Title: Planet In Reverse
Author: Guth, Henry
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.


*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Planet In Reverse" ***


                           PLANET IN REVERSE

                             By HENRY GUTH

              On that insanely jumbled world, their love
               was a solid fact. Yet he could only stare
             helplessly as she sobbed out on his shoulder,
             "Dleif emit desrever senutpen morf em evas!"

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
                      Planet Stories Spring 1948.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


Communication with Earth was out. Completely. Radio deader than a
vacuum.

Darrel Bond allowed himself a grin. The fleet admiral had warned him
against straying off the freight lanes. Had, in fact, threatened to
break him down to a button-pusher if he did it again. That was a laugh!
Button-pusher! What was he now, if not a button-pusher?

In the old days, space piloting had been something--a thrill and a
challenge. But now--buttons! Ships so automatic that he seemed to just
go along for the ride. One man controlling a million-ton ship where it
used to require a crew of fifteen or twenty. A lonely, boring business.

That's why he had taken over the ship and swung outside Uranus'
orbit. Mostly to break up the monotonous routine. And then there was
Neptune.... The planet had been out of bounds ever since those geodetic
expeditions had set out for Neptune over two centuries ago--and never
come back. Early space patrols and search parties had been sent into
that part of the celestial sphere--only to disappear forever. The
planet had become a symbol of the terrifying unknown. Eventually it was
forbidden by interplanetary law to stray beyond the orbit of Uranus.

But why? There must be reasons for those disappearances. Who could
resist an invitation like that?

"Some day," they said. "Some day. All in good time."

Now was as good a time as any.

But the radio was dead. It shouldn't be. It had a hell of a long range!
And the gravity plates. Acting up. He should land somewhere and do a
repair job.

Darrel looked at Neptune growing on the screen. He was getting close.

It stood to reason.

Neptune right handy ... and he needed seventy hours or so to repair the
plates.

Simple.

Funny about that radio though. All of a sudden, without warning or
reason, it had gone dead. And the gravity plates, too. Then that
strange, rending sensation when he was approximately halfway of the
mean distance between the orbits of Uranus and Neptune. A strong force
had seemed to grip the ship and wrestle with it for a few frenzied
seconds.

Then the dead radio and the fouled-up plates.

But here was Neptune, bulging on the screen.

Darrel concentrated on his instruments--and began to check the ship's
speed.

       *       *       *       *       *

Before venturing out the airlock, he made a superficial check of the
gravity plates. Not too bad. He could probably repair them in less than
the seventy hours he'd thought he would need. The radio was in flawless
condition. He switched on the transmitter, and sent signals crashing
powerfully out into space. But the receiver received nothing. Not a
spark, not a gasp.

Might as well look around outside.

Outside, unexpectedly, there was a girl. So beautiful it was a physical
shock. Raven-black hair, cream skin and a small, sharply-outlined
figure clothed in a strangely translucent yellow tunic. An incarnation
of delicate loveliness. Fragile. Unbelievable.

She stood about twenty feet from the ship--waving. Waving listlessly
and with an expression of infinite sadness on her face.

Darrel watched, dumbfounded, as the girl walked toward him hesitantly.
Tears were glistening on her cheeks. Real human tears!

She kissed him. Soundly.

Darrel tottered and leaned against the airlock as the girl smiled at
him sadly, wistfully, and then went off slowly, walking--backwards!

Darrel shook his head. Backwards! The girl strode along with uncanny
confidence, not looking where she was going, until she stopped about
twenty yards away and sat down on the ground facing him.

Darrel sat down too.

Hallucinations! He was space-happy! It had finally happened. Caroming
around in space did things to people, mostly psychological things. The
system's sanitariums were full of old space dogs who had cracked under
the strain. They had seen and endured too much. But Darrel Bond ... he
was still young. He couldn't be cracking up now! Why he ... hell!

_This_ was no hallucination! The fragrance of the black-haired girl's
lips was still on his mouth. It was heady.

He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth.

There! A thin streak of violet across the veins of his hand. Lipstick!
It was unmistakable. A violet shade of lipstick. He put his tongue to
the streak tentatively.

It was lipstick all right.

He rose to his feet and stared across the intervening space at the
girl. She seemed to blend with the pale and rolling surrealist
landscape of Neptune. His brain was reeling. This sort of thing just
didn't happen. You land on an unexplored planet and, wham! a girl
kisses you! No, despite the lipstick, it must be a dream.

And that walking backward. That settled it. People walked backward only
in dreams.

Grumbling thickly, he reentered the open airlock. The thing to do now
was repair the ship. Later, he would explore around a little and see
what Neptune was like. If he recorded enough valuable information about
the planet, maybe the Admiral would be lenient when he hauled him up
before the mast for galavanting off with a Corporation ship.

Darrel hauled the wrecked plates outside the ship to work on them in
the open. He could get things done faster out where there was more room
to move around. The mysterious girl was still there, quietly watching
his every action. He hunched deliberately over the delicate gravitation
unit that bulged from the base of one plate. A hyper-thin vibrator rod
had been cracked. But he could mend it.

He laid down his tools and paused in the work. Lazily, he lighted a
Martian cigarette and looked toward the girl.

If she were an hallucination, why didn't she go away?

Instead, she rose and came toward him briskly--her jet-black hair
contrasting vividly with her yellow, short-skirted tunic--walking
backward.

Darrel scratched his head helplessly and watched as the girl, her back
toward him, strode weirdly up to the ship. She turned about and smiled
sadly.

"Lerrad, retal nruter liw I," she said. "Noos, on I, gniveel ra ooy."

"What?" Apparently that gibberish was supposed to mean something. But
it didn't.

The girl looked a little less woebegone now.

"Won trapa la," she said, and looked at the gravity plates spread out
on the ground.

"That means nothing to me," Darrel said.

The Neptunian girl had turned and began to weave her way backward
through the plates. It was uncanny the way she did it. She must have
eyes in the back of her head! The gait was smooth enough, but it looked
so strange in reverse. So damned strange!

Darrel followed her with his eyes. His spine was tingling. Like a hawk
he watched her. She was a looker. The loveliest creature he had ever
seen and ... blazing comets! ... she acted as though she were nutty
about him, the way she smiled, jabbered and touched him affectionately.

But why the retrogression? Why was she operating like an old film being
run off backwards in a projector?

Finally, the girl began to walk away again, her face toward him,
placing one foot surely behind the other. She smiled cheerfully, waved,
and then went on to disappear over the hill.

Darrel sat down abruptly. He glued his eyes to the spot where the girl
had disappeared.

For ten minutes he watched, but nothing stirred on the hill.

He noticed now that there were dim shapes thrusting up beyond the hill.
They looked like the tops of buildings. A group of them. Probably a
city.

Why not? The girl had to come from somewhere. But why the devil...!

He stared at the gravity plates on the ground. They weren't getting
repaired this way. The girl was beginning to get under his skin.

The hell with it! He'd work on the plates now.

He began to whistle, shrilly and off-key. He always whistled when his
lust for adventure was about to be satisfied. Neptune, defiance of the
fleet admiral, a dead radio and blown gravity plates ... an impetuous
dream-girl ... these added up to adventure.

Tomorrow he'd go over the hill and see what was on the other side.

       *       *       *       *       *

A city was on the other side. A good-sized city. No more than a mile
away. Darrel glanced back at the ship from the hilltop, shrugged and
turned toward the city.

When he reached it he found a nightmare world.

These Neptunians were all crazy. Disregarding every natural law, they
dashed about the streets backward. Every last one of them. And they
stared at him as though _he_ were a freak!

He stopped at a corner to collect his senses. Vehicles milled and
rushed--backwards. At high velocities they slammed up and down the
streets in reverse, a steady stream, in all directions ... and without
a mishap! Not a one of the lunatics had an accident!

He leaned dizzily against a metal post.

To steady himself he shifted his glance to immovable objects, to
stationary things, to buildings. They behaved rationally. They didn't
do things backwards. They didn't do anything but stand there, solid,
substantial and sane.

Except the one across the street. The theater marquee was lit up
brilliantly--and it was morning. He glared at it belligerently, as
though it were playing a dirty trick on him.

The lights blinked out suddenly.

Darrel moved into the crowd on the sidewalk and went along with it--he
forward and the others backward. It was mad! Everyone stared at him in
open astonishment, as though _he_ were the one who was going backward!

He came to what seemed to be a restaurant, and went in.

Over there. A waiter seemed to be beckoning. At least, he was pointing
at him. Darrel walked over, his eyes on the astonished face of the
waiter, and sat down to the table, already spread with food.

It was piping hot, very strange to the palate, but good. Darrel's
appetite quickened. He ate hungrily.

Munching a piece of pastry, he looked up. He stopped chewing. The group
at the next table was gazing at him with wide, incredulous eyes. He
felt uncomfortable, and moved his glance around the room.

He stopped eating and stared. Not only backward but ... blazing comets!

Fascinated, he watched a man come in the entrance backwards, seat
himself at a table littered with dirty dishes and crumpled napkins
and--regurgitate food back into the dishes! The food reappeared in
chunks. The man manipulated knife and fork, and the chunks became one
whole.

When the entire meal had been regurgitated into the dishes, and they
seemed hot and ready to serve, a waiter came up and carried them all
away. Moving backward, always backward.

Darrel felt nauseated by the unnatural process. He got up and left the
restaurant abruptly. Wide eyes followed his progress to the door.

He moved with the crazy crowd that went back-side first. Ahead was a
parkway that had normal, stationary benches. He would sit on one.

       *       *       *       *       *

He had been sitting on the bench, watching this incredible world of
retropulsion a half hour when he caught sight of the girl in the yellow
tunic.

She came walking toward him backwards, stopped, turned, and smiled
radiantly. She spoke, and her talk was the same nonsensical chattering.

Darrel blinked.

The girl had just been standing there, standing still, when a
crumpled-up piece of paper flew up from the ground and into her
hand--magically. With a rustling sound, the paper opened in her hand
like a flower unfolding. She held it out to him. There was writing on
it.

It was intelligible. Darrel grasped the paper. Stunned, he read it
again.

"I love you, Darrel," it said. "You have lost your memory of me by this
time, I know. We understood this yesterday, you and I, perfectly. Now,
as we are drawn further apart from each other, I remember and you do
not yet know. Ours is a strange and sad union, Darrel."

It made no sense. None whatever. Darrel rubbed his ear vigorously.
Dammit! There was intimacy in this note. It seemed to suggest that they
had a mutual past and that he had forgotten it or--did not yet know.
What did it all mean? He looked helplessly at the girl.

She was sitting beside him now, on the bench, writing, it seemed, on
the sheet of paper he had just read.

He twisted his head to watch ... and found himself staring in
fascination.

The pen in the girl's hand glided rapidly over the page. Everything
normal except that it began at the bottom of the page, moving from end
to the beginning of the message, _erasing_ as it went! One by one the
letters and words disappeared under the swift strokes of the pen until
the sheet was clean and unblemished. Then the girl placed it in her bag.

Darrel relaxed. "What the devil...." There! It happened again. A
ball of paper, defying all familiar physical laws, leaped from the
ground beside the bench and flew into the girl's outstretched hand. It
unfolded as her hand opened, and she held it out, smiling sadly all the
while.

"It is true then," the note said. "You have forgotten. I am Leyloon."

Leyloon? Leyloon? Her name, of course. Darrel strained to remember a
Leyloon. There was no such name in his memory tract. He looked hard
at the girl, at Leyloon. She was ethereal. He would _like_ to have
memories of her. He didn't though.

But he was _supposed_ to remember her. Leyloon, Leyloon. No ... his
brain held no recollections of this girl except that yesterday she came
up to the ship and ... but _yesterday_, the first note had said, he had
understood perfectly.

He scratched his head furiously.

Yesterday he had been more completely at a loss than he was today! He
hadn't known of this city, where everything went in reverse, he hadn't
known the girl's name ... he hadn't known anything!

The girl erased the note with reverse writing strokes of the pen. She
smiled strangely, said, "Noolyel," and nodded.

Driven by inexplicable impulse, Darrel drew a pad from his shirt pocket
and wrote on it, "Who are you?" and showed it to the girl, Leyloon. It
was ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous! Asking a question after it had
been answered. But the inner compulsion had been irresistible.

He was silent for a long time. An hour ... two hours. Leyloon
chatted gaily, even affectionately, in her strange tongue. She wrote
incomprehensible things on pieces of paper that flew up from where
they lay on the ground and from the waste receptacle beside the bench.
She bewildered him, and yet.... Her every action was in reverse, but,
despite the weirdness of the effect, hers were graceful and lovely
actions.

Finally she left, rising to her feet and setting off down the
parkway--walking backwards. She waved near a bend of the walk, then
backed rapidly around it and out of sight.

Darrel returned to the ship. He weaved his way slowly and drunkenly
through the crowds of this crazy world going in reverse.

The ship was a lifesaver. It sat there as solidly as a rock. He rubbed
his hand over the smooth metal hull and began to regain his sense of
reality.

Over twenty-four hours already and none of the gravity plates was
repaired. At this rate he would never get off Neptune ... that is, if
he wanted to.

He attacked the job with more energy than enthusiasm.

       *       *       *       *       *

The third day began with two realizations. The first realization was
that he was very definitely in love with Leyloon.

The second, that time here was moving in the opposite direction from
the time-stream in which he existed. It was the only way to explain all
these strange happenings. He had thought about it half the night.

It was urgent that he find Leyloon and explain both these things. But
he shouldn't go off half cocked. He was too excited to permit rational
behavior, and might only confuse the problems which already were
confused almost beyond comprehension.

With an effort of will, he lit a cigarette and dragged at it with
deliberate slowness. When the cigarette was finished he threw it away
and picked up his tools to begin work on the gravity plates.

He worked until he was calm.

Only then did he leave the ship, squatting in the hollow below the
hill, and set out for the fantastic Neptunian city. How could he find
Leyloon? The city was labyrinthine. It would be impossible.

But on the other side of the hill he met her. She was coming slowly up
the gentle slope, backing up as usual.

Obeying an impulsive thought, Darrel moved twenty yards off the path
and waited.

As though he were a magnet, Leyloon left the path and backed up to him.
She turned then and exposed a face that was radiantly happy.

Before Darrel could collect himself to explain what was on his mind,
the weird things began again.

The broken, shredded end of a slender cigarette soared up from the
ground and settled in Leyloon's hand. A stream of smoke formed in the
air, and flowed into her mouth. She put the cigarette to her lips. It
glowed. She smiled and chattered gaily, nonsensically. Little clouds of
blue-gray smoke kept forming unnaturally in the open air and flowing
into Leyloon's mouth and nostrils. The cigarette grew in length with
each inhalation.

Darrel stared. It was really incredible!

When the cigarette was whole again, the girl put a flaring lighter to
it, and the tip went out. She placed lighter and cigarette in her bag.

"Whew!" said Darrel. "This is beginning to give me the creeps." He
tried his best to grin. "What happens now, Leyloon? If my theory is
right, we're going to back-track into your time."

As if in answer to his question, Leyloon began to back off rapidly down
the hill.

"Whoa!" Darrel ran after her.

He felt all kinds of a fool walking that way. They faced each other,
about a foot apart, she striding backward like something out of last
year's nightmare, and he striding forward following her. It was the
damnedest sensation!

He wondered how she felt about it. If his theory was correct, then
Leyloon thought _she_ was following _him_ the way he was following her.

To anyone watching, they must have looked like a pair of lunatics.

Here they were, existing simultaneously on the same planet, Neptune,
but existing in time-streams diametrically opposed. While Neptune and
all things of and on it were moving in time toward their youth and
beginnings, _he_ was moving in time toward maturity and death. But,
paradoxically, each to himself was growing toward age in a normal
manner. From either viewpoint, the other was growing or becoming
younger with every minute. His yesterday was Leyloon's tomorrow, but
Leyloon's yesterday was _his_ tomorrow. The situation seemed hopelessly
absurd.

Absurd or not, he would have to make the best of it. But it all seemed
so senseless! Why in blazes was he going off on this wild-goose chase?

Leyloon was backing up briskly, only a foot or so ahead of him.

Maybe that was why. She was exquisite. It was a satisfaction to have
her near, even though her world was all out of whack. And she was
getting under his skin more and more every minute. A Neptunian nymph,
possibly a figment of his erratic imagination, and he was falling for
her. Like a meteor. He, Darrel Bond, cool, level-headed astronaut
falling for a Neptunian myth with serene face and fouled-up metabolism!

Yes. He was. He had to admit it.

He followed Leyloon's tantalizing figure through the bewildering city.
The swarm and rush of reverse traffic and activity made his head spin
dizzily.

Leyloon turned finally, into a house. The noises of the city were
suddenly cut off.

Almost immediately the business with paper and pen began. She picked a
sheet from a desk and held it out to him.

"It is almost evening," it read. "I will go back to the ship with you
now."

Darrel swore. They had just _come_ from the ship!

With the pen, Leyloon erased the absurd message and fastened the sheet
to the gummed end of a pad with a rapid reverse tearing motion.

"Blazing comets!" Darrel exploded.

Her face radiant, Leyloon held up another sheet.

"Yes, of course," it said. "Have you forgotten already?"

Darrel stared at the page blankly. Forgotten what? Yes, what?

       *       *       *       *       *

Without conscious volition he took a part in the grotesque drama. He
began to write on the pad he carried in his pocket. Leyloon peered at
him strangely as he wrote, her eyes wide open and somewhat incredulous.
He watched the words form under his hand, not knowing what they would
be.

"Do you live here, Leyloon?" he wrote.

What a stupid question! He knew she lived here. Why would she turn into
the place if she didn't? Why in the name of infinite galaxies did he
ask a question like that?

Another sheet was being held out to him.

"Yes. You decided it was."

Decided what was what?

Nonplussed, he stood witness to himself in the act of writing, "But is
it inevitable, Leyloon?"

Darrel growled angrily. Was _what_ inevitable?

He wrote again, and as he wrote he saw an increasing fascination and
wonder in the girl's eyes as she watched him. The rite was as strange
to her as it was to him.

"Absolutely," his message said. "I do."

Now what? This was all meaningless.

"Do you truly love me, Darrel? Do you think there is a way for us?"

That did it! Now he was committing himself to all sorts of things
like ... wait a minute--as a matter of fact he _was_ in love with this
twisted-around Neptunian witch. No. That wasn't the right word. She
wasn't a witch. She was more like a ... hell! They would get nowhere
with this question and answer method. It was too balled up.

Flat statements were what they needed. Statements that were
self-evident.

He began to write down his theory about this paradoxical situation in
which they were both entangled. It was pure theory, but to Darrel it
seemed the only logical explanation of these weird events. That he and
Leyloon were living time-lines running counter to each other, seemed
obvious enough. Within infinity there must be infinite possibilities.
Since infinity was, in relation to time or anything else, infinite in
one direction as well as the opposite direction, it was conceivable
that corporeal objects could co-exist but in time-fields diametrically
opposed.

Neptune existed in the opposite time-stream. The region occupied by
this time-stream undoubtedly continued around in a ring corresponding
roughly to the planet's orbit. The disturbance midway from Uranus'
orbit would substantiate that. How far into space, away from the sun,
the diametrical time existed, was impossible to guess. Its influence
might extend beyond the solar system--or not. Who knew?

There was understanding in Leyloon's eyes. And agreement.

They scribbled and exchanged ideas well into the afternoon. Darrel felt
an exultation.

Then annoyance, then discouragement. As the hours passed, Leyloon
comprehended less until, as evening came on, she was openly incredulous.

When he left the house to return to the ship, Leyloon was watching him
almost with astonishment.

       *       *       *       *       *

When the fourth day began, Darrel inspected the ship with satisfaction.
He had worked on into the night and the gravity plates were all
repaired. It would take only a few more hours to install them.

He reflected that though today was _today_ for him, it would be
_yesterday_ for Leyloon. She would know nothing, absolutely nothing, of
the past three days. They were her future. What would her reactions be
on this day?

Not long after the sun had risen, she came walking uncertainly over the
hill--backwards as usual--casting quizzical glances over her shoulder
as she advanced.

Darrel was absorbed by the spectacle. He understood now--understood
that actually, from Leyloon's point of view, she was walking _away_
from the ship instead of toward it. This was the end of the day for
her, while for him it was the beginning.

Leyloon stopped and turned to face him. She wore a helpless, puzzled
expression.

It was disturbing. Darrel sensed--and the knowledge cut like a
knife--that the girl was slipping away from him, sliding inexorably
into her past. And in her past, he had no place. None whatever. He was
moving to the point in her life where he did not exist for her. The
idea was appalling.

She was holding out a note for him to see.

It read, "Night is coming on and I must retire, stranger. This has been
an extraordinary day."

Stranger! So he was nothing more than that now! And only
yesterday ... or tomorrow ... there had been complete understanding
between them. They had been in love then, had told each other so! And
now ... stranger!

But there was evidence of a shy, hesitant affection in the girl's face
and actions.

Darrel stifled a sudden impulse to swear and smash things. Every
minute, every second they were moving toward Leyloon's childhood and
her complete ignorance of his existence. It was horrible and it was
inevitable. Frustrating. Infuriating! The minutes were precious,
priceless, and they clicked by with the ruthless precision of a
machine. They were going ... gone, irretrievably.

It was almost noon--noon for both! Here was mutual ground. It was not
one time of day for him and another for her ... it was noon for both.
They moved toward the moment from opposite directions, Leyloon from
afternoon and he from morning. Exactly at noon, when time coincided for
them ... he would kiss her.

Smack!

His face stung from the reverse-motion blow. She had slapped him. But
he hadn't done anything yet.

Then, he kissed her.

Now, when a slap might be expected, nothing happened. Because now she
hadn't been kissed yet. She was watching him with bewitching, innocent
eyes, utterly unaware that within a minute she would be kissed--or
_had_ been kissed.

She stared at him with a strange look, as though he were mad.

Darrel dug for a pencil and wrote desperately. He had to explain that
kiss.

But it was hopeless. Of course it would be. Naturally she would think
he was crazy for writing notes explaining he had kissed her when he
_hadn't_ kissed her yet.

He looked up, and Leyloon was gone. She was disappearing over the crest
of the hill.

Darrel swore freely--eloquently!

       *       *       *       *       *

The morning of the fifth day--or was it evening?--Darrel riveted
the last gravity plate into position in the bulkhead. The ship was
ready. He could leave any time. There was a valuable cargo in the hold
awaiting delivery to Uranus. So why the hell didn't he leave?

Because Leyloon was standing, obviously confused, on the slope of the
hill outside.

They stared at each other a long time. Darrel's forehead wrinkled in
a worried frown. Today Leyloon knew even less about him than she had
yesterday. He must be a _complete_ stranger to her now. This might
easily be the first time she had ever seen him. Probably she had been
out on a quiet evening stroll--it was Neptune's evening--and had seen
the ship, and stopped to look at it.

Standing on the hill, half-silhouetted against the dusky sky, she
seemed wonderfully desirable. So small, fragile and alone.

Making up his mind suddenly, he left the ship and approached the
girl. Her eyes never left him. Undoubtedly she was dumbfounded at his
backward behavior.

He leaned toward her. A stinging slap creased his cheek. It hurt.

"Don't tell me I'm going to kiss her again!" he thought, prepared to
defy that possibility.

He kissed her.

Leyloon's eyes were big and full of fear. He hadn't kissed her yet but
she must have been frightened by his menacing attitude. He scrutinized
her face. It was thrillingly beautiful. But it showed no comprehension.
No recognition. No faintest glimmer of affection. She did not know him.

Cursing all the planets and asteroids in the universe, Darrel swung
around and threw himself back into the ship.

He sat with his back against the cold metal hull of the ship smoking
Martian cigarettes nervously, lighting a new one from the butt of the
one he had just smoked.

She had escaped him. Slipped into the past. He had ceased to exist
for her. Five short days ago he had stepped out of his ship and been
kissed by Leyloon. Biff! Like that. She had gushed over him. His
arrival must have been a departure in her eyes. She had been sad to see
him leaving. Heartbroken perhaps.

But now she didn't know him from Adam. He hadn't even entered her life
yet. It was all over unless....

Unless he could take her to Earth? No. Impossible! It would be the same
farce all over again. Absolutely preposterous!

Maybe not. Why was it _he_ hadn't succumbed to the time forces in which
Neptune existed? He _should_ have. Others had. Those lost expeditions,
they accounted for the language and civilization here on Neptune.

Darrel lit another cigarette nervously, clumsily.

Maybe it was because of the speed with which he had approached Neptune.
He must have ripped through the--through the point of time transition
with so great a velocity that neither he nor his ship were gripped by
the opposing time flow. If he had come at a lesser rate of speed, the
change might have been effected. Even as it was, the ship had almost
been gripped.

He threw the cigarette away and paced back and forth in front of the
ship.

If he could take Leyloon out there ... take her across the zone, very
slowly, a crawling two or three thousand miles per hour ... it might
work. Her entire metabolism system might be reversed. She might exist
_properly_ in _his_ time.

Blazing comets!

On the other hand, it might kill her. Tear her apart or something.
How many members of the old expeditions survived the transition was
unknown. The outcome was impossible to foresee.

It might kill her.

Darrel fumbled for another cigarette. And yet, he had to do
_something_! She was receding into her past every minute. Time was
desperately short.

The sun was setting--or was it rising?--and the night was coming on
swiftly. The day was short on Neptune. Little more than half of an
Earth day. He crumpled up the empty cigarette pack and threw it to the
ground.

Kidnapping!

But it was the only way.

It should be relatively simple. Neptunians were a systematic race. They
slept at night. All of them. When night came, all activity ceased. He
would be unmolested as he went through the city ... unless the girl
raised a commotion.

Darrel rubbed his jaw. It couldn't be avoided.

When the night was black, he walked behind the beam of his torch over
the crest of the hill and into the city.

       *       *       *       *       *

Two hours later he came up to the ship from out of the dark, carrying a
limp form across his shoulders. His face was pale. It had wrenched his
soul to knock the girl out. He felt like a murderer. Creeping into the
house that way in the dead of night, finding the bedroom, the quietly
slumbering girl, then ... sock! It was the toughest thing he had ever
done.

He strapped Leyloon's unconscious body onto the bunk in the cabin,
sealed the airlock, and dropped wearily into the bucket-seat before the
maze of manual controls. Beads of sweat oozed from his skin. He wiped
them away.

The magnetic space-drive wooshed powerfully at an almost sub-audio
level. Darrel glanced apprehensively at the girl. Her beauty and
helplessness and the thought of what he might be doing to her, tore at
him.

"If I'm wrong, I'll make it up to you in hell!" he swore, and declined
the trip-lever beneath his hand.

The dark landscape dropped away rapidly. Within minutes, Neptune was
a great mass on the screen, diminishing in size ... diminishing,
diminishing.

He wiped his damp forehead and stared at the instrument panel.

If she came out of it with a memory of the five days, she would be in
love with him. Maybe enough in love with him to condone his socking
and kidnapping her. If that happened, he would give up this fool
freight-hauling. It was nothing but pushing buttons anyhow. He would
spit in the fleet admiral's eye. Tell him to fly his own ships. Leyloon
and he....

But what if she came out of it _without_ a memory of the five days? He
was taking her away before they happened, wasn't he? He was kidnapping
a Neptunian girl who had, in fact, never set eyes on him! How would he
explain _that_?

Yes, how! She would probably hate his guts ... and he couldn't blame
her if she did. She would probably demand to be taken back. She....

The sweat glistened on his forehead. If that happened, it would be the
end. There would be no point to existence now if....

He glued his eyes to the instruments. They were hours away from Neptune
now. Nearing the zone. It was time to slow the ship.

There were vibrations. Clawing, clutching vibrations that began to
insinuate themselves into the ship, into every cell and atom within
that bubble of metal. Vibrations. They were ghastly.

But they couldn't be doing to him what they were doing to Leyloon. She
might be undergoing a complete reverse in time. Every particle of her
being constricted, twisted and battled over.

If she lived through it, would she know him? Would she know that....

His hands were slick with sweat. They slipped on the controls.
Vibrations thrilled every cell of his body.

Then it stopped.

They were across, into the time-stream of the inner planets. Darrel set
the controls with feverish haste for full speed, and switched them over
to automatic.

He wanted to look at the girl, but couldn't. The possible consequences
of what he had done appalled him. How could he dare such a crazy stunt?
What if she hadn't made it? What if she didn't know him? What if....

"Where am I?" The voice was feeble.

Darrel heard it. An exultant grin began to creep up his face. They were
the most beautiful words he had ever heard. They were in a logical
sensible sequence. He could _understand_ them!

His pulse hammering in his head, he willed himself to turn and see
whether....

Leyloon was unbuckling the straps and sitting up. Struggling off the
bunk.

Leyloon's face came up. There was a faint, tremulous smile on it. A
_smile_.

Darrel whooped! He leaped across the cabin space toward the girl,
slipped, and fell ignominiously to the deck.

Leyloon laughed.



*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Planet In Reverse" ***

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