Derelicts of Uranus

by J. Harvey Haggard

Lonny made poor time, slogging along on the mud-shoes fashioned with tough vines over a framework of metal. There was a limit to the speed you could make on such contraptions. Baron Munchy, bordering on a nervous frenzy at the promise of activity, had darted ahead, his filmy wings dissolving quickly in the swirling mist.

He had a good general idea as to the whereabouts of Raeburn's mud-submarine. Likewise, he had a fairly good estimate of the mud-fisher's capabilities and did not think that Lana Hilton would suffer much if Raeburn had not gone completely wacky.

At times the going was pretty good, where the mud was entwined with thick layers of lightning-kelp—so called because tiny sparkles of static electricity darted from it at each step of his clogged mud-shoes.

Mud, mud, mud! All Uranus was one vast ball of squirming mud! Thirty-two thousand miles through of squashy mud. Stuff that would run through his fingers, and through the webs of his shoes, and which would suck greedily at his body if he so much as lost his footing. Mud that would never solidify due to the varying turmoil of barometric pressure. Mud that could never dry completely due to the quasi-soluble consistency of Uranusian silt.

Two years he'd been here now, fishing for the precious mollusks whose pearls might win him the security and prosperity he had never been able to wrest from the over-populated earth. Two years it had been—or nine days as time was reckoned on Uranus. Nine times he had gone around the muddy world, keeping up with daylight—such as it was—and now—blast it—the world was getting him—absorbing him mentally as well as physically—or so it seemed.

Only four days before (Uranusian, a bit less than a year) the feminine aridity of the planet had been shattered by the coming of that headstrong, unreasoning female, Lana Hilton. Prior to that, there had been company of a sort on Uranus—Link Raeburn's mud-submarine had often drifted near enough for an occasional chat.

But Lana's coming had made a crowd on Uranus, if three can be called a crowd, and Lonny was beginning to wish for the unbroken isolation of other planets with no form of life whatsoever. There was only one method of obtaining Uranusian pearls.

That method was relatively simple. You had to invest every cent of your savings or heritage, as he had done two years before, and you had to pay towing charges to some space schooner that was coming near Uranus. 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. To his nose came the suffocating down draft of the fishing vessel, mingled with the faint aroma of ammonia.