Grenville's Planet
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| "Greenville's Planet" | |
|---|---|
| Author | Michael Shaara |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction |
| Publication type | Periodical |
| Publication date | October 1952 |
Grenville's Planet is a science-fiction short story written by Michael Shaara and first published in the October 1952 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. The story concerns a pair of space cartographers from the Mapping Command, Greenville and Wisher, in a mission to explore new worlds. It was collected and republished in the 1982 collection of Shaara's short stories, Soldier Boy.
Plot summary[edit]
While on their spaceship, exploring new worlds, Greenville and Wisher come across a particular ocean world with four natural satellites. As they descend to explore, the find strange wonders that baffles their knowledge; the planet has no visible signs of life, no school of fish or even reefs, and there is only a single two-mile wide island on the surface. Greenville becomes excited with the discovery and plans to name the planet after himself, in hopes of attracting space tourists. They descend to further explore the location and start noticing illogical patterns in the geography and composition of the island, such as the fact that the four moons must create massive tides, over 800-feet tall, big enough to sink the entire island and stop any creature from evolving as surface-dwelling. They argue whether these tides happen regularly or every hundred years.
They ultimately conclude that the island must be artificial, of alien origin, and decide to leave the planet for good. Greenville goes to the beach to take one last sample before leaving, but he never returns back. Wisher goes in his search and into the depths of the island, penetrating into the alien flora, where he falls into a booby trap made by the inhabitants of the world, bleeding out to death. At the last scene, it is explained that these aliens are of aquatic origin, with space conquest ambitions and close to the technological level of humans. The aliens explore the ship and inadvertently activate the self-destruct defense system, dying in the blast of the explosion that destroys the entire island.
References[edit]
- Shaara, Michael (February 1982). Soldier Boy (1st ed.). Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-671-83342-8. Search this book on
External links[edit]
- Greenville's Planet title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- "Greenville's Planet" at the Internet Archive
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