Part 12 (2/2)
As they crowded their finny steeds close to the gla.s.s of the control room window, Portok the Martian came to peer out. His red-skinned face went pale as he saw them, and even through the s.h.i.+p's hull their audiphones picked up his agonized cry.
”Steve! Tanda! I just saw the ghosts of Norton and McTavish looking in the window!”
Steve Brent came into the control room. He looked haggard and unshaven, and he was stained with oily grease.
”What are you raving about, Portok?” he snapped.
”It's no raving, Steve!” the little Martian chattered, ”I tell you I saw the three of them. The Chief, and Angus, and the Amazon girl--all riding on some kind of big fish and peering in that window!”
”You're going crazy!” Steve Brent snapped, but he walked to the window.
His own eyes widened as he saw the strangely clad trio sitting their mounts outside. Gerry waved violently to him.
”Let us in, you idiot!” he shouted, forgetting that the _Viking_ did not carry any audiphones that could pick up his words. He heard Steve's unsteady voice.
”Maybe we're both crazy, Portok, but I think they're really out there.
Open the outer door to the starboard s.p.a.ce-lock.”
A small door swung open on the starboard side of the _Viking's_ blue and silver hull. That small compartment had really been designed for dropping objects into the void of outer s.p.a.ce, or for testing the quality of the atmosphere on any stray planetoids the _Viking_ might have visited on her journey across the vastness of interplanetary s.p.a.ce, but it would do for a water-lock in this instance.
Gerry and the others dismounted from their dolphins and let the reins hang. Angus gave his mount a slap on the flank. With a flip of its tail the big fish wheeled and swam off, and after a second the others followed it. Gerry led the way into the s.p.a.ce-lock and closed the door behind him. It only took a few seconds for the blast of the _Viking's_ powerful compressed air tanks to blow out the water. Then, as Gerry unstrapped his helmet and lifted the big gla.s.s globe off his head, Steve Brent opened the inner door and stepped into the s.p.a.ce-lock.
”I don't know if I'm crazy or dreaming or what, Chief,” he said, ”but I'm d.a.m.n glad to see you back.”
”You're sane enough,” Gerry snapped, ”it's a long story, so skip it for the moment. I thought _you_ were done for!”
”Not the _Viking_!” Larry affectionately slapped the laminated duralite sh.e.l.l of the s.p.a.ce-s.h.i.+p. ”She can stand more than being dropped in the drink from a few hundred feet up. Our problem is how to get going again.
We've been able to crawl along the bottom by using minimum power of one rocket tube and scaring h.e.l.l out of all the fish, but that's the best we've been able to do. Now that Angus is back he can take over. What do you think about the helicopters?”
”I could forge new ones in a week out of that blue metal they have in Giri-Vaaka,” McTavish muttered. ”But G.o.d knows how we'll ever get hold of a supply. Anyway, I think I can reverse enough of the gravity plates to give this craft reserve buoyancy so she'll navigate on the surface instead of hugging the bottom.”
”I never thought of that!” Steve said admiringly. Angus grunted, and began to strip off his green rubber uniform.
”It takes a Scotsman to show the rest of the Universe how to get out of a tough spot!”
It was afternoon on the following day when the _Viking's_ long hull finally broke the surface. She lay in the water like a half submerged cigar, the yellowish ripples lapping on the curved blue duralite of her super-structure. The twisted remains of the shattered helicopters were ugly stumps along the s.p.a.ce-s.h.i.+p's sleek back. A single rocket tube flamed and smoked astern, its blast driving the vessel through the water at a good pace while her wake smoked and bubbled.
Gerry Norton opened the duralite dome of the upper control room and stepped out on the wet deck with a few of the others. They were well out on the great sea, with the green hills of the Giri-Savissa border a low smear along the horizon to starboard. This was the same lonely sea they had seen when they first dropped down through the clouds to Venus.
The vast and greenish-yellow waters were broken by scattered islands, bare bits of rock that were dotted with blue moss. Sea birds swooped about them. Lofty mountains on a distant sh.o.r.e were capped with snow. In one or two places a narrow shaft of sunlight struck down through a brief gap in the canopy of eternal clouds, but otherwise there was only that subdued and peculiarly golden light in which there moved only a few oddly shaped birds.
So much had happened since they first saw that lonely sea! It seemed as though much more than a week had elapsed. Savissa and its Golden Amazons ... the arrow tipped tower of Rupin-Sang ... the Scaly hordes of Vaaka and the dread palace of the insane Lansa who had once been an Earthly officer ... the secret and water-locked halls of Luralla where The outlaws of Giri dwelt--many scenes went through Gerry Norton's mind.
He seemed to have aged ten years since the day he brought the _Viking_ down through the cloud screen. Well--the immediate problem was to get some suitable metal to repair the smashed helicopters. The _Viking_ might possibly get up into the air with the power of her rockets alone if they beached her on a sloping sh.o.r.e with her nose upward, but she could never come down safely without helicopters.
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