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WORLD BEYOND PLUTO
A "Johnny Mayhem" Adventure
By C. H. THAMES
ILLUSTRATOR NOVICK
[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Amazing Stories November1958. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.copyright on this publication was renewed.]
[Sidenote: Johnny Mayhem, one of the most popular series charactersever to appear in AMAZING, has been absent too long. So here's goodnews for Mayhem fans; another great adventure of the Man of ManyBodies.]
They loaded the over-age spaceship at night because Triton's onespaceport was too busy with the oreships from Neptune during the day tohandle it.
"Symphonies!" Pitchblend Hardesty groaned. Pitchblend Hardesty was thestevedore foreman and he had supervised upwards of a thousand loadingson Triton's crowded blastways, everything from the standard miningequipment to the innards of a new tavern for Triton City's so-calledStreet of Sin to special anti-riot weapons for the InterstellarPenitentiary not 54 miles from Triton City, but never a symphonyorchestra. And most assuredly never, never an all-girl symphonyorchestra.
"Symphonies!" Pitchblend Hardesty groaned again as several stevedorescame out on the blastway lugging a harp, a base fiddle and a kettledrum.
"Come off it, Pitchblend," one of the stevedores said with a grin. "Ididn't see you staying away from the music hall."
That was true enough, Pitchblend Hardesty had to admit. He was a small,wiry man with amazing strength in his slim body and the lore of a solarsystem which had been bypassed by thirtieth century civilization for thelures of interstellar exploration in his brain. While the symphony--theall-girl symphony--had been playing its engagement at Triton'smake-shift music hall, Hardesty had visited the place three times.
"Well, it wasn't the music, sure as heck," he told his critic now. "Whoever saw a hundred girls in one place at one time on Triton?"
The stevedore rolled his eyes and offered Pitchblend a suggestivewhistle. Hardesty booted him in the rump, and the stevedore had all hecould do to stop from falling into the kettle drum.
* * * * *
Just then a loud bell set up a lonely tolling and Pitchblend Hardestyexclaimed: "Prison break!"
The bell could be heard all over the two-hundred square miles ofinhabitable Triton, under the glassite dome which enclosed the smallcity, the spaceport, the immigration station for nearby Neptune and theInterstellar Penitentiary. The bell hadn't tolled for ten years; thelast time it had tolled, Pitchblend Hardesty had been a newcomer onNeptune's big moon. That wasn't surprising, for InterstellarPenitentiary was as close to escape-proof as a prison could be.
"All right, all right," Pitchblend snapped. "Hurry up and get herloaded."
"What's the rush?" one of the stevedores asked. "The gals ain't evenarrived from the hotel yet."
"I'll tell you what the rush is," Pitchblend declared as the bell tolledagain. "If you were an escaped prisoner on Triton, just where would youhead?"
"Why, I don't know for sure, Pitchblend."
"Then I'll tell you where. You'd head for the spaceport, fast as yourlegs could carry you. You'd head for an out-going spaceship, because itwould be your only hope. And how many out-going spaceships are theretonight?"
"Why, just two or three."
"Because all our business is in the daytime. So if the convict was smartenough to get out, he'll be smart enough to come here."
"We got no weapons," the stevedore said. "We ain't even got apea-shooter."
"Weapons on Triton? You kidding? A frontier moon like this, the placewould be blasted apart every night. Interstelpen couldn't hold all thedisturbers of the peace if we had us some guns."
"But the convict--"
"Yeah," Pitchblend said grimly. "He'll be armed, all right."
Pitchblend rushed back to the manifest shed as the bell tolled a thirdtime. He got on the phone and called the desk of the Hotel Triton.
"Hardesty over at the spaceport," he said. "Loading foreman."
"Loading foreman?" The mild, antiseptic voice at the other end of theconnection said it as you would say talking dinosaur.
"Yeah, loading foreman. At night I'm in charge here. Listen, you themanager?"
"The manager--" haughtily--"is asleep. I am the night clerk."
"O.K., then. You tell those hundred girls of yours to hurry. Don't scarethem, but have you heard about the prison break?"
"Heard about it? It's all I've been hearing. They--they want to stay andsee what happens."
"Don't let 'em!" roared Pitchblend. "Use any excuse you have to. Tell'em we got centrifigal-upigal and perihelion-peritonitus over here atthe spaceport, or any darn thing. Tell 'em if they want to blast offtonight, they'll have to get down here quick. You got it?"
"Yes, but--"
"Then do it." Pitchblend hung up.
The escape bell tolled a fourth time.
* * * * *
His name was House Bartock, he had killed two guards in his escape, andhe was as desperate as a man could be. He had been sentenced toInterstelpen for killing a man on Mars in this enlightened age whencapital punishment had been abolished. Recapture thus wouldn't meandeath, but the prison authorities at Interstelpen could make their owninterpretations of what life-in-prison meant. If House Bartock allowedhimself to be retaken, he would probably spend the remaining years ofhis life in solitary confinement.
He walked quickly now, but he did not run. He had had an impulse to runwhen the first escape bell had tolled, but that would have been foolish.Already he was on the outskirts of Triton City because they had notdiscovered his escape for two precious hours. He could hole up in thecity, lose himself somewhere. But that would only be temporary.
They would find him eventually.
Or, he could make his way to the spaceport. He had money in hispocket--the dead guard's. He had a guardsman's uniform on, but strippedof its insignia it looked like the jumper and top-boots of any spaceman.He had false identification papers, if needed, which he had worked onfor two years in the prison printshop where the prison newspaper waspublished. He had....
Suddenly he flattened himself on the ground to one side of the road,hugging the gravel and hardly daring to breathe. He'd heard a vehiclecoming from the direction of Interstelpen. It roared up, making theground vibrate; its lights flashed; it streaked by trailing a jet offire.
House Bartock didn't move until the afterglow had faded. Then he got upand walked steadily along the road which led from Interstelpen to TritonCity.
* * * * *
"Girls! Hurry with your packing! Girls!"
Sighing, Matilda Moriarity subsided. The girls, obviously, were in nohurry. That would have been out of character.
Matilda Moriarity sighed again. She was short, stocky, fifty-two yearsold and the widow of a fabulously wealthy interstellar investmentbroker. She had a passion for classical music and, now that her husbandhad been dead three years, she had decided to exercise that passion. Butfor Matilda Moriarity, a very out-going fifty-two, exercising it hadmeant passing it on. The outworlds, Matilda had told her friends, lackedculture. The highest form of culture, for Matilda, was classical music.Very well. She would bring culture to the outworlds.
* * * * *
Triton was her first try and even now sometimes she had to pinch herselfso she'd know the initial attempt had been a smashing success. Shedidn't delude herself completely. It had been a brainstorm selectingonly girls--and pretty young
things, at that--for the InterstellarSymphony. On a world like Triton, a world which played host to very fewwomen and then usually to the hard types who turned up on any frontierin any century, a symphony of a hundred pretty girls was bound to be asuccess.
But the music, Matilda Moriarity told herself. They had listened to themusic. If they wanted to see the girls in their latest Earth-styleevening gowns, they had to listen to the music. And they had listenedquietly, earnestly, apparently enjoying it. The symphony had remained onTriton longer than planned, playing every night to a full house. Matildahad had the devil's own time chaperoning her girls, but that was to beexpected. It was their first taste of the outworlds; it was