Rocket to Limbo Read online

  “I’m afraid the facts don’t bear you out,” said Lambert. “I’m sorry. But I don’t see any other explanation. He must have known what was up, and yet he gave no warning.”

  They sat about the fire, waiting as a half hour passed, then an hour. A gray dawn was creeping up the horizon as they peered anxiously in the direction of the ship. “You— you think they’ll blast if they get to the ship and take it?” Lars asked.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “But that would leave us—”

  “Yes. It would leave us in trouble, bad trouble.” Lambert’s lips were a grim line. “Keep watching. We’ll see the blast from here.”

  They watched, expecting momentarily to see the bright orange-red jet trail suddenly rise into the sky. But there was no sign. At last they heard noises down the trail, and Fox and Klein sat wearily down by the fire. Defeat was written in heavy lines across their faces. “You saw it, I suppose,” Fox said lifelessly.

  “Saw it?” Lambert frowned.

  “The blast-off. You must have seen it from up here.”

  “We didn’t see any blast-off,” Lars said stolidly. “We’ve been watching.”

  Fox and Klein exchanged puzzled glances. “That’s odd,” said Fox. “We followed them, and dragged ourselves across the river on the line, they’d conveniently cut loose the rafts. We followed their trail clear across the delta to the place where the ship had been. They must have been successful, taken Dorffman and the others by surprise.”

  “Look,” said Lars. “That ship never blasted, with Salter and his crowd in charge of it, or anybody else.”

  “It must have,” Commander Fox said grimly. “Because it’s gone. There isn’t any ship on the delta where we set her down. There’s nothing out there.” He looked intently at Lars and Lambert and Klein. “And you know what that means. That means we’re stranded here. It means we’ve got to reach that ship up there on the ridge, and reach her fast if we don’t want to starve to death.”

  Chapter Nine

  The Thing On The Ridge

  It took Lars several moments fully to realize the enormity of what Commander Fox was saying. The Ganymede was gone. They had not seen it go, nor heard it go, but it was gone nevertheless. Like the silent deserters who had rifled the packs and departed during the night, the ship had suddenly and incredibly vanished. They were alone—Fox, Jerry Klein, John Lambert, and himself. They had power for their heater-suits for another twenty-eight hours, perhaps; at best there could be only food enough for two days left in the packs. Beyond that, nothing.

  “What about Lorry and his group?” Lambert was asking quietly.

  “No sign of them. They may still be sleeping, for all I know.”

  “Shouldn’t we try to contact them?”

  “It would mean crossing the river at least once, and then crossing back,” Fox said slowly. “It would mean losing heat and using up an extra day’s food. Assuming that they’re alive, that is. No, we’re going to need that heat and food ourselves, John. We can only hope and pray that there’s more food up there—” he glanced up the black cliffs of the ridge—“where the bag we found came from. I don’t think we’d survive very long trying to live off the land.”

  “At least we could give them a burst of gunfire,” Klein offered. “Then they’d know we were still alive.”

  “We could try it,” Fox said cautiously. “Just a short round, though. We may need the ammunition.”

  Klein lifted his machine pistol and fired a rapid volley. The sharp crack-crack-crack echoed and re-echoed down the valley, as they stood waiting, listening for a return.

  Nothing. Silence, except for the rising wind.

  “They’ll go the same way we’re going,” Fox said finally. “There’s only one way to go, and that’s up. We’d better get going.”

  His voice was lifeless, but his eyes glinted with anger. Quickly they checked the gear that remained. Lars’ estimate of two days’ food was optimistic: there were two meals apiece for them, not counting the few cans in the Planetfall bag they had discovered. They opened the first of the cans now, and ate with a pretense of heartiness that none of them felt. Lambert found his medical pack intact, and handed around stress-caps. “Any idea how long it’ll take us to get up there?”

  “Too long,” Fox growled.

  “Well, these will be good protection if we don’t have to depend on them too heavily.”

  “I still don’t see why we didn’t see the ship blast,” Lars said. “Could they have thrown it straight into Koenig drive without clearing the planet?”

  “If they did, we’re better off than they are, because they’d all be dead. They’d have disintegrated half the planet and blown themselves to atoms. No, Salter was a navigator. He knows you have to be in free space to use the drive.”

  “I still don’t see how they could have blasted,” Lars said doggedly.

  “Do you want to go back there and look for yourself?” Fox snapped. “Do you think I’m blind? Or are you just so sold on your friend that you can’t admit to yourself that he’s turned traitor? Eh? Well?”

  “There’s no point to fighting about it,” Lambert cut in. “It’s not there. All right. That cuts it pretty thin for us. We’d better make the best of what we’ve got.”

  Fox glowered at Lars for a moment; then his face softened. “John’s right,” he said. “Sorry. I guess I just needed something to strike out at. Have we got those packs ready? Let’s move.”

  They moved. They had no enthusiasm for it, but they realized that now was the time to make speed, while they had warmth and food. The started up the trail toward the jutting ridge, Fox and Klein leading, Lars and Lambert behind. The wind was high now, bearing down on them as though to hinder progress as much as it could, and angry black clouds scudded across the bleak sky.

  “How long can a man go without food?” Lars asked Lambert as they worked their way up the rocky animal trail.

  “With plenty of water, quite a while. Provided he doesn’t have to use up his energy moving, and provided he has no coldness and wetness to worry about. It isn’t food we have to worry about for a while yet. If you want to fret about something, fret about pneumonia, or broken legs.”

  The latter, at least, was an ever present danger. The tough underbrush covered the trail, giving way from time to time to piles of broken rock, the remains of ancient slides. Soon the trail took a sharp upward course as they moved around the face of the ridge they had seen the night before, blanking out their view of the mountain ridge beyond. What if they, too, found blank cliff waiting for them around the abutment? Lars felt his slender nylon cord looped around his shoulder. It was strong, but one man had to get up a cliff before others could climb a rope.

  It took several hours of work to reach the end of the obstruction, but finally they broke out on a high rounded knoll and could see the rising crags before them. The cliff extended up from the far side of the river, where the stream of water coursed over it in a gigantic waterfall. But here there was a break in the obstructing wall. A jagged slide-course of boulders slanted up through a split in the cliff, reaching to a snow-covered plateau above. Far above this, as the clouds broke, they caught a glint of metal.

  “It’s bad,” Fox said. “It’ll take a day at least to get up that slide, if we can do it without breaking our necks. And then I’m not certain we can get onto those higher ridges that lead to the ship.”

  Jerry Klein studied the course with field glasses. “I’ve done some climbing back home,” he said. “It looks possible— barely—from here. Of course, I don’t know what it’ll look like from there.”

  “I wish we had Kennedy’s films,” Fox said.

  “They wouldn’t help much. It isn’t the horizontal plane that worries me, it’s the vertical. That’s a vicious rise there.”

  “But it looks possible?”

  “I think so.”

  “Then let’s move,” said Commander Fox.

  They did not reach the top of the rock-slide by darkn
ess. The day was spent scrambling over boulders the size of a house, working their way like a creeping snake up the treacherous mountainside. In full daylight it was difficult enough; when darkness fell Fox shook his head bitterly and waved the others in to a small cul-de-sac in the rock. “We’ll have to stop here. Let’s have a little food.”

  They were exhausted and ravenous. They took half-rations, and felt as though they had eaten nothing. Then they tried to find comfortable places to sleep. It was hopeless. Lars dozed, jerking awake a dozen times as the hard rocks pushed through his heater-suit About midnight it began to snow, huge white flakes piling up on the dozing men, drifting against the rocks. Then Lars awoke to find his hands and toes numb with cold, and knew that his heater-pack was exhausted.

  By daylight they were all cold. The food warmed them a little, but it was nearly the last, and it was not enough. They stomped themselves warm in the snow, and peered up into the blustery grayness that lay above them.

  “Let’s move,” said Fox. They moved.

  With aching limbs they started on up the slide. The ventilated suits were a burden now, insulating them somewhat, but growing too warm as they climbed, chilling them to the bone when they stopped. The whiteness around them grew thicker as they climbed, but Lars paid no attention to the surroundings. He kept his eyes on Jerry Klein’s boots above him, and followed, step by step upward, as the trip began to dissolve into a series of nightmare impressions, fleeting thoughts, almost-hopeless hopes.

  Movement—to keep warm, to keep moving. Upward, always upward. A pause after what seemed like days, to finish the rations, melt some of the snow for water. Then on again. One foot forward, then the other. A scramble, a shout, a flurry of snow as Fox lost his footing, starting a small slide down toward them, and then the pause to rope together. Another pause, as they reached the top of the slide, searched the crags above for a way to reach further up.

  Darkness, and coldness, another dawn. Above them, the mountain like a living, malignant thing, daring them to keep coming, but high on a ridge near the summit, a glint of metal, a glint of hope.

  They moved upward.

  It was too easy to despair. Lars found himself thinking bleakly of the wreck high above them on the ridge. Would they find food there? Would the generators still work, would there be recharges for their heater-packs? There had to be, if they hoped to survive. But there was more up there, more waiting for them. For the hundredth time Lars remembered Peter Brigham’s words: It just doesn’t fit, any of it. And we won’t nail it until we reach that wreck and find out what really happened to the Planetfall.

  And over it all, the growing conviction that they were not alone on this planet, somehow, that somewhere alien eyes were watching, waiting.

  On the fourth day they met the remainder of Lorry’s group.

  It was a sorry reunion. They met on a high ridge, where Fox and his group had fought for hours to climb a series of rocky abutments. Tom Lorry spotted them from the other side of the ridge and shouted; then he was running toward them, with Bob Kennedy at his heels. Behind came Marstom, the engineer. There were no others.

  “Where are the rest?” Fox demanded when they had joined into a huddled group on the ridge.

  “Three of them ran out,” Lorry panted. “We all started up when we found the ship gone, but Blair broke his ankle. I left him down below with Burger and all the food we had. They’ve got fuel, and some protection from the wind. We started on up then. How is your food supply?”

  “It isn’t,” Fox said.

  “Then let’s get going. There’s got to be food in that wreck.”

  They moved upward.

  That night Kennedy began coughing, and so did Marstom. By morning both were feverish. Fox and Lars had frostbitten fingers which Lambert nursed back to warmth again. The wind was back, cold and biting, carrying drifts of sleet down the mountainside upon them. Lambert loaded both men with antibiotic, and distributed the rest of his stress-caps. They had lost sight of the wreck above them now; they were too close against the mountainside. But Klein thought he saw a way up.

  “We can’t take these men with fevers,” Lambert protested.

  “We can’t leave them here. Maybe there’ll be some shelter when we get up there, some food.”

  Both men agreed. Marstom had difficulty with his breathing as they started to hike again, but by stopping periodically he was able to keep up. Kennedy was wracked with coughing. They moved up one cliff face, then another. Only once that day did they see their goal. It looked as distant as the day they had started. But they knew it couldn’t be. “Another push, a hard one, tomorrow and we might make it,” Fox said hopefully. “We’ll have to start as soon as there’s any light at all. How are the sick ones?”

  “I’m nearly out of drugs,” Lambert said.

  “But they’re holding their own?”

  “For now.”

  “There may be drugs on the ship.”

  “If there’s just some food it’ll suit me,” Jerry Klein growled. “There might even be some way to salvage it, you know.”

  “Of course!” Fox said, forcing enthusiasm. “If only the engines are reparable, it wouldn’t be tough to repair a wrecked shell. But we can’t do it down here. Let’s try to sleep now, and then move. I don’t want to spend another night on this iceberg with a rock for a pillow.”

  “It’ll be a tough climb tomorrow,” Klein warned.

  “So we climb,” said Fox. “At least we’ll stay warm that way.”

  That night Lars began coughing, felt the unnatural heat of fever in his cheeks. By the time light was visible, he felt groggy, stumbling forward with the others in a dim half-world of unreality. He was tired, tired beyond words, tired with a bone-weariness that cut all purpose out of his steps, as he fell mechanically into his place in line. He didn’t even mention the fever to Lambert, what was the use? The drugs were almost gone. It seemed as though he were wrapped in a cocoon, miles away from the rest of the group, looking down on them as they moved up the steep face of the mountain. He found himself chuckling to himself, and caught himself sharply, shaking his head to bring reality closer.

  They moved at infinitesimal speed, but they moved. A series of rock wall jutted up above them, vanishing into snow-clouds. Jerry Klein studied the wall, then began shinning up, wedging his feet into crevasses, seeking hand-holds, the coil of nylon cord over his shoulder. He vanished into the gloom as the others waited, not talking, not even looking up—just waiting. Then they heard his call, as the nylon swished wetly down to them, and they pulled themselves up, one by one. Lambert strapped Kennedy and Marstom tightly to the rope, and Lars and Fox pulled from above to help them up. One such climb behind them, another loomed up, and another. With each passing moment Lars’ hopes sank; he was moving in a dream now, hardly paying attention to anything. It was a delusion all along, he thought. We shouldn’t have hoped to make it.

  But always there was the flicker of hope, wan and fading, but present. They took the next rock wall, and steadied themselves for the next.

  But there wasn’t any next.

  They were on a snowfield, a high narrow valley stretching up to the very summit of the mountain beyond. Clouds scudded across, blotting out the peak, then revealing it again, and the snow was a fuzzy blanket as it fell. Across the snowfield was a crag that wasn’t a crag, but the jets of a Star Ship, dimly outlined, one fin raised in gray silhouette against the sky. A cry went up, and Fox and Lorry were running through waist-deep snow, fighting their way toward the distant outline. Lars stumbled after them as Kennedy and Marstom fell to their knees, then scrambled up again in their eagerness. A cloud blotted out the view, but they had seen it, they knew it was there. Half laughing, half crying, Lars stumbled after the dark figures of Fox and Lorry, leaving Lambert to catch up as he could.

  Then, as if a signal had been given, the snow stopped and the obscuring cloud lifted. They were very near the wrecked ship now, near enough to see the detail, when Commander Fox stopped cold in his track
s, staring at her. Lorry stumbled, gripped Fox’s shoulder, and pulled himself erect again, panting as he too stared. Something cold crept up Lars’ spine; he stopped, blinking at the thing on the ridge ahead of him. It was a ship, a Star Ship, the goal they had fought so hard for.

  But the ship didn’t look right.

  The lines were wrong, and it was too big. The part they could see rising up from the snowfield was not the full length of the hull, but only a fragment. It was a pile of wreckage, half-buried in silt and snow, disintegrating from the brutal weathering of many decades.

  Lars rubbed his eyes, his mind denying what his eyes told him as he stumbled forward toward the wreck. It was an Earth ship—true—but it was not the Star Ship Planetfall. Barely legible letters on the windbeaten hull spelled out another name, the name of a ship that had left Earth over three hundred years before, taking its crew out bravely and blindly on the Long Passage.

  The thing on the ridge was the wreck of the Star Ship Argonaut.

  Chapter Ten

  The Thing In The Valley

  For as much as five minutes they stood staring incredulously at the wraith before them, not moving, the only sound their panting breath. Snow began falling again, lazily, spinning down in their faces, falling to form yet another layer of snow on the ancient wreckage before them.

  Then Jerry Klein burst forward with a sob. He tripped over a buried piece of hull plate, dragged himself to his feet and ran into the dead, swinging airlock door. He braced himself, peering in, and the door crashed off its hinges in his hand. “Nothing!” he cried. “There’s nothing here. It’s dead, dead.”

  He slammed the hull with his fist, and it jerked and swayed dangerously. As Fox and Lambert ran forward, Klein ducked into the gaping lock; they could hear him crashing about inside like a wild man.

  And then they were all moving about the decaying ship, hoping against hope that their eyes had been playing tricks, searching for a sign of life, something to restore their hope. They moved through the twisted wreckage numbly, like ghosts of a time long past, searching for something they could no longer hope to find.