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Dragon Queen of Jupiter

Five hot, steaming days dragged by. The water sank lower and lower in the tank. Flakes of rust dropped from every metal surface at the slightest touch. Tex squatted on a slimy block of stone in the compound, trying to forget hunger and thirst in the task of sewing a patch on his pants. Fog gathered in droplets on the reddish hairs of his naked legs, covered his face with a greasy patina. Breska crouched beside him, coughing in deep, slow spasms. Out under the sagging net, men were listlessly washing underwear in a tub of boiled swamp water. The stuff held some chemical that caused a stubborn sickness no matter what you did to it. Tex looked at it thirstily. "Boy!" he muttered. "What I wouldn't give for just one glass of ice water!" "Shut up," growled Breska. "At least, I've quit being hungry." He coughed, his dark face twisted in pain. Tex sighed, trying to ignore the hunger that chewed his own belly like a prisoned wolf. Nine more days to go. Food and water cut to the barest minimum. Gun parts rusting through all the grease they could put on. The strands of the net were perilously thin. Even the needle in his hand was rusted so that it tore the cloth. Of the thirty-one men left after Kuna deserted, they had lost seven; four by green snakes slipped in through broken drain gratings, three by beetle-bombs tossed over the parapet. There had been no further attacks. In the dark, fog-wrapped nights, swamp men smeared with black mud crept silently under the walls, delivered their messages of death, and vanished. In spite of the heat, Tex shivered. How much longer would this silent war go on? The swamp-men had to clear the fort before the relief column came. Where was Kuna, and why had he stolen that lock of hair? And what scheme was the savage beauty who led these devils hatching out? Water slopped in the tub. Somebody cursed because the underwear never dried in this lousy climate. The heat of the hidden sun seeped down in stifling waves. And suddenly a guard on the parapet yelled. "Something coming out of the swamp! Man the guns!" Tex hauled his pants on and ran with the others. Coming up beside the lookout, he drew his pistol and waited. Something was crawling up the tongue of dry land toward the fort. At first he thought it was one of the scaly war-dogs. Then he caught a gleam of scarlet collar-facings, and shouted. "Hold your fire, men! It's Kuna!" The grey, stooped thing came closer, going on hands and knees, its dark head hanging. Tex heard Breska's harsh breathing beside him. Abruptly the Martian turned and ran down the steps. "Don't go out there, Breska!" Tex yelled. "It may be a trap." But the Martian went on, tugging at the rusty lugs that held the postern gate. It came open, and he went out. Tex sent men down to guard it, fully expecting white figures to burst from the fog and attempt to force the gate. Breska reached the crawling figure, hauled it erect and over one shoulder, and started back at a stumbling run. Still there was no attack. Tex frowned, assailed by some deep unease. If Kuna had gone into the swamps, he should never have returned alive. There was a trap here somewhere, a concealed but deadly trick. Silence. The rank mist lay in lazy coils. Not a leaf rustled in the swamp edges. Tex swore and ran down the steps. Breska fell through the gate and sagged down, coughing blood, and it was Tex who caught Kuna. The boy lay like a grey skeleton in his arms, the bones of his face almost cutting the skin. His mouth was open. His tongue was black and swollen, like that of a man dying of thirst. Kuna's sunken, fever-yellowed eyes opened. They found the tub, in which soiled clothing still floated. With a surge of strength that took Tex completely by surprise, the boy broke from him and ran to the water, plunging his face in and gulping like an animal. Tex pulled him away. Kuna sagged down, sobbing. There was something wrong about his face, but Tex couldn't think what. "Won't let me drink," he whispered. "Still won't let me drink. Got to have water." He clawed at Tex. "Water!" Tex sent someone after it, trying to think what was strange about Kuna, scowling. There were springs of sweet water in the swamps, and even the natives couldn't drink the other. Was it simply the desire to torture that had made them deny the deserter water? Tex caught the boy's collar. "How did you get away?" But Kuna struggled to his knees. "Breska," he gasped. "Breska!" The older man looked at him, wiping blood from his lips. Kuna said something in Martian, retched, choked on his own blood, and fell over. Tex knew he was dead. "What did he say, Breska?" The Martian's teeth showed briefly white. "He said he wished he'd had my guts." His expression changed abruptly. He caught Tex's shoulder. "Look, Tex! Look at the water!" <hr class="tb" /> Where there had been nearly a full tub, there was now only a little moisture left in the bottom. While Tex watched, that too disappeared, leaving the wood dry. Tex picked up an undershirt. It was as dry as any he'd ever hung in the prairie air, back in Texas. He touched his face. The skin was like sun-cured leather. His hair had not a drop of fog on it. Yet the mist hung as heavy as ever. Captain Smith came out of the radio room, looking up at the net and the guns. Tex heard him mutter, quite unconsciously. "It's the rust that'll beat us. It's the rust that'll lose us Jupiter in the end." Tex said, "Captain...." Smith looked at him, startled. But he never had time to ask what the matter was. The lookout yelled. Wings rushed overhead. Guns chattered from the parapet. The attack was on. Tex ran automatically for the catwalk. Passing Kuna's crumpled body, he realized something he should have seen at first. "Kuna's body was dry when he came into the fort. All dry, even his clothes." And then, "Why did the swamp-men wait until he was safely inside and the door closed to attack?" With a quarter of their guns disabled and two-thirds of their garrison gone, they still held superiority due to their position and powerful weapons. There was no concerted attempt to force the walls. Groups of white-haired warriors made sallies, hurled beetle-bombs and weighed bags of green snakes, and retired into the mist. They lost men, but not many. In the air, it was different. The weird, half-feathered mounts wheeled and swooped, literally diving into the gunbursts, the riders hurling missiles with deadly accuracy. And they were dying, men and lizards, by the dozen. Tex, feeling curiously dazed, fired automatically. Bodies thrashed into the net. Rust flakes showered like rain. Looking at the thin strands, Tex wondered how long it would hold. Abruptly he caught sight of what, subconsciously, he'd been looking for. She was there, darting high over the melee, her silver hair flying, her body an iridescent pearl in the mist. Captain Smith spoke softly. "You see what she's up to, Tex? Those flyers are volunteers. Their orders are to kill as many of our men as possible before they die themselves, but they must fall inside the walls! On the net, Tex. To weaken, break it, if possible." Tex nodded. "And when it goes...." "We go. We haven't enough men to beat them if they should get inside the walls." Smith brushed his small military mustache, his only sign of nervousness. Tex saw him start, saw him touch the bristles wonderingly, then finger his skin, his tunic, his hair. "Dry," he said, and looked at the fog. "My Lord, dry!" "Yes," returned Tex grimly. "Kuna brought it back. He couldn't get wet even when he tried to drink. Something that eats water. Even if the net holds, we'll die of thirst before we're relieved." He turned in sudden fury on the distant figure of the woman and emptied his gun futilely at her swift-moving body. "Save your ammunition," cautioned Smith, and cried out, sharply. Tex saw it, the tiny green thing that had fastened on his wrist. He pulled his knife and lunged forward, but already the snake had grown incredibly. Smith tore at it vainly. Tex got in one slash, felt his knife slip futilely on rubbery flesh of enormous contractile power. Then the venom began to work. A mad look twisted the officer's face. His gun rose and began to spit bullets. Grimly, Tex shot the gun out of Smith's hand, and struck down with the gun-barrel. Smith fell. But already the snake had thrown a coil round his neck and shifted its grip to the jugular. Tex sawed at the rubbery flesh. Beaten as though with a heavy whip, he stood at last with the body still writhing in his hand. Captain Smith was dead, with the snake's jaws buried in his throat. Dimly Tex heard the mellow notes of the war-chief's horn. The sky cleared of the remnants of the suicide squad. The ground attackers vanished into the swamps. And then the woman whirled her mount sharply and sped straight for the fort. Puffs of smoke burst around her but she was not hit. Low over the parapet she came, so that Tex saw the pupils of her pale-green eyes, the vital flow of muscles beneath pearly skin. He fired, but his gun was empty. She flung one hand high in derisive salute, and was gone. And Breska spoke softly behind Tex. "You're in command now. And there are just the fourteen of us left." <hr class="tb" /> Tex stood staring down at the dead and dying caught in the rusty net. He felt suddenly tired; so tired that just standing and looking seemed too much drain on his wasted strength. He didn't want to fight any more. He wanted to drink, to sleep, and forget. There was only one possible end. His mouth and throat were dry with this strange new dryness, his thirst intensified a hundredfold. The swamp men had only to wait. In another week they could take the fort without losing a man. Even with the reduced numbers of the defenders, this fiendish thing would make their remaining water supply inadequate. And then another thought struck him. Suppose it stayed there, so that even if by some miracle the garrison held out, it made holding the fort impossible no matter how many men, or how much water there was. The men were looking at him. Tex let the dead snake drop to the catwalk and vanish under a pall of scarlet beetles. "Clean up this mess," said Tex automatically. Breska's black eyes were brilliant and very hard. Why didn't the men move? "Go on," Tex snapped. "I'm ranking officer here now." The men turned to their task with a queer reluctance. One of them, a big scar-faced hulk with a mop of hair far redder far than Tex's, stood long after the others had gone, watching him out of narrowed green eyes. Tex went slowly down into the compound. There were no breaks in the net, but another few days of rust would finish them. What was the use of fighting on? If they left now, they might get out alive. Headquarters could send more men, retake Fort Washington. But Headquarters didn't have many men. And the woman with the eyes like pale-green flames wouldn't waste any time. Some falling body had crushed a beetle-bomb caught in the net. The scarlet things were falling like drops of blood on Kuna's body. Tex smiled crookedly. In a few seconds there'd be nothing left of the flesh Kuna had cherished so dearly. And then Tex rubbed freckled hands over his tired blue eyes, wondering if he were at last delirious. The beetles weren't eating Kuna. They swirled around him restlessly, scenting meat, but they didn't touch him. His face showed parchment dry under the whorls of fog. And suddenly Tex understood. "It's because he's dry. They won't touch anything dry." Recklessly, he put his own hand down in the scarlet stream. It divided and flowed around it, disdaining the parched flesh. Tex laughed, a brassy laugh with an edge of hysteria in it. Now that they were going to die anyway, they didn't have to worry about beetle-bombs. Feet, a lot of them, clumped up to where he knelt. The red-haired giant with the green eyes stood over him, the men in a sullen, hard-faced knot behind him. The red-haired man, whose name was Bull, had a gun in his hand. He said gruffly, "We're leavin', Tex." Tex got up. "Yeah?" "Yeah. We figure it's no use stayin'. Comin' with us?" Why not? It was his only chance for life. He had no stake in the colonies. He'd joined the Legion for adventure. Then he looked at Kuna, and at Breska, thinking of all the people of two worlds who needed ground to grow food on, and water to grow it with. Something, perhaps the ancestor who had died in the Alamo, made him shake his sandy head. "I reckon not," he said. "And I reckon you ain't, either." He was quick on the draw, but Bull had his gun already out. The bullet thundered against Tex's skull. The world exploded into fiery darkness, through which he heard Breska say, "Sure, Bull. Why should I stay here to die for nothing?" Tex tried to cry out, but the blackness drowned him. He came to lying on the catwalk. His head was bandaged. Frowning, he opened his eyes, blinking against the pain. Breska hunched over the nearest gun, whistling softly through his teeth. "The Lone Prairee." Tex stared incredulously. "I—I thought you'd gone with the others." Breska grinned. "I just wasn't as dumb as you. I hung behind till they were all outside, and then I barred the door. I'd seen you weren't dead, and—well, this cough's got me anyway, and I hate forced marches. They give me blisters." They grinned at each other. Tex said, "We're a couple of damn fools, but I reckon we're stuck with it. Okay. Let's see how long we can fool 'em." He got up, gingerly. "The Skipper had some books in his quarters. Maybe one of 'em would tell what this dry stuff is." Breska coughed and nodded. "I'll keep watch." Tex's throat burned, but he was afraid to drink. If the water evaporated in his mouth as it had in Kuna's.... He had to try. Not knowing was worse than knowing. A second later he stood with an empty cup in his hand, fighting down panic. Half the water had vanished before he got the cup to his mouth. The rest never touched his tongue. Yet there was nothing to see, nothing to feel. Nothing but dryness. He turned and ran for Captain Smith's quarters. Hertford's Jungles of Jupiter, the most comprehensive work on a subject still almost unknown, lay between Kelland's Field Tactics and Alice in Wonderland. Tex took it down, leafing through it as he climbed to the parapet. "Here it is," he said suddenly. "'Dry Spots. These are fairly common phenomena in certain parts of the swamplands. Seemingly Nature's method for preserving the free oxygen balance in the atmosphere, colonies of ultra-microscopic animalcules spring up, spreading apparently from spores carried by animals which blunder into the dry areas. "'These animalcules attach themselves to hosts, inanimate or otherwise, and absorb all water vapor or still water nearby, utilizing the hydrogen in some way not yet determined, and liberating free oxygen. They become dormant during the rainy season, apparently unable to cope with running water. They expand only within definite limits, and the life of each colony runs about three weeks, after which it vanishes.'" "The rains start in about a week," said Breska. "Our relief can't get here under nine days. They can pick us off with snakes and beetle-bombs, or let us go crazy with thirst, let the first shower clear out the ani—the whatyoucallits, and move in. Then they can slaughter our boys when they come up, and have the whole of Jupiter clear." Tex told him about Kuna and the beetles. "The snakes probably won't touch us, either." He pounded a freckled fist on the stones. "If we could find some way to drink, and if the guns and the net didn't rust, we might hold them off long enough." "'If'," grunted Breska. "If we were in heaven, we wouldn't have to worry." <hr class="tb" /> The days that followed blurred into a daze of thirst and ceaseless watching. For easier defence, there was only one way down from the parapet through the net. They took the least rusted of the guns and filled the small gap. They could hold out there until they collapsed, or the net gave. They wasted several quarts of water in vain attempts to drink. Then they gave it up. The final irony of it made Tex laugh. "Here we are, being noble till it hurts, and it won't matter a damn. The Skipper was right. It's the rust that'll lose us Venus in the end—that, and these Dry Spots." Food made thirst greater. They stopped eating. They became mere skeletons, moving feebly in sweat-box heat. Breska stopped coughing. "It's breathing dry air," he said, in a croaking whisper. "It's so funny I could laugh." A scarlet beetle crawled over Tex's face where he lay beside the Martian on the catwalk. He brushed it off, dragging weak fingers across his forehead. His skin was dry, but not as dry as he remembered it after windy days on the prairie. "Funny it hasn't taken more oil out of my skin." He struggled suddenly to a sitting position. "Oil! It might work. Oh, God, let it work! It must!" Breska stared at him out of sunken eyes as he half fell down the steps. Then a sound overhead brought the Martian's gaze upward. "A scout, Tex! They'll attack!" Tex didn't hear him. His whole being was centered on one thing—the thing that would mean the difference between life and death. Dimly, as he staggered into the room where the oil was kept, Tex heard a growing thunder of wings. He groaned. If Breska could only hold out for a moment. It took all his strength to turn the spigot of the oil drum. It was empty. All the stuff had been used to burn bodies. Almost crying, Tex crawled to the next one, and the next. It was the fourth drum that yielded black, viscous fluid. Forcing stiff lips apart, Tex drank. If there'd been anything in him, he'd have vomited. The vile stuff coated lips, tongue, throat. Outside, Breska's gun cut in sharply. Tex dragged himself to the water tank. "Running water," he thought. Tilting his head up under the spigot, he turned the tap. Water splashed out. Some of it hit his skin and vanished. But the rest ran down his oil-filmed throat. He felt it, warm and brackish and wonderful, in his stomach. He laughed, and let go a cracked rebel yell. Then he turned and lurched back outside, toward the steps. The net sagged to the weight of white-haired warriors and roaring lizards. Breska's gun choked and stammered into silence. Tex groaned in utter agony. It was too late. The rust had beaten them. His freckled, oil-smeared face tightened grimly. Drawing his gun, he charged the steps. "Where the hell did you go?" snarled Breska. "The ammo belt jammed." He grabbed for the other gun set in the narrow gap. Then it wasn't rust! And Tex realized something else. There were no rust flakes falling from the net. Something had stopped the rusting. Before, his physical anguish had been too great for him to see that the net strands grew no thinner, the gun-barrels no rustier. Scraps of the explanation shot through Tex's mind. Breska's cough stopping because the air was dried before it reached his lungs. Dry stone. Dry clothing. Dry metal! The water-eating organisms kept the surface dry. There could be no rust. "We've licked 'em, Breska! By God, we've licked 'em!" He shouldered the Martian out of the way, gripped the triggers of the gun. Shouting over the din, he told Breska how to drink, sent him lurching down the steps. He could hold the gap alone for a few minutes. Looking up, Tex found her, swooping low over the fight, her silver hair flying in the wind. Tex shouted at her. "You did it! You outsmarted yourself, lady. You showed us the way!" Scientists could find out how to harness the Dry Spots to keep off the rust, and still let the soldiers drink. And some day the swamps would be drained, and men and women would find new wealth, new life, new horizons here on Jupiter. Breska came back, grinning, and fought the jam out of the gun. White bodies began to pile up, mixed with the saurian carcasses of their war-dogs. And presently the notes of the war-chief's horn drifted down, and the attackers faded back into the swamps. And suddenly, wheeling her mount away from the others, the warrior woman swooped low over the parapet. Tex held his fire. For a moment he thought she was going to dash her lizard into them. Then, at the last second, she pulled him up in a thundering climb. Her face was a cut-pearl mask of fury, but her pale-green eyes held doubt, the beginning of an awed fear. Then she was gone, bent low over her mount, her silver hair hiding her face. Breska watched her go. "For Mars," he said softly. Then, pounding Tex on the chest until he winced. Two voices, cracked, harsh, and unmusical, drifted after the retreating form of the white-haired war-chief. "Oh, bury us not on the lone praire-e-e...." <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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