The 13th Science Fiction MEGAPACK®: 26 Great SF Stories!

by Lake, Jay

  Patiently, day by forty-hour day, we searched the other sites. We found jet marks and stumps and teeming weeds, but nothing like that tormented nightmare over Lilith Llandark’s skeleton. We found no wreckage. Nothing to show how the planet had murdered the lost expeditions.

  Day by eternal day, the unknown leered from the secret places of its genes. It was all vegetable. We saw no animal movement, heard no cry or insect hum. The silence became suffocating.

  Day after desperate day, we returned to the micro-probe.

  “The answer’s in the genes,” Lance Llandark whispered grimly. “We’ve no other chance.”

  He kept the probe running on the strangest genes of all; those from the plant nightmare that had grown beside his wife. They were like nothing else on the planet. The double-stranded chains of DNA were monstrously long; many of the nucleotide links held copper or arsenic atoms.

  “Queer!” Lance kept muttering. “No copper or arsenic in other plants here. I’d like to know why.”

  * * * *

  He was running when we heard the woman scream. In that stifling quiet, her cry unnerved us all. We crowded down to the lock.

  Tattered, stained with blood-colored juices, she slipped through those coiled, constricting creepers. She splashed out into the open ditch, waving a filthy rag. Halfway to the ship, she fell into the mud.

  Lance Llandark led three of us to bring her in. She whimpered and looked up. Tears streaked the grime on her wasted face.

  “Lance!” she gasped. “My dear.”

  “Lilith—” But he shrank back suddenly. “I found Lilith dead!”

  “I am nearly dead.” She tried weakly to get up. “You see, we’re all marooned out there in the bush. Emergency landing, when we tried to get off. Wrecked our astrogation gear. Need your spare astro-pilot—”

  “Back.” He swung on us. “Back aboard!”

  “What’s wrong?” We were stunned, “She’s your wife—”

  “Aboard! Instanter!”

  We obeyed his deadly voice.

  “Help—” she whispered faintly behind us in the mud. “Survivors—need astro-pilot-to plot our way home—”

  The clanging lock cut off her voice.

  Angrily we turned on Lance Llandark.

  “Hold it!” he snapped. “I’m not crazy—the planet is. Come along to the micro-probe. I’m probing a seed from the plant we found by Lilith’s bones. It puzzled me. So much of it was—”

  In spite of the tension, he had to grope for a word to express meaning.

  “Arbitrary! Those shapeless leaves, twisted stalk, that sterile seed. The copper and arsenic in those needless links. Too many genes had no function. No use at all!

  “I’d just got the key, when that thing screamed. The copper and arsenic atoms are not genetic instructions to the plant. They’re a message to us—words replicated a trillion times, and concealed in every cell of the plant!”

  “Words?” someone whispered blankly. “Words in the atoms?”

  “Written in binary code.” His scowl was bleakly triumphant. “That weed’s a mutant, you see. The real Lilith formed the first cell with her micro-probe. She left it—I suppose in her own body—as a message that no pseudo-Lilith could intercept.”

  Outside that something screamed again.

  “Call each copper atom a dot,” he whispered. “Call each arsenic a dash. Taken in order along the chains of DNA, they do encode a message. The computer’s decoding it now.”

  He punched a button, and the printer whirred.

  TO WHOEVER COMES.... GIVE NO AID TO ANYONE.... GET OFF THIS PLANET.... ITS LIFE IS PSEUDOMORPHIC.... DON’T LET IT LEAVE.... JUST TAKE MY LOVE TO LANCE LLANDARK.... FROM LILITH, HIS WIFE.... AND GET OFF THIS PLANET, FAST....

  Outside, it uttered a frantic, bubbling screech.

  We did get off the planet, and we expect to stay away.

  THE GOD-PLLLNK, by Jerome Bixby

  Originally published in Worlds of Tomorrow, December 1963.

  In the shadows of a crater-wall on Phobos, moon of Mars, Grg and Yrl waited to greet the God.

  If the God continued its present rate of approach, it would land within moments.

  Grg and Yrl had journeyed all night, with their eyes on that distant glinting speck in the sky. Over cold-crusted sand dunes and jagged crater walls they had flowed, crept, bounded, oozed, toward the spot where the God must land if its course held true.

  Grg was a Fsgh, which is the equivalent of High Priest, Yrl was a Ffssgghh, or Much Higher Priest. The best wishes of their people had gone with them on their tremendous mission.

  Now, at the place, they trembled in every tentacle as they peered upward. The rust-red orb of Mars rode the black horizon.

  Mars was, as Grg and Yrl had learned from their Elders and now taught their Youngers, the stern Seeing-All Eye of It Who Was the Universe.

  From that great Eye, a day ago, had sprung a shining Messenger, an Emissary, a God that must be coming on a purposeful visit.

  It had been detected at the half-way point of its trip. But there could be no doubt regarding its origin, its nature, its destination—

  For, in the matter of form, the God was a close replica of Grg and Yrl—of all the creatures of their race! It was octopidal, with sinewy double tentacles, and a thinking trunk, and a reproduction pouch!

  The only significant difference was that the God gleamed mysteriously, as if its angular, hard-line representation of normal form were cast in shining stone. As it flew it reflected starlight—and the red glow of the Universal Eye behind it—from its sleek surfaces.

  Grg and Yrl blinked their own dull-surfaced, astronomically far-sighted, rust-red eyes at each other in supreme excitement and anticipation.

  What would the God tell them? What would it reveal? Would it divulge the Cosmic Secret? Would it tell them the place and destiny of their lowly race? Had it come to punish them for not being good enough, for over-reproducing, for worshipping improperly?

  From a selfish standpoint, it might even tell them how to get rid of the plllnk—a subject of constant prayer.

  How smoothly it flew! While Grg and Yrl and their people could bound about with a great agility in Phobos’ light gravity, they could not fly.

  “How wonderful it would be to fly,” said Yrl.

  “Perhaps,” said Grg, “we have been found ready to be taught!”

  Then Grg twitched as a plllnk bit him, just under the front left double-tentacle. He combed the light fur there, found the plllnk, and shredded it, casting the pieces round-about so that no two of them might combine to form another plllnk.

  How wonderful it would be also if the God could tell them how to get rid of the itching, crawling, parasitic plllnk, whose bite, in sufficient numbers, was often fatal!...

  The God began to land.

  It shot red flame downward from its mouth, on the underside of its gleaming body. Red flickers and sharp-edged black shadows danced about the two who waited below. They shrank back, fearful that the display might be a disapproving communication—yet they held their ground, knowing they had lived good lives and deserved no condemnation on any score they could imagine.

  The God lowered, on its belching tongue of flame—the flame that seemed a tiny part, a sliver, of the Universal Eye that Watched.

  Strange marks were on the side of the God’s body. They were: 1st MARS EXPEDITION—U. S. SPACE FORCE—PLANET-TO-SATELLITE CREWBOAT NO. 2.

  * * * *

  The last few moments of the God’s descent were quite rapid. Simultaneously, the darting red flames seemed to lessen in intensity and length. Then, at the second of impact, they brightened again to previous power—but too late. The impact was hard.

  Grg and Yrl gasped as one of the God’s double-tentacles buckled, crumpled, with a
glinting of shiny-hard material. The flames stopped.

  The God, unable to remain erect with its injury, slowly toppled. Its body thudded silently, stirring pumice dust. It was motionless.

  Grg and Yrl stared at each other.

  Was the God fatally injured? Dying? Dead? (For a broken tentacle meant that fluids would seep out, and soon the dry-death would occur.)

  The God stirred.

  It braced two sets of tentacles against the ground, as if trying to push itself erect. The effort was not successful. Again it was motionless. The two double-tentacles remained outstretched, however—and they pointed at the shadows where Grg and Yrl waited and watched.

  Grg and Yrl sighed in relief.

  The God had assumed conversation-position.

  It must have healed its broken tentacle—truly a God! Soon it would be as good as new; for otherwise, agony would forbid conversation.

  It was ready to address them. Now.

  This was the greatest moment of Grg’s and Yrl’s lives.

  They waited for the God to speak.

  It was silent.

  A long time passed. The God remained motionless, though in conversation-position, and silent. A very long time passed.

  Then a tiny hole appeared in the God’s side. It grew larger—larger—and then it stopped growing larger.

  Something appeared at the hole. It paused, then dropped to the surface of Phobos, where it began to crawl about.

  It bore considerable resemblance to a plllnk, except for its shiny-wrinkled grey skin (plllnks were purple.) And this thing was huge—Huge. It was one-fifth the size of the God’s body.

  Caught by horror, and fearing the worst, Grg and Yrl waited for the God to speak.

  (Damn, John Cotter was thinking. That was a neat bit of sloppiness, that landing.... Carruthers will chew me out and in again! Pause: Holy cats, I hope the radio isn’t busted, or I’ll have a helluva wait before they follow up and find me!...)

  * * * *

  The God was dead.

  Killed by the giant plllnk—a scourge from which, evidently, even the Gods were not spared. The huge plllnk, even now creeping around—wrinkle-skinned and detestable, its coloration the same as the God’s; the most loathsome sight imaginable ... a god-plllnk!

  Grg and Yrl moved into view, from the shadows of the crater wall. Their thinking trunks tingled with misery, sorrow, bitter anger and disappointment.

  The plllnk stopped, having sensed them. Then it darted for the hole it had eaten in the God.

  Yrl moved to intercept it. The plllnk changed course and headed swiftly up a sand dune. With a great bound, impelled by outrage, Yrl was upon it.

  While Grg touched tentacles with the dead God, in reverent mourning, in terrible sorrow, in loss, in supplication, Yrl shredded the god-plllnk.

  * * * *

  Two days later, a second God was detected. It silently circled Phobos from the Universal Eye.

  It did not land. It silently circled Phobos, and then returned to the Eye.

  Within the day, it was back, in the company of eleven other Gods. They landed. Joyfully, mortals went forth to meet them.

  It was quite a battle while it lasted.

  Joy quickly ended, as the Gods died one by one, each of them showing the holes eaten in their sides by the insatiable plllnks.

  Likewise, eventually, died all the plllnks, which presumably had killed the Gods. They fought with strange white flares and crackling blue flashes, which only tickled the hides of the faithful. Then they were shredded.

  Religious beliefs on Phobos underwent certain basic changes. Such as: the Gods, or at least their Messengers, were known not to be immortal.

  Nor were the special variety of plllnk which afflicted them....

  On Earth, twenty years afterward, word is anxiously awaited of the 4th Mars Expedition.

  A GUEST OF GANYMEDE, by C. C. MacApp

  Originally published in Worlds of Tomorrow, June 1963.

  I

  His employer had paid enormously to have the small ship camouflaged as a chunk of asteroid-belt rock, and Gil Murdoch had successfully maneuvered it past the quarantine. Now it lay snugly melted into the ice; and if above them enough water had boiled into space to leave a scar, that was nothing unique on Ganymede’s battered surface. In any case, the Terran patrols weren’t likely to come in close.

  Murdoch applied heat forward and moved the ship gingerly ahead.

  “What are you doing now?” Waverill demanded.

  Murdoch glanced at the blind man. “Trying to find a clear spot, sir, so I can see into the place.”

  “What for? Why don’t you just contact them?”

  “Just being careful, sir. After all, we don’t know much about them.” Murdoch kept the annoyance out of his voice. He had his own reasons for wanting a preliminary look at the place, though the aliens had undoubtedly picked them up thousands of miles out and knew exactly where they were now.

  Something solid, possibly a rock imbedded in the ice, bumped along the hull. Murdoch stopped the ship, then moved on more slowly.

  The viewscreens brightened. He stopped the drive, then turned off the heat forward. Water, milky with vapor bubbles, swirled around them, gradually clearing. In a few minutes it froze solid again and he could see.

  They were not more than ten feet from the clear area carved out of the ice. Murdoch had the viewpoint of a fish in murky water, looking into an immersed glass jar. The place was apparently a perfect cylinder, walled by a force-field or whatever held back the ice. He could see the dark translucency of the opposite wall, about fifty yards away and extending down eighty or ninety feet from the surface. He’d only lowered the ship a third that far, so that from here he looked down upon the plain one-story building and the neat lawns and hedges around it.

  The building and greenery occupied only one-half of the area, the half near Murdoch being paved entirely with gravel and unplanted. That, he presumed, was where they’d land. The building was fitted to the shape of its half-circle, and occupied most of it, like a half cake set in a round box with a little space around it. A gravel walkway, bordered by grass, ran along the straight front of the building and around the back curve of it. The hedges surrounded the half-circle at the outside.

  There was an inconspicuous closed door in the middle of the building. There were no windows in the flat gray wall.

  The plants looked Terran, and apparently were rooted in soil, though there must be miles of ice beneath. Artificial sunlight poured on the whole area from the top. Murdoch had heard, and now was sure, that something held an atmosphere in the place.

  “What are we waiting for?” Waverill wanted to know.

  Murdoch reached for a switch and said, simply, “Hello.”

  The voice that answered was precise and uninflected. “Who are you.”

  “My employer is Frederick Waverill. He has an appointment.”

  “And you.”

  “Gilbert Murdoch.”

  There was a pause, then, “Gilbert Andrew Murdoch. Age thirty-four. Born in the state called Illinois.”

  Murdoch, startled, hesitated, then realized he’d probably been asked a question. “Er—that’s right.”

  “There is a price on your head Murdoch.”

  Murdoch hesitated again, then said, “There’d be a price on your own if Earth dared to put it there.”

  Waverill gripped the arms of his seat and stood up, too vigorously for the light gravity. “Never mind all that. I hired this man because he could make the contact and get me here. Can you give me back my eyes?”

  “We can but first of all I must warn both of you against trying to steal anything from us or prying into our methods. Several Terrans have tried but none have escaped alive.”

  Waverill
made an impatient gesture. “I’ve already got more money than I can count. I’ve spent a lot of it, a very great lot, on the metal you wanted, and I have it here in the ship.”

  “We have already perceived it and we do not care what it has cost you. We are not altruists.”

  That, thought Murdoch, could be believed. He felt clammy. If they knew so much about him, they might also be aware of the years he’d spent sifting and assessing the rumors about them that circulated around the tenuous outlaw community of space. Still, he’d been as discreet as was humanly possible.

  He wondered if Waverill knew more than he pretended. He thought not; Murdoch’s own knowledge was largely meticulous deduction. This much Murdoch knew with enough certainty to gamble his life on it: the treatments here involved a strange virus-like thing which multiplied in one’s veins and, for presumably selfish or instinctive reasons, helped the body to repair and maintain itself. He knew for dead certain that the aliens always carefully destroyed the virus in a patient’s veins before letting him go.

  He thought he knew why.

  The problem was to smuggle out any viable amount of the virus. Even a few cells, he thought, would be enough if he could get away from here and get them into his own blood. For it would multiply; and what would be the going price for a drop of one’s blood—for a thousandth of a drop—if it carried virtual immortality?

  A man could very nearly buy Earth.

  * * * *

  The voice was speaking again. “Move straight ahead. The field will be opened for you.”

  Murdoch got the ship moving. He was blanked out again by the melting ice until they popped free into air, with an odd hesitation and then a rush. The ship was borne clear on some sort of a beam. He could hear water cascading outside the hull for a second, then it was quiet. He glanced at the aft viewer and could see the tunnel where they’d come out, with a little water still in the bottom, confined by the force-field again. The water that had escaped was running off along a ditch that circled the clearing.