"No, sir. Faster than light; hyperspace, sir."
"Mr. Ashby, did you have your interspace rigs set?"
"No, sir. I didn't think of it, sir."
"Doctor Cummings, why weren't yours out?"
"I didn't think of such a thing, either--any more than you did," Sandra
said.
Ashby, the Communications Officer, had been working the radio. "No reply
from anyone, sir," he reported.
"Oh, no!" Sandra exclaimed. Then, "But look! They're firing
pistols--especially the one wearing number fourteen--but _pistols_?"
"Recoil pistols--sixty-threes--for emergency use in case of power
failure," Ashby explained. "That's it ... but I can't see why _all_
their power went out at once. But Fourteen--that's Hilton--is really
doing a job with that sixty-three. He'll be here in a couple of
minutes."
And he was. "Every power unit out there--suits and boats both--drained,"
Hilton reported. "_Completely_ drained. Get some help out there fast!"
* * * * *
In an enormous structure deep below the surface of a far-distant world a
group of technicians clustered together in front of one section of a
two-miles long control board. They were staring at a light that had just
appeared where no light should have been.
"Someone's brain-pan will be burned out for this," one of the group
radiated harshly. "That unit was inactivated long ago and it has not
been reactivated."
"Someone committed an error, Your Loftiness?"
"Silence, fool! Stretts do not commit errors!"
* * * * *
As soon as it was clear that no one had been injured, Sawtelle demanded,
"How about it, Hilton?"
"Structurally, it was high-alloy steel. There were many bulges, possibly
containing mechanisms. There were drive-units of a non-Terran type.
There were many projectors, which--at a rough guess--were a hundred
times as powerful as any I have ever seen before. There were no
indications that the thing had ever been enclosed, in whole or in part.
It certainly never had living quarters for warm-blooded,
oxygen-breathing eaters of organic food."