by Eando Binder
With a slight warping of course, Fostar was able to aim directly for a yellowish blue sun that Dr. Bronzun pointed out. It grew rapidly, and Fostar brought their ship to a halt when it blazed in the firmament with about Sol’s intensity as seen from Mars. Dr. Bronzun carefully swept the heavens with his electrotelescope all that day, but no slightest sign of a planetary body appeared.
“There are several comets and swarms of meteors,” he reported disappointedly, “but no worlds. Let us go on!”
Another yellow star, in the crowded cluster, lay within two light-years and two days later they were hovering near it, hopefully. But this sun, too, proved a lonely one, unattended by even the smallest of planets. They passed a half dozen more in the following week, strung like beads along some celestial string. Not all were uniform in type. Three were binaries, majestically circling doublets. One was a giant red star, tenuous and comparatively cool. Another was a white dwarf, tiny but blindingly brilliant.
None had planets.
“We are searching for a needle in a haystack,” pronounced Angus Macluff dourly, “and we can’t even find the haystack.”
Fostar tried to make some hopeful remark, but the immensity of the task before them loomed starkly. Alora Crodell seemed to have her thoughts elsewhere. Even Dr. Bronzun’s calm nature seemed dull, apathetic.
And then—the next star brought hammering pulses, for seven planets revolved about it!
“At last!” breathed Dr. Bronzun, looking up from is telescopic observations. “Head for the fifth. It seems to be about the size of Earth!”
But they did not land, for the scientist’s gauges showed a flood of the sun’s rays at that distance. They could feel it in their cabin, despite the refrigerator’s automatic compensation.
“This planet’s surface must be baked similar to Mercury’s heat-blasted surface. This star, unfortunately, is a class-B type—dozens of times hotter than our sun. The four nearer bodies must be withered hulks. But perhaps the last two—”
The sixth proved almost airless and waterless, with struggling patches of sparse vegetation over its rocky surface. Dr. Bronzun shook his head and the approached the last planet. It was a gigantic one, as large as Saturn, and surrounded by a writhing, stormy mass of violent atmosphere. Fostar attempted a landing, but halfway through the atmosphere, the ship tossed about like a cork. He was barely able to win his way back to safety in open space.
“We couldn’t inhabit a world like that!” he panted. “We couldn’t even land our ships!”
And they left this star with its unpropitious worlds.
On they went, seeking . . .
Strangely, the very next star they approached, a binary, proved to have a set of planets around the smaller of the two suns. “The great pull of the larger sun,” surmised Dr. Bronzun, “raised tidal effects on the smaller sun. Masses were eventually thrown off that became circling planets.” His eyes glowed as he made observations. “The small sun is almost a twin of Sol. And it seems to have dozens of planets!”
But disappointments were in store. The planets they paid passing visits, one by one, were small, none larger than Earth’s moon. They were all crowded in narrow orbits close to their primary, dancing about at prodigious velocities, and rotating like whirling dervishes.
“Useless pebbles,” summarized Angus Macluff. “Human brains would become addled, living on them!”
“Wait!” cried Dr. Bronzun, as they were about to leave. “I almost missed it. There’s a larger planet some ways out and it looks worth visiting.”
At about the distance of Ceres from the sun, the final planet appeared, an Earth-sized body whose atmosphere was almost opaque. Fostar slowly circled the globe till he had the feel of its gravity, then lowers into the steamy air-envelope. They stared down eagerly. There was a blue ocean visible, and the winding threads of rivers. The land area was almost uniformly flat and overgrown with lush vegetation. A steamy fog hazed detail.
“It looks very much like Venus!” said Alora excitedly. “I hope its air is breathable!”
“It is probably a primeval world,” muttered Angus Macluff, “and not a fit abode for civilized beings.”
“We’ll soon find out,” promised Fostar, bringing their ship down in a wide clearing of what seemed to be rife jungle.
For a while, after the landing, they lay in their bunks to let their muscles become accustomed to the pull of gravity—a sensation absent for the past few weeks. Then they arose to look out under the mixed light of two suns, colors changed constantly. Queer double shadows slowly dissolved into one another.
Abundant life manifested itself around them. The jungle nearby fairly crawled with slinking forms. Here and there beasts pounced on one another in the universal quest for food. It was a rich, prolific world, at first glance.
“Carboniferous environment,” said Dr. Bronzun. “We can breathe the air, wearing the Venus-masks for filtering out excess carbon dioxide.”
“But we’ll go out well armed,” warned Fostar, “and keep sharp watch for danger.”
THEY stepped from the cool, regulated temperature of their space-ship into the hot humidity of the planet’s climate. The air came through their masks warm and soggy, but with an exhilarating tang that they enjoyed. It was the odor of life and growing things. They could hear a steady murmur in the air. Overhead wheeled exotic birds. Insects buzzed from hidden sources.
Alora Crodell, glad to be free of the cramped quarters, capered away from the ship lightly, over a carpet of thick grasses and leaves. Fostar ran after her and caught her arm.
“Not too far!” he warned, his voice reproduced by a resonator in the filter-mask. “We don’t know what monsters—”
As though he had summoned one, a towering bulk twenty feet high emerged from the jungle edge, a hundred yards off. Half-bear and half-dinosaur, the nameless horror lumbered forward with a screeching roar, straight for them.
“Run!” barked Fostar, shoving the girl toward the ship. Then he jerked out his blast-pistol and fired. Designed to stop the biggest beasts in the solar system, the gun’s atomic-charge sent its lightning blast against the beast’s scaly hide. A gaping, smoking wound appeared, but the monster came on, screaming its rage.
Fostar fired again and turned to run, with a hopeless feeling that he would be overtaken. He heard its hoarse pant close behind him. For all of its size, the creature was fast.
Then he heard the welcome crack of an atomic-rifle, and the beast’s small head vanished, blown to atoms. The body, still vested with life, blundered on past Fostar and the ship and back into the jungle. For another few seconds they heard its crashing progress, before it stilled.
The nightmarish incident left Fostar with shaking nerves. “Thanks, Angus,” he said simply. Alora ran trembling into his arms, too unnerved to say a word.
“This is not a world for humans,” vouched Angus Macluff, leaning on his rifle.
“No, it isn’t,” agreed Dr. Bronzun. “It would be a constant struggle for survival, till the jungles had been cleared. It was hard enough on Venus, establishing a few cities in the past 500 years. We will have to find a world much more suited for quick settlement. Come, let’s leave—”
“Look!”
It was a sharp exclamation from Alora. She was pointing up, and they saw something smooth and shiny descending from the sky.
“A ship!” gasped Dr. Bronzun. “Is it possible that other intelligence—”
“No, it’s an Earth ship!” cried Fostar. “And only one person could have brought it here—Marten Crodell!”
He looked at Alora and saw the quick alarm in her eyes. Though they had not spoken of it since leaving Earth, they had wondered if this moment would arrive—and what it would mean. What amazing relentlessness had driven the man to pursue them across greater space?
The ship, somewhat smaller than theirs, landed a hundred yards away.
A few minutes later four men stepped out, equipped with breathing masks. They advanced, stumbling for a moment in t
he unaccustomed gravity, but quickly recovered. The leader, tall and awkward, was Marten Crodell, his dark thin face gleaming from behind his visor. The men following wore the uniforms of Interplanetary police. All were armed with pistols held before them.
Fostar stiffened and drew his own weapon. Alora trembled at his side. Angus Macluff almost casually raised his rifle to the crook of his aim, in readiness. What strange drama of human emotions was about to be enacted under the shifting shadows and lights of p alien double sun?
The approaching party stopped fifty feet away. Marten Crodell swept his eyes over the group, his gaze lingering a moment on his daughter.
“Father!” exclaimed Alora chokingly.
“Alora, come here!” commanded the land-owner.
“I won’t!” she cried quickly. “Until you put down your guns and tell me what madness this is!”
Marten Crodell’s eyes burned across to Fostar’s, his face hard, determined. “You and your two companions are under arrest, Rolan Fostar!” he barked. “The situation hasn’t changed just because you’ve left the Solar System. My transspace drive was finished the day after you left. I’ve tracked you through space simply enough by tracing your rocket-residue. My companions are expert in that art, developed to trail pirates. There was some retracing at times because of the faintness of the trail, but now we’ve caught you and—”
“But good God!” exploded Fostar. “With the trans-space drive, you could have gone out to the Beyond yourself, and seen the truth—or at least disproved our claims, instead of wasting all this time and effort chasing us!”
Marten Crodell waved a hand. “You brought back no proof,” he reminded. “Your claims are preposterous. Convinced of that, I followed you.” His eyes burned with animosity. “I can’t forgive what you’ve done to my daughter—poisoned her mind with your own wild theories. However, back on Earth, an expedition will be sent to the Beyond, before you are convicted for your alarmist machinations.”
“But the time wasted!” groaned Fostar. “That’s why we shirked the trivial counts against us, to search for a new world. Stop to think, Marten Crodell—suppose we are right? Every golden minute wasted may mean thousands of lives lost!”
“I won’t mince words with you!” snapped the land-owner. His eyes flashed dangerously. “I said I would destroy you, Rolan Fostar. I will—if you resist!” He waved his gun eloquently.
Quick anger burned in Fostar. The motives of Marten Crodell, in the light of Earth’s fate, were blind, petty, unreasoning. But words alone would not change him.
“Marten Crodell,” said Fostar decisively, “we’re not going back to Earth!”
The land-owner glared and then stepped forward, motioning his men with him. Four menacing guns faced Fostar and his party. The first shot fired would precipitate battle—death. It seemed like an unreal nightmare.
Alora Crodell, with a low moan, had flung herself forward, as though to stand between the two parties. But suddenly she stopped, horror-struck.
It had happened with stunning rapidity. Marten Crodell’B foot had stumbled against something lying half concealed in the thick grasses over the ground. Instantly, a long, whip-like cord encircled his legs and began winding itself around his body. Slimy and worm-like, the tentacle pulled its victim to the ground, squeezing.
Before they could take warning, the other three men had stumbled into similar lianas vested with boa-constrictor-like life, and all four were writhing on the ground, shouting feebly. In seconds, their faces were purple as the powerful coils tightened like steel springs. Another of this prolific planet’s deadly life-forms had manifested itself!
With a choked cry, Alora leaped toward her father. Fostar sprang after her, and pulled her short. “Watch out—there may be others!”
“But we must help him!” moaned the girl. “He’s being—killed!”
“Stay back, all of you!” warned Fostar. Alone, he moved forward as rapidly as he dared, peering intently into the grasses before his feet. He was able to advance to within twenty feet of the captured men before he saw a thick, snakelike object across his path. It quivered as though in anticipation of a victim.
Fostar hastily followed its length with his eyes and saw where it vanished into a smooth hole in the ground. It was some sort of giant worm that lay half on the surface, waiting for chance victims!
Fostar sent a blast from his gun at the juncture of the hole. With a sucking sound, the horrible creature jerked back into its hole, but leaving its severed end writhing over the ground. With desperate haste, Fostar moved forward and cut three more of the worm-monsters in half. Then he stood before Marten Crodell, whose cries had subsided to low, breathless whimpers.
Fostar quickly found the creature’s hole and blasted with his gun. With soundless agony, the huge worm uncoiled itself and writhed away. Marten Crodell’s limp body lay still, with the marks of the constriction pressed into his clothes and throat.
Realizing that he must work fast to save the other three men, Fostar turned to them, but at that moment something jerked him off his feet. Unwarily, he had tripped against a waiting worm-monster whose coils whipped about his body with machine-like swiftness and deadly purpose. His gun was knocked from his hand and his arms were pinned to his sides. He fell over and the crushing coils relentlessly drew tighter.
Already gasping for breath, he dimly saw Angus Macluff running toward him. Before he arrived, dancing spots were in front of Fostar’s vision and he felt his eyes and tongue protruding. Then swift and merciful blackness cut off his agony. . .
CHAPTER VIII
THE NEW WORLD
FOSTAR awoke with a pain in his chest, but otherwise sound. He found himself in his bunk, in the ship, and in the next bunk lay Marten Crodell. Angus and Alora had been tending them both. Dr. Bronzun stood at the side, with a look of relief on his face.
“You’re both all right,” pronounced the engineer, looking at his patients critically. “But a few more squeezes by that blasted worm—”
Alora left the side of her father to kiss Fostar tenderly. “You were brave!” she whispered.
Fostar looked around. There was no one else in the ship. “The other three men?” he queried.
“Gone, lad!” said Angus Macluff. “I had scarcely time to rescue you, after you had done the same for Crodell. I shot the worms that had the others, but the men were dead, life squeezed out. They had already been half-drained of blood. Vampire-worms! Ah, gentlemen, the rest of us are lucky to leave this planet alive!”
“I think we had better leave as soon as possible,” suggest Dr. Bronzun, “without even attempting to bury the men, or retrieve anything from the other ship. It’s too dangerous to step out again.”
Fostar nodded and left his bunk. He paused beside the reclining form of Marten Crodell. He was breathing heavily, and his skin still had a mottled appearance from the near strangulation he had undergone. There was lurking horror in his eyes, from his experience, but a thankfulness in them as he looked up.
“You saved my life, Fostar,” he gruffly acknowledged. “I’m obligated to you to that extent.”
“Forget it,” shrugged Fostar. He went on, earnestly. “Why can’t we be friends, Marten Crodell? It’s all been a misunderstanding between us—” He had extended his hand, but the land-owner ignored it. His hostile attitude reasserted itself. “Are you heading back for Earth?” he asked.
“This ship is going on!” stated Fostar quietly.
“Rut you’ll eventually have to go back,” hissed Crodell. “And back on Earth, we’ll have a reckoning!” Fostar shook his head wearily. “You don’t realize—” he began, then started again. “All right, but for the present, you can have the freedom of the ship, if you promise not to oppose us in any way.”
“I’ll neither help nor hinder you in your fanciful searchings for a new world!” retorted the landowner with fine scorn.
UNDER this truce, the party of five went on in its cosmic search in the crowded star-cluster. Each star they visited
gave them renewed hope, only to prove bitter disappointment. Many had no planetary systems. Those that did displayed circling worlds whose utterly alien environments could not be a home to the human race. An air of hopelessness rode with the ship.
Alora tried to be optimistic, though at times her amber eyes were dulled and apathetic. Dr. Bronzun searched the heavens with a weary patience, picking out their course from sun to sun. Marten Crodell watched with
a cynical indifference. He spoke little, even to his daughter. Between them was a barrier of estrangement, human nature being what it was.
Fostar felt a brooding dread of the future stealing over him, with their many disappointments. There should be many ships searching, plumbing the stars. Finding a world was such a small part of it, anyway. After that, the bigger tasks remained—building transport ships, settling the new world, solving the thousand and one new problems that would arise when mankind changed its age-old home.
And there was so little time! The doom was so near!
Angus Macluff’s mutterings were doleful in the extreme. “It is too much to hope for,” he would often say. “We will never find a suitable world!”
And then, as though his every dire prophecy must be contradicted, they found it!
Two weary months had gone by before they came upon this yellow star whose warm light filled their cabin with a beautiful golden glow.
“Spectral class GO!” observed Dr. Bronzun excitedly, busy with his instruments. “Just slightly bigger and hotter than Sol. And it has several planets in comparable positions!”
Pulses throbbing, they approached, passing the orbits of several cold, outermost planets. Two of them were ringed like Saturn, striking a familiar note of one of them had five great moons. The fifth outward planet glinted redly, something like Mars, though it had a moon so big that it was almost a binary planet, rather than primary and satellite.
The first two planets, on the same side of the sun, were cloudy and veiled, like twin Venuses. In the next orbit, as a surprise, was a gigantic planet, with a dozen attendant satellites. It was like a misplaced Jupiter, with heavy bands of vari-colored atmosphere.