Part 2

"In effect, yes," replied Dr. Grimwood. "Although if you're exposed to it, which means stumbling across one of the rare and unpredictable localities where the jade is found, the chances are about four out of five that you will be infected. The fifth person, for some inexcusably unknown reason, seems to be immune. But there is one symptom that occurs with some punctuality three and a half hours after exposure, and about 15 minutes before the convulsions: it's a bodily glow, or aura, due to some bioluminescent substance saturating the tissues.

"However, it is so faint that it can be seen only in the dark, and then not by the victim himself, since it shows up only in contrast to a dark background. I think that is the explanation of the fact that we found all the lights out when we boarded this ship."

"You mean," said Archer, with some alarm, "that fellow might have died of the virus infection--in this chair?"

Dr. Grimwood smiled slightly. "Don't worry. In the first place, he didn't have it--he only thought he did. And if he had, you couldn't catch it, even minus your pressure-suit. The malady is not transmissible among humans. I almost wish it were, since we would have been obliged to learn a great deal more about it than we have."

"You say he thought he had it--was the stuff in the hypodermic some kind of antidote, then?"

"Undoubtedly," said the doctor. "And since there is only one antidote known, it explains what happened to the rest of the jade they brought along."

"That's right!" exclaimed Archer. "I remember having heard that now. The jade itself is the only antidote. But then--why did he die?"

"Because," said Dr. Grimwood, "the antitoxin, where the infection has not occurred, is a deadly and swift poison."

* * * * *

The doctor paused, then spoke bitterly: "There is some reason for believing that the jade, or end-product, might be rendered non-toxic in itself--if it were obtainable for experimentation. But it's not. They'll inject the stuff in their own skins to save same--one wealthy woman even mixed herself a million-dollar martini in order to commit suicide--but when it comes to turning over the smallest fragment to a laboratory, even billionaire philanthropists are restrained by their wives. And the specimens are never cut or ground since it wouldn't enhance their luminescence, so there aren't even any scraps for the hungry researcher.

"Anyhow, my guess is that these prospectors started off with their samples not too long after exposure. They could have been well out of the atmosphere before the three-and-a-half hour deadline. As it approached, they evidently killed the lights in order to watch each other for the symptomatic aura. Even though the probability was pretty high of at least one of them being infected, they most likely wouldn't have prepared any of the precious solution in advance. Fortunately, it doesn't take long---you merely dissolve a minimum of ten carats in a little alcohol, and it's ready to inject.

"The fellow who was later killed must have developed the aura and been told about it in good faith, because I saw the needle-mark on his arm. Then came trouble. The other fellow happened to be one of the 20 percent minority who are immune. He failed to show the symptom, but suspected his colleague of lying about it. He probably kept him covered with his gun while he cut the power so that even the control lights would be out. Then he tried to tell by the reflection of his naked torso in the observation ports whether he had the fatal glow. It must have been a tense and ironic situation.

"Whether he was deceived by a diffusion of sunlight in the heavy vitreon or by his own taut nervous system, he evidently fancied he saw the aura, and shot his comrade in a fit of rage. Then he turned the equally fatal hypodermic on himself."

* * * * *

Although the four men were still in radio contact, having decided to keep their pressure-suits on until the air "cleared," nobody spoke for a while. Archer lolled his leaden cranium sideways on its rest, to see the rim of the planet looming hugely in the side ports. The ship would be reaching the near-point in another hour.

"They must have been pushing off at well over two G," he said, "for their momentum to have carried them out as far as it did. They made a big loop."

Dr. Grimwood smiled wryly. "I imagine they were impatient. How would you feel with a negotiable fortune as a cargo?"

"You might say," returned Archer, "how _do_ I feel? That leftover you're holding must be 30 or 40 carats. I'll be glad enough to turn it over to the company and let them find out about salvage rights, if any. Frankly, I'm just a little afraid of the stuff. Its value seems to be of slightly lethal proportions."

"True," sighed the doctor, "but there's a great temptation to stop off at that find and sneak a hunk of it for some friends of mine. They'd get a bigger kick out of pulverizing it with a mallet than they would buying castles on Arcturus IV."

Under the onus of triple weight, the hour that followed seemed much longer. At last the ship cleared the dangerous fringe of atmosphere by a good thousand miles, and Archer aimed her nose at the retreating rim of the planet, reducing deceleration to a very tolerable 1.5 G.

"We'll swing pretty wide," he said to the others. "It'll be nine or ten hours before we get back in at a safe speed. If you fellows don't mind, I'm going to shuck this suit and catch a nap right here in this chair. I'm all in. I'd advise you, Stokely, to do the same. We may need to be on our toes later--this job won't practically land itself like the one we're used to!"

* * * * *

A few hours later, Will Archer was pacing a broad marble courtyard inlaid with Farian jade, in a kingly castle on Arcturus IV, when a rough hand on his shoulder shook him awake. It was Stokely, with his gun in his hand and an ugly smile on his rather handsome, freckled face. He motioned derisively toward Dr. Grimwood, who was bound securely to his chair.

"I can't figure the doctor out," said Stokely. "I thought he made a wonderful suggestion about stopping off and picking up some more jade, but now that I've invited him, he doesn't want to go."

Archer had discarded his own gun with his pressure-suit and was chagrined to see it now in its holster at Stokely's waist. He groaned inwardly, cursing his sleeping intuition for not having warned him. In looking back, he realized now that there had been more to Stokely's reactions than mere awe at the sight of a fabulous gem. And there was something else--Stokely, though a first-rate engineer, had been washed out as a Space Guard cadet on psychological grounds. He was quite sane, but too individualistic--his social and cooperative indices had been low. Captain Rogan had known of his record, of course--but he had not known what would be found on this ship, and what effect it would have on Stokely.

But what about Evans? Archer turned in his chair and saw the slightly built man standing a little nervously in back of him, holding what must be the dead prospector's gun.

Archer bit his lip. Not much was known of Evans, since he had been with them only two trips, and his responsibilities as an ordinary crewman had not been great. Archer judged him as a none-too-bright individual who would never undertake such a bold venture on his own initiative, but who might go to considerable lengths under strong leadership. Well, he had that in Stokely, whose pale blue eyes had a reckless and determined look about them.

"Are you with us?" demanded Stokely. "I could probably pull this off without you, but it'll be easier with you. Because you're a damned good pilot even if you are the Captain's fair-haired boy. What do you say? Not that we'll trust you very far, either way. Evans and I keep the guns. You'll have to string along part way, anyhow--if you want to come all the way, there's a fortune in it for you."

Archer unsnapped his safety belt and got to his feet, flexing his lean limbs, which were cramped from the many hours of confinement. As he faced Stokely, their eyes were on a level, although the pink-haired man would have run a good 30 pounds heavier--or, at the moment, 45.

"What guarantee," asked Archer in a dull voice, "would I have of that?"

"My say so, mostly," Stokely admitted evenly. "But I can use a pilot, not only now but later. After we grab the stuff, the first thing we'll need is another ship--and Faria won't be the place to look for it. When we get it, we'll get rid of this one. That's where you come in."

"How do you plan to do it?"

"Very simple. Charge it up to the hilt, set her course straight out of the system and let her go at about two G. It won't come back for a thousand years, at least. The company will figure something happened to it on this trip after we managed to miss the planet, and we couldn't get back. I thought of cracking it up on Faria, but somebody might spot it hitting the air, and the time would be way off. This way is better--we just got lost in space. With nobody looking for us on IX, it'll be a cinch to get out of the system from the interstellar base.

"After that--we can go buy that nice planet the doctor was talking about."

* * * * *

Archer scarcely heard the latter part of Stokely's speech, except to visualize briefly the ironic situation in which a pilot named Archer would change ships in mid-space--or start to. The important question was whether there was anything to be gained by pretending to throw in with the conspirators. Stokely, like most people who find it difficult to appreciate a different viewpoint, should be easy enough to deceive. It might mean a gain of considerable time--for Archer.

But what about Dr. Grimwood? There seemed to be no place for him in Stokely's scheme, after locating the jade, except perhaps the storage compartment with the two prospectors. Once Stokely had disposed of the doctor, he would undoubtedly require less of an excuse to do the same with Archer--and eventually Evans, in all probability.

There was a chance, however, that if Stokely found himself stoutly opposed by both Dr. Grimwood and Archer, he might hesitate to kill them both out of hand, at least until he could be certain of finding the jade deposit. Double murder is a long step for a man with no previous criminal record.

Archer made his decision.

"You can count me out," he said flatly, watching Stokely's face for a reaction. "That badlands where the find is supposed to be is a tough place to land a ship, so I'll put her down on behalf of all of us--but also on the condition that you'll release Dr. Grimwood and myself immediately. It'll take us weeks to reach civilization, _if_ we're lucky. That ought to give you all the time you need. But I want your guarantee--otherwise, I'll have nothing to lose by trying to cross you up, if it kills us all."

The bluff evidently carried a certain amount of purely psychological weight, for Stokely seemed a little taken aback, and his blustering smile lacked full confidence.

"Honest Will Archer!" he said scornfully. "The pride of the company! You're in a hell of a position to bargain!" He went on in a more serious tone: "But it sounds good enough. You get us down, the doctor helps us find the jade--he's the only one who knows much about the stuff--and then the two of you can start out. Who knows--you might even make it!" He grinned.

It sounded as if--at the moment--Stokely regarded the proposition as an easy way out for himself. For Archer and the doctor, it would not be so easy. There would be at least two hundred miles of fearfully rugged terrain, infested by predatory and poisonous animals, insects and plants. It would be both hot and dangerous to travel by day--and downright foolhardy by night. And even this dim prospect depended on the slight scruples of a thoroughly egocentric individual.

It was not enough. Archer resolved to keep his faculties on the alert for any loophole that might occur.

* * * * *

But Stokely's vigilance had not slackened when, hours later, they approached the atmosphere at a speed slightly greater than that of the planet's rotation, and within an estimated five hundred miles of the coordinates shown on the dead men's chart. Stokely left Evans in Dr. Grimwood's chair, with the strict injunction not to remove his eyes from Archer, and took the doctor with him to the engine compartment.

Thereafter, Archer was obliged to give his entire attention to the business of angling the ship sharply into the atmosphere and opposing its thrust to the resultant of deceleration, gravity and air resistance, a function which was only semi-automatic, and needed constant correction.

The first landmark shown on the map, a jagged and mighty canyon, presently appeared between scattered clouds below. Archer set the ship's angle nearer to the horizontal, allowing gravity to pull it into a steeper descent.

The next landmark, a crescent-shaped range of sawtooth mountains near the far end of the canyon, showed up plainly, since shadows were lengthening across the face of the planet. A dozen valleys meandered off from the hills in a southerly direction and Archer aimed for the fourth from the south.

At last, one third of its length from the south end of the valley, the ship stood over the spot corresponding to the X-mark on the map and settled slowly on its jets. According to the scrawled notation, the jade deposit would be not more than half a mile away, near the valley's east wall.

Archer delayed the impatient Stokely long enough to provide Dr. Grimwood and himself with packs of food and water from the ship's stores, trading on the doctor's promise to help locate the jade. Once it was found, Archer did not intend to remain at Stokely's mercy long enough to return to the ship.

All four of the men donned their pressure-suits, primarily as a barrier against the deadly "jade" virus, but incidentally as a protection from all manner of unpleasant insects and tentacular, stinging plants. Also, there was an abundance of scurrying, cold-blooded little horrors, reminiscent of Terran reptiles or batrachians, but by those standards grotesquely misshapen.

Vega VII was a planet whose surface had been prematurely desiccated by a broiling sun, although there was still considerable water available in underground lakes, but the excess of hard radiation had spurred evolutionary processes to improbable extremes.

Just now, the outsized, glaring white orb was low in the sky and the temperature was becoming tolerable. Before morning, in this dry air, it would probably drop far below freezing.

* * * * *

Stokely made Archer and the doctor walk ahead, at a difficult pace over the rough ground. They went willingly, however, since failure to find the jade in the next hour or so would mean spending the whole night in untrustworthy company.

The final fixing of the location was accomplished by aligning the tip of a rocky promontory resembling a human nose with a farther peak and walking directly away from it until a small ravine was encountered. The deposit was 75 yards farther on, according to the instructions, in a direction a little south of east. All four men paced it off with extended strides, ending up in a scattered configuration, with no two of them more than ten yards apart.

* * * * *

The men faced each other and looked about. It was a rock-strewn area similar to a dozen others they had passed through on the way here. But closer inspection revealed one difference. Here and there were piles of dry, gray bones of different sizes, some of them crumbled almost into dust.

"Looks something like an animal graveyard," said Dr. Grimwood. "But I rather imagine it's less purposeful than that, and most of them simply made the mistake of sleeping here."

"Well," said Stokely, his voice harsh and a trifle high-pitched, "where's the jade?"

He deliberately pointed his gun at the doctor, who regarded him dubiously.

"I'm sure it's here," said Dr. Grimwood, "but I really don't know much about its appearance in the natural state. They carefully avoided any mention of that on their map, you know. That map was intended for them alone." The doctor began to walk slowly among the rocks, studying them. "I seem to recall, though, hearing something about--"

He paused, bent down slowly with the weight of his pack, and dug with his space-gauntleted fingers at a hollow in one of the larger rocks.

"--moss!" he finished. "Gray moss. I think this is it."

The tufted moss was hardly distinguishable from the stone itself in the waning light. Dr. Grimwood plucked from its core a thimble-sized lump. Holding it up, he scraped away part of the gray coating. It was as if, with some magic flint, he had struck green fire. The eerie glow of the gem made the surrounding area seem suddenly darker by contrast.

Will Archer only glanced at it, returning his gaze quickly to Stokely, on his left. In the big man's reaction to this climactic discovery might lie some clue to his probable course of action.

And the expression on Stokely's face was not good to see. The pale eyes which had widened at the first sight of the gem now narrowed to slits, while his normally regular features pulled into an ugly mask. A dark flush suffused his freckled cheeks.

Archer watched him with growing alarm. There was little doubt that, for the moment, Stokely was not sane.

His gun, still pointed at Dr. Grimwood, moved slightly, and Archer saw his finger tightening on the trigger. In one motion, Archer slipped free of his pack and flung himself at the heavier man.

The gun went off just as he struck, and Stokely, caught off guard, was bowled over like a tenpin. His head-globe hit hard against the rocky ground, protecting his head but smashing a large hole in the globe.

He went over so easily that Archer himself was thrown off balance. He stumbled over Stokely's legs and fell a few feet beyond. Rolling over quickly, he scrambled to a crouching position, then paused, and drew himself slowly erect.

Evans was standing just beyond Stokely, and the gun in his hand was aimed steadily at Archer's stomach. Dr. Grimwood was lying prone and limp, his blood trickling out between the stones under him, the bit of jade glinting near his outstretched hand.

Stokely picked up his gun and got to his feet dazedly, shaking his head to clear it. Archer studied his face and saw there a vast, rising anger, but no longer the wild light of utter unreason. The man was in a dangerous mood and might readily kill again, but he had evidently been jolted back to a semblance of sanity.

Suddenly, Stokely's eyes widened and fear became dominant in his expression. He obviously had just realized the implication of the fact that his head-globe was broken. He licked his lips, and looked back and forth from Archer to Evans.

His mouth tightened with sudden purpose.

"Evans! Look out!" Archer shouted, but too late.

Stokely had lashed out with his gun and caught Evans sharply on the right wrist. As Evans' gun dropped from paralyzed fingers, Stokely easily shoved him away and scooped it up from the ground. He stepped back a few paces, keeping a watchful eye on Archer.

"Okay," he ordered Evans grimly, "take it off!"

* * * * *

Only then, evidently, did Evans' slow wits grasp the meaning of what had happened. His dark eyes stared with fright, but he loosened the clamps with trembling fingers, and set his head-globe carefully on the ground. Stokely, now in possession of all three guns, holstered the one in his left hand, removed his cracked head-globe with some difficulty, and even more awkwardly replaced it with Evans'.

Head-globes were interchangeable, though the individually proportioned suits were not. The reason that Stokely had called upon Evans, not Archer, to remove his globe was disturbingly obvious. Stokely wanted Evans in the same status as himself, for the time being--which should have been reassuring to Evans. To Archer it was quite the contrary, and he was not surprised when Stokely scowled at him a moment later and spoke in a voice that was too quiet:

"As for you, you're too smart for your own good. I don't think we need you around any longer." The gun in his right hand swung slowly.

"On the contrary," said Archer quickly, "since that borrowed helmet might not make any difference now, you need me worse than ever. That is, unless you trust each other implicitly." He spoke the last few words with slow emphasis.

For a long moment, the gun held steady, then it lowered a little. Stokely gestured with the other hand.

"Take it off," he said harshly, "and I'll hear what you have to say. I'm not promising anything, though. For instance--why should I trust _you_?"

Archer removed his head-globe, admitting the outer air. It was cold against his face, and so dry by comparison with the humidified air of his pressure-suit that it caught in his throat as he breathed. He left his headset on for communication with Stokely.

"Maybe you won't have to," Archer answered steadily. "I have a plan that might work in spite of our low regard for each other's veracity. But--in case it doesn't--you'll be better off if you take off that globe."

Stokely sneered. "You'll have a hard time selling me that idea!"

"I don't think so, when you see the point. You're forgetting that in this case, a false cure is just as deadly as the disease. I don't know just how full of the virus the air is hereabouts, but as far as either of us can tell, you may be cutting down your chances of getting infected. Evans' chance, and mine, with full exposure, will be four out of five. That means if we can't find out for sure whether we have it, we can take an injection and be 80 percent sure of being right.

"How sure can you be?"

Stokely's face set in a grim mask as the realization sank in. He removed his globe and set it out before him on the ground. Again the gun raised to Archer's chest.

"Okay, bright lad, you put it on!"

Archer smiled thinly and shook his head. "Could you be sure that I don't know more about the infection than I've admitted? In which case, it might be a trick to get the globe for myself."

Stokely's face was twisting dangerously again, and Archer went on quickly:

"Better leave us all in the same boat, anyhow--it'll work out better later on."

It was a full, tense minute before Stokely's fury subsided to a point where he could speak.

"I think I'm making a mistake in letting you live," he said thickly. "This plan of yours had better be good. How does it work--with mirrors? Let's have it!"

"Lacking mirrors of a size which would show a good contrast--say about ten feet square," Archer returned calmly, "we'll have to use other means. My plan will give each of us an equal chance, at least. I'll tell you the first part now: we take all the jade we can find around here, before dark if possible, and go back to the ship. I'll tell you the next step when we get there. If that isn't good enough--or if an 80 percent chance _is_--you can shoot and be damned!"

* * * * *

It was nearly three hours later, very dark and very cold, when they returned to the ship. Archer and Evans carried Dr. Grimwood's body, consigned to the same storage compartment as the dead prospector's. Stokely evidently had not altogether abandoned his original plan for disposing of the evidence. The question now, Archer thought grimly, was how many bodies there would be.

Stokely himself carried the jade, of course. Under his prodding, they had literally left no stone unturned in the vicinity of the deposit. It had yielded nine pieces of varying size and a total weight of perhaps a hundred and fifty carats. They added up to riches beyond imagining.