Dona waited.
"It occurs to me that I haven't slept for forty hours," Kim said. "I doubt that you've done any better. I think we should go to bed. There's one puzzle on which all the rest is based, and it's got me. What the devil happened to Ades? There's a whole planet, seven thousand miles in diameter, vanished as if it had never been. Maybe after some sleep I'll be able to work it out. Let's go to sleep!"
The space-ship Starshine drove on through emptiness at mere interplanetary speed, its meteor-repellers ceaselessly searching space for any sign of danger. But there was no danger. In the midst of space, between the stars, there was safety. Only where men were was there death.
The ship swam in the void, no lights showing in any of its ports.
Then, in the midst of the darkness inside, Kim sat up in his bunk.
"But hang it, Ades couldn't be destroyed,” he cried, in exasperation.
CHAPTER V
Industrial World
PLANET SPICUS FIVE was an industrial world. According to the prevailing opinion in the best circles, its prosperity was due to an ample and adequate supply of raw materials, plus a skilled and thrifty population. There were sixteen matter-transmitters on the planet, and their silvery films were never still.
From abecedaria for infants to zyolites (synthetic) for industrial use, its products ran in endless streams to the transmitters, and the other products and raw materials obtained in exchange came out in streams no less continuous. The industrial area covered a continent of sprawling rectangular buildings designed for the ultimate of efficiency, with living-areas for the workmen spreading out between.
The Starshine descended through morning sunlight. Kim, newly shaved and rested, forgot to yawn as he stared through the vision-ports at the endless vista of structures made with a deliberate lack of grace. From a hundred-mile height they could be seen everywhere to north and south, to the eastward where it was already close to midday, and to where shadows beyond the dawn hid them. Even from that altitude they were no mere specks between the cloud-masses. They were definite shapes, each one a unit.
The ship went down and down and down. Kim felt uncomfortable and realized why. He spoke drily.
"I don't suppose we'll ever land on any new planet without being ready to wince from a fighting-beam and find ourselves snatched to hell-and-gone away."
Dona did not answer. She gazed at the industrial plants as they swelled in size with the Starshine's descent. Buildings two miles to a side were commonplace. Great rectangles three and even four miles long showed here and there. And there were at least half a dozen buildings, plainly factory units, which were more than ten miles in extent on each of their ground dimensions. When the Starshine was below the clouds, Dona focussed the electron telescope on one of them and gestured to call Kim's attention to the sight.
This factory building enclosed great quadrangles, with gigantic courtyards to allow—perhaps—of light. And within the courtyards were dwelling-units for workmen. The telescope showed them plainly. Workmen in factories like this would have no need and little opportunity ever to go beyond the limits of their place of employment. The factory in which they labored would confront them on every hand, at every instant of their life from birth until death.
"That's something I don't like, without even asking questions about it," said Kim.
He took the controls. The Starshine dived. He remembered to flick on the communicators. A droning filled the interior of the space-ship. Dona looked puzzled and tuned in. A male voice mumbled swiftly and without intonation through a long series of numerals and initial letters. It paused. Another voice said tensely, "Tip." The first voice droned again. The second voice said, "Tip." The first voice droned.
Dona looked blank. She turned up another wave-length. A voice barked hysterically. The words ran so swiftly together that they were almost indistinguishable, but certain syllables came out in patterns.
"It's something about commerce," said Kim. "Arranging for some material to be routed on a matter-transmitter."
None of the wavelengths carried music. All carried voices, and all babbled swiftly, without expression, with a nerve-racking haste.
The Starshine landed before a gigantic building. An armed guard stood before it at a gateway. Kim trudged across to him. He came back.
"He's stupid," he said shortly. "He knows what to guard, and the name of the plant, and where a workman may go to be received into employment. That's all. We'll try again."
The Starshine rose and moved. She was designed for movement in space, with parsecs of distance on every hand. She was unhandy when used as now for an atmosphere-flier. She descended within a factory quadrangle. There was no one about. Literally no one. The dwelling-units were occupied, to be sure, but no one moved anywhere.
When Kim opened the air-lock there was a dull, grumbling rumble in the air. It came from the many-storied building which surrounded this courtyard and stretched away for miles.
KIM and Dona stood blankly in the airlock door. The air had no odor at all. There was no dust. There was not a single particle of growing stuff anywhere. To people who had lived on Terranova, it was incredible.
Then bells rang. Hundreds and thousands of bells. They rang stridently in all the rooms and corridors of all the dwelling-units which reached away as far as the eye could follow them. It was a ghastly sound, because every bell was in exactly the same tone and made exactly the same tintinabulation.
Then there was a stirring in the houses. Folk moved within them. Figures passed inside the windows. Now and again, briefly, faces peered out. But none lingered to stare at what must have been the unprecedented sight of a space-ship resting in the courtyard.
After a little figures appeared in the doors. Men and women swarmed out and streamed toward openings in the factory building. Their heads turned to gaze at the ship, but they did not even slacken speed in their haste toward the sound of industry.
Kim hailed them. They looked at him blankly and hurried on. He caught hold of a man.
"Where will I find the leader?" he asked sharply. "The boss! The government! The king or whatever you have! Where?" The man struggled.
"I be late," he protested unhappily. "I work. I be late!"
"Where's the government?" Kim repeated more sharply still. "The king or nobles or whoever makes the laws or whatever the devil—"
"I be late!" panted the man.
He twisted out of Kim's grasp and ran to join the swarming folk now approaching the great building.
They hurried inside. The quadrangle was again empty. Kim scowled. Then other workers came out of the factory and plodded wearily toward the dwelling-units. Kim waylaid a man and shot questions at him. His speech was slurred with fatigue. Dona could not understand him at all. But he gazed at the Starshine, and groped heavily for answers to Kim's questions, and at the end trudged exhaustedly into a doorway.
Kim came into the ship, scowling. He seated himself at the control-board. The -ship lifted once more. He headed toward the curve of the plant's bulging form.
"What did you learn, Kim?"
"This is the work continent," said Kim shortly. "The factories and the workmen are here. The owners live in a place of their own. I have to talk to one of the more important merchants. I need information."