“Yeah-the force field’s still holdin’—“
“Won’t be able to plow through that last slide, eh?”
“Not with anything they’ve got now.”
Words, a lot of words, passing back and forth across him. Sometimes for a second or two they made good sense, then meaning faded again.
“Can pretty well take your own time now—“ Was that rumble from Santee?
And that quick, crisp voice cutting in, “What about the kid?”
“Him? He’s some scrapper. Got a head on him, too. Just shaken up a lot when that last blowup hit us, but he’s still in one piece.”
Kimber! That had been Kimber asking about him. But Dard hadn’t strength left to raise his head and look for the pilot.
“We’ll patch up Tremont first and send him under. You two will have to wait a while. Give them the soup and that first powder, Lui—-“
Again Dard was given a drink—this time of hot steamy stuff which carried the flavor of rich meat. After it there was a capsule to be swallowed.
Bruises and aches-when he moved his body he was just one huge ache. But he straightened up and tried to take an interest in his surroundings. Santee, his shirt a few rags about his thick hairy shoulders and arms, squatted on another pull-down seat directly across from Dard. Along the passage outside there was a constant coming and going. Scraps of conversation reached them, most of which he did not understand.
“Feelin’ better, kid?” the big man asked.
Dard answered that muffled question with a nod and then wished that he hadn’t moved his head. “Are we going along?” he shaped the words with difficulty Santee’s beard wagged as he roared with laughter. “Like to see ‘em throw us off ship now! What made you think we weren’t, kid?”
“No room-Kimber said.”
Laughter faded from the eyes of the man opposite him.
“Might not have been, kid. Only a lot of good men died back there puttin’ such a plug in the valley that these buggers aren’t goin’ to git in ‘til too late. Since the warp’s still workin’, flyin’ won’t bring ‘em neither. So we ain’t needed out there no more. An’ maybe some good fightin’ men will be needed where this old girl’s headed. So in we come, an’ they’re gonna pack us away with the rest of the cargo. Ain’t that so, Doc?” he ended by demanding of the tall young man who had just entered.
The newcomer’s parrot crest of blond hair stood up from his scalp in a twist like the stem of a pear and his wide eyes glowed with enthusiasm.
“You’re young Nordis, aren’t you?” he demanded of Dard, ignoring Santee. “I wish I could have known your brother! He—what he did–! I wouldn’t have believed such results possible if I hadn’t seen the formula! Hibernation and freezing—his formula combined with Tas’s biological experiments! Why, we’ve even put three of Hammond’s calves under—what grass they’ll graze on before they die! And it’s all due to Lars Nordis!”
Dard was too tired to show much interest in that. He wanted to go to sleep to forget everything and everybody.
“To sleep, perchance to dream”—the old words shaped pat- terns for him. Only—not to dream would be better now. Did one dream in space—and what queer dreams haunted men lying in slumber between worlds? Dard mentally shook himself—there was something important—something he had to ask before he dared let sleep come.
“Where’s Dessie?”
“Nordis’ little girl? She’s with my daughter-and my wife—they’re already under.”
“Under what?”
“In cold sleep. Most of the gang are now. Just a few of us still loading. Then Kimber, Kordov and I. We’ll ride out until Kimber is sure of the course before we stow away. All the rest of you—“
“Will be packed away before the take-off. Saves wear and tear on bodies and nerves under acceleration,” cut in Kimher from the doorway. He nodded over the medico’s shoulder at Dard. “Glad to have you aboard, kid. Promise you—no forced landings on this voyage. You’re to be sealed up in crew’s quarters—so you’ll wake early to see the new world!” And with that he was gone again.
Maybe it was the capsule acting now, maybe it was just that last reassurance from a man he had come to trust wholeheartedly, but Dard was warm and relaxed. To wake and see a new world!
Santee went away with Lui Skort, and Dard was alone. The noise in the corridor died away. At last he heard a warning bell. And a moment later the pound of heavy feet in a hurry roused him. The haste of that spoke of trouble, and with the support of the wall he got up to look out. Kimber was coming down a spiral stairway, the center core of the ship. In his hand was one of the snubnosed ray guns Sach had had. He passed Dard without a word.
Bracing his hands against the wall of the corridor, Dard shuffled along in his wake. Then he was peering out of an airlock to see the pilot squatting on the ramp. It was black night out-most of the flares had gone out.
Dard listened. He could hear at intervals the blast of the burper. The Peacemen were still doggedly attacking the cleft barrier. But what had Kimber come to guard and why? Have some important possessions been left in the caverns. Dard slumped against the lock and watched lights spark to life in the mouth of the tunnel. A man came out running, covering the ground to the foot of the ship’s ramp in ground-eating leaps. He dashed by Kimber, and Dard had just time enough to get back as Santee burst in.
“Get going!” The big man bore him along to the corridor and Kimber joined them. He touched some control and the hatch-lock was sealed.
Santee, panting, grinned. “Nice neat job, if I do say so myself,” he reported. “The space warp’s off an’ the final charge is set for forty minutes from now. We’ll blast before that?”
“Yes. Better get along both of you. Lui’s waiting and we don’t want to scrape a couple of acceleration cases off the floor later,” returned Kimber.
With the aid of the other two Dard pulled his tired body up the stair, past various landing stages where sealed doors fronted them. Kordov’s broad face appeared at last, surveying them anxiously, and it was he who lifted Dard up the last three steps. Kimber left them-climbing on through an opening above into the control chamber. He did not glance back or say any goodbyes.
“In here—“ Kordov thrust them ahead of him.
Dard, brought face to face with what that cabin contained, knew a sudden repulsion. Those boxes, shelved in a metal rack they too closely resembled coffins! And the rack was full except for the bottommost box which awaited open on the floor.
Kordov pointed to it. “That’s for you, Santee—built for a big boy. You’re lighter, Dard. We’ll fit you in on top over on the other side.”
A second rack stood against the farther wall with four more of the coffins ready and waiting. Dard shivered, but it was not only imagination-disturbed nerves which roughened his skin, there was a chill in the air-coming from the open boxes.
Kordov explained. “You go to sleep and then you freeze.”
Santee chuckled. “Just so you thaw us out again, Tas. I ain’t aimin’ to spend the rest of my life an icicle, so you brainy boys can prove somethin’ or other. Now what do we do climb in?”
“Strip first,” ordered the First Scientist. “And then you get a couple of shots.”
He pulled along a small rolling tray-table on which were laid a series of hypodermics. Carefully he selected two, one filled with a red brown liquid, the other with a colorless substance.
As Dard fumbled at the fastenings of the torn uniform he still wore, Santee asked a question for them both.
“An’ how do we wake up when the right time comes?
Got any alarms set in these contraptions?”
Those three—“ Kordov indicated the three lower coffins on the far rack, “are especially fitted. Arranged to waken those inside, Kimber, Lui, and me, when the ship signals that it has reached the end of the course set, which will be when the instruments raise a sun enough like Sol to nourish earth-type planets. We feed that into her robot controls once we are free in space. During the voyage she may vary the pattern-to make evasion of meteors or for other reasons. But she will always come back on the set course, If we are close to a solar system when we are awakened, and Kimber has done everything possible to assure that, then we shall arouse any others needed to bring the ship down. Most of you won’t be awakened until after we land—there isn’t enough room.”
Kordov shrugged, “Who knows? No man has yet pioneered into the galaxy. It may be for generations.”