Doomed Planet

by Lee Sheldon

"That's strange," Jeff said when he hung up. "Those signals were so clear to us, yet Lick didn't pick them up at all and Palomar said they were very weak there."

  "They must have some device for making their signals directional," Trillingham said. "That is no more fantastic than the fact that they have a ship that can slip through our network of watchers as it did. Did you say they left a ship here?"

  "Yes." Jeff whirled toward the door; he had forgotten about that ship in his anxiety to do something about getting Sue back. "Maybe it will tell us something."

  "Maybe we can take it and go after Sue," Woody said impulsively.

  "You want to fly it? Where would you go if you could?"

  Trillingham headed for the door. "Let's have a look at that ship. That could be a great help to our scientists. They can determine the kind of drive it has and perhaps copy it."

  "How about notifying the police about Sue being missing?" Woody asked.

  Mr. Trillingham hesitated, then shook his head. "The police can't fly through space, and that's the only kind of policeman who could help Sue. No, we'd better let the scientists handle this. They'll be here from Palomar before long."

  "Let's get up there and make sure those strangers don't come back and get that ship," Jeff said, hurrying outside.

  "They left it because it wouldn't work," Woody said. "It will take them years to go home and get a mechanic and come back."

  "How do you know how long it takes them to go home?”

  Woody sighed. "I guess we don't really know anything about them, do we?"

  "Did you tell Palomar about the ship, Jeff?" Trillingham asked.

  "No. I didn't even think of it. All I could think of was Sue."

  They took Trillingham's car because it was faster, and suddenly it seemed of the utmost urgency that they get back to the observatory and look in the ship for some clues as to who the strange visitors had been and where they had come from.

  Jeff half-expected the ship to be gone when they got to the observatory; but it was still sitting right where the strangers had left it, the door still open. The three got out of the car and hurried over to the ship. It still gave off a soft blue glow around the base but otherwise it looked as dead as an old car in a junk heap.

  "You say the door wouldn't shut?" Trillingham asked as they approached the ship.

  "That's right." Jeff examined the door. "When they pressed the button, nothing happened. You know, it looks as if the hinges are rusted."

  Jeff led the way inside. Trillingham stared in wonder at the panel, still lighted up.

  "Looks ready to lift off at any second," Trillingham said softly.

  "I don't think it will move while the door is open," Jeff said. "Maybe there is something about our atmosphere that rusts their metal quickly."

  "It is a strange metal," Trillingham said. "I suppose this ship has a radio?"

  Jeff looked over the panel. "I'm sure it does. I saw the leader—Dood, he called himself—talking into this hole. Apparently the other ship heard him, for it waited while we got out and went over to it."

  "If you could switch on the radio, maybe we could contact the other ship. You said they spoke English."

  "Dood did, anyway. I don't know where he learned it."

  "From Meredith Woodruff and Peter Ingram, no doubt," Trillingham said. "No... They knew it before that. The five men who were killed in the desert spoke English, although with a brogue. But that isn't important now. See if you can turn on the radio."

  Jeff touched some lights on the panel, but nothing happened. He was sure that the radio could be activated somehow with these lights.

  "Don't touch the wrong button and send us shooting off into space," Woody said.

  "I don't understand anything in this ship," Trillingham said, tapping one of the transparent panels of the hull. "Do you suppose they are sending out signals now that we could pick up on your radio in the observatory?"

  "I doubt it," Jeff said, "but we can check."

  They left the ship, Jeff stopping at the door long enough to verify his theory that the hinges of the door had indeed rusted tight.

  "Let's get some oil and put it on the moving parts inside the ship," Woody suggested. "Maybe we can get the radio working."

  They checked the radio in the observatory but there was no signal coming over it now. Jeff switched on the radio between the Woodruff Observatory and Palomar and let Trillingham talk to officials there. He got an oil can from the maintenance room and he and Woody went back to the space ship.

  Woody dropped oil on every moving part he found inside but nothing seemed to budge.

  "Guess our oil doesn't work any better on their metal than their machinery works in our atmosphere," Jeff said.

  "Hey, here comes a helicopter," Woody said suddenly. "Could it be the men from Palomar?"

  "Might be. They seemed plenty excited about what I told them."

  They went outside to the parking lot where the helicopter landed. Three men got out. The pilot was wearing coveralls; another man was wearing a suit but the other had on an apron as if he'd left a laboratory without taking time to change.

  "What's that?" the man in the suit exclaimed the second he hit the ground. He started on a trot toward the spaceship.

  "They left this one," Jeff explained as he trotted beside the man. "Couldn't get the door to shut. If they had, I reckon you wouldn't have known anything about it because they had Woody and me in this one ready to lift off with us. But there wasn't room for all of us in the other ship."

  "Two ships?" the man exclaimed as he stepped inside, staring at the lighted panel. "Capturing this ship may be the greatest windfall that has ever come to us." He turned to Jeff. "Sorry… I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Davis, and this is Lansing." He indicated the man in the apron.

  "I'm Jeff Keene, and this is Woody Woodruff."

  "Any relation to Meredith Woodruff, who owned this observatory?''

  "He was Woody's uncle. Woody was running his broadcasting system tonight when these strange visitors came."

  "I remember Meredith's theory that he could contact intelligent beings out in space if he sent strong enough radio signals and listened for replies." Davis rubbed his chin as he examined the lighted panel. "In view of this visit, I wonder if he didn't contact more than he bargained for. He may be on another planet right now."

  "You're not skeptical about all this?"

  "Skeptical? With this ship sitting right here?" Davis tapped the hull and touched the lights. "It may be unbelievable, but this is solid proof."

  Davis continued to probe around while Jeff and Woody watched. Trillingham came out of the observatory and joined them. Jeff listened as the expert explained the few things he understood about the ship.

  "It has a different drive than anything we have invented here on Earth. Could be some kind of anti-gravity drive. Practically no machinery. The hull is made of a tough metal or alloy we don't have. We can learn a lot from this ship. Look at this panel. If we could read their writing, we could fly this thing. See these tiny markings in red just above each light?"

  Jeff looked; he hadn't noticed those tiny spots before, almost like tiny lights themselves. There was one above each of the lights on the panel. Jeff pointed to the hole into which Dood had spoken when he stopped the other ship from lifting off.

  "I think this is the radio."

  "Then this must be the radio switch," Davis said, craning his neck to see behind the panel. He touched one of the lights but nothing happened.

  "I've got some samples of dust here," Lansing said from the floor where he had been crawling. "And I've got a scrap of metal, too, like the hull of this ship. Do you have any place inside the observatory where I can test this?"

  "Sure," Jeff said. "We've got a laboratory. Peter Ingram, who worked here with Meredith Woodruff, did a lot of work in the lab."

  Jeff led the way inside and everybody, including the helicopter pilot, followed him. He showed Lansing the lab while Davis asked about the radio and
broadcasting system. Jeff took him to the main observatory room. While Davis was examining the instruments here, Woody tugged at Jeff's sleeve.

  "I picked up this can of cutting oil we used to cut the rust on those bolts on that old car frame," Woody said. "We left it in the lab, you know. Suppose it will touch the rust on those joints in the ship?"

  "It's possible. Looks like Mr. Davis is going to be busy here for a few minutes and Mr. Lansing will be quite a while analyzing those samples he took. Let's give it a try."

  Jeff and Woody went back outside to the ship. Except for the faint blue glow around its base, the ship looked as inanimate as a pile of junk.

  "I doubt if this oil will touch the rust," Jeff said, "but I've got to be doing something. Standing around watching other people doing nothing, too, is more than I can take." His fists clenched until the nails bit into his palms. "Right now, Sue and I should have been rehearsing for our wedding."

  "Yeah," Woody said despondently. "This is worse than if you'd had a car wreck and she'd been killed. We don't know what kind of torture she may be going through."

  "You can sure cheer a guy up."

  They reached the ship and Woody squirted the thin oil on the hinge of the door. For a minute they watched it.

  "Just as I thought," Woody said. "Nothing."

  "Let's try it on the radio button. That's the thing we really want to get working."

  They moved inside and Woody squirted the oil on the panel immediately behind the light that Mr. Davis said probably operated the radio. Jeff pushed the light. Nothing happened for a moment, then the light seemed to flicker a little.

  "Hey," Jeff exclaimed. "I believe it's working. Squirt it again."

  Woody gave the spot behind the light a bigger squirt from the can. The light flickered again and suddenly began blinking rhythmically.

  "It must be working," Woody shouted excitedly. "Try talking into that hole."

  But before Jeff could say a word, he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye and he wheeled to look. The door was sliding silently shut.

  "Hey!" he shouted. "We can't let that door close with us inside!"

  "I'll open it," Woody yelled, and started touching the lights.

  But the door didn't open. Jeff was suddenly conscious of a whine; he'd heard that before.

  "We're lifting off!" he shouted.

  Chapter IV

  "We can't be lifting!" Woody yelled.

  "Listen to that whine," Jeff said. "Hit the button that opens the door!"

  "I've been hitting it," Woody replied, once more tapping every button in his reach.

  "Maybe it's stuck, the way the radio button was," Jeff said.

  "Can't be or the door wouldn't have closed."

  "That oil must have loosened the door. Remember, Dood tried to shut the door. Maybe the button wasn't rusted right then, but the door was. Now that we loosened the door, it responded to the order Dood gave it."

  "What will we do?" Woody wailed.

  Jeff looked out through the transparent panels. They hadn't left the ground but the whine of the machine apparently was loud enough to attract the attention of the men inside the observatory. Davis, Trillingham, and the helicopter pilot were running toward the ship.

  There was a strange blue light filling the ship now, and Jeff realized that the blue glow he'd seen around the ships when they landed must be building up outside. Perhaps Davis could find a way to get the door open when he reached the ship... Jeff hoped they could at least talk through this transparent hull as well as see through it.

  But as the men approached the ship, they were slammed backward to the ground. Davis got up and started forward again and once more was knocked down. Jeff remembered the invisible wall that he and Woody had hit when they tried to approach the ship in which Sue had been taken away.

  "It's some kind of force field," Jeff said in despair. "They can't get to us."

  "Let's break the door down!" Woody shouted, running toward the door. Halfway there, his feet left the floor and he seemed to float against the door. Jeff felt himself getting weightless, too. He remembered that he had seen those in the ship with Sue apparently becoming weightless just before the ship took off. That meant that this ship was going to lift off. But where would it go? And who would guide it?

  "The door won't budge," Woody shouted. "And I can't keep my feet on the floor."

  "We're becoming weightless," Jeff said.

  "But we're still on the ground."

  "I'm afraid we won't be long."

  Even as he said it, he saw that they were leaving the ground. He looked down at the three men staring up at them. As he watched, they dwindled from his sight. Jeff realized that they were picking up momentum with unbelievable speed.

  Gradually his feet settled down to the floor and he felt weight again. Below him, through the transparent panels of the hull, Jeff saw the observatory fade away to a pinpoint. The mountain where the observatory sat became just one hill among many; the lights of Mayfield faded to one little blob of light. Large spots of light appeared here and there, and Jeff realized these must be some of the larger cities along the coast.

  A voice behind the panel began chattering but it was the same language Dood had used and Jeff couldn't understand a word of it. Suddenly Jeff became aware of a fringe of light like a crescent, and he realized that he was seeing the horizon of the world. The sun would soon be shining on the ship, but the world below was fading into darkness.

  Suddenly he realized that he hadn't blacked out; in fact, he hadn't even had the sensation of rapid acceleration, although he knew that the ship was already moving faster than any ship that Earthmen had ever built.

  This ship he and Woody were on, he reasoned, must be driven by some sort of anti-gravity mechanism. Somehow it also generated an interior force to counterbalance the acceleration, so that the passengers weren't even aware of the speed or lack of gravity outside. Whoever had built this ship was far advanced in science and mechanics.

  "We're worse off than Sue," Woody said softly after a long silence. "At least, she is with someone who knows how to fly one of these things."

  "This thing seems to be flying itself."

  "Yeah, but where is it going? Have you asked it?"

  "That voice from the panel may be telling us but I can't understand it. I wonder if we can use the radio in this thing to call back to the observatory. I'll bet by now Davis will be on the radio trying to contact us. He's a scientist. He'll think of that."

  Jeff reached over and touched the button that they had decided was the radio. The light had become steady when the ship took off but now it began blinking slowly. Immediately the receiver began emitting a high-pitched beep.

  "That's our sending signal," Jeff said excitedly.

  "Suppose this thing will turn around and home in on it like it did with Dood?" Woody asked hopefully.

  "I'm going to try to talk to Mr. Davis." Jeff moved over to the hole in the panel that Dood had chattered into. "Can you hear me, Mr. Davis?" he shouted.

  The steady beep of the broadcast from the observatory was his only answer.

  "We received a signal from this ship tonight when it was landing," Woody said. "Why can't we get through to the observatory now?"

  "Maybe it sends out a beep but no other distinguishable sound. Anyway, I don't know what Mr. Davis or anybody else down there could do even if we could talk to them."

  Woody sighed. "Nothing, I suppose. So what do we do now?"

  "Let's keep trying the radio. We might get through."

  Jeff touched the light again. The steady beep of the transmitter at their laboratory on Earth came in clearly. Then suddenly a voice came over the receiver, too, chopped up by the beep.

  "Somebody's talking," Jeff exclaimed excitedly. "Can you understand it, Woody?"

  Woody was at Jeff's elbow. "I think so. Listen."

  Jeff strained his ears to catch the chopped-up words. Each time the transmitter at the observatory emitted a beep, it smothered the vo
ice; but Jeff finally ferreted out the message.

  "I think he said to touch the button next to the speaker." He looked at the buttons around the hole into which he had spoken. There was one amber light closer to the speaker than any other.

  "Hey," Woody exclaimed, "how would Mr. Davis know what button we should push?"

  Jeff looked at Woody. "He wouldn't, but I'm going to touch that light, anyway."

  He brushed his finger against the light, and immediately the beep of the transmitter stopped.

  "You've cut off our last connection with home," Woody wailed.

  Jeff stared at the speaker. "Looks like it," he said finally, "but it wasn't doing us any good, anyway. We're not going that direction."

  Then the voice came over the speaker again. And now that there was no interference from the observatory transmitter, the words were clearly understandable. Jeff also recognized the strange purring burr that Dood had used when he spoke to them back at the observatory.

  "It's those guys in the other ship," Woody said softly.

  Jeff nodded. "Must be. Maybe they can tell us something, anyway."

  "Do you understand me?" the voice said slowly and distinctly. "If you do, push the light to transmit.”

  "Wonder which light he's talking about?" Jeff said.

  "Push the telec light," the voice said again. "I believe your word for it is green."

  "The green light," Woody said. "Why didn't he say so in the first place?"

  Jeff touched the green light. A red glow appeared down in the throat of the speaker. "Is this the right light?"

  The red glow disappeared and the voice came again: "We hear you. How did you get the door of the ship closed?"

  Jeff touched the green light again and once more the red glow appeared in the throat of the speaker. "We used oil to cut the rust loose."

  "Rust? What is rust?"

  "The stuff that held the door open, you ninny," Woody shouted. "Where are we going?"

  For a moment, the voice was silent. Jeff and Woody looked at each other, but then the voice came back. "You are on your way to the planet, Illus."

  "Where is Illus?"

  "In the solar system next to yours."