Planet of Dread Read Free Page B

appeared was very peculiar indeed. It was a—worm. But it was a foot thick and ten feet long, and it had a group of stumpy legs at its fore end—where there were eyes hidden behind bristling hair-like growths—and another set of feet at its tail end. It progressed sedately by reaching forward with its fore-part, securing a foothold, and then arching its middle portion like a cat arching its back, to bring its hind part forward. Then it reached forward again. It was of a dark olive color from one end to the other. Its manner of walking was insane but somehow sedate.
    Moran heard muffled noises in his helmet-phone as the others tried to speak. Carol’s voice came anxiously;
    “ What’s the matter? What do you see? “
    Moran said with savage precision;
    “We’re looking at an inch-worm, grown up like the beetles only more so. It’s not an inch-worm any longer. It’s a yard-worm.” Then he said harshly to the men with him; “It’s not a hunting creature on worlds where it’s smaller. It’s not likely to have turned deadly here. Come on!”
    He went forward over the singularly bouncy ground. The others followed. It was to be noted that Hallet the engineer, avoided the huge harmless creature more widely than most.
----
    They reached the mound which was the ship. Moran unlimbered his torch. He said sardonically;
    “This ship won’t do anybody any good. It’s old-style. That thick belt around its middle was dropped a hundred years ago, and more.” There was an abrupt thickening of the cylindrical hull at the middle. There was an equally abrupt thinning, again, toward the landing-fins. The sharpness of the change was blurred over by the revolting ground-stuff growing everywhere. “We’re going to find that this wreck has been here a century at least!”
    Without orders, he turned on the torch. A four-foot flame of pure blue-white leaped out. He touched its tip to the fungoid soil. Steam leaped up. He used the flame like a gigantic scalpel, cutting a square a yard deep in the whitish stuff, and then cutting it across and across to destroy it. Thick fumes arose, and quiverings and shakings began. Black creatures in their labyrinths of tunnels began to panic. Off to the right the blanket-like surface ripped and they poured out. They scuttled crazily here and there. Some took to wing. By instinct the other men—the armed ones—moved back from the smoke. They wore space-helmets but they felt that there should be an intolerable smell.
    Moran slashed and slashed angrily with the big flame, cutting a way to the metal hull that had fallen here before his grandfather was born. Sometimes the flame cut across things that writhed, and he was sickened. But above all he raged because he was to be marooned here. He could not altogether blame the others. They couldn’t land at any colonized world with him on board without his being detected as an extra member of the crew. His fate would then be sealed. But they also would be investigated. Official queries would go across this whole sector of the galaxy, naming five persons of such-and-such description and such-and-such fingerprints, voyaging in a space-yacht of such-and-such size and registration. The world they came from would claim them as fugitives. They would be returned to it. They’d be executed.
    Then Carol’s voice came in his helmet-phone. She cried out;
    “ Look out! It’s coming! Kill it! Kill it—. “
    He heard blast-rifles firing. He heard Burleigh pant commands. He was on his way out of the hollow he’d carved when he heard Harper cry out horribly.
    He got clear of the newly burned-away stuff. There was still much smoke and stream. But he saw Harper. More, he saw the thing that had Harper.
    It occurred to him instantly that if Harper died, there would not be too many people on the Nadine . They need not maroon him. In fact, they wouldn’t dare.
    A ship that came in to port with two few on board would be investigated as thoroughly as one that had too many.