on>
BORGO PRESS BOOKS BY E. C. TUBB
Enemy of the State: Fantastic Mystery Stories
The Ming Vase and Other Science Fiction Stories
Mirror of the Night and Other Weird Tales
Sands of Destiny: A Novel of the French Foreign Legion
Star Haven: A Science Fiction Tale
Tomorrow: Science Fiction Mystery Tales
The Wager: Science Fiction Mystery Tales
The Wonderful Day: Science Fiction Stories
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Copyright © 1955 by E. C. Tubb
Published by Wildside Press LLC
www.wildsidebooks.com
DEDICATION
To the Memory of
Authentic Science Fiction Magazine
CHAPTER 1
To Captain Barker, interstellar flight had long lost any thrill it might once have had. It was too much like driving a bus with its predicted stops, regular flights and long months of boring routine between planetfalls. The procedure was always the same. A moment of strain as the ship snapped out of hyper-drive, an indescribable wrenching and a brief nausea as the familiar stars replaced the swirling rainbow patterns on the screens, then the ship would swing into matching orbital velocity with the target planet, contact made, the business done, and they would be on their way again.
He sighed as he leaned back from the control panel, staring idly at the mottled green-brown-blue ball seeming to hang motionless below them, and nodded towards the one man who, technically, had no right at all to be in the control room.
“Well, commander, there she is. Hyperon, second planet of Procyon. A nice new Earth-type world suitable for habitation and exploitation, and your future home.”
Williams ignored the elderly captain’s remarks, his eyes gleaming as he stared at the glowing screen. “When do we land?”
“We don’t. The ship doesn’t, that is. We’ll drop you and your people by auxiliary.” Barker twisted his head and stared at the radio operator. “Made contact yet?”
“Not yet, sir.”
“No?” Barker frowned. “That’s odd. Keep trying and let me know immediately they answer.”
“Yes, sir.”
“They’re probably asleep,” said Barker, and smiled at the expression on the young man’s face. “Don’t forget, Williams, it’s been ten years since a ship called here last. You can hardly expect them to maintain a continuous radio-watch.”
“Why not?” Williams made no attempt to disguise his impatience. “The manual specifically orders that such a watch be maintained. There can be no excuse for failure to comply with the instructions.” He frowned at the screen. “Another thing. The settlement was based at the edge of that lake, wasn’t it? Where the river runs through that forest?”
“Was it?” Barker stared thoughtfully at the mottled ball. “Could be.”
“Don’t you know?”
“I could find out,” snapped Barker, annoyed at the other’s tone. “But if you think I can memorize the exact whereabouts of a hundred different settlements on a hundred different planets then you want to think again. That’s what files are for.”
“Never mind the files.”
Williams reached for the adjustment controls on the screen. “I’ve studied up on this planet, and that’s where they should be.” Abruptly the image expanded, seeming to flow away from the centre as details became clearer, and they stared at the image of a lake edge, a river bank and a tiny, obviously man-made clearing. “There!” Williams rested his finger on the smooth surface. “That clearing, that’s where they are.”
“Are they?” Barker narrowed his eyes and made a final adjustment, steadying the image against the distortion of atmospheric heat currents. “Looks deserted to me.”
Impatiently he glared towards the radioman. “Got them yet?”
“No, sir. The ether’s dead; nothing but sun-static.”
“Try a flare.” Barker looked at the young commander. “Maybe their radio’s broken or something. We’ll see if any of them attempt visual signalling in answer to our flare.” He squinted as a gush of brilliant orange limned the edge of the screen and pointed to a small, spinning shape falling towards the lake. “That should rouse them. Pyrotechnic sound-and-sight attention catcher.” He smiled as the spinning shape suddenly expanded into a series of brilliantly coloured smoke clouds, imagining the staccato explosions accompanying the light and smoke.
After ten minutes he said, quietly: “Try another.” Then, fifteen minutes after that: “One more and we’ll be on our way.”
Williams glanced sharply at the elderly captain. “What do you mean?”
“What I said. Unless they answer, we’ll get moving. You and your people can return to Earth; it’s our next stop anyway, and Hyperon can be written off as a ‘bad’ planet.”
“No.”
“Yes.” Barker shrugged as he stared at the silent and deserted clearing. “Something’s happened down there. Disease perhaps, dangerous native life, something lethal in the atmosphere, any one of a thousand things. It doesn’t matter what it is, my orders are plain. Any colony failing to respond to signals is to be considered dangerous and must be abandoned.”
“But you can’t do that.” Williams stared desperately at the screen. “They may be in trouble, or away on an expedition, anything. You just can’t abandon five hundred men and women merely because they didn’t answer your signal.”
“I can and I will,” said Barker coldly. He stared shrewdly at the young commander. “I know what’s on your mind, Williams. You’re thinking that if you return to Earth you’ll lose your command. Well, maybe you will, but isn’t that better than landing here when you don’t know what happened to the others?”
“I can’t agree. Earth needs these new worlds, Barker, and too many of them are proving unfit for human habitation. You mentioned a hundred worlds a short while ago. Did you know that, of those hundred, only ten managed to support a colony for the first ten years? You know how things are back home. With the population increase what it is, we’ve got to find external sources of food and raw materials or face literal starvation. That’s why we are founding these colonies. Not for population expansion, though we can use them for that too, but to grow and supply essential food for the home world. You can’t just write off this planet because the colony doesn’t answer.”
“What do you want me to do?” Barker forced himself to remember that the commander was young, impetuous, and with a high personal stake in his decision. “Land and carry a virulent plague back to Earth? You know the dangers of that as well as I do. That is why this ship never lands, but uses the auxiliaries for ship to planet communication. And even if I did land, what then? I’ve a schedule to maintain and
