FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124  
125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   >>  
ve. The bald space rovers--did they still exist here somewhere? Had they come to explore the ship built on the pattern of their own but manned by Terrans? "Nothing except tracks, a lot of them, in every open cabin and hole. I think there must have been a sizable pack of the things." "What killed the dead one?" Buck wet his lips. "I think--fear...." His voice dropped a little, almost apologetically, and Travis stared. "The ship is changed. Inside, there is something wrong. When you walk the corridors your skin crawls, you think there is something behind you. You hear things, see things from the corners of your eyes.... When you turn, there's nothing, nothing at all! And the higher you climb into the ship, the worse it is. I tell you, Travis, never have I felt anything like it before!" "It was a ship of many dead," Travis reminded him. Had the age-old Apache fear of the dead been activated by the Redax into an acute phobia--to strike down such a level-headed man as Buck? "No, at first that, too, was my thought. Then I discovered that it was worst not near that chamber where we lay our dead, but higher, in the Redax cabin. I think perhaps the machine is still running, but running in a wrong way--so that it does not awaken old memories of our ancestors now, but brings into being all the fears which have ever haunted us through the dark of the ages. I tell you, Travis, when I came out of that place Deklay was leading me by the hand as if I were a child. And he was shivering as a man who will never be warm again. There is an evil there beyond our understanding. I think that this Tatar girl, were she only to stay there a very short time, would be well frightened--so frightened that any trained scientist examining her later would know there was a mystery to be explored." "The ape-things--could they have tried to run the Redax?" Travis wondered. To associate machines with the creatures was outwardly pure folly. But they had been discovered on two of the planets of the old civilization, and Ashe had thought that they might represent the degenerate remnants of a once intelligent species. "That is possible. If so, they raised a storm which drove them out and killed one of them. The ship is a haunted place now." "But for us to use the girl...." Travis had seen the logic in Buck's first suggestion, but now he differed. If the atmosphere of the ship was as terrifying as Buck said, to imprison Kaydessa there, even t
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124  
125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   >>  



Top keywords:
Travis
 

things

 

haunted

 

higher

 

thought

 
frightened
 
discovered
 

running

 
killed
 

raised


understanding

 

shivering

 
Deklay
 

terrifying

 
leading
 

Kaydessa

 
imprison
 
atmosphere
 

differed

 

suggestion


explored

 

mystery

 

examining

 

machines

 

outwardly

 

associate

 

wondered

 

planets

 

civilization

 

species


intelligent

 
creatures
 

scientist

 

represent

 

trained

 
remnants
 

degenerate

 
dropped
 

sizable

 
crawls

corridors
 

apologetically

 
stared
 
changed
 

Inside

 

explore

 
rovers
 

pattern

 
tracks
 

Nothing