Rocket to Limbo Read online

  ROCKET

  TO LIMBO

  ALAN E. NOURSE

  a division of F+W Media, Inc.

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  1: Star Ship Ganymede

  2: The Strange Cargo

  3: Rocket to Limbo

  4: “Mutiny Comes Next”

  5: No Place for Cowards

  6: The Gray Planet

  7: Peter Makes a Choice

  8: The Foulest Blow

  9: The Thing on the Ridge

  10: The Thing in the Valley

  11: The Alien Land

  12: Who Are They?

  13: The Place of the Masters

  14: The Door Between

  15: The Sleepers Awake

  Also Available

  Copyright

  To J. McP. H.

  who will write his own some day

  PROLOGUE

  AD ASTRA, the words on the bronze plaque read.

  The heavy metal sheet was bright and new, gleaming red-brown in the afternoon sunlight. Great bolts of brass buckled it to the base of the launching rack, a slab of gray granite cut in a single piece from the living rock of the mountains high above the rocket port. Reaching up from the rack, the Star Ship stood like a silvery needle, poised, graceful, eager to break away from the bonds of Earth — pointing upward toward the stars it sought.

  To the stars.

  The ship was named Argonaut in memory of that legendary ship and its crew that had plunged into unknown waters so many centuries before. She had been built with tireless care and devotion; years had been spent outfitting her for the brave journey she was now daring to make. The finest engineers on Earth had designed her to carry the growth tanks and fuel blocks, the oxygen and reprocessing equipment, the libraries and information banks that her crew would require during the long voyage. Her massive engines had been tested and retested to tolerances never before achieved on Earth.

  They had to be, for these engines must not fail.

  The ship’s name was carved on the bronze plaque, and the names of the men and women of her crew. Below this the dates were written:

  Launched: March 3, 2008

  Returned:

  There was no way of knowing when she would return, if she ever did return. There had never been a ship like the Argonaut before. This was no clumsy orbit-craft to carry colonists and miners to the outpost stations on Mars and Venus. The Argonaut was a Star Ship, designed for one purpose — to carry her crew across the black gulf of space between the stars. Her destination was Alpha Centauri; her voyage might take centuries to complete.

  None of the crew who launched her would live to make landfall at her destination — they knew that. But their children, or perhaps their children’s children might survive to send the ship blasting homeward again.

  The Argonaut was bound on the Long Passage.

  Up on the scaffolding surrounding the ship, lights were shining, men were moving quickly up and down as last-minute preparations were completed. The gantry crane crept up and down, up and down, loading aboard the final crates of supplies. For weeks the giant nuclear engines had been warming, preparing for the sudden demand of power to thrust the ship away from Earth’s gravity. A chronometer clicked off the dwindling minutes. Gradually the scaffolding cleared of men; the crane at last came down and stayed, its lights blinking out.

  High up on the hull a pressure door swung slowly shut, sealing the silvery skin of the great ship.

  Around it, well beyond the range of blast gases, crowds of people stood waiting silently, thinking in their hearts what they could not put into words. Across the land eyes were turned upward, hoping to catch at least a glimpse of the ship as she streaked up through the quiet sky. Others saw it on silvery screens, or listened to the excited voice of the 3-V announcer. One thing was certain — the eyes of Earth were on the Argonaut, a crowded, war-weary, over-populated, hungry Earth. The people knew the hope that lay behind the voyage: that the Argonaut would find a place where Earthmen could settle, could build homes and colonies, and so relieve the terrific press of people on their own crowded planet.

  But there was another reason too for the voyage. The stars were a challenge that Man had to answer sometime. The time had come at last.

  A young woman of twenty stood in the crowd, watching the ship with sad eyes. Her husband placed his arm around her shoulder and drew her closer to him.

  “How are you doing?” he asked.

  She shivered. “I’m scared.”

  “So am I. Everyone’s scared, in a way. It means so much, and it’s so frightening and yet so wonderful, too — you know?”

  She nodded and clung closer. Her father was the first officer of the Argonaut. She knew she would never see him again, and she knew that he would never set foot on land again. The trip would take too long. His life was the ship now, and the ship was his life and responsibility, the ship and the children who would be born aboard it.

  “John, I wish we could go along.”

  He patted her shoulder. “I know. I do too. But our work is here.”

  “A hundred years, maybe two hundred! How can they hope to make it?”

  He watched the last of the ground-crew scurrying down the ramps, heard the expectant hush falling over the crowd. “I don’t know, but they’ll make it,” he said firmly. “They will.”

  There was a restless stirring as the seconds passed. Then, like thunder gathering in the distance, rising louder and louder, the roar began. White flame blossomed from the jet of the ship, billowed out in a searing mushroom against the fallout dampers, as the roar echoed and reechoed down the valley. Slowly, as if lifted gently on the magic fire the ship rose; slowly, then faster, higher and higher. The mushroom became a tongue of fire as the roar rose to a scream and the ship drove heavenward. The eyes of Earth followed the great finger of light into the sky, not daring to breathe, waiting, waiting —

  And then the ship was gone. A sigh rippled through the crowds of people, and they turned their faces away from the sky. Slowly the crowd began to melt away, leaving the granite pedestal with the bronze plaque sitting in the gathering dusk, waiting to receive the ship when she returned. When? No one knew. No one there would live to see it.

  The Long Passage had begun.

  The young woman clenched her husband’s hand, and without a word they turned away. She felt her child move within her, and she smiled.

  He will be proud of his grandfather, she thought, if he’s a he.

  She did not know that the great-grandson of this unborn son of hers would be the man who would give mankind a Short Passage to the stars.

  Silently, John and Mary Koenig turned and left the field as darkness gathered.

  1

  STAR SHIP GANYMEDE

  AD ASTRA, the words on the bronze plaque read.

  The block of granite that held the plaque was darkened with age; the bronze itself was green, the words obscure and hard to make out. Lars Heldrigsson shifted his Spacer’s pack down from his broad shoulder and bent over, squinting to make out the letters.

  Launched: March 3, 2008

  Returned:

  There was no date on the second line. Slowly the young man ran his eyes down the names of the crewmen and felt the old familiar prickle of wonder and excitement starting at the base of his spine. They must have been brave ones, those people, he thought. Trying to make a Star-jump with ordinary unassisted thrust engines! It seemed incredible, and yet they had done it. Where were they now? Dead long since, of course, but what about their grandchildren and great-grandchildren? Lars tried to imagine being born and raised in a Star Ship, depending upon tapes and films for knowledge of Earth and Earthmen left be
hind, never knowing the crunch of gravel under the feet, or the warm flush of a summer breeze on the cheek. Had they finally reached a landfall, ever, anywhere?

  Certainly they had never returned to Earth. After three hundred and fifty years the granite launching rack still stood empty. The rocket port had grown up around it, engulfing it as the years passed, until it stood in the great central lobby of the busy Terminal, a silent monument to the desperation and bravery of the ship that was launched there.

  Nor had the Argonaut ever reached the planets of Alpha Centauri, its intended destination, for modern Koenig-drive ships had searched those planets long and diligently and found no trace, no sign that Man had ever come there. All the near stars had been reached and explored by now — Altair and Vega, Alpha Centauri and Sirius and Arcturus and the rest — and nowhere had a sign been found. The Argonaut had become a legend, a brave gesture of the past, but the thought of that hopeless voyage never failed to stir Lars Heldrigsson, to make him eager to be off, impatient with the years of study that had been necessary to qualify him for the Colonial Service Patrol. It was a legend of greatness, and there was still a challenge in the stars that time and a changing world could never destroy.

  Of this Lars Heldrigsson was very sure.

  He shouldered his pack again, a tiny fifty-pound bundle, the weight limit allowed crewmen on Colonial Service ships, and walked quickly up the long ramp into the main Terminal Concourse. He was large for his eighteen years, standing a full six feet two, broad shouldered, powerful. His height and weight had been something of an issue when he had entered the Colonial Service Academy five years before; since then he had gained another two inches, and barely passed the physical examination before graduation, not because of any sign of ill health but because of sheer size. His shock of yellow-white hair, his blue eyes and the flat, heavy features of his face revealed clearly his Nordic ancestry. He seemed to move slowly and ponderously. Throughout his life he had had to contend with smaller, faster ones who made the unfortunate mistake of assuming that Lars Heldrigsson couldn’t move fast when he wanted to — to their enduring regret.

  Now he stepped briskly out into the Concourse, felt himself picked up and carried by the streams of travelers, crewmen, colonists and Security men riding the rolling strips to and from the launching racks and loading platforms. Everywhere there was feverish activity and bustle. Across the way he saw lines of colonists waiting for their final physicals and baggage checks before boarding the Star Ships that would carry them out to new homes, rugged homes, perhaps, a far cry from the crowded mechanization of the cities of Earth, but homes where they could have land and food and a place to raise their children, homes linked to Earth by the strong bonds of Colonial Service ships that traveled to the stars and back in months.

  And down the Concourse were the flashing lights of the shuttles leading out to the ships themselves.

  Star Ship Tethys, now loading colonists and supplies for the fourth planet of Sirius, an old Colony, well established, rich in land, rich in Earth-mutated wheat, a sub-tropical paradise with room for many thousands of families to settle and grow, almost self-supporting now and soon to apply for independent elections and representation in the Colonial Council.

  Star Ship Danton, taking men and machinery to the newly opened colony on Aldebaran III, a bitter place until Earth weather technicians and Earth civil engineers had carved a foothold for hungry Earthmen to find homes. A weather-beaten fisherman made his way onto the shuttle, with a gold ring in his ear and a tiny Arcturian monkey-bear on his shoulder, tossing three sparkling tele-dice in the air before him to amuse his pet and laughing as the creature batted at them with a tawny paw. There were great seas and many fish on Aldebaran III.

  Star Ship Mercedes, exploratory to the far system of Morua, a double star with endless summer on its seventh planet, a good prospect for a new colony in ten more years, after the exploratory crews and the survey crews and the engineering crews and the pilot colonies had done their work in opening it; a new escape valve for Earthmen who no longer had room enough at home.

  Star Ship Ganymede —

  Lars felt his heart pounding as he stepped across to the rolling strip bearing the green and white cross of the Ganymede. His ship! The assignment he had dreamed of since his first day in the Academy — to ship aboard the Ganymede with Walter Fox, the man who had opened more planets to colonization than any man since the first Koenig-drive ship had left Earth; the man whose seal of approval on a planet was a virtual guarantee of a successful and healthy colony. This trip on the Ganymede would be no exploratory voyage, to be sure — a full week now before blastoff to bunk down the new members of the crew and get the Officers-in-Training settled in their duties; then a milk-run to Vega III to run a final check on a colony about to be opened to free colonization — but it would be a good trip to give an Officer-in-Training his space legs. There would be exploratories later, to unvisited stars, to unknown dangers. Time enough for that, Lars thought. Now it was enough just to be assigned aboard the Ganymede.

  He glanced at the chrono on his wrist and stepped off the strip at a refresher booth. The assignment orders in his pocket instructed him to join his ship at 1400 hours; it was now only 1135. He had time to catch a shower and get himself into presentable uniform before going aboard. He wanted his first impression to be a good one. He could see himself in his mind’s eye, stepping off the gantry into the entrance lock of the Ganymede, saluting the flag first, then the officer of the deck. Walter Fox himself, perhaps? No, that would be too much to hope for. But perhaps Mr. Lorry then, the second officer, returning his salute with casual briskness and saying, “Name, Officer?”

  “Heldrigsson, sir. Officer-in-Training. Planetary ecology.”

  “Oh yes, one of the biology boys. You’ll be working with Dr. Lambert, then.”

  “Yes, sir. That’s what I’d hoped. Where will I find him, sir?”

  “Up in the lab, I suppose. Glad to have you aboard, Officer.” And another salute.

  In the refresher booth skillful robot fingers helped Lars ease off his travel-stained uniform, picked through his pack for disposables and discarded them all with a whoosh down the disposal chute. As new clothing popped out of the slot Lars stepped into the shower stall, still glowing from his daydream. He relaxed as sheets of warm water and detergent sponges enveloped him. Even five years of intensive study and preparation at the Academy could never truly prepare a man for space — this was understood from the start — and neither could they explain in advance the feeling of tension and excitement, the indescribable fever of wonder and adventure that took possession of you the hour before you stepped aboard a Star Ship for your first Officer-in-Training assignment.

  He had tried to explain it to Dad during the two-week graduation furlough from which he was just returning. It had been good to be home again for a few days, good to feel the warm winds coming up from the south, good to feel the bite of a pick once again in the rocky north-central Greenland soil. The farm was the same as he had remembered it, the heavy house built of glacial rock, the huge granite fireplace, the outbuildings, the fields of wheat spreading forth for miles in every direction. Dad had seemed unchanged, too, his face burned red and seamed by the wind, his hands rough and brown. Mom looked older and more tired, her eyes bright with worry as she greeted her son, but she had smiled through the worry, refusing to say a word to dampen his enthusiasm for his new assignment.

  He had spent the first days with old Black, the huge Labrador who guarded the farm against all assailants, hiking the hills and valleys he remembered so well from his childhood. But he knew the question would come, and presently it did as he sat with Dad before the fire one night after dinner.

  “Why do you want to go?” his father had asked him. “What are you looking for, Lars? What do you think you’re going to find out there on a Star Ship that you won’t find right here at home?”

  Lars had grinned, a little embarrassed. Just like Dad, he thought, to dispense with preliminari
es and speak his mind bluntly. “I don’t know, for sure. I just know I’ve got to do it. I want to go where nobody ever went before. I want to do things that nobody else has ever done, or ever could do.” He patted Black’s massive head, felt the dog muzzle his hand affectionately. “Black knows why I want to go. Ask him why he always wants to see what the other side of a hill looks like.”

  “And you have to go on a Star Ship for this?” Dad lit his pipe and watched his son’s face carefully. “You think all the frontiers are out there? You’re wrong, son. Look at our farm, our Greenland. Why, in your Grandfather Heldrigsson’s day our whole Greenland was an icecap!”

  Lars shrugged. “The weather technicians — ” he said.

  “But isn’t that a challenge? They took an icy wasteland here and made it the richest wheatland in the world. Look at the valley of the Amazon. It was a jungle once. Now its crops feed millions of people. Siberia, Antarctica — rich lands, son. There’s work for you here on Earth.”

  The clatter of dishes in the kitchen had stopped, and Lars knew his mother was listening. He shook his head. “I’ve thought about it, and it’s no good. This is your frontier, not mine. There’s no more room on Earth, hasn’t been for years. We need colonies, and the Star Ships have to find them. And I couldn’t have a better ship than the Ganymede. You know that Commander Fox is the best planet-breaker in the business.”

  “It’s a dangerous business.”

  Lars grinned. “Is that supposed to scare me off?”

  “But you don’t know how dangerous it may be,” his mother said from the doorway. “Suppose you found aliens on some planet you went to, some race of horrible monsters.”

  Lars laughed and gave her a bear hug. “Now you’re just digging up things to worry about. There aren’t any monsters. Hundreds of ships have gone to hundreds of stars and never a monster. At least not an intelligent monster. They haven’t found a single sign of alien intelligence anywhere. There aren’t any aliens.”