Part 2

In the vast dome-hold at the nose of the hurtling liner were a group of burned and battered men. They grumbled hopelessly. Most of them were in bad shape.

Failles was at the spaceport. "No sign of Hidalgo," he reported.

"There won't be much to see," Norman warned him. "Try the magnascope."

Radiations were so powerful now that it was impossible to take the armor off the badly burned men long enough to tend their injuries. Thirty-one men still lived, but seven were seriously burned, at least one dying.

Time dragged hideously. In spite of the insulating layers, released energy from the degenerating metallic armor struck through the hold and built up heat alarmingly. Thermal indicators registered the temperature of a blast furnace. Automatic thermal adjustors inside the cumbersome armor could not react rapidly enough to keep up with the rising temperature.

Harald nudged Norman. He tried to look at his wrist-chron, but it had stopped from the heat.

"Better start negative acceleration," he said.

The lieutenant nodded. He and Harald fought their way back to the control room. Passageways were glowing, and metal rods felt pulpy even through their heavy gloves. The switches swung over to negative acceleration. The trip back to the dome was even more difficult.

The negative acceleration was taking its toll. Two of the injured men died.

Around the edges of each fused quartz spaceport was something like a rime of frost. It spread as they watched, spiderweb feelers reaching out across the circular panes. The faint starlight clouded and infinitely tiny points of radiance formed patterns within the crystalline surface.

"I'm going to open the airlock. Check your space suits."

One of the spaceports burst suddenly. Quartz-crystals showered into space. Air shrieked through the shattered port, freezing as it contacted the intense cold. Clouds of frost flecks formed and were instantly dispersed.

With the release of pressure, the airlock door came open easily. "There's a grey smudge down there," Merrill screamed, balancing precariously in the outer doorway. "Could that be Hidalgo?"

Norman was giving orders in a crisp, level tone. "Get the liquid-air tanks over-side. Failles, you take care of the casualties. Three of you should be enough. Harald, your job is to get the portable helioflash there safely. Merrill and the rest of you try to maneuver the air tanks down to Hidalgo. Use your jet cartridges sparingly, men, but--get there."

A shriek of terror came from Failles at the magnascope.

"The forward rocket tubes are fusing! They'll blow any time!"

"_Abandon ship!_"

In orderly fashion, the men lined up and went through the airlock. Norman went last.

Norman closed his eyes and shoved hard as he made the leap into space. The night seemed to open and swallow him. Impetus of his shove carried him away from the hurtling liner.

He opened his eyes as the giddiness of floating free in space swept over him. The nauseating agony of weightlessness wrenched at him. He retched painfully, but clenched his lips till the spasms died down. Fumbling, his fingers found the button which controlled the jet cartridges. With them, a spaceman has a limited maneuverability and control, even away from his ship. As he pressed the button, he prayed. They worked.

There was no sound, but a jarring vibration went through his body. It seemed an incredible distance to the air-tanks. Eight others were clustered around the bulky tanks when Norman reached them. Merrill was close behind him. Not far away was Harald, clutching the portable helioflash box to him.

Far below, slowly turning over as it came toward them, was the titanic wedge of barren rock which was Hidalgo. Then began a weary, heartbreaking task of jockeying the air-tanks into position and towing them to intercept the jagged wanderer of space.

Twenty men lived to reach it.

Failles and his helpers brought in all the injured, but only one was alive.

There was practically no gravity, so little that the centrifugal force of the spinning asteroid would have hurled the men back into space but for the magnetic soles of their armored shoes. Magnetic grapnels were attached to hold down the tanks. To make sure, lashings were run to up-thrust fingers of rock and everything loose made secure.

Clinging to a rope, Norman stood up and tried out the magnetic soles. They held, but it was necessary to shamble along without raising the feet any more than could be avoided. He looked about and his heart sank. No more eery and desolate place could be imagined. A ragged and uneven surface of bare rock and brittle obsidian-glass ended suddenly in a serrated horizon of ugly needle-point peaks. The horizon was disturbingly close. Overhead, the eternal stars moved in slow parade--but discernible motion--against the black vaults of space.

Just above the horizon was the sun, shrunken till its disk was barely perceptible as a disk. It shone feebly, but with harsh brilliance, casting solid shadows which moved like live things over the rough rocks.

Suddenly, Norman became conscious of something else. Another object moved swiftly out in space. A torpedo shape, faintly luminous.

Failles was pointing toward it. "The Tellus," he said grimly. "It's circling Hidalgo like a moon, coming down in a long spiral orbit. As its momentum decreases, it will come closer and crash. Looks as if we still have our wildcat by the tail."

Norman groaned. "When that stuff blows, it'll take this whole end of space with it."

Harald was crouching over his helioflash, working awkwardly at the dials with his heavy gloves.

"I'm trying to get Scorpio," he explained. "Tell them to warn off the freighters. No luck so far. These tubes are about shot. I can get a faint signal, but can't make out anything."

"Keep trying. We've got to warn off the freighters."

"I know. In spite of that faintness, the signal sounds as if it might be from fairly close."

Merrill came up. "I've been exploring," he said. "There's the wreck of a spaceship just over that ridge. Some sort of shaft close by it. I'm going over and look around."

He wandered off across the desolate stretch of rock. Norman watched him go, then turned to Harald. "You'd better follow and watch him. He's ready to crack. I'll take over the helio."

Failles shuffled up as Harald disappeared around a harsh shoulder of volcanic rock.

"Got through yet?" he snapped.

Norman shook his head. "I get a signal but they don't answer. It's too faint to make out."

"Let me try."

Norman gave way and Failles crouched down adjusting dials. He replaced a tube. The helio squawked savagely. The engineer fumbled over the knobs. The message clacked into his earphones.

"It's the freighter Dekorus," he shouted. "They're two days ahead of the others. Were on their way to Callisto when they got our distress helio from the Tellus. Couldn't reply. Their sender was out of order. They'll be here any time."

"For God's sake, stop that ship!" Norman screamed. "They'll get here just as that stuff blows...."

"I'm trying. They don't acknowledge my signals."

Like a racing moon, the wreck of the Tellus shot below the horizon. It seemed much closer than before.

"_Calling Dekorus. Why don't you answer, Dekorus? Calling Dekorus...._"

Two hours later, a solitary figure stumbled into the group around the helio. The instrument was silent. Men sat or crouched in stolid hopelessness. They had just pronounced sentence of death on themselves.

"We got through," Norman told Harald. "They aren't coming. Where's Merrill?"

Harald staggered and would have fallen, but Norman gripped him roughly.

"Merrill's dead," he said. A glaze of horror went over his face. "We found the ship. It was the one all right--his father's--the charting expedition. There was nothing in it--no bodies, nothing. We looked around. There was a hole there, a sort of shaft. It led down at a steep angle. A rough sort of ladder had been hacked into the rock, niches and pegs. We had a time getting down, but Merrill thought we might find something. He said he wanted to know before he died.

"We went down and down. And at the bottom was a door. It was a wooden door, of some wood I don't know, black and shiny with pinpoints of color here and there. And it was _carved_.

"While we stood there, it began to swing open. Slowly open. I was scared, frankly and honestly scared, but not Merrill. He strode up to it, shoved it open the rest of the way and went inside. I tried to follow, but my feet refused to move. I was rooted to the spot. I couldn't go in and I couldn't leave. It seemed hours. Then he came out. He came out running.

"I caught up with him and tried to hold him, but he struck at me and tried to kill me. When I looked in his eyes, I saw why. He was mad. Stark, raving mad. He broke away and ran to the foot of the stairs. But he didn't try to climb. He just kept banging his helmet face-plate on one of those rock pegs till it smashed. Have you ever seen a man smash his face plate in space? The horror of eyes squeezed out, flesh bursting to bloody pulp from the pressure of liquid blood inside, then in a second frozen steel-hard from the cold. It makes you all sick inside and you dream about it the rest of your life. But that wasn't the worst.

"I got curious about what he'd seen back there. I went back to have a look at it myself. The door was closed, but I pushed on it and it opened....

"One look was enough for me. I wish I could tell you what it was, but there aren't any words. Have you ever seen anything that made you want to die? I did. I took my look, then I got back here as fast as I could."

Norman stared into Harald's eyes, wondering if Merrill were the only one who had gone mad. Harald read the look and laughed bitterly.

"I wish I could go crazy," he said. "It might help. But I just want to die. After that, I couldn't go on living."

Norman glanced up as the Tellus, wreathed in eery radiance, shot above the horizon.

"It looks as if we'll all be dead soon enough to suit even you," he observed.

Harald came suddenly to life again. "The rest of you don't have to die," he shouted. "Contact that ship and tell them to wait for you. There's a self-propelled life boat intact in that wreck. It's not even dusty. Get going, man!..."

As the lifeboat roared out from Hidalgo, Norman was busy at the controls, maneuvering carefully to avoid the hurtling bulk of the derelict Tellus. He did not even realize what had happened till he heard the blast of air released from the airlock and someone raise a cry of "man overboard!"

It was Harald. From the ports, Norman could see him working the jets of his space-suit to intercept the racing bulk of the Tellus. Automatically his hands reached for the control bars, but Norman caught himself. He and Failles exchanged glances.

"It's a hard decision, lieutenant," Failles said. "But there isn't time. He said something about making sure, but I didn't know then what he meant."

"We know now," Norman gritted.

He shoved the switch-bars and gave the lifeboat full power. It roared into the darkness ahead.

Miles later, he and Failles stood by the stern ports and watched a fan of terrible lights spread across a quarter of the sky. Soundless, brilliant as the day-star, its glare struck through the ports like a solid force.

"Goodbye, Hidalgo," Norman mused aloud. "Goodbye, Harald. I wonder what he saw there that made him feel like that?"

"No one will ever know," Failles said.