Page:Amazing Stories Volume 15 Number 12.djvu/34

34 to Dane: "I'm afraid Kris is right. I wouldn't last much longer, under the Great Red Spot. These people are immune, but Earthmen become saturated with Mu rays after a few years."

"Even we can stand it only at a distance," Nile Vanz cut in. "I guess we won't forget our trip of exploration in- side that red hell very soon, eh, Kris?"

Kris smiled ruefully and held up his hands. Light from a table lamp passed through them as a warm yellow glow.

"Not with this reminder! You see, Dane, before we learned the protective power of gold, we ventured into the Red Spot in rocket ships. It is from there that we get all our power, by condensing the Mu rays in the Intensifier; but we thought perhaps we could mine the Red Spot material. Our first inkling of what was happening to us was when Zanz discovered he was looking at the sights through, me—instead of around me! So now it's easy to know any of the three hundred who went on that trek. They call us the 'Shadow Men'."

Tolek Serj, one of the few normal men present, grunted.

"Humph! A mark of distinction! A badge of valor!"

Dane was looking at Kris while he said that. He saw the rueful light in the Ionian's eyes. Glancing at Margo, he thought he knew the reason. In her face, as she regarded her fiance, was something of the same shrinking he himself knew when he looked at the shadow men.

The dinner ended on a minor key. Everyone was glad to hurry away, and Dane, back in his room, felt more pressed down by worry than he had since he heard sentence pronounced on himself in the Hall of Justice.

T SEEMED to Dane that he had slept but a few hours, when he came wide awake. Try as he might, he could not get to sleep again. Restless, disturbed, he got up and stood at his window, staring out into the gray Ionian night. Overhead, the Red Spot was in full view, glaring angrily down upon the dying world. Jupiter, giant of the Solar System, made a vast, gaseous roof above Io, stretching away on all sides to disappear in blackness.

Dane wished with all his heart for morning. Worry lost its acid sharpness in the warm light of day. Anxiety for his father, his failure upon Earth—these were but two of his dark strains of thought. But morning was far off. Io's sidereal day was over forty-two hours long. Night had twenty-one morbid hours with which to torment the dying world.

Movement brought Dane's gaze to the winding stone stairway below him, that mounted by terraces to the top of the knoll. He leaned nearer the window, caught by the familiarity of a hurrying figure. Then his eyes lightened as full recognition came.

Dane hurriedly changed night-clothes for gold day garments. Over these he threw a heavy cape of white fur. Fur boots went on over his weighted shoes. He donned the glass-faced hood that protected against frostbite.

He overtook Margo halfway up the stairs. She turned hastily at his approach. The dim light was sufficient to show the fear that sprang into her eyes. One of her gloved hands moved, and a pistol sprang into it. Then, recognizing him, she relaxed.

"Aren't you taking a risk out here, alone?" Dane charged.

"Perhaps." The girl's voice was muffled by her mask. "But it's better than spending a sleepless night in my room. I often come up here, just to look out over the city and wish we could have brought help years ago."