Planet of Dread

sal of the coming of night. In the beginning there

immutable. They feed upon specific prey-spiders are an exception, but they are not insects at all-and they lay their eggs in specific fashion in specific places, and they behave according to instincts which are so detailed as to leave them no choice at all in their actions. They move blindly about, reacting like

brighter, and presently was as brilliant as dried blood. Again presently it was crimson over all the half-mile circle that hum

tinking combatants who'd rent and torn each other the evening before, there remained hardly a trace. Here and there, to be sure, a severed sa

ollows into which those carcasses could descend. They pushed the yeasty, curdy stuff up and around the sides of those to-be-desired objects. The dead warriors sank little by little toward oblivion as the process went on. The up-thrust, dug-out material co

he Nadine's control-room, co

leigh, frowning. "How's it pa

," said Moran. "Anyhow the Malabar's crew broke som

boats are

all of them even if they didn't need them for the cr

bessendium

can't guess at the weight, but it's a lot. They o

ha

return with bessendium coming out of the Nadine's waste-pipes and people will be surprised but not suspicious. You'll file for mineral rights, and cash your cargo. Everybody will get busy trying to gr

d uncomfortably; "One wonders abou

hat paid for the lost ship? The heirs of the crew? How'd you find them?" Then he added amusedl

t breakfast was ready. Moran had never heard him speak i

he'll be so gloom

curtly, "by the government we were fight

what I said," sa

very quiet, too. He took very seriously the fact that Moran had saved his life at the risk of his on the day before. Brawn breakfasted in a subdued, moody fashion. Only Hallet

you brought back from the wreck is worth fifty thousa

nly pay for a fleet of space-liners, and I'd

there in bulk?"

s," Moran told him. "I didn't count the balance, but there were several times as many un

. His eyes glistened. "Bill

han one," said Moran mildly. "Th

h said

rd to lose anybody, and if we have to fight the creatures

piece of br

yeast surface, I can burn a hole and drop down in it. The monsters are stupid. In most cases they'll go away because they

h consi

he admitted

et s

hat work before

greed Moran. "Anyhow my lif

Moran looked after he

f our leaving you behind," s

tou

ip to come for you, qu

will," said

ey could not escape to space whenever matters got too hot for them aground. For a spaceman to trifle with interstellar-traffic laws meant at the least that they were grounded for life. But the probabilities were much worse than

out preliminary scientific questioning. Modern techniques of interrogation were not torture, but they stripped away all concealments of motive and to a great degree revealed anybody who'd helped one. Moran had killed a man in a fair fight the other man did not want to engage in. If he were caught on Coryus or returned to it, his motivation could

such thoug

n who jumped down one of them would be safe against attack except from directly overhead, which was an unlikely direction for attack by an insect. Carol had seen a wasp fly past the day before. She said it was as big as a cow. A sting from such a monster would instantly be fatal. But n

rom a control-room port as he progressed. He entered the wreck through the lock-doors he'd uncovered. Harper followed doggedly, not less t

g the particularly inconvenient passageways of a ship lying on its side instead of standing uprig

It was a pillow. Caro

Moran. "Not too full

poured purple crystals in

," said Moran.

Harper. "I ow

o he tries to hire to come after me! And by getting this cargo-shifting business in operation! The Na

a singular oversight for a crew abandoning ship. But, of course, they'd been distracted not only by their predicament but by the decision to carry part of the ship's preciou

en of the yacht. They did not make a continuous chain of men moving back and forth between the two ships. Three men came, and loaded up, and went back.

that a gigantic beetle neared the ship and would apparently pass between it and the yacht. At the time, Bra

ed eyes. It seemed to drag itself effortfully over the elastic surface of the ground. It passed a place where red, foleated fungus grew in a fantastic absence of pattern on the surface of the ground. It went through a st

door, heard her tell Harper that the beetle would pass very close to him and to st

ut the beetle went on, unaware of Harper. It crawled toward the encircling mist upon some errand of its own. It was mindl

h relief, told him it was safe. He went doggedly on to the Nadin

of the airlock and moved across the fungoid world. He carried a king

ed to slip just when Moran completed filling it. It toppled and spilled half its contents on the cargo-hold floor, which had been a sidewall. He began painstakingly to gather up the precious st

athering up the dropped crystals, "how

ious at all,

ong when the Nadine lifts?-If there's a

n. "Certainly! But th

Hallet. "I know i

is the

Hallet significantly.

stance away. Hallet stood up

ut. I'll tell you w

heard him exchange words with Harper and Brawn, back with empty bags to fill with crystals

er was about to follow Brawn, Moran almost duplicat

some excuse to stay behind a moment and talk to me without th

next trip. It was not until near midday that h

ff his helmet and turned off the ph

between the hulls to dump it in. I've told Carol, too, that we've got to do

drily, "so nobody will put aside a particul

et had said and what he'd answered

ly out of fear that if he were captured he'd break down and reveal what he knows of the Underground

ts leaders be trusted. But it is also important that they be capable of flint-like hardness on occasion. To Moran, it seemed that Burleigh had not quite the adamantine

lected to take his identity. But what happens from now on is your business. Beginning this moment, I'm taking c

eigh unhappily, "i

n sarcastically. "Now take yo

ng open the strong plastic boxes of bessendium so their co

or Moran without corresponding bad fortune for the others. Obviously, Moran couldn't be hidden on the Nadine during the space-port sterilization of the ship which prevented plagues from being

e a gigantic flying thing hovered overhead. Carol did not know what it was, but its bulging abdomen ended in an organ which appeared to be a sting. It was plainly hunting. There was no point in fighting it. Presently it

with an undulating motion of all its segments, one after another. It seemed well over ten yards in length, and its body appeared impossibly m

were alive, but they would be the activities of ten and twelve-inch beetles who lived in subterranean tunnels in it. There were those preposterous noises like someone rattling a stick along a pi

d to a matter the wreck's long-dead crew should have done when they left it. Now, in theory, the Nadine should lift off and take Moran to some hastily scouted spot not too far from the ice-cap. It should leave him there with what

y into his helmet-phone. "Everyth

ice from the ship. It was shivery. It

uld ever become a home for men. If there were some strangeness in its constitution that made the descendents of insects placed upon it grow to be giants, humans would not want to settle on it. And there were plenty of much more suitable worlds. So the wrecked space-ship wo

more than a little distance upward. The Nadine had landed upon a world with tens of millions of square miles of surface, and nobody had moved more than a hu

d his suit. He opened the inne

unch," he said. "

sharply. Hallet

find a place for you as so

own benefit. But he might also enjoy betrayal for its own sake. He might, for example, find it amusing to make a man under sentence of death or marooning believe that he

d the yacht's mess-room. Hallet followed close behind. Moran pushed the door aside and entered.

said gl

e go

d pulled the trigger. He held the trigger down for continuous fire a