The Planet of Doubt

Last updated
"The Planet of Doubt"
Author Stanley G. Weinbaum
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
SeriesHam Hammond
Genre(s) Science fiction
Published in Astounding Stories
Publication type Periodical
Publisher Street & Smith
Media typePrint (Magazine)
Publication dateOctober 1935
Preceded by"The Lotus Eaters"

"The Planet of Doubt" is a science fiction short story by American writer Stanley G. Weinbaum that was first published in the October 1935 issue of Astounding Stories . It is Weinbaum's third story featuring Hamilton Hammond and Patricia Burlingame, a sequel to "Parasite Planet" and "The Lotus Eaters".

Contents

Plot summary

Following his expedition to the night side of Venus, the Smithsonian Institution appoints Hamilton "Ham" Hammond to head an expedition to Uranus. In Weinbaum's version of the Solar System, all of the gas giants generate significant amounts of infrared radiation, enough to produce Earthlike environments on the inner moons of Jupiter and Saturn and on the surface of Uranus itself.

At the time "The Planet of Doubt" takes place at the turn of the 22nd century, the limited range of the spaceships ensures that Uranus can only be reached from the American base on Titan when Saturn reaches conjunction with Uranus, an event that occurs once every forty years. [1] The Young expedition explored the planet's south pole in 2060; now Hammond takes his ship, the Gaea, to the north pole.

Finding an ocean at the north pole, Hammond sends the Gaea spiraling southeast until they reach land. They find the surface of Uranus largely barren with a few plants. The surface is shrouded in a thick fog which absorbs radio waves as well as visible light, and there is no planetary magnetic field to work a compass, so the members of the expedition, including Hammond's wife, the Venusian-born biologist Patricia Burlingame, must remain tethered to the ship to avoid getting lost.

While Hammond and Burlingame explore, she starts seeing vague shapes in the fog; Hammond begins to see them too. When they receive a signal from the ship, they hurry back to find it under attack by an immensely long black creature made up of dozens of connected segments. They manage to fight it off and return to the ship. Burlingame decides that the creature is similar to the larval Thaumetopoeidae, which forms processions when it travels from its nest. She hypothesizes that the individual segments link nervous systems so that they all act in unison. As for the shapes in the fog, Burlingame thinks they are analogous to honeyguides, and that they lead the segment-creature to its prey.

On their last foray from the ship, Burlingame sees a new type of flora beyond the reach of her tether. Against Hammond's orders, she frees herself from the tether to approach it. Hammond summons the ship's other two crew members, leaves a note for them at the end of the tether, then frees himself. He wanders lost for hours before accidentally coming across the tether again. He and the rest of the crew continue searching for forty hours before finally finding Burlingame resting within a segment-creature that has formed a closed loop. The other crew members boost Hammond over the segment-creature. He pulls a rope taut between him and them and Burlingame climbs across, then Hammond vaults over the moving segment-creature.

Back on board the Gaea, Burlingame reveals that shortly after leaving her tether, she ran into a segment-creature which began chasing her. She had the idea of running up to the last creature in the line so that the leader would latch onto it, but inadvertently left herself inside the circle instead of outside. She also deduced that the shapes in the fog were the shadows of flying creatures, and that the segment-creatures were their larvae.

Collections

"The Planet of Doubt" appears in the following Stanley G. Weinbaum collections:

Related Research Articles

Mars in fiction Depictions of Mars in fictional stories

Fictional representations of Mars have been popular for over a century. Interest in Mars has been stimulated by the planet's dramatic red color, by early scientific speculations that its surface conditions might be capable of supporting life, and by the possibility that Mars could be colonized by humans in the future. Almost as popular as stories about Mars are stories about Martians engaging in activity away from their home planet.

Stanley G. Weinbaum

Stanley Grauman Weinbaum was an American science fiction writer. His first story, "A Martian Odyssey", was published to great acclaim in July 1934; the alien Tweel was arguably the first character to satisfy John W. Campbell's challenge: "Write me a creature who thinks as well as a man, or better than a man, but not like a man." Weinbaum wrote more short stories and a few novels, but died from lung cancer less than a year and a half later.

<i>Titan</i> (Varley novel)

Titan is a science fiction novel by American writer John Varley, the first book in his Gaea Trilogy, published in 1979. It won the 1980 Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel and was nominated for both the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1979, and the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1980.

Jupiter in fiction

The planet Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system, is a popular backdrop for science fiction stories and films. Early works of science fiction used Jupiter itself as a location for stories, but modern science has shown that the planet has no solid surface one could land on and that its atmosphere, temperature, high gravity and intense radiation is hostile to human life. As a result, the Jovian system as a whole, including both the space around Jupiter and its very extensive system of moons, is a more common setting for science fiction.

Saturn in fiction

The picturesque planet Saturn is featured in numerous works of science fiction. Early works of science fiction used Saturn itself as a location for stories, but modern science has shown that the planet has no solid surface on which one could land, and that its atmosphere and temperature are hostile to human life. As a result, the Saturnian system as a whole, including its planetary rings and its extensive system of moons, is a more common setting for science fiction.

Uranus in fiction

The planet Uranus has appeared in various forms of fiction:

A Martian Odyssey

"A Martian Odyssey" is a science fiction short story by American writer Stanley G. Weinbaum originally published in the July 1934 issue of Wonder Stories. It was Weinbaum's second published story, and remains his best known. It was followed four months later by a sequel, "Valley of Dreams". These are the only stories by Weinbaum set on Mars.

"Parasite Planet" is a science fiction short story by American writer Stanley G. Weinbaum originally published in the February 1935 issue of Astounding Stories. It was Weinbaum's fourth published story, and the first to be set on Venus. He quickly followed it up with a sequel called "The Lotus Eaters".

"The Lotus Eaters" is a science fiction short story by American writer Stanley G. Weinbaum originally published in the April 1935 issue of Astounding Stories. "The Lotus Eaters" was Weinbaum's fifth published story, and is a sequel to "Parasite Planet".

"The Mad Moon" is a science fiction short story by American writer Stanley G. Weinbaum, first published in the December 1935 issue of Astounding Stories. As did his earlier stories "A Martian Odyssey" and "Parasite Planet", "The Mad Moon" emphasizes Weinbaum's alien ecologies. "The Mad Moon" was the only Weinbaum story set on Io.

"Redemption Cairn" is a science fiction short story by American writer Stanley G. Weinbaum that first appeared in the March 1936 issue of Astounding Stories. "Redemption Cairn" is the only Weinbaum story set on Europa.

Saturns moons in fiction

Several of Saturn's natural satellites have figured prominently in works of science fiction.

The Red Peri

"The Red Peri" is a science fiction novella by American writer Stanley G. Weinbaum, which first appeared in the November 1935 issue of Astounding Stories. Sam Moskowitz has noted that Weinbaum planned to write a series of sequels to "The Red Peri" but died before he could do so. "The Red Peri" is the only Weinbaum story set on Pluto. The novel also inspired Arthur C. Clarke, who stated that David Bowman's helmetless spacewalk in 2001: A Space Odyssey was inspired by Frank Keene's escape from the pirate base in "The Red Peri".

"Tidal Moon" is a science fiction short story by American writer Stanley G. Weinbaum and Helen Weinbaum that first appeared in the December 1938 issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories and was reprinted in the collection Interplanetary Odysseys (2006). Sam Moskowitz stated that Stanley G. Weinbaum completed only a page and a half of the story before his death and that his sister Helen Weinbaum completed the story on her own. "Tidal Moon" is the only story by Weinbaum to take place on Ganymede.

An extraterrestrial vortex is a vortex that occurs on planets and natural satellites other than Earth that have sufficient atmospheres. Most observed extraterrestrial vortices have been seen in large cyclones, or anticyclones. However, occasional dust storms have been known to produce vortices on Mars and Titan. Various spacecraft missions have recorded evidence of past and present extraterrestrial vortices. The largest extraterrestrial vortices are found on the gas giants, Jupiter and Saturn, and the ice giants, Uranus and Neptune.

The Planetary series of stories by Stanley G. Weinbaum is series of short stories, published in Wonder Stories and Astounding Stories in the 1930s, which are set upon various planets and moons of the Solar System.

<i>A Martian Odyssey and Others</i>

A Martian Odyssey and Others is a collection of science fiction short stories by author Stanley G. Weinbaum. It was first published in 1949 by Fantasy Press in an edition of 3,158 copies. The stories originally appeared in the magazines Wonder Stories, Astounding and Thrilling Wonder Stories.

Oceanus is the personification of the world-ocean in Greek myth.

<i>The Secret of the Ninth Planet</i>

The Secret of the Ninth Planet is a science-fiction novel written by Donald A. Wollheim and first published in the United States in 1959 by the John C. Winston Co. Wollheim takes his heroes on a grand tour of the solar system as that team struggles to prevent an alien force from blowing up the sun. This is the last of three juvenile novels that Wollheim wrote for Winston, the other two being The Secret of Saturn's Rings and The Secret of the Martian Moons.

<i>Our Heavenly Bodies</i> 1925 film

Our Heavenly Bodies is a 1925 German educational film written by Hanns Walter Kornblum and Ernst Krieger which attempts to represent everything known about the cosmos at the time. It covers the origin and mechanics of the Solar System, gravitation, the stars, and the nature of galaxies.

References

  1. Weinbaum makes an astronomical error here; while there is indeed a conjunction of Uranus and Saturn in 2100, it is the wrong conjunction, placing Saturn and Uranus on the opposite sides of the Sun, instead of on the same side.