The Three Planeteers

CHAPTER XVII In the Shining Waste

A radioactive world! A world, every atom of which was throbbing with natural or induced radioactivity, constantly emitting streams of deadly radiation, changing slowly and spontaneously through the long ages into different elements farther down the atomic scale! This, then, was the secret of Erebus!

The thing was so stupefying that the Planeteers and old Stilicho and his pirates were silent, stunned. Every man there looked wildly at his neighbor, bewildered by the incredible assertion the Saturnian captain made.

"It's impossible!” John Thorn burst, finally. His eyes were almost dazed in expression. “A whole world of radioactive matter — it can't be true!"

"It is true!” cried the Saturnian captain fearfully. “The girl knew it all the time. Her father, that old space pirate, Martin Cain, discovered it when he came here a generation ago. If he hadn't landed on this mountain, he'd have met the same doom as everyone else who has come here, his ship and his body riddled by the terrific radiation the moment he landed."

"But why in the devil's name should this metal mountain alone on the whole planet remain non-radioactive?’ cried Gunner Welk, his massive face incredulous. “It doesn't make sense."

"I think I understand that,” Sual Av said keenly, his green eyes gleaming. “I took a good look at the black metal of this mountain as we climbed up over it. It's a solid mass of asterium."

"Asterium?” Thorn echoed. “That queer element they've found in meteors from outer space?"

Sual Av's bald head bobbed eagerly. “Yes, the element whose discovery forced them to revise the periodic table — the most inert element ever discovered. It's completely resistant to radioactive action, they found.""

"But asterium was supposed to be an element foreign to our solar system, one formed somehow in far-off giant stars!” cried Gunner. “How the devil would there happen to he a solid mountain of the stuff here on Erebus?"

"This mountain of asterium was not always native to Erebus, if my guess is right,” retorted the Venusian. “This mountain came here from outer space. It's a gigantic meteorite of almost solid asterium that fell here on Erebus in some past age."

"By heaven, I believe Sual's right!” Gunner exclaimed excitedly. “That would explain the peculiar domed shape of the mountain. It's roughly spherical, but half of it is buried."

Old Stilicho Keene had listened, only half-understanding. Now he ventured an anxious question to Thorn.

"If it's doom to step off this mountain as that there Saturnian says, then how could Cheerly and his men and Lana dare to leave here on foot to search for the radite?"

"If my guess is right, they had some sort of protection against the radioactive emanations out there,” Thorn clipped. He turned to the Saturnian officer. “What about it?"

The green-faced captain nodded nervously. “You've guessed it. We were here two days, before Cheerly figured out a way to protect them when they left the mountain. He figured that since the asterium of this mountain is proof against the radioactive emanations out there, he would melt some of the asterium and coat their space-suits with it to make them ray-proof. That's what he did, and it worked all right."

The first Planeteer looked grim. “It'll work for us, too, then!” John Thorn declared. “We'll proof three space-suits for ourselves at once, and go after Cheerly and Lana. We've got to overtake them before they find that radite — for Cheerly will do away with Lana as soon as he has the stuff!"

"But, boy, can't I go with you Planeteers?” old Stilicho pleaded.

"You're needed to stay here and see that these prisoners don't break loose,” Thorn told him. “Take some men back over to the Venture now, and bring it over and park it beside this cruiser. We've got to work rapidly to overtake Cheerly."

Soon the Venture had been brought over the mountain, and settled down beside the Gargol, the Saturnian cruiser. The prisoners were locked in a compartment of their own ship, and a guard set over them.

"You needn't be afraid of us following you out there,” the Saturnian captain told Thorn, with a shiver. “There's none of us would dream of going out in those deadly deserts, among God knows what kind of shining demons that roam there."

"Shining demons?” Sual Av asked the green man. “What are you talking about?"

"We've seen them, from atop the mountain here,” the Saturnian answered with a shudder. “Glowing, unearthly creatures of some kind far out on the blue haze. I don't know what they are."

"You must have seen some dustwhirls, that's all,” Thorn clipped. “Come on, Sual!"

The Planeteers set to work with urgent haste, helped by a party of Stilicho's men. They found the atomic furnace which Jenk Cheerly had set up to melt some asterium was still in place. They had it going in a few minutes.

Wearing their space-suits constantly, the Planeteers and their helpers soon melted down a mass of the solid asterium into liquid state. Then three of their flexible metal space-suits were dipped into the molten black asterium.

The glassite helmets, immune to all heat and cold, were also coated with the black element. Before it hardened on the helmets, Thorn scraped two spots thin, making them semi-transparent for vision.

"It means dim visions but I dare not remove it completely from the eye plates of the helmets,” he muttered. “Anything more would be dangerous, in the hell of radiation that must rage out there."

The asterium coating on the suits and helmets hardened rapidly. When it was cool, they took the ray-proofed suits into the Venture., and put them on in place of the ones they wore.

"Hell, it's as stiff as a suit of armor,” muttered Gunner Welk, as he moved in his new suit.

"And these eyeholes can scarcely be seen through,” complained Sual Av as he donned the helmet.

"Will you two stop chattering and hurry?” John Thorn demanded violently.

His two comrades stared at him. And Thorn realized that he had shouted at them.

"Sorry,” he said hoarsely, “but I'm half out of my head, thinking of Lana out there with Cheerly.",

"We understand,” Sual Av nodded. But we'll find them, sure, before anything happens to Lana. And we're sure of the radite now, if all goes well."

"It isn't only getting the radite that's on my mind,’ Gunner said. His face was deeply troubled, as he added slowly, “Even if we get the radite back safely to Earth to use in Philip Blaine's secret weapon, how do we know that weapon will really save the Alliance from the League attack? What kind of weapon can hope to defeat ten thousand armed cruisers?"

John Thorn felt a chill of foreboding at the big Mercurian's words. Thorn, too, all this time, had been haunted by the very possibility that Gunner had put into words.

"Suppose Blaine's invention fails, after all?” Gunner continued. “Suppose it's sound in theory, but impractical in fact. We don't know a thing about the nature of it, remember!"

"I've thought of that, too,” Sual Av muttered worriedly. “Blaine has the name of one of the greatest physicists in the system. Yet what could he invent that would sweep ten thousand cruisers out of space?"

"Blaine must have something tremendous,” Thorn insisted desperately. “The Chairman has faith in his weapon. We've got to have faith, too, and get the radite that will operate the thing. And we won't get it by delaying here!"

The Planeteers emerged from the Venture, wearing the black, asterium-coated suits and helmets. Stilicho Keene came hastily toward them, holding to the collar of the space dog Ool. The beast reared up against Thorn, its green eyes pleading.

"Ool senses Lana somewhere on this world,” Stilicho said. “Are you going to take him with you?"

"We can't. His unprotected body, non-organic though it is, would be affected by the radiation out there,” Thorn said. He grasped the spacesuited old Martian's hand. “Keep a close watch ever the prisoners, Stilicho. We'll come back with Lana and the radite — or we won't come back at all."

"Good luck to ye,” Stilicho said.

The Planeteers started down the western curved slope of the huge, black meteorite-mountain. Soon they reached the base of the mountain, and stood for a moment, looking out awedly across the uncanny world into which they were to venture.

Under the dark, starry sky stretched the forbidding deserts of Erebus, dim wastes whose every grain of sand throbbed with a faint blue radiance that gathered in drifting azure haze. The shining blue mists swirled and pulsated slowly, wrapping the whole dusky landscape before them, veiling the mountains westward.

They knew that when they stepped out on that blowing waste, into those shining mists, they would be stepping into a hell of radiation streaming ceaselessly from the radioactive mass of the planet — a torrent of alpha particles and of beta rays and of hard gamma radiation as withering as super X-rays.

Determinedly, John Thorn strode forward. The other two Planeteers followed. Their feet sinking slightly into the glowing sand, they trudged westward.

"They felt no change. But when Thorn tried to use his suit-audio, there came from it only a shattering roar. He linked hands with his comrades, speaking to them by conduction of sound.

"The radiation kills our audios completely,” he said. “It's what deadened all our instruments as we approached Erebus."

Sual Av nodded his black-helmeted head vigorously. “The gamma. radiation alone from this mass would do that."

"How in hell's name does this whole world come to be radioactive?” Gunner muttered. “If it was thrown off the sun in a tidal disturbance like the other planets, it should consist of the same kind of matter."

"I believe Erebus is the product of an older and deeper disturbance than that which produced the other planets,” Sual AV said keenly. “A disturbance so deep that it hurled out a mass of the heavier radioactive elements at the sun's heart, which formed a huge radioactive core for this world when it hardened."

"But there must have been some non-radioactive elements here originally, even so,” objected Gunner.

"Yes, but they would inevitably be made radioactive also by the radiation from the core,” Sual Av replied. “You know, the familiar phenomenon of induced radioactivity, which was discovered by the old Earth scientists way back in the first third of the twentieth century. The phenomenon by which a sheet of aluminum or some other normally non-radioactive element will become itself radioactive if subjected to radiation from radioactive elements."

"That must be what has happened,” Thorn agreed. “And any ship that landed here would instantly also become radioactive in every particle, from the same cause."

They trudged on. Weird journey across a blue-hazed planet beneath the eternally nighted sky! On over the desert, crunching the feebly glowing sands beneath their feet, constantly aware that the failure of the asterium coating on their spacesuits would mean death.

They steered by the stars, for the black metal mountain had dropped from sight behind them. Infinitely strange it seemed, on this outermost world so far from the sun, to look up into the dusky sky and see there the familiar, glittering constellations!

Then they glimpsed the western mountains in the distance ahead, looming low, dark and barren-looking through the drifting blue mists. The Planeteers held toward those dreary peaks.

"I see someone ahead!” exclaimed Sual AV suddenly, stopping, “Someone coming toward us."

"It must be Cheerly coming back"’ cried Gunner, his hand darting to the asterium-coated atom-pistol belted outside his spacesuit.

Thorn's heart went cold with fear. If Cheerly was coming back with the radite, it meant Lana was already dead.

"No!” Sual AV cried, stupefied. “It's not Cheerly and his men. Look, it's something shining!"

"Good God, can there be any truth in what those Saturnians told of having seen shining demons out here?” Thorn exclaimed hoarsely.

For the two creatures moving toward them through the blue mists were unbelievable! They were man-formed creatures, but they were glowing with soft blue light!

The two shining things came on, straight toward the Planeteers. And they stopped a few yards away from the three comrades. They wore no space-suits or protection of any kind.

"God!” came Sual Av's thick-voiced exclamation. “They're men — shining men — radioactive men!"

Thorn's brain reeled at the sight. He felt as though he was looking at some weird mirage born of the shining mists.

The two men before him were human in every respect. They wore the tattered remnants of leather clothing such as space-sailors had worn in the past. One of them was tall, rangy of body. The other was smaller, with Martian features.

But both of the two men were glowing. Every atom of their bodies and of their clothing shone with faint radiance. These men were living human beings whose bodies had become as radioactive in every particle as all else on this world!