"Good thing somebody in this spacer watches Video
serials--Ali, you can brief us on all the latest tricks of space pirates.
Nothing is so wildly improbable that you can't make use of it sometime
during a checkered career."
He glanced over the board before he brought his hand down on a single key
set a distance apart from the other controls. "Put some local color into
it," was his comment.
Dane understood. Rip had turned on the distress signal at the Queen's
nose. When she set down on the Stat field she would be flaming a banner
of trouble. Next to the wan dead lights, set only when a ship had no hope
of ever reaching port at all, that signal was one every spacer dreaded
having to flash. But it was _not_ the dead lights--not yet for the Queen.
Working together they brought out the space suits and readied them at the
hatch. Then Weeks and Dane took up the task of tending their unconscious
charges while Rip and Ali prepared for landing.
There was no change in the sleepers. And in Jellico's cabin even Queex
appeared to be influenced by the plight of its master, for instead of
greeting Dane with its normal aspect of rage, the Hoobat stayed quiescent
on the floor of its cage, its top claws hooked about two of the wires,
its protruding eyes staring out into the room with what seemed closed to
a malignant intelligence.
Pages:
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169