El planeta muerto

El capitán looked into the eyepiece of el telescopio. He adjusted the focus quickly. Below la nave, el planeta turned slowly, gray and silencioso.

“It was an atomic fission we saw, all right,” dijo el capitán after un momento. He sighed and pushed the eyepiece away. “Podéis mirar si queréis. But no es agradable.”

“Déjame ver,” dijo Tance, el arqueólogo. He bent down and squinted into the eyepiece. “¡Dios mío!” He jumped back hard, knocking into Dorle, the Chief Navigator.

“¿Entonces para qué hemos venido?” preguntó Dorle, looking round at los otros hombres. “No tiene sentido aterrizar. Volvamos ya.”

“Quizá tiene razón,” dijo el biólogo quietly. “Pero quiero verlo yo mismo, if I may.” He pushed past Tance and looked into el telescopio.

He saw una superficie gris, enorme and endless, stretching to the edge of el planeta. At first he thought it was agua. Then he realized it was slag, pitted and fused, broken only by hills of roca that rose up here and there. Nothing moved or stirred. Nada se movía. Nada vivía. Everything was silencioso, muerto.

“Ya veo,” dijo Fomar, backing away from the eyepiece. “Bueno, allí no hay legumbres.” He tried to smile, but su boca did not move. He stepped away and stood by himself, staring past los otros.

“Hemos tomado una muestra del aire,” dijo Tance. “Me pregunto qué dirá.”

“Creo que lo puedo adivinar,” respondió el capitán. “El aire is poisoned, most of it. Pero, ¿no esperábamos todo esto? No sé por qué nos sorprende tanto. A fission we could see from as far away as our own system must have been a terrible thing.”

He walked off down el corredor, dignified and expressionless. They watched him disappear into la sala de control.

As el capitán closed la puerta, the young woman turned. “¿Qué mostró el telescopio? ¿Bueno o malo?”

“Malo. No life could possibly exist. No hay vida. El aire is poisoned, el agua boiled away, all the land fused.”

“¿Y bajo tierra? Could they have gone underground?”

El capitán slid back the port window, and they could see la superficie of el planeta below them. The two of them stared down, en silencio and troubled. Mile after mile of unbroken ruin stretched out, blackened slag, pitted and scarred, with heaps of roca here and there.

Suddenly Nasha jumped. “¡Mira! Allí, en el borde. ¿Lo ves?”

They stared. Something rose up. It was not roca, and it had not formed there by chance. It was round, un círculo of dots, white pellets on la piel muerta of el planeta. ¿Una ciudad? ¿Edificios? Buildings of some kind?

“Por favor, gira la nave,” dijo Nasha excitedly. She pushed su pelo oscuro back from her face. “¡Gira la nave y vamos a ver qué es!”

La nave turned, changing its course. As they came over the white dots el capitán took la nave down, as low as he dared. “Pilares,” dijo el capitán. “Pilares de algún tipo de piedra, hard and white. Poured artificial piedra, perhaps. Los restos de una ciudad.”

“Ay, no,” dijo Nasha quietly. “Qué horrible.” She watched las ruinas disappear behind them. In a half-circle the white squares stuck up out of the slag, chipped and cracked, como dientes rotos.

“No hay nada vivo,” dijo el capitán at last. “I think we’ll go straight back. Sé que casi toda la tripulación quiere volver; los hombres are ready to go home. Get the Government Receiving Station on the sender and tell them what we found, and that we—”

He staggered.

The first atomic shell had struck la nave, y la hizo girar. El capitán fell to el suelo, crashing into la mesa de control. Papeles e instrumentos rained down on him. As he got to his feet the second shell struck. El techo se rompió. Struts and girders twisted and bent. La nave shuddered, dropping suddenly, then righting itself as the automatic controls took over.

El capitán lay on el suelo by the smashed control board. En el rincón, Nasha struggled to free herself from el metal roto.

Outside, los hombres were already sealing the open leaks in the side of la nave, where el aire was rushing out, precious, escaping into el espacio beyond. “¡Ayúdame!” Dorle was shouting. “¡Fuego! Aquí, los cables arden.” Dos hombres came running. Tance watched helplessly, sus gafas broken and bent.

“Así que hay vida aquí, después de todo,” he said, half to himself. “Pero cómo—”

“Ayudadnos,” dijo Fomar, hurrying past. “¡Ayudadnos, tenemos que aterrizar la nave!”

Era de noche. Unas pocas estrellas glinted above them, winking through the drifting silt that blew across la superficie of el planeta.

Dorle looked out, frowning. “Qué lugar para quedarse atrapado,” he said. He went back to work, hammering the bent hull of la nave into place again. He was wearing un traje de presión. There were still many small leaks, and partículas radiactivas from el aire had already found their way inside la nave.

Nasha and Fomar sat at la mesa in la sala de control, pálidos and serious, studying las listas of the inventory.

“Vamos mal de carbohidratos,” dijo Fomar. “We can break down the stored fats if we want to, but—”

“Me pregunto si podríamos encontrar algo fuera.” Nasha went to la ventana. “No parece nada amigable.” She walked back and forth, very slender and small, su cara dark with tiredness. “¿Qué hay ahí fuera? What do you suppose an exploring party would find?”

Fomar shrugged. “No mucho. Quizá unas pocas plantas en las grietas. Nothing we could use. No hay comida para la tripulación. Anything that could live in this place would be tóxico, deadly.”

Nasha stopped, rubbing her cheek. There was a deep scratch in la piel, still red and swollen. “Entonces, ¿cómo explicas—it? By your theory the people of este planeta must have died in their skins, fried like yams. Pero ¿quién nos disparó? ¿Quién disparó los proyectiles? Alguien nos detectó, tomó una decisión, apuntó un arma.”

“Y calculó la distancia,” dijo el capitán weakly from la cama in the corner. He turned toward them. “Eso es lo que me preocupa. El primer proyectil knocked us out of action, el segundo almost destroyed la nave. Estaban bien apuntados, perfectamente apuntados. We’re not such an easy target.”

“Es verdad.” Fomar nodded. “Quizá tenemos la respuesta antes de irnos. ¡Qué situación tan extraña! Everything we know tells us that no life could exist. El planeta burned dry, el aire itself gone, completely poisoned.”

“El arma that fired los proyectiles survived,” dijo Nasha. “¿Y por qué no la gente?”

“No es lo mismo. Metal doesn’t need air to breathe. El metal doesn’t get leukemia from partículas radiactivas. El metal no necesita comida ni agua.”

Hubo silencio.

“Una paradoja,” dijo Nasha. “De todos modos, por la mañana creo que deberíamos enviar un grupo. And meanwhile we should keep on trying to get la nave ready for the trip back.”

“Faltan muchos días para despegar,” dijo Fomar. “Necesitamos a todos los hombres trabajando en la nave. No podemos enviar un grupo.”

Nasha smiled a little. “Te enviaremos en el primer grupo. Maybe you can discover—what was it you were so interested in?”

“Legumbres. Legumbres comestibles.”

“Quizá encuentres algunas. Solo—”

“¿Solo qué?”

“Solo ten cuidado. They fired on us once without even knowing who we were or what we came for. ¿Crees que luchaban entre ellos? Perhaps they couldn’t imagine anyone being friendly, under any conditions at all. What a strange thing to grow into, la guerra inside one species. ¡Luchar contra los suyos!”

“Lo sabremos por la mañana,” dijo Fomar. “Vamos a dormir.”

El sol came up cold and severe. Las tres personas, two men and a woman, stepped out through the port and dropped down onto el suelo below. It was hard and gris.

“Vaya día,” dijo Dorle grumpily. “Dije que me alegraría de pisar suelo firme otra vez, pero—”

“Vamos,” dijo Nasha. “Ponte aquí a mi lado. Quiero decirte algo. ¿Nos disculpas, Tance?”

Tance nodded gloomily. Dorle caught up with Nasha. They walked together, sus zapatos de metal crunching on el suelo. Nasha glanced at him.

“Escucha. The Captain is dying. El capitán se muere. Nobody knows except the two of us. By the end of the day-period of este planeta he will be muerto. The shock did something to su corazón. He was almost sesenta, you know.”

Dorle nodded. “Eso es malo. Le tengo mucho respeto. Serás capitán en su lugar, por supuesto. Ya que ahora eres vicecapitana—”

“No. Prefiero ver a otra persona al mando, perhaps you or Fomar. I’ve been thinking about la situación, and it seems to me that I should declare myself mated to one of you, whichever of you wants to be capitán. Then I could hand over la responsabilidad.”

“Bueno, no quiero ser capitán. Que lo haga Fomar.”

Nasha studied him, tall and blond, walking along beside her in su traje de presión. “Me gustas bastante,” dijo ella. “Podríamos probarlo un tiempo, al menos. But do as you like. Mira, estamos llegando a algo.”

They stopped walking and let Tance catch up. In front of them was un edificio en ruinas. Dorle looked around thoughtfully.

“¿Lo ves? Todo este lugar es un cuenco natural, un valle enorme. Mira cómo suben las rocas por todos lados, protecting the floor. Maybe some of the great blast was turned aside here.”

They wandered around las ruinas, picking up piedras and pieces. “I think this was a farm,” dijo Tance, examining un trozo de madera. “Esto era parte de un molino de viento.”

“¿De verdad?” Nasha took the stick and turned it over. “Interesante. Pero vamos. No tenemos mucho tiempo.”

“Mira,” dijo Dorle suddenly. “Allí, muy lejos. ¿No es aquello algo?” He pointed.

Nasha sucked in her breath. “Las piedras blancas.”

“¿Qué?”

Nasha looked up at Dorle. “Las piedras blancas, los grandes dientes rotos. We saw them, el capitán and I, from la sala de control.” She touched el brazo de Dorle gently. “Desde allí dispararon. That’s where they fired from. I didn’t think we had landed so close.”

“¿Qué es?” dijo Tance, coming up to them. “Estoy casi ciego sin mis gafas. ¿Qué veis?”

“La ciudad. Desde donde dispararon.”

“Ah.” Los tres stood together. “Bueno, vamos,” dijo Tance. “No se sabe qué encontraremos allí.” Dorle frowned at him.

“Espera. We don’t know what we would be getting into. Deben de tener patrullas. Probablemente ya nos han visto, for that matter.”