the whole galaxy,” Deston said, over and over, but he did not give up.
The starship bored along on its hugely helical course, deeper and deeper into unexplored
space toward the Center. Until, after weeks of futile seeking, Deston did find rhenium.
After a quick once-over, .without waiting to get close enough to the planet for the
physical scientists to make any kind of survey, he called Galmetia and Miss Champion.
“Hi, Doris!” he greeted her happily. “I’ve got some good news for you at last. We found
it.”
“Oh? Rhenium? In quantity? How wonderful!”
“Yes. Oodles and gobs of it. All anybody and everybody can ever use. So how about
busting in on the Chief Squeeze, huh?”
To Deston’s surprise, since he had always had instant access to Maynard, the girl
hesitated, tapping her teeth with a pencil. “I . . . just . . . don’t . . . know.” Indecision, in
one of the top FirSecs of all space, was an amazing thing indeed. “He’s all tied up with
Plastics, Synthos, Pharmics, and half a dozen others, and he told me. . .”
“Okay, skip it and give me a buzz. It’s been here for a couple of billion years, anyway, so
another hour or. . .”
“That’s what you think. Usually, Babe-practically always-he gives me my head, but this
time he swore he’d shoot me right through the brain and hang my carcass out of the
window on a hook if I cut in on him with anything whatever or anybody whoever until this
brawl is over … but I know damn well he’ll boil me in oil if I hold this up for even a
minute…. Well, I think I’d rather be shot. Wouldn’t you?”
“It’d be quicker, anyway.”
“Well, a girl can die only once.” She shrugged her shapely shoulders and cut Deston in.
“What the hell, Champion!” Maynard blazed; then, as he saw what was on the screen,
his expression and attitude changed completely. “Okay. Tell you-know-who to roll. Cut.”
Deston’s image flipped back onto Miss Champion’s screen and breathed a deep sigh of
relief. “Believe me, Babe, that was one brass-bound toughie to guess.”
“Check. But you’re a smartie, doll, or you wouldn’t be holding that fort. So let’s get
you-know-who and tell her to cut her gravs, huh?”
“Cutting her shoulder-straps would be enough. B-z-z-zz-zzt! She’d take off without an
anti-grav, let alone a ship.”
She’s been taking it big?”
“‘Immense’ would be a much better word . . . Doctor Byrd, they have found your rhenium.
Here’s Mister Deston.”
It was evident that “The Byrd” had been fighting with someone and was still in a vicious
mood. When she saw Deston, however, her stormy face cleared and she became
instantly the keen, competent executive. “Have you really found some?” she demanded.
“Enough of it to make a fully-automated plant pay out?”
“Well, since the stuff runs well over twenty billion metric tons to the cubic kilometer and
it’s here by the hundreds of cubic kilometers in solid masses, what do you think?”
“Oh my God! What’s the planet like? A stinker, as expected?”
“All of that. No survey yet, but it’s vicious. Several gees. Super-dense atmosphere,
probably bad. No listing for it or anything like it-mountains and mesas of solid metal.
You’ll need personal armor, anti-grays, skyhooks -the works. Pretty much like theory,
from this distance. Closer up, it may get worse.”
“Everything anybody has suggested is aboard. But Deston; they tell me you’re Top Dog
on this. Is it actually true that the sky’s the limit? And that I’m running it without
interference?”
“Not even the sky is the limit on this one. No limit. Yes, except in matters of policy, you
are the Complete Push.”
She glanced at Miss Champion, who said, “if Mr. Deston says so, it is so; he has
over-riding authority in this. In two minutes you will be handed an unlimited authorization,
Doctor Byrd-the first one I ever heard of.
“Oh, wonderful! Thanks a million, both of you! Now if you’ll transfer him over here, Miss
Cham . . .” Deston’s image appeared upon Byrd’s screen, “. . . pionthanks. Mr. Deston, if
you’ll give Astrogation, here, the coords, well . . .” A hand phone rang; she snatched it
up. “Byrd . . . Yes, Lew, good news. At last, thank God, they’ve found our rhenium and
we’re jetting. Activate the whole project. Get Crew One aboard the Rhene as though the
devil was on your tail with a pitchfork … I know it’s sudden, but God damn it, what did
you expect?. . . You’ve all been under notice for a month to be ready to blast off on
fifteen minutes’ notice . . . Me? I’ll be aboard and ready in ten minutes!”
Wherefore it was not long until the giant starship Rhene joined the Procyon in orbit
around the forbidding planet Rhenia Four; in such an orbit as to remain always directly
above a tiny valley surrounded by torn and jagged bare-metal-and-rock mountains; and
Cecily Byrd came aboard the exploring vessel.
“I’m very glad to meet you in the flesh, Doctor Byrd,” Deston said, and as soon as she
was out of her space-suit they shook hands cordially.
“Doctor Livingstone, I presume?” She giggled infectiously. “You’ll never know how glad I
am to be here.” There was nothing sullen or morose or venomous about her now; she
was eager, friendly, and intense. “And no formality, Babe. I’m `Curly’ to my friends.”
“Okay, Curly-now meet the gang. My wife, Bobby Prime Brain, and his wife, Stella . . .
This planet is a tough baby; a prime stinker.”
“So I gathered, and the more you find out about it the tougher and stinkier it gets. We’ve
fabricated all the stuff you suggested, for which thanks, by the way, so, unless there
have been new developments in the last couple of hours, I’ll go back and well go down.
Okay?”
“Okay except for an added feature. Here and I are going along as safety factors. We
have built-in danger alarms.”
“Oh? Oh, yes, I remember now. Welcome to our city.” Aboard the Rhene, Deston said,
“But as chief of the party, Curly, you ought to stay up here, don’t you think?”
“Huh?” The woman’s whole body stiffened. “As chief of the party, buster, I’m the best
man on it. What would you do? Stay home?”
“Okay,” and preparations went on.
Extreme precautions were necessary, for this was a fantastic planet indeed. In size it
was about the same as Earth, but its surface gravity was almost four times Earth’s. Its
atmosphere, which was at a pressure of over forty pounds to the square inch, was
mostly xenon, with some krypton, argon, and nitrogen, with less than seven percent by
volume of oxygen. Its rivers were few and small, as were its lakes. Its three oceans
combined would not equal the Atlantic in area, and what was dissolved in those oceans
no one knew. The sun Rhenia was a Class B7 horror, so big and so hot that Rhenia
Four, although twice as far away from Rhenia as Mars is from Sol, was as hot as Mars
is cold. Even at latitude fifty north, where the starships were, and at an altitude of over
fifteen thousand feet, at which the floor of the little valley was, the noon temperature in
the shade was well over forty degrees Centigrade.
And there was life. Just what kind of life it was, none of the biologists could even guess.
They had been arguing ever since arrival, but they hadn’t settled a thing. There were
things of various shapes and sizes that might or might not be analogous to the grasses,
shrubs, and trees of the Tellus-Type planets; but no one could say whether they were
vegetable, mineral, or metalo-organic in nature. There were things that ran and leaped
and fought; and things that flew and fought-all of which moved with the fantastic speed
and violence concomitant with near-four gees-but if they were animals they were entirely
unlike any animals ever before seen by man.
No one aboard the Procyon had even tried to land, of course. They didn’t have the
equipment; and besides, it was “Curly” Byrd’s oyster and she had repeatedly threatened
mayhem upon the person of anyone who tried to open it before she got there.
The personal armor of the landing party-or rather, the observation party, since they did
not intend to land was built of heavy gauge high-alloy steel, and each suit was equipped
with drivers and with anti-gravs. Their craft was much more like a bathyscaphe than a
space-to-ground vehicle. Its walls were two inches of hard alloy; its ports were five
inches of fused silica. It could, everyone agreed, take anything that Rhenia Four could
dish out. In view of that agreement, Cecily had protested against wearing armor of proof
inside the shuttle, but Deston had put his foot down there. Something might happen.