Gresth Gkae, Commander of Expeditionary Force 93, of the Planet Sthor,
was returning homeward with joyful mind. In the lock of his great ship,
lay the T-247. In her cargo holds lay various items of machinery, mining
supplies, foods, and records. And in her log books lay the records of
many readings on the nine larger planets of a highly satisfactory
planetary system.
Gresth Gkae had spent no less than three ultra-wearing years going from
one sun to another in a definitely mapped out section of space. He had
investigated only eleven stars in that time, eleven stars, progressively
further from the titanic red-flaming sun he knew as "the" sun. He knew
it as "the" sun, and had several other appellations for it. Mira was
so-named by Earthmen because it was indeed a "wonder" star, in Latin,
mirare means "to wonder." Irregularly, and for no apparent reason it
would change its rate of radiation. So far as those inhabitants of Sthor
and her sister world Asthor knew, there was no reason. It just did it.
Perhaps with malicious intent to be annoying. If so, it was
exceptionally successful. Sthor and Asthor experienced, periodically, a
young ice age. When Mira decided to take a rest, Sthor and Asthor froze
up, from the poles most of the way to the equators. Then Mira would
stretch herself a little, move about restlessly and Sthor and Asthor
would become uninhabitably hot, anywhere within twenty degrees of the
equator.
Those Sthorian people had evolved in a way that made the conditions
endurable for savage or uncivilized people, but when a scientific
civilization with a well-ordered mode of existence tried to establish
itself, Mira was all sorts of a nuisance.
Gresth Gkae was a peculiar individual to human ways of thinking. He
stood some seven feet tall, on his strange, double-kneed legs and his
four toed feet. His body was covered with little, short feather-like
things that moved now with a volition of their own. They were moving
very slowly and regularly. The space-ship was heated to a comfortable
temperature, and the little fans were helping to cool Gresth Gkae. Had
it been cold, every little feather would have lain down close against
its neighbors, forming an admirable, wind-proof and cold-proof blanket.
Nature, on Sthor, had original ideas of arrangement too. Sthorians
possessed two eyes--one directly above the other, in the center of their
faces. The face was so long, and narrow, it resembled a blunt hatchet,
with the two eyes on the edge. To counter-balance this vertical
arrangement of the eyes, the nostrils had been separated some four
inches, with one on each of the sloping cheeks. His ears were little
pink-flesh cups on short, muscular stems. His mouth was narrow, and
small, but armed with quite solid teeth adapted to his diet, a diet
consisting of almost anything any creature had ever considered edible.
Like most successful forms of intelligent life, Gresth Gkae was
omnivorous. An intelligent form of life is necessarily adaptable, and
adaptation meant being able to eat what was at hand.
One of his eyes, the upper one, was fully twice the size of the lower
one. This was his telescopic eye. The lower, or microscopic eye was
adapted to work for which a human being would have required a low power
microscope, the upper eye possessed a more normal power of vision,
_plus_ considerable telescopic powers.
Gresth Gkae was using it now to look ahead in the blank of space to
where gigantic Mira appeared. On his screens now, Mira appeared deep
violet, for he was approaching at a speed greater than that of light,
and even this projected light of Mira was badly distorted.
"The distance is half a light-year now, sir," reported the navigation
officer.
"Reduce the speed, then, to normal velocity for these ranges. What
reserve of fuel have we?"
"Less than one thousand pounds. We will barely be able to stop. We were
too free in the use of our weapons, I fear," replied the Chief
Technician.
"Well, what would you? We needed those things in our reports. Besides,
we could extract fuel from that ore we took on at Planet Nine of Phahlo.
It is merely that I wish speed in the return."
"As we all do. How soon do you believe the Council will proceed against
the new system?"
"It will be fully a year, I fear. They must gather the expeditions
together, and re-equip the ships. It will be a long time before all will
have come in."
"Could they not send fast ships after them to recall them?"
"Could they have traced us as we wove our way from Thart to Karst to
Raloork to Phahlo? It would be impossible."
* * * * *
Steadily the great ship had been boring on her way. Mira had been a disc
for nearly two days, gigantic, two-hundred-and-fifty-million-mile Mira
took a great deal of dwarfing by distance to lose her disc. Even at the
Twin Planets, eight thousand two hundred and fifty millions of miles
out, Mira covered half the sky, it seemed, red and angry. Sometimes,
though, to the disgust of the Sthorians it was just red-faced and lazy.
Then Sthor froze.
"Grih is in a descendant stage," said the navigation officer presently.
"Sthor will be cold when we arrive."
"It will warm quickly enough with our news!" Gresth laughed. "A
system--a delightful system--discovered. A system of many close-grouped
planets. Why think--from one side of that system to the other is less of
a distance than from Ansthat, our first planet's orbit, to Insthor's
orbit! That sun, as we know, is steady and warm. All will be well, when
we have eliminated that rather peculiar race. Odd, that they should, in
some ways, be so nearly like us! Nearly Sthorian in build. I would not
have expected it. Though they did have some amazing peculiarities!
Imagine--two eyes just alike, and in a horizontal row. And that flat
face. They looked as though they had suffered some accident that smashed
the front of the face in. And also the peculiar beak-like projection.
Why should a race ever develop so amazing a projection in so peculiar
and exposed a position? It sticks out inviting attack and injury. Right
in the middle of the face. And to make it worse, there is the
air-channel, and the only air channel. Why, one minor injury to the
throat would be certain to damage that passage beyond repair, and bring
death. Yet such relatively unimportant things as ears, and eyes are
doubled. Surely you would expect that so important a member as the
air-passage would be doubled for safety.
"Those strange, awkward arms and legs were what puzzled me. I have been
attempting to manipulate myself as they must be forced to, and I cannot
see how delicate or accurate manual manipulation would be possible with
those rigid, inflexible arms. In some ways I feel they must have had
clever minds to overcome so great a handicap to constructive work. But I
suppose single joints in the arms become as natural to them as our own
more mobile two.
"I wonder if life in any intelligent form wouldn't develop somewhat
similar formations, though. Think, in all parts of Sthor, before men
became civilized and developed communication, even so much as twenty
thousand years ago, our records show that seats and chairs were much as
they are today, and much as they are, in all places among all groups.
Then too, the eye has developed in many different species, and always
reached much the same structure. When a thing is intended and developed
to serve a given purpose, no matter who develops it, or where or how, is
it not apt to have similar shapes and parts? A chair must have legs, and
a seat and arm-rests and a back. You may vary their nature and their
shape, but not widely, and they must be there. An eye must, anywhere,
have a sensitive retina, an adjustable lens, and an adjustable device
for controlling the entrance of light. Similarly there are certain
functions that the body of an intelligent creature must serve which
naturally tend to make intelligent creatures similar. He must have a
tool--the hand--"
"Yes, yes--I see your point. It must be so, for surely these creatures
out there are strange enough in other ways."
"But tell me, have you calculated when we shall land?"
"In twelve hours, thirty-three minutes, sir."
Eleven hours later, the expedition ship had slowed to a normal
space-speed. On her left hung the giant globe of Asthor, rotating
slowly, moving slowly in her orbit. Directly ahead, Sthor loomed even
greater. Tiny Teelan, the thousand-mile diameter moon of the Insthor
system shone dull red in the reflected light of gigantic Mira. Mira
herself was gigantic, red and menacing across eight and a quarter
billions of miles of space.
One hundred thousand miles apart, the twin worlds Sthor and Asthor
rotated about their common center of gravity, eternally facing each
other. Ten million miles from their common center of gravity, Teelan
rotated in a vast orbit.
Sthor and Asthor were capped at each pole now by gigantic white icecaps.
Mira was sulking, and as a consequence the planets were freezing.
The expedition ship sank slowly toward Sthor. A swarm of smaller craft
had flown up at its approach to meet it. A gaily-colored small ship
marked the official greeting-ship. Gresth had withheld his news
purposely. Now suddenly he began broadcasting it from the powerful
transmitter on his ship. As the words came through on a thousand sets,
all the little ships began to whirl, dance and break out into glowing,
sparkling lights. On Sthor and Asthor even commotions began to be
visible. A new planetary system had been found-- They could move! Their
overflowing populations could be spread out!
The whole Insthor system went mad with delight as the great
Expeditionary Ship settled downward.