The Project Gutenberg EBook of Grim Green World, by John Star This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. Title: Grim Green World Author: John Star Release Date: December 07, 2020 [EBook #63981] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GRIM GREEN WORLD *** GRIM GREEN WORLD by JOHN STARR Why had five spaceships, each tested again and again right down to its tiniest rivet, started for the Moon and ended up in Hell? [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories November 1951. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] I lit the last cigarette I would ever smoke and took my airsuit out of the compartment under the control-board. The two-man cubicle was coffin-cold even under the blast of sunlight pouring through the forward port, and the air smelled of stale tobacco and machine oil. Beside me Charlie Kosta's voice droned into the communicator, winging back two- hundred thirty thousand miles to the listening millions of Earth. "Our air is nearly gone," Charlie said. "We have about twelve minutes left for deceleration, but we'll never make landing. The Luna V is riddled like a sieve, spewing out heavy-water fuel along with her air ... it's a miracle that a chunk hasn't crashed through our fuel pile or the communicator—or through us. That's what blew up the first four ships, we know now ... if men ever reach the moon they'll first have to develop some sort of armor that will turn this barrage of meteoric dust." I got my feet into the plastoid suit and pulled it on, letting the transparent headpiece dangle over one shoulder like a parka hood. Charlie watched me with his tight grin, waiting through the three-second lag of time for Earth's answer. Some high-ranking general down there had pushed aside the Moon Foundation scientists to make himself heard; his voice came over the hiss of static with a tinny, frantic ring. "Meteoric dust couldn't possibly pierce that alloy hull! It was tested over and over—" We waited him out, knowing that his frenzy was not for us nor for the success of space flight. He was concerned, like all the military, only with the establishing of a moon base to overlook Earth, an all-commanding launching site that would control a world. Once that base was established, the ferment of war would come to a bitter end; one nation would own the planet. "But you didn't test the hull out here," Charlie said patiently when the general had finished. "You can't imagine the speed of these particles. We've no protecting atmosphere to vaporize them, as Earth has, and they streak through the ship so fast that they seem to strike both sides of the hull at once.... I'm cutting you over to Leonard Nugent now. Ready, Len?" It was what I was waiting for. I had looked forward to this moment every day of the nine years I had spent being groomed for the flight, and for half a lifetime of drilling before that. The waiting was almost over. "I'm ready," I said, and took the microphone. "But there's not much point in reporting further, is there? With her fuel leaks the Luna V will go like an A-bomb the instant we try to use the landing jets, just as the first four Lunas did ... the air is getting thinner, so thin that I'll have to put on my pressure suit soon. Are there any questions?" My only answer was the grind and roar of static. I could guess why; they were bickering and quarrelling among themselves down there, the military men snarling at the scientists and the scientists snarling back, each blaming the other for this new failure. The loss of the first four ships had been a mystery until they sent the Luna V out with co-pilots, equipped for full two-way communication. Charlie and I had reported from the beginning of the flight in alternate thirty-minute relays, keeping the Foundation posted so that if anything threatened us they would know the nature of the danger. Now they were getting what they had asked for, and the problem would keep them busy for another ten or fifteen years while the conquest of space marked time. But they couldn't accept even temporary defeat calmly, of course—they had to quarrel among themselves, just as men have quarrelled since they first climbed down out of their trees and set about organizing the business of killing each other. "We're going to try for a landing anyway," I said into the microphone. "We're going to cut in the decelerator jets as soon as we pass out of the sun glare and into the moon's penumbra, where we can see." We flashed suddenly into darkness, lost instantly in the vast conical shadow of the moon. The night half of the pocked globe loomed below, faint and ghostly in the blue Earthshine, craggy and desolate, cold as space and as old as time. Earth hung above and behind us, and I couldn't help thinking of the astronomers who had followed our flight patiently every inch of the way. They couldn't see us now; the daylight crescent of the moon lay between the Luna V and the sun, burying us deep in the utter darkness of space. Charlie took the microphone, speaking this time not to the Foundation but to the millions who sat gaping at their radios. Some of them would be muttering maudlin prayers for our safety, some would be gleefully collecting the bets they had made on our chances of getting across; all of them would be thrilled to the core by the vicarious imminence of danger and death. "We don't want mourning and demonstrations," Charlie said. "If you people listening to me would like to honor our memory and the memory of the men lost before us, then forget space travel for a while and try to work out a lasting peace down there on Earth. Because it's inevitable that you'll conquer space some day, and if you aren't ready for it when it comes—" He clicked off the communicator, and we turned to the port together to watch the little metal sphere that hurtled up out of the darkness past the Luna V. From behind and above us there came a great white flash of atomic fire that must have blinded for the moment every watching eye on Earth. "Right on schedule," Charlie said, and swung the Luna V over the darkside rim and across the mysterious other side of the moon, the hidden hemisphere that no man has ever seen. The ship was waiting for us there, a sleek, familiar cylinder with airlock standing open. We went inside and closed the lock and stripped off our cumbersome airsuits, and Charlie flexed his arms and grinned at me. "Lord, I'm glad to get that over with—it's been like nine years of prison!" "It was worth it," I said. I was remembering the grim green world we had left, shivering a little when I considered the brawling simian hordes who battered their way up the scale toward a culture that might, unchecked, some day rule the Universe. "It gives us a few more years before they come swarming down on us with their atomic bombs and politics and their gaping tourists," I said, still using the speech patterns that had been drilled into me for half my life. "We've marked time long enough, hoping for the best. We'll need every minute we've gained to get ready for them." We went forward then to watch the purple-skinned pilot, hairy and many-limbed and beautifully wrinkled, engage the magnetic drive that would send us flashing toward the planet that was home. Later, in our natural bodies, we would speak the name of that world with reverence, but our clumsy synthetic Earth-tongues could not master its lovely sonic extensions, and so we used another term. For the time being, we called it Mars.... *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GRIM GREEN WORLD *** This file should be named 63981-h.htm or 63981-h.zip This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/6/3/9/8/63981/ Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark license, especially commercial redistribution. START: FULL LICENSE THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work (or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at www.gutenberg.org/license. Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works 1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property (trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. 1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. 1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the United States and you are located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. 1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United States. 1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: 1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, copied or distributed: This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. 1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. 1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. 1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. 1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project Gutenberg-tm License. 1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. 1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. 1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided that * You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." * You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm works. * You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of receipt of the work. * You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. 1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. 1.F. 1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. 1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. 1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further opportunities to fix the problem. 1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. 1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. 1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from people in all walks of life. Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit 501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact For additional contact information: Dr. Gregory B. Newby Chief Executive and Director