The 39th Golden Age of Science Fiction MEGAPACK®: John W. Campbell, Jr. (vol. 2) by John W. Campbell Jr

Author:John W. Campbell Jr [Campbell Jr, John W.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: science fiction, space opera, adventure, sci-fi, pulp
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2018-03-16T16:00:00+00:00

CONQUEST OF THE PLANETS

(A.K.A. “Mother World”)

Originally serialized in Amazing Stories, January-March 1935.

Prologue

The crowded men, a full hundred and twelve cramped in a tiny concrete room, were unbelievably quiet and tense. Only one small light, thrown on the tuning controls of the big set, relieved the absolute darkness that seemed to push in from the windows. McLaughlin, at the controls, was quietest of all. His ears were intensely aware of the strange rushing roar, like heavy ocean surf, that beat out through the loudspeaker.

A voice struggled through the washing sound. “Elevation about twenty-five miles now. Incredibly jagged rock. This side much rougher than other. Found a small crater-bottom—we’re aiming for that—looks smooth.” Again only the washing roar of short-wave static and the tense silence. “Elevation twenty miles. Dropping on rockets. Almost no gravity pull, however. The big boy is pulling us around a bit though. Hard to handle. Tricky motion. Fifteen miles. We’ve got an horizon now. There is no axial rotation, or we would never make it. Ten miles,” Silence. Washing static, “Five miles,” the voice reported.

“We’ve almost stopped—comparatively—now. About a mile and a half to go. Stopped, and falling back. Can you hear the rockets now? They’re working fairly loudly. A thousand feet—eight hundred-five hundred—we’ll know in a second, and if it’s bad—we had a nice time. Try again!”

“We’re floating on the rockets. Stevens is doing a wonderful job of it. There’s a big pinnacle of rock near us. This floor wasn’t so smooth as it looked. We’re sinking—we’ve—” The loud speaker crackled with a tinny, broken rattle, and then only the washing static sounded in it.

A low, heavy groan came from the hundred and twelve men. Three near the door darted out, headed for their offices. The second attempt had failed.

McLaughlin sat just as quietly, and tensely as ever. “They smashed a tube, anyway,” he snapped softly. “That doesn’t mean they’re broken. A tube’s a hell of a lot more tender than a man!”

The hundred and nine men were rustling and weaving. Listening to the static sounds. “Whatever happened, it happened a long time ago—it takes time even for radio on that hop,” someone said. His voice was low, but it seemed a shout in the bare concrete room.

The loudspeaker crackled, hummed and silenced again to washing roar, but an instantaneous quiver ran through the men. “Sorry,” said the voice, “probably worried you. Tube gave out. We made a perfect landing, but the slight jar cracked a tube’s air-seal.”

The rest was lost as a roar went up from the men in the room. A jammed stream squeezed out of the door, like toothpaste from a tube. They squirted out, sprinted for the monorail line nearby. Over charred, blackened earth they stumbled and sprawled, cheering.

Five men remained in the room. McLaughlin was talking into his own transmitter now, while the recorder took down every detail of the message coming in from space.

Philip Laurie, the little narrow-chested dreamer who had designed the Ion was dreaming out loud to big, broad-shouldered

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