The Tenth Planet (3 page)

Orlando shrugged. “I don’t know. How can any of us
know? We have homes and families on Mars. And Mars has a great future.”

“Yes,” said Idris bitterly, “Mars has a great future—and Earth has a magnificent past … I am thinking as an Earthman. If I were left to starve and die, I might be sorely tempted … So, we will finish our meal and we will make jokes and we will take four hours rest. And then we will go over this bloody vessel inside and outside with a tooth-comb.”

“Idris,” said Suzy sweetly, “you are a stupid bastard. I don’t know why I like you. I must be sick. Somebody lay on some music. I’m going to teach this senile Earthman how to dance in zero G.”

I
DRIS
H
AMILTON, SPACE-SUITED
, stood on the dark side of the hull of the
Dag Hammarskjold
and gazed at a wilderness of stars, bright, blinding, beautiful. A man could get dizzy, space-drunk, looking at such an infinity of stars. In the early days of space travel hull inspectors had been known to cut their lifelines and leap joyously into the void, eager to embrace the dark secrets of creation. That was why lifelines were no longer made of nylon cord but of flexisteel. It took time for a man to cut through flexisteel—time for him to come to his senses, or time for someone to notice.

Idris was not alone. Leo Davison stood close by him. They had both just emerged from the servicing air-lock and were adjusting themselves to vistas no longer confined by circular steel walls.

“Transceiver check,” said Idris automatically.

“Transceiver check,” responded Leo.

“Transceiver check,” said Orlando from the navigation deck of the
Dag
.

“Lifeline anchored.”

“Lifeline anchored,” repeated Leo.

Each man had clipped his lifeline to a recessed stanchion by the service lock opening.

“Lifelines secured,” acknowledged Orlando.

“There are only two places to which the groundlings had access,” said Leo. “They weren’t equipped to give us a descaling.
So the only places they could have planted anything—assuming anything was planted—would be—”

“The landing torus and legs,” interposed Idris, “and the area immediately round the cargo entry-port. We will check together. The entry-port won’t take long. Let’s do it.”

They paid out the flexisteel lines from the reels on their belts and walked cautiously and awkwardly down the hull, the muffled clang of their magnetic boots on the steel being conducted to them through their suits. The cargo entry-port was low down on the hull. Its internal air-lock had already been checked. There remained only the task of examining the door itself and an area round it as far as a man might stretch if he were standing on the extended cargo platform.

Both Idris and Leo switched on their head lamps. Their combined lights illuminated the entire area.

“Nothing here, Cap.”

“No. I didn’t think there would be. Too obvious … Entry-port search negative, Orlando.”

“I hear you. How does Mars look from out there?”

Idris laughed. “Like a red marble—the kind we used to call a blood alley when I was a boy.”

“Blood alley! What a curious term! But it will never be a blood alley in the literal sense, skipper. That I can promise you.”

“Promise again when your population outstrips the means of production,” said Idris sourly. “O.K. ensign, let’s cut the philosophy. We are now going down the legs to the torus. We will each examine a leg on the way down and we will take the other two legs on the way back.”

“Acknowledged.”

The landing torus of the
Dag Hammarskjold
was a vast circle of titanium-clad plastic pipe. The heavily insulated pipe was filled with helium. It looked like an immense metal quoit, thirty metres in diameter. It was the shock absorber that cushioned the impact of planetary touch-down, and it was connected to the vessel by four great jointed legs whose reaction to impact stress was computer controlled.

Searching the torus and its legs properly was going to
take a long time.

Actually, thought Idris as he walked slowly along one of the fat legs, it was possible to be too cautious. Since no inspection or repair work had been carried out at Woomera it did not seem likely that any of the ground crew could have gained access to the upper legs. They would have needed to use a mobile maintenance rig. But it would have been possible for an agile man, having the use of a rope, to haul himself to the top of the torus. Or if, for example, he had the use of a duralumin extension ladder, he might be able to plant something on the first three or four metres of one of the legs. Though there could be no valid reason for such an operation when a bomb on the torus itself would do all the damage that was needed.

Idris looked at Leo Davison, silhouetted against the stars, walking along his leg like some surrealistic insect of the night.

“Don’t bother with any part of the leg north of the joint,” he called. “I’ve not been thinking properly. A mobile rig would have been needed for anyone to plant something so high.”

“Ay ay, sir.”

“And, Leo—humour me. Give your section a real going over.”

“Yes, captain.” There was a note of resentment in his voice. Idris cursed himself for a fool. Of course Leo Davison would search diligently. He was a good spaceman.

They worked in silence for a while. The going was slow. On the sun side of the torus everything was blinding white and the phototropic visor of a space-suit helmet could not entirely take out the glare. On the dark side there was total blackness; and even with the headlamp switched on, it took time for the eyes to adjust. Idris realised that he and Leo Davison were going to be very tired men before they had completed the search. Afterwards, he resolved, he would make peace with his engineer. He would invite Davison to his cabin and, between them, they would broach a bottle of real whisky. Idris had two bottles of genuine Scotch left.
It was sacrilege to have to draw the amber fluid out of the bottle with plastic bulbs and then squirt it into your mouth like a bloody throat spray, but that was one of the penalties of space life.

While he contemplated the delicious prospect of real whisky, he methodically searched his section of the torus.

I am a neurotic fool, he thought after a time. There are no bombs; and I have clearly spent too much of my life in space. I’m too old for the game. When we touch down on Mars, I’ll get myself a desk job.

“Captain!” Davison’s voice cut urgently into his thoughts. “I’ve found something. It’s clamped to the steel collar of Number Three leg just above the pressure distributor on the torus.”

“What does it look like?” So! The hell with neuroses. Good, old-fashioned intuition had been right after all.

“Something like a small ingot—about twenty centimetres by ten by five … Some kind of limpet mine, I imagine.”

“Don’t do anything. Don’t touch it. I’m on my way … You recording this, Orlando?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. I will inspect the device. Have Suzy Wu place a laser torch in the air-lock. We may need it.”

“Yes, sir. Be careful.”

Idris laughed. “Joke! This will teach you all to think I’m slipping. I’ll accept apologies in due course … Leo!”

“Sir.”

“Don’t touch the damn thing. Wait. I’ll be with you in about thirty seconds.”

Idris Hamilton was standing on the sun side of the torus by the base of Number One leg. He could just make out the black column of Number Three, and the figure crouching at its base, by the absence of stars. The walk along the torus would be a tricky operation. Titanium does not react to magnetism; but steel discs had been embedded in the titanium cladding so that some purchase could be obtained for magnetic space boots. The trouble was, if you hurried you were likely to take off into space then have to haul yourself
back by the lifeline and start from square one, half-way up the hull.

Idris moved his feet cautiously, feeling for the pull of the steel discs, travelling as fast as he conveniently could. He swayed on his feet like a drunken man. Twice he almost lost contact with the torus. Eventually, he reached Number Three. His headlamp revealed a small metallic object shaped like an old-fashioned brick.

“What do you make of it, sir?” asked Leo Davison anxiously.

“Same as you. I’m not a specialist in explosive devices. But clearly it is some kind of limpet mine. No man would risk death to plant a heavily disguised box of chocolates here.”

“What shall we do?”

Idris thought for a moment or two. “It may blow the torus, but it can’t blow the
Dag
. If we lose the torus we can still go into Mars orbit and get ferried down … On the other hand, it may be possible to jettison this thing. Trouble is, we don’t know if it operates on a timing mechanism, a disturbance stimulus, or both … I think we are going to have to play safe, Leo. We’ll just have to torch that section of the leg off and send it on its merry way. We are already travelling at s.e.v. So, if we jettison, it is bound to go clean out of the system.” He gave a bitter laugh. “Sad, isn’t it? The only message we send out to the stars is a bloody unexploded bomb.”

“Sir, with respect, it is not relevant that the
Dag
is at solar escape velocity. The bomb can’t hit Mars, and anywhere else doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is whether we can save the
Dag
intact. It would be a damned shame if we have to leave the ship in orbit just because some dead nut on Earth wanted his bit of revenge.”

“What are your recommendations, Leo?”

“It has to be a magnetic clamp. Otherwise, why plant it on the steel collar? If it is a chemical bond, they could have fixed it to the titanium skin of the torus.”

“So?”

“So I can prize it loose, captain. Then we chuck it away and forget about it.”

“Too risky. For all we know, it could be programmed to detonate upon interference.”

“It could also be programmed to blow any moment, sir. Torching it off the leg is going to take a couple of hours. We’d look damn silly if the thing goes pop while we are cutting through the steel.”

“The possibility has to be accepted,” admitted Idris. “But it contains less risk. So let us not waste valuable time. You will continue the search to see if we have any more of these charming souvenirs, while I collect the laser torch. When I have the torch and am in position, you will abandon the search if incomplete and get back inboard.”

“Sir,” expostulated Davison, “as Engineer Officer it is my duty to—”

“Laddie,” said Idris, “I am about twice your age, I am master of this vessel, and I am backing my own hunch. Orlando is monitoring our conversation. You have your orders.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, then. On with the show.” Idris turned awkwardly and began to retrace his steps on the torus. As he moved, his lifeline automatically reeled itself in.

He was back at the base of Number One leg and about to go back along it when Leo Davison came in once more.

“Idris—for the record—I’m about to disobey your orders. I have tried my jemmy under one end of the bomb. It lifted a little. If I can work the jemmy a little further underneath, I’ll have the whole thing clear. When we are inboard, you can log me for mutiny but you will still owe me a bloody large whisky.”

“Leo, don’t—”

Idris glanced back across the torus. There was no point in completing his sentence. He saw a brilliant flash of light. The titanium cladding of the torus conducted the shock of the explosion to his boots; and the dull crump reverberated in his helmet.

He saw something grotesque spin out from the dark side of the vessel into sunlight. It was a nightmare. It was the remains of a man in a shattered space-suit.

Leo Davison had been eviscerated by the explosion. His entrails streamed out from his stomach like bright tattered ribbons, dripping globules of blood and fluid that froze almost instantly, glittering like crystals of red fire in the sunlight.

Arms akimbo, the body rotated slowly, drifting astern under the force of the blast.

Idris wanted to vomit; but to be sick in a space-suit was a certain sentence of death. He forced back the nausea, but compelled himself to watch. The rotating figure dwindled rapidly as it was propelled away into the blackness, until it seemed like a bright star, then a faint star, then no more than a pinpoint of light dissolving in a jet infinity.

Idris became aware that Orlando was calling him frantically.

“Captain! Captain Hamilton! Please answer! Do you hear me? Urgently request acknowledgement.”

“Sorry, Orlando. My mind seized up. Leo is dead. He blew himself trying to get the bomb off Three leg.” He peered into the blackness, turning his head lamp to maximum power. “Three leg is deformed and the torus is ruptured. There seems little point in making a complete investigation now. I’m coming inboard. I’ve had enough.”

There were tears in his eyes; but they wouldn’t roll down his cheeks because of zero gravity. They just filmed over his eyeballs, partially blinding him. That wouldn’t do. He had to see clearly in order to get back into the
Dag
. He shook his head violently in the space suit. Some of the tiny globules splattered on his visor. Some just floated about until he inhaled them, coughing a little. Well, at least it was a new sensation, he told himself grimly—to choke on one’s own tears.

T
HE NEWS OF
the disaster had been beamed to Mars, the second internal search had been carried out with negative results, and a wake was held for Leo.

The wake was boozy and light-hearted—or, at least, superficially light-hearted—as Leo would have wanted it to be. They did not mourn his death so much as celebrate his life. Orlando recalled how he and Leo had gone on a splendid drinking jag at the nearest bar to Goddard Field while waiting to see if they would be selected for the shoot to Earth. Almost single-handed Leo had taken on and totally routed four white Martians who had loudly proclaimed that black Martians were inferior. Leo, who was black, had not started the fight. Orlando, being white, had politely asked the offending four to calm down. One of them had thrown beer in his face and another had kicked him in the stomach. At which point Leo went into action—Leo with his Master’s Degree in Nuclear Engineering and his utter hatred of violence.