Originally published in Future Combined with Science Fiction Stories, January 1951.
Less than an hour had passed since the Comet’s SC-3 scout rocket had landed on the fifth planet of the small yellow star, but Jacques, the astrogator, had already wandered out of contact. Henry, the co-pilot, stood in the uneasy group around the exit port of the airlock sweating in the humid but breathable air of the strange world.
“I doubt you’ll reach him on that, George,” said Doc.
The pilot nodded resignedly and turned off the portable transmitter. Someone shifted his feet, and his boots made a sucking sound in the clinging mud thrown up by the landing.
“He must have a dead battery,” said George. “No use trying to get him on the ship’s set; he couldn’t have gone that far.”
“Probably fell over a cliff trying to snap a picture,” muttered a voice from the rear of the group.
“Possible,” said Henry. “He did take a camera along.”
“Why did they give me a shutter-bug for an astrogator?” complained George. “I suppose we’ll have to look for him before we start anything else.”
There was silence. Everyone had his own work to do, preparing to scour this planet. “I had better go,” said Doc finally. “He may have hurt himself.”
“That makes one,” said George. “About two more…?”
They broke it down so that Henry and Jeff, the assistant engineer, went with Doc, leaving George and Anton at the ship. Doc slung a first-aid kit over his shoulder and carried a lightweight, collapsible stretcher. Seeing Jeff with the small radio, Henry contented himself with a canteen of water. On second thought, he picked up a hand blaster, remembering that from the air they had sighted a few birds or flying reptiles. Probably there was no other animal life, but…
None of them knew any nature lore, but Jacques’ path was easy to follow at first. Someone had seen him head toward a clump of scrubby vegetation, bordering on the level, open landing place. The ground was covered by a short, reddish growth resembling a creeper more than a grass, and the missing man’s boots had ground this into the spongy soil.
In a few minutes, they reached the “weeds.” From the air, they had appeared to cover about an acre. The growth was mostly purplish, fernlike bushes, a good deal taller than they had locked from a distance. There were many jumbled, multitrunked trees with dark, fleshy leaves; and it was difficult to tell what connection these had with the black-and-red tangle of vines that wove through everything.
“Looks dark,” said Doc, his pink face glum.
“Can’t be anything there,” said Henry. “Too quiet.”
He was still hoping that was true when Doc startled him by letting out a whoop for Jacques. They listened for a moment but could hear no answer. “Aw, let’s push on through this stuff,” said Jeff.
He led the way, shoving the hanging vines aside. Doc went next with his stretcher, and Henry followed.
Within a few minutes, the co-pilot realized that they would never again find the trail they had been tracing. He glanced over his shoulder and found himself unsure of which way they had come. The floppy ferns smothered the view and his sense of direction was confused by the helter-skelter of vines and creepers.
“Hey! Where do you think you’re going?” he called to Jeff.
“Cain’t rightly tell,” answered the engineer; “just fixin’ to cut on through, if we kin.”
“How is it?” asked Doc. “Getting thick?”
“I’ll spell him,” offered Henry.
They changed places, squeezing between Doc and a mass of damp ferns, and Henry took the lead. Before he had gone ten steps, he was confronted by a thick creeper, nearly waist high.
“Take the blaster to it,” suggested Doc.
Henry gave the creeper a blast and was gratified by the sight of clear space for twenty feet.
“What was that?” demanded Jeff.
“Just a short blast,” said Henry, peering ahead.
Beyond the clearing, the tangle seemed less dense.
“No, somethin’ else,” insisted Jeff. “Ah heard somethin’ way back there—like a houn’ dawg ’cross the valley.”
“I heard nothing,” said Doc. “When?”
“Just after he blasted that creeper half in two.”
“What you heard, Jefferson,” said Doc, “was an echo from the blaster. Come along!”
Henry pushed ahead. He could hear Jeff stubbornly arguing with Doc, but he paid little attention. He was sick of this tangled vegetation. He wondered if he were getting a case of nerves; perhaps he had been in space too long to feel comfortable under a sky.
He shook his head and plunged on through the ugly, purplish foliage, ignoring the thrashing efforts of the others to keep up. He cut through another thick creeper, and saw the blasted ends curl back with a shrinking motion suggestive of agony. He decided that he did not like this place.
“Why don’t we go back?” he asked, stopping to mop his face with his sleeve. “All we’re getting here is lost.”
“We have to find Jacques if we can,” said Doc.
“Yeah, go on ahead,” mumbled Jeff.
“But we may be going in a circle by now, for all we know! What’s the sense? Let’s get back in the open and go around!”
“Can’t be much further now,” objected Doc in a tired voice.
“Gimme the blaster!” said Jeff impatiently. “Come on!”
“What makes you so hopped up?” demanded Henry.
Nevertheless, he surrendered the blaster and the lead as the engineer tossed the radio to him. He trailed along, daydreaming of the relief of reaching the other side of this jungle. Maybe, he thought, he ought to call George, to get a direction reading from the ship.
“Sure!” he told himself. “A couple of checks will tell us how we’re heading. I must be thinking slow today.”
He reached for the radio, and realized that it no longer hung from his shoulder. No longer?
“Damn!” he muttered. “I never picked it up when Jeff took the lead.”
He looked at the other two, but decided not to call them. It was only a few steps back, and they were having enough trouble pushing through an especially tight tangle. He stumbled back, but the radio was hidden by the undergrowth.
He shrugged, and started after Doc and Jeff. They were still struggling to break through the tangle. “Can’t remember what we were looking for,” he muttered. “What’s the matter with me?”
A sudden shadow fell across his view. Crouching instinctively, he darted a glance upward. Two thrashing, interlocked bodies tore through the overhead vines. Henry had a glimpse of fluttering membraneous wings, scaly bodies, and purple-stained talons. The combatants thudded to the ground nearby.
The interruption altered the scene completely.
“Gawd!” breathed Henry.
It was like a blurred motion picture, suddenly focused.
He could see now that his companions were far from pushing through the foliage. Rather, they were writhing feebly in the grip of…something…that looked like a vine and held them well off the ground.
Another fleshy tendril snaked out to seize the fighting reptiles. One of these belatedly released his opponent and attempted to spread torn wings for escape. Other “vines” whipped about it, clinging and crushing. The flying thing emitted a hissing shriek, almost too high in pitch for Henry to hear. A cold shock jolted through the man.
“This whole place is alive!” he gasped.
There was daylight showing bright a few yards to his left. Without another thought, he charged through the damp ferns toward it, astonished at the speed his feet were suddenly able to make.
Surprisingly soon, he emerged onto the level plain where the SC-3 rested. The foggy, obsessed feeling was relieved by the sight of clear ground. He even dared to think back as he ran toward the ship.
Shame struggled with fear as he remembered the twitching bodies of Doc and Jeff, and he was glad that their faces had been turned away, from his flight. There had been a dark, tendril-wrapped bundle, suspended like a cocoon a little beyond them. Jacques…?
“There was something else, too,” he told himself. “Something spreading, and low against the ground…something that wouldn’t let me look at it.
That was it! He realized that the little jungle could not possibly have been as dense or as extensive as their eyes had seen it. Something had controlled their thoughts.
He had come out about a hundred yards from where they had entered the clump, so that he was approaching the ship from a new direction. Only when he had covered half the distance to the SC-3, streaming perspiration and not even daring to look over his shoulder, did the man standing by the airlock turn his head. Then the figure raised one arm deliberately, pointing toward the purplish jungle.
Henry slowed to a brisk walk and glanced in the indicated direction. Another man was walking across the open space, about a hundred yards to his left. It looked like George.
He’s going in on the same trail, thought Henry.
The pilot, though it may have been a trick of the moisture-laden air, seemed to be walking with a curiously stiff stride. He reached the edge of the tangle and disappeared within. Henry continued on toward the ship.
The man by the airlock was Anton, the chief engineer. He wore a peculiar expression. “Did you find Jacques?” he asked in his clipped speech. “And the others—they are where?”
“They’re back in the jungle,” said Henry shortly. “Was that George I saw just now?”
“George, yes,” said Anton, with a flat intonation that left the matter hanging in air, despite the conclusiveness of the words themselves.
“Just went off,” he added. “Never to me a word. When I get out of here, he is too far to hear me shout, maybe.”
Henry considered briefly. Whatever was in the jungle—or whatever was the jungle—its powers must be hypnotic to a high degree. George was as good as gone. He himself was lucky that a diversion had weakened the grip on his own mind. In another minute or two, he would have been convinced that he had not wanted the radio at all. A thought struck him.
“I’ll bet Jeff never got the blaster any more than I got the radio. What a shuffle!”
That left himself and Anton. They might make it back to the Comet—provided they dawdled no longer.
“Come on inside!” he ordered brusquely. “We’ll blast off.”
“And the others?”
“They won’t be back; what’s the matter, like it here?”
“No said Anton flatly, following him inside the airlock. “I like it not at all. There is here something—”
“Yeah!”
“But—”
“They’re dead, I tell you! If George isn’t, yet, he will be soon.”
Anton turned on him a stolid blue stare, but obediently closed the port. They waited impatiently under the germicidal lights for the regulation time. Then the inner port opened.
“What was in the jungle?” Anton broke the uneasy silence.
“Later. Don’t want to talk now. Get your eye on the gauges while I warm her up.”
Henry half ran into the control room. He sat in the padded seat and strapped himself down, just in case.
When he was ready, he called Anton on the intercom, to warn him. There was no answer.
“Damn!” growled Henry.
When his fumbling fingers had pulled the buckles open, he leaped to the door and ran down the corridor. Sure enough, the airlock indicator showed the outer port open. He cursed and fidgeted until enough time had elapsed to permit his opening the inner door. Then, he struggled briefly with the outer.
By the time he could see the surface, Anton was far beyond pursuit, moving at a shambling trot toward the clump of vegetation.
“I didn’t think it had such a range,” whispered Henry.
Hastily, he tried to analyze his thoughts. Was there any faint suggestion of alien probing?
There was no help for it. He would have to take off and trust that nothing in the rocket room needed adjusting. He had licked the damned thing once, but he might leave himself open-minded at the wrong instant. Above all, he had to warn the Comet about landing here.
He retreated into the airlock.
“Besides that,” he muttered, waiting nervously for the inner port to open again, “little Henry is no plant food.”
He blasted off a few minutes later, angling sharply up. I’ll worry about the course later,” he thought. “What I need first is distance!”
He tried to pick up the Comet when he was about ten thousand miles up. Then again a little later. After his third try, he cut a tape for the automatic transmitter.
“Let’s see,” he murmured. “About every half hour? Better make it a twenty-minute interval, I guess.”
He carefully adjusted the machine to send the message every twenty minutes, and returned to the controls. There was nothing for him to do until he got a bearing on the Comet, but it would be ironic if he missed a meteorite warning after all he had gone through.
“The damned tricky thing!” he reflected. “Took us one at a time. Jacques, then Doc and Jeff—probably the only reason I got away was that three men and two dragons were a little too much at one time. Then George. As soon as he was under control, it called Anton over. Very methodical! Just get in line, gents! Was I ever lucky!”
But was he yet safe, he wondered? It seemed that there was something he had forgotten to do. Maybe he should check the rocket room, since he had had no report from Anton. He went aft and made a hasty inspection. All was in order.
He returned to the control room, still uneasy, and sat fingering the controls while he tried to remember anything he might have neglected.
The mood lingered.
There must be something, he thought.
He had too often seen “intuition” save lives in space to ignore that quiet nagging at the back of his mind. He had left a loose end somewhere. Should he again inspect the ship?
No, he preferred not to leave the controls. He would probably want to use them, if he decided to go back after any loose ends. That’s what you had to do with loose ends. Go back and pick them up. Turn the ship and go back.
He reached out and brought a steering jet into action. The ship began to swing. As soon as he had the main tubes around some, he could head back. The gravitational field would help him; he need not decelerate very long. He was sure he could find the place again…
As the ship swung, he was pushed sideways. His gaze touched on the automatic transmitter he had set so carefully.
“Hot Sol!” he murmured. “I forgot to turn it on!”
Oh, well, it hardly mattered. It was more important that he concentrate on finding the place again. The thing in the ferns had told him when to come back, but somehow he had forgotten for a while. He was beginning to remember now, because it was time to remember, but meanwhile he had come all the way out here, like a fool…