The whole process took many minutes, or hours. I went at last with a curving rush at the ball. Struck its smooth gleaming, convex side. Rebounded, with the impulse of the air pressure in my bloated garments; struck again. It seemed like a falclass="underline" I landed with hands and knees under me, and felt that I now had a little weight: I lay sprawled, sticking outward like a fly upon the side of the sphere! With the contact, blessed normality returned. Detached no longer, free of the abnormality of an independent existence, I was once again the inhabitant of the world.
The sense of human time came back to me, with human movement. I sprawled on the sharply rounded metal surface.
I was on its side, but it seemed like its top, with the windows set wrongly and all the globe under me.
I lay for a moment. I seemed to weigh a few pounds. I began cautiously crawling away from the windows, and to my senses the ball was slowly passing beneath me, so that always I remained on top.
My mind was working clearly now. Would they let me in? It seemed probable. I had a tiny revolver. It was hidden m one boot, inaccessible now; I thought that perhaps when they captured me they might not find it. And there was a thin-bladed knife, of a size that made a fair weapon, fastened to my outer belt.
I clutched it now in my gloved hand. It might be that in the confusion of my arrival some chance would present itself. I knew that with my more than six-foot stature, I had many times the strength of any Mercurian.
I crawled past a window. A face ducked away. I moved sidewise over the small lower doorwayan entrance that could not be used in the vacuum of space. I could not get in that way.
The pressure port was farther around. I was over its smooth, opaque panel before I realized it. Sprawling, knife in hand.
The panel abruptly slid from beneath me. I dropped out of the starlight of the outer surface and fell in a heap against an inner wall; then I dropped to a metal floor.
The panel slid swiftly closed. I was in a soundless blackness.
v HATRED WITHIN Roc's VEHICLE, shortly after it left Earth's atmosphere, Tama, Rowena and Jimmy were sitting and talking with the giant Mercurian. He had told them his name was Dorrek and that he was an army leader on Mercury. And Rowena, a giantess compared to the women of Mercury, quite evidently attracted him. He told her so, in his gutteral, broken English.
"I like youbig womanbeautiful. My woman soon" Then Jimmy saw, lurking in the dimness of the narrow metal room, the short, flabby, gray Muta with folded gray wings. Her face was contorted with jealous rage. Without warning she gave a scream and with a glittering knife-blade in her hand, leaped upon Rowena.
Jimmy had no time to rise; he flung himself, sprawling forward from his sitting posture. But Tama was quicker. Her wings were spread behind her on the floor. She half turned, raised one of the crimson-feathered wings and with a sweeping blow, struck Muta as she leaned down. Rowena had thrown herself backward; the descending knife missed her.
The force of her blow and the thud of Tama's wing made the woman fall. Jimmy reached her, seized the knife and wrenched it from her hand. Dorrek was struggling to his feet, shouting with rage and surprise. He clutched the woman, lifted her up, and cuffed her in the face.
Out of the confusion Jimmy found himself apart and armed. He sprang erect. Then, for the first time, he was aware of the feeble gravity pull existing within this Mercurian vehicle. To the Mercurians it was normal. To Jimmy, it was not enough. He bounced into the air with his upward leap, and his head struck the vaulted ceiling. He fell back, fortunately on his feet, with the knife still clutched in his hand, and found Roc confronting him.
The small triangular room was in a turmoil. Jimmy had an instant flash of determination. He was armed. He would fight his way out of this.
But before he could translate his thoughts into action, other thoughts brought sanity. How could he fight his way out? Imprisoned with two girls in this silver ball hurtling through space! Jimmy's muscles relaxed. He raised the knife, held it out toward the astounded Roc, and smiled.
"Here's the knife. Roc. I took it away from that damned womanshe tried to kill Rowena." Roc took the knife, turned from Jimmy to the turmoil of the others. The woman stood sullen in the clutch of the angry Dorrek.
There was a confusion of argument in the Mercurian tongue.
Then Muta was ordered from the room. The giant Dorrek, triumphantly grinning, turned to Rowena.
"That Mutashe be punished soon by meDorrek." He struck his bulging chest with a show of manly strength.
"Brave fellow," muttered Jimmy.
Roc said abruptly, "The end of that. She will not try that again. You, Turk, come with me. Another room1 will give you something to eat. Are you hungry?"
"Yes. So are the girls, I think."
"They shall be well cared for, have no fear. The Earthship, that Flying Cube they call it"he pushed Jimmy toward the door"I suppose it will be after us?"
"I suppose so." Jimmy flashed a farewell look to Rowena and Tama as he let Roc lead him away.
This, by Earth-time, was shortly after dawn of March 16th, about the time our Cube was leaving the Earth. Jimmy was confined in a small three-sided room. He could see that the ball was divided into two stories. A raised base-floor perhaps a third up the vertical height gave a level area for the bottom of the lower tier of rooms. The space beneath it a single bowl-shaped roomheld the ball's driving mechanisms. The lower tier was cut into triangular rooms, like slices of pie. The upper tier was the sametwo triangular sleeping rooms, the others housing operating instruments and controls.
It was to this upper tier, up a steep metal ladder, that Roc now pushed Jimmy ahead of him. They entered a small triangular room. Wall and ceiling one continuous curve, which was the outer side of the ball; the other walls converging to a point at the ball's center.
Jimmy stood gazing around. The room was dimly lighted by starlight and Earthlight streaming in its single window.
"So this is where I bunk down? Do I eat in here?"
"Yes." It was a comfortable though very small room. There was a low, bunk-like couch on the floor set under the bull's-eye window. A low, curiously-shaped table, a wide-armed metal seat, and an animalskin rug were on the floor. One side wall was blank; the other held the small door-slide through which they had entered. Roc turned toward it.
"I will send you food, or bring it."
"Much obliged." Jimmy took a step and gripped his captor. "Say, what are you going to do with us?" Roc eyed him. The fellow's queer satanic look with his thin pale face and that peak of black hair down on his forehead was accentuated now by an ironic smile.
"You can follow me in our great conquest of Mercury the Light Country." He checked himself suddenly. "You ask too many questions." But Jimmy gripped him again. "I don't give a damn about your Mercury. Except for Tama"
"Tama is mine!" The irony left Roc's face. "It is you who are the intruder. You and Guy Palisse, Earthmen.
Tama is a girl of Mercury, my world. I loved her years before you or Guy Palisse ever heard of her. Did you know that?" His eyes held Jimmy. His voice was vibrant with the intensity of his emotion.
"You Earthmen would think to steal her from me? She is mine!"
"She doesn't say so. Look here. Roc, don't lets try to kill each other, especially about a girl who most certainly is nothing to me." It flashed to Jimmy that something might be gained by talldug. He added, "Get me something to eat. Bring it back and we'll argue this out." Rocs look was gauging him. "You Earthmen are strange."
"That's our way. You help me, and I'll help you. I like that better than sticking knives into people. Do you realize that the Bolton Cube will probably be after us by now?"