Contents

RED GEM of MERCURY

by Henry Kuttner

A stone from the stars kept vigil, and a dead man smiled, as Steve Vane bore a death token from Mercury to the man who had promised him--murder!

CHAPTER ONE

Stone from the Stars

THE noise of pursuit was growing louder. Steve Vane's lungs ached with each knife-thrust, gasping breath of the icy air. His gray prison garments were no protection against the wintry breeze, and his thin shoes were already wet with snow and beginning to freeze.

It was hard to keep going. It would be far easier to give up the mad attempt, to stop and wait, with his hands in the air, till the guards came and took him back to the bare gray walls of his cell. But--Vane took a quick glance at the grim-faced man racing along beside him--if tough little Tony Apollo could keep going, certainly husky, big-shouldered Steve Vane could grit his teeth and stagger along. But where would it end? The break had been hopeless from the start, doomed to certain failure. Only the iron determination of Tony Apollo, and the burning sense of injustice rankling within Vane had kept the latter's will firm.

"Pasqual framed us both," Apollo had said, his dark face sombre with hatred. "I've been in here longer than you have--but I'm getting out now. If you're smart, you're coming with me. One of us has a chance to get Pasqual before the cops nail us."

And so the two had planned and fled. Blue and shaking with cold, they plunged along the bank of the river gorge toward the cabin Apollo had said would serve as a hideout.

"How--how much further?" Vane managed to gasp, and hated himself for the weakness his question betrayed. Apollo managed a twisted grin.

"Just over the ridge, kid. Dunno if I can make it. Those damn guards--that bullet went into my lungs. Steve, if I--if I croak, get Pasqual for me. When he framed me into the big house, I told him I'd come back, and he knows I've never broke my word. I--"

Apollo grimaced and coughed blood. He lurched; Vane gripped the smaller man's arm and pulled him along for a few steps. Then the gangster pulled free and plunged ahead, ploughing up snow as he ran.

TRUE enough, Vane thought, Apollo had never broken his word. The whole set-up was fantastic. Two years ago Tony Apollo had been the underworld king of Kentonville, and had tried to bribe Vane and failed. For, in those days, Steve Vane had been a struggling, idealistic lawyer in the slum district.

Then big Mike Pasqual, Apollo's lieutenant, had stepped in. Very cleverly he had framed his chief. Apollo had gone to prison and Pasqual reigned in his place. Anybody who got in his way was crushed. As Steve Vane had been crushed--suspended from the bar and given a long prison term because of certain papers Pasqual had had forged. Now the two doomed men fled along the snowy brink of the gorge in a gray, ominous half-light, with a wintry breeze numbing their bodies. And behind them came men with guns.

Almost at the summit of the ridge it happened. Apollo clutched at his side, lurched, and cried out sharply. Vane whirled; his hand went out in a futile gesture. For already the little gangster was falling. . . .

The treacherous snow banked on the edge of the abyss crumbled beneath him. He was gone almost before Vane realized it. Sick with horror, the lawyer moved forward and peered over. He saw the body, far below, bound off a rock and vanish into the swift, turbulent river.

Tony Apollo was dead, and he had failed to keep his last promise.

A shout sounded eerily from the distance. Vane heard the noise of a shot--the high whine and the sharp report. He glanced over his shoulder, saw three dark forms, and caught his breath, hesitating. What now? He had not realized before just how much he had come to depend on Apollo's grim, iron will. But the gangster was gone--

The hideout! It lay just over the ridge. Perhaps there were guns there. Vane broke into a stumbling run, topped the rise, and saw below him a broad, shallow valley. A cabin, its roof pillowed with snow, was not far away. Pines rose thickly from the whiteness of the ground. The key was hidden in the hollow log Apollo had mentioned. Vane burst into the cabin in a flurry of snow, kicking the door shut behind him and barring it. His first glance showed him a rack of well-oiled rifles within easy reach. The feel of the smooth stock was comforting to his fingers.

He went to a window and peered out. The pursuers were just coming over the rise. It would be easy to pick them off now, one by one. Vane cuddled the rifle against his cheek; his finger tightened on the trigger. But he did not fire.

He had never yet killed a man. Even though his ideals had changed, in the slow torment of months of prison, into a dull, burning hatred and resentment, yet he realized that this rage was focused on one man only. Pasqual. The squat gangster chief who had framed him into disgrace. The guards--well, they would not hesitate to shoot him down, given the opportunity. But that was their job. Vane said "Hell" under his breath and fired over the heads of the three.

They paused very briefly and then dived for cover. After a time Vane could see them cautiously coming closer, taking advantage of every hiding place. He fired again.

One of the guards yelled, "Come on out! You can't get away!"

"I've got plenty of ammunition," Vane shouted back. "And I'm staying right here. "

THEN, without warning, it happened. A shrill keening almost above the threshold of hearing grew suddenly louder. Vane, startled, glanced up. Beyond the tops of the pines he saw the gray, cloudy sky--

He screamed, dropping the gun, and flung up his arms to shield his face, falling back in instant reaction. For rushing toward him from the sky came a dot--a circle--a huge black thing that grew larger by split-seconds. It was like standing on a railroad track and watching a locomotive plunge toward you. One had only the single impression of something--a meteor?--rushing, expanding, growing--

Earth-shaking and thunderous was the explosion. Vane felt the floor rise up under his feet; he was hurled through the air, his ear-drums almost broken by the violence of the sound. Swift movement, and a flash of blinding light, and then darkness, complete and quiet....

HE could not have been unconscious long. He woke to find himself lying in the snow, his head throbbing with pain. Dazedly he heard a voice say, "Alive, eh? You looked like a goner to me."

Vane sat up and looked around. He realized that there were handcuffs on his wrists. He was under a pine, and some distance away was what was left of the cabin. It was like a house of cards that had collapsed. Only a miracle had enabled Vane to survive.

He looked up and saw the blue-jowled, bulldog face of a guard. The man nodded and jerked his thumb down the slope.

"There," he said. "That's what hit. Airship or something."

Vane looked, and his eyes widened with amazement. An airship--no! No Earthly vessel, obviously. Shaped like a tear-drop, it had fallen thirty feet from the cabin and had dug a crater out of the snowy ground. Its hull was split and riven in a dozen places by the shock of the impact. A crystalline green powder carpeted the ground and cloaked the trees for yards around.

The ship itself was perhaps twenty feet long, made of a dully-shining metal, bluish in hue. The two remaining guards were busy, pulling something through a yawning gap that split the hull.

The man standing over Vane bent and jerked the prisoner to his feet. "Somebody was in it," he grunted. "Hurt or probably dead. Come along." Vane let himself be pulled toward the wreck. Despite the sick hopelessness that filled him at his capture, he was also conscious of an overwhelming curiosity. Would it be that for the first time in human history a--spaceship had reached the Earth? And its passenger--what would he be like?

The two guards were kneeling beside the body, one of them trying to force brandy between the alien being's lips. Vane's captor halted behind them, his hand tightly gripping the lawyer's arm. A whistle of amazement escaped his lips.

"Jeez!" he muttered. "What a freak!"

A freak, truly, Vane thought, in this world. Fully eight feet tall the being was, man-shaped, with a tremendous barrel chest and thick legs jointed in several places. The clothing was skin tight, ripped and torn to reveal greenish skin that gleamed with pale radiance.

The lips, Vane saw, were broad, fleshy, and indigo-blue in color. And there was but one eye; the other had vanished in a crimson smear that matched in hue the red jewel that gleamed on the being's forehead.

Vane stared at the strange gem, conscious of an inexplicable fascination that seemed to radiate from it. Larger than a hen's egg, it seemed to be embedded in the greenish flesh of the bulging forehead and the bone beneath.

And--it lived!