PLANET OF DEATH

ROBERT SILVERBERG

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

Copryight © 1967 by Robert Silverberg.

Copyright © 2010 by Agberg, Ltd.

Published by Wildside Press LLC.

www.wildsidebooks.com

CHAPTER 1

HUNTING THE YANGS

Roy Crawford felt the firm, new snow crunch under his boots. He stepped forward carefully, keeping his eyes sharp. In his hand he held a deadly needle-gun.

Six other hunters were fanned out beside him on the field of snow. He was the leader. This was a dangerous business, and a lot depended on him.

“It’s a bad day,” said a hunter to his left. “We haven’t seen a single yang.”

“Don’t worry,” Crawford snapped. “We’ll get plenty before we’re through.”

He knew that they would. Roy Crawford had been hunting yangs on the planet Velliran for three years now. It was a rough, exciting way to make a living. You risked your life to shoot the yangs — but you could get rich that way. Yangskins made beautiful fur coats. Women back on Earth were willing to pay good money for a yangskin coat.

“There’s one now!” shouted one of the hunters.

Yes! There came a yang! Roy Crawford narrowed his eyes and stared at the lovely, deadly beast.

It was about the size of a wolf. But it had eight strange knobby-kneed legs, a mouth full of long teeth, and claws as sharp as razors. You had to watch your step when hunting yangs. A wounded yang running wild was a cruel killer.

Crawford waved to his men to fan out over the ice. They had to form a wide circle around the yang, so it could not escape. The yang’s body was covered with silky, white fur. It was hard to see the animal against the white of the snowy ground.

“Move this way, you,” Crawford called. “More to your left! Plug that hole! Hurry it along!”

He was the boss of this team. It had to be that way. Only one man could give the orders, and he was that man.

Crawford took careful aim. It was important to shoot the yang carefully through the head. Otherwise the fur might be spoiled. And if he only wounded the yang, instead of killing it, they’d all be in bad trouble.

His trigger-finger tightened —

And suddenly a blast of flame came from a needle-gun to Crawford’s right. One of the other hunters had shot first! It was a poorly aimed shot. The fiery beam hit the yang in the side.

The beast leaped high in the air. Its long claws flashed brightly in the sun. Then it fell over, lying on its back. The eight legs kicked wildly for a moment. They became still. The yang was dead.

Even at this distance, Crawford could see the big burned place in the yang’s fur. The hide was ruined. It could never be used for a fur coat.

He slammed his gun against the ground and turned around. A red haze of rage was in his eyes. Angrily he stalked toward the hunter who had fired the bad shot.

“You stupid fool!” Crawford shouted. “Who told you to shoot?”

“I thought —”

“You thought! You thought! Idiot, did you ever think anything in your life?”

The hunter was a young Earthman with yellow hair and pale blue eyes. He looked very embarrassed. He stuttered and blushed as he said, “I’m sorry, Roy, I —”

“Sorry? What good is sorry? You’re supposed to wait for orders! You shot out of turn, and you shot badly. I could smash your head in for that!”

Crawford’s hot temper boiled over. He grabbed the young hunter by the shoulder and shook him hard. Then his fist smashed out and connected solidly. Crawford was a big man, six inches taller and fifty pounds heavier than the other. When Crawford swung, the man went over. He fell backward and landed on the icy ground. Blood dribbled from a cut on his lip.

Standing over him, Crawford snarled, “The next time you listen for orders! I ought to ram that gun right down your throat for wasting that yang!”

The man on the ground looked groggy and afraid. He sat up, shaking his head, and dabbed at his bloody lip. Crawford clenched his fists. He was still angry.

One of the hunters came over — a man named Bryce, who had a lean face and iron-gray hair. He was older than Crawford, and had been hunting yangs for many years. But he worked for Crawford, and so Crawford told him what to do.

Bryce said, “Go easy on him, Roy. Anybody can make a mistake.”

“He made two mistakes. He shot when he shouldn’t have. And he didn’t make a neat kill.”

“That was no reason to knock him down,” said Bryce. “It didn’t bring the yang back to life. That’s a bad habit of yours, Roy. You try to settle everything with your fists. You’re too violent.”

“Don’t preach to me, or you’ll get hit too,” Crawford said. “What do you want me to do? Get down on my knees and forgive him? He had to be taught a lesson.”

“Not that way.”

Crawford snorted and turned away. If this kind of talk went on, he might hit Bryce. He didn’t want to do that. So he walked over and picked up his gun.

Maybe it had been wrong to get so angry, he told himself. Just because these men worked for him, it didn’t mean he could knock them around.

But orders were orders. The blond kid shouldn’t have jumped the gun. Crawford had to show them he was top man here, and he had done it the quickest way — with his fists.

The man who had been knocked down got to his feet. He brushed the snow from his leggings.

“Look!” Bryce yelled. “More yangs!”

They all turned. Four big yangs were racing across the field of ice. Right away all seven of the hunters had their needle-guns aimed.

“Spread out!” Crawford told them.

They did as he said. Suddenly the pack of yangs swung around. One of them crouched and leaped through the air, claws outstretched. He was heading for old Bryce! In another minute those claws would rip the man apart!

“Shoot!” Crawford ordered.

“I’ve got him,” said the hunter Crawford had knocked down.

He fired. The hot beam shot forth and caught one of the yangs right through the head. It was a perfect shot.

“I thank you kindly,” Bryce said, as the dead yang fell harmlessly at his feet.

“Good shot,” Crawford called out. His anger was gone. The man had made up for his mistake.

The yangs were still coming. Crawford himself fired. A second yang fell dead. It was another perfect shot.

The survivors ran back and forth over the ice. They screamed and snarled, trying to kill the hunters. One of Crawford’s men had a narrow escape. Sharp claws ripped through his fur jacket. But two quick shots brought the last two yangs down.

Three of the hunters picked up the dead animals. They began to drag them toward a truck. The rest of the hunters continued to fan out over the ice, looking for more yangs.

Up here in the north was the best place to hunt yangs. They were cold-weather animals, and they lived in places where snow stayed on the ground all year round. Their bright white fur helped them hide against the background of snow. But Earthmen with sharp eyes could still see them.

“It won’t be a bad day after all,” Crawford said to Bryce. “Four yangs bagged already, and it’s still early.”

Crawford was glad that he had come to this planet. Earth didn’t hold enough adventure for him. In this year of 2411, Earth was too crowded. There were cities everywhere. All the forests and jungles had been chopped down to make room for houses.

Roy Crawford didn’t like living in a city. He wanted to breathe fresh air and see open country. He wanted real excitement. So when he was twenty-two years old, he left Earth. He bought a ticket on a starship heading for other worlds.

For three years now he had lived on the planet Velliran. It was a planet a little larger than Earth, but with fewer people. He earned his living as a hunter. There were dangers in that, but also rewards.

“Got another yang!” one of the hunters called out.

One yang fell. A second one came around the snow-bank right in front of Crawford. They could move fast when they were upset. Teeth and claws seemed to surround him. He fired. The yang was dead.

The hunt went on for another two hours. Then Crawford decided that they had killed enough yangs. They had twenty yangs on the truck. It was bad business to kill too many. The price for yangskin coats was high because the fur was so scarce. If they hunted too many, the price would come down.

It had been a good trip. They drove back to town from the yang grounds.

On the way, they saw many natives of Velliran. The local people were not human beings. They were small, blue-skinned folk with long double-jointed arms. They had eight fingers on their hands and strange flat faces.

Bryce said, “It’s a good thing they don’t like to go hunting themselves.”

“It sure is. It leaves a good business open for us,” Crawford replied.

The Velliran people allowed Earthmen to come and live on their planet. Some of the Earthmen were businessmen. Others were hunters.

Roy Crawford was a hunter who was becoming a businessman. When he started out on Velliran, he hunted yangs and sold the furs to other Earthmen. Now he ran his own business. He hired other Earthmen to hunt with him. He had six hunters on his payroll, and three men to skin the yangs. Then there were two men who prepared the fur for shipment to Earth, and two who packed up the prepared furs. It was a good business. Crawford was glad he had come to Velliran.

When they reached town, Crawford paid his men and told them when the next hunting trip would be. Then he headed for the little building on the edge of town where he lived.

Soon after he got there, Crawford had a visitor. The man who came to see him was another Earthman, a friend of his named Jeff Hallam.

Hallam was a scientist doing research on Velliran. There was much to study here. The native people had invented many unusual things. They were particularly good at inventing medicines. The Vellirani, as they were called, had created all sorts of useful drugs. They had one to cure headaches and one that could cure some types of cancer. They had a drug that would make a man’s eyesight five times as good and a drug that could knock a man out in a fraction of a second.

Jeff Hallam had been studying Vellirani medicines for the past two years. He did not have an easy time, because the Vellirani liked to keep their secrets to themselves. It was hard for an Earthman to learn anything from them. But Hallam kept trying.

Hallam said, “How was the hunting trip?”

“Fine,” Crawford answered. “We bagged twenty yangs.”

“The rich keep getting richer, eh?”

Crawford chuckled. “I work hard for my money. Do you think it’s fun out there on the ice fields?”

“It’s fun for you,” said Hallam. “It wouldn’t be for me.”

Hallam and Crawford were different in many ways. Crawford was a big man, with thick black hair and skin that was tanned from being outdoors. Hallam was short and slender, with very white skin and mild-looking eyes. He didn’t have much in the way of muscle. Yet the tall, rugged Crawford and the thin, studious Hallam were good friends.

Crawford said, “What’s new since I went on my hunting trip?”

“Well, a scientific team from Earth is in town.”

“Oh? What are they here to study?”

“They aren’t going to stay here,” said Hallam. “They’re just stopping off on Velliran for a few days. They need to buy some supplies. And one of their men is sick. He’s been taken to the hospital.”

“Where are they heading when they leave here?” Crawford asked.

“They’re going to explore a planet that’s never been explored before. I don’t know where it is. It doesn’t even have a name yet. It’s just called World Seven of Star System Z-16.”

“What kind of a place is it?”

Hallam said, “Well, no one really knows much about it. That’s why this Exploration Corps team is going there. A scout ship has viewed it from orbit a hundred miles up. He says it’s one big tropical jungle. But nobody’s ever landed on it.”

Crawford grinned. “Man, that’s what I’d like! To go on the first expedition to an unknown planet! To belong to the Exploration Corps! I’ve read so many stories about them, I could practically do the things they do.”

“You should have become a scientist, then. A dumb hunter like you can’t get into the Exploration Corps.”

Crawford felt a hot burst of anger. He didn’t like people calling him a dumb hunter. Almost without realizing it, he reached out and grabbed Hallam.

“Easy! Easy! Hey, go easy!” Hallam yelped.

Crawford got control of himself and let go.

“Sorry,” he said.

Hallam rubbed his throat. “You lose that temper of yours too fast, Roy!”

“Maybe so. But you hit me on a sore place. You know I never got much of an education when I was on Earth. Schoolbooks and I just didn’t get along. So how could I have ever joined the Exploration Corps? All I could do was dream about it. You have to be a scientist. What kind of scientist would a guy like me make?”

“I didn’t mean to poke fun,” Hallam said. “I know how much you’d like to tackle an unexplored world.”

“Well, I guess I’m just not going to go. Hey — wait! Do you think these scientists need an experienced hunter? If it’s a jungle planet, it might be dangerous.”

“They’re trained to deal with dangers, Roy. They can take care of themselves.”

“But couldn’t you ask them to take me along? The yangskin business can get along without me for a few weeks. If I —”

“It wouldn’t work,” Hallam said. “It just wouldn’t work. It’s a scientific expedition, and only Exploration Corps people can go. Scientists. They can’t take anybody else.”

Crawford frowned. “So a little guy like you could go, but a trained hunter like me has to stay back.”

“More or less. But I can’t go either.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not a member of the Exploration Corps. I’ve got the right training, but I never signed up. Besides, I’ve got plenty of work to do right here on Velliran. You ought to see some of the new drugs I’ve collected. Come over to the laboratory and I’ll give you the rundown.”

“As soon as I’ve got these yangskins ready to go,” Crawford promised. “I’ll see you then.”

CHAPTER 2

FRAMED!

The next week was a busy one for Roy Crawford. A starship was going to leave Velliran, bound for Earth, in a short time. He had to have his yangskins packed and ready. If the cargo missed the ship, it would be a month before he’d have another chance to send the skins.

So it meant working day and night. Crawford supervised, and his men skinned the yangs and prepared the furs. While they worked he made the arrangements for shipping. He got everything set up just in time.

The system for selling the yangskins was a good one, he thought. He got paid as soon as his cargo went aboard a starship. When the furs landed on Earth, they were sold to dealers. But Crawford didn’t have to worry about that. He got his money when the yangskins left Velliran.

On the day the starship left, Crawford saw to it that the yangskins were loaded aboard. Then he got his money from the agent of the yangskin buyer on Earth. He drove back from the spaceport and went downtown to deposit his money in the bank.

It was a bright, clear morning. The sky had a beautiful blue-green look. Crawford was in a good mood. He was tired, because he had worked hard all week. He hadn’t even had time to visit with the men from that scientific expedition. Jeff Hallam had invited Crawford to meet the scientists before they left for the unexplored world. But Crawford had been too busy getting his yangskins ready.

Now, though, the money for the furs was bulging in his pocket. Soon it would be in the bank. Then he could give himself a few days off. If the scientists hadn’t blasted off yet, he’d go to meet them. Maybe he could even talk them into taking him with them to World Seven of Star System Z-16. If not, well, he’d go yang-hunting again in a week or two.

He was only a block and a half away from the bank when trouble struck.

He could see the tall green-colored bank building on the far side of the next avenue. The streets weren’t crowded. A few slim, soft-eyed Vellirani natives were walking up ahead of him.

Then he heard a disturbance behind him. Footsteps. Shouts. The sound of running. An Earthman’s voice. Crawford started to turn around to see what was going on.

Things happened very fast. Crawford didn’t have any idea what was taking place. It felt like being clubbed over the head and getting struck by lightning, all at the same time.

He blanked out.

But he didn’t fall down. When his mind cleared, he was still standing right where he had been. He could feel the money still bulging in his pocket. The street was very quiet. Everyone was looking at him.

There was something in his hand. A knife. A long, wicked-looking knife with three big blue jewels set in its hilt. The blade was dripping with blood.

Not Earthman blood. It was the bronze-colored blood of a Vellirani native.

And there was a dead Vellirani lying at Crawford’s feet. The little native looked peaceful even in death. But he hadn’t died peacefully at all. His slim blue body had been cruelly ripped open with a knife. With the same knife that now was held in Crawford’s hand.

“Arrest him!” somebody yelled. “He’s a murderer!”

“Police! Murder!” came a cry from the other side. “Help! Murder!”

Crawford didn’t try to run. He was too confused for that. He stood there staring at the knife in his hand, and at the dead Vellirani on the ground. There was a strange, sweet taste in his mouth that he couldn’t explain.

Murder? What was this all about? This wasn’t his knife. He had never seen the dead Vellirani before. And though he had a hot temper, Crawford was no killer.

Swiftly three Vellirani policemen appeared. Like all the natives, they were small men who hardly came up to the middle of Crawford’s chest. But they were holding blast-guns in their many-fingered hands. Crawford wasn’t about to argue with three drawn blast-guns.

“You’re under arrest,” one of the policemen said. “The charge is murder.”

“It’s all a mistake!” Crawford shouted. “I’ve never killed anybody!”

“The knife is in your hand, Earthman. You can’t deny that you’re guilty.”

“But —”

“Don’t resist arrest,” the policeman closest to Crawford warned him. “Come peacefully. It’s the best way.”

Crawford shook his head slowly. He couldn’t believe that this was happening to him. He was no murderer. He was a successful yangskin hunter, on the way to the bank to make a deposit. Someone had framed him. That had to be it.

But the bloody murder knife had been in his hand.

A terrific surge of anger ran through him. Who had put him in this spot? And why? And how? He had blanked out just when the crime was committed. How come?

A Vellirani policeman touched his elbow. Crawford pulled free.

“Let go of me,” he snapped. “I’m not guilty! I didn’t do a thing!”

The strange eyes of the Vellirani stared into his. The policemen looked very serious. But Crawford knew that when a Vellirani wore a solemn-looking expression, he was really laughing. The policemen were laughing at him. They thought it was funny that he would deny his guilt. After all, he had been caught with the bloody murder knife right in his hand!

“Come along,” the nearest policeman said again.

There was no use trying to resist arrest. That would only get him into worse trouble.

Very puzzled, Crawford let himself be taken to jail.

* * * *

They put him up in a comfortable cell. Half an hour after he was arrested, Crawford had some visitors. Jeff Hallam came to see him. He brought along an Earthman named Brewster whose job it was to help any Earthman who got into trouble on Velliran. With Hallam and Brewster was a Vellirani native named Hork Kliskan. Hork Kliskan was a lawyer. Crawford would need a native lawyer to defend him against the charge of murder.

“What’s this all about?” Brewster wanted to know.

Crawford shrugged. “I don’t have the foggiest idea. I was on my way to the bank, and things went blank for a moment. Then there was a knife in my hand and a dead Vellirani on the sidewalk in front of me.”

“You didn’t know the dead man?” Hork Kliskan asked.

“Never saw him in my life.”

“It sounds phony to me,” said Jeff Hallam. “There’s some trickery here. Someone’s out to get you.”

“You bet,” Crawford said grimly. “But how can I prove it?”

“We’ll try to get you a fair trial,” Brewster said. “Hork Kliskan is one of the best trial lawyers on this planet.”

Crawford looked straight at the little blue-skinned being. “Can you do it? Can you get me free?”

“I will do my best,” Hork Kliskan replied. His voice was a soft buzzing sound. “But it looks difficult. There are witnesses who say they saw you kill the man.”

“They’re lying!” Crawford blazed.

“Perhaps. Perhaps. I will do my best when the trial begins,” said the Vellirani lawyer.

Crawford said, “Isn’t there some way I can get tried by my fellow Earthmen instead?”

Brewster shook his head. “Any Earthmen accused of crimes here get tried in Vellirani courts. It’s the law. I’m sorry, Crawford.”

“Besides,” Hallam said, “you’ve got a bad reputation among the Earthmen here. You’re a hothead. You knock people down when you don’t like things they do or say. It wouldn’t be hard for them to think you got angry enough to kill.”

“You’ll get a fair trial this way,” Brewster said. “I promise you that. Vellirani justice is very fair.”

Vellirani justice also moved very quickly. Crawford came to trial only three days later. On Earth, it might have taken months for the trial to begin.

The trial was held in one of the government buildings. Under local law, there was no jury. A Vellirani judge would hear the case and decide if Roy was guilty.

Crawford, Jeff Hallam, and Mr. Brewster were the only Earthmen in the court. The judge sat on a high seat; the prosecutor sat on his left, the defense lawyer on his right. Some Vellirani witnesses were in the back of the room.

“Court is in order,” said the judge. “The charge is murder.”

The prosecutor stood up. He was a very short, very fat Vellirani with deep purple skin. He had a big ring on each of his sixteen fingers. He walked up and down the room, looking very important. Then he began to speak.

He described the crime. He produced the murder weapon and told how Crawford had been found with it in his hand. He showed photographs that the policemen had taken a few minutes after the murder. In the photos Crawford was seen gripping the knife and staring down at the body.

The judge seemed to be smiling. That meant he was taking this very, very seriously. When a Vellirani turned the corners of his mouth up, it was a sign that he was unhappy.

“Looks bad,” Jeff Hallam whispered.

Crawford nodded. “But they’ve got to realize that it’s a frameup!”

The prosecutor was still talking. Now he was speaking about Roy Crawford’s bad temper. Certainly he had done some homework in these three days, because he knew a lot about Crawford. He told of the fights that Crawford had been in. He discussed Crawford’s habit of trying to settle quarrels with his fists. He even knew that Crawford had knocked a hunter down on his last yangskin expedition. He painted Crawford as a terribly violent man who might stab a perfect stranger for getting in his way.

“This man is guilty,” the prosecutor finished. “I demand the full punishment!”

Then Hork Kliskan got up to speak in Crawford’s defense. He insisted that Crawford did not own such a knife and had never known the dead man. He denied that Crawford was the murderer. But that was about all that he could say. He said each thing three or four different ways, hoping to convince the judge. Then he sat down.

Next the witnesses were called. They were Vellirani who had been in the street at the time of the murder. There were five of them. All five agreed that they had seen Crawford holding the bloody knife right after the murder. Two of them even thought they had seen him commit the crime. The other three were not so sure of that.

The last witness was Crawford himself. He felt uneasy as he took the stand. Things were going badly for him. He began to wish he didn’t have a reputation for being a violent man. That reputation was hurting him now.

He said, “I didn’t kill him. This is some kind of frameup. I blanked out for a second on the street, and someone must have put the knife in my hand.”

The judge’s mouth-corners went even higher. It was certain that he didn’t believe Crawford’s story. Even Crawford had to admit that his tale didn’t sound very convincing. It was true, though. He was sure he hadn’t killed anyone.

The two lawyers spoke again. The judge hardly seemed to be paying attention while Hork Kliskan summed up the defense.

There was a long moment of silence.

Then the judge looked at Crawford. “Defendant, this court finds you guilty of murder. You have killed a Vellirani in broad daylight.”

“It isn’t true!” Crawford cried out.

His lawyer poked him in the ribs. It wouldn’t do any good to yell at the judge, Crawford realized. The trial was over. Now he would be sentenced.

He didn’t think that the sentence would be too serious. Velliran, like most civilized planets, didn’t put people to death for crimes. The worst that he could get would be a long time in jail.

The judge said, “Do you have any explanation for your crime, before you are sentenced?”

“None. I’m innocent, so how could there be any explanation?”

Letting that remark go, the judge went on, “I will now pronounce sentence. A man who has murdered another must not be allowed to stay in society. I sentence you to imprisonment for the rest of your life. You will be taken to Velliran Main Prison on the island of Tharkor.”

Crawford’s heart sank. This was all like a bad dream — but now it was getting worse and worse. Life imprisonment? To rot for the rest of his life in a jail on a lonely island?

Hork Kliskan was on his feet. The little lawyer waved his hands wildly in the air.

“Your Honor, I object! The sentence is much too heavy! Even if he did kill the man, he doesn’t deserve life imprisonment. He —”

The judge glared at Hork Kliskan. “I am not through pronouncing sentence,” he said in a frosty voice.

Hork Kliskan sank back into his seat.

The judge said, “Since the guilty man in not a native of our planet, I offer him another choice. Instead of going to jail, he can leave Velliran forever. He must be gone within three days and never set foot on this world again. Otherwise he must go to jail.”

“But that isn’t fair either!” Crawford muttered. “There aren’t any starships due to leave Velliran in the next three days! How can I possibly —”

“The sentence has been given,” said the judge. “The trial is over! Court is adjourned!”

CHAPTER 3

OUTWARD BOUND

Three days to leave the planet! And no way to depart!

Roy Crawford was dazed by it all. His life was in ruins. He had been walking down the street on a bright, sunny day, minding his own business. And then — first the murder, then the trial. Now he was a condemned man.

Leave Velliran forever — or go to jail for life!

Everything he had worked for now was crumbling.

He’d have to give up his yangskin business and start all over again on some other world. That is, if he could manage to leave at all. Starships didn’t blast off every day. Maybe the judge had known that. Maybe it was his idea of a joke. He had offered Crawford a second choice that was really impossible. That was no choice at all.

Crawford sat gloomily in his office, wondering what to do. A pair of Vellirani policemen stood downstairs in front. Two days from now, they would take him away and put him in jail — if he couldn’t think up some way of getting off the planet before then.

Mr. Brewster’s job was to help Earthmen in trouble, and he was doing his best. He had been making calls all day, trying to arrange for a ship to take Crawford away from Velliran. But so far he was having no luck.

Crawford didn’t want to leave. He liked it here. He wanted to stay right here and go on hunting yangs.

But if he stayed, he’d have to go to jail for the rest of his life. That meant he had to leave. But it wasn’t fair. It simply wasn’t fair.

There was a knock on the door, and Jeff Hallam came in. The short, thin scientist looked very pleased with himself. His face wore a broad smile.

Crawford gave him a sour look. “What are you so happy about?”

“Plenty. I’ve got everything fixed up, Roy.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve found a way to get you off Velliran by tomorrow night.”

Crawford sat up in surprise. “How? There’s no ship leaving for days!”

“There’s one,” said Hallam. “That Exploration Corps ship. The scientific expedition that’s been stopping here a few days. You’ll leave on that ship.”

“But the Exploration Corps doesn’t take passengers,” Crawford objected. “How am I going to get aboard?”

“Simple. You’ll go as a scientist.”

Crawford’s mouth opened wide in amazement. “A scientist? You’re joking!”

“I’m perfectly serious. It’s all arranged. You know why they stopped here in the first place?”

“Mostly because one of their men was sick,” Crawford said.

“Right. Well, the hospital decided that he’s too sick to go exploring. He’s being sent back to Earth. So the expedition is one man short.”

“But I’m not a —”

“Wait, will you?” Hallam said. “I happen to be friendly with the explorers. They told me their problem. They’ve asked for a new scientist to be sent to them. He’s coming from another planet near Velliran. He’s supposed to arrive tomorrow. Okay. When he gets here, I see to it that he doesn’t report to the expedition. You report instead. Simple?”

Crawford began to laugh in spite of himself. He had wanted so badly to go on that exploring trip! It was very funny, in a strange way.

Crawford said, “Who’s this scientist I’m supposed to be?”

“His name is Paul Markham. He’s an ecologist.”

“A what?”

“An ecologist,” Hallam repeated. “That’s a man who studies the way one living thing ties in with another. He looks at all the plants and animals in one place and sees how they get along with each other.”

Crawford knotted his hands together nervously. “If I don’t even know what an ecologist is, how can I pretend to be one?”

“Don’t worry about that. You don’t have to. All you need to do is get aboard that ship. If you can bluff your way until it blasts off, you’ll be all right.”

“Well, if you think so.”

“I’m sure of it. Look, you won’t be asked to do anything scientific until you reach the unexplored planet. By then it’ll be much too late for them to do anything about you. They won’t turn back once they’ve arrived.” Hallam grinned. “They’ll probably decide that a trained hunter like you is useful. They’ll put you to work.”

“Maybe so,” Crawford said. He was starting to like this deal. It was too bad he had to leave Velliran this way, as a convicted criminal. But as long as he was going, it was lucky that he could go with the expedition.

“So you see, it’ll work out pretty well,” said Hallam.

“How long will the expedition be out there?”

“A few months, I guess. Afterward you’ll have to go to live on some other planet, Roy. But you’ll be all right. You can start a new hunting business somewhere else.”

“Yeah,” Crawford said bitterly. “Just like that.” He stood up, towering high over his friend. “Listen, Jeff. While I’m gone, I want you to try to find out who really did murder that man. Get the real killer and clear my name.”

“I’ll try hard,” Hallam promised.

“And if you can’t — well, sell everything I own, then. Cash it all in and send the money to me on my new planet. I’ll be in touch with you.”

“Right.” Hallam smiled. “Things will work out, Roy. And be sure to get to the spaceport on time tomorrow night. Remember: from here on out, your name is Paul Markham. And you’re an ecologist for the Exploration Corps.”

* * * *

The next evening, Hallam drove Crawford to the spaceport. It was a beautiful night. The three moons of Velliran were high in the sky. They cast a bright orange light over everything.

As the car passed through the gate of the spaceport, Crawford said, “Are you sure this is going to work?”

“Positive.”

“Won’t they know I’m not Paul Markham?”

“They’ve never seen Markham. He’s a stranger to them.”

“What if they recognize me as Roy Crawford, though?”

“How can they? None of them ever saw you,” Hallam said. “Relax. You’ll be all right.”

Crawford tried hard to relax.

He saw the ship of the expedition up ahead. It was tall and slim and its sides were deep blue in color. The orange moonlight gleamed brightly along the metal. Crawford felt sadness come over him as he saw the ship.

Goodbye to Velliran, he thought.

Goodbye to all his friends. Goodbye to hunting yangs. Goodbye to the life he had made for himself on this planet.

It had all been so sudden, so unfair — the murder, the trial, the sentence. He still didn’t quite believe all that had happened.

But yet it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. At least he wasn’t going to jail. Thanks to Jeff Hallam, he was outward bound for adventure. Heading for a new world, a world that had never been explored.

Hallam parked the car. They walked out together onto the field. As they neared the ship, Hallam shook Crawford’s hand.

“Okay,” he said. “You should make it clear from here, Roy. I mean, Paul. Take it easy. I’ll wait to hear from you.”

“Thanks, for everything, Jeff.”

Hallam turned away. Crawford watched until he got in his car. Then Crawford walked slowly toward the ship.

It stood on its tail, pointing to the sky. There was a door at the ground level. Crawford entered it. An elevator took him to the crew compartment at the top end.

On the way up, he reminded himself that he had a new name. He was no longer Roy Crawford. Now he was Paul Markham, ecologist. The real Paul Markham had been kept from reaching the ship on time. Crawford felt a little sorry about that. But only a little.

His heart was pounding wildly. What if he didn’t fool the scientists? What if they saw through his bluff before the ship blasted off?

They would have him thrown off the ship. He would be sent to a Vellirani prison for the rest of his life. So everything depended on what happened in the next few hours. Either he blasted off for an unknown world, or he went to jail.

The elevator door opened. Crawford stepped out into the nose of the spaceship. There were nine men in there. The scientists, Crawford thought. The members of the exploration team. He took a deep breath.

“I’m Paul Markham,” he announced. “The new ecologist.”

Nobody seemed to think he was lying. At least, nobody came right out and said it. He had passed the first test.

A tall dark-haired man in a blue-and-gold uniform stepped forward. “Welcome aboard, Markham. I’m Captain Hendrin. We’re glad to have you.”

“I’m glad to be here, sir.”

“We were in a tight spot,” the Captain said. “We couldn’t very well blast off without an ecologist. What kind of survey expedition would that be? It was a lucky thing for us that you could join us on such short notice.”

Crawford laughed. “It was an even luckier thing for me, sir. Believe me, it was.”

Hendrin said, “As you may have heard already, this is going to be a regular six-month exploration trip. We’re going to work in the Andromeda galaxy. We’re beginning with World Seven of Star System Z-16. It’s a jungle world, and it may keep us busy for the full six months. If it doesn’t, we’ll move on to some other planet. Our orders are to survey and give names to as many planets as we can.”

Nodding, Crawford said, “It sounds fine to me.”

Hendrin pointed to the others. “These are the men you’ll be working with.” He introduced them, calling off their names quickly. They represented many sciences. A man named Lazenby was a biologist, Grover was a botanist, Chung a geologist, Dorwin a chemist, Bartlett an anthropologist, Murray a mapmaker, and Evans a radio-communications man. The ship’s doctor was named Fernandez.

Crawford didn’t catch all the names the first time around. But it didn’t matter. He’d be living with these men for the next six months. There would be plenty of time to get to know them.

Lazenby, the biologist, said, “Come with me, Markham. I’ll show you to your quarters.”

Crawford followed him down a ladder into the heart of the ship. Lazenby was a slim, stoop-shouldered man about forty years old. He had a soft voice and mild eyes that hid behind thick glasses. In many ways he reminded Crawford of Jeff Hallam.

“Here you are,” Lazenby said. “It’s not very large, but it ought to do. I guess you’re used to cabins like this one by now.”

“Oh — yes,” Crawford said. “Naturally.” He had to pretend he had been on lots of Exploration Corps ships. But of course this was the first time he had ever been aboard one.

Lazenby said, “How many expeditions have you made before this?”

Lazenby asked the question as a way of making friends, not as a trap. Crawford wasn’t sure what to say, though. So he simply grinned and said, “To tell you the truth, I’ve lost count.”

“I know what you mean,” said Lazenby. “One trip just blurs into the next. Well, I think we’re in for an interesting time this trip.”

“I hope so. I’m happy to be aboard. You don’t know how happy I am.”

Lazenby went up front again, leaving Crawford to get settled. He unpacked the few belongings he had brought with him. So far, so good, he thought. Nobody realized that he wasn’t Paul Markham. And in a little while it would be too late to do anything about it.

It seemed to him that a hundred years passed before blast-off time. Would the ship never leave? What were they waiting for?

But then at last came Captain Hendrin’s voice over the loudspeaker:

“We’re blasting off in five minutes. All hands strap down for blast-off.”

Crawford fastened his safety belts and waited for the last five minutes to tick away. The final signal came. He closed his eyes.

The ship lifted from the ground. The rockets roared. Up into the sky they zoomed.

He had made it! He was safely off Velliran! He would not go to prison!

He was outward bound!

CHAPTER 4

FIRST MAN ON WORLD SEVEN

The first few days aboard the ship, Crawford did a lot of listening and not much talking. He was afraid of giving himself away. Even though it was too late for the ship to turn back to Velliran, he did not want the truth to come out. He wanted everyone to think he was Paul Markham until the end of the journey.

Actually, it wasn’t as hard to pretend as he had feared. He had read plenty of stories about the exciting adventures of Exploration Corps men. All he had to do was remember the details of the stories.

That gave him a fair idea of what the normal routine on ship was like.

Of course, he didn’t know a thing about ecology. And he was supposed to be an ecologist. But the ship had a good scientific library. In his free time he made use of it. He took out book-tapes on ecology and played them when no one else was around. That way, he learned some of the words he should know.

The job of the Exploration Corps was to take a look at all the worlds in the universe. It was now known that there were billions of planets. Most of them did not have intelligent people living on them — just wild beasts.

If a planet had no civilization of its own, Earth could plant a colony there. Of course, there could not be a colony on a planet like Velliran, because Velliran was already inhabited. The Earthmen who lived on Velliran were there by permission of the Vellirani people. But if a planet had no civilization, Earth was free to claim it.

The ships of the Exploration Corps went out to study these worlds. The Corpsmen had to file a full report on each planet with the computer known as Central Control. This vast electronic brain kept records of all the worlds in the universe.

What the Exploration Corps had to decide was whether a world was good enough for a colony. Did it have good weather? Would the soil yield rich crops? What kind of animal life was there? Was there a supply of fresh water? Could the air be breathed by Earthmen?

All this had to be learned and reported. Then, if Central Control agreed, a colony could be sent out. Hundreds of men and women would come to the new world to live. These pioneers would build towns and start to farm. In time there would be great cities where the first towns had been.

Crawford’s job, as the expedition’s ecologist, was to study the life of World Seven. He had to see how the plants and animals could best be put to use by the colonists. From what he had read in the tapes, he knew that his job was an important one. His thoughts would help decide whether a colony of Earthmen should come to World Seven or not.

He felt bad because he was not really a scientist. It was unfair to the other men, he knew. Part of the survey job would go undone because the real Paul Markham was not there.

Yet it had also been unfair to find him guilty for a crime he had not done. It had been necessary to get off Velliran or else. There had been no time to argue about the rights and wrongs of it. So here he was. It was too bad that he could not really help the scientists. But he had had to escape.

And maybe he could be of some help after all. He hoped so. His sharp eyes and quick trigger finger might be useful. They were going to a wild, dangerous planet. As a trained hunter, he might be able to protect the real scientists.

It took three weeks to get from Velliran to World Seven. For the first two days the ship traveled on ordinary rocket drive. Then, when it was far enough from Velliran so there would be no danger, it shifted to its special overdrive.

Overdrive allowed a ship to get from star to star quickly. An ordinary rocketship would need many years to make such a journey. A ship going on overdrive could travel billions of miles in a few weeks.

As they neared the Andromeda galaxy, they snapped back into ordinary drive.

Roy Crawford stared out the porthole at the bright sparkling stars.

“The universe is so big,” he murmured. “So big we can’t even imagine what it’s like!”

Out there lay millions of stars. Each star had a few planets circling it. It made him dizzy to think of all those millions and millions of worlds.

Earth could send out Exploration Corps ships from now to the end of time and still not be able to visit all those planets. The sky was full of stars. How far out did they go? How many billions of stars existed?

The ship moved in toward Star System Z-16.

It was a group of eleven planets around a bright yellow star. The yellow star looked very much like Earth’s own sun. The sun and this star were the same size and the same color. It was a little like coming home to Earth to see a yellow star again. The star that was Velliran’s sun gave orange light.

Now the eleven planets of Star System Z-16 were very close. They looked like colored globes spinning in space. Two of them had rings like the planet Saturn. One of the others was so close to the yellow sun that it would be too hot to live on.

“We’re landing first on World Seven,” Captain Hendrin said.

The ship swung into orbit and headed down to land.

The landing was beautiful. The slender ship seemed to float down on its rocket blast. It hung for a moment about ten feet above the ground. Then slowly it touched down.

Before anyone could go outside, the air had to be tested. Not every planet had air that Earthmen could breathe. On some worlds there was no oxygen in the air. On some worlds the air contained poisonous gases. They had to check carefully first.

A small section of the ship opened, and a metal tube poked out. Air was drawn into the tube. Then it was sealed and pulled back into the ship.

Dorwin, the expedition’s chemist, tested the sample of air in his laboratory. He checked it and double-checked it. After an hour he came out of the laboratory.

“It’s fine,” he declared. “It’s about 25% oxygen and 68% nitrogen. Plus small amounts of other gases. We ought to be able to breathe it without any trouble.”

Everyone sighed with relief. If the air had been poisonous, they would have had to do their exploring wearing spacesuits. It was never very comfortable to walk around inside a bulky, hot spacesuit. Now they could go outside without special breathing equipment.

“Okay,” Captain Hendrin said. “Now we pick a man to go outside and take a look.”

Only one man would go out on this first trip. It was too risky to send more than one. If the first man came back alive, the others would go out.

The Captain opened a box of straws. He took out ten straws and tore one so it was shorter than the others. Then he stuck all ten straws in his fist. The way he did it, no one could tell which was the short straw.

“Everybody pick a straw,” he said. “Short straw goes outside.”

Somehow Crawford had a funny feeling that he was the one who was going to pick the short straw. He didn’t know why. It was just his kind of luck.

He pulled a straw from Captain Hendrin’s fist. Sure enough, it was the short one. He stood grining at it foolishly.

“Guess I’m the lucky one,” he said.

The Captain smiled. “Well, it’s good that the ecologist will be the first one out. You can get a head start on your work that way.”

Crawford carried weapons with him when he went outside. He strapped a little blast-gun to each hip and put a needle-gun in a shoulder-holster. Just for good measure he fastened a wicked-looking hunting knife to his belt.

“That ought to do it,” he said. “Anything that starts trouble with me will get plenty of trouble right back.”

He rode the ship’s elevator down to the airlock in the tail. The airlock opened. The other Earthmen would be watching him from the portholes. But he was strictly on his own.

He took a look at the world outside the ship.

He saw purplish grass all around. The ship had come down in a little grassy clearing. About a hundred yards away, the jungle began. It looked thick and strange. The trees were very tall and were woven together by a network of vines.

Crawford took his first step outside the airlock. He looked carefully around. It was very warm here. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead. Sweat dribbled down into his eyebrows. He flicked it away, annoyed.

He wondered if it was really the heat that was making him sweat like this. Or was it the fact that he was the first man to set foot on an unknown world? Who knew what terrible monsters were hiding in that jungle?

Very quickly, Roy Crawford found out what World Seven of Star System Z-16 was like.

He took three steps away from the ship. He walked slowly through the purplish grass. He looked around in all directions and kept his hand on his needle-gun.

Then something came bounding out of the jungle at a mile a minute. Crawford had no time to fire. He didn’t even have time to think. The creature charged him. It banged into him and knocked him to the ground.

The needle-gun went flying out of his hand. He got up, feeling groggy, and reached for the weapon. The animal had run right past him and was turning around.

Crawford took a good look at the whatever-it-was. It was about as tall as a man. It had a huge head, a small middle, and a pair of giant kangaroo-like legs. He saw the flash of white teeth that were as long as his fingers. He stared into big red eyes. The animal had yellow skin, covered with scales.

It had turned around, and now it charged a second time.

The powerful kangaroo-like legs tightened. The animal hopped forward. It covered an enormous amount of ground with each hop.

Crawford tried to get out of the way. But he couldn’t move fast enough. The thing bashed into him a second time and knocked him down again.

A moment later the animal was on top of him.

The big feet were planted right in the middle of his chest. Looking up, Crawford saw the glittering teeth. The animal had tiny little arms, but they had sharp claws. In another moment those claws would be digging into his flesh. Those teeth would be taking big bites.

There wouldn’t be any time for the men in the ship to help him. He couldn’t draw his own weapons. He was pinned flat on the ground. The weight of the animal was tremendous.

The shining, spike-like teeth came close to his throat.

Crawford shut his eyes and waited to die.

And then he felt the heavy weight lifting from his chest. The teeth did not touch him. He could hardly believe it. He opened his eyes and looked up.

Some other monster had come out of the jungle and had caught the one that had attacked Crawford. The second animal had grabbed the first one up and was about to eat it! Staring up, Crawford saw his attacker dangling in midair.

He was saved — for the moment, anyway.

CHAPTER 5

PLANET OF MONSTERS

Lying sprawled in the grass, Crawford took a good look at the beast that had saved him.

He could hardly believe his eyes.

This monster was tall and thin, maybe fifteen feet high and less than a foot wide. It looked like a walking telescope, green all over. It had two tremendously long arms that reached almost to the ground, and a pair of tiny legs tucked away below. At the very top were three slit-like eyes and something that looked like a cluster of flower petals.

One of the long dangling arms had stretched out and pulled the animal off Crawford’s chest. The arm had lifted the hopping creature high into the air — toward the cluster of petals.

Crawford scrambled to his feet. He stepped back against the ship and watched. The beast with the teeth and the strong hind legs was kicking and squirming. But the walking telescope had a good grip on it, and wasn’t letting go.

As Crawford stared, the animal rose higher and higher. Then the skinny arm held it over the petal cluster on the top. The arm let go.

The petals spread wide and turned into a mouth. One gulp, and the big kicking animal was inside the walking telescope.

There was a live and kicking lump in the telescope-animal’s long throat. Then that lump began to sink toward the animal’s stomach. It was a horrible sight to watch. Crawford shuddered.

Even though the kangaroo-animal had wanted to eat him, Crawford was shaken up to see this. Death was swift and sudden on this jungle planet.

The telescope-creature seemed to be enjoying its meal. The lump in its narrow throat disappeared. The telescope folded its long arms around its middle. It hugged itself happily and did a little dance. Then it waddled back into the jungle.

Crawford didn’t stay around to meet any more visitors. He turned around and ducked inside the ship. He slammed the outer door shut to keep anything else from coming in.

Quickly he went up the elevator to the top. The other nine men looked glad to see him.

“That was pretty close,” said Captain Hendrin. “You were lucky, Markham.”

Crawford nodded. “I sure was. We didn’t get a very friendly welcome to World Seven, did we?”

Everybody would have to keep his eyes open all the time. There was no telling when some dangerous beast would strike.

“Are you all right?” Lazenby asked.

Crawford grinned at the little biologist. “Now I am,” he said. “Not a scratch on me. But I didn’t feel so good with that thing sitting on me.”

“We saw the whole thing,” said Dr. Fernandez. He was a heavy-set man with black hair and huge eyebrows. “You didn’t have a chance, Markham. That beast moved a mile a minute.”

Nodding, Crawford said, “It was a lucky thing for me that the other cutie-pie came along. Otherwise I’d have been down his throat ten minutes ago. Ugh!”

He wiped the sweat from his forehead and looked through the viewscreen at the dark jungle. It was like a wall of green leaves where the clearing ended. A foggy cloud hung low in the sky.

“This is a rough world,” Lazenby said. The biologist looked pale and nervous. “It’s a young world. Life is cheap here.”

“We can all get killed out there in no time,” said Bartlett, who was a big man with bulging muscles. Bartlett was the anthropologist. That meant he was supposed to study any intelligent creatures that might live on this planet.

Captain Hendrin said, “Yes, it’s plenty dangerous out there. We’d better operate in teams when we go out to explore. Nobody goes alone. And we’ll have to be heavily armed. Wide-beam blasters for everyone. There’s no telling what horrible monsters are lurking in that jungle.”

Crawford was still shaking a little. That sudden meeting with the big-toothed creature hadn’t done his nerves any good. He looked at Captain Hendrin and said, “Maybe we’d better just pull up off this planet, Captain. It’s too dangerous for us. Nobody’s going to be able to settle on a planet with animals like that!”

Hendrin looked surprised. “What kind of nonsense are you talking, Markham?”

Crawford wished he hadn’t said anything. After all, he wasn’t really a member of this expedition. He was no scientist. What right did he have to suggest that they should leave the planet?

But he stuck to his guns, as long as he had started to speak. He said, “We ought to go on to some of the other planets in the system, I think. Maybe they’ll be more friendly. This place is too rough.”

Captain Hendrin stared straight at him. All the friendliness was gone from the Captain’s face. He didn’t look easygoing any more.

Right now the Captain looked like a man who took his job very seriously. More seriously than anything else in the world. His face was hard and cold. He gave Crawford a long, chilly look before he spoke.

Then he said, “Markham, you haven’t been with this team very long. So I can forgive you for what you just said. But I’m shocked to hear a member of the Exploration Corps talk that way. Especially an ecologist. Or somebody who claims to be an ecologist.”

Crawford wished more than ever that he hadn’t said anything. He said, “Sir, I —”

Hendrin cut him off. “Quiet! Markham, you ought to know our basic rule. Once an Exploration Corps ship lands on a planet, it stays there until its job is done. It doesn’t pull up and quit five minutes after it lands. We can’t be sure that this planet is unfit for colonists until we’ve taken a good look.”

Crawford felt about three inches high.

The Captain went on, “I’ve operated that way for thirteen years, and I’ll keep on operating that way.” His voice lashed like a whip. He turned to the other men of the exploration team. “Is there anybody else who feels like leaving this planet now?”

No one spoke.

Embarrassed, Crawford looked down at the floor. He had been wrong to say what he had said. No true Exploration Corpsman would have said it — no matter how close he had come to being eaten alive.

But Crawford wasn’t a true Exploration Corpsman. That was the whole trouble. He didn’t have a scientist’s hunger for knowledge.

He was just a hunter who was escaping from a phony murder rap. He had come on this ship because it was his only chance to escape jail. As a hunter, he liked adventure more than most men. But he also knew that some kinds of adventure were just too risky.

Like the adventure that this planet offered.

For a moment, Crawford felt like telling the truth about himself to Captain Hendrin. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. The Captain would be shocked and angered. Crawford didn’t want to let everyone know that he was a liar and a criminal. At least, a criminal in the eyes of Velliran.

So he was going to have to keep on pretending to be a scientist. And that meant staying on World Seven of Star System Z-16 until Captain Hendrin was ready to leave.

Well, it might be exciting, Crawford thought. If we don’t all get eaten alive the first day. He said in a humble voice, “I’m sorry I brought the subject up, Captain. It’s just that I was shaken up by the sudden attack. My nerves —”

“Okay, Markham,” the Captain said. His voice was harsh but sympathetic. “I understand. You had a hard time out there. But no more talking of leaving here until our job is done!”

Crawford forced himself to smile. “Right, Captain!”

But he looked toward that jungle full of hungry monsters again. Maybe he wondered whether he would have been better off back on Velliran.

The Captain said, “We’ll start full exploration of World Seven in an hour. Right after we’ve had a few briefing sessions. And after we’ve chosen the teams.”

The Captain divided the group up into two-man teams. Each team would go out in a different direction to give the planet a thorough going-over.

The luckiest man was Murray, the map-maker. He wouldn’t have to set foot in the deadly jungle at all. Map-making was done from the air. The ship carried a tiny helicopter. Murray would fly it high over the jungles, taking photographs. Later he would use those photographs for making his maps.

He wouldn’t meet any jungle beasts a thousand feet in the air. He’d be safe from monsters. Crawford hoped that he would be picked to fly with Murray. But Chung, the geologist, was given that assignment.

Since Crawford was going to have to explore on land, he found himeif wishing he’d be paired with Bartlett, then. Bartlett, the anthropologist, was a big, strong man. He looked like he could handle himself in any kind of trouble.

But Bartlett was teamed with Grover, the botanist.

Crawford got teamed with Lazenby instead. He wasn’t too happy about that. The little biologist was a friendly fellow, all right. But he didn’t have much in the way of muscle. He wasn’t the type who would be much use in the jungle. Crawford was afraid that he’d spend half his time rescuing Lazenby from danger.

He had to go along with the teaming, though. He had already done enough grumbling for one day.

“Ready?” Lazenby asked him.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Crawford answered.

“I don’t blame you for not wanting to go out there again,” said Lazenby. “Not after what happened to you the first time. But it’s our job. We don’t expect Exploration Corps work to be a picnic.”

“No, sir,” Crawford agreed, not very cheerfully. “Well, let’s go.”

They rode down the ship’s elevator together. All too quickly they were out of the ship and on the ground, standing in the purplish grass.

Crawford had been a hunter since he was twelve years old. He had never been afraid of a forest before. He had always been sure he could look after himself, no matter what happened.

But this planet was different, somehow. That was a lesson he had learned the hard way — and fast. This was a planet of monsters. Death might hide behind any tree.

This time, before getting more than a step away from the ship, Crawford looked around. He stared in all directions. He wasn’t taking any chances.

The coast was clear, though.

“Come on,” he said to Lazenby. “There’s no trouble in sight.”

They edged forward toward the jungle. Scientific equipment was heavy on their backs. They had bottles for catching things in, and notebooks for jotting down what they saw. They were also well armed. They were carrying blast-guns for close action, and needle-guns for long-range shooting.

The thick wall of dark green leaves was just ahead of them. Suddenly there came a cry from the jungle. A harsh, croaking cry of pain.

“Did you hear that?” Lazenby asked.

Crawford nodded. “A death cry. Something’s just eaten something else.”

He thought he could hear other shrieks coming from the dark, mysterious jungle. He seemed to pick up the sounds of killing, the sounds of bloody feasting.

He looked at Lazenby. Lazenby looked back at him. They both grinned. Neither of them looked very happy, though.

They walked quickly forward into the jungle.

Getting through the outer wall of the jungle was hard. Tangled vines were wrapped around every tree, and there were many low shrubs. But once they were inside, it was easier to move around. Within the jungle, little sunlight reached the ground. The growth of shrubs and vines was not so thick in here.

The jungle was hot and damp. Thick wet dew covered everything. The shiny leaves were glistening and wet with little drops of dew. There was moisture on the tree trunks, on the ground, on the rocks. And very quickly the two Earthmen were dripping wet, too.

Crawford glanced at his watch as they entered the jungle. The plan was to cover as much ground as they could in an hour’s time. Then they were to return to the ship and give their reports.

He kept his ears open for trouble. He knew that this jungle was full of strange and probably dangerous creatures. He wanted to be ready for them.

It didn’t take long before trouble arrived.

They had been moving carefully through the jungle for about five minutes. Lazenby had come to a tiny pond. He knelt beside it, scooping up a sample of its water. Later, back at the ship, he would put the water under his microscope. He would see what sort of bacteria and other germs this planet had.

Crawford kept watch while Lazenby filled his collecting bottle and put a label on it. Suddenly he said, “Better look sharp. Something’s coming.”

“Where? I don’t hear anything.”

“Listen carefully,” Crawford said.

Lazenby stood up and cocked his ear. Then his mouth dropped open.

The sound of thrashing vines and splintering saplings became very loud. And then, thundering toward them like a runaway express train, came an animal.

“Watch out!” Crawford yelled. “It’ll run us over! Watch out!”

CHAPTER 6

JUNGLE OF NIGHTMARES

Crawford acted just in time. He looped one arm around Lazenby’s middle and the other around the trunk of a thick, gnarled tree. Then he jumped. He leaped up into the crotch of the tree, taking Lazenby with him.

“You spilled my water sample,” Lazenby complained.

“Too bad. But look at that!”

It was like a scene out of a nightmare. The huge beast smashed through the underbrush and ran toward them. It was a glossy brown creature about thirty feet long. It had four heavy legs that ended in big round flat feet. A long, thin neck stuck out at the front end, and a tail that was just as long and thin at the other end. It weighed at least ten tons. Even so, it was moving fast, crashing through the jungle.

It had no head.

There was nothing at the end of its neck but a jagged slashed place. Red spurts of blood were coming forth every time the beast’s heart beat. The animal was like a fountain of blood. The leaping jets of blood were staining the trees red.

The animal was dead, and it was so dumb it didn’t know it yet. Some other jungle horror had bitten its head off. But even so, the headless beast was running madly through the jungle.

“Let’s follow it,” Lazenby suggested. “It’s bound to drop dead soon. I’d like to get a close-up look at it once it’s dead.”

Crawford shook his head. “I think we’d be better off staying up here a little while longer.”

“But maybe we won’t be able to find the animal when it dies!” Lazenby objected.

Crawford laughed. “Relax,” he said. “All we’ll have to do is follow that bloody trail. Our bulky friend is bound to be at the other end of it. But I’m in no hurry to climb down from here. I’ll bet the thing that took the head off that one will be along any minute. Let’s wait where it’s safe.”

Crawford was right.

The next animal that appeared was as graceful as a dancer. It came gliding through the forest with dainty, lively strides.

But there was nothing dainty about it. It was ten feet high, standing upright on two slender legs. Two more limbs were tucked up beneath its throat. A mouth full of teeth like razors opened wide. It was dripping with blood.

The graceful creature danced right past the two Earthmen hiding in the tree. It was in search of better meat.

The headless beast that they had seen first was lying just up ahead. It had finally stumbled and fallen in the underbrush. But it didn’t seem to be completely dead even now. Its thick legs were kicking at the air.

Crawford watched in horror as the toothy killer attacked. It dug its two little forepaws into the still quivering flesh of the fallen animal. Then it brought its teeth down for the first bite.

It was the hungriest animal Crawford had ever seen. Ripping and tearing away, it began to feast.

Somehow the sight made him angry. Crawford jumped down from the tree. He drew his blast-gun and pushed the firing stud back. Aiming it at the killer, Crawford fired a full beam of deadly energy.

The skin of the killer animal glowed bright red. It began to sizzle and fry. But the animal didn’t seem to know anything had happened for at least five seconds.

Then the pain got through to its dull brain. It reared up from its meal and turned around to attack Crawford.

Crawford could hardly believe his eyes. He had given the beast enough blaster power to kill an elephant — and it still charged him!

He continued to fire. The animal took three more steps. Then it fell. Its legs were burned away. It dropped to the jungle floor. Crawford kept the blaster trained on it until it stopped moving.

He lowered his blaster. His throat felt hoarse. Crawford realized that he had been shouting like a madman while he fired.

Moments later a thousand tiny creatures came hurrying out of nowhere. They crawled out from under rocks, down from the trees, up from the pond. They were insects and other small things, and they were coming to feed.

They went to work on the two huge bodies of the jungle animals. A thousand little jaws began to snip away the flesh of the fallen beasts. The stink of death seemed to fill the whole jungle.

Crawford turned around. Lazenby stood behind him. The small man’s eyes were wide with shock and horror.

“I’ve never seen anything like that,” Lazenby said in a hushed voice.

“The killer? Vicious beast, wasn’t he?”

“No,” Lazenby whispered. He looked pale and uneasy. “I’m talking about you. You hardly looked human! You were screaming wildly while you killed that animal. You seemed to be enjoying yourself so much. If you could only have seen your own face — Markham, it was horrible!”

“That animal was a killer,” Crawford said crisply. “I had to blast it.”

“Why? It hadn’t attacked you.”

That stopped Crawford completely. He didn’t have any answer for that.

Lazenby said, “It had already killed its prey. Now it was eating. It didn’t threaten you at all. Your job was to make scientific observations as it ate. Not to haul out that blaster of yours and blaze away.”

Once again Crawford felt completely foolish. Lazenby was right. He had let his hot head have its way again.

Something in him had boiled over with rage at the sight of that killer animal. He didn’t know why it had happened. He had simply lost control of himself. It was the old trouble again, the hot temper that ran wild so easily.

It was a poor way for a scientist to go about things. It was even a poor way for a hunter to conduct himself. It was stupid to get angry like that. A man can’t think straight when he’s angry. And it’s dangerous not to think straight. His temper had made problems for him too many times before.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I lost my temper. Something just went wild inside me and I had to fire at that thing. It was stupid of me.”

“Stupid?” Lazenby replied hotly. “It was downright criminal! Ecologists are supposed to study life, not to destroy it! And when you were in no danger, you had no right to —”

Lazenby didn’t finish what he was saying. A tree across the way reached out an arm and grabbed him. It lifted him high off the ground. - “Lazenby!” Crawford yelled.

He looked up. A green ropy thing like a thick vine had wrapped itself around Lazenby’s waist. The biologist was now ten feet off the ground, and rising fast. His face was gray with fright.

There was no way Lazenby could get loose. The rope-like part of the tree was wrapped three or four times around his waist. It was more than an inch thick.

The top of the tree was whipping back and forth as if blown by the winds of a storm. Crawford stared at it. There was something strangely like a mouth up there at the top of the tree.

A man-eating tree?

“Help me!” Lazenby screamed. “Get me out of here! I’m choking! I — I —”

Crawford drew his needle-gun. If he aimed just right, he might be able to cut Lazenby loose from the tree. But the biologist was wildly kicking and squirming. He was clawing at the green vine, trying to get himself free.

“Hold still!” Crawford shouted. “I don’t want to hit you!”

He fired above Lazenby’s head, at the vine. But he missed it. The vine wriggled like a giant green snake. The beam of Crawford’s needle-gun burned into the trunk of the tree instead.

The tree shook with pain. Its branches whipped angrily back and forth.

“Markham!” Lazenby cried. “Get me down!” He was coming closer and closer to the hungry mouth in the top of that tree.

Crawford fired again. It was hard to see where to aim. By now Lazenby and the living rope that held him were well up in the leafy branches of the tree. But Crawford’s skill with a needle-gun was great. This time his beam nailed the vine perfectly and cut it in two.

The tree shrieked.

It was a high, loud scream of pain and rage that could be heard all over the forest. The tree’s branches shook violently. Even the thick trunk seemed to writhe.

Lazenby came tumbling down, bouncing from branch to branch. Crawford caught him and broke his fall. The burned-off vine was still wrapped around his waist. Lazenby’s face was wide-eyed with fright.

“Here,” Crawford said. “Let me get that thing off you!”

He tugged at the vine. It didn’t want to let go. Even though it was cut off from the tree, it clung tight to the biologist’s middle.

Crawford managed to get about half of it uncoiled. It was hard work. He was sweating and breathing hard. He stopped for a moment to rest.

At once the thick vine wrapped itself around Lazenby again.

Lazenby grunted in pain. Crawford muttered some angry words. The longer he stood there wrestling with this tree-rope, the more chance there was that some hungry beast would come along and surprise them. Or that another tree would reach out an “arm” the way the first one had.

Gritting his teeth, Crawford grabbed the upper end of the rope and pulled. Hard. He yanked with all his strength and tugged it free. Lazenby went spinning like a top as the sturdy vine came off.

Crawford tossed it far to one side. Even then, it continued to coil and twist like a snake.

Lazenby rubbed his stomach. “I’m going to be sore for a week!”

“You’re lucky to get out of it with nothing more than some bruised ribs, friend. You almost got eaten!”

“Is that what was happening?”

Crawford pointed toward the tree. It looked perfectly harmless now. It wasn’t moving at all. “You see up there, in the branches on top? I saw a mouth open in there. Another minute and you would have been shoved inside.”

“Eaten by a tree!” Lazenby shuddered. “What a place this is!”

They looked at the tree. It was hard to believe that it could attack a man. Right now it looked just like any other tree.

But that was a trap, Crawford knew. The tree remained still until it saw a chance to get a meal. Then one of those vines went into action, grabbing something tasty and pulling it up toward the waiting mouth.

A nasty business, Crawford thought. And there was no telling when any of these other trees might suddenly reach out and grab them. Those trees looked harmless too.

Crawford stared at the ground beneath his feet.

He half expected it to open fanged jaws and gulp him down.

“Come on,” he said to Lazenby. “Let’s go back to the ship. I think we’ve done enough exploring for now.”

CHAPTER 7

“WHO ARE YOU, MARKHAM?”

Getting back to the ship seemed to take almost forever. Crawford was worried about those trees. He and Lazenby kept their blast-guns drawn.

A couple of times it seemed as if a tree was about to strike. Branches began to move. Was it the breeze, or was it going to be an attack?

Luck was with them. They reached the edge of the jungle unharmed. The ship was just a hundred yards away, in the middle of the clearing.

“We made it!” Lazenby said.

“Not so fast,” said Crawford. “We’re not in the ship yet. Keep your eyes open.”

They stepped into the clearing. The thick purplish grass rose high around their boots. Moving quickly, they walked toward the safety of the ship.

Suddenly an animal came rushing through the grass toward them. It was about the size of a dog, but no dog ever looked like this. The animal had six legs and a huge, toothy mouth.

Here we go again, thought Crawford.

Lazenby said, “Don’t shoot it! Maybe it isn’t after us!”

“Look at those teeth! If it comes any closer, I’ll have to shoot!”

It was only twenty yards away now. In another moment it would be upon them.

Lazenby pointed to the sky.

“What’s that?” he yelled.

Crawford looked up just in time. He saw a heavy shape diving out of the sky. It was some kind of bird, as big as a vulture. Its wings were folded and it was letting itself drop right to the ground.

The bird had a beak more than a foot long. The sharp beak looked like a deadly sword.

Crawford watched as the bird dropped straight down, beak first. The long pointed beak speared into the back of the dog-like animal. There was a loud yelping sound as the animal fell over. “Will you look at that?” Crawford whispered. “It went right through!”

It was the second time that Crawford had been rescued by one animal attacking another. The doglike beast was badly wounded. The dive-bombing bird had drilled a hole deep into its body. Now the bird was on the ground next to the dying animal. Crawford saw leathery wings fluttering as the bird got into position for its feast.

Then the long beak opened. Bright jagged teeth were inside.

“Amazing!” Lazenby said softly. “On this planet even the birds have teeth!”

Crawford didn’t feel like staying around to see the killer-bird have its meal. He jerked Lazenby by the elbow.

“Let’s not wait around for the next surprise,” Crawford said. “There’s the ship!”

They hurried through the grass. This time, they got into the ship without any further excitement.

Once the door was locked, Crawford let out his breath in relief. Safe! Safe aboard the ship!

He had been in dangerous places before. But never one like this. Never a place where death might come from any direction, where it might drop from the skies or reach from a tree.

They rode the elevator up to the top compartment. Captain Hendrin was there. He was dictating the ship’s log, and hadn’t yet gone out to explore.

“What’s the trouble?” the Captain demanded. “Why are you two back so fast? What happened?”

“We ran into some trouble, sir.” Quickly Crawford told him what had taken place in the jungle.

Hendrin looked surprised. “Man-eating trees?” he said. “Well, well, well! We’ll have to send Grover out to take a look at them.” Grover was the ship’s botanist. Any kind of strange tree belonged in his department. The Captain went on, “Did you take any pictures when the tree attacked, Markham?”

Crawford shook his head. “I was a lot too busy getting Lazenby out of that tree, sir. Another minute and he would have been eaten up. I didn’t have time to think about taking pictures.”

The Captain was displeased. “It was important to save Lazenby, of course. But you should have taken some pictures too. That tree’s important to science.”

“The next time I see one, sir, I’ll snap its picture,” Crawford promised. He felt like laughing. How could the Captain really expect him to take pictures at a time like that? But Captain Hendrin seemed to take everything so very seriously. The work of the Exploration Corps was like a religion to him.

Captain Hendrin said, “I hope you and Lazenby aren’t planning to take the rest of the day off, now. There’s plenty to be done.”

“We’re a little shaken up, sir,” Lazenby said mildly. He rubbed his middle where the tree’s “arm” had bruised it. “If we could have some time to rest before we go out there again —”

“All right,” Hendrin said. He didn’t sound happy about it. “Take half an hour off. But don’t waste any more time than that. We have a schedule to follow. I mean to stick to it.”

He opened his log book and began to write again. Lazenby turned away and walked into the ship’s library. Crawford followed him. The library was a quiet place where they could rest a while.

Crawford pointed over his shoulder in the direction of Captain Hendrin. “He’s really tough, isn’t he?” he said to Lazenby. “The Captain means business!”

Lazenby agreed. “Of course he’s tough. It’s the right way to run an Exploration Corps ship. You get the job done, that way.”

They sat down. The color began to come back into Lazenby’s face. That had been a narrow escape in the jungle, but he seemed to be recovering fast. Lazenby had been on many of these expeditions. He was prepared for any kind of trouble. To him, it was just something that might happen in the course of everyday work.

When he had rested for a while, Lazenby swung around and looked straight at Crawford. The little biologist said, “There was something I was meaning to ask you before that tree got me.”

“Sure. What?”

Lazenby stared into Crawford’s eyes for a long moment before he spoke. Finally he said, “Who are you, Markham? Really, I mean.”

Crawford sat up in surprise. “Huh?”

“Don’t play innocent,” Lazenby snapped. Suddenly he did not look so mild and weak any more. He said sharply, “I know very well that you aren’t Paul Markham of the Exploration Corps. So suppose you tell me just who you really are!”

Trying to bluff, Crawford smiled and said, “Lazenby, has that tree-thing driven you nuts?. Of course I’m Paul Markham!”

“You aren’t even a good liar,” said Lazenby.

“Now look —”

“You look,” Lazenby cut him off. “You’re no more a trained ecologist than I am a circus acrobat. You might just as well admit it. The real Paul Markham has been in the Exploration Corps for five years. I don’t know him, never met him — but I know that you aren’t any ecologist with five years of training in the field. The way you blasted down that killer animal without reason — no scientist would have done that.”

Crawford wondered if he should try to go on bluffing. He decided against it. It was very clear that he hadn’t fooled Lazenby at all.

Crawford said, “All right. Suppose I’m not Markham. What are you going to do about it?”

“Nothing. You saved my life, whoever you are, and I don’t intend to turn you in to the Captain. But it’s unusual to have an imposter in the Exploration Corps. That’s putting it mildly. For my own curiosity, I’d like to know what you’re doing here.”

Taking a deep breath, Crawford asked, “You want the whole story?”

“Enough so I can understand it.”

“Okay. My name is Roy Crawford. I’m a native of Earth, but I’ve lived on Velliran for the last few years. I was running a yangskin business. I had six hunters working for me and everything was going fine. Then somebody framed me. I was found guilty of a crime I didn’t commit. Your ship was on Velliran to pick up the real Paul Markham. I had to get off Velliran in a hurry or else go to jail for life. This was the only way.”

“And what happened to the real Markham?” Lazenby wanted to know.

Crawford shrugged. “A friend of mine saw to it that he got to the spaceport too late. I don’t think any harm came to him. He’s probably angry that he missed the ship, though.”

Lazenby smiled and said, “How much of this wild story am I supposed to believe?”

“As much or as little as you want,” said Crawford. “It all happens to be true. I was framed for murder. They accused me of having killed a Vellirani native. It wasn’t so. But the evidence made it look that way, and the judge believed the evidence. That’s why I’m here.”

Lazenby was looking at him strangely. “Did you say you were accused of killing a Vellirani native?”

“That’s right. It was some kind of weird trick. I blanked out for a fraction of a second. Then I found myself with a bloody knife in my hand. And there was a dead Vellirani lying in the street in front of me. But I didn’t kill him.”

“I’m sure you didn’t,” Lazenby said.

“What do you mean by that?”

“I can’t say any more just now. But I may be able to tell you something useful in a little while.”

“Don’t talk in riddles!” Crawford shouted. “Do you know something about this murder? Tell me!”

“I can’t. Look, I really don’t know much at all. I’m only guessing a little. Give me a chance to snoop around a little, will you? I’ve got only a slight suspicion right now.”

No matter how much Crawford questioned the little man, that was all he got. Finally he decided to drop the subject for now.

Lazenby said, “I think we ought to try our luck in the jungle again. How about you?”

“If you’re game I’m game.”

“Let’s go, then — Markham.”

“Are you going to go on calling me Markham?” Crawford asked.

“I think so. I’ve got nothing to gain by giving away your secret.”

They went down the elevator together. Once more Crawford stood by the door that would let him out into the devilish world outside.

He wished he could figure out what Lazenby had meant before. Did the biologist know something about the murder frameup?

Lazenby wasn’t speaking. That was certain. He simply wouldn’t answer any questions.

Crawford gave up trying to get information out of him.

The door swung open. They stepped outside. The warm, sweet-smelling jungle air of World Seven drifted against their faces.

“I’ll go first,” Crawford said.

He stepped out into the grass, following the track they had made earlier. He moved carefully. Eyes, ears, and nostrils all were at work searching for danger.

By now he knew how this planet worked. An attack might come at any moment — from anywhere.

All you could do was hope to be lucky when an enemy struck.

Step by step by step, Crawford and Lazenby crossed the clearing. They came close to the entrance of the dark, mysterious jungle.

One of the bird-things with the sword-shaped beaks flew overhead. But it didn’t dive down to attack. Maybe it was still full from its last meal, Crawford thought.

They passed the skeleton of the dog-like animal. That was all that was left: a clean white skeleton. All the flesh had been picked from the bones. Little scavengers with sharp teeth went running away from the skeleton as the Earthmen came near. They buzzed angrily as they ran. The scavengers were the creatures that had picked the bones clean, after the bird had finished eating.

Now the jungle was only a few feet away. Crawford was surprised. They had crossed the entire clearing without any trouble.

He bowed to Lazenby and pointed to the jungle. “After you, my dear Lazenby!”

Lazenby bowed right back. “No, no, my friend! After you, by all means!”

Crawford laughed. Then he turned and stepped into the jungle, keeping his blast-gun drawn and ready.

CHAPTER 8

TO LEAVE OR NOT TO LEAVE

This time, the jungle did not seem so deadly to Crawford. He was getting used to its dangers. He was starting to get familiar with its terrors.

He knew that it was risky to relax too much. You always had to be on your guard in a place like this. But now he was less worried than before. He had already survived some of the worst things the jungle could throw at him. As long as he stayed alert, he would be all right in here.

He still wasn’t exactly happy to be on World Seven. In fact, every minute longer he spent in the jungle of World Seven, the less he liked the planet.

There was something sick about this world. It was an ugly, vicious place. In any jungle, there was always a struggle to stay alive. But here the struggle was too violent. Everything in this jungle seemed to be out to kill and eat. Even the trees were hungry for meat.

They edged forward, inch by inch, through the hot, sticky jungle. Lazenby was very helpful. He kept pointing out things that Crawford, as a scientist, should have noticed. Crawford was amazed at how many things he failed to see.

Luck was with them. They didn’t run across any more man-eating trees. Nor did any of the big jungle beasts come charging out of the underbrush. But Lazenby found other killers, no less deadly.

“Look here,” Lazenby said. He pointed down at a dark pool of water about three feet across. There were tiny blue creatures swimming in it.

“So?” Crawford said. “What’s so special? It’s a puddle with tadpoles in it.”

“Take a good look at the tadpoles,” said Lazenby.

Crawford knelt down and peered into the pool. Lazenby stood guard behind him in case some animal should suddenly appear.

The “tadpoles,” Crawford saw, were small shiny things about an inch long. They had bright little teeth, pointy and sharp. They could move fast, those “tadpoles.” And they were busy.

A snake about two feet long lay on the mud at the bottom of the little pool. It was wriggling slowly. The “tadpoles” were eating it alive. They clustered around, nipping at the snake with their teeth. They were picking away pieces of its flesh.

Maybe the snake had taken a shortcut through the puddle to save a little time as it wandered in the jungle. Or perhaps it had wanted a bath. But the hungry “tadpoles” had been lying in wait.

“It’s the same thing everywhere on this planet,” Crawford said. “The big animals are killers. The little animals are killers. Even the plants and trees are killers.”

“Yes,” Lazenby said. “Life is short and hard here. You have to be fast to survive. And you need a good pair of teeth.”

“It’s a vicious world.”

“No,” said Lazenby. “Nature isn’t vicious or ugly or anything else. Nature is just nature. It’s wrong to see this jungle any other way. That’s just life you see all around you. And on World Seven life is a rough deal.”

“It’s a rough deal anywhere,” Crawford said. “Here it’s just a little rougher than usual.”

“Exactly.”

Crawford looked down at the hungry little beasts in the pool and shuddered. “I wish I could be cool and scientific like you,” he said to Lazenby. “To you, this planet is probably the most interesting place in the universe. To me it’s just a nasty, unpleasant mess.”

Smiling, Lazenby said, “You mustn’t get so worked up. It’s only nature. You’ve got to stay calm if you’re going to be a scientist.”

“I hate this place. I can’t be calm on a world like this. Not where even the trees try to eat you. I’d like to get off this planet in a big hurry. Everything here disgusts me.”

“A scientist doesn’t hate,” said Lazenby quietly. “He doesn’t get disgusted. He studies what he sees. He doesn’t get angry about it.”

“Well, I’m no scientist,” Crawford replied. “I’m just an ordinary guy who didn’t go to college. When I see something dangerous, I don’t feel like studying it. I feel like hauling out a blaster and blazing away.”

“So I noticed. But while you’re with us, you’ll have to act the way a scientist would act.”

“Well, I won’t have to pretend to be a scientist for long,” Crawford grumbled. “Just till Captain Hendrin decides he’s ready to return to civilization. If I’m still alive by then.” Crawford looked at the leaves of a big green fern nearby. He half expected the fern to sprout legs and chase him. “If this planet doesn’t get us all before we have a chance to leave,” Crawford said.

That night, back at the ship, it turned out that not every scientist was as calm as Lazenby. Some of them weren’t calm at all. They hated this planet every bit as much as Crawford did.

It became clear very fast. The men of the Exploration Corps team gathered that evening to compare notes on what they had seen.

Murray, the map-maker, was the first to speak. He was a short, broad-shouldered man with a bristly red beard. He said, “This is the nastiest world I’ve ever seen. I’d like to get out of here fast.”

Crawford chuckled. “You spent your day a thousand feet up in the air. Go take a walk through the jungle if you want to find out how nasty it can really be.”

“I did,” Murray said, tugging nervously at his beard. “Chung, here, wanted to study some rock outcroppings. I brought the copter down and landed it. We weren’t on the ground five minutes before a brawl started. Some big blue and red beast the size of a small mountain came toward us looking mean. But before it got to us, three jag-toothed flying creatures came swooping down. Just like dive-bombers, they came. They sliced its neck open and had themselves a party.”

Chung, the slender Chinese geologist who had flown with Murray, said softly, “I didn’t get to study those rocks. After that, we decided not to stick around.”

“It’s the same all over this place,” said Grover, the botanist. “Everything has fangs or claws or great big teeth. I went out to find that devilish man-eating tree that almost swallowed Lazenby.”

“Did it do its tricks for you?” Lazenby asked.

“You bet it did!” Grover said. He was the youngest man in the team, with curly black hair and a high, squeaky voice. “It went into action as soon as I got there. An animal came along, something like a deer, except instead of antlers it had three long straight horns. The tree whipped out a long vine and grabbed the animal into the air. The beast must have weighed eight hundred pounds. The tree swooped it up and pushed it into that mouth on top. I filmed the whole thing. It wasn’t pretty.”

Fernandez, the ship’s big, beefy doctor, said in his rumbling voice, “This is no world for a ten-man team. We ought to go on to the next planet in this star system. Let Earth send a fully armed expedition out here if it’s interested in exploring this world. We’re risking our lives every time we step outside the ship.”

“Right,” said Bartlett. The powerful, muscular anthropologist banged his fist on a table. “I’m for leaving! We already know this planet isn’t fit for colonizing — at least, not for another hundred million years or so. It’s too tough now, too dangerous. There’s nothing here that’s useful — to us or anybody else. So why are we sticking around?”

“Why don’t you ask Captain Hendrin that?” Lazenby suggested quietly. “He’ll be here in a few minutes. If you don’t want to stay on this planet, tell him you’d like to leave.”

Everybody looked at Lazenby. Bartlett said, “Are you trying to stir up trouble? You know what Hendrin will say!”

“Yes,” said Lazenby. “He’ll say that we should stay here until we’ve finished our work. And I agree. I’m very interested in giving this world some careful study. So is the Captain. There won’t be any colony here, but scientifically speaking, it’s a remarkable tropical world.”

Bartlett’s eyes blazed with anger. “Remarkable! Remarkable! When every beast in that jungle is waiting to eat us? You can have your remarkable planet, Lazenby. I’d like to get moving — to someplace safe!”

“What’s that, Bartlett?” asked a cold, crisp voice from the doorway.

Heads rapidly turned to look. It was Captain Hendrin, standing at the entrance. One of his hands was tightly clamped against the edge of the door. He looked furious. He said, “Would you care to repeat your words in my presence, Bartlett?”

The husky anthropologist squirmed in his seat. Then his eyes met the Captain’s. Bartlett said in a low voice, “I was expressing an opinion, sir. I think that maybe we’ve done all we need to do on this planet. I think that maybe we ought to move on, since clearly this is an unsafe world for human beings.”

“I see,” said the Captain. His voice was very flat and soft just now. He was keeping his temper under tight control. “I take it you weren’t around a little earlier. Markham, here, had the same idea. Didn’t you hear what I told him then?”

“I heard it. I still think it’s suicide to stay here, Captain.”

“Who else feels this way?” Hendrin demanded, frowning. He glared around the cabin. “Chung? Grover? You, Lazenby? Dorwin?”

Fernandez spoke up. “As long as you ask, I’m not so happy here,” the doctor said. “I’d like to blast off too.”

But none of the others said anything.

After a long silence Captain Hendrin said, “It doesn’t look like you’ve got many followers, Bartlett. Most of the men are willing to stay here. So we’ll stay. We’ll do things the way the Exploration Corps always does things. This planet is going to take at least a month of hard work. Will you go along with that, Bartlett?”

Bartlett cracked his knuckles to show how angry he was. He looked up slowly.

“All right,” he said, “I’ll go along. What else can I do, if the others are crazy enough to want to stay?”

“Good,” said the Captain. “Let’s have no more talk of leaving, now. We’ve got a job to do here. Is that understood?”

It was.

But it wasn’t understood happily. Some of the men were upset about staying here longer. Bartlett and Fernandez had been the only ones who had dared to speak out against the Captain. But Crawford knew that some of the others felt the same way Bartlett and Fernandez did.

After the Captain left the room, Bartlett called Fernandez aside. They sat in the corner, talking in low whispers. Five minutes went by. Then they asked Grover to come over and join them.

Crawford didn’t know what was going on. But he could guess that they were planning some way of getting Hendrin to change his mind.

Lazenby said to Crawford, “I don’t understand these men. They’re veterans of the Exploration Corps. They shouldn’t be such cowards!”

“They’ve never run up against a planet like this one,” Crawford said. “Maybe they want to stay alive long enough to explore somewhere else.”

Lazenby shook his head. “It’s not the right idea at all! They’ve got work to do here!”

Crawford was a little surprised himself. In the books he had read, Exploration Corps men were always perfect heroes. They never were afraid of anything. They endured all kinds of hardships without complaining.

But those were the storybooks. This was real life.

And in real life, even Exploration Corps men could get scared. This world was something special, so brutal and ugly that it could scare anyone. This was such a terrifying jungle that it seemed to threaten every man here with death. And so the corpsmen wanted to leave, though usually nothing could frighten them on any planet.

Of all this bunch, only Lazenby and Captain Hendrin really wanted to stay here any longer. The rest would be glad to get away from this grisly place. They were scientists, yes. But they didn’t want to die for science.

Crawford felt the same way about World Seven. It was a planet out of a nightmare. He wanted to leave here as fast as he could.

CHAPTER 9

THE FIRST VICTIM

Crawford didn’t sleep well that night. All night long, the animals of the forest hooted and howled and screamed. The noise was so loud that it came right through the metal walls of the spaceship.

He spent a good part of the night staring out the viewscreen, looking at the dark jungle. Moonlight helped him see what was happening. World Seven had two small moons. They weren’t lovely orange-golden moons like the moons of Velliran. They were ugly little ones that cast a cold, pale white light.

By that hard white light Crawford saw strange wolf-like animals creep out of the jungle. They ringed themselves around the ship and barked at it. They tried to find some way to get inside. It was as if they knew there was food inside.

Then slinking cat-beasts slipped among the wolves and fought with them. There were screeches and high whines. When the battle was over, half a dozen animals were dead on each side. Their bodies didn’t last long. Scavengers crawled through the grass to feast on the dead.

Death never rested on World Seven. The struggle went on, day and night.

Late that evening, just before Crawford was about to go to sleep, Lazenby came to talk to him. The biologist was in a serious mood. He closed the hatch of the cabin and locked it.

Then he said to Crawford, “I’m still trying to pick up information on that murder you’re involved in.”

“How can you possibly learn anything out here, millions of miles from Velliran?”

“It’s possible,” said Lazenby. “Because one of the men on this ship is the real murderer.”

“What?”

“Shh! Not so loud!”

“How could that be? I don’t get it!” Crawford whispered.

“This ship was on Velliran when the murder happened, right?”

“Of course.”

“And you say that you blanked out strangely just before the crime was committed. Tell me, was there any strange taste or smell that you noticed when you came to?”

“A sweet taste in my mouth,” said Crawford.

“That’s it! That’s it!” Lazenby slammed his fist into his palm. “There’s a Vellirani drug that could cause a sudden blackout that way. It leaves a sweet taste afterward. I was studying it while we were on Velliran. I told three or four of the team about it. One of them must have got hold of some — and used it on you!”

“But what makes you think some member of this team framed me? It could have been anyone on Velliran,” Crawford objected.

“There aren’t many there who know of the drug. It’s rare and expensive. And it seems odd to me that right after I found out about the drug, someone would use it on you.”

“What motive would any of these men have?”

“That’s what I don’t know yet,” said Lazenby. “I’m working on it, though. First I have to find out which of the men knew about the drug, and which might have had reason to kill a native. I’ll take it from there.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Crawford asked.

“Yes. Keep out of it, and keep your mouth shut. If you started asking questions, you’d get in trouble right away. I’ll find out who the man is. Just give me a little time.”

A powerful surge of excitement ran through Crawford. The real murderer right on this ship! One of these nine men! It was all up to Lazenby, now. He would be the detective.

I hope he finds him fast, Crawford thought. I’d like to get my hands on him!

* * * *

The next day, the exploration teams went out again. Although most of the men really wanted to leave, they were afraid to speak up. Captain Hendrin wanted to stay here. And Captain Hendrin was the boss of this outfit.

Crawford learned more about World Seven on the second day of exploration. The more he learned, the more he wanted to get off this world in a great hurry.

He was teamed with Lazenby again. They sliced through the jungle, collecting specimens and taking photographs. Lazenby seemed fascinated by everything. Crawford was simply disgusted.

And once they found something that even got Lazenby upset.

It happened when they came upon a huge, fat, black-and-gray animal lying on its side in a swamp. The animal looked something like a pig, except that a pig was much prettier. This animal was about eight feet long, with big, curling tusks and tiny, squinting eyes. Its skin was wrinkled and folded. Its ears were long and droopy and covered with stiff hairs. It gave off a smell that made Crawford want to hold his breath.

The animal was a mother. It had just given birth. A litter of nine baby beasts was trying to feed. They were about a foot long, and they might have been cute if they weren’t so ugly. They still looked wet and soggy, the way animals often do right after they are born.

There were nine babies, but there was room for the mother to nurse only seven at a time. Each of the seven was getting milk. The other two were left out in the cold. They lay a few feet away, making angry squealing noises.

Crawford had seen mother cats deal with this problem. First they fed some of their kittens, and then they fed the other ones.

But this beast was no cat. And she had a different way of fixing things.

She waited until the seven little ones had had their meal. Then she calmly lifted her big head and opened her huge mouth.

Snap! and one of the babies who hadn’t eaten was gone.

Snap! and the other one was gone.

Then she stretched out on her side again. The seven lucky little ones came close to her once more. They nestled against her warm belly.

Crawford looked at Lazenby. The biologist hadn’t enjoyed watching that.

“You see?” said Crawford sarcastically. “It’s survival of the fittest. Those two extra babies couldn’t find their way to the milk fast enough. So they were gobbled up. You ever see a mother act like that anywhere else?”

Lazenby stared at the big animal in the swamp. She was licking her chops.

“I’ve never seen a world like this,” he whispered. “Not anywhere.”

Crawford was glad to see that his friend was disturbed. Lazenby couldn’t be scientific all the time. Maybe he thought that this planet was “remarkable” and “fascinating” even now. But to see a mother eat two of her newborn babies just because they were weaklings — that was a chilling sight. And even Lazenby was chilled by it.

They tramped on through the jungle.

Crawford’s mind was on the scientific report he was supposed to file. How could he possibly fake it? This was a very complicated world. Even if Lazenby helped him, he wouldn’t be able to draw up a convincing report. Lazenby wasn’t an ecologist, either. Captain Hendrin would take one look at Crawford’s findings and know that he was a phony.

It began to occur to Crawford that he might get punished for coming on this journey. Captain Hendrin was a man who took everything extremely seriously. Maybe there were laws against posing as an Exploration Corps man. Maybe Crawford had escaped from one jail term only to get another.

He didn’t like to think about that.

Somehow he and Lazenby avoided the man-eating trees and the other toothy killers that day. They managed to make a fairly complete survey of their part of the jungle. Work was going well for the other teams, too. Murray was out flying again, collecting pictures for the maps he would draw. Chung, the geologist, had gone with him once more. Chung was studying the shape of this planet’s surface — its mountains and valleys and plains.

Dorwin, the chemist, was working on his part of the study. He was bringing samples of plants, animals, and soil to the ship’s laboratory. There, he ran tests to see what they were made of. Bartlett, the anthropologist, was helping him. There was no intelligent civilization here, so Bartlett could not perform his own job.

Everybody was working hard. Crawford hoped that they’d get the planet explored fast, so they could leave.

Then World Seven claimed its first human victim.

It happened late in the afternoon. Grover, the botanist, had gone out to study some jungle flowers. He had taken the radio operator, Evans, with him.

Suddenly there came a loud shout. “Help! Help me!”

It was Evans. He ran from the jungle. Something was in his arms.

He was carrying what was left of Grover.

Crawford didn’t get a good look at the dead man. He only got half a look, and that was enough. Grover was a frightening sight.

Fernandez, the doctor, jumped forward. A medical man doesn’t get bothered by such sights as easily as other people. But even Fernandez was shaken by the way Grover looked. He grabbed up a sheet of plastic and wrapped it around the body, fast, to cover it and hide it from view.

Captain Hendrin appeared. His lean face was grim and tense. He looked at Evans and said, “What happened to Grover?”

Evans ran his tongue nervously around his lips. He was so frightened he could hardly talk. “He — he —”

“Pull yourself together, man!” the Captain ordered.

The radio operator took a deep breath. “He — he fell, Captain,” Evans finally said. “Grover fell.”

“Fell where?”

Evans was calmer now. He said, “Grover saw a plant he wanted to examine. Something unusual. It was about three feet to the side of our path. Grover walked over to it. Then he yelled and slipped out of sight. He went right into a big hole in the ground.”

“A trap, you mean?” Hendrin asked.

“I think so. He thought he was stepping on solid ground. But it wasn’t solid. He went right through. It was about five feet deep. There was something in the hole, sir. I don’t know what it was. Whether it was a plant or an animal or what. Grover screamed a couple of times. I saw something yellow in the pit — like foam. And little thin arms waving around, a million of them!”

Evans held out his hands. They were covered with dozens of small red blisters.

He said, “I reached in and yanked Grover out. Some of the stuff spilled on my hands. It was like acid, sir. Like acid. He must have died right away.”

The Captain was silent for a moment. He looked down at the brown plastic sheet covering what was left of Grover. Then he said, “Bartlett, Murray, Markham — get a grave dug in the clearing here. And make it deep.”

Crawford and the other two got spades from the ship. They began to dig. It was hot, sweaty work. Lazenby and Chung stood by as guards, in case any animal attacked them while they dug. In an hour, there was a grave. Grover’s body, still wrapped in plastic, was lowered into it. Captain Hendrin said a few words in Grover’s memory.

Then the surviving Earthmen went into the ship and shut it tight for the night.

No one spoke much that evening. Everybody was stunned by Grover’s death. The worst part was not that he was dead, but the way he had died. It was one thing to be killed by a wild animal. It was something else again to be eaten alive by a pool of acid. What kind of creature lived in that pool? No one knew. No one felt like finding out.

The two moons had risen. Their cold white light glittered on Grover’s grave. The men spent their time filing reports and doing other scientific work, just to keep their minds off what had happened to Grover.

Crawford pretended to be hard at work on his report, too. But actually he did not know what to write. So he simply wrote down his descriptions of the animals he had seen in the jungle. At least that way he looked busy.

He had not given up trying to guess which man aboard was the murderer. But he didn’t have a clue. And Lazenby hadn’t found out anything, either.

Crawford was starting to think Lazenby’s idea was wrong. If the murderer was aboard this ship, Crawford asked himself, wouldn’t he have attacked me long ago? He’d want to get me out of the way in case I might recognize him. Unless he doesn’t know who I am, that is. Maybe he didn’t get a clear look at me in the street, the day of the frameup. It would come as a big surprise to him if he knew that his framed victim was on this very ship!

But Crawford couldn’t imagine why any of these men might have wanted to frame him. Chung? Dorwin? Evans? Who could tell? It didn’t make any sense.

Late that night Fernandez came over to where Crawford was typing. The doctor tapped gently on his shoulder. Crawford looked up, surprised.

“Markham?”

“What is it?”

“Do you want to come to my cabin for a minute? I’d like to talk to you.”

“All right,” Crawford said. He carefully put away what he was writing so nobody could see it. Then he followed the beefy-looking doctor through the ship to Fernandez’s cabin. They went inside. Fernandez clicked the lock closed.

“What’s this all about?” Crawford asked.

Fernandez held up one fleshy hand. “Have patience, friend. All in good time.” He went to his closet and took out a bottle containing a sparkling liquid. He handed it to Crawford. “Have a drink, friend.”

Crawford’s eyes opened wide. This was Vellirani whiskey, one of the finest drinks in the universe. He hadn’t drunk much, because he wanted his aim to be good when he hunted yangs. But he had come to like this stuff a lot. And he had missed it since leaving Velliran.

“I didn’t think liquor was allowed on the ship,” Crawford said.

Fernandez laughed. He said in his deep rumbling voice, “I put it down as medicine. Nobody can argue with me. Have all you want.”

Crawford put the bottle to his lips and helped himself.

Then he said, “You didn’t invite me here just to drink up your liquor, Doc. What’s on your mind?”

“Captain Hendrin’s on my mind.”

“Eh?”

Fernandez said, “Grover’s death this afternoon could have been avoided — if we had left this planet yesterday. I don’t know how you feel about this, Markham. You’re new to the team. The rest of us have been together a long time, and Grover’s death hurt us. It hurt us hard. So we’ve got a plan. You want me to tell you about it, or should I just stop talking right here?”

“Go on talking,” Crawford said.

“Okay. You know about the replacement clause in the rules? We can replace the Captain with another member of the crew, if we feel the Captain isn’t capable of commanding.”

“Of course,” said Crawford. “That’s true on any ship. If the top officer isn’t fit to run things, he’s got to be replaced.”

“Well, then,” Fernandez went on. “Some of us — mainly Bartlett, Murray, and me — have decided that we ought to leave this planet. It’s for our own good. We aren’t equipped for a world like this. It’s suicide to keep wandering around on foot in that jungle. This ought to be a three-ship job, with armored tanks and heavy guns. You were the first one of us to be attacked by native wildlife. You know what it’s like.”

“You bet I do.”

“In my position as doctor,” Fernandez said, “I can declare that Hendrin is temporarily insane. It’s legal for me to do that. We’ll remove him from command and put him down below, where he can’t interfere with things. And we’ll get off World Seven. But I won’t do it unless a majority of the men support me. That’s why I have to know where you stand, Markham.”

Crawford frowned. “It sounds like mutiny to me.”

“No. Legal removal of a temporarily insane commander is not mutiny. And we’ll all die if we stay here much longer. Well, Markham? Are you with us?”

Grinning, Crawford said, “Of course I am! I like staying alive just as much as the next man!”

CHAPTER 10

PLANET OF DEATH

The next day, Crawford heard nothing further about Fernandez’s plan. Maybe Fernandez was waiting until he had everyone on his side, Crawford thought.

So far as he knew, four of the surviving men were in favor of replacing Hendrin: Fernandez, Murray, Bartlett, and himself. Only one man — Lazenby — seemed willing and eager to remain on World Seven for more exploration. The other three — Chung, Evans, and Dorwin — hadn’t said anything either way, at least not to Crawford. But he had a good idea which side they would join. None of them seemed likely to want to remain on a suicide world like this.

All day long Crawford expected Fernandez to make his move. Nothing happened, though. Captain Hendrin was still in charge.

The day after that, the field pairings were shifted around. Instead of going out into the jungle with Lazenby, Crawford went out this time with Chung.

It seemed that Chung wanted to get a close look at the rock formations of the jungle. He asked to be teamed with someone who could cope with the jungle’s dangers. Captain Hendrin teamed him with Crawford. Lazenby was shifted over to work with Bartlett. Murray took Dorwin, the chemist, up in the helicopter with him in place of Chung.

The death of Grover had upset the balance of the teams. Before, there had been four two-man teams out and two men back guarding the ship. But now three two-men teams went out to explore, and three men stayed back at the ship.

Chung and Crawford went east from the ship. Lazenby and Bartlett took another path not far away. The jungle was so thick that neither team could see the other.

Crawford felt uneasy in the jungle without Lazenby. Chung wasn’t very talkative. The geologist was a round-faced man with yellow skin and black hair. As they moved through the jungle, Chung collected samples of rocks and soil. Crawford tried to pretend that he too was doing scientific work. Without Lazenby to help him, though, he didn’t get much done. He wondered if Chung would guess the truth about him.

About half an hour after they set out, Crawford heard a human voice yelling somewhere to his left.

Chung was bent over, prying a shining white stone from the ground. Crawford said, “Did you hear that?”

“Sorry, no. What was it? An animal cry?”

“An animal? Nope! That sounded like Lazenby, and I’ll bet he’s in trouble!”

Just then another cry came from the same place. “Come on,” Crawford said. “Let’s see what’s going on!”

He swung around and began to head in the direction of the sounds. In this part of the jungle thick vines hung down everywhere, slowing him down. He had to slash his way with his knife. Chung followed him.

“Lazenby!” Crawford yelled. “Lazenby, are you all right? Where are you?”

After a moment came Bartlett’s voice, quite close. “It’s all right. We don’t need your help.”

Crawford slowed up. He caught sight of Bartlett about twenty feet away, standing near some giant ferns. Crawford made his way over to the other man, with Chung right behind.

Bartlett was looking down at the ground. Lazenby was lying there.

The little biologist was sprawled out on his stomach. He looked dead. Crawford felt chilled with sadness. Lazenby was the one who was most deeply interested in searching the jungle for its secrets. And now — had some jungle creature killed him — ?

“What happened?” Crawford asked.

Bartlett looked pale and nervous. He said, “I don’t know. Something sprang at him from the tree up there, and he fell over. I couldn’t see what it was. Look, why don’t you and Chung run back to the ship and tell the others? I’ll watch the body.”

“Wait a minute,” Crawford said. “Wait a minute!”

He pointed to Lazenby’s body. The “corpse” was trying to sit up! Lazenby moved his legs, then his arms. He succeeded in turning himself over. He stared at Crawford with eyes that were becoming glassy.

There was a deep, bloody knife wound in Lazenby’s chest.

“Bartlett’s lying!” Lazenby whispered hoarsely. “It wasn’t any animal that got me. It was Bartlett. He knifed me … the way he did the other one … because I was going to tell you …”

“Tell me what?” Crawford asked eagerly.

But it was too late. Lazenby slumped over. He clutched at the wounded place. His face was filled with agony. The effort of speaking had been too much for him. Lazenby fell forward.

“He’s dead,” Crawford said. He balled his hands into fists. His closest friend in the expedition was dead — and Bartlett had murdered him!

Bartlett moved his foot. Now Crawford saw the knife that Bartlett had been hiding beneath his boot all this time. It was a long, wicked, blood-smeared knife. It was the knife that had killed Lazenby.

Crawford had seen a knife like that before. It looked just like the knife that the Vellirani had been killed with! The knife that had been found in his own hand!

Quickly Bartlett bent down and grabbed the knife. He gripped it tightly. Chung started to back away into the jungle, frightened. Bartlett beckoned to him.

“Don’t go anywhere,” he said. “Stay right where you are, Chung!”

Crawford said, “What is all this, Bartlett? You killed Lazenby, didn’t you?”

“Sure I did. And you had to be right nearby, of course. You had to get here before he died. Before I had a chance to dump his body in that pool of acid. You had to hear everything. Well, now I’ll just have to kill you too. And Chung.”

He moved forward with the knife.

Crawford didn’t dare go for his gun. Bartlett was too close to him. One false move, and that knife would be deep in his ribs. As for Chung, he was frozen with fear. He couldn’t move at all.

Bartlett lifted the knife toward Crawford’s chest.

“Wait a second,” Crawford said. “Before you murder me — at least let me die knowing what this is all about. Why did you kill Lazenby?”

“Because he knew too much,” Bartlett snapped. “And he was going to tell you.”

“About the murder on Velliran?”

“Yes.”

“You killed that Vellirani, didn’t you?” Crawford asked.

Bartlett nodded. “Sure I killed the blueback. And I pinned the rap on you.”

“Why? Who’d you have to kill?”

“I didn’t mean to,” Bartlett said. “I never meant to. It was all a mixup. I was trying to do some research, while I was on Velliran. I picked out a native and questioned him. Asked him a few questions that he didn’t like. He got excited. We had an argument. I — hit him a few times. He said he’d get me arrested. He’d report me. I knew he could get me in all kinds of trouble.”

“So you killed him?” Crawford asked.

“I told you, I didn’t mean to. But he got so excited. He ran out into the street. I followed him. And I stabbed him.”

Crawford shook his head, puzzled. “How come I got arrested, then?”

Bartlett laughed. “I was thinking fast. You know all the strange drugs the Vellirani have?”

“Yes,” Crawford said. His friend Jeff Hallam was studying them.

“Well, one of them is a kind of instant knockout drug. It blanks you out for a minute or so. You don’t fall down, or anything. You just don’t know what’s happening to you. Lazenby got a few samples of that drug while we were on Velliran. He was studying it. He told some of us about it, and I went out and got some too. I happened to have it on me when I killed the blueback.”

Crawford nodded. “So you gave me the drug and stuck the murder knife in my hand?”

“That’s right.”

“But what about the witnesses? Five Vellirani, standing right there! They must have seen —”

“I gave them the drug too,” said Bartlett. “All you have to do is hold the container under somebody’s nose and give him a quick sniff. I drugged all five of them. They didn’t know what was going on. When they woke up again a minute later, they were so confused they couldn’t say what happened.”

So Lazenby was right. The killer had been on this ship. Bartlett was the murderer! Bartlett had framed him! And he had come all the way to this fantastic planet to find it out!

He said, “Why me? Who’d you give me the knife?”

“You happened to be there,” Bartlett said. “Right on the spot. It didn’t have to be you. It just happened that you were the one who came along. I never figured I’d see you again. And then of course you showed up at the ship, claiming to be Paul Markham! I almost jumped out of my skin when I saw you. But I figured, as long as you didn’t know what had happened to you, it didn’t matter.”

Lazenby had finally found out who the real killer was. Lazenby had been going to tell him the truth.

But Lazenby was dead.

“Now you know the story,” Bartlett said. “And now you’re going to die, you and Chung. I’ll feed you two and Lazenby to the acid pit. There won’t be anything left of you. And then I’ll go back and tell the sad story to the others of how you fell in the pit by accident and were killed.”

Bartlett gripped the knife tightly. And then he leaped.

The knife was heading straight for Crawford’s chest.

Crawford had the quick hands of a man who has lived with danger all his life. As the knife drew near, he slapped Bartlett’s wrist. That knocked the deadly blade away from Crawford’s body.

A moment later Crawford grabbed Bartlett’s arm and twisted the wrist. Bartlett yelped. The knife dropped to the ground. Crawford kicked it out of sight into the underbrush.

“Get help, Chung!” he yelled. “He’s gone crazy!” Chung broke out of his freeze. He turned and rushed away toward the ship.

Bartlett no longer had his knife, but he was still dangerous. He was almost as tall as Crawford, and just as strong. His fist slammed into Crawford’s middle. Crawford grunted in pain. He went stumbling back against a tree. Bartlett rushed forward. There was no room for Crawford to draw a gun.

Bartlett hit Crawford again and again. Crawford was dizzy and had to work hard to keep from going down. But he kept his balance. He got his hands up and gave Bartlett a hard push. Bartlett stepped back a foot. Crawford blocked Bartlett’s punches and brought his own fist across in a solid blow to Bartlett’s chin. Bartlett was stunned for a moment. Crawford hit him again, hard, in the belly.

Bartlett went staggering back. Crawford hit him again. He wanted to knock Bartlett out and bring him back to the ship. He wanted to take Bartlett back to Velliran and make him confess his crime.

In that way, Crawford could clear his own name.

But Bartlett was not going to go back to Velliran.

He was off balance as Crawford hit him. He started to fall. Crawford hit him in the chin again. To keep from falling, Bartlett stepped backward, his arms whirling through the air. He took three clumsy steps.

And the ground gave way underneath him.

What looked like solid ground opened. It was just a pit covered with branches and leaves. Bartlett fell until only his shoulders and head could be seen.

Crawford stared into the pit. He saw something yellow and slimy in there. Fifty shiny thin transparent arms reached up to twine around Bartlett. They were pulling him down. Within seconds he was below the surface of the yellow slime. A few bubbles appeared.

Then all was still.

Crawford felt sick. He saw how the trap worked. The yellow liquid was sticky and tough on top. Leaves and branches falling from the trees stuck to it. They turned the top of the pit into an innocent-looking patch of ground. But when anything heavy stepped on that patch of ground, the thing in the pit got a meal.

Even now a few leaves were landing on the sticky stuff. In another hour the trap would be as good as new.

Crawford took one last look and turned away. Bartlett was gone. Crawford didn’t exactly feel sorry about that. He was still sure he could clear his name, even without Bartlett’s confession. Now that he knew what had happened, he could hunt up some real witnesses on Velliran — such as the man who had sold the drug to Bartlett.

He picked up Lazenby’s body. A couple of small scavengers had already started to feed on it. Crawford chased them away. Sadly he headed back to the ship to announce that World Seven had claimed two more human beings.

As he neared the ship, Crawford heard the high whining sound of a blast-gun. He moved faster. When he stepped into the clearing, he saw Chung lying dead near the edge of the jungle. His chest had been burned open by the blast-gun.

A little closer to the ship was another dead body — Dorwin. He had been shot with a blast-gun too.

Crawford heard shouts and the sound of fighting coming from the ship.

What was going on? Had the take-over begun? Was Captain Hendrin shooting at the men who were trying to take away his power?

Suddenly Crawford heard Fernandez’ deep voice coming from within the ship: “Markham! Bartlett! Hurry up!”

So the take-over had started!

Crawford put Lazenby’s body down and ran toward the ship. He counted up the score as he ran. Bartlett, Lazenby, Chung, Dorwin, and Grover were dead — five men. He was the sixth. That left four: Captain Hendrin in the ship, holding off Fernandez, Evans, and Murray.

The hatch was open. Crawford leaped into the ship. Just within the airlock he saw the dead body of Murray. A little deeper in the ship was Fernandez — alive.

“Markham!” Fernandez called. “Where’s Bartlett?”

“He’s dead. So is Lazenby. What’s going on?”

“We sprang the uprising on Hendrin. He’s holed up in his cabin, armed with a blaster. Just me and Evans left here. You have a gun.”

“Yes.”

“Come on up here. But be careful.”

Crawford climbed up the catwalk of the ship, gun in hand. By the time he had reached the place where Fernandez was, the doctor was no longer there. Crawford stared ahead into the darkness. He heard the sounds of blast-gun shots.

Then Evans came staggering down the corridor. He had been shot in the middle. He died practically at Crawford’s feet. Seven corpses for World Seven now, Crawford thought.

“Fernandez?” he called. “Where are you?”

No answer. Crawford made his way toward Captain Hendrin’s cabin. When he got there, he found the door had been blasted open. Hendrin had dropped his gun. Perhaps it was out of ammunition. Fernandez was wrestling with him. The two men were down on the floor of the cabin, slugging it out with bare fists.

“Help me, Markham!” Fernandez shouted. “He isn’t armed. Let’s get him tied up.”

The Captain looked like a wild man. Crawford entered the cabin and crept around behind Hendrin. He wrapped his arm around the Captain’s throat.

“Hold still and you won’t get hurt, Captain,” Crawford said. “I’ve got a blast-gun here.”

Hendrin didn’t move. But suddenly, before Crawford knew what was happening, Fernandez grabbed the gun from his hand and fired it at the Captain. Hendrin was killed instantly. Crawford let go of him, jumped forward, and clamped Fernandez’s wrist before he could shoot again.

But Fernandez didn’t plan to shoot again. He let the gun drop. He looked dazed and bewildered.

Crawford picked the weapon up. “Why did you kill him? He was under control.”

Fernandez was shaking all over. He started to sob. “I don’t know why,” he said. “I — must have gone crazy for a moment. But it’s all over now.” He sat down, burying his head in his hands.

“They’re all dead,” said Crawford. “Every last one but you and me.”

Fernandez didn’t look up. “I’m supposed to be a healer, a man who cures. And I killed him. There was no reason. I just took the gun and killed him.”

“You couldn’t help it,” said Crawford. He had seen how men could panic suddenly. He had seen it happen to himself. “There was killing in the air, Fernandez. This world could drive anyone crazy.”

It was ten minutes before Fernandez was calm enough to think straight. He got up finally and looked around. The place looked like a battlefield.

They spent the next four hours digging graves.

* * * *

The exploration trip was finished, Crawford knew. Tonight they would head back to Velliran. He would begin the job of clearing his name. And then he’d get back to the nice, peaceful business of hunting yangs.

He had been a violent man himself, once. He had a short temper and ready fists. But all that was over. He had seen enough violence to last him a lifetime and a half. He wanted nothing but a quiet life from now on.

When the last grave was filled, Fernandez looked up at Crawford. “Well, it’s done with now. They’re all buried. And we know all we need to know about World Seven of Star System Z-16.”

“Amen to that,” Crawford said.

“We’ll leave right away. I can handle the ship, if you help me. But there’s just one thing to do before we leave.”

“What’s that?”

Fernandez said, “The rules say that an Exploration Corps team is supposed to give a planet a name before it leaves. We haven’t done that.”

Crawford looked at the jungle, with its deadly trees and its hungry monsters. Then he looked at the graves of the dead men.

“That’s easy,” he said. “We’ll call it the Planet of Death.”

THE END

Table of Contents

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CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10