"Murray Leinster - Get Off My World" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leinster Murray)

GET OFF MY WORLD! A BELMONT BOOK-Apri! 1966
Published by
Belmont Productions, Inc.
66 Leonard St., New York, N. Y. 10013
PLANET OF SAND © 1948 by Popular Publications, Inc. SECOND LANDING © 1953 by Standard Magazines, Inc. WHITE
SPOT © 1955 by Better Publications, Inc.

Printed in Canada


SECOND LANDING
WHITE SPOT
PLANET OF SAND

GET OFF MY WORLD!

1
"The exploring ship Franklin made its first landing on a remarkable wide-beach on the western coast of
Chios, the largest land mass on Thalassia. Using the longest axis of the continent as a base, and the
pointed end as seen from space as O", this beach bears 246° from the median point of the base line. . . .
The Franklin later berthed inland some jour miles 360° from Firing Plaza One on the chart. There is a
pleasant savannah here, with a stream of water apparently safe for drinking . . ."
Astrographic Bureau Publication 11297, Appendix to Space Pilot Vol. 460, Pp. 58-59.
IT WAS NOT plausible that Brett Carstairs should find a picture of a girl, to all appearances human, in
millenia-old ruins on a planet some hundreds of light years from Earth. But the whole affair was unlikely,
beginning with the report of the exploring ship which caused the Thalassia-Asprasia Expedition in the first
place. If it hadn't been for photographs and the ceramic artifacts, nobody would have believed that report.
It simply was not credible that another intelligent race should ever have existed in the galaxy. In two
centuries of exploration, no hint of extraterrestrial reasoning beings had been found before. But the
exploration ship's narrative didn't stop at one impossibility
about the twin worlds Thalassia and Aspasia, revolving perpetually about each other as they trailed the
satellite sun Rubra on its course. The report wasn't content to claim one intelligent race to have existed. It
claimed two. And it offered evidence that some thousands of years before they had fought each other
bitterly and mercilessly, and that they had exterminated each other in an interplanetary war which lasted
only days or even hours—which was hard to believe.
But the picture of the girl was more impossible than anything else. Brett didn't believe it, even when he
held it in his hand. He didn't dare mention it until the thing was all over. •
He didn't find it at the actual beginning, of course. There were preliminaries. The Thalassia-Aspasia,
Expedition worked under handicaps. It was based on the exploring ship's report and had to be organized
by the Records Division of the Astrographic Survey—which never has any money to spare—and there had
to be much skimping in every way and only volunteers could be afforded for the job. Even a ship couldn't
be hired for it. The general public was much more excited about the colonization of nearby planetary
systems than hi research on a planet that wouldn't be needed for colonization in a thousand years. So the
Expedition was very small—no more than a dozen members altogether—and it would be landed on
Thalassia from an Ecology Bureau ship and left there. It would probably be called for in six months or so.
Probably. Even then, what it found out might not matter to anybody else.
Brett joined up because it was his only chance for adventure and because his hobby warranted his
inclusion in the staff. He could drive a flier of course—everybody could —but he'd specialized in
paleotechnology, the study of ancient industrial processes. If there really had been an intelligent race or
races out in space, he could make better guesses than most at how the alien machinery worked and how its