In the United States, some two-hundred-odd light-years away, it happened
to be Tuesday. On this Tuesday, the broadcast from the stars was
sponsored by Harvey's, the national men's clothing chain. Harvey's
advertising department preferred discussion-type shows, because
differences of opinion in the shows proper led so neatly into their
tag-line. "You can disagree about anything but the quality of a Harvey
suit! That's Superb!"
Therefore the broadcast after the landing of the ship on the volcanic
planet was partly commercial, and partly pictures and reports from the
Spaceways expedition, and partly queries and comments by big-name
individuals on Earth. Inevitably there was Dabney. And Dabney was
neurotic.
He did his best to make a shambles of everything.
The show started promptly enough at the beginning. There was a
two-minute film-strip of business-suited puppets marching row on row,
indicating the enormous popularity of Harvey's suits. Then a fast minute
hill-billy puppet-show about two feuding mountaineers who found they
couldn't possibly retain their enmity when they found themselves in
agreement on the quality of Harvey suits. "That's Superb!" The
commercial ended with a choral dance of madly enthusiastic miniature
figures, dancing while they lustily sang the theme-song, "You can
disagree, yes siree, you can disagree, About anything, indeed
everything, you and me, But you can't, no you can't disagree, About the
strictly super, extra super, Qualitee of a Har-ve-e-e-e suit! That's
superb!"
And thereupon the television audience of several continents saw the
faded-in image of mankind's first starship, poised upon its landing-fins
among trees more splendid than even television shows had ever pictured
before. The camera panned slowly, and showed such open spaces as very
few humans had ever seen unencumbered by buildings, and mountains of a
grandeur difficult for most people to believe in.
The scene cut to the space-ship's control-room and Al the pilot acted
briskly as the leader of an exploration-party just returned--though he
actually hadn't left the ship. He introduced Jamison, wearing improvised
leggings and other trappings appropriate to an explorer in wilderness.
Jamison began to extrapolate from his observations out the control-room
port, adding film-clips for authority.
Smoothly and hypnotically, he pictured the valley as the ship descended
the last few thousand feet, and told of the human colony to be founded
in this vast and hospitable area just explored. Mountainside hotels for
star-tourists would look down upon a scene of tranquility and cozy
spaciousness. This would be the first human outpost in the stars. In the
other valleys of this magnificent world there would be pasture-lands,
and humankind would again begin to regard meat as a normal and
not-extravagant part of its diet--on this planet, certainly! There were
minerals beyond doubt, and water-power. The estimate was that at least
the equivalent of the Asian continent had been made available for human
occupation. And this splendid addition to the resources of humanity ...
The second commercial cut Jamison off. Naturally. The sponsor was paying
for time. So for Jamison was substituted the other fiction about the
poor young man who found himself envied by the board of directors of the
firm which employed him. His impeccable attire caused him to be promoted
to vice-president without any question of whether or not he could fill
the job. Because, of course, he wore a Harvey suit.
Alicia Keith showed herself on the screen and gave the woman's viewpoint
as written about by Bell. She talked pleasantly about how it felt to
move about on a planet never before trodden by human beings. She was
interrupted by the pictured face of the lady editor of Joint Networks'
feminine programs, who asked sweetly:
"Tell me, Alicia, what do you think the attainment of the stars will
mean to the Average American housewife in the immediate future? Right
now?"
Then Dabney came on. His appearance was fitted into the sequence from
Lunar City, and his gestures were extravagant as anybody's gestures will
be where their hands and arms weigh so small a fraction of
Earth-normal.
"I wish," said Dabney impressively, "to congratulate the men who have so
swiftly adapted my discovery of faster-than-light travel to practical
use. I am overwhelmed at having been able to achieve a scientific
triumph which in time will mean that mankind's future stretches
endlessly and splendidly into the future!"
Here there was canned applause. Dabney held up his hand for attention.
He thought. Visibly.
"But," he said urgently, "I admit that I am disturbed by the
precipitancy of the action that has been taken. I feel as if I were like
some powerful djinni giving gifts which the recipients may use without
thought."
More canned applause, inserted because he had given instructions for it
whenever he paused. The communicator-operator at Luna City took pleasure
in following instructions exactly. Dabney held up his hand again. Again
he performed feats of meditation in plain view.
"At the moment," he said anxiously, "as the author of this truly
magnificent achievement, I have to use the same intellect which produced
it, to examine the possibility of its ill-advised use. May not
explorers--who took off without my having examined their plans and
precautions--may not over-hasty users of my gift to humanity do harm?
May they not find bacteria the human body cannot resist? May they not
bring back plagues and epidemics? Have they prepared themselves to use
my discovery only for the benefit of mankind? Or have they been
precipitous? I shall have to apply myself to the devising of methods by
which my discovery--made so that Humanity might attain hitherto
undreamed-of-heights--I shall have to devise means by which it will be
truly a blessing to mankind!"
Dabney, of course, had tasted the limelight. All the world considered
him the greatest scientist of all time--except, of course, the people
who knew something about science. But the first actual voyagers in space
had become immediately greater heroes than himself. It was intolerable
to Dabney to be restricted to taking bows on programs in which they
starred. So he wrote a star part for himself.
The bearded biologist who followed him was to have lectured on the
pictures and reports forwarded to him beforehand. But he could not
ignore so promising a lead to show how much he knew. So he lectured
authoritatively on the danger of extra-terrestrial disease-producing
organisms being introduced on Earth. He painted a lurid picture, quoting
from the history of pre-sanitation epidemics. He wound up with a
specific prophecy of something like the Black Death of the middle ages
as lurking among the stars to decimate humanity. He was a victim of the
well-known authority-trauma which affects some people on television when
they think millions of other people are listening to them. They depart
madly from their scripts to try to say something startling enough to
justify all the attention they're getting.
The broadcast ended with a sentimental live commercial in which a
dazzlingly beautiful girl melted into the arms of the worthy young man
she had previously scorned. She found him irresistible when she noticed
that he was wearing a suit she instantly knew by its quality could only
come from Harvey's.
On the planet of glaciers and volcanoes, Holden fumed.
"Dammit!" he protested. "They talk like we're lepers! Like if we ever
come back we'll be carriers of some monstrous disease that will wipe out
the human race! As a matter of fact, we're no more likely to catch an
extra-terrestrial disease than to catch wry-neck from sick chickens!"
"That broadcast's nothing to worry about," said Cochrane.
"But it is!" insisted Holden. "Dabney and that fool biologist presented
space-travel as a reason for panic! They could have every human being on
Earth scared to death we'll bring back germs and everybody'll die of the
croup!"
Cochrane grinned.
"Good publicity--if we needed it! Actually, they've boosted the show.
From now on every presentation has a dramatic kick it didn't have
before. Now everybody will feel suspense waiting for the next show. Has
Jamison got the Purple Death on the Planet of Smoky Hilltops? Will
darling Alicia Keith break out in green spots next time we watch her on
the air? Has Captain Al of the star-roving space-ship breathed in spores
of the Swelling Fungus? Are the space-travellers doomed? Tune in on our
next broadcast and see! My dear Bill, if we weren't signed up for
sponsors' fees, I'd raise our prices after this trick!"
Holden looked unconvinced. Cochrane said kindly:
"Don't worry! I could turn off the panic tomorrow--as much panic as
there is. Kursten, Kasten, Hopkins and Fallowe had a proposal they set
great store by. They wanted to parcel out a big contest for a name for
mankind's second planet. They had regional sponsors lined up. It would
have been worldwide! Advertisers were drooling over the prospect of
people proposing names for this planet on box-tops! They were planning
five million prize-money--and who'd be afraid of us then? But I turned
it down because we haven't got a helicopter. We couldn't stage enough
different shows from this planet to keep it going the minimum six weeks
for a contest like that. Instead, we're taking off in a couple of hours.
Jones agrees. The astronomers back home have picked out another Sol-type
star that ought to have planets. We're going to run over and see what
pickings we can find. Not too far--only twenty-some light-years!"
He regarded Holden quizzically to see how the last phases affected him.
Holden didn't notice it.
"A contest--It doesn't make sense!"
"I know it isn't sense!" said Cochrane. "It's public-relations! I'm
beginning to get my self-respect back. I see now that a
space-exploration job is only as good as its public-relations man!"
He went zestfully to find Babs to tell her to leave the communicator-set
and let queries go unanswered as a matter of simple business policy.
The sling which swung out of the airlock now became busy. They had
landed on this planet, and they were going to leave it, and there had
been a minimum of actual contact with its soil. So Jamison took his
leggings--put on for the show--and he and Bell went down to the ground
and foraged through the woods. Jamison carried one of Johnny Simms'
guns, which he regarded with acute suspicion, and Bell carried cameras.
They photographed trees and underbrush, first as atmosphere and then
with fanatic attention to leaves and fruits or flowers. Bell got
pictures of one of the small, furry bipeds that Cochrane and Holden had
spied when Babs was with them. He got a picture of what he believed to
be a spider-web--it was thicker and heavier and huger than any web on
Earth--and rather fearfully looked for the monster that could string
thirty-foot cables as thick as fishing-twine. Then he found that it was
not a snare at all. It was a construction at whose center something
undiscoverable had made a nest, with eggs in it. Some creature had made
an unapproachable home for itself where its young would not be assailed
by predators.
Al, the pilot, went out of the lock and descended to the ground and went
as far as the edge of the ash-ring. But he did not go any farther. He
wandered about unhappily, pretending that he did not want to go into the
woods. He tried to appear quite content to view half-burnt trees for his
experience of the first extra-terrestrial planet on which men had
landed. He did kick up some pebbles--water-rounded--and one of them had
flecks of what looked like gold in it. Al regarded it excitedly, and
then thought of freight-rates. But he did scrabble for more. Presently
he had a pocket-full of small stones which would be regarded with
rapture by his nieces and nephews because they had come from the stars.
Actually, they were quite commonplace minerals. The flecks of what
looked like gold were only iron pyrates.
Jones did not leave the ship. He was puttering. Nor Alicia. Holden urged
her to take a walk, and she said quietly:
"Johnny's out with a gun. He's hunting. I don't like to be with Johnny
when he may be disappointed."
She smiled, and Holden sourly went away. There had been no particular
consequences of Johnny Simms' inability to remember what was right and
what was wrong. But Holden felt like a normal man about men whose wives
look patient. Even psychiatrists feel that it is somehow disreputable to
illtreat a woman who doesn't fight back. This attitude is instinctive.
It is what is called the fine, deep-rooted impulse to chivalry which is
one of the prides of modern culture.
Holden settled dourly down at the communicator to get an outgoing call
to Earth, when there were some hundreds of incoming calls backed up. By
sheer obstinacy and bad manners he made it. He got a connection to a
hospital where he was known, and he talked to its bacteriologist. The
bacteriologist was competent, but not yet famous. With Holden giving
honest guesses at the color of the sunlight, and its probable
ultra-violet content, and with careful estimates of the exactness with
which burning vegetation here smelled like Earth-plants, they arrived at
imprecise but common sense conclusions. Of the hundreds of thousands of
possible organic compounds, only so many actually took part in the
life-processes of creatures on Earth. Yet there were hundreds of
thousands of species prepared to make use of anything usable. If the
sunlight and temperature of the two worlds were similar, it was somewhat
more than likely that the same chemical compounds would be used by
living things on both. So that there could be micro-organisms on the
new planet which could be harmful. But on the other hand, either they
would be familiar in the toxins they produced--and human bodies could
resist them--or else they would be new compounds to which humans would
react allergically. Basically, then, if anybody on the ship developed
hives, they had reason to be frightened. But so long as nobody sneezed
or broke out in welts, their lives were probably safe.
This comforting conclusion took a long time to work out. Meanwhile Babs
and Cochrane had swung down to the ground and went hiking. Cochrane was
armed as before, though he had no experience as a marksman. In
television shows he had directed the firing of weapons shooting blank
charges--cut to a minimum so they wouldn't blast the mikes. He knew what
motions to go through, but nothing else.
They did not explore in the same direction as their first excursion. The
ship was to take off presently, as soon as this planet had turned enough
for the space-ship's nose to point nearly in the direction of their next
target. They had two hours for exploration.
They came upon something which lay still across their path, like a great
serpent. Cochrane looked at it startledly. Then he saw that the round,
glistening seeming snake was fastened to the ground by rootlets. It was
a plant which grew like a creeper, absorbing nourishment from a vast
root-area. Somewhere, no doubt, it would rear upward and spread out
leaves to absorb the sun's light. It used, in a way, the principle of
those lateral wells which in dry climates gather water too scarce to
collect in merely vertical holes.
They went on and on, admiring and amazed. All about them were
curiosities of adaptation, freaks of ecological adjustment, marvels of
symbiotic cooperation. A botanist would have swooned with joy at the
material all about. A biologist would have babbled happily. Babs and
Cochrane admired without information. They walked interestedly but
unawed among the unparalleled. Back on Earth they knew as much as most
people about nature--practically nothing at all. Babs had never seen any
wild plants before. She was fascinated by what she saw, and exclaimed at
everything. But she did not realize a fraction of the marvels on which
her eyes rested. On the whole, she survived.
"It's a pity we haven't got a helicopter," Cochrane said regretfully.
"If we could fly around from place to place, and send back pictures ...
We can't do it in the ship ... It would burn more fuel than we've got."
Babs wrinkled her forehead.
"Doctor Holden's badly worried because we can't make as alluring a
picture as he'd like."
Cochrane halted, to watch something which was flat like a disk of
gray-green flesh and which moved slowly out of their path with
disquieting writhing motions. It vanished, and he said:
"Yes. Bill's an honest man, even if he is a psychiatrist. He wants
desperately to do something for the poor devils back home who're so
pitifully frustrated. There are tens of millions of men who can't hope
for anything better than to keep the food and shelter supply intact for
themselves and their families. They can't even pretend to hope for more
than that. There isn't more than so much to go around. But Bill wants to
give them hope. He figures that without hope the world will turn
madhouse in another generation. It will."
"You're trying to do something about that!" said Babs quickly. "Don't
you think you're offering hope to everybody back on Earth?"
"No!" snapped Cochrane. "I'm not trying anything so abstract as
furnishing hope to a frustrated humanity! Nobody can supply an
abstraction! Nobody can accomplish an abstraction! Everything that's
actually done is specific and real! Maybe you can find abstract
qualities in it after it's done, but I'm a practical man! I'm not trying
to produce an improved psychological climate, suitable for debilitated
psychos! I'm trying to get a job done!"
"I've wondered," admitted Babs, "what the job is."
Cochrane grimaced.
"You wouldn't believe it, Babs."
There was an odd quivering underfoot. Trees shook. There was no other
peculiarity anywhere. Nothing fell. No rocks rolled. In a valley among
volcanoes, where the smoke from no less than six cones could be seen at
once, temblors would not do damage. What damage mild shakings could do
would have been done centuries since.
Babs said uneasily:
"That feels--queer, doesn't it?"
Cochrane nodded. But just as he and Babs had never been conditioned to
be afraid of animals, they had been conditioned by air-travel at home
and space-travel to here against alarm at movements of their
surroundings. Temblors were evidently frequent at this place. Trees were
anchored against them as against prevailing winds in exposed situations.
Landslides did not remain poised to fall. Really unstable slopes had
been shaken down long ago.
"I wish we had a helicopter," Cochrane repeated. "The look of the
mountains as we came down, with glaciers between the smoking cones--that
was good show-stuff! We could have held interest here until we worked
that naming contest. We could use the extra capital that would bring in!
As it is, we've got to move on with practically nothing accomplished.
The trouble is that I didn't think we would succeed as we have! Heaven
knows I could have gotten helicopters!"
He helped her up a small steep incline, where rock protruded from a
hillside.
The ground trembled again. Not alarmingly, but Babs' hold of his hand
tightened a little. They continued to climb. They came out atop a small
bare prominence which rose above the forest. Here they could see over
the treetops in a truly extensive view. The mountains all about were
clearly visible. Some were ten and some twenty miles away. Some, still
farther, were barely visible in the thin haze of distance. But there was
a thick pall of smoke hovering about one of the farthest. It was
mushroom-shaped. At one time in human history, it would have seemed
typically a volcanic cloud. To Cochrane and Babs, it was typically the
cloud of an atomic explosion.
The ground shook sharply underfoot. Babs staggered.
Flying things rose from the forests in swarms. They hovered and darted
and flapped above the tree-tops. Temblors did not alarm the creatures of
the valley. But ground-shocks like this last were another matter.
A great tree, rearing above its fellows, toppled slowly. With ripping,
tearing noises, it bent sedately toward the smoking, far-away mountain.
It crashed thunderously down upon smaller trees. There were other
rending noises. The flying things rose higher, seeming agitated. Echoes
sounded in the ears of the two atop the hill.
There was another sharp shock. Babs gave a little, inarticulate cry. She
pointed.
There was much smoke in the distance. Over the far-away cone, which was
indistinct in the smoke of its own making--over the edge of the distant
mountains a glare appeared. It was a thin line of bright white light.
With infinite deliberation it began to creep down the slanting,
blessedly remote mountainside.
The ground seemed to shift abruptly, and then shift back. Across and
down the valley, five miles away, a portion of the stony wall detached
itself and slid downward in seeming slow motion. Two more great trees
made ripping sounds. One crashed. There was an enormous darkness above
one part of the sky. Its under side glowed from fires as of hell, in the
crater beneath it. There were sparkings above the mountaintop.
Very oddly indeed, the sky overhead was peacefully blue. But at the
horizon a sheet of fire rolled down mile-long slopes. It seemed to move
with infinite deliberation, but to move visibly at such a distance it
must have been traveling like an express-train. It must have been
unthinkably hot, glaring-white molten stone, thin as water, pouring
downward in a flood of fire.
There was no longer a sensation of the ground trembling underfoot. Now
the noticeable sensation was when the ground was still. Temblors were
practically continuous. There were distinct sharp impacts, as of violent
blows nearby.
Babs stared, fascinated. She glanced up at Cochrane. His skin was white.
There were beads of sweat on his forehead.
"We're safe here, aren't we?" she asked, scared.
"I think so. But I'm not going to take you through falling trees while
this is going on! There's another tree down! I'm worrying about the
ship! If it topples--."
She looked at the nose of the space-ship, gleaming silver metal, rising
from the trees about the landing-spot it had burned clear. A third of
its length was visible.
"If it topples," said Cochrane, "we'll never be able to take off. It has
to point up to lift."
Babs looked from the ship to him, and back again. Then her eyes went
fearfully to the remote mountain. Rumblings came from it now. They were
not loud. They were hardly more than dull growlings, at the lower limit
of audible pitch. They were like faint and distant thunder. There were
flashings like lightning in the cloud which now enveloped the mountain's
top.
Cochrane made an indescribable small sound. He stared at the ship. As
explosion-waves passed over the ground, a faint, unanimous movement of
the treetops became visible. It seemed to Cochrane that the space-ship
wavered as if about to fall from its upright position.
It was not designed to stand such violence as a fall would imply. Its
hull would be dented or rent. It was at least possible that its
fuel-store would detonate. But even if its fall were checked by
still-standing trees about it, it could never take off again. The eight
humans of its company could never juggle it back to a vertical position.
Rocket-thrust would merely push it in the direction its nose pointed.
Toppled, its rocket-thrust would merely shove it blindly over stones and
trees and to destruction.
The ship swayed again. Visibly. Ground-waves made its weight have the
effect of blows. Part of its foundation rested on almost-visible stone,
only feet below the ground-level. But one of the landing-fins rested on
humus. As the shocks passed, that fin-foot sank into the soft soil. The
space-ship leaned perceptibly.
Flying creatures darted back and forth above the tree-tops. Miles away,
insensate violence reigned. Clouds of dust and smoke shot miles into the
air, and half a mountainside glowed white-hot, and there was the sound
of long-continued thunder, and the ground shook and quivered....
There were movements nearby. A creature with yellow fur and the shape of
a bear with huge ears came padding out of the forest. It swarmed up the
bare stone of the hill on which Babs and Cochrane stood.
It ignored them. Halfway up the unwooded part of the hill, it stopped
and made plaintive, high-pitched noises. Other creatures came. Many had
come while the man and girl were too absorbed to notice. Now two more of
the large animals came out into the open and climbed the hill.
Babs said shakily:
"Do you--think they'll--do you think--"
There was a nearer roaring. The space-ship leaned, and leaned....
Cochrane's lips tensed.
The space-ship's rockets bellowed and a storm of hurtling smoke flashed
up around it. It lifted, staggering as its steering-jets tried
frantically to swing its lower parts underneath its mass. It lurched
violently, and the rockets flamed terribly. It lifted again. Its tail
was higher than the trees, but it did not point straight up. It surged
horribly across the top of the forest, leaving a vast flash of flaming
vegetation behind it. Then it steadied, and aimed skyward and
climbed....
Then it was not. Obviously the Dabney field booster had been flashed on
to get the ship out to space. The ship had vanished into emptiness.
The Dabney field had flicked it some hundred and seventy-odd light-years
from Earth's moon in the flicker of a heart-beat. It might have gone
that far again. Whoever was in it had had no choice but to take off, and
no way to take off without suicidal use of fuel in any other way.
Cochrane looked at where the ship had vanished. Seconds passed. There
came the thunderclap of air closing the vacuum the ship's disappearance
had left.
There were squealings behind the pair on the hilltop. Eight of the huge
yellow beasts were out in the open, now. Tiny, furry biped animals
waddled desperately to get out of their way. Smaller creatures scuttled
here and there. A sinuous creature with fur but no apparent legs writhed
its way upward. But all the creatures were frightened. They observed an
absolute truce, under the overmastering greater fear of nature.
Far away, the volcano on the skyline boomed and flashed and emitted
monstrous clouds of smoke. The shining, incandescent lava on its flanks
glared across the glaciers.
Babs gasped suddenly. She realized the situation in which she and
Cochrane had been left.
Shivering, she pressed close to him as the distant black smoke-cloud
spread toward the center of the sky.