field of stars.
“Torpedo coming, sir,” Chives stated. “Shall I dispose of it?” His
fingers flicked across the gun control board before him. A firebolt
sprang hell-colored. Detector-computer systems signaled a hit. The
missile ceased accelerating. Either its drive was disabled or this was a
programmed trick. In the second case, if Hooligan maintained the same
vector, a moment’s thrust would bring it sufficiently close that
radiation from the exploding warhead could cripple electronics, leave
her helpless and incidentally pass a death sentence on her crew.
“Keep burning till we’re sure,” Flandry ordered. That required a quick
change of course. Engines roared, steel sang under stress,
constellations whirled. He felt his blood tingle and knew he was still a
huntsman.
Flame fountained. A crash went through hull and flesh. The deck heaved.
Shouts came faintly from aft.
Gee-fields restabilized. “The missile obviously had a backup detonator,”
Chives said. “It functioned at a safe remove from us, and our force
screens fended off a substantial piece of debris without harm. Those
gatortails are often inept mechanicians, would you not agree, sir?” His
own tail switched slim and smug.
“Maybe. Don’t let that make you underestimate the Chereionites.” Flandry
studied the readouts before him.
His pulse lifted. They were matched to their goal world. A few minutes
at faster-than-light would bring them there, and–
“Stand by,” he called.
XX
—
The eeriest thing was that nothing happened.
The planet spun in loneliness around its ember sun. Air made a thin
bordure to its shield, shading from blue to purple to the winter sky of
space. Hues were iron-rusty and desert-tawny, overlaid by blue-green
mottlings, hoar polar caps, fierce glint off the few shrunken seas which
remained. A small, scarred moon swung near.
It had to be the world of Flandry’s search. No other was possible. But
who stood guard? War raved through outer space; here his detectors
registered only a few automatic traffic-control stations in orbit,
easily bypassed. Silence seeped through the hull of his vessel and
filled the pilot’s cabin.
Chives broke it: “Analysis indicates habitability for us is marginal,
sir. Biotypes of the kind which appear to be present–sparsely–have
adapted to existing conditions but could not have been born under them.
Given this feeble irradiation, an immense time was required for the loss
of so much atmosphere and hydrosphere.” He paused. “The sense of age and
desolation is quite overwhelming, sir.”
Flandry, his face in the hood of a scannerscope, muttered, “There are
cities. In good repair, fusion powerplants at work … though putting
out very little energy for complexes their size … The deserts are
barren, the begrown regions don’t look cultivated–too saline, I’d
guess. Maybe the dwellers live on synthetic food. But why no visible
traffic? Why no satellite or ground defenses?”
“As for the former, sir,” Chives ventured, “the inhabitants may
generally prefer a contemplative, physically austere existence. Did not
Aycharaych intimate that to you on various occasions? And as for the
latter question, Merseian ships have maintained a cordon, admitting none
except an authorized few.”
“That is”–the tingle in Flandry sharpened–“if an intruder like us ever
came this close, the game would be up anyway?”
“I do not suggest they have no wiles in reserve, sir.”
“Ye-e-es. The Roidhunate wouldn’t keep watch over pure philosophers.”
Decision slammed into Flandry like sword into sheath. “We can’t learn
more where we are, and every second we linger gives them an extra chance
to notice us and load a trap. We’re going straight down!”
He gave the boat a surge of power.
Nonetheless, his approach was cautious. If naught else, he needed a
while to reduce interior air pressure to the value indicated for the
surface ahead of them. (Sounds grew muffled; pulse quickened; breast
muscles worked enough to feel. Presently he stopped noticing much,
having always taken care to maintain a level of acclimation to thin air.
But he was glad that gravity outside would be weak, about half a gee.)
Curving around the night hemisphere, he studied light-bejeweled towers
set in the middle of rock and sand wastes, wondered greatly at what he
saw, and devised a plan of sorts.
“We’ll find us a daylit place and settle alongside,” he announced on the