Glamorous Lyn Venable of Dallas, Texas, makes a first appearance inthese pages (but by no means her first appearance in this field), withthis sensitive story of a young man who needn't have run. A contributorto William Nolan's (OF TIME AND TEXAS, November, 1956,Fantastic Universe) famous Ray Bradbury Review, Miss Venablewants, very very much, to be a part, albeit small, of the comeback ofscience fiction that is seen today, as she wrote us recently.
Bheel still stood on the patio, transfixed with horror.He heard the terrified cry "Dheb Tyn-Dall"—and then thevigilant Guardians got him....
Tyndall heard the rocketsbegin to roar, and it seemedas though the very blood inhis veins pulsated with thesurging of those mighty jets.Going? They couldn't begoing. Not yet. Not withouthim! And he heard the roaringrise to a mighty crescendo,and he felt the tremblingof the ground beneath theroom in which he lay, andthen the great sound grewless, and grew dim, andfinally dissipated in a thinhum that dwindled finallyinto silence. They were gone.
Tyndall threw himself facedown on his couch, the feel ofthe slick, strange fabric coldand unfriendly against hisface. He lay there for a longtime, not moving. Tyndall'sthoughts during those hourswere of very fundamentalthings, that beneath him, beneaththe structure of thebuilding in which he was confined,lay a world that wasnot Earth, circling a sun thatwas not Sol, and that theship had gone and wouldnever come back. He wasalone, abandoned. He thoughtof the ship, a silver streaknow in the implacable blacknessof space, threading itsway homeward through thestars to Sol, to Earth. Theutter desolation which sweptover him at the impact of hisaloneness was more than hecould endure, and he forcedhimself to think of somethingelse.
Why was he here then?John Tyndall, 3rd Engineerof the starship Polaris. It hadbeen such a routine trip, ferryinga group of zoologistsand biologists around the galaxylooking for unclassifiedlife-supporting planets. Theyhad found such a world circlingan obscure sun half wayacross the galaxy. An idealworld for research expedition,teeming with life, thescientists were delighted. Ina few short months they discoveredand cataloged over athousand varieties of floraand fauna peculiar to thisplanet, called Arrill, after thenative name which soundedsomething like Ahhrhell.Yes, there were natives, humanoid,civilized and gracious.They had seemed towelcome the strangers, as amatter of fact they hadseemed to expect them.
The Arrillians had learnedEnglish easily, its basicsounds not being too alien totheir own tongue. They hadquite a city there on the edgeof the jungle, although, in circlingthe planet beforelanding, the expedition hadnoted that this was the onlycity. On a world only a littlesmaller than Earth, one city,surrounded completely by thetropical jungle which coveredthe rest of the world. A citywithout power, without machineryof any kind, and yeta city that was self-sufficient.
Well-tilled fields stretchedto the very edge of the jungle,where high walls kept out thevoracious growth. The fieldsfed the city well, and clothedit well. And there were minesto yield up fine metal and preciousgems. The Earthmenhad marveled, and yet, it hadseemed strange. On all thisplanet, just one city with perhapshalf a million peoplewithin its walls. But this wasnot a problem for the expedition.
The crew of the Polarisand the members of theexpedition had spent ma