“A pass, or something. What about it?”
Rawl shrugged; his people giggled among themselves, as amused as children at the Earthlings’ anxiety. It was perfectly plain that their strange minds saw no seriousness in the situation.
“Happy the man, whatever his lot, is he who’s content with whatever he’s got,” Rawl observed with a certain fatalism, and folded his arms to verify his belief.
Mart groaned and clutched his hair. “Listen to him!” he muttered bitterly. “That statement’s plain enough—there is no way, or if there is these walking radio receivers don’t know about it.… Come to think of it, they’re probably right,” he went on gloomily, thinking. “There are no animals down in this valley. The cliff and waterfall stops them. They’d be down here and wipe these folks out like a shot otherwise.”
“We might try walking round Rhea,” Eda ruminated.
“Sorry, Bright Eyes, I don’t feel up to walking a couple of thousand miles without shoes on.…” Mart glanced at his watch. “The ship’s due to leave in about ten minutes,” he groaned. “Once that happens we’re here for keeps probably—”
“There’s that smell again,” Eda whistled, clamping down on her nose. “Seems like the wind’s off the gas-works this morning.”
“Do you think if we shouted—?” Emmot began, eyes glistening with unexpected discovery—but Mart waved a hand at him.
“What do you think we are—yodelers?”
He stalked impatiently to the door of the place and stared moodily out over the little clearing towards the river, across at the sullenly smoking volcano. The odor was disgustingly strong.… Eda came quietly to his side.
“I’m sorry, Mart,” she murmured, and without turning, he grunted absently:
“Sorry? What about?”
“Well, I seemed kind of silly making cracks when this situation’s so desperate. I—” She stopped suddenly and twisted her head sharply. Mart glanced at her and she raised a quick finger for silence.
“Listen!” she breathed. “Our funeral guns!”
He caught her meaning immediately. On the odorous wind came the distinct roaring boom of rocket blasts—the rockets of the distant liner as it lifted from Rhea into the void. Right on time, too.
“Well,” Mart growled, “they aren’t losing any sleep over us, that’s evident.” He stared forlornly at the purplish sky. “Just the same, you’d think since we left our names with the purser that they’d—”
“Mart, the sound’s coming nearer!” Eda shouted suddenly, in quick delight.
“Listen! It isn’t fading away into space— There!” she screamed, jabbing out her arm. “There, near the waterfall! The ship! They’re looking for us!”
She was right. Not a thousand feet above the waterfall and jungle swept the titanic bulk of the space liner, under-jets and foam nozzles working vigorously. Here and there dull red ashy deposit missed the foam nozzles and sizzled in the river.
Then the ship began to circle as slowly as its huge, ponderous bulk would permit. There were dimly visible figures standing in the airlock, gazing down.
Mart came to himself abruptly and raced wildly into the center of the clearing in huge, stumbling leaps. Eda joined him in frantic arm-waving. Emmot and Walbrook came out of the building too, and began an insane war dance in the lesser gravity, a dance entirely inappropriate to their station.
After a while, Rawl and his people came as well and copied the Earthlings’ example because it amused them. Linking hands they danced around like a circle of elves and fairies, chanting that damnable craze song, “I’ll Buy Me a Robot.…”
“Hey!” screamed Mart frantically, as the ship moved towards the smoking volcano. “Hey! Come back here! Can’t you see us? Hey!” He cupped his hands and bawled his lungs hoarse.
A stream of red, glowing deposits crawled up the volcano side as the liner swept over it. Something was wrong somewhere; that foam nozzle wasn’t dead true—then suddenly it seemed that the entire crazy moon went out in a flash of blindingly brilliant light and sound.
Mart and Eda found themselves flung backwards by the force of a terrific explosion, flung clean on top of the wildly struggling Emmot and Walbrook. Every one of the Rheans fell to the ground, holding they ears in anguish, their higher hearing power wrenched and hammered by the frightful concussion.
“Look!” Eda screamed, scrambling up. “An—an eruption!”
“It can’t be—” Mart began, clutching hold of her; then he broke off in astounded horror at the vision of the giant liner reeling violently as it recovered from the shock of that explosion.
It was heading swiftly away now from a sudden newly born rift in the volcano side through which was spouting a hellish fury of cinders, pumice, poisonous fumes, and bubbling lava.
“I get it!” Mart cried. “That sulphuric gas must have been ignited somewhere by that under-jet deposit. The nozzle’s wrong; must be the one they’ve repaired. The sparks blew out a blind cone or blister when the gas ignited, started an uprush of matter.…”
He stopped, gasping, staring through the swirling, darkening smoke clouds at the lurching space liner. It could not land in the clearing in any case; it was far too huge.
“Ahoy!” he bawled, and an amplified voice thundered out over the din of escaping volcanic steam.
“You have been seen. Prepare for rope ladder escape.”
“Make it snappy!” Mart howled, jumping back as a lump of hot lava spattered onto his hand and stung viciously.
“This—this is all most disturbing,” panted Walbrook, coming up through the smoke. “What do we do with the rope ladder? Hang onto it?”
“Or else fry,” Mart answered him briefly. He swung round, struck with a sudden thought, stared in pitying amazement at the Rheans. Every one of them was lying on the already smouldering vegetation, gasping desperately, twisting and turning.
“Rawl, what’s the matter?” he panted, lifting the head of the queer, bearded little ruler.
The strange creature tried to smile, choked over his words.
“Pa—parting is such sweet s-sorrow…,” he whispered. “Undertaking estimates g-given. Write for—for my prospectus.” That was all he said, quivered and smiled over it, then relaxed.
“Dead,” Mart said very quietly.
“Poor, strange people,” Eda whispered her eyes moist. “The noise?”
“Must have been,” Mart muttered. “It nearly deafened us. To these creatures it must have been brain-destroying. Perhaps it’s as well. What with the volcano and that faulty under-jet on the ship, the whole darned moon will be ablaze in an hour.…” He stared around pityingly, through the smoke, on the sprawled, child-like figures. Then he looked up at a yell from Emmot.
“The rope ladder! Come on!”
He tore towards it in frantic leaps as it hung like a runged snake from the twilit gloom. Then he was pulled up short as Mart seized him savagely by the shoulder.
“Lay off, can’t you? Eda first! Up you get.…”
He swung the girl upwards. She gripped the rungs and began to climb. Emmot followed, and after him came the panting and thoroughly frightened judge.
Mart came last, felt the ladder swinging him away from that fated clearing towards the clearer air. He could not take his eyes from that group of silent beings near their doomed, toy city.
“Pretenders, playing at life,” he muttered, “only to meet death through the damnable blunderings of Earthlings. God, it’s like mowing