It was then that I found that another's fear of the unknown can inspire fear—which was easy to feel, anyway, when looking up at that mighty visage. Here was I, minute before this Atlas. I felt outclassed beyond measure.
There came suddenly a great shock of sound. Almost, it was more a heavy vibration, like an earthquake. Quivering with it, Jan, Doc and I clung to the roughness of Scharber's face window. Yet it had the beat of recognizable words. Scharber was speaking:
"So you've come, damn you, whoever you are! Like you came for some part of Lanvin and Charlie Harver and his wife. Well, their bodies, still in deep coma, were shipped back to Earth a week ago on the Jovian! We have scientists to figure out what you've done to my pals. Bowhart has gone to help the scientists with what we know! So look out! We're strong on Earth. We can fight and punish. So—to hell with you!"
Scharber was terrified before the unknown, but defiant and brave. The oldest human virtue was there, and it gave me a lift.
"I wish we could thank him for that kind of talk," Jan said.
"Maybe we can," Doc answered. "But our big problem is to get home fast, now. Ships from Ganymede to Earth run only every two months, and if the Jovian left only a week ago, there aren't any ships here! And how long before coma becomes death? When it has already gone on for so long? I know how you two must feel. With me, maybe it's not quite so bad. But darn, I still need that carcass of mine!"
I looked again at Scharber's frightened face. I had hoped that he could help us. But without space craft, that was unlikely. Oh, a call might be sent for a rescue vessel. But it would be sixty or so Earth-days in arriving, even if involved explanations of our peculiar position could be made by interworld radio.
"There's a way to communicate with Scharber," I said. "We could probably get him to have a message sent to Bowhart to recall the Intruder. But to turn a fully accelerated space ship around in mid-trajectory is no simple trick. Anyhow, there'd still be a bad delay."
"So, beyond trying to locate some small craft at Port Hoverton, there's just one other thing for us to do," Doc said grimly.
Jan expressed it for us: "Use the same method that we used to come here from the sub-moon of the Kobolah's people? Go without a ship at all? Achieve a high velocity; trust ourselves to something over four hundred million miles of empty void unprotected? Is that what you mean, Dr. Lanvin?"