The figure reached a point where the trodden-down grass marked the edge of camp; it stopped there as if waiting. Below us we heard steps in the outer corridor; the outer exit hatch creaked as it opened and closed. And then a second McKay came into view as he emerged from the ship!
I wasn’t dreaming. Out of the comer of my eye I-could see every man about the mess table poise rigid, eyes riveted on the scene framed in the open port.
The second McKay advanced across the camp toward its waiting counterpart. Detail for detail, lineament for lineament, feature for feature, they were duplicates of each other It was as if a giant mirror had been placed out there at the edge of the swale grass and the reflecting image prevented from movement
And now the second McKay was abreast of the first McKay. An instant they stood there, facing each-other, the face of the figure facing us betraying no sign of astonishment, the eyes discernible even at that distance as calm and matter-of-fact
Then the two figures merged and blended into one. The action was simple and complete; one moment there were two, the next there was one McKay standing motionless and erect in the clear morning sunlight.
It turned, that composite figure and began to walk slowly out and away from the ship. Not a word about the mess table was spoken as we watched it recede step by step, heading in a general direction for the white pinnacle .. . .
Then the spell was broken. As one man we rushed for the exit hatch. Kalhern leaped into the Tester, motioned Hammond and me to join him, and a moment later we roared out of camp. As we raced on, I strained my eyes, looking for McKay, but I Saw no sign of him. Then I did see him. Incredible as it seemed he had almost reached the white pinnacle. The minutes seemed like hours until we came abreast of that white column. When we did, McKay was standing motionless directly before it; head tilted back, staring at its top.
“McKay!” yelled Kalhern.
The big man didn’t answer, didn’t move. Hammond ran to his side, seized his arm.
Like a dummy removed from its support, McKay toppled forward and fell face downward. White-faced, Hammond reached for the man’s wrist, felt for a pulse.
“He’s dead!" he said hoarsely.
We buried McKay where he lay, read a simple requiem, and silently made our way back to camp. A hundred questions were surging through my brain. In Kalhern’s cabin-office an hour later I put those questions into words:
“Do you think whatever it was that killed McKay had as its source the white pinnacle and do you think those damned natives had anything to do with it?”
Kalhern looked old and haggard as he sat at his desk mechanically filling his pipe.
“Yes,” he said shortly.
“Yes what?”
The chief struck a match, lit is pipe with» trembling fingers. “I didn’t say anything about,it before, Judson, but I saw something out there at the pinnacle. You’ll remember that there is a lane of gravel leading from that white shaft to the face of the cliff proper, and that Stewart mentioned its looking almost like a conduit. Well at the base of that cliff I saw something the rest of you overlooked.”
I sat in silence waiting for him to continue.
“I found a dial!” he said quietly. “A crude mechanism set in some kind of a stone panel but nonetheless a dial.”,.
“Meaning what?” I said..
Kalhern spread his hands. “Meaning almost anything. A retractable shield perhaps that can turn off and on the radiations from the radioactive ore deposit I might even suggest that the pinnacle is the work of intelligent beings, a sort of filter through which those radiations can be transmitted or directed.”
“But our observations of the Renitians showed no such mechanical ability.”
“The Renitians of the present, no. But don’t forget this is an old planetoid. Life here may have retrogressed. The pinnacle may be only an artifact of an earlier race.”
I thought this over for several minutes. “Granted that all may be true,” I said, “how do you account for the duplication around the pinnacle of things organic and inorganic?” Even as 1 said this, I remembered the incident of Shore’s glasses.
Kalhern shrugged. “My atomic science is elementary,” he said. “Stewart has said that the radioactive ore is something different—a new element. Who can say what this radiation— controlled radiation will do? It may have actually affected McKay’s body in the manner we saw or conceivably-it might have affected us, our vision. Remember Planck’s Quantum Theory and the modern postulations of Altenvolk and Janner? And Thorpe’s thesis on transmutation. Matter is like light. In one aspect it behaves as if it were constituted of waves; in another it appears to consist of particles. And when a body or an object is bombarded by radiations of energy, including the little-known Gantzen rays. . . .” Kalhern spread his hands significantly.
“Then you’re going to give up the idea of taking samples from the ore deposit?”
“No, I’m not.” Kalhern banged his first down upon the desk. “I’ve been with Galactic Mining thirty years, and I’ve never flubbed an assignment yet. We’ll take reasonable precautions, of course.”'
Reasonable precautions included shots for radiation poisoning for every man on the ship and strict orders never to leave the ship without a lead protected suit before resuming our mining activities Kalhern took a blaster out to the white pinnacle and completely destroyed the strange stone dial.
The ore was deeper down than we had anticipated. Our electrolic drills cut through layers of metamorphic rock, granite, gneiss, schist and slate and an igneous formation which Stewart said was different from anything he had ever seen before. At intervals Stewart took samples of the slag back to his laboratory cabin in the ship and subjected it to his tests.
There was no sign of activity on the part of the Renitians. Once Kalhern and I thought we detected traces of that strange perfume, borne on the night wind, but the scene passed on, and we agreed we must have been mistaken.
On the first of February Kalhern announced it was his birthday and with a sentimental smile called a halt to our labors during the afternoon. We sat around in the ship’s lounge and took it easy. Shores and Hammond were playing Star-Credit with two decks of cards, and Shores was laughing as he raked in his winnings.
I remember it occurred to me that this was the first laughter any of us had indulged in since our landing on Renit-4, but it was short-lived. Shores began to unfasten his tunic at the throat.
“It’s hot in here,” he said. “Don’t you fellows think it’s hot?”
Suddenly he got to his feet and headed for the exit hatch. None of the others paid any attention, but on impulse I followed him.
Reaching the hatch, I was in time to see Shores cross the camp compound with slow deliberate steps. My eyes lifted to the edge of the swale grass beyond, and I froze. Waiting for him there, arms akimbo, was a figure of horrifying familiarity.
It was Carson Shores in duplicate!
As had happened with McKay, the first Carson Shores reached and merged with its counterpart; and then the composite figure turned and headed for the white pinnacle.
Our number had been reduced by one more.
From here on any departure from logical continuity in this narrative must be excused. The madness which had beset us became too fast-paced for rational explanation or description.
On February second, close on the death and burial of Carson Shores, Kalhern gave orders to leave Renit-4. This reversal of decision was the result of Hammond’s and my insistence, for, as Hammond argued, charting and reporting the ore deposit should be sufficient to establish its discovery with us.
I can say now that somehow I never expected the ship to leave. Yet when Kalhern fiddled vainly at the controls and announced in a flat voice, “The motors are dead,” the cold horror of the situation hit me hard.
The chief, however, was indomitable. Under his direction we fell to work, frantically checking motor conduits. The third, fourth and fifth of February passed without further incident,* marked on
ly by our ceaseless labors.
On the sixth Hammond, Stewart and two crewmen drove out to the spring to replenish our water supply which was running low. They didn’t return. We found the Tester abandoned and what seemed to be tracks leading off into the swale grass. Kalhern deliberated the situation a long time before announcing his decision.
“I’ll take the rest of the crewmen and go after them,” he said quietly. “That will leave you alone in the ship. You will keep the hatch closed and open it under no circumstances until our return. The ship is impregnable, and you should have no trouble here.”
In vain I argued.'“They may have sighted some new form of animal life. A thousand things may have drawn them away from the Tester. Give them time to return.”
But Kalhern was adamant. “I like Hammond,” he said simply. “If it’s in my power, I’m going to bring him back.”
... I am alone in the ship. Kalhern and the crewmen have now been gone thirteen hours and still there is no sign of them. I am sitting here before the central port, staring out across the camp compound. The violet ipso grass undulates in the wind like a lazy sea, and the cat-tail trees stand stiff and stark against the saffron sky. Off to the east rises the slender obelisk-like white pinnacle.
As I wait, the truth keeps gnawing at a back comer of my mind—that Kalhern and the crewmen will not return, that they have gone to their doom like the others somewhere out there.
I Even now, at intervals, a peculiar blur forms in my eyes when I look in the direction of the white pinnacle. That blur will grow . . . will develop, I know, until. . . .
I can see it now. The mist has cleared, and a human figure walks out of the swale, heading for the camp compound. It is a tall figure with sloping shoulders and a Galactic Mining tunic unbuttoned at the throat. Its stride is slow, inexorable, and as it approaches, an overwhelming lure rises up within me like a great inner sickness.
It is myself....
NOTE: This recording, which ends here, was found by the captain of the freighter, Evening Star, when that ship made a forced landing on Renit-4 for repairs. Although its authenticity has been questioned, it is claimed to be the only existent answer to the century old disappearance of the GM cruiser, Alencon, and as such has been filed in the historical folios of the Interspacial Institute at New Chicago.
WINNER TAKE ALL
Ross Rocklynne
Commander Joseph Marker was in love with planet Earth. He considered his wife, children and home to be perfection. He had tender feelings toward the violets under the ravishing lilac trees in his back yard. He furthermore had a great affection for, and a deep understanding of, all his neighbors; had no fault to find with the lowliest human being. Nothing on Earth could bring fault-finding into his usually fault-finding gaze.
The exception being Ship Co-ordinator Whitsey.
In a word, Marker, his crew, and the Colonial Planet Survey Corporation spaceship Apollo-1, were gone from Earth three years.
Earth had become blameless heaven, space an ink nightmare.
“So get yourself a planet,” Whitsey remorselessly was telling Marker over the Leaper, which afforded tenuous communication between ship and Earth, “and you can come home.”
“There aren’t any!” Marker snapped. “I told you, this is the original empty apple barrel!”
“It’s got a bottom somewhere,” Whitsey observed mildly. “You’ll come across a stellar system. Maybe. And find a planet. Maybe. And besides—”
Remarkable how easy it was for Co-ordinator Whitsey, surrounded by the blessed comforts of Earth, to get tough!
“—the Colonial Planetary Survey Corporation can’t sink a fortune into an expedition without drawing a return. That’s axiomatic. I would suggest you find a planet.”
Marker burned. Before taking over the Apollo-1, Marker himself was Co-ordinator, and for eight years directed the hundred-odd Survey ships in their sifting of the interstellar sphere for new planets to sop up the population overflow of the Solar System. These planets, depending on their usability, were sold for varying prices to population groups, or to other Corporations for development and subsequent resale.
Because there was more money in field work, and because he did need a vacation from Earth (he thought) and from his family (he thought) and because (he thought) he could make a quick killing, and return to Earth after mere months in space with a planet and a big bonus—because of these things he had let the slick-talking commander of the Ursus—Whitsey himself—get him into the mood of taking out a ship.
The Office had been agreeable, and there was some talk that Marker would take over his co-ordinating post when he returned. But three years had passed. Whitsey had had the chance to work himself in solid. In spite of this, Marker still considered himself Co-ordinator in absentia. He had a hunch Whitsey did, too.
He had long since decided he didn’t like Co-ordinator Whitsey. He looked with displeasure on the younger, smoother, somewhat mocking face, the only unlovable thing on Earth.
“I know now why you egged me into taking a ship out,” he grunted sourly. “You already had it arranged with the Old Man to take over my co-ordinating job. Well, I’m giving myself two or three months more out here. By that time I’ll know you engineered me into an empty Sack—where there aren’.t, never were, and never will be, any planets. Then I’m coming back to my old job.”
“And the violets in your back yard,” commented Whitsey dryly, having heard the details of Marker’s growing nostalgia for Earth. Then his lips thinned. “Don’t forget, Commander,’ if you return without my authorization, you’ll be thrown out of the Office. And if you return with authorization, but without a planet, you’ll be stripped down to office clerk.”
Marker scoffed, with a confidence he did not feel. “When the Old Man understands you framed me,” he stated, “he’ll square things up. You’ll be out on your ear.” ~
All Whitsey did was grin mockingly.
At that moment, the ship intercommunicator blew a short, sweet pip of sound. Marker grabbed the -callback with a knobby fist. Second-in-Command Alex Jorey, from the Navigation Room, began talking at him with something more than his usual fatted lethargy.
Marker’s eyes, overhung by the heavy red fringe of brow, glittered with satisfaction. Finally he hung up and twisted his Ups at Whitsey.
“There goes your little pipe-dream of keeping me out in space forever,” he said. “Alex Jorey just tell-taled a G-2 star. There’s a drift of Sack-dust between us, but the star is blowing out the same all-wave static the Sun gives off—with an interesting off-beat which probably means a planet.”
Whitsey’s breath sucked in almost imperceptibly. Then he got his young face back in shape again. “Congratulations,” he said dryly. “Pip me if you raise a planet” He signed off.
One planet, a gay, starkly green little world frisking with busy energy about its mighty parent
Marker, staring with astounded eyes, had the feeling that this audacious pair danced each for the entertainment of the other. He felt, in addition, a faint belligerence, and a fainter premonition. These two owned the Sack—not the Apollo. Grumpily, he ordered the ship back to free-space drive and with not much feeling of exaltation further ordered atmosphere-cut.
The Apollo-1 sank heavily down on its repelling field. The breezy gales of a healthy planetary wind system whipped about the ship. It did not take many hours of cross-hatching the latitudes and longitudes to see that here was a world made for human colonization and exploitation.
To Marker’s intense disappointment, the planet had intelligent inhabitants. Sourly, Marker again called Whitsey.
Whitsey nodded, with some evidence of relief. “The presence of inhabitants,” he said smoothly, “extends your task a bit. You say their cities are of a rural, unmechanized type, that they practice agriculture and tend small herds of domestic animals. Very well, it will be necessary to contact government representatives, if there are such; it will be necessary to open communications. Arrangements must be made to
secure their co-operation in opening the planet for the benefits to be had from human colonization.”
“I’ll secure their co-operation, all right,” Marker growled.
“You shall not use weapons, Commander,” Whitsey said sternly. “Tactics of eliminating a population to gain possession of a planet have of late met with considerable furor from the popular press.”
Marker’s small eyes regarded Whitsey with disfavor. “That’s a new one,” he grunted. “When you had the Ursus I gave you carte blanche. Anything to get new lands. Now the tables are turned, you’re breaking your back to keep me from returning a profit and shoving you out of your job. Won’t work, Whitsey.” He signed off.
He was still vastly in love with the planet Earth, which seemed paradise enough for any man in his right mind. For a moment he toyed with the thought of blanketing the planet with Type A-12—or perhaps A-13, to do a good job— psyche-gas, which would selectively return intelligent beings to a brute status. The Office, always anxious to increase stockholders dividends, would put a hush-hush on the mess, would give Marker whatfor, but would privately work a bonus for him into the books.
Then he felt a sentimental pang of guilt. After all, they were people, probably had their own families, and a sense of beauty, if one could judge that from observing their peculiar, misty blue villages. And—Marker felt a squirming inside— they might even have, something analogous to violets in their back yards.
He gave orders to cut the gravities and land.
Never a subtle man, never, given to indirection, Marker landed on a village street. He stood in the bridge bulge-port, which gave him a view in almost all four directions. The houses were uniformly composed of some slate material, and were uniformly sloppy in their construction. He sensed a disregard of the plumb-line. Yet, in the crazy leanings, which looked like something out of Mother Hubbard, a fascinating, giggling kind of beauty could be noted.
There were some wagons on the streets, drawn by starkly red, ballooned-quartered beasts some of which had four, some five, some six legs..
Time to Come Page 17
