Mission to the Stars [antikvár]

THE Earth ship came so swiftly past the planetless Gis-ser sun that the alarm system in the meteorite weather station had no time to react. The great ship was already visible as a streak of light on the observation screen when Watcher grew aware of it. Alarms must have been activated in the ship, also, for the moving point of brightness slowed noticeably and, evidently still braking, made a wide turn. Now it was creeping slowly back, obviously trying to locate the small object that had afTected its energy screens. As it came within eye range, it loomed vast in the glare of the distant yellow-white sun, bigger than anything ever seen by the Fifty Suns. It seemed a very hell ship out of remote space, a monster from a semi-mythical world, and —though a newer model—recognizable from the descriptions in the history books as a battleship of Imperial Earth. Dire had been the warnings in the histories of what would happen some day—and here it was. He knew his duty. There was a warning, the age-long dreaded warning, to send to the Fifty Suns by the non-directional subspace radio; and he had to make sure that nothing telltale remained at the station. There was no fire. As the overloaded atomic engines dissolved, the massive building that had been a weather substation simply fell into its component elements. Watcher made no attempt to escape. His brain, with its knowledge, must not be tapped. He felt a brief, blinding spasm of pain as the energy tore him into atoms. The Lady Gloria Laurr, Grand Captain of the Star 5