Jimmy’s expression was one of the utmost disdain. “Evidently the cold has driven you batty, though I admit it wouldn’t take much to knock the little sense you possess out of you.”
“Listen,” Roy answered hotly. “On October 10th, McCutcheon called me up on the ‘visor and told me you had accepted and laughed at me for a yellow-belly for refusing to go. Do you deny that?”
“Yes, I do, and unconditionally. On October 10, Sourpass told me that you had decided to go and had bet him that-”
Jimmy’s voice faded away very suddenly and a shocked look spread over his face. “Say-, are you sure McCutcheon told you I had agreed to go?”
A chill, clammy feeling clutched at Roy’s heart when he caught Jimmy’s drift, a feeling that drowned out the numbness of the cold.
“Absolutely,” he answered. “I’ll swear to that. That’s why I went.”
“But he told me you had accepted and that’s why / went.” Jimmy felt very stupid all at once.
The two fell into a protracted and ominous silence which was broken at length by Roy, who spoke in a voice that quivered with emotion.
“Jimmy, we’ve been the victims of a contemptible, dirty, lowdown, doublecrossing trick.” His eyes dilated with fury. “We’ve been cheated, robbed-,” words failed him but he kept on uttering meaningless sounds, indicative mainly of devouring rage.
Jimmy was cooler, but none the less vindictive, “You’re right, Roy; McCutcheon has done us dirty. He has plumbed the depths of human iniquity. But we’ll get even. When we get through in 6300 odd minutes, we will have a score to settle with Mr. McCutcheon.”
“What are we going to do?” Roy’s eyes were filled with a bloodthirsty joy.
“On the spur of the moment, I suggest that we simply tear into him and rend him into tiny, little pieces.”
“Not gruesome enough. How about boiling him in oil?”
“That’s reasonable, yes; but it might take too long. Let’s give him a good old-fashioned beating-with brass knuckles.”
Roy rubbed his hands. “We’ll have lots of time to think up some really adequate measures. The dirty. God-forsaken, yellow-livered, leprous-” The rest verged fluently into the unprintable.
And for four more days, the temperature dove. It was on the fourteenth and last day that the mercury froze, the solid red shaft pointed its congealed finger at forty below.
On this terrible last day, they had lit the oil-burner, using their entire scanty supply of oil. Shivering and more than half frozen, they crouched close, attempting to extract every last drop of heat.
Jimmy had found a pair of ear-muffs several days before in some obscure corner, and it now changed hands at the end of every hour. Both sat buried under a small mountain of blankets, chafing chilled hands and feet. With every passing minute, their conversation, concerning McCutcheon almost exclusively, grew more vitriolic.
“Always quoting that triply-damned slogan of the Space Maiclass="underline" ‘Our flight through sp-’ “ Jimmy choked with impotent fury.
“Yes, and always rubbing holes in chairs instead of coming out here and doing something like a man’s work, the rotten so-and-so,” agreed Roy.
“Well, we’re due to pass out of the deflection zone in two hours. Then three weeks and we’ll be on Venus,” said Jimmy, sneezing.
“That can’t be too soon for me,” answered Sneed, who had been sniffling for the last two days. “I’m never taking another space trip except maybe the one that takes me back to Earth. After this, I make my living growing bananas in Central America. A fellow can be decently warm out there at least.”
“We might not get off Venus, after what we’re going to do to McCutcheon.”
“No, you’re right there. But that’s all right. Venus is even warmer than Central America and that’s all I care about.”
“We have no legal worries either,” Jimmy sneezed again. “On Venus, life imprisonment’s the limit for first-degree murder. A nice,-warm dry cell for the rest of my life. What could be sweeter?”
The second hand on the chronometer whirled at its even pace; the minutes ticked off. Roy’s hands hovered lovingly over the lever that would set off the right rear blasts which would drive the Helios out away from the sun and from that terrible Deflection Zone.
And at last, “Go!” shouted Jimmy eagerly. “Let her blast!”
With a deep reverberating roar, the rockets fired. The Helios trembled from stem to stern. The pilots felt the acceleration press them back into their seats and were happy. In a matter of minutes, the sun would shine again and they would be warm, feel the blessed heat once more.
It happened before they were aware of it. There was a momentary flash of light and then a grinding and a click, as the sunward portholes closed.
“Look,” cried Roy, “the stars! We’re out of it!” He cast an ecstatically happy glance at the thermometer. “Well, old boy, from now on we go up again.” He pulled the blankets about him closer, for the cold still lingered.
There were two men in Frank McCutcheon’s office at the Venus branch of the United Space Maiclass="underline" McCutcheon himself and the elderly, white-haired Zebulon Smith, inventor of the Deflection Field. Smith was talking.
“But Mr. McCutcheon, it is really of great importance that I learn exactly how my Deflection Field worked. Surely they have transmitted all possible information to you.”
McCutcheon’s face was a study in dourness as he bit the edge off one of his two-for-five cigars and lit it.
“That, my dear Mr. Smith,” he said, “is exactly what they did not do. Ever since they have receded far enough from the sun to render communication possible, I have been sending requests for information regarding the practicability of the Field. They just refuse to answer. They say it worked and that they’re alive and that they’ll give the details when they reach Venus. That’s all!”
Zebulon Smith sighed in disappointment. “Isn’t that a bit unusual; insubordination, so to speak? I thought they were required to be complete in their reports and to give any requested details.”
“So they are. But these are my ace pilots and rather temperamental. We have to extend some leeway. Besides, I tricked them into going on this trip, a very hazardous one, as you know, and so am inclined to be lenient.”
“Well, then, I suppose I must wait.”
“Oh, it won’t be for long,” McCutcheon assured him. “They’re due today, and I assure you that as soon as I get in touch with them, I shall send you the full details. After all, they survived for two weeks at a distance of twenty million miles from the sun, so your invention is a success. That should satisfy you.”
Smith had scarcely left when McCutcheon’s secretary entered with a puzzled frown on her face.
“Something is wrong with the two pilots of the Helios , Mr. McCutcheon,” she informed him. “I have just received a bulletin from Major Wade at Pallas City, where they landed. They have refused to attend the celebration prepared for them, but instead immediately chartered a rocket to come here, refusing to state the reason. When Major Wade tried to stop them, they became violent, he says.” She laid the communication down on his desk.
McCutcheon glanced at it perfunctorily. “Hmm! they do seem confoundedly temperamental. Well, send them to me when they come. I’ll snap them out of it.”
It was perhaps three hours later that the problem of the two misbehaving pilots again forced itself upon his mind, this time by a sudden commotion that had arisen in the reception room. He heard the deep angry tones of two men and then the shrill remonstrances of his secretary. Suddenly the door burst open and Jim Turner and Roy Snead strode in.
Roy coolly closed the door and planted his back against it.
“Don’t let anyone disturb me until I’m through,” Jimmy told him.
“No one’s getting through this door for a while,” Roy answered grimly, “but remember, you promised to leave some for me.”