Planet of Adventure

CITY OF THE CHASCH

TO ONE SIDE of the Explorator IV flared a dim and aging star, Carina 4269; to the other hung a single planet, gray-brown under a heavy blanket of atmosphere.

The star was distinguished only by a curious amber cast to its light. The planet was somewhat larger than Earth, attended by a pair of small moons with rapid periods of orbit. An almost typical K2 star, an unremarkable planet, but for the men aboard the Explorator IV the system was a source of wonder and fascination.

In the forward control pod stood Commander Marin, Chief Officer Deale, Second Officer Walgrave: three men similarly trim, erect, brisk of movement, wearing the same neat white uniforms, and so much in each other's company that the wry, offhand intonations in which they spoke, the half-sarcastic, half-facetious manner in which they phrased their thoughts, were almost identical. With scanscopes-hand-held binocular photomultiphers, capable of enormous magnification and amplification-they looked across to the planet.

Walgrave commented, "At casual observation, a habitable planet. Those clouds are surely water-vapor."

"If signals emanate from a world," said Chief Officer Deale, "we almost automatically assume it to be inhabited. Habitability follows as a natural consequence of habitation."

Commander Marin gave a dry chuckle. "Your logic, usually irrefutable, is at fault. We are presently two hundred and twelve light-years from Earth. We received the signals twelve light-years out; hence they were broadcast two hundred years ago. If you recall, they halted abruptly. This world may be habitable; it may be inhabited; it may be both. But not necessarily either."

Deale gave his head a doleful shake. "On this basis, we can't even be sure that Earth is inhabited. The tenuous evidence available to us-"

Beep beep went the communicator. "Speak!" called Commander Marin.

The voice of Dant, the communications engineer, came into the pod: "I'm picking up a fluctuating field; I think it's artificial but I can't tune it in. It just might be some sort of radar."

Marin frowned, rubbed his nose with his knuckle. "I'll send down the scouts, then we'll back away, out of range."

Marin spoke a code-word, gave orders to the scouts Adam Reith and Paul Waunder.

"Fast as possible; we're being detected. Rendezvous at System axis, up, Point D

as in Deneb."

"Right, sir. System axis, up, Point D as in Deneb. Give us three minutes."

Commander Marin went to the macroscope and began an anxious search of the planet's surface, clicking through a dozen wavelengths. "There's a window at about 3000 angstroms, nothing good. The scouts will have to do all of it."

"I'm glad I never trained as a scout," remarked Second Officer Walgrave.

"Otherwise I also might be sent down upon strange and quite possibly horrid planets."

"A scout isn't trained," Deale told him. "He exists: half acrobat, half mad scientist, half cat burglar, half-"

"That's several halves too many."

"Just barely adequate. A scout is a man who likes a change."

The scouts aboard the Explorator IV were Adam Reith and Paul Waunder. Both were men of resource and stamina; each was master of many skills; there the resemblance ended. Reith was an inch or two over average height, dark-haired, with a broad forehead, prominent cheekbones, rather gaunt cheeks where showed an occasional twitch of muscle. Waunder was compact, balding, blond, with features too ordinary for description. Waunder was older by a year or two; Reith however, held senior rank, and was in nominal command of the scout-boat: a miniature spaceship thirty feet long, carried in a clamp under the Explorator's stern.

In something over two minutes they were aboard the scoutboat. Waunder went to the controls; Reith sealed the hatch, pushed the detach-button. The scout-boat eased away from the great black hull. Reith took his seat, and as he did so a flicker of movement registered at the corner of his vision. He glimpsed a gray projectile darting up from the direction of the planet, then his eyes were battered by a tremendous purple-white dazzle.

There was rending and wrenching, violent acceleration as Waunder clutched convulsively upon the throttle, and the scout-boat went careening down toward the planet.

Where the Explorator IV had ridden space now drifted a curious object: the nose and stern of a spaceship, joined by a few shreds of metal, with a great void between, through which burnt the old yellow sun Carina 4269. Along with crew and technicians, Commander Marin, Chief Officer Deale, Second Officer Walgrave had become fleeting atoms of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen, their personalities, brisk mannerisms, and jocularity now only memories.