The faint hope that they might aroused him. He reached for the com key and a second later tore the headphones from his appalled ears. The crackle of static he knew—and the numerous strange noises which broke in upon the lanes of communication in space—but this solid, paralyzing roar was something totally new—new, and frightening.
And because it was new and he could not account for it, he turned back to regard the scene on the viewer with a more critical eye. The foliage which grew in riotous profusion was green right enough, and Terra green into the bargain—there was no mistaking that. But—Dane caught at the edge of the Com-unit for support. But—What was that liver-red blossom which had just reached out to engulf a small flying thing?
Feverishly he tried to remember the little natural history he knew. Sure that what he had just witnessed was unnatural—un-Terran—and to be suspected!
He started the spy lens on its slow revolution in theQueen ’s nose, to get a full picture of their immediate surroundings. It was tilted at an angle—apparently they hadnot made a fin-point landing this time—and sometimes it merely reflected slices of sky. But when it swept earthward he saw enough to make him believe that wherever the spacer had set down it was not on the Terra he knew.
Subconsciously he had expected the Big Burn to be barren land—curdled rock with rivers of frozen quartz, substances boiled up through the crust of the planet by the action of the atomic explosives. That was the way it had been on Limbo—on the other “burned-off” worlds they had discovered where those who had preceded mankind into the Galaxy—the mysterious, long vanished “Forerunners”—had fought their grim and totally annihilating wars.
But it would seem that the Big Burn was altogether different—at least here it was. There was no rock sterile of life outside—in fact there would appear to be too much life. What Dane could sight on his limited field of vision was a teeming jungle. And the thrill of that discovery almost made him forget their present circumstances. He was still staring bemused at the screen when Rip muttered, turned his head on his folded arms and opened his sunken eyes:
“Did we make it?” he asked dully.
Dane, not taking his eyes from that fascinating scene without, answered: “You brought us down. But I don’t know where—”
“Unless our instruments were ’way off, we’re near to the heart of the Burn.”
“Some heart!”
“What does it look like?” Rip sounded too tired to cross the cabin and see for himself. “Barren as Limbo?”
“Hardly! Rip, did you ever see a tomato as big as a melon—At least it looks like a tomato,” Dane halted the spy lens as it focused upon this new phenomena.
“A what?” There was a note of concern in Shannon’s voice. “What’s the matter with you, Dane?”
“Come and see,” Dane willingly yielded his place to Rip but he did not step out of range of the screen. Surely that did have the likeness to a good, old fashioned earthside tomato—but it was melon size and it hung from a bush which was close to a ten foot tree!
Rip stumbled across to drop into the Com-tech’s place. But his expression of worry changed to one of simple astonishment as he saw that picture.
“Where are we?”
“You name it,” Dane had had longer to adjust, the excitement of an explorer sighting virgin territory worked in his veins, banishing fatigue. “It must be the Big Burn!”
“But,” Rip shook his head slowly as if with that gesture to deny the evidence before his eyes, “that country’s all bare rock. I’ve seen pictures—”
“Of the outer rim,” Dane corrected, having already solved that problem for himself. “This must be farther in than any survey ship ever came. Great Spirit of Outer Space, what has happened here?”
Rip had enough technical training to know how to get part of the answer. He leaned halfway across the com, and was able to flick down a lever with the very tip of his longest finger. Instantly the cabin was filled with a clicking so loud as to make an almost continuous drone of sound.
Dane knew that danger signal, he didn’t need Rip’s words to underline it for him.
“That’s what’s happened. This country is pile ‘hot’ out there!”
Chapter XIV – SPECIAL MISSION
THAT CLICK, the dial beneath the counter, warned them that they were as cut off from the luxuriance outside as if they were viewing a scene on Mars or Sargol from their present position. To go beyond the shielding walls of the spacer into that riotous green world would sentence them to death as surely as if the Patrol was without, with a flamer trained on their hatch. There was no escape from that radiation—it would be in the air one breathed, strike through one’s skin. And yet the wilderness flourished and beckoned.
“Mutations—” Rip mused. “Space, Tau’d go wild if he could see it!”
And that mention of the Medic brought them back to the problem which had earthed them. Dane leaned back against the slanting wall of the cabin.
“We have to have a Medic—”
Hip nodded without looking away from the screen.
”Can one of the flitters be shielded?” The Cargo-apprentice persisted.
“That’s a thought! Ali should know—” Rip reached for the inter-com mike. “Engines!”
“So youare alive?” Ali’s voice had a bite in it. “About time you’re contacting. Where are we? Besides being lopsided from a recruit’s scrambled set-down, I mean.”
“In the Big Burn. Come top-side. Wait—how’s Weeks?”
“He has a devil’s own headache, but he hasn’t blacked out yet. Looks like his immunity holds in part. I’ve sent him bunkside for a while with a couple of pain pills. So we’ve made it—”
He must have left to join them for when Rip answered: “After a fashion,” into the mike there was no reply.
And the clang of his boot plates on the ladder heralded his arrival at their post. There was an interval for him to view the outer world and accept the verdict of the counter and then Rip voiced Dane’s question:
“Can we shield one of the flitters well enough to cross that? I can’t take theQueen up and earth her again—”
“I know you can’t!” the acting-engineer cut in. “Maybe you could get her off world, but you’ll come close to blasting out when you try for another landing. Fuel doesn’t go on forever—though some of you space jockeys seem to think it does. The flitter? Well, we’ve some spare rocket linings. But it’s going to be a job and a half to get those beaten out and reassembled. And, frankly, the space whirly one who flies her had better be suited and praying loudly when he takes off. We can always try—” He was frowning, already busied with the problem which was one for his department.
So with intervals of snatched sleep, hurried meals, and the time which must be given to tending their unconscious charges, Rip and Dane became only hands to be directed by Ali’s brain and garnered knowledge. Weeks slept off the worst of his pain and, though he complained of weakness, he tottered back on duty to help.
The flitter—an air sled intended to hold three men and supplies for exploring trips on strange worlds—was first stripped of all non-essentials until what remained was not much more than the pilot’s seat and the motor. Then they labored to build up a shielding of the tough radiation dulling alloy which was used to line rocket tubes. And they could only praise the foresight of Stotz, who carried such a full supply of spare parts and tools. It was a task over which they often despaired, and Ali improvised frantically, performing weird adjustments of engineering structure. He was still unsatisfied when they had done.
“She’ll fly,” he admitted. “And she’s the best we can do. But it’ll depend a lot on how far she has to go over ‘hot’ country. Which way do we head her?”
Rip had been busy with a map of Terra—a small thing he had discovered in one of the travel recordings carried for crew entertainment.
“The Big Burn covers three quarters of this continent. There’s no use going north—the devastated area extends into the arctic regions. I’d say west—there’s some fringe settlements on the sea coast and we need to contact a frontier territory. Now do we have it straight—? I take the flitter, get a Medic and bring him back—”
Dane cut in at that point. “Correct course! You stay here. If theQueen has to lift, you’re the only one who can take her off world. And the same’s true for Ali. I can’t ride out a blast-off in either the pilot’s or the engineer’s seat. And Weeks is on the sick list. So I’m elected to do the Medic hunting—”
They were forced to agree to that. He was no hero, Dane thought, as he gave a last glance about his cabin early the next morning. The small cubby, utilitarian and bare as it was, never looked more inviting or secure. No, no hero, it was merely a matter of common sense. And although his imagination—that deeply hidden imagination with which few of his fellows credited him—shrank from the ordeal ahead, he had not the slightest intention of allowing that to deter him.