Chapter TWO: Heralds of Doom

"A planet or planetoid just off our course, 41C-98 reports," said 744U-21 to the professor. "We are now heading that way to discover what it may be. 41C-98 reports several peculiarities. For one thing, the sunshine strikes very dull against it, and for its apparent bulk our proximity detectors show a surprising lack of density."

As they moved nearer the mysterious body, they discovered that it was neither planet nor asteroid, nor did it move on an orbit. On the contrary, it pursued a course directly at right angles to an orbit. It was heading sunward.

The character of the celestial wanderer and its strange lack of density became understood when the spaceship of Zor approached close enough to reveal it as a meteoric swarm consisting of dust and cosmic debris. Many of the chunks were several miles in diameter. The professor's quick estimate placed the diameter of the swarm at seven thousand miles.

Rapid observations and computations were made. Growing suspicions of the machine men were verified. The mass was heading into the sun at a speed of several miles per second.

"You know what that means," said the professor, turning to those about him.

"Yes--a nova--an exploding star!"

"I never saw but one at close range during my entire existence as a machine man," said 6W-438.

"They are not unusual," 744U-21 observed. "Most every star, some time or other, goes through this phase. We see them often from afar, but they happen so quickly and without any warning that this is a rare coincidence that we should enter a system and find conditions preparatory to a nova. This meteoric mass will surely cause one when it strikes the sun."

"But I have understood that novas are not always caused by large bodies or meteor swarms colliding with a star," said the professor. "Popular theory supports a belief that often an internal solar disruption causes a star to explode.

"Such a cause as you mention generally promotes a greater disturbance, especially if it originates deep within the solar body. Contact with a meteoric swarm, as this case promises to be, rarely affects little more than the surface gases of a sun."

"Even so," observed 6W-438, "the cataclysm will be large enough to wipe out life on every world of this system and change the planetary surfaces.

"A terrific wave of heat will spread outward from the sun with the speed of the light which carries it. For the nearer planets, it will mean but a matter of a few minutes. Possibly a day or so later, tremendous waves of gases will sweep in the wake of the blinding, searing heat. They will be sufficiently tangible to slow the speed of the planets perceptibly upon their orbits. Terrific planetary disruptions will follow in the form of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, and entire oceans will turn to steam and bury each world in a dense cloud blanket. Temporarily, the nova will outshine every star in its neighborhood and will loom visible countless light years distant.

"It will mean doomsday for all life in this system even though the sun returns once more to its normal condition within the next ten or twenty years."

"It will be well to check our figures," cautioned 6W-438. "We must plan not to be such close observers that the nova will reach us."

At the rate the meteoric mass was traveling sunward, Professor Jameson, as was his usual habit, figured that nearly twenty-three of his earthly days must elapse before the swarm of cosmic debris reached the sun.

Their first step was to examine all the planets and find what, if any, life they supported. They had already passed a few of the outer worlds and had found them apparently lifeless. The spaceship now approached another world, a planet so large that their proximity detectors remained oblivious to all else even while they were still far off.

"It is one of the larger worlds which we must avoid," Professor Jameson stated. "The gravity there is so strong we could move around only with difficulty and a superexpenditure of energy, and even if we landed safely, our spaceship would find it hard to leave."

"We shall make our observations entirely by telescope, then," answered 6W-438.

Glasses were trained upon the colossal world as the spaceship sped close to the giant world in a gradual curve to the sunward side. From afar, they had recognized the fact that the planet possessed an atmosphere. Observations confirmed the strange coloring of the planet as vegetation. Where the machine men found vegetation, they invariably found animal life as well. The topography of the huge world loomed nearer, so much nearer that 744U-21 cautioned 20R-654 not to navigate closer.

"I am not," came the startling announcement. "I am trying to get clear of the planet's grip. There is a slight drift of the spaceship, which I am having trouble counteracting."

The looming orb grew larger, swelling in diameter and obscuring a greater portion of the sky beyond. The difficulties of 20R-654 were becoming increased. Alarm spread among the machine men. The intense gravitation held their ship and was threatening to draw it down with a smashing blow.

"We are starting to fall! The ship is accelerating its descent!"

"Turn!" cried the professor. "Turn away and give it all the power we have!"

The course of the spaceship had been parallel to the planet's orbit. 20R-654 now turned the ship directly away from the looming world and unleashed a tremendous burst of power. Instruments showed a slackening of their descent, yet their fall continued.

"Something is wrong with the resisters!" 20R-654 explained. "That is why the ship came so much closer to the planet than I had intended!"

"We are still falling but not so fast as before!"

"At full repulsion, too!"

"Yes--we are too close, and the gravity is so great! Without the strength of the resisters we can only hope to come down as lightly as possible!"

The professor knew this latter statement to be nothing but hope. Their fall was rapid enough to smash them all to bits of wreckage when the spaceship crashed. And their precious brains would be scattered among the ruins.

* * * * *

The great world swelled on their vision, its proportions so vast that it filled the sky before them. Mountainous country reached giant fingers to receive them. On the horizon, the topography was obscured by cloud masses drifting in the great, dense sea of atmosphere. Already, they were able to feel the mighty attraction of the planet's gravity upon their metal bodies.

"Keep the reverse charges going until the last minute--until we strike!"

"The unusual density of the atmosphere may help slow our descent!"

This, they knew, was a long chance. The density of the atmospheric lower levels was commensurate with the planet's strong gravity.

A sobbing wail arose from outside the ship, swelling into a roar of many waterfalls. The spaceship throbbed and trembled, and every machine man realized that they had penetrated into the atmosphere at a tremendous speed. Anxiously, they consulted their instruments. Their mad fall was checked but slightly, and they realized their doom, for in the hundred miles or more left them, there was no possible chance of braking their speed to a safe maximum even with the increasing density of the atmosphere to help them.

It was in the professor's mind that a few of them might survive the crash--but to what purpose? What would there be left for a few machine men on a giant world with an irreparably wrecked spaceship and dead companions? Mechanically crippled, they would await the coming of the nova with the end it would bring. Such an outlook was even more dismal than direct annihilation.

A few of the machine men stared down from the falling ship at the fast approaching destruction, yet they were comparatively calm. Here was none of the terrified hysteria characteristic of organic creatures. Most of them had lived many lifetimes compared to their original existence.

Down they swept to inevitable doom, their reverse charges beating helplessly against the awful drag of the planet's bulk. Professor Jameson, engrossed in gloomy introspection, was suddenly swept off his feet and crashed against 744U-21 and 6W-438, who fell with him against the wall and into a corner. For a moment, they believed that the crash had come, but those who had been looking down at the giant world knew better.

There remained but a few miles between the ship and the surface. Machine men were sent tumbling in every direction. The gravity had changed suddenly from the floor of the ship to one side. The ship had turned over. Evidently 20R-654 had lost control. Their last hope, the continued expulsion charges from the ship, was gone!

Slowly, the gravity again changed to still another side of the ship, rolling them along into tangled piles. Expecting it at any moment, to the machine men it seemed that the crash was infinitely delayed. When it came, Professor Jameson felt himself hurled with terrific force against the opposite wall, and his consciousness left him in a bright glare of inner light as his head struck the wall.

* * * * *

His first thought on regaining consciousness was surprise that he had done so. Was he the only one left? There must have been others, a few at least. Active thought waves probed his brain, and he knew that he was not alone in having survived.

A clattering and scraping of metal reached him as a machine man came limping and stumbling over several quiet companions. It was 41C-98. Above him, the professor could see a side wall of the spaceship.

"Come, 21MM392, you do not seem badly damaged other than having bent a leg. Arise."

"How bad are things? How many of us are alive?"

"More than we ever expected. I suffered only a few mechanical injuries. There are many lying about still unconscious. I received calls from others in different parts of the ship, who are helpless to move. Even with a well-functioning body, it is hard to move against the strong gravity of this world."

The professor rose slowly to his feet and realized the truth of the statement. With difficulty, he stepped from the tangle of metal bodies surrounding him. It required several times more generated energy from his mechanical body than he had ever been forced to use to walk on a planet.

He wondered how 744U-21, 6W-438 and others with him when the crash came had fared. He probed their mental faculties and found them not dead but only quiescent. Mental radiations reached him from other parts of the ship, and with 41C-98 he went to investigate, proceeding with an effort.

"We should be equipped with super-powered bodies for this world," the professor told 41C-98.

In other chambers of the ship, their surprise was succeeded by wonder. Instead of twisted walls and warped wreckage, they found only signs of a severe fall. As fast as they could move, the machine men, joined by other bewildered Zoromes, went outside the ship and examined the hull.

They had crashed through a deep tangle of vegetation. Several seams in the hull gaped open and appeared to be the greatest damage done the ship in its fall. At first, they were inclined to believe that the fall through the vast tangle of vegetation had saved them, yet somehow this explanation did not seem adequate.

Not until 20R-654 came to his senses did they learn the truth.

"I saw that we were going to crash and destroy both the spaceship and ourselves in spite of the full reverse charges. So at the last moment, while we were still several miles above the surface, I shut off the reverse charges and let loose a side charge which turned us sideways to the surface.

"Then I released charges on our side facing the surface and once more loosed our reverse charges, so that we fell on a long slant which used up much of the speed of our fall. We were lucky to strike this great mass of vegetation where so many giant creepers intertangle. Otherwise, fewer of us would be left."

More of the machine men returned to their senses. The others were examined and found to be suffering from mental shock from which they would eventually recover. The casualties were the first ones to occur in a long time--and there were two. In a compartment next to the ruptured hull were found 250Z-42 and 4F-686, their heads battered.

"We are saved but temporarily from a fate such as theirs," said the professor gravely, "for unless we can get the ship repaired within the time left us before the meteoric mass strikes the sun, we shall be annihilated with everything else on the face of this world when the sun explodes and the nova spreads swiftly throughout this system of planets."

"How can we ever leave here--even if the necessary repairs are made in time?" asked 119M-5. "We are unable to escape the power of this world's gravitation from a distance, so how are we to get free now that we are upon its surface?"

"Our gravitational resisters were faulty and were overcome and broken down by the mighty strain of this planet's pull," 20R-654 explained. "They must be reconditioned, and, besides repairing the hull, new parts must be made which will give us a greater lifting power when we take off. Starting from a dead stop on this giant world will require tremendous forces we have never previously required because we have never visited planets of this size."