by Eando Binder
More and more it looked like the Solar System somewhat rearranged, and when, on the other side of the sun, they came upon the fourth planet, its two polar ice-caps and blue halo of atmosphere stabbed through their hearts.
There, to judge by appearances alone, lay a world one might mistake for Earth itself!
“It’s beautiful—unbelievable I” Alora was murmuring, with a catch in her voice.
“The exact prototype of Earth, as seen from a space-ship,” whispered Fostar.
“Looks are deceiving,” grumbled Angus Macluff dourly. “It might have a poisonous atmosphere!”
Dr. Bronzun looked up from his spectroscope. “No, Angus,” he vouched. “The atmosphere is like Earth’s to a remarkable degree. Distance from this sun, about 100 million miles. Temperature and climate must be similar, too, and it has about the same inclination of the axis!” His voice held a low eagerness. “I think this world will prove a new Earth!”
Fostar stared moodily. “And that brings up the question of previous intelligent life!” Glances were exchanged, but no further comment was made on the subject, though it loomed large now.
The landscape they were cruising over a few hours later was lushly green, dimpled with lakes sparkling in the sunshine. Forests and widespread verdure gave evidence of a rich soil. A lofty mountain range climbed over the horizon and the basin beyond was rolling prairie, splayed by silvery threads of rivers.
The setting was arboreal, peaceful and somehow—unfulfilled. So like Earth it was that they had been half expecting cities, farms, winding roads. But no sign of civilization greeted them.
Dr. Bronzun heaved a sigh of relief. “A world, waiting for us!”
“What’s that up ahead?” Alora was pointing.
Something grayish and widespread lay half-concealed by vegetation, shadowed by great trees. Fostar spiraled the ship over it and they saw it to be a collection of hoary ruins, of some once-great city. Drawn by a natural curiosity as they all were, Fostar made a landing in a clear grassy area at the outskirts of the dead city.
The air they breathed, when they stepped out, had the heavenly scent of a clean, bright world, filled with the good things of nature. Warm, tingling sunlight bathed their skins and a cool breeze whispered through nearby trees. The soil, black and rich, crunched underfoot. Off in the distance, snow-capped mountains sparkled and seemed to look down benignly.
“A new Earth!” Dr. Bronzun said, confirming his previous conjecture.
“And perhaps a better one!” added Fostar, filling his lungs again and again.
But Alora, close at his side, trembled a little. “I have a strange feeling that we’re being—watched!” she murmured, flicking her eyes nervously over their surroundings.
“Feminine intuition?” laughed Fostar. “There are probably animals in the forest, eyeing us. But we’ve seen that no higher life-forms rule the planet.”
“But those ruins!” grumbled Angus Macluff, staring at them. “No present civilization, and the ruins of a former one—what’s the answer? Mark my words, gentlemen, all is not as simple as it looks!”
“We’ll look over those ruins,” said Dr. Bronzun. “They strike an incongruous note in this propitious environment.”
Fostar nodded, but his eyes were bright. “I can already picture a new city rising on this site—many cities, over this world, inhabited by transplanted mankind.” He met the dark eyes of Marten Crodell.
The land-owner smiled thinly. “A splendid colony world,” he acknowledged, looking around as though surveying a future addition to his holdings.
CHAPTER IX
THE PLANET BEINOS
AN HOUR later, after eating, they stepped out again, save for Marten Crodell. Still contemptuous of their purpose, he watched them leave with glittering eyes.
Fostar led the way toward the ruins. Lightly clothed, they enjoyed the exhilaration of open air, unconfined spaces. Though armed, they had no sense of danger in the peaceful setting. The bright, overhead sun shafted down pleasantly.
A few hundred yards from the ship, they came to the first of the ruins. Half-tumbled walls of stone threw cool shadows over piled-up debris. Here and there a skeleton tower of some stubborn metal up-reared, with gaping spaces leering like empty eye-sockets. They looked down a wide avenue whose torn, uprooted paving suggested repeated bombings. Had warfare visited this once great city of some intelligent race of beings?
It was a mystery that defied casual inspection. Over everything lay the thick dust of centuries and the crawling green of lichenous plants. They peered into empty spaces that might once have been chambers. All sign of the inhabitants and their paraphernalia had vanished, disintegrated by time.
The four humans moved along on the eerie atmosphere of the place. Even Angus Macluff found no appropriate words for the occasion.
Alora stopped suddenly, looking back half-longingly at their ship, which was barely visible behind rock heaps. “I feel—eyes!” she breathed, shuddering. “Eyes watching our every move!”
“The ghosts of the dead!” Angus Macluff said solemnly.
Fostar started. He was willing to dismiss the girl’s vague apprehension and the engineer’s superstitious fantasy, but he had heard a sound—a soft, pattering sound that stood out clearly in the hushed silence of the dead city. Ghosts did not make sounds.
And it was certainly no ghost that suddenly confronted them, around the edge of a huge fallen slab of stone.
They gasped in chorus. It was an alien creature—solid, substantial, and—by a subtle aura—intelligent!
In a flood of amazement, the four humans took in the creature’s details.
Four feet high, it stood upright on two stalk-like legs. Its body was flat and broad and from both sides extended four willowy arms terminating in thin tendril-like fingers. The head was round with a crown of petals that stood out stiffly in the sunlight. It had no mouth, nose or ears, and only one great gleaming eye. All its skin surface, unadorned by clothing, was a bright green.
“Moving vegetable life!” gasped Dr. Bronzun. “A creature without lungs that synthesizes its food from the air, like plants!”
“A walking sunflower!” snorted Angus Macluff.
“Can it really be intelligent?” murmured Alora, wonderingly. “And does its race rule this planet?”
At that moment, as though to give a definite sign of its intelligence, the plant-being raised a hand clutching a tubular, metallic instrument, opposing their further progress.
Fostar whipped out his own gun, In readiness, but no hostile move came from the creature. And then, from around the stone, crowded a dozen more of the beings, all with similar tubular weapons. They lined up in a menacing array.
“Looks like they’re telling us to go back!” Fostar grunted. “I wish we could communicate with them and find out what all this means.”
“They have no mouths to speak with,” mused Dr. Bronzun thoughtfully. “Telepathic impulses have been detected in the highly-developed plant-forms of Rhea. I wonder if these vegetal-beings use telepathy—” He stopped as a voice seemed to interrupt him.
“Yes, we use telepathy. We will be able to communicate with each other by that means, if you think strongly. Do you understand?” Fostar knew he hadn’t heard any spoken words, not even in his brain. His mind had simply received a telepathic message and had automatically translated it into words. It was an uncanny sensation. He saw by the faces of his companions that they too had “heard.”
“Yes, we understand,” he returned, speaking aloud so the others would hear, and at the same time concentrating on the thought, hoping he was “projecting” it.
Apparently he had. “Good!” came back in ghostly, silent words. “Who are you? Where have you come from—some other planet?”
“Yes—” Fostar hesitated. Should he go on and tell of their purpose? Too late, he realized that in merely thinking of the matter, he was revealing it to the aliens. “Don’t think about our plans!” he tried to warn the others.
; But the plant-being’s psychic voice, half mockingly, said: “We have read the thought, man of Earth, in all four of your minds!”
THE plant-beings had all stiffened, and were fingering their weapons. Their spokesman went on: “You have come from another star, and from a world similar to this one. Your world, with its sun, is plunging toward some strange catastrophe. You have been seeking a new world for your race to migrate to. This one would be much to your liking. All this we have read in your minds!”
Fostar attempted no denial. Obviously, he could not lie very convincingly by telepathy, when his innermost thoughts contradicted him from start to finish. Trained by constant use of their psychic sense, the aliens could undoubtedly read the most sensitive thoughts. Fostar said nothing, waiting to see what they would do about the situation.
The telepathic voice resounded in their brains again:
“This is our world, people of Earth! You have no right to it. We will not let you take our world from us!” The voice went on searchingly. “We have had tailings of your other thoughts—how you have many ships, many weapons. You are a powerful race. Therefore, lest our world be attacked, we must kill you, so that your fellow-men will not learn of the way to come here!”
The tubular weapons of the aliens aimed threateningly. Fostar’s muscles tensed, preparing for action. “Wait!”
The word rang out from Dr. Bronzun, commandingly. The plant-people hesitated, as they received the word’s telepathic counterpart.
“You are right!” continued the scientist. “We have no claim to your world! We had only planned to take it if it were uninhabited by another race. Now, since we know otherwise, our people will never attack you.” He sighed. “We will leave your world immediately. We must search for another!”
Fostar knew the scientist was sincere, but he himself did not feel the issue was that clear-cut. To kindly Dr. Bronzun, right was right. But what if there were no other world to be found? Earth would be desperate. Only one stark law counted in the end—survival of the fittest and strongest, even in this larger sense, involving worlds.
And then his face burned as reply came from the alien: “You who have just spoken mean what you say, but we see other thoughts in your companion’s minds. The tall man does not see the issue that plainly. The other man is thinking that your race deserves this world more than we. Thus, we surmise that if you returned, your fellowmen would also be divided in opinion. We would probably be attacked after all.”
The psychic voice became a sibilant threat: “No, we must kill you—”
Before the message was completed, Fostar had barked a quick warning: “Run for the nearest stone pile—hurry!”
The four Earth people, as one, leaped to the side. Foster heard the sharp clatter of the aliens’ weapons, but the shots went wild. Fostar whirled and pumped a half-dozen gun-blasts backward. Several of the plant-beings crumpled to the ground, half-torn to pieces. Thick sap, pale green in color, spurted from the bodies.
The swiftness of the move had taken the aliens unawares. Not one of their shots was close, and in seconds the four humans were behind a heap of fallen masonry, safe for the time being. Peering cautiously around an edge, Fostar saw the aliens scampering for safety. He picked off two before the rest had scrambled behind something. But then he saw, with a worried frown that more of the green beings were running up from a distance.
He turned to the others, reloading his gun while talking. “We’ve got to get back to the ship as quickly as possible,” he panted. “Come on. We’ll work our way back down the avenue, keeping undercover wherever we can.”
Crouching low, they crept behind their bulwark. Shots from the aliens spanged over their heads, chipping bits of stone from above.
“Bullets!” muttered Dr. Bronzun. “Their weapons must be the primitive explosive-propellant type, such as we had on Earth five centuries ago.”
“Not very effective,” grunted Fostar. “At least we have that advantage.” He had read about the bullet-weapons. A vital spot had to be struck for death. With their atomic-blast guns, every hit was a death.
Running from one rock-pile to the next, they worked their way down the avenue. At each cleared space, Fostar and Angus Macluff laid down a scorching barrage before they ran through. The numbers of the enemy had been reinforced. Their petaled heads bobbed behind every stone. But their combined marksmanship, probably because of their single-eyed vision without perspective, was fortunately poor. However, the humans at times heard bullets whistle past their ears.
And then, suddenly, they were trapped!
GREEN bodies appeared ahead, sneaking to ambush them at the next rock-pile. All four fired desperately, heaping broken green corpses over the ground, but more aliens ran up, recklessly. They were apparently determined to stop the Earth people at any cost!
Running toward the tumbled walls at the avenue’s edge, shots suddenly came from above! Plant-beings were converging from that direction, swarming over broken stone-blocks. Fostar swept the first row with blasting death and looked around wildly for escape from the trap.
“We’ll never get out of this alive, gentlemen!” predicted Angus Macluff dismally. Nevertheless, he pumped away with both hands, spreading a livid fusillade of death among the green-skinned beings that began to swarm up from three sides. Dr. Bronzun and Alora, though unused to weapons, did their part in driving the attack back.
But it could not keep up forever. Bullets were whistling uncomfortably close and the charge-clips in their belts, for their own weapons, were limited in number.
“Follow me!” shouted Fostar.
He had seen the way of escape.
Between two huge leaning slabs of stone, the path was clear, down what had once been a street at right angles. Fostar shoved the others through, firing steadily back at the aliens, keeping them at a distance. Then he slipped between the stones himself. He felt something thud against his shoulder, but took no notice.
On the other side, they raced fleetly along the side avenue, but were brought up abruptly by an impassable mass. Blocked! Some great building had, in the past, fallen squarely across the street.
“They’re coming again!” cried Alora, looking back.
Feet pattering noisily, the plant-men appeared, hot in chase!
“We can’t climb over this barrier, or go back,” panted Dr. Bronzun. He moaned a little. “We’re caught!”
“No we aren’t!” contradicted Fostar. He pointed. “Look—that corridor leading into a building. Seems to be clear—”
There was not much time to conjecture, and they ran toward it. Penetrating into a half-standing structure, the corridor led into dank gloom. The air was musty, confined. Dust that might have lain for centuries swirled up from their feet, choking them. A tomb-like silence hung heavy as an intangible shroud. But better this than the vengeful demons outside, thirsting for their lives.
The passageway twisted and twined as they followed it, in accordance with some strange architectural plan of the builders. Rooms opened out at times, most of them fallen in, and from their doorways speared in shafts of diffused outer light.
They stopped for a moment to listen for sounds of pursuit, but there were none. The enemy seemed to have given up the chase into this dim hall.
They probably shun dark places,” surmised Dr. Bronzun. “Sunlight and open air are their life.”
“Then they can’t very well have built this city,” mused Fostar. “What kind of race did?” He shrugged and turned to a more practical consideration. “We’ll follow this passage till it leads out somewhere and then we can get back to our ship.”
They trudged along, coughing and shivering in the dank, musty atmosphere. The hall seemed interminable. Twice they found the way blocked, where the overhead arch had collapsed, and had to retrace their steps to cross-corridors. These wound in different directions. Confused, they hesitated and wondered if they were lost in some great catacomb.
But at last the glow of bright sunshine ahead greeted them. They stepped out
thankfully into open air. Fostar had them all peer warily in every direction before they fully exposed themselves. No plant-men were in sight.
“They’re probably still waiting at the other end,” chuckled Fostar, “hoping we’ll come out. There’s no time to lose, though, if they scout around for us. Let’s get back to the ship.” He stepped forward with a brisk step.
“Wait—which way are you going?” Dr. Bronzun’s voice was puzzled. “The ship is in that direction, isn’t it?” He pointed directly opposite.
“Gentlemen, you’re both wrong—” began Angus Macluff.
Baffled, they looked at one another.
“I don’t think any of us knows where the ship lies I” whispered Alora. “We’re—lost!”
CHAPTER X
THE GREAT MIGRATION
AROUND them was a new section of the city ruin, totally unfamiliar. The trip through the tortuous passage had completely upset their sense of direction. The sun had been at the zenith when they had left the ship, offering no clew to their position.
Without wasting time, Fostar clambered to the highest point of a partially tumbled wall and squinted narrowly in all directions. Though the ship must be visible, if the view were unobstructed, he could not see it—only the heaped ruins, all around. Worst of all, he could not make out the avenue on which they had first been attacked. Dim lines of thoroughfares, in the ancient city, were scattered in all directions. He could not know which was theirs. They were lost!
“See our ship, lad?” called up Angus anxiously.
Fostar shook his head worriedly. Then he tried to duck, but too late. He had been seen by one of the plant-men, also atop a high point looking around. Fostar scrambled down.
“They’ll be after us in a minute again!” he said. “We’ll hide in the passage—hurry!”