Trouble on Titan by Henry Kuttner - HTML preview

CHAPTER VI
 Poisoned Javelins

It was indeed alarming news.

“Unarmed, eh?” Quade said when she had finished. Sherman had gone out of the room, but now he came back in time to hear the words. He was carrying a bundle of sharpened metal rods.

“Only these,” he said. “I ground ’em a long time ago.”

“Javelins? Mm-m.” Quade dug into a pocket of his spacesuit. “Neo-curare,” he said, bringing out the bottle. “Lucky I brought it along. If we smear some of this stuff on the points, it ought to account for a few Zonals. It’s a fast-acting poison. Anything going on outside?”

There was nothing. They stood in the castle’s door-sphincter. As it automatically widened, the barren wilderness of the valley became visible. No Zonals were in sight. The lake glowed phosphorescently in the distance.

“Here comes something,” Kathleen said.

With a swish and a thump something rocketed into view, plumping down just outside the threshold. Quade stopped Sherman’s lifted javelin-arm.

“Hold on. He’s not dangerous. This is Speedy, one of my tame Zonals. He must have trailed us here.”

It was Speedy, all right and Speedy was staring with wild curiosity at Quade and the others. The contrast between this amphibian and the degenerate Zonals of the valley was marked. The fangs and claws of the decadent tribe didn’t show in Speedy, and his high-arched cranium hinted at intelligence, not brutal ferocity alone.

“Pencil and paper, quick!” Quade said. “We’ve got a carrier pigeon here!”

Sherman vanished. He reappeared in a moment, bearing a small metal cylinder and a length of wire as well as writing equipment. Quade hastily scribbled a note, thrust it into the cylinder and cautiously approached Speedy.

The Zonal almost got away, but was betrayed by his suspicion that Quade’s hand was good to eat. Quade held the amphibian firmly while he fastened the cylinder to Speedy’s body and tried to keep his hands out of reach of the nibbling mouth at the same time.

“Hope he doesn’t know how to untie knots,” Kathleen said. “How about it, Tony? Will he head back for the camp?”

“I don’t know,” Quade said. “Still, that’s where he lives.” He released the Zonal. “Blow. Take a walk. Rocket off!”

Speedy reached for the metal tube. Quade yelled and clapped his hands, and the amphibian rocketed away in alarm. He came down fifty feet away, near a mound of lava and went to work on the wire.

Quade started toward him, running. From behind the lava block came two of the decadent Zonals, closing in on poor Speedy. He didn’t see them until too late, and then he went down under the rush, fighting with feeble valor.

Quade stopped. He couldn’t reach the battle in time, but he still held a poisoned javelin. He hurled it at the struggling group.

Speedy yelped, waving a bleeding arm grazed by the metal point. Quade was a poor marksman with this unfamiliar weapon.

But Sherman was a better one. His javelin struck one of the attacking Zonals and got him through the heart. The other, taking alarm, fled.

Speedy lay limp and unconscious. Quade started to run again, hearing footsteps behind him. He felt slightly sick. The last chance for escape was gone now. Then his eye caught a flicker of motion. Speedy wasn’t dead. He grunted, stood up, swaying, and stared around.

A yelling came from the lake.

“Come on,” Sherman said urgently. “Let’s get back to the castle. We haven’t a chance here in the open.”

Speedy suddenly rocketed away. Quade saw him land beside Kathleen at the castle’s doorway. The two men fled, hearing the thud of racing feet and the roars of the Zonals rising in volume. They reached the castle—and Quade got the shock of his life.

“They try kill us, yes?” an unfamiliar voice said hoarsely.

Quade looked at Kathleen, then at Sherman. They, too, were staring. Again the voice repeated its question. Slowly Quade turned to meet the unblinking gaze of Speedy.

“This bad place,” the Zonal said. “Better go.”

“He talked,” Kathleen murmured unbelievingly. “He’s intelligent, Tony!”

“Intelligent,” Speedy repeated. “Yes. Your language hard. But Earth man Udell taught us some words. Speak.”

Quade swallowed.

“Yeah. You speak, all right. But how? Have you been playing dumb all along?”

Speedy looked puzzled.

“Earth man Udell stick us with needle.”

“That’s it,” Quade said abruptly. “So that was Udell’s trick!” He glanced around. “We can’t get out. Our ship’s wrecked. Understand?”

Speedy nodded.

“Understand. I get help.”

“You know where the camp is?”

“I know. I go there now. Tell men—bring them here. Yes.”

He rocketed up and was gone. His sleek figure was visible swooping toward the ice barrier. Then he had crossed it and vanished.

“Let’s go inside,” Quade said. “I’d hate it if the Zonals ate us before Wolfe got here.”

Inside the castle Quade divided the javelins and passed them around.

“One mystery’s solved,” he said. “There won’t be any trouble in filming Sons of Titan now. The Zonals are intelligent—but it takes a shot of neo-curare to make ’em that way.”

“A poison?” Kathleen asked. “Spill it, Tony.”

“A poison to us, not to the Zonals. They’ve a different sort of physiology. The neo-curare doesn’t hurt ’em. It just liberates their subconscious.”

“Huh?” Sherman said.

“Here’s the angle. Scientists got on the track a long time ago—’way back before nineteen-forty. They experimented with a dog—trained him to do certain things at the sound of a bell, a conditioned reflex, you know. Then they doped him with curare and developed other habit-patterns in his brain, also set in action by the bell.

“They proved the two had two independent behavior-systems in his mind—that both could be trained to react to the same stimulus and do it independently of each other. It works like that with the Zonals.”

Kathleen blinked. Quade went on.

“It’s logical enough. The virus that wrecked the Zonal culture ruined only their conscious mind—made ’em idiots. Their subconscious minds weren’t harmed. They still retain their potential power. But they’re subconscious, of course—blanketed.

“The neo-curare simply inhibits the higher centers of the brain, the part that was wrecked by the virus, and releases the subconscious. And while that’s in control the Zonals are intelligent! This will mean rehabilitation for the whole race, someday. Udell taught and trained ’em while they were doped with neo-curare.

“So all we have to do is follow Udell’s lead. When we get back to camp we’ll first of all immunize the men with the antivirus and then break out the neo-curare. We can finish Sons of Titan in a few weeks!”

“You forgot something,” Sherman said. “One of the degenerate Zonals got inoculated with neo-curare too, just now.”

“Well, the javelin also went through his heart,” Quade said. “You can’t be smart when you’re dead. I dunno about that but I’ve got a suspicion the neo-curare won’t have the same effect on these Zonals of yours. They’re so decadent that even their subconscious may be bestialized.

“They’re almost a different race, as far beneath the regular Zonals as a hyena is beneath a human being. We can try it out and now’s our chance, because they’re attacking again. So we can’t wait till Wolfe arrives. Kathleen, our ship’s wrecked, isn’t it?”

“I think so,” the girl said dubiously. “The plates are smashed.”

“Um. I may be able to do some repair work. It’s worth trying. Your helmet’s okay, isn’t it?”

Kathleen nodded.

“But you’re not going outside, are you?”

Quade was donning his spacesuit. He pulled the transparent helmet into place.

“I am,” he said through the diaphragm. “Our javelins won’t keep the Zonals off long unless the neo-curare will do the trick—and I’m going to find out. At worst, even if our ship’s wrecked, there’s a gun or two in the cabin.” He turned to Sherman. “Take it easy. Luck.”

“I’m going with you,” Kathleen decided.

“There’s only one helmet,” Quade informed her. “I’ll be safe enough in this spacesuit. You stay here till I get back, understand?”

“All right,” the girl said obediently and Quade departed.

“First time in her life she ever did what I told her,” he thought, plodding toward the lake. This job was going to be dangerous, regardless of what he had told Kathleen. If the Zonals attacked—

He went on. A number of the Zonals trailed him. One ran forward, and Quade spun quickly and threw his javelin. He didn’t want to kill. He was making an experiment. The sharp-ground point ripped into the amphibian’s leg and the Zonal fell instantly.

Quade waited. After a minute or more the creature hoisted itself laboriously upright. It had fallen behind its fellows, who were still following Quade.

It ran after them, limping. Its low snarling mingled with the menacing noises of the others. One glimpse of the amphibian’s brutal face told Quade that his guess had been right. These Zonals were so decadent that not even neo-curare could make them intelligent.

Shrugging, he turned to the lake. A gleam of metal told him the location of the sunken spaceship. Quade waded in. The luminous water seethed about his knees, his waist—closed over his helmet. That didn’t matter. The chemicals in the suit supplied plenty of air.

He saw the ship, a black shadow, looking like a great resting shark on the bottom. Thanks to the luminosity of the water it was surprisingly clear; he could make out details easily. And now he could hear noises that must mean pursuit. The Zonals, he thought, were amphibians.

They swam down, keeping a safe distance for the time as Quade manipulated the space-lock. As the Zonals saw him disappearing they came in fast. Quade got another javelin from his belt and used it efficiently.

But after that he was reduced to using his fists, which was not too effective under water. The Zonals began dragging him out of the lock. Quade reached out, caught a lever, and tried to anchor himself. He couldn’t.

But inside the ship there were weapons.

He struck out frantically at another lever. The inside port opened. The sealed ship became unsealed in an instant, and the lake poured in, carrying with it Quade and a dozen Zonals. By the time the water had settled, a steady stream of amphibians were swimming down through the open lock, and the water had changed color to streaky yellow and pink that gradually merged into an ambiguous darker hue.

Briefly puzzled, Quade noticed that two carboys of the concentrated aqueous dye had been smashed. Also, Kathleen had left the ship’s lights on, so the Zonals, temporarily distracted, were able to see Quade and to converge on him.

They got him down, clawing at his suit with their talons. That didn’t worry him. The armor was tough. But one of the Zonals, after breaking a tooth on Quade’s helmet, got a bright idea. He found a metal bar somewhere and began smashing it down on Quade’s head. He used it like a piston, so that water pressure was minimized, and the helmet began to show a webwork of fine cracks.

Quade twisted, got hold of the bar and tussled it free. He levered oxygen into his suit hurriedly. Buoyancy took over, and he shot up out of the heap of Zonals and bounced off the ceiling. But the amphibians instantly swam up after him.

It was then that Quade noticed the row of carboys in their wall-cradles beneath him....

He broke them. Using the metal bar, he floundered and fought and smashed his way through the Zonals down the line, while blue and green and translucent orange flowed out from the carboys, staining the water brilliantly. It was tremendously concentrated, this aqueous dye.

And, while each dye had been made to blend transparently with water, there is a simple principle of the color-wheel that added up to complete opacity. If you mix a lot of colors, you get black. This wasn’t dead black, but it was darker and thicker than a Venusian fog on Darkside.

Within moments the Zonals were fighting by touch alone. Luckily for Quade, they had no scent-organs worth mentioning, or could not use them under water. And they did not know the spaceship, while Quade could have found his way from bow to stern blindfolded.

He was blindfolded. But the Zonals were in a worse predicament as Quade found when he opened the arsenal, abstracted a few weapons and dodged his way out of the dun-colored lake to shore. Some of the amphibians were emerging on land, but they were wandering around vaguely, with helpless, groping motions.

They had hollow eyeballs and used water for lenses. Thus, since they’d sucked in the dark-dyed lake-water by now, they were blinded until they could find clear liquid of some sort!

Hordes of them were emerging from the lake. They were grouping together now, stumbling up the valley toward the pool at the upper end. There they could regain their vision. But it would take time, and Quade, his arms loaded with blasters and thermo-pistols, grinned tightly and started back toward the castle.

No Zonals were visible when he reached it. Kathleen and Sherman ran forward to meet him. Quade let the guns fall.

“Wait’ll I take off this suit,” he said, and unzipped himself. Sherman was lovingly loading the weapons as Kathleen helpfully tried to pull off Quade’s helmet without loosening the bolts.

“Okay,” Quade said, beating her off. “I’ll do it. There! Now. Let me tell you what happened.” He explained. Sherman whistled.

“Blind man’s buff! That should hold the Zonals for a while. They’ll be all right after they get to the upper pool and rinse their eyeballs out, but it’ll take a while. And with these guns—” He touched a thermo-pistol with expert fingers. Then, suddenly, he looked at Quade.

“I just thought—I hadn’t realized it before! I’ll be getting out of here! After seven years—”

The big shoulders shook.

“I’ll take this gear inside,” Sherman said.

He didn’t finish. Carrying the guns, he went into the castle and the portal shrank behind him.

“Give him time,” Quade said slowly. “Let’s wait here for the ship.”

So they did. And when it loomed over the glaciers Kathleen sighed, relaxed against Quade’s shoulder.

“Now we’re all set, huh?”

“Right,” Quade told her. “Because you’re going back Sunward with Sherman. He’s got to report to Patrol headquarters and I’m going to have him take you with him.”

“Tony!” Kathleen said reproachfully. “You don’t love me any more!”

“I adore you madly,” Quade said, ignoring the sputtering girl as he signaled the approaching ship. “You hate me. Our engagement’s broken again. You’ll get Von Zorn to blacklist me. You’ll elope with a crooner. I know exactly what you’re trying to say. Just the same, you’re going Sunward with Sherman. I’ve got a picture to shoot! You hear me?”

“Of course, Tony,” murmured Kathleen, who was already laying new plans. “But I just happened to remember. What about the Planetary Quarantine laws? We’ve all been infected with this Titan virus and, even though we’ve got the antitoxin, we’ve got to stay on Titan for thirty days—or is it sixty? Don’t look at me like that! I can’t help it, Tony—honest I can’t—it’s the law—!”