One Man"s Poison.
by Robert Sheckley.
They could eat a horse, only luckily there was none ... it might have eaten them first!
h.e.l.lman plucked the last radish out of the can with a pair of dividers. He held it up for Casker to admire, then laid it carefully on the workbench beside the razor.
"h.e.l.l of a meal for two grown men," Casker said, flopping down in one of the ship"s padded crash chairs.
"If you"d like to give up your share--" h.e.l.lman started to suggest.
Casker shook his head quickly. h.e.l.lman smiled, picked up the razor and examined its edge critically.
"Don"t make a production out of it," Casker said, glancing at the ship"s instruments. They were approaching a red dwarf, the only planet-bearing sun in the vicinity. "We want to be through with supper before we get much closer."
h.e.l.lman made a practice incision in the radish, squinting along the top of the razor. Casker bent closer, his mouth open. h.e.l.lman poised the razor delicately and cut the radish cleanly in half.
"Will you say grace?" h.e.l.lman asked.
Casker growled something and popped a half in his mouth. h.e.l.lman chewed more slowly. The sharp taste seemed to explode along his disused tastebuds.
"Not much bulk value," h.e.l.lman said.
Casker didn"t answer. He was busily studying the red dwarf.
As he swallowed the last of his radish, h.e.l.lman stifled a sigh. Their last meal had been three days ago ... if two biscuits and a cup of water could be called a meal. This radish, now resting in the vast emptiness of their stomachs, was the last gram of food on board ship.
"Two planets," Casker said. "One"s burned to a crisp."
"Then we"ll land on the other."
Casker nodded and punched a deceleration spiral into the ship"s tape.
h.e.l.lman found himself wondering for the hundredth time where the fault had been. Could he have made out the food requisitions wrong, when they took on supplies at Calao station? After all, he had been devoting most of his attention to the mining equipment. Or had the ground crew just forgotten to load those last precious cases?
He drew his belt in to the fourth new notch he had punched.
Speculation was useless. Whatever the reason, they were in a jam.
Ironically enough, they had more than enough fuel to take them back to Calao. But they would be a pair of singularly emaciated corpses by the time the ship reached there.
"We"re coming in now," Casker said.
And to make matters worse, this unexplored region of s.p.a.ce had few suns and fewer planets. Perhaps there was a slight possibility of replenishing their water supply, but the odds were enormous against finding anything they could eat.
"Look at that place," Casker growled.
h.e.l.lman shook himself out of his reverie.
The planet was like a round gray-brown porcupine. The spines of a million needle-sharp mountains glittered in the red dwarf"s feeble light. And as they spiraled lower, circling the planet, the pointed mountains seemed to stretch out to meet them.
"It can"t be _all_ mountains," h.e.l.lman said.
"It"s not."
Sure enough, there were oceans and lakes, out of which thrust jagged island-mountains. But no sign of level land, no hint of civilization, or even animal life.
"At least it"s got an oxygen atmosphere," Casker said.
Their deceleration spiral swept them around the planet, cutting lower into the atmosphere, braking against it. And still there was nothing but mountains and lakes and oceans and more mountains.
On the eighth run, h.e.l.lman caught sight of a solitary building on a mountain top. Casker braked recklessly, and the hull glowed red hot.
On the eleventh run, they made a landing approach.
"Stupid place to build," Casker muttered.
The building was doughnut-shaped, and fitted nicely over the top of the mountain. There was a wide, level lip around it, which Casker scorched as he landed the ship.
From the air, the building had merely seemed big. On the ground, it was enormous. h.e.l.lman and Casker walked up to it slowly. h.e.l.lman had his burner ready, but there was no sign of life.
"This planet must be abandoned," h.e.l.lman said almost in a whisper.
"Anyone in his right mind would abandon this place," Casker said.
"There"re enough good planets around, without anyone trying to live on a needle point."
They reached the door. h.e.l.lman tried to open it and found it locked.
He looked back at the spectacular display of mountains.
"You know," he said, "when this planet was still in a molten state, it must have been affected by several gigantic moons that are now broken up. The strains, external and internal, wrenched it into its present spined appearance and--"
"Come off it," Casker said ungraciously. "You were a librarian before you decided to get rich on uranium."
h.e.l.lman shrugged his shoulders and burned a hole in the doorlock. They waited.
The only sound on the mountain top was the growling of their stomachs.
They entered.
The tremendous wedge-shaped room was evidently a warehouse of sorts.
Goods were piled to the ceiling, scattered over the floor, stacked haphazardly against the walls. There were boxes and containers of all sizes and shapes, some big enough to hold an elephant, others the size of thimbles.
Near the door was a dusty pile of books. Immediately, h.e.l.lman bent down to examine them.