The Metal Eater by E. C. Tubb

Author:E. C. Tubb [Tubb, E. C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780575107397
Publisher: Orion
Published: 2014-04-30T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

Desperate Gamble

WENDIS rose from a dream-haunted nightmare, a ghastly world of gibbering shapes and tortuous figures, of whispering voices and tittering laughter. He rested for a while, his space-trained body assimilating the messages sent from the trembling metal, the roaring thunder of the rocket drive, the savage acceleration pressure thrusting him deep into the cushioned softness of the pilot’s chair.

He groaned, tasting the wet saltiness of blood from his bitten lips, wincing a little from the pain. Slowly he opened his eyes, staring at the glittering splendour of the visi-screen, at the deep velvet of space and the mist of glowing stars.

He grunted, forcing his aching body to respond to his mental commands, and his hands fell heavily onto the control panel as he reached for the firing levers. Painfully he fought the crushing weight of acceleration. Slowly he forced quivering muscles and trembling nerves to obey his instinctive reaction. He touched the levers, his fingers curving around them. He pulled—and the thunder of the rocket drive ceased.

Silence filled the darkened vessel.

Numbly he switched on the emergency lights, blinking a little in their subdued glare, half-afraid to examine the vessel for fear that he should see the thing that had thrown the distorted shadows. As he drifted from the pilot’s chair, his eyes were anxious and filled with the shadows of terror. His hand reached within his short leather jacket and returned, weighted with the comforting metal of the flare-gun.

Grimly, he began to search the ship.

Aside from the two men in the engine room it was devoid of life. No alien lurked in a corner, no distorted nightmare of what life should not be. The tiny eyes of the emergency lights threw a soft glow over bulkheads and compartments, over engine room and storage lockers, and all were as they should be.

The ship was clean again!

Hal muttered, his gross body sprawled on his acceleration pad, his round features contorted and twisted into an expression of horror. He wheezed, opened his eyes, and screamed as he saw the tall figure of the free trader.

“Steady, Hal,” said Wendis, quietly. “It’s all over now.”

“Merciful space!” Hal half-rose from his pad and clutched anxiously at the retaining straps. “What happened, lad?” He shuddered and his little eyes, behind their rolls of flesh, glistened with terror. “Aye, lad, I remember now. Voices there were, fierce and terrible voices. They mocked, told me things I had long forgotten, aye, and laughed at me too.”

“Hallucinations,” said Wendis, grimly. “The product of our own minds.”

“Were they so?” The fat engineer shook his head. “Nay, lad, I’ll not believe that. For look you, they told me things in strange and varied tones, unlike that uttered by any human throat. And the voices were not all. Aye, lad, I never thought that I’d have to suffer so in my few remaining years. Did you see it, lad? The thing which threw a strange shadow? No living creature cast that darkness, lad. It was the spawn of Hell come aboard.”

He

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