The execution was announced just before the sleep period, but long enough after dinner to prevent physical upset.

Lesbee had not eaten dinner. Nor had any of the other executioners.

8

Lesbee awakened the following day from his uneasy sleep to the realization that his 'call' alarm was buzzing softly.

He dressed, and headed immediately for the bridge.

As he sank into the seat beside Browne, he noted with surprise that the planet, which had been so close, was nowhere to be seen. A glance at the mighty sun, Alpha A, brought another, more pleasant surprise. It was receding, already much smaller. The three suns A, B, and C were still not a unit, but only one, the dim C, was still ahead; the other two swam like small, bright lights in the blackness behind them.

'Ah,' said Captain Lesbee's voice from behind them. 'There you are, John. Good morning, gentlemen.'

They looked around. The commander, looking rested, walked over to a chair and sat down.

Lesbee acknowledged the greeting diffidently. He was not too pleased at the attempt at friendliness, and was no longer sure that he liked his father. However wildly Ganarette might have talked at times, it was hard to forget that they had grown up together. Besides, Ganarette had been right! Once the threat of mutiny was past, it was hardly the time to execute. The finale had come too quickly, Lesbee thought agonizingly. Given a chance to consider the sentence, he himself might have protested to his father. The unseemly haste of the execution repelled him. The cruelty of it shocked him.

His father was speaking again: 'While you slept, John, I had a specially equipped torpedo projected into the atmosphere of A-4. I'm sure that everyone here would like to see what happened to it.'

He did not wait for a reply. The picture on the screen changed. It showed a scene, recorded earlier, with the planet looming quite close, and off to one side a bright gleam where the torpedo was falling toward the haze of atmosphere below.

What happened then was surprising. The torpedo began to twist and dive in a random fashion; a wisp and then a trail of smoke issued from it.

'Another minute and we would have lost it altogether,' said Captain Lesbee. 'I'm surprised the recall command got through, but it did.'

The scene showed the torpedo as it slowly straightened its course, turned, and climbed back toward the ship. Part of the return journey was through a heavy rain flooding down on the eerie land below.

The torpedo rocketed to the vicinity of the ship, and was snatched by tractor beams and drawn aboard.

As the picture on the screen faded, Captain Lesbee climbed to his feet and approached a long, canvas-covered object, which Lesbee had noticed when he first entered the bridge.

Very deliberately, the commander tugged the canvas aside.

It took a moment for Lesbee to recognize the scarred and battered cigar-shaped thing that lay there, as the once-glistening torpedo.

Involuntarily, he approached it, and stared down at it in amazement. There were shocked murmurs from some of the other men. He paid no attention. The inch-thick hull of the torpedo was seared through in a dozen places as if by intolerable fire. Behind him, a man said hesitantly:

'You mean, sir, that... atmosphere... down... there -?'

'This torpedo,' said Captain Lesbee, as if he had not heard the question, 'and possibly the Centaurus I , ran into a hydrochloric acid and nitric acid rain. A ship made of glass, platinum, or lead, or covered with wax could go down into an atmosphere capable of that kind of precipitation. And we could do it if we had a method of spraying our ship continuously with sodium hydroxide or other equally strong base. But that would take care of only one aspect of the devil's atmosphere down there.'

He looked around again, gravely now. 'Well, that's about all, gentlemen. There are other details, but I need scarcely point out that this planet is not for human beings. We shall never know if the first Centaurus expedition went down into that atmosphere without proper investigation. If they did, they discovered the truth the hard way.'

The words lifted young Lesbee out of his tension. He had taken it for granted they would spend several years in exploration. Now instead, they would be going home.

He would see Earth before he died.

The excitement of that thought ended, as his father spoke again: 'Whatever the civilization of the aliens, they were not very friendly. They warned us, but that could be because they had no desire for our big ship to come crashing down on one of their towns. The warning transmitted, they departed. Since then, we have seen two ships come up and disappear, apparently heading out to interstellar space. Neither of the ships made any effort to approach us.'

He broke off, added: 'Now, let me turn to another matter. The inhabitants of this system are evidently psychologists, for they sent along film strips of life on their planet. Their assumption, I presume, was that we would be curious, and so during the next few days we shall show these films. I have taken a peek, and I'll just say that they look like walking snakes, very tall, very graceful, sinuous, and intelligent. It must be a pleasurable and elegant existence that they live, for there is an atmosphere of extreme gentility.'

He paused, then gravely: 'I hope you are as convinced as I am that there is nothing for us here. However, we are not going home.

'For two reasons – first, that Earth is no longer a habitable planet was certainly one of my considerations. But I'll say no more about that, in view of my personal involvement. The other reason is, suppose there is an undamaged Earth – then we are bound to continue on. My orders from Averill Hewitt, the owner of this ship, are to proceed to Sirius, then Procyon.

'You can see why it was necessary to eliminate the troublemaker in our midst. The example made of him will restrain the hotheads.'

The intensity went out of his voice. He finished quietly: 'Gentlemen, you have all necessary information. You will conduct yourselves with that decorum and confidence which is the mark of an officer, regardless of the situation in which he finds himself.

'You have my best wishes -'

9

John Lesbee III, acting captain, sat in the great captain's chair, which he had rigged up on the bridge, and pondered the problem of the old people.

There were too many of them. They ate too much. They required constant attention. It was ridiculous having seventy-nine people aboard who were over a hundred years old.

On the other hand, some of those old scoundrels knew more about science and interstellar navigation than all the younger people put together. And they were aware of it, too, the cunning, senile wretches. Which ones could be killed without danger of destroying valuable knowledge? He began to write down names, mostly of women and non-officers among the men. When it was finished he stared down at it thoughtfully, and mentally selected the first five victims. Then he pressed a button beside his chair.

Presently, a heavily built young man climbed up the steps from below. 'Yeah,' he said, 'what is it?'

Lesbee III gazed at the other with carefully concealed distaste. There was a coarseness about Atkins that offended his sensibilities, and in a curious fashion it seemed to him that he could never like the man who had killed his father, John Lesbee II, even though he himself had ordered the killing.

Lesbee sighed. Life was a constant adaptation to the reality of inorganic and organic matter that made up one's environment. In order to get a man properly murdered, you had to have a capable murderer. From a very early age he had realized that his nonentity of a father would have to be eliminated. Accordingly, he had cultivated Atkins. The man must be kept in his place, of course.