The Lotus Eaters & Other Weinbaum Sci-Fi Classics. Stanley G. Weinbaum

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СКАЧАТЬ gale screaming against the curved walls, and the glitter of ice mountains showing green under the glare of Saturn with its rings visible edgewise from the satellite since it revolved in the same plane.

      Beyond the Mountains of the Damned—so named by Young, the discoverer—a hundred miles away, lay Nivia, the City of Snow. But they might as well have been on a planet of Van Maanen's star so far as human contacts went; surely no one could survive a cross-country journey here through nights that were generally eighty below zero, or even days that sometimes attained the balmy warmth of just above freezing. No; they were marooned here until the rocket returned next year.

      Tim shivered as the grinding roar of a shifting mountain sounded above the scream of the wind. That was common enough here; they were always shifting under the enormous tidal pull of the giant Saturn and the thrust of that incredible wind. But it was disquieting, none the less; it was an ever-present danger to their little dwelling.

      "Br-r-r!" he shuddered. "Listen to that!"

      Diane looked up. "Not used to it yet, after three months?"

      "And never will be!" he returned. "What a place!"

      She smiled. "I know what'll cheer you," she said, rising.

      From a tin box she poured a cascade of fire. "Look, Tim! Six of them. Six flame-orchids!"

      He gazed at the glowing eggs of light. Like the flush of life itself, rainbow rings rolled in a hundred tints beneath their surfaces. Diane passed her hand above them, and they responded to its warmth with a flame of changing colors that swept the entire keyboard of the spectrum, reds merging into blues, violets, greens, and yellows, then orange and scarlet of blood.

      "They're beautiful!" Tim whispered, staring fascinated. "No wonder rich women bleed themselves dry for them. Diane, we'll save one out—the prettiest—for you."

      She laughed. "There are things I'd rather have, Tim."

      A pounding sounded above the windy bellowing. They knew what it meant; Tim rose and peered through the reinforced window into the brilliant night, and, after a moment of blinking, made out the four-foot-long body of a native sprawled before his door, his coned claws hooked into the ice. On Titan, of course, no creature stood erect against those perpetual howling blasts, no creature, that is, save man, a recent arrival from a gentler world.

      Tim opened the door, slipping it wider notch by notch on its retaining chain, since muscular power would have been inadequate to hold it. The wind bellowed gleefully in, sweeping the hanging utensils on the walls into a clanging chorus, spinning a loose garment into a mad dance, chilling the air to bitterness.

      The native slithered through like a walrus, his streamlined body seallike and glistening with its two-inch protective layer of blubbery flesh. As Tim cranked the door shut, the creature raised the filmy underlids from its eyes, and they showed large, luminous, and doglike.

      This was a Titanian native, not much more intelligent than a St. Bernard dog, perhaps, but peacable and inoffensive, beautifully adapted to its forbidding environment, and the highest form of life yet known on Titan.

      He reached into the pouch opening on his rubbery back. "Uh!" he said, displaying a white ovoid. As the comparatively warm air of the room struck it, the flame-orchid began to glow in exquisite colors.

      Diane took it; against her palms the tints changed more quickly, deepened gloriously. It was a small one, no larger than a robin's egg, but perfect except where it had been attached to some frigid rock.

      "Oh!" she exclaimed. "What a beauty, Tim!"

      He grinned. "That's no way to bargain."

      He pulled out the black case that contained their trade goods, opening it to display the little mirrors, knives, beads, matches, and nondescript trinkets.

      The coal-black eyes of the native glittered avidly; he glanced from one article to the next in an agony of longing indecision. He touched them with his clawed, three-fingered hands; he cooed huskily. His eyes wandered over the room.

      "Huss!" he said abruptly, pointing. Diane burst into a sudden laugh. He was indicating an old and battered eight-day clock, quite useless to the pair since it lacked the adjustment to permit them to keep other than Earth time. The ticking must have attracted him.

      "Oh, no!" She chuckled. "It's no good to you. Here!" She indicated a box of trinkets.

      "Ugha! Huss!" The native was insistent.

      "Here, then!"

      She passed him the clock; he held it close to his skin-shielded ears and listened. He cooed.

      Impulsively, Diane picked a pocketknife from the box. "Here,” she said, "I won't cheat you. Take this, too."

      The native gurgled. He pried open the glittering blade with his hooked claws, closed it and slipped it carefully into his back pouch, stuffing the clock after it. The pouch stood out like a miniature hump as he turned and scuttled toward the door.

      "Uh!" he said.

      Tim led him out, watching through the window as he slipped across the slope, his blunt nose pointed into the wind as he moved sideways.

      Tim faced Diane. "Extravagance!" He grinned.

      "Oh, a fifty-cent knife for this!" She fondled the gem.

      "Fifty cents back home," he reminded her. "Just remember what we paid for freight, and you'll see what I mean. Why, look at Nivia; they mine gold there, pure, virgin gold right out of the rocks, and by the time the cost of shipping it back to Earth is deducted, and the insurance, it barely pays—just barely."

      "Cold?"

      "Yes. That's simple to understand. You know how little freight a rocket can carry when it has to be fueled and provisioned for a flight from the Earth to Titan, or vice versa. A mere jaunt of seven hundred and eighty million miles and plenty of chance for trouble on the way. I think the insurance on gold is thirty per cent of the value."

      "Tim, shall we have to insure these? How shall we ever manage?"

      "We won't. We won't insure these because we'll be going with 'em."

      "But if they're lost?"

      "If they're lost, Diane, insurance wouldn't help us, because, then, we'll be lost, too."

      II

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      Three more months dragged by. Their little hoard of flame-orchids reached fifteen, then eighteen. They realized, of course, that the gem wouldn't command the fabulous price of that first one, but half that price, even a tenth of it, meant wealth, meant leisure and luxury. It was worth the year of sacrifice.

      Titan swung endlessly about its primary. Nine-hour days succeeded nine-hour nights of unbelievable ferocity. The eternal wind howled and bit and tore, and the shifting ice mountains heaved and roared under Saturn's tidal drag.

      Sometimes, during the day, the pair ventured into the open, fought the boisterous winds, clung precariously to frigid slopes. СКАЧАТЬ