CHAPTER NINE
He made for the control-room, where the ports offered the highest andwidest and best views of everything outside. When he arrived, Babs andAlicia stood together, staring out and down. Bell frantically worked acamera. Jamison gaped at the outer world. Al the pilot made frustratedgestures, not quite daring to leave his controls while there was even anoutside chance the ship's landing-fins might find flaws in theirsupport. Jones adjusted something on the new set of controls he hadestablished for the extra Dabney field. Jones was not wholly normal insome ways. He was absorbed in technical matters even more fully thanCochrane in his own commercial enterprises.
Cochrane pushed to a port to see.
The ship had landed in a small glade. There were trees nearby. The treeshad extremely long, lanceolate leaves, roughly the shape of grass-bladesstretched out even longer. In the gentle breeze that blew outside, theywaved extravagantly. There were hills in the distance, and nearbyout-croppings of gray rocks. This sky was blue like the sky of Earth. Itwas, of course, inevitable that any colorless atmosphere withdust-particles suspended in it would establish a blue sky.
Holden was visible below, moving toward a patch of reed-like vegetationrising some seven or eight feet from the rolling soil. He had hoppedquickly over the scorched area immediately outside the ship. It was muchsmaller than that made by the first landing on the other planet, buteven so he had probably damaged his footwear to excess. But he now stooda hundred yards from the ship. He made gestures. He seemed to betalking, as if trying to persuade some living creature to show itself.
"We saw them peeping," said Babs breathlessly, coming beside Cochrane."Once one of them ran from one patch of reeds to another. It lookedlike a man. There are at least three of them in there--whatever theyare!"
"They can't be men," said Cochrane grimly. "They can't!" Johnny Simmswas not in sight. "Where's Simms?"
"He has a gun," said Babs. "He was going to get one, anyhow, so he couldprotect Doctor Holden."
Cochrane glanced straight down. The airlock door was open, and the endof a weapon peered out. Johnny Simms might be in a better position thereto protect Holden by gun-fire, but he was assuredly safer, himself.There was no movement anywhere. Holden did not move closer to the reeds.He still seemed to be speaking soothingly to the unseen creatures.
"Why can't there be men here?" asked Babs. "I don't mean actually men,but--manlike creatures? Why couldn't there be rational creatures likeus? I know you said so but--"
Cochrane shook his head. He believed implicitly that there could not bemen on this planet. On the glacier planet every animal had beenseparately devised from the creatures of Earth. There were resemblances,explicable as the result of parallel evolution. By analogy, there couldnot be exactly identical mankind on another world because evolutionthere would be parallel but not the same. But if there were even amental equal to men, no matter how unhuman such a creature might appear,if there were a really rational animal anywhere in the cosmos off ofEarth, the result would be catastrophic.
"We humans," Cochrane told her, "live by our conceit. We demand morethan animality of ourselves because we believe we are more thananimals--and we believe we are the only creatures that are! If we cameto believe we were not unique, but were simply a cleverer animal, we'dbe finished. Every nation has always started to destroy itself everytime such an idea spread."
"But we aren't only clever animals!" protested Babs. "We _are_ unique!"
Cochrane glanced at her out of the corner of his eye.
"Quite true."
Holden still stood patiently before the patch of reeds, still seemed totalk, still with his hands outstretched in what men consider theuniversal sign of peace.
There was a sudden movement at the back of the reed-patch, quite fiftyyards from Holden. A thing which did look like a man fled madly for thenearest edge of woodland. It was the size of a man. It had thepinkish-tan color of naked human flesh. It ran with its head down, andit could not be seen too clearly, but it was startlingly manlike inoutline. Up in the control-room Bell fairly yipped with excitement andswung his camera. Holden remained oblivious. He still tried to luresomething out of concealment. A second creature raced for the woods.
Tiny gray threads appeared in the air between the airlock and the racingthing. Smoke. Johnny Simms was shooting zestfully at the unidentifiedanimal. He was using that tracer ammunition which poor shots and worsesportsmen adopt to make up for bad marksmanship.
The threads of smoke seemed to form a net about the running things. Theydodged and zig-zagged frantically. Both of them reached safety.
A third tried it. And now Johnny Simms turned on automatic fire. Bulletsspurted from his weapon, trailing threads of smoke so that the trailslooked like a stream from a hose. The stream swept through the spaceoccupied by the fugitive. It leaped convulsively and crashed to earth.It kicked blindly.
Cochrane swore. Between the instant of the beginning of the creature'sflight and this instant, less than two seconds had passed.
The threads which were smoke-trails drifted away. Then a new threadstreaked out. Johnny Simms fired once more at his still-writhing victim.It kicked violently and was still.
Holden turned angrily. There seemed to be shoutings between him andJohnny Simms. Then Holden trudged around the reed-patch. There was nolonger any sign of life in the still shape on the ground. But it wasnormal precaution not to walk into a jungle-like thicket in whichunknown, large living things had recently been sighted. Johnny Simmsfired again and again from his post in the airlock. The smoke whichtraced his bullets ranged to the woodland. He shot at imagined targetsthere. He fired at his previous victim simply because it was somethingto shoot at. He shot recklessly, foolishly.
Alicia, his wife, touched Jamison on the arm and spoke to him urgently.Jamison followed her reluctantly down the stairs. She would be going tothe airlock. Johnny Simms, shooting at the landscape, might shootHolden. A thread of bullet-smoke passed within feet of Holden's body. Heturned and shouted back at the ship.
The inner airlock door clanked open. There was the sound of a shot, andthe dead thing was hit again. The bullet had been fired dangerouslyclose to Holden. There were voices below. Johnny Simms bellowedenragedly.
Alicia cried out.
There was silence below, but Cochrane was already plunging toward thestairs. Babs followed closely.
When they rushed down onto the dining-room deck they found Aliciadeathly white, but with a flaming red mark on her cheek. They foundJohnny Simms roaring with rage, waving the weapon he'd been shooting.Jamison was uneasily in the act of trying to placate him.
"----!" bellowed Johnny Simms. "I came on this ship to hunt! I'm goingto hunt! Try and stop me!"
He waved his weapon.
"I paid my money!" he shouted. "I won't take orders from anybody! Nobodycan boss me!"
Cochrane said icily:
"I can! Stop being a fool! Put down that gun! You nearly shot Holden!You might still kill somebody. Put it down!"
He walked grimly toward Johnny Simms. Johnny was near the open airlockdoor. The outer door was open, too. He could not retreat. He edgedsidewise. Cochrane changed the direction of his advance. There arepeople like Johnny Simms everywhere. As a rule they are not classed asunable to tell right from wrong unless they are rich enough to hire apsychiatrist. Yet a variable but always-present percentage of the humanrace ignores rules of conduct at all times. They are the handicap, theburden, the main hindrance to the maintenance or the progress ofcivilization. They are not consciously evil. They simply do not botherto act otherwise than as rational animals. The rest of humanity has todefend itself with police, with laws, and sometimes with revolts, thoughthose like Johnny Simms have no motive beyond the indulgence ofimmediate inclinations. But for that indulgence Johnny would risk anyinjury to anybody else.
He edged further aside. Cochrane was white with disgusted fury. JohnnySimms went into panic. He raised his weapon, aiming at Cochrane.
"Keep back!" he cried ferociously. "I
don't care if I kill you!"
And he did not. It was the stark senselessness which makes juveniledelinquents and Hitlers, and causes thugs and hoodlums and snide lawyersand tricky business men. It was the pure perversity which makes sanemen frustrate. It was an example of that infinite stupidity which iscrime, but is also only stupidity.
Cochrane saw Babs pulling competently at one of the chairs at one of thetables nearby. He stopped, and Johnny Simms took courage. Cochrane saidicily:
"Just what the hell do you think we're here for, anyhow?"
Johnny Simms' eyes were wide and blank, like the eyes of a small boy ina frenzy of destruction, when he has forgotten what he started out to doand has become obsessed with what damage he is doing.
"I'm not going to be pushed around!" cried Johnny Simms, moreferociously still. "From now on I'm going to tell you what to do--"
Babs swung the chair she had slid from its fastenings. It came down witha satisfying "_thunk_" on Johnny Simms' head. His gun went off. Thebullet missed Cochrane by fractions of an inch. He plunged ahead.
Some indefinite time later, Babs was pulling desperately at him. He hadJohnny Simms on the floor and was throttling him. Johnny Simms strangledand tore at his fingers.
Sanity came back to Cochrane with the effect of something snapping. Hegot up. He nodded to Babs and she picked up the gun Johnny Simms hadused.
"I think," said Cochrane, breathing hard, "that you're a good sample ofeverything I dislike. The worst thing you do is make me act like you! Ifyou touch a gun again on this ship, I'll probably kill you. If you getarrogant again, I will beat the living daylights out of you! Get up!"
Johnny Simms got up. He looked thoroughly scared. Then, amazingly, hebeamed at Cochrane. He said amiably:
"I forgot. I'm that way. Alicia'll tell you. I don't blame you forgetting mad. I'm sorry. But I'm that way!"
He brushed himself off, beaming at Alicia and Jamison and Babs andCochrane. Cochrane ground his teeth. He went to the airlock and lookeddown outside.
Holden was bent over the creature Johnny Simms had killed. Hestraightened up and came back toward the ship. He went faster when theground grew hot under his feet. He fairly leaped into the landing-slingand started it up.
"Not human," he reported to Cochrane when he slipped from the sling inthe airlock. "There's no question about it when you are close. It's morenearly a bird than anything else. It was warm-blooded. It has a beak.There are penguins on Earth that have been mistaken for men.
"I did a show once," said Cochrane coldly, "that had clips of old filmsof cockfighting in it. There was a kind of gamecock called Cornish Gamethat was fairly manshaped. If it had been big enough--Pull in the slingand close the lock. We're moving."
He turned away. Babs stood by Alicia, offering a handkerchief for Aliciato put to her cheek. Jamison listened unhappily as Johnny Simmsexplained brightly that he had always been that way. When he got excitedhe didn't realize what he was doing. He said almost with pride that hehadn't ever been any other way than that. He didn't really mean to killanybody, but when he got excited--.
"What happened?" demanded Holden.
"Our little psychopath," said Cochrane in a grating voice, "put on anact. He threatened me with a rifle. He hit Alicia first. Jamison, tracethat bullet-hole. See if it got through to the skin of the ship."
He started for the stairs again. Then he was startled by the frozenimmobility of Holden. Holden's face was deadly. His hands were clenched.Johnny Simms said with a fine boyish frankness:
"I'm sorry, Cochrane! No hard feelings?"
"Yes," Cochrane snapped. "Hard feelings! I've got them!"
He took Holden's arm. He steered him up the steps. Holden resisted forthe fraction of a second, and Cochrane gripped his arm tighter. He gothim up to the deck above.
"If I'd been here," said Holden, unsteadily, "I'd have killed him--if hehit Alicia! Psychopath or no psychopath--"
"Shut up," said Cochrane firmly. "He shot at me! And in my small way I'ma psychopath too, Bill. My psychosis is that I don't like his kind ofpsychosis. I am psychotically devoted to sense and my possibly quaintidea of decency. I am abnormally concerned with the real world--andyou'd better come back to it! Look here! I'm pathologically in revoltagainst such imbecilities as an overcrowded Earth and people beingafraid of their jobs and people going crackpot from despair. You don'twant me to get cured of that, do you? Then get hold of yourself!"
Bill Holden swallowed. He was still white. But he managed to grimace.
"You're right. Lucky I was outside. You're not a bad psychologistyourself, Jed."
"I'm better," said Cochrane cynically, "at putting on shows with scrapfilm-tape and dream-stuff. So I'm going to look at the films Bell tookas we landed on this planet, and work out some ideas for broadcasts."
He went up another flight, and Holden went with him in a sort of stilly,unnatural calm. Cochrane ran the film-tape through the reversed camerafor examination.
Outside, there waved long green tresses of extraordinarily elongatedleaves. The patches of reed-like stuff stirred in the breeze. Jamisonappeared in the control-room. He began to question Holden hopefullyabout the ground-cover outside. It was not grass. It was broad-leaved.There would be, Jamison decided happily, an infinitude of under-leafforms of life. They would most likely be insects, and there would becarnivorous other insects to prey upon them. Some species would find itadvantageous to be burrowing insects. There must be other kinds of birdsthan the giant specimens that looked like men at a distance, too. On theglacier planet there had been few birds but many furry creatures.Possibly the situation was reversed here, though of course it need notbe ...
"Hm," said Cochrane when the films were all run through. "Ice-caps andland and seas. Plenty of green vegetation, so presumably the air isnormal for humans. Since you're alive, Holden, we can assume it isn'tinstantly fatal, can't we? The gravity's tolerable--a little on thelight side, maybe, compared to the glacier planet."
He was silent, staring at the blank wall of the control-room. Hefrowned. Suddenly he said:
"Does anybody back on Earth know that Babs and I were castaways?"
"No," said Holden, still very quiet indeed. "Alicia ran thecontrol-board. She told everybody you were too busy to be called to thecommunicator. It was queer with you away! Jamison and Bell tiedthemselves in chairs and spliced tape. Johnny, of course"--his voice wasvery carefully toneless--"wouldn't do anything useful. I was space-sicka lot of the time. But I did help Alicia figure out what to say on thecommunicator. There must be hundreds of calls backed up for you totake."
"Good!" said Cochrane. "I'll go take some of them. Jones, could we makea flit to somewhere else on this planet?"
Jones said negligently,
"I told you we've got fuel to reach the Milky Way. Where do you want togo?"
"Anywhere," said Cochrane. "The scenery isn't dramatic enough here for anew broadcast. We've got to have some lurid stuff for our next show.Things are shaping up except for the need of just the right scenery tosend back to Earth."
"What kind of scenery do you want?"
"Animals preferred," said Cochrane. "Dinosaurs would do. Or buffalo or areasonable facsimile. What I'd actually like more than anything elsewould really be a herd of buffalo."
Jamison gasped.
"Buffalo?"
"Meat," said Cochrane in an explanatory tone. "On the hoof. Thepublic-relations job all this has turned into, demands a carefulstimulation of all the basic urges. So I want people to think of steaksand chops and roasts. If I could get herds of animals from one horizonto another--."
"Meat-herds coming up," said Jones negligently. "I'll call you."
Cochrane did not believe him. He went down to the communicator again. Heprepared to take the calls from Earth that had been backed up behind theemergency demand for an immediate broadcast-show that he'd met while theship came to its landing. There was an enormous amount of business piledup. And it was slow work handling it. His voice took six seconds to passthrough s
omething over two hundred light-years of space in the Dabneyfield, and then two seconds in normal space from the relay in LunarCity. It was twelve seconds between the time he finished sayingsomething before the first word of the reply reached him. It was veryslow communication. He reflected annoyedly that he'd have to ask Jonesto make a special Dabney field communication field as strong as wasnecessary to take care of the situation.
The rockets growled and roared outside. The ship lifted. Johnny Simmscame storming up from below.
"My trophy!" he cried indignantly. "I want my trophy!"
Cochrane looked up impatiently from the screen.
"What trophy?"
"The thing I shot!" cried Johnny Simms fiercely. "I want to have itmounted! Nobody else ever killed anything like that! I want it!"
The ship surged upward more strongly. Cochrane said coldly:
"It's too late now. Get out. I'm busy."
He returned his eyes to the screen. Johnny Simms raced for the stairs. Alittle later Cochrane heard shoutings in the control-room. But he wastoo busy to inquire.
The ship drifted--with all the queasy sensation of no-weight--and liftedagain, and then there was a fairly long period of weightlessness. Atsuch times Holden would be greenish and sick and tormented byspace-sickness. Which might be good for him at this particular time. Fora long time, it seemed, there were alternating periods of lift and freefall, which in themselves were disturbing. Once the free fall lasteduntil Cochrane began to feel uneasy. But then the rockets roared oncemore and boomed loudly as if the ship were leaving the planetaltogether.
But Cochrane was talking business. In part he bluffed. In part, quiteautomatically, he demanded much more than he expected to get, simplybecause it is the custom in business not to be frank about anything.Whatever he asked, the other man would offer less. So he asked too much,and the other man offered too little, each knowing in advance verynearly on what terms they would finally settle. Considering the cost ofbeam-phone time to Lunar City, not to mention the extension to thestars, it was absurd, but it was the way business is done.
Presently Cochrane called Babs and Alicia and had them witness atentative agreement, which had to be ratified by a board of directors ofa corporation back on Earth. That board would jump at it, but thestipulation for possible cancellation had to be made. It wasmumbo-jumbo. Cochrane felt satisfyingly competent at handling it.
While the formalities were in progress, the ship surged and fell andswayed and surged again. Cochrane said ruefully:
"I hate to ask you to work under conditions like this, Babs."
Babs grinned. He flushed a little.
"I know! When you were working for me I wasn't considerate."
"Who am I working for now?"
"Us," said Cochrane. Then he looked guiltily at Alicia. He feltembarrassment at having said anything in the least sentimental beforeher. Considering Johnny Simms, it was not too tactful. Her cheek, whereit had been red, now showed a distinct bruise. He said: "Sorry,Alicia--about Johnny."
"I got into it myself," said Alicia. "I loved him. He isn't really bad.If you want to know, I think he simply decided years ago that hewouldn't grow up past the age of six. He was a rich man's spoiled littleboy. It was fun. So he made a career of it. His family let him. I"--shesmiled faintly, "I'm making a career of taking care of him."
"Something can be done even with a six-year-old," growled Cochrane."Holden--. But he wouldn't be the best one to try."
"He definitely wouldn't be the best one to try," said Alicia veryquietly.
Cochrane turned away. She knew how Bill Holden felt. Which might ormight not be comforting to him.
The communicator again. The pictures of foot-high furry bipeds on theglacier planet had made a sensation on television. A toy-manufacturerwanted the right to make toys like them. The pictures were copyrighted.Cochrane matter-of-factly made the deal. There would be miniatureextra-terrestrial animals on sale in all toy-shops within days.Spaceways, Inc., would collect a royalty on each toy sold.
The rockets boomed, and lessened their noise, and wavered up and downagain. Then there was that deliberate, crunching feel of the greatlanding-fins pressing into soil with all the ship's weight bearing down.The rockets ran on, drumming ever-so-faintly, for a little longer. Thenthey cut off.
"We're landed again! Let's see where we are!"
They went up to the control-room. Johnny Simms stood against the wall,sulking. He had managed his life very successfully by acting like aspoiled little boy. Now he had lost any idea of saner conduct. At themoment, he looked ridiculous. But Alicia had a bruised cheek andCochrane could have been killed, and Holden had been in danger becauseJohnny Simms wanted to and insisted on acting like a rich man's spoiledlittle boy.
It occurred to Cochrane that Alicia would probably find recompense forher humiliation and pain in the little-boy penitence--exactly astemporary as any other little-boy emotion--when she and Johnny Simmswere alone together.
The ship had come down close to the sunset-line of the planet. Away tothe west there was the glint of blue sea. Dusk was already descendinghere. There were smoothly contoured hills in view, and there was a darkpatch of forest on one hilltop, and the trees at the woodland's edge hadthe same drooping, grass-blade-like foliage of the trees first seen. Butthere were larger and more solid giants among them. The ship had landedon a small plateau, and downhill from it a spring gushed out with suchforce that the water-surface was rounded by pressure from below. Thewater overflowed and went down toward the sea.
"I think we're all right," said Al, the pilot. But he stayed in hisseat, in case the ship threatened to sway over. Cochrane inspected theouter world.
"Well?"
"We sighted what I think you want," said Jones. He looked dead-pan andyet secretly complacent. "Just watch."
The dusk grew deeper. Colorings appeared in the west. They were verysimilar to the sunset-colorings on Earth.
"Not many volcanoes here."
The amount of dust was limited, as on Earth. A great star winked intoview in the east. It was as bright as Venus seen from Earth. It had ajust-perceptible disk. Close to it, infinitely small, there was a speckof light which seemed somehow like a star. Cochrane squinted at it. Hethought of the great gas-giant world he'd seen out a port on the wayhere. It had an attendant moon-world which itself had icecaps and seasand continents. He called Jamison.
"I think that's the planet," agreed Jamison. "We passed close by it. Wesaw it."
"It had a moon," observed Cochrane. "A big one. It looked like a worlditself. What would it be like there?"
"Cooler than this," said Jamison promptly, "because it's farther fromthe sun. But it might pick up some heat from reflection from itsprimary's white clouds. It would be a fair world. It has oceans andcontinents and strings of foam-girt islands. But its sea is strange anddark and restless. Gigantic tides surge in its depths, drawn by theplanetary colossus about which it swings. Its animal life--."
"Cut," said Cochrane dryly. "What do you really think? Could it beanother inhabitable world for people to move to?"
Jamison looked annoyed at having been cut off.
"Probably," he said more prosaically. "The tides would be monstrous,though."
"Might be used for power," said Cochrane. "We'll see ..."
Then Jones spoke with elaborate casualness:
"Here's something to look at. On the ground."
Cochrane moved to see. The dusk had deepened still more. The smooth,green-covered ground had become a dark olive. Where bare hillsides gaveupon the sky, there were dark masses flowing slowly forward. The edgesof the hills turned black, and the blackness moved down their nearerslopes. It was not an even front of darkness. There were patches whichpreceded the others. They did not stay distinct. They merged with themasses which followed them, and other patches separated in their places.All of the darkness moved without haste, with a sort of inexorabledeliberation. It moved toward the ship and the valley and the gushingfountain and the stream which flowed from it.
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"What on Earth--" began Cochrane.
"You're not on Earth," said Jones chidingly. "Al and I found 'em. Youasked for buffalo or a reasonable facsimile. I won't guarantee anything;but we spotted what looked like herds of beasts moving over the greenplains inland. We checked, and they seemed to be moving in thisdirection. Once we dropped down low and Bell got some pictures. When heenlarged them, we decided they'd do. So we lined up where they were allheaded for, and here we are. And here they are!"
Cochrane stared with all his eyes. Behind him, he heard Bell fuming tohimself as he tried to adjust a camera for close-up pictures in thelittle remaining light. Babs stood beside Cochrane, staringincredulously.
The darkness was beasts. They blackened the hillsides on three sides ofthe ship. They came deliberately, leisurely onward. They were literallyuncountable. They were as numerous as the buffalo that formerly throngedthe western plains of America. In black, shaggy masses, they came towardthe spring and its stream. Nearby, their heads could be distinguished.And all of this was perfectly natural.
The cosmos is one thing. Where life exists, its living creatures willfit themselves cunningly into each niche where life can be maintained.On vast green plains there will be animals to graze--and there will beanimals to prey on them. So the grazing things will band together inherds for self-defense and reproduction. And where the ground is coveredwith broad-leaved plants, such plants will shelter innumerable tinycreatures, and some of them will be burrowers. So rain will drainquickly into those burrowings and not make streams. And therefore thedrainage will reappear as springs, and the grazing animals will go tothose springs to drink. Often, they will gather more densely atnightfall for greater protection from their enemies. They will evenoften gather at the springs or their overflowing brooks. This willhappen anywhere that plains and animals exist, on any planet to the edgeof the galaxy, because there are laws for living things as well asstones.
Great dark masses of the beasts moved unhurriedly past the ship. Theywere roughly the size of cattle--which itself would be determined by thegravity of the planet, setting a maximum favorable size for grazingbeasts with an ample food-supply. There were thousands and tens ofthousands of them visible in the deepening night. They crowded to thegushing spring and to the stream that flowed from it. They drank.Sometimes groups of them waited patiently until the way to the water wasclear.
"Well?" said Jones.
"I think you filled my order," admitted Cochrane.
The night became starlight only, and Cochrane impatiently demanded of Alor somebody that they measure the length of a complete day and night onthis planet. The stars would move overhead at such-and-such a rate. Somany degrees in so much time. He needed, said Cochrane--as if this orderalso could be filled--a day-length not more than six hours shorter orlonger than an Earth-day.
Jones and Al conferred and prepared to take some sort of reading withoutany suitable instrument. Cochrane moved restlessly about. He did notnotice Johnny Simms. Johnny had stood sullenly in his place, not movingto look out the windows, ostentatiously ignoring everything andeverybody. And nobody paid attention! It was not a matter to offend anadult, but it was very shocking indeed to a rich man's son who had beenable to make a career of staying emotionally at a six-year-old level.
Cochrane's thoughts were almost feverish. If the day-length here wassuitable, all his planning was successful. If it was too long or tooshort, he had grimly to look further--and Spaceways, Inc., would stillnot be as completely a success as he wanted. It would have been muchsimpler to have measured the apparent size of the local sun by any meansavailable, and then simply to have timed the intervals between itstouching of the horizon and its complete setting. But Cochrane hadn'tthought of it at sunset.
Presently he wandered down to where Babs and Alicia worked in thekitchen to prepare a meal. He tried to help. The atmosphere was muchmore like that in a small apartment back home than on a space-ship amongthe stars. This was not in any way such a journey of exploration as thewriters of fiction had imagined. Jamison came down presently and offeredto prepare some special dish in which he claimed to excel. There was nomention of Johnny Simms. Alicia, elaborately ignoring all that was past,told Jamison that Babs and Cochrane were now an acknowledged romance andactually had plans for marriage immediately the ship returned to Earth.Jamison made the usual inept jests suited to such an occasion.
Presently they called the others to dinner. Jones and Johnny Simms werelong behind the others, and Jones' expression was conspicuouslydead-pan. Johnny Simms looked sulkily rebellious. His sulking had notattracted attention in the control-room. He had meant to refuse sulkilyto come to dinner. But Jones wouldn't trust him--alone in thecontrol-room. Now he sat down, scowling, and ostentatiously refused toeat, despite Alicia's coaxing. He snarled at her.
This, also, was not in the tradition of the behavior of voyagers ofspace. They dined in the over-large saloon of a ship that had never beenmeant really to leave the moon. The ship stood upright under strangestars upon a stranger world, and all about it outside there were theresting forms of thousands upon thousands of creatures like cattle. Andthe dinner-table conversation was partly family-style jests about Babs'and Cochrane's new romantic status, and partly about a televisionbroadcast which had to be ready for a certain number of Earth-hours yetahead. And nobody paid any attention to Johnny Simms, glowering at thetable and refusing to eat.
It was a mistake, probably.
Much, much later, Cochrane and Babs were again in the control-room, andthis time they were alone.
"Look!" said Cochrane vexedly. "Do you realize that I haven't kissed yousince we got back on the ship? What happened?"
"You!" said Babs indignantly. "You've been thinking about something elseevery second of the time!"
Cochrane did not think about anything else for several minutes. He beganto recall with new tolerance the insane antics of people he had beenproducing shows about. They had reason--those imaginary people--to actunreasonably.
But presently his mind was working again.
"We've got to make some plans for ourselves," he said. "We can live backon Earth, of course. We've already made a neat sum out of the broadcastsfrom this trip. But I don't think we'll want to live the way one has tolive on Earth, with too many people there. I'd like--."
Somebody came clattering up the stairs from below.
"Johnny?" It was Bell. "Is he up here?"
Cochrane released Babs.
"No. He's not here. Why?"
"He's missing," said Bell apprehensively. "Alicia says he took a gun. Agun's gone, anyhow. He's vanished!"
Cochrane swore under his breath. A fool asserting his dignity with a guncould be a serious matter indeed. He switched on the control-roomlights. He was not there. They went down and hunted over the mainsaloon. He was not there. Then Holden called harshly from the next deckdown.
There was Alicia by the inner airlock door. Her face was deathly pale.She had opened the door. The outer door was open too--and it had notbeen opened since this last landing by anybody else. The landing-slingcables were run out. They swung slowly in the light that fell upon themfrom the inside of the ship.
A smell came in the opening. It was the smell of beasts. It was a musky,ammoniacal smell, somehow not alien even though it was unfamiliar. Therewere noises outside in the night. Grunting sounds. Snortings. There weresuch sounds as a vast concourse of grazing creatures would make in thenight-time, when gathered by thousands and myriads for safety and forrest.
"He--went out," said Alicia desperately. "He meant to punish us. He's aspoiled little boy. We weren't nice to him. And--he was afraid of ustoo! So he ran away to make us sorry!"
Cochrane went to look out of the lock and to call Johnny Simms back. Hegazed into absolute blackness on the ground. He felt a queasy giddinessbecause there was no hand-railing at the outer lock door and he knew thedepth of the fall outside. He raged, within himself. Johnny Simms wouldfeel triumphant when he was called. He would require to be pleaded withto retu
rn. He would pompously set terms for returning before he waskilled....
Cochrane saw a flash of fire and the short streak of a tracer-bullet'spatch before it hit something. He heard the report of the gun. He hearda bellow of agony and then a scream of purest terror from Johnny Simms.
Then, from the ground, arose a truly monstrous tumult. Every one of thecreatures below raised its voice in a horrible, bleating cry. The volumeof sound was numbing--was agonizing in sheer impact. There werestirrings and clickings as of horns clashing against each other.
Another scream from Johnny Simms. He had moved. It appeared that he wasrunning. Cochrane saw more gun-flashes, there were more shots. Heclenched his hands and waited for the thunderous vibration that would beall this multitude of animals pounding through the night in blindstampede.
It did not come. There was only that bleating, horrible outcry as allthe beasts bellowed of alarm and created this noise to frighten theirassailants away.
Twice more there were shots in the night. Johnny Simms fired crazily andscreamed in hysterical panic. Each time the shots and screaming werefarther away.
There were no portable lights with which to make a search. It wasunthinkable to go blundering among the beasts in darkness.
There was nothing to do. Cochrane could only watch and listen helplesslywhile the strong beast-smell rose to his nostrils, and the innumerablenoises of unseen uneasy creatures sounded in his ears.
Inside the ship Alicia wept hopelessly. Babs tried in vain to comforther.
CHAPTER TEN
The sun rose. Cochrane noted the time, it was fourteen hours sincesunset. The local day would be something more than an Earth-day inlength. The manner of sunrise was familiar. There was a pale gray lightin the sky. It strengthened. Then reddish colors appeared, and changedto gold, and the unnamed stars winked out one after another. Presentlythe nearer hillsides ceased to be black. There was light everywhere.
Alicia, white and haggard, waited to see what the light would show.
But there was heavy mist everywhere. The hill-crests were clear, and theedge of the visible woodland, and the top half of the ship's shininghull rose clear of curiously-tinted, slowly writhing fog. But everythingelse seemed submerged in a sea of milk.
But the mist grew thinner as the sun shone on it. Its top writhed tonothingness. All this was wholly commonplace. Even clouds in the skywere of types well-known enough. Which was, when one thought about it,inevitable. This was a Sol-type sun, of the same kind and color as thestar which warmed the planet Earth. It had planets, like the sun ofmen's home world. There was a law--Bode's Law--which specified thatplanets must float in orbits bearing such-and-such relationships to eachother. There must also be a law that planets in those orbits must bearsuch-and-such relationships of size to each other. There must be a lawthat winds must blow under ordinary conditions, and clouds form atappointed heights and times. It would be very remarkable if Earth werean exception to natural laws that other worlds obey.
So the strangeness of the morning to those who watched from the ship wasmore like the strangeness of an alien land on Earth than that of awholly alien planet.
The lower dawnmist thinned. Gazing down, Cochrane saw dark massesmoving slowly past the ship's three metal landing-fins. They were thebeasts of the night, moving deliberately from their bed-ground to thevast plains inland. There were bunches of hundreds, and bunches ofscores. There were occasional knots of dozens only.
From overhead and through the mist Cochrane could not see individualanimals too clearly, but they were heavy beasts and clumsy ones. Theymoved sluggishly. Their numbers dwindled. He saw groups of no more thanfour or five. He saw single animals trudging patiently away.
He saw no more at all.
Then the sunlight touched the inland hills. The last of the morning mistdissolved, and there were the dead bodies of two beasts near the base ofthe ship. Johnny Simms had killed them with his first panicky shots ofthe night. There was another dead beast a quarter-mile away.
Cochrane gave orders. Jones and Al could not leave the ship. They wereneeded to get it back to Earth, with full knowledge of how to make otherstarships. Cochrane tried to leave Babs behind, but she would not stay.Bell had loaded himself with a camera and film-tape besides a weapon,before Cochrane even began his organization. Holden was needed for anextra gun. Alicia, tearless and despairing, would not be left behind.Cochrane turned wryly to Jamison.
"I don't think Johnny was killed," he said. "He'd gotten a long way offbefore it happened, anyhow. We've got to hunt for him. With beasts likethose of last night, there'll naturally be other creatures to prey onthem. We might run into anything. If we don't get back, you get to thelawyers I've had representing Spaceways. They'll get rich off the job,but you'll end up rich, too."
"The best bet all around," said Jamison in a low tone, "would be to findhim trampled to death."
"I agree," said Cochrane sourly. "But apparently the beasts don'tstampede. Maybe they don't even charge, but just form rings to protecttheir females and young, like musk-oxen. I'm afraid he's alive, but I'malso afraid we'll never find him."
He marshaled his group. Jones had walkie-talkies ready, deftly removedfor the purpose from space-suits nobody had used since leaving LunarCity--and Holden took one to keep in touch by. They went down in thesling, two at a time.
Cochrane regarded the two dead animals near the base of the ship. Theywere roughly the size of cattle, and they were shaggy like buffalo. Theyhad branching, pointed, deadly horns. They had hoofs, single hoofs, notcloven. They were not like any Earth animal. But horns and hoofs willappear in any system of parallel evolution. It would seem even morecertain that proteins and amino acids and such compounds as hemoglobinand fat and muscle-tissue should be identical as a matter of chemicalinevitability. These creatures had teeth and they were herbivorous. Bellphotographed them painstakingly.
"Somehow," said Cochrane, "I think they'd be wholesome food. If we can,we'll empty a freezing-locker and take a carcass for tests."
Holden fingered his rifle unhappily. Alicia said nothing. Babs stayedclose beside her. They went on.
They came to another dead animal a quarter-mile away. The ground wasfull of the scent and the hoofmarks of the departed herd. Bellphotographed again. They did not stop. Johnny Simms had been this way,because of the carcass. He wasn't here now.
They topped the next rise in the ground. They saw two other slaughteredcreatures. It was wholly evident, now, that these animals did not chargebut only stood their ground when alarmed. Johnny Simms had fired blindlywhen he blundered into their groupings.
The last carcass they saw was barely two hundred yards from the onepatch of woodland visible from the ship. Cochrane said with somegrimness.
"If his eyes had gotten used to the darkness, he might have seen theforest and tried to get into it to get away from those animals."
And if Johnny Simms had not stopped short instantly he reached the woodsand presumable safety, he would be utterly lost by now. There could benothing less hopeful than the situation of a man lost on a strangeplanet, not knowing in what direction he had blundered on his firststarting out. Even nearby, three directions out of four would be wrong.Farther away, the chance of stumbling on the way back to the ship wouldbe nonexistent.
Alicia saw a human footprint on the trodden muck near the last carcass.It pointed toward the wood.
They reached the wood, and search looked hopeless. Then by purest chancethey found a place where Johnny had stumbled and fallen headlong. He'dleaped up and fled crazily. For some fifteen yards they could track himby the trampled dried small growths he'd knocked down in his flight.Then there were no more such growths. All signs of his flight were lost.But they went on.
There were strangenesses everywhere, of which they could realize only asmall part because they had been city-dwellers back on Earth. There wasone place where trees grew like banyans, and it was utterly impossibleto penetrate them. They swerved aside. There was another spot wheregiant trees like sequoias mad
e a cathedral-like atmosphere, and itseemed an impiety to speak. But Holden reported tonelessly in thewalkie-talkie, and assured Jones and Al and Jamison that all so far waswell.
They heard a vast commotion of chattering voices, and they hoped that itmight be a disturbance of Johnny Simms' causing. But when they reachedthe place there was dead silence. Only, there were hundreds of tinynests everywhere. They could not catch a glimpse of a single one of thenests' inhabitants, but they felt that they were peeked at from underleaves and around branches.
Cochrane looked unhappy indeed. In cold blood, he knew that Johnny Simmshad left the ship in exactly the sort of resentful bravado with which aspoiled little boy will run away from home to punish his parents. Quitepossibly he had intended only to go out into the night and wait near theship until he was missed. But he'd found himself among the unknownbeasts. He'd gone into blind panic. Now he was lost indeed.
But one could not refuse to search for him simply because it washopeless. Cochrane could not imagine doing any less than continuing tosearch as long as Alicia had hope. She might hope on indefinitely.
They heard the faint, distant, incisive sound of a shot.
Holden's voice reported it in the walkie-talkie. Cochrane noddedbrightly to Alicia and fired a shot in turn. He was relieved. It lookedlike everything would end in a commonplace fashion. The party from theship headed toward the source of the other sound.
In half an hour Cochrane was about to fire again. But they heard thehysterical rat-tat-tat of firing. It seemed no nearer, but it could onlybe Johnny Simms.
Cochrane and Holden fired together for assurance to Johnny. Bell tookpictures.
Again they marched toward where the shots had been fired. Again theytrudged on for a long time. Seemingly, Johnny had moved away from themas they followed him. They breasted a hill, and there was a breeze withthe smell of water in it, and they saw that here the land sloped verygradually toward the sea, and the sea was in view. It was infinitelyblue and it reached toward the most alluring of horizons. Between themand the sea there was only low-growing stuff, brownish and sparse. Therewas sand underfoot--a curious bluish sand. Only here and there did thedry-seeming vegetation grow higher than their heads.
More shots. Between them and the sea. Cochrane and Holden fired again.
"What the devil's the matter with the fool?" demanded Holden irritably."He knows we're coming! Why doesn't he stand still or come to meet us?"
Cochrane shrugged. That thought was disturbing him too. They pressedforward, and suddenly Holden exclaimed. "That looks like a man! Twomen!"
Cochrane caught the barest glimpse of something running about, farahead. It looked like naked human flesh. It was the size of a man. Itvanished. Another popped into view and darted madly out of sight. Theydid not see the newcomers.
"He shot something like that, back where we first landed," said Cochranegrimly. "We'd better hurry!"
They did hurry. There was a last flurry of shooting. It was automaticfire. It is not wise to shoot on automatic if one's ammunition islimited, Johnny Simms' firearm chattered furiously for part of a second.It stopped short. He couldn't have fired so short a burst. He was out ofbullets.
They ran.
When they drew near him, a hooting set up. Things scattered away. Largethings. Birds the size of men. They heard Johnny Simms screaming.
They came panting to the very beach, on which foam-tipped waves broke inabsolutely normal grandeur. The sand was commonplace save for a slightbluish tint. Johnny Simms was out on the beach, in the open. He wasdown. He had flung his gun at something and was weaponless. He lay onthe sand, shrieking. There were four ungainly, monstrous birds likeoversized Cornish Game gamecocks pecking at him. Two ran crazily away atsight of the humans. Two others remained. Then they fled. One of themhalted, darted back, and took a last peck at Johnny Simms before it fledagain.
Holden fired, and missed. Cochrane ran toward the kicking, shriekingJohnny Simms. But Alicia got there first.
He was a completely pitiable object. His clothing had been almostcompletely stripped away in the brief time since his last burst ofshots. There were wounds on his bare flesh. After all, the beak of abird as tall as a man is not a weapon to be despised. Johnny Simms wouldhave been pecked to death but for the party from the ship. He had beenspotted and harried by a huntingpack of the ostrich-sized creatures atearliest dawn. A cooler-headed man would have stood still and killedsome of them, then the rest would either have run away or devoured theirslaughtered fellows. But Johnny Simms was not cool-headed. He had made acareer of being a rich man's spoiled little boy. Now he'd had a frightgreat enough and an escape narrow enough to shatter the nerves of anormal man. To Johnny Simms, the effect was catastrophic.
He could not walk, and the distance was too great to carry him. Holdenreported by walkie-talkie, and Jones proposed to butcher one of theanimals Johnny had killed and put it in a freezer emptied for thepurpose, and then lift the ship and land by the sea. It seemed areasonable proposal. Johnny was surely not seriously wounded.
But that meant time to wait. Alicia sat by her husband, soothing him.Holden moved along the beach, examining the shells that had come ashore.He picked up one shell more glorious in its coloring than any of thepearl-making creatures of Earth. This shell grew neither in the flatspiral nor the cone-shaped form of Earth mollusks. It grew in adoubly-curved spiral, so that the result was an extraordinary, lustrous,complex sphere. Bell fairly danced with excitement as he photographed itwith lavish pains to get all the colors just right.
Cochrane and Babs moved along the beach also. It was not possible to beapprehensive. Cochrane talked largely. Presently he was saying withinfinite satisfaction:
"The chemical compounds here are bound to be the same! It's a new world,bigger than the glacier planet. Those beasts last night--if they're goodfood-stuff--will make this a place like the old west, and everybodyenvies the pioneers! This is a new Earth! Everything's so nearly thesame--."
"I never," observed Babs, "heard of blue sand on Earth."
He frowned at her. He stooped and picked up a handful of the beachstuff. It was not blue. The tiny, sea-broken pebbles were ordinaryquartz and granite rock. They would have to be. Yet there was ablueness--The blue grains were very much smaller than the white and tanand gray ones. Cochrane looked closely. Then he blew. All the sand blewout of his hand except--at last--one tiny grain. It was white. Itglittered greasily. Cochrane moved four paces and wetted his hand in thesea. He tried to wet the sand-grain. It would not wet.
He began to laugh.
"I did a show once," he told Babs, "about the old diamond-mines. Everhear of them? They used to find diamonds in blue clay which was as hardas rock. Here, blue clay goes out from the land to under the waves. Thisis a tiny diamond, washed out by the sea! This is the last thing weneed!" Then he looked at his watch. "We're due on the air in two hoursand a half! Now we've got what we want! Let's go have Holden tell Jonesto hurry!"
But Babs complained suddenly,
"Jed! What sort of life am I going to lead with you? Here we are,and--nobody can see us--and you don't even notice!"
Cochrane was penitent. In fact, they had to hurry back down the beach tojoin the others when the space-ship appeared as a silvery gleam, high inthe air, and then came swooping down with fierce flames underneath it tosettle a quarter-mile inland.
Bell had a picture of the tiny diamond by the time the ground was coolenough for them to re-enter the ship. The way he photographed it,against a background which had nothing by which its size could beestimated, the little white stone looked like a Kohinoor. It was twotransparent pyramids set base to base, and he even got color-flashesfrom it. And Jamison, forewarned, took pictures from the air of theblue-sand areas. They showed the tint the one tiny diamond explained.
The broadcast was highly successful. It began with a four-minutecommercial in which the evils of faulty elimination were discussed withinfinite delicacy, and it was clearly proved--to an audience waiting tolook beyond the stars--that
only Greshham's Intestinal Emollient allowedthe body to make full use of vitamins, proteins, and the very newestenzymatic foundation-substances which everybody needed for reallyperfect health. There followed the approach shots to this planet, shotsof the great beast-herds on the plains, views of luxuriant, wavingfoliage, the tide of shaggy animals as they came at dusk to theirdrinking-place, and there was an all-too-brief picturing of theblue-tinted soil which the last film-clip of all declared to bediamondiferous.
Cochrane's direction of this show was almost inspired. The views of theanimal herd were calculated to make any member of his audience think insimultaneous terms of glamour and adventure--with perfect personalsafety, of course!--and of steaks, chops and roasts. The more giftedviewers back on Earth might even envision filets mignon. Theinfinitesimal diamond with its prismatic glitterings, of course, rousedcupidity of another sort.
There were four commercials cut into these alluring views, the last wassuperimposed upon a view Bell had taken of the sunset-colors. And itmight have seemed that the television audience would confuse the charmof the new world as pictured with the product insistently praised. Butthe public was pretty well toughened up against commercials nowadays. Itwas not deceived. As usual, it only deceived itself.
But there was no deception about the fact that there was a new andunoccupied planet fit for human habitation. That was true. And thefretting overcrowded cities immediately became places where everybodymade happy plans for his neighbor to move there. But the more irritablepeople would begin to think vaguely that it might be worth going to, forthemselves.
The ship took off two hours after the broadcast. Part of that time wastaken up with astrogational conferences with astronomers on Earth.Cochrane had this conference taped for the auxiliary broadcast-programin which the audience shared the problems as well as the triumphs of thestar-voyagers. Cochrane wanted to get back to Earth. So far astelevision was concerned, it would be unwise. The ship and its crewwould travel indefinitely without a lack of sponsors. But for once,Cochrane agreed entirely with Holden.
"We're heading back," he told Babs, "because if we keep on, people willaccept our shows as just another superior kind of escape-entertainment.They'll have the dream quality of 'You Win a Million' and thelottery-shows. They'll be things to dream about but never to think ofdoing anything about. We're going to make the series disappointinglyshort, in order to make it more convincingly factual. We won't spin itout for its entertainment-value until it practically loses everythingelse."
"No," said Babs. She put her hand in his. She'd found it necessary toremind him, now and then.
So the ship started home. And it would not return direct to Earth--orLunar City--for a very definite reason. Cochrane meant to have all hisbusiness affairs neatly wrapped up before landing. They could getanother show or two across, and some highly involved contracts could behaggled to completion more smoothly if one of the parties--Spaceways,Inc.--was not available except when it felt like being available. Theother parties would be more anxious.
So the astrogation-conference did not deal with a direct return toEarth, but with a small sol-type star not too far out of the directline. The Pole Star could have been visited, but it was a double star.Cochrane had no abstract scientific curiosity. His approach was strictlythat of a man of business. He did the business.
There was, of course, a suitable pause not too far from the secondplanet--the planet of the shaggy beasts. They put out a plastic balloonwith a Dabney field generator inside it. It would float in emptinessindefinitely. The field would hold for not less than twenty years. Itwould serve as a beacon, a highway, a railroad track through space forother ships planning to visit the third world now available to men.Ultimately, better arrangements could be made.
Jones was already ecstatically designing ground-level Dabney fieldinstallations. There would be Dabney fields extending from star to star.Along them, as along pneumatic tubes, ships would travel at unthinkablespeeds toward absolutely certain destinations. True, at times they couldnot be used because of the bulk of planets between starting-points andlanding-stations. But with due attention to scheduling, it would be asimple matter indeed to arrange for something close to commuters'service between star-clusters. He explained all this to Cochrane, withHolden listening in.
"Oh, surely!" said Cochrane cynically. "And you'll have tax-payersobjecting because you make money. You'll be regulated out of existence.Were you thinking that Spaceways would run this transportation systemyou're planning, without cutting anybody else in on even the glory ofit?"
Jones looked at him, dead-pan. But he was annoyed.
"I want some money," he said. "I thought we could get this thing set up,and then I could get myself a ship and facilities for doing some reallyoriginal work. I'd like to work something out and not have to sell thepublicity-rights to it!"
"I'll arrange it," promised Cochrane. "I've got our lawyers setting up adeal right now. You're going to get as many tricky patents as you can onthis field, and assign them all to Spaceways. And Spaceways is going toassign them all to a magnificent Space Development Association, a sortof Chamber of Commerce for all the outer planets, and all the stuffedshirts in creation are going to leap madly to get honorary posts on it.And it will be practically beyond criticism, and it will have the publicinterest passionately at its heart, and it will be practically beyondinterference and it will be as inefficient as hell! And the moreinefficient it is, the more it will have to take in to allow for itsinefficiency--and for your patents it has to give us a flat cut of itsgross! And meanwhile we'll get ours from the planets we've landed on andpublicized. We've got customers. We've built up a market for ourplanets!"
"Eh?" said Jones in frank astonishment.
"We," said Cochrane, "rate as first inhabitants and thereforeproprietors and governments of the first two planets ever landed onbeyond Earth. When the Moon-colony was formed, there were elaborate lawsmade to take care of surviving nation prides and so on. Whoever firststays on a planet a full rotation is its proprietor andgovernment--until other inhabitants arrive. Then the government is allof them, but the proprietorship remains with the first. We own twoplanets. Nice planets. Glamorized planets, too! So I've already madedeals for the hotel-concessions on the glacier world."
Holden had listened with increasing uneasiness. Now he said doggedly:
"That's not right, Jed! I don't mind making money, but there are thingsthat are more important! Millions of people back home--hundreds ofmillions of poor devils--spend their lives scared to death of losingtheir jobs, not daring to hope for more than bare subsistence! I want todo something for them! People need hope, Jed, simply to be healthy!Maybe I'm a fool, but the human race needs hope more than I need money!"
Cochrane looked patient.
"What would you suggest?"
"I think," said Holden heavily, "that we ought to give what we've got tothe world. Let the governments of the world take over and assistemigration. There's not one but will be glad to do it ..."
"Unfortunately," said Cochrane, "you are perfectly right. They would!There have been resettlement projects and such stuff for generations.I'm very much afraid that just what you propose will be done to somedegree somewhere or other on other planets as they're turned up. But onthe glacier planet there will be hotels. The rich will want to go thereto stay, to sight-see, to ride, to hunt, to ski, and to fly inhelicopters over volcanoes. The hotels will need to be staffed. Therewill be guides and foresters and hunters. It will cost too much to bringfood from Earth, so farms will be started. It will be cheaper to buyfood from independent farmers than to raise it with hired help. So thefarmers will be independent. There will have to be stores to supply themwith what they need, and tourists with what they don't need but want.From the minute the glacier planet starts up as a tourist resort, therewill be jobs for hundreds of people. It won't be long before there arejobs for thousands. There'll be a man-shortage there. Anybody who wantsto can go there to work, and if he doesn't go there expecting acertified, psychological
ly conditioned environment, but just a good jobwith possible or probable advancement ... That's the environment wehumans want! Presently the hotels won't even be tourist hotels. They'lljust be the normal hotels that exist everywhere that there are citiesand people moving about among them! Then it won't be a tourist-planet,and tourists will be a nuisance. It'll be home for one hell of a lot ofpeople! And they'll have made every bit of it themselves!"
Holden said uncomfortably:
"It'll be slow ..."
"It'll be sure!" snapped Cochrane. "The first settlements in Americawere failures until the people started to work for themselves! Look atthis planet we're leaving! How many people will come to work that sillydiamond mine! How many will hunt to supply them with meat? How many willfarm to supply the hunters and the miners with other food? And how manyothers will be along to run stores and manufacture things ..." He madean impatient gesture. "You're thinking of encouraging people to move tothe stars to make more room on Earth. You'd get nice passive colonistswho'd obediently move because the long-hairs said it was wise and thegovernment paid for it. I'm thinking of colonists who'll fight and quitepossibly cheat and lie a little to get jobs where they can take care oftheir families the way they want to! I want people to move to get whatthey want in spite of any discouragement anybody throws at them. Nowshoo! I'm busy!"
Jones asked mildly:
"At what?"
"The latest proposed deal," said Cochrane impatiently, "is for rights tobore for oil. The uranium concessions are farmed out. Water-power ispending--not for cash, but a cut--and--."
Holden said uneasily:
"There's one other thing, Jed. All your plans and all your schemingcould still be blocked if back on Earth they think we might bringplagues back to Earth. Remember Dabney suggested that? And somebiologist or other agreed with him?"
Cochrane grinned.
"There's a diamond-mine. There are herds of what people will callcattle. There's food and riches. There's scenery and adventure. There'sroom to do things! Nobody could keep political office if he tried tokeep his constituents from food and cash and adventure--even by proxywhen they send expendable Cousin Albert out to see if he can make aliving there. We've got to take reasonable precautions against germs, ofcourse. We'll have trouble enforcing them. But we'll manage!"
Al called down from the control-room. The ship was sufficiently aligned,he thought, for their next stopping-place. He wanted Jones to charge thebooster-circuit and flash it over. Jones went.
A little later there was the peculiar sensation of a sound that was nota sound, but was felt all through one. The result was not satisfactory.The ship was still in empty space, and the nearest star was still astar. There was a repetition of the booster-jump. Still not too good.Thereafter the ship drove, and jumped, and jumped, and drove.
Jamison came down to where Cochrane conducted business via communicator.He waited. Cochrane said:
"Dammit, I won't agree! I want twelve per cent or I take up anotheroffer!--What?"
The last was to Jamison. Jamison said uneasily:
"We found another planet. About Earth-size. Ice-caps. Clouds. Oceans.Seas. Even rivers! But there's no green on it! It's all bare rocks!"
Cochrane thought concentratedly. Then he said impatiently:
"The whiskered people back home said that life couldn't have gottenstarted on all the planets suited for it. They said there must beplanets where life hasn't reached, though they're perfectly suited forit. Make a landing and try the air with algae like we did on the firstplanet."
He turned back to the communicator.
"You reason," he snapped to a man on far-away Earth, "that all this isonly on paper. But that's the only reason you're getting a chance at it!I'll guarantee that Jones will install drives on ships that meet ourrequirements of space-worthiness--or government standards, whichever arestrictest--for ten per cent of your company stock plus twelve per centcash of the cost of each ship. Nothing less!"
He heard the rockets make the louder sound that was the symptom ofdescent against gravity.
The world was lifeless. The ship had landed on bare stone, when Cochranelooked out the control-room ports. There had been trouble finding a flatspace on which the three landing-fins would find a suitable foundation.It had taken half an hour of maneuvering to locate such a place and tosettle solidly on it. Then the look of things was appalling.
The landing-spot was a naked mass of what seemed to be basalt polygons,similar to the Giants' Causeway of Ireland back on Earth. There was nosoftness anywhere. The stone which on other planets underlay soil, hereshowed harshly. There was no soil. There was no microscopic life tonibble at rocks and make soil in which less minute life could live. Thenudity of the stones led to glaring colors everywhere. The colors werebrilliant as nowhere else but on Earth's moon. There was no vegetationat all.
That was somehow shocking. The ship's company stared and stared, butthere could be no comment. There was a vast, dark sea to the left of thelanding-place. Inland there were mountains and valleys. But themountains were not sloped. There were heaps of detritus at the bases oftheir cliffs, but it was simply detritus. No tiniest patch of lichengrew anywhere. No blade of grass. No moss. No leaf. Nothing.
The air was empty. Nothing flew. There were clouds, to be sure. The skywas even blue, though a darker blue than Earth's, because there was novegetation to break stone down to dust, or to form dust by its owndecay.
The sea was violently active. Great waves flung themselves toward theharsh coastline and beat upon it with insensate violence. They shatteredinto masses of foam. But the foam broke--too quickly--and left thesurging water dark again. Far down the line of foam there were darkclouds, and rain fell in masses, and lightning flashed. But it was ascene of desolation which was somehow more horrible even than thescarred and battered moon of Earth.
Cochrane looked out very carefully. Alicia came to him, a triflehesitant.
"Johnny's asleep now. He didn't sleep at first, and while we were out ofgravity he was unhappy. But he went off to sleep the instant we landed.He needs rest. Could we--just stay landed here until he catches up onsleep?"
Cochrane nodded. Alicia smiled at him and went away. There was still themark of a bruise on her cheek. She went down to where her husband neededher. Holden said dourly:
"This world's useless. So is her husband."
"Wait till we check the air," said Cochrane absently.
"I've checked it," Holden told him indifferently. "I went in the portand sniffed at the cracked outer door. I didn't die, so I opened thedoor. There is a smell of stone. That's all. The air's perfectlybreathable. The ocean's probably absorbed all soluble gases, andpoisonous gases are soluble. If they weren't, they couldn't bepoisonous."
"Mmmmmm," said Cochrane thoughtfully.
Jamison came over to him.
"We're not going to stay here, are we?" he asked. "I don't like to lookat it. The moon's bad enough, but at least nothing could live there!Anything could live here. But it doesn't! I don't like it!"
"We'll stay here at least while Johnny has a nap. I do want Bell to takeall the pictures he can, though. Probably not for broadcast, but forbusiness reasons. I'll need pictures to back up a deal."
Jamison went away. Holden said without interest:
"You'll make no deals with this planet! This is one you can do what youlike with! I don't want any part of it!"
Cochrane shrugged.
"Speaking of things you don't want any part of--what about Johnny Simms?Speaking as a psychiatrist, what effect will that business of being inthe dark all night and nearly being pecked to death--what will it do tohim? Are psychopaths the way they are because they can't face reality,or because they've never had to?"
Holden stared away down the incredible, lifeless coastline at thedistant storm. There was darkness under many layers of cloud. The seafoamed and lashed and instantly was free of foam again. Because therewere no plankton, no animalcules, no tiny, gluey, organic beings in itto give the water the property of ma
king foam which endured. There wasthunder, yonder in the storm, and no ear heard it. Over a vast worldthere was sunshine which no eyes saw. There was night in which nothingrested, and somewhere dawn was breaking now, and nothing sang.
"Look at that, Jed," said Holden heavily. "There's a reality none of uswants to face! We're all more or less fugitives from what we are afraidis reality. That is real, and it makes me feel small and futile. So Idon't like to look at it. Johnny Simms didn't want to face what one doesgrow up to face. It made him feel futile. So he picked a pleasanter rolethan realist."
Cochrane nodded.
"But his unrealism of last night put him into a very realistic mess thathe couldn't dodge! Will it change him?"
"Probably," said Holden without any expression at all in his voice."They used to put lunatics in snake-pits. When they were people who'dtaken to lunacy for escape from reality, it made them go back to realityto escape from the snakes. Shock-treatments used to be used, later, forthe same effect. We're too soft to use either treatment now. But Johnnygave himself the works. The odds are that from now on he will never wantto be alone even for an instant, and he will never again quite dare tobe angry with anybody or make anybody angry. You choked him and he ranaway, and it was bad! So from now on I'd guess that Johnny will be avery well-behaved little boy in a grown man's body." He said very wrylyindeed, "Alicia will be very happy, taking care of him."
A moment later he added:
"I look at that set-up the way I look at the landscape yonder."
Cochrane said nothing. Holden liked Alicia. Too much. It would not makeany difference at all. After a moment, though, he changed the subject.
"I think this is a pretty good bet, this planet. You think it's no good.I'm going to talk to the chlorella companies. They grow edible yeast intanks, and chlorella in vats, and they produce an important amount offood. But they have to grow the stuff indoors and they have a ghastlyjob keeping everything sterile. Here's a place where they can sowchlorella in the oceans! They can grow yeast in lakes, out-of-doors!Suppose they use this world to grow monstrous quantities of unattractivebut useful foodstuff--in a way--wild? It will be good return-cargomaterial for ships taking colonists out to our other planets.--Isuppose," he added meditatively, "they'll ship it back in bulk, dried."
Holden blinked. He was jolted out of even his depression.
"Jed!" he said warmly. "Tell that to the world--prove that--and--peoplewill stop being afraid! They won't be afraid of starving before they canget to the stars! Jed--Jed! This is the thing the world needs most ofall!"
But Cochrane grimaced.
"Maybe," he admitted it. "But I've tasted the stuff. I think it's foul!Still, if people want it ..."
He went back down to the communicator to contact the chlorella companiesof Earth, to find out if there was any special data they would need topass on the proposal.
* * * * *
And so presently the ship took off for home. It landed on the moonfirst, and Johnny Simms was loaded into a space-suit and transferred toLunar City, where he could live without being extradited back to Earth.He wouldn't stay there. Alicia guaranteed that. They'd move to theglacier planet as soon as hotels were built. Maybe some day they'dtravel to the planet of the shaggy beasts. Johnny would never betroublesome again. He was pathetically anxious, now, to have people likehim, and stay with him, and not under any circumstances be angry withhim or shut him away from them. Alicia would now have a full-timeoccupation keeping people from taking advantage of him.
But the ship went back to Earth. And on Earth Jamison became the leadingtelevision personality of all time, describing and extrapolating thedelicious dangers and the splendid industrial opportunities ofstar-travel. Bell was his companion and co-star. Presently Jamisonconceded privately to Cochrane that he and Bell would need shortly totake off on another journey of exploration with some other expedition.Neither of them thought to retire, though they were well-off enough.They were stock-holders in the Spaceways company, which guaranteed thema living.
Cochrane put Spaceways, Inc., into full operation. He fought savagelyagainst personal publicity, but he worked himself half to death. Hespent hours every day in frenzied haggling, and in the cynicalexamination of deftly booby-trapped business proposals. His lawyersinsisted that he needed an office--he did--and presently he had foursecretaries and there developed an entire hierarchy of persons underhim. One day his chief secretary told him commiseratingly that somebodyhad waited two hours past appointment-time to see him.
It was Hopkins, who had not been willing to interrupt his dinner tolisten to a protest from Cochrane. Hopkins was still exactly asimportant as ever. It was only that Cochrane was more so.
It woke Cochrane up. He stormed, to Babs, and ruthlessly cancelledappointments and abandoned or transferred enterprises, and madepreparations for a more satisfactory way of life.
They went, in time, to the Spaceways terminal, to take ship for thestars. The terminal was improvised, but it was busy. Already eighteenships a day went away from there in Dabney fields. Eighteen othersarrived. Jones was already off somewhere in a ship built according tohis own notions. Officially he was doing research for Spaceways, Inc.,but actually nobody told him what to do. He puttered happily withimprobable contrivances and sometimes got even more improbable results.Holden was already off of Earth. He was on the planet of the shaggybeasts, acting as consultant on the cases of persons who arrived thereand became emotionally disturbed because they could do as they pleased,instead of being forced by economic necessity to do otherwise.
But this day Babs and Cochrane went together into the grand concourse ofthe Spaceways terminal. There were people everywhere. The hiring-boothsof enterprises on the three planets now under development tookapplications for jobs on those remote worlds, and explained how long onehad to contract to work in order to have one's fare paid. Chambers ofCommerce representatives were prepared to give technical information toprospective entrepreneurs. There were reservation-desks, andfreight-routing desks, and tourist-agency desks ...
"Hmmm," said Cochrane suddenly. "D'you know, I haven't heard of Dabneyin months! What happened to him?"
"Dabney?" said Babs. She beamed. Women in the terminal saw the clothesshe was wearing. They did not recognize her--Cochrane had kept her offthe air--but they envied her. She felt very nice indeed. "Dabney?--Oh, Ihad to use my own judgment there, Jed. You were so busy! After all, hewas scientific consultant to Spaceways. He did pay Jones cold cash forfame-rights. When everything else got so much more important than justthe scientific theory, he got in a terrible state. His family consultedDoctor Holden, and we arranged it. He's right down this way!"
She pointed. And there was a splendid plate-glass office built out fromthe wall of the grand concourse. It was elevated, so that it wascharmingly conspicuous. There was a chastely designed but highly visiblesign under the stairway leading to it. The sign said; "_H. G. Dabney,Scientific Consultant._"
Dabney sat at an imposing desk in plain view of all the thousands whohad shipped out and the millions who would ship out in time to come. Hethought, visibly. Presently he stood up and paced meditatively up anddown the office which was as eye-catching as a gold-fish bowl of equalsize in the same place. He seemed to see someone down in the concourse.He could have recognized Cochrane, of course. But he did not.
He bowed. He was a great man. Undoubtedly he returned to his wife eachevening happily convinced that he had done the world a great favor bypermitting it to glimpse him.
Cochrane and Babs went on. Their baggage was taken care of. Thedeparture of a ship for the stars, these days, was much less complicatedand vastly more comfortable than it used to be when a mere moon-rockettook off.
When they were in the ship, Babs heaved a sigh of absolute relief.
"Now," she said zestfully, "now you're retired, Jed! You don't have toworry about anything! And so now I'm going to try to make you worryabout me--not worry about me, but think about me!"
"Of course
," said Cochrane. He regarded her with honest affection."We'll take a good long vacation. First on the glacier planet. Thenwe'll build a house somewhere in the hills back of Diamondville ..."
"Jed!" said Babs accusingly.
"There's a fair population there already," said Cochrane,apologetically. "It won't be long before a local television station willbe logical. I was just thinking, Babs, that after we get bored withloafing, I could start a program there. Really sound stuff. Notcommercial. And of course with the Dabney field it could be piped backto Earth if any sponsor wanted it. I think they would ..."
Presently the ship with Babs and Cochrane among its passengers took offto the stars. It was a perfectly routine flight. After all, star-travelwas almost six months old. It wasn't a novelty any longer.
Operation Outer Space was old stuff.
THE END.
* * * * *
Transcriber's notes
The following typos have been corrected. Hyphenation adjusted to reflectthe most common usage in the text.
Page Typo Correction7 expendible expendable8 calmy calmly8 Takeoff's Take-off's9 Takeoff Take-off10 night-club nightclub13 business-like businesslike21 takeoff take-off25 moonjeep moon-jeep25 The pyschiatrist The psychiatrist27 buisinesslike businesslike33 Appenines Apennines36 Arcturis Arcturus37 Why? Why?"39 tryin trying40 stockholders stock-holders41 possiblities possibilities56 Columbus', Columbus'57 Three of four Three or four77 moonrocket moon-rocket86 epidomologist epidemiologist89 "Why? "Why?"91 wrily wryly93 chlorophyl chlorophyll95 panic-striken panic-stricken101 roup croup109 Cochrone Cochrane110 behind behind besides115 wrily wryly117 'We'd have "We'd have118 back-ground background120 sun-light sunlight120 'We're in a "We're in a125 virtures virtues125 normal normal,129 maintainance maintenance135 extraterrestrial extra-terrestrial136 collossus colossus137 facsimilie facsimile142 eveywhere everywhere143 star-ships starships
The following differently hyphenated words have been left as they were,since there was no clearly predominant usage.
air-lock airlockfood-stuff foodstuffsice-caps icecapsmoon-dust moondustre-broadcast rebroadcastroof-tops rooftopsside-rail siderailspace-ship spaceshiptree-tops treetopsultra-violet ultraviolet
There are one or more lines of text missing on page 57, marked by[Missing Text]. This was a printer's error.
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