CHAPTER THREE

CAPTIVES OF THE DARK

The fat black arrows on the orange-coloured anameson fuel indicators stood at zero. The spaceship had not escaped the iron star, its speed was still great and it was being drawn towards that horrible star that human eyes could not see.

The astronavigator helped Erg Noor, who was trembling from weakness and from the effort he had made, to sit down at the computing machine. The planetary motors, disconnected from the robot helmsman, faded out.

“Ingrid, what’s an iron star?” asked Kay Bear, softly; all that time he had been standing motionless behind her back.

“An invisible star, spectral class T, that has become extinguished and is either in the process of cooling off or of reheating. It emanates the long infrared waves of the heat end of the spectrum whose rays are black to us and can only be seen through the electronic inverter. An owl can see the infrared rays and, therefore, could see the star.”

“Why is it called iron?”

“There is a lot of iron in the spectrum of those that have been studied and it seems there’s a lot of it in the star’s composition. If the star is a big one its mass and gravity are enormous. And I’m afraid we’re going to meet one of the big ones.” “What comes next?”

“I don’t know. You know yourself that we’ve got no fuel. We’re flying straight towards the star. We must brake Tantra down to a speed one-thousandth of the absolute, at which speed sufficient angular deviation will be possible. If the planetary fuel gives out too, the spaceship will slowly approach the star until it falls on it.”

Ingrid jerked her head nervously and Kay gently stroked her bare arm, all covered with goose-flesh.

The commander of the expedition went over to the control desk and concentrated on the instruments. Everybody kept silent, almost afraid to breathe, even Nisa Greet, who, although she had only just woke up, realized instinctively the danger of their situation. The fuel might be sufficient to brake the ship; but with loss of velocity it would be more difficult to get out of the tremendous gravitational field of the iron star without the ship’s motors. If Tantra had not approached so close and if Lynn had realized in time… but what consolation was there in those empty “ifs”?

Three hours passed before Erg Noor had made his decision. Tantra vibrated from the powerful thrust of the trigger motors. Her speed was reduced. An hour, a second, a third and a fourth, an elusive movement of the commander’s hand, horrible nausea for everybody in the ship and the terrifying brown star disappeared from the forward screen and reappeared on the second. Invisible bonds of gravity continued to hold the ship and were recorded in the measuring instruments. Two red eyes burned over Erg Noor’s head. He pulled a lever towards himself and the motors stopped working.

“We’re out!” breathed Pel Lynn in relief. The commander slowly turned his glance towards him.

“We’re not. We have only the iron ration of fuel left, sufficient for orbital revolution and landing.”

“What can we do?”

“Wait! I have diverted the ship a little, but we are passing too close. A battle is now going on between the star’s force of gravity and the reduced speed of Tantra. It’s flying like a lunar rocket at the moment and if it can get away we shall fly towards the Sun and will be able to call Earth. The time required for the journey, of course, will he much greater. In about thirty years we’ll send out our call for help and another eight years later it will come.”

“Thirty-eight years!” Bear whispered in scarcely audible tones in Ingrid’s ear. She pulled him sharply by the sleeve and turned away.

Erg Noor leaned back in his chair and dropped his hands on his knees. Nobody spoke and the instruments continued softly humming. Another melody, out of tune and, therefore, ominous, was added to the tuned melody of the navigation instruments. The call of the iron star, the great strength of its iron mass pulling for the weakened spaceship, was almost physically tangible.

Nisa Creet’s cheeks were burning, her heart was beating wildly. This inactive waiting had become unbearable.

The hours passed slowly. One after another the awakened members of the expedition appeared in the control tower. The number of silent people increased until all fourteen were assembled.

The speed of the ship had been progressively reduced until it reached a point that was lower than the velocity of escape so that Tantra could not get away from the iron star. Her crew forgot all about food and sleep and did not leave the control tower for many miserable hours during which the ship’s course changed more and more to a curve until she was in the fatal elliptical orbit. Tantra’s fate was obvious to the entire crew.

A sudden howl made them all start. Astronomer Pour Hyss jumped up and waved his hands. His distorted face was unrecognizable, he bore no resemblance to a man of the Great Circle Era. Fear, self-pity and a craving for revenge had swept all signs of intellectuality from the face of the scientist.

“Him, it was him,” howled Pour Hyss, pointing to Pel Lynn, “that clot, that fool, that brainless worm….” The astronomer choked as he tried to recall the swear-words of his ancestors that had long before gone out of use. Nisa, who was standing near him, moved away contemptuously. Erg Noor stood up.

“The condemnation of a colleague will not help us. The time is past when such an action could have been intentional. In this case,” Noor spun the handles on the computing machine carelessly, “as you see there was a thirty per cent probability of error. If we add to that the inevitable depression that comes at the end of a tour of duty and the disturbance due to the pitching of the ship I don’t doubt that you. Pour Hyss, would have made the same mistake!”

“And you?” shouted the astronomer, but with less fury than before.

“I should not. I saw a monster like this at close quarters during the 36th Space Expedition. It is mostly my fault — I hoped to pilot the ship through the unknown region myself, but I did not foresee everything, I confined myself to giving simple instructions!”

“How could you have known that they would enter this region without you?” exclaimed Nisa.

“I should have known it,” answered Erg Noor, firmly, in this way refusing the friendly aid of the astronavigator, “but there’s no sense in talking about it until we get bade to Earth.”

“To Earth!” whined Pour Hyss and even Pel Lynn frowned in perplexity, “to say that, when all is lost and only death lies ahead of us!”

“Not death but a gigantic struggle lies ahead of us,” answered Erg Noor, confidently, sitting down in a chair that stood before the table. “Sit down. There’s no need to hurry until Tantra has made one and a half revolutions.”

Those present obeyed him in silence and Nisa gave the biologist a smile, triumphant, despite the hopelessness of the moment.

“This star undoubtedly has a planet, even two, I imagine, judging by the curves of the isograve[10]. The planets, as you see,” the commander made a rapid but accurate sketch, “should be big ones and, therefore, should have an atmosphere. We don’t need to land, though, we have enough atomized solid oxygen[11].”

Erg Noor stopped to gather his thoughts. “We shall become the satellite of the planet and travel in orbit around it. If the atmosphere of the planet is suitable and we use up our air, we have sufficient planetary fuel to land and call for help. In six months we can calculate the direction,” he continued, ‘‘transmit to Earth the results obtained from Zirda and send for a rescue ship and save our ship.”