The Tenth Planet Read Online Free

back.”
    “Acknowledged.”
    The landing torus of the
Dag Hammarskjold
was a vast circle of titanium-clad plastic pipe. The heavily insulated pipe was filled with helium. It looked like an immense metal quoit, thirty metres in diameter. It was the shock absorber that cushioned the impact of planetary touch-down, and it was connected to the vessel by four great jointed legs whose reaction to impact stress was computer controlled.
    Searching the torus and its legs properly was going totake a long time.
    Actually, thought Idris as he walked slowly along one of the fat legs, it was possible to be too cautious. Since no inspection or repair work had been carried out at Woomera it did not seem likely that any of the ground crew could have gained access to the upper legs. They would have needed to use a mobile maintenance rig. But it would have been possible for an agile man, having the use of a rope, to haul himself to the top of the torus. Or if, for example, he had the use of a duralumin extension ladder, he might be able to plant something on the first three or four metres of one of the legs. Though there could be no valid reason for such an operation when a bomb on the torus itself would do all the damage that was needed.
    Idris looked at Leo Davison, silhouetted against the stars, walking along his leg like some surrealistic insect of the night.
    “Don’t bother with any part of the leg north of the joint,” he called. “I’ve not been thinking properly. A mobile rig would have been needed for anyone to plant something so high.”
    “Ay ay, sir.”
    “And, Leo—humour me. Give your section a real going over.”
    “Yes, captain.” There was a note of resentment in his voice. Idris cursed himself for a fool. Of course Leo Davison would search diligently. He was a good spaceman.
    They worked in silence for a while. The going was slow. On the sun side of the torus everything was blinding white and the phototropic visor of a space-suit helmet could not entirely take out the glare. On the dark side there was total blackness; and even with the headlamp switched on, it took time for the eyes to adjust. Idris realised that he and Leo Davison were going to be very tired men before they had completed the search. Afterwards, he resolved, he would make peace with his engineer. He would invite Davison to his cabin and, between them, they would broach a bottle of real whisky. Idris had two bottles of genuine Scotch left.It was sacrilege to have to draw the amber fluid out of the bottle with plastic bulbs and then squirt it into your mouth like a bloody throat spray, but that was one of the penalties of space life.
    While he contemplated the delicious prospect of real whisky, he methodically searched his section of the torus.
    I am a neurotic fool, he thought after a time. There are no bombs; and I have clearly spent too much of my life in space. I’m too old for the game. When we touch down on Mars, I’ll get myself a desk job.
    “Captain!” Davison’s voice cut urgently into his thoughts. “I’ve found something. It’s clamped to the steel collar of Number Three leg just above the pressure distributor on the torus.”
    “What does it look like?” So! The hell with neuroses. Good, old-fashioned intuition had been right after all.
    “Something like a small ingot—about twenty centimetres by ten by five … Some kind of limpet mine, I imagine.”
    “Don’t do anything. Don’t touch it. I’m on my way … You recording this, Orlando?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Good. I will inspect the device. Have Suzy Wu place a laser torch in the air-lock. We may need it.”
    “Yes, sir. Be careful.”
    Idris laughed. “Joke! This will teach you all to think I’m slipping. I’ll accept apologies in due course … Leo!”
    “Sir.”
    “Don’t touch the damn thing. Wait. I’ll be with you in about thirty seconds.”
    Idris Hamilton was standing on the sun side of the torus by the base of Number One leg. He could just make out the