Rocket to Limbo

“Not a sign.” There was no hesitation in Kennedy’s voice.

“That’s what I like about you,” Fox said. “You’re so honest.”

Council of War.

Every man was present, and every man was tense. In the welter of detail work it had been easy to forget the broader picture, to thrust out of their minds where they were, why they were there, what they had to do there. But that was over now.

“We’ve gotten everything we can get up here, and we have nothing. Some physical data, incomplete; some looks at the surface, so sketchy they’re useless. We have no data that helps us.”

“No positive data,” Kennedy corrected him. “We’ve got plenty of negative data.”

“You mean the fact that nothing has tried to shoot us out of the sky?” Fox shrugged. “That’s not much comfort, I’m afraid.”

“More than that. No evidence at all that Wolf IV is any kind of going concern. Not a peep, not a picture. And also, we know the Planetfall couldn’t have landed anywhere else. Not in this system.”

Fox looked around at the men. “Still not much to go on. Schedule I is a blank for all practical purposes. So we move into Schedule II. We’ve got to put the ship down there.”

There was a stir about the room.

Lambert took his pipe out of his mouth. “Bio division can’t find any reason not to set down. We know there’s microscopic flora, safe, and surface vegetation. Also insect life, pretty low order. I can’t militate against a landing. Still—”

“Well?” Fox looked at him sharply.

“We still don’t know what we’re going to do when we get down there. We know we land on the equator, period. We might as well walk in blindfolded.”

“Granted,” said Fox.

“If there are aliens down there, they may be set to mop us up in twenty minutes flat. They may just be waiting.”

“Well, what do you suggest?”

Suddenly Peter Brigham spoke up. “Seems to me we’re ignoring one very important fact.”

“What’s that?”

“That nothing happened to the Planetfall until she was on the ground with the crew dispersed. She went through her routine Schedule I just the way we have, and apparently didn’t see anything to scare her off. Looks to me as though we could orbit out here for fifty years and get no farther than we are now.”

There were nods of agreement, reluctant nods. Lambert lit his pipe again. Jeff Salter scraped his jaw with his hand and looked unhappy.

“There’s one thing we can still do,” Kennedy said at last. “We need a close look down there, a good look. Let me take the scooter down close, three or four thusand feet, and see if I can’t get some decent films. Then at least we could land on solid ground.”

Fox nodded. “You want to try it?”

“You bet I do.”

“Then get moving. The rest of you hit the sack for a while. I want some of you half-awake when Kennedy gets back. We may not get any sleep for a while after we’ve landed.”

No one disputed the wisdom of Fox’s words, but no one slept. They watched the little photographer slide the scooter out of her slot and zoom down toward the gray planet to vanish into the cloud bank. Dorffman stayed rooted to the beam receiver, struggling to keep contact, but the signals got weaker and more garbled by the second and finally disintegrated into occasional bursts of nonsense-squawking. Dorffman shook his head, and tried to sleep in his headset.

They waited. A card game started up, but didn’t get very far. Lars puttered in the lab, trying to pretend interest, and finally went back to the observation booth to join the others. An hour passed, and another.

“How long was he supposed to take?” Mangano asked peevishly.

“Fox said a four-hour limit. If he isn’t back by then, we go down after him.”

“Silly fool asked for it,” Salter grumbled.

“It had to be done,” Lars snapped.

“Yeah, sure.”

Three hours passed; three and a half, with no sign of the camera-scooter. Dorffman was getting no signals at all now. He swore and cut in on a different band, sweat standing in beads on his forehead.

On the wall the speaker crackled. “Lorry, Morehouse, Lambert, better come aft to the lifeboats. He’s got twenty minutes more. If he’s not back, we’ll take two boats down.”

Below them a vile gray dawn was moving across the planet’s face. The star Wolf glowered an evil orange. The men were silent now, staring through the viewports, hardly breathing.

There was a glint of light below, the whine of a jet engine, and a sudden crackle of static from the receiver, mellowing out into a readable signal. The men let out a cheer as the scooter rose from the clouds and began homing on the Star Ship. Minutes later it clanged into its slot, and Kennedy crawled from the cockpit, weary and pale but very much alive. He threw off his heater-suit with a groan, but his eyes were bright with excitement.

“The films!” Fox exploded. “Did you get films? Could you see anything?”