Hal Clement - Uncommon Sense

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Uncommon Sense

"So you've left us, Mr. Cunningham!" Malmeson's voice sounded rougher than usual, even allowing

for headphone distortion and the ever-present Denebian static. "Now, that's too bad. If you'd chosen to

stick around, we would have put you off on some world where you could live, at least. Now you can

stay here and fry. And I hope you live long enough to watch us take off—without you!"

Laird Cunningham did not bother to reply. The ship's radio compass should still be in working order,

and it was just possible that his erstwhile assistants might start hunting for him, if they were given some

idea of the proper direction to begin a search. Cunningham was too satisfied with his present shelter to be

very anxious for a change. He was scarcely half a mile from the grounded ship, in a cavern deep enough

to afford shelter from Deneb's rays when it rose, and located in the side of a small hill, so that he could

watch the activities of Malmeson and his companion without exposing himself to their view.

In a way, of course, the villain was right. If Cunningham permitted the ship to take off without him, he

might as well open his face plate; for, while he had food and oxygen for several days' normal

consumption, a planet scarcely larger than Luna, baked in the rays of one of the fiercest radiating bodies

in the galaxy, was most unlikely to provide further supplies when these ran out. He wondered how long it

would take the men to discover the damage he had done to the drive units in the few minutes that had

elapsed between the crash landing and their breaking through the control room door, which Cunningham

had welded shut when he had discovered their intentions. They might not notice at all; he had severed a

number of inconspicuous connections at odd points. Perhaps they would not even test the drivers until

they had completed repairs to the cracked hull. If they didn't, so much the better.

Cunningham crawled to the mouth of his cave and looked out across the shallow valley in which the

ship lay. It was barely visible in the starlight, and there was no sign of artificial luminosity to suggest that

Malmeson might have started repairs at night. Cunningham had not expected that they would, but it was

well to be sure. Nothing more had come over his suit radio since the initial outburst, when the men had

discovered his departure; he decided that they must be waiting for sunrise, to enable them to take more

accurate stock of the damage suffered by the hull.

He spent the next few minutes looking at the stars, trying to arrange them into patterns he could

remember. He had no watch, and it would help to have some warning of approaching sunrise on

succeeding nights. It would not do to be caught away from his cave, with the flimsy protection his suit

could afford from Deneb's radiation. He wished he could have filched one of the heavier worksuits; but

they were kept in a compartment forward of the control room, from which he had barred himself when

he had sealed the door of the latter chamber.

He remained at the cave mouth, lying motionless and watching alternately the sky and the ship. Once

or twice he may have dozed; but he was awake and alert when the low hills beyond the ship's hull caught

the first rays of the rising sun. For a minute or two they seemed to hang detached in a black void, while

the flood of blue-white light crept down their slopes; then one by one, their bases merged with each other

and the ground below to form a connected landscape. The silvery hull gleamed brilliantly, the reflection

from it lighting the cave behind Cunningham and making his eyes water when he tried to watch for the

opening of the air lock.

He was forced to keep his eyes elsewhere most of the time, and look only in brief glimpses at the

dazzling metal; and in consequence, he paid more attention to the details of his environment than he might

otherwise have done. At the time, this circumstance annoyed him; he has since been heard to bless it

fervently and frequently.

Although the planet had much in common with Luna as regarded size, mass, and airlessness, its

landscape was extremely different. The daily terrific heatings which it underwent, followed by abrupt and

equally intense temperature drops each night, had formed an excellent substitute for weather; and

elevations that might at one time have rivaled the Lunar ranges were now mere rounded hillocks like that

containing Cunningham's cave. As on the Earth's moon, the products of the age-long spalling had taken

the form of fine dust, which lay in drifts everywhere. What could have drifted it, on an airless and

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Hal Clement - Uncommon Sense

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