what to see on
comets

For a scenic browse, and an answer-page for Guess The World...

a citadel on halley's comet

....As indomitably as though they had but a few miles to go, the two Futuremen started forward along the white highway in a swinging trot.

The endurance of Grag was practically limitless. And that of Otho's artificial body was almost as great. These two could stand indefinite exertion that would kill an ordinary man. For hour after hour, they followed the highway north through the jungle.

They met no one on that road. Hours passed, as they trotted grimly northward. It was hard to measure time... Oog whimpered with hunger. Eek cowered in fright on Grag's mighty shoulder, as flame-winged birds or flying reptiles flashed across the highway from the jungle.

They knew they had covered many scores of miles, and yet the road went endlessly on. Then, through the scintillating haze, they glimpsed the outlines of a small black mountain ahead of them.

They came closer. Both Futuremen cried out in amazement. It was not a small mountain that loomed ahead. It was a black structure of mountainous bulk, rising stupendously from the luminous green forest...

Edmond Hamilton, The Comet Kings (1942)

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shape-shifters on almussen's comet

Hesitation would have been fatal... a path was cleared for him as he moved. One by one, two by two, the Proteans shrank away...

"Chief," a voice said, "they're closing up behind us!"

"Let 'em..."

The wall of the tower loomed just ahead...

As though at a signal, the Proteans roused... The spheres swayed, rocked. Suddenly they poured down on the Earthmen!... The men fired a single, continuous roar of bullets.

But from the start it was hopeless. Like the fabled legions of Cadmus, the Proteans seemed to spring into existence from empty air. Strange dream-beings, given the attributes of matter and energy by the power of the black monolith! Dreams made real - living, dangerous...

Arthur K Barnes, Interplanetary Hunter (1956)

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a cubistic forest on kansu's comet

…a friendly-loooking little planet, blanketed by queer yellow-green vegetation of fantastic shapes. On a small, grassy plain, rose a little city of metal and glassite cubical buildings, covered by transparent glassite.

“It’s crazy to build a domed city here,” Otho repeated. “We’d better land in that vegetation and reconnoiter.”

The Comet came to rest in the yellow-green jungle, crushing fantastic trees and shrubs beneath it. A routine check showed the air was breathable and fairly warm. Grag and Otho locked up their two pets and stepped out of the ship, their gravitation equalizers automatically compensating for the difference in gravity.

A weird landscape greeted their eyes. The trees and bushes about them had straight, rectilinear branches. The yellow-green fruits and leaves were squares, polygons and triangles, as though part of a cubistic dream…

Edmond Hamilton, Star Trail to Glory (Captain Future, Spring 1941)

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