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Fantascience Digest, v. 2, issue 4, May-June 1939

Page 7

FANTASCIENCE DIGEST                     Page 7

from the truth."

   At four noon, we discharged a series of Cedral bombs in the direction of the corpse world.The resulting explosions---the flying diamonds of frozen gas tumbling lazily into space flicking all the colors of the rainbow from innumerable facets, convinced us that this was no illusion. I decided to pause in the neighborhood long enough to secure photographs of the catastrophe, then back to earth. At my command, the Y 486 G was maneauvered into the shadow of Venus. Work proceeded from there. 

   A cold feeling of dread hangs over me as I write the occurrences of the last hew hours. The corridors and state rooms of this great space transport are quiet now with the silence of fear-----a few hours ago......

   I had left the control room at the end of my watch and went up onto the officers observation dome. The place was deserted. Far down in the bowels of the ship, generators wined softly, and from the main solon came the sound of music, laughter. I remembered that a tungsten wire audio-graph had been installed in the fourth level of amusement of the passengers.

   Above me, the cold eyes of the stars stared silently from a background of utter black, and filling the rest of the sky---I use the word sky for lack of better definition---was the half-lit atmosphere of the dead planet: a great curving line of line running the entire length of the glassite port.

   Suddenly I stiffened. Something---something shapeless, black to the power of blotting out the non-color of spacial depths---blearing out the clean edge of the atmosphere line, was moving in the direction of the Y 486 G.

   At first I felt its coming, rather than saw, but when the stars gradually faded from view; when the port was but a mass of interwinding gray and black lashes of light---then I knew.

   Minutes went by on leaden feet. My eyes were held to the port watching the faint undulating motion which passed down the black in regular intervals. Suddenly there was, simultaneously, a convulsive ripple in the thing pressed against the dome, and a man's hoarse scream from the main salon. 

   I was down the companion-way and running for the fourth level before the echos had ceased. As my fingers closed over the salon's door bar an intense feeling of cold seemed to grip my brain; some unseen force halted me in my tracks as if I were a doll. For an un-measurable length of time I stood motionless, senseless; then what ever it was had gone, and I pushed into the salon.

   Edwards saw me as I entered, and pointed to a state room off the main level. The ship's physician stepped away from a bed, in which lay the blanket-covered body of a woman, as I came in. She wasn't a pretty sight. Space pressure cases never are. Suicide I thought, looking down on the horribly bloated body bulging from beneath the bed covering; the traces of pink froth still remaining about her mouth despite the doctor's hurried work. Probably managed to find her way to one of the tail air-locks and crawled inside a Grame chamber. But I was wrong---this wasn't self-inflicted death, nor was it a pressure case. 

   Edwards, without saying a

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FANTASCIENCE DIGEST Page 7 from the truth." At four noon, we discharged a series of Cedral bombs in the direction of the corpse world.The resulting explosions---the flying diamonds of frozen gas tumbling lazily into space flicking all the colors of the rainbow from innumerable facets, convinced us that this was no illusion. I decided to pause in the neighborhood long enough to secure photographs of the catastrophe, then back to earth. At my command, the Y 486 G was maneauvered into the shadow of Venus. Work proceeded from there. A cold feeling of dread hangs over me as I write the occurrences of the last hew hours. The corridors and state rooms of this great space transport are quiet now with the silence of fear-----a few hours ago...... I had left the control room at the end of my watch and went up onto the officers observation dome. The place was deserted. Far down in the bowels of the ship, generators wined softly, and from the main solon came the sound of music, laughter. I remembered that a tungsten wire audio-graph had been installed in the fourth level of amusement of the passengers. Above me, the cold eyes of the stars stared silently from a background of utter black, and filling the rest of the sky---I use the word sky for lack of better definition---was the half-lit atmosphere of the dead planet: a great curving line of line running the entire length of the glassite port. Suddenly I stiffened. Something---something shapeless, black to the power of blotting out the non-color of spacial depths---blearing out the clean edge of the atmosphere line, was moving in the direction of the Y 486 G. At first I felt its coming, rather than saw, but when the stars gradually faded from view; when the port was but a mass of interwinding gray and black lashes of light---then I knew. Minutes went by on leaden feet. My eyes were held to the port watching the faint undulating motion which passed down the black in regular intervals. Suddenly there was, simultaneously, a convulsive ripple in the thing pressed against the dome, and a man's hoarse scream from the main salon. I was down the companion-way and running for the fourth level before the echos had ceased. As my fingers closed over the salon's door bar an intense feeling of cold seemed to grip my brain; some unseen force halted me in my tracks as if I were a doll. For an un-measurable length of time I stood motionless, senseless; then what ever it was had gone, and I pushed into the salon. Edwards saw me as I entered, and pointed to a state room off the main level. The ship's physician stepped away from a bed, in which lay the blanket-covered body of a woman, as I came in. She wasn't a pretty sight. Space pressure cases never are. Suicide I thought, looking down on the horribly bloated body bulging from beneath the bed covering; the traces of pink froth still remaining about her mouth despite the doctor's hurried work. Probably managed to find her way to one of the tail air-locks and crawled inside a Grame chamber. But I was wrong---this wasn't self-inflicted death, nor was it a pressure case. Edwards, without saying a