Planet of Dread

d insanely pulling the trigger of the blast-pistol over and over and over without result. He remembered it later. Perhaps he shared Hallet's blank disbelief that one could pull the trigger of a

limax together. Hallet's intention was so appallingly murderous and his action so shockingly futile

ran's hands loose from Hallet's throat. Lacking succe

ase Hallet. Then Moran stood pant

oran. "He was goi

o while he was packing bessendium between the hulls, and had his space-suit hanging in the airloc

over Hallet

ing," said Burleigh. "And lock it. When

and hauled him along the passageway. The

" said Burleigh conscientiously. "But

violently personal viewpoint which would neither require or allow d

e through I'll tell y

ck the fury which rose afresh at intervals of less than minutes. He did not thin

ght be anything; an ocean, swarming metropoli of giant insects, a mountain-range. Nobody on the Nadine had explored. But Moran did not think of such matters now. Hallet h

d-written log. He wrote. He placed a small object in the drawer. He had barely

t to talk

up the

in, this time putting the paper in it. "I want you to read this after the Halle

went to where the others sat in offi

at he has to say, but we had to consider various courses of

he one that, carried out, had made him seize the Nadine for escape from Coryus.

ening," s

ll of us and with your help take the Nadine to some place

obse

s plans. He only asked if I'd make

rleigh, noddin

some such planets. I hoped to get to ground somewhere in a wilderness on one of them and work my way on foot to a new settlement. There I'd explain that I'd been hunting or

h. "With a few bessendium crystals to show, he would seem a succ

t off alone. So if he had that sort o

e would be risk of his taking someone unawares and fighting for his life. Even if all went as we wished, and we landed and dispersed, he could inform the space-port officials a

hadn't much hope of tha

f landing. But I do not think it would be wise to send a ship after him. He would be resentful.

Moran, still m

only offer him his choice of being marooned or going ou

oran. "I'm goin

ed. Harper loo

business. But that's beside the point. I won't agree to marooning him here. That's murder. I won't agree to throwing him out the airlock. That's murder, too. But I have the right to kill him if it's in fair

per. Harper nodded grudgingly. He l

. Harper, you and Brawn bring him here

out the blasters they'd worn since he took over the ship. The

. He went in the airlock while Brawn sta

r cam

id in a flat voice

f locking the outer door. There was no point in it. It only led out to the nightmare world. And out there Hallet would be in monstrous danger; he'd have no food. At most his only

there. The helmet-phone was turned on. Hallet's voice came

I took the fuel-block so Moran couldn't afford to kill me after the rest of you were dead. Yo

. He came back, his face ashen. "

it from whose helmet the voice came tinnily. He began to put it on. Caro

else had better come along just in case. But you can't make a bargain w

ing into a space-suit. Brawn moved quickly. B

ause they'll drop Hallet. Carol, you monitor what goes on. When we need to

t-b

e got to make a bargain! I've got the fuel-block! You can't

until we answer, but he won't know we're on his trail until we do. We keep quiet when we get the helmets on. Under

ried to speak, and could not. Moran, with the microphone

ll pick up anything we say

out the direction Hallet would have taken was that it must be away from th

yes. But to land even at a space-port one uses rockets to cushion what otherwise might be a sharp impact. The Nadine's rockets had burned away the yeasty soil when she came to ground. The

that one color showed. But, scattered at random in other places, there were patches of red mould and blue mould and black dusty rust and greenish surface-fungi. Twenty yards from the depression in which the Nadine lay, Hallet's

nions. He could only bargain for his life if they could not find him or the precious fuel-block without which the Nadine must remain

d the noise of his torch as he burned a safety-hole in the ground. But he did not use it. He hastened on. He talked desperately. Sometimes he boasted, and sometimes he tried cunningly to be reasonable. But he hadn't been

e more than a foot thick. Hallet's trail in the colored surface-moulds went on. The giant toadstools were left behind. The trail led straight toward an enormous object the height of a three-storey house. When first glimpsed th

ed again. Then for a space he was silent, gasping, and then he uttere

It became evident that the Nadine had landed upon a plateau with levels below it and very possibly mountains rising above. But here the slightly rolling plateau fell shee

agitatedly in search of a hiding-place in which to conceal himself unt

o hundred feet deep. At the bottom there was the incredible, green growing things. But they were not trees. They were some flabby

formed the foundation for a web of geometrically accurate design and unthinkable size. Crosscables of sticky stuff went round and round the center of the enormous snare, following a logarithmic spiral

g, fungus-covered rocky wall and with fragments of curdy stuff about him had been flung out and in

ibrations in the fabric of the web. He shrieked again, trying to break the bonds of cordage t

ply. "If we can make the web drop we'll be all right. Web

ved swiftly to where one cable of the web was made fast at the top. It was simple sanity to break down the we

air. All the monsters of all the planet seemed to make discordant noises. Hallet c

gnal-cable went from the center of the web to the spider's retreat. She waited with implacable patience, one foreleg-sheathed in ragged and somehow revolting fur-resting delicately upon the line. Hallet's frantic struggles shook the web. Faintly, to be sure, but distinctively.

game, if only to secure it before the vast snare was damaged by frenzied plungings. Still, though there was

his helmet-phone, "Hallet

t's. It was idiotic to make such an attempt at rescue. It was sheer folly. But there are instincts

" he gasped between screa

It was the enormous weight of the owner of the web, moving leisurely on her own snare, whic

h deep, feeling for the cable. It seared through. The web jerked wildly as one of its principal supports parted. The giant spider turn

starkly impossible to climb down to it. He swore and looked desperately for Burleigh and Brawn and Harper. They w

t end of the line. It swung down. It cli

was obscenely swollen. As it moved, its spinnerets paid out newly-formed cord behind it. Its eyes were monstrous and murderously intent. The ghastly, needle-sharp mandibles beside its mouth seeme

anting tight-rope. He jerked out his torch to sever it,-and saw that to cut it would be to drop t

ider the bolts were like bites. They made small wounds, but not serious ones. The spider made a bubbling sound which was more daunting than any cry would have been. It flung its legs about, fumbling for the thing that it believed attack

lly toward the spot where Hallet jerked ins

nge was too long. So-it was totally unjustifiable-he found himself slung below the downward-slanting cable and sliding down its slope. He w

and to fire the blaster once more. It hurt more seriously, now. The spider made bubbling noises of infinit

Hallet. It

killed. Now! He drew out his torch and pressed the co

t's day. It cut through a cable that might have deflected it. It reached the spid

me burned deep. The torch actua

lame and an incredible bl

per stood around him. He'd splashed in some enormous thickness of the yeasty soil, grown and fallen from the cliff-edge, and i

ed at innumerable un

ainfully, "was a

d somehow exhausted tone. "The fuel-block burned. T

The other arm and leg. He

sion, it just burned like sodium or potassium would do. But it burned fast! The torch-flame must have reached

asn't trying to at the moment, but I did. By accident." He paused, and said dizz

said

t off. We're all

imental step. He hu

. It's in a drawer in the Nadine's control-room with a note to Carol that I asked her to read should somethin

s helmet-phone. It was s

Quite all right?

the way,"

ght number of people on the Nadine; they would take off from this world and arrive re

ain. On the surface, above, their trail would be clear on the multi-colored surface rusts. Th

udging with the others across a world on which it was impossible to see more than a

E