“Thirty-eight years!” Bear whispered in scarcely audible tones in Ingrid’s ear. She pulled him sharply by the sleeve and turned away.
Erg Noor leaned back in his chair and dropped his hands on his knees. Nobody spoke and the instruments continued softly humming. Another melody, out of tune and, therefore, ominous, was added to the tuned melody of the navigation instruments. The call of the iron star, the great strength of its iron mass pulling for the weakened spaceship, was almost physically tangible.
Nisa Creet’s cheeks were burning, her heart was beating wildly. This inactive waiting had become unbearable.
The hours passed slowly. One after another the awakened members of the expedition appeared in the control tower. The number of silent people increased until all fourteen were assembled.
The speed of the ship had been progressively reduced until it reached a point that was lower than the velocity of escape so that Tantra could not get away from the iron star. Her crew forgot all about food and sleep and did not leave the control tower for many miserable hours during which the ship’s course changed more and more to a curve until she was in the fatal elliptical orbit. Tantra’s fate was obvious to the entire crew.
A sudden howl made them all start. Astronomer Pour Hyss jumped up and waved his hands. His distorted face was unrecognizable, he bore no resemblance to a man of the Great Circle Era. Fear, self-pity and a craving for revenge had swept all signs of intellectuality from the face of the scientist.
“Him, it was him,” howled Pour Hyss, pointing to Pel Lynn, “that clot, that fool, that brainless worm….” The astronomer choked as he tried to recall the swear-words of his ancestors that had long before gone out of use. Nisa, who was standing near him, moved away contemptuously. Erg Noor stood up.
“The condemnation of a colleague will not help us. The time is past when such an action could have been intentional. In this case,” Noor spun the handles on the computing machine carelessly, “as you see there was a thirty per cent probability of error. If we add to that the inevitable depression that comes at the end of a tour of duty and the disturbance due to the pitching of the ship I don’t doubt that you. Pour Hyss, would have made the same mistake!”
“And you?” shouted the astronomer, but with less fury than before.
“I should not. I saw a monster like this at close quarters during the 36th Space Expedition. It is mostly my fault — I hoped to pilot the ship through the unknown region myself, but I did not foresee everything, I confined myself to giving simple instructions!”
“How could you have known that they would enter this region without you?” exclaimed Nisa.
“I should have known it,” answered Erg Noor, firmly, in this way refusing the friendly aid of the astronavigator, “but there’s no sense in talking about it until we get bade to Earth.”
“To Earth!” whined Pour Hyss and even Pel Lynn frowned in perplexity, “to say that, when all is lost and only death lies ahead of us!”
“Not death but a gigantic struggle lies ahead of us,” answered Erg Noor, confidently, sitting down in a chair that stood before the table. “Sit down. There’s no need to hurry until Tantra has made one and a half revolutions.”
Those present obeyed him in silence and Nisa gave the biologist a smile, triumphant, despite the hopelessness of the moment.
“This star undoubtedly has a planet, even two, I imagine, judging by the curves of the isograve[10]. The planets, as you see,” the commander made a rapid but accurate sketch, “should be big ones and, therefore, should have an atmosphere. We don’t need to land, though, we have enough atomized solid oxygen[11].”
Erg Noor stopped to gather his thoughts. “We shall become the satellite of the planet and travel in orbit around it. If the atmosphere of the planet is suitable and we use up our air, we have sufficient planetary fuel to land and call for help. In six months we can calculate the direction,” he continued, ‘‘transmit to Earth the results obtained from Zirda and send for a rescue ship and save our ship.”
“If we do save it…” Pour Hyss pulled a wry face as he tried to hide the joy that kindled anew in his heart.
“Yes, if we do,” agreed Erg Noor. “That, however, is clearly our goal. We must muster all our forces to achieve it. You, Pour Hyss and Ingrid Dietra, make your observations and calculate the size of the planets, Bear and Nisa. compute the velocity from the mass of the planets and when you know that compute the orbital velocity of the spaceship and the optimal radiant[12] for its revolutions.”
The explorers began to make preparations for a landing should it prove to be necessary. The biologist, the geologist and the physician prepared a reconnaissance robot, the mechanics adjusted the landing locators and searchlights and got ready a rocket satellite that would transmit a message to Earth.
The work went particularly well after the horror and hopelessness they had experienced and was only interrupted by the pitching of the ship in gravitational vortices. Tantra, however, had so reduced her speed that the pitching no longer caused the people great discomfort.
Pour Hyss and Ingrid established the presence of two planets. They had to reject the idea of approaching the outer planet- it was huge in size, cold, encircled by a thick layer of atmosphere that was probably poisonous and threatened them with death. If they had to make a choice of deaths it would probably have been better to burn up on the surface of the iron star than drown in the gloom of an ammonia atmosphere by plunging the ship into a thousand-kilometre thick layer of ammonia ice. There were similar terrible, gigantic planets in the solar system — Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
Tantra continued to approach the star. In nineteen days they determined the size of the inner planet and it proved to be bigger than Earth. The planet was quite close to its sun, the iron star, and was carried round its orbit at frantic speed, its year being no more than two or three terrestrial months. The invisible star T no doubt made it quite warm with its black rays and, if there was an atmosphere, life could have emerged there. In the latter case landing would be particularly dangerous.
Alien forms of life that had developed under conditions of other planets and by other evolutionary paths and had the albumin cells common to the whole Cosmos were extremely dangerous to Earth-dwellers. The adaptation of the organism to protect itself against harmful refuse and disease bacteria that had been going on for millions of centuries on our planet was powerless against alien forms of life. To the same degree life from other planets was in similar danger on Earth.
The basic activity of animal life — in killing to devour and in devouring to kill — made its appearance with depressingly brutal cruelty when the animal life of different worlds clashed. Fantastic diseases, instantaneous epidemics, the terrible spreading of pests and horrible injuries beset the first explorations of habitable hut uninhabited planets. Worlds that were inhabited by intelligent beings made numerous experiments and preparations before establishing direct spaceship communications. On our Earth, far removed from the central parts of the Galaxy where life abounds, there had been no visitors from the planets of other stars, no representatives of other civilizations. The Astronautical Council had shortly before completed preparations for the reception of visitors from the planets of not too distant stars in the Ophiuchus, Cygnus, Ursa Major and Apus constellations.
Erg Noor, worried by the possibility of meeting with unknown forms of life, ordered the biological means of defence, that he had taken a big supply of in the hope of visiting Vega, to be brought out of the distant store-rooms.
At last Tantra equalized her orbital velocity with that of the planet and then began to revolve around it. The indefinite, dark-brown surface of the planet, or rather, of its atmosphere, with reflections of the bloody-brown sun, could only be seen through the electronic inverter. All members of the expedition were busy at the instruments.
‘“The temperature of the upper layers of the daylight side is 320° on the Kelvin scale[13].”
“Rotation about the axis approxi
mately 20 days.” “The locators show the presence of water and land.” ‘‘The thickness of the atmosphere is 1,700 kilometres.”
“The exact mass is 43.2 times Earth’s mass.” The reports followed one another continuously and the nature of the planet was becoming clear.
Erg Noor summarized the figures as they came in and was making preparations to compute the orbit. The planet was a big one, 43.2 times the mass of Earth, and its force of gravity would hold the ship pressed down to the ground. The people would be as helpless as flies on a fly-paper.
The commander recalled the terrible stories he had heard, half legend, half history, of the old spaceships that had, for various reasons, come into contact with the huge planets. In those days the slow ships with low-powered fuel often perished. The end came with a roar of motors and the spasmodic shuddering of a ship that could not get away but remained stuck to the surface of the planet. The ship remained intact but the bones of the people trying to crawl about the ship were broken. The indescribable horror of great weight had been communicated in the fragmentary cries of last reports, in the farewell transmissions.
The crew of Tantra were not menaced by that danger as long as they revolved about the planet. If they had to land on its surface, however, only the strongest people would be able to drag the weight of their own bodies in this, the future haven that was to be theirs for many long years…. Could they keep alive under such conditions — crushed by the great weight, in the eternal darkness of the infrared rays of the black sun, in a dense atmosphere?
Whatever the conditions were, it was a hope of salvation, it did not mean death and, anyway, there was no choice!
Tantra’s orbit drew closer to the outer fringe of the atmosphere. The expedition could not miss the opportunity of investigating a hitherto unknown planet that was comparatively close to Earth. The lighted, or rather, heated side of the planet differed from the night side not only by its much greater temperature but also by the huge agglomerations of electricity that so interfered with the powerful locators that their indications were distorted beyond recognition. Erg Noor decided to study the planet with the help of bomb stations. They sent out a physical research robot and the automatic recorder reported on an astonishing quantity of free oxygen in an atmosphere of neon and nitrogen, the presence of water vapour and a temperature of 12 °C. These were conditions that, in general, were similar to those on Earth. But the pressure of the thick atmosphere was 1.4 times that of normal pressure on Earth and the force of gravity was 2.5 times greater.
“We can live here,” said the biologist, smiling feebly as lie reported the station’s findings to the commander.
“If we can live on that gloomy, heavy planet, then something is probably living there already, something small and harmful.”
For the spaceship’s fifteenth revolution a bomb beacon with a powerful transmitter was prepared. This second physical research station, dropped on the night side when the planet had rotated through 120°, disappeared without sending out any signals.
“It has fallen into the ocean,” said geologist Beena Ledd, biting her lips in annoyance.
“We must feel our way with the main locator before we put out a TV robot. We’ve only got two of them.”
Tantra emitted a bunch of directed radio waves as she revolved round the planet, feeling for the contours of seas and continents that owing to distortion were unclear. They found the outlines of a huge plain that thrust out into the ocean, or divided two oceans, almost on the planet’s equator. The spaceship’s ray zigzagged across a strip of land two hundred kilometres wide. Suddenly a bright point flared up on the locator screen. A whistle that lashed their strained nerves told them that it was no hallucination.
“Metal!” exclaimed the geologist, “an open deposit.” Erg Noor shook his head.
“Although the flash did not last long I managed to note its regular outline. That was a huge piece of metal, a meteorite or….”
“A ship!” exclaimed Nisa and the biologist together. “Fantasy!” snapped Pour Hyss.
“It may be fact,” objected Erg Noor. “What does it matter, it’s no use arguing,” said Pour Hyss, unwilling to give in. “There’s no way of proving it, we’re not going to land, are we?”
“We’ll check up on it in three hours’ time when we reach that plain again. Notice that the metal object is on the plain that I, too, would have chosen to land on. We’ll throw out the TV robot at that very spot. Tune the locator ray to a six-second warning!”
The commander’s plan was successful and Tantra made another three-hour flight round the dark planet. The next time the ship approached the continental plain it was met by TV broadcasts from the robot. The people peered into the light screen. With a click the visible ray was switched on and peered like a human eye, noting the outlines of things far down below, in that thousand-kilometre-deep black abyss. Kay Bear could well imagine the head of the robot station sticking out of the armour plate and revolving like a lighthouse. The zone that was swept by the instrument’s eye appeared on the screen and was there and then photographed: the view consisted of low cliffs, hills and the winding black lines of watercourses. Suddenly the vision of a gleaming, fish-shaped object crossed the screen and again melted into the darkness as it was abandoned by the light ray to the darkness and the ledges of the plateau.
“A spaceship!” gasped several voices in unison. Nisa looked at Pour Hyss with undisguised triumph. The screen went dark as Tantra left the area of the TV robot’s activity and Eon Thal immediately set about developing the film of the electronic photographs. With fingers that trembled with impatience he placed the film in the projector of the hemispherical screen that would give them stereoscopic pictures of what had been photographed. The inner walls of the hollow hemisphere gave them an enlarged picture.
The familiar cigar-shaped outlines of the ship’s hows, the bulge of the stern, the high ridge of the equilibrium receiver…. No matter how unbelievable it all was, no matter how utterly impossible they might regard a meeting here, on the dark planet, the robot could not invent anything, a terrestrial spaceship lay there! It lay horizontally, in the normal landing position, supported by its powerful landing struts, undamaged, as though it had only just alighted on to the planet of the iron star.
Tantra, revolving in a shorter orbit closer to the planet, sent out signals that were not answered. A few more hours passed. The fourteen members of the expedition again gathered in the control tower. Erg Noor, who had been sitting in deep contemplation, stood up.
“I propose to land Tantra. Perhaps our brothers are in need of help, perhaps their ship is damaged and cannot return to Earth. If so we can take them, transfer their anameson and save ourselves. There is no sense in sending out a rescue rocket. It cannot do anything to give us fuel and will use up so much energy that there will not be enough left to send a signal to Earth.”
“Suppose the ship is here because of a shortage of anameson?” asked Pel Lynn, cautiously.
“Then it should have ion planetary charges, they could not have used up everything. As you see the spaceship is in its proper position which means they landed with the planetary motors. We’ll transfer the ion fuel, take off again and go into orbit; then we can call Earth for help and in case of success that won’t take more than eight years. And if we can get anameson, then we shall have won out.” “Maybe they have photon and not ion charges for their planetary motors,” said one of the engineers.
“We can make use of them in the big motors if we fit them with auxiliary bowl reflectors.”
“I see you’ve thought of everything.,” said the engineer, giving in.
“There is still the risk of landing on a heavy planet and the risk of living there,” muttered Pour Hyss. “It’s awful just to think of that world of darkness!”
“The risk, of course, remains. But there is risk in our very situation and we shall hardly increase it by landing. The planet on which our spaceship will land is not a bad one as long as we do not damage the sh
ip.”
Erg Noor cast a glance at the dial of the speed regulator and walked swiftly to the control desk. For a whole minute he stood in front of the levers and vernier scales of the controls. The fingers of his big hands moved as though they were selecting chords on some musical instrument, his back was bent and his face turned to stone.
Nisa Creet went up to him, boldly took his right hand and pressed the palm to her smooth cheek, hot from excitement. Erg Noor nodded in gratitude, stroked the girl’s mass of hair and straightened himself up.
“We are entering the lower layers of the atmosphere to land,” he said loudly, switching on the warning siren. The howl carried throughout the ship and the crew hurried to strap themselves into hydraulic floating scats.
Erg Noor dropped into the soft embrace of the landing chair that rose up from the floor before the control desk. Then came the heavy strokes of the planetary engines and the spaceship rushed down, howling, towards the cliffs and oceans of the unknown planet.
The locators and the infrared reflectors felt their way through the primordial darkness below, red lights glowed on the altimeter scales at 15,000 metres. It was not anticipated that there would be mountains much over 10,000 metres high on the planet where water and the heat of the black sun had been working to level out the surface as was the case on Earth.
The first revolution round the planet revealed no mountains, only insignificant heights, little bigger than those of Mars. It looked as though the activity of the internal forces that gave rise to mountains had ceased or had been checked.
Erg Noor placed the altitude governor at 2,000 metres and switched on the powerful searchlights. A huge ocean stretched below the spaceship, an ocean of horror, an unbroken mass of black waves that rose and fell over unfathomable depths.
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