The Space Opera MEGAPACK ®. Jay Lake

time, the schematic he built from his own store of knowledge.

      “Very nearly we have two search bands,” he murmured; “one south and one north of the ecliptic, which of course are expanding as we speak. Clonak…Clonak is a very stubborn man.” He glanced up, meeting the commander’s speculative eyes.

      “If there is someone you may dispatch to the south, I will search north of the ecliptic.” He smiled, wryly. “We may yet retrieve your Scouts from holiday.”

      * * * *

      “Are you ready, Clonak?”

      “I am, Shadia.”

      “Your authorization?”

      “The ship is yours.”

      “As you say.”

      They’d managed to turn the ship and align it. The idea was simple. They were going to fire what in-system engines they had to decrease the size of their orbit and bring it closer to the more traveled ways of the system. The first time they’d tried, nothing happened, and Clonak had spent another two days tracing wires as Shadia refined the orbit-numbers.

      The other necessity was manning the radio, making certain that ship kept an antenna-side to the primary. They were on a round-the-clock talk-and-listen, and would be until—

      One of the more raspy bits of space debris in some time distracted them; it sounded almost as if it were rolling along the side of the hull. There was a ping then, and another.

      “If we’re in cloud of debris—”

      “It doesn’t sound too bad,” Clonak was saying untruthfully, just as a full-sized clank ran the hull. Then came more of the scratching sound, almost as if the hull were being sandpapered or—

      “Well,” Clonak said softly, and then, again. “Well.” He moved to the battery-powered monitor and waved his hand at the other Scout. “Come along, Shadia. Let’s have a look!”

      They crowded round the battery-powered monitor and Clonak once more turned it on and twisted the wiring until a connection was made.

      The view was altered strangely with a motley green-brown object…

      Belatedly, Shadia grabbed for the gimmicked suit radio and turned it on—

      “Please prepare to abandon ship. This is Daav yos’Phelium and Ride the Luck. If Scout ter’Meulen is aboard, it would be kind in him to answer—one’s lifemate is concerned for his health.”

      The hull rang, then, as it Ride the Luck had smacked them proper.

      “Breath’s duty, but you’ve the luck,” Daav yos’Phelium continued conversationally. “The hull is twisted into the engine back here… If I do not receive within the next two Standard Minutes an answer of some sort from the resident pilots, I shall have no choice but to force the hatch. Mark. Don’t disappoint me, I beg. You can have no idea of how often I’ve dreamed of forcing open the hatch of a—”

      Here, the pilot’s mannerly voice was drowned out by Clonak hammering the hull with one of his discarded pieces of piping.

      It was Shadia who thumbed the microphone on the makeshift radio and spoke: “We’re here, Pilot. Thank you.”

      SPAWN OF JUPITER, by E. C. Tubb

      Durgan heard the sound as he crested the rise. He froze, eyes narrowed to probe the dimness. Dimness, not dark, for it was never dark at night on Ganymede—the great ball of Jupiter filling the sky took care of that, the flaring mystery of the Red Spot seeming to look down like a watchful eye.

      The sound came again, a stirring, a scuffle as of a boot against vegetation, a movement of bulk.

      Durgan stepped from the path into the shadow of a clump of lee­tha bushes. Carefully he eased the bulging pack from his shoulders and rested it quietly on the ground. Picking up a handful of stones he threw one far down the trail in the direction from which he had come.

      “Listen!” The voice was a whisper. “Did you hear that?”

      Durgan threw another stone.

      “Someone’s coming. Get ready!”

      Two of them at least, but it was unlikely there would be more. Two men were enough to handle an unsuspecting harvester, and more would only lessen the individual share. They would be waiting on either side of the path, one lower down than the other, and would attack from both front and rear. If merciful, they might not actually kill him, but simply knock him unconscious and strip him of everything of value. But to be naked on Ganymede was to be dead.

      Durgan crept silently through the bushes, easing aside the lacey fronds and letting them spring back with a minimum of noise. A stone turned beneath his boot, and he almost fell, recovering his balance with a rustle of leaves.

      He sprang forward as a shape loomed suddenly upright. It was turning with a glimmer of whiteness from the face, and a brighter shine from the upraised knife.

      Durgan met the threat of the blade with a thrust of his own, the knife whipping from the top of his boot and lancing forward all in one smooth motion. The point hit the exposed column of the throat, ripped into flesh and muscle, cutting the great arteries and releasing a fountain of blood.

      Dying, the man fell, threshing, ugly sounds coming from his throat.

      “Jarl?”

      Durgan reached for his gun as the other man called from the shadowed dimness.

      “Jarl?”

      Durgan fired, the gout of flame traversing the path and impinging on the upright figure, searing and penetrating with a shaft of irresistible heat. The man screamed, his body a flaring pillar of fire as leatheroid crisped and burned. He fell with an odor of charred meat, his chest and lungs totally destroyed.

      For five minutes Durgan waited, crouched in the shadows beside the path, gun steady in his hand as his eyes searched the night. Then he holstered the weapon and looked at the first man he had killed.

      He was young, with the facial attributes of a wolf, teeth bared and snarling even in death. His clothing was filthy, his boots worn, and he had black crescents beneath his fingernails. He had no gun, no pack, only the knife and a thick club. His companion was much the same. Two scavengers who had sought one victim too many.

      Returning to the clump of leethan bushes, Durgan picked up his pack, shouldered it, and continued on his way.

      * * * *

      An hour later, he reached Candara.

      The settlement was a ramshackle place, a maze of buildings, shacks, and hovels built of stone and dirt and plastic, looming warehouses and rundown tenaments. The streets were unpaved, thick with litter and filth, rutted and splotched with odorous puddles. To one side, the landing field rested beneath a continuous haze of light, the tall contours of the control tower spidery against the glowing disc of Jupiter.

      As he hit the edge of the settlement, a rykat barked a warning, the sharp, thin sound eerie in its haunting loneliness. A window slammed and a man called out.

      “I’ve got a gun. Try anything and I’ll shoot!”

      Durgan walked past, silent, hearing the rykat bark again, the man’s muttered cursing, and the slam of the closing window. Deeper into the maze of buildings, he heard the sound of music and laughter, the rattle of glasses, the unmistakable whirling noise made by a spinning wheel. Keeping to the center of the path, his hand resting on the butt of his holstered gun, he made his way to a tall building on the edge of the landing field: the trading post.

      “You’re late.” The factor, a thin-faced man with red-rimmed eyes and a thin, predatory nose, glared from behind his counter as Durgan entered. “I was just about to call it a day. Can’t it wait?”

      For answer, Durgan shrugged the pack from his shoulders and lifted it to the counter. Opening it, he produced a transparent plastic bag filled with grayish pods, each two