by Harl Vincent
“Good, I think,” was Randall’s reply. “And I think we shouldn’t be too concerned about the lifeless surface we’ve been viewing. Remember we see only one side. This body is similar to our moon in that it doesn’t rotate. But we know from our instruments that there is our sort of life—somewhere there. It may well be on the far side.”
“Which we will see during our approach orbits.”
“Yes, and make our landing where it seems most desirable.”
“On the other side.”
“I’ll buy that.” Donley and his companions had come in during the conversation. “It makes sense to me,” he asserted.
Jal Tarjen agreed. “Yes, good plan. Will need live pilot takeover from automatic not too late.”
Randall and the mate looked at him in amazement. For the first time, Randall noted the tiny gold triple bar pin that marked him as a class A-l sky pilot and a qualified ship’s officer.
“You’re a pilot!” exclaimed Randall.
“Yes. Was first mate on Martian ship Phobos.” What had happened to the Phobos was no secret. Her owners had made a narcotics carrier of her by taking heavy payola from shippers of the stuff, unknown to the officers and crew. All of which had come out in the sensational trials in Interplanetary Court and the ship was now under WSA impound for a period of three years. Jal Tarjen had not recontracted immediately and was now on his way home for a period of relaxation.
Randall whistled. “You may be just what we’ll need here a little later on. Which brings me, Donley, to the reason I asked you to come here—what do you think about releasing Stark?”
“Hm-m. He’s still the captain,” Donley was forced to admit, “and I’d think you’re obliged to give him a chance to redeem himself.”
“Just what Mr. Standish and I have been thinking.
But we wanted your opinion—you seem to have so much influence with the passengers.”
Donley saw the point. “I’d say bring him to right now and give him the balance of the time before landing to show if he’s got what it takes. We sure have insurance against a mistake, with you and the mate and—and Jal—standing by.”
“And yourself,” the mate put in.
“If you want muscles,” Donley grimaced.
“And persuasiveness,” added Randall. “Don’t sell yourself short, Donley.”
In the dining saloon, about ten of the passengers were standing in little groups, holding plates they had loaded with viands but not seeming in any too great hurry to eat. The steady beat of the cosmic pulsation was quite noticeable here but did not seem to affect any of them. Their shoes had all been modified so as long as they remained on their feet they were protected. Phil and Miss Barrett were here and watching carefully for any that gave evidence of needing ear stoppage. So far, there had been none. The talk was all of the anticipated landing but no undertones of fear were detectable.
Satisfied finally with what they had done, Phil and Amanda drifted over to the table where desserts had been set out. Pastries, puddings, rich tarts and pies—and a large round, three-storied cake with white icing. Amanda gripped Phil’s arm when she saw this.
“A wedding cake,” she almost whispered, then blushed like a girl.
“Could be,” Phil said, undismayed. “If only—”
At that instant the optophone spoke out and Captain Stark’s face appeared in the disc. His old look of ill-humor seemed to have been replaced by an expression of benignity. “I wish to reassure the passengers,” he said, “as to the landing we will make shortly. We have three experienced pilots aboard and they are presently going over the necessary computations together. In addition, one of these is the WSA man, Randall, who is an authority on space navigation and knows all of its perils and the means of overcoming them. We have two hours, fifteen minutes remaining.”
The disc went blank. “Do you suppose,” said Phil, pulling Amanda close, “we could get the skipper to—now—hitch us?”
“You mean it?” Miss Barrett had been a beautiful girl, you could see that, but now she bloomed to the even more striking beauty of the mature woman who finds love for the first time.
“I sure do.” Phil was already on his way out to find the captain.
And so it was that the music room of the Meteoric was the scene of a hastily arranged wedding. Another woman passenger managed to find some white veiling in her baggage. Phil had a ring on his pinkie that had been his mother’s, a perfect heirloom to use for the wedding ring. Doris played the organ. It was all sort of mixed up but impressive nevertheless. Captain Stark seemed to everybody to have become a new man, of almost clerical dignity and consideration. All of the passengers were there, also the steward, the mate, two of the chart room crew, and Doctor Randall, who obligingly gave away the bride.
The little wedding party walked up the center aisle as Doris gave out with the wedding march, Captain Stark waiting on the rostrum with book in hand.
It was over in ten minutes, the simple interplanetary ceremony being a short one to read. The captain kissed the bride and so did the mate, the steward, Randall, and Donley—even Lantag. The women made a great fuss over the happy spinster now turned wife.
“I’m a lucky guy,” quoth Phil, hugging her to him after the rest had let her go. “And you won’t be sorry, Amanda.”
“Of course I’ll not.”
The music room had emptied miraculously so there was not a soul to witness the swift rapturous merging of the two love-starved beings.
With less than an hour to go, Donley and Jal Tarjen checked on all of the passengers and crew members to be sure all were protected against the effects of the pulsations. In all cases the shoes had been altered and with two of the crew and three passengers it had been found advisable to use cotton wads to reduce their acuteness of hearing. Recoil seats in the main saloon were sufficient for all of the passengers and with six additional in case any of the officers or crewmen happened to be in the area when needed. In the crew’s quarters and at their assigned posts, beds and seats had been isolated from floor and walls. In case of emergency illness or other reason, ten of the passenger cabins had been prepared by installing the cushioning blocks under beds and chair legs. These cabins were distinguished by a red X painted on each door and their numbers were listed on all bulletin boards.
Captain Stark was in the navigating cabin but he seemed perfectly content to let things stand as they were, with the mate ready to take over the controls when off of automatic and Doctor Randall to take full responsibility. It didn’t seem right to Randall somehow; Stark had never been known to react this way to higher authority. For which reason, Randall kept an eye in the back of his head and an ear to the floor, so to speak.
Donley and the Martian remained with the passengers, who were all gathered in the main saloon, eyes intent on the large optophone disc. Donley had promised them that the landing would be put on the video as soon as they were near enough to the body to make it worth while, an arrangement that had been made by those in the navigating cabin. It was merely a matter of cutting in the images picked up by the main optical scanners and converting them to optophone frequency.
When at length the disc was energized, the orb of the body they approached was within a hair of filling it. And, almost before they had time to take in its rugged features, it overlapped and was larger than the optodisc. Randall’s voice boomed briskly from the audio.
“Our approach is to be somewhat different than the usual landing approach. This is because of the energy stream and the manner in which it limits us out here. It slows down materially just before reaching the body and sort of splashes around it, much as would be seen if a hose directed a stream of high velocity water against a globe. Where it splashes out is where we will change direction and go into our first landing orbit. At so close a distance, it may be we can land without even one complete orbit—provided we can decelerate sufficiently.”
Donley was at the audio pickup nearest to him asked, “Do you plan to land on the other side?”
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“Depending on what we see there, Donley. Certainly it can’t be a worse place than this side seems to be.”
The tortured landscape now seemed to fling upward to meet them. Huge crevices yawned between towering crags just beneath them and then were gone as a flat and dusty plain appeared, teetering and rising at a rapid rate. Then a series of ragged peaks and a gaping fissure of indeterminable length and depth. The only indication that intelligent life may have once inhabited this barren land was an occasional mound of huge size in the flatlands, mounds or irregular outline that might possibly have been the sites of ruined cities. There were no vestiges of roads or of squared off farmlands. Since there was no atmosphere, no wind was there to whip the dust of the wastelands into clouds or those little whirling flurries one sees in California’s inland valleys.
The bride and groom, that is the latest pair, sat hand in hand with considerably more interest in each other than in the scene before them. The first honeymoon couple, Fred and Doris Underwood, it must be admitted, were not too far behind them in this respect.
“Prepare for change of course!” came from the audio. The voice was that of the mate, who had obviously taken the manual controls.
There came the whine and then the roar of lateral and underside rocket motors, a lurch of the ship, and the view in the optodisc swung past so rapidly as to become a blur. Then they had leveled off and the landscape below, seeming very near now, slid swiftly stem-ward. There showed a sort of bluish haze as if they were in the midst of a light fog. The angle of flight evidently changed ever so slightly, or Randall had altered the angle of the optical scanners, because the horizon became visible up ahead. Here the blue haze seemed to be merging with another that had a distinctly pinkish cast.
At this point Randall came to the audio again and asked for Jal Tarjen. Told him they wanted him in the navigating cabin. “Nothing in the way of an emergency/’ he added hastily. “But we want you on hand. I’ve not forgotten you’re a top grade pilot and it’s a good safeguard—”
“How about me?” Donley asked hopefully.
“You’re best right where you are,” Randall told him. “Remember our conversation. And thanks for standing by.”
“Oh, well, I’m no spaceman,” Donley was forced to admit. But he’d have given his right arm to be nearer the scene of operations.
The Martian unstrapped and disappeared into the corridor. The audio let out with Randall’s voice once more. “The pink haze you see at the horizon,” he announced, “is evidence of another energy that is splashing partly around the body from the opposite side. We hadn’t known of this before and what it means we aren’t sure as yet. However, we do know two things about it. The second energy is lesser than the one we are in. And the merging of the two in space surrounding the body will assist us in landing.”
Again came the rising whine and then the roar of forward rocket motors, the automatic 180 degree reversal of the recoil seats and the switching of the view to the optodisc on the rear bulkhead as deceleration began. There was the usual illusion of still facing forward. Donley thought of the ever-present throb and it came to him that he hadn’t noticed it at all since the start of the landing operation. Deliberately he tried to pick it up out of all the other sounds, but he could not. Only by dropping his hand to the floor beside his seat and touching it with his fingertips was he able to apprise that it was still there.
The retro rockets continued their roar and the landscape below was slowing down in its apparent motion.
Ahead toward the horizon could be seen what looked like a large bubble that glowed in the swiftly darkening sky. Then they had crossed the dividing line between day and night and were in Stygian darkness. Only the distant bubble could be seen. Apparently they were heading directly toward this phenomenon.
And then the Meteoric rocked to a terrific shock as one of the rocket motors exploded. There were sounds of ripping metal that were quickly drowned out by the cries of the passengers. Then the lights went out and Donley unstrapped himself and rose up in the darkness.
“Take it easy, folks,” his calm voice sang out, “I don’t believe this will be serious but I’m going to find out the score.”
Fred Underwood spoke out of the dark, “I’ll go with you.”
“Not a chance. You stick with Doris. And everybody sit tight until I let you know what’s what.” He had already tried the audio and found it dead.
As the passengers quieted down under his urging, there could be discerned faintly the cosmic pulse. Lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub.
The lights flickered on as he darted into the passageway, glowed redly a moment and then came up to full brilliance. An emergency generator had taken over.
CHAPTER SIX
The Martian was with Randall at the controls and the mate was calling out numbers from the tape as it chittered out from the alarm printer of the computer. Captain Stark was nowhere to be seen, which was a strange if not ominous circumstance.
“Where’s Cap?” was Donley first question.
Randall partly turned from the controls. “Wish I knew,” he admitted, “two of the crew came and whispered to him, then all three slipped out.”
“Could he have caused the explosion?”
“No, but he might have jimmied the power and light circuits.”
“They’re all right now, aren’t they?”
“Yes.”
“How about fuel for landing?”
Randall held up his hand as Mr. Standish called out more numbers. “A bare sufficiency remains,” he said. “We’ll do it, I swear. But I sure wish I knew about the captain and those two—”
Donley was watching the deceleration indicator and trying to see the view in the optodisc at the same time. Up ahead the glowing bubble was growing larger with increasing rapidity, it seemed, even though they were slowing down to near landing speed and dropping surfaceward.
“I’ll go looking for them if you want,” he offered.
“Thanks, but I wouldn’t know where to start.”
The roar of the braking rockets continued, a little more subdued as Randall inched back the main throttle. And then a new lurch of the ship betokened a new happening. It was as if a considerable weight had been jettisoned very suddenly and Donley saw Randall’s face pale with realization.
“The auxiliary rocket ship!” he exclaimed. “They’ve blasted off in that.”
The blue flame of the single rocket exhaust showed then in the optodisc and vaguely outlined ahead of it the small stubby-winged hull of the emergency escape ship. It was dropping faster than they and veering away from their line of approach.
“Why? Why?” the mate was gasping. “I don’t—”
“Never mind why, just now,” Donley interrupted. “Back there in the saloon there are some people ready to panic. What to do about that?”
“I’ll put our landing image on their optos,” said Randall. “The escape ship is out of sight now and they needn’t know about that. You can calm them, Donley. Just keep their minds off of things by describing the landing as you watch it—back there.”
Donley took the hint and scuttled back along the passageway.
He had been right about the danger of panic. The optodiscs had not yet been reenergized after the blackout and a bedlam of shouting greeted him as he entered. Numbers of the passengers had unstrapped and were milling about. Donley was amazed to see that Brand and Davidson had teamed up with Eula and her sister Byrl. More effects of the ray stream pulsations?
“Quiet! Quiet!” he boomed. “I’ve been at the controls and everything’s all right. The optodiscs will show—”
At that instant, the large disc aft glowed into life for all to see that they were approaching what now appeared to be a transparent dome of great size, lighted within and obviously an enclosed space for living quarters of some sort. This sight had more quieting effect than had Donley’s voice.
“You will be glad to know,” he told them, “that Doctor Randall himself is now at the controls. And
he’s one of the top men of WSA. He swore he’d make this landing safely.”
He watched as Brand buckled the safety belt of the recoil seat in which the girl Eula had reclined, then strapped himself in the seat alongside. Davidson was doing the same with Byrl. To Donley this was a surprising thing for the steward had told him these girls were sent on this trip by parents worried because of their withdrawal from contacts with the opposite sex and more than normal preoccupation with each other. And the two young programmers had vowed eternal bachelorhood! What next would the ray stream accomplish?
The view in the optodisc now showed a faintly star-lighted landscape beneath them. It was seemingly not as rugged and menacing as that of the other side of the body and was slanting up toward them and was slipping sternward at what Donley thought was just the proper angle and speed for a perfect landing. If there were to be found a smooth spot ahead. The lighted dome was a mighty inviting sight.
Seeing that the last of those who had been on their feet were now safely buckled into recoil seats, he followed suit. “You will notice,” he said quietly from -where he sat, “that everything is perfectly normal for a good landing. The braking rockets you can hear are lessening their power at the correct rate; Randall’s got it made.”
As he spoke, the diminishing roar of the forward and underside rockets ceased entirely. They had run out of fuel I But Donley kept the thought to himself. Randall fired the emergency solid fuel braking tube until it, too, was silent. They had slowed almost to landing speed. Underneath and just ahead was a considerable area that looked smooth and of sufficient size for landing. They were skimming the surface.
“We’ll be landing at once,” Donley opined. “I’d guess that we may have a slightly bumpier contact than is customary; after all this is no ethership port But it shouldn’t be too bad.”
