The Best of Lester del Rey

The planet was closer when Kayel reported back with word that the instruments all showed exactly nothing. He was working with the spectroprobe, trying to get data for Derek, when Siryl came in with coffee as a peace offering. “Some of the supplies are all right,” she reported. “Enough for—for four!”

“Thanks.” Derek tasted the coffee and found it vile. But at least it was hot and wet. “Better take some back to Ferad if you can find the way. Tell him if he doesn’t report at once, I’ll skin his fat carcass.”

Kayel gulped and accepted coffee from her as if he’d never seen a woman serve food before. He probably hadn’t on Terra, judging by what she’d done to the coffee.

Derek interrupted the physicist’s stumbling compliments. “Find anything yet, Kayel?”

Siryl threw him a dirty look and went out, again on parade drill. Kayel nodded, turning back reluctantly. “One of the blasted systems, all right, sir. Spectrum looks as if the sun got a light dose, though.”

Probably one of the last suns the first war had ruined, Derek thought; men had been running low on high- numbered atoms by then. If the blast had been mild, it might even have missed the planet. In that case, they might find machinery in some of the ruined cities.

Kayel shook his head. “Planet was hit, all right. A lot of helium in the atmosphere shows that. Funny, though. A couple hundred miles of air with plenty of free oxygen—about like Terra.” He sucked on his pipe, squinting through heavy lenses at the charts he had prepared. “Umm. Density against height… must have about gravity one. Damn. Shouldn’t be free oxygen in that quantity!”

Derek muttered unhappily. The Slpelora wasn’t equipped with full-sized vanes, and an atmosphere and high gravity would make landing harder. Still, if they got down it would be handy. And while the ancient solar explosion would have ruined their hope for tools, it meant there was no danger from savages or beasts left over from the old days; some of the distant worlds had turned wild.

Ferad reported finally, complaining at the impossible job of readying the rockets by himself.

“Put Siryl to work with you,” Derek ordered. “They’ll be ready in five minutes or we’ll miss perigee.”

Their intrinsic momentum, left from their speed before cutting on the space-denial generators after takeoff, was carrying them down toward the planet hi an ellipse that would approach within some six hundred miles.

Surprisingly, Ferad reported the rockets ready and valves trimmed within the time limit. The ship groaned as the rockets went on and Derek watched his indicators grimly, expecting the worst. With so much of her interior bracing removed, she was badly weakened and completely unbalanced. With his luck, anything could happen. Usually, he managed to get out of one mess before getting into another, but there had been that time during inspection…

The Sepelora hit the atmosphere badly. There had been no time for full correction with the side rockets, and the gyroscopes were gone with the missing section.

One of the weakened girders let go with a snap that jarred his teeth.and the ship wobbled before straightening out. Derek knocked the sweat out of his eyes and tried to remember all that he’d been taught back in rocketry school. But all that came back was the instructor’s long lecture on why accident prones should be kicked out at once.

The ship righted, however, though it was close, and settled into a long, fast glide, with her hull pyrometers well into the red-hot zone but safe. A protective shield had slipped over the viewing panel, but the radar still gave them a view of the ground. They came down to twenty miles above the surface, then to fifteen.

Kayel let out a surprised whinny and pointed the stem of his pipe excitedly at the screen. Derek could see nothing, but the little man watched intently as something seemed to vanish. “A city! Straight lines—streets!”

“Ruins, probably,” Derek commented. Maybe they were in luck and the solar explosion had only touched the planet, without burning it enough to destroy buildings and major tools. After thirteen hundred years, some would be ruined; but the ancients had built things to last on the outer planets.

There was a thin layer of clouds that the ship cut through. Now the going was rougher. Without full vanes, the Sepelora had all the lift of a stone, and the glide was growing steeper asymptotically, though her temperature was finally dropping. Derek got her tail down and began using controlled blasts.

Three miles above the surface, she was falling almost straight down, going too fast and swaying badly. Correcting for the unbalanced weight was harder than he had expected.

Then he was only a mile up. With a groan, he cut on more power, hoping no other girders snapped. It was going to be a close shave, with scant seconds left.

Kayel jerked up, screaming and pointing to the screen. Derek’s eyes followed the motion before he could pull them back. Something that might have been rows of buildings showed there. But he couldn’t worry about ruins; the blast would flatten them, anyhow.

“Derek! People! They’re moving!” Kayel’s voice was screeching in his ears.

He thrust the obvious hysteria of the other from his thoughts. The last glance had ruined his timing. Now the surface was zooming up. The Sepelora wobbled, pv-ershot, and then slowly came upright. Derek’s eyes jerked to catch a quick glimpse of the screen. For a second, his hands froze. Along the regular rows that must be streets, things were scurrying madly out of his path!

There was no time to think. Conditioning against killing others, no matter what the risk, took over. His fingers bit into the side controls, and the Sepelora twisted under him, beginning to topple. For a second, the full side blasts tossed the ship backward. Then she dropped, just as he cut power in a final conditioned reflex.

Kayel had fainted. Derek stared at him and down at his own hands. The ship was still. There had been no shock. He tried to figure it out; in theory, the various forces could counterbalance to cause a dead halt at just the moment of touching surface. But the chances were so remote that no pilot could have estimated them. It was as if all the years of his incredibly consistent jinx had come to a balance in one impossible piece of blind good luck.

Kayel came to slowly, blinking. His fingers groped up to find his glasses still on his nose. “My pipe!” he squeaked, and ducked down for it. Then he straightened, staring at Derek. “We’re alive!”

“No thanks to you,” Derek said curtly. He flipped a switch and the shield over the viewing panel began sliding up, just as Siryl and Ferad came in. They looked exhausted, but less shaken than Kayel—probably because they hadn’t known what was going on. “Don’t start cheering yet. There are people here—and there shouldn’t be on any sun-grazed planet we haven’t recolonized. With my luck, I’ve probably landed us right hi the middle of an enemy colony!”

“Luck!” Siryl snorted. Then she reddened faintly at his look, but went on stubbornly. “The enemy are compulsive troglodytes—they don’t build surface dwellings. And look at that,”

The shield had come up enough to show fields around them, apparently corn and potatoes. Beyond, the edge of the town could be seen, built in low structures of crude stone and thatching.

“An agricultural culture,” Siryl guessed quickly. “Look—there’s one! See, coming through the field. We’re in luck. Primitive agricultural societies are usually peaceful.”

Several people were filing toward the ship, showing no sign of fear. They were dressed in rough pants with serapes or blankets thrown over their shoulders. The men wore beards with hair to their shoulders, all of a uniform brown except for the graybeard in front. The women were distinguished only by thick plaits around their heads. They were a healthy looking bunch.

The graybeard moved to the viewing panel, waving at them with some bit of what seemed to be stone in his hand. His motions indicated that they were to come out. Derek shrugged faintly and nodded. He headed toward the door.

Siryl caught his arm. “Where are you going?” “Out. You said they were peaceful.” “Usually peaceful,” she qualified hastily. “But—” “Unless they’re superstitious about sky devils, eh? I’m still going out.” He headed down the nearest passage that would lead to a lock. There was nothing else to do. Their few weapons were gone, along with their tools and the big space-decoupled signaling transmitter. The Sepelora was only a converted freighter and her hull was too thin to withstand any concerted attack by even primitive agriculturists. If the worst had to happen, it was better to get it over with at once.

Siryl hesitated for a second. Then her heels tapped out a steady pace behind him, while the other two followed reluctantly. She caught up with Derek and marched beside him. If she was afraid, there was no sign of it. He opened the inner lock, then the outer, and dropped to the field of stubble. As he landed, the graybeard came around the curve of the ship.

The old man’s lips parted in what might have been a smile, and words came out, slowly at first, then more