_What vast secrets would it hold? What
startling discoveries ... what dire news
would it bring back after twenty lost
years out in deep space? Fearfully men
watched the awesome_ Andromeda
_glide into the Plutonian spaceport_.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories March 1953.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Here the universe was so quiet you could hear space creaking and
groaning from its internal stresses. Here even the far-off stars seemed
to roar like blow torches.
Craig Randall, shivering from the cold of the observatory dome, snapped
shut the holders on the exposed plates, pulled them out and quickly
replaced them with new ones, opened the shutters on the 20-inch scope.
Out here on Pluto a 20-inch telescope did a much better job than a
200-inch scope did on Earth. This was one reason why Earth Government
maintained this station here on a wandering chunk of space-frozen rock.
Plates in hand, he fled into the semi-warmth of the development lab.
Here he developed them, compared them with previous plates, saw there
was no change, and quickly filed them. Then he fled again, this time to
the warmth of human companionship in the big lounge of Pluto Station.
Music from Earth came to him as he entered the room, warm and
throbbing, smells, tobacco smoke, the rattle of a pinball machine, the
riffle of a deck of cards being shuffled. In the lounge, devices to
combat boredom were in operation. As he entered the lounge old Adam
March looked up at him, hope suddenly gleaming in faded blue eyes, to
ask again the same eternal question.
"Anything new on the plates, Craig?" Everytime an astronomer came out
of the observatory, old Adam March asked this question, always with
renewed hope sounding in his voice.