The Three Planeteers

by Edmond Hamilton

  The glassite helmets, immune to all heat and cold, were also coated with the black element. Before it hardened on the helmets, Thorn scraped two spots thin, making them semi-transparent for vision.

  "It means dim visions but I dare not remove it completely from the eye plates of the helmets,” he muttered. “Anything more would be dangerous, in the hell of radiation that must rage out there."

  The asterium coating on the suits and helmets hardened rapidly. When it was cool, they took the ray-proofed suits into the Venture., and put them on in place of the ones they wore.

  "Hell, it's as stiff as a suit of armor,” muttered Gunner Welk, as he moved in his new suit.

  "And these eyeholes can scarcely be seen through,” complained Sual Av as he donned the helmet.

  "Will you two stop chattering and hurry?” John Thorn demanded violently.

  His two comrades stared at him. And Thorn realized that he had shouted at them.

  "Sorry,” he said hoarsely, “but I'm half out of my head, thinking of Lana out there with Cheerly.",

  "We understand,” Sual Av nodded. But we'll find them, sure, before anything happens to Lana. And we're sure of the radite now, if all goes well."

  "It isn't only getting the radite that's on my mind,’ Gunner said. His face was deeply troubled, as he added slowly, “Even if we get the radite back safely to Earth to use in Philip Blaine's secret weapon, how do we know that weapon will really save the Alliance from the League attack? What kind of weapon can hope to defeat ten thousand armed cruisers?"

  John Thorn felt a chill of foreboding at the big Mercurian's words. Thorn, too, all this time, had been haunted by the very possibility that Gunner had put into words.

  "Suppose Blaine's invention fails, after all?” Gunner continued. “Suppose it's sound in theory, but impractical in fact. We don't know a thing about the nature of it, remember!"

  "I've thought of that, too,” Sual Av muttered worriedly. “Blaine has the name of one of the greatest physicists in the system. Yet what could he invent that would sweep ten thousand cruisers out of space?"

  "Blaine must have something tremendous,” Thorn insisted desperately. “The Chairman has faith in his weapon. We've got to have faith, too,, and get the radite that will operate the thing. And we won't get it by delaying here!"

  The Planeteers emerged from the Venture, wearing the black, asterium-coated suits and helmets. Stilicho Keene came hastily toward them, holding to the collar of the space dog Ool. The beast reared up against Thorn, its green eyes pleading.

  "Ool senses Lana somewhere on this world,” Stilicho said. “Are you going to take him with you?"

  "We can't. His unprotected body, non-organic though it is, would be affected by the radiation out there,” Thorn said. He grasped the spacesuited old Martian's hand. “Keep a close watch ever the prisoners, Stilicho. We'll come back with Lana and the radite—or we won't come back at all."

  "Good luck to ye,” Stilicho said.

  The Planeteers started down the western curved slope of the huge, black meteorite-mountain. Soon they reached the base of the mountain, and stood for a moment, looking out awedly across the uncanny world into which they were to venture.

  Under the dark, starry sky stretched the forbidding deserts of Erebus, dim wastes whose every grain of sand throbbed with a faint blue radiance that gathered in drifting azure haze. The shining blue mists swirled and pulsated slowly, wrapping the whole dusky landscape before them, veiling the mountains westward.

  They knew that when they stepped out on that blowing waste, into those shining mists, they would be stepping into a hell of radiation streaming ceaselessly from the radioactive mass of the planet—a torrent of alpha particles and of beta rays and of hard gamma radiation as withering as super X-rays.

  Determinedly, John Thorn strode forward. The other two Planeteers followed. Their feet sinking slightly into the glowing sand, they trudged westward.

  "They felt no change. But when Thorn tried to use his suit-audio, there came from it only a shattering roar. He linked hands with his comrades, speaking to them by conduction of sound.

  "The radiation kills our audios completely,” he said. “It's what deadened all our instruments as we approached Erebus."

  Sual Av nodded his black-helmeted head vigorously. “The gamma. radiation alone from this mass would do that."

  "How in hell's name does this whole world come to be radioactive?” Gunner muttered. “If it was thrown off the sun in a tidal disturbance like the other planets, it should consist of the same kind of matter."

  "I believe Erebus is the product of an older and deeper disturbance than that which produced the other planets,” Sual AV said keenly. “A disturbance so deep that it hurled out a mass of the heavier radioactive elements at the sun's heart, which formed a huge radioactive core for this world when it hardened."

  "But there must have been some non-radioactive elements here originally, even so,” objected Gunner.

  "Yes, but they would inevitably be made radioactive also by the radiation from the core,” Sual Av replied. “You know, the familiar phenomenon of induced radioactivity, which was discovered by the old Earth scientists way back in the first third of the twentieth century. The phenomenon by which a sheet of aluminum or some other normally non-radioactive element will become itself radioactive if subjected to radiation from radioactive elements."

  "That must be what has happened,” Thorn agreed. “And any ship that landed here would instantly also become radioactive in every particle, from the same cause."

  They trudged on. Weird journey across a blue-hazed planet beneath the eternally nighted sky! On over the desert, crunching the feebly glowing sands beneath their feet, constantly aware that the failure of the asterium coating on their spacesuits would mean death.

  They steered by the stars, for the black metal mountain had dropped from sight behind them. Infinitely strange it seemed, on this outermost world so far from the sun, to look up into the dusky sky and see there the familiar, glittering constellations!

  Then they glimpsed the western mountains in the distance ahead, looming low, dark and barren-looking through the drifting blue mists. The Planeteers held toward those dreary peaks.

  "I see someone ahead!” exclaimed Sual AV suddenly,, stopping, “Someone coming toward us."

  "It must be Cheerly coming back"’ cried Gunner, his hand darting to the asterium-coated atom-pistol belted outside his spacesuit.

  Thorn's heart went cold with fear. If Cheerly was coming back with the radite, it meant Lana was already dead.

  "No!” Sual AV cried, stupefied. “It's not Cheerly and his men. Look, it's something shining!"

  "Good God, can there be any truth in what those Saturnians told of having seen shining demons out here?” Thorn exclaimed hoarsely.

  For the two creatures moving toward them through the blue mists were unbelievable! They were man-formed creatures, but they were glowing with soft blue light!

  The two shining things came on, straight toward the Planeteers. And they stopped a few yards away from the three comrades. They wore no space-suits or protection of any kind.

  "God!” came Sual Av's thick-voiced exclamation. “They're men—shining men—radioactive men!"

  Thorn's brain reeled at the sight. He felt as though he was looking at some weird mirage born of the shining mists.

  The two men before him were human in every respect. They wore the tattered remnants of leather clothing such as space-sailors had worn in the past. One of them was tall, rangy of body. The other was smaller, with Martian features.

  But both of the two men were glowing. Every atom of their bodies and of their clothing shone with faint radiance. These men were living human beings whose bodies had become as radioactive in every particle as all else on this world!

  CHAPTER XVIII

  Damned Souls of Erebus

  THORN could not believe his eyes. The sight of men, living men, whose bodies were composed of radioactive matter that glowed wit
h its own spontaneous energy, was, brain-shattering. He and his comrades stood rigid, staring at the two glowing men.

  The radioactive men returned their gaze with weirdly glowing eyes. And now Thorn saw that in their shining faces was a tragic sadness and deep despair. The radiant countenance of the taller man, the strong, thin face that seemed vaguely familiar to Thorn, was a shining mask of haunting horror.

  "They're men like ourselves—but men made radioactive by the terrific radiation here!” Sual Av exclaimed hoarsely. “Induced, radioactivity, working somehow, upon living beings!"

  The Venusian's words carried by vibration of his helmet through the hazy air to the two glowing men. For the taller, the one whose face seemed vaguely familiar, answered.

  "You are right,” he said slowly, in a deep, strangely husked voice. “We are men like yourselves, who came to this hellish world in the past. And it made us into what you see."

  "How is it possible for you to live, when your body has been changed into radioactive matter?” Thorn asked wildly. “It has never been dreamed that there could be radioactive life!"

  "Life,” said the tall glowing man heavily, “is dependent upon energy. Your bodies draw energy from their chemical processes. But my body needs now, no. chemical consumption of air and food to give it energy, for every atom of it now flames with the energy which itself radiates. Nothing can halt that spontaneous flow of energy from the atoms of my body. It will go on for ages until every atom has completely lost its energy and has been transmuted into elements lower in the atomic scale. I cannot die, until then."

  A sound of bitter laughter tore from his lips as his glowing eyes held the three horror-stricken Planeteers.

  "I cannot die, do you hear? Though I were to cut my own limbs off, though I were to hack my body, it would still live, for each atom of each fragment would still emit ceaseless energy. My brain—my consciousness—would still remain living! And even if my brain were cut to bits, each bit of it would retain the flame of my life and consciousness."

  "God!” muttered Gunner Welk thickly. “Then this is what has befallen all the explorers of the past who came here to Erebus!"

  The tall radioactive man nodded his glowing head somberly.

  "Aye, it has befallen hundreds of others who came here, as it did me. I did not dream of the nature of this devil world when I came here. How could I? I thought the shining hazes a mere phosphorescence. I landed my ship, and at once my ship crumbled as certain of its metallic elements were swiftly disintegrated by the radiation. And then the radiation quickly changed my body—into this.

  "And I have dwelt here ever since, as you see me now. A travesty of life, a mockery of a human being living on and on, unable to die, unable even to kill myself!"

  "How long?” Thorn asked hoarsely. “How long have you two lived thus on this world?"

  At this the tall radioactive man pointed to his companion. “This is Chan Gray, who came from Mars to explore Erebus five centuries ago—"

  "Five centuries ago!” Thorn cried dazedly. “You mean that he's been living here, in that horrible state, for five hundred years?"

  "The thing's not possible” exclaimed Gunner Welk thickly.

  The taller radioactive man answered heavily. “He has been living thus five centuries, yes. I was here when he came. For I have dwelt, as you see me now on, Erebus for nine centuries. I landed on this devil world in two thousand and six."

  "That can't be!” objected John Thorn. “Why, in two thousand and six interplanetary travel was only a few years old! The only men who had made space-flights by that date were Robert Roth himself, the first of them all, and his lieutenant, Clymer Nison."

  Thorn's voice broke off as he stared in shaken horror and recognition into the glowing face of the tall radioactive man.

  "God above!” Thorn choked. “Your face! I thought it was familiar from pictures. You—Clymer—"

  "I am Clymer Nison, yes,” answered the tall glowing man dully.

  A spell held the Planeteers, a trance of stupefaction and awe, as they stared at the man before them. A man whose name had been famous in the system's history for nine hundred years, whose name stood second only to that of Robert Roth in the great roll of the space-pioneers.

  "Clymer Nison!” said Gunner hoarsely, unbelievingly. “The man who helped Robert Roth build the first space-ship of all, the man who was first of all men to visit Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, and who—"

  "-and who wanted to be the first man to visit Erebus, also,” Nison finished heavily, “And who has remained here ever since, in living death, the most horrible of dooms."

  The Planeteers could not speak. They could only stare at the glowing man in stricken awe.

  To them, as to all who sailed space, this man ranked almost as a demigod. He and the immortal Robert Roth had statues in their honor on every inhabited planet. And now they had found him on this far mystery world, not really living, yet not dead!

  "So long—so long ago it was that I came here,” Clymer Nison was saying in his heavy voice, his shining eyes staring tragically into the haunted past. “So long, since I left Earth on that fatal outward voyage that brought me to this doom.

  "And yet there are times when all the long centuries of long death here seem but a moment, when it seems that it was only yesterday that I sailed with such high hopes. When it seems only yesterday that I toiled with Robert to build that first ship of his, and watched him roar out into space to glory."

  "You say there are others like you two on this world?” John Thorn asked unsteadily.

  Nison nodded heavily. “Aye, there are several hundred of us radioactive men wearily roaming this hellish world. All of them men who have come here in past centuries’ and have been trapped, as I was trapped, by the deadly radiation. You are the first men I have ever seen come here and escape the doom that seized us."

  "We landed on that black meteorite mountain of asterium,” Thorn told him. “And we ray-proofed our suits with the metal."

  "Ask him about the radite, John,” muttered Sual Av tensely. Jerkily, Thorn told the two glowing men what had brought them to Erebus. There was a brooding silence before Clymer Nison spoke.

  "And you say that this radite will save the inner planets from dreadful conquest, if you can take it back?” he asked.

  "We hope it will,” Thorn answered tensely. “If Blaine's secret weapon is effective—"

  "I do not see,” said the glowing man slowly, “what weapon or invention could ever defeat such a fleet as you say the outer planets have gathered."

  The old doubt and fear that Thorn had felt increasingly as the days went by, tautened his voice as he answered.

  "We don't know either how Blaine can hope to do that, what the nature of his mysterious weapon is,” Thorn admitted. “Yet, that secret of his is the one last possible chance to prevent the conquest of the Alliance."

  He voiced a desperate appeal to Nison. “Earth is your native world, as Mars is that of your companion. It's to prevent the wreck and ruin of those two worlds, and of Venus and Mercury too, that we're asking you to help us find the radite."

  "I will help you,” Clymer Nison said slowly, his tragic radiant face heavy with thought. “Though the Earth you serve cannot be the Earth of nine centuries ago from which I came, yet it is still Earth."

  His glowing companion, the little Martian, Chan Gray, slowly nodded his head, and spoke to the Planeteers for the first time.

  "Aye,” he said huskily. “And I remember the Mars of five centuries ago—the pleasant desert cities, the sun shining on the polar snows. I would not want the hordes of the outer planets to devastate that."

  "You know where the radite lies?” Thorn asked Nison eagerly.

  The glowing space-pioneer inclined his bead.

  He turned and pointed westward through the swirling blue haze.

  "In the mountains yonder, a lump of it lies. But it will be dangerous to try to take it,” he explained. “The terrific emanations that stream from that mass of radite ar
e more penetrating than any other. To the bodies of us radioactive men who wearily wander immortally over this planet, those powerful emanations of the radite are stimulating, as sunlight is to you. There are always some of us radioactive men gathered about that radite, basking in the grateful radiation from it.

  "And all these poor creatures like myself will resist your taking the radite. For to bask in its emanations is almost the only pleasure they have in this terrible mockery of existence. Yet, with the safety of Earth and the inner worlds at stake, I will help you attempt to take the radite."

  Nison turned heavily, and he and his radiant companion looked back at the Planeteers.

  After a moment, he spoke to Thorn. “Follow us,” Nison's voice reached them. “We will lead you to the radite."

  As they started on westward across the shining desert, forging through the luminous blue haze beneath the dark, star-studded sky. An unearthly party—the three Planeteers in their grotesque black ray-proof space-suits, led by the two glowing radioactive men.

  "It's like a nightmare” Gunner's voice reached Thorn, the Mercurian gripping his arm as they trudged along. “This hellish world, haunted by these pitiful ghosts of men."

  "No wonder Martin Cain wouldn't tell anyone about what he'd seen here, when he got back,” muttered Sual Av.

  * * * *

  They forged on for hours, ever west across the dim desert. The Planeteers followed closely behind their glowing guides, but the three comrades were beginning to tire from the weight of their asterium-coated space-suits, while the two radioactive men showed no sign of fatigue.

  "Damn the gravitation of this world!” Gunner gritted. “It's as strong as Earth's, and it shouldn't be half that strong on a little planet like this."

  "The huge radioactive core of this world gives it its unusual mass,” Sual Av declared. “And the radiation from it is responsible for the warmth that permits a gaseous atmosphere here,"

  Thorn's heart quickened as he saw beyond their radiant guides, a low, barren dark range of mountains looming up through the haze.

  "We're getting there!” Thorn cried eagerly.