Science fiction; Space and time -- Fiction; Time travel -- Fiction
"It was a ship of many dead," Travis reminded him. Had the age-old
Apache fear of the dead been activated by the Redax into an acute
phobia--to strike down such a level-headed man as Buck?
"No, at first that, too, was my thought. Then I discovered that it was
worst not near that chamber where we lay our dead, but higher, in the
Redax cabin. I think perhaps the machine is still running, but running
in a wrong way--so that it does not awaken old memories of our
ancestors now, but brings into being all the fears which have ever
haunted us through the dark of the ages. I tell you, Travis, when I came
out of that place Deklay was leading me by the hand as if I were a
child. And he was shivering as a man who will never be warm again. There
is an evil there beyond our understanding. I think that this Tatar girl,
were she only to stay there a very short time, would be well
frightened--so frightened that any trained scientist examining her later
would know there was a mystery to be explored."
"The ape-things--could they have tried to run the Redax?" Travis
wondered. To associate machines with the creatures was outwardly pure
folly. But they had been discovered on two of the planets of the old
civilization, and Ashe had thought that they might represent the
degenerate remnants of a once intelligent species.
"That is possible. If so, they raised a storm which drove them out and
killed one of them. The ship is a haunted place now."
"But for us to use the girl...." Travis had seen the logic in Buck's
first suggestion, but now he differed. If the atmosphere of the ship was
as terrifying as Buck said, to imprison Kaydessa there, even
temporarily, was still wrong.
"She need not remain long. Suppose we should do this: We shall enter
with her and then allow the disturbance we would feel to overcome us. We
could run, leave her alone. When she left the ship, we could then take
up the chase, shepherding her back to the country she knows. Within the
ship we would be with her and could see she did not remain too long."
Travis could see a good prospect in that plan. There was one thing he
would insist on--if Kaydessa was to be in that ship, he himself would be
one of the "captors." He said as much, and Buck accepted his
determination as final.
They dispatched a scouting party to infiltrate the territory to the
north, to watch and wait their chance of capture. Travis strove to
regain his feet, to be ready to move when the moment came.
Five days later he was able to reach the ridge beyond which lay the
wrecked ship. With him were Jil-Lee, Lupe, and Manulito. They satisfied
themselves that the globe had had no visitors since Buck and Deklay;
there was no sign that the ape-things had returned.
"From here," Travis said, "the ship doesn't look too bad, almost as if
it might be able to take off again."
"It might lift," Jil-Lee gestured to the mountaintop behind the curve of
the globe--"about that far. The tubes on this side are intact."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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