Lucky Starr The And The Moons of Jupiter ls-5 Page 12

  "Was he?"

  "I… I thought… I had the impression he was. Mutt barked, I think, and I was sure Summers was coming back, but there isn't anything for me to do at take-off, so I was turning in for a nap and I guess I just didn't give the matter too much thought at the moment. Then there was the mess in the engine room almost right away, and after that there was no time to think of anything."

  Panner's voice came over the central intercom with sudden loudness. "Warning to all men. We are taking off. Everyone to stations."

  The Jovian Moon was in space again, lifting itself against Jupiter's gravity with powerful surges. It was expending energy at a rate that would have bankrupted five ordinary vessels and only the fault tremor in the sound of the hyperatomics remained to show that the ship's mechanism depended, in part, on makeshift devices.

  Panner gloomily pondered on the poor showing the ship would now make energy-wise. He said, "As is, I'll get back with only seventy per cent of original energy, when it could have been eighty-five or ninety.

  If we land on lo and make another take-off, we'll get back with only fifty. And I don't know if we can stand another take-off."

  But Lucky said, "We must get Summers, and you know why."

  With lo growing large-sized once again in the visi-plate, Lucky said thoughtfully, "It's not entirely certain we can find him, Bigman."

  Bigman said incredulously, "You don't think the Sirians actually picked him up, do you?"

  "No, but Io's a big place. If he wanders off to some rendezvous, we might never locate him. I'm counting on his staying put. He'd have to carry air, food, and water with him if he moved, so it would be most logical for him to stay put. Particularly when he'd have no reason to expect us to come back."

  Bigman said, "We should have known it was that cobber all along, Lucky. He tried to kill you first thing. Why should he want to do that, if he weren't playing along with the Sirians?"

  'True enough, Bigman, but remember this: we were looking for a spy. Summers couldn't be the spy. He had no access to the leaked information. Once it was clear to me that the spy was a robot, that cleared Summers on another account. The V-frog had detected emotion

  in him, so he couldn't be a robot and therefore couldn't be the spy. Of course that didn't prevent him from be-ing a traitor and saboteur, and I should not have allowed the search for a spy to blind me to that possibility."

  He shook his head and added, "This seems to be a case riddled with disappointment. If it had been anyone else but Norrich who had covered for Summers, we would have had our robot. The trouble is that Norrich is the only man who could have had convincingly innocent reason to co-operate with Summers. He was friendly with Summers; we know that. Then, too, Norrich could innocently be ignorant that Summers never returned before take-off. After all, he's blind."

  Bigman said, "Besides which, he showed emotion, too, so he can't be the robot."

  Lucky nodded. "True enough." Yet he frowned and grew silent.

  Down, down they came to Io's surface, landing almost in the marks of their previous take-off. The dots and smeared shadows in the valley resolved themselves into the equipment they had set up as they approached.

  Lucky was surveying the surface intently through the visiplate. "Were any air tights left behind on Io?"

  "No," said the commander.

  "Then we may have our man. One air tight, as you may notice, is fully expanded behind that rock formation. Do you have the list of material unaccounted for 0n board?"

  The commander delivered a sheet of paper without comment, and Lucky studied it. He said, "Bigman and I will go out after him. I doubt that we'll need help."

  The tiny sun was high in the sky, and Bigman and Lucky walked on their own shadows. Jupiter was a thinnish crescent.

  Lucky spoke on Bigman's wave length. "He must have seen the ship unless he's sleeping."

  "Or unless he's gone," said Bigman.

  "I doubt that he's gone."

  And almost at once Bigman cried, "Sands of Mars, Lucky, look up there!"

  A figure appeared at the top of the line of rock. It stood out blackly against the thinning yellow line of Jupiter.

  "Don't move," came a low, tired voice on Lucky's own wave length. "I'm holding a blaster."

  "Summers," said Lucky, "come down and surrender."

  A note of bitter mockery entered the other's strained voice. "I guessed the right wave length, didn't I, Councilman? Though it was an easy guess from the size of your friend… Get back to your ship or I'll kill you both."

  Lucky said, "Don't bluff pointlessly. At this distance you couldn't hit us in a dozen tries."

  Bigman added with tenor fury, "And I'm armed, too, and I can hit you even at this distance. Just remember that and don't even move a finger near the activating button."

  Lucky said, "Throw down your blaster and surrender."

  "Never!" said Summers.

  "Why not? To whom are you being loyal?" Lucky demanded. "The Sirians? Did they promise to pick you up? If so, they lied to you and betrayed you. They're not worth loyalty. Tell me where the Sirians' base in the Jupiter system is located."

  "You know so much! Figure it out for yourself."

  "What subwave combination do you use to contact them?"

  "Figure that out, too… Don't move any closer."

  Lucky said, "Help us out now, Summers, and I'll do my best to get you mild treatment on Earth."

  Summers laughed weakly. "The word of a councilman?"

  "Yes."

  "I wouldn't take it. Get back to your ship."

  "Why have you turned against your own world, Summers? What have the Sirians offered you? Money?"

  "Money!" The other's voice was suddenly furious. "Do you want to know what they offered me? I'll tell you. A chance at a decent life." They could hear the tiny gritting sound Summers made as his teeth ground together. "What did I have on Earth? Misery all my life. A crowded planet with no decent chance at making a name and a position for myself. Everywhere I went I was surrounded by millions of people clawing at each other for existence, and when I tried to claw also, I was put in jail. I made up my mind that if ever I could do anything to get back at Earth, I would."

  "What do you expect to get from Sirius in the way of a decent life?"

  "They invited me to emigrate to the Sirian planets, if you must know." He paused, and his breathing made small whistling noises. "New worlds out there. Clean worlds. There's room for men there; they need men and talent. I'd have a chance there."

  "You'll never get there. When are they coming for you?"

  Summers was silent

  Lucky said, "Face it, man. They're not coming for you. They have no decent life for you; no life at all for you. Only death for you. You expected them before this, didn't you?"

  "I didn't."

  "Don't lie. It won't improve the situation for you. We've checked the supplies missing from the Jovian Moon. We know exactly how much oxygen you smuggled off the ship. Oxygen cylinders are clumsy things to carry even under Io's gravity when you have to sneak them off without being caught and in a hurry. Your air supply is almost gone now, isn't it?"

  "I have plenty of air," said Summers.

  Lucky said, "I say it's almost gone. Don't you see the Sirians aren't coming for you? They can't come for you without Agrav and they haven't got Agrav. Great Galaxy, man, have you let yourself get so hungry for the Sirian worlds that you'll let them kill you in as open and crude a double-cross as I've ever seen? Now, tell me, what have you done for them?"

  Summers said, "I did what they asked me to do and that wasn't much. And if I have any regrets," he shouted in sudden, breathless bravado, "if s only that I didn't get the Jovian Moon. How did you get away, anyway? I fixed it. I fixed the rotten, slimy…" he ended, choking.

  Lucky motioned to Bigman and broke into the soaring lope characteristic of running on low-gravity worlds. Bigman followed, veering off so as not to offer a single target.

  Summers' blaster came up and mad
e a thin popping sound, all that was possible in Io's thin wisps of atmosphere. Sand kicked up and around, and a crater formed yards from Lucky's fleeting figure.

  "You won't catch me," Summers yelled with a kind of weak violence. "I'm not coming back to Earth. They'll come for me. The Sirians will come for me."

  "Up, Bigman," said Lucky. He had reached the rock formation. Jumping upward, he caught a projection and hurled himself further upward. At sixth-normal gravity, a man, even in a space suit, could outdo a mountain goat in climbing.

  Summers screamed thinly. His hands moved up to his helmet and he leaped backward and disappeared.

  Lucky and Bigman reached the top. The rock formation was nearly sheer on the other side, with sharp outcroppings breaking the clifflike face. Summers was a spread-eagled figure, dropping slowly downward, striking against the face of the rock, and rebounding.

  Bigman said, "Let's get lam, Lucky," and jumped far outward, wide of the cliff. Lucky followed.

  It would have been a killing leap on Earth, even on Mars. On Io it was little more than a tooth-jarring drop.

  They hit with bent knees and let themselves roll to take up some of the force of impact. Lucky was on his feet first and made for Summers, who lay prone and unmoving.

  Bigman came up panting. "Hey, that wasn't the easiest jump I- What's the matter with the cobber?"

  Lucky said grimly. "He's dead. I knew his oxygen was low from the way he sounded. He was almost unconscious. It's why I rushed him."

  "You could go a long time being unconscious," said Bigman.

  Lucky shook his head. "He made sure. He really didn't want to be taken. Just before he jumped, he opened his helmet to id's poison air and he hit the cliff."

  He stepped aside and Bigman caught a glimpse of the smashed face.

  Lucky said, "Poor fool!"

  "Poor traitor!" Bigman raged. "He might have had the answer and he wouldn't tell us. Now he can't tell us."

  Lucky said, "He doesn't have to, Bigman. I think I know the answer now."

  16. Robot!

  ''You do?" The little Martian's voice rose to a squeak. "What is it, Lucky?"

  But Lucky said, "Not now." He gazed down at Summers, whose dead eyes stared sightlessly toward the alien heavens. He said, "Summers has one distinction. He is the first man ever to die on Io."

  He looked up. The sun was edging behind Jupiter. The planet was becoming only a faint silvery circle of twilit atmosphere.

  Lucky said, "It will be dark. Let's go back to the ship."

  Bigman paced the floor of their cabin. It took only three steps one way, three steps the other, but he paced. He said, "But if you know, Lucky, why don't you…"

  Lucky said, "I can't take ordinary action and risk explosion. Let me do it in my own time and my own way, Bigman."

  There was a firmness in Ms tone that quite subdued Bigman. He changed the subject and said, "Well, then, why waste any more time on Io because of that cobber out there? He's dead. There's nothing more to do about him."

  "One thing," said Lucky. The door signal flashed and he added, "Open it, Bigman. It should be Norrich."

  It was. The blind engineer stepped in, his dog, Mutt, going before.

  Norrich's blue, unseeing eyes blinked rapidly. He said, "I've heard about Summers, Councilman. It's a terrible thing to think he tried to… to… Terrible that he was a traitor. Yet somehow I'm sorry for him."

  Lucky nodded. "I knew you would be. It's why I asked you to come here. It's dark out on lo now. The sun's in eclipse. When the eclipse is over, will you come out with me to bury Summers?"

  "Gladly. We should do that much for any man, shouldn't we?" Norrich's hand dropped as if for consolation on Mutt's muzzle, and the dog came close and moved softly against his master as though feeling some dim need to offer sympathy.

  Lucky said, "I thought you would want to come along. After all, you were his friend. You might want to pay your last respects."

  "Thank you. I would like to." Norrich's blind eyes were moist.

  Lucky said to Commander Donahue just before he placed the helmet over his head, "It will be our last trip out. When we return, we will take off for Jupiter Nine."

  "Good," the commander said, and there seemed some unspoken understanding as their eyes met.

  Lucky put on his helmet and in another corner of the pilot room, Norrich's sensitive fingers moved delicately over Mutt's flexible space suit, making sure all fastenings were secure. Inside the glass-fronted, odd-shaped helmet that fitted over Mutt's head, Mutt's jaws moved in a faintly heard bark. It was obvious the dog knew he was headed for a trip into low gravity and that he enjoyed the prospect

  The first grave on Io was done. It had been dug out of hard, rocky soil by the use of force diggers. It was filled in with a mound of gravel and topped by an oval boulder as a marker.

  The three men stood round it while Mutt wandered off in the distance, trying vainly, as always, to examine his surroundings, though metal and glass blocked the use of his sense of smell.

  Bigman, who knew what Lucky expected him to do but didn't know why, waited tensely.

  Norrich stood with his head bowed and said softly, "This was a man who wanted something very much, did wrong for that reason, and has paid for it."

  "He did what the Sirians asked him to do," Lucky added. "That was his crime. He committed sabotage and…"

  Norrich stiffened as the pause in Lucky's remarks lengthened. He said, "And what?"

  "And he got you on board ship. He refused to join the crew without you. You yourself told me that it was only through him that you were assigned to the Jovian Moon."

  Lucky's voice grew stern. "You are a robot spy placed here by the Sirians. Your blindness makes you seem innocent to the others on the project, but you don't need a sense of sight. You killed the V-frog and covered for Summers to get him off the ship. Your own death meant nothing to you hi the face of orders, as Third Law states. And, finally, you fooled me by the display of emotion I caught through the V-frog, a synthetic emotion built into you by the Sirians."

  This was the cue for which Bigman had been waiting. Lifting the butt of his blaster high, he hurled himself at Norrich, whose incoherent protestations did not coalesce into words.

  "I knew it was you," Bigman shrieked, "and I'm smashing you."

  "It's not true," Norrich wailed, finding his voice. He threw up his hands and stumbled backward.

  And suddenly Mutt was a streak in the pale, white light. He hurled himself furiously across the quarter mile that separated him from the men, aiming with desperate passion at Bigman.

  Bigman paid no attention. One hand caught at Nor-rich's shoulder. The other swung the blaster upward.

  Then Mutt collapsed!

  While he was still ten feet from the struggling pair, his legs stiffened uselessly and he tumbled and rolled past them, coming to a frozen halt at last. Through the glass of his helmet his jaws could be seen hanging open, as though in mid-bark.

  Bigman held his threatening position over Norrich as though he, too, were frozen.

  Lucky approached the animal with quick steps. He used his force shovel as a kind of unwieldy knife and slit Mutt's space suit lengthwise from neck to tail.

  Then, tensely, he slit through the skin at the back of the neck and probed deftly with his mail-shod fingers. They closed on a small sphere that was not bone. He lifted the sphere and met resistance. Holding his breath, he snapped the wires that held it in place and stood up, almost weak with relief. The base of the brain had been the logical place for a mechanism to be activated by the brain, and he had found it. Mutt could endanger no one now.

  Norrich cried out, as though through instinctive knowledge of his loss.

  "My dog! What are you doing to my dog?"

  Lucky said softly, "If s no dog, Norrich. Never was. It was a robot. Come, Bigman, lead him back to the ship. I'll carry Mutt."

  Lucky and Bigman were in Panner's room. The Jovian Moon was in flight again, and Io was falling rapidly awa
y, already only a bright coin in the sky.

  "What gave it away?" said Panner.

  Lucky said somberly, "A number of things which I never saw. Every clue pointed firmly to Mutt, but I was so intent on finding a humanoid robot, so inwardly convinced that a robot had to look human, that I looked past the truth though it stared me in the face."

  "Then when did you see?"

  "When Summers killed himself by jumping off the rock. I stared at him, lying there, and thought of Bigman falling through the ammonia snow and nearly dying. I thought: There's no Mutt that can save this one… And that did it."

  "How? I don't understand."

  "How did Mutt save Bigman? When the dog came running up past us, Bigman was somewhere under the ice, nowhere to be seen. Yet Mutt plunged in, made for Bigman without hesitation, and dragged him out. We accepted that without thought because we somehow expect dogs to find what can't be seen through their sense of smell. But Mutt's head was enclosed. He could neither see nor smell Bigman, yet had no trouble locating him. We ought to have seen that unusual sense perception was involved. We'll find out exactly which when our roboticists work over the carcass."

  "Now that you explain," said Panner, "it looks plain enough. The dog had to give itself away because First Law compelled it not to allow a human being to come to harm."

  "That's right," said Lucky. "Once suspicions of Mutt finally penetrated, a few other things started falling into place. Summers had maneuvered Norrich on board, yes, but in doing so, he also got Mutt on board. Moreover, Summers was the one who got Mutt for Norrich in the first place. The chances are that there is a spy ring on Earth whose only task is to distribute these robot dogs to people working in or near critical research centers.

  "Dogs are perfect spies. If you find a dog nosing through your papers or walking through a super-secret section of a laboratory, are you concerned? Chances are you pet the dog and feed him a dog biscuit. I checked through Mutt as best I could and I think he has a built-in subetheric transmitter which keeps him in contact with his Sirian masters. They can see what he sees, hear what he hears. For instance, they saw the V-frog through Mutt's eyes, recognized its danger, and directed him to kill it. He could be made to handle an energy projector with which to fuse the lock of a door. Even if he was caught in the act, there was a good chance we would put it all down to the accidental happenings of a dog playing with a weapon he had found.