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Read Ebook: Black Silence by McDowell Robert Emmett Napoli Vincent Illustrator
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Ebook has 937 lines and 23977 words, and 19 pages
No, in all the Solar System, Earth apparently was the only planet where septic conditions prevailed--and life could germinate....
They reached the observation deck in the bullet-shaped nose of the vessel. Here the hull was built up of many small plates of quartzite like the facets of a fly's eye. They had an unobstructed view of the ebony arch of the heavens with Sol flaming like a beacon a point to starboard.
"Where's Earth?" Lynn asked. "I never can find it."
He pointed it out, a bright greenish star on the port side of the ship. It was just assuming a disk-shape with its tiny moon barely visible beside it.
"It looks so far away," said the girl with a shiver. "I'm homesick, I guess. We've been gone almost three years."
Matt said, "It's a long time." He slipped his arm about her waist.
Lynn let her yellow head rest on his shoulder. "I'm tired of being tough. I'm scared. I want somebody to baby me and tell me everything's all right.
"You--you don't think anything's happened to Earth, do you Matt?"
"Nothing could happen to seven billion people that suddenly! We've got the jitters. We've been out too long." He kissed her almost roughly.
Matt stiffened. Over the crown of Lynn's yellow hair he caught sight of a pale drawn face in the shadows of the ladder well across the deck.
It took him a second to recognize Nesbit, the palaeontologist, a young man only a few years out of college.
"What is it?" Lynn asked, turning her head. "Oh!"
Nesbit glared at the pair silently; then his face disappeared as he withdrew down the ladder.
"What the hell's eating him?" asked Matt.
Lynn bit her lip. "He must have followed us up. He...." She paused, looking embarrassed. "He asked me to marry him when we reach Earth."
"Good Lord," ejaculated Matt. He turned the girl loose. "I wouldn't...."
Lynn's arms went around him fiercely and shook him. "Silly. He's just a kid. I tried to let him down easy, but I certainly didn't promise to marry him."
A grin spread across Matt's face. His arms tightened. From the corner of his eye, he could see the unwinking green disk of Earth, silent, cold, and unbelievably far away.
During the next three months, they tore the radio down seven times and rebuilt it with infinite care. They tested every tube and circuit. They might as well have saved their time.
Not a single message reached them from Earth.
After three months they gave up trying at last and a queer sense of dread took possession of them as the earth slowly expanded.
Sparks was a wreck. He spent incredible stretches in the radio shack listening for a signal--any signal--from his dead instruments. The cook went berserk and stabbed one of the engineers. Dr. Gwathmey, the gentle, gray-haired psychologist, picked a fight with Pendergrast, the expedition's gentle, gray-haired anthropologist over the theory that life had resulted from spores drifting to Earth on light tides. The two old men had battled it out in the messroom with their fists.
They were all, Matt realized, strained, nervous, edgy....
Nothing was to be seen.
They were long since through the Heaviside layer, but still no broadcast had reached them. The ether was as silent as it must have been before the discovery of radio.
"Hell!" said Matt. "There's nothing to be seen out there." He took his nose away from the port beyond which the wet clouds were roiling in sheets of red, tinted by the flaming jets. "I'm going to wait in the messroom."
Matt cursed viciously and caught his balance to stagger into the messroom. Isaac Trigg, the director, was there, and Pendergrast. They sat tense as violin strings, waiting.
"I couldn't stand it in the control room," Trigg explained to Matt. "They're guiding us down with radar. There's been no radio beam to lead us in. What the hell's wrong? You'd think Earth was a tomb!"
"Where are we?" Matt asked as he flung himself in a chair.
The director shook his head. "Some place in North America, the Ohio valley, I believe. But the clouds shut us off before the navigator could take accurate shots."
The loud speaker blared into sudden life, the first time since the Silence! The men jumped to their feet, thinking that at last contact had been established with Earth. Then they realized that it was the captain speaking over the intercommunicator.
Matt cursed again, then paused.
"Hilly country!" said Matt and buckled his safety strap. "But where?"
Most of the others straggled into their seats. There was no conversation. Their faces were strained and white.
Matt was conscious of a nervous rustle in the messroom. He realized that he was biting his lip.
An eternity went by.
At a thousand feet the suspense made Matt ill. The jets were striking the surface now, bouncing back, dispelling the clouds directly beneath them.
Again the minutes crawled away. There was a faint jar, then a settling lurch. It was almost unexpected when it came. The jets fell silent.
Earth!
Matt found himself looking around at the strained faces. Hesitantly, he threw off his straps and stood up. Others followed suit. None of them, Matt realized, was anxious to be the first out.
It was a strange homecoming--certainly nothing like the one they had all planned before the silence!
"Well," said Matt, "someone's got to be first."
He made his way to the main port. Silent, and uneasy, they all trooped after him.
"What the hell!" said Matt with a sudden grin. He spat on his hands and began to unscrew the bolts.
There was a collective sigh from those behind as he kicked open the heavy port.
Only rain and blackness met his eyes.
He inhaled deeply. The air was moist and sweet after the tainted stuff they'd been breathing for three years. He'd forgotten how sweet. It was almost intoxicating.
The ladder was lowered. Matt went over the side, riding it down. When it struck, he leaped off and scooped up a double-handful of the muddy earth.
There was a shout from above. Then everyone, staff and crew, came swarming down the ladder.
For a while they went a little mad, dancing and scooping up the blessed mud.
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