First Lensman by E. E. Smith (epub e ink reader .TXT) 📕

The second descent was much faster and much easier than the first. Nor, this time, did Samms remain surfaced or drive toward shore. Knowing now that this ocean was not deep enough to harm his vessel, he let her sink to the bottom. More, he turned her on her side and drove her at a flat angle into the bottom; so deep that the rim of her starboard lock was flush with the ocean’s floor. Again they waited; and this time the wind did not blow the lifeboat away.

Upon purely theoretical grounds Samms had reasoned that the weird distortion of vision must be a function of distance, and his observations so far had been in accord with that hypothesis. Now, slowly and cautiously, he sent out a visibeam. Ten feet⁠ ⁠… twenty⁠ ⁠… forty⁠ ⁠… all clear. At fifty the seeing was definitely bad; at sixty it became impossible. He shortened back to forty and began to study the vegetation, growing with such fantastic speed that the leaves, pressed flat to the ground by the gale and anchored there by heavy rootlets, were already inches long. There was also what seemed to be animal life, of sorts, but Samms was not, at the moment, interested in Trenconian zoology.

“Are them the plants we’re going to get, boss?” Tworn asked, staring into the plate over Samms’ shoulder. “Shall we go out now an’ start pickin’ ’em?”

“Not yet. Even if we could open the port the blast would wreck us. Also, it would shear your head off, flush with the coaming, as fast as you stuck it out. This wind should ease off after a while; we’ll go out a little before noon. In the meantime we’ll get ready. Have the boys break out a couple of spare Number Twelve struts, some clamps and chain, four snatch blocks, and a hundred feet of heavy space-line.⁠ ⁠…

“Good,” he went on, when the order had been obeyed. “Rig the line from the winch through snatch blocks here, and here, and here, so I can haul you back against the wind. While you are doing that I’ll rig a remote control on the winch.”

Shortly before Trenco’s fierce, blue-white sun reached meridian, the six men donned spacesuits and Samms cautiously opened the airlock ports. They worked. The wind was now scarcely more than an Earthly hurricane; the wildly whipping broadleaf plants, struggling upward, were almost halfway to the vertical. The leaves were apparently almost fully grown.

Four men clamped their suits to the line. The line was paid out. Each man selected two leaves; the largest, fattest, purplest ones he could reach. Samms hauled them back and received the loot; Tworn stowed the leaves away. Again⁠—again⁠—again.

With noon there came a few minutes of “calm.” A strong man could stand against the now highly variable wind; could move around without being blown beyond the horizon; and during those few minutes all six men gathered leaves. That time, however, was very short. The wind steadied into the reverse direction with ever-increasing fury; winch and space-line again came into play. And in a scant half hour, when the line began to hum an almost musical note under its load, Samms decided to call it quits.

“That’ll be all for today, boys,” he announced. “About twice more and this line will part. You’ve done too good a job to lose you. Secure ship.”

“Shall I blow the air, sir?” Tworn asked.

“I don’t think so.” Samms thought for a moment. “No. I’m afraid to take the chance. This stuff, whatever it is, is probably as poisonous as cyanide. We’ll keep our suits on and exhaust into space.”

Time passed. “Night” came; the rain and the flood. The bottom softened. Samms blasted the lifeboat out of the mud and away from the planet. He opened the bleeder valves, then both airlock ports; the contaminated air was replaced by the ultra-hard vacuum of the interplanetary void. He signaled the Virgin Queen; the lifeboat was taken aboard.

“Quick trip, Olmstead,” Willoughby congratulated him. “I’m surprised that you got back at all, to say nothing of with so much stuff and not losing a man. Give me the weight, mister, fast!”

“Three hundred and forty eight pounds, sir,” the supercargo reported.

“My God! And all pure broadleaf! Nobody ever did that before! How did you do it, Olmstead?”

“I don’t know whether that would be any of your business or not.” Samms’ mien was not insulting; merely thoughtful. “Not that I give a damn, but my way might not help anybody else much, and I think I had better report to the main office first, and let them do the telling. Fair enough?”

“Fair enough,” the skipper conceded, ungrudgingly. “What a load! And no losses!”

“One boatload of air, is all; but air is expensive out here.” Samms made a point, deliberately.

“Air!” Willoughby snorted. “I’ll swap you a hundred flasks of air, any time, for any one of those leaves!” Which was what Samms wanted to know.

Captain Willoughby was smart. He knew that the way to succeed was to use and then to trample upon his inferiors; to toady to such superiors as were too strong to be pulled down and thus supplanted. He knew this Olmstead had what it took to be a big shot. Therefore:

“They told me to keep you in the dark until we got to Trenco,” he more than half apologized to his Fourth Officer shortly after the Virgin Queen blasted away from the Trenconian system. “But they didn’t say anything about afterwards⁠—maybe they figured you wouldn’t be aboard any more, as usual⁠—but anyway, you can stay right here in the control room if you want to.”

“Thanks, Skipper, but mightn’t it be just as well,” he jerked his head inconspicuously toward the other officers, “to play the string out, this trip? I don’t care where we’re going, and we don’t want anybody to get any funny ideas.”

“That’d be a lot better, of course⁠—as long as you know that your cards are all aces, as