guess the world -
sixth series
entries 501 -

[ + links to:   Guess The World entries 1-100  -  Guess The World entries 101-200  - 
Guess The World entries 201-300  -  Guess The World entries 301-400  - 
Guess The World entries 401-500  -  Scene-counts ]

   ...The air outside was lower in pressure than that inside the cargo nose of the rocket, which had been sealed at Earth level. But it was air and it was breathable. Robin drew in several deep lungfuls, savoring it.
    It was oddly exhilarating, as if highly charged with oxygen. At the same time there was a smell of mold and dampness and a definite taste of sulfur and phosphorus like that just after a kitchen match has been lighted. Even so, the air was breathable.
    Robin worked his head and shoulders through the narrow opening, slid forward and landed on hands and knees on the rocky surface. He got to his feet, looked around.
    He was standing on the bank of a rushing stream of water, which was pouring out of a large gap in the side of a cliff. The cliff ran straight up, gently curving to form part of the ceiling several hundred feet overhead. The extent of this ceiling was impossible to determine—it was dark and obscure—but it seemed to Robin almost at once that he was in some sort of gigantic enclosed space—a vast cavern beneath the surface of [..........], probably several miles beneath it.
    The water coming from the underground falls rushed out to form a wide, shallow river which flowed along one side of the cavern and widened out to a few hundred feet clear across to the farther wall. On Robin's side the floor of the cavern rose in a slow slope until it reached its wall perhaps three hundred feet away. Robin could not estimate the length of the cavern. Looking along the river bank, the cave seemed to become veiled in a general mistiness and gathering darkness.
    The light itself came from no definite source, but seemed to emanate from the rocky walls and ceiling, from the clayey ground, and from the general atmosphere. Robin supposed that the source was a natural phosphorescence which he knew was not too uncommon even in Terrestrial caverns.
    All around on the soil bordering the flowing water was a forest, a forest with the weirdest vegetation Robin had ever seen. Plants growing in clumps and clusters, plants whose large treelike stalks resembled a whitish-blue bamboo, and which burst into globular blue bulbs which seemed to serve as leaves. Among these tree-sized growths was a rich undergrowth of tight balls of varying yellow and green and purple, growing like thick, squat mushrooms. And everywhere else a thick, lush carpet of green, not grasslike but rather like some oversize moss.
    In this forest there were no sounds of birds or animals, but only that of plants swaying in the river breeze, the rushing of the waters, and from somewhere distant in the unseen end of the cavern a strange, steady hissing sound.

(...)

    ...After a few minutes Robin saw a slight motion in the vegetation at the other side of the cave entrance. He watched, and a moment later saw a head thrust itself out, and then a figure emerge and silently stalk to the cave and look in. It was manlike, walking on two feet and it had two arms. It was oddly misty, seeming naked and semi-transparent like the other animal life.
    In one hand the creature carried a long stick to which something sharp and glassy was attached—clearly a type of spear. The creature paused at the cave mouth, then seeing no one within and unable to resist the tantalizing curiosity of cooking meat and a small fire, it went inside.
    Immediately Robin dashed out of hiding, ran across the small space and blocked the entrance of the cave with his body. The creature within was bending over the meat, but on hearing Robin, it turned, and made a wild dash for the cave mouth.
    It collided with Robin. For a moment there was a wild scramble of arms and legs and then Robin's greatly superior Earth muscles overpowered the other's and the creature was caught. Robin held it tightly in his arms, carried it into the cave, and sat it down.
    The spear had been knocked aside in the tussle and Robin looked at it with a glance. One glance was enough to make the young man realize that he had had a narrow escape. Its tip was bright and as sharp as a piece of broken glass. If the creature had thought to jab that spear, it might have been deadly.
    But now the captured being was sitting quietly in a sort of resignation, merely looking at Robin with the same curiosity that Robin bestowed upon it. It was very much like a human being, perhaps some four feet tall. But its head was somewhat triangular in shape, having only one eye (Robin never found any [..........] creatures with two), and was topped with a large yellow light bulb that extended a foot above...   

>>  here's where this is

    As Alf shot into the sky beside him, Mick noted that the ground was still dark, and that the terminator line that delineated night and day, still was a mile or so to the eastward, floating rapidly toward them.
    There were other things about this weird planet that also struck Mick's eyes. It was filled with growing things. Most of these were single stalks, crowned with a bluish bud. But there was a terrestrial note to some of the plants that clung to the rocks and sand of [..........].
    To the south was a huge tree, with gnarled branches and leaves. Tucked away in a small gully were reddish flowers that looked like roses in the distance. There were vines clinging to the rocks. The corn that had first attracted attention of the spacemen, occupied a small, rectangular patch and the stalks were so evenly spaced that the field suggested artificial cultivation.
    Slowly they came back toward the ground. Below was one of the budded stalks which slowly nodded its tip toward the terrestrials as their feet came in contact with the soil.
    Mick was ready this time. His gun was in his hand as the little white bead emerged from the tip of the bud. The gun sent a streak of flame into the middle of the stalk, and the plant was sliced as neatly as a knife could have cut through a stem.
    "It's not nearly as pleasant here as I expected," Alf panted into the phone of his space suit. "Who ever thought we'd have to fight plants on [..........]?"

entry 521      [contributed by Lone Wolf]

>>  here's where this is

    The scene was weird beyond all imagining—weird and unutterably terrifying.
    "Rawley, they are moving the ship. They are using magnetic tow lines and making a mighty good job of it."
    "Where—where are they taking us?" I gasped.
    The frog's reply was utterly bewildering. "We'll label it terrestrial fauna—habitat group. We'll take the ship right into the museum. Large-brained bipeds from the third planet, stooping above their artifacts in perfectly natural attitudes. Magnificent.
    "Mustn't let sunlight touch them. It's curious I didn't think of this when I absorbed their energies. My one thought was to warm myself, but necessity is the mother of invention. They'll honor me for this. I'll head the next expedition. My instructions were imbecilic. 'Observe all their habits and then mummify them.'
    "What good are shriveled specimens? So long as sunlight doesn't touch them they'll keep this way for a thousand years. This one has been—helpful. Oh, enormously. Just as well I didn't tap him.
    "I mustn't let him suspect that I couldn't—can't. I've absorbed too much radiance as it is. My energies are brimming over. He thinks I can still diminish his mass. Might have to kill him if he knew.
    "Kill him. I could do that, of course. But I'd hate to lose one of these specimens."
    It hit me all at once, with the force of a physical blow. There was something that the frog didn't know. It didn't know that I could listen in on its private thoughts. It thought it could shut off its mind from me. Hitting me also with force was the sudden realization that when in close proximity to it I had telepathic powers which were first rate, as good as its own.
    Wait a minute—better. Because it didn't seem aware of what I was thinking now. So we were just animals to it, eh? Big-brained bipeds—specimens. I was edging away from it and toward the control panel, very cautiously...

entry 520      [contributed by Zendexor]

>>  here's where this is

...Falken yelled, in sharp, wild warning.
    The thing was almost on him. A colossus with burning eyes set on footlong stalks, with fanged jaws agape and muscles straining.
    Falken grabbed for his blaster. The quick motion overbalanced him. Sheila slid down on him and they fell slowly together, staring helplessly at destruction, charging at them through a rainbow swirl of light.
    The creature rushed by, in utter silence.
    Paul Avery landed, his blaster ready. Falken and Sheila scrambled up, cold with the sweat of terror.
    “What was it?” gasped Sheila.
    Falken said shakily, “God knows!” He turned to look at their surroundings.
    And swept the others back into the shadow of the cleft.
    Riders hunted the colossus. Riders of a shape so mad that even in madness no human could have conceived them. Riders on steeds like the arrowing tails of comets, hallooing on behind a pack of nightmare hounds...
    Cold sweat drenched him. “How can they live without air ?” he whispered. “And why didn’t they see us?”
    There was no answer. But they were safe, for the moment. The light, a shifting web of prismatic colors, showed nothing moving.
    They stood on a floor of the glassy black rock. Above and on both sides walls curved away into the wild light — sunlight, apparently, splintered by the shell of the planet. Ahead there was a ebon plain, curving to match the curve of the vault…
...They went a long way across the plain in the airless, unechoing silence, slipping on glassy rock, dazzled by the wheeling colors.
    Then Falken saw the castle.
    It loomed quite suddenly — a bulk of squat wings with queer, twisted turrets and straggling windows. Falken scowled. He was sure he hadn’t seen it before. Perhaps the light. . . .
    They hesitated. Icy moth-wings flittered over Falken’s skin. He would have gone around, but black walls seemed to stretch endlessly on either side of the castle.
    “We go in,” he said, and shuddered at the thought of meeting folk like those who hunted the flaming-eyed colossus...

entry 519      [contributed by Zendexor]

>>  here's where this is

…the flying cloaks… might be sensitive to a relatively slight amount of heat.
   …The free cloak was still in sight, approximately where it had been before, in so far as she could judge against this featureless snowscape – which was fortunate, since it might well be her only flag for the source of the thermal, whatever it was.
   …The cause of the thermal, when she finally reached it, was almost bathetic: a pool of liquid.  Placid and deep blue, it lay inside a fissure in a low, heart-shaped hummock, rimmed with feathery snow.  It looked like nothing more or less than a spring, though she did not for a moment suppose that the liquid could be water.  She could not see the bottom of it; evidently, it was welling up from a fair depth.  The spring analogy was probably completely false; the existence of anything in a liquid state on this world had to be thought of as a form of vulcanism.  Certainly the column of heat rising from it was considerable; despite the thinness of the air, the wind here nearly howled.  The free cloak floated up and down, about a hundred feet above her, like the last leaf of along, cruel autumn…                        

entry 518      [contributed by Zendexor]

>>  here's where this is

Where the Avalon Trail bends across Annihilation Range, a thousand icy miles from [..........]'s northern stem, Nolan stopped and closed the intake valve of his helmet. Count five seconds, and he unhooked the exhausted tank of oxygen; count ten more and it was spinning away, end over end over [..........]'s frozen surface, and a new tank was already in place. He slipped the pressure valve and inhaled deeply of the new air.
    He'd come ten miles by the phosphorescent figures on the nightstone markers beside the trail. Fifteen more miles to go.
    His cold black eyes stared absently at the east, where the pseudo-life of the great [..........] crystals rolled in a shifting, tinkling sea. He noted the water-avid crystals, and noted the three crablike crawlers that munched a solitary clump of metallic grass. You don't walk, talk and breathe after a Tri-planet Lawman has declared you dead unless you note everything around you and react to what may be dangerous.
    But he was looking beyond the familiar [..........] drear, to the eastern horizon where faint lights gleamed in the dark. That was Port Avalon. That was where Steve Nolan was bound.
    (...)
    Then he slammed the inner door, sealed his helmet, pushed his way out.
    The crawler was even bigger than he'd thought. Standing within ten feet of it, he felt tiny and weak, a toy before this massive brute. Like ancient Earth dinosaurs, the crawlers kept growing as long as they lived. Tiny as the palm of a man's hand, foot-high creatures like those Nolan had kicked out of his way an hour before or monstrosities like the one before him—all three types existed side by side. Only seldom did they grow as great as this. Invulnerable though they were, they perished of starvation, when their bulk grew too much for their thousands of tiny legs to carry.
    Out of the ebon hulk of the thing came poking a minute head, goggle-eyed, with a luminous halo of green tendrils surrounding it. It blinked weakly at Nolan. He waited patiently. If the thing was convinced he was harmless.
    It was. Recovering from the shock of the skid's arrival it began to prepare for motion again. The head poked out toward the skid on a long, scrawny neck, examined it minutely. The big carapace shivered and rose slightly off the ground as the multitude of tiny legs took up the task of carrying it forward.
    Nolan stood motionless. The creature moved ponderously toward him, ignoring him. In the dull mind of the creature an object as tiny as a man was nothing. Even the skid was merely another sort of boulder, against which it could lean, send it hurtling over to destruction, out of its way.
    It moved forward till the hard horn almost touched him. Then Nolan leaped.
    This was the moment of decision. He circled the long neck with one lashing arm, clamped on it all the pressure he could bring to bear. It was the one sensitive spot the creature had—and protected, normally, by armor battleship-thick.
    Nolan strained the muscles of his arm, cursing the cushion of air inside his suit that made a pillow for the beast. The slippery flesh coiled and writhed in his grip; the beast exhaled a great, whistling screech of agony and the snakelike neck curved around. The popeyed head darted in at him, tiny mouth distended to show raw, red flesh inside. It battered ineffectually against the heavy plastic faceplate of his suit.
    The crawler vented its whistling sigh again and staggered drunkenly away. Away from the remorseless pressure on its sore spot, away from the agonizing weight of him. Its tiny legs carried it rocking sidewise.
    Then abruptly they tried to halt it, gave sharp warning to the tiny brain. It was too late.
    The scrambling legs flailed for a foothold and found vacuum. Nolan gave a final heave, felt the thing slide away from him, leaped back. Just in time. He himself was teetering on the brink of the chasm as the crawler, tiny head darting frantically, soundlessly around, slid over and disappeared.
    He didn't look down. The clattering and crashing vibrations from below told what happened. He turned, shook himself and headed for the skid...

entry 517      [contributed by Lone Wolf]

>>  here's where this is

…The great groans that were rising through the tornado-riven mists from the caissons were becoming steadily, spasmodically deeper; their hinges were already overloaded.  And the deck of the Bridge was beginning to rise and fall a little, as though slow, frozen waves were passing along it from one unfinished end to the other.  The queasy, lazy tidal swell made the beetle tip first its nose into the winds, then its tail, then back again, so that it took almost all of the current Helmuth could feed into the magnet windings to keep the craft stuck to the rails on the deck at all.  Cruising the deck seemed to be out of the question; there was not enough power left over for the engines – almost every available erg had to be devoted to staying put.  
    But there was still the rest of the Grand Tour to be made.  And still one direction which Helmuth had yet to explore:
    Straight down.
    Down to the ice; down to the Ninth Circle, where everything stops, and never starts again…
    …The meters on the ghost board had already told him that the wind velocity fell off abruptly at twenty-one miles – that is, eleven miles down from the deck – in this sector, which was in the lee of The Glacier, a long rib of mountain-range which terminated nearby.  He was unprepared, however, for the near-calm itself…  the worst gusts were little more than a few hundred miles per hour, and occasionally the meter fell as low as seventy-five…
    …At fifteen miles, something white flashed in the fan-lights, and was gone.  Then another; three more.  And then, suddenly, a whole stream of them…  ten-ribbed, translucent, ranging in size from that of a closed fist to one as big as a football…

entry 516      [contributed by Zendexor]

>>  here's where this is

He was in the native quarter, at [..........]'s core, where the [..........] were as thick as red dust on Mars—and for the first time Mac saw a Kiddie policeman.  He was wearing no more clothing than the rest of his kind, just carried a staff of office, like the old Bow Street Runners.
    An idea suddenly made contact in MacCauley's mind. He signaled the officer and dragged out a notebook and pencil, unnecessarily, as it happened. The Kiddie, in sinuous gestures, signified that he could understand English, partly by lip-reading, partly by picking up the sound in some weird fashion through rock-conduction and the sensitive soles of his splay feet.
    Mac, enunciating carefully, spoke.
    "One of your people has robbed me. I want him arrested. Where do I go?"
    The Kiddie bobbed his head, and from the manner in which his luminiferous glands sparkled balefully, it was evident where he thought MacCauley should go. Nevertheless, he snapped out his little pad and stylus, and scrawled: "Commi wih me tu Offic he wil arange arest."
    MacCauley deciphered the scribble. He shrugged and said, "Okay. Hop to it, sonny." He walked beside the diminutive policeman for a few hundred feet, glancing incuriously at the small burrows which pierced the rock walls and kicking away chunks of the queer, spongy rock on which the Kiddies subsisted, the equivalent of Earthly garbage...

entry 515      [contributed by Lone Wolf]

>>  here's where this is

    Dr. Hardt stopped suddenly, as though he had come across some unexpected discovery.
    “What's the matter, Uncle Alex?” inquired Hardt.
    “Look! Look!”
    Involuntarily he lowered his voice, though no sound could come out of his helmet. “These dark spots are plant life; broad, fern-like weeds, stunted in their development...”
    “I expected to find some sort of plant life here,” calmly answered Hardt.
“Something has just moved among the leaves. There it is again...” Dr. Hardt advanced a few steps in his excitement.
    “Stop! Stay where you are!” commanded Hardt abruptly, noticing the movement at the same instant. “We can talk as much as we like, for no sound can go outside our microphones. But don't anybody move!”
    Again the plants wavered. Almost immediately a gleaming grey streak came toward the observers from the obscurity. It was a snake, something with life. [..........] was not as dead as people thought. The strange, slimy reptile lay motionless for a time, very near the men. “It is an amphibian, like a proteus”, whispered Dr. Hardt. “It is almost colorless, and has no eyes, as it the case with the grotto proteus, which lives in perpetual darkness in the subterranean caves of the Dalmatian mountains. Such a large proteus does not exist in our realm, however. This animal is almost two yards long.”
    As Dr. Hardt bent nearer to examine the large wormlike body, with short, finlike legs which gave it a ludicrous appearance, the reptile lifted up the fore part of its body, and with head waving from side to side, instinctively opened and closed its jaws.
    “The beast must have a telepathic sense of our presence, despite its lack of vision,” said Dr. Hardt, grasping his staff more firmly.
    Simultaneously the proteus clapped its strong, pointed tail to the ground, and gave a sudden leap upward. Its undulating body flew through the mist in broad, spiral curves, and finally disappeared from the astounded gaze of the explorers...

entry 514      [contributed by Lone Wolf]

>>  here's where this is

... Anyway, as I was saying, this creature is much like an ianthina, or snail, of earth. It breathes through a siphon, or tubular proboscis. It uses this siphon to suck in air with which it builds these rafts for itself, to keep its heavy body and shell afloat. It's an adventurer like you, Moljar. It spends its life floating or sailing about like a ship."
    Moljar grunted. He moved one corded arm behind her. She shifted a little.
    "Very interesting thing," she said. "Biology. When this ianthina decides to build its raft, it exudes a sticky mucous over the surface of the sea, layer after layer of it. Then it draws air into its siphon and permits the bubbles to escape beneath the mucous to which they cling. These air sacks imprison the air as the mucous hardens. And we have this very strong raft, a life boat with air tanks. Aren't we lucky?"
    The raft jolted violently. "Are we?" said Moljar. "Maybe it does not want to share its raft."
    A number of tentacles slithered up and over the edge of the raft. Two antenna with slimy knobs stood up and quivered at Moljar.
    The girl tried to ignore the sight. "But this raft is better than any man has ever been able to build." Her voice tightened as more of the ianthina surged into view. "This snail can make more bubbles at will, and it can enlarge its raft whenever it wants to."
    There was a sudden upsurging height of gigantic pink-fleshed bulk. It rose up until it towered over its raft. A little above the level of the water they could see its brilliantly colored spiral shell-house gleaming olive-green with streaks and spots of purple, violet and black.
    The body of the ianthina continued to exude outward from its shell. From it a thick tendon of flesh spread out to either side to form the frame work of its raft, an integral part of its giant body.
    "We've got to get this craft moving someway toward Anghore," said Moljar...

entry 513      [contributed by Lone Wolf]

>>  here's where this is

Tall and graceful stood the buildings, the essential delicacy of their design possible only on a low-gravity planet.  Glass and stone and glittering metal filigree, the materials blended in a harmony that, although alien, was undeniably beautiful…  The sweeping catenaries of gleaming cables strong between the towers, some of which supported bridges, but most of which were ornamental only or filling some unguessable function…  Green parks with explosions of blue and yellow and scarlet, and all the intermediate shades, that were flowering trees and shrubs…  The emerald green of the parks, and the diamond spray of the fountains, arcing high and gracefully in shimmering rainbows…  Surely, thought Grimes, an extravagance on this world of all worlds!  The people, walking slowly along their streets and through their gardens, even from this foreshortened viewpoint undeniably humanoid, but with something about them that was not quite human…  

entry 512      [contributed by Zendexor]

>>  here's where this is

…For the first time, he viewed the colony of the ovoids, the green canopy of luminous organisms [..........], the welter of infernal activity, the protoplasmic battery sparking on its isolated knoll, the moving shadows of robot beings, and the alert fighters that patrolled the outskirts of the city, where light and darkness met, like enemies holding each other in deadlock.
   And the greatest of these miracles was this devil who called himself The Student, and who had now backed off in revulsion at Cliff’s approach.
   But there were matters still to be investigated more closely.  Dimly visible against the outer walls of the dome was a great shapeless mass that expanded and contracted as if it were breathing.  Above the thing, and projecting from the dome like a canopy, was a curious curved shell of pearly, vitreous material…

entry 511      [contributed by Zendexor]

>>  here's where this is

As he spoke, we had come into proximity to our new game, a large and very powerful animal, about four feet high at the shoulders, and about six feet from the head to the root of the tail. The latter carries, as that of the lion was fabled to do, a final claw, not to lash the creature into rage, but for the more practical purpose of striking down an enemy endeavouring to approach it in flank or rear. Its hide, covered with a long beautifully soft fur, is striped alternately with brown and yellow, the ground being a sort of silver-grey. The head resembles that of the lion, but without the mane, and is prolonged into a face and snout more like those of the wild boar. Its limbs are less unlike those of the feline genus than any other Earthly type, but have three claws and a hard pad in lieu of the soft cushion. The upper jaw is armed with two formidable tusks about twelve inches in length, and projecting directly forwards. A blow from the claw-furnished tail would plough up the thigh or rip open the abdomen of a man. A stroke from one of the paws would fracture his skull, while a wound from the tusk in almost any part of the body must prove certainly fatal. Fortunately, the kargynda has not the swiftness of movement belonging to nearly all our feline races, otherwise its skins, the most valuable prize of the [..........] hunter, would yearly be taken at a terrible cost of life. Two of these creatures were said to be reposing in a thick jungle of reeds bordering a narrow stream immediately in our front. The hunters, with Ergimo, now dismounted and advanced some two hundred yards in front of their birds, directing the latter to turn their heads in the opposite direction. I found some difficulty in making my wish to descend intelligible to the docile creature which carried me, and was still in the air when one of the enormous creatures we were hunting rushed out of its hiding-place. The nearest hunter, raising a shining metal staff about three and a half feet in length (having a crystal cylinder at the hinder end, about six inches in circumference, and occupying about one-third the entire length of the weapon), levelled it at the beast. A flash as of lightning darted through the air, and the creature rolled over. Another flash from a similar weapon in the hands of another hunter followed. By this time, however, my bird was entirely unmanageable, and what happened I learned afterwards from Ergimo. Neither of the two shots had wounded the creature, though the near passage of the first had for a moment stunned and overthrown him. His rush among the party dispersed them all, but each being able to send forth from his piece a second flash of lightning, the monster was mortally wounded before they fairly started in pursuit of their scared birds, which—their attention being called by the roar of the animal, by the crash accompanying each flash, and probably above all by the restlessness of my own caldecta in their midst—had flown off to some distance. My bird, floundering forwards, flung me to the ground about two hundred yards from the jungle, fortunately at a greater distance from the dying but not yet utterly disabled prey. Its companion now came forth and stood over the tortured creature, licking its sores till it expired. By this time I had recovered the consciousness I had lost with the shock of my fall, and had ascertained that my gun was safe. I had but time to prepare and level it when, leaving its dead companion, the brute turned and charged me almost as rapidly as an infuriated elephant. I fired several times and assured, if only from my skill as a marksman, that some of the shots had hit it, was surprised to see that at each it was only checked for a moment and then resumed its charge. It was so near now that I could aim with some confidence at the eye; and if, as I suspected, the previous shots had failed to pierce the hide, no other aim was likely to avail. I levelled, therefore, as steadily as I could at its blazing eyeballs and fired three or four shots, still without doing more than arrest or rather slacken its charge, each shot provoking a fearful roar of rage and pain. I fired my last within about twenty yards, and then, before I could draw my sword, was dashed to the ground with a violence that utterly stunned me. When I recovered my senses Ergimo was kneeling beside me pouring down my throat the contents of a small phial; and as I lifted my head and looked around, I saw the enormous carcass from under which I had been dragged lying dead almost within reach of my hand. One eye was pierced through the very centre, the other seriously injured. But such is the creature's tenacity of life, that, though three balls were actually in its brain, it had driven home its charge, though far too unconscious to make more than convulsive and feeble use of any of its formidable weapons. When I fell it stood for perhaps a second, and then dropped senseless upon my lower limbs, which were not a little bruised by its weight. That no bone was broken or dislocated by the shock, deadened though it must have been by the repeated pauses in the kargynda's charge and by its final exhaustion, was more than I expected or could understand. Before I rose to my feet, Ergimo had peremptorily insisted on the abandonment of the further excursion we had intended, declaring that he could not answer to his Sovereign, after so severe a lesson, for my exposure to any future peril. The Camptâ had sent him to bring me into his presence for purposes which would not be fulfilled by producing a lifeless carcass, or a maimed and helpless invalid; and the discipline of the Court and central Administration allowed no excuse for disobedience to orders or failure in duty. My protest was very quickly silenced. On attempting to stand, I found myself so shaken, torn, and shattered that I could not again mount a caldecta or wield a weapon; and was carried back to Askinta on a sort of inclined litter placed upon the carriage which had conveyed our booty.

entry 510      [contributed by Lone Wolf]

>>  here's where this is

…The two had been returning Mars-ward from [..........], after a successful season among the aborigines of that [..........].  They had traded bangles and other cheap trinkets for the gorgeous and precious flame-sapphires found in the soft marls of [..........].  The simple natives, having no conception of money values, were well satisfied with such traffic…

entry 509      [contributed by Zendexor]

>>  here's where this is

 ...The weird perspectives of Aryl were constantly changing, magnifying and minimizing everything seen; making distant objects seem near and near objects seem distant. They conjured up non-existing lakes in the valley bottom or standing at sharp angles in the sky; they created rock barriers across their path that melted as they walked through them. Or the illusion of clear, flat plains that resolved themselves eventually into tumbled seas of volcanic rocks, glass-sharp and cruel, precluded any possibility of their forming an accurate idea of the distance they had traversed.
    The endless cliffs themselves sometimes disappeared, to be replaced by a shimmering, outrageous parody of the sky. Then they could only wait until the kaleidoscopic meteorological changes should bring them back into view again.
    Henley’s belt chronometer showed that ten terrestrial hours had passed.  In the brief day of Aryl it was now midnight, but the light, refracted from the day side, was stronger than ever, and the heat was oppressive.
    They were chronically short of water, and longed for another of the tempestuous showers of rain which, though unpalatable, could quench thirst. Henley was weak from hunger, and so, when they encountered one of the Arylian sludges, an animal resembling a very dull and heavy antelope with great, flat, shovel-edged horns. Chuck stalked it patiently for half an hour. Just as he was about to leap out of the shelter of a rock to deliver the fatal stroke, it vanished into thin air. But the officer walked ahead to where he had last seen it, lunged with Henley’s spear. There was a strangled cough and the dying sludge fell at his feet.
    Guided by his calls, for Chuck himself had vanished, Henley clambered over the rocks. They made a fire of the drooping, thick-leaved vegetation, in the seed-cycle, which they found nearby, and attacked the rather tough meat, supplemented with hardtack and vitamin tablets. They abandoned the remains of the sludge to the insistent, 12-inch needle flies that lurk everywhere on Aryl...

entry 508      [contributed by Lone Wolf]

>>  here's where this is

In a basin of porphyry, at the summit of a pillar of serpentine, the thing has existed from primeval time, in the garden of the kings that rule an equatorial realm of the planet [..........]. With black foliage, fine and intricate as the web of some enormous spider; with petals of livid rose, and purple like the purple of putrefying flesh; and a stem rising like a swart and hairy wrist from a bulb so old, so encrusted with the growth of centuries that it resembles an urn of stone, the monstrous flower holds dominion over all the garden. In this flower, from the years of oldest legend, an evil demon has dwelt- a demon whose name and whose nativity are known to the superior magicians and mysteriarchs of the kingdom, but to none other. Over the half-animate flowers, the ophidian orchids that coil and sting, the bat-like lilies that open their ribbèd petals by night, and fasten with tiny yellow teeth on the bodies of sleeping dragonflies; the carnivorous cacti that yawn with green lips beneath their beards of poisonous yellow prickles; the plants that palpitate like hearts, the blossoms that pant with a breath of poisonous perfume - over all these, the Flower-Devil is supreme, in its malign immortality, and evil, perverse intelligence- inciting them to strange maleficence, fantastic mischief, even to acts of rebellion against the gardeners, who proceed about their duties with wariness and trepidation, since more than one of them has been bitten, even unto death, by some vicious and venefic flower. In places, the garden has run wild from lack of care on the part of the fearful gardeners, and has become a monstrous tangle of serpentine creepers, and hydra-headed plants, convolved and inter-writhing in lethal hate or venomous love, and horrible as a rout of wrangling vipers and pythons.
And, like his innumerable ancestors before him, the king dares not destroy the Flower, for fear that the devil, driven from its habitation, might seek a new home, and enter into the brain or body of one of the king's subjects- or even the heart of his fairest and gentlest, and most beloved queen!

entry 507      [contributed by Zendexor]

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The pilot sighted the landing platform, checked with Control Tower, and eased up for the final descent. He was a skillful pilot, with many landings on [..........] to his credit. He brought the ship up on its tail and sat it down on the landing platform for a perfect three-pointer as the jets rumbled to silence.
    Then, abruptly, they sank—landing craft, platform and all.
    The pilot buzzed Control Tower frantically as Kielland fought down panic. Sorry, said Control Tower. Something must have gone wrong. They'd have them out in a jiffy. Good lord, no, don't blast out again, there were a thousand natives in the vicinity. Just be patient, everything would be all right.
    They waited. Presently there were thumps and bangs as grapplers clanged on the surface of the craft. Mud gurgled around them as they were hauled up and out with the sound of a giant sipping soup. A mud-encrusted hatchway flew open, and Kielland stepped down on a flimsy-looking platform below. Four small rodent-like creatures were attached to it by ropes; they heaved with a will and began paddling through the soupy mud dragging the platform and Kielland toward a row of low wooden buildings near some stunted trees.
As the creatures paused to puff and pant, the back half of the platform kept sinking into the mud. When they finally reached comparatively solid ground, Kielland was mud up to the hips, and mad enough to blast off without benefit of landing craft...

entry 506      [contributed by Lone Wolf]

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    ...The Shadow deepened imperceptibly into night.  The rolling rusty clouds of the dayside had become the greyer clouds of storm and fog.  The men toiled through dimming mist and falling snow that turned at last to utter darkness.
    Lannar turned a lined and haggard face to Fenn.  “Madmen!” he muttered.  And that was all.
    They passed through the belt of storm.  There came a time when the lower air was clear and a shifting wind began to tear away the clouds from the sky.
    The pace of the men slowed, then halted altogether.  They watched, caught in a stasis of awe and fear too deep for utterance.  Fenn saw that there was a pallid eerie radiance somewhere behind the driving clouds.  Arika’s hand crept into his and clung there.  But Malech stood apart, his head lifted, his shining eyes fixed upon the sky.
    A rift, a great ragged valley sown with stars.  It widened, and the clouds were swept away, and the sky crashed down upon the waiting men, children of eternal day who had never seen the night…

entry 505      [contributed by Zendexor]

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    Olear's little ship passed through the ringstorms, and he did not take over the controls until he recognized the familiar mark of the trading company, a blue comet on the aluminum roof of one of the larger buildings. Visibility was good that day, but despite the unusual clarity of the atmosphere there was a suggestion of the sinister about the lifeless scene—the vast, irresistible river, the riotously colored jungle roof. The vastness of nature dwarfed man's puny work. One horizon flashed incessantly with livid lightning, the other was one blinding blaze of the nearby sun. And almost lost below in the savage landscape was man's symbol of possession, a few metal sheds in a clear, fenced space of a few acres.
    Olear cautiously checked speed, skimmed over the turbid surface of the great river, and set her down on the ground within the compound. With his pencil-like ray-tube in his hand he stepped out of the hatchway.
    A [..........] native came out of the residence, presently, his hands together in the peace sign. For the benefit of Earthlubbers whose only knowledge of [..........] is derived from the teleview screen, it should be explained that [..........] are not human, even if they do slightly resemble us. They hatch from eggs, pass one life-phase as frog-like creatures in their rivers, and in the adult stage turn more human in appearance. But their skin remains green and fish-belly white. There is no hair on their warty heads. Their eyes have no lids, and have a peculiar dead, staring look when they sleep. And they carry a peculiar, fishy odor with them at all times.

entry 504      [contributed by Lone Wolf]

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    …He kept hearing the weird screams of the Loathi echoing inside him; he kept seeing their long, keen beaks, and their batlike bodies swooping crazily out of the [..........] night…
    …Pictures appeared in the screen – bleak, rolling desert and tortured gorges.  Then an oasis where there was water, and where the radioactive ores underground provided enough heat to permit the growth of vegetation.  At its center was a little rough city under a crystal dome.  Joraanin, the [..........] colony!
    Around it men and loyal Loathi were entrenched, fighting off hordes of rebel Loathi that circled on batlike wings above, their long beaks gleaming.  The revolt was still in progress…

entry 503      [contributed by Zendexor]

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The [..........] sea was dotted with many shallow puddles and lakes of salty water.  But low ridges still provided ample camping ground for the Earthians.  A few had erected tents, but most of them still preferred the comfort of the cabins of their ships.  Some were now busy fabricating machinery – steam engines several of those devices seemed to be, their boilers flanked by huge mirrors, which, when the unsettled weather, incident upon the influx of air and moisture from Earth, came to an end, and the Sun shone once more, would collect and concentrate the solar rays.
    Still other colonists were attempting to plant gardens in the ashy soil – efforts which were almost certain to be abortive under the new conditions.  But by now countless pale-green shoots were peeping through the snow everywhere, promising soon to develop into a lush growth that would provide nourishment for such livestock as had been brought to [..........], and at the same time offering a source of cellulose from which by synthesis, a nourishing diet for human beings could be made.  The green shoots were the sprouts of the ancient [..........] vegetation, whose seeds or spores had remained quiescent in the waterless soil for countless ages…

entry 502      [contributed by Zendexor]

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    “I’m fed up with squirting my beer out of a bulb,” he explained.  “I want to pour it properly into a glass now we’ve got the chance again.  Let’s see how long it takes.” 
    “It’ll be flat before it gets there,” warned Mackay.  “Let’s see – g’s about half a centimetre a second squared, you’re pouring from a height of…”  He retired into a brown study.
    But the experiment was already in progress.  Scott was holding the punctured beer-tin about a foot above his glass – and, for the first time in three months, the word “above” had some meaning, even if very little.  For, with incredible slowness, the amber liquid oozed out of the tin – so slowly that one might have taken it for syrup.  A thin column extended downwards, moving almost imperceptibly at first, but then slowly accelerating.  It seemed an age before the glass was reached: then a great cheer went up as contact was made and the level of the liquid began to creep upwards…

entry 501      [contributed by Zendexor]

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