INTRODUCTION
Antonio Ribera (15 Jan 1920 - 24 Sept 2001) was a prolific Spanish essayist, playwright, poet, translator and science fiction author, writing in Catalan and Spanish. For his science fiction output, he has one novel, "The Mystery of the Fish Men" (1955) and more than twenty stories, which have been republished over three short story collections.
"The Deadly Planet" appeared in the August 1956 issue (#39) of the Argentine magazine Más Allá (Beyond) and was illustrated by Eusevi. For further information on this era of Argentine science fiction, see Rachel Haywood Ferreira's "Más Allá, El Eternauta, and the Dawn of the Golden Age of Latin American Science Fiction (1953-59)" and "How Latin America Saved the World and Other Forgotten Futures".
For complete scans of Más Allá, including the illustrations, see: https://ahira.com.ar/revistas/mas-alla-de-la-ciencia-y-de-la-fantasia/
THE DEADLY PLANET
The planet lay in front of the spaceship, immense and brilliant. Zrill turned to Oinos, his companion.
- "Well, here we are," he said. "So far, everything has gone according to plan. We'll see what happens later."
Oinos kept silent. Then he slowly observed:
- "Yes, the voyage won't be the worst thing. We already know that. The voyage offered us nothing new. On the other hand..."
And he vaguely gestured toward the enormous virgin planet.
The spaceship silently glided through the void, heading toward a hypothetical point situated on the western side of the planet. Oinos and Zrill, settled in their seats, restricted themselves to gazing out of the large transparent dome, in which the stars looked like tiny, pinned, burning fireflies. The ship, governed by perfect electronic brains, navigated on autopilot, making the necessary course corrections to enter a landing ellipse. For some time now, its velocity was only supersonic. Superluminal velocity was only good for intergalactic navigation, or for use during short stretches of travel within a solar system. And they hadn't left the solar system that they were exploring.
In one corner of the cockpit, there was a dim shadow, some sort of rectangular, leaden box. Zrill looked at it, and his companion followed the direction of his gaze.
- "Let's see how it works," Oinos said, voicing his thoughts aloud. "If it fails, we'll return without any sort of protest. But if it succeeds, as we hope, we'll be able to offer a new planet to our government."
- "It worked perfectly in the atmospheres of three other planets," Zrill said. "Of course, they weren't atmospheres as deadly as this one. For this one, the device needs to completely change the atmospheric components and replace them with our own, the only ones suitable for intelligent life."
Oinos scanned the brilliant surface of the planet running beneath them.
- "It's a deadly planet. It's almost hard to conceive of its atmosphere. Nitrogen and oxygen! Although relatively small in proportion, the oxygen present is already sufficient for impeding all life."
- "Life will be possible when we've completely replaced it with methane," Zrill observed. "But what I'm most curious about is the presence of water in a liquid state! Imagine... and covering almost three quarters of the planet. Fortunately, we have means of protecting ourselves from excessive heat. This planet is too close to the star... for my taste. Anyway, I think we can make it habitable despite all that."
A moment of silence reigned between the two astronauts. Suddenly, Oinos shuddered.
- "Look, Zrill. What's that?" - and he pointed towards the planet. - "I mean those little white specks, that seem to be stuck to the surface."
Zrill focused the handheld analyzer on them.
- "It's water vapor floating in that cursed atmosphere," Oinos - and Zrill shuddered at the same time.
- "Water in a gaseous state! That's extraordinary, Zrill."
And Oinos stroked the corner of his fifth eye with his sixth right claw, a gesture that denoted great excitement.
No comments:
Post a Comment