Part 3

Ron's common-sense conquered. "Don't try to break away, Anna darling," he urged seriously. "At least not yet. You see, it's almost sure death. Remember we're still relying a little on Arne Reynaud's plan, which we carried out. Maybe it's one of those schemes that takes time to develop."

Even as he spoke, the usually cynical young machinist was aware that he was not talking much like himself. Once he'd denounced Arne Reynaud. But then things had been different. Retreat to Earth, in favor of which he had argued, had still been possible for everybody, then. Now all those who had remained behind were prisoners, and you had to make the best of a bad situation. You had to find hope where you could, even if its basis was only the word of a dreamy old horticulturist.

He was relieved to see Anna nod agreement before she left him. "Okay, Ron," she whispered. "I'll try to endure it." Her dark eyes were misty and strange, as she continued: "And I'll say 'darling,' too, because I think you meant it as I do. Maybe you're right. I guess we should wait, before we try to escape to the hills. But I've sort of lost faith in Arne Reynaud."

Ron kissed Anna then, and let her walk away toward one of the women's barracks. But all the time he was thinking of her words--lost faith. And what a tragic let-down it would be, if Arne Reynaud's scheme proved fruitless. That daring race across the void to Mars, to bring in the _Barbarian_ and its unknown cargo. The eluding of the Callistan ships by facing death in a dive into the incredible grandeur of Saturn's Rings. The sand-blasting by those tiny meteors, changing the freighter's black-painted hull, the obvious mark of a terrestrial ship, to a polished, gleaming, Acharian disguise! These things were all triumphs in themselves. But if Arne Reynaud's brown, chaffy dust, sprinkled over Titan's surface, failed to turn Callistan conquest into defeat, then all this luck and effort was for nothing!

Then the Titan Colony might just as well not have been established! The frozen atmosphere and water of the far-flung world might just as well never have been thawed! The building of the sun-ray towers had been futile, then. Anna Charles and he, Ron Leiccsen, might just as well never have met and quarreled and fallen in love! For Acharians, with their gray fur and beady eyes, and harsh, mocking, inhuman laughter, would rule forever here then, and their human slaves would be worked until the last of them had dropped, or had been destroyed.

So, in increasing bitterness, time passed for Ron Leiccsen, in spite of his will to be patient. It was daylight, always, of course, with the sun-globes glowing eternally, just as they had in the old days, before the conquest. The tiny sun itself would creep slowly across the sky, and set, as Titan revolved around Saturn. A great, long day, like the day of Earth's moon; for, like the latter, Titan rotated only once on its axis, every time it completed a journey around its parent planet. But all this made no difference. There was no night--only the brief sleep-periods in the ever lasting light of the Mallory towers.

* * * * *

Ron was transferred from the construction of Callistan apartment houses, to a job in a newly completed factory. There, under a cruel, petty old tyrant in dirty fur, Ron toiled in a little cell, polishing metal plates. Acharians loved burnished surfaces.

Young Leiccsen could talk with no one now, except his boss, Arruj. For he was forced to sleep at the foot of his polishing machine. And he ate the food brought to him while the abrasive discs whirled. He had only this little metal cubicle to live in now, with its heavy door locked, its single window barred.

"Be faster, Eart'man!" Arruj would growl. "Or shall I beat you more. Maybe I kill you, this moment, eh." And then Arruj would laugh uproariously, and seem to wait for an outburst or an attempted assault that would give him an excuse. Ron could hear the breath wheezing and whistling in the Acharian's great chest.

It took all the courage, and all the will that Ron Leiccsen could muster, to check that maddening impulse of murder. But always, so far, he had controlled himself, because he still clung savagely to hope. But it was still there, maybe only because he willed its presence.

Arruj wasn't in the room most of the time, for there were other slaves to supervise in other cubicles in this great factory building. When Arruj was gone, there was always a chance to climb up on a bench for a moment, and look out of the barred window.

The building of the Callistan city was continuing, strange, square, shiny structures rearing bizarrely among the half-ruined houses of Leiccsendale. The construction work took first place, of course, ahead of the replanting of the desolated land. But strange, flat-leaved, flowerless growths from Callisto, were already sprouting before those gleaming new factories and dwellings.

The distant hills, which seemed forever unreachable now to Ron in his prison, showed a faint, unfathomable green now, even at their pinnacles. Young Leiccsen often wondered about this, for the higher slopes of the hills had been barren before of vegetation. The twenty-three years since Leiccsenland had been thawed, and Earthians had come to Titan, had been insufficient time for much of the imported plant-life to spread to the rocky crests.

During his stolen moments of observation, Ron watched other human slaves, toiling in some of the fields, clearing away fire-charred corn and other Earthly crops, to plant Acharian spores. But most of the cultivated land was still neglected by the conquerors. It showed that same rough green as the far-off hillsides. Weeds, it looked like. And yet no weeds had ever been brought to Leiccsenland, as far as Ron knew. The colonists had always been careful to see that the imported seed was pure.

Vaguely, Ron wondered if these growths were something from Titan's tremendously ancient past, when Saturn had been a hot, youthful world, acting as a warming sun to its satellites. Some vestige of plant-life preserved here through the frozen eons. But why should such vegetation appear suddenly, now? Why hadn't its seeds sprouted as soon as Leiccsenland had been thawed, years ago, if they had existed?

And then, with a sudden inspiration, Ron saw part of the truth. The brown, dusty stuff that had filled the hold of the _Barbarian_! Seed of some kind! Arne Reynaud's plan! But what in the name of sense could it all be about? Those growths out there weren't poison, evidently! Ron saw both Callistans and Earthians handle them with impunity! What harm could they ever be to the invaders?

None! With a cold wave of despair, Ron reached this inevitable conclusion. So this, then, was the final disillusionment! Reynaud had been a crackpot after all! Like many a hare-brained inventor, he had dreamed only nonsense! And the struggle to carry out his wild scheme had been utterly wasted!

Ron Leiccsen sank into black dejection. Once, beyond the wall of the great factory, he heard a flurry of hisses. Heat-guns and pistols being discharged. And then human screams of agony--and silence.

Stealing another moment to peer from the window, he saw furry guards reloading their weapons, after the brief, murderous action. On the ground, too far off for their personal identity to be revealed, were burnt and crumpled human corpses. A group of colonists, maddened by their heartless overlords, must have tried to escape to the hills. And this was their end.

Had Anna Charles been among them? Quite possibly. Reckless and brave and impatient as she was, it was almost probable. And Ron Leiccsen couldn't have found it in his heart to blame her. He would have been among that bunch of rebels, too, if he hadn't been imprisoned here. Grief struck home, until his eyes misted and his throat ached.

Arruj came into his cubicle not long afterward. "Very little more time for you to live, Eart'man," he announced gleefully. "When our city built, we kill all Eart'folk. No good! Much trouble! Always try revolt! All things from Eart' no good! Except sun-ray towers. Plants from Eart' no good! Don't like Eart' plants. Corn, grain, trees, everyt'ing! Look ugly. No use. We root up--destroy!"

Arruj emphasized his hatred of all that was terrestrial by striking Ron across the back with his metal staff. Blood oozed, dying the filthy tatters of Ron's shirt.

But the young machinist remained quite cool. He wouldn't have to curb that lust for murder much longer! There was a certain guide-bar that was part of his polishing machine. It could be unscrewed without much trouble. Next time Arruj came into his cell, he would strike him down, before the Callistan could reach the pistol in his belt. He would kill Arruj at least--smash his hideous, fur-draped head, and have the satisfaction of seeing the petty tyrant's bloody brains dribble, before the other Acharians killed him, too. Partial revenge! Ron knew now that there was no need to conserve his own life. For hope was gone.

This time Arruj stayed for quite a while in Ron's cubicle, as he inspected the machine, and the quality of the work his chattel was turning out.

"Very, very bad!" he grumbled, commenting on the latter without sound reason except plain cussedness. "Vaah! It will be great pleasure to see you die, Eart'man! You are even more useless than the others."

Ron scarcely listened. He was too used to this treatment by now. He turned his face upward toward the window, toward blue sky and brilliant artificial daylight. It was like an afternoon in late summer, on Earth.

Suddenly a swift gust of breeze began to blow from across the fields and from the distant hills. It was refreshing and cool to Ron, as it filled his stuffy cell.

"Your work is very, very bad, Eart'man," Arruj repeated. "I beat you more now!"

He raised his staff to strike. But then, half-way up, the end of the metal rod wavered. Arruj drew in a great, spasmodic breath. An instant later the wind in his vast lungs was expelled in a mighty sneeze!

Once more he inhaled deeply and spasmodically, and again an explosive sneeze tore through his wide-flairing nostrils. But this was only the beginning. Rapidly the sudden fit that had gripped him grew worse, as sneeze was heaped on sneeze in agonizing, choking succession.

* * * * *

Wonderingly Ron turned to watch. Arruj's pink skin, showing here and there through his fur, had turned livid. He was strangling. His little eyes were streaming tears so profusely that he could not open them. His strange, three-fingered hands clutched at his chest as though he had inhaled a whiff of lethal gas! He tried to speak, but he could not. His strangled, bellowing, tortured lungs would not give him time, as one coughing, sneezing explosion came after another, in a swift, inexorable sequence.

He tried to grope for his keys, to unfasten the locked door of the cell and reach the open air. But the effort was lost in a confused, quaking gesture. He could not keep his hands steady for a second, as the violent spasm that heaved and tore at his breathing organs, fairly threw his whole body off balance! The keys jingled to the floor, and he tried to find them, feeling with his fingers. His streaming eyes were blinded, so that he could not see. Weakened and choked, he crumpled to his knees, and sprawled helplessly on his belly. But that smothering, drowning fit that wracked him, went on.

From this point, the transition from humor to horror was swift. Bloody froth came to Arruj's lips. He writhed. His sneezes and coughs and raking gasps became less forceful with exhaustion, but more hideous, with the bubbling, scratching sound of an unmistakable death-rattle.

All this, Ron Leiccsen watched, almost without moving. He was too fascinated, too puzzled, too unbelieving to move. But then, as if remembering a duty, he picked up Arruj's staff. It was quite massive. He lifted it, and aimed a blow at Arruj's skull. But the blow that would have pulped the Callistan overseer's gray matter, never was delivered. Ron felt suddenly sheepish--almost guilty. It was against best human principle to murder a helpless enemy. And Ron did not need the word of a physician to know that Arruj was dying.

But how? Why? That was the question! Ron listened. Dimly, within the great, roaring factory, and beyond its walls he could hear more coughs and sneezes, like the rattle of great drums. No human chests of Earth could have produced such noises. Only the great barrel-like thoraxes of Callistans could ever reverberate like that!

It was a plague, then. Something that must have stricken them all, suddenly. But how was it possible? They were tough, these beings from that moon of Jupiter. Earth-germs, for instance, did them no harm. And there were few native Acharian diseases that their rugged flesh could not throw off. Still, now, there was a pestilence among them--a killing horror, swift and strangling! Ron Leiccsen thought of Arne Reynaud, and wondered.

Then he saw the keys there on the floor, beside Arruj's writhing, tortured form. He picked them up, chose the one he knew fitted the lock of his cubicle, and opened the door.

Cautiously he stepped over the quivering, doomed Arruj. In the corridor outside, along the row of cells, other Callistans sprawled, helpless and strangled, their efforts to breathe consisting only of horrible, gurgling gasps. Something must be swiftly inflaming their lungs, until death by strangulation was inevitable. Like pneumonia or diphtheria, but far more rapid.

In a daze of wonder, in which hope and optimism scarcely dared to rise, Ron rushed from one cubicle door to another. It was easy to release the human slaves who had worked the machines within each cell. All the doors could be unlocked with the same key as his own.

Startled, unbelieving men collected in the corridor, as he freed them. Men with great welts from many beatings on their backs, and dull gleams of confusion in their eyes. Larsen, Schneider, Novak, Lloyde, and a host of others.

Bart Mallory, the inventor and patent-holder of the sun-ray towers, was there, too, his once neat beard, which had been clipped in a Van Dyke fashion, an unkempt tangle, now.

"What's happened, Leiccsen?" he croaked. "We're free! I don't understand! How can all the Callistans be suddenly ill like this--dying?"

"I don't know," Ron stammered. "We'll have to try to find out."

Like a bewildered pack the liberated slaves rushed to the factory exit. There, on the metal steps, a half dozen Acharian guards lay helpless. One already had ceased to sneeze and strangle. The dark red froth on his lips had ceased to drip to his bosom, smearing his fur. He was already dead.

Before the factory exit, the released prisoners halted, staring across the plain, brilliant in the glow of the sun-towers. Leiccsenland still looked beautiful, though weird with the addition of strange, gleaming Acharian buildings, and with a puzzling greenness that had sprouted from the charred ground, masking the effects of Callistan vandalism, not so long ago. The conqueror-fleet of silvery ships stood in serried rows of silent power at the edge of a fire-blackened woods, that was beginning to show new leaves, once more.

But not one of the invaders, among the hundreds that could be seen, stood on his feet. All writhed on the ground, in the streets, on the lawns, and beside the ships, helpless. The stamp of doom was upon them--sudden, subtle, nameless destruction!

Then one of the Earthmen sneezed. Smith, it was. He was a big, husky fellow; but now his red cheeks blanched with fear. His unpleasant thought was easy to understand. That sneeze looked like a symptom. Were the Earthians, the colonists, to be wiped out by this hellish plague, too?

Ron looked at Bart Mallory, and Bart Mallory stared back in concerned doubt. A group of other slaves who had been clearing the unkempt fields, were coming forward, shouting questions. Ron saw Anna Charles among them, haggard and tattered, but still alive, still herself. Impulsively he ran swiftly toward her.

"Anna--honey!" he blurted, as he gathered her briefly into his arms. "You didn't try to break away to the hills. They didn't kill you! But now--I don't know what to think. This is Arne Reynaud's scheme come to fruition, isn't it? But maybe it'll get us, too--this pestilence."

He looked at her carefully. With increasing worry, he saw that her nose was red. Her long eyelashes were blinking back telltale moisture. And yet it didn't seem as though she'd been crying or anything. Were these, then, more forerunners of the plague? Several other men sneezed violently. And Ron looked, with a touch of real fear, at the motionless body of a Callistan, lying on the grass nearby, its fur blowing in the wind. Maybe the Acharian doom was also going to be an Earthian doom.

"Anna--" Ron gasped. That single name, as he uttered it now, was like some strange plea and prayer to the unknown.

But the girl smiled back at him. "I think that I'm the one who understands what this is all about this time, instead of you, Ron," she declared almost tauntingly.

"Then tell us, Miss!" Bart Mallory urged in a half-frantic tone.

Anna glanced briefly and mysteriously at the bulk of Saturn--a pale, pearly, enhaloed bubble at the horizon--above the now green-tinted hills.

"Yes, it's Arne's scheme come true," she said musingly. "The Acharians lived unknowingly with death here, for almost two terrestrial months. Too few of them had ever visited Earth, even to recognize the enemies that lurked there for them. And when that nemesis was brought here, it was far too harmless and unobtrusive in its aspect, for them to notice or be warned.

"Remember what Arne Reynaud told us, long ago, just before he was killed by one of those Callistan heat-guns, in front of the Leiccsendale Community Bank? The time he made his speech, Ron? You heard him, too, Mr. Mallory. I think I can quote almost his exact words:

"'Me and a brother of mine are probably the only men, Earthian or Callistan, who realize why Callistans get very sick on Earth at certain times--though it's simple.... I saw one die once, there, in summer. It ain't just the density of the air. They can stand that. Something else. I found out...."

"Well, what is it, then?" Mallory demanded, not meaning to sound impatient.

* * * * *

The girl glanced at him, then back at Ron, then all around at the waiting faces. "We all know, don't we," she said, "that we are used to certain conditions, we Terrestrials from Earth. We get tough and acclimated. People from other worlds, not used to similar conditions, wouldn't have the same resistance. Space travel bears this out--Martian plagues spreading on Earth--Venusians dying of the common cold. Even an interchange of germs between the terrestrial continents was dangerous, according to history. Tuberculosis ravaging the American Indians. Eskimoes killed by the measles. Terrestrial germ diseases don't bother the Callistans, it is true, because their blood is at too high a temperature for Earthly bacteria to survive. But there's another thing--a weak point. The cargo Ron and I brought from Mars in the _Barbarian_, was the answer."

"Then you guessed, too, what that cargo was, Anna," Ron burst out. "Seeds of some kind--plants. They're growing elsewhere now. Out there in the fields, and on the hillsides. But that's all so crazy! Where can there be any danger in simple, everyday Earth-weeds? Poison ivy is bad, of course; but even it couldn't kill off thousands of Callistans--certainly not in a few minutes!"

"Yes, I guessed what the _Barbarian's_ cargo consisted of, Ron," Anna returned. "I was working in the fields all the time, seeing those plants, which had never been on Titan before. Not even many of the slaves remembered them, though, since we've all been a long time away from home, and from some of the familiar things, there. But I'm a school teacher, and I know a little about biology, and the common afflictions of humankind. But I kept still, because secrecy might be important. Well, those plants grew like wild-fire, under the stimulating rays of the sun-towers. And I was praying that they'd hurry up and blossom. Callisto's a flowerless world, Ron. Probably that's the big point. With an equal start in their growing, the plants blossomed all at once. And the winds blew, and the plague came. And now we colonists are masters of Titan once more. The Acharians can never threaten us again. Not even if they find a way to face the pestilence with filter-masks and so forth. For we've got the major part of their space fleet to protect us. Do you know what I'm talking about now, Ron? Everybody?"

There was an awed quiet in the listening crowd. Then Bart Mallory whooped suddenly. "I get it!" he shouted in triumph. "Of course! Callistan lungs are huge and delicate and entirely unacclimated to one Earthly condition! Naturally they'd react to it far more violently even than we do! And now Terra is mistress of this section of space! My sun-towers must have helped some, by increasing the normal virulence of the plants. But most of the thanks go to Arne Reynaud, and to you, Anna, and to you, Ron."

Mallory, the scientist, swept his arms out toward the fields. Waving there in the bright artificial sunshine, was a tattery green host of plants, that men of Earth had known and lived with, with considerable discomfort but scant real harm for countless ages.

Was it just the wind that blew that host, making it sway and undulate with a simple grandeur, while huge Saturn looked on? Or was the unseen spirit of Arne Reynaud, the old horticulturist, the old fool, the dreamer and the wizzard, stirring them, too?

Ron Leiccsen scowled, still lost and bogged down with the enigma, as were most of the other listeners. "I guess you've got to draw me a diagram, Anna," he grumbled, shaking his head ruefully. "I know a lot about machinery and space ships and Saturn's Rings, but it looks as though this biological problem goes beyond my depth."

Anna Charles smiled a faint, twisted little smile. "We've been through a lot together, Ronnie," she said wistfully, not caring if the others heard. "We've quarreled a lot, learned an awful lot together, and I think at last found that life could be beautiful for us both. So I can afford to be patient. Now look--"

She bent down. Her little fists clutched a tall, tattery plant, that grew nearby in the grass. Tugging vigorously, she pulled it out. From its top, where there was a cluster of homely golden nodules, there dusted a fine, yellowish powder. Pollen.

Anna's nose wrinkled. Suddenly she sneezed very hard.

"Somebody ought to write some music about this plant, now," she said at last. "It is commonly known as--Ragweed. Some Terrestrials are terribly alergic to it, though nothing like the poor Acharians from flowerless Achar, of course. Its dry pollen, drifting with the summer breeze, causes more--and more violent--_hay-fever_, than anything else known on Earth!"

End of Project Gutenberg's The Raiders of Saturn's Rings, by Raymond Z. Gallun