Dark Star Read Online Free

for a moment a flicker of humanity seemed to appear in the alien's face. Again he seemed to acknowledge the words of an off-screen presence, and the flicker disappeared.
    "Well, as you know, these deep space calls cost a lot of money, so all I can say for all of us here at McMurdo is, keep up the good work and drop us a line more often, huh?"
    Fizzle . . . pop . . .the words END COMMUNICATION appeared on the screen. Doolittle switched it off.
    "Surprised he didn't blow us a goodbye kiss," muttered Boiler. The other two ignored him.
    "Nice to know they're thinking about us so warmly, isn't it, guys?" Pinback ventured cautiously, looking from Doolittle to Boiler and back to Doolittle. "Isn't it?"
    "Quiet, Pinback," said Doolittle, working controls. "We're almost there. We've got a planet to blow."
    "Ah, gee, you guys never wanna talk anymore." Pinback folded his arms and sat back, pouting. "Blow it up, blow it up—that's all you think about anymore. We do that all the time. When was the last time we all just sat around and talked, huh? About nothing in particular?"
    "You do that all the time, Pinback," Doolittle commented.
    "Yeah, but it's pretty dull just talking to you guys if you don't chat back. I might as well talk to a blank wall."
    "You do that all the time, Pinback."
    Oh, you think you're so smart, Doolittle, Pinback muttered silently. Always ready with the snappy comeback, aren't you? Well, we'll see who comes out of this mission with a clean bill of health! Wait till the psyche boys get a look inside your head. Then you'll be sorry you didn't talk to me when you had the chance.
    I tried to help you, Doolittle, but you don't want to be helped, so don't blame me when they lock you in solitary for observation, with doctors poking and monitoring and prodding and digging into your brain, digging, digging . . .
    Pinback was glad when Doolittle switched the overhead screen from communications to fore visual pickup. He was beginning to drown in the sweat of his own thoughts.
    A world sprang into sharp focus. It was sterile, empty, deserted. No animals moved on its surface, no fish swam in its seas. Nothing grew and nothing moved. It was no different from a thousand other worlds they had encountered, but it had one thing in common with eighteen others—eighteen others they had encountered and destroyed.
    They had found two habitable worlds in this system. One planet was very Earthlike, the other marginally so. Some day each might support a population as great as that of Earth's today.
    But as things stood there would be no point in planting an incipient civilization on either of them because this world, according to computer predictions, sat in an unstable orbit. In not more than two hundred thousand nor less than five thousand years it would spiral inward to intercept its own sun.
    There was the chance that nothing serious would happen—the world might be turned instantly to ashes. However, if conditions were right, it could be enough, just enough, to alter the position of the star in relation to its habitable planets. Or worse yet, set it on the path to nova.
    Waste it, and want not, Doolittle thought—the motto of the scientists who had proposed and organized the Dark Star mission and its objectives.
    So now they would commence operations to quietly eliminate a world in a soundless, overwhelming explosion bigger than any ever seen on Earth, thereby rendering the system safe for Mom, Apple Pie, and another four or five billion of the social insect called man. A voice sounded in his earphones.
    "What'd you say, Pinback?" he mumbled in reply.
    " Goggle, freep, tweep ."
    He spoke into the mike again. "What was that? I still can't understand you." Might as well be nice to poor Pinback. After all, he tried his best to do a sergeant's job.
    Pinback was always trying. That was one of his problems. At times he reminded Doolittle just a bit too much of the unctuous young officer who had delivered the message from Earth base.
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