Paul W. Fairman

“ It does make sense—some kind of sense or it would not exist. A man must say rather: I don't understand this and maybe I never will but God gave me a brain and I must try. I can't sit back and deny reality. I must try to understand it. I cleared my mind and tried to rationalize the things around us.
Out in the darkness there was a terrible roaring and yammering. The thuds and bellows of violence. I went to the port.
There, in the light from the ship, the ice bear and the water buffalo were fighting. ”

“ I didn't care whether Murdo stayed alive or got killed. As to the others—they'd come on the cruise with their eyes open. They deserved whatever they got. And I certainly didn't give a damn about myself. Guess I wasn't cut out to skipper a ship. A skipper should care. That's all he should do. Just care. I'd rather dream about Melody.
I don't know what the date is. The chronometer stopped so I don't even know what time it is. But what does it matter about the time if you don't even know what day it is? We just go on and on. ”

“ The sparkling haze had been outside the ship and I'd seen a water buffalo through the port. Murdo had seen a boa-constrictor. Then the haze penetrated the hull and got inside the ship. And Jane had seen a tiger in the companionway.
Were they phantoms? Was Jane's tiger a tiger of the mind? Murdo swore his snake had been real and my buffalo left a mark on the port. I sat there trying to think. With the sparkling fog drifting around me. It seemed to be trying to tell me something.
Things grow worse. Today, at mess, Murdo was holding forth about a Plutonian ice bear he'd killed. ”

“ I looked into the companionway and saw the tiger fading.
So I knocked out Murdo for final proof and got it. As soon as he lapsed into unconsciousness the recreations from his mind turned back into sparkling fog. Obviously, and a heaven-sent phenomenon it is—the mind stuff immediately loses its subject-image when the mind from which it came goes unconscious. The mind-stuff has no memory of its own and cannot hold its recreated image in the evolved form under conditions of unconsciousness. ”

“ An ice bear as big as ten of the largest that ever lived in the Plutonian ice flows. A huge ravening beast that rushed through the void at the ship and tried to tear the port out of its metal seat with teeth as big as the height of a man. ”

“ He'd stalked the vicious Plutonian ice bears and lain in Venusian swamps waiting for the ten-ton lizards to rise out of the slime. He had knocked over the wiliest of animals, a telepathic Uranian mountain wolf and had dropped in flight a Martian radar-bat, a feat duplicated by only three other marksmen of record.
So what more natural occupation than guiding hunting parties in deep space? Holloway had been obviously torn by Melody's tragic death. Perhaps out among the stars he could forget.
here had been some trouble, Mason recalled, in clearing Holloway's first cruise. A party of five. ”

“ They're just a worthless pair who would rather fawn on Murdo and take his insults than work for a living. The two wives are both young. Martha Keebler has a child's mind in a woman's body. Jane Kelvey is an oversexed witch with an indecent exposure complex. I may have trouble with her. Already she's parading around in skimpy shorts and a bra. Evidently Murdo doesn't care for women. He pays no attention to her. Money and power are his dish. And a terrible restlessness.
Melody baby—I wish you were here ”

“ I had a light turned on it and suddenly it charged and hit the port headon. It bounced off and went staggering away and disappeared.
But it left a big white scratch on the quartz outside. At least I think it did. Wait. I'll look again. Yes. A big white scratch. It's still there. So how can I be mad? Maybe it's a new kind of madness....
ome of the sparkling fog has penetrated the ship. Turn out the light and you can see it in the cabin. Not as thick as out in the void but thick enough to see; thick enough to stand there and ask you to talk to it.
Murdo is ready to turn back. ”

“ I saw her body tremble as she closed her eyes. I said, "You better get some rest."
She passed a hand over her eyes and then gave me an odd wistful smile. "Animals are smarter, I think. We do make awful messes out of our lives, don't we?" ”

“ I—"
"Look—I'm a woman. You're a man—I think. We're alone in space and life is short. Let's have fun and then forget about it."
I slapped her across the mouth. A skipper can be jailed for life for striking a passenger. Even with cause. But I slapped her and I'm setting it down in the log....
ennedy looked up from his reading. "Jane Kelvey—she is the dead one?"
Mason nodded.
Kennedy looked at Holloway with marked severity. "Are you sure you only slapped her?"
Mason exploded. "Good God, man. Did you see the body? ”

“ I just meant there's perhaps a little more in the log than should appear there."
"We'll see," Kennedy said. There was a slight frost on his words. If disciplinary measures were in the offing it would pay not to get too cozy with Holloway and the Resident.
Kennedy opened the log. The first entry was dated June 3rd, 4:10 p. m. Earth time. Kennedy frowned. Permissible of course, but sloppy, very sloppy. The better skippers computed from Orion immediately after blast-off. Kennedy set back and began to read ”