Part 3

What was there to be afraid of? Steve didn't know. His brother had died on Ganymede--and the circumstances of Charlie's death still bordered on the mysterious. Well, he'd see for himself about that. Did the fear crawl around the edges of his brain because he thought Teejay was responsible? But that didn't make sense, for to a certain degree he'd thought that all along. Unless the appalling thought of having to fight Teejay and her whole loyal crew had taken hold of him unconsciously.

"What are you moping about, boy?"

"Huh? Oh, Kevin. Nothing much, I guess. I--"

"You look to me like you've seen a ghost. What is it, scared?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess so."

"So what? Buck up, boy."

"I don't want to be scared, Kevin."

"Who does?"

"That's not what I mean. It's one thing to say that if you aren't--"

"Who isn't? Don't look at me, boy. And didn't you watch all the men trooping outside with the blood drained from their faces, and their eyes sort of big and too bright behind the face-plates? We're all scared."

"But why?"

"Mean to say you spent so much time on zoology and forgot about other things? Like, for instance, Ganymede-fear?"

"Huh? How's that?"

"Everyone is afraid, Steve. Everyone. Whenever a man gets near Ganymede, he suddenly becomes afraid. It's some sort of a psychological or maybe para-psychological phenomenon and none of the medicos could ever figure it out. It isn't the kind of fear that paralyzes, boy, but still, it holds on all the time a man's on Ganymede and it doesn't leave until he blasts off again. Didn't you ever hear about that?"

"No. That is, I knew it happened somewhere, but I forgot where."

"Well, that's all there is to it, boy."

"All! Don't you think it's enough? Something lurks out there, something makes people afraid, and we've never been able to find out why, but you say--"

Teejay came up and smiled at them, but there was something grim about her smile. "You can always tell when someone comes to Ganymede for the first time. He's jumpier. Just relax, Stedman. By the time they start beating the anthrovacs in toward the _Gordak_ you'll be feeling better--and raring to go to work with that oxygen-jag stunt of yours, too." And she added, "Say, have you been watching your stone worm?"

"He sure has," Kevin told her. "He took me down there yesterday and that worm's been growing fat on all the sand he's fed it. Sand--for food, that's what the worm eats. Imagine how that would settle the over-population problems on Earth if people, too, could eat sand."

"Yes, and then--" Teejay was speaking again--but words, just words, and Steve stopped listening. It occurred to him all at once that they were engrossed in their meaningless conversation for one reason only--to keep the fear from their minds. If you thought about something else, the fear would retreat at least in part, and if you could hold a conversation about everything and nothing, that was even better.

Steve almost jumped off the floor when a metallic voice blared forth from the loudspeaker, echoing and re-echoing in the near-empty room.

"Captain! Captain, this is Moretti, Group Seven."

"Go ahead, Moretti," Teejay said into the mike. "I'm listening."

"Who the devil's on radar, Captain?"

"Why--no one! We forgot."

"There's a ship coming down. We can see it plain as day out here."

"What ship?" Teejay asked softly, but they all knew the question was totally unnecessary.

Moretti's voice jumped an octave as he cried: "It's Barling!"

* * * * *

Within ten minutes, all the beaters had been called in. Barling's big ship, the _Frank Buck_, snorted back and forth angrily on its landing jets.

"Are they gonna land or ain't they gonna land?" someone said as Kevin broke out the neutron guns and saw that every third man had one.

"Depends on their boss," said Kevin. "If he figures we can be scared off, he'll land. Otherwise, maybe he'll go away."

"Not that little stinker," Teejay told him. "Not Schuyler Barling. He won't go away. Will the fact that we're here first matter? It will not, for Schuyler knows we can't prove it. You ought to know better than to hope for that, Kevin. No, we can figure that Schuyler will move in on us."

"What happens then?" Steve demanded.

Teejay shrugged her bare, beautiful shoulders. "That I don't know. Schuyler may be a stinker and may be predictable, but he's not _that_ predictable. Hey, it looks like the _Frank Buck_ is coming down!"

The big ship, Steve saw, was doing precisely that. Its jets had been cut, and the ship fell like a stone. Twice its length separated it from the rubble-strewn pumice when the pilot kicked his jets over again, and something seemed to slap the _Frank Buck_ back up toward the starry sky. The result was a first-rate landing.

"That would be Schuyler showing off," said Teejay wearily. "He must have been born in a tube and weaned on jet-slag, and he sure lets you know it."

Fifteen minutes later, Schuyler Barling and three of his officers entered the _Gordak_.

Barling got out of his vac-suit first, a tall, handsome man of about thirty, with short-cropped blond hair, pale blue eyes and petulant lips. "Captain Moore," he said, bowing slightly from the waist. Making fun of Teejay.

"Mr. Barling." As ever, the woman seemed cool and unruffled.

"With us," said Schuyler Barling, "it's in the family. I work for my father. Obviously, it means something to me whether he succeeds or not. But you, Captain Moore, you're a hired hand. You work for Brody Carmical, on a paycheck. Therefore, your loyalty could not possibly be as strong as mine, and--"

"Get to the point!"

"We arrived here on Ganymede almost simultaneously. One of us will have to leave."

"It didn't look simultaneous to me."

Barling ignored her. "Yes, one will have to leave, because the anthrovac is frightened off easily and unless a hunt is carried on with the utmost precision and timing, no one will catch any anthrovacs."

"Go on," said Teejay. She spoke quietly, but Steve knew the woman well enough to realize her temper was coming to a boil, inside.

"My _Frank Buck_ got here first," Barling told her blandly. "Therefore, you will leave."

"That's a stinking lie!" Teejay cried. "We were here first and you know it."

"Who can prove it? The _Frank Buck_ landed first." Barling's hand flashed down to his waist, came up gripping a neutron gun. "If we have to, we'll force you to leave."

Teejay stood with hands on hips, facing him. "I know I'm not conducting myself like a lady, but then, this is the twenty-second century," she said, smiling--and struck out with her balled right fist. It bounced off Barling's jaw with savage force and the man stumbled back against the wall and crashed to the floor, his neutron gun clattering away. Barling shook himself, tried to rise. He got to hands and knees, then fell forward on his face.

Teejay whirled on his officers. "All right, get him out of here! Come on, move."

* * * * *

The three men looked at each other. None of them did anything.

"You see, boy?" said Kevin, grinning. "That's our Captain and we'll fight for her. She won the beauty pageant five years ago in Cerestown, and she can fight like a man. She's a woman for the stars, and we're proud to--"

"Shut up," said Teejay. "That won't get us anywhere."

By now, Barling had stirred, had come up, dazed, into a sitting position. He rubbed his jaw, winced. "Assuming we return to our ship, we still won't leave Ganymede. Not without our anthrovac."

"Nor will we."

"But you had to hit me! You had to flaunt your--"

"No one told you to draw your gun."

"--flaunt your Amazonian prowess."

"Stop sniveling, Schuyler. I think we'll have to reach some sort of a compromise, but I'll dictate terms, not you."

"Yes?" Barling growled up at her. "Who says we'll obey?"

"Oh, get up off the floor! You look so silly, sitting there and rubbing your chin."

Barling stood up, retrieving his gun but holstering it. Kevin watched him, toying with his own weapon--not pointing it at anyone in particular, but tossing it back and forth idly from hand to hand.

"Give us twenty four hours," said Teejay. "We'll look for our anthrovac. In that time, none of your men is to leave the _Frank Buck_. After that, you get twenty four hours, and we're confined to the _Gordak_. Then us, then you. And so on, till one of us gets his anthrovac. Then he pulls out and the other is left here. Is it a deal?"

Barling considered, said: "Well, yes--with one change. _We_ get the first twenty four hours."

"No."

"Then you can forget your deal, Captain Moore."

"Well, then let's toss for it." Teejay reached into a pocket of her cape, flipped a coin to Steve. "Here, Stedman. You toss it."

"Who gets to call?" Barling demanded.

"Do you want to?"

"Well--"

"Good. Then I will. Ladies first, you know. Go ahead, Stedman."

Steve tossed the coin, and Teejay cried: "Heads!"

Palming the coin, Steve flipped it over on the back of his left hand, peered at it. Staring up at him was the metallic likeness of Angus MacNamara, first man to reach the planet Mars. "Heads," said Steve, and one of Barling's officers came over to verify it.

Barling shook his head stubbornly. "How do I know it isn't a phony, a two-headed coin?"

Teejay glared at him. "That's insulting, Schuyler."

"Well, I'd like to look at it. How do I know--"

"You don't. But I said it's insulting. So, if you want to see the coin, you'll have to fight me!"

"Never mind," said Barling, climbing into his vac-suit. "You get first try." And all of them garbed in their vac-suits once more, the men of the _Frank Buck_ departed.

"Get those beaters out again!" Teejay was calling into her microphone, and Kevin grasped Steve's arm, said:

"Go ahead, boy. Look at the coin."

Steve did. It had two heads.

And later, Teejay said to him: "Listen, Stedman. All the beaters are out now, but frankly, I don't trust Schuyler."

Steve said he did not blame her, and Kevin was there to nod his red head.

"So, Stedman, the beaters have their jobs to do. That's almost everyone. But temporarily at least, it leaves you and Mac here with nothing to do."

"That's true," said Kevin.

"But not for long, Mac. Schuyler may try something, I don't know what. You two are probably the strongest men on this ship. I know what you can do, Mac--and I saw a sample of Stedman at work when he had that little run-in with LeClarc. All right: you two hop into a couple of vac-suits. That is, if Stedman's ready to fight for us if he has to--"

Steve chuckled. "I don't go around carrying two-headed coins, Teejay, but I know a rat when I see one. I'll go, and your friend Schuyler better not try anything." Almost, he was surprised at his own words. Teejay had a way of commanding respect, and if he didn't watch himself, he'd be talking like Kevin soon. Well, perhaps the woman merited it.... His thoughts took him that far, and then he remembered Charlie. "I'll go," he said again, almost growling.

"But you still have a chip on your shoulder--well, never mind. I'll expect quarter-hourly reports from you two."

"You'll get them," said Kevin, and climbed into his vac-suit.

* * * * *

Incredibly, Steve found himself out on the bleak, desolate surface of Ganymede, walking with Kevin past the long, silent length of the _Frank Buck_. And here, outside the confining walls of their spaceship, the Ganymede-fear seemed stronger. Steve felt it as something palpable, clutching at his heart and constricting it, bringing sweat to his forehead and clouding the inside of his helmet with moisture.

Fear--of what?

Not of the frontier world itself, surely. Not of some unknown menace lurking out among the craterlets and ringwalls. No, for while Ganymede was not yet as familiar as Mars or Venus, mankind still had explored it extensively. There were the strange anthrovacs, animals which looked like over-sized and less brutish gorillas but which were not protoplasm creatures and which took their energy directly from sunlight and cosmic radiation. But that was all--no other life existed on Ganymede, and the anthrovacs on their frigid, airless world were something of an oddity.

Then what caused the fear? And was the fear responsible in any way for what had happened to Charlie?

"Hey, Steve--snap out of it!" Kevin's voice, floating in thinly on the intercom.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, Kevin. Sure. It's that fear, sort of gets you out here. You can't help it."

"I know. A ship seems to cut it off to some extent, boy. But it's around, lurking, waiting to get you."

"What do you mean, waiting to get you?"

"Well, not directly. But it makes you make mistakes. Men have died that way--paying so much attention to the fear that they didn't pay enough attention to whatever was happening."

"Kevin, do you know anything about how Charlie died you haven't told me?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. It's kind of vague, boy. Teejay went out alone and when she came back--why, she looked scared. That's common enough on Ganymede--everyone looks scared. But Teejay looked puzzled and confused also, and that's not like her. She wouldn't talk much for a time, and when she did she just said she'd found Charlie Stedman, your brother, dead."

"Where?"

"What do you mean, where? Out here on Ganymede, naturally."

"No, I mean exactly where. What was done with the body?"

"That I don't know," said Kevin, and Steve could picture him frowning inside his helmet.

"Well--listen, Kevin! Do you hear something?"

"Hear something? How can you hear anything on Ganymede, with no air to carry it? Except on the radio, of course. I hear you, but get a grip on yourself, boy."

"No. I hear something. There it is, louder. My God, Kevin! My God--" And clumsily in his vac-suit, Steve began running away across the pumice.

"Hey, come back! Back here, you crazy fool--" Kevin charged after him, taking long, ungainly strides in the light gravity. But Steve was quicker and soon the distance between them increased and Kevin realized he wouldn't be able to overtake Steve at all.

"Come back! What do you hear, boy? At least tell me that."

Steve told him, and ran on. Amazed, Kevin lumbered back toward the _Gordak_.

"But what made him do it?" Teejay demanded, later.

"I told you all I know, Captain. He said he heard something and started running. I chased after him, couldn't catch him. He told me what he heard."

"What?"

"Well, you won't like this, because it doesn't make sense. But he said he heard his brother--calling him. Charlie Stedman, calling."

"Charlie Stedman is dead." Suddenly, Teejay was curt, pre-emptory.

"That's what I thought, too."

"Forget it. It's the Ganymede-fear, Mac. Somehow it got to Stedman stronger than it got to most people. Maybe his brother was hit that way, too. Maybe, right now, Stedman is off his rocker, running out across the pumice somewhere, shouting his brother's name into the soundless void of space."

"We'll have to find him," said Kevin.

"How can we, Mac? He's got air for five or six hours, and Ganymede is big."

"I'm going to take a set of shoulder-jets and go looking for him, Captain. I hope you won't try to stop me. I'm going either way."

Shrugging, Teejay went to a cabinet, handed Kevin a pair of shoulder-jets, which he strapped at once to his vac-suit. The woman took another suit and another pair of jets. "Once I heard voices out here on Ganymede, too," she said. "So did Charlie Stedman. They killed Charlie and they almost killed me. Enough's enough, Mac. I'm going with you."

* * * * *

The ringwall was not very large. Slowed by his vac-suit, a man might cover its diameter in half an hour. But Steve did not traverse the circular area. Instead, he climbed the ringwall laboriously and then made his way down, tumbling and sliding, to the rocky floor of the shallow crater.

The voice came from within it--from within the crater. It could not be! He told himself that more than once. The rock of Ganymede itself might carry sound, but you'd feel it only as a throbbing through the soles of your boots, for the vacuum of space which encroached on all sides could not transmit sound-waves.

That was science. That was elementary. But the voice whispered in his ears, ebbing and flowing, first loud, then soft--and science be damned.

Charlie was calling. _I am Charlie Stedman. I am Charlie Stedman_--That was all, but it was enough. Charlie's name, and Charlie's voice.

"It can't be happening," Steve said, aloud, and heard his own voice roaring inside the helmet. It drove the other voice, the impossible voice, out for a moment, but it returned. Around the inner circumference of the ringwall Steve ran, seeking a source for the impossible. Sobbing, stumbling, he plunged ahead. It was only when he returned to his starting point, a needle-like pinnacle of rock, that he realized his supply of air would be exhausted in three hours.

* * * * *

"He couldn't have gone much farther than this, Mac."

"We've got plenty of air, Captain. I'm not giving up--"

The two figures soared on spurting jets a hundred feet above the surface of Ganymede. When Teejay went higher every few moments, she could barely make out the two spaceships, far away to the left. Occasionally she saw the beaters working in teams of six, cumbersome tanks of oxygen strapped to their backs.

"Did you hear the voice, Mac?"

"No."

"Had Stedman been drinking?"

"That's ridiculous. The boy was with us, and you saw for yourself."

"True. And I've said that the voices of Ganymede are no strangers to me, anyway. Maybe I was trying to rationalize."

"We'll see when we find Steve."

"_If_ we find him. The fear can make you do crazy things out here, Mac. Like going for too long without sufficient oxygen."

"That's what I'm worrying about."

* * * * *

A phonograph needle caught in one groove, spinning out its brief message over and over again--that was the voice. _I am Charlie Stedman._ And the ringwall might have been the record, Steve thought bitterly, except that it was utterly deserted. He hadn't covered its entire rock-strewn area; an army of searchers would be necessary to do that. But he had seen enough to convince him that--

The thought fled.

Coming toward him over the floor of the ringwall was a huge anthrovac, walking erect with a shuffling gait. Charlie's voice grew louder.

* * * * *

"It's no good, Mac. We can't find him."

"As soon as we turn back he's as good as dead."

"Our air won't last forever," Teejay said.

"He's got even less."

"Ten more minutes?"

"All right, ten. But why did you come out here with me if you're ready to give up so easy?"

"Who said I am? I'm trying to be practical, Mac. Listen, I saved Stedman's life once already--and stayed out on the hot side of Mercury longer than a person should, too. I like Stedman, but if we ever find him, better not say that or I'll break your neck, hear? So I want to find him, but I don't want to sacrifice your life or mine in the attempt. Is that clear?"

Kevin said that it was.

A moment later, Teejay climbed higher. Half a thousand feet above the surface of Ganymede she circled. Abruptly, she leveled off at a hundred feet again, said:

"There's something over there, Mac. In that ringwall."

"What?"

"I don't know. Movement. A big figure and a little one. The big one seems too large for a man, but the smaller--well, let's go."

* * * * *

The anthrovac paused a dozen yards from Steve. There had been nothing hostile in its movements to begin with, and now it might have been a statue for all the activity it displayed. From crown of head to small, hand-like feet, it stood almost a yard taller than Steve, but it did not have the great-muscled girth of a gorilla. Instead, it looked quite manlike, except for the incredibly broad shoulders, the thick, matted hair covering its entire body, the too-long arms, the nine feet of height.

Did the voice emanate from it?

Now that the creature had approached him, Steve wasn't sure. The voice continued, pulsing and throbbing in his ears like the Ganymede-fear itself--_but in his ears_. Not from the bleak terrain around him, and certainly not from the anthrovac.

"I'm going crazy," he said, aloud, driving the voice away temporarily. "No. No, I'm not, because I realize it too soon. A crazy man doesn't realize it and doesn't warn himself about it--certainly not at the outset." But did that mean the voice had any real existence? How could it?

_I am Charlie Stedman...._

Smiling bleakly, Steve picked up a loose chunk of rock, tossed it at the anthrovac. The creature merely swung its huge body gracefully at the hips, avoiding the missile. Then it stooped, found a stone for itself, hurled it at Steve. He ducked, feeling completely and tremendously foolish. He should have been prepared, for the anthrovacs are playful and can mime almost any human action.

He did not duck in time. He felt the stone _thunk_ against his helmet, peered with horror at the glassite inches from his face until he saw that it hadn't cracked. Grinning now, he shook his fist at the creature, watched it duplicate the motion with its great hairy hand. It was a game, Steve told himself, a lot like the meaningless conversation Teejay and Kevin had had to dispell the Ganymede-fear.

_But if the anthrovac could mime human actions, perhaps the anthrovac could also mime voices!_ That would necessitate telepathic powers, naturally. But the anthrovac, like many denizens of terrestrial forests and tundras, changed its habits immensely in captivity. A captured anthrovac, one which had been reared with one of the circus troupes, could never tell you what a wild anthrovac was like. And a wild anthrovac, somehow living on airless Ganymede and taking its energy directly from cosmic and solar radiation, might be able to do anything.

_I am Charlie Stedman...._

Steve carried the thought to its logical conclusion. Suppose an anthrovac--_this_ anthrovac which faced him now--had somehow heard Charlie speaking. Charlie might have been introducing himself to someone: "I am Charlie Stedman."

But the hypothesis wasn't much more than a bubble, and it burst completely when Steve remembered he was the only one who could hear the voice.

"Hey, Stedman! You trying to kill yourself?"

Steve whirled, looked up. Two figures, no more than vaguely human in their cumbersome vac-suits, hovered over him, jetting around in circles. The anthrovac had seen them too--and now, apparently alarmed by the twin forms floating just out of reach, the creature turned and bounded away over the uneven terrain.

"What gave you that idea?" Steve called into his intercom. "The anthrovac wasn't looking for trouble."

"I don't mean that, stupid." Teejay had a way of jarring him back to reality with a few words. "I mean, how much air have you left?"

Steve looked at the gauge. "Enough to return to the _Gordak_, provided I get on my horse."

"We'll walk with you, then," said Teejay, and dropped to the ground at his side. "I think I'll hold onto your arm, too. You're liable to go wandering again, and we might not be able to find you."

Kevin alighted, switched off his jets. "How about the voice, boy? Do you still hear it?"

"Why--no! But I did a minute ago, until the anthrovac ran away."

"That's peculiar."

"There's a lot that's peculiar out here on Ganymede, Kevin. I think--"

"Stop thinking and start walking," Teejay told him.

Less than two hours later, they reached the _Gordak_. A vac-suited man met them at the airlock, and Steve saw LeClarc's face through the glassite helmet.

"I'll bet you were worried," said Teejay.

"Sure," LeClarc answered, drawing a neutron gun from his belt. "See, my Captain, I'm so worried I can hardly think straight. Will the three of you please turn around and march over to the _Frank Buck_?"

They were too stunned to do anything else.

* * * * *