The Giants From Outer Space Part 2

Well, Circe's about forty-five.

The h.e.l.l she is. She's twenty-seven, which was her age when her s.h.i.+p was wrecked, plus about one actual year of life which equals the eighteen she was lost in the Slugjet. Twenty-eight, then, really. I'm thirty-one.

Not a bad combination.

Hey, boy, you're a confirmed bachelor, remember?

He chuckled. Who says so? He took a look at Circe. The prettiest s.p.a.ceman who ever came my way, he said to himself happily.

The dinner broke up. s.p.a.ce etiquette demanded that he escort the Martian to his stateroom first, for the four-armed little gray man was senior to a mere organicus officer; when he returned to the mess hall, he found that Joe Silver had whisked Circe away to show her the new improvements in s.p.a.ce drives and other technical details.

"At least," said Bill Calico, "he said he was going to."

Pink went off to talk to Jerry, who was a lousy subst.i.tute for a beautiful girl.

He found his O. O. tinkering with the life-scanner.

"Something wrong," Jerry said through his teeth. He was a slim young man--Pink, who stood six-three and hefted in at two hundred, would have made two of Jerry--and his normally joyous expression was now writhed into a frown. "The red light's not on, but the scanner's not working."

"How d'you know?"

"Had a hunch. Don't ask me why--unless it's that the Martian makes me suspicious. Anyway, I tested the scanner; turned it inside and aimed it all over the s.h.i.+p. Nothing doing. No life in here, according to it. So something's the matter with it, and I'm d.a.m.ned if I can figure what."

Pink said, "That means what?"

"Means that if Fawcett or any of his men are out there, we won't know it. We could flash right by them, or through 'em for that matter, and never know it."

"Nothing more serious, though?"

"That's bad enough, isn't it?" Jerry asked him.

"Sure, sure." Pink shook himself. "I feel--I guess _wary_ is the word."

Jerry looked a question. "Yeah," said Pinkham uncomfortably, "it's the Martian. A nice guy and all, but he makes me wonder."

"Four thousand years plus," nodded Jerry.

"No, not that. I think that's possible. It's something else, son."

"What?"

Pink said slowly, futilely, "I don't know." He patted the O.O.'s shoulder. "Keep at it, Jerry." He went out and walked down the long ramp to the astrolab. Daley was there. "How's it going?" Pink asked him.

"We aren't moving," said the lieutenant.

"I know. I told Kinkare to put her into the same orbit as the asteroid belt. We want to stay in the same relation to the planetoids till we decide where to look for Fawcett."

"I know you issued those orders, Pink. I meant we aren't in the orbit.

We're hanging in s.p.a.ce, and the dang asteroids are shooting past us."

Daley flipped on his great banks of scanners. "See?" Bands of light were tiny b.a.l.l.s of inert matter, flas.h.i.+ng by an obviously stationary _Elephant's Child_.

Pink jumped for the intercom. "No use," said Daley. "It's dead. I sent Calico for Randy Kinkare." They looked at each other. "I think it's Ynohp," said Daley.

Pinkham took out a pad and pencil. Without saying anything, without admitting to himself that he agreed with his officer, he put down a number of figures. Then he said, "I left Ynohp just fourteen minutes ago in his stateroom. I've put down the distances he'd have to travel to reach all the things that have gone wrong since then. He could have done it--if he was invisible, and could move at the rate of two hundred feet per second."

"Maybe he can."

"You know Martians have the same rate of speed, roughly speaking, as Terrestrians."

"And if Ynohp isn't a Martian at all?"

"Was.h.i.+ngton, did you ever see a Martian?"

"Yeah."

"Could anything in the universe make itself look like a four-foot-tall, four-armed, slate-gray man with pink eyes?"

"I don't know," said Daley. "Maybe there's something in System Ninety that can. Hypnotism, matter transference, fluidity or a lot of other facts could explain it."

Kinkare and Bill Calico came in on the run.

Their news didn't surprise Pink greatly.

The s.p.a.ce drive was out of commission.

They were adrift in the void.

CHAPTER IV

The intercom, the s.p.a.ce drive, the life-scanner. So far apart that one man _couldn't_ have put them out of whack. No one connected in any way with the others. Ynohp snoring gently in his stateroom. Pinkham, Daley, Silver, Kinkare, Jerry Jones, Calico, and the girl, all gathered in the Captain's quarters, tense, baffled, and all talking at once.

And out of the hubbub, one clear sweet voice saying something that didn't make sense and yet electrified Pink as if he'd put his hand on a lighted cigar....

"Maybe it's the s.p.a.ce giants?"

"Shut up!" bawled Pinkham. The officers turned toward him, brows lifting, mouths still open. "Now," he said quietly, "Circe--Miss Smith--what did you say?"

"s.p.a.ce giants," she repeated "I don't think they exist, but I certainly saw something."

"Give it to us slow," said Daley.

"Well, a couple of times while I was anch.o.r.ed to the asteroid, watching tri-di movies, I had the impression that something enormous was floating just beyond my face plate, watching me. Of course I was slowed down so far that it must have taken me an hour to register the fact, and another hour or two to flick my eyes up away from the movies. What was a second to me was at least that long. But just once I got a clear view of something incredible. It vanished almost at once."

"What was it?"

"A very big man, naked, bald, with eyes like fires. That's the only way I can describe him. He looked humanoid, except he was so big."