Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Fantastic Universe November 1956. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
What was the startling secret of Diomed III that almostcaused Travis to lose his life?
And who was Lappy?...
When the radiogram came in it was 10:28 ship's time and old 29 wasexactly 3.4 light years away from Diomed III. Travis threw her wideopen and hoped for the best. By 4:10 that same afternoon, minus threeburned out generators and fronting a warped ion screen, old 29 touchedthe atmosphere and began homing down. It was a very tense moment.Somewhere down in that great blue disc below a Mapping Command shipsat in an open field, sending up the beam which was guiding them down.But it was not the Mapping Command that was important. The MappingCommand was always first. What mattered now was to come in second, anykind of second, close or wide, mile or eyelash, but second come hellor high water.
The clouds peeled away. Travis staring anxiously down could seenothing but mist and heavy cloud. He could not help sniffing the airand groaning inwardly. There is no smell quite as expensive as that ofburned generators. He could hear the Old Man repeating over and overagain—as if Allspace was not one of the richest companies inexistence—"burned generators, boy, is burned money, and don't youforget it!" Fat chance me forgetting it, Travis thought gloomily,twitching his nostrils. But a moment later he did.
For Diomed III was below him.
And Diomed III was an Open Planet.
It happened less often, nowadays, that the Mapping Command ran acrossintelligent life, and it was even less often that the intelligent lifewas humanoid. But when it happened it was an event to remember. Forspace travel had brought with it two great problems. The first wasContact, the second was Trade. For many years Man had prohibitedcontact with intelligent humanoids who did not yet have space travel,on the grounds of the much-discussed Maturity Theory. As time went by,however, and humanoid races were discovered which were biologicallyidentical with Man, and as great swarms of completely alien, oftenhostile races were also discovered, the Maturity Theory went intodiscard. A human being, ran the new slogan, is a Human Being, and socame the first great Contact Law, which stated that any humanoid race,regardless of its place on the evolutionary scale, was to becontacted. To be accepted, "yea, welcomed," as the phrase went, intothe human community. And following this, of course, there came Trade.For it was the businessmen who had started the whole thing in thefirst place.
Hence the day of the Open Planet. A humanoid race was discovered bythe Mapping Command, the M.C. made its investigation, and then sentout the Word. And every company in the Galaxy, be it monstrous huge orpiddling small, made a mad rush to be first on the scene. TheGovernment was very strict about the whole business, the idea beingthat planets should make their contracts with companies rather thanthe government itself, so that if any shady business arose the companyat