Homepage
Login
Profile
BookClubs
dmBox
Read Ebook: Milk Run by Locke Robert Donald
Font size:
Background color:
Text color:
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page Prev Page
Ebook has 82 lines and 6729 words, and 2 pages
When his trembling ceased, he started to formulate plans to regain the ship. In the lifeboat, he discovered two force band pistols which he stuck in his belt. If worse came to worse, he could bolt the ship, risking the unknown dangers of a hyper-universe in preference to the skags.
As the narcol-induced fantasies faded from Jock Warren's brain, the skipper became aware his ship had passed minus point. Well, the old tub was on her way now and he'd have to put in an appearance on the deck ... show the lads the old man wasn't scuttled. He splashed cold water on his face, afterwards rubbing his red-blotched skin with a rough towel. Feeling better, he hummed a vulgar space chantey he had learned as an Alpha Centauri midshipman, following which he danced a brief jig that evoked memories of an early cruise to Procyon and a lovely blackeyed wench.
Now completely spruced up, the captain buckled the triple prongs of his white belt, donned his gold-braided space cap and stepped out of the cabin.
A live skag stood at the end of the hall waiting for him.
The captain backed into his cabin, locked the door and then searched through his wardroom locker until he found that most precious of all liquids, a flask of narcol. Several good strong slugs slushed down his parched gullet, before his space-hardened nerves approached reasonably good shape.
His skin flushed and his arteries warmed by the narcol, he became convinced once more that he had suffered an hallucination. Fantasy or no fantasy, there remained only one way to learn for certain. Jock Warren strode into the corridor. There the skag waited. "Blast it!" the captain rumbled. "You're a balmy hallucination. Out of my way, you scummy dream of a scummy planet!"
He lurched towards the creature and his arms attempted to brush away its cobwebby image. Sudden contact with its cold firm flesh electrified him. "Mister Guhn!" his voice rose. "Avast, Mr. Guhn!"
The echoes rolled through the ship without answer.
When the dead silence renewed itself, Capt. Jock Warren lifted his narcol flask and drank deeply. The skag watched with impassionate curiosity.
Failing in his search for Rigel on the star charts, K'Gol tried to contact his companions who were exploring and making secure the remainder of the vessel. The skag concluded that the only hope lay to negotiate a truce with the monsters who had built the ship. His companions replied:
"That's your task, K'Gol. We must learn the language of these hideous creatures or teach them ours."
"I have captured one here, who appears to guide the vessel," beamed K'Gol. "Let me attempt it with him, first."
Blue light flamed from the skag, bathing Mark Caldwell's head and throat. Discovering the paralysis lifted, the astrogator rotated his head to exercise stiffened muscles. K'Gol pointed at the individual white dots on a star chart: "Kuuuh-gu." The tones were like a goat chewing tin plate.
"Kuuuh-gu," echoed Mark Caldwell. "Oh, you mean stars. Stars."
The skag waved to include the bulkheads and deck. "Saaah-gos."
The astrogator repeated: "Saaah-gos. Must be ship."
"Must be ship," said the skag.
Hysterical laughter gripped the officer. From the skag's throat emerged identical sounds, uproarious cackles; but the brilliant eyes barely flickered.
From his place in the lifeboat, Second Officer Charlie Guhn had heard no sound for several hours. He felt cramped in a gray microcosm where it was hopeless to escape. His mind turned to the cause of the skags' revivification; it was his knowledge of physics that provided him the correct answers. The transparent shells surrounding the skags were of time-impervious materials. Upon entering minus point, the creatures retrograded in time to a point previous to their suspended animation.
What did they want? What did they plan? Without these answers, Guhn had no means to deal with them. Rather than dispatch the lifeboat, the deck officer resolved to attempt snapping the entire vessel back into normal space. He lowered himself to the foc'sle quarters. Here, the bodies of six crewmen neatly piled together stunned his eyes. At first, he supposed they were dead but a confirmatory touch of their flesh showed they were not. Tortured faces stared at him, as if trying to project a message.
Guhn stole along the portside catwalk to the engine rooms. Finding no one, he mounted to the deck. Upon hearing the heavy tread of stumbling feet, he flattened himself against a bulkhead niche and waited.
Suddenly, words roared out in the still passageway, sung in a strong-timbered brogue:
It was the captain's voice, bursting with life and very merry.
The chant was taken up by another voice, a throbbing metallic speaker with slurred tones:
Holding his body flat in the niche, Charlie Guhn saw the skipper walk by, keeping time to his own melody by waving his massive arms. Abreast of him reeled a skag, drenched with narcol fumes. Guhn stepped out behind them, gripping the trigger of the force band pistol.
"Captain Warren! Step aside."
The skipper wheeled and his face flooded crimson:
"Mr. Guhn, may I ask what you're doing off your watch?"
"Sir, that's a skag. They've taken over the ship."
"You're hysterical, Mr. Guhn. Damned right he's a skag. Been a skag for a million years. You hear that? Best dream I've ever had. We're going to get him back to Rigel ... next trip out. Drinks like a blasted fish, the fellow does."
Incredulity fought fear in Charles Guhn's brain, until the alternate waves of emotion caused his collapse. Capt. Jock Warren bent over and raised him. The two men's faces came close together. The skipper's eye closed slowly, once, twice: "We'll be all right if the juice holds out."
The skag bent over too in an inebriated effort to assist. Then, the skipper and his million-year-old companion locked arms and hoisted the flask of narcol.
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page Prev Page