[Their choice was stark: submit to the mad experiments of the Lord of the Black Planetoid—or die!]
I. The Black Planetoid
Capt. Niksin Kyboc swore a blue streak as he cut the rocket-thrusters of the small TPDF patrol corvette Somnium Stellare, and gently eased it into a parking orbit around the small, dark planetoid that had effectively ruined his honeymoon.
Beside him in the cockpit was his new wife, Dr. Demetria Kyboc—née Palaeologina—and she was, despite her husband’s characteristic grumpiness, aglow with excitement and enthusiasm for their latest discovery.
“Well, doc,” Kyboc growled, in a foul, uncompromising mood, “here we are…now what?”
The strange, crater-pocked mass of the mysterious object now eclipsed fully one-third of the glittering sea of stars that had been their only companions for many days; the Sun, too, was hidden behind that portentous chunk of coal-black rock, and the familiar planets of the System were either hidden with their primary or too faint to be discerned.
They were far from the ecliptic—far from the System, from the Interplanetary League, from the succor of the human worlds. They had been married for about three weeks; in recognition of their service—and especially the momentous, System-shaking discovery they had made of the Martian “Canal-Builder” cultural horizon on Venus—the League had graciously permitted them the use of an old TPDF rocket for their honeymoon.
So they’d been cruising about the System, ostensibly enjoying one another’s company and engaging in the serious business of producing offspring and future League citizens; in reality, they had spent the time exploring the Inner Solar System, seeking out new and uncharted planetary and protoplanetary bodies—which, in these early days of space exploration, it was still quite possible to discover. Baby-making was fitful, desultory, and more a concession to tradition than anything else, at this point; most of their time was spent poring over navigational charts, telescopic plates, infrared emulsions, and long-range radar graphs, painstakingly searching out the betraying hallmarks of an undiscovered world.
Still, it was pleasant enough work; they both loved it, they loved each other, and they loved doing what they loved with each other. And now—to their mutual delight (though Niksin, only half successfully, tried his damnedest to conceal it)—their hard work had paid off: Demetria had found a brand-new, uncharted and thoroughly alien planetoid in the dark demesnes of the trans-ecliptic System. She’d noticed it on the fluoroscopic comparator two days before; after careful checking, they’d confirmed its reality and determined from its high orbital inclination, unusual astrometrics, and tremendous velocity that it was undoubtedly an extrasolar interloper.
It was an alien planetoid—a sojourner from another star.
Demetria kissed her husband on the cheek and clapped her hands excitedly.
“Oh, darling—this is simply marvelous! Can’t you understand what a thrilling discovery this is? A brand-new planetoid, uncharted and unexplored…why, it’s unmarked on the Navigational Hazards Index of 1977, and doesn’t even appear on the League’s Minor Planets and Incidental Bodies Survey of 1986—the most up-to-date record yet compiled.”
Kyboc merely frowned, and muttered something disparaging under his breath.
“Sweetheart, you’re being a pisser—and that’s your least attractive quality, although I do so love all of your qualities…even the least attractive ones,” and she kissed him again, while skillfully eluding his amorous embrace.
“But this is just too good to pass up, darling. It’s fortunate I convinced you to take this little jaunt above the ecliptic”—she ignored another of her husband’s ill-tempered aspersions—“because we’ve discovered something extraordinary, Niksin: an extrasolar planetoid approaching the System at a high rate of speed!
“And it’s all ours, husband—it’s our very own private, honeymoon world. Isn’t that romantic? Just think of all the mysteries it’s hiding—and they’re ours to discover, darling!”
And she kissed him again, sweetly, this time directly on his lips—by way of mollifying his seemingly invincible bad mood.
It worked. Kyboc had to admit to himself—though he would never do so to his wife—that the little planetoid was irresistibly intriguing; in fact, he was glad she had found the enigmatic thing, and immensely proud of her for doing so. It still seemed incredible that she had discovered it, drifting end-over-end on its multi-aeon journey round the Sun—its dark, low-albedo surface hiding it for ages from the improvident prying eyes of mankind.
But what a thrilling discovery it was! The first extrasolar object to be discovered and visited by human beings; a genuine product of the unfathomable bourns beyond the Solar System, enigmatic witness to the incalculable kalpas of time antedating the birth of the planets—scion of an alien sun, it had come to visit mankind, not the other way around, after being arrested in its intergalactic journey ages ago by the System’s gravitational grip. Truth was, Kyboc was just as excited to explore the thing as his wife…if not more so, if such a thing were possible.
So his lips lingered a trifle overlong on his new bride’s warm, inviting mouth, and then he reluctantly tore them away—muttering, with a secret smile, something harsh and insincere about his wife’s infernal curiosity and damnable impertinence, and then turned himself to the business of landing the Somnium Stellare on Planetoid 3X-1453 (its provisional designation based on official League astrogational nomenclature)—henceforth to be christened “Minor Planet Palaeologina” in the League charts, after its discoverer’s maiden name, once they returned to League space with the news.
Still, between themselves, they continued to refer to it as the “Black Planetoid”—for no other name seemed half so appropriate. It was so black it seemed almost blacker than the starless night of space; infrared spectra suggested a place compounded of complex organics and tarry, carbon-based polymers of the long-chain variety. It was irregular and lumpy—like a great clump of half-molded, black dough had been flung out into space; they could pick out a few craters, and what looked like miniature “mountain” chains and tiny tar-volcanoes on its surface. Alien and extrasolar it undoubtedly was: there was nothing else like it in the System.
Niksin toggled the braking rockets, and eased the rocketship into a standard coasting descent; with a gentle shudder, the Somnium came to a slow stop within the cradling confines of a small crater. Looming to the right, and blotting out the comforting constellations of space, was the black, jagged outline of a precipitous outcrop of rocky strata—volcanic rock, perhaps, or maybe the palaeogean product of some cosmic cataclysm the planetoid had experienced during its long ages of wandering in the lightless spaces between the stars.
With an expression of relief—and immense satisfaction at the ease of the landing—Kyboc took his wife by the waist, and twirled her about in a playful pirouette.
“Well, doc,” he grinned, “that’s all there is to it. I guess this puts you in the august and rarefied company of intrepid planetary explorers of brand-new worlds, like your poor folks (God rest their souls) or yours truly; I await your commands, O Columbus of the Spaceways!…or should I say, Columba!”
She laughed at her husband’s silly speech; but there was a glint in Demetria Kyboc’s eyes that belied that flippant laughter, and betokened the profound happiness his words had produced in her. She was all explorer now—this was the woman who had rescued Kyboc from the bloodthirsty tendrils and ravening maw of the Venusian Yog tree; this was the dedicated and invincible scientist and explorer whom he’d found traipsing through the nightmare jungles of Venus, and who had persuaded him to follow her to the discovery of the decade: the unknown Lost City of the Martian Canal-Builders on the Evening Star. She was the true daughter of her famous parents—the late Andronicus and Iphianassa Palaeologus, the ill-fated first explorers of Mars.
And, flushed with the thrill of discovery, his wife had never seemed half so beautiful. Demetria Kyboc was slim, athletic, and exotically attractive; still in the first flush of youth, she betrayed the dark beauty of her Greek heritage in her olive skin, dark eyes, and aristocratic features. But the lustrous, gold-tinted curls of her voluminous tresses, the faint dusting of freckles on face and neck and breast, and her slender, splendidly proportioned figure spoke to ages of admixtures of alien blood—the long history of the storied Palaeologus family written in the magnificent genetics of this beautiful woman who was his wife.
Eager to venture out and explore her new discovery, she climbed into the slim, zippered jumpsuit that all League personnel used for outer space exploration, and fastened on the transparent, durite headpiece of the helmet; beside her, Kyboc did the same. Each strapped on their holsters, with N-ray pistol—that most indispensable article of any Interplanetary League space explorer—and multiple replacement microfusion charges.
Niksin grabbed a brace of radium lamps, and handed one to his wife; then he locked down the Somnium’s controls, and initiated the vessel’s standby commands. When all was ready, he took his place beside the external airlock door, and smiled at his wife.
“Ready to make history, doc?”
Demetria grinned back at him; then, suddenly, she seemed to think of something, and dove back into their tiny living cabin—what they had come to call, playfully, their “honeymoon suite.” In a moment she was back, thrusting a well-worn spaceman’s all-environment, League-issued notepad into a thigh pouch.
“Almost forgot my notebook, darling,” she explained, smiling sheepishly. “You know I’m nothing without it.”
In another moment, they had left the patrol rocket Somnium Stellare—their home for the past month—behind, and had stepped out onto the weird surface of a new world…an alien world, the first human beings to set foot on the child of another sun. And there was no mistaking the deep, abiding sense of sheer otherness wherein the dark, mysterious planetoid was steeped—as if it had fermented in a vat of alienness for far longer than man had ever been.
They checked their communicators, exchanged a few observations in hushed, awed tones, and commenced the exploration of the weird little world. Dr. Demetria Kyboc was mostly silent; she looked round her with wide, expressive eyes, each one become a mirror of her wonderment, recording with camera-like precision the myriad details of this unexplored, miniature planet. From time to time, she produced her notebook, to scribble some scientific note or personal observation, or sketch an unusual formation. At her side, Niskin Kyboc was completely quiet, his N-ray pistol clutched nervously in his left hand, only reacting once or twice to his wife’s whispered asides and keeping an anxious, wary lookout for any potential danger.
For Kyboc did not like the look of this planetoid. It was too dark; too mysterious. He had been on many alien worlds—but none had ever oppressed him with such a sinister, overwhelming presentiment of otherness and almost malefic hostility. It was as if the whole planetoid were endued with a mind, an intelligence that regarded their trespass with resentment, and watched their every move with a brooding interest—such an interest as the Olympian gods, remote on their lofty redoubt, must have felt for the puny mortals whose only purpose was to furnish them with sadistic amusement.
His wife did not seem to share his unease; she expressed no consciousness of dread or of purposeful intelligence on the planetoid whatsoever. She merely rattled off, for her husband’s benefit, a number of scientific curiosities and planetary ephemerides as she jotted them down in her notebook. For instance, the world was made of no rock or material known in the Solar System—it wasn’t even made of rock at all, she assured him, at least not rock in the commonly accepted sense. It was some fantastic mélange of complex, organic materials; a tarry, carbonaceous substance akin more to black petroleum than to the wholesome rock of most worlds in the System—though the ground was solid enough, as he well knew.
“Darling, this place reminds me of some of my uncle’s theoretical exobiology lectures I attended, back at the University in Germania. He mooted a theory about so-called ‘carbon worlds’—black, tarry globes that may have been the very earliest kinds of planet to precipitate out of the primeval nebulae of the infant universe. But these would not be rocky worlds, like the ones we know; these were queer, oozy places full of reeking, long-chain, carbon-based polymers and hydrocarbon molecules—a pretty fertile concoction for the evolution of life, if it’s anything at all like how we think it began in the Solar System. And just think, dear, if this is one of those worlds—why, how incredibly ancient it must be…”
Her voice dropped off, still muttering scientific arcana, as she moved on to explore some fantastic outcropping of curious material that had suddenly caught her fancy.
Niksin Kyboc didn’t know a thing about “tar worlds,” or “carbon worlds,” or whatever she called the goddamned things; still less did he care. All he knew was that the place gave him the space-willies, and he didn’t like that one damned little bit.
“Curse this infernal darkness, wife—curse this infernal place! Don’t you feel that, doc—can’t you sense something…watching us?”
His wife turned to face him.
“What was that, darling? I’m afraid I didn’t quite catch that last?”
Kyboc shook his head, impatiently.
The hell she didn’t.
“Oh, it’s nothing, sweetheart. Forget…just forget I said anything.”
Heeding his advisement with a negligent shrug, Demetria turned back to the rock formation that had so enthralled her.
“You’re not getting jittery on me now…are you, dear? I would be so disappointed to learn that my new husband is afraid of a few harmless hydrocarbons on a tiny, unexplored speck of tar…good heavens, Niskin, look at this!”
Kyboc wheeled around, an incensed retort to his wife’s insult dying on his lips.
“What is it, Demetria—what’s happened?”
He found his wife pointing to a large series of rock formations, about a hundred yards away. She was playing her light upon it, but, in his first reaction against the expected physical danger, Niksin could see nothing. He told his wife so.
“Oh, you have no eye for this sort of thing, husband. They must have had laxer standards when you went through the League schools, you washed up old man…look, darling, right there, where the beam from my light is playing—don’t you see it?”
Yeah…he saw it all right. He sure as hell saw it now. It was all very uncertain, formless, ancient—pitted with unfathomable age. But it didn’t look like any natural formation. It looked like a statue group…uncannily like the group dedicated to the First Spacemen, which every green space cadet has seen on the lawn before the League Headquarters in Sideropolis Maxima.
It had a damned queer resemblance to sculptured, human figures; sure, they were pitted, and worn, and smoothed and distorted by age…but, yeah, it was just like some prehuman Michelangelo had wrought a masterpiece of the human form in the dark, tarry stuff of the Black Planetoid in the dim ages ere man had mind.
The small hairs on the back of Kyboc’s neck stood on end; something was just too damned off about this business.
“What the hell is this place?” he breathed.
“Darling…can’t you see what this means?” His wife’s voice was shrill with excitement.
“This is better than I ever imagined! It means there was a civilization here—a civilization, incredibly ancient and evolved in the remote prehistory of the universe, created by beings not unlike us…and, oh—Niksin, look there!”
He looked, and saw where the beam of her light pointed. It was a black, cavernous entrance just beyond the “sculptures,” or whatever they were; it was the yawning maw of a cave or tunnel leading down into the heart of the black planetoid. And there was something damned regular and artificial about the straight lines of that cave mouth; there were marks, or etchings, or devices of some kind seemingly engraved in what did duty for a “lintel” to the door—inscriptions, perhaps, of some uncanny kind?
But something wasn’t right. Kyboc could’ve sworn he’d glanced toward where that “door” had been just a moment or two before—and there had been nothing but an irregular mass of tarry “rock” where that mysterious entrance now gaped. Either he was losing his mind or…well, that’s what had his nerves frayed and tauter than a Venusian tigron about to pounce.
“I see it, doc,” he whispered, “and I don’t like it one goddamned bit. Come on, wife…let’s beat it the hell outta here. We can send back a League cruiser to perform a more thorough reconnaissance—preferably with a detachment of marines!”
His wife tsk’ed disapprovingly; a familiar sound to him, even through the tinny helmet communicators.
“Would you can that nonsense, darling. Come on—this is our discovery, and we’re going to see what’s down there,” and, without awaiting his response, she trooped off in the direction of the cave entrance.
Cursing a blue streak and inveighing against all womankind from Eve to Helen to his wife, Kyboc followed after her, his N-ray pistol at the ready and his imagination conjuring all manner of fantastic and improbable menaces from the richly plastic stuff of nightmares that were plentifully furnished by the shadows and the dark. In the light gravity of the planetoid, each step carried them sailing across the pronounced convexity of the tiny world’s surface; in a few minutes they were at the cave entrance.
Demetria was about to enter, but Kyboc grabbed her slender arm and yanked her behind him.
“That’ll do, sister,” he barked into the communicator. “Stow that scribble-pad, doc, and get out your pistol; this is why you brought me along, right here, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let my wife glide into that place like a greenhorn cadet. To think you survived all those days alone in the Venusian jungle! Just like me to marry a damned fool, egghead scientist without the sense God gave a Martian drop-worm…”
And he mumbled a number of colorful oaths he’d picked up during his many years in League service. His wife smiled, replaced her notebook in its pouch, and produced her N-ray pistol.
“I’m sorry I said those nasty and unkind things about you, darling,” she whispered placatingly, patting him with just the merest hint of condescension on his arm. “And you’re absolutely right—you lead the way, and I’ll follow, dear.”
That seemed to mollify him.
“Okay, doc,” he said, “just you stay right behind me, and follow close—and for Jupiter’s sake, if something happens to me just beat it the hell outta here!”
In another moment, he’d entered the dark cave; the fan of light from his radium lamp seemed to get swallowed up and smothered by the inky blackness no more than a few inches in front of them. Demetria Kyboc followed closely, as her husband had commanded…but something was wrong.
She couldn’t see the beams of his light anymore—it was out, completely gone! She waved a hand gropingly before her, hoping to get hold of him…but there was nothing—only empty space.
“Niksin!” she called, a slight hint of panic edging her voice. “Niksin…where are you?”
No response.
She was alone. She turned to head back, thinking maybe he’d done the same. But where was the star-strewn frame of black sky in the doorway, which she expected to see? There was nothing—only inky, infernal blackness everywhere.
She was lost and alone on the Black Planetoid!
[What new mysteries—or horrors—will the intrepid space explorers discover on the Black Planetoid? Join us in next week’s issue of the Florilegium of Phantasy for the second part of “Nebrouggai, the Ancient.”]