CHAPTER SIX
Jamison declaimed, wearing a throat-mike as Bell zestfully panned hiscamera and the ship swung down. It was an impressive broadcast. Therockets roared. With the coming of air about the ship, they no longermade a mere rumbling. They created a tumult which was like the growl ofthunder if one were in the midst of the thunder-cloud. It was a numbingnoise. It was almost a paralyzing noise. But Jamison talked withprofessional smoothness.
"This planet," he orated, while pictures from Bell's camera went directto the transmitter below, "this planet is the first world other thanEarth on which a human ship has landed. It is paradoxic that before menhave walked on Mars' red iron-oxide plains and breathed its thin coldair, or fought for life in the formaldehyde gales of Venus, that theyshould look upon a world which welcomes them from illimitableremoteness. Here we descend, and all mankind can watch our descent upona world whose vegetation is green; whose glaciers prove that there isair and water in plenty, whose very smoking volcanoes assure us of itsclose kinship to Earth!"
He lifted the mike away from his throat and framed words with his lips."_Am I still on?_" Cochrane nodded. Cochrane wore headphones carryingwhat the communicator carried, as this broadcast went through an angledDabney field relay system back to Lunar City and then to Earth. He spokeclose to Jamison's ear.
"Go ahead! If your voice fades, it will be the best possible sign-off.Suspense. Good television!"
Jamison let the throat-mike back against his skin. The roaring of therockets would affect it only as his throat vibrated from the sound. Itwould register, even so.
"I see," said Jamison above the rocket-thunder, "forests of giant treeslike the sequoias of Mother Earth. I see rushing rivers, foaming alongtheir rocky beds, taking their rise in glaciers. We are still too highto look for living creatures, but we descend swiftly. Now we are levelwith the highest of the mountains. Now we descend below their smokingtops. Under us there is a vast valley, miles wide, leagues long. Here acity could be built. Over it looms a gigantic mountain-spur, capped withgreen. One would expect a castle to be built there."
He raised his eyebrows at Cochrane. They were well in atmosphere, now,and it had been an obvious defect--condition--necessity of the Dabneyfield that both of its plates should be in a vacuum. One was certainlyin air now. But Cochrane made that gesture which in televisionproduction-practice informs the actors that time to cutting is measuredin tens of seconds, and he held up two fingers. Twenty seconds.
"We gaze, and you gaze with us," said Jamison, "upon a world that futuregenerations will come to know as home--the site of the first humancolony among the stars!"
Cochrane began to beat time. Ten, nine, eight--.
"We are about to land," Jamison declaimed. "We do not know what we shallfind--What's that?" He paused dramatically. "A living creature?--Aliving creature sighted down below! We sign off now--from the stars!"
The ending had been perfectly timed. Allowing for a three-secondinterval for the broadcast to reach the moon, and just about two morefor it to be relayed to Earth, his final word, "Stars!" had been utteredat the precise instant to allow a four-minute commercial by IntercityCredit, in the United States, by Citroen in Europe, by Fabricanos Unidosin South and Central America, and Near East Oil along the Mediterranean.At the end of that four minutes it would be time for stationidentification and a time-signal, and the divers eight-second flashesbefore other programs came on the air.
The rockets roared and thundered. The ship went down and down. Jamisonsaid:
"I thought we'd be cut off when we hit air!"
"That's what Jones thought," Cochrane assured him. He bellowed above theoutside tumult, "Bell! See anything alive down below?"
Bell shook his head. He stayed at the camera aimed out a blister-port,storing up film-tape for later use. There was the feel of gravitation,now. Actually, it was the fact that the ship slowed swiftly in itsdescent.
Cochrane went to a port. The ship continued its descent.
"Living creature? Where?"
Jamison shrugged. He had used it as a sign-off line. An extrapolationfrom the fact that there was vegetation below. He looked somehowdistastefully out the port at a swiftly rising green ground below. Hewas a city man. He had literally never before seen what looked likehabitable territory of such vast extent, with no houses on it. In avalley easily ten miles long and two wide, there was not a square inchof concrete or of glass. There was not a man made object in view. Thesky was blue and there were clouds, but to Jamison the sight ofvegetation implied rooftops. There ought to be parapets where roofsended to let light down to windows and streets below. He had neverbefore seen grass save on elevated recreation-areas, nor bushes notarranged as landscaping, and certainly not trees other than thedomesticated growths which can grow on the tops of buildings. To Jamisonthis was desolation. On the moon, absence of structures wasunderstandable. There was no air. But here there should be a city!
The ship swayed a little as the rockets swung their blasts to balancethe descending mass. The intended Mars-ship slowed, and slowed, andhovered--and there was terrifying smoke and flame suddenly allabout--and then there was a distinct crunching impact. The rocketscontinued to burn, their ferocity diminished. They slackened again. Andyet again. They were reduced to a mere faint murmur.
There was a remarkable immobility of everything. It was the result ofgravity. Earth-value gravity, or very near it. There was a distinctpressure of one's feet against the floor, and a feeling of heaviness toone's body which was very different from Lunar City, and more differentstill from free flight in emptiness.
Nothing but swirling masses of smoke could be seen out the ports. Theyhad landed in a forest, of sorts, and the rocket-blasts had burned awayeverything underneath, down to solid soil. In a circle forty yards aboutthe ship the ground was a mass of smoking, steaming ash. Beyond thatflames licked hungrily, creating more dense vapor. Beyond that stillthere was only coiling smoke.
Cochrane's headphones yielded Babs' voice, almost wailing:
"_Mr. Cochrane! We must have landed! I want to see!_"
Cochrane pressed the hand-mike button.
"Are we still hooked up to Lunar City?" he demanded. "We can't be, butare we?"
"_We are_," said Babs' voice mutinously. "_The broadcast went throughall right. They want to talk to you. Everybody wants to talk to you!_"
"Tell them to call back later," commanded Cochrane. "Then leave the beamworking--however it works!--and come up if you like. Tell the moonoperator you'll be away for ten minutes."
He continued to stare out the window. Al, the pilot, stayed in hiscushioned seat before the bank of rocket-controls. The rockets werebarely alight. The ship stayed as it had landed, upright on its triplefins. He said to Jones:
"It feels like we're solid. We won't topple!"
Jones nodded. The rocket-sound cut off. Nothing happened.
"I think we could have saved fuel on that landing," said Jones. Then headded, pleased, "Nice! The Dabney field's still on! It has to be startedin a vacuum, but it looks like it can hold air away from itself onceit's established. Nice!"
Babs rushed up the stairs. She gazed impassionedly out of a vision-port.Then she said disappointedly:
"It looks like--"
"It looks like hell," said Cochrane. "Just smoke and steam and stuff. Wecan hope, though, that we haven't started a forest fire, but have justburned off a landing-place."
They stared out. Presently they went to another port and gazed out ofthat. The smoke was annoying, and yet it could have been foreseen. Amoon-rocket, landing at its space-port on Earth, heated the tarmac tored-hotness in the process of landing. Tender-vehicles had to wait forit to cool before they could approach. Here the ship had landed inwoodland. Naturally its flames had seared the spot where it came down.And there was inflammable stuff about, which caught fire. So the shipwas in the situation of a phoenix, necessarily nesting in aconflagration. Anywhere it landed the same thing would apply, unless ittried landing on a glacier. But then it would set
tle down into a lake ofboiling water, amid steam, and could expect to be frozen in as soon asits landing-place cooled.
Now there was nothing to do. They had to wait. Once the whole shipquivered very slightly, as if the ground trembled faintly under it. Butthere was nothing at which to be alarmed.
They could see that this particular forest was composed mainly of twokinds of trees which burned differently. One had a central trunk, and itburned with resinous flames and much black and gray-black smoke. Theother was a curious growth--a solid, massive trunk which did not touchground at all, but was held up by aerial roots which supported it aloftthrough very many slender shafts widely spread. Possibly the heavierpart was formed on the ground and lifted as its air-roots grew.
It was irritating, though, to be unable to see from the ship so long asthe fire burned outside. The pall of smoke lasted for a long time. Inthree hours there were no longer any fiercely blazing areas, but theashes still smouldered and smoke still rose. In three hours and a half,the local sun began to set. There were colorings in the sky, beyond allcomparison glorious. Which was logical enough. When Krakatoa, back onEarth, blew itself to bits in the eighteen hundreds, it sent suchvolumes of dust into the air that sunsets all around the globe werenotably improved for three years afterward. On this planet, smokingcones were everywhere visible. Volcanic dust, then, made nightfallmagnificent past description. There was not only gold and crimson in thewest. The zenith itself glowed carmine and yellow, and those in thespace-ship gazed up at a sky such as none of them could have imaginedpossible.
The colors changed and changed, from yellow to gold all over the sky,and still the glory continued. Presently there was a deep, deep red,deep past imagining, and presently faint bluish stars pierced it, andthey stared up at new strange constellations-some very brightindeed--and all about the ship there was a bed of white ash with glowingembers in it, and a thin sheet of white smoke still flowed away down thevalley.
It was long after sunset when Cochrane got up from the communicator.Communication with Earth was broken at last. There was a balloon out inspace somewhere with an atomic battery maintaining all its surface as aDabney field plate. The ship maintained a field between itself and thatplate. The balloon maintained another field between itself and anotherballoon a mere 178.3 light-years from the solar system. But thesubstance of this planet intervened between the nearer balloon and theship. Jones made tests and observed that the field continued to exist,but was plugged by the matter of this newly-arrived-at world. Cometomorrow, when there was no solid-stone barrier to the passage ofradiation, they could communicate with Earth again.
But Cochrane was weary and now discouraged. So long as talk with Earthwas possible, he'd kept at it. There was a great deal of talking to bedone. But a good deal of it was extremely unsatisfactory.
He found Bill Holden having supper with Babs, on the floor below thecommunicator. Very much of the recent talk had been over Cochrane'shead. He felt humiliated by the indignation of scientists who would nottell him what he wanted to know without previous information he couldnot give.
When he went over to the dining-table, he felt that he creaked fromweariness and dejection. Babs looked at him solicitously, and thenjumped up to get him something to eat. Everybody else was again watchingout the ship's ports at the new, strange world of which they could seenext to nothing.
"Bill," said Cochrane fretfully, "I've just been given the dressing-downof my life! You're expecting to get out of the airlock in the morningand take a walk. But I've been talking to Earth. I've been given thedevil for landing on a strange planet without bringing along abacteriologist, an organic chemist, an ecologist, an epidemiologist, anda complete laboratory to test everything with, before daring to take abreath of outside air. I'm warned not to open a port!"
Holden said:
"You sound as if you'd been talking to a biologist with a reputation.You ought to know better than that!"
Cochrane protested:
"I wanted to talk to somebody who knew more than I did! What could I dobut get a man with a reputation?"
Holden shook his head.
"We psychiatrists," he observed, "go around peeping under the corners ofrugs at what people try to hide from themselves. We have a worm's-eyeview of humanity. We know better than to throw a difficult problem at aman with an established name! They're neurotic about their reputations.Like Dabney, they get panicky at the idea of anybody catching them in amistake. No big name in medicine or biology would dare tell you that ofcourse it's all right for us to take a walk in the rather prettylandscape outside."
"Then who will?" demanded Cochrane.
"We'll make what tests we can," said Holden comfortingly, "and decidefor ourselves. We can take a chance. We're only risking our lives!"
Babs brought Cochrane a plate. He put food in his mouth and chewed andswallowed.
"They say we can't afford to breathe the local air at all until we knowits bacteriology; we can't touch anything until we test it as a possibleallergen; we can't."
Holden grunted.
"What would those same authorities have told your friend Columbus? On astrange continent he'd be sure to find strange plants and strangeanimals. He'd find strange races of men and he ought to find strangediseases. They'd have warned him not to risk it. _They_ wouldn't!"
Cochrane ate with a sort of angry vigor. Then he snapped:
"If you want to know, we've got to land! We're sunk if we don't gooutside and move around! We'll spoil our story-line. This is thegreatest adventure-serial anybody on Earth ever tuned in to follow! Ifwe back down on exploration, our audience will be disgusted andresentful and they'll take it out on our sponsors!"
Babs said softly, to Holden:
"That's my boss!"
Cochrane glared at her. He didn't know how to take the comment. He saidto Holden:
"Tomorrow we'll try to figure out some sort of test and try the air.I'll go out in a space-suit and crack the face-plate! I can close itagain before anything lethal gets in. But there's no use stepping outinto a bed of coals tonight. I'll have to wait till morning."
Holden smiled at him. Babs regarded him with intent, enigmatic eyes.
Neither of them said anything more. Cochrane finished his meal. Then hefound himself without an occupation. Gravity on this planet was verynearly the same as on Earth. It felt like more, of course, because allof them had been subject only to moon-gravity for nearly three weeks.Jones and the pilot had been in one-sixth gravity for a much longertime. And the absence of gravity had caused their muscles to lose toneby just about the amount that the same time spent in a hospital bedwould have done. They felt physically worn out.
It was a healthy tiredness, though, and their muscles would come backto normal as quickly as one recovers strength after illness--ratherfaster, in fact. But tonight there would be no night-life on thespace-ship. Johnny Simms disappeared, after symptoms of fretfulness akinto those of an over-tired small boy. Jamison gave up, and Bell, and Althe pilot fell asleep while Jones was trying to discuss somethingtechnical with him. Jones himself yawned and yawned and when Al snoredin his face he gave up. They retired to their bunks.
There was no point in standing guard over the ship. If the bed of hotashes did not guard it, it was not likely that an individual merelysitting up and staring out its ports would do much good. There wereextremely minor, practically unnoticeable vibrations of the ship fromtime to time. They would be volcanic temblors--to be expected. They werenot alarming, certainly, and the forest outside was guarantee of nogreat violence to be anticipated. The trees stood firm and tall. Therewas no worry about the ship. It was perfectly practical, and evennecessary simply to turn out the lights and go to sleep.
But Cochrane could not relax. He was annoyed by the soreness of hismuscles. He was irritated by the picture given him of the expedition asa group of heedless ignoramuses who'd taken off without star-charts orbacteriological equipment--without even apparatus to test the air ofplanets they might land on!--and who now were sternly
warned not to makeany use of their achievement. Cochrane was not overwhelmed by theachievement itself, though less than eighteen hours since the ship andall its company had been aground on Luna, and now they were landed on anew world twice as far from Earth as the Pole Star.
It is probable that Cochrane was not awed because he had atelevision-producer's point of view. He regarded this entire affair as aproduction. He was absorbed in the details of putting it across. Helooked at it from his own, quite narrow, professional viewpoint. It didnot disturb him that he was surrounded by a wilderness. He consideredthe wilderness the set on which his production belonged, though he wasas much a city man as anybody else. He went back to the control-room.With the ship standing on its tail that was the highest point, and asthe embers burned out and the smoke lessened it was possible to look outinto the night.
He stared at the dimly-seen trees beyond the burned area, and at thedark masses of mountains which blotted out the stars. He estimated them,without quite realizing it, in view of what they would look like on atelevision screen. When light objects in the control-room rattledslightly, he paid no attention. His rehearsal-studio had been rickety,back home.
Babs seemed to be sleepless, too. There was next to no light whereCochrane was--merely the monitor-lights which assured that the Dabneyfield still existed, though blocked for use by the substance of aplanet. Babs arrived in the almost-dark room only minutes afterCochrane. He was moving restlessly from one port to another, staringout.
"I thought I'd tell you," Babs volunteered, "that Doctor Holden put somealgae from the air-purifier tanks in the airlock, and then opened theouter door."
"Why?" asked Cochrane.
"Algae's Earth plant-life," explained Babs. "If the air is poisonous, itwill be killed by morning. We can close the outer door of the lock, pumpout the air that came from this planet, and then let air in from theship so we can see what happens."
"Oh," said Cochrane.
"And then I couldn't sleep," said Babs guilelessly. "Do you mind if Istay here? Everybody else has gone to bed."
"Oh, no," said Cochrane. "Stay if you like."
He stared out at the dark. Presently he moved to another port. After amoment he pointed.
"There's a glow in the sky there," he said curtly.
She looked. There was a vast curving blackness which masked the stars.Beyond it there was a reddish glare, as if of some monstrous burning.But the color was not right for a fire. Not exactly.
"A city?" asked Babs breathlessly.
"A volcano," Cochrane told her. "I've staged shows that pretended toshow intellectual creatures on other planets--funny how we've beendreaming of such things, back on Earth--but it isn't likely. Not sincewe've actually reached the stars."
"Why since then?"
"Because," said Cochrane, half ironically, "man was given dominion overall created things. I don't think we'll find rivals for that dominion. Ican't imagine we'll find another race of creatures who couldbe--persons. Heaven knows we try to rob each other of dignity, but Idon't think there's another race to humiliate us when we find them!"
After a moment he added:
"Bad enough that we're here because there are deodorants and cosmeticsand dog-foods and such things that people want to advertise to eachother! We wouldn't be here but for them, and for the fact that somepeople are neurotics and some don't like their bosses and some are crazyin other fashions."
"Some crazinesses aren't bad," argued Babs.
"I've made a living out of them," agreed Cochrane sourly. "But I don'tlike them. I have a feeling that I could arrange things better. I know Icouldn't, but I'd like to try. In my own small way, I'm even trying."
Babs chuckled.
"That's because you are a man. Women aren't so foolish. We're realists.We like creation--even men--the way creation is."
"I don't," Cochrane said irritably. "We've accomplished somethingterrific, and I don't get a kick out of it! My head is full of businessdetails that have to be attended to tomorrow. I ought to be uplifted. Iought to be gloating! I ought to be happy! But I'm worrying for fearthat this infernal planet is going to disappoint our audience!"
Babs chuckled again. Then she went to the stair leading to thecompartment below.
"What's the matter?" he demanded.
"After all, I'm going to leave you alone," said Babs cheerfully. "You'realways very careful not to talk to me in any personal fashion. I thinkyou're afraid I'll tell you something for your own good. If I stayedhere, I might. Goodnight!"
She started down the stairs. Cochrane said vexedly:
"Hold on! Confound it, I didn't know I was so transparent! I'm sorry,Babs. Look! Tell me something for my own good!"
Babs hesitated, and then said very cheerfully:
"You only see things the way a man sees them. This show, this trip--thiswhole business doesn't thrill you because you don't see it the way awoman would."
"Such as how? What does a woman see that I don't?"
"A woman," said Babs, "sees this planet as a place that men and womenwill come to live on. To live on! You don't. You miss all the realimplications of people actually living here. But they're the things awoman sees first of all."
Cochrane frowned.
"I'm not so conceited I can't listen to somebody else. If you've got anidea--"
"Not an idea," said Babs. "Just a reaction. And you can't explain areaction to somebody who hasn't had it. Goodnight!"
She vanished down the stairs. Some time later, Cochrane heard theextremely minute sound of a door closing on one of the cabins threedecks down in the space-ship.
He went back to his restless inspection of the night outside. He triedto make sense of what Babs had said. He failed altogether. In the end hesettled in one of the over-elaborately cushioned chairs that had madethis ship so attractive to deluded investors. He intended to think outwhat Babs might have meant. She was, after all, the most competentsecretary he'd ever had, and he'd been wryly aware of how helpless hewould be without her. Now he tried painstakingly to imagine what changesin one's view the inclusion of women among pioneers would involve. Heworked out some seemingly valid points. But it was not a congenialmental occupation.
He fell asleep without realizing it, and was waked by the sound ofvoices all about him. It was morning again, and Johnny Simms wasshouting boyishly at something he saw outside.
"Get at it, boy!" he cried enthusiastically. "Grab him! That's theway--"
Cochrane opened his eyes. Johnny Simms gazed out and down from ablister-port, waving his arms. His wife Alicia looked out of the sameport without seeming to share his excited approval. Bell had dragged acamera across the control-room and was in the act of focussing itthrough a particular window.
"What's the matter?" demanded Cochrane.
He struggled out of his chair. And Johnny Simms' pleasure evaporatedabruptly. He swore nastily, viciously, at something outside the ship.His wife touched his arm and spoke to him in a low tone. He turnedfuriously upon her, mouthing foulnesses.
Cochrane was formidably beside him, and Johnny Simms' expression of furysmoothed out instantly. He looked pleasant and amiable.
"The fight stopped," he explained offhandedly. "It was a good fight. Butone of the creatures wouldn't stay and take his licking."
Alicia said steadily:
"There were some animals there. They looked rather like bears, only theyhad enormous ears."
Cochrane looked at Johnny Simms with hot eyes. It was absurd to be sochivalrous, perhaps, but he was enraged. After an instant he turned awayand went to the port. The burned-over area was now only ashes. At itsedge, charcoal showed. And now he could see trees and brushwood onbeyond. The trees did not seem strange, because no trees would haveseemed familiar. The brush did not impress him as exotic, because hisexperience with actual plants was restricted to the artificial plants ontelevision sets and the artificially arranged plants on rooftops. Hehardly let his eyes dwell on the vegetation at all. He searched formovement. He saw the moving furry rumps of
half a dozen unknowncreatures as they dived into concealment as if they had been frightened.He looked down and could see the hull of the ship and two of the threetake-off fins on which it rested.
The airlock door was opening out. It swung wide. It swung back againstthe hull.
"Holden's making some sort of test of the air," Cochrane said shortly."The animals were scared when the outside door swung open. I'll see whathe finds out."
He hurried down. He found Babs standing beside the inner door of theairlock. She looked somehow pale. There were two saucers of greenishsoup-like stuff on the floor at her feet. That would be, of course, thealgae from the air-purifying-system tanks.
"The algae were alive," said Babs. "Dr. Holden went in the lock to trythe air himself. He said he'd be very careful."
For some obscure reason Cochrane felt ashamed. There was a long, adesperately long wait. Then sounds of machinery. The outer door closing.Small whistlings--compressed air.
The inner door opened. Bill Holden came out of the lock, his expressionzestfully surprised.
"Hello, Jed! I tried the air. It's all right! At a guess, maybe a littlehigh in oxygen. But it feels wonderfully good to breathe! And I canreport that the trees are wood and the green is chlorophyll, and thisis an Earth-type planet. That little smoky smell about is completelyfamiliar--and I'm taking that as an analysis. I'm going to take a walk."
Cochrane found himself watching Babs' face. She looked enormouslyrelieved, but even Cochrane--who was looking for something of the sortwithout realizing it--could not read anything but relief in herexpression. She did not, for example, look admiring.
"I'll borrow one of Johnny Simms' guns," said Holden, "and take a lookaround. It's either perfectly safe or we're all dead anyhow. Frankly, Ithink it's safe. It feels right outside, Jed! It honestly feels right!"
"I'll come with you," said Cochrane, "Jones and the pilot are necessaryif the ship's to get back to Earth. But we're expendable."
He went back to the control-room. Johnny Simms zestfully undertook tooutfit them with arms. He made no proposal to accompany them. In twentyminutes or so, Cochrane and Holden went into the airlock and the doorclosed. A light came on automatically, precisely like the light in anelectric refrigerator. Cochrane found his lips twitching a little as theanalogy came to him. Seconds later the outer door opened, and they gazeddown among the branches of tall trees. Cochrane winced. There was norailing and the height bothered him. But Holden swung out the sling. Heand Cochrane descended, dangling, down fifty feet of unscarred, shining,metal hull.
The ground was still hot underfoot. Holden cast off the sling and movedtoward cooler territory with an undignified haste. Cochrane followedhim.
The smells were absolutely commonplace. Scorched wood. Smokiness. Therewere noises. Occasional cracklings from burned tree-trunks not whollyconsumed. High-pitched, shrill musical notes. And in and among thesmells there was an astonishing freshness in the feel of the air.Cochrane was especially apt to notice it because he had lived in a cityback on Earth, and had spent four days in the moon-rocket, and then hadbreathed the Lunar City air for eighteen days more and had just comefrom the space-ship whose air was distinctly of the canned variety.
He did not notice the noise of the sling again in motion behind him. Hewas all eyes and ears and acute awareness of the completely strangeenvironment. He was the more conscious of a general strangeness becausehe was so completely an urban product. Yet he and Holden were vastlyless aware of the real strangeness about them than men of previousgenerations would have been. They did not notice the oddity of croakingsounds, like frogs, coming from the tree-tops. When they had threadedtheir way among leaning charred poles and came to green stuff underfootand merely toasted foliage all around, Cochrane heard a sweet,high-pitched trilling which came from a half-inch hole in the ground.But he was not astonished by the place from which the trilling came. Hewas astonished at the sound itself.
There was a cry behind them.
_"Mr. Cochrane! Doctor Holden!"_
They swung about. And there was Babs on the ground, just disentanglingherself from the sling. She had followed them out, after waiting untilthey had left the airlock and could not protest.
Cochrane swore to himself. But when Babs joined them breathlessly, aftera hopping run over the hot ground, he said only:
"Fancy meeting you here!"
"_I--I couldn't resist it_," said Babs in breathless apology. "And youdo have guns. It's safe enough--oh, look!"
She stared at a bush which was covered with pale purple flowers. Smallcreatures hovered in the air about it. She approached it and exclaimedagain at the sweetness of its scent. Cochrane and Holden joined her inadmiration.
In a sense they were foolishly unwary. This was completely strangeterritory. It could have contained anything. Earlier explorers wouldhave approached every bush with caution and moved over every hilltopwith suspicion, anticipating deadly creatures, unparalleled monsters,and exotic and peculiar circumstances designed to entrap the unprepared.Earlier explorers, of course, would probably have had advice from famousmen to prepare them for all possible danger.
But this was a valley between snow-clad mountains. The river that randown its length was fed by glaciers. This was a temperate climate. Thetrees were either coniferous or something similar, and the vegetationgrew well but not with the frenzy of a tropic region. There were fruitshere and there. Later, to be sure, they would prove to be mostlyastringent and unpalatable. They were broad-leafed, low-growing plantswhich would eventually turn out to be possessed of soft-fleshed rootswhich were almost unanimously useless for human purposes. There wereeven some plants with thorns and spines upon them. But they encounteredno danger.
By and large, wild animals everywhere are ferocious only when desperate.No natural setting can permanently be so deadly that human being will beattacked immediately they appear. An area in which peril is continuousis one in which there is so much killing that there is no food-supplyleft to maintain its predators. On the whole, there is simply a limit tohow dangerous any place can be. Dangerous beasts have to be relativelyrare, or they will not have enough to eat, when they will thin out untilthey are relatively rare and do have enough to eat.
So the three explorers moved safely, though their boldness was that ofignorance, below gigantic trees nearly as tall as the space-shipstanding on end. They saw a small furry biped, some twelve inches tall,which waddled insanely in the exact line of their progress and with noapparent hope of outdistancing them. They saw a gauzy creature withincredibly spindly legs. It flew from one tree-trunk to another,clinging to rough bark on each in turn. Once they came upon a smallanimal which looked at them with enormous, panic-stricken blue eyes andthen fled with a sinuous gait on legs so short that they seemed mereflippers. It dived into a hole and vanished.
But they came out to clear space. They could look for miles and miles.There was a savannah of rolling soil which gradually sloped down to aswift-running river. The grass--if it was grass--was quite green, but ithad multitudes of tiny rose-colored flowers down the central rib of eachleaf. Nearby it seemed the color of Earth-grass, but it fadedimperceptibly into an incredible old-rose tint in the distance. Themountain-scarps on either side of the valley were sheer and tall. Therewas a great stony spur reaching out above the lowland, and there wasforest at its top and bare brown stone dropping two thousand feet sheer.And up the valley, where it narrowed, a waterfall leaped out from thecliff and dropped hundreds of feet in an arc of purest white, until itwas lost to view behind tree-tops.
They looked. They stared. Cochrane was a television producer, and Holdenwas a psychiatrist, and Babs was a highly efficient secretary. They didnot make scientific observations. The ecological system of the valleyescaped their notice. They weren't qualified to observe that the flyingthings around seemed mostly to be furry instead of feathered, and thatinsects seemed few and huge and fragile,--and they did not notice thatmost of the plants appeared to be deciduous, so indicating that thisplanet had pronounced seasons.
But Holden said:
"Up in Greenland there's a hospital on a cliff like that. People withdelusions of grandeur sometimes get cured just by looking at somethingthat's so much greater and more splendid than they are. I'd like to seea hospital up yonder!"
Babs said, shining-eyed:
"A city could be built in this valley. Not a tall city, with graystreets and gardens on the roofs. This could be a nice little city likepeople used to have. There would be little houses, all separate, andthere'd be grass all around and people could pluck flowers if theywanted to, to take inside.... There could be families here, andhomes--not living-quarters!"
Cochrane said nothing. He was envious of the others. They saw, and theydreamed according to their natures. Cochrane somehow felt forlorn.Presently he said depressedly:
"We'll go back to the ship. You can work out your woman's viewpointstuff with Bell, Babs. He'll write it, or you can give it to Alicia toput over when we go on the air."
Babs made no reply. The absence of comment was almost pointed. Cochranerealized that she wouldn't do it, though he couldn't see why.
They did go back to the ship. Cochrane sent Babs and Holden up thesling, first, while he waited down below. It was a singular sensation tostand there. He was the only human being afoot on a planet the size ofEarth or larger, at the foot of a cliff of metal which was thespace-ship's hull. He had a weapon in his hand, and it should defend himfrom anything. But he felt very lonely.
The sling came down for him. He felt sick at heart as it lifted him. Hehad an overwhelming conviction of incompetence, though he could notdetail the reasons. The rope hauled him up, swaying, to the dizzy heightof the air-lock door. He could not feel elated. He was partlyresponsible for humankind's greatest achievement to date. But he had notquite the viewpoint that would let him enjoy its contemplation.
The ground quivered very faintly as he rose. It was not an earthquake.It was merely a temblor, such as anyone would expect to feeloccasionally with six smoking volcanic cones in view. The green stuffall around was proof that it could be disregarded.