The Planet Mappers, E. Everett Evans [cheapest way to read ebooks .TXT] 📗

feet tall. Even so, they looked too large in diameter for their height. None of them had more than five or six twigless, leafless limbs, and those were almost as large in diameter as the trunks from which they grew. These branches twisted and curved, although in most cases the curve was upward, so that the leafless limbs often ended at a higher point than the main trunk of the tree.

Suddenly Jak began laughing—but with a high-pitched, mirthless laughter. As Jon looked at him in surprise, the elder tried to calm himself.

"I know what makes them look so scary," he finally said between gasps. "It's that weird look. But remember those pictures we've seen of the Zona and Newmex deserts in Noramer, back home? Remember the Josha trees growing there? They're as alien-looking as anything on Terra, and these look something like them."

Jon, too, began grinning as remembrance came. "'Most let ourselves get scared over nothing, didn't we? Come on, let's travel." And he started forward.

Yet the strangeness persisted, and before the boys had passed through the fringe of those tortured trees on the other side of that wood they started to get that queazy feeling again, in spite of their realization of what caused it. They began going more slowly, cautiously; ready for a quick turn and run, yet both inwardly hating themselves for the fear, and each determined not to let the other know he was afraid.

But it was with a distinct sense of relief that they saw the end of that forest ahead of them. Unconsciously they hurried their steps until they were almost trotting.

For the balance of their trip Jon was strangely acquiescent as Jak became more and more engrossed in the strange plant life of this world Three. He knew that this was Jak's dish, and he was perfectly willing to defer to the elder's knowledge and desire to learn. His main concern was to keep his brother from overloading himself with specimens, or from loitering too much.

Jak had been especially studying the soil here, Jon noticed, and finally he asked about it. "Notice one peculiar thing about this planet?"

"What's on your mind?"

"The total absence, as far as we've seen, of any sort or type of protoplasmic life," Jak reported.

"Hey, that's right, though I hadn't thought of it before. Our examination from the air, I remember now, showed no animals, birds or people. Plenty of vegetation, though."

"Yes, it has everything in that line. I wonder, though...." He paused, and he grew thoughtful.

"Wonder what?"

"How those plants can grow, without any worms or ants or anything to loosen and irrigate the soil, and no animals or birds to make fertilizers, or bees or butterflies or anything to carry pollen?"

Jon shrugged. "Wouldn't have the foggiest. That's your line, not mine. But they must do it some way—there's sure lots of plant life here."

But Jak was still shaking his head in puzzlement as they finally returned to the ship.

It was quite dark outside when the boys went into the control room after dinner. Jon went over to the window-ports, while Jak began working with his plant specimens.

"Jak, come here," Jon called after a moment or two. The elder, prompted by the curious urgency in his brother's voice, left his specimens and ran to the other's side.

"What're those things?"

Jak stared through the port in amazement. Outside, drifting across the clearing, were nearly a dozen large, spherical things like ghostly white balloons. They must have been almost a yard in diameter, and by straining their eyes the boys could see tentacles or tendrils of some sort depending from the bottom surfaces.

"Gosh, never saw anything like those. Let's go out and see what they are."

"Let's not and say we did," Jon retorted. "I want to find out more about them first." He went over to the control panel and switched on the searchlight, as well as the pilot's visi-screen. Looking into the latter, he was able to direct the light so it shone on a couple of the floating balls.

Jak was studying the plants—for so he believed them to be—more carefully, now that they were lighted. But after a moment he yelped excitedly, "Hey, they're deflating. Must be the light does it."

Jon was watching them in his screen. "Yes, I see now. What causes it?"

"I don't know," Jak answered sadly and absently. "But I sure want to know. How's about covering me while I go out and see if I can get one?"

"Well, maybe in your suit you'd be safe."

Once suited up, Jak went outside and across the short distance to where the balls seems to be slightly closer together. He tried first one way and then another to catch one, but at his lightest touch they burst and deflated. After several unsuccessful attempts, though, he called excitedly through his suit-sender.

"Jon, you read me?"

"Coming through."

"I'm going to try fanning one toward the air-analyzer. I want to see if we can get an idea of what's inside. I've got a screwy hunch."

"Right, I'll switch the light away from them, up into the air."

Carefully Jak herded one of the globes near the ship, and was finally successful in getting it close to the hull-vent of the air-analyzer. When it was almost touching the ship's side, he reached out and touched it, and it promptly broke.

"Get anything?" he yelled.

"Yes, gas of some sort. Taking the reading now. It seems to be mostly nitrogen."

"Hah, that's it, then! I'm coming in."

When Jak was back inside, Jon helped him remove his helmet, then demanded curiously, "What's it all about, Owl?"

"I'm not positive, of course, but I bet those things take the place of bees for pollinating, and also furnish the fertilizer for the ground when they burst and their nitrogen gets into the soil some way."

8

Later that evening Jon Carver sat for nearly an hour, studying intently from one of his reelbooks, and the frown on his face grew deeper and deeper.

Jak had been working over their father. He had given him a careful sponge bath, then fed him another intravenous dosage of the combined liquid protein, salt, sugar and glucose. Even though their mother had been able to spoon-feed her husband small amounts of food each day, the young hoped-to-be doctor felt additional nourishment was necessary.

When he finished his task and started to seek a comfortable seat in the living quarters of the space yacht, to relax with a little reading of his own, he noticed his brother's intent look and worried face.

"What's the matter, Jon?"

"Eh?" The younger boy looked up, startled, from his deep study. Then, as Jak repeated the question, he answered unhappily, "I just don't know enough, Owl. I can't figure out why Pop found such strong spectroscopic lines of that new element while we were billions of miles away, and yet we can't find any traces of it anywhere on these planets, except what we found in that cache."

"Maybe it's in the sun."

"I tried that when we were out there, but 'Annie' didn't even peep."

The elder brother studied the problem a moment.

"Could it be so strong that even the little bit we found would have shown those lines?"

"Maybe," doubtfully, "but I don't think so. Tomorrow morning, when the sun comes up, I'm going to try to take a new reading from here. I tried to read Two, but couldn't get anything. However, I'm not so hot with the regular spectrograph, and that's why I'm boning up on it."

"Is this important?" Their mother had laid her sewing in her lap to listen to them, trying to follow and understand what her sons were talking about.

"Pop thought it was, Mom," Jon explained. "One of the things men have been looking for ever since they first started dreaming of rockets and spaceships, was the best possible fuel. We knew the one we're using now isn't the ultimate, but it's the best they've been able to get so far. Pop thought perhaps this new stuff might be it—if we could find it, and if we could learn how to use it."

"Why can't we use it if you find it?" Jak wanted to know.

"There are so many problems. Maybe it would be so radioactive we wouldn't be able to handle it or keep it in the storage bins without endangering the people on the ship. Maybe the exciters and convertors wouldn't handle it without a lot of new experimenting and new designs we wouldn't have the scientific or technical know-how to make. Or it might be that instead of getting a steady stream of power as we do with our present activated-copper fuel, the stuff would want to blow up all at once. If the metal's as powerful as I think it is, it might cause an explosion that would make man's biggest H- or C-bomb look like a firecracker."

"Then don't you go experimenting with it and blow us all up," his mother said sharply.

Jon grinned at her. "You needn't worry about that, Mom, now that I've had a chance to learn how little I know. Although I would've gone off half-cocked that day you stopped me—for which I'm grateful, even though I was sore at you for a while then. But I'm sure going to study it as soon as we get the other markers set and can get back to Two."

"By that time Father will be well again," Jak said.

"Isn't it wonderful that he really is coming around all right? Seems to be taking an awful long time for him to recover fully, though."

"I'm sure he'll be his own keen self again soon ... although he'll have to stay in bed until that leg is strong enough to stand on again."

"Well, let's hit the sack, so we can get a good start in the morning. 'Night, Mom."

During their journeys over the surface of Planet Three the boys conscientiously tended the machines and recorders that gave them the data on land and water conditions, the proportions of each, the approximate amounts of metallic ores their analyzers showed, the information on weather, temperature and humidity. They took numerous pictures as required by law—their mother often helping in this, after Jak had taught her how to operate the cameras. These pictures Jak developed and printed as he had time, and mounted them in their data book for the Colonial Board to study when they got back. They also mapped and recorded the size and distances of Three's two moons.

Jak named these "Zinnia" and "Begonia," much to Jon's sarcastic and openly-expressed derision.

"This'll make a swell home for people who like cold weather." Jak tried to change the subject.

"Yes, just as Two will for those who like it hotter." Jon's eyes shone. "Pop sure picked a winner when he decided to explore this system. Even with just these two worlds he has a prize."

"If they accept our work as proof. Wonder what the fourth planet will be like?" Jak continued in a different tone.

"Cold. Lots colder, probably, than Mars."

"Then it won't do us any good?"

"Depends on what's on it in the way of metals that can be mined. Maybe we'll find something there. Might be natural gems or jewels, too."

"And anyway, cold never stopped man."

"That's right," Jon said admiringly. "They have mines on Pluto, even—although they're mostly worked by automatics while the men stay warm in their bubble-cities."

As the Star Rover approached closer to the distant, smaller planet they had named "Jon," their instruments showed it to have a diameter of about 4400 miles, and a density of about 4.6, a little lighter than Terra. This meant the gravity would be a bit weaker, and they would weigh less than on their home planet. Four was almost a quarter of a billion miles from the sun, and would be very cold, as Jon had said.

While their ship drove in closer, the boys' mother came into the control room. All three Carvers stared excitedly into their visiplates, watching their rapid approach to this new world. Would they find anything of value there, or was it simply a barren wasteland of ice and frozen air and rocks, far too cold and forbidding for men even to bother trying to explore it?

When Jak, eyes still glued to the telescopic sights of his spectro-analyzer, voiced something of this, Jon drawled, "You know better than that, Owl. We said just yesterday that there's no place, no matter how bad, that man won't explore to see if there's anything he can possibly use. They'll follow us here, don't worry."

After cruising about the surface for some time, recording their data and taking the needed pictures, they saw a fairly level valley, ice-covered and bare, and Jon set the ship down there. By now he was becoming an expert astrogator and pilot, and with his new controls they could hardly feel the jar of the ship's landing.

"How's the temp outside?"

Jak was examining the gauges.