Isaac Asimov - Lucky Starr And The Big Sun Of Mercury

"Sands of Mars! Yes. Lucky's up ahead twenty feet, but there's no sign of anything. Look, if I've buzzed all clear, take my word for it next time."

"Let me talk to Lucky Starr."

"What for?" Bigman kept it casual with an effort. "Get him next time."

Cook hesitated, then said, "All right."

Bigman nodded to, himself grimly. There'd be no next tune. He'd buzz all clear and that would be all… Only how long was he supposed to wander about in the darkness before he heard from Lucky? An hour? Two? Six? Suppose six hours went by and there was no word? How long should he stay? How long could he stay?

And what if Cook demanded specific information? Lucky had said to describe things, but what if Bigman accidentally failed to keep up the act? What if he tipped the boat and let slip the fact that Lucky had gone into the Sun-side? Lucky would never trust him again! With anything!

He put the thought aside. It would do him no good to concentrate on it

If there were only something to distract him. Something besides darkness and vacuum, besides the faint vibration of his own footsteps and the sound of his own breath.

He stopped to check his position in the main shaft. The side passages had letters and numbers ground sharply into their walls, and time had done nothing to dull their sharpness. Checking wasn't difficult.

However, the low temperature made the chart brittle and difficult to handle, and that didn't sweeten his mood. He turned his suit-light on his chest controls in order that he might adjust the dehumidifier. The inner surface of his face-plate was beginning to mist over faintly from the moisture in his breath, probably because the temperature within rose with his temper, he told himself.

He had just completed the adjustment when he moved his head sharply to one side as though he were suddenly cocking an ear to listen.

It was exactly what he was doing. He strained to sense the rhythm of faint vibration that he "heard" now only because his own steps had ceased.

He held his breath, remained as motionless as the rocky wall of the tunnel.

"Lucky?" he breathed into the transmitter. "Lucky?" The fingers of his right hand had adjusted the controls. The carrier wave was scrambled. No one else would make sense out of that light whisper. But Lucky would, and soon his voice would come in answer. Bigman was ashamed to admit to himself how welcome that voice would be.

"Lucky?" he said again.

The vibration continued. There was no answer.

Bigman's breathing quickened, first with tension, then with the savage joy born of excitement that always came over him when danger was in the offing.

There was someone else in the mines of Mercury with him. Someone other than Lucky.

Who, then? A Sirian? Had Lucky been right after all though he had thought he was merely putting up a smoke screen?

Maybe.

Bigman drew his blaster and put out his suit-light.

Did they know he was there? Were they coming to get him?

The vibrations weren't the blurred nonrhythmic "sound" of many people, or even two or three. To Bigman's keen ear, the distinctly separated "thrum-thrum" of vibration was the "sound" of one man's legs, rhythmically advancing.

And Bigman would meet any one man, anywhere, under any conditions.

Quietly, he put out his hand, touching the nearer wall. The vibrations sharpened noticeably. The other was in that direction then.

He moved forward quietly in the pitch-dark, his hand keeping a light touch on the wall. The vibrations being set up by the other were too intense, too careless. Either the other believed himself alone in the mines (as Bigman himself had until a moment before) or, if he were following Bigman, he wasn't wise in the ways of the vacuum.

Bigman's own footsteps had died to a murmur as he advanced catlike, yet the other's vibrations showed no change. Again, if the other had been following Bigman by sound, the sudden change in Bigman's progress should have been reflected in a change in the other's. It wasn't. The same conclusion, then as before.

He turned right at the next side-tunnel entrance and continued. His hand on the wall at once kept him along the way and guided him toward the other.

And then there was the blinding flash of a suit-light far ahead in the darkness as the motion of another's body whipped the beam across him. Bigman froze against the wall.

The light vanished. The other had passed across the tunnel Bigman was on. He was not advancing along it. Bigman hurried forward lightly. He would find that cross tunnel and then he would be behind the other.

They would meet then. He, Bigman, representing Earth and the Council of Science, and the enemy representing-whom?

Bigman's blaster was ready. He might have shot unerringly, but a blaster would not have left much behind. Dead men tell no tales and dead enemies explain no mysteries.

He pursued with catlike patience, cutting down the distance between them, following the light, trying to estimate the nature of the enemy.

His blaster always ready, Bigman moved to make first contact. First, radio! His fingers set the controls quickly for general local transmission. The enemy might have no equipment to receive that on the wave lengths Bigman could deliver. Unlikely, but possible! Very unlikely and barely possible!

Yet it didn't matter. There was always the alternative of a light blaster bolt against the wall. It would make his point clearly enough. A blaster carried authority and had a plain way of speaking that was understood in any language anywhere.

He said, his tenor voice carrying all the force it could muster, "Stop, you! Stop where you are and don't turn around! There's a blaster beaded in on you!"

Bigman flashed on his suit-light, and in its glare the enemy froze. Nor did he make any effort to turn around, which was proof enough for Bigman that he had received the message.

Bigman said, "Now turn around. Slowly!"

The figure turned. Bigman kept his right hand in the path of his suit-light. Its metal sheath was clamped tightly about the large-caliber blaster. In the glow of the light, its outline was comfortingly clear.

Bigman said, "This blaster is fully charged. I've killed men with it before, and I'm a dead shot."

The enemy obviously had radio. He was obviously receiving, for he glanced at the blaster and made a motion as though to raise a hand to block off the blaster's force.

Bigman studied what he could see of the enemy's suit. It looked quite conventional (did the Sirians use such familiar models?).

Bigman said curtly, "Are you keyed in for radio transmission?"

There was sudden sound in his ears and he jumped. The voice was a familiar one, even under the disguising distortion of the radio; it said, "It's Peewee, isn't it?"

Never in his life had Bigman needed greater self-control to keep from using his blaster.

As it was, the weapon leaped convulsively in his hand and the figure facing him leaned quickly to one side.

"Urteil!" yelled Bigman.

His surprise turned to disappointment. No Sirian! Only Urteil!

Then the sharp thought: What was Urteil doing here?

Urteil said, "It's Urteil all right. So put away the bean-shooter."

"That gets put away when I feel like it," said Big-man. "What are you doing here?"

"The mines of Mercury are not your private property, I think."

"While I have the blaster they are, you fat-faced cobber." Bigman was thinking hard and, to a certain extent, futilely. What was there to do with this poisonous skunk? To take him back to the Dome would reveal the fact that Lucky was no longer in the mines. Bigman could tell them that Lucky had lingered behind, but then they would become either suspicious or concerned when Lucky failed to report. And of what crime could he accuse Urteil? The mines were free to all, at that.