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She opened the door a bit wider and looked. Then she slammed the door and locked it. From behind the thin panelling, her voice was toneless.
‘I can still see the hole, Mr Lemon,’ she said.
Perchance to Dream
YOU don’t want death and you don’t expect death. Something goes wrong, your rocket tilts in space, a planetoid jumps up, blackness, movement, hands over the eyes, a violent pulling back of available powers in the forejets, the crash.
The darkness. In the darkness, the senseless pain. In the pain, the nightmare.
He was not unconscious.
Your name? asked hidden voices. Sale, he replied in whirling nausea. Leonard Sale. Occupation? cried the voices. Space man! he cried, alone in the night. Welcome, said the voices. Welcome, welcome. They faded.
He stood up in the wreckage of his ship. It lay like a folded, tattered garment around him.
The sun rose and it was morning.
Sale prised himself out of the small airlock and stood breathing heavily. Luck. Sheer luck. His suit was intact; his oxygen breathable. A few minutes’ checking showed him he had two months’ supply of oxygen and food. Fine! And this – he prowled through the wreckage. Miracle of miracles! The radio was intact.
He shuttered out the message on the sending key. CRASHED ON PLANETOID 787. SALE. HELP. SALE. HELP.
Minutes passed; the reply came: HELLO, SALE, THIS IS ADDAMS IN MARSPORT. SENDING RESCUE SHIP LOGARITHM. WILL ARRIVE PLANETOID 787 SIX DAYS. HANG ON.
Sale did a little dance.
It was simple as that. One crashed. One had food. One radioed for help. Help came. Voilà! he shouted.
The sun rose and was warm. He felt no sense of mortality. Six days would be no time at all. He would eat, he would read, he would sleep. He glanced at his surroundings. No dangerous animals; a tolerable oxygen supply. What more could one ask? Beans and bacon, was the answer. He touched the machinery in his helmet that popped food into his mouth.
After breakfast he smoked a cigarette slowly, deeply, blowing out through the special helmet tube. He nodded contentedly. What a life! Not a scratch on him. Luck, sheer luck!
His head nodded. Sleep, he thought.
Good idea. Forty winks. Plenty of time to sleep, take it easy. Six whole long, luxurious days of idling and philosophizing. Sleep.
He stretched himself out, tucked his arm under his head, and shut his eyes.
Insanity came in to take him. The voices whispered.
Sleep, yes, sleep, said the voices. Ah, sleep, sleep.
He opened his eyes. The voices stopped. Everything was normal. He shrugged. He shut his eyes casually, fitfully. He settled his long body.
Eeeeeeeeeeee, sang the voices far away.
Ahhhhhhhhh, sang the voices.
Sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, sang the voices.
Die, die, die, die, die, sang the voices.
Oooooooooooo, cried the voices.
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, a bee ran through his brain.
He sat up. He shook his head. He blinked at the crashed ship. Hard metal. He felt the solid rock
under his fingers. He saw the real sun warming the blue sky.
