Doomed Planet

by Lee Sheldon

  "When do we eat?" he asked, grinning.

  "You did eat," Jeff said. "Those berries made you sicker than a horse."

  "I want some more of them," Woody said. "Best berries I ever tasted."

  "They made you sick," Jeff repeated. "Don't you remember?"

  "Sure, I remember. But it was worth it."

  "Worth it?" Jeff echoed. "Nothing is worth being as sick as you were."

  "But they taste good," Woody said and moved out into the moonlight to search for more of the berries.

  Jeff grabbed his arm and pulled him back. "No more," he said sternly. "Next time they might kill you."

  Woody struggled to get away from Jeff but his sickness of the last few hours had sapped his strength. Jeff realized that those berries had somehow created in Woody an uncontrollable appetite for more; he had no doubt that if Woody went through that sickness and hallucinations many times, he would die.

  "We're in plenty of danger here," Jeff said, trying to get Woody's mind off the berries. "We need your help."

  Woody sighed. "All right. But as soon as it's morning, there won't be so much danger. Then I'll have some more of those berries."

  Jeff let it go at that. He just wondered if he dared trust Woody during the night. He needed him to help stand guard against those meat-eating animals, but he was afraid to sleep while Woody was awake.

  Suddenly Sue caught Jeff's arm. "Something is coming from over there." She pointed out into the heavier vegetation.

  Jeff heard it, too. "Maybe it's one of the grazing animals."

  "Or one of those meat eaters sneaking up on us."

  Jeff put Sue and Woody behind him and faced this new danger, the gun in his hand. For a time everything was quiet out in the vegetation and Jeff decided that they really hadn't heard anything or else they were facing a very clever animal.

  Then the vegetation moved and an Illustrian stepped into view. Jeff was about to squeeze the handle of his gun, but then he checked himself. In the light of the three little moons, he could see that this Illustrian was unarmed and he was old; Jeff hadn't seen an Illustrian this old before.

  "I mean you no harm," the old man said in the Illustrian language.

  "Come closer," Jeff replied in the same tongue.

  The old man moved up close to the three and Jeff's first impulse was to trust this Illustrian.

  "Who are you?" he asked. "What are you doing out here?"

  "I might ask you the same," the old man replied. "But since you have the weapon, your question takes precedent over mine. My name is Lool. I have become too old to work. At least, that is what the authorities have decided. So I have been put out of the complex to die."

  "How terrible!" Sue exclaimed.

  "No worse than some of our Indian tribes used to do," Jeff reminded her. "It was an honorable custom for them to let a man die alone in his dignity."

  "What's dignified about it?" Sue asked. "And they put him out just because he couldn't work any more. Didn't he deserve some leisure?"

  Jeff translated Sue's question into the Illustrian language. Lool merely shrugged.

  "It is our custom. When a man can't work, he is put out to die. But I can still work. I could have helped for a long time yet."

  Jeff heard the bitter resentment in his voice. He felt sorry for the old man. "How long have you been out of the complex?"

  "Five days," Lool said. "I should have been dead now but I'm not ready to die."

  "How have you escaped the big animals?" Sue asked in the Illustrian tongue.

  "I have dodged them," Lool answered simply. "Most of them won't hurt a man. But one kind will. They live on meat and nothing else. A man's flesh is the same to them as an animal's."

  "It must be a hard life out here."

  "It isn't easy," Lool said. "How do you happen to be here? Where are you from? You look like the men from Earth."

  "We are from Earth," Jeff said. "We haven't been on this planet long—I don't know how many days. Days and nights are the same inside the complex. We just escaped this afternoon."

  "Escaped?" Lool seemed genuinely puzzled. "Why would anyone want to leave the complex?"

  "They were torturing Sue," Jeff said, indicating her. "Trying to measure her face and head. I was afraid they would kill her."

  "That's possible," Lool said. "Where is he going?"

  Jeff wheeled. Woody had slipped away and was looking through the vegetation. Running after him, Jeff caught his arm and brought him back.

  "He ate some berries this afternoon," Jeff explained to Lool. "They made him sick and then he saw all kinds of things. Now he wants more of them."

  "I know the berries," Lool said. "They're poison. Once you get a taste of them, you can't let them alone."

  "I'm hungry," Woody said.

  "Of course," Lool said. "Let me show you what to eat." He moved out into the vegetation and Jeff and Sue followed, Jeff still holding Woody's arm. Presently, Lool stopped by a bush that looked purple in the moonlight.

  "This one," he said, "is good for food. It is not poison."

  Woody stripped off a handful of berries. As he ate them, he grinned. "They're good. Almost as good as the ones I had this afternoon."

  Jeff and Sue each ate several handfuls. Jeff admitted they were good. They were filling, too. Only a few handfuls and he felt as if he'd had a complete meal.

  "I didn't ever expect to see another living creature except these animals that roam out here," Lool said.

  Jeff realized how lonesome the man had become. Apparently these Illustrians worked and lived close together and couldn't survive alone. It gave him an idea. Lool was obviously very glad to have companionship and bitterly resented having been put out of the complex. Jeff might be able to work that to his advantage. He needed to know so much more about things here on Illus if he hoped to survive. Lool could help him.

  "Does everybody on this planet live in complexes like that one?" Jeff asked.

  "They're all in that one complex," Lool said. "I've lived there for over two hundred years. Before that I was a farmer far to the south. After I was brought into the complex, I kept on farming, going out each day to work in the fields."

  "Why were you moved into the complex?"

  Lool squatted down on his heels, a look of complete contentment on his face. Apparently companionship—even with people from another planet—was all he wanted out of life right now. And he was willing to talk if that was what his companions wanted.

  "When I was a youngster, there were two distinct classes of people on this planet. One class had pursued knowledge for centuries, while the other had thrived merely on action. In time, a few people had most of the knowledge while the others were downright ignorant. Those with knowledge ruled the planet and they developed marvelous things."

  "Were you in that class?"

  Lool nodded with no hint of self-importance. "If I hadn't been, I wouldn't be alive now. About three centuries ago, we developed some very powerful weapons. For a hundred years we kept them out of the hands of the ignorant. Then somehow they got hold of some quite small explosives. Of course, the first thing they did was touch one off. It ruptured the planet's surface and quakes and volcanoes erupted, destroying life on almost a fourth of the planet.

  "Those of us with knowledge realized that we had to eliminate the ignorant or the whole planet would be destroyed. So this great complex was built and those with knowledge moved inside. Then toxic vegetation was planted over all the planet except for fields that we kept clear for raising our own food."

  "You mean you poisoned the rest of the people?" Sue exclaimed.

  "Of course," Lool said simply. "They would soon have destroyed the entire planet of Illus. These berries that your friend ate were the thing that did it. Once they got a taste of those berries, they couldn't resist eating more. Eventually the berries killed them but they died a very pleasant death. When we are turned out of the complex to die as I have been, we are expected to eat these berries. We will soon die but it will be ve
ry pleasant."

  "You haven't eaten the berries yet, have you?" Jeff asked.

  "No. I am not yet ready to die. I soon will be, though, because life outside the complex is not worth living."

  "You can keep us company," Jeff suggested.

  "For how long?" Lool asked. "You will soon be ready to die, too. Your friend has already taken the first step."

  "He's not going to take the second step," Jeff said. "How powerful are these weapons you have?"

  Lool shrugged. "More powerful than anything we have found anywhere in our travels around the universe. Now that the ignorant are dead, we can control them. None will ever be fired again on this planet."

  "According to the stories I heard in the complex, Illus won't be here long, anyway."

  Lool's face turned sad. "That's true. Our astronomers have verified the prediction that the big comet will crash into our world. While the comet may not be extremely dense, it will cause a big enough explosion so that Illus will disintegrate."

  "So your people want to go to Earth," Sue said. "Why not some other planet?"

  "Your world is the only planet we have found that is just like ours. It is extremely unfortunate that it is populated, especially by a people that we can't quite imitate. You are the first that we have ever encountered that we couldn't copy exactly. That is why we are making such intensive experiments now. We must look so much like you when we go to Earth that no one will recognize us."

  "Your people will be recognized," Sue said.

  "Not if we can learn to handle our facial expressions as you do. There are not enough of us to conquer you in combat, so we must infiltrate. Once our people are established there, they will soon take over with their superior intelligence."

  "What about the people of Earth?"

  "They will be eliminated, perhaps as the ignorant people here were destroyed. It is the most painless and efficient way."

  Suddenly an idea struck Jeff. He liked Lool because he was so open in everything he said. Jeff had the feeling there was no deceit in him. If he was right, Lool could be a wonderful help to them.

  "Not being able to conceal their thoughts seems to be a major problem of Dood and those working with him," Jeff said.

  "Oh, it is. It doesn't make much difference here. Our features are not so expressive, but when we change to look like Earthlings, every thought we have is revealed. We learned that when our first five explorers were killed for no apparent reason other than their faces showed that they were thinking about how to conquer that land."

  "Can you change to look like one of us? Or is that a major process?"

  "It's easy," Lool said.

  In a matter of seconds, Lool underwent a change. His two lower arms pulled into his body, his head changed shape, his big ears and nose became smaller, his long lower lip pulled back into an even mouth. Suddenly he looked very much like a man that Jeff might have met on the street back home.

  Jeff nodded in satisfaction. He had asked for the change to get a good look at the expression on Lool's face. In the image of an Earthling, his exact feelings toward them would be revealed. Lool's expression now was very much as it had been before the change. There was nothing evil or terrifying about his face as Jeff remembered seeing in Dood and the others back on Earth. Jeff decided that Lool meant them no harm and they could trust him completely.

  "Don't you have these powerful weapons mounted in your spaceships?" Jeff asked.

  "Oh, yes. In fact, that is the only place we do have them where they can be used."

  "Then why doesn't your commander order them used on Earth? That would win the planet for you."

  "We don't want to destroy the planet," Lool replied, as if he couldn't understand why Jeff didn't realize that. "We want to live there. As I said, one of those bombs would destroy Illus. Earth is about the same size."

  Jeff realized that Lool, and apparently all the other Illustrians, thought that Earth had a thin crust with an extremely hot interior, just like Illus, and one bomb dropped on Earth would destroy it as it would Illus. He didn't say anything about the density of Earth. If the Illustrians knew they could detonate their explosives on Earth without destroying the planet, they would move in and take over Earth without any of the precautions they were using now.

  "I suppose you are in favor of taking over Earth and destroying its people, too," Jeff said.

  "No," Lool said. "I always recommended that we find an uninhabited planet where we can live. There are two we have found. Neither is just right for us but we could survive there. However, I have been voted down in every council meeting where I was permitted to voice my opinion."

  Jeff nodded, thinking that this might have had as much to do with putting Lool out to die as the fact that he was getting too old to work on the farms.

  "Perhaps if you went to one of these uninhabited planets until after the comet has come and gone, you might be able to return to this planet to live," he suggested.

  "Not likely," Lool said. "If this planet doesn't completely disintegrate, it will shake and seethe with volcanoes for centuries after that explosion. Nothing can live here. The tragedy of it is that we had the knowledge to avert this disaster but we simply didn't have the manpower."

  "How could you avert it?" Jeff asked.

  "By building a huge anti-gravitational field—the same principle that drives our spaceships. If we had enough men, we could have built a field big enough to counteract enough of the gravitational pull of the planet so that the comet would not be drawn into Illus. There is another planet close to the comet's course which it would pass two years from now that would pull it in. That planet is uninhabited and no real disaster would result from such a collision."

  "You say there aren't enough Illustrians to build such a field?"

  Lool shook his head. "If all the ignorant people were still alive, there would have been. But by the time our astronomers had figured out that the pull of the other astronomical bodies close to the comet's orbit would pull it down enough that it would crash into us, there wasn't time for the few men we have to build such a field."

  "So the ignorant people that the smart ones killed will get their revenge, after all," Woody said. "They could have saved them now."

  "Something like that," Lool agreed, showing no resentment. "Listen!"

  Jeff was quiet but he heard nothing. Then, after a moment, he caught the faint growl and coughing of an animal.

  "What is that?" he asked.

  "A banki, the meat eater. There must be two. They always travel in pairs."

  "I used this paralyzer gun to save us from two of them this afternoon," Jeff said.

  "Good. But that gun has only so much power. It might not stop a very large banki. Besides, if you fire and miss, the power from it would cause a bad shake when it hit the ground."

  "You mean this gun could cause a quake?" Jeff asked incredulously.

  "It could if its power wasn't absorbed by something before it hit the ground. You were lucky today that you didn't miss."

  "They fired it at me in the complex," Woody said.

  "The complex has a heavy floor," Lool explained. "If the power fell on that, it would barely reach through to the ground. There is no such insulation here."

  "How do these animals exist? Do they eat these poison berries and survive?"

  "These were once domesticated animals." Lool explained. "When the toxic vegetation was planted, most of them died. But some survived by eating only the clean vegetation. Others became meat eaters and preyed on the vegetarians." He listened for a moment. "They are coming closer. We must go. You dare not fire that gun tonight. In this light, you might miss."

  "You'd let those critters eat one of us before you'd risk firing that gun?" Woody asked in amazement.

  "Better one to die than all."

  Jeff heard the growling of the animals coming closer. Apparently they had caught the scent of the people and were moving in for the kill.

  Chapter XIII

  "Follow me," Lool said, and
began running through the vegetation.

  "Can we outrun them?" Woody asked, starting after Lool.

  "We may run into some others," Sue said.

  "Lool has managed to survive out here for five days," Jeff said. "We'd better stick with him."

  Lool dodged through the tall plants and bushes. Jeff, bumping into some of the bushes, found them as strong as trees. Realizing that he couldn't go through the bushes, he was careful to go around them and not lose time bouncing off their stiff branches.

  Behind, Jeff could hear the animals crashing after them. Apparently they were strong enough to go right over the bushes, so Jeff could imagine what it would be like to be caught by one of them.

  Suddenly Lool stopped and Jeff almost ran into him. Lool was pointing at a cave opening in a low ridge just ahead.

  "Well be safe in there," he said.

  Lool disappeared into the mouth of the cave and Jeff and Woody and Sue followed, although Jeff wished he had time to look it over before venturing inside. The animals were close behind them now and this was no time to exercise caution.

  "What's to keep them from coming in here after us?" Woody asked. "This cave is big enough."

  "They won't come in here," Lool said. "Feel how hot it is?"

  Jeff had already noticed the heat. "Why is it so hot?"

  "We are below the surface of the planet. The farther down you go, the hotter it gets."

  "I don't like it," Sue said.

  "I like my heat from a stove, too," Jeff said. "But if this will stop those animals, I can put up with it."

  They could hear the growling of the animals outside the cave. The beasts had evidently come far enough to put their heads inside but they would come no farther.

  "It's awfully dark in here," Sue said.

  Jeff heard Lool ahead of them, scrambling over some rocks. Soon he saw a light flicker. He led the way to the spot where Lool had set a rock in the center of the floor and had somehow ignited it.

  "It will burn all night," Lool said. "We will have to put it on two of those black rocks. If it should burn down low and set more of these same rocks afire, the whole cave would burn."