Rocket to Limbo

And then Lars and Peter were in the room, and the door had reappeared, leaving them alone. To one side was a bath, with hot water running and sending up heart-warming clouds of steam; there were two beds, soft and inviting, though they were really only pallets floating three feet off the ground; and near the beds two trays of food that made Lars’ mouth water.

They were in their quarters. Prisoners? It would seem so, and yet the three City-people had no hostility in their minds. On the contrary, there had been a haunting aura of deference as they had probed his mind, as though he were not a prisoner so much as an honored and somehow very important guest. There had been a sense of eagerness as they had examined him, of watchfulness and hopefulness.

And that strong last impression, rising again to Lars’ mind: Perhaps with lessons—

He saw the hot water, the beds, the food, but there was something even more important first. He turned to Peter. This city and the people here were like a fantastic dream, but Peter was no dream. Peter Brigham was Peter Brigham, human flesh and blood. A rested, warm, well-fed Peter Brigham who, for all his urgent warning, did not seem too much afraid of these City-people. Indeed, he seemed to accept them very calmly. If there was something hazy and unreal about these aliens of Wolf IV, there was nothing hazy about Peter, nor about the things that Lars knew were true:

That there had been a Star Ship named Ganymede which had brought them there, him and Peter and twenty other Earthmen.

That Peter had joined the deserters to seize the ship, and had somehow managed to spirit it from its landing-site.

That a Star Ship the size of the Ganymede does not just vanish into thin air, on Wolf IV or any other place.

That sometime, many months before, another Star Ship named Planetfall had made a landing on this planet, and had also vanished.

Lars turned to Peter. “All right. The food will wait. I want some answers, and I want them right now.”

“They’ll make more sense when you’re rested up,” Peter said.

“I think they’d better make sense right now,” Lars said. “Where are those ships? Where are the men?”

With a sigh, Peter walked across the room. As he approached the far wall, it began to fade away, just as the door had, revealing a wide panorama of the city below them. “Come here,” said Peter. “I can answer one of your questions without any trouble at all.”

Lars approached the window. The bright lights of the city caught his eyes like a display of fireworks.

“You’re right,” Peter said slowly. “The Ganymede didn’t vanish into space and nobody lifted it off the planet, either.” He pointed. “Down there, on the ramp.”

It was a more substantial structure than the others in the city, heavy and solid, forming two long narrow cradles. And in the cradles were two long Star Ships, almost twins, lying side by side.

Lars would have recognized the Ganymede anywhere. He had never seen the other ship before, but he knew without question that it was the Star Ship Planetfall.

This, then, had been the end of her journey.

Chapter Twelve Who Are They?

Peter was gone when Lars finally awoke. He did not know how long he had slept. When he had crawled into the bed he had been too weary even to check his chronometer. The hot bath had been wonderful; there were no robot scrubbers like you found in Earth shower stalls, and the water had come from all sides like a fountain, but he got clean and warm, and found some of the feathery gray clothing ready for him when he finished. He had eaten like a starved man, and was asleep two minutes after he closed his eyes.

Now he looked about the room, concern shocking him into wakefulness. There was no sign of Peter, but the table was again set with food. It didn’t look like any food he had ever seen, but the piquant texture and taste removed any lingering suspicions of its quality. Nothing could taste so good, and not be nourishing. There was a plate of meaty-tasting stuff, some spicy soup, and what he took to be vegetables, in spite of their pale blue color. The plates refilled automatically as he ate, although no one entered the room; when he was finally filled, the food, table and all, vanished, leaving only a faint pleasant odor in the air.

This off-again-on-again business was startling, to say the least; Lars felt a little queasy as he walked about the room, inspecting the smooth material of the walls, watching the large window grow transparent as he moved near it. The two ships still lay in their racks below, as though they had been there for years, but the sight of them perked Lars back to the thousand unanswered questions in his mind.

He felt a wave of relief as he heard Peter’s voice, saw him walking in through the door, which had become thin and gauzy, barely concealing the study room beyond. “About time you were stirring,” Peter was saying.

“Where have you been?”

“Having my lessons.”

“What lessons?”