"SHADRACH"
By NELSON S. BOND
Once, in Bible times, three men were
cast into a fiery furnace—and lived!
Now, on far-off, frozen Titania, three
space-bitten Shadrachs faced the
same awful test of godship.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Fall 1941.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The man at the end of the bar was very drunk. That was not, in itself, unusual. Xuerl's Cosmobar, dangling like a leech on the drab outskirts of Mars Central, did not cater to a select clientele. It was not noted for its culture or gentility; it was famed from one end of the System to another as a place where a hard-fisted, full-pursed spaceman, newly in from the mines or out from Earth, could get a weapon or a wench, a bottle or a battle, any or all with equal celerity. And at an instant's notice.
But the man at the end of the bar was very drunk. So drunk, indeed, that he seemed neither to notice nor to be concerned about the actions of his comrades. And they, Chip Warren thought as he watched the bleary man pour yet another jigger of green from a malevolently gleaming bottle of lisk, were a particularly evil-looking and ill-assorted lot. Even for a dive like this.
"A Venusian," he mused, "a greenie, a runt—and an Earthman. Like bugs in a rug...."
"Trink?" piped a thin, reedy voice at Chip's elbow. "Trink, ssor?"