Rocket to Limbo

“We’ll scout ahead to see if there’s a break in the ridge on our side. If there’s not, it’ll be up to Kennedy to drop someone up there, or else well have to figure another approach. But we’ve got to get up there.”

Several of the men went out for scrap wood to build a watch fire. They did not need the heat, and the food was self-heated, but no one argued against a fire. The thought of spending a night out on this desolate place without a cheering blaze to watch by was not pleasant. But getting a fire was another thing. The wood refused to burn. It took an hour of whittling and coaxing to start a small blaze, and then it flickered and smoked, anything but cheerful.

They ate in silence. Everyone was weary from the trek. Lambert checked his pedometer and announced that they had made approximately eight miles. It had felt like fifty. Lars was quite satisfied to be assigned to late watch, allowing him some sleep first. Fox and Klein took the first watch; Peter and Leeds were assigned to the second. Peter was to waken Lars and Lambert to cover the third period, while Salter and Carstairs would cover the pre-dawn hours. They all checked their pistols. “Keep the fire going,” Lars admonished, and crawled into his tent, setting his heater-suit at sleeping temperature. Lambert stayed outside to talk with Fox and Klein for a while; Lars was still awake when he finally came to bed.

“What’s the trouble, insomnia?”

“No, just too much to think about.” Lars turned over restlessly. Certainly there had been no sign of an alien intelligence at work on this planet, so far, and yet the threat still hung heavily. It took a long while for Lars to relax, but at last he slept heavily. Outside the clouds closed in to obscure the stars in blackness.

Lars awoke suddenly, his whole body tense. Something was wrong. There had been no sound, yet he felt danger screaming in his ears. What? What had happened? He tried to see, peering across toward Lambert, snoring, and felt the hair rise along the ridge of his spine.

The fire. He had gone to sleep with a yellow-red reflection flickering on the tent flaps.

It was gone now. Instead there was only a dull red glow.

He knew he had been sleeping a long time, too long! Peter had not awakened him for his watch. He fumbled for his wrist-light, flashed it on his chronometer, trying to shake himself awake. Six hours!

He pulled himself to the opening of the tent, peered out. There was deathly silence. Not even the wind howled now. A pile of half-dead embers glowed redly where the fire had been.

With a cry Lars burst from the tent, staring about for the men on watch, machine pistol on ready in his hand. There was no sign of the guard. The pack-sacks, neatly piled near the rock, were torn open, their contents scattered widly.

Others began burrowing out of their tents now—Lambert, his eyes wide with alarm; Klein, stumbling like a drunken man as he pitched toward the fire, staring in dismay; Fox, his face grim. “What happened? What’s wrong?” somebody shouted.

They stood staring at the rifled packs, and blinking at each other, as realization flooded their faces.

“Gone!” Lambert said bleakly.

“They can’t be gone!” Lars protested. He ran to the other tents, flashed his light inside. Nobody there. “They can’t be. Peter wouldn’t have gone without—” He stopped short, shaking his head.

Peter was gone. So were Salter, Leeds and Carstairs. Lars remembered the hurried conference, Peter’s teaming with Leeds during the day, the quiet talking. Suddenly everything fell into a pattern.

“They’re gone, all right,” Fox said heavily. “Run out on us like—”

“But where?”

“Where do you suppose? Back to the ship, of course. Where’s that talker—if I can get Dorffman before—”

“You won’t use this talker,” Klein said quietly, pointing to a pile of junk tossed in the mud nearby. “They’ve taken care of that. They’ve got the food, too, or most of it. Look at that mess.”

“They can’t get across the river,” Lars said suddenly. Then he remembered the rafts by the shore.

“They not only have the rafts, they have the line to ferry across with.” Fox’s face was grim. “Klein, we’ve got to try to stop them. It looks like they have an hour’s start, at least.”

“Why try?” Klein asked. “Won’t the men at the ship stop them when they see we’re not with them?”

“I don’t think so. I think this has been planned for some time. I’m sorry, Lars, but it must have been. If Lorry has had a run-out too, there would be enough of them to take the ship. We’ve got to stop them. If we don’t there may not be any ship when we get back there.”

He and Klein checked their guns. “Lambert, you and Lars stick here. See if there’s any chance of getting that talker working. The river will delay them, and we may be able to stop them there.” With that the two men started down the trail toward the river again.