The PLANET of ILLUSION by MILLARD V. GORDON [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Comet March 41. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] "_A phantom land and a phantom folk Come sailing out of the deep unknown With a soundless roar and a lightless flash To conquer a void for them alone._" --ROGER DAINTETH "Planet sighted!" sang out Kendall, eye glued to the electro-telescope. "Where away?" rang Fred Broster from his place at the controls. "Five point on ten left from star. Point three seven above the elliptic," came Kendall's voice again from the forward observation window. "You're daft and dreaming. Snap into it and look again," Broster yelled, staring hard at the automatically-recording space-chart. "There's nothing here but a particularly empty species of nothingness." The captain's keen gray eyes stared carefully at the glowing panel before him. On it shone out tiny points of light which revealed each of the different bodies through whose vicinity the _Astralite_ was passing. A remarkable device actuated by delicate gravital detectors which marked out every body they approached. And according to this chart, there was no such planet recorded in the depths of the device as that which Kendall had sighted. "I'm not dreaming. Your chart is wrong if you can't find it there," Kendall remarked after a pause, still staring through the lens of the instrument. Broster examined the chart again. No; there positively was no planet circling the star as his observer claimed. "Come away from there!" he called, straightening up. "Dr. Seaward, will you please take the observer's place and check." Seaward dropped the calculations in hand, walked across the control room of the great interstellar explorer, up to the very tip. Kendall stood aside while the doctor applied his eye to the lens. "It's there all right, Broster. A little red disk exactly where he called it off; the chart's wrong." Broster ran a hand through his chestnut hair, a puzzled look in his eyes. He glared at the space-chart for a moment, as if loath to believe that that faithful instrument could have gone haywire. Then he picked his way over to the electro-telescope to verify the sighting personally. A moment later, the three were looking at each other wonderingly. All realized what this might mean: if that space-chart failed them, it might be all over with any possibility ever of returning home. Space-navigating in the bounds of the solar system was one thing; there it didn't matter whether you ran by chart or by observation. But here in the bounds of cosmic space, thousands of light-years from the sun, where they had to navigate in the blackness of interstellar distances, the space-chart was all-important. Bodies out here were dark; there were no stars nearby from which they could reflect light....