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Fantascience Digest, v. 2, issue 4, May-June 1939
Page 5
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FANTASCIENCE DIGEST Page 5 THE TERROR--the soul-cringing terror that still lurks in the dead, unseeing eyes of my crew and passengers; the stark horror stamped on those bloated faces. That alone gives me the strength to force slowly stiffening fingers to set down this last entry in my log. Perhaps some day---thru some now unforeseen act of fate--this great space cruiser will find its way back into the time current of my---our---other life---perhaps.... JUNE 12, 2149. Standing out to space on regular flight to the outpost planet Venus, 9:06 G.C.T. Everything coming off perfectly. The oxy-hydrogen feed lines to the ventral batteries which had given trouble in the early warming up period, are now functioning perfectly. Passenger list without a single vacancy---carrying a full consignment of Dropophite catalyst for the colonies---and to top it off, Alice is wearing my student lieutenant's button on her uniform. The automatic control arms take over at 2:00, and a few moments later the ship, having reached a point 100,000 miles out from earth, gradually changed her course until we were following a track parallel to the mother globe's orbit. I pushed a release button, opening the wall ports in the main passenger cabins so that they might share the breath-taking sight of the cloud wreathed black-brown head of South America plunging into the blue of the twin oceans. We ran into a swarm of meteors three hours later and threw the Empinon field generators into action. Not too soon, either. A few smaller particles reached the ship, the impacts being clearly audiable even thru the layers of Corametal and Rikker insolation. No damage, however. Strange thing happened just as I was turning the controls over to my relief pilot. One moment intense sunlight was flooding the room in contrast to the panel lights---the next instant---blackness, absolute blackness. Blindness. The terrible thot rushed thru my mind, suddenly sickening me. Plainly I could hear the relays clicking away in the communications nook---the buzz of rectifiers---the far offroar of rocket motors, but see them---see anything? No. Then my relief pilot's voice, from very close at hand, began bellowing for "somebody to turn on the lights". I felt better at that. Something other than blindness must be at work if all of us were groping our way thru this ink. It was over as quickly as it began. The flare of light forced me to cover my eyes in momentary pain. When finally I could see, I found myself and my sub-commander sitting on the floor, both of us slowly shaking our heads. A mechanic was painfully untangling himself from the wreckage of a chart table, and the red call light of the rocket room was blinking on the panel. Answering the communiphone, I found that the black-out period had been general over the whole cruiser, yet all lighting generators had been running all thru it. A quick check of every gas light tube in the system revealed that not one of them was defective. It is beyond me. I rechecked our course and went to bed. June 15. More un-answerable occurrences for the log. I receiv-
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FANTASCIENCE DIGEST Page 5 THE TERROR--the soul-cringing terror that still lurks in the dead, unseeing eyes of my crew and passengers; the stark horror stamped on those bloated faces. That alone gives me the strength to force slowly stiffening fingers to set down this last entry in my log. Perhaps some day---thru some now unforeseen act of fate--this great space cruiser will find its way back into the time current of my---our---other life---perhaps.... JUNE 12, 2149. Standing out to space on regular flight to the outpost planet Venus, 9:06 G.C.T. Everything coming off perfectly. The oxy-hydrogen feed lines to the ventral batteries which had given trouble in the early warming up period, are now functioning perfectly. Passenger list without a single vacancy---carrying a full consignment of Dropophite catalyst for the colonies---and to top it off, Alice is wearing my student lieutenant's button on her uniform. The automatic control arms take over at 2:00, and a few moments later the ship, having reached a point 100,000 miles out from earth, gradually changed her course until we were following a track parallel to the mother globe's orbit. I pushed a release button, opening the wall ports in the main passenger cabins so that they might share the breath-taking sight of the cloud wreathed black-brown head of South America plunging into the blue of the twin oceans. We ran into a swarm of meteors three hours later and threw the Empinon field generators into action. Not too soon, either. A few smaller particles reached the ship, the impacts being clearly audiable even thru the layers of Corametal and Rikker insolation. No damage, however. Strange thing happened just as I was turning the controls over to my relief pilot. One moment intense sunlight was flooding the room in contrast to the panel lights---the next instant---blackness, absolute blackness. Blindness. The terrible thot rushed thru my mind, suddenly sickening me. Plainly I could hear the relays clicking away in the communications nook---the buzz of rectifiers---the far offroar of rocket motors, but see them---see anything? No. Then my relief pilot's voice, from very close at hand, began bellowing for "somebody to turn on the lights". I felt better at that. Something other than blindness must be at work if all of us were groping our way thru this ink. It was over as quickly as it began. The flare of light forced me to cover my eyes in momentary pain. When finally I could see, I found myself and my sub-commander sitting on the floor, both of us slowly shaking our heads. A mechanic was painfully untangling himself from the wreckage of a chart table, and the red call light of the rocket room was blinking on the panel. Answering the communiphone, I found that the black-out period had been general over the whole cruiser, yet all lighting generators had been running all thru it. A quick check of every gas light tube in the system revealed that not one of them was defective. It is beyond me. I rechecked our course and went to bed. June 15. More un-answerable occurrences for the log. I receiv-
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