The Burnt Planet By WILLIAM BRITTAIN Mad with despair, they fought back from the ruins. Whoever these invaders were, they should not have a world which its defenders themselves had destroyed! [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Winter 1948. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The land was dark in the softly falling rain, and the smell of green things was in the air. The crew huddled in their cloaks and peered into the approaching dusk as they unloaded the great silver space ship. They were apprehensive of the stark ruins that began barely a mile from the ship, the ruins that seemed to sprawl interminably across the flat land beside the broad river. In the metal headquarters hut, the commander glanced nervously at his chronometer. The astrogator looked up from his interminable reckonings and smiled. "Don't worry, captain," he said. "They'll be all right. After all, we haven't seen any life but a few small animals. And they ran from us." The commander nodded absently, but went to the open door and stared out into the rain. It made a musical tinkling on the thin metallic dome of the hut. "I know," he said. "Perhaps that's why I'm worried. It's the feeling of death here, as though it might spring at us from some corner in those ruins.... I should have sent out a stronger scout party." The astrogator shrugged and returned to his log. "If anything had gone wrong, they would have messaged us." * * * * * The commander smiled an unwilling agreement, but he stayed in the open door, searching the gathering darkness toward the city. He could not shake loose from the feeling of doom that had settled on him as soon as they had made their landfall and clambered from the airlocks of the spaceship. This was a strange world, the commander thought to himself. It seemed to have everything--everything but intelligent inhabitants. They had circled it for two days before they had chosen this wide green valley for their landfall. They had seen cities, many of them, great cities along seacoasts and in rich plains, cities in mountains and in valleys, but nowhere had they seen life. The first cautious explorations after the landing that morning had shown that there was plenty of good water. The soil seemed rich, and vegetation grew in profusion, even among the ruins they had warily skirted. The atmosphere was perfect ... it was what they had searched for through the long bitter years ... this stable atmosphere with its abundance of life-giving oxygen. And minerals aplenty ... the burned and blasted metal skeletons of the ruined city showed that. The commander told himself that he was a fool for worrying, when he should be shouting with joy at his luck.