Wanderers of the Wolf-Moon. Nelson S. Bond
or whatever it might be...was now flashing toward hard ground at lightning speed.
* * * *
Only a miracle, Greg knew, could save them now. An impulse spun his head, he looked at Crystal Andrews. There was no fear in her eyes. Just a hotness and an inexplicable anger. Beside her was the other girl, the maid, Tina; she was frankly afraid. Her teeth were clenched in her nether lip, and her eyes were wide and anxious, but she did not cry out.
Only a miracle could save them now. But Breadon’s hands performed that miracle; his quick, nerveless, trained hands. A stud here...a lever there...a swift wrenching toss of the shoulders. His face twisted back over his shoulder, and his straining lips pulled taut and bloodless away from his teeth. “Hold tight, folks! We’re going to bounce—”
Then they struck!
But they struck glancingly, as Breadon had hoped, and planned for, and gambled on. They struck and bounced. The frail craft shivered and groaned in metal agony, jarred across harsh soil, bounced again, settled, nosed over and rocked to a standstill. Somewhere forward something snapped with a shrill, high ping! of stress; somewhere aft was the metallic flap-clanging of broken gear trailing behind them. But they were safe.
Breath, held so long that he could not remember its inhalation, escaped Greg’s lungs in a long sigh. “Nice work, Mr. Breadon!” he cried. “Oh, nice work!”
But surprisingly, savagely, Breadon turned on him.
“It would have been better work, Malcolm, if you’d kept your damned hands off the controls! Now see what you’ve done? Smashed up our skiff! Our only—”
“He didn’t do it!” piped the shrill voice of Tommy O’Doul. “You done it yourself, Mr. Breadon. Your sleeve. It caught the switch.”
“Quiet!” Breadon, cheeks flushed, reached out smartly, stilled the youngster’s defense with a swift, ungentle slap. “And you, Malcolm—after this, do as you’re told, and don’t try to assume responsibilities too great for you. All right, everybody. Let’s get out and see how bad the damage is.”
Instinctively Greg had surged a half step forward as Breadon silenced the cabin boy. Now old habit and common-sense halted him. He’s overwrought, he reasoned. We’re all excited and on edge. We’ve been to Bedlam. Our nerves are shot. In a little while we’ll all be back to normal.
He said quietly, “Very well, Mr. Breadon.” And he climbed from the broken skiff.
* * * *
Hannigan said, “Looks bad, don’t it?”
“Very,” said Malcolm. He fingered a shard of loose metal flapping like a fin from the stern of the skiff. “Not hopeless, though. There should be an acetylene torch in the tool locker. With that—”
“You ought to of poked him,” said Hannigan.
“What? Oh, you mean—?”
“Yeah. The kid was right, you know. He done it.”
“His sleeve, you mean. Well, it was an accident,” said Greg. “It could have happened to anyone. And he made a good landing. Considering everything. Anyhow—” Again he was Gregory Malcolm, serious-faced, efficient secretary. “Anyhow, we have been thrust into an extremely precarious circumstance. It would be silly to take umbrage at a man’s nervous anger. We must have no quarreling, no bickering—”
“Umbrage!” snorted Sparks. “Bickering! They’re big words. I ain’t sure I know what they mean. I ain’t exactly sure they mean anything.” He glanced at Greg oddly. “You’re a queer jasper, Malcolm. Back there on the ship, I figured you for a sort of a stuffed-shirt. Yes-man to the boss. And then in the show-down, you come through like a movie hero—for a little while. Then you let that Breadon guy give you the spur without a squawk—”
Malcolm adjusted his plasta-rimmed spectacles. He said, almost stubbornly, “Our situation is grave. There must be no bickering.”
“Bickering your Aunt Jenny! What do you call that?”
Sparks jerked a contemptuous thumb toward the group from which they were separated. Upon disembarking, only Greg and Sparks had moved to make a careful examination of their damaged craft. The others, more or less under the direction of Breadon, were making gestures toward removing certain necessaries from the skiff. Their efforts, slight and uncertain as they were, had already embroiled them in argument.
The gist of their argument, so far as Greg Malcolm could determine, was that everyone wanted “something” to be done, but no two could agree as to just what that something was, and no one seemed to have any bursting desire to participate in actual physical labor.
J. Foster Andrews, all traces of his former panic and confusion fled, was planted firmly, Napoleonically, some few yards from the open port of the life-skiff, barking impatient orders at little Tommy O’Doul who—as Greg watched—stumbled from the port bearing a huge armload of edibles.
Tina, the maid, was in a frenzy of motion, trying to administer to the complaints and demands of Mrs. Andrews (whose immaculate hair-do had suffered in the frenetic minutes of their flight) and Crystal Andrews (who knew perfectly well there were sweaters in the life-skiff) and Miss Maud (who wanted a can of prepared dog-food and a can-opener immediately, and look at poor Cuddles, momsy’s ’ittle pet was so hungry)!
Bert Andrews was sulkily insisting that it was nonsense to leave the warmth and security of the skiff anyway, and he wished he had a drink, while the harassed, self-appointed commander of the refugee corps was shouting at whomever happened, at any given moment, to capture his divided and completely frantic attention. His orders were masterpieces of confusion, developing around one premise that the castaway crew should immediately set up a camp. Where, how, or with what nonexistent equipment, Breadon did not venture to say.
“You see what I mean?” demanded Sparks disgustedly.
* * * *
Greg Malcolm saw. He also saw other things. That their landing-spot, while excellent for its purpose, was not by any manner of means an ideal campsite. It was a small, flat basin of sandy soil, rimmed by shallow mountains. His gaze sought these hills, looked approvingly on their greenness, upon the multitude of dark pock-marks dotting them. These caves, were they not the habitations of potential enemies, might well become the sanctuaries of spacewrecked men.
He saw, also, a thin ribbon of silver sheering the face of the northern hills. His gaze, rising still skyward, saw other things—
He nodded. He knew, now, where they were. Or approximately. There was but one planet in the solar system which boasted such a phenomenon. The apparent distance of the Sun, judged by its diminished disc, argued his judgment to be correct. The fact that they had surged through an atmospheric belt for some length of time before finally meeting with disaster.
“Titan,” he said. “Hyperion possibly. But probably Titan.”
Sparks’ gaze, following Greg’s upward, contracted in an expression of dismay.
“Dirty cow! You mean that’s where we are?”
“I believe so. There’s Saturn, our mother planet, looming above us as large as a dinner plate. And the grav-drag here is almost Earth norm. Titan has a 3,000 mile diameter. That, combined with the Saturnian tractile constant, would give us a strong pull.”
Sparks wailed, “But Titan! Great morning, Malcolm, nobody ever comes to Titan! There ain’t no mines here, no colonies, no—” He stopped suddenly, his eyes widening yet farther. “And, hey—this place is dangerous! There are—”
“I know it,” said Greg swiftly, quietly. “Shut up, Sparks. No use telling the others. If they don’t guess it themselves, what they don’t know won’t alarm them. We’ve got to do something, though. Get ourselves organized into a defensive community. That’s the only way—”
Ralph Breadon’s sharp, dictatorial voice interrupted him. “Well, Malcolm,