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Read Ebook: The Lonely Ones by Ludwig Edward W Orban Paul Illustrator
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Ebook has 206 lines and 7439 words, and 5 pages
The Lonely Ones
The Lonely Ones
Illustrated by PAUL ORBAN
But even more awful than the blackness was the loneliness of the six men who inhabited the silver rocket. They moved in loneliness as fish move in water. Their lives revolved in loneliness as planets revolve in space and time. They bore their loneliness like a shroud, and it was as much a part of them as sight in their eyes. Loneliness was both their brother and their god.
Yet, like a tiny flame in the darkness, there was hope, a savage, desperate hope that grew with the passing of each day, each month, and each year.
And at last....
"Lord," breathed Captain Sam Wiley.
Lieutenant Gunderson nodded. "It's a big one, isn't it?"
"It's a big one," repeated Captain Wiley.
"It's ten times as big as Earth," mused Lieutenant Gunderson. "Do you think this'll be it, Captain?"
"I'm afraid to think."
A thoughtful silence.
"Captain."
"Yes?"
"Do you hear my heart pounding?"
Captain Wiley smiled. "No. No, of course not."
"There may be."
"Prepare for deceleration, Lieutenant."
Lieutenant Gunderson's tall, slim body sagged for an instant. Then his eyes brightened.
"Yes, sir!"
Captain Sam Wiley continued to stare at the beautiful gray globe in the visi-screen. He was not like Gunderson, with boyish eagerness and anxiety flowing out of him in a ceaseless babble. His emotion was as great, or greater, but it was imprisoned within him, like swirling, foaming liquid inside a corked jug.
It wouldn't do to encourage the men too much. Because, if they were disappointed....
He shook his silver-thatched head. There it was, he thought. A new world. A world that, perhaps, held life.
Life. It was a word uttered only with reverence, for throughout the Solar System, with the exception of on Earth, there had been only death.
First it was the Moon, airless and lifeless. That had been expected, of course.
The flaming rockets reached Mars, and the canals became volcanic crevices, and the dead cities became jagged peaks of red stone, and the endless sands were smooth, smooth, smooth, untouched by feet of living creatures. There was plant-life, a species of green-red lichen in the Polar regions. But nowhere was there real life.
Then Venus, with its dust and wind. No life there. Not even the stars to make one think of home. Only the dust and wind, a dark veil of death screaming eternally over hot dry land.
And Jupiter, with its seas of ice; and hot Mercury, a cracked, withered mummy of a planet, baked as hard and dry as an ancient walnut in a furnace.
Next, the airless, rocky asteroids, and frozen Saturn with its swirling ammonia snows. And last, the white, silent worlds, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.
World after world, all dead, with no sign of life, no reminder of life, and no promise of life.
Thus the loneliness had grown. It was not a child of Earth. It was not born in the hearts of those who scurried along city pavements or of those in the green fields or of those in the cool, clean houses.
It was a child of the incredible distances, of the infinite night, of emptiness and silence. It was born in the hearts of the slit-eyed men, the oldish young men, the spacemen.
For without life on other worlds, where was the sky's challenge? Why go on and on to discover only worlds of death?
A gentle, murmuring hum filled the ship. The indicator lights on the control panel glowed like a swarm of pink eyes.
"Deceleration compensator adjusted for 12 G's, sir," reported Lieutenant Gunderson.
Captain Wiley nodded, still studying the image of the planet.
"There--there's something else, Captain."
"Yes?"
"It's Brown, sir. He's drunk."
Captain Wiley turned, a scowl on his hard, lined face. "Drunk? Where'd he get the stuff?"
"He saved it, sir, saved it for nine years. Said he was going to drink it when we discovered life."
"We haven't discovered life yet."
"I know. He said he wouldn't set foot on the planet if he was sober. Said if there isn't life there, he couldn't take it--unless he was drunk."
Captain Wiley grunted. "All right."
They looked at the world.
"Wouldn't it be wonderful, Captain? Just think--to meet another race. It wouldn't matter what they were like, would it? If they were primitive, we could teach them things. If they were ahead of us, they could teach us. You know what I'd like? To have someone meet us, to gather around us. It wouldn't matter if they were afraid of us or even if they tried to kill us. We'd know that we aren't alone."
"I know what you mean," said Captain Wiley. Some of his emotion overflowed the prison of his body. "There's no thrill in landing on dead worlds. If no one's there to see you, you don't feel like a hero."
Captain Wiley cleared his throat. "Lieutenant, commence deceleration. 6 G's."
"Yes, sir!"
The planet grew bigger, filling the entire visi-screen.
Someone coughed behind Captain Wiley.
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