Trouble on Sun-side

Jansen came to Mercury to find one man, and that seemed an easy enough task; the hitch was that as a hunter he was also being hunted!

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy October 1956 Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Jansen began to sweat as soon as he left the spaceship. The bloated, swollen sun hovering near the horizon here in twilight zone was dazzling even through his protective goggles. Jansen knew he would have to get used to it: Mercury's twilight zone, like it or not, would be his home for the indefinite future.

Stowing his gear in the barracks while sweat streamed from his body, Jansen realized for the first time that his luggage had been examined aboard the spaceship. That was bad; it could mean anything; it certainly meant trouble.

I have to hurry, Jansen thought. In a day or so, they're liable to haul me in for questioning.

"Still time for me to go out and join the work force?" Jansen asked the barracks orderly as the old man came shuffling by.

"Eager, ain't you, mister. They'll get along without you till tomorrow, you can bet."

"Well, can I go take a look, then?"

The old man studied him with surprise. Apparently gold-bricking and not eager-beavering was the order of the day here. "What's your rating?" the orderly asked.

"Twelve."

"Well, nobody would push you around, I guess," admitted the barracks orderly with grudging respect. "Why don't you see the town, though? Town's all right. Don't go out to the bogs unless you have to."

Bogs, thought Jansen. Bogs on Mercury's sun-side. He still couldn't get over it.

Jansen changed into a skin-tight white insulsuit and went outside. The insulsuit covered him almost like an additional layer of skin: he wore trousers and a shirt over it. Without the insulsuit, exposure this close to Mercury's sun-side would be impossible for more than a few moments.

It took Jansen twenty minutes to realize he was being followed. His tail wore an insulsuit and a pair of colorful shorts. This seemed to be the universal garb in Sun-side City, so that the hundreds of loungers and shoppers all looked alike, with the skull-cap cowls of their insulsuits even hiding the distinctiveness of their hair. Jansen's tail was a man bigger than most, though, and it was only because he was wandering aimlessly in the sun-dazzled streets that Jansen became aware of pursuit at all.

He ducked into an alley between two cafes. Two women in skin-tight insulsuits came by, then a man and a boy, then the big man who had been following Jansen. Abruptly Jansen stepped from the alley.

"Just a minute," he said.

The man whirled, a blank expression on his face.

"What do you want?" Jansen asked.

"I don't get you, mister. You stopped me, I didn't stop you. What do you want?"

"You were following me," Jansen said.

"I never saw you before in my life."

Before Jansen could answer, the sun went down. It did not set, as the sun sets on Earth. It disappeared, due to the sudden unpredictable wobbles of Mercury's twilight zone. It was an astronomical phenomena. And, despite the sun's great apparent size, Jansen suddenly found himself in pitch darkness. It alarmed him at first, until he realized that Mercury had no atmosphere, except for the artificial pockets under the man-made domes. There was no layer of air to retain the sun's glow. One moment, dazzling light; the next, almost total darkness.

"Where are you?" Jansen called. He groped his way toward where the man had been standing. He heard a girl's laughter on the street nearby, heard an old woman's shout.

Something struck the side of his head, summoning blinding pain. Jansen staggered and fell to the sidewalk on hands and knees. He felt himself being frisked expertly in his half-conscious state. Something was removed from his trouser-pocket: his wallet probably. He tried to get up but fell forward, scraping his jaw. He heard retreating footsteps.

Number one botch-job, he thought, and lost consciousness.