Planet Of No Return

Hartig sealed the lock and started warily towards the littered battlefield, reporting as he went. “These machines are big, the nearest one to me must be at least fifty yards long. It has tractor treads and is mounted with a single turret with a large gun. That’s destroyed now. No identification visible from this distance. I’m going to take a closer look at it. But I can tell you frankly that I don’t like this. There were no cities visible from space, no broadcasts or transmissions on any of the communication bands. Yet here is this battlefield and these wrecks. And they’re not toys. These things are the products of a very advanced technology. Nor are they any kind of illusion. This thing is solid metal — and it has been blown open by something even solider. Still no insignia or identification anywhere on it that I can see. I’m going to take a look inside. There are no hatches visible from where I’m standing, but there is a hole blown in the side big enough to drive a truck through. I’m going through it now. There may be documents inside, certainly ought to be labels of some kind on the controls …”

Hartig stopped, frozen, one gloved hand clutching the jagged rim of metal around the opening. Had he heard something? With careful motions he raised the gain on his external microphone. But all he could hear now was the wind sighing through the metal skeletons. Nothing else. He listened for awhile, then shrugged and turned to climb through the gaping wound into the machine.

With startling suddenness a distant mechanical clanking echoed from the metal corpses of the battlefield. Hartig turned and dropped, his gun pointing and ready.

“There’s something out there, moving. Can’t see it yet — but I can hear it clearly enough. I’ve switched the external mike to this circuit so the sound will be recorded too. It’s getting louder, wheels, treads maybe, squeaking and clanking. A machine … there!”

With a crash of metal against metal the thing appeared from among the ruined machines. It was smaller than most of the others, no more than five yards long, and hurtled along with frightening speed. Smoothly black and sinister. Hartig raised his gun, then eased his finger from the trigger when he saw that it was turning away from him. Twisting about and accelerating at the same time.

“It’s heading towards my landing ship! It may have detected it when I sat down. Found it by radiation, radar, something. I’m using my remote unit to set all the defences aboard. As soon as that thing gets within range it will be blasted … there!”

Explosion after explosion sounded as the rapid-fire guns aboard the lifeship poured out their deadly fire. The ground shook and fragments of rock and dirt where hurled into the air. The guns stopped and in an instant began firing again as the machine emerged from the dust. Apparently unharmed.

“That thing is fast and tough, but the primaries will get it.”

An even greater explosion shook the ground, clanging through the metal walls around him; a shower of red dust floated down. Hartig stared out, frozen, then began talking again in a toneless voice.

“That was my ship going up. It took just a single shot from that damned thing. Our guns couldn’t touch it. Now it’s turning in this direction. It must be tracking my radio signal, heat radiation, something. No point in turning the radio off now. It’s coming this way — straight at me. I’m shooting now but it doesn’t seem to affect it. I can’t see any ports or windows facing this way. The crew must see by TV relay. I’m trying to shoot out some protrusions on the thing’s front. They may be pickups. Instrumentation of some kind. Doesn’t seem to slow it down — “

The sound of the explosion terminated abruptly as the radio broadcast ended. In orbit, high above, the control centre in the deep spacer began to search automatically for the radio signal, but without any success. Then it tried all of the other broadcast channels. There was nothing. With mechanical tenacity it started over once again and searched with maximum gain, but detected nothing other than atmospherics. After one hour it repeated the search, and every hour after that for the next twenty-four. When this part of the program had been completed it turned on the FTL radio as it had been instructed and sent out the broadcast it had recorded from the man on the ground. When this had been accomplished it would down the power on all of its circuits to minimum maintenance, then wait with infinite patience for its next command.

2: The Smell of Death

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Lea asked. Her shoulder had felt the sudden tensing of Brion’s body where it touched him. They were lying back on the deep lounge, completely relaxed, gazing out of the viewing port at the star-filled darkness of interstellar space. His great arm was about her thin body and she was very aware of its sudden rigidity.

“Nothing is wrong, nothing at all. Will you look at those colours …”