Chapter 3

The other man must be a new arrival. He was youngish and merry-faced as he drew closer, with black curly hair and a pointed beard. There was a mental-motive look to him, as if he were a high grade engineer or machinist. He wore a breech-clint of woven grasses, and looked expectantly at Parr.

"They aren't armed," pointed out Ling, and it was true. The pair carried sticks, but only as staffs, not clubs.

"Parr!" Sadau was shouting back. "Thank heaven I've found you--we need you badly." He came close, and Parr hefted his club.

"No funny business," he challenged, but Sadau gestured the challenge aside.

"I'm not here to fight. I say, you're needed. Things have gone wrong, awfully. The others got to feeling that there was no reason to obey a woman chief, even though Miss Pemberton has many good impulses--"

"I agree to that," nodded Parr, remembering the girl's many strange behaviors. "I daresay she wasn't much of a leader."

Sadau did not argue the point. "Shanklin, as the previous newest man, grabbed back the chieftaincy," he plunged ahead. "Those other fools backed him. When I tried to defend Miss Pemberton, they drove me out. I stumbled among the others--that crowd you used to capture the patroller--and got a line on where you were. I came for help."

One phase had stuck in Parr's mind. "You tried to defend that girl. They were going to kill her?"

"No. Shanklin, as chief and king, figures he needs a queen. She's not bad looking. He's going to marry her, unless--"

Parr snorted, and Sadau's voice grew angry. "Curse it, man, I'm not casting you for a knight of the Table Round, or the valiant space-hero who arrives in the nick of time at the television drama! Simplify it, Parr. You're the only man who ever had the enterprise to do anything actual here. You ought to be chief still, running things justly. And it isn't justice for a girl to be married unofficially to someone she doesn't like. Miss Pemberton despises Shanklin. Now, do you get my point, or are you afraid?"

It was Ling who made answer: "My boss isn't afraid of anything. He'll straighten that mess out."

Parr glanced at the big fellow. "Thanks for making up my mind for me, Ling. Well, you two have talked me into something. Sadau, shake Ling's big paw. And," he now had time to view the stranger at close hand, "who's this with you?"

The man with the black curls looked genially surprised. "You know me, boss. I'm Frank Rupert."

Parr stared. "Never heard of you."

"You're joking. Why, I almost got that Martian patroller into space, when Miss Pemberton--"

Parr sprang at him and caught him by his shoulders. "You were Ruba--Rupert! It's only that you didn't talk plain before. What's happened to you, man?"

Sadau hastily answered: "The degeneration force is obviated. Reversed. All those who were beast-men are coming back, some of the later arrivals completely normal again. Haven't you noticed a change in this big husk?"

Parr turned and looked at Ling. So that was it! Day by day, the change had not been enough to impress him. As Ling had climbed back along his lost evolutionary trail, Parr had thought that he himself was slipping down....

"Don't stop and scratch your head over it, Parr," Sadau scolded him. "It'll take a lot of explaining, and we haven't time. You said you'd help get Miss Pemberton out of her jam. Come on."

* * * * *

It was like the television thrillers, after all, Parr reflected. But Sadau was right on one count--Parr didn't quite fill the role of the space-hero. He had neither the close-clipped moustache nor the gleaming top boots. But he did have the regulation deep, unfathomable eyes and the murderous impulse.

It was just after noon. Shanklin, as chief-king, had also set up for a priest. In the center of the village clearing, he stood holding a sullen and pale Varina Pemberton by one wrist, while he recited what garblings of the marriage service he remembered. His subordinates were gathered to leer and applaud. They did not know of the rush until it was all over them.

Parr smote one on the side of the neck and spilled him in a squalling heap. Sadau, Ling and Rupert overwhelmed the rest of the audience, while Parr charged on into Shanklin. His impact interrupted the words "I take this woman" just after the appropriate syllable "wo". As once before with Ling, Parr dusted Shanklin's jaw with his fist, followed with a digging jab to the solar plexus, and swung again to the jaw. Shanklin tottered, reeled back, and Parr closed in again.

"I always knew I could lick you," Parr taunted. "Come on and fight, bridegroom. I'll raise a knot on your head the size of a wedding cake."

Shanklin retreated another two paces, and from his girdle snatched the Martian knife. He opened its longest blade with a snap. Varina Pemberton screamed. Then, above the commotion of battle, sounded the flat smack of an electro-automatic. Shanklin swore murderously, dropping his knife. His knuckles were torn open by the grazing pellet.

And Parr, glancing in the direction whence the shot came, realized with savage disgust that the space-hero had come after all. There stood a gorgeous young spark in absolutely conventional space-hero costume, not forgetting the top-boots or the close-clipped moustache. Parr moved back, as if to allow this young demigod the center of the stage.

But Varina Pemberton was not playing the part of heroine. Instead of rushing in and embracing, she set her slim hands on her hips. She spoke, and her voice was acid: "It's high time you came, Captain Worrall. I did my part of the job weeks ago."

The handsome fellow in uniform chuckled. "We weren't late, at least. We've been hiding here for some time--saw what this fellow I shot loose from the knife had in mind whole hours ago. But we also saw these others," and he nodded toward Parr. "They sneaked up in such a business-like manner, I hadn't the heart to spoil their rescue."

* * * * *

Other uniformed men--hands of the Terrestrial Space Fleet--were coming into view from among the boughs. They, too, were armed. Ling walked across to Parr, a struggling captive under each arm.

"What are these strangers up to, boss?" he demanded. "Say the word and I'll wring that officer's neck. I never liked officers, anyway."

"Wait," Parr bade him. Then, to the man called Captain Worrall: "Just what are you doing here?"

"This asteroid," replied Worrall, "is now Terrestrial territory. We're fortifying it against the Martians. War was declared three weeks ago, and we made rocket-tracks for this little crumb. It's an ideal base for a flanking attack."

Parr scowled. "You're fortifying?" he repeated. "Well, you'd better shag out of here. There's a power--not working just now, but--"

"No fear of that," Varina Pemberton told him. She was smiling.

"I can explain best by starting at the start. Recently we got a report of what the Martians were doing out here. We realized that Earth must take care of her own, these poor devils who were being pushed back into animalism. Also, with war inevitable--"

"You aren't starting at the start," objected Parr. "Where do you fit into all this? You're no soldier."

"Oh, but she is," Captain Worrall said, offering Parr a cigarette from a platinum case. "She's a colonel of intelligence--high ranking. Wonderful job you've done, Colonel Pemberton."

She took up the tale again: "If the reverse-evolution power could be destroyed, this artificially habitable rock in space would be a great prize for our navy to capture. So I took a big chance--got myself framed to a charge of Murder on Mars, and was the first woman ever sent here. I knew fairly accurately when war would break out, and figured I had months to do my work in. That captured armor gave me the clue."

"All I knew was that it gave off a vibration," nodded Parr.

"Exactly. Which meant that the evolution-reverse was vibratory, too. I confided in Sadau, and he and I pieced the rest of the riddle together. The vibrator would be inside, where nobody would venture for fear of jamming the gravity-core--but we ventured--"

"And shut it off!" cried Parr.

"More than that. We reversed it, started it again at top speed to cause a recovery from the degeneration process. Clever, these Martians--they fix it so you can shuttle to and fro in development. Already the higher beast-men are back to normal, like Rupert there, and the others will be all right, soon."

"You had every right to chase me off at the end of a pistol," said Parr. "I might have gummed the works badly."

"You nearly did that anyway," Varina Pemberton accused. "Fighting, raiding, stirring up the Martians who might have put a crimp in my plans any moment--but, being the type you are, you couldn't do otherwise. I recognized that when I gave you the protective armor."

He gazed at her. "Why didn't you keep it for yourself?"

"No," and she shook her tawny head. "I figured to win or lose very promptly. But you, armored against degeneration, might live after me and be an awful problem to the Martians. Remember, I didn't make you give it back until I had done what I came to do."

Worrall spoke again: "Colonel, these exiles must stay until all effects of the degeneration influence is gone. They'll figure as civilians, with colonists' rights. That means they must have a governor, to cooperate with the military garrison. Will that be you?"

Shanklin dared to speak: "I am chief--"

"Arrest that man," the girl told two space-hands. "No, Captain. But I'm senior officer, and I'll make an appointment. By far the best fitted person for the governorship is Fitzhugh Parr."

The other exiles had pressed close to listen. Sadau, the diplomatic, at once set up a cheer. Ling added his own loyal bellow, and the others joined in. Parr's ears burned with embarrassment.

"Have it your way," he said to them all. "We'll live here, get normal, and help all we can. But first, what have we to eat? We've got guests."

"No, governor, you're the guest of the garrison," protested Captain Worrall. "Come aboard my ship yonder. I'll lend you a uniform, and you'll preside at the head of the table tonight."

"Varina Pemberton," Parr addressed the girl who had caused so much trouble and change on the little world of exile, "will you come and sit at my right hand there?"

"A pleasure," she smiled, and put her arm through his.

Everybody cheered again, and both Parr and the girl blushed.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Devil's Asteroid, by Manly Wade Wellman