This is a fan translation of Return to Deathworld (Возвращение в Мир Смерти) by the Russian science fiction author Ant Skalandis. This is an authorized sequel to Harry Harrison's Deathworld series, although it has never been published in English.

I claim no rights to the contents herein.

Chapter 5

Kerk was unbearably bored with being idle. He'd been wounded before, but this time the minor hole in his soft tissues and the tiny crack in his ribs, which he wasn't even going to treat seriously, were bothering him, for some reason. He could move around, even get up and walk, but he didn't know why. They weren't really fighting the asteroid, and Kerk had hated scientific research since he was little. Besides, he was used to being in charge, while here there were far too many people above him. It wouldn't have been so bad if it had just been Jason dinAlt, but there was also that Berwick, expecting to be treated with respect for no reason, plus an entire gang of crazy specialists in all branches of science! Kerk was feeling apathy and drowsiness and thought sadly that the years were starting to take their toll.

He'd spent almost an entire day in the hospital bed, grimacing in pain from the sharp pain in his side whenever he turned. Busy with the preparations for the big explosion, his friends rarely stopped by. More often, they called him on the intercom, and then even that device fell silent for a long while. The dumb nurse bot told him nothing about what was happening, so Kerk, feeling alarmed, decided to make the call himself.

"Brucco," he addressed the first person he was able to reach, "what's everyone doing?"

"Preparing the planet for destruction. Plus Jason and a group of scientists are still trying to do some research."

"Where's Meta? Why isn't she answering my calls?"

"As far as I know, Meta is in Jason's cabin."

But Jason's cabin wasn't answering either, and Kerk didn't like that at all. The simplest thing to do would be to send a robot or one of the younger fighters there, but Kerk made a different decision. He got up and, against all logic, following only his intuition, put on a spacesuit. Securing it on the way and testing the weapons and safety systems, the old warrior was quickly walking through the corridors. He was even ignoring the pain in his side, as if it was gone. But the alarm in his heart kept growing with each passing second.

Pyrrans had long ago gotten used to trusting their intuition more than logic. Logic took too long. Only an unknown sixth sense, only an old habit to listen to their inner voice told a Pyrran whether to pull the trigger when the gun that had leapt into their hand of its own volition turned to face unknown danger.

Of course, the door turned out to be locked from the inside, and Kerk had barely leaned his shoulder into it when he heard a sound that couldn't be misinterpreted. Air was rapidly leaving the cabin. The alarm reacted to the sharp drop in air pressure in the compartment a moment after Kerk did. The veteran of Pyrran battles had already sealed his helmet and started trying to knock the door down.

To the credit of the ancient people of Earth, the doors on the Argo were far tougher than the doors on modern ships. It seemed the imperials had anticipated the possibility of combat inside the ship. Kerk's titanic strength turned out not to be limitless, and he was able to get inside only after he swallowed his pride and cut the lock out with a laser pistol. Air from the corridor hissed as it escaped into the opening. Bulkheads slammed shut far behind him, sealing off the section of the ship.

Meanwhile, there was no one in the cabin anymore, while a hole in the shape of an almost regular ten-pointed star gaped in the wall across from him. A large hole. Still, a person, especially in a suit, would never be able to climb through it without getting scratched by the sharp wedges.

Kerk peered outside. Black fog was moving away against the backdrop of the icy surface illuminated by Argo's floodlights. That disconcerting substance was getting sucked into a giant chasm far below at an incredible speed, like smoke into a chimney, assuming someone played the recording of a smoking chimney back in reverse.

Kerk grabbed the sharp wedges sticking out of the hole's edges with his gloves and angrily bent the thick armor of the ancient battleship.

Naturally, the automated cameras had recorded the launch of the shuttle and everything that followed. As such, they were able to reconstruct the picture of what had taken place, except for the fact that the shots of the black spot taken from different angles refused to be combined into a single image. The projections didn't match. The physicists proposed two theories on that matter: either the emissions had caused the cameras to go out of sync, or they'd run into an electronic phantom, an incredibly rare phenomenon. To put it simply, the tech was hallucinating. Even worse was the fact that no instrument had detected the moment when the three people in the cabin had been taken. Now all they could do was guess when Meta, Jason, and Trow had died, and whether they'd suffocated and froze while still in the cabin or their bodies had been consumed alive by the malevolent black mass, pulling them out into space. The audio recording only indicated that they hadn't been shooting or screaming in their final moments before dying. No one doubted that they were dead, though. At least until Stan started speaking.

"You see," he said, "I think the most important part of this story is the fact that, for the first time, we got an actual modulated signal from the planet. That signal not only managed to take control of the shuttle but also contained certain additional information that our specialists have yet to decipher. But we must and will decipher it before destroying Object 001. After all, if there was a reciprocal attempt to initiate contact, then we can't exclude the possibility that our people had simply been captured. Which of you can guarantee that Meta, Jason, and Trow are dead?"

"Indeed," the experienced biologist Brucco was infected by his opinion, "it would be nice to see the bodies to pronounce them dead, but in the light of what happened…"

Then everyone started talking. There were twenty-five people gathered in the wardroom, maybe half of those present at the first meeting. The fate of the entire project now lay in the hands of these people.

"Are you trying to cancel the destruction of that nightmare? Are you suggesting that we violate the agreement and expose all the worlds of the Green Branch and maybe even the entire galaxy to mortal danger?!" Kerk roared. "If only our three lost brethren could've heard you. They'd have given their lives to save others without hesitation! And they did…" he added quietly.

"We don't know that," Brucco repeated stubbornly. "Each person has a right to control their own life. Not the lives of others."

Kerk snorted, not yet prepared to reply, then Stan spoke again, "There's a possibility that the frozen world exists on a different time scale. That's why the SOS signal sent by Jason during the first landing was only replied to now, and the landing of the shuttle was that reply. They wanted to help, see? And we, as usual, opened fire. So they switched to the next stage of contact, a more active one. We have to, we simply must open a dialog if we want to save our friends. But that requires time. Tell me, how long do we have left?"

"The bombs will be ready in eight hours," Cliff, who was in charge of the teams planting the charges, reported.

"I know that. Archie, I'm asking how long we can wait."

"Well," the young physicist from Juctis hesitated. "Realistically, we can delay the detonation by a day. Otherwise no can predict the consequences."

Deathly silence fell in the room. Each of them was probably thinking of something different. Not even Stan truly believed that they could establish contact in just over sixty hours. Jason really had believed that, as he usually knew a little more than the others, but he wasn't with them anymore, and that suddenly made all the Pyrrans very sad. Kerk felt himself ready to go down to the asteroid by himself to die there along with his friends, but that was childish, so he didn't even bother voicing such thoughts. Cliff, the youngest of them all, would rather blow the planet to smithereens in eight hours, just in case. Dr. Teca had a sinking feeling that very soon he would have a lot of work to do in the ship's infirmary. Intuition suggested that Kerk's wound had been the first omen, and intuition rarely failed the Pyrrans.

The voice of Riverd Berwick, who stood up, for some reason, suddenly cut through the solemn silence.

"Gentlemen," the member of the Consortium Counsil said with his usual pomposity. "Allow me to inform you of the transfer of emergency authority on this project into my hands. By the power vested in me, I have that right."

"Excuse me," the navigator Dorf, who was acting captain in the absence of Meta, inquired, "do you mind explaining what power you mean by that?"

"Of course," Berwick said, "but first I will explain my position. The order to destroy Object 001 will be given by me personally, and only when I deem it necessary."

"So you're canceling your own order then," Kerk said. "In accordance with the agreement, we have a right to receive half of the amount specified in Section 5 and immediately set course for our planet."

"You have misunderstood me, Kerk. I'm not canceling the order. I still need your ship and her capabilities for the completion of the task, but I need Jason dinAlt even more, and while the hope that he can be rescued still exists, we will continue to study that asteroid instead of destroying it."

"Still," now it was Brucco's turn to remind him, "who gave you the authority to make such decisions?"

"The Special Corps of the Galactic League," Berwick announced pompously and produced a large plastic card with the hologram of an iridescent five-pointed star from an inner pocket.

"Great, that's all we need now," Kerk grumbled quietly and added mentally, So much for our money! Where are you, Jason?