Despotism -- Fiction; Dissenters -- Fiction; Life on other planets -- Fiction; Science fiction
Khiv Five was readily recognizable by the broad, straight bands of
irrigated vegetation across its otherwise desert middle, where the
water of the melted ice-caps was pumped to its winter hemisphere.
It was on the far side of its orbit from the stopping-place of the
_Starshine_, though, and Kim went on overdrive to reach it. This
used as much fuel as all the journey from the Second Galaxy.
The three speed-ranges of the _Starshine_ were--if Kim had but
known it--quaintly like the three speeds of ancient internal-combustion
land-cars. Interplanetary drive was a low speed, necessary for taking
off and landing, but terribly wasteful of fuel.
Overdrive had been the triumph of space-navigation for thousands of
years. It was like the second gear of the ancient land-cars. And the
transmitter-drive of Kim's devising was high speed, almost infinite
speed--but it could not be used within a solar system. It was too fast.
Kim drove to the farther orbit of Khiv Five and then went into a long,
slow, free fall toward the banded planet below. In the old days it
would have been changed to a landing-parabola at an appropriate moment.
"Now," said Kim grimly, "my guess is that we haven't enough fuel to
make anything but a crash-landing. Which would mean that we should all
get killed. So we will hope very earnestly that a warship is still
hanging about Khiv Five, and that it comes and tries to wipe us out."
Dona pointed to a tiny dial. Its needle quivered ever so slightly from
its point of rest.
"Mmmmm," said Kim. "Right at the limit of the detector's range.
Something using power. We should know how a worm on a fish-hook feels,
right now. We're bait."
He waited--and waited--and waited.
The small hundred-foot hull of the space-ship seemed motionless, seen
from without. The stars were infinitely far away. The great ringed sun
was a hundred and twenty million miles distant. Even the belted planet
Khiv Five was a good half-million miles below.
Such motion as the _Starshine_ possessed was imperceptible.
It floated with a vast leisureliness in what would be a parabolic
semi-orbit. But it would take days to make sure. And meanwhile....
Meanwhile the _Starshine_ seemed to spawn. A small object appeared
astern. Suddenly it writhed convulsively. Light glinted upon it. It
whirled dizzily, then more dizzily still, and abruptly it was a shape.
It was, in fact, the shape of a space-ship practically the size of the
_Starshine_ itself, but somehow it was not quite substantial. For
minutes it shimmered and quivered.
"You'll find it instructive," said Kim drily to the Mayor of Steadheim,
"to look out of a stern-port."
The Mayor lumbered toward a stern-port. A moment later they heard him
shout. Minutes later, he lumbered back.
"What's that?" he said angrily. "I thought it was another ship! When I
first saw it, I thought it was ramming us!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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