He guzzled the drink and looked up at Sherri, who was sucking down the last of the soda. “Let’s get going, Lieutenant James. The noncoms are coming, and we don’t want them to make nasty remarks about us.”
* * * *
The Lord Nelson blasted off the next evening, after a frenzied day of hurried preparations. The crew of sixty filed solemnly aboard, Colonel Petersen last, and the great hatch swung closed.
There was the usual routine loudspeaker-business while everyone quickly and efficiently strapped into his acceleration cradle, and then the ship leaped skyward. It climbed rapidly, broke free of Earth’s grasp, and, out past the moon, abruptly winked out of normal space into overdrive. It would spend the next two weeks in hyperspace, short-cutting across the galaxy to Fomalhaut V.
It was a busy two weeks for everyone involved. Captain Peter Wayne, as a central part of the team, spent much of his time planning his attack. His job would be the actual climbing of the mountain where the double-nucleus beryllium was located. It wasn’t going to be an easy job; the terrain was rough, the wind, according to Jervis, whipped ragingly through the hills, and the jagged peaks thrust into the air like the teeth of some mythical dragon.
Study of the three-dimensional aerial photographs taken from the Mavis showed that the best route was probably up through one end of the valley, through a narrow pass that led around the mountain, and up the west slope, which appeared to offer better handholds and was less perpendicular than the other sides of the mountain.
This time, the expedition would have the equipment to make the climb. There were ropes, picks, and crampons, and sets of metamagnetic boots and grapples. With metamagnetic boots, Wayne thought, they’d be able to walk up the side of the mountain almost as easily as if it were flat.
He studied the thick, heavy soles of the boots for a moment, then set to work polishing. Wayne liked to keep his boots mirror-bright; it wasn’t required, but it was a habit of his nonetheless.
He set to work vigorously. Everyone aboard the ship was working that way. Sherri James, who was in charge of the Correlation Section, had noticed the same thing the day before. Her job was to co-ordinate all the information from various members of the expedition, run them through the computers, and record them. She had been busy since blastoff, testing the computers, checking and rechecking them, being overly efficient.
“I know why we’re doing it,” she said. “It keeps our mind off the end of the trip. When we spend the whole day working out complicated circuits for the computers, or polishing mountain boots, or cleaning the jet tubes, it’s just so we don’t have to think about Fomalhaut V. It helps to concentrate on details.”
Wayne nodded and said nothing. Sherri was right. There was one thought in everyone’s mind: what was the deadly secret of the valley?
There was another thought, after that:
Will we find it out in time?
* * * *
After two weeks of flight through the vast blackness of interstellar space, the Lord Nelson came out of overdrive and set itself in an orbit around Fomalhaut V. Lieutenant Jervis, the sole survivor of the ill-fated Mavis, located the small valley between the giant crags that covered the planet, and the huge spherical bulk of the spaceship settled gently to the floor of the valley.
They were gathered in the central room of the ship ten minutes after the all-clear rang through the corridors, informing everyone that the landing had been safely accomplished. From the portholes they could see the white bones of the Mavis’s crew lying on the reddish sand of the valley bottom.
“There they are,” Jervis said quietly. “Just bones. Those were my shipmates.”
Wayne saw Sherri repress a shudder. Little heaps of bones lay here and there on the sand, shining brightly in the hot sun. That was the crew of the Mavis—or what was left of them.
Colonel Petersen entered the room and confronted the crew. “We’re here,” he said. “You know the schedule from now on. No one’s to leave the ship until we’ve made a check outside, and after that—assuming it’s OK to go out—no more than six are to leave the ship at any one time.”
He pointed to a row of metal magnetic tabs clinging to the wall nearest the corridor that led to the airlock. “When you go out, take one of those tabs and touch it on your suit. There are exactly six tabs. If none are there, don’t go out. It’s as simple as that.”
Four men in spacesuits entered the room, followed by two others. The leader of the group saluted. “We’re ready, sir,” he said.
“Go out and get a look at the bodies,” the colonel told the men, who were Medical Corpsmen. “You know the procedure. Air and sand samples too, of course.”
The leader saluted again, turned, and left. Wayne watched the six spacesuited figures step one at a time to the wall, withdraw one of the metal tabs, and affix it to the outer skin of his suit. Then they went outside.
Captain Wayne and Sherri James stood by one of the portholes and watched the six medics as they bent over the corpses outside. “I don’t get it, I just don’t understand,” Wayne said quietly.
* * * *
“What don’t you get?” Sherri asked.
“Those skeletons. Those men have only been dead for two months, and they’ve been reduced to nothing but bones already. Even the fabric of their clothing is gone. Why? There must be something here that causes human flesh to deteriorate much faster than normal.”
“It does look pretty gruesome,” Sherri agreed. “I’m glad we’ve been ordered to keep our spacesuits on. I wouldn’t want to be exposed to anything that might be out there.”
“I wonder—” Wayne muttered.
“What? What’s the matter?”
Wayne pointed to one figure lying on the sand. “See that? What’s that over his head?”
“Why—it’s a space helmet!”
“Yeah,” said Wayne. “The question is: was he wearing just the helmet, or the whole suit? If he was wearing the whole suit, we’re not going to be as well protected as we thought, even with our fancy suits.”
Fifteen minutes passed slowly before the medics returned, and five minutes more before they had passed through the decontamination chambers and were allowed into the ship proper. A ring of tense faces surrounded them as they made their report.
* * * *
The leader, a tall, bespectacled doctor named Stevelman, was the spokesman. He shrugged when Colonel Petersen put forth the question whose answer everyone waited for.
“I don’t know,” the medic replied. “I don’t know what killed them. There’s dry bones out there, but no sign of anything that might have done it. It’s pretty hard to make a quick diagnosis on a skeleton, Colonel.”
“What about the one skeleton with the bubble helmet?” Peter Wayne asked. “Did you see any sign of a full suit on him?”
Stevelman shook his head. “Not a sign, sir.”
Colonel Petersen turned and glanced at Lieutenant Jervis. “Do you remember what the circumstances were, Lieutenant?”
Jervis shrugged. “I don’t recall it very clearly, sir. I honestly couldn’t tell you whether they were wearing suits or bubble-helmets or anything. I was too upset at the time to make careful observations.”
“I understand,” Petersen said.
But the medic had a different theory. He pointed at Jervis and said, “That’s a point I’ve meant to make, Lieutenant. You’re a trained space scout. Your psychological records show that you’re not the sort of man given to panic or to become confused.”
“Are