by Anthology
“Might be a ship, might not be,” pronounced Ross.
Well, for God’s sake, let’s go down and see, Mason wanted to say, but knew he couldn’t. It would have to be Ross’s decision. Otherwise they might not even stop.
“I guess it’s nothing,” he prodded.
He watched Ross impatiently, watched the stubby fingers flick buttons for the viewer.
“We might stop,” Ross said. “We have to take samples anyway. Only thing I’m afraid of is . . .”
He shook his head. Land, man! The words bubbled up in Mason’s throat. For God’s sake, let’s go down!
Ross evaluated. His thickish lips pressed together appraisingly. Mason held his breath.
Then Ross’s head bobbed once in that curt movement which indicated consummated decision. Mason breathed again. He watched the captain spin, push and twist dials. Felt the ship begin its tilt to upright position. Felt the cabin shuddering slightly as the gyroscope kept it on an even keel. The sky did a ninety-degree turn, clouds appeared through the thick ports. Then the ship was pointed at the planet’s sun and Ross switched off the cruising engines. The ship hesitated, suspended a split second, then began dropping toward the earth.
“Hey, we settin’ down already?”
Mickey Carter looked at them questioningly from the port door that led to the storage lockers. He was rubbing greasy hands over his green jumper legs.
“We saw something down there,” Mason said.
“No kiddin’,” Mickey said, coming over to Mason’s viewer. “Let’s see.”
Mason flicked on the rear lens. The two of them watched the planet billowing up at them.
“I don’t know whether you can . . . oh, yes, there it is,” Mason said. He looked over at Ross.
“Two degrees east,” he said.
Ross twisted a dial and the ship then changed its downward movement slightly.
“What do you think it is?” Mickey asked.
“Hey!”
Mickey looked into the viewer with even greater interest. His wide eyes examined the shiny speck enlarging on the screen.
“Could be a ship,” he said. “Could be.”
Then he stood there silently, behind Mason, watching the earth rushing up.
“Reactors,” said Mason.
Ross jabbed efficiently at the button and the ship’s engines spouted out their flaming gases. Speed decreased. The rocket eased down on its roaring fire jets. Ross guided.
“What do you think it is?” Mickey asked Mason.
“I don’t know,” Mason answered. “But if it’s a ship,” he added, half wishfully thinking, “I don’t see how it could possibly be from Earth. We’ve got this run all to ourselves.”
“Maybe they got off course,” Mickey dampened without knowing.
Mason shrugged. “I doubt it,” he said.
“What if it is a ship?” Mickey said. “And it’s not ours?”
Mason looked at him and Carter licked his lips.
“Man,” he said, “that’d be somethin’.”
“Air spring,” Ross ordered.
Mason threw the switch that set the air spring into operation. The unit which made possible a landing without then having to stretch out on thick-cushioned couches. They could stand on deck and hardly feel the impact. It was an innovation on the newer government ships.
The ship hit on its rear braces.
There was a sensation of jarring, a sense of slight bouncing. Then the ship was still, its pointed nose straight up, glittering brilliantly in the bright sunlight.
“I want us to stay together,” Ross was saying. “No one takes any risks. That’s an order.”
He got up from his seat and pointed at the wall switch that let atmosphere into the small chamber in the corner of the cabin.
“Three to one we need our helmets,” Mickey said to Mason.
“You’re on,” Mason said, setting into play their standing bet about the air or lack of it in every new planet they found. Mickey always bet on the need for apparatus. Mason for unaided lung use. So far, they’d come out about even.
Mason threw the switch, and there was a muffled sound of hissing in the chamber.
Mickey got the helmet from his locker and dropped it over his head. Then he went through the double doors. Mason listened to him clamping the doors behind him. He kept wanting to switch on the side viewers and see if he could locate what they’d spotted. But he didn’t. He let himself enjoy the delicate nibbling of suspense.
Through the intercom they heard Mickey’s voice.
“Removing helmet,” he said.
Silence. They waited. Finally, a sound of disgust.
“I lose again,” Mickey said.
The others followed him out.
“God, did they hit!”
Mickey’s face had an expression of dismayed shock on it. The three of them stood there on the greenish-blue grass and looked.
It was a ship. Or what was left of a ship for, apparently, it had struck the earth at terrible velocity, nose first. The main structure had driven itself about fifteen feet into the hard ground. Jagged pieces of superstructure had been ripped off by the crash and were lying strewn over the field. The heavy engines had been torn loose and nearly crushed the cabin. Everything was deathly silent, and the wreckage was so complete they could hardly make out what type of ship it was. It was as if some enormous child had lost fancy with the toy model and had dashed it to earth, stamped on it, banged on it insanely with a rock.
Mason shuddered. It had been a long time since he’d seen a rocket crash. He’d almost forgotten the everpresent menace of lost control, of whistling fall through space, of violent impact. Most talk had been about being lost in an orbit. This reminded him of the other threat in his calling. His throat moved unconsciously as he watched.
Ross was scuffing at a chunk of metal at his feet.
“Can’t tell much,” he said. “But I’d say it’s our own.”
Mason was about to speak, then changed his mind.
“From what I can see of that engine up there, I’d say it was ours,” Mickey said.
“Rocket structure might be standard,” Mason heard himself say, “everywhere.”
“Not a chance,” Ross said. “Things don’t work out like that. It’s ours all right. Some poor devils from Earth. Well, at least their death was quick.”
“Was it?” Mason asked the air, visualizing the crew in their cabin, rooted with fear as their ship spun toward earth, maybe straight down like a fired cannon shell, maybe end-over-end like a crazy, fluttering top, the gyroscope trying in vain to keep the cabin always level.
The screaming, the shouted commands, the exhortations to a heaven they had never seen before, to a God who might be in another universe. And then the planet rushing up and blasting its hard face against their ship, crushing them, ripping the breath from their lungs. He shuddered again, thinking of it.
“Let’s take a look,” Mickey said.
“Not sure we’d better,” Ross said. “We say it’s ours. It might not be.”
“Jeez, you don’t think anything is still alive in there, do you?” Mickey asked the captain.
“Can’t say,” Ross said.
But they all knew he could see that mangled hulk before him as well as they. Nothing could have survived that.
The look. The pursed lips. As they circled the ship. The head movement, unseen by them.
“Let’s try that opening there,” Ross ordered. “And stay together. We still have work to do. Only doing this so we can let the base know which ship this is.” He had already decided it was an Earth ship.
They walked up to a spot in the ship’s side where the skin had been laid open along the welded seam. A long, thick plate was bent over as easily as a man might bend paper.
“Don’t like this,” Ross said. “But I suppose . . .”
He gestured with his head and Mickey pulled himself up to the opening. He tested each handhold gingerly, then slid on his work gloves as he found
some sharp edge. He told the other two and they reached into their jumper pockets. Then Mickey took a long step into the dark maw of the ship.
“Hold on, now!” Ross called up. “Wait until I get there.”
He pulled himself up, his heavy boot toes scraping up the rocket skin. He went into the hole too. Mason followed.
It was dark inside the ship. Mason closed his eyes for a moment to adjust to the change. When he opened them, he saw two bright beams searching up through the twisted tangle of beams and plates. He pulled out his own flash and flicked it on.
“God, is this thing wrecked,” Mickey said, awed by the sight of metal and machinery in violent death. His voice echoed slightly through the shell. Then, when the sound ended, an utter stillness descended on them. They stood in the murky light and Mason could smell the acrid fumes of broken engines.
“Watch the smell, now,” Ross said to Mickey who was reaching up for support. “We don’t want to get ourselves gassed.”
“I will,” Mickey said. He was climbing up, using one hand to pull his thick, powerful body up along the twisted ladder. He played the beam straight up.
“Cabin is all out of shape,” he said, shaking his head.
Ross followed him up. Mason was last, his flash moving around endlessly over the snapped joints, the wild jigsaw of destruction that had once been a powerful new ship.
He kept hissing in disbelief to himself as his beam came across one violent distortion of metal after another.
“Door’s sealed,” Mickey said, standing on a pretzel-twisted catwalk, bracing himself against the inside rocket wall. He grabbed the handle again and tried to pull it open.
“Give me your light,” Ross said. He directed both beams at the door and Mickey tried to drag it open. His face grew red as he struggled. He puffed.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s stuck.”
Mason came up beside them. “Maybe the cabin is still pressurized,” he said softly. He didn’t like the echoing of his own voice.
“Doubt it,” Ross said, trying to think. “More than likely the jamb is twisted.” He gestured with his head again. “Help Carter.”
Mason grabbed one handle and Mickey the other. Then they braced their feet against the wall and pulled with all their strength. The door held fast. They shifted their grip, pulled harder.
“Hey, it slipped!” Mickey said. “I think we got it.”
They resumed footing on the tangled catwalk and pulled the door open. The frame was twisted, the door held in one corner. They could only open it enough to wedge themselves in sideways.
The cabin was dark as Mason edged in first. He played his light beam toward the pilot’s seat. It was empty. He heard Mickey squeeze in as he moved the light to the navigator’s seat.
There was no navigator’s seat. The bulkhead had been stove in there, the viewer, the table and the chair all crushed beneath the bent plates. There was a clicking in Mason’s throat as he thought of himself sitting at a table like that, in a chair like that, before a bulkhead like that.
Ross was in now. The three beams of light searched. They all had to stand, legs straddled, because the deck slanted.
And the way it slanted made Mason think of something. Of shifting weights, of things sliding down . . .
Into the corner where he suddenly played his shaking beam.
And felt his heart jolt, felt the skin on him crawling, felt his unblinking eyes staring at the sight. Then felt his boots thud him down the incline as if he were driven.
“Here,” he said, his voice hoarse with shock.
He stood before the bodies. His foot had bumped into one of them as he held himself from going down any further, as he shifted his weight on the incline.
Now he heard Mickey’s footsteps, his voice. A whisper. A bated, horrified whisper.
“Mother of God.”
Nothing from Ross. Nothing from any of them then but stares and shuddering breaths.
Because the twisted bodies on the floor were theirs, all three of them. And all three . . . dead.
Mason didn’t know how long they stood there, wordlessly, looking down at the still, crumpled figures on the deck.
How does a man react when he is standing over his own corpse? The question plied unconsciously at his mind. What does a man say? What are his first words to be? A poser, he seemed to sense, a loaded question.
But it was happening. Here he stood—and there he lay dead at his own feet. He felt his hands grow numb and he rocked unsteadily on the tilted deck.
“God.”
Mickey again. He had his flash pointed down at his own face. His mouth twitched as he looked. All three of them had their flash beams directed at their own faces, and the bright ribbons of light connected their dual bodies.
Finally Ross took a shaking breath of the stale cabin air.
“Carter,” he said, “find the auxiliary light switch, see if it works.” His voice was husky and tightly restrained.
“Sir?”
“The light switch—the light switch!” Ross snapped.
Mason and the captain stood there, motionless, as Mickey shuffled up the deck. They heard his boots kick metallic debris over the deck surface. Mason closed his eyes, but was unable to take his foot away from where it pressed against the body that was his. He felt bound.
“I don’t understand,” he said to himself.
“Hang on,” Ross said.
Mason couldn’t tell whether it was said to encourage him or the captain himself.
Then they heard the emergency generator begin its initial whining spin. The light flickered, went out. The generator coughed and began humming and the lights flashed on brightly.
They looked down now. Mickey slipped down the slight deck hill and stood beside them. He stared down at his own body. Its head was crushed in. Mickey drew back, his mouth a box of unbelieving terror.
“I don’t get it,” he said. “I don’t get it. What is this?”
“Carter,” Ross said.
“That’s me!” Mickey said. “God, it’s me!”
“Hold on!” Ross ordered.
“The three of us,” Mason said quietly, “and we’re all dead.”
There seemed nothing to be said. It was a speechless nightmare. The tilted cabin all bashed in and tangled. The three corpses all doubled over and tumbled into one corner, arms and legs flopped over each other. All they could do was stare.
Then Ross said, “Go get a tarp. Both of you.”
Mason turned. Quickly. Glad to fill his mind with simple command. Glad to crowd out tense horror with activity. He took long steps up the deck. Mickey backed up, unable to take his unblinking gaze off the heavy-set corpse with the green jumper and the caved-in, bloody head.
Mason dragged a heavy, folded tarp from the storage locker and carried it back into the cabin, legs and arms moving in robot-like sequence. He tried to numb his brain, not think at all until the first shock had dwindled.
Mickey and he opened up the heavy canvas sheet with wooden motions. They tossed it out and the thick, shiny material fluttered down over the bodies. It settled, outlining the heads, the torsos, the one arm that stood up stiffly like a spear, bent over wrist and hand like a grisly pennant.
Mason turned away with a shudder. He stumbled up to the pilot’s seat and slumped down. He stared at his outstretched legs, the heavy boots. He reached out and grabbed his leg and pinched it, feeling almost relief at the flaring pain.
“Come away,” he heard Ross saying to Mickey, “I said, come away!”
He looked down and saw Ross half dragging Mickey up from a crouching position over the bodies. He held Mickey’s arm and led him up the incline.
“We’re dead,” Mickey said hollowly. “That’s us on the deck. We’re dead.”
Ross pushed Mickey up to the cracked port and made him look out.
“There,” he said. “There’s our ship over there. Just as we left it. This ship isn’t ours.
And those bodies. They . . . ca
n’t be ours.”
He finished weakly. To a man of his sturdy opinionation, the words sounded flimsy and extravagant. His throat moved, his lower lip pushed out in defiance of this enigma.
Ross didn’t like enigmas. He stood for decision and action. He wanted action now.
“You saw yourself down there,” Mason said to him. “Are you going to say it isn’t you?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Ross bristled. “This may seem crazy, but there’s an explanation for it. There’s an explanation for everything.”
His face twitched as he punched his bulky arm.
“This is me,” he claimed. “I’m solid.” He glared at them as if daring opposition. “I’m alive,” he said.
They stared blankly at him.
“I don’t get it,” Mickey said weakly. He shook his head and his lips drew back over his teeth.
Mason sat limply in the pilot’s seat. He almost hoped that Ross’s dogmatism would pull them through this. That his staunch bias against the inexplicable would save the day. He wanted for it to save the day. He tried to think for himself, but it was so much easier to let the captain decide.
“We’re all dead,” Mickey said.
“Don’t be a fool!” Ross exclaimed. “Feel yourself!”
Mason wondered how long it would go on. Actually, he began to expect a sudden awakening, him jolting to a sitting position on his bunk to see the two of them at their tasks as usual, the crazy dream over and done with.
But the dream went on. He leaned back in the seat and it was a solid seat. From where he sat he could run his fingers over solid dials and buttons and switches. All real. It was no dream. Pinching wasn’t even necessary.
“Maybe it’s a vision,” he tried, vainly attempting thought, as an animal mired tries hesitant steps to solid earth.
“That’s enough,” Ross said.
Then his eyes narrowed. He looked at them sharply. His face mirrored decision.
Mason almost felt anticipation. He tried to figure out what Ross was working on.
Vision? No, it couldn’t be that. Ross would hold no truck with visions. He noticed Mickey staring open-mouthed at Ross. Mickey wanted the consoling of simple explanation too.
“Time warp,” said Ross.
