Andre Norton - Galactic Derelict

The fourth time they pulled him out for a breather, he rolled over on his back and lay gasping. “I’ve pried the thing loose as far down as I can reach.” His words came one by one as if he could barely summon up the strength to push them out. “And it’s still fast farther down.”

“Maybe we can work it loose, pulling from up here.” Ashe’s hands curved about the scaled surface of the pipe where it projected over the side of the well.

“You can try.” Renfry rubbed his fists across his forehead as Travis, with a heave he tried to make gentie, moved the technician’s dead weight away from the side of the opening, to put his own hands overlapping Ashe’s.

Together they strained to move the column of the pipe inside the tube of the well. But it appeared glued to the side where Renfry had fought to free it. Beads of sweat gathered along the line of black hair above Travis’ forehead, trickled down to sting across his lips. And in the half-light he saw Ashe’s jaw line set—sharp under the thin brown skin—while the cords and muscles of his arms and shoulders stood out to be modeled under the fabric of the blue suit.

Then Ross added his weight to the effort. “You pull,” he told Ashe. “Let us push in your direction. If it is ever going to give, that ought to do it.”

For a long, long moment it seemed that the pipe was not going to give, that too much damage existed below. Then Ashe flew back, the hose striking him a forceful blow in the chest, as, out of their sight, the obstruction gave away and Ross and Travis sprawled halfway across the opening.

They scrambled up and Ross hurried to pull Ashe free of the hose. With Renfry trailing, they went back to the outer air of the port. They took up the towrope once again and began the labor of dragging the hose to meet the ship. The scaled pipe moved sluggishly, but they were winning, foot by painful foot.

Then Travis, during one of their all-too-frequent halts, glanced back and cried out. They were three-fourths of the way to their goal, but from under the belly of the hose snake was spreading a stain of moisture which gleamed in the afternoon light. That last rip to free the tube must have weakened its fabric and the burden of the unknown fuel was being lost.

Renfry stumbled back, knelt to explore, and jerked one hand away with a cry of pain. “It’s corrosive—like acid.” he warned. “Don’t touch it.”

“Now what?” Ross kicked dirt over the stain, watched the soil crumble into slime in the dark smear of fluid.

“We can get the pipe on to the ship—and hope that enough of the fuel comes through,” Ashe answered in a colorless voice. “I don’t think we can hope to mend the hose.”

And because they could see no other way out, they went back to hauling at the towrope, trying not to glance back or think of the fuel seeping out of the pipe line. Renfry nursed his burnt hand against his chest until they at last pushed the end of the hose under the curve of the globe. He got down and crawled under, grunting with pain as he fastened the head of the snake against the opening in the ship.

“Is it feeding through?” Ross asked the all-important question.

Renfry, almost as if he dreaded the answer, put his good hand palm-down on the scaled side of the pipe, holding it there for a long moment while they waited to know the future.

“Yes.”

They had no idea how much fuel the ship required—or whether the necessary amount was still available. The moist seepage along the hose continued to spread. But Renfry lay with his hand on the pipe, nodding to them from time to time that the feed of fluid was still in progress.

There came a pop like a small explosion. The head of the pipe cropped from the opening in the ship, the hose now flaccid. Renfry tapped and hammered at the cap which had slid into place, pulling down over it a second protective lock. When that clicked under his efforts he rolled out.

“That’s that. We’ve all we’re going to get.”

“Is it enough?” Travis wanted to ask—to demand. But he knew that the others were as ignorant as he of the proper answer.

They straggled back to the port ladder, somehow pulled themselves up, and made their way in a blind haze of fatigue to the cabin bunks. What they could do they had done—now their success was back again in the hands of blind fortune.

Travis roused out of a dose. The vibration in the walls— They were bound off-planet again! But were they heading home? Or would that unknown fuel only take them into space, abandon them there to drift forever?

He dreamed—of red cliffs and sage, piñón pine, and the songs of small birds in a canyon. He dreamed of the feel of a desert wind against one’s body and the surge of horse muscles between one’s legs—of a world which was, before mankind aspired to space. And it was a good dream, so good a one that even when it drifted from him after the way of dreams, Travis lay veiy still, his eyes closed, trying to will it back again.

But the sterile smell of the ship was in his nostrils, the feel of the ship was under his hands, closing around his body. And his old claustrophobic dislike of the globe was reborn with an intensity he had almost forgotten. He opened his eyes with a forced effort.

“We’re still on the beam.” Ross sat on the bunk opposite, his face hollow with strain under the blue light. He held up his hands. Both normal and scarred fingers were crossed, and he laughed as he so displayed them. “Soup’s on,” he added.

They counted the ration tins again that day. The contents of those few containers must be stretched to the limit now. Ashe measured out the portions which must serve for nourishment each waking period.

“We will just have enough if the time element remains the same. Stay in your bunks as much as possible—the less energy you burn the better.”

But a man could sleep just so much. And however earnestly they pursued that escape, there came a time when sleep fled and one could only lie, staring up, or with closed eyes, while lone minutes of waiting stretched into hours, always darkened by fears.

“I was thinking,” Ross spoke suddenly into the silence of the cabin he shared with Travis, “when we come in we should show up on the radar screens before we land. It’ll be just like some bright boy to loose off a missile, just for practice. We can’t possibly signal that we’re only space travelers coming home.”

“We’re armed.” But Travis wondered what defenses the globe did have. Missiles were top secret. Their government-other governments—could have any number of unpleasant surprises waiting to greet air-borne craft which could not adequately identify themselves.

“Dream on.” Ross sounded scornful. “I don’t see us knocking down Nike Four and all her cousins and aunts with those cannon. We don’t even know how to aim the things!”

They broke out of hyper-space, that period of discomfort heightened by their weakened condition. But in spite of that weakness, they dragged themselves to the control cabin to watch that green-patched ball grow on the vision screen. Travis discovered he was shaking, feeling almost as ill as he had during the food-testing session. Was that green ball-home? Dared they believe so—or was it a mirage they were all sharing now because they wanted it so badly? Just as the picture plate of the aliens could reproduce any man’s home site to lighten his loneliness?

But now the familiar lines of the continents sharpened. Ross’s head went down, his face hidden in his hands. And Ashe spoke slowly certain measured words Travis knew, though they were no part of his own heritage. Renfry’s hands ran back and forth along the edge of the control board, caressingly.

“She did it! She’s brought us home!”