Rocket to Limbo

The talking died as the Commander went on. “We know she blasted for Wolf two years and eight months ago. We know nothing happened to her drive because she was in drive-transmitted communication with the Colonial Service dispatcher on Earth from the moment she blasted on. She went into normal Koenig drive at the appointed time, and she reached the Wolf system. We know that. She reported six planets in orbit around a yellow-white sun, and she chose Wolf IV as the most promising of the six for a preliminary landing and pilot study. We know that, too, but that’s all we know for sure. The Planetfall landed, and vanished. We had some signals from her during the landing processes, then no signals.” Fox snapped off the projector and raised the lights, then looked around at his crew. “Our commission is brief and to the point, gentlemen. We’re going to Wolf IV, and we’re going to find that ship if there’s enough of her still in one piece to find. If there isn’t, our job is to find out what happened to the pieces.”

He leaned back against the table again. No one had anything to say. The men stared at him, and at each other, shaking their heads. “Well, that’s about it,” the Commander said. “Naturally, there will be some changes in the preparatory routines. From the standpoint of equipment and preparation, we’re on a frank exploratory cruise to an unknown system. That means full study program when we arrive, not just the spot check you anticipated for Vega III. You’ll have plenty of time to get ready, we’ll be three and a half months en route. Now if there are no questions, we’ll break this up.”

The hungry-looking man called Jeff Salter had been whispering loudly with Peter Brigham across the room; now he bounded to his feet, a crease of anger across his forehead. “Wait a minute, Commander. We’ve got a question or two over here, I think.”

Commander Fox frowned and faced the man. “All right, let’s have them.”

“Well, now, I mean this is pretty sudden, what with the men expecting a quick run to Vega and back.” Jeff Salter rubbed his chin, frowning. “And I don’t quite understand the story on this Planetfall. Did she make a landing on Wolf IV or not?”

“She landed, all right.”

“There were messages that got through?”

“That’s right.”

“I see. But did she crash?”

Quite suddenly all attention was focussed on the tall, thin man asking the question. Beside him Peter Brigham was sitting, carefully staring at nothing. “I mean, if she crashed in landing, and the signal cut off, there wouldn’t be much sense in sending a ship out to find her, would there?”

Commander Fox’s frown deepened. “She didn’t crash; at least the messages from her seemed to indicate a safe landing. There were some legible messages from her after she landed, but the atmospheric conditions apparently were terrible, and we didn’t get very much. What we did get was all garbled and difficult to understand.”

“But she didn’t crash.” Salter seemed to think about this for a moment, then, “What did happen to her?”

“That’s exactly what we’re commissioned to find out,” Fox snapped. “It seems to me that you’re just trying to make this hard to understand, Salter. You can read the orders as they came from the dispatcher if you want to.”

“Oh, I’m not much worried about what the orders say,” Salter said. “Thing that worries me is just what happened to the Planetfall after she landed on this place, and just what the Colonial Service is getting us into on this trip.” He glanced quickly at Peter, then back at the Commander. “I don’t understand all this secrecy, for one thing. Exploratory ships have cracked up before and there wasn’t any fuss made about it—it was the breaks, that was all. So now why should Colonial Service be so almighty scared to tell the truth about the Planetfall? Why should they worry about how the colonists might react unless that crew found something on Wolf IV to be almighty afraid of.”

“Let’s keep our feet on the ground, shall we?” Fox’s voice was suddenly angry. “What could they have found there?”

“That’s what I’m asking you, Commander.”

“We don’t know what they found. I’ve told you that. We don’t know what happened to them.”

Next to Lars, Lambert was shaking his head. “Salter’s just guessing,” he whispered sharply. “Maybe their radio was wrecked, and surface conditions wiped them out before they could get it fixed. A thousand things could have happened. He’s dreaming up spooks.”

“He’s not dreaming up anything by himself,” Lars retorted. “Don’t you see who he’s been talking to?”