Courtesy

Caught down for Blastoff, X-5, 4, 3, 2, X-1, fire. From the far horizons of the unknown come transcribed tales of new dimensions in time and space.

These are stories of the future. Adventures in which you'll live in a million could be years on a thousand maybe worlds. The National Broadcasting Company in cooperation with Street and Smith, publishers of astounding science fiction presents minus one one one one tonight's story courtesy this is the story of the second expedition to the

planet of lander i'm recording it for any future expeditions which might land on this godforsaken sphere the hope that they may learn from our tragic example as i write There are two of us left, two, out of an original complement of 180 men.

One of us, myself, will be dead in less than 23 minutes. As for the other, even have mercy on him, I do not know. On June 3, 1997, less than two months ago, the last of our supply ships blasted off from Landau for their return to Earth.

After it had gone, I remember looking out across the plane at the dead city, one of thousands of doth'n'est planet. It had tall, graceful buildings, atomic power systems, vacuum conveyors, all perfect, all deserted, all ominous.

How had it happened? The best guess was that the plague had frightened the original inhabitants of the planet so that they'd piled into rocket ships and headed for some distant planet. I often wondered why a civilization so advanced as Landro could not find a serum to beat the plague.

They had taken out Earth doctors less than six months to develop an immunization method. Well maybe those aborigines back in the hills knew the answer. That strange ugly little people who had taken to the caves the day we landed.