dapper fellow garbed now in Earthly evening clothes in the fashion one might see in any notable gathering of Great New York. Yet to Graham, the men of Mars were always strange—sinister figures.
This late arrival was bareheaded. From the peak of his forehead, his smooth black hair, shot with wide white strands, went sleekly back to suggest the mane of an animal. It fell long to the base of his neck at the back and at the sides it was brushed neatly above his round gray-green cars—He was lost in the group of passengers on the deck.
With the glassite dome closed the Comet was presently ascending the Martian atmosphere. The vessel was throbbing, humming, whining with the low mingled sounds of its many mechanisms. The pressure air sang as it oscillated in the double shell of the hull; the electric rocket-streams for this atmospheric passage hissed as they surged out like a tail beneath the uptilted ship; the pressure pumps throbbed rhythmically filling the tanks in preparation for the shifting of the gravity plates—it was all a steady blended hum of sound.
II.
Romance!
"But I think you're the most beautiful girl I've ever seen," Graham said earnestly. It was two days later, with Mars rapidly merging into the immeasureable skies.
She laughed softly. "That's nice of you."
It occurred to Graham that the compliment sounded very naieve. He had not meant it so; it had burst from him. Here on the narrow deck of the Comet, with the Sun on the other side of him, there was only the soft blended starlight on Alma's face as she sat in the deck chair beside him. An effulgence of Heavenly beauty.
"But I mean," he laughed. "Don't think me a silly fellow. I'm not—at least I hope I'm not. It's easy enough to pay extravagant compliments—"
Ray Cummings
If we grant that interplanetary travel will one day come and people will travel as blithely to Mars or Venus as we do now across our oceans, we can realize that the adventures encountered in such journey will be one of the most extraordinary kind. A wreck on an ocean liner for example means merely the taking to life boats, or the awaiting of rescue but a few hours away. But in empty space tens of millions of miles from the nearest world and possibly millions from any other ship, an interplanetary wreck would be replete with occurrences of the most amazing nature.
But man is always man—ho matter if he is in a large city or adrift in interplanetary space. He will carry with him his old fears and prejudices and lusts. And if as might easily happen, three people are obliged to fight out their existence adrift in the emptiness of the heavens, he may easily give way in a violent fashion to these lusts—and provide as he does in this case by the master hand of Ray Cummings, the material for the most dramatic of stories!
"Oh," she said demurely, "I hadn't realized it was so extravagant."
He flushed. "I didn't mean that. You know I didn't. Look here, I'm trying to say just the opposite. You're beautiful. More beautiful than any girl of Earth, or Mars—and I'm telling you so, though I hardly know you."
It was the third or fourth time they had talked together. She had told him nothing of herself. Her name was Alma Rance, Graham had soon learned. The Martian man who had come aboard just after her was called Set Koi. Was there anything between them? So far though Graham had not seen Alma speak to Koi since the voyage began, he was convinced that they knew each other. He had remarked the Martian's tall sinister figure promenading the deck. It seemed that frequently the man flung covert, leering glances at this girl. He had seen a shade of fright cross her face at his approach. What mystery could there be between the two? Had she come aboard that night, trying to escape from him out of Ferrok-Shahn? Was he following her now back to Earth? Graham thought so.
"I hardly know you," Graham repeated. "I want to know you—really I do." He felt suddenly swept by emotion. The dim deck around them seemed remote. There was only the starlight—the black vault of the Heavens, strewn with blazing gems, and red Mars a dwindling but still gigantic disc. It seemed to Graham that here in space, detached from all worlds, this girl and he were alone together; their spirits clinging; it seemed as though after ages of emptiness, they had found one another. And to her must have come something similar.
Her small white hand moved over and touched his. Her fingers held his fingers. And between them something flowed. A current. Imponderable. Intangible. Something which marked unmistakably to them both the chemistry of love.
