by Alien Planet
As for sights and sounds, there were none. The sight of the blazing stars on their velvet background, so impressive when first seen on the voyage between the earth and Venus, had become a monotony to which I paid no more attention than did Ashembe. We were now long since beyond the system of any sun; there was no remotest possibility of collision with planet or meteor; in fact, we reached the stage where we would have welcomed the spice of danger as a relief from the all-embracing ennui of existence in that circular apartment of seven rooms with its soft lights and eternal sameness.
All things have an end, however, even interstellar travel. The screens at the bow began to show the star toward which we were traveling larger and larger on our sight till it stood out sharp and bold. Now there came a day when Ashembe finished his observations by turning on the bow motor, checking down our run before we should enter the system of Murashema.
And now, as we drew in upon the Murasheman sun, our calculations showed that though our velocity was only a ,, little short of that of light itself, the bow motor was cutting ' it down at the rate of twenty kilometers every second, and Ashembe had finally to turn it off lest we approach too slowly.
It was July of my year 3 when we really began to drift into the outer limits of the system of Murashema, with all motors silent, swinging along at a furious pace, with our inertia to drive us. I remember well my first view of a
Murasheman planet, gained through the bow screens as we bore down upon it from a distance; a round, green object like some huge melon, larger and darker than was Uranus, when we had passed it on our outward voyage from the Earth.
"Radil," Ashembe called it, as we made our observations and by means of it calculated our velocity and direction more closely than we could by using the stars. They showed that we were still moving too rapidly—or perhaps that the Murasheman sun had begun to exercise some gravitational pull, for immediately after the observation we had to turn on the bow motor again and check down our speed.
Immense though the distances are in the system, as in ours, they are as choked with the chances of collision as a crowded street compared with the blank space through which we had been traveling. In September we passed a second planet, larger than Radil, lighter in color, and attended by a caracolling flock of moons of all sizes; at least eleven or twelve of them there must have been, some small and barren, like Mercury, showing their craggy character in the faint light, some larger and, like the planet itself, lost in sea-green obscurity.
October, November and December whirled by as we passed slowly through the Murasheman system, losing speed against the day of our landing. Twice more we passed planets, one a large, cold and lifeless orb like Radil of the outer planets or our own Uranus, and the other, smaller and more like the earth in size and makeup, but long since sunk in the death-silence that ultimately awaits every world.
"It is the outermost of the once-habitable planets," he said. "About as far from our sun as your Jupiter. But it is useless to do with. Our explorers have encountered it much. Even I have been there. Long ago it lost nearly all atmosphere, and liquids on its surface are frozen. It contained life once, however. We find many fossils and some few ruins. It is a planet of the otherwise proper type for the development of men, but unfortunately too far away from the sun."
X
MURASHEMA I first saw as a silver crescent early in April of the year 4; silver on black. It was pointed out to me by Ashembe with the nearest approach to emotion I ever saw him show.
We plunged along now with the bow motor always and one of those at the base generally going, correcting our course by small degrees to this side or that to bring the space ship to Murashema at the right point.
To reduce the speed at which we would enter the planet's atmosphere, our course had been turned so that we swung in behind it along the line of its orbit, so we should overtake it. Even then, as we bore down on this new world below us, we could detect a quickening of motion as we came within the predominating influence of the planet's gravity.*
* Gravity seems about the only scientific idea Schierstedt's head was capable of holding—probably because it is the simplest of physical phenomena for one who is neither by training nor disposition a scientist. The nonscientific reader of this manuscript should beware of ascribing to gravity all the effects Schierstedt does.
Only half of it was in the light from our point of view, and the light seemed less vigorous and redder than that of our own sun, though the computations, which I was by now competent to make, showed us that Murashema lay nearer its sun than Earth does to ours. Taken by and large, the planet also showed considerably less space given to ocean and considerably more of the yellow-brown streakings that Ashembe had taught me were due to deserts.
A few hours more and the planet had lost the form of a ball; the horizon was rising about us, and the edge of light where the day struck drawing away from us. The bow motor had been turned to nearly full speed to soften the inevitable shock of the fall to Murashema's surface, and now cast a huge plume of sparkling light across the picture on the screen. A little farther and the sparks changed color as we penetrated the atmosphere, and then, abruptly, they died away and fell altogether silent. Ashembe looked at me. "Out of fuel," was his brief comment. We had made Murashema, but with nothing to spare.
Our penetration of the denser layers of air announced itself by a loud hissing sound on the outside and a series of quick, disturbing jerks. The point of the projectile had long since become our floor as we entered Murashema's gravitational field, but the effect was now redoubled, and for the first time in many months I felt that there was something solid beneath my feet. The jerking increased; so did the hissing from the outside of the car, and Ashembe looked anxiously about him. In spite of the repeated layers of atotta that lined the machine and its chambered construction, it began to grow warm within.
I went to turn on the screen, but my companion stopped me. "Useless," he said. "The heat of passage through this atmosphere has already sufficiently corroded the outer layers to make vision impossible." I wondered how much farther we would have to go before landing, and as I wondered, with a shock that threw me halfway up the car and back again with a savage jounce, we struck.
When I had picked myself up and a cursory examination showed that none of my bruises were of a serious character, I began at once to climb toward what had been the base of the car with the idea of getting out at once. Ashembe restrained me with the comment that I would lose no more than my life by emerging in the present heated state of the exterior, and I desisted. A moment later there was a violent explosion.
"What is it?"
"Part of one of the outer shells," said Ashembe. "Under the extreme heat and pressure of progress through the atmosphere, the outer shells melt and while in this state absorb gases. The gases are now emitted with violence." So, unwillingly on my part, and calmly on his, we made our beds in the central chamber—the first time we had done so. Like a child on Christmas morn, I found difficulty in going to sleep, and when I did, dreamed lively dreams that kept me alternately waking and dozing all night. Oh, to be out in the air again! When I finally could sleep no more, I sat up. Ashembe was sitting beside me, but my watch showed that only five hours had passed.
"Can we go out now?" I asked. He shook his head, and for another fifteen hours we stood or sat around the interior of the car, avid with excitement, waiting for it to cool enough to permit egress.
At last Ashembe rose, and taking down his atotta suit, began to put it on. "Do we need the suits?" I asked, scrambling into my own, so as not to be left behind.
"Perchance we will need to use the ray for escaping," he answered, "and the heat developed in this small space would be highly discomforting until we succeeded in obtaining egress."
And seizing the instrument mentioned in one hand, he began to climb the racks to the door, with me close behind him. It shot back readily enough, but as we emerged into the second chamber, we saw at once evidences of the terrific forces that had playe
d on our space ship as it rushed through the Murasheman atmosphere. The next door outward sagged to one side as though it had been made of clay and damaged in the making, and all round its edges an ooze of little black bubbles of fused metal had broken through the atotta lining, scorching and searing it where they had passed. Toward the peak of the car (now the bottom) the atotta was everywhere bulged and pitted and in some places burned clean through by fires fiercer than the heat of the sun on Mercury. At one place near the peak, indeed, there was evidently a hole right through the side of the vessel, for clean white sand had poured through the gap into a little cone against the side of the chamber. Most of the wall racks were twisted out of shape by the sagging of the walls and several had parted from their moorings.
Testing his footing as he went, Ashembe worked his way around the walls and when he reached the point where the door still stood in its distorted frame, began to work on its edges with his flash ray.
A glow of light, like that from an electric welding machine, filled the chamber and a rain of bright sparks ran down. Evidently the atotta lining of the shell was high in resisting power, for it was some moments before Ashembe, working slowly, was able to make even a narrow slit.
Ten minutes more and the door was free on three sides. Ashembe switched off his flash, made a vain effort to move it, and bent to his work again.
At last he got the thing so loose that it hung only by a thread of metal, and reaching up he gave it a vigorous blow. It fell with a thud outside somewhere, and the opening was immediately blocked by Ashembe's body as he clambered through. I was after him in less time than it takes to tell it.
Once outside, we had a five-foot drop to the ground, Ashembe catching me neatly to break the force of the fall as I made it. Silently we stripped off the atotta suits and then for the first time I was able to look about me.
The ground beneath my feet seemed all sand, in which I sank almost to the ankles. We were among sandy dunes on a flat plain, gently rolling away to the distance where there was a vista of purple-hazed hills. All about was a low forest of scrub, just a little taller than a man and appearing very open until one tried to see through it to a distance, when it became evident that the trees stood much closer than they seemed at first. The sand seemed universal-white, soft and fine, and our space ship stood half buried in it.
It was twilight. The whole landscape was suffused by the slow light of dying day, and a monstrous ruddy sun was just sinking from sight behind the range of hills in the distance. I turned round and saw the same landscape of rolling levels and scrub forest, unrelieved, save by the monstrous form of the Shoraru.
Ashembe stood at gaze with me for a moment. Then, reaching down to the pocket of his atotta suit for the destructive flash, he stepped over to one of the dwarfed trees, and in a moment cut it down. Dragging it back to the car, he set it against the side, and motioning me to come on, said, "Quick. We must return within at once."
"What's the matter?" I asked.
"This is the hunting land," he replied briefly, fixing the point of his improvised ladder in the ground and offering me a hand to help me up.*
* The reader cannot have failed to notice the general falling off in quality of the writing of this narrative in this chapter. Apparently Schierstedt's diary, which he mentions above, ends here; or perhaps just before this chapter begins.
From this point on there are numerous discrepancies in the narrative, due either to faulty memory, haste in writing or some strong emotion on the part of the writer, a theory which is perfectly explicable in view of the end of the narrative.
In this chapter there is one discrepancy to be noted. Schierstedt has spoken of Ashembe's climbing out and cutting loose one shell from the space ship while in transit; but when they arrive, there is only one shell remaining besides the central chamber. The other was probably cut away during the voyage at some time not mentioned.
The transcriber also wishes to point out that from this point on the handwriting of the original manuscript was particularly bad and occasioned much trouble.
XI
He SHOOK OFF my inquiries, hurrying to get into the interior chamber again and snap shut the locks on the door. Then he turned to me.
"This is a hunting ground," he repeated, a bit out of breath. "It is very dangerous and unfortunate that we should land herein."
"Why is it dangerous and why is it unfortunate that we should land here? Wild animals?"
"A few. But these are far from the chief danger. The danger is from men."
"From men! Is your part of this planet at war with the rest, or do you still have savages on Murashema?"
"Not so. We have no savages. These are the young men in training. The substitute for armed combat. Every explorer has to pass through it as part of his training course. It is an evolutionary process."
I remained dense.
"Attend," said Ashembe patiently. "On your planet you have many different groups of men under different governments, not so? Between these governments there are always wars. This creates tumult and disturbances and kills off many people. Your philosophers recognize that this should not be so and seek to abolish all wars. On this planet we have long ago arrived at this stage. There is only one government and one language. No wars, no, not one." "Very good for you," said I, "but what has that to do with it?"
"Permit me to say. You fight your wars with scientific apparatus which is unselective. The best men in your world might as easily be killed in wars as the worst."
"True," I admitted, "and that's what's the matter with war. You don't mean to tell me that you wish to justify it as an institution?"
"No. We know this. However, your people do not carry their knowledge to the logical conclusion.
"We have passed through the similar stages. Our scientists decided that something was necessary to produce an effect of selection, an elimination of the unfit. Hence, we have the hunting grounds, of which this is it."
"But what's the point? What is a hunting ground, and how does it help?"
"This is one. They are certain districts of the planet where the agricultural value is small. Forestation is allowed to occur on them and they are stocked with various animals which run wild. They are of very large extent.
"Every young man or woman of the Bodrog class, when he arrives at seventeen years of age or a germane period, is turned loose in them and furnished with primitive weapons.
"From the time he is admitted to the hunting ground, the young man is not allowed to emerge for five years of your time. It is permitted for him to make certain studies if he cares to take the handicap of instruments of study along with his weapons and tools. For all other matters, his dependence is totally upon himself. The young men and women are under no restraint. They may do as they choose. If there are others of the same class they wish to kill, it is not imputed a crime. They may hunt for a living or engage in agriculture, if they think they can do this without others raiding and stealing their crops. They may form into associations. No one guides them. Upon emerging after their period is up, their rank in society depends upon how they have accomplished the period in the hunting ground. It supplies also an excellent evolutionary process, as only two-thirds of them survive."
"But, what if they don't wish to enter the hunting ground?"
"Very good, they cannot belong to the Bodrog or even the Davex. In youth, every child is subjected to a scientific, determination for intellectual quality. Those of certain grades of intellect are named as Bodrogs, and unless they object, are turned into the hunting grounds. According to their conduct there, they receive different work when they come out. Those who form groups or associations, for instance, being appointed political administrators. Some few of the Davex, who are our scientists, also come from here. Those who do not enter the hunting ground or who are barred from it by previous determination are shut out of upper employments and are not allowed to have more than two children."
"Did you go through a hunting ground?"
"Most cer
tain. Is not my name Bodrog? But I am of the Fotas class, which is explorer. During my period in the hunting ground, I stayed almost altogether alone and wandered about from place to place. Hence, I am a Fotas." The shadow of a problem rose in my mind. "Did you say that girls were turned loose in the hunting ground as well as men?"
"Certainly. Women are in all professions."
"What if ... that is, suppose—do they ever join with any of the men?"
"Oh, you mean do they ever have children? Certainly. If they have children while in the hunting ground, the responsibility is their own. But in cases where it happens, the mother is nearly always of a high type fitted for a lofty administrative or scientific position, and receives due credit for her courage."
"Did you say that nothing was done to those who kill others while in the hunting ground?"
"Certainly not. Before going to the hunting ground, as I already say, they are examined for all criminal tendencies. In the hunting ground everything is lawful. Merely a stage in development of the individual. Our scientists only want to know how each occupies his time in the hunting ground."
"How do you make certain you do know?"
"All persons tell the truth. Of what use to do otherwise? Of course, all young men are taught to know the truth only will avail them, and besides we have the truth serum. One application and it becomes impossible for the individual to do otherwise than tell the truth."
