Planet of Dread, Page 3

detected as an extra member of thecrew. His fate would then be sealed. But they also would beinvestigated. Official queries would go across this whole sector of thegalaxy, naming five persons of such-and-such description andsuch-and-such fingerprints, voyaging in a space-yacht of such-and-suchsize and registration. The world they came from would claim them asfugitives. They would be returned to it. They'd be executed.

  Then Carol's voice came in his helmet-phone. She cried out;

  "_Look out! It's coming! Kill it! Kill it--._"

  He heard blast-rifles firing. He heard Burleigh pant commands. He was onhis way out of the hollow he'd carved when he heard Harper cry outhorribly.

  He got clear of the newly burned-away stuff. There was still much smokeand stream. But he saw Harper. More, he saw the thing that had Harper.

  It occurred to him instantly that if Harper died, there would not be toomany people on the _Nadine_. They need not maroon him. In fact, theywouldn't dare.

  A ship that came in to port with two few on board would be investigatedas thoroughly as one that had too many. Perhaps more thoroughly. So ifHarper were killed, Moran would be needed to take his place. He'd go onfrom here in the _Nadine_, necessarily accepted as a member of her crew.

  Then he rushed, the flame-torch making a roaring sound.

  II.

  They went back to the _Nadine_ for weapons more adequate forencountering the local fauna when it was over. Blast-rifles were noteffective against such creatures as these. Torches were contact weaponsbut they killed. Blast-rifles did not. And Harper needed to pull himselftogether again, too. Also, neither Moran nor any of the others wanted togo back to the still un-entered wreck while the skinny, somehowdisgusting legs of the thing still kicked spasmodically--quiteseparate--on the whitish ground-stuff. Moran had disliked such creaturesin miniature form on other worlds. Enlarged like this.

  It seemed insane that such creatures, even in miniature, shouldpainstakingly be brought across light-years of space to the new worldsmen settled on. But it had been found to be necessary. The ecologicalsystem in which human beings belonged had turned out to be infinitelycomplicated. It had turned out, in fact, to be the ecological system ofEarth, and unless all parts of the complex were present, the total wassubtly or glaringly wrong. So mankind distastefully ferried pests aswell as useful creatures to its new worlds as they were made ready forsettlement. Mosquitos throve on the inhabited globes of the Rim Stars.Roaches twitched nervous antennae on the settled planets of theCoal-sack. Dogs on Antares had fleas, and scratched their bites, andhumanity spread through the galaxy with an attendant train of insectsand annoyances. If they left their pests behind, the total system ofchecks and balances which make life practical would get lopsided. Itwould not maintain itself. The vagaries that could result were admirablyillustrated in and on the landscape outside the _Nadine_. Something hadbeen left out of the seeding of this planet. The element--which might bea bacterium or a virus or almost anything at all--the element that keptcreatures at the size called "normal" was either missing or inoperablehere. The results were not desirable.

  * * * * *

  Harper drank thirstily. Carol had watched from the control-room. She wasstill pale. She looked strangely at Moran.

  "You're sure it didn't get through your suit?" Burleigh askedinsistently of Harper.

  Moran said sourly;

  "The creatures have changed size. There's no proof they've changedanything else. Beetles live in tunnels they make in fungus growths. Thebeetles and the tunnels are larger, but that's all. Inchworms travel asthey always did. They move yards instead of inches, but that's all.Centipedes--"

  "It was--" said Carol unsteadily. "It was thirty feet long!"

  "Centipedes," repeated Moran, "catch prey with their legs. They alwaysdid. Some of them trail poison from their feet. We can play a blowtorchover Harper's suit and any poison will be burned away. You can't burn aspace-suit!"

  "We certainly can't leave Moran here!" said Burleigh uneasily.

  "He kept Harper from being killed!" said Carol. "Your blast-riflesweren't any good. The--creatures are hard to kill."

  "Very hard to kill," agreed Moran. "But I'm not supposed to kill them.I'm supposed to live with them! I wonder how we can make them understandthey're not supposed to kill me either?"

  "I'll admit," said Burleigh, "that if you'd let Harper get killed, we'dhave been forced to let you take his identity and not be marooned, toavoid questions at the space-port on Loris. Not many men would have donewhat you did."

  "Oh, I'm a hero," said Moran. "Noble Moran, that's me! What the hellwould you want me to do? I didn't think! I won't do it again. Ipromise!"

  The last statement was almost true. Moran felt a squeamish horror at thememory of what he'd been through over by the wrecked ship. He'd comerunning out of the excavation he'd made. He had for weapon a four-footblue-white flame, and there was a monstrous creature running directlytoward him, with Harper lifted off the ground and clutched in twogigantic, spidery legs. It was no less than thirty feet long, but it wasa centipede. It travelled swiftly on grisly, skinny, pipe-thin legs. Itloomed over Moran as he reached the surface and he automatically thrustthe flame at it. The result was shocking. But the nervous systems ofinsects are primitive. It is questionable that they feel pain. It iscertain that separated parts of them act as if they had independentlife. Legs--horrible things--sheared off in the flame of the torch, butthe grisly furry thing rushed on until Moran slashed across its bodywith the blue-white fire. Then it collapsed. But Harper was still heldfirmly and half the monster struggled mindlessly to run on whileanother part was dead. Moran fought it almost hysterically, slicing offlegs and wanting to be sick when their stumps continued to move as ifpurposefully, and the legs themselves kicked and writhed rhythmically.But he bored in and cut at the body and ultimately dragged Harper clear.

  Afterward, sickened, he completed cutting it to bits with the torch. Buteach part continued nauseatingly to move. He went back with the othersto the _Nadine_. The blast-rifles had been almost completely withouteffect upon the creature because of its insensitive nervous system.

  * * * * *

  "I think," said Burleigh, "that it is only fair for us to lift from hereand find a better part of this world to land Moran in."

  "Why not another planet?" asked Carol.

  "It could take weeks," said Burleigh harassedly. "We left Coryus threedays ago. We ought to land on Loris before too long. There'd bequestions asked if we turned up weeks late! We can't afford that! Thespace-port police would suspect us of all sorts of things. They mightdecide to check back on us where we came from. We can't take the time tohunt another planet!"

  "Then your best bet," said Moran caustically, "is to find out where weare. You may be so far from Loris that you can't make port withoutraising questions anyhow. But you might be almost on course. I don'tknow! But let's see if that wreck can tell us. I'll go by myself if youlike."

  He went into the airlock, where his suit and the others had been sprayedwith a corrosive solution while the outside air was pumped out and newair from inside the yacht admitted. He got into the suit. Harper joinedhim.

  "I'm going with you," he said shortly. "Two will be safer thanone,--both with torches."

  "Too, too true!" said Moran sardonically.

  He bundled the other suits out of the airlock and into the ship. Hechecked his torch. He closed the inner lock door and started the pump.Harper said;

  "I'm not going to try to thank you--."

  "Because," Moran snapped, "you wouldn't have been on this planet to bein danger if I hadn't tried to capture the yacht. I know it!"

  "That wasn't what I meant to say!" protested Harper.

  Moran snarled at him. The lock-pump stopped and the ready-for exit lightglowed. They pushed open the outer door and emerged. Again there was thediscordant, almost intolerable din. It made no sense. The cries andcalls and stridulations they now knew to be those of insects had nosignificance. The
unseen huge creatures made them without purpose.Insects do not challenge each other like birds or make mating-calls likeanimals. They make noises because it is their nature. The noises have nomeaning. The two men started toward the wreck to which Moran had partlyburned a passageway. There were clickings from underfoot all aroundthem. Moran said abruptly;

  "Those clicks come from the beetles in their tunnels underfoot. They'repractically a foot long. How big do you suppose bugs grow here,--andwhy?"

  * * * * *

  Harper did not answer. He carried a flame-torch like the one Moran hadused before. They went unsteadily over