The Mysterious Planet

CHAPTER 1 A Brand New World

IT WAS A FINE MORNING on Mars, clear, crisp and cold. In a little over a hundred years the great air factories had increased the oxygen content until it could be breathed without a mask, and had added enough carbon-dioxide gas to let the air collect and hold the faint heat of the sun. Now it was like a morning high in the mountains on Earth.

Bob Griffith breathed in deeply, enjoying the piney scent of Martian cactus, and let his breath out again in a frosty whirl. After nine months at the Space Academy on Earth, it was good to be home again. He stopped at the entrance to the Space Navy port to glance back at the city of Tharsis, where the Naval Administration building rose up with elfin grace possible only on a world of light gravity. That and the port had dominated his dreams since he was old enough to know that he wanted to be a naval officer, like his father.

Still a few weeks short of seventeen, Bob was already beginning to look like a man. He was still growing, lacking two inches of six feet, and his body hadn’t fully rounded out; but the fur parka he wore now concealed his slimness. The quiet seriousness of his face seemed to add a couple of years to his age, though his gray eyes held hints of fire in them. Normally, a cowlick in his brown hair would have added a touch of humor, but the typical crew-cut of an Academy cadet had removed that, much to Bob’s satisfaction.

He started through the port entrance now, being careful of his stride. This was his first morning back from Earth, and the light gravity of Mars seemed almost strange to him, though he’d grown up there. Then the sight of the great port with its hangars and ships pointing to the stars hit him, and he forgot everything else—even the question he’d been hoping his father would answer, once the normal morning duties of a Wing Commander were over.

Bob walked down the line of ships. Cruisers like slim, needle-nosed cigars; little pursuit jobs; big battlewagons, massive with armor and bristling with guns…

He came to a sudden halt, blinking his eyes. In a corner of the field, a sleek little private ship stood proudly, glistening with newness, and completely out of place on a military field. Bob looked for a sign of naval insignia and found none. There was only the name painted on the tail—the Icarius.

“Hi, Bob.” The voice came from near the little ship, and Bob dropped his eyes to see Simon Jakes slouching out from behind a fin. “Thought it was you. How d’you like the bus? Dad gave it to me for my eighteenth birthday… sort of made up for the Academy’s kicking me out!”

Bob muttered under his breath, but he moved toward the other. Jakes was probably the richest boy in the Solar Federation, since his father owned Federal Space Shipping. But the boy looked like early caricatures of a dumb country hick—the kind probably never seen outside the movies. Coarse yellowish hair fell forward over his forehead, and his eyes seemed vacant in his flat face. His thick lips were always parted slightly, from an early case of adenoids, and a prominent Adam’s apple bobbed on his throat while he talked. His body was a good six feet tall, but his slump and drooping shoulders made him seem shorter.

Yet he was intelligent enough, Bob knew. Nobody had liked him at Space Academy, where he’d been in Bob’s platoon; but it probably wasn’t all Jakes’s fault.

Too much money, his appearance, and a delayed education by tutors had all been against his chances of winning friends. Then, when he couldn’t take discipline and his father had tried to keep him in the Academy by pulling political strings, it had increased the dislike of the other cadets. Bob felt almost sorry for Jakes, but couldn’t entirely like him, either.

Now Simon Jakes came over, trying to be too friendly, as always. “Come on in, Bob, and look her over. Hey, you look good! Don’t mind me—just got up. Flew hi last night, just getting breakfast.”

“How come you’re on naval grounds?” Bob wanted to know. He hesitated, looking at the little ship. He really should go on to see his father, but this was the first time he’d really looked at one of the super-deluxe private yachts.

Simon, obviously bursting with pride, was beaming as Bob followed him slowly into the ship.

“Icarius has the new hydrogen drive, and the regular yards can’t service her. So Dad got a special permit for me to use the Navy shops. Isn’t she a beaut?”

Bob had to admit it. Simon didn’t keep it polished up, as a Navy man would have done, but the gleaming interior was the last word in luxury. There was even real cream for the cocoa Simon poured out.

“Took just four days here from Earth,” Simon went on. “Like a dream. You come on the Mars Maid? Yeah, I thought so. Boy, I wouldn’t travel on a liner after riding this! The minute Dad got my unlimited pilot’s license fixed—took plenty of greasing to get it, too —the very minute, off I took. And here I am!”

“Yeah, here you are,” Bob agreed, without enthusiasm. He wondered if Jakes had any idea of how sickening the idea of bribing officials for an unlimited license was. The mechanical beauty of the inside of the Icarius suddenly lost its interest for him. “Well, I have to be going, Simon. See you around, I guess.”

Simon’s face fell, making him look more like a clown than ever. “Oh!” Then he shook his head. “Nope, you

won’t see me much, Bob. I’m heading out pretty soon.”

“Pirates are supposed to be operating beyond the asteroids,” Bob told him. “They’d pick you up in a hurry and hold you for ransom. At least there are rumors that pirates are operating again. The Ganymede Gal was found stripped with nobody on board. That’s why the Outfleet is getting ready here.”

The Navy was no longer maintained to fight wars. Once, a hundred years before, there had been a close call, when Mars, Venus, and Earth all began building up their private navies and starting a quarrel over rights to the moons of Jupiter. But men of good sense and good will had stopped it in time; the fleets had been united into one Space Navy under the Solar Federation. They had been used to prevent piracy, make sure there could never be another threat of space war, and do the general work of a sort of space coast guard. For years, piracy had been stamped out, but now rumors were flying thick that it was coming back.

Jakes grinned. “No pirate could catch the Icarius, Bob. This ship has legs under her! She’ll beat your best Navy cruiser! Anyhow, I hear rumors that the Outfleet’s preparing for other things. You heard about Planet X?”

Bob nodded. He’d been on his way to ask his father about that very subject. He’d caught a little of it on the radio while on the way to Mars, and everyone here was talking about it. But there seemed to be very little information. Apparently a world had been found coming in from beyond Pluto—the tenth planet that had been speculated on by astronomers since 1900.

The reporters had named it Planet X, because X stood for ten and also for unknown.

“What about it, anyhow?” he asked.

Jakes grinned, and opened a panel on the control board of the Icarius. “Ultrafrequency radio-printer,” he boasted. “Only one ever installed on a private ship. Get all the dope right from Earth as fast as Dad’s private connections get ahold of it. Neat, eh? And look what came over it.”

He passed a few sheets of paper across, and Bob studied them. They gave what he already knew, with a lot more. Planet X was estimated at about the size of Earth, and of equal density. Then he gasped. Planet X wasn’t outside the orbit of Pluto—it was between Pluto and Neptune. Its orbit was now known not to be circular, but egg-shaped, with the small end of the oval reaching a distance of less than three billion miles from the sun, and the large end estimated as reaching out to about seven billion miles, far beyond Pluto. It looked like a crazy orbit, but that was only part of it.

In one month, since first spotted, it had covered nearly fifty million miles. At such a distance from the sun, it should have been crawling along slowly—yet it was traveling at twice the speed of Earth in defiance of all laws of planetary orbits!

Then he saw the message was copied from one of the more sensational Earth papers, and stopped wondering about it. The reporter was going into great detail about its being a

“mystery planet” because of its speed, but that paper was never accurate. They’d probably just put the decimal point in the wrong place.

“So your father’s keeping tabs on you?” Bob asked, as he handed back the sheets with a poker face. It was a dirty crack, but he couldn’t resist it.

Jakes flushed deeply and frowned. “No such thing. He’s too busy for that. I’m paying his private secretary plenty to send me all the news on X.”

“For what? The Navy can get information direct, without your help.”

“Cut it out, Bob.” Jakes frowned again, and then shrugged. “You should guess why I want the information. I’m going to investigate that planet in the Icarius—maybe be the first man to land on it. This little ship’s as fast as any Navy ship, and she’s fueled to go there and back ten times.”

Bob grabbed for the sheets again, and checked. He was right—Space Navy was in charge of investigations, and had marked Planet X as unsafe for civilians until it could be tested officially. He pointed it out silently to Jakes.

The other grinned. “Sure. They want all the glory— that’s why they’re going to move the Outfleet to Neptune to study X. But until I land there, they can’t stop me—and after I do, nobody’s going to stop me! I’ll be a hero!”

“You’ll be a fool!” Bob told him hotly. “That’s why you got kicked out of Space Academy—for doing just such fool things against orders. I should report you to the Fleet Commander.”

“Won’t do any good,” Jakes said. “You can’t prove it, and my father can get me clearance out of the port, as long as I say I’m just going to Neptune—nothing illegal about that.”

He could probably get away with it, since citizens were expected to co-operate voluntarily with the Navy, and usually did so. But it left a bad taste in Bob’s mouth. He got up and started out again; some of his feeling must have shown, since Jakes suddenly made an effort to laugh.

“Aw, I’m just needling you, Bob,” he said quickly. “I’m going to Neptune, sure—I’ve got clearance for that. I probably won’t try to reach Planet X first. I could, though. The Icarius could beat anybody.”

“Maybe. But she isn’t carrying six-inch armor, like a battlewagon. Anyhow, I’ve got to be going. Better keep your pretty little toy away from the Outplanets, Si.”

Jakes saw him to the port, grinning more easily. “Jealous, eh?” he fired as his parting shot.

Bob shrugged and went down the pedestrian walk toward headquarters. Jakes’s crack rankled a bit, because he knew he was jealous. He had no real desire for a private yacht, but he couldn’t help resenting the fact that Jakes would be able to be on the front line if anything proved interesting about Planet X. Part of bis resent-ment probably came from the fact that his father hadn’t even told him the Outfleet was heading for Neptune.

Then he grinned ruefully at his thoughts. He had been back only one night, and the usual family reunion had taken up all the time. He had no right letting Simon Jakes get under his skin. After all, he’d been on his way to ask his father about Planet X, and he could still do it.

Bob’s father was just leaving his office at the end of Wing Nine’s hangar when Bob got there.

The older man was a perfect picture of what a Wing Commander should be—erect, well-muscled without fat, with a face that held command and self-confidence without being either stern or proud. His uniform was strictly regulation, without the fancy cut that some men affected. The deep gray trousers and jacket were without ornamentation, except for the golden sun on his collar.

His voice was warm and relaxed. “Morning, Bob. Thought you might be around, so I’ve been killing time. Want to come along while I check our loading schedule?”

He took the answer for granted and headed for the front of the hangar. Then he suddenly stopped, and swung about with a grin on his face.

“You might as well know it now, Bob,” he said. “You’re looking at the man who’s been selected to investigate Planet X! My orders were just confirmed this morning.”

Bob blinked, and nearly stumbled. “You haver he gasped, and then felt foolish at the treble note that had crept into his voice. “Here I was just coming to ask if you knew anything about it. Why didn’t you tell me last night? You must have known.”

“Naturally,” Commander Griffith agreed. “But not officially. And we don’t spread rumor in the Navy, boy. I was just going to tell the men about it.”

He turned again and Bob followed him. He was all confused now. He was glad his father had the assign-merit; he knew it would be a prize chance for advancement toward the coveted position of Fleet Commander; every man in the Fleet had probably wanted the opportunity, and his father had gotten it! But again a twinge of jealousy hit at him.

If he’d been two years older, and commissioned, he could have been going, maybe. But now he’d have to stay here on Mars, without even the companionship of his father, until the Academy opened again.

It was probably the last chance for exploration he would ever know. The planets had all been covered, years before; and the stars were still out of reach, and wouldn’t be touched during his lifetime. Now a brand new planet showed up—and the best he could do would be to read about it!

Obviously, official word had already been beaten by the rumors, since the men of Wing Nine were clumped into little groups around their twenty ships when Bob and Commander Griffith reached them. They broke up at once, grinning, and began descending on the two.

Griffith halted them with a wave of his hand. “It’s official, boys. We’re heading out for Outpost by Neptune in three days. We base there, scout Planet X, and land to explore if it looks feasible. If not, we’re to determine the orbit of the planet exactly. And it’s no secret now that Planet X is heading inward at a speed that makes some of the astronomers think it must be from outer space, and not a real planet at all! So it should be interesting!”

A whoop went up from them, and the younger men began a crazy snake dance in and out among the ships.

Griffith grinned broadly, and turned back to Bob. “There’s one little thing I forgot to tell you,” he said, too casually. He stopped to light his pipe, then met Bob’s eyes suddenly. “I got special permission to take along a junior aide—some young fellow from the Academy, for instance. Any suggestions?”

Bob’s mouth really fell open then. He stared up at his father, not quite daring to believe what the other was saying. “You mean…”

Griffith nodded. “I mean you, of course! You know the old tradition—on anything except the most dangerous special mission, the Academy usually places one of its cadets as a reward for good work. It keeps up interest. This tune you were on the list of students recommended, and Fleet Commander Jonas thought it might be a good idea for me to have my own son along.”

Bob stood still, unable to make a sound more meaningful than a yell. Then he let out another shout, and leaped forward into the snake dance, adding his cries to those of the other men.

And he’d been jealous of Jakes! This was better than anything that Jakes could hope for. It was even better than graduating from the Academy with top honors and getting command of a ship at once. It was like…

He gave up trying to think what it was like, and just went along with the rest of the shouting, happy group from Wing Nine.