* * * * *
"Sirgamesk," said Howard Frayberg, "bigger and brighter every minute."
"It must've been just about in here," said Catlin, "that Wilbur's
horseback rider appeared."
"That's right! Steward!"
"Yes, sir?"
"We're about twenty thousand miles out, aren't we?"
"About fifteen thousand, sir."
"Sidereal Cavalry! What an idea! I wonder how Wilbur's making out on his
superstition angle?"
Sam Catlin, watching out the window, said in a tight voice, "Why not ask
him yourself?"
"Eh?"
"Ask him for yourself! There he is--outside, riding some kind of
critter...."
"It's a ghost," whispered Frayberg. "A man without a space-suit....
There's no such thing!"
"He sees us.... Look...."
Murphy was staring at them, and his surprise seemed equal to their own.
He waved his hand. Catlin gingerly waved back.
Said Frayberg, "That's not a horse he's riding. It's a combination
ram-jet and kiddie car with stirrups!"
"He's coming aboard the ship," said Catlin. "That's the entrance port
down there...."
* * * * *
Wilbur Murphy sat in the captain's stateroom, taking careful breaths of
air.
"How are you now?" asked Frayberg.
"Fine. A little sore in the lungs."
"I shouldn't wonder," the ship's doctor growled. "I never saw anything
like it."
"How does it feel out there, Wilbur?" Catlin asked.
"It feels awful lonesome and empty. And the breath seeping up out of
your lungs, never going in--that's a funny feeling. And you miss the air
blowing on your skin. I never realized it before. Air feels like--like
silk, like whipped cream--it's got texture...."
"But aren't you cold? Space is supposed to be absolute zero!"
"Space is nothing. It's not hot and it's not cold. When you're in the
sunlight you get warm. It's better in the shade. You don't lose any heat
by air convection, but radiation and sweat evaporation keep you
comfortably cool."
"I still can't understand it," said Frayberg. "This Prince Ali, he's a
kind of a rebel, eh?"
"I don't blame him in a way. A normal man living under those domes has
to let off steam somehow. Prince Ali decided to go out crusading. I
think he would have made it too--at least on Cirgamesç."
"Certainly there are many more men inside the domes...."
"When it comes to fighting," said Murphy, "a sjambak can lick twenty men
in space-suits. A little nick doesn't hurt him, but a little nick bursts
open a space-suit, and the man inside comes apart."
"Well," said the Captain. "I imagine the Peace Office will send out a
team to put things in order now."