THE STARS ARE OURS

"I am lazy when laziness is of advantage. Much of the troubles from which we have fled have been born of too much rushing about trying to keep busy. There is a time for working as hard as a man can work, yes. But there must also be hours to sit in the sun and think long thoughts anddo nothing at all. Too much rushing wears out the body- and maybe also the mind. We must make haste slowly if we would make it at all!"

Whether it was some lingering effect of the cold sleep they could not decide, but they all found themselves dropping off into sudden naps. Kordov believed that the condition would pass, but Kimber was uneasy as they approached the chosen planet and demanded a stimulant from the First Scientist.

"I want to be awake now," Dard caught a scrap of conversation as he came back from a rest on one of the bunks in the other cabin. "To go off in a dream just when I take the ship into atmosphere-that's not possible. We aren't out of the woods yet-not by a long margin. Cully could take the controls in a pinch, so could Rogan, when you get him out of cold storage. But neither are trained pilots, and landing on unknown terrain is no job for a beginner!"

"Very well, Sim. You shall have your pill in plenty of time. But now you are to go in, lie down, and relax, not fight sleep. I promise that I shall rouse you in plenty of time. And meanwhile Cully will take your seat and watch the course-"

The tall thin engineer, who had said very little since his awakening, only nodded as he folded with loose-limbed ease into Kimber's reluctantly vacated place. He made some small adjustment on the control board and dropped his head back on the chair rest to watch the screen.

During the past hours the points of light had altered. The ball of flame Kimber designated as Sol II had slipped away over the edge of their narrow slice of vision. But the world they had chosen filled most of the expanse now, growing larger by seconds.

Kordov sat down in one of the other chairs to watch with Dard. The sphere on the screen now had a bluish-green tinge, with patches of other color.

"Polar regions-snow." Kordov commented.

Cully replied with a single, "Yeh!"

"And seas-"

To which Cully added the first long speech he had yet made.

"Got a lot of water. Should be picking up all land masses soon."

"Unless it's all water," mused Kordov. "Then," he grinned at Dard over his shoulder, "we shall be forced to leave it to the fish and try again."

"One thing missing," Culley adjusted the screen control for the second time. "No moon-"

No moon! Dard watched that enlarging sphere and for the first time since his awakening the dream-mood of passive acceptance of events cracked. To live under a sky where no silver globe ever hung. The moon gone! All the old songs men had sung, the old legends they had told and retold, the bit of history they cherished, that the moon was their first step into space, all gone. No moon-ever again!

"Then what will future poets find to rhyme with "June" in all their effusions?" rumbled Kordov. "And our nights to come-they will be dark ones. But one can not have everything-even another stepping stone to space. That was how our moon served us-a way station, a beckoning sign post which lured us on and out. If there is or ever was intelligent life down there-they lacked that."

"No sign of space travel?" Cully wanted to know with a spark of interest.

"None. But of course, we can in no way be sure. Just because nothing has registered on our screens we can not say that it does not exist. If we were but a fraction off a well- traveled space lane we would not know it! And now, Dard, we have Rogan to rouse. I promised Sim that he would be on hand to share duty."

Again they made that trip below, lifted out the proper box and brought back to life the man who slumbered in it.

"That is the last one ," stated Kordov when they had established Rogan in the control cabin. "No more until after we land. Hah!"

He had turned to look at the screen and the exclamation was jolted out of him by what he saw there. Land masses, mottled green-blue-red against which seas of a brighter hue washed.

"So we do not join fish. Instead you, Dard, must go and shake Sim back to life. Now is the time for him to be on duty!"

Shortly afterward Dard crouched on one of the acceleration mats beside the unconscious Rogan while the others occupied the chairs before the controls. The atmosphere within the cabin was tense and yet Kimber alone was at ease.

"Rogan come to yet?" he asked without turning his head.

Dard gently shook the shoulder of the man on the next mat. He stirred, muttered. Then his eyes opened and he scowled up at the roof of the cabin. A second later he sat up.

"We made it!" he shouted.

"That we did!" Kordov answered cheerfully. "And now-"

"Now there's a job waiting for you, fella," broke in Kimber. "Come up and tell us what you think of this."