Interstellar travel -- Fiction; Science fiction; Television programs -- Fiction
Great dark masses of the beasts moved unhurriedly past the ship. They
were roughly the size of cattle--which itself would be determined by the
gravity of the planet, setting a maximum favorable size for grazing
beasts with an ample food-supply. There were thousands and tens of
thousands of them visible in the deepening night. They crowded to the
gushing spring and to the stream that flowed from it. They drank.
Sometimes groups of them waited patiently until the way to the water was
clear.
"Well?" said Jones.
"I think you filled my order," admitted Cochrane.
The night became starlight only, and Cochrane impatiently demanded of Al
or somebody that they measure the length of a complete day and night on
this planet. The stars would move overhead at such-and-such a rate. So
many degrees in so much time. He needed, said Cochrane--as if this order
also could be filled--a day-length not more than six hours shorter or
longer than an Earth-day.
Jones and Al conferred and prepared to take some sort of reading without
any suitable instrument. Cochrane moved restlessly about. He did not
notice Johnny Simms. Johnny had stood sullenly in his place, not moving
to look out the windows, ostentatiously ignoring everything and
everybody. And nobody paid attention! It was not a matter to offend an
adult, but it was very shocking indeed to a rich man's son who had been
able to make a career of staying emotionally at a six-year-old level.
Cochrane's thoughts were almost feverish. If the day-length here was
suitable, all his planning was successful. If it was too long or too
short, he had grimly to look further--and Spaceways, Inc., would still
not be as completely a success as he wanted. It would have been much
simpler to have measured the apparent size of the local sun by any means
available, and then simply to have timed the intervals between its
touching of the horizon and its complete setting. But Cochrane hadn't
thought of it at sunset.
Presently he wandered down to where Babs and Alicia worked in the
kitchen to prepare a meal. He tried to help. The atmosphere was much
more like that in a small apartment back home than on a space-ship among
the stars. This was not in any way such a journey of exploration as the
writers of fiction had imagined. Jamison came down presently and offered
to prepare some special dish in which he claimed to excel. There was no
mention of Johnny Simms. Alicia, elaborately ignoring all that was past,
told Jamison that Babs and Cochrane were now an acknowledged romance and
actually had plans for marriage immediately the ship returned to Earth.
Jamison made the usual inept jests suited to such an occasion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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