Murray Leinster

“ He dug down through surface ice to the permanently frozen soil beneath it. That soil was not desert sand. And preserved in it Nolan found the blackened roots of plants, and the blackened blades of something like grass, and even some small, indefinite objects which had been seeds or fruit.
They hadn't died with the planet. They were far older than that catastrophe. But they were proof that once this world lived and throve.
During what was left of the day-light, Nolan and Kelley went south to a river gorge and photographed it for the record. ”

“ The skipper gave Nolan the job of remote inspection while the gross examination of the system went on. Nolan had a knack for such work, and much of it naturally fell to him.
"Okay!" he said resignedly, "Another day, another world!"
"My private nightmare," said the skipper, with humor, "is bug-eyed monsters. Try not to find 'em here, Nolan. Eh?"
He'd said that eight times before on this voyage. Nolan said, "My private nightmare is getting home and finding out that while we've been finding new worlds for men to live on, they've started a war and made Earth a place to die on. ”

“ Not many men see sunsets these days. The three of them, aground at the ice-cap's edge, saw enormous mile-long dunes reaching away as far as it was possible to see. They cast black shadows. Then glories of crimson and gold rose from the western horizon of this dead and empty world. There was ice and snow upon the mountains, and unbelievable tints and blends of colors appeared there. ”

“ Nolan," said the skipper. "But that ball out yonder looks plausible as a nest for bug-eyed monsters!"
He shook his head and went out. He was still being humorous. Nolan set up his instruments and went to work. As he worked, he tried to thrust away the thoughts that came to everybody on Earth every day. They were as haunting, some light-centuries from Earth, as back at home. There was the base the Coms were building on the moon. The WDA had an observatory there, but the Coms were believed to be mounting many more rockets than telescopes. ”

“ I wonder if it would do any good on Earth to show them what we've found?"
"It's being argued on the ship," said Nolan. "Some say we'd better suppress the whole business."
Crawford considered.
"The Coms aren't a very believing people," he said slowly. "But our people are. If we report this, our people will believe it. But the Coms can tell their people it is lies. Our people will want peace more than ever if they see what a war will mean. But the big-shot Coms will just take that as a reason to demand some more concessions, and more, and more. Like demanding to build a base on the moon...." ”

“ This was very much like Earth! And the dark masses which were seas....
Nolan frowned. Those mud-colored patches were water. Undoubtedly. A narrow-band light filter proved it. But the areas which were neither sea nor cloud mass? There were three levels of brightness to be seen on the disk outside the polar areas. One was sea-bottom. One was cloud. The other....
Nolan fretted a little. There was something wrong. The solid ground surface of the planet was too light in color. It was such items that a person with a knack for it would notice sooner than a man without the knack. ”

“ In theory, the discoveries made by a Survey ship became automatically available to all the world. But the discovery of Three in the state it was in would have political results on Earth.
It was—and is—a fact that nobody really believes in death until he sees a dead man. And nobody can believe in the destruction of a planet unless he's seen the corpse or color photographs of it. But that was precisely what the Lotus had to carry back to Earth. The WDA nations would see those pictures and read the facts. They would believe in atomic war and the complete sterilization of a world. ”

“ The radioactives in Earth's thin rocky crust produce a constant flow of heat from the interior to the surface. It is considered that it is enough heat to melt a fraction of an inch of ice in a year. On this planet, with a crust many hundreds instead of mere scores of miles thickness, the internal heat was greater. The world was not frozen, and life existed here. It was a pallid, unnatural sort of life which had developed to live in starlight with a feeble assist from a very bright nearby star which happened to be its sun.
There was a base here, too. ”

“ So the Coms are popular long enough to get things going right. But if they tried that in our country—"
"It wouldn't work," said the skipper. "Not for a minute."
"It wouldn't," agreed Nolan. "Most of our people think of themselves as well to do, and the rest can hope to become so. So the Coms would have to try to govern two hundred million indignant and subversive underground resisters. They couldn't hold down such a country. They wouldn't try!" ”

“ Every day a man goes and sets back the timing mechanism in each place where a bomb is established. On the day that a man fails to do so the bombs will certainly explode."
The Coordinator said almost briskly:
"We calculate that the bombs will make the atmosphere of the whole Earth lethally radioactive. They will raise the background count on Earth to the point where nothing can live: no plant, no animal, no fish in any sea. This will only happen if this nation is destroyed. It will fight if it is attacked, of course, but your chances of substantial success are good. ”

“ Then he said with a totally unsuccessful attempt at humor, "Try and find out that it was bug-eyed monsters, eh? It looks too much like Earth! I'd rather blame monsters than men!"
Nolan growled and went to prepare for the landing. Two other men would go with him, of course. The Lotus wouldn't descend. It cost fuel to make landings. Unless there was some remarkable specimen that a drone couldn't handle the ship would stay aloft.
So a drone took three of them down to ground, a second drone following with equipment. They had weapons, of course. Men never land anywhere without weapons. ”

“ Nolan examined the planet's sunlit face and said steadily:
"Nothing's happened yet."
There was almost agonized relief. Only the skipper did not seem to relax. He went stolidly to the control-room and got out the scrambler card that matched just one other scrambler card in the world. He put it in the communicator. To speak to Earth by scrambler would be an offense. It would be protested by the Coms. They would insist that a survey ship should have nothing secret to report and that anything secret must be inimical to the Com Association of Nations. ”

“ It would be just about where a gigantic atom-bomb crater still existed.
Nolan drew back and took a deep breath.
"Apparently," he said unsteadily, "this eyepiece detects radioactives, converting something that I can't imagine into visible light after it's passed through a few feet of metal and a good many more of dirt. There's a red ring which makes me think of a gun-sight. And there's a trigger. Skipper, would you send half an ounce or so of ship-fuel out to space in a drone? I think we're going to have to pull this trigger." ”

“ They will not allow that nation to display what they consider weakness in any matter. One has to allow for a certain exuberance in the people of a nation newly freed from the tyranny of capitalists and warmongers such as still enslave the people of your countries. We cannot yield in this matter. ”

“ They had a roller-jeep, running on huge inflated bags. It would run efficiently on anything from sand to swamp mud, and float itself across bogs or rivers. They had cameras and communicators. Nolan had picked Crawford for geology and Kelley for communications. They could get other specialists from the ship, if desirable.
The ground where they landed was desert: nothing more. There were enormous dunes like gigantic frozen swells of sand. Sometimes there were miles between crests. They landed close to the mud banks northern ice-cap to avoid the deep gorges in which rivers ran farther south. ”

“ The skipper went carefully over the pictures. On one he put his finger on a feature Nolan hadn't mentioned. He seemed to wince.
"I think you win, Nolan," he said painfully. "We'll send a drone down. I doubt we can land, but this ought to be checked. Immediately. Maybe I should add—inconspicuously."
"Confidentially," said the Com Ambassador to the Coordinator of the WDA, "confidentially I agree that it is a trivial matter. But we are a new nation. Our people lack perspective. They rejoice in the strength and vigor of the nation of which they are citizens. ”

“ The Council meeting ended with no vote upon the matter. Without even a proposal on which a vote could be taken.
Two days later, Com troops from one of the African Com nations moved in and occupied Sierra Leone. A great many of its citizens were shot, some for opposing the new state of affairs, but some seemingly just on general principles.
III
The Lotus went on toward Planet Five, leaving a world which should have been alive and wasn't, to go to a world which should not exist, but did. On the way there was argument which became embittered. ”

“ Our space-radar located an object at the survey ship's stated position. We sent six rockets with atomic warheads at it. We used satellite-placing rockets for maximum acceleration. They are well on their way now. Of course they can be disarmed or destroyed as well as maneuvered to intercept this survey ship if it attempts to flee. They will reach the target area in just under three hours."
The Premier nodded, very humorously.
"Since we accepted their invitation, naturally the Western staff concludes that we are disturbed. That we will wait to see what our rockets learn. ”

“ This force should be formed of contingents from every Western Defense Alliance nation, and it should have orders to prevent the entry of Com troops into Sierra Leone territory. I do not think that anything less will prevent the extinction of another member nation of the Western Defense Alliance. Will any Council member propose such action for a vote?"
There was a pause. Then babblings. It would mean war! It would mean atomic war! Tens or hundreds of millions of human beings would die over a matter affecting less than two hundred thousand! ”

“ We figured they wanted to shield the rest of the base from radioactives."
Nolan said carefully:
"It could be that they wanted to shield the radioactives from something in the base. Maybe something that would act on radioactives is involved." He said painfully, "Men can't change the rate of fission except by building up a critical mass. But maybe—possibly bug-eyed monsters could."
The skipper perspired. He'd have worked out the same thing in the long run, but Nolan saw it right away. He went away and got the ship's engineers. They brought an X-ray for finding flaws in metal. ”

“ We know that we cannot deal with you. We know that you might be successful in an overwhelming, unwarned attack. We know that if you decide upon war, it will be directed primarily at this nation. So we have set up some very special atomic bombs where it is extremely unlikely that you will find them. ”

“ Vegetation should be more nearly midway between sea-bottom and cloud mass in color.
Nolan fitted in the chlorophyll filter. On the planet of a sol-type sun, vegetation had to use chlorophyll or else. Through this filter the clouds would show, of course. They were white and reflected all colors of light. ”