The surface of the lake was broken into boiling foam, and from it there reared the fore-parts of what appeared to be giant caterpillars. They squirmed out upon land, dirty-grey bodies dripping slime and water. They were some four feet long, about one foot in thickness, and their method of locomotion was the slowest of oxygen-conserving crawls. Except for one stalky growth upon their forward end, the tip of which glowed a faint red, they were absolutely featureless.
Even as I watched, their numbers increased, until the shore became one heaving mass of sickly gray flesh.
Charney and Steeden were running towards the Ceres , but less than half the distance had been covered when they stumbled, their run slowing to a blind stagger. Even that ceased, and almost together they fell to their knees.
Charney’s voice sounded faintly in my ear, “Get help! My head is splitting. I can’t move! I-” Both lay still now.
I started towards them automatically, but a sudden sharp pang just over my temples staggered me, and for a moment I stood confused.
Then I heard a sudden unearthly shout from Whitefield, “Get back to the ship, Jenkins! Get back! Get back!”
I turned to obey, for the pain had increased into a continuous tearing pain. I weaved and reeled as I approached the yawning airlock, and I believe that I was at the point of collapse when I finally fell into it. After that, I can recall only a jumble for quite a period.
My next clear impression was of the control-room of the Ceres . Someone had dragged the suit off me, and I gazed about me in dismay at a scene of the utmost confusion. My brain was still somewhat addled and Captain Bartlett as he leant over me appeared double.
“Do you know what those damnable creatures are?” He pointed outwards at the giant caterpillars.
I shook my head mutely.
“They’re the great grand-daddies of the Magnet Worm Whitefield was telling us of once. Do you remember the Magnet Worm?”
I nodded, “The one that kills by a magnetic field which is strengthened by surrounding iron.”
“Damn it, yes,” cried Whitefield, interrupting suddenly. “I’ll swear to it. If it wasn’t for the lucky chance that our hull is beryl-tungsten and not steel-like the Phobos and the rest-every last one of us would be unconscious by now and dead before long.”
“Then that’s the Callistan menace.” My voice rose in sudden dismay, “But what of Charney and Steeden?”
“They’re sunk,” muttered the Captain grimly. “Unconscious -maybe dead. Those filthy worms are crawling towards them and there’s nothing we can do about it.” He ticked off the points on his fingers. “We can’t go after them in a spacesuit without signing our own death warrant-spacesuits are steel. No one can last there and back without one. We have no weapons with a beam fine enough to blast the Worms without scorching Charney and Steeden as well. I’ve thought of maneuvering the Ceres nearer and making a dash for it, but one can’t handle a spaceship on planetary surfaces like that-not without cracking up. We-”
“In short,” I interrupted hollowly, “we’ve got to stand here and watch them die.” He nodded and I turned away bitterly.
I felt a slight twitch upon my sleeve, and when I turned, it was to find Stanley’s wide blue eyes staring up at me. In the excitement, I had forgotten about him, and now I regarded him bad-temperedly.
“What is it?” I snapped.
“Mr. Jenkins,” his eyes were red, and I think he would have preferred pirates to Magnet Worms by a good deal, “Mr. Jenkins, maybe I could go and get Mr. Charney and Mr. Steeden.”
I sighed, and turned away.
“But, Mr. Jenkins, I could. I heard what Mr. Whitefield said, and my spacesuit isn’t steel. It’s vitri-rubber.”
“The kid’s right,” whispered Whitefield slowly, when Stanley repeated his offer to the assembled men. “The unstrengthened field doesn’t harm us, that’s evident. He’d be safe in a vitri-rubber suit.”
“But it’s a wreck, that suit!” objected the Captain. “I never really intended having the kid use it.” He ended raggedly and his manner was evidently irresolute.
“We can’t leave Neal and Mac out there without trying, Captain,” said Brock stolidly.
The Captain made up his mind suddenly and became a whirlwind of action. He dived into the space-suit rack for the battered relic himself, and helped Stanley into it.
“Get Steeden first,” said the Captain, as he clipped shut the last bolt. “He’s older and has less resistance to the field. -Good luck to you, kid, and if you can’t make it, come back right away. Right away, do you hear me?”
Stanley sprawled at the first step, but life on Ganymede had inured him to below-normal gravities and he recovered quickly. There was no sign of hesitation, as he leaped towards the two prone figures, and we breathed easier. Evidently, the magnetic field was not affecting him yet.
He had one of the suited figures over his shoulders now and was proceeding back to the ship at an only slightly slower pace. As he dropped his burden inside the airlock, he waved an arm to us at the window and we waved back. He had scarcely left, when we had Steeden inside. We ripped the spacesuit off him and laid him out, a gaunt pale figure, on the couch.
The Captain bent an ear to his chest and suddenly laughed aloud in sudden relief, “The old geezer’s still going strong.”
We crowded about happily at hearing that, all eager to place a finger upon his wrist and so assure ourselves of the life within him. His face twitched, and when a low, blurred voice suddenly whispered, “So I said to Peewee, I said-” our last doubts were put to rest.
It was a sudden, sharp cry from Whitefield that drew us back to the window again, “Something’s wrong with the kid.”
Stanley was half way back to the ship with his second burden, but he was staggering now-progressing erratically.
“It can’t be,” whispered Whitefield, hoarsely, “it can’t be. The field can’t be getting him!”
“God!” the Captain tore at his hair wildly, “that damned antique has no radio. He can’t tell us what’s wrong.” He wrenched away suddenly. “I’m going after him. Field or no field, I’m going to get him.”
“Hold on. Captain,” said Tuley, grabbing him by the arm, “he may make it.”
Stanley was running again, but in a curious weaving fashion that made it quite plain, he didn’t see where he was going. Two or three times he slipped and fell but each time he managed to scramble up again. He fell against the hull of the ship, at last, and felt wildly about for the yawning airlock. We shouted and prayed and sweated, but could help in no way.
And then he simply disappeared. He had come up against the lock and fallen inside.
We had them both inside in record time, and divested them of their suits. Charney was alive, we saw that at a glance, and after that we deserted him unceremoniously for Stanley. The blue of his face, his swollen tongue, the line of fresh “blood running from nose to chin told its own story.
“The suit sprung a leak,” said Harrigan.
“Get away from him,” ordered the Captain, “give him air.”
We waited. Finally, a soft moan from the kid betokened returning consciousness and we all grinned in concert.
“Spunky little kid,” said the Captain. “He travelled that last hundred yards on nerve and nothing else.” Then, again. “Spunky little kid. He’s going to get a Naval Medal for this, if I have to give him my own.”
Callisto was a shrinking blue ball on the televisor-an ordinary unmysterious world. Stanley Fields, honorary Captain of the good ship Ceres , thumbed his nose at it, protruding his tongue at the same time. An inelegant gesture, but the symbol of Man’s triumph over a hostile Solar System.
As I reread the story now (it’s the first time I’ve reread it since it was published) I am amused to see that my stowaway youngster’s name is Stanley. That is the name of my younger brother, who was only nine when I wrote the story (the same younger brother who was the subject of my Boys’ High essay, and who is now Assistant Publisher of the Long Island Newsday). Why it is necessary to use “real names” I don’t know, but almost every beginning writer does so, I suspect.
You will notice that there are no girls in the story. This is not really surprising. At eighteen I was busy finishing college and working in my father’s candy store and handling a paper delivery route morning and evening, and I had actually never had time to have a date. I didn’t know anything at all about girls (except for such biology as I got out of books and from other, more knowledgeable, boys).
I eventually had dates and I eventually introduced girls into my stories, but the early imprinting had its effect. To this very day, the romantic element in my stories is minor and the sexual element virtually nil.
On the other hand, I wonder if the above explanation for the lack of sex in my stories is not an oversimplification. After all, I am also a teetotaler and yet I notice that my characters drink Martian Jabra water (whatever that is).
My knowledge of astronomy was quite respectable but I let myself be overinfluenced by the conventions common in the science fiction of that era. All worlds were Earthlike and inhabited in those days, so I gave Callisto an atmosphere containing a small quantity of free oxygen. I also gave it running water, and both plant and animal life. All of this is, of course, unlikely in the extreme, and what evidence we have seems to make of Callisto an airless, waterless world like our Moon (and, of course, I really knew this even back then).