"It isn't only getting the radite that's on my mind,’ Gunner said. His face was deeply troubled, as he added slowly, “Even if we get the radite back safely to Earth to use in Philip Blaine's secret weapon, how do we know that weapon will really save the Alliance from the League attack? What kind of weapon can hope to defeat ten thousand armed cruisers?"
John Thorn felt a chill of foreboding at the big Mercurian's words. Thorn, too, all this time, had been haunted by the very possibility that Gunner had put into words.
"Suppose Blaine's invention fails, after all?” Gunner continued. “Suppose it's sound in theory, but impractical in fact. We don't know a thing about the nature of it, remember!"
"I've thought of that, too,” Sual Av muttered worriedly. “Blaine has the name of one of the greatest physicists in the system. Yet what could he invent that would sweep ten thousand cruisers out of space?"
"Blaine must have something tremendous,” Thorn insisted desperately. “The Chairman has faith in his weapon. We've got to have faith, too, and get the radite that will operate the thing. And we won't get it by delaying here!"
The Planeteers emerged from the Venture, wearing the black, asterium-coated suits and helmets. Stilicho Keene came hastily toward them, holding to the collar of the space dog Ool. The beast reared up against Thorn, its green eyes pleading.
"Ool senses Lana somewhere on this world,” Stilicho said. “Are you going to take him with you?"
"We can't. His unprotected body, non-organic though it is, would be affected by the radiation out there,” Thorn said. He grasped the spacesuited old Martian's hand. “Keep a close watch ever the prisoners, Stilicho. We'll come back with Lana and the radite — or we won't come back at all."
"Good luck to ye,” Stilicho said.
The Planeteers started down the western curved slope of the huge, black meteorite-mountain. Soon they reached the base of the mountain, and stood for a moment, looking out awedly across the uncanny world into which they were to venture.
Under the dark, starry sky stretched the forbidding deserts of Erebus, dim wastes whose every grain of sand throbbed with a faint blue radiance that gathered in drifting azure haze. The shining blue mists swirled and pulsated slowly, wrapping the whole dusky landscape before them, veiling the mountains westward.
They knew that when they stepped out on that blowing waste, into those shining mists, they would be stepping into a hell of radiation streaming ceaselessly from the radioactive mass of the planet — a torrent of alpha particles and of beta rays and of hard gamma radiation as withering as super X-rays.
Determinedly, John Thorn strode forward. The other two Planeteers followed. Their feet sinking slightly into the glowing sand, they trudged westward.
"They felt no change. But when Thorn tried to use his suit-audio, there came from it only a shattering roar. He linked hands with his comrades, speaking to them by conduction of sound.
"The radiation kills our audios completely,” he said. “It's what deadened all our instruments as we approached Erebus."
Sual Av nodded his black-helmeted head vigorously. “The gamma. radiation alone from this mass would do that."
"How in hell's name does this whole world come to be radioactive?” Gunner muttered. “If it was thrown off the sun in a tidal disturbance like the other planets, it should consist of the same kind of matter."
"I believe Erebus is the product of an older and deeper disturbance than that which produced the other planets,” Sual AV said keenly. “A disturbance so deep that it hurled out a mass of the heavier radioactive elements at the sun's heart, which formed a huge radioactive core for this world when it hardened."
"But there must have been some non-radioactive elements here originally, even so,” objected Gunner.
"Yes, but they would inevitably be made radioactive also by the radiation from the core,” Sual Av replied. “You know, the familiar phenomenon of induced radioactivity, which was discovered by the old Earth scientists way back in the first third of the twentieth century. The phenomenon by which a sheet of aluminum or some other normally non-radioactive element will become itself radioactive if subjected to radiation from radioactive elements."
"That must be what has happened,” Thorn agreed. “And any ship that landed here would instantly also become radioactive in every particle, from the same cause."
They trudged on. Weird journey across a blue-hazed planet beneath the eternally nighted sky! On over the desert, crunching the feebly glowing sands beneath their feet, constantly aware that the failure of the asterium coating on their spacesuits would mean death.
They steered by the stars, for the black metal mountain had dropped from sight behind them. Infinitely strange it seemed, on this outermost world so far from the sun, to look up into the dusky sky and see there the familiar, glittering constellations!
Then they glimpsed the western mountains in the distance ahead, looming low, dark and barren-looking through the drifting blue mists. The Planeteers held toward those dreary peaks.
"I see someone ahead!” exclaimed Sual AV suddenly, stopping, “Someone coming toward us."
"It must be Cheerly coming back"’ cried Gunner, his hand darting to the asterium-coated atom-pistol belted outside his spacesuit.
Thorn's heart went cold with fear. If Cheerly was coming back with the radite, it meant Lana was already dead.
"No!” Sual AV cried, stupefied. “It's not Cheerly and his men. Look, it's something shining!"
"Good God, can there be any truth in what those Saturnians told of having seen shining demons out here?” Thorn exclaimed hoarsely.
For the two creatures moving toward them through the blue mists were unbelievable! They were man-formed creatures, but they were glowing with soft blue light!
The two shining things came on, straight toward the Planeteers. And they stopped a few yards away from the three comrades. They wore no space-suits or protection of any kind.
"God!” came Sual Av's thick-voiced exclamation. “They're men — shining men — radioactive men!"
Thorn's brain reeled at the sight. He felt as though he was looking at some weird mirage born of the shining mists.
The two men before him were human in every respect. They wore the tattered remnants of leather clothing such as space-sailors had worn in the past. One of them was tall, rangy of body. The other was smaller, with Martian features.
But both of the two men were glowing. Every atom of their bodies and of their clothing shone with faint radiance. These men were living human beings whose bodies had become as radioactive in every particle as all else on this world!
CHAPTER XVIII
Damned Souls of Erebus
Thorn could not believe his eyes. The sight of men, living men, whose bodies were composed of radioactive matter that glowed with its own spontaneous energy, was, brain-shattering. He and his comrades stood rigid, staring at the two glowing men.
The radioactive men returned their gaze with weirdly glowing eyes. And now Thorn saw that in their shining faces was a tragic sadness and deep despair. The radiant countenance of the taller man, the strong, thin face that seemed vaguely familiar to Thorn, was a shining mask of haunting horror.
"They're men like ourselves — but men made radioactive by the terrific radiation here!” Sual Av exclaimed hoarsely. “Induced, radioactivity, working somehow, upon living beings!"
The Venusian's words carried by vibration of his helmet through the hazy air to the two glowing men. For the taller, the one whose face seemed vaguely familiar, answered.
"You are right,” he said slowly, in a deep, strangely husked voice. “We are men like yourselves, who came to this hellish world in the past. And it made us into what you see."