The Best of (25 page)

Were Pomona Negra an outflier such as Pallas or Eros, approach would be simpler; unfortunately she holds an orbit of low inclination to the ecliptic and travels attended by considerable ruck of cosmic debris, and there is no path to her that does not require patience and caution. Almost two weeks passed beforeCirce signalled observation of a body 75 miles in diameter in the position nominally occupied by Pomona Negra.

Bentley contacted Captain Waterson:

"What's this 'nominally' stuff, Tom? There can scarcely be two asteroids of that size around here."

"That's just the trouble, Dick. If Pomona Negra means anything it should be The Black Apple— because, presumably, the thing's black. This isn't—it's bright scarlet."

"Ohho," murmured Bentley thoughtfully.

"Exactly my sentiments. Ohho, followed by, now what?"

"Wellwhat?"

"Investigate cautiously. Decrease speed, proceed with added care to avoid any suspicious object or substance. Pick your own course—it's wiser to separate in case whatever theJoan III ran into is hanging around. Rendezvous 1

twentyfive mile level to sunward of Pomona. Keep in radio touch. In case of radio failure the ship in trouble will reduce to Pomona's orbit speed and the other ship will go to her aid. Got it?"

"Okay. That's clear. And at the rendezvous we inspect and decide further?"

"That's it. Good luck. Dick."

"And to you, Tom."

Three days later the two ships hung at the appointed twentyfive miles above the surface of the reputed Pomona Negra. No one had the least doubt that it was the right asteroid, but the name was now thoroughly inappropriate; no single spot of black was visible on its surface.

Bentley, visiting theCirce once more, suggested that the first thing to do was to recommend that its name be changed to Pomona Rosa.

They looked out of the window at it: a globe of scarlet touched here and there by the fall of the light with a faint oily irridescence. The surface was smooth, fat, bulgingly unpleasant as if distended. More than anything else it reminded Bentley of a boil, angry and bloated with pressure.

Captain Waterson's expression as he gazed at it was serious.

"That thing," he said, "should be a ball of rough black rock. Instead, it's a perfectly smooth globe. God knows what quantity of the stuff there must be to have levelled off over all that area. The rate of growth! It doesn't bear thinking about."

"Assuming that theJoan III in brought it here, you mean."

"I think we're justified in that. It can't have been like this before or Foggatt would have noticed it and reported it."

"He did report some of those red asteroids," Bentley reminded him.

"But nothing like this. We saw some small ones ourselves some twentyfour hours back, a few twenty or thirty footers, I expect you did. This is colossal, horrible—And it must have overrun the whole thing in less than fourteen months: that's what gets me. I'd not believe it possible anything could grow at such a rate. Think of the area it covers!"

They gazed down in silence for some minutes on the asteroid. The more Bentley looked at it the less he liked it, for though at moments it had the aspect of a vast vivid pearl, its constant suggestion was repulsively obscene tumescence.

"What do you suppose it is?" he asked at length.

Waterson shrugged his shoulders.

"What is life anyway?—some kind of seed floating about the universe until it finds suitable conditions to develop? May be. Lord knows what there may be in all this Space. Perhaps we were once a few chance spores; perhaps there are a lot of different kinds of life floating about waiting for time to give them their chance..."

"Still, that's for the scientists to argue about when they get some of the stuff. The present question is what about Foggatt and the Joan III."

Bentley stared down at the red mass.

"I'm afraid there's not much question there. Even if they could keep the stuff out of the ship, and manage to survive as long as this—which is doubtful, what is there to be done about it? Nothing if they're buried in all that muck. You could try full power on the radio, but it's unlikely, by the report, to reach them—and even if it could, it's highly improbable that they've had anyone listening on the chance all this time. Honestly, I don't see that there is anything to be done, poor devils."

Waterson pondered, and then agreed reluctantly.

"Nor do I, hanged if I do. I'm afraid that was finish for poor old Foggatt and his lot. Still, I shall go down and take a closer look—there might be something though I doubt it. Anyway, I've got to get the specimens. Your job'll be to hang around here and keep an eye on things." "Okay, Tom. For Heaven's sake be careful, though." "Oh, I'm not going to take any risks. Just shoot down some automatically closing specimen bottles and have a man standing by to burn them clean when we haul them up again. Simple. No, I'm not taking any chances with that stuff. Loathsomelooking muck, it is."

Back on theAnnabelle , Bentley watched theCirce go down on a spiral matched to the rotation of the scarlet globe. Through the instruments they watched the shuttlelike, silver shape level off a mile or less above the surface and set itself to circle the asteroid.

"What's it look like from there,Circe ?" theAnnabelle's navigator asked his opposite number.

"More revolting, if possible," the other assured him. "Like a mass of red mucous; disgusting. Not altogether stable, either. Unless it's a trick of the light, there seem to be undulations in it. Might be a sort of tidal movement—or it might be something to do with its metabolism as it revolves, if Foggatt'snotion of its drawing sustenance from sunlight is right. Going to make a circuit now."

Reception faded as theCirce passed round the other side of the monstrosity, and came back as she reappeared.

"The same all the way round," said her navigator. "Just a nasty big blob. Another circuit at 90 degrees now."

He watched the silver shape turn into line with the axis of the body and disappear over the nearer pole. No great time elapsed before it came into sight again flashing in the sunlight on the opposite side.

"From what you can see in the dark round there, there's no distinguishing feature anywhere," came the navigator's voice again. "Going down now. Descending to 300 feet, to take samples."

From the Annabelle it looked as though the other ship ? were stationary. Only the reports of her navigator's voice as he gave decreasing altitudes told them that she was actually sinking closer to the viscous surface. They heard him sing out: "Three hundred" and then: "Aye, aye, sir," and, after a pause: "Two hundred, and steady, sir."

Through theAnnabelle's instruments it was possible to discern some kind of disturbance on the red surface below the other ship. A sort of tide or tremor in roughly circular ripples seemed to be running through the mass. At first Bentley attributed it to the impact of the sample bottles which, he judged would now have been propelled into the substance, and thought it in consequence to be in a much more liquid state than he had hitherto imagined. Then he realized uneasily that the ripples were not spreading outwards as from a stone dropped into water, but inwards. He doubted if the effect were, as clearly observable from the close range of the other ship, and leaned over to speak into the navigator's phone.

"Circe. There's something queer going on just below you," he said.

A voice came back:

"It's okay, sir. Just the effect of—'Strewth!"

Bentley turned back to his instrument just in time to catch a glimpse of the cause of the exclamation.

The stuff had gathered in a kind of mound beneath theCirce , and flung out towards her a vast shapeless limb of itself, a reaching pseudopod like a licking red tongue.

Those on board wasted no time. There was a gush from theCirce's main tubes, and she leapt forward like a flash. But swift as she was, she did not draw clear in time. She tore through the top of the extending tongue like a streak and emerged from it with speed undiminished, but she was no longer a silver ship: from bow to tubes she was coated in brilliant scarlet.

At once with her hull aerial system fouled, radio communication died. Captain Bentley seized a headset of the type built into spacesuits, and began calling. Evidently Waterson had done the same. His first remarks were vivid, but unprintable. Bentley waited for the picturesqueness to subside.

"You all right?" he asked.

"What do you mean, 'all right'? The main radio's dead, and we can't see a bloody thing outside, otherwise I suppose we are. Except that we'll have lost the man in the airlode putting down the bottles, I'm afraid."

Another voice cut in, speaking somewhat unsteadily:

"I'm still here, sir, in the lock. Must have been knocked kind of silly for a minute when we started like that."

"Good man. Look here—"

Bentley broke in on them :

"Tom, what about braking? You're still running free, you know."

"God, yes!" He heard Captain Waterson shout orders for deceleration equal to previous impetus.

The man in the lock spoke again.

"The place is crawling with this ruddy muck, sir."

"Is the outer door damaged?"

There was a pause.

"No, it's shut all right, sir."

"Good. Well, keep it shut. You've still got the blowtorch?"

"Yes, sir."

"Right. Clean up with it as much as you can in there. Don't touch your suit fastenings. When you come out I'll have a couple of chaps here with torches to finish it off. That clear?"

"Aye, aye, sir."

Captain Waterson turned his attention back to Bentley and theAnnabelle .

"Where are we?" he asked.

"About three hundred miles sunward from Pomona," Dick told him. "You made some jump. We're coming up to you now. You're lying pretty well at orbit speed. Hold it like that."

"We're covered in the stuff, I take it?"

"Every inch." He caused for another burst of lurid comment which ended with Waterson's inquiry:

"What the hell do we do now?"

"I suggest I try to burn you clean."

"How?"

"First thing, I'm going to send over two grappels, one to bow and the other to stern."

"The stuff will spread back along the cables to you."

"We can take care of that. The thing I want to know is can you roll your ship? Without giving any directional movement, I mean."

"Roll? What, you mean horizontally?"

"Sure."

"God knows. In all my years in Space I've never even wanted to try. You'd better speak to the engineer about that. What if we can?"

"Then I turn my tubes on to you. That ought to burn pretty near anything off."

"It'll shove you away."

"Not if I put on the braking tubes to balance the thrust."

"H'm. It's an idea," approved Captain Waterson. "Yes, it's worth trying—only don't go and concertina your ship in between the two thrusts."

"We'll take good care of that," Bentley assured him, and turned to his preparations.

The two magnets were floated out, and since accurate placing was necessary, were guided into position by spacesuited men equipped with propulsive pistols. The two men took good care to project themselves back from the red hull before contact was made. The rest watching intently from the Annabelle's windows broke into comments; within half a minute it was possible to see the red substance begin to swarm up the sides of the magnets; in four it was starting to travel along the cables connecting the ships. Once it had begun, it continued to extend along them at a surprising rate. Then, some fifty out from theCirce , it came to an obstruction. TheAnnabelle's men watched anxiously, and then relaxed for the progress of the red substance was checked. It had encountered the three foot sections that had been wrapped in asbestos and bound with wire which now glowed incandescent, and it did not like them. The advance was stopped, and it contented itself with thickening upon that part of the cable already covered.

TheAnnabelle manoeuvred delicately to place herself stern on to the other ship, and slightly closed the distance between them.

"Hello,Circe," Bentley called. "I'm about to start. Have your outside party ready with lamps to mop up when we finish. Be ready to start rolling when I give the word—and make it as slow as you can."

A blaze began to glow from both forward and stern tubes of theAnnabelle . Gradually it increased to a blast of fire gushing out from the stern tubes to envelope the scarlet ship in a roaring gale of fire. The effect upon the substance was immediate and encouraging. Under the searing heat the red coating shrivelled, smoked and blackened.

"RollCirce . Gently over," Bentley ordered.

Slowly, still bathed in the fiery spume, theCirce began to turn on one side, and as the farther side rolled into the heat the scarlet vanished to leave nothing but a sticky, incinerated mess.

Bentley was being cautious. TheCirce made six complete revolutions before he gave her the word to stop, and shut off his tubes.

A moment after she had ceased to turn half a dozen men with their adapted torches already lighted emerged from the airlock and scattered about the hull. Another half dozen joined them a minute later, and already a party was floating across from theAnnabelle to join them. They found the smooth hull sterilized of all life. The remains were now no more than an inert rough covering baked on like a black varnish. Even so, the stuff had not been completely eliminated. Where there were crevices or angles protecting it from the direct flame it had managed to survive the heat of the metal beneath it, and with a persistent tenacity was starting to spread again from such sheltered spots as the bunched flanges mounting fore and rear tubes and others which had chanced to lie in the lee of some projection. The men swarmed around the danger points playing their flames into any and every cranny which had the least chance of holding a grain of the scarlet pest intact. After an hour's work they were satisfied that the last vestige save for that enclosed in the specimen bottles had been completely exterminated. Nevertheless, Captain Waterson was taking no chances; when his men were called in, an outside party of four remained on watch, ready to pounce upon the first speck of red they might spy.