The peculiar quality of deep space is hard to put into words. Onearth, however isolated we are, whatever happens to us, we are yeton our home planet. The man afloat on the life raft in the Pacific,delirious with exposure and loneliness, floats nonetheless on anelement whose very saltiness relates it to the red sea water in hisveins. The flyer forced down in the desert curses the rising sun; butthe same sun that sucks water out of his drying tissues is the glorioustemporal lord on whose radiation all terrestrial life processes depend.On earth our extremest terrors, our ultimate catastrophes, are yetlike the blows of a familiar hand. It is very different in deep space.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories January 1952.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
"Are there any more of them?" Alice asked McFeen when he came back fromtwo hold.
"Yes."
Alice's mouth opened in a soundless O. Her hand went to her breast.After a moment she picked up the comb and began pulling it againthrough her brittle hair. "How many more?" she asked.
"I didn't count them. Hyra are hard to count. Quite a lot."
The comb caught on a tangle. Alice put it down unsteadily. "I wish we'dnever brought them," she said abruptly. "I wish we'd never startedon this trip. I hate those things. They're uncanny. They give me thecreeps. What do you suppose is making them increase like that?"
"I don't know." McFeen's lean, ill-humored face was more than usuallymorose. "Listen, Alice...."
"Well?"
"That isn't the worst of it. I found a hole in the mesh of their cage."
"You're trying to frighten me," Alice said pitiably after a second."There couldn't be a hole in beryllium mesh."
"There was, though. I had to patch it up the best way I could. And ...and ... Alice, there was an eroded spot in the side of the hull."
"You mean there was a spot eaten into on the side of our ship?"
"Yes. I plated it over with the auto-weld. It was near their cage."
The comb snapped in Alice's hand. She stared at McFeen. "I told you!"she said finally. Her voice had risen several notes. "I told you it wasdangerous! You wouldn't listen to me. You knew everything.
"When I said maybe there was a reason why the Biologic Survey wouldn'trelease any Hyra to fight the blight on Varro, you said the Survey wasnothing but a bunch of fat-cat office-holders who had to make a lot offool regulations to look like they were earning their salaries. Youtalked big about how it was your duty to help the poor bosula rancherson Varro fight the blight. You tried to pretend money wasn't thereason why you were smuggling the Hyra out to them. You knew all theanswers, everything would be all right! Oh, you were Mr. Know-it-all!
"Now we're in deep space with an eroded hull. In deep space! I told yousomething would happen! I to—"
McFeen slapped her hard across the mouth. "Keep that gabby trap ofyours shut," he said threateningly. He hung over her menacingly for amoment. And then, relenting (after all, he and Alice had been througha lot together), "Stow it," he said. "No matter whose fault it is,complaining isn't going to help us now. We've got to figure a way outof this."
Alice put up one hand and fingered her swelling lips. She nodded."Yes," she whispered, "I guess we have."
McFeen began to walk up and down the little cabin. "The way I figureit," he said, frowning, "is, this is the first time anybody's had anyHyra in deep space. They were all right as long as we were in thesystem; it wasn't until we hit deep that they began to increase. Thedeeper i