Human-alien encounters -- Fiction; Science fiction; Space travelers -- Fiction
And gradually Drawers began to realize that they were heading for a
beautiful little globe more than sixty million miles from a medium
sized sun. And he prepared to enter the atmosphere of this world--and
let the powers of the Roxitometer lead him to the location of the
Roxite deposit. He muttered a silent prayer that it might not be
located too deeply in the bowels of the planet.
Now he was holding tight as the "Star-Struck" streamed through the
atmosphere of the planet. The landscape began to lay itself out before
him. He could make out soft blue forests of alien vegetation--golden
streams of unknown liquids. At two thousand feet he halted the ship's
descent. Momentarily he allowed it to float above the terrain of this
strange world. Drinking in its wonders with curious eyes.
He had been drawn to many worlds before by the insistent clangings of
the Roxitometer--but never had he witnessed a world of such unutterable
beauty and color. Barely a discordant note in the entire scheme of
things. Even the winds blew softly, gently, against the hull of his
ship. Prompted by an unfathomable urge he tested the atmosphere
of the planet. Oxygen and Nitrogen proved present in appreciable
quantities--but there was also another--and unknown gas of undetermined
qualities.
He wondered if it were breathable. It had been so long, so very long
since he had known anything other than the metallic smell of synthetic
air. With gladness he would trade half of his possessions for a few
great lungfulls of pure, fresh, untainted air.
Then it was that Michel Drawers performed a suicidical act. He opened
the inner and outer locks of his ship simultaneously and allowed the
atmosphere of this unfamiliar world to pour in and mingle with that
of the ship. He breathed in deeply, heavily. Lungful after lungful.
Nothing happened. The new air had a certain, pleasant perfumed
quality--perhaps a characteristic of the new gas. If it were fatally
poisonous, at least it was not immediately so.
Forgotten were thoughts of Roxite and riches. Forgotten was his
heartbreaking longing for Earth. Only one instinct possessed him. A
desire to set foot upon real soil again. To tread agilely forward--to
breath in natural air--to view natural, though alien sights. To see
streams of liquids bubble past.
He settled the "Star-Struck" with unprecedented clumsiness down
upon the surface of the world--saved from a bad shock by the light
gravitational pull of the planet.
Then, with the demeanor of a school-boy released for summer vacation,
his huge frame trod lightly from the ship, and he ambled grotesquely
amidst an almost fragile world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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