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PLANET of DREAD
By MURRAY LEINSTER
Illustrator ADKINS
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Fantastic Stories of Imagination May 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
_Moran cut apart the yard-long monstrosity with a slash of flame. The thing presumably died, but it continued to writhe senselessly. He turned to see other horrors crawling toward him. Then he knew he was being marooned on a planet of endless terrors._
I.
Moran, naturally, did not mean to help in the carrying out of the planswhich would mean his destruction one way or another. The plans werethrashed out very painstakingly, in formal conference on the space-yacht_Nadine_, with Moran present and allowed to take part in the discussion.From the viewpoint of the _Nadine's_ ship's company, it was simplynecessary to get rid of Moran. In their predicament he might have cometo the same conclusion; but he was not at all enthusiastic about theirdecision. He would die of it.
The _Nadine_ was out of overdrive and all the uncountable suns of thegalaxy shone steadily, remotely, as infinitesimal specks of light ofevery color of the rainbow. Two hours since, the sun of this solarsystem had been a vast glaring disk off to port, with streamers andprominences erupting about its edges. Now it lay astern, and Morancould see the planet that had been chosen for his marooning. It was acloudy world. There were some dim markings near one lighted limb, butnowhere else. There was an ice-cap in view. The rest was--clouds.
* * * * *
The ice-cap, by its existence and circular shape, proved that the planetrotated at a not unreasonable rate. The fact that it was water-ice toldmuch. A water-ice ice-cap said that there were no poisonous gases in theplanet's atmosphere. Sulfur dioxide or chlorine, for example, would notallow the formation of water-ice. It would have to be sulphuric-acid orhydrochloric-acid ice. But the ice-cap was simple snow. Its size, too,told about temperature-distribution on the planet. A large cap wouldhave meant a large area with arctic and sub-arctic temperatures, withsmall temperate and tropical climate-belts. A small one like this meantwide tropical and sub-tropical zones. The fact was verified by thethick, dense cloud-masses which covered most of the surface,--all thesurface, in fact, outside the ice-cap. But since there were ice-capsthere would be temperate regions. In short, the ice-cap proved that aman could endure the air and temperature conditions he would find.
* * * * *
Moran observed these things from the control-room of the _Nadine_, thenapproaching the world on planetary drive. He was to be left here, withno reason ever to expect rescue. Two of the _Nadine's_ four-man crewwatched out the same ports as the planet seemed to approach. Burleighsaid encouragingly;
"It doesn't look too bad, Moran!"
Moran disagreed, but he did not answer. He cocked an ear instead. Heheard something. It was a thin, wabbling, keening whine. No naturalradiation sounds like that. Moran nodded toward the all-band speaker.
"Do you hear what I do?" he asked sardonically.
Burleigh listened. A distinctly artificial signal came out of thespeaker. It wasn't a voice-signal. It wasn't an identification beacon,such as are placed on certain worlds for the convenience of interstellarskippers who need to check their courses on extremely long runs. Thiswas something else.
Burleigh said:
"Hm ... Call the others, Harper."
Harper, prudently with him in the control-room, put his head into thepassage leading away. He called. But Moran observed with grudgingrespect that he didn't give him a chance to do anything drastic. Thesepeople on the _Nadine_ were capable. They'd managed to recapture the_Nadine_ from him, but they were matter-of-fact about it. They didn'tseem to resent what he'd tried to do, or that he'd brought them anindefinite distance in an indefinite direction from their lastlanding-point, and they had still to re-locate themselves.
* * * * *
They'd been on Coryus Three and they'd gotten departure clearance fromits space-port. With clearance-papers in order, they could landunquestioned at any other space-port and take off again--provided theother space-port was one they had clearance for. Without rigid controlof space-travel, any criminal anywhere could escape the consequences ofany crime simply by buying a ticket to another world. Moran couldn'thave bought a ticket, but he'd tried to get off the planet Coryus on the_Nadine_. The trouble was that the _Nadine_ had clearance paperscovering five persons aboard--four men and a girl Carol. Moran made six.Wherever the yacht landed, such a disparity between its documents andits crew would spark an investigation. A lengthy, incredibly minuteinvestigation. Moran, at least, would be picked out as a fugitive fromCoryus Three. The others were fugitives too, from some unnamed worldMoran did not know. They might be sent back where they came from. Ineffect, with six people on board instead of five, the _Nadine_ could notland anywhere for supplies. With five on board, as her papers declared,she could. And Moran was the extra man whose presence would rousespace-port officials' suspicion of the rest. So he had to be dumped.
He couldn't blame them. He'd made another difficulty, too. Blaster inhand, he'd made the _Nadine_ take off from Coryus III with a trip-tapepicked at random for guidance. But the trip-tape had been computed foranother starting-point, and when the yacht came out of overdrive it wasbecause the drive had been dismantled in the engine-room. So the ship'slocation was in doubt. It could have travelled at almost any speed inpractically any direction for a length of time that was at leastindefinite. A liner could re-locate itself without trouble. It hadelaborate observational equipment and tri-di star-charts. But smallercraft had to depend on the Galactic Directory. The process would be tofind a planet and check its climate and relationship to other planets,and its flora and fauna against descriptions in the Directory. That wasthe way to find out where one was, when one's position became doubtful.The _Nadine_ needed to make a planet-fall for this.
The rest of the ship's company came into the control-room. Burleighwaved his hand at the speaker.
"Listen!"
* * * * *
They heard it. All of them. It was a trilling, whining sound among theinnumerable random noises to be heard in supposedly empty space.
"That's a marker," Carol announced. "I saw a costume-story tape oncethat had that sound in it. It marked a first-landing spot on some planetor other, so the people could find that spot again. It was supposed tobe a long time ago, though."
"It's weak," observed Burleigh. "We'll try answering it."
Moran stirred, and he knew that every one of the others was conscious ofthe movement. But they didn't watch him suspiciously. They were alert bylong habit. Burleigh said they'd been Underground people, fighting thegovernment of their native world, and they'd gotten away to make it seemthe revolt had collapsed. They'd go back later when they weren'texpected, and start it up again. Moran considered the story probable.Only people accustomed to desperate actions would have remained so calmwhen Moran had used desperate measures against them.
Burleigh picked up the transmitter-microphone.
"Calling ground," he said briskly. "Calling ground! We pick up yoursignal. Please reply."
He repeated the call, over and over and over. There was no answer.Cracklings and hissings came out of the speaker as before, and the thinand reedy wabbling whine continued. The _Nadine_ went on toward theenlarging cloudy mass ahead.
Burleigh said;
"Well?"
"I think," said Caro
l, "that we should land. People have been here. Ifthey left a beacon, they may have left an identification of the planet.Then we'd know where we are and how to get to Loris."
Burleigh nodded. The _Nadine_ had cleared for Loris. That was where itshould make its next landing. The little yacht went on. All five of itsproper company watched as the planet's surface enlarged. The ice-capwent out of sight around the bulge of the globe, but no markingsappeared. There were cloud-banks everywhere, probably low down in theatmosphere. The darker vague areas previously seen might have beenhighlands.
"I think," said Carol, to Moran, "that if it's too tropical where thissignal's coming from, we'll take you somewhere near enough to theice-cap to have an endurable climate. I've been figuring on food, too.That will depend on where we are from Loris because we have to