Human-alien encounters -- Fiction; Science fiction; Space travelers -- Fiction
All this Michel Drawers did not notice. He waved one big arm and with
the other pulled back the starting lever. His great frame pressed back
in agony at the terrible acceleration of the takeoff. And then he was
free--free again of binding gravitation; free to search the space-ways
with the woman he loved beside him; free to return to a world that had
discarded him, to be again a respected citizen.
And then he saw Trajores, her lovely form inert, a trickle of golden
blood issuing from her mouth, and he was overcome with remorse at his
own thoughtlessness. With fear and trepidation he raised her head and
pressed a vial of revivifying liquid to her lips. She sighed softly and
mustered a feeble smile.
"It is all right," she appeared to murmur. "Go on."
Michel Drawers stepped back to the controls. There was an air of
resolute determination about him. His enormous fingers manipulated the
proper switches with unbelievable skill and speed. The petite little
"Star-Struck" swerved on her course and turned in a semicircle that
encompassed millions of miles.
Michel Drawers' mind was comprehending things he had never fully
realized before. Trajores must never be taken to Earth. She must be
returned to her own world with its kinder gravitation and its lovable
golden people. To take her to Earth would be to doom her to a life of
indescribable suffering.
And, too, what would he be on Earth? They would grant him permission
to marry, to settle down and live his life a useless cog in society,
simply because he had been fortunate enough to return with a large
supply of the precious Roxite, not because of what he, himself, was or
had been.
But with the golden people he was not simply a useless hulk of a man.
He was Michel Drawers, the man who had introduced the most startling
innovations the golden people had known in thousands of years! A man
who could hold his head high and look another person squarely in the
face. The only man who might rid the planet of the dread Griffs and
restore a beleaguered people to their rightful heritage.
Back in the golden city of Saeve no thought of his mental inferiority
was entertained. All treated him with respect. It was a world where for
the first time in his life he had found some measure of happiness, and
possibly there might also be contentment.
The shimmering world began to take form beneath them.
Trajores moved and thought, "Michel, that is not the way back."
And Michel Drawers smiled within himself and answered joyously.
"Yes, Trajores, that _is_ the way back--the only way for you and me."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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