“That’s our new home,” Konklin said. “Big, isn’t it?”
“What makes that funny light? It’s like a seance in here. You’re sure that’s a planet? Maybe it really is a space serpent. I don’t think I’d like to live around a space serpent, no matter how big it is.”
Konklin left the bubble and hurried down the vibrating thundering corridor. The silent green glow seemed to follow him as he descended a ramp and came out on the main level At the door of his cabin, he halted and stood a moment listening.
Down in the cargo hold meager possessions were being assembled. Pots and pans, bedding, food, clothing, were being gathered up and collected. A murmur of excited, subdued voices filtered up over the din of the brake-jets. Gardener, the jet stoker, was starting to give out Dodds pressure suits and helmets.
Konklin pushed open the cabin door and entered.
Mary glanced quickly up. “Are we there?”
“Not quite. All ready to step out on our new world?”
Mary indicated their heap of possessions. “I’m packing.”
Konklin laughed. “You and everybody else. Put that stuff back where it was; we’re going to live here until we get the subsurface domes set up.”
“Oh,” Mary said. Abashed, she began carrying things back to drawers and cupboards and storage lockers. “Aren’t we even going to set up some sort of—colony?”
“Sure we are.” Konklin slapped the bulkhead above his Shoulder. “And this is it-Mary lingered with an armload of clothes.
“Bill, it’ll be nice, won’t it? I mean, it’ll be hard at first but later on it won’t be so bad. Well be living mostly underground, the way they do on Uranus and Neptune. That’s pretty nice, isn’t it?”
“We’ll make out all right.” Konklin gently took the clothes from her arms. “Let’s get down to the cargo hold and find ourselves Dodds suits. Gardner’s giving them out.”
Janet Sibley greeted them, nervous and fluttering with excitement “I can’t get into mine,” she gasped. “It’s too small!”
Konklin helped her zap the heavy material. “Remember for God’s sake, when you’re outside be careful and don’t trip. These are the old type suits. You can puncture them on sharp rocks and be dead in a second.”
“Who gets to step out first?” Mary asked, as she slowly zipped up her bulky suit “Captain Groves?”
“Whoever’s closest to the hatch.”
“Maybe it’ll be me,” Jereti said, coming into the hold and grabbing up his suit. “Maybe I’ll be the first human being to set foot on Flame Disc.”
They were still fastening their suits and talking together in small nervous groups when the landing sirens shrieked into life. “Grab hold!” Konklin shouted above the wailing din. “Hang onto something and get your suits going!”
The ship struck with a roar that tossed them about like dry leaves. Supplies and possessions pitched everywhere, as the hull twisted and bucked violently. The brake-jets moaned and fought to slow the rocking ship as it plowed hideously into the ice-hard surface of the planet The lights flickered and faded out In the blackness the thunder of the jets and the ear-splitting squeal of metal against rock deafened the scattered passengers into paralysis.
Konklin was thrown against a heap of bedding. Pots and pans rained down on him; in the gloom he fought his way up until his fingers closed around a hull support. “Mary!” he shouted. “Where are you?”
In the darkness nearby he felt her moving. “I’m here,” she answered faintly. “I think my helmet’s cracked; it’s leaking air.”
Konklin caught hold of her. “You’re all right.” The ship was still moving, an inferno of sound and protesting metal that gradually slowed to a reluctant, uneven halt. The lights flickered, came on for a brief moment, and then again faded out. Somewhere moisture dripped slow and steady. Down the corridor a fire crackled among heaps of supplies that had tumbled from a locker.
“Get that fire out,” Groves ordered.
With an extinguisher Jereti made his way unsteadily into the corridor. “I guess we’re there,” he said shakily, as he covered the fire. His voice vibrated thinly in their helmet phones.
Somebody lit a flashlight “The hull must have stood up,” Konldin said. “I don’t hear any important leaks.”
“Let’s get out,” Mary said intensely. “Let’s see it.”
Groves was already at the hatch. He stood waiting stonily until everybody was around him and then he began unsealing the heavy locks by hand. “The power is dead,” he explained. “Leads snapped someplace.”
The hatch slid back. Air whooshed out and Groves moved forward, wide-eyed and immediately silent. The others crowded onto the ramp after him; for a moment they stood awed and hesitant. Then as a group they descended.
Half-way down Mary stumbled and Jereti halted to catch hold of her. One of the Japanese optical workers touched the surface first. Agilely, he slid over the side and dropped to the hard-frozen rock, face excited and eager within his bulging helmet. Grinning up at them, he waved them on.
“It’s okay,” he shouted. “No monsters in sight.”
Mary held back. “Look,” she whispered. “Look at it glow.”
The planet was a single plain of green light. Wherever they looked there was the faint, unwinking sheen of color, soft and unfocused, on the rocks and boulders, on the ground itself. In the dim green phosphorescence the group of men and women were strange opaque shapes, black columns of metal and plastic stepping awkwardly and hesitantly down.
“It’s been here all this time,” Jereti said wonderingly. “And nobody to look at it.” He kicked at the frozen rock. “We’re the first to set foot here.”
“Maybe not,” Groves said thoughtfully. “As we landed I saw something. I tried to come as close as possible without hitting it.” He undipped his heavy-duty shoulder weapon. “Preston thought the Disc might be a stray from another system.”
It was a building, a structure of some kind, resting on the smooth surface ahead. It was a sphere of some dull metal, without features or ornaments. Green crystals of frozen gas drifted and blew around them as they apprehensively approached the sphere.
“How the hell do we get in it?” Konklin demanded.
Groves lifted his weapon. “I don’t see any other way,” his voice came in their phones. He squeezed the trigger and moved the muzzle in a slow circle. “This material looks like stainless steel. This thing may be man-made.”
Through the sizzling, dripping rent, Konklin and Groves crawled. A dull throbbing reached their ears as they climbed down to the floor of the globe. They were in a single chamber of whirring machinery. Air shrieked out past them as they stood peering around.
“Plug it up,” Groves said.
Together they managed to get a patch over the leak then-weapon had cut. Then they turned to examine the humming bank of machinery and wiring.
“Welcome,” a dry, dusty voice said mildly.
They spun quickly, the weapon high.
“Don’t be afraid,” the old man continued. “I’m only another human being like yourself.”
Konklin and Groves stood rooted to the metal floor. “Good God,” Groves said thickly. “But I thought-”
“I,” the old man said, “am John Preston.”
A shudder rolled up Konklin’s spine. His teeth began to chatter. “You said his ship was destroyed. Look at him; he must be a million years old. And he’s in that solution.”
As if in agreement, the paper-thin lips moved, and from the mechanical speakers the dry whisper sounded again. “I am very old,” Preston said. “I am almost completely deaf and paralyzed.” The mouth twisted in a half-smile. “I have arthritis, as you probably know. And some place along the line I lost my glasses. So I can’t really make you out too clearly.”
“This is your ship?” Konklin demanded. “You landed here ahead of us?”
The ancient head, within its supporting hoop, nodded.
“He’s watching us,” Groves said. “It’s frightening. It’s not natural.”
“How long have you been here?” Konklin asked the ancient withered creature suspended in its nourishing bath.
“You will have to excuse me,” Preston answered. “I can’t come down and shake hands with you.”
Konklin blinked. “I guess he didn’t hear me,” he said uneasily.
“We represent the Preston Society,” Groves said awkwardly. “We’re following your work. Are you—”
“It has been a long wait,” the old man interrupted him. “It’s been many weary years. Many, many long days alone.”
“Something’s wrong!” Konklin snapped fearfully. “Something’s the matter with him!”
“He’s deaf and blind.”
Konklin moved toward the banks of machinery. “This isn’t a ship. It’s something else, similar to a ship but not a ship. I think—”
“I want to tell you about Flame Disc,” John Preston’s dry, harsh words interrupted him. “That’s what I’m interested in. That’s what I consider important.”
“So do we,” Groves said, baffled and confused.
Konklin was feverishly examining the smooth inner surface of the sphere. “This has no drive jets! It can’t go anywhere! It has some sort of anti-grav shield, like a marker buoy.” He leaped away from the machinery. “Groves, _this is a buoy_. I’m beginning to get it.”