The Invincible

silicon. As they slid towards the ground, each opened and raised its helmet. They left the ramp; soon they were sinking deep into the sand. Still they made good progress, working their way through the dune that the wind had already blown around the Invincible. One after the other they turned to the right or the left. Ten minutes later the entire ship was surrounded by a chain of metal turtles. The moment each robot had reached its place it started burrowing down into the sand. Soon they disappeared in the sand except for the glittering domes of their Dirac emitters that peered out from the red slopes of the dunes, forming the evenly spaced links of one huge circular chain.

Suddenly the steel floor of the control center began to vibrate. The men could feel it distinctly through the thick padding of foam rubber that covered the floor. An almost imperceptible tremor flashed through their bodies, and for a moment they noticed a quivering in the muscles of their jaws. Everything around them grew hazy. The phenomenon lasted no more than half a second. Once again all grew silent around them, interrupted only by the distant hum of starting motors that rose up from the lower decks. Then everything came back into focus again. The desert, the dark red rocky hillsides, the slowly creeping sandy waves showed up in sharp outlines on the videoscreen. All seemed as it had been before — but now an invisible field of energy formed a protective dome around the Invincible, cutting off access to the spaceship.

Now metal crabs made their appearance on the ramp. They descended slowly, their antennae twirling like the arms of a windmill. These flat info-robots were considerably larger than the field emitters, and walked on curved metallic stilts that projected on either side. The metal arthropods soon bogged down in the deep sand; with reluctance, they extricated their extremities in order to take their place inside the spaces next to each link formed by the chain of the energo-robots.

While all protective measures began to function, tiny control lamps lit up against the dull background of the central panel. The dials of the instruments that counted incoming impulses were suffused by a greenish glow, becoming dozens of luminous green cat’s eyes that stared at the two men. The needles on all the dials pointed to zero. Nothing attempted to break through the invisible wall of their energy field. One needle only kept steadily moving upwards: an illuminated arrow rose up on the energy distributor gauge, advancing beyond the Giga-watt lines.

“I’m going down to get something to eat. Get started with the stereotype, Rohan.” Horpach’s voice sounded very tired as he turned away from the videoscreen.

“Remote control?”

“Not necessarily. You can send somebody out. Or even go yourself, if you want to,” said Horpach as he was opening the door and leaving the room. For one more moment Rohan could see the old man’s profile inside the dimly lit elevator as it started to go down. He looked at the field gauge. Zero. We should really begin with the photogrammetry, he thought to himself. Circle the planet and photograph it systematically. Perhaps something might be found that way. Much better than relying only on visual observations. After all, a continent isn’t the same thing as an ocean, where one sailor in the crow’s nest will do the trick. But photogrammetry would take about one month. Too long.

The elevator had returned. Rohan got in and descended to the sixth deck. A crowd had gathered on the big platform in front of the airlock. The men no longer had any business being there; the dinner gong had been sounded for almost fifteen minutes steadily.

The men stepped aside to let Rohan pass.

“Jordan and Blank, come along for a stereotype investigation.”

“Full protective gear, Navigator?”

“No. Just the oxygen tanks. And a robot. Let’s take an Arctane. He won’t get stuck in that damned sand.” Rohan turned to the men standing around. “Well, what are you still doing here? Lost your appetite?”

“We’d like to see what it’s like outside, Navigator.”

“Why can’t we go ashore?”

“Just for a few minutes — ”

They all spoke at once.

“Steady, steady, men. Don’t lose your cool now. We’ll all soon be going sightseeing. For the time being it’s terrestrial procedure, third step routine.”

The men left reluctantly.

In the meantime a robot had arrived from the ship’s hold. It stepped off the freight lift. It was at least a head taller than the men. Jordan and Blank returned on an electrocart bringing some oxygen tanks with them. Rohan stood leaning against the railing of the corridor. Now that the spacecraft rested on its stern the corridor had turned into a vertical shaft reaching down all the way to the first engine room. Above and below him were the many storeys of the rocket; somewhere in the depths the conveyor belts ran quietly. He could hear faint smacking sounds coming from the hydraulic system. Cool air blew up the shaft from forty yards below where the air conditioning plant inside the engine room had cleansed the fouled atmosphere.

The personnel at the airlock opened the door for them. Rohan made a routine check: the straps were tight; the mask fitted properly. Jordan and Blank entered behind him, followed by the robot. The steel floor resounded under the metal monster’s weighty steps. A piercing, constant hissing sound came from the air that was sucked inside the interior of the ship. The outside hatch sprung open, and they could see the engine ramp four storeys below. A small elevator was already waiting for them. (It had been released from inside the hull the moment they had entered the airlock.) The elevator shaft consisted of a wire network which stretched all the way down, touching the rim of the sand dunes. The elevator cage had no walls, and the men could feel the air, but it was hardly cooler than inside the Invincible. As they stepped onto the waiting platform, the magnetic brakes were released. From a height of eleven storeys up, the four glided down gently, passing the various sections of the ship’s hull on the way. Rohan inspected the walls mechanically. You rarely get a chance to look at a spaceship so closely from the outside, he thought to himself. That rocket had a pretty rough time, all these years. Must have been hit by some meteors… looks as if the armored plate has corroded in spots here; no longer looks shiny…

The elevator reached its destination and came to a complete standstill on top of the soft sand dune. The men jumped out, sinking knee-deep into the shifting sand. The robot waddled ahead with firm strides, like a giant duck. It had been outfitted with absurd-looking monstrous flat feet, reminiscent of snowshoes, for just this purpose. Rohan ordered the robot to stop. Then he and his men examined the outer rim of the jet openings around the stern, approaching as closely as possible.

“They could stand a good cleaning. Need to be ground and polished again,” he remarked to his companions.

As they crept out from under the ship’s stern, he noticed the gigantic shadow cast by the Invincible ahead of them, a dark road stretched straight out across the sand dunes, bathed in the light of the setting sun. A strange calm emanated from the monotonously even sandy waves. Blue shadows gathered in the ridges while rosy twilight played on the crests. This warm, delicate pink reminded him of the pastel hues he had seen in picture books as a child. Such incredibly soft colors. His eyes wandered across the dunes, detecting ever new variations of this yellowish-pink glow. Farther away the colors deepened to a rich red interspersed with sickle shaped black shadows. Far off in the distance where the dunes nestled at the foot of bare, threatening volcanic rocks, the warm colors faded into a uniform yellowish gray.

While Rohan stood gazing at the landscape, his men carried out their routine measurements. They worked at a deliberate pace, mechanically employing the skills they had acquired over so many years. They filled small containers with samples of the atmosphere, the soil, the rocks. They tested the radioactivity of the ground with the help of a probe manipulated by the Arctane robot.

Rohan paid no heed to what his men were doing. The oxygen mask covered only his nose and mouth, while his eyes and the rest of his head were exposed to the air. He had removed his protective helmet, and could feel the wind ruffling his hair. Tiny grains of sand were blown against his face and clung to the skin, tickling where they penetrated the gap between the mask and his cheeks. Heavy gusts of wind pulled at the loose trousers of his protective suit. The huge, bloated sun disk was dipping down close to the horizon; it was possible to look straight into the dark red ball for a moment or two. The wind whistled with long drawn-out sighs. Since the energy field around the ship permitted free passage of gases, Rohan could not make out where its invisible wall rose up from the sand.

The gigantic area that stretched endlessly out before him seemed totally devoid of life, as if no living being