The Impossible World. Eando Binder
Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, Saturn and Titan. Adaptene had burst the former bonds of the narrow range of conditions under which the human body could survive.
It did not matter whether the atmosphere was thin or thick, whether life-supporting oxygen was scarce or overabundant, whether frigid cold or suffocating heat existed, whether the force of gravity was weak or bruisingly powerful—adaptene made metabolic corrections for all variations.
They were still humans, these made over colonists on other worlds. Science had changed their bodies somewhat, but not their minds. They lived and loved and worked in alien surroundings with as much of the measure of well being and happiness as came to Earth-living humans. Their children were easily bio-conditioned from birth onward by adaptene. It was only the start, but colonization was rapidly gaining momentum toward a great empire in which Earth people lived on all the worlds of the Solar System—by the virtue of adaptene.
ETBI, where the bio-conditioning was carried on, was a separate branch of the Earth Union Government, along with the Space Navy, Interplanetary Exploration and Planetary Survey Bureaus. The exploitation of space was a highly organized process.
First the ships of the exploration service mapped and explored, on any new world. Then the Planetary Survey experts tabulated all raw resources, mineral and otherwise. The Space Navy stepped in next, to establish outposts and fueling stations.
Finally ETBI sent its tailored, permanent colonists to dig in and develop the planet. And a new world had been added to man’s growing roster.
CHAPTER III
Mystery from the Spaceways
The heart of Extra-Terra Bio-Institute was its controlling laboratory system, whose activities ran the entire scale of science. Its staff numbered thousands. Its facilities were ultra-modern. It was the clearing house of all data brought back from the spaceways. On file was every conceivable bit of information relating to extra-terrestrial matters.
The head of ETBI was a cabinet member of the Earth Union Government. Second in command was Dr. Rodney Shelton, youngest and most brilliant of the scientific staff.
His career had been studded with vital researches. Even before coming to ETBI, his graduation thesis as a student had settled once and for all the virus-enigma, unsolved for a century. He proved that the viruses were molecular life-forms, the link between mineral and living states. Thus tagged, all virus diseases were curable, including the common “cold,” by treating them with artificial anti-virus molecules, as though they were simply chemical reagents.
But, joining the staff of ETBI, Shelton had turned his attention to the mysteries of extra-terrestrial biology. He had been with the famed Venus Swampland Expedition, commissioned to study the terrible brain-softening plague that periodically swept out from the swamplands to wipe out whole communities of Earth settlers.
Isolating the germ, Shelton had studied it at great risk alone—at his own insistence. He passed out his notes from a sealed-off cubicle of the ship. He lived in a sealed suit and did not dare eat or drink. In a week, he came out, thin and weak, but happy—with the answer.
The brain-softening bacteria died promptly in blue light, unknown on Venus because of its cloud-packed skies that filtered out all blue radiation. Thereafter, all Earth settlements were simply protected, when the plague reared, by rings of blue searchlights.
On Mercury, Shelton had found a much simpler way of stopping the voracious hordes of omnivorous, two-foot amoeboids than by blasting them to pieces with small cannon. No poison could affect them. Small gelatin capsules containing solid carbon dioxide were strewn in their stampeding path. The giant single-celled monsters absorbed them, dissolved off the gelatin, and swiftly puffed up into porous balloons by the action of released gas. In this form, they were whisked into the sky by the stiff winds, like bubbles, and eventually dashed to smears against rocks and cliffs.
But on Mars, Shelton had met, and conquered, the most baffling problem of them all. What could one do against invisible swarms of spongy germs that roamed the wastes of that planet and soaked up every last particle of water, to convert it into more spongy germs? The least exposure of a water supply would let them in, to fill it with their multiplying legions.
Shelton impregnated the normal water with one per cent of heavy-water, easily manufactured on Earth from deuterium, “heavy” isotopic hydrogen, and oxygen. By Mendelian principles, applicable to all life, whether on Earth, Mars or Andromeda, the hundredth or so generation of the sponge-germs were unable to breed.
Shelton remembered that back in the 1930’s the law had been laid down that heavy water inhibited reproductive processes. The sponge germ ceased to peril the water supplies of Earth colonists.
* * * *
But in the past three years, Shelton’s responsibilities had been shifted entirely to the most important of ETBI’s activities—the bio-conditioning. He was one of the trusted few who knew the chemical formula of adaptene, and was always in complete charge of every new bio-conditioning venture engaged in by ETBI.
Before his transfer to that project, bio-conditioning had been clumsy, taking months. Shelton’s researches enabled the process to be cut down to weeks. He had thereby tripled the colonization rate of the other bodies of the System….
“Well, the conditioning of men for Rhea is about done,” said Shelton, in relief. He and his assistant were in their laboratory, after having seen the excitement of an emergency landing at the port. “Another score for ETBI, and for adaptene. It’s laboratory evolution, in a way.”
“Yes, Dr. Shelton.”
Myra Benning slipped microscope slides into a cleansing bath of alcohol. Surreptitiously, however, she was watching his face. It was an interesting face to watch, with its glow of inspired feelings. It was the face of a leader and organizer, one whose mark would be left in the history of man’s conquest of space. But to Myra Benning, it was also just the face of—a man.
“Let’s see”—Shelton was counting on his fingers—“that’s the eleventh world outside of Earth to which ETBI has sent its graduates. Iapetus will be next, to make it an even dozen. That will be soon now.” His eyes glowed, as one who envisions ever greater horizons. “Exploring and mineral survey have gone on for several years. They’ll want bio-conditioned men soon, when the Navy has established an outpost. It’s like clockwork. World after world.”
The opti-phone bell rang.
Shelton snapped the “on” stud. The bewhiskered, jowled face of Grant Beatty, director of ETBI, flashed on the milky screen. One of the six men who, under the Earth Union’s president, ruled the spaceways, his forceful personality reflected from a habitually grave face. Iron-gray hair framed his piercing eyes and thin, firm lips. But his expression was more than just grave at the moment; it was tense.
“Shelton,” he barked out of the speaker, “drop whatever you’re doing. Something vital has just come up. We’ve got an assignment that sounds more important than anything we’ve tackled before. The space ship Tycho just docked, emergency landing.”
“The exploration ship?” queried Shelton, glancing at his assistant to see her head swing up sharply. “The one that went to Saturn for an official survey of Iapetus ore?”
“That’s it,” corroborated the director. He went on slowly, biting off the words incisively: “It’s back with only two men alive out of ten.”
Myra Benning’s hand went to her throat, but she said nothing. Shelton had to admire the way she waited calmly for the rest, though her own brother might be one of the victims.
Shelton was shaking his head. It always hurt to hear of brave men meeting doom out in the spaceways—young, spirited men who had much to live for. Some of them were important, too; scientists, technicians. Now they were martyrs to mankind’s steady march toward complete dominion of the Solar System.
“Two alive and the rest dead,” Shelton muttered. “On Iapetus—the next colony world on our list. What happened up there on Iapetus?” He shrank from asking which men