West Of The Sun Read online

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  Transcriber's Note

  Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

  On earth it was 2056 A.D. but on the red-green planet it was

  THE YEAR ONE

  _There were only six human beings_--

  DR. CHRISTOPHER WRIGHT, anthropologist--he believed in man's basic goodness ... but could he put his trust in an alien race?

  PAUL MASON--he dutifully shared his wife with his best friend.

  DOROTHY LEEDS--Paul was her husband, but she knew there were some things more important than love.

  SEARS OLIPHANT--the gentle scientist who inspired love in an alien.

  ANN BRYAN--the youngest of them all, she had to be taught violence and passion.

  EDMUND SPEARMAN--the rebel who had to have his own tribe to rule ... even though it meant war with his Earth companions.

  _Six humans alone against the deadly forces of a strange and distant planet._

  * * * * *

  WEST OF THE SUN

  EDGAR PANGBORN

  * * * * *

  To Mary C. Pangborn

  * * * * *

  Contents

  PART ONE_A.D. 2056_ 9

  PART TWO_The Year One_ 77

  PART THREE_The Year Ten_ 161

  * * * * *

  Part One

  A.D. 2056

  1

  Morning was flowing over the red-green planet. "What do we know?" Thedelicate brown face of Dorothy Leeds kindled with questions."Summarize it."

  Edmund Spearman achieved casualness. "Diameter and mass a trifle morethan Earth's, larger orbit around a larger sun. A year of 458 days,twenty-six hours each. Moderate seasonal changes, axial tilt less thanEarth's, orbit less elliptical. See the smallness of the north polarice cap? The equatorial region--much too hot; the rest is subtropicalto temperate. We should go down (if we do) near the 50thparallel--north, I'd say. Too much desert in the southern hemisphere.Might be hot winds, sandstorms."

  "The red-green _is_ vegetation?" Dr. Christopher Wright teetered onlong legs before the screen, a classroom mannerism unchanged by elevenyears in the wilderness of space. He pinched and pulled the skin onhis Adam's apple, his hawk's-beak, small-chinned head jutting forwardwith an awkwardness not aggressive but intent. Paul Mason thought:_You love him or hate him. In either case he's never quite grotesque._Wright's too-soft voice insisted: "It _is_, of course?"

  "It has to be, Doc," Spearman said, and rubbed his bluish cheeks,looking older than his thirty-two years. Already he showed frontalbaldness, deeply bracketed mouth corners. On Spearman's big shoulderswas the burden of the ship. Watching him now, Paul Mason was troubledby a familiar thought: _Captain Jensen should not have died_.... "Ithas to be. The instruments show oxygen in Earth proportion, orsomewhat richer, plus nitrogen and carbon dioxide. The camera gives ustree shadows in these latest photographs with the stronger lens. Theair may make us oxygen-happy--if we go down.... Well, Dorothy--twocontinents, two oceans, both smaller than the Atlantic, connectednarrowly at north and south polar regions. Dozens of lakes bigger thanthe Caspian. The proportion of land to water surface works out nearlythe same as on Earth. No mountains to match the Himalayas, but somepretty high ranges. Unlimited forest, prairie, desert." He closedbloodshot eyes, pressing the lids. Paul Mason thought: _I should nevertry to paint Ed. The portrait would always come out as HerculesFrustrated, and he wouldn't care for it...._ Spearman said, "Even mostof the tallest mountains look smooth--old. If there were glaciers itwas a long time ago."

  "Geologically a quiet phase," Sears Oliphant remarked. "As Earthlooked in the Jurassic and may look again." Born fifty years ago inTel Aviv, brought up in London, Rio, and New York because his parentswere medical trouble shooters for the Federation, and possessed of adoctorate in biology (more exactly, taxonomy) from Johns Hopkins,Sears Oliphant claimed that his original Polish name could not havebeen spelled with the aid of two dictionaries and a crowbar. His fatface blinked at Dorothy with little kind eyes. "I forget, sugar--youweren't around in the Jurassic, were you?"

  "Maybe." Her slow smile was for Paul. "As a very early mammal."

  Wright said, "No artifacts.... At first it looked like Venus." Hiscrinkled asymmetrical face probed at them with a wistful half smilelike a child's. "May we call this planet Lucifer, son of the morning?And if we land and found a city (or am I being ridiculous?)--let it beJensen City, in honor of a more-than-solar myth."

  Shading closed lids, Spearman said with harshness, "Myth?"

  "Why, Ed, yes--like all remembered heroes who continue in the love ofothers, a love that magnifies. How else would you have it?"

  "But"--Ann Bryan was high-voiced, troubled--"Lucifer----"

  "My dear, Lucifer was an angel. Devils and angels have a way ofturning out to be the same organism. I noticed that first when I was adamned interne. I noticed it again when I switched to anthropology. Ieven noticed it on a space ship with the five persons I love best....No artifacts, huh?"

  Dorothy said, "You haven't seen these latest pictures, Doc."

  "Something?" Wright hurried over, gray eyes wide and sparkling. "I'dquit hoping." Ann joined him, quick-motioned in her slimness, tootaut. Wright slipped an elderly arm around her. "Parallel lines, injungle? Ah.... Now, why none in the open ground?"

  Spearman suggested: "We could take more shots. But...."

  Paul Mason broke the darkening silence. "But what, Ed?"

  "We're falling, some. I could move us out into a self-sustaining orbitby using more of the reaction mass. We have none to waste. Jensen'sdeath eleven years ago----" Spearman shook his gaunt but heavy head."Thirty pre-calculated accelerations--and the rest periods theyallowed us were insufficient, I think. You remember what wrecks wewere when it was finished; that's why I tried to allow more time indeceleration." His brassy voice slowed, fetching out words with care:"The last acceleration, as you know, was not pre-calculated. Jensenwas already dead (must have been heart) when his hand took us out ofautomatic, made another acceleration that damn near flattened us----"

  "Still here though." Sears Oliphant chuckled and patted his middle."We made it, didn't we, boy?" It sounded a little forced.

  "In deceleration I had to allow for the big step Jensen never meant;more of the mass was used to correct a deflection. Same allowance mustbe made in returning, not to mention the biggest drain of all--gettingout of gravity here, a problem not present at the spaceport. Oh, it'splanned for--she's built to do it, even from a heavier planet thanthis. But after she's done it the margin for return will be--narrowerthan I care to think."

  Dorothy, small and soft, leaned back in Paul's arms. Her even voicewas for everyone in the control room: "Nevertheless we'll go down."

  Spearman gazed across at her without apparent comprehension. He wenton, deliberate, harassed: "Here's a thing I never told you. In thataccidental acceleration the ship did not respond normally: thedeflection happened then, and it may have been due to a defect in thebuilding of _Argo_, a fault in the tail jets. At the time, it was allI could do to reach Jensen before I blacked out--I still don't knowhow I ever managed it. Later I tried to think there could be nodefect. The forward jets took care of us nicely in deceleration. Untilwe start braking, we can't know. Indicators _say_ everything's al
lright down there. Instruments can lie. Lord, they've sweated outatomic motors since before 1960, almost a century now--and we're stillkids playing with grown-up toys."

  Sears smiled into plump hands. "So I must be sure to pack mymicroscope in one of the lifeboats--hey?"

  "You're for landing, then."

  Sears nodded. Ann Bryan thrust thin ivory fingers into her loose blackhair. "_I_ couldn't take another eleven years." She attempted a smile."Tell me, somebody--tell me there'll be music on Lucifer--a way tomake new strings for my violin before I forget everything...."

  Dorothy said, "Land." Gently, as one might say time for lunch. And sheadded: "We'll find strings, Nan."

  "Land, of course," said Christopher Wright, preoccupied; his longfinger tapped on the photograph; his lips went on moving silently,carrying through some private meditation. "Land. Give protoplasm achance."

  "Land," Paul Mason said. _Did anyone suppose the First Interstellarwould just turn around and go home? We're here, aren't we...?_

  Through hours when spoken words were few, inner words riotous, Luciferturned an evening face. A morning descent might have been pleasanterin human terms, but the calculator, churning its mathematical brew,said the time was now.

  Paul Mason squirmed into his pilot's seat. It was good, he thought,that they could at least meet the challenge of the unexplored withadequate bodies. Wright was dryly indestructible; Ed Spearman a gauntmonolith; the plumpness of Sears Oliphant had nothing flabby. Thewomen were in the warm vigor of a youth that had never known illness.As for his own body, Paul felt for it now a twinge of amusedadmiration, as if he were seeing an animated statue by an artistbetter than himself: slender, tough, nothing too much, built forendurance and speed--it would serve. Spearman was already talking inthe earphones: "Close lock. Retract shield." Paul responded fromingrained training. Beyond the window that would give him forwardvision in the (impossible) event he had to fly the lifeboat, theheavens opened. Withdrawal of the shield into the belly of the mothership _Argo_ was a dream motion within a wider dream. Dorothy andWright were strapped in the two seats behind him: half of _Argo's_human treasure was here. "Go over what you do if you have to driveoff. Over."

  "Lever for release. No action till wing-lock indicator is green. Nojet unless to correct position. In atmosphere handle as glider, jetonly in emergency. Over." After all, Paul considered, he had had athousand hours of atmospheric flying, and two years' drill on theseboats. Ed could worry less and save wind. Beautiful mechanisms intheir own right, Model L-46, lying eleven years secret but alert inthe streamlined blisters, powered by charlesite to avoid the ponderousshielding still necessary for atomic motors--and charlesite, perfectedonly thirty years ago in 2026, was obedient stuff. In space, the boatswere small rocket ships; in atmosphere, gliders or low-speed jetplanes. While _Argo_ had been in the long ordeal of building, Paul hadbeen shot from gleaming tubes like this into the atmosphere of Earth,the blind depth at the spaceport, the desolate thin air of Mars.Spearman said, "Turning in five minutes."

  In the port lifeboat Ann and Sears would be waiting, but that lockwould be open, for Ed must be in the control room. If they had toabandon ship (ridiculous!) Ed's boat would be many moments behind.

  The stars moved. "Paul--check straps. Over."

  Paul glanced behind him. "All set. Over."

  The forward jets spoke once, and softly. Spearman said, "Out of orbit.We start braking sooner than you think. Then we'll know...."

  The depth of quiet was a depth of eternity. Time to reflect--tomarvel, if you wished. One hundred and eleven years since Hiroshima,which the inveterate insanity of history textbooks sometimes referredto as a great experiment. Eighty-five years since the first-mannedspaceport; seventy since the founding of stations on Luna and Mars.But to Paul Mason a greater marvel was the responding warmth of thewoman, the brooding charity of the old man, whose lives were upheldwith him in this silent nothing, dependent on the magic bundle ofmuscle and nerve that was himself. _What is love?_

  The greater spaceport had been twelve years in building. Then _Argo_.More than a century from early rocket experiments to the mile-longfactories turning out charlesite. In that century man had even addedto his morsels of self-knowledge a trifle more than he possessed inthe days of flint ax and reeking cave. "We are in atmosphere," saidthe earphones.... _Time: a cerebral invention? How long is a May fly'slife to a May fly...?_ "Braking starts in forty-five seconds. Warn theothers."

  Paul shoved down the mouthpiece, echoing the message. Wright said,"Six pushed-around people. The arrogance of man! Doing fine, Paul."

  Pressure--not too bad. A long roaring. But then the stars....

  The stars went mad. A glare--a cruel second of the light of the starthat was now the sun and a flicker of red-green, not real. The roaringpaused. Stopped.

  The earphones screamed: "Release! _Drive off!_"

  "Releasing." The amused voice was Paul's own. "Good luck, Ed."

  No answer. There was still such a thing as time. _Now, look: theFederation was a grand thing, potentially, if only, as Doc insists, itweren't for the damned cultural lag of the humanistic sciences, butthere is unfortunately no TIME to turn around and see if that littlebrown cowlick is over her forehead the way it_----Meantime he saidaloud, "Doc, Dorothy, get ready for a big one." And his hand pulledfor release--nicely, as you might steer a road car for a turn. Thepressure torment....

  Finished. He looked at a friendly green eye. So the retractile wingswere as good as eleven years ago--you hoped. Atmosphere--thin, saidthe gauge. Never mind, thicker soon. _And down you go_----

  _Too steep. Level off, if there's stuff to bite on. There is.... Thankyou, Machine Age Man, for a sweet boat. That thing gibbering in theautonomic and voluntary nervous systems--merely fear. Overlook it...._

  The ship was alien, far away. Turning, bright and deliberate, like amirror dropped in a well. The other lifeboat? But Ed would have toreach it, close lock, strap in, open shield, while the ship went....

  "Down"--lately an artificiality, now the plainest word in thelanguage. A gleaming disturbance in the air "down" yonder--somethingstreaking away from the dot that was a dying ship? "Ed, can you hearme? Over."

  "Yes," said the voice in the earphones.

  Paul noticed himself weeping. "They made it! They made it!"

  The voice said coldly, "Quiet. Your altitude? Over."

  "Forty-six thousand. All under control. Over, jerk."

  "I'm going to head for----_Ah!_ Can you see the ship?"

  It was possible to find the silver dot of _Argo_ above an S-shapedexpanse of blue. The blue, Paul understood, was not becoming larger,simply nearer. The dot changed to a white flower, which swelled andhung tranquilly over the blue, a brief memorial. The radio carried agroan, and then: "Better maybe. The lake may be shallow enough forsalvage. If it'd hit ground there'd be nothing at all. Get nearer,Paul. Keep me in sight--not too damn' near."

  Time.... Delicately Paul asked the boat for a steeper glide. Theresponse was even. Was it? Some peevish sound. He flattened the glidea thousand feet above Ed's boat. The red-green below--anything realabout it? Yes, if time was real, but one had to think that over....

  Mild hills of dark red-green, in the--west? Yes, because now there wasa birth of sunset beyond them. Lighter green below, alongside thelake: that would be meadow. Not one of the great lakes--no largerthan Lake Champlain, its outlet in the south blurred by marsh; only aportion of its northwest shore adjoined the meadow--except in thatregion the lake was a blue S written on red-green dark of jungle. Awinged brown thing slipped by, teasing the edge of vision. "Bird orsomething...."

  In the earphones was a dazed note, like shame. "Power was out of control,Paul--port motor. Had to be a defect in the building--something thatcouldn't take the strain of what happened eleven years ago. All theway--God!--and then to be loused up by a builder's error!" To Spearman,Paul knew, a mechanical defect was the gravest of indecencies, beyond anyforgiveness.

  True sunset here. A world. And you don't climb
out of gravity oncharlesite. Paul said, "Doc--parallel lines--I think."

  But the speed of the glide allowed no certainty, only a glimpse ofthree dark bars, perhaps half a mile long in the jungle area northwestof the meadow, and a hint of other groups further north. They _should_be there, according to a map Spearman had made in orbit from the finalphotographs. And some fifty miles south of here was a great network ofthem thirty miles long. The glide brought them out over meadow oncemore.

  A thing was riding with them. A grumbling moan. Paul told himself:_With Model L-46 it cannot happen--it cannot--Dorothy--Doc_----

  Dorothy cried, "Specks--in the open ground. Moving, hundreds of 'em.Oh, look! _Smoke_, Paul--campfires. How high are we?"

  "Under seven thousand. Check your compass by the sunset, Doc. See ifwe have a magnetic north."

  "We do...."

  Spearman's far-off voice said, "Life all right. I can't make out----"

  Paul cut in with hurried precision: "Ed--vibration, port wing, bad.I'm going to make one more circle over the woods if I can and try forthe north end of this meadow."

  A startled croak: "I'll jet off--give you room." Paul saw the squirtof green flame. Ed's boat darted westward like a squeezed apple seed.Paul dipped and leveled off as much as he dared. "We're--all right."

  He lived with it a timeless time. Knowing it would happen. They werecircling over jungle, pointed into sunset. The jet would only makematters worse--rip the heart out. Soon the meadow would come aroundagain....

  But the moment was now. An end of the moaning vibration. A lurch.Paul's hand leaped stupidly for the charlesite ignition and checkeditself.

  Calm, but for the reeling of sunset. _I must tell Dorothy not to fightthe straps: L-46 is solid--is solid----_

  Then the smash, the tearing and grinding. Somehow no death. Sky in thewindow changed to a gloom of purple and green. No death. Elasticbranches? Metal whimpered and shrieked. _Is that us?_ They built themsolid....

  There was settling into silence. The pressure on Paul's cheek, heknew, was the wonderfully living pressure of Dorothy's hand, becauseit moved, it pinched his ear, it groped for his mouth. A hiss. Throughthe wrenched seams the old air of Earth yielded to the stronger weightof Lucifer's. The starboard wing parted with a squeal like amusement,letting the boat's body rest evenly on the ground, and ChristopherWright said, "Amen."