The Judas Valley Page 2

busy since blastoff,testing the computers, checking and rechecking them, being overlyefficient.

  "I know why we're doing it," she said. "It keeps our mind off the end ofthe trip. When we spend the whole day working out complicated circuitsfor the computers, or polishing mountain boots, or cleaning the jettubes, it's just so we don't have to think about Fomalhaut V. It helpsto concentrate on details."

  Wayne nodded and said nothing. Sherri was right. There was one thoughtin everyone's mind: what was the deadly secret of the valley?

  There was another thought, after that:

  _Will we find it out in time?_

  * * * * *

  After two weeks of flight through the vast blackness of interstellarspace, the _Lord Nelson_ came out of overdrive and set itself in anorbit around Fomalhaut V. Lieutenant Jervis, the sole survivor of theill-fated _Mavis_, located the small valley between the giant crags thatcovered the planet, and the huge spherical bulk of the spaceship settledgently to the floor of the valley.

  They were gathered in the central room of the ship ten minutes after the_all-clear_ rang through the corridors, informing everyone that thelanding had been safely accomplished. From the portholes they could seethe white bones of the _Mavis's_ crew lying on the reddish sand of thevalley bottom.

  "There they are," Jervis said quietly. "Just bones. Those were myshipmates."

  Wayne saw Sherri repress a shudder. Little heaps of bones lay here andthere on the sand, shining brightly in the hot sun. That was the crew ofthe _Mavis_--or what was left of them.

  Colonel Petersen entered the room and confronted the crew. "We're here,"he said. "You know the schedule from now on. No one's to leave the shipuntil we've made a check outside, and after that--assuming it's OK to goout--no more than six are to leave the ship at any one time."

  He pointed to a row of metal magnetic tabs clinging to the wall nearestthe corridor that led to the airlock. "When you go out, take one ofthose tabs and touch it on your suit. There are exactly six tabs. Ifnone are there, don't go out. It's as simple as that."

  Four men in spacesuits entered the room, followed by two others. Theleader of the group saluted. "We're ready, sir," he said.

  "Go out and get a look at the bodies," the colonel told the men, whowere Medical Corpsmen. "You know the procedure. Air and sand samplestoo, of course."

  The leader saluted again, turned, and left. Wayne watched the sixspacesuited figures step one at a time to the wall, withdraw one of themetal tabs, and affix it to the outer skin of his suit. Then they wentoutside.

  Captain Wayne and Sherri James stood by one of the portholes andwatched the six medics as they bent over the corpses outside. "I don'tget it, I just don't understand," Wayne said quietly.

  * * * * *

  "What don't you get?" Sherri asked.

  "Those skeletons. Those men have only been dead for two months, andthey've been reduced to nothing but bones already. Even the fabric oftheir clothing is gone. Why? There must be something here that causeshuman flesh to deteriorate much faster than normal."

  "It does look pretty gruesome," Sherri agreed. "I'm glad we've beenordered to keep our spacesuits on. I wouldn't want to be exposed toanything that might be out there."

  "I wonder--" Wayne muttered.

  "What? What's the matter?"

  Wayne pointed to one figure lying on the sand. "See that? What's thatover his head?"

  "Why--it's a space helmet!"

  "Yeah," said Wayne. "The question is: was he wearing just the helmet, orthe whole suit? If he was wearing the whole suit, we're not going to beas well protected as we thought, even with our fancy suits."

  Fifteen minutes passed slowly before the medics returned, and fiveminutes more before they had passed through the decontamination chambersand were allowed into the ship proper. A ring of tense faces surroundedthem as they made their report.

  * * * * *

  The leader, a tall, bespectacled doctor named Stevelman, was thespokesman. He shrugged when Colonel Petersen put forth the questionwhose answer everyone waited for.

  "I don't know," the medic replied. "I don't know what killed them.There's dry bones out there, but no sign of anything that might havedone it. It's pretty hard to make a quick diagnosis on a skeleton,Colonel."

  "What about the one skeleton with the bubble helmet?" Peter Wayne asked."Did you see any sign of a full suit on him?"

  Stevelman shook his head. "Not a sign, sir."

  Colonel Petersen turned and glanced at Lieutenant Jervis. "Do youremember what the circumstances were, Lieutenant?"

  Jervis shrugged. "I don't recall it very clearly, sir. I honestlycouldn't tell you whether they were wearing suits or bubble-helmets oranything. I was too upset at the time to make careful observations."

  "I understand," Petersen said.

  But the medic had a different theory. He pointed at Jervis and said,"That's a point I've meant to make, Lieutenant. You're a trained spacescout. Your psychological records show that you're not the sort of mangiven to panic or to become confused."

  "Are you implying that there's something improper about my statement,Dr. Stevelman?"

  The medic held up a hand. "Nothing of the sort, Lieutenant. But sinceyou're not the sort to panic, even in such a crisis as the completedestruction of the entire crew of your scout ship, you must have beenill--partly delirious from fever. Not delirious enough to causehallucinations, but just enough to impair your judgment."

  Jervis nodded. "That is possible," he said.

  "Good," said Stevelman. "I have two tentative hypotheses, then." Heturned to the colonel. "Should I state them now, Colonel Petersen?"

  "There's to be no secrecy aboard this ship, Doctor. I want every man andwoman on the ship to know all the facts at all times."

  "Very well," the medic said. "I'd suggest the deaths were caused by someunknown virus--or, perhaps, by some virulent poison that occurredoccasionally, a poisonous smog of some kind that had settled in thevalley for a time and then dissipated."

  Wayne frowned and shook his head. Both hypotheses made sense.

  "Do you have any suggestions, Doctor?" Petersen said.

  "Since we don't have any direct information about why those men died,Colonel, I can't make any definite statements. But I can offer one bitof advice to everyone: _wear your suits and be alert_."

  * * * * *

  During the week that followed, several groups went out without sufferingany ill effects. A short service was held for the eight of the _Mavis_and then the skeletons were buried in the valley.

  They ran a check on the double-nucleus beryllium toward the end of theweek, after it had been fairly safely established that no apparent harmwas going to come to them. Wayne and Sherri were both in the crew thatwent outside to set up the detector.

  "You man the detector plate," said Major MacDougal, who was in charge ofthe group, turning to Wayne.

  He put his hand on the plate and waited for the guide coordinates to beset. MacDougal fumbled at the base of the detector for a moment, and themachine began picking up eloptic radiations.

  Wayne now looked down at the detector plate. "Here we are," he said."The dial's oscillating between four and eight, all right. The stuff'shere."

  MacDougal whistled gently. "It's really sending, isn't it!" He pointedtoward the mountaintop. "From up there, too. It's going to be a niceclimb. Okay, pack the detector up and let's get back inside."

  They entered the airlock and passed on into the ship.

  "The D-N beryllium up there, sir," Major MacDougal said. "It's going tobe a devil of a job to get up to find the stuff."

  "That's what Captain Wayne's here for," Petersen said. "Captain, whatdo you think? Can you get up here?"

  "It would have been easier to bring along a helicopter," Wayne saidwryly. "Pity the things don't fit into spaceships. But I think I can getup there. I'd like to try surveying the lay of the land, first. I wantt
o know all the possible routes before I start climbing."

  "Good idea," Petersen said. "I'll send you out with three men to do somepreliminary exploring. Boggs! Manetti! MacPherson! Suit up and get withit!"

  * * * * *

  Wayne strode toward the spacesuit locker, took out his suit, and donnedit. Instead of the normal space boots, he put on the specialmetamagnetic boots for mountain climbing. The little reactors in theback of the calf activated the thick metal