swirled in the fog as they were, some faint gleam might break through to offer a landing mark for the flitter. Weeks had disappeared. Dane could hear the clatter of his space boots on the ladder within as he sped with the news. But before the wiper could have reached control a new marker blazed into view, the full powered searchlight from the nose, a beacon which could not be blanketed out, no matter how its rays were diffused.
And in that same instant a dark object swept by, so close that Dane leaped back, certain it was going to graze the ramp. The beat of the motor was loud, then it thinned, to grow into a roar once more as the shadow appeared for a second time, circling closer to the ground.
It landed with an audible, smacking grind which suggested that the fog spoiled distance judgment. And to the foot of the ramp came three figures which continued to be muffled shapes until they were nearly at the hatch.
“Man—oh, man!” Rip’s rich voice came to the ears of the watchers as he halted to pat the side of the ship. “It’s good to see the old girl again—Lordy, it’s good !”
“How did you make it back through this?” Dane asked.
“We had to,” the astrogator-apprentice told him simply. “There was no place back in the ranges to set down. Those mountains are straight up and down—or they look that way. We got on the beam—except when—say, what’s the cause of that interference? We were thrown off twice by it. Couldn’t cut it out—”
Steen Wilcox and Tau followed him at a slower pace. The Medic moved wearily, his emergency kit in his hand. And Wilcox had only a grunt for the reception party, pushing past them to climb to control. But Rip lingered to ask another question.
“Ali—?”
Dane retold the story of what they had discovered in the valley clearing.
“But how—?” was Rip’s second puzzled question.
“We don’t know. Unless they went straight up. And it wasn’t space enough to hold a flitter. But look how those crawler tracks ran straight into the cliff. Rip, there’s something queer about Limbo—”
“How far was that valley from the ruins?” the astrogator-apprentice’s voice lost much of its warmth, it was quieter, with a new crispness.
“We were nearer to those than to the Queen. But the fog hit us on the way back and we didn’t see them—if we did pass over the location.”
“And you couldn’t raise Ali on the com-unit after that one interrupted signal?”
“Tang’s been trying. And we kept open all the time we were out.”
“They might have stripped that off him at once,” Rip conceded. “It would be a wise move for them. He could give us a fix otherwise—”
“But could we get a fix on a com-unit? On one which no one was using—” Dane began to see a thin chance. “That is if its power was still working?”
“I don’t know. But the range would be pretty limited. We could ask Tang—” Rip was already on his way up the ladder to where the com-tech was on duty.
Dane glanced at his watch, making a swift calculation squaring ship time with hours measured on Limbo. It was night. Suppose Tang was able to pick up a call from Ali’s com-unit— they could not trace it now.
They did not find the com-tech alone. All the officers of the Queen were there and again Tang was holding the earphones well away from his head so that they could hear the discordance which beat out from some hidden point in the fog-bound world.
Wilcox spoke as the two younger men came in. “That’s it! Cut right across the rider beam. I got two fixes on it. But,” he shrugged, “with the atmospherics what they are and this soup covering everything, how accurate those are is a big question. It comes from the mountains—”
“Not just some form of static?” Captain Jellico appealed to Tang.
“Decidedly not! I don’t think it’s a signal—though it may be a rider beam. More like a big installation—”
“What kind of installation would produce a broadcast such as that?” Van Rycke wanted to know.
Tang put the earphones down on the snap desk at his elbow. “A good sized one—about as big as the HG computer on Terra!”
There was a moment of startled silence. An installation with the same force as HG on this deserted world! They had to have time to assimilate that. But, Dane noted, not one of them questioned Tang’s statement.
“What is it doing here?” Van Rycke’s voice held a note of real wonder. “What could it be used for—?”
“It might be well,” Tang warned, “to know who is running it. Remember, Kamil has been picked up. They probably know a lot about us while we’re still in the dark—”
“Poachers—” that was Jellico but he advanced the suggestion as if he didn’t really believe in it himself.
“With something as big as an HG com under their control? Maybe—” but Van Rycke was plainly dubious. “Anyway we can’t get out and look around until the fog clears—”
The ramp was drawn in, the ship put under regular routine once more. But Dane wondered how many of the crew were able to sleep. He hadn’t expected to, until the fatigue produced from the adventures of the past twenty- four hours of duty pushed him under and he spun from one dream to another, always pursuing Ali through crooked valleys and finally between the towering banks of the HG computer, unable to catch the speeding engineer- apprentice.
His watch registered nine the next morning when he approached the hatch open once more on Limbo. But it might have been the depths of night—save that the grey of the mist was three or four shades lighter than it had been when he had seen it last. To his eyes however it was as thick as in the hour when they had returned to the ship.
Rip stood halfway down the ramp, wiping his hand on his thigh as he lifted it from the dripping guide rope where the moisture condensed in large oily drops. He raised a worried face to Dane as the other edged along the slippery surface to join him.
“It doesn’t seem to be clearing any,” Dane stated the obvious.
“Tang thinks he got a fix—a fix on Ali’s unit!” Shannon burst out. He reached once more for the guide rope and faced west, staring out into those cottony swirls hungrily as if by will alone he could force the stuff away from his line of vision.
“From where—north?”
“No, west!”
From the west where the ruins lay—where Rich’s party were encamped! Then they were right, Rich had something to do with Limbo’s mystery.
“That interference was cut out sometimes early this morning,” Rip continued. “Conditions must have been better for about ten minutes. Tang won’t swear to it, but he’s sure himself that he caught the buzz of a live helmet com.”
“Pretty far—the ruins,” Dane made the one objection. But he was as certain as Rip that if the com-tech mentioned it at all, it was because he had been nine-tenths sure he was right. Tang was not given to wild guesses.
“What are we going to do about it?” the cargo-apprentice added.
Rip twisted his big hands about the rope. “What can we do?” he wanted to know helplessly. “We can’t just go off and hope to come up against the ruins. If they had a caster on it would be different—”
“What about that? Aren’t they supposed to keep in touch with the ship? Couldn’t a flitter get to them riding in on their caster beam?” Dane asked.
“It could—if there were a beam,” Rip returned. “They went off the air when the fog came in. Tang has been calling them at ten minute intervals all night—had the emergency frequency in use so they’d be sure and answer. Only they haven’t!”
And, without any caster beam to guide it, no flitter could pierce this murk and be sure of landing at the ruins. Yet a com-unit had registered there—perhaps Ali’s—and that only a short time ago.
“I’ve been out there,” Rip pointed to the ground they could not see from the ramp. “If I hadn’t had a line fastened I’d been lost before I got four feet away—”
Dane could believe that. But he knew the restlessness which must be needling Rip now. To be kept prisoner here just when they had their first clue as to where Kamil might be—! It was maddening in a way. He edged down the slippery ramp, found the cord Rip had left looped there, and took an end firmly in hand, venturing out into the grey cloud.
The mist condensed in droplets on his tunic, trickled down his face, left an odd metallic taint on his lips. He
