[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Thrilling Wonder Stories Winter 1954.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
"Come in, Jessup.... Come in, Jessup ...." the voice said over and over.
He reached out blindly to push it away until the tearing pain in hisside cleared his mind of smothering fog.
"I ... I...." he croaked.
The voice droned on unheeding for an interminable time, then:
"Jess!" it deafened him "Hey, Colonel! I've got him! He's alive! Jess—"
The voice of Colonel Markley broke in, "What happened, Jessup?" Thenthere was a deathly silence, a waiting.
"I ... I don't know," said Jessup. "It's dark out there—thebull's-eye's dark. Or maybe I can't see—"
He checked his voice as he sensed its rising pitch. His groping handfound the emergency switch, and the panel lights came on before himlike round eyes in the dark.
"Jessup, what's wrong?" roared the colonel's voice. "You've been silentfor an hour. We watched you land, but lost you and now we can't seeyou. Where are you?"
He asked himself the question, and the answer trickled slowly into hismind.... I'm in a very small, padded place. My head and side hurtlike fire. All I can see are those owl-eyed dials....
There should be more to see than that.
His hand next felt what his eyes now saw: the plastiglass gleam of thebull's-eye only a few inches from his face. Beyond the transparency wasa darkness like the bottom of a mine.
"I don't know where I am, Colonel," he said finally. "It's darkoutside. I must have gone over the terminator."
He could sense the colonel waiting like a trapped hawk. There was onlya three-second time-lag, but it seemed like more. It had made itselffelt, like a growing sense of distance, all the way from the Station.
"You didn't cross over," insisted Markley's voice. "We saw you land ahundred miles safe in sunlight. Can't you even see the stars?"
The stars! Jessup strained his face toward the little round hole oftransparency, and yet he saw nothing. He felt strange, idiotic wordsrising: "Someone's painted it black—I fell in a puddle of ink—"
"What's that?" shouted the colonel. "In God's name, man, talk sense!"
"I must have landed in a big shadow and fallen over," said Jessup."That's why it's dark."
"Apparently you hit on your head," rasped Markley. "Look—pull yourselftogether! You're not in any shadow. You skimmed right into daylight inthe middle of Nubium."
"You saw me land!" cried Jessup eagerly. "How did it look from upthere?"
"You went down from the West," said the colonel, speaking fast. "Yourjets started over the Altai Range. You sailed over Regio, apparentlypretty high, and slanted in toward the edge of Pitatus. Your jetsblinked out just about fifty miles north of that. That's all we saw."
"One of the steering vanes blew and she was going to spin—I had to cutthe jets too high," said Jessup, his mind clearing rapidly. "Wait aminute, Colonel, I'll see what gives."
There was another interval of silence, underscored by the sound of hisown labored breathing. He explored his body with his hands and foundmany sore spots but no obvious fractures. He loosened the harness andput his feet on the floor, bracing himself with his hands against thesides of the tiny cabin. He stood there for a minute, swaying, beforehe realized what was wrong.
The floor was down.
That meant the ship was resting on her tail structure. And so thebull's-eye above his head sho