The Quantum Jump Page 2

"Know what I think? I think he wentdown deliberately. Just to be the first human being to walk the groundof a planet of another solar system."

  "Astro, this is Brandon. Come in please."

  Towers continued to pace and talk. "He did it to spite me."

  "But we can't raise him sir," the radio operator said. "Maybe he didn'tget out of it alive."

  "Colonel Towers, can't you hear me?" Brandon yelled into his oxygenmask.

  "He got out all right," the colonel said. "He's just stalling to make itlook good."

  "We aren't going to give up the search are we, sir?" asked the radioman.

  "It would serve his soul right." The colonel stopped pacing and facedthe radioman. "Keep trying to raise him, Reinhardt. I'm going to bringus down to forty thousand feet and search the area where he went down.Helluva waste of rocket fuel tooling around in the atmosphere," hemuttered, disappearing through a bulkhead door.

  "Wait! Colonel Towers!" Brandon called. But he knew it was no use.Obviously he could pick up Astro but they could neither see nor hearhim.

  "Captain Brandon, this is Astro calling. Over." The radioman repeatedthe phrase a dozen times and each time Brandon acknowledged, swore andacknowledged again. Finally, in desperation, he switched off thetele-talkie.

  He snapped open the back of the unit and studied the maze oftransistors, resistors, and capacitators. If there was something wrongit was subtle, like a burned out resistor or a shorted condenser.Whatever it was, it was beyond emergency repair. He dropped thetele-talkie behind the seat and examined the gauge on his oxygen tank.There was enough to last the night but not much more.

  He sat down in the capsule to think. The first thing they'd locate isthe burning ship, he decided. Then they would probably start searchingin ever-widening circles. But would they see him in the faint light ofthe ice moons?

  He looked back at the nylon chute again. Another thought ran through hismind. Suppose they don't spot me in the dark. When the sun--Sirius, Imean--comes up, there's a good chance they'll spot the parachute andsearch for him.

  He slid the canopy open and looked down at the red soil of Sirius Three.He hesitated for a moment, then swung his feet over the side and droppedto the ground.

  "At least I'll have that satisfaction," he said, grinning under hisoxygen mask.

  Very much aware of gravity after years of weightlessness, he walked tothe canopy of the chute and spread it out on the flat ground in a fullcircle. It billowed in the wind. He searched around, found some glassyblack rocks and anchored down the chute.

  Then he looked at the orange glow that marked the funeral pyre of theship. He had a decision to make; stay here with the capsule or head forthe fire.

  Couldn't be more than a thousand yards away, he decided. Charging awalk-around oxygen bottle, he transferred his oxygen hose to it. Hesnapped the survival kit to his belt and picked up the tele-talkie.

  The ship was more than a thousand yards away. The first mile was acrossflat desert. He picked his way cautiously, his boots churning up cloudsof powdery dust. He remembered the Russian reports of the weird anddeadly creatures they had encountered in the Martian deserts.

  But aside from a few gray patches of brush there seemed to be no sign oflife. After all, he thought, the Earth held no life for the better partof its existence. And Towers had selected this planet because it borerelatively the same relationship to the brighter, hotter Sirius as didthe Earth to the sun. While farther away it should have approximatelythe same conditions as did the Earth. And it had seas, not as large ason Earth, but seas, nevertheless.

  Yet there was a fallacy in the argument. Presumably all of the stars inthe outer arms of the Milky Way and their planets were about the sameage. With similar conditions as the Earth, life must have been born andwalked out of the seas of Sirius Three just as it did on Earth.

  Something scurried into a wisp of brush, as if to bear out Brandon'srealization. He froze, his eyes on the brush, his hand reaching for hishydro-static shock pistol. He could hear nothing but the wind hollowinghis ears. He stood for a long moment, then cautiously skirted the brush,and continued on toward the burning ship. There was an odd clickingsound and he stopped. It sounded again. Brandon realized he wasperspiring despite the chill of the desert night. Again he moved on, thesound fading in the distance behind him.

  The next mile brought him to a great sheet of ancient lava laid bare bythe elements. He climbed to the top. The fire still seemed to be about athousand yards ahead, beyond a ridge of low hills.

  A distant flare lit up the sky ahead of him. It glowed for a few momentsand died. They've found the ship, he thought. After four years, I hadcompletely forgotten about the store of photo-flash flares.

  He watched for awhile but saw no more flares. Finally he scrambled downthe other side of the lava sheet and continued on toward the wreck,moving slowly but steadily.

  The third mile brought him to the scene of the crash. A smoking cylinderof fused metal lay in a gully. Parts were strewn along the bottom. Awing, untouched by the fire, was leaning tip down against the edge ofanother lava sheet some distance away.

  He sat down. Another flare flashed in the sky behind him silhouetting arow of grotesque trees. I'm over here, you fools, he thought. He watcheduntil the flare flickered out, then turned his head back toward theremains of the ship. There wasn't much of a glow to it now. It would behard to see unless Astro was right on top of it.

  He raised the antenna on the tele-talkie and snapped it on. The screenglowed into life. Towers was stepping through the bulkhead door into theradio room. Just like a television play in installments, Brandonthought. Scene two coming up.

  "No sign of him at the scene of the crash," Towers told Reinhardt.

  "If he got out," observed Reinhardt, "he could be a hundred miles awayor more."

  "_If_ he got out," Towers said in a tone that irritated Brandon.

  "I got out," Brandon said. "And right now I'm walking around yourprecious planet like a boy scout. Damn this tele-talkie! I'd give ayear's pay if you could see me now, Towers."

  "We may yet spot the escape capsule," Reinhardt was saying.

  "We're still continuing the search," put in Towers. "But I don't mindtelling you I'm not wasting much more fuel."

  The radio operator started to say something, hesitated and finallysettled for, "yes, sir."

  Brandon swore and snapped off the set. He looked at his walk-aroundbottle.

  "Can't stay here any longer," he muttered.

  He couldn't find the capsule. He walked three, perhaps four miles. Hestopped and blotted his moist brow with his sleeve. He wasn't going tofind it. Before him stretched an endless carpet of red dust. The lightfrom the two moons was growing dim, as each settled toward differenthorizons.

  He sat down. A cloud of powdery dust settled over his legs. Thelightness in his head told him that his oxygen was running out. Theweakness in his muscles reminded him that it had been a long time sincehe had walked in a planet's gravity. A distant flare lit up the horizon.He choked off a sob, and beat his fist in the red dust. A wave of nauseaswept over him. Bitter stomach juices welled up in his throat but heswallowed them down again.

  Desperately he turned on the tele-talkie.

  "Astro, this is Brandon," he said.

  "Brandon, this is Astro," Reinhardt said.

  Brandon's body tensed. "Thank God I finally got through to you. Listen,Reinhardt, I must be about three--"

  "Brandon, this is Astro," said Reinhardt in a monotone. He said it againand again and again.

  Brandon fell back on the ground. His breathing was short, strained. Hisface was bathed in perspiration. The oxygen, he realized, was givingout.

  What are the odds, that the air of Sirius Three is breathable, hewondered. One in a hundred? The planet has water and both animal andplant life. Certainly it has sufficient gravity to hold its oxygen. Butwhat other elements--noxious gases might be present. Maybe the odds arecloser to one in fifty, he decided.

  "But it's no gamble when you have
nothing to lose," he told the MilkyWay.

  Ripping off his oxygen mask, he took a deep breath of the alienatmosphere. The dust choked him, his ears rang. Black spots dancedbefore his eyes, then melted into solid blackness.

  Brandon could hear Towers' voice in a vortex of darkness.

  "Let's face it--Brandon is dead. Must have burned with the ship, atleast that's the way the report will read. Get me, Reinhardt?"

  "Yes, sir," the disembodied voice of Reinhardt replied quietly.

  "We're going to set her down on a solid piece of ground near one of theoceans." There was a pause and Brandon could almost see Colonel Towersdrawing up to his full height. "I'm going to be the first man to setfoot on a planet of another