The Others—the Nameless Ones—had tried to
conquer this fair and gentle world, searing the
very sky with vicious flame, drenching the natives
with death. They failed. Then came the Terrans,
with a new idea ... a different weapon....
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Fall 1949.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
On the thirty-third day out of Earth Central, the Special Agentheterodyned itself out of w-space and re-entered the normal continuum.The little 1400-ton vessel fell free toward the fifth planet of Procyonfor half an hour before planetary drive was applied to slow it into anorbit.
Allan Stuart, linguist, in this maiden mission of CONTACT INCORPORATED,felt seasick again during the period of free fall. Of the six menaboard, he was the only one who hadn't spent at least one hitch in theSolar System Patrol. He was doggedly trying to steady his nerves byfloating a row of dictionaries in midair when the intercom startledhim. It was the voice of James Gordon, ship's captain and head of thenew firm.
"All hands! We start spiraling in shortly and we should land on Azurain about five hours. Nestor, relieve White in the drive room. The restof you come on up to Control for a final briefing."
The bony little linguist sighed, put away his books, and unstrappedhimself. Nausea made him hiccup. Detouring sadly around the intricate,day-old wreckage of what had been a beautiful cephaloid unit, he swungstiffly out of the lab. In the corridor he had to squeeze past a badlytorn-up wall. Dan Rogers, one of the two planetary scouts, shut off awelding torch and coasted along with him.
"Little old piece of nickel-iron sure raised heck, didn't it, Mr.Stuart?" drawled the scout. "Come out into normal space for two minutesto get a bearing, and—WHAM!" He propelled himself along with theeffortless efficiency of a man accustomed to doing without gravity.
Stuart, correcting course with some difficulty, took a moment toanswer. "Hm? Oh, the meteor! Yes, indeed it did. My leg is still stiff,and of course half my equipment is just junk now. But I guess we wererather fortunate at that, since none of us was killed. All the way toProcyon ... three point four parsecs. Dear me!" He clucked, shaking hishead, and wondered again how the other five men in the crew could takethese things so casually.
He drifted into the control room with Rogers and hovered near the desk.Brettner, the other scout, came in playing some outlandish sort ofguitar; White, engineer and assistant astrogator, joined him in a finalcaterwauling chorus of "The Demon of Demos."
The ship's captain swung his chair to face them, his angular facefolding into a responsive grin. Then he waved a tele-tape at the fourmen and looked more serious.
"Here's Patrol's latest summary of the situation," he announced. "Stillno response from Procyon V, otherwise known as Azura. No activity inthe ruined cities. No further clashes with traders, because the tradershave given up. However, the natives are still taking pot-shots fromthe woods at any scouting parties that dare to sit down on the planet.Every attempt at contact is fiercely rejected.
"The Patrol lads, naturally, are forbidden to shoot back, at leastuntil they find out what this is all about ... which, of course, iswhere our own little expedition of specialists comes in. Incidentally,it seems fairly certain the natives know nothing of radio, so we'll besafe in using microwave to feel our way down in the dark."
He accepted a cigarette from Rogers and nodded toward a month-oldreport titled: Unoff