The Tariel moved along a meridional orbit, passing over Vladislava’s north pole every three and a half hours. Toward the end of the cycle, the landing craft, with Gorbovsky, Falkenstein, and Sidorov aboard, separated from the starship and dropped down, into the very center of a black spiral funnel that slowly twisted inside the orange haze covering Vladislava’s north pole.
At first everyone was silent. Then Gorbovsky said, “They must have landed at the north pole.”
“Who?” asked Sidorov.
“Them,” Gorbovsky explained. “And if they built their city anywhere, then it’s right at the north pole.”
“In the place where the north pole was back then,” Falkenstein said.
“Yes, of course, there. Like on Mars.”
Sidorov tensely watched an orange kernel and black spots on the screen fly headlong from some sort of weather center. Then this motion slowed down. The Skiff-Aleph was braking. Now they were descending vertically.
“But they could have landed at the south pole too,” said Falk-enstein.
“They could have,” Gorbovsky agreed.
If Gorbovsky did not find the extraterrestrials’ settlement at the north pole, Sidorov thought, he would dawdle around the south pole just as methodically, and then, if he found nothing at the south pole, he would crawl over the whole planet, until he did find something. He even began to pity Gorbovsky and his colleagues. Especially his colleagues.
“Mikhail,” Gorbovsky suddenly called.
“Yes?” Sidorov called back.
“Mikhail, did you ever see elves dancing on the green?”
“Elves?” asked Sidorov in surprise.
He looked back. Gorbovsky was sitting turned half toward him, staring at him with a wicked look in his eyes. Falkenstein sat with his back to Sidorov.
“Elves?” asked Sidorov. “What elves?”
“With wings. You know, like this…” Gorbovsky took one hand off the control keys and moved his fingers vaguely. “You haven’t? A pity. I haven’t either. Nor Mark nor anyone else that I know of. But it would be interesting to watch, wouldn’t it?”
“Undoubtedly,” Sidorov said dryly.
“Leonid,” said Falkenstein. “Why didn’t they dismantle the shells of their stations?”
“They didn’t need to,” said Gorbovsky.
“It’s uneconomical,” said Falkenstein.
“So they were uneconomical.”
“Wastrel explorers,” Falkenstein said, and fell silent.
The craft shook.
“It’s got us, Mark,” Gorbovsky said in an unfamiliar voice.
The craft began to shake horribly. It was impossible to imagine that they could endure such violent shaking. The Skiff-Aleph was entering the atmosphere, where wild horizontal currents roared, dragging long black stripes of crystalline dust after them; where the radar was blinded; where lightning of unimaginable force flashed in the thick orange fog. Here powerful, completely inexplicable surges of magnetic fields deflected instruments and broke up the plasma cord in a photon rocket’s reactor. Photon rockets were no good here, but neither were things pleasant on the first-line atomic intrasystem craft Skiff-Alepk.
But it was quiet in the control room. Gorbovsky, lashed to his seat by straps, writhed in front of the control panel. Black hair fell into his eyes, and at every shock he bared his teeth. The shocks continued without interruption, and he looked as if he were laughing. But it was not laughter. Sidorov had never dreamed that Gorbovsky could look like that—not merely strange, but somehow alien. Gorbovsky was like a devil. Falkenstein was like a devil too. His legs spread apart, he hung over the atmosphere traps, jerking his stretched-out neck. It was surprisingly quiet. But the needles of the instruments, the green zigzags and spots on the fluorescent screens, the black and orange spots on the periscope screen-everything rushed about, circled around in a merry dance, and the deck swayed from side to side like a shortened pendulum, and the ceiling jerked, fell, and jumped up again.
“The cybernavigator,” Falkenstein croaked hoarsely.
“Too early,” Gorbovsky said, and once again bared his teeth.
“We’re getting carried away. There’s a lot of dust.”
“Damn it, it’s too early,” said Gorbovsky. “I’m going for the pole.”
Sidorov did not hear Falkenstein’s answer, because the autolab had started working. The indicator light flashed, and under the transparent plastic plate, the recording tape had started inching along. “Ha!” shouted Sidorov. There was protein outside. Living protoplasm. There was a lot of it, and with every second there was more. “What’s going on?” Sidorov said then. The width of the tape was not sufficient for the recorder, and the instrument automatically switched over to the zero level. Then the indicator light died out, and the tape stopped. Sidorov gave a growl, tore off the factory seal, and dug into the instrument’s mechanism with both hands. He knew this instrument well. He himself had taken part in its construction and he could not imagine what had gone wrong. Under great strain, trying to keep his balance, Sidorov groped at the block of printed circuits. They could fracture from shocks. He had completely forgotten about that. They could have fractured twenty times over during the previous runs. Just as long as they haven’t fractured, he thought. Just as long as they’re still intact
The ship shook unbearably, and Sidorov banged his forehead several times against a plastic panel. Once he banged the bridge of his nose, and for a while was completely blinded by tears. Evidently the circuit blocks were intact. Then the Skiff-Aleph turned sharply over on its side.
Sidorov was thrown from his seat. He flew across the control room, clenching in both arms fragments of panel torn out by the anchors. He did not even realize at first what had happened. Then he realized, but could not believe it.
“Should have strapped in,” said Falkenstein. “Some pilot.”
Sidorov managed to crawl back to his seat on hands and knees along the dancing deck. He fastened the straps and stared dully at the smashed interior of the instrument.
The craft lurched as if it had run into a wall. His dry mouth gaping, Sidorov swallowed air. It was very quiet in the control room, except for Falkenstein’s wheezing—his throat had filled with blood. “The cybernavigator,” he said. At that moment the walls again shuddered. Gorbovsky remained silent.
“There’s no fuel feed,” said Falkenstein, unexpectedly calmly.
“I see,” said Gorbovsky. “Do your job.”
“Not a drop. We’re falling. It’s jammed.”
“I’m turning on the emergency tank, last one. Altitude forty-five kilometers… Sidorov!”
“Yes,” Sidorov said, and started coughing.
“Your containers are filling up.” Gorbovsky turned his long face with the dry flashing eyes toward him. Sidorov had never seen such an expression on him while he was lying on the sofa. “The compressors are working. You’re in luck, Athos!”
“In real luck,” said Sidorov.
Now they were hit from below. Something crunched inside Sidorov, and his mouth filled with bitter-tasting saliva.
“The fuel’s coming through!” shouted Falkenstein.
“Fine—wonderful! But man your own station, for God’s sake. Sidorov! Hey, Mikhail!”
“Yes,” Sidorov said hoarsely, without unclenching his teeth.
“Do you have a reserve rig?”
“Um,” said Sidorov. He was thinking poorly now.
“Um what?” shouted Gorbovsky. “Yes or no?”
“No,” said Sidorov.
“Some pilot,” said Falkenstein. “Some hero.”
Sidorov gnashed his teeth and started looking at the periscope screen. Turbid orange stripes raced from right to left across the screen. It was so frightening and so sickening to look at it that Sidorov shut his eyes.