Lost In Space by Dave Van Arnam & Ron Archer

Author:Dave Van Arnam & Ron Archer [Arnam, Dave Van & Archer, Ron]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
Publisher: Pyramid
Published: 1967-10-01T08:00:00+00:00

“Wonderful,” said Don West. “A strange planet that we don’t even get the chance to look at first, and not only that, we land at night. Well . . . ” He sighed. “I’ll go on guard first, if no one objects. I had a long nap before we landed, and I’m pretty well rested up. But I suggest we all arm ourselves now. There’s no telling what may be out there.”

“Splendid,” said Dr. Smith. “That will give the rest of us a chance to get fully rested up to face the travails of the morning, and—”

“I’ll be waking you up about an hour after estimated planetary midnight, Smith,” said Don harshly, “so don’t get started on any extra-long technicolor extravaganza dreams tonight.”

“Hmpf,” said Smith. “I don’t see why the Robot can’t—”

“The Robot is not authorized to make decisions, Dr. Smith,” Robinson broke in, “as you well know. In ordinary situations he would, it is true, serve quite adequately. But on this planet, we have absolutely no idea of what we may be up against. Seconds may count, in making decisions. Hence, one of us must be on guard.”

“Oh, very well. But I can see it’s going to be a very long night.”

A long night it was, and not a very restful one for the inhabitants of the Jupiter; all of them were well aware that at any moment their lives might be in danger from unknown menaces.

But when dawn came at last, it found the Robinsons and Smith sleepy but relieved that nothing had, after all, happened.And when dawn came, it also became fairly obvious why nothing had happened.

They were in the midst of a vast level plain, sparsely covered by a thin tough grass-like plant. To the horizon, there was no least variation in the absolute levelness of the ground, nor in the nature of the vegetation.

Don whistled as all of them stood in the main control room, studying the various vision screens, all of which showed essentially the same scene no matter what direction they were set to scan.

‘This is one for the books,” he said. “Just off hand, you understand, I’ll say a planetary feature-or lack of feature—like this is geologically impossible.”

“I’d say so too,” agreed Robinson. “Robot, can you give us any preliminary thoughts on the subject?”

“There are some small raincloud formations on the distant horizon, in the direction of the planetary equator,” said the Robot. ‘This indicates that there are bodies of water elsewhere on the surface of the planet, which also indicates the possibility of other types of surface than the one we are at present viewing.”

“A combination?” Smith was indignant. “That hardly seems—”

“Listen,” said Robinson, “there’s no point in arguing details at this point. With the ship in the mess it is, it’s going to be risky moving it about unless we have to, so I’d say we’d better dig out the scoutcraft and do a scan from that. I’d like to find out if there’s any intelligent life—or remains of intelligent life—here, and any chance to find some of the metals were probably going to need for the repairs.

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