me up right away and gave me a lot of strength. Still pretty weak, but I feel different. Feel like myself again. Not sick any longer. Feel like I’m going to get well.”

Bob rose and turned around. “Zeke,” he asked, “what did you feed this man?”

Mary Brown answered the question. “All I had was some greens. I was so ashamed, but Zeke said they was better than nothing.”

“Mrs. Brown,” asked Bob, “what were those greens made out of?”

“Why,” she said, “polka-dot weeds. They make fine greens.”

“Doc,” Bob shouted.

Doc waddled across the room.

“Listen to me,” said Bob, taking hold of the slack at the throat of Doc’s raincoat. “Does everyone in New Chicago eat greens made out of the polka-dot weed?”

Doc squirmed. “Why, I guess so,” he said. “Everybody likes it. Me, I eat all I can get of them.”

“Does Susan Donagan eat it? Does she like it?”

“No,” said Doc, “come to think of it, she doesn’t. Doesn’t like anything green. Her mother frets a lot because she won’t touch spinach.”

“Doc,” said Bob, “listen to me and do what I tell you. Try to get that old alcohol-fogged brain of yours to working. You get down to Donagan’s as fast as you can. Feed Susan polka-dot greens. Hold her and cram them down her throat if you have to. And then watch. If she gets well, I’ll make you famous. I’ll write your name in 72 point type and put your mug on every front page in the System.”

Doc cracked his fist in the palm of his hand.

“I see what you are getting at, Bob,” he shouted.

Quickly he spun about and made for the door.

Bob shouted after him. “Remember, Doc, keep sober. You’ll need all the sense you have.”

“Sure will,” said Doc.

Half a mile down the road he took the bottle from his pocket and flipped it into the underbrush. A few quick steps and he turned back. On hands and knees he fumbled beside the road. His questing hand touched something smooth. He lifted the bottle, pulled the cork with his teeth. The liquor gurgled down his throat.

On the road again, trudging toward town, Doc wiped his mouth with his coat sleeve.

“It wasn’t like it was just plain rotgut,” he told himself. “Been all right to throw that kind of stuff away. But it would have been downright sinful to waste good Scotch.”

Arthur Hart paced the floor of his office.

Hap Folsworth, sports editor, sat with his feet on Hart’s desk and smoked a Venus-weed cigar.

“What in hell do you suppose Bob’s run into out there?” Hart demanded of Hap. “He sends me word to wait for a real story. No hint of what it is. Nothing to go on.”

“He’s sitting down in a Venusian saloon laughing up his sleeve at you,” said Hap. “He’s getting even with you for sending him out there.”

Hart smoothed out the piece of paper that had come over the interworld teletype three hours before.

It read:

Hart raged.

“Here I’ve held a secret wave length open for him ever since the last edition. The theatres will be closed pretty soon and we’ll lose all our street sales. If he’s running a sandy on me I’ll bust him wide open when he gets back.”

A boy stuck his head in the door. “Receiving signal on the New Chicago machine,” he shouted.

Hart spun about and raced after the boy. In his wake lumbered the sports editor. The city room was tense with excitement.

“Receiving signal just came over,” said Johnny Mason. “Ought to be along anytime now.”

The machine chattered and chittered, but the keys still remained motionless.

Then the machine lurched to a start.

Methodically the keys tapped out:

“A test,” said Johnny. “The operator at New Chicago is running a test.”

Then the machine stood motionless for a moment.

“Get going,” yelled Hart, pounding the machine cover with a clenched fist.

Again the keys moved, slowly, maddeningly methodical—:

Hart rushed from the tiny cubbyhole housing the machine.

“Herb,” he shouted to his assistant editor, “get pictures of Dr. Jacob Hansler. Pictures of Bob Jackson. Pictures of Dr. Anderson Trowbridge—”

“Who in hell,” asked Herb, “is Dr. Anderson Trowbridge?”

“How in hell should I know?” roared. Hart. “Phone the International Medical Society. They’ll tell you. But get pictures! He’s the biggest news in ten years. Write headlines a foot high in three shades blacker than night. We roll in half an hour.”

He turned to Hap Folsworth.

“We’ll have them fighting to get this one,” he exulted. “We’ll get out the biggest damn extra and score the biggest scoop this city has ever seen.”

Bob Jackson sat on a log with Zeke Brown in front of Zeke’s cabin.

“Zeke,” said Bob, “you’ll have to realize that you and all the rest of the farmers here are rich. You’re just plain filthy rich. You couldn’t grow corn and you couldn’t keep chickens—but all the time you were growing the polka-dot weed. And for that you can ask your own price. This is the only place in the universe today where the polka-dot weed can be obtained. Even now ships are on their way from Earth and from Radium City to get a supply. And you boys can ask whatever you please.”

Zeke pushed back his hat and scratched his head.

“Well, you see,” he said, “it’s this way. Me and the rest of the boys ain’t hankering to hold nobody up. We understand that other people need this weed dang bad and that we can ask our own price. But all we want is a fair price. The past five years have been mighty hard years and we ought to make something out of it, but we ain’t aiming to profiteer on the misery of other folks.”

“Sure, I know about that,” said Bob. “But you fellows don’t want to be damn fools. This is your big chance. Here’s a chance to cash in on your five years and get paid well for every hour of them.”

Zeke shuffled to his feet.

“Somebody coming up the road,” he announced. “Heard a ship come in awhile ago. Maybe it’s somebody wanting the weed.”

“They haven’t had time to get here yet,” Bob pointed out.

Angus MacDonald led the party that plodded up the road through the everlasting red mud. There were five of them.

They halted outside the gate and Angus stepped forward.

“Zeke,” he said, “I got a paper to serve on you. Don’t like to do this, but it’s my duty.”

“Paper?” asked Zeke.

“Yes, a paper.” Angus reached into his inside coat pocket and drew forth a sheaf of documents.

“One of these for you,” he announced, thumbing through them.

“What’s the paper for?” asked Zeke, suspicion creeping into his voice.

“Claims you don’t own this land,” replied Angus. “Must be some mistake. You boys been living here for a good many years now. Seems if you didn’t own it, you could have found out before this.”

Cold anger dripped from Zeke’s words.

“Who claims they own it? If we don’t own it, who does own it?”

“The Venus Land Company says they own it,” declared Angus. “I sure hate to do this, Zeke.”

Zeke looked past Angus, to the other four who stood behind him.

“I suppose you snakes are the representatives for the Venus Land Company,” he stated bluntly.

One of the four stepped forward. “You’re right,” he said, “we are. And if I were you I wouldn’t try to start anything. We know how to handle smart guys when they try to make trouble.”

Bob saw that Zeke’s thumbs were hitched over his gun belt, his fingers poised over the butt of the flame at his hip.

And in that moment, Zeke was no longer a farmer dressed in dirty overalls and ragged shirt. He was something else, something that thrilled a man to see—a man ready to fight for his land.

Zeke’s words came slowly, unlike his usual drawl—and each was a danger warning, plain for all to see.

“If any of you polecats think you’re horning in on me now,” he said, “you are mistaken. And that goes for the rest of us around here, too. If you try to get rough, we’ll just naturally strew your guts all over a forty-acre pasture.”

“Don’t talk to me about the due process of law,” roared Arthur Hart. “Babble like that might impress some folks, but it leaves me cold. What I want to know is are you going to stand by and let a set of racketeers like Venus Land rob a bunch of poor Iowa farmers a second time—? Yes, I know that’s libelous, but it isn’t on paper and you can’t prove a thing. And let me tell you, mister, if you don’t act damn soon I’ll give you something you can bring a libel suit for. I’ll fix it so that you won’t get one single cock-eyed vote for any public office again. Before I get through with you you’ll think you’ve been hit by a windmill. I got three or four stories filed away that the public will fight to read. The Universal Power Trust case, just for one example. I’ll tell the people just what sort of a grafting old buzzard you are—and what’s more I’ll make it stick.”

The face in the visi-plate was purple with rage, but Interplanetary Chief Justice Elmer Phillips knew when he was beaten.

“Mr. Hart,” he said, “I don’t like your attitude. I deny every insinuation you have made. But I do see some merit in what you propose. I will do it.”

“You’re damn right you’ll do it,” snarled Hart, “and what’s more, you’ll do it right away. If you don’t give me a story saying that you have issued an injunction stopping Venus Land or anyone else from monkeying around with the polka-dot weed farms by the time we put our last edition to bed, I’ll have another story in its place that will blast you and your Interplanetary Justice commission right out of the water.”

“You can rest assured I will do it,” Justice Phillips told him. “I’m a man of my word.”

“And so am I,” said Hart.

The editor thrust the visa-phone receiver back in its cradle and swung around in his chair.

Hap Folsworth chased his cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other.

“I’ll say this for you,” he remarked, “when you get your tail up you don’t let a little thing like blackmail stop you.”

“That wasn’t blackmail,” Hart snapped. “The Justice and I understand one another. He knows well enough I could rip him wide open for some of the stunts the justice commission has pulled and he’s ready to play ball. That’s all.”

Hart’s collar was open, his necktie was twisted under one ear, his hair was rumpled.

“You look like you been in a street fight,” Hap observed.

“Listen, Hap,” said Hart, “I am in a fight. I’m fighting red tape and governmental stupidity and bureaucratic inefficiency. Fighting for the rights of some poor, simple-minded farmers who let a racketeering land company sell them worthless land on Venus. And now that the land has something on it that is valuable the land company wants to take it away from them again. I’m going to have the government declare the polka-dot weed a public utility and take control of it. That will keep out the rats and the slickers and will insure a fair price.”

Hap changed his cigar to the other corner of his mouth.

“You’ve still got ideals, Hart,” he mocked. “Ideals after 18 years in a newspaper office. That’s something.”

“Look here,” snarled Hart, “you get back to your silly prize fights and your asinine baseball games and leave me alone. I got a man’s job to do.”

Johnny Mason, a sheet of yellow paper gripped in his hand, stuck his head in the door.

“Got a load of bad news,” he said. “Funny news.”

“What is it?” asked Hart.

Johnny laid the paper in front of him.

“Three ships took off from Radium City for New Chicago,” Johnny said, “to get a shipment of polka-dot weed. They’ve disappeared. No radio contact. No reports. Nothing.”

Hart hummed under his breath. “Something funny here,” he said.

“And that’s not all,” Johnny told him. “The freighter that was sent out from New York to Venus for the weed is coming back. Got out just beyond the orbit of the moon and blew three tubes. Improper fuel mixture.”

Bob found Doc at a table in the Venus Flower saloon. “How’s Susan?” Bob asked.

“Getting along all right,” said Doc dolefully. “She’ll be up and around in a few days.”

Doc fondled his bottle, gazed mournfully at it and shoved it across the table to the reporter. Bob tilted it and the living fire of Martian bocca slashed down his throat. He set the bottle back on the table and coughed.

“Bob,” said Doc, “I feel lower than a snake’s belly. I have been sitting off to one side talking to myself and I am downright astounded at what I found out.”

“That’s a fine way for the man who discovered a cure for the Hunger Disease to be talking,” Bob remarked.

“That’s just it,” explained Doc. “You see, I didn’t discover that cure. I would never have guessed it in a hundred years. But you told the people I was the one who did it. And now the International Medical Society wants me to come to New York and be the guest of honor at a big banquet. They are going to decorate me. Just talked to the Society president over the radio.”

“That’s fine,” said Bob.

Doc shook his head.

“It isn’t fine,” he protested. “Long as I am out here, buried in this mud-hole, I’m a world hero because you’ve made me one. But it won’t take those doctors in New York five minutes to find I am a phony. I am just an old booze-hound. I haven’t got too much brain left any more. Liked liquor too well. About all I’m fit to be is a doctor out here. I can patch up a busted leg and I can pull an aching tooth and I can doctor colds, but that’s about all I’m good for any more.”

“You’re drunk,” Bob accused. “You’ll feel differently when you sober up. I made you a hero and I’m going to keep you a hero if I kill you doing it.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Doc mumbled. “Anyhow, I’m not looking forward to that trip to New York.”

In silence they sat and watched the rain pour down, making a river of the street.

“How’s everything out at the farms?” Doc asked.

“Still peaceful,” Bob said. “I hope I can keep it that way until Hart gets the court to issue that injunction. There were about a dozen Venus Land men came over from Radium City in the ship. When Zeke showed some fight and Angus refused to serve any more papers, the ones who went out with Angus went back to the ship for reinforcements. Then the whole mob went back to Zeke’s place and found it deserted. Zeke and his wife had skinned out to warn their friends. So the Venus Land bunch moved in, figuring, I suppose, that they should establish some sort of possession rights. Zeke roused up his boys and that place is an armed camp. They have every path guarded and a ring thrown around Zeke’s cabin. They’re hoping the Venus Land boys make just one false move, so they can have an excuse to start shooting. But I got Zeke to promise he’d keep peaceable as long as possible.”

“If something don’t happen pretty soon,” said Doc, “we’ll have a posse from town going out there. Nobody around here has much love for Venus Land.”

“All we can do is wait,” Bob said. “Hart will move heaven and hell to get that injunction through. Those ships that were sent out to get the weed should be here pretty soon. Should have been here before now, in fact.”

“What’s that?” Hart yelled into the phone. “I know what you have to say is important, but wait just a second. Get your breath. Talk slowly, so I can understand you.”

In the visi-plate Hart saw the reporter gulp and draw in a deep breath.

“It’s like this,” the reporter said, talking slowly, with clipped precise speech, as if he had applied an actual physical brake to his tongue. “The boys down here at Interplanetary Police headquarters have been working for the past several months on a tip some big plot was underway, aimed against the system government.

“That plot broke today when the police captured one of the men in the ring. They did some persuading and he talked. He said that the gang he was working with was responsible for the Hunger Disease. They had spread the bacteria that caused it all over both Venus and Earth. They had planned to spread it on Mars, too.”

“Edwards,” snarled Hart, “are you sure you got the right dope?”

“You bet I am,” said the reporter. “The chief down here just released the story.”

“Herb,” Hart roared to his assistant, “get on the extension and listen to this.”

“Now,” he said to the reporter, “go ahead.”

“It’s a screwy story, but it’s the straight dope,” the reporter cautioned.

“I don’t give a damn how screwy it is” yelled Hart. “If it’s news we print it.”

“The police didn’t give us the name of this fellow who confessed, but I saw him. He is a big man, a good deal larger than the average man, and his skin is a deep tan, almost black, as if he had been out in the sun a lot.”

“Say,” said Hart, “are you going to tell us what happened or are you going to spend the afternoon just blabbering around? I want facts and the quicker I get them the better it will be for you.”

“All right,” said Edwards, “here they are.

“The man the police rounded up told them that he was not really a Terrestrial. Said he came from Mars and was the member of some secret organization. I got that spelled out. Had the chief spell for me. G-e-n-z-i-k, Genzik. At one time he claimed his people ruled Mars. That was thousands of years ago. But the Martians rose up and ousted them, chased them out. Since then the tribe, or whatever it is, has been living out in the desert.”

“Edwards,” snarled Hart, “that’s all a matter of history. There was a Genzik dynasty on Mars thousands of years ago.”

“Oh, so that’s it,” said Edwards. “I couldn’t figure out that part of the story very well. Anyhow, this fellow told the police that for years and years the Genziks have planned to take over the three worlds of Mars, Earth and Venus. There weren’t enough of them to do any real fighting, so they developed this Hunger Disease bacteria. Seems that it was the bacteria of a disease that at one time almost wiped out all of Mars’ population. They sent their men all over Venus and Mars and spread the bacteria where it would do the most good. The police have sent out warnings to all police stations all over and they are trying to round up the rest of the gang. Far as I could make out, there are several thousand Genziks loose on Venus and Earth.”

“Say,” snapped Hart, “did the chief tell you that the Genziks were responsible for the disappearance of the three ships that left Radium city?”

“Yes,” said Edwards, “I was just getting around to that. And he said they were responsible for the wrecking of the Earth freighter that started out for Venus to get this polka-dot weed. You see, they knew about the polka-dot weed. That was what saved Mars when the Hunger Disease threatened to wipe it out years ago. But they didn’t know there was any polka-dot weed growing any more until they read the New Chicago story in the papers late last night. This fellow claimed that after the Genziks were chased out by the Martians there wasn’t much science or knowledge left on Mars. The Genziks, he said, were the intellectual boys on that planet and had done a lot to help the Martians and that’s what made them so mad when the Martians turned against them. He said that the Genziks came from Earth a long time ago, thousands of years ago. From some place like Atlantic—”

“Atlantis?” asked Hart.

“Yeah, that’s it,” said Edwards, joyfully.

“Listen,” said Hart, “do you mean to tell me you don’t even know the old story of Atlantis? You don’t know enough Martian history to know who the Genziks were. You thought they were some kind of a gang. You figured maybe this was a big story, but you haven’t got any idea how damn big it is. Now, I want you to go back to police headquarters and try not to act too damn dumb. I’ll be sending some of the other boys down and when they get there you come back here. I’m going to try you out as a copy boy and if you don’t make good there, I’m going to bounce you right out on your ear.”

Hart slammed up the phone and switched around to face his assistant.

“You got that, Herb?” he asked, tensely.

Herb nodded.

“All right then,” said Hart, “get to work. Send one of the photographers down to try to get a shot of this bird the police caught. Send somebody down to replace Edwards. He’s too dumb to breathe. Have someone look up the history of the old Genziks and write a feature yarn. Use the revenge angle. Those boys have been hiding out somewhere up on Mars for centuries, frothing at the mouth and planning revenge ever since they were turned out by the Martians. Play up the Atlantis angle. Somebody once advanced the theory that the Genziks were either from Atlantis or Mu. Said they had built spaceships when our forefathers were still swinging around in trees and went out to Mars to establish the dynasty. Can’t remember who it was—but whoever it was got laughed at plenty.”

“I know who it was,” said Herb quietly. “It was our old friend, Dr. Jacob Hansler. Everybody thought he was teched in the head.”

Hart smote the desk with his fist.

“Herb,” he said, “that’s the angle. Old Jake again. Go to town on that story. It ties right up with the polka-dot weed yarn—how Jake found it and everything.”

The editor switched back to his desk.

“I’m going to call the IP chief and find out if he’s taking any measures to protect New Chicago. Hell’s liable to pop there any minute. The Genziks will try to destroy the weed fields or I’m a dirty space-rat.”

But as he lifted the receiver the buzzer rang softly.

Snapping on the visi-plate connection, Hart saw the face of Justice Phillips.

“Oh, it’s you,” he said.

“Yes, Mr. Hart,” said the Justice. “I’m just calling you to tell you that I acted as you suggested. The New Chicago authorities already have been notified of the injunction and instructed to act accordingly.”

Angus MacDonald hitched up his trousers and shifted his chew to the other side of his mouth. “In all my years as marshal of this town,” he announced, “I never enjoyed anything like I’m going to enjoy this job. I sure am going to have a lot of fun kicking those Venus Land babies out of Zeke’s place.”

He doubled up one powerful fist and looked at it admiringly.

“I sure hope they resist,” he remarked wistfully.

He stuffed into his pocket the yellow slip of paper on which his instructions from the Radium City court were typed.

“Going with me, Bob?” he asked.

“No,” said Bob, “I’m going to stay here and wait for the police ships from Radium City. They ought to be here any minute now. From what Hart told me just now we’re sitting right on top of a keg of dynol and I’ll feel a lot safer when the police get here.”

“You want to go, Doc?” asked Angus.

“Nope,” said Doc. “This has been an exciting day and I feel all tuckered out. But I’m a happy man. This news about the Genziks has justified my faith in old Jake. They laughed at him back on Earth when he said the Genziks were the old Atlanteans. And now it sure looks like they were.”

“All right, then,” said Angus. “But you boys are missing a lot of fun.”

Plodding through the ankle-deep red mud Angus started down the road.

“Still a regular old war-horse,” observed Doc. “From what I have heard he sure was an old hell-hound in his day. He damn near stopped all traffic between Mars and Earth thirty years ago. Had the whole Interplanetary Police force on his trail at times. But he had a good ship and he always showed them a clean pair of heels. Old-timers claim he could make a spaceship turn on a dime.”

“Let’s go back to the station,” suggested Bob. “You and Sandy can finish that game of checkers while we’re waiting for the police ships.”

“O. K.,” said Doc.

From far up the road came a hail from Angus.

“Ship coming in,” he yelled.

They stood stock-still, waiting. From the east, faintly, they heard the roar of rocket tubes.

“Right close down,” Angus yelled to them.

Again came the blasting of the tubes, nearer this time.

“That isn’t any police ship,” said Bob.

“And it isn’t a transport, either,” declared Doc.

The tubes roared again, and over the eastern horizon the watchers saw the reddish glare of the explosion through the blanketing clouds.

Then the blast seemed to be almost over them and, far up, dimmed by the heavy cloud layer, they saw the angry belching of the rockets.

The ship circled to the west, turned back, stabbing away with short blasts.

“They’re coming in,” said Bob.

The ship dropped down, heading for the landing field. It was a beautiful ship, gleaming, silvery even in the dimness of approaching twilight.

“Never saw one like that before,” said Doc.

Only a few hundred feet up it rushed over the town, swung in for the field.

Suddenly a tongue of red flame leaped out from the bow of the ship, a flame that smashed against the radio station and wiped it out in a furnace blast of terrific heat.

A scorching wave of heat swept over Bob and Doc, heat that stifled them, seemed to sear their eyeballs. As if someone had suddenly opened the door of a white-hot fire box.

The ship swooped over the field, swung in a wide arc, heading back toward the town.

“Run,” Bob shouted to Doc. “Into the jungle! It’s the Genziks! They’re going to blast the town!”

But Doc did not run. Instead he caught Bob by the sleeve and pointed out on the field.

“Look at Angus,” he shouted. “What’s the damn fool up to now?”

Angus was running across the field, jerking out his flame pistol as he ran, straight toward the Venus Land ship.

“My Lord,” breathed Bob. “He’s going to fight them singlehanded.”

“Angus,” shouted Doc, “come back here. You can’t do that. You haven’t a chance. That ship’s not armed.”

But Angus apparently did not hear.

They saw him reach the ship and blast the door lock with a single shot from the pistol. With bare hands he wrenched the red-hot door open and disappeared within the ship.

“The old fool’s crazy mad,” said Doc. “Sandy was in the station and he’s dead now. Angus thought the world of that boy. Had a right to.”

The Genzik ship was coming back, bearing down on the town. It swept over the landing field and once again from its bow reached out the tongue of flame. A building went up in a puff of flashing fire. Another and another. As the ship zoomed up it left behind it a line of death and destruction, the entire east side of the street burned to the ground, a blackened ruin, with a few steel girders still glowing.

The street was alive with screaming humanity. Running, terrified human beings, some seeking shelter in the jungle, others running aimlessly, a few standing as if paralyzed, gazing up into the clouds.

From the landing field came a roar and the Venus Land ship shot upward with terrific speed to disappear in the heavy clouds.

The Genzik ship was circling, blasting away with short explosions, jockeying into position to strike at the row of buildings on the west side of the street.

“Maybe we better take to the jungle,” suggested Doc.

Bob nodded. “There won’t be much left of New Chicago after those fellows get through,” he said. “They’ll blast the town and then they’ll sweep the farms. They’ll turn this one little section into a desert. After they are through there won’t be any polka-dot weed or anything else left.”

“Angus is up there,” said Doc.

“But he won’t be able to do a thing. He has nothing to fight with,” protested Bob.

The Genzik ship was headed back toward the town. Through the clouds the two in the road could see its silvery bulk.

Swiftly Doc and Bob sprinted toward the jungle, but at its edge they halted and looked back as a series of deafening explosions seemed to shake the ground beneath their feet.

The Genzik ship was nearing the edge of the town, but above it, bearing down upon it, with tubes wide open, came a black ship—the Venus Land ship guided by the hand of an old dare-devil of space, a man old-timers said could turn a spaceship on a dime.

Like a flaming meteor the black ship speared downward, the world a-tremble with the roaring of its tubes.

Then the rocket blast was drowned out as the sky was lighted with a mushrooming blaze of white light and the very jungle rocked to the detonations of a violent explosion.

For a split second Bob saw the two ships locked together, surrounded by a corona of eye-searing blue-white flame as the fuel tanks exploded at the impact.

Trailing a column of fire, the ships dropped like a plummet and thudded into the jungle.

“By Heaven,” said Doc, “he did it. And he died the way he always wanted to, with his hands on space controls.”

“You know,” said Doc, “I’ve regained my confidence. I’m not going to let any of those high-powered New York medics high-hat me. I got what I’m going to say all figured out. I am going to say, ‘Gentlemen: I am very pleased to be here—’”

“Sure,” said Bob, “you got that much figured out, but what are you going to say after that?”

“Say,” said Doc, “I got that all figured out, too.”

“Listen, Doc,” warned Bob, “you pipe down. It’s time for us to get on board. There’s a rule against letting drunks aboard and if you don’t straighten up they’ll make you wait until the next ship.”

Together the two moved toward the huge ship that rested, ready for the takeoff, on the New Chicago field.

Bob, with one foot on the gangplank, turned when he heard his name shouted.

Across the field ran Zeke, his arms waving, the flame pistol holster flapping against his thigh.

“Wait a minute,” he shouted. “Wait a minute, Bob.”

Bob waited.

At the foot of the gangplank Zeke gripped his hand.

“Remember that skink I was telling you about?” he asked. “The one that took to living in my wood pile?”

Bob nodded.

“He dang near tantalized me to death for months,” Zeke said. “I laid for him, but I never could get him.”

“So I suppose you finally did get him,” Bob said.

“Hell, no,” said Zeke. “This morning he had pups!”