BEYOND LIGHT-2
577 Words
CAPTAIN LANE DID NOT need her warning. His space-trained body had recognized disaster a split-second before. His legs had felt the smooth flooring beneath him lurch and sway. His eyes had glimpsed, through the spaceport, the sudden looming of the silver disc toward which they had been gliding easily but now were plunging at headlong, breakneck speed. His ears howled with the clamor of monstrous winds that clutched with vibrant fingers the falling Orestes.
In a flash he spun and fought his way up a sharply tilting deck to the wall audio, thrust at its button, bawled a query. The mate’s voice, shrill with terror, answered:
“The Dixie-rod, sir! It’s jammed! We’re trying to get it free, but it’s locked! We’re out of control—”
“Up rockets!” roared Lane. “Up rockets and blast!”
“They’re cut, sir! The hypo’s cold. We’ll have to ‘bandon ship—.”
Abandon ship! Tim Mallory did not need Dorothy’s sudden gasp to tell him what that meant to the trio caught in the observation turret. Earthlubber he might be, but he knew enough about the construction of space craft to realize that there were no auxiliary safety-sleds anchored to this section of the Orestes.
Venus was no longer a beaming platter of silver in the distance. They had burst through its eternal blanket of cloud, now; The world below was no longer a sphere, it was a huge saucer of green, swelling ominously with each flashing second. Tempests screamed about them, and the screaming was the triumphant cry of hungry death.
No ships. No time to seek escape. Life, which had but recently become a precious thing to Tim Mallory, was but a matter of minutes.
He saw the agony of indecision on Captain Jonathan Lane’s face, heard, as in a dream, the skipper delivering the only possible order.
“Very well, Carter! ‘Bandon ship!”
And the pilot’s hectic query, “But where are you?”
“Never mind that. Cut loose, you fool!”
“No, Captain! You’re below. I can’t let you die. I’ll keep trying—”
“‘Bandon ship, Carter! It’s an order!”
And the faint, thin answer, “Aye, sir!” Silence.
Tim turned to Dorothy, and from somewhere summoned the ghost of a smile. His arms went out to her, and as one in a dream she moved toward him. There was, at least, this. They could die together.
And then Captain Lane was between them, bellowing, commanding, pushing them apart.
“Avast, you two! This is no time for play-acting. Mallory, jerk down those hammocks. Tumble in and strap yourselves tight! It’s a chance in a billion, but—”
Tim swung into motion. The old man was right. It was a slim chance, but—a chance! To strap themselves into the pneumatic hammocks used by passengers at times of acceleration, hope that by some miracle the Orestes would not be crushed into a metal pancake when they crashed, pray that it might land on a slope, or some yielding substance.
It was a breathless moment and a mad one. Frenzied winds and the groan of scorching metal, the thick panting of Captain Lane as he strapped himself into a hammock between Tim and Dorothy, Dorothy’s voice, “Tim, dear—” And his own reply, “Hold tight, youngster!”
Then heat increasing, heat like a massive fist upon his breast, hot beads of sweat, salt-tasting on his lips, an ear-splitting tumult of sound from somewhere.... A swift, terrifying glimpse of solid earth rushing up to meet them.... The last, wrenching shudder of the Orestes as it plunged giddily groundward. Heat ... pain ... flame ... suffocation....
Then darkness.
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