It was the most outrageous kind of irony that
fate, and the Commission of Galactic Astrography,
should select such a prime misfit as Knucklebone
Smith to light the lamp of Pluto.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Fall 1954.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
This is really two stories. The first is solar history; the second, themostly true legend of a misfit called Knucklebone Smith.
Knucklebone, so far as anyone could ever determine, was his realname—the sin of prankish, or perhaps disillusioned parents. He wasexactly six feet eight inches tall from the insulated soles of hisengineering boots to the top of his planeteer's helmet. He never inhis life weighed more than one hundred sixty-five pounds. His face wasangular and horse-like, and it had never, within the memory of anyonewho knew him, contained the slightest vestige of a smile.
He was not nature's first error, nor her last, but he differed from theunexceptional many in that he believed in Destiny ... with a capital'L.' Throughout a lifetime of unfortunate ventures he remained firm inthe conviction that sooner or later he would find his own metier andbecome famous. At last he did, and that is the story of KnuckleboneSmith.
The Pluto Lamp, a relic of the pioneering days of interstellar flight,is harder to explain, but easier to believe. It was once as well knownto spacemen as Rafferty Shoals to the ancient China clippers.
The gulf between the stars was vast and uncharted in those days; stilla thing of superstitious dread for the planet-bound. But it was no moreunknown than the solitary planet which tails all the others in itsdark, millennial path about our own sun. The planetary freighters wentas far as Uranus and no farther. For the black little planet whose verynamesake is Hell had nothing to attract them that could not be gottenat more conveniently.
The starships passed it by warily, giving it a wide berth, for it hadan evil reputation. The old scanners were unreliable at best, what withthe confusing debris that fills space, and more than one ship, throughmiscalculation, swerved from its course, brushing through the magneticfield of the unillumined wasteland, and crashed on the hard frozensurface of Pluto.
It was inevitable that someone would give birth to the idea of theLamp. It was to be a permanent, unmanned beacon, strategically placedon the Dead Planet to warn ships that should have passed in the night,but didn't always make it.
A magnificent idea, everyone thought. Everyone, that is, exceptingKnucklebone Smith.
The very idea of Pluto made him ill. He had set his number twelvesize feet on all the inner planets at one time or another in thedisillusioning search for fortune. He had starved and thirsted, bakedand bled for his dream. But he had always hated and avoided cold. Hehad, in fact, the look of a man born cold, and never entirely warmed.
It was the most outrageous kind of irony, therefore, that fate, and theCommission of Galactic Astrography, should select him to light the Lamp.
The latter, at least, was innocent of paradoxical motive. They neededa man like Smith. A man planet-wise enough to do the job, and notintelligent enough to decline it. There would be another man along, ofcourse, to direct, but he presented no problem, for he was ProfessorSalvor-Jones, who had invented the Light, and insisted upon being alongwhen it was installed. He was a dedicated man.
Knucklebone Smith, however, was dedicated to something else, and itwas only his pressing need for money that prodded him into acceptance