Dark Sun by Raymond Z. Gallun

Author:Raymond Z. Gallun [Gallun, Raymond Z.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Sci Fi Short Story
Publisher: Thrilling Wonder Stories
Published: 1939-06-30T00:00:00+00:00

NORBERT PONS was sitting up on the edge of his bunk, now. His eyes and face went dazed and blank as he listened to the sentence. His consciousness heard it and grasped it. Yet, curiously, the overwhelming wave of utter emotional collapse, which logic told him should result at once, failed to come. Rather, the sentence brought to him a curious sense of relief.

Pons was far more than merely puzzled. How could anyone explain his strange, paradoxical reaction? It was just this sort of death that he was most afraid of, wasn’t it? Or was it?

His knowledge of psychology was scant. He did not see at once the difference between fear bom out of long and morbid brooding, and the fear that comes from a sudden and not altogether expected danger. The latter can be far less damaging. It is not the actual clash of battle that does so much to min morale; it is the monotony of waiting for a catastrophe that can happen within the next second or the next hour or the next week.

The young Earthman did not immediately realize this truth, but after a moment the core of his fear arose into his conscious mind.

Uncertainty had become grim fact now. There was no reason to suppose that the Venusian leader had lied when he had pronounced sentence. But it was not fact that Norbert Pons had dreaded so much, but uncertainty—the knowledge that there was danger, and the endless suspense of waiting for it to strike. Out of this suspense had come his morbid visions.

This uncertainty was over now, and so there was a faint spark of relief glowing within Norbert Pons. The check on his natural courage was relieved. He looked straight into the cruel, reptilian eyes of the commander of the Venusians.

“Mind if I have a cigarette before you take me out?” he asked quietly.

The Venusian bowed with facetious grandiloquence.

“Certainly that is a small favor to grant to one so soon to perish,” he replied. “Ooboh, give the Earthling a cigarette, and light it for him.”

Ooboh, the guard, responded quickly to the commands of his master, but took the precaution of keeping his demolition tube trained on the captive.

“Thanks,” Pons murmured.

For a minute he sat smoking and planning. He did not look at the black box, which rested out of reach on the table, for he did not wish the attention of the Venusians to be drawn to it.

Presently he evolved a simple scheme. There was danger in it, but he was reasonably sure that at least part of it would work—if the awful terror that had gripped him before did not return.

When his cigarette was half smoked he arose very slowly from the bunk, his eyes turned toward the Venusian leader who stood close at hand.

“Well,” he said in a mild tone. “Let’s be getting along. I dislike waiting.”

At his first move, Ooboh, the guard, had leaped to the door, his demolition tube ready, but Pons seemed not to notice. His every act and gesture was calculated to check any hint of suspicion.

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