J. Harvey Haggard

“ With the table cleared, Lana's good spirits had taken another slump. She went gloomily with Raeburn to check the air, food, and water supplies of the strange craft. When they returned Lonny Higgens was curled up on a couch, snoring lustily.
"I don't get it," said Raeburn, throwing up his hands in despair. "He isn't like a man any more. He isn't like anything living. It's his ship, and he ought to know more about it than anyone. Oh well, if everybody else is going to give up the ghost, why should I worry?"
"Sure," said Lana. "Why should we worry. ”

“ I'm tired of listening to your silly chatter."
"Me mad as heck!" cried Baron Munchy, sitting down on the edge of the chair like a tiny mannikin and doubling his tiny fists beneath his chitinous chin. "That man say the Boss no good. He say the Boss one big blonde devil. He say—"
"Shut up," protested Lonny. "Raeburn's all right. He's just a mud-fisher like me, and has got to get along. It's natural that he doesn't like a rival, and I'm not a bit riled by your chatter." ”

“ Lonny roused with a start and gulped. The small insectlike visage was thrust grimly down to the end of his nose, and a tiny finger was raised emphatically.
"He say he knock the holy feather from you, Boss," he chirped grimly. "He say you fish for pearls in mud that belong him. He say that girl make him one fine cook, and—"
"Huh!" demanded Lonny Higgens. "What girl! Oh, he probably means Lana. Blast it, Munchy, can't you let a guy sleep? If she wants to fall for a flat tire like Raeburn, it's no business of mine." ”

“ V
"You're not human," said Link Raeburn accusingly, and he shook a quivering finger at Lonny. "Here we are in the face of death, and all you think of is your stomach."
"There's not much choice," said Lonny Higgens, "when a fellow's empty. And the menu never changes here. Besides, eating might help you to think."
"You shouldn't think while you're eating," reprimanded Lana. "It'll give you indigestion."
"Great Space!" broke out Raeburn. "You too! Who gives a hang about indigestion? Listen, you pair of fools, we're snagged down here on the bottom of a sea of mud. ”

“ We can't descend unless the pressure storm gets violent again! And we can't climb through a shelving ledge of solid core. So our chances of getting out of here are rather slim."
Raeburn's furtive eyes were glowing, like those of a beast at bay. He whirled around, struck out wildly at the controls, started the engines and sent the mud-submarine spinning around again, but to no avail. Lana Hilton watched his every move, and she too was like a tigress at bay. ”

“ Link Raeburn laughed. "You won't do it then, or ever, Lonny. There isn't an ounce of fight left in you. The planet's got you. I've always believed that you had enough pearls stacked away to make a fortune on earth, but you kept putting the time for departure off into the future."
His taunts acted as harsh irritants to Lonny Higgens, who doubled his fists and took a couple of steps forward.
"Slap 'im down, Boss," urged Baron Munchy, and Lonny stopped, his shoulders falling.
"That's right," he said, grinning at the little elf. "Fight to the death, like all these insensate creatures of Uranus. ”

“ As the mist rose Lonny saw that they had come too far to the left and that the mud-ship was a hundred yards directly to their right. He saw something else, too.
A man was running across the muddy surface—if his fast wobbling progress on mud-shoes could have been described as a run. It could be only one person—Link Raeburn.
A terrible fear seized him. If Raeburn reached the mud-ship and shut them out, they would die horribly. He began to hurry forward—slipped and fell awkwardly. Lana made a wry face and helped him to his feet. ”

“ Baron Munchy piped, jumping up and down in ecstacy. "Him all bad. Say Boss no good."
"There's to be no more fighting, Raeburn," he said. "I'll pick you off with the gun if you start anything. When we break the surface you can get your mud-shoes and go."
Four thousand feet. Three thousand. The mud-submarine was rising rapidly now, had passed the two thousand mark.
"You've really hurt the little fellow's feelings," said Lana Hilton, evading his eyes and gesturing toward Baron Munchy, who was beating his fists against the wall in sheer frustration. ”

“ You're really pretty decent and brave. You needn't deny that you've got courage, and a lot of other admirable qualities. Your only trouble has been in letting the awful lethargy of Uranus get hold of you. That's all that's wrong, and what you need is something to jar you loose from this planet. Then you'd be a great guy. I really mean it, Lonny. ”

“ They would die from starvation here. The gun in Raeburn's hands would be merciful, if it relieved them from the more hideous death that was certain to come.
The hull shuddered, slipped against a rocky outer substance that seemed to give way suddenly. He felt the relaxation of the outer barrier through the controls, knew that the propellers were driving it out and into the true bed of the Uranusian ocean. The needle indicator paused uncertainly, started to rise. By the expression on Raeburn's face he knew that the other had not guessed that their trap was behind them. ”

“ Pearls won't mean a thing to us in this fix! We'll be lucky if we ever get out of this with a whole skin." He began pacing up and down the room, swinging his hands, while Lonny inspected the storage compartment.
"Looks like a fish dinner," he sighed. "Of course there are clams, of the mud-kelp variety, and Uranusian lobsters—they're really delicious at this time of the year. Then we've got a very good variety of that piscatorial wonder known here as a whirl-ray, whose steaks are rather tasty. ”

“ A thunderous surge of high voltage crackled suddenly, kniving along the glassite, and the motors from the lower decks sang a mounting, thunderous song.
At the same time, everything shifted. Something had dealt the mud-submarine a tremendous blow from above. They were sent careening against the hull and then to the floor, which began to tilt. Link Raeburn had been thrown to his hands and knees. Now his eyes goggled up at the instrument panel. Lonny Higgens sat sprawled out with the girl a tumbled heap in his arms.
"Good going, Lonny!" cried Raeburn incredulously. "We're sinking again. ”

“ I may have to do it yet."
"You oughta fight'm," declared Baron Munchy angrily. "They steal house. Steal everything! Why no earthmen fight, Boss?"
"Because earthmen have to get mad to fight," returned Lonny, "and you can't get mad here somehow. Oh, shut up! I don't know how to explain it. Earthmen just don't feel violent emotions here on Uranus. They don't get mad at anything! They don't fall in love! They're just sapped dry of everything."
His head was aching. It was a good thing his body had recovered from its exposure to the heavy pressure area. ”

“ Sea food came cheaply on Uranus but clothing was a different problem, and you had to have a goodly stock of that.
Then, when you did find enough pearls to warrant the voyage home, you had to send out an S. O. S. to a nearby space vessel, and the captain, fearing the loss of his command if he disobeyed interplanetary law, would have to come several million miles extra to pick you up, sans submarine, of course, which by that time would be a rusted chunk of worthless metal anyway.
He was wet to the skin when he heard voices through the mist. ”

“ Like animals they glared around at the berylumin hulls, thinking of the millions of pounds per square inch waiting beyond—trying to press in upon them. An instant's exposure to that and a human body would be but a pulpy mass. ”

“ The atomic motors, he found, were in good condition for an emergency. The trouble with them was that they provided merely a horizontal propulsion. The natural buoyancy of the vessel, coupled with the lessening of surface pressure, would have to raise it from the murky depths.
The lower deck was almost hemispherical in shape, and fully occupied with power apparatus.
"They steal'm, Boss!" warned Baron Munchy vindictively. "Now you fight, huh?"
"Fighting wouldn't do any good," Lonny explained wearily. "People don't fight on Uranus. They're always fagged out, enervated." ”

“ The pressure must have been released on the upper surface by now. And we've got to have a heavy pressure area again somewhere. It just occurred to me that we might create that heavy pressure on the roof of this ledge that we're under, which would suffice just as well."
"But how?" demanded Lana, and followed as he went to the berylumin hull at one end of the control room and pulled down a shutter. He had exposed a transparent plate of glassite, now black as ink with the outer mud, in whose center a pair of binoculars had been frozen into the vitreous substance. ”