Einstein's Planetoid

By C.M. Kornbluth, Robert A.W. Lowndes and Frederik Pohl

When the Orion expedition vanished without a trace, Nick Hartnett refused to believe his father was gone forever. Driven by hope and a need for answers, he cobbles together a crew of skilled specialists and sets out to unravel the mystery. Their search leads them to Hastur, an otherworldly planetoid where the laws of physics bend in unexpected ways. Upon discovering the wreckage of the Orion, the team is shocked to find Nick's father, Steve Hartnett, alive amidst the ruins.

As they delve deeper into Hastur's secrets, the crew must contend with the planetoid's bizarre and treacherous nature, which seems to defy scientific explanation. Faced with mounting challenges and a growing sense of unease, they must uncover the truth behind the Orion's fate -- while seeking a means of escape from Hastur's grasp.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Black Cat Weekly
• Release date: Mar 27, 2024
• ISBN: 9781667632186

C.M. Kornbluth

C.M. Kornbluth (1923-1958) is a science fiction author, best known for the novel The Space Merchants, with Frederik Pohl.

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Table of Contents

EINSTEIN’S PLANETOID by C.M. Kornbluth, Robert A.W. Lowndes, and Frederik Pohl

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

EINSTEIN’S PLANETOID

by C.M. Kornbluth, Robert A.W. Lowndes,

and Frederik Pohl

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

Originally published in Science Fiction Quarterly, Spring 1942,

under the pseudonym Paul Dennis Lavond.

Published by Black Cat Weekly.

blackcatweekly.com

CHAPTER 1

HEIRS OF SPACE FLIGHT

Nick Hartnett stepped off the upper lip of the thousand-foot shaft and floated gently downwards. When he had fallen about half the distance, he reached out for a stanchion, grasped it easily and pulled himself gracefully into the lounge-room of the Columbia.

What he saw there was precisely what he expected to see. There was Dorothy Gilbert, curled in a spring-hammock, reading a book. Nick was looking over’ her shoulder before she knew he had entered.

Bodie’s ‘Parecliptic Orbits,’  he read aloud. Dorothy, don’t you ever think of anything but your job?

She looked up, smiling, brushing aside a lock of tousled hair that sought her eye. Often, Nick. But where would we be if I didn’t check my courses against those plotted by a competent authority?

Just about where we’ll be if you do, he guessed, tugging at his ear with long, knobby fingers. You’re my idea of a competent authority yourself.

Thanks, Nick. How are the contracels holding out?

Wonderfully! he grinned. It seems as if my father did a fair job of inventing there—though maybe not quite good enough. He knelt and touched a button inset in the floor; instantly the metallic luster of it dulled and clouded, then the clouds seemed to vanish as the floor became transparent. In an instant it appeared to have vanished entirely, revealing an immense sweep of blackness interspersed with white-hot, tiny specks of light that were stars and planets.

Nick stared out at them. The whole field of stars was moving, it seemed, though, in actuality, it was the ship itself that spun on its axis, providing them with the illusion of gravity they required. It was hard for Hartnett to realize that this view was almost brand-new to human eyes, that only twenty or thirty people could ever have seen stars and the solar system from this vantage point, outside the plane of the ecliptic. There were seven persons in the Columbia now, and there had been eighteen or twenty in its predecessor which had been reported lost some years before. Those two ships, the only ones in the System’s great armada to be equipped with the counter-acceleration devices that made it possible to venture out of the confines of the Solar System, were also the only ones to leave the plane of the ecliptic.

Where’s Earth? Nick