Robert Sheckley - Alien Harvest

“Our feelings would be nothing alike,” Gill said.

“Are you so sure?” Julie said. “Sometimes I've felt that I've been set up to follow some program written by someone else. 'The Beautiful Thief,' this one is called. I sometimes wish I could just rewrite my programming. Do you ever wish that?”

“Yes,” Gill said. “I know what you mean.” Then he shook his head irritably. “Excuse me, Miss Lish, but I must go finish checking out these weapons. Dr. Myakovsky is going to need us at any time.”

“Do what you have to do,” Julie said. She walked away, and Gill watched her go.

Starlight glittered on his space armor as Red Badger left the Dolomite's air lock and soared weightlessly toward the freighter wreck. Behind him came his backup man, Glint, illuminating the wreck with a powerful duolite beam.

Badger gestured, though their destination was plain enough: the gray mass of the wreck, tying in several distinct parts, blocking the stars.

Getting there was simple: both men, on a signal from Badger, opened squirt cans that propelled them across the intervening space.

Badger said into his helmet radio, “You reading me okay, Glint?”

“Loud and clear,” Glint said.

They landed on the hulk's largest section with a clank of magnetic boots. Badger's power wrench opened the airtight door that led into the ship.

A lot of the freighter's metal covering had been peeled back by strong explosions. It was no trouble at all, once they were past the external armor, to slip in between two structural girders and make their way to the interior.

The searchlight picked out the bodies of men, trapped in the sudden inrushing vacuum when the ship's side had been pierced. Exploded bodies lay across girders and floated unsupported in the zero gravity.

Badger and Glint moved slowly, clumsy in their airtight space armor, their searchlights throwing brilliant swords of light through the gloom. A corpse, hanging over a loop of high-pressure hose, seemed to reach out and touch Badger's helmet, lightly, as if just saying hello….

The redheaded spaceman laughed and pushed the thing aside. The body floated slowly across the shattered compartment, its arms held out loosely in front of it like a swimmer doing the dead man's float.

They reached the flight deck. Here there were more bodies, some terribly mangled by the pieces of flying machinery that had taken on the power of exploding shrapnel as the ship had come apart, others looking strangely peaceful, as if they'd never known what hit them. Death had had a busy few moments here before the eternal silence of space had entombed them all.

“Here's the control section,” Glint said over the little space-helmet radio that connected the two men.

“Good enough,” said Badger. “Let's find what we came for and get the hell out of here.”

They floated past an operations console that looked as good as new. The ship's name was still stenciled on the bulkhead, and the paint looked almost new.

” Valparaiso Queen ,” Glint spelled out. “She won't be going Earthside no more.”

“Tough luck for her,” Badger said, his tone flat and unemotional. “Here's what we're looking for.”

Under the command console was a panel with three fingertip-sized indentations. Badger pressed them in counterclockwise order, starting at twelve o'clock. The panel slid away. Badger directed Glint to shine the searchlight inside. Using wire cutters from the tool kit strapped to his waist, Badger cut the leads inside and withdrew a small heavy box made of a metalized plastic substance.

“This is what we came for. Now let's get out of here.”

Back aboard the Dolomite , Badger and Glint passed through the air lock and removed their suits. Glint started walking toward the elevator that led to the ship's command territory. He stopped when he saw that Badger was not following him.

“What's up, Red? Aren't we going to give this to the captain?”

“Of course we are,” Badger said. “But not just yet.” He led the way down a passageway to a door marked WORKSHOP D — AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

Glint followed him.

“What're you doin'?” Glint asked. “You going to fix that gizmo?”

Badger stopped and looked scornful. “You really are some kind of a moron. No, I'm not going to fix the gizmo. Why do you think I volunteered us for this job?”

“I was wondering about that,” Glint said.

“I want to get a look at what's on this flight recorder before I give it to the captain. Fat chance Hoban would ever tell us.”

Glint looked admiringly at his partner, then hurried to catch up as Badger pressed the stud that operated the door to Workshop D.

The lander was too small to have separate staterooms. There was a cubbyhole in the rear with a deceleration couch that pulled down from the wall. Stan had lain down there. When Julie came in he was asleep, his glasses still on, his round face momentarily untroubled. Julie bent over to shake him, then hesitated. Stan looked so peaceful there. His large face was calm, and quiet handsome. She noticed what long eyelashes he had, and what delicate skin, fine-pored like a young boy's.

The most recent ingestion of Xeno-Zip had taken Stan's spirit far away, into the limitless perspectives that were the psychic environment of the drug. He was traveling through a place of pure light and color, and he smiled at the friendly shapes around him.

Julie stared at him almost in awe. She knew that Stan was moving down the visionary trail in some impossible dreamtime, walking down a hall of memory filled with all the images of everything that had ever been or would be. And these images were melting like wax in the warmth of the soul's embrace. Stan was a sorcerer forcing time itself to stand still and be accountable to the moment. He had found eternity in an instant, and he was balancing it on a needlepoint. He was in his own time now, a time that had no duration and no limit. He was in a place she could never get to. But, she wondered, out here in the world of solid objects and fiery forces, how much time did he have left? How much time was at Julie's disposal, for that matter? Could Stan see their time lines in that strange place where he was?

“Stan,” she whispered to him, “what are you dreaming about? Am I in the dream with you? Are we happy?”

Stan mumbled something but she couldn't catch the words. She reached out and touched him on the shoulder. His eyes snapped open, as if he had been waiting for this signal. She watched his face tense as pain returned to his consciousness. Then he had himself under control and said, “Julie … What is it?”

“Captain Hoban wants to speak to you again. He's pulled a flight recorder from that wreck.”

“Okay, fine.” Stan sat up, then got somewhat unsteadily to his feet. Julie's slender, hard arm was around him, supporting him, her warm fragrant hair was at his shoulder, and he breathed her fragrance gratefully.

“Thanks,” he said.

“Hey, don't mention it. We're a team, aren't we?”

He looked at her. Her eyes were enormous, brilliant, with dark pools at the center. He felt himself melting into them. A wave of emotion came over him.

“Julie …”

“Yes, Stan, what is it?”

“If you're doing this for my sake … please don't stop.”

The voices on the flight recorder were very clear.

“What ship is that?”

” This is the Valparaiso Queen, Captain Kuhn commanding, thirty-seven days out of Santiago de Chile. To whom am I speaking? ”

” This is Potter of the Bio-Pharm ship Lancet. Do you realize you are trespassing ?”