Part 1

"SHADRACH"

By NELSON S. BOND

Once, in Bible times, three men were cast into a fiery furnace--and lived! Now, on far-off, frozen Titania, three space-bitten Shadrachs faced the same awful test of godship.

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Fall 1941. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

The man at the end of the bar was very drunk. That was not, in itself, unusual. Xuerl's Cosmobar, dangling like a leech on the drab outskirts of Mars Central, did not cater to a select clientele. It was not noted for its culture or gentility; it was famed from one end of the System to another as a place where a hard-fisted, full-pursed spaceman, newly in from the mines or out from Earth, could get a weapon or a wench, a bottle or a battle, any or all with equal celerity. And at an instant's notice.

But the man at the end of the bar was very drunk. So drunk, indeed, that he seemed neither to notice nor to be concerned about the actions of his comrades. And they, Chip Warren thought as he watched the bleary man pour yet another jigger of green from a malevolently gleaming bottle of _lisk_, were a particularly evil-looking and ill-assorted lot. Even for a dive like this.

"A Venusian," he mused, "a greenie, a runt--and an Earthman. Like bugs in a rug...."

"Trink?" piped a thin, reedy voice at Chip's elbow. "Trink, ssor?"

Chip shook his head in reply to the Martian barman's query. Damned chrysanthemum! he thought. Damned squeaking, upright chrysanthemum! He would never, so long as he lived, get used to hearing English speech emanating from the curled petals that served as a Redlander's head. Martians tried to look like Earthlings. They braced their soft, pallid bodies in steel uprights, they underwent serious and probably painful operations to give themselves a humanoid appearance, but they still looked--and always would to Chip--like ungainly flowers of madness.

"No," he said. "Not just now, thanks. Later." He returned his gaze to the group at the end of the bar. A new member had joined the quartet. Another Earthman. Warren's eyes became more speculative as the newcomer drew the Jovian aside, queried him briefly, then moved to the drunken man's shoulder.

"Trink?" piped the persistent voice of the barman.

"Blast jets!" said Chip curtly. "I'll order when I get damn good and--_hey!_"

* * * * *

The gasp broke unbidden from his lips. In the din and confusion of Xuerl's Cosmobar it went unnoticed, even as had gone unnoticed by everyone else the momentary byplay he had glimpsed.

As the newcomer slipped his arm about the drunken man's shoulder, the first Earthman, turning suddenly, dropped from his hand to the floor a previously concealed _something_. A silvery, glistening, round _something_ that hit the floor--and bounced!

Four figures reacted immediately, violently, eagerly. The Venusian, the Uranian, the Jovian--like four minds with but a single thought they formed a wall of flesh around the drunken one. The other Earthman's hand leaped out greedily to catch the bouncing blob on the rebound. But in vain. The drunk had retrieved the object, shoved it into a pocket.

But Chip Warren knew what the object was. It was a ball of ekalastron!

Ekalastron! Most recently discovered, rarest, and most precious of all metals known to man! A metal so unique that up to the time of its discovery there had been no place for it in man's supposedly "complete" periodic table.

A metal that, defying man's previous deliberations on the habits of metals, supplied man with the most valuable servant he had ever known. A metal so light that a child could carry enough in one hand to coat the entire hull of a space-cruiser--yet so adamant that a gossamer film of it would deflect the impact of a meteoride or the battering crush of a rotor-gun shell! A metal strong enough to grind diamonds to powder--but so resilient that, when molded and properly treated, it would bounce like a rubber ball!

In all the wide universe, hungry mankind had found less than two tons of this vitally precious new metal. An ounce was worth a prince's ransom; so jealously was each gram weighed, guarded and distributed that the U.S.C.--Universal Science Council--could account for every known ounce of it. Yet here, in the noisy bar of Mars' most infamous refuge for scoundrels, a drunken miner toyed with a chunk the size of a billiard ball!

If Chip Warren's attention had previously been attracted by the oddly-assorted quintet, it was riveted now. Fierce curiosity hunched him forward. Abandoning all shame at eavesdropping, he strained eyes and ears upon the group.

It was well that he did so. Otherwise he would not have seen the sober Earthman's gesture to the bartender, the bartender's furtive acquiescence, the tentacular hand opening a colorless phial, pouring its contents into the miner's bottle of _lisk_. There would have been no one to protect the drunken man from the drug that would swiftly have left him at the mercy of his companions.

But Chip was watching. And moving on raw instinct, without a thought for the consequences, he surged forward. His arm brushed the surprised Uranian aside, his hand thrust just in time to sweep the doped drink from the miner's lips. Glass shattered on the floor, singing a shrill song. Chip's challenging voice echoed its brittle crispness.

"Hold course a minute, buckoes!" he ordered. "What in space goes on around here?"

* * * * *

Chip thought afterward that never in his life had he ever looked upon such stark, forbidding coldness as that which, in the next moment, flamed upon him from the eyes of the newly arrived Earthman.

Everything about the man was cold, bitter and bleak as the hostile depths of space. His eyes were glacier-gray, his lips thin and bloodless as hoarfrost; the hand he shoved forward to grip Chip's wrist in steely grasp was like ice.

The coldness of death was in his voice, although he spoke with infinite quietude.

"I might ask the same of you, sailor." The man had raven-black hair save where, from a widow's peak, one single swatch of pure white sprang startlingly to lie like a stream of ice between dark banks. "By what right do you intrude on a private party?"

Chip shook the man's hand from his wrist. His eyes parried with hot defiance the stranger's frigid calm.

"By the right of any man," he growled, "to see fair play! I saw--"

"A moment, sailor!" The man's voice was like a low note struck in warning. "Before you tell what you saw, you might like to know who I am. My name is Blaze Amborg."

"I don't give a portside blast," snarled Chip, "if your name is Lucifer himself. I saw--"

"You haven't been out here long, have you, sailor? Well--that's your misfortune, I fear. Torth!"

He inclined his head gently toward the giant Venusian. The big man rolled forward. His hamlike paws reached for Chip. But fast as he moved, Chip moved faster still; in the split of a second his hand had found his belt. The dull lights of the Cosmobar glinted sallowly on metal that prodded Amborg's middle.

"So that's the way it is, eh?" gritted Chip. "Your bullies do your fighting for you? Well, maybe you're right. I haven't been out here long. But where I come from, men do their own scrapping. Now--tell these scum of yours to keep their distance, or by the Seven Sacred Stars, I'll let ether through you!"

A man could not tell by studying Amborg's features if his lips were white with fear or what. But the ice in his eyes was deeper, more shadowy. And he said, "Back, Torth!"

"That's better!" approved Chip. "And now--come out of it, you!" The drunken man had finally slipped out of the picture. Blissfully unaware of what was going on about him, his head had slumped to the bar. He was asleep, lips loosely agape, breath coming in sodden grunts. Chip grasped the nape of his neck, shook him roughly. "Pull yourself together!" he commanded. "We're getting out of here!"

The man came to with a start, stared at Chip Warren blearily. "W-whuzzup? Whuzzmatter? Don' shake me like that, ole boy. All pals t'gether. All good ole pals...."

His head dropped forward again, and Chip sighed. It was like kicking a pup, he thought, but it had to be done. His rousing slap jarred the drunk to grieved awareness.

"Hey! _Don'_ do that! We're pals, ain't we? All--"

"I wouldn't know about that," snorted Chip. "But I _do_ know these other 'pals' of yours are getting ready to dig you for that--that stuff in your pocket."

* * * * *

That did it. The warning drove its way through the miner's stupor. His head jerked up, his eyes widened, and a hand clawed at his pocket.

"_What?_ My ekalastron? The filthy thieves--!"

His loud voice carried throughout the room clearly. Too clearly. For with a sudden fear, Chip could feel a tension tighten through the hard habitues of the bar. Nervous scrapings of feet, the _frou-frou_ of suddenly intense voices. "Ekalastron! Eka--"

For a moment, Chip's guard relaxed. He twisted his head to survey a new and potent danger. And as he did so, a sharp cry burst from Amborg's lips. "Raat 'Aran! Torth!"

Chip whirled back to face immediate trouble. Shapes were plunging down upon him. He wheeled, slipped, tumbled to one side even as the scorching burst of a needle gun seared a hissing path past his shoulder. Someone behind screamed a high, thin scream that died in a choked gurgle....

Then all was madness! The magic word "ekalastron" had wakened the riches-lust of the mob; now the presence of death had roused its blood-lust. In the space of a moment's time, a score of guns were drawn and wildly flaming as the throng charged the bar.

Chip only lived in that moment because he lay helplessly asprawl upon the floor. The hobnailed boots of miners kicked and trampled him, thick bodies struggled, cursed and groaned above him. Once as he tried to scramble to his feet his hand slipped nauseatingly in a pool of freshly spilled and steaming blood.

He was aware that somewhere in the howling mob that fought, not knowing why, and fighting died, the glacier-eyed Amborg strained for sight of him. But the tide of conflict, sweeping over and about them, separated them.

There came a reedy cry in the voice of the Martian barman; the lights went out suddenly, and the room was alive and spiteful with the flames of criss-crossing fire-needles. A questing hand found Chip's throat in the darkness, fingers tightened. But in a flash of fire, Chip saw the figure atop him suddenly crumple, steel clattered aimlessly beside him as his assailant choked and died. Thus close to him walked mad, unreasoning Death.

But he was on his feet again, now, and armed! Chip forced his way toward that spot at the bar where last he had glimpsed the drunken miner. No figure stood there, but his feet stumbled against a yielding body. He stooped--then he blinked as the lights suddenly flared on again.

He looked upon a frightful scene of carnage. Where men had fought, a dozen bodies lay upon the floor like broken things; elsewhere about the room a dozen struggling piles of life, human and humanoid, white, coral and green, Earthborn and spawn of a dozen globes, still fought their purposeless battle. And at the far side of the room--

Amborg!

But Amborg had seen him first. Even as he raised his needle-gun, Chip realized the dousing of the lights, the sudden return of them, had been a trick of Amborg's to gain advantage. The other man had the drop on him ... even now his hand was tightening on the press.

And then, miraculously--

"Hold!" cried a thunderous voice. "'Stay now thine hand from the sword, yea, loose not thine arrow from the bow--else by My might shall I crush thee to the dust, truly My lightnings shall wither thee with fire!' Thus saith my Lord God which is Jehovah!"

A vast, awed silence fell suddenly upon the room, a paralysis seized all forms and held them motionless. Amborg stayed his finger. All eyes sought the doorway. And there, covering the whole of the Cosmobar with the ugliest but most efficient looking piece of private ordnance Chip had seen in his life, stood a man. A tall, gangling scarecrow garbed in rusty black; a lean-jawed, hawk-eyed man with tumbling locks of silver and blazing eyes.

A whisper arose from men's lips. A whisper at once respectful and--fearful.

"It's Salvation! Salvation Smith!"

* * * * *

For a long, dramatic moment the ol man stood there in the doorway; then, satisfied that all motion had stopped, he stepped forward into the room. Chip knew, now, who--and what--he was. "Salvation" Smith, sin-driving missionary of the Wastelands, was a legendary, almost fabulous, figure of the Martian scene.

A devoutly religious man with the heart and soul of a pioneer, he had taken upon himself the mission of carrying to the savage outland tribes the story of the God he worshipped. That this God was Him of the Old Testament, a God of wrath and vengeance, fire and flame, was evidenced by those methods Salvation sometimes employed to make his message acceptable to uncivilized breasts. In addition to being the most pious man on Mars, Salvation was also reputed to be the best shot!

Earth's softhanded ecclesiastics did not altogether approve of their wayward missionary's reputation, but had to concede that he, working unaided and alone, had done more to bring the light to Mars than the rest of their emissaries as a group.

Thus Salvation Smith, who stared now at the corpses on the floor and muttered beneath his breath a prayer so hot and violent as to be almost blasphemous.

There came a shrill bleat, and Xuerl, proprietor of the infamous Cosmobar, minced across the floor, grotesque in the rigid habiliments that lent him a humanoid shape.

"Sssalvation," he pleaded, "Thisss wasss none of my doing, sssir! I have kept the peace, as I promisssed--"

"Silence!" roared the old man, and frowned. "Your foul den is a stench in the nostrils of Heaven. I am tiring swiftly of your iniquitous ways, Xuerl! One day I--shall--who started this, anyway?" he demanded.

"Thisss man!" Xuerl pointed a quavering tentacle at Chip. Salvation gazed at the young man sternly.

"You are new around here. What is your name?"

"Chip Warren. I'm just out from Earth a week or so ago. Free-lance prospector. But--but I didn't start this, sir. I merely interfered when that man and his thugs tried to steal a ball of ekalastron from this dead miner--"

Chip paused suddenly, staring at the drunken miner.

"But he's still alive! I thought--"

* * * * *

Salvation was at his side in an instant. They both kneeled beside the miner, whose eyes had flickered open. He was no longer influenced by drink. His eyes were clear with prevision of a longer flight than he had ever known. For a moment he struggled for breath. There was recognition in his feeble tones.

"S-salvation--"

"Peace, my son. We will take you to a hospital."

"N-never mind that, Padre. It's too late. But the ekalastron--"

"You stole it, my son? You wish to confess?"

"N-no, Padre! Not stolen. I found it. A mine--" His breath was coming in tiny, tortured gasps; he spoke more swiftly as if aware that he must tell his secret ere silence claim him. "Danger ... on Titania! The caves ... natives ... and the furnace of flame ... beware!"

"But _he_ survived!" Chip burst in. "He got some and returned. Ask him how, Padre!"

The miner's head moved slightly as if to signify he understood the query, but even as his lips moved to frame an answer, a swift, cold shadow frosted his eyes with glaze. A moment later his breath stopped. Then it shuddered back as with a violent effort the dying man dragged himself back from death itself. A convulsion shook him. He cried weakly the single word:

"_Shadrach!_"

Then a blood-specked spume gushed from his lips and he lay still. "May the Lord have mercy on his soul!" begged Salvation Smith. He pushed Chip gently away, fumbled at the dead man's clothing, arranging it more neatly, then rose.

"He is gone," he told the spellbound assembly. "He is gone, bearing with him to the world beyond the secret for which you jackals strove. Thus be it, O Lord God of Hosts!"

But one man did not accept this as final. That man was Blaze Amborg who, bolstered now by his hard-bitten group of outlaws, strode forward belligerently.

"Not so fast, psalm-singer! He and I were partners. Anything he had belongs to _me_ now!" He bent over and with a jerk disarranged the clothing Salvation had smoothed. "And by the Comet, I'm going to have it--" His hands moved with deft assurance, then with tense, hardening suspicion. "It's gone!" He wheeled to face Chip. "You stole it! You--"

But the old missionary barred his rush with a steel forearm. "Slowly, my friend! What is gone?"

"The ball of ekalastron! It's worth a fortune, and it's mine! This snoopy young thief--"

Salvation turned to Chip sternly. "Well, young man--is this true? Did you steal it? If so--"

"I didn't. I swear I didn't!"

"He was bending over Jenkins," Amborg raged, "when the lights went on. He's got it! Let me at him!"

"There has been sufficient violence!" snapped Salvation Smith. He turned to Chip. "Young man, I order you to let your accuser search you. If you are truly innocent, you will not demur. If you refuse--" He shifted his rifle from one horny palm to another significantly. "Justice shall prevail!"

"Very well!" said Chip. He submitted himself to Amborg's triumphant search. His flesh ran cold at the feel of the man's icy fingers, and a dull resentment suffused him--but he got his reward in the look of bafflement that grew on Amborg's face as it became clear that the missing sphere was not on his person. "Are you satisfied now?" he demanded.

Amborg's normally pale face was whiter still with impotent fury; his eyes flamed with hatred. "It's not _on_ you," he admitted. "But I know you took it. You've hidden it somewhere. I'm not through with you yet, sailor! I'll have that metal or--"

"There will be no 'or'!" proclaimed Salvation Smith stridently. "The lad has passed the test and proven himself guiltless; the case is closed. He will walk from this place unharmed--in my company! 'The true man shall suffer no hurt, neither shall the righteous fail.' Come, my son!"

And he lifted his gun. Blaze Amborg's lips thinned to a hard, white line. But he made no reckless move as the two men stalked silently from the room....

II

The Martian night was clear and cold. Its thin air was sweetly welcome to Chip's nostrils. When they gained the street outside, Salvation spoke to him suddenly. "Where is your ship, my son?"

"Ship, sir?" queried Warren. "But why--?"

"Don't waste time!" snapped the old man. "We're in grave danger. Blaze Amborg is a man of violence. In a few minutes he'll figure out what happened to the ekalastron and be out looking for us."

Chip stared at him. "The ekalastron? But what _did_ happen to it? It disappeared--"

"Into," grunted Salvation, "my pocket! While I was arranging Jenkins' clothing. 'He who taketh in the cause of righteousness hath done the will of the Lord!' Amborg is an evil, wilful man. He would have used the ekalastron for his own wicked purposes. In our hands, all mankind shall profit of its beneficence. But, come! Where?"

"C-churchill Field," stammered Chip. "Dock 31, Bin A. T-this way, Padre."

They moved at quickened stride through the darkened streets. As they neared the cradles wherein lay the vessels of a thousand diverse ports, Salvation questioned Chip still further.

"What type of ship is it, lad?"

"Not a very new one, sir. A Challenger 7-jet, four berth explorer. But in good shape. My friend and I managed to get it cheap, reconditioned it--"

"Then you have a companion?"

"Yes, Padre. Syd Palmer. He's waiting aboard. We had planned to lift gravs tomorrow for a prospecting tour of the planetoids. I visited the Cosmobar because I thought I might run into some old space-dodger who would give me a tip on a lode-rock--"

"And you ran into," said the missionary, "something which may turn out to be the greatest discovery ever made by man. Murder ... thievery ... wealth ... is this the ship?"

They had stopped before one of the smaller cradles. Chip pressed a signal button, a buzzer responded, there came from within the familiar wheeze of an air-lock generator.

"This is it, sir. Please step in. 'Lo, Syd. This is Doctor--Mister--"

"Call me 'Salvation'," said the old man. "I'm used to it. Palmer, I take it you're the chief engineer of this jaloppy?"

Syd Palmer was short and chubby; his hair was a tow colored bristle that stood up like a cock's-comb when he was excited or annoyed. It stood up now, and his pale blue eyes danced with tiny, indignant sparks.

"I'm the engineer of this _ship_!"

"Call it what you will," grunted Salvation. "Is it fast?"

Palmer grinned. "Puh-lenty! I've hepped the hypos to super-max. The _Chickadee_ can outrun anything its size in space, and a lot of bigger ones, besides!"

"Good! And have you got clearance papers?"

"Why, yes, but--"

"Excellent: 'Verily, He taketh care of His own nor faileth them in time of need.'" Salvation nodded to Warren. "We'll lift gravs," he said, "immediately!"

Palmer stared at him, then at his companion.

"What is this, Chip? Old boy off his jets?"

"Far from it," said Chip seriously. "Can't explain everything now, Syd; time's too short. But you like a good, old-fashioned fight, don't you?"

"Fight? Sa-a-ay, now--"

"Then warm the hypos," ordered Chip, "while I plot a course. We're lifting gravs immediately--for Titania."

* * * * *

During the long days that followed, there was time and to spare in which to clarify the situation to Syd. When he heard of Chip's adventure at the Cosmobar, his pale eyes gleamed and fists less chubby than they appeared tightened at his sides. "Wish I'd been there--" he muttered. Salvation glared at him and snorted, "'Verily they are fools who do not rejoice that they have escaped woe!'"

And when Chip showed him the ball of ekalastron--

"Glory be!" exclaimed Syd. "There's enough to dip a whole battle unit in that one ball! What are we going to Titania for? Why not fly this to Earth immediately and let the Council know--"

"Because Amborg knows," replied Chip grimly, "that this came from Titania. He was nearby when Jenkins said so in his dying breath. That was probably the secret Amborg's thugs had been trying to probe from the miner all night. I have a hunch that Amborg is out there somewhere right now!"

He nodded toward the quartzite view-pane. Outside lay space--the long, dreary reaches of space between Mars and Uranus. But it didn't look like space. Not like space as navigators a short ten years ago had known it, an eternal pall of blackness spangled with the livid dots of a myriad stars.

This was a blotched, striped, crazy-quilt of color. Crimson, ochre, emerald--all the hues of the rainbow merged into a faery, magic loveliness. This was space as seen when Man traveled at the terrific speed attainable only through the use of the recently developed V-I unit, velocity intensifier, invented by that mad genius of the spaceways, Lancelot Biggs of the lugger, _Saturn_.

Five years ago, in the year 2210, the fastest craft in the ether had had a top speed of approximately 200,000 miles per hour. Now almost every ship was equipped with the V-I adapter that gave it a flight-potential limited only by the critical velocity of light. Where once it would have required almost ten months to reach Titania, second satellite of far Uranus, the trio could now expect to gain their destination, traveling at a speed of more than 650,000,000 mph., in something less than half that many _days_!