Read Out Of The Silent Planet for Free Online Page A

understand, he found that his preparations for the morning had been even
more incomplete than he supposed. He did his work well, from practice, and therefore quietly. He
had just finished and was drying his hands on the roller towel behind the galley door when he heard
the door of the control room open and saw the silhouette of a man outside the galley - Devine's,
he gathered. Devine did not come forward into the saloon, but remained standing and talking -
apparently into the control room. It thus came about that while Ransom could hear distinctly
what Devine said, he could not make out Weston's answers.
    'I think it would be damn silly,' said Devine. 'If you could be sure of meeting the brutes where
we alight there might be something in it. But suppose we have to trek? All we'd gain by your plan
would be having to carry a drugged man and his pack instead of letting a live man walk with us
and do his share of the work.'
    Weston apparently replied.
    'But he can't find out,' returned Devine. 'Unless some one is fool enough to tell him. Anyway, even
if he suspects, do you think a man like that would have the guts to run away on a strange planet?
Without food? Without weapons? You'll find he'll eat out of your hand at the first sight of a sorn.'
    Again Ransom heard the indistinct noise of Weston's voice.
    'How should I know?' said Devine. 'It may be some sort of chief: much more likely a mumbo-jumbo.'
    This time came a very short utterance from the control room: - apparently a question. Devine
answered at once.
    'It would explain why he was wanted.'
    Weston asked him something more.
    'Human sacrifice, I suppose. At least it wouldn't be human from their point of view; you know
what I mean.
    Weston had a good deal to say this time, and it elicited Devine's characteristic chuckle.
    'Quite, quite,' he said. 'It is understood that you are doing it all from the highest motives.
So long as they lead to the same actions as my motives, you are quite welcome to them.'
    Weston continued; and this time Devine seemed to interrupt him.
    'You're not losing your own nerve, are you?' he said. He was then silent for some time, as if
listening. Finally, he replied:
    'If you're so fond of the brutes as that you'd better stay and interbreed - if they have sexes,
which we don't yet know. Don't you worry. When the time comes for cleaning the place up we'll save
one or two for you, and you can keep them as pets or vivisect them or sleep with them or all three -
whichever way it takes ....... Yes, I know. Perfectly loathsome. I was only joking. Good night.'
    A moment later Devine closed the door of the control room, crossed the saloon and entered his own
cabin. Ransom heard him bolt the door of it according to his invariable, though puzzling, custom.
The tension with which he had been listening relaxed. He found that he had been holding his breath,
and breathed deeply again. Then cautiously he stepped out into the saloon.
    Though he knew that it would be prudent to return to his bed as quickly as possible, he found himself
standing still in the now familiar glory of the light and viewing it with a new and poignant
emotion. Out of this heaven, these happy climes, they were presently to descend - into what? Sorns,
human sacrifice, loathsome sexless monsters. What was a sorn? His own role in the affair was now clear
enough. Somebody or something had sent for him. It could hardly be for him personally. The somebody
wanted a victim - any victim - from Earth. He had been picked because Devine had done the picking;
he realized for the first time - in all circumstances a late and startling discovery - that Devine
had hated him all these years as heartily as he hated Devine. But what was a sorn? When he saw them
he would eat out of Weston's hands. His mind, like so many minds of his generation, was richly
furnished with bogies. He had read his H. G. Wells and others. His unaverse was peopled with
horrors such as ancient and medieval