As I spun round for about the millionth time, I noticed the dark shape of a ship lying not far off. My heart missed a beat. There was a flash of light and something went zipping by. I waited for an explosion, but nothing happened. I realized that the thing which had gone flying by was not a missile intended to destroy me, but a life line.
The trouble was they'd missed, so the line was just out of reach. Another flash of light, and this time I found the line between my legs. The lack of gravity and loss of normal coordination made the effort of grabbing it monumental, but I slowly found a loop on my belt which opened and was able to attach the line through it. About five minutes later I noticed I'd changed direction. The life line was pulling me towards the ship. In my excitement at this discovery, I didn't question whether it was one of our fleet or an alien craft.
The line pulled me nearer. Was it one of ours? It looked thinner; I wasn't sure. Then I knew; this wasn't one of ours. The hatch that would normally be around the middle of the ship, was missing. This ship had the opening very near the exhaust end, and as I drew closer, I saw that the torpedo tubes were not in the nose section, but attached to the side. Inside my space suit I broke out in a cold sweat.
The hatch was a large double-door affair. The line pulled me in, through the outer doors, and right up to a point in the wall. The outer doors closed. An incandescent light glowed and I saw that the line had towed me into a large airlock. I began to float slowly to the floor. As I undid my life line, gravity seemed to increase gradually and my equilibrium began to come back. A few moments later a panel behind me slid quietly open and my taut nerves gave a twinge of fear. I walked unsteadily into another small cubicle. Suddenly the floor seemed to come up at me, and I stumbled around trying to regain my balance. I laughed nervously as I realized this was a high speed lift. It stopped. Another moment's delay, then the panel slid back and I was looking into a brilliantly lit cabin at the alien crew. They moved forward. Some were wearing silver-colored space suits, one was a brilliant emerald green color and one was golden. At least they were about normal human height, but because of their dark visors, I couldn't see their faces. My surprise at seeing human shapes rather than 'rats' steadied me, but I was still nervous enough to jump when the thing in gold came over to me, took hold of my arm and led me from the lift. It was not a vicious authoritative grip, but more like a friendly gesture to a blind person. Once out of the lift the door slid shut and I felt the fastener on my helmet being released. The chap in gold gave me a sort of O.K. sign and I took the helmet off. I held my breath as the helmet came off, but I had to breathe and to my relief the atmosphere seemed normal instead of the toxic mixture it might have been.
The whole crew began to take helmets off. They had human faces! I began to wonder whether they were in fact part of the Earth's space fleet.
`Selgain,' said the man in gold.
`Hello,' I said, nervously bracing myself. They all looked curiously at me. The gentleman in gold went over to a panel and pressed a button. A desk appeared. I was ushered over and invited to sit on a stool which appeared to be attached to the desk. They all crowded round me and I began to wonder what they wanted me to do.
The fellow in gold then started to point to his mouth and moved his lips as though he was speaking.
`Do you want me to talk?' I said.
They all looked delighted.
`I think I begin to understand,' I said, warming to the job. 'You want me to talk, to see if you can find out what language I'm talking in. Well, I don't quite know how you're going to do this, but I hope you can. My name is Richard or Dick Warboys. I am a bachelor. I live in St John's College, Cambridge, England, and work at the University there.' I stopped. As I'd been talking a printout machine had been working. At a guess I would think a computer was putting my speech patterns into numerical form. I talked on more carefully and methodically. The chap in gold started studying the information. I looked round at the other crew members. The fellow in the green suit looked extraordinarily young. Suddenly I realized that it wasn't a man, it was a woman.
The fellow in gold took hold of a typing machine and started banging away on the keys. When he'd finished the print-out shot out its reply. He read it and then did some more typing.
`Selgain,' said the man, smiling. 'Greetings,' came his voice a fraction of a second later from the intercom. `Greetings,' I said, which was followed by `Selgain'. The man in gold smiled and talked into the machine, which said: 'My name is Betelgeuse. This is Alcyone,' he brought the girl forward, she smiled. 'And this is Rigel.' Rigel nodded. 'And these are the three M's.' The three strapping young men nodded and said Selgain' as one man.
I nodded a greeting to them.
`You were very lucky,' said Betelgeuse, pointing to the belt on my space suit. 'It sent out a distress signal.'
I thanked my lucky stars. It must have been actuated automatically as I was ejected from the ship. 'Could you pick up the rest of my crew?' I asked.
'We can try. Can you show me where you were hit?' Betelgeuse asked.
He handed me a pointer, and a picture of the area with the dead and exploded ships marked appeared on an illuminated panel. From what I could remember we had been roughly at the point of a V. Our ships at the bottom, one fleet to the left, and someone coming in from the right. I looked hard and eventually could make out the original V. There at the bottom was marked an explosion.
`Here, I think,' I said, pointing.
Alcyone and Rigel went over to the typing machine, and punched something out. The ship started to move.
`We will make a circle of the area. Have you any idea of your speed at the time you were hit?'
`No,' I said. We might have been doing any speed at the time.
`Then we'll work on the speed you yourself were traveling at.'
We traveled a full circle without any success.
Betelgeuse looked at me. 'We will go into the exact area, but I'm afraid that, if there isn't anyone there, we must return you to Earth.'
`You will return me to Earth?' I asked.
`The Earth people are in great danger.'
`I can see.'
`Greater than I think you realize.'
`What do you mean?'
`When the time is right, you will know,' Betelgeuse said.
I wondered whether this was just a trick to find out about landing instructions on Earth. The intercom started to crackle with static. I thought I heard something. There it was, the old 'mayday' distress signal.
`What does it mean?' asked Alcyone.
`The signal?'
`Yes.'
`It means "Help me".'
`Very apt,' smiled Betelgeuse.
The signal kept getting stronger and stronger until we were almost on top of it. I watched a picture of the space outside. The viewer scanned until it fixed on a dark patch. The dark patch became a wreck. Then I saw it. A small image moved among the wrecked parts. Whoever it was had a space pack on his back, as I could see small spurts of flame occasionally. It became apparent as we watched, that whoever it was out there was making his way away from us.
`He's afraid of us,' Betelgeuse observed.
Not surprising,' I said.
`You want me to bring him here?'
`Certainly. As long as you don't hurt him.'
I watched as they linked the man up on what I assumed was their target scope. A small rocket suddenly shot across the picture. Betelgeuse waited, looking a little tense.
`What's happened?' I said, trying to see what was going on outside.
`He's avoided the line.'
Betelgeuse lined up the target on the scope and then fired another small rocket. It seemed to go up to the target and then stop.
`You're watching a very simple little device,' Betelgeuse said with a smile. 'Since he doesn't want to be rescued, we'll bring him in with a little pressure.'
`What exactly is it?'
`A line that's used to clear wreckage in space. The rocket head is programmed to do whatever you want. You see it has arrived at its target, and it waits for further instructions. Now I turn on a strong magnetic field.'
`What a marvelous toy,' I said.
`Certainly, but it does the job.'
Betelgeuse pressed a button and the fellow outside must have got a shock, as he started moving backwards, but it wasn't long before the man was in the airlock and coming up in the lift.
The door opened, and I moved forward in front of Betelgeuse and his crew. My thoughts were right. I moved in quickly. The man was holding a grenade. Before I could tackle him the man put the grenade back on his belt. He came out of the lift and started removing his helmet.
`Couldn't kill you, Dick,' said Colonel Rhodes. 'Have they grilled you yet?'
No, they haven't. I hadn't even thought of that; they were going to return me to Earth if they hadn't found anyone else,' I said.
`Fiddlesticks, it's just a trick to find out what our landing procedure is.'
`Well, Betelgeuse, what have you to say to my friend's accusation?' I said.
`We could land without much trouble, but it would mean panic and distress. You call Earth and find out what they have to say.'
`What! Tell them to let you in. Oh, no!' Colonel said briskly.
Betelgeuse signaled something, and the ship started moving.
`What are you going to do?' I asked Colonel. `Nothing,' came the reply.
`Betelgeuse, could I talk to Earth?' I asked.
`Of course.'
Colonel glowered.
I went to the communication console. 'Hello, Earth. Calling Earth, come in Earth, over,' I said. Then static. I tried again and again.
`Earth here. Who are you? Over,' came a very weak voice.
`Hello, Earth. This is Warboys from Redscout. Over.' `Congratulations, we thought you'd had it.' There was a moment's silence.
Warboys,' came the voice of the British Chief of Staff. `What happened to Colonel Rhodes? Over.'
`He's here, but our ship was destroyed and we're now with the lead ship from the fleet that came in from heliocentric longitude 45°. I'd like permission for us to land in England. Over.'
`Our thanks to your rescue ship for saving the rest of our fleet. You have clearance to land. Over.'
`Thank you. Over and out.'
`Well, well, world control sounds happy for once,' said Colonel. 'I wonder if any of us know what we're in for.'
I stared hard at Betelgeuse. He looked back politely.
SIX
For an hour or more I watched Colonel wander purposefully around the cabin. It struck me as rather pig-headed of him not to accept the situation and try to work within his present confinement. Betelgeuse and his men, having set their ship's course, had left us alone in the main cabin and gone below to sleep.
`How did you know about the rescue signaling device?' Rhodes suddenly said, turning on me.
`I didn't know we had one. They told me.'
`What do you mean, "they told me" ?'
`What I said. They picked it up and homed in on me,' I said, a little testily. I could see Colonel was unsure of me. 'Do you think they've got me brainwashed or programmed?' I asked.
`Dick, I'm uncertain of the whole situation. Here are these people who come out of nowhere, put an aggressor to flight and then return us to Earth. I feel that it isn't natural.'
`You may be quite right, but at this point in time we know that they have fast ships and can out-shoot us, but that they haven't tried to question us. Why don't we let them return us home and brain-wash some of our politicians rather than ourselves?'
`Maybe you're right,' Colonel said with a smile. 'But I'm still extremely suspicious of all this good will.'
`You should be. That's what you have been trained for. I'm suspicious too, but there are several points that need clearing up before I call them enemies. Why do they look exactly like us? They are rather big to withstand deceleration of continuous 3 gravities, which may mean they are technically far in advance of us, and it seems rather unnecessary to use a trick to find out landing procedure. Surely they could just call up the rest of their fleet and move in, instead of taking the lead ship to Earth, which, for Betelgeuse, could mean suicide.'
`That makes sense. Do you think we should sit tight?' `Yes, and I suggest that, instead of landing at World H.Q., we go back to Mildenhall.'
`We can't do that!' he said.
`Why not? If your suspicions about Betelgeuse are correct, then all he'll get is the landing instructions for one base in England, not the complex landing instructions of World H.Q., which would be far more useful to him in the event of invasion.'
I think it's a weak argument, but it would be rather a scoop if they were on our side,' Colonel said, warming to my idea. 'Yes, well, Betelgeuse will have to make something go wrong during the final descent.'
`I'm sure that can be arranged,' I said, looking round the cabin. 'Do you think their ships are much more advanced than ours?'
`By watching the way the ship is operated, I'd say they're quite advanced. The questions would be unending. What kind of propulsion do they have? How do they get such good movability in such a large ship?' Rhodes said, looking round. 'They have a superior artificial gravity device.'
`Simple questions to answer,' Betelgeuse said, coming out of the lift. 'We normally use what you'd call nuclear fission for power, but we switch over to Solar power if we are close enough to a bright star or sun. The improvements in manoeuvrability have been made by doing away with manual control, except in emergencies, and computing tactical movements,' Betelgeuse said, going over to the control and lighting up a large map. We went over to join him. 'It is time to check the position of my fleet.'