Harry Harrison: Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers

"If I'm not mistaken that is Titan, Saturn's biggest moon. I have been watching and we seem to be in her gravitational field and dropping down toward her."

"Lesh go home," Sally said suddenly. "Press the button on your new erector set and lesh go home."

"It's not that easy, Sally darling," Jerry explained, pressing her hand in his in a reassuring manner. "If we activate the cheddite projector now, there is no way of telling where we will end up. Before we throw the switch again, we have to align the resonant frequencies, determine the angle of the solar ecliptic, vibrate the oscillator and. . . ."

"Bullsh-shit," Sally muttered. "Press the frigging button and get us the hell out of here."

"There, there," Chuck said tenderly and led her back to the cabin to curl up in the seat across the aisle from the glowering spy, who had regained consciousness and who was now straining against his unyielding bindings and muttering curses in foreign tongues continuously.

"Here's a thought," Jerry suggested when Chuck had rejoined him at the controls. "We know that Titan has an atmosphere and we seem to be dropping that way. Break out the emergency oxygen cylinders, and we'll hold out until we hit the atmosphere. If there is enough oxygen in the atmosphere, we can do a power landing; if not, a dead stick will have to do. Once down we can calibrate and align the cheddite projector on the solid lunar base so when we activate the mechanism again we will certainly end up back on Earth."

"Great," Chuck enthused. "I'll get the oxy going back there – wait, there it goes by itself." As the pressure dropped, the emergency system had been activated and oxygen masks had dropped down in front of all four hundred seats in the great plane. Jerry put on his mask while Chuck dug out a walkaround cylinder and mask and went back to the cabin. Johann tried to bite him when he offered him the mask but relented as his eyeballs began to bulge and then permitted his enemy to fix the mask in place. Sally was asleep, snoring and gasping alternately, and settled down nicely with the mask and a blanket pulled up over her. After that Chuck went through the plane and tied knots in all the dangling plastic oxygen tubes over all the seats to prevent further loss of this precious gas. By the time he had rejoined Jerry he saw that the moon Titan was swelling quickly below them.

"All okay," Chuck said, dropping into the copilot's seat and pulling at his sore fingers. "How does it look ahead?"

"Not bad. A little lift from the controls, so I think we are at the edge of the atmosphere."

"Doesn't look too darn hospitable," Chuck mused, looking down at the landscape of ice-covered mountains, glaciers, snowfields and barren wastes.

"I don't know." Jerry smiled. "Sort of reminds me of home. So here we go!"

"If that reminds you of home, I'm beginning to see why you came south. Do you realize that the temperature down there is minus two hundred degrees?"

"Doesn't sound too bad," Jerry muttered, all his attention on flying the plane. "Plenty of lift now, but the motors won't catch."

"Probably because the atmosphere consists of methane, ammonia vapor, nitrogen and inert gases – and no oxygen."

"You took the words right out of my mouth. So dead stick it is. Full flaps, drop the landing gear, and let's have the lights."

Down and down they swooped, hurtling toward the jagged frozen peaks below, a nightmare wilderness of fanged rocks and glaring frozen gas that sparkled in multiple colors as the strong lights penetrated the shadows.

"If I can clear that ridge," Jerry murmured, "it may be better on the other side."

Fighting the controls with every particle of his strength and skill, he rode the giant 747 like a behemoth charger of the skies, firm in the saddle and strong on the reins. The great ship quivered as the nose came up, about to stall, while the black fangs of rock reached out hungrily for them. Basing the nose down ever so lightly to prevent the stall, they slid over the escarpment with only feet to spare between the ship and certain death.

"That ice field, there, off to port!" Chuck shouted jubilantly.

"That's the ball game!" Jerry chortled, and tilted the plane into a sharp turn.

Smoothly and easily they drifted down from out of the midnight sky and sped in silence over the smooth ice before dropping to a perfect eighteen-point landing. The air brakes popped up, and the wheel brakes took hold, and instants later they quivered to a halt. The first men on Titan!

"We're the first men on Titan," Chuck said, "and I think maybe we're going to have to stay here."

"Don't be a wet blanket! AU we have to do is align the cheddite projector like I said, and wham-o, we're back on Earth."

"That's right. But we were excited and we sort of forgot that the projector is unreliable in an atmosphere."

"So what's the problem? We take off again and fire away from up on top."

"Take off?"

"Sure. Rig a feedline from the oxygen tanks to the engines and away we go."

"Hmmm, yes, that should work. But we have another problem."

"Like what?"

"I've been looking out the window, and that is the third creature with tentacles, a hideous beak, and four bulging eyes that I have seen climb up on the wing."

"Say!" Jerry spun about to see for himself. "Do you think there is life on this moon?"

Before he could answer, a shrill scream pierced through the air, and on the instant both men were running at breakneck speed back to the cabin. Sally was standing on the back of her seat and pointing with quivering finger at the window, still screaming. They followed her finger and smiled and helped her down, still screaming, and tried to soothe her.

"There, there," Jerry said, soothingly, "it's just a native of this moon. All the natives have tentacles, hideous beaks, and four bulging eyes." She screamed louder.

"It can't get in, so don't worry." Chuck laughed, and she stopped screaming. Not because of his reassurance, but because her mask had come off while she screamed, and she was unconscious from deficient oxygenation of her blood. They put her gently back in her seat and adjusted the oxygen flow. The cabin was silent except for the scratch, scratch of the Titanians' beaks on the windows.

"Loosen my bonds," Johann said. "They are too tight and are cutting off my circulation."

"You would try to escape then," Chuck said curtly. "So you will have to suffer just what a Red Commie spy deserves."

"Schweinhund!"

"I have a graduate degree in German so I know what you are saying, and it doesn't bother me." Sally had recovered consciousness and had listened to this exchange and could not bear it.

"Stop it!" she cried. "Here we are, millions of miles from home, four lost Americans, and you carry on like that. Enough!"

"Silence, woman," Johann said sternly. "I am citizen of Democratic Republic of East Germany and a Soviet agent. Not American."

"But you are," she insisted. "I know one half of you is East German. But the other half is American! Your father was a good American, and that makes you as good an American as any of us."

Silence filled the great cabin, and they saw a large tear form at the comer of each of the spy's eyes and then course down his cheeks. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse with emotion.

"Of course. They lied to me. Made me their own. Never told me I was an American. Deprived me of my birthright. When all the time I was as American as apple pie!"

"Right!" Chuck said, tearing the binding wires free from John's body. "You're one of us."

"I can get a passport, pay income tax, vote in the Presidential election, go to baseball games and eat hot dogs!" "Darn right!" Jerry shouted as he pumped John's hand. Then Chuck shook his hand, and John turned to kiss Sally but realized maybe he was an American but not that American, so he shook her hand as well.