Authentic Science Fiction, No. 23 — page 6: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

8 THE SINGING SPHERES profitless process of prodding chunks of sterile silica. A funny thing, I thought, that I couldn’t stand the exciting | | times and didn’t like it either when life was quiet. I looked again at Hartnell and Tubby, resting easily, and wondered whether I might be getting old. Anyway, Kartdoon was already marked down in my mind as another uninhabited planet. The back-room boys aboard Old Growler thought so, at least. We took turns round the place in the scout ship, spying vast, brown deserts and a few grey seas. Hartnell put the vessel down near the shore and we went out to find the water steaming and heavy with am- monia. ‘Tests with the Mesonic filter showed nothing—no scrap of plant life, no microscopic blob of protoplasm. After one or two other calls, he descended again near our present location on the pretext of gathering geological specimens, say- ing also that the foothill strata might produce results. In this way we came toiling towards the ridge, finding it heavy going despite the. gravity-reactors in the Bergmann suits. ‘There was only one comfort—we certainly wouldn’t be overworked and we wouldn’t have to keep making the usual hourly reports to the controller. And with these reflections, I, too, slept. Nearly two hours later I awoke with a blinding headache. First thought was an oxygen-fault or an insulation filter gone wrong. Everything was working normally, though, so I turned up the oxygen a little more for luck and felt better after a while. Hartnell! and Tubby were both frowning in their sleep, with little puckers of flesh forming near the bridge of the nose, and stirring uneasily. Alarm prickled coldly along my backbone. Despite the head-swimming pain and ringing in my ears, I pulled myself beyond the sheltering rock and looked out. Everywhere was still deserted and desolate beneath that horrible sky. “Wake up, you two,” I said. “Wake up!” I heard them groan in chorus. Thén Hartnell opened his eyes, only to shut them again as though someone had hit him across the forehead. I staggered across and clicked round their oxygen taps two or three notches. “Suffering Sirius!” said Hartneil. He had a weakness for alliteration in moments of stress. “My head!” THE SINGING SPHERES 9 “What the devil is it?” groaned Tubby. ate?”’ Our last meal had been in the scout ship and undoubtedly quite wholesome. Hartnell licked his lips wryly, as though trying to get rid of an unpleasant flavour. “Reminds you of a hangover after a night in a Z-bar, doesn’t it, Pop?” Z-bars are where bright young spacemen relax between trips and certainly no places for a respectable, middle-aged botanist. “I wouldn’t know,” I said, coldly, and brought the discussion to a more reasonable level. “Could it be some- thing in the atmosphere that gets past the filters?” Apparently it wasn’t. Hartnell made one or two quick tests on gadgets I don’t understand and said the air in this region was the same as elsewhere—very little oxygen, some nitrogen, lots of argon and other inert gases, with odd traces of fluorine and ammonia. “I’m sure there’s nothing else,” he said, baffled. “If only my head didn’t ring so much—’” “You get that, too?” asked Tubby, interestedly. “Some- times the height brings it on with me—” It did with me, also, but I wasn’t going to wait aimlessly while these two invalids discussed their symptoms. “How about radiations of some sort—”’ “That’s right,” said Hartnell. ‘“High-pitched sort of ring- ing. Makes your ears feel numb inside—” “Yes, and funny-like, as though you're dazed—” “Radiations?” I said, firmly. “Could it be that?” “A kind of very high buzzer-note—whistling and ringing at the same time,” went on Hartnell. “‘At least, the oxygen’s easing the headache a bit, even though it doesn’t seem to quieten the noise—” “Try swallowing quickly,” suggested Tubby. “Or if you think it’s safe to take the helmets off for a few seconds how about—”’ Obviously, they didn’t intend to pay much attention to my suggestions, and in something of a temper I decided I wouldn't listen to them, either. I put my thumb to my belt and flipped off the radio inter-com. And in the same instant the noise stopped. The silence which followed was so startling and so abrupt that for a moment I failed to scalise it. The feeling of relief eclipsed everything else. “Something we Eomilebooks.co