THE STRANGER
By Gordon R. Dickson
If the alien space craft was not a rocket
ship, what was it? And an even bigger question:
should they investigate—or run for their lives!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
May 1952
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
We will not consider the odds involved in their finding the stranger,for the odds were impossible.
They came down to rest their tubes on an unnamed planet of alittle-known star in the Buckhorn Cluster. Because they were tired fromweeks in space, they came in without looking. They circled the planetonce and spiraled down to an open patch of sand between two rockycliffs. Only then did they see the other ship.
Jeff Wadley was at the controls and his eyes widened when he saw it.But his fingers did not hesitate on the controls, for a deep-spacestarship is not the kind of vehicle that can change its mind aboutlanding once it is within half a mile of the ground. He brought theEmerald Girl in smoothly to a stop not five hundred feet from thestranger. Then he sat back.
"Dad," he said flatly, into the intercom, "swing the turret!"
Peter Wadley, up in the instrument room, had already seen the strangeship, and the heavy twin barrels of the automatic rifles weredepressing to cover. Jeff leaned forward to the communicator.
"Identify yourself!" The tight beam in Common Code snapped acrossthe little stretch of open sand to the cliff against which the otherseemed to nestle. "We are the mining ship Emerald Girl, Earth license,five hundred and eighty-two days out of Arcturus Station. Identifyyourself!"
There were steps behind Jeff, and Peter Wadley came to stand behind hisson's tense back.
"Do they answer, Jeff?"
"No."
"Identify yourself. Identify yourself! Identify yourself!"
The angry demand crackled and arced invisibly across the space betweenboth vessels. And there was no answer.
Jeff sat back from the communicator. The palms of his hands were wetand he wiped them on the cloth of his breeches.
"Let's get out of here," he said nervously.
"And leave him?" his father's lean forefinger indicated the strangesilent ship.
"Why not?" Jeff jerked his face up. "We're no salvage outfit orGovernment exploration unit."
There was a moment of tenseness between them. The older man's facetightened.
"We'd better look into it," he said.
"Are you crazy?" blazed Jeff. "It was here when we came. It'll be hereif we leave. Let's get going. We can report it if you want. Let theFederal ships investigate."
"Maybe it just landed," his father said evenly. "Maybe it's in trouble."
"What if it is?" Jeff insisted. "Don't you realize we're a sittingtarget here? And what do you think it is—Aunt Susie's runabout? Lookat it!" And with a savage flip of his hand he shoved the magnificationof the viewing screen up so that the other ship seemed to loom up ahandbreadth beyond their walls.
It was an unnecessary gesture. There was no mistaking that the linesof the other ship were foreign to any they had ever seen. It was big:not outlandishly big, but bigger than the Emerald Girl, and bulb-shapedwith most of its bulk in front. There was no sign of ports orairlocks, only a few stubby fins, which projected forlornly from thebody at an angle of some thirty degrees.
And from its silence and immobility, its st