The Project Gutenberg EBook of Derelict, by Alan Edward Nourse

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Title: Derelict

Author: Alan Edward Nourse

Illustrator: Ed Emshwiller

Release Date: April 13, 2010 [EBook #31976]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Illustration]

_What was the mystery of this great ship from the dark, deep reaches
of space? For, within its death-filled chambers--was the avenue of
life!_

DERELICT

By Alan E. Nourse

Illustrated by Ed Emsh

John Sabo, second in command, sat bolt upright in his bunk, blinking
wide-eyed at the darkness. The alarm was screaming through the Satellite
Station, its harsh, nerve-jarring clang echoing and re-echoing down the
metal corridors, penetrating every nook and crevice and cubicle of the
lonely outpost, screaming incredibly through the dark sleeping period.
Sabo shook the sleep from his eyes, and then a panic of fear burst into
his mind. The alarm! Tumbling out of his bunk in the darkness, he
crashed into the far bulkhead, staggering giddily in the impossible
gravity as he pawed about for his magnaboots, his heart pounding
fiercely in his ears. The _alarm_! Impossible, after so long, after
these long months of bitter waiting-- In the corridor he collided with
Brownie, looking like a frightened gnome, and he growled profanity as he
raced down the corridor for the Central Control.

Frightened eyes turned to him as he blinked at the bright lights of the
room. The voices rose in a confused, anxious babble, and he shook his
head and swore, and ploughed through them toward the screen. "Kill that
damned alarm!" he roared, blinking as he counted faces. "Somebody get
the Skipper out of his sack, pronto, and stop that clatter! What's the
trouble?"

The radioman waved feebly at the view screen, shimmering on the great
side panel. "We just picked it up--"

It was a ship, moving in from beyond Saturn's rings, a huge, gray-black
blob in the silvery screen, moving in toward the Station with ponderous,
clumsy grace, growing large