"Bye, Sherri." He cut the connection, watched the girl's face melt away
into a rainbow-colored diamond of light, and turned away. There were a
lot of things to do before he would be ready to leave Earth for an
interstellar tour of duty.
He wondered briefly as he started to pack just what was going on. There
was usually much more notice on any big jump of this order. Something
special was up, he thought, as he dragged his duffle-bag out of the
closet.
* * * * *
He was at the briefing room at 2158 on the nose. The Interstellar
Exploration Service didn't much go for tardiness, but they didn't pay
extra if you got there a half-hour early. Captain Peter Wayne made it a
point of being at any appointment two minutes early--no more, no less.
The room was starting to fill up, with men and women Wayne knew well,
had worked with on other expeditions, had lived with since he'd joined
the IES. They looked just as puzzled as he probably did, he saw; they
knew they were being called in on something big, and in the IES big
meant _big_.
At precisely 2200, Lieutenant General Scarborough emerged from the inner
office, strode briskly up the aisle of the briefing room, and took his
customary stance on the platform in front. His face looked stern, and he
held his hands clasped behind his back. His royal blue uniform was neat
and trim. Over his head, the second hand of the big clock whirled
endlessly. In the silence of the briefing room, it seemed to be ticking
much too loudly.
The general nodded curtly and said, "Some of you are probably wondering
why the order to report here wasn't more specific. There are two reasons
for that. In the first place, we have reason to believe that we have
found a substantial deposit of double-nucleus beryllium."
There was a murmur of sound in the briefing room. Wayne felt his heart
starting to pound; D-N beryllium _was_ big. So big that a whole fleet of
IES ships did nothing but search the galaxy for it, full time.
"Naturally," the general continued, "we don't want any of this
information to leak out, just in case it should prove false. The
prospect of enough D-N beryllium to make fusion power really cheap could
cause a panic if we didn't handle it properly. The Economics Board has
warned us that we'll have to proceed carefully if there actually is a
big deposit on this planet."
Captain Wayne stared uneasily at Sherri James, who frowned and chewed
her lip. To his left, a short, stubby private named Manetti murmured
worriedly, "That means trouble. D-N beryllium always means trouble.
There's a catch somewhere."
General Scarborough, on the platform, said, "There's a second reason for
secrecy. I think it can better be explained by a man who has the
evidence first-hand."
He paused and looked around the room. "Four weeks ago, the Scout Ship
_Mavis_ came back from Fomalhaut V." There was a dead silence in the
briefing room.
"Lieutenant Jervis, will you tell the crew exactly what happened on
Fomalhaut V?"
* * * * *
Lieutenant Jervis stepped forward and took his place on the platform. He
was small and wiry, with a hawk nose and piercingly intense eyes. He
cleared his throat and smiled a little sheepishly.
"I've told this story so many times that it doesn't even sound real to
me any more. I've told it to the Supreme Senate Space Committee, to half
the top brass in the IES, and to a Board of Physicians from the Medical
Department.
"As well as I can remember it, it goes something like this."
Laughter rippled through the room.
"We orbited around Fomalhaut V for a Scouting Survey," Jervis said. "The
planet is hot and rocky, but it has a breathable atmosphere. The
detectors showed various kinds of metals in the crust, some of them in
commercially feasible concentration. But the crust is so mountainous and
rocky that there aren't very many places to land a ship.
"Then we picked up the double-nucleus beryllium deposit on our
detectors. Nearby, there was a small, fairly level valley, so we brought
the ship down for a closer check. We wanted to make absolutely positive
that it was double-nucleus beryllium before we made our report."
He paused, as if arranging the story he wanted to tell in his mind, and
went on. "The D-N beryllium deposit lies at the top of a fairly low
mountain about five miles from the valley. We triangulated it first, and
then we decided we ought to send up a party to get samples of the ore if
it were at all possible.
"I was chosen to go, along with another member of the crew, a man named
Lee Bellows. We left the ship at about five in the morning, and spent
most of the day climbing up to the spot where we had detected the
beryllium. We couldn't get a sample; the main deposit is located several
feet beneath the surface of the mountaintop, and the mountain is too
rough and rocky to climb without special equipment. We got less than
halfway before we had to stop."
Wayne felt Sherri nudge him, and turned to nod. He knew what she was
thinking. This was where he came in; it was a job that called for a
specialist, a trained mountaineer--such as Captain Peter Wayne. He
frowned and turned his attention back to the man on the platform.
* * * * *
"We made all the readings we could," Jervis continued. "Then we headed
back to our temporary base."
His face looked troubled. "When we got back, every man at the base was
dead."
Silence in the room. Complete, utter, deafening silence.
"There were only nine of us in the ship," Jervis said. He was obviously
still greatly affected by whatever had taken place on Fomalhaut V. "With
seven of us dead, that left only Bellows and myself. We couldn't find
out what had killed them. They were lying scattered over the valley
floor for several yards around the ship. They looked as though they had
suddenly dropped dead at whatever they were doing."
Peter Wayne made use of his extra few inches of height to glance around
the briefing room. He saw row on row of tense faces--faces that
reflected the same emotions he was feeling. Space exploration was
something still new and mostly unknown, and even the experienced men of
IES still knew fear occasionally. The galaxy was a big place; unknown
terrors lurked on planets unimaginably distant. Every now and then,
something like this would come up--something to give you pause, before
you ventured into space again.
"We couldn't find out what had killed them," Jervis said again. "They
were lying scattered every which way, with no clues at all." The small
man's fingers were trembling from relived fright. "Bellows and I were
pretty scared, I'll have to admit. We couldn't find a sign of what had
killed the men--they'd just--just _died_."
There was a quiver in his voice. It was obvious he could never take the
story lightly, no matter how many times he had to tell it.
Wayne heard Private Manetti mutter, "There's always a price for D-N
beryllium."
"The Scout Ship hadn't been molested," Jervis went on. "I went inside
and checked it over. It was untouched, undisturbed in every way. I
checked the control panel, the cabins, everything. All unbothered. The
ship was empty and dead. And--outside--
"When I came out, Bellows was dead too." He took a deep breath. "I'm
afraid I panicked then. I locked myself inside the ship, set the
autocontrols, and headed back to Earth at top velocity. I set the ship
in an orbit around the moon and notified headquarters. I was quarantined
immediately, of course, to make sure I wasn't carrying anything. The
medics checked me over carefully. I wasn't and am not now carrying any
virus or bacteria unknown to Terrestrial medicine.
"Since I'm the only one who knows exactly where this valley is, the
general has asked me to guide the _Lord Nelson_ to the exact spot.
Actually, it could be found eventually with the D-N beryllium as a
guide. But the _Mavis_ was in orbit around Fomalhaut V for two weeks
before we found the D-N beryllium deposit, and the Service feels that we
shouldn't waste any time."
The lieutenant sat down, and General Scarborough resumed his place on
the platform.
* * * * *
"That's the situation," Scarborough said bluntly. "You know the setup,
now--and I think some of you see how your specialities are going to fit
into the operation. As Lieutenant Jervis pointed out, we don't know what
killed the crew of the _Mavis_; therefore, we are going to take every
possible precaution. As far as we know, there are no inimical life forms
on Fomalhaut V--but it's possible that there are things we don't know
about, such as airborne viruses that kill in a very short time. If so,
then Lieutenant Jervis is immune to the virus and is not a transmitter
or carrier of it.
"However, to guard against such a possibility, no one will leave the
_Lord Nelson_, once it has landed, without wearing a spacesuit. The air
is breathable, but we're taking no chances. Also, no one will go out
alone; scouting parties will always be in pairs, with wide open
communication with the ship. And at no time will more than ten percent
of the ship's company be outside at any one time."
Wayne made a rough mental computation. _The_ Lord Nelson _holds sixty.
That means no more than six out at any single time. They really must be
worried._
"Aside from those orders, which were decided on by the Service Command,
you'll be under the direct orders of Colonel Nels Petersen. Colonel
Petersen."
Petersen was a tall, hard-faced man with a touch of gray at his temples.
He stepped forward and stared intently at the assembled crew.
* * * * *
"Our job is to make the preliminary preparations for getting D-N
beryllium out of the crust of Fomalhaut V. We're supposed to stay alive
while we do it. Therefore, our secondary job is to find out what it was
that killed the scouting expedition of the _Mavis_. There are sixty of
us going aboard the _Lord Nelson_ tomorrow, and I'd like to have sixty
aboard when we come back. Got that?"
He leaned forward, stretched upward on his toes, and smiled
mechanically. "Fine. Now, you all know your jobs, but we're going to
have to work together as a team. We're going to have to correlate our
work so that we'll know what we're doing. So don't think we won't have
anything to do during the two weeks it will take us to get to Fomalhaut
V. We're going to work it as though it were a shakedown cruise. If
anyone doesn't work out, he'll be replaced, even if we have to turn
around and come back to Earth. On a planet which has wiped out a whole
scouting expedition, we can't afford to have any slip-ups. And that
means we can't afford to have anyone aboard who doesn't know what he's
doing or doesn't care. Is that clear?"
It was.
"All right," said the colonel. "Let's go out and get acquainted with the
_Lord Nelson_."
* * * * *
The briefing session broke up well past midnight, and the group that
shortly would become the crew of the _Lord Nelson_ filtered out of the
building and into the cool spring air. Each man had a fairly good idea
of his job and each man knew the dangers involved. No one had backed
out.
"What d'ye think of it, Pete?" Sherri James asked, as they left
together. "Sounds pretty mean."
"I wish we knew what the answers were beforehand," Wayne said. He
glanced down at Sherri. The moon was full, and its rays glinted brightly
off her golden hair. "It's a risky deal, as Petersen said. Nine men go
out, and eight die--of what? Just dead, that's all."
"It's the way the game goes," Sherri said. "You knew that when you
joined the corps." They turned down the main road of the IES compound
and headed for the snack bar.
Wayne nodded. "I know, kid. It's a job, and it has to be done. But
nobody likes to walk into an empty planet like that knowing that eight
of the last nine guys who did didn't come back."
He put his arm around her and they entered the snack bar that way. Most
of the other crew-members were there already; Wayne sensed the
heightening tenseness on their faces.
"Two nuclear fizzes," he said to the pfc at the bar. "With all the
trimmings."
"What's the matter, Captain?" said a balding, potbellied major a few
stools down, who was nursing a beer. "How come the soft drinks tonight,
Wayne?"
Peter grinned. "I'm in training, Major Osborne. Gotta kill the evil
green horde from Rigel Seven, and I don't dare drink anything stronger
than sarsaparilla."
"How about the amazon, then?" Osborne said, gesturing at Sherri. "Her
too?"
"Me too," Sherri said.
Osborne stared at his beer. "You two must be in Scarborough's new
project, then." He squinted at Peter, who nodded almost imperceptibly.
"You'll need luck," Osborne said.
"No we won't," Wayne said. "Not luck. We'll need more than just luck to
pull us through."
The nuclear fizzes arrived. He began to sip it quietly. A few more
members of the crew entered the snack bar. Their faces were drawn
tensely.
He guzzled the drink and looked up at Sherri, who was sucking down the
last of the soda. "Let's get going, Lieutenant James. The noncoms are
coming, and we don't want them to make nasty remarks about us."
* * * * *
The _Lord Nelson_ blasted off the next evening, after a frenzied day of
hurried preparations. The crew of sixty filed solemnly aboard, Colonel
Petersen last, and the great hatch swung closed.
There was the usual routine loudspeaker-business while everyone quickly
and efficiently strapped into his acceleration cradle, and then the ship
leaped skyward. It climbed rapidly, broke free of Earth's grasp, and,
out past the moon, abruptly winked out of normal space into overdrive.
It would spend the next two weeks in hyperspace, short-cutting across
the galaxy to Fomalhaut V.
It was a busy two weeks for everyone involved. Captain Peter Wayne, as a
central part of the team, spent much of his time planning his attack.
His job would be the actual climbing of the mountain where the
double-nucleus beryllium was located. It wasn't going to be an easy job;
the terrain was rough, the wind, according to Jervis, whipped ragingly
through the hills, and the jagged peaks thrust into the air like the
teeth of some mythical dragon.
Study of the three-dimensional aerial photographs taken from the _Mavis_
showed that the best route was probably up through one end of the
valley, through a narrow pass that led around the mountain, and up the
west slope, which appeared to offer better handholds and was less
perpendicular than the other sides of the mountain.
This time, the expedition would have the equipment to make the climb.
There were ropes, picks, and crampons, and sets of metamagnetic boots
and grapples. With metamagnetic boots, Wayne thought, they'd be able to
walk up the side of the mountain almost as easily as if it were flat.
He studied the thick, heavy soles of the boots for a moment, then set to
work polishing. Wayne liked to keep his boots mirror-bright; it wasn't
required, but it was a habit of his nonetheless.
He set to work vigorously. Everyone aboard the ship was working that
way. Sherri James, who was in charge of the Correlation Section, had
noticed the same thing the day before. Her job was to co-ordinate all
the information from various members of the expedition, run them through
the computers, and record them. She had been busy since blastoff,
testing the computers, checking and rechecking them, being overly
efficient.
"I know why we're doing it," she said. "It keeps our mind off the end of
the trip. When we spend the whole day working out complicated circuits
for the computers, or polishing mountain boots, or cleaning the jet
tubes, it's just so we don't have to think about Fomalhaut V. It helps
to concentrate on details."
Wayne nodded and said nothing. Sherri was right. There was one thought
in everyone's mind: what was the deadly secret of the valley?
There was another thought, after that:
_Will we find it out in time?_
* * * * *
After two weeks of flight through the vast blackness of interstellar
space, the _Lord Nelson_ came out of overdrive and set itself in an
orbit around Fomalhaut V. Lieutenant Jervis, the sole survivor of the
ill-fated _Mavis_, located the small valley between the giant crags that
covered the planet, and the huge spherical bulk of the spaceship settled
gently to the floor of the valley.
They were gathered in the central room of the ship ten minutes after the
_all-clear_ rang through the corridors, informing everyone that the
landing had been safely accomplished. From the portholes they could see
the white bones of the _Mavis's_ crew lying on the reddish sand of the
valley bottom.
"There they are," Jervis said quietly. "Just bones. Those were my
shipmates."
Wayne saw Sherri repress a shudder. Little heaps of bones lay here and
there on the sand, shining brightly in the hot sun. That was the crew of
the _Mavis_--or what was left of them.
Colonel Petersen entered the room and confronted the crew. "We're here,"
he said. "You know the schedule from now on. No one's to leave the ship
until we've made a check outside, and after that--assuming it's OK to go
out--no more than six are to leave the ship at any one time."
He pointed to a row of metal magnetic tabs clinging to the wall nearest
the corridor that led to the airlock. "When you go out, take one of
those tabs and touch it on your suit. There are exactly six tabs. If
none are there, don't go out. It's as simple as that."
Four men in spacesuits entered the room, followed by two others. The
leader of the group saluted. "We're ready, sir," he said.
"Go out and get a look at the bodies," the colonel told the men, who
were Medical Corpsmen. "You know the procedure. Air and sand samples
too, of course."
The leader saluted again, turned, and left. Wayne watched the six
spacesuited figures step one at a time to the wall, withdraw one of the
metal tabs, and affix it to the outer skin of his suit. Then they went
outside.
Captain Wayne and Sherri James stood by one of the portholes and
watched the six medics as they bent over the corpses outside. "I don't
get it, I just don't understand," Wayne said quietly.
* * * * *
"What don't you get?" Sherri asked.
"Those skeletons. Those men have only been dead for two months, and
they've been reduced to nothing but bones already. Even the fabric of
their clothing is gone. Why? There must be something here that causes
human flesh to deteriorate much faster than normal."
"It does look pretty gruesome," Sherri agreed. "I'm glad we've been
ordered to keep our spacesuits on. I wouldn't want to be exposed to
anything that might be out there."
"I wonder--" Wayne muttered.
"What? What's the matter?"
Wayne pointed to one figure lying on the sand. "See that? What's that
over his head?"
"Why--it's a space helmet!"
"Yeah," said Wayne. "The question is: was he wearing just the helmet, or
the whole suit? If he was wearing the whole suit, we're not going to be
as well protected as we thought, even with our fancy suits."
Fifteen minutes passed slowly before the medics returned, and five
minutes more before they had passed through the decontamination chambers
and were allowed into the ship proper. A ring of tense faces surrounded
them as they made their report.
* * * * *
The leader, a tall, bespectacled doctor named Stevelman, was the
spokesman. He shrugged when Colonel Petersen put forth the question
whose answer everyone waited for.
"I don't know," the medic replied. "I don't know what killed them.
There's dry bones out there, but no sign of anything that might have
done it. It's pretty hard to make a quick diagnosis on a skeleton,
Colonel."
"What about the one skeleton with the bubble helmet?" Peter Wayne asked.
"Did you see any sign of a full suit on him?"