"Never mind that. Cut loose, you fool!"
"No, Captain! You're below. I can't let you die. I'll keep trying--"
"'Bandon ship, Carter! It's an order!"
And the faint, thin answer, "Aye, sir!" Silence.
Tim turned to Dorothy, and from somewhere summoned the ghost of a
smile. His arms went out to her, and as one in a dream she moved toward
him. There was, at least, this. They could die together.
And then Captain Lane was between them, bellowing, commanding, pushing
them apart.
"Avast, you two! This is no time for play-acting. Mallory, jerk down
those hammocks. Tumble in and strap yourselves tight! It's a chance in
a billion, but--"
Tim swung into motion. The old man was right. It was a slim chance,
but--a chance! To strap themselves into the pneumatic hammocks used
by passengers at times of acceleration, hope that by some miracle the
_Orestes_ would not be crushed into a metal pancake when they crashed,
pray that it might land on a slope, or some yielding substance.
It was a breathless moment and a mad one. Frenzied winds and the groan
of scorching metal, the thick panting of Captain Lane as he strapped
himself into a hammock between Tim and Dorothy, Dorothy's voice, "Tim,
dear--" And his own reply, "Hold tight, youngster!"
Then heat increasing, heat like a massive fist upon his breast, hot
beads of sweat, salt-tasting on his lips, an ear-splitting tumult
of sound from somewhere.... A swift, terrifying glimpse of solid
earth rushing up to meet them.... The last, wrenching shudder of the
_Orestes_ as it plunged giddily groundward. Heat ... pain ... flame ...
suffocation....
Then darkness.
* * * * *
Out of the darkness, light. Out of the sultriness, a thin, cool finger
of breeze. Out of the silence of death, life!
Tim Mallory opened his eyes. And a thick, wordless cry of thanksgiving
burst from his lips as he stared about him. The impossible had happened!
The ship had crashed. Its control-room was a fused and twisted heap of
wreckage smoldering in the giant crater it had plowed. But somehow the
observation turret, offset in a streamlined vane of the _Orestes_, had
escaped destruction.
Great rents gaped where once girders had welded together sturdy
_permalloy_ sheets, purposeless shards lay strewn about, even the
hammocks had been wrenched from their strong moorings, but he and his
companions still lived!
Even as Tim fought to loose the straps that circled him, Captain
Lane groaned, stirred, opened his eyes. Dully, then with wakening
recollection. And his first word--
"Dorothy?"
"Safe," said Mallory. "She's safe. We're all safe. I don't know how. We
must bear charmed lives." He bent over the girl, loosened her straps,
chafed her wrists gently. Her eyes opened, and the image of that last
moment of panic was still mirrored in their depths. "Tim!" she cried.
"Are we--Where's Daddy?"
"Easy, sugar!" soothed Tim. "He's here. It's all over. We pulled
through. It was a miracle."
He said it gratefully. But Captain Lane corrected him. The safety of
his daughter assured, the old spacedog's next thought had been for
his ship. He had walked forward, studied the crumpled ruin of the
control-room. Now he said, "Not a miracle, Mallory. A sacrifice. It
was Carter. He didn't bail out with the others. He must have stayed on
in the control-room, fighting that jammed Dixie-rod. It must have come
clean at the last moment, slowing the ship, or we wouldn't be here. But
it was too late, then, for him to get away--"
His voice was sad, but there was a sort of pride in it, too. Dorothy
began to cry softly. Captain Lane's hand came to his forehead in brief,
farewell salute to a gallant man. Then he rejoined the others. "It was
the first time," he said, "he ever disobeyed my orders."
Tim said nothing. There was nothing he could say. But for the first
time he realized why Captain Lane, why all spacemen, felt as they did
about their calling. Because the men who wore space-blues were of this
breed.
For a long moment there was silence. Then the old man stirred brusquely.
"Well, we'd better get going."
"Going?" Tim stared about him. It was a far from reassuring scene
that met his eyes. They had landed in the midst of wild and desolate
country, on a plateau midway between sprawling marshlands below and
craggy, cloud-created hills above. The shock of the crash must have
stunned into silence all wild-life temporarily, for upon awakening, Tim
had been dimly conscious of a vast, reverberant quietude.
But now the small, secret things were creeping back to gaze on the
smoking monster that had died in their midst; small squeals and snarls
and chirrupings bespoke an infinitude of watchers. The hour was just
before dawn; the eastward horizon was tinged with pearl. "Going?" Tim
repeated. "But where are we?"
* * * * *
Captain Jonathan looked at him somberly. "In the Badlands," he said.
"And the term is not a loose one; they _are_ bad lands, Mallory."
He pointed the hour hand of his wrist-watch at the pale mist of
rising sunlight. "I don't know exactly where we are, or how far from
civilization, but it's far enough."