by Roland Starr
“Isn’t that enough?” Vonner countered.
“I’ve got a feeling that the planet out there isn’t at all the way the readings would have us believe. We’re getting readings that could come from Earth itself, and I’m thinking the equipment recorded Earth as we blasted away, and is now back feeding that data to us. Omina isn’t at all what we think. The radiation down there is getting stronger all the time and is now having some effect on our equipment. I’ve been misleading you for weeks, Captain, and didn’t know it. There was no way of checking.”
“If you’re right now, then you’re not to blame, Quill,” Vonner said slowly. “We’ve got to go into orbit around Omina. There’s no way of getting out of it. Will that be safe enough?”
“Sure. But on no account must you land.”
“We can carry out further tests from orbit.” Vonner considered for a moment. “Can anything else go wrong, do you think?”
“I don’t know, Captain, I really don’t know.” The scientist shook his head. “So much has gone wrong since Bardo started that mutiny. We would have been all right but for that.”
“We’re all right now,” Vonner said, forcing a smile. “Don’t worry about it, Quill, and keep all this to yourself. You’d better get back to your equipment and keep the information coming in. I shall be relying on you for a correct picture of the planet as soon as we’re in orbit.”
“I shall do my best, Captain.” Reid turned and departed. His shoulders were bowed, and he had the air of a man who knew the worst about the situation. As far as Reid could tell, there was no hope of making a landing on Omina.
Vonner stood for a moment, his mind turning over all the incidents that had taken place. Nothing seemed to be going right! He set his teeth into his bottom lip as he considered. But there was nothing he could do. They had to take it as it came, and what would happen next was anyone’s guess. He shook himself from his thoughts and went back to the control room.
There was a message waiting for him. The brainwasher was ready to receive the officers. Curran was on the sick bay communicator, and Vonner gave him a list of the men and the order in which they would be sent for processing. Curran reported that some of the men had already been processed, and they were about to put Bardo through again.
“I’ll wait until last,” Vonner said. “I’ve got some checking up here to do before I can get away.”
They soon entered the last phase of the long flight, warping into an eccentric ellipse around Omina. There was nothing they could do except stand by and watch the controls. The drive computer was handling the maneuver, cutting speed, altering course, firing direction jets, applying the instructions that had been fed into it by Aaron Marr and Dalus Wayland. The command computer was the supervisor, checking the data before any electronic order was issued. Vonner watched the controls, filled with conjecture and hope. So much had gone wrong that he wondered just how much more he could take without cracking. He knew better than anyone that the slightest mistake or mishap now would finish them. They were far from home and dependent upon Fate to make a good planet-fall.
The view of the forward scanner screen grew clearer as each minute passed. Vonner was amazed that Omina could resemble Earth so closely. But that had been the reason mission control had selected Omina in the first place. Even from Earth, observations had shown this strange planet to be sympathetic to human life. It was all Vonner could do to take his eyes off the screen, and the longer he watched it the more convinced he was that they were going to be successful. He was startled when the communicator flashed him, distracting him from his thoughts. He opened the line and heard Reid’s voice in his ear.
“Captain, that radiation has gone.” Reid sounded excited, and relief laced his voice. “It must have been a belt of radiation at some distance from the planet. There must be patches of the stuff at these higher levels, and that’s why I got readings earlier, and then nothing. But everything is fine again. The readings are better than ever.”
“Good work, Quill,” Vonner said, and some of the worry dropped from him. He straightened his shoulders and heaved a long sigh. “Keep checking until we’re firmly into orbit.”
“Leave it to me.” Reid chuckled easily, his fears gone, and Vonner grinned as he closed the line.
“How are you making out, Aaron?” Vonner could not keep quiet any longer. The astrogator had been slumped at his desk for an hour after returning from processing. Vonner could tell by the man’s attitude that he was busy over his calculations. Marr looked around, nodded, and resumed his work, and Vonner got to his feet and walked around to check it.
Marr was drawing pictures, not working at all, and when he realized that Vonner was at his side he grinned loosely and thrust the pad away.
“Nothing else I can do until we’re in orbit, Captain,” he said.
“Sure. I’m glad you can relax now,” Vonner told him. He gently punched the chief astrogator’s shoulder. “Enjoy yourself while you can. You don’t see any difficulties now, do you, Aaron?”
“None that we can do anything about, Captain,” came the steady reply, and Vonner nodded and turned away.
“Captain!” It was the assistant communications officer. He was seated at his banks of instruments, earphones on his head, and Vonner could see the surprise on the man’s face from across the room.
“What is it?” Vonner crossed the room with quick strides.
“I’m getting Earth voices, just as Farrell did.” The man jerked a thumb toward a second set of headphones, and Vonner frowned as he picked them up. As soon as he donned them, he heard a curt voice calling in English. “What do you make of it, sir?”
“What do you make of it?” Vonner countered.
“We know that can’t be coming from Earth. Ordinary communications would take several thousand years to reach this distance from Earth. It sounds like a call signal, doesn’t it?”
They listened again, and Vonner watched the communications man’s face. He saw incredulity and disbelief dawn in the pale features, and he strained his ears to pick out the words that were being repeated on the air.
“It’s a call signal, but it isn’t ours, sir,” the man said. He shook his head. “This is crazy. That’s coming from the planet.”
“It can’t be,” Vonner asserted. “Not in English. Are you sure you’re not having computer trouble? Could this be some sort of freak playback from your signals computers?”
“Impossible.” The man shook his head. “For one thing, that’s not any call signal I know. There was no other space program in progress when we left, was there?”
“Not in this area.” Vonner was frowning. “Two years is a long time. Try to get into contact with them. Give them particulars and ask them to identify themselves.”
“Could it be another spaceship in this area?”
“That you’ll have to find out.” Vonner took off the headphones and turned away, his mind reeling under the development. What else could happen? What was he to believe? The obvious conclusion was that the voices were coming from Omina, but he couldn’t accept that the animal life Quillon Reid had detected spoke English. Yet he knew it was impossible for Orion to receive communications from Earth by radio transmission. He could feel the coldness of fear creeping along his spine. Again he thought of Bardo’s warnings; all of them couldn’t be shrugged off as the ravings of a space madman. He went back to his desk and opened a line to Reid’s office. The scientist spoke immediately.
“Quill, we’re getting voices on radio transmission,” he said, cutting in. “What do you make of it?”
“Impossible, if they’re coming from Earth. But they might well be the people on Omina.”
“Speaking in English?” Vonner did not disguise the skepticism in his voice. “I won’t accept that.”
“I wouldn’t accept that myself,” Reid replied. “I expect you’re getting a playback from the last messages we received from Earth on our outward trip.”
“I thought of that, but I’m told that these call
signals don’t relate to us.”
“Better forget about it, then, until we’re safely in orbit. I can’t help you. But you’ll have plenty of time to sort things out when we’re orbiting.”
“Okay. Let it go for now.” Vonner killed the power, and the line went dead. He lifted his eyes to the forward scanner screen, and Omina was before him, very close and coming closer. He could tell just by watching that they were almost in orbit. Only minutes separated them from the end of the outward trip. Once in orbit, they would circle the planet, taking pictures and giving the scientists a chance to use their equipment for information. Then they could interpret their signals and advise on the landing. Until then there was nothing anyone could do, and Vonner felt uneasy as he watched and waited. No matter what happened in the next few minutes, there was nothing anyone could do to prevent or avert a disaster.
“We’re orbiting, Captain!” Aaron Marr stirred himself and looked around at Vonner, who jerked himself from his thoughts. “We’re still under computer control. Everything is okay from this end.”
Vonner nodded and opened the communicator line to the engine control room. Dalus Wayland spoke to him, and Vonner gave the chief engineer the news.
“That’s a relief, anyway, Skipper,” Wayland said. “Now comes the hardest part, huh?”
“We’ll be making several orbits, Dalus, before attempting a landing. There are one or two queries I want straightened out before we set foot on Omina.” Vonner closed the line and handed his duty over to Hanton. Then he went along to Quillon Reid’s department.
The chief scientist was checking reports and readings, and he seemed to be on the verge of bursting with excitement. He looked up at Vonner and grinned expansively.
“This is it, Captain,” he said. “To all intents and purposes, we’ve gone into orbit around Omina.”
“Are you sure your readings are correct, Quill?” Vonner sat down and leaned back in the chair.
“Correct?” Reid stared at him, frowning. “Anything on your mind, Captain?”
“Nothing definite. But it couldn’t be Earth itself that we’re orbiting, could it?”
“Strange you should say that!” Reid put down the papers he held and leaned his elbows on the desk. He looked Vonner straight in the eyes. “I don’t mind admitting some disquiet. Things have been happening that don’t make sense. Those radio communications, for instance. They must have come from Omina, not Earth. If there had been any changes in call signals, we would have been notified. I would like to accompany you on this first trip to the surface of the planet, Captain.”
“You’re giving me the go-ahead, Quill?”
“Yes. You couldn’t find a more perfect planet for colonizing anywhere in space.”
“I’ll start preparations for the landing party, then.” Vonner glanced at his watch. “We’ll separate from the ship in three hours. Will you be able to make it?”
“I’ll drop everything else to be there,” Quillon Reid asserted.
Vonner visited the sick bay on his way back to the control room and found processing still going on. Adah was busy, but she left one of the nurses in charge and came toward Vonner when she saw him.
“Max, I want to tell you about Bardo,” she said. “I reprocessed him at maximum power plus Lapse One. He needed a boost to get his mind back to some degree of normality after the heavy burdens it had been carrying. He passed out in the process and babbled a lot until after it was over. I switched on the recorder to get what he said, and although I haven’t had time to check everything that came through, I did hear one or two interesting things that might help you solve some of your problems.”
“Such as?” Vonner demanded.
“Lieutenant Farrell is suffering a nervous breakdown because of those English voices he heard over radio transmission. Well, it was Bardo’s work. He recorded some tapes while he was in control of the flight control room, and he timed them so they would operate when we were nearing orbit, in the event, he lost control of the ship to you again.”
“That does solve a worry I’ve had on my mind,” Vonner said. “But I can’t help wondering if there was anything else Bardo did to prevent us from getting out of orbit again. He’s been talking about it ever since I resumed command.”
“But you’ve had the ship checked completely, haven’t you?”
“Yes. There’s little chance that anything has been tampered with and gone unnoticed. But I’d like to hear the tape, if I may.”
“In my office. Will you help yourself while I get done here? I want to be on that first landing with you.”
“I shall be taking all departmental chiefs,” he said with a smile. “Apart from that, I want you with me because I feel the need for your presence.”
“That’s cheering news. I’ll be there.”
Vonner nodded. “Just under three hours before we separate from the ship,” he said, and went into her office, to sit at the desk and switch on the tape recorder. He listened to Bardo’s voice. There were long periods of silence and intermittent spates of babbling, and Vonner could only wonder at the sorry state of Bardo’s mind. He heard the bit about the recorded voices, intended to fool them into thinking there were English-speaking humans on Omina, and shook his head sadly as he reflected that Bardo could never again be trusted on duty. The brainwasher had worked with a vengeance upon his first officer. But there was nothing else of interest on the tapes, and he switched them off and went about his duties.
Three hours later, the landing party was aboard the long shuttle-ship. Philo Curran was present with a heavily armed escort party of six men, and Reid was there with an assortment of instruments. Aaron Marr and Dalus Wayland were also present, as were Dr. Morley and two nurses. In the care of the nurses was Ed Bardo, for Vonner could not bring himself to leave the man behind. Bardo seemed his normal self again, but there was a deep restlessness in his eyes that worried Vonner, and he had given strict instructions to Adah to keep a close eye upon the man.
Vonner settled himself in the pilot’s seat and ran through the sequence designed to eliminate mistakes. Then he started the motors, ran up to full power, and activated the launching process. They were all strapped in their seats, relaxed as much as was possible in their heavy space suits. The shuttle-ship lurched sickeningly, then twisted away from the parent ship, but was still under its control by means of the computers. There was little that Vonner had to do to fly the craft, for the work was done for him by autopilots. He was merely a supervisor, ready to adjust the controls if an electronic order came through. They dropped away swiftly from the vast shape of the parent ship, following a similar orbit, and traveling faster than the Orion.
They entered the atmosphere of Omina, then glanced out again as their speed caused friction to heat their outer shell. They dipped once more, glancing down, ever nearer to the strange unknown world that awaited below. Vonner watched his instrument panels and tried to keep an eye on the view port to his right. But he was too busy to sneak a preview of the landscape below.
At two thousand feet the craft leveled out, and a series of flashing lights indicated that they were maintaining that height as they sped along across the surface of the alien planet. Their speed dropped, and Vonner saw from the view port that they were approaching a flat plain, the landing area selected by the computers aboard the Orion. They slowly lost altitude, and the built-in detectors were recording and transmitting their impulses to the computers. Then they descended gently and came to rest on grass. The motors cut out automatically, and a heavy silence descended.
Reid got out of his seat and came forward to check the instruments. Vonner stared from the view port with wide, interested eyes. He could see trees in the distance, and the glint of water. Birds were flying in the air, wheeling and plunging in much the same way as they did back on Earth.
“We can get out of our space suits,” Reid said. “This planet is a second Earth.”
“You and I will go out together, Quill,” Vonner said, and it was difficult for him t
o keep the excitement out of his voice. “I think you’d better come along, too, Philo, with a gun, just in case.” They stripped off their suits, and Vonner led the way into the air lock. Reid was carrying various instruments, and the scientist was impatient to touch the ground. Curran fingered a lethal ray gun. Vonner operated the doors; then the outer hatch slid open, and they all took good, long breaths.
“Smells good,” Curran said, and they laughed.
Reid pushed forward, and Vonner put out a restraining hand. He wanted to be first on the ground, and Reid laughed good-naturedly as he stepped aside.
“I always thought the captain was the last man to leave the ship,” he commented.
“This is the reverse situation,” Vonner told him, and jumped through the hatch to the ground outside. His feet swished in the long grass, and he fell to his knees, remaining there, peering around, sniffing the air and studying the sights that awaited in the strong sunlight.
Reid and Curran arrived beside him; the three men stood up and walked away from the ship, with Vonner slightly in the lead. At fifty feet they paused and looked around, and Vonner noticed anxious faces watching them from the view port of the shuttle-ship. He nodded and waved an arm, inviting the others to join them. When he turned around again to stare across the plain, he saw Reid bending down, inspecting the grass and the ground, while Curran did a dance of triumph.
“We’ve made it, Captain,” he said, grinning hugely. “We’ve arrived.”
Vonner nodded, watching Reid setting up his equipment. A great relief was filling him, and he straightened his shoulders and took a deep breath. There was a faint breeze, and it felt strange upon his gaunt cheeks, with their space pallor, after such a long confinement in the ship. But he reveled in it, and a corner of the curtain in his mind lifted and showed him a little of what life was really like. He looked toward the ship and saw Adah jumping to the ground, and he hurried toward her, holding out a hand to her. When she joined him, he walked her away from the ship, toward a sharp rise in the ground, and when they reached it they stood upon its small crown and looked around.