The Space Opera MEGAPACK ®. Jay Lake

and hope to lift it from the planet. The strain would be too great. “Maybe I can use the ship to turn it. Lift your waldos and I’ll try.”

      Nanset warned, “I’m getting close to maximum output.”

      “Keep a five percent safety margin,” said Durgan “When you reach it, let me know.”

      As the waldos lifted from the container, he fed power to the jets, inching forward, using the bulk of the vessel to ram against the container. For a moment it resisted, then suddenly gave. Durgan edged back and turned from the controls.

      “All right, Pendris Try again.”

      Once more the mechanical attachments clawed at the misshapen bulk. Pendris’s drone was a mutter of rising frustration.

      “It’s no good. The thing is too damaged and too heavy. Maybe if I cut away the metal it might be possible to weld some grapnels to the interior.”

      Durgan said, “Can’t you fix holding straps around the outside?”

      “No. I can’t manipulate it. If we try hooking direct to the box, its own weight will tear it free before we’ve lifted a dozen miles. The entire thing is busted all to hell.”

      The hooks lifted and were replaced by the lasers. Sparks flew and molten droplets ran from yielding metal as the torches cut into the thick walls of the container. Pendris was an expert at his job. The searing beams answered to his expert manipulation, cutting just deep enough, flaring at carefully determined angles, dying before they could burn the interior. Again the hooks swung down, gripped lifted and tore the top of the box completely free.

      From the interior of the container rose a cloud of vivid green vapor.

      It spread, pluming, fanning as it rose, clinging to the waldo attachments, condensing into a nimbus of darkening emerald.

      Pendris swore in sudden anger.

      “What the hell? The damn waldos don’t respond!”

      The gas lifted again, thinning, coiling as it hovered over the opened container. It hung for a moment like a cloud and then moved again to settle beside the vessel.

      “A chemical reaction,” said Nanset. “It has to be. The heat of the lasers triggered off a progressive interaction probably converting crystals into gases and ending with a stable compound.”

      “Nice,” sneered Pendris. His hands worked for a moment within the gloves then he turned from the mask, his face sweating behind the face-plate of his helmet. “And what of the attachments?”

      “They are activated by a series of interacting magnetic fields. It is possible that the gas has somehow neutralized the components.” The engineer spoke as if he were addressing a classroom of students. “The thing is theoretically possible. An energized gas can be artificially generated down here. With the extreme pressure and alien chemistry, it could happen naturally.”

      Durgan didn’t join the discussion. He looked at the screens, at the exposed interior of the cargo container The thing had been built to withstand any conceivable emergency. The exterior walls were merely the outer casing. Within, suspended on a mesh of springs and insulating baffles, hung a smaller box. Distorted, torn, but still in one piece. Inside would rest the shedeena crystals.

      The largest fortune a man could hope to gain. Within sight. Within reach, almost, but with the waldos inoperative there was only one way it could be secured. This force field,” said Durgan thickly. “Can it be applied to a suit?”

      * * * *

      It was a gambler’s throw with a fortune as the prize and a life as the stake, and only a trickle of current providing the chance of success. If it should falter, the potential fail, a wire break—then death would be instantaneous.

      Durgan tried not to think about it. He moved his left leg, the power-units of the suit accentuating his motion, enhancing his muscular power so that the limb moved, the foot lifted, fell with abrupt savageness beneath the clawing drag of a gravity which more than doubled his weight.

      Beneath his boots the surface was rough, scored by the winds which tore past in a droning whine, pushing with savage intent.

      Stooped over the cargo container, Pendris lifted a wrapped slug of the precious crystals, using both hands, turning so as to allow Durgan to grip it with his left hand, pass it to where Nanset stood before the ship’s open doors.

      Light streamed from the interior, a warm, comforting glow, throwing distorted shadows over the eerie configurations of the Jovian landscape. More shadows moved as, far to one side, a gust of ruby flame stabbed through the darkness. Closer, from where the ruby stream fell from the crest to the pool of bubbling crimson, a dull glow shone, reflecting from the hull of the vessel, painting it with the uneasy color of blood.

      Pendris’s voice was harsh in the confines of the helmet.

      “Awkward,” he muttered. “I’ve got to stoop right over. Some of the wrappings are torn and there’s more of that damned green gas.”

      A ball of it rose with him as he painfully straightened, clinging to the end of a slug, rising to wreath his suited arms. Mechanically Durgan took it, turned, passed it to Nanset. In a glowing pool at the side of the ship, the green vapor that had streamed from the opened container rested like a smoky cloud of emerald. It seemed unaffected by the wind, streamers reaching to both ship and ground as if it clung with deliberate intent.

      “Hurry,” said Nanset. “I can’t trust the generator to compensate on automatic for too long. Hurry!”

      His voice shook a little, and Durgan could understand his fear. He felt it himself. The unimaginable tons of pressure all around, the crushing force held back only by the magic of the force field. It revealed itself as a blue shimmer around the suits so that each man moved in a halo of nebulous light.

      “Here!” Pendris held out yet another slug. “The damned stuff’s getting harder to reach. It’s padded all to hell.” His breath sucked between his lips. “Money,” he breathed. “A mansion on the Himalayas. Another at Polar North. Fine foods, women, the best of wine. My own ship, maybe!”

      The lure that made them agree to take the insane gamble. Durgan had told them what the container held, dangling the bait of incredible wealth before their eyes, forcing the engineer to adapt his field to guard the suits. What did Nanset want, he wondered. A school of his own? A complete laboratory with money enough to staff it with the best brains available? A converted ship to plumb the secrets of Uranus?

      Mechanically, he passed on the slug.

      The wind gusted, suddenly slamming with increased force against the ship, the men, the open container of the precious crystals. The ground shook a little, a low rumble echoing through the helmets as the suits carried the grinding vibrations. Orange flame lifted to one side, interspersed with shafts of vivid blue, and the droning wind carried specks of dancing green. They swirled like snowflakes, like scraps of wispy cloud, meeting, uniting, growing into streamers of coiling vapor which clung to the suited figures, fogging the face-plates with emerald dazzle, passing to hang like gossamer from the ship and container.

      Nanset’s voice was a ragged whisper. “I don’t like this. There’s something strange down here, something terrifying. I get the impression that something is watching us.”

      “Shut up!” snapped Durgan. “There’s nothing down here but gas and pressure.”

      “There could be life,” insisted the engineer. “How do we know there isn’t? The temperature is high enough for an ammonia-based metabolism. I—”

      “Shut up and keep working!” Pendris snarled with impatience, fear edging his words. “Time for thinking is when we get out of here. Now move! Damn you, move!”

      A blue ghost, he lifted another slug, passed it to Durgan, who took it and handed it to the engineer. Nanset was clumsy. He stumbled and the slug fell from his hands into the pool of green vapor that clung stubbornly to the side of the vessel. He stopped to recover it, his hands plunging