The Birds of Lorrane

By BILL DOEDE
Illustrated by BURNS
Intelligent birds! They knew a dead-end planet when they visited one!
Ingomar Bjorgson knew he was going to die.
He turned his back on his useless ship and went inside the bubble house that had been his home for ninety-nine days. Methodically he donned his all-weather clothes, his environment suit. He did not want to die in this place. Here was food and refrigeration for the days, warmth and comfort for the nights. He could not bring himself to put a gun to his head, or end it by any other direct, willful act. But out there in the desert, away from man-made helps for survival ... there a man could get himself into circumstances where nature took care of it.
That was his reason for being here on this lonely planet, in the first place—the promise of finding intelligent life. For intelligence was rare in the universe, after all. A lone adventurer, a year before, forced down on this planet by a cosmic storm, had waited a week here for the storm to subside, then had landed on Earth with the feverish news of intelligent life. Ingomar Bjorgson had come to investigate.
Birds, yet.
They were only two. Two birds with minds like the edge of a razor, living alone on this planet that was one hundred per cent desert.
He took one last look around the bubble, then walked out, leaving the door open. From ten feet away he watched the sand already blowing in through the doorway, and he felt very lonely and small. He knew that his death, like his life, would never be marked anywhere with any degree of permanence.
He walked. There was no hurry, so he walked slowly, stopping occasionally to turn and stare at the tracks his feet had scuffed in the sand, watching sand drift into them. He smiled wryly. The universe was so eager to be rid of him—as if he were a disease.
He looked up again, studying the whole sky. But there was no movement of wings, no silver streak of a ship coming to pick him up. Only one spot marred the desert's domain—the tiny bright reflection of the burning sun on the now distant bubble.