“They’re dead, frozen!” exclaimed Erg Noor. The spaceship continued to hover over Zirda’s satellite and fourteen pairs of eyes remained fixed on that glass tomb, for such, indeed, it was. How long had the dead been sitting there in their glass house? The planet had broken off communication seventy years before and if we add to that six years for the rays to reach Earth it meant three quarters of a century.
All eyes were turned on the commander. Erg Noor, his face pale, was staring into the yellow, smoky atmosphere of the planet through which the lines of the mountain ranges and the glint of the sea were faintly discernible. But there was nothing to provide the answer they had come there for.
“The station perished seventy-five years ago and has not been re-established! That can only mean a catastrophe on the planet. We must go down into the atmosphere, perhaps even land. Everybody is present now so I’ll ask your opinion.”
The only objection was raised by Pour Hyss, a man on his first Cosmic trip; he had been substituted for an experienced worker who had fallen ill just before the start. Nisa looked with indignation at his big, hawk-like nose and his ugly ears set low down on his head.
“If there has been a catastrophe on the planet there is no possibility of our getting anameson there. If we circle the planet at low level we shall reduce our supply of planetary fuel, if we land, we reduce it to a still greater extent. Apart from that we don’t know what’s happened, there may be some powerful radiations that will kill us.”
The other members of the expedition supported their commander.
“There is no planetary radiation that can be dangerous to a ship with Cosmic shielding. Weren’t we sent here to find out what has happened? What are we going to tell the Great Circle? It isn’t enough to establish a fact, we have to explain it-excuse me if this sounds like a lecture to schoolboys!” said Erg Noor and the usual metallic tones in his voice now had a note of ridicule in them. “I don’t imagine we can evade doing what is our plain duty.”
“The upper layers of the atmosphere have a normal temperature!” exclaimed Nisa, happily, on completion of her rapidly performed measurements.
Erg Noor smiled and began to put the ship down in a spiral each turn of which was slower than the last as they neared the surface of the planet. Zirda was somewhat smaller than Earth and no great speed was needed to circumnavigate it at low level. The astronomers and the geologist checked the maps of the planet with what was observed by Tantra’s optical instruments. There had been no noticeable change in the outlines of the continents and the seas gleamed calmly in the red sun. Nor had the chains of mountains changed the shapes that were known from former photographs — but the planet was silent.
The crew spent thirty-five hours at their instruments, relieving each other occasionally.
The composition of the atmosphere, the radiation of the red sun, everything agreed with formerly recorded Zirda data. Erg Noor looked for the Zirda stratosphere tables in his reference book. Ionization was higher than they showed. A vague and alarming concept was taking form in Noor’s mind.
On the sixth turn of the descending spiral the outlines of big cities became clearly visible. And still not a sound was recorded by the spaceship’s receivers.
Nisa Greet was relieved from her post for a meal and seemed to have dozed off for a while. She thought, however, that she had not slept for more than a few minutes. The spaceship was crossing Zirda’s night disc at a speed no greater than that of a terrestrial helicopter. Below them there should have been cities, factories and ports, but not a single light showed in the pitch blackness no matter how thoroughly the powerful stereotelescopes searched the ground. The thunder of the spaceship cutting through the atmosphere should have been audible for dozens of miles. Another hour passed and still no light was seen. The anxious waiting was becoming unbearable. Noor switched on the warning sirens hoping that their awe-inspiring howl, added to the roar of the spaceship, would be heard by the mysteriously silent inhabitants of Zirda.
A wave of fiery light swept away the evil darkness as Tantra reached the daylight side of the planet. Below them everything was still black. Rapidly developed and enlarged photographs showed that the earth was covered with a solid carpet of flowers something like the velvety-black poppies that grow on Earth. The masses of black poppies stretched for thousands of miles to the exclusion of all other vegetation — trees and bushes, reeds and grass. The streets of the cities looked like the ribs of giant skeletons lying on a black carpet; metal structures formed gaping rusty wounds. Not a living being, not a tree anywhere, nothing but the black poppies!
Tantra dropped an observation bomb beacon and again plunged into the night. Six hours later the robot reported the content of the air, temperature, pressure and other conditions obtaining on the surface of the planet. Everything was normal for Zirda with the exception of increased radioactivity.
“What an awful tragedy!” muttered Eon Thal, the expedition’s biologist, in a dull voice as he recorded the data supplied by the station. “They have killed themselves and everything on their planet!”
“How could they?” asked Nisa, hiding the tears that were ready to flow. “Is it as bad as that? The ionisation isn’t so very high.”
“A long time has passed since then,” answered the biologist, glumly. His manly Circassian face with its aquiline nose assumed an expression of sternness, despite his youth. “Radioactive disintegration is dangerous just because it accumulates unnoticed. For hundreds of years the total radiation could increase corns by corus, the unit of radiation; then suddenly there comes a qualitative change, heredity collapses, the reproduction of the species ceases and added to that there are epidemics of radiation diseases. This has happened more than once before, the Circle knows of similar catastrophes.”
“Such as the so-called ‘planet of the lilac sun,’“ came Erg Noor’s voice from behind them.
“Whose sun of spectral class A”, with a light intensity equal to 78 of our suns, provided its inhabitants with very high energy,” added the morose Pour Hyss.
“Where is that planet?” asked Eon Thal, the biologist. “Isn’t that the one the Council intends to colonize?”
“That’s the one, the lost Algrab was named after its star.”
“The star Algrab, that’s Delta Corvi,” exclaimed the biologist. “But it’s such a long way off!”
“Forty-six parsecs. But we’re constantly increasing the power of our spaceship….”
The biologist nodded his head and muttered that it was hardly right to call a spaceship after a star that had perished.
“The star didn’t perish and the planet is still safe and sound. Before another century has passed we shall plant vegetation there and settle the planet,” said Erg Noor with confidence.
He had decided to perform a difficult manoeuvre — to change the ship’s orbit from latitudinal to meridional, sending the ship along a north-south line parallel to the planet’s axis of rotation. How could they leave the planet until they were sure that there were no survivors? It might be that survivors were unable to communicate with the spaceship because power installations had been wrecked and instruments damaged.
This was not the first time Nisa had seen her commander at the control desk in a moment of great responsibility. With his impenetrably expressionless face and his abrupt but always precise movements he seemed like a hero of legendary times to the auburn-haired astronavigator.
Again Tantra continued her hopeless journey round Zirda, this time from pole to pole. In some places, especially in the temperate latitudes, there were wide belts of bare earth, a yellow haze hung over them and through it, from time to time, appeared the lines of gigantic red dunes from which the wind sent up clouds of sand.
Then again came the funereal pall of black velvet poppies, the only plant that had withstood radioactivity or had produced a mutation of its species viable under irradiation.
The whole picture was clear. It was not only useless, it was even dangerous to search for supplie
s of anameson that had, on the recommendation of the Great Circle, been laid in for visitors from other worlds (Zirda had no spaceships of her own, only planetships). Tantra began slowly unwinding the spiral away from the planet. She gained a velocity of 17 kilometres a second using her ion trigger motors, the planetary motors that gave her speed enough for trips between adjacent planets and for taking off and landing, and drew away from the dead planet. Tantra turned her nose towards an uninhabited system known only by its code name where bomb beacons had been thrown out and where Algrab should have awaited her. The anameson motors were switched on and in fifty-two hours they accelerated the spaceship to her normal speed of 900,000,000 kilometres an hour. Fifteen months’ journey would take them to the meeting place — eleven months of the dependent time of the ship — and the whole crew, with the exception of those on watch, could spend that time in sleep. A month, however, passed in discussion, in calculations and in the preparation of a report for the Council. From reference books it was discovered that risky experiments had been made on Zirda with partially disintegrating atomic fuels. They found references to statements by leading scientists who warned the people that there were symptoms of the adverse biological effect of the experiments and demanded that they be stopped.
A hundred and eighteen years before a brief warning had been sent through the Great Circle; it would have been sufficient for people of the higher intellectual categories but apparently it had not been treated seriously by the government of Zirda.
There could be no doubt that Zirda had perished from an accumulation of harmful radiations following numerous careless experiments and the reckless use of dangerous forms of nuclear energy instead of wisely continuing the search for other, less harmful sources.
The mystery had long since been solved, twice the spaceship’s crew had changed their three months’ period of sleep for normal periods of activity of the same length.
Tantra had been circling round the grey planet for many days and with each passing hour the possibility of meeting Algrab grew less and less. Something terrible loomed ahead.
Erg Noor stood in the doorway with his eyes on Nisa as she sat there in meditation — her inclined head with its cap of thick hair like a luxuriant golden flower, the mischievous, boyish profile, the slightly slanting eyes that were often screwed up by restrained laughter and were now wide open, apprehensively but courageously probing the unknown…. The girl did not realize what a tremendous moral support her selfless love had become for him. Despite the long years of trial that had steeled his willpower and his senses, he sometimes grew tired of being commander, of having to be ready at any moment to shoulder any responsibility for the crew, for the ship and for the success of the expedition. Back there on Earth such single-handed responsibility had long since been abandoned — decisions there were taken collectively by the group of people who had to carry them out. If anything unusual occurred on Earth you could always get advice, and consultations on the most intricate problems could be arranged. Here there was nobody to turn to and spaceship commanders were granted special rights. It would have been easier if such responsibility had been for two or three years instead of the ten to fifteen years that were normal for space expeditions! Erg Noor entered the control tower.
Nisa jumped up to meet him. “I’ve got all the necessary material and the charts,” he said, “we’ll start the machine working!”
The commander stretched himself in his armchair and slowly turned over the thin metal sheets he had brought, calling out the numbers of coordinates, the strength of magnetic, electric and gravitational fields, the power of Cosmic dust streams and the velocity and density of me-teoroid streams. Nisa, all her muscles tensed with excitement, pressed the buttons and turned the knobs of the computing machine. Erg Noor listened to a series of answers, frowned and lapsed into deep thought.
“There’s a strong gravitational field in our way, the area in the Scorpion where there is an accumulation of dark matter near star 6555 CR+11 PKU,” began Noor. “We can save fuel by deviating this way, towards the Serpent. In the old days they flew without motors, using the gravitational fields as accelerators, along their edges.” “Can we do the same?” asked Nisa.
“No, our spaceships are too fast. At a speed of 5/6ths of the absolute unit or 250,000 kilometres a second our weight would be 12,000 times greater in a field of gravitation and that would turn the whole expedition into dust. We can only fly like this in the Cosmos, far from large accumulations of matter. As soon as the spaceship enters a gravitational field we have to reduce speed, the stronger the field the more we must reduce.”
“So there’s a contradiction here,” said Nisa, resting her head on her hand in a childish manner, “the stronger the gravitational field the slower we have to fly!”
“That’s only true where velocities close to the speed of light are concerned, when the spaceship is something like a ray of light and can only move in a straight line or along the so-called curve of equal tension.”
“If I’ve understood you correctly we have to aim our Tantra light ray straight at the solar system.”
“That’s where the great difficulty of space travel comes in. It’s practically impossible to aim directly at any star although we make all the corrective calculations imaginable. Throughout the entire journey we have to compute the accumulating error and constantly change the course of the ship so that no automatic piloting is possible. Our position now is a dangerous one. We have nothing left to start another acceleration going so that a halt or even a considerable reduction in speed after this acceleration would be certain death. Look, the danger is here — in area 344 4- 2U that has never been explored. Here there are no stars, no inhabited planets, nothing is known except the gravitational field — there is its edge. We’ll wait for the astronomers before we make the final decision — after the fifth circle we’ll wake up everybody but in the meantime….” The commander rubbed his temples and yawned.
“The effect of the sporamin is wearing off,” exclaimed Nisa, “you can go to sleep!”
“Good, I’ll be all right here, in this chair. Suppose a miracle happens… just one sound from them!”
There was something in Erg Noor’s voice that sent Nisa’s heart palpitating with her love for him. She wanted to take that stubborn head of his, press it to her breast and stroke the dark hair with its prematurely grey threads.
Nisa got up, placed the reference sheets carefully together and turned out the light, leaving only a dull green glow that illuminated the instrument panels and the clocks. The spaceship was travelling quite quietly in a complete vacuum as it described its gigantic curve. The auburn-haired navigator silently took her place at the “brain” of the giant ship. The instruments, tuned to a particular note, hummed softly; the slightest disorder made them sing false. Today, however, the quiet humming kept on the right note. On rare occasions she heard soft blows, like the sounds of a gong — that was the auxiliary planet motor switching in to keep the ship truly on her curve. The powerful anameson motors were silent. The peace of a long night hung over the sleepy ship as though no serious danger threatened her and her inhabitants. At any moment the long-awaited call signal would be heard in the loudspeaker and the two ships would begin to check their unbelievably rapid flight, would draw closer on parallel courses and would at last so equalize their speeds that they would be as good as lying still beside each other. A wide tubular gallery would connect the two ships and Tantra would regain her tremendous strength.
Deep down in her heart Nisa was calm, she had faith in her commander. Five years of travel had not seemed either long or tiring. Especially since Nisa had begun to love…. But even before that the absorbingly interesting observations, the electronic recordings of books, music and films gave her every opportunity to increase her fund of knowledge and not feel the loss of beautiful Earth, that tiny speck of dust lost in the depths of the infinity of darkness. Her fellow-travellers were people of great erudition and then, when her nerves were exhausted by a s
urfeit of impressions or lengthy, strenuous work, there was continued sleep. Sleep was maintained by attuning the patient to hypnotic oscillations and, after certain preliminary medical treatment, big stretches of time were lost in forgetfulness and passed without leaving a trace. Nisa was happy because she was near the man she loved. The only thing that troubled her was the thought that others were having a harder time, especially Erg Noor. If only she could… no, what could a young and still very green astronavigator do, compared with such a man! Perhaps her tenderness, her constant fund of good will, her ardent desire to give up everything in order to make easier that tremendous labour would help.
The commander of the expedition woke up and raised his sleep-heavy head. The instruments were humming evenly as before, there were still the occasional thuds of the planetary motors. Nisa Greet was at the instruments, bending slightly over them, the shadows of fatigue on her young face. Erg Noor cast a glance at the clock showing spaceship time and in a single athletic bound leaped out of the deep chair.
“I’ve been asleep fourteen hours! And you didn’t wake me, Nisa! That’s….” Meeting her radiant glance he cut himself short. “Off to bed at once!”
“May I sleep here, like you did?” asked the girl. She took a hurried meal, washed herself and dropped into the deep armchair. Her flashing hazel eyes, framed in dark rings, were stealthily following Erg Noor as he took his place at the instrument panels after a refreshing wave bath and a good meal. He checked up the indicators on the electronics communications protector and then began to walk up and down with rapid strides.
“Why aren’t you sleeping?” he asked the navigator. She shook her red curls that were by then in need of clipping — women on extra-terrestrial expeditions did not wear long hair.
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