Part 2

That palace was like nothing on earth. Naturally, you'll say, it's on Jupiter. But I mean it was even queerer than that. It was like no building on any planet at all. And, in fact, it wasn't on a planet; it was floating up there only two hundred miles in from the raw edge of space.

In that building everything stayed right where it was put. If it was put twelve or fifty feet up off the floor, it stayed there. Not that there wasn't gravity. There was plenty of gravity to suit me--just right, in fact--and still they had furniture sitting around in the air as solid as if on a floor. Which was fine for flying hopper-scorps, but what about Casey Ritter, who hadn't cultivated even a feather?

Attaboy, however, had the answers for everything. Towing me from the airlock to the window ledge, he again sniffed that delectable odor on my chest, caressed me with his front pair of legs while I manfully endured, and then without warning tossed me onto his back above the little box and flew off with me along a tunnel with luminous red walls.

We finally came to the central hall of the palace, and at the sight of all that space dropping away, I clutched at his shell and nearly dropped the arsenic. But he didn't have any brakes I could grab, so he just flew out into mid-air in a room that could have swallowed a city block, skyscrapers and all. It was like a mammoth red cavern, and it glowed like the inside of a red light.

No wonder those scorpions like green and purple. What a relief from all that red!

A patch in the middle of the hall became a floating platform holding up a divan twenty feet square covered with stuff as green as new spring grass, and in the center of this reclined Akroida. It had to be. Who else could look like that? No one, believe me, boys and girls, no one!

Our little Akroida was a pure and peculiarly violent purple--not a green edge anywhere. She was even more purple than my fancy enameled space suit, and she was big enough to comfortably fill most of that twenty-foot couch. To my shrinking eyes right then she looked as big as a ten-ton cannon and twice as mean and dangerous. She was idly nipping here and there as though she was just itching to take a hunk out of somebody, and the way the servants were edging away out around her, I could see they didn't want to get in range. I didn't blame them a bit. Under the vicious sag of her Roman nose, her mandibles kept grinding, shaking the jewels that were hung all over her repulsive carcass, and making the Halcyon Diamond on her chest blaze like a bonfire.

Attaboy dumped me onto a floating cushion where I lay clutching and shuddering away from her and from the void all around me, and went across to her alone with the arsenic.

Akroida rose up sort of languidly on an elbow that was all stripped bone and sharp as a needle. She pulled an eyeball out about a yard and scanned Attaboy and the box. He closed in to the couch all hunched over, ducked his head humbly half-a-dozen times, and pushed the box over beside her. Akroida eased her eyeball back, opened the box and sniffed, and then turned to Attaboy with a full-blown Satanic grin. I could hear her question reverberate away over where I was.

"Who from?" asked Akroida.

That conversation was telegraphed to me blow by blow by the actions of those hopper-scorps. I didn't need their particular brand of Morse Code at all.

"Who from?" Attaboy cringed lower and blushed a purple all-over blush. "Dear lady, it is from an interspace trader who possesses some truly remarkable jewels," he confessed coyly.

Akroida toyed with the Halcyon Diamond and ignored the bait. "His name?" she demanded. And when he told her, with a bad stutter in his code, she reared up higher on her skinny elbow and glared in my direction. "Casey Ritter? Never heard of him. Where's he from?"

Well, after all, she wasn't blind. He had to confess. "I--uh--the stones were so amazing, Royal Akroida, that I didn't pay much attention to the--uh--trader. He does seem to resemble an--ah--earthman." He ducked his head and fearfully waited.

A sort of jerking quiver ran through Akroida. She reared up even higher. Her mean Roman nose twitched. "An earthman? Like Pard Hoskins?"

Attaboy shrank smaller and smaller. He could only nod dumbly.

The storm broke, all right. That old dame let out a scream like a maddened stallion and began to thrash around and flail her couch with that dragon's tail of hers.

* * * * *

I began to quake all over. My nice little jail, I thought frantically. My cozy little cell. Those dear sweet guards. I'd left them all to be eaten alive by that purple devil. Why didn't I bat my silly brains out on my cell wall when this idea first sneaked in? Marooned on that damned hassock a hundred feet above the floor I began to think, and fast.

"Bring him here!" roared Akroida, tapping it out so fast it sounded like gunfire. She gnashed her mandibles and glared until I started shriveling. "Bring him here! He'll dare to come around and insult me, will he? I'll flail him limb from limb and chew his bones to shreds! I'll bite him into chunks! I'll.... Bring him here!"

She made a furious lunge at Attaboy. Trembling and blanching to a muddy lavender, he got out of there and scrambled over to me with big tears rolling down his stiff shell cheeks. Why the poor purple sap, I thought, he really cares! These things really have feelings! I looked at him with new respect and even a little affection.

"Look, kid," I admonished, trying to keep my fingers from shaking as I tapped. "Just don't worry about a thing. I still think I can handle this. Just take me across slow and easy, and we'll hope for the best."

With a mournful sigh he picked me up, tossed me onto his shoulder, and as per instructions, drifted over to the floating platform.

All I had was the little bottle of Pard's scorp-scent. "This had better be good!" I confided to the image of Pard Hoskins, which somehow managed to get between me and that raging she-dragon on the couch. "This had sure better be good, son!"

I waited until Akroida was leaning forward practically gnashing her mandibles in my face while her front pair of legs grabbed and pawed for me. She was too fat and bulky to jump at me, or I'd have been a dead planet-bo right there. But I had to take the chance. There wasn't a drop of perfume to waste. At the last moment I lifted that precious little bottle and squirted the stuff right in her face.

Her mandibles flew open and stayed there. Slowly her front legs dropped; a film of ecstasy formed over those wild glittering eyes. She sank back and began to croon. Yes, croon! My helmet vibrated with it.

Then her long skinny front legs made beckoning motions to me. Frosts of romance! She wanted me to share her couch!

Attaboy didn't ask if I was willing. Delightedly he dumped me beside her. And then, having inhaled some of that perfume himself and not being able to tear himself away, he forgot all about etiquette and curled up beside us to bask some more in those luscious mists.

* * * * *

What's more revolting than a hopper-scorp in a tantrum? I'll tell you, chums: a hopper-scorp in the throes of infatuation! Especially when the hopper-scorp in question is Akroida. For one thing, she's so big. And for another, she's so unmentionably thorough. She was infatuated from the spike on her repulsive forehead down to the devilish sting on her tail. With me!

I tried to tell her it was Attaboy she must love, not me. She merely wallowed her hideous head, as big as a bucket, in my suffering lap, clattering it against my enameled space suit; she rolled her horrible eyes while her whole monstrosity of a body twitched and quivered with emotion. I tried to turn the conversation to the emeralds. She wasn't even interested. We hadn't needed the emeralds at all; we'd only needed Pard's special concoction. Furtively, behind the horseplay, I began to plan to salvage those emeralds for myself.

That stuff must have been making me delirious, too.

I don't know how long that blood-curdling love scene went on. That awful she-scorp picked me up and rocked me while I scraped diamonds and rubies along my visor and chest. She signalled servants who were hovering on all sides taking in the show, and they rushed to bring tidbits that I had to hide behind cushions because I couldn't open my helmet in that atmosphere. Then the servants, getting whiffs of that cursed perfume, would snuggle up with us, until there wasn't elbow room on that big couch. Akroida would churn her tail around and knock them all off so that she could cuddle me better. Then she got the idea of singing to me. And my air was running out.

Finally, while I still had a bit of air left, the jag began to wear off, and Akroida slumped over and went to sleep holding me tenderly against her breast-shell. The moment I felt her grip relax, I wiggled out of there. Attaboy was fast asleep too. Desperately I decided that I could row through the air if those scorps could. Grabbing Attaboy's arm, I stepped off into nothing. Sure enough, the anti-grav worked for me, too. Sweating with the thought of what would have been left of Casey Ritter if it hadn't, I sort of swam away from there, towing my guide. Out at the boat, I anchored him outside the airlock and crawled inside. I'm not ashamed to admit that I got out of my helmet, gasped in some good old oxygen, and collapsed. What a day!

IV

When the time rolled around for my next visit to Akroida, I decided to play it cool and careful. I was fortified with a snooze, a slug of Scotch, and a meal, but I still wasn't busting out with courage. I made a mental note to be damn cautious about that perfume. Maybe it was necessary to overdo it that first time, with her shouting for my blood, but that was all past I hoped.

I sprayed just a tiny bit on my suit, calculated to soothe and lure but not to excite. I wanted no more cuddling with Akroida, please! Then with my pal Attaboy, I stiffened my backbone and plunged out into that poison gas they call atmosphere. I let Attaboy ferry me. He was very hazy about our return trip from Akroida's chamber, so I decided to leave him ignorant. No use to let even him know I could locomote the scorpion way. I might need to make a getaway, and surprise might be of the very essence.

But I didn't need to worry. Old Akroida had slept off her jag, and right away I found out that she wasn't queen-scorp for nothing. The old girl was real canny. She made Attaboy park me on a hassock just within tapping distance, and sat there holding her head in a way that made me soften with sympathy, knowing just how she felt. Many's the time.... Yes, sir, poor old Ak was nursing a real, ten-karat hangover. She waved a claw so feebly it didn't even stir those ropes of jewels hung all over her. "Casey Ritter," she tapped. "What did you do to me?"

All to myself, inside my hard-shell suit, I began to laugh; but it was no laughing matter, because she was beginning to regain her strength. She pointed a claw at me, and it was quite a bit steadier than the wave had been. "You did something!" she accused, and very intelligently, too, for a body that had never before had a hangover. "What was it?"

I didn't like the tone of that, and began tapping out a hasty denial. "Not intentionally, noble queen, believe me! I simply brought you that exquisite perfume as a gift from an admirer of yours whom I met on my way here. I had no idea how strong it was. I should have tested it first on your servant here." I pointed to Attaboy. "I can see that we need to thin it some, but it's wonderful, isn't it, now?"

She didn't even flutter an antenna at this coyness. "Earthman," she tapped out sternly, "you want something. Earthmen always bring trouble, and they always want something! No Earthman brings presents to Akroida from simple friendship. Tell me what you're after, Casey Ritter!"

I sighed. "O.K., noble queen. I just wanted to calm you down so I could talk to you. I didn't have any idea that perfume would affect you that way. I just thought you'd like it, and then you'd be pleasant and we could talk."

She snorted like an old war horse, but that hurt her head. After a minute of clutching it, she groaned, and then tapped carefully, "I'm calm now. You can talk. What do you want?"

"Fine," I tapped out heartily. "I want to make a trade with you."

Her lack of enthusiasm would have chilled a wooden Indian. But I figured that the time had come to get on with it, regardless. She just wasn't going to stall, or let me, either.

"Ah, yes, a trade!" was all she said, but she gave it a nasty twist.

I plunge. "I want to swap your anti-gravity secret for a string of the most magnificent emeralds you ever dreamed of, Akroida. Why, they'd make that batch you're wearing look like little glass beads! You'll have to see them to--"

She didn't let me finish. A sort of high-pitched cackle of amazement issued from her bony jaws; but then she floored me by changing the subject completely, I thought. That was just my little error. A man can sure miss the boat when dealing with these foreign races. She began to ask me questions about the Earth, and was she interested! She even forgot about her hangover. And she completely ignored the emeralds. You'd have thought I hadn't even mentioned the things.

* * * * *

This went on for about an hour, and then all of a sudden she leaned back on her paris-green cushions, inhaled a pinch of arsenic, and began to chuckle a sort of brassy chuckle that sent shivers down my back. The chuckles got bigger and bigger until she busted out into a full-size horse laugh that would have jangled the chandelier if there'd been one to jangle.

Her head bounced back and forth on her skinny neck, and the Halcyon Diamond bounced around on her chest like a loose headlight. All her jewels began to bounce and jangle. Droves of servants swarmed around to peek, while Attaboy just floated there with his mouth wide open. I nudged him. "What's so funny?" I asked, but he only shook his head dumfounded.

That awful laughing was sure giving me the creeping jeevies, and it wasn't until she finally tapered off in a series of snorts and giggles that I began to breathe again. I braced myself for what might come next. But talk about unpredictable females! Human or scorpion, they're all the same. She floored me again.

"It's a deal, Casey Ritter!" She tapped out the words with relish. "Fair and open, straight across the board. Those emeralds for our anti-gravity plans and formulae."

I was stunned. A statement like that after that laugh! And she hadn't even seen the emeralds. You couldn't tell old horse trader Ritter that there wasn't something phony. But she just snickered at my expression and waved to the servants who were still hovering around. It took a dozen of them to hoist her up.

With me following on Attaboy, we flew down a serpentine hallway for half a mile until we came to a room even bigger than her audience chamber, only this one was filled with machinery suspended in the air just like the furniture was up above. It was big machinery, too, but it didn't seem to matter.

Akroida waved a feeler at it all. "Just to show you that I'm not holding anything back," she tapped out. "Here it all is, and there on the wall are the plans and descriptions."

Attaboy flew me over, and I stared at them. They were a real neat job, and the mathematics were the same old math we use on Earth, or I was even more of a sucker than I thought I was. I shook the old bean to clear it, but I still couldn't get a glimmer about the caper she was staging. But I could still hear that laugh....

Well, the rest is history, as the books say. With me still not believing a word of it, we made the trade, fair and open, as Akroida had said. She even let me stand by while her scorps copied the plans, and then I checked and rechecked a dozen times. Not a phony mark anywhere. When I handed over the emeralds, she cooed in rapture. A thing like that coo? Well, she did.

Akroida didn't hardly know I was going. She just waved me, her lover-for-a-day, carelessly away and went on stroking those beauties, while the hopper-scorps hovered around in such crowds that Attaboy and I had to elbow our way out of there. As a parting gift, out at the edge of that hellish Red Spot, I reached out of the lock and handed Attaboy the little bottle with what was left of the perfume.

"Here you are, pal," I tapped. "This'll promote you to Court Lover number one. Kiss the old girl for me."

V

Back on Earth I was still trancing around feeling the air with my fingers and pinching myself here and there just to make sure I had really got out of that inferno all in one piece, when they hauled me out to the airport to present me with my ship. They even made a ceremony of it and gave me a medal for distinguished service to Mankind. And who do you think presented the medal?

I looked at the dapper little figure waltzing over all togged out in the S.S.C. uniform, and then I did a double take. It was no other than my old pal of the Iron College, perfume-manufacturer for hopper-scorps, Pard Hoskins. He came over and clapped me on the back, but I didn't feel a thing. I was paralyzed.

So I'd been taken for a ride right from the start. So they'd outsmarted me all the way: out-fought and out-figured me, and even planted a stoolie on me and made me like it.

I didn't hear a word they said, nor even notice when they pinned the medal on. When they got through with me, I just crawled into my beautiful new ship like it was an old tin can and headed out. I didn't even care right then if I landed back in Akroida's bony lap. I'd have stuck my head in her mandibles and told her, "Chew it up, Ak. It's just a cabbage, anyway."

But a funny thing happened. Out there, mooning along all alone in the dark with not a soul in a million miles, I heard Akroida laughing. It was a horrible sound, a kind of metallic neighing and snorting, but pretty soon I began laughing, too. I didn't know what the joke was, but all of a sudden I knew I'd find out some day. It did me a lot of good. I braced up and went on to Venus, where I made some real good trades. I didn't try any more capers, though. I was all capered out.

It wasn't until a year later, in a joint on Mars, that I ran into Pard Hoskins again. I gave him the old frost, but he only grinned sort of sad and touched me for some of that filthy Martian beer. He looked real seedy.

"What's the matter?" I asked, as sarcastic as I could manage. "They sending you over the road again to nab another sucker?"

He shook his head, and sighed into his beer. "I got fired, Casey," he confessed. "Over that there Killicut caper. Those plans--I might of known." He shook his head again like a tired old man.

A shiver ran over me. "Here it comes," I thought.

"What about those plans?" I asked. "Weren't they all O.K.?"

He sighed again. "Nope. Oh, the plans was O.K. They was strictly bona fide. Only they won't work on Earth. I told 'em about that anti-grav in the first place. Then I almost caused an inter-world incident stealin' the Killicut Emeralds. And now the damn thing won't work on Earth!" He set to chewing his lip and staring into his beer.

I took him by his scrawny shoulder and shook. "Why won't it work?" I yelled. "I knew there was something, the way she laughed! Why won't it work?"

He stared dully at me. "Laugh, did she? Well, she sure had the last laugh. It won't work in our atmosphere; just on a chlorine or methane planet. It works like the poles of a battery. That Great Red Spot is just the negative pole. All those there plants change the atmosphere just enough to make it a strong negative field. Then all they have to do is counter-balance that with enough positive, and there they are. It works like anti-gravity, only it ain't. Only we ain't got an atmosphere we can work that way. Cripes! So she laughed!" His hoarse voice stopped and he stared bitterly at the wall. Then he cussed for two minutes without stopping. He took a big swig of that rotten beer. "I'll bet she's laughing herself fat, the old rip!"

Well, I hope she is. In the dead of night sometimes I can hear her; and pretty soon I'm laughing, too....