Clifford Simak - Grotto of the Dancing Deer - And Other Stories

The ship tilted far to one side and both of the men lost their balance on the sloping floor. Tom, still clutching the sword, crashed solidly against the side of the hull.

One of the locker doors on the opposite side swung open and with a clatter a varied assortment of tools hit and slid across the floor.

Struggling to his feet, Tom worked his way up the slanting floor to the controls. Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of the Martian huddled in one corner of the cabin.

With his outstretched fingers almost touching the control lever, Tom turned again to look at the Martian.

What he saw brought a scream from his lips. On his knees before one of the ports, the Martian was aiming a heavy wrench at the quartz. If that quartz were broken it meant death for both of them. With a rush the air would leave the flier and both of them would fall in their tracks.

At the sound of the scream, the Martian turned his head and his aim was deflected. The wrench brought up with a metallic crash against the hull, missing the port by a scant inch.

Quickly the Martian poised the wrench again and as he did so Tom hurled the sword at him. End over end the weapon flew. Its point caught the man of Mars at the base of the skull and drove deep. The Martian rolled to one end and the wrench clattered to the plates of the floor.

Tom stared. He had not thought he would kill the man by merely throwing the weapon. It had been his intention to thwart the other in his act and then to settle with him in a hand-to-hand encounter. After all, it didn’t matter. Sooner or later one of them would have had to die. There was not room on the ship for both of them.

He fought his way up the inclining floor to the controls. The ship, he saw, had nosed upward and was tearing spaceward. He brought it on even keel and turned it down.

Far below him, he saw the surface of Mercury. He could plainly see the nine domed stations, but only six of the domes remained intact. To his right he could see the edge of the hot side of the planet, where molten ores bubbled eternally and lakes of melted lead sent up fumes that mingled with the low-lying gases that hung over the entire Sunward half of the planet.

Between the twilight belt and this seething cauldron ran a low lava ridge, which rose at varying heights over the level of the molten sea. At places, Tom could see, unusual activity in the sluggish liquid metal had sent streams of it coursing out into the twilight belt, where it ran slowly for several miles before congealing. He suspected that here lay the secret of the rocky ridges, beside which he had met the two Martians.

To his left he saw the stark frigidness of the cold side of the planet. There, chained forever as ice and frost, was the last vestige of the atmosphere and water of Mercury.

He glanced down toward the region where the domes lay and saw that ships were rapidly taking off from Station Three. The huge transport, slower in motion than the smaller planes, was far below him and to the right.

He grinned grimly. The planes were too low to attack him, and the transport, much too valuable for the Martians and Selenites to lose, was moving out of the way of chance rays.

He would see about that. It was plainly up to him to destroy the transport. It was too dangerous to leave it in the hands of the mutineers. With it, they could leave Mercury. It was the only space-going ship on the planet. It had arrived only a few hours before with supplies for the stations, consisting largely of explosives to be used in the mines. He wondered if it had been unloaded.

The planes were climbing swiftly toward him. He could see the Martian symbol, painted on the bow of the foremost, flashing in the sunlight. Behind the first plane trailed at least a dozen others.

They had gained too great an altitude for him now to attack the transport. He would have to fight his way through. He realized he must be cautious. He was fairly familiar with the operation of a ship, and in that one thing he had an advantage over the Martians and Selenites, who were rank amateurs. In all other things the enemy had the advantage. They were greater in number and each ship carried a gunner.

Sharply he swung the ship up and locked the controls. Leaving the pilot’s chair, he moved to the gun controls. Here he moved the ray nozzle to point slightly forward and down. The three rapid fire guns he aimed straight ahead and to each control lever tied a length of copper wire. He shoved the ray control clear over and locked it in position, and trailing the copper wires in his hand went back to the pilot’s seat.

Carefully he arranged the wires where he could grasp them at a second’s notice and then in a long loop turned the plane over and plunged down.

To the thirteen planes pursuing him had been added several others. Only then did Tom realize the true odds against him. With the vicious heat ray streaming from the nozzle under the machine he dived with reckless speed at the attackers. Like a plummet he dropped toward the lead plane. He could plainly see one of the rapid fire guns mounted on it quivering and knew that he was under fire. So far, however, none of the atomic pellets had found their mark and he doubted if they would at that distance. The distance was great even for an experienced gunner and the Martians were far from that.

Half a mile above the lead plane, he leveled off and went up in a great zoom to gain altitude. On altitude everything depended. So long as he could keep above his attackers, all was well; once he fell below them he was at their mercy.

Beneath him the lead plane, caught in the Allison ray, split in two and plunged toward the surface, a mass of smoking wreckage. Another plane, its right wing seared by the ray, tottered for a moment in midair and then side-slipped, falling faster and faster, defying all the frantic efforts of its pilot to right it.

With the rocket exhaust roaring like mad, Tom’s plane swung over on its back and nosed down again. Almost directly beneath him the Terrestrial saw three of the mutineers’ planes and jerked one of the copper wires. One of the rapid fire guns clattered viciously and one of the planes disappeared in a puff of white smoke. Tom’s hand jerked at a control and the plane protested with a groan of metal at a slight change in direction. Another plane, however, brought directly beneath the nose of the Terrestrial’s ship, also disappeared in a white cloud that slowly sifted downward.

As Tom leveled off, one of the Martian planes turned over on its back and from its underside a ray sliced upward, but missed the Terrestrial ship by a wide margin.

Off to the right and just over the edge of the ridge which separated the twilight belt from the hot side of the planet, Tom saw the transport hanging in all its silver bulkiness. There was not a single ship between it and him! With a catch in his breath he flung his ship down in a long dive. His heart sang exultantly as the machine screamed down on the transport.

Those on the great ship must have noticed his maneuver, for the huge transport stirred, swinging slowly around in an attempt to escape. It was not built, however, for quick getaway. It had not a single chance to elude the lightning flier.

Not more than a hundred feet above it, Tom drove his plane, and as he screamed over it, he swung back hard on the control lever and the little ship shrieked upward. Beneath him the transport, cleanly rayed, split in two, dropped toward the molten sea.

Tilting the machine, Tom stared down through a side observation port. He gasped in amazement and then held his breath.

Where the transport had fallen rose a great geyser of molten ore and rock. Slowly a part of the great ridge toppled and fell. Like a monstrous tongue of flame the molten geyser curled over and poured downward, while the mighty sea of sluggish liquid rushed for the hole blown in the ridge which separated the twilight belt from the hot side of the planet. Great clouds of heavy gases rolled upward, blotting out the scene below. The planes driven by the Martians, caught in the terrible blast, were tossed about like leaves in an autumn gale and out of control, were falling back to the surface. The only thing that had saved him from a similar fate, Tom knew, was his hasty break for altitude after raying the transport.