other. He gasped and writhed. The brief discomfort he had felt when he used the personnel transfer was nothing compared to this wrenching. He groped for some stability in a dissolving world.
Now he was on the floor. Above him was the window on the outside. He lifted his head slowly because his body felt as if he had been beaten. But that window display—there was no gray now—no ashes falling as snow. All was blue, bright, metallic blue—a blue he knew and that he wanted above him in safety. He staggered up, one hand stretching toward that promise of blue. But that feeling of instability remained.
“Wait!” The technician’s fingers caught his wrist in a hard, compelling grasp. He dragged Travis away from the screen, tried to push him down in one of the chairs. Ross was beyond, his scarred hand clenched on the edge of a control panel until the seams in the flesh stood out in ugly ridges. Losing that look of cold rage, his expression grew wary.
“What’s going on?” Ross asked harshly.
It was the technician who gave a sharp order. “Get in that seat!
中古車買取 Strap down! If it’s what I think, fella—” He shoved Ross back into the nearest chair. The other obeyed tamely as if he had not been at blows with the man only moments earlier.
“We’re through time, aren’t we?” Travis still watched that wonderful, peaceful patch of blue sky.
“Sure—we’re through. Only how long we’re going to stay here . . .” The technician stumbled to the third chair, that in which they had discovered the dead pilot days earlier. He sat down with a suddenness close to collapse.
“What do you mean?” Ross’s eyes narrowed. His dangerous look was coming back.
“Dragging us through by the energy of the grid did something to the engines here. Don’t you feel that vibration, man? I’d say this ship was preparing for a take-off!”
“What?” Travis was half out of his seat. The technician leaned forward and shoved him back into the full embrace of the swinging chair. “Don’t get any bright ideas about a quick scram out of here, boy. Just look!”
Travis followed the other’s pointing finger. The stairwell through which they had climbed to the cabin was now closed.
“Power’s on,” the other continued. “I’d say we’re going out pretty soon.”
“We can’t!” Travis began and then shivered, knowing the futility of that protest even as he shaped it.
“Anything you can do?” Ross asked, his control once more complete.
The technician laughed, choked, and then waved his hand at the array on the control board. “Just what?” he asked grimly. “I know the use of exactly three little buttons here. We never dared experiment with the rest without dismantling all the installations and tracing them through. I can’t stop or start anything. So we’re off to the moon and points up, whether we like it or not.”
“Anything they can do out there?” Travis turned back to that patch of blue. He knew nothing about the machines, even about the science of mechanics. He could only hope that somewhere, somehow, someone would end this horror they faced.
The technician looked at him and then laughed again. “They can clear out in a hurry. If there’s a backwash when we blast off, a lot of good guys may get theirs.”
That vibration, which Travis had sensed on his revival from the strain of the time transport, was growing stronger. It came not only from the walls and floor of the cabin, but seemingly from the very air he was gulping in quick, shallow breaths. The panic of utter helplessness sickened him, dried his mouth and gripped his middle with twisting pain.
“How long—?” he heard Ross ask, and saw the technician shake his head.
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
“But why? How?” Travis asked hoarsely.
“That pilot, the one they found sitting here . . .” The technician rapped the edge of the control board with his fingers. “Maybe he set automatic controls before he crashed. Then the time transfer—that energy triggered action somewhere . . . But I’m only guessing.”
“Set automatic controls for where?” Ross’s tongue swept over his lips as if they were dry.
“Home, maybe. This is it, boys—strap in!”
Travis fumbled with the straps of the