Planet Of No Return

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 …”

“Listen, you darling big slab of muscle, you may be the best weightlifter in the galaxy — but you are also the worst liar. Something has happened. Something I don’t know about.”

Brion hesitated a moment, then nodded. “There’s someone close by, someone who hasn’t been here before. Someone bringing trouble.”

“I believe in your empathetic abilities, I’ve seen them at work. So I know that you can sense other peoples emotions. But we’re in deep space, moving between two suns light years apart — so how can there be anyone new aboard this ship …” She stopped and looked suddenly out at the stars. “A drop sphere, of course. This must be a rendezvous, not just a normal orientation. Is there another FTL ship out there? With someone transferring from it in a drop sphere?”

“Not coming — already arrived. He’s on board now. And he’s coming this way, towards us. I don’t like anything about this. I don’t like the man — or the message that he is bringing.”

With a single flowing motion Brion was on his feet, facing about, fists clenched. Although he was well over six feet tall and weighed nearly three-hundred pounds, he moved like a cat. Lea looked up at the solid mass of him towering over her and could almost feel the tension herself.

“You can’t be sure,” she said quietly. “Undoubtedly you are right about someone coming aboard. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that it has anything to do with us.

“One man dead, two men perhaps. And this one who is coming, he smells of death himself. He’s here now.”

Lea gasped as she heard the lounge door sliding open behind her. She looked over her shoulder fearfully, staring at the opening, not knowing what to expect. There was the shuffle of a soft footstep, then a thud. Shuffle, thud. Closer and louder. Then a man appeared in the open doorway, hesitated there as he looked about, blinking as though he had trouble seeing. It took a decided effort for Lea to conceal her instant feeling of repulsion; she had to force herself not to look away. The man’s single eye moved slowly past her to fix on Brion, Then he started forward again, his twisted foot dragging, the crutch coming down heavily with each step. Whatever force had injured his legs must have also torn away the right side of his face. It was bright pink where a new growth of skin; a patch covered the empty eye socket. His right arm was also missing, but an arm bud had been grafted to his clavicle and within a year he would have a complete, new arm. But right now it was only partly grown, a baby’s arm only about a foot long that dangled helplessly from his shoulder. He limped close, slight and twisted, to stand before Brion’s hulking form.

“I’m Carver,” he said, his name a frightful parody of his condition. “I’m here to see you, Brandd.”

“I know.” The tension drained from Brion’s body as suddenly as it had appeared. “Sit down and rest.”

Lea could not stop herself from moving aside as Carver dropped, sighing, onto the lounge beside her. She could hear his heavy breathing, see the perspiration standing out on his skin as he fumbled a capsule from his pocket and put it into his mouth. He looked sideways at her and nodded. “Doctor Lea Morees,” he said. “They want you too.”

“Culrel?” Brion asked. Carver nodded.

“The Cultural Relationships Foundation. I understand you have worked with us before?”

“We did. It was an emergency …”

“It’s always an emergency. Something very important has come up. I was sent to see you.”

“Why us? We’ve just come from a hell-hole of a planet named Dis. Lea has been ill. We were promised some more time before we would be contacted. We agreed to work for your people again, but not right now …”

“I told you — it’s always an emergency.” Carver’s voice was hoarse and he pressed his good hand between his knees to stop the trembling. It was pain or fatigue — or both — and he was not giving in to it. “I’ve just come from another one of these emergencies, as you can see, or I would be going myself. If it makes you feel any better I know what happened to you both on Dis so I offered to take care of this one myself. They laughed at me. I don’t think it was very funny. Are you both ready now?” He turned to face Brion as he said it.

“You can’t force Lea to go, not now. I’ll take care of it myself.” Carver shook his head.

“You’re to go as a team, the orders were specific about that. Shared talents, a synergistic union.

“I’m going with Brion,” Dea said. I’m feeling much better. By the time we get wherever we’re going I’ll be back to normal.”

“That’s very pleasing to hear. As you know we are a fully voluntary organization.” He ignored Brion’s snort of derision as he struggled a flat plastic box from the pocket of his tunic. “As I am sure you are aware, almost all of our assignments deal only with cultures that are in trouble, societies on planets that have been cut off from the mainstream of human contact for thousands of years. We don’t go near newly rediscovered planets — that’s the job of Planetary Survey. They go in first, then turn their records over to us. They’re a rough outfit, I did four years with Plansurv before I transferred to Culrel.”

He smiled grimly. “I thought this new job would be easier. Plansurv has a problem and they have asked us for help. In cases like this we always say yes. Are you ready to look at these records now?”

“I’ll get a viewer from our cabin,” Brion said.

Carver nodded wearily, too tired to speak.

“Would you like me to order you something?” Lea asked as Brion went out of the lounge.

“Yes, thank you, a drink of some kind. I’ll wash down a pill with it — feel better in a few minutes. But no alcohol, I can’t take any of that yet.”

She felt his eyes on her as she phoned passenger control and gave her order to the computer. When she had finished the call she put back the phone and turned sharply to face him.

“Well — do you like what you see?”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to stare. But I read your history in the records. I never met anyone from Earth before.”

“What did you expect — two heads?”

“I said that I was sorry. Before I left my home world and went into space I really believed that the whole story of Earth was just another religious myth.”

“Well, now you can see for yourself that we are real undernourished flesh and blood. Underfed citizens of an overcrowded and worn out planet. Probably just what we deserve, I imagine you would say.”

“No. I might have at one time. No more. I’m sure that the Earth Empire was guilty of a number of excesses, just the sort of thing we read about in our school books. No one’s in doubt about that. But all of that’s just history now, ancient history thousands of years in the past. What is of much greater importance to me is the fate of all the planets that were cut off after the Breakdown. It wasn’t until I saw for myself what had happened to some of them that I knew what an unyielding and harsh universe it could be. Mankind basically belongs only on Earth. You may feel personally inferior because the overcrowding and limited resources have caused an overall reduction in your size. But you belong on Earth — and are a product of Earth. A number of us may appear larger or stronger than you — but this is because we have been forced to adapt to some cruel and violent worlds. I’ve become used to that — I even accept it as the norm. It wasn’t until I saw you that I realized that the home of mankind was still a reality.” He smiled a crooked grin.

“Please don’t think me foolish for saying this,” he said, “but I experienced a sensation of both pleasure — and relief — when I met you. Like a child discovering his long-lost parents. I’m afraid I’m not saying this very well. It’s like coming home after a long voyage. I have seen the way mankind has adapted to a score of planets. Meeting you is, in a funny way a reassuring bit of knowledge. Our home is still there. I am very happy to meet you.”

“I believe you, Carver.” She smiled. “And I’m forced to admit that I’m beginning to like you too. Though I have to admit that you are not too good to look at.”

He laughed and leaned back, sipping at the cold drink that had been delivered automatically to the table at his side. “Give me a year and you’ll never recognize me.”

“I am sure that will be true. I’m a biologist, an exobiologist, so I know in theory what can be done with restoration growth, I’m sure that you will be as good as new after some time. But that’s just theory — I’ve never seen it in practice before. We’re not rich on Earth, so few of us can afford massive reconstruction like yours.”

“This is one of the few benefits of working for Culrel. They put you back together again no matter how badly you get butchered. I’m going to have a new eye behind this patch in a few months.”

“How very nice. But speaking personally I would like to avoid all the benefits of this kind of reconstruction if you don’t mind.”

“Good luck in that — I don’t blame you.”

They both looked up as Brion returned with the viewer. He took the recording cartridge from Carver and slipped it into the mechanism. He and Lea bent close as the screen lit up. Carver collapsed back and listened to the recording while he sipped at his glass. He had heard it often before and he dozed a bit through the early material, but snapped awake as it approached the end. Hartig’s recorded voice continued to speak, sounding calm and precise, although he faced certain extinction, still trying to the last to leave a record for those who would follow after him. Lea was horrified as the recording ended and the screen cleared; Brion’s impassive face displayed no emotion as he turned to Carver.

“And Culrel wants us to go to this planet, Selm-II?” He asked. Carver nodded. “Why? This looks more like a job for the troops. Shouldn’t they be sending something large and well armed that can take care of itself?”

“No. That’s exactly what we don’t want. Experience has proven that armed intrusion is never the answer. War does not work. War kills. What we need is knowledge, information. We must know what is happening on this planet. We need skilled people like you two. Perhaps Dis was your first assignment, something that you were drafted into against your wishes. But you succeeded magnificently, doing what the specialists themselves said couldn’t be done. We want you to put those talents to use here. I’ll not deny that it could be terribly dangerous. But it must be done.”

“I hadn’t planned on living forever,” Lea said, then leaned over to order some strong drinks. Her flippancy did not fool Brion.

“I’ll go by myself,” he said. “I can do this better alone.”

“Oh no you can’t, you great big brainless slab of muscle. You’re not bright enough to be let out alone. I go with you or you don’t go. Try to go by yourself and I will shoot you right here to save the expense of transporting you there just to be knocked off.”

Brion smiled at this. “Your sympathy and understanding are most touching. I agree. Your logical arguments have convinced me that that it would be best if we went together.”

“Good.” She grabbed up the glass as soon as it appeared from the dispenser and drank deeply from it. “What’s the next step, Carver?”

“A difficult one. We must convince the captain of this ship to change course and divert to Selm-II. An operational craft will be in orbit around the planet by now and will be waiting for us there.”

“What’s difficult about that?” Brion asked.

“l see that you have never met the captain of a deep spacer before. They are all very firm minded. And in absolute command while in flight. We can’t force him to change course. We can only convince him.”

“I’ll convince him,” Brion said, standing and looming large over them both. “We’ve taken on this assignment and no little spaceship driver is going to stand in our way.”