“It makes one think,” Mura agreed. “Perhaps we should look about a bit more. The solution to this puzzle may lie within sight and sound and yet we are not clever enough to learn it.”
They waited on the ledge until they could signal to the slowly advancing party with the crawler. The astrogator took careful bearings on the site. If and when they had time, they might later send a party to explore this discovery-since its age and alien origin might make it of value.
“This reminds me somehow,” Kosti said, “of how those Sissiti catch the purple lizards they make boots of. They set up a thing that waggles back and forth-just a thin wire attached to a motor. But the lizard sees it and-pow-he’s sunk. Sits there watching that stupid thing wiggle-waggle until a Sissit comes along and pops him into a bag. Maybe someone’s set up a wiggle-waggle here to draw in ships-that would be something!”
Wilcox stared at him. “Could be you have something at that,” he replied, as he fingered his mike. It was apparent he longed to report this second find to the Queen. And he had a suggestion for the scouting parties. “Take a look up these valleys if you can without wasting too much time. I’d like to know if there are any more wrecks strewn about in this general area.”
So from then on, though they continued to work their way east to flank the Queen, they also made side trips into the valleys for short distances. And it was Kosti and Rip who found the third ship.
Where the two other shattered discoveries had been of an earlier day, this was not only of their own time but a type of craft they were able to recognize at once. Through some freak its disastrous ending had not been as bad as those which had telescoped the prospector and smashed the alien. While the new find lay on its side showing buckled and broken plates, it was not crushed.
“Survey!” Rip yelled almost before they were within hearing distance.
There was no reason to mistake the insignia on the battered nose-the crossed, tailed comets were as well known along the star trails as the jagged lightning swords of the Patrol.
Wilcox limped forward with the rest as they trailed along its length.
“The hatch is open-” Rip called down from the pinnacle he had climbed for a better look.
It was what dangled from that open hatch which centred their attention. A rope hanging like that could mean only one thing-that there had been survivors! Was this the explanation for all the puzzling happenings on Limbo? Dane tried to remember how many men comprised the crew of a Survey ship-they usually had a group of specialists-perhaps as many as rode in the Queen-perhaps more-
Though there was no reason why anyone would have remained in the wrecked ship, the men from the Queen prepared to explore. Rip dropped from the pinnacle and balanced across to that hatch. Only Wilcox had to remain where he was as the others climbed the rope.
It was a strange experience to lower oneself down a well which was once a corridor, Dane found. Ahead torches picked out fugitive gleams from smooth surfaces as the explorers poked into the cabins.
“She’s been stripped!” Rip’s words rang in the helmet coms back along the line. “I’m for control-”
Dane knew very little of the geography of a Survey ship. He could only follow the others, halting at the first open panel to peer inside with the aid of his own torch. This must have been the storage for space suits and exploring gear as it was on the Queen. But it was empty now-cupboards gaping as if their contents had been hurriedly ripped loose. Had the crew left the boat in space before the crash? No, that did not explain the rope.
“Lord above us!” The shock in that cry stopped Dane where he was. Rip’s voice in the com was so strained, horrified-what had the other discovered in the control section?
“What’s the matter?” that was Wilcox, impatient at being left out.
“Coming-” Kosti’s growl came next.
And a few moments later the jetman’s voice was loud with a crackle of expletives as shocked as Rip’s exclamation had been.
“What is it?” fumed Wilcox.
Dane left the storage space and made his way quickly to the passageway tying together all sections of the ship, which should lead him directly to what the others had found. Mura was ahead of him there and he soon caught up with the steward.
“We’ve found them,” Rip’s voice was bleak and old as he answered the astrogator.
“Found who?” Wilcox wanted to know.
“The crew!”
The passage ahead of Dane was blocked. He could see past Mura, but Kosti’s bulk and Rip’s shut out what lay beyond. Then Rip spoke again and Dane hardly knew it for his voice.
“Got-to-get-out-of-here-”
“Yes!” that was Kosti.
Both of them turned and Mura and Dane had to retrace their way to the hatch, hurried on by the impatience of the two behind them. They climbed out on the curving side of the ship, giving way to the others. Rip crawled down towards the fins. He held fast to the braces of one and proceeded to be thoroughly sick.
Kosti’s face was greenish, but he maintained control with a visible effort. None of the other three quite dared at that moment to ask what either man had seen. It wasn’t until Rip, shivering, crept back and slid down the rope to the ground that Wilcox lost patience.
“Well, what happened to them?”
“Murder!” Rip’s voice rang too loudly, echoed by some freak of the stone abutments about them until “Murrrderrr” was shouted in their ears.
Dane glanced around in time to see Mura descend again into the ship. In the shadow of his helmet the small man’s face was composed and he gave no reason for his return.
Nor did Wilcox ask any more questions. After a minute or two Mura’s voice sounded in their coms.
“This ship has also been stripped by looters-”
First the prospector hulk and then this-which must have been far more rewarding. Survivors of earlier crashes could have been searching for supplies, for material to make life more endurable but-Rip had an answer to that line of thought and he gave it in a single outburst:
“The Survey men were blaster burned!”
Blaster burned! Just as the globe things had been killed in that valley. Ruthless cruelty of a sort unknown to the civilized space lanes was in power on Limbo. Then another announcement from Mura electrified them all.
“This I believe, is the missing Rimbold!”
The Survey ship whose disappearance had indirectly led to the auction on Naxos, and so their own arrival on Limbo! But how had it reached here and what had brought it crashing down on this world? Survey ships, because of the nature of their duty, were as nearly foolproof as any ships could be. In a hundred years perhaps two had been lost. Yet the Rimbold, for all of its safety devices and the drilled know-how of its experienced crew, had been as luckless as the earlier ships they had discovered.
Dane slid down on the rope, Kosti following him. The sun had gone under a cloud and there was a spatter of rain on the rocks about. It was thickening into a drizzle as the steward joined them. Whatever he had seen within the Rimbold, it had not upset him as completely as it had Rip and Kosti. Instead he had a thoughtful, almost puzzled look.
“Does not Van tell a story like this?” he asked suddenly. “It is one from the old days when ships rode the sea waves not the star lanes. Then there was said to be a place in a western ocean of our own Earth where no winds blew and a weed grew thick, trapping within it the ships of those days so that they were matted together into a kind of floating land of decay and death-”
Rip’s attention was caught, Dane saw him nod. “The Sago-no-the Sargasso Sea!”
“That is so. Here, too, we have something like-a Sargasso of space which in some way traps ships, bringing them in to smash against its rocks and be held forever captive. And whatever it is must have great power. This Survey ship is no experimental prospector of the early days when calculations were faulty and engines could easily fail.”
“But,” Wilcox protested, “the Queen made a routine landing without any trouble at all!”
“Did it occur to you,” Mura said, “that she might have been permitted to make such a landing-for a reason-”
That would explain a great many things, but the idea was chilling. It suggested that the Solar Queen was a pawn in some one’s game-Rich’s? And that she no longer had any control over her destiny.