Part 2

So sugar-plum went ahead, and I stalked out of the room. I went to my own turret and tried to read a magazine, but I couldn't get interested in the hokey adventures of a Patrolman on Io when I was buried alive in cosmic goo myself. So I fiddled with the dials again for a while. No soap. So pretty soon I got up and looked in my auxiliary cabinet. My Ampie was curled in inside, pale blue and shot full of tiny red sparks, sucking contentedly on an old-flashlight battery. I put on my rubber gloves. I went down to the engine loft.

Ampies live on energy. And Larkin had said the gelatinous mass engulfing us was at least partially composed of energy. Which made what I did seem, to me, quite logical. I pressed the button that extends the lug-sails of a freighter, heard the machinery creak into motion, lifted my Ampie out of its lead-foil container, and shoved it through the widening vent. Then I waited for things to happen.

* * * * *

They did happen! But not what I had expected. I had expected to see the Ampie gnaw a hole through that dough like a St. Bernard working out on a T-bone, rare. But instead, the Ampie touched one shimmering feeler to the mass of gray matter, hummed, sparked, and rolled backward across the room!

I said, "Aw, damn! He was right!" and started to close the lug-vent. But--

It wouldn't close! Because the writhing stickiness was welling into the ship with incredible, fluid swiftness. A heavy, saccharine stench was in the air. Gray streamers fingered toward me. I yelped, slammed tight the engine loft door, and raced for the control turret.

In the middle of the control turret I waited for my breath to catch up with me. Larkin spoke subconsciously from the depths of a deep ponder. "Shh!" he said.

"Shh!" repeated Lorraine. "He's thinking."

"Then tell him to think about pancakes!" I howled. "Because there's a shipful of gray molasses following me up the corridor!"

Larkin started. "What's that?"

I told him. "--it looked like a good idea," I finished, "only it wasn't. Now the stuff's in, and I can't get it out again. It'll fill the whole damned ship--"

But Cap Bowman is no dope. He had already sprung to the audio, was barking orders to other parts of the _Pegasus_.

"Seal port and loft sections of the ship immediately. Lock emergency doors! Get all men into safe sectors!"

Lorraine looked at me worriedly.

"What--what is it, Sparks?"

"Nothing much," I told her grimly, "except that I've just about killed us all. That stuff will ooze through every crack and crevice in the ship, swallow everything just like it swallowed the ship. That's probably what happened to those other explorers. There must have been one dope like me aboard each of them. With a bright idea that--I'm sorry, Mrs. Larkin. I've sure put the final touch on your happy honeymoon."

She was Cap Bowman's daughter; she was the bride of Johnny Larkin. A gal doesn't get to be both of those things without having more innard-stuffings than a sofa-cushion. My words heaved her back on her heels, but only for a fraction of a second. Then, smiling, she turned to Johnny.

"We're not afraid, are we, honey? But you'll have to hurry now."

Larkin pawed his hair frantically.

"I'm doing my best. I've got all the facts. But I still can't quite understand--"

Voices rasped in over the audio. Anderson reported from the sleeping quarters, "All men evacuated, sir. Standing by for further orders." MacPhee snarled defiance from the engine deck, "We've plugged all doors, sirrr! We'll hold this position to the last posseeble minute!"

"It's a form of carbohydrate," mused Larkin aloud. "Plastic. Semi-fluid. But why? Why?"

"Think hard, sugar!" pleaded Lorraine. Larkin said mechanically, "Yes, honey--" Then he stiffened. "Honey!" he said.

I groaned. "This is no time for lovey-dove talk, Johnny!" I cried. "Keep scratching at those gray cells--"

And over the audio, the voice of super-cargo Freddy Harkness. "Am abandoning holds, Captain. The invading--er--substance has already covered the aft bins and is moving forward rapidly."

"Seal the safety door, Harkness--" began Bowman.

Then Larkin was at his side, suddenly frantic, eager.

"No, Skipper! Tell him to keep them open a minute! I'll be right there. I need three men!"

He lit out for the door. Bowman cried, "No, son--come back! You'll be killed. Come--"

But he was talking to empty air. Johnny was pounding down the runway. Lorraine sniffed once. Then her jaw hardened. She said, "I'm going after him."

Bowman pushed her into a chair--but hard. He said, "You're waiting here! With us. You'll only be in his way. Johnny's the tech man on this ship. If anybody can save us, he's the one." But as her head lowered, his eyes met mine. And the words were written there, "Not this time--"

* * * * *

Still, we had to do something. We couldn't just sit there and take it blind. We had to know what was going on. So we cut in the visiplate to the corridor outside the storage bins. It was a dismal scene that appeared before us.

The long corridor was deserted save for a thin sliver of something oozing out of an adjacent chamber. As we watched, this sliver turned to a bulky, rolling mass; became the doughy body of the mysterious matter in which the _Pegasus_ was caught. Like a ponderous wave it surged up the corridor, straining into every crack and crevice, engulfing everything it met.

We saw a tiny, gray ship mouse scurry from under a doorway, hesitate as one pink foot slipped into the sluggish excrescence.

It tugged, trying to get free. But it was like a fly snared on flypaper. It couldn't move. In a few seconds it disappeared. Lorraine began crying softly. I turned away, too sickened to condemn myself again for having loosed this thing amongst us.

Then there were bright gleams in the visiplate, and Johnny, accompanied by three or four not-at-all eager sailors, entered the corridor. As he passed the visiplate, he looked up and grinned at us, nodded encouragingly. Then he ducked into one of the storage bins.

He came out staggering under the load of a heavy, wooden crate. He began ripping the top off this frantically, motioned his assistants to get other similar boxes from the bin and open them. They did so, but one look at their pans told us they didn't like this business nohow!

Finally he had the box open. He tore out a portion of the contents. And--

"Has he gone nuts?" raged Bowman. "That's only that medical junk for Mars! That zy-something extract!"

Johnny made it perfectly clear what he was trying to do. He wrenched the cap off one bottle--and deliberately poured the contents into the nearest pseudopod of the matter now approaching within scant feet of him. Then another bottle; tossed into the mass this time. And another. And another.

Lorraine screamed suddenly, "Daddy, look! He's trapped! Behind him!"

She was right. From another cross-corridor had rolled more of the Caltechian effluvium. It formed a solid barrier through which Johnny and his co-workers could not now escape. They could move neither forward nor backward. In a few minutes the two sluggish tentacles of the syrupy monster would meet. And then--

I said, "Skipper, you'd better turn off the plate."

Bowman nodded. He reached toward the button. Closer and closer, now. In seconds the two walls of matter would coalesce. The sailors had seen their peril. We couldn't hear their voices, but they were apparently pleading with Johnny to let them take refuge in the one, so far untouched, storage vault; seal that door. And he had refused. He was forcing them to hold their ground. All four of them, like himself, were desperately ripping corks from bottles, scattering the medical export into the substance closing in on them.

And then one man slipped! His foot flew from under him, was avidly seized by a tentacle of that slimy mass. His eyes and mouth opened wide; I knew he was screaming.

Larkin stepped forward to grasp his shoulders. The skipper hoarsed, "Look out, son! Behind you!"

It happened all at once. One minute there were two towering walls of fleshy matter surging inexorably down upon the trapped quintet, and the next instant--

The walls collapsed! Just like that! Collapsed into running streams of blotched liquid scum. The sailor's leg slipped free. Johnny toppled over backward into the slippery puddle. A foolish look spread over his face. A look that was mirrored in the faces of his associates. His eyes rolled. He goggled up into the visiplate, kissed his fingers to us, and--and hiccuped! His lips formed a syllable. The syllable was, "_Wheeee!_"

Bowman's shaking fingers sought his jowls. He cried, "My God, he--he's--"

"He's what, Daddy? What?"

"He's as boiled," roared Bowman, "as an owl!"

* * * * *

Some time later--about twelve hours, to be exact--I dragged him back into the control turret. He was still a little blue from the cold shower. But the fog was out of his brain, and that was what was most necessary. For all of us were dying of curiosity.

Bowman said, "Well, your plan worked, son. We got the ship empty, and like you said we would, we pulled out of the goo we was in. Now we're on our way back to tell Earth about Caltech, and--" he added proudly, "--collect that bonus. 'Cause under that scum is a fortune in ores. But what was the scum? An' how did you know you could bust it up with that there zy--zy--"

"--mase," grinned Johnny. "Zymase, Skipper. Why, it wasn't difficult, once Lorraine supplied the key. You might say I was slow in figuring it out mainly because the disaccharose existed on such a gigantic scale that I could net comprehend it."

"The di--which?" I said.

"Sugar," said Johnny, "to you. Or, more accurately, a form of treacle. Honey-gum.

"Here's what I figure. Subsequent investigation may prove me wrong, of course, but my theory must be fundamentally sound or we wouldn't have escaped.

"Caltech VI is apparently inhabited by some sort of gigantic insect, which may be of the bee, the spider, or the ant family. Each of these insects, as you know, possesses the power of secreting fluids which it adapts to its private needs. The ant seals nests and wraps larvae in his, the bee builds hives and makes honey, the spider spins threads wherein to trap its prey.

"We were captured in a gigantic 'trap' built by one of these insects, that's all. From what we saw, I judge that most of Caltech's surface must be covered by these gigantic webs. Miles in extent, hundreds of feet deep. Webs of doom for the unwary. Being highly tensile, gummy, irradiated with a rather unusual form of inherent energy, these traps cannot be damaged by rocket blasts." He shook his head soberly. "I can't help thinking of those poor devils who died there. Like human flies in a monster's viscous web--"

[Illustration: "I can't help thinking of the poor devils who died there. Like human flies in a monstrous viscous web."]

I prodded, "Lieutenant, the zymase?"

"Oh, yes. Of course. Well, you know what zymase is, don't you?"

"No," I told him. "Do you?"

"Naturally. A nitrogenous substance. A freshly expressed concentrate of yeast juice. Its action on sugar is to speed up, terrifically, the ordinary process that transpires when sugar and yeast are brought together. In short--_fermentation_!

"As soon as we emptied the zymase concentrate into the flood of honey--for it was that, though I might never have guessed it in time had it not been for you, dear!"

Here he beamed at Lorraine. "--the natural sugar was broken down into carbon dioxide, glycerin, succinic acid, and--er--"

"Urr?" repeated Bowman curiously. "What's that? A new element? Never heard of it."

"And--er--" said Johnny sheepishly, "alcohol! You see, that's why the sailors and I were a trifle--confused--by the atmosphere surrounding us--"

"Confused your hat!" I told him. "You were stewed! But it all makes sense now. The fermentation naturally continued. It loosened up the sticky goo, our blasts dragged us out of the trap. But, say! That alky odor is still all through the ship. We can't air the joint while we're traveling through space. Do you think--?"

But he didn't hear me. For this, after all, was the honeymoon trip of Johnny Larkin. And now, the danger over, he had reverted to type. He and Lorraine looked like a brace of intertwined pretzels.

The skipper coughed. He said, "Sparks? Maybe we--"

I gasped, "Gosh, yes! This red on my face ain't sunburn!"

* * * * *

So, folks, that was that. Oh--one thing more. I was right. That alky odor _didn't_ leave the ship. Don't ask me how we ever got back to Long Island Spaceport.

They told me later we zig-zagged in by way of Mercury and Luna. I wouldn't know. It was just one, long, delirious dream to me. I was two weeks coming out of it.

What a headache! What a hangover! What a honeymoon!