The Tenth Planet Read online

  Should the Mona Lisa and a hundred other of the world’s greatest paintings take precedence over semen and ova banks, the semen and ova having been donated by the world’s most distinguished men and women? Should microfilm of terrestrial histories, of scientific records, of the cultural heritage of a hundred nations take precedence over sacks of plant seeds, specially developed for a low-pressure, low-oxygen environment? Should people take priority over computers, earth-moving equipment, high explosives, serums, electron microscopes, surgical instruments? What should be the ratio of women to men? What should be the maximum age for these candidates for survival?

  Meanwhile, under the pressure of an impending Doomsday, old feuds flared anew. In a final and abortive attempt at genocide, the Pan-Arab Federation threatened to use atomic weapons on any space-port that permitted Israelis to lift off for Mars. The Chinese delegate to the United Nations demanded proportional racial representation in all emigration quotas—a natural demand, since the Chinese constituted one quarter of mankind; but quite impossible to meet when other criteria were considered. The Negro bloc also claimed that choice of survivors was being made on the basis of race prejudice, and threatened to blast any vessel out of space if fifteen per cent of its crew and passengers were not black. The Pope requested that two hundred dedicated priests be allowed to take the old religion to the new world. The Americans and the Russians managed to co-operate harmoniously—which was vital, as both countries recognized, since, between them, they controlled most of the interplanetary space fleet.

  Somehow, in spite of all the squabbles, space-ship after space-ship lifted off, bound with precious cargoes from a dying world to a world that was, as yet, in its social and industrial infancy. In a frenzy of inspired adaptation, six orbital space stations were converted into temporary interplanetary vessels and sent careering off to Mars orbit.

  But, as the incessant rains continued to beat down on Earth from dark grey skies, destroying crops, destroying hope, law and order began to disintegrate. The United States of Europe was the first major casualty. Most of its over-populated countries had traditionally relied upon importing almost half their food requirements in exchange for manufactured goods. But, in the late twenty-first century, a fat chicken and a pound of wheat flour, became worth more than a Rolls Royce hovercar or even a Mercedes helibus. So Europe starved to death, noisily, violently. And after Europe, the United States fell; and then Russia, South America, and China. India, whose people had always had to contend with disease and starvation, lasted a little longer. But not much longer.

  Oddly, the last country to fall into anarchy was Australia. By a quirk of fate, it had received most of the available sunlight. For a brief span, its deserts had become fertile and, seizing the opportunity, it had managed to grow enough crops to support nearly two thirds of its people. Then the skies closed, and the rains that had brought a brief period of fertility, began to drown the land.

  When the Dag Hammarskjold lifted for Mars, Australia had just about reached the end of the road.

  3

  DINNER IN THE saloon was a very subdued affair, despite the obvious efforts of the crew to cheer up Captain Hamilton. Suzy Wu, genetically Eurasian but by birth a true Martian, had discarded her uniform—contrary to regulations—in favour of a scanty, translucent suit that revealed the contours of her beautiful young body to great advantage. She gave all her attention to Idris; but neither Orlando nor Leo Davison seemed to resent it.

  Perhaps, thought Idris, Leo and Suzy had been briefed. It seemed likely that Orlando would have told them that the skipper was in a state.

  He looked at the three of them and felt dreadfully old. He was not yet forty; but he felt ancient. These three were children of Mars. It could not matter to them in quite the same way that it mattered to him that Earth was finished.

  Suzy employed her sex to cheer him up, Leo Davison employed his jokes. He told the one about the Englishman and the elephant. It didn’t seem funny any more—Leo realized that even as he was telling it. There were no Englishmen left, and if any elephants still existed in India, they were rapidly running out of time. So Leo covered the disaster rapidly with a long, complicated, shaggy dog story about the Martian who went to the Red Hills to hunt the legendary abominable snowman. Idris had heard it before, many times, but he laughed. It was good to laugh at something.

  Everyone, including Idris, was very tired. They had searched all the parts of the Dag Hammarskjold to which ground personnel at Woomera might have had access—which excluded the navigation deck and the reactor deck. Ever since saboteurs had rigged the reactor of the Yuri Gagarin to go critical as it lifted from Tolstoi space-port, it had been standard procedure on Earth touch-down for all masters to secure the navigation and reactor decks. Which, of course, did not eliminate the possibility of sabotage but at least reduced the areas where it could be carried out.

  But, though the search had revealed nothing, Idris Hamilton was not satisfied. Something, he felt, was wrong. Perhaps he was just tired and therefore prey to neurotic imaginings. Perhaps he was in a state of morbid depression. Perhaps … Perhaps … But something was wrong. One important thing he had learned during his career was that a good space captain did not neglect intuition.

  “Sir,” said Orlando, “you have not been listening to a word.” He sounded pained.

  “I have.” Idris smiled. “I assure you I have. The one about the Red Hills snowman was good, very good.”

  “That was two reels ago,” said Suzy gently. “Poor Leo! You are just about the worst audience he has ever had.”

  “Leo, my apologies. You make a lousy engineer, and you will probably also be remembered as the worst bar-room raconteur on Mars—by everyone, except me.”

  General laughter. Then silence.

  “You are right. I have not been listening. I was thinking about the search.”

  “Results negative, sir,” said Leo Davison. “Not to worry.”

  “But I do worry. That is part of my job. The contract reads: the master of a space vessel shall worry himself stupid at all times … And, by the way, you are all forgetting the rules of the house. When we are not on duty, you call me Idris and try very hard to forget that I am an ancient Earthman.”

  “If you are off duty, Idris,” said Suzy, pointedly emphasising his name, “you, too, must play by the rules of the house. You must relax and forget about being the big boy. Otherwise, the rest of us remain conscious of the gold braid on your dress uniform and the scrambled egg on your cap.”

  “Fair enough. I have stopped being the big boy, but I can’t stop worrying. May we, my friends just talk a little shop? And then, after that, I will be quite happy to listen to music, make passes at Suzy or even endure some more of that dreadful Martian humour.”

  “Idris,” said Orlando, “you are a neurotic bloody wreck. We understand why—not being entirely thick. You have two minutes in which to air your neurosis. After that, you play it our way. O.K.?”

  “O.K. I’ll make it short. The point is, the Dag is one hundred and twenty metres long and sixteen metres in diameter. Excluding the locked areas, we have searched it, the four of us. But can we be certain that we have been into every locker, every compartment? I want a double check. I want to search where someone else has looked and I want someone else to search where I have looked. There is something wrong, I feel it. If we find nothing inside the Dag, then we must look outside. It’s dreadfully tedious, and I’m sorry. But them’s my sentiments. End of message.”

  “You are thinking of the Yuri Gagarin,” said Leo. “I understand things were worse at Tolstoi than they were at Woomera. Seems to me we had pretty good security down there.”

  “We did. But we are the last space-ship to lift off from Earth. I know that Mars will not be sending any more. I got it in code. Suppose the rebs—” No, that was not the best description. “Suppose my people, Earth people, Australians who have given us so much, broke that code? Somebody might feel very unhappy about it, being doomed to die … Hell
, I’m talking about human nature.” He looked at them all. “If you were destined to die in mud and everlasting rain wouldn’t you be tempted to try to blast the ones that get away?”

  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.”

  4

  IDRIS HAMILTON, 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 squar
e 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.”