More Adventures On Other Planets Page 5

  "That's about it," Ross said. "Let's get rolling."

  Ross' own job was purely administrative—and, as the men of his crew moved busily about their allotted tasks, he realized unhappily that he himself was condemned to temporary idleness. His function was that of overseer; like the conductor of a symphony orchestra, he played no instrument himself, and was on hand mostly to keep the group moving in harmony toward the finish. Now, he had only to wait.

  Llewellyn and Falbridge departed, riding the segmented, thermo-resistant crawler carried in the belly of the Leverrier. Their job was simple: they were to erect the inflatable plastic radar tower far to sunward. The tower that had been left by the first expedition had long since librated into a Sunside zone and been liquefied; the plastic base and parabola, covered with a light reflective surface of aluminum, could hardly withstand the searing heat of Sunside.

  Out there, it got up to 700° when the sun was at its closest; the eccentricities of Mercury's orbit accounted for considerable Sunside temperature variations; but the thermometer never showed lower than 300° on Sunside, even during aphelion. On Darkside, there was little variation; temperature hung down near absolute zero, and frozen drifts of heavy gases covered the surface of the land.

  From where he stood, Ross could see neither Sunside nor Darkside. The Twilight Belt was nearly a thousand miles broad, and as the planet dipped in its orbit the sun would first slide above the horizon, then dip back. For a twenty-mile strip through the heart of the Belt, the heat of Sunside and the cold of Darkside cancelled out into a fairly stable temperate climate; for five hundred miles on either side, the Twilight Belt gradually tricked toward the areas of cold and raging heat.

  It was a strange and forbidding planet. Humans could endure it only for short times; the sort of life that would be able to exist permanently on Mercury was beyond his conception. Standing outside the Leverrier in his spacesuit, Ross nudged the chin control that lowered a pane of optical glass. He peered first toward Darkside, where he thought he saw a thin line of encroaching black—only illusion, he knew— and then toward Sunside.

  In the distance, Lewellyn and Falbridge were erecting the spidery parabola that was the radar tower. He could see the clumsy shape outlined against the sky now—and behind it? A faint line of brightness rimming the bordering peaks? Illusion also, he knew. Brainerd had calculated that the sun's radiance would not be visible here for a week. And in a week's time they'd be back on Earth.

  He turned to Krinsky. "The tower's nearly up. They'll be back with the crawler any minute. You'd better get ready to make your trip."

  Krinsky nodded. "I'll suit up, sir."

  As the technician swung up the handholds and into the ship, Ross' thoughts turned to Curtis. The young astrogator had prattled of seeing Mercury, all the way out—and now that they were actually here, Curtis lay in a web of foam deep within the ship, moodily demanding the right to die.

  Krinsky returned, now wearing the insulating bulk of the heat-suit over his standard rebreathing outfit. He looked like a small tank rather than a man. "Is the crawler approaching, sir?

  "I'll take a look."

  Ross adjusted the lensplate in his mask and narrowed his eyes. It seemed to him that the temperature had risen somewhat. Another illusion, he thought, as he squinted into the distance.

  His eyes picked out the radar tower far off toward Sunside. His mouth sagged open. "Something the matter sir?"

  "I'll sayl" Ross squeezed his eyes tight shut and looked again. And—yes—the newly erected radar tower was drooping soggily, and beginning to melt. He saw two tiny figures racing madly over the flat, pumice-covered ground to the silvery oblong that was the crawler. And—impossibly—the first glow of an unmistakeable brightness was beginning to shimmer on the mountains behind the tower.

  The sun was rising—a week ahead of schedule!

  Ross gasped and ran back into the ship, followed by the lumbering Krinsky. In the airlock, mechanical hands descended to help him out of his spacesuit; he signalled to Krinsky to remain in the heat-suit, and dashed through the main cabin.

  "Brainerd! Brainerd! Where in hell are you?"

  The senior astrogator appeared, looking puzzled. "Yes, Captain?"

  "Look out the screen," Ross said in a strangled voice. "Look at the radar tower!"

  "It's—melting," Brainerd said astonished. "But that's— that's-"

  "I know. It's impossible." Ross glanced at the instrument panel. External temperature had risen to 112—a jump of four degrees. And as he watched it clicked up to 114.

  It would take a heat of at least 500° to melt the radar tower that way. Ross squinted at the screen, and saw the crawler come swinging dizzily toward them: Llewellyn and Fal-bridge were still alive, then—though they probably had had a good cooking out there. The temperature outside the ship was up to 116. It would probably be near 200 by the time the two men returned.

  Angrily, Ross faced the astrogator. "I thought you were bringing us down in the safety strip," he snapped. "Check your figures again and find out where the hell we really are. Then work out a blasting orbit. That's the sun coming up over those hills."

  "I know," Brainerd said.

  The temperature reached 120. The ships's cooling system would be able to keep things under control and comfortable until about 250; beyond that, there was danger of an overload. The crawler continued to draw near; it was probably hellish in that little landcar, he thought.

  His mind weighted alternatives. If the external temperature went much over 250, he would run the risk of wrecking the ship's cooling system by waiting for the two in the crawler to arrive. He decided he'd give them until it hit 275 to get back and then clear out. It was foolish to try to save two lives at a cost of five. External temperature had hit 130. Its rate of increase was jumping rapidly.

  The ship's crew knew what was going on now. Without direct orders from Ross, they were readying the Leverrier for an emergency blastoff.

  The crawler inched forward. The two men weren't much more than ten miles away now; and at an average speed of forty miles an hour they'd be back within fifteen minutes. Outside it was 133. Long fingers of shimmering sunlight stretched toward them from the horizon.

  Brainerd looked up from his calculations. "I can't work it. The damned figures don't come out."

  "Huh?"

  "I'm computing our location—and I can't do the arithmetic. My head's all foggy."

  What the hell, Ross thought. This was when a captain earned his pay. "Get out of the way," he snapped. "Let me do it."

  He sat down at the desk and started figuring. He saw Brainerd's hasty notations scratched out everywhere. It was as if the astrogator had totally forgotten how to do his job.

  Let's see, now. If we're—

  His pencil flew over the pad—but as he worked he saw that it was all wrong. His mind felt bleary, strange; he couldn't seem to handle the computations. Looking up, he said, "Tell Krinsky to get down there and be ready to help those men out of the crawler when it gets here. They're probably half-cooked."

  Temperature 146. He looked back at the pad. Damn; it shouldn't be that hard to do simple trig, he thought.

  Doc Spangler appeared. "I cut Curtis free," he announced. "He isn't safe during take off in that cradle."

  From within came a steady mutter. "Just let me die . . . just let me die . . ."

  "Tell him he's likely to have his wish," Ross murmured. "If I can't work out a blastoff orbit we'll all roast here."

  "How come you're doing it? What's the matter with Brainerd?"

  "Choked up. Couldn't do the figures. And come to think of it, I feel pretty funny myself."

  Fingers of fog seemed to wrap around his mind. He glanced at the dial. Termperature 152 outside. That gave the boys in the crawler 123 degrees to get back here ... or was it 321? He was confused utterly bewildered.

  Doc Spangler looked strange too. The psych officer was frowning curiously. "I feel very lethargic suddenly," Spangler declared. "I know I really sho
uld get back to Curtis, but—"

  The madman was keeping up a steady babble inside. The part of Ross' mind that could still think clearly realized that if left unattended Curtis was capable of almost anything.

  Temperature 158. The crawler seemed nearer. On the horizon, the radar tower was becoming a crazy shambles.

  There was a shriek. "It's CurtisI" Ross yelled, his mind returning to awareness hurriedly, and peeled out from behind the desk. He ran aft, followed by Spangler, but it was too late.

  Curtis lay on the floor in a bloody puddle. He had found a pair of shears somewhere. Spangler bent. "He's dead."

  "Of course. He's dead." Ross echoed. His brain felt totally clear now; at the moment of Curtis' death, the fog had lifted. Leaving Spangler to attend to the body, he returned to the desk and glanced at the computation.

  With icy clarity he determined their location. They had come down better than three hundred miles to sunward of where they thought they had been. The instruments hadn't lied—but someone's eyes had. The orbit Brainerd that had so solemnly assured him was a "safe" one was actually almost as deadly as the one Curtis had computed.

  He looked outside. The crawler was almost there; temperature was 167. There was plenty of time. They would make it with a few minutes to spare, thanks to the warning they had received from the melting radar tower.

  But why had it happened? There was no answer to that.

  Gigantic in his heat-suit, Krinsky brought Llewellyn and Falbridge aboard. They peeled out of their spacesuits and wobbled unsteadily, then collapsed. They looked like a pair of just-boiled lobsters.

  "Heat prostration," Ross said. "Krinsky, get them into takeoff cradles. Dominic, you in your suit yet?"

  The spaceman appeared at the airlock entrance and nodded.

  "Good. Get down there and drive the crawler into the hold. We can't afford to leave it here. Double-quick, and then we'll blast off. Brainerd, that new orbit ready?"

  "Yes, sir."

  The thermometer grazed 200. The cooling system was beginning to suffer—but its agonies were to be shortlived. Within minutes, the Leverrier had lifted from Mercury's surface—minutes ahead of the relentless advance of the sun— and swung into a temporary planet-circling orbit.

  As they hung there, virtually catching their breaths, Just one question rose in Ross* mind: why? Why did Brainerd's orbit bring them down in a danger zone instead of the safety strip? Why had both Brainerd and Ross been unable to compute a blasting-pattern, the simplest of elementary astro-gation techniques? And why had Spangler's wits utterly failed him—just long enough to let the unhappy Curtis kill himself?

  Ross could see the same question reflected on everyone's face: why?

  He felt an itchy feeling at the base of his skull. And suddenly, an image forced its way across his mind in answer.

  It was a great pool of molten zinc, lying shimmering between two jagged crests somewhere on Sunside. It had been there thousands of years; it would be there thousands, perhaps millions of years from now.

  Its surface quivered. The sun's brightness upon the pool was intolerable even to the mind's eye.

  Radiation beat down on the zinc pool—the sun's radiation, hard and unending, and then a new radiation, an electromagnetic emanation with it a meaningful commutation:

  I want to die.

  The pool of zinc stirred fretfully with sudden impulses of helpfulness.

  The vision passed as quickly as it came. Stunned, Ross looked up hesitantly. The expression on the six faces surrounding him told him what he wanted to know.

  "You felt it too," he said.

  Spangler nodded, then Krinsky and the rest of them.

  "Yes," Krinsky said. "What the devil was it?"

  Brainerd turned to Spangler. "Are we all nuts, Doc?"

  The psych officer shrugged. "Mass hallucination . . ♦ collective hypnosis . . .

  "No, Doc." Ross leaned forward. "You know it as well as I do. That thing was real; it's down there, out on Sunside."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean that wasn't any hallucination we had. That's life —or as close to it as Mercury can come." Ross* hands shook; he forced them to subside. "We've stumbled over something very big," he said.

  Spangler stirred uneasily. "Harry—"

  "No, I'm not out of my head! Don't you see—that thing down there, whatever it is, is sensitive to our thoughts! It picked up Curtis' godawful caterwauling the way a radar set grabs electromagnetic waves. His were the strongest thoughts coming through; so it acted on them and did its damnedest to help Curtis' wish come true."

  "You mean by fogging our minds, and deluding us into thinking we were in safe territory, when actually we were right near sunrise territory?"

  But why would it go to all that trouble?" Krinsky objected. "If it wanted to help poor Curtis kill himself, why didn't it just fix it so we came down right in Sunside? We'd cook a lot quicker that way."

  Ross shook his head. "It knew that the rest of us didnt want to die. The thing down there must be a multi-valued thinker. It took the conflicting emanations of Curtis and the rest of us, and fixed things so that he'd die, and we wouldn't." He shivered. "Once Curtis was out of the way, it acted to help the surviving crewmembers get off to safety. If you'll remember, we all thought and moved a lot quicker the instant Curtis was dead."

  "Damned if that's not so," Spangler said. "But—"

  "What I want to know is, do we go back down?" Krinsky asked. "If that thing is what you say it is, I'm not so sure I want to go within reach of it again. Who knows what it might make us do this time?"

  "It wants to help us," Ross said stubbornly, "It's not hostile. You're not afraid, are you? I was counting on you to go out and scout for it in the heat-suit."

  "Not me!" Krinsky said hasily.

  Ross scowled. "But this is the first intelligent life-form we've hit in the Solar System yet. We can't simply run away and hide!" To Brainerd he said, "Set up an orbit that'll take us back down again—and this time put us down where we won't melt."

  "I can't do it, sir," Brainerd said flatly. "I believe the safety of the crew will be best served by returning to Earth at once."

  Facing the group of them, Ross glanced quickly from one to the next. There was fear evident on the faces of all of them. He knew what each of them was triinking: 1 don't want to go back to Mercury.

  Six of them; one of him. And the helpful thing below.

  They had outnumbered Curtis seven to one—but unmixed death-wish. Ross knew he could never generate enough strength of thought to counteract the fear-ridden thoughts of the other six.

  This is mutiny, he thought, but somehow he did not care to speak the thought aloud. Here was a case where a superior officer might legitimately be removed from command for the common good, and he knew it.

  The creature below was ready to offer its services. But, multi-valued as it might be, there was still only one spaceship, and one of the two parties—either he or the rest of them— would have to be denied its wishes.

  Yes, he thought, the pool had contrived to satisfy both the man who wished to die and those who wished to stay alive. Now, six wanted to return—but could the voice of the seventh be ignored? You're not being fair to me, Ross thought, direction his angry outburst toward the planet below. I want to see you. I want to study you. Don't let them drag me back to Earth.

  When the Leverrier returned to Earth, a week later, the six survitors of the Second Mercury Expedition could all describe in detail how a fierce death-wish had overtaken Second Astrogator Curtis and caused his suicide. But not one of them could recall what had happened to Flight Commander Ross, or why the heat-suit had been left behind on Mercury.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Venus is already the target of Earthly space vehicles. It surely will he the first of Earth's neighbors today's astronauts will visit. But is it a world of eternal rain and misery, or a world of burning desert and heat? John Brunner takes us to Venus, second planet from the sun, and tells a narrative of h
umanity's problems on the first world mankind may colonize,

  BY THE NAME OF MAN

  by John Brunner ♦ ♦♦♦♦♦

  It was raining.

  Lattimer turned over on his back and wished for a yielding plastifoam mattress instead of this coarse hard mat of packed leaves. But he had wished for that every morning for three years and it wasn't getting him one.

  For a few minutes he lay and listened to the steady beat of the rain thundering across the roof. The clock on the wall was an importation from Earth, and kept Greenwich time, but he had grown used to the mental gymnastics of compensation and preferred it to the complex self-adjusting models that they used at the port. His subconscious calculated that it lacked fifteen minutes of rising time, give or take a minute.

  He turned over and buried his face in the pillow. Somehow the fifteen minutes went in a flash, and there came a soft tapping at the door.

  He threw the blanket aside and stood up, rubbing his eyes. After pulling on a robe, he went to answer.

  The native bowed ceremoniously, and a light, dulled by the heavy veil of overcast, gleamed on his rain-slicked fur. It wasn't really fur, of course—it only served to trap his body oils and keep his sensitive skin dry in the unceasing wetness. Even after three years, Lattimer had to wait until the native straightened before he could recognize him and make the formal acknowledgment.

  "Is it a good day?" he asked.

  "It is a good day," said the native. His head came up and Lattimer identified him as Ris. He folded his forelimb webs back against the bone, revealing the basket of food he had protected under them. "I bring the offering. Is it well?"

  "It is well," said Lattimer. It was, this time. His mouth watered at the sight of the paplet and broomak the basket held.

  The native lowered it to the floor inside the entrance and retreated, bowing again. Lattimer waited for him to retire properly—it was unseemly for Ris to see him take the basket up—but he appeared strangely hesitant. Risking—as he always had to do—being found wrong, he said, "The audience today will be when the shadow of the time-tree reaches the fifth mark."