The Secret of the Ninth Planet Part 18

Pluto was visible in the forward viewplates. They could see lighter and darker patches on it, almost like the markings of continents and oceans, but there was no evidence of an atmosphere, nor had they expected any.

Readings showed that the average surface temperature was about 200 Fahrenheit below zero, even lower in many places. They searched the surface for signs of their foe.

They found what they wanted on the north polar depression, a basin in the oblate sphere of Pluto. There was no ringed station. There rose a vast pile of dark masonry--a mighty structure covering at least a square mile, a fortress building whose roofs bristled with an array of masts and reflectors. And hanging on patrol over this polar basin were two more of the dumbbell ships.

"We're in no position to come to grips with them," said Lockhart. "I'm going to take the _Magellan_ into a low orbit around Pluto's equator.

We'll be out of their sight, yet near enough to do some probing and exploring while we're making repairs."

This they proceeded to do, swinging the ship down to within a few hundred miles of the Plutonian surface, setting on a fixed orbit around the equator, exactly as the sputniks of years past had first circled the bulk of the Earth. Staying far enough up to maintain orbit, they were close enough to be below the planet's radiation belt.

Taking stock of the ship's condition showed that they dearly needed this delay. Repairs would not be completed for several days. Practically everyone had been bruised or shaken up; Oberfield had a fractured skull and was in serious condition; Ferrati had broken his leg and pelvis; Shea had a couple of cracked ribs. The men were given emergency medical treatment and confined to quarters.

The _Magellan_ quietly circled Pluto once every hour and a half and the ship tried to resume its normal life. Russ studied the surface beneath them, Haines and Burl at his elbow. Then, after conferring, the three approached Lockhart.

"We want permission to make a landing," Russ said. "If we take the four-man rocket plane we can make the ground safely. We've got to reconnoiter before we can figure out how to put this master Sun-tap station out of business."

Lockhart agreed. "I was planning as much. Now that we're here, we can't delay just because we're injured. Go ahead."

The three got ready quickly. They donned their s.p.a.ce suits, loaded the larger rocket plane with equipment, arms, and plenty of extra fuel. Just before they left, Lockhart gave them a word of caution. "Do not attempt to communicate with the _Magellan_ by radio. If Pluto is the Sun-tappers' home world, you may find yourselves surrounded by enemies, and overheard. Don't reveal our existence or position. If you have to talk to us, do not expect a reply unless it's an absolute emergency."

Burl strapped himself into his seat within the rocket plane and glanced through the thick window. Below them was a world the size of Earth--a world which, if it had air and warmth, could most nearly be Earth's twin of all the planets in the system. This rocket plane had touched on the hot surface of Mercury, the first planet, In a little while it would set down on the frigid surface of the last planet. They had come a long way.

Chapter 17. _Stronghold of the Lost Planet_

With a jolt that shoved the three men back in their seats, the rocket plane pushed out the cargo hatch, and slid into the dark of s.p.a.ce on its own power. Behind them, the metallic surface of the _Magellan_ gleamed briefly, and then swung away on its...o...b..t. Riding the red fire of their rockets, they headed on a long low dive for the mysterious surface below.

Pluto was a vast hemisphere, half lighted in the faint, dim glow of the tiny Sun, half in the total darkness of outer s.p.a.ce. Here and there wound a silent, frozen river of glistening white. They pa.s.sed over a gulf of some frigid sea of liquid gases, from which islands of subzero rock projected, and moved inland over a continent of lifeless grays and blacks. Haines gently drew the ship lower and lower, and at last the rocket plane b.u.mped to the ground.

It rolled a few yards and stopped. The three men crowded to the door, tightened their face plates, and forced open the exit. There was a rush of air as the ship exhausted its atmosphere. Then, one by one, they stepped onto the bleak surface of the Sun's farthest planet.

"I feel peculiar," whispered Burl. "This planet reminds me of something."

"I have the feeling I've been here before," Russ said slowly.

Burl felt an odd chill. "Yes, that's it!"

Haines grumbled. "I know what you mean. I can make a guess. We've never really been the right weight since we left Earth. Even under acceleration there were differences one way or the other. But I feel now exactly as I did on Earth. That's what gives you the odd sensation of return."

The two younger men realized Haines was right. For the first time since they had left their home world, they were on a planet whose gravity was normal to them. It felt good and yet it felt--in these fearful surroundings--disconcerting.

Above them was the familiar black, unyielding sky of outer s.p.a.ce. No breath of air moved. Yet somehow the scene resembled Earth. "It's like a black-and-white photo of a Terrestrial landscape," said Burl.

There was a field, some hills, a tiny frozen creek and the dark shapes of rounded mountains in the distance. All without color except for the cold, faint glow of the star that was the Sun.

A thin layer of cosmic dust lay over the surface, such as would be found on any airless world. Russ scooped beneath it and came up with a hard chip.

He squeezed it between his gauntleted fingers. It cracked and broke into powder. He whistled softly. "You know what this feels and looks like?"

he said as they came close to the frozen creek on the little hillside.

"It feels like dirt--common, Earthly dirt. Like soil. And you know what ... I can already tell you one of Pluto's secrets."

They stopped at the creek. It was a layer of frozen crystalline gases.

Haines pushed the alpenstock he was carrying into it and sc.r.a.ped away the gas crystals. "I think I can guess," he said, "and I'll bet there is ice under this gas."

"Pluto was once a warm world with a thick atmosphere," said Russ. "Notice the rounded hills and the worn away peaks of the mountains. Those are old mountains--weather-beaten. This hill is round--weather-beaten. This creek, those rivers of frozen gas--they follow beds that could only be made by real rivers of warm water. The soil that lies beneath this dust--it could only happen on a world that knew night and day, warmth and light, and rain and wind. Pluto was once a living world, a place we'd have called homelike."

Burl shivered a bit. "Out here? So far from the Sun? How and when?"

Russ shrugged. "We'll find that out. But the evidence is unmistakable."

They walked on.

There was a low, cracked wall on the other side of the hill, and beyond the wall stood the roofless ruins of a stone house, silent and gray in the airless scene.

They waited with surprise and uncertainty. Haines drew his compressed air pistol, but there was no movement. The scene remained dead and still--the windows of the house were dark.

They advanced on it and flashed a light inside. It was an empty sh.e.l.l.

There was no gla.s.s within the unusually wide and low window openings, and no door.

"They went in and out the windows," commented Burl, ducking through one of the openings. "And they weren't built like us."

"No," said Russ, "there's no reason to suppose the inhabitants would have been built like human beings."

Inside there was nothing to see, and they left. Beyond, they found a straight depression in the ground filled with flat swirls of cosmic dust. "This looks like a road," said Haines.

They returned to the rocket plane in order to follow the dead roadway more easily. Pa.s.sing between the low, dark cliffs of rocky mountains, they came to a plain marked by thousands of columns of rock, pieces of crumbling walls, and many straight depressions that must have been streets. It was the remains of a world that had died.

They found, as they traveled northward and made intermittent landings, that there had been many cities. Now all lay in ruins. There had been great roadways, now covered with the debris of outer s.p.a.ce. There had been mighty forests, now miles of petrified black stumps. It was a gloomy sight.

In their landings, they had found inscriptions on walls and bas-reliefs carved on mountains. They knew from these what the Plutonians had looked like, and they had a suspicion of what had happened.

The Plutonians had been vaguely like men and vaguely like spiders. They had stood upright on four thin, wide-spread legs and had two short arms.

Their bodies were wide and squat, and they seemed to have been mammalian and probably warm-blooded. They breathed air out of flat, thin nostrils and their heads joined their bodies without necks. Two oval eyes were set below a jutting bald brow. They had worn clothes, they had driven vehicles, they had flown planes.

Their vehicles had globe-shaped power plants. Their airplanes had globes where wings should have been. Their cities and their engines--which existed now only on wall pictures that were probably once advertis.e.m.e.nts--were built along globe-and-rod principles.

"There's no doubt," said Russ, "that the Sun-tapper culture and the Plutonian culture are the same. It's the descendants of the Plutonians that we are fighting."

"But how could they have survived?" Burl asked. "This world was never part of the solar system when it was warm."

"We'll soon know," said Russ. "Tomorrow we're going to see how far we can get into their polar redoubt. Somehow we've got to blow up that last station."

"And I think we three are going to do it," said Haines. "The _Magellan_ will never take the place from the sky. We'll have to do it from the ground."

Now they were reminded of Earth again. For the first time since they had departed from the United States, night fell. They had not been on any other planet long enough for such an experience. But the effect here on Pluto was mild.

Day was like a bright, moonlight night. Night then meant that the dim Sun had set and, in effect, it merely made the landscape slightly darker.