Robert Silverberg - Gorgon Planet

Our troubles started the moment the stiffened corpse of Flaherty was found, standing frozen in a field half a kilometer from the ship. We had all hated the big Irishmans guts, but finding his body, completely unharmed, stock-still and standing alone, was quite a jolt. There was no apparent sign of deathin fact, at first we thought he was sleeping on his feet. Horses do it, and Flaherty wasnt far removed from a horse.

But he wasnt. He was dead, dead as hell. And when the entire human population of a planet consists of eight, and one of those eight dies suddenly of unknown causes, the framework of your existence tends to sag a bit. We were scared.

We being the first Earth Exploratory Party (Type A-7) to Bellatrix IV in Orion. Eight men, altogether, bringing back a full report on the whole planet. Eight, of whom one, ox-like Flaherty, was stiff as a board before us.

What did it, Joel? asked Tavy Ramirez, our geologist.

How the blazes do I know? I snapped. I regretted losing my temper instantly. Sorry, Tavy. But I know as much as you do about the whole thing. Flaherty is dead, and theres something out there that killed him.

But theres nothing out there, protested Kai Framer, the biologist. For three days weve hunted up and down and havent found a sign of animal life.

Jonathan Morro, biologist, unwound his six-feet-eight and stretched. Maybe an intelligent plant did him in, eh, Kaftan?

I shook my head. Doubt it, Jon. No sign of violence, no plants in the vicinity. We found him standing in the middle of a field, on his two big feet, frozen dead. Doesnt figure.

Over in the corner of the cabin, Steegermedical officerwas puttering around the corpse. Steeger was an older man than most of us, one who had literally rotted in the service. He had contracted frogpox on Fomalhaut 11, and now wore two chrome-jacketed titanium legs. I looked over at him.

Any report, Doc?

Steeger turned watery eyes towards me. No sign of any physical harm, Joel. But his muscles are all tensed, as ifas ifwell, I cant phrase it. He seems to have been frozen in his tracks by some strange force. Im stuck, Joel.

Phil Janus, our chronicler, looked up from the chess game hed been playing with pilot Curt Holden and laughed. Maybe he had an overdose of his own joy-juice and it hardened all his arteries.

That was a reference to the crude still Flaherty had rigged the day we landed on Bellatrix IV. His duties as navigator had kept the big fellow pretty busy all trip, but first day down-planet and he spent his first idle hour building the still. He didnt say a word about it to anyone, but had shown up at mess that night pretty high. He never told us where the still was, though we searched all over. The second day Janus had located a liter flask of whisky, home-brewed, and his sampling had cost him a black eye.

No, said Framer. Lets be serious a moment. One of our group is dead, and we dont know what killed him. Theres something out there that Flaherty crossed. I move we organize a searching party to find out what.

Seconded, murmured Morro.

I looked at the corpse for a moment, then at the six men around me. Framer was my solid man, I knew, the leader of the group. Morro was strong, too, but usually too bored to bother with the welfare of the group. Young Holden, the pilot, was a follower; he didnt have any thoughts of his own, or at least he didnt express any. Tavy Ramirez I knew: quiet, smiling, unassumingnot very strong a person. Doc Steeger was small, frightened, not at all the sort of man whod go gallivanting around space as part of an exploratory crew. Janus was like Morro in many ways: he just didnt care. Flaherty, thank the Lord, was dead. The big ox had threatened nasty incidents many times, and had been a constant source of dissension on-ship.

As for meJoel Kaftan, Lieut. (Spatial)I was scared. Plenty scared. Visible monsters on a planet are bad enough; invisible ones were hell. I looked out at the port and saw the vast, empty, tree-studded plain that was our chunk of Bellatrix IV, and looked back at the men.

All in favor of a searching party, say aye.

Aye it was, and we divided up. There were seven of us, now, and that made things awkward. Steeger was indispensable, as our doctor, and he was of no use outdoors anyway. Holden was theoretically dispensablein a pinch I could probably have piloted the shipbut I would have hated to try, and so I confined him to quarters too. That left just five men for the search.

It was logical to split into two groups, one of three men and one of two. But I didnt think too clearly for a moment, and announced wed have three groups. I didnt figure that one poor chap would have to go out alone.

I teamed up with Ramirez, and Framer with Morro. That left Janus as a searching party of one.

Janus didnt mind. Phil rarely minded anything. Looks like Im lone wolf, he said. Okay, gentlemen. If you hear a loud silence from my neck of the woods, run like hell.

The airlock was open anyway (Bellatrix IV has an atmosphere roughly that of Earths, which was a boon) and the five of us left.

I started out with Tavy and we headed towards the site of Flahertys finish, very much scared. When your life span is 150 or so years, and youve got a hundred of them left, youre not too anxious to die young, even as a hero on an alien planet. Framer and Morro wandered up towards the big ridge behind the spaceship, and Janus headed for the clump of twisted red-leaved trees about two hundred meters away.

Tavy and I moved slowly, casting our eyes in all directions. As usual, there was no sign of any animal life. Bellatrix IV had an abundance of plants (not chlorophyll-based plants, but ones with some sort of iron-compound base), a temperate climate, flowing streams of real H2O water. But no visible animals. Of course, we hadnt covered very much territory yet, maybe two or three square kilometers.

No one dared to make a sound. Then suddenly, in about two seconds flat, we got our first taste of Bellatrician life. Poor Janus came flying out of his copse, and lumbering behind him out of nowhere came a bizarre thing about ten feet high, with non-functional wings, gleaming golden scales, and a headful of writhing, pencil-like tentacles.

We stood transfixed for a moment. I drew my rifle and put a shot into the scales, without any seeming effect. And then Janus turned and stared up at the beast for a fraction of a second as he ran.

The beast stared too, and the frantic pursuit came to an end. They glared at each other for just a moment, and then the monster wheeled and ran off in the other direction. It disappeared over the hill.

But Janus remained where he was, frozen dead.

We planted our second corpse and sat morosely in the cabin. We missed Flaherty just a bit, but not too much. But Janus, though, genial, clever, enormously capableit was hard to believe he was dead, killed by a gorgon.

For the beast of the forest was unquestionably a gorgon, right out of the old mythology. Doc Steeger gave us the first inkling when he pointed out that death had been caused by a sudden neural blast.

Framer looked up at this. We didnt see any physical contact between Phil and the monster, though.

No, broke in Ramirez. Janus just looked at the thing, and then he froze stiff

The thought came to Morro and myself almost instantaneously.

A gorgon, I said. Gorgon, he echoed. He stood uppreposterous lanky fellowand stared outside at the wide plain with its deadly clump of trees at one corner. A gorgon.

Pardon me, sir. It was Holden. Just exactly what is a gorgon, sir? They said nothing about them in the Academy.

Framer muttered something under his breath. Kal, I knew, was a man of wide learning, and he had nothing but scorn for modern educational methods, which are highly specialized. Morro spoke.