Fathers and sons -- Fiction; Human-alien encounters -- Fiction; Science fiction; Short stories; Space ships -- Fiction
He sat back and lit a cigarette, but his eyes continued to watch the
other ship as a man might watch a dud bomb which has not yet been
disarmed. After a while, he noticed his fingers were shaking, and he
laid the cigarette carefully down in the ashtray.
When he comes back, thought Jeff, it'll be time. We'll have this thing
out then. He's become some sort of a religious fanatic, and he doesn't
know it. How a man who's been all over hell and seen the worst sides
of fifty different races in as many years can think of them all as
lovable human children, I don't know. But, know it or not, this taking
of chances has got to stop someplace; and right here is the best place
of all. When he gets back--if he gets back, we're taking off. And if he
doesn't get back ... I'll blow that bloody bastard over there into so
many bits....
"Coming in, Jeff," his father's voice on the speaker interrupted him.
* * * * *
Jeff leaned forward, his hands on the trips of the rifles; the small
grey figure suddenly shot back to the protection of the airlock,
which snapped shut behind it. Then, he took a deep breath, stood up,
and wiped the perspiration from his forehead. He went down to the
instrument room.
Peter Wadley was already out of his suit and developing the pictures.
Jeff picked them up as they came off the roll, damp and soft to the
touch.
"I can't tell much," he said, holding them up to the light.
"There's a great deal of overlap," his father answered. "We're going
to have to section and fit the pieces together like a jigsaw puzzle.
Wait'll I'm through here."
For about five minutes more, pictures continued to come off the roll.
Then Peter picked up a pair of scissors and arranged the prints in
their proper sequence.
"Clear the table," he told Jeff, "and fit these together as I hand them
to you."
For a little while longer, they worked in silence. Then Peter laid down
his scissors.
"That's all," he said. "Now, what have we got?"
"I don't know," answered Jeff, bewilderment in his voice. "It looks
like nothing I've ever seen."
Peter stepped up to the table and squinted at the shadowy films with
eyes practiced in reading rock formations. He shook his head.
"It is strange," he said, finally.
"Do you see what I see?" demanded Jeff. "There's no real crew
space. There's this one spot--up front--" he indicated it with his
finger--"that's about as big as a good sized closet. And nothing more
than that--except corridors about twenty inches in diameter running
from it to points all over the ship. She must be flown by a crew of
midgets."
"Midgets," echoed the older man, thoughtfully. "I never heard of an
intelligent race that small."
"Then they're something new," said Jeff, with a shrug of his shoulders.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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