The Secret of the Ninth Planet Part 17

"Look, Russ. This dust is full of streaks and marks. It hasn't been lying here undisturbed. Something has crossed over it!"

Russ kneeled in order to look more carefully. The layer of dust, the consequences of an airless world exposed without protection to the endless fall of cosmic particles, was indeed not the level, undisturbed surface it should have been. Here and there were light, low depressions, as if something had moved across it--like a small snake crawling on its belly. In one place lay a series of depressions, like the footprints of some light-bodied creature.

"Impossible," muttered Russ. "Life can't exist here."

But they trudged on, across the barren flat to a ridge of rock. Here they found what they had thought to be impossible. Cl.u.s.tered along the side of the ridge, in the faint light of the distant and tiny Sun, was a series of thin, blue stalks, about half a foot in height. On each stalk was a flat scalloped top like a little umbrella. It was sometimes bright blue, and sometimes violet. As they drew nearer, these little stalks began to sway, and turned their tops toward them.

"They look like plants," said Burl. "Plants made of something gla.s.sy and plastic."

As Russ studied the strange growths, something moved across the dusty tract behind them. It was long and thin and wiggly, with a ridge of tiny crystalline hairs along its back. It was like a snake perhaps, but one made of some unbelievably delicate gla.s.swork.

It slid among the plants and wrapped itself around one. The growth snapped suddenly, and then was absorbed by the creature.

Russ shook his head in amazement. "This is a great discovery," he said incredulously. "This is life! It's life of a chemical type utterly different from the protoplasm of Earth and Mars and Venus. It's life designed to exist among liquid gases and frozen air--life which can't have anything in common with protoplasm. Apparently it couldn't exist even on Saturn's moons--they were too _hot_ for it!"

Russ was carried away with the possibilities. "This hints at great things, Burl. Out near Pluto, where the system is even colder, there may be other forms of this frigi-plasmic life, if I may coin a word. This means a whole new science!"

They returned to the s.h.i.+p with their astonis.h.i.+ng news. The _Magellan_ slowly skimmed over the surface of Oberon. They found whole forests of this gla.s.sy frigid vegetation, but not much evidence of any animal life larger than the creature the two explorers had seen.

Over the Sun-tap station--a ringed layout like the others, whose cl.u.s.ter of masts caught the emanations of the distant Sun on the one hand and directed them outward to the still unseen planet Pluto on the other--the s.h.i.+p halted. It drew up fifty miles, pointed its tail and blasted forth a rocket-driven, tactical atomic bomb.

The blast on Oberon was tiny compared to the one which had devastated Iapetus, but it still left a deep indentation in the surface for future s.p.a.ce fliers to see.

They left it and the Uranian orbit behind them and headed outward once again. Behind them now lay the worlds of the Sun's family, while far off to one side lay the tiny light of Neptune. Ahead, between them and the vast gulf of interstellar s.p.a.ce, lay only the dark, mysterious ninth planet, the enigmatic world named after the lord of the underworld, Pluto.

The _Magellan_ plunged on, in constant acceleration, moving outward to the farthest limit of the solar system. They had traveled almost one billion, eight hundred million miles from the Sun--and yet they still had two billion miles more to go. This was the longest stretch--and during it, they would reach speeds greater than any they had touched before. They shot outward, faster and faster, eating up the infinite emptiness of s.p.a.ce, driving the vast stretch that divided Pluto from its neighbors.

The Sun, already small, dwindled steadily. It was still the brightest star in their sky--of all the stars, it alone retained a disclike shape, and the faint flicker of its coronal flames could occasionally be made out--but it no longer dominated the heavens. To find the Sun, they now had to look for it as they would for any other star.

As for Earth, it could not be seen. So close to the tiny Sun it lay that only their sharpest telescopes could bring it out. Even Jupiter showed up only as a thin, tiny crescent near the solar point of light.

"Pluto's a mysterious world," said Burl as he and Russ scanned the heavens for a first glimpse of it. "The accounts in your astronomy books give very little real information on it--but what they give is strange.

They say it's the only planet beyond Mars that is a small solid world like the inner ones. It seems to be the same size as Earth--not at all like the big outer worlds. And they say it seems to be the same ma.s.s as Earth--a solid world whose surface gravity would be the same as our own planet's."

Russ nodded. "It's an odd one, all right. There's now even some belief that it's not a true planet, but one that was once a satellite of Neptune. Its...o...b..t is peculiar; it apparently may cut into that of Neptune. In fact, everything hints at Pluto not being a true child of our Sun. It may be a world captured from afar--a lonely wanderer cast off from some other star, captured by the Sun after millions of years of drifting lightless through s.p.a.ce."

Beyond them, in their vision, lay only the stars of outer s.p.a.ce, the void that did not belong to our system. And then, finally, they found Pluto--a tiny point of light s.h.i.+ning among the blazing stars. They saw the disc, dimly reflected in the light of the far-away Sun.

Even as they were taking their first long look at the dark planet, the general alarm rang. They had caught up with the fleeing wreck of the Sun-tapper's scout cruiser.

Chapter 16. _In Orbit Around Pluto_

There was a mad rush to action stations. Detmar, Ferrati and Oberfield, who had been in their bunks, dashed to their posts while others tried to pa.s.s them in both directions. Haines and Burl hastily climbed into their s.p.a.ce suits, while Ferrati and Boulton manned the inner defensive controls.

Burl pulled the tight-fitting harness of his insulated s.p.a.ce suit over him. The shape of the Sun-tapper s.h.i.+p came into focus on the tiny screen of the air lock viewer. It was approaching them at a frighteningly rapid pace. He could see the broken framework of one of its two globes--the one on which they had scored their hit. The other globe and the connecting pa.s.sages were strikingly clear. Tiny circles of windows were visible in the pa.s.sage section, which undoubtedly housed the operators of the vessel. For a fleeting instant he realized that as yet none of the Earthlings had any inkling of what these creatures looked like.

While he knew that the scene was telescopic, the s.h.i.+p was undoubtedly approaching them fast; or rather, they were catching up to it at a perilous pace! Whether the wrecked enemy had slowed down more than they had, as it approached its Plutonian base, or whether some other surprise lay ahead, they had no idea.

Burl felt the jarring impact as Lockhart cut the _Magellan's_ drive.

There was an instant of weightlessness, and then their weight reversed as the A-G drive strove to slow down the s.h.i.+p. Within the air lock they were outside the living s.p.a.ce of the sphere, suspended beneath the drive chamber. Burl could see the walls of the inner sphere whirl past him, a foot away, as the living quarters rotated to s.h.i.+ft with the gravitational change. And at that very moment, while all those inside were temporarily helpless, disaster struck.

Burl had just finished adjusting his airtight helmet, and Haines was already on his way forward to the outer sh.e.l.l port and the rocket guns, when there was a flash of lightning from the crippled enemy s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p.

The foe was still capable of fighting--and it had fired first--alarmingly close.

Within what seemed a split second after Burl's eyes had registered the flash on the little viewplate, the _Magellan_ received the full force of the mighty electronic discharge. To Burl it seemed as if a thunderclap had sounded in his ears, and as if he had been plunged into a bath of white flames. The walls of the pa.s.sage sparked brilliantly, blinding light filled the air, and Burl's body vibrated as it would to an electric shock.

He reeled wildly, catching at the walls and almost falling. In a few seconds his senses recovered, although his body was still humming from the blow and his ears were ringing. The viewplate had gone black, the lights in the air lock corridor were dark, and when he tried to gain his feet he realized that the s.h.i.+p now had no gravity; it was falling free without power.

Haines was slumped in the end of the corridor, with the port nearly opened. Burl pushed his way over to him and helped the groggy explorer to his feet. There was no sound, and Burl suddenly remembered that he hadn't taken time to switch on his helmet phone. He did so and was relieved to hear Harness voice asking if he was all right.

"I'm okay," Burl called. "Let's get this port open. Maybe we can hit back at least once."

Together, they turned the bolts and pushed the thick outer sh.e.l.l door open. Without the aid of telescopic sights they could see the shape of the Sun-tapper vessel plainly, outlined against the curtain of distant stars. Struggling not to think of what might be going on within the _Magellan_--their earphones registered nothing except each other--they unlimbered the long tube of the rocket launcher and aimed point-blank at the foe. Haines reached into the ammunition locker vault alongside the pa.s.sageway and selected the biggest and wickedest of the available sh.e.l.ls. He twisted the dial in the warhead and, while Burl held the aim, shoved in the rocket sh.e.l.l. With a press of the b.u.t.ton, the missile roared out of the tube, racing in an arc of fire directly toward the faint vision of the other s.h.i.+p.

They watched with bated breath, counting the seconds, hoping not to see another blast of electrical fire. But apparently the foe had exhausted its limited resources, for the thin spidery line of rocket sparks reached out, farther and farther, until it seemed to touch the surface of the golden globe.

There was a great flare in the sky now, an outpouring of fire and hot metal. When it cleared away, the sky was empty.

Haines wearily drew the outer port shut. "Now, let's see if we're goners, too," he said quietly. They sealed the outer sh.e.l.l and made their way along the dark pa.s.sage.

Even as they were unlocking the toggles of the inner hatch, the corridor lights started to flicker. They would light up dimly, and then flicker out, light up again, flare for an instant, then die down. Someone was alive within the s.h.i.+p.

They got the hatch open. In the central section of the living sphere, the lights were also dim and in a few places they were completely out.

They emerged and closed the hatch behind them. Only after Haines had tested the inner atmosphere and found it still pressurized, did they open their helmets and climb stiffly out of the s.p.a.ce suits, wincing at bruises they had sustained but had not noticed until then.

The air pressure was all right, but there was a smell of burned rubber and insulation in the air. Now that their helmets were off, they could hear voices somewhere above. They found Oberfield lying unconscious, thrown to the floor by the sudden s.h.i.+ft of the s.h.i.+p. They climbed into the control room. Lockhart was floating in the air near the open hatchway leading to the engine room overhead. He was calling out orders to someone who was within.

Russ was working over the navigation desk, a bandage around his head, trying to figure out where they would be and where they were heading, without having access to the still dark viewplates.

Lockhart twisted in the weightless air when he saw them. He seemed both relieved and distressed. "I'm glad you're okay, but I had hoped you'd be able to put in a blow for us."

Burl realized that inside the s.h.i.+p they had no way of knowing that vengeance had been served. Hastily, he explained. His words cheered everyone. Russ and Lockhart shouted joyously. Detmar poked his head down the hatch and called the news back to his two fellows who were struggling to get the A-G generators functioning.

The bolt of energy, whatever it may have been designed to do to a s.h.i.+p of the Sun-tapper build, did not have the totally disastrous effect on the _Magellan_ that it was intended to have. It had knocked out their electrical system temporarily, burned out some of its parts and caused the A-G system to fail, although the atomic piles were impervious to such currents. Oberfield, Ferrati and Shea were badly hurt.

There now followed an anxious period during which more and more of the electrical system began to function as the men labored to rig up emergency wires, and to replace burned out bulbs and lines. There was a general cheer when the viewplates flickered into life again, though not all functioned. They again had access to the sky about them--even though not all sectors were covered.

The humming in the engine room started up, rose and fell uneasily a couple of times, and then they felt a surge of force. Lockhart fell gently to the floor as the s.h.i.+p began to drive ahead, and then in a few minutes the A-G drive was back on, and the _Magellan_ was again under control.

"We took what they had to give, and it wasn't enough," exulted Haines.

"Now wait till we reach their main works. We'll show them!"

Lockhart shook his head wearily as he and Russ worked over the controls.

"Let's hope we don't have to show them soon. Our s.h.i.+p is running on emergency rigging. Caton says he's going to have to rest the s.h.i.+p and rewire a good part of the system. Meanwhile, we will be able to reach Pluto safely enough."