سیاره تاریک

Reformatted and corrected. Stephen Query had been condemned to serve out his space enlistment on Step Two, the unknown mudball way station. Query had been made a mere technician there at the enclosed domed-in base because he refused to accept automaton status. But Query found that Step Two meant for him at least the freedom of privacy and daydream even though one step outside the Dome without protective clothing could mean death. Or so everyone said... Until Stephen and the admiral who had ordered him to that dark planet were thrown defenseless into the muddy misty world beyond the Dome. There could be no hope of rescue, for Step Two’s officers had concealed the crash of the admiral’s vessel and no one at the base even knew they were lost. They wandered hopeless, starving and thirsty, knowing there was no hope--and then, there was a noise, there were those strange colors, there was something emerging from the dark planet beyond all conception...