my own, too; but then, fever, you know—” He made a wiping-away gesture.
“What were the dreams, Case?” asked the Doctor, and quickly added, “if you don’t mind—” because Case dropped the sucker, clamped his hands together, frowned down into them.
“I don’t mind … although it’s not very clear any more; I tried too hard for too long not to remember, I guess.” He paused, then: “Hard to grasp, and any words I use are like approximations, but … I seemed to be suspended from some kind of filament. One end was inside me, somehow, and the other was high up, in, shadows. Circling around me were eyes. Not pairs of eyes or one pair, but I forget the arrangement. And I realized that the eyes weren’t circling me, but whatever held the filament up there was twirling it while the eyes watched, and then there was—”
“Yes?” The prompting was very gentle.
“Laughing,” said Case, and he whispered, “Laughing.” He looked up at the Doctor. “Did I tell you about that noise just before we crashed?”
“You mentioned a noise.”
“Partly it was the gyro bearings,” said Case. “I found that out later, after the hull broke up and I had a chance to look at the drive sector. You had to see that to believe it. The only way I can describe it is to ask you to imagine all the bearing assemblies—every one of them, mind you—while turning at max, instantaneously turned solid,welded into one piece. The shafts had wrung big ragged holes in the mounts, and it was these spinning down, tearing everything apart down there, that made most of the screaming. The rest was Jan, well, and me too, and—”
The Doctor waited.
“—laughing,” Case said at length, and, “I don’t think it was a real sound. Jan said she heard it too, but it wasn’t a real sound.… Words are no good, sometimes. Whatever we heard; it wasn’t with our ears.” He closed his eyes and shook briefly. The laughter. That laughter.
Not Case’s laughter; Case was not a laughing man.
“We were hungry. I boosted her back into the cabin—the rupture was too high off the ground for me to get in by myself, and she rummaged around looking for something to eat. She drew a blank. Lifeboats are designed for survival in space, not for planetfall. Suckers and their contents are—were—constituted from raw elements which were useless to us without processing, and we had no power to process. There was a lot of shouting back and forth while I tried to find a way for her to override the fail-safes that had shut down the power when the boat careened, but nothing worked. She threw down whatever she thought would be useful—seat cushions and a big soft sheet of head-lining and some rod stock and other junk, and the first-aid case, which we didn’t appreciate much until later, but as I said, we were
hungry
. I don’t think either one of us had ever known that feeling before and we just didn’t like it.
“Jan had read that fruits could be eaten without preparation and told me about it, so we left the ship and went across the sand to the vegetated zone. The sand felt strange to my feet, not unpleasant, but painful as we moved into the soil and rock and undergrowth. The little branches lashed at our bodies; some of them had sharp points on them that scratched. We found one great bank of plants heavy with little round red fruits that Jan said were berries. She ate some and we waited for a time, but there were no ill effects so she got some for me. We also found what seemed to be large fruits, but on breaking them open, discovered that they were full of small crescent-shaped constructs with casings so hard we couldn’t break them. Webrought a few of these back with us and cracked them against the hull plates with a stone. They were very good, very nourishing. We slept.”
(They slept on the sand and were cold, until Jan got the piece of soft head-lining and covered them. The heat of their bodies was trapped by it and kept them warm. It was
“What were the dreams, Case?” asked the Doctor, and quickly added, “if you don’t mind—” because Case dropped the sucker, clamped his hands together, frowned down into them.
“I don’t mind … although it’s not very clear any more; I tried too hard for too long not to remember, I guess.” He paused, then: “Hard to grasp, and any words I use are like approximations, but … I seemed to be suspended from some kind of filament. One end was inside me, somehow, and the other was high up, in, shadows. Circling around me were eyes. Not pairs of eyes or one pair, but I forget the arrangement. And I realized that the eyes weren’t circling me, but whatever held the filament up there was twirling it while the eyes watched, and then there was—”
“Yes?” The prompting was very gentle.
“Laughing,” said Case, and he whispered, “Laughing.” He looked up at the Doctor. “Did I tell you about that noise just before we crashed?”
“You mentioned a noise.”
“Partly it was the gyro bearings,” said Case. “I found that out later, after the hull broke up and I had a chance to look at the drive sector. You had to see that to believe it. The only way I can describe it is to ask you to imagine all the bearing assemblies—every one of them, mind you—while turning at max, instantaneously turned solid,welded into one piece. The shafts had wrung big ragged holes in the mounts, and it was these spinning down, tearing everything apart down there, that made most of the screaming. The rest was Jan, well, and me too, and—”
The Doctor waited.
“—laughing,” Case said at length, and, “I don’t think it was a real sound. Jan said she heard it too, but it wasn’t a real sound.… Words are no good, sometimes. Whatever we heard; it wasn’t with our ears.” He closed his eyes and shook briefly. The laughter. That laughter.
Not Case’s laughter; Case was not a laughing man.
“We were hungry. I boosted her back into the cabin—the rupture was too high off the ground for me to get in by myself, and she rummaged around looking for something to eat. She drew a blank. Lifeboats are designed for survival in space, not for planetfall. Suckers and their contents are—were—constituted from raw elements which were useless to us without processing, and we had no power to process. There was a lot of shouting back and forth while I tried to find a way for her to override the fail-safes that had shut down the power when the boat careened, but nothing worked. She threw down whatever she thought would be useful—seat cushions and a big soft sheet of head-lining and some rod stock and other junk, and the first-aid case, which we didn’t appreciate much until later, but as I said, we were
hungry
. I don’t think either one of us had ever known that feeling before and we just didn’t like it.
“Jan had read that fruits could be eaten without preparation and told me about it, so we left the ship and went across the sand to the vegetated zone. The sand felt strange to my feet, not unpleasant, but painful as we moved into the soil and rock and undergrowth. The little branches lashed at our bodies; some of them had sharp points on them that scratched. We found one great bank of plants heavy with little round red fruits that Jan said were berries. She ate some and we waited for a time, but there were no ill effects so she got some for me. We also found what seemed to be large fruits, but on breaking them open, discovered that they were full of small crescent-shaped constructs with casings so hard we couldn’t break them. Webrought a few of these back with us and cracked them against the hull plates with a stone. They were very good, very nourishing. We slept.”
(They slept on the sand and were cold, until Jan got the piece of soft head-lining and covered them. The heat of their bodies was trapped by it and kept them warm. It was
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