Chapter 1: Thrill Cruise

Lance Kenniston felt the cold realization of failure as he came out of the building into the sharp chill of the Martian night. He stood for a moment, his lean, drawn face haggard in the light of the two hurtling moons.

He looked hopelessly across the dark spaceport. It was a large one, for this ancient town of Syrtis was the main port of Mars. The forked light of the flying moons showed many ships docked on the tarmac--a big liner, several freighters, a small, shining cruiser and other small craft. And for lack of one of those ships, his hopes were ruined!

A squat, brawny figure in shapeless space-jacket came to Kenniston’s side. It was Holk Or, the Jovian who had been waiting for him.

“What luck?” asked the Jovian in a rumbling whisper.

“It’s hopeless,” Kenniston answered heavily. “There isn’t a small cruiser to be had at any price. The meteor-miners buy up all small ships here.”

“The devil!” muttered Holk Or, dismayed. “What are we going to do? Go on to Earth and get a cruiser there?”

“We can’t do that,” Kenniston answered. “You know we’ve got to get back to that asteroid within two weeks. We’ve got to get a ship here.”

Desperation made Kenniston’s voice taut. His lean, hard face was bleak with knowledge of disastrous failure.

The big Jovian scratched his head. In the shifting moonslight his battered green face expressed ignorant perplexity as he stared across the busy spaceport.

“That shiny little cruiser there would be just the thing,” Holk Or muttered, looking at the gleaming, torpedo-shaped craft nearby. “It would hold all the stuff we’ve got to take; and with robot controls we two could run it.”

“We haven’t a chance to get that craft,” Kenniston told him. “I found out that it’s under charter to a bunch of rich Earth youngsters who came out here in it for a pleasure cruise. A girl named Loring, heiress to Loring Radium, is the head of the party.”

The Jovian swore. “Just the ship we need, and a lot of spoiled kids are using it for thrill-hunting!”

Kenniston had an idea. “It might be,” he said slowly, “that they’re tired of the cruise by this time and would sell us the craft. I think I’ll go up to the Terra Hotel and see this Loring girl.”

“Sure, let’s try it anyway,” Holk Or agreed.

The Earthman looked at him anxiously. “Oughtn’t you to keep under cover, Holk? The Planet Patrol has had your record on file for a long time. If you happened to be recognized--”

“Bah, they think I’m dead, don’t they?” scoffed the Jovian. “There’s no danger of us getting picked up.”

Kenniston was not so sure, but he was too driven by urgent need to waste time in argument. With the Jovian clumping along beside him, he made his way from the spaceport across the ancient Martian city.

The dark streets of old Syrtis were not crowded. Martians are not a nocturnal people and only a few were abroad in the chill darkness, even they being wrapped in heavy synthewool cloaks from which only their bald red heads and solemn, cadaverous faces protruded.

Earthmen were fairly numerous in this main port of the planet. Swaggering space-sailors, prosperous-looking traders and rough meteor-miners made up the most of them. There were a few tourists gaping at the grotesque old black stone buildings, and under a krypton-bulb at a corner, two men in the drab uniform of the Patrol stood eyeing passersby sharply. Kenniston breathed more easily when he and the Jovian had passed the two officers without challenge.

The Terra Hotel stood in a garden at the edge of town, fronting the moonlit immensity of the desert. This glittering glass block, especially built to cater to the tourist trade from Earth, was Earth-conditioned inside. Its gravitation, air pressure and humidity were ingeniously maintained at Earth standards for the greater comfort of its patrons.

Kenniston felt oddly oppressed by the warm, soft air inside the resplendent lobby. He had spent so much of his time away from Earth that he had become more or less adapted to thinner, colder atmospheres.

“Miss Gloria Loring?” repeated the immaculate young Earthman behind the information desk. His eyes appraised Kenniston’s shabby space-jacket and the hulking green Jovian. “I am afraid--”

“I’m here to see her on important business, by appointment,” Kenniston snapped.

The clerk melted at once. “Oh, I see! I believe that Miss Loring’s party is now in The Bridge. That’s our cocktail room--top floor.”

Kenniston felt badly out of place, riding up in the magnetic lift with Holk Or. The other people in the car, Earthmen and women in the shimmering synthesilks of the latest formal dress, stared at him and the Jovian as though wondering how they had ever gained admittance.

The lights, silks and perfumes made Kenniston feel even shabbier than he was. All this luxury was a far cry from the hard, dangerous life he had led for so long amid the wild asteroids and moons of the outer planets.

It was worse up in the glittering cocktail room atop the hotel. The place had glassite walls and ceiling, and was designed to give an impression of the navigating bridge of a space-ship. The orchestra played behind a phony control-board of instruments and rocket-controls. Meaningless space-charts hung on the walls for decoration. It was just the sort of pretentious sham, Kenniston thought contemptuously, to appeal to tourists.

“Some crowd!” muttered Holk Or, looking over the tables of richly dressed and jewelled people. His small eyes gleamed. “What a place to loot!”

“Shut up!” Kenniston muttered hastily. He asked a waiter for the Loring party, and was conducted to a table in a corner.

There were a half dozen people at the table, most of them young Earthmen and girls. They were drinking pink Martian desert-wine, except for one sulky-looking youngster who had stuck to Earth whisky.

One of the girls turned and looked at Kenniston with cool, insolently uninterested gaze when the waiter whispered to her politely.

“I’m Gloria Loring,” she drawled. “What did you want to see me about?”

She was dark and slim, and surprisingly young. There were almost childish lines to the bare shoulders revealed by her low golden gown. Her thoroughbred grace and beauty were spoiled for Kenniston by the bored look in her clear dark eyes and the faintly disdainful droop of her mouth.

The chubby, rosy youth beside her goggled in simulated amazement and terror at the battered green Jovian behind Kenniston. He set down his glass with a theatrical gesture of horror.

“This Martian liquor has got me!” he exclaimed. “I can see a little green man!”

Holk Or started wrathfully forward. “Why, that young pup--”

Kenniston hastily restrained him with a gesture. He turned back to the table. Some of the girls were giggling.

“Be quiet, Robbie,” Gloria Loring was telling the chubby young comedian. She turned her cool gaze back to Kenniston. “Well?”

“Miss Loring, I heard down at the spaceport that you are the charterer of that small cruiser, the Sunsprite,” Kenniston explained. “I need a craft like that very badly. If you would part with her, I’d be glad to pay almost any price for your charter.”

The girl looked at him in astonishment. “Why in the world should I let you have our cruiser?”

Kenniston said earnestly, “Your party could travel just as well and a lot more comfortably by liner. And getting a cruiser like that is a life-or-death business for me right now.”

“I’m not interested in your business, Mr. Kenniston,” drawled Gloria Loring. “And I certainly don’t propose to alter our plans just to help a stranger out of his difficulties.”

Kenniston flushed from the cool rebuke. He stood there, suddenly feeling a savage dislike for the whole pampered group of them.