Tell me, lad, isn’t she fairer than your vision?”
“No.”
Bob Star laughed.
“Because she is the vision.”
Staring, Giles Habibula gasped,
“Where did she come from, lad?”
“Out of the wall,” Bob Star told him, and laughed again at his baffled doubt.
“Don’t make fun of poor old Giles.”
He straightened.
“Jay wants you,” he announced.
“On the bridge, right away.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, lad—but I can see that he’s disturbed.”
“I’ll come,” he said. “But first I must find a place for her.”
There were vacant cabins aboard the Halcyon Bird and Giles Habibula waddled ahead to open a door and turn down the covers on a berth.
“What ails the precious lass?” he wheezed.
The girl had seemed unconscious.
But the golden eyes fluttered open as Bob Star’s arms drew away from her.
Her oval face was strained again, anxious.
She struggled to sit up, clutching urgently at his arm.
He tried to make her lie back.
“Don’t worry,” he told her, smiling.
“Just take it easy. Everything will be all right—”
Her voice interrupted him.
It was low, and husky with effort.
Bob Star shook his head.
He could sense the liquid beauty of her language, but it was completely strange to him.
He caught not one familiar word—nor had he expected to.
Yet she turned to Giles Habibula, as if puzzled, disconcerted, by his lack of comprehension.
The old man cocked his yellow head to listen.
“Ah, lass,” he muttered, “your voice is precious sweet.
And it’s evident you have something to say you think important.
But your tongue is one old Giles never heard before.”
Still fighting a deadly weariness, the girl turned back to Bob Star.
Her weary voice ran on, raggedly.
Her white face was a mute appeal.
“I’m sorry.” He shook his head.
“But we can’t understand.
When you’re rested, we’ll find some way—
Her fingers closed on his arm, with a convulsive, frantic strength.
Her voice went louder, higher, and sobs were breaking in it.
Tears of baffled frustration glittered in her golden eyes.
“What could she be trying to say?”
Bob Star peered helplessly at Giles Habibula.
“When she came before, it was to warn me about the Cometeers—”
Her fingers relaxed from his arm.
She slipped back to the berth again, unconscious.
“This cut on her shoulder?”
Bob Star bent over her apprehensively.
“It can’t be serious?”