PLANET of DREAD
By MURRAY LEINSTER
Illustrator ADKINS
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Fantastic Stories ofImagination May 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidencethat the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
I.
Moran cut apart the yard-long monstrosity with a slash of flame.The thing presumably died, but it continued to writhe senselessly.He turned to see other horrors crawling toward him. Then he knew hewas being marooned on a planet of endless terrors.
Moran, naturally, did not mean to help in the carrying out of the planswhich would mean his destruction one way or another. The plans werethrashed out very painstakingly, in formal conference on the space-yachtNadine, with Moran present and allowed to take part in the discussion.From the viewpoint of the Nadine's ship's company, it was simplynecessary to get rid of Moran. In their predicament he might have cometo the same conclusion; but he was not at all enthusiastic about theirdecision. He would die of it.
The Nadine was out of overdrive and all the uncountable suns of thegalaxy shone steadily, remotely, as infinitesimal specks of light ofevery color of the rainbow. Two hours since, the sun of this solarsystem had been a vast glaring disk off to port, with streamers andprominences erupting about its edges. Now it lay astern, and Morancould see the planet that had been chosen for his marooning. It was acloudy world. There were some dim markings near one lighted limb, butnowhere else. There was an ice-cap in view. The rest was—clouds.
The ice-cap, by its existence and circular shape, proved that the planetrotated at a not unreasonable rate. The fact that it was water-ice toldmuch. A water-ice ice-cap said that there were no poisonous gases in theplanet's atmosphere. Sulfur dioxide or chlorine, for example, would notallow the formation of water-ice. It would have to be sulphuric-acid orhydrochloric-acid ice. But the ice-cap was simple snow. Its size, too,told about temperature-distribution on the planet. A large cap wouldhave meant a large area with arctic and sub-arctic temperatures, withsmall temperate and tropical climate-belts. A small one like this meantwide tropical and sub-tropical zones. The fact was verified by thethick, dense cloud-masses which covered most of the surface,—all thesurface, in fact, outside the ice-cap. But since there were ice-capsthere would be temperate regions. In short, the ice-cap proved that aman could endure the air and temperature conditions he would find.
Moran observed these things from the control-room of the Nadine, thenapproaching the world on planetary drive. He was to be left here, withno reason ever to expect rescue. Two of the Nadine's four-man crewwatched out the same ports as the planet seemed to approach. Burleighsaid encouragingly;
"It doesn't look too bad, Moran!"
Moran disagreed, but he did not answer. He cocked an ear instead. Heheard something. It was a thin, wabbling, keening whine. No naturalradiation sounds like that. Moran nodded toward the all-band speaker.
"Do you hear what I do?" he asked sardonically.
Burleigh listened. A distinctly artificial signal came out of thespeaker. It wasn't a voice-signal. It wasn't an identification beacon,such as are placed on certain worlds