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Mournful Monster

by Robert Silverberg

It was almost time for the regular midweek flight to leave. On the airstrip, the technicians were giving the two-engine jet a last-minute checkup. In fifteen minutes, according to the chalked announcement on the bulletin board, the flight would depart—making the two-thousand-mile voyage across the trackless, unexplored wilderness that lay between the Terran colonies of Marleyville and New Lisbon, on the recently settled planet of Loki in the Procyon system.

In the Marleyville airport building, Dr. David Marshall was having one last drink for the road, and trying unsuccessfully to catch the attention of the strikingly beautiful girl in the violet synthofab dress. Marshall, an anthropologist specializing in non-human cultures, was on his way to New Lisbon to interview a few wrinkled old hunters who claimed to have valuable information for him. He was trying to prove that an intelligent non-human race still existed somewhere on Loki, and he had been told at Marleyville that several veteran hunters in New Lisbon had insisted they knew where the hidden race lived.

“Now boarding for the flight to New Lisbon,” came the tinny announcement from the loudspeaker. “Passengers for New Lisbon please report to the plane on the field. ”

Marshall gulped the remainder of his drink, picked up his small portfolio, and headed through the swinging door to the airfield. Stepping out of the aircooled building into the noonday heat was like walking into a steambath. The climate on Loki ranged from subtropical to utterly unbearable. Humans had been able to settle in coastal areas only, in the temperate zone. There was one Earth colony here, Marleyville, forty years old and with a population of about eighteen thousand. Far across the continent, on the western coast, was the other major colony, New Lisbon, with some twenty thousand people.

Half a dozen other smaller colonies were scattered up and down each coast, but few humans had ventured into the torrid interior of the continent. It was one vast unexplored jungle.

And as for the other continents of the planet, they were totally unsuited for human life. Temperatures in the equatorial regions of Loki ranged as high as 180 degrees. In the cooler areas of high and low latitude, a more tolerable range of 70-100 prevailed. The polar regions were more comfortable so far as climate went, but they were barren and worthless as places to farm and mine.

“Last call for New Lisbon plane,” the announcer called. Marshall trotted up the ramp, smiled at the stewardess, and took a seat. The plane was an old and rickety one. It had seen many years’ service, Marshall thought. Loki Airlines had a “fleet” of just one plane, purchased at great expense from the highly industrialized neighbor world of Thor. There was not much traffic between Marleyville and New Lisbon. Once a week, the old jet plane made a round trip across the jungle for the benefit of those people—never more than a dozen or so each time—who had some reason for travelling to another colony.