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ears off any pair of you with my bare fists!"
None of the mutineers took up the redoubtable
Martian's challenge. But Grag's big metal figure
moved clankingly forward.
"Do you think you can beat the ears off me?"
rumbled the great robot.
Kim Ivan faced the robot with an unflinching
scowl. "I know you're stronger than any four of us,"
he admitted belligerenly to Grag. "But there's more
than a hundred of us, remember that. We can pull
you down, big and tough as you are."
New tension sprang into being, as the mutineer's
hatred and antagonism toward the Futuremen's
party came again to the fore. Curt Newton realized
that it would not take much to precipitate a
struggle.
"It seems to me," his cool voice cut in, "that
we've had enough for one day without trying to kill
each other right now."
Kim Ivan roughly agreed. "We're groggy and
tired, and some of us are hurt. And there's nothing
to be gained by a scrap now. We'll get some rest,
and see how things stand in the morning."
The tension diminished. With little further talk,
the castaways dropped to the warm ground and
stretched out exhaustedly.
Curt and his friends kept at a little distance from
the mutineers. He noticed that Kim Ivan himself
was not sleeping, but was keeping vigilant watch
from where he sat.
Captain Future pillowed Joan's head on his knee.
"Try to get some sleep, Joan."
"M-m-maybe I could g-g-get some moss or
leaves from that jungle, to m-m-make a bed for
her," suggested George McClinton anxiously.
"No, it's bad business to go blundering into an
alien interplanetary forest by night," Curt answered.
"You never know what queer kind of creature is
waiting for you."
Silence and darkness held the makeshift camp of
survivors. No one felt like talking, and most were
already exhaustedly sleeping. The only sounds were
the medley of uncanny calls from the starlit jungle,
and the low rumbling of the distant volcanoes. Now
and then, the ground quivered slightly under them,
with a low, muted growling.
Captain Future looked down at Joan's dark head,
upon his knee. She was sleeping, her face white in
the starlight. He perceived that Grag, who never
slept, was standing watch nearby like an immobile
metal statue.
John Rollinger was not sleeping. The crazed
biophysicist was looking toward the distant jungle
in an attitude of intent listening.
"Rollinger, what's the matter?" Curt asked in
low tones.
The Earthman turned dazed eyes toward him. "I
hear voices talking, inside my head. I'm afraid.
There's somebody on this world."
"There's no one here," Curt soothed. "Go to
sleep. You haven't anything to be afraid of."
The Brain had been brooding silently nearby.
Like Grag, Simon never slept. Now he glided to
Captain Future's side, and whispered.
"Lad, I've been thinking about this planetoid," he
said. "There's something puzzling about it. I mean,
all this volcanic and seismologic activity. There
shouldn't be volcanism on a world this small."
Curt was grimly amused. "Same old Simon! All
our predicament means to you is just an intriguing
scientific problem."
HE BRAIN'S metallic whisper was cold
and annoyed. "If my reasoning is right, this
particular scientific problem has an important
bearing on our present predicament. Lad, you saw
the meteorometer readings on this planetoid before
we crashed on it. Can you remember its
approximate mass, direction and speed of drift, and
distance from the System?"
T
Captain Future was puzzled. "I think I can,
thought I don't see why it's so important. The mass
23
THE FACE OF THE DEEP
of it is two-thousands-Earth, position is slightly
over four billion miles from the edge of the System,
and its drift is almost straight toward the System at
ten miles a second velocity --"
Curt stopped suddenly, as his keen scientific
mind abruptly realized the significance of the data
he was quoting.
"Good Lord, Simon, I didn't see it before! This
planetoid is approaching the Limit!"
"Yes, lad," rasped the Brain. "And that accounts
for its volcanic activity."
Curt Newton was appalled. The ominous fact to
which the Brain had called his attention made their
predicament vastly more menacing.
In taut whispers, he and Simon Wright discussed
it with feverish intensity as the night hours passed.
Between these two master-scientists sped
whispered formulae, equations and corrections, as
they sought to solve mentally a problem which was
of direst import.
The sky in the 'east' began to lighten at last. A
growing pallor crept across the starry heavens. And
with it came a sharper, more violent tremor of the
ground beneath them. The shock and the grinding
roar brought the sleeping castaways into alarmed
wakefulness.
"Curt, what's happening?" Joan's small hand
clutched his sleeve as she awakened.
"It's only a stronger seismic tremor," he
reassured her. "But it's sun-rise now, Joan."
The Sun came up as a bright, tiny disk hardly
larger than a very brilliant star. It cast a feeble
daylight across the alien landscape of smoking
volcanoes, black lava-beds, and distant green
jungles.
Kim Ivan stood, looking grimly around the
unfriendly vista. The other mutineers were getting
to their feet, staring about in dismal silence.
"This is a devil of a place to be marooned in,"
muttered Grabo, the squat Jovian.
Kim Ivan shrugged. "It's better than
Interplanetary Prison, anyway. There'll be fruits and
meat-animals in that jungle. We can live here
indefinitely."
Captain Future grimly contradicted the big
pirate. "We can't live here indefinitely. This little
world isn't going to exist indefinitely."
The big Martian frowned at him. "What do you
mean?"
"I mean that in a little more than two months,
this planetoid will be shattered and destroyed,"
retorted Curt.
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