Amour, Amour, Dear Planet!
By MARK CLUTTER
A new and sinless world the anti-pleasure
Mohcans sought. But they depended on their hostage,
Spacecaptain Jan Obrien, to find it for them ...
and he was an amorous imp from way back.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories March 1953.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Spacecaptain Jan Obrien was plain drunk and in no condition to handlean aircar. Which fact perhaps can be understood for a man who has nottasted the liquor of Terra in ten years and who comes home to hisnative planet to find it wrecked by the worst of its wars.
Obrien was in no condition, but nevertheless he was handling an aircar,whizzing down a Rocky Mountain canyon at a couple of hundred miles perhour. The time was barely dawn and the visibility was terrible.
"Slow down, Jan, slow down, slow down!" the sleek young tart in thetransparent evening gown kept whimpering. She was not as drunk asJan. Disgusted with the Chicago nightclub in which he had started hishomecoming 12 hours before, Jan had hustled her into the aircar andstarted out vaguely for Portland or L.A. or both.
A solid cliff suddenly loomed out of the mist ahead. The girl coveredher eyes and screamed shrilly. The quick-thinking habits of 20 yearswere not completely drowned in liquor. Jan yanked at the controls,and the aircar shrieked in protest as it changed its direction tothe vertical. Jan and the girl were hurled so violently into thetransparent elastic protector curtain that they were stunned. WhenJan came to, they were approximately two miles above Pike's Peak. Thesunlight was dazzling.
"Hey, baby, we're still airborne," Jan cried, jabbing his elbow intothe girl's ribs.
She looked down at the mountain and groaned.
"It takes more than an old cliff to do a spacecaptain in," Jan yelled."Look baby, did you know we could do this?" Jan cut the power and letthe aircar descend in a series of erratically fluttering loops. Themountain rushed up at them. The girl covered her eyes and sobbed,"Don't, please don't!"
The mountain top was covered with a multitude of people dressed inwhite. They faced a great golden crescent that gleamed like firein the rising sun. Jan was so fascinated by the spectacle that hiscoordination failed him. He was conscious of the white-robed peoplefleeing in terror as he fought to regain control of the aircar.
They crashed. Their speed had been only about 50 miles per hour and theprotectors saved them from injury. They scrambled out to survey thedamage.
"Well, it won't fly again soon," Jan said. He breathed deeply of thethin air.
"What a hell of a place to crash," the girl said. "Those are Mohcansholding their spring equinox festival. They'll probably stone me." Shelooked down at her transparent gown. The white-robed people had resumedtheir places and were singing a hymn as though nothing had happened. Itwas slow, sad, august, a mighty organ sound of human voices.
The girl's face was chalk white. "Let's run for it," she begged."They're dangerous. They're dangerous as hell. Please believe me." Sheturned and started to run down the path that had once been the cogroad,stumbling in her high-heeled shoes.
Jan ran after her, weaving as though the mountain were a deck on thehigh seas.
He grabbed her by the arm. "Hey, baby, they don't sound dangerous," hesaid. "They're just singing a kind of hymn as though nothing happened.The only ris