Lester del Rey - The Mysterious Planet

The Icarius was the center of attention there, though few people seemed to want to go inside through the lock. On Earth or Mars, everything movable would have been stripped clean by curious collectors, but here all was exactly as it had been left.

Valin explained the way it was fastened down, with nothing showing on the surface; it simply seemed to be sitting on its tail fins, poised for an immediate take-off. But ten feet away in a circle, there were small devices buried in the ground. They held the Icarius in as firm a net as iron bars could have done, safe from wind, hurricane—or theft by Federation men who wanted to go home. It was the only example of the possibility of tractor rays Bob had seen, and he was surprised when he walked through one of the beams and felt nothing. They could be set for an exact distance, it seemed, and nothing between mattered.

The trip turned out to be a flop, as far as Bob was concerned. The food was good, but he had too many other things on his mind, including the stolen papers. Even Emo’s serious attempts to like Mulligan stew didn’t impress him.

He was glad when Jakes finally cleaned up and went into the small closet to wash up, and followed him in, just as the older boy let out a yell.

The light there had burned out, and Jakes was staring at his hands in the semi-darkness.

They were glowing a pale green.

Bob shut the door with a snap, squeezing in with his mouth against Simon’s ear. “Hide them!” he whispered.

“I told you it was too easy. Those papers have fluorescent ink on them—and you must have left a fine trail, if they ever look for them.”

Maybe it wouldn’t matter too much. And maybe Jakes had doomed all three of them by his easily traceable theft!

THE COCKINESS WAS GONE from Jakes by the time they reached their suite again. Juan looked up from a Thulian book and started to grin. Then his face sobered as he saw them.

“What goes on?” he asked in Thulian.

Bob told him as quickly as he could, and the boy began to echo their worry at once. Even if they had been citizens of Thule, such a theft could result in a death sentence, or whatever Thule used to punish its traitors and spies. As it was, there was no way of guessing what might be done to them.

Jakes was washing his hands. They managed to unscrew the cold-light bulb in the bathroom first, so that he could check himself as he scrubbed. The other lights all worked on switches.

With them off, there were only a few spots that showed any of the green, and they came off with strong applications of detergent. But the brief case was loaded with it on the outside.

Juan fell to, while Jakes took care of all his clothes.

The job was finally finished, but Bob was still shuddering over what might have happened if Valin had come in when the room was dark.

“It still doesn’t take care of the marks you probably left all over the files,” Bob reminded Jakes. “Successful spies! One of the simplest things to look for.”

“Sure, I know. I’ve seen thrillers, too, and it’s in all of them. But how was I to know that the same techniques would apply here? Anyhow, some marks must be left over from a good long time before, because the old guy who showed us around opened

‘em up—and his prints would be all over, too.”

Jakes was still convinced that he’d gotten away with it, even after Bob argued with him half of the night. Bob guessed he was arguing partly in the hopes that he too could be convinced Jakes was right. But he still had a feeling inside him that Thule knew what had happened, and was only playing cat-and-mouse with them.

He knew what would be true in his own culture’s security blanket. And Thule was as busy preparing for war in its own way as the Federation was. They had installed a ring of alarms at a distance of a hundred thousand miles outside the planet, and there were automatic missiles waiting below to take off on the inertia-free drive at whatever sector was touched.

They hoped that it was safe enough to prevent any penetration, even by guided bombs. But they weren’t sure.

In such an atmosphere, their security blanket was apt to be as tight as that of the Federation.

Finally Jakes managed to change the subject. “Study those locks on the Icarius?” he asked.

“They’re neat, eh? But not as smart as Thule thinks, because they look just like one of the gadgets in the plans; I figured they might use something like that. And when the time comes and some other things work out, I can release them in almost no time. Then maybe you’ll be glad I got the plans that will give the Federation everything Thule’s got.”

Bob turned over and tried to go to sleep, but the last words rankled. He wouldn’t be glad of it, he knew. It might be the right thing to take the plans back, if they could get away with it. It was what the Federation would want. But it would destroy the last fault hope of ending the war.

Even now, there was some chance. Thule seemed to be more slanted toward holding off until she could reach Earth’s orbit and make a careful study of the people in general than of going to war now. And while the

Federation was planning for war, the papers he had seen at Outpost had shown how sickening the idea was to them. With a little time, something might be worked out.

Not, however, after those plans reached Outpost. With them, Earth and Mars would know that Thule was not merely filled with clever weapons, but that she was scientifically centuries ahead. She would be too far advanced to risk as a neighbor. This was not only true in war—but also held good in shipping, manufacturing, and nearly all other commercial ventures.

Earth would know then that she had to strike to protect her trade, and Mars would go along.

Together, they could sway the Federation. It would be a simple case of either making a striking blow at Thule before she wakened all her people and got into full production, or being forever lost in the shuffle.

With such weapons, many of them quite simple in application, even though the science behind them was unusually complicated, Earth would have a chance to win, and to win as soon as she could turn out enough of the equipment. Earth was well equipped to run almost anything through her complicated factories in a hurry.

There was another angle on it that bothered him, too. He had begun to wonder whether Thule might not have wanted Jakes to steal the plans. It seemed too simple, unless they had deliberately let him walk out with them.

Jakes had pulled stuff from one drawer of a filing cabinet. But Thule must have inventions of military value that would fill a warehouse. These seemed invincible and terrible enough. But they might be rendered harmless against her. She’d had them for a long time, and probably had answers to combat them. She also probably had a great many more weapons about which nobody from the Federation would ever dream.

He hadn’t even guessed that Federation scientists had actually made the proton cannon.

That had been a carefully guarded military secret, and his father hadn’t even told him. How many hitherto unused devices did Thule have?

He had a picture of Federation forces rushing out in full confidence because they were equipped with all the Thulian devices as well as their own, and then finding that none of them would work against Thule. He also had a picture of somebody on Thule who thought war was necessary using the theft of the “secret” weapons as a good excuse to move in before the Federation could build them.

Valin brought up the idea of the broadcasts again, but Bob realized that on this point Jakes was right, and turned it down. He expected pleading, but nothing more was said about it. If this was a major point in the Thulian strategy, they certainly kept their hands concealed well.