THE IONIAN CYCLE
BY WILLIAM TENN
A SPACEWAYS NOVELET
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Thrilling Wonder Stories August 1948.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
CHAPTER I
Spaceship Survivors
The tiny lifeboat seemed to hang suspended from its one working rearjet, then it side-slipped and began to spin violently downwards to thesickly orange ground of the planet.
Inside the narrow cabin, Dr. Helena Naxos was hurled away from thepatient she was tending and slammed into a solid bulkhead. Theshock jolted the breath out of her. She shook her head and grabbedfrantically at an overhead support as the cabin tilted again. JakeDonelli glared up from the view-screen where the alien earth expandedat him and yelled across the control table:
"Great gravities, Blaine, soft jet! Soft jet before we're pulped!"
The tall, balding archaeologist of what had once been the First DenebExpedition waved tremulous hands at the switches before him.
"Which—which button do you press?" he quavered. "I f-forget how y-yousoften those forward things."
"You don't press any—oh, wait a minute."
The spaceman tore the restraining straps away and bounded out of hisseat. He seized the projecting edges of the table and made his waystrainingly around it as the lifeboat spun faster in great swoops.
Dr. Archibald Blaine was squeezed against the back of his chair whenDonelli reached him.
"I forgot the button," he mumbled.
"No button, doc. I told you. You jerk this toggle—like so. You haulthis switch over—like so. Then you turn the little red wheel aroundtwice. Does it. Whew! Now things are smoother!"
Donelli let go of the table as the forward softening jets caught on andstraightened the vessel into a flat glide. He walked back to the maincontrol bank, followed by Blaine and the woman biologist.
"The sea?" Helena Naxos asked at last, lifting her eyes from theview-screen. "That is the sea?"
"Nothing else but," Donelli told her. "We used up all but about acupful of fuel trying to avoid falling into this system's sun—if youcan call two planets a system! We're operating the cupful on the onemain jet left unfused when the Ionian Pinafore blew up. Nowwe've overshot the continent and riding above the sea without a paddle.Good, huh? What'd he say the sea was made of?"
Dr. Douglas Ibn Yussuf propped himself on his uninjured elbow andcalled from his bunk:
"According to the spectroscopic tabulations you brought me an hour ago,the seas of this planet are almost pure hydrofluoric acid. There is agood deal of free fluorine in the atmosphere, although most of it is inthe form of hydrofluoric acid vapor and similar combinations."
"Suppose you save some of that good news," Donelli suggested. "I knowall about hydrofluoric acid being able to eat through almost anythingand its grandmother. Tell me this: how long will the Grojen shieldingon the hull stand up under it? An estimate, Doc."
With puckered brow, the Egyptian scientist considered. "If notreplaced, say anywhere—oh, anywhere from five terrestrial days to aweek. Not more."
"Fine!" the pale spaceman said happily. "We'll all be dead long beforethat." His eyes watched the view-screen.
"Not if we find fuel for the converter and tanks," Blaine reminded himsternly. "And we