Donald A. Wollheim (ed) (17 page)

Jerry began sketching a crude map. "They can't talk to you, but
when one of them comes for the chocolate, you'll know he's found her—they're
honest about bargains. Then all you have to do is follow."

The O.M. took the note and started toward the
door. "I'll let you know how it works," he promised. "If they
find her, I'll even risk shipping you back to Earth." Jerry grunted and
turned back to
Ignatz
, who was rumbling unhappily on
the cot, his foot-and-a-quarter body a bundle of raw nerves.

It was three
slow,
dull days later when Slim brought another note. "Mr. Barclay sent this
down to you," he said briefly. Slim had as little to do with the Master as
possible.

Jerry opened it eagerly, to find the wording terse and to the point.

Three
spinners, trying to make your lake, broke down. Rescue crews out for them now.
I
'll have nothing more to do with any of your
fool plans.
He
passed it to
Ignatz
, who read it glumly, then watched
hopefully as Jerry shook out a cigarette. Seeing the pack returned to its
place, beyond his reach, he snorted his disgust and retired to the comer in
sulky silence.

The silence was broken by a reverberating
boom that rocked the detention house like a straw in the wind. The floor
twisted crazily and the
transplon
window fell out
with a brittle snap. Then the noise quieted and Jerry picked himself up from
the floor, grabbed
Ignatz
and the prospector pack. He
wasted no words, but dived toward the open window. Slim
came
racing down the corridor. "Air-conditioner motor exploded right
below," he yelled. "You all right, Lord?" As he saw the two
climbing out the window, he grabbed for his needle gun, then rammed it back.
"I
ain't
taking chances with this thing; it'd
explode in my hands with you around. The farther you two get, the happier I'll
bel
"

Sometimes a bad reputation
had its uses. Jerry dropped ten feet to the ground, spotted a spinner standing
empty and unlocked to the rear of the building, and set out for it. He dived
through the door, yanked it shut, and cut in the motor as the guards began
streaming out.
Ignatz
looked at the fuel gauge and
was surprised to see it full.

Before the gun on the roof could be lined up, the spinner was rising
smoothly and speeding away. Jerry swung in a half circle and headed north, with
the rheostat clear over, and the little ship cut through the air with a
whistling rush. Hellas dropped behind, five miles, ten,
then
fifteen. Ten miles ahead lay the muck of
HellonEre
,
beyond that Despondency.

"Only let me reach the swamps, fellow," Jerry begged.
"Don't get us in any funny business now."
Ignatz
had his antennae curled up in a tight knot, trying by mental concentration to
oblige.

Two miles short of the swamps, the engine began to stutter, starting
and stopping erratically. Jerry fussed with the controls, but the ship slowed,
moving along at an uncertain speed. The first line of the
Hellonfire
verdure rose through the thin mists as the motor stopped. Jerry's teeth were
clenched as he tried to hold the spinner in a flat curve that would carry them
clear. But the ground came up steadily as the ship crawled toward the swamp.

By a hair-thick margin they cleared the
tangled swamp growth, and were over
Hellonfire
. And the
little motor caught, purred softly, and drove the vanes steadily against the
air, lifting them up easily.
Ignatz
relaxed and Jerry
reached over to pat him softly. Now, according to the legend, luck should be
good.

It was. They glided along across
Hellonfire
smoothly, passed over the wreck of the first
spinner sent out by the O.M., and headed on. The compass began to waver and
twist without good reason, and Jerry was forced to rely on
Ignatz's
sense of direction. The
zloaht
held his antennae out as a pointer toward his home village, and the
Master followed his direction
confidendy
.

Hellonfire
drifted by under them, and gave place to the
heavy tangle of Despondency. Looking down, they could see the slow crawl of the
mud-run that made the swamp even more impassable twice a year, and Jerry shook
his head. If Anne were out in that, unless she stayed on a high hummock, there
was
litde
hope of finding her. They swept between
the Breasts and saw the temporary camp, established as a base for searchers,
being
dismanded
; the men would leave before the mud
crept higher.

And then
Ignatz
hooted, and Jerry looked down to see the little lake glistening below them.
Floating rafts covered it, neatly laid out in rows, and thatched over with fine
craftsmanship.
Zloahts
like
Ignatz
were
busily engaged in the huts and canals between them. On the shores of the lake,
others were driving their tame
zihis
,
twenty times as large as they were, about in the fields. Now and again,
a fog-horn yelp across the lake was answered from the largest raft.

Jerry let down the pontoons and dropped the
spinner lightly on the lake.
Ignatz
ducked out and
across the water to the chief's building, dragging a waterproof package of
chocolate with him. He was back inside of ten minutes, hooting shrilly,
a
small bundle in his mouth.

The Master took it. On the coarse papyrus he
made out a roughly executed picture of a man and woman, pulled on a narrow raft
by two of the
zihis
.
Under it, there were two black squares with
one white sandwiched between them, and inside the drawing was a bar of
chocolate of a different brand from that which Jerry had sent them.

The Master snapped the rheostat over.
"So she left a day and two nights ago, with
Durnall
.
Traded her chocolate for
zihis
and raft.
Know what direction she went?"

Ignatz
hooted and pointed south and east, along a
sluggish stream that fed into Forlorn River. Jerry turned the spinner and
headed that way, searching for signs of them.
Zihi
travel should average twenty or more miles a day, which would place them
some twenty miles out. He slowed up after fifty, noting that the stream was
narrowing. If it ended before he reached Anne, it meant hours of scouting,
probably hopelessly, in search of her. There were a hundred different courses
she could take once she left the Little Hades.

But he sighted her before the stream ended in
its twisted little feeders. She had stopped, probably picking her course, and
he could see her look up at the sound of his motor and begin signaling
frantically. He set the spinner down sharply, jerking it to a short stop within
a few feet of the raft and opened the door as she headed the
zihis
toward him.
Durnall
was lying on the raft,
covered by a poncho.

"Jerry Lord!" Her voice was shrill,
tired, her eyes red and sleepless. "Thank heaven! Pete's got the fever—red
fever—and we had no
feverin
in our packs." She
grabbed the
botde
he handed her, poured three tablets
down
Durnall's
throat. "Help me load him in and
the duffel—and take us to the hospital, pronto!"

Jerry grabbed
Durnall
and loaded him in the back as quickly as he could.
Ignatz
was giving orders to the
zihis
to return to the village with the raft, while Anne gathered the duffel
and climbed in back. She sank beside the sick man, whose face had the dull
brick-red of an advanced case of swamp fever.

"Your
father's been worried sick—so have I."

"Have you?" Her voice was flat.
"Jerry, how soon can we reach the hospital?"

He shrugged. "Three hours, I guess."
Ignatz
glanced up at the Master's face and grunted as softly as he could. Of course,
Anne had been gone for days, alone with
Dumall
, and
sick men had a way of working on a woman's sympathies. He brushed his antennae
lighdy
against the Master's ankles.

"How'd you find the village?" Jerry
asked. "I've been trying to get a chance to help you, but I was afraid
you'd be lost in the mud-run."

She looked up, but went on fussing over
Dumall
. "When we couldn't find the
Burgundy,
I remembered your story about getting lost
yourself, and how you found the village. We headed the way you said the compass
pointed, and holed up there, till I found they understood me. Then I bartered
some supplies for their raft and animals. With what you'd told me helping us,
we'd have made out all right if Pete hadn't come down with fever; I was lucky,
myself, and didn't catch it."

Dumall
was groaning and tossing uneasily, and she
turned her attention back to him. Jerry bent over his controls, and drove
silendy
south toward Hellas, watching Despondency change to
Hellonfire
. Then they were out of the swamps, and he
turned back to assure Anne they were almost there.

But his head jerked back sharply. The rotor, which had been circling
sweedy
overhead, now twanged harshly and dragged back on
the motor.
Ignatz
ducked back to avoid the Master's
look and groaned. One of the rotor vanes had cracked off, and the others were
unbalanced and moving sluggishly. The ship was coming down much too fast. Jerry
cut the motor off, tried to flatten the fall, and failed. He yanked the
shock-cushion lever out, and a rubber mattress zipped out behind him, designed
to save the passengers from a nose collision in the fog. Before he could reach
the pilot's cushion lever, the ship's nose hit the ground and buckled in.

Ignatz
saw the Master slump forward over the
controls, and then something tore sharply at the
zloaht's
snout horn, and little lights streaked out. Blackness shot over him
hotly.

He swam up through a gray
haze, tried to snort, and failed. When he opened his eyes, he saw yards of
gauze covering his snout, and Jerry was propped up in bed watching him.

"Major operation,
fellow.
The
doc says he had to cut out half your horn because of something that splintered
it. You had me beat by half a day, and the doc says I was out for forty-eight
hours." He wiggled in the bed. "I'm still solid enough, though, except
for a couple of bones, and a bump on the head."

Ignatz
looked around slowly, conscious from his
sluggish reactions that they must have given him drugs. He was in a small room,
and his bed was a miniature replica of Jerry's. But it wasn't a hospital.

Jerry grinned. "They were afraid you'd
be a jinx in the city, and I kept yelling for you, so they put us both up here
in a house the O.M. owns just inside
Hellonfire
. I've
been waiting for them to bring you to before we entertained visitors." He
raised his voice. "Hey, nurse, tell them all clear here."

With his words, the door burst open and the
Old Man hurried in. "Well, it's about time. Look fit as ever."

"Yeah, fit to go back
to your lousy detention house."

The
O.M. was pleased with himself. "Not this time. I figured out something
else. Got the deed to the New Hampshire house still? Good. Well, I'm taking it
back, and putting this deed to the swamp house in its place. That pet of yours
should be harmless here. And I'm advising you to
invest
your money in our stock."

"So you won't ship me back to Earth, eh?
Afraid I'd get your ship smashed?"

Barclay shook his head. "I'm not worried
about the ship. What I'm worried about is a branch manager, and you're it —if
you want the job."

Jerry
took it calmly. "What's the catch?"

"None.
Bad luck or not, you get things done, and
you know rockets. That's what I need, you impudent young puppy. Just keep your
pet out here and things should go swimmingly." He got up brusquely.
"You've got another
visi
-tor.