Doomsday Planet

My conversion















HELPLESS IN SPACE

 

Randall stopped short and Captain Stark
stared. They both felt a steady throbbing in the berylumin floor of the
ethership’s navigating cabin. It was an alien pulsation, a steady beat of
uniform pattern and intensity.

Captain Stark’s face showed alarm and
puzzlement. “What is it, Randall?”

“Whatever it is, it’s coming from outside the
ship,” he muttered, busying himself with the glittering array of instruments.

The Captain fidgeted and chewed his mustache
as Randall worked.

He finally looked up from the instruments,
his face expressionless. “We’ve been caught up by a cosmic ray stream fifteen
hundred miles wide. Its hold is unbreakable. We’ll just have to let it take us
where it will.”

“Impossible!” the Captain roared. “We must be
able to pull out.” He stomped to the engine room optophone and bellowed,
“Maximum acceleration on neutrino power! No rocket ignition until ordered.”

Randall froze. “I warn you,” he blurted,
“don’t waste any rocket fuel. We’ll need it for landing—somewhere.”