He was patiently listening, wearily shaking his head.
“Old Giles is sorry, lass,” he said gently.
“But it’s no use—”
They all looked up, when Jay Kalam and Bob Star came down from the valve.
“Well, Jay?” boomed Hal Samdu.
“Now we are within the comet, with Stephen Oreo.
How shall we move to kill him?”
Jay Kalam stepped back a little, wearily, to lean against the green-washed hull of the Halcyon Bird.
His dark eyes closed for a mo-merit, and his long face, in that unearthly light, became a stiff mask of pain.
“Still, Hal,” he said slowly, “there’s nothing we can do.”
He looked at Giles Habibula and the girl, with weary pity.
“In three hours,” he said, “the asteroid will fall into that atomic furnace.
We still have no means to leave it.”
Hal Samdu’s massive face twitched to a spasm of pain.
Brokenly, he gasped.
“Aladoree—”
Giles Habibula surged apprehensively to his feet.
His bald head rolled back, his small eyes peering fearfully at that growing ball of purple fire.
“Just three hours?” he gasped convulsively.
“For life’s sake, Jay, can’t you give us more than that?”
His eyes rested for a moment on the commander’s stiff face, and he shook his head.
“Poor old Giles!” he sobbed.
“What a reward for all his genius, and his life of faithful service to the Legion and the System—to be burned for fuel, within the bowels of a monstrous comet!”
He blinked his eyes and blew his nose.
“Wine,” he whispered.
“There’s wine in the house.
Precious, potent, ancient wine—chosen and aged by that other genius who used to own this rock.
Fine old wine, too rare to burn for fuel—”
A vague smile smoothed the apprehension from his face, and he lumbered heavily away toward the great white mansion.
Listening, Bob Star caught the faintly whistled notes of a sad but lively ballad of the Legion, The Sparrow of the Moon.
Hal Samdu was still standing rigid, watching the indigo planet.
The muscles of his angular, weather-beaten face were working; he was muttering inaudibly.
The commander’s tall body sagged against the hull of the Halcyon Bird, as if the life had gone out of it.
Bob Star swung to Kay Nymidee, who was looking from him to the purple sun, with apprehensive bewilderment.
“Come on, Kay,” he said huskily.
“Let’s walk.”
She smiled.
“Se,” she said softly.
“Ahndah.”
They crossed the level of the rocket field, and climbed up into a welter of rocks beyond.
The incrusting lichens had changed color strangely under that green sky, so that the wild peaks were fantastic as the spires of a fairy city.
Bob Star made her sit beside him on a mossy ledge.
His arms closed around her.
He could feel her trembling.
Staring away into the green sky, her eyes great pools of somber dread.
They were lost, bewildered, helplessly riding a dead world to doom.
Yet he drew her close to him, and tried to think only of her white beauty—
Giles Habibula was beneath them among the rocks, panting with excitement
“Come, lad!” he puffed.
“The dalliance of love is the food and drink of youth, I know.