“Yes, we’ve made all the calculations and preparations. Soon Grimm Schar will be here and we’ll start filling the tank with a mixture of neon, oxygen and nitrogen until the pressure reaches three atmospheres. But first let’s make sure of our ground.”
Eon Thai conferred with his two assistants. Some sort of a machine began crawling slowly towards the brown tank. The sheet of rutholucite that formed the front of the protective housing moved to one side opening up a passage for the machine.
The electrodes inside the tank were changed for micro-mirrors with cylindrical lamps to provide light for them. One of the assistants stood at the remote control panel: a concave surface appeared on the screen; it was covered with a sort of granular coating that reflected light very dully — this was the interior wall of the tank.
“X-rays won’t be of much use,” said Eon Thai, “the insulation is too thick. We’ll have to use a more complicated method.”
The revolutions of the mirror revealed, on the bottom of the tank, two white masses of irregular spherical shape and with a spongy, fibrous surface. The balls bore some resemblance to the fruit of the bread-tree that had shortly before been developed and were about 70 centimetres in diameter.
“Switch the televisophone on to Grimm Schar’s vector,” said the biologist to an assistant. The scientist, as soon as he was sure of the correctness of the general assumptions, hurried to the laboratory. He screwed up his eyes near-sightedly, but merely from habit and not from weak sight, and looked over the apparatus. Grimm Schar did not have the impressive appearance and imperative character one would expect in a prominent scientist. Erg Noor remembered Renn Bose, whose bashful, boyish appearance was also deceptive and belied the greatness of his mind.
“Open the welded seam,” ordered Grimm Schar. A mechanical hand cut through the hard enamel mass without moving the heavy lid. Hoses with the gaseous mixture were attached to the stop-cocks. A strong infrared ray projector took the place of the iron star.
“Temperature… pressure… electrical charge…” called out an assistant reading off the dials of the instruments.
Half an hour later Grimm Schar turned to the astronauts.
“Let’s go to the rest-room, there’s no way of guessing how long those capsuled beasts will take to revive. If
Eon’s right it won’t be long. The assistant will call __, “
The Institute of Nerve Currents was situated far from the inhabited zone, on the fringe of the steppe reservation. At the end of summer the earth was dry and the wind had a peculiar rustle to it that came through the open windows together with a faint odour of sun-dried grasses.
The three scientists, seated in comfortable armchairs, kept silent as they stared out of the windows over the tops of wide-spreading trees towards the haze of the distant horizon. From time to time one or the other of them would close his tired eyes but the waiting was too tense for anybody to doze. This time, however, the patience of the scientists was not too severely tried. Before three hours had passed the screen giving direct communication with the laboratory lit up and an assistant appeared, scarcely able to contain himself.
“The lid’s moving!”
In an instant all three of them were in the laboratory.
“Shut the rutholucite chamber tight, check up on its hermetic sealing!” ordered Grimm Schar. “Arrange planet conditions in the chamber.”
The powerful pumps hissed faintly, the pressure regulators whistled and in a moment the transparent cage was filled with the atmosphere of the world of darkness.
“Increase gravitation, humidity and atmospheric electricity,” continued Grimm Schar. The laboratory was filled with the acrid odour of ozone.
Nothing happened. The scientist knitted his brows as he studied the instruments and tried to imagine what had been omitted.
“They need darkness!” came Erg Noor’s measured tones.
Eon Thal even jumped in the air.
“How could I have forgotten? Grimm Schar, you haven’t been on the blade planet, but I have!”
“The polarizing shutters!” ordered the scientist instead of answering him.
The light went out. The laboratory was illuminated only by the lights in the instruments. The assistants pulled blinds over the control desk and complete darkness ensued. Here and there faint stars twinkled — the-luminous dials of some indicators.
The breath of the black planet wafted in the faces of the astronauts bringing with it memories of the awful but thrilling days of hard struggle.
There was silence for some minutes that was broken only by the cautious movements of Eon Thai who was tuning in the demonstration screen for infrared reception and arranging the polarizing shield so that light from the screen would not be reflected.
First came a faint sound and then a heavy thud as the lid from the tank fell down inside the chamber. It was followed by the familiar flickering of brown lights as the tentacles of the black monster appeared over the edge of the tank. With a sudden jump it leaped upwards spreading darkness over the whole area of the rutholucite chamber and banged against the transparent ceiling. Thousands of brown stars spread over the body of the jellyfish, its black cloak bulged and formed a dome as if the wind were blowing from below and then rested on the floor of the chamber with all its tentacles gathered in a bunch. The second monster rose out of the tank like another black phantom, its swift and silent movement inspiring fear in the onlookers. Here, however, within the walls of the experimental chamber and surrounded by remote-controlled instruments, the spawn of the planet of darkness was powerless.
Instruments measured, photographed, drew intricate curves, determined the nature of the animals and broke down their structure into various physical, chemical and biological indicants. The human intellect gathered these qualitatively different data together again and mastered the structure of the awe-inspiring monsters in order to subordinate them to himself.
As hour after hour passed almost unnoticed Erg Noor became sure of victory.
Eon Thai was becoming more and more radiant, Grimm Schar grew as vivacious as his youthful assistants.
At last the scientist approached Erg Noor.
“You may go now with an easy heart. We shall stay here until the investigation is finished. I’m afraid to switch on visible light as these black medusae can’t hide from it here as they would on their own planet. They must first be made to tell us all we want to know.”
“And how long will it take to find out?”
“In three or four days our investigation will have become exhaustive for the level of knowledge we possess. We can already imagine how their paralysing organs function.”
“And will you be able to cure… Nisa… Eon?”
“Yes!”
Only then did Erg Noor realize what a heavy burden he had been bearing since that black day. Day or night… what did it matter! Wild joy filled the whole of that man of great restraint. He had difficulty in overcoming a mad desire to throw Grimm Schar up into the air, to shake the little scientist and embrace him. Erg Noor was astounded at himself, began to calm down and a minute later had returned to his normal state of concentration.
“Your studies will be a tremendous help to the future expedition that will have to fight against the black jellyfish and crosses!”
“Of course! We shall know the enemy now. But is there going to be another expedition to that world of heavy weight and darkness?”
“I don’t doubt it.”
The warm morning of a northern autumn was just beginning.
Erg Noor, without his usual hustle, was walking barefoot on the soft grass. In front of him, at the forest fringe, the green wall of the cedars was interspersed with already leafless maples that looked like columns of thin smoke. On the reservation man did not interfere with nature — there was beauty in the disorderly growths of tall grasses, in their mixed, contradictory, pleasant and pungent odours.