"I've gone around three or four times trying to slow down. We're there,
and there's a planet to land on."
* * * * *
At last I could see. Out the window opposite me, Rigel was a blue-white
disk half the size of the sun, but brighter, with the companion star a
sort of faint reflection five or ten degrees to the side. And still
beyond, as I shaded my eyes, I could see swimming in the black a speck
with the unmistakable glow of reflected light.
With both gravity projectors in readiness, we pulled out of our orbit
and straight across toward the planet, letting the attraction of Rigel
fight against our still tremendous speed. For a while, the pull of the
big star was almost overpowering. Then we got past, and into the
gravitational field of the planet. We spiralled down around it, looking
for a landing place and trying to match our speed with its rotational
velocity.
From rather unreliable observations, the planet seemed a good deal
smaller than the moon, and yet so dense as to have a greater
gravitational attraction. The atmosphere was cloudless, and the surface
a forbidding expanse of sand. The globe whirled at a rate that must give
it a day of approximately five hours. We angled down, picking a spot
just within the lighted area.
A landing was quite feasible. As we broke through the atmosphere, we
could see that the sand, although blotched with dark patches here and
there, was comparatively smooth. At one place there was a level
outcropping of rock, and over this we hung. It was hard work, watching
through the single small port in the floor as we settled down. Finally
the view was too small to be of any use. I ran to the side window, only
to find my eyes blinded by Rigel's blaze. Then we had landed, and almost
at the same moment Rigel set. Half overlapped by the greater star, the
faint companion had been hidden in its glare. Now, in the dusk, a corner
of it hung ghostlike on the horizon, and then too had disappeared.
* * * * *
I flashed on our lights, while Garth cut out the projector and the floor
gravity machine. The increase in weight was apparent, but not
particularly unpleasant. After a few minutes of walking up and down I
got used to it.
Through a stop-cock in the wall, Garth had drawn in a tube of gas from
the atmosphere outside, and was analyzing it with a spectroscope.
"We can go out," he said. "It's unbreathable, but we'll be able to use
the space suits. Mostly fluorine. It would eat your lungs out like
that!"
"And the suits?"
"Fortunately, they've been covered with helio-beryllium paint, and the
helmet glass is the same stuff. Not even that atmosphere can touch it. I
suppose there can be no life on the place. With all this sand, it would
have to be based on silicon instead of carbon--and it would have to
breathe fluorine!"
He got out the suits--rather like a diver's with the body of
metal-painted cloth, and the helmet of the metal itself. On the
shoulders was an air supply cylinder. The helmets were fixed with radio,
so we could have talked to each other even in airless space. We said
almost anything to try it out.
"Glad you brought two, and we don't have to explore in shifts."
"Yes, I was prepared for emergencies."
"Shall we wait for daylight to go out?"
"I can't see why. And these outfits will probably feel better in the
cool. Let's see."
* * * * *
We shot a searchlight beam out the window. There was a slight drop down
from the rock where we rested, then the sandy plain stretching out. Only
far off were those dark patches that looked like old seaweed on a
dried-up ocean bed, and might prove dangerous footing. The rest seemed
hard packed.
My heart was pounding as we went into the air-lock and fastened the
inner door behind us.
"We go straight out now," Garth explained. "Coming back, it will be
necessary to press this button and let the pump get rid of the
poisonous, air before going in."
I opened the outer door and started to step out, then realized that
there was a five-foot drop to the ground.
"Go ahead and jump," Garth said. "There's a ladder inside I should have
brought, but it would be too much trouble to go back through the lock
for it. Either of us can jump eight feet at home, and we'll get back up
somehow."
I jumped, failing to allow for the slightly greater gravity, and fell
sprawling. Garth got down more successfully, in spite of a long package
of some sort he carried in his hand.
Scrambling down from the cliff and walking out on the sand, I tried to
get used to the combination of greater weight and the awkward suit. If I
stepped very deliberately it was all right, but an attempt to run sank
my feet in the sand and brought me up staggering. There was no trouble
seeing through the glass of my helmet over wide angles. Standing on the
elevation by the _Comet_, his space-suit shining in the light from the
windows, Garth looked like a metallic monster, some creature of this
strange world. And I must have presented to him much the same
appearance, silhouetted dark and forbidding against the stars.
* * * * *
The stars! I looked up, and beheld the most marvelous sight of the whole
trip--the Great Nebula of Orion seen from a distance of less than one
hundred and fifty light-years its own width.
A great luminous curtain, fifty degrees across, I could just take it all
in with my eye. The central brilliancy as big as the sun, a smaller one
above it, and then the whole mass of gas stretching over the sky. The
whole thing aglow with the green light of nebulium and blazing with the
stars behind it. It was stupendous, beyond words.
I started to call Garth, then saw that he was looking up as well. For
almost half an hour I watched, as the edge of the nebula sank below the
horizon. Then its light began to dim. Turning, I saw that the sky
opposite was already gray. The dawn!
Why, the sun had just set. Then I realized. It was over an hour since we
had landed, and a full night would be scarcely two hours and a half. If
we were in a summer latitude, the shorter period of darkness was natural
enough. And yet it was still hard to believe as, within ten minutes, it
was as bright as Earth-light on the moon. Still clearer and clearer grew
the light. The stars were almost gone, the center of the nebula only a
faint wisp. There were no clouds to give the colors of sunrise, but a
bluish-white radiance seemed to be trembling on the eastern horizon.
And then, like a shot, Rigel came up into the sky. The light and heat
struck me like something solid, and I turned away. Even with my suit
reflecting most of the light away, I felt noticeably warm. The _Comet_
shone like a blinding mirror, so that it was almost impossible to see
Garth on the plain below it. Stumbling, and shielding my eyes with my
hand, I made my way toward him.
He was standing erect, in his hands two old Lunarian dueling swords.
There was hate in his voice as the radio brought it in my ears.
"Dunal, only one of us is going back to the moon."
* * * * *
I stared. Was the heat getting him? "Hadn't we better go inside," I said
quietly and somewhat soothingly.
He made no reply, but only held out one of the hilts. I took it dumbly.
In that instant he could have struck my head from my body, if he wished.
"But, Garth, old friend--"
"No friend to you. You shall win Kelvar now, or I. I'm giving you a
sporting chance. One of your light cuts letting the fluorine inside will
be as deadly as anything I can do. The one who goes back will tell of an
accident, making repairs out in space. Damn you, if you don't want me to
kill you where you stand, come on and fight."
"Garth, you've gone mad."
"I've been waiting ever since I got you to leave the moon. On guard!"
With a rush of anger I was upon him. He tried to step back, stumbled,
had one knee on the ground, then hurled himself forward with a thrust at
my waist that I dodged only by an inch. I had to cover, and in spite of
myself, with the cool work of parrying, my animosity began to disappear.
And so began one of the strangest battles that the Universe has seen.
Lumbering with our suits and the extra gravity, we circled each other
under the blazing sky. The blue-white of Rigel shimmered off our suits
and the arcs of our blades as we cut and guarded--each wary now,
realizing that a touch meant death. As that terrible sun climbed upward
in the sky, its heat was almost overpowering. The sweat poured off every
inch of my body, and I gasped for breath. And still we fought on, two
glittering metal monsters under the big blue star sweeping up to its
noon.
* * * * *
I knew now that I could never kill Garth. I could not go back to Kelvar
with his blood. Yet if I simply defended, sooner or later he would wear
me down. There was just one chance. If I could disarm him, I could
wrestle him into submission. Then he might be reasonable, or I could
take him home bound.
I began leading for the opening I wanted, but with no result. He seemed
resolved to tire me out. Either I must carry the fight to him, or I
would be beaten down. I made a wide opening, counting on dodging his
slow stroke. I did, but he recovered too soon. Again on the other side,
with no better result. Still again, just getting in for a light tap on
Garth's helmet. Then I stepped back, with guard low, and this time he
came on. His sword rose in a gleaming arc and hung high for a moment. I
had him. There were sparks of clashing, locked steel.
"Damn you, Dunal!" He took a great step back, narrowly keeping his
balance on the sand. On another chance, I would trip him. My ears were
almost deafened by his roar, "Come on and _fight_."
I took a step in and to the side, and had him in the sun. He swung
blindly, trying to cover himself with his whirling point but I had half
a dozen openings to rip his suit. When he moved to try to see, I would
lock with him again. I watched his feet.
And as I watched, I saw an incredible thing. Near one of Garth's feet
the sand was moving. It was not a slide caused by his weight;
rather--why, it was being pushed up from below. There was a little hump,
and suddenly it had burst open, and a stringy mass like seaweed was
crawling toward his leg.
"Look out, Garth," I yelled.
* * * * *
How he could see through that terrible sun I do not know, but Garth
swung through my forgotten guard with a blow square across my helmet
glass. The force threw me to the ground, and I looked up, dazed. The
beryllium glass had not broken to let in the fluorine-filled air, but
Garth was standing over me.
"That's your last trick, Dunal." His blade rose for the kill.